Swagg.9236

Holy bruh, Overwatch was never naturally successful (it just had money infusions to effectively keep the marketing league alive) and WoW PvP was always riddled with meme metas before it became something that nobody wanted to watch anymore.

Conditions in GW1 not only carried a high opportunity cost and had low, respective damage ceilings, but also generally functioned as conditional set-up triggers (i.e. "[Skill X] inflicts [bonus effect] if your target is [suffering from Condition Y].") With GW2, anet, for some reason, decided to gut actual combination strings from their design formula (combo fields/finishers are a joke) and just ship conditions as untyped damage--which is baffling when DAMAGE ALREADY EXISTS. There was never a need for two parallel sources of untyped damage (because, again, elemental damage types do exist in GW2 but have no actual bearing on combat), and instead of addressing this properly via game design fundamentals, anet just made things worse by doubling-down on conditions as damage. All you needed to do was keep conditions as a trigger mechanic, CJ. Instead, anet just threw them all over the place for no reason (like on autoattacks and trait passives lmao).

The worst part is that even builds that don't even use stealth still drag out fights with effective invulnerability via passive or instant blocks/blinds/teleports/"invuln"/evades/etc. GW2 PvP isn't interactive; it's just two guys doing whatever their builds let them do until one of them runs out of buttons to press ala: Stealth just makes it even more obvious that agency and creativity aren't really the driving factors in PvP--rock-paper-scissors build match-ups and patch notes are.

D/D cele ele and thief have existed since launch. Every flavor-of-the-month or expac-based metagame since has been defined by effectively the same interactions generated by those two paradigms. Players are either teleporting around and passively negating damage (and often attacking) or they're just walking into damage and passively healing while simultaneously dealing damage. The point is that GW2 has no big choices to make. The most obvious choices for builds exist because they are the builds which make players deal damage, move and negate incoming effects all at the same time.

You have discovered the core of GW2. I haven't read this thread yet, but I'm going to preemptively assume that you've had to deal with a bunch of people who are still in the cave, thinking that GW2 has some nuance or complexity to its PvP interactions.

Criticism of the false importance placed on GW2 PvP is trolling? Coordinating a burst isn't even that hard in GW2. I just don't see a reason why it matters to anybody whether or not a random new player decides to roll around in ranked without a lot of pretense. If you want to hit plat consistently, you're in some group of people who just feed duo queues through the system and plop out in p2. It's that simple. People running around in ranked without knowledge of the game aren't going to stop you from achieving that. I feel like this thread spawned from just a single game in which somebody got irrationally upset about somebody playing GW2 in a way that isn't the low-effort, creatively devoid grindfest that the patch note meta generally foists upon anyone who wants to get validated by a platinum badge.

Again, if people aren't going to take unranked as seriously as ranked (i.e. you'll see strange or nonsense builds and a general lack of coordination) or if people are going to stack one side with a 5-man team or something, how is that honestly preparing the random dude who's never touched GW2 for what the ranked environment is? Ranked would only have duos, the builds would be different, and the expectations could be consistently different. How is that actually training anybody? You have two very distinct and parallel gamestates. You might as well just let people play whatever they want and decide if they actually want to stomach GW2 PvP lmao. It becomes clear very quickly what wins. The biggest hurdle as a player is whether or not to conform to a low-effort, patch note meta.

Considering the full-team stack/roll exists in unranked and people aren't going to take unranked matches as seriously (i.e. roll regular builds) as ranked ones--even considering the fact that GW2 is still a very simple game--can you really say that such an environment is truly, consistently conducive to bettering one's self for actual ranked matches? GW2 rank doesn't matter, dude. Just find some private pools, guilds or duos and the game plays itself.

No, fun isn't allowed. It was never allowed. Success in GW2 PvP is dictated by patch notes more than player expression. It has always been this way; the reality has just gotten more and more obvious to people once especs dropped. The game continues to be a meta which orbits around a core of what amount to "d/d cele ele" rotation mashers and some sort of teleport/movement spammer. You basically have to make your own fun up--but it's artificially difficult.

I don't know why, but for some reason GW2's PvP community is just irrationally angry and judgmental about people experimenting and learning the game at their own pace. No one is good at something before one is first bad at it, and nobody is going to get any better at a structured activity if they are gatekept away from said activity (i.e. "Go play unranked first before you dare step food in my hallowed ground where people at least attempt to establish and propagate a certain level of perceived structure and strategy"). I mean, GW2 doesn't even feature a super high skill ceiling anyway; and most people are pretty capable of figuring something of this level out pretty quickly and judging for themselves whether they honestly enjoy the experience or not. However, considering the game's stagnant, post-expansion population, you have to accept that there is probably more an fundamental issue with the game itself rather than overall player skill level. But seriously, GW2 is like a bizarre, FGC community except that there's nothing but tantrums and the game isn't even that complicated. Like, what the heck, dude, just let people play the game. None of it matters. You can't push yourself in GW2. Stop pretending.

To the GW2 forums, on the interwebs, where BALANCE™ would guide you. If you seek self-validation, maidenless as you are.

A thief complaining? You don't have the right, O you don't have the right

When it comes to something like the core ranger pets, I'm not sure that the additions to their selection pool really counts as mere "tweaking." If we're going the route of cooking analogies, elite specs are less seasoning and more like just a whole other dish. It's irrational to just pour two dishes together in the hopes that they enhance each other's flavors--which is why most elite specs just outright replace core builds (or other expansion builds). The problem with pet skills in particular is mainly that there are none--for the Ranger anyway. Pets are often so far out of fine control, that their contribution to combat has been forced via a series of early-game buffs which effectively turned them all into mini-bosses with regards to HP, toughness and damage output. You'd probably be better off just removing them entirely and turning them into something else (or just merging e-specs together into individual classes with a lot of respective options). GW2 PvP faces the issue that it is rather shallow and straightforward, and the game itself is rather pigeonholed into buffs/nerfs rather than expansive side-grades and true role options. We can tweak all we want, but the way GW2 works, we're probably just going to end up with roughly the same products with which we started (unless we get the go-ahead and resources to gut nearly everything and reassemble things into a more flexible and complex configuration). I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade; I'm just saying that a core-only PvP mode in GW2 would basically just be a circus-mirror reflection of any other contemporary meta (same shapes and colors but just a little more wiggly and misshapen). It's not like it wouldn't be a fun experiment anyway and that there's really nothing to lose by trying it, but as it stands, anet would never put in the effort to balance/design around a core-only mode, and telling people to play core-only for a tournament or season would basically just result in the same exact meta that people already see (just with slightly different timings and hard counters).

The people who say this haven't died to double-digit burn stacks applied nearly-instantly from range without a projectile. It's so unfair. That said, core-only PvP would probably end up going full SUPER TURTLE because it would saturate itself with warriors/guardians/necros running around and dealing consistent/high damage while popping sustain. There are not a lot of options available which can consistently pressure those builds outside of a protracted 2v1 investment; the time spent would be super low-return on the investment considering that people would probably have a thief running around everywhere. Mesmer burst is admittedly instantaneous, but also omitted by dodges and leaves the attacker almost devoid of firepower for the entirety of its cooldown. Ranger is forced to run stealth trapper or become hysterically dependent on overpowered expansion pets (unless you'd ban those too; which I wouldn't complain about). Thief dies to any pressure, and would probably either have to go full stealth garbage or spam pistol whip to survive more than 3 seconds (regardless if these even really impact the field or not). They'd probably end up doing some 70/30 split of "not playing a video game" / "low-effort Dark Souls gank-squad groupie" Not super engaging. Engineer just runs a worse version of holo, I guess? Rev just runs a worse version of herald, I guess? Ele either runs scepter burn (which is almost halfway fun to fight with x/dagger, but would probably be a violently aggressive disease with x/focus fire-water-air/arcane) or lightning rod power staff (which basically just means waiting for tornado to come off cooldown). tl;dr: You actually probably wouldn't change anything with a core-only PvP mode, but there MIGHT be an opportunity for some niche, surprise builds that could win a round or two before getting focused and ground into paste by the stock war/guard/necro set-up.

I've got a solid solution: play Elden Ring. Also, starting off any statement with a superfluous mini-bio to force credibility or impartiality is, if not the worst then at least top 3 worst habits that the average internet-goer has developed over the past decade. Just say your piece. You'll get the responses you deserve (but then again this is gw2 so there's no guarantee on any sort of discussion lmao).

Gw2 streaming was never anything more than anemic at best. I just had a look at the launch patch notes, and if I see any indication of failure, it's more in the fact that they had to do like 10 major bandaid patches within two weeks of launch for a bunch of random, disconnected elements that probably would have otherwise been worked out through proper playtesting. Also the initial patch drop post got ratio'ed on the official forums l m a o

BTW, in case you missed it, Ele was ALWAYS a primary melee class. From 2012-2015 D/D was always the meta in all skirmish-scaled modes outside of PvE, and PvE was just camping staff's fire attunement after you chain-combo'ed 25 might onto the party with scepter/dagger. Even Fresh Air in PvP was still inconsistent because it could be hard-countered by so many things compared to mainhand dagger set-ups. Ele was always just magical warrior. I'm not saying that this is good, but you can't pretend that the class was ever a wizard archetype. GW2 doesn't care.

Positively hysterical. Predictable results, but even these defy expectations. Not a single jab at the problems that actually make GW2 PvP so shallow, sure, but only a mere 19, superficial number adjustments. The poor dude who wrote this thread's original post probably put more effort into all those superfluous paragraphs than what was required to change a few numerical values in this game's spaghetti code. Absolute clown college. Thank goodness I preordered Elden Ring lmao

When it goes the heck away and gets replaced by 2v2 lmao

Did a quick update with WvW in mind, and also added in/re-worked a bunch of trait ideas. It's still probably not complete, and nothing is ever perfect, but it's probably worth just leaving everything here for now. I don't really expect anet to ever do anything interesting with their game, so I probably shouldn't burn more time thinking about it lol. Thanks for the input so far, and it's not like I wouldn't welcome more discussion and critiques.

I REALLY appreciate this input. It's one thing for me to make all this from the perspective of PvP, but I kind of forget that WvW exists sometimes. I capped mag aura at 5 stacks mainly because I think it's enough in the presence of all the trash that tempest can squeeze out over a long-winded rotation of passive mitigation, but ultimately it is sort of flimsy when single skills can blow an entire aura to pieces. That said, having 5/7s of a rev burst blow back into the rev's face is a massive HP swing, and the same goes for a Rapid Fire. Maybe more stacks but a slightly shorter duration. The main thing to avoid is giving tempest a 1/4 minute of projectile immunity. Overtuned is a problem that can be solved pretty easily, but it's important to know where the lines need to be drawn. I do appreciate the WvW perspective. It's kind of tragic that GW2 fell apart so badly that so many skills had to get broken up in multiple ways, but there's always that solution: a wvw-unique version of the skill with tapered effects. It might also just be easier to adjust the numbers globally too. Frankly, making the aura weaker overall and then making up the difference in class-specific trait options might be the better choice to avoid headache in WvW and also provide design outlets for different professions.

I think that the people who take GW2's combat seriously (or at least attempt to defend it) aren't necessarily unaware of better options, but rather only want to justify the time and effort that they've sunk into the game. I'm not saying that such a mentality is healthy or helpful at all--it isn't--but that just seems to be the pervasive mentality to me. Frankly, it's very self-destructive considering how this vocal group generally pushes to keep everything about GW2 firmly rooted in its worst, most broken design flaws.

Just get Elden Ring. Open World design is stale and overrated. GW2's PvP is "good" when compared to the garbage pile that is the average MMO combat paradigm, but it is not inherently interactive, skillful or expressive. Instanced and co-op action is where the best PvP domains will forever remain until we get faster-than-light data.

Elden Ring babyyyy. GW2 MIGHT have been good (big "might") if the devs just let the players use their super accessible builder kits which they use to construct levels from a pool of placed and re-sized environmental assets. I've seen that program: it's literally what people had access to in Wildstar housing. It's not complicated, and it's endless content because you'd just have players making levels and modes on their own independent of the dev team. But Anet doesn't trust anybody with their toys, so the game dies.

OK, but the passive stun is still far more powerful than the active one. The passive one hits through evasion and block, functioning more like a personal, on-demand ward wall which always follows you around. Moreover, it can hit a single target multiple times per instance. The Air Elemental can at least die; there's no way to interact with a static aura except to either bathe yourself in stability (if you have it) or literally stop playing the video game for a few seconds. Moreover, the Air Elemental is not what I would recommend for consistent utility lmao. Sure, it can stun, but it's bound to an area on a minion that isn't super wieldy, the minion can die, and honestly the fire minion is, hands-down, far better at applying pressure (and bursting) even though it brings no CC to the table. It doesn't matter how many thousands of hours you have when you can't look at me straight and honestly tell me that stunning a dude passively (even from ridiculous range) with an instant-activation, personal-buff which cannot be removed is ANYWHERE on the same level as using an active stun which can miss or trying to stun somebody with an unwieldy minion that can die. The latter is completely outclassed for no reason except needless bloat, a lack of developer creativity, and zero holistic design philosophy which could have established meaningful roles.