Guild Wars 2

Wow!!! Keep improving Guardians and their ability to DPS. Make fury last 10 seconds base

“•We’re also looking to make conditions scale better in PvE/WvW leveling so that they’re more viable at different junctures in the level scale.”

While I don’t care about conditions, I know there are others too. That being said, I’m hoping you may address this;

-Are you still looking at a way to have conditions stack past 25? AFAIK the last response indicated that this is a technical hurdle and fixing it would be difficult since it is a network issue
-Are there any plans to have conditions work on mobs that are considered structures? (i.e. teq, kitten, golem)

Thanks for the preview. It’s appreciated.

With respect to -

• Runes/Sigils are also something the balance team wants to improve. We’d like to see cooler effects on some of the sets, so we’ll be working towards that. They also lead to a lot of build diversity, so we want more sets to be stronger so that it gives you guys more options in your builds.

A “Legendary” level Rune/Sigil with morphing capability would go a long way, while not being entirely OP, as they would still need to be salvaged if a player wanted to move them to a different set of armor/weapon.

The ability to mystic forge or salvage Superior quality versions would also be appreciated.

Tab Targeting Improvements

Can now tab target if your character can see the target (Was dependent on camera before)

Not sure if this part is desireable, I’m usually trying to target something that “I” can see, meaning I rotate the camera and I would like to tab to that enemy and not the ones off camera my character can see.

Does that make sense? What is the benefit of making it dependent on my character?

Otherwise sounds really good to me, thanks for the preview!

Also on sigil/runes:

-Have you ever considered introducing a system where you can opt to have a higher amount of stat A while also introducing a penalty for Stat B?
E.g. right now we have a sigil that gives 5% more damage. Would introduce a rune that would give 10% more damage but take 5% more damage?

Some of these may not make it in for that release

Just remember this, some people take the words of a dev as final say.

I’m glad that tab targetting is finally getting a fix, was tired of tab targetting through a bunch of spirits to get to a ranger.

It’s about time there’s an anti-stealth mechanic in the game (similar to hunter flare). You’ll see alot of QQ from thieves, but this is necessary. I’ll keep a ranger near me now in pvp.

The one thing though Fix Guardian shield this weapon feels entriely lackluster is is mostly only used for the knockback for point control or thieves stealth in spvp.

Mr. Sharp,

I’m confused about monk’s focus, does it no longer heal? Or does it give fury and heal? And what replaces the focus mind trait? Its the trait that makes meditations instant.

Aza.2105:

Mr. Sharp,

I’m confused about monk’s focus, does it no longer heal? Or does it give fury and heal? And what replaces the focus mind trait? Its the trait that makes meditations instant.

Don’t read too much into it. The fury’s supposed to be an added effect

Turrets are viable, now to come up with a toolkit +2 turret build. Thanks for the heads up!

Will it be possible for you to make it so summons (in my case mesmer phantasms) to be added to the combat log? Also, some sort of DPS calculator for lazy people like me to be able to calculate it easier and precisely?

Still no way to force a thief from stealth (other than really expensive/useless stealth trap)…
Still gonna be stealth stomps (in WvW)…
Not sure about Staff changes for ele.
Not sure yet about the turret changes either.

Well, thanks for the heads up, I guess.

For the guardian change, is the fury supposed to be on Monk’s Focus or Focused Mind? Focused Mind was the one that made meditations instant, so it would make more sense for that one to be updated.

EDIT:

Elementalist: We still havnt addressed the core problem of them. While conjurer are a nice gimmick and fun in LA, can have some good damage potential, this is not what has been asked by the ele community.

Right now we are sitting on the lowest hp pool of all classes. Without access to stealth (thieves) or clones/stealth(mesmers) nor aegis/protection(mesmer guardians) constantly being reapplying itself, we are FORCED (yes, you read that right, forced) to go with cantrips, water, some earth and 30 point arcana.

When you do the math thats pretty much all your traits, leaving us in a really bad spot.

Variation from this build usually means a hit/[mostly] miss play where yo unload all your arcanes in the hopes that it will kill the 27k hp warrior over there which used one dodge and cancelled all our damage, leaving us with 11k hp and no utilities, running around like a naked chicken.

Staff coire issues comes from the lack of reliable damage, sure golems are scary and stand still because thy are that bada[ss but the rest of the players dont and that has to be taken in consideration. Gust misses all the time even if the person literally just strafed. Risk/reward is just not there.

this is what I would recommend:

Increase base HP to 18-20k like mesmers. We dont have clones nor aegis nor protection nor stealth as often as they do yet they are allowed to be that beefy. Sure some consideration with bunkers would have to be taken, a good solution is; decrease healing coefficient of skills, increase base heal.

Lava Font, (fire 2) still very underwhelming, high delay for the avergae damage it does. Possible solutions is increase radius or make the first tick instant. Right now it is too telegraphed, too easy to avoid, and even when landed it does not have a good result

Lighting surge (lighting 2) Same as fire too, delay for average damage.

Gust (Air 3) Incredible hard to land, to the point that might as well not have it. PLease make it follow the target (lock on) or make it a PBAoE cone.

Overall increase a little the damage for non-fire elements, auto attacks ned to be more responsive and faster.

Support is a great start but we are very far from making the class viable
Let me copy/pasta some very wise words:

“Whats the point of CC if Defiant/AoE cap negates it completely?

Whats the point of healing if it has long CD, usually does not heal more than 5-10% of the targets health and most people can heal themselves?

Whats the point of buffing support skills (Oct 15 patch) if it is just not worth it, it usually carries low damage and you cant outlast damage dealers nor conditions, just delay them?

Anet, while buffs sure are welcome, whats the point of wanting support in the game if you keep making content easy for Zerker to faceroll, for Zergs to overcome, for damage dealers to ignore.

Perhaps I have been playing the wrong game, perhaps staff ele is supposed to be a God. But, given how most of us would love to have a viable damage dealer staff, I cant see whats the point of keep gutting it into this “support” role which nobody reall wants/needs to roll."

Great! Great changes, finally! You really go into the right direction Thx for so much transparency, finally. Tons of good changes incoming. It took you a lot of time, but better late than never
Just hopefully among all these great changes to make the game truly a lot better you do take some of the current builds that are too strong into consideration as well and don’t buff them even more. Beside that, wonderful! I’m amazed.

For skill tooltips when modified by traits/upgrades does it also show the base values? It is useful to know exactly how much improvement you are getting from your current build for something versus another build. You could more or less get the same thing by alt+tabbing to the wiki or stripping naked and resetting your traits but that is a bit annoying.

Sigils.
Can we finally get an answer to what is up with the shared cooldowns betweens different sigils?

If Lung Capacity is getting moved to Adept what is getting pushed to Master? Moving Embrace the Pain to Master was not something that worked well for me. It was one of the changes that pushed me to stop using hammer.

Lots of quality of life stuff…. even some PvE splitting finally.

Seems like a real 180 from the direction everything was going a month ago.
Have to admit I’m really impressed and very relieved. … Even willing to take back a lot of the critical things I’ve said the past months, especially if this all holds up and doesn’t break too many other things that the game originally shipped with.

Sounds good so far actually, like a breath of fresh air.

Looking forward to see all the changes once patch hits! Although I do hope aswell some traits are a bit shuffled around or reworked for guardians too.(I’m looking at you Glacial Heart). Trait merges would be nice too (Spirit weapons!) also I don’t think 50% damage for spirit weapon is much WOW being in the grandmaster trait line on zeal.

But overall though , hyped again!

JonathanSharp.7094:

Other Misc. fixes:
Tab Targeting Improvements

• Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else

First of why the clones? I dont like targeting clones

Second of all: when you tab pvp does it mean that I will target players first then if you tab again it will target clones?

Third and last: Can we have the option to choose to target clones in the options window? I’d like to decheck tab targeting clones.

Thanks

mrauls.6519:

Wow!!! Keep improving Guardians and their ability to DPS. Make fury last 10 seconds base

Guardian DPS too strong guys, you heard it here first

Definitely a welcomed change, I was sick of running a shout-build in PvP/WvW and may now want to gasp play a viable offensive Guardian!

@Toby: that would nullify the point of the clones. Don’t count on it.

ilr.9675:

Lots of quality of life stuff…. even some PvE splitting finally.

Seems like a real 180 from the direction everything was going a month ago.
Have to admit I’m really impressed and very relieved. … Even willing to take back a lot of the critical things I’ve said the past months, especially if this all holds up and doesn’t break too many other things that the game originally shipped with.

PvE splitting is nice, but I think the real takeaway here is that PvE is now finally getting considered for balance instead of ignored. And that is great.

If this truly fixes tooltips, that will be a vast improvement to the game. That’s been my biggest annoyance since day 1. Seriously, I’ve never seen a game with the kinds of misleading tooltips that gw2 has and the lack of transparency is a lot of the reason metas were always off. For a long time, most rangers thought frost had ICD for example. And who would have known spike trap immobilizes when trap potentecy is taken unless you specifically tested it? These are core features that should have worked upon shipment but now I’m just soapboxing so I’ll step down.

Aza.2105:

Mr. Sharp,

I’m confused about monk’s focus, does it no longer heal? Or does it give fury and heal? And what replaces the focus mind trait? Its the trait that makes meditations instant.

I think he meant to write Focused Mind, since that trait would become redundant to the change to meditations. It currently makes all meditations instant casts.

Either way, as a Meditations guardian, I’m beyond stoked to see these changes being added to my play-style~!

JonathanSharp.7094:

Ranger
Sick ‘Em will now apply ‘Revealed” to enemies they target. We want to introduce some counter play to Stealth (players have asked for that for a while), so we thought a pet “catching your scent” might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.

Excellent! Finally some counterplay to Stealth.

More please!

So much for my wishful thinking of iCelerity being changed again. Really wish it was a 15/20 skill and not 25. Guess I get to keep gimping my “on kill build”. Oh well, maybe next round.

Though I must say, glad something is being done with Mantras. They’ve been needing some more love for awhile, and a useful group dynamic like that should help them out a great deal, so props for making those changes.

So glad about these patch note previews, KEEP DOING THEM WE LOVE IT!!!!!

JonathanSharp.7094:

Tab Targeting Improvements

• Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else
• Deselecting your target now resets tab selection history (aka, you’ll start tabbing through from the beginning if you deselect)
• Can now tab target if your character can see the target (Was dependent on camera before)

Any chance this can prioritize actively hostile (red text) enemies over non-hostile (yellow or white text) creatures? My character always seems to want to kill the wildlife that’s not attacking rather than the stuff that is.

Toby.2357:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Other Misc. fixes:
Tab Targeting Improvements

• Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else

First of why the clones? I dont like targeting clones

Of course you don’t, that’s the whole purpose of Mesmer. What’s the point of playing a mesmer with clones when everyone knows right away which is the real you simply by tab targeting?

“Pet HP split between PvE and PvP
We wanted to make pets and summons more viable in PvE/WvW while making sure they didn’t become too strong in PvP.”

Lumping WvW in with PvE is really scary for this change. Summons that can handle PvE levels of damage in smaller scale WvW are going to be very overpowered. If for instance you buff summons to be able to stand in AoE in PvE and that strength is brought to WvW how are you supposed to kill them out in the field?

Praise the five, finally some love for PvE players (no, the LS don’t count).

Toby.2357:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Other Misc. fixes:
Tab Targeting Improvements

• Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else

First of why the clones? I dont like targeting clones

Second of all: when you tab pvp does it mean that I will target players first then if you tab again it will target clones?

Third and last: Can we have the option to choose to target clones in the options window? I’d like to decheck tab targeting clones.

Thanks

I’m guessing it’s deliberate to make the clones annoying, the way the person casting them wants them to be!

P.S. I really like the prioritising Champions over trash thing. Thank you!

Thank you very much for the high level overview of things to come. As a side note to the patch notes, it would be nice to know more about ANet’s feelings of the specific classes. You mentioned several times in the past that you feel Warriors and Guardians are nearing where you want them. But there are other classes like the Ranger where players honestly don’t know what you want the class to do in the first place.

An overview of each class, where you feel they’re weak, where you feel they’re maybe too strong, and which direction you want to take them in the future would be very nice to know.

Someone help me out here. Did Jonathan actually say they were working on the targeting system, or am I hallucinating?

Thank you for all the hard work you have/are putting into this. As my main is a necro with celestial armor and divinity runes though I’m ready for anything. I was hoping to be the vampire of legend originally, seeing as the overall plan was to make us the go to attrition class. Hopeful this patch will get us closer to there, but if not I can always keep playing the power/hybrid I currently have.

necro axe could do with a rework, either make it a melee weapon with cleave or give it more range and add cleave to dagger

Dristig.9678:

“Pet HP split between PvE and PvP
We wanted to make pets and summons more viable in PvE/WvW while making sure they didn’t become too strong in PvP.”

Lumping WvW in with PvE is really scary for this change. Summons that can handle PvE levels of damage in smaller scale WvW are going to be very overpowered. If for instance you buff summons to be able to stand in AoE in PvE and that strength is brought to WvW how are you supposed to kill them out in the field?

The problem here is that there are two very divergent styles of play in WvW. In zergs, this is almost necessary so your pet can actually survive and do damage. Roaming, however, it does threaten to be OP.

So what should it be balanced around? I’d edge towards zerg-based combat and the health buff as that’s where the bulk of WvW focuses around. Roaming is fun and all, or at least I hear it is, but large-scale combat is where WvW shines and is what WvW should probably be balanced around. And there, that health buff is practically necessary to run anything but a ranged pet.

Toby.2357:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Other Misc. fixes:
Tab Targeting Improvements

• Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else

First of why the clones? I dont like targeting clones

Second of all: when you tab pvp does it mean that I will target players first then if you tab again it will target clones?

Third and last: Can we have the option to choose to target clones in the options window? I’d like to decheck tab targeting clones.

Thanks

The point of mesmer clones is to confuse you, if you could automatically target the “real” mesmer it would completely defeat the purpose.

Please don’t change the s/d thief in pve. They are already very squishy in pve with such low vit. However I’m totally fine (obv.) with the nerf in pvp where boons are fewer.
Please split larcenous strike for pve and pvp

Dristig.9678:

“Pet HP split between PvE and PvP
We wanted to make pets and summons more viable in PvE/WvW while making sure they didn’t become too strong in PvP.”

Lumping WvW in with PvE is really scary for this change. Summons that can handle PvE levels of damage in smaller scale WvW are going to be very overpowered. If for instance you buff summons to be able to stand in AoE in PvE and that strength is brought to WvW how are you supposed to kill them out in the field?

Pets already basically are losers in the current state. Ascended weapons means they die faster now and no one kills the pet in roaming combat anyways…

What’s scary is the way rangers are considered not viable by all the gvg’ers and wvw’ers and then there’s people who would say that. Clearly the community is split on rangers. The old fallacy: ranger is either OP or UP. When will you guys in the community stop holding ranger down?

Combat log changes are what have me most excited. Hopefully now I’ll be able to see how much I heal for. When I was trying to build a life steal necro a while back and I had 4 or 5 sources of of on hit/on crit healing, there was no real way for me to track all those tiny green numbers. I’m cautiously optimistic about bloodline trait changes, but “being improved” doesn’t really tell me anything, last time we were promised improvements we got terrible hp scaling on on trait. This is at least better than being in the dark until patch day. But I still want numbers! (Even just speculative numbers!)

Please, for the love of kittens, change Ranger sword auto (#1) so you are NOT glued into the combat animation. The one glaring issue with using Sword Ranger in PvP/WvW.

It’s nifty useful in PvE where you can faceroll stay on target since the animation locks you into constantly closing on the target, but this isn’t a reason to leave it as broken as it is.

Thank you for this, Sharp. Can’t comment specifically on anything ATM, but I think we all appreciate the opportunity to get a chance to preview, digest and possibly provide feed back before the patch hits.

Please keep doing this with every balance patch from now on.

Only one question: How can be matched a balance skill with the insane amount of time required to update the ascended gear to this new meta?

In other words: once this balance patch is out, will be players be able to update their builds before the next one?

SynfulChaot.3169:

Dristig.9678:

“Pet HP split between PvE and PvP
We wanted to make pets and summons more viable in PvE/WvW while making sure they didn’t become too strong in PvP.”

Lumping WvW in with PvE is really scary for this change. Summons that can handle PvE levels of damage in smaller scale WvW are going to be very overpowered. If for instance you buff summons to be able to stand in AoE in PvE and that strength is brought to WvW how are you supposed to kill them out in the field?

The problem here is that there are two very divergent styles of play in WvW. In zergs, this is almost necessary so your pet can actually survive and do damage. Roaming, however, it does threaten to be OP.

So what should it be balanced around? I’d edge towards zerg-based combat and the health buff as that’s where the bulk of WvW focuses around. Roaming is fun and all, or at least I hear it is, but large-scale combat is where WvW shines and is what WvW should probably be balanced around. And there, that health buff is practically necessary to run anything but a ranged pet.

I’m on Blackgate. I know all about fighting zergs. I would hope they could come up with something like WoW did and give them increased resistance to AoE not just buff their HP way up like they have been doing.

Even something like deprioritizing summons in the AoE 5 count would be better than just buffing HP so high that no player can kill a Ranger Elite summon.

I don’t have the answer I just hope they can be more creative than a 70% hp buff.

Toby.2357:

First of why the clones? I dont like targeting clones

Second of all: when you tab pvp does it mean that I will target players first then if you tab again it will target clones?

Third and last: Can we have the option to choose to target clones in the options window? I’d like to decheck tab targeting clones.

Thanks

You do realize clones are SUPPOSED to be indistinguishable from the player right, it’s part of the Mesmer defense? People don’t attack clones cause they think they are cute and fluffy.

If the change affected clones they’d be breaking a core mechanic of the class, and that’s generally not a good idea, or at least not fun to be on the receiving end.

Thank you for the post. This kind of posts bring back hope for the game.
Cheers and good job!

As a Guardian main, I’d like to suggest (Skills that aren’t very useful):

Spirit Weapons:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Time-to-evaluate-spirit-weapons/first#post2787320

Healing Breeze:
As the leaked, it really should be buffed in some way. Now is just useless.

Hallowed Ground:
Should be a stun breaker or have its CD reduced.

Signet of Mercy:
Its Cast time and CD are just ridiculous. Almost 4 sec to revive? I revive faster in direct reviving. Why I would use it if I can use santuary aside my ally (nobody can gets close, so no stomp) and both me and my ally do not have to worry about projectiles during reviving. Its cast time should be 2 sec and its CD 90~120.

Mace:
Symbol of Faith (#2) should have its cast time reduced to 1s, down from 1 1/4
Protector’s Strike (#3) should be a blast finisher if activated and its “protection if not struck” should be available as an option during the cast.

Traits:
Zeal
Zealous Blade (VII): The healing should scale with healing power (very little).
Focused Mastery (VIII): Should have a secondary effect like the torch and shield to become more interesting.

Radiance
Inner Fire (IV): Should activate with torch #4, so it wouldn’t be so situtional in PvE.
Searing Flames (V): Should have its CD reduced to at least 15 sec to be useful.
Powerful Blades (X): Should have secondary effects like Scepter (more dmg) or mace (HP).

Valor
Honorable Shield (IX): should be in the Adept line. (The shield needs some love. In this way, it will be a very little buff)
Courageous Return (Minor – Mater): Only recharge if you kill a monster when downed. Should recharge with any type of come back.

Virtues
Retaliatory Subconscious (IV): never saw a light field, ever.

Before someone starts to throw knives at me, these are only suggestions.

My only problem with the ground targeting isn’t in when it casts (on click, on release, etc) it is with the size/visibility of the cursor. If you could add an option to make the cursor size a slider, i would offer to give you my first born.

He wouldn’t mind he has been looking for a better home anyways.