CW and PUG, a short horrible story

asterotg · March 2014

OK, here is the deal. I got a 15k+ CW, a 15k DC and a 13k+ GWF. As the CW and the DC are speced for PvE they are meh for PvP, I know. But what happens since ELO and tanacity is a sad joke.

If I play premade I can do fine, but with a PUG you lose your will to keep playing. After the 9 h downtime I tried to PUG for the daily, it was a desaster.

First of all tactics, what are tactics. The TRs creeped around at 2 to leech some kills, DCs use their dailies to not kill enemies instead of holy ground and you woud think, that standing on a node for more than 5 sec woud cause some horrible illness. NO capping of points at all. I tried to cap points, but as a PvE CW with swapped gear and some 27k+ HP it is impossible, period.

Second, class mechanics. I am a CW, C is supposed to be control, not comic. Now almost every class can chain prone me to death, while I die, if one single CC of mine gets resisted.

Last but not least grouping. I try to play my CW premade, so my ELO shoud not (have been before this tour to the valley of tears) be so crappy, but my teammates where for example another 15k+ CW, 8 and 10K GWF and a 11k DC. Is a CW really so bad, that it is as 'good' as a 8k GWF? Is the secret to the new ELO system, that there is no ELO system or do they secretly just try to match overall GS of groups and if you are a well geared CW you are screwed, because you will allways get the 8k newbies.

This sucks, big time. ATM it is go premade or go home, if you dont want to destroy your ELO, if something like ELO really exists and they did not just make it up, so they can shut us up about our complains concerning grouping.

melodywhr · March 2014

the elo rating system is definitely real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

also grouping as a premade is no guarantee that you're going to win a pvp match.

my main is a CW and i've tried a few different things just to test out the new pvp changes. i had the champion mage's set and exchanged it for the tenacity set. i was also able to get some tenacity rings, neck and waist items. i did not swap out my enchants from my pve gear, but i slotted my pvp gear with enchants that i was either building or built up new enchants for it. i've been around since open beta so i may have more flexibility than a newer player. so i had a few r7 enchants but mostly r4s and 5s. and i also decided to try using bloodtheft and lifedrinker enchants instead of the usual vorpal/soulforged combination.

survive-ability seemed to be better in pvp simply because of the limits of burst damage. you can still get bomb-blasted by multiple characters and trying to play the CW as a tank in pvp is not a good idea anyway. i wasn't always at the top of the charts, but i wasn't always at the bottom either. for a few weeks after the implementation, i kept my pvp gear on at all times and did my daily quests using it. i found that i was still viable in pve with my tenacity gear even though some stats were lower.

and just this past week, i tried a new experiment. i removed my tenacity gear and put my high vizier gear back on. the only enchants i swapped were the bloodtheft and lifedrinker. while there have been some nerfs in pvp to things like regen and life steal, i actually found myself dying less. this is what i would still call preliminary data and i am an experienced player, but it would seem that pvp is viable using non-tenacity gear. the stat itself, while increasing resistance, is just a stat and not required for you to enter the pvp arena. as a ranged class, part of my survivability is in not getting hit. my armor is cloth. of course that's not going to stop you from being a target for GWFs who generally look for the squishiest of the squishy.

your elo rating is based on your own win/loss ratio. depending on your premade team's individual ratings, you could be shooting yourself in the foot by grouping. the elo matchmaking system will try to match you with the most similar ranked players and when that cannot be found it will continue to step backwards until another queued team can be found. i suspect that the dial down controls that PWE has can increase or decrease the complexity of the queue rank search.

and control wizards do have more control in pvp over other classes. you can read about that here:

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?582751-Cryptic-OFFICIAL-Tenacity-Feedback-Thread&p=7313671#post7313671

adernath · March 2014

I made a similar experience on my CW. As ELO came out I was in alot balanced matches, I won often, lost sometimes. But during arena time I was reguarly grouped into horrible teams and I lost ELO. Now I am stuck with completely random teammates often with low gearscore. The point is that as CW you cant really carry the weak GWF or GF in your team who die in an instant. On my HR it is a completely different experience. The HR as the 2nd ranged class is alot more dynamic in his playstile and has more kiting abilities.

You 'control' only if you get ignored and can sit in the back or at higher ground casting your spells. The class is highly on disadvantage ground in a dynamic fight. The dodge shift is static and not dynamic as with the HR (i.e. you loose your run speed after doging). Against a good team you will be target number one because of that reasons (i.e. squishy and dangerous if left alone). I have not seen a single CW who manages to do 2vs1 over a longer period against equally geared players with full hp. If your team dont have your back, you are lost.

I think that Cryptic made alot improvements for the HR kiting abilities in what the CW lacks. My suggestion: give CWs invis and/or mirror images as a survival and kiting ability.

pers3phone · March 2014

adernath wrote: »

I made a similar experience on my CW. As ELO came out I was in alot balanced matches, I won often, lost sometimes. But during arena time I was reguarly grouped into horrible teams and I lost ELO. Now I am stuck with completely random teammates often with low gearscore. The point is that as CW you cant really carry the weak GWF or GF in your team who die in an instant. On my HR it is a completely different experience. The HR as the 2nd ranged class is alot more dynamic in his playstile and has more kiting abilities.

You 'control' only if you get ignored and can sit in the back or at higher ground casting your spells. The class is highly on disadvantage ground in a dynamic fight. The dodge shift is static and not dynamic as with the HR (i.e. you loose your run speed after doging). Against a good team you will be target number one because of that reasons (i.e. squishy and dangerous if left alone). I have not seen a single CW who manages to do 2vs1 over a longer period against equally geared players with full hp. If your team dont have your back, you are lost.

I think that Cryptic made alot improvements for the HR kiting abilities in what the CW lacks. My suggestion: give CWs invis and/or mirror images as a survival and kiting ability.

Pugging is mostly a bad experience for a CW indeed. Mostly anybody learned that a CW in a not-so-good team means "free kills here", and they follow you relentlessly. Suggested myself Mirror Images and Invisibility spells quite a few times.

I actually did pug a lot after (and before) patch, but many games ended up in me being very angry cause I had to backcap and hold points. Tried talking to teams, didn't work not even once. A few times it all degraded to insults. Still won most, but lost many as well.

However, when I queue as a 5 man party, I get matched against pretty much some of the best PvPers in the game. So hopefully my ELO is still OK, dunno, maybe other people pug and lose some too, although I doubt that lol, some guys I NEVER-EVER see outside 3-5 men parties

nhogs · March 2014

Agree with this. As a CW if you get ignored you have a chance of damaging others and making a real contribution to the team. Unfortunately there seems to be little you can do if you are singled out by an opponent who can chain prone you or run round you invisible. Have also noticed the 'immune' come up on some of my control spells. So am willing to believe I haven't experimented enough with PvE kit yet... best tactic so far seems to be to pick another team member and shadow them in the hope that they are strong enough to act as a decoy... however more intelligent players single you out anyway... so any sort of 'new' daily which balanced the prone/invisibility/speed/control in a dynamic fight would probably help.

adernath wrote: »

I made a similar experience on my CW. As ELO came out I was in alot balanced matches, I won often, lost sometimes. But during arena time I was reguarly grouped into horrible teams and I lost ELO. Now I am stuck with completely random teammates often with low gearscore. The point is that as CW you cant really carry the weak GWF or GF in your team who die in an instant. On my HR it is a completely different experience. The HR as the 2nd ranged class is alot more dynamic in his playstile and has more kiting abilities.

You 'control' only if you get ignored and can sit in the back or at higher ground casting your spells. The class is highly on disadvantage ground in a dynamic fight. The dodge shift is static and not dynamic as with the HR (i.e. you loose your run speed after doging). Against a good team you will be target number one because of that reasons (i.e. squishy and dangerous if left alone). I have not seen a single CW who manages to do 2vs1 over a longer period against equally geared players with full hp. If your team dont have your back, you are lost.

I think that Cryptic made alot improvements for the HR kiting abilities in what the CW lacks. My suggestion: give CWs invis and/or mirror images as a survival and kiting ability.

williep30 · March 2014

melodywhr wrote: »

the elo rating system is definitely real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

also grouping as a premade is no guarantee that you're going to win a pvp match.

my main is a CW and i've tried a few different things just to test out the new pvp changes. i had the champion mage's set and exchanged it for the tenacity set. i was also able to get some tenacity rings, neck and waist items. i did not swap out my enchants from my pve gear, but i slotted my pvp gear with enchants that i was either building or built up new enchants for it. i've been around since open beta so i may have more flexibility than a newer player. so i had a few r7 enchants but mostly r4s and 5s. and i also decided to try using bloodtheft and lifedrinker enchants instead of the usual vorpal/soulforged combination.

survive-ability seemed to be better in pvp simply because of the limits of burst damage. you can still get bomb-blasted by multiple characters and trying to play the CW as a tank in pvp is not a good idea anyway. i wasn't always at the top of the charts, but i wasn't always at the bottom either. for a few weeks after the implementation, i kept my pvp gear on at all times and did my daily quests using it. i found that i was still viable in pve with my tenacity gear even though some stats were lower.

and just this past week, i tried a new experiment. i removed my tenacity gear and put my high vizier gear back on. the only enchants i swapped were the bloodtheft and lifedrinker. while there have been some nerfs in pvp to things like regen and life steal, i actually found myself dying less. this is what i would still call preliminary data and i am an experienced player, but it would seem that pvp is viable using non-tenacity gear. the stat itself, while increasing resistance, is just a stat and not required for you to enter the pvp arena. as a ranged class, part of my survivability is in not getting hit. my armor is cloth. of course that's not going to stop you from being a target for GWFs who generally look for the squishiest of the squishy.

your elo rating is based on your own win/loss ratio. depending on your premade team's individual ratings, you could be shooting yourself in the foot by grouping. the elo matchmaking system will try to match you with the most similar ranked players and when that cannot be found it will continue to step backwards until another queued team can be found. i suspect that the dial down controls that PWE has can increase or decrease the complexity of the queue rank search.

and control wizards do have more control in pvp over other classes. you can read about that here:

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?582751-Cryptic-OFFICIAL-Tenacity-Feedback-Thread&p=7313671#post7313671

I agree with this... I consider it kind of cheesy imo to run with premade and get your elo rating up that way though. To be kind of carried by your team to increase your rating is not as skillful as ranking yourself up through constant pugging. Ive done pvp almost primarily pugging through it since beta, and whatever ranking i have, good or bad, i at least obtained on my own.

Pugging sucks, but id rather deal with the randomness to prepare me BEFORE i work in a partied group.

vedran541 · March 2014

how to win pug matches as a cw:

1: run straight to enemy point, the more people that follow you the better.
2: try to kill 1 of them or survive as long as you can, so your team can cap 2 then come and help you.
3: die and repeat.

i've won 29/30 solo Ques this way. And usually i get ****edup pugs

mconosrep · March 2014

vedran541 wrote: »

how to win pug matches as a cw:

1: run straight to enemy point, the more people that follow you the better.
2: try to kill 1 of them or survive as long as you can, so your team can cap 2 then come and help you.
3: die and repeat.

i've won 29/30 solo Ques this way. And usually i get ****edup pugs

I can actually see this working in PUGs very effectively.

As for the OP, the issue with a CW isn't that it is a bad class for PvP - in fact it is potentially very strong. However it is very dependent on your team and in PUGs the safest bet is classes that aren't....

tsayok · March 2014

asterotg wrote: »

CW and PUG, a short horrible story

Totally agree with you! I play CW 15kgs vorp+Soulforg, with 24% defense and 21% tenacity, and this game is almost unplayable pug. The immune permanent rogues and warriors have no worries pug. For them, the gameplay is easier, more balanced and they make it easier tokens and pvp experience.

In this game, a CW can not do what these classes are alone. The CW needs assistance and can not capture a capture point as easily as others. It is not normal that some classes get to have a great dps, high resistance/immune, superiority in control, easily capture points by being alone, and be effective in a group, while the cw is only effective in premade, and not otherwise.

Guild Wars, each class were effective pug or team. Here it is not the case, the cw has the role of girl who has to flee when it is not supported. It was not anything! Our party will depend if you fall with warriors or not, without them it is dead, CW dies within seconds. Balancing this game depends warriors and rogues perma immune unfortunately.

I have proposed solutions to improve the balance as "Dual spé", to be on the worries just the way I play rather than work Cryptic. But when I see the reactions of some and the lack of response from Cryptic, I can only think that pvp goes straight into a wall.
In Curse of Icewind Dale, Rogues permanent / immune and warriors will have fun when they see a CW. This third module is already dead before born, and the output of Teso probably not arrange the situation.

"google trad"

asterotg · March 2014

Maybe I should elaborate, I have the full profound jewelery, T2 PvP (tanacity) set, perf. vorp, gr. soulforged, HV, SV etc. Setwise I tried full PvP gear, but while I did not survive much better than before, my chances to kill anyone before he kills me went down. ATM I use HV with full profound jewelery. If you are wondering, how I got the glory to buy profound equipment from the beginning, I had ca. 80k glory, due to 1k+ GG coins.

While a CW cant carry a team I refuse the notion, that my friends have to carry me, if I que premade. The difference is, that I dont have to stand alone at two, I can work with my team and neither die alone, while 4 ppl try to hunt down a permastealth TR nor have to cap a point (sometimes you have to cap if need arises, but not all the time). I play NW since the first day of its release (no open beta). I raided with my teammates for years in another mmorpg before some idiot devs decided, that the best gear should be available for logging in and having luck, not skill and dedication (btw. this worked out great, I paid my gold for upkeeping yesterday, LFG dropped from 800 to 80ppl.).

I know, that the CW can apply a tanacity debuff, but the difference is, that I die if I get cainproned and a similar geared GWF, TR or GF laughs it off (enrage, block or ITC).

In a bad team I have to fight 2 or 3 v 1 (1=me) in a good team I can work in sync with my team.

A decent TR, GWF or HR can carry a bad team, a decent CW in a bad team is dead. I think, that ELO based on premade teams is more realistic, than pugs, because you team up with similar skilled/ geared players. If you PUG and you get some uebergeared skilled players it is an instant win, you might even stay in your base and do some crafting (I dont do that, it is just an example). But even the best perma TR with perf. bilethorn, barkshield, R 10s etc. cant win a game, if he caps one point, while the other two nodes are red and his team plays meat to the other teams meatgrinder.

dhuras1 · March 2014

I've never been part of a pre-made group. Since the change, my 13K CW has done better (he completed his HV set and GPF about the same time)and my 14K GWF, 12K TR (not perma stealth), and 10K DC (pure healer)have done worse. I have no PvP gear on any character, and have no plans to buy any.

No matter which one I play, I always run straight to 2, and usually die because I'm the only one there.

biibiisai · March 2014

LOL! You blame DC for using HG instead of killing someone? Seriously? S/he use it because that's the op daily for DC in team fights. It gives you defense, enhanced damage, and hp regen, so that anywhere you go within that huge circle, you benefit from the buff and regen. I feel sorry for that DC on your team...

asterotg · March 2014

biibiisai wrote: »

LOL! You blame DC for using HG instead of killing someone? Seriously? S/he use it because that's the op daily for DC in team fights. It gives you defense, enhanced damage, and hp regen, so that anywhere you go within that huge circle, you benefit from the buff and regen. I feel sorry for that DC on your team...

NO, I have been sarcastic, the healer wasted his daily with a damage daily NOT killing the enemy, while he SHOUD have used holy ground.

momothebored · March 2014

was there any official mention that the Elo system based on win/loss ratios is in place?
someone else was swearing it was based on GS.

i have no opinions, not keeping track

melodywhr wrote: »

the elo rating system is definitely real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

also grouping as a premade is no guarantee that you're going to win a pvp match.

my main is a CW and i've tried a few different things just to test out the new pvp changes. i had the champion mage's set and exchanged it for the tenacity set. i was also able to get some tenacity rings, neck and waist items. i did not swap out my enchants from my pve gear, but i slotted my pvp gear with enchants that i was either building or built up new enchants for it. i've been around since open beta so i may have more flexibility than a newer player. so i had a few r7 enchants but mostly r4s and 5s. and i also decided to try using bloodtheft and lifedrinker enchants instead of the usual vorpal/soulforged combination.

survive-ability seemed to be better in pvp simply because of the limits of burst damage. you can still get bomb-blasted by multiple characters and trying to play the CW as a tank in pvp is not a good idea anyway. i wasn't always at the top of the charts, but i wasn't always at the bottom either. for a few weeks after the implementation, i kept my pvp gear on at all times and did my daily quests using it. i found that i was still viable in pve with my tenacity gear even though some stats were lower.

and just this past week, i tried a new experiment. i removed my tenacity gear and put my high vizier gear back on. the only enchants i swapped were the bloodtheft and lifedrinker. while there have been some nerfs in pvp to things like regen and life steal, i actually found myself dying less. this is what i would still call preliminary data and i am an experienced player, but it would seem that pvp is viable using non-tenacity gear. the stat itself, while increasing resistance, is just a stat and not required for you to enter the pvp arena. as a ranged class, part of my survivability is in not getting hit. my armor is cloth. of course that's not going to stop you from being a target for GWFs who generally look for the squishiest of the squishy.

your elo rating is based on your own win/loss ratio. depending on your premade team's individual ratings, you could be shooting yourself in the foot by grouping. the elo matchmaking system will try to match you with the most similar ranked players and when that cannot be found it will continue to step backwards until another queued team can be found. i suspect that the dial down controls that PWE has can increase or decrease the complexity of the queue rank search.

and control wizards do have more control in pvp over other classes. you can read about that here:

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?582751-Cryptic-OFFICIAL-Tenacity-Feedback-Thread&p=7313671#post7313671

alvadimarco · March 2014

The ELO system is in place, yes. It has been since we got The PvP Patch™.

vedran541 · March 2014

I recorded some pugging (with a potato) yesterday, so im sorry for the terrible quality. But you can see the basic tactics that i use.
- Go straight to enemy base
- stay alive as much as possible
- die and repeat
-> this should keep the enemy team occupied and confused most of the match so hopefully my team will be able to cap 1 and 2.
which should result in win, and usually does.

vidya : http://www.dailymotion.com/dm_52206ab53553a#video=x1ix0p0

drscone · March 2014

I only play PUGs and obviously that gives rise to a wide range of different experiences. In the new Elo, tenacity world I've had to change my playstyle. Beforehand I could exert some element of control with Repel and EF but Repel is almost useless now. I tend only to slot it if I'm on 1 or 3 in Hotenow.

Soul forged seems to be useless now since the PvP artifact won't refill your health bar, so it's back to barkskin for me. At least it refills quickly between fights.

Essentially it seems more important to play well these days and more important to figure out your rule in the team. I was on a side that started 4v5 and trailed for most of it today. We pipped it when the other team couldn't control their bloodlust. I ended up supporting our GWF. With a bunch of debuffs, EF and CS on tab he could manage 3 of their players which evened it up for us.

archanarchist · March 2014

i run my pve cw as a debuffer in pvp the only "CC" asa MoF thaum i tend to have in is maybe CoI or maybe shard on tab but usualy its Ray of enfeblement on tab i figure that and my PF have to be doing a little if stuff gets close i tend to die but jumping thru a charging gwf is usualy not a bad way to buy some seconds and if they do come after me i tke them as far away from point as posible so by time they get back to it ive respawned and im back ther edebuffing them again, it only works if theres ppl on team atacking them though, i rarely use EF anymore nor repel it takes 2 long to get AM stacks up for it to be worth while usualy its like RoE on tab FtF CoI and chillstrike or icy rays i do change it about some though ill even pop icy terrain in if i know im goign to a point with a perma stealth rouge camping it if i was beter at droping shards id have shard on tab and lose the icy rays, CW prone lockign with tab shard are quite efective at killing just about anything

froszzt · March 2014

Yes, PvP is in a very sad state atm. Pugging as a 16k CW is horrible indeed. It will put me with a team of 8-12k pretty much all the time. Yes my gear score is on the higher side of things, but funny enough, in all my many pugging attempt I've never seen anyone with a higher gs than me, and I've done a lot since patch. I've seen a few 15k-ish players, but I consider a teammate with 14k high.

This would not be a major issue if the enemy team didn't have decked out GWF's and/or permas, which is almost always the case. Carrying an inexperienced team can be done by a CW if you meet another inexperienced team that does not have 12k+ GWF's. Because even if these 12k GWF's are bad, being alone against something that you cannot outrun and that can prone you from a distance, is impossible.

Point being, GWF is OP

Permas are just sad tbh, I have nothing but pity for those.

pers3phone · March 2014

froszzt wrote: »

Yes, PvP is in a very sad state atm. Pugging as a 16k CW is horrible indeed. It will put me with a team of 8-12k pretty much all the time. Yes my gear score is on the higher side of things, but funny enough, in all my many pugging attempt I've never seen anyone with a higher gs than me, and I've done a lot since patch. I've seen a few 15k-ish players, but I consider a teammate with 14k high.

Typical PvP gear on CW will render your GS quite a bit lower. I might be 16.2K or so if I fully go PvE gear (no stat companions), I think a R10 CW maybe around 16.8K or so without lame tricks like 2/2 gear for 900 Power $:\$

In PvP, maybe full r10 with the usual PvP gear is around 15.2-15.5K. This might be the reason you see way lower GS than yours on many PvPers.

thestaggy · March 2014

Two sides to this coin.

I am a GF and MANY a time I have charged off to mid only to have my backline (HRs & CWs) stuff around at 1 for their easy 300 points. Result? I am 4/5-manned down at mid all by my lonesome, suspended in midair by their CW and pummeled to death by their melees.

Also, why do I always get the CW that doesn't use the pillars/bridge yet my enemy team's CWs and HRs always manage to drive me off of mid by utilising terrain?

See what I did there? Every class has its foolish players.

nazghul22 · March 2014

asterotg wrote: »

CW with swapped gear and some 27k+ HP

How do you do this? That's 5k more HP than my Melee char.

asterotg wrote: »

if you are a well geared CW you are screwed, because you will allways get the 8k newbies.

How you dare complaining here? How about the 8k gs new player who was hoping for a balanced session and because of you has now to compete versus opponents much higher in gear than him?

bullgodz · March 2014

dhuras1 wrote: »

I've never been part of a pre-made group. Since the change, my 13K CW has done better (he completed his HV set and GPF about the same time)and my 14K GWF, 12K TR (not perma stealth), and 10K DC (pure healer)have done worse. I have no PvP gear on any character, and have no plans to buy any.

No matter which one I play, I always run straight to 2, and usually die because I'm the only one there.

LMAO Thats me too. I know that when my entire team runs for node 1 the game is already over...

chrcore · March 2014

nhogs wrote: »

Agree with this. As a CW if you get ignored you have a chance of damaging others and making a real contribution to the team. Unfortunately there seems to be little you can do if you are singled out by an opponent who can chain prone you or run round you invisible. Have also noticed the 'immune' come up on some of my control spells.

This has been my experience as well. If the other team singles you out (which any experienced team will), you drop in 2 seconds.

twilightwatchman · March 2014

nazghul22 wrote: »

How do you do this? That's 5k more HP than my Melee char.

The right gear and enchants. Plus points in CON. My CW runs with ~27k HP depending on exact setup. That's a full set of Grim Thaumaturge gear (gives +HP), belt and jewellery with +HP, and Radiant enchants in all Defense slots.

She still dies fast, though.

williep30 · March 2014

twilightwatchman wrote: »

The right gear and enchants. Plus points in CON. My CW runs with ~27k HP depending on exact setup. That's a full set of Grim Thaumaturge gear (gives +HP), belt and jewellery with +HP, and Radiant enchants in all Defense slots.

She still dies fast, though.

Don't tell this to some people. I've argued on and off with a guy who swears ALL pvp cws have to have over 30k hp.

CW and PUG, a short horrible story

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