Guild Wars 2

So I run D/D “zergbunker” thief as such:

20/0/0/20/30

Now, The reason why is that the ~20s stealth makes improvisation actually useful, and lotus poison is a nice condition cover from the auto for basically free.

With 20 in acro I’m using assassin’s reward as backup for the composite overall healing from mug and signet of malice. It’s a fun build that’s a hybrid of evasion and self healing, requiring an active defense and a really aggressive playstyle not possible on other thief builds.

I think this merits saying as if the focus is build diversity, I run a pretty uncommon build, which is being kinda gutted of utilities in favor of (In my Opinion) bigger damage and healing numbers.

These changes are doing the following to my build:

Increasing overall healing, but only IF I drop either improvisation (and lotus poison) or lead attacks/sleight of hand.

THE problem is, these two traits are only really in the build in order to support one another. Is there any chance we can move/adjust improvisation (which is highly underused/undervalued, and thus should be a candidate for a buff in this patch) to allow it?

TBH it would make more sense as a master trait in trickery anyway, and richochet would make more sense in deadly arts.

How about swapping the position of ricochet and improvisation, moving a pistol DPS trait to the DPS line and a steal focused trait to the steal line? I’d be able to keep the utilities in place, but still have to give up 10 points in deadly, thus losing lotus poison and bountiful theft, which seems like a fair trade for fluid strikes and the ability to run hard to catch and assassin’s reward.

This would also benefit P/P and venomshare builds.

P/P would be able to run lighter on trickery and get more utility out of deadly arts, making the p/p without venom share overall a better spec due to the 5 extra optional points in critical trikes or a defensive line, which synergize much better with p/p. In addition they’d have an overall better base of optional initiative traits to fuel themselves, and P/P builds would just be overall tighter with less “chaff” trait points to get to the good stuff.

This would also have a potential slight benefit on venomshare builds, allowing them the option of running improv and the other venom traits for possible proc recharges.

I’d like to see three things:
#1: First and foremost, new maps and map expansion. Having the existing maps recycled with “new content” (i.e. Scarlet and Tower of Nightmares) is getting exhausting and unfortunately boring.
#2: Do away with so much overlap of new material. At the current date that I’m posting this, there is Scarlet content (both the TA dungeon path and the random map events), Halloween/Mad King/Bloody Prince content, Tower of Nightmares content, and World vs. World: Season 1 content. Please limit the content to two or three instead of the five currently going on. So much to do and so little time for those that would like to do it all AND actually have people there to do it.
#3: Least of all, a sniper rifle elite skill for the Engineer with associated traits (I know it’s a long shot, no pun intended). I suggest to have it work like both the sniper rifle presented in Reaper’s Corridor in Diessa Plateau and Cadem Forest in Plains of Ashford, and the Mortar Engineer skill.

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:

• Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.

This is just mean. We already had our burst builds nerfed with Mug, now we no longer have access to Flanking Strikes and have our burst again……lowered….a 5% increase in damage for a Master tier is too little, at least change it to 10% to be more in line.

If this stays then the 25-30-0-0-15 build becomes obsolete….

Auesis.7301:

Impact.2780:

Auesis.7301:

Phenn.5167:

Wait wait wait. On the whole “Weakening Shroud is OP” idea. I just remembered a single thief with 15 points in Deadly Arts and a Shortbow can keep up Weakness indefinitely in AoE. Methinks this renders the whole argument for moving Weakening Shroud invalid…

Hah. Haha. No.

You can get about 1/3 uptime, 5s with 15 DA, 15s cooldown per target.

On another note, are we going to get a wall-of-text response for Thief any time soon, or are we just going to be left with Tyler’s “MASSSSSSSSIIIIIIIVE buff” post, basically ignoring all of our concerns?

No, he’s right. Shortbow 4 is a poison field lasting 4 seconds, and shortbow 2 is a blast finisher. A blast finisher in a poison field is AoE weakness for 5 seconds.

Right, but that’s not indefinitely. You’ll run out of initiative within 2 fields + 4 blasts and will have served no other purpose other than putting down the poison and weakness which will be removed fairly soon after, especially after Opportunist gets nerfed to complete uselessness. Someone doing that with Shortbow instead of just hitting hard with continuous CBs or simply running melee is a waste of a tourney spot.

Remember to count the initiative you regain while using the skills and in the time between needing to reapply the condition (10 secs) plus any additional condition duration.
It’s not useless either, the poison reduces healing and the weakness reduces non-crit damage, so it applies some pressure, let’s allies focus more on killing, and makes each hit count more. It’s a good approach when there are 3+ enemies in the area. Plus cluster bomb and your auto attack inbetween will help wear them down further, of course. It’s the play style of the glass thief with SB offhand in tourneys until they see an opportunity to go in for a kill, so they’d be getting some high hits (for shortbow) and the damage will be consistent without need to stealth/evade/heal etc.

Why must the warrior be punished every time the classes are reworked? Anet says we dont mind the war doing great dps and control but not both?? The warrior hasnt had great dps since 2012 (430+ days & 2.5k+ hours played on war here). And the last bit of any decent dps build on war went out the window when zerk power + heightend focus got moved from adept to grandmaster!! And a burst on cd? Its an adrenaline based skill! Ha, the thing is warrior is well a warrior, please stop making them flower holders. If you want to nerf dps chars then take the theifs 13k backstab ability away, after all you took wars 13k eviscerate away (we couldnt get away with it either because we cant do it invisible). Please pick on another class for once?

Rafahil.2857:

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:

• Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.

This is just mean. We already had our burst builds nerfed with Mug, now we no longer have access to Flanking Strikes and have our burst again……lowered….a 5% increase in damage for a Master tier is too little, at least change it to 10% to be more in line.

If this stays then the 25-30-0-0-15 build becomes obsolete….

if this happens we cant kill for jack kitten. just a sad state of thieves. where do anet come up with these ideas? based on QQs of uplevels in the forums i guess. GG anet.

JonPeters.5630:

Ranger:
For the ranger, we’ve adjusted the placement of some traits so that rangers should have more build combinations. For example, by swapping Nature’s Vengeance and Spirits Unbound so that rangers can have spirits follow you in tier 2, players can now opt out of the higher damage output from spirits and still have options elsewhere. We also brought up some Marksmanship and a Skirmishing trait to make power specs more appealing. We feel like rangers also currently have too much endurance regeneration through traits. Due to this, we’ve made adjustments to Wilderness Survival traits, and we’ve also brought down the passive of Sun Spirit and the active effect for Storm Spirit.

Can we please get a ranger that doesn’t have to utilize the pet? I’m not the type of person who enjoys relying on NPCs…I’d rather just do my own damage. The fact that every time I enter combat my pet comes out is the only thing that prevents me from buying a character slot and making a ranger. Can you please make it so that a pet may be placed away permanently?

Spooky Bat Fin.2645:

Why must the warrior be punished every time the classes are reworked? Anet says we dont mind the war doing great dps and control but not both?? The warrior hasnt had great dps since 2012 (430+ days & 2.5k+ hours played on war here). And the last bit of any decent dps build on war went out the window when zerk power + heightend focus got moved from adept to grandmaster!! And a burst on cd? Its an adrenaline based skill! Ha, the thing is warrior is well a warrior, please stop making them flower holders. If you want to nerf dps chars then take the theifs 13k backstab ability away, after all you took wars 13k eviscerate away (we couldnt get away with it either because we cant do it invisible). Please pick on another class for once?

lol thieves can only get 13k backstab on glass cannon and if they trait 30 in DA and Crit Strike. so its not like that build is viable in most scenario

I have some suggestions as the potentially best mean to solve balancing around pvp and/or pve (I’m sure many other people might brought this up already, just showing the support of this idea):

Separate skill set effect between pvp and pve environment! This way you can make all the changes desired (with proper balancing and stuff behind the changes :P) without affecting either side of game play.

Another possible solution is to promote actual in game interactions with ANet staffs; surely I believe you all have some sort of “bigger picture at how one professions handle different situations”, however if actively engage in both pve and pvp environment and have some sort of “friendly contest” would allow us players better understand the bigger picture, it could also be possible for ANet staff to learn where and how players come up with solution (build and such) different to yours.

I understand my suggestion have pretty much no relevance to the thread (well I hope there’s some relevance…) and these will take major revamp to pull off but please consider the possibility.

Just my 2c =)

Phantaram.1265:

Here’s how you fix Eles necessity for the arcana traitline in pvp.

Evasive arcana baseline spell – You have to do this if you want anything not 30 arcana to not get 1 shot. Simply put its a 9.5 second cooldown 2k heal. An absolutely huge deal.
Make the attunement you swap out of go on a 10(or 9.5 or w/e the base is now) second base cooldown.
Make the other attunements you didn’t swap out of go on a 3 second cooldown.
Make the Arcana passive reduce the cooldown of the other attunements you didn’t swap out of to the now baseline 1.25 seconds.

This is a really interesting suggestion. They could also put EA dodge-rolls on the 5-point traits and give different Arcana GM traits. Soothing mist could then be adept (it is better than almost all of the proposed adepts), while the other 5-points are pretty much useless. The GCD decrease isn’t very compelling to take, but if the traits are good it can be forgiven. They could also think of another use for intelligence.

However, a 13s base CD isn’t too bad, especially with a little bit of arcana. The real issue is that there just isn’t viable survivability outside of taking the “classic 3” arcana traits.

P.S. Do you still play Phanta? If so, stream sometime?

JonPeters.5630:

Hello Guardians,

So I wanted to talk about the bigger discussion topics for the Dec changes for you as well.

Shattered Aegis
As soon as I get in on Monday, I’ll post the damage #s on this and the power scaling. I think a meaning ful discussion about this change is going to require that. One danger here is that big WvW zergs using this could be really powerful, but I will say that the numbers are decent.

Supreme Justice and Kindled Zeal
I feel like there is a build here, but TBH I haven’t gotten it to work in our internal testing yet. This is as good a place as any to talk about stat conversion traits.

Currently they do not convert 100% of a stat because certain stat bonuses such as those from signets do not get converted. For that reason we are being conservative but normalizing all of our conversions to the follow #s for now.
Minor: 5%,7%, and 10% respectively for adept, master and grandmaster.
Major: 7%,10%, and 13% respectively for adept, master, and grandmaster.

I’m not sure this will be enough, but I do not want these traits to be overpowered as I feel they are fairly passive. That being said, I think they are good simple traits and with 12 traits per line it is absolutely fine to have some passive simple to understand traits.

Another thing about this build is that you do not have all of the information you need about this power guardian right now, but I can’t reveal more without spoilers. /tease

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.

Power guardian vs Condition guardian
I think Dec 10th will see the emergence of the power guardian, but I think that the condition based guardian still has a ways to go. Ultimately this is because it is hard to cover the burning and frankly you need a good reliable second or even third condition that guardians simply do not have right now. I think for those professions lacking that 3rd damage condition we are looking at supplementing them via runes and sigils rather than skills/traits right now but that won’t be something we attempt until the build that follows the Dec 10th build.

I think that is everything for guardian and hopefully you enjoyed a few half spoiler/half teases.

Thanks,

Jon

Link the the guardian sub-forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-December-Patch-Preview/page/2#post3140287

Hello Jon,

Can’t we split Shattered Aegis in spvp/wvw? because I think if this trait be really good we can start to use “retreat”(right now this shout is really bad) and people will have alternatives to be mobile in spvp and this change in symbol of swiftness will not be so impactful.

I’m a little afraid with this slow changes in guardian I know we are in a good place since launch and I played with guardian even before bwes and I know this is the hardest profession to balance. But I think sometime guardian will be in the same spot ele and mesmer are now.

Let me explain why I’m thinking like that:

1) With other classes gaining acess to break stun and stability more easily guardian is now loosing your style and this is happening because if we compare with other classes like war/eng guardian have huge cooldowns in yours CC skills and this skills only do the CC and nothing else (i.e. Line of Warding, Ring of Warding, SoA) so its easily counter played.
And for this reason hammer guardians are been instinct huge cds, skills are too slow and banish is hard to land and now launch is nerfed.

2) Elite Tomes are lacklusters but could bring amazing gameplay i think with boon hate/boon stripper and now necros are strong we can have stability back or at least a break stun in some skill inside this elites just to see what happen. And with the recent changes warrior can be more tanky and give a lot of support with shouts and Battle Standard.

And I think its time to change skill 2 for this 3 weapons Sword, Scepter and Hammer. If the skill 2 in this 3 weapons were area effect and be a symbol we could have a lot of build diversity. (I remember the 1st time I played guardian sword 2 was area of effect and was really amazing).

Hope you read I have more thoughts to share but i didnt want a wall of text.

Ty =)

So, i have to say, i don’t see how the changes to Arcana’s 10 and 20 Slots help the ele.
I’m not all against it but for me, someone who likes to play the ele a lot, the biggest problem with the Arcana-Line is the Minor Adept trait.
Maybe it’s fine with double dagger but when you play with a scepter or staff i really fail to see how 2 seconds fury, which aren’t even great IF boon duration was applied, help you out.
Can’t we get Elemental Attunement as the Minor Adept trait?
That would really shake things up a bit since it may not be the stronges trait the Line has to offer but in many situations i just don’t know what else to take since the other, at the moment, Adept traits are nice but don’t help me out as much as this does.

1: Shattered Aegis. The main problem with this trait is that it applies burns when triggered. If it were changed so that it applied another condition like Confusion or torment then it would be rather nice.
This is because burns are rather easily kept up constantly by other classes, classes who have a wider array of conditions to rely upon then guardians & thus more of a reason to consider using the + condition damage stat.

2: Zealous Blade. Given the fact that the 1 handed sword is already so far ahead of the Greatsword in terms of damage & is getting a damage trait increase to boot wouldn’t it be nice if this Greatsword trait was also increased to a +10% damage trait.

3: Searing Flames. A step in the right direction but even with this change many other classes will still remove/transform boons at a rate that will put guardians to shame, instead why not work on changing this & a few other undesirable traits so that they apply conditions (confusion/torment) thus making + condition damage more of a viable choice.

(for instance it could be changed so that the guardian applies torment or confusion when they apply burning/activate virtue of justice.)

4: Powerful Blades. Given that the sword is already the highest damaging weapon in the guardian kitten nal this change is nice, but the trait could be made to do other things as well. (for instance what about having it increase sword/spear damage by 5% & reduce cool downs of those weapons by 20% ?)

There are also a few other traits that could be looked at for instance.

1: Symbolic Exposure. As is this trait has an extremely low duration on its vulnerability applied, meaning it will never be able to keep more then 1-2 stacks up on a champ. Why not increase the duration a bit (say 5-6 seconds base).

2: Shimmering Defense. This trait falls into the same problems as Kindred Zeal & Shattered Aegis. Instead of burning what if it were made to apply a few stacks of confusion for 7 seconds ?

3: Inner Fire. A nice trait when it’s actually triggered, the problem being it is rarely actually triggered. What if it were changed so that instead of being triggered when you are lit on fire it would trigger when you light an enemy on fire. (Say 4 seconds of fury with a 10-12 second internal cool down ?)

4: Unscathed contender. The damage increase on this trait is great, so long as you can keep Aegis up. There in lies the problem. In any challenging fight you are unlikely to keep Aegis up very long. (instead what if it were changed to be a 15-20% damage increase so long as your under the effects of protection ?)

5: Shielded Mind/Indomitable courage. These traits more or less do the same thing, why not combine them and create a new trait ?

man… the changes to initiative regen is not a huge enough bonus to all builds for these kinds of changes to happen, but if you feel the only way to address “perma-stealth” is by doing this, then lets see how it works.
the issue though is that most builds involving a dagger offhand will become the only viable builds if using stealth at all as a main concept; pistol offhand shadowshot misses way too often and the daze from headshot can be useful, but not useful enough for 4 initiative (with these changes) as finding the proper opportunity is difficult with the speed of the animations and the fact that healing animations are no different than others (which would usually be the best time to use this skill).

Revisit Initiative Cost of Skills:
All numbers 3-5 skills should be dropped by 1 initiative. the immediate cost of skills is not the issue as far as i hear you saying, but this would at least allow for a thief to not HAVE to use initiative regen skills and would also help avoid HS spamming while keeping the perma-stealth thing pretty much broken.
BP and CaD should at the absolute least see an initiative drop to offset the regen especially with all the blocks and aegis boons that come up so often, not to mention of course evasion. if CaD misses once, you are already in a bad position in melee range (if you can even get to melee range), miss again… you’re forced to completely back out or stealth up since at 6 initiative, you’ve got almost nothing you can do at that point except use utility skills and hope you don’t get trampled.

Never Spotlighted Changes:
there are some issues thieves have otherwise that should be addressed with this patch. everyone spotlights the same stuff with thief (damage, perma-stealth), but i really hope you consider the above thoughts and also the below ideas:

Change Improvisation Skill:
It’s basically useless still. Perhaps rework this skill to assist with your intended changes by having it instead do something like this: “At below 25% HP, all utility skills recharge. This can only occur once every 90 seconds.”

Change Healing Skills:
these changes are to address signet of malice not ever really finding a reason for use while also giving a thief a reason to choose one of the recharge 20% skills in their builds.
1. Heal skill Hide in Shadows be considered a Deception skill.
2. Heal skill Withdraw be considered a Trick skill.
3. Heal skill Signet of Malice be given a 1/2 second cast time and cure torment. this would still be considered a Signet skill.

I’m not really happy about the thief changes :/ If i can’t evade as much as i do now i will be killed istantly in aoe…since thieves don’t have much hp, reducing evade is a really bad idea. I already find it hard to stay alive against high damage builds/mobs and my only survival tools are evade and stealth…and they both are being nerfed. And as a casual player i haven’t really looked that much into the traits and really thought about what they do when i do this and that or studied all weapon skills and how to use them best. Cause i just simply don’t have the interest to do so. I picked traits that i think are the best for me and my play style. I don’t even use other stealth skills than shadow refuge cause that also heals and is good in groups.

So…if evading and stealth are taken away from me and my hp is gonna stay the same there is no point to play thief anymore since i can’t survive. I think the thief hp is ridiculous even now and i even have runes to increase my health. I mean classes in light armor have more hp than i do as medium armor? How does that work?

Maybe i’m just a “noob” to other guys even when i’ve played this game really long now, but i think this is an issue to casual gamers :/ I do understand that stealth can be a bit OP sometimes with high damage….believe me i’ve died to those thieves many times but if they are against someone with good healing (like guardian) there is a good chance they will die cause of low hp.

imo the Warrior’s earthshaker and staggering blow are getting nerfed a little too much.

> earthshaker -15% damage
> staggering blow -15 to -20% damage

this seems a bit more reasonable to me.

Necromancer changes have most certainly not addressed the raw dps they do. descrease the damage fear does when feared by at least 50% and dont do PvP ONLY removals… they make no sense as PvP is widely regarded as the least fun thing to do and the lack of armor stats and buildability in PvP is harsh as it is. Just remove the bleed stack from both, its not going to nerf necro to unplayability. the class is way too powerful as it is. 70k hp, massive burst, insanely powerful downed state. i see barely any changes to its dps as you have stated it. most of those things are buffs, actually.

I take it as read, we’ll get an UNDERWATER balance review soon©

?

WhedonGaming.8016:

Necromancer changes have most certainly not addressed the raw dps they do. descrease the damage fear does when feared by at least 50% and dont do PvP ONLY removals… they make no sense as PvP is widely regarded as the least fun thing to do and the lack of armor stats and buildability in PvP is harsh as it is. Just remove the bleed stack from both, its not going to nerf necro to unplayability. the class is way too powerful as it is. 70k hp, massive burst, insanely powerful downed state. i see barely any changes to its dps as you have stated it. most of those things are buffs, actually.

So you want the necro to be unplayable?

• 70k hp: not really a big deal, necros lack of movability so this is to survive within a fight, because you have to stay there until it is over.
• massive burst: Necros don’t burst, with direct damage, so you have to talk about fear and dhuumfire. But terror is balanced, because all those fears can be blocked, missed, dodged, … and with stability the damage of terror is 0! Damage is a bit to high in WvW due to much higher stats there, but every build deals that higher damage, so why only nerf necros?
• insane powerful downstate: are you kidding? what makes necros down so powerful? the fear?

These are pvp changes that I fear will further unbalance pve. Anet could you please please make them pvp only? For example:

1. Necros already have weak support and are not desired in parties because of it. This patch further weakens necro support by removing the condi clear from putrid Mark and needing the ability to apply weakness.

2. Thieves are already squishy compared to warriors and guardians. However their vigour is getting nerfed. This will be problematic in boss fights and undermines the thief’s character as evasion melee. It is also unbalanced for guardians to retain their vigour in addition to all their heavy armour boons and defensive abilities while thieves lose theirs without such boons etc

3. Guardians are getting a damage buff, but they are already a top dps class in pve with full buffs (they out damage warriors).

JonPeters.5630:

Thief:

• Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.

Why not just split Pistolwhip in two skills, like Flanking Strike + Larcenous Strike on S/D?!
First skill inflicts the stun and second skill is the “blurred frenzy”!

Abramelin.7356:

These are pvp changes that I fear will further unbalance pve. Anet could you please please make them pvp only? For example:

1. Necros already have weak support and are not desired in parties because of it. This patch further weakens necro support by removing the condi clear from putrid Mark and needing the ability to apply weakness.

2. Thieves are already squishy compared to warriors and guardians. However their vigour is getting nerfed. This will be problematic in boss fights and undermines the thief’s character as evasion melee. It is also unbalanced for guardians to retain their vigour in addition to all their heavy armour boons and defensive abilities while thieves lose theirs without such boons etc

3. Guardians are getting a damage buff, but they are already a top dps class in pve with full buffs (they out damage warriors).

Not more splits between PvE and PvP, we have 3 gamemodes drifting apart of each other in each balance patch. We need other solutions.

These balances is for just PvP and PvE it doesnt include WvW isnt it?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Why-would-u-take-Mesmers-in-your-GvG-Setups/3140689

Jon: we have to balance the game for EVERYONE..
Be mindful of context. Power creep is something we’re trying to avoid. Sometimes a profession may not receive as many increases as other classes. A lot of times, this is because that class is already performing very well in the current state of the game. So keep the overall context/state of the game in mind when giving feedback.

Really liking the general feeling and direction of the patch, including (finally) the “Why we do so and what we want to accomplish” notes that i was really missing since GW1.

There are some weak points here and there imo tho, manly in having some “consistency” in the treatment of some issues, like permavigor, across classes.

Engi vigor uptime will be reduced.
Ranger endurance regen will get halved.
Ele trait gets moved to 20 pts, but will still be permavigor.
Mes and Guard 5pt traits are unchanged.
That’s schyzophrenic.

Imo would be a far better solution to:
-change Natural Vigor to work, like others, with Vigor boon, rather than a invisible passive endurance regen. If on crit, or a passive “gain x vigor every x seconds in combat” trait is up to you.
-nerf vigor uptime across all of them with same metrics.
-don’t move Renewing stamina. Moving it up of 10 points is the wrong way to nerf it, becase you’re moving elemental attunement too. Reducing the vigor uptime is much better way to handle it – especially if as said, you give the same treatment to the others vig uptime traits.

On the ele particular issue:
arcana changes aren’t really good for ele. Elmental attunement (again, consistency) should work more like 5pt Virtue guardian trait. Atm is strong for a 10 pt trait, sure, but not worth a 20 pt slot – and making it compete with Renewing stamina for the slot makes things even worse. One of the two should not get move up. I’d actually prefer to change elemental attunemet – or RS – to a minor trait.
Water changes meets the same issue.
I see the idea behind it: buffing the offensive options while leaving so powerful tools for survivability at mere 10 points investiment might create some very powerful builds.
But simply taking away all the good options from the first 10 points in water/arcana isn’t the way to do it.
Fire/Earth line changes needs to pack more survivability options. People aren’t using Fire line cause the dmg increase tools are weak: they don’t use it cause it doesn’t pack any survivability option, thus you can’t drop points in it AND get the tools to survive from Water/Arcana.

All in all, the ideas are good but need better refinemet imo (patch is 1 month and more to come, plenty of time for that).
A good idea would be to apply the same treatement used to Attunements CDs to the whole ele survivability options: improving the baseline, and “nerfing” the traits for it.

jonnis.2946:

Kromium, they have changed it to apply 4 seconds of swiftness regardless of whether or not you already have swiftness. Each pulse now applies 4 seconds of swiftness. Its far better support for the start of a tPvP match, but its probably a pretty lackluster change for WvW. Then again, troops of people could run over them in WvW I imagine

And that is only situation where it can help. ,,Start of Tpvp match" But in rest of situations it is great nerf of guardians mobility. In WvW, dungeons, open world events or in middle of Tpvp/Spvp and in fights it will be totaly useless.
Where is point in improving SoS for one single situation while hurting it for all rest?

Nerfing Elmental attunement will be huge for eles.If you want encourage us to swap attunements you should not be nerfing this.Ele is a bit underpowered now and its wierd to nerf a core trait.

THIEF BURST DMG FROM STEALTH:

To be honest, I dont know anyone really reads the Nth post here. But ONE thing bugs me in the balance, the Thief-Stealth-system.

I think the Thief build where one Thief can essentially perma-stealth and do ungodly damage from out of stealth in WvW has to go. It is not fun, and doesn’t really contribute to the ongoing war either. It’s just profoundly unfun and there is virtually no way you can do against it.

Give the Thief a different concept. Like doing dps, but not in that amount and maybe you raise his dodge and escape mechanicsm and nerf the dmg burst. A perma-stealthed Thief can endlessly harass you, leave the fight whenever he wants, reenter at his whim, and you can’t do anything about it to counter that.

It’s unfun, not balanced and the entire stealth-burst-DPS mechanic has to go.

EDIT: ELE ARE TOO WEAK

Also, I feel Elementalists are way too weak. No class is so much forced to constant lolcoperting, is so much a weak jack of all trades, but good at nothing. Either the damage needs to rise considerably, or some mechanisms to keep the enemy at bay OTHER than CONSTANT lolcoptering are needed.

Burjis.3087:

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

What’s with all the immunity to condition stuff that are popping out here and there? If Anet wants to give something similar to Automated Response to Elementalists, this is the worst way to do it. Even though AR was quite strong against condition classes, the Engineer had to monitor their health really closely in order to make the best use of this trait not to mention that maintaining their health under the 25% threshold always puts them under the risk of dying from normal attacks.
Having to maintain your health above 90% in a vs condition fight is a whole different story. Probably the idea is for the elementalist to have to maintain their health above 90% but considering how little raw damage heavy-condition builds do, a bunker elementalist can easily heal through them and not ever drop under 90% without the help of raw damage classes.

If the current condition bursts are deemed too powerful, the solution is to reduce their burstiness (which I believe the update to the necro is a good step in that direction) not introduce more immunity to conditions and/or buff condition removals as that further destroys the non-burst condition builds.

90% is easy to maintain? Maybe in PvE but PvP or WvW. You will always down to less than 90%. Also don’t forget that endurance has been nerf throughout all the class. You can dodge slightly lesser than you used to.

Beside it says that conditions cannot be applied when health is above 90%. So if ele drop below 90%, condi applies and they regen it, the condi will still be there. Need I to remind you that ele has one of the worst healing skill. ER is good but it sucks since you can’t do anything for 4s except to run around.

after patch ranger will be as big damage dealer as a pre patch guardian but with less less armor and party buff. and now more less dodge. the furry from trait is good. but we have a 20 sec furry from rao and an another from horns.

Some short suggestions and questions:
Mesmer: Wouldn’t be removing 2 conditions on heal too overpowered? This becaus of Power break and makes me feel like Power Cleanse is getting a bit useless.
I also would suggest to make it possible to take Restorative Mantra’s, Harmonious Mantra’s and Empowering Mantra’s in one build. Or would this be too strong?

Engineer: I like your change to Autotool Installation, but it might be an idea to let the turrets make use of healing power on this trait. (just for a bit more healing)
Next to that i would like t ask a question about the engineer turrets. I feel like the trait Rifle Barreled Turrets is still broken, since it doesn’t improve range. If it would it would make turrets alot more useable in the game (mostly pve) because Flame Turret can hitfrom a longer range in a cone and thumper can have more radius then (so good against multi targets).

Thank you for keep trying to improve and listening to the opinion of us!
Greetings, V

@JohnPeters: Can I ask why warrior’s 100 blades raw damage was not looked at? That ability alone makes warriors a bit OP, at least in PVE. It really is no secret that a GS warrior will out damage almost another other class/spec. I hardly see any other warriors in dungeon runs, or out in the open world. Are you guys considering PVE when making these changes? If so, I definitely feel GS warriors needed a look. Or at least bring the other specs in line too. I feel like I need to run a GS warrior otherwise, whats the point of playing a warrior?

It really seems these changes were pvp focused and pve was not considered at all. Leaving GS warriors in their current state for pve continues to encourage the zerker speedrun elitist builds that run wild in the game. We need to balance this out.

I don’t understand how there is a “balance issue in PvE”… Call me naive, but if you are going to be playing primarily PvE, spec for it…

Same goes for WvW…

The Necromancer is darn near perfect where it is currently…the only thing that needs tuning is the Blood line.

Please leave Weakening Shroud at 15 second CD…Changing that will make the Necro much weaker because we don’t have great heals, cond. cleanse, evade, block, stealth, or movement.

Having Weakening Shroud on a 15 second CD at least gives the Necro a chance to survive better.

Okay I have been thinking about this a lot and am really concerned. Overall I REALLY like the Thief changes that are coming. They are great ideas and bring some builds that have been very annoying in line with others that have seen little play in a way that I feel will work very well. I understand what you were thinking with all of these changes and have to agree, for the most part.

My concern lies in the cast time on Infiltrator Return. Now, I get that S/D thieves are really strong right now and practically impossible to lock down, I get that the vigor nerf is a must. In fact, most feel the reason the build is so strong is the vigor up time coupled with the endurance return from Feline Grace and the “get out of jail free” sword return. The thing is, I have been running S/D as an off weapon for a long time now. I use it to do really amazing things that I am very proud of. One of my favorite is Infiltrator strike, start stomp, return, Infiltrators Signet/Steal right at the end. Its a Shadow Step stomp on an excellently short CD and is really satisfying to pull off. Another is starting my heal then returning to avoid any interrupts that might be coming my way. I use s/d purely for its utility. The occasional boon steal with an unblockable attack, the shadow return for some subterfuge or perfect stomps. The clutch daze for that perfect res/stomp denial.

As I said, overall I really enjoy the Thief changes that are coming and in fact look forward to it. Personally I am very disappointed that sword return is taking such a large hit once again. I feel like it has been nerfed a lot in the past and taking it another step further is a bit much. Please reconsider this one change, maybe even do something else to the ability to bring it in line. I would just really like to not see this changed to not being instant cast anymore as it contributes to a lot of very fun and satisfying moments.

I have to say though, I’m really liking how you are not only evening it out so that all the weapon sets are on more of an even footing, but making trait choices an actual choice depending on your build/playstyle. I also like that this doesn’t “pigeon hole” us into certain builds. We will have more diversity overall which is nice.

I have minor gripes about other changes but most of those are honestly understandable. The trickery changes are a bit annoying for the glass cannon novelty build, taking away some of that crazy power stacking potential. It makes sense though, some people just find that stuff crazy hard to deal with. It’s understandable to make Thieves choose and not be able to stack that much stacks on stacks on stacks. Also the buff to Assassins Reward is cool, I like to use it with the “Jumper” build in sPvP even though its not the best trait. Not sure if the buff will be enough to make it worthy of grandmaster tier, though. Its essentially Zealous Blade on Guardian except without the damage boost and we all know that wasn’t worth the grandmaster tier, even after the buff. Even now, in the master tier, it’s hardy used. Just a thought.

My feedback about the Ranger part :

• Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500 range by 20%.
• Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500-1000 range by 15%.

For the moment LB#1 at 1000+ has already a better DPS than LB#2.
With this update LB#1 at 500+ will be nearly as good as LB#2 (without the vulnerability stacks).
I think LB#2 cast time should be reduced to at least 3s to be competitive with LB#1. It should be a real way to burst a target.

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

It could be nice to cover others conditions
But it’s still not competitive enough with the others adept traits, Ranger already has access to a lot of Cripple and a lot of classes have access to a Cripple removal.
Maybe an Immobilize or a Cripple+Torment(Predator’s Instinct makes sens with Torment) could make this trait more sexy.

• Marksmanship VI – Beastmaster’s Bond. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.

Sorry but I don’t like the concept of this trait and the traits I to IV would still be better.

• Skirmishing XII – Moment of Clarity. Stun Duration increased from 50% to 100%.

I’m sorry Jon but, you mean Stun and Daze Duration, right ?

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

I’m ok with that if similar Skills and Traits are also considered (Adrenal Implant, Vigorous Scepter, Zephyr’s Focus, Signet of Stamina, …)

• Wilderness VIII – Oakheart Salve. Decreased the recharge of this trait from 20s to 15s

I think Torment should be added to list of the triggers.
Anyway, there are too many good traits in the Wilderness line to make it considered even with a 15s cd maybe you could change it in an active condition clean.

• Wilderness XII – Bark Skin Increased the damage reduction from 30% to 50%.

Very nice but it could be too powerfull against direct damage with the adequate build. But Engineer can be nearly immune to conditions under 25% without a specific build so why not…

• Nature Magic IX – Two Handed Training. Added the following functionality to this trait. Greatsword and Spear attacks have a chance to grant Fury on hit. 50% chance. 3s Fury. 10s cooldown.

I don’t know… i guess it could help GS/Valkyrie build.
But for Gardian you made this change “Radiance X – Powerful blades. Increased damage from 5% to 10%.” and it’s in the Precision line and for Ranger you add Fury with RND in the Vitality line.
I think the opposite makes more sense or instead of Fury add a defensive boon or Weakness maybe.

• Nature Magic X – Enlargement. This trait now uses Signet of the Wild to trigger. This reduces the cooldown to 60 seconds and allow it to interact with the Signet of the Beastmaster and Signet Mastery traits.

Very interesting. You will need 50 points to make your build around it. Seems very nice but not without cost so… wait’n see.

• Nature Magic VII – Nature’s Vengeance. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
• Nature Magic XI – Spirits Unbound. Moved to Master Tier.

Nice for builds diversity.

• Storm Spirit. Reduced the damage from the Call Lightning skill by 33%.

Storm Spirit is chosen mainly because of Call Lightning. It’s one of Ranger’s few burst skills and it’s not that easy to use.
With the swap between Nature’s Vengeance and Spirits Unbound, Nature’s Vengeance will be less used and there’ll also be less Call Lightning.
So I don’t think this change is mandatory.

Ranger:
_For the ranger, we’ve adjusted the placement of some traits so that rangers should have more build combinations.

Some tracks to improve builds diversity :

• Signets and Traps still need 30 points.
• LB needs at least 40 points to be effective, you should maybe merge some traits.
• Traps should not be in the Skirmishing line and/or should be more damage base (Please take a look at Necro’s Wells).
• Shouts could have a support role just by adding some boons. They should be more like Warrior and Gardien ones. This way they won’t need 30 points in the Nature Line to be usefull. And remove the cast time from “Gard”.

Finally, please do something about Sword#1

Regarding Symbol of Swifness: I would have preferred if it was base 8s and +4s per pulse if you already had swiftness boon.

Now with 4s per pulse: Does +Boon Duration apply on each pulse? (So with +80 or +90 percent you could get like 7s each pulse)?

Guardians

Building on the idea… Damage Guardians are not as powerful as they could be… I suggest we don’t make them like warrior. Instead, be faithful to the concept of a Guardian. If we invest on power to increase damage, why not improve the Zeal traits that increases efficiency and effectiveness of damage provided through symbols and spirit weapons – instead of adding direct damage.

Zeal V – Shattered Aegis Damage instead of Burning
Why damage? why not intensify the burning for a very short period of time. The effect may be the same (duration so short to be removed but intensity so high producing direct damage like damage) but this maintains the burning damage concept of guardians.

Zeal VII – Zealous Blade This trait now scales with Healing power (2%.)
_i agree on this – giving credit to investing in healing power over other trait. _

Zeal XII – Kindled Zeal. Increased conversion from 10% to 13%.
If you want to be a more damage guardian, i think this is just right to increase conversion factor. I just hope investing the last 5 points will yield a significant damage that is worth the investment.

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.
Guardians are by default slow. if you don’t want this skill to be taken advantage of by other profession who are already fast, then why not tweak it in such a way that it will not lose the guardian’s option for speed?

elikal.7356:

THIEF BURST DMG FROM STEALTH:

To be honest, I dont know anyone really reads the Nth post here. But ONE thing bugs me in the balance, the Thief-Stealth-system.

I think the Thief build where one Thief can essentially perma-stealth and do ungodly damage from out of stealth in WvW has to go. It is not fun, and doesn’t really contribute to the ongoing war either. It’s just profoundly unfun and there is virtually no way you can do against it.

Give the Thief a different concept. Like doing dps, but not in that amount and maybe you raise his dodge and escape mechanicsm and nerf the dmg burst. A perma-stealthed Thief can endlessly harass you, leave the fight whenever he wants, reenter at his whim, and you can’t do anything about it to counter that.

It’s unfun, not balanced and the entire stealth-burst-DPS mechanic has to go.

EDIT: ELE ARE TOO WEAK

Also, I feel Elementalists are way too weak. No class is so much forced to constant lolcoperting, is so much a weak jack of all trades, but good at nothing. Either the damage needs to rise considerably, or some mechanisms to keep the enemy at bay OTHER than CONSTANT lolcoptering are needed.

Glass cannons usually die like throwing a stone at a pane of glass. Pretty simple concept once you get a hold of it. The only people who die to them are usually uplevels or are a glass cannon build themselves, in which case you kinda had it coming.

Look at it this way, you run with a small group, no thief should be able to wipe you. No matter how skilled they may be, thief isn’t a group fighter. They may pester you awhile but there should be no window for them to pop out, burst someone down, and finish them without some response. NOW, if you’re roaming, you’re already in no mans land. Anyone can jump out and attack you, they don’t need stealth as a simple LoS could surprise you in the ruins. Mesmers also have stealth btw, and are far better duelers than thief, mainly because they don’t get constant nerfs to the chest. The difference is the skill level to play a good Mesmer and a good thief. Thief IS in fact quite easier to play, doesn’t mean anyone can jump on 1 and start taking over the ruins but people see it and by people I mean the troll videos/posts on various thief builds. Most people can’t grasp stealth counters, so those looking for an easy fight exploit that weakness, make them cry, and they come to the forums to rant about it. Bottom line, there is a clear line between those who have counters to stealth, and those who don’t understand them yet. Those who don’t understand it yet should be asking for help and not requesting a nerf. Thief is VERY squishy, and has few answers to everyday dueling. They don’t need flat nerfs they need adjustments for more viable builds.

I have played a Necro from the beginning and have finally found a spec that I like for my solo style play in WvW.
I am actually working on leveling up a second necro for the fun of it.

Currently I am running a D/F D/D hybrid Necro and rely heavily on Weakening Shroud.
Nerfing this will serve to reduce the play-ability of a close range melee hybrid.

Please see my comments in bold below.

JonPeters.5630:

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

• Mark of Blood. Removed 1 bleed in PvP only.
  I don’t PvP enough to comment on this.

• Signet of Spite: Removed one bleed. This seems like it is an arbitrary slash. What is the justification for this? Why not replace the bleeds with Torment…at least then there is a different type of condition that is being applied and the target then has the decision to make…to move or not to move; cleanse or not to cleanse?

• Spite 15 – Death into Life. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%
  This will only help a bit because the scaling from healing power is so low.

• Spite X – Chill of Death. Increased trigger threshold from 25% to 50%.
  This is an unnecessary change if weakening shroud is left the same. While having this trigger sooner is alright, I don’t think it will improve the mechanics of the Necro much.

• Curses IV – Weakening Shroud. Increase recharge from 15 to 25.
  This is a terrible idea because this is one of the only things that helps to stave off high damage thieves and warriors. This is one of the more invaluable tools a D/x Necro has in PvE. Please leave this at 15 seconds.

• Curses VIII – Banshee’s Wail. Increase cooldown reduction from 15% to 20%.
  Cool. This will bring this trait more inline with similar traits.

• Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.
  The life pool of the JH should be increased so that you can have more than one in play…..that or decrease the dot on it…Otherwise this is still a joke of a trait.

• Death VIII – Reaper’s Protection. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.
  Okay. No big deal

• Death 25 – Deadly Strength. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.
  Good for those of us that want to rely on DS as a primary source for damage, otherwise, this didn’t need to be changed.

• Blood Magic 25 – Blood to Power. Decreased health threshold from 90% to 75%. Increase Power from 90 to 120.
  Now this is a nice synergy with power and bunker builds. A step in the right direction for BM line!

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.
  Again, makes the DS more viable for those of us that rely on it.

I want to ask this,
Any new PVP mode? Where is the good old GW1 style of pvp with the 10 games in a row? And the tournaments with great benefits?
The current PVP system does not offer anything except the ranking.
And shortly the people i think to be boring to play just for some points.
Where the GvG is?
Hope to come better days for PvP

I would like to see Ranger main-hand axe and Thief shortbow auto-attack damage buffed a bit, at least against single target. They tend to be more viable when hitting 2 or more foes, as the skill doesn’t bounce when you hit only one target. With two targets you do double damage to the other and with three targets you spread damage evenly to multiple foes.
But with one foe you just get that one hit and it doesn’t feel very powerful compared to some other auto-attacks. This problem is even worse when killing some health sponge boss. Even a 10% increase would be good.

So you claim more build diversity but you adjust traits who are never used…and you still buff the spirits line who’s the only build you found in Spvp while in WvW it’s only bunker/regen/condi and nerf our endu regen… (some class have perma vigor on crit hits traits)

JonPeters.5630:

• Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500 range by 20%.
• Long Range Shot. Increased the damage at 500-1000 range by 15%.

Nice, while i still don’t see the interest of this restriction on distance since majority of fight you are in close combat in Spvp/WvW…

JonPeters.5630:

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

Who in hell gonna use this traits who’s in the same line of piercing arrows, spotter, eagle eyes, signet of the beastmaster or steady focus?

JonPeters.5630:

• Marksmanship VI – Beastmaster’s Bond. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.

Same as precedent? who in hell gonna use this? Those traits are totally useless, specially when your pet is disabled for 1 minute long when you used your 2 slots

JonPeters.5630:

• Skirmishing XII – Moment of Clarity. Stun Duration increased from 50% to 100%.

This traits utility is only for attack of opportunity, duration of daze and stun? our only weapons who stun are greatsword and shortbow (from behind lol)….mmmmkk

JonPeters.5630:

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

Nerf…hummmk since you don’t nerf guardian/elem one

JonPeters.5630:

• Wilderness VIII – Oakheart Salve. Decreased the recharge of this trait from 20s->15s

Never used this trait and the cooldown to 15 sec won’t change that on the line where i can have empathic bonds, survival training, offhand training, martial mastery, shared anguish…well as you see an useless trait (even more when we can have a lot more ways to get regen)

JonPeters.5630:

• Wilderness XII – Bark Skin Increased the damage reduction from 30% to 50%.

Nice, but when you’re at 25% life, generally you’re nearly dead….

JonPeters.5630:

• Nature Magic I – Circle of Life. Cleared up the text of this trait to clearly identify that it happens when downed, not defeated.

Correction…

JonPeters.5630:

• Nature Magic V – Strength of Spirit. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%

When you’re traited to vitality, you’re nearly not traited to dps….but more for support (regen/swiftness build) or bunker condi…

JonPeters.5630:

• Nature Magic IX – Two Handed Training. Added the following functionality to this trait. Greatsword and Spear attacks have a chance to grant Fury on hit. 50% chance. 3s Fury. 10s cooldown.

Nice, but don’t see the interest when we have allready lot more ways to have fury….(remember the traits you just changed before? beastmaster bond? lol)

JonPeters.5630:

• Nature Magic X – Enlargement. This trait now uses Signet of the Wild to trigger. This reduces the cooldown to 60 seconds and allow it to interact with the Signet of the Beastmaster and Signet Mastery traits.

Don’t understand this trait, and while our pet is generally dead in fight before he can be even used, i don’t see the interest of this…

JonPeters.5630:

• Nature Magic VII – Nature’s Vengeance. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
• Nature Magic XI – Spirits Unbound. Moved to Master Tier.

Switch to spirits, again the most build seen in spvp….spirits die too fast in WvW no one are using it

JonPeters.5630:

• Beastmastery VI – Mighty Swap. The might from this trait is now applied to you and your pet.

Nice, even if i don’t even use this trait, you should have corrected master’s bond insetad, who disappear when you swap a pet and even when…tadam! you enter water….

JonPeters.5630:

• Sun Spirit. Reduced the passive burning from 3s to 2s.
• Storm Spirit. Reduced the damage from the Call Lightning skill by 33%.

Nerf to a build you pretend give more attention (swith to precedent traits remember?)

As said, spirits are only good in pve/spvp, other ways it’s useless due to their life….

Still no informations about pet IA, pet not scaling with stuff (ascended gear for example) , about 1h sword, the only class who root himslef with a weapon skill….no skill on move like whirling defense

You really need someone playing this class to find what are the flaws in it, and not only base your correction of % used or not in players characters….

Hello,
I must say I personly like a lot changes you proposed (I`m mainly interested in engineer and mesmer).

But I have a suggestion about mesmer focus skill – Temporal Curtain and trait dedicated to it.

It`s one of my favourite skills and it gives huge amount of utility to this profesion, the problem is that when u get trait Warden’s Feedback, it gives even more utility to it since it now can reflect projectiles, but teamattes can`t possibly tell if it`s something u can hide behind (like in case of wall of reflection, which just looks like a wall of light – hiding behind it is obvious reaction) or just regural, loved by everyone team speed boost. One can easly tell where ends and begins Illusionary`s Warden barrier and therefore take advantage of it, but projetiles bounced of TC are bounced by empty air over it.

I propose to make Warden’s Feedback trait change also appearance of Temporal Curtain, to promote, mesmer’s teammates using it as a barrier (similary to how Masterful Reflection changes appearance of Distoriton shatter, to inform opponent players in pvp that it refect projectiles).

Keep up the good job Arena Net, and please consider my proposition.

Problem with Ranger: While pet damage was somewhat balanced at release, the 50% nerf killed our core mechanic hard.

For guiding a stupid AI which cannot dodge, shouldn’t we be rewarded?

I propose we buff the Pet damage, rather than the Ranger’s.

Kain Francois.4328:

Problem with Ranger: While pet damage was somewhat balanced at release, the 50% nerf killed our core mechanic hard.

For guiding a stupid AI which cannot dodge, shouldn’t we be rewarded?

I propose we buff the Pet damage, rather than the Ranger’s.

So that a Ranger can be on one end of the sPVP map and their target be on the other (WAY more than a 1200 range) and have that pet with it’s buffed damage kill you? No thank you.

Arkantos.7460:

Hi Jon,

I know your reading as much post here as you can ,
so I think you know that the “hard to catch” getting a bad Response on all thief Players.
But to made him more interesting in a place of a master Tier, maybe a Change of stability instead of the swiftness buff and a smaller couldown would be a good part of your promised Mobility buff, compared to the vigor nerf.
And since theres no blur/block/shrink/invulnerable the Thief has acces to Counter incomming burst dmg and we already have much swiftness in our acrobatic traitline.
Please, dont let stealthless thief gameplay depending on a randomly teleport of the named trait which isnt a stunbreaker itself.

Thanks for reading

PS: Sorry for my bad amusing grammar

bring back critical defenses from gw1….everytime you crit you refresh critical defenses xD.

get in there and autoattack to crit! and have 75% chance to block ;3

If you’re trying to make Guardian more viable as a damage build, messing with the staff symbol isn’t the way to do it.
This causes problems as follows:
-Guardians have to remain immobile to get the full boon
-To be useful there have to be multiple Guardians running together to get any kind of speed without another class
-This makes them only helpful in a zerg situation, where their damage output isn’t as important as their being able to stay alive.

NinjaEd.3946:

elikal.7356:

THIEF BURST DMG FROM STEALTH:

To be honest, I dont know anyone really reads the Nth post here. But ONE thing bugs me in the balance, the Thief-Stealth-system.

I think the Thief build where one Thief can essentially perma-stealth and do ungodly damage from out of stealth in WvW has to go. It is not fun, and doesn’t really contribute to the ongoing war either. It’s just profoundly unfun and there is virtually no way you can do against it.

Give the Thief a different concept. Like doing dps, but not in that amount and maybe you raise his dodge and escape mechanicsm and nerf the dmg burst. A perma-stealthed Thief can endlessly harass you, leave the fight whenever he wants, reenter at his whim, and you can’t do anything about it to counter that.

It’s unfun, not balanced and the entire stealth-burst-DPS mechanic has to go.

EDIT: ELE ARE TOO WEAK

Also, I feel Elementalists are way too weak. No class is so much forced to constant lolcoperting, is so much a weak jack of all trades, but good at nothing. Either the damage needs to rise considerably, or some mechanisms to keep the enemy at bay OTHER than CONSTANT lolcoptering are needed.

Glass cannons usually die like throwing a stone at a pane of glass. Pretty simple concept once you get a hold of it. The only people who die to them are usually uplevels or are a glass cannon build themselves, in which case you kinda had it coming.

Look at it this way, you run with a small group, no thief should be able to wipe you. No matter how skilled they may be, thief isn’t a group fighter. They may pester you awhile but there should be no window for them to pop out, burst someone down, and finish them without some response. NOW, if you’re roaming, you’re already in no mans land. Anyone can jump out and attack you, they don’t need stealth as a simple LoS could surprise you in the ruins. Mesmers also have stealth btw, and are far better duelers than thief, mainly because they don’t get constant nerfs to the chest. The difference is the skill level to play a good Mesmer and a good thief. Thief IS in fact quite easier to play, doesn’t mean anyone can jump on 1 and start taking over the ruins but people see it and by people I mean the troll videos/posts on various thief builds. Most people can’t grasp stealth counters, so those looking for an easy fight exploit that weakness, make them cry, and they come to the forums to rant about it. Bottom line, there is a clear line between those who have counters to stealth, and those who don’t understand them yet. Those who don’t understand it yet should be asking for help and not requesting a nerf. Thief is VERY squishy, and has few answers to everyday dueling. They don’t need flat nerfs they need adjustments for more viable builds.

In otherwords you just told him – your fault for roaming alone, got ganked, got kitten…people have to understand its like a house of matches, one right placement and thief falls apart.

The Ranger changes are far from good enough. There is still so much wrong with the class that is still completely ignored.

for example: condition removal is horrible.
1 passive grandmaster trait(Empathic Bond),
1 healing skill(Healing Spring),
1 UNRELIABLE signet(Signet of Renewal) that doesn’t work is most situations (pet dead or out of range).

Ranger needs grandmaster traits just to make their utility skills be useful.
Signets(Signet of the Beastmaster),
Traps(Trap Potency),
Shouts (Nature’s Voice)

Longbow needs 50 out of 70 skill points to be useful:
30 Marksmanship (Eagle Eye, Piercing arrows)
20 Skirmishing (Quick Draw)

Sword has 2 leaps, but
- one is hidden in the auto attack 3rd chain(Pounce) and
- one is hidden behind a leap backwards (Monarch’s Leap).
The leap on autoattack (Pounce) is preventing movement and dodging.
The sword has no gap-closer without turning your back to your enemy first.

Regarding Necro Changes:

Please separate all these changes to PvP only. PvE necros are tired of suffering for something that has nothing to do with their game mode and being forced into a build that is fairly useless in PvE.

In PvE necros are fairly weak, due to the totally broken condition damage mechanics that work against us continually.

Between 50%+ of the bosses cleansing conditions in some part of a fight, to the new PvE downed state of enemies purging all conditions on down and rally, to the condition damage cap that limits our dps to almost 0 in most situations, to the broken scaling between direct damage and condition damage, it is already hard enough for us to be considered useful in PvE without you nerfing us even further.

While i can understand the frustration of thief players, i also welcome the change to vigor in general that is introduced. Especially this one boon had a 100% uptime on a lot of classes and made pvp a mindless dodge spam fest. By reducing vigor uptime ANet puts more focus into timed dodges and endurance management (hopefully) and thus might make the game more timing sensitive and also more fun to play since dodging doesn’t require a lot of thought at the moment but is annoying as heck to deal with.