freedomtolove.5476

GW2 WvWvW:

@diamondgirl.6315 said: Exactly...Ignoring all the trash talk the fact is we all need rival servers for fights. Some of the best times in WvWvW were the BlackGate, Jade Quarry and Sanctum of Rall matchups years ago. Let's all have a bit more sportsmanship and server pride like the good old days. Enjoy the fights, bags and fun because all we've got left is each other... Found this on the old GW2 forums archive on Reddit:In any case, every death of a server has a cost: Not all of the players move on. Probably close to half of the player base simply gives up, stops playing, or moves to another game mode (e.g. duel based roaming). This is a big reason why the inherently instable T1 WvW could not go on forever. Everytime T1 consumed another server, the overall pool of players shrank. Together with the natural erosion over time, this has contributed to todays situation, where not enough PPT players are left to fill 3 server. There is not enough guilds in this game to create alliances out of just them. The active players of this game have been declining for years. All this update will do is make the last organised playerbase into groups; which will dominate random pugs who are learning to play the game. The fact of the matter is we have proven as a playerbase that we like to stack together in massive zergs and dominate other servers. Also If Arenanet is trying to turn GvG into an esport it's already been tried with obsidian sanctum and stronghold in pvp. Forcing everybody into massive guilds so they can ktrain together is the only result of this. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/24889/season-1-wvw-gvg-na-tournament#latest https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/30492/best-notable-wvw-havoc-guilds-eu-and-na#latest https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/32179/why-isnt-kdr-a-bigger-part-of-the-war-score-in-wvw#latest There is a common trend among these threads which is to glorify GvGers and put down PPTers. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/26790/wvw-restructure-will-fail-if-you-do-not-balance-defensive-power#latest Especially this thread where the OP believes removing the defence of the structures of an outnumbered force would lead to better fights. The original poster of this thread is from Magumma and like many on his server is a GvGer (Guild vs Guild). He claims that if Arenanet do not nerf defence like siege and guild upgrades on structures then the WvWvW megaserver restructuring will fail. I believe the opposite and I will go into detail why. When this restructuring of WvWvW servers takes place and the system is moved into guild based then players will be concentrated into alliances of guilds. This means that all of the GvGers will probably stack together in a massive alliance just like Magumma is currently. If Arenanet nerfs defence then not only will the PPT guilds not be able to defend properly but also they will be spawn camped and most likely quit the game. Magumma vs BlackGate is a recent example in T1 where Magumma would dominate EBG with SMC and PPK (Points Per Kill). This meant that none of the BG PUGs and militia who usually go fight all the time on EBG could not rally a force to fight the Magcloud. Magumma complained that there was nobody to fight and claimed that BlackGate had ran off to EOTM or PvE. Both servers lost because 1 server had all the GvGers and the other did not. When this WvWvW megaserver restructuring happens you can be sure that good players will stack into guilds with good players. The concentration of good players vs PUGs/roamers/militia and even new players will be even greater. This means that WvWvW will become like the old days of EOTM where GvGers would farm uplevel randoms (for their ultimate dominator title) who didn't even stand a chance to fight with a PPT pugmander. WvWvW will change from a place where roamers and militia are accepted because they scout for enemy zergs taking structures into a GvG or gtfo game mode. Many of these players do not realise that without the structures to take there are no massive fights simply because many GvGers run untagged and do not command PUGs (Pick Up Groups) how to fight with them. This will slowly demoralise anybody who is not in a massive alliance of guilds and make them quit the game mode entirely. When outnumbered players hide inside keeps with their siege they do so because that do not want to be forced to spawn where they will often be camped. Instead of fun fights these players simply want bags in any way possible to boost their KDR (Kills/Death Ratio). This can be tracked through websites like https://wvwintel.com/ by server. The statistics from this website have been used to brag in the past about winning and will probably get worse with the WvWvW megaserver restructuring. The sportsmanship in online gaming is almost non-existent and there are no real consequences for winners making fun of the losers (Example; http://www.gw2wvw.net/). In the end we all lose when players quit because they have been forced out of the game mode. New players in the past especially on BlackGate were encouraged to join TeamSpeak to learn to fight with the commanders who were in guilds. These guilds formed the frontline while the PUG players were often the backline. The commanders would literally tank the enemy zerg for the server and these were the days of true server pride and fun. A competition needs 2 fair teams so if Arenanet do not spread the guilds correctly then the whole thing will fail. It doesn't matter if they can't all stack together in a massive alliance because that is literally what has caused the problem over the years. Every fun fight needs sportmanship on each side because in the past people have pinsniped commanders from enemy zergs and suddenly instead of a fight they have a pushover for bags. Do these players want a fight or do they want their KDR/PPK boosted for bags and bragging rights?

@X T D.6458 said: Oh I feel so sorry for poor Malevolent (OnS) who backstabs his own server and tries to destroy them repeatedly by stacking to servers to break the T1 wall. Before his lack of sportsmanship and wanting a challenge drove him to create the alliance of TW and several other cross server repping guilds. Yes go ahead and stack another server like you did to TC and YB. Tanking is no problem when there is no honor to be had because nobody has any server loyalty anymore. Thanks to you and your ideas for WvWvW Arenanet listened to you and we have the rotation you wanted so much for years. Whats the matter doesn't it suit you when the game is dead years later? This is from the old forums when he used to run Blackgate as server leader. "Greetings I’m Malevolent Omen, a server leader of Blackgate and the guild leader of [OnS]Onslaught. Blackgate is seeking Oceanic, South East Asian, and European guilds to fulfill our community’s coverage during Season 2. We seek guilds and individual players who want to join the server that maintained the lead in WvW Season 1. Since I came to Blackgate, I found that Blackgate has a great community with many people willing to work together to strengthen the server to better the community. Resilient is the word to describe Blackgate, which is one of the reasons my guild chose to come to here a year ago. No matter what trials and tribulations we go through as a server, in the end we always work together and get over them. These same tribulations have made us strong. Whether it is being the world’s first Tequatl kill or our will to win Season 1, Blackgate has always put its best foot forward. Coming to Blackgate isn’t an easy win and Season 2 will be a much more competitive environment. If you are expecting easy wins here, chances are you will be disappointed. The competition is fierce and our Rival Servers want our heads on a stake. If you are interested in Blackgate, we would love to hear from you. We are looking for like-minded guilds and players that want to come compete in North American Tier 1 WvW. If you are worried about Blackgate being Full, please note that our server status changes depending on time and we have been monitoring it so we know when players are able to transfer. If you are worried about the cost to transfer to a Tier 1 server, please know that on Blackgate we help support guilds and players that are interested in our community. Join us on BEASTGATE!" Website: http://www.blackgatewvw.com South East Asia & Oceanic Contact• Death Dollie (Tenebris.9258) Europe Contact• Skugg (glorius.1235)• Smokee Gee (Smokee.1754) North America Contact• Malevolent Omen (MaLeVoLenT.8129) Malevolent as leader of BlackGate stacked the server with the help of the community warchest. Another post from reddit about the history of WvWvW and the 2v1 because of lack of sportsmanship. "I want to start with a disclaimer that for story purposes, the servers are presented as simplified groups, in one case in particular, the characters presented as a server are a small subset of that server's population which gave that server a bad name. There are tons of great people on BG, and very often I've had some great, enjoyable fights with them. Once upon a time, I was on Sanctum of Rall. I did not begin playing at launch, closer to around the January of the first year. I joined the server and guild of a relative who'd been playing since launch. This particular guild had a longer history of being an RvR guild, going back to Dark Age of Camelot. We had our own vent channel, we had a commander to lead guild raids in WvW, our server's standing was improving rapidly. Life was good. Soon after I started playing WvW, it became apparent that our server, SoR, was on it's way up to T1, to compete with the big boys. One week, we were fighting Storm-Bluff Isle and Tarnished Coast (whom we considered enjoyable opponents) The next week, we were up against Sea of Sorrows and standing champion Jade Quarry. Looking back, I wish we'd never hit T1. We did alright that first week in T1, placing second. That partial success seemed to change much of the attitude on the server from "We enjoy WvW" to "We are good at WvW". The server, our guild included, got much more competitive. SoS soon fell out of T1, replaced by a new opponent, Black Gate. As competition increased, tempers began to fly. No longer were our opponents other great communities with whom we had enjoyable fights. No longer was JQ the admirable champion, whom we sought to dethrone, and no longer was BG the rookie, the newcomer to greet with the same good-natured battle with which we greeted other servers. No, now this was war; the other servers were just scumbags who sucked, and we found every possible reason to call their play dishonest. BG called themselves BeastGate. Not ones to pass up the opportunity, we called them every name under the sun (BadGate, BagGate, HackGate, etc). We also took to calling JQ "JQQ". I don't know whether or not they had names for us. Then, in the midst of all this, WvW Tournament Season 1 came about. At the start, it was assumed that JQ would win, given that they had the best seed. But while we at SoR decided to just fight like usual and kitten about it on the forums, BG took action, and by action, I mean they bought a kitten of big WvW guilds from other servers, including a massive Russian guild. They wiped the floor with us and had us eat off of it. I want to take a moment to reiterate, before I go further, that there are dickbags in every server, and that there are lots of nice people in BG. Those in BG that did bad things are not representative of BG as a whole. It was at this tourney that SoR died. One of the biggest things was that our server-wide teamspeak got DDOSed, a lot. It was also noticed that our teamspeak, without exception during this tourney, got DDOSed if-and-only-if we were facing BG that week. Tensions grew. "They're a bunch of hackers and cheaters." the TS got moved from its public ts that everyone knew of, to a secret one which was given only to wvw guild leaders. It also didn't help that BG had made several guild purchases for the tourney; we said they'd "raided Mommy's wallet", and added to their name list monikers such as "BuyGate" and "BribeGate". As the tournament came to a close, SoR fell in status, WvW guilds transferred out, having tasted T1 and not wishing to leave. As a result, SoR fell further, and the loop continued until SoR hit its current spot. My guild was one of the guilds that left. We came to TC, our old enemies friends, the next guild moving up in the ranks. We only did so after TW, the server's flagship guild, abandoned ship. This fractured the guild immeasurably; only about half transferred. I almost didn't; I almost stayed in SoR, but my relative in the guild offered me the gold needed to transfer. Because we were split between worlds, it was much harder to get those who played less into groups. The guild died. Some moved to other games. Those that stayed found other guilds, including myself. SoR as a whole suffered a similar split- those who left got split mostly into JQ and TC. Few, if any, went to BG. There was far too much bad blood. BG, of course, lauded themselves on victory, and in the weeks leading up to season 2, boasted to JQ and TC of how badly they would wreck us, like they did season 1. This was a mistake on their part, for three reasons. -Reason 1: TC and JQ now had many guilds from SoR, expatriots of their home server, due to events for which they blamed BG. Exiled from their home soil, they were out for blood. -Reason 2: Most of the rest of JQ had been in the server for Season 1. They'd expected an easy win, and were none too pleased with BG's antics either. -Reason 3: This is the biggest reason of all. BG, in all their "Beast Gate" chest beating, forgot that they were taunting TC. They pissed off a Role-Play server. Never kitten off a Role-Play server. Thus began the farce that is known as the Season 2 2v1, or as I like to call it, the reaming of BG. In a hastily contrived plot, JQ and TC agreed to focus fire on BG, trading wins week-by-week, so that by week 7, BG could not win. We'd then duke it out for 1st on the final week. BG didn't like this, and took to the forums to demand Anet's divine intervention. They didn't get it. We added "BlubGate" and "CryGate" to their name list. It's worth noting that by now, Anet had locked the WvW matchup forum category, forcing discussion to move to an unmoderated third party forum. It began unmoderated, at least. The 2v1 resulted in one of the biggest flame wars I've ever seen. Several players laughed, saying BG got what they deserved. Several BG said they never deserved anything like this. Several non-BG painted a picture of the 2v1 as a Jihad against the unrighteous. Several BG compared the other servers to an evil empire. There were several reaction pictures posted, of laughter, and of rage. Moderation finally got introduced when someone attached a massive picture of a kitten to his post, for the world to see. JQ won in the end. TC came second, and BG got third. After it became clear that TC couldn't win, we almost managed to sway public opinion towards letting SoS beat us in the matchup, to put BG in fourth, but alas, nothing came of it.TC solidified its identity as the new third T1 player, and BG got kitten. All was right in the world. And yet, not all was right. In the end, winning isn't much of a victory. I don't play WvW much anymore. It's not the same- no one from my old guild is on anymore. If I run, I run with strangers in mumble. TC is a welcoming and rich community, but I must confess it's not as good as it was. I miss SoR; I miss what it was. I miss having good fights with opponents we respected. I miss doing raids on a keep, with the whole giant group all in the guild. I miss the people ion the group being there to have fun, not to win. Sometimes, when I run in wvw, with a particularly friendly commander in mumble, just for a moment, I feel like I'm back there. But then the moment passes. TL;DR: Tier1 is full of drama, someone please come up and knock us down to T2." Why is it that the whole of the GW2 playerbase is punished for the actions of a few alliances of guilds who have stacked servers since the game's launch? You know what the worst part of all this is Arenanet? Now you're just going to give them all the tools they need to do it forever with these new "megaserver alliances." Let me give you some proof of this with some videos and reddit posts by these people. Does anyone remember the Titan Alliance who stacked servers at the beginning of the game? https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/vvzs5/introducing_the_titan_alliance/ Sanctum of Rall was stacked by Indo (Tempest Wolves): Blackgate was stacked by Malevolent (OnSlaught): They have even made blatant statements about what their intentions were to do below: [–]MaLeVoLenT_OnS 2 points 2 years ago "I heard about this Weeks before HoT even had a release date. Arena Net wasn't kidding they've been working on this for years. I even hinted at this multiple times and i told various commanders and leaders. The information was provided to me by Arena Net hired beta testers and streamers. The same folk who provided me with this intel are the same folk who warned me if a season was coming or a certain patch. The information is legit the only thing thats not is the fact that they've been working on this for a year + so what we have as a leak could be vastly outdated. When TW, OnS, WHOA, TS, EK, kitten, LUN formed "The Mad Court Alliance" we also knew about this. We also didn't like how the Tiers rotate and we wanted to break it. We wanted to play with who we wanted and fight who we wanted. We didn't want the stagnant pace of WvW and we believe that GW2 WvW community is a global community and friends and guilds are what builds communities not the server you are currently on. So yes "The Tier destroyer alliance" is real and the list of guilds within will probably keep the alliance going(hoping its just not 3 guilds)." Malevolent was removed as server leader of BlackGate because he along with these guilds started cross-server representing. He wanted revenge on BlackGate even though he made it into what it is himself. The hypocrisy of some of the people in this world...He's finally won and destroyed Blackgate now.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/26547/world-restructuring#latest Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

NECROMANCY ACTIVATED FOR END OF DRAGONS

Arenanet being in control of its balance.

Get back to us when you're in your 40's and every injury comes back to visit permanently like a broke relative. I wear knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards and a helmet. Also I stretch before I skateboard and eat healthy and sleep well. Problem?

All I know is real life gives much more of an adrenaline rush from extreme sports like skateboarding, than I ever got from years of dopamine addiction to these Random Number Generated Skinner boxes people call competitive gaming. QUIT THE GAMES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P0OVZd8MWc You've got to stop thinking of GW2 as an MMORPG. At this point it's a first person shooter. My proof is they added deadeye with a sniper rifle last expansion. And all these one-shots? Well those are just headshots sorry you all got outplayed.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmOcdI3mI59b09NiHxdUklg

Extreme roles are bad because it becomes a counter vs counter battle. If somebody is running full zerker damage set then you need to either be zerker too or bunker up or condition them. The damage mitigation just isn’t enough to outlast the dps in this game. This means the fights don’t last very long unless you’re in a huge zerg (wvw) but even then pro guilds will wipe pugs every time. Also base stats like toughness and health are different across professions. Stability, condition removal, healing, crowd control and dps is unevenly spread across them too. This means that some professions are more suited to “tank” roles. While others are more suited to “condition spam”. Then there are others suited to “zerker” burst dps. This makes the game very difficult to balance because it is unbalanced to begin with. While yes it is true every profession can be any role some are more suited to it than others. The game can not be balanced except by numbers it seems. There is many lessons to be taken from gw1 such as all professions having the same base health. Also healing being much more effective than it currently is. Then the pvp in this game might be more than just spamming of conditions and dps. There would be a true counter rather than just damage avoidance. I think the biggest problem is balancing for different skill levels. Because some players have better reflexes or more experience playing a profession. This means that it is not even the professions that are unbalanced but the actual players themselves. So what I have seen Arenanet do is make very easy builds like condition bunkers that everyone can use. Then there’s zerker thieves, elementalists, bunker guards, etc, that take a bit more skill. The main problem as discussed in Sirlin’s book is balancing for skill. This is very difficult and he said that by giving easier options that can work, but don’t work as well as something which requires more skill. That is balance and I think Arenanet know this and what we have is a game balanced for different skill levels. That seems to be the logical way of thinking about the metas of this game in pvp and wvw. And to me it does seem balanced and if people complain they simply need to “learn to play”. But that does not mean that builds that require much more skill should faceroll everybody either. So in conclusion Balance is very subjective but if you balance for different skill levels it becomes much easier. And that is why a game can not ever be truly balanced. Because players and people have so many different skill levels. The way we experience competition is by winning or losing. But also I understand that by being too subjective in our opinions of balance is bad feedback. By making the pvp combat challenging but also not too hard to learn creates a diverse pvp community. The problem is when the game is objectively balanced completely without any player feedback then it becomes very unpopular quickly. This is why Balance is subjective because players who pvp want to have fun which is highly subjective. This is just my opinions of course because I’m sure that general balance is much harder than it seems. Let's use the conquest meta as an example. We fight each other on small circles. And we have to hold these circles to win the game. It’s not just the power creep that is the reason these 1-shot classes are the best. It’s simply the fact that everything else that could counter the Conquest Meta has been nerfed by Arenanet to make way for Esports. Instead of a power based twitch reaction time meta we have an abundance of 1-shot DPS and passive gameplay. We have area of effect skills ticking away on a point. We have Bunker Specs putting out enough damage to kill players. Why is this? Because Arenanet has removed tanky amulets and replaced active damage mitigation with passive invulnerabilities. Now instead of dodging power based attacks with well timed evades we have classes running max 1-shot DPS. These 1-shot DPS classes are dominating because other classes cannot bring enough sustain to compete with them. They are kings of DPS and 1-shots at the same time with the best ability to stack boons. You want to know why this game isn’t an ESport Arenanet? Because you catered too much to casuals and made this game too simple. If we had Monks they at least could heal the other classes without sustain directly instead of them slowly dying to AOE and conditions. I call this game Gank Wars 2 and there’s a simple reason why. Immobilise stacking, Stun/Daze chaining and CC spam is neverending and only certain classes have enough Stability or condition removals to escape. There is a general lack of sustain and too much dps (both conditions and power). What is the counter to DPS? Nothing…but in GuildWars 1 it was a Monk and that is why this game lacks depth. Dodge rolls aren’t a replacement for healing and protection that a monk class would offer. I find it funny when people assume GW1 was only theorycrafting builds and counters. The combat was just as if not more active than GW2. The fact is it had interrupts and hexes (based around punishing enemy for spamming). Proper protection and healing spells (able to almost full heal from a spike of dps). Along with Conditions, Melee and kiting, Aoes, block skills/spells and teleports. Also I probably need to mention you couldn’t just spam skills either. They were reliant on energy which you had a supply of and when you ran out it had to regenerate. ^ There’s an example of what is possible with monks. Also here’s a list of monk spells in gw1: “Monks…with their unparalleled gift for keeping their allies alive” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_monk_skills Just some ideas and my opinion about the different builds. Since the meta seems to be either extreme conditions bunker or burst spike with not much room in the middle. I’m hoping healing support can be made more viable instead of people just seeing green numbers but not getting any loot. Bunker and support do very little damage unless they’re a hybrid to do conditions but you generally need some healing power to be a good support player. Arenanet are buffing support healing and I am glad for it. Problem is most of the full zerker burst spike damage just cannot be outhealed. There’s not much you can do to mitigate the damage either apart from your main heal, dodges, blocks, invulns and evades. A full zerker amulet player will die in a couple of hits yet can 1-shot other players, while a full on bunker such as a guardian can tank hits from multiple players. Also the condition guys in the middle cant really be blamed either since he needs to tank and do some dps through the toughness of the bunkers. Even Monks can die and be pressured from burst damage as seen in the video but most importantly it gives a real counter to spamming of dps (either conditions or power damage). Right now it’s just a race to see who can spam and avoid the most damage to win hence we have all these “passive” condition builds and burst spikes that rely on being invulnerable. Boons run out and can be stripped not to mention if the player isn’t in bunker gear they won’t be enough usually unless they have a good amount of toughness. Healing and condition removal is what keeps you alive in an actual fight and it seems to only work in wvw with lots of players running support. Evades/dodges, condition removal, block and invulnerable skills all have cooldowns meanwhile the damage just keeps coming from autoattacks and aoes. This is why I think this game would benefit from having a monk, to counter the insane burst damage. What I want simply is a game with monks like gw1 had where fights can actually last longer than a couple of minutes. But apparently Arenanet decided that healers are boring and everyone should just kill each other with dps. Healing and Damage Mitigation needs a real buff if this game wants to have any chance at being competitive and balanced. Fights lasting longer hones skills and teamwork with players. The best example I can use in gw2 is wvw where there is enough support and the aoe limit of 5 prevents players being bursted down instantly if they make a mistake. The stacking zerg meta is there for a reason and all zerker and condition damage does is make it even more needed. Remember gw1 we had so many skills and different builds and they could all be used because they countered each other. But that didn’t mean that some builds weren’t better than others for certain things. There is too many players complaining that 1 build is too powerful but in my opinion its all based on skill level. Burst can 1-shot bunker or condis but they have more defense making it harder. Do you guys want a game with no “Overpowered” skills and everything the same and boring? Half the fun of games is to have fun and in gw1 I sure had fun in pve with my shadow form tank lol. So in all honesty maybe try different classes more and try to learn all the different skills and how they can be countered. There is no reason for nerfs because you guys refuse to adapt to the meta. I played gw1 had fun but this combat system is more dynamic being able to actively dodge and every class having their own heals. I just get bored of the whole dps wins everything while damage mitigation and healing is not even considered. I think gw2 lacks depth and with a monk it could easily have it. Maybe I’m just the type of player that likes when I’m needed such as Shadow Form tanks in gw1. There are many other players that I think want to be able to feel like they can help the party and be useful instead of just another player. This is why I love healing and damage mitigation and tanking is so fun. I truly believe Thief's burst meta with bunker Guardian’s tankiness and Warrior’s Healing Signet and Revenant's invuln balance each other out. Also Engineer’s, Necromancer's and Elementalist’s Aoe damage controls conquest points. Meanwhile Ranger's pets and long distance damage can take out these targets from a distance. Mesmer’s spamming of clones also allows them to easily confuse an enemy long enough for them to burst them down. This is truly the best meta we can get and if you don’t like it experiment with builds and kill the passive no skill builds as you call them. If some builds don’t have a counter then reroll to them since they’re obviously so overpowered and never die. Maybe try playing as a team instead of trying to 1v1 everything. Burst/zerker will die quickly that’s a fact. Would you prefer the meta to be bunkers and conditions only? This is the state of the meta and Arenanet will not change it because it attracts the most players. Do you think that there is more skill to playing your build and everything else is cheese? This is called not playing to win and making excuses. Everybody plays for or against a profession and thinks it is Overpowered. Well I am simply going to say that is your opinion. There is no balance when everything is “overpowered”. Arenanet will not listen to your complaints obviously biased against certain professions. Because all you want is for them to be nerfed and your own profession buffed. I will link “Playing to win” by Sirlin now. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Thanks for cherry picking my post and ignoring some of the points made while insulting me with ad hominem. please for the love of god if you're gonna quote someone and they have a wall of text, delete it or only keep the relevant parts. This here is exactly the problem with these forums. People ignore what people have said and try to strawman their argument to suit themselves.

Extreme roles are bad because it becomes a counter vs counter battle. If somebody is running full zerker damage set then you need to either be zerker too or bunker up or condition them. The damage mitigation just isn’t enough to outlast the dps in this game. This means the fights don’t last very long unless you’re in a huge zerg (wvw) but even then pro guilds will wipe pugs every time. Also base stats like toughness and health are different across professions. Stability, condition removal, healing, crowd control and dps is unevenly spread across them too. This means that some professions are more suited to “tank” roles. While others are more suited to “condition spam”. Then there are others suited to “zerker” burst dps. This makes the game very difficult to balance because it is unbalanced to begin with. While yes it is true every profession can be any role some are more suited to it than others. The game can not be balanced except by numbers it seems. There is many lessons to be taken from gw1 such as all professions having the same base health. Also healing being much more effective than it currently is. Then the pvp in this game might be more than just spamming of conditions and dps. There would be a true counter rather than just damage avoidance. I think the biggest problem is balancing for different skill levels. Because some players have better reflexes or more experience playing a profession. This means that it is not even the professions that are unbalanced but the actual players themselves. So what I have seen Arenanet do is make very easy builds like condition bunkers that everyone can use. Then there’s zerker thieves, elementalists, bunker guards, etc, that take a bit more skill. The main problem as discussed in Sirlin’s book is balancing for skill. This is very difficult and he said that by giving easier options that can work, but don’t work as well as something which requires more skill. That is balance and I think Arenanet know this and what we have is a game balanced for different skill levels. That seems to be the logical way of thinking about the metas of this game in pvp and wvw. And to me it does seem balanced and if people complain they simply need to “learn to play”. But that does not mean that builds that require much more skill should faceroll everybody either. So in conclusion Balance is very subjective but if you balance for different skill levels it becomes much easier. And that is why a game can not ever be truly balanced. Because players and people have so many different skill levels. The way we experience competition is by winning or losing. But also I understand that by being too subjective in our opinions of balance is bad feedback. By making the pvp combat challenging but also not too hard to learn creates a diverse pvp community. The problem is when the game is objectively balanced completely without any player feedback then it becomes very unpopular quickly. This is why Balance is subjective because players who pvp want to have fun which is highly subjective. This is just my opinions of course because I’m sure that general balance is much harder than it seems. Let's use the conquest meta as an example. We fight each other on small circles. And we have to hold these circles to win the game. It’s not just the power creep that is the reason these 1-shot classes are the best. It’s simply the fact that everything else that could counter the Conquest Meta has been nerfed by Arenanet to make way for Esports. Instead of a power based twitch reaction time meta we have an abundance of 1-shot DPS and passive gameplay. We have area of effect skills ticking away on a point. We have Bunker Specs putting out enough damage to kill players. Why is this? Because Arenanet has removed tanky amulets and replaced active damage mitigation with passive invulnerabilities. Now instead of dodging power based attacks with well timed evades we have classes running max 1-shot DPS. These 1-shot DPS classes are dominating because other classes cannot bring enough sustain to compete with them. They are kings of DPS and 1-shots at the same time with the best ability to stack boons. You want to know why this game isn’t an ESport Arenanet? Because you catered too much to casuals and made this game too simple. If we had Monks they at least could heal the other classes without sustain directly instead of them slowly dying to AOE and conditions. I call this game Gank Wars 2 and there’s a simple reason why. Immobilise stacking, Stun/Daze chaining and CC spam is neverending and only certain classes have enough Stability or condition removals to escape. There is a general lack of sustain and too much dps (both conditions and power). What is the counter to DPS? Nothing…but in GuildWars 1 it was a Monk and that is why this game lacks depth. Dodge rolls aren’t a replacement for healing and protection that a monk class would offer. I find it funny when people assume GW1 was only theorycrafting builds and counters. The combat was just as if not more active than GW2. The fact is it had interrupts and hexes (based around punishing enemy for spamming). Proper protection and healing spells (able to almost full heal from a spike of dps). Along with Conditions, Melee and kiting, Aoes, block skills/spells and teleports. Also I probably need to mention you couldn’t just spam skills either. They were reliant on energy which you had a supply of and when you ran out it had to regenerate. ^ There’s an example of what is possible with monks. Also here’s a list of monk spells in gw1: “Monks…with their unparalleled gift for keeping their allies alive” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_monk_skills Just some ideas and my opinion about the different builds. Since the meta seems to be either extreme conditions bunker or burst spike with not much room in the middle. I’m hoping healing support can be made more viable instead of people just seeing green numbers but not getting any loot. Bunker and support do very little damage unless they’re a hybrid to do conditions but you generally need some healing power to be a good support player. Arenanet are buffing support healing and I am glad for it. Problem is most of the full zerker burst spike damage just cannot be outhealed. There’s not much you can do to mitigate the damage either apart from your main heal, dodges, blocks, invulns and evades. A full zerker amulet player will die in a couple of hits yet can 1-shot other players, while a full on bunker such as a guardian can tank hits from multiple players. Also the condition guys in the middle cant really be blamed either since he needs to tank and do some dps through the toughness of the bunkers. Even Monks can die and be pressured from burst damage as seen in the video but most importantly it gives a real counter to spamming of dps (either conditions or power damage). Right now it’s just a race to see who can spam and avoid the most damage to win hence we have all these “passive” condition builds and burst spikes that rely on being invulnerable. Boons run out and can be stripped not to mention if the player isn’t in bunker gear they won’t be enough usually unless they have a good amount of toughness. Healing and condition removal is what keeps you alive in an actual fight and it seems to only work in wvw with lots of players running support. Evades/dodges, condition removal, block and invulnerable skills all have cooldowns meanwhile the damage just keeps coming from autoattacks and aoes. This is why I think this game would benefit from having a monk, to counter the insane burst damage. What I want simply is a game with monks like gw1 had where fights can actually last longer than a couple of minutes. But apparently Arenanet decided that healers are boring and everyone should just kill each other with dps. Healing and Damage Mitigation needs a real buff if this game wants to have any chance at being competitive and balanced. Fights lasting longer hones skills and teamwork with players. The best example I can use in gw2 is wvw where there is enough support and the aoe limit of 5 prevents players being bursted down instantly if they make a mistake. The stacking zerg meta is there for a reason and all zerker and condition damage does is make it even more needed. Remember gw1 we had so many skills and different builds and they could all be used because they countered each other. But that didn’t mean that some builds weren’t better than others for certain things. There is too many players complaining that 1 build is too powerful but in my opinion its all based on skill level. Burst can 1-shot bunker or condis but they have more defense making it harder. Do you guys want a game with no “Overpowered” skills and everything the same and boring? Half the fun of games is to have fun and in gw1 I sure had fun in pve with my shadow form tank lol. So in all honesty maybe try different classes more and try to learn all the different skills and how they can be countered. There is no reason for nerfs because you guys refuse to adapt to the meta. I played gw1 had fun but this combat system is more dynamic being able to actively dodge and every class having their own heals. I just get bored of the whole dps wins everything while damage mitigation and healing is not even considered. I think gw2 lacks depth and with a monk it could easily have it. Maybe I’m just the type of player that likes when I’m needed such as Shadow Form tanks in gw1. There are many other players that I think want to be able to feel like they can help the party and be useful instead of just another player. This is why I love healing and damage mitigation and tanking is so fun. I truly believe Thief's burst meta with bunker Guardian’s tankiness and Warrior’s Healing Signet and Revenant's invuln balance each other out. Also Engineer’s, Necromancer's and Elementalist’s Aoe damage controls conquest points. Meanwhile Ranger's pets and long distance damage can take out these targets from a distance. Mesmer’s spamming of clones also allows them to easily confuse an enemy long enough for them to burst them down. This is truly the best meta we can get and if you don’t like it experiment with builds and kill the passive no skill builds as you call them. If some builds don’t have a counter then reroll to them since they’re obviously so overpowered and never die. Maybe try playing as a team instead of trying to 1v1 everything. Burst/zerker will die quickly that’s a fact. Would you prefer the meta to be bunkers and conditions only? This is the state of the meta and Arenanet will not change it because it attracts the most players. Do you think that there is more skill to playing your build and everything else is cheese? This is called not playing to win and making excuses. Everybody plays for or against a profession and thinks it is Overpowered. Well I am simply going to say that is your opinion. There is no balance when everything is “overpowered”. Arenanet will not listen to your complaints obviously biased against certain professions. Because all you want is for them to be nerfed and your own profession buffed. I will link “Playing to win” by Sirlin now. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Extreme roles are bad because it becomes a counter vs counter battle. If somebody is running full zerker damage set then you need to either be zerker too or bunker up or condition them. The damage mitigation just isn’t enough to outlast the dps in this game. This means the fights don’t last very long unless you’re in a huge zerg (wvw) but even then pro guilds will wipe pugs every time. Also base stats like toughness and health are different across professions. Stability, condition removal, healing, crowd control and dps is unevenly spread across them too. This means that some professions are more suited to “tank” roles. While others are more suited to “condition spam”. Then there are others suited to “zerker” burst dps. This makes the game very difficult to balance because it is unbalanced to begin with. While yes it is true every profession can be any role some are more suited to it than others. The game can not be balanced except by numbers it seems. There is many lessons to be taken from gw1 such as all professions having the same base health. Also healing being much more effective than it currently is. Then the pvp in this game might be more than just spamming of conditions and dps. There would be a true counter rather than just damage avoidance. I think the biggest problem is balancing for different skill levels. Because some players have better reflexes or more experience playing a profession. This means that it is not even the professions that are unbalanced but the actual players themselves. So what I have seen Arenanet do is make very easy builds like condition bunkers that everyone can use. Then there’s zerker thieves, elementalists, bunker guards, etc, that take a bit more skill. The main problem as discussed in Sirlin’s book is balancing for skill. This is very difficult and he said that by giving easier options that can work, but don’t work as well as something which requires more skill. That is balance and I think Arenanet know this and what we have is a game balanced for different skill levels. That seems to be the logical way of thinking about the metas of this game in pvp and wvw. And to me it does seem balanced and if people complain they simply need to “learn to play”. But that does not mean that builds that require much more skill should faceroll everybody either. So in conclusion Balance is very subjective but if you balance for different skill levels it becomes much easier. And that is why a game can not ever be truly balanced. Because players and people have so many different skill levels. The way we experience competition is by winning or losing. But also I understand that by being too subjective in our opinions of balance is bad feedback. By making the pvp combat challenging but also not too hard to learn creates a diverse pvp community. The problem is when the game is objectively balanced completely without any player feedback then it becomes very unpopular quickly. This is why Balance is subjective because players who pvp want to have fun which is highly subjective. This is just my opinions of course because I’m sure that general balance is much harder than it seems. Let's use the conquest meta as an example. We fight each other on small circles. And we have to hold these circles to win the game. It’s not just the power creep that is the reason these 1-shot classes are the best. It’s simply the fact that everything else that could counter the Conquest Meta has been nerfed by Arenanet to make way for Esports. Instead of a power based twitch reaction time meta we have an abundance of 1-shot DPS and passive gameplay. We have area of effect skills ticking away on a point. We have Bunker Specs putting out enough damage to kill players. Why is this? Because Arenanet has removed tanky amulets and replaced active damage mitigation with passive invulnerabilities. Now instead of dodging power based attacks with well timed evades we have classes running max 1-shot DPS. These 1-shot DPS classes are dominating because other classes cannot bring enough sustain to compete with them. They are kings of DPS and 1-shots at the same time with the best ability to stack boons. You want to know why this game isn’t an ESport Arenanet? Because you catered too much to casuals and made this game too simple. If we had Monks they at least could heal the other classes without sustain directly instead of them slowly dying to AOE and conditions. I call this game Gank Wars 2 and there’s a simple reason why. Immobilise stacking, Stun/Daze chaining and CC spam is neverending and only certain classes have enough Stability or condition removals to escape. There is a general lack of sustain and too much dps (both conditions and power). What is the counter to DPS? Nothing…but in GuildWars 1 it was a Monk and that is why this game lacks depth. Dodge rolls aren’t a replacement for healing and protection that a monk class would offer. I find it funny when people assume GW1 was only theorycrafting builds and counters. The combat was just as if not more active than GW2. The fact is it had interrupts and hexes (based around punishing enemy for spamming). Proper protection and healing spells (able to almost full heal from a spike of dps). Along with Conditions, Melee and kiting, Aoes, block skills/spells and teleports. Also I probably need to mention you couldn’t just spam skills either. They were reliant on energy which you had a supply of and when you ran out it had to regenerate. ^ There’s an example of what is possible with monks. Also here’s a list of monk spells in gw1: “Monks…with their unparalleled gift for keeping their allies alive” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_monk_skills Just some ideas and my opinion about the different builds. Since the meta seems to be either extreme conditions bunker or burst spike with not much room in the middle. I’m hoping healing support can be made more viable instead of people just seeing green numbers but not getting any loot. Bunker and support do very little damage unless they’re a hybrid to do conditions but you generally need some healing power to be a good support player. Arenanet are buffing support healing and I am glad for it. Problem is most of the full zerker burst spike damage just cannot be outhealed. There’s not much you can do to mitigate the damage either apart from your main heal, dodges, blocks, invulns and evades. A full zerker amulet player will die in a couple of hits yet can 1-shot other players, while a full on bunker such as a guardian can tank hits from multiple players. Also the condition guys in the middle cant really be blamed either since he needs to tank and do some dps through the toughness of the bunkers. Even Monks can die and be pressured from burst damage as seen in the video but most importantly it gives a real counter to spamming of dps (either conditions or power damage). Right now it’s just a race to see who can spam and avoid the most damage to win hence we have all these “passive” condition builds and burst spikes that rely on being invulnerable. Boons run out and can be stripped not to mention if the player isn’t in bunker gear they won’t be enough usually unless they have a good amount of toughness. Healing and condition removal is what keeps you alive in an actual fight and it seems to only work in wvw with lots of players running support. Evades/dodges, condition removal, block and invulnerable skills all have cooldowns meanwhile the damage just keeps coming from autoattacks and aoes. This is why I think this game would benefit from having a monk, to counter the insane burst damage. What I want simply is a game with monks like gw1 had where fights can actually last longer than a couple of minutes. But apparently Arenanet decided that healers are boring and everyone should just kill each other with dps. Healing and Damage Mitigation needs a real buff if this game wants to have any chance at being competitive and balanced. Fights lasting longer hones skills and teamwork with players. The best example I can use in gw2 is wvw where there is enough support and the aoe limit of 5 prevents players being bursted down instantly if they make a mistake. The stacking zerg meta is there for a reason and all zerker and condition damage does is make it even more needed. Remember gw1 we had so many skills and different builds and they could all be used because they countered each other. But that didn’t mean that some builds weren’t better than others for certain things. There is too many players complaining that 1 build is too powerful but in my opinion its all based on skill level. Burst can 1-shot bunker or condis but they have more defense making it harder. Do you guys want a game with no “Overpowered” skills and everything the same and boring? Half the fun of games is to have fun and in gw1 I sure had fun in pve with my shadow form tank lol. So in all honesty maybe try different classes more and try to learn all the different skills and how they can be countered. There is no reason for nerfs because you guys refuse to adapt to the meta. I played gw1 had fun but this combat system is more dynamic being able to actively dodge and every class having their own heals. I just get bored of the whole dps wins everything while damage mitigation and healing is not even considered. I think gw2 lacks depth and with a monk it could easily have it. Maybe I’m just the type of player that likes when I’m needed such as Shadow Form tanks in gw1. There are many other players that I think want to be able to feel like they can help the party and be useful instead of just another player. This is why I love healing and damage mitigation and tanking is so fun. I truly believe Thief's burst meta with bunker Guardian’s tankiness and Warrior’s Healing Signet and Revenant's invuln balance each other out. Also Engineer’s, Necromancer's and Elementalist’s Aoe damage controls conquest points. Meanwhile Ranger's pets and long distance damage can take out these targets from a distance. Mesmer’s spamming of clones also allows them to easily confuse an enemy long enough for them to burst them down. This is truly the best meta we can get and if you don’t like it experiment with builds and kill the passive no skill builds as you call them. If some builds don’t have a counter then reroll to them since they’re obviously so overpowered and never die. Maybe try playing as a team instead of trying to 1v1 everything. Burst/zerker will die quickly that’s a fact. Would you prefer the meta to be bunkers and conditions only? This is the state of the meta and Arenanet will not change it because it attracts the most players. Do you think that there is more skill to playing your build and everything else is cheese? This is called not playing to win and making excuses. Everybody plays for or against a profession and thinks it is Overpowered. Well I am simply going to say that is your opinion. There is no balance when everything is “overpowered”. Arenanet will not listen to your complaints obviously biased against certain professions. Because all you want is for them to be nerfed and your own profession buffed. I will link “Playing to win” by Sirlin now. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub

Even if this is sarcasm P/P thief has been nerfed in PvP and WvW. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unload

Just 1 thing I ask for is the complete removal of exhaustion from: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unhindered_CombatantAnd if not just delete the thief class completely.

Theoretically something like this from ESO could work out very nicely for thieves: https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Two-Handed+Skills The Ultimate is the Elite skill of GW2 and Onslaught would be an amazing skill for thieves to kill tanks with because it ignores their damage mitigation which in this game is called Toughness. Uppercut could be the autoattack ripped straight from their morphs with the 2nd hit increasing the damage of the next attack and the 3rd stunning the enemy. Critical Charge would work as a gap closer like Warrior's Bull's Charge except it deals more damage the more distance it travels.As for Brawler perhaps it could be adapted to GW2's barrier system from the scourge giving more barrier to the thief the more targets it hits.This is the juicy one because it's the Executioner skill of the weapon and deals huge extra damage to foes with less than 50% health.As for adapting Momentum to GW2 I guess it could grant some Might and Fury and maybe Stability.Of course all of this is up to Arenanet to balance by initiative costs and its only a quick concept I came up with. I couldn't be bothered designing traits but if anybody wants to bother feel free. We may as well use our imagination and creativity to dream because thieves reality is pretty boring at the moment.

Arenanet talk about thief needing tradeoffs? While we used to be able to avoid damage by evasion now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unhindered_Combatant While we used to be able to avoid zergs through stealth now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/MarkedDetected! is an effect applied to players that enter stealth while they are marked. If they are stealthed for more than 2 seconds while detected, they will become revealed. Exiting stealth before this effect expires will remove this effect. While we used to have better mobility than most classes now there's mounts: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WarclawIt also has 3 dodges and is immune to CC along with the fact it has 10,972 health which is almost as much as a full berserker's armor geared thief.

Arenanet talk about thief needing tradeoffs? While we used to be able to avoid damage by evasion now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unhindered_Combatant While we used to be able to avoid zergs through stealth now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/MarkedDetected! is an effect applied to players that enter stealth while they are marked. If they are stealthed for more than 2 seconds while detected, they will become revealed. Exiting stealth before this effect expires will remove this effect. While we used to have better mobility than most classes now there's mounts: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WarclawIt also has 3 dodges and is immune to CC along with the fact it has 10,972 health which is almost as much as a full berserker's armor geared thief.

Notice how they only move the thief threads from the pvp or wvw forums? Thieves are the ignored profession and every thread mentioning thieves gets sent here to die just like us in game.

Arenanet talk about thief needing tradeoffs? While we used to be able to avoid damage by evasion now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unhindered_Combatant While we used to be able to avoid zergs through stealth now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/MarkedDetected! is an effect applied to players that enter stealth while they are marked. If they are stealthed for more than 2 seconds while detected, they will become revealed. Exiting stealth before this effect expires will remove this effect. While we used to have better mobility than most classes now there's mounts: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WarclawIt also has 3 dodges and is immune to CC along with the fact it has 10,972 health which is almost as much as a full berserker's armor geared thief.

Arenanet talk about thief needing tradeoffs? While we used to be able to avoid damage by evasion now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unhindered_Combatant While we used to be able to avoid zergs through stealth now we're punished for it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/MarkedDetected! is an effect applied to players that enter stealth while they are marked. If they are stealthed for more than 2 seconds while detected, they will become revealed. Exiting stealth before this effect expires will remove this effect. While we used to have better mobility than most classes now there's mounts: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WarclawIt also has 3 dodges and is immune to CC along with the fact it has 10,972 health which is almost as much as a full berserker's armor geared thief.

i tell u what.. just for example in ESO on my "thief" (nightblade) class i gotta be active and focus. its risky and on edge... but hell i'm able to 1v3 when i play really focused. skill = reward. in gw2 tho...... totally another story. that's the main issue. skill = nothing. passives = everythin. Not to derail the thread but been thinking on trying eso, is it worth getting into these day?ESO also has passive procs but they're linked to gear grind. The best monster sets require DLC and the best gear requires grinding pve. The main difference is your skill use in ESO is based on magicka or stamina. This means you can't just rotate through all your skills off cooldown or you'll run out of resources. Magicka classes will use damage shields (http://esoacademy.com/faq/what-is-a-damage-shield/) to protect their health with restoration staffs or their class abilities. Meanwhile stamina classes will block with shields or try to dodge all of the attacks. Stamina classes also have an advantage when it comes to being crowd controlled as they can break free more often. In ESO you need some form of magicka or stamina recovery depending on your class. There are many skills that return resources and there are many different armor sets.(https://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Sets) In my opinion ESO rewards a player who keeps their cool and doesn't rage. A player who can think ahead and plan their resource use patiently countering the game's mechanics. Many of the game's mechanics are simple but when layered upon each other in areas such as Veteran Maelstrom Arena the game's complexity shows. You can tank up in heavy armor in ESO with a shield and not do much damage. Then there's light armor in the case of magicka using damage shields to protect their squishiness while doing massive AOE DPS. Or there's stamina DPS in medium armor which will generally be your fast-moving gankers. Notice how there's sacrifices made in ESO for their different gameplay styles. ESO probably is a worse game compared to GW2 when it comes to the pvp. But it's a unique mmo and it brings its own fun if you give it a chance. The game will make you rage at the simplest things sometimes such as being killed by crowd control when you're out of stamina. Sometimes a game doesn't need to be complex to be challenging. It just needs risk vs reward and when you realise that your resources are running low you have to play more intelligently. ESO doesn't reward spammers when it comes to pvp and in fact punishes them by making them die from lack of stamina/magicka. When you realise you died because you spammed all your damage mitigation away for nothing there is noone to blame but yourself. ESO takes time to appreciate its depth and if you don't mind a game that takes a lot of time investment to get your fun then it will give you that. The only real fault of the game is the champion point system which gives players who have played since launch a big advantage. But there are non champion-point battlegrounds which are quite popular and 4v4v4 pvp. In cyrodil which is the WvWvW system of ESO there are massive zergs and massive lag. Because there is no aoe limit it can often cause lag but maybe that's because I'm Australian who knows?

You mean something like this from Elder Scrolls Online? https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Forward_Camps

My complaints related to the game's design and balance https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_hex_spellsI can only imagine the Q.Q in this game if players were punished for spamming skills. Empathy and Insidious Parasite would hard counter melee. Backfire and Arcane Conundrum would make casters rage. Visions of Regret and Spiteful Spirit would make zergs cry and ragequit the game forever. And those are only some of the many things that made Guild Wars 1 more of an Esport than this game will ever be. There is no melee because the high risk high reward philosophy doesn't exist anymore. Only braindead passive ranged gameplay where you drop circles or dodge circles. Every expansion will be the same with more circles to avoid. We should just program robots to play the game perfectly for us because at this point we're playing against the game mechanics not each other. Full dire/trailblazer armor vs full nomads/minstrel. There's your backline and frontline but in reality they're the same. There is a big difference between as people call unskilled play and what is actually fun. Old Hammer Trains were fun and so was the game but every expansion increases the power creep. I mean Arenanet actually had to add healers to a game with a manifesto that said they wouldn't. Why would they do that except because the game's DPS was reaching 1-shot levels and fights were not happening only ganking. This game has always been non-competitive and promotes bad sportsmanship. Ever since release the best tactic has been staff 1 guardian braindead zergs. The game is not balanced by Arenanet and the players who play this game love it. There is no sportsmanship because the whole game has always been about transfer to the winning server to win. Arenanet encourages this because it makes them money. Changing your build to the most overpowered skills and traits every patch is skill in GW2. If your class gets nerfed most people would be better off just rerolling to the most overpowered class that hasn't been nerfed that patch. Instead of practicing just try to get the classes that kill you nerfed that's the GW2 way. Don't forget to buy the next expansion because they will nerf the old elite specs to force people to use the new ones. More power creep so instead of 1v1ing we can just 1shot each other. I've said it before and I'll say it again when everybody else has quit this game all that's left will be the trolls and gankers. What happens when the next expansion comes out and Arenanet adds more power creep to the game? Players only complain if they can't kill somebody. Nobody cares if they 1-hit others because people are biased and subjective. True objective balance is impossible because the human race is competitive and vengeful. I remember the great 2v1 of BlackGate during Season 2. There are many reasons we don't care as much as we used to. The playerbase is much more casual than back in the old days. Pvp isn't even supported to become an Esport anymore. Even though we all knew that WvW was the true end game and a unique game mode which if given support should have become a new type of Esport.Apathy over years of neglect with only more rewards given to WvWers basically confirms Arenanet's idea that we're all just Pvers wanting pixels. It's not that we're boring it's just that game companies don't cater to hardcore pvpers anymore. There's more money to be made from casuals who want to make their characters look pretty especially with the introduction of microtransactions. Guild Wars 1 would of kicked League of Legend's kitten if it kept being supported and updated. That game was very well balanced and encouraged teamwork rather than GW2's everyone can do anything builds. The majority of the human race want easy to understand gameplay that the braindead sheep of this world can be entertained by. If a game takes years of practice and theorycrafting to learn and perfect it's just not viable anymore in this dumbed down society. They brainwash us with advertisements so that we become consumers of the global corporation's products. Banks control our world through the stock exchange making sure any business that wants to make a profit has to bow down to shareholder's demands. We are living in an age of slavery to the rich and it's only going to get worse for our kids if we have any. No privacy or freedom of speech anymore in this world either. I don't have a phone or a Facebook account because I'm anonymous and wish to stay that way. To bring this back on topic remember that GW1 had 1000 skills, dual class system and healers and they still tried to balance it. GW2 has a fraction of that number and they don't even try. Here's some nostalgia for you old school players: https://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/PvX_wiki And finally a joke by the Ceo of Arenanet if you needed a laugh about the state of the game's balance after path of fire. DANK MEMESLive footage of Arenanet balancing GW2: Arenanet debating GW2 balancing decisions: Arenanet's response to community feedback: When you make a post criticising GW2 or that you're playing any other game. Next day it' s deleted and you have an infraction from the moderators. How to get perfect community feedback:

It's called risk vs reward. If you want your advantages of ascended or legendary stat swap then you risk it. If you want to run around in exotics purchased with the excess badges of honor wvwers have then do so. It's up to you but of course Arenanet would never add such hardcore mechanics to a casual game. Players wouldn't even leave spawn in this game if such a thing existed. Goes to show that all the real pvp goes on in other games.