Guild Wars 2

When theives steal they get skills based on the profession that they’re stealing from. If a thief steals to an NPC (like a vet ogre), they have a chance to get other skills. One of these skills is Bone Crack. It STUNS (not daze like thieves get from guards) for 3 seconds, which is a long time. I play thief and I think this is way too OP for an environment where PvP happens.

To put it into perspective, this stun has twice as long a duration (and a 1/4 sec cast) as Basilisk Venom, which is an elite skill.

TBH I’m suprised it has lasted this long. I think the best solution would be to make it so you can only steal certain skills in WvW (only the ones we get from players), even from ogres and other PvE.

Thoughts?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Some maths for errbody:
For a new player to get from 1->80 with the new numbers:
Fastest: 729 team arena wins with full time rewards.
Slowest: 5467 custom arena losses with full time rewards.

So lets assume a 50% win rate, which is approximately what matchmaking gives most of us. Someone might want to check my math, but it seems right:

If you only play TPvP @ 50% win rate you need to play 1094 matches.
If you only play hotjoin @ 50% win rate you need to play 3124 matches

It IS a lot of matches, but do you guys feel that it’s enough, after seeing the numbers?

So will new achievements be added to PvP? Seeing as it sounds like I’m going to have a significant number of them maxed out, I hope there will be.

Rezz.8019:

I think that in the future the ladder rank should be visible in matches. Other rank is irrelevant now.

I like this, ANET said that they would like ladders to be the new prestige thing anyway.

Now that max rank is actually attainable, do you guys think that ranks should be viewable in hotjoins and at the end of tournament matches?

Personally I think they should be hidden. If rank finisher is supposed to be a measure of length of time played (where current mid 50s is considered to be a long time), then we should let them do just that, and hide personal rank.

Thoughts?

Loooong time ago one of the Devs said that the titles would get rescaled to represent rank (not points scored in PvP), but that was before rank rescaling happened.

On RU, they said that ranks aren’t going to be ‘the pvp prestige reward’ any more — that’s going to be the ladder rewards. Where hopefully skill will determine the prestige, not rank farming.

Josh Davis.6015:

So, here’s a question (purely for discussion):

If you had to choose one, would you prefer RANKED Solo Arena, or UNRANKED Team Arena? I’d imagine unranked team arena would still allow you to queue up by yourself or with 1-4 friends much like the rated version does now.

Thoughts?

+1 for unranked team arena, people yolo in TPvP anyway.

KarlaGrey.5903:

Mythoryk.7984:

You’d see teams of 5/5 65+ ranked players farming the low levels to quickly gain rank points.

Because such scenarios are so tremendiously uncommon in the current tpvp situation, rite.

I’m totally OK with a team of 60s facerolling everyone. They’ve eared it with how much they’ve had to play to get to 60.

Arganthium.5638:

• FS- available to virtually no thief build in the current meta because of how badly S/D is looked upon. Either way, there’s a significant after cast on the skill, and (as I’ve written about recently) you can generally take out S/D just through brute force anyways (last paragraph).

I hope everyone believes you that S/D is underpowered. (laughs manically)

Crit damage changes will hit warriors pretty hard IMO.

Liewec.2896:

in this thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/No-Rewards-For-PvP
they’ve said “We removed glory and match reward chests early to prevent a flood of PvE players from coming into PvP just to fill their wardrobe.”

so yup, sounds like all of our swag pvp sets will be going in to the wardrobe too,
highfive for a full set of arah gear
this is actually a pretty great reward for us pvpers,
i just wish i’d bought more cultural sets

for pvp i’d expect that it will have a similar transmute system but without the need for charges.

Yeah, older PvPers are getting much more rewarded than people starting out. Also, don’t expect the transmutation system to be split between PvP and other game modes. I’m willing to bet it will be consistant across the entire game (ie. we as PvPers will be using transmutation charges to change our looks). This doesn’t bother me though, since being able to take my look to other areas of the game is worth paying to use the charges. Even if it means that I can’t change how I look in PvP 100 times a day (but who did that anyway?).

Mythoryk.7984:

Levis.6137:

Can a dev confirm, that the wardrobe change includes unique PvE skins for pvp aswell?!
(Legendarys, Mjölnir, Vulcanos, Bonnetti’s Rapier, Whisperblade, Foefire’s Essence,…,….)

Every skin in the game will be available in both PvE and PvP formats. Legendaries included. It’s one of the primary reasons for the wardrobe system.

Not gonna lie, my PvE armor looks aweful scrubby. Can’t wait till the 15th.

Justin ODell.9517:

We removed glory and match reward chests early to prevent a flood of PvE players from coming into PvP just to fill their wardrobe. While the our team would LOVE everyone playing PvP, some super smart economist peopleguys said it would have negative repercussions on the in-game economy or something.

Basically what he’s saying is that old pvp players will get WAY more rewarded come the 15th, and also that this decision was made (using economics as justification) conciously. We have a timeline (April 15th), just be patient.

Mythoryk.7984:

While I definitely agree with you… What about this scenario would keep SoloQ from essentially being hotjoin? The mentality would essentially become parallel to hotjoin with no consequence for losing.

Proper use of matchmaking, even in the unranked Q, would help alleviate this I think.

Mythoryk.7984:

Skyhammer is not my favorite map, by any means, but I agree with the OP. If you’re bad at positioning, you’ll hate Skyhammer. People always talk about how they want different objectives and map variation. Anet gave you a map on which to utilize a different play-style focused on positioning and controls.

Pretty much this. We complain about wanting new maps, then we complain about the new maps we get. Skyhammer is a pretty well designed map, I very rarely get ‘cheesed’ on it, and when I do its usually because I was doing something reckless and/or scrubby.

Phadde.7362:

I think it’s very unlikely that the majority doesn’t want the map “deleted”. Perhaps removed from SoloQ.

Something that does seem to be fairly universal among both yea- and nay-sayers, is the opinion that the Skyhammer as an enviromental weapon is too strong and should be possible to be evaded and/or blocked.

Everyone only thinks the majority hates skyhammer because only the haters and scrubs will muster up the motivation to come to the forums and complain about it. Then, the more people that see skyhammer hate threads, the more people that start to believe it. Read some of the earlier posts in the thread that talk about this.

Anet uses statistics to figure out if the community actually hates skyhammer, the forum community just brings the potential issues to their attention.

Zirith.6429:

azuzephyr.7280:

Honeypie, this is the pvp forums. We have nothing to show for our time spent playing but 10-20g max, some leftover qualifying points and a box full of crushed dreams.

Legendries and precursors are for the PVE/WVW goldenchildren, we’re the ugly stepkids.

I made 600g during winterdays just from pvp, wtb that kind of income from tournies again (it was like 1.5g per tourny win)

Yeah, that’s how I bought my unicorn shooter.

Locuz.2651:

TheDevice.2751:

Hey play a necromancer with near to 0 stability and say this map is great lol.

What will stability do to anyone if i pull them from stealth. Good luck quessing when to use stab or dodge when you dont see me coming.

Within range off a glass panel = 100% dead.

Even if youre the best player in the world with the most amazing reaction time. Stunnbreakers dont break my magnet pull and the second you are pulled the glass breaks and youre dead on the floor.

You can see the glass flicker, even when people are stealth. Dead give away.

OneManArmy.9732:

the sober ninja.6539:

Tactical Aegis to stop finishers could be a pretty interesting mechanic. Not blinds though, there’s way too many options for that.

and only class that can provide aegis is guardian (except mesmer with signet). so, aint guardiand satisfied with their spot in pvp/wvw/pve? do you want more?

It’s fitting for a guardian though.

Zenith.7301:

So cry me a river about thieves’ survivability when power rangers and engineers have significantly less survival and none of the effective burst.

Lol engineers have survivability issues? What game are you playing?

Tactical Aegis to stop finishers could be a pretty interesting mechanic. Not blinds though, there’s way too many options for that.

How about we just nerf thief damage, evades, armor (make them light armor class), boons, condi removal, CC, mobility, and stealth?

These changes should put thieves in a really good place balance wise.

I’d love a no-stress, unranked Q that would utilize matchmaking, and still give regular Q rewards.

TheDevice.2751:

Hey play a necromancer with near to 0 stability and say this map is great lol

OP = thief

nuff said

Doesn’t Plague (or one of those other transform skills) give Necros one of the longest lasting stability durations in game?

Also, Necros have a pile of fears, and as far as skyhammer is concerned, I think that offsets any stability issues.

I’m pretty sure Keynes once said that “in the long run, we all need a respawn”.

Cush.4063:

Simon.3794:

Cush.4063:

It will also make it so people won’t need multiple legendaries of the same kind for different alts so demand will go down because of that. That also means supply will go up for precursors seeing as you only need one to have it on all characters so the price could drop as well.

you will still need the real precursor, like transmuted precursors right now, those wont work for legendary crafting.

Of course. I’m saying that you will only need one real precursor if you want multiples of the same legendary since you can create duplicates after the wardrobe change. So more people will be selling precursors that they don’t need and less people will be purchasing them because they won’t need them if they have already created that legendary. That is if they don’t care about stats and only about look which is most likely the reason. Thus, supply will go up and demand will go down and so the price will go down.

I think you’re definitely talking about a legitimate effect. Though, I believe the effect of legendary weapons being more desirable due to use across multiple characters and multiple games modes will have a larger impact on demand.

This is all totally speculative at best!

kirito.4138:

The population exclusive to only pvp is likely too small to make a dent in the current supply&demand

Remember though, this new wardrobe change is across all game modes, so we’re talking about the entire population of GW2 not just PvP.

Honeypie, this is the pvp forums. We have nothing to show for our time spent playing but 10-20g max, some leftover qualifying points and a box full of crushed dreams.

Legendries and precursors are for the PVE/WVW goldenchildren, we’re the ugly stepkids.

Actually, I made a lot of gold off of Wintersday gifts. They nearly paid for my legendary.

Cush.4063:

the sober ninja.6539:

Cush.4063:

I mean, as long as the skins I’ve already unlocked are free to use infinite times like they already are I’m fine with the new system but if they lock all my skins I’ve unlocked behind a wall that I have to pay cash to get them back I’ll probably be pretty aggravated.

Expect to use the transmutation charges. We’re paying to use these skins in ALL areas of the game (whether you want to or not), and not just pvp. There’s pros and cons, I’m ok with it — we make enough gold in PvP now to not have it hurt us too much anyway.

You really think they would charge us for all the skins we’ve already unlocked? Wouldn’t make sense when the devs were saying to unlock as many skins as possible before the patch. I mean every single time I put a new piece on a character in PvP I will get charged? That’s ridiculous.

We have skins unlocked (where a lot of PvEers won’t) but we will still need to pay for transmutation charges to change our look. The way the wardrobe will work wont’ be split for PvE and PvP … its all one unified system.

Cush.4063:

I mean, as long as the skins I’ve already unlocked are free to use infinite times like they already are I’m fine with the new system but if they lock all my skins I’ve unlocked behind a wall that I have to pay cash to get them back I’ll probably be pretty aggravated.

Expect to use the transmutation charges. We’re paying to use these skins in ALL areas of the game (whether you want to or not), and not just pvp. There’s pros and cons, I’m ok with it — we make enough gold in PvP now to not have it hurt us too much anyway.

Being able to apply a legendary skin infinitely (and use it in more game modes) will definitely increase the demand for legendary weapons. Expect prices of legendary weapons to go up. Might want to consider buying some of the components (like precursor) before patch if you’re in the market.

Bro my thief will shoot unicorns. Shortbow is meta anyway.

RaZaC.1963:

I love it. Only thing i’m not looking forward to is legendary’s being used in sPvP by PvE and WvW players.

Bro, I can’t wait to shoot unicorns at scrubs in sPvP.

Simon.3794:

Cons: PvE ers will have the best looks when playing PvP.

Not necessarily, we have way more skins unlocked because of the existing pvp locker.

Don’t count on ANET giving us actual MMA values for players. It would be too easy to figure out the formula they use to calculate it, and that would introduce possible exploits. Or at the very least, put more risk on ANET, which they don’t want.

That said, I’m all for transparency. Seeing other peoples’ rating would be nice, and yeah the artificial leaderboard decay sucks.

We won’t lose what’s already in our PvP locker. Devs have pretty much already said this, without actually saying it.

Will we need to buy transmutation charges to apply the skins to keep our pvp characters looking they way the do already?

If I have a legendary weapon, will I be able to have the legendary skin on more than one character simultaneously?

How many gems will a transmutation charge cost?

Diminishing returns from stats? Pretty sure that exists (except w/ crit damage, but that’s changing soon).

Evan Lesh.3295:

the sober ninja.6539:

Evan Lesh.3295:

This could be a couple of things: The default starting rating in comparison to the populations rating curve i.e Default rating is above/below average. Or the nature of the Glicko algorithm in how it tries to place you as fast as possible i.e you win your very very first game, you’ll shoot up in rating and face tougher opponents.

How long does the volatility last?

Just curious because it’s changing anyway(?).

There are a lot of variables. For instance if you don’t play for a while, your volatility will go up. With a big enough population, a new player can get a pretty stable rating very few games.

What is the reason behind increasing players’ volatility when some players have 1000s of ranked games played, and as a result aren’t improving at the same rate as newer players?

If players queue less frequently, than leaderboard decay will happen. The weird part is, I think leaderboard decay just goes away once you play another game after coming back (the illusion of high volatility). I’m pretty sure the leaderboard decay is just for show to have an illusion of a dynamic leaderboard.

For example: After not playing Solo Q for a very long time my leaderboard rating plumits from top 1000 to 60%. However, after playing one game (win or lose) my leaderboard rating will shoot back up to where it was (or very close) prior to taking a Solo Q break.

This leads me to believe that this isn’t really MMR volatility fluctuating. Its just a way for the leaderboard to look dynamic, and also to keep the kids that used to get lucky and win 20+ games in a row (and retiring from the game) from staying on the leaderboard indefinately.

I think that having an internal rating system is important for ensuring that (as an experienced PvPer) I won’t get matched up against low ranks and scrubs. For the most part I think the system works as intended. Of course once in a while there will be a miscalculation by the system, but it happens pretty rarely (for me anyway).

Everyone should keep in mind though that it is nearly impossible to make a flawless matchmaking system. If you don’t understand why, go read up on statistical distributions.

Evan Lesh.3295:

This could be a couple of things: The default starting rating in comparison to the populations rating curve i.e Default rating is above/below average. Or the nature of the Glicko algorithm in how it tries to place you as fast as possible i.e you win your very very first game, you’ll shoot up in rating and face tougher opponents.

How long does the volatility last?

Just curious because it’s changing anyway(?).

the sober ninja.6539:

the sober ninja.6539:

G9X has this issue. Lets get this fixed ANET.

Left clicking workings fine, so presumably I could position my camera with left click and then right click to make my character to run that way while I hold W or whatever…

Recently bought a Steelseries Sensei mouse about a week ago and haven’t had this problem since the purchase.

(my G9X was getting kind of old and needed replacing anyway)

Update: Still haven’t had the problem since I bought the new mouse.

My thief unemployed now.

Terrorsquad.2349:

the sober ninja.6539:

Implying PW is actually meta in high tier thief play. I generally only see PW used by scrubs or in hotjoins where kids can’t handle thieves. PW isn’t hard to avoid, and its basically the only real damage a S/P thief has. Watching a thief spam it just means the thief has no initiative. Once you realize that you can basically just sneeze on the thief to kill it.

PW not OP.

PW it’s mechanic is somehow. When you look at third skill of sword/dagger, you need to press twice to do the whole skill. I would agree something like this should be on PW aswel since stunning, damaging and evading 1.5s long attack is quite overpowered.
It is overpowered because we can spam it, it wouldn’t be overpowered if we could use it every 8s or so. It’s just too much in one single button.
And I kinda stopped playing s/p since it’s so cheesy and people keep complaining.

If they split PW into more button presses like the S/D evade, I think it would make PW more OP. S/D is really good because you can evade when you want, then larcernous strike when the time is right. With PW, you know its all coming at the same time and you can take measures to ensure that it won’t murder you.

Also: trololol larcenous strike unblockable, which nearly guarantees a basilisk venom proc on a guardian or whatever.

Implying PW is actually meta in high tier thief play. I generally only see PW used by scrubs or in hotjoins where kids can’t handle thieves. PW isn’t hard to avoid, and its basically the only real damage a S/P thief has. Watching a thief spam it just means the thief has no initiative. Once you realize that you can basically just sneeze on the thief to kill it.

PW not OP.

If you are using mug, you’ll want to mug while mid-hearseeker so that the heartseeker animation finishes when you’re on top of the guy and you get stealth. If you mug while stealthed it will de-stealth you.

Keep in mind also that you can use infiltrators signet pretty much interchangeably with steal/mug (it doesn’t attack so you CAN use it when stealth to get behind someone to backstab).

Same can be done with shadowstep if you’re good/fast enough at aiming it.

Rogue.8235:

Everyone is bringing up good points, especially about reducing the severity of counters (which is the kind of balance I’m trying to emphasize).

the sober ninja.6539:

This isn’t a team game. Combo fields and finishers don’t support the party. Lets not balance for that.

There isn’t even a 1v1 specific aspect to the game. In fact you want to AVOID 1v1s in spvp to stack the odds in your favour, so why balance around it? That’s dumb.

This, however… So it’s not a team game and it’s not a dueling game. What game are you playing?

That first bit was supposed to be sarcasm (ie. it IS a team game).

This isn’t a team game. Combo fields and finishers don’t support the party. Lets not balance for that.

There isn’t even a 1v1 specific aspect to the game. In fact you want to AVOID 1v1s in spvp to stack the odds in your favour, so why balance around it? That’s dumb.

Cynz.9437:

it is still fun class to play and does have it’s spot in team pvp, however pretty unforgiving so certain dedication/time investment is expected~

Pretty much this.

I run a build very similar to this on my war.

The key to it is the sigil of intel on axe — meaning when you swap to axe make sure you evis (F1) something. I like the GS for mobility (especailly if you plan to WvW) but you can use hammer or longbow or whatever you want instead.

I also run banner elite for dat clutch res.

The build has tons of stability to get stomps out. Though it is a little susceptible to condi damage … keep in mind that by spamming evis you will also be cleansing condis — gotta land it though.

TBH it’s a pretty easy build to be successful with, but the skill ceiling is pretty high.

Note: The amulet is pretty preferential — if you want to be more bursty don’t hesitate to swap to a full zerker amulet.

No video Allie? I kind of wanted to see it!

You can’t exclude the solo players in tpvp because the premade 4’s need the yolo to make 5.

Rank finishers are a reward for PvP play, and a lot of people put a lot of time into the game to get that wolf or bear or whatever finisher.

Titles don’t progress through rank points, they progress through points scored in PvP.