Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

• 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.

Can anything be done like this for the mesmer’s temporal curtain?

So I’m taking most of these with a grain of salt. Ele (staff) is my main, we’ll see how some of it works out. Essentially I’m reserving judgement on a lot of it (still need to digest much of what I’ve read) until I can play with it.

However, this one bothers me a little:
Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.

Shadow step and shadow return are something both my husband and I utilize a lot when playing thief in pve. We like having the ease of mobility, and don’t mind sacrificing the initiative to be able to pop in and out of battle. (We’re squishy, it makes sense). I think the additional 1/4 cast time to get out of dodge could very easily mean life or death for our chars, which I don’t particularly like. I don’t see why this one is being changed. If it’s an issue in pvp, then separate the skill versions please.

All I want out of class balance is to know that in PVE, I’m not going to have an exceptionally easier time of it playing certain classes over others. Notice the word ‘exceptional’.. perfect balance is impossible, but be within a range, mkay?

This game doesn’t satisfy that most basic of requirements. None of these piecemeal changes really address it. There are classes that can’t even finish the personal story missions without three deaths and a respec.

I main a mesmer, I love the changes, but i’m wondering if people will think we’re too op again…. we’re already a strong class but i felt that we were more balanced, while ppl have the opinion that mesmers are strong, more exclusively particularly in 1v1, but mesmer doesn’t really stick out like a sore thumb that much, as opposed to a stun lock warrior build that was just way popular and on everyone’s pet peeve list.

With these changes i feel like mesmers might be getting too ahead. Only thing I’d like to see changed is mantra traits making more sense so a mantra build is more viable

For IC and Phantasmal haste together does that mean phantasm builds are now going to be crazy? It stacks right? -40% phantasm CD and what about weapon reduction XD I forgot how all that worked when it used to happen a year ago

maybe some ideas for elementalist conju from wooden potatoes

Just wanted to pop in here to say thank you again. There’s a epic ton-and-a-half of reading here, but to see the devs still being engaged and working with the community on these changes is really comforting. This is awesome!

Thief feedback

Hello,
I am playing thief as my main class, but by playing other classes as well i will give you my objective feedback for the thief changes.
I tried that in the thief forum in the past but it’s so easy to lose the motivation because of the negative feedback you get when alot of thieves deny that something is to strong. (like the Infusion of Shadow trait for d/p builds)
Let’s start with your planned changes.

Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow
Gain initiative when you enter stealth instead of gain it when using a skill that stealth you.

This is one of the best changes for the thief. I was waiting for it a long time.
The change will prevent the perma invis thieves with dagger/pistol without hurting other builds that much.

Initiative
Increase the base regeneration by 33% and reducing the initiative gain from alot of traits by about 33% to 50%.

I like the increased base regeneration. It helps all builds that don’t rely on the init gain traits.
However it is a huge nerf to those traits since their relative boost they give is dropping significant.

A trait that will regenerate 0.1 init/second is not as strong for a 1 init/second base regeneration as it would be for a 0.75 init/second base regeneration.

The trait that is suffering the most will be Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist
The drop of Initiative gain for this trait for high crit chance builds is to high in my oppinion. You should consider to set the internal cooldown to 3 seconds instead of 5.

I know that its not easy to balance the initiative numbers since you can lower a 2 initiative gain only to a 1 initiative gain. It is not possible to set it to a 1.5 initiative gain.

Vigor
Cutting all vigor durations from traits by 50%

I can understand that you dont like the character to have a to long vigor duration. But i think the thief really needs that to survive. The thief is the only profession that has no skills to become invulnerable or block attacks. Thats why the thief needs thos extra dodge rolls.

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

I think this change has a good intention but will still be way less healing then the grandmaster trait in shadow arts.

On top of that the acrobatic trait line does not offer any good condition remove and the shadow arts trait line is far superior for survival because of the toughness and healing power.

Even a 100% increase in healing for this trait would make it less effecient then Shadow’s Rejuvenation with 50% stealth uptime. (50% stealth uptime is easy to achieve. Even without dagger/pistol).

I don’t think that this change will do much about the bad survivability the thief has.

Sword – Shadow Return
Added a 1/4s cast time.

This is a huge change that will make thieves way more vulnerable to disables.
It feels like the plan is to make the trait Hard to catch more attractive. But the random teleport can put you in a way worse position then you were before.

I think the change to shadow return is reasonable. However it needs some other tools for the thief to survive better to compensate this.

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

A change that was needed to make at least the first 1 or 2 attacks after the stun hit.
It will help a bit, but to use it effective in pvp you would immobilize the target anyways.

Since i exceeded the message length i will split it here.

Continue from previous post above.

Next i would like bring up some other changes that could help the thief
Since Infusion of Shadow was the only trait on my list of to strong traits, the following changes will mainly include buffs for traits.
But lets start with the only other trait beside Infusion of Shadow that could take a nerf.

Shadow Arts IV – Shadow’s Embrace
Remove one condition every 3 seconds while in stealth.

This is a really strong condition remove. In my oppinion it could be moved up a tier or the trigger time could be increased.

Together with the grandmaster trait Shadow’s Rejuvenation you can gain great survivability.
While lowering the condition remove in the shadow arts trait line you could add better condition remove to the acrobatic trait line to make it more attactive.

Mechanic – Shadow Return
Return to your original location.

Like every other blink or shadow step it is not able to teleport your character to places that you cant reach without jumping.
I know that the reason for the blink abilities is to prevent players to reach otherwise unreachable places. However, the Shadow Return only teleports you back to a position you allready were able to reach (Like the mesmer portal). So i think it would be a great change to make the Shadow Return work like the mesmer portal.

List of other Traits
To shorten everything i will provide you with a list of links to topics i created to discuss other weak traits of the thief in the past. It’s not a full list, but it will include the most important ones for the current state of the game.

• Deadly Arts V – Potent Poison
  +33% poison duration.
• Deadly Arts VII – Improvisation
  Stealing recharges all skills of one type. +10% dmg with bundles.
• Acrobatics VI – Fleet of Foot
  Dodging removes cripple and weakness from you.

Just my thoughts, and thanks for the preview.

Warriors:

Defense XII – Spiked Armor. Reduced the recharge from 15s to 10s.

The buff to Spiked Armor seems much too strong in WvW, imho.

Even without boon duration it’s near 50% retaliation uptime in WvW battles, just from a passive trait.

Thieves:

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

Moving Assassins Reward from master to grandmaster tier makes it much harder to incorporate that trait in builds unfortunately.

I liked the old trait better, since it was easier to actually incorporate in a build (e.g. double pistol builds), even though it healed for less.

Rangers:

Nature Magic XI – Spirits Unbound. Moved to Master Tier.

I really like that change, since it makes it easier to have a pet spirit, or a family of pet spirits, following you.

It would be really nice if it could be possible to have the spirits stay, instead of the poor spirits dieing after the 60s, and having to recast them all the time.

JonPeters.5630:

To be clear, this is not impacting the utility skill, just the sword #2 toggle. The reason is because of risk vs reward. This is a very rewarding skill with currently little risk associated.

Thank you for the clarification, though I rarely use the utility skill. My utilities are generally needed for other things. Might just be because of how I play. Personally, I’d have preferred to have the sword’s shadow return eat more initiative rather than have a longer cast time. I don’t mind have more risk involved, but not at the cost of mobility when things get bad, which we know can happen in a heartbeat. Just my thoughts on it though. Once I have a chance to use it/play with it, it might not be so bad.

JonPeters.5630:

Phew made it to page 26. I’ll be at work in about 20 minutes at whih point I’ll address some of the bigger Ranger, Thief, and Warrior discussions.

Let me reiterate 2 thing before I do that.

1) This is not a token exercise. I spent all weekend reading this stuff so that we could gather the feedback, compile it, and take actions where necessary.

2) please reread the OP. It talks a lot about how to give feedback, and if you follow it you help yourselves by helping us.

Jon

We appreciate the time you take to slog through our posts. Or at least, I do. It can be a chore… and not a fun one at that with some of the attitudes on here… chuckle

For mesmer’s, if illusionary Invigoration recharge is being reduced from 90s to 60s and is moved to the master tier. Are you going to reduce the recharge on Signet of Illusions also?

While I understand not wanting thieves to have to trait so heavily into initiative regen, it seems like the passive increase is simply making it easier to play thief, rather than requiring strategy to regain initiative. I’m anxious to see how this change affects builds. I can’t see may players taking initiative-gain traits if they only return 1, especially with the passive buff. So I’m hoping this means opening up builds for more variety.

As for Engineer, the Incendiary Powder movement is going to cause a big stink. I’d like to see an improvement to FT’s autoattack but I guess this patch is all about traits. The Transmute change is sweet, as is Elixir Infused Bombs. Making support Engi more viable I suppose. Maybe I’ll need to build a celestial gear set after all.

I really don’t like the sound of the nerf to sword for theif, after all it is a movement skill not an evade.

You need to plan where to plant it for it to work effectively, you need to keep the enemy off your shadow return location by kiting well and being deceptive or it is useless.

I’m just saying that its not just spam and is what gives sword its flavor. The cast time will make it impossible to escape stun locks without blowing other cd’s. Getting stunned then shadow returning away can save you from taking some damage, but your enemy will close in on you in that time while you are still stunned on the spot, meaning you will have to set up a new shadow return spot fast or you will be unable to kite.

Remember theifs are super glassy! One stun is already enough damage to cause you to play defensively. This will just make the set clunky and noneffective. I can understand the nerfs to dodges but it is not a dodge it is a movement skill that takes thought to set up correctly!

Hurray for Seras another Engi chimed in!

I would propose that Incendiary Powder be moved to the Master Minor trait position. This trait is deemed ‘neccesary’ by many Engi’s, and too strong for a 10 point dip according to you guys. Moving it to 15 pts would require more investment for it while not hampering builds that rely on other master tier traits in explosives. Also I don’t know anyone that enjoys those extra mines that put you in combat when your just trying to get away.

JonPeters.5630:

I think the thing to do is make this trait actually fire off signet of illusions thus giving it some synergy with other traits.

I’ve made this question before, and I want to make it again.

Are any traits that “fire off” specific utilities affected by traits that reduce the cooldown of those utilities? For example, for an elementalist, can I reduce the cooldown of Arcane Shielding trait with Arcane Mastery trait, or the new Burning Fire with Cantrip Mastery?

DiogoSilva.7089:

JonPeters.5630:

I think the thing to do is make this trait actually fire off signet of illusions thus giving it some synergy with other traits.

I’ve made this question before, and I want to make it again.

Are any traits that “fire off” specific utilities affected by traits that reduce the cooldown of those utilities? For example, for an elementalist, can I reduce the cooldown of Arcane Shielding trait with Arcane Mastery trait, or the new Burning Fire with Cantrip Mastery?

I believe so. Here’s an example of one they commented on in the Ranger forums:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/December-10th-Ranger-changes/first#post3133590

I’ve also got an interesting observation and suggestion on Arcane Retribution trait.

1. Considering it is an offensive trait, the hp trigger makes it very unreliable. When an elementalist is being targetted and needs to defend himself, chances are, the effect will trigger off and end up being wasted with skills like water trident or any other kind.

2. What about making it similar in design with warrior’s unsuspecting foe? A trait that can reliably trigger, and thus open up possibilities for non-precision/ high-critical damage eles to burst? (Valkyrie eles in pvp, cavalier in pve, etc). You could even make it strong enough to put it at master tier, instead of renewing stamina or arcane shielding.

3.1. Instead of working on stunned foes like unsuspecting foe (and tempest defense), it could have a different trigger. For example, triggering on foes with vulnerability. This way, it would make eles use their water vulnerability skills more often, thus contributing positively to a new playstyle.

3.2. Or maybe upon using ANY arcane skill (including arcane power, which would in practice double the auto-crit stacks from 5 to 10), creating a very unique arcana non-precision playstyle, allowing eles to invest more in passive defense to compensate for their offensive utility skills. Although technically, this could be acchieved with the vulnerability trigger already, because of the trait that makes arcane skills apply vulnerability on the water traitline.

TL;DR: This trait has great potential for a new elementalist’s playstyle, and it doesn’t needs a massive redesign. Just a different trigger!

Dahkeus.8243:

I believe so. Here’s an example of one they commented on in the Ranger forums:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/December-10th-Ranger-changes/first#post3133590

It was exactly this post that made me ask, because I thought trait’s cooldowns were completely unrelated to skill’s cooldowns before so.

For most part I have no real issues with any of the changes to the classes I play. The only one I dissagree with in the slightest is the ele vigor/elemental attunement traits being moved. It is really harmful to a PvE player like myself when changes are made to nerf a problematic PvP build. A better way would be to make the Elemental Attunement trait the 25 point static, or ditch it entirely and make it part of the static 5 point traits across the other 4 trait lines.

Oh, and will you please, please, PLEASE, make a click to toggle camera on/off function for the mouse? It can even switch from camera to ground targeting then back when a GT skill s used.

Please?

I am gonna give my feedback based from a PvE and Condition Warrior perspective, so bear with me:

• Skill: Healing Signet
  This skill needs to be nerfed. Make it based on your healing power so that it becomes interesting when you focus on a support build.

• Trait: Leg specialist
  This skill is not interesting, pretty worthless, 1 sec immobilize is to low, if you want to encourage more control playing (effect based, not damage!) Then it would be fun with something like 2-3 sec.

• Trait: Inspiring Banner
  Banner have a 2 min cooldown before it can be summoned again, when you compare the trait with Vigorous shouts, its easy to chose for Vigorous shouts. It would be more interesting if Inspiring Banner would have 5 sec regeneration.

• Skill: Battle Roar
  Doesn’t point out to be a shout like “For Great Justice”, “On my mark” and “Fear me!”, I dunno if people agree with this, but the definition of a shout is yelling out loud to empower your allies or weaken your enemies, so a battle roar would really sound to be in the same category.

• Skill: Charzooka
  Doesn’t tell anything about range, damage and number of casts, needs to be clarified.

• Weapon Skill: Whirling Axe
  At the weapon skills section within warrior’s Hero tab. There seems to be two Whirling axe with the only difference to be the damage (x15). The rest is exactly the same. Looks like a cosmetic bug.

• Condition vs Power in PvE
  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Condition-Catastrophe/first
  I don’t know for sure if this subject fits within the topic since the focus lies on traits and skills. But I am convinced that this is a big issue with build diversity in PvE.
  Right now power builds are far more superior than condition builds when it comes to world bosses and destroying objects. I agree with the fact on objects that they don’t bleed, they don’t get confused. But our base damage is ridiculously low, so low, that console-based parts within dungeons and the open world, condition damage players are pretty useless.
  Then there is the problem of the 25 stack. It needs to be shared with all other players within the vicinity, so technically, condition builds won’t do an effective 25 stack, because 5-10 of that stack goes to the 4 other players in dungeons. It gets even more worse/ridiculous when you need to share that stack with 20 people, 50 people, or even 100 people!
  Condition builds are being hated by players within world boss events, because they do effectively so small damage, that one power build makes up for five condition build players. That is way out of balance!
  I would love to see people have their own 25 stack, or that in case of champions, bosses and world bosses their maximum is increased, that way condition builds will be welcomed again at such events.
  http://gw2.hazno.net/
  This calculator is based on:
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Confusion
  http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison
  So the calculator shows how much condition damage is done. If you compare bleeding as a Condition Warrior with the hits of a Power Warrior, then you know that the basic hits of the Power build has more damage than the basic hit and Condition damage combined from a Condition Warrior. That only encourages more and more players to go power build and mindless button bashing. It’s awful to see!

Please, on behalf of me and all condition build players, do something about this!

I’m going to hold off on my usual spewing of defecation until I hear the reason behind the nerf to Mace (leaving it trash tier slow low range telegraphed) and Hammer (Damage reduction, still slow as all cosmos, shut down by blinds, telegraphed like the sun), but I will say that if these were PvP/WvW changes only they might be better received. Those weapons are trash enough in PvE that they don’t need more nerfs.

Thief Sword 2 nerf was a LONG time coming. Instant stunbreaks on weapons with no CD was ridiculous. I’d love to see a cast time put on Mesmer Staff 2 as well.

Brutal Arts.6307:

I’m going to hold off on my usual spewing of defecation until I hear the reason behind the nerf to Mace (leaving it trash tier slow low range telegraphed) and Hammer (Damage reduction, still slow as all cosmos, shut down by blinds, telegraphed like the sun), but I will say that if these were PvP/WvW changes only they might be better received. Those weapons are trash enough in PvE that they don’t need more nerfs.

They are pvp nerfs, yes. Now, they’ll probably affect pve, but if anything, the reason why cc weapons aren’t good in pve is due to defiance and bad AI. Imagine if pve enemies had lower hp and were able to kite and dodge effectively. :P Those precious seconds that a mace’s or a hammer’s cc would offer would have been very valuable to kill something that a GS wouldn’t… Ahh, how I wish hard pve content was like this! When playing with my staff ele, I would be far more valuable than as a buff bot and as a fire spammer.

Few comments on this post

crouze.3078:

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Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow
Gain initiative when you enter stealth instead of gain it when using a skill that stealth you.

This is one of the best changes for the thief. I was waiting for it a long time.
The change will prevent the perma invis thieves with dagger/pistol without hurting other builds that much.

This was a justified change that i think everyone would agree to.

crouze.3078:

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

I think this change has a good intention but will still be way less healing then the grandmaster trait in shadow arts.

On top of that the acrobatic trait line does not offer any good condition remove and the shadow arts trait line is far superior for survival because of the toughness and healing power.

Even a 100% increase in healing for this trait would make it less effecient then Shadow’s Rejuvenation with 50% stealth uptime. (50% stealth uptime is easy to achieve. Even without dagger/pistol).

I don’t think that this change will do much about the bad survivability the thief has.

If i didnt spec into SA for the Condi removal, any condi class would eat me alive. that is why i can not think of any alternative that is comparable to having 30 in SA and why i find s/p not as viable as s/d or d/p
If they offered other viable alternative to condi removal that didnt rely on stealth in the acro line, i might consider using assassin’s reward.

crouze.3078:

Sword – Shadow Return
Added a 1/4s cast time.

This is a huge change that will make thieves way more vulnerable to disables.
It feels like the plan is to make the trait Hard to catch more attractive. But the random teleport can put you in a way worse position then you were before.

I think the change to shadow return is reasonable. However it needs some other tools for the thief to survive better to compensate this.

I would trade Shadow return for stability or If they made it so that larcenous strike steal stability first, it would reward thieves for smart play and with the current form of flanking strike/larcenous strike (1 boon and high ini cost) its not that good of a skill considering that guardians eles have 4+ boons up all the time. We have to spam and go through a bunch of “trash” boons before getting the one that matters regen/protection/stability/might.

crouze.3078:

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

A change that was needed to make at least the first 1 or 2 attacks after the stun hit.
It will help a bit, but to use it effective in pvp you would immobilize the target anyways.

Main problem i have with S/P is the lack of stealth. its a good set but lacks stealth for the condi removal that x/D or D/P have access to.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Brutal Arts.6307:

I’m going to hold off on my usual spewing of defecation until I hear the reason behind the nerf to Mace (leaving it trash tier slow low range telegraphed) and Hammer (Damage reduction, still slow as all cosmos, shut down by blinds, telegraphed like the sun), but I will say that if these were PvP/WvW changes only they might be better received. Those weapons are trash enough in PvE that they don’t need more nerfs.

They are pvp nerfs, yes. Now, they’ll probably affect pve, but if anything, the reason why cc weapons aren’t good in pve is due to defiance and bad AI. Imagine if pve enemies had lower hp and were able to kite and dodge effectively. :P Those precious seconds that a mace’s or a hammer’s cc would offer would have been very valuable to kill something that a GS wouldn’t… Ahh, how I wish hard pve content was like this! When playing with my staff ele, I would be far more valuable than as a buff bot and as a fire spammer.

Right, we all know defiant and CC in general in PvE is complete bollocs. Honestly the weapons may not even exist in PvE for how useless they are compared to Axe or GS. For the record I don’t want PvE difficulty increased. I’m perfectly fine spamming ChopChopChop. I’d just also like the option to swing a hammer or a mace and not reduce my damage by 70%

Wow, just want to say thanks for all the hard work. reading through all those pages can’t be easy. haha

JonPeters.5630:

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional. It has a very specific play style, and I would like it to remain. I understand that rangers want a one handed melee option that is more mobile, but that will have to wait, as I know there are a mix of players who also like how this weapon plays and I do not want to take away one of the more unique playstyles that we have and replace it with something that is fairly common.

Well…that’s very disappointing, but at least we have an answer on it.

where is the thief discussion JohnPeter?

Just want to chime in that Skull Crack (and mace skills in general) are already hard enough to land in tPvP. If you’re going to make it more readable to boost the rate of intentionally avoiding this skill, you should at least increase the range to lower the rate of unintentionally avoiding this skill.

Dahkeus.8243:

JonPeters.5630:

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional. It has a very specific play style, and I would like it to remain. I understand that rangers want a one handed melee option that is more mobile, but that will have to wait, as I know there are a mix of players who also like how this weapon plays and I do not want to take away one of the more unique playstyles that we have and replace it with something that is fairly common.

Well…that’s very disappointing, but at least we have an answer on it.

Aye. I feel like that and the discussion about the greatsword and timing are kind of contradictory sentiments. I also still feel it’s at odds with their PvE design philosophy of dodge-or-die. But if the design team feels strongly that it really works as it is, then I’m willing to finally drop the issue going forward and just not use it.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

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.

I did get a little carried away didn’t I? But I stand by my points, people asking for thief nerfs aren’t looking for balance they’re looking for easy mode. There are already effective ways to deal with perma stealth (which I think is a bad concept to begin with, and glad that it’s getting nerfed), its just whiners don’t care for Q&A time, they just want things “fixed” for them, and not for others. Simply bumping or lowering values isn’t going to solve anything, its going to ruin the class more and more. It needs restructure, options to compete with the other 7 professions.

Thief has 2 viable means to surviving. Stealth, and evasion (dodge/teleports). I’m not asking for mercy just because I’m a thief, I’m asking to think kitten what thief has to work with if you start poking at its viable builds. Adapting only goes so far before you have to simply move on to something else.

Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.
While this seems a good change in PvP, it feels like hammer is going to be even more useless in PvE. I think that you should increase it’s damage in PvE, while reducing/removing its stun. This way you would make it a slow, powerful melee aoe weapon.

JonPeters.5630:

Some ranger discussion.

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.

Spirits Unbound and Nature’s Voice
I think the biggest change of moving spirits unbound is it allows you to take this trait along with Nature’s Voice. Internally we have done some testing where you bring stone spirit, guard, and then still have a open third utility slot to make some truly good support ranger builds. Spirits have always had that feel and I think this brings that to the forefront.

Power Rangers
No pun intended. As many have said these guys are in an interesting position. In some ways they can be very strong, but everytime I play my ranger this way it feel like it comes up a little bit short. I think this is because they are lacking a few things as either additional tools for greatsword or as utilities. Signets are the somewhat obvious utility choice but their effect is too varied to run a strong full signet build here. Conversely all traits associated with signets tend to increase in power the more you bring. What signets need is a good trait that synergizes with bringing a single signet, like Nature’s Voice does for shouts. This would let you bring maybe one or two signets and suppliment them with something else. One idea we talked about for Greatsword would be to take the evade off of the 3rd attack of the auto-chain and put it on swoop. This would give you a second on-demand defensive skill and instead we put something less timing based (for example a whirl finisher) on that third attack to empower it.

Main-hand sword
I just want to clarify for good that main hand sword is currently working as intended. All movement skills cannot be interrupted by dodging and this is currently intentional. It has a very specific play style, and I would like it to remain. I understand that rangers want a one handed melee option that is more mobile, but that will have to wait, as I know there are a mix of players who also like how this weapon plays and I do not want to take away one of the more unique playstyles that we have and replace it with something that is fairly common.

Thanks,

Jon

Link to ranger sub-forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/December-10th-Ranger-changes/page/5#post3149107

You still aren’t giving power Rangers to tools necessary to suceed. What makes power builds work for other classes is either AE or burst. The Ranger has very poor options here for both. You then give the class 2 skills to supplement burst (Moment of Clarity and Remorseless) but no skills to use them with. The only skills the Ranger currently has to take advantage of these traits is Path of Scars and Maul. That’s it. Nearly every single other attack is a low damage ‘auto attack’ skill. Who cares if one of these crit? Who cares if one of these does 150% damage?

The only way you can leave the class relying on Maul or Path of Scars as the sole reason to take either 30pt trait is to give the class some way to swap to these weapon sets without then being stuck in them for the full duration. Greatsword sucks as a power weapon because the other damaging skills are so weak. MH Axe is incredibly weak and Sword is hardly reliable.

Why are you so adverse to giving the class some meaningful level of burst or AE? And I’d love to hear why ANet thinks Rangers are consistently ranked 8th of 8 classes in WvW worth? They don’t have burst, AE, strong utility, strong CC… nothing. The class simply does nothing.

It also needs to be said that nearly every single utility option for the class is so inferior to what other classes can bring without HUGE investment in trait points. Why? Why must we use 30pts to make signets work? Why must we use 30 pts for our traps to have any functional use? Why must we invest 20 (still likely 30) for our spirits to actually be worth bringing? Why must we invest 30pts to still have some of the worst anti-condition options of any class?

Mesmer change.

Illusions VI – Illusionary Invigoration. Recharge reduced from 90s to 60s. Moved to Master Tier.

(What is the point ??? Nerf again?) VI/VII/XI is the best combination we can have actualy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Illusions VIII – Dazzling Galmours. Moved to Adept Tier.
Illusions 15 – Shattered Strength – Moved to Grandmaster tier.
Illusions 25 – Illusionist’s Celerity – Moved to Master tier.
(Useless change)

JonPeters.5630:

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft
I’ve seen a lot of talk about this as well, and discussing this already this morning the current vigor is a bit too high, but we may have overdone the reduction. I was thinking about going back to 5s or 6s on Vigorous Recovery, and going back to 10s or 12s on Bountiful Theft.

Could you please elaborate on why Thief, one of the flimsiest, if not the flimsiest class can’t have access to high Vigor uptime, but Vigorous Precision and Critical Infusion can grant basically permanent Vigor for 5 trait points for 2 other classes? Elementalist a little more understandable with 20 points (as of next patch) for Renewing Stamina, but that’s still 20 points opposed to 30 for the 2 Thief traits?

Well i’m going to put my ideas to improve the elementalist:

Pyromancer’s Alacrity Reduces recharge on all fire weapon skills 20% and reduce fire attunement CD at 40%

Aeromancer’s Alacrity Reduces recharge on all your air weapon skills and reduce air attunement CD at 40%

Geomancer’s Alacrity Reduces recharge on all earth weapon skills and reduce earth attunement CD at 40%

Aquamancer’s Alacrity Reduces recharge on all water weapon skills and reduce water attunement CD at 40%

Maybe too much?

Regards Philips

Id like to see soon the dev conclusion about their Thief changes …

For me especiall your thoughts in regard of Assassins Reward.

Thiefs need finally to become less dependant from stealth.

Thiefs are already at the point, besides the Rangers, that I’m going so far to say, that currently the thief has reliefed the ranger from being the class, that absolutely needs the most complete class design redesign in regard of all its mechanics.

Stealing, Venoms, Shadow Steps and Stealth in overall could make so much more fun with this class, if the mechanics would work just only properly for what you would EXPECT these mechanics how they should work at all to make fun at all.
——

Stealings as mechanic are lame, they are nothing than just a simple shadow step with increased range, which can damage enemies and heal thiefs together with giving them a randomous skill, where most of them are too weak to be useful and that for just only like every 30 seconds. A real thief steals always, whenever he gets an opportunity to do so. Steal needs to get moved away from F1.
F1 should be used only to activate one of the maximum 3 stolen items (yes increase it from 1 to 3!) for their improvised skills and the steal mechanic itself should trigger on every x hits automatically or on every x critical hits.

Stealing itself should apply also whenever you steal something successfully a Stack of Confusion so that Stealing really feels like a DEBUFF that you weakened your enemy for some time, because they LOST something … in other games like the basically prehistoric Ragnarok Online thiefs could “strip” enemies off their equipment to basically debuff their enemies and reduce temporarely through this the stats of their victims.

Venoms need a great redesign. Move them please away from the utility skills, don’t make Mantra Clones out of them. That would just make Mantras look for Mesmers less unique as a mechanic. RedesignVenoms and make out of them the new class special mechanic for thiefs within F2-F4, so that every thief should have the ability to decide which special 3 venoms out of a list of various venoms they want to take with them, which should have INFLUENCE on the thiefs Auto Attacks.

Every Venom could change for example totally the Auto Attack Skill String and replace the Auto attack with a totally different 3 Skill String.
This would massively increase not only the skill versatility for thiefs, it would make them also strategically more interestign to play and unpredictable.

Shadow Steps are the next mechanic, that need a great redesign to make thiefs alot less dependant from stealth. Shadow Steps need to become a quick movement mechanic, that simply lets thiefs while they actively use shadow stepping automatically dodge incoming damage, without having to use a dodge roll.
There exist also other classes, which have skills that can make them for a brief time invulnerable to all incoming damage..warriors and guardians have their blocks/aegis, mesmers have their distortions, eles have their reflections/arcane shields
Rangers have their pets to eat damage/conditions for them
And im pretty sure, engineers also have somethign for that in petto, only thiefs have no direct skill to completely avoid incoming damage.
All they have is stealth and even when in stealth, we can receive full damage out of every AoE crap, where I think, what can’t see us, shouldn’t be able to hit us at all, unless its an AoE skill that needs no targeting.

We would see then two general types of thiefs.
Those, which rely more on stealth for a kind of passive damage avoiding.
Those, which rely more on shadow stepping for a kind of active damage avoiding through moving quickly around and being very mobile.

Its also totally contradictory, about how pathetically vulnerable thiefs are to all CC skills having only 1 single skill that gives them some seconds of stability.
Thiefs need more passive ways through skills/ skill combos/ traits to gain stability or even better to give also allies stability to improve again a bit the group support of thiefs, because currently they provide nearly nothing to that, other than group stealth and venom share, if traited for that.

Also instead of nerfing the thiefs ability to strip off boons, you should also massively increase this ability and incorporate that feature alot more into the thief class, it absolutely fits to this class the most to be the best boon remover class of all.
Their whole class design around stealing boons from enemies to gain that way self those boons that they have stolen from their victims, just fitting like wax.

Alot of Thief Utility Skills could get merged too make some space for more useful new utility skills, like for example merging together Signet of Shadows together with Signet of Agility.

PS: ahh, i came too late, its already there
PPS: but nothing about assasins reward

Atherakhia.4086:

Why are you so adverse to giving the class some meaningful level of burst or AE? And I’d love to hear why ANet thinks Rangers are consistently ranked 8th of 8 classes in WvW worth? They don’t have burst, AE, strong utility, strong CC… nothing. The class simply does nothing.

A.NET balances skills on sPvP mindset. So these skill changes didn’t consider how the spirits die fast when you frontline them in a Zerg. (so the bunker spirit ranger BS with guard and stone spirit only works in sPvP or possibly in fractals). as i do in solo queue, i run the sPvP version of Spirit ranger in WvWvW and i can kill thieves, some rangers and bunker eles even them with food buffs 1vs1 and can down a squishy 3v1 with the help of guess what, storm spirit. With storm spirit nerfed 33%, how can a spirit ranger can even put to 95% stupid heal sig wvwvw warriors with -40% condi duration? Spirit ranger supplementary damage is condi along with bursty storm spirit.

Face it, Spirit Ranger was the pinnacle of ranger viability across all lines of play (WvWvW, PvE, and sPvP). Sad to see it go.

And what they are suggesting alternative build in line with the updates was a bunkery ranger that only works with capture circles.

Power rangers? Still dead vs bunkery classes like warrior. Still no effect in WvWvW. And yep, prolly a PvE update. We need more dps killing champs.

For Elementalist.
I like that you are reducing the base cooldown of attunements but is that enough?
Currently they have no utility and elite skills that help with this issue. While other classes have at least 1 skill to help with their class mechanic. Do you have a plan to add a passive or active effect to some of these skills in the future?

Ohitei.8043:

Mesmer change.

Illusions VI – Illusionary Invigoration. Recharge reduced from 90s to 60s. Moved to Master Tier.

(What is the point ??? Nerf again?) VI/VII/XI is the best combination we can have actualy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Illusions VIII – Dazzling Galmours. Moved to Adept Tier.
Illusions 15 – Shattered Strength – Moved to Grandmaster tier.
Illusions 25 – Illusionist’s Celerity – Moved to Master tier.
(Useless change)

The point is build diversity. It’s sad to see mesmer’s pigeon hole’d into a shatter build. As for your opinion of “Useless changes” on the other traits, rest assured they are not. I am very excited to see IC move down.

I will agree that Dazzling Glamours is pretty lackluster. I would prefer to see Illusionary Elasticity move down. Can’t honestly see anyone spending 20 traits to get that.

Ranger Signets should affect the rangers and , if traited, pet.

First of all,
I welcome each and everyone of thief’s initiative changes, but cannot agree to at least the pve aspect of what would be now named infiltrator’s return.

Additionally for thief, condition removal should be introduced to other traits/skills and toned down on that “remove conditions while in stealth”.

Its just that all the variety of thief builds instead of balanced risk/reward idea go for gain/penalty relation.
Ranged thieves for example sacrifice a lot of damage (balanced risk/reward) but are still forced into taking the defensive traits/lines that they don’t need.

It would be nice if traits could be separated in several groups (the narrow-specializations ones (flat boosts), additional options (X if you do Y), skill/combat altering(Y instead of X)) and spread out across the trees more evenly. So that for ANY given set there would be a number of options to choose from towards any style of play rather than promoting a specific one together with a set amount of traits.

One of the changes I would additionally want to have is to remodel one or more traits into this “weapon set altering” thing. Like for example remove/reduce bleed on pistol 1 and boost its damage/speed, remove bounces on shortbow 1 and boost damage/add condtion, etc. That is of course if the promised “new weapon sets for all professions” does not make it in anytime soon.

And one note about engineers – again, I welcome all changes but none of them cardinally improve the engineer’s position in group. The buffed turret traits are nice, but without fixes to turrets themselves (ridiculous hitbox, no scaling with anything AT ALL) those are pointless.
Additionally – while warrior has pretty straightforward and synergized, flexible trait tree, thief has a very decent one with few questionable selections – engineer’s ones looks just plain chaotic with things that (at least by the way they work) would work together as a specialized build being spread across every trait line.
For example I would be very fond of some work using which I could say that in every trait line at least one trait is available in every tier that directly synergizes with either of: at least ONE of the line’s bonus stats OR traits/minors of other tiers.
Its just I favor engineer so much, but unable to create a build looking at which I could say – I know what this build does and I know it does it well. For example, the last one I made – the ones that keeps crazy amount of might on whole group while proving a lot of control and “OWSHI…” options – technically it needs only ONE trait. And makes good use of ONE more. Everything else must be taken as totally useless or minor utility at best. And those that may be useful are out of reach.

Could we have a increase from 5% to 10% for zealous blade like you guys upgraded the damage for powerful blades

I am sorry I wrote so much in the post above, and sorry for posting again separately – I just thought that the idea I wanted to deliver is not very clear after I read what I wrote.
I meant to say, (I believe) we all want to choose THE MOST BENEFITING TRAIT out of the given options, and not THE LEAST USELESS TRAIT out of the given options (which happens quite a lot atm).
With whatever we play, however far we go, just let us become stronger with every step we take, not with just what we reach at the end.

JonPeters.5630:

Sorry I got to you guys last, I truly did just go through these in alphabetical order.

The letter L, is not in the alphabet for you?

Lingering Elements !!

We want to know how this trait is going to be bugfixed (after being bugged since release). Is this too much to ask for?

JonPeters.5630:

Some ranger discussion.

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.

Well it sounds like you and the team are set on making this happen; and you’re right, it is a powerful trait. But, honestly, the Ranger needs it right now. There are so many drawbacks in every Ranger build right now, whether you’re running spirits, traps, signets, beastmaster, or a raw power build you have to invest so many trait points and spread them so much for so little reward, the Ranger simply needs whatever advantage it can get. If being able to dodge 1.33s sooner than other classes is the only advantage it can take, I say let them take it. You don’t have to implement this change in December. Please wait until the Ranger has more viable options with it’s current build choices as well as with more build diversity before you take it’s seemingly only advantage away.