Guild Wars 2

WVW 5v5 is more like DAOC 8v8, which is the game that WVW is modelled on.

The biggest impediments to a real 5v5 scene in WVW are that zerging has too few drawbacks and that the WVW maps don’t have enough open roaming space.

Theres been orders of magnitude more complaints about downed state, instagibbing, and across-the-board lack of viable builds yet all those things are not being
addressed.

They aren’t listening and they clealy dont give a kitten.

D/d ele is hard countered by ranged that can apply any of cripple/chill/immob/stun. Stop being bad.

nerva.7940:

KarlaGrey.5903:

Unlike GW2, GW really was innovative,

let me stop u right there. GW2 is innovative in many ways. relating to pvp, they brought a fun, AAA ARPG combat system to the MMO. that in itself is a big feat. trust me, spvp isnt suffering due to lack of innovation. it hasnt grown due to lackluster balancing changes, a horrid lack of content, and a two-dimensional metagame.

The only thing GW2 innovated on was area combo fields, and even then, LOTRO’s group combo system should still get some of the credit.

There have been many “action rpgs” already: planetside, savage, darkfall, tera, others.

my guild and i have no plans to participate in stPVP while downed state is a factor.

- having a skill system with real depth, GW2’s skill system and WOW-style talent tree is crap.
- not having downed state
- not having a gear treadmill
- elite skill capturing. WHY OH WHY did they remove this in GW2?
- elites skills that were actually good.
- having a resource mechanic (energy) and the whole energy management/denial metagame

SBI needs to regain its oceanic strength, has a great community, and always brings it.

This is not an FPS, players should not be near-insta-gibbing each other.

I have a thief, I would much rather they nerfed BS and gave the class better support and utility.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Likewise, the best only ele builds are is also way too strong

Fixed that for you.

The D/D Ele build is not OP for the simple reason it is hard countered by anything ranged that can reliably apply any/all of immobilise/cripple/chill/poison/knockback/knockdown.

100% agree that there is a critical lack of balance in Ele utlities: cantrips >>> rest >>> conjures. Not sure who thought giving up access to 20 skills to gain access to 5 mediocre skills whilst giving up a utility slot was a good idea but they were wrong.

FWB.1704:

I find it funny how ppl say that the ele is good… only if you play it a specific way. Most people have seen the ele for what it is, extremely lacking in damage and survivability compared to all the other classes in GW2. Sure D/D might do damage comparable to other classes (whom aren’t speced for damage). But you have to basically stay within melee range as the squishiest object on the planet. Don’t want to face instant death? Use a scepter, but oh wait the damage is freaking terrible, worst weapon damage in the game terrible. Staff is the only reasonable weapon, but even this has its issues.
I realize that Anet had said at one point that the ele was working as intended, but they seriously need to look at how it compares to the other classes.

This. D/D is a fantastic spec and major props to Anet for making easily the best implementation of a melee mage that i’ve played. The skills are well-designed, and the balance of control/damage/mobility is just right.

That said, the ranged weapons are some of the worst implementations of a ranged mage i’ve played. Staff is pidgeon-holed into AOE/support and is hopeless at 1v1, scepter is clunky and focus lacks mobility and is a weird mix of overpowered and very underpowered skills… with the exception of D/D, Ele skills/weapons are just really badly designed and playtested. Ele comes off to some as hard but the truth is that many of the skills are just designed poorly.

eg: Playing my Ele in WVW is an exercise in frustration, as i’m constantly forced to manually switch between D/D and staff depending on the situation. There’s no good reason why staff has to be exclusively AOE skills (bar 1) and no reason why Dragon’s Tooth has to require so much setup just to apply its damage.

A good example of some ranged mage classes from other games i consider well-designed: WOW’s frost mage, DAOC’s spiritmaster, theurgist and sorceror, GW1 mesmer and the Rift mage, especially the dominator, chloromancer, and stormcaller souls.

Any chance we will be seeing a lifting of the 5 target AOE cap? Once of the worst aspects of WVW IMO is how much the game mechanics promote mindless zerging. AOEing attackers as a defender from a keep wall ought to be far more effective than it currently is.

Strang.8170:

Most every effect received a downscaling

“Most every” should be “Almost every”. Compare “most dead”, “almost dead”; “most gone”, “almost gone”.

Curious to hear why you think it’s good in wvw? To me, fall damage is a non-factor, and the fall effect might be useful once in a play session at best.

yeah 5-man AOE cap is one of my top 3 stupid GW2 design decisions along with downed state in pvp and poorly balanced class traits.

No, the only thing conjures need is to only replace the 5 skills of their respective element, not lock out all 20 weapon skills, so that Eles can continue to use their profession-defining mechanic, and then re-balance conjured weapon skills as needed.

boozer.7815:

Reveaux.5720:

4) Conjure Weapons – Currently not viable in pvp, however, some eles have been successful in creating builds with Earth Shield and Frost bow. I would not advise using unless you absolutely know what you are doing!

Wrong again. WTH are you posting for?

Please. Just because you may be able to faceroll up-levelled noobs wearing greens in WVW with conjures does not make conjures viable in PVP. Good players don’t use conjures. I wouldn’t use conjures even if they didn’t take up a utility slot. Locking out 20 skills so you can use 5 otherwise unremarkable skills is a stupid, stupid design.

Worth also noting that (as you said) even “optimal” GW1 builds tend to only focus around the choice of elite and 2-3 supporting skills, and leaving a fair degree of scope for customisation, whereas GW1 builds are almost always fully specified, because GW2 builds tend to focus on a specific utility type and weapon, and any deviation tends to weaken the build.

Fildydarie.1496:

You’ll find your options were a lot more limited than you remember.

I realise where you are trying to go with this but the theoretical analysis doesn’t stand up to actual experience. Also saying choice of secondary profession in GW1 doesn’t affect much is incredibly disingenuous.

Case in point of GW2 lack of choice: there is only 1 “good” build for a solo PVP Ele right now – D/D with cantrips. This is due to inherent glaring deficiencies with the other (3) weapons, plus close to zero choice in utilities as cantrips are by far the most effective way to break stun & mitigate burst on Ele (also mandatory to avoid being 1-2-shot by BS thieves/warriors/mesmers) as well as being instant case and having good offensive and defensive uses.

Because cantrips are mandatory, and all the good cantrip traits are in water line, and 20+ arcane is virtually required to play Ele, and factoring in the other 1-2 “must-have” Ele traits, there is also minimal real choice in trait allocation.

1. “good” Ele builds in GW2 in practise: 1.

Fildydarie.1496:

Don’t believe me? Let’s do the math again, but right this time.

Your analysis fails on so many levels frankly I’m not sure why you bothered:

• not considering the second profession’s skills. this is a major if not the most important aspct of the GW1 skill system
• not compensating for choosing from multiple attributes
• not compensating properly for skills that were viable with minimal attribute points in them
• not compensating for the much higher degree of skill interactions in GW1 (hexes + enchantments, energy effects, effects based on adding/removing conditions/hexes/enchantments)

More than anything a numerical analysis of possible builds is a poor substitute for actual gameplay experience. To any reasonably experienced player of both games it’s plain that GW2 has far less real choice in builds compared to GW1. Even if you’re willing to play a build that under-performs vs the optimal GW2 optimal, the difference in potential builds is so much smaller than GW1. In GW2 it’s basically condition vs dirct damage, dps vs support. In GW1, you could build for interrupts, energy denial, hexes, conditions, enchantments, heals, direct damage, degen, control, support, and you usually had multiple and very different ways of building for those things by comboing different primary and secondary professions.

GW2 doesn’t remotely compare for choice.

maddoctor.2738:

tom.7468:

Aevic.9675:

Except most of GW1’s skills came from future expansions. There wasn’t so many options when GW1 was released. We had about the same amount of options.

Look here http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_Prophecies_skills
So you’re wrong but i hope they add more skills when they release a new expansion.

Aevic is correct then. Do the math

Warrior in GW1: 35+41 = 76 skills (Common + Prophecies – at release)
Warrior in GW2: 75 + 9 Burst skills + 15 skills in skill chains + 9 Banner + 5 Rampage + 8 downed/drowned = 121 skills, Even if you get only the 75 skills they are equal in number

In conclusion, the “Guild Wars 1 had more skills” argument, is invalid

Even more reason why GW2’s skill system is inferior — even if there are more skills in GW2 compared to GW1 prophecies, the amount of actual choice is much less because weapon skills are invariant – you can only choose weapons (plus heal/utils).

Even if you disregard the fact that a large chunk of the depth of the GW1 skill system came from the secondary profession, a GW1 warrior would still have more actual choice picking from only warrior skills.

In practise, the GW2 skill system sucks. It only takes 1 or 2 very strong or very weak skills on a weapon to make that weapon mandatory or unusable with little in-between.

Case in point, I have virtually zero choice in speccing my Ele because all weapon sets perform far below D/D and close to zero choice in utilities because cantrips are so much better than the other utility types: they’re instant, break stun, can be used offensively or defensively, and all counteract the extreme fragility of Ele.

Likewise traits — all the good cantrip traits and condition removal are in water, and Ele is close to unplayable without 20+ pts in arcane.

The point is, GW2 is rife with design fail, and it’s not just restricted to Ele. The same lack of real, true choice afflicts every class i’ve tried.

Ele is horribly designed – there’s only 1 good spec for Ele, D/D with cantrips. Every other weapon and utility set is some combination of crappy damage, crappy survivability or and/or crappy mobility, aka sucks.

The low skill:high reward ratio of HS is the biggest issue. Either the damage should be reduced to match the low skill required or the skill requirements need to come up (eg: make HS aimed instead of seeking).

I think GW2 has the worst mage implementation of any of the games i’ve played. The “feel” of staff/scepter is just not there.

There’s no good gameplay reason for long attunement CD or why the vast majority of traits are so ineffectual.

Please come back home WM <3

I think WVW has grown stale for a lot of people due to no real attention, unrestricted server transfers killing server pride, overly favouring zerg gameplay (stupid low AOE cap, infinite rapid downed state rezzing), no progression/rewards.

FOTM grind clearly also sucked a lot of people away chasing a gear advantage.

• remove rallying and make revive break and reset to 0 on damage.
• raise AOE cap to 10. WVW needs stronger zergbusting tools.
• 60 sec forced respawn after defeated and remove the annoying camera pan

Victorctk.4931:

From the beginning until 2 months so, everything was fine, then RTL overshot my target, ‘rubberband’ effect and also magnetic grasp either ‘stuns’ me or missed completely even when my target is right in front and targeted so yeah, quite bugged.

confirming this problem for me also. my D/D Ele is close to unplayable.

if the game design is not technically doable, change the design. stop shipping broken code. f.f.s.

TGSlasher.1458:

RTL I go past my target alot, quite annoying when defending on a large point, such as graveyard and trying to close the gap to someone on the other side but miss and end up not moving out of the ring.

This. My Ele has been literally unplayable since they changed the implementation of RTL.

I’ve reported this bug twice now, the first time being ~4 weeks ago and still nothing, no fix nor even acknowledgement of the problem.

Yes that has been happening to me since they changed RTL in a recent patch. It’s so bad I can’t play my Ele.

I thought it was great in the beginning too. The arbitrary constraints and lack of choices inherent in the design aren’t really apparent until later

Female sylvari. I hate the voiceovers but Take Root is a better elite than any of the crappy ele options. I really wish they would just let us choose another utility skill.

+1

All mandatory traits should be optional, especially this one.

easier to think of it as (1 – (sum of probability of not getting a proc)), ie: 1 – (0.7 * 0.7) = 0.51, 51% chance.

I think the fundamental flaw of WVW is downed state – it allows zergs to rez their fallen indefinitely, leading to prolonged (and eventually boring) standoffs, heavily favours numbers over skill, and the rallying mechanic totally ruins small group PVP and 1vX. I really feel that downed state is what’s stopping small group PVP from taking off because why roam as a 2- or 3-man when you will lose vs 5+ solely because the extras can keeping rezzing the guys you kill?

My other major issue with WVW is that as an Ele, I have only 1 decent spec I can run if I want to roam: D/D, when I would rather actually play a ranged caster.

The major reason for the zerginess is kittening downed state, which makes zergs able to rez their fallen indefinitely and prolongs zerg-v-zerg confrontations to the point of boredom.

Not to mention downed state & rallying is EXTREMELY frustrating in small-group roaming PVP. Rallying in particular on kills is a kittening joke.

No chance of e-sport while PVP zones still have downed state IMO.

Personally I think the best ranged caster in this game is a shortbow thief.

Minibiskit.6158:

The rally mechanic is a unique and intentional design paradigm that really sets GW2 combat apart from other MMOs

.

Many would say it distracts from the actual combat and dumbs everything down.

It is not a band-aid to “save the terrible players” from a “broken system that lets you die too quick”. Rally is there because it makes combat interesting.

Oh please of course it’s for bad players.

How about being able to right click a name in chat and invite to group?

Kind of strange an MMO that was striving to facillitate player interaction doesn’t have such a basic feature.

Bolthar.7192:

I think part of the problem with the combat is that you can’t customize your play style as much as we all expected and may have been led to believe. We get to switch between weapons that determines the play style we get. We get 5 skills total that never change no mater what level we are or how far we progress through the game for the weapon that has the play style we like best. We get a handful of utility skills that complement that play style and then a somewhat confusing trait system that we try to tailor to that play style. The point is there isn’t much variety and a limited feeling of control.

The combat itself feels out of control. Spam 1-5, dodge, repeat doesn’t really suffice. There isn’t much crowd control to speak of either and the skill set up with 5 weapon skills, a heal, and only 3 utility skills doesn’t leave much room for any.

I suggested in a post of my own that weapon trainers were added that allowed you to train different skills for different weapons at different levels in the game to add customization to your weapon skills and add a sense of progression to combat (you can read the whole post here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Progression-in-GW2/first#post794870) but I don’t know if that would be enough or if it would just make things worse when it comes to balance. What I do know is something needs to be done with the combat system. I like this game and I don’t want to see people give up on it so early.

Great post. The gap in complexity and choice between GW1’s combat and GW2’s is too great. This game offers few real choices to me as a player.

kaplis.7195:

I don’t think the capabilities of classes are actually relevant because it seems like everything is based around the general perception of the class.
Necro’s and ele’s were considered horribly UP 3 months yet people still played them and succeeded just as much as every other class…. Now ele’s are considered OP because of the whole D/D FOTM yet there were no major buffs to the proffesion. Don’t tell me it’s because “people learned to play the class” since many of us played them since betas.

Actually d/d eles did get a major buff a couple of months after release.

The (player skill + opportunity cost) to outcome ratio in this game should be roughly equal across all skills, yet most of the highest damaging attacks in this game take virtually no skill to perform.

I agree to a GW1 player GW2 is too different from GW1: lack of game systems and greatly dumbed-down & WOW-ified skill/build system.

Main reasons why GW2 stPVP has failed:
1) lack of build choice/diversity, fixed weapon skills are too limiting
2) conquest game type is boring and repetitive
3) crappy balance: instagibbing new players in <2sec is just crazy stupid for game longevity
4) downed state

Aspen Tie.5084:

I’ve been playing pvp, and only pvp, since open beta weekends, and for essentially every day since release. I have not become even slightly bored with the pvp offered in gw2.

ah so it’s your first MMO? nice.

Dee Jay.2460:

GW2 has a balancing issue in the way it’s stats scale.

Both extremes (extreme offense and extreme defense) are highly effective while balanced builds seem to fall off in comparison.

Most MMOs employ some sort of Diminshing Returns in order to encourage people to balance their stats. GW2 does not.

It’s quite mind-boggling really when you think that certain traits and abilities can more than quadruple their output with different builds.

Mug for example, a Thief Tier 1 trait will go from dealing about 700 damage with a Condition/low Power build to critting for over 6000 with glass-cannon builds.

How can you balance a game with such extreme fluctuations within single traits?

Or the fact that there’s already an 80% difference in base HP between a Warrior and an Ele. Add armor to the mix and Warriors can take more than twice as much damage…baseline….before builds are even considered.

GW2 is the only MMO I know that doesn’t apply Diminshing Returns to Critical Strikes chances. That means you can quite easily get upwards of 80% real Crit-Chance.

Then add to the mix how certain stats like Crit-Chance and Crit-Damage, or Condition Damage and Condition Duration, or Toughness and Healing scale off of each other…(and yet some are more available than others) and you have a complete balancing disaster.

Effective builds in Gw2 focus on building around 1 particular gimmeck/strength rather than going for all-rounders.

This. The game is just really poorly designed at multiple levels:

• linear stat scaling promotes burst/bunker extremes
• numerous 1- and 2-button instagib skills, poor skill:reward balance across classes
• no resource mechanic, fights can go on forever, promotes spamming skills
• very limited build diversity, poorly-balanced traits, numerous trait/skill bugs
• extremely polarising downed state, alienates playerbase
• repetitive PVP format
• no match-making system, PVP for most people = stomping/being stomped

OneArmedBandit.7936:

mjharrison.3209:

sorry guys, noone cares about tPVP.

And yet, you are here.

watching the train wreck.

Anet: 1-button instagib skills are fine L2P
Players: 1-button instagib game is not fun, downed state sucks, conquest sucks.
Anet: but the top 2% of tPVP tell us the game is fine, L2P

(time passes)

Anet: Guys why has the stPVP population dropped like a stone?
Players: …

sorry guys, noone cares about tPVP.

TakeCare.3182:

Rome.3192:

Just gotta outplay em, man, you know what I’m saying?
1. Dodge the first ride of lightning. They can’t get their combo off. If you do get knocked down, stun-break away before you get hit by Burning Speed/Fire Grab/Ring of Fire/Arcane BS.
2. Ele is going to switch to earth attunement. Watch out for magnetic grasp. Staying some distance away from it will help. Continue to short-bow, beat the crap out of it.
3. Next up is water attunement. Wait at a distance till the frost aura goes away. Proceed to spank. Post frost-aura while they are still water attuned would be the best time to land your burst.
4. At this point, either they are going to switch back to air attunement for shocking aura or go to fire for another attempt at a burst. If it’s the former, stay away till the shocking goes away and finish the ele off. If it’s the latter, run into them expecting another burning speed that’s going to completely miss you (or dodge while running into him if he dodge rolls away and is positioning himself to land it). Finish him off here before updraft gets off CD.

Other tips:
1. Churning Earth: A lot will run lightning flash with it, so dodge after counting to 3. If you have a pistol off-hand, beat the kitten out of them while they cast this and interrupt it at 3. Watch out for stability.
2. Never open with your burst. They will be expecting it. Sometimes, I like to fake my burst to get their mist form out of the way. This will help enormously.
3. Immobilize screws them up sooo much. Hide in Shadows + Bow 1 to immobilize and proceed to cluster bomb from a safe distance. Check their attunement to see what gap closers they are going to be using and be ready to deal with it (Fire – Burning Speed, Water – Frozen Burst to slow you down or nullify your HS, Air – RTL, Earth – Magnetic Grasp).
4. Caltrops will help enormously. Criple screw them up, and they will need to condi-cleanse from water. Make them switch to water attunement and burst them down once they do.

As a D/D ele, listen to this advice. Seriously. It is exactly what you’re looking for.

Also as a d/d ele main, this is pretty much the best advice. Only thing I’d add is that most D/d eles build quite tanky and rely on their healing for longevity, so keeping poison up (especially when it’s so easy to apply as thief) is also key.

Try playing some different classes, thief may not be for you.

Thief is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) classes (hence the torrent of nerf complants).

I levelled up taking on 4-5 at a time easily, comfortably soloed champs, travel through anywhere fearlessly, escape from anything, and pwn newbs in WVW in a couple of seconds.

It’s a really strong class.

Simple answer – wvw is a lot more fun. Also if you think wvw is solely about zerging then you’re missing out – there is a lot of small group stuff going on.