Guild Wars 2

Since we’re discussing whether the way damage has been applied to weapons in a logical way, let’s mention engineers – how is it that bombs and grenades do less damage than swords and axes?

Don’t forget people.
It’s 2 guys working on class balance.
2 guys.
This means, … wait, i have to calculate… it would need approx 1,79 years for Anet to fix the Ranger Pet.

Arekai.5698:

Don’t forget people.
It’s 2 guys working on class balance.
2 guys.
This means, … wait, i have to calculate… it would need approx 1,79 years for Anet to fix the Ranger Pet.

Hmm, that is a problem. What’s the ETA on fixing Necro minion AI?

The simple truth is that until class balance take priority the community is going to keep getting worse. Right now pve is about gold. The faster you can get it to get skins or mats for legendaries the better. So groups and individuals will skew more towards the classes with the most op faceroll builds to maximize kills and profit. Same thing with pvp. Right now pvp is for three or four classes to farm any of the other broken classes stupid enough to enter the mists. Till its fixed 1/3 to 1/2 of the potential pvp population will either not play pvp or eventually leave because they are sick of waiting to be competitive. Add all the maps and features they want but it will only make people come back and see that things are as broken as they were on day one and they will leave again.

Dante.1508:

We’ve been asking for these three classes to be repaired for 5 months or so now, im not holding my breath, either roll a warrior or be gimped isn’t really valid balance..

Maybe if we could spend gems on a “fix my class” fund it would get done. Like I have said over and over. Expect crucial things like class balance(both pve and pvp), bug fixes, and new content to take a back burner with this business model. Unless its through the gem store… don’t get your hopes up.

The Spiral King.2483:

Arekai.5698:

Don’t forget people.
It’s 2 guys working on class balance.
2 guys.
This means, … wait, i have to calculate… it would need approx 1,79 years for Anet to fix the Ranger Pet.

Hmm, that is a problem. What’s the ETA on fixing Necro minion AI?

Months and months! In some recent interview they likened people complaining about pet AI to warriors wanting to duel wield greatswords and that they would look into pet AI.

They REALLY need to get more than 2 people on class balancing. How some of the current issues have remained since launch and even since beta is unexplainable and unacceptable. They could do more to revitalize the game by re-balancing some classes and stats to make a lot more viable builds.

Warrior, Guardian, and Mesmer buffs because that’s all Izzy and his buddy who two-man class balance and design have time for.

Any hope for addressing the bleed stack issue?

Five direct damage characters do full damage to a target.
Five condition damage characters don’t… they can’t fit all their bleeds on the target.

This has been discussed over and over in the forums. The only ArenaNet response was from Jon Peters agreeing it was an issue… more than four months ago!!!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Bleed-Stack-Plan/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-does-bleeding-stack-to-only-25/first

This affects Necros, Sword Warriors, Staff Mesmers, Engineers, Short Bow Rangers, Dual Dagger Thieves, etc, etc, etc… too many to list.

How can you balance classes when a core mechanic of close to 1/2 of the available builds is acknowledged to be an issue?

Anything? anything at all?

Ulari

Judging by past class balances, not likely.

How bout adding a few more programmers beyond the two you have so your “core” game doesn’t become “warriors and mesmer wars” 2.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Judging by past class balances, not likely.

How bout adding a few more programmers beyond the two you have so your “core” game doesn’t become “warriors and mesmer wars” 2.

The game also has Thieves in WvWvW.

Seriously,
How can class balance be a focus when core class mechanics are broken?
Or is it intentional that a bleed-focused build does full damage when soloing and close to no damage when in a group and attacking a Champion, an Event Boss, a Dungeon Mob, or a PvP Opponent?

Ulari

only 2 people on class balancing?
I guess you guys missed the threat, where anet gave a statement about it being a misunderstanding. They made that statement shortly after that rumor came up.

Definitely agree that 2 people for game balances is absolutely ridiculously low. Not that I question their skills, but it’s a very, if not crucial, issue in any game. Any change requires a lot of studies of the impacts it would create, which takes huge amount of time. Furthermore, only 2 people gives room for errors or, what we see more often here, no change or minimalistic changes for fear that something might become OP.
I would see at least 5 people on this given the complexity of the task and the different fields (“yeah, your WvW change is nice, but it would ruin the use of that in PVE” for instance).
Also, for the problem of conditions, we’ve been waiting for months but yeah, it’s a very complex matter. What most players would like to see, me included, is 25 stacks of bleeding per character, and having poison/burn stack in intensity (except the heal reduction in poison, don’t stack that, way OP).
Yet, this would require some tweaks (for instance, probably, adjusting down the burn damage).
Still, there are other domains : sPvP and WvW. That’s why we mostly ask that only for dungeons. But I think they have something else in mind and want to release a global change for all aspects, or at least PVE/WvW together.
That’s why it takes so long and will probably be inefficient when it finally comes :/
If you pay attention to what they said, it should be part of, if not this patch, the others to come. They claimed that one major aim was to promote build diversity over the 6 first months of 2013. This means necessarily a buff to condition builds in general since, at the moment, condition builds are behind pure damage builds (I’m only talking about DPS guys, I know condition builds have survivability, support, control etc … but just forget that for the moment).
Given that the February update was initially planned to be the big PvP update, that would imply a nice amount of class balance, but seems they have changed their mind.

TL;DR : Anyway, a buff to condition builds should come over this first semester, let’s hope !

As other already stated, alot of the hate is down to bleed cap.
On necro i have to have 2nd set of power gear and be ready to respec before i do any dungeon/frsactal with guild. Simply down to what other classes are coming. I need atleast 15 bleed stacks for myself or my damage gets much worse and im waste being there. More than 1 condition class is not viable. Heck even the useless bleeds off warriors/mesmers interfere with my damage.

Theres little point having these classes right now in a pug especially as you dont know what spec someone is first and time trying to organise around that.

Also i think its due a nerf to the warrior greatsword trait, 20 pts for a trait that basically gives you perma 20-25 stacks of might. How are other classes supposed to compete with that. Rework it to have a cooldown and long duration maybe only give max 5 stacks if alot of crits are done in short time. Right now is so unbalanced.

If you PvE only roll a War, if you PvP roll a thief otherwise it’s an uphill battle against ill conceived class mechanics.

Otaur.9268:

I do not know if it is this month, but in the State of the game stream, they mentioned during the “We are going to be nerfing the D/D Ele” segment, that they are currently working on Engi’s, so got my fingers crossed.

I will not hold my breath. It’s going to be the “we have THIRTY bullet points of engineer fixes for you guys” all over again. 90% is going to be “fixed spelling” etc…

gennyt.3428:

If you PvE only roll a War, if you PvP roll a thief otherwise it’s an uphill battle against ill conceived class mechanics.

and if you WvW, roll literally anything but ranger.

Everything has a roll, but the ranger. Really, other than their long duration healing water field, they don’t bring much to the table to brag about.

I want a skill like kill shot on my ranger long bow instead of Barrage, be able to oneshot a thief/elementalist/ranger or hit for more than 50% hp in one hit with a ranged skill is really nice, a warrior skill ofc……..

urdriel.8496:

I want a skill like kill shot on my ranger long bow instead of Barrage, be able to oneshot a thief/elementalist/ranger or hit for more than 50% hp in one hit with a ranged skill is really nice, a warrior skill ofc……..

Make it loud as kitten, and have a huge distance. Force everyone in the area to just dodge on the off chance it’s fired at them.

Or just make it put a skull over their head, and do a huge amount of damage based on range fired at.

Leviathan.9850:

Otaur.9268:

I do not know if it is this month, but in the State of the game stream, they mentioned during the “We are going to be nerfing the D/D Ele” segment, that they are currently working on Engi’s, so got my fingers crossed.

I will not hold my breath. It’s going to be the “we have THIRTY bullet points of engineer fixes for you guys” all over again. 90% is going to be “fixed spelling” etc…

Well, some of that points are going to be about the already announced upcoming AoE nerf.

As someone whose favourite classes are Ranger and Necro (and next alt to 80 will more than likely be engi) I find the current state of balancing very concerning. I do have lvl 80 ele and thief, both of which I find incredibly boring. Ever since the second week after release I’ve seen the game pushing people to roll a warrior. In fact, I don’t know many people who don’t have a warrior alt for exactly this reason.

Now about risk and reward. It’s far more risky for my ranger to go hit a mob with GS (and even more so with sword that practically roots me in place). Do either of my ranger melee weapons come even close to warrior damage when my pet is alive. No.

At the moment I feel like instead of risk = reward, it’s simple = reward. Both warrior and thief (the two concidered most unbalanced compared to everything else) only have one f-skill and tbh I don’t really see how either would get hindered too much if it was taken away. Compare to ranger*, ele and necro (maybe engi?) who would all get utterly destroyed if their f-skills were taken away.

*Now I know some ranger will come here saying his f-skills are useless. Well, all I can say to them is: " GL playing the Beast Master class without mastering the beast".

Edit:

I find the most unbalanced thing being cleave damage. Make the primary target take 100% dmg, secondary 75% and third 50% and suddenly the classes that imo were ment to be the masters of AoE (necro and ele) are perceived much better. The second unbalanced thing are the stationary bosses. An example of a better boss design are the Risen Abominations from Zo’Qafa and multiple other events. They move most of the time, are dangerous to melee BUT they do have a short duration for 100b warriors to hit them without getting killed. Another good ones are Flame Shaman from fractals, most Golem Bosses and Lieutenant Kohler.

Also, do note this post is mainly about PvE. The skills are already split between PvP and PvE and WvW is unbalanced in it’s essence so if you quote me, don’t kitten about PvP balance ty

if they make it so the kitten thiefs cant hide 24/7 and “dodge” marks and stuff while hidden we are way closer to a sollution pvp wise pve no idea i dont do much of that stuff

Raege.1069:

At the moment I feel like instead of risk = reward, it’s simple = reward. Both warrior and thief (the two concidered most unbalanced compared to everything else) only have one f-skill and tbh I don’t really see how either would get hindered too much if it was taken away. Compare to ranger*, ele and necro (maybe engi?) who would all get utterly destroyed if their f-skills were taken away.

Definitely the engi as well.

I’ve been having a a blast playing my ranger so far. I love the multiple sources of health over time, mobility, dancing between melee and ranged combat, etc. However, it struck me yesterday that I could do everything I do now with less effort, and far better, if I rolled a warrior instead.

All I would miss would be the pet…both a boon and a curse. Sure, some of the stuff I do in open world roaming would be more difficult, but dungeons and WvW would be easier. Heck, I could wear cleric’s gear on a warrior instead of berserker on a ranger, be able to survive without Lick Wounds, and likely still do more damage!

Hopefully they dont buff necros, I was in a zerg a couple nights ago and every other player was one. The landscape was literally a web of marks in every direction! It was glorious but I liked being a bit unique!

If they do, I hope its more in the form of fixes to a few buggy abilities and getting rid of reanimator, hate that minor trait.

kailin.4905:

The simple truth is that until class balance take priority the community is going to keep getting worse.

The simple truth is that class balance is already a priority, but they’re not going to make radical changes unless they’re absolutely necessary. That kind of balancing leads to wild swings in the meta and no true sense of what is or isn’t imbalanced.

MOST of the people complaining about their class being too weak are either talking about very specific issues (pets/minions not getting agony resist of their master, for example, or passive necro minions, etc), or are simply whining about their own inability to be creative and adapt. The idea that there are radical class imbalances simply isn’t true, and to the extent that they do exist, they’re mainly bugs/quality of life issues, not true balance issues. They still need to be fixed, but there’s little point in trying to “balance” something that already doesn’t work as intended.

You can go on literally every profession forum and find at least some people who are absolutely sure that their profession is the worst, that ANET hates them, etc. It’s just typical MMO issues of a game which must be balanced for every one from the most hard core min maxer to the laziest and most stupid person who can manage to click a mouse. Some of it is legitimate, some of it is just a matter of certain bugs or functionality being fixed, and some of it is pure L2P.

Voxdeus.1034:

kailin.4905:

The simple truth is that until class balance take priority the community is going to keep getting worse.

The simple truth is that class balance is already a priority, but they’re not going to make radical changes unless they’re absolutely necessary. That kind of balancing leads to wild swings in the meta and no true sense of what is or isn’t imbalanced.

MOST of the people complaining about their class being too weak are either talking about very specific issues (pets/minions not getting agony resist of their master, for example, or passive necro minions, etc), or are simply whining about their own inability to be creative and adapt. The idea that there are radical class imbalances simply isn’t true, and to the extent that they do exist, they’re mainly bugs/quality of life issues, not true balance issues. They still need to be fixed, but there’s little point in trying to “balance” something that already doesn’t work as intended.

You can go on literally every profession forum and find at least some people who are absolutely sure that their profession is the worst, that ANET hates them, etc. It’s just typical MMO issues of a game which must be balanced for every one from the most hard core min maxer to the laziest and most stupid person who can manage to click a mouse. Some of it is legitimate, some of it is just a matter of certain bugs or functionality being fixed, and some of it is pure L2P.

I think we must be onto something legitimate here if the consensus is that Necros, Rangers and Engies need help. From a necro standpoint conditions and wells seem pretty good in pve except for the condition cap.

Staff needs the AA sped up, it doesn’t home in on the target and gets dodged just as easily as ranger longbow. I also see Staff as more of a power weapon and it would probably make more sense to have the traits for it in the power line rather than in the toughness tree.

Axe can go in the toughness tree the dmg is kitten already so the traits could focus on the retaliation plus weakness stacks it comes with making it a tanky support weapon.

Dagger needs remade as far as i’m concerned its not very necroy and should have an interesting ghost blade animation or something so it doesn’t just feel like a gimp thief weapon. It doesn’t do enough dmg for a power weapon and the life steal is weak. The root isnt that useful. This whole weapon just sucks.

Minion ai needs help or they could at least let pets regen life outside of battle or lower recast cooldown I don’t see how that’s unbalancing to start a fight with minions at full health.

Mostly the main need though for now is necro needs a power weapon that is competitive since burst rules this game and then go from there.

to me the biggest problem with inviting rangers and other classes is as a melee char I need other melee’s if the rest of my group is ranged i’m the only one getting focused by the boss and no matter how much utility i have, I’m going down. But if you got 5 people in melee that damage is spread around and your always applying boons to entire team. I have a ranger with 4 melee that ranger most of the time is not getting the 15 stacks of might. Now if that same boss broke from the melee and chased the ranged guy and made melee chase after it the damage would be more inline but at the same time would make ranged even less desirable.

But all these arguments only come from speed run point of view I don’t care what classes I dungeon run with. If it means i’m gonna do it in 8 min instead of 6 i don’t care as long as i finish it and bottom line is i can complete any dungeon with any class make up.

One more point is imagine your Anet listening to people saying engineers are just not viable in dungeons so there test team puts a couple engineers in a group to complete dungeons and they complete them all. They see them as viable but what most of the community is really saying is It takes longer by a couple minutes if you include these classes. So I don’t want them. The problem will always exist because people are always going to take the team set up that finishes the dungeon the fastest. No matter how much utility another class offers.

Arekai.5698:

Don’t forget people.
It’s 2 guys working on class balance.
2 guys.
This means, … wait, i have to calculate… it would need approx 1,79 years for Anet to fix the Ranger Pet.

How slow things seem to be improving i think 1,79 years is an understatement. Maybe they could just remove all classes apart from ele,guardian,thief and mesmer and the game would be pretty well balanced. And even those 2 devs could be moved to working on different things than balance.

edit. save the warrior also for the dungeon speed runners.

Nonetheless, ranger longbow is just sub-par compare too ALL other ranger weapons.

Oh yeah? Here, take a Guardian scepter.

Aelaren.3784:

Nonetheless, ranger longbow is just sub-par compare too ALL other ranger weapons.

Oh yeah? Here, take a Guardian scepter.

I’d take either over the necro scepter with it’s 900 range; both of those have a base 1200.

psyt.9415:

I think we must be onto something legitimate here if the consensus is that Necros, Rangers and Engies need help.

That’s exactly it for me.
Yes, there are people who complain about their favorite class because of this or that.
Yes, there are people who will insist that there’s nothing wrong here (even among the players who play these professions.)
But if by general consensus the majority of players here agree that these three professions are simply the worst, then that’s probably a good indicator that they are legitimately not as good as the other five professions.
And so at the very least those professions specifically need some resources devoted to them in order to make the on par with the rest.
QED etc…

I’d take either over the necro scepter with it’s 900 range; both of those have a base 1200.

Except you won`t land any hits at anything further than 400-600 (unless it`s completely stationary) due to non-homing slow projectiles.

Aelaren.3784:

I’d take either over the necro scepter with it’s 900 range; both of those have a base 1200.

Except you won`t land any hits at anything further than 400-600 (unless it`s completely stationary) due to non-homing slow projectiles.

And don’t forget it’s approximate 300 range or so against a fleeing target.

Aelaren.3784:

I’d take either over the necro scepter with it’s 900 range; both of those have a base 1200.

Except you won`t land any hits at anything further than 400-600 (unless it`s completely stationary) due to non-homing slow projectiles.

Try the necro staff auto-attack and have fun pulling your hair out, the guardian scepter is FAST compared to it in both travel speed and casting time. Heck you can literally outrun a necro staff auto-attack if you start at mid-range. At least the guardian scepter has a root so you can hit them!

My take away from the last few posts here is that many class weapons along with many abilities/traits need to be seriously looked at too. So my hopes for what this patch will hold for balancing feels more unlikely by the minute.

Seriously we’re not asking for much here, just make the most undervalued classes have a place in ANY environment, be it PvE, dungeons, PvP, or WvW. I understand that all classes should have their strengths and weaknesses, but TBH I don’t see many weaknesses in the heavy armor classes, but I do see many places where the necro, ranger, and engineer could use major reworks.

Aegis.9724:

Well, anet said they’re not gonna play whack-a-mole…
Shame they said that AFTER nerfing ranger into oblivion when closed beta ended, and kicking him in the balls with the “shortbow animation fix”

So lets hope for some good general buffs on weaker classes.

And still people in PVP complain about the trap/condition ranger. Which is the one decent build left.

Leviathan.9850:

From personal experience, I can confirm that engineer and ranger are somewhat under par compared to how I see other professions perform. It would be pretty cool should that be resolved soon, by either buffing the weakest professions (the engi-necro-ranger trinity), or by changing the game so that those classes become valuable. The latter would be the coolest, but would also be the hardest to do.

No, that’d be the easiest. Just nerf warrior, guardian, and mesmer to the point that necros, engies, and rangers become relevant statwise.

Perfectly logical and honest soloution. Fitting too, given the attitudes of some in the community.

Get popcorn for incoming QQ threads!

…. Nah, I’m just kidding. I think.

CETheLucid.3964:

No, that’d be the easiest. Just nerf warrior, guardian, and mesmer to the point that necros, engies, and rangers become relevant statwise.

Perfectly logical and honest soloution. Fitting too, given the attitudes of some in the community.

Get popcorn for incoming QQ threads!

…. Nah, I’m just kidding. I think.

Yeah, instead of fixing some issues present in 3 classes, they spread bugs and flawed designs among all other 5 so they’re all equally inefficient. That’s pure genius right there, file a curriculum to Arena Net.

Sure. Nerf bat is always easier than boosting the gimped classes. Although I’m good at gimping the “I win” classes so makes no matter to me.

well there needs to be a “balance” of nerfing and buffing of professions

so tone down warriors a little bit while giving some of the other professions a bit of a buff

Or just make CoF a whole lot harder

Red Falcon.8257:

CETheLucid.3964:

No, that’d be the easiest. Just nerf warrior, guardian, and mesmer to the point that necros, engies, and rangers become relevant statwise.

Perfectly logical and honest solution. Fitting too, given the attitudes of some in the community.

Get popcorn for incoming QQ threads!

…. Nah, I’m just kidding. I think.

Yeah, instead of fixing some issues present in 3 classes, they spread bugs and flawed designs among all other 5 so they’re all equally inefficient. That’s pure genius right there, file a curriculum to Arena Net.

What’s the matter, scared?

Have you read what Anet has to say about class balance? Nothing will give you a better idea then both that and their track record with class balance.

They do good things. Ranger used to be OP, they corrected it, and now they’re a little UP. But they’re listening.

The reason these three classes (necro, ranger, and engi) are a little worse for wear is because prior to going live, these classes were ridiculously broken.

Now they’re a little too neutered. Anet can fix that.

It’s a balancing act, they got two lead guys on it and a small internal testing group, and they’re pumping new free content at the same time. They’re only human.

Give them some time. It won’t be long.

How is it that those 2 jokers are the only ones they have on class balance? I didn’t even get the impression that they entirely knew what they were doing.

Not even that, they hinted they were waiting for bug fixes and small changes to specific weapons or traits before they got around to thinking about the broader class issues. They strongly suggested they were scared to change anything for fear of breaking something.

This will never get fixed. If next patch doesn’t have something really awesome for engineers I’m rerolling a warrior. I could have a warrior lvl 80 and exotic’d in a fraction of a fraction of the time it takes for my engi to get some proper lovin’.

The class balances need to be done, it isn’t a matter of when or if anet decides to or not. Every single class and build is completely out-of-whack, I don’t think I’ve ever played a single game where each class has been so unbalanced.

The other problem really stems from Condition Damage not stacking or being over-written, this really weakens and restricts alot of builds and classes – essentially the reason why you see many posts asking for 4 War Zerkers + 1 Mesmer.

Chickenshoes.6250:

How is it that those 2 jokers are the only ones they have on class balance? I didn’t even get the impression that they entirely knew what they were doing.

Izzy’s been in the industry for 10+ years, almost 20 years now. Jon’s got about as much, more or less. They have a general idea.

Chickenshoes.6250:

Not even that, they hinted they were waiting for bug fixes and small changes to specific weapons or traits before they got around to thinking about the broader class issues. They strongly suggested they were scared to change anything for fear of breaking something.

So, you’re scared that they’re scared about breaking something? Do you want them to break something?

Everything is running pretty smooth, with the understanding that some classes are just a bit underpowered ATM.

Slightly underpowered > completely broken and unusable

Chickenshoes.6250:

This will never get fixed. If next patch doesn’t have something really awesome for engineers I’m rerolling a warrior. I could have a warrior lvl 80 and exotic’d in a fraction of a fraction of the time it takes for my engi to get some proper lovin’.

Lol okay. That settles that then. Have fun on your warrior. It’s a pretty cool class.

I’ve played extensively every single class now, 5 of which has world 100% so from my own personal experience, each time I swop to a different class I can really feel the major differences in not only damage output, but overall utility too.

Warrior is just king right now, everyone knows it. But again, it has been the powerhouse class since closed betas. Are they overpowered? Nope not really considering many boss fights and encounters. The problem really stems from the insane burst damage from 100B, easily 22k to 48k depending on your runeset and no other class can match it, maybe a P/P Zerker Thief with unload maybe but that is using up all the initiative points and having a pretty long cool down after that – whether as the Warrior doesn’t have that those problems.

Ranger is a great class, just really under utilized – The main problem really is with the pets, lets be honest…they just pretty much suck and are one of the main reasons for the classes problems. My ranger can still dish out a respectable amount of damage but it isn’t even remotely as close to the warrior and has far less survivability. Players forget that many bosses/encounters are just as dangerous (if not more so) to ranged characters than Melee – Many bosses have significantly potent ranged attacks, some even have Ranged Reflection too.

I personally like my Necromancer, the only problem is the condition damage – I’m totally fine if I’m not in a group with other CD spec’d player. I think one of the problems again, is with the pets ~ I cringe each time I see a necromancer with pets, I personally run a well build and I can stack up a very large array of debuffs and CDs its frightening, the problem again ~ is simple, if you want to compare the Necro vs Warrior, you just can’t do it.

Engineers are perhaps the worst class of them all in terms of damage output, I really hate playing mine, even though it was my first class to 80 and my first one to get a world 100%, in terms of everything…they need a major overhaul. Yet ironically enough, they have received alot of nerfs lately especially with the elixir gun and it’s godly healing…I mean, seriously?

To a lesser extent, I think even the mighty Elementalist could do with a few buffs.

Patch is on the 26th? I heard 28th?

CETheLucid.3964:

What’s the matter, scared?

Have you read what Anet has to say about class balance? Nothing will give you a better idea then both that and their track record with class balance.

They do good things. Ranger used to be OP, they corrected it, and now they’re a little UP. But they’re listening.

The reason these three classes (necro, ranger, and engi) are a little worse for wear is because prior to going live, these classes were ridiculously broken.

Now they’re a little too neutered. Anet can fix that.

It’s a balancing act, they got two lead guys on it and a small internal testing group, and they’re pumping new free content at the same time. They’re only human.

Give them some time. It won’t be long.

Okay, nothing irks me more then people covering for devs when there are clear changes they could literally patch tomorrow yet they still aren’t. Sorry, but 100b doing 10k+ in a single button press is not balanced, nor are backstabs for 10k, or any other skill that does more than 3-4k a hit. Those skills can be balanced tomorrow with a simple power multiplier change. All they need to do is look their their database, find the multiplier value and presto! A better balanced game. It doesn’t take a degree in mathematics to understand why having a single attack do more damage than 3 classes get for base health is bad.

Also as for them doing good things, this entire game is so imbalanced and I can’t believe people still try and defend the balance devs. In fact there is zero logic between who gets what health and what armor besides flavor. Why do heavy armor classes get a free 291 pts of toughness(that’s what armor equates to) yet the other classes aren’t compensated in any way? Same goes for health, why some classes get 800 extra vitality over other classes is inexplicable. It’s bad balance and it’s at the root of the class designs. If we are going to go that route then give all classes bonus stats that vary based on armor/health. So Warriors would only get 300 vitality and 300 armor, but elementalist would get 300 power and 300 condition damage, necromancers would get 300 condition damage and 300 vitality. Thieves would get 150 armor, 150 power, and 30% crit.

The poor balance issues just keep piling up and we aren’t even at traits! First off the trait system is pretty bad, tying stats to certain lines just makes creating a build frustrating. Not to mention that the trait lines often have traits that do not help the build you want those stats for. The system should have been use 700 stat points anyway you want, then pick the traits you want. What’s worse is there is ZERO balance in traits. Look at the warrior and necromancer on crit bleed traits. The warriors is 33% to apply a 3s bleed and the necromancers is 66% to apply a 1s bleed. Wait? Is that twice the chance but triple the duration? Oh it gets worse! Engineer on crit bleed is 30% for a 3s bleed…same trait level as the other two. Why do engineers get shafted 3%? It gets worse even still! how about we look at the +bleed duration traits between the warrior and necro? Same trait level(adept major) but warriors get +50% and necros get +20%. Seems balanced right? Necros spend the same trait points to get 40% of what warriors get. That’s with me just glancing over traits, there are tons more. Traits are an absolute mess and one of the major factors in which classes are decent right now based on them having 1-2 trait lines that are good.

I could go on but it will fall on deaf ears. The only reason the game seems semi-balanced right now is because the TTK is so low and the fact that gear(stats) usually(not always!) means more than traits do. An easy example of this is going back to the on crit bleeding traits, even combining the 66% chance from the necro and the 3s bleed from the warrior the Sigil of Earth beats them with a 60% chance to bleed for 5s. A sigil should never be better than a trait because traits are supposed to define your build.

At this point I’d like to point out that all of the above has been in since launch and probably a good portion of beta. I’ve figured most of this out in a single night, yet in 6 months+ they have yet to do anything. They aren’t just taking it slow, they simply aren’t doing anything. Again there are basic values on some things that could be tweeked tommorow but they continue to let those things go for no logical reason that I can find.

I apologize for the rant, I just get upset when people say “give them more time” when in 6 months they haven’t fixed major imbalances. Perhaps if they had some sort of test server we could speed the changes up…

They’ve acknowledged the game seriously lacks build variety. They acknowledged there are OP and UP builds. They’ve acknowledged AOE is a problem. So I’m left wondering when the devs will actually wake up and come up with a patch that actually rocks the boat a little. Not a single patch thus far has changed or challenged the status quo.

Before last patch was released they said it will be expansion worth of content. Later they said it’ll be for Feb/March and gave us a quest that you talk to npcs for 10 minutes and unlock an achievement, YAY. February update is live and they’ll be talking about summer updates when everyone will be ****** of how poor the update on the 26th was. I don’t expect much anymore and if they do anything worth mentioning to rangers is nerf traps and if they do that…

Astralporing.1957:

Making everyone be equally miserable is definitely not fine.

Ah, the joys of socialism.