Guild Wars 2

Cornithos.6938:

Two serious potential problems with the proposed Ele changes. ~snip~ Do not force me to spend hard earned gold to fix the mess you create by changing the rules to the game.

Go to your class trainer and ask to retrait. It costs a little over 3s. You DON’T need to buy a new book, or spend “hard earned GOLD.”

J Wall.1703:

First, Anet, I know lots of people have said it, but I want to echo their point: thanks a ton for starting this dialogue. It shows that you really value player input, and opening yourselves up to this volume of potentially critical response is a very brave and respectable move.

The only comment I have is one a few others have made: the change to symbol of swiftness might not be as helpful as you intended it to be. I understand wanting to beef up the boons on subsequent pulses, but I’m not sure it’ll really help in the end. With all the other symbols, I think you’re right on with the pulsing scheme, because the point of those symbols is to strengthen the guardian and his party where they stand, providing retaliation, protection, or regeneration so they can stay on that spot and fight. Symbol of swiftness doesn’t really serve the same primary function, though; someone else said it, and they’re right, it’s not very swift to stand in one place and gain your maximum swiftness duration.

That’s just my two cents as someone who plays a support guardian and likes not falling behind the zerg.

In any case, thanks for all your hard work. I can’t imagine how many engaging and crazy office conversations must predicate changes like these—I’m sure it’s fun!

Yeah, I know they’re never going to give heavy armor classes lower movement speed, but maybe give light armor classes better mobility skills? Like maybe bring Ride the Lightning back down to 20 seconds, or at least giving us SOMETHING to compete with warriors’ GS3 + GS5 + Sword2.

Thieves have some decent stuff, but mesmers and necros sure are slow.

Danariel.4675:

Cornithos.6938:

Two serious potential problems with the proposed Ele changes. ~snip~ Do not force me to spend hard earned gold to fix the mess you create by changing the rules to the game.

Go to your class trainer and ask to retrait. It costs a little over 3s. You DON’T need to buy a new book, or spend “hard earned GOLD.”

I shouldn’t have to pay period because they changed the rules and 3s is a lot of money to pay to re-trait!

Lukyromero.6780:

There’s not enough changes to ranger, I don’t want to play this anymore …
… okay I like the fact they got more health …
… does not do any damage at all …
… I’m just sick of everything anet has done to rangers since December …
… I [always die] vigorously …

I am baffled every time I read a Ranger player express this. Half of my play time has been on an Ele. When I want to feel overpowered I jump on the Ranger. I know you hate to hear that. It bothers me when people troll the Ele forum with those same words. Everyone knows the Ele has been trashed. I am serious about my words, though. There was a night when I solo defended Stonemist against 30. They were just scared and looking for quick kills. They came back with 40, and luckily two melee types showed up to fight underneath my Barrage a few times. Then they came back with 50. There was a funny side-to-side on the walls as they tried to escape my dps. I got so many stupid bags that night. I didn’t just fight on the walls, either. They did kill me once out of more than several times pushing them back, solo or with up to 3 others helping. Have you looked at the potential invincibility on the Ranger yet? There is a lot that could be nerfed on the Ranger. Be smart about what you complain about.

It is a totally different game we are playing.

Over 3,000 hours on my Mesmer, 95% of which is from WvW. Mesmer’s are a pretty weak class in groups, so here’s a few changes I think would benefit the class in group play.

Mind Stab Blast Finisher

• Mind Stab (Greatsword 3) should be a blast finisher. Mesmers right now have only one blast finisher (Torch 4) and it’s unreliable because of the 3 second delay from stealth. Mind Stab being a blast finisher would give Mesmers the ability to contribute to groups by blasting static/fire/water/etc fields.

Unblockable Null Field

• Null Field (Utility) should be unblockable. Not sure if this is a bug or intended, but right now classes can walk right through null field as long as they have a block (warrior shield, guardian heal, etc) and have none of their boons stripped. It can also be evaded/dodge rolled through. Necro wells are unblockable, so why not Null Field?

Imbued Diversion to Master Tier

• Imbued Diversion should not be a Grandmaster trait. There’s no reason why a Mesmer should ever waste 30 trait points for a 5 target daze on a 31 second cooldown, especially with something as strong as Illusionary Persona as an alternative. Counter Blade (Sword 4) is a 5 target daze on a 15s (untraited) cooldown, Into the Void (Focus 4) is a 5 target interrupt on a 25s (untraited) cooldown, and Illusionary Wave (Greatsword 5) is a 5 target interrupt on a 30s cooldown. Moving it down to Master tier would make it a desirable option for a Glamour build.

Retaliatory Demise and Chaotic Revival

• Retaliatory Demise (Chaos VI) and Chaotic Revival (Chaos I) are two traits that I imagine have never been used by anyone and should probably be replaced entirely. There’s not much point in traiting in anticipation of yourself going down, and especially with such lackluster effects.

Phantasm Invulnerability

• Power Mesmers are fairly useless in group battles because most of their damage comes from Phantasms. An interesting suggestion I heard was giving Phantasms invulnerability for long enough for them to do one attack. This would allow a Mesmer to summon a Phantasmal Berserker in a group of enemies without it instantly dying to AoE. This would do comparable damage to a power-wells necro to a group of enemies on a similar cooldown, as the phantasm will likely die as soon as its invulnerability drops.

Mantra AoE Increase

• The AoE effects from Mantras (Stability and condition cleanse) needs to affect a larger area to be of any use in a group battle. Mesmers should typically be near the back of an engagement, and the 240 range is not enough to affect your allies in most situations. I think it should be increased to 600 like Shattered Conditions.

Blinding Befuddlement ICD

• The ICD on Blinding Befuddlement (Illusions IX) should be removed. Mesmers have no spammable blind now that Chaos Armor can only activate once per second. It was only powerful pre-confusion nerf because a Mesmer could keep very high Chaos Armor uptime, and an enemy had a 2/3 chance of applying confusion to himself on EVERY hit. It’s unnecessary now that confusion does half the damage it used to and Chaos Armor has a 1s ICD. All the cooldown does is hurt Glamour Mesmers, who can only apply AoE Blind once every 32 seconds anyway.

New post for word count.

The rest of these proposals are more for buffing lesser-chosen and weaker traits/utilities, not necessarily for group play.

Restorative Illusions Scaling

• Restorative Illusions (Inspiration XII) scaling is too low to be a viable alternative to Shattered Conditions (Inspiration XI). If it was 800 health per clone instead of 800 health for 1 clone and 200 more for each subsequent clone, it would be an interesting decision between the two traits. Removing just one stack of bleed lasting 8 seconds ticking for 100 per second would save you 800 HP, removing a stack of burning as well that would last for just 2 seconds ticking for 400 would save you another 800 HP. Remove poison ticking for 200 that would last 4 seconds saves you another 800 HP. Even with these very conservative durations and damage ticks, it’s easy to see that the health you save from Shattered Conditions far outshines Restorative Illusions. Not to mention the fact that Shattered Conditions remove conditions from allies as well.

Blurred Inscriptions Buff

• Blurred Inscriptions (Duelling VIII) is a very unattractive trait in general, especially at master tier in Duelling. One second of invulnerability on (at minimum) a 24 second traited cooldown with Signet of Midnight at the cost of Deceptive Evasion (Dueling X) is not worth the trait. The invulnerability should be increased to 2 or 3 seconds or changed entirely, or at least be moved to adept tier.

Cleansing Inscriptions Buff

• Cleansing Inscriptions (Chaos IX) is a very unattractive trait as well. Removing only one condition on (at minimum) a 24 second traited cooldown with Signet of Midnight is not worth wasting a trait on. The condition removal should at least be improved to match the 2 conditions removed on heal with Mender’s Purity (Inspiration IV) and moved to adept tier. In my opinion, it should be buffed to remove all conditions on signet use instead. Giving up the passive effect of your signet, combined with fairly long cooldowns make it seemingly fair trade off. It would help with Mesmers fairly poor condition removal and increase use of the underused signets in general.

Signet of Midnight Boon Duration Buff/Change

• The passive buff duration increase of 10% is low and is usually not worth taking over the better and more popular utilities such as decoy or blink. Buffing it to at least 20% would have good synergy with Signet of Inspiration, and combined with the other proposed signet changes could make boon duration signet support Mesmers a viable spec. Or changing the boon duration entirely to 20% +/- condition duration would make it an attractive option.

I hope this actually gets seen. Now that the discussion of the patch has come to a close asmost folks are talking about further grievences with classes, I’d like to throw in my thoughts.

I like that you’ve taken a route of more transparency and listening to feedback. I think the next step could be to post a collaberative development for each of the claases like you did for WvW and living story. Ask the players what they’d like to see worked on next, what your general goals are in the ‘final form’ for each class, and just have some back and forth.

Apologies for typos and whatnot, my phone and this interface don’t like each other.

Fox.3562:

Over 3,000 hours on my Mesmer, 95% of which is from WvW. Mesmer’s are a pretty weak class in groups, so here’s a few changes I think would benefit the class in group play.

Mind Stab Blast Finisher

• Mind Stab (Greatsword 3) should be a blast finisher. Mesmers right now have only one blast finisher (Torch 4) and it’s unreliable because of the 3 second delay from stealth. Mind Stab being a blast finisher would give Mesmers the ability to contribute to groups by blasting static/fire/water/etc fields.

Unblockable Null Field

• Null Field (Utility) should be unblockable. Not sure if this is a bug or intended, but right now classes can walk right through null field as long as they have a block (warrior shield, guardian heal, etc) and have none of their boons stripped. It can also be evaded/dodge rolled through. Necro wells are unblockable, so why not Null Field?

Imbued Diversion to Master Tier

• Imbued Diversion should not be a Grandmaster trait. There’s no reason why a Mesmer should ever waste 30 trait points for a 5 target daze on a 31 second cooldown, especially with something as strong as Illusionary Persona as an alternative. Counter Blade (Sword 4) is a 5 target daze on a 15s (untraited) cooldown, Into the Void (Focus 4) is a 5 target interrupt on a 25s (untraited) cooldown, and Illusionary Wave (Greatsword 5) is a 5 target interrupt on a 30s cooldown. Moving it down to Master tier would make it a desirable option for a Glamour build.

Retaliatory Demise and Chaotic Revival

• Retaliatory Demise (Chaos VI) and Chaotic Revival (Chaos I) are two traits that I imagine have never been used by anyone and should probably be replaced entirely. There’s not much point in traiting in anticipation of yourself going down, and especially with such lackluster effects.

Phantasm Invulnerability

• Power Mesmers are fairly useless in group battles because most of their damage comes from Phantasms. An interesting suggestion I heard was giving Phantasms invulnerability for long enough for them to do one attack. This would allow a Mesmer to summon a Phantasmal Berserker in a group of enemies without it instantly dying to AoE. This would do comparable damage to a power-wells necro to a group of enemies on a similar cooldown, as the phantasm will likely die as soon as its invulnerability drops.

Mantra AoE Increase

• The AoE effects from Mantras (Stability and condition cleanse) needs to affect a larger area to be of any use in a group battle. Mesmers should typically be near the back of an engagement, and the 240 range is not enough to affect your allies in most situations. I think it should be increased to 600 like Shattered Conditions.

Blinding Befuddlement ICD

• The ICD on Blinding Befuddlement (Illusions IX) should be removed. Mesmers have no spammable blind now that Chaos Armor can only activate once per second. It was only powerful pre-confusion nerf because a Mesmer could keep very high Chaos Armor uptime, and an enemy had a 2/3 chance of applying confusion to himself on EVERY hit. It’s unnecessary now that confusion does half the damage it used to and Chaos Armor has a 1s ICD. All the cooldown does is hurt Glamour Mesmers, who can only apply AoE Blind once every 32 seconds anyway.

I’ve played very little mesmer, though I’ve fought plenty of them in WvW. I’d have to say that I agree with all of your changes. They make sense and the reason I never played mesmer is that they don’t seem to do well against large groups of enemies, or in group fights. The utility always seemed cool, though.

Ranger:

Natural Vigor
Starting here because I think it requires the most discussion. This, simply put, was a wildly overpowered trait. I tell people not to compare one profession to another, but Engineer has this trait as a major grandmaster. It was simply too easy to put 5 points in this line and then be able to dodge every 6.67 seconds. As it stands after the change this still allows you to splash 5 points and dodge every 8 seconds. I don’t think this will ruin survivability, and I think by buff other traits further down this line it will encourge rangers who are looking to survive to go further into this trait line.

I’m sorry, but I have so say this: You fail in these maths. Natural vigor it’s 50% regen, it let’s a dodge each 7.5 seconds not 6.67. I check it in game: If you do a double dodge it’s 15s until the complete bar refills. With the nerf each dodge will go to 8.75s, not 8s.

It is not overpowered, due the ranger context: we are realy weak in WvW and in instanced PvE (in open world PvE we are good because not require be very effective to play it). In WvW ranger is the worst class to play if you want to aid your server, no one discuss this. No one dedicated guild in WvW use rangers, counterwise, they encourage other players to not use them (I play in a server, Baruch Bay, with some of the best dedicated WvW guilds, I know what I’m talking about). We lack in survivability, damage, CC’s, AoE’s or support to be effective when compared to other classes.
Same case in instanced PvE. No one wants a ranger in high level fractals or hard dungeons if possible. Warrior, guardian, mesmer or ele are by far more effective than rangers.

We are good in PvP, but only using bunker builds. The nerf in natural vigor it’s a nerf for ranger in all game modes and for all possible builds. You say that you want more viable builds for ranger, but this change is completely counterwise. This will encourage PvP rangers for bunker more to cover this lose in survivability. And, even more, the PvP bunker builds have other survivability options, nerfing one when you have multiple options it’s not a great nerf at all, but it’s a terrible nerf for all other builds that lack other options to make us alive (and have to remark this another time: it’s a nerf in all game modes and for all builds).

Don’t nerf all of us when the problem (if really it’s a problem) is that bunker PVP rangers have too much survivability. Even more when these bunker builds are not much effective in WvW or PvE.

Sorry if too long post, but I think it’s necessary.

Power rangers are in a very bad place at this moment (well, at this and since game releases). Opening strikes are realy weak, possibly the worst minor trait line in game, one secure crit at the strart of combat that causes 10% vulnerability for 6s and thats all we get until combat ends.

- Merge Opening Strike with Alpha training, move Precise Strike to minor master and move Remorseless to minor gradmaster.

I think it’s a pretty easy change. All we get with this is the option in long combats to regain opening strikes. It’s not much, but any buff like these will be welcome. Rangers only have 1 skill (GS#2, Maul) that really benefits of being a critical hit, all our other attacks have the same damage (or even less) than the autoattack. You have to admit that this change will not make ranger OP in any case, as in PvP you are not killing enemies often.

Longbow rangers have a big issue, doubled if we want use signets. We have to invest 50 points (30 in marksmanship, 20 in skirmishing) to get the related bow traits and even with this we don’t get all them. This leaves us only 20 points to invest in survivability options (here shines the natural vigor trait…).
In marksmanship master major we only have 1 room for it’s 4 usefull traits. And in grandmaster major we are forced to use XI, Signet of the Beastmaster.
Why rangers should invest 30 points and waste a grandmaster major trait to use it’s signets?

- Merge Piercing Arrows with Quick Draw (warriors have this same effect trait, Crack Shot and no one claims it was OP). This will leave us 1 room for Eagle Eye or Spotter. This merging is a MUST if we want be competitive in multiple game modes. In PvP in any case this can be OP, cause (with piercing arrows) is hard hitting more than 1 objective in this game mode due it’s nature. This will benefit bow users in WvW and instanced PvE (really, we need some love in these game modes).

- Eagle eye should affect the shortbow. After the last nerf to it’s range I think this is necessary.

- Merge any of the other 2 related signet traits (Signet Mastery or Beastmaster’s might) to Signet of the beastmaster. Ok, if we rangers have to use a gradmaster major trait to use our signets at least give us something to make this a little more attractive.

Related to traits these are my thoughts. In Wilderness survival and Nature magic I think we are ok.

Sorry for the long post, rangers like me are really disappointed with some aspects of his class and tired of being discriminated in many parties and WvW groups. Please take this changes in consideration, none of these will make us OP in any term and will help us to be, at least, a little more competitive.
Also sorry for my poor english, it’s not my mother lenguage.

I also have to thank you to let players give us our opinion about the incoming changes.

everytime there’s a decent enough warrior build it gets nerfd
learn from launch anet, when you nerfd GS warriors in sPVP it took us a year to get back to a decent place.

reducing warrior hammer dmg by a whopping 20% is to big a nerf

Guardian’s Orb of Wrath tooltip still needs to be updated.. The activation of the skill says 1/4 second when in reality the actual casting time is 4/5 second.

Cornithos.6938:

Danariel.4675:

Cornithos.6938:

Two serious potential problems with the proposed Ele changes. ~snip~ Do not force me to spend hard earned gold to fix the mess you create by changing the rules to the game.

Go to your class trainer and ask to retrait. It costs a little over 3s. You DON’T need to buy a new book, or spend “hard earned GOLD.”

I shouldn’t have to pay period because they changed the rules and 3s is a lot of money to pay to re-trait!

Last time they did big trait shuffling, they refunded trait points for free. I’m sure they will this time as well.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

The following began as a response to a post in this thread. It quickly escalated in size and scope, thus warranting it’s own topic (and a desire to not derail the thread from which it was spawned).

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Torqky.3682:

The problem with vampiric is AOE. They are balancing vampiric around fast hitting attacks that hit multiple times and aoe abilities. These abilities include axe 2, staff auto (pierce), all staff marks and all wells. This makes single target siphons weak because if they upped the scaling then healing from aoe would be too strong. You can potentially tag 90 targets in 7 seconds with wells alone (7 pulses x 5 targets=35, 6 pules x 5 targets =30, 5pulses x 5 targets 25). Throw in all staff marks and a few auto attacks and you can potentially tag around 120 targets in 10 seconds.

The devs could man up and address the scaling problem head on or just claim that this continued band-aid fix is working.

Or, you could realize that the siphoning the necro gets from tagging that many doesn’t even come close to helping him last longer against the incoming damage that those enemies provide. Siphoning is one of the things that actually rewards us for aggressive play, hitting as many things as possible. Given Necromancers embody the school of Aggression, I think that’s fitting.

Necro’s biggest problem defensively is that what we have doesn’t scale beyond one opponent. Siphoning is the only thing we have that actually does. If they increased siphoning to be significant (note I did not say “enough to counter”) against one opponent, it is automatically correct for multiple opponents.

^ This.

Though I can appreciate where the arguments in favor of adding internal cool downs to life siphoning are coming from, the solution offered does not address the fundamental flaws.

Here are the various life siphoning options. I’m not suggesting these are the only ones available; it’s a simply a comparison of current life siphoning, internal cool down life siphoning, and a third hybrid suggestion:

1) Current life siphoning.

Steals life with each hit of direct damage, regardless of source, when traiting Vampiric. The pro argument is it can potentially give a necro a lot of sources of siphoning to aid our sustain. It doesn’t actually work that way in practice; read on.

The con argument is it scales with attack speed and/or the amount of AoE that a necro can put out, thus favoring dagger/warhorn and well users. It can be debated this is balanced because the dagger-wielding necro risks more by getting within melee range. Thus they should be rewarded with more siphoning from their faster attack speed. Regardless, since dagger will always be the fastest attacking weapon, life siphon builds favor dagger wielders; shutting out other necro builds from utilizing life siphoning as a sustain mechanic.

The problem is further compounded by ArenaNet’s balancing of life siphoning under the most idealized of circumstances; a dagger/warhorn necro simultaneously dropping multiple wells, popping Locust Swarm, and slashing away with their dagger for some insane life siphoning. To avoid this becoming OP, ArenaNet dials down the hit-for-hit amount of siphoning to ridiculously low levels.

This is problematic for two reasons. First, in practice, it’s rare to ever achieve that idealized scenario. This is in reference to PvP/WvWvW; PvE mobs are dumb as rocks and will stand in any AoE, be it wells, meteor shower, etc. (this is not exclusive to necros). But because they are so afraid of the OMG-UBER-PWNZER-UNKILLABLE-VAMPIRE-NECROS-SO-OP fringe outlyer scenario (which would never happen in PvP anyway because enemies would just simply…walk out of the wells), per-hit life siphoning is insufficient for providing practical sustain.

Secondly, by balancing around the idealized scenario (which leads to weak per-hit life stealing), siphoning has transformed from a sustain mechanic to a burst mechanic. It’s most optimal use doesn’t come from a small but consistent trickle of self-healing over time (as would befit sustain), but rather from jumping into the middle of a fight to bomb enemies with everything you’ve got for 10 seconds (wells are 5 second duration, but Locust Swarm is 10 seconds) and then getting the hell out of Dodge!

2) Add an internal cool down to life siphoning

This suggestion seeks to correct the problems inherent in the current model by introducing an internal cool down. Life siphoning would process only once per second (per the most frequently suggested quantum of time), regardless of how many hits are being made second to second.

(continued)

In my opinion great post – Developers shall read this
1/4

The argument goes that this would no longer favor a single weapon set (dagger/warhorn) as the most optimal for siphoning. This, in turn, would normalize life stealing, making it a practical option for a broader range of necro builds. Sustain would be viable more globally rather than being limited to niche builds in the Blood Magic line.

The counter-arguments to this proposal are three-fold. First, if we’re reduced to only one siphon per second, then the amount siphoned is going to have to sky rocket far beyond its current level to make it viable. Something on the order of 200 or more life siphoned per-second (on hit, of course) to make it even remotely worth traiting. Given the painfully slow rate at which ArenaNet is “improving” our siphons, it will be a very long time before we see a value that high (if ever).

Secondly, normalizing life siphoning by time would not lead to a broader use of it by necros across different builds. Rather, it would simply shift the life siphoning meta from dagger/warhorn to another weapon set. Think about it. Currently, the only advantage the dagger wielder has over other necro weapon sets is the speed with which they can complete an auto-attack rotation. This allows them to siphon life faster which, in turn, is balanced by their greater risk of having to move within melee range.

If you remove that reward (potential for faster life siphoning) by normalizing all siphoning to once per second, then what incentive is there to wield dagger mainhand when you can achieve the exact same amount of life stealing by staying safely at range with axe, sceptre, or staff? It would be the death knell for dagger wielders and run counter to the vision of necros being rewarded the more aggressive they become. We’d be reduced to fey emo dark mages sniping at enemies from the safety of the backline. If I wanted to play ele, I would have rolled one :P

Lastly, the argument goes that because ArenaNet is so deathly afraid of the unkillable vampire bomber, an internal cool down would remove their fears of life siphoning being too OP under the idealized scenario presented above in point #1. With an internal cool down, necros wouldn’t be able to gain insane life stealing with well, Locust Swarm, and dagger bombing. Thus, ArenaNet wouldn’t have to balance around the potential OP scenario and could then give us more viable sustain across the board.

This is the one ICD argument which I feel has some merit. The problem with it is it still fails to address the second point I made earlier; normalizing life siphoning by time removes the only advantage available to dedicated Blood Magic vampires who’s high risk play style would no longer be rewarded.

Next, it assumes ArenaNet is working on the same wavelength as we are and would act logically and rationally by increasing life siphoning by a truly viable amount in exchange for reducing it to processing only once per second. The more likely scenario, based on experience to date, is ArenaNet would reduce processing to once per second but only “improve” the siphoning a handful of points; far below what we would need to survive and making life stealing even more of a joke than it is now.

Finally, the fear of the unkillable vampire bomber is unfounded. On paper, the life siphoning and damage numbers look insane in the idealized scenario. In practice, it doesn’t work that way. The OMG-NECRO-IS-GAINING-100’S-OF-LIFE-SIPHONED-PER-SECOND already has two oft-overlooked built in limiters.

The first is realized when you ask yourself, “Where is that “insane” life siphoning coming from?" Answer: from opponents. If there’s no one inside a well or within proximity of a Locust Swarm, then there is no siphoning occurring. Life stealing doesn’t happen in a vacuum; only in the presence of enemies. A necro who’s siphoning “insane” amounts of health is also facing an insane amount of opponents (5 or more) and taking damage from them while siphoning.

Life siphoning requires the presence of a foe to process; a foe who isn’t going to be very happy about it and will fight back. With the current life siphoning values, a necro is not going to out-siphon the damage they will be receiving; even when going all-in. They will perhaps just keep pace with the damage; and that’s assuming your enemies are polite enough to not blink, dodge, evade, kite, leap, or teleport out of reach of your wells and/or Locust Swarm.

The second limiter, ironically enough, is time. As described earlier, if a necro blows all of their cool downs to life siphon bomb with wells and Locust Swarm, this amounts to a 5 to 10 second burst. Once those skills have run their course, the necro is reduced to using weapon skills for life siphoning (pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe it). Following that burst, the necro will be focused down into the dirt with no means of escape. So much for the myth of the unkillable vampire bomber.

2/4

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

(continued)

That’s the fallacy; ArenaNet is balancing life siphoning around an extreme case that exists only on paper because of their failure to take into account that more life siphoned = more enemies surrounding the necro. Enemies who are more than likely out-damaging the necro’s life stealing.

All that life siphon bombing amounts to is a delaying tactic that buys the necro a few seconds. In some instances, those seconds may prove decisive if the necro’s allies can respond in time or leverage it to their advantage (an example of skillful play on both their parts). Once those seconds have ticked down, the necro who doesn’t have an exit plan or allied backup is dead. It is hardly the godmode the devs fear and certainly not a valid case around which to balance life siphoning.

The internal cool down proposition, though well-meaning, is attempting to solve a problem that doesn’t exist except in the minds of the devs; but in doing so, introduces new problems of its own as detailed above.

3) Hybrid: Life siponing with an internal cool down but scaling with number of opponents

Implement the siphon-once-per-second internal cool down suggestion. Even keep the current life siphoning values; insufficient as they are when facing multiple opponents.

Now, add a scalar that increases life siphoning by a percentage based on the number of opponents within a certain radius. Due to our low mobility, I suggest this radius should be 1,200 given that opponents can stay at that range and still hit us while we have a difficult time hitting back.

The scaling will need to be sufficient enough to actually make a difference; I’m recommending 100% per opponent. That may sound OP on paper, but think about it. Traiting Bloodthirst + Vampiric currently steals 40 health per hit. If facing one opponent, a necro would siphon 40 health; two opponents, 80 health; three opponents, 120 health; … five opponents; 200 health per second.

Two-hundred health per second is not astronomical given what other classes can achieve with their sustain mechanics. In light of the fact a necro would have the additional limiters of (a) being surrounded by five opponents to reach that 200 points of siphoning and (b) need to make a hit on one of the opponents to process the life stealing, it balances it out. What’s more is, it’s actually less life siphoning per-second then what necros can achieve now using a well and Locust Swarm bomb. And no one is complaining that our current siphoning, even when bombing, is OP.

The scaling could either cap out at a certain number of opponents (5, 10, or whatever) or have no cap at all. Even though a necro – given the second option and surrounded by dozens of enemies – would have astronomical life siphoning, they would also be taking astronomical damage. So again; it balances out.

The advantages are:

• It eliminates the scenario of life siphoning being OP in the mythological “ideal” scenario I described earlier due to the introduction of the siphon-once-per-second limiter.
• Therefore, ArenaNet would no longer have to balance around that scenario (which, in part, is what led to our non-bombing siphoning being sub-par in the first place).
• This spreads our siphoning out over time rather than concentrated in short bombing bursts; thus leading to a truer long-term sustain.
• It allows necro siphoning to scale with opponents, addressing the short-coming that we’re strong 1 vs 1, but quickly drop off the chart as the number of opponents increases.
• No reworking of the actual siphoning numbers; they can remain as they are.

Of course, this suggestion still suffers from the same drawbacks as the internal-cool-down-only suggestion. Namely:

• This still amounts to a normalizing of life siphoning. Dagger mainhand necros are not rewarded for high risk play and have little to no incentive to use dagger any longer.
• It begs the question of what to do with a trait like Vampiric Precision. If limited to only one siphon-per-second, what happens when the necro crits? Double the amount siphoned for that hit?
• It’s still – like both current life siphoning and the proposed ICD siphoning – a skill-less, binary (do X to trigger Y), and, arguably, boring mechanic. It amounts to, “I swung a sword and stole some life! I swung a sword again and stole some more life! Isn’t that great?!?!”

4) Do nothing; leave siphoning just the way it is.

It will remain sub-par forever as ArenaNet continues to fear the reaper by balancing around that imaginary OP scenario. Maybe we’ll see a couple more points added to our siphons; but nothing that will ever result in true sustain. The de facto repurposing of life siphoning into burst will remain the most optimal use of the mechanic and a niche build that almost nobody plays.

(continued)

3/4

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

(continued)

5) Redesign life siphoning from the ground up.

This is probably what it would take to bring true sustain to the necro profession in GW2. Unfortunately, that entails a lot of work; something the devs have already stated they’re not willing to do. Especially not for necros. It would be years before we would see it come to fruition (if ever).

August 28th, 2012: Here died the best implementation of the blood necro ever conceived. R.I.P.

4/4
I know that balance skills are weery hard work.
This post in my opinion have some great suggestions about balance Life Siphoning.
So Balancig Team dont forget read this
Cheers!

Your post 2 and 3 are the exact same text, there.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Your post 2 and 3 are the exact same text, there.

Yess, sometimes moving post give some trouble.
Just fix or purify the trouble or CHAOS (blood for the blood goods!!) here.

Cheers!

What are the chances of Torment being added to the list of cleansed conditions on Hide in Shadows? The healing skill was made to remove only the damaging conditions while stealthing, but was not updated to remove the new condition type. Is this a fair request?

These are my suggestions to improve conditions mesmers in PVE.
Since last patch conditions build became almost a real option but I think they need a slight improvement.
The only weapons choice for conditions mesmers is staff & scepter/torch so I’ll have those in mind for this suggestion.

Main problems:
(1) Scepter skill 1 chain depends too much on domination trait line to deal damage (while the build asks points in illusions and inspiration/chaos)
(2) Counterspell blindness effect is not very useful.
(3) Torch is in general underpowered in pve.

Suggestions to skills:
- Either bolt should cause vulnerability (this should help Problem 1) or cause torment/ confusion.
- Either Blast should have it’s damage reduced and cause torment or confusion.
- Counterspell should cause daze (like the sword counterblade).
- Phantasmal Mage should cause weakness in addition to confusion (GW1 empathy)
- The appearance/disappearance effect of prestige could remove boons on enemies.
- The appearance effect could even cause chill.

Suggestions to traits:
Illusionary Elasticity – Should affect Phantasmal Disenchanter.
Shattered Strength – Should grant a boost to condition duration (5%) (this would also help to reduce the need for domination trait line and because it’s being moved to grandmaster tier it needs a little extra something)
Chaotic Dampening – Toughness increase should be higher or grant a boost to condition duration.

Arantheal.7396:

What I intended to have said is not what you just assumed.
Every class is forced to pay something for better mobility. While other classes must offer a utility spot for signets, engineers are not forced – nor able -to do so. Yes, we do have to go rather complex ways to gain our mobility, but what we’re actually achieve with doing so are not 25% more movement-speed, but perma-swiftness which is 33%. Not only that, we can even combine that with “Invigorating Speed”, “Adrenal Implant” and “Adrenaline Pump” (which just takes 5 points) to doge a frekkin huge chunk of the incoming damage. Not to forget about " Inertial Converter" which basically means another 40% of endurance instantly.
IF and engineer chooses to go down the tool-tree and just spends 10 points on the alchemy-tree, he not only gets perma-swiftness with “Speedy Kits” but an endurance-regeneration that is unreachable for other classes.
So yes, getting perma-swiftness on its own is kinda complex, especially if you intent to use turrets effectively. But if you construct your build around this, you get rewarded with extreme damage-evasion.

There are enough ways for each class to gain movability, some are rewarding, most are not. And if you don’t play an engi-build revolving swiftness, don’t call for its removal, just so you become slightly less depressed if you face an enemy that has chosen to use his mobility-capabilities.

You again seem to be missing the core of this issue. I am talking about WvW travel equity vis a vis speed. Your own argument ACKNOWLEDGES that I have to spec in kits to Maybe get “perma-speed”. You acknowledge that rangers, thieves, necros, and elementalists all can spec for Permanent persistent world movement speed with ONE sigil.
Let’s say that again… ONE sigil. So their “sacrifice” is to plug in ONE sigil and boom they’re moving and grooving. Done and forgotten, let’s move out. Let’s not forget that sigils all have secondary combat effects, so that’s really not a hardship.

Not much of a sacrifice compared to, oh say, having to go spec speedy kits (10 trait pts), then place a kit in your inventory and continually have to cycle it to have the EQUIVALENT of “perma-speed”. SO I as an engineer not only “spend” the slot to hold the kit, I have to burn 10 trait pts. to get the speed. Hmmm. That’s balanced, Oh yes my indeed it is. NOT!!!

If that’s how it works. I may have to spec it and try it. But that’s rather more inconvenient than the warrior way of doing things, which is spec 10 trait pts and then carry a melee weapon. No cycling required either. OH, GEE, a warrior carrying a MELEE weapon? REALLY? SOME SACRIFICE!!

Try this. You have two cars. You have to drive 50 miles. One car goes 25 miles an hour, the other goes 50. Which do you drive? Now expand the idea… I have two cars which can both go 50 mph. But one of those cars requires me to turn on my lights every mile, then requires me to turn on my flashers every other mile, then requires me to turn on my radio every third mile. In order, and the sequence MUST be continually repeated every three miles or the car SLOWS down to 25 mph. Which car DO YOU DRIVE?
I Say Again… GAME BALANCE. That means that things are more or less EQUAL for ALL classes in regards to major aspects of the game. Traveling between Point A and Point B IS a major game aspect. If you don’t think so, refer to my original post and read my mount commentary.

After all, I don’t Pay more as a Lvl 80 engineer to teleport from Lion’s Arch to Mount Maelstrom than a lvl 80 Warrior does, do I? I don’t pay more on the Black Lion market for a given piece of exotic gear than some other player does, do I? Merchants don’t charge me more for gathering tools than they do for some one else, do they?

SO why do I as an engineer have to go thru some crazy rigamorle when FIVE other classes DO NOT? Why are they getting special treatment? That’s not balanced. They can just plug in their sigils or carry their weapon and they are good to go. If I’m in the middle of combat, I may forget or not have time to do my kit switch, which means oh, oops, goodbye speed boost, hello slow down.

And even if you are right about speed kits, this doesn’t help guardians and mesmers. They are still consigned to the ranks of the glacial. I say there need to be PERMANENT easy and readily available speed boost capability FOR ALL CLASSES. In other words, everyone should have a mount. EVERYONE. Anything else is just like charging eng’s, mesmers, and guardians twice as much to teleport between two given points. Not Balanced. Not Equal.

Well +25 speed could be passivly on every elite skill. That would make it fair and the term elite skill gets a new value.

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, to move faster you have to stop and stand still? This makes no sense at all. Leave the “if you don’t have swiftness” at 8 sec, then you can change for what you want. Guardian mobility already is bad, please, I’m begging you, don’t make it worse.

Re Warrior:
I am really happy to see the longbow burning damage being nerfed and the moving of unsuspecting foe away from tier 1, however, changing Skull Crack to 0.5 seconds and decreasing damage on the hammer doesn’t make sense to me. Please note one of the reasons longbow does so much easy fire damage with a power build is due to the fact that it is very easy to get might stacks out of combo fields with hammer.

Hammer without Merciless Hammer does no damage at all. In order to get damage out of the slow and predictable hammer attacks you need Merciless Hammer and the target needs to be disabled which is is not easy. Skull Crack is not easy to land either. You have to be really close to connect with it already and increasing it to 0.5 seconds effectively renders is useless. You effectively already corrected mace/hammer damage already by moving Unsuspecting Foe away so there is no need to nerf it further.

For anyone calling for nerfs to hammer/mace please try and play against a decent played with ranged class with these changes and see how it goes.

WHY isnt there a vigor nerf on mesmer and guards?

It would be better to cap the total vigor bonus any player can benefit from (and other bonuses frankly) you can get than nerf individual traits and still allow stacking with gear, other traits etc.

Arkantos.7460:

WHY isnt there a vigor nerf on mesmer and guards?

Because the base chance to get the vigor buff is around 4%. It requires specific gearing/traiting to elevate that chance, and there is ALWAYS a random element to it (crit chance cap) and gaps are unavoidable. Further, things like blinds and dodges create more gaps.

This round went after self-generated vigor. They didn’t touch the methods that require an unwilling victim to gain it.

I do not know if this has already been addressed or not, but i think that the idea of making the guardian more powerful seems a bit too much. Right now, most guardians i encounter have a very high damage output with their builds because their defence is taken care of by the blinds they apply and the blocks they have. If you do manage to deal damage to them, one of their meditation uses will heal them right up.

One more thing i’d like to address is the downed state. Whenever i am fighting a 1v2 scenario in either sPvP or WvW and i manage to down one of them, the other person will be able to revive him/her before i can finish my stomp. This makes outnumbered fights very hard to win and it ruins the fun of fighting a 1v2

Other than that, i am looking forward to the changes because it will balance the game and support build variety.

Anet!
I was very unhappy with the fact that your words with your actions.
You say: “We don’t like classes having permanent Vigor, and this is one of the areas we needed to tone down the up time of the engineer’s Vigor.”
In fact, you nerf engineer:
Tools VI – Speedy Kits. Increased Swiftness duration to 10s. 10s recharge.
While leaving such traits as:
Vigorous Precision Gain vigor when you deliver a critical hit. (Guardian 5 points)
Critical Infusion Gain vigor when delivering a critical hit. (Mesmer 5 points)
To get an engineer something like that i need to spend 20 points on Infused Precision + Invigorating Speed , and I’ll only have 50% chance to get vigor with critical hit.
We need to resolve this problem.

Also about the trait:
Explosives IX – Accelerant packed turrets. Moved to Adept tier.
It is useless, because the radius of the explosion of the turret 120. This is a very small radius.
We need improve turrets radius of the explosion.

Also about the trait:
Hair Trigger Reduces recharge on rifle, pistol, and harpoon gun skills.
Another classes have something other than 20% Reduces recharge
Warrior –
Crack Shot Rifle and harpoon gun shots pierce. Reduced recharge on rifle and harpoon gun skills.
Forceful Greatsword Gain might on a critical hit with a greatsword or spear. Reduces recharge on greatsword and spear skills.
Mesmer –
Blade Training Increased precision while wielding a one-handed sword or a spear. Reduces the recharge on sword and spear skills.
Greatsword Training Increased power while wielding a greatsword. Reduces recharge on greatsword skills.
And so on.
We need improve this trait.

Also about engineer harpoon skill 1
Its have !1! sec. casting time! and slowest velocity of the projectile
Another harpoon classes have !1/4! sec. casting time!
We need improve velocity of the projectile and reduce casting time of this skill.

+Elementalist Water Attuntment Spells / Traits need to be improve! +
- Anet been buffing all elements except water. Please make water more viable in term of damage not just a healing elements. By improving Water damage, this will give Elementalist player more different option/style to play.

Traits:
Shard of Ice – While attuned to water, you have chances to deal bleeding and chill on vulnerable foes. (this will make more sense of the trait name, and it should benefit water spells not signets or arcane!) This will also match Piercing shards trait.

Stop, Drop, and Roll – This is far too weak for taking the master major trait space. Please remove more conditions or add in blast finish (or healing / cleansing wave at the end of the dodge)

Cleansing Water – Remove a condition when granting regeneration AND HEALING to yourself or an ally. (making this more viable with other water healing spells like Water Trident)

Spells:

Water Trident – Please completely redesign this… either adding back the knockback function in beta. Reduce recharge time to 10 sec or less. or make this a water version rock barrier, where you can summon few tridents for regen, then send it off for muti-damages.

Shatterstone – Add in a blast finish, dramatically increase spell damage. (or add chill condition on the initial spell cast)

Ice Spike – The damage is very good, however… this is the only staff water damage spell, please add one more condition (like confusion, or bleeding). Or giving Geyser a follow up skill to knockback / knockdown enemy. (like the way Orr enemy does)

Runes:

Superior Rune of Ice – (4): 5% chance to Chilled.png freeze all nearby foes when hit. (Cooldown: 30s) That 5% is basically… none existence. That cooldown 30s is completely redundant with only 5% chances. (This is extremely unbalance compare with many other runes that give permanent function) Please increase activated chances to 20%, lower the cooldown to 10s!

Nike.2631:

I have a Question for the Class Balance Devs:

Could you please describe what you see as the deliberate, intrinsic “Weak Spot” each class has that will by design never be covered or closed?

My impression is that Guardians and Necromancers are supposed to have permanent deficiencies in their mobility. I’m less clear how the other classes are supposed to always play ‘paper’ to a particular brand of ‘scissors’.

Thank you

As much as I think requesting something specific from devs shouldn’t create the expectation of a response, I really like this question. It’s easy to try to get wrapped up in what a class is designed to be good at, but I think it’s equally worthwhile to get insight into what a class isn’t necessarily designed to fully support.

The issue is that the second ANet makes a comment about how Class X isn’t really designed to do Y, there will be enormous outcry from people trying to do Y asking why they can’t play how they want etc. etc. etc. I’m never one to pander to a community, but I don’t think ANet will take this potential step into a PR nightmare.

So I don’t think it’ll be answered, but I still very much like your question, Nike. Just wanted to put that out there.

I just want to repost what I posted in the engineer sub forum here before the thread is closed.

Lowest Animal.8014:

JonPeters.5630:

For condition engineers we have left Shrapnel intact here as the alternative. For power engineers we have left Empowering Adrenaline intact here as the alternative. No need to argue that these traits are worse than IP, we know that, this is why IP was moved. The real question is why are these not Adept tier worthy, which we think they are…

Shrapnel is a VERY weak trait. 15% chance for one stack of bleed that only procts in bombs or nades so it doesn’t even help the paltry pistol auto attack or any other non explosive kit. So, best case scenario is nade engineer (which is already pigeonholed 30 in explosives) spamming nades and every 3 attacks you get 1.35 extra bleed stack on average. Additionally, what condi nade engis lose if they want to keep IP is either Short Fuse or Enhance Performance. Trading either of these for Shrapnel is a HUGE nerf. As Ostricheggs said, this pushes condi engis further into bomb+nades apex build because it will probably be better to get your burning from the bomb kit and simply skipping IP altogether.

I know you cant bring this trait up to IP levels but at least make it worthwhile by increasing the proct rate, letting other weapons proct it and increasing the number of bleed stacks.

p.s. Thank you for the communication and your time actually reading and acknowledging us proles

p.p.s The only time I hear about engi being OP it involves rune sets like Perplexity and Noble. Please fix those before nerfing engi further.

Lowest Animal.8014:

Berengar.6951:

Plyte.8130:

Um… Shrapnel is actually really strong for grenades. The bleed base length is 12 seconds, and often I run koi cakes with my engineer so I get 20 second bleeds whenever shrapnel procs. On normal might stacks, thats roughly 2k total damage per shrapnel proc which happens on average at least 1 every 2 throws. Thats a lot of damage for a 10 point trait.

Yes it’s good with grenades, and ONLY grenades.

If this IP to master move happens I’ll either keep IP (I run nades/toolkit/rocket boots right now) and lose short fuse for shrap, which kinda stinks, or switch to bombs+nades and lose toolkit and dump IP.

Im in the same place, Berengar.

I disagree on Shrapnel being strong even using grenades. Yes, the condition length is very good but the average is actually just over 1 in 2 throws or 90% chance of proct in two throws with the granade kit (0.15*6=0.9) assuming they all hit. The challenge of conditions has always been balancing damage versus duration. Damage per tick always wins out because it ends fights faster and in the case of intelligent opponents or even mobs that can actually heal or cleanse it creates more pressure and less time to act. 2K dmg over 20 seconds breaks down to 100 dmg/sec, assuming the opponent doesn’t interact with it with things like condi removal or condi reduction. Sure, you can argue that it adds to the bleed stacks that you get from other sources but I would respond that those other sources of bleeds work just fine without that one extra stack every 2.22.. grenade attacks. My analysis is that one stack of bleed every 2+ attacks is largely negligible outside of an sufficiently long fight where the opponent does not interact with it.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

a t s e.9614:

Healing signet needs NO NERF , don’t listen to the whiner . Warrior has no sustain outside of high regen . Those hammer dmg nodes nerf are perfect . But im dissapointed about thief changes honestly , S\D is the only viable build anet

The change to initiative regain baseline is a huge buff to ALL thief builds, so don’t jump so early to those conclusions!

It does nothing to P/P build and i really hope you do something about it.

Here are two things that I would really like to see, that I’ve been waiting to see happen since before launch, and are hopefully minor enough to be changed in the Dec. 10 patch:

1) Engineer’s grenade kit #1 now has a proper auto-attack on land like every other weapon set.

2) Necromancer’s Flesh Golem can now be used underwater. Charge could stun underwater enemies instead of knockback. As of now, Plague is the only elite Necros can use underwater which also rather defeats the point of a minion build.

Oh, and concerning Ranger’s trait lines…was the art behind Wilderness Survival and Beastmastery meant to be swapped or not? Since someone first pointed it out, I haven’t been able to unsee it.

So I’m curious if we can get a Thief build that relies less on stealth and poisons and more on mobility and martial skills?

I hate how stealth and poisons are always tied to the ‘light’ armored melee class. It’s just really unimaginative in terms of design.

And the one that is usually this is paired with a PET class which is even more unimaginative.

Hello and Good day to all and to Jon Peters.

About the Engineer, will Power Shoes and Adrenal Implant be moved to Adept Tier so we have more options outside Speedy Kits and Invigorating Speed for speed + endurance regeneration for the cost of 20 points still?

Thank you, from a Engineer Fanatic.

I agree with most of the Elementalist changes, and the objective that you’ve tried to achieve.

BUT (there is always one) I strongly disagree with the changes you have proposed to the Water Trait line. By moving BOTH the Aquamancer’s Alacrity and Soothring Disruption skills to the Master trait line, it means we will not be able to use both of them as well as Cleansing Water in the Grandmaster line.

By making this one change, you will have nerfed one of the most popular WvW builds – the bunker cleric nuker. It’s one of the best ways used to spam regeneration and condition removal in WvW fights and it remains one of the things we rely upon. If you take away the ability to use all 3 traits together…

Please don’t do this. This is fundamental, class breaking stuff.