Guild Wars 2

Anti.9156:

The new league icons we get with HoT next to the character name should also be visible in the forum. I feel like this would be way better than rank.
Obviously just incase the new league system works (high skilled players in high leagues, low skilled players in low leagues, no insane grind)

Not really. Higher league = play with team. Lower league = solo

It is much easier to win as part of a team (and therefore gain MMR) than as a solo player.

So there have been a lot of threads about how to improve Stronghold. What changes have you made for this weekend compared to BW2?

To summarize.

1. dd cele ele
2. Burst Mesmer
3. Anything that spams burns

Personally, I only switch in 2 situations:

1. If the class that I am playing has 2 or more of the same class already (making me the third). This should be resolved through matchmaking.
2. If skyhammer comes up. This could be resolved by removing the map.

Karl McLain.5604:

Re: Dash update!
The original reason we had removed the extra distance on Dash was that we lacked the tech. Since that post, it’s been resolved. Thus, the distance of Dash is back, with a fervor. Now you’ll travel a full 450, up from the 360 previous (~300 base dodge), while moving at a faster-than-running speed. Swiftness duration increased to 10 seconds, up from the 8 we talked about originally.
This thing’s about solid movement, so we’re going to push it in that direction for this BWE. Please check it out and let us know how you feel about it. The animation’s going to remain as your character’s run for now.
We are aware that this new distance will cause some de-sync in synergy with Shadow Refuge, but feel that the open-field movement capability for daredevil needs to take precedence over this abliity. note: You can still dodge from edge-to-edge and remain inside the field, but it’s pretty tricky.

Great change. Really nicely done. Glad to see some valuable improvements. Great, the shadow refuge might take some practice, but 95% of dodges are likely not during the few seconds of refuge anyway.

Wow. ANET still doesn’t get it. STOP releasing a billion balance changes at the same time. All you do is end up breaking something else. Incrementally fix the broken stuff. Fixing eles and burn stacking should happen now and then continue to modify as needed.

Saiyan.1704:

I like Courtyard. A lot actually. What we need is build templates for us to switch between TDM/Conquest/Stronghold

The map I absolutely cannot stand is Skyhammer… omg it’s beyond frustrating.

I still have a theory that people who love courtyard of those who love condi burn spam. It just works really well there with all the grouping. What do you play?

infantrydiv.1620:

Shadowstep.6049:

Nobody wants to hear the truth, just lies… typical.

What does ranger pet do? It provides CC, some dmg and rezzes but is absolutely useless by itself.

Rings the bell? Yeah, thief is ranger pet basically. I don’t see how it can be enjoyable to be a pet for other players.

Yeah clearly Thief must be equal to a Ranger pet since EVERY SINGLE top team runs a thief and a team with a Ranger on it hasn’t won a real tournament in over a year and a half. Perfect logic… actually, head on back over to the thief forum, thanks

You need to start watching more tournaments. You are getting out of date. Watch the NA finals for this past week for example.

The meta is evolving. Smarter teams are realizing that other classes do a better job than thief. Don’t get me wrong, elite thieves can still be valuable, but they are overcoming the class.

An interesting point to ponder. If the oRNG thief decided to quit the game, would they immediately recruit a new thief, or would they go in another direction. I’m not sure the answer.

Unfortunately, the matchmaking is this game is really broken. There are a few reasons….

1. PUG for premade. This is not fun for anyone
2. Lack of a balance team. The issue is that even if two people appear equal programmatically, certain specs being OP throws off the balance.

Well, a couple thoughts.

1. Burns themselves are fine. The stacking of burns by certain classes is broken.
2. Those who defend burn damage always say that it is easy to counter by running condi clear. That is false since anyone good will cover burns with multiple other condis. So the solution should be that the condition doing the greatest damage should always be cleared (or transferred) first.

Colin said the PvP guys will respond. We should start a pool to see how long it is until they do.

@OP: The game is over. When it is over, I sometimes check my damage stats before leaving. If someone wants to kill me, fine. Maybe they will feel better actually being able to kill me when I am not moving.

@OP:

Bad idea. I’m sure plenty of people have multiple accounts at this point and the one they post with isn’t their main.

Amante.8109:

Literally the only thing that makes Thief a staple in high-skill premade teams is Shortbow #5. Imagine, for a moment, that it were bugged and had to be disabled for a month. You would see Thieves disappear from all competitive teams overnight.

That’s not even addressing how miserable it is to play Thief in solo queue or lower brackets…

This ^^. The rest of the arguments in this thread miss the point. Shortbow #5 is the only thing that keeps thief from junk tier. It also only works in a well coordinated team. In any other game mode, play a different class.

Zenith.7301:

Ara.4569:

Can we expect faster balance patch ? Too much manpower on PvE.

Oh please, shut up. Not a single balance pass has been done with PvE in mind. PvE mesmers got completely screwed by the Harmonious Mantra change, necromancers and rangers have been rotting in garbage tier for over 3 years in PvE and nobody wants them, and yet they still found the time to nerf ranger pets and necromancer heals and the Lich elite while warriors got an even better version of Lich in the form of rampage.

So spare us your pitiful QQ when if anything the entire development process has been geared around changes for PvP.

We haven’t had a new dungeon in YEARS, year old bugs in the old stale dungeons we have still exist today. I don’t know what PvE manpower you’re crying about because they FIRED the dungeon dev team (Robert Hrouda among them) ages ago.

lol. It finally happened. Someone actually defending the balance team. It is nice to see there are still newer players or those who live in a fantasy world.

A preview of courtyard.

1. Everyone groups.
2. Everyone spams burns
3. The team with the most burns wipes the other team
4. Regroup and repeat #2.

The concept of 5v5 is good, but the map itself it just bad.

1. Too many tight places make it an AOE spam fest
2. In all the games I’ve ever fought on that map, maybe 2 have been close games. The rest are blowouts one way or the other. That’s not fun.

Terrorsquad.4802:

style.6173:

@OP:

Yes, matchmaking is horrendous. I was still hoping that ANET would announce a new system as part of HoT. The current implementation is really bad.

They did, its called Leagues.

lol. That won’t fix anything. How is that going to prevent premades vs PUGS? They need new matchmaking logic.

Neko.9021:

I’ll save you the trouble and tell you that Condi Ele just doesn’t work right now. Play another class if you want Condi.

dd cele ele says hi

scaramanga.4915:

Theif has plenty enough already. other classes have needed the attention longer and thiefs need to be on the chopping block. Hope they nerf you into the dirt.

hahahahaha. Either you are a troll or you have no clue about the current state of the game.

assassin.7895:

No

fifteen characters

No, you don’t want a matchmaking system that works?

Sebulon.7683:

Josh Davis.6015:

T raw.4658:

Josh Davis.6015:

As a note, we’re aware of the odd interaction between elementalist downstate and Vampirism runes and are tracking a fix for an upcoming build.

What about the Overpowered interaction of stack 4 eles?

I believe 4 class stacking is against ESL rules. As for the elementalist itself, we’re looking into it.

I WONDER WHY 4 class stacking is against the rules!

My guess is that ANET asked them to implement the rule. This way it doesn’t seem like ele is as much over the top and the balance team doesn’t need to do any work to fix it.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Good to see that ESL is doing the GW2 bug control for them.

Yes, until ANET gets a balance team, someone needs to do the work.

ColinJohanson.2394:

TorsoReaper.8530:

The current system is making the player base smaller by the minute.

While I’ll let the PvP team respond to the other points here, I do want to take a moment and address this:

PvP has steadily grown in population and play hours going on nearly a year now. It’s sky-rocketed since the game went free, and the two weeks before this have been our best weeks literally since the week the game launched. We anticipate this week will be the best week login/play wise PvP has ever had in the history of Gw2.

I don’t want to trivialize your points – and our competitive team has some great reasons why things operate the way they do they’ll lay out and explain in relation to leagues soon: I do want to call out you’re using false population data to support your point.

From an ArenaNet perspective, PvP is the fastest growing part of Gw2 and had more success for us as a business in the last year than it’s had by far in the history of the Guild Wars franchise. Next year is going to be even bigger because of that success.

I’m really proud of the work the team has done and the work our amazing player community who has helped grow competitive PvP just as much as our dev team has and would hate to see that lost in this discussion.
-CJ

I just really hope that ANET announces a matchmaking system that works. In addition:

1. The ability for PUGs to NEVER face premades
2. A balance team that fixes broken specs more often than once every 6 months.

Over the past several months, there have been a ton of threads about the poor quality of matchmaking. Some forum members have tried to make excuses for ANET and say that the PvP population is declining. Today, we heard firsthand that the PvP population is larger than ever.

The time for excuses is over ANET. Get a system that works. The current one is a disgrace.

Poliator.7021:

Those are awesome news to hear Colin! It’s always good to hear this kind of facts .
On another note:

Ristillath.6745:

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

That logic.

“It was kitten last time because it didn’t work, don’t try it again and make it work!”

Only because anet kittened up the last implementation of soloq doesn’t mean it’s bad in general.

Reading him I don’t think he was implying at any moment that SoloQ in general is bad, it is in other games, we all know that. I’d rather say that he was pointing out that some people is just plain obsessed witht he idea SoloQ>Current System .

He said SoloQ back then wasn’t good, a lot of people agree with him (as well as many people don’t!) and we could say he was trying to point out that SoloQ wasn’t as “perfect” as many people in these forums try to worship.

By your logic as well, the current system, as it is right now, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, it may just need some tweaks to work better (in case you consider this system is horrible).

No one is saying it was perfect. People are saying that as a PUG they don’t want to face premades or even those grouping as 3,4, or 5. If a PUG wants to fight against that, they can solo into team queue.

Sorel.4870:

style.6173:

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

The thing is, he’s right. You didn’t address the issue he’s raising. We had 20min queues in soloq. The match-making was even more random than it is now. Most soloq players, myself included preferred to PUG in teamq, and in those days there was no mechanism to make sure you don’t face premades that often. And STILL we chose that over soloq. Why the nostalgia mate?

Try again now that you heard Colin’s response. There are more players now. Just because YOU chose to queue into team queue doesn’t mean others want to do the same.

@OP:

Yes, matchmaking is horrendous. I was still hoping that ANET would announce a new system as part of HoT. The current implementation is really bad.

So, what comp won?

Cynz.9437:

1. they don’t have time

I;d just be happy if ANET hired some people who were responsible for balance. Right now it is a disgrace.

Acrisor.8097:

One can predict the future by looking at the past.
3 years of PvP have passed. We can very easy see what balance will be like in future.
In the end nobody forces us to consume this product.

This is actually true. People here choose to play an unbalanced game. Yeah, there is potential, but until ANET hires a balance team it won’t matter.

VaaCrow.3076:

They are playing the game as designed by using siege, sorry if thats not your personal idea of fun.

I’m more worried by the general lack of players in WvW. Where has everyone gone? Something is clearly broken in WvW.

@OP:

It was supposed to be a class specific. For some reason it isn’t in place right now. The game itself isn’t dead, but matchmaking is dead.

Grimfalcon.3847:

What I don’t understand is why d/d is getting a lot of hate again. I recently started playing this again after being gone for a year+ Has something changed to the d/d kit that makes it overwhelming? Or is it just celestial Amy that gives them the needed hp and healing power to live?

Three reasons…

1. Best at burn stacking which is also really OP right now.
2. Best at condi removal
3. Amazing at self healing

It is by far the strongest spec in the entire game right now.

I’d say it will be much more of an accomplishment if JQ is still top 3 next year. With the new system of not being able to buy guilds, it makes it tough to replenish as people leave.

Example: Look at TC. They likely won’t be back to top 3 permanently. Why? As soon as they played a week in T2, a lot of their bandwagon guilds jumped to other T2 servers. No way to get new guilds with the full status.

kdaddy.5431:

Quadox.7834:

Nooooooo, don’t go “all in for soloq or teamq”. Unacceptable. We had soloq in the past. It worked. Give it back.

yeah it worked so well we had 20 min que times and no one ever used it at the end. I dont know if the “all in” thing is the right way to go but currently the player base is still to small and we wont know what we have until the exp comes out.

You keep complaining about solo queue in every thread. We get it. You only win as part of an organized team and enjoy facing pugs. Not everyone feels that way though. Some want to fight on a more even playing field.

Talyn Sneider.1825:

As an ele player I shoot lightning from my kitten, and sneeze tornados, I look at a player sideways and he melts…

Are we finished with exagerations? we will receive nerfs and good ele players are happy with it, wait for it and stop spamming useless threads.

ANET saying they are looking at it and ANET doing something about it are two different things. It’s been 3 months since the traits came out. There is really no excuse for ANET at this point. Threads like this will continue until they decide to get to work.

Doon.2364:

News flash: Gw2 doesn’t need to be e-sport to thrive. Spvp is just a bonus. Gw2 offer a lot to many types of player base, esp its pve.

Wrong forum. People here actually want a focus on PvP.

I only want to see two changes:

1. CC should not be the only way to prevent a hero from being summoned. This game mode needs more PvP not more PvE and invuln.
2. Eles in downstate shouldn’t be able to run through door portals.

kdaddy.5431:

NO, i feel every other week or so someones throws this out there when the facts still are the same.

1- we had solo que and it died for many reasons

2-many people yolo qued

3- this is a team game of 5 vs 5 and no matter what many people will find a reason to why something is broken and its never them.

4- Its already been proven by the many devs who come on here saying you match history is fine. You lost because of the team you were on and the premade you were with. It is amazing that people come on here screaming about unfair match ups and then a dev comes on and shows there past 10 match ups and only one was unfair to them. Seriously how spoiled are the children here?

Wow. So many things wrong with this post. Not even sure if it is worth it to reply but here goes.

1. Solo queue didn’t die out. It was still popular. ANET chose to remove it. It is very similar to the old 8v8 rooms. Those didn’t die out. ANET chose to force everyone into 5v5.
2. and that makes solo queue not needed why?
3. Yes, it is 5v5. Why should a solo person have to play against premades? Your logic makes no sense.
4. Again, so wrong. There is one dev who comes on here. IF you haven’t noticed, he will post in forum threads ONLY when there is some data to prove that a person is wrong. When a person is right, there is no response. Don’t be biased

Silv.9207:

1) Burn is more or less fine. They can tone it down by 15% and increase by 10% the trait on guardians that increase they’re burn damage, making it perfect.

Another example of category 2.

Burn stacking is NOT fine. It is always funny how the immediately comeback is “use more cleanse”. What a lot of those who use burn stacking don’t want to admit is that it is a lot easier to apply burns than it is to clear them. Even a support guard who does have access to a lot of cleanses can’t keep up.

zapv.8051:

1) Get this through your head, “BURN IS SUPPOSED TO BE BURST LEVELS OF DAMAGE WHEN YOU HAVE A LOT OF STACKS.”

There are two types of people when it comes to burns.

1. Those who are objective and realize that burns are too strong right now.
2. Those who rely on burn builds and try to convince themselves that it is balanced.

I’d block off October 2nd through the 4th if you want to do the beta. It hasn’t been announced yet, but it fits perfectly into the schedule.

ANET made a really bad decision by giving too many classes access to stealth. It should have remained with mesmer and thief only.

GW2 will never be a real esport for the following reasons:

1. Conquest isn’t fun to watch. It really only caters to those who are really familiar with the game mode.
2. A lack of a balance team. How can we still see dd ele so completely OP? How can burn stacking still be so broken? Why are there not tweaks to broken specs as needed? Instead ANET waits, make 50 changes at once and then just breaks everything in a different way. Great for job security. Horrible for balance.
3. Too much AOE. There is minimal positioning required. It is all about spamming AOE. Again, not fun to watch.

Avigrus.2871:

It’s disappointing at the moment, because even if you’ve played well you still lose time and time again – It just seems that often your effort and/or performance have no bearing on the outcome of the match, which is a little disappointing imo.

That’s more of just a symptom of a broken matchmaking system. I’d rather see matchmaking fixed than to try to develop some way to determine who played well on a team.

Adamantium.3682:

In about 12 hours we’ll have a pretty good idea (I believe mmorpg.com has the Wednesday article that will likely go up ~9am PST).

I see a lot of comparisons to Necro minions, but hardly any reference to how much improved their minion AI has been since the recent patch. Every Necro I’ve talked to (and I also agree) says minions are actually good now and pretty fun to use. If that AI is used on drones I am open minded.

Still, I would rather not see AI. We’ll have to see how it plays out though, it’s not like the elite specs so far have had predictable mechanics to them at all. It could be something completely unexpected. No need to speculate anymore though I’m going to bed and waking up to the truth

Except that AI should be kept to PvE. It get unbalanced too quickly in PvP

Salamander.2504:

Vapour.7348:

Ansilon.6230:

The fact of the matter, to all those that support and run burn builds, is that it’s simply overpowered. 2 stacks is equal to almost 1.4k DPS. Any other condition at 2 stacks is simply not as strong. There is no skill in applying the burning condition what so ever in my opinion. So, for anyone to support this claim is bonkers xD a

Burn damage from high burn stacks is a low tier problem.

One trick pony builds (high burn stack builds) don’t sustain well in more advanced matches PLUS almost everyone has cleansing. Exception is dd ele but I consider that a medium burn stack build

So all the fuss about burn damage are from people that are big on whining and small on pvp acumen.

I support it because it makes pvp a bit more challenging and forces boneheads to equip cleansing or pay the price. A lot pay the price then start kittentt threads about burning and why it should get nerfed.

lol at eles being medium burn stack.

Burns are easy mode right now. Also try to understand how condition clear works. It is way easier to apply conditions on shorter cool down than it is to cleanse them.

If you don’t get that burn stacking is broken, then you either don’t PvP or you play a burn stacking build.

witcher.3197:

Because there is no balance team. There’s just a bunch of devs working on various projects and once in a while when they aren’t too busy they sit down and throw together a balance patch.

Sadly, this is true.

There really has to be solo queue with league. Otherwise the whole concept will be a fail. They haven’t announced the details yet though.