Guild Wars 2

It will make balancing in this game in the future alot easier for you Anet.
Yes, it will mean some bigger effort now to make changes to all skills, all utilities, all equipment effects of upgrades and all traits.
But a split of of the overall Game Balance into 3 seperate segments will allow you to create also three groups of specialists for each game modes different balancing that could be responsible for just only their specific area which they have been assigned for to do the job for that area only to guarantee, that each own gameplay mode will be as much fun for the players, as possible.
All players of the three different play modes have completly different goals, different understandings of what is “balanced” and “fun” for them based on gameplay mode biases as also it would definetely finally stop negative unwanted balance patch chain reactions, that destroy things in this game for one particular group very oftenly, without that this was anyhow manted in most cases.
It happens alot that players will also ragequit (PvE as like WvWers) permanently due to feeling that their most loved aspects of the game got “death nerfed”, because of some Pvp related changes in the game in most cases.

Its finally time, that you show us Anet, that removing like 9/10 of the skill amount and bindign half of what is left to weapons was a very good decision, because of it making it alot easier for you to balance the game quicker and more effectively in all of the game’s different modes to go also for more significant fundamental changes if needed to improve the gameplay of classes and to make them also more fun and convenient to play too in general.
If you don’t recognize by now, that your community is heavily displeased by these gameplay mode overgeneralized skill and trait changes, which always affect somehow also negatively other areas of the game, then I must say that you must be very blindfolded ANet of the reality and deceive just yourself every day by thinking of knowing, what we want, when you clearly don’t.

Trait and Skill changes which destroy things in other gamplay areas, which weren’t intended are clearly such things, which the community absolutely doesn’t want.
We want class balance changes, which change just only things for one specific area of the game when it#s needed there (and there only!), without having to fear about it, that change X or change Y will also somehow negatively affect me outside of PvP in PvE or WvW due to all the balancing changes always having only PvP in mind.
Thats not good balancing, thats lazy balancing.
If you ever want to reach a game, where in all of its areas it is fun to play in without getting negatively affected somehow from balance changes that were intended only for one specific game mode – then you have to balance all skills, all traits and things that are part of class balancing like also runes ect. independently for all three game modes each, even if this means more effort by splitting up also your balance teams into three independent groups.

GW1 was perfectly fine with PvE only skills and different skill effects between PvE and PvP. This should be done here again too, it would solve so many things for this game.
In this particular order

Strongest Skill/Trait/Rune ect. Version = PvE, because here counts only FUN, EPICNESS and UNIQUENESS. Balance is here so far only needed that fights against the environment are fair and not super frustrating due to being way too overchallenging.
On the other hand you need to look here also only, that you don’t overexaggerate it with powerful skills to make the game too easy – thats the only “balance”, thats needed here.

Weaker Skill/Trait/Rune Versions with alot lesser visual Effects =PvP, because here is the only mode in which absolute CLASS BALANCE, GAME PERFORMANCE and COMPETITIVENESS count, as like also FUN naturally thrrough havign enough different competitive modes to play, other then just like now only one and the same stuff for 2 years

Weakest Skill/Trait/Rune Versions with minimalized visual Effects = WvW, because here you have to consider tons of BUFF EFFECTS, here is GAME PERFORMANCE the most important, because it helps you nothing, if you just get DC’ed in the midst of a battle of zergs, because of the effects making it impossible for you to play the game. Alle the sheer amount of players also effectively compensates alot of it, that WvW should have the weakest skill/trait/rune versions ect. os that fights also last a bit longer and you can’t get anymore easily overwhelmed and take keeps ect. like a swarm of locusts in a matter of a few minutes.

A simple example for how I think this should work for the Staff-Fire Skills of an Elementalists for each of the three independent Game Modes of PvE, PvP and WvW

Lets start with the current effects, which would count as “PvP-Version”, because the current effects are 100% balanced around just PvP in backmind, like always so far…

1) Fireball
314 Damage for 1 Sec of CT hitting 3 Targets at a range of 1200
2) Lava Font
Damages 4x at 1184 Damage maximum 5 targets in a duration of 4s at a range of 1200
3) Flame Burst
Deal 37 Damage to 5 targets and set them on Burning for 5s with a CD of 10 at a range of 1200
4) Burning Retreat
Damages foes for 37 Damage per hit of a line and let them burn for 1s over a duration of 6s if they touch the flame line, while evading backwards for 1s
5) Meteor Shower
Damages 24x up to 3 targets for 481 damage within 7s duration at a range of 1200 with a radius of 360 with each meteor self having a radius of 120
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Now how I’d like to see these 5 Skills how they should work for the WvW Balancing:

1) Fireball
250 Damage for 1,5 Sec of CT hitting 3 Targets at a range of 1000
2) Lava Font
Damages 3x at 900 Damage maximum 3 targets in a duration of 3s at a range of 900
3) Flame Burst
Deal 90 Damage to 3 targets and set them on Burning for 5s with a CD of 12 at a range of 1200
4) Burning Retreat
Damages foes for 50 Damage per hit of a line and let them burn for 1s over a duration of 4s if they touch the flame line, while evading backwards for 1s
5) Meteor Shower
Damages 16x up to 3 targets for 400 damage within 8s duration at a range of 1000 with a radius of 240 with each meteor self having a radius of 90

Now , how the PvE Versions should work idependently from all the rest of the game of these Skills just as an example to make things easier to understand based on Fireball alone to keep it simple

In PvE should have Skills “Skill Progression”.
Each Skill should have there 4 Tiers
You start with Novice, then you improve your skills to Expert Level, after than Master Level and the final tier of Grandmaster Level.

Example for Fireball:

Novice = Fireball PvP Version
Expert = Fireball becomes Flame Orb, Animation changes, deals 20% more damage, hits 1 target more. Has increased velocity of 10%
Master = Flame Orb becomes Dragon’s Napalm, Animation changes, hits on a much larger radius now, causes now a second of burning and has increased range now.
Grandmaster = Dragon’s Napalm becomes Hellfire
Deals again increased damage, burns last now 2 seconds, has again increased velocity by another 15%

This way you get the feeling of character progression with your skills, that your character grows strogner over tiem so more experience he collects by using his skills, or getting teached stronger forms of his skills ect.

This should be done this way for all skills in PvE, because everything Anet has to do with this in mind is to rebalance the scaling system to be stronger

With the other Skills that are no Auto Attacks, like Healing, Utility and Elite Skilsl also the same, just with the difference, that here could be taken also into consideration to use more reduces for Cooldown Times over just efficieny increases because alot of players have complained about it (and still do), that many skills in GW2 have way too long Cool Down Times for PvE.
While they are mostly for PvP naturally ok, it is not for PvE to have like 2+ minutes on CD on some elite skills or like 90s on a utility.
In PvP of course its ok to give players in the fast paced combats more time to think and react on what your enemy does or can’t do for a while after using Skill X.