Guild Wars 2

I agree with all Thief changes except the change to Bountiful Theft:
“Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 8s.”

I do agree that the vigour uptime needs to be altered, but I do not believe to it is necessary to this extent.

If someone is investing heavily into the Trickery line then that generally sacrifices a great deal of defensive options (Stealth from SA/Evades from Acro). I feel that nerfing the vigour duration directly harms the active defensive possibilities available to these builds. For example, DP 10/30/0/0/30 runs Infiltrator Signet as its only initiative gain, thus is unable to rely as heavily on the blinds available to it without running low on initiative. While the vigour provided by Bountiful Theft has a high uptime when Steal is used on CD (which it shouldn’t be, instead as an interrupt/boon steal), it is vital to aid in the survival of such as squishy Thief, especially without access to Feline Grace.

I feel that the vigour granted by Bountiful Theft should instead be changed to 10 seconds, to match the boons provided by Thrill of the Crime and to potentially provide 1 extra dodge.

oZii.2864:

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.

EXACTLY! Windborne dagger is unusable, giving d/d ele less survivability and not 1 good trait at the adept tier. If it worked OOC, it would really help d/d ele also be a roamer without having to get 100% swiftness and reduce the impact of losing elemental attunement. However, this does not work and its inexplicable.

I have a toon from each class :
Most OP stuffs (more than warrior signet by far !!!!) :
Thieves : perma stealth
Ele : perma regen with 2 regen sources possible
Guardian : perma retaliation (can even reach 100% boon duration build (means every boon durations are twice longer !!! … and regen build 20% more powerful than healing signet warrior AND with the AOE regen trait makes it even stronger with no comparison!!!! )
Necromancer : Extra grey hp bar full bunker they have like 70k-80k hp seriously !!!???
If Anet reduce the regen damage mitigation of warrior you have to nerf every others classes also. I doubt anyone agree then because we would all insta die in spvp and wvw… Mitigating damages in order to sustain is fun and then on longer fights only most skilled will survive.
If Anet turns encounters with the “one shot” “I win button” spirit that will be the end of fun for everyone.
Anet I can give you every OP builds of every class. XD

The changes to warrior wont do a lot imo, buffing reckless dodge? lol.
Anyway, I’d like to argue that moving unsuspecting foes to grandmaster, Last Chance to master, Opportunist to adept would be a great refitting of our arms traitline this would give use more options + would change the entire way stun warriors are played thereby making it harder and less damage because you would have to go 30 into arms and if you want cleansing ire and fast hands you cant get burst mastery or merciless hammer which would solve the entire problem imo but ya’know im just a gamer.

oZii.2864:

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.

This is my issue with it as well. If it worked ALL the time, then D/D would be much more solid as a roaming class while not being forced to take glyph heal to keep swiftness up or at least Signet of Air to sorta keep up.

“Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%.”

No. This makes elementalists have a huge advantage over necros, who are usually running condition damage builds, and have very little in the way of physical damage. You are effectively making one class immune to the other. Especially considering how rapidly eles can restore their health using WEAPON skills and combo fields.

tonyg.3824:

The changes to warrior wont do a lot imo, buffing reckless dodge? lol.
Anyway, I’d like to argue that moving unsuspecting foes to grandmaster, Last Chance to master, Opportunist to adept would be a great refitting of our arms traitline this would give use more options + would change the entire way stun warriors are played thereby making it harder and less damage because you would have to go 30 into arms and if you want cleansing ire and fast hands you cant get burst mastery or merciless hammer which would solve the entire problem imo but ya’know im just a gamer.

UF isn’t good enough for a grandmaster trait, the purposed change will kill off the meta build no problem.

The issue is the overall hammer nerf(earth shaker and staggering blow) which is a big hurt to the other hammer builds(ie hammer shouts).

srsly though the changes to incendiairy powder will probably break heavy offensive grenade builds as you will no longer be able to get both cooldowns and incendiairy powder

whyyyyyy why u no stop nerfing nades(((

+ the nerf to vigor which was the ONLY saving grace for offensive builds

ohh well bunker meta here i come

Anet likes to kill builds that threaten the mes/war/guardian trinity

if you guys think buffing engi is a good idea. You are smoking some seriously good shti over at arena net headquaters

Ele change would be good if evasive arcana was moved to master. As it is, that is the main reason I have to go 30 in arcana, since it is nearly half of our healing per second.

Although diamond skin is intriguing. I’ll have to see if it ends up being good in practice or if 90% threshold is too high. Unfortunately it is impossible to take diamond skin along with evasive arcana and healing ripple.

Peow peow.2189:

if you guys think buffing engi is a good idea. You are smoking some seriously good shti over at arena net headquaters

lol

Elementalist:
Fire.
*Good. Want to see change Fire 5 and Fire 15.
Earth VII – Strength of Stone. This trait is now Gain condition damage based on your Toughness. 10%.
*Good, but 30 earth – no. Need more condition damage type, than it be playable.

Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.
Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.
*It must be in d/d build – no compromise dagger’s in bank.

Major attunement change.
*It good, but need more big changes. Because it not change arcane stay ‘must have’.
Example: set default cooldown 10s, but “Attunement Recharge Rate” change on Arcane 15.

Ranger:
*Balanced change’s, nothing awesome.

Warrior:
*I wait it’s changes 3 month. But healing signet not touched, it correct?

Honestly, I really like these changes, and I think they’re a step in the right direction. I main a mesmer, and I’m really excited about the Mender’s Purity buff, but I’m also happy about the changes to other classes (eles, for example, definitely are in need of a buff). Overall I’m happy, and I think it’s nice to see anet taking the time to listen to it’s players.

JonPeters.5630:

*
Ranger:

• Marksmanship V – Predator’s Instinct. Increased the threshold from 25% to 50%. Increased the Cripple Duration from 2s to 10s. Increased the cooldown from 15s to 30s.

This is not a sufficient change to help the LB. There’s no condi to cover the cripple and it’ll be removed fairly quickly. Keen’s edge, sharpened edges and sharpening stone’s duration is not long enough/too unreliable to be used as cover especially with the HP threshold requirement.

Cool down is far too long to be of use. You’re not likely to get the target to 50% hp before they’re in melee range especially if they’re bunkers.

Instead of giving long duration on the cripple, it should be a shorter duration with lower ICD.

Change it to 3 second cripple with 9 seconds ICD (so it’s better than a sigil) and remove the 50% threshold requirement. Or have a chance cripple proc on crits.

Pet buffs are still counter intuitive to cast for range weapons like LB/SB/Axe. Make pet buffs disregard range for pet owner so LB users can stay at 1k killzone and get stalker/moa buffs.

LB traits need to be consolidated. Too many traits in order to max out a weapon which is not found in other classes. e.g. eagle eye, piercing, cooldown, spotter, etc. Piercing and cool down should be on one trait to get a ranger version of Crackshot.

Jon, May I ask in all seriousness, what is the engineer’s core role?

I’m sure this is a minority viewpoint, but I liked the random effects that engineer gets/got. I liked getting knocked on my butt by my own weapons, I liked that whole mad scientist steampunk unpredictable thing. And I liked having a million trait combos to choose from because no one really cares what I do because I’m just an engi. If your goal is to play the Best! In! Slot! Class! then you aren’t playing engi anyway, amirite? I think the wackiness of engineer is/was a lot of the appeal, and I hope you don’t forget that in the service of making it more…. serviceable.

i think the across the board vigor changes are bad. I think it stems from a decision that anet feels vigor all the time is a bit OP, however i dont think they are considering the fact that certain classes have no other defensive options.

theif is the prime example, low hp, low base armor, low condi removal, lackluster heals, few active defense/counter style skills.
Dodging is all they got, if you want to reduce it, you probably have to give them some other means to survive.
30 in one trait line, and a never used catch me probably isnt going to make theif as a whole more able to sustain engage enemies.

Ironic for the thief change, only see three builds being viable for pvp and wvw roaming (since the thief can never zvz in wvw). First one is Sleight of Hand spec while the second is simply the standard 25/30/x/x/x spec. Infusion of shadow trait will never be used and virtually the almost perma dodge spec will slowly be snuffed out from tpvp picture. Final is the p/d condi spec which seems to endure no matter what changes anet try to throw or take away from the thief. One could argue about what will happen with the 0/30/30/x/x or 0/20/30/20/0 specs but another could answer sorry not viable anymore or not as affective.

Oh well at least the ele change is on the right track. They do need to be less dependant on arcana. Putting 20 points into fire to get a ICD of 40 second cleansing flame trait does not seem worth it for say have 30 into water to virtually gain more healing power + condi removal with regen (Cleansing Water) every 5. Various ele players have also been asking for CD reduction to Armor of Earth as many of them only use that stun breaker because signet and Glyph stun breakers are lackluster. Unfortunately that seems ignored yet again within another balance update, so gl to who ever those people are to get that change.

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.

I like the approach, mostly, but I would really like to see some mobility added to the necromancer. A lack of stability makes escaping even more important. Having a weapon on the necromancer with a gapcloser, and changing Dark Path to behave identical to Judge’s Intervention on Guardian would be two important changes you could make to compensate for what Necromancer’s lack. I’m a WvW and GvG player primarily, and if you’re truly deadset on not giving us stability that also acts as a stunbreak for any meaningful duration, I’d at least like to be able to move out of a DPS bomb, or maneuver around and away from it more reliably.

JonPeters.5630:

• Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.

• Death 25 – Deadly Strength. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.

Reanimator needs to be removed from Death Magic entirely, as well as “Protection of the Horde,” and Deadly Strength isn’t even worth consideration for any setup. Death Magic trait line needs a huge makeover. The Greater Marks change makes the traitline a wasteland. I will literally never take a Death Magic trait since that change.There’s no reason to unless you’re a Minion Master, making this traitline very undesirable. Not to mention boon duration, which a necromancer can barely take advantage of. I’d like to see some love given to this line, but these changes are definitely not them.

On the topic of Minion Masters, they need to be nerfed. The Death Nova trait deals too much damage, especially for how short the cooldowns are on minions, and whether your stats are set to full Soldier’s or full Berserker’s, it doesn’t make a difference on your damage.
Please stop trying to buff minions. They’re already viable where they need to be, and anybody that claims they need to be made more viable in WvW and PvE need to adjust their playstyle. If Mass AoEs are killing your build, then maybe you should run something else. Making it viable will just overpower it. #EndRant

Some elementalist changes feedback:
The reduced CD on Attunement swap is good, but moving Elemental Attunement to Master tier will make the Arcana the most desirable line again, because EA is one of the best elementalist traits and 90% of eles want to have this trait in any build. Why so? Becacuse it’s the most reliable source of boons for elementalist. Moreover this trait also buffs surrounding allies – it’s really strong and as I said earlier no ele will let it go. This trait got similarities with Mesmer’s trait Deceptive Evasion – they both enchance core mechanics of their classes, making them very strong in EVERY build.
I would suggest reworking this trait completely, and changing #5 or #10 traits in Fire/Air/Earth/Water lines to give respective boons on Attunement swap.

I’m okay with other changes.

JonPeters.5630:

Elementalist:

• Water V – Cleansing Wave. Moved to Master tier.
• Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. Moved to Master tier.

While I don’t mind most of the changes these two really bug me. All these two changes are going to do is make it more difficult for elementalists to spec defensively by forcing us to now chose between cantrip mastery and cleansing wave (the obvious choice being cantrip mastery) and to chose between elemental attunement and renewing stamina. Moving water 5 is just nerfing condition removal in defensive trait set ups which doesn’t seem like the right thing to do during the condition meta. Moving Elemental Attuenment to master is even more worrying for me.

These changes are only going to weaken my current (0/30/0/20/20) S/D fresh air build (Which I use for WvW roaming) by forcing me to use inferior defensive traits in the adept slots when it is already quite difficult to survive, especially against condition builds. Now my current S/D build will have less condition removal (now only water skill 5 and ether renewal) and if I want to keep Ele Attunement (which I like for the protection and swiftness) I will have to use vigorous scepter giving me only half of my current endurance regen bonus in combat. Fresh Air S/D is already inferior to D/D for roaming.

Additionally, if increasing elementalist build diversity is a goal, I would recommend finally getting around to buffing the focus. Currently, half of its skills are underpowered or useless (Particularly the water and fire skills). Fire and water skill 4 are particularly bad. Its powerful defensive skills don’t make up for it’s lack of damage and mobility. It would be nice to see S/F and D/F be viable weapon combinations.

Also, one of the major problems with the stoneflesh minor earth trait is that, unlike soothing mist, it doesn’t work with lingering attunements. It’s the fact that this trait only really benefits players that camp in earth attunement that limits its usefulness. It might even be good to give it a lingering effect like soothing mist.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

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

I’m sorry, but I completely disagree. The best trait the elementalist has is Evasive Arcana for survivability, burst, and utility. No D/D ele in the right mind is going to give that up to play with your re-arranged already rejected abilities. All you did with this patch is make life harder for D/D after all the needless nerfing you already did.

Do I have to mention the hypocrisy that was the RTL nerf given what you freely allow Warriors, Rangers, and Thieves to do?

Venomous Aura is as useful as a knife with no blade at the moment…UNLESS, you are condition damage specced/duration.

My suggestion is this:
Upcoming update is going to increase the range on the Aura trait.

Additionally, why not add an effect to apply the thief (that used the venoms) condition damage and duration to those that the venom charges are given to.
In example: I were to use Skale Venom, and Ice Drake Venom, Giving my allies 3 charges of Skale, and 3 of Drake venom. During those 3 charges each, they get my condition damage and duration until the charges are drained/wear off.

Make the upcoming party buffs(party are prioritized) effect Venoms!

This in turn, would make thieves a more supportive class!
:::

No reason I can see would this be overpowered as currently if you dont have anyone but yourself specced in condition damage/duration what is the point in venom share?

Is not rattlesnake venom poisonous? I mean if I dip my blade in rattlesnake venom and stick you, your are probably going to die based on the dosage, but if you dip your blade in and stick someone, should they not get the same effect as opposed to a sneeze?!!?!!?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Shared-Venom-Spec-Suggestion/first#post3070830

Anet’s 2 man “balancing” team yet again listens to the pve qq and screws over wvw and spvp by not separating trait and skill changes between pve, wvw, and spvp.

Maderas.9741:

The notes for engineer say you want to promote build diversity, but the change to Incendiary Powder absolutely guts a dozen builds. It more or less kills the majority of HGH builds out there.

100% agree. It also puts too many things you have to choose/trade off in the master tier. It won’t just mess up the HGH builds, it’ll wreck tons of them. IP was nerfed in the past to make it better suited for adept, so why move it up a tier now? If they feel it’s still too strong (which I disagree with) I would prefer to see a change to the trait itself Vs. a move of the trait which would wreck builds and put too much stuff into the master tier.

If these changes went through as listed eng would take both an offensive and defensive nerf at the same time (less vigor). That’s too much. The vigor nerf alone is a strong smack. Don’t nerf IP on top of that.

The Primary.6371:

Ironic for the thief change, only see three builds being viable for pvp and wvw roaming (since the thief can never zvz in wvw). First one is Sleight of Hand spec while the second is simply the standard 25/30/x/x/x spec. Infusion of shadow trait will never be used and virtually the almost perma dodge spec will slowly be snuffed out from tpvp picture. Final is the p/d condi spec which seems to endure no matter what changes anet try to throw or take away from the thief. One could argue about what will happen with the 0/30/30/x/x or 0/20/30/20/0 specs but another could answer sorry not viable anymore or not as affective.

It’s actually ironic that ANET has put a huge effort on trying to ensure that each class has multiple viable weapon specs. With these changes, there will only be one viable build in PvP, a D/D GC build. In WvW roaming, there will be two builds, the D/D GC build and the P/D condi spec.

good changes overall but still a pretty nasty engi nerf

good changes to ele with the attunement i really felt i needed those 30 points! just make sure they wont get too much survivability combined with arcane burst + fresh air

warrior signet being still untouched and hammer nerfed i see a return of greatsword inc

Coloxeus.3480:

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

I agree with this. No one is going to select that trait for 1 initiative if the cooldown stays the same.

Wilderness 5 Natural Vigor. Reduced the increased endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%.

please for the love of god do not do this. 30 30 10 zerk rangers use this as pretty much the only defense they have. if you are hellbent on this, spvp only plz

JonPeters.5630:

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.
  .

Hey guys thanks for the explanation so far ahead of time and the time you’re taking to explain all this out.

But what i’m really worried about is guardian which honestly i don’t hear enough of on the forums in pvp about.

I do think we’re in a decent place bunker wise. But on any team that is pretty much our role.

Guards are bunkers, They can’t roam,they can’t burst, there aren’t’ healers, and we don’t really do offensive support.

I can understand the natural need to keep guards at bay

We have high build in survival.

You give a class like us a 1200 good range weapon or a real amount of mobility and we’re unstoppable in some builds.

But the issue is when i drop my super tanky ness and want to do more damage my options are so very limited (which i believe this patch is suppose to help)

And don’t get me wrong these changes are very nice. But don’t really get to the core of the problem with guards.

That if a enemy doesn’t want to get kill by the guard. He doesn’t. Guards don’t have a way of sticking on their targets.

Weather its a lack of real range options, or a lack of speed and mobility (no 25% movement and like 1 leap per build), or even just a lack of CC guards don’t posses the tools needed to really be competitive in anything that isn’t bunkering.

And i personally believe that the issue is the weapon skills.
Sword – Has a decent amount of burst but has literally 0 forms of soft or hard CC and is very telegraphed and easy to dodge.
Mace – outside of like 1 very niche symbol build is entirely defensive
Hammer – Any class with stability access (negates #5 and #4) and a condi clear (negates #3) makes every thing but number 1 and 2 useful and those two are not that useful to begin with. Not to mention that 5 on hammer is 100% useless if the player has stability or a tele
GS – decent if baited right can land combo
Torch – only useful for someone choosing to stay and fight
Focus – ;only useful for someone choosing to stay and fight
Shield – Mostly useful for someone staying and fighting (doesn’t actually block)
I’m not saying guard is in a bad spot but i would toss any non bunker guard out on its behind at any time

I’m just curious are there actual ideas to deal with the core problems of guards?

First, regardless what anyone thinks of any of the actual changes, this is a great post. Excellent advance notice, excellent explanations of your reasoning, thanks for taking the time to communicate this.

A few thoughts on the four classes I play:

Warrior

You’re significantly nerfing the damage of the WvW 0/10/30/0/30 Unsuspecting Foe Hammer build variants, but Blind was already an easy, effective, nearly spammable hard counter to Earthshaker.

Not only does Blind negate both the CC and damage to the caster from Earthshaker, but to all 5 targets Earthshaker would have hit. That’s an arguably OP counter, especially with the current Necro meta, a single Blind-traited VoJ-spamming Guardian, or a couple OH Pistol Thieves in your group.

The counterbalance to Blind’s power till now was the risk of getting hit with an Earthshaker – high burst damage + strong CC. Now Earthshaker just does strong CC, no more high burst damage. ES is significantly weakened, but its counter, Blind, remains just as strong and effective, hence even moreso relative to Earthshaker.

So, any chance you could rebalance Blind relative to Earthshaker, say by adding a (hard-to-get) trait or something that makes Earthshaker immune to Blinds? For example:

• Defense X – Merciless Hammer: moved to Grandmaster tier, added immunity to Blind (cd 10s).

Eg, hammer abilities would be immune to Blind once every 10s, but you have to be careful which ability you spend the immunity on. If you have an Earthshaker cd coming up in 3s, but accidentally use your Blind immunity on an autoattack, then it won’t be available for Earthshaker for another 10s cd.

That provides the ability to negate Blind, but it would require conscientious play and active management of abilities to use it effectively, as well as requiring 30pts in Defense (meaning you would definitely have to give up either Unsuspecting Foe or Burst Mastery to get it).

Guardian

I love the proposed Guardian changes, but only b/c they’ll make Guardians even more OP in PvE, which I’m not sure is what you want.

The current Guardian high-end PvE meta of Zerker/Scholar/Sword is already one of, if it not the, highest sustained DPS metas in the game. And now you’re significantly buffing that DPS meta?

Really unnecessary imho, at least for PvE. Maybe this is necessary for sPvP, which is cool, but if so those buffs should probably only apply in sPvP then.

But honestly if these changes go through, I’ll be lovin it, they’re great for guardians. Just want to throw out there it might not be great for PvE balance.

Mesmer

Looking good all around. Much needed condition removal? Check. Finally getting Illusionist’s Celerity tuned just right? Check.

IC was OP as a Minor Adept trait, and too expensive as a Minor Grandmaster trait. Should be just right as a Minor Master trait.

Thief

Clearly an attempt to nerf D/P permastealth, but I think the 33% base Initiative regen rate increase is a worthy tradeoff. I suspect players will still find a way to make permastealth work for sneaking into Keeps/Towers in WvW and hiding there, they just won’t have any spare initiative to fight with. That is as it should be – either permastealth or fight, but not both. /fingers crossed that’s how it actually turns out.

I really don’t like the changes to Symbol of Swiftness for Guardians. When I’m roaming with my friends in WvW or PvE, I find it impossible to keep up with them if I’m not traited into shouts with Retreat and Save Yourselves, even when using Symbol of Swiftness. The symbol was the best way to at least give me a chance of keeping up with the +25% speed classes. No one is going to stand still in a 800 wide circle in order to get swiftness. Swiftness is about moving, not sitting there waiting for 3 pulses. This change will just make shouts even more important for guardians, and they already are used way more often than consecrations, meditations, spirit weapons or signets. I main guardian, have around 1000 hours on him, and from my experience with him this change to the symbol will make me play my quicker moving, 25% speed gain thief or warrior, just because I hate moving around so slowly.

My suggestion for this would be to increase the initial pulse to at least 6 seconds of swiftness, and then do 3 or 4 second pulses after that. Using it on the move is the best thing about this symbol, and I hate to see that diminished. Other than that, I love the rest of the changes.

I still find it odd that the most OP item in the game is untouched. The issue with warriors is not their stun or their damage, but the amount of their passive heal. The signet needs a major change. It’s crazy that someone can run a zerker set and still get 400 hp/sec.

Instead the healing signet needs to have its base heal reduced and increase the tie to healing powering. If someone wants to run zerker or soldier’s, it should heal for less than today. If someone wants to run all clerics, it should heal for more than today.

JonPeters.5630:

• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.

This is a decent nerf to Heartseeker + Black Powder, but I think it doesn’t go far enough. You said

JonPeters.5630:

We felt that using a lot of different abilities to maintain stealth is ok, but re-using the same ability over and over for almost permanent stealth was just bad for the game…

however, players will still be able to gain a lot of stealth from this combination from skills alone. Yes, it will cost more, however I don’t think it’s fair that thieves can stack stealth this easily.

What makes the stealth from Cloak and Dagger fair is that you know the Backstab is coming within the next 3-4 seconds. This knowledge allows you to counter it. (Also Cloak and Dagger can be counter with blind, aegis, or an evade) However, against Black Powder + Heartseeker it is impossible to know when that Backstab is coming because the Thief could have stacked up to 9 seconds of stealth.

Please give the stealth gain from Black Powder + Heartseeker a 4 second internal cooldown. This combo is already powerful and well worth the initiative it costs because you can gain stealth from any location. This allows you to lead on your foe with stealth gained at a distance, something Cloak and Dagger can’t do. It will still be very powerful even if thieves can’t stack stealth with it.

If you truly believe thieves should only be able to maintain stealth by using a lot of different abilities, please make this change as well.

Kentrey.3251:

JonPeters.5630:

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.
  .

Hey guys thanks for the explanation so far ahead of time and the time you’re taking to explain all this out.

But what i’m really worried about is guardian which honestly i don’t hear enough of on the forums in pvp about.

I do think we’re in a decent place bunker wise. But on any team that is pretty much our role.

Guards are bunkers, They can’t roam,they can’t burst, there aren’t’ healers, and we don’t really do offensive support.

I can understand the natural need to keep guards at bay

We have high build in survival.

You give a class like us a 1200 good range weapon or a real amount of mobility and we’re unstoppable in some builds.

But the issue is when i drop my super tanky ness and want to do more damage my options are so very limited (which i believe this patch is suppose to help)

And don’t get me wrong these changes are very nice. But don’t really get to the core of the problem with guards.

That if a enemy doesn’t want to get kill by the guard. He doesn’t. Guards don’t have a way of sticking on their targets.

Weather its a lack of real range options, or a lack of speed and mobility (no 25% movement and like 1 leap per build), or even just a lack of CC guards don’t posses the tools needed to really be competitive in anything that isn’t bunkering.

And i personally believe that the issue is the weapon skills.
Sword – Has a decent amount of burst but has literally 0 forms of soft or hard CC and is very telegraphed and easy to dodge.
Mace – outside of like 1 very niche symbol build is entirely defensive
Hammer – Any class with stability access (negates #5 and #4) and a condi clear (negates #3) makes every thing but number 1 and 2 useful and those two are not that useful to begin with. Not to mention that 5 on hammer is 100% useless if the player has stability or a tele
GS – decent if baited right can land combo
Torch – only useful for someone choosing to stay and fight
Focus – ;only useful for someone choosing to stay and fight
Shield – Mostly useful for someone staying and fighting (doesn’t actually block)
I’m not saying guard is in a bad spot but i would toss any non bunker guard out on its behind at any time

I’m just curious are there actual ideas to deal with the core problems of guards?

I’m super tired (from drinking with friends :p) but my piece make idea for tonight is why not just merge some master trait in zeal (which is a symbol driven tree (at least in minors) and give us a choice to have a trait that makes our Symbol pulses cause 2 – 4 secs of cripple.

And bam you’ve fixed almost 50% of offensive guard problems without breaking the class balance.
Staff becomes more useful though the added effect of a ranged AoE slow
Gs combos have a bigger change to hit
Hammer can actually stay on targets because its 3rd auto (which is hard to land) actually soft CCs people
Mace actually have a form of mitigation though a AoE CC

Sword and off hands still have issues but at least it would be a big heal to offensive guards without breaking defensive ones

GilbertSmith.1725:

I really don’t like the changes to Symbol of Swiftness for Guardians. When I’m roaming with my friends in WvW or PvE, I find it impossible to keep up with them if I’m not traited into shouts with Retreat and Save Yourselves, even when using Symbol of Swiftness. The symbol was the best way to at least give me a chance of keeping up with the +25% speed classes. No one is going to stand still in a 800 wide circle in order to get swiftness. Swiftness is about moving, not sitting there waiting for 3 pulses. This change will just make shouts even more important for guardians, and they already are used way more often than consecrations, meditations, spirit weapons or signets. I main guardian, have around 1000 hours on him, and from my experience with him this change to the symbol will make me play my quicker moving, 25% speed gain thief or warrior, just because I hate moving around so slowly.

My suggestion for this would be to increase the initial pulse to at least 6 seconds of swiftness, and then do 3 or 4 second pulses after that. Using it on the move is the best thing about this symbol, and I hate to see that diminished. Other than that, I love the rest of the changes.

I cannot agree with you more. In fact, it should always have been 8 seconds for running over the symbol, and then another 8 seconds if you already have swiftness. In other words, make it work the same as the warhorn #4 on warriors. That will stack duration. Adding 1 second doesn’t make any sense.

Elementalist changes are undesirable and unwarranted for PvE.

Most builds in PvE utilize Fresh Air or Conjured Weapons and the base cooldown attunement reduction will be around 2 seconds which is not much at all because of how FA/Conjured Weapons work.

However now in order to get BASIC survivability they have to dip 20 points deep into arcana for renewing stamina (vigor) which sacrifices a rather large amount of damage or utility.

This is another nerf for ele (PvE-wise) on the whole that is rather upsetting to say the least. The main changes that “offset” this nerf are the buff to Burning Rage (can take another Fire Trait besides Ember’s Might…though besides Conjurer/Persisting Flames none are very attractive) and slight cooldown attunement reduction (again, for FA/Conjurers, not very good at all). Anyways, on the whole those changes do not in any way mitigate the damage done with the renewing stamina change.

Why is it that guards/mesmers who are 2x tanky can get Vigor for 5 points yet Ele could get it for 10 pts in a rather comparably unattractive trait line gets its access nerfed?

Why the combustive shot nerf?
Right now it looks like I won’t be even able to run condition damage build on warrior because it’s not worth it.

style.6173:

I still find it odd that the most OP item in the game is untouched. The issue with warriors is not their stun or their damage, but the amount of their passive heal. The signet needs a major change. It’s crazy that someone can run a zerker set and still get 400 hp/sec.

Instead the healing signet needs to have its base heal reduced and increase the tie to healing powering. If someone wants to run zerker or soldier’s, it should heal for less than today. If someone wants to run all clerics, it should heal for more than today.

Nah, Warriors who go Healing Signet effectively give up an active heal. The Signet’s active is pathetic and should never be used. That’s an interesting strategic tradeoff.

If you’re fighting one, burst through their passive heal. If that’s a problem then maybe Warrior evasion and/or stunlocking needs to be nerfed instead, to make bursting them more viable. Remove Evade from Whirlwind, or Endurance regen traits, or something along those lines. But Signet is right where it should be, imho.

style.6173:

I still find it odd that the most OP item in the game is untouched. The issue with warriors is not their stun or their damage, but the amount of their passive heal. The signet needs a major change. It’s crazy that someone can run a zerker set and still get 400 hp/sec.

Instead the healing signet needs to have its base heal reduced and increase the tie to healing powering. If someone wants to run zerker or soldier’s, it should heal for less than today. If someone wants to run all clerics, it should heal for more than today.

Yea their hp regen is a bit too strong. Reducing the base and increasing the % gained from healing power would be a good change.

JonPeters.5630:

• Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.

Can you please clarify what this means exactly?

The current formula is:
69 + .035 * Healing Power

What is the new formula exactly?
69 + .047 * Healing Power ? (increased bonus .035 by 35%)
69 + .35 * Healing Power ? (increased bonus to 35%)
Or something else?

>We don’t like classes having perma vigor

Then fix ele too or don’t nerf thief/engi

Love most of the notes, just have a few thoughts on specific changes outlined by class below:

Elementalist water and arcane trait movement – many ele players are posting here worried about how the changes will affect their build. I believe that is because people do not like change, and have grown so accustomed to 30 in water and arcane that they cannot imagine a world without those traits. The moving of key adept traits to master is an excellent move in order to force hard choices for these traits that were previously so good at the adept level that it was very difficult to pass them up. Adversity builds diversity. If certain traits are so good that it only makes sense to take them, you end up with everybody running the same build. Now you have all these eles running 30 arcane for a long time afraid of change. Please do not let that deter you from making these necessary changes. Forcing difficult choices for players making builds is GOOD and encourages diversity – keep it up!

Engineer Incendiary Powder – thank you. Again moving this trait changes it from a “you would be an idiot not to take this” to a “man if I take this I can’t take all the other stuff I want!” The second scenario is actually good for the game.

Engineer turret buffs – please be careful with these buffs. Many PvP players are already very upset at the amount of AI and “passive play” and while things like Engi turrets and Guardian spirit weapons and Necro minions may be used less than other utilities, tread lightly here because they could easily turn into the new petting zoo. PvP/PvE splits could be helpful here.

Guard symbol of swiftness change – seems highly controversial. Change it so any ally in it when it pulses gains 12 seconds of swiftness (once) that cannot stack with itself, but can stack with other sources. While your at it, figure out a way to do the same with Mesmer’s temporal curtain so players crossing it get swiftness once, non-stacking with self but stacking with other sources of swiftness. Maybe a debuff that last 12 seconds that makes you immune to the symbol/curtain?

Mesmer confounding suggestions – if you’re trying to make this useful, this change fails. I think it probably makes it worse actually. Our major source of reliable daze is diversion, which doesn’t stack with itself so an extra 1/4 second of daze that you probably aren’t even going to notice on multi-clone diversions is really really lackluster for a grandmaster trait. To make it useful change it to 100% chance to stun on daze. Another idea is to make it so instead of a stun chance, daze apply 5 seconds of weakness, which synergies well with the vulnerability on daze, and helps line up your burst by reducing your opponents endurance regen.

Mesmer dazzling glamour – worthless since blinding befuddlement nerf. Also bugged according to wiki when taken with blinding befuddlement and confusing enchantments (only get 1 stack of confusion). In order to be at all worthwhile this trait should turn glamours into pulsing blind fields ala black powder and smoke bomb.

Thief changes overall – great changes, most complainers above do not realize how large a buff global initiatve regen buff is. Love the nerf to sword 2 return. I have a suggestion for Hard to Catch since people do not like that it ports you somewhere unpredictable. Change to: “Steal now breaks stun. When disabled, recharge steal. Cooldown 60 seconds.”

Warrior healing signet – a big thing missing from the changes was the expected nerf to healing signet. This skill is too good. Nerf the base amount, improving scaling with healing power or the active. Passive play is frustrating your PvP player base.

I have lots more thoughts but for your sake will leave it at those. Thank you Jon for committing to reading all the posts – I did as well up to this point! Don’t sweat the naysayers – you have a great list of changes here that will shake a lot of things up. Some other random thoughts

-wish these changes were rolled out gradually every 2 weeks like PvE updates
-the more things you change the less predictable the results – see June changes
-wish there was a player test environment for us
-may want to think of a way to better organize the feedback on these big balance passes in the future. Huge 11 page thread is surely difficult for you to sift through

Thanks for your time!

I will speak to thieves only regarding this patch. I understand the desire to see less of the permastealth and wanting to promote more diverse builds but the fixes suggested will in fact limit builds even more.

I try to avoid stealth altogether and focus on dodging and evasion as my own thief and feel one of the reasons I was attracted to the game in the first place , that of dodging an attack through the active involvement of the player , is being limited.

If we really want to promote more diverse builds we have to give more reasons to go up a given trait line rather then less and make hard choices is to which trait line to choose.

The proposed changes fall short in this regard so I will make a few suggestions of my own. I have every class but the engineer to level 80 but just LOVE the concept of the thief. I always have in every game I have chosen to play picked the one closest to the thief first and foremost.

So my own suggestions.

When I go through the traits I find the trickery and the shadow arts trait lines the most complete. They both have very good reasons to go up to the highest tier. Critical strikes is chosen more often then not to its highest tier just for that damage and needs little work.

Deadly arts and acrobatics need the most work and in my opinion the proposed changes do not accomplish this.

I would make the following changes.

Deadly arts.

Remove Panic strike and change it to boon ripper. The description becomes “Increase damage by 2 percent for every boon on the opponent.”

Critical strikes

Gain two initiative becomes useless when it drops to one so remove that trait entirely. Change it to Distracting signets with the effect being “inflict a one second daze on nearby enemies on signet use”

Acrobatics

This really needs an ability to remove conditions. Dodge should be a forte of the thief yet more and more it limited in its effects and the amount of time it can be used. The Dodge thief should be every bit as effective as the stealth thief but the changes actually make it less viable a path. No other class should be as good at stealth as the thief and no other class should be as effective at dodging as a thief. So with less dodges how to make it “better”?

Keep the proposed changes to assassins reward but leave the skill at second tier. Drop hard to catch from grandmaster to second tier.

Move “fleet of foot” to grandmaster. Change the description of “fleet of foot” to “bite the hand that feeds” . Change the effect of fleet of foot to “On dodge transfer one condition back to its source” ICd is 10 seconds.

Gilburt.9146:

JonPeters.5630:

• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.

This is a decent nerf to Heartseeker + Black Powder, but I think it doesn’t go far enough. You said

JonPeters.5630:

We felt that using a lot of different abilities to maintain stealth is ok, but re-using the same ability over and over for almost permanent stealth was just bad for the game…

however, players will still be able to gain a lot of stealth from this combination from skills alone. Yes, it will cost more, however I don’t think it’s fair that thieves can stack stealth this easily.

What makes the stealth from Cloak and Dagger fair is that you know the Backstab is coming within the next 3-4 seconds. This knowledge allows you to counter it. (Also Cloak and Dagger can be counter with blind, aegis, or an evade) However, against Black Powder + Heartseeker it is impossible to know when that Backstab is coming because the Thief could have stacked up to 9 seconds of stealth.

Please give the stealth gain from Black Powder + Heartseeker a 4 second internal cooldown. This combo is already powerful and well worth the initiative it costs because you can gain stealth from any location. This allows you to lead on your foe with stealth gained at a distance, something Cloak and Dagger can’t do. It will still be very powerful even if thieves can’t stack stealth with it.

If you truly believe thieves should only be able to maintain stealth by using a lot of different abilities, please make this change as well.

nope. the changes are right. don’t go back on this or else we will be right back to permastealth land.

The nerf to incendiary powder is going to hurt engineer condition damage sigificantly in many builds including elixir – HGH ones. I think if you do this you are obligated to increase raw damage via modified ammunition to offset the loss in a class with already subpar overall DPS output (if you dont want to spam grenades)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1ppoqk/december_10th_balance_preview/

This is the reddit thread that got going. You may find some criticism/advice here too.

Jikuim.1349:

DO NOT change :

Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.

This is a horrendous idea. I don’t even main thief, but you’re going to nerf numerous builds into the ground. Thieves will go from being alright to being completely garbage tier with this change.

Honestly, take it or leave it, but it’s a bad idea.

I dont know what you mean, this change was necessary, and is very good to stop the abuse the stealth mechanic, (=Permastealth).

The bigger problem is, that thieves have furthermore no acceptable condition remove underwater and only 50% of his skills + that condition thieves, lose around 90% their effectivity there.

Kavia.8249:

Warrior healing signet – a big thing missing from the changes was the expected nerf to healing signet. This skill is too good. Nerf the base amount, improving scaling with healing power or the active. Passive play is frustrating your PvP player base.

I don’t see how it’s any more annoying and passive than thiefs that disappear every time they’re low on health just so they can come back with full hp or mesmers that are pretty much untouchable at current state.
If you’re the front of your zerg as a warrior the healing passive is needed and helpful, still not even close to being op when you fight 100 people. However I understand why it’s annoying in 1v1 duels or against warriors that stay behind with longbow.
I think the good way to nerf it would be reducing its healing if a ranged weapon is equipped. Don’t turn this game into another Cataclysm where warriors couldn’t lay hand on rogues while having 0 survivability but also don’t turn it into another MoP where you can’t bring warrior to less than 30% of hp.