I know this is a revolutionary idea.. but you could always consider giving some player credit for just being better than you or perhaps even, gasp, a good player?
Hard to do that when you absolutely unload on them and they only lose 1/3 of their health. Then they do one burst to you and you’re at like 1/4th of your health. Warriors are way too easy to play and they’re a bit too strong IMO. They can be handled, but you have to be playing very well and for a large majority of DPS builds, you will probably have to step off the point you’re defending in a 1v1 where as they usually don’t have to.
I was talking to the OP, but since you’re responding and your nick is “assassin” I suspect you main a thief class. I must say that thiefs are among the easiest and cheesiest classes in the game if not right at the apex of cheese.
I know this is a revolutionary idea.. but you could always consider giving some player credit for just being better than you or perhaps even, gasp, a good player?
@mooty try getting this map 3x in a row 4v5. It’s not fun. I play guard on this map for the banish Lols but I got to say playing 4v5 all the time on this map takes all the fun out for both sides. It wasn’t nearly as bad before as it is now. It has gone past the point of ridiculousness where one can expect that atleast one person will drop out. For that reason alone this map should be removed from solo q rotation.
Want to add that I don’t “hate” the map. It makes me laugh a lot. But I do hate playing in a 4v5 even if I am the one on a full team.
4v5 is a reality of sPvP, particularly hot join… it can happen on any map. It’s annoying but the solution to that (should it be completely unacceptable to you) is always to play with people you can count on.
Skyhammer is comedy.. furthermore, people whining about it when winning/losing on Skyhammer is of little consequence is even more comedy.
I don’t follow this logic. Because you can might stack with celestial that makes it overpowered, even though you can might stack with any amulet?
I think the argument is more like might stacking makes celestial much more viable, not that it makes it overpowered. It’s true that the damage is that much less without might stacks, thus making it a crutch that can be countered, where as berserker spec’d players get even more damage out of might stacking while it’s not entirely necessary.
Problem is, runesets like Strength + Hoelbrak allows these hybrid specs to pack nearly as much overall power as a Soldier spec with much more condi damage and as much (or more) defensive potential .
If might stacking rune sets and sigils were exclusive to celestial amulets, I would complain about it, but that’s not the case. They also allow power heavy amulets like soldier and berserker to add even more power, etc.
Unfortunately some of the greatest achievements are accomplished not by an individual, but by teams. I’m very much convinced that the death of GW2 was somebody’s enormous ego and need to have it validated.
That could be a reason for the change in design philosophy but GW2 is neither dead nor dying, it’s a pretty successful 2nd year MMO. What’s dead is most of the support of the original GW1 player base who hoped to see some semblance of the game in GW2.
I really don’t have any good insight into the matter but I think it was more like a new group of developers who had different ideas about how the game should be and wanted to move forward with their own ideas. I also think it was probably a bit irresponsible to, while using the franchise name, deviate so much from the established game formula. However, what’s done is done and here we are. If GvG(as we know it from GW1, not this senseless royal rumble wrestlemania crap in WvW), can ever make sense in GW2 context then so be it, but until then expect something different.
This is a viable weapon in the same sense longbow ranger is viable when no one’s paying attention to you. If you could pole vault with it or something a la engi’s jump shot, I would use it a lot more.
It’s tough to argue against the merits of using celestial builds but not every weapon set suits them. i.e. you probably don’t want to play longbow ranger with celestial as it’s hard to bring the damage up to par as it is. You might also have some wasted investment, for instance, healing power on the hambow spec doesn’t scale much despite having ~700+ on average with celestial.
For the moment, I wouldn’t call them entirely OP since other amulet specs(i.e. berzerker/soldier/rabid) are still the norm. If, however, at some point in the future it’s all you see.. then I’d say it’s time to look at scaling them back a bit.
Just talking hot join here, tPvP is a different animal.
It doesn’t make any sense to punish someone for leaving. I know this is hard for some folks to understand but real life matters tend to trump gaming matters. It would make more sense to punish someone for creating a mismatch like joining a 4v4 in progress and making it 4v5. However, it would be heavy handed to do so since, ultimately, a 5v5 match is ideal and waiting for another person so you can synchronously join teams is a bit clunky and not realistic.
If the engine was designed so it would queue players to introduce one on each side at a given time, that would work much better. Unfortunately, it would still leave the door open for a player to leave and create a mismatch that way.
The bottom line here is that hot join is designed for casuals to jump in and out and make the most of short periods of game play time. If you can grasp that, maybe you can grasp that it doesn’t need to be taken too seriously and win/loss is basically arbitrary.
It seems to me that spectator mode is a fantastic tool for novice players to learn and improve. I’m no longer a novice at this stage but I still use spectator to learn about various builds and player strategies.
LotrO has the worst PvP
I couldn’t agree more. LotRO wasn’t designed for PvP so it was a bit of an after thought and it shows. On a side note, LotRO isn’t even the PvE game it used to be.. it’s now a grind fest with menial difficulty and no more classic raid instances(the developers stated as much).
How would this not be allowed? We have 5 shadow refuges, we all have tanky ammy’s and guaranteed 100% crit from stealth. While in stealth 3 of us are regening 300 something hp/s (not including our heal), and the other 2 are giving us – 50% dmg reduction while in stealth (not to mention the regen our valk thief is throwing out for another 200 or so hp/s. You won’t kill us, we’ve thoroughly tested it and we can face tank it all, we even have mercy runes so even if you managed to down one of us he will be back up instantly (and still invisible). Yet, we can still all coordinate our backstab to hit for 25k+ to one shot someone, 4 of us cleave, 1 shadow step stomp, and gg. We double dodge out shadow refuge and game is over. Can’t wait. It’s gonna be fun :/.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least bit if this was viable. Thief abilities aside(that’s another can of worms), I’ve always thought stealth was a broken mechanic by default unless restricted in certain ways, i.e. inhibitively long CDs for entering stealth while in combat. It seems to be manageable in small doses but when exacerbated by groups of thieves, it’s a problem. I realize that in GW1 everyone was visible on the compass map, even behind obstructions. That much awareness is ridiculous but full blown “stealth” and the current implementation of it may be swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.
The game will never be an e-sport because it lacks depth at a fundamental game play level. Combat is too simple and has a certain twitch element to it(GW1 and MOBA players alike prefer more cerebral combat). Dodging and evasion has a nice feel but it prevents players from being methodical about skill choice and usage. In many cases you can avoid attacks without even being aware of them.
Conquest wasn’t the best choice as a general sPvP mode but it’s not terrible and could benefit from a few tweaks(i.e. multiple players affecting point captures). I think they chose it because of the popularity of alliance battles in the previous installment and because they feel movement is of vital importance to this game.
I think they’re aware that sPvP lacks variety and are working on bringing something new to the table soon. The courtyard map, however awful, is an indication of that.
Just my two cents.
Not sure if srs. Different strokes I guess? Either way, I still think this is one of the better PvP games in the MMORPG genre. Not as in-depth as GW1 but still manages to be more fun and balanced than most titles out there.
This elite is about as useful as Kick.
Kick is a pretty decent skill. It’s multipurpose since it’s a knock back(interrupt, create distance, stop a finish, knock people over the edge). It has the shortest cooldown of all the warrior CC utility skills. It can cleave up to three targets.
What exactly is bad about that? .. or do you mean this elite concept is that good?
If GW2 had fewer skills for better balance though, why isn’t it balanced? There is still a meta with professions that are thrown to the wayside in certain aspects of the game.
It has fewer skills to eliminate the problems associated with having sub optimal builds and the resulting exclusion. I don’t know how much this design choice really helps but I will say it’s certainly not the only thing helping. Designing each class to be self sustaining and (somewhat) perform each role goes a long way toward eliminating the need for a particular team composition. There’s also quite a bit of gameplay depth lost in the process but that’s the system we have.
I would like to see more varied and challenging content as well. I have a few friends who passed on this game since there’s no serious “raid” style end-game PvE content. Granted, GW1 didn’t really have it either, but the enemies were more apt to run up and one shot you if you made a mistake and we were still able to create tanking mechanisms through exploiting some minor AI rules. That’s one of the problems with eschewing the trinity, it’s much harder to create compelling gameplay mechanics for large PvE groups.
At this point all I can do is wait and see… still half a dozen other MMOs on the market to fill that void for PvE purposes.
Something needs to be clarified about “meta” here. The term doesn’t refer strictly to viable builds, it refers to popular builds in current usage. Most of which would be quite viable by default since they’re in widespread use.
I don’t see many of the so-called meta builds in use in PvE that some folks tout on the forums here. I think they’re actually just calling things meta in the hopes that people will adopt them. So I don’t think this attitude is stunting GW2’s build diversity at all.. it’s just that some builds work and well, others don’t. In PvP, competition and observation mode drives people to adopt the most optimal builds or hope they can play it as well as someone else. They usually give the build more credit than the player in the process but the end result is that a PvP meta is tangible and exists.
Many of the viable builds you speak of are really just variations on a theme. I’m not saying there were less than 5 optimal builds. I’m saying that beyond 5 was mostly just slight variations of the original 5. Just because you switch two skills out doesn’t really make it a completely new and distinct build.
I don’t refer to a single skill swap i.e. dev hammer for magehunter’s smash or deathpact signet for res signet. That was just the icing on the cake and the fact that you could draw these single skill swaps from secondary classes made it even sweeter. Yes, some builds are variations on a theme and they revolved around a particular elite skill. I’m talking about different builds that looked vastly different as well as playing very differently. For the record, SoGM and SoS were similar spirit spam builds but ST was a different beast.
Furthermore when I speak of non-viable builds, I’m talking about ludicrous stuff like Echo + Mending. The vast majority of skill permutations fall under this catagory.
The echo + mending combo was just a punchline. Yes, people used mending from time to time(55 monks and warriors leaving pre-searing comes to mind), but like hamstorm, no one really used builds like this past a certain point in leveling. Think about it, why would you echo mending? Some people do nonsensical things but that would really take the cake without it being satirical in some way.
There’s exceptions to the rule regarding AP. Some players with a large amount of AP are pretty mediocre or just plain bad at the game. Some players with a low amount of AP are quick at mastering the game and may instinctively know what to do in many situations. Some players with a low amount of AP are great at player micro and spend all their time in sPvP, thus earning AP at a low rate.
Much like sPvP rank however, it is still a very good guideline as to whether you can trust a random pug or not in a given situation. Is it a perfect gauge of that player? No, absolutely not, but it’s close enough.
If you look back to GW1 and the popular builds used, there weren’t really all that many per class. Some had more than others.
You’re mistaken. Almost every class had at least 5 or more optimal builds and those builds could be tweaked further due to secondary class choices and non-fixed weapon skills. The most limited classes were probably the Ritualist in a PvP setting and the Paragon in a PvE setting, but they still had as much variety, depending on the task, as any class in GW2.
So to start the conversation, How did we go from creating almost endless combos of builds in GW1 to being pigeon hold into certain builds to fit the meta in GW2? Is there any chance that things will improve or only get worse?
There were optimal “meta” builds in GW1 but there was still more diversity because of secondary classes, larger skill pools and the fact that weapon skills weren’t fixed to a particular weapon type for a given class.
As I understand it, the reason GW2’s skill system is somewhat more fixed is that Arenanet wanted to reduce problems with sub-par builds and the resulting exclusion of a player for it.
If Arenanet decides to unfix weapon skills that will obviously go a long way but there’s also the option of introducing new weapons to classes. I think we’re more likely to see the latter, which means slightly more diversity but nothing will replicate the feel of GW1 without recreating it as it was.
The way the game calculates condition damage is by using the highest value. If player A has 500 condition damage and player B has 3000, then the game will use player B’s value for all stacks regardless of who applied them.
I don’t believe it works this way. I think it actually keeps track of individual numbers per stack. It will even do this if it’s a single stack as it is in burning and poison, in this case it will alter the damage value per tick.
I don’t know how much time you’ve spent playing other classes but shout based heals are not particularly efficient for group play. The amount healed per shout is decent enough but shout usage can be spotty with relatively long cooldowns and your team roaming out of shout range.
There are other classes that can group heal much more effectively, so if you really want to provide support as a warrior I would suggest focusing on offensive support. You can trait basically the same as before except change your Tactics line to V/VIII/XIII. Wear runes of strength, throw a sigil of strength on your GS and of course make sure you have plenty of critical chance. It can be quite easy to maintain 25 stacks of might in addition to the 150 power/170 precision/170 ferocity provided by other buffs. If you like, bring Banner of Strength for even more lolpve support, although I recommend sticking to a single banner since you can’t carry two at once from place to place. I’m actually not sure the warrior can be beat in terms of providing offensive support.
Thieves don’t necessarily have to come to you, they can sit at range with shortbow and still evade a lot of damage. You’d have to use obstructions to lure them and you definitely want to make them waste initiative. When they come in close, CC and burst.
Warrior is probably one of the easiest classes to pick up and be effective with. It’s somewhat forgiving due to it’s durability when in the fray. It does not, however, have more DPS than most classes. People see 30k tallied damage from Hundred Blades and figure it’s a DPS champ but that’s in ideal circumstances and the damage is over time.
It also has some nice defensive utility skills but on the other hand there’s very little defense built-in to it’s weapon skill sets. Balanced Stance/Dolyak Signet are among the best stun breaks in the game due to the fact that they provide stability. Berserker’s Stance will provide some condition immunity albeit with a small window and Endure Pain will provide some immunity to damage but the warrior will still be susceptible to conditions and disables. The larger picture here is that a warrior has to operate at melee range(primarily a melee class) and sustain damage from opponents at the same time since it doesn’t really have built-in evasion, invulns or other tools to keep it upright and alive.
Warriors are a nice low skill cap class for PvErs in what’s generally considered a low skill cap PvE game by the MMORPG community. Warriors are survivable in PvP but the skill cap is much higher here if you want to be successful.
Most of the time warriors can maintain fury with FGJ + SoR so it’s a non-issue to ignore Arcing Slice. However, there are some instances where it makes sense to use it occasionally, i.e. to augment might gain for Phalanx Strength or if you’re running Battle Standard instead of SoR, etc. This is mainly for pug use as organized teams should have a few viable sources of party wide fury.
Frankly, this is nitpicking, PvE is not very demanding in GW2 and thus you could go either way and still accomplish the task, handily.
Changing your client port to 80 only works if your ISP is traffic shaping your connection via the industry standard port 6112.
The idea is to mask your traffic as HTTP, as if you’re using the web instead of gaming. To avoid runaway download issues sometimes related to the upper range of ports(i.e. torrenting), some ISPs will paint in very broad strokes to make certain you’re using the internet in a way they approve.
So if that’s not the problem, it won’t fix anything.
The ambient lighting produced by flaming items like Fiery Dragon Swords and Mad Memories only shows up for the wearer. That’s what the wiki refers to.
It does depend largely on the player and build in question .. and how those factors measure up with your own build and ability to use your own build.
Rangers actually have some decent 1v1 specs. Condi/regen with a few traps can be a pain to counter due to heavy condition pressure along with evasion.
I’m not into zerg fests. Zergs will likely happen on 5 vs. 5’s, if the server is populated long enough. In the past the pirate/underwater map inspired zerg behaviour due to its design, but I digress.
Yes, if a server is played by the same players long enough, the better players will tend to gravitate toward one another. Why do you think 8v8 is any different?
Only having a mild chance of joining a server in weekends is not really an attractive alternative, admittedly.
Changing all the public servers back to 8v8 might make you happy, but it’s going to make other people unhappy… and the maps are designed for 5v5 anyway. The objectives are too thin, the maps are too small. GW2’s heavy use of particle effects and lack of skill meter make it very different to read character animations and react to things as is.
There are still a few public/custom rooms where players can 8v8 if you’re into zerg fests. They’re most likely to be inhabited during the weekend but if you linger long enough in one you might get a match going.
In GW1, skills were ~95% tied to weapons but not fixed to them. Instead, there was a large pool of skills available for a particular weapon and you could use anywhere from 0-8 of those skills on your 8-slot skill bar. The change in design for GW2 has something to do with GW1 players being ostracized for having unoptimized builds(i.e. not being able to determine the best combination of skills for a particular weapon). It was a good system and it allowed for much more variety in the way players could approach a particular weapon but I don’t think Arenanet will revert GW2 to the old system.
There are a handful of people still playing GW1, but it’s not the same. Having a large player base enhances the overall gaming experience of an MMORPG greatly. It’s also rather stagnant, having not seen a major content addition since 2007. The game peaked in 2008/09 or so and has slowly degraded since then. I can’t even recommend it to new players since they’ll end up kicking the tires in a virtual ghost town.
I don’t think we’ll see a remake, but perhaps Arenanet will revisit what made the game spectacular(and better than GW2 in many cases). There’s also the off chance someone could simply borrow the game mechanics and make a spiritual successor of sorts. We shall see…
I think it’s a safe bet that new weapon types will be introduced to the game sooner or later. It’s one of the best ways to incorporate new skills and playing styles since skills have become fixed to weapons in GW2. In addition, it plays into the gear acquisition system we have in place. People will be grinding away for new ascended and legendary weapons to have the best possible (insert weapon type).
The Guardian class can heal very effectively, the catch is that there’s no ally-to-ally skill micro in this game. So in order to distribute your heals, you have to activate them within a certain radial range of your allies. Being that the Guardian is a capable heavy armor melee class, you can jump into the fray to accomplish this if needed.
Some aspects of the old trinity design are still present while the Heal/DPS/Tank roles are most definitely still present in some form or another. It’s just not as straight forward as in other games.
Yes, Shared Anguish is a good trait but it’s for one CC and then it goes on 90 second cooldown. I don’t know if it even works should your pet be dead at the time it’s activated. The Ranger’s best stun prevention is probably Lightning Reflexes and good use of evasion. Rampage as One is not a stun break and hardly practical for Stability on demand, and traiting Signet of the Beastmaster isn’t typically worth it either. I’d trade it all away for a skill like “Balanced Stance” on the Ranger in a heartbeat.
I think it’s missing depth in the game play department.
Sophistication in mechanics for both PvE and PvP. More challenging instanced and cooperative PvE content in general(and by challenge I mean something cerebral, not bigger/faster/stronger foes). More variety in PvP that forces you to be more thoughtful about your approach, i.e. not conquest mode.
I think that’s really the crux of GW2, lack of sophistication for players who want something a bit more in-depth… and I think even just having that quality about the game would entire more casual players to stick around because they won’t feel like they’ve conquered it.
Ascended gear is fairly optional unless you want the best possible stats and/or to do high level fractals. GW2 is still primarily about cosmetics, like it’s predecessor. You can grind if you want to, but you don’t have to.
Say what you will about Balanced Stance but it’s on my warrior bar 99% of the time. It’s easily one of the best defensive utility skills a warrior has access to. I also don’t think it’s fair to compare it to invulnerable skills since warriors have other options that are much more worth of comparison. Endure Pain comes to mind. You might say that it’s less survivable than something like Elixir S or Mist Form but the warrior has more durability in general.
In every forum, for every class, for every MMORPG.. there’s going to be at least one person you simply can’t please. Granted, I have my gripes about some classes but I can cope and I still enjoy playing.
As much as I would hope that people could be objective and deal with some aspects of the game as it is, that’s not how the world works. Some people can’t figure out how to be successful and instead of changing their approach or playing something else, they ask the developer to change the game to suit them.
I noticed that I can’t seem to salvage equipment I’ve transmuted with the new wardrobe system. That ties up some runes on now unused stat spreads that I’m sure I could remove if only I spent many, many gems on upgrade removers.
Guild Wars 2 has very little in common with it’s predecessor, so if you’re looking for familiar ground you won’t find it in this game. That’s a sensitive topic for many GW1 fans and we’ve discussed it at length already so I’ll leave that one be. I’m sure people will mull it over again in this very thread without my help.
I can only suggest that you approach GW2 like it’s an all new franchise with a fresh set of concepts and game play mechanics. If that still doesn’t work for you, maybe the game is not for you.
A common tactic in PvP is to create mismatches in order to score kills. The trick is to avoid these situations as well as create them for yourself. I’m pretty sure you’re not out there getting demoralized when you help a fellow player in a 2v1.
Regardless, it sounds like you’re bored and/or unhappy with GW2 for now. Maybe it’s best you take a break, but remember you don’t have to subscribe to get back into the game down the road. You might, with some luck, have to buy an expansion. In that case it’s a one time fee and you’re still back in business.
Immobilize has some counters.
Condition reduction food in WvW along with a handful of traits(i.e. Dogged March, Leg Mods).
Removal via gap closer in the case of Mobile Strikes, Lightning Reflexes, Rocket Boots, etc.
Complete condition clears or immunity(Berserker’s Stance, Signet of Stanima, Elixir C, Lyssa’s runes(still viable))
It’s an annoying condition, no doubt, but it can be countered.
Thief is the most forgiving because it can both move quickly via infiltrator’s arrow and get to safety with stealth. Without stealth you can still roam but you might have players chasing you half way across the map.
Again, if you make such that you need condition damage dealers you will reduce build diversity because now you have to get them. You don’t have a choice.
You wouldn’t have to make every enemy into a high armor design, just a handful. Maybe you could place them in such a way that a condition spec would be useful for each run. Arenanet would problem shun that though, they seem to want to encourage the idea that you could throw any old group together and get things done.
To OP; What the game actually needs is more punishing cooperative PvE content that forces players to utilize a bit more defense. In most trinity style games, a squishy player does not want to draw the aggro of foes because they’ll get walloped, thus relying on a tank. It wouldn’t be quite the same in GW2 but if you give foes more CC, more damage and more conditions, you would entice players to reconsider being full-on glass. If you give foes an absurd amount of armor, players will realize they need conditions to do damage(thus encouraging build variety, etc.). It’s all in the design of PvE enemies.
There are a couple of issues, though. The players who feel the need to be defense oriented now are going to have a tough time of it against enemies that are less forgiving. There’s also a problem with retrofitting dungeons with new and more dangerous types of foes. Players who like the design as it is will gripe about this. So the solution would be to add it into new content. It may be the case that the oldest content is the weakest and easiest to conquer when it’s all said and done, which would require scaling rewards back for older stuff. It’s never cut and dry.