Guild Wars 2

Devilman.1532:

Why the 7% Air Overload damage nerf and .5 second nerf to Meteor shower that not only lowers its damages but further destroys the flow of Fire rotation (continuing what the lava font nerf did)? Elementalists in PVE have virtually ZERO survivability, no damage mitigation to speak of beyond the 2 dodge rolls everyone has, very low HPs, garbage healing, No real group utility etc..

What we DO is damage. If you continue to nerf that what is the point of the class? We don’t really do anything else.

What is the rationale in continuing to nerf Elementalist damage capabilities while not giving us anything in return?

Don’t you guys provide any utility, you must otherwise why would you guys always get picked over other classes?

I wonder how long it will be before guardians are casting Moa and ele’s are running ports.

I’d like the devs to reply to first: Why did you advertise that alacrity would be unique to chronomancers then take it back?

More generally: why are you so qucik to slap down Mesmer? After the huge glamour nerf, we lanquished in trash tier for a solid year.

Yet youi allowed hambow, and pettting zoo ranger to roll over the landscape for months or years.

It’s not OK for bunker chrono.. but it is OK for dh to have essentially the same power levels.

What did Mesmer do that offended anet so much?

I really believe that ANET is respondidng to people simply not wanting to learn to respond to a Mesmer rather than taking an objective approach.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

XeonJab.7529:

“Specializing in chronomancy grants mesmers access, through traits and skills, to a new effect called alacrity. " Chronomancers. “Chronomancy is the only specialization allowed access to this powerful effect.” Chronomancers. So why do revs have alacrity now?

Chronomancer was given Alacrity because it was incredibly thematic and felt within its kit.

From a group content perspective, alacrity is so strong that if no other profession gains access to it then Chronomancers would push others out of groups because it feels necessary. As is, they are likely to remain the best ways to grant alacrity to others.

The game evolves and we decided that keeping this feature exclusive may not be in the best interest of the game as a whole. From a general game perspective, specializations are places where a profession may gain access to features from a different profession.

And yet because Ventari revenant is so mediocre and doesn’t provide quickness alongside alacrity while also sacrificing 27% damage from Devastation traitline or 25% from invocation to take up the Salvation trait removes any point in bringing a revenant anyways.

The changes to revenant do nothing to make it relevant in PvE group content because the group support you gave it is not only impractical with immense opportunity cost, but also outclassed by the alternative.

You seriously need to reconsider the damage nerfs to the autoattack, Unrelenting Assault for PvE only (keep values the same for wvw and spvp). Reconsider Facet of Nature’s nerf in PvE as well; it removed revenant from the meta.

Moreover, revenants are now at the place where they have a far inferior version of initiative, since not only does utility cost energy and now has cooldowns, but weaponskills also have significant energy costs (especially staff) while having cooldowns as well. Energy was supposed to be the foil of Initiative, but for utility instead; that was undone by slapping energy costs onto both weapon skills as well as utilities on top of cooldowns, since the whole point of energy costs for utilities was to limit their usage.

And with no meaningful way to generate/manage energy other than legend swap, revenants barely get to make use of their legend utilities for group support since the energy is going all into the expensive weaponskills and Herald F2 upkeep which is the only thing they offer to a group that isn’t made redundant.

Since alacrity is now no longer mesmer exclusive, are there any plans on making quickness more widely available too? I realise other classes currently already have the boon, but it’s nowhere near the 100% uptime chronos can dish out.

What about impacting the PvP/PvE meta by adding some missing healing & elite skills? Are there any plans too add those skills in the future?

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Devilman.1532:

Why the 7% Air Overload damage nerf and .5 second nerf to Meteor shower that not only lowers its damages but further destroys the flow of Fire rotation (continuing what the lava font nerf did)? Elementalists in PVE have virtually ZERO survivability, no damage mitigation to speak of beyond the 2 dodge rolls everyone has, very low HPs, garbage healing, No real group utility etc..

What we DO is damage. If you continue to nerf that what is the point of the class? We don’t really do anything else.

What is the rationale in continuing to nerf Elementalist damage capabilities while not giving us anything in return?

Don’t you guys provide any utility, you must otherwise why would you guys always get picked over other classes?

The DAMAGE man the damage….

Samug.6512:

Engineer got pretty interesting stuff, I admit.
But, why are gadgets, turrets and med kit forgotten AGAIN?
Also, why you encourage people to play invisible condi thief by buffing it? There’s no fun with fighting against them. It’s the exact opposite.

I second this and would also wonder why Engineer Shields went ignored.

Also are there any plans to change/improve the Scrapper Trait?

I appreciate the Necro and Engi changes, thank you. Could we please have some AoE damage (maybe Poison) on Engi offhand Pistol #5 skill (Glue Shot)? It’s really boring in PvE, especially for such a long cooldown. Edit: Oh and maybe make Necro Focus #5 (Spinal Shivers) better in PvE??? 99% of the mobs have no boons!

Are you guys considering reworking or balancing food, runes, sigils, utility and so forth along with class balance changes? (at some point)

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

XeonJab.7529:

“Specializing in chronomancy grants mesmers access, through traits and skills, to a new effect called alacrity. " Chronomancers. “Chronomancy is the only specialization allowed access to this powerful effect.” Chronomancers. So why do revs have alacrity now?

Chronomancer was given Alacrity because it was incredibly thematic and felt within its kit.

From a group content perspective, alacrity is so strong that if no other profession gains access to it then Chronomancers would push others out of groups because it feels necessary. As is, they are likely to remain the best ways to grant alacrity to others.

The game evolves and we decided that keeping this feature exclusive may not be in the best interest of the game as a whole. From a general game perspective, specializations are places where a profession may gain access to features from a different profession.

So when are you planning to give engineers portal? Moa for DH perhaps.

The professions need to be unique. ANET, I feel, is really blinded by this group content thing. Raids are a tiny elite.. as are high level fractals. WvW is dead because anet refused to balance population. Group content really is not where you should be concentrating your energies.

Assic.2746:

What about impacting the PvP/PvE meta by adding some missing healing & elite skills? Are there any plans too add those skills in the future?

THIS. It would be totally awesome to see a spectral healing or a well elite for necromancers! I am sure other classes would really appreciate that as well.

I’m getting a feeling that the Elementalist nerf will never be addressed in this thread

TorsoReaper.8530:

I’m getting a feeling that the Elementalist nerf will never be addressed in this thread

I’m getting the feeling its the elephant in the room that is going to be summarily ignored.

Devilman.1532:

TorsoReaper.8530:

I’m getting a feeling that the Elementalist nerf will never be addressed in this thread

I’m getting the feeling its the elephant in the room that is going to be summarily ignored.

Ignoring is what you do when you have a ton of data, logic, and facts to defend your actions. Obviously.

I’m also curious how someone can feel revenant was a strong healer, when its healing is so impractical in PvE that it was never contemplated for that slot.

Moreover, raw healing throughput has never been necessary for even raids. The main reason to bring a druid over just another tempest was because of group damage buffs, not the healing.

Are developers keeping track of how PvE and instanced raids/fractals are actually carried out by the players, or is PvE an afterthought to the priority of spvp balance?

SPVP balance considerations always seem to trump everything else when decisions are made.

Otherwise how do you explain the hamfisted revenant damage output nerfs when revenant wasn’t even the top DPS class at the time? It all originated from spvp complaints and PvE revenants were collateral damage.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Devilman.1532:

TorsoReaper.8530:

I’m getting a feeling that the Elementalist nerf will never be addressed in this thread

I’m getting the feeling its the elephant in the room that is going to be summarily ignored.

Ignoring is what you do when you have a ton of data, logic, and facts to defend your actions. Obviously.

LMAO

Stealth and Alacrity are both profession buffs (technically) but are now much more widely available. Thieves are no longer the only ones with access to stealth, and chronos likewise with alacrity.

At the moment if you remove revealed. Then made both of these and superspeed boons instead of profession buffs, you would have the perfect pairing for every boon and condition. Where taunt is actually the technical opposite of stealth, where chill is the technical opposite of alacrity, and superspeed being an extremely suitable pairing for immob. It would be a very interesting shakeup and would tremendously help simplify the boons and conditions structure in the game. On a fundamental level.

So my question is, do you have any plans in the future to standardise common buffs and turn them into boons? Or would it be something you’d be interested in doing soon?

Devilman.1532:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Devilman.1532:

Why the 7% Air Overload damage nerf and .5 second nerf to Meteor shower that not only lowers its damages but further destroys the flow of Fire rotation (continuing what the lava font nerf did)? Elementalists in PVE have virtually ZERO survivability, no damage mitigation to speak of beyond the 2 dodge rolls everyone has, very low HPs, garbage healing, No real group utility etc..

What we DO is damage. If you continue to nerf that what is the point of the class? We don’t really do anything else.

What is the rationale in continuing to nerf Elementalist damage capabilities while not giving us anything in return?

Don’t you guys provide any utility, you must otherwise why would you guys always get picked over other classes?

The DAMAGE man the damage….

Don’t you think it’s kind of fair to let other classes DPS a bit, I mean Necros have been the Blacksheep of the Raiding Family since forever?

I would like that any Dev say something about the ele’s nerfs.
I understand the air overload’s nerf, but what about the meteor shower? The skill now feels slow and bad, its not feel in the line of the elementalist.
Why you didn’t put it a longer CD or nerf the dmg of the meteors? Seriously, when you see the meteor hitting enemies and not being damaged, feel so bad.
I know that ele its top in PvE, but dont ruin the essence of the elementalist’s skills.

Did you guys ever considered having an open test server? I think a lot of drama could be solved this way, as well as gathering a lot more information about the balance changes themselves.

Titan.8215:

I would like that any Dev say something about the ele’s nerfs.
I understand the air overload’s nerf, but what about the meteor shower? The skill now feels slow and bad, its not feel in the line of the elementalist.
Why you didn’t put it a longer CD or nerf the dmg of the meteors? Seriously, when you see the meteor hitting enemies and not being damaged, feel so bad.
I know that ele its top in PvE, but dont ruin the essence of the elementalist’s skills.

I would like a comment on elementalist as a whole.

Very niche, few options and several underused traits, utilities, skills – including elite skills being the worst of all professions.

It just feels that it is a matter of don’t care / too much work to bother….

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Devilman.1532:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Devilman.1532:

Why the 7% Air Overload damage nerf and .5 second nerf to Meteor shower that not only lowers its damages but further destroys the flow of Fire rotation (continuing what the lava font nerf did)? Elementalists in PVE have virtually ZERO survivability, no damage mitigation to speak of beyond the 2 dodge rolls everyone has, very low HPs, garbage healing, No real group utility etc..

What we DO is damage. If you continue to nerf that what is the point of the class? We don’t really do anything else.

What is the rationale in continuing to nerf Elementalist damage capabilities while not giving us anything in return?

Don’t you guys provide any utility, you must otherwise why would you guys always get picked over other classes?

The DAMAGE man the damage….

Don’t you think it’s kind of fair to let other classes DPS a bit, I mean Necros have been the Blacksheep of the Raiding Family since forever?

Of course, I also have a full raid ready Necro that never raids because no one wants a necro since they are the kitten children of GW2. What I am saying is don’t continue to weaken the one thing we Ele’s do that is worth a kitten .

Engineer

What is the intended identity of Scrapper in PvE Open World and Raid/Dungeon gameplayy?

Prior to the patch, Scrapper was completely outclassed in DPS by vanilla Engineer using the Explosives + Firearms + Tools traitline. Specifically, Scrapper was outclassed by Tools for DPS thanks to Static Discharge, reduced toolbelt CD, and a 10% damage modifier.

However, the recent balance patch made the Scrapper identity crisis worse. You buffed Rifle DPS, Static Discharge, and Pistol Condi dmg. In other words, straight-up increases to both Power dmg and Condi dmg, all fitting very nicely into the Explosives-Firearms-Tools trinity. For DPS, there is no reason to take Scrapper, especially since the reduced Toolbelt CD and the dmg of Static Discharge now flying through the roof.

Is this intentional that someone would not take Scrapper and hammer for DPS?

I understand Scrapper is very meta in PvP, so I am in no way saying Scrapper is without use. However, I am having trouble figuring outs its identity for PvE.

If Scrapper is not intended to be a DPS spec, what is its role ?

Zlater.6789:

Thieves are no longer the only ones with access to stealth, and chronos likewise with alacrity.

Thief was NEVER the only class with access to stealth.

The changes to vault affected its animation in a very negative way. It feels floaty and is out of sync with the evade frames. I hope there will be a bit more polish applied to this skill as it went from feeling fluid to feeling quite bad in the name of quickness and latency support.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

From a general game perspective, specializations are places where a profession may gain access to features from a different profession.

Then can Tempest get 3 dodges please?

I guess there are no plans to reduce the powercreep and make player vs player fights more dependant on actual player actions instead of relying more and more on traits and skills, right? Because since HoT it often feels like i’m fighting mechanics more than players, and if i don’t choose certain traits and skills to counter those mechanics, it barely matters how well i play. Buffs surely won’t make those fights more fun again

Devilman.1532:

TorsoReaper.8530:

I’m getting a feeling that the Elementalist nerf will never be addressed in this thread

I’m getting the feeling its the elephant in the room that is going to be summarily ignored.

would really like to know what SF role is supposed to be in spvp and wvw. Making changes that impacts the whole game to make classes viable in the minority Raiding activity is a danger that was always recognized – we can see the carnage it has caused in other games.

Thanks:
Some reduced cooldowns across the board. That addresses some issues with how slow/uninteresting combat can be when too much is on cooldown.

Warrior shout changes made me spit-take. Rather hearty buff. I almost feel guilty about, and yet, with conditions so heavily factored into HoT-era gameplay, sorry-not-sorry I have two cleanses on Shake It Off.

Warrior hammer damage buffs. Sadly won’t be enough to break the Forceful Greatsword / Phalanx Strength meta, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

Disappointment:
While getting a few damage buffs to hammer, the trait for it is still lackluster. The weapon is too slow to take advantage of stuns for more than one hit, at best. When I can get quickness on any weapon, a limited benefit to hammer with some cooldown changes doesn’t seem as useful.

Banners. I keep waiting for that huge 30-second gap in between to change.The 75% uptime isn’t terrible, just the huge gap in between. A 60-sec uptime and 80-sec cooldown would preserve the uptime ratio while closing the actual downtime gap.

The trait for regen (one of the weakest boons in the game) without a cooldown reduction is also lackluster. Unless the boon switches to stacking potency, the regen it feeds is going to be fairly low.

Regardless rev which i deleted.

1. Why sword 2 and 3 are the only skills iname that split damage between targets? No other skills ingame works this way. Additionally it doesnt even make sense from desing point. AA scales up with more targets around while 2 and 3 does the opposite. So is sword single target or multi in the end? Also why sword 5 still dont shadowstep to the target or.. anything tbh? A pull in melee range.. i dont get the purpose of a pull in melee range..

2. Why you gutted stability on dodge minor trait (and whole retribution line due to that)? It was never the issue. The issue was extra long stack of stab on herald and it was the trait which needed a nerf, nothing else. Your change only hurt core rev, moreover its totally lack any sort of synergy (yet again) with evade skills proccing it at random times when we may not even need it.

3. Mallyx “rework” was supposed to be temporary yet here are several months later and.. what? Mallyx remains blant with his elite being completely useless. You could have added a special trait to bring old his back style like with corruption necro but you havent done that. Why?

4. Outdated traits. One has to explain me why we have 2 sword adept traits in devastation who does literally the same? It was suggested to replace one with move speed many times but year later we still have +150 fero/10% dmg stacks. Why traits are outdated and simple things are not addressed for so long? Example

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Incendiary_Powder
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Diabolic_Inferno

You see whats wrong here? Rev is full of that

5. And most important cus i really dont see a point to write much else (i could write a book, no joke, and i sorta did cus i wrote few months ago a google document which would.. literally almost fix all core issues with rev). So..

What the deal with energy system? Why revenant players are getting double punishment? You have raised weapon cd’s to the point where they are on par/higher compared to other classes. Lets take look at this for example

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Precision_Strike
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Electro-whirl

So pvp wise both are on 6sec cd. Electro hits harder, has reflect, doesnt split damage on targets, cannot be deflected/reflected, 6cd and.. no energy cost. Moe utility, more damage. Being honest scrapper hammer is a improved sword/sword revenant.

But going to the point. Everything cost energy, so much in some cases its ridiculous. With pretty much all weapon skills having it cd’s raised you havent removed energy cost from them acting as double punishment to rev compared to all other classes.

The original philosophy was shorter cd’s than other classes on weapon skills+energy cost. Now that due all the nerfs it no longer apply why our skills still consume energy? Imagine warrior being having to bother with cooldown on skills+using adrenaline to fire off skills.

But going futher – why utility skills have cd’s? The whole poin of rev energy system was to reserve thief mechanic. Low cd’s on weapon skills, 0 cd’s on utilities (apart from short on CC ones). At this point why we still have energy system in the place when its a completely failed mechanic cus in the end cds were slapped on everything i can think of.

You cant gateway this profession by both cd and energy. But if its fair in your opinion then i would like to ask: where are cd’s on thief weapon skills? They should happen already at this point. Nobody is enjoying getting spammed by 33333 or 55555 and such storng skills like staff 5 or shortbow 5 should definitely have cd. So please with next patch, consider making it equal. Either energy cost removed from revenant or cooldowns added to thief.

A note on these threads: you’ll get only a very small set of input that may not properly represent the entire playerbase and what is best for it. So a select, single thread like this is most likely a bad method of getting feedback for potential changes. That, and the randomness factor when considering opinions from such a small group of people.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

•Disconnecting from a PvP match will now add additional respawn time calculated from maximum possible downed bleed duration for a maximum of 30 seconds. Reconnecting to a PvP match with a respawn time will result in death.

Sorry my english is not the best, but can somebody preferably a dev confirm wheter I am right or wrong at this one and in case correct me if needed.

What I get from it is that if u disconnect is that your respawn time is the equivelant of your character bleeding out+30 seconds maximum? and then if u come back within that timeframe u die?

Yeah, we had an issue where people could disconnect and log back in and if they had a fast drive, could get back into the action faster than intended. This change puts a stop to that.

ok i see, thanx for answering my question.

Was there really any reason to nerf the damage of elementalists without some sort of trade of in hp/vitality. They can easily be one shot, hence the risk and trade off with hp vs dps. Also they control the elements, it makes sense they are the most powerful class.

Also out of a raid situation where rotations do not come into play, their damage is not even that strong. It’s not as if people will suddenly want all thieves or power necros for their groups. Considering the wide and accepted access to dps meters now, it’s quite clear that there are a lot of very poor damage dealing ele’s out there. It seems a curious change.

Druid spirits are still 5 targets. Considering warrior banners are 10 targets now, is this an oversight that will be addressed very soon?

I see a lot of elementalist and necromancer posts, we need answers to calm out anguished heads!

Edit: right now I feel that a lot of elementalists would gladly trade some of their damage in exchange for some of the necromancer’s survival and vice versa.

I just did the first 2 collection for new events, they’re very nice with their clues. I also like that we finally get something said about the Pale Tree !

However, WHY are you adding more use for Maguuma Lily which was already way overpriced, while there are so many unused materials ?

So basically, you did absolutely nothing to make Power Mes more viable in WvW, and buffed Ghost Thief and Condi Mes.

….

I just want the lava font cooldown back. That’s literally all.

Take some of the damage off to balance it but make the rotation feel good again.

I had JUST bitten into gearing my Ele when you guys took the fun completely out of the class for me. This sucks extremely hard and for no good reason. Please.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

I see a lot of elementalist and necromancer posts, we need answers to calm out anguished heads!

what posts? Like me the devs don’t see any ele/necro posts

Is there any realistic plan for kit rework in development or to bring other engi’s utility skills on the similar level of viability? (in let’s say 2017) Currently the kits are in 95% of all meta builds, especially in pve.

How about looking into past non kit centric builds such as HGH power stacker or SD glass cannon?

What about rifle? Are you satisfied with its current state?

How often do you plan to release balance patches?

The kinds of changes I love to see are the kinds like your phantasm, ranger greatsword and ventari changes, so just wanted to say thanks for them, and I look forward to seeing more in the future.

With the introduction of alacrity on ventari i found myself theorycrafting builds again. I was wondering if it was worthwile going for a healingpower gear, but i never felt swapping of ventari would be useful in that scenario. I thought about beeing able to equip the same legend 2 times could be a solution. just having a reset on energy to 50% while beeing able to provide buffs AND use some attack skills would be really nice.

Also concerning boons – regeneration is in a really weird spot right now. Not the most potent buff is ticking but the one with the longest duration. This leads to scenarios where you have to invest heavily into boon duration as well, just to have your regen ticking on your allies. Are there any plans to revisit the functionality of regeneration as you once did with quickness?

I really like the changes. Happy with buffing old ranger pets maybe it will balance the elite and standard spec a little bit more.
Also absolutely love the idea of Caladbolg but I hope it will be permanent because for some ppl creating 4 additional characters to get the skin might take some time.

Waringham.5914:

With the introduction of alacrity on ventari i found myself theorycrafting builds again. I was wondering if it was worthwile going for a healingpower gear, but i never felt swapping of ventari would be useful in that scenario. I thought about beeing able to equip the same legend 2 times could be a solution. just having a reset on energy to 50% while beeing able to provide buffs AND use some attack skills would be really nice.

Also concerning boons – regeneration is in a really weird spot right now. Not the most potent buff is ticking but the one with the longest duration. This leads to scenarios where you have to invest heavily into boon duration as well, just to have your regen ticking on your allies. Are there any plans to revisit the functionality of regeneration as you once did with quickness?

Healing rev was actually a thing before the patch. A lot of people ran it in raids, mostly Deimos, but it’s pretty handy in wing 2 as well due to the super fast condi cleanses.