Bast.7253

What was it last season? Scourge I guess? Idk. I think scourge in general is just too strong of a design in pvp. Unless everyone focuses them the whole match.

Bunker Druid is has been since it was released too.

Every time I’ve tried a cheesy dual pistol build there’s been a thief on the opposite team that gets me before I can burst. Lol the burst doesn’t take any skill but setting it up and finding the right opponent st the right time takes a lot more than it seems. Not to mention guardian blocks, invulns, and reflects. If you’re good and highly mobile it can be good as a plus one but you’re better off with a power shatter mirage that can just one shot with invuln.

Idk. They’re annoying when they’re good but I’d hate to see the option destroyed with nerfs.

But if you can give mesmers a main hand pistol that would be nice. :p

> @"BikeIsGone.8675" said:

> > @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > I asked for numbers for this season to be pulled since people are always interested:

> >

> > Average skill rating difference between teams: 11.866

> > Average standard deviation difference between teams: 11.643

> > Average rating difference in a match: 98.203 (min rating vs max rating across all players in the match)

> >

> > One thing to keep in mind that end score difference never means that the match didn't start off even. Scores tend to snowball in our game for a number of factors. Some due to map layout/mechanic design. Some due to human nature, as people tend to tilt or give up after getting behind by a certain number. Sometimes people play above or below their potential. That's just part of human performance.

>

> Oh silly Ben, how could individual player performance _possibly_ have anything to do with winning/losing streaks. Tilting is a fake-news rumor that has been spread by the media. Nah, rigged matchmaking seems far more likely. /sarcasm

Pleasant.

Anyway, is there a cap? Does the average get skewed by duo queues? I noticed the other day someone was mentioning that they had worse look duo queuing which might explain why some matches I’ve had significantly higher rated opponents maybe? I didn’t really ask anyone if they were duos.

Once again, I simply addressed the fact that the current system seems to keep you at a certain rating whether it’s through loss streaks or win streaks against highly skilled people or people that sometimes seem to not even have keybinds. Just sometimes either impossible at the personal mmr cap and trying to progress or so easy it’s laughable if you’re at the end of your losing streak. But sure, it’s solely skill based every single time. Please feel free to duo queue with me later and teach me the way. I’d love to see such a skilled professional in action with 4 other teammates being blown up 2 seconds into a fight in mid and then spawn camped the remainder of the match.

> @"BikeIsGone.8675" said:

> Can we stop with the rigged MMR conspiracy theories already?

> Don't you think it could maybe have more to do with the high dmg meta (thief, mesmer, Holo, scourge, SB) and the heavy snowball-nature that comes with it?

Can we stop ignoring the obvious flaws in the current system?

But yes, I agree that damage is pretty insane right now. High power builds like warrior, chrono, and holo with high sustain are pretty ridiculous. I tried out the meta warrior build the other day knowing basically nothing about warrior and had people beating on me and my health was regenning like crazy. Even missing most of my attacks I was still hitting like a truck. Holo about the same but that takes a little more skill.

And chrono is just on steroids with the right build. Lol squishier though at least.

> @"Felipe.1807" said:

> been saying this since a long time...back in the day on the cele meta, Warriors and Eles atleast had to work for all that might, blasting fire fields and everything, these days is just equip X trait and get all boons 24/7...honestly i have no idea what happened to the balance devs and how they let the game come at this point that we are now.

Even now as a sword weaver you have to work pretty hard to get high might stacks, and that’s with two fire fields and multiple blast finishers. But part of that problem is the fact that ele still has to run water for sustain versus an engineer that had traits that grant constant protection and condi cleanse from gaining protection, grant heals from blast finishers, reduce damage with boons, and naturally have a base health way higher than a lot of other classes like thief, guardian, and ele. Holos and warriors not only get sustainable damage that’s comparable to a fresh air scepter ele or thief’s few seconds of burst, but can do so while having a way higher health pool and even running more defensive amulets.

I guess this is way beside the point, but I agree. Boon spam in general is a little crazy right now and instead of adding scourges to bring boon corruption or spell breakers to boon removal as counter play it might have been better to just tone down boons to begin with.

It’s extremely easy with mesmers to get 25 night stacks and if running a build similar to one I run on occasion, near permanent quickness.

Holos I haven’t quite figured out how to get might on that high reliably but I’ve seen it plenty.

Warriors are also an issue.

So many builds right now that are low risk due to passive and active invulns and damage mitigation on top of running tanky amulets but ultimately dish out a lot more damage than they should compared to some other profession with a less favorable build that has to run full glass of full support, like ele for example. (Weaver being an exception if you run sage water build but even then you won’t be dishing out as easy damage as a warrior or spell breaker with demolishes amulet interrupt spamming and standing in everything bad or having seemingly constant immunity to control effects.)

The problem in most cases isn’t the amulet itself so much as these builds or elite specs designed to use the amulets too efficiently.

As far as what you said earlier, Trevor, that’s pretty much it. It has a particular spot it wants you in. If you go on lose streak after lose streak, you can play a glass staff ele auto attacking and your team will be so good that even with you dying 20 times in the match you will still win because matchmaking decided you needed to be bumped back up to that rating. And on a win streak if it wants you to lose it will not only pair you against play 2 and 3 players as gold 3 but you can pull out all the stops gravity welling and bursting down everyone in a point giving your team a fair chance and they will do no damage and do nothing but die whenever you’re not around. Like, spawn, run mid, scourges auto attacking and dead without even using defensives. Not to mention the comp.

On one of my win streaks I wound up going against a Godess of PVP and some apparently famous thief on the opposite team, both of whom are like 1700 rating versus my trying to squeeze out another TWO POINTS to 1500 because the system somehow determined that my wins were only worth 7-12 points but my losses were worth 17.

I’m not saying that Arenanet is rigging matches on a personal level or anything, but that the matchmaking system follows exactly like Trevor stated. You win streak and lose streak on a pattern that ultimately leads back to where it wants you to be, and that it seems extremely obvious when it wants you to lose and win it wants you to win based on who it matches you with or against and that there is often nothing you can do to impact the outcome of that match.

There is very clearly a pattern, and the pattern doesn’t seem to favor skill so much as how it has already appraised you.

There is either too far of a gap between points and skill level, too few players, or the system is incredibly rigged when it wants you to lose.

Everytime I get close to moving up a tier, I get put in a team comp that is the absolute worst against the other. In this case, a necro and two warriors, against my team that has a rev, thief, and a condi Mesmer. Not only is the comp impossible to beat, but the players are mostly high first tier to middle tier platinum players. My team is 2nd tier gold.

If someone would be kind enough to teach me how to solo a map with a 3 point capping system while avoiding getting gang banged, please feel free. Because matchmaking clearly wants me to be able to make up for my teammates dying every time they spawn.

I'm by far not a great player, but to intentionally create a system that punishes players by placing them against people of either higher skill (sometimes top 20) or a comp that is more favorable knowing that players may not switch to what is needed is a horrible way of keeping people involved in this pvp system.

Not only is the current balance an issue, but nobody is going to want to suffer through a pvp season knowing that after any certain number of wins they're going to be automatically placed against a team with either marginally or significantly higher chances of winning and feeling discouraged when they don't know what they could possibly do to even begin to win the match.

I guess the current system just decides where you should be and is designed specifically to keep you in that position? Even if it means placing you in a team with two zerker staff elementalists and a dagger/pistol thief?

At least it's good for the easy 20 gold, but beyond that it's honestly no surprise I'm seeing the same seemingly 20 people in matches on a daily basis. (Except when I get close to moving back up and seeing some random team of people who beat us 500 to 0 and are clearly of a much higher rank.)

Another thing I've noticed about this system is that if I have a bad match with particular people and choose to not queue for 15 minutes, I still somehow wind up with them on my team. I don't think this is coincidence because the queue time is significantly longer when it wants you to lose. I assume it's intentionally waiting for those other people to get out of the match. Not sure if this is because it wants you to improve with those particular people or because it knows you work poorly together and is assuring that it is a loss. Sometimes after said breaks, even if they're only 5 minutes or so which you would still think would be long enough, you queue up and it instantly pops, because it those people you were avoiding were waiting in queue this entire time and it was just waiting for you before it would generate the match making sure that you're on the same team.

I'm sure this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but those of us playing ranked have to have had similar experiences with some of this. Especially with attempting to avoid certain people and against all odds still winding up with them on your team again even after taking what would seem like a very long break.

I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of things I could do differently and I'm pretty terrible at pvp like pretty much everything else in life, but the old argument that you have to "carry" your team in a 3 point capture game has never made any sense to me even for the absolute best person. Unless you just have to be good enough to solo 5 people like some highly skilled wvw roamer.

Every time I attempt to use tones they feel like they take forever to switch my skill bar. I see guardians in wvw roaming videos that use times and it looks like they switch instantaneously but mine always seem delayed.

Would have been a good bonus for scribes.

> @"rank eleven monk.9502" said:

> Don't worry it will put you in your correct place in a very few matches. Till then, ignore the toxic people. Like others said, the problem is population, not the system, you can't really do anything about it.

I still don’t think it’s anything to do with your personal skill. There are maybe a handful of times when I’ve managed to “carry” a game by killing a beast or capping a point at the last 3 minutes on a close match. But most of the time it really relies on your team because there’s nothing you can do to get a lead in a game that winds up 500 to 100.

Sometimes I play something I don’t know how to play and we beat them by a landslide. So not only is it essentially 4 versus 5 but the people were matched up against are just completely clueless. Matchmaking decided a head of time whether it wants a certain team to win and the gap in skill is sometimes far too large. Perhaps that’s the low population, but it just seems way too difficult or easy sometimes in matches.

Like 3 people starting off a match going after a bunker Druid for 5 minutes while we haven’t even capped home.

Nobody uses dodge spam condi thief anymore really but I agree if built right it can be really annoying.

Pistol pistol is only good on glass people with no reflects or invulns though and you have to catch someone completely off guard so it actually takes a lot of skill with timing even if it’s just spamming one ability.

Scourge spam can be ridiculous but it’s generally if they’re really aggressive and playing the way scourge should be played instead of standing back at the beginning of the fight for mid and waiting to be focused down before you even press a button. (Sometimes there isn’t really a choice I know but if you’re not charging after them to stay in melee range to get shade and self effects you’re not being as efficient. At least from what I’ve seen and experienced.)

And firebrand support is good but really skill dependent. People complain about this all the time but I don’t think they’ve actually tried playing one. I’m pretty amazed when I see a good firebrand because the profession is very complex and clunky. I don’t have a problem focusing them down and that’s just what you have to do with any bunker. Lock them out of abilities and then spike. They’re far from overpowered and I would hate to see such a unique profession be repeatedly gutted with nerfs. Especially given that they’re generally only good in group fights, or you’re better off with core guard non-support.

As far as Druid goes, I think it’s still a bit too strong but it’s mainly particular builds that are the issue. Strong stealth builds that allow you to heal up from stealth frequently and sword evade spamming endless mobility builds are the two biggest offenders for me.

If we’re really talking about things that need another balance pass, my personal pick is holo. It still has a lot of damage, very high sustain and mobility, potentially two invulns, and if built for it nearly spammable cc. I’d be fine with the damage and tankiness if they didn’t have endless gap closers and cc or could disengage every time they get low and then make it to the other side of the map in 20 seconds only to come back and harass the point or just regen to full in the time it takes your cool downs to finish.

Any build that does a lot of damage with a tank amulet is kind of broken though, whether it’s the paladin chrono build, holo, or some warrior whirlwind cleaving through everything and sticking to you like white on rice with invuln after invuln and permanent immunity to cc while dazing or interrupting you every 3 seconds with dagger, shield, a utility, or full counter.

> @"Rufo.3716" said:

> This whole argument sounds like the age old, I'm rock, nerf paper, scissors is fine.

Everyone is complaining about mesmers lately but I think that’s because people just don’t know how to fight them. I’ve only seen maybe two chrono builds that were ridiculous and one was purely bunker.

> @"Vieux P.1238" said:

> > @"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

> > > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > > I run a completely glass chrono build and I’ve never had anything hit remotely that hard. But I can’t say that I’ve ever been hit with that particular ability. Running zerker amulet here.

> > >

> > > The taunt is obnoxious for sure but i guess core guard has a lot of cleave so it probably hits them without trying.

> > >

> > >

> > > Idk what to say other than run away or try to kite and survive until they despawn. Lol

> > >

> >

> > I have screens of 10k+ defenders and 9k Disenchanters too if you want em ;)

>

> No thx..we all know you just let yourself boonstripped & basically had no defense up witch explain why you got hit for 19k. It's no big math...

I got downed in a match the other day but managed to down them and finish them completely from down state 3.

It was pretty hilarious. I mean they weren’t really paying attention anyway but that hits harder than most of the other phantasms. Disenchanted hits for a lot but that’s only if they don’t have booms so you’re better off saving that for when a scourge is around.

All in all though, core guards, warriors, holos and good pistol pistol deadeyes.

I run a completely glass chrono build and I’ve never had anything hit remotely that hard. But I can’t say that I’ve ever been hit with that particular ability. Running zerker amulet here.

The taunt is obnoxious for sure but i guess core guard has a lot of cleave so it probably hits them without trying.

Idk what to say other than run away or try to kite and survive until they despawn. Lol

Beast don’t bother me near as much as some bunker Druid whittling lord down only to kill him while nobody is paying attention and grab the lead or distract someone from the other team into attempting to defend.

> @"Lighter.5631" said:

> holo is way too tanky and forgiving, firebrand still op, so is scourge

I hardly ever see firebrands anymore though. Just core guard which seems a lot more op than firebrand, at least in terms of sustain and damage.

> @"Ario.8964" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > Holo's seem to have a lot more sustain this season. And I don't see any mines. What build is good for holo that everyone's running with all this sustain and insane damage?

> >

> > Not to mention the constant knockbacks, interrupts, and gap closers. They seem like they're in a pretty good place right now.

> >

> > Haven't seen that many spellbreakers this season though. And druid is just annoying like always. lol The hardest thing about druids is when they build for a lot of stealth and regen their entire health bar in one stealth.

>

> This is the build Marvin and I made for holo:

> http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUB1IjVWBmIDcJjlKDL86EW+KiLjAQ4pPD+BHhA-j5wHABiv/AAPAA7LDAA

>

> This is my personal setup that I've been playing with for awhile:

> http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBtbh1IDmIDcJjl7jqvq36vW8A2oOKciCgNB-jJxHQBB8CAQvyAA4BAsj9HAA

Tried this out tonight and it has nice sustain. Only complaint I have is that it isn’t as high damage as I’ve seen from others but I’m not very experienced with holo and might be that I’m just not comboing things very well. Great condi cleanse though!

> @"thatdarnkatz.7168" said:

> > @"cptaylor.2670" said:

> > If anything though, the biggest issue I have is the system itself and it’s abuse in ranked and actively trying to keep people in downed state instead of finishing them even if it means running off creating the appearance that they’re safe to try and heal up but then coming back and keeping them down. Obviously it’s up to the player to give up and realize what they’re trying to do but it’s a really cheap and toxic way of getting an advantage. I think there needs to be something in place to prevent players from abusing this system like letting players regenerate health faster the longer they heal or are downed encouraging others to HAVE to finish them instead of slowly letting them bleed.

>

> You realize that this is legit play. Like, there's counterplay to that play and it's an actual risk to bleed people. Too many times I've tried that, and they had someone come in and rez and I lost the 2v1 because I didn't see them coming. With risk comes reward, or failure. That's the whole point of that. INstead of being mad that you are bleeding you, take that chance to teach your teammates to rez. It's really funny that there's an active thread about "remove downstate, it's useless" and "remove downstate, you'll just get rezzed" threads. All I have read in both of them is "I don't know how to use downstate properly, and I need to learn how it works so I stop complaining" and then the threads will stop until we have to teach the next person this lesson.

It’s kind of poor sportsmanship though. Toying with people in downed state. Whether it’s “legit play” or not, is it really necessary? At least give us a 5th downed ability to just /gg so that here aren’t times where you’re just sitting there watching your health bar slowly go down if you know you have no chance of rezing.

> @"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

> > @"AGamer.3168" said:

> > The skills aren't meant to be as strong as standard skills, only provide a sliver of pressure which could be all you need in a team fight to win. Ressing a teammate in a tight fight would swing the fight in your favor so simply dying right away would be a near guarantee win for the opposing team in that fight. I had countless fights where we won because we ressed a teammate or the downed player provided that extra damage or stun at the right time. It's all about how you use the skills, not what they do and how your teammates adjust accordingly to a downed player.

>

> Mesmer downstate 3 (9k crits) says hello.

I had a 14k once full glass and have chrono phantasma. It was pretty glorious. In the pvp arena and managed to not only down two people but res myself by completely killing one. Lol

I think a few could be toned down a bit, like druids having their pets res them AND being able to interrupt somebody attempting to finish them multiple times to the point of it being easier just 11111 ing them to death. (Which sometimes isn’t even enough to beat the pets heal.)

Necro and Druid are definitely the strongest. Warrior is kind of bs if you’re in a really close fight and then interrupt your finish, get back up, and then whirl you down with one ability or wreak havoc on your team throwing off a fight that was otherwise going to have a more favorable outcome.

Rev and thief though? What is overpowered about rev? Thief I guess has teleport and stealth but they’re so squishy you can generally kill them before they can even heal.

Mesmer i don’t want changed because it’s honestly the most hilarious thing ever watching some thief think they won and then being one shot by my avenger. But yes, that may not be the best balance in the world. (Easily dodgeable and blockable though.)

The only two that can be really broken are necro and Druid because if you’re in a downed state fight with either one you’re better off not even trying and wasting time.

If anything though, the biggest issue I have is the system itself and it’s abuse in ranked and actively trying to keep people in downed state instead of finishing them even if it means running off creating the appearance that they’re safe to try and heal up but then coming back and keeping them down. Obviously it’s up to the player to give up and realize what they’re trying to do but it’s a really cheap and toxic way of getting an advantage. I think there needs to be something in place to prevent players from abusing this system like letting players regenerate health faster the longer they heal or are downed encouraging others to HAVE to finish them instead of slowly letting them bleed.

I’d love to post mine later but need a reminder on how to get the image to show up here. I click the little chain link thing and post the imgur link but it only ever posts the link and not the picture.

My main guild has Guilded Hollow, but two of us in the guild each have Lost Precipice and Windswept. I’ll probably switch if they add one I like more next Expac but it is nice having one of each. Minus having to decorate them all. Lol

as long as it has a lot of customization and choices to build it.

I had a few or perhaps the same person harass me multiple times in a ranked match because I was representing an lgbt guild.