Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp.7094:

Thief

We’re also looking at shaving the efficiency of Flanking Strike slightly, so that it now only removes 1 boon instead of 2.

Also, pistol main hand may see one of its skills reworked to better support allies. We have multiple prototypes that we’re trying out, so we’ll have to see which we settle on by the next release.

I think Flanking strike is good as it is. Most of the times, foes don’t even have two boons. But I must admit it is a good way of disabling enemies.

Perhaps, make it steal one boom and remove another one.
That way we can still have FS as a viable debuff skill, even when not getting the whole advantage of the situation.

Burnfall’s a little eccentric. He means well. Once we all figure out how good it is, he’ll be equally dramatic in the other direction. It’s pretty entertaining, perhaps I shouldn’t enourage him. Don’t take it so seriously, I’d say, and it reads as satire.

Please please please give Mesmers some better OoC speed/leaps and maneuverability for WvWvW and open world exploring. Some non regeneration health regen would be nice too.

Rangers just buff everything, seriously. Look hard at their traits especially beastmaster line. Also I don’t know how this will work with your plans to make Sic em be used for stealth reveal but it kind of needs to be a buff to the pet as this weird debuff to the enemy that drops when you swap targets or use another kind of pet buff isn’t working.

Fury on Meditations? Lol ok I’ll use the hell out of that.

Levetty.1279:

Please please please give Mesmers some better OoC speed/leaps and maneuverability for WvWvW and open world exploring. Some non regeneration health regen would be nice too.

Rangers just buff everything, seriously. Also look hard at their traits especially beastmaster line.

Fury on Meditations? Lol ok I’ll use the hell out of that.

Yes. Speed on mesmers please. I don’t want to have to run Traveler’s runes just to get around with any haste. >.<

SynfulChaot.3169:

style.6173:

Bitter much?

Very. His posts are often poetic, but misguided. Amusing to read, but rarely anything to contribute to meaningful discussion, unfortunately.

Agree. I’ve read dozens of Burnfall’s posts and none of them were worth the time it took.

Levetty.1279:

Please please please give Mesmers some better OoC speed/leaps and maneuverability for WvWvW and open world exploring. Some non regeneration health regen would be nice too.

Rangers just buff everything, seriously. Also look hard at their traits especially beastmaster line.

Fury on Meditations? Lol ok I’ll use the hell out of that.

you do not even need to look hard at ranger traits, its clearly visible from a mile away how &^%$#$% they’re compared to ALL other classes.

As an active player who has regularly criticized ANet for poor communication and springing crap on us we didn’t want, I have to strongly commend the OP for this huge step in the right direction. Well done.

Oh also with all the instant use skills in the game now can we look at why Mantras need to be charged up before use, especially as their effects aren’t as good as other classes stunbreaks, shouts, meditations etc

Levetty.1279:

Oh also with all the instant use skills in the game now can we look at why Mantras need to be charged up before use, especially as their effects aren’t as good as other classes stunbreaks, shouts, meditations etc

I can understand the charge-up, but I do think it’s just a tad long. I often run one or two mantras, but if it’s not up before combat it’s not usable. Ever.

While I’m requesting the undoing of bad changes, how about Mug? Before, it was a great opener/gap closer. The critical was just gravy. Now, for whatever reason, it’s a heal. So now players must choose whether or not to use Mug to open/close gap or hold it in reserve for a secondary heal. Given the choice, I’d much rather have Mug crit than heal.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Class balance:
Thief
We’re also looking at shaving the efficiency of Flanking Strike slightly, so that it now only removes 1 boon instead of 2.

If it must be done, please seperate this change from PvE. The mobs that have boons reapply it so fast and usually have 3+ boons on them at once, it’s already initiative-burning as it is.

So guardians will finally be given fury but warriors can’t have protect? Seems fair.

- You’ll see improvements to all 4 of the conjure weapons to make them stronger and better for support. -

How about options to prevent other players from picking up the 2nd weapon, or only party members can pick it up. I drives me crazy that some other player picks up the 2nd weapon and has my great sword for longer than I have the one conjured in my hands.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Levetty.1279:

Please please please give Mesmers some better OoC speed/leaps and maneuverability for WvWvW and open world exploring. Some non regeneration health regen would be nice too.

Rangers just buff everything, seriously. Also look hard at their traits especially beastmaster line.

Fury on Meditations? Lol ok I’ll use the hell out of that.

Yes. Speed on mesmers please. I don’t want to have to run Traveler’s runes just to get around with any haste. >.<

speed is terrible especially in wvw. why on earth do i have to equip weak runes that dont support my build at all just so i can actually keep up in wvw? all u see in wvw is hammerwarriors and guardians and giant necro trains.

mesmers are the least played class next to the nearly none represented rangers in wvw. i love my class and it used to be fun, but this balance for wvw is simply not fun anymre. i die too quick and have noting to bring to the table in wvw appart from stupid support kitten. i hate playing support only. but anet wants us to be weak so his fav necro/warriors can take over the world. very very dissapointed in anet favoring classes and conveniently overlook op kitten in wvw. i hate being a 1v1 class only. id rather have anet destroy the whole spvp mesmer, so we can at least get something in wvw.

oh and @ commanders: portal your stupid golems yourself, oh u cant?well that too bad. then walk them.
signed mesmer on strike!

selan.8354:

SynfulChaot.3169:

Yes. Speed on mesmers please. I don’t want to have to run Traveler’s runes just to get around with any haste. >.<

speed is terrible especially in wvw. why on earth do i have to equip weak runes that dont support my build at all just so i can actually keep up in wvw? all u see in wvw is hammerwarriors and guardians and giant necro trains.

mesmers are the least played class next to the nearly none represented rangers in wvw. i love my class and it used to be fun, but this balance for wvw is simply not fun anymre. i die too quick and have noting to bring to the table in wvw appart from stupid support kitten. i hate playing support only. but anet wants us to be weak so his fav necro/warriors can take over the world. very very dissapointed in anet favoring classes and conveniently overlook op kitten in wvw. i hate being a 1v1 class only. id rather have anet destroy the whole spvp mesmer, so we can at least get something in wvw.

oh and @ commanders: portal your stupid golems yourself, oh u cant?well that too bad. then walk them.
signed mesmer on strike!

Eh. I mostly PvE and tire of how long it takes unboosted to cross a map (I hate waypointing) as we move so slowly. I actually take whatever waterways I can as we can actually move with some decent speed with a few spear attacks.

But in WvW I hear mesmers are quite useful, especially as roamers. I don’t know myself as I’ve not taken mine out of PvE and RP.

Hi, as a thief, it seems as if you’re literally removing the viability of one of our builds if you nerf flanking strike, it will lead to everyone running d/d or d/p… Doesn’t seem logical when trying to promote build variety.

Toby.2357:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Other Misc. fixes:
Tab Targeting Improvements

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

The reason clones are staying in as a part of players tabbing etc is because thats the entire purpose of a mesmer…the clones to distract and confuse you….pets and minions etc now have a lower priority thats the good part….clones remaining at the player targetting level is a must otherwise mesmers become trivial…
First of why the clones? I dont like targeting clones

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

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

Thanks

liefbread.9513:

Hi, as a thief, it seems as if you’re literally removing the viability of one of our builds if you nerf flanking strike, it will lead to everyone running d/d or d/p… Doesn’t seem logical when trying to promote build variety.

If you honestly think s/d thieves and their flanking strike / larc strike combo doesnt need nerfing then your in denial. Its very strong even highly skilled thieves that play nothing but thief understand the purpose of nerfing it.

NoTrigger.8396:

Burnfall.9573:

What all i got from the OP, is this…. I Love you and will continue buy you presents but, the Abuse will still continue; with a smile on the face

The Irony and Tyranny of Thief abusive mechanics; Stealth Stommping, Over powered Heartseeker+Backstabs, Perma-stealth will still continue.

You can take your presents and your happy smile back; not Interested and Never will

Also take your Fake Love Back cause all you ever done for me was loving me with your Pain and Tyranny

When you’re Serious, I will see that in your Actions.

I will say again, Stop wasting your time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzpndHtdl9A

How is stealth stomping an issue? perma stealth yes…perma resetting fights yes…but stealth stomping is no different from any other stomp where you use an ability to secure a stomp =S. Along that same notion…they still get effected by damage and CC in stealth…

What I WOULD like to see is if your in stealth and you are CC’d you should come out of stealth and get the revealed buff…normal damage its fine they can remain in stealth.

Zanthrax.6538:

liefbread.9513:

Hi, as a thief, it seems as if you’re literally removing the viability of one of our builds if you nerf flanking strike, it will lead to everyone running d/d or d/p… Doesn’t seem logical when trying to promote build variety.

If you honestly think s/d thieves and their flanking strike / larc strike combo doesnt need nerfing then your in denial. Its very strong even highly skilled thieves that play nothing but thief understand the purpose of nerfing it.

I think what he might be saying is that change would make a large difference in PvE, where it is not considered OP.

fellyn.5083:

So guardians will finally be given fury but warriors can’t have protect? Seems fair.

They’ll get it when they lose their 20k-30k hp. Guardians have low hp because of protection.

Currently thieves serve as DPS classes or stealth classes(get in and get out damage) as well as help for teams for reviving and getting past specific hard spots. Also defiance removal since we have initiative.

Is there any way we could get a rework for Bountiful Theft

Maybe to Remove 2 boons from target(If it has any) and grant 2 random boons to your team as well as Vigor? Majority of the time in PvE, enemies do not have a boon to share with your team/allies.

Thrill of The Crime
This skill sometimes misses if we steal while most of our party is melee(assuming some could be{used as an example} causing the boons to not apply, it needs a range increase for the effectiveness. (take note of Long Reach)

Venomous Aura

This has great potential especially with the upcoming changes(hopefully they aren’t wrong on Reddit) however if no one in your party/group has high enough condition damage it kind of goes down the drain in effectiveness so could it be possible they could have venom’s with OUR condition damage applied to them if we were running a condition spec?

Could we have this effect Party Members primarily if in a party? So some random Joe decides to waste it/run off and do something else unless we are NOT in a party in which case it is random?

Also would it effect an AoE attack and hit multiple enemies up to the amount of venom stacks on the player applied?
[ IE: Necromancer places staff marking over 5 balled up enemies while thief had previously applied Skale Venom onto the Necromancer through Venomous Aura, 3 random enemies get the Skale Venom effect within the radius of the mark as well as suffer from chill, instantly using up ALL stacks of the venom on the Necromancer ]

Signet of Agility
This skill could have some rewording as to if it effects allies or not and HOW it effects allies regardless if we figured it out, Noobies need to know!
Wouldn’t hurt to add a radius ring to it would it?
BTW: Those of you keeping it passive in zerg fights…its worth it sometimes to use it…wink wink nudge nudge Refills ALL ENDURANCE and removes a condition for EACH nearby ally.

Shadow Trap
Oh boy this skill had gotten alot of love in spvp, but the last change to it made a bit of elongated fights a bit worrying on whether your “way out” would just blink away…don’t get me wrong, 120 seconds is a gift, however having your way out watched with a guaranteed timer on it [much like stealth timer] indicating when the trap would have to be DESTROYED/USED before forced into cooldown. As well as the same effective timer for Shadow Step and Shadow Return. [You know the timers above your right side of your skillbar near your utilities….]
This skill…HOPEFULLY will not have a cough 1.5 second cast time to manually destroy considering its a stunbreaker cough cough

Expeditious Dodger
Could be reworded to say “Dodge” instead of Evade as its confusing in some aspects.

Does not trigger when using:
Disabling Shot
Flanking Strike
Death Blossom
Under Water Flanking Strike
Shadow Assault
Roll for Initiative
Withdraw

So, big misunderstanding on these parts. Maybe you could get that handy-dandy “BACKSPACE” button a use for the confounding typo!

Will Add More When I See The Need To!
Hopefully I Receive Responses!

Cactus.2710:

As an active player who has regularly criticized ANet for poor communication and springing crap on us we didn’t want, I have to strongly commend the OP for this huge step in the right direction. Well done.

They probably only released this because of the leaked update notes yesterday. I hope they really plan for better communication, but this is definitely not evidence either way that that’s the case.

fellyn.5083:

So guardians will finally be given fury but warriors can’t have protect? Seems fair.

guards had fury all the time.

Alacrity.4312:

Concerned about Larcenous nerf though – halving to a single boon strip is not a slight change, and an incidental buff to bunker builds.

not to mention it will incentive spam. Since to be effective versus heavy boon professions you will need to double your boon stripping LC.

SynfulChaot.3169:

selan.8354:

SynfulChaot.3169:

Yes. Speed on mesmers please. I don’t want to have to run Traveler’s runes just to get around with any haste. >.<

speed is terrible especially in wvw. why on earth do i have to equip weak runes that dont support my build at all just so i can actually keep up in wvw? all u see in wvw is hammerwarriors and guardians and giant necro trains.

mesmers are the least played class next to the nearly none represented rangers in wvw. i love my class and it used to be fun, but this balance for wvw is simply not fun anymre. i die too quick and have noting to bring to the table in wvw appart from stupid support kitten. i hate playing support only. but anet wants us to be weak so his fav necro/warriors can take over the world. very very dissapointed in anet favoring classes and conveniently overlook op kitten in wvw. i hate being a 1v1 class only. id rather have anet destroy the whole spvp mesmer, so we can at least get something in wvw.

oh and @ commanders: portal your stupid golems yourself, oh u cant?well that too bad. then walk them.
signed mesmer on strike!

Eh. I mostly PvE and tire of how long it takes unboosted to cross a map (I hate waypointing) as we move so slowly. I actually take whatever waterways I can as we can actually move with some decent speed with a few spear attacks.

But in WvW I hear mesmers are quite useful, especially as roamers. I don’t know myself as I’ve not taken mine out of PvE and RP.

well roaming and actual zvz is a big difference. if u are in a higher tier u will run into quite a lot of large zergs, and there mesmer melts.
u cant run an spvp build unless u are in a giant zerg where all u can do is spam 1. if u are a smaller group though and meet a medium zerg well there is a huge gap between war/necro.guardian and mes/ranger. commanders want us only for veil/nullfield/portal and timewarp. we are not the dmg class at all, we get used for support and thats boring and not what i signed up for at all. so, sry but i refuse to use that stupid support utility from now on. a warrior can just melt through an entire zerg/deal massive dmg/massive cc and gets massive heals and is tanky. if i wanna deal dmg like a war i have no defense/no toughness/ massive cooldowns and bad condition cleansing and stability.
roaming shouldnt be the only ting we can do next to stupid support.

Thanks alot Jonathan for sharing these news with us. This patch brings some great changes for the game.
As I play ranger as main I will post some suggestions to this class. It will be a wall of text but I would be thankful if you took the time to read them.

The healing spring change from 15 to 10 seconds is understandable but it will make the healing from greatsword leaps quite a bit weaker since we can only use one leap in the field instead of two. Maybe that opens up the possiblity of a blast finisher on maul or hilt bash if mauls short CD is a balancing issue. It would be a great change for us rangers. Finally rangers could stack might and bring support to zergs with another on demand blast finisher.

In my opinion the value of how power affects ranger weapons should be adjusted. While condition works great on rangers, the power values of the weapons are rather low because you also count the pets damage as a part of the overall damage.
But what we see in the sPvP meta is only condition builds.
So I think it’s time to change this with a few changes:
- Longbow: Increase the damage at low range. As it is now it makes this weapon very weak at close range. I think at least 65% damage at close range should make this weapon alot more useful.
- Greatsword: From the leaked notes it seems you want to add damage to maul and increase the vulnerability stacks to 5. The vulnerability is great but I think you should add like 15% more damage to the autoattack. The autoattack is really weak and maul is very telegraphed and easy to dodge.
- Axe mainhand: In my opinion axe 1 is just too weak. The bouncing effect is good as it is but you might want to add +50% damage to the first hit while not increasing the bouncing effect damage. So first target gets hit for 150% of the damage, target 2 and 3 for 100%. Axe 2 might get a higher power scaling, otherwise it’s fine and Axe 3 is great as it is.
- Axe offhand: path of scars ist just awesome but it is easy to dodge. Especially if you trait for increased range the duration of the skill is increased because it flies further but at the same speed which makes it even easier to dodge especially the pull. You should increase the fly speed at least for the traited version. Also sometimes if you throw axe 4 towards a wall or over an edge it will not find its way back and disappear.
Axe 5 is really nice with the added retaliation. We rangers would of course love it if you could move while using it
Shortbow:
The shortbow was a great weapon before the range nerf. While I can understand the change you might want to give us an option in certain traits to increase the range back to 1200. You could also let the autoattack apply bleeds while not flanking, but only one bleed per two attacks (50% bleeds while not flanking).

Then there is one thing that bothers me about ranger traits. The Marksmanship trait line has too many good traits which we would love to use. Please merge the 1500 range trait with piercing arrows. At the same time add a range increase for shortbows to 1200 range maybe even to the same trait.
That way we could still use spotter or remorseless or signet of the beastmaster. It’s sad that we need to use our master and grandmaster trait to make bows viable.
By merging them longbow and shortbow builds would get alot more diversity and options. I know this is asked from alot of ranger players. An even better decision would be to make arrows pierce by default. This would allow beastmasters to get some AoE damage.

Then there are some issues with pets. While you said the pet leash range was increased to 2000 range it seems that I can send my pet only to targets which are max. 1500 range away. This is a huge issue because often when I move over the map my pet is next to me or behind me so once I want to send it to a target it will take quite long for the pet to reach it because sometimes it first has to catch up to me.
I would enjoy if you could change the range to 2000. That way we could also send the pet “in a direction” by sending it to a target in front of us.
You could also fix this by another great addition: What if the pet moved to our mouse cursor (if within 2000 range) once we keep F1 pressed for one second? That could bring a huge benefit to rangers. We could let our pet run in front of us if we want to and place it where we want to. To cancel this placement we can simply press F1 (without holding it one second) to send it to a target or press F3 to call the pet back.

Another issue with pets is when they attack moving targets. With all the leaps/charge/teleport/stealth abilities pets have a really hard time to catch a target. If someone knows how to kite a pet he can make the pet miss most attacks. If he even has teleports/leaps/charges/stealth a melee pet won’t be able to hit him at all.
With the leash range change which fixed the problem that pets would chase someone over half the map I think it is time to make pets move faster. This would solve the problem with pets not hitting moving targets and it would be more in line with other minions in the game which actually hit moving targets. Phantasm for example will always hit as long as you are in range. If you don’t dodge/block them you will get hit.
Our pets should also be able to actually land attacks on moving targets. A 30% base movement speed increase (with swiftness thats +63%) would help with that. Since they will still stop to do an attack they would still land alot less attacks on a moving target than on a non-moving target. That is the only way how pets will be able to hit moving targets like every other ability in the game does.
Ranged pets projectile speed needs to be drastically improved. It should not be that the phantasmal duellists hit you with every single shot no matter how you move/strafe while dealing five times more damage but our pets projectiles can easily be strafed so that not a single one will hit you. All you have to do is to change directions (move left/right) all the time and every single projectile will miss you.This should simply not happen. Since ranged pets damage is very weak it would be great if you actually made them hit.

The Canine knockback fails alot too often. I think it should almost immediately charge at the target (maybe 0.5 sec activation time) . As it is now it will miss 100% of the time if the target is moving. It will leap at him but the target will have moved out of range.
Other knockback skills are alot more reliable so I think that should be fine.

Thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions.

selan.8354:

well roaming and actual zvz is a big difference. if u are in a higher tier u will run into quite a lot of large zergs, and there mesmer melts.
u cant run an spvp build unless u are in a giant zerg where all u can do is spam 1. if u are a smaller group though and meet a medium zerg well there is a huge gap between war/necro.guardian and mes/ranger. commanders want us only for veil/nullfield/portal and timewarp. we are not the dmg class at all, we get used for support and thats boring and not what i signed up for at all. so, sry but i refuse to use that stupid support utility from now on. a warrior can just melt through an entire zerg/deal massive dmg/massive cc and gets massive heals and is tanky. if i wanna deal dmg like a war i have no defense/no toughness/ massive cooldowns and bad condition cleansing and stability.
roaming shouldnt be the only ting we can do next to stupid support.

Lots of classes are in that boat. Many of us can’t really keep up with the zerg fights. For lots of us, roaming (or zerg support) is all we’re currently good at in WvW. Hopefully that will change over time, but that’s how it is right now.

The question is, though, how many of the proposed changes might shift things up and change the balance? How many things might make some classes more viable in zerg fights?

Not sure if this was mentioned before but I think for the Mesmer anyway, the scepter and greatsword need some QOL improvements.

Mesmer
Greatsword for mesmer. The #3 Mindstab would be great if it could be used as a blast finisher to add to its overall potential and supportive abilities.

Scepter
The auto attack doesn’t fit with the theme of the weapon – it applies a power modifier. It should apply some conditions such as bleeding if possible.

Torch
Phantasmal Mage, projectile speed should be increased – which will allow it to hit moving targets more effectively.

These are some of the changes for Mesmer anyway which would be great if they could be addressed

selan.8354:

SynfulChaot.3169:

selan.8354:

SynfulChaot.3169:

Yes. Speed on mesmers please. I don’t want to have to run Traveler’s runes just to get around with any haste. >.<

speed is terrible especially in wvw. why on earth do i have to equip weak runes that dont support my build at all just so i can actually keep up in wvw? all u see in wvw is hammerwarriors and guardians and giant necro trains.

mesmers are the least played class next to the nearly none represented rangers in wvw. i love my class and it used to be fun, but this balance for wvw is simply not fun anymre. i die too quick and have noting to bring to the table in wvw appart from stupid support kitten. i hate playing support only. but anet wants us to be weak so his fav necro/warriors can take over the world. very very dissapointed in anet favoring classes and conveniently overlook op kitten in wvw. i hate being a 1v1 class only. id rather have anet destroy the whole spvp mesmer, so we can at least get something in wvw.

oh and @ commanders: portal your stupid golems yourself, oh u cant?well that too bad. then walk them.
signed mesmer on strike!

Eh. I mostly PvE and tire of how long it takes unboosted to cross a map (I hate waypointing) as we move so slowly. I actually take whatever waterways I can as we can actually move with some decent speed with a few spear attacks.

But in WvW I hear mesmers are quite useful, especially as roamers. I don’t know myself as I’ve not taken mine out of PvE and RP.

well roaming and actual zvz is a big difference. if u are in a higher tier u will run into quite a lot of large zergs, and there mesmer melts.
u cant run an spvp build unless u are in a giant zerg where all u can do is spam 1. if u are a smaller group though and meet a medium zerg well there is a huge gap between war/necro.guardian and mes/ranger. commanders want us only for veil/nullfield/portal and timewarp. we are not the dmg class at all, we get used for support and thats boring and not what i signed up for at all. so, sry but i refuse to use that stupid support utility from now on. a warrior can just melt through an entire zerg/deal massive dmg/massive cc and gets massive heals and is tanky. if i wanna deal dmg like a war i have no defense/no toughness/ massive cooldowns and bad condition cleansing and stability.
roaming shouldnt be the only ting we can do next to stupid support.

what do thieves bring to zvz? Why would any commander want thieves? All they can do is blast fields, nothing more, is a zerg, even is any given profession only have 1 blasting ability, is more than enough, thieves are no good in gvg nor zvz… But the nerf hammer keeps hitting them like there is no tomorrow…

So much for elementalists being able to do everything. Now they’ll only be able to support and probably mediocrly as well

Glad conjures are getting attention. Only problem is that our survivabilty is so terrible the most we will get out of them are 3-4 attacks before we need to drop them again. Rather than have 1 in your hand and 1 drop, I would like to see conjures working kind of like a weapon swap. Have the conjure last a minute and give us the ability to equip/unequip/equip for the entire minute or until charges are gone then have it go on cooldown. What elementalists want is conjures that can fulfill a support role and still be viable in pvp/1v1 like situations.

I don’t like any of your class “balances,” if that’s what you wish to call them. Too many buffs going around that will inevitably encourage the mindless skill spam to an even greater degree. Moving Lung Capacity to Tier 1 is a blatant example. Giving all classes greater support abilities is not the way to control the condition spam that is so prevalent in PvP.

You are approaching class balance by giving all classes support abilities across the board, when in fact you should have prioritized toning down the AoE and the skill spam, and made your game more reliant on player skill. I suppose you took the easier and faster solution, but giving classes more support abilities results in lowering the skill ceiling in team fights and, what is worse, further diverting the user’s attention from carefully and tactically planning an engagement.

Stop with the insta-cast abilities
Stop with the reworking of trait lines
Stop with the buffs

Look at the current state of Spvp in your game and you will see how greatly exacerbated the spam is. The PvP forums have been telling you guys how to fix your game and yet once again you choose to ignore your player base and incorporate the Anet solution.

Still no attention being given to clearly visible animations
Still nothing being done about normalizing models
Still nothing being done about pet size, or the abundance of AIs
STILL NOTHING BEING DONE ABOUT AOE/SKILL SPAM

(sorry, I really had to make sure people read that last bit)

Two very insightful posts from the very community that wants to see this game’s competitive side go far and yet you failed, for the most part, to address any of it. It was absolutely painful to have read the OP. However, if I were a PvE all-star, I’m fairly certain my sentiments would have been the exact opposite. So in that regard, you did a great job.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Simple-but-high-impact-gameplay-fixes/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Mechanics-that-are-too-forgiving

It is really very frustrating to see the direction you are taking your game. If you ever want GW2 to be competitive it would probably be a good idea to start taking notes from posts such as the ones above. But it seems to me you have already made up your minds. You want to make it as easy as possible for anyone to play your game. And so long as you continue to neglect PvP you will have yourself a marvelous PvE game, and nothing more.

P.S.
I laughed at the possibility of giving engi’s guaranteed stability and rangers support abilities.

Giving rangers support abilities.
Rangers and their petting zoo.
Support abilities.
Okay then!

These are some good changes, and lovely effort for the Devs and Balance Team to posts these potential changes to the community before the release and asking the players for opinions.

So here is mine. As mentioned I kind of have my hopes up for trait changes, specially for classes that I’ve played (Guardian, Thief, Ranger).

More so on Rangers. I know a lot of Rangers have been asking for Marksmanship to be changed or for some traits to be put together.

Changes I would like to see:

Marksmanship

1. Opening Strike – 5 vuln/5 sec. when entering combat. Should be change to: First strike applies 5 vuln/5 secs, can occur every 15 seconds.
2. Alpha Strike – Pets have Opening Strike. Should be change to: Pets inflict cripple for 5 seconds, cooldown 20 seconds.
3. Predators Instinct

Skirmishing

1. Carnivorous Appetite i think should be switched with Mighty Swap. Instead of Pet swap, it could be weapon swap.
2. Moment of Clarity would be nice if this also give confusion on interrupt without perplexity.

Wilderness Survival

1. Expertise Training no idea why this is around. Would be nice if it gives more than 350 condition damage though to see my return on investment.

Beastmastery

1. Master’s Bond …. =/
2. Compassion Training why… I dont get why give them healing power for?

RockSteady.7123:

It is really very frustrating to see the direction you are taking your game. If you ever want GW2 to be competitive it would probably be a good idea to start taking notes from posts such as the ones above. But it seems to me you have already made up your minds. You want to make it as easy as possible for anyone to play your game. And so long as you continue to neglect PvP you will have yourself a marvelous PvE game, and nothing more.

P.S.
I laughed at the possibility of giving engi’s guaranteed stability and rangers support abilities.

Giving rangers support abilities.
Rangers and their petting zoo.
Support abilities.
Okay then!

Umm … I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Rock, but pretty much all past patches have been balanced around almost exclusively PvP. This is one of the very few updates in which PvE players feel that balance might actually be done for them.

PvP has not been neglected for balance. Maybe for game modes and achievements. But not for balance. In fact you’ve gotten the most focus on balance of any game mode. By far. Despite having, again by far, the lowest population of players.

While you dislike the proposed changes to ranger and maybe even where the ranger is right now, the class, although strong in PvP, is considered one of the worst in PvE and near the bottom in WvW.

Things to look in to for more build diversity on mesmers:

Mantras are unpopular. The cast time required doesn’t justify the number of charges, making it 3 from the start would make them viable options.
The support mechanics you guys will be adding is a welcome change but the 5 player limit means glamours will still be preferred in wvw.
Stability granted by power break needs one more second, 2 seconds is hardly felt.
And adding boons during the cast time of a mantra could be explored. Like casting mantra of concentration gives group fury(like a shout since were chanting), mantra of distraction gives aoe confusion(around the targeted player), mantra of pain gives aoe torment, mantra of recovery gives group vigor and mantra of resolve gives group protection.

GS 3 on mesmer needs something else, something that would benefit going in the domination trait line, preferably an aoe attack.

iMage also needs work.

Same with signets, like signet of inspiration should grant a boon every 5 secs, 10 is too long for the first boon to last long enough before the next random boon pops up, and I’m supposed to share them too.

There are a lot of useless traits, major and minor, on all the classes. If not useless, costs too many trait points or are out of place as a major trait and better suited as a minor.

Very Very glad to see some focus on balance.

Look, you want feedback? I’ll feed you this; Balance is very important to me, and I know it is to the long-term enjoyment of a lot of players. Please PLEASE keep it as a high-priority fluid concern. I don’t care if it comes at the cost of something else in the game like old PvE encounters in Twilight Arbor or something else people hardly care about anyway. Focus on balance is very important.

Too often balance finally comes along after something ridiculous like 6-10 months and it goes unreviewed/forgotten for another 4-5 months, even if everyone hates the way it turned out, and then it’s “fixed” by a change to something unrelated to the actual problems. You would almost think the old balance team died of old age and the new kids are taking a potshot at it based on what the old team scribbled in the margins on a dusty notepad. I know I’m not giving helpful specifics, but it goes for all classes and most playstyles in multiple MMOs.

Also, I’d focus on WvW if I were you. It’s the one that matters

SynfulChaot.3169:

selan.8354:

well roaming and actual zvz is a big difference. if u are in a higher tier u will run into quite a lot of large zergs, and there mesmer melts.
u cant run an spvp build unless u are in a giant zerg where all u can do is spam 1. if u are a smaller group though and meet a medium zerg well there is a huge gap between war/necro.guardian and mes/ranger. commanders want us only for veil/nullfield/portal and timewarp. we are not the dmg class at all, we get used for support and thats boring and not what i signed up for at all. so, sry but i refuse to use that stupid support utility from now on. a warrior can just melt through an entire zerg/deal massive dmg/massive cc and gets massive heals and is tanky. if i wanna deal dmg like a war i have no defense/no toughness/ massive cooldowns and bad condition cleansing and stability.
roaming shouldnt be the only ting we can do next to stupid support.

Lots of classes are in that boat. Many of us can’t really keep up with the zerg fights. For lots of us, roaming (or zerg support) is all we’re currently good at in WvW. Hopefully that will change over time, but that’s how it is right now.

The question is, though, how many of the proposed changes might shift things up and change the balance? How many things might make some classes more viable in zerg fights?

very true. i just tired of using the same stupid support utilities and be a kitten servant for war/guardians and necros. as long as mesmers dont get reliable aoe dmg that doesntrequire a kitten clone or phantasm or glam gets unnerfed, there is very little hope for mesmers in wvw. and honestly this sad state is pushing me away from the game more and more. i mean who wants to be forced to reroll because kitten anet nerfed your class to the ground and made other classes op and all u are allowed to do is kitten support. and all because of that stupid spvp! spvp destroyed wv balance and anet refuses to make certain wvw tweaks and mesmers wil be stuck in this sad wvw state forever, because of spvp.
i think there is no hope left for rangers and mesmers in wvw. but hey lets buff warriors shouts. its not like they are completely out of control in wvw already!

I would really like to have enemy cast bars displayed. I would love to play an interrupt mesmer and that would help a lot.

That feature could also be great to better calculate dodges and make some counter-playing in pvp. Right now everyone most of the time do random dodges or random dazes, they only know why they are doing it with some specific enemy skills

selan.8354:

very true. i just tired of using the same stupid support utilities and be a kitten servant for war/guardians and necros. as long as mesmers dont get reliable aoe dmg that doesntrequire a kitten clone or phantasm or glam gets unnerfed, there is very little hope for mesmers in wvw. and honestly this sad state is pushing me away from the game more and more. i mean who wants to be forced to reroll because kitten anet nerfed your class to the ground and made other classes op and all u are allowed to do is kitten support. and all because of that stupid spvp! spvp destroyed wv balance and anet refuses to make certain wvw tweaks and mesmers wil be stuck in this sad wvw state forever, because of spvp.
i think there is no hope left for rangers and mesmers in wvw. but hey lets buff warriors shouts. its not like they are completely out of control in wvw already!

*shrug*

Eh. I main a ranger and I’ve refused to take her back into WvW since October. It’s just not worth my time as all I can really do is roam, which I hate doing. I, as a ranger, can’t really be good support in WvW zerg fights. And I’ve just not returned to WvW at all since as it’s just not the same if I’m forced to use an alt, so I know how you feel.

But at the same time it is obvious that they are starting to see the balance issues and I see several changes that show they’re willing to change things for the better. All we can do is wait and see how the changes progress. To see if they can bring more balance to modes seriously lacking it, esp. WvW and to a lesser extent PvE.

Until then I remain firmly PvE and RP only.

JonathanSharp.7094:

… This will involve help from a ton of departments…

It may have had missing skills, ‘unknown’ enemies, and no idea what a condition was, but one thing the combat log always did communicate very clearly was that it would be a pain in the juvenile cat to update the combat log.

I hope devs read this:

People would like to change traits on the fly(build templates) and save builds.
However, there are 2 factors that affect this.
1. Trait Retrainer is in major cities only.
2. No way to save build template.

How to fix
1. Trait retrainer now sells Training Stones for 3s50 each(same cost as re-traiting a lvl80). This way, all players can buy like 250 of them and carry at all times. If they want to re-trait while adventuring, they will be able to, using a Training Stone.
2. Allow us to save build templates to our PC.

• Tab Targeting Improvements

1. Now prioritizes Champs/Legendary, then players/clones, then everything else

1. Deselecting your target now resets tab selection history (aka, you’ll start tabbing through from the beginning if you deselect)

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

Can you give us any information about WvW tab targeting ?

Will “tabbing” still prioritize WALLS (like we’re siege weapons not players) instead of the players on top/around of them as well as npc guards rather than walls ?

Very upsetting changes for thief , more nerfs to a class already nerfed to the ground. What’s the point of touching s/d now we dont have a good weapon set anymore.

Everything is broken/useless and we get more counters for stealth aswell. Fix Regen Warriors , Fix Perplexity Engineers and Buff Elementalists because they truly need it but leave thief alone man.

It’s like the people at HQ have no clue about roaming thieves to make such changes im fed up of seeing a full year worths of nerfs for the thief class. Where is the build diversity ? Destroy yet another tool set and see how many people will play.

Charak.9761:

Some of these may not make it in for that release

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

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

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

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

Yea, its about time they added a counter to that god mode skill stealth… i mean seriously:
1) Ground Targeted AOEs did nothing against a stealthed thief… except have them take damage as they tried to approach for a melee attack and get whatever conditions were associated with the AOE as well.
2) Knockback, Stun, Daze, Knockdown… yea these did nothing to interupt the casting of things like Shadow Refuge or reveal the thief after knocking the thief out of the SR field.
3) Revealed Debuff… yup, nothing says perma stealth god mode like having a 3-4 second time frame where you cant use stealth at all.
4) Anti-Stealth Traps… yea, these are expensive but what other specific piece of WvW gear is specifically made to target a single class? NONE!
5) PVE mobs dont lose aggro with stealth anymore. Oh wait that goes for WvW mobs too.. so for those who keep QQ that thieves use ambient creatures to perma stealth… how about look where the creature that was just attacked is looking and strike there? Chances are, since the mob keeps aggro, it cant attack but it knows where the thief is.

All this BS about stealth needing a counter… there are counters to stealth… you just need to actually learn to use them.

SynfulChaot.3169:

apt.9184:

warrior, necro, and spirit ranger not getting nerfed :o

Please. Stop calling for endless nerfs. Yes, that ranger build may be prevalent in PvP. But it is not as OP in other areas. And the recent changes to spirits does create much counter-play. Please learn the counter mechanics rather than just call for nerfs.

Thanks.

Lol well I honestly think they should serperate parts like that between sPvP and pve. Btw there very little counter play but what breaks the build is its so face roll that it makes bad players look good and is really effective for many reasons. One they spam autos and stack so many condis its just OP and thats why rangers, warriors, and necros need nerf this meta is so face roll. Burst meta was so much better.

Ruggan.4102:

All this BS about stealth needing a counter… there are counters to stealth… you just need to actually learn to use them.

The problem with thieves and stealth is…well, I’ll let these quotes do the talking for me.

“You can’t hit what you can’t see.” ~Walter Johnson
“You cannot dodge what you cannot see!” ~Gen

But to add to this, we need some REAL hard counters to stealth, something to get it off somebody. I really hope Sic ‘Em is changed to a pet damage increase for all its attacks for a certain amount of time, with the Reveal being an AoE around the pet of 900 range. If we can start seeing at least one skill that does that on at least half of the classes, you won’t see as much complaining from players about the ‘invincible’ thief.

Very interesting. Thank you for the heads up.

Thank you very much for the communication and heads up on changes coming. I am very supportive of many of the things listed. Pet survivability in large scale encounters is a huge concern for our class and has been for a long time. With the addition of ascended gear in general – trinkets, then weapons, finally armor at some point – our pet gets weaker in relation to our enemies at every stage, so I am glad that this is being recognized at some level.

On the flip side of the coin, making the pet survive pathing through an AoE minefield that it has no intelligence to avoid is one thing, by doing so I am deeply concerned that it makes the pet too difficult to kill in smaller scale encounters. It could even further pigeonhole Rangers into the roamer/camp capper role they are asked to play in WvW if their pet becomes un-killable in 2 or 3 player encounters. I hope that whatever is done takes this into consideration.

The biggest concern with our class, though, is the fact that it is balanced around 100% uptime of the pet – and this balance also assumes that the pet is actually functioning properly in battle 100% of the time as well. Against mobs who use the same AI as they do, they perform just fine, but when matched up with a player, the AI is terribly inadequate. As it is also in the more challenging PvE content which is being released lately – which has been so good it’s gotten a 100% WvWer like me even mildly interested in PvE, but the content is very Ranger pet un-friendly.

Some main issues with Pet AI that you guys really need to take into consideration:
- Players are able to move and attack simultaneously, while pets cannot.
- Pets stop for long periods of time to channel skills, and do not take into account the fact that their target moves while they are doing so (for example, you can outmaneuver drake breath attacks while in a siege golem without dodging… you would have to be a truly awful player to get caught by this attack, or be very concentrated on something else).
- If a pet is preparing to use another attack when you call for it’s F2 skill to be used, it will complete what it is doing first before doing whatever it deems necessary to position itself to start performing the F2 maneuver, and then cast. By that time the window of opportunity is usually closed, and some times after a 2-3 second wait the cool down on the F2 will trigger without them even performing the attack/buff they were requested to perform.
- Pets have 3 ‘skill’ attacks, but we only control one of them. Many of their AI controlled attacks could be incredibly useful – some even moreso than the provided F2 – but guided by the AI are used at times where they do not make a difference.
- Instead of sticking to their target they often are tricked by small elevation and pathing obstacles in combat. Besides being able to hit and move, they need to be able to jump – or warp – up and down jumpable elevation changes to avoid being taken out of combat by the terrain.
- There are more that worry me, but for the sake of brevity I’ll cut the list there….

But it’s not all bad news: In a recent post on the Ranger forums, it was found by accident that Ranger pets all of a sudden become far more useful if an opposing Mesmer Moa our pet – it makes the pet leap/lunge forward with it’s attacks, granting it the magical ability to hit moving targets. This accidental find shows that the mechanics to fix the rangers biggest handicap already exists within your game mechanics. We would really appreciate you reviewing the fact that this elite skill buffs our pet and makes it a viable source of damage against players who don’t stand still, and see what can be done to make this a permanent fixture of all relevant pet attacks.

The base AI should be looked at too on channeled skills so that the targets location is detected and the mob/pet turns to face that location at the END of it’s channel time. Also, if players can channel skills while moving, mobs and pets really should too. Remember, you are tying up to 40% of our damage and functionality to the idea that this NPC can keep up with us, with our opponent, and be effective. It’s not too much to ask that the AI be given the tools it needs to do so… it’s only fair.

Finally, the argument has been made that allowing us to access more of our pets skills would make the learning curve to play Ranger too steep. As a collective, Ranger players call BS on this one because many of us have been playing pet classes in MMO’s for upwards of a decade. We are perfectly capable of learning to control a pet through a full pet UI, and as a rule players who choose pet classes do so expecting micro gameplay… it’s a playstyle we crave. If we have been able to learn pet systems with far more complex UI’s for the past 10-15 years, I don’t see why a new generation of gamers cannot follow in our footsteps.

Thanks for your consideration.