Guild Wars 2

This game was originally designed with a level playing field in mind, so why in the world did they stray from the GW1 model of giving everyone the same base HP to start with? You can still build for more or less HP depending on your role. You could introduce new upgrades that are more powerful than normal but have a penalty like reduced vitality or some other stat.

By leveling the playing field you encourage build diversity and creativity, which is what everyone seems to want anyway.

That would however require completely rebuilding traits, profession abilities and armor-classes completely.

A Guardian with the same base health as a Warrior would be more or less impossible to kill after all.

I would love to see a signet where the passive effect is for vitality. We see signets for toughness, healing, power, precision etc. but it would be cool to have one for more health – especially elementalists.

Kyrus.7218:

This game was originally designed with a level playing field in mind, so why in the world did they stray from the GW1 model of giving everyone the same base HP to start with? You can still build for more or less HP depending on your role. You could introduce new upgrades that are more powerful than normal but have a penalty like reduced vitality or some other stat.

By leveling the playing field you encourage build diversity and creativity, which is what everyone seems to want anyway.

Well, the thing is, the classes are already balanced around having different amounts of HP.

If you change the baseline HP all of a sudden, you’re guaranteed to run into issues. Make it lower than 18,372 and Warriors and Necromancers will lose a lot of their potential. Make it higher than 10,805 and you’ll see Thieves and Elementalists emerge as ridiculously tanky. This is because the lower health classes have access to things like Regeneration and Protection, which plays a big part in why their base HP is lower in the first place.

And even if you give everyone the same baseline HP, that will just make Armor the deciding factor in who has the best actual HP, since the damage you take depends on your armor rating. A Warrior with 18,372 HP and base Toughness has ~15% more HP than a Thief or Ele with 18,372 HP and base Toughness.

Olba.5376:

Well, the thing is, the classes are already balanced around having different amounts of HP.

If you change the baseline HP all of a sudden, you’re guaranteed to run into issues.

And even if you give everyone the same baseline HP, that will just make Armor the deciding factor…..

…which means no real factor, as armor(armor rating) has a super low factor in GW2.

If you give everyone the same HP then, by extension, it follows that others with request all the base stats should be the same. If you give all the classes all the same stats, why have different classes at all and just allow professions to be selected solely based on equipped gear/traits/skills? Sounds like a great idea until you actually try to use it. It would be candy land for a disciplined hardcore RPG player, but very overwhelming for many. The base professions are there for a reason….to simplify character creation and progression and also to provide some preordained variety.

actually making HP one level and change some through stats is more simplified then making it different per profession, it works in GW1 and i really don’t see why it would not work in GW2.
sure things need to be rebuild and rebalanced, but the end result is a more stable and easy to learn build system.

Olba.5376:

Well, the thing is, the classes are already balanced around having different amounts of HP.

I disagree. The intention was there, but the HP difference is not balanced at all.

Olba.5376:

If you change the baseline HP all of a sudden, you’re guaranteed to run into issues. Make it lower than 18,372 and Warriors and Necromancers will lose a lot of their potential.

How are they losing potential? By making their play style more skill-based?

Olba.5376:

Make it higher than 10,805 and you’ll see Thieves and Elementalists emerge as ridiculously tanky.

And what is the problem with a tanky Ele or Thief? If they’re trading DPS for being tanky, they survive, but should be much less effective at DPS. Any class should be able to spec for any role, right?

Olba.5376:

This is because the lower health classes have access to things like Regeneration and Protection, which plays a big part in why their base HP is lower in the first place.

Warriors and Necros have just as much access to methods of self-healing. Just because people choose to ignore them and spec pure DPS doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

Olba.5376:

And even if you give everyone the same baseline HP, that will just make Armor the deciding factor in who has the best actual HP…

Again…so what? The classes become tanky in different ways. Honestly, if this game truly wants any class to be able to spec for any role, then it’s going to have to give up on this preconceived notion of built-in roles. You can’t have built-in advantages like higher HP and higher armor determined ahead of time.

The player’s role should be determined entirely through traits and how the player wants to spec their character. If an Ele wants to be tanky, they should be able to trait for toughness, vitality, and cantrips, since that is their class function for survivability. If a Thief wants to play a tank, perhaps they should be able to trait for toughness, vitality, and more frequent evasion. If a Warrior wants to tank, maybe she should be able to spec for toughness, vitality, and direct damage reductions.

This type of build-crafting does not remove the class’s individuality. In fact, I see it as expanding on it, as you are utilizing each class’s unique aspects to create a flavorful interpretation of a play style.

When part of your class is pre-determined, it can totally undermine a trait system that otherwise has huge potential.

Kyrus.7218:

This game was originally designed with a level playing field in mind, so why in the world did they stray from the GW1 model of giving everyone the same base HP to start with? You can still build for more or less HP depending on your role. You could introduce new upgrades that are more powerful than normal but have a penalty like reduced vitality or some other stat.

By leveling the playing field you encourage build diversity and creativity, which is what everyone seems to want anyway.

but but… what would happen to the warriors?!

Kyrus.7218:

This game was originally designed with a level playing field in mind, .

No it wasnt . if that was the case mesmers wouldn’t be able to confuse you from dusk until dawn and possibly for eternity , Theives wouldn’t have stealth ( level playing field disappeared there ) etc . so personally i think its fine the way it is .

Vick.6805:

1. I disagree. The intention was there, but the HP difference is not balanced at all.
2. How are they losing potential? By making their play style more skill-based?
3. And what is the problem with a tanky Ele or Thief? If they’re trading DPS for being tanky, they survive, but should be much less effective at DPS. Any class should be able to spec for any role, right?
4. Warriors and Necros have just as much access to methods of self-healing. Just because people choose to ignore them and spec pure DPS doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

1. And yet Guardian is much tankier than a Warrior.
2. By gimping their HP arbitrarily without giving them anything in exchange for it.
3. The issue is that you’re making them tankier on an arbitrary change. If you raise their base HP, their tankiness goes up without them having to make any kind of trade for it.
4. Warrior has zero access to Protection and to get a consistent Regeneration, they need to spec 30 points into a traitline. The Vampiric builds for necromancers are notoriously bad.

Olba.5376:

The Vampiric builds for necromancers are notoriously bad.

Yes, I agree. I do use one or two vampiric “things”, but the life steeling abilities on a necro don’t even come close to offsetting the damage. Perhaps, and I’ve never tested this, if I sunk EVERYTHING in to vampiric abilities/traits it might be useful, but then I’d cause hardly any damage and be little more than a hard to kill target for baddies. Essentially a necro/guardian build. Expensive experiment though. I essentially use a condition damage build and just try to avoid getting hit.

NO. srsly no….