The sPvP community is far more casual than raids or WvW.

I have spent time in Platinum, Gold and Silver this season goofing around with "non meta builds", including being in the top 100 for a while. I observe the same issues across all divisions. Simple actions that you would expect of raiders, WvWers or even fractal players are not being done in sPvP. Pre engage buffs/stealths are impossible to get people to do. Most of the time they will run/leap/blink out of range before a buff/stealth can be done. Resets don't occur, it's just individual spam. It's rare to see someone interact with a field outside of coincidence. All of these things and many more are crucial components of the game that I see and expect from raiders and WvWers but don't occur in sPvP. And this isn't a "muh team sucks" post, I am seeing it on both teams.

PvP isnt about blasting fields and go blob or afk farming bosses on same place with carry support chrono/druid

To be honest, most crucial points in PvP is about usually doing the maths. In capture points, you would :

• Timekill : not kill 2 players at the same time, more likely wait 10 seconds so they don't both rez on same time
• Playing safe : at 480-420, 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead, you have an easy win by all going on your node
• Watching map : you're alone alive ,there is no reason to go far or engage mid 1v3 or 1v4
• Playing on nodes : a 495-460 situation 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead. If you're getting 1v4 on your node, you probably can survive for a few seconds, which will give you 4-5 points ( + eventually hoping a teammate comes in time). Too many times i had the player leave it, then we get tricapped and remontada 495-500

These are common sense points to me, but rarely happen, and i'm still convinced the powercreep due to PoF builds has contributed to players being too focused on killing instead of capping. And that's also pretty much why many will argue gold division is completly random

Then you realize that you can't play ranked as a group. But you can in WvW and PvE. All the things the OP lists are things you would coordinate or practice as a group.

If you play ATs you will find more coordinated play due to players actually being allowed to group up.

that's cuz all the builds are self sufficient boon monster/one man army/support tyrant/one shot types. built for solo play mostly.

@"Exedore.6320" said:Then you realize that you can't play ranked as a group. But you can in WvW and PvE. All the things the OP lists are things you would coordinate or practice as a group.

You don't need to coordinate or practice this. I frequently come across "small ops PUGs" in WvW that do all of these things. Whilst it certainly helps, it's absoutely not necessary. My point being that I would expect, of all places, for sPvP to be the most common place to see this.

@Abazigal.3679 said:To be honest, most crucial points in PvP is about usually doing the maths. In capture points, you would :

• Timekill : not kill 2 players at the same time, more likely wait 10 seconds so they don't both rez on same time
• Playing safe : at 480-420, 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead, you have an easy win by all going on your node
• Watching map : you're alone alive ,there is no reason to go far or engage mid 1v3 or 1v4
• Playing on nodes : a 495-460 situation 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead. If you're getting 1v4 on your node, you probably can survive for a few seconds, which will give you 4-5 points ( + eventually hoping a teammate comes in time). Too many times i had the player leave it, then we get tricapped and remontada 495-500

These are common sense points to me, but rarely happen, and i'm still convinced the powercreep due to PoF builds has contributed to players being too focused on killing instead of capping. And that's also pretty much why many will argue gold division is completly random

The timekill point is interesting. The thought crosses my mind quite frequently, but never heard anyone talk about it.

@Abazigal.3679 said: i'm still convinced the powercreep due to PoF builds has contributed to players being too focused on killing instead of capping.

Um.. You're talking about killing an opponent, as if it was something bad.

I always thought, that the point of it is exclusively to prevernt the opponent from getting in a way of your team doing objectives.

Would like to add that the hardest to come by, and in my opinion, most valuable skills;

• pressing " \ " key (above enter and backspace for some keyboards) to darken the chat. It isnt a skill, but I know plenty of people who don't read chat because they have it see-through, missing important calls.

• But the MOST IMPORTANT (and can actually bypass my first bullet-point) is looking at the minimap to assess the game. Awareness really, and I really mean it, that every time you arent engaging in combat, to look at it, AND while engage in combat take a few glances. If you see your team just got wiped at mid or home, see who did it, how many of them, where your remaining teammates are, what build are they playing, how many people are they fighting. An advice I once read on a MOBA, was to put a background timer that would chime every 2-3 seconds at random, or 3 secs flat, and every time it did you would have to look at minimap, eventually it would become a habit, and the best one you can have, if you could bear with the chiming constantly.

Also, I always try to blast smoke fields, and I'm actively looking for the few times they are around! I'm an ele player, fields combos is what my class is mostly about, so I'm well versed on the effects I can get from each type of finisher.

@"sostronk.8167" said:I have spent time in Platinum, Gold and Silver this season goofing around with "non meta builds", including being in the top 100 for a while. I observe the same issues across all divisions. Simple actions that you would expect of raiders, WvWers or even fractal players are not being done in sPvP. Pre engage buffs/stealths are impossible to get people to do. Most of the time they will run/leap/blink out of range before a buff/stealth can be done. Resets don't occur, it's just individual spam. It's rare to see someone interact with a field outside of coincidence. All of these things and many more are crucial components of the game that I see and expect from raiders and WvWers but don't occur in sPvP. And this isn't a "muh team sucks" post, I am seeing it on both teams.

You can thank solo/duo only for that, when there is no reason to get on discord when the other 3 or 4 people won't be with you. Good AT 5 man teams still do all of the things you mentioned with voice chat communication.

What you're noticing is just discouragement of communication when most people are solo que and off voice chat, whereas in raids and wvw, there are many people in a voice chat using much communication. I wouldn't necessarily say that makes spvp "casual", it's just that spvp solo/duo has limited communication vs. a raid or wvw.

@sostronk.8167 said:

@Abazigal.3679 said:To be honest, most crucial points in PvP is about usually doing the maths. In capture points, you would :

• Timekill : not kill 2 players at the same time, more likely wait 10 seconds so they don't both rez on same time
• Playing safe : at 480-420, 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead, you have an easy win by all going on your node
• Watching map : you're alone alive ,there is no reason to go far or engage mid 1v3 or 1v4
• Playing on nodes : a 495-460 situation 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead. If you're getting 1v4 on your node, you probably can survive for a few seconds, which will give you 4-5 points ( + eventually hoping a teammate comes in time). Too many times i had the player leave it, then we get tricapped and remontada 495-500

These are common sense points to me, but rarely happen, and i'm still convinced the powercreep due to PoF builds has contributed to players being too focused on killing instead of capping. And that's also pretty much why many will argue gold division is completly random

There's an art to rotting bodies so people stay on respawn longer.

What do you expect when power creep renders a lot of the subtle nuances the game once had obsolete. Having to blast might? HA! I press 1 button and get 10 might, I don't even think and I get 25! Combo water fields to sustain you and allies? Pfft, I open my tome and everyone heals for twice as much while I spam every skill!

Cancel casting something with a 30s cool down to bait out skills? Who needs to half the time when powerful skills are on <10s cool downs.

Everyone is too busy arguing and "discussing" balance but not paying attention to the scores of accounts and regulars that have disappeared since HoT started the trend of power creep and PoF firmly took it to the next level. There's a lot of accounts that have been here since launch who voiced their disapproval at power creep from HoT and subsequently disappeared after PoF and I think a lot of people are very ignorant of this. They loved this game and it had one of the most enjoyable combat experiences but sadly the power creep is making many experienced players leave and what's left are a few experienced players and an awful lot of terrible players.

As a main power reaper, minimap awareness is key, mainly for knowing when to run away and knowing when i'm doomed.

a) You cant 5-stack anymore in rankedb) There is less or allmost no more cross proffesion comboing needed. Stealth zerker meta was all about the opener so you better not lack 1x blast and become visible 3s early, Celestial meta had fire + water combos necessary to reach max output.... Todays builds are "skilless spammy trash" in the way that they are completely self sufficient with 0-100 full heals + boons covered + they get that as baseline effects not as a combo that needs to be set upc) Reliability. Everyone has passive random lifesavers proccing , so you can NOT actually coordinate CC- chains, it goes to waste from random pulsing 1x stack stabilitys.d) Population. No tourny + bad balance = ded gem = no tryhard to compete against

That is state of pvp in 2018.

@"sostronk.8167" said:All of these things and many more are crucial components of the game that I see and expect from raiders and WvWers but don't occur in sPvP. And this isn't a "muh team sucks" post, I am seeing it on both teams.

I try to play every match as if it were a duel in the far node; no longer care about things as teamplay or even results. PvP is a thing I queue for while mining ore to fund my gear. That is that.

as others have pointed out, you don't need to blast for anything other than stealth, which does happen. pvp is very intense. there's a lot going on. most people don't have the capacity to think they need to blast a field with a skill they might need for something else. why waste potentially important skills in the middle of a fight just to get a fire aura????? makes no sense. better keep the skill for when you need it for what it actually does.

example: druid staff 3, ele dagger earth 4, soulbeast WI.

@Exedore.6320 said:Then you realize that you can't play ranked as a group. But you can in WvW and PvE. All the things the OP lists are things you would coordinate or practice as a group.

Exactly.

The reason why you don't see field interaction in pvp is because in the current meta, it's just a total waste.You don't see smoke fields because d/p thief is not meta. You don't see fire field might stacking because who cares, you can already insta burst anything with the coordinated spike of 2 player. You don't see water field blasting to resustain because the skills associated with blast finishers are better used in another way and you can't afford to save them for blasting.This is no longer in any way a "crucial component".

@sostronk.8167 said:

@Abazigal.3679 said:To be honest, most crucial points in PvP is about usually doing the maths. In capture points, you would :

• Timekill : not kill 2 players at the same time, more likely wait 10 seconds so they don't both rez on same time
• Playing safe : at 480-420, 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead, you have an easy win by all going on your node
• Watching map : you're alone alive ,there is no reason to go far or engage mid 1v3 or 1v4
• Playing on nodes : a 495-460 situation 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead. If you're getting 1v4 on your node, you probably can survive for a few seconds, which will give you 4-5 points ( + eventually hoping a teammate comes in time). Too many times i had the player leave it, then we get tricapped and remontada 495-500

These are common sense points to me, but rarely happen, and i'm still convinced the powercreep due to PoF builds has contributed to players being too focused on killing instead of capping. And that's also pretty much why many will argue gold division is completly random

The time kill element of GW2 is pretty cancerous. It's rather trashy of a game's fundamental design to allow players to directly lengthen another player's spawn timer by arbitrary amounts, and all it does is feed into more and more passive/bunker play considering how it's much better to flee/avoid fights or submit to invuln meta rather than risk dying off-point in a game in which baseline movement is entirely worthless at getting anyone from point A to B if one has already committed to a fight.

@sostronk.8167 said:

@"Exedore.6320" said:Then you realize that you can't play ranked as a group. But you can in WvW and PvE. All the things the OP lists are things you would coordinate or practice as a group.

It's more difficult to pull off something like that in GW2 PvP considering how effectively RNG the PvP matchmaking system is. At least in wvw, if someone (or everyone) in the party dies, it's easier to retain the party structure for another go either by just partying-up as a small group or by potentially running into each other at contention hotspots on a map. Moreover, there is no fixed, 15-minute timer on party activities outside of PvP.

In PvP, the equivalent of small-ops activities is just cycling through one match, and win or lose, there is a near-guarantee that one might never get the same individual player structure again regardless of how poorly or well any given match went (even if one tries to sync up match join timers). Due to the nature of being able to pick parties on the fly and also know of whom is actively seeking parties before they are even formed, naturally wvw and PvE are far more conducive to players grouping up in arbitrary numbers in any given location and finding relative success in anything that they do. PvP is entirely based around passive hard-counters among every class match-up and there are just simply never enough valuable objectives to allow any given players to consistently contribute successfully to a team's benefit if that player finds itself hard-countered by an opponent build without any team support or effective answer to said counter. In wvw, a single player can go on a camp flipping spree. In PvP, a single player hardly does anything unless its a thief who can spam 5 and teleport across the map with zero effort.

To that end, most PvP matches are effectively decided before they even begin just based on team class composition. In wvw and PvE, there are often extra elements to baseline combat (capping camps, building seige, being in a certain map meta lane, etc) which effectively give groups and individuals opportunities to circumvent their lack of gear stats or player numbers. PvP is just nothing but selfish, auto-proc one-man-armies contesting points with the same impunity-laden openers until it's clear that one side has the better builds. I'm not saying that GW2 PvP needs more non-combat gimmicks, but rather that combat in GW2 PvP needed to have some actual, somewhat meticulous design thought behind it (which it never got) considering how skewed every class match-up has been to some degree since launch (i.e. core warrior being as bad as core necro until like mid 2013 when anet just made it passively regen health like crazy with no investment so it could use every skill without consequence because all it hard to do was stand on points to be effective; mesmer going from A-B tier to SSS in a single expansion because it could now just reset cooldowns at the press of a button; scourge-firebrand; deadeye vs teams without a reliable means to mitigate projectiles or chase or lock down a teleporting stealth-on-dodge-boi). While there are ultimately work-arounds to non-meta set-ups or outnumbered situations in PvE and wvw, no class change or spec introduction has ever been made with real thought for how narrow, restrictive and downright brainless PvP's gameplay mode is in all reality.

@Swagg.9236 said:

@sostronk.8167 said:

@"Abazigal.3679" said:To be honest, most crucial points in PvP is about usually doing the maths. In capture points, you would :

• Timekill : not kill 2 players at the same time, more likely wait 10 seconds so they don't both rez on same time
• Playing safe : at 480-420, 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead, you have an easy win by all going on your node
• Watching map : you're alone alive ,there is no reason to go far or engage mid 1v3 or 1v4
• Playing on nodes : a 495-460 situation 1 node vs 2 nodes + half party dead. If you're getting 1v4 on your node, you probably can survive for a few seconds, which will give you 4-5 points ( + eventually hoping a teammate comes in time). Too many times i had the player leave it, then we get tricapped and remontada 495-500

These are common sense points to me, but rarely happen, and i'm still convinced the powercreep due to PoF builds has contributed to players being too focused on killing instead of capping. And that's also pretty much why many will argue gold division is completly random

Exactly.nr1 most underlooked "bad design" mechanic.

Poeple complained about snowball nature of conquest, yet all anet has horrible history of admiting mistakes and would rather sell their soul to the devil to cover it up.So when they saw poeple "cheating" because LEAVING AND RESTARTING THE GAME WAS FASTER than lying on the ground for 1min AS INTENDED tm....instead of admiting bad design and implementing a /gg or #5 suicide downed ability, they actually coded penalty time for restarting game.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:that's cuz all the builds are self sufficient boon monster/one man army/support tyrant/one shot types. built for solo play mostly.

What a mouth full of a description there.

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:that's cuz all the builds are self sufficient boon monster/one man army/support tyrant/one shot types. built for solo play mostly.

lol ye, I figure the description should match the build, over the top. im very clever, you know.