Guild Wars 2

As a ranger, killing is not the challenge. It’s surviving that is the hard part. They have some defensive tools but a skillful rush-down player can mow over rangers and squash them like they’re nothing.

If you see a ranger dealing good damage and impacting the game, that’s a very skillful and successful ranger. Don’t undermine his triumphs of surviving to get to that point of being able to deal damage.

The solution is education. If competitive standards are raised, then even the most average of novice players would still have a decent base line of knowledge and competency, and a typical game would not be so disastrous.

The goal should always be to increase competition in the pvp community while also providing the tools necessary for average players to learn and improve. Some of these tools could include
spectating of arena games,
broadcasting of high MMR arena games,
improved and updated pvp tutorials and training ground,
easily accessible links to wiki databases, videos, and streams through the GW2 launcher,
reward incentives for learning and improving in pvp (as opposed to being in pvp just to do dailies),
etc.

I’m going to help you solve all your problems right now.

Hide your chat.

Just hide it. Open another chat tab, open combat log, anything. Just hide the chat and communicate through map pings and good gameplay. And then when you’re about to log off for the day, open chat and read it for giggles. Or not.

All your problems will be solved 100% with this tip.

What would be interesting is if there was a trait that modified life blast that way: faster cast but less damage. Traits that have a positive and a negative and fundamentally change an ability or tweak it in a meaningful way – that would be great for customization.

Spectral grasp’s missile is not homing like life blast or even dark path (though both have very different homing properties). It is very susceptible to uneven terrain and ADADA movement (target strafing left and right).

The slightest alteration in the target’s movement direction will veer spectral grasp off path.

You can increase the chances of spectral grasp connecting by crippling or chilling the target first to reduce their strafing capability. You can also walk up closer to the target before using spectral grasp (less missile travel means greater chance of connecting).

Evan Lesh.3295:

Why do you have to worry?

If a 4+1 versus a 4+1 is an even match, why shouldn’t we make it? There is no right or wrong answer here, just curious as you seem to not think this is a good idea.

Because the game becomes less competitive when teams are not clearly defined. Is it a 2+3? Is it a 4+1? Is it a 5 man premade? Who knows?

For example, in a 4+1, the solo player is under the illusion that his performance is excellent when in reality he is being carried by his 4-man premade. The choices and strategies he makes can be extremely toxic and loss-deserving, but he gets away with it, and those toxic habits become reinforced = less competitive. Had it been true solo queue, each individual choice and performance has a clear impact; the solo player understands that his own poor performance is out of his own fault (not because he was vs a “premade”, not because his own premade was bad, etc), and therefore learns how to improve.

It goes both ways. A 5 man premade learns little from playing against a non 5 man premade = no improvement, reinforcement of toxic habits, and less competitiveness.

Whoever designed dual wield agility, I just want to punch some sense into their face. Think about all the time it took for devs to plan, discuss, write code, revise, test, write code, test, implement…only to end up with this abysmally horribad grandmaster trait. So much time wasted.

Laraley.7695:

The solution would be to have unranked, ranked teamq and ranked soloq, but I doubt that will happen.

+Unranked
+Ranked team
+Ranked solo

Remove Hotjoin

Keep customs

All problems solved.

Hambow started falling out of flavor when adrenaline and cleansing ire mechanics were changed. The hambow combos are not as impressive anymore because of how difficult it is to gain adrenaline with hambow (before, you would start a fight with full adrenaline because it wouldn’t decay. Now you have to build from zero adrenaline every time).

Hammer F1 doesn’t reliably activate cleansing ire with the new requirement of “must hit a target”, so there will be times where conditions will remain on the warrior for too long.

That being said, hambow is still viable and you should play it when your team already has 3 strong roamers. Hambow is not as amazing as before but it’s still a good option when your team needs a semi-bunker.

The best and easiest change to slick shoes: no effect on targets standing still.

Counterplay: check.

Skill is still viable: check.

ArenaNet is encouraging us to not play their game and do something else instead while in queue. What a great message to send out to players.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Wishful thinking. You’re looking at the math yourself.

Did you really stop reading mid sentence?

zone.1073:

The fact that my data yielded 0 (zero. ZERO) procs before 5 seconds for 30 minutes of testing means that the test is conclusive.

I was also using rage sigil, meaning that every 30 seconds I would rapidly cast a chain of life blasts that had 0.5 second cast times.

The point is that within 30 minutes of testing, there should have been at least 1 data point of an air proc before 5 seconds. Again, the results are conclusive.

But go ahead and keep posting and bumping this thread. Perhaps the devs will read it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

So the fact no top team was using Turret Engineer (but were using other Engineer builds) shows that they are clearly not the most powerful build, and really, not even strong enough to consider using at higher skill levels.

First, ArenaNet does not balance the game only on the level of top teams. ArenaNet considers balance across all levels of competition and gameplay.

Second, turrets aren’t used by top teams because top teams can play around it. The fact that a build requires a coordinated five man team to counter it just exemplifies the problem with the build.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Did you account for the skill note and latency?

Notes

Attack speed is approximately 1.4 seconds per attack.

Irrelevant.

If the air sigil has an internal cooldown of 3 seconds, it would proc before 5 seconds using my test. That is absolute and irrefutable.

The fact that my data yielded 0 (zero. ZERO) procs before 5 seconds for 30 minutes of testing means that the test is conclusive.

End thread.

If warriors build glassy damage, they get outperformed (and owned) by thieves.

If warriors don’t build tanky and/or celestial, they squashed by other celestial classes.

Tanky/celestial enables warriors to stand shoulder to shoulder with other celestial classes while offering some warrior-unique perks to the team.

In other words: it’s the meta.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

why people are trying to prove that the sigil CD is indeed 5 seconds when the proc has only a 50% chance of activating per hit, even if crit rate is 100%, is beyond me.

My test used 100% crit piercing life blasts that pierced through 8+ golems per life blast.

8 golems = 50% + 50% + 50% + 50% + 50% + 50% + 50% + 50% chance of a proc per life blast (cast time: 1 second).

Please understand the math. The results are conclusive.

zone.1073:

I’ve been testing this on necro using death perception, and the internal cooldown on air is indeed 5 sec.

Zuik.7158:

sample size???

test used???

p<0.05???

Necro with death perception, 100%+ crit chance, golem group in HotM with life blasts that pierce through 8+ golems each life blast.

30 minutes of using life blast on said golem group.

Number of activations of air sigil in < 5 seconds = 0 times.

I’ve been testing this on necro using death perception, and the internal cooldown on air is indeed 5 sec.

Please disable the ability to deploy turrets while in mid-air, as players abuse this bug to have floating turrets that cannot be cleaved on the ground.

This is a reoccurring theme for the engineer class. Ultra effective skills with no skill tells/animations. Example: Overcharged Shot is an instant 4 second stun with no cast time, no cast animation.

If anything, disconnects should be more strict to discourage character swapping.

1. Queue unranked.

2. Check the box “solo” or “team”. Press accept.

3. All problems solved.

Please add this.

I know it’s hard for people to accept that new and different builds might actually be viable, and I get a lot of flack for using celestial…

But time and time again, my performance with celestial exceeds anything I could do on a berserker in the same situations when focus-fired. This is the biggest point. Numbers, theories, and calculation is one thing, but when a necro gets focus-fired by a whole enemy team, theories go out the window.

The extra bit of defense and mixture of damage goes a long, long way. I’m telling you. I don’t know how else to prove that celestial on necro is viable.

Not saying zerker is worse; it’s still a good option for certain comps. But put any berserker necro in the same situations as these and they would insta-die in the blink of an eye:

Celestial is fine.

Fix professions. Leave unbroken things alone.

necrofail.7439:

You should stop clinging to that one fight where he Literally didn’t move. he was barely paying attention. have another video of fighting another Erker necro or is that the only one?

Go fight op necro and see how it goes.

How many videos do you have of zerkers beating celestial?

Again, not saying that celestial replaces berserker. It is just a viable alternative.

Softspoken.2410:

So without taking into account healing power, or condition damage, *switching from Berserker to Celestial you sacrifice 31.3% of your previous damage to gain 30.3% more health.

As insignificant as those numbers seem, again even just a little bit more defense could mean the difference between dying, and surviving.

(vs berserker necro)

Continuously hitting skill #1 after breaking a clocktower window or terrain crates/barrels will continue the weapon’s attack chain. In this case, necromancer benefits from infinite life force regeneration.

http://youtu.be/seTyEbg6ph8

Czerny.6530:

Defensive stats are wasted on a necro simply because they do not make the necro any more useful than pure offense.

Surviving longer is not useful? Surviving even a few seconds longer can make a difference. Having just a little bit more toughness can mean the difference between surviving a thief’s full burst, and dying.

Or surviving a 1v4 (granted the match is full pugs):

Czerny.6530:

but your damage will be seriously kitten.

The damage is actually very good. Whatever power damage is lost is made up by condition damage from barbed precision, staff conditions, torment, and plague. It can be argued that the damage mixture of celestial is superior in some situations. Again, celestial enables a more sustain-style combat where your defenses are stronger and your damage output is constant and less easily mitigated.

Celestial doesn’t replace berserker; it is just an alternative that fairs better under focus-fire. Want some extra survival? Here is an option.

There may be a full support build involving healing life blasts somewhere that’s impossible to master. Skill shot heals just do not work in this game.

If you want to offer decent team support without compromising build viability, Plague Signet is an option. Cleansing your teammates of conditions every few seconds can be a great form of support, as the signet prioritizes dangerous conditions like fear and immobilize first. The conditions then boost your heal with Consume Conditions, or you may choose to severely shut down an opponent with the signet active. If you need a stun breaker, Plague Signet fulfills that role too. It’s a very versatile skill.

Offensive options need to remain strong in this game to keep sustain/defensive builds in check. If offense were weakened, such as a nerf to damage sigils like air/fire, then sustain/defensive builds would be unstoppable, and a turtling metagame would take over.

I don’t know why it works but it does.

I know theoretically it doesn’t seem good, but the combination of defensive stats from celestial gives you just enough survivability to do more actions and make an impact, rather than insta-exploding due to squishiness.

For example, Life Siphon, a generally useless skill, actually sustains you in skirmishes very well with celestial. Regeneration from staff usually is unnoticed, but with celestial it actually sustains decently. I believe the combination of low cooldown heals from life siphon and staff regeneration and celestial’s toughness/vitality mixture gives just enough “oomph” to survive and make an impact in fights.

Combined with pack runes, celestial builds have similar crits as berserker builds. Mathematically berserker might have slightly larger numbers but in practice it all feels the same. My performance and contribution to team fights feels pretty much the same between celestial and berserker, but with celestial I feel like I can do more actions under focus-fire.

In other words, I don’t believe celestial squashes berserker, but it is a viable sustain-style alternative.

Nos.9803:

It means you have no idea how or why you actually won, but i’m glad i was able to teach you something about the class.

No it was a genuine question. We both interrupted each other’s heals. We both immob’d and welled and autoattacked. And yet the berserker necro died, and the celestial necro lived with half HP and half life force.

If the damage from celestial is strong enough to take down a berserker necro, doesn’t that show that the build can pull its own weight? Necro may not utilize celestial stats to 100% efficiency but it’s balanced enough to succeed in situations that a berserker necro cannot.

Nos.9803:

As for the build, you say you like it because of its strong condition pressure. In what world is having a average potential of 5 bleeds on a cele amulet strong condition pressure? Oh and fun fact, the conditions you transfer and the damage they do have absolutely nothing to do with your stats so arguing that having condition damage from celestial amulet helps plague amulet is foolish and wrong

Cool thanks, didn’t know that.

But I killed you with this supposed “nerf myself” build. What does that mean?

NeXeD.3042:

As would I. Maybe this time nos won’t stand in one place for a minute not dodging.

He was immob’d, and the way I immob’d him (twice) was not very obvious. And I lived through his berserker damage, yet he died to my celestial damage…People are saying that berserker is superior and yet this happened. ?

NeXeD.3042:

it won’t damage like berserker.

It won’t die like berserker, either, and the critical damage is equal to berserker (1% difference). Try it. It’s a refreshing change from cookie cutters.

I play Celestial powermancer in arenas and do pretty well. I switch between ranked and unranked so the leaderboards will not reflect the true success of the build.

It’s alright. I beat Nos of Abjured with it, at least. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZLPqumOFLA

I like this variation because it is tankier and has a mixture of strong power damage and condition pressure. I use plague instead of lich elite for the clutch stability finishers and plague revives, and with celestial amulet the plague outputs strong condition pressure. Celestial also boosts the conditions I push onto opponents with plague signet.

Good mobility with warhorn and pack runes. Very high crit from the fury and precision from pack runes and celestial amulet. Very comparable damage output to berserker amulet.

Lich elite is a “win more” ability, in my opinion. You need to use lich while you’re still healthy and high HP so that you don’t insta-die. If you’re high HP, you’re already in a winning position, so lich is just “win more”. Plague actually helps you survive and relieves you from focus because of its high toughness, allowing you to continue being a threat in fights instead of insta-exploding from focus.

Why can’t we play hotjoin while in queue?

Approximately 0% of players will continue a hotjoin in place of accepting a queue pop, so it wouldn’t affect unranked/ranked attendance. As for hotjoin attendance…does it really matter if there is a leaver in hotjoin? They could (and often do) leave anyways, whether or not for arenas.

As it is currently, the only option we have while queuing is to alt-tab out of the game and do something else. We’re being encouraged to not play the game. Is that the message that ArenaNet wants to send out?

It’s not a nerf but a fix. It always felt wonky to be able to long range chill and boon strip opponents every few sec without teleporting and putting yourself at risk. The skill just makes sense now and less cheese.

Plus, remember that other Necros cannot do that trick on you anymore, either.

Yes, this has only started happening to me since after the patch.

Every second matters. Losing 10 seconds in weapon swap and moving at combat speed because of this bug is ridiculous.

I noticed it happens when I have skills that have passives that affect allies. For example, plague signet transfers conditions from nearby allies to yourself. Upon respawning with this signet from a team fight, I almost always get the bug.

Approximately 0% of players will continue a hotjoin in place of accepting a queue pop, so it wouldn’t affect unranked/ranked attendance. As for hotjoin attendance…does it really matter if there is a leaver in hotjoin? They could (and often do) leave anyways, whether or not for arenas.

As it is currently, the only option we have while queuing is to alt-tab out of the game and do something else. We’re being encouraged to not play the game. Is that the message that ArenaNet wants to send out?

Tadsoul.6951:

in short i think its a good risk vs reward trait due to the vulnerability of the downstate

In the end, being downed even just once will already make Death’s Embrace more useful than all other options. if you net one kill or even just down an opponent with Death’s Embrace, the trait has already paid for itself in usefulness. No other trait can do that.

Unless you’re a god and never plan on dying ever, not even once, take Death’s Embrace.

I want to say No! Necros are fine! You’re wrong! But seeing one of the most competitive teams NA get crushed in an international tournament because their Necro got camped and picked off makes me feel otherwise. The fact that there is no other Necro in any competitive teams doesn’t help, either.

Necros were intended to be this way, because the only changes that happened this patch were 16 Necro traits being fixed. No buffs, no additions, just bug fixes. That is all.

The only players that have difficulty vs a downed Necro are players using berserker or celestial amulet, i.e. builds that are not defensive oriented. It only makes sense that these offensive-oriented classes should struggle more than a defensive-oriented build to finish off a downed Necro.

Let me put it this way: Not getting Death’s Embrace is the same as saying that you will never get downed. You’re making a statement, that you will never die as a Necro and therefore you don’t need that trait.

If someone can honestly say that to themselves with a straight face, then don’t take Death’s Embrace. Otherwise, this trait will outshine any other option in usefulness. It is an incredibly powerful, tide-turning trait that gives you the potential to do things that you normally wouldn’t be able to (example: winning difficult 1v2s, punishing teams for focus-firing you, etc).

From the necro’s perspective, it feels absolutely satisfying to win a 1v2 because of the newly fixed traits.

You know the story. You’re rocking the 1v1 and then some punk +1s you. Coming out of that situation triumphant is the best feeling.

Post your suggestions here.

Example: Disable respawning. Round ends when all players on a team die, the round automatically resets, best out of three rounds (or five, etc) wins the match.

Example: Disable rallying on Courtyard.

Thoughts?

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Guardian needs an extra source of blast finisher and a way to lay a water field so that it can keep up in the role of party support/sustain with Engis/Eles/Shoutbows.

Guardian is one of the most powerful classes in the game right now. Extreme 1v1 potential and team fight capability, and has probably the strongest and most reliable burst in the game. They win national tournaments.

Holl.3109:

Dark Pact too, it’s awesome for those surprise bursts

Flow said one time that after beginning the cast of life siphon (dagger 2), while facing, it doesn’t require facing after that. Handy to know while escaping…

This is misinformation.

Dark Pact requires facing by the end of the cast in order for it to connect.

Mrbig.8019:

I’m not perceiving anything.

As a solo player unranked is way better since decent players are solo-duo queing there and that’s what you meet, instead of going ranked where u face terrible pre-mades with turret engies on ts playing just to farm their leaderboard rank.

ye that’s EU current state.

On NA, ranked and unranked are very interchangeable. There’s an equal amount of premades and soloqueue in both. Most players hop back and forth between the two, depending on which one has the shortest queue times at the moment.

Mrbig.8019:

MyPuppy.8970:

What about the player base? What do we have to expect when playing solo ranked?

Players are much much worse in ranked than unranked. Fact.

People may perceive ranked to be full of bad players because the MMR system is separate from unranked. People grind through so much unranked that they often play very competitive matches in unranked. Then, they hop into ranked where their MMR is still low, and get matched versus beginners.

NeXeD.3042:

zone.1073:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

However, speaking of inconsistencies, it is possible to dodge during your cast of Life Blast and not interrupt it.

May I ask how?

Hit dodge right in last 1/4th of the lb cast.

Thanks. That’s actually more like the last 1/6th of the bar. Not a lot of room for error and requires good timing. Feels fine.