Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

and people screaming on forums that power damage is OP because it can down in seconds someone that didn’t spec against it.

No they wouldn’t because power attack are unique per class. So they’d be complaining about whatever skill happened to be the largest crit in their combat tab rather than making gross generalizations like they with condis.

This isn’t a complaint, I don’t know enough about much of anything when it comes to combat numbers and min/max-ing and things like that. I’m sure my build is pretty lame, but I get by. I do ‘notice’ how Meteor Shower has changed, but for the content I’ve been doing, and my build, I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact on me.

What I’m trying to figure out, and not seeing in the patch notes (it didn’t jump out at me) that anything changed with Barrage for Rangers, what the difference between the two are that Meteor Shower would get the 0.5 seconds, but not the other skill? They kinda seem the same to me, just from a damage perspective?

I’ve never seen a development team try to actively kill their own game. It’s actually astonishing to watch.

notebene.3190:

This isn’t a complaint, I don’t know enough about much of anything when it comes to combat numbers and min/max-ing and things like that. I’m sure my build is pretty lame, but I get by. I do ‘notice’ how Meteor Shower has changed, but for the content I’ve been doing, and my build, I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact on me.

What I’m trying to figure out, and not seeing in the patch notes (it didn’t jump out at me) that anything changed with Barrage for Rangers, what the difference between the two are that Meteor Shower would get the 0.5 seconds, but not the other skill? They kinda seem the same to me, just from a damage perspective?

Literally just damage. Barrage’s damage is so low that it’s only really worth using against lot of targets. (like a AoE should) but Metoer shower did so much damage that that you used it regardless of circumstance. Moreover on large hitboxes the skill would hit the target mutlitple times per tick which increased it’s damage even more. Meteor shower turns eles into a DPS god that no other class could compete with.

Crinn.7864:

Meteor shower turns eles into a DPS god that no other class could compete with.

It’s a Meteor Shower though!! Giant flaming rocks from the sky SHOULD do huge damage. They control the elements lol! Plus the damage was NOT that strong to compensate for the fact glass cannon eles can be easily one shot. An Ascended zerk set has around 11.5k hp. There was no vitality compensation to make up for the decrease in damage ability. Ele’s have always been risk vs reward. Hence why necros are one of the lower dps classes as they have much more survivability and a huge hp pool.

I personally think the nerf was not warranted and very short sighted. Not to mention there are so many bad eles out there that are no where close to the potential of a full dps rotation. Now they will be even worse.

Mitch.4781:

Plus the damage was NOT that strong to compensate for the fact glass cannon eles can be easily one shot. An Ascended zerk set has around 11.5k hp. There was no vitality compensation to make up for the decrease in damage ability.

Irrelevant, all defensive weaknesses can be handled by simply understanding mobs.

If the reward is high enough, players will learn it, and then stack it to oblivion. Ele was nerfed because there was literally no point to playing anything else as far as DDs are concerned.

Hence why necros are one of the lower dps classes as they have much more survivability and a huge hp pool.

Which is also why Necros are never used for any remotely serious content. High buffer health has no value when you can get by on 10k hp.

You only need as much defensives as the bare minimum to survive. Since the bare minimum in this game is 2 dodges there is no reason not to use eles.

Astralporing.1957:

DeceiverX.8361:

They also run condi negation.

No. They are using cleansing, but the times of zergs using melandru runes, anti-condi food and vitality instead of toughness is long gone. Anti-condi defense is not a primary concern of those players.
Otherwise you’d see the opposite situation – everyone running anti-condi setups, and people screaming on forums that power damage is OP because it can down in seconds someone that didn’t spec against it.

Do you understand what the WvW meta is and has been and how combo fields and finishers work?

Because if you think that people aren’t running enough cleanses, particularly for group environments, you’re sadly mistaken.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_field

Most of the ZvZ choice abilities were taken to utilize these fields to begin with. Poison/Weakness maintenance shortbow thief was one of the premier ZvZ builds to play before people switched into more productive builds which even precluded the CG change.

They’ve already closed the feedback discussion. My question is are they going to tweak this skill balance patch a little more or is it done? After playing the new patch for a few days, it seems like a few classes are out of whack. It seems the Mesmer buff was particularly ham-fisted. Are they going to roll that back about 50%?

Thief got another nerf, which is normal and expected… however can they better explain where the additional sustainability is coming in? The past few days I’ve felt considerably less sustainable in combat. Also, in the next patch it would be awesome if they’d rework some of the utility skills.

Warrior and guardian on the other hand could use a little less sustainability. While it can be hilarious to watch a squad of 10-15 people try to drop 1 warrior who pops all his invulns, it gets old…really…really…quick. Combine that with high damage output it and it could use some tinkering.

Engineer seems to have gone sideways this patch. Which I think is good, it didn’t really get nuked, and really didn’t get buffed. Just tweaked slightly.

Necromancer appears to have gotten another buff, which has been quite apparent in WvW. Because sufficient condition cleanse is still out of reach of several classes, necros have become a must have class. It’s not guild wars, it’s condition wars. DPS doesn’t work equally well because of perma invuln.

As for revenant, I haven’t seen many on lately but the ones I have fought have been pretty 50/50… so I’m thinking they went sideways too, which is good.

Lastly, I think rangers must have lost some of their sustainability… possibly too much. If I could, I’d nerf their barrage a bit, and give them just a little bit more sustain. Currently I can burst them down as fast as another thief, and that’s just weird.

Inoki.6048:

I’m sure I don’t need to go deep into explaining, that how you counter any class heavily depends on many factors / circumstances, like your position / area of engagement, the number of opponents, the class you play and the skills / traits it offers you to counter with. You will run into trouble when you don’t have access to unblockable attacks or if you play a ranged class whose projectiles are easy to reflect with all the blocks / invuls / reflects the guard / warrior have, especially guards traps that everyone knows – especially those who chose to play it – that the CC + dmg input coming from those traps exceeds reasonable limits and comparing those traps to thief and ranger traps we guessed the winner correctly.

Of course a derogatory statement can only come from someone who chose to play a guard exactly for its simplistic gameplay that requires near zero thinking, making it a class for – that’s right you guessed it – dummies, who are not up for the really taxing challenge – to play a class that actually requires more brainpower than playing a class that almost entirely doesn’t require any skill to play yet still the odds of winning are always great.

I made a Warrior exactly twice, purely for experimentation and after I saw that getting to higher tier PVP with it required almost no effort I deleted it immediately and I refuse to play such classes, which is why I don’t roll a Guardian / Warrior.

Heres my tale on this. I choose guardian as main on beta because i liked the idea of spirit weapons and all that anet promised the class would be. Anet chamged guard since then to be something i didnt agree to but i love the class anyway and its not my fault the way it is now. Now saying guard takes less skill than thief or mesmer etc lemme just say that ive made thief and mesmer for ex to try out the so called hard classes and once i got the builds and rotation practiced they r equally easy. A less experienced dg will loose to me the same way i will loose to thief vs thief against someoneore used to it

Do mesmer and thief really use “rotation” in high play PvP?

Playing more during N.A. hours… quite a different experience. This patch is not so much power creep… as power run as fast as you can. On pretty much every class it’d be good to dial the changes back about 50%

Ardid.7203:

Do mesmer and thief really use “rotation” in high play PvP?

Spvp is not the only game mode.

miguelsil.6324:

Ardid.7203:

Do mesmer and thief really use “rotation” in high play PvP?

Spvp is not the only game mode.

You were talking about beating another class, I assumed it was in some kind of player vs player environment.

Ardid.7203:

miguelsil.6324:

Ardid.7203:

Do mesmer and thief really use “rotation” in high play PvP?

Spvp is not the only game mode.

You were talking about beating another class, I assumed it was in some kind of player vs player environment.

My bad. WvW it is. And maybe i expressed myself badly since english is not my main language. But i meant by rotation a combo of skills and utilitys for a short period of time, for ex in a guardian once you ended ur virtues after using elite renewal the DH is dead.

miguelsil.6324:

Ardid.7203:

Do mesmer and thief really use “rotation” in high play PvP?

Spvp is not the only game mode.

To answer the question, yes there is a rotation, at least on thief. It has to be fluid (always be ready to try to escape) but yeah, there is rotation.

Elementalist
In this update, we’ve reduced quite a few recharges for many weapon and utility skills that felt too high in light of previous reductions to cooldown traits. With that said, we’re also looking to reduce the elementalist’s damage in high-level content, as this profession’s damage and utility mix currently crowds out other potential high-damage dealers.
Engineer
The goal for engineers in this update is to improve trait synergy, weapon usefulness, and kit purity of purpose. Both power and condition builds will be affected in this round of changes, with a focus on PvE group viability. Notable to this, the trait Pinpoint Distribution now grants a unique condition-damage bonus to allies around the engineer. The Flamethrower utility kit is now focused on burning and keeping that condition on your enemies.
Guardian
Improvements to underused base skills have been the general focus for the guardian in this patch, but we are also giving the dragonhunter specialization a little bit more counterplay in PvP scenarios. We’ve unsplit a few of the changes introduced this winter, taking either the more powerful option or compensating to a more powerful level than is available in most game modes.
Mesmer
The mesmer is receiving a few different additions and reworks. Time Warp is one of the select skills and traits in this update, which is being changed to affect ten targets. Also in this update, we are implementing initial attacks on several phantasm skills, allowing the mesmer to deliver a primary attack in addition to the summon in order to provide a bit more constant pressure on your targets.
Necromancer
One of the major goals for the necromancer during this update has been to improve the reaper’s greatsword weapon in all game modes, without blowing its power out in the ones where it was already good. In addition, we’ve also been looking to improve a few baseline utility abilities.
Ranger
The ranger will see a variety of changes during this update. Of particular note, we are reducing Grace of the Land’s damage bonus and reworking it so that it’s compatible with all Celestial Avatar abilities and affects ten allies around the druid. We hope this improves the value of a single druid in large-group scenarios. Many pet attacks have had usability and movement enhancements in an effort to improve general damage against moving targets. The greatsword has had a couple of improvements for better damage and pet synergy. Finally, a few underused (and even some meta) utility skills have undergone general quality-of-life improvements.
Revenant
In addition to bug fixes and quality-of-life changes, we’ve been looking to improve the support role for the revenant. Alacrity will now be available through the Salvation specialization line, allowing Ventari’s Tablet to project it at a constant rate. We’re excited to see it in play!
Thief
Quality-of-life improvements and PvP health have been our focus for the thief, mainly for daredevil. As such, we’ll be looking to reduce endurance from a few different areas to target survivability through evasion but also compensate for it a bit with extra utility and condition removals.
Warrior
Warrior’s banners are the final recipient for our target-increase update, with the unique enhancements from each banner increasing to ten. After that, we’ve mostly focused on improving weapon and utility effectiveness, with some significant increases to underutilized areas.

NO! This is not good enough.

The focus of EVERY balance patch should be BALANCE – Not arbitrary alterations to a randomly selected aspect of a class.

Example: I’m sick of my Necro being obliterated when the Berserker I was attacking just went invulnerable twice in a row and I lose the fight simply because my class has no invulnerabilities. It’s bullkitten and needs fixing sharpish.

The fact that Arenanet decided to ignore this sort of glaring and long known imbalance is why people are so very angry.

Agent Mulder.4531:

I’ve never seen a development team try to actively kill their own game. It’s actually astonishing to watch.

Not development, its the opposite… all they do is restrict / lessen / take away.

Agent Mulder.4531:

I’ve never seen a development team try to actively kill their own game. It’s actually astonishing to watch.

… Another dev team is doing the opposite and their MMO gained 1.5 million players in the last 9 months and that is without even releasing a new expansion.

Xillllix.3485:

Agent Mulder.4531:

I’ve never seen a development team try to actively kill their own game. It’s actually astonishing to watch.

… Another dev team is doing the opposite and their MMO gained 1.5 million players in the last 9 months and that is without even releasing a new expansion.

I’m curious which dev team you mean here, Xilllix. I’m not clear if it’s anet, or some other game?

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Xillllix.3485:

Agent Mulder.4531:

I’ve never seen a development team try to actively kill their own game. It’s actually astonishing to watch.

… Another dev team is doing the opposite and their MMO gained 1.5 million players in the last 9 months and that is without even releasing a new expansion.

I’m curious which dev team you mean here, Xilllix. I’m not clear if it’s anet, or some other game?

Other game… They’ve really stepped it up in quality. Anet balance patch looks like they are running in full circle.

Translation of the balance patch for the elementalist:
“In this balance patch we’re gonna undo a bunch of nerfs done to the elementalist class 6 months ago 6 months ago that turned out to be a disaster, we’re gonna nerf it’s best skill however …”

We’ve been there before with healing skills. What’s next? They’re gonna undo the ridiculous fire line nerfs on cantrips and bring back the only amulet that was fun to play and present it as a balance patch?

Instead of trying to balance 1 trait line, one weapon and 1 set of skills, they chose to balance the rest of weapons, traits and skill sets with power creep xd.

Plus they wet to a more spammy and forgiving combat.

That and making ascendeds more grindy they reduced the grind with hot after the expansion via feedback, but the lesson seems to not be learned).

GW2 its an excelent game but has a history of poor decisions making, it go one step back every 2 steps forward:

Ls1 not been replayable, ascended gear, 2 weeks for ls releases that were too small, hurried content in the living story, way to delayed expansion, dumbed down of the intro and low level maps for western players, erasing the first pact commander story quests (Apaty, Tom, etc.), desert borderlands rotating with alpine ones , stronghold as the next great pvp map, no skilled leaderboards in dec 2014- march 2015, grind leagues (1-4) , elite spec power creep, poor fractal rewards at the start of hot, dungeons rewards nerf, no raid lfg (because they feel it wasnt apropiate for the elite idea), Hot maps grind, scribe been super expensive , leather becoming too expensive (nerf on salvage rates).

It really makes me sad when they do this mistakes. Specially because as a community we have been generally right about them been bad for the game and they dont listen (Collin Johanson even wrote “we will go in this direction, if anyone its not ok with it, they can go”, talking about a no replayable LS1).

If this kind of patch didnt happen, gw2 would have been a bigger and more sucefull MMO.