Guild Wars 2

raahk.2786:

darkace.8925:

raahk.2786:

A stealth-based thief will be completely crippled because a ranger has a single skill on their utility bar, and will then be left defenseless since he didn’t spec in to the acrobatics line and only has two dodges, with a maximum of four or five if using sword/dagger.

Yours might, mine won’t. If you can’t survive long enough for Reveal to wear off then you need to stop relying on stealth so you’ll learn to dodge, kite, use crowd control, and use terrain to your advantage. Or perhaps you need to stop running a one-trick-pony build and start running something a little more balanced? Either way, I can say with all certainty that stealth is NOT required for a thief’s survival.

Because the heal itself doesn’t restore health, right? Just because YOU can’t survive without stealth doesn’t mean the class itself can’t survive without stealth. Try trading in some of your Berserker’s gear and using the other tools given to you before claiming your glass cannon build is too fragile to survive without stealth? If you rely upon stealth to survive then you’re using stealth as a crutch.

Oh good, more people insulting my skill level while making assumptions. It was a hypothetical situation. You’re low on health, so you hide in shadows to stealth, heal, and get away from the multitude of people that are nearby. Instead, you’re met with the revealed mechanic and despite using dodges you’re still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly.

And please, point me in the direction of a build more viable then just the berserker, because I have yet to see it.

But please continue to discount other’s opinions by making assumptions about how they play without actually knowing how they play.

“You’re low on health, so you hide in shadows to stealth, heal, and get away from the multitude of people that are nearby. Instead, you’re met with the revealed mechanic and despite using dodges you’re still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly. "

Dear sir, you failed to use your dodge to dodge the correct skill. You should dodge the Sic Em, not dodge after the Ranger’s PET has used Sic Em on you. There are some seriously dangerous skills out there that must be dodged right or you die. Moa, Kill Shot and Eviscerate all say hi.

Please learn to dodge the correct skill at the right time, and thank you for learning how to play GW2 correctly.

Why should Thieves be the only class that can “get away from the multitude of people that are nearby.” ? I replace your scenario with a Warrior, a Mesmer, a Guardian, an Ele and all of them are "still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly. " I’ll even replace your Thief by 2 Warriors. Oh wait, both of them are also "still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly. "

So wait, what people are also implying here,
If a Warrior uses Signet of Might to take down a Guardian using Shelter, that’s fair.
If a Ranger uses Sic Em to take down a Thief using Hide in the Shadows, that’s unfair.
Right?

And hmm, nobody is insulting your skill level. When people see the truth and tell it to you in the face, it is not an insult, it is just the truth.
Warning: The Truth may hurt your pride.
I’m a little zerker thief that cannot survive without the guarantee that nobody can pull me out of my little stealth, not even by a little pet with a little skill that has 40 seconds recharge and can be dodged. It hurts my little feelings that you are introducing a little counter to my little broken mechanic. I cannot kill other players if I do not hide my little self and use my little zerker equipment. QQ

There are other thief players right here who just said they can survive without stealth.

They = can
You = cant
I dont have to say anything else, everyone can clearly see the difference in skill level.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Dristig.9678:

Yeah that’s the sort of thing I’m afraid of. Rangers and Necros and Mesmers can just solo all your camps if they buff summons to the point of surviving Arrow cart spam.

I also don’t understand why they don’t base hp and power off of the players gear. You shouldn’t be wearing Zerker gear and get tanky pets. You want tanky pets? Get tanky gear.

That’s a kinda short-sighted way of looking at it. Forcing both you and your pet to act similiar stat-wise regardless reduces options. The thing is that if the player is glassy then you take them down and take out both the ranger and their pet. But if the pet is forced to be glassy, then all power-based rangers will have nigh-useless pets around any sort of spammable AoE. And that would invalidate many, many builds.

Rangers want more non-bunker options. But forcing bunker stats for survivable pets only continues the endless pushing of rangers into bunkers.

This. Although at the moment ranger is still about as bad it has ever been, lacking any truly good builds for any of the three game modes.

Please do note, devs, that bunker rangers do almost nothing in this game aside from surviving, and that even a non-bunker guardian, for example, is a better bunker than any ranger. We need a thorough revision of our trait lines and pets still need a lot of love. If pet AI can’t become smarter about not focusing inanimate objects and standing in clouds and red circles, some AOE resistance might be just the ticket. The official word on ranger has always been that pets are our defining mechanic. And that mechanic has always been broken, and has been nerfed multiple times over the past year.

F2 skills still need attention as well. They still often don’t activate at all when requested, or the activation time is so long as to require the player to make uncanny predictions of the future.

Given ranger’s current state, adding a reveal mechanic wouldn’t even really count as throwing us a bone. Improving brown bear’s condition removal would be welcome but would have to be impressive indeed if it were to even achieve parity with the condition removal skills of other professions. Meanwhile, guardian and warrior are slated to become even more incredibly awesome than they already are now?

It would be interesting, though probably not reassuring, to see some in-depth developer analysis of how ranger is considered to be in okay shape presently, and how it will be likely to fare after October 15th’s buffs to every other profession.

rittenhaus.2658:

This. Although at the moment ranger is still about as bad it has ever been, lacking any truly good builds for any of the three game modes.

I don’t really follow high level PvP or anything, but as someone with a level 80 of every profession, I read this and envisioned myself doing a spit take.

It looks like there are some starts towards improving condition damage in there.

Are there any additional plans for condition damage? All condition users have been essentially completely useless in 90% of the game for over a year now. Are there any fixes coming?

Individual stacks for everyone would of course be ideal, but since your servers are from the 70’s or something I guess this isn’t possible. How about individual stacks only on world bosses? surely if you can handle just that? or what about individual stacks just in dungeons? this would be equivalent to adding 5 mobs to a spawn in a dungeon… I KNOW the servers can handle that.

All these changes and tweaks are nice, but condition damage is a fundamental part of your games combat and it has been fundamentally broken since launch. At this point it is become sort of an embarrassment to tell people about. Please fix it.

jcbroe.4329:

If the devs are still reading, it would be very nice to see a blog post similar to last years, where it took each class, discussed it’s current position in the game, how close you felt them to being in an okay spot (or the spot you want them in), and what spot the dev team is actually aiming for, with the functions the class should be performing well at, and how.

If you guys can take the time to do it that is, we know it’s a busy schedule.

I second this. I am really quite curious to see how the team rationalizes the present state of affairs and the upcoming changes.

Signet of Forums.4397:

rittenhaus.2658:

This. Although at the moment ranger is still about as bad it has ever been, lacking any truly good builds for any of the three game modes.

I don’t really follow high level PvP or anything, but as someone with a level 80 of every profession, I read this and envisioned myself doing a spit take.

I often think we are all playing different versions of this game, in parallel universes. I’ve played all professions to 80 and have specialized in guardian and ranger at 80, going so far as to have more than one of each in order to learn things and make my life easier.

So yes, spit take if that’s your reaction. But I honestly don’t see how ranger could be viewed as anything other than a third rate profession in its present state. It is an absolute joke except situationally (spirit ranger in pvp) when taken in the context of what other professions are able to do. If I were here to make jokes or yank your chain, you’d know it.

Pheew, too much to read X.x

As a Mesmer, some Thoughts:

I like the Idea of the AoE-Effect on Mantras, BUT istn “Mantra of Resolve” by adding an “AoE-Effect” becomming pretty much the same like “Null-Field”? There may be some nuanceds betweens the Skills and Mantra of Resolve will now be good group support if you are palying a Mantra-Support Build, but seeing the both only as a “Condi-Remove” They both are almost identical (then).

Could you imagine the AoE-Effect for “Mantra of Pain”, too ? As this Mantra doesnt that mutch Damage at all and is probably mostly used for spamming + recharge → heal?

Is there a way to improve Illusionary Leap? In my Expirience, the Skill often fails, sometimes it just doesnt even create a Clone (within Range), other times the clone or the ports have some probs on hills etc.

And some Changes to the Scepter (like mentioned some times before) would probably be great, too.

Thanks for the update on class changes. However I definitely have some concerns about the profession I play which “was” the Mesmer. I have spent countless hours out in WvW and for the majority of it I would say I like to roam and small group play. However every now and then I will join the raids when there are good fights going around. I am still ASTONISHED at how slow my profession is compared to almost every other class out there… I simply try to keep up with my group mates and I get blown away by their passive run speed. Now my options are to equip focus, which gives me 12 seconds of swiftness unless I build boon duration and focus is terrible in group fights compared to other weapons I could be wearing. Or I need to spend lots of gold on a Rune set like the Traveller’s to give me a passive run speed bonus. Why is this issue not addressed at all? Why is the focus on Mantras instead of this glaring issue?

The other issue I have is with the lack of options I have on successful builds in WvW. The mesmer has plenty of support yes… but why do I HAVE to spec to support? I want to do damage and survive. I have spent a lot of time and gold figuring out a balance of damage/survivability with multiple builds. My main build used to be a condition spec where I would apply confusion and hit for 6k ticks with it. Granted I had 2k condition damage then and could stack my confusion regularly to at least 10-12 with ease. Now my confusion hits for 2k-3k…. and my condition damage is even higher than it was before. Why was this nerfed to begin with? And why was it nerfed to that extent? You can remove conditions! I tell you what you can’t remove is a 8k-9k hit from a thief who is invisible the entire time. And I have 1750 toughness by the way and I still get hit for that. So since conditions are pretty much useless since our “main” condition is confusion (and bleed stacks aren’t enough) I am left with either a tanky support build or a Power/Phantasm beserker build. The power phantasm build does do good damage but the damage comes from the phantasms and it relies on NPC combat! It sure does a lot of good when it gets dodge rolled and sits there for another 8 seconds to attack again. I think some things need to be reworked with this class. More and more people are playing other professions because of many of these issues.

Another issue and this will be my final one is our trait lines… There are quite a few useless traits in many of the lines that I wouldn’t equip even in the rarest of circumstances. It seems like there wasn’t as much thought into their traits compared to lets just say a Warrior, where everything flows really well no matter what spec you want to run. I made a Warrior yesterday just to look through the trait lines and see how many AMAZING traits they have compared to my profession and I lost count after 2 minutes. I’m not saying that any other class is overpowered but I definitely feel like there are many things lacking about the Mesmer profession that should be looked into. Unless you are okay with the majority of people playing 3 or 4 other professions and neglecting this one.

With all that being said I like the concept of the class and I wish to see some better improvements than just MANTRAS in the future. Thanks!

So far I love these ideas.

Two things though, regarding the Engineer.

1. It would be awesome to have a “turret toolkit” utility skill, with all our turrets in one toolkit similar to Grenade Kit or Bomb Kit, instead of a single turret per utility slot. Or would this be OP?
2. Can you please make our Elite Mortar skill into a Mortar Turret?? Right now, as cool as i think a Mortar is… I never use this skill because it needs to be manned, and takes away my mobility. If it functioned on its own like a turret does it would be so great!

thank you!

PS.. Why cant My Necromancer’s Flesh Golem learn how to swim already?

Re: Elementalist staff

I love using the staff on my ele. Especially for healing support. But I have one minor issue with the some of the skills. There are so many targeted AoEs. And in the heat of battle or a difficult fight with a mob it can be a little difficult to target the AoEs. Sometimes the cursor gets lost in all the activity on the screen or sometimes my coordination fails me. Sometimes I wish they were Point Blank AoEs, but not all the time.

I think it’d be cool to have it where: (And maybe this could be a trait to add this behavior) Press the number for the skill & a modifier key and it becomes a Point Blank AoE, just for that one cast. Press the number without the modifier key, it’s a Targeted AoE, just like now. (Both with the same radii and same effects)

So an ele could cast some skills as Targeted AoEs and some as Point Blank AoEs quickly and easily.

PS – This goes for every targeted AoE in every attunement. Not just 2-5 in the water attunement.

I like the overall changes as they seem to be more of a buff rebalance than a nerf rebalance which always makes it more fun for everybody.

Regarding the combat log, I would really like it work as the DPS and HPS meters we see out there, so that it can provide not only the instant values but also some averages or overall stats of how much damage, tanking (?) or healing I’m doing. I think this would make it a lot more useful and push it a step ahead of the competition. Just sayin’!

Best regards,
JD

Runes and Sigils are getting love? That’s great! However, if you REALLY want to promote build diversity, and make crafting something other than a race to max cap, could Anet please respond to my thread https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Fine-Material-Crafting-Revamp-please

thanks for the preview, i hope we can expect more previews like this in the future.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

There are other thief players right here who just said they can survive without stealth.

They = can
You = cant
I dont have to say anything else, everyone can clearly see the difference in skill level.

I think the point that raahk is trying to make is that stealth is one of the major—if not the major—survival mechanic for Thieves. It is used both offensively and defensively, and as group support with moves like Shadow Refuge.

A lot of of counters for stealth exist indirectly, within proactive play. Traps, wells, and other ground-based effects; aoe and/or condition damage; blocking; invulnerability; channeled skills (which continue to hit a thief after they have stealthed, revealing their position); shatter/chain burst; immobilize; daze; stun (or stunbreaks, as the case may be); and dodging—all of these can prevent stealth, down a Thief during stealth, and/or prevent a stealth spike. Adding more anti-stealth measures may end up crippling the class, particularly within the varieties of the Backstab meta.

Personally, I’m fine with the class being moved away from hinging on stealth—and I think this could be a good first step—but it does need compensation for it, as I stated in my earlier post in this thread.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Class balance:

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.

To help Rangers support allies, we increased the ability ranger pets have to support allies. For instance, the Bear condition removal isn’t strong enough, so we’ll be improving that. Moas and Fern Hound will also be improved.

There will also be # changes to some of the Ranger weapons.

If this is implemented, could stealth also break channeled abilities? There is already a ton of counterplay to stealth which doesn’t explicitly break stealth (ranger rapid fire’s long channel or knocking the thief out of smoke filed and shadow refuge for example ) and renders going into stealth useless. If thief access to defense is going to be reduced (through being able to take fewer boons or flat out revealed by the opponent), it would be nice if the defenses had meaning when activated.

I run shout warrior so any improvements are welcomed, I also like being able to break launch as I often waste my shake it off, by using it while I’m still in the air

Turtle Dragon.9241:

raahk.2786:

darkace.8925:

raahk.2786:

A stealth-based thief will be completely crippled because a ranger has a single skill on their utility bar, and will then be left defenseless since he didn’t spec in to the acrobatics line and only has two dodges, with a maximum of four or five if using sword/dagger.

Yours might, mine won’t. If you can’t survive long enough for Reveal to wear off then you need to stop relying on stealth so you’ll learn to dodge, kite, use crowd control, and use terrain to your advantage. Or perhaps you need to stop running a one-trick-pony build and start running something a little more balanced? Either way, I can say with all certainty that stealth is NOT required for a thief’s survival.

Because the heal itself doesn’t restore health, right? Just because YOU can’t survive without stealth doesn’t mean the class itself can’t survive without stealth. Try trading in some of your Berserker’s gear and using the other tools given to you before claiming your glass cannon build is too fragile to survive without stealth? If you rely upon stealth to survive then you’re using stealth as a crutch.

Oh good, more people insulting my skill level while making assumptions. It was a hypothetical situation. You’re low on health, so you hide in shadows to stealth, heal, and get away from the multitude of people that are nearby. Instead, you’re met with the revealed mechanic and despite using dodges you’re still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly.

And please, point me in the direction of a build more viable then just the berserker, because I have yet to see it.

But please continue to discount other’s opinions by making assumptions about how they play without actually knowing how they play.

“You’re low on health, so you hide in shadows to stealth, heal, and get away from the multitude of people that are nearby. Instead, you’re met with the revealed mechanic and despite using dodges you’re still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly. "

Dear sir, you failed to use your dodge to dodge the correct skill. You should dodge the Sic Em, not dodge after the Ranger’s PET has used Sic Em on you. There are some seriously dangerous skills out there that must be dodged right or you die. Moa, Kill Shot and Eviscerate all say hi.

Please learn to dodge the correct skill at the right time, and thank you for learning how to play GW2 correctly.

Why should Thieves be the only class that can “get away from the multitude of people that are nearby.” ? I replace your scenario with a Warrior, a Mesmer, a Guardian, an Ele and all of them are "still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly. " I’ll even replace your Thief by 2 Warriors. Oh wait, both of them are also "still left with multiple conditions and downed instantly. "

So wait, what people are also implying here,
If a Warrior uses Signet of Might to take down a Guardian using Shelter, that’s fair.
If a Ranger uses Sic Em to take down a Thief using Hide in the Shadows, that’s unfair.
Right?

And hmm, nobody is insulting your skill level. When people see the truth and tell it to you in the face, it is not an insult, it is just the truth.
Warning: The Truth may hurt your pride.
I’m a little zerker thief that cannot survive without the guarantee that nobody can pull me out of my little stealth, not even by a little pet with a little skill that has 40 seconds recharge and can be dodged. It hurts my little feelings that you are introducing a little counter to my little broken mechanic. I cannot kill other players if I do not hide my little self and use my little zerker equipment. QQ

There are other thief players right here who just said they can survive without stealth.

They = can
You = cant
I dont have to say anything else, everyone can clearly see the difference in skill level.

I like you I really do you replaced that scenario with other classes while yes multitude of people time my dodges and shield stance b4 qs to gs whirlwind and rush ooc but even then it’s VERY particular in your timing to get away and still might be not possible ie thieves have what hmm shortbow teleport utility teleport sword teleport and a pull utility shortbow can be spammed up to 3 times making it near impossible to escape them (remember sword tele is also an immobilize so that zerg you were running from is now all trying to stomp you)

Edit: so all you stealth spamming noobs play a class without it for a bit and see how you fare actually requires you know your class ie actual skilled thieves not the blind and stealth spamming ones.

Sanlucifer.1742:

You need to tone down the damage overall , or buff the defense to light armor classes a bit, conditions are way over the limit at the moment specially with the new runes like confusion stacking to all the enemies around in 3 seconds 25 stacks ( Engi), need more remove all condition skills and less heals.

Thieves been able to almost 2hit a person in a small zerg and disappearing to heal and cure all conditions and keep doing it over and over until he actually misclicks something or gets 15 people aeoing all over the place, almost the same with mesmers.

Warriors are impossible to catch if they decide to escape and they heal way too much.

PvE is too easy , needs to be little bit more challenging.

WvW needs a huge balance in classes, cant determinate the balance just by judging spvp.

this very much. i hope the devs make the next balance around wvw and not spvp as certain classes are stuck with being weak ans squishy in wvw due to spvp balance. thieves/mesmers/rangers need a makeover in wvw.
warriors/necros need to be toned down.
eles dragon tooth and aoe on walls has to be toned down a little, but they could use some love in other areas.
the cc spam has to be toned down,
perplexity 6/6 has to be burned or the interrupt part either replaced with additional confusion dmg or a big icd added
rangers and mesmers need wvw zvz abilities as being support or not useful is not fun at all(im not talking about roaming)
necromarks are too much spammable for how strong they are, also necros should not be able to attack u with no los on walls.
guard leeching causes issues
bloodlust could be a disaster
some siege masteries are too much giant zerg can drain all supply from a keep with trebmastery
acs should not be able to hit u due to zoomhacks

etc….

we need the balance team to please focus on a zv sitiation for the next balance patch. i know mesmers are good in roaming and spvp, but have a hard time to get out of they supportrole in zvz. we lack aoe dmg and our traitlines need a makeover.

doubt number 1: Purging Flames: How many allies it affects ?
doubt number 2: Purging Flames: If I’m inside two consecration’s areas I will receive 2x -condition duration or just one ?

i heard there is coming priority to group on boons, its also aplied to heal, auras, banner buffs?

What if Sic Em’… Works on Simin?

GLF Ranger Arah p4!

In all seriousness, this is a HUGE Gameplay changer if it counters bosses with stealth!

elementalist:

please lower the cooldown of ride the lightning back to 15s, and increase the range again

SEPARATE from PvP if that is the issue.

i need to be able to traverse large distances in PvE and I can’t anymore. so i have now had to sacrifice damage for speed so I have mainly been using staff. i don’t like staff. i want to be able to use scepter/dagger again.

The engineer changes are groundbreaking. Thanks for those.

“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.”

might be a cool way ? – are you kidding me ?.
“(players have asked for that for a while), " – the most of these posts i’ve ever read, came from players who had absolutely no idea how stealth rly works and what that means for an thief. … And now after all these month’s without any changes on this mechanic you gave these players right with the reason: “It might be a cool way to insinuate some anti-stealth into the game.” – Are You Kidding Me ?!

How long does it take, before other classes get this “cool anti-stealth buff” ?

any love for S/P thieves? something small to pistol whip would go a long way. (eg. longer stun duration or smaller initiative cost)

JonPeters.5630:

Just finished reading through all 12 pages. Thanks to everyone for 12 pages of positive and constructive feedback. Keep it up and keep in mind these are updates from just the skills team so try to focus on skills traits and other combat related stuff.

Jon

What will come on the 17th?

Super Riceman.8702:

JonPeters.5630:

Just finished reading through all 12 pages. Thanks to everyone for 12 pages of positive and constructive feedback. Keep it up and keep in mind these are updates from just the skills team so try to focus on skills traits and other combat related stuff.

Jon

What will come on the 17th?

SpongeBob 2.0 aka Teq 2

I’m sorry, but you have your priorities completely mixed up when it comes to Stealth.

If there is a problem with Stealth, fix Stealth itself.

If it’s perma-stealth dagger/pistol that’s the problem, fix that, and tone down the initiative regen traits that make it possible.

If it’s C&D chaining that’s the problem, fix that and make revealed apply when you drop out of stealth even without attacking.

If Backstab being too easy to land is the problem, fix that and make only the first slot1 attack in stealth act as a Stealth attack, and the rest regular auto’s.

If it’s perma-dodge that’s the problem, fix that and leave stealth alone.

Whatever you do, please don’t continue down this path of turning Stealth into a mechanic that can be disabled at the whim of anyone who happens to hate thieves enough to run these Stealth disabling items/abilities/traits.

A mechanic like enemy-induced Revealed that disables a major class mechanic like Stealth has no place in this game, period. This is by far the most lazy and reactionary form of balance I have seen from you guys.

First stealth trap, now this. Two points make a slope, and this makes me very concerned about where you’re trying to take Stealth as a mechanic.

If you go far enough Stealth will be practically pointless as a build option for Thieves, and you might as well scrap Stealth entirely and give us something that maybe people will hate on less, so you don’t have to be pressured into making ridiculous mechanic-specific counters like this.

Thank you for posting this, and for giving us the opportunity to provide our input.

Elementalist Focus skills (especially Fire!) need a rework; at the very least, they need CD reductions. At the moment there is very little reason to ever carry /F over /D.

Ele auto-attacks could also use some love; we seriously lack sustain, which is something we need in exchange for having such low base survivability. Auto-attacks are the bread-and-butter of other professions’ sustain, but not for Eles (with the exception of Lightning Whip.)

Conjures being buffed is good; however, I’m concerned if it’ll be enough. Conjures are awkward to use because they lock us out of our attunements (swapping bonuses notwithstanding), and combined with our low survivability it’s hard to find enough time to actually use Conjures before needing to drop them. It doesn’t help that none of the Conjures break stun, and are not instant-cast.

I think the RtL nerf needs to be revisited. I’m not advocating returning its CD to 15/20 seconds, but 40 seconds is overkill. Plus, the fact that blocking/evading RtL still makes it go on 40 sec CD kinda ruins the point of using it offensively.

Cantrips in general could use a CD reduction. Healing in Mist Form was removed, and Armor of Earth’s CD is kinda high for its effect. Cleansing Fire is no longer a stunbreaker, and I know its CD was shaved, but I still think it could use a slight reduction.

Lingering Elements—this trait needs to be fixed! It does not work with all the attunements and attunement-swap effects.

The Fire trait line needs major love.

I’m also puzzled about the range reduction to Elemental Attunement. That trait is a huge source of group support as an Elementalist—why nerf it if you want Eles to fulfill the support role better?

Overall, seems like a good start, but more could be done. Thank you again!

“Hard to Catch” for thieves seems like it’s rarely taken. It would be nice if you guys could replace it with something like condition removal on dodge so stealthless thieves can have active condition removal in this high condition meta and especially if the reliable condition removal may be cancelled out by rangers. Maybe it could only remove damaging conditions so you’d have to pair it with fleet of foot to get full condition removal, but it would be nice to not have to spec into shadow arts for condi removal.

OMG, devs actually read all this? Wow… i’m really surprised.

Well i hope i’m not too late with some Engineer class feedback then :P

Quoting myself from my thread:

You mentioned quality of life Engineer changes in your thread… does this mean we’ll finally see such important and gamebreaking bugs like static discharge targetting issue and grenade kit autocast problem will be fixed?

Those 2 bugs are major things that make many builds nearly unplayble and they fit into quality of life category…

I do hope you’ll adress some other engineer problems in FUTURE too, like Blunderbuss being lower than melle range, grenade kit being the ONLY viable dps kit and retaliation boon being overpowered vs anything that does more than 1 tick of damage (grenade kit and flamethrower come to mind) Really, you would be laughing if you’ll play engineer with those 2 things and try to use them in a teamfight. You will kill yourself quicker than any of enemies will die. Just look at death recap after that xD

Oh and FIX OUR USELESS DOWNED STATE PLEASE

Edit: Also wanted to comment on thiefs… Don’t you guys feel like venoms are luckluster by themselves, not even considering sharing aura? Really, who would bother with 3 seconds chill on hits that can be blocked/absorbed/dodged making them go to waste? And that’s all single target and on friggin 45sec cd… Not even meantioning that immobilize venom doesn’t stack with itself, making it only 2 seconds immobilize in all cases. Poison? We have enough of poison applicators. That leaves only with that tiny duration torment which is weaker version of bleed, unless you’re fighting a newbie that can’t stand still for couple of seconds when you hit him with it. Not even mentioning it’s just a slightly buffed version of 2 bleed stacks… meh.

Also traps… Anyone uses them? Like at all… I NEVER saw anyone use traps, such tiny aoe on them makes you always ignore them… imo they should be circular like nerco’s marks.

And last but not least…NECROMANCER…. is class that has crazy unmigitatable aoe huge range dmg(condi spam), alot of tanking tools(many conditions help u with that too) and is basicly immune to conditions himself supposed to have a spammable 4 seconds per application disable that does around 7k damage? Really, 4 seconds once, then 4 seconds again and you lost all your hp JUST to that fear damage, no other condis involved. just. fear. alone… and that a 8 seconds stun… and it can make you fall from huge heigh making it an insta-gib… Do you guys really think it’s balanced in any way or form? It’s really first game i saw where a class that has no downsides at all also got such crazy form of disable…

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Counter Play, every game developer needs to watch this video.
http://youtu.be/BRBcjsOt0_g

I’ll try to compile some of the simplest band aid-fix style changes for Ele that could really help. Gonna do my best to keep this as short and sweet as I possibly can, these are changes I really would like to see.

Staff

Fireball – Radius boosted to 120 from 90.

Would really like even bigger like 240 even at a slight dmg cost just to make it aoe

Lava Font – Radius boosted to 180 from 120. Tics dmg instantly when placed.

Radius boost is needed for same reasons as Geyser, instant dmg tic isn’t important though IMO

Water Blast – Radius increased to 240 from 90.

The heal boost is completely useless when the range is still 90, that doesn’t hit anyone

Ice Spike – Cast time reduced to 1/2 or 3/4 seconds.

Has delay already, cast time too long for how spammable it is.

Chain Lightning/Lightning Surge – Damage boost. Surge CD set to 8 from 10.

Staff air dmg is really weak, Fire is the ONLY attunement that actually does decent dmg, there’s a reason you see people sit in Fire

I would also REALLY REALLY like to see their roles reversed. Air Auto should be single target with good dmg, and Surge should be a chain lightning effect with nice dmg. If this can’t happen then atleast boost their dmg please!

Gust – Needs a bigger projectile width, or just become a cone knockback.

Eruption – Cast time reduced to 1/2 or 3/4.

Same reason as Ice Spike, already has massive delay and a really short cooldown which makes the cast time eat up too much of your time

That’s all I could ask for staff, hope it’s considered.

Focus

Firewall – Needs a condensed effect to punish people for running through it just once, like 5s burn, and/or some other effects. Fear would be really cool, or a cripple. Or Fire Aura application on allies. Or much higher power dmg per tic and larger width.

Fire Aura – Longer ICD and stronger effect OR stronger effect that refreshes instead of stacks. 3s Burn that refreshes (not stacks). Needs a much lower cooldown, 40 is insane. Could also just replace it with a new skill entirely if Fire Wall applies Fire Aura.

All aura/armors in general need a better effect on slower attacks now that they have an ICD to make it less OP against fast attacks. Especially as an Elementalist you can’t afford to be taking enough hits to make good use of these

Chill Wind (The Focus Water #4) – 3 second chill on 25 skill is just bad, make it aoe, or longer duration, or shorter cooldown, or add an extra utility like 1s immobilize or boon strip.

Ride the Lightning – Please revert the nerf to something less clunky. I don’t like the mechanic at all. Just set the cooldown to 25 seconds or something.

Arcane Trait Attunement Cooldown

Band Aid Fix – Reduced to 1% attunement cooldown reduction per point spent from 2%. Attunement Cooldowns adjusted to 13 seconds base (or w/e would meet half way).

Attunement cooldowns are insane w/o Arcane and promote spamming and hurt your ability to save important cooldowns

That’s a list of the things I REALLY care about mostly, tried to keep as small as I possibly could to avoid asking for too much, but I really want to see those changes if at all possible. 2 main ones are Staff Air dmg buffs and Arcane Trait dependency changes.

Thanks if you read. <3

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if balance is the goal.

Razarei.2809:

If you get a moment Jonathan- https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/JonathanSharp-A-few-words/first#post2837897

Uhm absolutely not for PVE thanks, they can do this for PVP and WVW anyday just please don’t do this for PVE it’s ridiculous because PVE already has waaaaay too many problems with weak and ineffective skills and traits as it is that need to be fixed before they do anything like experiment with this!

timidobserver.7925:

The engineer changes are groundbreaking. Thanks for those.

I agree they are a great start absolutely!

This is generally why MMOs require a public test realm, this lets you pump out new ideas without angering players on live. Let’s say you want to test a new ability, but you’re not sure if it’s a) Broken b) IMBA c) useless. The priority in reasoning is to give ‘players’ not the QA testers, but actual people who play your games a chance to test out the new mechanic. This gives you reliable data, and a more interaction with players who can see if the new ability will create problems. Then that gives you the room to fix it, and re-launch it when it ‘works’ on live.

Overall the passed few updates have been ‘rushed’ so a lot of content in broken upon release, so we the players have to wait a day or two for a fix. But that one day of broken content is enough trouble to give a lot of anguish.

I know it’s not my place to say, but I don’t feel your QA team give honest feedback on your updates. I feel like a lot of new things get passed on without the proper context to have it ‘fixed’ prior to live release. A primary example of this, is the Liadari incident. I understand that only 8% of your ‘testers’ managed to defeat her, but how did none of them bring up the concern about the red floor. That in itself, was a design flaw and was left unchecked. Not only that but it was never fixed and given any feedback from the developers, so the players were just ‘left’ with it. That’s a brutal concern on my end, as it reminds me of something similar to the flaw of CoD, where hackers run rampant on PC, but activision gives no input/fix to that problem, the game is sold ‘as is’.

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

That is called doing damage. It’s the soft-counter to anything in the game with HP, and is not even specific to the pet mechanic.

A hard-counter for the pet, more analogous to Revealed would be something that disables the pet and pet swap for x seconds.

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

Well they could make it so it just makes the pet see through your stealth and chase you down, and if it manages to attack you then it reveals.

Then you have counterplay to Sick Em by dodging/avoiding/cc’ing pet.

As a Pistol/Dagger (P/D) thief, I welcome the change to Sick ‘em. I have fought Dagger/Pistol (D/P) thieves, and I know how hard it is to outlast them in a sustained battle. It’s a difficult battle, because pistol shots can’t cleave (just like how shots from bows can’t cleave). In other words, even if I know where the D/P thieves are while they are stealthed, I will not be able to land any hit due to my pistol shots not being able to “cleave” the area in front of me (this applies to bows as well). And of course, I have access to stealth, but I can’t stay in stealth permanently; only D/P thieves can perma-stealth. As a result, D/P thieves always get the initiative, first-strike. And, that’s why it’s a difficult battle. If ArenaNet would consider making Shadow Trap apply Revealed for 5 seconds, that would even the score.

Regarding Sick ‘Em, please don’t even consider making it 8 seconds IF Revealed is applied ON CAST. If there’s a condition that has to be met before Revealed is applied (stepping on a trap, the pet “tagging” your scent, etc), then sure, 6-8 seconds is fine.

The accidental Revealed from ‘Last Refuge’ is already as annoying as it is. Having Rangers revealing you while you are at 25% health is even more annoying (you could literally be perma-revealed by multiple rangers).

Solely giving rangers the ‘Revealed’ debuff could cause increased aggro from thieves:
Just like many other thieves that traited into the Shadow Arts trait line, I despite my mandatory minor trait, Last Refuge. If rangers’ pets start to pervasively sniff me out while my thief’s health is around 25%, I would start to despite rangers as well, probably as much as I despite Last Refuge. As a result, rangers would be moved up to the top of my aggro list. Why? Because, they have a stake to my stealth mechanics and DPS – if I can’t stealth, I can’t Sneak Attack. Hopefully, the rework to pistol main-hand will allow me to evade and kite.

PS: Pistol/Pistol thieves (aka. no-invis thieves) still suck. Condition-based burst from stealth?! Condition-based auto-attack?! Might as well make Unload a condition-based weapon skill as well. Ideally, each dual-wielding weapon sets should be its own “sneak attack” that breaks stealth (ie. P/P’s sneak attack will be different from P/D’s sneak attack). Just my two-cents.

Knote.2904:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

Well they could make it so it just makes the pet see through your stealth and chase you down, and if it manages to attack you then it reveals.

Then you have counterplay to Sick Em by dodging/avoiding/cc’ing pet.

That would be a more reasonable implementation of Sic Em than I imagine they’ll have in place next patch, but I still maintain my position that no class should have a hard-counter to another’s major class mechanics.

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

The revealed is similar to the hunter flare in WoW. A rogue never has perma stealth, he can only have one re-stealth every 2-3mins (pending preperation). If a hunter knows that a rogue is nearby, he can choose to flare up.

Mechanic (a): a Rogue can stealth and initiate fights to whoever he chooses
Mechanic (b): a Hunter can ‘counter’ play and gain the initation.
Mechanic ©: a Rogue can outsmart the hunter and make them pre-flare, and initiate after

Here is GW2 it can have a similar effect:

Mechanic (a): Thief wants to initiate fight, so he stealths
Mechanic (b): The ranger can pre-dodge if he knows a thief is nearby
Mechanic ©: Thief wants to re-stealth, so he has to be mindful about the rangers ‘revealed’ CD, either by juking an early CD or stealthing before the pet can ‘sic em’
Mechanic (d): The ranger either gets the lock and continues fighting, or loses target, repeating back to mechanic (a).

This is counter-play, a smart thief needs to be aware if he’s fighting a ranger and watch the pets ‘sic em’ CD. The ranger needs to know the thiefs stealth CD and know when the best time to counter.

If the thief stealths forever, then there’s no enjoyment for the hunter because he lacks the counter option available. Similar to how a sniper in an FPS racks up kills but no one knows where the sniper is, so the enjoyment for the snipees are down because they have no counter to the sniper fire.

You have to understand that stealth can’t be left ‘as is’ every mechanics needs a counter hard or soft, but it can’t just ‘be’ because that would make the thieves focus primarily on stealth mechanics.

Kaon.7192:

Knote.2904:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

Well they could make it so it just makes the pet see through your stealth and chase you down, and if it manages to attack you then it reveals.

Then you have counterplay to Sick Em by dodging/avoiding/cc’ing pet.

That would be a reasonable implementation of Sick Em than I imagine they’ll have in place next patch, but I still maintain my position that no class should have a hard-counter to another’s major class mechanics.

Yeah I definately agree with that because we’re stepping over the boundary and going into Rock/Paper/Scissors land, that is NOT good for 5v5 spvp or 1v’1’s. I really despise hard RPS balancing.

Should just be a soft counter, and besides that’s how hunter pets worked on rogues in WoW I imagine, it was basically a soft counter.

Knote.2904:

Kaon.7192:

Knote.2904:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

Well they could make it so it just makes the pet see through your stealth and chase you down, and if it manages to attack you then it reveals.

Then you have counterplay to Sick Em by dodging/avoiding/cc’ing pet.

That would be a reasonable implementation of Sick Em than I imagine they’ll have in place next patch, but I still maintain my position that no class should have a hard-counter to another’s major class mechanics.

Yeah I definately agree with that because we’re stepping over the boundary and going into Rock/Paper/Scissors land, that is NOT good for 5v5 spvp or 1v’1’s. I really despise hard RPS balancing.

Should just be a soft counter, and besides that’s how hunter pets worked on rogues in WoW I imagine, it was basically a soft counter.

You’re forgetting hunter flare, that was a hard counter. A ‘good’ hunter knows when/where to flare and a ‘good’ rogue knows when/where to avoid it.

Giving rangers a reveal skill is a knee jerk move and completely kittens WvW thieves.

Losing all faith in anet

Xsorus.2507:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth, and the opponent controls whether/when to activate it?

Right. I didn’t think so.

Yes, Rangers…When you flat out kill their Pet.

But to answer your question, stealth is not your mechanic..When will you Thieves realize this.

Steal is….Stealth is just something you have similar to Rangers with Evade to avoid damage.

It is not an actual Mechanic you have though.

You are correct in that stealth is not a mechanic exclusive to thieves, 4 of the 8 classes have stealth access. However stealth attacks ARE a mechanic exclusive to thieves, and are completely disabled by an enemy controlled on demand revealed. No other class can have their exclusive abilities disabled like this.

Charak.9761:

Kaon.7192:

Charak.9761:

You see what I mean though, some thieves are QQing, even though only ONE class is getting the counter.

“Everything needs atleast one counter” – Charak

Does any other class mechanic have a counter that outright disables the mechanic like Revealed does to Stealth?

Right. I didn’t think so. Therein lies the difference between soft-counters (like AoE’s vs pets) and hard-counters by the way. The latter should be avoided if at all possible if balance is the goal.

The revealed is similar to the hunter flare in WoW. A rogue never has perma stealth, he can only have one re-stealth every 2-3mins (pending preperation). If a hunter knows that a rogue is nearby, he can choose to flare up.

Mechanic (a): a Rogue can stealth and initiate fights to whoever he chooses
Mechanic (b): a Hunter can ‘counter’ play and gain the initation.
Mechanic ©: a Rogue can outsmart the hunter and make them pre-flare, and initiate after

Here is GW2 it can have a similar effect:

Mechanic (a): Thief wants to initiate fight, so he stealths
Mechanic (b): The ranger can pre-dodge if he knows a thief is nearby
Mechanic ©: Thief wants to re-stealth, so he has to be mindful about the rangers ‘revealed’ CD, either by juking an early CD or stealthing before the pet can ‘sic em’
Mechanic (d): The ranger either gets the lock and continues fighting, or loses target, repeating back to mechanic (a).

This is counter-play, a smart thief needs to be aware if he’s fighting a ranger and watch the pets ‘sic em’ CD. The ranger needs to know the thiefs stealth CD and know when the best time to counter.

If the thief stealths forever, then there’s no enjoyment for the hunter because he lacks the counter option available. Similar to how a sniper in an FPS racks up kills but no one knows where the sniper is, so the enjoyment for the snipees are down because they have no counter to the sniper fire.

You have to understand that stealth can’t be left ‘as is’ every mechanics needs a counter hard or soft, but it can’t just ‘be’ because that would make the thieves focus primarily on stealth mechanics.

Yes but what he is saying is it shouldn’t be like “hit button, thief instantly gets revealed.”

And actually a better comparison to WoW would be when hunter pets would continue chasing rogues after they stealth, then bring them out of it by attacking, that becomes a soft counter.

Not to mention Flare is a completely different way to reveal since it’s just revealing in a small aoe as opposed to a targeted reveal.

If it requires the pet to hit the thief to reveal then the counterplay can be :

Ranger hits Sick ’Em. Pet now is glued to the thief regardless of stealth or visibility. Thief stealths and pet continues chasing and will reveal him if pet lands a hit. Thief dodges an attack/teleports away, or drops caltrops to kite pet and reopen on ranger.

Alternatively Ranger managed to cripple/immobilize thief before/during stealth and pet lands a hit and reveals.

Good counterplay both ways.