Guild Wars 2

If GW2 was a game of chess, what you are desiring is for all players, all classes, and all builds to devolve into pawns. Pawns for everyone. You’re a pawn, I’m a pawn, let’s all be pawns.

That. Sounds. So. Fun.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

1000+ pvp wins, 400 or so of which in tpvp. Play 6 professions. With tanky build I mean the brainless max traits that have tough-vit-healing power- boon duration and 10 points somewhere else. Cleric amulet, healingpower runes healing/defensive utilities. power-weapon in this case the axe, for thief it was dagger which got pretty close as per dps to what the warrior could pull off.
But yea… That’s about it. Ele has better survivability and mobility though.

http://www.gw2score.com/PvP/player/Swimsasa-Stoon8936

You played 18 tPvP games. Your highest leaderboard rank was 977, and you are currently below rank 9000.

…?

Also, by changing adrenaline to be spent on burst misses, I don’t believe this would be a burden of knowledge for beginners. Even when I started playing warrior 2 years ago, I was surprised to see that my adrenaline was still full when I whiffed a burst skill. It’s just logical: it costs adrenaline to use a burst skill, therefore the adrenaline should be spent upon use, regardless of the outcome (hit or miss).

Analogy: You put coins into the slot machine and play the game. You shouldn’t be able to pull the coins back out of the machine.

Vanthian.9267:

analysis snip

Thank you for the critique, but the result of my gameplay in the video was 3 kills (almost 4) for my team, 0 kills for theirs, and a whole lot of stalling and aggro-attraction as the whole enemy team basically rotated into my cap point. Berserker stance was used for adrenline gain, endure pain was for anticipatory burst, and dodges were anticipatory for stuns. You could argue that my class and build enabled me to 1v3, but two of the enemies were warriors who were capable of just as much damage and survivability as me, and yet they didn’t survive, and I did. Enough said.

Moving on, I still feel like adrenaline mechanics are too forgiving. Putting burst skills on cooldown is not enough of a penalty, because the warrior has access to two burst skills total. The adrenaline instantly gets spent on the next burst skill if the first one fails, thus there really is no penalty for missing a burst skill.

Example:

The warrior misses her eviscerate, so instead she puts on 10 seconds of burning on the target right away. If the combustive shot gets blocked and whiffs, then she instantly slaps the opponent with an eviscerate crit instead. There’s nothing stopping the momentum from constantly moving forward.

Simon.3794:

what do you mean, any beginner insert class player can hop into a match and perform 40% of insert class main. easy exp, thief, necro, engi, guardian, ele, ranger

No.

Example:

These 2 enemy warriors in the video (the second one comes in later, making it a 1v3 briefly) should be dead right from the get-go due to making so many mistakes. Within 20 seconds of engaging in the fight with me, they made so many errors that it would be difficult to list them all, but the fact is they didn’t die right away. They survived for an extremely long time when they should not have. The current design of the warrior is carrying these beginner players, when it should be player skill that carries the player – not the class.

I dislike how adrenaline stays full if the warrior uses a burst skill and misses. That is asinine. Warriors need to be punished for missing their burst skills, otherwise there would be no risk or thinking involved in using burst skills (which is the current situation).

Cleansing Ire needs to be changed to cleanse conditions upon successful hits from burst skills. This means that skills like longbow’s combustive shot will only cleanse conditions if an opponent is affected by the AoE.

Example: warrior fires combustive shot at opponent A, but opponent A kites and evades the AoE. The combustive shot expends all of the warrior’s adrenaline, but no conditions are cleansed. After 3 seconds, opponent A walks into the combustive shot AoE = conditions are cleansed on the warrior.

Warriors need more incentive to actually think while playing. I’ve been playing GW2 PvP for 2 years on my warrior, and right now, a beginner warrior player with no skill can hop into a match and perform at 40% of my potential. That’s ridiculous.

The real imbalanced/broken issue here is not longbow – it’s hammer.

Longbow was originally designed to be a slow damaging, pressuring tool with no mobility or interrupts. Its effectiveness shows that it is fulfilling its original design goals.

However, hammer was originally designed to be a CC machine with very slow animations that locked the warrior in place. Every hammer skill used to self-stun the warrior, making for obvious animations that were easy to avoid. Over time, however, these animations were updated and sped up, and many hammer skills were changed so that they can be used on the move. Also, fundamentally the design of the hammer is flawed, because it outputs extremely high burst damage as well. No weapon should ever be both a high CC machine plus have extremely high damage.

Over time, the hammer has evolved into a mobile CC machine with high burst damage. This weapon goes against all standards for balance. The longbow is balanced.

BlackBeard.2873:

Combustive shot really does need to dodgeable in some way. It does way too much pressure, still regenerates itself mostly, condi clears, and gives fire field for more might (blasts) and fire aura (burn + might when hit, which warrior’s can take the damage).

Longbow, since the beginning of time, has always been a strong pressuring skill. It has always been a reliable fire field since alpha stages of the game, and everyone has always known about it. In fact, combustive shot used to have an even BIGGER AoE than now, and it used to inflict more damage than now.There was never a single complaint about this skill, however, until warriors ceased being pieces of wet toilet paper and can actually survive through focus fire.

As soon as players realized they couldn’t bully a warrior around anymore, and that they don’t die instantly, that’s when the complaints about longbow started rising up. And there really isn’t anything imbalanced about longbow. It’s just a reliable tool to deal with the current meta. Melee-only is too high risk and low/no reward in this meta.

Seifer Thalaen.7869:

Difficult? Rofl…you can get max pvp rank in 4 months after dumb 15th patch…

…difficult….right….

In this thread: People learn that there is a whole world of things to do in pvp outside of gaining rank.

In a way, this build contributes to team fights tremendously because if one can survive and thrive in a 1v2 or even a 1v3, that guarantees that your teammates will dominate team fights going on elsewhere due to numbers advantage.

If I am in a 1v2, that means the 4 of my teammates are fighting only up to 3 opponents. If I’m doing a 1v3, the 4 of my teammates are fighting only up to 2 opponents. Etc.

In actual team fights, this build is pure damage, nothing more and nothing less. In some team compositions, this is exactly what is needed. It’s great when you have an ally engineer to provide all of the CC mayhem needed, while you (the celestial axebow warrior) cleave everyone with power and condition damage.

After weeks of testing, I feel like Hoelbrak runes are most definitely an important part of this build. The increase in survivability is very significant.

Has anyone noticed this? The stronger your build is, the more often you get into really, really, really unfair situations. I find myself 1v2ing and 1v3ing way more often than what is considered normal.

Celestial axebow vs power necro:

http://www.twitch.tv/zonegw/c/4382822

http://www.twitch.tv/zonegw/c/4382847

It can be a challenging match-up, but most of the power necro’s damage can be avoided or mitigated through good positioning.

Wouldn’t work. COD is equivalent to a match in GW2 where everyone is playing a berserker amulet thief, and backstab has 1200 range and deals 400% more damage than now, thus 1-shot killing each other from afar.

Reinforce works in COD because one man can be a hero and blast away all his opponents and then capture a point to save his teammates. In GW2, if you are the last man standing against 5 other opponents, consider yourself screwed. Attrition would still dominate.

Example:

You see how long it takes me to kill 2 opponents? If this were Reinforce, the time limit would already be reached. If this were COD, I’d headshot both of them and they’d be gone in a matter of seconds. That is an impossibility in GW2.

Everyone seems to always forget about the ugly step child: Banner of Defense. AoE knockback every 10 seconds, and can be used by teammates on separate cooldowns…

Might even give you greater survivability with the Inspiring Banners traits instead of shouts, because then you can remove your shout utilities in favor of more knockback utilities, and still get tons of healing from your banner.

Hoelbrak runes are important because of the risk factor of eviscerate. Oftentimes one will not be able to successfully land their eviscerate, which means the conditions will continue to tick longer.

I find that hoelbrak runes achieves a very similar damage output as strength runes, but with the added benefit of increased survivability. Hoelbrak runes are easily overlooked but I feel that they really do add to my survivability by a ton.

I just added some more footage of the celestial axebow in action on my YouTube channel. In most of these situations, I am fighting 1v2s and 1v3s even. Would not be able to without Hoelbrak:

I’ve been testing out the Spiked Armor trait with this build, and it feels like my damage output is significantly higher than with the extra point in the Strength tree.

Because this build can easily stack 20+ might, retaliation damage is extremely high with this build. The uptime of retaliation is very good, too, with the Spiked Armor trait.

Updated build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-so-7F;0NKVP0f4kL-60;9;49-T-T2;328B;127ATo06L;1CoF2CoF20Ju

It sounds cliche but it’s true: the best counter is to kite. The warrior has no interrupts while using an axe, so you should bank on that fact and use your skills freely without fear of interruption. The autoattack of the axe is strongest only on the final hit of the attack chain, so naturally kiting is the best way to avoid the chain from occurring. Chill reduces the leap range of eviscerate, so generously apply chill if possible. Axe offers no mobility, so kiting is very effective.

Watch the videos in my signature and you’ll see that I struggle most when opponents know how to kite me while using axe.

http://www.twitch.tv/zonegw/c/4239476

Thank you everyone for the feedback so far. I have improved the build with your suggestions, and it’s now stronger than ever in pvp.

One of the key factors of this build is the off-hand sword. Combined with celestial amulet, the off-hand sword provides extreme condition pressure from just the torment alone, which synergizes nicely with the build overall.

Steb.2571:

There are at least 4 Celestial builds that are viable and run at top end.

Cancer Warrior (Triple Shout S+S / LB)

The “cancer” warrior ( … -_- ) performs less optimally when using the new celestial amulet. Settler’s amulet remains the top amulet for this build to achieve maximum survivability, damage pressure, and sustainability.

Celestial amulet works with the triple shout condition warrior in the vaguest of definitions.

What’s equally funny is the group of people who expect pvp to be a prim and proper fencing match between gentlemen. “Tally ho, good chap. That was a brilliant kill” “Pip pip good man!!”

Hiding ranks is like making a bunch of guys in a room wear pants.

When the junk is covered, all is equal.

Lux.7169:

No interactions with any mechanic necessary to win for X minutes.

Mechanics would include: capture points (contesting or defending decapping or capping), combat interactions, secondary objectives, etc etc etc.

^

This is a good start. No interaction with key mechanics for X minutes = griefing. The player would be considered griefing, and therefore be penalized accordingly.

Obviously a penalty system would be designed to differentiate between disconnects and AFKs. It’s simple, really: Idle for < 5 minutes = considered a disconnection, and no deserter penalty. Idle for > 5 minutes = AFK, deserter penalty.

If a player cannot seem to re-connect within 5 minutes, then they have significantly impacted their team’s chances of winning the match due to making it a 4v5 for a substantial amount of time, and they deserve to be penalized for that.

Follidus.8027:

The biggest culprit is just evade spamming. I mean even playing as a support/bunker guardian, half of what I do is randomly dodging because I have so many dodges. I also can’t see what’s actually coming because animations are either non-existent or hidden behind the cluster of asuras and spell effect spam.

^

The PvP here is exactly like Urf Mode on League during April Fools.

For those who don’t know, Urf mode is a League of Legends mode where every spell is spammable, no mana cost, no risk/reward cost of any kind, etc. Hilarity ensues.

The build, link.

Update 03 OCT 2014

- Spiked Armor, Sure-Footed, Great Fortitude, Sigil of Doom

+ Defy Pain, Missile Deflection, Leg Specialist, Sigil of Energy

After the 30 Sep 2014 patch, adrenaline has been heavily nerfed, making it absolutely crucial to land all bursts, or the adrenaline goes to waste. In order to increase my eviscerate success, I picked up Leg Specialist because with the Throw Axe skill, it’s an immobilize that’s available every 10 seconds. The immob sets up for an eviscerate perfectly. It can also set up for an easy impale.

The other changes were to streamline the build. Dodge rate has increased with the addition of an Energy sigil, which means that less damage is being eaten (it’s all being evaded instead), so the retaliation from Spiked Armor is not being utilized enough; Defy Pain is a much better substitute for clutch plays.

Finally, it seems controversial at first to remove Sure-Footed since there are so many stances in the build. However, Missile Deflection allows for this build to keep up the tempo in skirmishes. Blocking without this trait relieves too much pressure on the opponent, and a lot of interesting plays are possible only with Missile Deflection.

Enjoy.

Video demonstration example footage: http://www.twitch.tv/zonegw/c/4239476

Lots and lots of pvp footage of the build here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCE60CA1E5DC2E053

This is a similar concept to the condition/shout warrior ( walking brick wall of death, link ) but this is better for player killing, because it sheds the burden of team-support in favor of selfish utilities and a more offensive skill set.

Perks of the build: mixture of power and condition hybrid damage with high defense and healing.

- Axe. Supplies the bulk of the power damage of this build. Deals big eviscerates without being glass because of
- Celestial amulet. Turns the warrior into the equivalent of a pre-nerf D/D ele. Essentially a walking machine gun.
- Hoelbrak runes. Enables 20+ might stacking easily, boosts condition damage output by a ton, and increases survivability by a ton, all in one rune set.
- Offhand sword. Deals very high condition pressure due to celestial amulet. Has a 3 second block for versatility in offense and defense.
- Longbow. Self-explanatory. Supreme damage output from combustive shot because celestial amulet maximizes its power and condition damage. Very good condition cleansing. Arcing shot crits as hard as the axe eviscerate with celestial amulet.

Enjoy. Feedback is appreciated. Post questions/comments about the build here.

Bhawb.7408:

So what your’e saying is that kills really do matter

This is why scores are kept track, even in arena matches. A kill is +5, a cap/neutralize is +10, etc. They aren’t just pretty numbers to boost one’s ego.

I get the perma-immobilize-of-doom when something immobilizes me while I use a leap skill.

Here.

In a 500/500 tie, the next factor that determines the win is player scores. The team with the most kills wins.

I wouldn’t say “brought back D/D ele” because it is no where near what it used to be pre-December ’12. You know, the unstoppable terminator that killed everything, and never got killed.

This new iteration of D/D ele is actually fun to play, and it’s fun to play against. It’s pretty similar to fighting a warrior. Very obvious animations and tells, very logical flow of combat.

Terrorsquad.2349:

The thing is conditions are too spammable, leaving us vulnuerable because we don’t even have enough condi-cleansing with 3 utilties. (some classes do).

That’s it, though. If one cannot defeat the condition player in an allotted amount of time, consider it as being defeated already then.

In other words, even after one has used all of one’s condition cleanses, exhausted all of one’s options possible, and one still has not killed the condition opponent, then one deserves to lose the encounter, no?

It’s the same philosophy with berserker glass cannons. If a glass cannon fails to kill their target within 10-20 seconds and has exhausted their entire rotation of skills, then the power-built glass cannon does not deserve to win that encounter.

Is this your ideal scenario of balance? To 100% always have an answer to every single stack of conditions possible, and therefore never die to conditions, and always cleanse every condition and kill the condition player 100% every time? I don’t understand your logic.

Julie Yann.5379:

To be honest, I don’t see that many condi builds in sPvP. No more than power builds. Yes they are annoying but most conditions are AoE, don’t stand in the red circles. Conditions from auto attacks don’t do much damage, save your cleanses for the big burst.

^ This.

There is no longer a condition meta, where everybody and their mother plays condition builds. In fact, condition builds are falling out of flavor, while power builds are the new trend due to a rising bunker meta.

One could argue that conditions defeat bunkers due to their defense-bypassing properties, but this is not true. Bunkers tend to have supremely good condition removal to aid their survivability, so a competent bunker will not die from conditions alone. Power builds are the best way to kill bunkers, and that’s why power builds are so popular in this bunker meta.

In a 1v1 or 1v2 duel, conditions are powerful (as they should be), but in a proper team fight, conditions fizzle out of usefulness because bunkers are cleansing conditions from themselves and their teammates while bursting people down with power damage. Conditions are fine the way they are now.

Updated report again… this report was submitted August of 2013 and the bug still exists.

Ty for the responses so far, but the most common one is “it’s boring”. Well, I find it fun killing everyone. It’s fun to bully opponents around the map and have very little risk of a successful counter-harass.

It takes me a few more seconds than a berserker to kill my opponents, but I have the patience of a spider, so there really is no downside..

Out of all of your examples, the warrior’s main hand sword is the most balanced condition-on-autoattack.

The most imbalanced condition-on-autoattack is in the form of long-range autoattacks with no avoidable projectile, i.e. Necromancer’s scepter.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Kitt.2567:

oh man, I thought Warhorn only convert my 1 condition into 1 boon.. not other people’s…?

It helps all allies within range (up to 4)

Warhorn #4 can cleanse multiple conditions, because the cripple, chill, and immobilize does not count in the “converts 1 condition into a boon” definition.

Months ago I posted my condition warrior build ( Here ), trying to shine the spotlight on a really powerful build that not many people used in PvP arenas at the time. Surely the build would get nerfed eventually.

After the April patch, though, the condition warrior was not nerfed in any way. To my surprise, the condition warrior was buffed big time. Utilizing the shortest cooldown stunbreaker in the entire game, this condition warrior now frequently gains +1000 toughness with Rousing Resilience. The trait is essentially a free, built-in Endure Pain with no internal cooldown. It has propelled the condition warrior build into absurdity.

It has gotten to the point where I am struggling to find a reason to play any other warrior build in PvP; I used to cycle through hambow, greatsword/bow berserker, etc builds depending on the situation and comp, but not anymore because there’s no need. Zero builds on any classes have been able to stand up to this condition warrior build. In fact, I’ve basically quit playing my ranger (name: Iine) and my guardian because I feel like the condition warrior gives me no reason to play anything else.

Convince me not to play condition warrior, because I’m quickly losing interest in PvP due to not having any motivation to explore or improve.

tl;dr ArenaNet, you have the beginning foundation for a great competitive PvP mode…just tighten things up. Pull up the loose ends. Work off the flabs to achieve a nice, cut competitive PvP system.

The scene from Knocked Up, where Allison’s boss cannot legally tell her to lose weight, sums up everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvP7cnmxlLM#t=1m

A poor MMR-pairing of players should never, ever, ever come to fruition and become an actual match that will take place in arena queues. Reserve that feature for a “Normal Queue” mode or something that is not intended to be competitive that is separate from custom arenas.

This is the master plan to fix matchmaking:

Phase 1: Separation of the experienced ones from newbies. For the protection of newbies, and for the saved frustration of the experienced players, there must be a filtering strain in place. The solution = Normal Mode queue. This is a matchmaking mode that is non-competitive (no ladder ranking system) but is separate from custom arenas. Make it a requirement for all players (even experienced ones) to initially clock in X amount of matches in Normal Mode before unlocking the option to queue for Solo or Team Arenas.

Phase 2: Strict “Confirm Or GTFO” system. Once a player gets a solo/team arena queue pop, they must confirm attendance before being placed into the match, and then once in the match, they must confirm a second time by pressing the “I Am Ready” button before the final countdown begins. If a player fails to comply with both ready checks, then the match disbands, and all players are put back into the queue (with the failed attendance player being punished with Dishonored debuff). Treat solo/team queue players with respect: If they are queuing competitively, they must understand the importance of attendance, and being strict to experienced players is crucial (and respectful, too). Treat experienced players like how ArenaNet employees in Bellevue, WA are treated. Would an ANet employee be able to get away with slacking performance and poor attendance in the work place?

Phase 3: Equal MMR or no match at all. If a group of players have too much MMR variance, then the match should not take place at all. This is a requirement to achieve a perfect foundation for a growing competitive pvp community. If players are looking for a quickie, they have Custom Arenas or Normal Mode queue options. Serious players require a serious matchmaking system.

Implementing all 3 phases will eliminate the vast majority of current matchmaking issues.

Believe me, ArenaNet is 100% fully aware of these issues. Before GW2 was even open to the public, alpha testers were already bringing up potential issues with Asura-scaled visuals and animations. At the end of every test week, all the testers got together with devs in a Ventrilo and we had a discussion fully focused on nothing but PvP. The Asura-scaled animation issue was brought up every…single…week.

It’s not about whether the devs know or not. They know. Trust me.

This is concerning not only to the players, but to spectators, too. From on outside viewpoint, spectators only see tiny Asuras running around in circles waving shivs. It’s difficult for spectators to notice the intricacies of major plays going on, and therefore it’s difficult for spectators to be engaged. It’s a huge limiting factor for PvP growth.

I am so glad that Capricorn got removed in response to all of the negative Skyhammer feedback.

Wait…

…?

Dirame.8521:

Can we tone it down? I just fought an Asuran Warrior on Forest and literrally could not tell when he was going for a pin down or tossing that torment sword.

Tone it down or make it grey instead of white.

Turn off post processing in the graphics options. Post processing is responsible for that eerie glow and distracting brightness.

Klocknov.8219:

What we are asking is for a skill that has counter play,

The counter play is forcing the warrior to use the healing signet active, which disables the passive healing.

The problem is that the healing signet active is currently 100% useless. The description should be changed to “When activated: Does Nothing” or “When activated: You Die” to be more accurate to reality.

When warriors are given stealth, teleports, protection, and perma regen without banners, then we can start talking about the healing signet passive.

Until then, just pray that ArenaNet has enough sensibility to give the healing signet a useful active. Once players are given a reason to use the signet active, that disables the passive healing. Problem solved.

BurrTheKing.8571:

So I haven’t had time to mess around with this trait yet. I initially thought it to be too situation to be useful considering there’s so many builds that have no stuns. That being said, if the toughness you get means you get extra power from Armored Attack I guess that would be a nice side benefit. I still think it won’t be worthwhile unless it activated when you break free of any sort of control like Daze, Push back, Blowback, Fear, etc. having it be limited to Stun means in certain situations the trait is totally worthless.

Rousing Resilience activates when breaking out of stuns, knock backs, blow backs, knock downs, pulls, fear, and daze.

http://www.twitch.tv/zonegw/profile/pastBroadcasts

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/How-to-dominate-PvP-as-warrior-Shouts/first

Curby.4897:

This Trait is 100% useless. Yer just playing well.

It lasts 4s.

Endure pain lasts 4 s,

Endure Pain has a 60 second cooldown. Rousing Resilience has 0 cooldown. Endure Pain gives no stats. Rousing Resilience gives +1000 toughness that scales with stat conversion traits and runes.

SrebX.6498:

With the condition meta in pvp I really can’t see how is this trait usefu … :-\

That’s what shouts are for. Not only do the shouts take full advantage of Rousing Resilience, the shouts also remove conditions, and the shouts feed adrenaline to the warrior which allows him to remove even more conditions through Cleansing Ire.

The whole game is free and open to you. I recommend logging in and seeing for yourself.

I’m enjoying the new pvp balance tweaks. The new map, Courtyard, is very exciting. http://www.twitch.tv/zonegw/profile/pastBroadcasts

I’m not impressed with the new ranger. The only time I was wow’d by a ranger was right after the Apr 15 patch when pets were doing 10k auto attacks and 15k crits. Sadly, but thankfully too, it was hotfixed.

Balance feels incredibly good right now, but not because of the addition of new traits and things. The majority of the balancing was weighted on the small tweaks on every class. Not impressed by the new grandmaster traits on most classes; most are completely useless (warrior’s removal of 1 stack of blind on weapon swap….? What…the… Remove and give immunity to blind for 5 seconds on swap, please). Hambow was appropriately shaved. It no longer does WTF burst damage on top of unparalleled control. It now does meh to okay damage, with very good control; this is exactly what you’d expect from a high CC and AoE weapon set.

I forgot to mention one new change: On My Mark was replaced with Dolyak Signet in order to take advantage of the Rousing Resilience trait. Dolyak Signet acts as a 3rd stun breaker in the build for that +1000 toughness bonus, plus it provides some much needed stability for clutch finishers and revives.

Also, Rousing Resilience activates on dazes, too. And there’s no internal cooldown…! Such an amazing trait.

Check my stream out for example video footage of this build. I’ve been messing around mostly on the new courtyard map to test the efficacy of this build in deathmatch mode.

http://www.twitch.tv/zonegw/profile/pastBroadcasts