Guild Wars 2

I’m getting really disappointed in how anet treats mesmers.

The 1 year stuff showed that mesmer was the least played class, 10%. Maybe its time anet asks, “why?”

I’ve played mesmer since the beginning, mostly in WvW. However, many of our classes utilities are all but useless, in both WvW and PvE. Confusion is all but useless in PvE, it doesn’t stack very long and mobs rarely attack enough to make it worthwhile. So, what can mesmers do in PvE? From my experience, there is but one answer: zerker phantasm build. Confusions, and even glamour fields, even lost much of their usefulness in WvW ever since they were nerfed into obvlivion. Most condition mesmer builds are now the 20/20/30/0/0 line, NOT confusion or glamours.

The statement: “To stay in line with the support theme, we wanted to find ways the Mesmer could support allies” just baffles me. I’ve never felt like mesmer is meant to be purely support, though we do have it. And our support is still pretty good! I’ve never heard anyone tell me that mesmer support was totally worthless or bad or broken. What’s broken is most of our damaging builds in cases like WvW. We’ve been forced to become more and more constrained because of nerf after nerf after nerf with no alternatives. In WvW, clones are all but useless, especially with their health being so low.

What mesmer needs isn’t an extra cool thing on a mantra, we need the things that have been totally nerfed to be reworked. Rework our last 2 lines, which are either buggy (I’m looking at you focus reflect!), or lost much of their use (glamour fields in that line).

I think many mesmers would even be happy if you fixed some of the bugs that STILL exist. I still summon phantasms that attack once, then just sit there doing nothing. I still suddenly lose LOS the moment a slight ledge is in the way, and I’ve still been staff teleported into walls! Focus reflects with focus #4 rarely work if you’re on a slight incline, for instance.

I feel like patch after patch mesmers are being tossed around with no one at anet really knowing where they want the class to go. They nerf random things, refuse to fix bugs, and give buffs to some random skills.

It’s time anet asks why so little of the population is playing mesmer (I’ve even noticed a vast shortage of them in WvW, where sometimes I’m the only one in a 40 man group!).

War- Please allow Quick Breathing(warhorn) and Empower Allies to both be used with 20 points in tactics, otherwise your killing my personal build :P

Ranger- I like the anti stealth and hope more finds its way in WvW. Do you have to target them before they stealth? You cant target someone when they are in stealth, so some more explanation or iteration may be needed. Rangers could also use more access to stealth, preferably from utility skills like signet of the hunt and lightning reflexes or muddy terrain.

GS could use an AA damage boost. Or provide more synergy with your pet. Sword, I think we all know what needs to be fixed there. Warhorn, as our only support weapon, it should do more support. Add blind to Hunter’s call and boost the might on Call of the Wild and increase swiftness duration.

Thief- Venoms need more help than that. Make blinding powder or another utility also reveal stealthed foes. Or create traits that do the same thing. Whos better to catch a thief than another thief?

Ele- Good start on the staff, I would also suggest increasing radius and duration of windborne speed. Reduce lightning surge’s cast time, alot. Make flame burst a blast finisher, or add blast finisher to beginning of meteor shower, or also at the end of cast. And either reduce cast time or increase damage of meteor shower, its cool looking but doesn’t always do much.

Mesmer- The staff could use some more supportive buffs, in the current meta, the GS is better at support than the staff. I would like a really good reason to take it over GS as my ranged weapon offset.

More support for Guardians… Brilliant.

Utterly Brilliant.

Zeal, Radiance, Condi, HP’s… there’s a plethora of things that could have been addressed…

Instead…. more condi removal… more healing…

Lava font should get Geyser treatment (radius wise), and make the first tick be instant or(and?) at least make it higher damage.

Air #3 blowout is so underwhelming and fails 4/3 times, please make it more like shockwave or a small cone with reduced range.

Burning retreat (#4 fire) should be a blast finisher on cast at the place it started, and remove either roots/chills/slows or 3 conditions and a small heal considering how thats our only active “defensive” skill for staff.

Oher than that maybe increase the radius on water auto attack to match that of the bow, it would be very frustrating when we have to rely on niche weapons to do what a skill should had been doing from release.

Great post and I really hope we do more for eles than just that, they are in a dire state. Guardians access to fury is a great start, but lets not stop there, for low stats they should have a higher chance to lock down a target rather than hope i will stay for the fight

/cheers

Fortus.6175:

Lava font should get Geyser treatment (radius wise), and make the first tick be instant or(and?) at least make it higher damage.

Air #3 blowout is so underwhelming and fails 4/3 times, please make it more like shockwave or a small cone with reduced range.

Burning retreat (#4 fire) should be a blast finisher on cast at the place it started, and remove either roots/chills/slows or 3 conditions and a small heal considering how thats our only active “defensive” skill for staff.

Oher than that maybe increase the radius on water auto attack to match that of the bow, it would be very frustrating when we have to rely on niche weapons to do what a skill should had been doing from release.

Great post and I really hope we do more for eles than just that, they are in a dire state. Guardians access to fury is a great start, but lets not stop there, for low stats they should have a higher chance to lock down a target rather than hope i will stay for the fight

/cheers

The radius on water auto and frost bow auto are the same gimpy 90 radius.

So quick question: What’s with the ‘extra’ two weeks? Not to be a pain or anything but we were kinda’ hoping the patch was for October 1st.

With this date it’s more than another month away. The current meta is seriously hard to love.

Most of these sound great. TBH, the changes you guys have made to Ranger lately have made me start one. These changes look even better.
Especially love the fixes and additions to tab targeting, great stuff.

Staff Ele……fixing up the support is great and all, still waiting for better damage changes, along the lines of what other people have said in this thread about it already.

And many thanks for the sneak preview of what’s coming

Could you possibly let us bind/hotkey specific waypoints? maybe limit it to 4 or 6 or so?

Red.3572:

So quick question: What’s with the ‘extra’ two weeks? Not to be a pain or anything but we were kinda’ hoping the patch was for October 1st.

With this date it’s more than another month away. The current meta is seriously hard to love.

Balance testing, player reactions to changes, recoding, reworking ideas or scrapping them in favour of a better solution.

All of these take time, and a month is a bloody short turnaround for these kinds of changes. Though I do fully agree the current “meta” is hard to love.

Thanks for the preview!

Any word on Guild Tools?

I’m very concerned by the lack of QOL improvement for weak/underused Ele weapons & traits. Your criteria for balancing seems to still only come from sPVP performance. Outside of sPVP, GC Ele doesn’t exist, leaving only the bunker/buffbot role in WVW & PVE.

Specifics:

• focus — lack of mobility/healing vs dagger, fire #4, #5, water #4, air #4 all very weak
• conjures — the limiting factor is how clunky they are to use
• glyphs — traits are weak, elementals are weak
• staff — needs to lose some AOE and gain some single-target dmg
• traits — still loads of garbage traits

I can’t WAIT to see how my ele’s conjured weapons turn out. I would love an instacast, placed at feet instead of ground targeting ability to actually make it more viable for me though. I typically run staff anyways, so the buffs for support are exciting. The thought of coupling that with some conjured weapons for closer combat as well has really got me interested, almost to the point of making my ele my main again. Can’t wait till Tuesday!

YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! GOOD ON YOU ARENA NET! THIS IS THE KIND OF COMMUNICATION WE HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR!!!

What is the point of giving Ranger anti-stealth? I know that you said it’s for counterplay, but stealth already has counterplay, it’s pointless and just makes killing Thieves easier for one class and one class only. It’s not as though stealth Thieves are even viable in tPvP.

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.

Chances are he meant Focused Mind and not Monk’s Focus.

Last 2 thoughts about warrior from me.

First of all, I want to thank you for moving Lung Capacity to Tier 1, because gain ability to take Shrug it Off is absolutely FANTASTIC. Seriously, after rethink of it, capabilities of taking this trait is really splendid . It’s great news!

And second, I think “Reviver’s Might” is kinda weak for Grandmaster minor trait. One stack might for reviving ally – I even forgot about that trait. In my opinion, make Vigor boon, Regen or Fury is better. Vigor can help after usual dodge after reviving, Regen is always helpful and Fury is kinda close to “Reviver’s Might”, as “Reviver’s Fury”. Aegis, Retaliation and Protection aren’t common boon of warrior, but Swiftness and Stability for 1-2 secs are pretty nice to locate yourself after reviving.

Incurafy.6329:

What is the point of giving Ranger anti-stealth? I know that you said it’s for counterplay, but stealth already has counterplay, it’s pointless and just makes killing Thieves easier for one class and one class only. It’s not as though stealth Thieves are even viable in tPvP.

I’m sorry, but if a ranger debuffs a thief or a mesmer around me, he/she won’t be the only one who will be all over them. Just because thieves and blackwater type mesmers won’t have the free reign they have enjoyed in wvw since the dawn of time anymore, doesn’t mean that they are less viable. I’m looking forward to the changes they’ll be putting on the thief pistol and the changes for the mesmer support roles are an excellent idea to me. It’s about time some of the most selfish classes were given reasons to join the fight with others.

(I know there are other classes that can fill the role of selfish roamers as well, but I don’t think anyone can compare them with the abilities of what thieves and mesmers have done)

darkace.8925:

My thoughts…

Ranger
Look at the longbow. For PvE players, Hunter’s Shot is all but useless. Stealth, when we’ve got the ability to fight from range while our pets tank, is worthless in PvE. Rapid Fire applying 10 stacks of vulnerability over time (one per shot) means it cannot benefit from the full stack of vulnerability. The old Hunter’s Shot applying all 10 stacks meant each shot from Rapid Fire could benefit from the extra damage. I’d recommend changing it back and giving Rangers stealth via a utility skill (if/when new skills are added to the game).

Easier change would be the following. Give #4 the 10 stack of vulnerability in addition to the knockback range the closer the enemy is. Means you have to choose whether to waste the possible knockback early from #4 for more damage or save it for when you actually need to get something away from you. Adds a bit of a tactical element to the skill.

Change Rapid Fire (#2), getting rid of the vulnerability on it and instead giving each shot for it the full damage one would expect from remaining at far range from the enemy. This increased damage to Rapid Fire makes it more useful overall. There, we’ve buffed the Longbow in a manner to where it’s more useful. /bows

Would it be possible to also make it so that all utilities, buffs, and so on follow the following prioritization: player > team > everyone else?

For example, let’s say that I’m on Mesmer and cast time warp. If I’m standing in the circle when it is cast, I will receive the buff. All teammates that were standing within the circle as it was cast receive the buff. If the ability affects 5 people max and there are only 4 members including myself, whoever else is in the circle gets the buff determinable by however you’re doing it now.

Again -
sneak an updated projectile velocity increase for Dancing Daggers.

mjharrison.3209:

I’m very concerned by the lack of QOL improvement for weak/underused Ele weapons & traits. Your criteria for balancing seems to still only come from sPVP performance.

Specifics:

• focus — lack of mobility/healing vs dagger, fire #4, #5, water #4, air #4 all very weak
• conjures — the limiting factor is how clunky they are to use
• glyphs — traits are weak, elementals are weak
• staff — needs to lose some AOE and gain some single-target dmg
• traits — still loads of garbage traits

Another part of the problem with Conjured weapons is Ele’s are so pigeonholed into taking cantrips because they’re just SO innately squishy that w/o them they can just die instantly.

They decided to nerf them for being used too much, but that was nerfing the symptom and not the cause, they were used too much because Ele’s HAVE to use them so much.

Just adding 1-2k more base health or maybe including more of these defensive skills into weapon abilities themselves would probably be better and still have a couple decent oh snap utilities.

But it’s a very tricky thing to balance.

Guardians seem to have no problem with dying instantly due to their low base hp though, so yeah.

Warrior
Warrior is in a playable position right now, but it is only due to the crutch of stun locking. I like the idea of buffing the support from shouts a bit, but the extra healing won’t make warrior a viable mid bunker. You might be able to make a shout warrior a sustainable close defender/far assaulter by tweaking shouts, but there is already some ability to do both with the stun lock builds. Diversity in builds +, but no change in role really.

Guardian
Purging Flames: AWESOME. If it keeps the cleanse effect when walking in/out while in effect that would be even better than the duration reduction.

Mediations granting fury and all becoming instant cast is a direct buff to DPS builds that were already using them anyway. This one is a little scary. Test it thoroughly, because you mind find burst guardian a bit too unstoppable once you give this to them. Love giving them Fury access, but I am not sure this is the place to do it.

Ranger
Sick ‘Em will still not get used. If you want counter play for stealth, then it needs to be a universal thing in the mechanics, not a one class gimmick. Perhaps find a way to implement it into combos? Blast/Leap through an enemy light field perhaps? I think that the combo system really has a chance to raise the skill cap of this game tremendously, and more counter play through combos would be a delicious way to make it work.

To really fix ranger you need to give the ranger normal damage multipliers comparable to everyone else and make pets not be free white damage, but instead utility. The AI skills should cease to exist. Maybe the pets can be some kind of 240 radius minor buff that can still eat damage with the user controlled pet skill being a useful utility like the current design. You need to break ranger out of passive garbage builds, and you can’t do it with the pets in their current state.

Thief
Venom Share still won’t work unless you give thief some other ways to cleanse condis.

The game really could use more means of boon stripping, but Sword/Dagger #3 is too over-budget by comparison to every other skill in the game. This puts it more in line, but please do find a way to make stripping more accessible (like reducing the ICD on Nullification Sigils)

Rework to pistol is WAY overdue. The bleed on #1 is fine, but the #2 needs to be a milti-condition skill to make it work well as a condi weapon, and the direct damage is poo. Can’t wait to see what you do here.

Engineer
Elixir changes are going to make engies REALLY tough. You could count on the lack of stability before, and that was one of the few things they couldn’t do. Giving them stealth that they can quickly combine with the rez field with little chance for counter play may not be a great move.

The turrets focusing fire is not a great idea either. Supply Crate is already borderline, this might push it over the top. Functionally turrets are kind of silly in their current incarnation, so I think rather than buffing what you have a rework on the concept from scratch might be better. I would be ok waiting longer for it.

Elementalist
Interesting. We will see if the execution is what I think it might be. Careful not to make a staff ele unkillable. They can already be awfully tanky in skilled hands.

Mes
Love the Mantra changes. One last thing though… Menders Purity should have an AoE as well.

Nec
Blood will still be a kitten of a line. Necro doesn’t have a way to make use of it outside of the siphons, so it will be either OP ridiculous or remain useless.

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.

So…Rather then fix what everyone (except Thieves) knows is a broken mechanic (Stealth) You are just adding a counter to it….for ONE class? What about all the other classes?

Well appreciated preview! ^^ Hope there will be more in the future (with more days of anticipation).

A little range buff on Dagger 1 for Necros?

well, i don’t know which iterations of a reworked thief pistol #2 you have, but i’ll throw what i think should be it:

drop (or nerf) the vulnerability. make it a strong power-based attack (stronger than AA’s damage without the bleeds), and make it damage on a small AoE on target (kinda like the engineer’s pistol, minus the bleeds).

also make it a blast finisher on target. that would provide both offensive support (blasting dark and poison fields) and team support (blasting water fields from a distance in a team fight).

at the cost of 3-4 ini per shot (depends on how much damage you can cause with it), it would be a strong asset for P/P builds, and the blast finisher wouldn’t be wasted on P/D builds.

speaking of P/D, it’s nigh impossible to land shadow strike. the range is so flimsy, you have to be inside your enemy to land it while you’re both moving.

RyuDragnier.9476:

darkace.8925:

My thoughts…

Ranger
Look at the longbow. For PvE players, Hunter’s Shot is all but useless. Stealth, when we’ve got the ability to fight from range while our pets tank, is worthless in PvE. Rapid Fire applying 10 stacks of vulnerability over time (one per shot) means it cannot benefit from the full stack of vulnerability. The old Hunter’s Shot applying all 10 stacks meant each shot from Rapid Fire could benefit from the extra damage. I’d recommend changing it back and giving Rangers stealth via a utility skill (if/when new skills are added to the game).

Easier change would be the following. Give #4 the 10 stack of vulnerability in addition to the knockback range the closer the enemy is. Means you have to choose whether to waste the possible knockback early from #4 for more damage or save it for when you actually need to get something away from you. Adds a bit of a tactical element to the skill.

Change Rapid Fire (#2), getting rid of the vulnerability on it and instead giving it the full damage one would expect from remaining at far range from the enemy. This increased damage to Rapid Fire makes it more useful overall. There, we’ve buffed the Longbow in a manner to where it’s more useful. /bows

The way it was designed (or at least the way I used it) was Long Ranged Shot for long range, Rapid Fire for close range, Point Blank Shot for single-target crowd control, Barrage for group crowd control, and Hunter’s Shot for opening fights with 20+ stacks of Vulnerability. Now I’m forced to choose between using Rapid Fire as a poor man’s Hunter’s Shot or saving it to offset the damage drop off Long Ranged Shot suffers when enemies close the gap, all the while Hunter’s Shot literally – literally – goes unused 100% of the time.

I get that PvP players find the stealth provided by the new Hunter’s Shot useful, but for PvE players it’s about as worthless as a weapon skill can be. Frankly, I’m tired of my PvE experience being less that it can and should be because of PvP considerations.

A nerf to S/D thiefs (flanking strike/larcenous strike) in the current meta is unjustified. The build has many counters, doesn’t particulary excell at 1on1 and is nowhere as strong as necros or warriors are atm. If you’re nerfing the skill you should also lower the initative cost then. Also PLEASE do something about dagger offhand, S/D basically only has 3 useful skills, the others are a waste of initative. Especially “throw dagger” feels extremly lackluster.

It’s hilarious how constant whine probably gets us nerfed again, but other so called “OP” builds simply get overlooked or marked as “in a good state”, although they’re pure faceroll atm. I quite like the other class changes, but this leaves a bad taste for the upcoming patch.

Nevertheless, nice to see you guys finally giving us an insight/preview in the balancing strategy.

I was really hoping they would have done something with the delays in the staff elementalist’s repertoire. It has a lot of potential, but most of its skills have trouble hitting player targets.

Engineers and elementalists could do with weapon swapping, too, especially considering some of the elementalist’s cooldowns, even if it’s on a 15-second cooldown instead of 10.

darkace.8925:

RyuDragnier.9476:

darkace.8925:

My thoughts…

Ranger
Look at the longbow. For PvE players, Hunter’s Shot is all but useless. Stealth, when we’ve got the ability to fight from range while our pets tank, is worthless in PvE. Rapid Fire applying 10 stacks of vulnerability over time (one per shot) means it cannot benefit from the full stack of vulnerability. The old Hunter’s Shot applying all 10 stacks meant each shot from Rapid Fire could benefit from the extra damage. I’d recommend changing it back and giving Rangers stealth via a utility skill (if/when new skills are added to the game).

Easier change would be the following. Give #4 the 10 stack of vulnerability in addition to the knockback range the closer the enemy is. Means you have to choose whether to waste the possible knockback early from #4 for more damage or save it for when you actually need to get something away from you. Adds a bit of a tactical element to the skill.

Change Rapid Fire (#2), getting rid of the vulnerability on it and instead giving it the full damage one would expect from remaining at far range from the enemy. This increased damage to Rapid Fire makes it more useful overall. There, we’ve buffed the Longbow in a manner to where it’s more useful. /bows

The way it was designed (or at least the way I used it) was Long Ranged Shot for long range, Rapid Fire for close range, Point Blank Shot for single-target crowd control, Barrage for group crowd control, and Hunter’s Shot for opening fights with 20+ stacks of Vulnerability. Now I’m forced to choose between using Rapid Fire as a poor man’s Hunter’s Shot or saving it to offset the damage drop off Long Ranged Shot suffers when enemies close the gap, all the while Hunter’s Shot literally – literally – goes unused 100% of the time.

I get that PvP players find the stealth provided by the new Hunter’s Shot useful, but for PvE players it’s about as worthless as a weapon skill can be. Frankly, I’m tired of my PvE experience being less that it can and should be because of PvP considerations.

Hunters shot in PVE is a godsend most times , I dont know why you dont use it. Being able to drop agro near instantly is an excellent additon. It adds extra survivability to our class. Plus the stealth means we can reposition or take a shot from complete safety. The only downsides to it are;

1. 3 seconds it rather short, and you have to be fast to make use of it properly.
2. If reflected the TARGET gets the stealth, which is frankly idiotic.

darkace.8925:

I get that PvP players find the stealth provided by the new Hunter’s Shot useful, but for PvE players it’s about as worthless as a weapon skill can be. Frankly, I’m tired of my PvE experience being less that it can and should be because of PvP considerations.

By itself that stealth seems useless. When combined with the Remorseless trait, however, it goes from meh to great, even in PvE. 10 stacks of vuln and a guaranteed crit every 10 seconds isn’t bad.

Elementalist:
-The staff buffs might actually make it playable, specifically if earth is similar to line of warding. This would be a great defensive buff.
-Conjure buffs are nice, and might be played with staff now that it can have some pretty good defense (between static field, line of warding, earth 5, chill, etc) without using all utilities

However, as others have said, the survivability of other weapon-sets is terrible given the damage they do. D/D needs more mobility or to hit a LOT harder if it is ever to survive. The RtL nerf destroys this spec, and is no longer needed after nerfing everything else. S/D is a bit of the same, it has good burst but no escape mechanisms like every other burst class has. X/F is not going to see play except in anti-projectile niches as it sacrifices too much dps and doesn’t gain nearly enough defensive skills. The issue is primarly in fire and water.

As I find D/D to be the most fun, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE just revert the RtL cooldown nerf (You will see rejoicing in the ele forums for months with this one simple change). Even make them be affected by chill/cripple if you want. Heck, even 900 range on a 15/20s cooldown serves its purpose well enough. However, it currently breaks the entire weaponset from viability. D/D use to have heals + mobility. Both have been nerfed, now it has the same sub-par damage and no real way to survive.

Fantastic work Jonathan. I appreciate all the team is doing to create a lasting GW2.

One thing I would like to see sometime in the future is Build Saving. Colin mentioned this but hopefully the gets pushed into the radar sooner than later.

oh btw, THANK YOU for the ranger anti stealth!!!

Please change Mesmer GS 3 to a blast finisher.
Also Staff 4 is boring, maybe add a knockback?
Torch is bad and clunky to use.

Need trait or Signet for 25% increase movement speed.

The least played profession needs a touch up. You don’t hear as much complains compared to Ele and Warrior, because there are not as many playing.

Some QoL would be nice, especially for WvW. Mesmer are already weak vs AE and Conditions and Vit doesn’t transfer to illusions. Almost no offensive options for AE. We also lack mobility and our movement support (Portal, Veil) are on very long cooldowns.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Further down the Road

• We’re reworking the combat log to make it more easily used. This will involve help from a ton of departments, but it will help every player in the game. By providing you better combat information, you’ll be able to better make tweaks to your build, and you’ll be able to better adjust your play to deal with difficult encounters.

Would it be possible to make two different combat logs? One for mist practice that has all information possible, and another for actual combat, that is restricted to the most necessary information. When practicing on dummies, you often need a lot more information then you do in actual “in-game” combat.

Very interesting changes here, looking forward to this.

Élémentalist :

- Fix Fire Grab (Skill 5 DD Fire) that tend to miss a lot, due to buggy issue.

- Skill 2 Air DD is really not interesting (too weak DPS), would be Nice to buff it a bit (it Could also apply 3s blind in addition to 3s weakness ?)

- RTL (Skill 4 air DD) has been really too nerf, 40s CD is really to low. Should it be 30s, and 15s if we hit ennemy.

- Skill 3 Earth DD : Immo of 2s is in my opinion not enough to do Anything. Buff to 3s or add some bleeding ? Because the skill has no DPS at all.

- Skill 1 Earth DD : no one use, because worth auto attack, only 300 range, and low DPS. Would be better if range increased to 500 or 600 for exemple, like water auto attack. Quite weak because it’s also mono-target.

- Focus Skill need REALLY a big up.
DPS is ridiculous, and condition damage/support/CC apply are too weak.

About other Skill :
- Cleansing Fire is now useless since no more stunbreak.
- signet of water need a buff for active signet (instead of Chill, remove  all condition ? With a 40s CD)

- Elite would also need à buff : 
tornado : increase more the tougness or vitality of the player ? Because immediate depop in wvw fight.
It only add 10k HP atm. For comparison, necro’ elite epidemy give x3 toughness x3 vitality…

-Same for Human Elite Grenth kitten r, would need a buff because CD is really long. Could add 3 stack of might for 15s, for exemple ?

Thank you for this thread, nice having posted it, and sorry for m’y bad english

how about:

we removed the downed state. Changed the game type. Completely divorced PvP traits and skills from PvE because there was no reason to link these concepts. Removed all of the teleports and gap closers / openers from the game, and will add them back one at a time. Basically we just started over.

I would really like to see a trait for guardians with the 25% speed boost like warrior.

For elementalist I would like to see major changes I feel they have been reduced to purely a support class. Solo roaming in WvW is a nightmare and pve it takes forever to kill something. Just my opinion they are the weakest class all around.

I think the rest of the classes need minor tweaks an overall are decent.

Fix the Black Lion Trading company PLEASE!

I appreciate the transparency for the changes, that’s great!

What isn’t so great is the lack of attention to the elementalist. While conjure weapons could use some work, they are situational utilities at best. The core of the elementalist remains problematic. Base health, armor, and damage are too low, especially considering the reductions to ele healing and mobility.

GW2 Official Website:

“What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack.”

What is the trade-off for not getting warrior like HP and armor? Attunements? Every class has its own mechanic, and attunements do not make up for the disparity in base HP, armor, and damage. If elementalists consistently hit like a truck, in an average build, or out healed average damage, the low HP and low armor would make sense.
Currently every build relies on at least 30 arcane. This distribution is a must if the elementalist desires using skills other than auto-attack. (Which contrary to the state of the game quote, effective elementalists do not stay in one attunement). Next, 20 water is a necessity to avoid being one shot by other players and bosses. Again, points that must be spent to simply be on par with other classes. This leaves 20 points to try and compile some semblance of a diverse build.

Please review the popular and level-headed suggestions on the elementalist forum to improve this fledgling class:

• Decrease base recharge rate of attunements to 10s to end Arcane reliance and allow build diversity.
• Increase base HP to end reliance on Water and allow build diversity.
• Increase damage and/or skill scaling with power to bring elementalist in line with the class description.
• Review major traits. Many are very lackluster compared to similar themed traits in other professions.
• Reduce Ride the Lighting cooldown to base 20s, regardless of hit. RtL is inherently buggy and many times misses due to pathfinding, not the player using it for mobility. Alternately, apply a longer cooldown for using RtL while not in combat. (No other class has this penalty, and many have better mobility [See Ranger, Warrior, Thief])

These are some nice changes and it is nice to have these discussions with developers. Love them

I will go over what I think of the Elementalist since it is my most played profession.

The staff changes are a nice addition and it could make staff a decent option in sPvP/tPvP. In WvW, staff is a strong pick already due to the amount of fields that an Ele can put down to support. For PvE it is useful for high level fractals but outside of that staff doesn’t do as much damage and the support it brings isn’t that useful since dungeons are about reducing damage (LoS, boons, reflects) and damage (might, fury, timewarp). Overall the small change on the staff is good.

Finally conjure changes will be nice. However, it would be interesting to do something new with conjures on the Elementalist besides increase the damage or add additional effects. I’m not sure if it is possible with the current tech but it would be nice if conjure abilities change with the Elementalist’s attunement. Like typically an Elementalist will swap attunements to gain access to different skills or to start specific combos. So making conjure weapons with different abilities based on attunement will bring an interesting dynamic to Elementalist and it might get players away from using cantrips or arcane utilities since conjure weapons will give players additional benefits if they keep it. In the current system you might use a conjure weapon but you will drop it as soon as possible since skills on the conjure weapon is on cooldown or your normal weapon is just better since you have access to more abilities through attunements. I’m sure this will require a lot of work but it might make things interesting and fun.

Focus on the Ele feels like a support OH however, it just doesn’t work that well and it feels significantly inferior to dagger OH or using staff as a support. This is the weapon that should get a rework so that it works better to support allies while being able to equip a main hand that gives you some offensive power. In a sense the focus feels like a OH that should allow you to support yourself and your allies (not as much as the staff) while giving you the ability to have some damage spells from your main hand weapon. Fire attune on the focus doesn’t help your team much and on top of that it doesn’t help you. Fire Aura only adds burning and grants you some might. However, Eles have high access to burning and the fire aura doesn’t stop players from not attacking you or finding different ways to counter like all the other auras. If you have shocking aura, you should not attack and if you do you get stuned. Frost aura if someone attacks they get chilled and you have 10% reduced damage. Magnetic aura reflects and other people can counter with melee attacks. Fire aura doesn’t give a large penality for attacking, in fact people will just attack regardless as if fire aura didn’t really matter. The other skills don’t offer much to support your team like: no healing, range cc but only 1 target which doesn’t help in group fights where a dagger OH can do the job better, Air 4 is nice but it isn’t helpful since in WvW where a majority of the damage comes from melee classes (war + guard) or it comes from fields (necro + staff ele). D/D ele, mesmers have a mix of these two things. Rangers aren’t used and valued much in WvW since they lack a lot of support abilities. Earth is nice on the focus as well but the problem is that you lack damage since the focus OH doesn’t have much damage unlike Fire 4, 5, Air 4, Earth 4, 5 on the dagger OH. On top of that if you run S/F then one of your nice damage moves is hard to hit (Dragon’s tooth [fire 2]). Focus just feels very strange and it is hard to make it effective in its current state so hopefully it gets a good look in the future.

as this pertains to the next patch, ill repeat here what i already said in the wvw thread.

you know what the real solution to this bloodlust buff is?

make the bloodlust buff npc champs, siege damage, gate/wall hp and defenses for the server that holds the points.

this way, people that care about wvw points will have a reason to take and hold the points, without causing an imbalance of stats.

if you’re going to add a new mechanic into wvw, make it affect wvw related things such as siege, lords and towers/keeps. incentive people to do wvw related things with the new mechanic, for example, getting ready for an attack on a keep, take the points in lake first for 50% extra damage on catapults, or scouted a golem rush on garrison, send teams to take points, for 50% damage reduction on gates, etc etc.

dont give individual players a straight up stat bonus for no reason. its such a terrible idea in so many different ways, nothing good can come out of it.

Firstly, Dev’s this is an awesome inititive, and in light of recent ‘leaks’ is really productive to the community. Please keep it up!

Secondly, why October the 15th? First we were told it would be the patch in the next couple of days, then start of October… now October 15th? That’s a long time since the last balence patch.

Thirdly, ele’s have 5 conjure weapons, not 4. I presme you mean that non-elites, as GS is quite useful (atleast for running!).

Lastly, you didn’t really mention any nerfs here… which is good for a thread like this, but I still hope you are considering toning down a couple of things which are a little too much at the moment.

Chopps.5047:

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?

When they stop trying to band-aid fix things because it’s easy instead of taking the time to really address the real issues.

I’m very excited about these engineer changes. ^^ Yeah the toolbelt elixir skills (especially s) weren’t too much fun to use since it has always been unreliable, and you would more often than not get the one you didn’t need and fail at whatever you weren’t doing/die.

On a side note, I would like to see mortar get some love from devs too after this patch. Its been a year and still horrid, or do devs really find engie mortar balanced?

I would really love to see more improvements for Staff Guardians towards greater healing. I know this game doesn’t have the holy trinity but at the same time having dedicated AOE healers really helps in situations like WvW. I’d love to be THAT guy that brings mass heals to the cluster. And by cluster I don’t mean five random players standing next to me or even the 5 players in my group… by cluster I mean 10 or more. Now that would be sweet!

Really curious as to what exactly the intentions are for rangers. The ability to find and reveal stealthed targets, while useful, is also very situational, and doesn’t seem like it makes up for the lack of viable utilities, or at least, viable from a group support perspective.

While it is nice to receive some creative changes with enhanced functionality, is there any chance that there will be more “preview” posts to come that may express where the ranger is in the devs opinion, where they want the class to go, and how changes being made push the ranger in that direction? Along with any other details that are dropping that may improve build versatility and/or weapon/utility/trait usefulness?

Castaliea.3156:

Chopps.5047:

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?

When they stop trying to band-aid fix things because it’s easy instead of taking the time to really address the real issues.

I don’t see this as a ‘band-aid’ fix. I see it as a progressive step towards a final solution. The biggest problem with rangers, with pets, is a deep issue that is drawn from the underlying AI. And that is not an easy fix. I don’t know about you but I want to see some changes over time so we’re not completely ignored until the root of the issue is fixed.

Honestly most people I see holding the ranger down are doing it out of malice, self-interest, or pure ignorance. Not from a position of knowledge of the class.

stability to engi every 30 sec? omg OP

Ele:I’d like to see the Windborn Dagger trait for ele fixed to be a 25% speed increase that functions at all times (when wielding daggers). I also think condi ele has potential but access to torment should be thrown in somewhere. It would also be great if the Lingering Elements trait functioned with the +% damage traits that apply for attunements.

Warrior: Personally I think it has a little too much mobility potential, any mobility weapon skill that pushes past 600 range should get a mechanic similar to RtL. Other than that I think they are in a good place.

Ranger: Big thing that I’d like to see is F2’s that respond instantly, even if the pet would miss. Make “Guard” shadowstep your pet to the area so you can F2 and put your pet in range if you need to (similar to Ele’s trick with churning earth + blink).

Thief: Body shot on pistol should be some sort of finisher, either leap or blast. I also think vulnerability stacking should be moved to unload, and body shot apply something else like weakness.

Guardian: Will condi guardian ever become a thing? Will they ever be able to use the longbow? Maybe make the Kindled Zeal trait apply some bleed and torment every time you apply burn.

Mesmer: Id like to see better access to condition mitigation, and the Compounding Celerity trait to increase speed for inactive illusions instead of active. It would also be nice if Mantras cast times were shaved a little more, down to like 2-2.25s.

Engineer: The builds that do exist I feel very happy about, but Engineer in general needs its traits overhauled for build diversity. Particularly power builds. When is it going to have access to mace or hammer?

Necro: I think applying Fear should reset duration instead of stack it, similar to how immobilize currently functions. Id also like to see better tanking/sustain potential to make up for the lack of mobility/stability.

Handin.4032:

I’m getting really disappointed in how anet treats mesmers.

The 1 year stuff showed that mesmer was the least played class, 10%. Maybe its time anet asks, “why?”

I’ve played mesmer since the beginning, mostly in WvW. However, many of our classes utilities are all but useless, in both WvW and PvE. Confusion is all but useless in PvE, it doesn’t stack very long and mobs rarely attack enough to make it worthwhile. So, what can mesmers do in PvE? From my experience, there is but one answer: zerker phantasm build. Confusions, and even glamour fields, even lost much of their usefulness in WvW ever since they were nerfed into obvlivion. Most condition mesmer builds are now the 20/20/30/0/0 line, NOT confusion or glamours.

The statement: “To stay in line with the support theme, we wanted to find ways the Mesmer could support allies” just baffles me. I’ve never felt like mesmer is meant to be purely support, though we do have it. And our support is still pretty good! I’ve never heard anyone tell me that mesmer support was totally worthless or bad or broken. What’s broken is most of our damaging builds in cases like WvW. We’ve been forced to become more and more constrained because of nerf after nerf after nerf with no alternatives. In WvW, clones are all but useless, especially with their health being so low.

What mesmer needs isn’t an extra cool thing on a mantra, we need the things that have been totally nerfed to be reworked. Rework our last 2 lines, which are either buggy (I’m looking at you focus reflect!), or lost much of their use (glamour fields in that line).

I think many mesmers would even be happy if you fixed some of the bugs that STILL exist. I still summon phantasms that attack once, then just sit there doing nothing. I still suddenly lose LOS the moment a slight ledge is in the way, and I’ve still been staff teleported into walls! Focus reflects with focus #4 rarely work if you’re on a slight incline, for instance.

I feel like patch after patch mesmers are being tossed around with no one at anet really knowing where they want the class to go. They nerf random things, refuse to fix bugs, and give buffs to some random skills.

It’s time anet asks why so little of the population is playing mesmer (I’ve even noticed a vast shortage of them in WvW, where sometimes I’m the only one in a 40 man group!).

i agree with you very much. i never ever played ANY healer or support classes EVER, because i simply dont like them.not my style at all. in wvw u se only very little mesmers atm. i mean a commander has ahrd time to rally up more than 3 mesmers for portaling golems.
a lot of our skills are manly 1v1 based which makes them pretty useless in wvw. also ai(phantasms) is pretty weak in wvw as they die extremly quick in siege rain and aoe spam.

we had a good offensive build once in wvw(glam build) but anet overnerfed it. now we are stuck. spvp prevents us from getting a decent buff for wvw. and honestly im at a point where i refuse to portal golems, or carry veil with me and also no more tw. just being support is no fun at all and is slowly pushing me away from the game!i love wvw, but this is not acceptable anymore. this has to change now!