Guild Wars 2

Pick a class you play regularly. What is ONE change you would make to it? Serious answers only please, and don’t use this as a soap box for whining about the unfairness of the game!

Also, here’s a Google Docs link to the same document; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OsfR3pciHNC9XBCw066eceKb14Hpvc0QjfEQjxLbLBU/edit?usp=sharing

NOTE: I will keep adding to the list as more people contribute
NOTE2: I would just add this list to the original post, but the super low/deficient character count limits me to 5001 :|

EDIT1: I’ve updated the document with all the suggestions so far. I’ve rehosted it as well so check the above link for the updated version.
EDIT2: Other document got screwed up. It’s been updated with a new link. Sorry for the wait!

Elementalist - Give them another weapon slot, but disable it during combat. While I absolutely wouldn’t want to give eles combat-swapping, that’s essentially two extra inventory slots, and it means that if I want to fool around with a combination outside my main set every once in a while, I just have to hit [~] out of combat, instead of having to dig through my inventory.

It’s more a quality of life improvement than a re-balancing one, but, man, I’d definitely mix up my play style more often that way.

Warrior – Pistol Off-Hand….because why not. It could be a viable utility weapon. Give slot #4 a skill named “Rally” that boost your allies defense and provides stability. #5 could be “Unworthy Challenge” Marking your target with Torment if they have their backs to you.

Ranger – Preparations as an alternative to the pet mechanic.

chemiclord.3978:

Ranger – Preparations as an alternative to the pet mechanic.

What does this mean?

Also as a ranger, Id like to have one increased short bow range. Thank you

Give Warrior a decent heal not on a stupidly long cooldown. The only reason we rely on Healing sig is because we are constantly being hit with no access to regen or protection, or abundant dodges. Which is why warriors still use GS to run away and wait for Healing surge to come back up.

Warrior- Let us move while using hundred blades. That move is WAY too underpowered!

Mepheles.2087:

Give Warrior a decent heal not on a stupidly long cooldown. The only reason we rely on Healing sig is because we are constantly being hit with no access to regen or protection, or abundant dodges. Which is why warriors still use GS to run away and wait for Healing surge to come back up.

Not sure what you’re talking about warriors have plenty of access to regen…. As for heals on a long cooldown healing signet has a 16 second cooldown and roughly 400hp/sec regen… Combine that with Adrenal Health/ any other form of regen we have access too (runes/banners/Dogged March/Inspiring Battle Standard/etc..) or just run Shouts Heal and you have plenty of healing / regen.

Engineer: Kit damage should scale with gear/weapons/stats that I actually have, not a template.

Repost from the elementalist forums

We do not have build diversity for two reasons.

One, with every single one of our abilities behind not one but two cooldowns we cannot be sure we’ll have them when we need without as heavy an investment in cooldown reduction as possible, available only in the arcane tree.

Second, even with attunement recharge placed in other trees we invariably end up with abilities we have neither the appropriate stats nor any traits for, ensuring dead spots no matter how we build our bar.

I’ve made the suggestion before, but I think conjures have the potential to not only be viable, but to contribute heavily to fixing the Eles build problems when combined with a slight nudge to the attunement system.

• 1. Each trait paths minor adept trait now grant 0.5% attunement recharge rate for it’s attunement alone per point invested in the tree. This stacks with attunement recharge, but is still capped at 30%.

• 2. Conjures work on cooldowns alone, but now overwrite the attunement they are cast in, and count as an attunement of their appropriate element in every way for their allotted time, including proccing traits/sigils/runes and such.

Example: Cast Lava Axe while in air attunement, for lava axe’s duration your air attunement is gone with Lava Axe in its place acting as a second fire attunement. Cast Fiery great sword in water attunement and it overwrites water attunement becoming a third fire attunement. If you have invested a full thirty points in the fire tree, all three will have at least 15% attunement recharge rate, and all three will proc any skills which would be proc’d by being in or switching to the fire attunement. Any of the other conujures would work the same way.

And because I don’t just play one class

Engineer needs a utility belt, which would take the form of an extra slot where weapon swap normally is, wherein any utility-slot kit could be placed to swap to.

There is no justification whatsoever for engineers not having a weapon swap if kits are not part of their class mechanic. But frankly, weapon swap would be incredibly boring with them anyway, so I prefer that kits actually do become part of their class mechanic.

Elementalist – 9 second base attunement, Arcana trait changed.

TexZero.7910:

Mepheles.2087:

Give Warrior a decent heal not on a stupidly long cooldown. The only reason we rely on Healing sig is because we are constantly being hit with no access to regen or protection, or abundant dodges. Which is why warriors still use GS to run away and wait for Healing surge to come back up.

Not sure what you’re talking about warriors have plenty of access to regen…. As for heals on a long cooldown healing signet has a 16 second cooldown and roughly 400hp/sec regen… Combine that with Adrenal Health/ any other form of regen we have access too (runes/banners/Dogged March/Inspiring Battle Standard/etc..) or just run Shouts Heal and you have plenty of healing / regen.

So we have to run a niche shout heal build.

Mesmers get a heal that reflects projectiles
Guardians get a heal that is a two-second block, so it cannot be interrupted no matter what
Elementalist ether renewal, I think it’s called, is a pretty decent heal on a 15s CD.
Thieves withdrawl is a heal that removes movement impairing effects, with a built in evade, on a 15s Cool down. I think base 4k it heals for build with stealth, blinds and dodges, that’s a fair drawback.

Necromancers heal that eats conditions for an even stronger heal. Death shroud makes up for the CD though.

I just want a heal that’s not against the way warrior plays and heals for a decent amount of our total hp. Namely the way Healing surge works. what is the point of granting us adrenaline after the heal, which needs max 3 bars to heal for 50% of our hp, and then what? Adrenal surge by itself is nothing. I hope they change the way this skill works in the future. If they do that, I don’t care about anything else.

I think the way they designed Healing Surge is;

• If you don’t have full adrenaline, now you do.
• If you do have full adrenaline, bonus heals!

The idea is to make the heal attractive at all times, so that you don’t go “I won’t heal myself even though I need it, until I have full adren.” The only other similar skill is Either Feast and Consume Conditions. Ether Feast just requires you to have 3 clones out to max the healing power (which is really easy), and Consume Conditions is balanced by the fact that you get to eat all the conditions you have on you, not just get extra healing from them.

I like Healing Surge the way it is now to be honest. Though I might be biased due to it not only being an attractive heal at any point in a fight, but that it is also the highest single-point heal in the game, clocking in at 9820 HP before taking healing power into account. No other heal can do that

Mepheles.2087:

TexZero.7910:

Mepheles.2087:

Give Warrior a decent heal not on a stupidly long cooldown. The only reason we rely on Healing sig is because we are constantly being hit with no access to regen or protection, or abundant dodges. Which is why warriors still use GS to run away and wait for Healing surge to come back up.

Not sure what you’re talking about warriors have plenty of access to regen…. As for heals on a long cooldown healing signet has a 16 second cooldown and roughly 400hp/sec regen… Combine that with Adrenal Health/ any other form of regen we have access too (runes/banners/Dogged March/Inspiring Battle Standard/etc..) or just run Shouts Heal and you have plenty of healing / regen.

So we have to run a niche shout heal build.

Mesmers get a heal that reflects projectiles
Guardians get a heal that is a two-second block, so it cannot be interrupted no matter what
Elementalist ether renewal, I think it’s called, is a pretty decent heal on a 15s CD.
Thieves withdrawl is a heal that removes movement impairing effects, with a built in evade, on a 15s Cool down. I think base 4k it heals for build with stealth, blinds and dodges, that’s a fair drawback.

Necromancers heal that eats conditions for an even stronger heal. Death shroud makes up for the CD though.

I just want a heal that’s not against the way warrior plays and heals for a decent amount of our total hp. Namely the way Healing surge works. what is the point of granting us adrenaline after the heal, which needs max 3 bars to heal for 50% of our hp, and then what? Adrenal surge by itself is nothing. I hope they change the way this skill works in the future. If they do that, I don’t care about anything else.

Remind me which of those classes you listed can hit 34k Hp and 3.5k armor again ?
PS since you’re running a hammer spec and haven’t figured out why you would use healing surge…try looking at the trait Cleansing Ire … Now look at what you can do.

Don’t de-rail the thread everyone!

I want to see ideas! KEEP IT ON TOPIC!

Ranger

Remove the range damage reduction on the Longbow for closer range. It is simply silly and unproductive.

on second guess, make pets immune to all form of indirect targeted damage in pve (exclude this for spvp and wvw)

Engineer: Make Flamethrower worthwhile, for example via better scaling with Power.

Mesmer: Mantras release their effect at the end of charging them as well as giving two charges to utilise. I was going to say you gain stability while charging a mantra but that would be far too broke for this game.

Elementalist: I’d like to see elementalist have the same starting health pool as other cloth classes before stats.

ranger – rework axe 1. ricochet is simply underpowered. make it 2x the dmg and singel target, then return to the ranger applying a random boon or let it pierce(like gs1 from mesmer) its way with 1.5x the base dmg it now has and apply 1stack vul or bleed for every target it hits.

All classes – same base health as Ranger. Watch a lot of balance and pigeon holed issues disappear.

Guardian: Spirit weapons not completely useless

Mepheles.2087:

Give Warrior a decent heal not on a stupidly long cooldown. The only reason we rely on Healing sig is because we are constantly being hit with no access to regen or protection, or abundant dodges. Which is why warriors still use GS to run away and wait for Healing surge to come back up.

I just want a heal that’s not against the way warrior plays and heals for a decent amount of our total hp. Namely the way Healing surge works. what is the point of granting us adrenaline after the heal, which needs max 3 bars to heal for 50% of our hp, and then what? Adrenal surge by itself is nothing. I hope they change the way this skill works in the future. If they do that, I don’t care about anything else.

what way do you play?? spam autoattack while not dodging? A lot of warriors use pure axe (like me in certain dungeons) and dont have a problem staying alive or accessing a heal. Just use the signet. It gives you more healing in general and it will teach you how to dodge big hits so you dont have to rely on a massive heal.

Warrior, Eviscerate back to 700 range.

LoreChief.8391:

chemiclord.3978:

Ranger – Preparations as an alternative to the pet mechanic.

What does this mean?

In GW1, Preparations were skills that applied an additional effect to a Ranger’s arrows. Check out this page for more info on them: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Preparation

(topic) Guardian: Have the scepter auto-attack function similarly to the necro’s.

Engy – Rocket Launcher Kit for Elite.

Make it really long range, like 2000-2500 range projectiles however they have to be manually aimed, meaning they don’t target people, and they move at a fairly average speed.

The massive range helps make up for the long range when using at high altitudes compared to regular targeted projectiles which have a lot of leeway, like a 1500 range Longbow attack can actually hit people 1800+ range below/away. Just like how a ground target skill of 1500 range will lose a ton of range when targeting below.

One skill has to be a rocket jumping ability.

Thief: Change one trait:

Residual Venoms: Restore one charge of your venoms on a critical hit. (5 second ICD).

(Available charges will tally across the top of each venom’s utility icon, above the cooldown timer. You can then pre-maturely activate them before the full venom utility returns).

Maybe a Venom build might actually be useful then.

Well, one sweeping change I would have is that each Profession, I think, should have at least one (preferably more) armor-design that is totally exclusive.

Barring that, I would allow Engineers to wield more weapons, just for the sake of having a bit more variety. Daggers, for example, and maybe 1hand Axes, or even a Short-bow.

Mesmer:

Dear Anet,

I would love to have an out of combat speed boost that doesn’t require me to have a focus in my off hand or have those ridiculously expensive travelers runes . I really want to play WvW with my Mesmer but its painfully slow as it is.

Thank you.

Necro:

A true Minion Master build…

One in which we could actually heal our minions instead of watching them die and re-conjuring them.

I kind of miss the old MM build in GW1…kind of…

and for Elementalist, I agree with an above poster about some way to mitigate the double cooldown.

For Elementalists:

Have a staff and staff only, set to a secondary weapon swap. The class feels very pigeonholed.

With this change, staff Eles wont be stuck in a defenseless support role and D/S-/x wont just be glassy dps.

The current traits support this completely, one will always be stronger than the other depending on pre-fight choices. This just offers some decent, in-fight adaptations.

Do this Anet and you will see a lot more Eles being rolled.

Guardian: add a 2h ranged weapon. The staff has the DPS of a rubber duck.

Engineer – hammer

… because id like engis to have a real melee weapon without resorting to not-often-used kit…

Ranger

Main Hand axe auto deals more damage and a condition

Longbow auto doesn’t scale with range

Pets are fixed

Cleave for necro.
Power AoE
Better lifesyphon

Thief: The amount of stealth is simply not enough. Thief should have longer duration and shorter cool down stealth so that more of us could pretend we have above rubbish skill level

Guardian- A signet which gives us movement speed atm we only have shouts

Elementalist: A trait that allows me to transform into an elemental of the attunement I am in(just visually, no change in skills or anything).

Ranger: Being able to change the skill of my pets so I can pick whatever pet I want to and still have the skill I want.

Thief: Removing Black Powder and replacing it with a knockback.

Necro – Working siphon/vampire traits…. the last buffs did nothing to help in this area.

Also, a teleport to replace dark path – dark path never hits anything

Ranger – Reinstate the range on Shortbow – the nerf was completely unnecessary.

The only thing I really want right now for Warrior is a Greataxe that puts out the same damage as a Greatsword or main-hand Axe

luckyguse.2674:

Mesmer:

Dear Anet,

I would love to have an out of combat speed boost that doesn’t require me to have a focus in my off hand or have those ridiculously expensive travelers runes . I really want to play WvW with my Mesmer but its painfully slow as it is.

Thank you.

This.

And also, MH pistol!

Mesmer…a better speed buff..since I don’t like the focus.

NECROMANCER

Fix our siphon abilities to beyond laughable levels or give us a way to disengage from battle like every other class has!

Be able to stomp while transformed with signet of the wild. (Ranger)

Fix sic em such that it does not get overridden by pet f2 ability.

Ranger – Replace the current Skirmishing line 5 point minor traits with~

Beasmaster’s Revenge: You gain +25% damage while your pet is stowed or defeated.

(major bonus points after that if we could stow pets and they’d STAY stowed)

Dragonax.6487:

Thief: The amount of stealth is simply not enough. Thief should have longer duration and shorter cool down stealth so that more of us could pretend we have above rubbish skill level

o/ and along the same lines I could really use longer stealth on Longbow 3 for my Ranger. Also make it unblockable ty.

I used to want better damage for mainhand axe but I switched to longbow so whatever.

AoE damage for pets… I don’t even care any more. I just made a warrior and do all the “hard” PvE stuff with her now.

So I will take longer stealth.

Guardian: PERMA SPEEDBOOST 25%

Warrior: Will never happen because it’s obviously this way on purpose as a deliberate handicap, but being able to move around while doing GS 2 is the only thing I can really think of.

thief: remove stealth and make evades basic defensive mechanic and balance for it. →Less QQ about stealth, more useful in sPvP, more useful overall → Win Win

Guardian: Viable Spirit Weapons

buff confusion or give us a new ranged aoe..(mesmer)