Guild Wars 2

I realize that the balance of a particular weapon set doesn’t solely rest on how effective its autoattack is, however, its role is disproportionate relative to anything else. This is due mainly to the autoattack setting the baseline cadence for sustained DPS, which is very important in PvE.

Oh, wait, I suppose that’s the answer to my question – because it mostly affects PvE, which nobody at Anet seems to pay much attention to.

Anyway, snark aside, autoattacks are best analogized as the coarse adjustment knob for weapon sets, with #2-5 and traits representing fine adjustments. You can’t really balance a weaponset that has an out of balance #1 skill, and it’s a bad idea to try. You just end up with over or under-tuned traits and cooldown skills.

This seems to be particularly an issue with ranged weapons. As an example, for Engineers, the pistol’s Fragmentation Shot is significantly weaker than the rifle’s Hip Shot, which essentially translates into the Rifle being much more generally useful in most situations, while the Pistol is relegated to being hyper-specialized and hard to use effectively. Another example is the Mesmer’s Scepter vs the Necro’s. Necro Scepter is way, way more potent even after Mesmer’s was buffed with Torment. Why is that?

If this doesn’t already exist, Anet needs to come up with some golden ratios, basically determining from a balance perspective how much various utility and condition damage is worth in relation to physical damage, and balancing all #1 skills around that. Moreover, this should pretty much always be a top priority in iterative game balance.

Dont forget ranger longbow 3,6k+ hits in zerk

Extreme.8350:

Dont forget ranger longbow 3,6k+ hits in zerk

Yeah, they buffed it by about 50% last year and barely touched or nerfed every other ranged weapon.

See this is the thing that I knew would come up sooner or later. I think it all has to do with the sigil slots. Back when for example to reply to your Engi example the rifle was stronger than the pistol and I had put it down to being because it had 1 less sigil slot. So to me that extra sigil slot from both the pistols (or a shield) should have made up for that weaker attack.

Perhaps this is something they over looked when they brought in 2 sigil slots for 2 handed weapons?

There actually isn’t that much to gain from auto attacks being balanced. It just makes the #1 skill boring.

By having the auto attack being imbalanced, it gives leeway to have unique and interesting traits. For example, while the engineer pistol was inferior, with Coated Bullets it could hit a massive amount of enemies all at once.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There actually isn’t that much to gain from auto attacks being balanced. It just makes the #1 skill boring.

By having the auto attack being imbalanced, it gives leeway to have unique and interesting traits. For example, while the engineer pistol was inferior, with Coated Bullets it could hit a massive amount of enemies all at once.

Totally disagree. Firstly, “balancing” them does not mean making them all exactly the same. That would be boring, and that’s not what I’m suggesting. Secondly, all this does is make certain traits mandatory with certain weapons, which is bad game design. Traits are meant to provide thematic bonuses and versatility. They shouldn’t be used to triage under-powered skills. It also makes balance in general highly unstable.

Chemical Rounds is actually a perfect example of this. It provides a 50% improvement to condition duration in an attempt to make Pistols viable. Lolwut? Why would you just not make Pistols viable and then have the trait provide a much more reasonable and in-line with other traits 20-33% duration?

Einlanzer.1627:

Chemical Rounds is actually a perfect example of this. It provides a 50% improvement to condition duration in an attempt to make Pistols viable. Lolwut? Why would you just not make Pistols viable and then have the trait provide a much more reasonable and in-line with other traits 20-33% duration?

Probably because, iirc, most other class traits give durations to SPECIFIC conditions. Engineers having a trait that increases duration of conditions inflicted by a weapon are much more in-line with the class than them getting a single target duration increase.

Granted, you’re acting like you’ve never played an engineer too… so…

There no such thing as an auto attks in GW2. They are just “1” skills that happen to have a low cd but there effects very greatly. Think of “1” skills as the low cd spells or abitly in rpg not as the attks only chose.
In most mmorpgs “auto attks” are just the wepon it self attking and nothing else. So for there to be a true auto attk in GW2 you would have to have classes like ele to be able to simply swing there staff at melee ranges to hit something things like fire ball or water blast are simply low cd ability.

1. skills are by default set as an autoattack, which is a self-recasting skill or chain. That plays no part in their balancing.

Einlanzer.1627:

Oh, wait, I suppose that’s the answer to my question – because it mostly affects PvE, which nobody at Anet seems to pay much attention to.

the most incorrect statement ever made by any human being ever. 95% of the content made for this game is accessed exclusively through pve. Wvw gets a single additional map after three years, and you think anet pays no attention to pve? are you joking?

Lightsbane.9012:

Einlanzer.1627:

Oh, wait, I suppose that’s the answer to my question – because it mostly affects PvE, which nobody at Anet seems to pay much attention to.

the most incorrect statement ever made by any human being ever. 95% of the content made for this game is accessed exclusively through pve. Wvw gets a single additional map after three years, and you think anet pays no attention to pve? are you joking?

I’m very obviously talking about in relation to balance iteration, which is a known fact.

Jski.6180:

There no such thing as an auto attks in GW2. They are just “1” skills that happen to have a low cd but there effects very greatly. Think of “1” skills as the low cd spells or abitly in rpg not as the attks only chose.
In most mmorpgs “auto attks” are just the wepon it self attking and nothing else. So for there to be a true auto attk in GW2 you would have to have classes like ele to be able to simply swing there staff at melee ranges to hit something things like fire ball or water blast are simply low cd ability.

Except this doesn’t work with the way they’ve designed PvE. PvE combat works like traditional MMO combat. You have an autoattack, and you have cooldown skills. Your autoattack makes up the bulk of sustained DPS while your cooldown skills offer various utilities. That creates a problem when #1 skills vary hugely in their efficacy. It essentially means some weapons very overtly under-perform in comparison to others.

This really isn’t rocket science.

Basandra Skye.4031:

Einlanzer.1627:

Chemical Rounds is actually a perfect example of this. It provides a 50% improvement to condition duration in an attempt to make Pistols viable. Lolwut? Why would you just not make Pistols viable and then have the trait provide a much more reasonable and in-line with other traits 20-33% duration?

Probably because, iirc, most other class traits give durations to SPECIFIC conditions. Engineers having a trait that increases duration of conditions inflicted by a weapon are much more in-line with the class than them getting a single target duration increase.

Granted, you’re acting like you’ve never played an engineer too… so…

They actually get both. And giving it to specific conditions is actually less powerful than giving it to an entire weapon set, meaning that Chemical Rounds should have a lower bonus than the traits that apply to specific conditions, not a dramatically higher one.

Jesus, you people. This is like the most obvious thing in the universe.

Einlanzer.1627:

Jski.6180:

There no such thing as an auto attks in GW2. They are just “1” skills that happen to have a low cd but there effects very greatly. Think of “1” skills as the low cd spells or abitly in rpg not as the attks only chose.
In most mmorpgs “auto attks” are just the wepon it self attking and nothing else. So for there to be a true auto attk in GW2 you would have to have classes like ele to be able to simply swing there staff at melee ranges to hit something things like fire ball or water blast are simply low cd ability.

Except this doesn’t work with the way they’ve designed PvE. PvE combat works like traditional MMO combat. You have an autoattack, and you have cooldown skills. Your autoattack makes up the bulk of sustained DPS while your cooldown skills offer various utilities. That creates a problem when #1 skills vary hugely in their efficacy. It essentially means some weapons very overtly under-perform in comparison to others.

This really isn’t rocket science.

Your using a phrase wrong simply becuse its an easy ideal to explain a skill. There is auto cast in GW2 but no true auto attk in the ideal of an mmorpg.

In traditional MMO combat you have classes who where able to melee on-top of doing other effects often they would be tank or dps that worked with there wepon types but caster often did not use there auto attk because they had to sit back due to weaker armor / hp pools yet they still had an auto attk from there wepon often a melee ranges attk that did nearly no dmg. What happen is that these caster classes had a low cd and low cost skill that they could be using all the time much like melee classes where using there wepon attk or auto attk. So i am looking at GW2 1 skill as a type of cast that you can use at all times in a fight but is of use far more then simply say having an mages class meleeing with a staff etc…

You simply cant wepon attk in GW2 you only can use skills.

Jski.6180:

You simply cant wepon attk in GW2 you only can use skills.

Which is a slight disappointment. If my ele’s using daggers, I want to be able to walk up to someone and shank them.