Flameseeker Chronicles: PvP in Flux

As we enjoy the calm before the storm that is Sylvari Week, I want to take some time to look in a different direction briefly: PvP. Specifically, I want to talk about Flux. It's been in place for several months now, giving ArenaNet time to adjust things here and there, and giving the Guild Wars community time to get used to it.

The Flux effect, if you're not familiar with it, is a regularly changing environmental effect that is present in PvP areas. It changes the damage you give or receive based on varying factors such as movement, profession, death penalty, and so on.

It's been a big deal in the PvP community, serving to shake up the meta a bit and keep things interesting. Now that we've had several months to settle into it, I took the opportunity to chat with a few PvP players about Flux. Follow along after the jump to see what they had to say!

Massively: How have you seen the PvP community change in response to the introduction of Flux?

Tormas: The PvP meta game seems to change quite significantly in response to the different flux. The effects seem to encourage the use of skills which have been considered niche or have low usage. I can try out new skill combination [instead of] the seeming over reliance [...] on the meta builds stored on various wikis which are hard to counter in certain PvP formats like Random Arenas.

Ace: The PvP community seems to be less angry as a whole and much more forgiving towards new players, at least for the first few days of Flux. There seem to be loads more people playing too. There are still the elitist players who scream and shout at every little thing that goes wrong though so it still isn't quite a 100% friendly atmosphere, but that's to be expected.

Link: Looking at how builds are being changed or modded each time a new Flux comes into play I believe it has changed a lot. For example, the current Flux has placed a large point on snaring. A classic example would be a warrior who will building his adrenaline then using Rush to go and unload his adrenaline chain, which prompts another person to run.

With the Quickening Terrain Flux, if you do this, you'll be suffering a large amount of HP loss while moving. In another example, you cannot place a speed buff on an ally to help him kite, as this will have a worse effect.

Unyielding Spirit was another flux that prompted a change, as the more you killed the enemies, the more damage they did, so you had a whole new tactic concerning which enemy needed to die without causing you the most problems. It also leads to builds bringing extra defense skills.

In closing, you bet its changed how you play each time in interesting ways. Rather than fighting the same builds over and over, it's starting to open up more changing builds from nerf to nerf.

Which Flux effect so far has been your favorite and why? Which has been your least favorite and why?

Tormas: With Quickening Terrain, if you're a squishy and you run to kite, you'll die with Shameful Fear on you, but if you stand still, you still die. Therefore, I love it.

Under Lone Wolf, usually playing as an Assassin, I end up alone behind enemy lines to get to their squishies, then get pummeled myself due to extra damage taken when alone. This made me a sad puppy.

Ace: I loved There Can Be Only One. Knowing your own class (I'm a Warrior) made it much easier to kill it. Skills like Shield Bash and Deadly Riposte got used more initially, but as the surprise wore off, builds shifted to spiking. It also had the bonus of having the best name ever, and reminding me that I needed to see the film again.

Quickening Terrain, the current Flux, is horrible. I like using For Great Justice! and Enraging Charge for a quick adrenaline boost. But now I have to use it at the very last second to make sure I avoid the 10-health-per-second penalty. It means that I take much longer to start building adrenaline and can't leave combat as easily, but at the same time, reduces the chances of me being hit by ranged attacks.

Link: As of right now, my favorite has to be Quickening Terrain. It's opened many fun ways to hurt the other team such as using Shameful Fear. Casting this on a runaway Monk will cause 30 HP loss every second. It has also changed many of the commonplace tactics in object maps such as relic capture maps.

No longer can you just spam your Make Haste! on your ally. However, much care was put into skills such as Fall Back! which gives you HP to counteract this Flux. It's also funny that you can kill yourself in an outpost or guild hall by running around with a consumable speed buff.

There has not been one Flux that I have truly disliked, as each one opened up interesting play styles. If there was one I disliked the most it was There Can Be Only One, as it instantly made spike builds more deadly. I'm not a big fan of them, but that's a personal thing. Seeing a Signet of Mystic Wrath spike every other match was pretty annoying, because eight Monks are a pain to kill.

What sort of Flux effects would you like to see in the future?

Tormas: Flux effects that boost certain attributes for various professions, letting whole skill trees which have been ignored in PvP to see some love.

Ace: I'd like to see a Flux which sets all armor and weapons to basic, and attribute points to 20. It would send matches into a frenzy that only lasted for a short space of time, but that short space of time would be incredibly fun.

Link: Any Flux that encourages change in the builds that are played (such as buffing pet damage), as this is something rarely used in PvP. Maybe giving you a bonus if your skill bar only has the same attribute on every skill, for example. Anything that will make players think outside the box to bring freshness.

The ArenaNet team adjusted the timing of Flux changes in response to the PvP community feedback. How would you like to see ArenaNet continue to improve things?

Tormas: I think they are doing a fine job so can't really say anything here.

Ace: They blamed the Flux on the Lunatic Court messing around with stuff. It would be really good if Flux got more and more crazy as we get closer and closer to the PvP update. ANet said it was to balance overpowered skills, so it would be good to power up some of the weaker skills too.

Link: I believe that cutting the time that the Flux is active in half would be a benefit, as a full month of the same thing can lead to the very problem that Flux was made to stop: Getting old and the same builds over and over.

Big thanks to Tormas, Ace, and Link for their time!

Rubi is a longtime Guild Wars player and the writer of Flameseeker Chronicles here at Massively. The column keeps a close eye on all the events in Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, and anything bridging the two. It's also the home of a weekly summary of the travels of [MVOP], Massively's Guild Wars guild. Email Rubi at rubi@massively.com.