Obvious Exploiting happening

There are groups exploiting hard in PG. The leader board times say it all. How do you even just run the course in that time with nothing up but the names.

Just my opinion though...

If by exploiting you mean figuring out which class and ascension spells do good damage and pressing them at smart times, making a special AA spec for proving grounds, and using race/class run speed temps and vendor run speed elixirs... then sure.

You mean the devs did something that was not fully thought through and smart players are finding out how to min/max in this new envoirment?? It is almost like when they introduced ascendancy classes and players figured out how to kill raid bosses in seconds... That was band aided with a fail script... wonder what band aid they will stick upon this to make it even more annoying

Says the person who posts to defend the guild doing it. Sorry im with Jrox this time. 3 minutes is absurd. It's people like you guys that ruin this kind of crap.

Devs say "even"

I say bullcrap.

And i said as soon as it was announced.

Only people who will win these will be from hardcore raid guilds and nobody else had a chance.

In which the dev's replied "Everyone is equal, gear doesnt mean a thing in here"

That was lie.

"Ooooh no, the better players gets better rewards, what a rip off"!

Wait a second... are you trying to say... are you implying... that the people topping the leaderboards are doing it with knowledge and skill?!?!?!? HAX


/s
There's a reason they are one of the top guilds worldwide and it isn't gear.

Step 1: Enter Battlegrounds and check leaderboards.
Step 2: Pick a class that shows up often in the single digit ranks.
Step 3: Create class, get to 100 however possible.
Step 4: Spec for DPS and do a little crash-course on how to play the class.
Step 5: Join groups specifically aiming to complete the mission as fast as possible.
Step 6: Repeat until you git gud. Maybe aim for a spot on the leaderboards.
Step 7: Point and laugh at others who have no chance at beating your group. Mock them in shout.
Step 8: Thank me later as this imbalance will take them weeks to sort out and fix, so I'm saving you loads of time effort.

It's not exploiting, its capitalizing on an advantage. An advantage so extreme it breaks the entirety of "competition" this whole update was designed around.

As I've said in the nearbye thread, it is unbalanced as hell. Glacial Freeze "consumes" 50% of nameds hitpoints. Beastlords can almost oneshot mobs.Run speed buffs still apply and so on.

I know Jrox as a very knowledgeable player from my HOF server and he is belong one of our top raiding guilds on server and WW so I trust his judgement about PG here. Some exploits already been posted (about how to keep spawning brownie on opposite group up to 3 time and with some luck kill opposite group before they even hit 1st named)

I think it's more of a case of taking advantages of the huge obvious flaws with how the PGs work rather then cheating. If you don't play one of the 'right' classes you have no chance at the leader boards right now.

Sorry Vunder, but you've got it all wrong. I posted because I have first hand knowledge of what we're doing to get those times, and I told you because I hope more people will succeed.

Let me tell you how you, too, can make quick runs:
1. Make a premade group of people who care about getting good times and want to stay together for several hours. Include a tank who can control AE hate... paladins, shadowknights and zerkers tend to have better class skills for that purpose but any class will work with a good player and a good spec. Also bring a healer... for me, fury and inquisitor have been extremely effective but I've heard success stories from everything except channeler (i just haven't heard from any channelers). And finally, bring a bard, because bard buffs are life changing.
2. Have everyone build a special AA spec for proving grounds, bearing in mind that all heals are % based and AAs spent on increasing heal amounts don't seem to have an effect for priest classes, and you have no blue stats from gear. This means things like casting/reuse/recovery speed AAs are REALLY significant, and so are things like the ability mod and potency in the heroic tree and page 2 prestige.
3. If leaderboard times are your goal, the elixir of movement from the essentials merchant is your friend. In fact, you can use the elixirs from there to make up for just about any shortcomings your group may have (mana regen, health regen, mitigation...this allows for actually quite a bit of variance in class make-up). You can also use brews of readiness - plan to use several per zone if you're a class with a group run speed temp.
4. Use ascension spells smartly. Etherealist's Implosion is effective for trash, Ethershadow Assassin works well on names. Elementalist's Amalgamation and Glacial Freeze are good for names too. By now, just about anyone has had the opportunity to level at LEAST 2 ascension classes, so presumably those spells should be widely available. Thaumaturge and Geomancer might have spells that work well too, but I don't know what they are. Test them if you want!
5. Get in voice chat with your group, and stay together for 20 or 30 runs. Get used to which spells are most effective for each part of the course, and collaborate with your party on ideas to shave off time.

Our first runs as a party took 10 -15 minutes. As we ran together we figured out shortcuts like splitting up for the tree buffs, assigning certain people to picking up certain trash mobs to round them up for implosion, etc, to become more efficient. And sometimes, you just get unlucky. Pathing mobs are far away and you have to run longer to reach them, etc, so it messes up your progress. But once in awhile, you get a run where the stars align and everything is pathing perfectly so that you get an amazing time like the ones you see on the leaderboard.

That's all there is to it. Now get your friends, and come beat us!

I like how ppl run to the "git gud" stance once they're called out. Skill? Ability? Nah. Figuring out what classes are clearly not balanced and running a team based on that deficiency isn't skill. But you can call it whatever you want.

Paying 80 bucks to GM all my ascension abilities and 1 shotting raid mobs is considered borderline exploit - its no wonder why this PG wasn't closed up after the first day... Now they're running double coins - so guess what - people who've worked out the loopholes in the PG system are the ones to benefit, not the ones who actually try to play as intended. Clearly they didn't intend for this to be cleared in 3 minutes.. yet, here they are allowing the PG's to remain up and running so all of these "good" players can gear / adorn up... pretty sad and demoralizing. What's the proving grounds really proving - is it just outlining the potions / totems / etc that were overlooked during it's inception? Maybe the purification signets will work in there too, like it did with PVP...

Look - I'm glad people are able to "work around" how this zone's built. More power to ya. Kudos, you used a potion, or whatever. But overall, the implementation and testing of this zone is horribad. Much like the first iterations of the PQ mobs and how it took a few "updates" to get them....right per-se.

If this doesn't clearly exhibit which way the tables are tilted, then nothing else will.

Where did I say git gud? I just laid out every piece of helpful information I've learned over the last 5 days in an extremely constructive format, with the intent of helping anyone and everyone have more fun and get more coins. That's not even remotely the same thing.

It's a RACE, trying to optimize your class and ascension skills for the best possible time is not only intended, it's the whole point.

Sure, some classes are better suited to addressing certain challenges than others. Some class and ascension spells are probably (definitely) overtuned right now because they didn't test things enough (at all?) before release. Of course that stinks, but it's nothing new - class balance problems plague every game of this genre, always have, always will. But gear doesn't matter much in these, so if you're not happy with your class then maybe dust off an alt and give it a try.

Potions allow you more flexibility in what classes to bring, since you can address things like run speed, mana regen, and healing with those to a degree instead of being rigidly stuck to a certain class makeup. That's not an oversight or an exploit, that's giving players a chance to think outside the box and problem solve. Dare I say it? Maybe some people will do a better job of that than others...

There are some bugs, but honestly this event is pretty fun if you get a group with some chemistry and give it a chance.

@soteria

That git gud comment really wasn't directed toward your post, sorry if it seemed that way. And thanks for paving the way for others to enjoy some success in the PG's.

But to me, the PG doesn't feel like a "finished product" as of yet, and until these loopholes of imbalance are cleared up, DBG finds it perfectly normal to let players utilize them until they're fixed.

Unintended consequences - much like deity potency. It sounded good on paper and for the most part, it is (was). Then the great XP nerf of contested zones came, and the bonus has been adjusted beyond 30 points - because it never crossed a mind that players would buy up tithe coins and farm XP for hours and weeks on end reaching deity point heights that were pretty surprising, and in short time.... I see similar tendencies here too - where totems / potions / charms / symbols have been overlooked in balancing it out.. No different than the original BG's.

The issue I see, is that players such as yourself and others of your caliber (and wherewithal to test ALL aspects) are the ones who should beta test this stuff before coming live... it would be a mixed blessing for sure, but at least the end result would be more... playable and on a more even keel.

I really wanted this to be a fun addition - more balanced... less "gimmicky" and wanted the individual classes of characters able to showcase what they have... but its a potion battle / totem battle / ascension battle having very little bearing on how the actual characters play.

That's why I said make an alt that fully embraces the overwhelming advantage. Can't beat 'em, join 'em. Simplest and fastest way to make full use of the double currency.

Heck, read the producer's letter:

Proving Grounds: Battle for Felwithe – Runs May 9 - 16

Proving Grounds: Battle Upon the High Seas –Runs May 16 - 23

Don’t miss out on these, as they’re only available for a limited time. <--- emphasis here

By the time they actually get decent fixes in, it'll be all over. LOL

From Kander in Discord:

And regarding coming fixes:

I completely disagree. Potions and totems give you flexibility on class makeup and augment your efforts with a good group, but they are a poor substitute for class skills of the same purpose.

A lot of class abilities that haven't been useful in years on live servers really shine in proving grounds, and I've had fantastic timed runs with a very wide variety of class configurations, including rogues, sorcerers, and coercers which aren't in great shape outside of PGs.

And above all, ascension spells and potions are widely available to anyone and everyone who wants to use them, so ... yay?

Wow. Just... wow. In a well-made game, sure, I might be able to agree. But, dang... its so far from what reality is right now. lol