Guild Wars 2

As a thief i really dont know what to think as D/D build.I like that they removed perma stealth of P/D but this also affects D/D builds that goes for shadow arts build.My spec is 0/30/30/15/0 so i dont have good dmg at all,i do back stab like 5k….and this change in iniactive will reduce my chances to survive…nerf in doge is really WTF…..thiefs are supposed to be most mobile class and u nerf dodge…why??As i see now many thiefs that had diffrent builds then zergs as i do will most likely switch to deadly arts+crit traits cause…since staying alive is nerfed with this iniative changes then every thief will jsut try to burst enemy as fastes as they can so that they dont need to wary about iniative.Dont know really what to think about it…its good change to nerf p/d cause it was way to OP and easy to play but this just made D/D shadow arts build harder to play.Anyway will see for patch and then lot more will be clear.As for other classes im glad that u boost renger dmg cause im tired of them whining how they SUCK and what is the worst in it that it was all Truth….they did suck….serious changes had to happend to guardians that and warriors that could use control skills and hight DPS at same time which whould make me dead as a thief in WvW just after them using knock down skill and kill me wile im still on ground without even having chance to fight back.

alanis.6094:

Adiemus.2081:

Think about it, to make a trait line less dependable is to make vital trait more accessible with less point invested. How can they get this right with mesmer by moving illusion celerity down to 15 but totally messed up the elementalist by moving up Water V and Arcana V and VI?

I don’t get Anet’s logic.

Its not rocket science — those three traits were very, very, very strong (i.e. OP) for Adept level traits. (much, much stronger than IC)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_Infusion
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vigorous_Precision

Apparently Guardians and Mesmers need high vigor access b/c they have low health and armor (respectively), but ele, with lowest health AND armor, is expected to give up a Master trait. Remember, eles no longer have a lot of heals, cleanses, or mobility, never had the blocks of a guard or the stealth that mesmers also have.

I just don’t understand, this makes any d/d build (a sustained damage fighter) unviable. If you can’t see that, then you haven’t played d/d ele. This nerf WILL kill off any d/d builds completely, I promise you.

This looks excellent.

JonPeters.5630:

This is an aggressive list of changes but we wanted to share them so that we could confirm what the highest risk changes were and try to discuss some reasoning. I don’t expect everyone to appreciate or understand the nuances of all of that reasoning, but I do have faith that you will be passionate about it so try and remember to look at all sides of the issues. It is called balance after all.

Thanks all and keep them coming. I can promise I will read every post in this thread. Have a great weekend.

Jon

Thanks for the commitment to excellence and caution on this round of changes. The explicit preview goes a long way toward building continuity and trust.

However, given your emphasis on balance as stated above, I (and I’m sure others as well) would very much like to have some weigh-in on the continued imbalance that results from a PvP-centric balancing philosophy. The WvW issue notwithstanding, each patch exacerbates this problem, as build after PvE build is nerfed into the ground in the name of PvP balance.

Again, my thanks for the time and energy. Looking forward to December 10th regardless.

Olvendred.3027:

On eles:

Massively nerfing 2 trait lines and then buffing 2 others does not encourage build diversity. If you want get more diversity, leave Water and Arcane alone, and add the buffs to Earth and Fire. This would actually give us the option to choose between different builds, rather than having to abandon all existing builds in favour of new ones. A few months after the patch, there’ll be the same lack of diversity, just with a different build.

Thats one of the my major issues with this patch. I don’t really understand why creating new builds always means that existing ones get nerfed. The current builds are not even competitive enough to make players bring elementalists to the tournaments at all. Nefing them is hardly what anyone asked for.

And the new options are just additional options. The trait points for these options must be shoved off the existing builds so the players will always be forced to choose. So there is no power creep at all, just a buff to traits/builds that were never on par to begin with. And if the new traits allow for strong new builds with the old traits being the same – isn’t that what you have been trying to achieve in the first place?

“We want to increase build diversity for Engi’s, so we’re going to flatout kill elixir builds by moving incendiary to master.”

Confusing change is confusing. Pistol/HGH is dead now with that one change.

Warrior change doesn’t matter to me, S/S/LB is better for roaming than Hammer was anyway, but the changes to hammer and unsuspecting kill that build entirely, so expect a new warrior meta to emerge.

Brutalistik.6473:

JonPeters.5630:

• Arms IV – Unsuspecting Foe. Moved to Master Tier.
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

Jon I understand this was most likely the reason hammer getting this treatment even though it’s not finalize.

However don’t nerf Earthshaker damage nor Staggering Blow due to the unsuspecting foe bonuses. This will affect builds that isn’t primarily focus in burst damage forcing them to choose another weapon that can fulfill average damage. Losing a CC weapon is one thing, but using a CC weapon doing horrendous damage on it’s burst skill and number # 5 attack on a non zerker build is absurd. This will lead into more frustration in pvp overall on that warrior player and I’m sure we all don’t want that.

I suggest unsuspecting foe is move into the grandmaster tier to those that wishes to be pure burst builds. They will be dangerous but they’ll also be taken down quickly once their endure pain or block duration is gone. They’ll most likely play a build like build 0/30/10/0/30 or 0/30/20/0/20 for some defense though it won’t support them as much.

So please Jon reconsider this thought just not for me, but for all non burst warrior build players. We too have a say in this.

the nerfs are overkill. UF/BM changes will get rid of that meta hammer build while leaving the other builds(ie the hammer support builds) intact.

seriously nerf dodge ???? lol punishing players that play the game as it was designed XD… I will just tell you one thing : if you nerf EVERY tool that contribute in mitigating damages it will break the survivability that requires to use all of these tools together to be efficient. If you want most experimented players to be tone down to reduce gap of gameplay with random average player… the less complex are game mechanisms and the smaller is the gap between players and it’s lowering game mechanisms knowledge requirements: but then the question is “Is it going to be still fun playing”.

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.

Yeah thanks for nothing then.

The Guardian changes have done nothing to make those series of worthless traits any less worthlese. You need to really address the fundamental problems with those Guardian traits instead. Its clear to me no one on your team plays guardian seriously.

The Symbol of swiftness rework is garbage too for anything but WvW.

Fade.7658:

Serious question: Why does Anet ask for opinions and comments, when all they are going to do is what they proposed in the first place? I can’t recall a time where they posted proposed changes, and things were actually changed/modified, based on the player’s input.

I’m sure there were a couple small things, but I’m referring to balance changes, not QoL improvements and things of that nature that were changed, based on input.

I just look at the posted changes now, and figure those are going to be the changes to expect on the date given. All we are getting, imo, is the illusion of making a difference.

It’s just as you said. It’s an illusion so they can say “See, we’re listening”
I love it when game companies say patch notes are “draft” or “incomplete” or “not set in stone” it just warms the <insert censored word) that is another name for bivalves) of my heart. I don’t see any discussions here having any marked effect on what they’re doing, it never does.

Bri.8354:

So in conclusion: The longbow buff is insignificant and trait changes are nice but won’t put power builds in a better spot. Then you look at the nerf to endurance regeneration and realize this patch is an overall nerf to power rangers.

Pretty much nailed it.

While I’m glad they’re improving the longbow, the changes are pretty much insignificant if they don’t address the problems with the builds for it. Considering longbows need piercing, cooldown and range traits to be viable, this isn’t going to do anything about build diversity. We’re still pigeon holed to get the longbow even remotely viable.

It also doesn’t address the placement of traits related to traps and it doesn’t address any of the pet mechanics that need to be addressed like last year.

Plus that endurance regen nerf makes zero sense to me. How anet says we have too much endurance regen just leaves me scratching my head. They already nerfed it with the healing spring change.

You also made a great point about beastmaster’s bond.

For Engineers, the potential diversity of Static Discharge builds are still handicapped by the trait’s poor targeting system. We are forced to pick utilities with tool belt skills that already aim at targets by default. I don’t know if this is by design but changing this would greatly diversify utility skill choice for these builds. I know this isn’t included in the list of intended changes for engineers but since the goal of the patch is to increase diversity I thought I’d bring it up. Thanks.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of times, when running standard Necro condie builds, the bleeds actually do a large portion of your damage if they are allowed to stack on a target. Burning is nice, and Torment can be decent, and of course Poison brings down opposing heals. But the Bleeds are where a large amount of the sustained damage comes from.

With all due respect, this is one instance where the numbers don’t tell the whole story and it’s short-sighted to rely on them alone. Yes, over the course of a 1v1 fight most of the damage comes from bleeding. But Fear, Burning, and Torment are great cover conditions which make it harder to cleanse that bleed. Moreover, burning is a great condition to draw out that cleanse they’ve been saving up, because let’s face it, at the equivalent of roughly 6 stacks of bleed at ~1300 condition damage its power is FAR from negligible! So people will panic and use their cleanse, removing fear but not the 10 stacks of bleeding underneath it. Furthermore, if locked down by a 2" fear during a Dhuumfire proc (a lot of good necros will save up their fear for when they get the proc, to ensure the damage lasts its full potential), the target will suffer roughly 3k damage from those 2 conditions alone (plus bleeds and poisons). That sort of burst during lockdown is exactly what an attrition class needs to secure a kill, where otherwise their target will inevitably receive a full cleanse from somewhere and outheal their damage.

By gradually shaving the power of the main necro condition weapons and trait lines, you’ve done very little to hurt Dhuumfire necros. First it was the 17% Terror nerf, then Grasping Dead, now Weakening Shroud and Mark of Blood. I’m playing a Terror/Dhuumfire necro as well and I can confidently tell you that those changes will do nothing to make me weaker! What they WILL do is hurt necro build diversity even more, because any build that doesn’t rely on Dhuumfire for its burst WILL be hurt by those 1-2 bleeds less they can put out, so it makes even less sense to run anything but Dhuumfire! I’m sure you’ve tested things internally and are satisfied that Dhuumfire necros aren’t as powerful with these changes, but tell me: are 0/30/10/0/30 (terror and foot in the grave) necros viable? Are 0/30/20/0/20 (terror and greater marks) ok? They were already much less effective than Dhuumfire necros, how will they fare after Dec 10? Which build do your proposed changes hurt the most?

In my last post I suggested 2 ways in which you could balance the Dhuumfire/Terror build. I hope that, by the time that inevitable balancing occurs, you will not have already nerfed all other possible condition builds into unviability.

Someone of the balance team, can you explain me why the nerf to symbol of swiftness? That will hurt a lot at support roaming/smallgroup guardian with the lack of mobility/speed as support or force you to run retreat always.

JonPeters.5630:

Almost 500 replies already so obviously you will excuse us for not addressing them all. Also keep in mind it’s now the weekend. I’ll try and get on for enough time sometime this weekend to address the bigger points of discussion but until then please keep the responses as civil as they have generally been thus far. We appreciate all of your assign for this stuff and are working hard to make the right decisions. I can say that many of the concerns brought up were at the heart of discussions when making these changes already so we are aware of a lot of the implications.

I think these proposed changes would get more constructive and concise replies if they were split amongst the various profession threads.

I’ll be as succinct as possible with my feedback: I think the mixture of survivability nerfs within the Thief changes are a mistake that will severely injure the class. Since Thieves can only mitigate damage by avoiding it, evasion and stealth are the two main branches of survival, and evasion is more reliable in both PvE and PvP. This proposal not only nerfs evasion and access to Vigor, but also nerfs stealth builds and even adds a cast time to a teleport skill.

I fully support getting rid of permastealth, and the changes that are needed to make that goal a reality. However, if ArenaNet intends to nerf evasion as well as stealth, then Thieves desperately need some form of compensation. Easier access to boons, some form of invulnerability (like a new version of Shadow Form), or better/easier access to teleportation skills would all be greatly appreciated.

Ele- Fire needs more damage, maybe another 5% damage bonus in there.
Arcane- not Arcaney enough. I don’t think the 2 Grandmasters should cancel each other out, move one.
Great post and explanations

Thanks for posting! I’m probably echoing some concerns here. Overall I’m excited about ele changes. I mostly WvW.

ELEMENTALIST

Good deal on global swap cooldown. As someone who still plays D/D though, I have some concerns. I also feel making both vigor harder to come by as well as moving Elemental Attunement really hurts boon duration builds, which are already sacrificing stats for that duration.

Endurance concerns
Before —-> After

1. air II (Zephyr’s Focus) 10——> 10
2. water III (Soothing Disruption) 10—-> 10
3. arcane VI (Renewing Stamina) 10—-> 20
4. arcane X (Arcane Energy) 20—-> 20

… this seems to be pushing people MORE into arcane, rather than less. Water III is very situational/shortlived, though D/D benefits well from Air II. However …

Condition removal concerns
Remember ele’s smaller healthpool. Frequent condi removal is important.

1. water V (Cleansing Wave) 10—-> 20
2. water XI (Cleansing Water) 30—-> 30
   • Dovetails into arcane V (Elemental Attunement), 10—-> 20
3. arcane XI (Evasive Arcana) 30—> 30 arcane

Again, it encourages going even further into water and arcane, particularly when you combine the two concerns. The new earth grandmaster could mitigate this a bit with a high toughness build, but even that requires strong healing to maintain which again sends you back into water where you’ve already got access to lots of condition removal. Why take an earth trait that requires water investment to manage conditions, when I could just take water and manage conditions?

Other concerns
I feel the dagger arcane trait is lacking compared to staff and scepter versions (swiftness access), with little for a D/D ele to pick if they want Elemental Attunement or Renewing Stamina. Having it work both in and out of combat would make it feel more in line power-wise as the other weapons’ respective traits, imo.

Using sigils/runes to offset lack of condi removal or vigor punishes a class that already has low base stats.

YOU NEED TO NERF NECROMANCER CONDITIONS BOMBING BUILDS AND TEST THEM TO FIND OUT YOURSELVES !!!!
Like I already suggested use Vitality stats as a counter stat to condition damages stats in order to mitigate the dot from all the various conditions for people who aren t running cleansing builds. Make 20vitality reducing the incoming dot from 1 damage/20vitality per dot

Nerfed some cheese builds with this, so I like it. Still more work to be done, but overall positive changes, imo.

Mesmer:
1-Wastrel’s Punishment- Increased damage to foes who are not using a skill.
If auto attack is considered a skill then this need to be removed.
2-why is Compounding Power in Illusions switch it with Vigorous Revelation from Inspiration line.
3-Compounding Celerity only one build will may be use it useless trait Mesmer needs another way to keep up with others speed buff needed.

Columbo.5924:

Olvendred.3027:

On eles:

Massively nerfing 2 trait lines and then buffing 2 others does not encourage build diversity. If you want get more diversity, leave Water and Arcane alone, and add the buffs to Earth and Fire. This would actually give us the option to choose between different builds, rather than having to abandon all existing builds in favour of new ones. A few months after the patch, there’ll be the same lack of diversity, just with a different build.

Thats one of the my major issues with this patch. I don’t really understand why creating new builds always means that existing ones get nerfed. The current builds are not even competitive enough to make players bring elementalists to the tournaments at all. Nefing them is hardly what anyone asked for.

And the new options are just additional options. The trait points for these options must be shoved off the existing builds so the players will always be forced to choose. So there is no power creep at all, just a buff to traits/builds that were never on par to begin with. And if the new traits allow for strong new builds with the old traits being the same – isn’t that what you have been trying to achieve in the first place?

Pay attention anet please!!! Do not kill the ele class even further. Go to our forums and listen and comment and talk. Take many of the well thought out and put together responses the dedicated ele community has already posted and make the right choices.

And Longbow warrior 1200 range base ; (about engineer nades comparaison IRL i never found anyone able to throw a nade farer that an arrow…) : then replace the range longbow warrior trait with something new and useful : like 20% stance cooldown reduction.
Also replace the master trait warrior that is actually giving retaliation buff for 5 seconds for a new master trait : 25% chance to cast 6 seconds of Protection when being hit with internal cooldown of 24sec : give us that instead !

I’d like to recommend-

1. [Warrior] Replace rifle skill bleeding shot with the name piercing shot, along with replacing the effects of bleed with vulnerability- one stack of vuln every shot. Along with this, change rifle butt- the ability would have warriors move towards the target then perform a knock back similar to the ability “kick”.
2. [Warrior] Move the Arms trait tree skill Furious Reaction (trait VI) to only 5 point requirement in the arms tree. Perhaps remove the fury and only have the trait grant vigor. Another change could be to move the trait down into the defense tree and set the requirement for the trait ability at 5 or Adept level.

First off I would like to say thank you for actually opening up a discussion thread about the upcoming changes, it is nice to see this type of preview and open talks about the upcoming changes. Being a semi-frequent visitor of the guardian forums, and an active participant of multiple trait threads in said forum, I have a couple question and thoughts regarding the state, and listed possibilities of changes. (Keep in mind that this is all from the mindset of an almost exclusively WvW player)

First, why does kindled zeal exist currently? Guardians have 1 condition they can apply which is burning, even with signets/runes/random racials we still cannot make a build that would even be equal in terms with a normal power build.

Also, why do guardian’s have only one condition? Every other class in the game has access to some type of condition build except guardians. Even our Condition trait line (radiance) only has 2 traits that relate to condition damage at all. (Shimmering defense, and A fire Inside) Both of which are almost useless as we already have an easy time applying burn, and also spirit weapons are near useless outside of very special cases. Two previous suggestions I have made in the guardian forums for possibly fixing this would include changing Shattered Aegis to inflict bleed stacks instead of burning (or damage as the current intended change) and also move it out of zeal to radiance. And add an on crit trait to cause torment in the radiance line. This would fix two major issues for guardians that spec damage, the issues with easily being kited by pretty much any class by causing them damage by doing it, and giving us some conditions to actually make a viable spec.

Another current issue is the complete layout of the zeal trait line, currently the traits in that line do not really mesh at all, considering all the adept traits are symbol based, yet there are traits for weapon’s that don’t have symbols. Both of the grandmaster traits are extremely weak, and not worth putting the extra 10 points into worth getting. Are there any plans to do a complete overhaul on zeal in the future to give us more options outside of fiery wrath and zealous blade?

Another point would be spirit weapons, and why it currently requires 60 points worth of traits to bring them up to full potential. I cannot think of a single utility skill outside of them for any class that requires that many points, in 3 different trees, to make them almost usable. (The ONLY exception would be engineer with kits, but half of the traits can apply to other kits, and also they take the place of actual skills you can control) And I say almost because even after the 60 points, they serve almost no use outside of the shield, which doesn’t even benefit from half of the traits. Is there any plan to merge some of the traits and possibly move them to one trait line, and also buff them in any way to make them usable?

My last question will be regarding Glacial heart, and why this trait is what it currently is. In it’s current state, it is extra CC, on top of pretty much our only CC weapon. The CD is way too long, as with the current meta, there is so much condition removal in builds that it will be gone way to fast to have any real effect. My personal suggestions for this trait are to either A) Lower the CD to 10s, make the chill 2s, make this effect all weapons, considering how horrible it is to try to keep enemies near you as it is as a guardian. or Remove swift retribuition as adept minor from zeal, move the other two traits down (symbolic exposure to adept, power to master) and make Glacial heart a new grandmaster zeal trait that causes either a 1s chill on symbol pulse, or a 2-3s chill on symbol generation. The first suggestion would give weapons like mace and sword a chance to actually stay on people, while the second suggestion would help with the “area denial” that was originally spoke about in the definition of guardian gameplay.

There are other thoughts and questions I have, but this would be the starting point for me personally.

Can we please add 1 change to mesmer….it would be small and vhelpful to the support versions….change illusion of life to be a hard rez like signet of mercy/signet of undeath/warbanner/glyph of renewal….etc thats it just change the temp rez to a full rez you can even change it form 5 targets to 1 or 3 targets to balance it out.

alanis.6094:

Adiemus.2081:

Think about it, to make a trait line less dependable is to make vital trait more accessible with less point invested. How can they get this right with mesmer by moving illusion celerity down to 15 but totally messed up the elementalist by moving up Water V and Arcana V and VI?

I don’t get Anet’s logic.

Its not rocket science — those three traits were very, very, very strong (i.e. OP) for Adept level traits. (much, much stronger than IC)

No they aren’t IC is a Global cd reduction on all Illusion summoning skills. Then you can further reduce it by taking the particular weapon skills cool down or manipulation skill if you happen to go in that line.

Just because 3 traits are good doesn’t make them OP. It could very well be that the rest of the traits aren’t up to snuff in comparison.

If you want to “abuse” elemental attunement you have to spec boon duration anyway which means you lose “Raw stats” you would get like toughness, precision etc. To spec boon duration you then would have to go 30 in arcana to maximize it. Those boons can be stripped, converted to conditions, stolen, cause you to take more damage. They introduced “boon bunker” counters to several other classes so the trait isn’t as strong anymore because of the buffs to other classes.

While I don’t particularly like comparing classes in most cases because their is so many factors. If you spec 30 points in dueling and are running a sword pistol you pick Duelist discipline, deceptive evasion, phantasmal fury, or blade training. Why? They are the best traits that have synergy with sword/pistol. That doesn’t make the traits OP.

Arcana would be more comparable to Illusions trait line because most class mechanic trait lines have traits that are good regardless of your weapon choice. Ironically those are the traits that are chosen in those trait lines in most cases. Usually there is a specific weapon or set that has a trait in that line.

When I run staff on my ele I take elemental attunement over Renewing stamina currently because I have less need for dodges because I am at range so it makes sense. Of course I take blasting staff no real need to take evasive arcana because their are better choices for staff.

While they are moving Windborne down to Adept and I feel that is the fringe trait that just doesn’t look “Master tier” worthy. If they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time and not just in combat it then looks a bit better. Then it can be justified to stay Master tier. Then a ele could contemplate the question of 25% movement speed all the time with renewing stamina or elemental attunement.

Then I can be ok with moving 10 points from Air (standard 0/10/0/30/30 build). I go something like 0/0/10/30/30 or I could do 0/0/20/20/30. If windborne dagger was all the time movement speed of 25% I am sure it would get more use. Moving it to adept I still don’t see it being picked up like it is currently. The people that don’t take Zephyr’s boon would be the ones that the trait would look really attractive to if the trait had 25% movement speed all the time. When they changed Windborne dagger I actually thought about running it and dropping 10 from air and not taking zephyr’s boon then I saw it was still had to be in combat. I was going to take that over elemental attunement.

If I look at not just the standard build I still don’t see why anyone would take windborne even not going all the way into arcana. But if they slapped it with 25% movement speed all the time. Kept it at master, and moved either renewing or elemental attunement to master along side it then it could work as a compromise and cause a choice. It would really make the Arcana trait line perfect to include the other changes with elemental surge being the last trait that MIGHT need to be looked at for a buff.

@Adiemus.2081 It’s TL&DR and is more for the devs than you as they may have the same thought.

tango.8962:

The one thing I would want to see changed for a thief is for them to come out of stealth while spiking. Unless your class has a AOE knock back or move ability in the downed state a thief can spike you from stealth 100% and you can’t do anything about it.

My reasons are that when a thief goes into stealth they should not be able to do any damage. they are going into stealth to gain a situation advantage, then they come out of stealth to do the damage. stealth spiking just feels like cheating and I feel cheated when it happens to me.

ummm…no thieves become revealed after they deal ANY damage at all regardless, so, no one is gonna kill you while in stealth 100% of the time, it doenst work that way.

Jon, please remove Dhummfire from the Necro and stop nerfing other things. Nobody complained about Necro before the Dhummfire patch – they were one of the bottom 2 or 3 classes in the game.

Remove it and the complaints should go away and then you can focus on buffing utility and sustain etc…

I don’t understand why this isn’t being considered…

This might be crazy (and a lot of work and might not be possible) but with all these issues about which traits should be in which tiers, what about a system in which some or any traits could be in any tier, and the higher up it’s slotted by the character the more powerful it is (have an adept, master, and grandmaster version of them).

Regarding Mesmers, I like the changes; almost no complaints about the ones listed but here is some other thoughts:

1. Scepter autoattack. Sword already has AoE, so with the low attack speed and the slow animation of skill #3, it just cannot compete with range as the only perk, for the main hand slot. It just feels bad to use, even, for its attack.

2. Torch – iMage, I love the idea but in practice it is making the torch impossible to use in any phantasm setup, and it is never really adequate compared to all other weapon phantasms. It needs help.

3. Mesmer and conditions. Maybe there is a trend to my feedback here but I would love if it was made more ‘feasible’ to play a condition mesmer as the source of damage dealing – there are good traits and some weapons that lend itself to it, but confusion requires you to be superhuman to reliably get results out of the mob AI. My suggestion, like several other posters in the mesmer forum, is to make the scepter more viable vs the sword by having some form of condition in its auto chain, or have skill #3 apply more than just confusion.

evilapprentice.6379:

Instead of a .25s cast time on Infiltrators Return, just lock it down when CC’d You’ll achieve the same effect without ruining the fluidity of play that sword relies on. Regardless of which you go with, I think it’s a silly choice, but if you’re determined to further limit S/D, please do it in the smartest way possible

AGREED…so agreed.

Woohoo! No more perma-stealth d/p thieves! You d/p thieves better watch out for my p/d thief! No more hidding!

Phi Is Sly.1857:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

The changes we’ve done to Ele are actually going to drastically increase the amount of build diversity. The arcane recharge change really does add the flow the Elementalist needed when not spending points in Arcane. This will now allow players to stray away from spending points in the Arcane line. Ele’s will now experience faster attunement swapping as well because they will be down to 1.5s globals when they have zero points spent in Arcane and 1.2s globals with 30 points.

This makes:
13 second recharge on 0 points Arcane
12 second recharge with 10 points Arcane
11 second recharge with 20 points Arcane
10 second recharge with 30 points Arcane

Dagger ele’s will now have new specs through Tempest Defense, Elemental Shielding, and Shared Auras much more appealing, as well as being able to go up the Fire and Earth trees.

Scepter ele’s will be able to play some forms of condition builds, burst builds with more sustain, and even bunker builds.

Staff ele’s will now be able to get blasting staff from tier one and now be capable of going for a trait such as Diamond Skin, or even Fresh air or high up in the Fire line.

Here are some examples of specs I’ve been messing around with:
0/30/10/30/0 (Tempest Defense, Elemental Shielding, Shared Auras with Cantrips and Dagger/Dagger)
0/0/30/10/30 (Diamond Skin bunker build)
0/30/30/0/10 (Tempest Defense, Diamond Skin, Double Arcane with recharge burst spec)
20/20/0/10/20 (Dps staff build based around sustain from Burning Fire)
0/10/0/30/30 (Generic D/D Arcane build)
0/20/0/20/30 (Generic S/D Burst build)
0/30/0/20/20 (Fresh air build)
Many more..

We thank everyone for their feedback. We are keeping a VERY CLOSE eye on this thread and we will constantly be chatting internally until this release drops for potential things to change.

Why would Anyone want to go 0/20/0/20/30 for a S/D Burst build. Don’t just post things with out playing the class please. Your just pen pushing and have no idea how the changes will impact us for the bad. You don’t even go 30 fire at all.

…I play(ed) ele mainly for d/d because it was fun and fast.

The build you proposed is beyond silly. Ok here goes. Tempest defense isn’t that great. I might still get it with these changes in such a tree due to lack of good alternatives but commoooon.
Whilst the shocking aura is very nice the extra damage on disable is not. Ele has 2 short knockups. Within the time of a knockup you can get 1 skill off. Compare that to warrior who now still has a similar trait that gives a ton more damage for a class that has a lot more and longer cc option.

Anyway togheter however they make a good trait. ..
BUT
It requires you to go 30 in air magic… You’r close ranged and the squichiest class in the game and you’re in the middle of the fray constantly. You could use something else. Anything really. The boons from arcana. The toughness and defensive options from earth magic but you need it. Why? Because you can’t rely on bursting someone down to negate damage. A thief does that better anyway. You also don’t have damage mitigation options like the thief(stealth/mobility/blinds) and mesmer(teleports, stealth, range,..)

We used to have healing/mobility to survive but hey you nerfed both that then gave something similar to our old sustain to the warrior for some reason…

Now the next bit… elemental shielding? You get protection….on aura…

You’d still switch to earth attunement MORE even without arcana if you had elemental attunement….and get MORE protection+ all the boons from the other traits… and guess what

Compared to getting protection from the old elemental attunement this is worse…much much worse.

shared aura (i’m guessing you mean powerful aura?)and cantrips.
The cantrips are no diffrent then most d/d builds right now.
The shared auras are ok but only if you have enough allies close. For solo roaming it’s bad, for sPvP it’s often bad. For 2 reasons. 1 a d/d ele used to be and still is most often used for sidecaps. Often doing so alone. 2nd: In the end it’s hard enough to stay alive on yourself, even if not then there are traits waaay better in the adept tier…. and with that I mean most adept tier traits in that tree.

My conclusion: You’r trying to create more build variety by pulling away some key and overused traits from us by putting them togheter in the grandmaster tier. Disregarding the fact that those traits are actually so key and not giving anything on par in return. The alternatives honestly don’t feel better or on par to what you try to prevent us from building and hell. They don’t even feel better then some other options that stayed in the lower tiers and lets be honest. The d/d ele can use a buff. They’r not appreciated in sPvP and useless in wvw. Subpar as roamers and actually bad in zergs.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

DiogoSilva.7089:

The change to arcana is lovely, and it’ll open up a lot of new possibilities, but I worry about some issues that might cripple those possibilities. Here’s a few comments:

3.1. Elementalists rely too much on Elemental Attunement or Renewing Stamina to survive. Although it might be worth trying the scepter’s higher endurance trait now that it is at adept, I think the earth traitline should have a… worthy substitute for elemental attunement’s protection. Maybe it could have a stun breaker trait? Rock Solid could get it, but I fear it could make it too strong. Maybe as a grandmaster trait, and moving Written in Stone down a tier.

The changes we’ve done to Ele are actually going to drastically increase the amount of build diversity. The arcane recharge change really does add the flow the Elementalist needed when not spending points in Arcane. This will now allow players to stray away from spending points in the Arcane line.

Tyler…. Elementalist spend points in Arcane line primarily to get the boon duration, and Arcane V, VI, and XI. not reduced attunement recharge To be honest, reducing recharge by 3 s does not really justify your claim that it increases the amount of build diversity.

Here are some examples of specs I’ve been messing around with:
0/30/10/30/0 (Tempest Defense, Elemental Shielding, Shared Auras with Cantrips and Dagger/Dagger)
0/0/30/10/30 (Diamond Skin bunker build)
0/30/30/0/10 (Tempest Defense, Diamond Skin, Double Arcane with recharge burst spec)
20/20/0/10/20 (Dps staff build based around sustain from Burning Fire)
0/10/0/30/30 (Generic D/D Arcane build)
0/20/0/20/30 (Generic S/D Burst build)
0/30/0/20/20 (Fresh air build)
Many more..

Can you please help me with one viable S/D build with 30 power and 20 Arcane (to get at least either V or VI)? Seriously any S/D build without persisting flame in fire XI is dumb.

FluffyFox.2756:

If thief sword is going to get a cast time for infiltrator’s return, would it be possible to look into flanking strike and larcenous strike again? Ever since it was nerfed to only steal one boon, I find myself almost never using it, due to the fact that boon durations are generally very short, they are re-applied very easily, and there’s no control whatsoever on which boon you will be stealing anyways.

I do agree that it was too powerful at 2 boons stolen per larcenous strike, but I find it far too weak at 1 boon stolen… do you think the skill could be modified in some other fashion so that it’s not such a waste of initiative anymore?

i think they should add a counter icon onto the person hit by larcenous AFTER the skill hits and this icon steals the next boon that the person that was hit by LS uses or applies, still steals 2 boons but the person getting hit by LS can better counter it… kinda like a MARK like on Aion…in fact…why not ADD marks?!

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

tango.8962:

The one thing I would want to see changed for a thief is for them to come out of stealth while spiking. Unless your class has a AOE knock back or move ability in the downed state a thief can spike you from stealth 100% and you can’t do anything about it.

My reasons are that when a thief goes into stealth they should not be able to do any damage. they are going into stealth to gain a situation advantage, then they come out of stealth to do the damage. stealth spiking just feels like cheating and I feel cheated when it happens to me.

ummm…no thieves become revealed after they deal ANY damage at all regardless, so, no one is gonna kill you while in stealth 100% of the time, it doenst work that way.

They do not become revealed after a spike though.

I do feel they should because all other attacks from stealth apply revealed. Spiking is an attack and it does do damage so it should also have revealed after a spike.

I do not agree with removal of stealth spiking, that is fine as it is. There is no reason for it to be removed as a spike option unless other spike forms like stability, invulnerability, or other forms of immunity while spiking are prevented. I like stealth spiking more actually since I can actually prevent my teammate from taking the spike where other forms I can’t do a thing to stop.

I just feel after the said spike has been completed from stealth they should have the revealed applied.

I’m glad there are signs of development when it comes to PvP balance however I’m still disappointed for the following reasons:

A. Physical Damage requires multiple stats (Power, Precision, Critical Chance) along with the survival stats (Vitality and Toughness) to be effective. Conditions on the other hand only require Condition Damage, along with the survival stats.

B. Physical Damage has 2 hard counters, melee having 3. Protection, Weakness and technically swiftness. (In SPvP the third isn’t as much of an issue due to the small area however in WvW this is a huge problem for some classes, such as my sword/shield guardian.) There needs to be an equally accessible boon and condition to counter conditions. (Purging flames comes close but it isn’t accessible yet.) I also understand the argument about purging conditions however I don’t like that as an answer, explained in C.

C. Instead of buffing condition clearing I think they should be nerfed, with conditions getting a slight duration buff and cool down increase. Instead of being a game of spamming conditions and cleansing them, I would love to see the day where conditions are applied in a tactical fashion to apply pressure rather than as spam (such as Necro’s staff marks and the short cool downs for most of them.)

I’m sure I could think of a million more things but like you said, don’t want a wall of text. Just please listen to your PvP community. Between them you have thousands if not hundred of thousands of hours of play time which as developers you could never compete with. Guild Wars 2 had been my favorite MMO of all time however in recent months I have begun to loose faith. Prove me wrong for once.

-Cnaeus Dane

Ansatsu.2678:

RIP In Peace Thieves.

don’t over react. RIP scrubs who rely on perma stealth. Decent thieves will continue to do well.

My feedback from a tournament perspective:

1. This may be more/larger changes than is healthy for a single patch.
2. The issue with warrior is how simple they are to play well. There’s almost no way to mess up on them, which creates big imbalance at the casual level. To change that, healing signet and cleansing ire need adjustment.
3. The longbow burst change is a massive buff (doubled burn). I don’t think it needed a massive buff.

I think so many of the change are good, others of the change canot be told untill see them on the game but I miss a chnge for the hel signet from the warrior.

I think the heal signed must be less afective without healing power and obtain a better scale for the healing power, these must givi it option but not be powerbull as it is even with berserker amulet or soldier.

Thank you, this all looks very nice.

I just had some questions with some ranger traits. Now, I actually like pets. I also don’t mind having to invest into utility to make it useful. Sort of makes you define yourself as a trap, spirit, signet, or shout ranger.

Shout-Beast Master
Spirit- Nature Magic
Signet – Marksmanship
Trap- Skirmisher?

My issue is some of the traits are a mess. For example, when I think traps I think DoT damage, and some rugged survival man. Neither of which say “skirmisher” to me. They say wilderness survival. To that, I feel Trapers Expertise and Trapers potency should be moved to Wilderness Survival Tree. Traps are DoT based moves, and more in line with the idea of a wildland survival man. Now, the Skirmisher line could take on some defensive traits to be more in line with a skirmisher… You could choose a purely defensive option, or offensive option. This would make the Skirmisher/Markmanship lines a place to customize yourself based on your other build needs.

My other issue with the trait system, is that shouts are not that strong. Now Sic’ Em, is a strong CD for beast masters, however the other shouts are somewhat lacking, and have a weird cast timers. I ask if you could look intro increasing the viability of beast masters by improving shouts. On the beastmasters line, my question is to Masters Bond, which is the only trait which doesn’t want you to switch pets in its current design. I am sure there is some way of improving this (I recommend making it a Grandmaster trait which builds up stacks when you/your pet crits) to make it more in line with the spirit of “master of beasts”

There are other issues which people may add. But I just wanted to add this. I hope you see this and thank you again.

This patch has made me decide to stay, but there are some things that I see issue with.

Some great changes there, warrior could use a Healing Signet nerf but scale it better with healing power or something. I play one in spvp, I love how ridiculous it is but it’s probably time for it to go.

Some interesting changes for Ranger, particularity mighty swap and enlargement. Going 30 into Beastmaster has some great traits now.

Honestly if anet really want to improve build diversity on the ranger, they gotta getsome condition removal that doesnt blow a 30cd heal or at least combine some traits specifically in the power line. We’re stuck with 30 in wilderness for EB, go check out the builds in the ranger forum.

The previous balance preview said minions would be buffed in WvW. I thought this was being addressed in the previous patch but it looks like it was left out. Did we ever find out what happened with this? You guys gotta know how long they last by now right? Even a bear on peaceful dies almost instantly.

This may be outside the scope of this patch but any consideration for Ranger pets now that ascended weapons, trinkets and Armour are on the scene?

Dominus.2360:

First of all, very good job, I like this kind of preview. It’s not only about the ‘what exactly’ but also the ‘why’. This is awesome.

Second, I do not really understand why you don’t just meganerf the current meta. It caused so many players to leave, the players that remained are either trying to tell you that the current meta is nonsens or are randoms like me (telling you a lot of different things). There are a few nerfs of course, but even I see that it won’t be enough to kick passive playstyle/AI-builds/bad ‘risk/reward’ from PvP, which seems to be the main reason for all the quits of competitive teams and players.

Third, 10th december. Why so late?!? It’s nice that you want discuss it, but can’t you just throw out such balance patches more often? Like every two weeks, as you do it for PvE? Of course, you can’t change the whole meta every two weeks, but slight adjustments every now and than seem to be far better, or at least I think so.

PS: Sorry for my horrible English, trying my best but it’s not my mother tongue.

the reason for dec 10th is because of seasons in wvw…they are NOT going to ruin the seasons by changing builds as they stated

Shattered Conditions is still basically worthless, its 30 trait points for 1 condition per shatter, regardless of illusion count.
If it were to be merged with Restorative illusions it would be a much more attractive trait, powerful yes but its a grandmaster tier trait. It needs to be.

Zero Day.2594:

Latinkuro.9420:

Zero Day.2594:

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:
…We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area of effect control…

Well, good thing I already started re-rolling warrior. Still on the fence though as which is better warrior or guard…
(Going from thief to warrior.)

taking it out of context I see huh,

here’s the whole quote ! don’t try to make it sound like something it isn’t, a nerf is still a nerf !

We also reduced the damage on the hammer’s burst skill to separate the control from the damage. We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area of effect control, but we’re trying to prevent them from easily doing both.

My bad, sure you got nerfed, your still effective at doing something, and they “don’t mind” it. Hence re-rolling.

Suggestions for Thief changes:
(keep all the changes you guys are making, and add in mine, you’re doing great ).

Back-stab builds will still be overpowered, let’s reduce the side-strike trait to 2% chance. Reduce a bit of damage on Back-Stab it self. Hidden killer should be reduced from 100% to 25%.
Sneak-attack on pistol, right now stacks a bit too many bleeds. The number of times shot using that skill should be reduced from 5 to 2. The normal attack on the pistol should no longer apply a bleed effect
Black powder should be as suggested, powder, only blinding one enemy without an AoE effect.
Executioner should be decreased from 20% to 10%.
Backfighting increase damage from 50% to 150%, thieves generally fight when they’re downed, so it’s a good idea to provide a buff and expand build options.

Think these would be some solid changes… Would greatly open up thief builds (for instance, re-rolling to warrior build, or re-rolling to guardian build).

I disagree, and partly because i see no reasoning behind the above suggestions other than all thieves should reroll to another class… deciding to hit all of those traits kills the damage period on all builds and the comment on removing bleed/reducing it pretty much kills the condition aspect of p/X builds also. Good troll though.

Hey Jon Im sending you something in the PM for your personal opinion based on thieves, depending on your response ill post it in this thread ;3

This seems to be a PVP balancing patch. Has any thought been given to how it will affect PVE play? The nerfs to conditions for example seems harsh given how weak they already are in PVE.

Making these kind of changes to PVE for the sake of PVP seems crazy, given the disparity in numbers between the 2. I worry that Anet are too emotionally invested in GW2 being an esport to see this clearly. How many mmos are also successful esports? Too many of the design features of an mmo are contrary to what makes a good esport. For example, in esports there is usually little ability to modify units, so you can tell from the type of unit what it is going to do. This allows people to understand what is happening just by watching. MMOs have too much variability for this, and their roles are not clearly defined enough. Imagine if in chess you could spec all your pieces, so a night could move 5 moves diagonally. What would that do to the game?

Anet trying to turn their mmo into an esport is like a campervan manufactuerer deciding they want to get into motorsports, and designing all their campervans for the track. Gw2 is a good mmo. Don’t wreck it because you want it to be LoL.

Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
Loses Synergy with Fiery Wrath if you do that. You just said you wanted to improve Guardian damage…that’s 10% damage i lose right here. Just double the Burning duration to improve this trait.

Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.
Passive Aegis is usually up on a Guardian at ALL times while out of combat. The Aegis gets removed from the first hit you take upon entering combat, therefore you are still at FULL HP and this trait HEALS FOR 0. So this trait really only works for activating Courage with a terribly long recharge, or Retreat with a similar recharge. Therefore, this trait is weak. Getting 3 seconds of Regeneration on Aegis removal would be a better trade-off because we get to benefit from the trait when both passive and active Aegis are removed, along with applying an extra boon to allies for Altruistic Healing when your Aegis is removed from them.

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.
You might not remember, but this skill was changed to the 8s format back in beta because it was deemed counter-productive to “stand still in a symbol to run faster”.

What you should definitely look into:
Symbolic Exposure/Symbolic Power as minor traits
Sword, Scepter, Shield, Focus, Torch. Neither of these have Symbols. To take Scepter Power trait, I need to take a Symbol related minor trait? Why? There is no Scepter/Anything combo that gives me a Symbol. Therefore, one of my weaponsets do not benefit from these traits. Additionally, there are NO symbol in underwater combat. Combine Symbolic Exposure and Symbolic Power into 1 grandmaster trait and move Kindled Zeal to grandmaster minor. Fiery Wrath would also make a very good replacement as master minor.

Lack of Fields/Finisher
GW2 was advertised to have amazing combos you could pull of with friends as a game mechanic. Sword/Torch and Scepter/Torch combos have neither Field, nor Finisher. The skills on which to add the Fields/Finishers are obvious.
Orb of Wrath = 20% chance of Projectile Finisher.
Zealot’s Defense = 20% chance of Projectile Finisher.
Zealot’s Fire = Projectile Finisher.
All 3 of those already get Reflected by Feedback/WoR. They are projectiles.
Smite = Light Field. Just a Field for combo, not a Symbol nor a Consecration.

i like what you’re doing here with an explanation and your thought process about what you want to achieve but lets talk necromancer

Tainted Shackles (deathshroud 5) i don’t think any skill should just automatically latch itself onto your enemy or 5 like this one does, it takes the skill away from the player and doesn’t provide much counter play
So here is my suggestion which i feel is a decent idea. Have tainted shackles act like the eles earth staff 5 ability Shockwave have it immobilize for ~1.5-2 sec and add 3 stacks of torment. It will provide the player with more control over the abilities and also give the enemy a chance to counter play with an evade,blind or block etc…

everythings perfect! good job Anet! i mainly play thief since beta! but ya the D/P perma stealthing is just fine its really annoying to see 30 shadow arts thieves are almost unkillable in pvp/wvw, but:

to make things balance:

Move Mesmer’s Phantasmal Fury to Master Trait
Gain Base HP of Phantasm illusions for like 10%

Most Weird Changes is the thief’s Quick Recovery (Acrobatics)
Gain 1 initiative (10 secs cooldown) ? is a bit weird maybe make it 1 initiative / 7secs. cooldown

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.

What about warrior long bow. Why does it need to be traited to have 1200 range? It’s only 1 of 2 ranged weapons warriors have, and it is also the only weapons who needs two traits to be at it’s fullest potential.

Give it 1200 range pls and come up with something different for a trait. If you must have a 900 range weapon for warriors, then give us a shortbow.

I’d also like to ask, if or why, you don’t move the weapon traits into the first tier of traits. As is now you are telling us; you must play this way, with this weapon.

Is that a good idea?