Guild Wars 2

Now that all the Skill Bar infos are are, I must say i’m shocked and very disappointed at the same time.
This balancing is nothing but a bad farce, which gets worser and worser each time anet is doctoring on the skill balance and it has reached a new level, where I have to say, right now, right here is the time, where Anet finaly has to split the complete game balancing between all 3 main play modes of PvE, PvP and WvW, so that all skills and traits would have for all modes their own balancings, where all different key factors of all 3 different modes can be put into thebowl for its regarding play mode, so that it finally stops that Anet is ridiculously death patching the classes for many players for PvE as example due to som skill/trait changes, that are MAINLY meant to balance out some freaking PvP Meta Builds and vice versa.

Or that somethign destroys a good useful PvP build, because a skill got nerfed somehow for WvW/PvE whyever and makes that skill for PvP useless also, where it was useful only up to that point maybe.
Anet changed the game to have with weapon bound skilsl lesser skills exactly out of that reason, so that anet would have it easier to balance the game and seriously – this is so far the result out of 2 years of time???

Players want to have awesome epic nice looking skills for PvE, but not at the cost for destroying PvP with their effects and powers.
PvPers want well balanced skills without super uber skill spam effects everywhere that you see nothing without being the people to be boo’d at, because soem balance changes maybe ruined alot of pvE farm places or made somethign in fractals out of a sudden unplayable and very fun to play.

and WvWers basically want somethign from both, a balanced world settign thats fair towards underpopulated worlds to a certain degree as epic looking skills as god as possible without that the game performance suffers from it, when zergs crash into each other.

Thats a massive goal, which can get achieved only, if Anet would finally split all 3 segments of the game and balance out each of them individually with own sets of skill and trait effects, that are balanced around its game mode and not just one set up skill set and traits, whose balancign should work for all 3 different game modes at the same time. This will NEVER EVER WORK.

Yes, it means more effort to balance all skilsl and traits for each game mode seperately, but the results will definetely be a much better balanced overall game everywhere, players will have no reasons anymore to freak out, only because of some skill changes that ruined a part of the game they like to play, which was just supposed to be a balance change for a completly different game mode.

The whole game is missign still after 2 years some serious substantial depthful Class Balance and Class Design Changes that would be a great part of the overall Game Balance, which require of the Devs to make finally a more courageous step forward substantial depthful balance changes and class design changes that would help out significantly to get forward, without putting with any changes oil into the fire somewhere else, where skill/trait changes weren’t supposed to change anything in an other game mode, but always iwll be chain reactions, as long skill and traits get balanced for all 3 game modes at the same time together.

This patch is absolutely anti-thief.
All classes get significant buffs, that will help them to beat more efficiently theifs. Thiefs get meanwhile their most effective survival build nerfed, while on the other hand more classes get also stealth hard counters with that thieves could get basicalyl perma reveiled if just enough people use these thing, what in WvW can easily be the case due to the number of foes you can fight agaisnt at the same time – while the annoying knockdown meta there. thats just total braindead stays completely untouched…

With every balancing patch I get more and more the feeling, we are all nothing else, than guinea pigs and labor rats for Anet, which basically should test out those things, because its a cheaper way, than to do first such bigger balancing changes for an appropiate time on test servers with enough test players, before making alot of changes, so just do skip all the tstign, implement right away and expect the QQ waves, because its easier just to rechange some changes later, if the expected QQ waves exceed a certain cry out loud level of player disappointment and frustration to come up then with hot fixes to remove some bigger issues quickly under stealth or let the QQ wait like 6 months, until they can announce needed changes for more hype under a next bigger balancing patch

I wouldn’t say it’s anti-thief. The one really big nerf was black powder, and it was needed to add some counterplay without completely destroying the build.

It’s not suprising they didn’t make any big adjustments to the thief’s meta builds as they are already quite well balanced.

The problem is that the patch doesn’t do much to FIX the massive number of things that are broken on thieves. They’re continually doing things to buff and fix usless engi kits and turret builds, but we’ve still never seen a single update do anything meaningful to our traps or non-share venoms. We’ve seen multiple classes have skills drastically changed to address inconsistancies in damage typing or build roles. We’ve seen multiple classes have stuff drastically buffed or changed to afford more build options.

Thief, however, is always ever-so-lightly tweaked around its 1v1 builds, and has never been meaningfully adjusted for build diversity or skill consistancy. They keep ramming venomshare down out throats, but what they fail to realize is that people don’t want to run venomshare becuse, unlike shout or banner warrior, support guard, etc. it’s a support spec that requires blowing all of your cooldowns at the same time and then standing around doing nothing. It’s a fundamentally not fun spec to play, because the mechanics of the spec preclude it from having utility or survivability outside of its burst, and its burst requires treating the entire utility bar like one skill. It’s the same reason people hate/don’t run signet stab builds. Builds that let you do something meaningful once in a blue moon are only fun to play when their burst is ready.

We don’t need more or better damage specs, but if you’re going to balance us how about fleshing out our build options so that damage speccing isn’t all we have to bring to the table? What if we could spec in to stealth blinding, or shadowstepping our allies out of danger, or trap cc builds? Or melee range heal/cleanse builds for highly kinetic evade/support?

What if we had elites that were useful and fight defining like warriors and mesmers (or like basilisk venom pre-nerf)?

What if we could build around stealing as a primary build focus?

It’s not that thieves get consistantly big nerfs. We don’t. We get consistant small adjustments to existing specs, but what we never get is those big sexy adjustments that create new viable spec options that every other class seems to acquire each patch.

^ what he said. seriously, 1v1 specs are cool and all, but can we have some build variety? everyone else that has drastically underpowered specs gets overhauls, we get… nothing. it’s getting annoying.

BrunoBRS.5178:

^ what he said. seriously, 1v1 specs are cool and all, but can we have some build variety? everyone else that has drastically underpowered specs gets overhauls, we get… nothing. it’s getting annoying.

Most professions want more ‘build variety’, but I think that’s just naive.

Players naturally gravitate towards the builds that are the most rewarding without being too difficult for them to learn – hence the formation of metas. They will play through all builds they think might be viable until they find the ‘best’ one for their favourite gameplay mode, whether PvE, PvP or WvW. Sure, Anet could introduce more variety by revamping existing skills and traits or adding new ones, but that won’t stop players from forming metas in each game mode after they’ve sifted through all the potential new builds looking for the most rewarding one.

Bryzy.2719:

BrunoBRS.5178:

^ what he said. seriously, 1v1 specs are cool and all, but can we have some build variety? everyone else that has drastically underpowered specs gets overhauls, we get… nothing. it’s getting annoying.

Most professions want more ‘build variety’, but I think that’s just naive.

Players naturally gravitate towards the builds that are the most rewarding without being too difficult for them to learn – hence the formation of metas. They will play through all builds they think might be viable until they find the ‘best’ one for their favourite gameplay mode, whether PvE, PvP or WvW. Sure, Anet could introduce more variety by revamping existing skills and traits or adding new ones, but that won’t stop players from forming metas in each game mode after they’ve sifted through all the potential new builds looking for the most rewarding one.

A well balanced PVP game has a meta that changes without reacting to developer changes to its mechanics or values.

GW1 had this. The PvP meta was constantly in flux not because of balance changes, but because players designed new group compositions in response to the existing meta, which then had to be reacted to, which where then counter-reacted to again, and so on. When they balanced things in GW1 it was because a skill broke that mold and stopped the meta from evolving because it was the alpha dog best option which prevented any other from countering it. It’s the same reason they adjusted PvE skills. When a specific build or builds defined a class and made anything outside the mold sub par, they changed it so that players had the opportunity to build characters in diverse but equally successful ways.

The term “balance” isn’t just about making sure a handful of skills don’t strike each other from existince, but also making sure that every choice made about building a character is a meaningful and rewarding choice that isn’t by default inferior to a single build that pushed the entire idea of choosing skills, traits, and gear out the window. Otherwise there’s no point or reward in choosing those things for the player.