Guild Wars 2

Could someone comment on a few baseline changes that were offered in the first stream for Engis? I don’t see them here.

• Coated Bullets
• Rifled Barrels
• Forceful Explosives
• Fragmented Shot being an “explosion”

Thanks!

Please ANet, I beg of you, give us a 1 time stat switch on ascended armor. These changes are going to force me to recreate 2 sets of ascended.

Lightsbane.9012:

Master:

Wilting Strike: Your pet inflicts 4s weakness when you activate its command [[f2]] ability.
Two-Handed Training: Greatsword and spear damage is increased by 5% and those skills recharge 20% faster. Greatsword and spear hits have a 50% chance to gain 3s of fury. This trait has a 10 second internal cooldown.
Natural Regeneration: Your pet gains natural health recovery and their healing power is increased by up to 450.

Grandmaster:

Beastly Warden: Your pet’s command [[f2]] ability causes 2s of taunt to foes around it. This trait has a 15 second internal cooldown.
Zephyr’s Speed: Combat Only. When you swap pets you and your pet gain 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds and 3 seconds of quickness.
Honed Axes: Gain up to 150 ferocity while wielding an axe in your main hand. Winter’s Bite is now inflicts its effects in an area at your target’s location.

i’d really like to know why the axe and greatsword skills were moved to a healing power and pet skill line. I currently run both of these on my ranger and have absolutely no desire to spec into this line at all. not only that but the axe trait is GRANDMASTER now? seriously? the axe isn’t even that good at all for rangers!(or anything but warrior) my build just got completely annihilated. completely.

Remember that the actual points are being partially divorced from the traitlines. So it’s not a healing power line any more per se, your berserk weapons and armour will (probably) compensate for it. Besides, the traits you recieve are hardly bad; you can take a trait which gives buffs when call of the wild is cast, and one of the marksmen traits is to trigger call of the wild when you swap pets.

They tend to crop up in the beastmaster builds more anyway; since the pet does much more damage than in other builds, you want/need the survivability of the greatsword and you often see the axe for a ranged option.
The traits I’m narked about personally is having to choose between two handed training and natural healing.

Gilgalas.7860:

A bit of information to every player complaining about the switch of rangers Healing Spring to a trap. Please read carefully the description of this trait from the “Skirmishing” trait line:
Trapper’s Expertise: Boons and conditions caused by your traps last 60% longer. Your traps recharge 20% faster and your offensive traps cause 2s of cripple.

Do you still fail to understand why the switch to a trap is a buff ? Do you know of any trap giving boons ? No, therefore the description “boons and conditions” clearly states that healing spring will benefit from the trait (as well as the cripple effect limited to “offensive” traps).

In other words, if you pick this trait, healing spring will:
- get a 24s cooldown
- grant 24s of regeneration
- dispel 5 times over 10s every 24s

If that is not a buff, I really don’t know what it is. Yes you may not pick this trait, but this is YOUR choice.

Why so hostile against people who do not like the change? Calm down.

To turn your own question on you, “Do you not get that people are not happy about some of the changes?”

Functionality is often a part of a build and play style. Functionality changed. It messed with the way some people play and they are not happy.

A little more sympathy and a little less smartkitten would do a lot better at getting your point across.

Josh Davis.6015:

Vigor: Decreased the endurance regeneration rate from 100% to 50%.

I missed this. I take it all back. Terrible update. Favours classes that are always weapon swapping (warrior, elementalist, engineer) because vigor stacks with energy sigil. Want to nerf something? Nerf energy sigil. I was all for the change to Feline Grace, but having it reduced in effectiveness as well as vigor combined is awful. Acrobatics is no longer an optional trait line offering good additional survivability, it’s a bloody mandatory line. I can’t believe I actually believed the next balance patch would be good. You always do something that ruins it, making it “eh…” instead of “great.” Suddenly not so keen for this update or Heart of Thorns.

Loki.4871:

Lightsbane.9012:

Master:

Wilting Strike: Your pet inflicts 4s weakness when you activate its command [[f2]] ability.
Two-Handed Training: Greatsword and spear damage is increased by 5% and those skills recharge 20% faster. Greatsword and spear hits have a 50% chance to gain 3s of fury. This trait has a 10 second internal cooldown.
Natural Regeneration: Your pet gains natural health recovery and their healing power is increased by up to 450.

Grandmaster:

Beastly Warden: Your pet’s command [[f2]] ability causes 2s of taunt to foes around it. This trait has a 15 second internal cooldown.
Zephyr’s Speed: Combat Only. When you swap pets you and your pet gain 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds and 3 seconds of quickness.
Honed Axes: Gain up to 150 ferocity while wielding an axe in your main hand. Winter’s Bite is now inflicts its effects in an area at your target’s location.

i’d really like to know why the axe and greatsword skills were moved to a healing power and pet skill line. I currently run both of these on my ranger and have absolutely no desire to spec into this line at all. not only that but the axe trait is GRANDMASTER now? seriously? the axe isn’t even that good at all for rangers!(or anything but warrior) my build just got completely annihilated. completely.

Remember that the actual points are being partially divorced from the traitlines. So it’s not a healing power line any more per se, your berserk weapons and armour will (probably) compensate for it. Besides, the traits you recieve are hardly bad; you can take a trait which gives buffs when call of the wild is cast, and one of the marksmen traits is to trigger call of the wild when you swap pets.

They tend to crop up in the beastmaster builds more anyway; since the pet does much more damage than in other builds, you want/need the survivability of the greatsword and you often see the axe for a ranged option.
The traits I’m narked about personally is having to choose between two handed training and natural healing.

i don’t spec into marksmenship at all now, becuase i like the utility of the axes as well ast he greatsword. so i run traits accordingly. after seeing the LB changes, it now has even more ‘appeal’, compared to the axe. The fact that winter’s bite is now an aoe ground target for me is just a huge ‘cool story bro’. I was hoping for some auto attack modifcations for the weapon, but oh well. I will switch back to longbow i guess.

The 1s cooldown for the “on block” Guardian traits nerfs the “on block” condi Guardian.

With this change it looks like I am losing a playstyle that I liked and was hoping would be buffed rather than nerfed. I.e. Before with this build, Shelter was a hard counter to rapid fire burst skills, however after the change, not so much.

Instead of adding a 1s cooldown to the Guardian’s “on block” skills, would it work to just cap the number of “on block” triggers one can get with any given block skill?

The description could read: “Amplified Wrath: Burning damage is increased by 15%. Blocking an attack burns the attacker for 2 seconds. This effect can trigger up to X times per block skill.”

This would help preserve skillful play by rewarding the player for utilizing their sustained block(s) at the most optimal times as well as rewarding the attacker for not rapidly attacking into a sustained block, for interrupting shelter, for using an unblockable skill when the Guardian is blocking etc.

Say, if the limit was 8 triggers per any given block skill:

If you are in a 1v1 and Shelter was timed correctly, you could get up to that set limit of 8 triggers.

If fighting in a group situation, the 8 triggers are potentially easier to get, the total burn damage would stay the same as the 1v1, however that total burn damage would be spread out across multiple targets which would result in less pressure and a greater likelihood that the the conditions are removed via party support.

The variables that could be changed for balance:

The number of triggers per any given block skill.
The duration of the burn or might.
The number of stacks (of burn or might) given per “on block”.

Celwina.2598:

>Old Juggernaut is kinda back
>Incendiary Powder trait merge
>they’re both grandmaster

Come on, ANet, that’s a kitten move.

And no sight of Deadly Mixture or Fireforged Trigger anywhere…
At this moment, I don’t see any way to make a functional Flamethrower build anymore.

They destroyed Speedy Kits + Invigorating Speed synergy AND nerfed vigor HARD. Then they took away the Toughness from Juggernaut. How is a FT Engie going to survive in the front line without extra thoughess or a few dodges?

If Deadly Mixture and Fireforged Trigger are not being merged into baseline… then the FT will not only be squishy, it will be even doing even less damage than now. And no, I don’t think winning brainless stability compensates it. Today is already indispensable to use might stacking to get some damage.

FT users will be forced to use defensive gear just to survive while doing crap damage? How is that “preserving builds”?

Bountiful Theft: Stealing grants you and all nearby allies vigor. You rip boons from your target and grant them to nearby allies.

This trait now affects the slow and resistance boons.

I thought slow was a condition. Maybe you were thinking quickness or alacrity?

Or wait is alacrity a boon that can be stolen like that?

Necros got completely curbstomped. Again. Why?
;-;

Please help consume conditions. Its bleeding and making mother necro sad. please, stop the pain. stop the pain….

SlimChance.6593:

Since Vulnerability now increases ALL damage(direct and condition), shouldn’t Protection reduce ALL damage as well???

Woah – you want the Developers to use Logic?

WAY too much to ask man, WAY to much. Instead, they just give Resistance, which is a new boon only able to be applied by, oh… a couple classes.

Welcome to the new Condi Meta.

Hehe, people actually thinking that Anet will listen to them. Let me remind you of one thing

THEY ASKED FOR OUR FEEDBACK AND DID NOTHING.

They won’t listen, they don’t care about what any of us think. Why do you think the nerfs to Necromancer were so harsh? Or why they do nothing but add stuff to the Gem Store while there’s no more content in the game?

There’s an engineer trait called “No scope”? Haha, I totally missed that!

I don’t see what all the crying I’ve seen is about. Yes, there are some nerfs here and there. But the buffs!

I miss one of my favorite Traits in there!
Where is “Halting Strike” for Mesmer?
It was in Domination, now it seems disappeared?
Did you really remove it?
If so: WHY?
It was a very useful Trait and made Interrupts more satisfying.
Please dont remove that Trait!

I see nothing about ranger shouts or pet AI.

So so disappoining

Cecilia.5179:

Necros got completely curbstomped. Again. Why?
;-;

I play almost all profession very regularly and was interested in all of these changes to every profession. Necromancer easily got the worst of this. Curb stomped is right.

Sagat.3285:

Does Parasitic Contagion finally work in Death Shroud??

I look forward to some drastic things to change the game up. I don’t even really care too much about some of my favorite builds being abolished by these changes. It will be fun to play around and test new builds.

Sagat.3285:

Sagat.3285:

Does Parasitic Contagion finally work in Death Shroud??

Nope.

LeBub.9053:

I miss one of my favorite Traits in there!
Where is “Halting Strike” for Mesmer?
It was in Domination, now it seems disappeared?
Did you really remove it?
If so: WHY?
It was a very useful Trait and made Interrupts more satisfying.
Please dont remove that Trait!

It got merged into Power Block. Grandmaster, same trait line. Don’t worry, mesmer got only buffs. Big buffs.

Love these changes! Took a little bit of a hit On my Ele with cantrip recharge being moved, but Im getting buffs in all the right places!

RIP Warrior….

You went from the strongest class @ launch.. to absolutely USELESS…

Not only they nerfing everything on it, they are also nerfing the mobility on GS.
So in what way is the warrior getting any love?

seems to me that the guard traits have weird new synergies that don’t make that much sense. hurts my brain to think but maybe i’ll try a hammer/sword+torch burning build that needs purging flames for condi cleanse since i can’t trait absolute resolution with glacial heart -_-

why is shattered aegis a grandmaster trait? unless it does a few k damage.. -__-

and re feel my wrath, i’m actually dreading it a bit. it looks nice on paper, but it might break wvw a bit since everyone will want a few hundred guards with that equipped -____-

Kallunnah.3201:

I see nothing about ranger shouts…

So so disappoining

indeed…such a useless set of utilities.

Don’t know if the devs are still taking suggestions on these traits, but here goes:

Quick Pockets is a boring add-on that is basically just replacing Hastened Replenishment. It’s not as combat changing as Sleight of Hand which it’s competing against. Instead of 3 Initiative on swap, change it to 1 initiative on swap, and it reduces weapon swapping to 5 seconds (like warriors’ fast hands). That would change gameplay for the thief rather than just being a weapon swap buff.

Gilgalas.7860:

A bit of information to every player complaining about the switch of rangers Healing Spring to a trap. Please read carefully the description of this trait from the “Skirmishing” trait line:
Trapper’s Expertise: Boons and conditions caused by your traps last 60% longer. Your traps recharge 20% faster and your offensive traps cause 2s of cripple.

Do you still fail to understand why the switch to a trap is a buff ? Do you know of any trap giving boons ? No, therefore the description “boons and conditions” clearly states that healing spring will benefit from the trait (as well as the cripple effect limited to “offensive” traps).

In other words, if you pick this trait, healing spring will:
- get a 24s cooldown
- grant 24s of regeneration
- dispel 5 times over 10s every 24s

If that is not a buff, I really don’t know what it is. Yes you may not pick this trait, but this is YOUR choice.

What other heal has an “arming” time? Condi cleans is the biggest issue here where we had an instant condi removal now we lose that insta heal and condi removal. .5 seconds can mean the difference in life and death for Rangers or the difference in clearing a single tick off a stack of bleeds/confusion/poison or to break an immob that woul allow us to move out of a major spike nuke. … This is a major set back for most players especially in WvW.

Naekuh.7925:

RIP Warrior….

You went from the strongest class @ launch.. to absolutely USELESS…

Not only they nerfing everything on it, they are also nerfing the mobility on GS.
So in what way is the warrior getting any love?

You must be trolling. lol

Naekuh.7925:

RIP Warrior….

You went from the strongest class @ launch.. to absolutely USELESS…

Not only they nerfing everything on it, they are also nerfing the mobility on GS.
So in what way is the warrior getting any love?

as a necro i find your reply absolutely ridiculous. warrior is still the easiest class to play in the game. that is and remains a fact. Necro has needed things since launch that it hasn’t gotten yet, and will not get ever.

“devs proving once again they hate guardians”

Tried maining a necromancer? Then you will know true developer hatered

Artorias.6593:

Naekuh.7925:

RIP Warrior….

You went from the strongest class @ launch.. to absolutely USELESS…

Not only they nerfing everything on it, they are also nerfing the mobility on GS.
So in what way is the warrior getting any love?

You must be trolling. lol

My Banner build got the chopping block. Going to make my regen warrior unusable. I was complete support and now it’s going to suck.

rapthorne.7345:

“devs proving once again they hate guardians”

Tried maining a necromancer? Then you will know true developer hatered

Ever tried a Ranger?

Natfrog.4310:

Artorias.6593:

Naekuh.7925:

RIP Warrior….

You went from the strongest class @ launch.. to absolutely USELESS…

Not only they nerfing everything on it, they are also nerfing the mobility on GS.
So in what way is the warrior getting any love?

You must be trolling. lol

My Banner build got the chopping block. Going to make my regen warrior unusable. I was complete support and now it’s going to suck.

my blood magic line circa launch says whats up.

Josh Davis.6015:

Choking Gas: Decreased the poison duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

So because of the damage reduction to poison, every class’s poison application gets an extra stack applied.

Thief’s choking gas, on the other hand, which is used specifically to apply the reduced healing effect and has already had its duration nerfed, will now no longer stack up a nice duration due to poison now stacking in intensity. So what do you do? You decrease the duration yet again.

Not gonna get into the ranger debate, or the thief debate, or the necro debate. I don’t play those classes.

What I am going to say is, thank you for finally giving the Engie some lovin’ and actually giving Juggernaut perma-stability. Flamethrower has always been a moderate damage condition spreader and pressure damage tool. The fact you had to rely on someone else to stay on your feet while using it crippled its effectiveness. It’s nice to see being a flame tank might be a viable build now.

That’s most important to me personally since I’ve run a flamethrower oriented build since almost the beginning of the game. That said, I am VERY pleased with the skill/trait adjustments overall. I especially look forward to seeing if the Personal Mortar’s Orbital Strike Skill has some actual distance on it, so I don’t have to frenetically try to set a mortar up on a wall under siege and try to fire off 1-2 skills before it melts.

If not, well, I won’t be crushed, because of all the lovin’ my class just received.

I have to agree with complaints about ranger.
And necro.
A-a-and warrior. What about the rifle, for example? The weakest ranged weapon of all weapons of all professions… Seriously, compare the damage counts already.

But mostly about ranger.
It seems as if the developer does not… don’t know the word… comprehend? the essence of class gameplay and its problems. How do they imagine the work of spirits? Just a weak version of the banners, which can not even be moved? Active effect kills it, but you can use it only when the enemy is near (in this situation spirit as good as dead anyway, with trait or without). Thus spirits – are another visible(!) traps (but with a weak passive effect) that ranger should have time to activate with his own hands?
I do not know about you, but I would not use such skills.
Btw, what is wrong about trapper’s expertise? The only trait that gave interactivity to dull and monotonous ranger’s abilities. And now it will be completely “three-button-boredom” with one only normal build, which already has become so banal that everyone sick of it.
Sadness.

Hey! And what about regeneration – the most useless and inessential of all boons? Nothing? Or have I missed the information?

Lol at rangers and guards complaining… Two most OP classes in the game whining… classic…

Yet somehow Necros STILL get nerfed to the ground even though they were already 1000 tiers below ranger and guard.

On the plus side my ele went from OP to super extra OP… so I guess that’s a plus lol.

The engineer changes are absurd. Way to over buff an already unbalanced class.

As of now, my main Guardian build (a defense/support loadout called Vanguard) jut got severely buffed. In particular by adding one (or maybe two) additional shouts, and full access to a damage-based third trait line (there’s still quite a bit of Zerk in this format, just not fully). Plus the elite changes makes it possible to not sit on ‘Warband Support’ in most PvE; in fact that signet will probably end up mandatory in certain Fractal situations.

The only big step back (to me) is the change to virtues distance. Why half? While I can see a reason for dialing it back a little, changing it to 900 would have sufficed. Making it 600 now encourages this to be used more in ‘stacking’ setups, which is counter to what you’ve been aiming for; A ‘more active play’ is much harder when you have to consider your distance to the others (when running a Support role).

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Lol at rangers and guards complaining… Two most OP classes in the game whining… classic…

Yet somehow Necros STILL get nerfed to the ground even though they were already 1000 tiers below ranger and guard.

On the plus side my ele went from OP to super extra OP… so I guess that’s a plus lol.

It’s not easymode enough for em,some guards actually have to roll their face over their keyboards twice or sometimes even three times,reducing this to one faceroll only makes sense.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

I don’t see what all the crying I’ve seen is about. Yes, there are some nerfs here and there. But the buffs!

The removal of the Ricochet trait kitten near destroys P/P thieves from even being viable. It wasn’t a meta build by any means, and yet it’s like they don’t want P/P to even be an option to thieves now.

This sucks so bad given that I’ve mained a P/P thief since the very beginning and is my absolute most fun character to run.

I dont understand how consume conditions can be nerfed while being the dominant via the spell typing of it into a corruption while shelter for guardians, which is also the top heal for them, is getting left unchanged due to it not adopting a “skill type” .

“Shelter will not be getting a skill category. It would probably need to be adjusted in someway if we did do it – and it’s fine where it is right now.” – Josh Davis 2015

The class may be different, the the polar opposite treatment of them is definitely showing. The class that was already on the ground continues to be pounded, while the other is left seemlessly more or less the same.

Loyo.8526:

I dont understand how consume conditions can be nerfed while being the dominant via the spell typing of it into a corruption while shelter for guardians, which is also the top heal for them, is getting left unchanged due to it not adopting a “skill type” .

“Shelter will not be getting a skill category. It would probably need to be adjusted in someway if we did do it – and it’s fine where it is right now.” – Josh Davis 2015

The class may be different, the the polar opposite treatment of them is definitely showing. The class that was already on the ground continues to be pounded, while the other is left seemlessly more or less the same.

Shelter is fine where it is? So a heal that is easily interrupted on a the highest cd is fine? So engi heal is getting nerfed right and Mesmer heal buffed then right?

Engi heal on 15 sec cd which cleanses condies or 20 of blast while cleaning condies and interrupting and is a waterfield. LOL. I’ve heard it all. Engi have a block that can be accessed every 20 or 25 seconds, because hey have no cd on kit swapping and isn’t their heal.

This is why games are not balanced lol. When devs think they know what they are talking about.

Grouch you are my boy but I stated in free guardian forum. I am anets harshest critic and will always be until you guys get you stuff together.

Over a year to balance a game when you have cash tournies and realized how stale the meta was is also unacceptable. No other developing team would ever do that and you guys are in no position to do that.

Natfrog.4310:

rapthorne.7345:

“devs proving once again they hate guardians”

Tried maining a necromancer? Then you will know true developer hatered

Ever tried a Ranger?

You are kidding, right?
Rangers are definitely the easiest class to play in PvP and surely not the hardest to play in PvE.
Honestly, try a necro. Everytime we beg for fixes (yes fixes, not asking for OP buffs), they come with even more nerfs.
You only had your first portion of tiny little nerfs on some ‘extra pets, called spirits’ and you guys already start crying.

And to you, Anet… Unbelievable, guys… Unbelievable

Chameleon Dude.1564:

I don’t see what all the crying I’ve seen is about. Yes, there are some nerfs here and there. But the buffs!

No, they bat-kicked the snot out of a bunch of underpowered/niche traits that had no broken facets completely out of the game while making very powerful builds more powerful and weaker classes weaker.

No, this wasn’t “buffs,” overall with the changes they’ve implemented everyone has been brought down a good degree and many builds just don’t exist anymore – the opposite of their “intent” with these changes.

In the April 24 stream (at 4:21:40), they promised to add old Inspiring Banners ( banner cooldown and area ) into the new Inspiring Battle Standard ( old Tactics GM, new Discipline Master ) but it didn’t happen.

No more ricochet for the thief?!? WTF did p/p thieves ever do to warrant this?

This is a huge nerf to p/p on thief. I don’t understand why it was removed.

EDIT: and Deadly Mixture/Fire Forged Trigger are gone, too … great, now both my p/p thief and FT engineer got huge nerfs … These changes depress me.

I’m just laughing at all the rage, but it’s actually warranted Anet. Diversify each classes playing style AND make them viable/fun. Why’s that so hard to get? Or is it because if you did listen to what people are saying there would be even more balancing you’ll have to do so you decide to encourage players to play a certain way so there are fewer options to consider and rework (I.e. less work for you guys?) There are some loyal as kitten people playing your game and it’s been three years but it seems like you’re going backwards in some places. All I read in this proposed update was “we’re going to take away how movement skills are affected by boons” as if the game isn’t slow enough. Signet of inspiration STILL doesn’t give what all other classes seem to have, a passive movement speed enhancement. The withdraw skill for thief has an increased cooldown but we’re supposed to be happy about a 10% increase in health gained from it? Who compiled all these list of nerfs? Why are you guys draining the life and joy out of the game, are you guys Necromancers IRL?

(in all honesty I stopped taking this game seriously a long time ago, I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Hoping HoT and class specializations changes all that though, one can dream right?)

Valento.9852:

Will it be possible for elementalists to have a burning condi. meta? Right now it’s waaaaaaaaaaaay too weak. It seems kinda surprising how well guardians will perform, but I for one would welcome a burning meta, we’re… elementalists after all.

+1.

I have been trying to figure out a Burning condition build for Elementalists, but it is just impossible. It did not help that most of the ele burns were nerfed, either…