Guild Wars 2

So,Mr. JonathanSharp you wanna make the slowest profession in gw2 even more slower?
Why?
And pls dont tell me this is not a nerf.
Instead of pursue SoS,take a look at hammer skills,they really need some love.

JonPeters.5630:

• Earth 5 – Stone Flesh – Increased toughness while attuned to Earth Magic to 1.5/level (120 at level 80).

Hey Jon, with the change to this trait, can we also expect it to finally function correctly with Lingering Elements (Arcana 15), or does the problem not lie in this trait but in Lingering Elements itself?

Thanks cutie!

Doesn’t guardian and ele also have perma vigor?

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Moved to Master tier.

Mesmer and Guardian can have same trait in Adept minor trait.
How is this most powerful trait available to them for only 5 trait to get, but ele have to invest 20 to get not to mention this trait for ele are major one.
Since ele as the squishiest profession in the game, this just don’t make any sense.

Conjure weapon bug been noticed since release, but it patched after teq come out.

Lingering Elements is bugged but not fix yet, it only work on certain trait.

Ele even got the worst skill “Magnetic Current(Trident 3)” in the game, the skill that you can interrupt yourself, pull you to the enemy, and then stun yourself for 2sec.
This skill don’t even do much damage either.

This is crazy, you want to solve the permastealth issue and what you get is destroy permanently other builds.
How many p/p have you seen around? With the changes you will see zero.
More than this, the two lines less used are acrobacy an trickery and you touch them till dead. These lines should be encouraged, since you can not compare tha shadow or critical grandmasteries with those in acrobacy and trickery.
Moving assasin’ s reward to grandmastery kills its possible use and avoids interesting combinations with ricochet. It kills the only option to p/p thieves, who mostly used a 0/0/30/20/20 build based in assasins reward and ricochet. You also kill at the same time the support role by neefing bountiful theft.
You are going to leave just one build viable and kill options to accesory builds.
Should we all go to critical strikes and Shadows or what?
From my point of view:
Reduce the execution time or initiative cost of two pistols’ number 3 shot.
Do not interexchange assasins reward an hard to catch, just improve hard to catch or quick pockets.
Think in how to change one of the two gran,asteries of trickery to make something as interesting as hidden killer or shadow’s rejuvenation.
Support skills and traits in thieves need love not nerfs.

Best,

Haltair, one of the Twelve Shadows

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:
_One of the issues we are working on for thieves this patch is the dependence on the traits which boost initiative. We did this by shaving a significant amount of initiative gain from these traits while simultaneously boosting the generic rate of initiative gain by 33%. We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves by reducing vigor up time and adding some cast time to the Shadow Return skill on the sword. This prevents these thieves from evading too much and too easily dealing with being disabled (stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc.). Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait.

You are dealing with thief like they are other classes.
you forgot that you built thief with no other defense aside from evasion. other classes have invulnerability skills, or access to big heals/protection.

you forgot that thief essentially has no way to deal with being disabled, you realize thief has no stability oustide of 1 elite skill?

you want to make thief less dependent on the acrobatics line for initiative, but then reduce their survivability and place it all in a level 30 grandmaster trait?

as well you want to maintain the identity of classes, but you are lowering the identity of thief as a highly manuevrable evasive class, that has to actively deal with opponents attacks.

There are things that I have to point out, which if you Devs miss while doing these changes, it won’t be balancing but nerfing some of the professions.
I suppose you are meant to weaken the Vigor using but then where is the consistency? Can’t see Vigorous Precision (Guardian, Honor 5), Critical Infusion (Mesmer, Dueling 5), Renewing Stamina (Elementalist, Arcana VI) on the list. Also I always wondered why Guardian, Mesmer and Ranger had minor Adept traits affecting Endurance regeneration while Elementalist has it as a major Adept trait (not to mention Engineer’s Adrenal Implant, later on this).

Signet of Stamina (Warrior) has to be reviewed too, but if its 50% Endurance regeneration boost is reduced then the cooldown has to be reduced too, so players are encouraged to use its active effect, thus making up for the weaker passive effect.
There is also Adrenal Implant for Engineers (Tools XII) but as it is a GM trait, it will definitely have to be moved down if nerfed. Vigorous Scepter (Elementalist, Arcana VII) is kinda okay maybe, as it works only in combat?

Do you guys ever consider PvE when doing balancing?

Take Diamond skin for example. In PvP, yes this is quite easy to counter, but any class can stay above 90% HP quite easily in an optimal team in most situations in the game, thus you’ve basically made a class that’s immune to conditions in all but the hardest parts of th game.

I really hope you consider balancing the game differently between PvP and PvE because they’re completely different game modes ad trying to balance both at the same time is like trying to make chocolate taste nice in a cheese sandwich.

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.

I dont understand how this could help balance. Symbol of Swiftness is very important in PVE and open world. Now lot of people prefer everything else then staff (especialy damage build you want to support) I think this change will make staff abandon in PVE even more.

In the past 12+ months Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina supported all of ele builds,if this 2 traits would go in Master Traits you will kill again Elementalists.

Zephyr’s Speed should be replaced with Renewing Stamina(Guardians and Mesmers have got vigor putting ONLY 5 points, and Guardians don’t need to dodge to evade the damage like Elementalists).
In the past months you nerfed our mobility,our survability but PLEASE don’t nerf also our dodge capacity,the class is not made to TAKE all the damage in the face.
Let Elementalist DODGE,PLEASE.

Lingering Elements should be replaced by Elemental Attunement(maybe with a lower boon duration).
Lingering Elements is bugged since beta,if something doesn’t work correctly,PLEASE replace/delete/change it.

In the Arcana Traits line there are 2 traits that should be merged :
Arcane Mastery and Arcane Energy OR Arcane Mastery and Arcane Retribution,if you merge them these traits will be more usefull and viables.

One With Air #4 Air : 1,5 sec of superspeed is not so helpfully to escape from certain circumstances,PLEASE buff 1,5 sec to 3/4 secs to be really helpfully and viable.

Arcane Shield should reflect projectiles.
Tornado #Elite should destroy projectiles as Swirling Winds Focus #4 Air.

Please don’t put Elemental Attunement and Renewing stamina to master trait,never.

“Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 8s.”
Please don’t do this, S/D thieves do not use this and will only affect S/P and D/P thieves.

Guardian:
Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
Rather useless since we naturally apply fire damage only. I’d prefer fire damage with a chance of 33% on a critical hit. Or everytime you set a foe on fire u also apply bleeding, poison torment etc. Cooldown 15s e. g….

Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
The healing and scaling with healing power is and will be rather useless. I’d prefer a +10% damage instead.

Or make this trait
Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.
applying for GS as well and leave the +5% on Zeal VII – Zealous Blade.

Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse
The problem with this is, that you have to stand for four long seconds in the circle to get the full buff while you want swiftness use to move. Dilemma! I’d change the skill into applaying swiftness and quickness+drawback and remove the symbols damage.

Warrior:
Hammer skills: I would increase the recast and leave the damage and control effects as they are.

Engineer:
Grenade kit: I’d like to see an auto attack at least on skill #1.

Ranger is being nerfed…I don’t know what you’re thinking ANet. I don’t play my ranger too often (due to its current state), I’m on my warrior 90% of the time but this is getting RIDICULOUS.

Please, stop nerfing ranger.

I can understand why you want to nerf necromancer because Dhuumfire/Terror combo can be overwhelming, but I don’t think nerfing mark of blood is the right way to go. Think about all the other alternative builds that don’t go 30 into spite for that combo and need those bleeds since everyone runs a tons of condition removal anyway. Signet of spite nerf is not a bad idea. You could even take away both bleeds and give a short chill effect that would serve a purpose of more control and less raw condition dmg. You could just nerf a burn from dhuumfire a bit. With that, weakining shroud increased recharge time and signet of spite without bleeds things should be more balanced and encourage more build diversity.

Insanity.5174:

In the past 12+ months Elemental Attunement and Renewing Stamina supported all of ele builds,if this 2 traits would go in Master Traits you will kill again Elementalists.

Zephyr’s Speed should be replaced with Renewing Stamina(Guardians and Mesmers have got vigor putting ONLY 5 points, and Guardians don’t need to dodge to evade the damage like Elementalists).
In the past months you nerfed our mobility,our survability but PLEASE don’t nerf also our dodge capacity,the class is not made to TAKE all the damage in the face.
Let Elementalist DODGE,PLEASE.

Lingering Elements should be replaced by Elemental Attunement(maybe with a lower boon duration).
Lingering Elements is bugged since beta,if something doesn’t work correctly,PLEASE replace/delete/change it.

In the Arcana Traits line there are 2 traits that should be merged :
Arcane Mastery and Arcane Energy OR Arcane Mastery and Arcane Retribution,if you merge them these traits will be more usefull and viables.

One With Air #4 Air : 1,5 sec of superspeed is not so helpfully to escape from certain circumstances,PLEASE buff 1,5 sec to 3/4 secs to be really helpfully and viable.

Arcane Shield should reflect projectiles.
Tornado #Elite should destroy projectiles as Swirling Winds Focus #4 Air.

Please don’t put Elemental Attunement and Renewing stamina to master trait,never.

I hope you devs are actually paying attention here. Feedback like this and the countless other positive constructive feedback from the players who have mained said profession should be taken to the heart. We know what works, we know what doesn’t work. Your proposed changes simply do not work and will flat out destroy and kill every single d/d d/f build we have as eles.

You guys should really have a group or couple or devs per profession putting up a post in their prospective profession.( that’s assuming there’s atleast 2-4+ devs per profession that main said prof and nothing else) that way we can go directly to the devs that play our profession and give them the most constructive criticism and feedback we can think of, and nothing gets lost in this mess of a thread you guys started. Seriously guys, you’re breaking so many builds of so many of the professions is literally mind bottling. You need to talk to and get feedback privately from each profession in their respected forums. Do not destroy your game by not listening to is, the people who have been playing our professions since launch and even beta!

Dear Arena Net
Be carefull to make balance changes according to “cryers”, they will cry reavers anyway, thats their hobby.
You cant “balance” it all, dont be another World of Warcraft, trying to build communism among the classes.
Thief has many doungrades such as extremely low HP pool, low PvE damage output (Wars, Mesmers got much more) so we have to go Berserker full only which makes us very hard to survive at serious explo dungeons/high fractals etc.
No condition removal, no ability to stack conditions (except D/D, which dissapears in half of the second) and more.
Thief as a “dagger/assasin” class is a classic glass cannon with stealth mechanics, his dominance in PvP is clear and thats the way it should be, thats our strong side, we are assasins.
DONT RUIN IT, ArenaNet, dont be a cryers babysiter, dont “communise” the balance, every class has its “specialite” – thats the true balance.

These changes look great and very well thought out. Thank you for submitting it beforehand to get player feedback. I would very much like to offer my opinions on the Ranger class and the proposed changes.

• Natural Vigor should not be changed. Rangers are outclassed by pretty much every other class in terms of damage output, but what they do have is their speed and agility. This trait is key to almost every Ranger build out there and this change simply cripples and underclasses the Ranger. In order for a Ranger to get the “too much endurance regeneration” it has to invest trait points into those lines. Just like every other build out there, this means the Ranger must sacrifice other traits to get this survivability. Please don’t remove this cornerstone for Rangers. If this change MUST happen, at the very least, make it a conditional endurance regeneration like, ‘while health is below 50%,’ or a ‘chance on hit,’ but this change really does cripple the Ranger, forcing him to invest even more trait points to get that extra survivability, becoming even more outclassed by every other profession.

• Rangers have to spread their trait points too much to get a nice condition damage build going. Why does a trap ranger have to invest 30 points into Skirmishing, a precision/crit damage line, to get the most out of their traps? Marksmanship and Wilderness Survival are the condition damage lines and trap Rangers would like to see more trap synergy in those lines (ideally, obviously, Wilderness Survival); perhaps the trap traits should be moved to WS.

• Condition Damage Rangers are forced to choose between utilizing shortbow skills or trap skills by having to choose either Quick Draw or Trapper’s Expertise, respectively. Moving Quick Draw to the Marksmanship line and merging it with Piercing Arrows would be an ideal change and would bring the Ranger’s traits in line with the traits of other classes, like the Warrior, and would allow a shortbow/trap Ranger to have a decent build that uses both traits. This would free up room for a new trait in Skirmishing; something more suitable for a Skirmishing build. You could create more synergy for a pet build, like: pets do 5% more damage while wielding a bow, or pets have a higher crit chance (synergizes with Pet’s Prowess). You could also offer more offhand options, like: increase the duration of conditions caused by offhand skills, or offhand skills do 5% more damage. You could also offer some sort of payoff for sword, greatsword, spear Rangers investing into the Skirmishing line, like: chance to grant boon on crit, or conditional damage increase, etc.

Guardian damage changes are lackluster.

Kindled Zeal is a terrible trait for Guardians, we don’t have great access to conditions. burning simply supplements a little damage, it isn’t something a Guardian can focus for with the current Guardian mechanics and the current Amulets available.

13% from 10% is still terrible, it’s an utterly pointless trait. Even if you spent 30 in Zeal you would be better off going for 2 Master traits and ignoring the Grandmaster traits. II, VII and IX are all better than XII.

In fact Kindled Zeal is so bad I wouldn’t even take it if it was an Adept trait!

Also the Necro changes, yes their raw condition dps is FAR too strong, and you propose to change it by removing 2 bleeds, 2 bleeds! from the entire profession. What. What a joke, that will do little to nothing.

The issue with Necro is that they can have debilitating sustained pressure from normal conditions and also bursty spike damage from condition with burning and Terror.

Burning and Terror damage for Necros is what needs to be toned down, that’s what’s out of hand.

And WARRIOR. Your favourite.

HEALING SIGNET.

Healing Signet is the issue, it’s far too strong. It’s the best heal in the game, it’s always ticking heals, and it requires the player to do nothing! In order to get the most constant healing in the game. Terrible design.

If Healing Signet isn’t nerfed then it’s clear how utterly out of touch you are with the game and the problem with Warriors right now, their insane sustainability across all builds with that heal.

hi Jon, thanks for posting this preview with long advance.

Elementalist
I am overall satisfied with all changes, mostly because they will open paths for new builds and won’t force us anymore into water or arcana unless we specifically want to do so. This is good

Pro

• partial (n1) freedom from water and arcana
• in the big picture, Elementalist should now be able to abandon defensive playing only
• the new “passive protection” mechanic (Burning Fire, Diamond Skin, Tempest Defense ecc) is very interesting and may really create a completely new Elementalist meta.
• the overall increment in damage output may finally be noticeable

Cons

• Renewing Stamina was our main source of survivability after our mobility was taken out completely. Moving it to Master Tier will mean that a large portion of players will still “feel” forced to go deep in Arcana

the thread is about Trait Lines, I didn’t mention all the critical topics that make the Elementalist forum so lively (mobility and RTL, mist form, lightning flash, FGS casting time ecc) both because it would be off topic and because I see a positive trend so maybe in the future you will seriously address also these concerns of ours.

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:
One of the issues we are working on for thieves this patch is the dependence on the traits which boost initiative. We did this by shaving a significant amount of initiative gain from these traits while simultaneously boosting the generic rate of initiative gain by 33%. We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves by reducing vigor up time and adding some cast time to the Shadow Return skill on the sword. This prevents these thieves from evading too much and too easily dealing with being disabled (stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc.). Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait. This will reward thieves who are actively engaged in the fight rather than those who are just dodging over and over again. The change to Infusion of Shadow is meant to stop players from gaining initiative by applying stealth while already in stealth. This should keep thieves from being able to recharge all of their power while idling in a very long stealth. 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, especially when gaining large amounts of initiative.

• Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second.
• Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.
• Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.
• Deadly Arts VI – Sundering Strikes. Increased the trigger chance from 50%. Remove ICD. Decrease Vulnerability duration to 6s.
• Critical Strikes VI – Practiced Tolerance. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
• Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.
• Critical Strikes VIII – Signet Use. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Critical Strike X – Critical Haste. Increase trigger chance to 25%.
• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.
• Acrobatics III – Vigorous Recovery. Reduced Vigor duration to 4s from 8s.
• Acrobatics IV – Assassin’s Retreat. Increased swiftness duration to 20s.
• Acrobatics IX – Quick Recovery. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
• Acrobatics XI – Hard to catch. Moved to Master Tier.
• Trickery 5 – Kleptomaniac. Reduce initiative gain from 3 to 2.
• Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.
• Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 8s.
• Trickery VIII – Trickster. Move to Adept tier.
  .

Is April Fools Day early this year? Seriously… have you even looked at what you wrote as being the goal of this “update”… you want to reduce the effectiveness of a thief’s ability to evade? Wasn’t it just last month or so that you guys said “hey we want thieves to be the most mobile and evasive class…” So, I guess that went out the window…. so now, thieves will have less dodge, get hit more, die more often… good call.

RE: Necro changes

Some of it is good, but I really don’t think enough is being done to actually make the Blood and Death lines an attractive choice. I want to spec in them, but right now the sustain and defense gained from them is too low to bother with. One thing that would help is minor traits that were more generalist in Death instead of MM focused; and Blood traits need to just not suck.

Plus I don’t appreciate feeling forced into the faceroll Dhuumfire spec if I want to run conditions, which these changes don’t really help out with.

On staff; while your conclusion from your datamining about how many Necros use it may be that it is a top of the line weapon/skill set; what you may be failing to realize is that thanks to lack of disengage we are forced to carry it for fights where the only safe distance is 1200, as that gives us (barely) time to break off and run early if our screen folds or wanders off chasing a squirrel. We have no other 1200 range weapon options; and we are too slow and do not have enough roots and snares to get away if more than a couple people ignore our melee screen and assist train us at shorter ranges.

So having the staff skills burdened with an exception to mechanics that everyone else to my knowledge gets a blanket pass on (full recharge on interrupt) on top of a major stealth nerf to one of the only good support options the class has (putrid mark; team condition manipulation) seems unnecessarily punitive and detrimental towards viability and diversity. We use staff because of lack of good alternatives, not because it is face-roll easy.

JonPeters.5630:

Necromancer:
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._

DP suggestion:
something for condi…
Dark Path (part I) – Mark a target and put 3 stack of Torment on him.
Activation time: 0, Recharge time: 15, Range: 1200, Mark: 2 sec, Torment: 6 sec
and power necros.
Dark Path (part II) – Drags marked target to you and remove Torment from him.
Activation time: 0, Range: 1600

In my opinion we should sacrifice the DP (one of the worst mobility skills in the game) with something that will help us(necros) with keeping our opponent in the fight. For me this is the biggest problem right now with the necro and one of the easiest way to kill him (i will come back later…).

Last patch you made a couple of QoL changes to warrior and since guardians have similar issues when can we expect them in guardians.

Being stationary when using ring of warding (this was in fact adjsuted on warrior so they can move while using Staggering blow which has the exact same animation)
Being stationary when using zealots defense
Being stationary when placing symbol of wrath
Being stationary when using empower
Shortening the animation on the hammer chain
Same cast time on all symbols

Guardians is by far the worst profession when it comes to in combat mobility and ability to connect/disconnect and the above doesnt contribute positively to that.

So when are you going to adress these QoL issues?

The change to necromancer’s Signet of Spite seems a bit odd, as if it is to shave sources of bleeds, but still leave intact the number of conditions applied.

I’d suggest replacing the 2 stack of bleed with 1 stack of torment, if the necro is using this signet with Target the Weak or with FoC on scepter, then they will likely have bleed already on their target, but changing to torment would be a slight buff while reducing sources of bleeds.

I was hoping Dhuumfire would be getting changed already, it is an oddly designed trait, an on-crit trait in a power tree, the simplest solution is to add 1s of burning to Life Blast, no ICD because it would take fearing an opponent to make them land, but each Life Blast could only apply burn once even if it pierced multiple targets.

To compensate for the increased ICD on Weakensing Shroud, which I’m guessing it is to cut AoE bleeds too but I’m worried about having less access to weakness then, Withering Prescision should be moved down a tier.

Here comes my assessment:

The attunement cooldown buff only profits Elementalists that had no investment in Arcane at all, which – and I am sure about that – is only a insignificant portion of Ele players anyway. Arcane traits are too important right now, Anet makes a false assumption we spec in Arcane for the cooldown. For people that have e.g. 20 points invested, there is no change at all, we are still at 11 seconds. The global cooldown change is insignificant as we hardly fire off only one skill in an attunement line before we change to another anyway.
Although this looks like a buff on paper, it changes nothing for 95% of all Elementalists.

Fire II – Nice change, but it should be an adept trait, because we are in dire need of condition cleaning when this patch hits (see below).

Fire VIII – OK change, but we still give up way too much when using Conjures so they are sup par even after all the small buffs of the past.

Fire III – That would be great if Eles had any chance of a cover condition. Burning usually is the first one cleansed anyway. Additionally, with the short burning durations we have (or the chances to burn continuously) only a very heavy investment in Fire Magic would makes sense (which will no happen – see below)

Burning Rage 25 – Good change to the minor trait, but again: Who goes 25 points in Fire?.

Air V – Soothing Winds. Healing still scales awfully making it the worst of all “conversion traits” the professions have (eyes the Vitality for Power of the Warrior profession). It is not worth taking.

Air XI – Tempest Defense. Good change.

Earth 5 – Stone Flesh – An additional 40 Toughness will not make a huge difference as long as Lingering Elements is buggy and the Ascended Weapon power creep took that away pre-emptively a few weeks ago.

Earth VII – Strength of Stone. – I still believe that condi builds for Eles are not working at the moment + no Ele can make Fire & Earth heavy builds and survive without Water & Arcane.

Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This looks incredible on paper, but taken the fact that pretty much two auto attacks from any profession will take the class with the lowest health pool & armour below 90% just highlights one thing: This trait is useless 90% of the time.

Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. OK, I could live with that.

Water V – Cleansing Wave. This is a game breaker for pretty much every D/D build that is not already spec’ed for full bunker. We are low on Condi removals and with torment condi, Perplexity runes and Immobilization now stacking, Elementalists need that “on demand condition removal” by swapping into Water Magic. Moving it to Master tier does the opposite of what Anet wants with this patch: Taking out the builds that invest in Water & Arcane. To still have access to Cleansing Wave, Eles will need to invest even further into Water Magic.

Water VIII – Arcane Abatement. OK, but this is still a trait you will not take, even in WvW.

Water X – Soothing Wave. This is way too conditional & weak, even at a low tier.

Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Even at 45 seconds (half the recharge now) I don’t see it as a grea move to wait to get to 75% health to get an automated Arcane Power cast .

Arcane IV – Final Shielding. See Arcane Retribution. still not worth it

Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. This will hit us hard, as it is our backbone of getting a boons (which are far from awesome after other classes can strip boons more easily and have “boon hate” traits). Alone, this is not too bad, but it will put us in a position to drop Renewing Stamina (see below)

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Anet wants to take away Vigor boons – or at least their duration) across all classes and that’s where the Ele gets hit. Especially as D/D wielders (low HP & armour described above already) we need to evade more often than other professions. With Elemental Attunement also moved to Master tier we will lose 50% of our dodging ability due to the fact that we can not spec two master traits any more. Anet has not touched e.g. the Mesmer’s Vigor on Crit with their 5 point Critical Infusion – but moved our carbon copy trait from adept to master (?).

Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. It is still bound to work only in combat and does not help staff or dagger wielding builds.

Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. This makes the buffs to staff from the last balance patch even better. Good, but why?

Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. It is still useless, as it is linked to work only in combat. The Warrior has a minor trait that gives him 25% passive speed while wielding ANY melee weapon. Why can’t that work for Elementalists too? Get rid of the “only in combat thing”.

What does this mean for most of the builds?

The combo of the nerfs to Elemental Attunement, Cleansing Wave & Renewing Stamina will most likely result in Eles spec’ing even heavier in Water & Arcane to set off some of the losses to their ability to remove conditions & dodge. We lost survivability & mobility the past year (Nerf to Mist Form, RTL, e.g.), now you are taking away the ability to dodge.

More Eles will switch to Ether Renewal as their healing skill to counter the condition meta. The related effect is that non-staff Ele’s will get slower by not having access to the GoEH swiftness (or any other boon coming from that Glyph). Glyph builds will get even weaker as some might drop the reduced recharge trait for having points to move to Water & Arcane – and this is were the circle closes again.

Instead of providing us with diversity outside Water/Arcane builds, this patch could (or will) limit the numbers of viable builds that provide any survivability even more. The alternative to go to a condi based build is not there, even after changes to the Earth & Fire traits, Glyph builds got worse and D/D builds have lost even more survivability than other weapon setups, although they are the most dangerous to play (they are melee builds & they have not received a damage buff). The issue of the Focus was not addressed at all.

Necromancer:

pretty okay changes, a problem is: Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.

Its not the cooldown or the functionality, its the pet itself. It attacks soooo sluggish and is very unreliable. Please speed up the attack animation by a lot, not the delay between attacks, keep the potential damage at this level, just make it more reliable.

Also could we get some love for the really bad traits? A lot of Grandmaster traits are Minion related, this traits could be replaced for build diversity. Also a few traits are useless because of better alternatives, or a weak effect.
Traits:
Spite 25
Curses XII Withering precision
Death Magic IX Death Shiver
Death Magix XII Necromantic Corruption
Blood Magic – Siphoning Strenght in general
Blood Magic X Quickening Thirst
Blood Magic XI Fetid Consumption
Soul Reaping V Speed of Shadows

And please, for the love of god, replace Dhuumfire. Either as a Torment applying trait of some sort, or to keep the name maybe “+X% Chill duration, chilled targets take damage each second”

Also some random ideas:
A trait that adds damage on block/dodge for our caused cripple or weakness
A trait that siphons life on applying a condition
A trait that heals/siphons life based on a percentage of the lifeforce generation
A trait that adds a damageaura/sec while in Deathshroud
A trait that allows us to get healed by our own spells only while in Deathshroud

Also please a buff or change to Corrosive Poison Cloud? It is outshined by the asura racial skill and also pretty weak in general. Maybe reduce the pulse and condition durations to 1/sec like wells, with a slight damage each second and the ability to “move” the field by using the skill again? The field could slowly crawl into the choosen direction. Not burst like wells, but like a withering spell that adds some pressure / soft area denial. Or some kind of buff / benefit for the necromancer while fighting in this cloud?

Mikau.6920:

Hi, I have some Guardian suggestions!

TRAITS
Zeal

• 15 – Symbolic Exposure: Change the vulnerability duration to 5 sec up from 3. Why: You can get only 2 stacks at same time (during 2 sec) with symbols and it is a very weak trait in my opinion.
• VIII – Focused Mastery: Add a secondary effect, like Shield (+ Thoughness) and Torch (Burn duration) does. Why: This is an underused trait becouse is does not synergy very well with ‘Symbolic Exposure (15)’ becouse only 1 1handed weapons have symbol (mace). Adding a secondary effect can become more interesting to use too.
• IX – Scepter Power: Smite should be a symbol, but changed to “adapt” to its symbol status (to not become too powerful). Why: Like ‘Focused Mastery’ does not synergy at all with Symbolic Exposure becouse it does not have symbols.
• XII – Kindled Zeal: Even increasing the %, it will still be useless, this trait need to be chaged to something else. Why: We only have one condition (burning) that does not scales in group.

Valor

• 15 – Courageous Return: Make it to work when someone revives you (maybe only when downed?) Why: It should trigger if you rally, so, why not when someone revives you?
• VIII – Glacial Heart: Useless. Reduces its cooldown to 10~15 sec. Why: Its cooldown is still insanely high for its chill duration. Also you need to crit to trigger.
• IX – Honorable Shield: Move to Adept tier. Why: The shield is only viable with this trait becouse the shield have too much CD to its effects. Also if you are heavy support (mace+shield) you cannot equip ‘Mace of Justice’ and this trait togheter.
• X – Focused Mind: Change its duration to 5 up from 4 sec. Why: This 1 sec makes all difference between useful and useless. I tested this new trait and in this way the meditations builds with this trait would be more viable, without becoming too powerful.

Virtues

• V – Improved Spirit-Weapon Duration: Remove this trait and apply this effect permanently. Why: The Spirt weapons have too much traits and their uptime (duration / cooldown) is too low (1/3).

UTILITY
Spirit Weapons:
Overal their problem are:

1. A lot of traits related to them (5 in total). Solution: Merge some of they or remove some and apply their effect permanently;
2. They still melt to bosses (this is a problem of all summons). Solution: Make all summons evades when their owner dodges (or add traits to this);
3. Their uptime. They have 2 to 3 times their cooldown compared to their duration, also they still die easy. Solution: Reduce their Cooldown (some argue to make they invul, but I prefer lower CD).
4. Bow: Both Command and its “atks” should scales with healing power (if “A Fire Inside” scales with cond dmg, why it cant scales with healing power?). Also its “atks” should be faster or AoE.

Hallowed Ground: Its CD is still too long, even with the new effect. The major problem of this skill is that it is stationary, so to have 10 sec of stability, you need to stand still (the same problem of Purging Flames). Its CD should be 60 sec to be useful. Wall of Reflection and Sanctuary don’t have this problem becouse you only need to stay behind and not in a specific location.

Purging Flames: Like Hallowed Ground, its CD should be lowered to 25~30s, down from 35s.

Signet of Mercy: Still useless. Its cast time should be 2 sec and its cooldown should be 90~120 sec. It shouldn’t able to revive supervisor / keeps lord. (In my opinion the current use of the skill is just gimmick).

WEAPONS
Mace

• Reduce the cast time from the last hit from #1 to 3/4s, down from 1s;
• Reduce the cast time from #2 to 1s, down from 1 1/4s;
• Makes #3 (if struck) a blast finisher or whirl finisher.

Hammer

• Reduce the cast time from last hit from #1 to 1s, down from 1 1/4s.

Sword

• Make #2 a Leap finisher. If the Staff #2 and sword #2 (Swap) from mesmers are leap, why the guardian’s teleport from sword #2 cant be?

Some add-ons:

Hammer

• Change the #5 to move while casting. (Like warriors)

Shield

• Change the Detonate (sequence of #5) healing scaling to 80% up from 20%. The current scaling is just outrageous!

Gorani.7205:

Here comes my assessment:

The attunement cooldown buff only profits Elementalists that had no investment in Arcane at all, which – and I am sure about that – is only a insignificant portion of Ele players anyway. Arcane traits are too important right now, Anet makes a false assumption we spec in Arcane for the cooldown. For people that have e.g. 20 points invested, there is no change at all, we are still at 11 seconds. The global cooldown change is insignificant as we hardly fire off only one skill in an attunement line before we change to another anyway.
Although this looks like a buff on paper, it changes nothing for 95% of all Elementalists.

Fire II – Nice change, but it should be an adept trait, because we are in dire need of condition cleaning when this patch hits (see below).

Fire VIII – OK change, but we still give up way too much when using Conjures so they are sup par even after all the small buffs of the past.

Fire III – That would be great if Eles had any chance of a cover condition. Burning usually is the first one cleansed anyway. Additionally, with the short burning durations we have (or the chances to burn continuously) only a very heavy investment in Fire Magic would makes sense (which will no happen – see below)

Burning Rage 25 – Good change to the minor trait, but again: Who goes 25 points in Fire?.

Air V – Soothing Winds. Healing still scales awfully making it the worst of all “conversion traits” the professions have (eyes the Vitality for Power of the Warrior). It is not worth taking.

Air XI – Tempest Defense. Good change.

Earth 5 – Stone Flesh – An additional 40 Toughness will not make a huge difference as long as Lingering Elements is buggy and the Ascended Weapon power creep took that away primitively a few weeks ago.

Earth VII – Strength of Stone. – I still believe that condi builds for Eles are not working at the moment + no Ele can make Fire & Earth heavy builds and survive without Water & Arcane.

Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This looks incredible on paper, but taken the fact that pretty much two auto attacks from any profession will take the class with the lowest health pool & armour below 90% just highlights one thing: This trait is useless 90% of the time.

Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. OK, I could live with that.

Water V – Cleansing Wave. This is a game breaker for pretty much every D/D build that is not already spec’ed for full bunker. We are low on Condi removals and with torment condi, Perplexity runes and Immobilization now stacking, Elementalists need that “on demand condition removal” by swapping into Water Magic. Moving it to Master tier does the opposite of what Anet wants with this patch: Taking out the builds that invest in Water & Arcane. To still have access to Cleansing Wave, Eles will need to invest even further into Water Magic.

Water VIII – Arcane Abatement. OK, but this is still a trait you will not take, even in WvW.

Water X – Soothing Wave. This is way too conditional & weak, even at a low tier.

Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Even at 45 seconds (half the recharge now) I don’t see it as a grea move to wait to get to 75% health to get an automated Arcane Power cast .

Arcane IV – Final Shielding. See Arcane Retribution. still not worth it

Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. This will hit us hard, as it is our backbone of getting a boons (which are far from awesome after other classes can strip boons more easily and have “boon hate” traits). Alone, this is not too bad, but it will put us in a position to drop Renewing Stamina (see below)

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Anet wants to take away Vigor boons – or at least their duration) across all classes and that’s where the Ele gets hit. Especially as D/D wielders (low HP & armour described above already) we need to evade more often than other professions. With Elemental Attunement also moved to Master tier we will lose 50% of our dodging ability due to the fact that we can not spec two master traits any more. Anet has not touched e.g. the Mesmer’s Vigor on Crit with their 5 point Critical Infusion – but moved our carbon copy trait from adept to master (?).

Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. It is still bound to work only in combat and does not help staff or dagger wielding builds.

Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. This makes the buffs to staff from the last balance patch even better. Good, but why?

Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. It is still useless, as it is linked to work only in combat. The Warrior has a minor trait that gives him 25% passive speed while wielding ANY melee weapon. Why can’t that work for Elementalists too? Get rid of the “only in combat thing”.

If only we could ensure a dev could see this…

Gorani.7205:

What does this mean for most of the builds?

The combo of the nerfs to Elemental Attunement, Cleansing Wave & Renewing Stamina will most likely result in Eles spec’ing even heavier in Water & Arcane to set off some of the losses to their ability to remove conditions & dodge. We lost survivability & mobility the past year (Nerf to Mist Form, RTL, e.g.), now you are taking away the ability to dodge.

More Eles will switch to Ether Renewal as their healing skill to counter the condition meta. The related effect is that non-staff Ele’s will get slower by not having access to the GoEH swiftness (or any other boon coming from that Glyph). Glyph builds will get even weaker as some might drop the reduced recharge trait for having points to move to Water & Arcane – and this is were the circle closes again.

Instead of providing us with diversity outside Water/Arcane builds, this patch could (or will) limit the numbers of viable builds that provide any survivability even more. The alternative to go to a condi based build is not there, even after changes to the Earth & Fire traits, Glyph builds got worse and D/D builds have lost even more survivability than other weapon setups, although they are the most dangerous to play (they are melee builds & they have not received a damage buff). The issue of the Focus was not addressed at all.

Another well written thought out response… C’mon devs.. Don’t destroy the ele… Listen to us!!!

Part 1/2

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

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

Mesmer:

I’ve played mesmer most out of all my classes. @ 1800 hours so far. It is probably my favorite, but it seems like Anet hates them. There have been so many nerfs over time, and so many issues not addressed. We’ve gotten a few buffs, and some of the “balancing” have been just outright ridiculous.

Here are a few examples:

Decreasing the health of clones in WvW. Are you kidding? Clones died instantly in the past, now they die even faster. This basically means that every trait and build that depends on shattering is useless as the clone needs to be a) near the enemy and b) not die when getting to the enemy. Granted, shatter specs are still viable for roaming, small party combat, but anything larger is just pointless.

Confusion is too powerful, lets cut the damage by 50%. I’m sure you’ve heard enough complaints about this move. This is a condition that does 0 damage if you don’t do anything, whereas a condi-necro can do hundreds of damage/second in bleeds. Because it requires player action, it should do more damage than regular conditions, like bleeds or poison. Some of the biggest issues were the fact that it procced off things the player couldn’t control, like dodging skills, health drop traits, etc. These were fixed, so why the need to keep the 50% confusion nerf? This basically killed any build around confusion.

" Before this change mesmers needed to place 25 points into Illusions for many of their builds."

I find this silly. I have come up with so many great builds that don’t rely on this. Before, it was almost always a must because it only cost 5 trait points. Like every other nerf to this class, it seamed extreme. Now you’re bringing it back to where it should have been to begin with, in the master line.

“Finally, we felt that the Mantra traits were fairly difficult to collect.”

How so? Mantra build: 30/20/0/20/0 or 20/30/0/20/0 or 30/30/0/10/0 Those are some great mantra builds. Of course, if you want to make it easier, great! But it doesn’t seem that way. You just swapped a few of the traits.

“The bulk of the mesmer changes are focused on two things. 1) Bringing up some of the mesmer support traits and condition removal traits.”

You just did this in the last patch with Mantra of Concentration and Mantra of Resolve. That was a HUGE buff. Also, mesmer mantra healing is one of the best in the game considering how much it heals with nothing put into healing power except for the 20 points in inspiration. That trait line also grants regeneration to allies with phantasms. But hey, if you want to be able to make them even more supportive, great. Just as long as you don’t screw up my great mantra build of 30/20/0/20/0.

Proposed changes:

Confounding Suggestions: I admit, as much as I’ve played this game, and the mesmer, I’ve never traited into this. Probably because the description is really confusing. If an enemy is dazed, who cares if they are stunned too? Is the stun applied after they are dazed? Does a stun breaker cancel both? Too much to test, and there are better things to trait into in this line anyway that provide guaranteed damage.

Protected Mantras and Mantra Mastery: Um, ??? Who cares if you switched these? If someone is going for a pure mantra build, they might want to still trait into both of these. Granted, I may rather have the higher dps from Mantra Mastery than the defense from Protected Mantras, but in WvW, having that higher toughness when channeling is a life saver. I may have to go for it anyway and drop Harmonious Mantras, which I really don’t want to do. Before, it was a no brainer for me. Harmonious Mantras trumped mantra mastery every time.

These patch ideas summed up in a few points: Thieves are dead in wvw/pvp. Most warriors will switch to condi builds since there is still no nerf healing signet/adrenal healing. No matter how much you buff mantras, the 2.75s cast time will always make they useless in wvw/spvp outside of specific circumstances. Guardians are still too heavily reliant on valor/honor trait lines for survivability. Condi eles are going to be insane, and fighting an ele as a condi class is going to be worse than fighting a warrior. Engies and necros will still fly high in condi/bunker builds. Rangers still have no reliable aoe damage outside of traps, keeping them at their same level of uselessness in a group when compared to virtually every other damage class.

All I resulting from this patch is a massive reduction in the amount of thieves, and a massive increase in the amount of people playing condi builds on warriors/eles. You (Anet) are still not working to address the issue with how powerful the current condi meta is, despite repeatedly stating that there needs to be a reduction in the amount of control/damage that condi builds can put out. Simply buffing the condi removal abilities of certain classes still does not address the issue of how powerful certain fully specced condi classes are at both aoe damage, control, and sustain/survivability. All it does is pigeon hole those classes into running those traits/utilities and cause hybrid dps/condi builds to become completely worthless. This just leads to extremely predictable and boring builds and gameplay.

Part 2/2

Chaotic Transference: Huge buff, but not really needed. Yes, in PvE, condi builds will kill faster. PvP, condi builds will be more powerful. Maybe this is to make up for the confusion nerf. But in WvW, condi builds are, for the most part, not used due to the plethora of cleanses. Also, there are only 2 weapons designed for condition damage, the scepter/torch and staff. However, the staff’s damage relies on clones. Clones die instantly in WvW unless you are fighting 1v1 or very small groups.

Mirror of Anguish: A much needed cooldown reduction. It still may not be enough for people to use this in favor of other traits, such as Master of Manipulation, Illusionary Defense, Debilitating Dissipation, or Chaotic Dapening.

Mender’s Purity: This is a huge buff. I already tried to work this into most of my builds unless I was a clone generating, small op build. Between this and Mantra of Resolve and Harmonious Mantras, mesmers will be OP. I’m already running with 9 cleanses. Hey, if you want to bump it up to 12, fine.

Shattered Conditions: Huge buff. Again, useless in WvW with the clone life thing unless roaming, etc.

Illusion Traits: 15 and 25. I don’t think this really will have a big impact as people mostly go for the actual traits they can choose. With the other moves, you’ve basically made it so that confusion glamour specs can be build by not having 30 in illusions. Before, a glamour spec would provide only 10 extra trait points. Now there would be 20. However, with the confusion nerf, this build just isn’t viable anymore.

In Closing:

The mesmer is already a very diverse class. I don’t think you’ve given people enough time to really try some of the newer changes you’ve made. Keep in mind that many of the reasons people don’t build the way the class obviously wants you to is because it just isn’t viable. For example, there are great builds around interruptions. However, interrupts are unreliable and therefore a waste of traits and a loss of dps.

Mantras are already very powerful with the changes you’ve made already. If you buff them to the extent that you are proposing, then I see most mesmers going this route. This will only decrease the build diversity you want. Give people time to play with these changes and discover them for themselves rather than beat them over the head by saying “Hey, we love mantras! You should, too!”

For the love of God, please, please, please fix Temporal Curtain’s swiftness.

Instead of buffing or nerfing clone life, why not make them invulnerable when the player hits an F1-4 skill, thereby guaranteeing that skill will actually do something, rather than be nullified by a well, mark, lava font, or any ranged skill. I think that is an excellent suggestion. Because clones die instantly, I almost never ever hit these skills (unless i’m shatter specish doing small ops stuff). That seems like a flaw inherent in the mechanics of shattering itself and the class.

Treborlavok.3504:

Gorani.7205:

What does this mean for most of the builds?

The combo of the nerfs to Elemental Attunement, Cleansing Wave & Renewing Stamina will most likely result in Eles spec’ing even heavier in Water & Arcane to set off some of the losses to their ability to remove conditions & dodge. We lost survivability & mobility the past year (Nerf to Mist Form, RTL, e.g.), now you are taking away the ability to dodge.

More Eles will switch to Ether Renewal as their healing skill to counter the condition meta. The related effect is that non-staff Ele’s will get slower by not having access to the GoEH swiftness (or any other boon coming from that Glyph). Glyph builds will get even weaker as some might drop the reduced recharge trait for having points to move to Water & Arcane – and this is were the circle closes again.

Instead of providing us with diversity outside Water/Arcane builds, this patch could (or will) limit the numbers of viable builds that provide any survivability even more. The alternative to go to a condi based build is not there, even after changes to the Earth & Fire traits, Glyph builds got worse and D/D builds have lost even more survivability than other weapon setups, although they are the most dangerous to play (they are melee builds & they have not received a damage buff). The issue of the Focus was not addressed at all.

Another well written thought out response… C’mon devs.. Don’t destroy the ele… Listen to us!!!

We need official threads in each of the profession forums.

Please do not change the Symbol of Swiftness in this way:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Dec-Patch-Symbol-of-Swiftness-Improvement/first#post3136874

I only speak for 2 classes I know well. I also speak from WvW stand point.

Ranger: #1 issue with ranger is condition removal. You need to fix way it works, it relies on pet that can either be dead or too far away to actually remove any conditions. Only other option is a stand still heal skill. These are all death sentences in current condition fest you got going on. Until condition spam gets toned down you need to give ranger a reliable way to remove conditions and more options. Nerfing Natural Vigor will only make things way worst as currently it is only thing keeping rangers alive in WvW.

Ranger is worst class in game due to the whole pet system. One suggestion to help was make pets dodge when you dodge. I personally really want option to totally disable pet and get some form of DPS compensation. In b4 play another class replies.

Guardian: Move traits around to different trees so it actually makes sense, specifically symbol traits. It has been said a million times before. Remove Revenge of the Fallen and Strength of the Fallen, NO ONE uses these EVER, totally worthless. Guardian needs speed more than anything else, replace one of those traits above for speed trait, and symbol swiftness change makes zero sense.

Glacial Heart has so much potential… Guardian could really use more chill skills and traits to help keep up with all kiting they get. Guardian needs a second condition badly, until that happens condition guard will be worst condition class in game. Kindled Zeal will continue to be totally worthless even after you “buff” it until that happens.

Zealots Defense is currently one of worst attacks in game. It roots you and cant hit anything moving or more than a arms length away. It works in only 2 instances, when someone is running at you in a straight line or when someone is in downed state. I guess you could count someone afk as one instance as well. At least you guys listened to me about scepter auto attack, hopefully this will be fixed and not fallen on deaf ears.

tl;dr
Ranger needs reliable condition removal or extra condition removal.
Guardian needs most traits moved around, access to speed, and 2nd condition.

Gorani.7205:

Here comes my assessment:

The attunement cooldown buff only profits Elementalists that had no investment in Arcane at all, which – and I am sure about that – is only a insignificant portion of Ele players anyway. Arcane traits are too important right now, Anet makes a false assumption we spec in Arcane for the cooldown. For people that have e.g. 20 points invested, there is no change at all, we are still at 11 seconds. The global cooldown change is insignificant as we hardly fire off only one skill in an attunement line before we change to another anyway.
Although this looks like a buff on paper, it changes nothing for 95% of all Elementalists.

Fire II – Nice change, but it should be an adept trait, because we are in dire need of condition cleaning when this patch hits (see below).

Fire VIII – OK change, but we still give up way too much when using Conjures so they are sup par even after all the small buffs of the past.

Fire III – That would be great if Eles had any chance of a cover condition. Burning usually is the first one cleansed anyway. Additionally, with the short burning durations we have (or the chances to burn continuously) only a very heavy investment in Fire Magic would makes sense (which will no happen – see below)

Burning Rage 25 – Good change to the minor trait, but again: Who goes 25 points in Fire?.

Air V – Soothing Winds. Healing still scales awfully making it the worst of all “conversion traits” the professions have (eyes the Vitality for Power of the Warrior). It is not worth taking.

Air XI – Tempest Defense. Good change.

Earth 5 – Stone Flesh – An additional 40 Toughness will not make a huge difference as long as Lingering Elements is buggy and the Ascended Weapon power creep took that away primitively a few weeks ago.

Earth VII – Strength of Stone. – I still believe that condi builds for Eles are not working at the moment + no Ele can make Fire & Earth heavy builds and survive without Water & Arcane.

Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This looks incredible on paper, but taken the fact that pretty much two auto attacks from any profession will take the class with the lowest health pool & armour below 90% just highlights one thing: This trait is useless 90% of the time.

Water I – Aquamancer’s Alacrity. OK, I could live with that.

Water V – Cleansing Wave. This is a game breaker for pretty much every D/D build that is not already spec’ed for full bunker. We are low on Condi removals and with torment condi, Perplexity runes and Immobilization now stacking, Elementalists need that “on demand condition removal” by swapping into Water Magic. Moving it to Master tier does the opposite of what Anet wants with this patch: Taking out the builds that invest in Water & Arcane. To still have access to Cleansing Wave, Eles will need to invest even further into Water Magic.

Water VIII – Arcane Abatement. OK, but this is still a trait you will not take, even in WvW.

Water X – Soothing Wave. This is way too conditional & weak, even at a low tier.

Arcane III – Arcane Retribution. Even at 45 seconds (half the recharge now) I don’t see it as a grea move to wait to get to 75% health to get an automated Arcane Power cast .

Arcane IV – Final Shielding. See Arcane Retribution. still not worth it

Arcane V – Elemental Attunement. This will hit us hard, as it is our backbone of getting a boons (which are far from awesome after other classes can strip boons more easily and have “boon hate” traits). Alone, this is not too bad, but it will put us in a position to drop Renewing Stamina (see below)

Arcane VI – Renewing Stamina. Anet wants to take away Vigor boons – or at least their duration) across all classes and that’s where the Ele gets hit. Especially as D/D wielders (low HP & armour described above already) we need to evade more often than other professions. With Elemental Attunement also moved to Master tier we will lose 50% of our dodging ability due to the fact that we can not spec two master traits any more. Anet has not touched e.g. the Mesmer’s Vigor on Crit with their 5 point Critical Infusion – but moved our carbon copy trait from adept to master (?).

Arcane VII – Vigorous Scepter. It is still bound to work only in combat and does not help staff or dagger wielding builds.

Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. This makes the buffs to staff from the last balance patch even better. Good, but why?

Arcane IX – Windborne Dagger. It is still useless, as it is linked to work only in combat. The Warrior has a minor trait that gives him 25% passive speed while wielding ANY melee weapon. Why can’t that work for Elementalists too? Get rid of the “only in combat thing”.

Reposting for visibility. Have the devs make official threads in each prof forums to clear up this clutter from every prof trying to give you guys great feedback like the user I quoted!

Sorry if all of these were mentioned before, but I’ve got no time now to read all 14 pages.

engineer

Explosives

Looking at pve only, since I’m not playing pvp since 2 months.
Moving incendiary powder to master trait, in my opinion, will force grenadier engis to take shrapnel on adept. It’ll possibly be a little nerf to 10/30/x/x/x builds, but maybe people will live with that. Another thing, when engis will start taking more shrapnels to pve necros will be a bit sad. same with thiefs. Both of these classes doesn’t have burning, so it mostly stack with guardians and eles burning, and possibly with rangers.

I would love to see redisign of acidic elixirs, since thrown elixirs still are a bit bugged (using hgh in alchemy, tooltip says throwing elixir should give 2 stack of might, but they only give one stack of might). Maybe giving a bit longer duration on thrown elixirs (longer boons, thrown elixir u effect and stealth would be useful). With longer cooldowns I see no point in using acidic elixirs now. For any boss with boons mesmer is still far more useful than engi will ever be.
Acidic elixirs should be more supportive – it’s no use in power / precision /cit damage or power / precision / condis. Engi easily stack 20 stacks of vuln without this one.

In adept trait, after a change, it’s most likely people will choose shrapnel or forceful explosives.

Inventions

autotool installation – great for turret builds, but with aoe burst it can still be not enough.

Just a though – why not creating a trait similar to Kit Refinement, but for destroyed turrets? Or 2 second quickness on detonating turrets by yourself with 20 seconds cooldown?

Elixir infused bombs – cool change for wvw healing builds.

necromancer

I don’t play my necro as much as I used too, because of my love to engi, but still have few words.

Soul Reaping II – I feel it can be a bit too much. In my death shroud based build I can maintain in ds for pretty long time, with this change it’ll come to mindless mark spam -> ds #1, ds#4, ds#5.

JonPeters.5630:

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.

Balance assumes also a trade -off. And if i agree with permastealth nerf i don’t undertand why nerf some sets, improve some useless traits and not skills/utilities and traits that can be really useful.

A better ini regen doesn’t mean more builds variety since builds and skills are always the same.
Try to fix them for real and then come back and talk to us about balance. But not in this way becouse seems more a joke.

Cheers.

Cmon.. why everyone crying about healing signet?? if they remove warrior healing signet warrior doesnt have anything after that. and plz anet dont listen most of these pve guys its really annoying. u should ask top pvp player and their opinion too !

What about more active condition removal for rangers ? What about pet durability in WvW ?

I have mixed feelings about the Ele changes.

Fire:
I believe you wanted to make fire more interesting for condition based elementalist.
This one was a good change!

Air:
I also like the Air changes, now I have to decide between more heal or lower glyph cd (because its important for WvW).
XI buff will be really strong in PvP based areas.

Earth:
5 is nice to have
The conversion of toughness into condition damage is now by far more easy to access, awesome!

Water: (Here starts, what makes me thinking)
Water V, was it really necessary to move this trait into the master tier?
Because it was always okay to have this trait in the adept line!
I dont like that this trait will switch the place with Water X, this will force players pretty much to put more points into Water, to access an really important trait.
The adept tier hasn’t any useful WvW support then, I dont like this.

Arcane:
Blasting staff, vigorous scepter and windborne dagger into adept tier is by far a really really good move!
And because of this switch, I think that the move of V into the master tier is okay then.

But elementalists still need alot of points into arcane, to switch attunements as often as possible. Its great to reduce the colldown and the global cooldown, but otherthink the recharge rate of 1% per point! Rather reduce to 1,5 or something, because when we put 30 points into arcane, then our attunement recharge time is already high!
We need lower recharge rates!

1. Can we please have a test server

2. Can we please have an updated Test trait calculator for the proposed trait changes with tooltips that update so we can crunch some ##

3. Can you advise statistics on current active accounts on how many unique individual players played spvp in the last 14 days, and how many played wvw and how many pve

If you base your changes on spvp as it seems what data are you using to justify, or are you basing this on a ‘business as usual’ procedure irrespective of actual gameplay demographics and just following what management procedure was set in play years ago during development?

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. 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

Hi Jon, it’s nice to see you here on a weekend, it shows you care.

Now about the Thief changes, at first it was a shock to me the 50% cut on init regen traits but I guess with the passive increase on natural regen… well i gotta wait and play with it BUT the init regen traits will become insignificant and no one will use them besides maybe the shadow arts one. Basically thieves will have even less useful traits to play with unless you are adding other effects to this traits were the init regen is the secondary effect.

The Vigor nerf imo is a big hit, thieves all around with whatever spec they use, all rely on dodge to stay alive, basically you are cutting in half the thieves survivability and forcing them into x/p keep blinding ppl to avoid being obliterated…

You are “Shaving” thieves with a katana…

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Damaskinos.1263:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

AgentChaos.4932:

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

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

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

In many cases the symbol of swiftness change is actually a buff and not a nerf. Currently it will only apply the initial large portion of swiftness if the target does not currently have any swiftness on them. If they have swiftness on them or after that first pulse it will then add 1 second of swiftness per pulse. This is very awkward and clunky.

The change makes the spell apply a consistent 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse without the strange hidden mechanic. Basically. if you already have swiftness on the people which you using the symbol on or if you take the time to stand in the spell for the full duration then it will just be a buff. =)

But if i am right we will have to stand full duration on symbol for benefit from this buff and that is entirely against purpose of swiftness. What is better? Wait to move faster or just go and get where want in same time i would still wait for full swiftness? :-)
This change will really hurt guardian in dungeons, open world an WvW.

I’m dissapointed you didn’t change anything about the healing-signet. We know warrior need defense in order to be a melee. However, Healing-Signet creates a very passive and cheesy play. It’s boring to see bad warriors are able to perform that well, just because they have an utility in their slot with such a high impact and which doesn’t require no skill in order to succeed.

You should really start to focus and reduce the passive play to bring up the fun-factor of this game. It is not fun to play against Minion-Mancers, CC-Warriors or Spirit-Rangers. All people hate these cheesy builds . . .

Sephius.2876:

As a warrior, I’m happy with these changes. But really what I’d LOVE to see is a slight change for Arcing Slice (F1 burst). Even if something like on 3 adrenaline bars it’s 100% crit chance on hit. That would be fine. Just something. ANYTHING. At the moment it’s a waste of an awesome animation.

Swap it with 100 blades, then it is a real burst skill?

Gorani.7205:

… Although this looks like a buff on paper, it changes nothing for 95% of all Elementalists …

I do not know whether we agree or disagree. It looks like an “ataboy” that reads like a complaint. If old builds are preserved, while new build options emerge, then that is good right? People who go deep in Arcana and love it are scantly affected, I agree.

I am very vocal about Ele issues, and, though I do not agree that Ele has been in a good place since launch, thereby being denied buffs; rather, nerfed, I do congratulate the devs for recognizing one major obstacle to refreshing balance after the many changes. Is it too soon to say I love you guys? Maybe that is too much. I don’t know. I was recently infracted for supposedly having slighted devs. I am not sure what that was about. Maybe sarcasm or something. Anyways, you are working to reestablish trust with the Ele community. Bravo! You have a long way to go.

Its not the balance….

Its the fact that there is no

1. NO SYSTEM (A good Team Ladder)
2. NO REWARDS
3. NO TITLES

Balancing will always be just an endless circle.
Get these things in place first.

Will be nice if Ncsoft could find few spare bucks and hire some IT freshman for 2h and ask him to fix TP. Sorting 30 minutes threw all class armors looking for heavy its more then annoying. I spend more time looking for armor for my chars then it take to add 1 extra box to GUI.

150 ppl laggy closed world its not an open world.