Guild Wars 2

Darnis.4056:

Isn’t this option already available through custum arenas?…

I’m sure you can turn off time/conquest nodes and set the team number to a maximum of 2 or 3…
and just duke it out.. Sure there’s no special reward in place.. but you want the game type not the reward or am I wrong?

Both. A. Having to set everything up ourselves isn’t idea. B. Either you deal with gankers OR passwords (this empty 1v1 rooms) that also have trolls once they get the password. C. It’d be nice to have rewards for constant effort, since it is so popular, it should become part of the core gameplay. Leaving everything up to the players and leaving rewards off of interesting set ups makes it less noob-friendly and less fun for people who devote a lot of time to it.

Spooko.5436:

2v2 and 3v3 are for simple trash players that cannot amass a full 5 and learn to communicate and coordinate.

Wow, good logic…

IDK no warrior (imo) is nearly as annoying as a full-wall Guardian. In conquest, those builds can kiss my kitten . I’ll deal with the warrior instead.

Most time people run MM its for flavor. It’s the most FUN way to play, just not the most effective. The reason I said I’m not sure what you mean, is because, most players who’ve been around for a few months was affected by or at least heard the uproar over Condition Necros and their sheer OP reign they had going on. I wasn’t sure if you meant totally minionless BECAUSE technically in most cases Flesh Golem is the best Elite to run with, which does make you “have a minion”. However, it’s not MM. Also if you’re power Lich Form can be good, but if you go conditions I wouldn’t really use plague in pve. The damage isn’t that great. Fleshy is better.

Phadde.7362:

ronpierce.2760:

2v2 is all I want out of this game. People say it’d be too short, but that’s certainly not true. Make it best of 3 and you instantly double or triple your time in there, and people are much more survivable when they can use their surrounding rather than being forced to stand on a circle(lol). Then have a button at the end for “Continue?” and it automatically ques you for the next arena. It’d be fun as HELL, and honestly I can’t imagine it being that hard to add… As long as the rewards were worth it. Come out with a NEW set of armor called Arena “armor” that you get via Arena Boxes and Arena Tokens. Bring in any armor sets that PVE has that PVP doesn’t and make those the lower tier (arcane orb and crystal) sets, then have the Sliver/higher tier set be fresh and flashy. It’d be great fun!

I don’t think 2v2 matches would have to be all that short. I mean, would offensive Zerker-builds be all that useful, really? I’m confident that it can quite easily be designed to create long, tense, engaging and interesting matches.

Maybe it would be a good idea to make people wait a few seconds before the arenas start and during that time give them the ability to look at the opponents builds?
I think that it would, in theory, be a very interesting and good mechanic.

No, I agree I don’t think they’d be long. That’s just what I’ve heard other players and anet argue. I however do NOT agree with seeing other peoples’ specs. Reason being some abilities cant really hard counter other builds (without even having to respect) and that’s not fair. The glory of Arena combat is building a best-for-most-circumstances builds so that you can adapt to whatever comes at you. That’s literally the best part of building for arena is knowing you have to build to survive anything you have to encounter.

Oh and if they did that I wouldn’t be too upset if they lowered the Blur cooldown back down to 10 seconds, really. and maybe spice up their survivability in some other places since they’d get hit more.

Mesmers should be glad I’m not the game designer for GW2 lol. If I were this is what I’d do to mesmers:

-Mesmers can now only have 2 clones out at a time (Phantasms won’t be destroyed by new clones, clones would replace other clones based on lowest HP, same with Phantasms except phantasms would overwrite clones before other phants.)

-Shatter’s damage would go up about 25% per clone so the burst is actually a bit nerfed but not so hard due to the lack of a 3rd.

- Increased damage of most (not sword) auto attacks.

- iDuelist/Swordsman and Berserker deal less damage.

- Illusionary leap no longer roots, but cripples for 4 seconds instead, and is reworked:
Illusionary leap no longer leaps a clone at the target. Instead, it is now a 1-button ability that teleports you to your enemy and deals “x” damage and cripples the target. If possible (If there aren’t 2 phantasms out), it will spawn a clone in your starting position.

- Blurred Frenzy can be used while moving, but no longer auto-faces.
(So you can control your ability to do damage, but its not done for you in a 2 button kitten combo while your phants go to town…)

- Clones and Phantasms hp is equal to 1/3 of the caster’s HP (makes Vitality more lively).

Reasonings:
There’d be less clutter, they’d win less based on just BEING the most confusing class (cause fewer clones to worry about at once), more of their skill will be based on what they do not what their phantasms could do, and less “easymode” combos like the iLeap Blur, and more emphasis is places on actually doing damage yourself.

^ IE Dredge can be the Arcane Crystal (midtier) set.

2v2 is all I want out of this game. People say it’d be too short, but that’s certainly not true. Make it best of 3 and you instantly double or triple your time in there, and people are much more survivable when they can use their surrounding rather than being forced to stand on a circle(lol). Then have a button at the end for “Continue?” and it automatically ques you for the next arena. It’d be fun as HELL, and honestly I can’t imagine it being that hard to add… As long as the rewards were worth it. Come out with a NEW set of armor called Arena “armor” that you get via Arena Boxes and Arena Tokens. Bring in any armor sets that PVE has that PVP doesn’t and make those the lower tier (arcane orb and crystal) sets, then have the Sliver/higher tier set be fresh and flashy. It’d be great fun!

Erm, not sure what you mean since MM is honestly one of the LEAST popular necro builds and not all that affective, so I guess the answer would be yes. DS power builds and Condition builds are rather viable.

Damage dealers aren’t underpowered. They’re just all too gimmicky and die if their big burst falls through. In fact. They still do too much damage. If you as me this should happen:
- Give burst builds less burst.
- Increase the sustain a bit on burst builds so their damage isn’t packed into a 1-2 second long combo.
- Make bunker builds a little less tanky.

For this reason, and people hate me for saying it, but I think the game would work best if everyone was forced to use a Celestial amulet and have runes/sigils and build define your build, so overall stats would be more balanced but there’d still be great room for customization. That, and it’d open up way more builds because people wouldn’t be forced into all tank or all damage, hybrids would shine more. And where there’s hybrid there’s more variety. That’s just my 2 cents, but I know people would feel lost without their amulet

(And what I mean by this is that all accessories, including the amulet would go away, and just have Celestial stats on all armor, obviously more than pve, so that it would be the equivalent of having a Celestial amulet on when you’re fully armored.)

And then perhaps the weapon could still be chosen stats that would work just like the Traveler’s armor currently, by right clicking on it while its on you and just chosing a type. I’d love this. However, it’s not real likely that they’d ever consider this because people would THINK it lowers variety. People can’t take things past face value. :/

ensoriki.5789:

Oxygen.5918:

Seems like you’re arbitrarily killing build diversity…

It makes specs with low power but high precision have better value given that precision itself isn’t a phenomenal stat without high power to support it.

But…. doesn’t that mean it makes it too good for Zerker builds?

janka.2156:

guys, you dont know what you are asking for….

this is big can of worms.

They implement 1vs1 -> all will find that some classes are better 1vs1 than others -> players start to ask for balance, -> and then we find we play classes that all are almost the same, normalized to ground, and game is ruined…

this will start ballance wars… you want that?! you know, “that game” is that way ->

“That game” doesn’t even have 1v1 so get off it, jesus Christ. Boo hoo, the devs have to do their jobs and balance. Games with better 1v1 balance are better off in the long run anyways. I’ve played games where you’re useless 1v1 but if not targeted you can take out 20 guys because of aoe/cleave. Its not a good niche… Situational class usage is bad… Situational BUILD usage is okay. Plus every class can 1v1 already, moa is about the only concern…

FYI its bleeped because it reads f’kin as the full curse word, thus a(f’kin)g will be censored. Use ’ any time you expect an unusual sensor between one of the letters and you’ll be fine.

Daecollo.9578:

Rock is overpowered, paper is fine.
- Love Scissors.

Why do I follow this trend in every single forum post I make?

Fixed*

Don’t petition, they close petitions.

Secondly: I know for a FACT (for my opinion and many others) 1v1 and 2v2 battles are far more enjoyable to watch than conquest pvp matches. Literally, you see whats going on, it can be cutting edge, people pull cool tricks. Conquest its okay people are fighting on nodes. Lots of colors… Someone killed a beast… And someone lost. Cool.

Sure was a QQ thread :P

Copied from what I posted in another thread with a similar topic:
What they need to do is lose hotjoin and make:
Ranked TPvP Require rank 15. 50 glory for a loss, 250 for a win.
Unranked TPvP (this is where you go if you’re a nublet) 0 glory for a loss, 150 for a win.
2v2 Arena
1v1 Arena (Because solo play should always be an option, and it’d be highly popular since every class has 1v1 builds.)

Outcome: The pvp crowd is more together, and there are more options/modes, not 3 copies of the same thing (hotjoin, solo q, team que)

Mammoth.1975:

You think the playerbase is large enough to support another mode?

Probably not, but to be honest, Solo que isn’t better than everyone in 1 mode as before. I solo qued in tpvp up to the top 500s, if you want to go solo/in a small group that’s your call and risk in rated pvp… What they need to do is lose hotjoin and make:
Ranked TPvP Require rank 15. 50 glory for a loss, 250 for a win.
Unranked TPvP (this is where you go if you’re a nublet) 0 glory for a loss, 150 for a win.
2v2 Arena
1v1 Arena (Because solo play should always be an option, and it’d be highly popular since every class has 1v1 builds.)

Outcome: The pvp crowd is more together, and there are more options/modes, not 3 copies of the same thing (hotjoin, solo q, team que)

Or risen.

garethh.3518:

ronpierce.2760:

garethh.3518:

ronpierce.2760:

People are really starting to baffle me with this ranger letting “AI spirits” do all the work for them… Are you people stupid? I don’t even play spirit ranger and I know all they are- are stronger, but killable signets that have to be casted… They don’t do anything.. they stand there and supply buffs that ARENT 100% uptime (10 second ICD) so essentially they’re just signets with an HP bar. How in the kitten is that AI winning the game? If a spirit ranger has 4 pets out and stands afk, guess how much damage an attacker would take? Maybe a little from his actual pet, spirits would have done just about nothing…

You should realize, if you have ever actually talked to a person before, that phrases aren’t always meant literally…

For kittens sake, saying something is “like a signet but with a lifebar” doesn’t mean it involves much skill to use. Yes spirits don’t attack for you, but auto-attack does.
Rangers don’t have a complicated or dynamic ability scheme.
Shortbow is quite literally spam 1 unless you feel like crippling the target for a few seconds or interrupting/poisoning a heal skill.
At best its using your 4~ on demand dodge rolls somewhat decently, that is a depressingly lower skillcap than a viable, top tier, spec in any other popular game.
That is what people hate.

Yes there is ‘cheese’ like spirit rangers in other games.
No, cheese doesn’t tend to sit around in top tier esports meta.

Um, it is literally what they mean, or they wouldn’t call it AI. They’d say Ranger passive buffs are too strong. That’s not what they kitten about, its thakittens AI… Also, at least they’re signets you can dispel (by killing them). Helpful hint: do it…

All MMO pvp is about EVER is who makes the best/most EFFICIENT (see how ease of play can be part of that?) builds that work against the most scenarios, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with an easy-to-play build being top-tier, HOWEVER, Anet has a different issue, where maxing dps too often comes from auto attack and there is no real combos/rotations like in WoW, Necro dagger, Shortbow Ranger, etc get too much out of just spamming 1, THAT is the issue, not the summonable passive buffs… kitten , traits are basically ALL passive buffs, many with proc chances, its nothing new… If you look at what the game really entails nothing is that kitten hard… But yes, there are many weaponsets that get no dps benefit (in fact several lose dps) by using other skills, and that’s pretty crappy.

???
I don’t think anyone ever said “spirits are AIs that kill enemies for the ranger”
Is that seriously your point of contention?
That you think someone is complaining about how spirits actually attack and completely kill enemies while the ranger does literally nothing????

Take a step back, no one is saying that spirits aren’t passive signet like buffs… no one is saying you can’t kill spirits… they are saying that those things aren’t making even a remotely good ‘skill put in’->return situation.

And if you think its good for a game to have low skill cap specs be not just viable, but TOP TIER viable….
You fit in perfectly with the GW2 devs.
And the handful of people that actually love how this game plays.

You read what you want to read. One, people complain about “Spirit rangers win because its a cheesy AI build”, regardless of if that’s why YOU hate them, that’s what I was referring to, those people. That’s my whole point about them not being real “AI”, because they don’t DO anything other than act as living signets. You’re complaining they are too powerful and, if that’s your stance, then you’re welcome to have that opinion, and I may agree, but its not because they’re AI.

Also, I don’t love how this game plays… And I even specifically said the issue isn’t the utilities, but the fact that spamming 1 is top-tier play. I agree that’s kittenty, but no BUILD should be useless just because the utilities are easy-functioning. Weapons need to synergize and combo more so pressing more abilities with your weapon is more useful, rather than spamming 1. Auto attack winning should NOT be top-tier, that is true.

garethh.3518:

ronpierce.2760:

People are really starting to baffle me with this ranger letting “AI spirits” do all the work for them… Are you people stupid? I don’t even play spirit ranger and I know all they are- are stronger, but killable signets that have to be casted… They don’t do anything.. they stand there and supply buffs that ARENT 100% uptime (10 second ICD) so essentially they’re just signets with an HP bar. How in the kitten is that AI winning the game? If a spirit ranger has 4 pets out and stands afk, guess how much damage an attacker would take? Maybe a little from his actual pet, spirits would have done just about nothing…

You should realize, if you have ever actually talked to a person before, that phrases aren’t always meant literally…

For kittens sake, saying something is “like a signet but with a lifebar” doesn’t mean it involves much skill to use. Yes spirits don’t attack for you, but auto-attack does.
Rangers don’t have a complicated or dynamic ability scheme.
Shortbow is quite literally spam 1 unless you feel like crippling the target for a few seconds or interrupting/poisoning a heal skill.
At best its using your 4~ on demand dodge rolls somewhat decently, that is a depressingly lower skillcap than a viable, top tier, spec in any other popular game.
That is what people hate.

Yes there is ‘cheese’ like spirit rangers in other games.
No, cheese doesn’t tend to sit around in top tier esports meta.

Um, it is literally what they mean, or they wouldn’t call it AI. They’d say Ranger passive buffs are too strong. That’s not what they kitten about, its thakittens AI… Also, at least they’re signets you can dispel (by killing them). Helpful hint: do it…

All MMO pvp is about EVER is who makes the best/most EFFICIENT (see how ease of play can be part of that?) builds that work against the most scenarios, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with an easy-to-play build being top-tier, HOWEVER, Anet has a different issue, where maxing dps too often comes from auto attack and there is no real combos/rotations like in WoW, Necro dagger, Shortbow Ranger, etc get too much out of just spamming 1, THAT is the issue, not the summonable passive buffs… kitten , traits are basically ALL passive buffs, many with proc chances, its nothing new… If you look at what the game really entails nothing is that kitten hard… But yes, there are many weaponsets that get no dps benefit (in fact several lose dps) by using other skills, and that’s pretty crappy.

Derps.7421:

From the lack of action or caring i guess its okay to exploit the map and troll duels. Well at least we resolved that.
You are allowed to exploit the game AS LONG AS its in PVP and you are allowed to troll people AS LONG AS its PVP without being punished.
You are not allowed to have the name Mitt Romneny ( WITCH IS SPELLED WRONG BTW Romney has 1 N.) because that will result in a WEEK BAN.
Glad to see you have your priorities straight!

Well I’m sure there are rules against naming after political/commercial characters, I didn’t read the rules, but its safe to say considering that’s common amongst MMOs, that said, you broke the rule, and misspelling it is even worse because you knew it wasn’t available/allowed and you tried to work your way around it anyways, so don’t complain about that and how you “misspelled it”, that doesn’t make it okay. That’s like saying the named Aldulf Hitlah would be okay. Yeah, it’s really not (granted its much worse, but I had to be extreme or you wouldn’t get my point). However, in a private room where he gets no real benefit from this, a warning/slap on the wrist is acceptable. Had he done this in tpvp or spvp hotjoins, definitely he should be banned,

Actually, you can’t cap the sides, but you can cap/contest graveyard from underneath. Tested.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

The Moot is the best legendary, your argument is invalid.

Some might say you have a… Moot point. o.o

People are really starting to baffle me with this ranger letting “AI spirits” do all the work for them… Are you people stupid? I don’t even play spirit ranger and I know all they are- are stronger, but killable signets that have to be casted… They don’t do anything.. they stand there and supply buffs that ARENT 100% uptime (10 second ICD) so essentially they’re just signets with an HP bar. How in the kitten is that AI winning the game? If a spirit ranger has 4 pets out and stands afk, guess how much damage an attacker would take? Maybe a little from his actual pet, spirits would have done just about nothing…

Kwll.1468:

Romek.4201:

no its not

we had all this before we had condimeta and everything was fine

and because today is a patchday: “dear arenanet dont forget to nerf finaly this kitten necroclass”

thx

People like you slay me. Things weren’t fine just better. Yep this game was doing so great that even though it sold millions of copies the pvp aspect of it only has about a couple thousand serious players in North America and Im strecthing the term serious I would use it to mean people that do at least 10 ranked matches a week. All those things mentioned here are problems in a game that is suppossed to be mostly about skill. Builds that rely heavily on AI are in fact broken and have no place in this game because it is like half the class is autopilot. I don’t know how people can rail against powerful passive abilities and think powerful pets are just a-ok. Its the same kitten thing.

A class that focuses on active CC to allow uptime on clunky AI minions takes so much more skill than 2(or 3) spam, or builds that have tons of 1 click boons and RNG that determine their skill… Oh wait. There is very little about this game that takes actual skill, and the minion builds actually often take more skill to play in high end PVP than the others…

Psych.6527:

Ronpierce… You talk about, what seems to be mesmer AI and how ridiculous it is where the mm necro and spirit rangers are currently abusing Ai the most at this point of time and How you spend 80% of traits on minions and call it brainless for a mesmer doing the same??

You have just proven your whole argument invalid. You also seem to think that mesmer can spec 30/30/30/30/30?? We can not be boss at shatter and phantasm all at once..You know this right???

A little bit of background… I main mes, play necro and thief.. I must admit, the necro is just cheese atm with coniditions… Now, if i were to play phantasm, i would be expected to trait into phantasm, just as you would be to trait for minions.. Now, phantasm do true damage, have very, very little HP now after nerf and moderately high cool downs.. So how should we spec for them if those are key traits of phantasms? Oh, thats right! Damage increase, HP buff and CD reduction.. Now taking these traits also leave the mesmer with nothing defensive and very squishy, risk vs reward is much higher on this spec than an MM Necro..

A lot of people also seem to think that phantasm are OP because of ONE))) Single annoying phantasm that takes no skill in placing or risk. Now why dont you focus on that ONE)) rather than say NERF NERF NERF OP MES BEAT ME!!!!!

Or how about try play the class?! that certainly helped me with necros, and their OP condition spam for days.. Now i only struggle against highly skilled necros, no more nub scruub necro i see almost in every game.

What in the world are you ranting about? I just said their damage wasn’t like Phantasms(Namely Duelest, and Zerker, I know the others aren’t that great), so we have to actually do more of the active damage ourselves (Also our minions take up utility spots). In no way did I say phant mesmers were 30/30/30/30/30 builds or OP… Holy Christ. I was saying AI in general isn’t that OP, I was just mostly speaking for Necro since that’s what I play. Chill yourself.

silentnight warrior.2714:

selan.8354:

ok the thing is those meta builds screw up a ton of other builds if they get nerfed. if u nerf all phantasms, yes the phantasm builds will get weaker and maybe are still sorta viable, but it would affect every single mesmer that doesent use those spvp builds. as a condi/reflection mesmer i have very little dps, but the phantasm is the only one that allows me to deal a little more dmg than just a 435 autoattack hit.

also the clone on dodge is good for shatterers and needed. anet made class that shatters a lot, so nerfing clone production would affect and weaken every mesmer out there and a lot of builds that arent shatter would become not viable anymore and therefore would force us into those spvp builds even more.

same with every class out there. u nerf something that everyone qq’s about and it happens to be a core element of the class it will hurt every build and a class could become completely up with no build variety.

what do u expect? if u remove (or nerf to the ground) every class specific skill then we would have no more mesmers( they would be called the weaker version of a warrior with no armor or toughness or dps, but hey they got a sword), no more rangers( they would be petless very weak versions of thieves without stealth,dps or mobility), elementalist would be a hobbit version of gandalf the grey that has only autoattacks on staff left.

seriously stop whining about ai and all the stuff your class cant do and start focusing on stuff your class can do.

Man i just want to PvP.
Right now what we have in the mists is not PvP with only one exception: When two warriors fight each other.
All the other fights you have to be pay atention to the player + clones/minions/spirits/ spirit weapons/turrets/Guild of thiefs and even elementals.
When you got AI to do YOUR job its not PvP.

I wouldn’t say spamming stuns (the most viable warrior build out there) is skillful play… I think you’re just behind on times, warriors are just as good/cheesy as other classes if you build correctly for the current times/meta… Sounds like you’re just one of those people who hold onto “I’m bad, but I can get away with it because I blame my lack of ability on how bad the warrior class is”, hint: its not… Mace/Shield+Hammer is incredibly stupid. Mace+Shield+GS is also very effective. LB+ S/S is also good for condi builds, which can absolutely wreck someone and easily stacks 18+ bleeds if played well, while having 8-10 seconds of condition immunity, and access to stability, and Signet of stamina/healing. Warriors are in are just as cheesy now as everything else. Have you not seen all the “stunlocking is pvp?” type threads…

I just wanted to stop in and suggest my opinion:
MM necros require most skill than most other builds to play.

1. Their pets aren’t phantasms, their damage is just okay. You can kite and kill them, they’re mobile DoTs.
2. It’s like a class that swings a not-so-devastating wrecking ball, the skill is keeping the enemy in place to allow the stupid-ai to keep up on the enemy and do what they need to.
3. They are MASSIVELY weak to AOE.
4. Teleports counter them.
5. You have to put 80+% of your trait into them to make them viable, leaving you weaker (and useless when your minions die to the insane cleave).
6. You have to learn to fend for yourself if they die, you don’t just say, oh my entire build is gone, lets just /suicide…
7. Getting off 1.5 sec casts over and over in mid-fight on very obvious animations isn’t always the easiest thing to do.
8. You don’t have any CC breaks/Spectral armor/Walk etc, because you don’t have 6 utility spots like some people think. Sometimes you will have 1 CC break if you run Flesh Wurm, which sacrifices yet another minion, making you play with less and making the traits more useless you spent into minions. Or you can leave one out all together and run Well of Power, so you have 1- 50 second CD cc break.
9. Landing a Putrid explosion where you have to wait for the little rat to get up to the enemy and hope they don’t move, evade, what ever once they finally do isn’t always as easy as clicking a button.
10. There’s more skill involved in keeping uptime for AI than signets that supply passive buffs, and RNG traits what say 30% of the time you’ll do something else (brainless). This game isn’t exactly hard, but having pets doesn’t mean the whole build is brainless, in fact if you actually think about how much mobility and movement is in pvp you’d realize its harder to handle than spamming 2-3 on a thief, or 3-2 f1 on a Mesmer, etc. The game isn’t hard as it is, its down to combos. At least MM requires you to think about how to keep your enemy in place the best/most efficient way, and when the best time to explode minions would be.

So yeah, while getting CC chained, aoe bombed, snares, and having to deal with rather long cast times in general, and people just naturally moving around a lot, it’s not that “faceroll”.

In conquest, being "onpoint’ just means I’ll be minionless in about 5 seconds. The best we have is side-point bunking, in which you better hope someone doesn’t go on high grounds and AOE you, or stun lock you, or moa you, or use any form of mass condies on you… The more you know.

Aza.2105:

AI promotes unintelligent gameplay.

But then again, gw2 is a unintelligent game. Which is why AI and passive play a enormous part of the game.

To be fair, it takes more active play controlling an enemy to have effective AI than all the loads of procs and background effects in the game, which is much more “unintelligent”, in my honest opinion. At least being skillful enough to allow high up-time on minions requires more thought than hitting an enemy and 20% of the time something extra happens.

The Boz.2038:

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

a cardgame like magic … involves balance

MBUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh good god, this one is good! Pure gold!

A little off topic, but turn 1 kills aren’t what I’d consider balanced.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Why upset with AI?

-In pvp while dueling a thief on the beach point my minios ran off to kill a shark on the other side of the map..

-Foefire; while dueling my minions ran off to fight a thief on the other side of the map..

-Minions in general are too slow and you can’t control them.. {I am still am wondering why anet hasn’t introduced the “fiery sword” mechanic to the minion elite}

-Minions getting stuck..

-Dipping your toe in water destroys your minions… ^^

-A blind and a cripple minion something necro’s don’t have enough of.. really..small blind and cripple on utilities without being able to destroy your minions? (except rats)
and minions having aweful AI.

Combine this with the aweful targetting system also targetting pets and minions …on the other side of the map and it’s GG a-net..

That’s actually my point. People saying pet builds are skill-less dont take into consideration what they can do about making the pets useless like terrain advantages, bugging them out, sheer Aoe, etc.

Also, to that picture; Yeah, sure if you have 4-5 of them yes it gets clutter-some. But that doesn’t make them OP. that picture didnt have npc names off, and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Of they were off, clicking and finding the enemy players would be easy. And yes is “overwhelming” but if there’s that much AI in 1 spot, a condi engi and a condi necro would wipe every one of them off the map in about 4 seconds.

Psychogene.6780:

Think one of the biggest complaints has nothing to do with the actual A.I. Since A.I and NPC’s are one and the same, without question there is just too much NPC’s that clutter the screen/action. It takes away from the aesthetic appeal of the game and detracts from viewer enjoyable.

Can you imagine how much better people would be able to play/see the combat if rangers only got one spirit or necromancers had only on minion that performed all the same functions as what is currently available?

They need to fix this clutter, merge the minions, spirits (leaving phantasms alone) because its a bigger issue then the A.I’s. Fixing it at the same time as giving us a much better targetting system and it will do so much to alleviate the problems by the players/viewers.

I can agree that the clutter is overboard. Especially with MMs, rangers and actually Mesmer too (if not worse because of the ethereal fields), spirits could definitely use some merging, same with minions, but that would require a lot of re-balancing of traits (like minion siphons for example)

rsq.3581:

I don’t think having builds which are easier to play or require less APM are inherently bad. Sometimes it’s nice to have a very simple to play, very straightforward build.

The problem comes from when an AI focused build is more successful and effective than one that requires thought and coordination. That’s why people complain about spirit rangers, phantasm mesmers, and the like.

What most people won’t consider, however, a couple things:

- Ease of play shouldn’t really factor into balance. It’s a rough line to tread, but balance is balance, not play a build so complex a newer player could never understand it, thus you win automatically, but there is some merit to what you said, it shouldn’t be MORE effective. If its more effective at all, its not balanced, hence yes, I agree some spirit ranger stuff should be toned down, and I also explained why the aoe fire buff is more powerful than it normally would be (way more condi builds running around).

- A lot of AI isn’t just AI controlled with the exception of mesmers and thieves guild which do pretty well on their own, Spirits are just attackable signets, they don’t really DO anything. Imagine if they were just signets, and a trait caused the signets to work AOE-wise. Instead people would cry that rangers have the best support and are OP, at least not we have counter play (kill the spirits). People say there is no counter play, but they just don’t take advantage of the counter play, and don’t think about the fact that they don’t have to be AI, they’re still utilities, at least now we CAN do something about them.

- Pets are stupid and all require massively long cast times and usually decent cooldowns on top of being the most trait-intensive builds in the game. And I wouldn’t say playing AI builds are even “easier” because effectively lining up a Putrid explosion with a dumb AI that runs around like a moron, and getting off 1.5 sec summon casts mid-fight, and being able to handle yourself with all of your minions AOEd down is no easy task. They have a BIT of an upper hand vs non 1v1 builds, but that’s true in any case you put a 1v1 build versus a team-fighting build, generally the 1v1 build comes out on top. However, unlike most good 1v1/roaming builds, you can’t go on a ledge and jump down and ignore 80% of their abilities for a good 4-10 seconds.

Lighter.5631:

yea yea kitable killable do that while necro spamming them condis on you.

There aren’t many Condition-based MMs out there, and those that are have to give up either a ton of condition damage and things like terror for minion damage to even matter, or just have weak pets and aren’t using useful traits. If a necro wants to go Condi build, minions are the least of anyones’ worries…

Despite popular belief, necros aren’t running 30/30/30/30/30 and 10 utilities. Good Condi necros are terror based and not MMs.

Okay, so I’m not here to really “defend” anything (for the record yes, I do play an MM Necro, but luckily that’s not the big hot-spot at the moment), I’m just curious as to why people get so upset over any class with AI or non-player controlled abilities? I’ll just explain why I feel this way so, please feel free to come back, just not aggressively, I’m not being aggressive, just offering a whole-hearted second side of the story, and a slightly different way to view the ones we have, which leads me to wonder why people are so against them.

AI-Abilities in a nut shell are:
Spirits – They’re much like sigils, which are just passive bonuses, except they require a long cast time (each) and have health/placement in exchange for being a better passive benefit. Ranger spirits are much like mobile shaman totems in WoW, and I can’t say that many people every complained about shaman totems, they were more of a hindrance than a benefit 9 times out of 10. (They don’t get 1 shot anymore, neither)

Spirit weapons – Already kittenty, so no one complains, so I’ll just lump these with minions.

Minions – Yes, they’re AI controlled damage. But look further, its a kitable, killable, totally CCable DoT that takes up the place of a utility and costs slots that could be CC breakers or better defensive utilities. Plus all AI-pets die in heavy aoe even to a single target, or are nulled my fancy terrain foot work. They require literally about 70-90% traits to be viable, and you feel like a traitless guardian/necro with them dead. And there’s no way to spot-avoid for them, even if you dodge, they just stand there and get hit by churnings (etc).

Phantasms – Here I can’t argue too much, most phantasms are garbage, but the 2 that stand out are Zerker and Duelist, Zerker is much like minions except it lungest to attack and stays further from combat, thus misses some AoE, but are generally easy to burst down in cleave. Duelist is the only one I can say needs toned down because its ranged, hits super hard and scales with stats, can’t be “kited” so, okay, I won’t argue, its not “fun” to play against.

So overall:
- AI Pets kitable/CCable/Glitchable/Killable/Aoeable dots that are pretty stupid that take up utilities, and generally only provide an issue against enemies in 1v1.
- Buffs/Aoe Buffs that require a cast time to have up, and that’s 1.5 per so most AI builds require a 3-6 second ramp up time of casting these abilities if they’re not ready at the start of the fight.
- Builds that require very heavy point allocation to make them viable, and are neigh useless once they AI is cleaved down.

The biggest fixes I see that need to be made are:
-Burning needs to do less damage. Those spirit rangers wouldn’t be so potent if they weren’t giving such a strong fire proc to all the condi builds in this condi-heavy meta.
-Tab targeting should “prefer” humans over AI.
-Players need to learn that you can turn off “Show all Enemies” and “Show all NPC Names”, and turn ON “Show all Players” and you won’t get all the name clutter from all the AI pets, and will only see the player’s name (This works against mesmers as well!)

I’ll be honest, as an MM I feel pretty weak right now in an aoe condi meta and CC meta, where most mm builds only have 1 really long CD CC break (if that), little to no AOE, no aoe buffs, and EXTREMELY weak to conditions, especially AOE conditions.

I don’t think its an AI issue, because spirit rangers aren’t using AI, they have attackable signets… It’s a matter of SOME stuff (like conditions) being too potent, and people not knowing how to properly handle multiple targets. Thoughts?

H’erp uh… D’erp… Like… Durrr…

No, common sense says if a game isn’t in a good place for e-sports, and needs a lot of help balancing, you don’t push it into something it isn’t ready for and hold balancing off. Like I said, dev hosted pvp events are fine, but don’t throw fixing the game to the curb just to do so.

which 3?

5 hours.

ShunsuiKouKyoraku.9106:

Finally after over 103 attemps. I Beat her!

I was on my Warrior using 30/30/0/10/30

Oddly enough, I switched to Mace/Shield for 1st Phase

then Rifle for second Phase.

I was using 40% endurance regen food. Endurance signet, stability stance, endure pain and signet of rage

As soon as I hit that 3rd orb it was all about Crack Shot for piercing rounds and keeping her crippled while kiting

Haven’t felt this good since 25Man Heroic Lich King

30/30/0/10/30 is a fantastic build.

I made 200g doing it, used it to craft a warrior from 0-80 and get full Exotics, for 3 days of farming? Worth it. At 50g now

I run dagger/focus…

Full zerk warrior
Rifle Mace/Shield (Only took 3 tries once I made this build) took 150+ tries as guardian/Warrior with GS.

Winning build was:

0/25/20/10/15 Rifle/Mace/Shield.

P1 I used mace/shield to kill rifts and if too many shadows spawned I’d use shield and run through them, bought me some space and time.

P2 I just kited her with rifle, it was pretty easy, once, again, when too many shadows spawned I’d use shield and mow them down, and killed the rift, and swapped back. I used Shake it off! Frenzy and Berserker stance.

Super Riceman.8702:

I think they can keep condis the way the are but make vitality somehow reduce their effectiveness similar to the way toughness mitigates power damage.
That way there is a way to build against both specs w/ out needing many nerfs to conditions

What I suggested wouldn’t happen anyways. Its far too late for that kind of a change, even if it was for the “better” it would be terrible for the game because people just get used to stuff.

Copestetic.5174:

ronpierce.2760:

It stays a team build. I never said “get rid of conquest give us only 1v1” holy kitten. Let people play the way they want, that’s what a good game IS, is options, it wouldn’t effect you in the slightest if others could play how they like to play. I guarantee you a little more 1v1 balance would help even 5v5 conquest.

Besides, it’s not JUST a team game. I’ts an “MMO” and mmo meants massively and multiplayer. 1 person would be playing with a LOT of others 1v1 or 2v2 as they continue quing. They’d still end up playing with more players than someone leveling up then soloing all the story mode and living story stuff. Stop fighting it, more is good for the game, and any type of “balance” is better than no balance. They don’t even have to go out of their way since there is always good 1v1 builds for everyone. Like I’ve said, if it doesn’t fit your liking, then just stay out of it all together, it won’t effect your favorite stand in a circle and get AoE bombed to death “pvp”.

Check the arena list. There’s always a 1vs1 custom arena. I’ve been asked to leave a few matches that weren’t even named as such.

I get that, but there’s always trolls, this that and the other thing, and most of all no reward for doing so. In fact I’ve been rank 29 for about a month now because 1v1 is the only pvp that doesn’t bore me to tears.

1.They need to completely do away with “condition removal” or at least make it very rare.
2. Increase Poison damage by a bit, bleed by a bit and leave burning as it is.
3. Make protection effect them.
4. GREATLY reduce stacks per hit (1-2 never 4+)
5. Double+ the duration of conditions.
6. Lessen the amount of aoe conditions/stacks per aoe condition skill.

And what do we get:
A stronger condition, that plays different than power, we don’t hit the cap as often, especially with only 1-2 people, but you can get more stacks on the enemy over time due to durations, this causes them to become attrition damage, where the starting damage isn’t too unbearable, but grows to become too cumbersome as a fight goes on. Also, with bleeds doing more damage but stacking less per ability, more condition based fighters can fight together without stepping on one anothers’ feet.

This is how conditions should work imo.

It stays a team build. I never said “get rid of conquest give us only 1v1” holy kitten. Let people play the way they want, that’s what a good game IS, is options, it wouldn’t effect you in the slightest if others could play how they like to play. I guarantee you a little more 1v1 balance would help even 5v5 conquest.

Besides, it’s not JUST a team game. I’ts an “MMO” and mmo meants massively and multiplayer. 1 person would be playing with a LOT of others 1v1 or 2v2 as they continue quing. They’d still end up playing with more players than someone leveling up then soloing all the story mode and living story stuff. Stop fighting it, more is good for the game, and any type of “balance” is better than no balance. They don’t even have to go out of their way since there is always good 1v1 builds for everyone. Like I’ve said, if it doesn’t fit your liking, then just stay out of it all together, it won’t effect your favorite stand in a circle and get AoE bombed to death “pvp”.

Dueling proves what people want it to prove… That you are a proficient one on one fighter… AKA arcade style fighting, people do enjoy that, hence the popularity of it on so many consoles and arcades over the decades… It proves more than who can either burst the kitten out of the bunker or who can bunker the longest standing in a circle… There is far more “play” in 1v1 2v2 arenas than there is in conquest and that has been proven in many games.

Also with the exception of maybe a few abilities needing to be changed/nerfed (say, moa) 1v1 is balanced better than tpvp IF people build for it. It doesn’t seem like it in tPVP because generally people don’t build for 1v1 or 2v2 there, but having been in the 1v1 crowd for some time, there are heroes of every class in1v1. If you don’t want it because you don’t LIKE it, then just stop. No one wants their fun stomped on because it’s “not your thing”