Guild Wars 2

Xentari.5604:

JonPeters.5630:

Diamond Skin
We really love this trait as it opens up some very powerful potential in the earth line to run a defensive elementalist without relying on healing power. The strength of this build is going to be the ability to quickly string small heals together to maintain that condition resistance. I think it could see use in both high damage builds looking to avoid weakness and blind, as well as in defensive builds looking to tank condition heavy classes and condition heavy mobs. I think the big question here is the base health/armor of the elementalist. Of course if you are just an elementalist you just want us to raise these, but balance must work around some fixed things and profession health and armor are an important part of defining what a profession is so that we can create powerful tools that players can actively use to circumvent these weaknesses. In this case if this trait is not powerful enough to be a grandmaster, I believe the right answer is going to be to lower the threshold, not to increase elementalist base health.

I feel like, at the very least, Diamond Skin should give some sort of visual cue to avoid being detrimental to the builds other condi classes run. Similar to how when a warrior pops Endure Pain, you can see it on their buff bar. This allows classes to respond (i.e: don’t dump your entire burst on a warr who is just going to negate all the damage). Without this small change, Diamond Skin would forever be unpredictable and basically considered OP by the community at large.

I’m loving most of the Ele changes though. I’m also very thankful you guys at Anet are sharing this with the community. Good luck with the fine-tuning!

there wont be a visual que because it is a passive trait which means it is always on until they hit <90%. it is not hard to stay above 90% when you are a bunker w/ clerics ammy and put up against a full condition build when you have something so OP as diamond skin

daros.3407:

My opinion is that they wanted increase guard dmg in PVP but they forget a little for PVE here.

This is probably true. I wish they would just balance separately for PvP and PvE and be done with it.

daros.3407:

What worries me is staff change. I said why in this threat already .I hope they will reconsider it. Maybe they mean it as buff but actualy it is big nerf for everyone who use staff for faster traveling. And that is probably majority of staff users (i said probably, so i can be wrong. It is just my experience) Guardian already has low mobility, with that change he would have nothing to sustain good mobility. Waiting for full swiftness duration is counterproductive as complaining on buffs :-D

Personally I only use staff for wvw and/or mob skipping in dungeons and in that case I always have “retreat” slotted anyway. It’s an odd change but not a dealbreaker.

Guard has much better mobility than mes or engi (soon to be just mes). My mes is a horribly slow compared to my guard.

Kind of curious as to what happened to a post on the thief forum requesting for a live stream of a dev playing a thief (the way a thief is meant to be played).

It wouldn’t be very interesting. It would just be 15 minutes of a Thief running face first into a wall.

transtemporal.2158:

daros.3407:

My opinion is that they wanted increase guard dmg in PVP but they forget a little for PVE here.

This is probably true. I wish they would just balance separately for PvP and PvE and be done with it.

This cannot be repeated enough. So many (I hesitate to say “all,” but I really want to) of these changes negatively impact PvE. So. Very. Many.

There absolutely needs to be a split between the two, particularly if the “balance” philosophy remains doggedly focused on PvP. I’ve watched so many Thief and Necro builds collapse because of this uneven balance philosophy.

Unlike the Living Story Collaborative Design thread, I just don’t have enough time to even skim through the rest of the thread, so I’m just going to keep to me own observations without concerning myself over what other people may have said.

On the whole, this looks pretty good. The main thing that stands out, though, is this:

I’m concerned at what the change to Critical Strikes 15 (Opportunist) will do to Pistol/Pistol thieves in PvE, if not counterbalanced by other changes.

With other weapon sets, I’m fairly confident the change will have the desired result – shortening the gap between builds that have Opportunist and builds that don’t. The same will be true with P/P, of course, but P/P is already a weak competitor in PvE – I mostly use it in boss fights when the ability to keep up constant, Opportunist-fueled Unloads is an asset, particularly when paired with Signet of Malice. In isolation, that sounds like an overpowered and degenerate style of play, but the issue is… it really isn’t. Many thief players I’ve talked to in forums have shown the opinion that this isn’t worth taking P/P for even in optimal circumstances, and that the thief should exclusively rely on shortbow even in circumstances where it isn’t fully optimal – such as fighting single, powerful targets.

The issue is that nerfing perma-Unload… isn’t really leaving P/P with much to show for itself. Body Shot and Head Shot are situational and not really things you hang a build on, while Black Powder is generally more useful for melee builds. Without improving P/P in some other way to compensate, I could see this making running P/P hard to justify.

(On the whole, the changes are probably going to make me have to reconsider my entire current setup on my thief – but that in itself probably isn’t a bad thing. Changing things around occasionally keeps things interesting.)

On some of the other changes that have been made:

Elementalist: Moving Conjurer to Adept tier on the Elementalist looks like it’ll be a good move for increasing build diversity for conjure Elementalists – requiring 20 was expensive when it wasn’t clear that the fire adept traits did much for a conjure specialist, and from my observation I don’t think it’s SO good as to require a 10 point tax.

Engineer: The change to Modified Ammunition looks interesting. Moving Incendiary Powder to Master, however… I’d guess it’s been done to make Accelerant-Packed Turrets more available to turret builds, but I suspect it’s going to kill Incendiary Powder entirely – builds that invest a lot into Explosives are probably going to have better things to put into the master slot, and the builds that currently consider using IP likely won’t find much use for the adept trait and a ten point trait tax is just going to be too much to justify. Not sure what you can do here, since the other adept traits you currently have in Explosives are probably even worse candidates for being moved up to Master, but I suspect this will be a case of reviving one trait at the cost of killing another.

Mesmer: Moving Illusionist’s Celerity down should promote more build diversity. As a 5 point trait it probably was too cheap, but Illusions was a good enough line back then that 30 points in Illusions was a popular build, and requiring 25 points for a minor that has so much significance in almost any mesmer build made 30 points in Illusions all but mandatory. Paring it back should allow x/x/x/x/20 builds to come back into play.

Ring.6928:

username.4932:

Disapointing to see Anet asking feedback and doing the exact opposite of the community feedback, they are just spitting in our face.

How the hell do you think gardian community asked for more DPS (everyone asks supports and heal buff) ?

How the hell can’t you read the reports everywhere about healing power stuff being useless and people willing to use it for something really useful ?

What’s the point asking user feedback if you don’t read it ?

This.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH9JjnaW3rE

like my friend said, Warriors, better guardians than guardians.

This video demonstrates absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to convince you of that via forums. However, a class using defensive cooldowns and dodges, then running back to guards in order to avoid pressure from auto-attacks and a few conditions, if anything, proves that this build is actually much worse than Guardians.

I prefer you guys are better to stop the try to nerf and buff on same patch, JP.

just a buff dead traits and fix rune bugs(ex.strength rune’s 6th tier effect) and TEST BEFORE RELEASE. don’t try to nerf OP build.

I’m really sorry to say it but seems like you guys don’t understand whats going on in top thru mid tier tPvP, at most of point.
once again, work simple. don’t try to work to multi profs at once if you say you guys have limited time.

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. =)

I’ll reserve judgment on this one, but surely it will suck for the solo Guardian those times he’s running to catch up with folk, or when he just needs to get about by himself. Maybe only apply this change in wvw and pvp and when grouped, ha ha

But love the new preview threads. Best thing you guys have done in a long time!

JonPeters.5630:

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Jon,

I like a lot of where you’re going with the Guardian here, but I am a little concerned about the Symbol of Swiftness change. Not as a matter of balance but just as a quality of life issue. 4 seconds of swiftness on a 15 second cooldown is pretty much useless as a means of traveling for a solo Guardian, and the symbol is one of the better ways for Guardians to get around. Having to stop and stand in the symbol to get the full ticks of swiftness while traveling long distance is just going to be counter productive and annoying. And I don’t like the idea that this skill is being balanced around the zerg rather than solo players who probably are only running one source of swiftness to begin with.

Mattargul.9235:

“Guards: 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.”
That’s a sucky change. Not only are you not “fixing” the addition of swiftness from the symbol if you already have swiftness, you are reducing the base swiftness applied?

How is this helping your stated goal of “We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be.” An extra 4s of AOE swiftness would have made them OP? Biggest issue for damage guards is in-combat mobility. Adding more damage isn’t helping you if you can’t catch what you are trying to hit.

If at least the 4s would stack additively for the duration of the field it would still serve some support roles, like speeding up yaks.

I think you misread it. They are saying that instead of 8 seconds of swift or one additional if you already have it, that it will now give 4 secs of swift per pulse, so if you stay in it for 3 pulses you will get 12 secs of swiftness.

Engineer: •Explosives V – Incendiary Powder. Moved to Master tier.
This trait is overpowered for for adept right now currently i aggre. But it is in an explosives line. For ppl that use elixirs, this is an important trait to invest in to get a bit of power and for the much needed damge to pistols and rifle. Instead of forcing a 20 pts investment to get it while no other traits in the line really fit nonkit builds will actually negate some good build options. Instead i think it should be something along the lines of: Pistol and Rifle attacks have a 30% chance on Crit to cause Burning (2s) Cd of 8-10 secs (or even keep on all crits but with the prerequisites). This will give elixir users a source of reasonable damage while still being able to invest into firearms and a defensive tree.
Guardian:Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.
I feel this is a bad idea as the fact that Kindled Spirit and Fiery Wrath have great senergy with this trait and is very effective in this trait line. I feel taking away on one of the few sources of burning (the only condition Guard has really) is a bad idea and will make Kindled Spirit and Fiery Wrath MUCH less effective seeing as were trying to get more damage out of this line.
•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.
This is the source of mobility that many guardians sacrifice a second damage set in order to keep up with party movement and asking them to stand in they symbol to get decent boon duration is out of line for the support the staff provides and seriously hinders the effectiveness of this skill. Most guardians will agree that they cherrish this skill exactly how it is if not willing to argue that a couple more seconds would be better.
Necromancer: •Mark of Blood. Removed 1 bleed in PvP only.
•Signet of Spite: Removed one bleed.
These are trivial changes as they can be removed from a single condition removal and aren’t really that great as they.
•Spite X – Chill of Death. Increased trigger threshold from 25% to 50%
This trait is great as it is although the real problem that it doesn’t trigger when it is supposed to and that is what should be changed. This trait is good for a Necros finishing off an enemy as it is at 25% that most are gonna being using thier regen, prot, etc. and this allows the Necro to assure the kill before the other much more mobile classes can make their retreat. It is great as it is imo and changing the proc to 50% will much reduce it’s effectiveness.
*Dhuumfire should be changed all together and many Necros agree with this. Several other professions have access to burning and it is kind of out of place as the paradigm of Necros cc style of play. I believe this could be changed to Dhuum’s Malice: 25-30% chance to inflict 3stacks of Torment for 3s on Crit. This fit’s into the Necro’s cc style of play and works well with conditions and has senergy with Necro’s other sources of Torment but can removed with one cond. remove.
These are just a few of the ideas i have and many of the other professions have been well adressed already.
Thank you for your consideration and +1 if you like these ideas.
I’m very excited to see youtube builds heading to the wayside and the creativity of the community being given the chance to put their brains to work to come up with some fresh ideas, as many ppl seem very stuck on what they’ve alway done without any investigations into other practical builds. Thieves are not doomed everyone. They are so great right now and they’re not dead. S/d, P/d, and D/p are all overrated and thieves are capable of some other great builds. I main a P/P thief that wrecks. Warriors will be fine too.

It would be nice if The Prestige on mesmer torch worked the same as other delayed blast finishers where it charges the finisher on cast on the field, then actually releases the blast at the end of the cloak, similar to how churning earth works.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Mattargul.9235:

“Guards: 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.”
That’s a sucky change. Not only are you not “fixing” the addition of swiftness from the symbol if you already have swiftness, you are reducing the base swiftness applied?

How is this helping your stated goal of “We do feel that damage guardians are not as powerful as they could be.” An extra 4s of AOE swiftness would have made them OP? Biggest issue for damage guards is in-combat mobility. Adding more damage isn’t helping you if you can’t catch what you are trying to hit.

If at least the 4s would stack additively for the duration of the field it would still serve some support roles, like speeding up yaks.

I think you misread it. They are saying that instead of 8 seconds of swift or one additional if you already have it, that it will now give 4 secs of swift per pulse, so if you stay in it for 3 pulses you will get 12 secs of swiftness.

The problem with this is it requires you to stand still while using your mobility skill! O.o

JonPeters.5630:

Starfall.6813:

JonPeters.5630:

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Jon,

I like a lot of where you’re going with the Guardian here, but I am a little concerned about the Symbol of Swiftness change. Not as a matter of balance but just as a quality of life issue. 4 seconds of swiftness on a 15 second cooldown is pretty much useless as a means of traveling for a solo Guardian, and the symbol is one of the better ways for Guardians to get around. Having to stop and stand in the symbol to get the full ticks of swiftness while traveling long distance is just going to be counter productive and annoying. And I don’t like the idea that this skill is being balanced around the zerg rather than solo players who probably are only running one source of swiftness to begin with.

Math wise you can now sit in the symbol for 3 seconds with boon duration and end up with 9 seconds of swiftness which is more than you would have had before. I do still think it may need to be 5 seconds to account for the fact that you only get it every second so by the time you get the second one you have lost 1s of the first one.

Jon

So a solo Guardian, to get 9 seconds of swiftness, would have to stop every 15 seconds for 3 seconds. So actually in fact you’d end up with what amounted to 6 seconds (or LESS) of swiftness, because you’d have to totally stop for three – that’s three seconds you’re not moving at all. Not to mention all that stopping and starting just sounds like it would get annoying quickly, as the previous poster already stated. Am I missing something in this logic? Could be, it is getting late and it’s been a long day.

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Would it be possible to give this (and the similar Mesmer skill) a unique buff? I don’t see the point of someone standing around on a field to stack a buff that is only useful when you’re moving. The idea with these is that they should generate a massive one-time Swiftness buff, so that you (and everyone else) can get a supercharge and then get moving. What you don’t want, of course, is people sitting on them and building to the maximum. I get why they have to work this way if all they do is generate Swiftness to anyone that steps on them without Swiftness.

But what if instead of generating Swiftness, every second the Symbol/Wall would proc a “Guardian’s Speed/Mesmer’s Speed” buff, which would last for the duration of the field (so about 5 seconds for Symbol of Swiftness) and then vanish. This buff, in turn, would proc X seconds of Swiftness, whatever you want the max to be.

If I understand how your systems work correctly, what this would allow you to do is make it so that a single player could activate 5s of Swiftness via some other ability, run through a Symbol that grants 8s, then a Mesmer wall that grants 12s, and the result would be a total gain of 25s, but if the player camped on either field he wouldn’t gain any more than that, because the field procs the unique buff and that buff doesn’t stack. Right? I was inspired by that hamstringing debuff the Vet Despoiler procs on you that keeps procing bleed stacks.

JonPeters.5630:

Starfall.6813:

JonPeters.5630:

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Jon,

I like a lot of where you’re going with the Guardian here, but I am a little concerned about the Symbol of Swiftness change. Not as a matter of balance but just as a quality of life issue. 4 seconds of swiftness on a 15 second cooldown is pretty much useless as a means of traveling for a solo Guardian, and the symbol is one of the better ways for Guardians to get around. Having to stop and stand in the symbol to get the full ticks of swiftness while traveling long distance is just going to be counter productive and annoying. And I don’t like the idea that this skill is being balanced around the zerg rather than solo players who probably are only running one source of swiftness to begin with.

Math wise you can now sit in the symbol for 3 seconds with boon duration and end up with 9 seconds of swiftness which is more than you would have had before. I do still think it may need to be 5 seconds to account for the fact that you only get it every second so by the time you get the second one you have lost 1s of the first one.

Jon

ganto hit the nail on the head, stopping for 3 seconds fits into the math. in terms of distance traveled over time, it takes 3 seconds of actively moving for swiftness to equal 1 second of actual movement. this means to break even for standing still for 3 seconds with some one who just ran, you have to be running with swiftness for 9 seconds

now, since the first pulse is instant its really only 2 seconds for 3 pulses, however, that still means you need 6 seconds of swiftness to catch up with someone who didnt stop.
you get 10 (12-2) so really you have 4 more seconds of swiftness than a person who didnt stop in a 10 second period, which means essentially

mathematically there is no reason to stand around waiting for swiftness, you may as well just run through it`

Darnisu.3042:

In the ele buff Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%. This upsets me. Can someone explain to me how one is to get an ele under 90% without help? (when you are full condition) I think it is a bad buff because anyone that is full condition obviously has terrible physical damage and thus has no way of getting the elementalist under 90%. This is honestly the most broken thing I have ever seen, and I feel that Arena net hasn’t thought twice about this buff.

dude … an ele has an HP-Pool of 11k without vita up to about 15k as berserker and 19k as tank. Playing berserker your necro-pet does about 1,5k hits on the ele meaning that one hit from your pet will be enough to get him below 90% HP. If anything is wrong with this trait it would be the low threshhold before it doesn’t work anymore. Of course it gets stronger when eles play bunker with higher toughness, hp and heal but a bunker should be able to tank one class without larger problems. Though I agree that total immunity is something that shouldn’t be implemented in a game in general I don’t think that there’s anything overpowered about this trait. You guys are just afraid that eles maybe won’t be freekills anymore. Anyways let’s see how it will work out …

Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.

I think that ideally, CC should be AoE and damage should be single target, in most cases. It’s more useful to keep a large group in check while you whittle away at one enemy than it is to keep one guy in check while you chip down a bunch of enemies, right?

Mesmers really just need a second mainhand weapon though.

Mesmer torch phantasm really needs some love. It doesn’t fit into phantasm builds as the damage is too low. It doesn’t fit into lock down or mantra builds as it doesn’t work with either. Torch is only used in shatter builds and condi builds for the 4 skill, the phantasm can be ignored (unless you trait for torch and need the extra condi removal).

- The cooldown of 30s is much higher than other phantasms
- The damage is too low knowing the actual effect
- The effect on enemies is just 3s of confusion for 3s, this is medicore in pvp and almost useless in pve.
- Because it doesn’t hit an enemy more than once, it often results in giving itself 3s of retal, which is almost worthless on a phantasm.

Changing the attack to randomly apply chill/burn/torment, making it able to hit the same target more than once (currently bugged?) and reducing the CD would bring it in line with the other phantasms (20s base). At the moment, it’s better to have a staff clone up in a condi build, which is strange as clones shouldn’t be better than phantasms.

Jon, are you guys aware of the issues with this phantasm? Any ideas on addressing it?

Jos.8793:

Ranger

1/ active condition removal

I have the feeling that one of the ranger’s weakness is that he has almost no active way to deal with conditions and that most of them need the pet to be alive and close to you

>> make lightning reflexes remove immobilize, cripple and chill would be a good start to adress this issue.

2/ the power build

when you want to play a power build u realise that the marksmanship tree is overloaded with useful traits while the skirmishing tree is quite lackluster.

>> add the piercing arrow effect to quickdraw ( like warrior’s crack shot would be a good way to solve this problem

spot on! +1

For rangers, i find the reduction in endurance regen to be too steep. A reduction from 50% to 33% would be more reasonable. Rangers only have 1 blocking skill (GS4) and invulnerability at long cooldowns/heavy costs. This means that our main source of sustain comes from evasion, and not all of us feel like playing sword-dagger.
This proposed change, would be completely ok, if, and only if, the rangers most reliable source of evasion wasnt tied up in 2 weapons. Given the change to Vigor on heal, the vigor spam has been dramatically reduced, aswell as the uptime.

I would also like to propose that Barrage (Longbow #5) and Hunters Call have the raw damage increased by 15-20%. The reason for this, is that both these skills, even when invested heavily into power, does not grant enough damage to outweigh the drawbacks.
For hunters call, you are forced to stay within 1200 range line of sight. Anything that obscures your view makes the attack useless. Barrage roots you. Both of these attacks, also suffer from the fact that 2 bunker guardians with retaliation can actually return more damage then a fully berserker geared longbow ranger can dish out. Meaning that not only is the skill completely obsolete in the face of 2 guardians, it is purely suicidal.

The proposed change to Predators Instinct is well thought out, but the internal cooldown should be lower. If not, even if it is a very good choice, the cooldown will make it less interesting/compelling to take. Reducing the internal CD between 20-25 seconds will make it just that little bit more useful. Most fights, as things stand right now, barely lasts 50 seconds unless both the ranger, and the enemy, is going full bunker.

I would also like to know why you did not/when you will, look into the core pet mechanics. Yes it is a daunting task to take upon you. However, it is the achillies heel of the ranger. The player can perform 100%, but aslong as the pet is barely reliable 20% of the time, it will be hard to be on par with the other professions.

Another pet related issue i’d like you to look into is why someone thought it was a great idea to put activation times of 1-5 seconds, when the playerbase has made it abundantly clear that the F2 pet skill function is bugged. This bug applies to all but one pet. The Brown Bear. Only reason the brown bear F2 works, is because it has a reasonable activation time.

Could you make “Spirits Unbound” Grandmaster Minor, and remove that completely useless trait that is there atm? This would make space for more interesting traits, may i suggest a trait that grants protection (short duration) to allies when using a healing skill?

Other then that, thank you for your effort, the changes proposed is most appreciated.

Yea, the more I look at the Ranger changes the less impressed I’m getting. I’m certainly not seeing any real improvement with the power variety as mentioned.

I do like the Longbow changes. At medium range the weapon is at least closer to the shortbow so the utility difference is what sets the weapons apart. Min range still favors the shortbow, and max obviously favors the longbow. Unfortunately the utility on the Shortbow is still miles ahead of what the longbow has as far as WvW/PVP goes (neither weapon is worth discussing for PvE).

The trait improvements also don’t help much with a power build from what I can tell. Enlargement sounds good on paper, but hardly a realistic option for a spec with 30 pts in Marksmanship. If the trait didn’t require a 30pt trait in Marks to work on the Ranger I could see people using it, but not the way it is now. I simply don’t understand why the Ranger has so many traits that only affect the pet and why so many of the utility options they have are so awful without trait investment?

Without a trait to reduce the cooldown on weapon swaps, the class can’t use maul or path of scars effectively as it’s sole source of burst damage. Without more burst options traits like Moment of Clarity and Remorseless have no use whatsoever. I was honestly surprised to not see Moment of Clarity changed to give its bonus damage over 5 seconds instead of only on the next hit.

I’m just not seeing it. Power is still not a real option for the class. It’s just not designed in a way to make any real use out of a power playstyle imo. It has no burst or AE when compared to other classes, and those are pretty vital things when playing a power class. Plinking away with a bow isn’t going to cut it.

Right now the class needs a 30pt trait if it plans to use most of the signets it has.
Your changes make it require a 20pt trait at a minimum for spirits to work.
Condition counters are so few you force us into another 30pt trait.
With no burst or AE you leave only condis as a viable spec option.

I run my Guardian more than any other profession. It’s really the only profession I can comment on the changes without having to look up every trait or skill.

Zeal V – Shattered Aegis. Damage instead of Burning.

I don’t see how this can hurt as Burning does get overlapped in groups. The only issue I see is that Aegis is relatively hard to apply in bursts. It isn’t practical in PvE content, and it becomes extremely difficult to use any on-Aegis traits successfully in PvP. I think the issue is that Aegis is too difficult to apply for the mediocre benefit.

Zeal VII – Zealous Blade. This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)

I fear this will only make the new bunker for Guardian 20/0/30/20/0 with Cleric/Magi or Celestial gear. A Guardian with around 1,000 Healing Power and a moderate critical hit rate will receive 79 Health for every Boon applied and 45 Health for every enemy hit. On the limit of three enemies (auto-attack), the Guardian will regenerate 135 Health per attack and an additional 237 Health (372 total) on the last hit. Factoring Empowering Might, the Guardian becomes a heavier bunker with Might activating faster than an Elementalist with One with Air. I don’t believe this helps the Guardian with a DPS build more than a bunker build.

Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.

Guardians rarely use Condition Damage. Burning is a decent condition. It has good damage and easy application, but Condition Damage is usually a stat that hinders a Guardian more than it helps. I don’t believe an extra 3% more Condition Damage will help, especially since Condition Damage is located in the Radiance tree.

Radiance V – Searing Flames. Reduced cooldown from 20s to 10s.

I see nothing wrong with this. We’ve all been asking for some steady Boon removal to be on par with other professions.

Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.

I feel Sword could use some better stability when it comes to attacks connecting with enemies before this, but it’s a good start.

Valor V – Retributive Armor. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.

Your cookie-cutter bunker uses this trait. Hell, I’ve used it before I found Smite Condition to be a good addition to my Utilities. In its place, I’ve used Monk’s Focus for the instant cast time on Smite Condition. With the last balance, you removed that need, so I can easily take Retributive Armor again and with a greater benefit.

Honor VI – Pure of Heart. Increased scaling with Healing power from 25% to 40%.

It will help the Guardian get some additional self-healing without too much of a heavy investment, but for the most of the problem I have, see: Shattered Aegis.

Virtues VIII – Supreme Justice. Number of attacks going from 4 to 3.

This paired with Kindled Zeal could be an excellent combo if it wasn’t for the fact that both requires 50 points. Burning is already fairly easy to apply, and this trait only boosts 1v1 encounters. For every additional enemy, it becomes easier to apply Burning to each. Add another 10 points in Virtues to add Permeating Wrath for massive area Burning. Suddenly, you’re applying too much Burning and it gets wasted. Burning doesn’t stack intensity, and it shouldn’t. However, your average Necromancer (among other professions) hits intensity caps easily wasting precious damage. Guardians don’t necessarily need more Conditions, but rather a way of using Burning to our advantage (other than a maximum of 20% bonus damage to targets with Burning through traits).

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.

This solves the issue of the application of this Boon, but it also fails to handle others. This is one of the primary methods of getting group Swiftness is WvW. If this is intentional, ignore this issue. The bigger issue is that allies hate standing in your Symbols more than your enemies. This is why Symbols are a terrible mechanic. You know where your Symbol is going and what Boons you’ll receive. Besides a minor graphic change in the center of the Symbol, allies are often safer away from enemies by using the numerous Cripples, Chills, and Knockdowns/backs their professions have to offer. We don’t have very much Crowd Control, nor do we need a lot more.

We do, however, need a way of applying Symbols in a way that benefits an ally without putting anyone in (or out of) harms way. Doing something as simple as passing off the Symbol’s benefits to nearby allies while the Guardian is inside is a start. Have Symbols follow the Guardian (and prevent Symbol of Wrath from rooting the Guardian). Something needs to be handled better to have allies want to be inside of the Symbol.

Overall the changes to elementalist create more variety than destruction in builds but something is still bugging me. We lack in decent condition output. One of the problems is with our current bleed skills which are found only in earth and with conjured weapons and don’t provide consistency unless you’re fighting an enemy stood still and willing to let you slowly build your stacks.

Given the arguable nerf to arcana trait line with the new cd on attunements I think this area would be an appropriate place to address the condition issue. The arcana X skill isn’t considered valuable by most players and could be replaced with a trait similar to elemental attunement. When changing to an attunement it could have the following effects.

Fire – Burns surrounding foes for 3 seconds
Water – 2 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds
Air – Blind target for 3 seconds
Earth – 3 stacks of bleeds on surrounding foes for 5 seconds

IMO this is actually less powerful than elemental attunement and so I believe it could be an appropriate master tier trait.

Also, arcane precision could use a buff to 50% chance with a 5 second cd to match many other profession traits. As it stands it’s extremely underwhelming in both duration and chance to trigger when compared to other professions traits that require many less points spent.

A variety in conditions wouldn’t hurt. Water could be a nice place to add in some poison or confusion. For example, replace trait II (shard of ice), as it’s not often valued, with a trait that grants soothing mist a 20% chance to inflict 1 stack of confusion for 4 seconds when struck. Hardly what I’d consider overpowered and would create diversity in sPvP.

Stop, drop and roll (VII) could also be replaced with a trait that adds a poison or confusion effect to water fields.

These changes would encourage points spent in all trait lines but air for a condition build, creating much diversity.

The final thing I’d like to suggest is that earthen blast (earth 15 points) is replaced with a 1 second cripple and 2 bleed stacks for 5 seconds to make changing out of earth attunement not as great a hindrance to condition damage as it currently is.

I hope you read this as I have felt changes like these have been necessary to the class for a long time.

JonPeters.5630:

Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.

To be honest, scepter feels more like a condition damage + control weapon, than exactly something to “defend allies”.

What if Illusionary Counter was an area block? I always found it to be a limited skill because a single block (with an aftercast) was underwhelming when being bursted by multiple sources or by multiple hits. It feels kinda like a worse version of Blurred Frenzy (and the torment is not exactly something that oh-so-much-better than blurred frenzy’s damage – besides, it’s conditional).

So… it could be an area block that would block up to 3 hits (from any source, and targetting any ally within, say, 240 radius), and then, at the end of the animation (or after 3 blocks), it would counter with torment against every single source. Meaning that a single source could get hit by stacks of torment up to three times, if three of its attacks were blocked; or else the torment could be spread between each blocked source. It would then create a clone for each blocked skill, but it wouldn’t over-ride phantasms.

Or, as a completely different suggestion, or in addition to it, for the tricky flavor, “counterspell” (the sequence skill) could be buffed by creating a clone. Maybe even call it “Ether Clone”, using auto-attack #3 icon, and have it read something like “teleport and create a clone for each blocked attack”. It would be really tricky to catch a mesmer!

This way, you could have scepter as a “mass clone generator” without relying on auto-attack, freeing it up for a different effect.

For example, if Ether Clone were to be the sequence skill for the second attack, Counterspell could now be the last chain skill for the auto-attack. Don’t have many ideas for it, though.

I don’t main Mesmer, so my suggestions might be terrible. But the idea behind them is, make skill 2 the mass clone generator and better at ally support. And then revamp the auto-attack.

JonPeters.5630:

Starfall.6813:

JonPeters.5630:

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Jon,

I like a lot of where you’re going with the Guardian here, but I am a little concerned about the Symbol of Swiftness change. Not as a matter of balance but just as a quality of life issue. 4 seconds of swiftness on a 15 second cooldown is pretty much useless as a means of traveling for a solo Guardian, and the symbol is one of the better ways for Guardians to get around. Having to stop and stand in the symbol to get the full ticks of swiftness while traveling long distance is just going to be counter productive and annoying. And I don’t like the idea that this skill is being balanced around the zerg rather than solo players who probably are only running one source of swiftness to begin with.

Math wise you can now sit in the symbol for 3 seconds with boon duration and end up with 9 seconds of swiftness which is more than you would have had before. I do still think it may need to be 5 seconds to account for the fact that you only get it every second so by the time you get the second one you have lost 1s of the first one.

Jon

Staff no. 3 is currently the primary mobility skill for guardians (and additionally mobility is its primary use). When used for this purpose, you are not going to stop and wait for more pulses – which means that the usefulness of that skill has been just severely nerfed for it’s main purpose. That’s what Starfall was commenting on.
Being able to get a better buff when standing still does not affect this in the slightest.

Zero Day.2594:

Kind of curious as to what happened to a post on the thief forum requesting for a live stream of a dev playing a thief (the way a thief is meant to be played).

You missed it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-d9vGO52E&feature=youtu.be

phys.7689:

JonPeters.5630:

Starfall.6813:

JonPeters.5630:

Symbol of Swiftness
To clarify the new Symbol of Swiftness will give you 4 seconds of Swiftness every single pulse regardless of if you have swiftness or not. This is a improvement in many situations and a slight loss in the situation where you were using the Symbol as just a one time buff. I think this makes it feel more like a Symbol, which is good. We are still discussing the idea of it being 5 seconds, but there is some danger of that going pretty high with boon duration.

Jon,

I like a lot of where you’re going with the Guardian here, but I am a little concerned about the Symbol of Swiftness change. Not as a matter of balance but just as a quality of life issue. 4 seconds of swiftness on a 15 second cooldown is pretty much useless as a means of traveling for a solo Guardian, and the symbol is one of the better ways for Guardians to get around. Having to stop and stand in the symbol to get the full ticks of swiftness while traveling long distance is just going to be counter productive and annoying. And I don’t like the idea that this skill is being balanced around the zerg rather than solo players who probably are only running one source of swiftness to begin with.

Math wise you can now sit in the symbol for 3 seconds with boon duration and end up with 9 seconds of swiftness which is more than you would have had before. I do still think it may need to be 5 seconds to account for the fact that you only get it every second so by the time you get the second one you have lost 1s of the first one.

Jon

ganto hit the nail on the head, stopping for 3 seconds fits into the math. in terms of distance traveled over time, it takes 3 seconds of actively moving for swiftness to equal 1 second of actual movement. this means to break even for standing still for 3 seconds with some one who just ran, you have to be running with swiftness for 9 seconds

now, since the first pulse is instant its really only 2 seconds for 3 pulses, however, that still means you need 6 seconds of swiftness to catch up with someone who didnt stop.
you get 10 (12-2) so really you have 4 more seconds of swiftness than a person who didnt stop in a 10 second period, which means essentially

mathematically there is no reason to stand around waiting for swiftness, you may as well just run through it`

Yeah, and I’m not sure I’m thrilled with it for wvw either, for much the same reasons. Sure, it sucks that the speed buffs from SoS don’t stack now, but with this mechanic you have to have two Guardians to get the same length of Swiftness as you got with one Guardian before. Works out well enough with multiple groups or zergs, I suppose, where you’ll usually have plenty of Guardians on hand, but otherwise….

And again, all that stopping and starting will be just as annoying for a group as a solo player. So except in some special situations, like maybe getting ready to come out of hiding and pounce on another group, the whole additional seconds of speed for seconds standing around in the symbol mechanic is a waste. It’s not going to work out in practice.

JonPeters.5630:

Scepter
Scepter is still missing something but we don’t want to overload the autoattack as we think that promotes more mindless play and are trying to move away from builds that focus so much on the “1” skill. I feel like that scepter should be the tricksy defender that can stop enemies from attacking and defend allies, but maybe it’s single target nature is keeping that from working.

This might be a pipe dream, but I’d love to see Confusing Images AoE around the target it hits with additional confusion stacks, or it even jump from target to target. If this could be the weapon I’m excited to bring into WvW or when I’m assaulting conquest nodes, I’d be so happy.

I’d like to suggest one thing for thief:

Fleet of Foot: Removes crippled, weakness.

I’d like to see this trait remove burning as well.

It would add an extra incentive to go into Acrobatics and burning is extremely strong on many classes. Right now engineer hard counters most thief builds due to lots and lots of burning.

I feel the need to mention this here as it’s been reported repeatedly and absolutely nothing has been done about it.

The +33% range component of the “rifled turret barrels” grandmaster engineer trait doesn’t do anything. The trait has absolutely no impact on turret range, or maybe the boost is actually 3.3% instead of 33%. I don’t know what’s going on here but it’s simply completely broken and has been for a long time. The range bonus is not reflected in the turret tooltips nor is it reflected in-game. The rocket turret tooltip also shows the old rocket turret, saying it inflicts burning (it does not), and none of the turret tooltips reflect the damage increase from the trait.

Also, it would be nice if we could get some justification for not giving turrets the +71% PvE minion health buff even though each one can sustain less damage than necromancer minions, cannot move, do not naturally regenerate, cannot target world bosses, cannot crit, and get hit multiple times by AoE attacks because they’re considered structures. Strangely, none of these points were brought up in the list for the December 10th balance patch despite turrets occupying five of the engineer’s skills. Is there a plan for these skills at all? They have never been in a usable state since the beta weekends before the game launched, and from what I’ve seen it appears there is absolutely no plan to do anything for the next month either.

To quote from the Dec. 10 balance patch introduction:

“Our goal for many of the classes was to increase build diversity while still maintaining class roles and identities. Some of the things we increased were abilities/skills that people don’t run very often. Our goal was to increase these abilities to make them viable alternate builds.”

Engineers very rarely run turret builds because they get destroyed in one shot by veteran or higher mobs. A regular drake mob in a borderlands map can breathe on a turret for 10k damage, killing it with one skill. Keeping engineers locked out of nearly a quarter of their skills does not feel like build variety is being promoted.

JonPeters.5630:

Math wise you can now sit in the symbol for 3 seconds with boon duration and end up with 9 seconds of swiftness which is more than you would have had before. I do still think it may need to be 5 seconds to account for the fact that you only get it every second so by the time you get the second one you have lost 1s of the first one. Jon

And 9 second of +33% swiftness will be just enough to catch up to the other guy that walked right past your symbol without even entering it and kept on going instead of screwing around standing still for 3 seconds in your puddle. Meaning that for cross-country travel, you’re better off never having cast it at all than trying to wait for multiple pulses. And that’s if the 9 seconds started from when you left the circle. They don’t. Instead you’ve already burned 2 of those second twiddling your thumbs.

This is one symbol that allies shouldn’t be lingering in. Unless the swiftness per pulse goes way up. Way, way up.

The WvW aspect of the game is arguably geared towards finding a main and progressing that 1 toon through the various ways offered. Thief was my first toon, but not my main for the longest time until I finally found a playstyle with it that worked for me. I reluctantly made it my “main” mostly because of how its uses the greater good of WvW are very limited. Its basically used for scouting and ganking a standout target. I mean, its uses in sPvP are pretty much limited to ganking a priority target and thats it.

-Thieves have zero condi removal unless they’re traited for Shadow Arts IV (That was recently nerfed out of nowhere) or the precision sigil which is more or less a waste of a utility slot for most builds.

-Thieves have the worst access to stability. Basilisk Venom is easily the best elite skill for a thief as it allows a brief “lockdown” of a target. I find myself dodging out of my elite ability just to gain the stability because nothing screams “KILL ME” like a thief doing mach 10 ballet pirouettes.

-Thieves will have zero time to set up a backstab (which is the ONLY damage source) because of how many heartseekers it takes to set one up. I NEVER attempt a backstab without trying to land at least 3 heartseekers as 2 has me out of stealth before I can even think of what to do. I mean, those first 3 or 4 you use, might not even be enough for a skilled player.

-Thieves cannot take a hit in anyway, shape, or form. It will now be even worse. Seriously think about it. Fights will go like this:

D/P Thief stealths for a backstab and in the process gets a plethora of conditions from “X” class. Well thief can’t cleanse these conditions very often in stealth anymore as of last patch and will take consistent damage. Thief tries to set up another backstab. BOOM, out of initiative and force to blow something like Blinding Powder or Refuge. Utilities that were used for defense are now used for offense. The backstab is blocked evaded, etc. Thief has no initiative, no condi clears, no ulitities/stealth and is insta-gibbed from remaining damage because hes a sitting duck. Oh, and we cant dodge because our vigor is gone. I didn’t even mention if we used headshot or our #3 gap closer which every D/P will most certainly use. This doesn’t just nerf “perma-stealth”, this nerfs the most synergerized weapon set available.

I have never once heard a complaint about a thief in the way 90% of the population plays WvW. Every single complaint is about their abilities in a 1v1 or a small 1vX. Nerfing the “rogue” class because of their abilities in small scale is absolutely foolish IMO. The ENTIRE point of a rogue class is to eliminate a SINGLE target.

I crafted two legendaries, Quip and Incinerator, and pursued the class that fit my playstyle and had similarities to other “rogue” type classes in different MMO’s. Honestly, it feels like a complete waste now and if that patch is as damaging as many foresee it to be, then you’ve regrettably lost a customer.

Thief Feedback:

I have had a thief as my main since release, and have been a fan of S/D in all it’s various incarnations.

These Dec 10th balance concepts have actually left me quite optimistic.

I think S/D should live in acro, and you have opened up a lot of good options. I am looking forward to Assassins Reward at GM, and I look forward to replacing Quick Recovery with Pain Response.

I do wish, however, that there were more options outside of Shadow Arts to remove condi’s on demand as a trait. Other than Infil Return, we lack a viable way to remove Confusion and Torment (Shadow Step being a poor choice for condi removal in large groups or against necro). I always feel forced to dip into SA for condi removal, and forced to dip into CS for damage. There is still very little reason to go past 10 in DA because focusing too much on applying condi’s means you wont be able to remove many. Most other classes seem to be able to have it both ways in their condi trait trees.

Perhaps you’ve made it difficult for us to remove Confusion/Torment on purpose, and it is a good hard counter to a mobile, high skill usage class, but I do wish there were more ways to remove these condi’s that didnt: a-cause damage to do, and b-force us into specific trait lines.

My personal opinion. Please stop nerfing Engi’s and please stop trying to make turrets viable. Yes they have their uses but in 2/3 game modes they just are not. whenever you chance something vital (maybe Engi’s with vigor), it just narrow’s down our opinions even more.

The warrior ho duels!
I welcome nerfs to the warrior in the sense u should not get it all in one spec! (dps, cc, regain, condition removal etc).
what i think you have failed to see is that some classes can avoid our dps while hitting us. a BIG issue is to counter chills and blinks from certain classes in some builds (necro, enginer and messmer). Chills and blinks makes it hard to get to your target while you are eating their dps. When you get to the target they will probably have full endurance while i will have blown all mine and a lot of cds just to get to my target. They will then avoid most of my abilities. Thieves avoidances can be countered because you don’t need to eat dps output to get to them (they will often get to u). My suggestion is to give warriors a singel target pull with a reasonable cd.
Give warriors something to counter chill builds and messmers blinks!

When i saw a change for the necromancer Death 5 trait I thought it would finally be reworked… but no just a cooldown tweak… Please rework this trait completely. None loves it, it’s complete garbage.

How about something similar to GW1 Parasitic bond ? When someone dies you get a small amount of Hp, or life force, this way it keeps the thematic of Soul Reaping, but don’t create a useless pet that can’t live long enough to even reach anyone or anything… Please please please

sirloin.9145:

The warrior ho duels!
I welcome nerfs to the warrior in the sense u should not get it all in one spec! (dps, cc, regain, condition removal etc).
what i think you have failed to see is that some classes can avoid our dps while hitting us. a BIG issue is to counter chills and blinks from certain classes in some builds (necro, enginer and messmer). Chills and blinks makes it hard to get to your target while you are eating their dps. When you get to the target they will probably have full endurance while i will have blown all mine and a lot of cds just to get to my target. They will then avoid most of my abilities. Thieves avoidances can be countered because you don’t need to eat dps output to get to them (they will often get to u). My suggestion is to give warriors a singel target pull with a reasonable cd.
Give warriors something to counter chill builds and messmers blinks!

Mesmers just need their perma-vigor nerfed and an ICD on creating clones from dodge rolls. Then they won’t faceroll to win so much.

Shinigami.8975:

How about something similar to GW1 Parasitic bond ? When someone dies you get a small amount of Hp, or life force, this way it keeps the thematic of Soul Reaping, but don’t create a useless pet that can’t live long enough to even reach anyone or anything… Please please please

Because we already have that in the trait Parasitic Bond? And deaths give us life force anyway?

Storm Spirit dmg 33% reduction? and you up the damage of offensive guardians? the scenario of a spirit ranger vs an offensive guardian is that the guardian kills the storm spirit fast. and the -33% dmg wasn’t even dealt.

just delete the ranger. gg. ty.

Wonderful updates! just a note on a skill:
“Arcane VIII – Blasting Staff. Moved to Adept tier.” Could you make it visible to the player where the AoE will land? I dont see the 60+ increase when i cast it, only after it has landed.
Keep up the good work

I would be incredibly disappointed if as elementalists we were to be unable to take renewing stamina, elemental attunement, and evasive arcana. Under the proposed changes this will happen. Also, I don’t understand why 13 has to be the base cooldown. The base cooldown should be 10 just like any other class. Taking 30 in arcana will actually be worse after these changes come into effect, not better. You’ll still have to put 30 points into arcana just to get your attunement cooldowns to a respectable level and you won’t be able to take the 3 arcana traits that make the ele viable to play right now.

alcopaul.2156:

Storm Spirit dmg 33% reduction? and you up the damage of offensive guardians? the scenario of a spirit ranger vs an offensive guardian is that the guardian kills the storm spirit fast. and the -33% dmg wasn’t even dealt.

just delete the ranger. gg. ty.

Really isn’t too big a deal mate. Spirits have been buffed/nerfed recently; their cooldowns trigger on death but it’s been reduced to 20 seconds. Damage reduction on the sun spirit is fair since passive boosts shouldn’t be too strong, especially team wide ones. And the storm spirit active was buffed by 150% back in june, so a 33% reduction isn’t too bad.

But look at all the other buffs we get.

- I like the warrior,elementalist and mesmer changes, and i would like to see more pvp useful changes for mesmer
- I dont really like the guardian changes, i thought that guarding was a pretty balanced class this changes might make them OP, but we have to wait until the release to see if thats the case cause i might be wrong.