Guild Wars 2

Dear Anet and players,

This is a suggestion on how to balance the combat almost perfectly in about 2 minutes of your time.

1) Remove Quickness

This feature urges players to play burst builds that are cheeky and ruin the fun of the game. It does not increase the skill required to play, but it decreases it because killing players is now easier than ever. This is especially true with many builds being able to kill players in under 3 seconds while using just 2 abilities. That potential is limited to only a few classes, and it does not belong in a game like this. And no, dodging and using escapes is not always viable or even available. Not to mention, not even all professions are able to grant themselves/others this ability (see http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quickness ). Please post “Hello Scyrka!” at the beginning of your reply so that I know you have been reading carefully. If you don’t, I won’t reply to you.

2) Equal Base Health

Unequal base health gives inherent advantages to some classes and disadvantages to others. If every class had an equal base health, before anything is given to a profession the game is already balanced. All Anet would have to do is limit the damage each class can do (i.e. Make melee do slightly more damage for the range issue but don’t make it overpowering). Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health

These two are the biggest reasons why this game is currently unbalanced. The goal of balancing combat should be to reduce overall burst capabilities with classes.

Think about it this way: If you remove all possible burst capability from every class – you now make each fight longer and more challenging. But that’s not good. Not at all.

However, if you then introduce just a few small chances to apply a nice burst – only enough to take off the last bit of health, then THAT would be good. Burst is currently used to bring players from full health to zero; it should be bringing players from 15% or so, to zero.

I could get very specific but people don’t have the time or patience for that.

Enjoy!

I like the idea about the equal health, all characters should have 100 HP and thats it, armour is the thing that is supposed to increase your stats. I think there should be no stat increases between levels other than the stats added by gear, so that a lvl 80 player can take off his/her gear and have the same stats as a lvl 1.

The thing about burst makes sense too, I like theives though so I don’t agree on NO burst skills. I think thieves should do tiny bits of non-burst damage so that they rely on a successful burst skill to do any significant damage.

There are five abilities that allow quickness, and the most powerful of them is an elite, and not even the class in questions most used elite. I would even prefer if they severely nerfed quickness and made it an intensity stacking buff so that we could use it more.

Base health is less of a problem than armor disparity in my opinion. Adventure classes have better armor than scholars, and soldier classes yet better than both. Why exactly? Scholar classes certainly don’t deal any more damage, if anything they deal much less. Why then are certain classes given more survivability with no apparent counterbalance?

So what would you replace the current quickness skills with?, specially mesmer would get hit hard by removing it, since it is one of our elites even.

and lol same base health? the differences in base health is made up for by the amount of mobility and defensive skills in the game, like thief having a LOT of mobility, but then have a small health pool, or guardians got tons of was to apply protection and blocks, where classes like warrior have little mobility and defensive skills, but then having a high base health pool to make up for it

Quickness is in no way game breaking. Burst is in no way imbalanced. If anyone with two skills can take you from full health to 0 in under 3 seconds, it’s because you are very, very bad.
Any knockdown, blowout, knockback, stun, or daze will handle quickness pretty well. If you’re up in a 2v1, against a thief and a friend, and the thief gets stability from his friend, and you can’t kite/block/dodge or otherwise counter melee, it’s your own fault for fighting solo against a coordinated group of friends.

Now, for the health issue: If guardians had the same base health as a warrior, but their *HUGE* self healing, how is that balanced?

As for the armor difference, the answer is simple. Warriors have high health, and high armor, and do absolutely crap damage. They are stupidly simple to counter, have incredibly limited mobility, and absolutely no utility.

Elementalists on the other hand, have low health and low armor, but do mediocre damage. They do, however, have high mobility, and significantly more utility than anyone else in the game. They’ve got more combo fields, party heals, and ability to manipulate the battlefield than anyone.

Balance is based on 5 man groups, in tournaments, and is currently working perfectly.

@ Nels the Cornwhisperer: Getting bursted down in less than 2 seconds is not enough time to react. That’s upwards of 20k being done in nearly an instant. That is not at all any indication of skill of the person who died. No class should have that damage output.

And you also said “warriors do absolutely crap damage.” Seriously? I can’t believe you said that, have you never been hit by a frenzy + 100blades before? Or are you too good, because you can dodge eveything and it doesn’t matter how much damage someone can do because if there is a 50% change of avoiding it then its okay.

NO, not at all okay. Damage capability should not be that high. It urges players to play burst gimmick builds that require little to no skill and ruin the game.

@ Others: Read very carefully. I only speculated on removing all burst. I specifically said to lessen burst skills to just a few, not completely remove them all. This would make it so that burst skills were used more cautiously and not as opening moves like lots of thieves and warriors try to do.

Also

When I said to make it so everyone had the same base health, I meant this as a starting place. If everyone had the same health ALL you would have to do if then manage damage output.

Right now they are trying to manage health on top of that, and with everyone having equal health it becomes one less variable in the equation.

Lastly, balance should not be soley based on 5 vs 5 groups. Remember that pick up groups are a huge part of sPvP and that will probably never change.

If you can be hit for 20k damage instantly, you’re doing something very, very wrong.

If you can’t react in two seconds, you’re very, very bad.

Try again.

yeah 20k dmg would maybe be achievable by a glass canon build hitting a glass canon build only, and even then it would be hard pressed to do it even

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

If you can be hit for 20k damage instantly, you’re doing something very, very wrong.

If you can’t react in two seconds, you’re very, very bad.

Try again.

I’ve been hit for about 15K damage by a thief before in 2-3 hits he killed me. Whilst being invisible (and it did take about 2-3 seconds – I truly couldn’t see him either).

Have you experienced that yourself yet?

1) Quickness is fine. The only thing wrong with Quickness is it working on execute. I am not fond of a Mesmer & Warrior combo at any time. By the time the warrior gets in range, his Hundred Blades takes 0.000001sec to take 60-80% of my HP. If I’m not high enough to withstand that, then the execute is cast and land before I even get my “Downed” action bar drawn in. That, again, is Quickness’ effect on the execute that is the problem.

2) No. No. No. Hell No. No. This isn’t WoW, we don’t need to homogenize each class into the same thing with different armor. That is another reason I left that hell hole. We need to stop trying to turn every game into WoW.

As for the burst? Run around with more Toughness. Having huge HP is worthless without Toughness against direct damage. Having huge toughness is worthless without HP against condition damage. The game is far more balanced than most understand.

For the record, I am running a Greatsword/Hammer crithammer Guardian in PVP. I spend my entire fight time rolling around and blinking around the battle like a grasshopper high on cocaine. Barring Engineer perma-knockdown, there is no class that can easily destroy me. I am running Knight’s amulet and Dolyak 5/6 (with Divinity 1/6). Try building for less health and more toughness.

-Hate

I’ve experienced the 15-20k damage in a few seconds even on my tankiest of warriors. This isn’t me being a glass cannon, this is about the failed mechanic that is Quickness.

Making all characters have the same base health is not anything like WoW. And even if it had something to do with WoW, does that mean cast it away? Not at all. Having equal base health is important because it becomes one less thing to balance.

Why should other classes be able to inherently take more damage? That creates roles that some classes can only fulfill and that completely opposes Anet’s purpose; they want any class to fulfill any role and that currently is not viable at all. With armor off, everyone should die just as fast. The reason Warriors and Guardians should take more damage should be because of their armor, not necessarily their high health.

Scyrka.1356:

Dear Anet and players,

This is a suggestion on how to balance the combat almost perfectly in about 2 minutes of your time.

1) Remove Quickness

This feature urges players to play burst builds that are cheeky and ruin the fun of the game. It does not increase the skill required to play, but it decreases it because killing players is now easier than ever. This is especially true with many builds being able to kill players in under 3 seconds while using just 2 abilities. That potential is limited to only a few classes, and it does not belong in a game like this. And no, dodging and using escapes is not always viable or even available. Not to mention, not even all professions are able to grant themselves/others this ability (see http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quickness ). Please post “Hello Scyrka!” at the beginning of your reply so that I know you have been reading carefully. If you don’t, I won’t reply to you.

2) Equal Base Health

Unequal base health gives inherent advantages to some classes and disadvantages to others. If every class had an equal base health, before anything is given to a profession the game is already balanced. All Anet would have to do is limit the damage each class can do (i.e. Make melee do slightly more damage for the range issue but don’t make it overpowering). Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health

These two are the biggest reasons why this game is currently unbalanced. The goal of balancing combat should be to reduce overall burst capabilities with classes.

Think about it this way: If you remove all possible burst capability from every class – you now make each fight longer and more challenging. But that’s not good. Not at all.

However, if you then introduce just a few small chances to apply a nice burst – only enough to take off the last bit of health, then THAT would be good. Burst is currently used to bring players from full health to zero; it should be bringing players from 15% or so, to zero.

I could get very specific but people don’t have the time or patience for that.

Enjoy!

Harro!
I agree with you’re second area based on health pools being the same this is an effective strategy, but also makes the guardians (even more) insanely tough (cough bunkers cough) by comparison, I think it’s meant to balance healing/defense to initial health/damage, that being said, i still disagree with it and very much agree with you on that point

however on the first point(quickness) i do agree with you on the being able to kill excessively fast part, but still think skill activation increase is actually a viable mechanic, perhaps they should include a few more drawbacks with them? (eg. reduced damage or a total damage cap while active?)

People need to understand that just because health for each profession is the same (some may experience health increases, other health drops) does not mean that is the end of balancing professions. That would only be the beginning. So if you immediately think that a certain class having more health would be OP then you are not even considering further changes. If Guardians experience a health increase in order to make all professions have equal health, then Anet can totally change the amount of healing, damage, protection spells, etc. It’s all open to change. But if everyone has the same health, then professions are more likely to be able to fulfill the same roles as others and balancing becomes THAT much easier. No class should be left without the potential of fulfilling a certain role. Having any class fulfill any role IS one of Anet’s goals, after all. Definitely seems like that hasn’t happened and it probably won’t unless there’s some decent change.

Scyrka.1356:

I’ve experienced the 15-20k damage in a few seconds even on my tankiest of warriors. This isn’t me being a glass cannon, this is about the failed mechanic that is Quickness.

Making all characters have the same base health is not anything like WoW. And even if it had something to do with WoW, does that mean cast it away? Not at all. Having equal base health is important because it becomes one less thing to balance.

Why should other classes be able to inherently take more damage? That creates roles that some classes can only fulfill and that completely opposes Anet’s purpose; they want any class to fulfill any role and that currently is not viable at all. With armor off, everyone should die just as fast. The reason Warriors and Guardians should take more damage should be because of their armor, not necessarily their high health.

you do realise that Guardians actually have the lowest base health? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health

The correct way to balance a game:

1. Feedback can be used to highlight potential issues, but should never be used to balance them.

2. Data / metrics collected ingame offer an accurate state of the game, the forums are populated by a minority of the playerbase, and even smaller minorities actually agree on a suggested change.

Scyrka.1356:

People need to understand that just because health for each profession is the same (some may experience health increases, other health drops) does not mean that is the end of balancing professions. That would only be the beginning. So if you immediately think that a certain class having more health would be OP then you are not even considering further changes. If Guardians experience a health increase in order to make all professions have equal health, then Anet can totally change the amount of healing, damage, protection spells, etc. It’s all open to change. But if everyone has the same health, then professions are more likely to be able to fulfill the same roles as others and balancing becomes THAT much easier. No class should be left without the potential of fulfilling a certain role. Having any class fulfill any role IS one of Anet’s goals, after all. Definitely seems like that hasn’t happened and it probably won’t unless there’s some decent change.

Ok, let me point out the first problem:

Scyrka.1356:

If Guardians experience a health increase in order to make all professions have equal health, then Anet can totally change the amount of healing, damage, protection spells, etc.

So to increase one metric, EVERYTHING else needs to be rebalanced to compensate. That is wrong.

Next problem:

Scyrka.1356:

But if everyone has the same health, then professions are more likely to be able to fulfill the same roles as others and balancing becomes THAT much easier. No class should be left without the potential of fulfilling a certain role.

This turns it into WoW. Every class becomes a replica of every other class. The unique feel/playstyle is generally trampled in an effort to min/max. This also results in the more “flavor of the month” feeling that WoW excelled in to a large degree. Even RIFT had issues doing this, as they tried to make the classes too similar mathematically but without adjusting the skills themselves (resulting in VASTLY overpowering mechanics before nerfing it into oblivion and buffing up the next ‘flavor’).

As for the ability to fulfill certain roles, I absolutely refuse this. An Elementalist should not be a melee tank. My guardian should not be a strong ranged DPS. The Mesmer should not be able to be a highly effective AoE source. The ability to do a large number of things well SHOULD come with some pitfalls as well. In the words of an Arch Enemy song, “In this sea of mediocrity, I can be anything…anything I want to be”. One cannot have all strengths and no weaknesses.

Last Problem:

Scyrka.1356:

Having any class fulfill any role IS one of Anet’s goals, after all. Definitely seems like that hasn’t happened and it probably won’t unless there’s some decent change.

They have done a fantastic job. Go dump 200-300 hours into RIFT or go dump four years into WoW. There is little class distinction. In WoW, each class generally has a single buff that is somewhat unique (i.e. Bloodlust/Heroism, Feign Death, etc). In RIFT, the classes were more distinct but not enough to bother with honestly.

As for the health issue itself, the guardian has clothy health. I am a tanking demigod in sPVP as it is. I can faceroll in the middle of the crowd, can handle 2-3 safely (being focused), and have enough group support to make it worthwhile to hover around me. If my health were to jump 2-5k, I will say that I will become unkillable 1v1 or 2v1. Barring disconnects, being assaulted by a burglar while playing, or dying in my computer chair…I will never be killable. The tank spec Elementalist is already a beast as well (though I will say the damage is a bit lower than a guardian). The knockdown spamming Engineer nearly cost me a keyboard. A well played thief (if I’m stupid enough to charge another one…again) can telescope my spine, though I don’t think I will ever charge one with those bloody thieves and quickness again.

This game has more balance than I’ve seen in a while. Just because a profession doesn’t match up on paper under one column, it does not mean the entire profession needs to be evened out with the others.

I cannot honestly think of why or how another class needs more HP. The only thing that MIGHT need some HP are the Mesmer clones. They are built to be disposable, but they die with the odd gust of wind.

-Hate