If it continues then there’s objective evidence that warriors are indeed stronger than everything else and then Anet might do something about it.
Can you blame them for not trusting forum QQ for analyzing their game?
Balance is subjective. Winning is not.
You’re bringing up obstacles. “Interesting” or “fun” are synonyms of winning and antonyms of losing.
Would anyone want to read a book about someone who loses a bunch of games and complains about it, or have fun reading it?
Also, I guess I could add that aesthetics and cool pixels make a difference in how much you would enjoy a competitive game. I didn’t think I had to elaborate that.
If you can’t beat them join them until you determine a way you can reliably beat them. /shrug
If you want to go ahead who cares? lol
@Illusion
Yeah if anything it’s better if people run the strongest builds available, so that, like you say, the devs can see that they have built an objective advantage that excludes variety rather than what we have right now, where it is a subjective advantage that can be argued away with counterexamples.
Either way, it’s the developers’ problem not the players’ to sort that out.
It’s not my responsibility to contribute my opinion to how to balance the game it’s to win and look for ways to further widen the margin of how much I win.
Of course, and when I come back I will dedicate practice things that work instead of trying to re-invent the wheel.
Sure, and LoL is a very popular game with a massive following. The rules are different and they are enjoying success.
If you’re attempting to play this game by those rules then does that not create an obstacle? Not saying you do personally, I have no idea, but expecting something to be different than it is = pointless to me.
I hated the balance in the game when I left, but the reality is every single game out there is going to have stuff that is “unfair,” “boring,” “easy mode,” “passive,” blah blah blah.
There’s no point in playing a competitive game without the intention to win against everyone you can or trying to make your own type of game that is not supported by the developer and takes up space.
@Eurantien I agree that good players will win vs. bad players but what is garbage? If it wins then it’s better than what it beats right?
Nobody who plays the game decides what is balanced or boring though. There are winners and losers.
Anet is responsible for changing things up if it becomes as you say. Are you a fan of the game or do you play it to win?
I’m not saying competitive teams are just copying and pasting, just that when you become successful people will notice and start trying to replicate that success themselves.
You’re assuming that and taking what I said out of context, or maybe take it personally I don’t know.
You’re right though I’m not top tier yet. I haven’t been playing this game for a month and a half. I do realize that it’s taking what works and winning with it, which is something I did not before and, in retrospect, I kind of made a fool of myself thinking I was good.
Here is a quote from Playing to Win, which you can read for free on Sirlin.net
“So what lengths should a player go to in order to win? A player should use any tournament legal move available to him that maximizes his chances of winning the game. Whether certain moves or tactics should be legal in a tournament is a totally separate issue that we’ll get to later. For now, the issue at hand is that if it’s legal in a tournament, it’s part of the game, period. Players often fault other players for “cheating” or playing “dishonestly” when they use tactics that should not be allowed in a tournament, often because they are exploits of bugs. The player is never at fault. The player is merely trying to win with all tools available to him and should not be expected to pull his punches. Complaints should be taken up with the governing body of the tournament (or the community of players) as to what should be allowed in a tournament. This is a dead simple issue that confuses too many players.”
The point being if you’re not “cheesing” then you’re not taking advantage of the resources available to you that are superior to your “skill build.” While you might get better by practicing more difficult things, why would you give that edge up? Morality?
There are no morals involved in winning in any competitive game – if there’s an advantage you take it. Period.
Other games moderate the game be it by a restrictive nature like bans in LoL, or clauses in Pokemon. Or by buffs and nerfs.
We however wait so long and stay in stagnation. Even excluding the tournaments holding things back, when changes are made A-net waits for “the meta to adapt” only to find one specific build on a specific profession that counters it (while being even easier to play and loses nothing for team viability. Derr… Balance?!) and this just perpetuates more Rock, Paper, Crap.
I don’t believe players are at fault for this but nothing is essencitally being done about it. Unless some community based standard like the way Smogen is or Pokemon is created for people to follow before we can declare BS it should be A-nets job to step in, they want an E-sport don’t they?
My point is yes you are right. But for the sake of a healthy competitive game is the status quo really what we want?
It doesn’t matter what we want. As long as there are winners and losers and the rules are clear, defined, and there is very little to no chance of manipulation of those rules then all bets are off.
Would banning / team comp limits help the game? Maybe. It doesn’t exist in the game though so until it does the only job we have as players is to find the strongest possible composition that fits the game mode and to win as often as possible.
If that isn’t your goal you will always be disappointed with any game you play. Winning is its own reward. I have given up on “playing for skill” or “playing for fun” or "anti-meta’ or whatever other imaginary rules that don’t matter.
Will I lose games? Sure, but I am not going to blame anybody but myself for not playing at a higher level. If my teammates are idiots then it’s my job to overcome that, get them to play better through what limited communication you have in solo queue, or, better yet, get a team together that we can all talk about what is working and what isn’t.
Yup that’s a pretty good description of what I had been under the illusion of. In retrospect I was pretty bad at this game and actually believed that I was good to a fault.
I wasn’t even decent… and it’s embarrassing. I’m glad I recognize that now and I can start being more objective about how I play instead of whatever the hell I was before.
The ideal composition is the one that wins the majority of matches against all levels of opponents.
It’s a lot more simple than what you’re trying to articulate. If a class doesn’t have the tools to be competitive and work well with your teammates, then it’s not worth your time.
If you can make it work and you go on winning streaks, beat highly ranked teams, and find yourself looking down on the competition good job people will notice and start copying your builds.
Until then, everything you’ve thought of in your post is theory. Get a team and try it out!
Hello GW2 PvP Forum,
New Patch Callout at the bottom for your viewing pleasure.
I have been away from this game for a while and have only been keeping up with the game through the forums and will come back to this game in next week’s patch to put together a team and sign up for any tournaments.
I have come to the realization that all that we can control and do as players of this or any other competitive game is to look for advantages, overcome disadvantages, and to win or lose the games we play. I am directing this post to all class balance QQers, GvG scrubs, new gamemode QQers, and anybody who, like I have been in this game before, someone low or medium ranked who thinks they know what they’re talking about.
There are no style points for running a “high skill cap” build. You don’t get a handicap of 100 points for running hard builds. You don’t get anything for running inferior builds, no matter how risk / reward they are. Nobody cares if you do that if you lose, and make no mistake, if you run something suboptimal that is harder to run than an easy and effective build you will lose more than you win.
I highly recommend reading “Playing to Win” by David Sirlin, which is free to read on sirlin.net. You will probably get mad if you read this and you are not winning consistently against skilled players, ranked highly in solo queue or tPvP, etc. I sure as hell did. I had to realize that I was, in fact, objectively, without a shadow of a doubt a scrub.
Scrubs make mental obstacles for themselves through any number of imaginary rules and “ethics” in a constructed reality that does not reward that behavior in any way unless it allows them to win consistently over the majority of their opponents. The book goes over the advantages of winning in more detail, but the short way to say it is, if you’re not winning you’ll never have as much fun or appreciate a game for what it truly is.
Class balance is not your problem. It is Arenanet’s problem. They have to decide what is good or bad for the game and all they are ever going to do is take your opinions into whatever degree of consideration they feel is appropriate. You can complain all you want about stunlock warriors, condispam necros, afk2win rangers, and every other “OP” crap under the sun.
It doesn’t matter.
Game modes are also not your problem. If you don’t like conquest, and don’t want to compete in the game mode then what do you play this game’s PvP for? You obviously want to play it or you wouldn’t post on this forum or go to Heart of the Mists. You can also complain about “sPvE,” it’s “boring,” it’s “not fun,” it’s “cheesy,” blah blah blah.
It doesn’t matter.
All that matters, and all that ever will matter in a competitive game is who wins and who loses. If you want to appreciate PvP in Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, SWTOR, Dota, League of Legends, or any competitive game for what it really is then you have to win. Until then, you are just a scrub.
Do you want to be a scrub?
I sure as hell don’t.
I’ll see you all in game on Tuesday. Until then, ask yourself if you want to win in this game or just be some whiny scrub who tries to tell people who built a gaming experience from the ground up how to handle itself.
TLDR: Quit whining, start winning, enjoy the game, laugh at the scrubs once you evolve past their pathetic existence.
New Patch Update:
This is the most hilarious reaction to a patch I’ve seen in a long time. You guys are really taking the cake on how to do a textbook version of asinine freakouts.
I mean, immob stacking and the NERF PLOX not being caved in to by Anet has your emotional entitlement to what you want cranked up to 11 out of 10.
Get a grip, grab a big drink of cold water, pour it on your face, sit in a corner and stare at the wall until you figure out how pathetic you’ve been acting.
Once you’ve realized that you have been acting you need diapers and a bib, get over it, and move on, you start objectively working on a way to take advantage of immob stacking, prevent it from being done to you, and start asking yourself decision making based questions while you practice or do hotjoins.
Can I 1v1 a Warrior? If not, then why am I trying to? Wouldn’t it make more sense to kill his teammates while he stands on the point with his banner?
Can I break out of immobs? If not, why am I begging to be put in a position where I can’t dodge?
(edited by jmatb.6307)
Here is a quote from Playing to Win, which you can read for free on Sirlin.net
“So what lengths should a player go to in order to win? A player should use any tournament legal move available to him that maximizes his chances of winning the game. Whether certain moves or tactics should be legal in a tournament is a totally separate issue that we’ll get to later. For now, the issue at hand is that if it’s legal in a tournament, it’s part of the game, period. Players often fault other players for “cheating” or playing “dishonestly” when they use tactics that should not be allowed in a tournament, often because they are exploits of bugs. The player is never at fault. The player is merely trying to win with all tools available to him and should not be expected to pull his punches. Complaints should be taken up with the governing body of the tournament (or the community of players) as to what should be allowed in a tournament. This is a dead simple issue that confuses too many players.”
The point being if you’re not “cheesing” then you’re not taking advantage of the resources available to you that are superior to your “skill build.” While you might get better by practicing more difficult things, why would you give that edge up? Morality?
There are no morals involved in winning in any competitive game – if there’s an advantage you take it. Period.
(edited by jmatb.6307)
I’ll add something productive, even though Anet is not going to do a revamp of traits just because people don’t like passives. They are in “shaving” mode right now – they don’t want to do wholesale changes.
Anyway, here are some ideas of traits that would promote more intelligent play than what we have.
- Replacing flat cooldown reduction traits with those that recharge key skills on successful execution of another.
For example, Whirling Wrath recharges upon a successful Leap of Faith but Whirling Wrath gets a longer CD so it has an impact.
- Replacing on crit effects with guaranteed crits when specific conditions are met. Hidden Killer is a great example of this, and you could do that with every class. If you’re investing in crit damage you want to end fights fast, and these traits would let you do that at the risk of missing them, which dodging provides.
- Successful executed skill creates enhanced next series of attacks. Ex. Eviscerate creates 5 vulnerability on the next three successful attacks. Updraft creates 2s weakness on the next three successful attacks.
- Sigils can be passive, but only in a limited way.
I’ll update later
The paralyzation sigil fix should make them more bearable, but that doesn’t help with the stun stacking you get from skull crack / shield bash.
I think stuns should not stack and that they should be exclusive durations so when you use shield 4 while they are stunned you lose it. That way, you have a chance to dodge the second stun and they can’t get a full 100blades on you unless they are very quick.
It’s too easy to run Mace/Shield Greatsword right now, and that won’t change all that much if the stun duration is slightly reduced.
Ya just run a spirit ranger or stun lock warrior and casually beat whoever you want and win matches
Not like this crap matters anyway, just like this game. Devs think Eles just two attunements and that Rangers can’t handle controlling their pets more than they already don’t, so you’ll see more passive kitten on every single class and then Guild Wars 2’s PvP slogan will be:
“So easy a caveman can do it!” kitten kitten
It looks like its about the game as a whole… and this swiftpaw troll is only here because she wants to troll any thread that talks about passive kitten
You’d figure by now Xom would realize that nobody in this forum gives a kitten what he/she thinks
Well yeah if you know how to read and look at the OP’s post you see the definition of passive as being literally word for word, tooltip by tooltip, a description of the class that is universally despised in PvP known as the Ranger
And here come the Ranger mains getting defensive about anything that addresses their class and its laughable state of cheesiness…
three people capped home point at the start of a match a few days ago.
I raged.
Nobody likes Rangers but in the end, some classes and builds can take them 1v1 and some can’t.
Glass Ele doesn’t do kitten to any Ranger that has points in Wilderness Survival because they’ll dodge everything, get protection as a reward for doing so, and their condi dmg gets stronger at the same time. Dagger offhand stuff on Ele requires being close, and that’s just a deathtrap vs. a spirit ranger when you don’t have very good defense, health, etc.
You cant… beat… a thief… who’s NEKKED!?
LMAOOOOOO
Eles suck vs. Rangers. It’s not a fight where the Ele has an advantage so what’s the point of fighting them without reinforcement?
Every dodge they have with 50% end regen gives them prot and you do direct damage… its pointless
O Eggs the problem is that’s the way the class was designed. None of their utilities are particularly challenging to use. Their best traits just passively boost what was already passive to begin with.
Anet doesn’t want the game to be hard to play and for the best players to be in a league of their own without much challenging them.
This trend keeps continuing where easy elements are being boosted when a class falls out of the meta. Eles are about to get a huge Healing/Second boost from Water Staff auto, Geyser, and Blasting Staff will make AoE healing for Eles huge. Warriors were on the bench forever so they gave them Healing Signet buffs and Zerker Stance. Necros got Dhuumfire.
They don’t want an oligarchy at the top. Whether or not that’s good for the best players is irrelevant to them they want the game to be more popular and easy to play for new players.
Ranger is part of the holy trinity of GW2 PvP – Guardian, Ranger, and Thief.
Guardian is the best mid support and has been from day 1. Thief has the best mobility, closes called targets out the fastest, and has Shadow Refuge, the best downed state control skill in the game.
Ranger is the best home node class and always will be because of the high survival/damage ratio. They get protection on every dodge and can have perma vigor uptime with 50% endurance regen. You don’t burst them down it just doesn’t happen. In addition to this, they get medium armor and health, and can scale incredibly well with Settler’s amulet, making them very hard to kill with direct damage.
My rule of thumb with Ranger is don’t 1v1 them with heavy burst. There’s no point you’ll just die or waste a lot of time trying to “actively react to their passive mechanics.” Even if they nerfed storm spirit, they are still going to have plenty of ways to win 1v1s.
(edited by jmatb.6307)
Ooo I’ve got some stories too:
- Warrior runs into Line of Warding not once. Not twice. THREE TIMES! Then he pops stab after the LoW is done.
- Thief heartseekers 6 times in a row. On the trebuchet. At full health.
- Ele rides the lightning into the water on Temple trying to gap close. Pro style.
- Ranger has 10 stacks of confusion and still uses Crossfire 5 times in a row.
- Ranger uses sword 2 off the edge of a cliff on Skyhammer. Twice in the same match.
- Enemy Thief says “stealing” on map chat at start of match on Niflhel. Proceeds to be buttkittened
- Guardian gets knocked down the stairs by my guard Bunker 3 times in a row and doesn’t dodge the treb.
- Ring of Warding blocks a heartseeker, the stupid thief tries to run past it, heartseekers again and my shield 5 knocks him back.
There are some stupid motherkitteners who play this game
This will not be a problem once Paralyzation doesn’t add an entire second to the stuns. Your QQ is somewhat justified now, but at the same time there are the following options:
dodging
kiting
stun breaks
ranged damage
blinking out of their LOS
stealth
your own CC
retreating
playing one so you know its weaknesses on your main
etc…
Mesmer does fine against Warrior 1v1
(edited by jmatb.6307)
I think, based on the pastebin stuff, that Eles are gonna be more interesting with the new stuff coming in.
Staff has always been good in WvW, but I think you’re gonna be able to put a staff Ele as your team support with the new patch, if they know what they’re doing. The healing output is gonna be huge with the base heal and the water blasts/leaps.
Conjures might have an Engi type feel to the class, like going Fiery Greatsword/Axe with Lightning Flash and Mist Form. The might from cantrips and the axe would be pretty sick, since you have blast finishers from the axe, arcane wave, and your S/D or D/D. Put 15 to 20 stacks of might on someone while attacking and that’s always gonna hurt.
We’ll see though.
I played Warrior when it was garbage almost exclusively.
Warrior today requires pretty much a pulse, a mouse, and keyboard to play.
I busted out laughing when I read this
That’s what you get for running full condi eat kitten spammer
Ya condi meta is over, it moved to the Faceroll Warrior Meta
There really does need to be a timed lockout for people who do not participate in matches they’ve queued up for. Even if it’s just a couple minutes at least there are some consequences for hanging their team out to dry like a coward
0/20/20/0/30 is pretty good with Rock Solid for group stab and Evasive Arcana. Nearly guaranteed stomps is always nice.
Unfortunately, Ele is probably the worst 1v1 class in the game at the moment so fighting alone is not a good idea. It’s best to be more of a defensive roamer or staying at where the team fights are.
The cannon is too strong. As far as the rest of the map’s challenges it’s more of a L2P issue than anything.
The cannon is a deathtrap if you don’t have CC to knock them off with. Engi and Guardian are really good there because the Engi has the AoE damage to destroy people with and Guard has the stability and CC to rack up kills from knock offs.
I don’t even play this game anymore, but when I see a kitten I’ll call him out.
If you GvG guys are worth anything close to the kitten you talk, then you’ll put a team or teams together and challenge the “pathetic Conquest losers.” Nobody cares if you’re in the solo queue leaderboards because solo queue is hotjoin 2.0.
There is a clear and obvious difference between organized teams and people who are just solo queuing because it passes the time.
The developer of this game destroyed your little AoE orgy and now all you do is kitten about it and try to show off how you can farm solo queue.
Get a team, prove yourself, or just go back to your forum and QQ
I’m starting to think he is the guy who suggested that falling damage not take off the town clothes at Pax
What doesn’t it do? Burning is the best DoT and poison reduces healing.
It’s cleansed, sure, but as soon as it’s up another set of several stacks come up, and then another. When you get in a team fight vs. a spirit ranger, necro, warrior, and guardian team you’ll see that for yourself. It doesn’t matter how many cleanses you bring you’re gonna get 20-50 s burning after each cleanse.
That much burning is kittened
Team fights have a ton of stacks of burning and poison…
The reason I am suggesting to keep it instead of suggesting something new is because if that stays in, at least condi spamming is addressed. New ideas have to be talked about and approved, which takes Arenanet months.
PvE can be split though and they’re showing that they are willing and able to split things that can and should be. For example, minions are getting buffed just for PvE. As far as I’ve seen though, at least from O Eggs’ WvW adventures 1v4ing people, that conditions are just fine in that part of the game.
Is that the case for dungeons? I have no idea, and really I don’t care because all I’m playing the game for is PvP and maybe leveling a toon to 80 for farming WvW scrubs.
lol i can’t even begin to troll as effectively as this guy
It would only be a disaster if people bring too much burning. There should be a penalty for stacking that condition, if you look at the duration of burning in a team fight with the meta builds it’s at least 30 to 40 seconds on the focused target, usually more.
If the condi stacking were more limited then there wouldn’t be a need for a cap. The problem comes when you’re just spamming AoE on a point and getting optimum pressure without having to pay attention to how many your teammates have been putting on.
That is mindless play. Mindless, bad. Bleeding on the other hand is not stacked as mindlessly because you usually have to focus fire it.
How is that not better than what we’re dealing with right now?
Except perma burning and poison are still possible. It can happen like this.
Player 1 inflicts burning on target one for 3 s.
At the same time everyone else on the team inflicts burning for say 10s total.
At 10s. Someone can proc burning. Even if you still have burning on you, someone can add to it because it is at 4 stacks after that first 3s have worn off.Essentially nothing will really change.
In small engagements it won’t be noticeable, but in team fights there would be a ton of wasted burning stacks in the current meta. Over time, those stacks would not be able to stick on the target because their wasted skills would not keep pace with the cleansing.
That’s the beauty of it – team fights would be determined by how intelligently you place the condis instead of just spamming them. Spammers would get rolled over by smart cleanses.
If you have a few sources of burn/poison and stack bleeds and confusion then you’re going to have focus fire from a condi team. That is the total opposite of what they’re doing right now and in a more positive, respectable way.
From what I’ve seen it’s FIFO with condis, so if the condi engi starts off the burns then it scales with his condi dmg.
It should be a nightmare for spam builds. Spam builds are stupid as hell if they can be multiplied and stack infinite duration in areas of effect
PvP Balance and Skills Team,
Regardless of the source, I want to ask to keep the change that has to do with capping boon and condition duration stacking and do not let people convince you otherwise.
I believe this single change will be the most significant and positive for pvp in that entire patch and whoever thought of that idea deserves a cookie cake.
Right now if someone wants to bring condis to a team fight they can spam burning and poison indefinitely and don’t have to think about it at all. Those conditions can stack infinitely and the skills that provide that have no reason not to be spammed if they just have a cooldown.
If that cap goes in then spam becomes a waste because while you can still stack a lot of burning, there is a penalty for just spamming because if you blow all your cooldowns the enemy can cleanse and now you’re not putting very much pressure on while they can do whatever they want to you.
This would shift condi builds toward bleeding and confusion, which stack highest if people are coordinating their attacks on single targets and using utilities like Epidemic to spread them. That is more intelligent condi play. That would make condis much more respectable than the way they are being used right now where people take burn on crit for Engi and Necro and just fire away, indiscriminate of what their skills are intended to do.
For boons, the regen stacking is probably the best out of all of them because if you think about how much regen you can stack from a healing spring and a guardian on point that makes it obscene how much extra healing/second you get as a team. It’s nuts. Capping that prevents a super bunker meta from springing forth to just tank all the damage with unlimited regen and protection from a stone spirit or two.
That systemic change would make people have to consider their builds in both power and condi builds as a team more intelligently and that would be a significant upgrade to what we’ve been seeing all summer with mindless builds becoming dominant.
TLDR:
Keep the condi and boon stacking cap. Don’t let ignorant people trash a great idea that improves the playerbase’s decision making
(edited by jmatb.6307)
lmao Ranger hard to play
hahahahaha
This is why Rangers are despised so heavily in PvP.
The players whine about being weak when they are one of the strongest classes and will always remain one of the strongest classes.
There are great Rangers who have deal with the reputation that QQer’s create for them. These players know what all their pets do and can maximize their use with their builds. They know how other classes work and plan accordingly. They want more control of their pets because they actually have the skill to be able to handle the micro.
The whiners? Really really bad players who are already have the PvP Cadillac class and can’t even do anything with it.
Thief
Feline Grace ought to be 50% end regen just like the Ranger’s. That will make S/D more bearable without having to nerf the actual skill, as it isn’t the root problem. Pistol 2 could do poison, so that the P/D kit would have enough condis to put pressure on while bringing better utilities.
Warrior
Healing Signet ought to have a base heal of 300 / second instead of whatever it is right now. Its too strong atm.
Please revert Berserker stance to 6s base that is such a strong skill to have vs. more than just Condi Necro.
Ranger
I don’t really care if that stealth reveal is put in that doesn’t really matter since most good rangers actually want to take utis that help win fights, not play peek a boo with thiefs. Maul = hell yeah I want to see more Rangers with guts instead of the passive BS
Ele
Conjures getting buffed is good, that is an entire subset of utilities that were previously useless and could give them an Engi-type feel of risk/reward. If you do that please make them instant cast summon because cast time for a kit is kind of ridiculous.
Necro
Vampire Necro actually sounds pretty kitten, but there is a problem with the Condi Necro that makes them too strong, and that’s how much damage you get from Terror. I think a nerf to that would make them more balanced or moving it to 30 points instead of 20. That way you would have to either give up Dhuumfire or Master of Terror instead of getting both and that crazy damage.
Mesmer
Those changes look fine. They’re actually in a great place.
Guardian
I really hope that Purging Flames isn’t AoE Zerker stance. That would be such a stupid idea.