Guild Wars 2

Cynz.9437:

They threw that concept out of the window when HoT was designed.

It didn’t exist pre-HoT either, for the most part the only classes that played “risky” glassy builds were the two that had mechanics that made playing glassy less risky than most other classes yet still far more rewarding. High risk would have been something like zerker static discharge engy which of course no one played other than for fun, because mes/thief would eat them for breakfast, were much lower risk and much higher reward.

Siphon.8405:

Thieves by design are Alpha Predators in WvW.

Not really, there was no “design in WvW”, they built the combat and classes around their “e-sport” and in alpha they pretty much ignored WvW & PvE players in relation to combat, whilst hanging on the words of Teldo and friends on what needed to be changed.

They then spent 3 years balancing around virtually nothing but PvP, and since HoT only really PvE raids have been added to the balance consideration in any meanigful sense, WvW is still basically ignored other than the odd crumb thrown its way.

Which is why WvW in every aspect from roaming, to guild raids, to blobs has been a total joke in terms of balance since day 1.

As for thieves not being wanted in blob groups that is true, and a fine example of the non-existent balance in the WvW (but then neither are engies or rangers, and for the two mesmers a blob might want, they want 20 guards, hardly balance is it), but regardless, two wrongs don’t make a right.

When it comes to roaming thief breaks a pretty basic rule of PvP – risk vs reward, if a class lets a player screw up, get outplayed, etc and not be punished for that, because you can disengage most times, then that is absolutely broken (and is of course why thief has always been so popular as a roamer, it is ez-mode), that it is unwanted in blobs doesn’t justify that in any way.

Yep, what is considered match manipulation in other games is the norm and perfectly okay in GW2, just one of the reasons this game has such a pitifully small PvP playerbase.

Everything is broken in WvW…

This game doesn’t have any open world PvP.

dmndbcK.3425:

Pretty much why ALL of the serious teams that were good have all but left competitive PvP.

Not really, most of the competitive playerbase left the game long before season 5, same with the 5v5 tournies, they died off way before season 5, back when people could queue as a team, the solo/duo queue has nothing to do with the failure of this game as a competitive team based PvP game.

Zenith.7301:

Duelists are useless in WvW. Match ups are won by zerg play.

“Winning” match-ups is useless in WvW given that as a competition it is a complete joke.

Or just play a game actually designed and balanced for 1v1, rather than trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

People banging on about stats are funny, balance changes to PvP or PvE rarely make sense in WvW because they are totally different game modes, that PvP uses different stats and PvE uses similar are really neither here nor there, which is why balance in WvW has always been pretty much non-existent, because they basically don’t balance for it.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Reaper Alim.4176:

snipples

theyre great ideas but if I was a dev that would give me a reason to ignore the post.

So you are suggesting devs all act like children and lack the critical thinking and logic to take valid points from something just because it was stated in a blunt manner, okay…

Eleazar.9478:

Hmmm biggest complaint in this thread, the SUSTAIN CONDI META, right? what does that sound like hmmmmmm let me think…… oh yea PVP season 1 thats right, how did they fix that? oh yea they took out certain stats to encourage snowballing fights and bursty builds. hell this pvp season was funner thankitten

Erm wrong, the thread is about player behavior, as for PvP, attributing amulet changes as the fix is misleading, the biggest changes were they nerfed the crap out of things like bunker mes, scrapper, rev, etc, changes to skills, traits and even mechanics.

But that is the difference between PvP and WvW, the game gets balanced around PvP (and more recently PvE raids) and WvW just gets the odd crumb, and that is the problem with balance in WvW, your obsession with amulets would change very little.

Eleazar.9478:

See an amulet system would go a loooooong way to improving this fights. As you know you’ll have a down side to what stats you take. But nope everyone wants there broke kitten

Amulets won’t change that WvW class balance is and always has been terrible, when most of the balance issues are down to the design of the classes/skills themselves.

Straegen.2938:

1. Population Balance – Magically fix what no other MMO has been able to do

No other MMO fixes it perfectly, but a WvW system where players have a designated home world that also allows transfers is literally the worst possible system when it comes to population balance, it is also terrible at coping with a declining population, there are other games that do a much better job in these respects.

Jim Hunter.6821:

It’s still a good thing. The higher populated server is still forced to split up to hold their camps which means they can’t just roll around with 1 massive blob.

It is entirely pointless when the game mode is simply a broken joke as any sort of competition in terms of “winning” on points, go look at mos.millenium, go to EU, 4 out of 5 tiers are completely one sided in terms of score (e.g – t1 – Piken 1st – 31 times, RS 1st – 5, FSP 1st – 2), which is why other than new players & a handful of “special” players, no one is really bothered about “winning” PPT or about losing objectives, because the match-ups are over before they’ve even begun.

Suggesting minor changes to a game mode that is completely broken is nonsensical and a waste of dev resources.

Mr Godlike.6098:

zinkz.7045:

Poelala.2830:

Elementalist probably has the least build diversity of any class in the entire game.

Not really, ele just has the most “special snowflakes” who are so ignorant they think it is only the class in PvP with only one strong build or the only class with weapons that have issues, and as for the “entrie game” it is one of the most pampered classes out there, perma meta in PvE for 4 years (compare that to necros for example), perma meta in WvW (compare that with engy, ranger, thief, etc).

Sorry sir but your are wrong. In case of ele it’s not problem that healbot is only build out there that is ,,strong" and effective at something. It’s not problem here that healbot is meta. It’s problem that healbot is mandatory to stay alive against anything and is mandatory to do anything in conquest as ele. One of causes of this is that tempest elite specialisation is GARBAGE without healing power and toughness.

I know that there are out there classes with same issues like rev but power rev is not freaking boring as hell and your skill maters more on such build then on simple heal spam.

Wrong, firstly the idea that ele meta build is boring and the one meta build several other classes have is not, is subjective and lots of classes have things that are mandatory not just ele.

So lets take engy as an example, firstly “boring” to play, I know players who played engy for 3 years who quit the game because scrapper bored them to tears (and that was when the scrapper was still broken OP pre-nerfs), and why did they quit, because the class has no real variety so if they don’t like hammer paired with defensive traitlines and elixir gun they are screwed into playing something sub-par just like eles that want to play something else other than the team support type build.

Let’s look at the weapons firstly Rifle, that got wrecked by HoT powercreep the increased reflects, increased stab, increased stunbreaks, increased passives, increased evades/dodges, etc, plus it was left behind in terms of damage, so is a joke, shield has been a joke for a long time and p/p is a sub-par build that plays like a 3rd rate thief with no mobility, so all you have is hammer.

And then look at the hammer build, what does practically every engy take for traitlines – alchemy & inventions, because without them (alchemy especially which is basically mandatory) scrapper lacks enough defense to survive. And of course that 2 of the other traitlines are trash, one of which is okay for p/p (note ele has much better traitlines and far fewer useless traits) and the other is simply sub-par compared to inventions.

Then what do you have with this hammer build, really a rezbot that does mediocre damage (after all the nerfs), with poor damage application and that is relatively hard to kill. For many engy players if you compare that to pre-HoT builds it is very dull to play. (yes which is subjective)

Then look at how many skills are garbage on engy, turrets (bar healing) are trash, gadgets are trash (they nerfed the only good one into uselessness), even most of their kits have been left behind so are between sub-par and trash.

And that is just engy, it is not the only other class in a bad state (go look at rev for example the class is just a complete mess), so cut the “special snowflake” nonsense that ele is the only class that has issues in PvP. (and as for PvE & WvW where ele has been perma meta, whilst some other classes…)

CangLongWoHu.9752:

Get good or get dead. That is what WVW is all about.

WvW has virtually nothing to do with getting good, you’ve confused it with something that takes some meaningful level of skill.

Poelala.2830:

Elementalist probably has the least build diversity of any class in the entire game.

Not really, ele just has the most “special snowflakes” who are so ignorant they think it is only the class in PvP with only one strong build or the only class with weapons that have issues, and as for the “entrie game” it is one of the most pampered classes out there, perma meta in PvE for 4 years (compare that to necros for example), perma meta in WvW (compare that with engy, ranger, thief, etc).

The Game Slayer.7632:

I’d venture to say that anyone who tries to compare tb/dire to mar/com doesn’t really know a lot at all about opportunity cost and how stats work. But that’s just me.

I’d venture to say anyone that compares gear stats in isolation shouldn’t really be commenting on game balance as they clearly lack basic logic and understanding of what constitutes balance. (and beyond that in regard to WvW especially that they still haven’t learnt Anet don’t give two kittens anyway, is well…)

The laughably named stealth is always completely broken in open world PvP type game modes, which is why the stealth classes(s) are always such popular roamers, it is ezmode when you can disengage if you screw up. (apparently risk vs reward is an unknown concept to some)

As for GW2 specifically, two things, firstly it is hilarious looking back at pre-launch and how they hyped up how stealth would be different from the broken mechanic it was in other MMOs, that would it be a tool for re-positioning, yet what do we have stealth stacking (even engy can stack to the limit) and then a perma stealth build that doesn’t even come out of stealth when it attacks, it is laughable.

Secondly GW2 has about the most faceroll stealth system in existence, to take another game I play ESO, in that if I play nightblade (“the stealth class”), I get knocked out of stealth if I take damage, every single class has access to a reveal skill, because there is one in a general tree, that not only reveals, but reduces damage from stealth attacks by 50% for just having it slotted on your bar and then every class also has access to reveal pots which have a larger radius than any reveal skill in GW2 and also reveal for much longer, GW2 in comparison is so easy on stealth it is laughable.

apharma.3741:

It doesn’t prove anything in a scientific term….

Which means it does not prove anything at all, which is the point.

apharma.3741:

To even bring up scientific reasoning is itself grasping at straws…

No, that is how valid, useful experiments work you don’t take a system with many different variables and test it once, with one subject, because that has rather large flaws so does not constitute meaningful proof in any way.

apharma.3741:

Also assuming people must be… to call this proof…

It is amusing you take a throwaway line so seriously, it got the point across that his laughably termed “experiment” it is basically meaningless, same goes for the “proof” people post in this thread, and that if some people don’t realise that, then that is their failing.

And that goes for all the “proof”, so the guy who posted how he is struggling in Gold on one account, yet is on Bronze in another account, having played plenty of games is also not ‘proof’ that Helseth is wrong.

The reality is you can’t do any sort of useful experiment, because this game has not had a stable rating system, so the only players who can be used as a test subject are a tiny handful of very good players who you know should be top division, as you don’t know where the other 99.999% of the players should actually be placed in theory on their ability.

Which is of course useless, because for that to have meaning you would have make massive assumptions like the relationship between skill level and a players ability to influence the game remains a constant regardless of that skill level, teammates, etc, same thing for other factors like matchmaking, you’d have to assume that a guy who works shifts so plays at unusual times, gets the same consistency of matchmaking at 5 AM as he would at 9pm primetime, you’d have to assume every class has the same ability to influence a match & performs the same at platinum as it does at bronze, and so on.

And just to be clear, I’ve played this game about 3 times in the last three months, and gave up on PvP a long time ago (I play SC2 for PvP, at which I am very mediocre) so have no vested interest in this discussion.

I don’t think in strict terms “ELO hell” exists in that if you play enough games eventually a player will move to their correct position, however I think that in a game with all the issues GW2 PvP has, then I can see how it is possible in some circumstances for a player to take much longer than may be desirable or enjoyable to get to their actual placement, to the point it could get conflated with “ELO hell”.

As I said previously, the whole ELO Hell thing is a red herring, most complaints I see or hear about the system aren’t really about the alleged “ELO Hell” at all, at least not in a very black and white sense.

apharma.3741:

I know a few people who got paced in Bronze but are now in gold/platinum however they didn’t take screenshots at the start or video their progress because as I say, it’s a video game and most people just don’t care to do what you would require as proof.

Whoosh!

sophiewhite.3149:

its fun watching everyone make every excuse they can to “prove” they arent as bad as they actually are.

It is more fun watching how many people in this thread are apparently school dropouts and think Helseth’s “experiment” or anything others have posted constitutes proof or disproof in any meaningful sense, or even that “ESO Hell” is worth going on about, most of the complaints I read aren’t really about that (at least not in simple black and white terms).

Dadefyl.1908:

But isn’t the point to prove that he does not belong there…

The point was to get more viewers for his Twitch stream, it is just another version of solo queue to legend on a non-HoT build, etc, that PvP streamers have done before because normally it ups their views.

As a valid, useful experiment it has no point, because it is a joke in that regard with a sample size of 1, hence proves nothing of any value.

nothelseth.4621:

pvp more views than ever
more hype than ever behind competitive events
more interest in pvp in general from gw than ever

top pvp players are more connected rn than ever

‘’stop esports!’’
pls, it finally has a fair chance.

Can I have some of those drugs you are on?

Tournaments in the past have received significantly more viewers on Twitch than any since the joke that is HoT, even the odd player made tourney got 5k a long time ago, there was a time Teldo alone used to get more views than any stream does these days and more than most combined, you are playing a game where the actual PvP population left long ago and they have to literally bribe PvE players to play it with ascended armour, legendary backpack, etc to fluff the numbers of a game mode that doesn’t even have the population for 2 queues or frankly even for 1 queue.

Oh and guess what, none of the fundamental issues that prevented it from ever getting near “e-sports” have gone, it is still terrible to watch for example, which is why even with a company behind events, prize money, etc the tournies still get less views than some kid sitting in their bedroom streaming some random game.

The idea that PvP is doing better than ever is absolutely laughable.

azyume.6321:

Check the leaderboard then perhaps explain what exactly is the joke. The top 4 EU only have 300+ games played each.

In regard to matches played the top 4 are fine, but you don’t have to go far to see the joke when number 9 has played 20 games…

What an interesting and unique build using traits, runes, etc that you rarely see…

A server in a different game more suited to roaming.

SeekZ.3561:

I dont know how it goes in WvW but if you are of the opinion that spamming skills will get you in high pvp tiers…

Mindlessly spam, sure, but GW2 is still pretty spammy regardless compared to more skilled games. (But then what else could it be in a game with little to no resource management, generally short cooldowns and alot of tab-targeted skills)

I remember Lord Baldseth making a VOD sometime pre-HoT, talking about how spammy this game is compared to other competitive games, he gave the example of staff 3 on necro, that even in ESL tournies when people played necro they didn’t for example save staff 3 to use the chill on an opponent to peel for a team-mate, they spammed it, because it was used to overload players with condies.

Actiondan.8146:

Could you imagine Overwatch/CSGO in ranked and only being about to play with ONE friend and the rest are pugs?

Can you imagine pushing higher tiers in LoL, Dota or HOTS and being forced to play solo or with 1 person?

It’s absolutely absurd.

Yes and no, in one sense I agree it is absurd to not be able to queue as a 5 man in ranked in a 5 man PvP game mode, on the other the mixed queuing in GW2 was equally absurd in a ranked “competitive” PvP game mode.

Those games you mention have matchmaking on an entirely different level to the joke you get in GW2, in part because they have far, far larger playerbases, but also because they are much stricter, e.g – in DOTA 2 if you queue ranked as a pre-made the lowest MMR player must be within a certain MMR of the highest, because obviously it is impossible to produce any sort of accurate matchmaking with vastly different skill levels, if you want to play with your “friends” who are a different skill level that is what unranked is for, same thing for how they mirror groups much more, if you get a 3-1-1 in most games then you will get a 3-1-1 as the opposition much, much, more than you did in GW2 mixed queues.

Most competitive games also have much better tools to narrow the difference between a pre-made and solo player when they mix them, some games have in-built voice comms, others have a much, much better command/ping system (SMITE has a really good one that actually puts out audio commands), GW2 on the other hand…

You also have that it is much easier to carry in games like CS:GO, that they have a higher skill cap, so putting in one solo better guy to balance out say a duo, works a lot better in those games, same things with roles, MOBAs have more defined roles and a pick phase that normally achieves a reasonable comp, GW2 doesn’t which exacerbates the difference between a pre-made with ideal comp and say a solo / duo team larger most of the time.

Then look at LoL it tried dynamic queuing and it failed miserably, to use their words it “undermined competitive integrity at the highest levels of play”, and that is a game with much stricter matching, with much more defined roles and 65 million active players per month, so they are bringing back solo queuing.

So yes there should be a team queue option, but exactly that a 5 man only team queue (with the same rewards as solo/duo queue, maybe different titles), no mixing with solo/duo for the joke matchmaking baddies loved so much, then let the ‘market’ decide, so no whinging if the ‘market’ produces long queues in team queue.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

It’s not cheesy it relies on active play and timing to actually interrupt a skill, unlike certain classes relying on passives to carry them through most situations.

Only in the sort of game where the play is as low skill as GW2 do you get people justifying something is “active” or “skilled” on the basis of a comparison to passive traits, it is tragic.

Newsflash, you are playing an “action combat” game so passive it does the aiming for you (basically like a kid with stabilizers on their bicycle), where thief has two of the most faceroll interrupts in the game, because they are ranged and one being instant and the other being instant cast with a minimal travel time, then to top it off because you can spam one of them, in a lot of situations it doesn’t even really matter what you interrupt for it to be effective, such skilled active play…

bluri.2653:

And last but not least, if we do nerf PI thief will 100% be unviable in competitive mindset with communication team v team.

If you had a competitive mindset you wouldn’t still be playing GW2.

Zok.4956:

Chaba.5410:

Mulling.8421:

It doesn’t take alot to fix WvW

The population imbalance problem apparently does take a lot. Not many RvR games have found a successful 24/7 “even numbers” formula.

Which RvR games have found a successful 24/7 “even numbers” formula?
I am wondering how they did it.

I don’t think any have, but on the other hand games have found systems that handle population balance and population decline a lot better than WvW.

Look at ESO, they have 3 factions, do they have equal numbers, of course not, but they have a campaign system which reduces the impact of that in actual matches.

There are multiple campaigns (think matches) you can choose which to play, the advantage of this is the even the faction with the fewest number of people can target one campaign and compete on that to a reasonable level, because there is a map cap like most games.

So the faction with the most players does not really have a huge advantage in the campaign everyone queues for first, they only dominate what are often “dead” campaigns where the other two factions barely play, compare that to GW2 if stacked server X ends up against middling server Y then players on server Y (and X if they are nto scrubs) are stuck with that all week.

It also copes with population decline better, in GW2 you have to move server if a server dies and you want more action, though links have reduced that somewhat, but then links introduced another problem of people wanting a different type of play in a more sparsely populated matchup no longer have that choice because they get linked, in a system like ESO if you want that you just play a lower pop campaign, and really it goes beyond that a system like ESO enables different campaigns to run on different rulesets.

Is the ESO system (or any other that handles it better) perfect, no, but when it comes to population balance and population decline, a server based system like GW2, where people can also transfer every 7 days is possibly the worst you will find in that regard.

But nothing will change, because for Anet removing the notifications that get in the way of combat is a significant project (nice game design who ever came up with that ), the idea that they will be able to do anything as significant as changing the WvW system at a fundamental level is laughable, game mode will continue to die off.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Barring population problems, this is the best Guild Wars 2 has been since 2013.

LOL, since the HoT powercreep the combat in this game has gone to garbage (at least for PvP & WvW), it has been the most tedious, low skilled kitten it has ever been, WvW has died a death since HoT because the toilet bowl cancer meta has literally bored people out of the game, PvP has not been much better, great every PvP class has a viable spec, shame the combat is as boring as kitten to play now and since the HoT powercreep there has been a far greater difference between how strong the “meta” spec is and everything else so has reduced build variety.

So they have to provide more and more bribes to get PvE players (the only bit of the game where combat actually got better after HoT) to prop up numbers in PvP, culminating with the latest display of desperation by offering the bribe of ascended armour in double quick time in a game mode that does not even use it, because most of the PvP population have left the game.

xKratos.4758:

People are legit delusional, even when there is obvious evidence that if you are good enough you will move out of your division and move to where you belong. But nah, still blaming teammates and not themselves. This further reinforce what I’ve been saying this whole season. And I’ll use the cliche “git gud”

Logic isn’t your strength is it…

A top 0.01% player rising through the divisions means nothing, other than that is what a top player can do, now I have no idea whether things like “ESO hell” exist or not, I have not even played the game in months, but Helseth being able to rise though the divisions is meaningless in terms of that.

It has zero bearing on whether you could have a situation where say a player who is of mid gold ability gets stuck in silver, because even though he may be better than the players around him on average, he is not sufficiently better to carry enough (unlike Helseth) to get him out of there without a bit of luck, so if he doesn’t get that luck…

GW2 is very dependent on your teammates, it isn’t like most first person shooters for example where even being a little better makes a big difference and lets people carry hard.

If laughably termed “pro” players in the top 30 cry on stream how they lost a game because player X made a bad decision, then I can only imagine what it is like for some guy in silver surrounded by players that make bad decisions all the time.

afk.8230:

As a higher skilled thief (at least I fancy myself as one.) I couldn’t help but notice the current meta vs a thief just consists of throwing down a stealth trap, open field, even if you outnumber the thief 5 to 1. In principal i’ve got no real issue with a stealth trap other than the 30 seconds of denying me my classes basic gameplay mechanic (imagine a trap that just denies necros deathshroud for no compelling reason). It seems there would be huge outrage if any other class had a trap that someone could lay 2 of with their current supply that essentially just amounts to a ‘lay trap & win’.

A few ideas to make this less of a bad deal for everyone is;

make stealth trap visible.

make reveal a real condition to be cleansed.

make the stealth trap a build site that requires 30 supply to complete, thereby allowing you to notice it being built & requiring coordination to deploy.

Erm you realise that the laughably named stealth is broken as hell in this game, at least in WvW (in sPvP there are trade offs to using stealth), which is ironic as this was the game that banged on about how much more balanced stealth would be, how there would be no perma stealth, etc when it was hyping itself up pre-launch.

If I compare to another MMO that has something like WvW – ESO, this is what I face if I play the “stealth” class – every single class has access to at least one reveal skill, one of which, available to all, not only is a spammable reveal (only limited by your resource pool) it also reduces damage from stealth attacks by 50% for simply being slotted on your active weapon bar, every class also has access to reveal pots that make the “reveals” in GW2 look like childs play as they have a big radius and reveal for something up to 40 secs if I remember correctly and to top it off direct damage knocks you out of stealth.

The “counters” to stealth in GW2 are a joke in comparison, which is why stealth is broken as hell in WvW and really if you complaining about them you are simply a baddie with no concept of risk vs reward.

jcbroe.4329:

“….Roaming….”

Not a gamemode; classes are not designed, developed, or balanced with whatever your objective concept of roaming is.

Well to be fair, no aspect of WvW was really considered when they designed the game, and has barely been considered since, the combat and classes were designed nearly entirely around PvP, and for the first 3 years were balanced nearly entirely around PvP, and really even since HoT outside of PvP it is only really PvE raids that get real consideration when it comes to balance, WvW gets the odd bone thrown, that is all.

Which is why balance in large scale WvW has been a complete joke the entire game, just compare how engy, mes, ranger & thief have fared and been “represented” over 4 years to classes like guard, balance in WvW regardless of whether it is roaming, zergs, GvG, has always been a total joke and of virtually no concern to Anet, and one of the reasons the game mode is moribund.

Dawdler.8521:

zinkz.7045:

Hexalot.8194:

Yes population is down everywhere, but you could at least acknowledge in your rant that this is extremely normal this time of year with the Christmas season and all that.

It was Christmas season 2 years ago, and WvW was way, way more active, you are making excuses, just like those that made them in the summer that people were going out enjoying the weather and would be back when the weather gets colder in autumn/winter, it didn’t happen, the game mode is moribund.

Yeah because it was two freaking years ago. In the current generation MMOs thats basicly cash grabs which survive 3 months before loosing 80% of player, GW2 still stands out as a healthy populated game. But it doesnt change the fact it get older by the day and thus people quit naturally.

That and it’s kittening christmas eve.

You missed the point, I compared to two years ago, because WvW was active year round, people going on about the season are spouting as much BS as those made the same excuse in summer, WvW has reached the state it has because there are so few playing it, simple as that, the season has nothing to do with it.

And yes it is Christmas eve, but it should be obvious people are talking about more than just today.

Hexalot.8194:

Yes population is down everywhere, but you could at least acknowledge in your rant that this is extremely normal this time of year with the Christmas season and all that.

It was Christmas season 2 years ago, and WvW was way, way more active, you are making excuses, just like those that made them in the summer that people were going out enjoying the weather and would be back when the weather gets colder in autumn/winter, it didn’t happen, the game mode is moribund.

Poelala.2830:

zinkz.7045:

Because ele is the only class in this game with one sort of build better than the rest… ele seems to attract so many “special” snowflakes…

False, and easily falsifiable with one sentence. Run ANYTHING ELSE but dagger/focus on ele and you will die, unlike every other class in the entire game.

Not really, I was watching Phantaram stream fresh air ele (s/f) yesterday, he did fine, now would he be better off playing the typical meta ele support d/f, probably, but then that is no different to a lot of classes.

Take engy as an example you think the vast majority of engies play hammer scrapper with the same old traitlines they’ve been using since HoT, just because they like it over say rifle, nah, it is because rifle, half the traitlines, gadgets, turrets (except healing turret), etc are bad in comparison, there is nothing special about eles situation, it is not the only class with a lot of issues with weapons, traits and one type of build that is clearly superior to other options, get over yourself.

Bardly.2571:

4.) If EVERYTHING is OP, Nothing is:

False.

Because ele is the only class in this game with one sort of build better than the rest… ele seems to attract so many “special” snowflakes…

Seera.5916:

Immature people using the anonymity of the internet to be jerks. Hence, it’s the internet.

Where as more mature people refrain from using the anonymity of the internet to be a jerk, hence the issue is the maturity of the people in question, not the internet.

Seera.5916:

It’s not an excuse. Nothing can be done to remove jerks from the internet. You remove some, and new jerks pop up.

There are jerks on non-gaming sites. You can’t be so naive to think that there aren’t jerks on other sites. They may be dealt with a lot quicker and a lot harsher than on gaming sites and the evidence quickly removed – at least in some cases. But I highly doubt that there aren’t jerks on other sites. And the percentage of jerks is likely higher on gaming sites than others. Because gaming sites are more popular with the younger, less mature crowd.

Sure it is an excuse, the problem isn’t the “internet” it is that games have a particularly immature user base, and sure there are jerks on certain types of other sites, I didn’t say there were not, the point was I can go to sites on say science or nature, and there is absolutely no comparison between the number of jerks on there and with most games sites (let alone in game PvP), hence it is not “the internet” it is the high proportion of immature people who play video games.

Seera.5916:

Welcome to the internet. All MMO’s have these players. All areas of the game have them. They think the anonymity of the internet gives them the right to be jerks.

I wish people would stop making excuses for games with the “welcome to the internet” nonsense, if I go on a site about science, nature, programming, etc the behavior is in no way comparable to even a lot of game sites, let alone PvP in most games, truth is gaming is packed full of immature kids/manboys that behave accordingly, much of “the internet” is a far better place.

Jayne.9251:

zinkz.7045:

The same matchup where FSP players were logging off during reset out of boredom , because they had 6.6 KDR ratio after 45 mins, which says it all about Piken as a “fighting” server these days.

Trying to avoid making this a matchup thread (sorry OP) .. but they were bored because they greatly outnumbered every single other server out there. To the point that people just didn’t want to play FSP because you’d go out with 40 (a reasonable size) and FSP would come wiht 80. It was the new Jade Sea server.

LOL, maybe you should actually play on your Piken account more than once in a blue moon, that was after FSP and Piken were de-linked from their respective servers, FSP had a 6.6 KDR after 45 mins, simply because Piken and Viz were terrible and got one pushed in 90% of encounters, including maps Piken had queued, too many PvDoor players that can’t play, that is the reality of Piken.

As you’ve apparently missed it FSP have had their glicko rating manually lowered twice since they were de-linked, because they don’t have huge amounts of players round the clock, so once that population boost from those two linked servers went, then well… yet they still farmed Piken, who got even worse without Blacktide carrying them in fights, but don’t worry you can still hide in towers with siege and PvDoor, as I know that is your sort of thing.

If the OP wants a fight sever, Piken is the last place he should look, unless he has a time machine that can go back 3 years.

Jayne.9251:

Svarty.8019:

Datestamping this: 28/11/2016
I’d say FSP is the best fighting server (at the moment). Some of Piken’s commanders no longer tag up after being obliterated by FSP a few times, then linked with them for eight straight weeks.

You mean when FSP was linked with not one, but two other servers?

And then when they were both unlinked, Piken got farmed even more, because two guilds left Piken and they lost a lot of players who were fight orientated who were on the server linked with Piken (Blacktide), leaving a lot of PPT players and sub-standard guilds (with one exception) who basically can’t fight.

Hence after the links had gone from FSP & Piken and the matchup was Viz (+ links) vs Piken vs FSP, the joke was FSP were fighting 2 “French” servers, meaning Piken literally ran / avoided fights and went off to PvDoor.

The same matchup where FSP players were logging off during reset out of boredom , because they had 6.6 KDR ratio after 45 mins, which says it all about Piken as a “fighting” server these days.

As for the OP, stay on NA, WvW is dead on EU.

Obtena.7952:

Why would anyone think it’s not reasonable to supplement rifle with an additional weapon to achieve a very efficient build?

Let me guess you only play PvE, in PvP rifle + kits was efficient pre-HoT, with HoT however it got left behind and totally outclasses by the powercreep, by the increased stab, increased stun breaks, increased reflects, by new weapons / traitlines on classes putting out more damage whilst still provding CC, defense, etc, which is why engi uses hammer in PvP, (and WvW for that matter).

Rifle got left behind, so it either needs adjustment or a lot of other stuff needs to be nerfed.

Fay.2357:

… that require zero skill or coordination to be monstrously powerful (old boonshare). The build I’m presenting here provides powerful defensive and offensive utility in a form that requires both personally skilled play and effective group coordination to be fully effective.

LOL, since HoT the combat in this game for WvW has become the most tedious, low skilled, one dimensional, gimmicky crap it has ever been, which is why GvG collapsed and the game has hemorrhaged WvW & PvP players, to the point even with what are effectively server merges it is still in the worst state is has even been in.

WvW was far more skilled (and fun) before, HoT killed the combat, baddies of course love being able to roll round in a melee ball of damage reduction, silly healing, etc as they can now facetank kitten which with their bad positioning and poor movement that used to get them killed.

Jayne.9251:

Justine.6351:

Jayne.9251:

ESO has been f2p for 7 months.

pretty sure its b2p with an optional subscription.

Regardless, it’s still a terrible game.

Yet these days I play ESO more than GW2, something that would never have been the case a couple of years ago, but just shows how ESO actually improved and how as an RvR system it is more flexible at dealing with population issues.

Whilst GW2 has got worse and the inflexibility of the WvW system is a bigger issue than ever as it can’t handle the declining population, so now if I want to play outside primetime I get better action in ESO than GW2 where the game is borderline dead outside of primetime much of the time on EU and then I have to put up with queues at primetime (at least sometimes).

So if ESO is a “terrible game”, then GW2 is well…

Toasa.1236:

In Pve ok but NOBODY traits shouts as a roamer. You lose your Mediation traits….

True, on the other hand guardian was supposed to be a low mobility class, yet your typical medi roaming build has pretty good mobility between sword 2 (or GS 3), Judges intervention, f2 leap with DH and then being able to reset the f2 with the elite, now sure you have to take traveler runes to get a 25% move speed, but really that is far more mobile than engy, necro, condi ranger, etc, and in terms of a burst of distance only thief, some warrior builds and staff/gs druid can actually keep in contact with a DH when they blow those things, so the idea of giving movement speed through traits or a signet to a class that is supposed to be low mobility and has already powercreeped its mobility, is well…