Guild Wars 2

You took out Inspiring Banners, but didn’t fold any of the benefits into any other traits? That’s bad. Real bad. Banners were already an unpopular choice, and now they’re effectively getting a nerf. Why even have them now?

Also, do racial elite skills get engineer toolbelt skills? Racial elites usually get overshadowed by class skills, but it’d be fun to get something a little extra for stomping around in my Asura power armor.

Mea.5491:

Josh Davis.6015:

Going to add a change list at the top of the bottom post for updates that I make to the list. Here’s one change we forgot to document:

Guardian

• Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
• Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.

The above skills will still be affected by the shield recharge trait and will go to 19s for Shield of Absorption, and 16s for Shield of Judgement.

Please do NOT change Consume Conditions! Thank you.

I don’t think anyone can stress this enough

Morhyn.8032:

Why in the hell has Merciless Hammer been hidden behind a bunch of garbage that doesn’t apply to it?

The real question is why would anyone pick this over burst mastery?

Josh Davis.6015:

Going to add a change list at the top of the bottom post for updates that I make to the list. Here’s one change we forgot to document:

Guardian

• Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
• Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.

The above skills will still be affected by the shield recharge trait and will go to 19s for Shield of Absorption, and 16s for Shield of Judgement.

And Anet shows that they still do not know what the problem is…

Azoqu.8917:

Josh Davis.6015:

Going to add a change list at the top of the bottom post for updates that I make to the list. Here’s one change we forgot to document:

Guardian

• Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
• Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.

The above skills will still be affected by the shield recharge trait and will go to 19s for Shield of Absorption, and 16s for Shield of Judgement.

And Anet shows that they still do not know what the problem is…

/agree. Such a shame that the (literally) iconic guardian weapon is so fundamentally weak that you see more engineers wielding the legendary shield than you do guardians.

Azoqu.8917:

Josh Davis.6015:

Going to add a change list at the top of the bottom post for updates that I make to the list. Here’s one change we forgot to document:

Guardian

• Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
• Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.

The above skills will still be affected by the shield recharge trait and will go to 19s for Shield of Absorption, and 16s for Shield of Judgement.

And Anet shows that they still do not know what the problem is…

You are sadly mistaking “our” problem with “their” problem.

Heh so much rage. . .

I’m sure at least half of all that rage is just a front to try and push for more buffs but there are a few concerns such as missing trait effects that I hope are addressed. Such as the missing ricochet trait for thieves.

I’m sure it was just lost in the documentation storm and exists somewhere in the new changes, just gotta calm down and wait.

Another question for the devs: so many quality changes for warrior long bow but nary an improvement for rifle. Why not spread some of that love to other war ranged? How about creak shot also giving bonus damage to the burst skill vs moving targets? Something. . .

Josh Davis.6015:

Going to add a change list at the top of the bottom post for updates that I make to the list. Here’s one change we forgot to document:

Guardian

• Shield of Absorption cooldown goes from 30s to 24s baseline.
• Shield of Judgement cooldown goes from 25s to 20s baseline.

The above skills will still be affected by the shield recharge trait and will go to 19s for Shield of Absorption, and 16s for Shield of Judgement.

As a Shield Guardian I’m happy, but as a Warrior I’m still confused. Aside from forgeting Tactics in the presentation, you forgot to mention what will happen to Frenzy and if the 25% damage penalty will be changed, whether Inspiring Banners will be baseline, or all that you’ve said about changing Mending into a physical skill and Healing Surge into a shout.

I don’t normally come to the forums. When I do, is usually to read news. So this is one of those times I am taking the time to post.

The P/P build I’ve used and gotten accoustomed to is essentially destroyed without Ricochet.
I really hope this was an oversight or the trait is now passive or something along those lines. Because without it, I really don’t see any point to use this build.

I welcome change. But if it’s change that essentially makes you want to stop playing a certain build/class, not so much.
Please reconsider.

Josh Davis.6015:

Sorry for the delay. Enjoy. :)

MESMER

• Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200

Dear Josh (and devs),

If Mesmer is getting a pistol range increase to 1200, and you’re removing Ricochet for thief (which included the range extension and not just the bounces) and Rifled Barrels for Engineer, why aren’t Thief and Engi pistols getting the same treatment for their range extension trait? Heck both warrior and ranger long bows are getting their range increases added by default.

It just strikes me as unbalanced and inconsistent when some classes are getting the increases for those weapons and the other classes that use the same weapon type are not. Especially when all classes are loosing the choice to extend their ranges.

Ausfer.1853:

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.

Nerf? Well, that’s putting it mildly. Most P/P builds, especially ones geared toward PvE, depend on this trait. It is arguably the most important trait for P/P thieves!

Tashigi.3159:

I don’t normally come to the forums. When I do, is usually to read news. So this is one of those times I am taking the time to post.

The P/P build I’ve used and gotten accoustomed to is essentially destroyed without Ricochet.
I really hope this was an oversight or the trait is now passive or something along those lines. Because without it, I really don’t see any point to use this build.

I welcome change. But if it’s change that essentially makes you want to stop playing a certain build/class, not so much.
Please reconsider.

My thoughts exactly. As someone who mained a P/P thief from the very beginning, and really worked to get a fun, functional build going (I do mainly PvE, including dungeons), this is extremely detrimental to me, and I sincerely hope Anet addresses this issue before the update patch goes live.

I just can’t get excited for this update… NOR Heart of Thorns because of this change. I mean, unless as I’ve stated before that the elite thief specialization is a gunslinger where Ricochet is hiding… but why can’t this trait simply be baseline as with many other professions with bouncing weapons?

Well, at least with the overpricing issue, nobody will care about traits and class balance anymore. Set the school on fire to hide that you’ve been smoking on the roof. Pure genius.

I just cannot comprehend why they would do all of this, and before the release of HoT no less.

It’s almost as if they are intentionally trying to destroy as many game modes and professions as possible prior to HoT release. It’s almost as if their intention is to drive as many of their players as possible past their breaking point of how many beatings they will accept before giving up completely and leave right before the “expansion” gets released. Do they actually want as few people to buy it as possible? These changes are intentional and final…and the great majority are bad. What do they expect to happen? It’s very likely that what they expect to happen is exactly what they can count on happening; some (many?) players finally just give up and quit for good.

Constantly messing with everything that a player understands and is used to and giving it a complete overhaul (yet again), and not in a good way (yet again), can only end badly. A person will only take so much before enough is enough.

If “some players possibly quitting for good” actually turns out to be “a lot of players definitely quitting for good”, then sales of HoT will not be anything like what it may have been had these “changes” not been forced onto the playerbase.

For me, what little interest I had in HoT (sig) is practically dead. But now even the base game that I quite enjoy is being further destroyed in a single patch that sees every profession being utterly destroyed in some way.

• From my point of view, they’re telling me to not play the base game any longer. (they’ve been telling me this for quite a while through their changing and destroying every aspect of the game that I enjoyed)
• They’re also telling me to not buy their supposed “expansion” as it does not offer the things that would interest me for well over twice what it is worth for what they’ve shown it to include.

It makes me so disappointed to see what they’ve done to the game. It is almost as if they saw what other game companies were doing that resulted in their literally killing their games and were like, “Fantastic! We want to kill our game too! Thank you, other-companies-that-do-not-want-people-to-play-their-games, for showing us the most effective way to do it!” And they’re doing it. Actually, they’ve been doing it for quite a while.

I also guess players abandoning ship was going too slowly for them and they needed to jump ahead to drive home the last nails for the coffin to push the last few hopeful players off of their fences by forcing everyone who owns the game to have to buy the game yet again just for the expansion. $20, maybe, for what it has been shown to include.

That’s it for me. They’ve pretty much killed the base game with their “changes” and the next day basically tell people to not buy the expansion unless you enjoy being taken advantage of or are not able to see a rip off designed by the greed machine when it stares you in the face. May pick it up one day when it’s down to an honest price for what it offers. As it is now, you can keep it. Those that do stick around…well, I hope you have fun.

Still waiting for the Consume Conditions correction of “Sorry we meant to say 10s of Invulnerability.”

I made a second thief specifically for constant pistol/pistol/pistol/pistol pew-pew with weapon swap reduction runes and quick pockets.

If Ricochet is really gone, then there’s going to be a very sad gigantic norn thief with giant pistols who likes to pew constantly. His headband can only hold so many tears…

Questions
Mesmer healing prism: What is the range of this skill and does it have an IC?

Protected Phantasms: Since the shatter effect is now on the Mesmer as baseline does the Mesmer also gain the protection?

Strength in Numbers: 600 radius seems limited in wvw setting and does it only affect 5 allies if so how are they selected?

Beastly Warden: why not create a f5 if someone equip this traits or place it on f1, since it has its own cool down, having it on f2 seems to force your pet selection, also is the cool down persistent on the ranger or the pet i.e. can I swap pet and taunt again without waiting 15 sec?

can’t wait to see forums on 23rd……look at all these changes…..now imagine how many massive bugs there will be to fix….lol

Well the new system itself looks fine. Also the removal of stats on trait lines. the goal is good, but…
I feel many traits are not competative to others beside them. I expect a coorection update and bugfixes following …
One thing i think:In a game like GW2 balacing will be focused on PvP/WvW! It becomes ridicolous difficult to balance huge class and trait diversity also in PvE. So PvE will propably get the short stick just looking at i not to get totaly out of control.

Ok, one massive ‘Aarg!’ for my necro- wellomancer: wells no longer give Protection .

Otherwise a lot of interesting changes. Gonna basically be a new game, which is probably a good thing.

When looking at the elementalist it feels like water is madatory, which will also push cantrips more.
I would swap Soothing Disruption with Inscription!

Amins.3710:

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.

Since a condi remover removes ALL stacks plus they are adding in resistance as well, I think Protection reducing condi damage would be overdoing it.

My power ranger build… gutted.

Thanks for ruining it, Anet.

Where’d all my damage modifiers go!?!? I WANT THEM BACK. NOW.

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?

OMG seriously, let’s quit with the hyperbole. None of the classes are or will be useless.

And no, they didn’t nerf everything, on warrior or any other class. Some things on warrior DID get buffs. rolls eyes

Wow, after reading page after page after page, I just have to say…

“The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”

I don question a few choices they made. 10 stacks vulnerability added on Consume conditions for instance. But every class also got buffs in other areas.

This may have weakened some builds. Maybe that was needed, when some builds became so ubiquitous that other builds were too weak. Perhaps they could have buffed other build options instead of nerfing the problem ones.

But be that as it may, while I lost a couple builds that I’m not entirely happy about, I see potential for some new builds that excite me.

In other words, come on guys, it isn’t all bad, for ANY of the classes there was good too!

Please comment on Ricochet’s removal. Was it a mistake? Is it in baselines? If not, why did you think P/P wouldn’t be ruined without it? Thank you.

misterdevious.6482:

I made a second thief specifically for constant pistol/pistol/pistol/pistol pew-pew with weapon swap reduction runes and quick pockets.

If Ricochet is really gone, then there’s going to be a very sad gigantic norn thief with giant pistols who likes to pew constantly. His headband can only hold so many tears…

I know your pain. I have a norn thief p/p built just for ricochet, and I’m sad its gone too. Very sad. In fact, its the only change that REALLY bothers me. But, what’s done is done. shrug Since I’ve been ragging on others about their tears of rage over some change or another, I’m not about to follow suit with this.

I don’t know if anyone has done the maths before, I just wanted to say a fun fact I just discovered doing the maths.

So before the specialization patch, there were 364,917,960 different trait combinations possible for each profession. That is assuming all 14 points were used. Now, after the specialization patch, there will be 196,830 different trait combinations possible for each profession. That is assuming all 9 points are used and selecting 3 out of 5 possible specialization lines. If we consider the upcoming elite specialization then we have 3 out of 6 possible lines and that gives us 393,660 combinations.

So we will have 364,721,130 less combinations to deal with after the patch. of course most of them were cheese builds with 5 adept traits and 9 minors for example. but i guess this makes balancing a lot easier.

An excellent reminder. During the stream Josh and Roy were commenting on parts that we could expect to go live and parts that they thought still needed attention. Then Twitch failed and Josh had to convert all his Power Point slides to something he could post, while editing out anything that was dev-eyes-only and post it asap after hours of work. Of course some errors got in.

Plus they also commented they were eager to see all this get live in the hands of players and they’d be monitoring to see what was broken and needed adjustment.

Complaints may well be valid and based on reasonable inferences but people shouldn’t assume that what we see in the OP is the permanent set in stone for years set up we’ll be getting.

Just tell me fireforged trigger is baseline so I can rest a bit…

Morfedel.4165:

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?

OMG seriously, let’s quit with the hyperbole. None of the classes are or will be useless.

And no, they didn’t nerf everything, on warrior or any other class. Some things on warrior DID get buffs. rolls eyes

Your wisdom, alas, will be ignored by the masses.

I don’t see any of my mains — ranger, Mesmer, Necromancer — being ruined.

In fact, the changes look very positive to me.

Another thing I suspect people forget is how other classes to the ones they are looking at are changed.

That is to say, for example, a burning elementalist build may appear nerfed (I can’t stick playing Elementalist really, it’s not my style so I won’t comment if it has or hasn’t) but remember that every other class has been changed; the changes those classes have may mean it’s still very viable, to just use one example.

Obviously some are gone, like the grenade-erm-trapper ranger, but you get the idea.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m sure this is understood, but it seems like a good idea to formally say this: The update notes shared in this thread (and distributed to our fansites) were presented in unedited form. (You probably figured that out. ) As always, all game updates are subject to change while being finalized. The final notes that are presented here on the forums as the formal Update Notes will be edited before they go live. This will allow us to tidy up typos, make sure each stat is accurate, and also verify the inclusion of all elements (and the removal of any that are not going to be included).

Thank you for the update, Gaile, it’s appreciated.

I’m still very nervous about the absence of Ricochet for my main P/P thief though. I want to be excited for the trait rework, but I’m dying to know where this extremely fundamental trait is… my main since day one depends on it!

Josh Davis.6015:

Added:

• Heal as One: This skill is now categorized as a shout skill.
• Troll Unguent: This skill is now categorized as a survival skill.
• Healing Spring: This skill is now categorized as a trap skill. (Also renamed to “We Heal as One”.
• Rampage as One: This skill is now categorized as a shout skill. (Also renamed to “Strength of the Pack”.)

Please for the love of god, dont “fix” Spectral Walk and Consume Conditions

So excited for this! This right here makes me really happy!!

Ardid.7203:

Just tell me fireforged trigger is baseline so I can rest a bit…

Don’t forget deadly mixture! Without it Anet is effectively reducing FT and EG damage by 15%, which is a big nerf.

Will Engineer’s Launch Personal Battering Ram be fixed with this update? The daze portion of the skill that was ‘added’ a while back does nothing currently. Static Discharge would be a bit more viable if it worked.

Josh Davis.6015:

Added:

PLEASE bring back necromancer’s Ritual of Protection (wells grant Aoe Protection) in some fashion. Necros are already starved for group buffs and this one is key to my feeling like a valuable contributor to my team’s survival in group play! (18 seconds of team-wide Protection from dropping 4 wells)

plague signet nerf + consume condition nerf = even with 35k hp I am not going to be able to survive the first push lockdown dogpile of 4 players who will always target me first and I STILL won’t be able to pull off the fight.
And why oh why is spectral walk freefall trick going away? It’s such a source of enjoyment even outside of competitive situations, and in wvw it’s my only way to escape an outnumbered fight.

If it’s so awful that it must be removed, please tell us why!

Can you please clarify if the +5% damage when using daggers from Dagger Training was folded into the Thief’s baseline? This was mentioned in a previous ready up but the notes don’t indicate as such.

Nike.2631:

Josh Davis.6015:

Added:

PLEASE bring back necromancer’s Ritual of Protection (wells grant Aoe Protection) in some fashion. Necros are already starved for group buffs and this one is key to my feeling like a valuable contributor to my team’s survival in group play! (18 seconds of team-wide Protection from dropping 4 wells)

Vampiric rituals has ritual of protection combine into it already. What they really need to do is fix the major mess they made of curses.

Josh Davis.6015:

• Healing Spring: This skill is now categorized as a trap skill. (Also renamed to “We Heal as One”.

First of all, I’m going to assume this is a typo and that you plan on renaming Heal as One instead.

EDIT: Oh it’s getting changed to a shout. Ignore my previous remark it makes more sense now.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m sure this is understood, but it seems like a good idea to formally say this: The update notes shared in this thread (and distributed to our fansites) were presented in unedited form. (You probably figured that out. ) As always, all game updates are subject to change while being finalized. The final notes that are presented here on the forums as the formal Update Notes will be edited before they go live. This will allow us to tidy up typos, make sure each stat is accurate, and also verify the inclusion of all elements (and the removal of any that are not going to be included).

if these are not final numbers, then take back the nerfs of Necro. the class is already weak, don’t make it any weaker. you did that huge buff on Ranger and Engi, and you nerf Necro to compensate? 30sec cd on heal which is also a corrupt skill and gives you 10 stacks of vulnerability? seriously, what double nerf is this? want to unsplit Mark of Blood? ok. give us back the 3 stacks then instead of nerfing it to 2 for both pve/pvp

Dakunaito.9602:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m sure this is understood, but it seems like a good idea to formally say this: The update notes shared in this thread (and distributed to our fansites) were presented in unedited form. (You probably figured that out. ) As always, all game updates are subject to change while being finalized. The final notes that are presented here on the forums as the formal Update Notes will be edited before they go live. This will allow us to tidy up typos, make sure each stat is accurate, and also verify the inclusion of all elements (and the removal of any that are not going to be included).

if these are not final numbers, then take back the nerfs of Necro. the class is already weak, don’t make it any weaker. you did that huge buff on Ranger and Engi, and you nerf Necro to compensate? 30sec cd on heal which is also a corrupt skill and gives you 10 stacks of vulnerability? seriously, what double nerf is this? want to unsplit Mark of Blood? ok. give us back the 3 stacks then instead of nerfing it to 2 for both pve/pvp

They are not going to do anything of a sort towards necromancer, from what I’ve seen Anet do to necro for the longest time, what makes you think they are going to change CoCo? I wouldn’t personally mind the the 5 second increase to its cool down, but the vulnerability was just to me over kill for the class, which is where to a point I quit playing necromancer until they decided to change Consume condition and making it a spectral (or at least buff other healing skills which they won’t, because you know, 2nd life bar.)
P.S: I find it really quite amazing that necromancer is the only class who’s heal is good for only hurting yourself instead of saving you, I guess you could get the reduced cooldown just to see yourself receive a random chance to give yourself fear.

Are consecrations not gaining the 900 range from Consecrated Ground as a baseline effect?