Guild Wars 2

This was by and far one of the single most important updates to Guild Wars 1. Nearly every single balance contention leading up to that point in GW1 centered around the fact that balancing the game for PvP severely hurt PvE (something Paragons have never recovered from – a testament to the necessity of the feature). Nerfs for the sake of PvP are already hurting the PvE side of this game (Whirlpool, one of the few good Elementalist elites. Mesmers in general, who are being crushed in PvE under the PvP-focused nerfs).

Yet a PvE/PvP split is sorely absent. It should have been one of the very first considerations made. Why is it missing?

That might make sense if PvE was really hard, but it isn’t. If people are struggling in PvE its probably better to work on movement than to have more op skills. PvE is already balanced on the casual side and GW2’s combat system is a lot more fun when you need to use all your skills and combos together.

Also with WvW there’s a somewhat blurred line between PvP & PvE – i.e. you wouldn’t want op classes in WvW either.

I have no idea why anyone thought it would be a good idea to merge the two, PvE and PvP are like oil and water … they do not mix.

So far most "PvP-inspired" changes have been for the good in PvE, including today’s greatsword changes for the Guardian - weapon is much more fluid now, making it more situational whether you should swap to another weapon set or not. Guardian’s hammer is next in line, I believe.

As for PvE/PvP split, there is actually one in place, except it’s poorly documented and not really advertised by Anet. Couple that up with poor, incomplete or misleading trait descriptions, and you’re in for a real treat in the "Omg I’m confused!" department.

Demosthene.2195:

So far most “PvP-inspired” changes have been for the good in PvE, including today’s greatsword changes for the Guardian

Not for Mesmers. Phantasm recharge from 9 > 12 first, now from 12 to 20. Mesmers were already weak, and now they’re a burden to any team.

The difference in PvE between a warrior and most other classes is pretty ridiculous, as far as I’m concerned. I actually abandoned my warrior because I found it so dull and easy to play. Alas, I feel punished for investing in other professions since the gap in performance and survivability is very large at the moment, even in the hands of a competent player.

That might make sense if PvE was really hard, but it isn’t. If people are struggling in PvE its probably better to work on movement than to have more op skills.

Sorry but this argument holds 0 weight and demonstrates you have no first hand experience with the need for such a split. The reason GW1 had a PvP/PvE split was because the community demanded it, because the balance of PvE was completely thrown off by changes to PvP and many professions and team comps were completely marginalized. It’s not just a matter of altering the difficulty of content – it fundamentally alters what is effective and how you create a team. If, say, Mesmers get nerfed in PvE because they’re too strong in PvP, guess which class became much less attractive to run in a dungeon? It’s not just harder – you’d rather just take another class. Guild Wars 1 still has this. A lot of once-viable builds and an entire professions are completely invalid because they were nerfed before PvE and PvP were split (the only thing keeping Paragons viable in PvE is a single build that utilizes skills that are PvE-only). There are a lot of far reaching consequences – this is cemented by the fact that there was an unrelenting demand in GW1 that resulted in one of the only major feature changes in the game’s 7 year run that was community-based.

So far most “PvP-inspired” changes have been for the good in PvE, including today’s greatsword changes for the Guardian – weapon is much more fluid now, making it more situational whether you should swap to another weapon set or not. Guardian’s hammer is next in line, I believe.

I’m going to guess that you only play Guardian, because as soon as you play a class that is hit by a PvP nerf that directly affects your performance in PvE, you’ll come back to this thread and also wonder why there is no split. Things like this need to be nipped in the bud. If it goes on for too long, the consequences pile up (Again, Paragons).

Darmikau.9413:

This was by and far one of the single most important updates to Guild Wars 1. Nearly every single balance contention leading up to that point in GW1 centered around the fact that balancing the game for PvP severely hurt PvE (something Paragons have never recovered from – a testament to the necessity of the feature). Nerfs for the sake of PvP are already hurting the PvE side of this game (Whirlpool, one of the few good Elementalist elites. Mesmers in general, who are being crushed in PvE under the PvP-focused nerfs).

Yet a PvE/PvP split is sorely absent. It should have been one of the very first considerations made. Why is it missing?

I completely agree with you & it’s why I made a suggestion post to please bring it back in the suggestions forum

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Demosthene.2195:

So far most "PvP-inspired" changes have been for the good in PvE, including today’s greatsword changes for the Guardian

Not for Mesmers. Phantasm recharge from 9 > 12 first, now from 12 to 20. Mesmers were already weak, and now they’re a burden to any team.

I guess I’ll figure that out today during my TA runs. Dungeon "tree" bosses updated, too. I never discriminated against based on profession, so I’m sure to get a Mesmer or two if lucky. The people I usually run into are Rangers and Necros, however, coupled up with a random Guardian or Warrior. Overall, I’m in agreement that Mesmer change wasn’t warranted for PvE - I felt they were about-right in dungeons as of late, and it’d be sad to see players quitting over this update.

I’m going to guess that you only play Guardian, because as soon as you play a class that is hit by a PvP nerf that directly affects your performance in PvE, you’ll come back to this thread and also wonder why there is no split. Things like this need to be nipped in the bud. If it goes on for too long, the consequences pile up (Again, Paragons).

I main a Warrior in PvE and WvW. In structured I play a little bit of everything, most notably Mesmers Thieves Guardians and Warriors.

Please do split them anet devs. Every time you ruin a class for the sake of pvp balance you look so amateurish.

Demosthene.2195:

So far most “PvP-inspired” changes have been for the good in PvE, including today’s greatsword changes for the Guardian

Elementalist pretty much lost a helpful PvE ability in Glyph of Renewal. I can see how in 5v5 PvP that skill was OP but in PvE it was helpful for large events where there are fields of dead players. I can’t see myself using it at all now that it doesn’t revive dead players. In a lot of situations, just reviving players will be faster than the cast timer if the player is down and not dead. There is really no use for the skill now in PvE.

Also… whirlwind. As if fighting under water wasn’t hard enough.

Reviving people in AoE would trivialise dungeons beyond what it already was. Just because a balance update comes out, doesn’t mean every change has been verified only in the PvP environment before it’s approval. Overall, I pity the Mesmers the most.

Elementalist problem has deeper roots than just numerical skill balances, it’s about how hard it is to play with full efficiency in mind - couple that up with an extremely popular profession, and no wonder people are disappointed.

At least Engineers get away with the "underdog" status, because while they aren’t weak or nerfed (they’re pretty balanced overall, could use slight adjustments & bug fixes here or there), they aren’t very popular either (people who stick to Engineers know what they are doing).

Does anyone else find it funny that the only guy here who thinks it’s fine is the warrior main? The class that was untouched? Classic.

I spent more than a month explaining to people that Mesmers aren’t that bad in PvE, no they get nerfed dramatically twice in a row and I’m not so sure anymore. Rangers got a nerf to one of their most satisfying skills, now they feel sluggish. It reminds me of the IAS nerf in Diablo III that kitten off everyone.

I was just thinking of posting this exact topic.

I’m honestly not sure why this wasn’t included on day one, considering it was not only successful in GW, but it was also very desired by the community.

It basically tosses PvE v. PvP balance tension right out the window.

I’m sure we would all love an official statement on why this was not added, and if it is ever going to be added or not.

Then play a Warrior to experience the "supposed" Warrior bias that you advocate here, Rhyno. Play anything that isn’t 100B spam, which is a tiny percentile of available Warior builds, but which happens to smear entire profession with crap and give it bad reputation. Regardless, I just got trolled by extremely WRONG skill tooltips again in game. Duh.

Hi,

Please, try and keep to the topic at hand. There are a couple off-topic posts here and we appreciate constructive posts and threads.

Thanks for your understanding

“Then play a Warrior to experience the “supposed” Warrior bias that you advocate here, Rhyno. Play anything that isn’t 100B spam, which is a tiny percentile of available Warior builds, but which happens to smear entire profession with crap and give it bad reputation. Regardless, I just got trolled by extremely WRONG skill tooltips again in game. Duh."

Advocating warrior bias? All I pointed out was that Warriors were untouched, check the past two patches if you don’t believe me. I’m not sure why you just got really defensive.

Demosthene.2195:

So far most “PvP-inspired” changes have been for the good in PvE, including today’s greatsword changes for the Guardian – weapon is much more fluid now, making it more situational whether you should swap to another weapon set or not. Guardian’s hammer is next in line, I believe.

As for PvE/PvP split, there is actually one in place, except it’s poorly documented and not really advertised by Anet. Couple that up with poor, incomplete or misleading trait descriptions (Warrior’s Stronger Bowstrings anyone? It changes the whole mechanic of longbow weapon, not just range of it’s skills!), and you’re in for a real treat in the “Omg I’m confused!” department.

What else does stronger bow strings do?

@ Rhyno

Warrior received a lot of attention early in the game’s development, it’s also a relatively straight-forward profession with less bugs, problems or complicated mechanics that would warrant a priority bug fix once game is released. It’s not about balance.

If you ask for my personal opinion on Warrior’s balance, I want to have useful burst damage bonus from discipline tree (+1% damage for 1 trait point, not +0.1% which amounts to 3% "more damage" at 30 points in traitline). I want our bugs fixed with traits (these hamper our effectiveness atm).

I also want greatsword reworked, to make hundred blades mobile and less cheesy, something akin to Guardian’s Zealot’s Defence rather that an immobile root with 24k damage. It’s simply not interesting to play, single most important reason I don’t use greatsword on my Warrior (I run condition damage builds instead, sword/shield + rifle, longbow for manual weapon swap).

@ Geikamir

Disregard that part before, I got extremely trolled by wrong skill tooltips. On my Warrior build I don’t even run that trait very often, because there is a better alternative for 10 tactics trait (leg specialist) with what I’m running atm.

PvE and PvP are totally different. Anet had lots of problems with this in GW1 until they finally split it with alternate versions of skills and pve-only skills.

Perhaps they thought they could do better now by dumbing down pve encounters and taking out dual classes.

Personally I don’t think it’s working and it will get worse over time. PvP will get more competitive and the need for skill balancing there will increase. At the same time the pve encounters will have to become more interesting. Not necessarily harder but more interesting than dodge, ress, heal and auto attack.

I think over time it will require that the skill bar and traits actually have an impact on your build in pve. At the moment that impact is relatively small. People might lose interest in combat in pve and get bored with it.

Considering that PvE and PvP have different requirements it is inevitable to me that the skill bars will become more and more of an issue over time. Right now a lot of people in pve might not mind but at some point they’ve done the vista’s and skill challenges and can’t be arsed to do them anymore. The combat system is just rather a bit boring in pve when it comes to boss fights or even veteran mobs and up.

So yeah, I think the split will come as skill balancing continues.