Guild Wars 2

@JonathanSharp

Thanks for the reply about the adrenaline changes. I just wanted to say a few things about the impact of those changes that I’ve noticed playing since the patch. I really do agree that losing adrenaline when missing a burst skill was a needed and sensible change, it ensures that warriors now need to use their burst skills smartly, counting dodge rolls or throwing a cc beforehand. This is good and introduces a similar level of risk vs reward that a lot of other skills have.

A large problem is the impact on cleansing ire I think, especially in PvP. With so many meta builds right now being based on conditions, e.g. engi, necro, the new condi mesmer, other warriors, even a lot of eles now seem to play condition builds, it really feels difficult to shake those conditions. The problem isn’t because you end up missing and therefore losing your adrenaline, it’s because the adrenaline builds so slowly and drains so quickly. Necro is a good comparisson, because like warrior, it starts a round without access to its F1 abilities (no life force), and can be vulnerable to being focused. The difference is that when a necro has built their life force, it stays with them and gives them a huge defensive and offensive buff, whereas the warrior’s adrenaline now drains immediately after combat, leaving them very vulnerable to conditions at the start of every single combat. It now feels like berserker stance is the ONLY defense that warrior has vs. conditions, because it’s both the short immunity and the main source of adrenaline. It feels a bit wrong that the main defense the class has against conditions, which are so prominent right now in the meta game, is one long cooldown which you need every fight. PvP is full of short little combat-breaks running between nodes, to lose all of your class ability every time instantly makes it near impossible to compete in the next fight if zerker stance is on cooldown. It would be really nice just to have an extension on the drain time, so that it’s possible to move to another fight without being completely vulnerable to condition pressure every single time. My death log is almost entirely 20k burning, 10k bleeding, 5k poison, because you’re just not able to get the conditions off you any more, and they are re-applied immediately.

I think this was also a very hard hit to warriors in PvE, largely because of how it affected Berserker’s Power (GM strength trait). The instant drain on combat exit means that warrior now starts -every- fight missing 15% damage, and if you do a lot of dungeons you’ll know that a lot of encounters don’t last long enough to even get full adrenaline if you stack properly. I understand that the nerf was primarily to address problems in PvP, but in dungeons it really does hurt the class. 15% is huge, but again it could be fixed fairly easily be increasing the drain time to allow movement to the next fight.

tl;dr I think some aspects of the adrenaline changes were positive, it makes the playstyle more skill-oriented. However I think the nerf was too big in sPvP and the impact on PvE, while possibly unintended, was very damaging. Would like to see a bit of re-adjustment to how the mechanic works, especially with regard to the instant decay. Thanks!

The new adren changes have accomplished a few things :

-Nerfed warriors in PVE
-Forced everyone to have a longbow in PVP
-Forced people even more into condi specs.

Before the patch i ran power warrior but after it it’s condi all the way. Why? Because with the nerf it’s become incredibly hard to stay competitive – so I thought ’ if you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em’. And I did.

I already knew condi builds were OP as hell but I had no idea until I actually bothered to start playing one. I honestly don’t see why you’d play anything else.

Chris and Jonathan, thank you both for answering.

I really appreciate it, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful (I do realize that you are both busy and that addressing our questions and concerns in by no means a light task), but I still feel that this matter needs to be addressed on the Warrior subforum, as I pointed out in my previous post.

Right now the first 4 to 5 pages in said forum are basically just threads of people who talk about this nerf. That’s a lot of threads…

So I’m still of the opinion that it would be good if someone from the team maybe created a red thread in that forum (something like “You feedback on the recent Warrior changes”), and these are the reasons why I believe it would be for the best:
- such a thread would give the Warrior players a chance to post their opinions in a single discussion, while they are now scattered across tens of threads. It seems like a good way to have a constructive conversation
- if we keep talking about it here, we risk “derailing” this thread, and it would be detrimental to everyone’s efforts
- if we don’t talk about it at all, then we are ignoring (or worse, dismissing) the issue.

I can see that you guys stand by the change and I know that you have a better level of awareness concerning the overall balance, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that those Warrior players do not have a point.

PS: I hope you are feeling better Chris

JonathanSharp.7094:

Dand.8231:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chap might reply to this. I play a warrior (PVT Shout Heal) and to be honest and quite happy with the changes. He knows more than I about balance however so i will bring it up with him tomorrow morning.
Chris

So did anything come of this discussion?

See, Chris… PVT Shout build is probably near the top of LEAST impacted Warrior builds, as a result of this adrenaline nerf.

Running around spamming Shouts and swinging a hammer, as you hurl yourself into Zergs, is still fine after this adrenal change. And as a PVT shout heal warrior, I’d tend to suspect you’re zerging it up quite a bit in WvW, because… well honestly, that’s all they’re really good at. PvP it’s a fairly meh build, Guards/Eles/Engies bunker better.

You’ll never “miss” with your earthshakers in a crowd of 15 people. And Soldier runes wipe condi’s fast as anything. You can even trait to gain almost a bar of adrenaline per shout.

So, try a roaming build or competitive PvP build.

See how the adrenaline loss-on-miss feels versus an experienced player who can reliably avoid your bursts 75% of the time.

See how that 75% miss ruins your condi-clearing from Cleansing Ire, leaving you up to your ears in condis. You’ll quickly understand why warriors feel LOCKED into Longbows combustive shot.

Hey what’s up man.

Before this change, it was the case that the Warrior Dogged/Cleansing specs were able to pretty much just spam their burst skills and remove condies. We had a lot of players (on forums and in person, talking to them at Gamescom) talking about how they wanted to have more play/skill to this, and they also wanted (if they were players who played AGAINST this type of Warrior) to have more counter-play.

This change means that Warriors need to be thinking ahead to their condition cleanse, as they will no longer be able to get them without risk. It also means that missing a burst skill can hurt the Warrior more than it did before, so even if you’re not running Cleansing, an opponent making you miss your burst skill can be a really big, really impactful moment in a fight.

This change means that some Warrior specs will need to shift/adjust, and you’ll need to do more “setting up” of your burst skill (to give it a higher chance to land) if you’re relying on Cleansing for condie clears.

99% of the complaints are NOT about losing adrenaline on a missed burst skill, Warrior players pretty much agree it was a mostly fair change (that should have came with some burst/skills adjustments [Hello kill shot!], but whatever).
The problem is the adrenaline decay, and you know it, I don’t know why you haven’t given an answser on that issue yet.

Mike O Brien.4613:

I know some are concerned about whether ArenaNet is communicating with you and listening and responding to your feedback. As you saw with yesterday’s announcement, we do. All of us at ArenaNet play the game with you, chat with you and read your forum posts, and work on the things that we think will most delight and entertain you.

We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.

Don’t read that as meaning that we don’t want to talk with you about the longer-term roadmap. The intention of the CDI threads is to talk with you about the roadmap. We want to talk design philosophy with you and hear how you want to see the game evolve. When those discussions trigger development, we’ll work internally until we have something we’re proud of before we’ll announce it.

A lot of the questions I’ve seen posted this week are as simple as this: does ArenaNet have an agenda to never do something? That’s almost never the case, and if it is the case you deserve to know and we’ll make sure we get more clear. In general the simple truth is this: when we’re not currently working on something, it’s because we’re working on something else instead that we think is more important for the game and community.

Our developers post on these forums on a voluntary basis, and in addition to developers, we have a community team who can clarify and be the bridge between players and developers. They’re ready to engage you on these topics. And I know it’s hard for the community team to engage players across all the forums and sites where these questions are being discussed, so I’m going to support the team in consolidating and focusing as necessary, so that we can be clear to the community where you can go to get a response.

See you in-game,
Mike O’Brien

This policy would be fine if the changes you made weren’t highly controversial and buggy, but they are. When you institute changes that people don’t like with no attempt to get user feedback it annoys the community.

Here is what I think most people want (and really do need) to hear about from ArenaNet:

In the next 6-12 months, what do you (the devs) want the direction and the pacing of the game to look like?

During season one of the Living Story, we saw bi-weekly updates almost constantly for 12 months, with little to no interruptions. The downside (to many – not to me) was that content was mostly temporary. These biweekly updates included a variety of fun content types, including world changing events, story instances, dungeons, world bosses, minigames and a new map zone.

During season two, the content is permanent, but there have been significant gaps (of approximately 3-4 months each) during which there was almost nothing new added to the game. The content that was added while the season was active was the same game types every time (new map portion, short instance with very minimal replayability value).

This major shift in direction illustrated how much you actually gave us in season one and was a culture shock for those of us used to that season’s pacing.

Given what we’ve seen, I think people would really like to know (without knowing the specifics of what youre developing):

- Do you plan to get back to the every two week schedule or is the plan now to break it into story chunks with longer development times in between (like we are seeing now)?

- Will season two continue to follow the format we saw during the first 4 episodes or do you plan to mix it up the way you did season one – with things like dungeons, minigames, etc, thrown in alongside the story instances/new map zones?

Hey, Chris, I sent you this message in game, but I’m not sure if you got it. As I said previously, I’m going to be out of town tomorrow, but I’m going to be hanging out with a friend who is a gw2 player and she has said that I can use her computer for the leveling thing if that’s still in the works.

I’m happy they made these changes
“Utility slot skills 2 and 3 now unlock at levels 17 and 19, respectively.
The elite slot skill now unlocks at level 31.”

But still think they locked too much content for new characters behind levelling which they said they wouldn’t as they wanted the early game to be as good as the end game!

Bring back learning weapon skills by using that weapon, and why on earth are breathers and under water combat now rewards when they were there from level 1 before! And stop putting silly things like viewing vista’s as rewards.

I do like the new levelling rewards such as the loot bags, and higher level weapons etc, however are new players really that bad they need all this help?

As someone who likes making new characters I am disappointed with the early grind, and it did not feel faster to get to level 15, in fact it was slower.

Also dancing with cows and pouring non-existent buckets of water over hey bails is very immersive breaking.

Some things feel very artificial now.

John.8507:

I’m happy they made these changes
“Utility slot skills 2 and 3 now unlock at levels 17 and 19, respectively.
The elite slot skill now unlocks at level 31.”

But still think they locked too much content for new characters behind levelling which they said they wouldn’t as they wanted the early game to be as good as the end game!

Bring back learning weapon skills by using that weapon, and why on earth are breathers and under water combat now rewards when they were there from level 1 before! And stop putting silly things like viewing vista’s as rewards.

I do like the new levelling rewards such as the loot bags, and higher level weapons etc, however are new players really that bad they need all this help?

As someone who likes making new characters I am disappointed with the early grind, and it did not feel faster to get to level 15, in fact it was slower.

The items that are designed to not frontload the player with too much information are account unlocks. This includes Vistas, Skill Points, POI etc… Not because they themselves are rewards.

To answer your question if new players were getting overwhelmed with the way things were taught(or lack thereof) before. Yes.

I am extremely grateful that you reached out to us like this. A good, ethical company deserves unwavering loyalty. Keep up the great work Arena Net and gem sales should follow.

I felt that the game was pretty well explained before, they had the first hour of gameplay in the online manual which was pretty helpful to.

The new compass thing is pretty good to point you towards events though, and its nice you can turn it off. But I think things were dumbed down to much, and locked behind levels.

And the issue with the vista’s and skill challenges not showing up if you had made a new character already was just fixed.

“Skill challenges now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis as originally intended.”

Does that mean you only get each skill point once? Thats horrible! How are you meant to get all the skill points you need if you have multiple characters

John.8507:

“Skill challenges now unlock on an account-wide basis rather than a per-character basis as originally intended.”

Does that mean you only get each skill point once? Thats horrible! How are you meant to get all the skill points you need if you have multiple characters

No that means the ability to do a skill challenge is unlocked on a account-wide basis.

To answer your question if new players were getting overwhelmed with the way things were taught(or lack thereof) before. Yes.

The new dodge thing is good and some of the explanations. But I don’t think waiting till level 10 to use 5 skills is easier at all.

John.8507:

To answer your question if new players were getting overwhelmed with the way things were taught(or lack thereof) before. Yes.

The new dodge thing is good and some of the explanations. But I don’t think waiting till level 10 to use 5 skills is easier at all.

Off topic but related to quote:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Changes-Coming-to-the-NPE/page/8#post4422580

On Topic:
I think a new system for suggestions and feedback would be useful. Forums while useful for player to player communication and general discussion and possibly feedback. I do not find are useful for suggestions. CDI is a good topic based direction system but not good for the one-off suggestions not related to the current topic. I think that something like uservoice or getsatisfaction would be useful as a replacement for the suggestions forum. This would allow us to condense our suggestions and talk about similar requests as well as voice our priorities on suggestions.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hey Fudge,

I will check with the team tomorrow and either they will post or I will report back. I know that i get quite a few /w and mails about players griefing in WvW on TC.

Chris

Thanks so much for doing this Chris, I’ve been sick all week and just seeing this acknowledged has somehow made me feel a little better. John’s been leading a nice discussion about it in the WvW forums.

Appreciate it!

Not trying to be rude, but is there an answer to my questions I asked a few days ago ?

Alright, thank you & work well. :-)

Before the CDI on Guild Halls begins, I think it’s only fair that someone asks the big question:

If we come up with what appears to be a solid idea for Guild Halls, will ANet actually carry through with it and put the work into making it and making it right?

There’s no point in wasting time throwing around ideas that will never see the light of day. This isn’t a question that can be answered with a “maybe” or “we’ll see”. This is a “Yes” or “No” question. If the answer is “Yes”, then fine. Full steam ahead. If it’s not, then we don’t need to waste our time on something that’s going to get buried under other projects and come out half-baked, if at all.

Palador.2170:

Before the CDI on Guild Halls begins, I think it’s only fair that someone asks the big question:

If we come up with what appears to be a solid idea for Guild Halls, will ANet actually carry through with it and put the work into making it and making it right?

There’s no point in wasting time throwing around ideas that will never see the light of day. This isn’t a question that can be answered with a “maybe” or “we’ll see”. This is a “Yes” or “No” question. If the answer is “Yes”, then fine. Full steam ahead. If it’s not, then we don’t need to waste our time on something that’s going to get buried under other projects and come out half-baked, if at all.

Other question, would there be any legal issues with using the specifics of an idea from a CDI? I would think not, or the devs wouldn’t be taking a risk on it, but intellectual property is kind of a sticky issue.
I can imagine scenarios where “we like the idea but we can’t copy it directly” might cause seemingly half-hearted execution of an otherwise solid, detailed concept.

Rauderi.8706:

Other question, would there be any legal issues with using the specifics of an idea from a CDI? I would think not, or the devs wouldn’t be taking a risk on it, but intellectual property is kind of a sticky issue.
I can imagine scenarios where “we like the idea but we can’t copy it directly” might cause seemingly half-hearted execution of an otherwise solid, detailed concept.

By posting the ideas in the thread, you’re pretty obviously giving them permission to use them. Note that they never ask for art or code, just general ideas.

The ideas are fine for them to use, as long as they don’t too closely copy another game. It’s things like art or program code that would give them real problems if they used it directly. The ideas they have to implement in their own way.

Rauderi.8706:

Palador.2170:

Before the CDI on Guild Halls begins, I think it’s only fair that someone asks the big question:

If we come up with what appears to be a solid idea for Guild Halls, will ANet actually carry through with it and put the work into making it and making it right?

There’s no point in wasting time throwing around ideas that will never see the light of day. This isn’t a question that can be answered with a “maybe” or “we’ll see”. This is a “Yes” or “No” question. If the answer is “Yes”, then fine. Full steam ahead. If it’s not, then we don’t need to waste our time on something that’s going to get buried under other projects and come out half-baked, if at all.

Other question, would there be any legal issues with using the specifics of an idea from a CDI? I would think not, or the devs wouldn’t be taking a risk on it, but intellectual property is kind of a sticky issue.
I can imagine scenarios where “we like the idea but we can’t copy it directly” might cause seemingly half-hearted execution of an otherwise solid, detailed concept.

its a forum/suggestion situation. And its documented on the net as such. I doubt you can sue people for things you put in a suggestion box. The internet basically acts as an open public record that you are giving away your ideas.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey what’s up man.

Before this change, it was the case that the Warrior Dogged/Cleansing specs were able to pretty much just spam their burst skills and remove condies. We had a lot of players (on forums and in person, talking to them at Gamescom) talking about how they wanted to have more play/skill to this, and they also wanted (if they were players who played AGAINST this type of Warrior) to have more counter-play.

This change means that Warriors need to be thinking ahead to their condition cleanse, as they will no longer be able to get them without risk. It also means that missing a burst skill can hurt the Warrior more than it did before, so even if you’re not running Cleansing, an opponent making you miss your burst skill can be a really big, really impactful moment in a fight.

This change means that some Warrior specs will need to shift/adjust, and you’ll need to do more “setting up” of your burst skill (to give it a higher chance to land) if you’re relying on Cleansing for condie clears.

Hey Jon,
First off, thanks for the communication. I know the devs are always busy but a little discussion goes a long way!

I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I think the issue can actually be traced back to the core of the GW2 mechanics, reaching far beyond JUST the Warrior class. Allow me to rant and hopefully elaborate a bit.

As you obviously know…
Direct damage builds operate on a trio of stats: Power, Precision, Ferocity. This is mitigated by Toughness, Armor, Protection.

Condis operate on a single stat: Condition damage. Condition duration is available due to trait lines, but not as a stat on gear, so it’s a non-issue. This condi amage is mitigated only by actively removing conditions.
(Yes, there is condi +/- food in WvW, but not in PvP)

Condis require direct intervention to counter, using up skill slots and talent selections, and due to how powerful conditions are relative to direct damage, conditions are currently extremely popular. Many classes can make a Bunker+Condi damage build, which has impressive survival AND damage, with little sacrifice.

Meanwhile, a berserker build (Pow/Prec/Fer) sacrifices all survival to achieve it’s high damage.

As a result, the general Condi meta, is quite prevalent. Now lets look at how this specifically filters down to Warriors.

Warriors means of countering conditions, Pre-Cleansing Ire, was terrible. This was widely known, and eventually Berserk Stance (immunity 8s) and Cleansing Ire (1 condi per spent bar) was introduced. Great!

Many Warriors felt a little bit bound to the longbow, by this change. Why? Because combustive shot was a 100% activation of Cleansing Ire. In a condi-dominant environment, CI was absolutely crucial, and failure to remove those condis could easily spell death.

See, the other bursts were a bit of a crpshoot. Assuming equal skill between a Warrior and his opponent, as this equal skill level increases, the chance of successfully landing a Burst DECREASES.

Now, if they’re both equally skilled, one would assume the hit chance remains the same, only varying when there is a skill gap, but that’s not the case. The nature of the burst skills, their obvious telegraphs, and high cast time, is a limiting factor that applies, regardless of the Warriors skill, but that the defender can take advantage of.

Even if you stun or setup a highly skilled opponent to burst, there is a high chance they can break the stun and evade/block your followup burst skill, or counterplay it in some fashion. I’m not saying it’s impossible by any means, but the chances definitely becomes skewed.

There is a big argument I see arise here, that removing an opponents means to avoid the burst entirely is important, but consider that against equally skilled players, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to force EVERY defense he has, because he himself is equally skilled, and is playing to the fact that you will TRY to stress his defenses and set him up to be bursted.

It becomes Land Burst and Win, or Miss Burst and lose. BOTH sides know this to be the case.

In short, the Risk vs Reward for a Burst Skill, was NOT a balanced equation. Removing the conditions was NOT reliable enough for competitive play.

And since CI is linked to burst hitting, you end up with warriors feeling married to the Longbow, due to how RELIABLE it is.

And all of that was Pre-Adrenaline change.
Now, that same issue has become even MORE pronounced. Missing costs ALL adrenaline, which means the Risk vs Reward equation is even MORE unbalanced.
(Continued in next post)

Follow this simple logic path…

1. Condi-builds are common, and deal devastating damage.
2. The counter to condi-builds is reliable condi-removal.
3. Warrior condi-removal is primarily Cleansing Ire.
4. Cleansing Ire only procs on a hit.
5. All burst skills have a chance to hit, except Longbow, which is a 100% hit.
6. Warriors complain they feel married to longbow to stay competitive.

By nerfing Adrenaline to lose all on a miss, you did NOT actually reduce the Warriors condition removal ability. All you did, was force a shift in trends, to using the Longbow for that removal, even more than it already is.

In other words, build diversity went down, even more.

Jon, from the dev side, you can probably pull up PVP Build data on how many Warrior builds use Cleansing Ire. Now see what % of them also have a longbow equipped. I’d wager you’ll see a staggering correlation.

If you can pull up the data pre-adrenaline nerf, I’d also wager you’ll see a high correlation, but not as high as post-adrenaline nerf.

Still with me? I hope so. Here’s a TL;DR short summary thus far.
A Condi heavy meta, forces all classes (including Wars) to use reliable condi-removal, and the Warrior condi-removal is Cleansing Ire + Longbow burst.

Now, how to go about fixing this? Well, here are my thoughts.

Rework Cleansing Ire so 1 condition is removed per bar of adrenaline gained, not spent. 3 second cooldown.

In addition, nerf and rework all forms of adrenaline gain while slightly buffing baseline adrenaline gain. The thief was over-reliant on Initiative boosting traits and skills, and got a similar treatment.

Baseline Adrenaline: 15 strikes per bar (for a total of 45 strikes). Gain 2 per strikes per hit dealt (regardless of the number of targets hit.)

Compared to 1 strike per hit, and 30 strikes total, this proposal means more reliable, and slightly faster build up of adrenaline. Best of all, the other means of adrenaline gain (Cleansing Ires 1 strike/hit taken, Furious +1 strike per crit, etc) are automatically nerfed as a result of this, and need not be changed, since going to 45 strikes from 30, reduces their relative effectiveness.

Some especially slow hits (Hammer chain 3, Mace chain 3) can even grant 1 bonus adrenaline, to help even out their generation as compared to Axe. Rifle just underwent such a change, to help it’s adrenaline building compete with Longbows double-hit.

And, the end result is, suddenly, the loss of all adrenaline on a miss, is not such a massive unbalanced Risk vs Reward equation anymore. The burst skill itself hitting, or missing, is enough. The Longbow will not suddenly become weaker, but no longer will it become required either.

I’ve still got a LOT more to say (namely how to next adjust passive traits, like adrenal health to compensate and promote synergy: Hint, gain regen every time you fill a bar, etc) but I think I’ve rambled enough for one day, so I’ll cut to my final point.

The adrenaline decay change is NOT really related to the Cleansing Ire, and adrenaline loss on a miss change.
I don’t personally consider it more than a minor mechanical nerf.

However, what it is, is simply a HUGE QoL (quality of life) nerf. It flat out feels awful, unfun, and a serious burden. The decay time and rate should be far more modular and adaptive.

For example:
Decay Delay 10s
Decay rate: Current adrenaline * 0.1 (10%, minimum 1 strike) per second

Anyway, thanks for reading my long post!
-Dan

Rauderi.8706:

Palador.2170:

Before the CDI on Guild Halls begins, I think it’s only fair that someone asks the big question:

If we come up with what appears to be a solid idea for Guild Halls, will ANet actually carry through with it and put the work into making it and making it right?

There’s no point in wasting time throwing around ideas that will never see the light of day. This isn’t a question that can be answered with a “maybe” or “we’ll see”. This is a “Yes” or “No” question. If the answer is “Yes”, then fine. Full steam ahead. If it’s not, then we don’t need to waste our time on something that’s going to get buried under other projects and come out half-baked, if at all.

Other question, would there be any legal issues with using the specifics of an idea from a CDI? I would think not, or the devs wouldn’t be taking a risk on it, but intellectual property is kind of a sticky issue.
I can imagine scenarios where “we like the idea but we can’t copy it directly” might cause seemingly half-hearted execution of an otherwise solid, detailed concept.

You agree by using this site and the wiki for that matter.

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AND

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https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/website-terms-of-use/
So yes.

Palador.2170:

If we come up with what appears to be a solid idea for Guild Halls, will ANet actually carry through with it and put the work into making it and making it right?

You’re never going to get an answer to this question. The absolutely official response is that ANet will never let us in on any projects they’re working on before they are released. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I understand why they have that stance.

That being said, if they ever were to want to implement guild halls, and if they were to use ideas here, they would still never tell us about it until it’s launched. That’s just how it works. So, whether this whole thing is a hypothetical, or whether it actually goes somewhere, it’s not ANet’s policy to tell us, nor should they be obligated to either way.

If you don’t want to “waste your time” discussing hypotheticals like this, then you don’t have to. Some of us love knowing that they’re listening to our ideas, even if nothing ever comes out of it. Just having the discussion and spreading the ideas is enough for most of us.

Chris Whiteside.6102

Correct thanks Shadow and all for helping Palador with his questions. Would love to see you take part Palador, everyone is welcome.

Chris

Except for pdavis….He’s kind of a kitten anyway so….

:P

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Correct thanks Shadow and all for helping Palador with his questions. Would love to see you take part Palador, everyone is welcome.

Chris

One question. And the answer is, apparently, “No”.

I’m not surprised. The fact is, ANet’s policy is that they don’t step up and say “We will support this idea/concept”. I’m pretty sure we all know that by now.

Will I still take part? Yes. Not because I have any faith in ANet (I don’t), but because I still want to see what other people think of my ideas. And yes, that includes the individual game devs at ANet. I’ll just do it with no expectations of results from ANet as a company.

The fact that the company refuses to step up and dedicate themselves to a project is rather pathetic, though. Take a minute to think of what you’d call a person that refuses to commit to anything so they can never be held accountable for not doing things.

Would it be possible to include a “consume all” option for stuff like Essence of Luck, and Karma vials? I know I’ve seen a bunch of stuff regard mice being destroyed by having to click 15 million times just to consume them. Using a macro is out of the question, as those tend to result in bans. Just wondering if the devs have had any converstations about such things. Thanks!!!

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Palador.2170:

If we come up with what appears to be a solid idea for Guild Halls, will ANet actually carry through with it and put the work into making it and making it right?

You’re never going to get an answer to this question. The absolutely official response is that ANet will never let us in on any projects they’re working on before they are released. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I understand why they have that stance.

That being said, if they ever were to want to implement guild halls, and if they were to use ideas here, they would still never tell us about it until it’s launched. That’s just how it works. So, whether this whole thing is a hypothetical, or whether it actually goes somewhere, it’s not ANet’s policy to tell us, nor should they be obligated to either way.

If you don’t want to “waste your time” discussing hypotheticals like this, then you don’t have to. Some of us love knowing that they’re listening to our ideas, even if nothing ever comes out of it. Just having the discussion and spreading the ideas is enough for most of us.

You said there’s many reason ArenaNet has this stance and for good reasons.
Can you give me some examples of what reasons, good reasons, those might be?

I don’t agree with current policy that they cant tell us what project they are working on since I feel it’s important to include the players into their work to get the best quality game out there. Since last I checked, devs are making the game for us primary to make money not just for themselves.

I’d like an asnwer to this question:
“Why is it a good stance and what 3-4 reasons can you provide me with examples why ArenaNet policy like this is any good for the game?”

Thanks for taking the time to read! ^-^

Palador.2170:

Take a minute to think of what you’d call a person that refuses to commit to anything so they can never be held accountable for not doing things.

That’s a really poor attitude to take. Let’s say for example they DID decide to say, definitively, “we will make guild halls”. They work pretty steadily for it for half a year, hype it up, get a ton of feedback.

Then, they realize that there’s something in the code that’s hanging them up and won’t let them go any further. Some layover from the original Guild Wars (because the GW2 game is just using a heavily modified engine from GW1). Something is in the way, it can’t be fixed/adjusted without completely re-writing the game engine from scratch.

(As an aside, yes, this type of thing does happen, as players from World Of Warcraft will attest to. Eventually after the Cataclysm expansion, Blizzard broke down and started re-programming the game from scratch to fix some major issues that came from how quickly and largely the game expanded. It was never meant to support the player base it had, and it really started to show before the recoding project was started.)

SO now, it’s either dedicate a huge team to months and months and months of work, for relatively little payout, just to implement one feature that was promised. Of course, it would be ridiculous to take all of that time and development energy away from literally everything else just to implement guild halls. So, instead, the idea is scrapped.

What do you think the fallout from that would be? And don’t say something naive like, “The code can’t be THAT hard to change.” Programming is complicated. It’s layers on top of layers on top of layers. ESPECIALLY when you have a system like they’re using for GW2, where they essentially took one game that already existed and lumped new programming on top of it, programming that was never intended to work with that original game to begin with.

This is the reason why they can’t “dedicate” themselves with a public response. Because if something like this would come up, the community backlash would be catastrophic.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

You said there’s many reason ArenaNet has this stance and for good reasons.
Can you give me some examples of what reasons, good reasons, those might be?

I think this should be a sufficient enough response to your question as well, Abaddon. :p

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Palador.2170:

Take a minute to think of what you’d call a person that refuses to commit to anything so they can never be held accountable for not doing things.

That’s a really poor attitude to take. Let’s say for example they DID decide to say, definitively, “we will make guild halls”. They work pretty steadily for it for half a year, hype it up, get a ton of feedback.

Then, they realize that there’s something in the code that’s hanging them up and won’t let them go any further. Some layover from the original Guild Wars (because the GW2 game is just using a heavily modified engine from GW1). Something is in the way, it can’t be fixed/adjusted without completely re-writing the game engine from scratch.

SO now, it’s either dedicate a huge team to months and months and months of work, for relatively little payout, just to implement one feature that was promised. Of course, it would be ridiculous to take all of that time and development energy away from literally everything else just to implement guild halls. So, instead, the idea is scrapped.

What do you think the fallout from that would be? And don’t say something naive like, “The code can’t be THAT hard to change.” Programming is complicated. It’s layers on top of layers on top of layers. ESPECIALLY when you have a system like they’re using for GW2, where they essentially took one game that already existed and lumped new programming on top of it, programming that was never intended to work with that original game to begin with.

This is the reason why they can’t “dedicate” themselves with a public response. Because if something like this would come up, the community backlash would be catastrophic.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

You said there’s many reason ArenaNet has this stance and for good reasons.
Can you give me some examples of what reasons, good reasons, those might be?

I think this should be a sufficient enough response to your question as well, Abaddon. :p

First of all, I’m not asking them to say “We will make Guild Halls”. What I’m asking for is “We will put serious effort into making Guild Halls, and not just throw them onto the back burner.”

Second of all, if they DO run into a problem, they should tell us. If they come to us and say “We’ve run into problem X”, then we can work out ideas on how to get the feel of what we wanted while working around problem X. Holding a CDI, and then quietly throwing it all away when they run into a problem is a horrible idea. If, in the end, the can’t do the project then they should at least come out and say it so they don’t have players left hanging.

Here’s something you seem to miss: Having a CDI on something like “Guild Halls” may not be a promise of Guild Halls, but it’s pretty effing close. People will expect something to come of it, if not then why would ANet have included this when THEY were the ones picking the topics for these CDIs? If they’re not willing to dedicate themselves to doing it, then they need to be honest about it NOW, before expectations are built up. This isn’t about demanding they give me things. This is about derailing false hope and misguided expectations.

Palador.2170:

Second of all, if they DO run into a problem, they should tell us. If they come to us and say “We’ve run into problem X”, then we can work out ideas on how to get the feel of what we wanted while working around problem X.

I’m sorry, but if you actually think that will stop any significant part of the backlash, then you’re being naive. As soon as people see “Feature is definitely being worked on!”, then they see, “Feature is being definitively delayed/cancelled because we physically cannot devote the resources to fixing it without putting either all of our content on hiatus for a year or bankrupting our company by paying for new staff!”, it will NOT go well. There will be people rioting, there will be MONTHS of people bashing the staff, there will be people screaming about quitting, about how they “demand a refund” because they “spent so much money in anticipation for the guild halls”.

It will be ridiculous, and ludicrous, and no amount of assurances on the part of the devs will quell any of that. I wouldn’t wish having to deal with that on ANYONE. It’s really better if they don’t tell us what’s being worked on, because there are doubtlessly things being scrapped all the time for one reason or another. That’s just how it works with things like MMO’s. Things start as great ideas before you realize that they can’t actually be done. Then, the fans get upset. And once it gets to that point, well… you’ve seen the forums since the 9/9 feature patch. Imagine that at a hundred times the scale.

Palador.2170:

People will expect something to come of it, if not then why would ANet have included this when THEY were the ones picking the topics for these CDIs?

You seem to be missing something here yourself. The CDI topics are picked due to what ANet sees as being a major talking point on the forums at any given time. One of the major reasons that a Guild Hall CDI was selected because of the overwhelming amount of times it was brought up as a part of the last CDI (the Guild Improvements CDI just released this last week).

The CDI is an avenue for the players to discuss what they think would be good features, and why, and have a place where they KNOW someone at ANet is listening and participating in the discussion as well.

There is no promise here, there is no implication. CDI’s are simply a place for you to discuss topics you’re passionate about with the devs. That’s it.

If you see that as a waste of time, or some kind of false promise, well then… again, you shouldn’t feel obligated to participate. But for many of us, we just like talking about this stuff, so this is exactly what we want, promises or not.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Palador.2170:

Take a minute to think of what you’d call a person that refuses to commit to anything so they can never be held accountable for not doing things.

That’s a really poor attitude to take. Let’s say for example they DID decide to say, definitively, “we will make guild halls”. They work pretty steadily for it for half a year, hype it up, get a ton of feedback.

Then, they realize that there’s something in the code that’s hanging them up and won’t let them go any further. Some layover from the original Guild Wars (because the GW2 game is just using a heavily modified engine from GW1). Something is in the way, it can’t be fixed/adjusted without completely re-writing the game engine from scratch.

(As an aside, yes, this type of thing does happen, as players from World Of Warcraft will attest to. Eventually after the Cataclysm expansion, Blizzard broke down and started re-programming the game from scratch to fix some major issues that came from how quickly and largely the game expanded. It was never meant to support the player base it had, and it really started to show before the recoding project was started.)

SO now, it’s either dedicate a huge team to months and months and months of work, for relatively little payout, just to implement one feature that was promised. Of course, it would be ridiculous to take all of that time and development energy away from literally everything else just to implement guild halls. So, instead, the idea is scrapped.

What do you think the fallout from that would be? And don’t say something naive like, “The code can’t be THAT hard to change.” Programming is complicated. It’s layers on top of layers on top of layers. ESPECIALLY when you have a system like they’re using for GW2, where they essentially took one game that already existed and lumped new programming on top of it, programming that was never intended to work with that original game to begin with.

This is the reason why they can’t “dedicate” themselves with a public response. Because if something like this would come up, the community backlash would be catastrophic.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

You said there’s many reason ArenaNet has this stance and for good reasons.
Can you give me some examples of what reasons, good reasons, those might be?

I think this should be a sufficient enough response to your question as well, Abaddon. :p

Thank you Shadow <3

Palador.2170:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Correct thanks Shadow and all for helping Palador with his questions. Would love to see you take part Palador, everyone is welcome.

Chris

One question. And the answer is, apparently, “No”.

I’m not surprised. The fact is, ANet’s policy is that they don’t step up and say “We will support this idea/concept”. I’m pretty sure we all know that by now.

Will I still take part? Yes. Not because I have any faith in ANet (I don’t), but because I still want to see what other people think of my ideas. And yes, that includes the individual game devs at ANet. I’ll just do it with no expectations of results from ANet as a company.

The fact that the company refuses to step up and dedicate themselves to a project is rather pathetic, though. Take a minute to think of what you’d call a person that refuses to commit to anything so they can never be held accountable for not doing things.

While i agree with you somewhat, I also know that Chris has committed to this CDI and quite obviously, has a passion for improving the game that extends beyond normal business hours. So at least, try not to shoot the messenger

Regardless, i’ve seen some of the toils these CDI’s bring. Especially regarding the changes to the trait system and the “capturing” of skills ala GW. Sadly they went to far with it (or not far enough if you ask around) and that’s how things go. I think basically people wanted to capture new elite skills, and in most cases, they would be PvE only ones, but that’s not what we got. Hopefully it improves down the road.

While i think all feedback is good feedback, taking part since you just want your opinions heard, then lashing out about it is probably not a good road to take. If you don’t have any faith, it’s probably best to simply sit it out, for your own personal frustrations and everyone else involved. That’s my 2 cents.

munkiman.3068:

While i think all feedback is good feedback, taking part since you just want your opinions heard, then lashing out about it is probably not a good road to take. If you don’t have any faith, it’s probably best to simply sit it out, for your own personal frustrations and everyone else involved. That’s my 2 cents.

Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to keep myself on topic and helpful when the GH CDI comes. There’s a reason I posted the question in the Communication thread, instead of waiting for the GH one.

And I do believe that Chris is whole-hartedly behind this. If it was a matter of trusting him, I never would have considered the question as needing to be asked. It’s his bosses I worry about. I understand how things go when deadlines approach or problems are encountered, and how easy it is to push something aside until “Later”, especially if there’s nothing holding you to getting it done. We’ve seen it happen before in this very game.

Anyway… I should drop the subject now, before this causes a thread derail. I’ll bow out now, and see you all in the next CDI!

Palador.2170:

munkiman.3068:

While i think all feedback is good feedback, taking part since you just want your opinions heard, then lashing out about it is probably not a good road to take. If you don’t have any faith, it’s probably best to simply sit it out, for your own personal frustrations and everyone else involved. That’s my 2 cents.

Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to keep myself on topic and helpful when the GH CDI comes. There’s a reason I posted the question in the Communication thread, instead of waiting for the GH one.

And I do believe that Chris is whole-hartedly behind this. If it was a matter of trusting him, I never would have considered the question as needing to be asked. It’s his bosses I worry about. I understand how things go when deadlines approach or problems are encountered, and how easy it is to push something aside until “Later”, especially if there’s nothing holding you to getting it done. We’ve seen it happen before in this very game.

Anyway… I should drop the subject now, before this causes a thread derail. I’ll bow out now, and see you all in the next CDI!

Thanks for the clarification!

I’ve been in this industry for awhile (gaming, blah blah)… Whatever, it’s like every industry. I see start-ups that do tremendous (minecraft) and then $500 million games that get crazy mixed reviews and slams on their ability to story tell. No matter how frustrated i get about feature packs and the LS, i still have to remind myself how much work goes into this stuff. I’ll still nit pick though, it’s kinda my thing as of late…

My biggest hope is that anet gets back to delivering the game they want to play.

Chris, your inbox is full again (they should change your limit to be higher!). You said you’d like to play together today, what time will you be in game?

To Jonathan Sharp:

Could you perhaps give a bit of the rationale behind the decision to not touch the Necromancer’s Blood Magic traitline at all in this last patch? Given that a stated goal of the patch was to improve Necromancer sustain, it seems odd that the iconic “sustain” line was actually completely untouched.

I’d just like to say again that it’s marvelous to see so many more posts from the devs on the forums lately, across all the sub-forums. It’s fantastic to actually know that our ideas, suggestions and bug reports are actually being picked up on. Loving this change. Keep up the good work!

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all.

Wanted to touch on a few issues brought up about the Warrior stuff.

@ Warriors in PvE using Berserk’s: Yes, we knew this would be part of it. Now Warriors can’t just run around with full adrenaline all the time doing bonus damage. If they want to use their burst skills, then they obviously lose out on bonus power. This is an opportunity cost they need to factor into PvE encounters due to the new adren change.

@ Warriors in PvP vs. a condie meta: Yes, there’s a lot more play now, and condie builds are less reliant on multiple stats than dps builds are. I expect we’ll see more Melandru/Hoelbrak in order to deal with the loss of condie clear the Warriors had before. I think this is ok though – no longer can 1 build (the Ham/LB) bring great damage, amazing condie resilience, a lot of sustained power and CC in one package. Every build needs to be weak to something, and I look forward to see what Warriors do in the coming weeks to deal with changes to adren. As of now, while watching games on live, I’m still seeing Warriors in pretty much every team. I think they’re still able to compete just fine, and bring a lot of great tools to a front line.

While I realize it can be frustrating to have your favorite specs toned down a little, I’m also receiving a lot of messages from non-Warriors who feel like they, too, are able to compete for spots in PvE, WvW, or PvP. Now that Warriors have to build up their Adrenaline due to losing it more often in-between fights, and have to be careful on when they’re using it, there is a lot more play and counter-play on both sides of fights.

Sorry for such a rushed reply, but I wanted to thank all you guys for the great feedback.

-Chap

I’m sorry to be blunt but this answer is a non-answer. You didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

What we would appreciate an answer to is the question of what are you guys are going to do about all the traits that were indirectly broken nerfed by these shortsighted changes?

There are at least 8 traits and 2 skills that were indirectly touched by the adrenaline changes that were nerfed into varying degrees of uselessness. Some of those traits were used in a wide variety of builds while some were rarely used at all ensuring that they will never be used after the changes.

This is the question you guys need to answer and yet seem to be avoiding. And if you can’t answer this question it can only mean 1 of 2 things and I’m not sure which is worse.

1) You knew the traits would be affected and didn’t care. You were okay with leaving them being balanced for adrenaline as it was designed over 2 years ago. As opposed to being balanced for adrenaline as it was designed 2 months ago.

Or

2) You didn’t think the change through, and didn’t consider that traits other than Cleansing Ire would be affected, and still don’t care.

P.S. Although less important we would also like to know why arcing slice was changed from the version you guys advertised to the version we got which is barely better than how it was before.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Before this change, it was the case that the Warrior Dogged/Cleansing specs were able to pretty much just spam their burst skills and remove condies. We had a lot of players (on forums and in person, talking to them at Gamescom) talking about how they wanted to have more play/skill to this, and they also wanted (if they were players who played AGAINST this type of Warrior) to have more counter-play.

This change means that Warriors need to be thinking ahead to their condition cleanse, as they will no longer be able to get them without risk. It also means that missing a burst skill can hurt the Warrior more than it did before, so even if you’re not running Cleansing, an opponent making you miss your burst skill can be a really big, really impactful moment in a fight.

This change means that some Warrior specs will need to shift/adjust, and you’ll need to do more “setting up” of your burst skill (to give it a higher chance to land) if you’re relying on Cleansing for condie clears.

By this you mean shift/adjust to a different class?

Warriors have always had to set-up their burst skills thanks to the massive tells that you gave them, they also come with some nice bugs. Combustive shot being fired but nothing happening (no, it is not being blocked/reflected), earth shaker on a different x axis having no effect, eviscerate being buggy and jumping backwards then forwards and missing if someone is to close, flurry having a nice precast which makes the skill bug and people being immobilized that were never hit.

Not to mention that 1/2 of the traits are completely useless because of the adrenaline changes.

Outside of sPvP, where people have to stand in a confined area, warriors also suffer from the fact pretty much all of damaging weapons come from melee which makes conditions all the worse. Rifle is borderline useless and only “good” as a gimmick trying to 1 shot people. Longbow is good, but it is a control weapon, damage comes in sPvP from people having to stand on a point where those slow moving missiles can hit them and do damage over time.

This makes conditions all the worse for warriors, trying to chase someone down while crippled and chilled, once you actually get in range maybe a blind. Poison extremely effective because warriors only viable heal is healing signet. Warriors, while they have gap closers, do not have any that are not affected by conditions. Try rushing while crippled and see how far you make it.

Yup, warriors did have good condition clear with cleansing ire … with long bow. Remind me how that was changed? Oh, its still the same, every other weapon was just made less viable. Versus a true condition build played by someone who understands their skills (i.e. not using signet of spite when zerker stance is up) even a warrior who was speced for anti-condition was already at a disadvantage. Some people might read that and bulk. Those are the people that probably just try and cast every condition on their opponent as fast as possible without giving a care to what their opponent is doing and considering when would be the right time to cast them.

Warrior in PvP/WvW is borderline a liability right now. Have fun zerging in your PTV shout heal build. The build is a joke and only severs as a build for noobs to play so they don’t become rally bait.

PvE is no better. By the time you have enough adrenaline to actually use an effective burst skill the battle is over and your adrenaline is instantly gone as long. Unless you are using them when they are at 1 bar … they feel pretty underwhelming when doing that. The only time when they are not an afterthought is when fighting veterans, champions and bosses.

The warrior feels like it should be in an alpha testing phase right now, not like the game has been out for 2 years.

/rant

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all.

Wanted to touch on a few issues brought up about the Warrior stuff…

-Chap

As a Warrior player this reflects just how much out of touch has Anet been with the player base, zerker is the current meta because it’s the most effective way to speed clear dungeons, also it’s overall the most effective way to play in most of the PvE contnet, you have enough support (as long as you are not a Necro, it sucks to be one in top tier PvE because you have NOTHING to bring to the table, any other class can do better)enough damage output and enough endurance IF YOU KNOW how to position your toon and use the evade mechanics (which more than half of the players don’t know how to do), BTW as a fact any Warrior using a Burst skill in PvE actively in a fight is by no means using meta builds becasue the meta builds usually save up adrenaline for the bonus damage (more DPS in the long run), usually the only Burst skill used in PvE is Eviscerate and that’s to finish off a boss fight, and about sPvP yes you can’t spam the burst skills as much as before, but it’s just slightly slower than before, I still run a burst build in sPvP and is much more viable than any other builds.

The problem with build diversity is not only the mechanics, it’s a very clear problem with TRAIT balancing, DAMAGE output balancing and UTILITY skills balancing.

Some things that would bring more versatility to builds:
- More weapon options, at least 1 new weapon per class: 5 new skills to master and bring up to the table
- Do something about useless traits: the whole thing about not adding that much number of skills was balancing or at least that’s why understood about it, but instead of a bunch of skills that are never used, you designed a ton of traits that are NEVER used (most of the XIII ones, the whole Blood line for Necros, amongst others), check the classes subforums, there are a lot of threads about this issue.
- Even the DPS for ALL classes in both melee and ranged combat: This would allow all players to be welcome in a party and to make the whole “play as you want” experience feel more like it
- Change the way Conditions work, at least in PvE: See that 25 bleed stacks? one player can do that alone given the right conditions, see those 25 Vuln stacks? it can be done pretty easy and guess what they’re not running condition builds, if you want to make condition builds more viable we need adjustements there.
-Make classes with no party support whatsoever: and by this I mean balance out the poor Necros, they have no projectile deflection every other class does, they have no party wide buffs, other classes do yes they strip boons and yes they convert conditions in to boons, but there’s no PvE content in game at the moment that is viable for that mechanic so far.

What DOESN’T need to be done (IMO):
- Nerf the DPS of classes: you’re just downscaling them and making them the last picks in groups.
- Add unnecesary or useless functionality to traits/New traits: We already have a lot of traits to choose from thanks, we just need to make them more viable (as in actually useful).

Also keep in mind I’m talking about the current “meta” game, if you’re a filthy casual you can pretty much run a support Guardian with Clerics and still play the game, the problem is that you need more than likely play with guildies and it’ll take more than enough to finish the content you’re playing

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all.

words…………………………. no longer can 1 build (the Ham/LB) bring great damage, amazing condie resilience, a lot of sustained power and CC in one package. ………..more words…………………………………..While I realize it can be frustrating to have your favorite specs toned down a little

-Chap

But Hambow still brings all of that and is one of the builds least affected by your changes. You nerf the kitten out of an entire class mechanic to tone down a build that hardly gets affected by your changes. I think that you and the entire warrior community have a different definition of “toned down a little”.

I’m just going to call it like I see it. You threw warriors under the bus to appease the mob. It’s a pity really, I liked the idea behind some of the changes but you guys did a half@ssed job implementing those ideas and cut our viable build options in half doing so.

Forgive me if I come across as being rude, I have a habit of being bluntly honest when expressing myself.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Hey all.

…I think this is ok though – no longer can 1 build (the Ham/LB) bring great damage, amazing condie resilience, a lot of sustained power and CC in one package…

While I realize it can be frustrating to have your favorite specs toned down a little…

-Chap

Ok now I’m curious, you felt that these changes have toned down the Warrior Ham/LB build in PvP, specifically that it can’t do good damage and condie clear and sustained power and CC in one build anymore, but how did these changes affect these attributes?

Damage: Since the hambow build doesn’t bring berserker’s power the only change this would be that since we lose adrenaline on a miss that we’ll be using our burst skills with fewer bars than before resulting in slightly lower damage. However hambow doesn’t rely on bursts skills for the majority of its damage.

Condie clear: Longbow is completely unaffected as it triggers CI even if no one is around. Hammer has a decent sized AoE burst and while possible for it to miss and lose the adrenaline for its next shot it’s the 2nd least effected weapon we’ve got. (A note is that all other builds not using hammer/LB were effected much harder and thus less viable)

Sustained Power: If we read this to mean damage not revolving around burst stills then hambow is completely unaffected as they don’t use Berserker’s Power. And if we read it as overall damage there’s little change since longbow is unaffected and hammer is the 2nd least affected.

Crowd Control: Longbow is once again unaffected as its burst always procs (zone control) and Pin Down doesn’t care about adrenaline. Hammer has lots of CC out of its burst skill that are unaffected and while its burst skill can miss and lose all adrenaline that’s 7 seconds to build it all back up for full stun again. Either way the difference between 3 bars and 1 bar is 1 second of the stun. So a small nerf.

Conclusion: It would seem to me that Hambow is actually only affected slightly by these changes due to the AoE nature of their burst skills. However all other builds would be hit much harder by these changes since their burst skills are not AoE and therefore much more prone to missing and losing all adrenaline and perhaps lots of damage (rifle, axe).

From my perspective all you’ve done is a very minor nerf to hambow, and a great big nerf to everything else. If that’s what you guys wanted to do then congratulations you’ve made the hambow build even more popular and viable (by comparison) than before the patch. Though I get the feeling that wasn’t the intention….