Guild Wars 2

The Spiral King.2483:

Whine, whine, whine, that’s all you Rangers do. Next thing you know you’ll be asking for a working class mechanic, or viable AoE, or decent active condition removal, or non crappy ranged options, or valuable group support abilities.

I am curious, how are the ranger AoEs not “viable”???

Why is healing spring not a active condition removal???

What about the ranged attacks makes them crappy???

coglin.1867:

The Spiral King.2483:

Whine, whine, whine, that’s all you Rangers do. Next thing you know you’ll be asking for a working class mechanic, or viable AoE, or decent active condition removal, or non crappy ranged options, or valuable group support abilities.

I am curious, how are the ranger AoEs not “viable”???

Why is healing spring not a active condition removal???

What about the ranged attacks makes them crappy???

It’s true, Healing Sprind does remove condition..
AoE does exist..
But.. compared to other classes, ranger are like… a kittened 5yo child holding a rubber knife!
the only viable build they have is Regeneration Build for pvp and Berserker for pve
and in both case, you have to play pretty good and know all the class mechanics to be competitive, or you will die 9/10

Any other class can makes what rangers does but Better and more frequently! and they don’t need a build just to use an utility!

Com’on, if you are a very patient person, you could use ranger. but any other class with less than an half of your effort can kill you in 0.2

coglin.1867:

The Spiral King.2483:

Whine, whine, whine, that’s all you Rangers do. Next thing you know you’ll be asking for a working class mechanic, or viable AoE, or decent active condition removal, or non crappy ranged options, or valuable group support abilities.

I am curious, how are the ranger AoEs not “viable”???

Why is healing spring not a active condition removal???

What about the ranged attacks makes them crappy???

Traps only hit three targets as an AoE, and they constitute about half of our direct AoE.

Most if not all pet F2’s that affect enemies will hit five, but once again they suffer from AI problems.

And we don’t really have much AoE come to think of it.

So, the issue with zerker builds is that it is currently “the standard” for running a dungeon. We know why its the standard (it makes dungeons quick and easy). If we want to address the issue everyone is having with party exclusion, and increase build diversity we need a few changes.

One of the necessary improvements is updated AI. Currently mobs assault full throttle upon interaction and follow the players. I understand it would be too easy to avoid mobs if they didn’t try to follow but here’s a list of possible AI changes.
-Mobs respond to a high DPS threshold: if they are taking too much damage, too fast, over a given period of time they react by adjusting their tactics. Perhaps by building “emnity” and focusing attacks on one player at a time. Another plausible response for a mob receiving high amounts of damage would be by other enemies supporting the one who is taking the most damage. Eg. When mob a breaks the dps threshold, mob b, c, d, and e all focus on mob a’s attacker while mob f, g, and h supply support to mob a.
-Mobs dodge: this would take a lot of effort to implement but its not out of reach. Allow each mob to have its’ own threshold with which to activate a dodge. Mobs would of course have endurance like players, but once a mob became subject to a severe attack, the mob would then dodge away from its attacker. This addresses two things. Zerker builds rely on stationary mobs to “focus” their attacks on. By dodging away from heavy attacks, the player now finds its heavy attacks less useful when spammed. A five mob group all dodging the zerkers, focusing damage on the primary target, and supporting the zerker’s target. Zerker’s will still be viable in diverse groups because they would have the support of other build types to keep them afloat, however, without a diverse group the zerkers fall prey to real tactics.

These ideas require no nerfing, but simply the addition of a unique approach to the zerker, DPS only, speed runner, full throttle, exclusion parties. No real harm is done to a diverse party, as a skilled party will know when to dodge, when to unload, and when to support. When the mob is assaulting a single player, the support players have a prime opportunity to heal and support, while the mobs focus is directed away from them.
-Another change would involve incentives or opportunity for supporting another player: maybe a support retaliation of some sort where player a heals player b and receives endurance in return. More support = more endurance. More endurance results in more opportunity to support without the risk of sacrificing oneself.
-Final proposed change is greater benefit to combo fields: An elementalist drops a field, a warrior attacks through it and receives less “emnity”. Thief throws up a wall, ranger shoots through it and enemies lose endurance. A diverse party will benefit by allowing more opportunity for their heavy hitters to do their thing. A zerker party would have to identify ways to provide the opportunity they need to attack, prolonging the fight, resulting in a balanced fight in the end.

Any criticism is appreciated and let the discussion commence!

Rangers are the worst profession in the game still and have no role in which they excel like every other profession does.

Anet PLEASE check the ranger forums; there is a wealth of information, ideas and feedback there. In fact, i’ve seen threads on other profession forums (like the warrior) in which even they are saying ‘haha yeah to be fair the ranger is a lot worse off than us’).

Ranger: I’m not an expert on balancing but my feeling of ranger is that they are the “somewhat” good class when it comes to dmg, support, condi…. (ptretty much Everything is medioker) They are not REALLY good at anything, nor compleatly useless either.

What if we could keep the Spirit of nature as is, at least giving us a good ability to heal?

I guess there is a reason we are so unwanted in Dungeons and Fractals (together with necros… forgot any class?)… Sad but true.
I also guess there is a reason ppl mostly want Zerker,Warriors and Guardians in Dungeons and Fractals. Or at least HAVE to have a couple of these in the team.

Vespero.6180:

Any other class can makes what rangers does but Better and more frequently! and they don’t need a build just to use an utility!

Wait, let me just quickly put my 10s duration water field for AE heal spam down on my Mesmer… ah what you say? I don’t have one and it’s one of the strongest combo fields in the game? You have to be kidding me?! Rangers useful? How dare they?!

Frostfang.5109:

I guess there is a reason we are so unwanted in Dungeons and Fractals (together with necros… forgot any class?)… Sad but true.
I also guess there is a reason ppl mostly want Zerker,Warriors and Guardians in Dungeons and Fractals. Or at least HAVE to have a couple of these in the team.

It’s sad but true, and I wish the balance team would recognize this issue. Zerker dominates the PVE meta, because damage blows defense and healing out of the water. As a direct result of this, DPS heavy classes are more effective in PVE, and leave the other classes in the dust.

Further more, the balance team has been way too favorable towards Warriors and Guardians. You can’t give classes with really high DPS, also access to some of the best defense, healing, team support, and access to invulnerability and vigor. There has to be a trade off, or all semblance of balance goes right out the window.

This especially is sad since I play a necromancer, and there seems to be no coherent plan for my favorite class. We are supposed to be the attrition class, but we have the worst attrition. We have the poorest mobility in the game, making it impossible to chase down our enemies. We have some of the poorest defense in the game, and barely access to stability, making us the ball in a ping pong match. Plus the damage in PVE scales extremely bad, causing issues with our broken DS (because they removed our only defense against spike damage). We have one escape, which can be killed by our enemy, and has a really long recharge. Basically, we are dead on arrival, unless we some how succeed to out live our opponent with the worst attrition in the game, and no way to chase our enemy down if he runs away.

It is time we saw some actual balance. It is time the balance team looked at the other classes besides warrior and guardian, and asked themselves: “How can we bring these classes back in line with the other two”.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

*It is time we saw some actual balance. It is time the balance team looked at the other classes besides warrior and guardian, and asked themselves: “How can we bring these classes back in line with the other two”.

That’s not going to help. Yes, balance is relative, but not only to the other classes, also to the HP of doors and siege weapons, to their damage, to PvE health, to PvE damage, to everything.

In other words, you cannot fix balance by always buffing. You need to nerf the top end classes, and buff the bottom end, so that they balance out at a level which fits the non-PC parts of your game (or change those, but that’s a really tall order).

I think Warriors specifically need a nerf in that they are too versatile and too well-rounded. A Warrior’s raw power is ok, but it needs to be balanced by being very rough in application. A warrior should always be running on momentum, if you can stop them, their system falters, adrenaline doesn’t properly generate, skills don’t recharge well, positioning is lost, etc.
Currently they got too many and too passive elements protecting them for that to happen.

Likewise Guardians got too many of the game’s mechanics in their favour, so I’m not even sure they need a nerf specifically. Stability is too easily applied/stacked, but that’s a game-wide issue. Boons in general might need a thinning, this would hit guardians hard.

Carighan.6758:

Likewise Guardians got too many of the game’s mechanics in their favour, so I’m not even sure they need a nerf specifically. Stability is too easily applied/stacked, but that’s a game-wide issue. Boons in general might need a thinning, this would hit guardians hard.

Yes, I think a hard nerf to guardians would be bad for overall balance. I think a better solution would be to improve the team support of other classes, so they can bring an equal amount of team support to the table. Because it is a cooperative game. Any classes that do not support their team mates in any meaningful way, get weeded out, like the ranger and the necromancer.

Josh Davis.6015:

I just finished spending a few hours catching up on these responses. There’s a lot of good feedback here…and some…not so much!

I’ve seen quite a few posts mention the lack of bug fix mentions and I wanted to let you guys know that for the most part they’ve simply been excluded from the balance preview. Our designers have been and will continue to work on profession bugs all the way until this build is locked up and ready to ship.

I’ll touch base with the guys on Monday when we get back into the office and see if we’re able to provide any updates.

Thanks again, everyone.

Hey Josh,

I admit my last post was kinda too rude. But I don’t know how you guys at ArenaNet think about this. People are actually investing time into this game for entertainment purpose … Sadly there are some obvious entertainment blocker in this game. Why should a player pick a Staff Elementalist while everbody is crying since years for a developer statement? The preview balances obviously pushed Elementalist players back to Dagger/Dagger or Scepter/Dagger … Everybody knows that there is actually no reason to play Staff or Focus Elementalist in PvP/WvW without playing a supporter. Why is the development of the ranger blocked so hard? Why are several classes not as easy to play as other ones?

You see, the developers earn their money while working at ArenaNet. Thats their job I guess. Players come back after work-off, school, study or other stressful activities and choose to play this “not so much” time-consuming game. I think its even the same to some developers working at ArenaNet.

I guess ArenaNet would love to keep their players and this is not a warning nor it is meant as blackmailing or whatever. But why should players invest more time into GuildWars 2 when professions stay broken after several updates? Months after months? Soon a lot of great new games will be released and … frankly … I don’t see any reason to continue this game at all at this patch-rate. I’ve experienced more than a year full of “ArenaNet-balancing” in GuildWars 2 right now … And I don’t know what the hell is going on over there. Players don’t if their profession works as its intended to be. Whats left is that players keep relying on “meta builds” and this is just the wrong way to treat players.
Why am I not able to play that Staff damage Elementalist as I did in GuildWars 1 and several other games? Why am I not able to play a really awesome Ranger as I did in GuildWars 1? I experienced PvP balancing in GuildWars 1 for several years … And I don’t know what happened to the balancing team and their ideas and PvP-feeling.

And now people see these update-notes which has been already posted by another player on this forums several weeks ago … How did you guys expect the players to react? “Oh great, my Staff Elementalist is fixed”?

Frankly … I will try this update. On the other hand I see that there will be way too many great game releases in 2014. I couldn’t last one more “living world” update as a dedicated WvW player.

I’m with Vanensang. I have invested a lot of time and money into this game(enough to kitten my wife off) with the hopes that the next content patch or balance patch will maintain my attention but as time has gone on I find myself logging in maybe once or twice a week for an hour or two (if that!). There really needs to be some drastic changes and something more for WvW to keep my attention much longer or I will be gone by April (or sooner).

The game has been out for over a year now and still feels like it is in late stages of the beta. There are copious amounts of bugs, useless traits, lackluster skills, and no real sight of proper balance to be seen. Some classes still go unnoticed and are towards the bottom of the barrel in most, if not all, aspects of the game, ie ranger, with no solid plan for them being brought up to par with the other classes. They once said they felt "warriors were in a good place" yet most of the playerbase view the class as overpowered and here we are seeing more aspects of that class be nerfed instead of raising the other classes to the warrior’s level. I understand that balancing a class is extremely difficult because you can’t account for the biggest variable; player skill. A class could be absolutely unstoppable in the right hands and when the class is in the wrong hands, those players tend to request nerfs (or buffs) because mastering class mechanics takes effort.

The suggested changes every patch, generally, are either not needed, poorly implemented which needs further testing, or too few when the class forums have suggestions and pages of bugs which are appropriately documented. A lot of class "pigeonholing" has taken place which has led to "meta" builds. Builds that have created this standard that if you are not zerker, you get kicked (in PvE).

The status of this game, from a consumer and player standpoint, is going down hill and every content patch and balance patch either lessens the decline of the game, or increases as players/consumers find no entertainment in your product and continue to wait for change.

I implore you to please start making some changes for the good of this game before you have lost all of your players trust to deliver a wonderful product.

Warrior:
Our changes for warrior focus on providing telegraphs to stronger skills and to reduce the passive benefit gained from Healing Signet.
•Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%. •We’re looking for ways to incentivize using Healing Signet’s active without increasing overall sustain. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

I agree. As a Warrior, there is no reason to activate HS because the healing over time is better then the burst heal, and waiting for a cool down.

How about a complete restructure of the HS?
1. Remove passive healing and replace with VIT increase (like Signet of Fury and Signet of Might)
2. Activating signet grants a 15-20 sec regen buff instead of burst healing.

This, IMO, will still give people a reson to use the HS and activate it. It will grant a boost in overall health and provide healing as needed, but not so much as to be OP (i.e. passive healing as is, even with 8% reduction, is more then enough to negate any conditions)

Guardian wishes staff
skill #1 add damage maybe +25%
skill #2 change it so it is a homing missle that explodes
skill #3 change it to a 1s field granting 10s speed and damage so it can be used for aoe damage or for aoe speed buff
skill #4 allow us to run while channeling and increase the buffs to 15s
skill #5 add aoe damage

Guardian wishes sword
skill #3 allow us to run while channeling

pdavis.8031:

Warrior:
Our changes for warrior focus on providing telegraphs to stronger skills and to reduce the passive benefit gained from Healing Signet.
•Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%. •We’re looking for ways to incentivize using Healing Signet’s active without increasing overall sustain. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

I agree. As a Warrior, there is no reason to activate HS because the healing over time is better then the burst heal, and waiting for a cool down.

How about a complete restructure of the HS?
1. Remove passive healing and replace with VIT increase (like Signet of Fury and Signet of Might)
2. Activating signet grants a 15-20 sec regen buff instead of burst healing.

This, IMO, will still give people a reson to use the HS and activate it. It will grant a boost in overall health and provide healing as needed, but not so much as to be OP (i.e. passive healing as is, even with 8% reduction, is more then enough to negate any conditions)

That would be too easy as it would be like Troll Unguent. I would gladly take troll unguent + something that cleanses poison over HS if that would remove the “overpoweredness” of this skill.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pop in and say that the changes listed are not all of the changes coming. Unfortunately, we can’t share everything we’re changing due to the nature of some of the changes.

In the meantime, we’ve been loving all the great constructive feedback you have, so keep it up!

:)

Can you at least expand on the patch commentary where ‘rangers have a lot of things coming’ even if it’s at a very high level? We’ve waited a year. Not sure another 6 months is fair with no feedback whatsoever…

Atherakhia.4086:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pop in and say that the changes listed are not all of the changes coming. Unfortunately, we can’t share everything we’re changing due to the nature of some of the changes.

In the meantime, we’ve been loving all the great constructive feedback you have, so keep it up!

:)

Can you at least expand on the patch commentary where ‘rangers have a lot of things coming’ even if it’s at a very high level? We’ve waited a year. Not sure another 6 months is fair with no feedback whatsoever…

You ask that question as if they care about ranger players lol.

They do not. We represent the lowest population of any of the classes. At this point rangers aren’t even on their radar. That’s very obvious.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to pop in and say that the changes listed are not all of the changes coming. Unfortunately, we can’t share everything we’re changing due to the nature of some of the changes.

In the meantime, we’ve been loving all the great constructive feedback you have, so keep it up!

:)

Oh trust me, us Rangers know… we know..

PART 1
So…let me give voice to my thoughts…again…

In these days I was thinking about changes I would like to see to Ranger class (mainly for Power and PvP orientated Rangers).

First of all, the “almighty” pet:
• the A.I. isn’t very good, we know that, but I think there may be other solutions to fix the problem without having to rework the entire “pet system”. For example, the pet would have better chances to hit something (besides the air) if the attack speed of our omnipresent fellow was buffed by default or added to a trait or something.
What about the “agility training” Skirmishing trait (VI) would not only give a 30% increased movement speed for pets but also a…let’s say 10-20% attack speed for them as well?

• Then, let’s talk about the F2 pet skill: it would be actually amazing if it would activate the first time the button is pushed, not after the fourth try!!!!!!! (I often die in Pvp just because my wolf decides that I don’t need him to send my opponents away with fear even if I told him to do so by pressing multiple times F2….very annoying).

Secondly, I would really love to see some more “might options” for Ranger: skills or traits I don’t care, but I would love to have the possibility to stack a bit of might from time to time without having to pop my elite, Rampage as One (and hoping that my pet hits a couple of times to buff me with some might – most unlikely to happen); or without having to spend 20 point in Marksmanship, taking the useless trait “beastmaster’s might”, running three signets and having to activate all three of them at the same time in order to have….hold to your seats….9 stack of might for 15 sec, 0 utility left, and 0 chance to survive the fight. Please don’t tell me I forgot the combo fire fields from torch or trap…cause…well, I can’t use them to buff might solo (only 1 finisher blast on warhorn on a 35 sec CD; and maybe the blast finisher from drakes, if you’re lucky… very lucky…very veeeeery lucky).

PART 2
Almost forgot about Condition removal skills!!! Ranger have a really good trait for condi removal (talking about “emphatic bond” of course)…but let’s be honest, if didn’t want to take it?
Let’s analyze the options:

• “Healing Spring” skill: probably the most powerful healing skill in game (after warrior’s HS, or at least as good as that skill is), but not a reliable remove condition in terms of PvP: in order to use it properly (and remove 5 conditions if I’m not wrong) you should stay inside the water field for 10 seconds, which is really a gamble in PvP. In conclusion: great healing skill and a helpful conditions removal but not enough good to be the only condi removal skill to take.

• “Signet of Renewal”: passively cures a condition every ten seconds (good) and actively removes all conditions by sending them all to our pet (and most likely killing him)…if he is alive….and reeeeeeally close to you.

• Last (and least I would say) the fantastic, “not-doing-any-damage” Brown Bear and his “Shake it off”: a 2 conditions removal in a 600 radius and a 25 CD….not so bad you would say, the only problem is the fact that the command of the F2 skill from pets just pops properly only once every three times (sometimes even by putting the skill in CD without actually working in advance).

In conclusion (for what concern condition removal), I think there are far too many “if” in Ranger’s condition removal skills.

One word for “Tail wind” Skirmishing minor trait: c’mon let’s make it work even out of combat, please.

At this point, I would like to thank with all my heart whoever read up to here, I wouldn’t have gone so far honestly…

PART 3
Finally, a few suggestions on LB and GS skill changes I would think of.

LONGBOW:
• 1 (Long range shot): adding a few more damages at max range (1000+) would be nice (5-10%?)
• 2 (Rapid fire): due to the fact that the cast time is insanely long (4½ sec) and the skill is incredibly easy to dodge, I would add a 2-3% increase damage per hit, at least.
• 3 (Hunter’s shot): why not adding some effect to the skill? Like gaining N stacks of might for N seconds on a successful hit while invisible after the use of this skill (only with this skill, not everytime stealth is gained)?
• 4 (Point blank shot): making this skill hitting all targets in a straight line will make it too OP?
• 5 (Barrage): it would be awesome to use this skill while moving or at least having the cast time reduced a bit, no?

GREATSWORD
• 1 (Slash – chain): adding some effect on a successful hit? Like 1or2 seconds of Vulnerability or Weakness maybe?
• 1 (Slice – chain): same as above?
• 2 (Maul): maybe reducing the visibility of the animation or the cast time (from ¾ second to ½ second for example) would help to land the strike because it is very easy to dodge by now.
• 3 (Swoop): why not adding a N seconds swiftness boon after the leap (even if it does not hit a target)? Would give a lot more mobility, no?

Well, that’s it….I said everything I wanted to say, and more. I want to clarify that I’m not expecting so many buffs to only one class in the next balance patch but seeing some changes in this direction would make me optimistic about the future of the Ranger in GW2 (maybe I was too generous with this class, I admit it).

I’d really appreciate some feedbacks, what do you think about my suggestions?

Sorry for my English anyway!!

Allie Murdock.8152:

Unfortunately, we can’t share everything we’re changing due to the nature of some of the changes.

We would really love to comment on every planned change, and take a look into your whole planned concept. Without having all of the information, it’s really hard to post our opinion.

Personal f.e. I would love to take a deeper look at certain profession trait setups f.e. the trap ranger or the minion master necromancer, but I’m not sure, where this is suited best, and if every post will be useless once we get to see the full planned changes.

raubvogel.5071:

Guardian wishes staff
skill #1 add damage maybe +25%
skill #2 change it so it is a homing missle that explodes
skill #3 change it to a 1s field granting 10s speed and damage so it can be used for aoe damage or for aoe speed buff
skill #4 allow us to run while channeling and increase the buffs to 15s
skill #5 add aoe damage

Guardian wishes sword
skill #3 allow us to run while channeling

Have you ever auto attacked with staff #1 in berserker gear? Try it and see how hard it hits.
Skill #2 turned in to a homing missile would be ok but I’d rather it take on similarities like the mesmer staff #1 and just bounced granting healing.
Skill #3 is fine as is. It makes you stand in it instead of dropping the symbol and off you go. Allows for you to take advantage of any traits that boost your symbols.
Skill #4 should not be channeled due to how powerful the ability is. 12 stacks of might + a large heal (and small heals with AH).
Skill #5 Perfect the way it is. Line denials are huge in WvW and sPvP. Just fix it so ppl can’t hit it then dodge their way through it. I would say increase the knockback effect to reduce this from occurring.

Sword #3 hits really hard when you land the ability but it’s easily dodged and you can run out of range of it. I kinda like how it’s set up because if you take the full attack to the face, it hits hard. I would rather it gave evasion or block than blocking projectiles though so it would be viable for range and melee.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

pdavis.8031:

Warrior:
Our changes for warrior focus on providing telegraphs to stronger skills and to reduce the passive benefit gained from Healing Signet.
•Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%. •We’re looking for ways to incentivize using Healing Signet’s active without increasing overall sustain. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

I agree. As a Warrior, there is no reason to activate HS because the healing over time is better then the burst heal, and waiting for a cool down.

How about a complete restructure of the HS?
1. Remove passive healing and replace with VIT increase (like Signet of Fury and Signet of Might)
2. Activating signet grants a 15-20 sec regen buff instead of burst healing.

This, IMO, will still give people a reson to use the HS and activate it. It will grant a boost in overall health and provide healing as needed, but not so much as to be OP (i.e. passive healing as is, even with 8% reduction, is more then enough to negate any conditions)

That would be too easy as it would be like Troll Unguent. I would gladly take troll unguent + something that cleanses poison over HS if that would remove the “overpoweredness” of this skill.

so you’re thinking Regen + condition removal? not bad, but warrior has a bunch of condition removal already, both passive and through signets, stances ect. Perhaps something like Regen + Vigor or Protection. I’d lean more toward protection as thats one boon warrior lack. (except for Quick Breathing with a warhorn when removing Vulnerability).

pdavis.8031:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

pdavis.8031:

Warrior:
Our changes for warrior focus on providing telegraphs to stronger skills and to reduce the passive benefit gained from Healing Signet.
•Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%. •We’re looking for ways to incentivize using Healing Signet’s active without increasing overall sustain. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

I agree. As a Warrior, there is no reason to activate HS because the healing over time is better then the burst heal, and waiting for a cool down.

How about a complete restructure of the HS?
1. Remove passive healing and replace with VIT increase (like Signet of Fury and Signet of Might)
2. Activating signet grants a 15-20 sec regen buff instead of burst healing.

This, IMO, will still give people a reson to use the HS and activate it. It will grant a boost in overall health and provide healing as needed, but not so much as to be OP (i.e. passive healing as is, even with 8% reduction, is more then enough to negate any conditions)

That would be too easy as it would be like Troll Unguent. I would gladly take troll unguent + something that cleanses poison over HS if that would remove the “overpoweredness” of this skill.

so you’re thinking Regen + condition removal? not bad, but warrior has a bunch of condition removal already, both passive and through signets, stances ect. Perhaps something like Regen + Vigor or Protection. I’d lean more toward protection as thats one boon warrior lack. (except for Quick Breathing with a warhorn when removing Vulnerability).

personally, I don’t think warrior needs any more improvement: I mean not right now, all the other classes need to be at the same level as warrior before thinking to give something more to this class. Warriors have enough survivability even without protection or a “troll unguent + remove condi” healing skill (Mending alrady removes 3 conditions). I was just thinking to a 15-20% reduction on the passive effect of HS and an increased active effect, this will make this healing skill more comparable to other classes signets.

Looks like I’ll be leaving my Ele alone for the forseeable future.
I can understand the Devs asking for polite responses and constructive feedback,but…There has been enough constructive feedback in the Ele forums to fill a phonebook. Many,many great ideas and and well thought out arguments from much better Ele players than I will ever be.
Yet each balance patch is a just more frustration. When you read through the other profession forums it is much the same. Glaring faults and inequalities are just ignored. The introduction of Diamond Skin was probably the low point for me. It’s not a good sign when you read up on a new grandmaster trait and just laugh at it.
Looking forward to the new MMO’s on the horizon, had quite enough of the imbalance thankyou.

Well, my mom told me if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all… but…

You Anet Devs are killing my want to play your game. You won’t give me a perma-stow option on an openly admitted problem that is the Ranger class mechanic. You are nerfing my other classes I like to play… I just don’t understand why you Devs try to hard to make me hate your game.

Like Gravox said, there’s been a New York’s phonebook worth of good and constructive feedback in the prof forums that has been noted and ignored. I’ve been waiting nearly nine months for solid feedback to get put to good use and have seen less than 5% (pulling that number out of you know where because I can) of it being used… it all started going down hill for me when you nerfed Search and Rescue into uselessness.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hey all,
Be constructive. Discuss, don’t argue.
Give examples:
Be concise.
Be specific.
Be objective.
Be respectful.
Be mindful of scope.
Be mindful of context.

Ok. Scrap the changes you had in mind for the Ranger and take a look at this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Ranger-Balance-PvP-WvW-PvE-PvX

Really. You Devs need to. Now.

It’s quite interesting to see that this thread hast 530 replies and like 500 of them are negative feedback regarding the (lack of) balance changes or alternative suggestions, like 15 are asking for patience or clearification.
I’ll definetly stick around to see their reaction, because it will clearly indicate how much community feedback matters to them.

Edit: well there’s also a good portion of thankfull replies due to the reverted mesmer nerf. Let’s not be biased ^^

While we’re on the subject, can some of the devs pop into this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Traitworks-Bloody-Questions/first

There are some really good ideas for improvements in there. And we REALLY need improvements.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just wanted to pop in and say that the changes listed are not all of the changes coming. Unfortunately, we can’t share everything we’re changing due to the nature of some of the changes.

I think you guys are doing yourselves a disservice by not sharing/previewing this stuff – a fully engaged community is a happy community and early customer feedback is almost always a good thing – even if (especially if) a feature is highly likely to change.

Rather than posting more thoughts about the classes I love playing I’d like to share my thoughts on how class balance should operate for all classes. The reason I personally like gw2 PvP and wvw is class diversity. Now with that being said I do like I like the idea of all classes having a tank, glass cannon, or some build in between, ect… As long as two different classes are not feeling like the same class. I think in order for gw2 PvP to keep the torch on passing, we really need to see at least one viable build for every possible role on all classes which feels optimal. That being said I think the community should share the way they enjoy playing their class so that these play styles we all enjoy can be implemented into the game. I’m going give an example for you all:

I like to think of d/d ele as a daring glass cannon, compensating low HP and defense for high burst for quick kills. Skills to counter conditions and DPS needed to play like this.

I think longbow ranger is a fun class to play as a sniper like role, pewpewing from a distance, it seems to make sense that you would do worse in melee and better at a distance if you are a sniper build, but also have a ways to regain that distance.

Warrior I like to think of as a heavy tank that has many options to block incoming hits as well… If they are on top of their game using skills at the right time.

There are other ways I like playing these classes but I’ll stop b4 it gets to tl;dr

Unfortunately, we can’t share everything we’re changing due to the nature of some of the changes.

I can respect that.
I’m kind of surprised ya’ll can even talk about this much so far in advance, honestly. It really makes me wonder what else you’re working on that’ll take up the next handful of weeks before the build is closed.

But at the same time, it’s also a bit hard to have an on-topic discussion when the change notes are so sketchy. I get the general sentiment behind pushing Rune effects to later set bonuses and generally bringing things in line with eachother, and I support those decisions on a high level. But it’s really hard to visualize what that actually amounts to exactly, much less hold a discussion about it.

Maybe you could get more focused discussion with a few examples?

Could you maybe toss out the details of a few revised Runes and Sigils that are at a more or less shippable quality?

If crit % gets nerfed it should only be nerfed at the higher levels of crit dmg, a diminishing return after a certain point if you will

I think it would be an interesting idea to see ranks that allowed you to tweak how a skill worked or obtain a new skill that could be swapped for an old one on a weapon.. Something of that sort. If we had game changing perks to be unlocked we would have a real goal to achieve in spvp

Carighan.6758:

Vespero.6180:

Any other class can makes what rangers does but Better and more frequently! and they don’t need a build just to use an utility!

Wait, let me just quickly put my 10s duration water field for AE heal spam down on my Mesmer… ah what you say? I don’t have one and it’s one of the strongest combo fields in the game? You have to be kidding me?! Rangers useful? How dare they?!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Rain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Geyser

I can count the amount of times I have heard commanders in WvW specifically ask for ranger springs on one hand.

Signet of Stamina needs a desperate nerf.

Are warriors meant to be the best at evasion too?

Warrior’s Signet of Stamina’s 50% endurance regen is higher than ranger’s Natural Vigor since it got nerfed from 50 to 25%. They also have similar access to vigor via traits and of course rangers have a few evade skills while Warriors only have one via Whirlwind Attack but I feel this overall this puts warrior way too close to the ranger’s evasiveness given their health/armor differences.

And now since you are halving the base vigor uptime of guardians and mesmers, this pretty much makes their endurance regen equal to Signet of Stamina unless boon duration is invested in and again is uncomfortably shifting up the Warrior’s evasiveness relatively.

Substance E.4852:

Carighan.6758:

Vespero.6180:

Any other class can makes what rangers does but Better and more frequently! and they don’t need a build just to use an utility!

Wait, let me just quickly put my 10s duration water field for AE heal spam down on my Mesmer… ah what you say? I don’t have one and it’s one of the strongest combo fields in the game? You have to be kidding me?! Rangers useful? How dare they?!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_Rain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Geyser

I can count the amount of times I have heard commanders in WvW specifically ask for ranger springs on one hand.

Commanders asks for fields…..they don t care of wich skills is giving it.
And the sad part is you either is a healbot or you play..

Because casting a water field requires you to be in the right attunement.

Atherakhia.4086:

Reesha.7901:

Daishi.6027:

So… Mesmers get less vigor, yet thief and ranger can still evade spam?

“But thieves need doges to survive!!!” >> and glass mesmers don’t? and in the current state of the game still have less?

Plus Ranger still has little risk even without the doges so lol they get to keep it too?

well that’s juuust peachy.

I do not understand their reasoning for this either…..

Ranger vigor was nerfed 2 patches ago… Mesmer and Guardians are the few classes left to not have these traits normalized.

Unlike Rangers and Thieves, Mesmers have what? 2 hard evasive skills (not counting area/location based) being blurred frenzy and distortion. Ranger and thieves swords, daggers, and bows allow for tons of on demand evade with or without vigor and not only is it in abundance some of the skills are on shorter cool downs or take less resources… and no 3 seconds of invis doesn’t make up for it. “BUT MES HAS CLONESSSS” Oh Yeah! cuz those actually fool people?

I’m fine with every class getting a vigor nerf but only where it makes sense… Classes that have tons of access to evades don’t need vigor. The token 2-3 built in evades or invulns that every class pretty much has access to doesn’t need to take that hit at the very least not when running a glass spec…

I admit guardian has access to lots of boons including aegis and perhaps on full bunker builds need to take this hit but it is still not solving the actual evade spam issue.

TBH I don’t think this change will affect mes and guard all that much, so w/e fine… But the record should show that the problem from evasion is the on demand access to it via skills. Not Sigils of energy, not Vigor, not the few 2-3 skills every class has.

It’s the 3 evades on one weapon set while being naturally tanky, or cheap and cost efficient spammable doges with easy escape to let it reset.

Thieves need to spend initiative when spamming high impact skills into invul/evade/blocking opponents. Engineers need fewer cast times, fewer skills that do things that other skills do already (hello toolbelt skills) and decent cond removal besides going 30 alchemy and taking a bunch of elixirs.

Nerfing mesmers vigor without any compensation is just bad design considering the current meta. Vigor affects mesmers more than ANY other class, dodging gives us our clones we use to shatter for damage, defense and CC. As well as the fact that we are glass cannons that rely on avoiding damage in the first place unlike most other classes.

Is it some kind of inside Aanet joke that the only viable spvp build that mesmer has had for the LAST 2 YEARS is 20 20 0 0 30 shatter spec?

Now it is not even viable in the meta leaving us with nothing but to reroll to thieves and rangers like Helseth, Sensotix and Supcutie have done. (3 of the best tournament mesmers all rerolled within the last 2-3 weeks). The 16 team KOTM2 tournament last weekend had a grand total of 0 (yes ZERO) mesmers out of the top 80 players around the world. (There was even a staff ele that made the final)

The last Oct 15th major patch that was supposed to have changes to put us back in the meta gave us a Mantra buff (sigh..) which had to be a joke, it’s not just the fact that no competent player will let a mesmer get off a 3second cast in spvp, but its the fact that we CANNOT take any utility to tpvp other than PORTAL, BLINK AND DECOY. Portal and blink obviously because our only role left is a roamer, and decoy because without it we get kitten d by thieves even harder than we already do. What’s the point of bringing condition removal if we die instantly to a thief before the conditions even get put on us.

Then last major patch the same mistake was made. Because of their limited understanding of the class they thought they could give us condition removal through a different trait line without realizing that no mesmer could take it because shattered concentration is a MUST. The only reason you bring a mesmer in your team is for portal and boon removal, that’s it.
Mesmer has been limited build wise since day 1. Shattered concentration is a %100 must in spvp, so is deceptive evasion, and to a lesser extent illusionary persona. It’s been like this since release. (20/20/0/0/30)
Helseth and Supcutie are using the exact same build that Xee, Xeph and Nero Vitus were using 2 kittening years ago!! (The only change of the build that has happened in 2 years is now lyssa runes are used with mass invis instead of timewarp or moaftfg.)

When you understand that we are competing with thieves as roamers in teams, who have better damage, mobility and survivability then you realize just how important portal (+blink) and boon removal is. They are the only reason we did have a place in the meta, so when considering buffs you have to build around these things.

The last 2 major patches have been a waste of time, and none of the changes have been used in pvp and we are still back at square 1, and looking at these patch notes it looks like Aanet have given up, or are delusional enough to think their changes had any effect. (hint- not a single top spvp mesmer uses mantras or has any points in the inspiration tree.)

As Helseth has said many times on his stream it is obvious that none of the devs play mesmer as a main and/or thoroughly understand the classes mechanics. So Aanet can you PLEASE start talking to top mesmers, this happens in LoL, SC2, WoW, and every other pvp game i can think of. If you were in contact with good mesmers you would have known that buffing matras was not the way to give us condition removal in the current meta, you would have known that the DE change would cripple shatter mesmers, you would have known that we have 0 flexibility when it comes to traits and utilitys, etc etc.

PS. I think mesmers will never be fully balanced if portal stays the way it is. It is impossible to balance a class when it has a regular utility that is stronger than nearly every other classes elite utility. If portal was made a elite, every mesmer would still take it in tpvp. I think that’s a huge balance problem because mesmers underlying problems are overshadowed by portal and it has been this way for a LONG time.

I just post the link to my thread, with some of the core issues the classes have.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/All-Before-balancing-classes/first#post3579556

dimyzuka.7051:

Is it some kind of inside Aanet joke that the only viable spvp build that mesmer has had for the LAST 2 YEARS is 20 20 0 0 30 shatter spec?

Right.

I think it would be healthy if the devs approached the players more regarding class balance. A lot of changes to the necromancer have been really bad, and have been the worst solution to the problem (specifically conditions and Dhuumfire). It would really help if the devs discussed their ideas more with players that are more experienced with these classes. And if they gathered feedback before implementing changes, from players who know these classes well. The respective class forums are a wealth of great ideas to solve existing class problems.

But we never see any dev in the necromancer forum. Do they even know it exists?

dimyzuka.7051:

Nerfing mesmers vigor without any compensation is just bad design considering the current meta. Vigor affects mesmers more than ANY other class, dodging gives us our clones we use to shatter for damage, defense and CC. As well as the fact that we are glass cannons that rely on avoiding damage in the first place unlike most other classes.

Is it some kind of inside Aanet joke that the only viable spvp build that mesmer has had for the LAST 2 YEARS is 20 20 0 0 30 shatter spec?

Now it is not even viable in the meta leaving us with nothing but to reroll to thieves and rangers like Helseth, Sensotix and Supcutie have done. (3 of the best tournament mesmers all rerolled within the last 2-3 weeks). The 16 team KOTM2 tournament last weekend had a grand total of 0 (yes ZERO) mesmers out of the top 80 players around the world. (There was even a staff ele that made the final)

The last Oct 15th major patch that was supposed to have changes to put us back in the meta gave us a Mantra buff (sigh..) which had to be a joke, it’s not just the fact that no competent player will let a mesmer get off a 3second cast in spvp, but its the fact that we CANNOT take any utility to tpvp other than PORTAL, BLINK AND DECOY. Portal and blink obviously because our only role left is a roamer, and decoy because without it we get kitten d by thieves even harder than we already do. What’s the point of bringing condition removal if we die instantly to a thief before the conditions even get put on us.

Then last major patch the same mistake was made. Because of their limited understanding of the class they thought they could give us condition removal through a different trait line without realizing that no mesmer could take it because shattered concentration is a MUST. The only reason you bring a mesmer in your team is for portal and boon removal, that’s it.
Mesmer has been limited build wise since day 1. Shattered concentration is a %100 must in spvp, so is deceptive evasion, and to a lesser extent illusionary persona. It’s been like this since release. (20/20/0/0/30)
Helseth and Supcutie are using the exact same build that Xee, Xeph and Nero Vitus were using 2 kittening years ago!! (The only change of the build that has happened in 2 years is now lyssa runes are used with mass invis instead of timewarp or moaftfg.)

When you understand that we are competing with thieves as roamers in teams, who have better damage, mobility and survivability then you realize just how important portal (+blink) and boon removal is. They are the only reason we did have a place in the meta, so when considering buffs you have to build around these things.

The last 2 major patches have been a waste of time, and none of the changes have been used in pvp and we are still back at square 1, and looking at these patch notes it looks like Aanet have given up, or are delusional enough to think their changes had any effect. (hint- not a single top spvp mesmer uses mantras or has any points in the inspiration tree.)

As Helseth has said many times on his stream it is obvious that none of the devs play mesmer as a main and/or thoroughly understand the classes mechanics. So Aanet can you PLEASE start talking to top mesmers, this happens in LoL, SC2, WoW, and every other pvp game i can think of. If you were in contact with good mesmers you would have known that buffing matras was not the way to give us condition removal in the current meta, you would have known that the DE change would cripple shatter mesmers, you would have known that we have 0 flexibility when it comes to traits and utilitys, etc etc.

PS. I think mesmers will never be fully balanced if portal stays the way it is. It is impossible to balance a class when it has a regular utility that is stronger than nearly every other classes elite utility. If portal was made a elite, every mesmer would still take it in tpvp. I think that’s a huge balance problem because mesmers underlying problems are overshadowed by portal and it has been this way for a LONG time.

+1

WvW: veil/portal/timewarp bot and that’s about
HotJoin/SoloQ: plenty of builds viable, but the whole thing is rather noobish anyways so you get a lot more leeway to run sub-optimal builds
SoloRoam: it’s all about the PU or GTFO
high-end tPvP: 20/20/0/0/30 or nothing

We have various builds that are viable to some degrees, but for most game-modes we’re very much shoe-horned into a single build, although that build differs by game-mode. And in all those game-modes, except our utilities, we bring very little to the table and other classes do our role better.

dimyzuka.7051:

(hint- not a single top spvp mesmer uses mantras or has any points in the inspiration tree.)

This…sometimes I really wonder if Anet is trolling Mesmer. Their choice over last year were so game breaking or at best so useless:
Glamour nerf => glamour mesmer got unviable in Zerg
Blured fenzy nerf => mesmers got unviable in Zerg fights (remain the utiliy of veil and TW)
Root stacking => death sentence (even with blink / phase retreat)
Condition buff + S/D thief => mesmer got unviable in tournament
Mantra buff…OMG ..did you try that ?…this is such a pain.
Now mesmers are anihiliated by thieves (state of the game at high level) and Anet is planning to remove vigor and lower zerk damage => WTF is wrong here ?

I started leaving mesmer profession two months ago and am more and more confident that it was the right choice. I just do not play it anymore.

But I feel very frustrated that developpers let such mistakes last so long.

Been running 20/20/0/0/30 mesmer with staff since forever. This is both zerker build and cond damage build, you just switch gear and some traits. Utilities are always blink, clone then it’s portal or one of the cond removals. Everything else is inferior. They are nerfing duelling trait line into kitten trying to force people out of it.

The Dhuumfire change concerns me, personally. To be clear, I don’t use Dhuumfire on my necro. If I’m running a condition damage build, I go at max 20 into Spite (personal preference).

The good about the change to Dhuumfire:

• The necro can control when it goes off
• Opponents can predict and avoid the burning

The bad about the change:

• Firing off a Life Blast for a 3 second burn once every 10 seconds is very high risk for little reward. The damage the necro could have done instead is usually higher.
• It is a trait for condition damage builds, yet those builds have difficulty building the necessary life force.
• It encourages “flashing” of death shroud even more, denying the condition necros their defense when they actually need it.

Here is what I would suggest:

• tie Dhuumfire to Life Blast, as the plan already is
• Lower the Burning duration to 2 seconds base
• Remove the cooldown

What this accomplishes:

• Condition necros taking the trait no longer feel like time spent in death shroud is a total waste
• It opens up a potential new set of builds involving condition damage focus with high life force generation. Also provides synergy with Unyielding Blast and Reaper’s Might.
• It provides a stronger option for hybrid builds, which are currently very weak.
• Life Blasting to build up burn duration means other conditions are not being applied and will wear off. Thus, there is a choice between long burns and other conditions, such as poison.
• Still leaves the option to fire off a life blast for a bit of burst in a condition damage build, but the burst is slightly weaker.

I feel a lot of the balances changes are trying to brute force players into playing another build. Rather than making other builds viable, they make builds that work unviable.