Guild Wars 2

Please change Vigor on Crit for the Elementalist to an Air trait. You could literally put it anywhere short of being a Major Grandmaster Trait and it’d be fine.

Mark of Blood. Removed 1 bleed in PvP only. – i think its realy good change

Signet of Spite: Removed one bleed. – i think its ok but i am not sure if that was the problem of this utility
Spite 15 – Death into Life. Increased conversion from 5% to 7% – small buff to our sustain :P

Spite X – Chill of Death. Increased trigger threshold from 25% to 50%. – realy nice change that will give us more sustain vs mele

Curses IV – Weakening Shroud. Increase recharge from 15 to 25. – that is huge nerf for necro , that trait was the best defensive trait and u should think about it more

Curses VIII – Banshee’s Wail. Increase cooldown reduction from 15% to 20%. – its ok

Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s. – that might be funny , but still this trait is usless

Death VIII – Reaper’s Protection. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s. – i love this trait so i am glad to see that buff

Death 25 – Deadly Strength. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%. – power necro hmm i hope some day…

Blood Magic 25 – Blood to Power. Decreased health threshold from 90% to 75%. Increase Power from 90 to 120. – power necro hmm i hope some day…

Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%. – that might be nice change we gonna see

Roy Cronacher.1576:

AgentChaos.4932:

good change to symbol of swiftness but can we have pure of voice removes 2 condi back?

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that one.

• How is the change to symbol of Swiftness any good? So many classes move much faster then Guardians. If you want to nerf this, give us an Adept trait, that gives us flat 25% movement spead, like Warriors have it.

• Could we have Zealot’s Defence (Sword 3) castable on the move (maybe with a reduces speed while channeling)? Please please please?

Anyway. Maybe more ideas later and…

… thanks for the preview!

Thief is going to be destroyed. No more sword builds, no more d/p wvw… thanks god I learned how to melee lupi with d/p, sword will be too dangerous to fight him :|

Peters the Thief changes actually look very solid, specifically the reduction on ini regen traits but the increase in the base regen rate.

I think there should be more consideration to the Sword in terms of its identity with Inf strike (not disagreeing with the cast time addition) as a hit & run set.

Well i guess that is that….
Again..all i see on warriors ……Hammer end bow….mehhhh
Then everyone whine why so many Hammer warriors
When u guys going do something about the Axes.?…..or GS F1 for that matter …I guess 2015
GS F1 is worthless .. end the axes well.. they have nothing…no CC,no condi,no boons, no gap closer end A5 u spine like idiot end scratch peoples backs…

It may be worth noting that going into earth isn’t viable for staff eles because their most powerful condition damage skill, Eruption, is so hard to hit with. By allowing the staff ele to cause bleeding more reliably, you could make earth a lot more viable for them.

Note: I’ve been typing this rather slowly, so if someone else has brought up these similar points … sorry ;D!

1) Shattered Aegis: What sort of damage can we expect to see out of this change? Shattered Aegis is already unattractive in its current iteration (at least compared to Fiery Wrath). The burn, at least, provided potential synergy with other traits, though. If this provides a nice, “reliable” spike of damage 500~700 base, with some moderate scaling it may find some use, otherwise this will likely go unused outside of niche builds. However, almost all damage oriented builds will benefit more from Fiery Wrath than a lackluster Aegis-Spike.

2) Zealous Blade: I’ve been a strong advocate of this skill acquiring a healing coefficient, however, this is still an unattractive trait. A 0.02 modifier would require 1250 Healing power to match the base healing (25 base, 25 via scaling, 50 total). The throughput of this ability, understandably, needs to be kept in check. However, the scaling leaves something to be desired. A 3% modifier would be a little better, a 4% modifier would be closer to ideal – a flat 5% coefficient may be too far. However, it would make deep-Zeal a potential choice rather than a likely mistake. However, regardless of healing coefficient, bringing up the GS damage by 5% would make me consider going this far into zeal, especially with a coefficient.

3) Kindled Zeal is a waste of a Grandmaster Trait. The scaling increase would not make this trait more attractive than it is now, as it is not attractive whatsoever. If the Guardian had the tools needed to apply different types of conditions, I could see this being used, but in its current iteration, it is lackluster and disappointing. I would propose something that offers an interesting choice rather than an uninspired % modifier.

3-2) The Zeal traits are largely unattractive. Currently, there are very few (if any) builds in the high level meta utilizing Zeal. The fear of increased Guardian damage with our innately high survival is limiting the choices you as developers can give yourself. One thing I recommend you consider is something “different” I’d be interested in seeing your feedback on:
Zeal 25/Symbolic Power – Reworked – Zealot’s Sacrifice: Increases damage by 15%, incoming damage received is increased by 15%.
This frees up a significant burden of balancing our survival with our damage. This change also has the potential to allow interesting Grandmaster Choices a possibility.

If I were to expand on this, I would allow it to have further reaching changes on our traits such as “Zealot’s Sacrifice” variations of different trait behaviors. (EX: Wirt of Persistance, Symbols Last Longer, Zealot’s Sacrifice: Symbols don’t last as long, but do more damage with each tick”) This is too abstract and unorganized in its current iteration to convey in a balanced manner, but is largely a tangent anyhow.

4) Searing Flames is a niche skill, this change may see some viability brought to it. A potential alternative: “When applying at least 4 seconds of burning, remove all boons from a target. 45 second ICD.” This would allow us an opportunity to “burst” remove boons rather than the “nearly” insignificant iteration current in game. Would still be niche, but the “on demand” removal provided by an activated VoJustice could make this choice worthwhile.

5) Powerful Blades, potent change, if not uninspired. Providing flat increases is always welcome, but they don’t offer much in the way of “interesting.” Something akin to Zealous Blade (but not the same, perhaps “+x% damage, gain 0.5s of Quickness on crit, 1s ICD”… obviously that would likely be over powered, but it could be “interesting.”)

6) Retributive Armor scaling is already fairly nice, an extra 2% will be pretty noticeable. A welcome change. Acceptable for an Adept tier trait.

7) Pure of Heart… Another skill with some niche use. The speed in which Aegis is applied and removed in a typical scenario leaves this trait going unused in most cases. There are more interesting traits available in that tier that are hard to replace. Adding an additional effect to this trait may make it something we have to consider.

8) Supreme Justice – This has always been a trait I “wanted” to use. This change might be enough for me to try to use it in a build.

9) Symbol of Swiftness – This is a wonderful change. Edit: I am assuming each second is one pulse, leaving us with a comparable amount of swiftness if we were to wait in the symbol for at least 3 seconds.

vangedas.7358:

Diamond Skin

- this can be absurdly broken. Please, please, do not go with this. Not only pure passive immunity to conditions is very powerful, cheesy and and cannot be counter-played, but this new trait would literally kill specs like trap ranger, not to mention it would hurt necromancers.
Once again, do not go with this trait, it would be a huge mistake.

Yes you basicly can’t cripple/immobilize/chill an elementalist at the start of a fight .Huge deal

If hes just running in wvw gl holding on to an ele ^^

now we just need pure of voice on guard to remove 2 condi instead 1.
not sure if its just me or the other felt that we’re being too depend on rune of soldier for another additional condition removal. (mainly im running my guard for wvw)
since warr can remove condi better than guard using traited warhorn + tactic IX while have higher hp pool than guard, i felt guard should be able to handle condi than warr.
i know warr doesnt have access to blind , aegis, and protection, but i think the way aegis now and the duration of protection buff cant compensate the diff of hp pool

Neko.9021:

Please change Vigor on Crit for the Elementalist to an Air trait. You could literally put it anywhere short of being a Major Grandmaster Trait and it’d be fine.

How about making the Air 5pts minor trait into:
“Gain vigor on critical hit while attuned to Air. (5 sec cooldown)”

I’m an ele main since beta, in a highly skilled wvw guild. so i’m going to give my perspective on some changes. I’m definitely happy to see this direction with build diversity, but some of the changes really do feel like nerfs to a class that supposedly is not in a good spot already.

By moving cleansing wave to master tier, you’ve hurt one of the eles only sources of condi removal. this would cement in ether renewal even more as the go to heal (an already easily interruptable one), because we all know no one is going to run cleansing fire as its a very lackluster spell now that it doesnt even break a stun. this would also have the effect of cementing in 30 arcana for all eternity, for that meager evasive arcana cleansing wave.

Its a similar situation in the arcana tree. elemental attunement and blasting staff are both absolutely necessary traits for a wvw ele. they are so necessary, that I would call it broken really. we dont even get to enjoy our lovely vigor trait. yet, you want to shuffle things around but leave it more or less the same for wvw eles. honestly, this tree is full of issues. elemental attunement should be built in as a core functionality of the class so people can pick something else while still giving their swiftness/protection we need as the squishiest class in the game. we’ve basically been balanced around it…try to imagine playing a glass ele in wvw if you dont have swiftness. blasting staff is also so necessary that you can’t really pick anything else if you’re in wvw. the only solution to me, would be to make blasting staff the standard aoe size, so we could also enjoy some of the other arcana traits that aren’t absolutely 100% vital to the functionality of the elementalist in a competitive setting.

that being said, i’m glad you are discussing changes in advance its a great step forward, and theres plenty of people willing to give their insight on classes. I can’t wait to play around with the new ele changes! love you, gw2

Hi Jon, I really like the updates to the Nature Magic line for Rangers.

The icing on the cake would be an adjustment to the casting time of “guard” which is effected by nature’s voice. Currently, this shout has a 1s cast time, causing rangers to spend 1/15th or 1/I 2th of their time not dpsing and casting Guard for regen and swiftness. I think that would really polish off the nature magic line.

Thanks!

This update might also be a good opportunity to rethink arcana’s minor 15th and 25th traits. Lingering Elements should get bug fixed, but some of the minor 5 traits (fire and air) should also get a small buff, much like how earth’s trait will. I’d say 15% speed for air and 30% chance for fire, and those are just shy buffs.

vangedas.7358:

Diamond Skin

- this can be absurdly broken. Please, please, do not go with this. Not only pure passive immunity to conditions is very powerful, cheesy and and cannot be counter-played, but this new trait would literally kill specs like trap ranger, not to mention it would hurt necromancers.
Once again, do not go with this trait, it would be a huge mistake.

Yes you basicly can’t cripple/immobilize/chill an elementalist at the start of a fight and after he heals.Huge deal

If hes just running in wvw gl holding on to an ele ^^

vangedas.7358:

Diamond Skin

- this can be absurdly broken. Please, please, do not go with this. Not only pure passive immunity to conditions is very powerful, cheesy and and cannot be counter-played, but this new trait would literally kill specs like trap ranger, not to mention it would hurt necromancers.
Once again, do not go with this trait, it would be a huge mistake.

You do realize we eles have 10.5k base health and have the lowest armor, right? Also, you have to be over 90% health for it to take effect. With such a low base health, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem for other classes.

Devildoc.6721:

I have some serious concerns with the movement of both Elemental Attunement AND Renewing Stamina to Master Tier.

Right now you basically have to use both of those traits, as obviously being able to dispense boons on attunement swap is highly useful, and vigor on crit is not just useful, it’s pretty much absolutely necessary with the way you have designed the game to be “dodge everything or get one shot”. in the past I have shared concerns of why Mesmers and Guardians get the exact same trait as a minor 5 point trait while Elementalists have it as a 10 point major trait. now you’re going to make it a 20 point major trait. Yeah whatever you can run scepter instead, but that is severely limiting to weapon choices wouldn’t you agree?

You’re talking about avoiding a power creep, currently, I like to spec arcane V, VI, and XI (evasive arcana) in PVE and V, VIII, XI in wvw. Now I suppose my WvW spec is still okay because blasting staff is moving downward, but for PVE purposes I basically lose my dodge heal, with nothing gained back for it. I have to go 30 points in still in order to get my boons on attunement and vigor, and I guess I put on blasting staff even though I don’t really need it for pve. I just lose out on a heal.

Please make one or the other master tier but not both.

Same thing goes for Water Attunement I (Aquamancer’s Alacrity) and Water V (Cleansing Wave).. eles who base themselves on a lot of support use both of those traits and water XI (cleansing water) especially in WvW to have water fields on demand and be condition removal powerhouses.

The moving up a tier doesn’t prevent power creep, it also flat out nerfs support elementalists. We get nothing good in return. Fall damage trait and regen on a few skills is hardly a fair trade. BTW, if you want people to use signet of water, consider making it an aoe condition cleanse instead of just a single target chill skill and people might consider it.

Same thing goes for Water Attunement I (Aquamancer’s Alacrity) and Water V (Cleansing Wave).. eles who base themselves on a lot of support use both of those traits and water XI (cleansing water) especially in WvW to have water fields on demand and be condition removal powerhouses.

The moving up a tier doesn’t prevent power creep, it also flat out nerfs support elementalists. We get nothing good in return. Fall damage trait and regen on a few skills is hardly a fair trade. BTW, if you want people to use signet of water, consider making it an aoe condition cleanse instead of just a single target chill skill and people might consider it.

What the heck was tank warrior build nerfed for? Do you really want everything to be DPS in this game?

Question: Is/ Will it be possible to reduce the cooldown of cantrip traits with the -20% cantrip duration trait?

Regarding Warrior changes.

I can see how Hammer and Mace – stun based weapons are getting nerfed since people have been crying so much over it all over the forums.

What I’m not getting is why F1 longbow is getting nerfed – it wasn’t overpowered and rarely anybody complained about it. So why gut the class so far?

Knighthonor.4061:

What the heck was tank warrior build nerfed for? Do you really want everything to be DPS in this game?

Yes.

They don’t want tanks

They want completely shallow one dimensional gameplay.

Dodge and DPS.

Devildoc.6721:

Yes.

They don’t want tanks

They want completely shallow one dimensional gameplay.

Dodge and DPS.

It was a PvP change.

In PvP, warriors can tank, CC AND dps in a single build.

Not any less one dimensional, is it?

I’m sorry, but it feels like all the changes to Thieves are for the sole purpose of PvP/WvW balancing. This is really destroying the PvE aspect. “We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves…” Yeah, that’s how we survive. Thieves aren’t the greatest at taking hits so we rely a lot on our ability to evade. Why is it unbalanced when classes like the Warrior are virtual tanks. I don’t mean to sound critical, but this really is ruining some players experience in the game. Guild Wars has been touted as “play how you want.” But most of the notes here seem like they are “play as you want, as long as you are doing it in PvP/WvW.”

5000 hours, over 15k achieves into the game and these previews for thief are killing me/making me frustrated. Every single patch thief is nerfed more and more into the ground never receiving really anything that great. How am i supposed to play the class i love with no access to stability or how we cant really do anything in massive zerg fights except spam poison. None of those “buffs” above are really even that worthwhile example: Acrobatics IV – Assassin’s Retreat buffing the duration doesnt matter, the trait itself isnt appealing at all. Something like On kill lose 2 conditions and gain 100% move-speed for 2 seconds ICD of 10 seconds makes something like this viable/desirable. My minor trait already gives me swiftness on dodge in this very line… This is really the core problem with alot of the balance changes that come out throwing numbers around on paper doesn’t make something that is un-desired all the sudden an appealing option. If it doesnt stand its ground amongst the best options for traits in each tier its never going to be used. If you want the thief players in general to stop perma-stealthing all you had to do was give us a fun rewarding play style with an initiative based blocks (future Sword/Sword maybe?) and some out of stealth condi remove or regen. I really hope you re-consider some of them before they go live and move to remove and make traits that are never worth using, worth using in the future.

Oh wow Anet this looks like a promising path you are taking. I haven’t even read the ele changes and I won’t, because this way you WILL fix things some day I am sure. Go get em tiger!

I played ele since day 1 and i really felt d/d was the best designed MMO character I had ever played. Until about april…..

The only things i can come up with is :

1) Glass cannon staff is extremely powerful already now (talking wvw here). Especially meteor shower and Ice Spike are a bit much already. Be careful it won’t go over the top when eles get buffs.
2) D/D needs help! It’s the flagship weapon set in my book!
3) I love you!

Combustive shot
with 300 condition damage

Before:
4sec Level 1: 3x burning for 2sec = 2400 damage
6sec Level 2: 4x burning for 2sec = 3200 damage
8sec Level 3: 5x burning for 2sec = 4000 damage

After
3sec Level 1: 2x burning for 3sec = 2400 damage
6sec Level 2: 3x burning for 3sec = 3600 damage
9sec Level 3: 4x burning for 3sec = 4800 damage

So same or more condtion damage.. but it takes longer.. so that’s fair..
So that hardly a nerf.. only fools will stand a full 9 sec in the aoe :-)

But what I don’t get is Anet also reduced the raw damage of combustive shot..
By how many? pls tell me..

I like being told whats coming to the classes as far as changes.So for that thank you!

Here is my question though.

Guardian is the slowest class in the game as of now. I actually get beat by most Dolyaks to keeps unless i use retreat or am in a group. Why the decrease in symbol of swiftness?

I would like to see a trait for swiftness like most other classes have. Overall I think the guardian is a pretty solid class except for the lack of speed.

Now we almost have to carry" Retreat" to move across the map.

Really curious to see how the Ele changes play out also. I agree that Cleansing wave shouldn’t be a master trait though. Now you have to dump 30 points into water for condition removal.

I hope some of the new ele changes help the class be able to stand on it’s own. Right now they feel like a total support class.

Regardless I just want a speed boost on my guardian please, without having to run a shout.

Thanks for the info and I hope you guys consider all the feedback.

JonPeters.5630:

Guardian:

• Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.

Will this still apply 4 seconds on entry as well as on pulse?

If not then I’m guessing it will also be subject to the 5 ally AoE cap somewhat reducing zerg mobility ( which could well be the intention )

Add stat scaling to Necromancer Minions, and give them the ability to crit. They should scale in some meaningful way from every stat with the exception of healing power and boon duration.

Reduced damage from AoE abilities will make Necromancer Minions more viable in large WvW situations, and dungeons where bosses have large AoE patterns.

Add some way to make minions break combat.

Necromancers, the summoners of the dead, do not feel fun when they summon the undead. The ability to meaningfully affect a battle is power.

Overall, a lot of these changes seem pretty nice, and I can see you are pushing some new builds to be used, which is nice.

As a primary ele player, I am ecstatic with most of the changes, but I do have some concerns with some of the proposed changes to ele sustain (which is already low enough) that I hope you reconsider:

Moving both renewing stamina and elemental attunement to master: Elemental attunement belongs at master, but renewing stamina is a 5 point (ONLY 5!!!) trait on mesmers and guards – while eles are even squishier than both. The issue is not that you are clearly targeting the “standard arcana” traits, but you have left going into arcana for any builds other than staff taking a bad trait to get to the 20 level.

Moving cleansing wave to master: eles already have pretty poor condi-clearing options (this trait, EA dodge-roll, and ether renewal with rock solid), while needing condi-clears more than anybody. Moving this up makes getting decent sustain even harder, so you will be stuck with more kamikaze builds.

Guardian:
Tanky and supportive guardians are in a strong position in many gametypes. We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be. While we don’t want guardians to be as strong offensively as some of the other classes (given their powerful defensive abilities) we opened up more offensive guardian builds.

• Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
• Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
• Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
• Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.
• Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
• Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
• Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
• Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.
• Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.

These all appear to be good changes, with the exception of symbol of swiftness. Not quite understanding that change.

My issue is still with the Zeal trait line. The barrier that has been preventing me from traiting further than 10 points of Zeal still exists. That barrier is unavoidable symbol traits, when none of my weapons can apply a symbol. Please move symbol traits into the optional slots instead of the mandatory minor slots of Zeal. As long as Zeal forces me to spend trait points in traits I will get zero usage out of, then it has not opened anything up for me.

On a side note, why is zealous blade GS only?

Minimum damage threshold to consume aegis please.

what amazes me more than these patchnotes are those horrible bad playing and greedy ppl who still want to get healsignet nerfed while warriorwill now be practically non existent anymore

but im sure a net listens to you couse the casual random cryabies who dont know how to dodge or kite are the moneybringers for them

“Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait”

Hard to Catch is terrible trait, why would anyone want to use it? Random teleport which can even kill you in master trait? Just rework this trait, same as other boring traits in all traitlines. Good idea for rework could be something like – recharge your stunbreaker skill, CD 60s.
And for balance look at other classes. For example VII – Power shots in Shadow arts – increase damage of Shortbow and Harpoon gun by 5% vs. Warrior’s IX Slashing Power in Strength – Increase damage of Spear and Greatsword by 10%. I know it is ranged vs melee weapon but it is percentage increase not flat increase so basic damage of ranged vs melee should be balanced already.

Change to quick recovery is imo ok when you look at initiative boost on the other hand it is not worth of master trait now. Some secondary effect or 1 initiative /8s would be nice.

I also hope that this initiative gain will be worth it because there are some serious nerfs in this patch. Nerfs to already weakest or second weakest class, yet you can still buff some strong one like warrior (yeah you nerfed one build but other strong builds are getting even stronger).

PS: Why does it look like that you ran out of ideas how to improve class after elementalist?

Glad to see the condition necromancer nerf. its become extremely common and slightly overpowered. And i’m also glad to see they are pushing this, life siphon self healing stuff. Very interesting/ but how about an increase in raw dps with the axe or daggers. i feel its lacking alot. just a slight boost to the actual dps you can produce or even a life blast cast time reduction? just some suggestions

ALSO the self immobilize on ranger sword autoattack should be changed/fixed

First of all, thank you for making this thread. It’s very reassuring to see this kind of transparency and I for one strongly appreciate it.

Regarding elementalist, this man said it better than I could:

Bsgapollo.5364:

I’ll talk about elementalist since I’ve been playing it since beta.

The things I will mention are the things I disagree with, everything els is fine.

• Water V – Cleansing Wave: It’s one of the very few condition removals an elementalist has. And for it to be effective he still has to put a lot of points into arcana for it to be good. Even after the buff to the elemental cooldown it would mean you can only remove 1 condition every 13 seconds. Which is not extremly great for a master tier trait.

• Arcane V – Elemental Attunement and Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina: Yes 1 should be moved to a master tier but not both, each one of those traits are almost an essence to have on an elementalist. My suggestion would be to put Arcane VI into the master trait, that way elementalists still have the choice to pick between a slightly less effective endurance regen traits such as Arcane VII ( vigorous scepter ) if they would only put 10 points into arcana.

• Earth VII: I would honestly put this into the adept trait tier. Elementalist has very little ways to deal condition damage, for it to work they have to stack into toughness for it to be effective, meaning they would lack a lot into vitality and other departments. There are a lot of better traits to take into earth and personaly I would never take that trait, not even if it was in the adept trait line.

And here are my two cents:

On the note of Renewing Stamina, I feel it would be better left in the Adept tier to match up with the options guardian and mesmer have- five points in Honor or Dueling respectively give access to vigor-on-crit.

On the note of vigor in general- this is kind of a “out there” suggestion, but if permavigor is taken away, then the base endurance regen should be changed (at least in PvE) to reduce reliance on vigor. For example, increase base endurance regen by 25% while reducing vigor’s regen by 25%.

I say this because currently, you pretty much need some way to boost endurance regen in PvE- a 50% passive boost from a signet or trait, a Sigil of Energy (assuming you swap a lot), or vigor. There’s a number of situations in dungeons that would be either very annoying or just deadly without enhanced endurance regen. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the champion troll in AC. His normal lightning attacks hit strongly, interrupt (especially annoying if I’m trying to rez someone), and cannot be mitigated by anti-projectile skills. Use up too many of your dodges for the lightning hits and you got onehit by the shockwave. Likewise, use up one too many dodges against P2/3 Alpha in CoE and you’re very likely to be taking a dirt nap, and it’s very hard to get up again. Then there’s a number of champions that use heavy-hitting skills very frequently- the champion Eye of Zhaitan at the crypt in Cursed Shore and the legendary wizard at the Gates of Arah. That’s to say nothing for soloing, where you call in /map for help with a champion you run across, get /crickets for an answer, and have to deal with a hard-hitting, fast-attacking champ on your own.

While I can understand wanting players to time and prioritize their dodges better, and perhaps put more emphasis on other aspects of staying alive, I do feel that restricting endurance regen options ultimately harms more than it helps. The less endurance regen you have, the less situations you can handle without having to eat some hits. Non-bunker elementalists (the class most lacking in raw defense) and balanced-glass builds (where gear and most traits are offensive, but some traits and skills are allocated for active defense) suffer most, as they require players to avoid as much damage as they possibly can since the little hits aren’t so little and stack up fast. Rather than encouraging more thoughtful and balanced play, I could see it strengthening the “rush this boss and kill it before it can kill us” mindset.

And (again, at least in PvE), having high endurance upkeep doesn’t make you unkillable. You still have to dodge at the right times, and dodging recklessly will still drain you and leave you vulnerable in no time. Permavigor also requires players to stack precision and/or boon duration, so it comes with a cost greater than the trait points.

That being said, thank you again for posting this and letting us weigh in, and apologies if I sounded caustic at any point in this post. Keep up the good work!

Thieves need more condi clear. I like everything else in the change.

However, be careful adding “cast” times on a class that should be mobile and fluid or you will damage the playstyle and people who like that playstyle will give up on the class.

The thief should not have as much evades, I agree, but we do need the fast pace “hit and run” feel which you may be limiting with the sword.

Marksmanship VI – Beastmaster’s Bond. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.
Hmm still i think that this trait needs some more work..maybe make it every time pets takes dmg,with internal cd of 90sec,or every time pets get hit gain 1 stack of might,or fury,or swiftness with a 10sec ICD..its still too RNG and most of the times you dont want your pet under 50% health

I’ve been playing with Mantras quite a bit. I think they are good and have some cool gameplay. HOWEVER:

The problem with Mantra Mastery is that Deceptive Evasion is just so much better than it that, in my opinion, players would be hard-pressed to choose Mantra Mastery over it.

Deceptive Evasion is also just so Mesmer-y, I wouldn’t want to do without it just on principle. :-)

If you combined Mantra Mastery and Protected Mantras (with the +400 toughness) into a single ability in the Master Tier, I think that would make it tempting enough for players to consider choosing it over Deceptive Evasion.

The thief initiative regen buff is amazing, arguably the largest buff for thieves since launch.

I understand wanting to significantly curb vigor up time for all classes, but the Vigorous Recovery 50% reduction from 8s -> 4s is too much. Can you consider shaving it to 6s instead of a massive nerf? Even with an unlikely 50% + boon duration that would be far short of perma-vigor. Thieves don’t have high armor, invul’s, blocks, aegis, stability or any of that, with the ridiculous amount of AoE attacks. stuns and whatever dodging is all we have, it’s not cheese and it still requires a great deal of skill compared to other survival mechanics available to other classes.

Can you also consider adding more condition removal options for thieves? We used to be great at it b/c of SA IV (Shadows Embrace) but that era is history with the insane condition arms race that started 9 months ago.

I understand the change to SA V Infusion of Shadow to curb permastealth cheese, but it will really kill legitimate d/p play. Remember that smoke field leaps give 3s of stealth (SA 15 Meld w/Shadows has no effect). It takes much longer to stealth in d/p than X/d and it is much more visible/telegraphed and interruptable, you generally need at least 2 leaps and often 3 or 4 to successfully backstab. That is not permastealth cheese that is how you play d/p effectively.

Perhaps you could fix SA 15 to work with smoke field leaps? That would be HUGE and I think a legitimately fair change.

I guess I’ll add that I genuinely can’t believe that the thief class received so many nerfs (outside of the awesome init regen change) when the profession is probably one of the most in need of buffs. You’ve been nerf’ing our stealth and now our evades when virtually no one that knows what they’re talking about thinks thieves are overpowered right now, that’s bizarre.

ixiduffixi.6384:

I’m sorry, but it feels like all the changes to Thieves are for the sole purpose of PvP/WvW balancing. This is really destroying the PvE aspect. “We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves…” Yeah, that’s how we survive. Thieves aren’t the greatest at taking hits so we rely a lot on our ability to evade. Why is it unbalanced when classes like the Warrior are virtual tanks. I don’t mean to sound critical, but this really is ruining some players experience in the game. Guild Wars has been touted as “play how you want.” But most of the notes here seem like they are “play as you want, as long as you are doing it in PvP/WvW.”

Im sorry but does the profession that has 4 dodges instead of 2 with ability to keep vigor up over 33% of the fight with the default pve build (that is without mentioning the teleports) say something about being unable to survive by toning down other sources of evade a bit, try being a profession with 0 invuls a 1.5 second cast time teleport and only chance of vigor being a 40 second cooldown if you use another skill to bleed yourself. Yeah no you still wont get hit by anything as a thief if you actually watch out for it and aint being stupid/greedy as hell.

About the Sword Identity that I mentioned earlier

My thoughts are this, the sword is a hit & run/in & out weapon set at its base, it’s what connects S/D and S/P on a frequent level. Infiltrator’s strike is the Swords identity.

I feel atm, Thief would be better off molding the sets with that in mind. So I propose changes to Infiltrator’s strike
1. Keep that idea of a cast time on Shadow return, it can be fine.
2. Reduce the duration of Infiltration to 6 or 7 seconds.
3. Increase the power co-efficient of Infiltrator’s Strike, consider removing/reducing the immobilize (consider)
4. Revert the range 1200 range limitation on Shadow return.

With that in mind these two changes to the off hands
1. Increase the velocity of the Dancing dagger projectile so it’s a more reliable snare
2. Have Black Powder, as a ground-target, strengthening it as a support skill.
3. Increase the duration of Cloak and Daggers vulnerability.

Infiltration lasts long, it allows you ample time to commit to a fight while having an escape. Reducing it gives you time to fight, but you have to then decide if you’re going to use your initiative to pop out, or if you are going to stay in and lose the escape. With half the duration, that becomes more of a reality, with half the duration the distance you travel from the return point significantly decreases meaning the 1200 range limit is not necessary, especially given the cast time. To put S/x as a hit & run set, it needs damage to stay as that threat on the outskirts, it has it to be sure but with a shorter infiltration time it’s flexibility in doing that damage decreases. For example dodging 3 times takes a sizeable amount of time from your infiltration duration if infiltration is only 6 or 7 seconds.

For the Off-hands. Changing Black Powder puts that in a much more supportive position, For all 3 /P sets. Given typically (well excusing D/P) that /P sets do not stealth naturally, a defense against ranged assault is really necessary unless they put out ridiculous counter-damage. The one-tick shot isn’t a real deterrent at the same time, its simple enough to take advantage of.

Dancing dagger just isn’t reliable enough of a snare to start. If stripping the immobilization of Inf strike is considered in exchange for that skill doing more damage, the distinction is that S/D excels at sticking at targets to targets relative to S/P because of that /D choice as well as defensively due to FS and CnD. S/P of course in exchange would be potent at disabling opponents (ground target Black powder, the lovely head shot, and some PW stun) and shredding them if it does get its hands on them (PW).

I think that is really emphasizing weapon set identity while playing to the class profession identity that was given last year if they still are valid for discussion.

Finally, you guys did some great stuff with traits but…what about potent poison? Seriously?

Wow, I’m impressed by the scale of these changes. They should certainly help spice thing up a little. I’m impressed that you are willing and able to pull off such sweeping changes as balance has been a very passive topic over the past year.

As for the actual changes, I find the potential outcome impossible to predict.

The Thief changes especially….could open up an entire new world of builds. I agree with the general idea of reducing the amount of Initiative gained from traits but buffing the passive regeneration may have unforeseeable consequences.

In many cases I could see Thieves simply ignore Initiative traits altogether. And that’s probably not a desirable outcome either.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

JonPeters.5630:

Necromancer:
_For the necromancer, we felt that a few traits and skills were too powerful, while others were lacking in efficacy. We brought down some of the raw DPS conditions that necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements. The necromancer’s mobility will remain where it is currently, as we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud, siphoning health, and slowing down their opponent’s ability to act.

Perhaps the place where the efforts should be focused is on the Dhuumfire trait, rather than removing a bleed stack here and there. Given the introduction of this trait was what pushed necros into the overbearing condition burst they are now, it seems the logical place to focus balancing efforts.

Rather than get rid of the trait, changing it to inflict Torment instead of Burning would have many positive effects.

1. 4 stacks of Torment is roughly the same damage as Burning if the target is moving. However, unlike Burning, Torment stacks can be adjusted in intensity without affecting far more than just the troublesome trait. If the damage remains too high, reducing it to 3 stacks of Torment is quite doable.

2. Torment is already in the condition necromancer’s burst rotation/arsenal. As such, adding more stacks will not make a negative difference on cleansing potential of condition removal skills against a necromancer’s burst. In fact, by removing burning, you improve the capability of other classes to cleanse the damaging conditions as one fewer slot is being taken up.

3. Torment already has built-in counterplay to mitigate the damage output. Even if cleansing the stacks is impractical in a situation, not moving at least limits the damage received.

4. In the PvE environment, Dhuumfire is close to a useless trait as any foes where the extra damage is really desired will usually already be burning, usually from Guardians and Elementalists that cause it as a side-effect. This would allow condition necromancers to contribute more in PvE, which is currently their weakest area.

5. If the necromancer and a burning user are both targeting the same opponent in PvP or WvW, the total damage output will be increased. However, the counterplay will be exactly the same. This is a good thing, actually, as a single foe being targeted by multiple opponents should have a significantly harder time surviving. In a PvP environment, however, you either have a 2v2 with one player getting focused by his opponents, or you have a 2v1 and one person free to capture points or create a different 2v1 elsewhere.

6. Many Necromancer players have been asking for better access to Torment. At the same time, many are displeased with the introduction of Burning. This change would satisfy both complaints.

I believe this would prove more effective at reigning in condition necro damage than removing bleed stacks off of skills. Having one more axis of adjustment, reducing required cleanses, and using something with built-in counterplay for the “burst” damage will all improve the situation.

As a guardian/necromancer… this would make me the happiest I’ve been in months.

Tbh im not that happy about mesmer changes, they dont adress the major problem imho, you cant get a decent cond remove while having decent dmg. I mean its a soft class, when you look at others (ele/necro), they got at least 1heal with condi remove in it… Thats why I’d like to see shattered condis moved to master, that way you could get deceptive evasion, illu persona and some cond remove, while loosing 20% MW dmg and boon remove on shatter (compared to the 0815 shatter-build) → more sustain less dmg = what the game needs

Reduced cd of illusionary invigoration is awesome!

The changes to mantra traits are a nice try, but i guess it wont work out, the cast time stays too long…

I dont like the changes to phantasm mes, we dont need more actual fighting AI… At least shatter mes kills his illus himself and quickly..

I thank you for taking the time to get feedback from the community on changes before they happen. Hopefully, there will be ideas exchanged here that may be constructive and of benefit that, perhaps, you hadn’t thought of previously.

I will address each point as I see concerns. First, let me say that I have over 4000 hours in this game, have been on Blackgate since launch, and mostly WvW, so most of my insites will be from a WvW perspective.

Elementalist:

Burning Fire: rather lackluster before, and even more so now that it has been moved to grandmaster. What will you be getting rid of here?

Conjurer: rather lackluster. Good for PvE. Pretty useless for WvW

Embers Might: I think you guys got these backwards. Increase condition duration is relatively uselsess in WvW as there are so many cleanses. Everyone who runs condition builds will go for increased condition damage, or just not even bother with condition builds in the first place. The only exception is for the solo or small group roamer who looks for other small fights. Enemies not with a large group will be short on cleanses. These are exceptions to WvW, however.

Soothing Winds: Nice little buff. Might help to pull some traits out of water.

Tempest Defense: Lame trait to begin with and still lame. Both of the air grandmaster traits are lackluster and would be a waste of precious trait points. There’s pretty much no reason to go beyond 25 in air. People are almost always going to want guaranteed damage or defense instead of if this happens then you will get extra damage, oh, and there’s a cooldown, oh, and the enemey can negate it with a stun breaker or stability.

Stone Flesh: I think many eles spec into earth, so this is an automatic boost.

Strength of Stone: Another nice boost, but again, note the issues with condition damage in WvW. Probably good for PvE.

Diamond Skin: This is very interesting and may be a good incentive to spec 30 into earth. It would have to be played out to test just how feasible it would be to maintain over 90% health.

Aquamancer’s Alacrity: No one cares about this trait.

Cleansing Wave: In WvW, every ele needs this, so we will all have to spec at least 20 into water.

Arcane Abatement: Almost no one uses this. Those who do, just don’t know the safe distances to jump. Better to trait into something more useful. This goes for almost all falling damage traits.

Soothing Wave: Some people use this. No big deal that it was changed. Might encourage more people to spec into this.

Arcane Retribution: The insane cd kept a lot of people out of this trait. Might be more viable now.

The issue that lays here is that every staff user must spec into Blasting Staff. So you moved that to Adept. If people are still going to spec into arcana, they will most likely spec into Renewing Stamina. So you just switched these two around. People might spec into Arcane Retribution, but unlikely since if people are going to spec 30 for evasive arcana, they will want the vigor.

Elementalist Conclusion: I don’t see any of these changes having much of an impact on the elementalist. The problem is inherent in the class itself. Because the health pool is so low and it is a light armor class, it depends on high healing power, boon duration, and cleanses for it’s survival. Because of this, it just isn’t viable to get rid of 30 points in Water. While it is true that being able to swap attunements quickly is very important, the boon duration goes hand in hand in hand with this. The ele depends on protection, regen, fury, might, and for these boons to last the swapping cylcle. This is part of the trait bonus of arcana. If you don’t address the boon duration issue, then it doens’t matter that we can swap attunements faster. Also, the end result of speccing into 30 into arcana is the same as before regarding attunemt swapping speed and cooldown. We might be able to get away with 10 in arcana, but I don’t forsee anything less. Considering that lingering attunements is so essential, maybe we will be able to get away with 15. Then again, having perma vigor is so important, especially for DD eles. Unless you buff the health pool and armor co-efficient, there will never be a reason to spec deep into fire, air, and earth.

Mantra of Resolve (AoE Cleanse) and Mantra of Concentration (AoE Stability) only have a 240m radius.

Considering Mesmers tend to play the back field, as they are squishy as heck, has any consideration been given to increasing the radius from 240 to 360-400 meters? I’ve seen many forum posts where Mesmers complain the AoE effect is an awesome team buff, but the radius is simply too small for the team to really benefit from it.

Neko.9021:

Please change Vigor on Crit for the Elementalist to an Air trait. You could literally put it anywhere short of being a Major Grandmaster Trait and it’d be fine.

I agree. Vigor and boons are SO necessary for a melee ele, and now EA is too b/c you can’t get any other condi clear. This is going to kill d/d once and for all, but s/x and staff should see some interesting opportunities.

Warrior Healing Signet has come up a lot in this thread, so I’ll just go into it a little even though the proposed changes don’t do anything to it.

The issue with the signet that the play for it is boring. If the passive is better than the active, the active is never used. If the active is better than the passive, it becomes a boring “heal on demand but that’s it” skill. Currently, the passive is better; if you need to use the active it’s only buying you 2 or 3 seconds, which generally means if you need it you’re already going to lose.

If the active was better, you’d use it as soon as necessary, and then it’s probably on cooldown for the rest of the fight as enemy damage would likely outpace how often the skill recharges; leaving the passive active would reduce your heal over time in all cases where the full heal of the active could apply. If the enemy is not effectively lowering your health over time, then that’s another balance issue with the heal being too strong or the enemy’s build being too weak; ideally any opponent should at least be able to make progress and mandating the heal’s use on cooldown.

The source of this issue is that the passive and the active do essentially the same thing: heal the user, nothing more. Whichever effect is better is the one the player is going to prioritise.

The way to make healing signet interesting lies not in changing the numbers, but the effect. If the passive is better heal per second, the active needs to do something to make the player consider the trade-off. If the active is better heal per second, the passive needs something else to be worth keeping up.

As for what it can do that might be worth the trade… well, the obvious options are already taken. Mending removes conditions, Healing Surge grants adrenaline. What’s left?

- Grant a buff on use. Regeneration fits the idea of a healing skill… but it’s the same general effect as the passive. Maybe something unique, like “receive a % of the damage you deal as healing for 10 seconds”, where a skilled player could make better use of it.
- Offensive buffs aren’t going to fit the name of the skill, but you could add them via a trait’s effects (similar to how many other professions get traits that give bonuses upon using a signet). Play becomes “am I playing well enough to trade off some of my survivability to deal more damage?”.
- Protection is something warriors always ask for, maybe here could be useful, as protection’s value is variable and therefore gives the play of “will the protection reduce damage enough that it’s worth more than the heal over time”. Vigor could work for similar reasons.
- Make the heal an AoE effect, giving the warrior some use in defensive support. Play becomes “are my allies worth more than myself”
- Give it condition removal and completely change the secondary effect of Mending. Play becomes “give up some amount of healing per second to remove conditions”

Maybe there are more possible options. The important thing is that the signet’s active needs to do something more than a pure heal.

Ele changes are stuiped, You need to look at Weapon skills before anything.

Septor skill Flamestrike, dragons Tooth (This needs to be faster animation or make it follow the target.) Shatterstone,

Please look at ALL focus skills

Please look at Damage skills on staff – Lightning Surge, Ice Spike, Stoning, Eruption

You need to get the skills working frist! We cant damage with our skills like other classes can. We have too many cast into nothingness and miss skills or ones what take forever to channel and do minimal damage for it.

not to say our cd’s are stuiped.

After weapon skills are changed, Fix our cool downs on utilities.

Then and only then tweak trait lines.

Stay the … away from Arcane Power and Water Magic, it don’t need fixing. You fix damage skills, give us more defense/cleanse from utilities, people can look into other builds.

Ele should be teleporting around blowing stuff up. But infact we have one teleport.

Fire Magic – 15 points “sun spot” Why don’t you give this teleport to player and damge.

Earth Magic – 15 points "earthen blast " Why don;t you make this grant protection?

Ele’s issues are other classes are spawning 15 clones a second with perma hide on demand, while dishing out teleports while doing insane damge. While we are just sliding along the floor making pretty fire trails.