Guild Wars 2

ddoi.9264:

This. Putting fire aura on Conjurer trait makes no sense and adds absolutely nothing to the class. No synergy with any other aura traits and ruins builds that used signets actively to proc the fire aura on cast. Please put it back to signet activation.

I knooow. It is the cornerstone to my favorite ele build. It doesn’t exist without this trait. Please put it back.

I like the shield skills for warrior.

Conncept.7638:

Fire’s embrace is gone, out and out killing a playstyle, the ONLY playstyle that ever got any elementalist to use signets, the only one that ever felt even a little bit like an auramancer.

Read.
What it is now:
Auras you gain from weapon skills are also applied to nearby allies.
What it will be changed to:
Powerful Aura: When you apply an aura to yourself, grant that aura to all nearby allies as well.

In other words, Powerful Aura got a massive buff. If they add Rune of Radiance to PvP Auramancer might be God tier OP.

As for Elixir Infused Bombs, standing still and spamming 1-5 is NOT a good playstyle. It’s a noobs trap and I’m glad it’s gone.

Question #1 Will Retaliation damage be affected by Vulnerability?
Question #2 Will Radiant Retaliation be fixed with this update? (It hasn’t worked for 8 months.)

“Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.”

I can imagen that this has the potential to kitten off a lot of people. porting allies whiteout there consent i’s not a good idea, even if they are already downed. this opens the door for a lot of trolls and players flaming about “the noobs who port you in the zerg/AOE/mobs to die”.

also i would like to see health siphoning finally scale (better) of healing power so using healing power gear would make more sens for necros especially with the new Vampiric Presense trait.

It’s amusing having the PvP team make balance patches, it leads to some insane pve specs huehue, the dungeon grinding is gon be real.

Warrior Arms GM Minor:
Bloodlust: Deal 5% additional damage to bleeding foes. Bleeding you inflict lasts 33% longer.

Does this really need to go down to 33%? That means with a 45% bleed duration rune set and a 20% sigil you’re stuck at 98% bleeding duration bonus.

If you absolutely must nerf it down from 50%, at least leave it at 35.

Conncept.7638:

Elixir infused bombs is still gone, with absolutely nothing available anywhere that will ever get anyone to use bombs over grenades, I mean nobody expected to get it back exactly as it was, but getting something that will actually differentiate bombs from grenades other than one having superior range kinda’ seemed like a no brainer to most of us!

Depending on the size of the heal, Soothing Detonation could work. Especially with just how many blast finishers we have access to now.

Coated Bullets is gone. This trait created amazingly fun gameplay with one of the classes most undervalued skillsets, and only needed a little love for the pistol skills or some decent synergy to make an incredibly interesting gunner build. But which now, instead, will never see the light of day.

I swear I read during the first skills preview that this was baseline now. More than a few of the other baseline things they mentioned in the stream (previous and now) are not in the notes. So, we’ll have to wait and see I guess.

Did…did they remove blasting staff from the eles? O.o

Fluff Kamisama.3417:

Did…did they remove blasting staff from the eles? O.o

Yes. It’s baseline now.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Conncept.7638:

Fire’s embrace is gone, out and out killing a playstyle, the ONLY playstyle that ever got any elementalist to use signets, the only one that ever felt even a little bit like an auramancer.

Read.
What it is now:
Auras you gain from weapon skills are also applied to nearby allies.
What it will be changed to:
Powerful Aura: When you apply an aura to yourself, grant that aura to all nearby allies as well.

He’s not talking about the aura sharing trait. He’s talking about Fire’s Embrace, another current trait that is going away:

“Fire’s Embrace: When you activate a signet, you gain a fire shield. "

You could run three or four signet builds, and have exceedingly regular access to fire aura. Combined with Written in Stone, it made running signets instead of the usual Cantrips viable and fun.

digitalruse.9085:

Conncept.7638:

Elixir infused bombs is still gone, with absolutely nothing available anywhere that will ever get anyone to use bombs over grenades, I mean nobody expected to get it back exactly as it was, but getting something that will actually differentiate bombs from grenades other than one having superior range kinda’ seemed like a no brainer to most of us!

Depending on the size of the heal, Soothing Detonation could work. Especially with just how many blast finishers we have access to now.

The developers didn’t ask for ‘what works’, they asked for ‘what playstyles are no longer represented’. Soothing detonation may fill the roll that elixir infused bombs did, but it won’t fill the lost playstyle.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Conncept.7638:

Fire’s embrace is gone, out and out killing a playstyle, the ONLY playstyle that ever got any elementalist to use signets, the only one that ever felt even a little bit like an auramancer.

Read.
What it is now:
Auras you gain from weapon skills are also applied to nearby allies.
What it will be changed to:
Powerful Aura: When you apply an aura to yourself, grant that aura to all nearby allies as well.

In other words, Powerful Aura got a massive buff. If they add Rune of Radiance to PvP Auramancer might be God tier OP.

Yes, I agree, you should learn to read. Because I don’t know what other explanation there could be for confusing ’Fire’s Embrace’ with ‘Powerful Aura’.

For your education. Fire’s embrace is a trait that grants a fire shield upon use of a signet, powerful aura applies your auras to nearby allies. FE is regularly used for condi-tank builds even now, and was, a long time ago, used with PA for auramancer support, before that functionality was patched out as a bug because PA was only supposed to work with weapon skills.

Nova Stiker.8396:

As for Elixir Infused Bombs, standing still and spamming 1-5 is NOT a good playstyle. It’s a noobs trap and I’m glad it’s gone.

And you obviously never even slotted the trait one single time if that is how you describe it. Do not claim to know how healthy, fun, or unhealthy and unfun a build was that you never even bothered to try. That was the most active, reactionary, manic, crazy fun support build in the game.

digitalruse.9085:

I swear I read during the first skills preview that this was baseline now. More than a few of the other baseline things they mentioned in the stream (previous and now) are not in the notes. So, we’ll have to wait and see I guess.

I watched the whole stream and I don’t remember them ever saying that, most of the baseline additions seemed to just be CD traits, but I hope you’re right.

Exedore.6320:

Fluff Kamisama.3417:

Did…did they remove blasting staff from the eles? O.o

Yes. It’s baseline now.

Ohhh so not a trait anymore..that’s fine.

Thanks for getting this up quick since stream had issues.. Really looking forward to all of these changes.

Guardian shield trait is redundant with Strength in Number and probly will not ever get picked. And I don’t get why scepter trait is in the symbol line without a symbol of its own. Sword should also get a symbol of its own.

Am I the only one sad about Tomes getting scrapped? They were fun and unique and I will miss them greatly…

DomAltares.8651:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Conncept.7638:

Fire’s embrace is gone, out and out killing a playstyle, the ONLY playstyle that ever got any elementalist to use signets, the only one that ever felt even a little bit like an auramancer.

Read.
What it is now:
Auras you gain from weapon skills are also applied to nearby allies.
What it will be changed to:
Powerful Aura: When you apply an aura to yourself, grant that aura to all nearby allies as well.

He’s not talking about the aura sharing trait. He’s talking about Fire’s Embrace, another current trait that is going away:

“Fire’s Embrace: When you activate a signet, you gain a fire shield. "

You could run three or four signet builds, and have exceedingly regular access to fire aura. Combined with Written in Stone, it made running signets instead of the usual Cantrips viable and fun.

Correction, it made it limiting. You had to choose to use the signets offensively or defensively, which often leads to some terrible choices in fights.

Blude.6812:

Ranger—nerf —nerf -- nerf.
Maybe one day anet will listen to their paying customers instead of giving them the 5 finger salute. But Anet knows best.

A five finger salute is a normal salute…

If fire’s embrace won’t come back. A really cool alternative is to make it an arcane skill that gives aura based on attunement (that doesn’t require rez’ing someone). Now that would be an auramancer. Maybe a little OP depending, but would make for a build defining GM trait for sure.

I have a few questions about mesmer mantras.

Does Harmonious Mantras retain the extra 3rd readied mantra when you are downed. In the current live build, the 3rd activation is lost when you go down, but nobody has ever indicated if this was a bug or intentional when it was reported in the bug forum.

It looks like Mantra Master is both gone, and not made baseline. Is that correct?

Nova Stiker.8396:

Correction, it made it limiting. You had to choose to use the signets offensively or defensively, which often leads to some terrible choices in fights.

Limiting? You use every skill offensively or defensively. Traited, it gave consistent access to protection, swiftness, and fury. With written in stone, they were always active. It made for a fun build.

Mesmer confirmed new ANet pet class.

Necromancer still getting kicked in the teeth.

I’ve hung around for a long time… If the changes are as kittenty as I think they’re going to be, I’ll be finished with the game. Of course, I’ll have to try the changes first, I won’t stop playing just based on what I see on paper here… But if it’s anything like I imagine it to be, ANet can kiss my wallet goodbye which has payed it a few hundred dollars every month.

I rarely post, but I wanted to just say I am extremely disappointed at the removal of Fire’s Embrace for the Elementalist skills. Part of the problem with Elementalist is that it already lacks build diversity. Fire’s Embrace was key in offering an alternative play style to the Dagger/Dagger and Staff metas in PVP and WVW. I understand the changes to condition damage merited some looking into skills, but this isn’t a nerf to keep things in line, its pretty much the destruction of a style of play.

Until the build goes live, I don’t know how useful the signets conditions will actually be. But losing the protection from Elemental Shielding and extra DPS from the Fire Shield concern me greatly considering already how few conditions Elemenatlists have access too. I’m hoping this buff to Fire damage is worth it.

sil.5832:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Correction, it made it limiting. You had to choose to use the signets offensively or defensively, which often leads to some terrible choices in fights.

Limiting? You use every skill offensively or defensively. Traited, it gave consistent access to protection, swiftness, and fury. With written in stone, they were always active. It made for a fun build.

Yeah the guys is just blowing hot air out his kitten to save face at this point. Three of the five elementalist signets already have an offensive/defensive use and require such a choice in combat, that not only isn’t bad design, its a common theme to signets across every class that has them.

Air: Escape>Disable and Damage
Earth: Tank>Disable and Damage
Water: Sustain>Disable and Damage

Its how they are designed, it is also how Fire Aura is designed, which defends you through threatening your opponent with damage for striking you. It fits both mechanically and thematically and there is no excuse for its removal. It could have been given an ICD or an AoE limit or a target limit or any number of other things to prevent overpowerd combinations off of the new Powerful Aura. But no, instead, they had to go the lazy route and just remove it.

So is Inspiring battle standard not going to include a banners range increase? Sucks they would get rid of that skill; I know people always picked it if you were going to run a banner heavy set. Used way more than the damage when summoning banner skill.

Also Quick Breathing is listed as something completely different from what they said in the stream.

cocowoushi.7150:

So is Inspiring battle standard not going to include a banners range increase? Sucks they would get rid of that skill; I know people always picked it if you were going to run a banner heavy set. Used way more than the damage when summoning banner skill.

Also Quick Breathing is listed as something completely different from what they said in the stream.

I tihnk the AoE boost is now baseline, but I can’t be 100% sure. No idea if the cooldown reduction is baseline.

As for the quick breathing thing, I think the notes are typoed.

quaniesan.8497:

Guardian shield trait is redundant with Strength in Number and probly will not ever get picked. And I don’t get why scepter trait is in the symbol line without a symbol of its own. Sword should also get a symbol of its own.

Totally agree. I thought they would look into stalwart defender after last livestream. Jon said they would look into it and we got nothing. Shield is still bad comparing to focus. Focus got extra protection for both #4 and #5 while traited. Shield is still garbage. The irony is we have shield in our profession and we don’t really use shield at all… This is ridiculous.

It really pains me to see that none of the problems with Guardian shield and Spirit Weapons have been touched. With the new focus trait, shield has become even less viable, and Spirit Weapons are still limited to shield in terms of usefulness, and in a very situational and gimmicky way.

It’s been so long since I really played that I’ve lost a lot of context-knowledge for these changes. They look good, though!

Also, hee, toolbest skills.

How are banners nerfed? I keep hearing that.

engineers and mesmers should be very happy…….the rest, not so much….but wow is necro bad (so many nerfs to an unused/underpowered class).

overall, VERY disappointing trait/balance reveal. much worse than the earlier preview (garbage traits remained, and good traits got nerfed…very few bad traits improved)…….not shocking, given how bad anet devs are at balancing their game.

good thing the dame iterates balance patches frequently….oh wait, it doesn’t.

For the most part I think you did fine with the necro traits. The changes I am unhappy about are in the changes to necro skills or in some cases lack thereof.

Things that necro needed that was not addressed:

• We are starved of combo finishers.
• Axe is really weak, the auto attack in particular.
• Dark Path needs a rework to be able to act as a reliable gap closer. Even more important now with the new movement changes.
• We are the only class with no way to defend ourself from incoming projectiles.
• We are the least mobile class, but still have no stability or other way to protect from CC.

Nerfs that just seemed really unwarranted:

• Consume Conditions inflicts vuln and has longer cooldown.
• Lich only lasts for a lousy 15 seconds.
• Plague now inflicts conditions on ourself.
• Spectral Walk is not fun anymore.

There’s also a couple of grandmaster traits that just struck me as quite underwhelming:

• Dhuumfire only puts on 1 stack of burning for 3 seconds which is just really weak when you look at how slow the cast on Life Blast is. You can only maintain 2 burns by camping Life Blast. In a condi build you’re better off using other skills to stack lots of other conditions, and in a power build you’re better off just going for the 50% crit chance instead.
• Foot in the Grave grants 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds. This is not even enough to secure a stomp. Compare this to the Juggernaught trait for Engineer and it just pales in comparison. Also worth mentioning that this would not be as big of a deal if you could flash DS mid-stomp to get the stability, sadly going in or out of DS cancels anything you’re doing.

Why are they nerfing Warrior’s Empower Allies from 600 to 300 range while Guardian’s Strength in Numbers and Ranger’s Spotter remain at 600 range?? do they just want to nerf warrior in all possible ways??

darkaheart.4265:

do they just want to nerf warrior in all possible ways??

Obviously -_-

300 range on anything is just plain stupid. Its literally an arms length. An Asuran arm.

They can add an arbitrary nerf like that in this laundry list of changes that no one asked for, but they cant increase the range of commander supply check in 3 freaking years.

Knighthonor.4061:

How are banners nerfed? I keep hearing that.

The trait for banners appears to only have the regen tickling and not any of the other features, and it was relocated to the discipline line for some reason.

It’s possible a lot of stuff was just moved off to the baseline, but we don’t know for sure yet.

Regardless, some regen tickling is pretty boring stuff for that spot.

Yeah, people are looking at the fact that the most obnoxious Warrior build right now got substantial QoL (which of all it did NOT need any more of,) while just about everything else in that house got garbage for breakfast and even minor things got torn up (my skritt hole suffers the loss of banners being relevant)

So is anyone able to give a quick review of the changes? Who’s legit going to be nerfed and who buffed? Are any of these changes going to affect greatly pvp or dungeon grouping?

madmonkey.4138:

If the omission of Ricochet is not an accident and is actually intended, can we sacrifice Ankle Shot to get Ricochet back? Please?

Given the speculation that thief spec will get Rifle, (making it a gun specialist) I’m guessing our beloved trait might make a beautiful reappearance in the thief spec trait lines.

style.6173:

Blude.6812:

Ranger—nerf —nerf -- nerf.
Maybe one day anet will listen to their paying customers instead of giving them the 5 finger salute. But Anet knows best.

I can just imagine that you had this all planned out ahead of time. Then it turned out that ranger got a lot of buffs. So you had to decide what to do. Since you came up with something creative you decided to post it anyway. I understand.

Yeah, we will see how these “buffs” fare when the core ranger still won’t break into any of the metas. And why the hell they removed some of the interesesting trait proposals from the last stream is beyond me.

There is something wrong when a bloody awful trait like predator’s instinct isn’t just rolled into predator’s onslaught to keep it in line with all the other trait merges.

I’m very happy with the guardian changes, both for PvP and PvE. Glacial heart seems pretty out of place in virtues and I’ll miss it, but otherwise I’m really excited to play as guardian right now.

Josh Davis.6015:

WARRIOR
[…]
Tactics
Minor
[…]

• Inspiring Presence: Might you apply grants 10 healing power per stack.

So if you grant an ally might, that ally will also have +10 healing power per might stack (that you applied)?

Can a developer clean this up because it almost makes no sense and sounds confusing.
So are both weapon sets sharing a single burst CD? or what in earth could they mean

Warrior
Using a burst skill for your equipped weapon will now set the recharge of all adrenaline tiers of that burst skill.

OlliX.1705:

For the most part I think you did fine with the necro traits. The changes I am unhappy about are in the changes to necro skills or in some cases lack thereof.

Things that necro needed that was not addressed:

• We are starved of combo finishers.
• Axe is really weak, the auto attack in particular.
• Dark Path needs a rework to be able to act as a reliable gap closer. Even more important now with the new movement changes.
• We are the only class with no way to defend ourself from incoming projectiles.
• We are the least mobile class, but still have no stability or other way to protect from CC.

Nerfs that just seemed really unwarranted:

• Consume Conditions inflicts vuln and has longer cooldown.
• Lich only lasts for a lousy 15 seconds.
• Plague now inflicts conditions on ourself.
• Spectral Walk is not fun anymore.

There’s also a couple of grandmaster traits that just struck me as quite underwhelming:

• Dhuumfire only puts on 1 stack of burning for 3 seconds which is just really weak when you look at how slow the cast on Life Blast is. You can only maintain 2 burns by camping Life Blast. In a condi build you’re better off using other skills to stack lots of other conditions, and in a power build you’re better off just going for the 50% crit chance instead.
• Foot in the Grave grants 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds. This is not even enough to secure a stomp. Compare this to the Juggernaught trait for Engineer and it just pales in comparison. Also worth mentioning that this would not be as big of a deal if you could flash DS mid-stomp to get the stability, sadly going in or out of DS cancels anything you’re doing.

Dhuumfire was probably nerfed due to Reaper Shroud melee auto…..which cleaves and is faster than LB on normal DS……so yeah, i can’t see that ever being used on a non-reaper.

I guess Guardians dev is on vacation in Jamaica. Very disappointed.

All this tasty over-reaction i love me some volatile MMO crowd rage. Relax people no one has played with these yet and made the meta builds, but everyone is just venting about their niche traits being cut.

Keep in mind that whenever HoT comes out the meta will change again even if all of these get rebalanced.

Warrior as i read it means there’s a global cool down for which ever tier of adren skill you used. So one couldnt get 3 bars dump flurry or earth shaker and than pop signet for a 3 bar eviscerate.

Relshdan.6854:

515028kitten.1705:

• Dhuumfire only puts on 1 stack of burning for 3 seconds which is just really weak when you look at how slow the cast on Life Blast is. You can only maintain 2 burns by camping Life Blast. In a condi build you’re better off using other skills to stack lots of other conditions, and in a power build you’re better off just going for the 50% crit chance instead.

Dhuumfire was probably nerfed due to Reaper Shroud melee auto…..which cleaves and is faster than LB on normal DS……so yeah, i can’t see that ever being used on a non-reaper.

Well if that’s the case they could just give the trait an ICD equal to life blasts hit rate.

Warrior changes – Burst Precision – you really had to move it to arms right? My war build is simply rekt.

Necromancer – Nerf to Consume Conditions is stupid. Especially when it’s the only viable healing skill. If you want to force people to use other healing skills, then for example reduce cooldown on kitten Well of Blood and add condition removal per pulse…

And before someone will say that necro got niche stuff:
- Take into account that Necromancer is always No.1 target and need self sustain. And already low self sustain is getting nerfed.

Ragnarox.9601:

I guess Guardians dev is on vacation in Jamaica. Very disappointed.

Guardian, Thief and Elementalist are done by the same guy.

MashMash.1645:

Arnath.2319:

Guardians got nerfed.

The devs proving once again that they hate Guardians. We are now officially the most broken profession in this game.

lol. have you not heard of ranger? we have just been shot in the head. ugh (It’s just as well love my ranger regardless of the crappy changes they’ve made).

rangers were buffed in too many ways to list here.

Conncept.7638:

Relshdan.6854:

515028kitten.1705:

• Dhuumfire only puts on 1 stack of burning for 3 seconds which is just really weak when you look at how slow the cast on Life Blast is. You can only maintain 2 burns by camping Life Blast. In a condi build you’re better off using other skills to stack lots of other conditions, and in a power build you’re better off just going for the 50% crit chance instead.

Dhuumfire was probably nerfed due to Reaper Shroud melee auto…..which cleaves and is faster than LB on normal DS……so yeah, i can’t see that ever being used on a non-reaper.

Well if that’s the case they could just give the trait an ICD equal to life blasts hit rate.

doesn’t it currently have a 10sec ICD?

i don’t know if a condi-reaper is viable, but if it is, i’d prefer this new “nerfed version” than the current………..and depending on how much damage one stack of burning does, it might be tempting on a power reaper build (that mostly stays in shroud and already has high crit rate from gear).