Multicolorhipster.9751

> @"wilykcat.5864" said: > I dont get how this new pvp mode works, how to win, and how not to instantly die due to enemy player. You play thief right? I made a pacifist thief build just for you: [gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAgiVlFwEZbsLGJeeTWrTA-zZwOlMFB9KEyYB0xEQHDA](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAgiVlFwEZbsLGJeeTWrTA-zZwOlMFB9KEyYB0xEQHDA) Very sustain. 0 Damage. Bunker thief. Probably the hardest class to make a pacifist build for. Spam death blossom in melee range. Spam dodge as randomly as possible when outside of melee and dagger 4 to harass people into going back into melee range. Can swap out specifics like sigils, rune, utils, and traits to your liking. Namaste ? This will stop those brutish mesmers

I don't think so. I've averaged slightly under 1 death death per match for the past week and i'm not very good at this game.

Not on EU, but this is how I see it happen: Big name or content creator = No ban to a max 1 week pvp ban. Random person doing the same thing = 5 dozen accounts connected(they were boosting) permabanned

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" I get you, and I don't mean to insist anything. Just retelling things that historically happened there in monthlies since the patch. Like I say; if people like it, I get why and that's all gravy. More power to them. I don't have any sort of philosophy towards balance, I just personally don't find this very fun to play or watch in its current state. > @"georgessj.4198" said: > Well then 2 can play this game right? That's the hope, in the end. > I'm very sorry to hear for your bunker killing troubles and I hope you find peace in the future. > When you try to kill bunkers What build/stats were you running? (so i can ridicule it even if its good just like you would do to mine). > Namaste ? I think something got mixed here. I don't kill bunkers, I play a bunker. I don't kill anyone actually. Currently i'm peacefully protesting the lack of damage by doing none and preventing others from doing the same. I would also never ridicule your build because I love you and everyone else. That is why I peacefully remove their ability to do damage, because the only one that truly takes damage in the end is the one dealing it. Namaste ? Here is my current build: [gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAIl7lJwSYYMFGKeaX+vTA-zZwOlMFC9KCyYB0xEQHDA](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAIl7lJwSYYMFGKeaX+vTA-zZwOlMFC9KCyYB0xEQHDA) Do not be disillusioned by the 1200 condition damage. This build has no access to any conditions that actually do damage that are not first given unto it. ☮️ > Now if you wanna get serious everything you say is true IN A 1 VS 1 PVP ONLY !!!! perphaps it will also ruin 2 vs 2 games yes but in 5 vs 5 when the most usless by default and nerfed classes like the warrior for example uses axe skill 3 hits you for a 6-7k plus that theres probably 1 to 4 real damaging class enemies around to unleash some 10k bursts in a couple of nanoseconds what kind of reset back to full hp are you pretending to be doing? And ofc thats assuming a condi fiesta doesnt take place in a condi fiesta game. All I play is 5v5. That's where I receive most of my insults. Little do they know however; violence has karmic consequences, and to save them from retribution I take it upon myself to stall and CC multiple people at once. Lately, the maximum number of souls i've managed to save is 4 at once. For 200 points of an entire conquest match. You are correct though. When dealing with only one; it is much easier to show the misguided the path of kindness, self-reflection, and morality. Some might call this very boring, and to most it probably is. None can cross the gateway into the astral plane without discipline, and 'fun' is a mile marker on the road to destruction. ?

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said: > Go play in some higher tiered environments like MAT or just even normal ATs. People still explode when +'d. There is plenty of damage. > > Anyone who thinks otherwise must largely be playing only in ranked or unranked, where there is this skew of plat to gold to silver on each team. When you have skews like this, of course the bulk of the guys attacking you aren't understanding how to execute their damage correctly. However, pushing heals and dodge rolling around is a lot easier to do for those tiers. <- This is why people think things are bunkery right now. But I'm telling you, in higher tiered environments, people know how to bait defensive cycles before bursting and they know how to combo team bursting, and things explode still. > Just throwing it out there since this whole thing kind of exploded and this post stands out... Most people play Ranked/Unranked. ATs are super niche. And the last MAT(Maybe? If not, the one before that) There was a game that ended with DCs, barely any deaths before then, and the streamer casting the whole thing even called it boring. Only one where anyone actually quit mid-match I think, but that usually doesn't happen in MATs. There was quite a few that ended with relatively little deaths and of course, people picking on the thing the entire time Also there was that MAT a little while after the Feb 25th patch went live where 2 people were just /dancing at tranq on Silent Storm. It was probably the most interesting thing to happen during that MAT tbh.

> @"georgessj.4198" said: > And i have photos of a 300 damage skill hiting me for14k (perhaps even more) that takes less than a second to hit my char. Obviously i died in 2 seconds after the other hits came so......where does this lead to? Does it lead to boosting ferocity or dmg overall so it can hit my 25khp char for 26k? I'm very sorry to hear that and I hope you find peace in the future. Was that before or after patch? What build/stats were you running? I play a Bunker build post patch and the only thing that can come remotely close to that kind of damage now is a Soulbeast that invests everything into maximum damage. Even then it doesn't come from 1 skill. It comes from multiple skills and it still only manages about half of 22k hp.(Albeit with 3,067 armor). Then I pop my healing skill and go from ~11k back to ~18k hp, and proceed to stunlock the Soulbeast for a solid 20 seconds(Give or take a few stunbreaks, but that doesn't really matter because they all take a good 5% of a match for the CD to reset now, longer in some cases) and if they even manage to escape the CC/Block spam by the time their burst is ready again, i've already completely reset back to full hp, and seen every mean word in the English language tossed my way in /say chat. If you're also investing everything into damage(like Zerks) then obviously you're going to die a lot quicker. It's probably not going to feel all too different to pre-patch.... Until you fight a bunker like me. Before, damage was there to stop people like me and provide some sort of consistent threat to people running similar builds. After, damage is only a threat to other people trying to do damage. I don't like it very much personally, but if people like it, I don't judge. But yes, I think the majority of the nerfs from 2/25/2020 onward have been pretty pointless. I don't think damage needs to be buffed, I think all the nerfs and removals since then need to be undone. I'm also a huge hypocrite because I will exploit it to no end so long as its there, and ruin many days and attention spans in the process. Don't hate the player though. Namaste ?

Playing CopeBreaker: [gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAIl7lJwSYYMFGKeaX+vTA-zZwOlMFC9KCyYB0xEQHDA](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAIl7lJwSYYMFGKeaX+vTA-zZwOlMFC9KCyYB0xEQHDA) Not much mobility so you could backcap. If you +1 me and spam blinds I can't proc Adrenal health as often. Could also spam-interrupt my skills, particularly Mending. If it's a 1v1 you could purchase several [Flask of Blood Whiskey] from the TP You probably have a higher attention span than me as well, so you would probably win eventually. Namaste ?

> @"Lucentfir.7430" said: > When it comes to other games It's really weird to also see WoW having a better pvp state than gw2, it's like they swapped places, and GW2 is having it's own BFA disaster(probably worse) right now in all aspects. Current gw2 pvp is all about stripping down the game options,, whack-a-mole nerfing and not really fixing any root of problems. At least back then before the poorly devised Febuary patch, there were plenty of avenues for classes and builds to go by, someone running heavy boons or heavy stability? Spellbreaker and Necro variants were a go to. Too many conditions, bring group supports like warriors or guardians with Soldier runes and shouts traited warhorn etc so on and so forth. DPS specs were also threatening if you make critical missteps, and not to mention DPS themselves would have to be very proactive, as they themselves could easily explode. > Yeah, exactly. Before might have not been perfect, but if you went on Metabattle you could find some guidelines on a good build for any class. There was a time shortly before PoF where every single class besides Rev had a 'meta' build. Now it's down to like 3 classes, that all kind of play pretty similar. Besides Healbreaker. The supposed best build for Warrior that no Warrior actually wants to play. Warrior doesn't want to heal, he wants to hunt. You can't just suppress 65 million years of 'me Warrior, me smash' instinct. And yeah, you can afford to make a few mistakes in fights now and can usually make up for them. Happy for the people that enjoy it, but kitten, this is a snorefest for the rest of us. > I can't in my right mind even recommend friends to play Gw2 for pvp because it's in such a awful state. Oh yeah, definitely don't. Unless you don't want to be friends with that person/persons anymore.

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said: > Movie incorrect, headbutt crits for 7. > Spar with me though Herbert was using Zerker stats I'll see you in the ring B) > @"Shao.7236" said: > So the reasoning is, make everyone overpowered so nobody can be underpowered because tipping the balance in equal match ups is too difficult? no, the primary reasoning is to make people giggle in these trying times > @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said: > Also imagine bringing some argument about fighting against holosmith, which have a bit overtuned sustain as an example lol, the spec screams "dmg af" and it still have pretty decent/high sustain available at it's disposal. kekw Checkmate > @"Ghos.1326" said: > Honestly though, if you want to play a game where everything kills everything really fast, including tanks, play BDO. I'm good. I don't hate myself **that** much. Prefer an equilibrium personally where tanks/bunkers can be very disruptive and punish hyperaggressive play, where high risk DPS builds carry high reward for smart/risky play, and where the supports in my Discord are encouraged to work very hard on their friendship. ? I play Paladins for this. I used to play PvP in a game called Guild Wars 2, but its something else now. Overwatch before, but what happened to that game isn't too dissimilar to what happened to this one. Paladins tried to do the same thing at one point, but completely undid their massive patch because most people didn't like having all the fun stripped from the game for some balance farce. Guess which one I play the most now

> @"wilykcat.5864" said: > The only nerf I approve is mesmer. I can't say no to that face. Okay, most nerfs bad. Mesmer is the exception. 0 Dodges next FeelsAmazingMan

**Update for the Feb 23rd 2021 patch** Still an absolute monster imo. For efficacy, not fun of course. That doesn't matter though. Fun is forbidden in the accursed lands of PvP. Playing this today, I survived a 4v1 friendly-node far(Yes 4v1) for 200 points of a game. Here's the variant i'm using: [gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAIl7lJwSYYMFGKeaX+vTA-zZwOlMFC9KCyYB0xEQHDA](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAIl7lJwSYYMFGKeaX+vTA-zZwOlMFC9KCyYB0xEQHDA) To get into specifics, the Ren nerfs and Minionmancer nerfs stealth-buffed this build because every bit of removed damage from PvP makes builds like this stronger. Flash Shell nerfs also help a little. The FC daze reduction is a straight nerf to this build, so its weaker in that respect. That's why I started taking **Bull's Charge** for a util. If i'm going to lose 1 second of daze, bet i'm going to make up for it with 3 seconds of knockdown with yet another CC. Bull's Charge is also good for moving between points and gap closing. Emergency Evade too and easy to land after breaking stuns with "SiO" Over Bull's Charge I sometimes take **signet of stamina** for high-condi comps, and **kick** for decapping and more CC. Using **No Escape** instead of Guard Counter now. The protection is pretty much useless since nothing does damage anyway. The imob is even more disruptive and helps your teammates that actually do damage, do damage. Also helps with chaining CC together. Still using **Rune of the Flock** for the increased health, increased regen from Adrenal Health, and to bring the total healing of Mending to 7,213. Another use is to heal allies for a small amount. If you're like me, and you're so bored that you only play PvP for dailies, this rune helps a lot with securing that top healing stat to get them done quicker and limits your exposure to the crawling chaos... of the _Darkest Duels_. Namaste, and good luck ?

> @"UNOwen.7132" said: > > @"Shao.7236" said: > > At this rate it is really true that people complain because they can, gameplay is an extremely good state right now and we have this unbearable negativity that despite all efforts think that the game was better before... > > > > It objectively wasn't. > > Yeah, gameplay is "in an extremely good state now", thats why we saw a massive drop in players, and overall community opinion on the state is horrendous. Yes, the game *was* objectively better before. The February Patch basically destroyed PvP. @"UNOwen.7132" is objectively right. If you compare the amount of people playing now to before, it's dropped pretty drastically. -All the polls on the Feb 25th balance patch and all subsequent patches usually end with the vast majority of people against them.(Like 3:1 if not higher) -The bottom 45 ranks on the NA leaderboard are gold into the final week of Season 25 which is the all-time low i've ever seen them.(Playing since Season 2 and even when the queues were restricted to 2, 3, & 5 it wasn't this bad.) -The standard for even being top 250 is 1,460 at the time of writing this. Again; one of, if not the worst turnouts ever for a Ranked conquest season. > @"Shao.7236" said: > You can say the playerbase is dying because of the balance, I'll keep telling you it's because people can't have their mindless fun so they quit. They're entwined. The balance is actually horrible and boring so people are having less fun and then leaving when they get bored.

> @"Firebeard.1746" said: > Lol you sound just like the manipulating trolls. Me and OP don't feel that way. it sucks losing, regardless, getting that 1/3rd of what you could have gotten if someone actually played fair (and tbh, it REALLY sucked when I was earning ascension, I've never been more furious at any entitled brat more in my life being told "lol free leggies" as they literally made me play more matches than I needed to). But sure, I guess getting nothing makes it suck less? Lol! The manipulators and you are deluding yourselves thinking normal people play for just free rewards. Anyone who knows the game knows it's not worth it, and in reality, you'd only be playing to earn legendary amors, because you can literally do a lot of things for better reward. The PVP neck and ascension are all tied to victories, so those griefers make earning those ridiculous and awful. > I have never done a troll or a match manipulation in my life. I have only ever been a major opponent against high level match-manipulation and botting. I also haven't played Ranked since Season 18 solely because of high-level match manipulation. I believe its possible to make the game more competitive, but freebie rewards belong in the casual mode if anything. > BUT I think we've come to an interesting conclusion: botting in some scenarios is still free stuff. People manipulating are doing so for free stuff. Maybe the real answer is to cap rewards for the season and tie most of them to climbing the PVP Pip rewards once, then absolutely nothing after. You could up the ticket and ascended shards to compensate for people who want to grind the armors, but the devs could cap and time gate the gold, much like they do with other sources. Interestingly enough, I don't believe map bonus rewards are capped, so if someone wanted to bot, they could do that instead. That's really barely any different from what i'm proposing, but I guess I forgot that people love time-gates. > Other things that should be done: if F2p players are allowed to play ranked, they only play with each other. I think they shouldn't at all be allowed in ranked so bans are more meaningful. And yes, bans. I can tell you though me and others in NA have seen the same bots, over and over, and reported them, over and over and nothing has been done. Permanent PVP bans instead of whole account bans, so the person is still stuck with the grisly choice of starting over from scratch or just accepting what they've done and moving on. The worst punishment for big-name match manipulators/wintraders was a few months, and that was for the big MAT. It's usually unpunished in Ranked, if not an even shorter temp ~1 week suspension. Metagaming isn't technically Match Manipulation either, and since it's so easy to do now I don't see it being addressed ever. I don't think bots are really getting all that much attention right now either, but a ban isn't going to stop a bot anyway. Especially in a f2p game. If you really want to be rid of them, then you have to get rid of the reason why they're there in the first place. People also love to complain about the low population. So much so that its become an excuse to never do anything. "Don't get rid of the bots, population is too low!" "Don't split the queues, population too low!" I cannot imagine that these same people would be willing to lose the entire F2p population.

> @"Firebeard.1746" said: > If people are using bots to manipulate, they're 100% intertwined. I actually believe they are, as you mentioned, it's using a common Elo system. i don't think it's that bad. I think that they're giving the bots an AI that is beneficial to the real player, so the bots may not even see the bad win rates you expect (the bot will play better when it matches with the manipulator). And the bots cover a large spread of the ELO (at least up through gold). If they were that bad, you'd expect them all to bubble down. I revoke my previous statement about your solution helping it at all. I think that the bots are part of the manipulation. It's true. They are. What do you think should be done about it then? A ban wave? > False, HoTs gives you credit just for playing particular class/character types in matches, Paragon had similar quests, Spellbreak you still get XP. It's getting less and less common in PVP games to give ABSOLUTELY nothing for a loss. I think 80% of our games are decided before we even get in, giving nothing is really stingy in that context. It was very rare when I was PVPing they I felt I was actually having an impact. I had many matches where my team mates were so crappy, even if I was the only player playing well, I knew we were going to lose and vice versa, where I knew I was kitten related to my team mates and the enemy but we still won somehow. Okay, fair. You do get XP in most games. I don't even know how to respond to that. I've been absolutely destroyed. The next time someone throws in any competitive game, i'll be sure to let everyone know they shouldn't be upset because they still get XP. I appreciate the advice, and i'll let you know how that works out.

Yup! Another _good step in the right direction._ Overall great patch. I give it my highest rating, as it doesn't give me any reason to return PvP for another 3 months. Good for my health. It also cured my insomnia. ??️

> @"Firebeard.1746" said: > It's the core issue. If the ELO system actually worked and wasn't being milked, people would have 50/50 win rates and not be crying. I'm like 80% sure Gw2 uses Glicko > You still get rewards from reward tracks. It's not 0. I'm specifically saying winning gets you literally 3x the gold (10 pips as opposed to just 3). > I see what you're saying there now. Point still stands, as taking away the participation award will hurt the bot's bottom line. > You're still COMPLETELY ignoring my comment about ELO. There is a massive issue if people are having huge loss streaks. Even if everyone is just auto'ing, at some point, if the elo system ACTUALLY WORKED, those people would eventually be matched together and get the 50/50 win rate, bots or no. The REAL issue is manipulation. Or perhaps a broken elo system (i think it's the former). > > Also, why are you admitting that people are manipulating matches in their favor and then saying that taking away loss rewards is healthy for the game? Basically, you want only a few people to actually win anything, reading between the lines here. Who's going to put up with that? I'm not. I'm done, that measly 3/pips per win can go eff itself while I WvW or do just about anything else for better reward. The only thing that profits off of the "participation" award is bots. > > Your solution, at best, ignoring reward track MIGHT get bots out of the scene, but people will whine here about manipulation, OR just stop playing altogether as the same 5 people keep winning everything. Just trying to give ideas relevant to the topic: bots. Not Match Manipulation. I understand those topics are somewhat entwined, but getting the bots out would hurt Match Manipulation if anything. Ever since DuoQ came back, Match Manipulation hasn't really existed. There's metagaming; which, is arguably the same thing if not worse. The way they go about that is DuoQing and then purposefully sniping the bots when actual-player counts are at their lowest, and they get the highest rating disparity possible. If the bots go away, that would probably hurt the people metagaming. If it doesn't, remove or split DuoQ. Or honestly... Both? Both. Both is good. Problem solved, say goodbye to those 100% winrates. I don't think bots are going to try it for reduced reward track rewards alone, and they wouldn't be there for no reason at all. Even if more profitable farms exist, Ranked PvP still attracts a lot of them for some reason. And that's pretty sad really. Like... Do you know what you get from winning Ranked matches in pretty much any other game? You get rating and the win. That's your reward. Do you know what you get for losing? Nothing, because its a loss. As it should be.

> @"Firebeard.1746" said: > Just climb the fractal ladder, losing in SpVP IS NOT more efficient than doing just about any meta and/or fractals. Just selling the mats of even the worst LW metas is probably more efficient than 3/pips per game, especially if you're a filthy casual and can't finish the track that season. > Well botting anything is free money. bots basically give players infinite time to earn things. Even if the returns are bad, it's still worth it if you don't have to do anything. it's free money. I honestly don't know what you mean. It's just one of, if not the best way to get gold with little-no sorts of limitations/diminishing returns. You could really grind it all day if you hated yourself enough, or if you were literally inhuman(AKA bot) Maybe not the best g per hour, but it certainly isn't trash money by any means, and like you say; for minimal effort, which is perfect for bots. > No, people are cheating. I think that's the real problem. Maybe the matchmaker is bad. Hypothetically if there's a large enough population and a decent elo system, people should be hitting 50% win rates and these streaks of losses wouldn't happen that cause people to get so upset. The REAL issue is manipulation and if wins are more incentivized, you'll see more of it. > I'm not saying that people aren't. I was just trying to stick to the topic. Match manipulation is an issue, but if winning gave more pips and losing gave no pips I don't feel like that would have any sort of effect on Match Manipulation. The high-rated players that actually do that aren't doing it for the gold from pip chests. They're doing it for titles and high leaderboard spots that will boost the value of their account in terms of real money. That, or for clout. Nobody is match manipulating for pips/gold from games. The incentive is already there, and DuoQ's made it 60-IQ easy to do anyway. > You think 3x the pips isn't worth it? > I don't know where this number is coming from. If the pips gain for winning was even doubled, if you got 0 as a base gain for losses, it would still probably be an overall loss in gold per hour for a bot with a slightly below average winrate or a player barely trying and pulling about the same amount of wins. I'm too lazy to do the actual math, but if you want me to, i'll try. > > Modern bots in WoW are far more effective than human players, and if someone implemented one in GW2 they'd probably have a ridiculous win rate. This game has such a high skill cap, you're basically telling noobs to try the game mode and waste their time and maybe encouraging pro botting. It'll completely destroy the population, not just the bot population. Why should we assume something like that is going to happen when it hasn't happened already? Literally nothing stopping anyone from making a bot like that right now or at any other point before now.

> @"Sunit.1698" said: > > @"Huskyboy.1053" said: > > I don't know if there are all that many bots, a lot of them are just PvE players. I always ask people if they are a bot before I report them no matter how bad they're playing, and I almost always get a sarcastic or sincere response. So frankly I think the issue might be more that PvP is pulling in a boatload of really bad players who are only there for the rewards. The nice thing would be for Anet to nerf rewards for people who lose. > > They are bots, I'm serious. You probably play around reset where I don't find that many. I play OCX time on weekdays and every match has at least 4-5 bots. And that's the least, may be more if the time clashes with any metas like auric basin or TD. It's a mixture of both honestly. I'm in a bunch of PvE guilds and we always point people to Ranked PvP as the best gold per hour in the game especially if you sprinkle in other dailies with it. Bots are programmed with this in mind too. It's why you'll find them in Ranked, but little to none in Unranked. Like they said, nerfing or removing the rewards for losing in Ranked is actually the best way to get rid of both bots and bot-like players. The bots will move on to something more profitable that also requires little effort. The bot-like players will either try to improve, or leave for the same reason. Could also buff the rewards for actually winning and doing well in Ranked, while participation awards belong in Unranked if anywhere at all.

Probably not. Even if there was a patch it'd probably just be more nerfs and things deleted, making combat even slower than it already is. ?

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > again, i am talking about hackers not bots. i don't care about bots. Ahhh okie. Don't worry @"Fueki.4753" it'd only banning enough people to count on both hands in that case. Not missing much if they get banned. Still plenty of other people and CPUs for pips. <3

> @"snoow.1694" said: > Thing with endless 1v1‘s is participants are at fault if it doesn‘t end for playing too tanky builds, including you. Run bers amulet and you won‘t get a 3 minute 1v1, big promise Yeah, just run Berserker amulet and ? the other person decided to handicap themselves by running Berserker amulet too. Worst-case scenario; you don't have to waste time in an endless 1v1 if you run into the typical bunker build, because you'll probably die pretty quick with zerker stats.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said: > > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > A ban wave would result in longer queue times and even worse matches, as the rank disparity in matches with exacerbate. > > you're really taking the stance that anet should keep the hackers because you're worried about the q time going up by a minute? dam dude. > At least they're honest. You wouldn't get that from some top 10 player calling botting and stuff really bad on Twitch, but then farming bots for free rating on those same streams. Better yet, plugging it into a super dope PvP montage with copyright-swap music. Bonus points for using Notepad.

> @"Khalisto.5780" said: > I dont think balance itself was the problem, it was more like the last broken promise. They hyped up the community with this big patch and REGULAR UPDATES, 4 to 6 weeks they said. I think the last part was the the main reason ppl left, they were done believing anet. But again, the ones who care moat about balance are vets, and problem seems to be new comes not aticking around, and i believe botting and afking impunity is more of a factor here. All part of the package really. All i'm saying is bots are a problem that isn't unique to Gw2. If they've played any other game, they've probably dealt with them. Like Fortnite; all the kids love Fortnite, but that game has a ton of bots. Sure, some people say they're going to quit over it. These are the same people you'll find on here saying they're going to quit, but then 10 angry forum posts later you'll see them again in game. After **the** patch though, i've been witness to so many people being all: "Wow, this is actually so boring. I'm out." Or something along those lines. Both random victims and people I try to bring into the game. It doesn't really appeal to anyone. Vet or New Player it's extremely boring.

Personally i'd go back to playing if SoloQs didn't have to play with teams of any kind in Ranked And if the combat was actually fun or remotely exciting at all. Both of which weren't issues at one point, but those good days are distant memories now. But no, Season 13 marked the start of Ranked's slow death. Feb 25th patch finished off PvP entirely The bots and low population are annoying sure, and make everything much worse, but its nothing new. Plenty of games have bots that still turn out successful and enjoyable just like a lot of low-pop games do pretty well with their small communities. People might expect that getting into a game. What they don't expect is to be trampled by 2 of the very best players in the game cheesing the matchmaker, or fighting an unkillable Bunker for the entirety of a game while simultaneously being CC spam-locked out of using their skills.

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said: > > @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said: > >Idunno. I never played Gw1. Partly for that reason. > > Here's the thing about gw1. People actually looked forward to the balance patches every month or so that they released them. Mostly because when they released a balance patch, we would see a plethora of mechanics changes, and new builds to experiment and play around with. The meta was HUGE in comparison to gw2. We are talking hundreds and hundreds of viable meta builds...all with playstyles so vastly different from one another, that they each had been gives special names, usually the builds were named after the person or guild who found them or they were named after what the person desired to name it, and it gave incentive for theory crafters to create more builds. Just a few examples, we had [Gothspike](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gothspike), [Mathway](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mathway), Rainbow Spikes, Emo Bonders, 55 monks...believe me there are hundreds if not thousands of viable builds made in the history of gw1, and the balance discussions were almost non-existent. The only thing people actually complained about was "Melee Hate" (which is that casters generally had more punishing abilities to melee classes, then melee classes could actually deal with...) > I respect it, and I think it did a much better job at that. With Gw2 its actually terrifying reading the patch notes, or at least now it is. Wasn't always. And we've got like what... 3 'meta' builds now? Relatively speaking; not so long ago, there was a point where every class besides Rev had at least 1 viable meta build. > So if you didn't play gw1 because it had tradeoff's, I'd consider that either uncharitable to the game, or just an uninformed decision as to why you wouldn't play the game for that reason. It didn't have perfect balance, no game ever does (monks were required on nearly every team late stage meta games, melee-hate), but it was far vastly superior balance wise in comparison to gw2. Only partly though. I can't be asked to keep track of a ton of different effects on a single skill. That sounds like it would be information overload for me. Gw2 combat always appealed more to my basic kitten self, and I feel like jumping to the Gw1 style would be really jarring. On elite spec mechanics, I think the tradeoffs are totally manageable. All for those getting fleshed out, less for every utility having some sort of trade. Although for any of that to matter; Gw2 PvP would have to be fun to play again anyway, and uh.... It's not really in this state. Losing a bunch of build options and fighting a bunch of bunkers in an endless tickle-fight; like the OP says, isn't very fun. Like, say every util did get a tradeoff. Let's use Twist of Fate for an example because lots of people been talking about that. Even if it lowered a Weaver's max barrier with every use, the CD is so long that it would really only be able to proc the debuff like 8-9 times per match max, and with how low damage is that debuff probably wouldn't even be very noticeable.