Guild Wars 2

Yeah, burn spam + fire + air sigils. Pretty much sums up the game.

Dirame.8521:

infantrydiv.1620:

Dirame.8521:

infantrydiv.1620:

What do you guys think Arenanet’s goals for PvP actually are?

We’ve seen a lot more tournaments happen starting in 2014-2015, but we’ve also seen the removal of features like Solo Queue and the leaderboard.

To me, it feels like the community organization side of things is going well. That side is presumably handled by Grouch (Josh Davis) and that’s one part of why we have weekly ESL tournaments and tournaments like ToL and WTS.

On the flip side, it feels like the infrastructure developers for the PvP side of the game couldn’t give a rat’s kitten about creating proper systems for a competitive community – things like MMR/skill based leaderboards, fair matchmaking systems, and competitive, exclusive rewards for performing well (Llamas are the biggest joke I’ve seen in a game tbh). The leaderboard has actually gotten way worse, competitive solo players are quitting the game, and the tournament scene is stagnant with the same players competing week after week.

What do you guys think?

I think there’s an expansion coming and you should all wait for it. If you’re here long enough you’ll figure out that they don’t release anything new till they’ve got a full package. Therefore, the only time you’ll be seeing anything new is closer to the expansion, especially for PvP.

Obviously they release things without having a full package, e.g., the broken leaderboard they made months ago and still haven’t fixed.

Yea, about that; Guild Leaderboards in the upcoming expansion. The Leaderboards you see now is just a test to get the algorithm right and now, they are doing a really good job considering how my match-ups have improved over past few months.

But you know, you can always continue screaming bloody murder.

TheFamster.7806:

I think its the best if we all move on. Look at Blu, former gw2 caster. Right now he was hired to cast FPS games on twitch for 40,000 people, and getting really good reviews.
Basically moving on from GW2 Esports did way better for him than anything. I’m gonna start suggesting all casters to move on from GW2 because it hurts me to see them get exploited with false dream so much.

You know, some people actually do things because they want to and not because they want to make money from it.

Yes, Ceimash. We know you think Anet does a great job on everything and no one should complain. However, pretty much anyone who has ever played a game with a competitive leaderboard could tell you that Arenanet’s leaderboard for PvP right now is a huge joke. Also, no one is ‘screaming bloody murder’. Keep exaggerating.

Why would “Guild leaderboards” solve anything when it’s clear Arenanet wants to use bogus formulas they made up themselves for the leaderboard.

TheFamster.7806:

I think its the best if we all move on. Look at Blu, former gw2 caster. Right now he was hired to cast FPS games on twitch for 40,000 people, and getting really good reviews.
Basically moving on from GW2 Esports did way better for him than anything. I’m gonna start suggesting all casters to move on from GW2 because it hurts me to see them get exploited with false dream so much.

This is true. I’m not ever expecting GW2 to be legitimate “esports” at this point. I’d just like them to give us an actual leaderboard, the ability to do stuff while in queue, solo queue, etc (most of which was better/functioning before).

Dirame.8521:

infantrydiv.1620:

What do you guys think Arenanet’s goals for PvP actually are?

We’ve seen a lot more tournaments happen starting in 2014-2015, but we’ve also seen the removal of features like Solo Queue and the leaderboard.

To me, it feels like the community organization side of things is going well. That side is presumably handled by Grouch (Josh Davis) and that’s one part of why we have weekly ESL tournaments and tournaments like ToL and WTS.

On the flip side, it feels like the infrastructure developers for the PvP side of the game couldn’t give a rat’s kitten about creating proper systems for a competitive community – things like MMR/skill based leaderboards, fair matchmaking systems, and competitive, exclusive rewards for performing well (Llamas are the biggest joke I’ve seen in a game tbh). The leaderboard has actually gotten way worse, competitive solo players are quitting the game, and the tournament scene is stagnant with the same players competing week after week.

What do you guys think?

I think there’s an expansion coming and you should all wait for it. If you’re here long enough you’ll figure out that they don’t release anything new till they’ve got a full package. Therefore, the only time you’ll be seeing anything new is closer to the expansion, especially for PvP.

Obviously they release things without having a full package, e.g., the broken leaderboard they made months ago and still haven’t fixed.

What do you guys think Arenanet’s goals for PvP actually are?

We’ve seen a lot more tournaments happen starting in 2014-2015, but we’ve also seen the removal of features like Solo Queue and the leaderboard.

To me, it feels like the community organization side of things is going well. That side is presumably handled by Grouch (Josh Davis) and that’s one part of why we have weekly ESL tournaments and tournaments like ToL and WTS.

On the flip side, it feels like the infrastructure developers for the PvP side of the game couldn’t give a rat’s kitten about creating proper systems for a competitive community – things like MMR/skill based leaderboards, fair matchmaking systems, and competitive, exclusive rewards for performing well (Llamas are the biggest joke I’ve seen in a game tbh). The leaderboard has actually gotten way worse, competitive solo players are quitting the game, and the tournament scene is stagnant with the same players competing week after week.

What do you guys think?

The devs for this game have shown time and time again that they are utterly clueless about what it takes to create a competitive infrastructure for a game.

If you’re a solo player, a player that cares about actual rating (MMR), a player that doesn’t have time to play many games per day, or a player who doesn’t want to put up with long queues while being forced to do nothing else in game, then Guild Wars 2 is no longer the game for you.

It’s just the truth.

http://www.amazon.de/Guild-Wars-Heart-Thorns-Vorverkaufsbox/dp/B00SN5JM6W

Sounds like the expansion won’t be launching until at least August at this rate…

xDudisx.5914:

infantrydiv.1620:

What? How about we talk about nerfing real elites like Crate?

Supply crate just got nerfed last update when turrets were allowed to receive critical hits.

That’s actually true, haven’t played much since that nerf.

What? How about we talk about nerfing real elites like Crate?

Dramen Maidria.1034:

It’s not the people who run metabattle’s fault there are so few effective builds.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

It’s not the people who run metabattle’s fault there are so few effective builds.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

It’s not the people who run metabattle’s fault there are so few effective builds.

In terms of pure game design, the most poorly designed class right now is obviously Thief.

All the classes in this game have issues, compounded upon by stuff like Sigils and broken runesets.

You can’t say Warrior is well designed when it has been pidgeonholed entirely into Longbow + Cleansing Ire for the past 2 years. Healing Signet remains one of the most braindead things I’ve seen in the game, even if it’s not overpowered sustain anymore.

Engineer is currently designed around endless button spam through kits, instant CC, and passives like Incendiary Powder. It’s also had some of the most passive/broken meta builds similarly to Ranger such as turrets, decap w/ condi immunity under 25%.

Elementalist has suffered issues with oversustain and boon/dodge spam for most of the game’s history.

Necromancer has problems with telegraphing of animations. It also has never lived up to its feeling of a tanky attrition class. It has always been one of the burstiest meta-inclusions either as a power based Lich-lord or as a condition spike with no sustain. It’s probably Arenanet’s biggest failure if you take into account what they say they want the class to be.

Ranger has had numerous overpowered builds throughout the conquest meta, although right now it’s mainly just longbow 2 is overtuned. The pet mechanic has remained in a dumbed down state forever, and a lot of the weapons need a higher risk reward (more telegraphed animations, but with better effects). Both of the Ranger bows are frustrating to fight against.

Mesmer is decently designed. It has a clear list of strengths and weaknesses, as well as counters.

Guardian would probably be my vote for overall best design. The attacks are for the most part well telegraphed. It makes use of generally skillful mechanics and has a reasonable skillcap. It lacks stealth or endless dodge spam like Thief. The self healing is a bit overtuned at the moment but that’s it. Also if Guardians spec tanky, they can’t kill things while being mega-bunkers.

Chaith.8256:

ronpierce.2760:

This is the PERFECT game for the arena community and it’s widely an untapped area outside of wow which has “Rpg” limitations for accessibility. I feel ANet is passing up a great opportunity.

After Stronghold, there’s still the small scale (2v2, 3v3) arena, and guild 15v15 groups that need catering to, in an instanced, structured setting.

I’m sure it’s not that ArenaNet is passing up opportunities but instead flying by the seat of their pants to ensure everybody gets the type of cookie they want.

What? It’s been 3 years. We could have 2v2 and 3v3 arenas tomorrow if they really wanted to push development. I hope you are being sarcastic

The 26060 S/D build does plenty of damage. Asking for buffs to Thief auto-attacks is pretty scary lol

Unfortunately, as a sPvP player on and off for the past 3 years, I can tell you that the Arenanet devs are downright stubborn about leaderboard systems and MMR.

Even though there are multiple systems in place that they could just rip off and replicate and the community would thank them so much, they try again and again to reinvent the wheel. And now we have a leaderboard totally based around grinding, which is even worse than the last leaderboard we had.

So, the chances of us having a real, respectable leaderboard at this point are almost zero. WoW’s leaderboard is a thousand times better than GW2’s.

Also, look at what they think of as ‘cool cosmetic rewards’: giving everyone a million kitteng mini llamas, as if that’s somehow an adequate reward for PvP.

Maybe they will give every class a Dragon prefix name specialization That way we can all Eragon roleplay together <3

It does kinda make sense thinking about it like that.

If that’s the case, I can only hope for Druid being Ranger/Engineer with Shapeshift kits :P

Leonhardt.8164:

Test.8734:

Paragon.

Spear-using ranged sustained DPS and support, using burning attacks and chants (shouts that pulse) and refrains (effects that trigger when a boon ends/is removed) to help the party from back/middle line.

wtf? spear is only for underwater combat, you want them to make a whole new weapon along with a specialization? that’s stupid, think of an actual non watertype weapon

I realize it takes a genius like myself to realize something like this, but you could have a Spear work on land with a different set of skills than the water ones on the same class.

The best possible outcome of the Druid specialization for me for be:

1. Shapeshift “Kits”: Avian, Feline, Canine, etc
2. Staff as a support weapon with a Healing 5 skill, and an AoE based auto attack

What I imagine it will be:

1. Gain a new F5 skill based on your active pet (Ranger executes this skill, not the pet).
2. Staff is a soft cc weapon with minimal condition pressure and long animations.

Jasher.6580:

For some reason, with the changes to virtues the specialisation sounds super clunky and the bow attacks seem like they won’t be able to deliver much pressure offensively.

I’d wait and see before making judgments like that. Weapons with long range AoE have been great in PvP for a very long time.

(Warrior Longbow, Ele staff, Engineer grenades, Necro Staff, Mesmer Staff/GS, Thief Shortbow, etc)

Would prefer Traps on Dragonhunter be renamed Wards or something more Guardian-ish.

I was a bit surprised by the design path they took for this. The name feels kinda silly as well. I think “Warden” or “Herald” would also be better.

Not like they will listen to our feedback whatsoever on this though, so all welcome the trap -spewing Dragon-Hunter Guardian? !!!

mbh.8301:

All I ever said is that it shouldn’t be stickied and that you cry a lot.

Here we are.

Well, technically you’re right about it being someone else’s suggestion, but the tears are definitely real. Tears are salty right? Yea they are.

If anyone is salty here, it’s you, lol.

Yep, air/fire is basically the equivalent of Dhuumfire for berserker builds… except they can’t be cleansed :P

They’ve really screwed up people’s perception of balance as well, since all classes now have a way of deal large amounts of passive damage, it creates the illusion that the game is better balanced. In reality, the meta has moved more and more toward zero counter play mechanics and “burst builds” which really rely on RNG sigil procs for their damage.

Hey Sol, these suggestions are really good. You really understand the current state of the game. /support

1. Running back and forth grabbing ferocity buffs and then commenting about personal score (I dunno if you actually bragged about personal score, but that will tick people off to no end) is definitely noob behavior.

2. If you don’t want to get yelled at, just don’t talk to the enemy team and it reduces the chances of that.

3. Yes, they were salty.

Drennon.7190:

I’d rather have MMR based titles than grind based.

I’d rather have MMR based leaderboards and grind based titles.

Axe/Dagger or Axe/Torch has been decent in condition builds for a long time, but the Axe/Axe set unfortunately doesn’t have much synergy.

Personally I’d prefer to see the Axe auto turned into a hard hitting melee chain with a unique 3rd attack effect (maybe a Slow when the new condition system launches), but I understand that lots of people wouldn’t like that. The entire Axe/Axe set seems focused on getting in close to your enemy with Winter’s Bite, Axe 4, Spliteblade, and Axe 5 as a defense from projectile nukes.

Offhand axe suffers from an extremely weak 5th skill comparatively and although Axe 4 hits hard, it isn’t good enough to justify bringing the weapon.

Ranger does need a weapon capable of Ranged AoE/multi-target pressure, but Axe mainhand isn’t cutting it right now imo, and Axe offhand is still in the dumps because Whirling Defense is so outdated.

Justin ODell.9517:

The current system is more likely to produce a result like this…
Red: 10, 5, 4, 3, 2
Blue: 6, 4, 3, 2, 1

Which could be argued is less fair, but really because MMR isn’t the only factor this is an oversimplification.

Yikes! Even worse than I thought…

Tragic Positive.9356:

Annoyingly passive aggressive and vague, and you make almost no real points about the class.

You fail to point out how anything I’m suggesting makes the class actually ‘easier’. And you remain in favor of silly RNG passives like Strider’s Defense.

As for Enlargement, you still haven’t specified what about having this proc at 50% instead of 25% would make it as overpowered and as forgiving as you pretend it would be. Other classes have extremely powerful 50% health procs for example Necromancer’s spectral Armor, which is even a minor trait. Mesmer has Illusionary Invigoration which recharges all Shatter skills when your health drops below 50%, this is a huge damage and utility increasing trait, and it would probably not be taken if it was at 25%. Having automatic procs when you are almost dead greatly reduces their value, and in reality, when you have say, 4-5K health left as a Ranger, the fight is almost over the majority of the time.

And no, it doesn’t matter at all that I haven’t tried Runes of the Trapper. They are not in PvP and don’t affect PvE. WvW is home to a number of things that are ridiculous like food buffs, Perplexity Runes, and Shadow Arts Thieves, etc. The mode is not considered by Arenanet seriously when implementing balance decisions. Its almost as though they treat it as a test area for PvP.

I just saw another very good suggestion in the general forums to make “Falling Damage” traits also trigger when you “fall into downstate”. This would at least give them more practical usage in most game areas.

StickerHappy.8052:

Res traits yes, Falling damage no.

That’s kind of the way I’m leaning as well.

But if we are going to have res traits, they really need to bring something substantial to the table in regards to creating viable support builds.

Anyone else feel like the majority of traits are kinda underwhelming? Some of the ones which help with ressurecting downed allies are decent, but there are also ones which are really bad- just take a look at Ranger ones: “Create a Spike Trap when reviving a downed ally” or “Grant Swiftness when reviving a downed ally”. These are really bad, bordering on entirely useless, and should at the least be merged together

Do you guys feel like falling damage traits and res traits even need to be in the game? I’d prefer if these traits were removed for the most part along with other traits which don’t do much.

There are a few exceptions, like Thief gaining stealth on fall damage is cool, and Guardian creating a Shield Bubble on res. These feel like they add interesting gameplay.

mistsim.2748:

Sword is completely non-viable in zergs because it separates you from the group… it’s a skirmishing weapon.

I see strider’s defense as a way of dealing with us blowing up when 1-1-1’ing with the sword. It’s near useless because we are mostly killed by cleave, ground-targeted aoe’s, pbaoe’s and non-projectile ranged attacks. I think SD should simply give a flat defensive bonus while meeleing someone. Forget destroying projectiles, I give zero kittens about that situational scenario. -10-15% damage taken while in mêlée should be good.

A flat defensive bonus would still be better than its current iteration. They could possibly do something like “Dodging a projectile grants you a buff that reduces damage taken by 15% for 5 seconds” 5 second ICD. This would at least be controllable and skillbased, although it might need balancing.

What?

Tragic Positive.9356:

I have to say that I don’t sympathize with most of the proposed changes.

Only a few of them are well thought over and justified.
I won’t go over all of them, but some to point out.

Steady Focus… You’d like such as 10% flat damage boost (that is a lot, actually on par with Predator’s Onslaught) to be penalized less.

Enlargement is a 25% damage boost. You are reading that right, 25%. That’s a table turner. Stating objections like “we want to have full reward from it all the time” is ridiculous.

About Strider’s defense… This is the very trait that is going to put us into WvW zergs. Front Line ranger will negate roughly 50% of the enemy projectiles. And you want it swapped. I’m saluting to you, Sir.

Most Dangerous game… You do realize… That you are asking for 12 might when below 50%HP? Nope, that doesn’t feel right.

About spike trap … It’s a day and night difference to ress your teammates with this one. I believe you didn’t forget about the synergy with Rune of the Trapper.

And so forth.
Some of the points you made are really good, though…
… But some like these I pinpointed out … It’s clear that you want to justify rangers too much. Not only we will have unique mechanics that will put us at a rightful place, we’ll get more team support that we needed, we got everything we asked for concerning longbow …
… And you still want it without any single risk or trade-off whatsoever?

Nope, I’m not fine with that.

I feel like your post is from the perspective of a person who literally only zergs in WvW and nothing else.

First of all, do you realize how fast you will die in actual PvP or even PvE never dodging any attacks? You will very rarely be at 100% of Endurance unless the enemy is just ignoring you entirely. That 10% uber-powerful buff would probably be up around 10-20% of the time in real fights.

As for the numbers on Enlargement, 25% damage increase every 60 seconds for 8 seconds maximum. Meaning essentially 3.3% extra damage if it’s constantly proccing exactly on time. So no, what I suggested was not unreasonable at all.

Strider’s Defense is an RNG defensive trait with horrible design. “Oh, I randomly destroyed the enemy’s killshot!” Yeah, sound’s skillful. “Oh, I randomly destroyed half that thief’s unload!” Again, really skillful. And no, this trait won’t make Rangers good in zergs. And you are the one telling me I want the class to be too forgiving? >.>

As for Most Dangerous Game, for a year now we’ve had two classes running around stacking 20+ might stacks on themselves for almost the entire duration of PvP games. And you will complain about 9-12 might stacks when you drop below 50% health?

I’ve never used Runes of the Trapper. Unfortunately, the balance team doesn’t really consider WvW, since the mode is pretty broken with food buffs and whatnot. Spike Trap on revive is a horrible trait in PvP, and useless for PvE as well.

mistsim.2748:

I agree with just about every suggestion you’ve made, very reasonable. Invigorating bond should just not have an ICD, period. That would make it decent.

Agreed about Enlargement totally

Regarding poison master, you do know that poison will be stacking in intensity now right? It might be fine.

The problem with Invigorating Bond not having an ICD is that some pets have like, 6 second recharge on their F2s (Hawks) and some have 40, like certain Bears. Without an ICD that could be 2k healing every 6 seconds which would be almost certainly overpowered, it would also make the trait worthless to run with pets with longer CD f2s.

About Poison Master, that’s definitely true, it appears both Poison and Burning are going to be changed dramatically, but it still seems lackluster compared to the other two GM traits in that line. The devs also said that Poison would stack in healing reduction, and that that was an error in the tooltip. If poison actually did scale to -66% healing duration, then the trait would have been very strong.

Sarision.6347:

^Same here.

Otherwise go with this:

Marks: LB + SB
Skirmish: Sword + GS
WS: Everything else

Shortbow makes no sense with the Opening Strike theme of Marksmanship

GS should be in Marksmanship line probably,

Axes do feel a bit more Beastmaster-ish, but yeah, I’m not sure where they would go really.

I guess:

Marks = Longbow/GS
Skirm = SB/Sword/Horn
WS = Axes, Torch, OH Dagger

Nature Magic & Beastmastery don’t really need any weapon traits.

Wilderness Survival

I. Soften the Fall: I’m in favor of removing these fall damage traits altogether, but thats a personal opinion I guess. They have extraordinarily limited use and rarely have an effect on gameplay in PvP or PvE.

II. Ambidexterity: Good trait.

III. Expertise Training: This is a beastmastery trait. Consider changing the line. I’d suggest placing the old Stability training trait here that’s worded as such: When your pet is disabled, you and your pet gain 3 stacks of stability, 5 second duration, 10 second ICD. This fits the “Survival”/defensive aspect of the line better and synergizes well with Shared Anguish. Stability training also promotes high skill-cap maneuvers such as sending your pet into a Ring of Warding first, granting yourself 3 stacks of stability so you can escape or enter.

IV. Oakheart Salve: Good trait.

V. Peak Strength: This trait isn’t that bad, but I feel like it’s out of place in the Survival line. Consider additional functionality like, Healing Skills remove weakness and cripple from you and your pet.

VI. Shared Anguish: Still a strong trait, if albeit passive and boring.

VII. Empathic Bond: Now that this trait competes with Survival of the Fittest for condi clear, I’d highly suggest changing the functionality to just having your pet remove the conditions instead of transferring them to your pet. Pets are already pretty squishy and killing your pet with this trait goes against the spirit of the Ranger class.

VIII. Wilderness Knowledge: Extremely strong.

IX. Poison Master: Feels like a Skirmishing trait. However, I’d suggest increasing the poison damage from 50% to 75% or 100% for this trait to be able to compete against EB or Wilderness Knowledge. You could also consider adding a leeching effect, such as 30% of your poison damage heals you. This would encourage multidotting in fights with poison, something Ranger is very good at, and could open up new builds just by itself for PvP.

Nature Magic

I. Bountiful Hunter: Decent Adept trait. Not insane, because Rangers have limited boon application compared to other classes.

II. Nature’s Wrath: Tooltip too vague for me to comment.

III. Healer’s Celerity: Add Protection or some additional functionality, currently appears far too weak compared to the other Adept’s,

IV. Evasive Purity: Good as is.

V. Vigorous Training: A bit weak compared to IV/VI, I’d increase the Vigor base duration to 8 seconds.

VI. Windborne Notes: Decent. I’d still like to see Warhorn give 3 stacks of might instead of 1.

VII. Nature’s Vengeance: Decent.

VIII. Protective Ward: In its current state, the definition of an OP faceroll defensive trait. *Modify it so it only occurs when the Ranger or the pet takes damage more than 10% of their health in a single hit.

IX. Invigorating Bond: Increase the healing or add additional functionality, or make it so the ICD is tied to individual pets rather than both at the same time. This trait has potential, but it’s currently too weak.

Beastmastery

I. Companion’s Might: Decent.

II. Rending Attacks: Must be combined with Expertise Training or else it will always be too weak. Pets do not crit that much, they have no base condition damage, and 1 stack of bleed is a puny damage modifier.

III. Resounding Timbre: Quite strong. Totally superior to the current iteration of Rending Attacks, even with 1 shout.

IV. Wilting Strikes: Has potential.

V. Two-Hand Training: Very strong now, when combined with Remorseless. A bit concerned that it’s in the Beastmaster line along with the Axe trait.

VI. Natural Healing: Kind of weak looking. It needs something, but I don’t know what. Possibly move this trait to the Adept line and move Resounding Timbre to Master.

VII. Beastly Warden: Too vague currently for comment.

VIII. Zephyr’s Speed: Decent.

IX. Honed Axes: Add +150 Ferocity for each Axe you wield This at least slightly buffs the rarely used Sword/Axe and Axe/Axe sets. Plus, Axe/Axe is a very Beastmaster feeling set.

Here are my suggestions about the new proposed Ranger trait changes. All of my proposed changes are in bold, and the rest is just thoughts and opinions about stuff.

Marksmanship

I. Enlargement: This should activate at 50% health, not 25% 25% usually means you are imminently going to die, 50% allows for the trait to be used to its full duration.

II. Predator’s Instinct: Add weakness or bleeding and reduce the ICD to 10 seconds. A lower ICD also encourages a Ranger to move his pet onto different low targets to apply the conditions (higher skillcap). This should be a finisher sort of trait and right now it stands no chance against taking Adept I or III.

III. Call of the Wild: Good changes, Ranger needs more group enhancing traits like this.

IV. Beastmaster’s Might: I like the changes to this a lot, it’s a good trait now. The added functionality to Opening strike really help the feeling of the Marksmanship line.

V. Steady Focus: Possibly change this trait’s functionality to be 1% damage boost per every 10 endurance you have. The loss of 10% damage just for dodging once makes the trait very hard to get efficient value out of in PvP/WvW scenarios.

VI. Moment of Clarity: A very solid Master trait.

VII. Predator’s Onslaught: Overall pretty solid, a pretty much 10% damage boost in a GM slot is decent. However, to be honest it feels somewhat weak compared to the VIII and IX traits. It would be amazing if this trait worked differently depending on the type of condition affecting the enemy: 10% on cripple/chill, 15% on Immobilize and 20% on stun or daze. (Obviously this wouldn’t stack, the system would just be programmed to pick out the highest damage modifying CC)

VIII. Remorseless: This looks to be very promising with Fury on Greatsword hits and numerous other sources of Fury from swapping weapons, weapon skills, etc. It can definitely compete with Read the Wind.

IX. Read the Wind: Strong trait correctly placed in Marksmanship and GM slot.

Skirmishing

I. Sharpened Edges: Good.

II. Most Dangerous Game: 6 second duration on the Might stacks over a 3 second ICD is too short. Consider making the Might duration 8 or 9 seconds, or higher if the trait is moved to Master or GM

III. Spike Trap on Revive: This is far too weak compared to the other two traits. Should be removed or combined with the other revive trait

IV. Primal Reflexes: Good.

V. Spotter: Good.

VI. Trapper’s Expertise: Remove the 100% condition duration modifier and make it baseline. Otherwise traps are entirely useless without this trait.

VII. Quick Draw: Very cool design, and I don’t see it being broken with anything other than possibly Rapid Fire. If this happened, I’d rather see a nerf to Rapid Fire than this trait, which works will with stuff like Maul, Split Blade, and Bonfire.

VIII. Light on your Feet: Good functionality, possibly consider upping the Condition duration to 20 or 30%. Compared to the new necromancer scepter trait it’s a bit underwhelming at 10%.

IX. Strider’s Defense: I’m not a fan of the RNG defensive nature of this trait. Keep the Sword functionality, but change the destroy projectiles to something else. Given that this is the Skirmishing line, I’d be in favor of changing the trait to: Strider’s Prowess: Successfully evading a projectile attack while wielding a Sword grants 2-3 seconds of Quickness and Super Speed, 10 second ICD

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Think about it tho, if you hide this somewhere obscure in clock tower, it could be really hard to get this down!

The common misconception about spirits: They are only wanted for their passive buffs.

The active abilities of Spirits are quite powerful, blinding stomps, nuking with Call Lightning, and of course the immobilize/cripple on Stone Spirit.

The second misconception about spirits: They are AI.

Spirits do not actively do anything by themselves. They are essentially summonable team wide signets, that can be killed.

I’ve played a lot of Spirit Ranger because it was the only viable build on Ranger for the majority of the time I was actively playing. The build has a much higher skillcap than most people realize. Locking people down with Stone Spirit and Drakehound in order to burst with Lightning spirit is a pretty pivotal part of being successful on a Spirits build and I’ve barely seen any other Rangers do this apart from Tany/Azron.

The first thing I don’t like about making Spirit immobile is that it finally seals the deal on them being horrible 100% of the time in WvW. You won’t even be able to roam with them anymore.

The second point I have is that Spirits is a support build. It isn’t a Turret Engineer whose job is to camp a node and let the turrets do all the work. Spirit Rangers were intended initially to watch home point, but constantly be moving into small scale fights on different nodes.

The third reason is that without the ability to move, their current active abilities are almost entirely worthless. Enemies will just move out of the way. This would imply that a complete rework would be needed in order to give them new active abilities that did something while stationary.

Fourthly, even Spirit passives have fallen way behind the times with the current amount of power creep we have in the game. 2 seconds of burning every 10 seconds is very small damage compared to combos like Fire/Air. Other meta classes already have great access to burning (Ele/Engi/War) and don’t even really benefit from Sun Spirit that much.

Making Spirits immobile would also result in either them needing something like 30,000 health to last for longer than a minute on a mid node against an ele and a warrior spamming AoE. That would make them impossible to kill in a 1v1 situation and overall reduce the counter-play.

That’s nice actually, now maybe they will finish the job and remove the #1 most skillless overpowered sigil from the game

Nike.2631:

infantrydiv.1620:

Each person should be assigned a random 2 classes per day to do their daily with. This would solve all issues with class stacking.

The complaining about how unfair that is would literally NEVER stop.

What?

Each person should be assigned a random 2 classes per day to do their daily with. This would solve all issues with class stacking.

No thanks, they already tried this when the game launched and it was pretty much a failure.

Plus, this community actually already has plenty of tournaments to compete in.

Lexiceta.4156:

No, hundreds that’s laughable ,more like thousands and i said the old system was replaced because others complained, as they are now. Honestly i ground ranked games for a year before i even could access the leaderboards matter of fact before i even knew there were leaderboards.

People complained about two things on the old leaderboards:

1. Non-permanent decay
2. The volatility of new player’s MMR (it moved too quickly in the few first few games which lead to people getting lucky in their placement matches and ending at top lb placement)

Both of these things were easy fixes that would take any competent developer team less than a day to fix entirely.

It would be cool if ferocity on TotSS worked like this:

When you had capped the buff, your team gets +50 to all base stats for every point your opponent has currently capped.

That means that if you were 3 capped by the enemy and capped ferocity your entire team would get +150 to base stats. It would lead to closer, less snowball games on that map possibly.

Lexiceta.4156:

I didn’t deny anything and i was very happy with my position on the old leaderboards. As far as my current standing idk what it was until someone pointed it out to me on this forum.

This whole thread is covered with posts of you implying the old system failed horribly and the new one is better. And you saying that you didn’t know your own leaderboard standing after grinding hundreds of ranked games just points to more denial.

1. Visible MMR leaderboards
2. Rated SOLO and TEAM queue
3. Be able to queue from anywhere.

Lexiceta.4156:

Are you kidding? So opinion is the guy at the top of the leaderboards with a grand total games played of 45 was the best solo player? Ok, well, you Sir. are one of the few that thought so.

Old leaderboards were without a doubt more accurate in reflecting player skill. You just deny it presumably because you can play enough to be considered a ‘top player’ by the new jokeboards.

Currently, Arenanet seems to be trying to reward excessively active players through a leaderboard system which is heavily tied to amount of games played.

Dedicated, active players should be rewarded for their time put into the game. But a dedicated player doesn’t deserve to be rewarded with a crazily high leaderboard spot. Leaderboards should be reserved for the most skilled players. However, I wouldn’t honestly be against a separate leaderboard dedicated simply to the players who played the most games (it would be pretty much like the achievement point boards)… some people like that thing.

Far better of a solution to the current system would be to have:

1. Purely skill-based, visible MMR leaderboard which works off of a real ratings formula like Glicko2 or Elo. This is intended to foster competition and team growth in the Ranked Queue. It has nothing to do with who can play the most.

2. Make new rewards for active, but not necessarily skilled players, such as:

• weapon or armor skins tied to PvP season, similar to the WvW rewards which can be earned maybe several times through the track reward system

• new extra titles like “Legendary Magus, etc” for 1000 games won on an individual class

• an exclusive backpiece or hat or tonic for winning 50-100 games during say, a 2 month long season… this would change every season and give players from all areas of the game a reason to log in to win a few games daily… llamas are already pretty stale, btw

• possibly titles for hitting MMR brackets

3. Finally, if Arenanet is looking to create more reasons for casual players to get active in PvP, a really simple and fair way to do it would be to make sPvP more monetarily equivalent to PvE… bump up the rewards so that it can be at least 50-60% as lucrative as grinding in PvE would be. In addition to that, add an sPvP section to Guilds that gives players the option to upgrade for increased reward track progress and faster pvp rank gain when playing with a guild group.