Guild Wars 2

First the Good :

• gliding in core- amazing, just bummed so many neat places now have invisible walls we can’t get to that were not there before (not talking about jumping puzzles) but overall it brought a fresh breath of air to the game.
• Squad UI and new markers THANK YOU it was so badly needed and was spot-on!
• Lunar New Year- I know some people complained about recycling this, but this festival was always a standard in GW1 and not much ever changed in each one and ya know what, that’s OK . Not every festival needs a total rework every year. The fact we have a reliable festival is nice. I wish more were as reliable like Dragon Bash and Queens Pavilion, (which we have not seen either in a long time now #sadface ) Bazaar of the Four Winds <— this one I can understand with how the Living Story went…for now
• Brew of the Month Club- haven’t started on it yet but it seems like a good way to pass time and is a welcome addition
• Pretty much everything under the first section of “General” in the patch notes was a good change, TY.
• Fractal Changes- GOOD. Ty, especially for removing Mossman cheese spots!
• I don’t have much to say on Raids because I have never done one and won’t for a while due to gear restrictions.
• Despite what other complainers have said, I am happy those runes and amulets got removed from PvP. It forces more thought to be put into a build rather than having the stats alone carry you.

Pros and Cons on Profession Balance -

Ele -
I think changing diamond skin was the right move. It had no counterplay. Most of the scepter changes were decent, but I felt they could have used some more polish. Many, many good ideas have been presented on the ele forums for acceptable changes.
I do not understand nor like the change to Lightning Rod. It was not op as-was, and now timing the strike is less reliable. Auras, while I can understand the need to tone them down, is ele’s niche. I don’t think lowering duration on something that already has low duration and requires you to be hit for effects to proc is the way to go. Most of them already have ICD’s too. Make ICDs longer or put a cooldown time before they can be applied again but the overall duration should not have been messed with. Going to segway to Tempest just to keep my bullets fairly clean- only a few things were changed and nothing affecting overall gameplay.

Engi -
All buffs but I still feel increasing the recharge on automated medical response was a bit heavy-handed. If the health threshold were raised some, say 33%, I could see raising recharge too but it was not overpowered before. It did what it was supposed to by giving one last chance to turn the fight but once it was used up your second chance was over. I suppose this was due to the new scrapper heal, as I can see it was too powerful getting double heals from it in such short time but it could have simply been left off the list of skills affected like regenerating mist was. Most of the Scrapper changes were welcome. I can understand the nerf to sneak gyro, even I will admit it was ridiculously overpowered.

Guardian –
All changes done to guard were welcome, but I wish Spirit Weapons would have been looked at again, specifically the actives on them. Shield of the Avenger is good as-is, except I wish the summon cast was a stun breaker too. Relying on having already cast it and hoping it’s low uptime wouldn’t betray you at the key moment is very unreliable at best. Hammer of Wisdom is good, leave as-is imo. Sword of Justice auto attacks are fine, but it’s command attack is very lackluster and loses you a ton of dps because of how slow it is and the fact it lacks any other effects or incentives to use it. Bow of truth…most useless summon skill in the game. Needs a complete rework or major buff.
Dragon Hunter –
We all knew some nerfs were coming and even as a DH player I can say it wasn’t unwarranted. They are still very strong and the changes didn’t hurt them too much.

Mesmer-
I don’t play mesmer regularly so I won’t comment too deeply on this but I can say all the salt piles cried about the changes are just that- bunch of salt. Every mesmer I have encountered seems to be doing just fine. I played mine for a short while after the update to see how massive this “nerf” was, and while it was noticeable, it in no way “broke” my mesmer. Also having spoken with many mesmers much more skilled than I, I have discovered it’s not nearly as bad as everyone is saying it is. They said some builds needed changing around to compensate but overall it still is just as powerful as before but it does require a higher measure of personal skill to play than previously.

Necromancer-
All good things here, nothing to complain about but I am still anxiously awaiting the inevitable nerf to everything necro has due to how powerful scepter is now. Please do not do that….. Original Dhuumfire was not our fault, let’s not repeat those same past mistakes here….

Ranger-
Oh boy where do I start…
Shouts overall were ok. They have needed a rework but Guard was the absolute wrong direction for that skill. Old guard was much more about tactical positioning. It was much better at increasing pet survivability and has many creative synergy with many traits and skills. Now it’s- “hey guys watch me nuke my pet in a few seconds!” on a 30 second cd…. And it’s even worse off than the old Protect Me. The meager damage reduction you get for those split seconds before your pet goes thermonuclear and dissolves are not worth it. I absolutely HATE the new Guard. It should have been put in as a spirit skill. I like the direction the other shouts went in however. Search and Rescue is spot-on. It now works as it should have all along. Protect Me is much better and is a skill I use quite often now even untraited. Not sure why Sic Em is still suffering from bugs and getting canceled by something as simple as ordering your pet to attack a target. No changes to Druid, and not sure why. There was lots of stuff that needed looking at (see ranger forums for a more complete list)

Revenant-
Overall the changes that were made are ok by me. I didn’t use sword as much as other people but I have tried it since the patch and I like how it works now. Hammer needed a nerf. We all know it, but no one wants to admit it. Just not sure why PvE got the nerf treatment too where rev is arguably the weakest. However it is the needed changes that were ignored that concerns me the most. Jalis, Ventari, and Mallyx all need looking at in depth. Ventari needs a lot of help. Even as a full support spec, it falls flat on its face. Jalis needs much more sustain and healing than he has now especially considering the fact he has almost no extra damage output. Vengeful Hammers is not that much extra damage plus they bug out on terrain and just about anything still. I do not think the Herald changes were warranted at all. Those healing skills were only powerful against spammy players that didn’t watch combat. Skilled players would make this heal absolutely benign.

Thief and Daredevil-
…What needs to be said? Buffs across the board. They are now meta. Teefs everywhere! lol.

Warrior- Oh boy here we go….
We’re back to Hammerstun invuln warrior meta just like 2013 all over again. Healing signet passive did not need to be upped, Base Healing did. Hammer skills did not need more of a cooldown reduction. Now we’re right back to the spam rotation and skill-less play of – “Pop immunities- dispense massive CC-repeat” . The whole day I watched warriors not even swap weapons or heal once, just pop immunes, swing dat meat masher. Warrior needed more sustain beyond more autopilot-immunes and they needed less spam. This update went the exact opposite direction. They also needed better burst skills in some areas like Eviscerate. It’s still a shadow of its former self. Yet Rifle changes were sorely needed TY! Also adrenaline decay change was amazing, again TY! I think overall warrior needs more damage reduction not immunities . That usually means much more access to things like weakness which is a sorely underrated condition in this meta. Now, just to clarify, I did notice Berserker got some massive sustain improvements, and it was much needed. The lack of positive sustain beyond cheese I was talking about was core warrior. I think overall Berserker is pretty good now.

PvP and WvW

Only going to touch on this right now but removal of those amulets and sigils was sorely needed in PvP. Yes it broke many builds, including some of my own, but it brought new opportunities as well and removed many crutches that people used for low skill playstyles. As for WvW, I know these changes were meant to help smaller groups make an impact but overall it seems to have the opposite effect. Blobs are still heavily rewarded for being…well…blobs. So biggest server with most coverage will still always win and there’s no amount of hard work will change that.

Shatterer
ending on a good note here, Shatterer is amazing. The fight is much more involved now yet as promised doesn’t have the high difficulty of some of the other reworked world bosses so that lower level players can still enjoy it. TY TY TY! I saw a few devs there the first day playing alongside us, including Rubi and that was a pleasant surprise too. I hope I conveyed my appreciation for the event then but if not I am doing it now. I hope to continue to see these kinds of changes in the future as well. Thanks for reading my wall-otext!

@ Gaile Gray – However by that logic if lots of people are saying something on the forums or in game and we don’t see it in the patch notes is it reasonable to assume it’s not being listened to? Because that’s what it feels like much of the time. And since there’s no way to tell without dev comments what’s being payed attention to people tend to assume they’re not being listened to unless told otherwise, and then when patch notes hits and doesn’t list a change to what they were talking about it confirms they’re being ignored instead of perhaps something just not being ready to release yet.

Kerithlan.1659:

Irukandji.4521:

Some buddies and I were doing jump puzzles in Tyria and I was frustrated because my glider kept popping out if I held the spacebar for too long and it made me miss some tight jumps. I would appreciate if the glider was changed to double-tapping the glide key and not just holding it down, since some jumps the game requires you to make are sensitive to how long you hold down the spacebar.

Gliding is activated by tapping not holding space. You hit space a second time to release it and stop gliding.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glider_Basics

“To glide, jump from a high place, and then press the jump key again while falling.”
— In game description

Currently both work. Holding is a bit better for things like deploying at maximum height from a launch pad.

On the other hand jumping cares about the movement keys rather than how long space is held.

I’m primarily a PvE player.

Good:
-Gliding in central Tyria. Yay!
-Supporting allies counts towards earning kill rewards.
-Show All Usable Objects. My pinky finger thanks you.
-Can change fractal scale inside the observatory.
-Fixed the “world is full” bug in fractals.
-Increased shard rewards in the raid.

Meh:
-Lunar new year. Maybe Wintersday spoiled me, but there’s really just not much to do.
-Brew of the Month Club. Basically just a backpack skin and title for 10g, unless there’s something hidden in it. Feels more like a blatant gold sink than something interesting.
-Shatterer. An extra guaranteed rare to the drops isn’t going to make me want to play any more than before. I’ll probably do it once or twice to play with the new gliding mechanics and then never do it again like before.

Bad:
Balance changes. Boooo. I play mainly Mesmer and Revenant, so I can’t comment much on the other classes. The nerf to Alacrity is awful and basically makes the elite spec not usable in most cases. I still very much appreciate the movespeed boost and extra clone generation the spec gives me, but pretty much all the cooldowns and skill powers were based around Alacrity being 66%. I feel like the balance team was looking at a particular build for a particular gametype (apparently bunker Mesmer for PvP, since I don’t play PvP) and gutted the class based on that. Why aren’t we using separate balance issues for PvP and PvE?
The scepter “buffs” for Mesmer are small enough to practically be insulting. An extra 5% attack speed isn’t going to make me want to use the weapon, and I play a condition Mesmer. Duelist’s Discipline will make me at least look at using a pistol, but it’s very limited in applications since it’s offhand only.
I hardly used Well of Precognition before, but now it’s just 100% bad.
The Revenant change I’m most upset about is the cast time added to Facet of Light.

Realistically, balance changes need to happen much more frequently. I don’t want to be stuck in a particular nerf purgatory for 3 months at a time.

Sorry, didn’t realize my feedback wasn’t constructive enough.
Let me give it another try.

ahem
Will you please use the CDI for your balance patches? BEFORE THEM!
The entire point of it is (or should be anyway) to get rid of the clutter that is the average player base’s thoughts on the game, and shrink it down to the opinions of people the dev staff think are knowledgeable on the topic.

As well, it would help if, instead of previews WE GOT THE FULL PATCH NOTES AHEAD OF TIME, TO GIVE OUR THOUGHTS ON IT BEFORE THEY’RE ACTUALLY PUT INTO THE GAME.

ahem Sorry for the caps.

please create a public beta server to test changes on before they ever go live. It would help to find a lot of bugs, server crashes, etc. Before they ever happen. And would help keep the player base happy as they actually get to give you feedback BEFORE something goes live.

And lastly.
The actual balance changes in this patch were small. As well, I feel you’ve failed to meet a lot of the statements made in the preview (Thus is why the full patch notes are encouraged). I mean, wow, a 5% change on attack speed for scepter, and QoL tweak to its auto attack. Too bad the 5% attack speed gets wasted due to projectile speed, and the QoL tweak isn’t necessarily good because a new full health phantasm is arguably better than 1 stack of torment

I stopped playing a while ago due to the HoT content, but I was interested in seeing how gliding was implemented in the rest of the map. There is a suggestion in my criticism so please bear with me.

So I updated the game and got into for a bit and enjoyed the gliding, but quickly realized I would very much like it if I could get the Advanced Gliding Mastery. However the only way I can level it is by going into the Maguuma areas which I honestly do not like and I have around 1.5 million experience (!) that I need to earn in Maguuma. I went back there, saw no events going on after visiting every map, and logged out again.

So, my suggestion as a general game balance thing is to allow Silverwastes and Dry Top count as Maguuma areas for the sake of earning experience for masteries.

I haven’t really tried out much else besides the gliding, so my view is very limited, but it was also just about the only thing that interested me in this patch unfortunately. I’ll take a look at The Shatterer overhaul some other day.

As someone who mains necromancer I must say thanks for no nerfs this patch. And thanks for all the boon corrupts, I’m sure they will be really nice and I especially love the new Corrupt Boon.

The buffs are nice and all, but I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. The profession balance goals post from a few weeks back said you’d improve the functionality of baseline shroud and look at a couple of reaper traits – and I really don’t think you delivered here.

Death Shroud definitely needs more change than just baseline piercing life blast. The attack needs to fire more rapidly to be able to utilise traits competitively with reaper shroud. Dark Path is also useless as a gap closer and needs to be looked at – I’d suggest dropping the projectile altogether and just make it blink to the target. In addition to this, Death Shroud has no combo play – Life Blast isn’t even a combo finisher.

The balance goal post from a few weeks back mentioned that a couple of reaper traits would be looked at – but the trait that needed looking at the most was not touched. The greatsword trait is useless and really needs to be reworked.

I know this wasn’t mentioned anywhere in any notes or articles, but the axe really needs some love too. I know the range was improved recently – and that is nice – but the trait is pretty bad, the animation on the auto attack is horrible (the old one was good), and it’s overall a pretty boring weapon to play with. It really could do with a new auto attack chain, and some combo finishers.

Not going to comment on the other class balancing. I’ll leave that to people that spend a lot of time on those classes.

Changing fractal level inside the fractal hub is a welcome change, but I really can’t get myself to do fractals anymore. Give us some fun instabilities and new fractals to play with and I’ll be right back in doing them.

Will end with some positive feedback.

WvW tweaks to rallying and point per kill is nice, and new squad commands look useful.

The new Shatterer is nice, I like what you did with that encounter, and the back item looks cool.

Gliding in all the PvE maps is really amazing too.

Gaile Gray.6029:

direx.8207:

@ Gaile Gray – However by that logic if lots of people are saying something on the forums or in game and we don’t see it in the patch notes is it reasonable to assume it’s not being listened to? Because that’s what it feels like much of the time. And since there’s no way to tell without dev comments what’s being payed attention to people tend to assume they’re not being listened to unless told otherwise, and then when patch notes hits and doesn’t list a change to what they were talking about it confirms they’re being ignored instead of perhaps something just not being ready to release yet.

No, it’s not reasonable to make that assumption. If changes are not made, that is in no way an indication that (1) the devs are unaware of a situation or (2) they are willfully choosing to ignore reasonable and practicable feedback.

The fact that something is not changed could be related to the fact that the suggestion is not reasonable, is not practical, or or cannot be achieved in a specific timeframe but may (or will) happen in the future.

Random examples:

• Not Reasonable: I say “Give Ranger pets +1000 to their skills!” Ok, clearly that’s just not reasonable.
• Not Possible: Someone says “Give everyone access to limitless inventory space.” This is technologically impossible. Or, someone suggests, “Give everyone who bought your base game in 2012 every expansion pack for free, forever.” That completely ignores the costs of development over the years and the general costs of keeping the lights on.
• Not in This Timeframe: Someone says “Make changes to ZYX!” Well, as you know, changes happen all the time, and the fact they didn’t happen in January doesn’t mean they are dead in the water, simply that more time is needed to develop them.

As I said, those were off-the-cuff examples, but the main point is that feedback given is not an order placed, but an idea shared. Whether it comes to pass is dependent on many factors, as I’m sure you can appreciate.

Here’s the thing: I don’t believe anyone’s expecting dialogue on unreasonable or impossible suggestions.

But the problem crops up when players make the same reasonable, possible suggestion over and over in thread after thread (just drop in on the profession forums once in a while if you need examples), and nothing happens.

Without direct interaction from the devs (on THESE forums; not reddit) on the suggestions that players keep putting forth, the only reasonable assumption we can make when nothing makes it into the patch notes is that 1) the devs aren’t reading the suggestions, or 2) that they don’t care, or 3) that keeping the playerbase informed on development decisions isn’t a priority. The first two things you say aren’t true, so it must be the third.

As the playerbase continues to make reasonable and possible suggestions, they deserve to at least have interaction from the devs vis-a-vis those same suggestions.

I think dialogue would go a long way in bridging the development gap. But the frustrating reality is that, apart from the CDI (which has been indefinitely suspended for whatever reason), there has been precious little dialogue coming from the devs.

Professions are broken. Players have given thousands of reasonable, possible suggestions to fix them. Patches come and go and they’re still broken. And no dialogue.

Surely you can see how this comes across?

Dear Gaile,

so far I’ve really been enjoying the update! highlights include:

• how many different ares of the game were covered
• gliding in central tyria is just awesomesauce!
• the WvW changes have restored the value and fun of roaming and supply denial (2 of my favorite activities) as well as greatly reduced the previously ridiculous number of fully upgraded objectives.
• thief changes in the acrobatics line and the staff auto-attack sequence are wonderful and greatly appreciated (although there were 2 posts about the % increases for the staff, making me unsure if it got boosted twice or what exactly was happening)
• i am actually liking the changes to the scrapper trait line and feel a tighter build synergy, despite some loss of defensiveness. should work out as a win-win

my only criticism comes in the form of a suggestion:

• the removal of the timer-based objective upgrading in WvW also removed something that I found very very helpful — looking at the objective panel from afar and being able to tell just by looking at the timer, whether or not RI was on it.

I believe it is absolutely imperative we have some kind of easy, highly transparent RI indicator as soon as possible. here’s why: every minute spent traveling on the BL counts. running clear across the map only to find out an objective has RI really sucks and is hugely inefficient, for any sized group. for years now WvWers have been using various web sites and apps to be able to see the RI timer. running these extra windows of side apps is also hugely inefficient (compared to a simple in-game indicator). and honestly, players shouldn’t have to use outside resources. it should all be in game. especially since it’s all in the API. and now that we can see, in game, which guild claimed it, and how upgraded it is. and extra especially with the new BL being so huge and taking so long to travel through. full RI transparency is essential for maximum strategy and quality of life.

I suggest an RI badge on the objective map icon (similar to how the claimed “badge” is used) or perhaps a visual effect — like a thick boundary line that “counts down”, disappearing as it moves clockwise around the main icon. there should also be an RI timer in the objective panel. this way we have 2 forms of noticing this vital information!

those are my only thought so far. thanks for a great update!!

yay for gliding nearly everywhere!!!! :P

Alacrity being cut down to 33% recharge rate from 66% is awful. Putting up Time Warp every 2 minutes (and that is IF f5 happens to be up), is not that great. In terms of supporting allies, they only get 2 seconds per well of 33% recharge rate increase will not do much. The alacrity rate should be no less than 50% in my opinion.

Gaile Gray.6029:

direx.8207:

@ Gaile Gray – However by that logic if lots of people are saying something on the forums or in game and we don’t see it in the patch notes is it reasonable to assume it’s not being listened to? Because that’s what it feels like much of the time. And since there’s no way to tell without dev comments what’s being payed attention to people tend to assume they’re not being listened to unless told otherwise, and then when patch notes hits and doesn’t list a change to what they were talking about it confirms they’re being ignored instead of perhaps something just not being ready to release yet.

No, it’s not reasonable to make that assumption. If changes are not made, that is in no way an indication that (1) the devs are unaware of a situation or (2) they are willfully choosing to ignore reasonable and practicable feedback.

The fact that something is not changed could be related to the fact that the suggestion is not reasonable, is not practical, or or cannot be achieved in a specific timeframe but may (or will) happen in the future.

Random examples:

• Not Reasonable: I say “Give Ranger pets +1000 to their skills!” Ok, clearly that’s just not reasonable.
• Not Possible: Someone says “Give everyone access to limitless inventory space.” This is technologically impossible. Or, someone suggests, “Give everyone who bought your base game in 2012 every expansion pack for free, forever.” That completely ignores the costs of development over the years and the general costs of keeping the lights on.
• Not in This Timeframe: Someone says “Make changes to ZYX!” Well, as you know, changes happen all the time, and the fact they didn’t happen in January doesn’t mean they are dead in the water, simply that more time is needed to develop them.

As I said, those were off-the-cuff examples, but the main point is that feedback given is not an order placed, but an idea shared. Whether it comes to pass is dependent on many factors, as I’m sure you can appreciate.

These are fairly extreme examples. Isn’t the point being the general feeling is that when there is no response to a highly supported change, and thus no discussion, that therefore the Devs aren’t listening?

I understand not going to every thread with ridiculous requests to give a response, but for certain balance recommendations it would really help the community’s morale if Devs deliver the stance on certain decisions and why. Or else we’re left thinking that a request to, let’s say, adjust numbers on a fairly unused trait/skill was never looked at.

This is more specifically addressing inactivity from the Devs in discussing balance decisions with the PvP and Profession-specific communities. The community looks at these balance patches and sees the balance team overshooting a nerf or buff and thus a further disconnection between Dev and player. Without active communication with the community playing the changes, I don’t see how balance can be accomplished.

The changes to require dolyaks in WvW was good, but the sheer amount of dolyaks required to upgrade a tower is higher than expected. Likewise, the camps don’t seem to upgrade as much due to flipping often.

I feel as though airship defense wasn’t hit hard enough ; 50% nerf would be better or less overlap of the damage circles to make it more like engineer grenades/bombs. Prenerf I saw someone get instadowned by it so it’s at least 11k prenerf. I believe 2-3K a second for 2-3 seconds would be more balanced than 7-10K in one second.

Guild Banners: The player’s model is now scaled up by 20% while carrying a banner. —- this doesn’t do much when the character is a min height asura , there needs to be an undeniable icon that it is a banner (think quest NPC green star)

Dragon Banner – Dragon’s Breath / Dragon Blast was hit hard enough I think. I’d reduce the the range for Dragon’s Breath to 1200 or 1500 however.

Rally changes: it’s too early to tell for sure but it seems to be better than expected.

The mesmer nerf to alacrity wasn’t well thought out.

• Flow of Time could have been only for F2-F5
• Improved Alacrity could have been hit
• Superior Rune of the Chronomancer could have been changed to be quickness for 1 second
• The attack frequency on the Ilusionary Avenger could have been lengthened to Illusionary Warden levels and the damage added 50% or even doubled to be less pitiful.
• All’s Well that Ends Well could have been changed to 3s duration if alacrity was cut in half ; Look at how strong Necromancer’s Vampiric Rituals trait is in comparison
• Well of Precognition is terrible now, you can block 3 auto attacks basically
• Well of Calamity could have seen a 2-5 second drop in recharge if alacrity was nerfed to 33%
• Restorative Illusions could have had a 5-10s internal cooldown and a lower heal when 0 illusions to balance bunker mesmer
• Deja Vu could have had the phantasm removed , such that only one phantasm is created
• Chaos Armor recharge could have been reduced ; the protection could have been decreased in duration to 2 or 3 seconds
• Compounding Power could have been changed to minor trait to replace Illusionary Retribution as a minor (to buff mesmer core)
• Illusionary Reversion should be a core mesmer trait ; also Chronophantasma

The buffs to necromancers/reapers (Chilling Nova) was over the top I think , mainly because the core necromancer’s Death Shroud hasn’t been changed. Putrid Curse might have a had a longer attack time to compensate for the boon strip. Right now I think Reaper is the strongest profession overall due to the damage, two HP bars, and condition transfers. If you compare Reaper’s Shroud 2 with Death Shroud 2, it is laughable in terms of usability.

Coalescence of Ruin nerf was inelegant ; they could have changed Cruel Repercussions (+50% damage after blocked attack is really high), Ferocious Aggression, Targeted Destruction, and the multitude of damage traits including +100% Fury effectiveness (Roiling Mists), Shared Empowerment. I would have also liked to see Hammer Bolt damage hit a bit (damage scaling is more than warrior/guardian hammer), more so than sword autoattack.

Herald: soothing bastion / crystal hibernation , the inability to move (“root”) should be gone since the heal has been substantially been decreased

Guardian : Protector’s Strike needs to be unconditional protection to see any serious use , it defeats the point of the skill if you don’t get the block. The reason Invigorated Bulwark isn’t good is because healing from mace isn’t that great and blocks don’t come by easy on a mace (aegis from the virtue and utilities , protector’s strike every 12 seconds, focus’ shield of wrath). It is highly unlikely you will attain 10 stacks even in 30 seconds. According to wiki, assuming you have all 500 healing power from 10 stacks of this trait (blocking isn’t very easy on mace), you heal 0.18 × 500 = an additional 90 every 3 hits on the mace autoattack. Regeneration from mace 3 scales at 0.125 x healing power = an additional 62/second with this bonus. You’re better off with staff 2 (healing orb) & empower for healing unless your team is mostly melee.

Elementalists’ diamond skin was nerfed to uselessness. Scepter needs more damage , cleave (3 target), faster dragon’s tooth. Fire Shield cooldown decrease was good, but what about Magnetic Aura (Staff 4 on earth), a skill that does nothing but reflect projectiles?

Warrior/Berserker: King of Fires was nerfed into the ground. Axe damage increase was nice though ; the same goes for hammer cooldown reduction , shattering blow change.

Engineer: Magnetic Inversion should do more damage in order for Over Shield to see some use. You’re forced to spec some condition damage due to pistol damage.

Scrapper: Sneak Gyro , everyone saw this nerf coming

Quickness/slow : not affecting stomping is a huge blow for mesmers already.

Amulets: I think the loss of a celestial amulet for elementalists will be a heavy blow.

Raids: Increased quantity of magnetite shards awarded is always good. However, I feel there should be more ways to earn ascended weapons in WvW. Perhaps 250 proof of heroics = Deldrimor Steel Plated Dowel or something similar.

“Supporting your allies will now contribute toward earning rewards for killing enemies and damaging event bosses” : that’s nice but it isn’t going to be of much help when there are DPS-checks for failing things

-The oasis event in desert borderlands still causes terrible zone-wide lag. Players continue to ask this event to be either fixed, or disabled. The lag from this event is one of the top reasons why guilds refused to play in the desert borderlands.

-Squad markers and Lt’s are an awesome feature addition. However, players would like to request a feature to allow individuals to enlarge the squad markers. Please give us a slider bar in options to allow individual adjustments to the size of these squad markers. We like to place one of the markers on the commander’s head, but they are too small and hard to see. Please allow us to adjust the size of the squad markers, then we’ll be very happy and will make good use of this feature.

There is however a bug with squad markers. Even when the commander clears all markers, and they do get cleared. But when he places a new marker, the old markers show up again on the map. So it would seem even after you run the clear all markers command, the game still remembers the old marker locations. This was tested in WvW.

Flying in Tyria – GREAT! (But I would have thought that would have come with HoT release. I realize the scope of that feature and I would wager you where already working on it at it was obviously a great feature everyone would want, not something you ‘reacted’ to just delayed until now, when it was ‘ready’.)

Option to show objects – GREAT! (But why would something so simple take so long? My cramped CTRL pinky still can’t help itself however, I still find myself holding it down!)

Overall I didn’t feel the release was very big as other than the two things above I was not really impacted by it. Balance for the most part was PvP focused and that is not something I do often, and Shatterer is no longer a snooze fest but there is no real reward to go kill it. Raids got harder with a few skill nerfs so that doesn’t really make my life any better.

What happened to the compact items ‘fix’? It’s still just a few pixels away from really ticking me off.

My comments are mostly about the profession balances and are summarized by “why go further in power creep?”.
I think there was a general consensus in the forum that many things had gone out of control. Warriors and thieves did not need a buff, actually daredevil probably still needed a small shave. It’s every other elite specialization that was too strong.

And making everything stronger is not good balance. Many new things made PvP unpleasant. In general, too much CC (and often long lasting ones), insane amount of conditions and damage.

A few things were good in the patch: I feel like chronomancer has been brought in-line with the core specializations and now it does not feel mandatory. This is exactly what I was hoping for mesmer, as it brings back build diversity. While not an expert at it, I feel like it worked also for elementalist.

However, this treatment was not applied to all other professions (which also puts mesmer and elementalist in bad position):

• the sustain of scrapper was barely touched (the sneak gyro change is good, but not enough, many traits are still giving insane sustain).
• the bristleback burst is still too high. On the other hand, the reliability of most pets, especially melee ones can still be improved (in particular in attacking moving targets)
• thieves did not need a damage buff. On the other hand, more sustain and build diversity would have been nice, in particular, non-stealth support is still lacking
• the daze on traps is still a bad idea for dragon hunters, it is very disruptive. CC should be about timing, which is why F1 pull is good but random longbow push is not and “spammy” trap is not.
• Reaper did not need more damage. Reaper is currently the most scary damage and control dealer of the game. Chill is a very punishing condition (it should probably get the same treatment alacrity got) and the amount of conditions a reaper can stack is really insane. What reaper needs is better survivability when focused and a SERIOUS damage and control shave. I feel like reapers are single-handedly preventing most possible builds from all classes because of the insane condition cleanse you need against them.
• I do not play enough revenant to judge.

Overall, I would like to come back to the level of communication with the balance developers that we had during the HoT beta week-ends. I understand this takes a lot of time for developers, but it would really impact the game balance very positively.

Why annihilate the Mesmer class? Honestly I understand this was targeted at the chronomancer bunker but still you completely destroyed the class as whole. Now were virtually useless.

my feedback

Scrapper is still trash all scrapper is good for in pvp is fighting 1 v 1s and only if its against a non condi build

conditions are still overperforming they are one of the main aspects breaking pvp balance as a whole

while the removal of bunker amulets was nice you guys introduced damage buffs and damage amulets and in some massive damage gains for example mercenary it alows classes like necromancers to steamroll the game even easier than ever before by granting them access to max power and max condition damage same goes for Viper

the thief damage buff was way overdone now they dont even need skills to play the game , they are hitting Burst skill damage on auto attacks and not just that but the game’s fastest auto attack 1/4th of a second between strikes

revenants,necromancers and mesmers need their condition spam looked it it is too rewarding for no skill .
or at least get rid of snap cast to target so necros cant abuse their Marks you cant counter spam necro because the moment you put up a defense its destroyed with an unavoidable mark

ranger’s bristleback and smokescale pets deal way too much damage and are pretty much unnavoidable if you had to avoid an atack prior to their main skills

druid’s self healing needs to be toned down

dragonhunters are almost ok what makes them insanely unfair is the daze on traps combined with might from runes and a whopping 10 stacks from their elite trap wich keeps the player in it even if they teleport out of it , it is way too disruptive specially when combined with the bow #5

Chronomancer has too much CC

should get rid of condition and power amulets asides from sinister and rampager if you want the best of both worlds you should at least be vulnerable to damage

From a thief main persective, now we have damage on the mainhand weapons autos which is nice. There were honestly 2 roads to go down, one being more sustained damage and the other was more sustained survivability, but honestly the more survivability would have just made the class more of a headache to deal with (Revenant being my main point of comparison). However, now that all the close combat mainhand weapons are in good standing in terms of damage, offhand dagger needs to be looked at in terms of its utility (or lack thereof) and P/P still needs an overhaul (P/P 1, 2, & 3 need work).

Here’s a thread with a lot of back and forth on what could be done about dagger offhand.

Here’s one of the many threads about some rework ideas to P/P.

Feedback:

1. Patch is a bit smaller than I expected in terms of class balance. Specifically,

Engineer:
-The new trait is practical for flamethrower specialists like myself. However, that quickness boon can mean you kill yourself 50% faster against retaliation. What I mean is, if you are using Flamethrower 1 and your target(s) get retaliation, you can suddenly take half your health (7500+ damage assuming hitting 3 targets 10 times each for 255 retaliation damage.)
-The change to the sneak gyro is fully justified. However, could work be done to ensure that stupid gyro actually follows the player instead of wandering off in random directions or standing around?
-Scrapper Purge gyro is unfocused. It’s utility bar skill is a condi clense (defensive), while the toolbelt is a poison field (Condi-offensive). The toolbelt or the Utility skill should be reworked to compliment each other.
-Engineer has a lot of unused skills. Gadgets and turrets need a rework – I can not remember the last time I saw an engineer use any of these skills.
-Ranger’s “Search and Rescue” got a massive buff while the Scrapper’s Function Gyro is awakward to use (This was brought up by another poster in the engineer forums). Could the Function Gyro be set to be used untargeted? It is especially difficult to target allies (even ones in your own party) in the heat of battle, which is required for use of the Function Gyro. If it was set so you could use it on the closest downed player in range by pressing F, it would be greatly improved.
-Elixir S should provide invulnerability to conditions. If I use a skill that makes me invulnerable but unable to do anything else but cower, I should not continue to take damage from sources. I consider this especially true because, in my opinion, conditions are overpowered for reasons stated below.

Necromancer:
-Corrupt boon on an already powerful autoattack was uncalled for. My necro hits for 8k condi damage with the auto attack without the corrupt boon. He also is quite survivable. Condi damage builds can be built to do extremely high damage with extremely high toughness and vitality – compare this to berzerkers who give up such defenses for high damage output. This is my argument for taking the corrupt off this autoattack. The dagger and utility skill I do not see a problem with, as they have a cooldown, the autoattack is broken.

Revenant:
-I think the shield healing nerf was a bit much, but understand why. My Revenant was extremely survivable. More testing is needed.
-Hammer 2 needed that nerf and might need a further nerf on top of that. Consider 10 energy cost, but test it carefully.
-Sword 3 has a lot of pathing issues. Against a foe who’s back is to a wall, the attacks will sometimes suddenly stop. It also can not be used against certain targets, such as wvw walls and the stationary vines (the ones with the toxic field around them) in silverwastes.
-Sword 2 frequently has its projectiles “Obstructed” by nothing.

Mesmer:
-Alacrity was a bad balance concept in the first place. It affected siege in wvw and gave the mesmer insane skill reductions.
-Shatter skills are too powerful. Add a 1 second cast time to F1 and F2 shatter skills. As it stands, mesmers can create 3 clones and spike you for all your health out of nowhere (stealth) with no tell or warning. This is broken when compared to other classes.

Ranger:
-I had an old build that used “Guard” to enable permanent swiftness. The cooldown change to this skill destroyed the practicality of this. I wish to point this out.

Guardian:
-Dragonhunter Longbow 5 MUST be nerfed. It is beyond broken in wvw. The only escape is to use an invincibility skill, which is rare (Elixer S on Engineer, Mist Form on Ele, Renewed Focus on Guardian, etc) or a teleport. Only certain classes with certain builds are able to escape from this difficult to read attack. Make it so that stability functions as expected against the barriers placed by this skill – allowing you to trade a stack of stability for escape.
-Dragonhunter can be extremely survivable. This is the focus of the guardian, but you may wish to examine if it is too much. (Shelter-F2-F3-Renewed Focus-F2-F3 + Utility skills).

Thief:
-Daredevil can kill people with dodgerolls. I created a thief build that can dodgeroll at least 11 times non-stop creating mini-caltrop fields and throwing conditioning daggers (lotus training). Couple this with a superior Sigil of Stamina, and you can dodge-roll a near infinite amount of times (Found to be absurdly powerful in camp taking in wvw). (add a 10s Cooldown to Sigil of Stamina to solve this problem) To emphasize how broken this is, my noobish wvw guildmates who are sub-100 wvw rank ran this build with me. The three of us WRECKED camps and players with ease. The other two are effectively rally bots, some of them still stand still to activate a skill, rather than continually repositioning. Please look into this.
Example of build in question: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAqYVn8lCFOhdOBePBkmiFqiaO73+w37C+gtrLCCgDA-TBCDQBOZ/BKqMAAPBAEpEkgq/gFleH7UAoH9BECQxcA-e

Ranger:
-Still testing, but so far looks good. Search and Rescue might be TOO powerful and need a 60s base cooldown.

Elementalist:
-Scepter needs a re-work. I am sure there are other members of the community who play elementalist who have better suggestions than I. However, I wish to state that attacks such as dragon’s tooth (Ele Scepter fire 2) and (Ele Scepter Water 2) should have their attack animations sped up.

2. Commander Functionality
-This is a GREAT change! The ability to assign makers to people and locations in the world is a complete game changer for the better!
-A suggestion for Quality of Life of Commander functionality: add a check box that allows the commander to hide his commander tag from people who are not in his squad. Often I find myself running in WvW or even in the open world and want the new functionalities, but do not want to disturb the map by having my tag always visible. In addition, this might alleviate some concerns wvw commanders might have – that tagging up makes your group visible to spies.

3. Additional feedback
-My guildmates have often mentioned how they would like to be able to reset their wvw points, and would be willing to do so for gems. Their suggestion often is along the lines of a low gem cost for the first reset, with increasing costs per reset (between wvw tournaments). However, since wvw abilities are reset before each wvw tournament, I suggest a small fee of 50-100 gems per reset (with the ability to reset turned off at least two weeks in advance of an upcoming wvw tournament – this is so that vocally entitled whiners, shame on you filth, can not complain that they just reset their points and want their gems back.)
-My guildmates also would like to join more than the allotted number of guilds, and recommend an incremental increase in gem costs for the luxury of being in a large number of guilds (ex: 200 gems for the first, 300, 400, etc).
-If the “Teleport to friend” fails (or even better, enable a check to see if the use WILL fail) to teleport you to your friend, it should NOT consume the item and NOT teleport you anywhere. My friend is currently teed off that he has burned two teleport to friends to try and get into Dragon’s Stand so he can get a ranger pet. The first time the teleport to friend worked fine, but the map reset after defeating the boss, leaving a map FULL of angry players. The second time he tried to join me after the defeating of the boss, but nothing worked (party / squad join friend in Dragon Stand and teleport to friend). The second time, and other instances where a player tries to join a map that is full, are the basis of his frustrations.

I hope this feedback is useful to you and your co-workers.

Outstanding feedback!

I hope ANet reads it carefully..:)

The visual nerfs thing was a request feature by a whole lot of people. Some people don’t like it, but I’m pretty sure I saw more people complain about noise than I ever did about the visual nerfs.

I’d like to see a build template made too. I’m sure it’s on a list of the stuff they’re working on. It’s obviously not a high priority for them.

Maybe because they have metrics of what people, by percentage ever change their build.

Gaile Gray.6029:

[SNIP] But I’m also aware that communication comes through many forms, including that demonstration through actual game changes.

I could not disagree more. Keeping silent until a change goes live on the servers cannot possibly be considered a form of communication. If this is the company’s current philosophy regarding communication, it explains a lot.

If there exists a Communications Team that is interested in discussing communication, would it not be better discussed in the thread that was created by the Communications Team for the purpose of discussing communication? It’s called “Comments about Communications”, and can be found by clicking here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Comments-about-Communications-1/

I am honestly not trying to be harsh, but I think it is fair to say that that thread has not seen a good faith effort to participate in the discussion by anyone who works at ANet. Seeing the lack of dialogue in that thread, it’s hard not to come away with the impression that communicating with players is not a priority.

Vayne.8563:

The visual nerfs thing was a request feature by a whole lot of people. Some people don’t like it, but I’m pretty sure I saw more people complain about noise than I ever did about the visual nerfs.

I’d like to see a build template made too. I’m sure it’s on a list of the stuff they’re working on. It’s obviously not a high priority for them.

Maybe because they have metrics of what people, by percentage ever change their build.

The visual noise nerf was something that was overdone. Yes, there were tons of requests for it, but the expectation was that it would be on some sort of slider.

I’d change my builds a lot more if I had actual templates. I’m not holding my breath for this feature to be implemented, though.

I’m sure build templates will arrive at some point. I’m also sure most people never even look at their builds, even if you would change yours Guhracie. I have a guild full of people who don’t even know how to make a build or what a build is. I’m pretty sure most players log in, kill some stuff and log out most of the time. Or they just look up a build on a site and stay with it and never change it. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a great QoL feature for me, because it would be. But I’m not convinced 50% of the population would ever use it, and it’s probably much less than that.

As for the visual noise, I’m not sure why it’s not a slider, but presumbly with the way the game is coded that’s simply either won’t work or will take too much time to implement, so they did what they could.

Did they over nerf some affects? What percentage of people even notice or care? I didn’t see thousands or even hundreds of posts complaining about the nerf. But I’m absolutely positive I’ve seen a lot more complaints about the issue they’re trying to fix.

You could be right. It could be over done. Anet does have a tendency to over compensate.

But that doesn’t mean that more people aren’t happy with the change than unhappy.

Vayne.8563:

The visual nerfs thing was a request feature by a whole lot of people. Some people don’t like it, but I’m pretty sure I saw more people complain about noise than I ever did about the visual nerfs.

The so called “visual noise reduction” did absolutely NOTHING to clean up boss and zerg fights. Not. A. Single. kittening. THING. Fireball gets turned into a pebble, but the impact particles, which is WHAT WAS CAUSING THE PROBLEM, has not been changed at all. And how much did Chaos Shield and the Ele Auras actually add to the problem? Be honest.
No, the Visual Nerf only diminished the quality of the game, rather than improve it. And as far as there not being enough people being against the nerf as opposed to for it? Bullkitten. There’s an eighteen page thread that’s been on the front page fairly consistently that speaks against your claim.

Vayne.8563:

As for the visual noise, I’m not sure why it’s not a slider, but presumbly with the way the game is coded that’s simply either won’t work or will take too much time to implement, so they did what they could.

Did they over nerf some affects? What percentage of people even notice or care? I didn’t see thousands or even hundreds of posts complaining about the nerf. But I’m absolutely positive I’ve seen a lot more complaints about the issue they’re trying to fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged

I haven’t counted the for/against ratio of this 870-post thread, but it wasn’t my impression that the people in it where generally pleased.

If they told me, “We’d like to do a visual effects intensity slider, but it’s technically unfeasible, so we erred on the side of people seeing more clearly,” I would understand. I might disagree and be unhappy, but I’d understand. I’m usually pretty generous about accepting what can and can’t be done, but I think it’s assuming too much to assume this option isn’t reasonable.

And I thought the Visual being reduced was a sign that 90% of everyone is on low end Computer still running ancient pcs with Windows XP with anicent 2004 Hardware. Don’t some of us even run a gaming pc these days.

Tough Love: Stop using ancient computers and upgrade to more modern pcs, You don’t have to have top of the line hardware that hardcore gamers have.

Unless it’s game Optimization then that’s a different story.

New Guild Decorations – Needs work.

The items needed to get guild decorations are account bound. BUT the decorations themselves can only be made by a scribe. I know that my guild does not have the resources to have more than one scribe. Please find a way to make the items needed able to be traded.

I wonder if there might be a way to make them only able to be traded to other guild members.

Having them account bound is just not a good idea. It means you MUST have the scribe find all the pieces needed for the Shatterer Crystals to create the decoration. This leaves guild members with pieces that they can’t use and can’t trade.

Alacrity should not have been nerfed and hurts Chronos personal cooldowns so much for the sake of nerfing team utility.

If the team utility was such an issue, it should have ONLY been the “out going” alacrity to other builds that was reduced to 33% while keeping the 66% on the Chronomancer.

It was fine for personal use and kept their skills balanced based on the trade offs. No one of relevance or who understood the game in the previous meta complained about any Chrono build that was not bunker.

The amulet changes (which I feel are pretty great actually) and precognition changes took care of that perfectly fine along, with the changes to bask venom and innate thief pressure gives enough of a counter play to the previously problematic spec. (chrono bunker)

Gliding in core is cool, and Shatterer is fun, wish the back item was actual wings not just a wing strapped to your back. =(

PS/FYI: The only reason people make mention to chrono still being ok, is because they can do everything they could do before, terrible players will not avoid it, and they will achieve success.

The issue is the frequency. Mesmer has always had to blow a lot to achieve any desired amount of effectiveness, be it defense, offense, support. If you out right restrict or lessen that it’s the equivalent of giving thieves extra -1(negative one) initiate every time their skill misses, or an extra 7 second cooldown on ele attunement swap. Core mesmer does fine with it’s cooldowns when you consider the 3 combinations of the core traits that isn’t being given up, be it either through control or survivability.

Hi Gaile,

I have made a forum post in the PVP forums. It’s Titled “How to Balance PVP”. I go into detail on the changes I think should be made to each class before ranked season 2 starts.

I’d love if you could give it a read:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/How-to-Balance-PVP-Please-Read/first#post5955921

Musical Instruments should be improved.

1) Ability to play any song
Additional buttons should allow you to play Sharps and Flats so all notes can be played, not just those of the C Major Scale. I suggest making two buttons change while your instrument is out: SHIFT for flat and SPACEBAR for sharp

2) Instrument Accessibility
All musical instruments should be kept in their own tab in the achievements menu. Once an instrument is purchased it is unlocked for all classes. Just like items like the Zenith Bow Skin, you should be able to quickly access them and add them to your inventory. Or just do away with being an inventory slot all together, from a collections menu allow them to equip the instrument.

Shatterer needs some tweaks, my guild organized revamped shatterer maybe 2-4 times. His CC bar needs another look at, it doesn’t go below 52%, no matter how good the people on the map are with CCing him. And some of the achievements don’t work properly, like the branded bane, and his recharge health crystal. In one fight with shatterer, I i’ll kill almost around 40-50 branded, and get less than 5 for credit. His recharge crystals don’t give any credit either.because once the the defiance goes down, that’s it, can’t even get 1-4 hits in before it goes down, it needs a HP buff.

Jan. 26th 2016 Patch Feedback and Suggestions:

I. Enhanced Squad UI
Overall very positive change. The squad markers are great for doing both Pug and Organized group activities. Something that you could consider is make the markers visible even when commander leaves. Similar to the army, Lieutenants don’t get demoted just because the General steps down. Overall grade for this change 9/10.

II. Gliding in Central Tyria
This was a very welcome change. You guys have given many players who enjoy exploration another dimension to work with. My suggestion regarding adding systems such as this is to not forget about them after just doing one update. Expand on it a little by adding new explorable content within lesser visited maps; even if only for cosmetics. Overall grade for this change 10/10.

III. Lunar New Year
Copy pasted event. I really don’t have anything constructive to add. I’m lukewarm to “updates” such as this. I don’t mind having them in, I just don’t care for them. Festival themed decorations are great. Overall grade for this event 5/10.

IV. Eldvin Monastery Brew of the Month Club
What can I say? Seems like a desperate attempt to make people log in once a month. I am all for gold sinks, as they prevent inflation. However, I am very unsure as to the purpose of this. Overall grade for this update 2/10.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
V. World Polish , General changes, Fractals
All good changes, especially with the contribution on healing/ support. That one is a huge one for me and very good attention to detail on your end. Overall grade for this update 8/10.

VI. Raids
Great decision adding more magnetite rewards. On that note, I would like to congratulate your Raid team for successfully producing high quality content. Expecting more of similar content in the future. Over grade 9/10

VII. Profession Skills
General:
“Finish Them” Finishers: The stomping effect will no longer be time-scaled through effects like quickness and slow.

• This change was very unusual. I feel like this was supposed to add more skill to gameplay. Over simplifying mechanics such as this could also hurt. I get that you are trying to make it less confusing for the new players, however, as a now veteran, I used to be a new player, and had not big complaints about mechanics such as this. In fact I feel these types of physics SHOULD EXIST in a game to add depth to combat/gameplay.

Class Balance: This is where it gets good.
Elementalist:
• First of all let’s start with the diamond skin change. While I agree that the old diamond skin was too strong, I feel the new one has lost its place due to the fact that you need to get hit in order for it to proc. In my opinion this is poor design due to the fact that elementalist lost some sustain that was made available by celestial stats. With the insane high damage coming from thieves right now, it is impossible for elementalists to stay above 75% health, without taking the Stone Heart trait. A possible iteration of this trait may be make it so you are immune to boon corruption. While above 75% health. With necromancers now being walking boon stripping, I feel that ele is just rendered powerless.
• Scepter changes feel very underwhelming. Auto attack needs to be reworked.
• Loss of celestial trinket: I agree with the removal of this stat from PvP, as it gave the most amount of stats mathematically, but what is wrong? Elementalists, a class who arguably was designed around this stat set, lost a lot of survivability. My suggestion would be to increase base health and increase base healing of abilities such as cone of cold and cleansing wave. I know this is not easy to do as it will affect non PvP game modes, but that is exactly why separate balance is needed.
• Shameless plug – I was thinking of maybe adding a trait to Ele. Something like Elemental Understanding, where one gains immunity to a certain condition based on current attunement. For example when in fire, you are immune to burning.

Engineer – not much to say.

Guardian
• I feel like trap damage did not need a nerf. It was the CC spam that made the class very obnoxious to play against. CC spam is a whole different discussion to be had, but not today.
• Shield buffs are nice. I could see it seeing some play in mid to high level solo queue, but its yet to be seen. Once again necro makes guardian look unappealing.
Mesmer
• Alacrity nerf from 66% to 33%. This was definitely the highest point of discussion across all forums and even in-game. Why? Because of the fact that an entire specialization line was literally built around this one mechanic. The general consensus is to change shared alacrity to 33% while keeping self at 66% intact.
• Scepter buffs? I guess? Well scepter is probably going to see more play now that so many builds have become extremely unviable.
• Well of precognition. This one was also a kicker. It seems like this was targeted at PvE, specifically raids. Now here we have another example of why there needs to be a separation between PvE and PvP balance. While I understand the reasoning from a PvE standpoint, it had already settled into a fine place in PvP. With the removal of sentinel stats, mercy and durability runes, the popular rezmer would have just died on its own.
Necromancer
• The most confusing buffs ever. First off, corrupt boon buff. This was not a smart change at all. Granted, right now there is an overabundance of boons, doesn’t mean we needed more corruption. Mind you, it was already unblockable. Make it so it is blockable and maybe put it on a 25s cooldown.
• Scepter auto corruption. To reiterate, I feel boon corruption should be done skillfully and not just mindlessly spamming skills, in this case an auto attack.
• Generally Reaper needs to be toned down with regards to the amount of chill they output. Or maybe take another look at chill itself as a condition. It is not healthy for the game to have a spammable condition that reduces recharge time by 66%. I say reduce that number to 33%, and maybe still keep the slow on the movement numbers intact. This is a horribly unbalanced condition right now, and deserved major nerfs, but was somehow disregarded.
Ranger
• I feel like the change to ancestral grace not being able to be used mid air was uncalled for. I am well aware of the exploit in WvW, however, removing a healthy mechanic from the game because of one thing is very bad decision making. This change affects skills like Ride the lightning for elementalists as well. Very poor design. Maybe changing some of the physics of the skill would have been more appropriate, instead of completely reworking an otherwise healthy mechanic.
Revenant
• The nerf to the auto was definitely warranted, although now unrelenting assault has become extremely buggy, which I hope will be fixed soon. I feel like a 10% reduction across the whole auto chain would of sufficed.
• The real issue with revenant, and well, all the professions really, is there is a very limited number of viable options. A rework of the less used traits and abilities needs to be put into high consideration. Reworking, retooling things that already work just doubles the amount of work that needs to be done and even haults actual balancing. Dwarf and Centaur stance really need to be reworked to be competitive with the other lines/legends.
• You guys failed to address the main issue with CoR, which was the ability to 1 shot back line players in WvW. A reduction in base damage on max range hit would do wonders for QoL vs this ability.
Thief – My main. This is going to be juicy.
• Going to start with a positive here. Sword auto changes are lovely. Feels very rewarding and smooth right now. Still needs ~10% damage buff if you want it to compete with dagger and staff. However compared to other classes dps, I think it is in a fine place.
• Dagger auto is kind of ridiculous right now. I don’t really follow your logic on this one. While I agree that dagger auto may have been a bit underwhelming in the past, it was not as bad as it was made out to be. Now giving it a 42% boost just promotes unkilled play. I think buffing damage through this means was a bad decision. If you wanted to buff damage while simultaneously making it easier on the initiative, you could of changed some of the initiative costs. Maybe decrease the cost on cloak and dagger and maybe increase damage on it to increase burst potential. Increase backstab damage by 15%. With the amount of mobility, block, CC, invulns, damage mitigation available right now, this should not make such a largely oppressive impact that it would be broken, plus it promotes skillful positioning. Skillful gameplay is what draws COMPETITIVE players. Increasing numbers with casuals does not make a healthy, competitive esport game.
• Please change cooldowns on under used utilities.
• Acrobatics change was a step in the right direction however still inferior to lines such as Deadly Arts and Trickery.
• Increase on staff dps was uncalled for. Why does this weapon need to stay competitive with dagger dps? Speed up animations for staff 2 and staff 5 by 25 -30% so they don’t feel clunky. Enable mid air cast of steal/shadowstep while performing a staff 5 leap. I honestly don’t know how this is not a thing.
• Make larcenous strike steal 2 boons instead of 1(over abundance of boons).
Warrior
• The core PvP issues for warrior were not addressed. The current problem with warior is lack of sustain, defensive cooldowns, and good residual AoE damage. Its gotten so bad that even a berserker guardian is better in PvP.
• Need add more reliable CC, and compact hammer skill animations.
• Make banner be able to rez defeated players. This might be good, so more warriors can find their place in WvW again.
Overall profession balance score 4/10.
VIII. World vs. World (will not touch on SPvP as the profession changes already touched on sever SPvP aspects)

If I were to be completely frank, WvW still does not feel like a top priority. I can’t tell if it’s a resource issue, a man power issue, or maybe even a talent issue that the devs are having, but something is not working within WvW. PPK was a nice addition, however the broken mechanic that is 24/7 PPT is still not addressed, and not even mentioned anywhere. I am well aware of what Collin said about changes to population, but what I am looking for is something tangible. Evidence and confidence in the general direction this game mode is being taken.

Overall the Jan. 26th changes feel like baby steps in a full marathon. A lot more work needs to be done, and quite honestly more communication between devs and community is NECESSARY. I remember a project called Adopt-a-dev, where devs participated in WvW guild activities during season 2 of the WvW tournament. This might be something worth looking into. Do something like undercover boss. Do it discreetly and REALLY get into the minds of real WvW players playing the game mode.The one thing that really discourages us WvW players is the fact that we never see devs in WvW, while we always see them in PvE or HoTM.

This concludes my feedback summary of the January 26th patch. Overall ok patch, but not anything to write home about. I really wanted to write because I did not want to wait 3 months and still feel like the Devs lack direction. Take advice from balance teams from other games and get some insight on what balancing should be. DO NOT just keep tweaking numbers all the time. Playing with numbers is a never ending and painful process. Separating balance within the game modes would be a great building block to solve all the issues surrounding PVE, PVP balance. Even new players will appreciate that you go the extra mile to deliver high quality content. Happy players = longevity of the game.

Really happy that quickness no longer works on defensive skills!
I read the note about mixed skills (such as Pistol Whip) still being susceptible. I am glad for this. I think it makes sense that if a skill is mostly offence with a bit of defence (i.e. Pistol Whip) it makes sense to have quickness work, while if it’s more of a defensive skill (i.e. Shock Shield) then quickness shouldn’t work.

I would like to see the new rally changes for wvw apply to pvp as well. One rally per death.

Redenaz.8631:

Vayne.8563:

As for the visual noise, I’m not sure why it’s not a slider, but presumbly with the way the game is coded that’s simply either won’t work or will take too much time to implement, so they did what they could.

Did they over nerf some affects? What percentage of people even notice or care? I didn’t see thousands or even hundreds of posts complaining about the nerf. But I’m absolutely positive I’ve seen a lot more complaints about the issue they’re trying to fix.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged

I haven’t counted the for/against ratio of this 870-post thread, but it wasn’t my impression that the people in it where generally pleased.

If they told me, “We’d like to do a visual effects intensity slider, but it’s technically unfeasible, so we erred on the side of people seeing more clearly,” I would understand. I might disagree and be unhappy, but I’d understand. I’m usually pretty generous about accepting what can and can’t be done, but I think it’s assuming too much to assume this option isn’t reasonable.

So a single thread. As compared with dozens of threads and random posts with screen shots, over the years since launch saying that that skill noise is a problem.

Did 100 disparate people in that thread actually complain (I don’t think so). Even if 100 people did actually complain (because 850 posts isn’t 850 people and some people posted that like the changes), then 100 people out of the million more or less playing makes this not a hot button topic.

You need a lot more people to show some sort of consensus. The old trait system, upwards of 90% of the people who posted in that thread disliked it immensely. That was an issue that Anet really did need to fix and it took a long time for that to happen.

The nerf to visuals is an improvment for some people. I don’t know one way or another about the slider, but if it’s not doable, or no doable in a time frame that makes sense, Anet should say so.

Don’t know if anyone has suggested this, but have you guys considered rolling balance changes for just the classes every 2 weeks for just 1 class at a time? You could also have minor adjustments to the previous classes limited to a number tweak here and there and a reversion if a change didn’t play out the way you thought it would.

So for the classes 1-9 with would be a rotation like this:

Week 2: balance changes for class 1
Week 4: balance changes for class 2
Week 6: balance changes for class 3; revisions for class 1
Week 8: balance changes for class 4; revisions for class 2
Week 10: balance changes for class 5; revisions for class 3
And so on looping back around at the end.

With the minor revisions, and single class focus for major changes; you’d have a solid rollout with whatever lead time it takes for a major design change, then about 3 weeks of gathering data to see if it was too far or not enough. Each class also gets a balance patch once every 4.5 months which seems to be about the rate you guys stated you wanted, but it allows for a little more control so stuff doesn’t run away or get totally pushed out for 3-4 month blocks.

General balance changes can still be dropped every 4 months.

Thief out of balance. Buff, Buff, Buff, Buff, Buff, Buff, Buff, Buff. They didn’t need a buff. Looks like someone high up at ANeT loves the thief is all. I’d love a +36% buff to my auto attacks, and massive bonuses to healing and removals, etc…

(New Problems for WVW)

Subject: Location markers and object markers.
Problem: To many keys to press not enough hands to press with.
Solution: Make a option to press one key to cycle through all markers. Or to even make that key cast object markers if something is targeted and cast location markers when nothing is targeted. Then a person can have one key to rule them all one key to find them and in the darkness bind them all.

Subject: Caravan shipments delivered upgrade system.
Problem: Their are towers that only have 1 supply camp sending Dolyaks for upgrades.
Solution: Number of caravan shipments delivered adjusted on those towers. And my personal opinion is to make towers upgrade sooner then keeps.

(Old Problems for WVW)

Subject: Commander tags being visible to every one.
Problem: A person can make an account on a enemy server to spy out enemy commander locations.
Solution: Give an option to command with out the commanders tag being visible to all.

Subject: WVW scoring battle zones
Problem: Very little action in new Borderlands.
Solution: Time gate Eternal Battlegrounds. Forcing people to learn and get to know the new Borderlands. And hell they might even like the place.

Over all feeling of patch: LOVE IT! Great job anet. Two thumbs up!

Side Note: I don’t normally post feed back. But if any of you Anet developers feel like my input has substance. Then please send me a message saying so. That way I may have more will power to post and not feel like what I post is being swamped in the sea of little school girls complaining about balance.

Lionwait.4815:

Problem: Very little action in new Borderlands.
Solution: Time gate Eternal Battlegrounds. Forcing people to learn and get to know the new Borderlands. And hell they might even like the place.

Great idea. Precisely what the game needs: more time gates.

Why not add time tokens that you can purchase with gems? Each token grants an hour of play in EB; borderlands are f2p. Win-win ca-ching-ching.

Haven’t had the opportunity to try out much of the PvE stuff, so I’ll focus my thoughts on the balance:

Sticking to the profession I’ve played in PvP often enough to feel like I can have an informed opinion from playing with them as well as playing against, in rough order of how much I play them:

Guardian: I feel the changes here were in the right direction. Post-HoT guardian has felt like too much of its power has been in traps – a light nerf on traps and buffs on the non-trap aspects are, IMO, welcome. More improvements on the core side, particularly bringing up less-used options and removing oddities like Sword Wave being a projectile, would probably be worthwhile once the new meta settles, but I like the way the changes here were more incremental than massive nerfs/buffs.

Mesmer: Ouch. I have to say, I’m suspicious of the reason given for the nerf to Alacrity – a 66% increase in recharge rate does not translate into a 66% increase in damage, and when this is given for the justification of the nerf, it feels like an overnerf. Additionally, a lot of mesmer skills – chronomancer in particular – seem balanced with alacrity in mind – obviously, other profession’s skills can’t be, but maybe it’d be worth considering rolling a bonus to the effect of alacrity into a chronomancer minor (similar to how tempests get better protection). I didn’t really enjoy playing with or against chronobunker, so I’m content to see that go – however, I think mesmer will need to be watched closely to see if it’s viable at all without chronobunker. Non-bunker mesmer builds felt weak to me before the patch, and they’ve received some collateral nerfs after the patch. The reduction of durability across the board might help there in allowing a shatter spike to work more often, but I’m not sure that’s enough in a meta that brings out the mesmer’s weaknesses.

Revenant: If the nerfs to sword AA and UA are intended to be compensated for by the buff to Precision Strike, Precision Strike needs to actually be useful. Stop it from targeting objects, and give it a projectile speed that gives it more of a chance to land. It’s hard to judge the current state of power revenant while PS is not working as advertised. More generally… revenant has a lot of stuff that doesn’t really feel viable at the moment (Ventari especially, being totally outclassed by druid) and because of the limited options available to the revenant, it can less afford to have bad ones. There is a lot in the revenant that needs to be looked at: Ventari, Jalis, Corruption traits that are still largely oriented towards the old version of Mallyx.

Engineer: Slight nerfs to some elements of scrapper, buffs on some of the less-used core aspects. Stealth gyro still feels useful without being something that can make you virtually unkillable through being able to disengage almost at will.

Necromancer: I have to say, this feels like a profession that was already solid was just made stronger, and in a way that strikes at the heart of professions that rely more on boons like guardian, revenant, elementalist and engineer. I’m still pretty inexperienced with reaper, but I still feel more powerful running a reaper even when I know I’m not reaching its full potential than professions on this list that I’ve put a lot more time into post-HoT and have much more knowledge of when to use which skills. People who play reapers well… are pretty much dominating.

Also, one additional comment that I’d like to add:

I haven’t played warrior in PvP, but I think the ‘grace period’ for degenerating adrenaline was a great quality of life change. Number of times I’ve had my PvE warrior finish off one enemy and then be just a little bit too slow in reaching the next, and then adrenaline starts draining (I think I’ve had this happen because I’ve dodged a projectile or blocked an attack…). With berserker requiring full adrenaline, then this becomes even more aggravating. Kudos there!

That said, though, is there any chance revenants could get a similar grace period?

Consider series of hotfixs to do actual balance. Things can change more often. Must if you wanna rebuild at least grain of trust in you, becouse of what you’re doing.

Useless traits for ele: conjurer (staying more time in conjures is out of question, so failed trait), one with fire(merge it to sunspot), power overhelimg (at lest one more effect needed), ferocius winds (at least one effect more), inscription (it should enchance glyphs effects instead giving boons on use – simple you won’t stack glyphs in balanced build), shooting power (at least additional effect must be or total rework), serrated stone delete or at least merge it to strenght of stone, diamondo skin (need tweaks or rework), piercing shards (its not ok, delete or at least merge it to aqua’training), merge healing ripple into cleansing wave (both of them create dagger 5 water ability called cleansing wave, it just riddiculous to split it that way).

Utilities:
-tornado need at laest skills nubmer 4 and 5 or have its own hp,
-conjure fiery gs at least cd reduction,
-elementals" fire should place lava font more often and for that can aa slower, air should teleport and aa very fast and have better ai when enemy attack it, ice and earth should have something in common as both they are meele like retaliation, or ice can us shatterstone and freezing gust and earth can use magnetic aura and grasping earth,

-conjures, glyphs and arcana need tweaks,
-signets are like shouts, but a lot weaker it can iritiate, their activess or passives choose which one and rework them,

Staff – long range management with crowd effects is great, but when it comes to close gap its feels how much its lacks in other faces.

Scepter – between burst there is no dmg, try to set it somehow to be equal distributed, and fact that actually bursting someone you litteraly need ask him to don’t move, should encourage you to give some pinpoint ability to it.

Dagger – i don’t play main dagger, but maybe I would see short range defensive teleport like mess have in Staff 2, in water for example on 3 or that suggestion could go to scepter water 2, which is pure meme.

Dagger off hand, focus and warhorn. No idea, small tweaks, very reasonoable were posted everywhere. And its not only about that.

You don’t respond even for reasonable suggestion. You don’t explain what problems you have with implementing and balancing them. There is no communication between forum and devs. Its just announcement things and announcemnt that there is communication between us and that you care to consider what we suggest.

Who thought that putting a jumping pad on a MK2 golem was a good idea ? You took away the boxes just so you can give us even better spot ? Please get rid of that spot now http://imgur.com/AWcEjXs

Warrior
The new trait crackshot takes away the option to make all rifle and harpoon skills pierce. I dont really like that we dont have that option anymore. It would be great if all rifle and harpoon skill got baseline pierce. Mending should be made a physical skill and when traited with peak preformance it should heal/cure condition more based on the amount of filled adrenaline bars.

Guardian
The buffs to guardian were welcome, but it still needs more small updates on other traits and skills. Currently a lot of guardian traits feel underwhelming compared to other classes traits.

Spiritweapons need their AI improved and sword aa3 needs an update so the projectiles dont miss because of the terrain. GS AA could also get some more sustained damage (maybe increase the damage by a small amount or reduce couldowns by a small amount on the other skills).

The elite signet could use a reduce in casting time and recharge time.

I think Feel My Wrath! should have a small buff for some of the boons duraration.

Inspired Virtue and Permeating Wrath should be merged into one grandmaster trait, making room for another major virtue trait.

Dragonhunter
Defender’s Dogma on the DH traitline is really underwelming and needs to be replaced with somthing usefull like: you and your allies deal X% more damage to burning enemies (this will help getting guardian more wanted for raids), 25% mov speed while aegis is up or some other group buff.

Dragonhunter needs some groups buffs. I know its a damage spec but we’re still guardian and other classes still deal way more damage then us (we got got burst but sustained damage is really low, making us a bad choice for raids).

Getting interrupted while casting Shield of Courage should not put the skill on full cooldown.

Other
The new Shatterer is great. Would like to see more updates like this one on other world bosses.

Here´s my feedback of the patch. I´ll try to keep it civil and constructive.

Gliding on core Tyria is a nice feature.

The new Shatterer bossfight is way better and more rewarding than the old one, even if it´s not as hard as Tequalt. Also his decorations and backpiece are nice.

I really don´t know what to think about the monthly beer thingie.

These guys need some answers, some comunication and more action in order to solve their problem. This cannot be ignored anymore. And if you are working towards it just post on the trhead it´s not like they bite or something.

Squad changes eems good, I don´t rally use them that much but improvements on QOL are always nice.

Support tagging on events looks cool.

As said before Fractal QOL changes are good.

Elementalist: Scepter changes are not enough. This weapon needs more attention to be able to compete with other elementalist weapons and be viable.

Guardian: Guardian needs more changes that what´s been done.These changes just left me an “Is that it?” sour taste when I saw them. Lots of their utilities are useless like spirit weapons and they don´t bring anything special. Guardian lacks a role and an intention. Whathever a guardian want to do, other classes do it better and dragonhunter doesen´t change that. Tweaks on weapons, traits and utilities are needed.

Mesmer: (Oh boy) Apart from the two QOL changes (feedback on demand and the scepter aa modification) everything is quinda awful. Chaos armor change breaks the sinergies it had with the blind traits and weaks the concept of the already weak chaos armour. Chaos armor also got nerfed its utility because of the nerf on chaotic dampeding. Even if duelist discipline got slightly buffed that´s not going to ake condy builds viable alone. Restoratice mantras isn´t as big as it looks. Malicious sorcery change is… kinda awful. If this is the scepter rework they told us (along with the aa change) then I´m really dissapointed because that doesen´t solve anything. Boons on shatter and glamour traits were nerfed for no reason other than killing the already dead bunker mesmer on PVP. Well of precognition is so ridiculous. It isn´t worth taking at any cirscunstance. Awful CD, awful casting, awful utilitie given. Aegis won´t do it and again this is made only because of the bunker mesmer. Alacrity change may have been needed but it´s so harsh that it doesen´t make any sense. If alacrity is going to be nerfed that much, change Chronomancer cooldowns that were created with the 66% on mind and buff personal mesmer damage in return. Really angry with these changes.

Necromancer: They were already on a good spot and boon corruption may get really out of hand. This also seems lazy because if you boons were too much, then nerf them and don´t do this.

Ranger: Shouts are nice now I guess. Still no changes on the clunky sword even if so many people were providing ideas and complaints on the forums.

Revenant: They were nerfed because of their crazy damage, yes but they didn´t recieve any attention to other roles that need it like Ventari and jalis that absolutly noone takes. These legends (ventari the most) need changes or a complete overhaul to be viable.

Celestial removement seems kinda lazy we will see where this change goes.

It is sad because lots of people have made so many wonderful and useful feedback and suggestion threads and yet it seems that they are completely ignored. Or, at least, that´s what these balance changes made me think.

Please listen to us. Please answer back why you made changes why you can or cannot make the changes proposed. Please make us feel heard. Threads like this are a good step forward.

WvW Feedback

I am not sure why i am even trying, since I am pretty sure it will be ignored like always…

Lets start with balance, Colin few times mentioned during the streams, that you are going to balance 3 game modes, but I do not see it in WvW. With changes to rally, no ress during combat you wanted to give some chance to small organized groups to fight against bigger groups, but you have not really fixed the core issues, which are really easy to implement.

Before stability changes, zergbusting was really a thing, but your changes to stability and later power creep introduced in specialization patch( June 2015) killed it. You have buffed big groups even more, with the expansion you have added even more hard cc skills (you can lose 10 stacks of stability within 1 sec), overall dmg in WvW since specialization patch is ridiculous. These changes created new, not fun to play meta called “pirateship”, where melee players (builds with 3,2-3,4k armor) can not push enemy, because the amount of dmg, cc would insta kill them. Everyone is staring at each other and scared to push. Current version of stability is balanced only in small 5v5 fights….

How to fix it?

Separate WvW balance, reduce the overall dmg in WvW, introduce 0.5s cd on lose of stability stacks, so you can lose next stack of stability after 0.5s.

Other changes to upgrades, ppk are nice, but not enough to bring back some life in WvW. I know you are working on overhaul, but we need something more till this big update. Maybe merge bottom servers, buff rewards at the end of matchup to bring back some competition between the servers and goal to win.

Just WvW things… ;(

Gaile Gray.6029:

Andraus.3874:

My feedback is about how feedback actually works.

It’s great you guys ask for feedback. I really do appreciate that. However if you hang out in the forums long enough you start to feel that the feedback isn’t going anywhere. This needs to be more of an ongoing and reciprocal conversation. Out of our feedback I would expect a post addressed to the player base saying " We heard you on the following points, we will be looking into them as resources allow. [followed by a list of points]." Then perhaps later or with the same post: “Points 3,7,12, and 15 are going to be a higher priority for us. Points 5,8, and 9 may not be something that is possible. Again this information is tentative and subject to change.”

I understand the player base takes things literally so you have to be carful what you say. But it feels like we have all these threads about good feedback and very little comes out of them. I’m not sure what this disconnect is but it has become apparent to anyone that frequents the forums.

If you read this I genuinely thank you for your time and thank you for making a great game. I hope we can work together to keep it that way.

I understand your thoughts, and perhaps we will be able to do that for some topics in the future; I agree it would be great! But what’s important to note is that we all — as forum members — have a certain level of visibility into our how feedback is handled simply by our participation here on the forums and our involvement in the game.

Here’s what I mean: I’ve seen the request for “gliding in central Tyria” hundreds of times on the forums. I’ve heard it in the game a hundred times, too! So when I see it come to the game, as a player and a forum member I know that ArenaNet listened to player/forum member feedback. I don’t need someone to come and tell me that, I can actually see it in the update notes and in the game.

So while I’m not discounting — believe me, I would be absolutely the last person to discount the potential or the value of further communication; trust me on that! — I like to think of an old expression that my granny said, “The proof is in the pudding.” In this case, take that odd expression to mean that we, as players and forum members, can see through actual game development that the feedback that we give is being read, reviewed, analyzed, and often implemented!

Again I do love communication, and I positively adore when devs post, or when they ask me to post on their or their team’s behalf. But I’m also aware that communication comes through many forms, including that demonstration through actual game changes. And because of that, I like the idea of productive threads like this, which you should know will be shared with every single member of the ArenaNet team as highly-suggested reading.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense. It’s just a personal opinion, but I like to think it has a certain logic.

I agree with his post. The main reason there’s so much angst on the forums is not so much that Anet doesn’t communicate enough, it’s that Anet doesn’t interact enough. Giant blogposts and requests for feedback do not carry the same weight that just being active on the forums and responding to peoples’ questions, thoughts, and concerns does. Half the time nobody understands the rationale behind balance changes that are made because the game designers in charge of profession balance are never on the class boards discussing them with people the way they should be.

I’m not sure why that message seems to be so lost in Anet’s culture.

Good: backwards integration of expansionis elements. Implementing gliding is a great first step towards upgrading the appeal of core tyria.

Bad: the severity of nerfs being implemented. Let me take the mesmer as an example here. The nerf from 66% to 33% is huge, and I expect the results are very predictable: the disappearance of the chronobunker playstyle. I would recommend nerfing in increments, where you try to approach a feasible state for a playstyle rather than annihilating it. This way unique playstyles that players enjoy get balanced rather than removed (which is what generally happens with the current "balancing" strategy).