Guild Wars 2

This is a supplement thread to my ongoing series of individual profession-based balance threads. This thread in particular is aimed at addressing various gear and/or mechanic-related imbalances independent from any specific profession.

Functionality change to stealth for all professions

• If a player attacks while in stealth, but “misses” an attack due to being out of range, blinded, blocked, evaded, obstructed, or if they struck an invulnerable target, that player gains the revealed debuff for 4 seconds.

Functionality change to immobilize

• Immobilized no longer stacks in duration; if an immobilized player is immobilized again, the latter instance of immobilize will simply overwrite the former.

Functionality change to the Elite Skill slot

• Players can now slot utility skills into the elite skill slot. A player may not slot more than 3 of a single kind of utility skill sub-type at a time (no 4 Weapon Kits at a time, no 4 Shouts at a time, no 4 Traps at a time, etc.); healing skills and elite skills are exempt from this tally.

Runes
[Superior rune of the Nightmare] (6/6)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• You inflict torment when you disable a foe.
• Torment (2): 5 seconds
• Cool-down: 20 seconds

[Superior Rune of Lyssa] (6/6)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• When you use an elite skill, you convert up to 5 conditions on you into boons.
• Cool-down: 60 seconds
  • This skill uses the Necromancer [Well of Power] condition-to-boon conversion table.

[Superior Rune of the Air] (6/6)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• When you gain swiftness, you cure yourself of crippled, chilled and immobilized.
• Cool-down: 45 seconds
  • This proc only goes into cool-down if it removes crippled, chilled or immobilized.

[Major Rune of the Baelfire] (4/4)

• Vigor duration reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Chance to proc increased from 3% to 5%.

[Superior Rune of the Baelfire] (4/6)

• Vigor duration reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Chance to proc increased from 5% to 30%.

[Superior Rune of the Baelfire] (6/6)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Whenever you strike a foe that is suffering from burning, you gain might and vigor.
• Might (3): 15 seconds
• Vigor: 5 seconds
• Cool-down: 30 seconds

Sigils
Sigil of Air

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Increase your speed when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
• Minor swiftness: 2 seconds
• Major super speed: ½ second
• Superior super speed: 1 second
• Cool-down: 9 seconds

Minor Sigil of Fire

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Create a fire blast at your location when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
• Damage: 65 (0.3)
• Damage radius: 180
• Cool-down: 14 seconds

Major of Sigil of Fire

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Create a fire blast at your location when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
• Damage: 101 (0.3)
• Damage radius: 180
• Cool-down: 14 seconds

Superior Sigil of Fire

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Create a fire blast at your location when you swap to this weapon while in combat.
• Damage: 101 (0.3)
• Damage radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Cool-down: 14 seconds

Sigil of Leeching

• Major leech heal reduced from (current?) to 370 (0.1).
• Major leech damage reduced from (current?) to 250 (0.0).
• Superior leech heal reduced from 975 (0.0) to 740 (0.1).
• Superior leech damage reduced from 974 (0.0) to 500 (0.0).
  • The leech damage still ignores armor and stats.

Sigil of Battle

• Cool-down increased from 9 seconds to 19 seconds.

Sigil of Intelligence

• Now grants 1½ seconds of fury on weapon swap.

Reserved for future posts.

i dont think “obstructed” or “out of range” warrant revealed. i think the rest can have valid justifications, tho i think id prefer not attaching it to evade (but thats kind of arbitrary). obstructed and out of range mean the attack didnt connect, where the rest mean the attack did connect and was mitigated in some way.

insanemaniac.2456:

i dont think “obstructed” or “out of range” warrant revealed. i think the rest can have valid justifications, tho i think id prefer not attaching it to evade (but thats kind of arbitrary). obstructed and out of range mean the attack didnt connect, where the rest mean the attack did connect and was mitigated in some way.

No player should be allowed to spam skills from stealth.

Line of Sight is a powerful and valid tool for mitigating damage in this game; the same goes for putting distance between one’s self and an attacking opponent. If Player A maneuvers out of the stealthed and attacking Player B’s range or puts an object between himself and Player B, and then Player B continues to attack from stealth, that should be Player A’s victory.

I do have to agree that immobilize should never have been changed to stack. I feel though that just having the longer duration immobilize remain in effect rather than swapping it for the new one would be the better option.

With regards to stealth I agree that stealth skills shouldn’t be spammable. However plenty of attacks get either obstructed or line of sighted due to pathing issues rather than a legitimately misjudged attack. Limiting it to Miss, Evade, Block and Invulnerable should be punishing enough without adding in things that can be outside the player’s control.

Functionality change to stealth for all professions*

• If a player attacks while in stealth, but “misses” an attack due to being out of range, blinded, blocked, evaded, obstructed, or if they struck an invulnerable target, that player gains the revealed debuff for 4 seconds.

Tactic: open 100 threads to achieve that your request will be implemented. There is already a thread which concerns about revealed on blocks. not about “blinded, evaded, or obstructed” but read the following post.
@ blind: u don’t hit something – no revealed.
@ evade: u don’t hit something – no revealed.
@ obstructed: u don’t have the permission to hit – no revealed. other words: it’s nice to know that the enemy is obstructed but anet also can leave it away and doesn’t display the “obstructed” message.
@ invurnerable: u hit target – no revealed. Why?!? You are invulnerable – who cares about a thief/mesmer who tries to hit you?!? I will agree that invulnerable gives revealed if invulnerable gets an visual debuff for its duration.

… Some people are really getting tired writing and repeat their response hundred times.
look at Okaishi’s post – it displays the whole issue in easy and simple sentences:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/ALL-Revealed-on-Blocks-PvP-WvW/first#post3585961

Tetsuyja.7805:

@ blind: u don’t hit something – no revealed.
@ evade: u don’t hit something – no revealed.
@ obstructed: u don’t have the permission to hit – no revealed. other words: it’s nice to know that the enemy is obstructed but anet also can leave it away and doesn’t display the “obstructed” message.
@ invurnerable: u hit target – no revealed. Why?!? You are invulnerable – who cares about a thief/mesmer who tries to hit you?!? I will agree that invulnerable gives revealed if invulnerable gets an visual debuff for its duration.

Why should stealth-openers get a reprieve that the average skill in GW2 does not have? Cool-downs are there to reward opponent’s for good counter-play; and clutch counter-play is the name of the game in GW2 because we have no dedicated healer/damage-mitigation class. Stealth should be treated on the same level as any other skill in the game. It only makes sense.

Just because people keep repeating that they want everything under the sun to reveal thieves doesn’t mean it is a good idea.

Your proposed change would destroy d/x thieves. Almost ALL of our damage is in our stealth skill.

To do this change you would need to:
1) Move a lot of the damage from the stealth attack to our #1 attack chain.
2) Change the hidden killer trait. Everyone already uses one of the things you mentioned when they see a thief go into stealth. With your change this trait would be next to useless, and would only work on afk players. Thus it would need to give + crit chance while revealed in addition, or something along those lines so that it would be worth taking.
3) You would need to give thieves more survivability abilities. In other words blocks invuln etc. to compensate for more time revealed and less time benefiting for our survivability traits which are almost all clumped into the stealth trait line.
4) No your change to the base hp of the profession as I saw in your thief post would not adequately do this. I have both a zerker and a Valkyrie gear set, the increased health only has a very slight impact. When other professions get focus fired, they can do something to prevent all damage. All a thief can do is go stealth (and is still hit by many abilities such as channeled skills or aoe).

Hey swagg.
Agree to all but the sigil of battle nerf. Its not that op.
Wont the upcoming sigil update include sigils of the same type on different sets to share a cd? Thinking they will.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Hey swagg.
Agree to all but the sigil of battle nerf. Its not that op.
Wont the upcoming sigil update include sigils of the same type on different sets to share a cd? Thinking they will.

Yes, but even so, getting 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds (base without boon duration) every 9 seconds is, ehhhh, it’s just something very worrisome given that we’ll be getting double sigils on two-handed weapons (not a great idea to be honest). Since a lot of weapons are going to get double sigils now, it’s not hard to imagine a vast number of players just running about with 6 extra stacks of might in mid-combat. This kind of power creep is extremely dangerous in a game that’s already heavily over-tuned when it comes to poorly cued spike damage.

While I’m doing my best to address the issues of balanced damage across every profession, it’d still be dangerous to underestimate the potential popularity of sigil of battle in the double-sigil for two-handed weapons update and what a free, passive +210 power/condition damage for a lot more players would do to combat in general.

The nerf to Sigil of Battle is to avoid excessive power creep.

Thighum.7295:

Just because people keep repeating that they want everything under the sun to reveal thieves doesn’t mean it is a good idea.

Your proposed change would destroy d/x thieves. Almost ALL of our damage is in our stealth skill.

Yes, and it’s a poor design that encourages front-loading extreme damage into a poorly cued, very fast attack that provides for little counter-play on the part of the opponent. I’ve already made a thread that works to shift Thief damage across its current skills and even additional skills paired with the addition of CC and utility by means of new skills and skill functionality changes.

The entire class needs a rework to make it more viable as a constant, balanced contributor to combat instead of someone that just pops into a fight instantly to deal absurd damage before either earning a free kill or dying like a dog.

You had your chance to stop a thief from stealthing in the first place. Every way a thief stealths other than blinding powder can be countered. The thief risks a lot of ini or a utility cd to attempt to stealth. Allowing a player to prevent and then easily avoid the stealthed attack after as well just rewards their previous bad gameplay. That’s why this won’t happen despite everyone asking for it.

You can already continue channeled attack and watch for bouncing attacks if there is another target to tell you where the thief is while stealthed.

I guess all of this together isn’t enough for some people though : /

Mesmer stealth mechanics are another story though… phantasms are considered attacks (that’s why they need LOS and don’t occur on blind)… one of those attacks hitting and not causing revealed is kinda funky and goes against other stealth rules. Not saying it’s OP bla bla bla, just that it’s a different beast.

Aberrant.6749:

You had your chance to stop a thief from stealthing in the first place. Every way a thief stealths other than blinding powder can be countered. The thief risks a lot of ini or a utility cd to attempt to stealth. Allowing a player to prevent and then easily avoid the stealthed attack after as well just rewards their previous bad gameplay. That’s why this won’t happen despite everyone asking for it.

You can already continue channeled attack and watch for bouncing attacks if there is another target to tell you where the thief is while stealthed.

I guess all of this together isn’t enough for some people though : /

Mesmer stealth mechanics are another story though… phantasms are considered attacks (that’s why they need LOS and don’t occur on blind)… one of those attacks hitting and not causing revealed is kinda funky and goes against other stealth rules. Not saying it’s OP bla bla bla, just that it’s a different beast.

I might as well ask the question again:

Why should stealth-openers get a reprieve that the average skill in GW2 does not have? Cool-downs are there to reward opponents for good counter-play; and clutch counter-play is the name of the game in GW2 because we have no dedicated healer/damage-mitigation class. Stealth should be treated on the same level as any other skill in the game. It only makes sense.

Moreover, the changes that I’m pushing for the Thief class should provide it with additional utility and survivability that would allow the class as a whole to break its desperate dependence on stealth-based damage as its primary means of winning an encounter.

When the average skill misses, it doesn’t have the net effect of removing the ability to use several other skills. That’s what a missed c&d or a countered bp->hs does. If you counter those heavy ini cost skills (with good counter play) you cripple a thief more than if you countered a skill on any other class. With that higher risk you get some reward.

Say you get the c&d or bp->hs off… with a dagger MH you still need to position yourself and be close to the target after within a limited amount of time. That gives the player another opportunity to counter it with their own positioning or punish the thief for getting in close (eng bombs/necro marks/etc.). Adding in yet another way (actually many other ways)… that’s just rewarding bad gameplay.

There are also bad things that happen when you stealth… like you can’t contest a node during that period.

If you look at higher ranked pvp thieves they use far more evades instead of stealth because of things like this.

I’m not against lowering the need to stealth on thief, but this isn’t the right way to go about it imo.

Swagg.9236:

Why should stealth-openers get a reprieve that the average skill in GW2 does not have? Cool-downs are there to reward opponents for good counter-play; and clutch counter-play is the name of the game in GW2 because we have no dedicated healer/damage-mitigation class. Stealth should be treated on the same level as any other skill in the game. It only makes sense.

It makes no sense to me. Stealth openers are way harder to pull off than other skills in the game. The hardest part is to gain stealth at first glance. At least for D/D thieves its not that easy. CnD costs 50% ini. If you miss CnD the ini is lost. Against decent opponents is very hard to actually land CnD. This is a huge drawback.

If you managed to land CnD you have to position yourself. Most D/D thieves run 10/30/30 build with mug, so they have at most 25% run speed, which is 8% less than swiftness. So its not that easy against decent opponents to position yourself to land backstab.

Thats 2 drawbacks. Now you want to add a third drawback by adding revealed when the stealth opener fails. Thats rediculous. Professions with access to aegis and blind would be immun to stealth openers.

This change would definitely kill any D/D build in pvp/wvw.

Elite skill slot functionality change update.

These are terrible changes really swiftness on weapon swap for sigil of air? What game mode do you play because that is terrible change since the impact of swiftness in a fight is small since this only activates in combat like all swap sigils as any Ele how awesome one with air is and 1.5 seconds of super speed.

Meh don’t like any of these at all.

oZii.2864:

These are terrible changes really swiftness on weapon swap for sigil of air?

Sigil of Fire and Sigil of Air are among the best, most concise examples of this game’s short-comings. Instant-activation, passive, potentially ranged, RNG procs that deal damage remove the ability for counter-play on the part of the opponent. Without counter-play, it removes the ability for the opponent to properly dodge, reposition or even block because the effect occurs instantly and without any cue.

oZii.2864:

hat game mode do you play because that is terrible change since the impact of swiftness in a fight is small since this only activates in combat like all swap sigils as any Ele how awesome one with air is and 1.5 seconds of super speed.

Any amount of super speed in combat is significant because it can extend the distance covered by a gap-closer or turn your own running into a gap-closer by itself. It would be very strong for melee characters as a means of catching up to a fleeing target or it could be strong for back-line players that might need to quickly reposition or run away from an opponent.

You really want to make this game move at a snails pace.
Sorry if you can’t keep up… But you’d turn this game from high speed chess into chutes and ladders.

I hope they overlook your suggestions. Sorry my posts are a trend, but so too are yours.

Mbelch.9028:

You really want to make this game move at a snails pace.
Sorry if you can’t keep up… But you’d turn this game from high speed chess into chutes and ladders.

High speed chess implies that you can see your opponent make a move, and I don’t even get the chutes and ladders metaphor.

Mbelch.9028:

I hope they overlook your suggestions. Sorry my posts are a trend, but so too are yours.

I suppose we each fight for something.

Swagg.9236:

Mbelch.9028:

You really want to make this game move at a snails pace.
Sorry if you can’t keep up… But you’d turn this game from high speed chess into chutes and ladders.

High speed chess implies that you can see your opponent make a move, and I don’t even get the chutes and ladders metaphor.

Mbelch.9028:

I hope they overlook your suggestions. Sorry my posts are a trend, but so too are yours.

I suppose we each fight for something.

I’d say “exactly” but I know you’re not dumb. Chutes and ladders is a game for children. Simple to understand, easy to execute, easy to learn.

Look, if there’s no measure of unpredictability, nobody will play this game. If the best people can avoid all damage, this game will eventually devolve into crap.

I’ll edit this to say..: Also expect the unexpected. In high speed chess, its easy to miss a move, overlook a strategy or misstep. It is the same way in GW. You can see your opponent making moves.

If a thief goes into stealth, assume based on how he did it what he’ll do. If an ele with a scepter swaps from fire to earth, assume next will be water or air. Prepare accordingly.

There’s nothing wrong with the speed of the game.

Swagg.9236:

Yes, but even so, getting 3 stacks of might for 20 seconds (base without boon duration) every 9 seconds is, ehhhh, it’s just something very worrisome given that we’ll be getting double sigils on two-handed weapons (not a great idea to be honest). Since a lot of weapons are going to get double sigils now, it’s not hard to imagine a vast number of players just running about with 6 extra stacks of might in mid-combat. This kind of power creep is extremely dangerous in a game that’s already heavily over-tuned when it comes to poorly cued spike damage.

While I’m doing my best to address the issues of balanced damage across every profession, it’d still be dangerous to underestimate the potential popularity of sigil of battle in the double-sigil for two-handed weapons update and what a free, passive +210 power/condition damage for a lot more players would do to combat in general.

The nerf to Sigil of Battle is to avoid excessive power creep.

You clearly didn’t understood the balance preview about sigils

Karl McLain.5604:

Sigils:

• All sigils now have independent cooldowns, meaning you can use two on-swap sigils, or an on-swap and an on-crit sigil at the same time. You will not, however, be able to use two sigils of the same name at the same time. On-kill sigils that provide attributes, such as Sigil of Corruption, will not be able to be used simultaneously with other attribute modifying on-kill sigils.
• Two-handed weapons can now be slotted with two sigils.
• Sigils will receive a general balance pass to bring them more in line with each other.

So nobody will achieve better result with this sigil then what they already achieve.

Also, all of your suggestion for balance hurt a lot because you always seemed to see only the shiny face of each class and never see their weakpoint. At the moment, all classes have their strong and their weak point and feel almost balanced. Your suggestions hurt damages (power and condition) and defense.

Some time it’s a tactical move to use skill to gain time. Why are you killing these skills?

Adding delay on most of the skill hurt directly the pleasure most of the player have from playing a dynamic game. What do you want to achieve by adding all this looooooooong and uninteresting delay on skills?

By nerfing base damages you kill most of the non-zerker build or full condi build and by the same you kill diversity because to achieve what they do now, people that still use build out of the meta will have to work even harder. To destroy the dps meta you have to reduce the margin between min and max dps. You are enhancing it. Why?

You add ton more “conditions”/hex to the game. While it may be interesting I think it will only create a lot of confusion to players. Nothing good in the end. Our condition bar is already really crowded will we have enough space in our UI to see all your hexes?

Dadnir.5038:

You clearly didn’t understood the balance preview about sigils.

I’m talking about people running two-handed weapons with Sigils of Battle on each weapon now because of the extra slot. Even if it’s just one weapon, all this update is doing is pumping more passive might and damage procs into the game, thus speeding up combat even further and making actions even harder to discern.

Swagg, if we implemented all your desired changes across all changes, it’d be little different from playing a dynamic version of Final Fantasy 13… Meaning fast paced turn based combat.

Your idea of “legible combat” is well, questionable. It strongly favors casual play, but completely oblitterrates the chance of ever being able to execute high level play in any form or shape.

Removing skill from a skillbased game, and making everything telegraphed to the point of watching a movie and casually pressing shift is not the solution.

Prysin.8542:

Swagg, if we implemented all your desired changes across all changes, it’d be little different from playing a dynamic version of Final Fantasy 13… Meaning fast paced turn based combat.

Your idea of “legible combat” is well, questionable. It strongly favors casual play, but completely oblitterrates the chance of ever being able to execute high level play in any form or shape.

Removing skill from a skillbased game, and making everything telegraphed to the point of watching a movie and casually pressing shift is not the solution.

Taking advantage of instant-activation, passive, RNG, ranged procs is not skill.

Mbelch.9028:

Chutes and ladders is a game for children. Simple to understand, easy to execute, easy to learn.

I understand what Chutes and Ladders is. I’m saying that using it as a metaphor for my balance design doesn’t make sense because my balance design is focused around the preservation of offensive damage legibility and focusing damage into clutch, well-cued attacks. Chutes and Ladders is a game based entirely on the roll of a die. Dodging an opponent’s attack is not something for which you roll a die in GW2—or it shouldn’t be; it actually kind of is at the moment in many cases. That’s the problem that I’m working to correct.

Swagg.9236:

Mbelch.9028:

Chutes and ladders is a game for children. Simple to understand, easy to execute, easy to learn.

I understand what Chutes and Ladders is. I’m saying that using it as a metaphor for my balance design doesn’t make sense because my balance design is focused around the preservation of offensive damage legibility and focusing damage into clutch, well-cued attacks. Chutes and Ladders is a game based entirely on the roll of a die. Dodging an opponent’s attack is not something for which you roll a die in GW2—or it shouldn’t be; it actually kind of is at the moment in many cases. That’s the problem that I’m working to correct.

I don’t know how well-cued you want damage to be, but your Thief overhaul forces them into a 10 initiative, 6 second long combo to deal any kind of damage at all.

If you want nothing to happen at all, you’re well on your way to success.

Sarrs.4831:

Swagg.9236:

Mbelch.9028:

Chutes and ladders is a game for children. Simple to understand, easy to execute, easy to learn.

I understand what Chutes and Ladders is. I’m saying that using it as a metaphor for my balance design doesn’t make sense because my balance design is focused around the preservation of offensive damage legibility and focusing damage into clutch, well-cued attacks. Chutes and Ladders is a game based entirely on the roll of a die. Dodging an opponent’s attack is not something for which you roll a die in GW2—or it shouldn’t be; it actually kind of is at the moment in many cases. That’s the problem that I’m working to correct.

I don’t know how well-cued you want damage to be, but your Thief overhaul forces them into a 10 initiative, 6 second long combo to deal any kind of damage at all.

If you want nothing to happen at all, you’re well on your way to success.

I’ll take a look at the Thief again tomorrow. I was thinking that a few of the combo skill chains were really set too high with initiative cost.

Swagg.9236:

Mbelch.9028:

Chutes and ladders is a game for children. Simple to understand, easy to execute, easy to learn.

I understand what Chutes and Ladders is. I’m saying that using it as a metaphor for my balance design doesn’t make sense because my balance design is focused around the preservation of offensive damage legibility and focusing damage into clutch, well-cued attacks. Chutes and Ladders is a game based entirely on the roll of a die. Dodging an opponent’s attack is not something for which you roll a die in GW2—or it shouldn’t be; it actually kind of is at the moment in many cases. That’s the problem that I’m working to correct.

You’re taking it a step too far. I can be so literal if you choose as well.

Your “balance” wishes slow the game down, eliminate all surprise. How is that fun? It caters to the casual crowd, which I am betting you aren’t, as you have time to write these superfluous posts.

Dodging shouldn’t and can’t be the panacea of the game. It should be a mechanic which when used intelligently improves survival.

RNG isn’t necessarily bad and in some cases you can build and keep certain expectations even with RNG.

Take a on crit trait like dhuumfire, critical infusion, vigorous precision.

If I have 50% chance to Crit isn’t it safe to assume that I will proc these with in there icd cooldown? There is also counter play to that RNG a Mesmer that pulls out 3 Phantasms doesn’t get and crits to proc his vigor trait.

If my crit chance is reasonable I can rely on sigil of fire and sigil of air. Most of the player base wouldn’t want these changes I feel. The slower paced the combat, the less unpredictability that you introduce the more likely fights can be determined by a simple spreadsheet.

Mbelch.9028:

Swagg.9236:

Mbelch.9028:

Chutes and ladders is a game for children. Simple to understand, easy to execute, easy to learn.

I understand what Chutes and Ladders is. I’m saying that using it as a metaphor for my balance design doesn’t make sense because my balance design is focused around the preservation of offensive damage legibility and focusing damage into clutch, well-cued attacks. Chutes and Ladders is a game based entirely on the roll of a die. Dodging an opponent’s attack is not something for which you roll a die in GW2—or it shouldn’t be; it actually kind of is at the moment in many cases. That’s the problem that I’m working to correct.

You’re taking it a step too far. I can be so literal if you choose as well.

You can be as literal as you want, but if you can’t substantiate your analogies or metaphors, then they hold no ground.

Mbelch.9028:

Your “balance” wishes slow the game down, eliminate all surprise. How is that fun?

How is earning your damage fun? It gives the player a sense of accomplishment when actually killing a target instead of knowing that he/she relied on passive, instant procs to carry him/her.

Mbelch.9028:

It caters to the casual crowd,

The casual crowd is the crowd that relies on passive, instant procs to do the work for them.

Mbelch.9028:

Dodging shouldn’t and can’t be the panacea of the game. It should be a mechanic which when used intelligently improves survival.

Without a dedicated healer class, dodging and healing skills are in fact the global panacea for every profession in GW2. There are no other universally available means in the game by which a player can mitigate damage. Combat should be built to emphasize this. That’s what I’m doing.

oZii.2864:

RNG isn’t necessarily bad and in some cases you can build and keep certain expectations even with RNG.

That’s called loading the dice. In a game like GW2 it’s honestly best to load the dice because it gives both the player and the player’s opponent a sense of consistency when it comes to skill effects. Offensive RNG isn’t healthy because it undermines key factors that go into universal damage mitigation such as dodging.

oZii.2864:

Take a on crit trait like dhuumfire, critical infusion, vigorous precision.

There’s an enormous difference between a passive proc instantly triggering an offensive damage/condition-related effect compared to an inherently defensive or self-applied effect. Both can be imbalanced, sure, but self-applied passive procs don’t inherently undermine universal damage mitigation mechanics as offensive passive procs do.

oZii.2864:

If my crit chance is reasonable I can rely on sigil of fire and sigil of air.

The issue isn’t your crit chance here or even the RNG factor of Sigils of Fire and Air; it’s the issue that those two sigils inflict substantial, instant and possibly ranged damage without any cue. That’s the reason for the changes.

oZii.2864:

Most of the player base wouldn’t want these changes I feel. The slower paced the combat, the less unpredictability that you introduce the more likely fights can be determined by a simple spreadsheet.

Your spreadsheet plan implies that your opponents will sit still and allow you to hit them despite having access to active dodge and possibly other repositioning/block/evade skills. Spreadsheets worked in GW1 and most other traditional MMOs; but the stakes are a little different in GW2. By shifting away from passive procs and auto-targeted damage, GW2 can become a more action-oriented MMO in which victors are determined by aim, timing, positioning and damage mitigation management.

Swagg.9236:

Dadnir.5038:

You clearly didn’t understood the balance preview about sigils.

I’m talking about people running two-handed weapons with Sigils of Battle on each weapon now because of the extra slot. Even if it’s just one weapon, all this update is doing is pumping more passive might and damage procs into the game, thus speeding up combat even further and making actions even harder to discern.

Seem like you didn’t answer any of my questions.

So then, let’s talk about Power damages. They are done by a combination of base damage, level of precision (chance of crit), percentage of crit damage and tons of additionnal passive damage multipliers. Why don’t you touch these traits granting passive damage multipliers? Why don’t you add a flat cap to how much damage multiplier you can have?
It’s because players build with tons of damage multipliers that they can instagib other player. Why don’t you try to resolve this issue before touching base damage?

Rigt now I’m more worried to see greatswords warrior or staff elementalist running both sigil of the night and sigil of force then more sigils of battle. Stack of might are already super easy to gain, passive damage bonus are way more valuable on weapons.

Reveal on Blind/Block? Not with the current state of those. Aegis lasts upwards of 20 seconds, blinds last 5sec+. If you chance all blocks/blinds to having a maximum duration of say 2 seconds I could see this change beeing sensible.

Obstructed/out of range? Hell no. You can already outmaneuver backstabs by using mobility skills, there is no need to go even further with this.

Dodge? Well yes and no. Yes, since dodge frames last for about 1 sec, which is prefectly fine for “skilled counterplay”/“mindgames”. No, because this game is lacking polish in terms of attack range/pathfinding checks. If and only if these issues (pretty much dodges only/always beeing counted as successful dodges if you really dodged something) get resolved, this could be some way of adding more counterplay.

But then again, players complaining over missing counterplay to D/D thiefs already disqualify themselves. The counterplay is dodging the c&d and facing the high cooldown stealth skills (hide in shadows, shadow refuge, blinding powder) by using their own utilities/brain.
The ways D/P can get stealth could be looked at however, since there is no real conterplay to it.

Dadnir.5038:

Seem like you didn’t answer any of my questions.

So then, let’s talk about Power damages. They are done by a combination of base damage, level of precision (chance of crit), percentage of crit damage and tons of additionnal passive damage multipliers. Why don’t you touch these traits granting passive damage multipliers? Why don’t you add a flat cap to how much damage multiplier you can have?
It’s because players build with tons of damage multipliers that they can instagib other player. Why don’t you try to resolve this issue before touching base damage?

Rigt now I’m more worried to see greatswords warrior or staff elementalist running both sigil of the night and sigil of force then more sigils of battle. Stack of might are already super easy to gain, passive damage bonus are way more valuable on weapons.

Sigil of Force will never be efficient enough to warrant a balance-change in PvP. Sigil of the Night is PvE only. WvW is not actually PvP, so PvP-related balance changes should not be made with it specifically in mind.

Moreover, the effectiveness of stacking a Sigil of the Night with a Sigil of Force shows best results when a player gets in multiple hits during a small time-frame. To this effect, [Hundred Blades] and a simultaneous [Meteor Shower] + [Lava Font] would receive the greatest benefit from such sigil stacking; and those kinds of attacks are ones in which the target has to stand inside of an AoE for them to have any real effect.

In the end, I see no reason to worry about stacking +x% damage sigils from a pvp perspective.

Agony.3542:

Reveal on Blind/Block? Not with the current state of those. Aegis lasts upwards of 20 seconds, blinds last 5sec+. If you chance all blocks/blinds to having a maximum duration of say 2 seconds I could see this change beeing sensible.

Obstructed/out of range? Hell no. You can already outmaneuver backstabs by using mobility skills, there is no need to go even further with this.

Dodge? Well yes and no. Yes, since dodge frames last for about 1 sec, which is prefectly fine for “skilled counterplay”/“mindgames”. No, because this game is lacking polish in terms of attack range/pathfinding checks. If and only if these issues (pretty much dodges only/always beeing counted as successful dodges if you really dodged something) get resolved, this could be some way of adding more counterplay.

But then again, players complaining over missing counterplay to D/D thiefs already disqualify themselves. The counterplay is dodging the c&d and facing the high cooldown stealth skills (hide in shadows, shadow refuge, blinding powder) by using their own utilities/brain.
The ways D/P can get stealth could be looked at however, since there is no real conterplay to it.

To be quick about it, I’ll just say that you’re asking for a freebee. Thieves get a freebee with their stealth openers. No cool-down; no initiative cost; spam it until it hits. That’s not how skills need to work in GW2. Cool-downs reward opponents for proper counter-play. We shouldn’t have a class of powerful abilities that is immune to this balance for no real reason.

Stealth is perfect invisibility. Use it to sneak up on a target. If you’re a thief, you don’t even have to sneak: you have teleports.

Moreover, [Shadow Refuge] renders invalid every point that attempts to argue how a stealth opener is supposed to be a clutch action.

As for your point about D/D Thieves—what D/D thieves? Where are they? I don’t see any.

Swagg.9236:

To be quick about it, I’ll just say that you’re asking for a freebee. Thieves get a freebee with their stealth openers. No cool-down; no initiative cost; spam it until it hits. That’s not how skills need to work in GW2. Cool-downs reward opponents for proper counter-play. We shouldn’t have a class of powerful abilities that is immune to this balance for no real reason.

Stealth is perfect invisibility. Use it to sneak up on a target. If you’re a thief, you don’t even have to sneak: you have teleports.

Moreover, [Shadow Refuge] renders invalid every point that attempts to argue how a stealth opener is supposed to be a clutch action.

As for your point about D/D Thieves—what D/D thieves? Where are they? I don’t see any.

First off, thats the point of playing D/D, don’t be seen.

And to be even quicker about it: What you are asking for is making thief completely unviable.
No iniative cost/no cooldown on stealth openers? Well last time I checked every skill that stealths you either costs a lot of initiative or has a cd of about 40 seconds. Your argument is invalid.

I’m sorry, but I really have to address this.

Agony.3542:

First off, thats the point of playing D/D, don’t be seen.

You’re being facetious. There are very few D/D thieves in competitive PvP which makes talking about their impact on the meta difficult.

Agony.3542:

And to be even quicker about it: What you are asking for is making thief completely unviable.

A complete lie. If it isn’t a lie, then there’s something wrong with the Thief profession as a whole for needing to circumvent basic balance principles in order to deal damage with a certain attack.

Agony.3542:

No iniative cost/no cooldown on stealth openers? Well last time I checked every skill that stealths you either costs a lot of initiative or has a cd of about 40 seconds. Your argument is invalid.

Please. The skill’s themselves have no initiative cost or cool-down. Discussing any number of skills used before Skill A has no bearing on the actual of nature of Skill A.

I think these are great suggestions! Strategic skill use/preservation and less passive rotation spamming is more fun and engaging.

You seem to really hate passive damage procs. That’s okay, but I think you’re ignoring the fact that it is also a choice (or at least supposed to be).
There are so many interesting sigils to choose from depending on what you want to do, and the fact that Superior Fire Sigils are so popular only tells me that most people can’t be bothered to look at their build and think about how different sigils could affect it, when they typically swap weapons and what sort of effect they want when doing that etc. It also tells me people like to zerg…

And what makes a passive damage proc so much worse than a flat damage boost? Why no hate for Sup Sigils of Force? Don’t they do exactly the same thing, just in a different way?

calavel.6249:

..
And what makes a passive damage proc so much worse than a flat damage boost? Why no hate for Sup Sigils of Force? Don’t they do exactly the same thing, just in a different way?

A player can “dodge” a passive damage boost by avoiding an enemy player’s damage. Even though Sigil of Force is also a brainless passive, the user is still required to actually consistently hit an enemy in order to get the most out of it.

An opponent doesn’t get the opportunity for counter-play when playing against Sigils of Air or Fire, which is why those sigils are unfair/broken.

Moreover, Sigils of Air and Fire contribute VASTLY more DPS than Sigil of Force in a PvP environment. Even in a PvE environment, Sigils of Fire/Air are a good competitor or still remain better than Sigil of Force simply because Sigil of Force requires enormous base DPS and a very high number of consistent attacks behind it in order to edge over Sigils of Fire/Air. That’s why most players that use Sigils of Force to their maximum output are players like staff Elementalists that can effectively gain a second auto-attack with [Lava Font] and get even more attacks in when [Meteor Shower] is active; or Thieves that just spam [Pistol Whip].

Maybe this game just isn’t for you. Next you’ll want steady weapons only, and precision and soon to be ferocity removed from the game.

Bran.7425:

Maybe this game just isn’t for you. Next you’ll want steady weapons only, and precision and soon to be ferocity removed from the game.

I don’t want that at all. You seem to be upset about the idea of losing offensive, passive, RNG, instant-activation procs, though.

Not at all. I don’t play with those options so do not make assumption that are completely unfounded.

You on the other hand based on what you post, are not particularly well suited for the game that Anet has designed.