Guild Wars 2

as a thief, my kryptonite is warriors more so then anything else, super tanky, super bursty, immune to damage, immune to conditions, tons of CC, almost nothing you can do against them unless you use one of the really chessey thief builds even then.

I just post this in the Guardian subform but this is feedback relating to the Ready Up, so I thought I would repost it here.

Bezagron.7352:

I also felt the profession overviews were one dimensional and feel I was listening to another game’s descriptions were the profession’s are only designed around 1 or 2 roles. And a profession is only ever to do only these roles. I always thought Guild Wars 2 professions were for favour and it was the builds which decided the roles.

True no one profession should have everything in a build but I thought a profession could have overall access to almost most options and was denied access to everything by their traits, sigil, runes and skills choices.

I can understand an overall philosophy of the favour of a profession but I thought roles came from builds and that each profession should be able to fill each role. I don’t mean the exact same way but with the professions favour in mind and the overall roles descriptions eg. physical damage, condition damager, debuffer, buffer, control, burst, sustain, bunker, roaming, frontline, midline, backline.

My dream would be that a profession has an option for each role.
I feel they maybe there needs to be ready up discussing roles in GW2. What roles does Arenanet see in each game mode & what roles are they aiming for in each game mode?

Is the Guardian in a good place? I say maybe (they is much I would like done) but I would say that the Guardian is great template for roles & holes build wise which they could look at for each of the other professions, as with any Guardian build there is holes & weaknesses. Go bunker no dps (phy or condi), go burst (med build) weak to conditions in a sustained fight, go condition damage 1 dmg condi (Guards still trying to figure out a condi guard) requires sigil & runes for more dmg condi.

Looking a profession what are the overall roles a subgroup of utility skills is mean to fill. Eg Guardian;

• Shouts (group support/boons)
• Meditations (damage/solo sustain)
• Signets (Control?/solo sustain?)
• Consecrations (group support/area denial)
• Spirit Weapons (damage/control/support, what is their focus, can you be a spirit weapon only build)

I believe overall roles should be decided by build not professions and what I got from the ready up was that a profession decides the roles. This is not what I thought.

I thought that the overall roles were Damage/Control/Support. Were profession builds used 1 or parts of the overall roles to fill player created roles;

• Bunker
• Burst damage(phys/condi)
• Sustain damage (phys/condi)
• Offensive support (debuffer/buffer/area denial/control)
• Defensive support (debuffer/buffer/area denial/control/healing)

Examples:

• Bunker Guardian (Support Bunker) provides group support through shouts or consecrations and condition removal relying on boons, condition removal, healing (self & group) and blocks for self survival.
• Bunker Warrior (Control Bunker) has little group support but relies on self healing, hard controls & soft controls (stun, immobilise..), area denial (long bow), stances (damage denial) and self condition removal.

So even those these are both bunkers one uses the overall support role to bunker and you could say the other uses the overall control role to bunker. The build decides the role but the profession decides the favour.

TLDR: Profession equals favour, Build equals role.

This “Warrior is best at every” crap is really getting to be annoying. Warrior is decent at several things,but it is FAR from the “best” at everything.

• Ele, Thief, and even Guardian can have higher DPS

• Guardian, Ele, and Engi can have better sustain

• Guardians and Eles offer better group support

• Necromancers and Engis have better AoE Conditions

• You could argue that in PvP Engis have better CC since the pushbacks are much more valuable than stuns and knockdowns.

• [EDIT] Thief has superior mobility

I also see people acting like Warrior can do everything in one build, which in nonsense. Hambow is predictable and its most damaging attacks avoidable. Celestial Axebow has little to no way to deny a stomp. Skullcracker is vulnerable to condi overload once Zerker Stance is up. Condi Warrior is shut down by any build/team with decent cleanse and again lacks stomp denial. All of the Warrior meta builds have gaping holes just waiting to be exploited.

The fact that we still have people complaining about Warrior when Celestial Eles and Engis exist is mind boggling. Let;s not forget the major weakness in most all Warrior builds that they left out, massive telegraphs. Basically every single heavy hitter has a big neon sign letting you know it’s coming. It’s not the classes fault that there’s a race race of chibi rat people that have difficult to see animations. It’s also not the classes fault that some rune sets make some builds stronger than they were.

One more thing, this game has never been and will likely never be balanced around 1v1. Every game mode is based around teams. Something that is balanced 1v1 may be way too strong in a team fight. Inversely, some things are much stronger in groups than in a 1v1. In the case of PvP team fights and rotations are what wins games. In WvW it’s group coordination. It would be silly to balance the game around dueling servers that aren’t officially supported and WvW roaming that has minimal effect on the overall outcome. This is not a fighting game, this is not a RTS, the closest relative to this game would probably be a moba like LoL or DotA. Even then, those games have more cases of 1v1s than what we see in GW2 so even then it’s not a perfect fit. Some of these comparisons I’m seeing make no sense.

BurrTheKing.8571:

It would be silly to balance the game around dueling servers that aren’t officially supported and WvW roaming that has minimal effect on the overall outcome. This is not a fighting game, this is not a RTS, the closest relative to this game would probably be a moba like LoL or DotA. Even then, those games have more cases of 1v1s than what we see in GW2 so even then it’s not a perfect fit. Some of these comparisons I’m seeing make no sense.

Au contraire. Roaming consists of:

• Scouting enemy movements (crucial for well-coordinated defenses)
• Flipping camps (PPT)
• Killing Yaks (Points)
• Taking Sentries (Points)

If you have 10 people in a group, and they take a Tower to guarantee the PPT, you have +10 points. If you have 10 people roaming, and they each flip a camp, you can guarantee +50 points. That isn’t counting any yaks killed and sentries capped along the way.

Roaming done well is, in fact, a large factor.

If you are going to draw a comparison to a MOBA like DOTA 2, you should use it in the sPvP sense and say that everyone has access to play the same set of things, so if you actually want to win, and something feels strong, pick it up and play it. The 1v1 aspect in sPvP is similar: some match-ups are strong for your build, some are weaker, and you coordinate with your team to put yourself in an advantageous of a position as possible. That’s just how it works.

The key to remember here, though, is that people get attached to their characters in this game, like most MMOs. You don’t just have a rough laning phase with your hero then have an entirely different game next match. You run into the same classes over and over and over again, and if a match-up is difficult, it happens over and over and over again. Leading to frustration (see: forums).

I think it’s important for people to remember that it’s OK for a class/build to be difficult to fight. That class/build has difficulty fighting something else. Losing a fight like that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible player, nor does it mean you have to excuse it by calling the other person a terrible player. Even the dreaded condi Engi can get obliterated by Necros.

The moment you get frustrated and rage-quit against something while calling it “cheese” is the same moment you stop evolving and improving as a player. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

BurrTheKing.8571:

This “Warrior is best at every” crap is really getting to be annoying. Warrior is decent at several things,but it is FAR from the “best” at everything.

• Ele, Thief, and even Guardian can have higher DPS

• Guardian, Ele, and Engi can have better sustain

• Guardians and Eles offer better group support

• Necromancers and Engis have better AoE Conditions

• You could argue that in PvP Engis have better CC since the pushbacks are much more valuable than stuns and knockdowns.

• [EDIT] Thief has superior mobility

Thieves have only singletarget more dps, the can’t cleave that well. Guardian require way too much to have gigher damage than the warrior has, such as 20% more damage while under the effect of aegis. Eles are only stornger because of the summoned weapons. Give a warrior LH or FGS and he will do more damage than the warrior. The ele requires also pretty much to deal maximum damage, such as being over 90% health, the enemy below 50%.

Guardians have better sustain because its their job to guard people.
Eles wont deal much damage if they are that sustained. Engis will deal absolutely no damage if they are more sustained tham the warrior.

The warrior is only capable of providing offensive boons/debuffs. And he is definitely the best in providing those. Eles can stack a fair amount of offensive boons or heal their allies. Guardians are capable of providing defensive boons, again, that’s their job.

The thief hasn’t superior mobility, he has even mobility and isn’t able to fight back while using this mobility.

Cogbyrn.7283:

BurrTheKing.8571:

It would be silly to balance the game around dueling servers that aren’t officially supported and WvW roaming that has minimal effect on the overall outcome. This is not a fighting game, this is not a RTS, the closest relative to this game would probably be a moba like LoL or DotA. Even then, those games have more cases of 1v1s than what we see in GW2 so even then it’s not a perfect fit. Some of these comparisons I’m seeing make no sense.

Au contraire. Roaming consists of:

• Scouting enemy movements (crucial for well-coordinated defenses)
• Flipping camps (PPT)
• Killing Yaks (Points)
• Taking Sentries (Points)

If you have 10 people in a group, and they take a Tower to guarantee the PPT, you have +10 points. If you have 10 people roaming, and they each flip a camp, you can guarantee +50 points. That isn’t counting any yaks killed and sentries capped along the way.

Roaming done well is, in fact, a large factor.

If you are going to draw a comparison to a MOBA like DOTA 2, you should use it in the sPvP sense and say that everyone has access to play the same set of things, so if you actually want to win, and something feels strong, pick it up and play it. The 1v1 aspect in sPvP is similar: some match-ups are strong for your build, some are weaker, and you coordinate with your team to put yourself in an advantageous of a position as possible. That’s just how it works.

The key to remember here, though, is that people get attached to their characters in this game, like most MMOs. You don’t just have a rough laning phase with your hero then have an entirely different game next match. You run into the same classes over and over and over again, and if a match-up is difficult, it happens over and over and over again. Leading to frustration (see: forums).

I think it’s important for people to remember that it’s OK for a class/build to be difficult to fight. That class/build has difficulty fighting something else. Losing a fight like that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible player, nor does it mean you have to excuse it by calling the other person a terrible player. Even the dreaded condi Engi can get obliterated by Necros.

The moment you get frustrated and rage-quit against something while calling it “cheese” is the same moment you stop evolving and improving as a player. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

Those WvW aspects you mentioned are still much less important than those big pushes that capture the stuff that gives your server score. If we were to balance around roaming it would mean that you’re probably not balancing around those big group fights that makes the biggest difference. In terms of overall importance I would much rather balance for the big fights and not the small ones.

The people I was mostly addressing are those who roll Thief and do nothing in WvW but go around ganking people. These people eventually run into a Warrior that can survive their spike and then counter attack and they decide they don’t like that so they come here to make up crap about Warriors. I would say at least half of the things non-Warrior players post about Warriors is wrong in some way or at least overly exaggerated for effect. And of course throw in a video of a fully buffed Warrior killing up-levels, a guy who just spams his auto attack, and the guy recording who has no food or buffs of any kind.

As mentioned by others, I would also like to see that the Ranger CDI was not a total waste of people’s time. 70 pages of input including VERY thorough write-ups. Many of us still believe nothing became of the effort put in by players. Essentially all we saw was an addition of a grand master trait that allowed the longbow to actually hit targets at range.

Also, to the people still stating ranger=/=archer, ANET’s own description of ranger is “unparalleled archer." I am fine with a melee ranger, put I suggest until ANET creates a profession that IS what people consider an archer, stop with this.

CrockyClockwork.4095:

As mentioned by others, I would also like to see that the Ranger CDI was not a total waste of people’s time. 70 pages of input including VERY thorough write-ups. Many of us still believe nothing became of the effort put in by players. Essentially all we saw was an addition of a grand master trait that allowed the longbow to actually hit targets at range.

Also, to the people still stating ranger=/=archer, ANET’s own description of ranger is “unparalleled archer." I am fine with a melee ranger, put I suggest until ANET creates a profession that IS what people consider an archer, stop with this.

Not to mention the Ready Up this entire thread is talking about very clearly stated that the Ranger should be the strongest single target ranged DPS in the game.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Those WvW aspects you mentioned are still much less important than those big pushes that capture the stuff that gives your server score. If we were to balance around roaming it would mean that you’re probably not balancing around those big group fights that makes the biggest difference. In terms of overall importance I would much rather balance for the big fights and not the small ones.

If you’re going to make such a bold claim, at least try to support it. What do you think a larger-scale fight consists of? Well if you’re fighting over objectives, it often revolves around siege. Are you going to do class balance around fights where siege like Arrow Carts are a factor?

But let’s step away from that for a moment and consider an open field with 2 groups of equal size. We’re disregarding the fact that this open-field fight may or may not have anything to do with PPT, and the fact that you probably need a small group to take Borderlands Bloodlust somewhere to get WvW points for the stomps (unless you’re committing your large group to it for some reason), and that you don’t necessarily get fair open field fights very often and numbers often matter.

What influences this fight? I’m certainly no GvG master, but there are some key factors that seem apparent to me:

• Area control via wall skills like Spectral Wall, Line of Warding, Ring of Warding. You can help determine where fights end up and whether groups can get away from disadvantageous positions.

• Condition control. Conditions would most likely destroy these groups, so you need to combat that. AoE cleansing seems to be a good choice, and being able to go immune to conditions for a period of time is absolutely enormous, not even just because of damaging conditions but also fear/blind control.

• Boon plays. Get as many boons as possible on your team, strip as many boons as possible from theirs.

• The offensive line and the backfield. From what I’ve seen, many fights turn into a group that surges for pressure, and another group that stays in the back providing the AoE support.

Every single one of these items involves toolkits more than anything else. Do you have the ability to:

• Apply boons to your team?
• Strip boons from their team?
• Apply AoE pressure?
• Apply AoE control?
• Cleanse conditions on your team?
• Get into the back line to down their support and get out without being caught?

I really don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to have balance in a larger scale where it’s more group coordination/ground control as well as balance on a smaller scale. Then again, I really don’t think smaller scale is that imbalanced at all. There are strengths and weaknesses, but the game is designed that your class/build is going to have weaknesses no matter what you do. It’s about accommodating those weaknesses as best you can through general play and maybe some utility/trait options while maximizing on your strengths.

Anyway, I think it’s an interesting phenomenon when someone has a fairly easy time with almost everything in the game, but the 1 thing that gives them trouble is “imbalanced”. Thieves hating Warriors, Engis hating Necros, take your pick. It’s like people don’t realize that the easy time they’re having against other classes is the same thing on a larger scale. That’s part of the reason why I try to steer my arguments about certain things more towards the perceived fun of the mechanic and less about balanced. I can have a difficult time against certain things, but certain things can have a difficult time against me. It really isn’t that bad of a thing.

Josh Davis.6015:

I think some of the sentiments expressed on the livestream are being misinterpreted – that’s probably on us. So, let’s clear things up! With each profession, we discussed where players felt they were strong, where they were weak, where they SHOULD be strong, and where they SHOULD be weak. We also presented what we feel the strengths/weaknesses of each profession was, and sort of our long-term high-level goals for balancing.

So, here’s a few notes on warrior:

Warrior:
Of the heavy classes, the Warrior is able to balance sustainability and damage. They bring high sustained damage and opponent control.

• Strengths:
  • Sturdy body
  • Able to apply physical or condition damage
  • Sustained melee AoE DPS
  • Melee crowd control

• Weaknesses:
  • Little ability to deal with enemy boons
  • Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities
  • Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire

---

The point about warrior low/high mobility was actually community feedback that we were relaying, in that you would like to see the warrior have less access to mobility skills – not more. We don’t think warrior should have more mobility.

Our list of long-term balance goals is something we created independently of forum feedback, and honestly, we’re pretty happy with how closely your thoughts and our ideas coincided. Sorry for any confusion.

-Josh

Josh props to you on making the switch from player to employee on this great game. But my question is how exactly do you think a warrior can become “overwhelmed” by conditions when they have hands down the best active condition clear in the game. Cleansing Ire+burst mastery synergize too well. Currently if you don’t spend three bars of adrenaline thanks to burst mastery you still cleanse three conditions…. So we have in theory warriors able to cleanse 3 conditions roughly every 7-10 seconds which is a single condition clear every 2-3s. Heard you like bullet points so.

• Warriors get too much condition cleansing thanks to the synergizing of cleansing ire an burst mastery.

• If using burst mastery warriors should only cleanse conditions equal to the actual amount of adrenaline spent. OR

• Cleansing Ire gets a 15s ICD. Moving it up a tier won’t help since people will just trait merciless hammer in master and cleansing ire in GM.

I never said that I myself found 1v1s to be particularly imbalanced, but there are plenty of posts here stating that they think that the whole game should revolve around those situations. THAT is what I oppose. I would much rather have a balanced team game. Generally that means that some builds are going to be really strong 1v1 and maybe only 1 or 2 builds are going to counter it.

As an example my current version of Skullcracker is only really weak to maybe 1-2 Mesmer builds (depends on how well you squash the clones/phats) and 1 Necro build. That being said in team fights you’ll have to deal with people overriding your long stun and the fact that outside of cleave you have little group utility. In a team fight you’re better off going after a totally different target than everyone else so that they don’t screw you up. Nerfing the build’s 1v1 capability would mean making it totally worthless in team situations.

On the opposite side of that coin some builds are only so-so in 1v1 but wreck face in team situations. Those builds are the real issue, I’ve seen so many PvP teams running double Engi where they just start the fight by using their Supply Drop with Accelerant Packed Turrets which just causes untold amounts of havoc especially when paired with a Rifle. Or these Celestial D/D Eles that have decent damage while also providing team support. The builds are beatable but provide so much in a team fight it’s not even funny. If we went by a 1v1 balance philosophy that would mean that the 2 builds listed above are fine, a team balance philosophy may not agree.

jportell.2197:

Josh Davis.6015:

Snip

Snip

What you’re saying only applies to a Warrior who is landing all of their bursts. The only weapon that makes this easy is LB. Any other melee weapon is highly dependent on landing their burst in order to actually cleanse. I would argue that CI is one of the most well designed condi removal traits in the game because it requires the player to actually do something. That being said I can meet you half way and suggest this:

What if Combustive Shot required a hit in order to activate/cleanse? Right now you actually can block CS but not every class has a skill that can. So what if CS had to have someone in the circle actually be hit by a small initial attack before it became a combo field? That would make it still a good way to reliably activate CI but gives enemies a chance to react. To compensate the travel time might need to be sped up a tiny bit because otherwise it would be laughably easy to avoid.

With that change every Burst the Warrior has would be an obvious telegraph that enemies should always see coming. Good Warriors will be able to time them or set them up while bad ones will continuously miss them and get eaten alive by condi spam.

EDIT: I want to add something about mobility. If you want to give Rush the RtL treatment then the CD should be upped to around 30 but should be halved if it connects. Having a gap closer nerfed because it also happens to be decent at running away isn’t exactly fair. It goes without saying that this also means Rush needs to have its pathing looked at so your character doesn’t just run up and whiff the attack on anyone who is slightly moving to the side.

I don’t like the idea of making it require a target because that makes things feel so restrictive when the GS as a weapon is supposed to be about being fast. As for GS + Sword/Warhorn, really? It’s a build that has nothing but mobility and one easy to predict combo. It’s a build centered around mobility so let it have that. Losing to that sort of build generally means you done goofed something up.

BurrTheKing.8571:

jportell.2197:

Josh Davis.6015:

Snip

Snip

I don’t like the idea of making it require a target because that makes things feel so restrictive when the GS as a weapon is supposed to be about being fast. As for GS + Sword/Warhorn, really? It’s a build that has nothing but mobility and one easy to predict combo. It’s a build centered around mobility so let it have that. Losing to that sort of build generally means you done goofed something up.

The landspeed is OP. If the setup offers nothing else (bull shyte, but whatever) then change/buff the other areas and fix the landspeed.

Ross Biddle.2367:

BurrTheKing.8571:

jportell.2197:

Josh Davis.6015:

Snip

Snip

I don’t like the idea of making it require a target because that makes things feel so restrictive when the GS as a weapon is supposed to be about being fast. As for GS + Sword/Warhorn, really? It’s a build that has nothing but mobility and one easy to predict combo. It’s a build centered around mobility so let it have that. Losing to that sort of build generally means you done goofed something up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh8wtucvZJs

The landspeed is OP. If the setup offers nothing else (bull shyte, but whatever) then change/buff the other areas and fix the landspeed.

To you and all others who seem to not get this point :
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/warrior/

please read.

“Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.”

It is literally the first adjective used to describe the class.

So I wanted to suggest some things before the show, but my forum sentence had to be served.

• Have Agility Training be default for Ranger pets or combine it with Pet’s Prowess. To compensate, you could move Honed Axes down to Adept and make a new trait that upgrades F2 attack damage, since Ranger is more about the pet.

• Dramatically nerf Warrior mobility by reducing range on Bull’s Charge, Savage Leap, Rush, and Whirlwind Attack a minimum of 50% each. The tankiness of the class is fine, their immunities, condi cleanse, etc. but being able to reinforce all over the map and escape to reset so easily is too effective. They ought to be a bit more mobile than Necro, but not much more because of their similar tankiness and copious access to swiftness.

• Dodge spam option 1: Increase the time elapsed on the dodging animation by 1/3 or 1/2 a second. I was thinking about ways to address the huge problems that S/D Thief and Energy Sigil builds present, and this would reduce the offensive effectiveness of builds that want to be able to dodge so much by creating more of an opportunity cost. More time dodging means less time attacking, so this would make those playstyles more balanced, because if they want to dodge spam they’re giving the enemy time to recover health, time their counterattack, etc.

• Dodge spam option 2: Have a 1/2 second GCD on dodging. This way, dodges would not be able to be spammed through entire chain attacks like Rapid Fire or Ghastly Claws, or completely invalidate Whirling Wrath or Wells. This would allow dodges to be as quick, but not be able to be spammed.

I also want to point out some things to the community that were actually a bit educational about the show

• Necromancers are NOT casters, they are NOT assassins. They have built the class around death shroud, so when you run builds that do not feature it the class is being utilized against its design. Anet was right to nerf the bleeds, dhuumfire, etc. because you already have boon rip, condi passing, condi drawing, and fear dmg and are ignoring Death Shroud.

• They wanted Necro to be a attrition class where you are nasty over time and have the tools to outlast anybody. The tools exist for that. The Necro does not need stability, teleports, or any of that stuff. It’s a very strong class at this very moment.

• Here’s the build I’m running right now that is crushing people on Necro. Warriors, Eles, Rangers, Engis, doesn’t matter they will either die or run. The proc damage, being able to lich when opportune, the only class that really gives me trouble on Necro is Thief with not being able to build life force as quickly with either evadespam or 5/2 D/P combos.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAndWjc0UcbpNm3whbighSyW4Di8BCAq3iroXB-TJBFwACOFAL3fwaZAAPBAA

• Ranger pets hit very, very hard if you build for them. Like the Necro, people have been building Rangers outside of the pet instead of with it, so I believe Anet is right to keep player damage lower. It’s not their fault you don’t put points into Beast Mastery or take Prowess or Agility Training. You get a massive DPS boost that way and can take a really tanky amulet while enjoying that advantage. The AI isn’t the problem – your use of the attack and return buttons are. If they’re kiting, call the pet back, then sic him once you know the path hes gonna take is better.

• Eles and might stacking being so strong at the moment is more due to the fact that Necros and Mesmers aren’t punishing them than the classes being “OP.” If Necros built tankier and around DS, used their boon rips as a priority, while Mesmers also built a little tankier with null field and Arcane Thievery, there goes the 25 might advantage. This, of course, combined with other aspects of the class, like getting Halting Strike, Terror, etc.

• When you think about it, it was actually brilliant on Anet’s part to bring might to the fold like this because boon rip is more important now than ever. People still ignore it, so of course Ele, Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Mesmer might stacking is going through the roof. When Necros and Mesmers figure out how they can leverage against that, they’ll see that they are not “underpowered” and if they are a bit sturdier they can go toe to toe with the meta and win.

• If you think boon rip isn’t that good, then you haven’t seen the devastation that ensues when you take a big ol stack of might from an ele, or turn stability into a fear chain on Necro. AoE boon rip is even crazier, you can prevent a stomp and preserve one with cc and aoe boon rip/corruption. It’s called teamfighting, look it up pls

Inscrutable.8347:

“snips”

• Have Agility Training be default for Ranger pets or combine it with Pet’s Prowess. To compensate, you could move Honed Axes down to Adept and make a new trait that upgrades F2 attack damage, since Ranger is more about the pet.

• Dramatically nerf Warrior mobility by reducing range on Bull’s Charge, Savage Leap, Rush, and Whirlwind Attack a minimum of 50% each. The tankiness of the class is fine, their immunities, condi cleanse, etc. but being able to reinforce all over the map and escape to reset so easily is too effective. They ought to be a bit more mobile than Necro, but not much more because of their similar tankiness and copious access to swiftness.

“snips some more”

I also want to point out some things to the community that were actually a bit educational about the show

• Necromancers are NOT casters, they are NOT assassins. They have built the class around death shroud, so when you run builds that do not feature it the class is being utilized against its design. Anet was right to nerf the bleeds, dhuumfire, etc. because you already have boon rip, condi passing, condi drawing, and fear dmg and are ignoring Death Shroud.

• They wanted Necro to be a attrition class where you are nasty over time and have the tools to outlast anybody. The tools exist for that. The Necro does not need stability, teleports, or any of that stuff. It’s a very strong class at this very moment.

• Here’s the build I’m running right now that is crushing people on Necro. Warriors, Eles, Rangers, Engis, doesn’t matter they will either die or run. The proc damage, being able to lich when opportune, the only class that really gives me trouble on Necro is Thief with not being able to build life force as quickly with either evadespam or 5/2 D/P combos.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAndWjc0UcbpNm3whbighSyW4Di8BCAq3iroXB-TJBFwACOFAL3fwaZAAPBAA

• Ranger pets hit very, very hard if you build for them. Like the Necro, people have been building Rangers outside of the pet instead of with it, so I believe Anet is right to keep player damage lower. It’s not their fault you don’t put points into Beast Mastery or take Prowess or Agility Training. You get a massive DPS boost that way and can take a really tanky amulet while enjoying that advantage.

• Eles and might stacking being so strong at the moment is more due to the fact that Necros and Mesmers aren’t punishing them than the classes being “OP.” If Necros built tankier and around DS, used their boon rips as a priority, while Mesmers also built a little tankier with null field and Arcane Thievery, there goes the 25 might advantage.

• When you think about it, it was actually brilliant on Anet’s part to bring might to the fold like this because boon rip is more important now than ever. People still ignore it, so of course Ele, Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Mesmer might stacking is going through the roof. When Necros and Mesmers figure out how they can leverage against that, they’ll see that they are not “underpowered” and if they are a bit sturdier they can go toe to toe with the meta and win.

Re. Rangers: Yes, what Rangers should clearly do is throw all of their trait points at a questionable class mechanic governed by a crappy AI. Perfectly sensible idea. /sarcasm. Playing a Ranger is (appropriately) more about playing an archer class for many people than it is about playing a “Beastmaster.”

Re. Necromancer: DS is useful, no doubt. But the lack of access to utility skills while in DS coupled with a sort of anti-synergy with some of the stronger trait lines makes it less than the be-all-and-end-all you imply it should be for Necromancers. There is no “one right way” to play any class and there is zero reason or excuse to expect Necromances to build everything around their class mechanic. That’s as silly as saying all Thieves need to build around their glorified gap-closer Steal.

Re. Boon Stripping: Its not now nor is it ever likely to be “critical.” Sometimes effective no doubt, but so long as certain classes have ready access to boons (not to mention the existence of Strength Runes in their current state) stripping them will have less impact than you are implying. Feel free to strip a big stack of might off a Warrior or Guardian – they will likely have another big stack on them in 10 seconds – long before most boon stripping utilities are off CD.

As for the Warrior-mobility, I’d like the following, game-wide, change:

• Non-ground-targeted movement skills (Leap, Ride the Lightning, Bull Rush, etc) can only be used if you have a target selected. They’re for engagement, not escape.
• They will also not fire if you are out of reach of the selected target, a bunny 2000m away won’t help you.
• Ground-targeted skills function as now, but AFAIK this only affected Whirlwind.
• Fiery Greatsword now drags it’s flame-trail all the way to the target, though it still does the jump – it just also drops the trail, and also drops a patch of fire when impacting from the jump.

Harper.4173:

Ross Biddle.2367:

BurrTheKing.8571:

jportell.2197:

Josh Davis.6015:

Snip

Snip

I don’t like the idea of making it require a target because that makes things feel so restrictive when the GS as a weapon is supposed to be about being fast. As for GS + Sword/Warhorn, really? It’s a build that has nothing but mobility and one easy to predict combo. It’s a build centered around mobility so let it have that. Losing to that sort of build generally means you done goofed something up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh8wtucvZJs

The landspeed is OP. If the setup offers nothing else (bull shyte, but whatever) then change/buff the other areas and fix the landspeed.

To you and all others who seem to not get this point :
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/warrior/

please read.

“Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.”

It is literally the first adjective used to describe the class.

Oh god, not one of those people who quotes blurbs from the class descriptions, stomps their feet and yells “BALANCE!”.

I mean, if we wanted to pick over those sentences and be all literal, we’d point out how speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor are meant to aid survival in battle. Not spamming their skills, dealing zero damage, charging away from it. Great argument there to have all “speed” skills targeted then. Good job with your literal blurb argument. Well done.

Inscrutable.8347:

• They wanted Necro to be a attrition class where you are nasty over time and have the tools to outlast anybody. The tools exist for that. The Necro does not need stability, teleports, or any of that stuff. It’s a very strong class at this very moment.

• Here’s the build I’m running right now that is crushing people on Necro. Warriors, Eles, Rangers, Engis, doesn’t matter they will either die or run. The proc damage, being able to lich when opportune, the only class that really gives me trouble on Necro is Thief with not being able to build life force as quickly with either evadespam or 5/2 D/P combos.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAndWjc0UcbpNm3whbighSyW4Di8BCAq3iroXB-TJBFwACOFAL3fwaZAAPBAA

How can you consider the class with the worst sustain in the game in a good spot for attrition? That is completely counter-intuitive.

And based on your build, your anecdotal evidence is based on fighting worse players. I’m willing to bet most of your kills come from lucky Fire + Air lich auto attacks.

Your build is entirely reliant in Lich and DS forms for critical damage and power heavy, but has a lot of trait investment and runes into using fear. Why would you focus so heavily in fear if you have less than 400 condition damage? What’s the point of terror in that build?

Why take Reaper’s precision when you have so little crit chance outside of Lich and DS?

Why take staff and so many of its traits when you have so little condition damage and no condition duration?
For LF generation? You do realize soul marks doesn’t scale LF generated with number of targets hit, right?

Why take signet of undeath and spectral walk? Spectral Armor by itself is more useful than both put together.

If you’re are going to argue that Necros are “in a good spot”and are reliably killing people with the profession at least post a sensible build doesn’t bend over backwards for situational effectiveness.

Honestly i think PvE needs the most balancing. There are soo many groups that only accept Ele War or Guard because all of them have ridiculous support while having very good damage and/ or sustain. Thief- for skipping only. Mesmers have the same kind of weird portal skipping niche as the Thief. Engi Necro and Ranger are just unwanted.
Dungeons are cleard by skipping stuff, abusing broken mechanics and lumping together on one spot abusing the dumb AI.
Also Zerker gear rules but i doubt that will ever change.

Carighan.6758:

As for the Warrior-mobility, I’d like the following, game-wide, change:

• Non-ground-targeted movement skills (Leap, Ride the Lightning, Bull Rush, etc) can only be used if you have a target selected. They’re for engagement, not escape.
• They will also not fire if you are out of reach of the selected target, a bunny 2000m away won’t help you.
• Ground-targeted skills function as now, but AFAIK this only affected Whirlwind.
• Fiery Greatsword now drags it’s flame-trail all the way to the target, though it still does the jump – it just also drops the trail, and also drops a patch of fire when impacting from the jump.

Please, no. I like being able to use leaps and things to traverse maps just for fun. This would ruin all those epic jumps I try.

Sevans.4619:

Please, no. I like being able to use leaps and things to traverse maps just for fun. This would ruin all those epic jumps I try.

Correct. But then, that added mobility is the exact issue. In that case, I’d rather have them add more movement-only skills (like Mesmer Blink), which are dedicated to moving the character and can be balanced by their own CD and limitations.

Elementalist in PvP/small scale WvW

theoretical strong point: should be able to deal successfully against any other class

weak point: low hp, extremely fragile, long cooldowns, locked range

kryptonite: unfortunately what should be our virtue (versatility) always backfires, rendering us ineffective for our purposes.
Our gameplay feels unrewarding: we just have to press thrice as buttons as any other class to just get the same (or inferior) results, while I would really like to see a rewarding gameplay with specific tools to deal in 1v1 against mesmers and their clones, in 1v1 against thieves and their stealth, against warriors and their immense HP pool and adrenaline system and so on.
Granted, the latest balance patch brought us a noticeable improvement in sustain, but by “noticeable” I really mean it: something that doesn’t pass unnoticed but still far from being what we hope for.
We are the glass minus the cannon.

jportell.2197:

…Heard you like bullet points so.

• Warriors get too much condition cleansing thanks to the synergizing of cleansing ire an burst mastery.

• If using burst mastery warriors should only cleanse conditions equal to the actual amount of adrenaline spent. OR

• Cleansing Ire gets a 15s ICD. Moving it up a tier won’t help since people will just trait merciless hammer in master and cleansing ire in GM.

I am feeling you are focusing too much on a single point, loosing the bigger picture.

For sure Warrior’s ability to cleanse conditions isn’t close to where it was when game launched. Still, going both for Burst Mastery AND Cleansing Ire requires you to spend 10 of the total 14 ability points… which somewhat restricts your build to certain things.

In other words, having superior condition cleanse while trading off some of your attack or defense potential seems a valid thing. So, while you can cleanse conditions easier you are more vulnerable to other things.

Ilias.8647:

jportell.2197:

…Heard you like bullet points so.

• Warriors get too much condition cleansing thanks to the synergizing of cleansing ire an burst mastery.

• If using burst mastery warriors should only cleanse conditions equal to the actual amount of adrenaline spent. OR

• Cleansing Ire gets a 15s ICD. Moving it up a tier won’t help since people will just trait merciless hammer in master and cleansing ire in GM.

I am feeling you are focusing too much on a single point, loosing the bigger picture.

For sure Warrior’s ability to cleanse conditions isn’t close to where it was when game launched. Still, going both for Burst Mastery AND Cleansing Ire requires you to spend 10 of the total 14 ability points… which somewhat restricts your build to certain things.

In other words, having superior condition cleanse while trading off some of your attack or defense potential seems a valid thing. So, while you can cleanse conditions easier you are more vulnerable to other things.

Burst Mastery isn’t really necessary, though. All that lets you do is burst-swap-burst for 4-5 conditions cleansed instead of just 3. Cleansing Ire is all that’s important because you’re full on adrenaline by the time a single burst cooldown is up anyway.

Inscrutable.8347:

• Dramatically nerf Warrior mobility by reducing range on Bull’s Charge, Savage Leap, Rush, and Whirlwind Attack a minimum of 50% each. The tankiness of the class is fine, their immunities, condi cleanse, etc. but being able to reinforce all over the map and escape to reset so easily is too effective. They ought to be a bit more mobile than Necro, but not much more because of their similar tankiness and copious access to swiftness.

The problem with warrior mobility is not the skills themselves. It’s the ability to be immune to CC through runes and food. Each one of our gap closers is susceptible to movement impairment (chills, cripples etc). Just from our skill and traits we can negate some of it for a short period of time be we are still quite vulnerable to being locked down. Add Melandru Runes and pretty strong protection from CC but it is still manageable. Adding -40 condi food just makes it ridiculously OP. You suggestion would render any build not running Melandru+food a sitting duck for you to kite to death. Remove food from WvW and you will see warrior mobility and ability to escape drop back to reasonable levels.

Harper.4173:

To you and all others who seem to not get this point :
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/warrior/

please read.

“Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.”

It is literally the first adjective used to describe the class.

Exactly. It states speed, not mobility. Glad you pointed out that the mobility is a large problem when they have so much of it.

I actually agree with Julie Yann. Warriors are actually pretty easy to keep in check unless they use Zerker Stance then all of their mobility skills. In this case, it isn’t the mobility skill that’s the issue, it’s the fact that you can’t do anything about Zerker Stance.

Watching a Chilled Warrior try to Savage Leap or Rush is actually hilarious, because it accomplishes nothing. I actually think the game would lose something special if abilities like this couldn’t be used without a target.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Inscrutable.8347:

• They wanted Necro to be a attrition class where you are nasty over time and have the tools to outlast anybody. The tools exist for that. The Necro does not need stability, teleports, or any of that stuff. It’s a very strong class at this very moment.

• Here’s the build I’m running right now that is crushing people on Necro. Warriors, Eles, Rangers, Engis, doesn’t matter they will either die or run. The proc damage, being able to lich when opportune, the only class that really gives me trouble on Necro is Thief with not being able to build life force as quickly with either evadespam or 5/2 D/P combos.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAndWjc0UcbpNm3whbighSyW4Di8BCAq3iroXB-TJBFwACOFAL3fwaZAAPBAA

How can you consider the class with the worst sustain in the game in a good spot for attrition? That is completely counter-intuitive.

And based on your build, your anecdotal evidence is based on fighting worse players. I’m willing to bet most of your kills come from lucky Fire + Air lich auto attacks.

Your build is entirely reliant in Lich and DS forms for critical damage and power heavy, but has a lot of trait investment and runes into using fear. Why would you focus so heavily in fear if you have less than 400 condition damage? What’s the point of terror in that build?

Why take Reaper’s precision when you have so little crit chance outside of Lich and DS?

Why take staff and so many of its traits when you have so little condition damage and no condition duration?
For LF generation? You do realize soul marks doesn’t scale LF generated with number of targets hit, right?

Why take signet of undeath and spectral walk? Spectral Armor by itself is more useful than both put together.

If you’re are going to argue that Necros are “in a good spot”and are reliably killing people with the profession at least post a sensible build doesn’t bend over backwards for situational effectiveness.

Your analysis is the typical Necro response to anything that isn’t condi or max burst.

• Sustain does not have to mean healing power or hp regen. The life force generation in this build will keep up with Eles, Warriors, and Guardians sustain. Yes it’s counter-intuitive, because the Necromancer class is counter-intuitive. A caster that can fight in melee. Necro is like an Elder Scrolls battlemage, not a WoW mage.

• I will admit, like I did when I linked the build, that really good Thief players are an uphill fight. Life force is a lot harder to build when they’re in stealth or dodging all the time. Any other class, however, is easy to build life force on, easy to hit Spinal Shivers and Corrupt Boon, and even if they have a huge damage/survival ratio, my teammates can rotate over to finish them off if they try to 1v1 me for the 30 sec to 1 min it will take them to get close to killing me.

• Terror isn’t condi exclusive. Yes, you get more damage if you take a condi amulet, but I consider Terror fears to be the most unique and dangerous part of the class. It’s a combination of damage, CC, and support when used in team fights against focused targets. If they’re constantly being feared they’re eating more damage from Life Blast, Ghastly Claws, etc. Every bit helps. I’d put money on Terror being one of my better damage sources.

• Spectral Armor already comes from the trait line, so a second one is redundant. Necro is slow, so I would rather be able to get from a point to another faster and be able to res someone in a pinch than just double up on protection that a Thief can steal and hard counter me even more.

• Situational effectiveness? You’re just reading and making judgments that aren’t based on any testing. This build is very strong against most of the best Warrior, Ele, and Guardian builds.

• Hambow? No stab for you, enjoy getting feared every time you land any CC. Not enough dodges to prevent life force generation, so good luck trying to kill me.

• D/D Ele? I’ll pass your burning right back to you, build up LF easily, and corrupt / shivers all your boons. They still last a long time, but I have enough damage and utility to kill them.

• Medi Guard? Where are your boons bro? Oh did I pass that burning back to you? Why you hurt yourself with your confusion stacks from corrupt boon?

• Engi? Thanks Elixir B I love you long time. Engis are scared of Necros for a reason, for all their CC they have, they really have no answer to Terror Necro builds.

• Mesmer? I had a shatter opponent unload 3 mind wracks on me in zerkers and still couldn’t kill me. I dodged one of them, but didn’t need to dodge all of them. He still died.

• Ranger? ROFL. The feeling of turning a huge stack of regen into 10 bleeds is second to none. They can dodge a lot, which helps them a bit, but they don’t do enough damage to threaten me.

Inscrutable.8347:

• Spectral Armor already comes from the trait line, so a second one is redundant. Necro is slow, so I would rather be able to get from a point to another faster and be able to res someone in a pinch than just double up on protection that a Thief can steal and hard counter me even more.

• Situational effectiveness? You’re just reading and making judgments that aren’t based on any testing. This build is very strong against most of the best Warrior, Ele, and Guardian builds.

I tested your build and i had more survivability with spectral armor than with signet of undeath.
But with nether i felt i had any more sustain in fights then other common soldier builds. It was the same at always, the longer the fights goes the more likely it was that i died and DS did the same that it always does, simply delaying the inevitable.

Well that depends how aggressive you were and if you were landing the skill shots. If you had condis, did you pass it back with Putrid Mark? If you were fighting an Ele, how many times did you corrupt / shivers his boons? Did you get any fear chains?

Hard to tell if you were playing it well or just trying it out.

Inscrutable.8347:

Well that depends how aggressive you were and if you were landing the skill shots. If you had condis, did you pass it back with Putrid Mark? If you were fighting an Ele, how many times did you corrupt / shivers his boons? Did you get any fear chains?

Hard to tell if you were playing it well or just trying it out.

Who knows, and i wouldnt even say that it didnt work. I had some succes with it. But the thing is it doesnt feel like an attrition play style. But i guess this is a more fundamental problem with necros. The trait trees that should allow a attrition play style (death magic and bloodmagic) are subpar unless you play a mm necro…

Cogbyrn.7283:

I actually agree with Julie Yann. Warriors are actually pretty easy to keep in check unless they use Zerker Stance then all of their mobility skills. In this case, it isn’t the mobility skill that’s the issue, it’s the fact that you can’t do anything about Zerker Stance.

Watching a Chilled Warrior try to Savage Leap or Rush is actually hilarious, because it accomplishes nothing. I actually think the game would lose something special if abilities like this couldn’t be used without a target.

I agree with your last point especially. What makes this game unique is that many skills don’t require a target. It makes the game feel much less restrictive and allows for more creative strategies.

The mobility isn’t a problem in PvP, and what makes it a problem in WvW is -condi duration food. Both the -duration and +duration condi food need to go if you want this to not be a problem. It’s not fair to punish a class in other game modes because something happens to synergize better than with other classes. The same can be said for Strength/Pirate runes.

Muchacho.2390:

simply delaying the inevitable.

“delaying” is sort-of what sustain-focused builds are about. You always die eventually if you fight long enough. :P

Carighan.6758:

Muchacho.2390:

simply delaying the inevitable.

“delaying” is sort-of what sustain-focused builds are about. You always die eventually if you fight long enough. :P

Yeah, but sustain builds should be better in the long term. Unfortuately, death shroud lets them last a while, but not actually sustain because actual health keeps dropping. More than any other profession, necros are always on a ticking clock when they fight. Thieves and Mesmers are close contenders for #2 and #3, though, but they aren’t intended to stick around if things are going poorly.

I’m sure I’m only reiterating some things that have already been said, but:

Rangers: something needs to be done about their pets. Honestly, I’m not sure why MMOs still include pet classes as I’m hard-pressed to think of a single one that gets it right. SWTOR comes the closest with companions, and even they still bug out a TON.

Necromancers: Utility and healing skills being locked during Death Shroud really dampens the power of an otherwise excellent design. Given their almost complete lack of mobility options and access to the Vitality boon, it is reasonable to believe that DS would act as a cover to allow the Necro to regain health. At a minimum, there is no good reason for locking out the four utility slots.

Warriors: they simply don’t have enough disadvantages to compensate for their advantages. They are not the best at anything, but they are excellent at almost everything (they can’t remove boons). These advantages combined with the strongest baseline survivability in the game (high health, high armor) makes them exceptionally frustrating to play against — even when you are playing a Warrior yourself.

The saddest thing of all is that the intention of what warriors should be is overpowered.

Ready Up #15 sounded like a long, “Working as intended, L2P”. Unless of course you’re a warrior, in which case you don’t have to.

Frankly, you’re not going to get a more vociferous cry of “Nerf Warriors” than you did in this thread. It’s almost surreal, laughable even, to see them asking each other, did you get a sense of what the community wanted?

What stuns me is that even with all these balance talks, I have yet to see the developers come out and admit to some of the basic problems in the game’s balance that so many of the players have pointed out.

I keep hearing the developers talk about the strengths and weaknesses of a particularly class. Like for example how a warrior’s weakness is lack of boon removal, which is a necromancer’s strength. But then not one developer brings up the problem that some mechanics such as boon removal are not really important in areas such as PVE. Another “strength” of the necromancer in massive air quotes is control. Again, a mechanic rendered completely useless in PVE because almost every single boss in the game has Defiant/Unshakeable.

My point is, how can you discuss balance when the core mechanics that each class revolves around, aren’t equally represented in the game? Especially in PVE, reflect, party wide boons, stability, and cleave are extremely valuable. But they are mechanics that are unequally distributed among the classes, and even represented all at once on the guardian, and not at all on the necromancer (well we have just really poor access to stability, and none of the others). So, I think it’s safe to say that at least as far as PVE is concerned, that’s a pretty big balance problem.

So are any of the developers ever going to specifically address this issue? Or are we all just going to pretend it doesn’t exist?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Again, a mechanic rendered completely useless in PVE because almost every single boss in the game has Defiant/Unshakeable.

I get mocked as being grumpy by my guildmates when I point out this enormous design flaw (in fairness it dates way back in the history of MMOs). My point still stands, though:

What’s the point in giving players abilities when the boss mobs just ignore them?

Svarty.8019:

What’s the point in giving players abilities when the boss mobs just ignore them?

And now the developer’s perspective:
Because allowing them would completely trivialize all boss fights.

Yes, there are – hopefully – ways around that. But we’re entering newfoundgame territory then, because no one has figured this out so far. One idea is to just never fight “the boss”. Instead, you fight an army. Every time. With the soldiers protecting the officers who AE buff the soldiers and specialists using CC and debuffs, etc. Full CC allowed, ofc you’re 5 players against 10-50 enemies or in the open world 100-150 players against 150-300 enemies.

Might be a solution, but again, no one tried so far, probably due to technical reasons. Stutter is bad against 1 boss in GW2, let alone 2 in WildStar. Imagine 300.

There are pretty easy solutions to making control skills work in boss battles. Heck, I can think of several right off the top of my head. The only reason you don’t want control skills to work against bosses, is stun locking. But there are other ways to prevent stun-locking from happening:

-Every control skill causes 3 seconds of defiant, which stacks, but automatically wears off.
-Bosses have skills that allow them to escape from corners or places they are stuck. Such as a teleport or leap skill.
-Bosses become stronger if they are struck by too many control skills in a row. Perhaps their fury rises, causing them to deal more damage for a limited time.

It always annoyed me in Final Fantasy how often bosses would be immune to blind or silence spells (or berserk, or poison, or confusion). It completely trivialized the combat, turning it into a simple case of grinding your way to a high enough level, and then spamming all your summons or physical attacks (there by negating the magic system entirely). I wish GW2’s game designers did not take the easy way out. Just design your bosses around your combat system, and USE the mechanics that you’ve created. Otherwise the game is just a DPS fest…. which is exactly what we have now.

But current Defiant only does this:

• Solo: You use a stun skill. Enemy is stunned.
• Grouped: Each group member uses a stun skill. Enemy is stunned (once).

In other words, Defiant mitigates the excess CC. It works on the assumption that each player behaves as if solo, for example, if a boss is very vulnerable to interrupting specific moves, players will equip interrupt skills and use them on those skills. Due to how Defiant stacks, the boss will still get interrupted. Just once instead of five times.

(edit)
I think the general problem is more that we – the players – don’t want to be generalists. We want to be specialized, we want to be “The group’s CCer” or “The group’s healer”.

And GW2’s anti-CC mechanism needs each player to work under the assumption that they’re going to be the only player interrupting the bosses’ attacks. And if each player does that, the boss interrupts, just as if you were solo.

So this is more of a design difference. What we ultimately want is the boss to still be not overly weak to CC, but if you are the one handling CC in the party it should be weak to your CC (something like a tag-system where a specific debuff applied by a player makes the boss immune to everyone else’s CC).

But, this creates one of the 6 RPG roles, “The Crowd Controller”.
And that’s something ANet specifically did not want (the whole debuff idea is very close to the related Tank-role, which is a form of CC after all).

But we as players usually don’t like the generalist-roles GW2 promotes simply because:

1. We see no need for it (like I said in the other thread, GW2 is tuned for extremely low difficulty even in fights with complex mechanics).
2. We want to feel like the group depends on that. And oddly enough with Defiant that is true, but we don’t see it as such.

The real problem I see, is that the game scales the amount of Defiance on a boss to the amount of players, regardless if those players are actually using crowd control skills. And that’s a design flaw. Because it means that unless everyone is using crowd control skills, you won’t be able to interrupt the boss when you want to. And since timing is essential with crowd control skills, the whole mechanic is rendered useless.

Yes but again, that is a design decision.
They extend linearly from solo play.

When you’re solo, and you don’t have a crowd control skill equipped (or you don’t use it), the enemy won’t be crowd controlled.

Carighan.6758:

Yes but again, that is a design decision.
They extend linearly from solo play.

When you’re solo, and you don’t have a crowd control skill equipped (or you don’t use it), the enemy won’t be crowd controlled.

There’s another issue: Defiant stacks are equal to the number of nearby players+2. Which means if you’re solo, you have to waste 3 CC effects before you can CC them a second time. If they were instead equal to nearby players-1, then a single player would be able to CC a champion just like they would any other mob.

Then there’s the fact a number of bosses (and some rare other mobs) have unstrippable Stability, so they’re just completely immune anyway. Oakhearts don’t even have a buff icon showing this fact. Even worse is the fact that more and more bosses are going this way, further killing the idea of control builds in PvE.

All this talk about CC and interrupting bosses, while nobody can see what the boss is actually doing under the ocean of particle effects.

Also what is the point of interrupting skillfully when you are not credited for interrupt, only damage dealt? You can build a Defiant-killing mesmer that can remove 6 stacks in a single shatter, you can spend the whole boss fight keeping defiant stacks low and watching for the ultimate skill to interrupt, you can successfully interrupt that skill through a miracle, and prevent the wipe of half the zerg, but what do you get for your effort? Bronze reward at best, if any credit at all.

I hope they finaly balance ranger :/

McWolfy.5924:

I hope they finaly balance ranger :/

I’m expecting an Aquaman 2.0 update for the rangers and probably something nice for the other classes, I would guess specially for thief, mesmer and guardian.