Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns - Expansion Announcement Trailer

Season 5 of PVP is fantastic. After getting farmed in season 1 and then getting 5 shutout matches in season 2 I told myself I was done with GW2 PVP. I didn't even try season 3 or 4. Season 5 brought huge changes and I think they finally have it right. Heres Woodenpotatoe's video on the changes:

I didn't watch his video until I already got 10 matches in. The difference between season 1 and season 5 is night and day. I no longer feel like I'm wasting time on this game mode anymore thanks to the reward system. I'm also not getting farmed by full teams because it's limited to solo / duo queue only. These two changes made all the difference for me. In season 1 I always solo queued, I'd almost always go up against a full team in teamspeak and my team would loose horribly and I'd get no rewards. Queue times would take up to 10-15 minutes just to get into a match and I'd be stuck in the pvp lobby the entire time. It was all a giant waste of time.

But now in season 5 with solo / duo queue, changes to match making, rewards for loosing.. its actually fun. The queue times are only 1 minute to a minute and a half.. and even if the queue times get longer, I can queue while in PVE maps. I could still do events or go on node runs while waiting for a match to start. Its no longer a complete waste of time. If every season going forward is like this then it'll be amazing. I'm going to do most of the achievements for the legendary back piece in this season because if they revert any of this for season 6 I won't want any part of it.

I decided to start saving some video clips of GW2. Next time I do Triple Trouble I'll save a video of that too. Earlier today I did the last PVP match I needed to make the Wings of Ascension precursor for the Ascension legendary pvp back piece. Heres that last match and at the end of video I toss all 4 wings into the mystic forge to make my precursor.

Purging Flames > Smite Condition - They both do the same thing cleanse-wise, but Purging Flames is ground targetable, and causes burning to stack on top of the burning you already do.

Shelter > All other healing skills Basically because of the block, it can't be negated and you HP pool always gets the replenish. Signet of Resolve is like an 80% heal, but in PVP I've seen it completely negated by burst combos.

I'll try Purging Flames. I'm lazy about using smite condition. Half the time I use it as a quick burst of damage more than a condi cleanse. The only time I really save it is when I'm fighting against necros or condi warriors because both can do a massive condi bomb that needs instant cleansing or its death. I tried using shelter and with the dragon hunter meta right now its not worth using imo. Mostly because the cast time takes too long and theres too many unblockable attacks and pulls with AOE spamming that the blocks run out too quick and it gets interrupted. If I see a DH using a heal and I have that half second to realize it, I'll hit them with deflecting shot to knock them back since it's unblockable. That and the skill I think is either bugged or should have its cooldown changed. If the skill gets interrupted it goes on a full cool down instead of interrupted cool down, I think its because the game thinks it was successfully casted since the blocks for shelter start as soon as you start casting. I'll swap to shelter on my pve build tho. I think I had it set for that trap heal and I forgot about it. In pvp that trap is almost always guaranteed to get stepped on and give me a big heal tho.

Then Purging Flames should be your go to. If you pair with with Judge's Intervention, Spear of Justice, and Torch, you'd have an extra stack of burning. Plus I believe it does more damage, I can't remember what you get if conditions are cured off smite, but if you're using it as a burst, then Purge is the way to go. Its pretty overwhelming even if they get a cleanse off you're at a bigger advantage. You can AOE them and then close the gap with judge's. Although if I was facing a hammer warrior or ranger, I'd save my judge's in case I got knocked back.

I don't know if Shelter is bugged or not, I know if you dodge before its cast, it will do the same thing on CD. Its def better in PvE, I've used it to get out of the Chak Gerent's purple donut of doom a few times or to facetank a decap charge from Cobalt if I was out of stamina. I use feel my wrath instead of renewed focus in PvE because fury/quickness every 45 seconds is great. Signet of Courage is pretty crap because it takes almost 4 seconds to cast. wtf. If it worked like Battle Standard or Signet of Undead it would be worth it, but it doesn't revive the downed, and with a 180s CD, there isn't much incentive to use something like that, unless you were fighting Lupi running Arah or something. 

How are you liking Guardian's complete ass  of a downstate? I swear its the worst. The attack so slow and crap. Symbol of Judgement only works if you get knocked back so far away you deaggro enemies... once you get hit, it goes on CD and you're pretty much done. Necro and Thief as great AAs in downstate, and Ranger's lick wounds keeps working while being attacked, and even if you're pet got downed before you did, it will still come and revive you.

I'll try out purging flames tonight then. The only downside I could think would happen is the AOE circle will encourage more enemies to dodge away from me as opposed to staying within burn range of my torch 4 skill. Smite is decent because it recharges so damn fast and it does slightly more damage per condition I have. The downstate is horrible. Once I go down I just assume I'll die quickly. Necro downstate is so damn strong. lol. Sometimes its best to just run away and let them bleed out unless you have stability to stomp them without getting feared. Thief downstate is annoying as hell. I won't even attempt to stomp them unless I've already seen them teleport somewhere. And even then I have to have half HP or they might wreak me during the stomp process.

One thing I have noticed is thieves can be strong as hell in the right hands. Back in season 1 if I had two thieves on my team it was a loss. But now if I see two thieves on my team its about a 75% chance of a win. Mesmers are strong in the right hands too but the skill level is higher for them IMO. Necros I come across have a tendency to run minions and can own an entire team if people don't focus them down. And theres alot of people in bronze that just don't attack the necro or wont condi cleanse at the right time after some bone minions transfer burning to them. Necro MM is so easily countered too.. an engineer or mesmer can still moa them and instant destroy all minions. When I play a necro I will get moa'd once per match.. if I go against necros the mesmer on my team will never land the moa hit. wtf. Rangers and warriors have the best sustain. When I play my warrior unless I get focused by 3 or more players I can usually win a 1 vs 1 and sometimes a 2 vs 1. I seem to have the most difficulty with rangers when I play my guardian. Mostly because of the damn taunt mechanics of the pet. So many times I'll use sword 2 or judge's intervention to teleport to them just to find out I teleported to the damn pet instead because I got taunted 1/4 of a second before I hit the skill button. x_x Btw full trap guardians usually get wreaked by warriors or other guardians. If I'm on my warrior, I'll use shield 5 when approaching the guardian, block the majority of the traps, then use the mace 2 skill to block some more and then burst the hell out of them. If I'm on my guardian I'll pop Shield of Courage before walking onto a point and block the majority of the traps and then burst the guardian. I usually try to save shield of courage to secure a stomp tho. The main reason I use only test of faith and not procession of blades is because test of faith is unblockable. Necros have an easy time against trap guardians too with that one trait that grants retaliation when entering shroud. They'll pop shroud, walk onto the point and trigger all the traps, every trap except test of faith is blockable and subject to retaliation which usually means the guardian bursts themselves right into downstate, then necro hits shroud 3 for stability and gets the stomp.

Thats why I used GS in PvP the downside being you have to give up focus if you want max burn. GS leap is still a gap closer, whirlwind is great DPS, plus you get another pull. Bow just seems too easy to dodge. That pink Moa was so damn annoying, but with GS5 you can grab the ranger and the pet and pull them, drop a symbol, and GS2... they can take it or burn up all their stamina getting out of it, swap to sword and close in, or drop the Purge on them... they cant dodge unless they have lighting strike slotted.

DD has brought thief to a new level. Dash gives you auto condi-cleanse per dodge with perma-swiftness on top of it. So DD can't be chilled, crippled, and yup, you can dodge right out of immobilized. Signet of Agility will refill the endurance meter as well giving you 6 consecutive dashes/cleanses if you so desired. Its also instacast and only has a 30s CD. Assassin's signet increases power and activating it gives a guaranteed 15% more damage for the next 5 attacks. I'd argue that Thief has the best utility/trait paring in the game. It's almost hard to decide what you'd want to go with, because there are so many good options. One wrong move and you're instadead though... and they do complain about trap guards because large AoE is their weakness.... but even as a weakness its one they can avoid. They just can't engage and win. If other classes got the love and care thief did when they redid the trait system, classes would have more options to play with... as you said Warrior needs to be redone completely. Burn Guard is only good in PvP, because outside of its burst it has zero sustain, so its useless against champs and legendary enemies. Meanwhile DD and Mesmer enjoy various options and builds because their trait lines are so good... even Ele has to stick with Fire, Air, Tempest.

I looked over my build last night and this morning and completely forgot that I made a custom build and wasn't using the meta build from metabattle.com. lol. I made a combo burn and meditrapper build. I remembered why I was using smite conditions now as a burst. I'm using the Monk's Focus trait that makes meditation skills give fury and heal. Since smite, judge's intervention and renewed focus are all meditation skills they all give me a heal. I have balthazar runes on that make me apply burning whenever I use a heal skill. Since any healing counts, all 3 of those utility skills and wings of resolve apply burning. I'm a burning and healing maniac. When I hit spite every 15 seconds I apply a stack of burning to all enemies near me as well as damage from the skill, cleanse condis and heal myself.

I took a video of last night's Triple Trouble kill. My video capture software gave me just enough lag that I screwed up a bunch of jumps when trying to run kegs. We got the decap with only 15 seconds to spare. lol. Almost screwed the entire map.

(edit) lmao. I just noticed the commander of this head is in the screenshot right above the wurm head and hes in downstate.

that SD rez is killing me

Dragon's Stand is probably the longest meta event in the game as of right now and I took a video of it the other day if anyone wants to see the chain of events that leads to one of the largest world bosses in a MMORPG. Or if you want to skip right to the boss, go to the 52 minute mark. Normally this boss takes alot longer to beat as it destroys the islands we stand on, but the TTS guild is damn good at destroying it quickly.

Will Divinity's Reach become the new post Scarlet Lions Arch? With Queen Jennah be slain? Will Logan Thackery ever get well? Will he join Braham in newly forged emo alliance? Or will Swordsmaster Faren return from Verdant Brink to save us all?

I'm putting my faith in Lord Faren to save the day. j/k. I doubt this episode will give us the Lake Doric map, but it looks like we'll get a new map in between DR and Harathi Hinterland.

A year in review before the big finale.

I feel like the season finale fell really flat. None of the issues have been resolved and there really wasn't a shocking revelation at the end that put that wow factor going into the expac like when it was revealed that the Sylvari were dragonspawn.

I'm still hyped for the expac, but damn the last ep was disappointing overall.

On the flip side, the new fractal is spectacular. But I bet everyone will avoid it after a while. Its longer than Cliffside, and you can't just run through it because it consists mostly of 3 somewhat lengthy boss fights. There is a cool low gravity area with some jumps and some neat puzzles that introduce you to some of the new mechanics before you need to use them, I can see people raging in higher tiers when people get lost in these areas.