Guild Wars 2

2. Utilities
Heal
Given that the elixir is untraited, it is generally a poor choice, with far more utility and survivability provided by the other two options. I won’t be considering it for the purposes of this discussion

Med Kit
A heal on the toolbelt, 3 dropped bandages and one condition clear every 15 seconds.

Healing Turret
The healing turret has two water fields, provides regeneration, and the ability to clear two conditions every 15 seconds. The detonation is a blast finisher.

For me, the med kit would be the better choice if I was speccing further into the tools line, due to the 15 point minor traits in tools and the reduced recharge on the toolbelt heal. The 15 point minor in inventions, which I currently take, is useless with the kit.

Personally, I find the med kit too fiddly to use, as you spend far too long in it to maximise the healing potential, distracting you from other cooldowns which are already quite difficult to manage.

I also find the water field on the healing turret very valuable. However, I’d love to hear if anyone has used a 20 points in the tools line build instead and taken packaged stimulants instead, which increases the healing from bandages and reduces the cooldown on the amulet, while allowing them to be ground targeted. Its something I’m considering. Another important note is that the med kit heal is more susceptible to interrupts.

Slot Skills
Most of the choices here are going to be kits, which really require a longer guide to look at the usefulness of them. That’ll be in the next section of this guide. Here I’ll outline the choices for the build, what I use and why. It’s very important to get a good balance of skills to be able to deal with a variety of different classes, but I’d welcome discussion about this section particularly below. There are a lot of utilities that could be argued to be useful, so please bear with me!

Skills I’m going to rule out because of a lack of utility here are Grenade Kit, Rifle Turret, Flame Turret, Rocket Turret, Rocket Boots, Elixir U, Elixir B (stab duration not worth it imo), Personal Battering Ram, Utility Goggles (too long CD, toolbelt useless), Elixir R (too long CD on toolbelt, utility not that useful).

Leaving Elixir Gun, Tool Kit, Bomb Kit and Flamethrower as kits. Elixir S, Elixir C, Slick Shoes, Net Turret, Thumper Turret as other choices. If I were to discuss anymore, I’d be here all day.

I’ll leave the kit choices for the latter section of the guide, but I’ll discuss the other utilities here:

Elixir S seemingly has a lot of utility. A stun break, a stealth, invulnerability. There is a huge problem though in that stealth and invulners prevent point capture. For me this is not a viable choice.

Elixir C is an excellent choice for dealing with condition classes. The ability to have a safeguard once you drop below 25% health and auto immune response activates is truly excellent. The combination of the two make you unkillable by condi classes if you use them correctly.

While the net turret has its uses, it actually does little for survivability once the point is capped. I currently mostly take Flamethrower and the Rifle, which provide more than enough knockbacks for capping the point without the immobis here. The same follows for slick shoes, useful, but not useful enough, despite the stun breaker.

The thumper turret though has more utility with a blast finish/stunbreak/insta stability combo on the toolbelt. This is definitely an option worth looking at.

Elite Skill
There are two choices here, the supply crate or Elixir X. The supply crate is undoubtedly better for survivability, but Elixir X offers stability regardless of the transformation and is your best chance of neutralising a point with multiple enemies on it. Both choices are viable to some extent, but the clutch neutralises offered by Elixir X make it the best choice in my book. Again, if taking packaged stimulants the sustain from supply crate might offer a lot more, worth a try!

Before I start, I should say that I’m writing this as someone who isn’t that experienced on Engineer, but has seen what they’re capable of in terms of decapping far and wanted a go for myself.

I am doing this as much as a learning experience for myself as for the benefit of others, as such I encourage discussion of other choices that I do or do not mention below. When doing so please bear in mind that this for a solo decapper whose sole role is to run to the enemy point and contest it for as long as possible, without receiving aid other than in exceptional circumstances. It can also be used to hold home, but stays away from team fights.

While this build has not quite broken into the meta at the highest tier, at everything below ESL it can be very effective. It either accomplishes capping far point or at least keeping it neutral, or it pulls away enemies from team fights, giving your team an advantage. In either case, it normally reduces the pressure on homepoint too.

Build Link

Contents

1. Weapon Choice
2. Utilities
3. Kit Skills
4. Traits
5. Equipment, Combos and Tips

1. Weapon Choice
Pistol/Pistol
Despite the immobilise, this isn’t really an option. There is far more utility in terms of keeping a point contested and survival on the other two sets.

Pistol/Shield
I would love to say that this is a viable option. By far my favourite set on the Engineer, the bouncing blind has excellent utility, the long poison helps with pressure. There is also a knockback and a block to boot.

Rifle
While the rifle seemingly lacks some survivability, it offers a lot of invaluable control when attempting to contest a node. Here’s a brief breakdown.

1 Hip Shot
Standard auto attack, you won’t get much use out of this

2 Net Shot
This is the main reason this weapon is taken over Pistol/Shield. A ten second cooldown on a 2 second Immobilise is excellent, and can be easily combo’d with knockbacks for instantly neutralising points if you time it right. It has a long range, meaning its also very useful for slowing down enemies trying to escape or get to a capture point ahead of you. It is a slow projectile though, and easily dodged, best used in conjunction with knockbacks.

3 Blunderbuss
Another one you won’t get much use for. For the most part, this build puts out no pressure, use it if you’ve got nothing else to use, but as you’ll learn that’s pretty much never the case. It can be useful against thieves that you actually are trying to kill though.

4 Overcharged Shot
This knockback has a reasonably short range. It takes some getting used to if you havent used the rifle before. Even though it knocks back quite a long distance, its best to wait until your opponent is on the edge of the cap point, taking account of the direction your facing. By doing that you can ensure that you stay on the point when knocked back and start capping. This knockback will only hit one target, regardless of how many enemies are infront of you.

5 Jump Shot
This really has two purposes in this spec, mobility and as a leap finisher. I’ll get onto the combos later, but in mobility terms, I suggest you familiarise yourself with this tip for most effective use of this skill.

nikitnq.7143:

Timezones
Denial of service
Server locations and ping
Adjustment to PPT

These are some of the first compelling arguments I’ve seen for not shutting down WvW in night time hours. Thank you for that. I also think your suggestions for amendments to points per turn are a far fairer way of doing things.

My issue as I said is that the majority of the points each week are won by a minority of the population.

lordkrall.7241:

Whos night?
Night for you might not be night for me.
And what about people that are working during the days? Should they not be allowed to play WvW?

Turning off WvW just because you can’t play at a certain time is not really a solution. WvW is a 24/7 battlefield, not a “the 8 hours per day when my people are online”-battlefield.

I totally appreciate this. In my original posts I detailed what I would consider “Night” to be. Between the hours of 2:30am and 7:30am GMT. As far as I am concerned, regardless of where you are from, if these are your play hours, then you should stick to an NA server. Why would you be on an EU server at times when it is dead in general play?

If you are on WvW during these times, and there is a group of you, you are able to take advantage in a way I deem to be unfair. It is too easy to overwhelm well defended fortifications at these times, and the score provided for your server is very significant. Personally I would love to see time maps across the week of our last match, looking at the average score earnt by each server at different times. I would be very surprised if it did not show a clear correlation between our opponents earning much of their score during the night and early morning.

I am not preventing you from playing the game mode as the Edge of the Mists would still be around, but if you want to play serious WvW, then you should be on an NA server. Its not about not being allowed to play, I wouldn’t be preventing that. Its about not ruining the experience for other people. Its also not that I can’t play at certain times, hell I’m not playing 24/7, but because it puts an unfair weighting on the servers that have an active night time population.

Along with the lack of rewards, this is the main thing that completely ruins the incentive to defend objectives in this game mode, and for me that ruins the game mode. I wanted a game mode that has epic battles, not out on the field but behind closed doors, with strategy, with coordination, and that winning the day. This just doesn’t happen at the moment.

I realise, thats just what I want from WvW, but I’m a long way from being the only one irked by the lack of importance that ends up being placed on the primetime hours, as stuff just gets flipped right back over again.

I’d love to hear everyones thoughts on my other suggestions. Having WvW locked down (possibly just keeps and towers) between 2:30am and 7:30am GMT, having the value of held objectives increase in peak hours. I’d love to hear any ideas that reduce the effectiveness of the Blob without punishing players in it too

Josh Davis.6015:

I had no idea this existed.

Now unsure if this is intended or not! Regardless, I echo the views of the other players, its cool! Leave it in.

I regret to say that I dont really know anymore, though you can reach a ledge on the other side of keep. I trust most people know that on the bear side of spirit watch you can jump up the side of the rock rather than running all the way down to the slope, an interesting choice that could make the map rather unsymmetrical.

I really put this up to show people but also to see other cool tricks that didn’t require jumping moves, while the teleport things are cool. I guess theyre going to be rare though!

I appreciate that perhaps I’m judging the community at large harshly. I’m just yet to see much evidence of a willingness to defend from any server. There was one garrison, a keep on our BL that was WP’d by another borderlands that we really struggled to take, and the tower that we held for a long time I have already discussed. I would just love to encourage more of this sort of play and really make the game mode into a battle rather than a game of cat and mouse between commanders, which is what it feels like.

I was confused when I got in that I only ever saw 1 commander in each BL. So I asked, and apparently people found multiple commanders confusing and they didnt know where to go. A simple colour coded system for different commander roles so you knew who to report to to do what you wanted to do would make massive headway on that front, but I was really disappointed in the seeming lack of willingness to try to make that coordination happen.

hihey.1075:

Working as intended. I’ve done things like this before (but used only 2 alphas and it was a T2 keep, and we were 4 people, 3 of us were mesmers lol) and it’s incredibly funny.
I can say that the pleasure YOU had in upgrading all that stuff was way less than the pleasure those 5 guys had when taking those keeps.

I understand that this is the way Anet have designed it to be. I just think they have designed it completely wrong. All the pleasure I took from upgrading that keep completely vanished after the frustration of losing it to such a small player base. The value to my team of me upgrading that keep also totally vanished, as had it been held, the points we would have got overnight would have been significant.

Fannwong.3059

Hello Jonnis,
Sorry to hear that the upgraded keep was lost to 5 pax. A few things about WvW, knowing your WvW community is essential for peace of mind:
a. Does your community care about upgrading stuff?
b. What timezones are dead zones? Will your server lose everything in the dead zones?
c. Does your community have folks that will jump maps to defended T3 stuff.
d. Which structure have priority? (eg, home garrison)
You have to consider these 4 points before you decide to upgrade. Spend 1-2 weeks in WvW, hang out with your server mates and commanders and see what they do. If you have a hardcore attitude (which is great) about making sure your structures are fortified then make sure this is what the community is looking at or else you will lose stuff.
Lastly if you feel that your community goals are not aligned with yours you might want to switch servers with another one that’s close to your goals.
FW

When I joined WvW the other day I was asking some relatively beginner questions. I got talking to someone who was giving me quite a bit of advice and I started asking about what guilds were around. I said that my main interest was in defending and upgrading keeps and towers to ensure we keep them.

They recommended a particular guild to me that I have been playing with since. These guys try to carry out the exact playstyle I’m after and I had great fun holding the hills side tower (dawns eyrie I think?)on our BL against a massive zerg who had brought along a tonne of omega golems. With a lot of well placed siege, a team of about 15 of us held out against the zerg for a good two hours, culminating in them PvEing the door down, and simply outnumbering us eventually.

However, they seem to be the only guild that actively defend stuff (bearing in mind I’m talking from a very inexperienced stand point here) and I can’t believe that that doesnt happen more. I’m still imagining these split groups of 20 man teams working across other parts of the map, a couple coming together for keep captures and blob takedowns, the blob being scouted, the camps, supply routes and upgrades being overseen by one commander, and so on and so forth, but I digress.

Our deadzones are after about 3am, until about 6am, from what I can work out. The server we are playing against this week and were playing against last week do not have a particularly active community in this time, but it is active enough that it decided the game last week, despite us beating them well in primetime play.

I have seen us defend T3 stuff, but that only happens with good commanders and in prime time. From what I understand we priorities the two north towers and the garrison on our borderlands.

From where I see it I was doing a good thing trying to build a fortress that would be untakeable by a small force, and would not be able to be taken until morning, thats where I was really disappointed. I’m on an upper Silver league server, so I imagine the coordination isn’t bad.

But I don’t want WvW to be about who has the numbers to play 24/7, I want it to focus on much better coordination in the prime time. I accept that maybe I’m a bit of a fool to expect such a thing, because it would require incredible coordination, but I’d always rather see skillful play done well rewarded.

I just got really excited about this game mode at first, I saw so much potential, and feel its all completely and totally wasted because of a couple of glaring errors in the design. Its really got an epic feel to it, while I dont feel that my own actions are epic the scope of the battle is. I’d love to be involved in smaller groups where I really could see the difference I was making and thats what I got by upgrading that keep solo, but there we go, I’m rabbling now. All together these haven’t been the best constructed forum posts, I’m very tired and frustrated at the state of the game, but perhaps I’ll come back and try to be more constructive tomorrow.

With the introduction of the Edge of the Mists, I really hope that Anet will decide to shutdown WvW in the night hours. You can still earn ranks in the edge of the mists, but lose the ability to help your server.

I would have it that legendary defenders would come out of all garrisons, (making this time the perfect time for jumping puzzles or exploring). Supply camps would sleep, no supply would be mined or run, all upgrades would pause in their current state, etc. I would have this happen between around 2:30am and 7:30am GMT. If you tie this up with American times, then thats 18:30pm to 23:30 pm, which I would consider to be prime time. If you wanted to play at those times, I would imagine that you would be on a US server. Server points would also not be earnt in these times

My perception is that, at the moment, games are won by winning garrisons over night and defending them until primetime. I’ve seen it countless times already and it drives me nuts, the way to win on EU is simply to recruit an active US guild. The problem with putting a pause on WvW is that all that changes is that as soon as it becomes active again, the people that are most active then become the most effective, ie the people capping the bases at the start of the day win. I would implore the devs to implement a weighted scoring system, that rewards significantly less points at the start of the day and slowly ramps up to peak time, before starting to dwindle again as the night goes on. This could be done purely on a time basis or on a basis of player population at different times, and would completely negate the effect of the non primetime tactics.

I would also suggest that Dolyak running and Camp control need to be more strategic and important jobs rather than something the zerg does. I can’t believe that I have run around in a zerg and we have waited minutes at a time for a camp to be contestable, rather than sending scouts and small parties on ahead. Perhaps by having Dolyak routes interrupted by ambushes of wild animals, skritt, whatever, that would perhaps flee at the sight of enemy players, but would have to be guarded by friendly players.

Even if it didn’t happen on every delivery, running Dolyaks would become a necessity and the benefits of upgrading a camp to give more guards and guarded caravans would be far greater. If each delivery required 3 players (2 skilled players with support?) realistically to be made if there was an attack, perhaps reduced by having the guards to 2 and 1 respectively, it would bring a whole new side to the game. Perhaps not one everyone would like, but I believe there is a market for it. I would also have the deliveries being less frequent, possibly with more supply, though possibly not as my next suggestion outlines.

Finally, to go along with Keeps and Towers being harder to take initially, I would like to see the upgrades take far longer. To build a fully upgraded Keep shouldn’t be doable within a few hours, but should take long hours of focused play, around a day in total to fully upgrade, perhaps 8 hours minimum to reach fortified walls and a WP. I would then like for these keeps to be impregnable, without a concerted push on numerous fronts, rather than just attacking one gate. Perhaps it should take double the number of people and roughly twice the amount of time to take a fully upgraded keep. Bear in mind that even with the changes to the scoring system, upgrading would still be possible and would become very effective if this were to happen.

Problems and Potential Solutions

Keeps and Towers are weak.
I understand the terminology of the “Paper” fortress, and think its totally accurate. There is literally no defence behind an un upgraded Keep or Tower. They don’t actually feel like a fortress. How different is capturing a Camp to capturing a Tower in terms of the time difference? A tower or keep can be well defended by well placed siege, but I strongly feel the passive defence of Keeps and Towers should be massively improved.

A keep should be a heavily defended garrison that, given no resistance from defenders, should take around 10-15 people to take in around 20 minutes. A Tower should be well defended, perhaps requiring a minimum of 5 taking 10 minutes. This is if everything goes perfectly well and the attackers are uninterrupted.

Golems are too powerful
Despite my inexperience, I’m sure this opinion has been voiced countless times before, so I won’t go over it again. All I will say is that I don’t think players should be able to damage tower doors/walls anymore than I think Siege should be designed to take down players, with the exception of arrow carts and ballistas.

Making the most poweful piece of siege weaponry manoeuvrable is an appalling error in my opinion. It facilitates the small groups of players which screw over the work of hundreds earlier in the day.

The “Blob” is not punished enough
While I already think the Blob is far from the most effective way to play the game, I do feel that there is not enough done to prevent it. I have very grand ideas about lots of little groups of 20 players running round taking keeps, groups of 10 focusing on towers, other groups focusing on the upgrading of keeps, from running Dolyaks and capturing camps to fortifying them with siege. This simply doesn’t happen, because the Blob is where the rewards are.

The problem here I believe is mainly reward based, so I would love to see changes in the reward system, possibly diminishing returns when in a larger group. The issue with this is that its very difficult to prevent the Blob from being effective without feeling the need to punish the players in some way, rather than rewarding other play styles.

The majority of the points are decided by a tiny minority of the playerbase
Again, this is something I’m sure has been voiced before. One of the main reasons I was so aggrieved when my keep was taken was that the points from that keep would likely belong to Deso for most of the day. Calling prime time 6pm – Midnight GMT on most UK based servers, primetime only consists of 1/4 of the points for the matchup (ignoring stomps).

This is I believe the major major flaw with the way WvW works at the moment and will probably be the reason I stop being motivated to play it.

My Story

I’m a total novice to the game in WvW terms, just got to rank 20 on one char and have rank 10 from the rest of my play since the games release, or whenever ranks came out, I really don’t know, I spent most of my time before that in sPvP. So I voice these opinions from a back drop of little experience accepting that many of them have probably been voiced before, and perhaps many of the solutions I’ve though of too.

I have to say, unfortunately, that my overwhelming feeling has been one of disappointment. I play sPvP mostly so coordination and communication are the things I really value and was hoping to find in this game mode. I was hoping to see lots of little organised groups doing different jobs led by different commanders. I was hoping to see advanced commander communication. I can’t believe the lack of import that seems to be placed on structures that we have taken. If you cap a base in sPvP, you either stay on it, or you make as kitten sure as you can that nothing else is coming for it, and that kind of thing just doesn’t happen. I’d like to change that, heres whats happened to me over the past few days, my take on the problems in WvW, and some possibly solutions.

TL;DR
I spent ages upgrading a few keeps. 5 players with 3 golems came and took all 3 of our keeps in 10 minutes.

I can honestly say that I have never felt such an overwhelming sense of disappointment and helplessness. I felt like my efforts that evening were totally trival. I piled time, effort and gold into upgrading those keeps. I called for help on EB and got none. If a 70 man zerg had rolled in and taken them, that would be something else, but the way it happened for me is just unacceptable, all my hard work undone by 5 people doing something very very basic.

I’ve been almost exclusively PvPing since the betas, and yet only just found this trick the other week:

Jumping to Keep Wall on Forest

Are there any other tricks like this that people might have missed?

Hopefully the summary includes most of the discussion on this topic. I’ll update it if anything new comes along, but I think we’ve covered most of the bases. Interestingly most of the tutorials weren’t actually concerning the conquest game type but focused on class mechanics and builds, which I think for new players with a basic understanding of a Player vs Player style game are far more complex to understand.

There really isn’t any emphasis put on this at all at the moment. While youtube videos are out there, some are much better than others and many are outdated. I think an official build resource put on the forums with video guides from high level players would be the first logical step to improving the experience, and to implement that into the game a simple link sent to the player when their character enters PvP would suffice. What do you guys think?

The main way for me that sPvP will see improvements across the board is if the population increases. To do that we need better tutorials, and free trial weekends on separate servers so people can try the game.

I would love to then see new gametypes, especially including arenas. I don’t doubt that balance changes will continue, though I’d like to see them more regularly, but the new gametypes would bring about new metas and different specs which would make combat more interesting.

In balance terms, they need to reduce the effectiveness of passiveness, either increase condi removal or nerf condi application (I main Necromancer but this is a much needed change) and work on rewarding more difficult builds. I also feel AoE needs to be slightly reduced, but if people complain massively about aoe I generally feel that is an indication of bad positioning. Its a pain on a downed body but there has to be some kind of counter to the res mechanic.

Rewards obviously need a rework too, and I think thats coming.

This post is a summary of the discussion thats taken place so far, to help those joining the conversation late:

Main difficulties for newcomers:

• Finding optimal builds
  – Understanding traits
  – Understanding how to build to a role
• Conquest game type
  – Different roles in the game
  – Movement – how to be effective
• Confusion of game modes
  – Starting off in 8v8 hotjoin is the prime culprit
  – No semblance of balance, feels zergy

General ideas so far:

• Increase viability of starter builds, Meta Specs?
  – Regular Updates
  – Different choices for different roles (trait and gear templates?)
  – Video tutorial links mailed to the player (Official or Community Driven)
• Make 5v5 the default “Play Now” gametype
  – Minimum rank for tournaments?
  – Beginner tournaments for below rank X ?
  – Rank specific hotjoin rooms
• Official build resource
  – With guides, hints and tips
  – Youtube links?
• Class specific in game guilds as a help resource
  – Would need to be well publiscised
• Arena deathmatches to help players learn class mechanics
• PvP Browser should be made clearer
  – Tutorial indicating different game types, what they entail
  – Split up standard servers and custom arenas

Tutorial ideas:

• Personal Story quest/Scout in the mists
  – Explain how to retrait, where to get armor/weapons/amulets
  – Show off the different areas on the island and what they are used for
• Sparring NPCs running meta builds
• Games against AI
  – Include Personal Story style quest that instructs players on movement
  – Different for each role (build selected gives the player his/her role)
• Mini game
  – 5 stones vs AI
  – Moves on a turn by turn basis, helps players understand movement
  – More advanced, stones have roles, I.e. Bunkers, Roamers etc
  – Work in realtime
• Daily tips
  – e.g. it only takes one person to cap a point
• Tutorials on how to use certain skills
  – e.g. You are given a stun, and must use it on the enemy when they try to heal
  – e.g. Dodge the enemies big attack

I think the general feeling in the PvP community, of the players that are active, is that the game has an incredible amount of potential and that combat feels really enjoyable, but its not there yet. Its not balanced, there’s only one game type (which I happen to think is excellent but a lot of people don’t agree) and those factors can really take away from the enjoyment.

So I think the negativity that seems apparent from the community is actually a manifestation of the frustration that the game isn’t quite as good as it could be and that it feels like to a lot of people it wouldn’t take that much to get it there.

I can’t see myself switching to another game now (can you imagine not being able to dodge?? or there not being stomping or ressing involved?) in MMO PvP terms, but still feel that PvP is severely lacking in some areas. If the balanced was improved, and hotjoin was brought to a stage where that good balance could be seen, then I feel like the popularity would grow massively, but thats all a fair way off.

For now, the fact is the LoL is an incredibly well polished game, the balance is very good, (they took out Crits for the sake of balance for heavens sake), and while the actual combat itself might seem dumb I can imagine that its far more about the actual strategy of the teams. I’ve never really played it seriously, so couldnt say.

The combat system in GW2 is far superior, but its also far more complex, so its going to take a lot longer to reach that level of polish.

I was wondering what the general opinion was on Engineer far point assault characters in sPvP. I’ve found them to be very effective at everything other than the very highest tier, and there’s a lot of different kits and traits I think you can take when building one. Going to look at these choices mostly from a survival/CC perspective

Weapon:
For me the choice is between Pistol/Shield and Rifle, they both have knockbacks, and while the net shot is useful I’d have to take the Blind and Block on the Shield. The poison is also a must for healing signet warriors

Here are the Utility skills that I think get a look in:

Bomb Kit:
AoE Blind field, AoE Knockback blast finisher, AoE Immobilise, and otherwise some nice damage. The confusion stacks have good synergy with a Pistol Shield set up too.

Tool Kit:
3 second block on a very short CD, 1200 range pull and some more confusion, plus crippling on the point. Toolbelt skill, while a guaranteed physical projectile, isn’t all that useful otherwise.

Elixir Gun:
Only kit skill to have a stun breaker, excellent damage control with weakness autoattack, has poison stacks and a light field that can be used for condi removal, if youre lucky. Also has another blast finisher, which always comes in handy

Flamethrower:
Short CD Knockback, an insta cast blind, some passable burning.

Elixir S:
Safe stomp, stealth, but quite a long CD

Elixir C:
Combined with auto immune response can make you virtually invincible vs Necros below 25% if youre careful. Toolbelt skill has more condi removal, weakness of the class.

Thumper Turret:
Stun Breaker, Stability, Knockback on AoE. Also works very well with Accelerant Packed Turrets for another knockback, which goes nicely with Healing Turrets overcharge skill too

I’m really very new to the far point assault Engineer. I normally play 20 0 10 30 10 with autoimmune response, backpack regenerator unless theres more than 1 warrior, in which case protection on stun. Reduced damage when stunned, Burn on crits and bomb radius and the classic swiftness/vigor. I’ve been coupling it mostly with Bomb Kit, Flamethrower and Elixir S.

Is there anything you think I’ve missed? What do you think is the most effective build for this playstyle?

The main counter to immobilise is some method of getting out of it. Thats fine. Stun breakers however currently don’t remove immobilise, so they only way to escape is to condi clear it.

Then you look at the list of condis that get cleared (which does have a priority order) and immobilise is bottom of the pile. I’ve literally come up against a trap ranger who had entangle, and popped every shout I had in order to try to keep a point capped as a bunker guard, and not had enough condi cleanses to get rid of the immobilise.

I kind of hate that you can teleport out of it, frankly I’d love to see them take that away but nerf the duration on all immobilise skills and move it up the priority order as a condi cleanse, but before that happens, the squishiest of classes need a way to escape it, its overpowered otherwise.

Bear in mind that teleporting does not clear the immobilise, it stays on the target, they have simply moved position. If you take this away there are too few counterplays to something that is inherently very powerful

Qaelyn.7612:

ETA: Okay, walked the island, found some sparring NPCs but nothing resembling a tutorial. You guys must be talking about something else.

There is a girl called the Master of Travel on your right next to the portal as you enter the mists. She will take you back to the current tutorial which consists of three heart quests, to stomp enemies, res allies, and capture a point. You should automatically go through this tutorial when you enter the mists but its likely you may have done that a long time ago and forgotten?

Eurantien.4632:

When I first entered the mists:

• I did not know how to reset my traits.
• I did not know where to get trinkets. Once I figured out how to get amulets I could not find the other trinkets (still haven’t found them).
• I did not know what tournament queues were or that I should’ve been doing them from the beginning and not in hot joins till rank 15 or so if I wanted to really learn how to play.

Just to clarify a few points, there are only amulets in sPvP, there are no other trinkets or anything else (other than traits) that affects your stats. This could be more clearly communicated though.

I’d also say that you should always start in 5v5 hotjoin matches. Even if the people in those matches arent playing the game “properly” as you would in a tournament, you won’t get overwhelmed and will still learn the basics in this game mode, provided it is supplemented with other tutorials.

Romek.4201:

And a little round based boardgame can teach ppl the tactic and how to win and how to rotate^^

roundbased, 5 stones per side and 3 points to cap,

I really like this as an idea in the beginning tutorial. Just something that explains how people should be rotating. I think this would be excellent as a beginner game, and then I’d love to see a more advanced version that has a Bunker, homepoint defender and roamers (possibly some that are faster than others). The advanced version would be realtime rather than turn based and would allow you to respond to what the enemy are doing, seeing if you can do it quickly enough.

This would help players to see why the aim is (in general) to hold close and mid rather than going close and far, as even though that can work in the beginning it often won’t work long term as far is so close to spawn.

Then once that’s done, I’d show it in a real game situation, using personal story like icons as others and myself suggested to instruct the player on where to go, while giving them lots of information about how many of their teammates and enemies are at each point, without necessarily introducing full combat mechanics (possibly just stomping and ressing for bunkers? showing off ways to interupt stomps/resses etc).

This should be one of a series of arenas available from the training NPC. I’d also love to see the AI dueling server that has a series of popular builds you can play against. It would be good to see Bunkers and Homepoint defenders standing on points and trying to defend them as much as possible and also Roamers and Teamfight support classes duelling. Perhaps they could say what they have, ie you walk up to a Condi Necro and it says I have a lot of Conditions and I Fear, be sure to bring Condi cleanses and maybe a stun breaker, etc. It would also be great to have a look at the build and amulet of the class that you were facing.

There are duelling servers out there at the moment, but I find them pretty useless for facing meta specs. They are full of cloaking phantasm mesmers and dps guards. You do get s/d thieves in there and some spirit rangers, but in general they’re pretty obsolete for actually learning your class.

Another option from this NPC would be beginner match servers. Only people below a certain rank can join (15?) and they do nothing for any kind of rating. The matches would have to have a bunker, a homepoint defender and three roamers. Perhaps they would have to try out one of the builds from the AI duelling server?

I think with these three tutorial areas, most of the game could be picked up, and you can then suggest once theyve won some games in the beginner match servers that they try hotjoin/soloq/teamq and explain what these game types are. You could also recommend the forums/youtube as a source for build guides and tell them that if they post to them theyre likely to get a friendly response.

Josh Davis.6015:

Thanks for the post, Jonnis.

Imagine you just made it out of the introductory tutorial – in your opinion, what’s the most confusing thing for a new player, right off the bat? Traits, builds, items, conquest? How to get into PvP? Feel free to mention whatever.

Actually Grouch I’ve got over a thousand tourney games under my belt, I’m just really keen to make it more popular given how much I enjoy it! I think for a new player, the actual game type is relatively simply explained, though how to be effective in it is less clear. Stomps, ressing and dodging are quite unique to this game, so its good that there are explanations for that. I think the different roles and what they should be doing is more complex, but actually that builds and traits to fulfill those roles is by far the most complicated thing.

There are 60 major traits and 15 minor traits on each class. There are then 3 heals to pick from, 3 elites to pick from and 20 slot skills to pick from. Then you have to choose your weapons to be appropriate to your build set, sigils for those weapons, runes for your armor. Then you have to choose your amulet which has a massive effect on the way the class plays. Sometimes people complain that there’s not enough build diversity or enough choice, and thats simply because some traits aren’t viable, but to a new player that doesnt really matter, its much harder to know which traits are useful.

There are a lot of excellent guides out there for various builds, on youtube especially, that go into the builds in depth and explain the details of them in full. I’d say once you’d picked what role you wanted to be, a mail could be sent to the account of the player linking them to a general youtube tutorial for PvP (Woodenpotatoes started a PvP for dummies series, its not been finished yet but something along those lines), and also a tutorial for the build that they specifically requested.

I imagine this would be easier to implement than anything in game.

There’s a lot of discussion about ways to increase the player base for the PvP side of the game. There was a post in another topic about the tutorial being poor and trying to improve it, but a Dev said that, while they are looking to do that, it makes sense to improve rewards/everything else to keep people involved once they join, which is fair enough. Personally, I think the Devs need to either make Pvp a completely free part of the game with the cash shop still or do trial weekends once a month, with just the mists open to trial players. Give them there own servers for games, but that would really only work if the tutorials improved

This thread though is about what could be done to improve the tutorial. I would personally love to see role specific tutorials. When they enter, there would be a video, just showcasing a tour of a map. So you’d show the bases where the players are, then youre taken to the home point and are told that its the closest point to your base, normally one player from your team will go to cap it and try to keep it from enemy players, known as the “home bunker”. Then you get to mid and it says the bunker and roamers go here. I would stick to having bunkers and roamers when explaining it, but you get the general gist.

After that, based on their profession you give them a choice of what they want to do. So if youre a thief, they say thieves are best at roaming. If youre a guardian they say guardians can be bunkers or roamers, which of these most appeals to you? Or something similar.

At that point you give them a build from the meta that suits that role, one that is known to be effective, and then have a guide that briefly talks them through why different weapons/utilities and traits have been chosen. Perhaps by using tooltips on mouseovers or perhaps with a video.

Then, a game would start, with AI as the other players. You would get arrows on the floor like you do in the personal story telling you which way to go, and the fight starts. If youre a bunker, then you make it so that one of your team goes down near you first, and you res them, and then you get one of the other guys down, and you stomp them.

A home bunker might have one guy come to him at the start of the game, and he’d be told to try to keep him off the point, or possibly have a button that will allow him to call for help from the AI. Then if that was won, you’d show him where the other players are on the map and he’d see that no one was going to home point, and move to mid. Then as soon as they got one guy killed fully at mid, a quest would come up again to go back to home, etc.

If you want players to learn sPvP I think you actually need to get them into the game environment. Obviously this is massively ambitious for a tutorial and there’s a lot going on, but perhaps a few years down the line we might get something like this.

Slightly less ambitious would be to send them into a 5v5 hotjoin and give them lots of hints and tips about where to go, that they can stomp people, etc.

Have you guys got any thoughts?

Hambow warriors (0 10 30 0 30) running with trip signet (heal, dolyak and elite) and the condi immune and extra stab utilities are the problem. One of the main problems with them is the trait that increases crit chance on stunned enemies by 50% applies before the stun damage applies. The earthshaker, for instance, will hit the enemy, stun them, and then do damage, gaining the bonuses from that trait and making the damage absolutely massive.

A 7 second cooldown on an AoE stun is just ridiculous, I can’t believe warriors werent running this build months and months ago, just for that. I love the fact that the training dummy basically runs this spec and no one thought to try it.

The healing signets heal is the real problem though, if you haven’t got poison, as a zerker, they are incredibly hard to take down. A zerker mesmer, a high damage class, using its most damaging weapon, the Greatswords, just using its autoattack won’t actually reduce the health of the warrior, that is just insane.

They have control, high damage, stability, condi clears (especially with lyssa runes) sustain, tools to stomp and res, high swiftness uptime. That is everything! All they don’t do is support others but solo theyre absolute machines.

I think youre missing my point, I accept that Engineers are the best profession as a Jack of all Trades class. More than that, I relish it, I’m really glad they’re able to have a go at everything. However at the moment, I think they are only “best” at far point assault. I think Necros bring more as a Condi Dps at the midfight, but they arent bad there. They can be semi decent home bunkers, have reasonable support through group healing, but all these things limit them in other areas.

But I want them to be better because theyre harder to play! Otherwise everyone will just play whats easiest to play, why bother playing something where you’ll be punished for making mistakes if you can play something where you won’t make mistakes and wouldnt be punished as harshly.

You can’t make everything as hard as Engineers because it would make the game too difficult to pick up. You can’t make everything as good as Engineers because then they’d become worthless.

I don’t think that in any one build the Engineer brings to a Team Arena, that they then don’t have the capacity to change, they bring significantly more than anyone else, not to the degree that youre suggesting. They have a lot of options, and can play a lot of different ways, but once their traits and utilities are set they dont have that much more to offer than other classes.

I think Engineers are in a great place at the moment, and would hate to see their current state change at all

Mrbig.8019:

Engies are the gods of GW2. And i’m fine with it, since they’re the highest skill cap proff in the game.

But it’s simply not fair for other professions, because they’ve design flaws unlike engies, and it’s not fair for those who like other professions and will NEVER reach engi capabilities simply because their proff doesn’t have the tools to reach that level

I completely agree that engineers have the highest skillcap in the game, assuming youre taking a build with multiple kits. Its like managing an elementalist with 0 attunement Cooldown. That doesn’t mean they’re flawed, it just means they aren’t as complex, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!

However, I think what youre asking for is that every profession is given the tools to be as versatile as the Engineer. Either you do this without fundamentally changing the dynamics of each profession, which won’t change the skill cap, which will make the risk/reward for the Engineer totally worthless. Or you make every class as difficult as the Engineer, at which point everyone quits the game, because Engineer in Pvp is a niche market and is too much for most players. I’ve played 100 odd games on it, miles off mastering it.

To me, they’re perfect for advanced players that really enjoy the game, and I want them to stay as versatile as they are, because I want to see skill continue to be rewarded. I think Eles should be brought up to a similar level too.

People talk a lot about build diversity, Engineers can be effective running a lot of different things, if all youre after is build diversity, then thats fine, but I just want the Engineer to be a little bit better at a few roles, and I’ll be happy.

Before I start, I largely agree with you on a lot of your points. But I don’t think we come to the same conclusion.

Mrbig.8019:

Healing turret is the strongest HPS heal in the game, probably secondo only to Ether feast with 3 illusions up and Consume conditions with max conditions.

Without accounting regen, which makes healing turret the best one.

Healing turret is 6360 every 20 seconds with overcharge, 5340 every 15 seconds without. Thats 356 healing per second, adding the regen its 399 per second and removes two conditions. Healing signet heals for 392 per second. It is however the hardest heal skill (imo) to use, this is a running theme..

Consume conditions will only outdo this if you have more than 5 conditions on you every time you heal, but its the strongest because it removes every condition and removes poison before the heal. Ether Feast gives 374 hps with 3 illusions up, 342 with two illusions up.

Mrbig.8019:

It’s a water field that can be blast by turret detonate, shield 4 and big ol bomb, multiple times by multiple blast finishers ( not only engies ones).

HEaling turret toolbelt skill is also a water field.

I saw an Engineer/Ranger team that ran without a guard and won all the team fights by blast finishing in water fields. I think thats a really exciting way to play, that requires coordination and rewards skill level! Why would you not want something like this?!

Mrbig.8019:

In team fights ( huge team fights ) an engi can always drop smoke bomb, blast finisher and stealth away, or simply jumping away with the elixir gun ( if he has it).

This takes time and is fiddly to setup, which normally you don’t have when escaping. Thieves, Rangers, Elementalists, Necromancers all have options for far easier escapes than this. If you’re skillful enough to do it though, why not reward it?

Mrbig.8019:

With granades and bombs they have incredible impact on field control and downed bodies control.

Downed body control, along with our water field, is the best thing we bring to team fights. All classes have ways to do it, and Nade/bomb spam is far from the best (necro wells/marks, mesmer shatters, I could go on). Other than the Poison Grenades though, they are not fields, which provide better field control in general. All spamming grenades will lead to is you being the target.

Mrbig.8019:

If opponents have no stability they can push away all stompers, stealth the ally ( smoke bomb+ big ol bomb or shield 4) and easily ress him with no need for elixir R ( which they can also carry).

No stability? Guardians have a trait that automatically activates to push stompers away. Thieves could just shove a shadow refuge down. The method you’re speaking about is incredibly fiddly, its only 3 seconds of stealth per blast! You can’t get someone ressed in that time. Taking Elixir R means you don’t have a stun break, no one does it anymore.

Mrbig.8019:

They’re the best decappers by far.

They’re the strongest 1vs1 profession, aside maybe dps guards, and lose consistently only against necros ( spirit rangers can also beat them if they see them before engaging).

With supply crate they can win any 1vs1, against any proff, even 2vs1.

They offer AoE CCs, field control, stealth, stomps, good ress capability if they have CDs available, a water field EVERY 15 SECS AND ANOTHER ONE EVERY 20 ( reason why it can be easily compared with Healing spring), AN AOE HEAL EVERY 15 SECS ( reason why it’s better than Healing spring) very good damage and can also easily beat those wars you talked about by simply taking a trait ( protection injection).

I’d strongly argue mesmers are the strongest 1v1 class, just with builds that are not tournament play viable. They do make good decappers, as they have good CC and are decent 1v1, though not unequivocally the best. Most Engineers will take Protection injection and often Stabilized Armor too if they see Warriors on the other team, it helps in 1v1s, but not so much if youre being focused and the stunbreak choices for Engineer are poor.

Their Aoe CC is heavily countered by the amount of Stab in the game at the moment, but yeah, thats a bonus that not many other classes have. The stealth they have is very minimal. Thieves and Mesmers have far far more. They have a safe stomp on a 60 second CD, otherwise they are ill equipped to stomp, though they do have good access to blinds.

Mrbig.8019:

I hate to say this, since probably Engi is the most “skill requiring” profession in the whole game, along with few other builds.

But they have too much.

Strong CCs, strong conditions, the strongest heal in game, very good mobility, great support.

It’s been like this for months right now, but very few complain about it ( altough we all know it).

I don’t think they should be nerfed since they have so many tools it’s fantastic, i really believe all classes should strive to be like the engi.

But since there are classes with obvious limitations due to their design, it’s not possible.

So they should be nerfed in a way or another, because they simply have TOO MUCH, with the possibility of being very tanky doing so ( unlike the mesmer, which also is capable of doing tons of things but needs to sacrifice its survivability in order to be efficient, or needs to go full bunker).

I’m not biased, i really love you engies, but you’re too stronk.

I’d argue that Consume Conditions is a far far stronger heal. If youre looking for a waterfield its all about healing spring, Think about the amount of time an engi has to spend healing up compared to most classes, ok its pretty much uninteruptable but the condi cleanse is invaluable and actually one of our only active condi cleanses if youre not playing elixir build.

When you say very good mobility, they have a lot of swiftness, sure. What support are they bringing other than what can be provided by blast finishers? The healing spring gives a bit I guess, and supply crate is an excellent elite, but that’s really it in terms of real support.

Yeah they do have a lot of CC, but they also have virtually no access to stability in the specs youll be talking about them in.

Theres a lot you’ve missed out there, sustain, which they have if theyre skillful and use defensive kits but not otherwise and condi removal, which the current meta spec really lacks. Its virtually impossible to beat half decent Necromancers on an Engineer, or any true Condi specs for that matter. Theyre one of the easiest targets to take down in a team fight, and actually I only see there role as being far point support.

They are very good 1v1, but it takes skill to do that, some specs can handle a 2v1 better than a lot of other classes in the game, but those specs dont have all the things that you were talking about.

Look at the current Hambow warrior. It has sustain, excellent condi clears, control, high damage, mobility not that far off the engi, excellent 1v1 capability and good team fight support. It has a lot more for a significantly lower skill cap at the moment.

Now that is changing, but just to put it in perspective. What role do you see them in where you feel theyre OP?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Anyone-enjoying-new-match-making/first#post3206222
People are yeah. I think its very easy to get a bad impression off one game. I played like 8 games earlier and they were all close but we won them all.

Just now I lost 5v4. As in the team I was playing on had 5 and they had 4, the entire game, and we still lost. A game before that I was put with someone who I know is in the top 50 on the leaderboard for soloq and teamq. In that game I had one guy completely clueless, and another who was in his 4th ever PvP game. Now thats fine, but this is one reason why I dont think a rank 10 limit for solo queue would be unreasonable. Basically it meant me and the guard fought on mid and home respectively 1v1s most of the game while they didnt win a 3v2.

Rant over but yeah, I’m just wondering how I’m getting matched up with both those two kinds of people. I know its late and I dont need perfect matchmaking, but if theres more than ten people on surely it could be done a bit better?

Overall though I think the change has made a big difference, I hope to see some kind of class balancing, even if its just preventing more than 2 of each class being on your team, and no more than 1 set of 2 of the same class, or something similar

Also if you log in to the website you can at least see what your own rank is, but yeah, provided your top 1000 gwshack is far friendlier to navigate and has a search tool.

Sometimes thats down, in which case I use http://mos.millenium.org/pvp_rankings as a backup which you can at least sort by server to see where you are

Justin ODell.9517:

You were most likely dropping because more AFK players have been returning, reclaiming their previous position on the leaderboard.

I do agree that this is annoying, and we are going to change this.

No problem, I figured this might be the case, glad to hear that it doesnt tell you your rank has gone down by as many % as its gone up by and vice versa honestly. Just confusing that someone who I’m fairly sure hadn’t played had gone up by 1% where I had gone down, him not having played a match since the last update and me having won loads.

Ok, thanks
15charsetc

Well given that I started the day at 88% and my rating has gone up by 3% but its telling me its gone down by the same amount that would make some sort of sense. Would be nice to clarify if this is a bug with the leaderboards. I know for a fact some of my friends that have been afk are shown as going up by x% despite not having played today, perhaps for the same reason

I try not to obsess about where I am on the leaderboards, but I’ve recently been trying to increase my rank in SoloQ in the hope that I’ll have more enjoyable matches. At the start of the day I was 111 wins to 109 losses.

I’ve since won 7 games in a row, 5 of which have shown up on this leaderboard. I was ranked at 88%

Link

That is a link to the leaderboard, for some reason my ranking has gone down by 3% from 94%, which I must assume at some point I reached, and its gone down by that without me losing at all.

I’d just like some clarification on how else the Rating is calculated, do the points that you get in the game matter for instance? It seems it can’t just be a win/lose basis.

The role of a home bunker whose aware of home point while supporting at mid is one of the most helpful roles.

A guardian bunker on mid is incredibly useful, provided his team play with that fact in mind, but they often don’t.

I’ve won 6 games in a row as a far point node assaulter Engineer, I actually think this is an incredibly effective way to mess your opponents up.

So, I’d probably say Spirit Ranger at #1, then Engineer assaulting far (and helping other bases of course, you have to be a decent engineer who won’t lose 1v1s, and know to leave far if you are) and Bunker Guard at #3. Other classes do make effective home bunkers too

Divinity.8041:

Have not played since patch, are you saying there are CLASS ICONS on the mini map telling where everyone is now? No more sneaks on the creatures etc.?

Not quite no, that would be absurd. Provided the enemy player is in line of sight of your team (which i presume means in combat as I’m not sure how else this would be implemented) they show up on the minimap

JonSnow.5610:

I like the changes at the cannon itself, no more 4 panels but 2 instead.
The railings also help at certain points, so you have at least a chance to re-position or not get insta-feared off.

But the main issue is still stealth breaking the glass and pulling someone in. For this I would suggest that stealth simply doesn’t break the glass. Or change the lay-out of the side points somewhat to avoid this.

You know nothing, Jon Snow

Couldn’t resist. This is one of my main problems with the hammer room, I’m always alert to people coming in, but if a thief shadow refuges far enough away, you can miss the fact he might come to cannon, and its difficult to keep a watch on both the entrance and the cannons themselves.

Definitely an improvement, though I like that the hammer room is still a zone where knockbacks are king if they aren’t dodged properly. Adds a totally different type of fighting into the game that I’ve really enjoyed creating builds for. Hammer Scepter/Shield Guard is the king imo

Actually it just updated, seems that it didnt take them into account until just now, weird

I played some games about 3 hours ago against some decent opposition, by my wins/losses havent updated since then and my rank hasn’t changed. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this problem

Wouldnt you want the daze mantra in that spec? =S

I think we’ll probably see a mix, I don’t expect the Hambow to drop out in this patch

Are you frustrated because you can’t get the armor tokens (i.e. light helm token) themselves? A minor point but I have known people of higher rank than you to not know that you can buy these tokens from the vendors, just thought I’d check! Since Champions Light armor is an arcane orb recipe apparently, so should be quite easy to craft.

I actually think matchmaking has come on this patch based on the matches I’ve done, it still needs work but its getting there. I agree that there should be harsher punishments for afkers/leavers. I actually dont have as much of a problem with this meta as most people do, but totally agree that a triple kit engineer/elementalist should be able to do more than a beastmaster ranger can, but currently people run simpler specs because they work, but also because there is a high reward to skill base on them. I do think though that engineers can be played immensely well as far point assaulters through very skillful play though, so there are some improvements there.

The combat in the game was far too quick, the reason we have a condi meta is, I believe, an attempt to slow the game, and its worked. Better this meta than backstab thiefs and 100b warriors.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It’s not my place to be giving design reasoning behind changes so I can try to get one of the guys to give a statement on this but the way I see it is that this change helps lessen the gap we have in player skill level. It’s an awesome quality of life improvement to team coordination and it’s going to help matches remain more competitive across the board. Team’s using voice comms will still have an upper advantage but I think that reducing the amount mal-rotations happening is a positive change.

Like I said in my original post, I actually think this was a fantastic decision in terms of Soloq, not bothered about it in hotjoin, and I think it takes away the skill level in Teamq, but aside from that, I do have a suggestion for a different improvement.

If you couldn’t see the characters fighting within say, 1500 range of you, on the minimap, then it would prevent mesmers deception being affected, but it would also prevent other people from seeing people trying to disengage that they might otherwise not have noticed.

If you implemented this change, you could have only one icon for the mesmer, as it doesn’t matter that you know which mesmer it is on another point, unless you take into account the fact teammates might communicate that to their team, but most points are normally such a mess theres no time to coordinate that in tPvP.

I outlined this suggestion in more detail having fully analysed the way the system works in this Post

I actually agree with you in general that the negative impact of having mesmer clones on the map is far outweighed by the downsides but I do think a different system needs to be in place.

Edit: Also completely agree that icons need to be smaller to reduce clutter, perhaps down to 2/3 size or so. That would help massively with generally interpreting the map. The players icons still showing up when dead is a slight issue, but I assume that is something you are looking to fix, given that downed allies/enemies already show up on the minimap

I’m not sure how difficult it would be to implement, but I would much prefer a system that completely hides any enemies that are within a certain range of you. Why should you know if for instance on TotSS someone is on the roof at Gate without looking up there, regardless of class.

Obviously, in this system (certainly in solo queue) there would be no need for mesmer clones to be shown. This would mean that you could get a clear idea of the numbers fighting at each node you were not at, while not being able to gain any advantage from seeing where enemies are. I also use the minimap occasionally to identify a downed ally that I’m sure was near me but is no longer in sight, and the clustering around you is of detriment to that, though this is a rare event.

Given the choice though between the new system and the old, its difficult. Sometimes it offers very good information, especially when no mesmers are present. But even without them a node with more than 6 enemies on it becomes difficult to pick out now. Honestly, I’d probably go back to the old system myself relying on class knowledge to identify who and what is where by the condis and health bars on my team mates.

I do like the idea, just don’t agree with the way its been implemented.

I made a post irritated that mesmer clones were showing up as individual enemies on the minimap, at the time wondering if this was a bug or working as intended. I had a think about the possible upsides and downsides to the current system, this is what I came up with

Upsides:
If the mesmer clones are there, and the mesmer stealths, the mesmer icon would disappear on the map as you do not have “line of sight” to the mesmer. This ruins the illusion of any clones and stealth that the mesmer has, and people know to wait for someone to pop out of stealth.

If the mesmer is attempting to disengage, and you notice a mesmer icon running off the point, where you might not have noticed the disengage otherwise, then this is a negative, not totally certain how the line of sight feature works yet, do they just have to be in combat? A player can get out of line of sight by hiding behind a pillar, so I’m not basing anything off that description before some confirmation

I find it very hard to believe that someone who can’t identify the real mesmer normally is somehow able to in normal combat from the minimap, especially given the lack of zoom on the map, and the small space that the clones are confined to, so while a minor point in my opinion I suppose I had best include it.

Downsides:
You can’t see exactly who is on the point as the points are now cluttered with endless clones.

Now when I voice the arguments like that I can see that Anet may have taken the decision to go for Clones being visible on the map. I also already stated that I think this is a massive boon to soloq, but that the cluster on the map interface makes it a lot less useful for movement.

I figure its a bug, and that’s absolutely fine, I completely accept that these things happen. I’d just like to know whether or not its intended or it would be nice to have confirmation its a bug

Well thats my point exactly, I joined the game late and forgot to check the team, and I did realise there werent 4 mesmers fairly quickly when I was being hit on by a ranger and thief hah. I just don’t understand why they would have taken this decision, I assume this is the way everyone else is seeing it?

First of all, this was a pretty big change to the way that Solo q and Team q work, and I’d be interested to know in what parts of PvP this has been implemented, for now I’m going to presume its across the board.

Hotjoins: I feel like this just clusters the map in an 8v8 and makes it very hard to see where you can actually make an impact, in 5v5 its mostly fine and makes sense for new players to see that kind of thing.

Soloq: This has the potential to be a massive bonus by breaking down the barriers posed by limited communication to open up the possibility of better play, here to me it makes perfect sense.

Teamq: At this level, I feel like its too much pandering to the game. Communication of who and what is where is a crucial part of the team arena, and if I for instance know that the thief is at far point, I’ll quite happily come to mid as the homepoint bunker. The thief himself might be being cautious and my team mate might not even have noticed him at this point, I feel its reduced the skillcap in this area of play.

Now for my gripe: I went into my first Solo queue game since the patch and I was rushing far on Forest. I looked to see what was happening across the rest of the map, and I couldnt tell at all what was happening on mid. Considering I had 2 people with me on far, I swore I could see at least 5 people at mid, which really confused me. Turns out that mesmer illusions showed up on my map as separate entities, hence me thinking there were about 4 on their team when in fact it was only one.

I’m not sure if this is working as intended, but if so it clouds and already hectic UI tool that you no longer even can zoom in to reduce the clutter, making it much harder to discern where the enemy are, but more importantly where your team mates are if they are fighting across all points.

I feel it was in a better place when you knew exactly where your team mates were personally, than this confusion, but it would be good to get some feedback on this!

Bump, Updated Post

It’s an obvious gripe that communication in solo queues is bad, but there’s bad and there’s non existant. I have been queueing all day and each time I go into a match I attempt to put together some kind of strategy, getting an idea of what builds my team mates are running, asking if anyone can switch if we have 3 rangers say or are missing a bunker guard.

What baffles me is that in probably 3/4 games, I get absolutely no response. None of the players communicate back at all. I’m trying to put together a strategy so that we have a better chance of winning, that’s all, and to me it’s as those these people don’t care about winning.

I’ve been very frustrated all day, but I thought I’d come here just to ask if you guys communicate in Soloq when you run them?

OGDeadHead.8326:

jonnis.2946:

Personally I use the main hand sword a lot in PvP, and do this mainly by disabling the auto attack, though I don’t feel its always necessary. For anyone irritated by not being able to dodge, just try it with the autoattack disabled and see how much you can improve when you control the leap movement.

…beating the dead horse some more

Even though there are some neat tricks you can do by disabling autoattack on sword#1, and also get more control over your character in the process, it still feels like a workaround to the issue most brought up with the sword – the inability to dodge during the certain parts of the chain.
Another workaround is to swap weapon and dodge. Should we really have to resort to workarounds?

“All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional”

Currently being the keyword here. For some QOL improvements, I hope you change your intentions some day.
No don’t change the behavior of sword#1 (I love it!), just allow dodge to override all skills (goes for all classes).

The fact is the ranges on the 2nd and 3rd part of the sword weapon are 400+. This means that the auto attack chain will follow an opponent for you rather than forcing you, like on pretty much any other melee attack chain, to follow them for yourself. Yet another example of passive play for the ranger, and yes its unique. I’d much rather have another one of the attacks be a melee range attack though and be able to dodge in it, the only time you can execute a dodge, is just after the third part of the AA chain and its impossible to interrupt the chain.

This makes for terrible terrible play at high levels, as you can’t use the evades efficiently in clutch situations. I can’t think of another weapon that does this, look at the GS attack chain. You can interupt any one of the three spells at any time by using another weapon skill, which you can’t do with the sword.

Personally I believe the reason they dont want to change it is that its the only melee weapon in the game that does a lot of the movement for you, add to the list yet another ranger class tool that is designed to be basic. The frustration from a lot of players that enjoy ranger is based around all this passive play designed for beginners, our best condition removal is passive, whatever % of our damage is pet damage, passive, melee tracking, passive, pet control skills/heals, passive or so out of our control they may as well be.

I really enjoy my ranger still, and look forward to the next patch given that I think the support provided will be very powerful. I agree that the sword AA needs some work, but I just can’t see it happening because Rangers continue to be the beginner class.