Guild Wars 2

What is attrition game-play?
In the current meta-game, power is at a disadvantage because it has to actually hit a target while conditions just sort of float about thanks to spammy AoE skills…

Conditions are king
Conditions are an unfair way of doing DPS compared to power-based builds since you don’t really have to keep hitting an opponent…

Thoughts on Condition Damage and Power
I don’t think that power or condition damage should hold dominance over the other as simply a damage source. Power based damage should be burst while condition based damage should be DoTs. While this is generally true in a mechanical sense of how power and conditions work within GW2, it should be fairly obvious that this is not working equally or equally well in all areas of the game. (Hence this thread existing)

Condition damage is based around maintaining a level of constant damage that exceeds an opponent’s ability to heal or recover for an extended period of time. Additionally in an a action taken to damage output ratio (I feel/think that) condition damage should have a significantly higher number than power damage. In comparison to PvE mobs, players have very little health and are in general much more comparable in max health to each other. This leads to PvP scenarios in which conditions gain dominance when fights become drawn out or enough conditions can be stacked that they can burst an opponent. (conditions caps may be a limiter on condition burst specs/teams?)

Power damage is something I typically view as burst because it is more demanding in the number of actions used to apply it. Overall is it much more team friendly in that there is no cap to the damage and if allowed to be applied continually it is and should be the highest damage in the game. (I think) This is mostly why power specs are heavily dominant within PvE. (There are lots of threads discussing it currently)

Other Discussion Points
Healing and recovery is a side of GW2 that has for the most part been left off intentionally despite still existing within the game. It would provide some of the better mitigation to light condition pressure and bring emphasis on spiking someone down. This is at risk of making heavy heal bunkers too strong if over done though.

Cleansing is an interesting topic that I haven’t seen discussed much. In their current state cleanses are mostly a wipe of a certain number of conditions. Depending on the ratio between cleanses and sources of conditions are in use there are two scenarios that stand on either side of fine line. The first is what we see mostly right now in that you cannot possibly cleanse off all the conditions that are being applied to yourself. The second scenario is obviously that you can easily cleanse all the conditions off of yourself. The specific balance point between these two scenarios is going to be very difficult to achieve.

I’m worried that with your stated goals for conditions that with regards to conditions you would steer towards the ability to easily cleanse all of the conditions on the occasion that you were not able to avoid them. There probably isn’t an easy solution to this but I would perhaps look towards a rework of how cleanses work and have more a more specific set of conditions that a skill cleanses. (there is some of this already in skills like warrior Charge or elementalist Windborne Speed)

TLDR
The differences between PvE/PvP metas demonstrate that the balance between condition damage and power damage are fairly dependent on the context that they are used in and should be a factor considered when trying to balance the two. In general try and keep on open mind to other factors that may be influencing how effective something is.

Food for thought perhaps. Thanks for the read.

dukevonart.2691:

Thoughts on Condition Damage and Power
I don’t think that power or condition damage should hold dominance over the other as simply a damage source. Power based damage should be burst while condition based damage should be DoTs.

That’s fine, so long as the skills that apply conditions obey the same sort of rules that govern the balance of powerful power-based skills. Skills like [Earthshaker] are mostly balanced because of their obvious attack animations. Condition-based skills should be under the same scrutiny. The problem with condition-based builds in the current GW2 meta is that there are entire weapon sets composed entirely of spam-centric, low-recharge throwaway skills that inflict conditions. These skills combine to form a unending beam attack of conditions that nobody can ever deal with like one could deal with a power-based build. Timed dodges, CC and blocks mean nothing to the condition build because of the nature of its skills. That’s what needs to change.

Conditions can stay, but the skills that inflict them need to be drastically reworked.

dukevonart.2691:

Condition damage is based around maintaining a level of constant damage that exceeds an opponent’s ability to heal or recover for an extended period of time.

I see this sentence and can’t help but think that that’s exactly how all damage functions. You do more damage than your opponent can heal back with your opponent’s healing governed either by cool-downs, a mana system or both. The only difference between power and condition damage is that condition damage can’t be dodged. Condition damage is almost effectively an aura around most players. The nature of condition skills gives conditions out for free to players just in the general vicinity of the condition player. Power players have to actually land their skills on specified targets or in specified areas.

Once again, this isn’t necessarily an issue with condition damage itself, but rather in the condition-inflicting skill design.

dukevonart.2691:

(conditions caps may be a limiter on condition burst specs/teams?)

In PvP? No. The problem with conditions is that one single player is often all you need per point so there’s never a shared-cap issue.

dukevonart.2691:

Power damage is something I typically view as burst

That is dangerous thought.

If all power were burst in this game, every power-based build would just be a s/p thief build or a scepter elementalist arcane build—both of which are imbalanced due to the reasons I’ve stated in my first post. Staff elementalist is a good example of what a power build should be: it’s mostly well telegraphed spike damage or strong, constant DPS with one powerful DPS skill that can change the course of an encounter (but it also requires a long time-investment to activate properly that puts the player at risk of dying if he/she is out of position or without defense).

Power should be well-telegraphed physical DoT generated by clearly defined AoEs or by well-telegraphed melee attacks. In the end, it’s all DoT, Conditions Damage just might tick more consistently than Power attacks. The goal is to simply make all weapon skills in this game into ones that provide the opponent a form of counterplay and provide a sense of risk to the player for using them.

Arganthium.5638:

jmatb.6307:

Don’t worry Swagg, this is good stuff. Smart, comprehensive suggestions go way over the average forum troll’s head

You’re one to talk, given the outcome of our last discussion. At least have the respect to contribute something rather than continue trying to flame me.

Uh wasn’t talking only about you, but whatever.

Not much to contribute as far as I can tell, rather than simply giving him a thumbs up for doing a great job addressing some of the more stupid elements of this game.

dukevonart.2691:

Other Discussion Points
Healing and recovery is a side of GW2 that has for the most part been left off intentionally despite still existing within the game. It would provide some of the better mitigation to light condition pressure and bring emphasis on spiking someone down. This is at risk of making heavy heal bunkers too strong if over done though.

Yeah, it really is a shame that healing has been really cut back in a lot of the wrong ways over the course of GW2’s life. I can still see the powerful potential of healing whenever I support a bunker on point with water field blasts, but it really isn’t a super effective healing style unless you have a low base hp pool. It’s often enough to negate 1 powerful attack. That much is sure. However, it’s often just breaking even when it deals with conditions. Furthermore, such combos also typically have a long cool-down.

dukevonart.2691:

Cleansing is an interesting topic that I haven’t seen discussed much. In their current state cleanses are mostly a wipe of a certain number of conditions. Depending on the ratio between cleanses and sources of conditions are in use there are two scenarios that stand on either side of fine line. The first is what we see mostly right now in that you cannot possibly cleanse off all the conditions that are being applied to yourself. The second scenario is obviously that you can easily cleanse all the conditions off of yourself. The specific balance point between these two scenarios is going to be very difficult to achieve.

The best way to a more balanced game would be to first adjust the way that condition skills function in the game (removing the spam and replacing it with hard-hitting, well-cued attacks skills) and then addressing how condition-clears work after the fact. While it is neat to see certain skills already clear certain conditions (most of these are mainly skills that remove slow conditions), I don’t think that this should be a common skill paradigm. When a skill clears a condition, it should just clear any available condition in the FIFO condition ranking system currently in operation in GW2.

dukevonart.2691:

TLDR
The differences between PvE/PvP metas demonstrate that the balance between condition damage and power damage are fairly dependent on the context that they are used in and should be a factor considered when trying to balance the two. In general try and keep on open mind to other factors that may be influencing how effective something is.

I’ve actually discussed this before. I’ll remain stout on the fact that the only way that PvE will ever be properly engaging and all around balanced with respect to how players deal damage is if high-level enemies present in dungeons simply behave more like players.

The high-end PvE scene needs enemies like Svanir, the Chieftain, the Keep Lord and his entourage, as well as the dueling profession NPCs present in the Heart of the Mists. If we see more of those types of threatening enemies (because seriously, try aggroing 3 or more of those dueling profession NPCs at once and fight them alone), we will see something more interesting in GW2 PvE other than stacking in a corner and killing enemies.

Also defiant would need to be reworked.

dukevonart.2691:

Food for thought perhaps. Thanks for the read.

I have to thank you. You’re honestly the first person in this thread who seemed to express some differences in view, make those differences known in a calm manner, and not instantly start shouting angrily about how I’m a terrible person and the like. It was very refreshing.

Good read; though I fear that the ongoing direction of GW2 is away from rather than toward your vision of play and counterplay, risk and reward.

One merely has to see the:

• implementation of Fresh Air and Diamond skin for Elementalist
• the senseless nerfs for Thief (without addressing their core issue of being time-starved, and reliant on only 2 out of 5 weapon skills of each set. FS and IS remain points of contention yet few other weapon skills are looked at)
• warrior’s supposed bane being conditions being utterly abrogated by the Healing Signet buff and Cleansing Ire achieving possibly the highest rate of condition cleanse in the game in a single trait
• Spirit rangers being nerfed; yet; their passive gameplay remains, and the pet mechanic is still overtuned; yet Rangers cannot do without a pet; nor get better, finer controls for it (still salty about the dev response that it may be “too hard” for players to have fine controls for pet behavior)
• Mesmer PU being possibly the most annoying build to fight against
• Guardians still being pigeonholed into Bunker
• Necromancer survivability being turned around into “see enemy, kill enemy before he kills you”

The way I see it, all of the above balancing and tuning has happened to prop up a failing paradigm of deviation from the original GW2 design of “Cast time and Cooldown are mana”. It’s entirely possible to be combat effective simply by mashing your weapon skills in sequence because so many skills are now quick or instant cast.

So many so-called “combos” are simply trying to land as many skills in as short a timeframe to Power Burst or Condi-Burst your opponent to death; with the burden of skill being placed on the defender rather than attacker

I feel that the current “meta” is unhealthy due to:

• Many builds implement passive procs that add complexity without adding depth to combat. Actively reacting to your opponent’s passive procs does not add any additional play or counterplay – it just happens due to RNG, or conditionals that your opponent can’t counterplay or read.

• The condition “meta” has never been about “attrition”. The successful condi builds have relied upon the “Condi burst” – overloading cleansing ability to “cover” DPS conditions. This is clearly a design failure because there is nothing “attrition” about blowing all your condi applications, then using condi applying autoattacks to “cover” your stacks of DOTs.

• Risk for the “apex predator” builds is seriously, seriously beneath than the reward of damage (to down your opponent) or survivability (to outlast your opponent). Hambow Warrior being a true Bruiser build that is far easier to be combat effective with than it is for the opponent to defend against it, Shortbow Ranger being able to put out high condition threat just with autoattacks, Nade Engineer being able to coat an entire area in conditions and secondary Power damage from 1500 range; the list goes on. A proper balance of offense vs defense is required for any “outplay” to develop.

• As a corollary to the previous point, GW2 is remarkably difficult to “read”, and outplay is often due not to player skill, but player build. I find shoutcasts of GW2 PVP to be nigh impossible to read – the only “plays” I can easily discern are objective based like Boss kill steals or point defenses or offenses. The rest of the time, bright flashy lights happen, health bars go down or up, and on occasion someone is stomped out. There are too many passive procs and internal cooldowns to track during a duel – it is far easier to concentrate on landing your own skills than it is to read your opponent and outplay him – any conceptual outplay is marginal because forcing an opponent to miss a skill is rarely lethal or easily punishable. Contrast this with FPS or more applicably Fighting games, where missing your window will often lead to your death.

I really like your series of posts as a result – your proposals re-introduce the concept of play and counterplay, risk and reward. I’d much rather play with a skillset closer in implementation to your vision than the current design paradigm of “press buttons, stuff happens…oh? Missed a skill? Oh, I can’t easily be punished” . Even if it means that pretty much everyone is being nerfed. Everyone.

• The take home message here is Fun to play, Fun to play AGAINST

I also can’t see how people like Arganthium.5628 can get so hung up on the set of proposals for Thief; or nicknamenick so hung up on Warrior, or Ele, or Ranger, or Mesmer, or whatever. Here’s an idea:

Don’t get hung up on the proposal and shout it down, brainstorm an alternative that follows the paradigm of play and counterplay, cast time and punishability . It’s easy to say “no”, it’s harder to say “no, here’s why, here’s my idea”. The entire thread’s purpose is to make every class fun to play, and fun to play AGAINST.
Simply reading into a proposal and thinking, “this guy wants to nerf my class” completely misses the point.

@Arganthium: Thief may be fun to play, but it is not fun to play AGAINST. I challenge you to say otherwise. Why else does Thief get the nerf stick practically every patch? Why did C&D nerfs, then Steal, then Flanking Strike/Larcenous Strike get nerfed? Because players are moaning about it. Not because Thief is OP – I’d argue that the current state of Thief is pretty awful – but because players troubles against Thieves spoke of a larger, unseen problem – Thieves are frustrating to play against. I’d agree with you that Swagg’s proposals would cripple Thief even further – but at least then Thieves would be fun to play against.

• I’d like to see your vision of an overhaul of the Thief; if only to get you past your negativity so far.
• Who cares about animation lengths, or counting invulnerability frames, or timing casts and aftercasts? I like that you’ve done your research, but the argument should NOT be about whether IS is overtuned, it should be about how to implement proper risk-reward so that play and outplay potential exists. Stealth openers remain the most toxic aspect of Thief in my opinion – how would you make them fun to play against? (Please don’t say Spam AOE in general area or dodge in anticipation)

@nicknamenick: Similarly, I challenge you to say that Warrior has a lot of outplay potential right now, when the Pin Down animation is the same as a lot of the other LB animations, or that Healing Signet is NOT toxic to the entire design intent of the GW2 team to make everything “easy to read, easy to play, easy to play AGAINST”

• Simply posting “why not remove this skill and leave it blanco” doesn’t really add anything to the conversation. On the tier of the Pyramid of Argumentation I’d say it sits just above Ad Hominem.
• Would you not agree that Ham/Bow Warrior is an apex build right now, with high survivability from Stances and Healing Signet, high CC from Pin Down/Earthshaker and high AOE potential from Arcing Arrow and Combustive Shot? Would you not agree that the passive play of Healing Signet is toxic to the game as it promotes sitting on the cooldown rather than actually burning it?
• It must be said that Warrior treads a fine line right now with the convergence of Healing Signet and Cleansing Ire allowing even Zerker builds to be very tough while being very damaging. Tweaking a multiple variable system like this could very well doom the warrior to the bottom of the pile again – but I don’t see you proposing your own tweaks.

Holy cow, that was a fun post to read, MonMalthias. Just a few things that I wanted to touch on:

GW2 SHOUTCASTING
Yeah, this one is huge. In every competitive-tier shoutcasted match in GW2, I’ve almost never heard a shoutcaster mention individual skills in the midst of combat or attempt to break-down why a certain skill or play really swing the tide of a fight. The entire shoutcast is just a general overview because GW2 combat is really such a mess and happens so quickly that nobody can really ever discern concrete and be able to verbalize it quickly enough before its long over or covered up by some other effect or myriad of skills. This sort of messy combat needs to be better defined by reworking many skills into the more readable paradigm of—as you mentioned—fun to play and fun to play against.

THIEF COMPLAINTS
As I’ve said before, I really do wonder about the thief’s hp pool. One of the reasons why Thief is so broken is that it’s almost practically an Elementalist trying to fight in melee. However, because that would obviously turn out poorly for the Thief, ANet—instead of rethinking how the Thief could contribute to battle—simply just gave the class evasion frames everywhere, blind-spam and stealth. It was the worst possible decision.

After I had finished all of my fixes to Thief thus far (and there are still more to be done), I really took a look at it and debated with myself whether or not the thief could use a base hp buff after the fact. I honestly do believe that if the thief were made more fair to play against, it would deserve a small base hp buff.

Not sure how anyone else would feel about that, though.

Ah, right, I did an update to Elementalist Signets at the bottom of the first page. Any more skill updates from here on out will be messy because I couldn’t reserve posts when making this thread.

THIEF CHANGES CONTINUED
NEW F1 SKILL: [Open Pockets]

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 5 seconds
• Home in on your target, making them susceptible to stealing.
• Open Pockets duration: 10 seconds
• Unblockable
• Range: 1200

[Steal]

• NOW AN F2 SKILL
• FUNCTIONAITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Pass through potential targets in front of you. You steal an object from anyone that you strike that has open pockets.
• Evasion: ¾ second
• Range: 600
  • Uses the [Whirlwind Attack] animation and hit detection. Does not deal damage.
  • Upon striking a target marked with [Open Pockets], this skill chains into an appropriate stolen item depending on the type of target struck.

NEW F3 SKILL: [Steal]

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Pass through potential targets in front of you. You steal an object from anyone that you strike that has open pockets.
• Evasion: ¾ second
• Range: 600
  • Uses the [Whirlwind Attack] animation and hit detection. Does not deal damage.
  • Upon striking a target marked with [Open Pockets], this skill chains into an appropriate stolen item depending on the type of target struck.

NEW F4 SKILL: [Vault]

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 15 seconds
• Leap high into the air.
• Evasion: ¾ second
  • This skill grants the same jump height as the jump bumpers in the Skyhammer (Cannon) PvP map.

Now, here’s the thing about the suggestion above this post:

Once more, I’m looking to fix the mechanics that break the rules governing ranged combat balance in GW2. Those are changes that would balance [Steal] according to how ranged combat should appear.

As for [Vault], there really should be more vertical movement in Guild Wars 2—FOR ALL CLASSES. It is a real shame that it’s only prevalent on the thief because they can spam teleports to targets on higher planes. However, once more, because instantaneous movement goes in contrary to balanced ranged combat around which an opponent can plan and counter-play, the only fair way to give a player vertical movement would be with either tall leaps or with an ability that allowed the player to scale walls or all surfaces in general for a short period of time.

In any case, since we already have the jump bumpers in Skyhammer, I figured that using a super high jump would be the fastest way to reintroduce vertical movement in a balanced manner.

The more i read, more i think you have no idea of what you are writing.

Lets start with you last post. Shortbows were greatly nerfed as far as vertical movement goes because of how thiefs could abuse it. In PvP and WvW.
In fact, WvW is the reason your super jump idea is bad. We don’t want thief skipping siege walls AGAIN.

Also, it looks like you wanna make GW2 some kinda of fighting game of sorts.
Most of the suggestions here are impractical both in gameplay and server limitations.

Skilled gameplay is fun and all at 1vs1. But in a Zerg vs Zerg at WvW it becomes a mess. In fact, PvE would also be a mess.

GW2 isn’t another C9. We are talking about two completely different MMo genres here.
That’s why the game looks to go in the opposite direction of you suggestion.

SoulSin.5682:

The more i read, more i think you have no idea of what you are writing.

Lets start with you last post. Shortbows were greatly nerfed as far as vertical movement goes because of how thiefs could abuse it. In PvP

I do understand that due to something like a super jump, some aspects of a few maps would require some updates (for instance: the small sepulchers that ring the middle cap point of Legacy of the Foefire would probably be best if they were taller), but for the most part, it would simply add an interesting new dimension to PvP for thieves without allowing them to be completely broken. With regards to any terrain and structure adjustments, the in-house GW2 terrain editor is very capable of such a task.

SoulSin.5682:

and WvW.

WvW is beyond balance. The numbers and inflated stats create the zergs. The zergs are nothing but stacking stability and running into each other. It’s an unintelligible mess that cannot be balanced simply due to sheer numbers. Even if the numbers were limited, the stats would still break the combat. Discussing “balance” and “WvW” at the same time is moot.

SoulSin.5682:

In fact, WvW is the reason your super jump idea is bad. We don’t want thief skipping siege walls AGAIN.

The jump height combined with the parapets along tower walls should prevent that. If nothing else, the landscape around some of the more susceptible towers could be adjusted. Again, the in-house GW2 terrain editor is very capable of this.

SoulSin.5682:

Also, it looks like you wanna make GW2 some kinda of fighting game of sorts.
Most of the suggestions here are impractical both in gameplay and server limitations.

The suggestions that I’ve put forth are all based on in-game mechanics. Moreover, the game was originally designed with the intention of combat being based on reading your opponent’s moves. Then we suddenly get [Grenade Kit], [Crossfire], Spirit Ranger, [Healing Signet], Thief in general, Necromancer in general and a whole slew of other professions and set-ups that just kick the whole original intention out onto the curb. That intention’s head is now hanging out into the street and there’s a car coming. We can pull it back yet, but it’s going to take a big effort.

SoulSin.5682:

GW2 isn’t another C9. We are talking about two completely different MMo genres here.
That’s why the game looks to go in the opposite direction of you suggestion.

If this game goes in the opposite of what I’m trying to do, it will continue to promote super-spam, low-recharge, short cast-time, throwaway, poorly-cued abilities that will burn down enemies in the blink of an eye. Without a “holy trinity” (and I’m not suggestion that GW2 should have that) to deal with the badly designed skills that always scrape out free damage at a very constant rate, nobody will survive based on skill and the victor will always emerge as the one who pressed the most buttons the fastest.

Skill caps will cease to exist, and nobody will be able to tell themselves apart from anyone else because every class will take no skill to play. Like I said, the head is hanging out in the street and a car is coming.

Here are a few questions for the thread:

• 1) Functionally, what would GW2 be without Thieves?
• 2) What does a game say about itself when a shoutcasted match must rely on post-action dialogue or general terms of expression in order to make sense of what has happened/is happening on screen. Furthermore, what does a game say about itself when a shoutcaster can be confused or find himself at a loss for words when attempting to describe the action on screen.

The answers tomorrow.

SoulSin.5682:

Also, it looks like you wanna make GW2 some kinda of fighting game of sorts.
Most of the suggestions here are impractical both in gameplay and server limitations.

Skilled gameplay is fun and all at 1vs1. But in a Zerg vs Zerg at WvW it becomes a mess. In fact, PvE would also be a mess.

GW2 isn’t another C9. We are talking about two completely different MMo genres here.
That’s why the game looks to go in the opposite direction of you suggestion.

The thing is if you’d had played in the beta there were more skills of the type which Swagg has presented in various forms. Most distinctively are Charge Skills , which were skills that could be held down to become more powerful the longer the button was held pressed – at the cost of leaving yourself vulnerable to interrupts or rooting yourself, or being dodged because of a highly telegraphed move.

This paradigm was almost entirely abandoned in favour of channeling skills. The only charge skills you will find now are those you’d find in WvW on siege weapons, or in the racial elites . With that one stroke, a large amount of risk and reward was removed, and skillful play and outplay was abandoned. You’ll note that Obliterate, Kill Shot, Churning Earth and Lightning Surge figure greatly in the “old” design, for one. For another, they have been almost entirely abandoned in competitive PvP because subsequent balancing passes have left them entirely too risky for too little reward. This is because:

• Spamming quick, low cooldown skills is now objectively superior because it’s harder to dodge
• Players are now “good enough” to dodge good telegraphs, and thanks to Sigil of Energy, dodges are now “cheap enough” to spam with little punishment.

You can argue WvW or z-axis mobility all you want. The fact remains that the general trend of the game’s balancing passes has been a slow devolution away from risk and reward in favour of passive procs and hard counters – Diamond Skin/Automated Response, Cleansing Ire, Berserker stance, Dhuumfire/Incendiary Powder, Healing Signet/Adrenal Health, the merging of Vigourous Spirits which led to the whole Spirit Ranger fiasco – the list goes on.

Several ongoing issues with GW2’s combat remain unresolved, or worse, exacerbated since launch:

• With the cooldown of many abilities being extremely low and autoattacks granting high damage or condition pressure in many builds, dodging practically everything is necessary for survival, even autoattack “pokes”. The worst offender is Shortbow Ranger.

• As a corollary, Vigor and Sigils of Energy have become de jour for many classes for their ongoing survival (Mesmer, Ele, Guardian, Engineer, Sword Thief). The recent Vigor nerfs have simply decreased time-to-kill (TTK) for some classes, whilst condi pressure from autoattacks has not been nerfed. It’s better to blow all your condi applications, then “cover” your DOT stacks with autoattacks than it is to play tactically, bait out cleanses, then stack DOTs. It’s mindless, toxic to actively thinking, and results in an arms race between condi application and cleansing. I challenge you to look at Cleansing Ire and disagree.

• This kind of low cooldown, low risk, fast-cast gameplay has led to allegations of “spam” for every single class in game. Warriors? Stunlock spam. Rangers? Autoattack spam. Necromancer? Condispam. Engineer? Bomb/Nadespam. Thief? Evade spam. Mesmer? Stealth spam (PU) or the much maligned Phantasm spam. Elementalist? Fresh Air Lightning Strike spam for untelegraphed burst. Guardian? Aegis/Stability spam for infuriating bunkering gameplay.

The whole system has become so toxic and self-propagating that further attempts to prop up this failed paradigm have resulted in several balancing disasters.

• The first was the ushering in of the “condi meta” with the Dhuumfire/Aetherblade patch. Passive Burning procs along with Torment made 2 extra conditions for Necromancer to cover their Bleeds and Fear and literally made several top teams quit. Did you watch the PAX tournament? I did. There was no skill in that, only spam, and rock-paper-scissors gameplay.

• All this time, the CC-Warrior had largely flown under the radar. With the Healing Signet and Cleansing Ire changes, CC/Stunlock war and the later, more potent Hambow warrior became the hard counter to Dhuumfire Necro, and many more classes with poor Stability uptime such as Elementalist and Engineer.

• S/D Thief remains one of those strange creatures that actually came to the fore after subsequent nerfs . Yet it was powerful enough to literally push Elementalist and Mesmer out of the meta by itself . Thief design has always resulted in overtuning or undertuning; whilst only 2 out of 5 of most weapon sets are actually useful for their initiative. Nothing short of an extremely careful, critical examination of the use of initiative and the possibility of initiative refunds on meeting conditional effects can save the thief – yet we do not see this, and thief remains fun (?debatable) to play, unfun to play against

• Fresh Air and subsequently Diamond Skin were introduced to Elementalists, whilst the Attunement CD restriction remained a baseline issue for Ele. Even reducing base cooldown and halving Arcana didn’t address Ele’s poor condi management outside of Water, whilst Water Magic traits were further nerfed. Again. And 1 or 2 or 3 attunement builds still remained impossible due to trait design and poor utility design.

• Engineer’s Grenade Kit had escaped further nerfs since 2012 and once Engineers realised that going Rabid instead of Zerker or Soldier’s was actually superior, point bunkering became a dangerous profession until HGH was nerfed. Once again, a build that relies on spam to be combat effective. Hell, I myself play Engineer and I can tell you that for Grenade kit, hitting 4455332211 isn’t so hard, and GK will remain spammy until a charge skill mechanic is implemented.

You will note that at no point have I mentioned outplay, mechanical or conceptual. It has almost literally been designed out of the current skill and trait set of most of the professions. It’s a dangerous precedent to set and follow, and whilst people are happy for buffs, it bodes poorly for the competitive scene, which has languished and continues to do so as a result of this design paradigm.

MonMalthias, you’re a pretty a cool guy. You’ve managed to touch on so many specifics skills/builds/traits/trends in a very neat and concise (two posts is pretty darn good for everything that’s wrong) manner.

Personally, it’s often difficult to deal with managing a thread like this as it develops because of another big issue: when players look at a patch notes and then just focus in on their class and their class only. Trying to constantly zoom in and out from point to point instead of addressing the bigger picture strains the overall vision. This thread as well as its precursor have been full of people who shout back and forth over only one profession. The game requires a vast re-balance across all professions and it takes a wide view to see that.

The journey from passive proc, spam-centric game-play to well-cued, risk-reward game-play is literally a game-changing process. I’m sad to see that GW2 has fallen so far away from its original fundamentals, but like I said before, even though the head is hanging off the curb with the car coming—that car’s still down the street. We can pull this game back if we manage a real effort.

I made some updates to Necromancer and Mesmer skill changes. The changes were focused on giving Necromancer some more boon-hate to contribute to a fight as well as continuing to make more readable, but powerful attack options available to the profession. The Mesmer changes were mainly balance-related, but the big change to [Chaos Storm] was to give staff mesmer more battlefield staying power by giving the weapon set an overall DPS buff as well as some additional control with the short cripple and predictable daze. The daze change to [Chaos Storm] was also a balance change to address the bug/issue posed by the Confounding Suggestions (Domination – XII) trait when paired with the current version of [Chaos Storm].

A change to Engineer [Bomb Kit]. I remember discussing this idea with a few players in the Engineer forum a long time ago when I was making posts there. Not only is [Bomb Kit] currently very spam-prone, but it’s melee-limitations often force it onto points (conquest being the only PvP mode) where it truly becomes a skill-set that one often uses by just pressing all of the buttons as fast as possible. By giving [Bomb Kit] skills a charge-up paradigm that functions similarly to how trebuchets determine the distance of their fired projectiles, this kit can be redefined as a balanced, ranged support weapon while not taking away from its capabilities in melee range.

ENGINEER CHANGES CONTINUED
[Fire Bomb]

• FUNCTIONAITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2 seconds
• Recharge: 15 seconds
• Lob a timed charge in target direction that explodes, burning foes. This bomb travels further based on how long you channel it.
• Damage (4x): 444 (0.3)
• Burning (4): 2 seconds
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Radius: 120
• Combo Field: Fire
• ½ second channel: 0 range
• Full channel: 900 range
  • This skill uses a ground-targeted directional reticle—the same kind that [Grasping Dead] used in the alpha—in order to guide the throw.
  • This skill’s projectile moves at 150% the speed of Engineer [Grenade Kit] projectiles.
  • This bomb’s projectile is a bright red.

[Concussion Bomb]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2 seconds
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Lob a timed charge in target direction that explodes, confusing foes. This bomb travels further based on how long you channel it.
• Damage: 165 (0.5)
• Confusion (5): 5 seconds
• Radius: 180
• ½ second channel: 0 range
• Full channel: 900 range
  • This skill uses a ground-targeted directional reticle—the same kind that [Grasping Dead] used in the alpha—in order to guide the throw.
  • This skill’s projectile moves at 150% the speed of Engineer [Grenade Kit] projectiles.
  • This bomb’s projectile is a pure white.

[Smoke Bomb]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2 seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Lob a timed charge in target direction that explodes, confusing foes. This bomb travels further based on how long you channel it.
• Blind (4): 3 seconds
• Duration: 4 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Combo Field: Smoke
• ½ second channel: 0 range
• Full channel: 900 range
  • This skill uses a ground-targeted directional reticle—the same kind that [Grasping Dead] used in the alpha—in order to guide the throw.
  • This skill’s projectile moves at 150% the speed of Engineer [Grenade Kit] projectiles.
  • This bomb’s projectile is a dark black.

[Glue Bomb]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2 seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Lob a timed charge in target direction that explodes, confusing foes. This bomb travels further based on how long you channel it.
• Immobilized: 1 second
• Crippled: 1 second
• Radius: 240
• Puddle of glue duration: 3 seconds
• ½ second channel: 0 range
• Full channel: 900 range
  • This skill uses a ground-targeted directional reticle—the same kind that [Grasping Dead] used in the alpha—in order to guide the throw.
  • This skill’s projectile moves at 150% the speed of Engineer [Grenade Kit] projectiles.
  • This bomb’s projectile is a bright green.

Ah, right, I think the auto-attack would need a functional makeover as well. I had thought of making it into a skill that had a cool-down (no spammable auto-attack), but I dunno. It would have to be different than the charge up skills, I think.

But the point of bomb kit is that they are… well… bombs…
there is already a kit for throwing explosives.

The point is to give bomb kit more of a supportive role outside of face-rolling the keyboard while on a point. The changes to grenade kit actually solidify it as a ranged-only support option.

Stillshade.7634:

But the point of bomb kit is that they are… well… bombs…
there is already a kit for throwing explosives.

If you’ve played the “meta” Bomb/Nade build for Engineer (I believe it’s still 30/0/0/20/20 or some variation thereof) you’ll know then that the Engineer experience with BK on points is pretty much 4-5-2-3-1-1-1 while watching for things to dodge. It’s a spammy kit, just as Grenade Kit is.

What’s worse, it’s practically impossible to read; just like Warrior’s Pin Down being the same animation as the rest of Warrior’s LB attacks. Concussion bomb looks like Glue bomb looks like the auto-attack. Concussion bomb is especially egregious as it recycles the Engineer Shield 4-4 animation – itself already difficult to see in teamfights – whilst looking like the auto-attack.

The end result is that classes fighting an Engineer – and I play Engineer myself – are relegated to dodging randomly in the hopes of dodging out that Concussion bomb or that first second of Glue Bomb where the Immobilize is dangerous.

That’s a pretty unhealthy way to counterplay Bomb Kit.

Making it a Charged skill would pretty much be a stealth nerf, because it slows down the rate at which you can drop your bombs. But you are compensated for this by not kiting yourself out of your Bombs.

Think about it. The current way BK works is that you drop your bomb at your feet as you run forward. By the time it goes off, it is behind you. Often by ~200 or so units. You’ve just kited yourself and your enemy out of your attacks.

It’s things like that that have driven the recent change to Bomb kit to increase the baseline radii of BK by ~60 units of radii for nearly all Bombs. I personally thought this change was an awful step backwards in terms of balance because

1. It didn’t address the ongoing self-kiting problem
2. It makes Engineer PBAoE even more obnoxious, which will likely lead to ancillary nerfs in the future that don’t address the real problem here
3. Spammy gameplay is rewarded. (Probably a bad thing)

Making BK a charge skill with coloured Projectiles is a major Step forward in this respect.

I can’t help but wonder how things would be if [Bomb] (Bomb Kit 1) were a ground-targeted single-pulse AoE explosion that had to be manually triggered by the Engineer. To that effect, it would have its own brief cool-down. I feel that by changing [Bomb] so drastically, there would be an opportunity to really give the skill a unique, even multi-purpose role in combat. Maybe something like:

[Bomb]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Throw a remote charge to target location that you can later detonate. This bomb deals out effects based on the condition of the foes that it strikes.
• Damage: 418 (1.3)
• If you strike a burning foe: Area explosion on foe: Damage: 85 (0.3); Radius: 180
• If you strike a confused foe: Daze: 1 second; Remove up to 2 boons.
• If you strike an immobilized foe: Knock-down: 1 second
• Radius: 120
• Range: 900
  • This projectile uses the bundle [Bomb] appearance.
  • This projectile travels in a low arc and has an average speed.
  • This skill chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Detonate Bomb].

[Detonate Bomb]

• Cast-time: 0
• Detonate your bomb.
• Delay: 1 second
  • When this skill chains, it automatically goes into a 1-second cool-down in order to prevent double-tap spamming the skill.
  • The delay in the description describes how [Bomb] will actually delay for 1 second before exploding after [Detonate Bomb] is activated. During this delay period, the bomb model on the ground will flash twice before exploding.

As it is, all or most of ele skills are far too broadcasted with motion.

Many of your changes include increasing the cast times. This will break the profession. 2 second cast time on updraft? That’s ridiculous. Ele has two CC skills with D/D, and one is already hard to use.

I don’t say this to be mean or not constructive, but you really shouldn’t give tips on how to balance the game for classes which you haven’t played to an extremely large extent. I say this because your changes for ele would break weapon sets, and they’re just changing skills you personally feel are ‘OP’. This isn’t the case for many of them.

Mbelch.9028:

As it is, all or most of ele skills are far too broadcasted with motion.

Many of your changes include increasing the cast times.

Longer cast-times are one thing, but adding post-cast delay periods or pulses are a completely different affair. The goal of my Elementalist suggestions are to provide currently unfair mechanics fair alternatives to sustained DPS.

Mbelch.9028:

This will break the profession. 2 second cast time on updraft? That’s ridiculous. Ele has two CC skills with D/D, and one is already hard to use.

The [Updraft] change was actually meant to give dagger off-hand more mobility with a longer dodge, shorter cast-time, and additional CC with the AoE cripple on use. Without a charge, the new [Updraft] would provide a lot of breathing room for the Elementalist because the base activation time would remain 0. However, to balance the lower recharge and new functionality of the skill, the ability to instantly launch someone has been removed and more risk has been introduced to that aspect of the skill. However, I actually have been thinking about reducing the full channel from 2 to 1 1/2 seconds.

Mbelch.9028:

I don’t say this to be mean or not constructive, but you really shouldn’t give tips on how to balance the game for classes which you haven’t played to an extremely large extent.

Those are some heavy accusations, friend.

Mbelch.9028:

I say this because your changes for ele would break weapon sets, and they’re just changing skills you personally feel are ‘OP’. This isn’t the case for many of them.

The only thing truly broken about Elementalist right now is scepter burst, arcane burst and other select skills which I’ve targeted for nerfs or function changes. Those have got to go for the sake of balance (as do a lot of other similar skills). Furthermore, I don’t target skills that I “feel” need nerfs because of a whim. I’ve very clearly laid out my reasons behind my balance suggestions at the beginning of the thread.

Small update to the Healing Skills section.

GUARDIAN CHANGES CONTINUED
Tome of Courage

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to 0 seconds (instant).
• Recharge reduced from 180 to 10 seconds. This skill goes into cool-down when the tome is stowed.
• No longer has a duration limit.
• No longer grants stat bonuses or boons upon activation.

[Heal Area]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Create a spring of spiritual water at target location that heals allies.
• Healing (3x): 440 (0.5)
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Combo Field: Water
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200

[Purifying Ribbon]

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ second to ½ second.
• Conditions cured on ally increased from 1 to 2.
• Blind duration increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Number of bounces adjusted from (current?) to 5.
• Recharge increased from 3 seconds to 30 seconds.

[Protective Spirit]

• FUCNTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 90 seconds
• Cast a protective spirit over target location that weakens foes while granting protection to allies. Protective Spirit heals allies whenever they are struck for critical damage.
• Weakness: 3 seconds
• Protection: 5 seconds
• Protective Spirit (3): 10 seconds
• Protective Spirit healing: 540 (1.0)
• Maximum number of allies affected: 10
• Maximum number of foes affected: 10
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • Allies affected by this skill gain 3 stacks of a unique buff called Protective Spirit. Each time an ally with the Protective Spirit buff is struck for critical damage, the buff reduces by 1 stack and heals the player for the described amount.

[Pacifism]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2 seconds
• Recharge: 90 seconds
• Pacify foes at the target area, dazing them.
• Daze: 2 seconds
• Maximum number of foes affected: 10
• Radius: 300
• Range: 1200

[Light of Deliverance]

• Recharge increased from 30 seconds to 180 seconds.

Tome of Wrath

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to 0 seconds (instant).
• Recharge reduced from 180 to 10 seconds. This skill goes into cool-down when the tome is stowed.
• No longer has a duration limit.
• No longer grants stat bonuses or boons upon activation.

[Conflagrate]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 10 seconds
• Burn foes at the target area.
• Delay: 2 seconds
• Damage: 386 (1.0)
• Burning: 4 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • A tongue of fire lingers above the target location before crashing down to inflict the damage and burning in the same manner as Elementalist [Ice Spike].

[Affliction]

• Damage adjusted from 409 (current damage modifier?) to 244 (0.75)
• Weakness duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
• Crippled duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
• Recharge increased from 3 seconds to 20 seconds.

[Smiter’s Boon]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2½ seconds
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Channel a cone of empowering energy that damages foes while granting might and swiftness to allies.
• Damage (4x): 672 (2.0)
• Might (1 stack per pulse; 4 pulses total): 10 seconds
• Swiftness (4): 3 seconds
• Range: 600
  • [Healing Breeze] cone.
  • The Guardian also receives the boons listed in the skill’s description.

[Zealot’s Fervor]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 5½ seconds
• Recharge: 180 seconds
• Channel a spell that grants fury and quickness to all allies in the area.
• Fury (5): 2 seconds
• Quickness (5): 1 second
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Maximum number of affected allies: 10
• Radius: 1200
  • This skill pulses its boons once each second.
  • Movement interrupts channeling.
  • This skill uses the Guardian as the focal point for the radius.
  • Upon activating this skill, the Guardian gains a debuff that makes him/her immune to gaining boons. This boon immunity debuff lasts 5 seconds and cannot be cleansed by condition removal skills.

[Judgment]

• Recharge increased from 30 to 180 seconds.

Traits
Elite Focus (Virtues – VII)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Increased the duration of Renewed Focus and reduces the recharge on tome skills.
  • Renewed Focus duration increase: 50%
  • Tome skill recharge reduction: 20%

Runes
Runes of the Monk

• 6/6 ability now has a 60 second cool-down.

Runes of Lyssa

• 6/6 ability now has a 60-second cool-down.
• 6/6 ability no longer grants stability or aegis.

Updates to the guardian tome suggestions as well as some tooling and additions to the Elementalist suggestions.

All that the live stream today about “PvP balance” revealed was that the balance team isn’t yet ready or doesn’t know how to address non-skillful passive effects. There were a few interesting changes (the Dhuumfire and Deceptive Evasion changes respectively), but again the entire stream was nothing more than a continued step toward taking the risk out of using skills, removing counter-play and relying on passive, no-skill procs.

This game, man.

Sigils
Sigil of Air

• Removed from the game.

Sigil of Fire

• Removed from the game.

Might as well post some radical stuff that I had been saving away. Nothing really seems to matter anymore. This next post was meant to address how the Necromancer isn’t a well-designed “attrition” class in any way at all. The goal was helping to redefine the Necromancer with additional built-in support and control options outside of a cheap, no-skill [Doom] every 20 seconds or so.

Blood Magic Spells – ADDITIONAL PROFESSION MECHANIC
Necromancers get a pool of powerful Blood Magic spells that they can slot as they choose into new f2-f4 skill slots. These skills possess both a cast-time, a recharge and consume a new resource called blood energy (placeholder name). Necromancers gain blood energy (up to a cap of 5000) by healing (either healing themselves with their own skills or by being healed by other players). Necromancers convert health healed to blood energy on a 1:1 ratio.

Blood Magic Spells – THE SKILLS
[Blood Bolt]

• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Blood energy: 1500
• Corruption. Fire a slow-moving orb of blood energy at your foe. Foes that it strikes are weakened.
• Damage: 33 (0.2)
• Weakness: 5 seconds
• Range: 1200
  • Uses a red-tinted [Orb of Wrath] projectile; same projectile behavior.
  • This skill chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Blood Bolt Blast].

[Blood Bolt Blast]

• Cast-time: 0
• Detonate your Spectral Blood Bolt. The explosion knocks down weakened foes.
• Damage: 418 (1.3)
• Knock-down: 2 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Explosion radius: 180

[Blood Puppet]

• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Blood energy: 2000
• Corruption. Manifest an ominous scarecrow at target location.
• Range: 1200
  • Puppet’s hp and toughness are equivalent to the Engineer’s [Healing Turret].
  • This skill chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Puppet Screech].

[Puppet Screech]

• Cast-time: 0
• Cause your puppet to screech, fearing foes in the area.
• Delay: 2 seconds
• Fear: 1 second
• Radius: 240
  • The scarecrow stretches itself upward during the delay period as an animation cue.

[Blood Wall]

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Blood energy: 2000
• Corruption. Spill a line of blood at target location that foes cannot cross.
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Range: 1200
  • Uses a red-tinted [Spectral Wall] appearance.
  • Foes attempting to cross the wall cause a red-tinted [Bone Wall] (ala Tequatl’s bone wall) to jump up and block their way in the same manner as rocks do with the skill [Unsteady Ground].

[Insidious Parasite]

• Cast-time: 5½ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 3000
• Corruption. Channel a spell over allies at target area. Allies under the effects of an insidious parasite steal life from foes that strike them for damage.
• Insidious Parasite (5): 5 seconds
• Life steal damage: 221 (0.5)
• Life steal heal: 370 (0.15)
• Maximum number of allies affected: 10
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Radius: 300
• Range: 1200
  • This skill pulses once each second. Each pulse grants 1 stack of Insidious Parasite to allies in the area that lasts for 5 seconds. Each time that an ally under the effects of Insidious Parasite takes damage (condition damage or direct damage), that ally loses 1 stack of Insidious Parasite, heals health and damages the foes that damaged that ally. There is no internal cool-down for this effect.

[Defile Enchantments]

• Cast-time: 3¾ seconds
• Recharge: 50 seconds
• Blood energy: 4000
• Corruption. Channel a spell over the location and make the ground bubble. When these bubbles pop, they damage and remove up to 1 boon from foes. Foes without boons that are struck by one of these bubbles are knocked down.
• Mark of Apostasy duration: 7
• Damage: 244 (0.75)
• Bubble damage radius: 120
• Radius: 360
• Range: 1200
  • This skill functions the same as Elementlist [Meteor Shower] in how it decides to produce the bubbles based on how long the Necromancer channels the skill.
  • Each bubble lingers for 1 second before popping.

[Weaken Knees]

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 50 seconds
• Blood energy: 2000
• Corruption. Create a pulsing field at target location. The field cripples foes. Foes in the field that are already crippled are chilled. Foes in the field that are already chilled are knocked down.
• Cripple: 2 seconds
• Chill: 2 seconds
• Knock-down: 1 second
• Field pulse: 1 second
• Field duration: 4 seconds
• Radius: 210
• Combo Field: Dark
• Range: 1200
  • The cripple pulses each second. Only the chill and the knock-down actually check for requirement conditions before applying themselves.

[Blood of the Aggressor]

• Cast-time: 2¼ seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Blood energy: 1500
• Unleash of cone of blood energy that weakens foes while granting protection and retaliation to you and allies within the cone’s effect.
• Damage (4x): 444 (0.3)
• Weakness (4): 1 second
• Protection (4): 1 second
• Retaliation (4): 1 second
• Range: 600
  • Uses a red-tinted [Wail of Doom] animation for the cone channel.
  • Guardian [Healing Breeze] cone.
  • Affects up to five foes and allies respectively.

[Transfusion]

• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 3000
• Well. Target area pulses with blood energy, healing allies and curing conditions once every 3 seconds.
• Healing: 404 (0.25)
• Pulse: 1 second
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Combo Field: Water
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • This skill cures conditions on the same pulse schedule as Elementalist [Healing Rain].

NEW CONDITION – Staggered

• Players afflicted with Staggered cannot gain Stability.
• Staggered does not stack. Any new instance of staggered applied to a creature that is already staggered will simply overwrite the old instance.

THIEF
[Body Shot]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED (again)
• Initiative cost: 3
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Shoot a bullet that inflicts vulnerability. If you strike a foe with at least 10 stacks of vulnerability, you also stagger that foe.
• Damage: 129 (0.3)
• Vulnerability (5): 6 seconds
• Staggered: 3 seconds
  • Skill checks for vulnerability stacks before applying vulnerability stacks. To this effect, the Thief would have to use this skill 3 times in order to inflict staggered by him/herself.

[Tactical Strike]

• Recharge increased from 0 to 10 seconds.
• Now also inflicts 3 seconds of staggered if you strike your foe from behind.

[Needle Trap]

• Now inflicts 4 seconds of staggered.

[Tripwire]

• Now inflicts 4 seconds of staggered.

[Scorpion Wire]

• Now inflicts 3 seconds of staggered.

WARRIOR
[Crushing Blow]

• Now inflicts 3 seconds of staggered.

[Fierce Blow]

• Recharge increased from 10 to 15 seconds.
• Cast-time increased from ¾ second to 1 second.
• Now inflicts 3 seconds of staggered.

[Backbreaker]

• Cast-time increased from 1 second to 1¼ second.
• Added a unique visual cue to help further distinguish this skill from [Crushing Blow].

[Kick]

• Now inflicts 3 seconds of staggered.

[Stomp]

• Now inflicts 3 seconds of staggered.

ELEMENTALIST
[Ride the Lightning]

• Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.
• Recharge reduction on hit reduced from 50% to 33%.
• Now inflicts 3 seconds of staggered.

[Comet]

• Now uses ground-targeting.
• Damage increased from 239 to 386 (1.0).
• Now inflicts 4 seconds of staggered.

[Shockwave]

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.
• Cast-time reduced from ¾ to ½ second.
• Bleed stacks changed from 1 stack for 20 seconds to 3 stacks for 12 seconds.
• Now inflicts 4 seconds of staggered.

[Arcane Wave]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Conjure a ring of arcane energy around target area. After 1 second, the ring explodes, blasting and staggering foes in the area for critical damage.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage: 628
• Staggered: 3 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Radius: 360
• Range: 900
  • The ring floats just off the ground and highlights the area targeted by [Arcane Wave].
  • Delay ring shares its coloration with [Arcane Blast]’s projectile.

ENGINEER
Blunderbuss

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 15 seconds
• Fire a cloud of shrapnel that causes more damage the closer you are to foes.
• 600 – 400 range: Damage: 211 (0.5); Bleeding (1): 5 seconds
• 400 – 200 range: Damage: 386 (1.0); Bleeding (3): 5 seconds
• 200 – 0 range: Damage: 618 (1.6); Bleeding (5): 5 seconds; Staggered: 4 seconds
• Range: 600

[Corruption.]
Create a pulsing field at target location. The field cripples foes. Foes in the field that are already crippled are chilled. Foes in the field that are already chilled are knocked down.

To clarify this, do you mean to say that the field first Cripples, then Chills, then Knocks down after every pulse? Keep in mind that in terms of CC, the only class with AOE forms of it on weapon and utility slots are the Necro (Fear wall) and Warrior (Hammer Earthshaker). Even Engineer, king of CC, is only allowed AOE CC on its Elite – and at 3 minutes of cooldown it is still far and away the most potent skill of the Engineer profession – if not the best in slot Elite.

With regards to Blunderbuss, I feel that the skill is fine as is. However to balance it in the context of your vision for combat, it could be made more cued. The classic “shotgun loading ch-chk” foley SFX could play instead of the more ambiguous “charging up” SFX.

• To increase risk reward, it could be made a charge skill with increasing damage the longer you charge, up to 2 seconds – which would allow for duel-ending bursts, but unambiguously requires hard CC from utilities.
• To punish people “fishing” for enders, the cooldown could be increased the longer Blunderbuss was charged – up to 25 seconds. So you could “spam” Level 1 Blunderbuss as poke, or charge it to level 4 and hope you don’t miss.
• Longer CD for missing could also be an alternative, but having a strong hybridised burst in a CC heavy class that is potentially spammable at 15 second CD would simply raise the skill floor without addressing abuse potential.

MonMalthias.4763:

[Corruption.]
Create a pulsing field at target location. The field cripples foes. Foes in the field that are already crippled are chilled. Foes in the field that are already chilled are knocked down.

To clarify this, do you mean to say that the field first Cripples, then Chills, then Knocks down after every pulse? Keep in mind that in terms of CC, the only class with AOE forms of it on weapon and utility slots are the Necro (Fear wall) and Warrior (Hammer Earthshaker). Even Engineer, king of CC, is only allowed AOE CC on its Elite – and at 3 minutes of cooldown it is still far and away the most potent skill of the Engineer profession – if not the best in slot Elite.

The field is supposed to always pulse cripple.
When striking an opponent, it checks to see if that opponent is already crippled. If it’s already crippled, it instead inflicts chill.
When striking an opponent, it checks to see if that opponent is already chilled. If it’s already chilled, it instead inflicts knockdown.

MonMalthias.4763:

With regards to Blunderbuss, I feel that the skill is fine as is. However to balance it in the context of your vision for combat, it could be made more cued. The classic “shotgun loading ch-chk” foley SFX could play instead of the more ambiguous “charging up” SFX.

• To increase risk reward, it could be made a charge skill with increasing damage the longer you charge, up to 2 seconds – which would allow for duel-ending bursts, but unambiguously requires hard CC from utilities.
• To punish people “fishing” for enders, the cooldown could be increased the longer Blunderbuss was charged – up to 25 seconds. So you could “spam” Level 1 Blunderbuss as poke, or charge it to level 4 and hope you don’t miss.
• Longer CD for missing could also be an alternative, but having a strong hybridised burst in a CC heavy class that is potentially spammable at 15 second CD would simply raise the skill floor without addressing abuse potential.

I like the idea. I’ve yet to see a skill with a variable recharge based on a charge mechanic, though. I wonder if it could work. If I could, I’d be down for that. These ideas never get the attention of the devs, though. I can’t talk to them directly about this stuff. A lot of this effort just seems wasted.

STABILITY FUNCTIONALITY CHANGE

• Now stacks in intensity and not in duration. Each stack of stability negates one instance of a control effect. Stability can stack up to a maximum of 5 times.
• Using an Elite Skill that provides stability ([Tornado], [Rampage as One], [Dagger Storm], etc.) now grants 3 stacks of Stability for its duration.

RANGER STABILITY
[Signet of the Wild]

• Recharge lowered from 60 to 45 seconds.
• Duration (stability and damage boost) lowered from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

NECROMANCER STABILITY
[Well of Power]

• Stability granted is now 1 stack.

Foot in the Grave (Soul Reaping – XI)

• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

ELEMENTALIST STABILITY
[Armor of Earth]

• Recharged reduced from 90 to 75 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 3 stacks.

Rock Solid (Earth Magic – VIII)

• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

WARRIOR STABILITY
[Balanced Stance]

• Now has a duration of 8 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 1 stack.
  • Now chains into another skill: [Auspicious Charge].

[Auspicious Charge]

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 8 seconds
• Gain stability and dash at your foe.
• Damage: 202 (0.5)
• Stability (2): 3 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Leap
• Range: 300
  • [Shield Bash]
  • Using this skill does not end [Balanced Stance].
  • This chain skill remains active for the duration of [Balanced Stance].

[Dolyak Signet]

• Recharge lowered from 60 to 45 seconds.
• Stability duration reduced from 8 to 5 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

[Stomp]

• Stability granted is now 1 stack.

[Whirlwind Banner]

• Recharge increased from 15 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Stability duration increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

Quick Breathing (Tactics – IX)

• Stability granted when removing Fear is now 1 stack for 3 seconds.

GUARDIAN STABILITY
[“Stand your Ground!”]

• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

[Hallowed Ground]

• Stability granted per pulse is now 1 stack.

Indomitable Courage (Virtues – X)

• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.

ENGINEER STABILITY
[Toss Elixir B]

• Stability granted is now 3 stacks.

[Rumble]

• Stability granted is now 1 stack.

MESMER STABILITY
[Power Break]

• Recharge increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Stability duration increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Stability granted is now 2 stacks.