Guild Wars 2

I have noticed in all of the class forums there has been a massive array of complaints regarding nerfs for the classses- Elementalists, Warriors, and Thieves. Why is this? Were these classes that significantly hit that they all are that ineffective in the standards they were complaining about? Many thieves complained about PvE, Elementalists complaining about WvW pvp specifically. And warriors simply complaining how now the only viable build to play now is Longbow/Rifle. Why is this? I thought Anet was all about balancing and basing the fighting on skill not mechanics. I have seen these patch notes and I do agree that on certain parts (The stealth for thieve’s but that isnt the point) however is the hit really skill breaking where no matter what your skill level is at, you have a low/minimum chance of being successful with non popular builds/classes?

Its simple, they nerfed a lot of things that made certain builds viable, and now they are no longer able to sustain. This leaves a bad taste in many mouths since those classes above didn’t really get anything to compensate for it, and some of those classes have no bunker builds to keep that sustain they want.

Basicly the developers did exactly what they said they wouldn’t do, change things quickly, it left a lot of bad taste in many players mouths and they simply do not wish to play anymore, or do anything besides the daily and the world events. They still like the game, but really… they broke things and can’t take it back now, they just have to fix it, or give up on the game.

Hopefully the March patches will fix this.

Honestly, there is a lot of overreaction from some of the aforementioned Warriors and Thieves. Certain consumables were allowing them to build full glass, and then have very significant healing through a heal-on-crit mechanic. While accessible to all classes, the consumable was better the more damage someone put out so it worked especially well with Warriors. Anet added an internal CD to the consumable to reduce its effectiveness, so now any class who builds glass cannon has the survivability of one.

They also changed it so NPCs will track aggro (not attack through) stealth. So thief stealth has become a way to gain a reprieve, not automatically escape.

In all honesty, both the these changes are in the right direction – building full glass should be risky. But Warriors do need some other way to get some sustain since their survivability is pretty bad overall.

For Thieves, the aggro thing could use a line of sight consideration so they can stealth and hide behind a wall or similar. But again, the stealth change is for the better overall. Going invisible for 2-3s should not make that bandit forget you exist.

Eles I am not to sure on. Weird changess though that seemed to weaken ele builds other than the build that is considered OP…..

Rangers really got the shaft on this one. Couple of very minor bug fixes (the 85% damage thing was a bug fix of sorts, since the axe did that damage with a trait that should not have added damage) and two significant nerfs in Guard (pets can no longer scale or fly to the top of walls) and Empathic Bond (only removes 3 conds now, and sends them to pet. The second part could be argued as a bug fix).

knight.4379:

Hopefully the March patches will fix this.

You know at this point 6 months later that should not be the mantra we chant. It’s time for a change and it’s not going to happen so long as some people continue with the illusion that everything is perfectly fine with this game as I’ve seen in every post pointing out major flaws both with testing and with the patches. These people need to stop posting nonsense that everything is working properly and start helping those of us actively trying to improve the gameplay for everyone.

I was sorry that I’d made a few hundred omnon pies for my guild recently, that’s for sure. Still, a pie is a pie. It just can’t save me anymore. But I didn’t feel entirely happy with relying on food – though then again, what’s the point of food otherwise? My warrior always seemed so much stronger than all my others, I suspect he’ll survive.

Elementalists – it grieves me not to zap like sparkly lightning over great distances, frequently, but there have been worse nerfs.

Thief – I can still escape if I need to – not sure about dropping threat in an instance, though, since I usually use another character in those. That didn’t seem all that huge to me – plus, some things used to reset when I stealthed, & that was annoying. (it has ruined my ability to run through irritating parts of orr, pop refuge, & run on – I’m not thrilled about that, but again, there have been worse class setbacks)

Ranger… I’m just surprised there was no buff. My ranger feels considerably weaker than the others. Honestly, I wish the pet was traited, or a utility, & I could be a straight archer – there are just so many annoying issues with the pets. Or I could be like a necromancer, & choose NOT to have it out. (such as when I was doing that annoying dredge puzzle, and my pet, stowed, popped out & aggroed some event champion below – so it took me about 20 minutes to shoot it from the puzzle just so I could hop to the next level.) Anyway – I’m surprised rangers weren’t buffed. Just flat damage! And let me trade in that pet for sharper arrows!

I’m sure the feedback here and the other threads will kick Anet into gear and fix what needs to be fixed in the coming patches.

knight.4379:

I’m sure the feedback here and the other threads will kick Anet into gear and fix what needs to be fixed in the coming patches.

I would really, really like to believe that but I’ve played a ranger since beta.

Here’s a quote from some time in July 2012 (source quotes it on August 2, 2012):

“Ranger’s are missing 3 utility skills. All 3 are ones that give you some interesting control over your pet. So first of all they are just short 3 skills. Secondly they are one of many professions who need a good strong balance pass on their utilities to bring the bad ones in line. I think right now the professions with the strongest utils are Warrior, Elementalist and Guardian. We will work to catch the others up before ship.” -Jon Peters, Official Forum BWE2

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/46277-ranger-pet-utility-skills/
(I had to pull that quote from GW2Guru because the original is long since deleted off the official forums)

The 3 missing utilities were the shouts. Not exactly exciting. In fact… Here’s a quote from 4 months ago:

JonPeters.5630:

Poof! Someone called and I am here. We made some ranger changes this patch, but had to go back on them because of risk factor. There are some bugs being fixed and quality of life improvements coming in the next patch, as well as some other significant ranger improvements. I would Literally tell you but I think it would be considered a bit of a spoiler so you will have to be patient.

While we work hard to keep updates going on all professions, not very build us going to contain fixes for everyone due to the nature of software development. One problem with rangers is the lack of build diversity created by a number of sub par utility skills. Many signets, a shout or two, and spirits are all a bit lackluster. That is the first place to expect improvements. Second is trying to improve the feel/ pacing on some weapons.

Ok I can’t type more with tiny phone finger keypad. See you in game!

Jon

Notice it mentions shouts are lackluster.

Ranger utilities have not been changed in any way since BWE1 except for spirit nerfs.

Sorry to QQ here but I’ve been (mostly) quietly waiting since the first quote was made. The ranger patch history is just really starting to get to me.

I played since beta too and I are your point :/ the balancing only seems to be getting worse for certain classes and getting better for others specifically.

Because ArenaNet takes months to make simple and obvious changes but makes knee-jerk changes that break builds on a moment’s notice.

Don’t fix bugged/underpowered traits/skills. Break functional ones. Ignore OP ones. Build variety is shrinking. However, they do add some ‘flavor-of-life’ changes that are just nice to have but generally aren’t significant.

Alarox.4590:

Because ArenaNet takes months to make simple and obvious changes but makes knee-jerk changes that break builds on a moment’s notice.

Don’t fix bugged/underpowered traits/skills. Break functional ones. Ignore OP ones. Build variety is shrinking. However, they do add some ‘flavor-of-life’ changes that are just nice to have but generally aren’t significant.

That seems to be the summary of what I’ve seen in their patches so far. It’s why I have trust issues at this point.

The warriors who are complaining about this arent warriors, they are derps and should be ignored.

They believe in nothing was wrong with Glasscannon Facetanking. That should give you insight into how they believe the game should be balanced or in their cases not balanced.

TL;DR
All i know is, I <3 my engineer much more now. FlameThrower/Alchemy FTW!

In part it’s because “OMG they ruined it forever!” is the standard response to any update/sequel to any game. And most movies. Probably books too.

It’s also because Anet tend to want to keep the meta-game active so whenever a build becomes too common they’ll change something to either make it work differently or nerf it completely. And then of course everyone who relies on that build and other players telling them how to use it is stuck until someone invents a replacement and puts a video up to show them up to use it again.

As for stealth, we wanted mobs not to recover HP immediately as we entered stealth, not them to immediately run to us after it wears off, even if we are outside aggro range or hidden behind a wall. That is what happens now and beside totally annoying it also makes no sense.

Wait – are they doing that? Recovering health when we stealth to go cnd? That would explain a lot! I don’t mind the return to aggro – but come on! That’s part of the class skill!

As it was, I used to be able to hold aggro or drop to escape on my thief. I really only used stealth for this purpose as the thief has no other real defense except escape/avoidance. And you can dodge/evade only so much. So, if I got swamped by the respawns that can happen in some places ( some places definitely have something wierd going on with that), I could adjust my technique so aggro would be dropped. Had to do it just rght or aggro would be maintained. Was a cool thing I thought!

Now I rarely bother with stealth, I consider it a Duelist not a sneaky thief anymore. I have managed to use it to escape but it is not nearly as good now.

I have been tinkering with new builds and weapon sets to accomodate the change. But really it is not as much fun now for me.

So, some may be really happy with the change, I am let down by it. Thief is fun profession to play, a cool challenge in pve, but this has dimished the fun a bit for me, I have been playing my necro more now. It just feels less and less like the thief to me.

I may just end up maining my necro, if they don’t decide to mess with that too.

So not raging, but not pleased. Duelist is ok but thief was more fun:)

I have to admit the stealth change was pretty lame. Stealth is a core class mechanic and the ability to drop aggro was one of the perks. Now it’s just…..meh….

Doesn’t make me inclined to play my thief alt more that’s for sure.

Daecollo.9578:

Its simple, they nerfed a lot of things that made certain builds viable, and now they are no longer able to sustain. This leaves a bad taste in many mouths since those classes above didn’t really get anything to compensate for it, and some of those classes have no bunker builds to keep that sustain they want.

Basicly the developers did exactly what they said they wouldn’t do, change things quickly, it left a lot of bad taste in many players mouths and they simply do not wish to play anymore, or do anything besides the daily and the world events. They still like the game, but really… they broke things and can’t take it back now, they just have to fix it, or give up on the game.

If this is about omnomberry pies, the nerf was much needed and perhaps one of the few I ever agree with. No glass cannon build should have the same sustainability as a bunker.

Thieves can still break aggro with stealth (I tried it myself). Just that enemies do it a tiny bit later. Inconvenient yes, but following it up with a dodge usually works.

Heijincks.9267:

Daecollo.9578:

Its simple, they nerfed a lot of things that made certain builds viable, and now they are no longer able to sustain. This leaves a bad taste in many mouths since those classes above didn’t really get anything to compensate for it, and some of those classes have no bunker builds to keep that sustain they want.

Basicly the developers did exactly what they said they wouldn’t do, change things quickly, it left a lot of bad taste in many players mouths and they simply do not wish to play anymore, or do anything besides the daily and the world events. They still like the game, but really… they broke things and can’t take it back now, they just have to fix it, or give up on the game.

If this is about omnomberry pies, the nerf was much needed and perhaps one of the few I ever agree with. No glass cannon build should have the same sustainability as a bunker.

Thieves can still break aggro with stealth (I tried it myself). Just that enemies do it a tiny bit later. Inconvenient yes, but following it up with a dodge usually works.

Not really. All it does is “pause” aggro. Once you reappear the mob will instantly run at you, even if you’ve blocked the line of sight, unless you are already out of its travel limit (or however is called the maximum distance the mob can walk from its spawn location before resetting).

xarallei.4279:

I have to admit the stealth change was pretty lame. Stealth is a core class mechanic and the ability to drop aggro was one of the perks. Now it’s just…..meh….

Doesn’t make me inclined to play my thief alt more that’s for sure.

That truly is a pathetic reason to no longer play an alt.

“It takes me longer to reset mobs in CoF when I’m skipping them, I will not play this sucky profession any more.” Poor Thieves.

tigirius.9014:

knight.4379:

Hopefully the March patches will fix this.

You know at this point 6 months later that should not be the mantra we chant. It’s time for a change and it’s not going to happen so long as some people continue with the illusion that everything is perfectly fine with this game as I’ve seen in every post pointing out major flaws both with testing and with the patches. These people need to stop posting nonsense that everything is working properly and start helping those of us actively trying to improve the gameplay for everyone.

And yet your signature is about a useless PTR. You’re not asking for change, you just have an idee fixe that a PTR would solve everything, while in reality it solves nothing, as proven in WoW. Furthermore the problems in GW2 are relatively small all things considered.

Yes, after 6 months, we should be happy about a game that’s actively balanced, rather stable and updated regularly. The biggest P2P game out there doesn’t come even close to the quality of this game despite being 7 years old (and having a PTR)
I do understand some minor issues cause you grievance, but none of those will be fixed with a PTR since they’re so minor. Some people focus only on the negatives. It’s impossible to make them happy, not even a PTR will change that.

I haven’t noticed many legitimate complaints in the ele forum.

emikochan.8504:

I haven’t noticed many legitimate complaints in the ele forum.

there were many detailed actually….

But you find more thieves players than elementalist players on that forum….

Also ele are quite accustomed to knee jerk nerf being the most nerfed class since release and often without reason even when it was considered the weakest class it got continually nerfed.

And frankly they keep to nerf PvE ele that is nowhere good.
And that just for a reason:

They made their “balance” around some weird game mode in wich you get just to stay alive rather than kill your opponent….

That may be the first reason to unbalance in this game.

Also complaints of people that doens t know the professions and cannot understand Patches as you can see in next post:
(he didn t read all the patch but moreover he also thinks aura stacks with armor of earth… complaining of non existent things…)

knight.4379:

Elementalists complaining about WvW

Lol what.
D/D Eles are still terribly OP, they actually got buffed now that frost aura grants them 10% damage reduction (as if protection wasn’t enough).

There is a reason 90% of the pop in WvW are D/D eles, it’s a big bandwagon.
Anet failed to nerf it because they nerfed RTL which wasn’t the problem, while EA was only nerfed in sPvP.
D/D Eles can still get bazillions of health back (resto signet, EA, etc) while sitting on 43% damage reduction from prot/aura and dealing great damage/control.

With every patch you will have people that like/dislike it. The people that dislike the patch, most of them, will be here voicing their opinions. Those that do not care or think it is a good patch, will not voice their opinion, or not as much, and probably laugh at people who do. To the people who would laugh at those who voice an opinion, whether positive or negative, I ask “Who are you to judge someone’s opinion?”

I for one completely disliked the november patch, approved of the January(winters day) patch, approved of the February patch, and disapprove of this patch(thus far). The only two things that I really like from this patch are the selectable dailys, and the dragon chest change.

Guild Missions have been installed in the worst possible way, and we’ll see just how lucky people can get with a precursor from completing. The big draw for me is the chance at a precursor. If arenanet left out a key piece of info, that you can only get a precursor from a certain mission, or the last unlockable, I’ll be POd. They also did say that the entire guild has the opportunity to loot a precursor…kind of grey info. Does this mean that if one person gets it, all get a precursor? Or just the entire guild has the chance(individually).

For me, verdict is still out on those missions. They aren’t traditional raids, but its going to be scheduled content for your guild to complete, which I do not want to base my RL around a game schedule. For me, this is a huge turnoff. If I cannot sign in for a guild mission, I miss out. Even if I can sign in for a guild mission, I don’t want to say to myself "just make sure you don’t get into anything at home that will take you past the start time of that guild mission. " Up until now, Ive logged in whenever I want without fear of being left behind. Now, not so much. With every patch, with the exception of a few, I keep getting a bad taste in my mouth each time, that this game is moving toward a more mainstream MMO rather than a unique snowflake that I thought/hoped it would be.

TexZero.7910:

The warriors who are complaining about this arent warriors, they are derps and should be ignored.

They believe in nothing was wrong with Glasscannon Facetanking. That should give you insight into how they believe the game should be balanced or in their cases not balanced.

I don’t have anything to add to this conversation besides that this is going to be the name of my Warrior when I make it.

LordByron.8369:

emikochan.8504:

I haven’t noticed many legitimate complaints in the ele forum.

Also ele are quite accustomed to knee jerk nerf being the most nerfed class since release and often without reason even when it was considered the weakest class it got continually nerfed.

Wat.

Maybe I have a fuzzy memory, but I can’t recall a time when Eles were ever considered the weakest class. I’d say that territory has been left in the realm of Engineers and Rangers, for the most part, although every class has it’s weakling builds.

cesmode.4257:

Guild Missions have been installed in the worst possible way, and we’ll see just how lucky people can get with a precursor from completing. The big draw for me is the chance at a precursor. If arenanet left out a key piece of info, that you can only get a precursor from a certain mission, or the last unlockable, I’ll be POd. They also did say that the entire guild has the opportunity to loot a precursor…kind of grey info. Does this mean that if one person gets it, all get a precursor? Or just the entire guild has the chance(individually).

For me, verdict is still out on those missions. They aren’t traditional raids, but its going to be scheduled content for your guild to complete, which I do not want to base my RL around a game schedule. For me, this is a huge turnoff. If I cannot sign in for a guild mission, I miss out. Even if I can sign in for a guild mission, I don’t want to say to myself "just make sure you don’t get into anything at home that will take you past the start time of that guild mission. " Up until now, Ive logged in whenever I want without fear of being left behind. Now, not so much. With every patch, with the exception of a few, I keep getting a bad taste in my mouth each time, that this game is moving toward a more mainstream MMO rather than a unique snowflake that I thought/hoped it would be.

I agree with you there. In my opinion, guild missions should also have scaled entry fees or smaller missions, so smaller/casual guilds can still partake. I don’t like the “big fish only” attitude that the guild missions seem to have right now.

And while I love the dragon chest update—and I think that needed to be implemented—the new zone capacity limits to reduce lag are frustrating as hell. Especially since my server has a rivalry from our WvW glory days, and our rival server feels the need to send guesters over to max out the zone capacity for events. Because WvW and PvE events are totally related.

And of course, the zone cap doesn’t actually help the lag whatsoever.

Rusc.4978:

LordByron.8369:

emikochan.8504:

I haven’t noticed many legitimate complaints in the ele forum.

Also ele are quite accustomed to knee jerk nerf being the most nerfed class since release and often without reason even when it was considered the weakest class it got continually nerfed.

Wat.

Maybe I have a fuzzy memory, but I can’t recall a time when Eles were ever considered the weakest class. I’d say that territory has been left in the realm of Engineers and Rangers, for the most part, although every class has it’s weakling builds.

yes you have a fuzzy memory and you are possibly lazy to not check….

just look at release till about a couple months ago.
For a brief period staff bunker ele was viable as a pure support class……..but was nerfed into oblivion as is happening with D/D (they already nerfed A LOT, notice how people keep complaining….despite they cannot even understand how its been nerfed…..have at least the decency to read ALL patchnotes…).

P.s. eng never been so weak…nor rangers as i said ….if you just accept baseless complaints you are next and infact you can see “nerf rangers and nerf engineers” posts already

LordByron.8369:

Rusc.4978:

LordByron.8369:

emikochan.8504:

I haven’t noticed many legitimate complaints in the ele forum.

Also ele are quite accustomed to knee jerk nerf being the most nerfed class since release and often without reason even when it was considered the weakest class it got continually nerfed.

Wat.

Maybe I have a fuzzy memory, but I can’t recall a time when Eles were ever considered the weakest class. I’d say that territory has been left in the realm of Engineers and Rangers, for the most part, although every class has it’s weakling builds.

yes you have a fuzzy memory and you are possibly lazy to not check….

just look at release till about a couple months ago.
For a brief period staff bunker ele was viable as a pure support class……..but was nerfed into oblivion as is happening with D/D (they already nerfed A LOT, notice how people keep complaining….despite they cannot even understand how its been nerfed…..have at least the decency to read ALL patchnotes…).

P.s. eng never been so weak…nor rangers as i said ….if you just accept baseless complaints you are next and infact you can see “nerf rangers and nerf engineers” posts already

Or, I’m not lazy at all, and you don’t have a good grasp of your class. See? I can make needless insults, too.

Now that’s out of the way, staff bunker Ele was ridiculous. And yes, it did get nerfed—although I didn’t understand the nerf myself, I had my Ele friend explain it to me in its entirety. And I disagree that they make those kind of sweeping nerfs without much (if any) forewarning, as Daecollo said. However, it was a very powerful build. And it’s not totally obsolete; I still see it from time to time, and I see people playing it well. It just doesn’t receive the same massive healing, so it’s more difficult to play.

Eles also have other viable builds—especially D/D, which at the moment is far from being nerfed into oblivion. I certainly see no shortage of it in sPvP or PvE, and no one who has much game experience would call that build underpowered. Nor, in fact, would they call Eles a weak class.

There are also “nerf ____” posts for every class. Every class. Every. Mostly by people that don’t know how to counter them. And if you look beyond baseless complaints, I’m sure you’d see that even with the nerfs to Ele, Rangers and Engineers are still the classes that receive most of the outcry for being underpowered. They’re certainly less powerful as a whole than Eles are.

Daecollo.9578:

Its simple, they nerfed a lot of things that made certain builds viable, and now they are no longer able to sustain. This leaves a bad taste in many mouths since those classes above didn’t really get anything to compensate for it, and some of those classes have no bunker builds to keep that sustain they want.

Basicly the developers did exactly what they said they wouldn’t do, change things quickly, it left a lot of bad taste in many players mouths and they simply do not wish to play anymore, or do anything besides the daily and the world events. They still like the game, but really… they broke things and can’t take it back now, they just have to fix it, or give up on the game.

What are you talking about? Only elementalists had their sustain nerfed, the warrior had banners buffed, the thief had poisons nerfed and a healing skill buffed.