Guild Wars 2

Mesmer Condi Nerf Speculation
Well, there’s talk about Mesmers receiving a nerf in their condi damages. And it’s funny… their condi build has always been OP in 1v1. Now that it’s viable in TPvP… well, it sounds like some one feels their class should beat a Mesmer. I don’t main Mesmer but i’m a bit sour if they try changing something that’s been a certain way for years.

Reapers Chill/Dmg Nerf Speculation
Theres Reaper complaints on the forums, mostly in regards to chill damages or their chill application. And talk of “Engi, Rev, Ele can’t beat him”. I suspect there’s a trend between Mesmer & Necro. I speculate there will be a slight shave in application or Chill duration. I surely hope it’s not a big nerf.

Revs Shiro/Glint Nerf Speculation
Certain aspects of Rev are simply unhealthy designs… the class could use heavy work mechanically, but odds are the Devs are not going to touch that and instead play with numbers on paper. I don’t see much of a nerf to Revs tbh.

Ele Support Nerf, Power Buff, Speculation
I think everyone would like a viable power build as oppose to the healbot that Ele are atm. Though, it’s yet to be determined exactly how Anet will buff/nerf the class.

Guard Nerf/Buff Speculation
I main DH and have no clue how Anet will buff or nerf the class. I speculate we’ll receive a slight buff in utilities while our LB dmges receives a slight nerf.

Thief Buff & Evade Rework Speculation
There was talk in a rework to Thieves Evade-Makes-Me-Tanky playstyle a while back from one of the Devs. It looks like they’ve acknowledge it was a poor mechanic but whether they’ll own up to these changes is yet to be determined.

Wars Condi/Power Brute Speculation
Like Thieves, Warriors are also struggling mechanically. No clue if there’s going to be a rework but the two classes will likely receive buffs as oppose to nerfs.

For the most part, Engi & Rangers “are in a good spot” so they’ll be nerfed & buffed based on the rework of other classes. Other than Gyro changes and pet damages that could happen, I don’t see them changing a whole lot.

Thoughts?

Saiyan.1704:

Ele Support Nerf Power Buff Speculation
I think everyone would like a viable power build as oppose to the healbot that Ele are atm. Though, it’s yet to be determined exactly how Anet will buff/nerf the class.

Hmm speak for yourself. As a person who mains Elementalist in PvP and WvW, I think they did enough damage to Ele when they removed the cele amulet. It is almost not even viable now, I am playing with Paladins amulet now to make it worth running still, but I’ve lost out on ferocity, healing power and condition damage – 3 things that were all pretty nice to have with cele.

I enjoy playing my ele this way though, bunkering ele is pretty fun because you have to know the rotations in order to just never die in 1v1 situations – but you still do damage if you know your rotations well enough. I don’t really care to have a “good” power build, I just miss my good “all around” build lol.

Engi need some nerf on sustain and warrior/thief need some love:)

Someone proposed this:

Replace defy pain with Defiance Stance Defense trait.

On the warrior forums. And i believe that’s all we need to become viable again. It will fix whatever sustain problem warriors are dealing with.

Good speculation and I agree with you across the board except necro which should get a decent rework

Fivedawgs.4267:

Someone proposed this:

Replace defy pain with Defiance Stance Defense trait.

On the warrior forums. And i believe that’s all we need to become viable again. It will fix whatever sustain problem warriors are dealing with.

This would be a good change. However, it only makes warrior more dependent on the defense line for sustain. I think there need to be changes in place that makes the other trait lines equally attractive. I feel mitigation, sustain and respectable condi removal/resistance needs to some how be added to other trait lines.

Honestly I don’t really care too much about Balance for this patch, ofc I hope in warrior a little more competitive but first of all I really hope in a big improvement for matchmaking and better rewards for play/reach Legendary division.

I’ve 3 accounts in Legendary and Honestly I’m not playing at all because it’s 0/ZER0/NOTHING/nada fun for me.

And yes, I hope they don’t disable ranked for off-sesason but without a good matchmaker doesn’t realy care too much, because I won’t play PvP 100%.

Shatterstone will get a 10% buff.

Rym.1469:

Shatterstone will get a 10% buff.

r u crazy m8? better keep it at a 9% buff 10% is over the top OP

I don’t think they’ll ever do what the game needs. A few number changes is what I expect, but the fundamental problems will always remain.

They need to make the game less Build Wars. I want personal skill to matter as much as your build. Right now, it matters less. I know this simply by virtue of the fact that certain classes or builds will destroy most other builds regardless of the skill of their opponent. Especially with Elite specs vs vanilla class.

There are people in high divisions with poor rotations, poor dueling skills and bad cooldown management but managed to get there because they copied a build from metabattle. That shouldn’t happen.

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

Fivedawgs.4267:

Someone proposed this:

Replace defy pain with Defiance Stance Defense trait.

On the warrior forums. And i believe that’s all we need to become viable again. It will fix whatever sustain problem warriors are dealing with.

defiance stance needs to have base 4 seconds duration, zero (0) seconds activation time, and convert all incoming damage into health.

not all incoming strikes.

Exedore.6320:

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

you my friend know anet too well lol

Exedore.6320:

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

Nailed it !!! +1

Fivedawgs.4267:

Someone proposed this:

Replace defy pain with Defiance Stance Defense trait.

On the warrior forums. And i believe that’s all we need to become viable again. It will fix whatever sustain problem warriors are dealing with.

doesn’t matter, warrior may be played in ranked or unranked by normal players, but still don’t have plays in top tournament, even if warrior survive just as good as the rest, there’s no role to fit for warrior imo

Most likely the usual. The trailer was too epic to really show anything so yeah, I’ll go with the usual. The usual being adding more fuel to this trainwreck of game mode. <3

For mesmer, I expect them to make Csplit not reset elites. This seems to be a pretty popular proposal among high-level mesmer mains, and it’d open up Csplit to a lot more uses.

Exedore.6320:

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

wow this was overwhelmingly realistic considering the changes all these years

The only thing I suspect nowadays is disappointment and tooltip updates.

Exedore.6320:

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

i laughed and then i cried

Exedore.6320:

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read a more accurate post on these forums. I would not at all be surprised if this was the patch literally exactly (I personally expect moa to be made useless)

Saiyan.1704:

I suspect there’s a trend between Mesmer & Necro.

Mercenary Amulet.

it’s doing the exact same thing as Celestial: it’s completely useless to all but two professions but those two professions are abusing it to unrivaled success in the meta.

this is grounds for deletion of this amulet imo; it’s also the best outcome possible for condi chrono/reaper as this minimizes nerfs to the profession itself.

you also have Geo/HydroDoom which has long been addressed as problematic but hasn’t been touched, but this is minor in comparison.

Guard Nerf/Buff Speculation
I main DH and have no clue how Anet will buff or nerf the class. I speculate we’ll receive a slight buff in utilities while our LB dmges receives a slight nerf.

All DH needs to really see is a nerf to the daze on trap (1/4sec instead of 1/2sec) and a slight damage nerf to LB or a nerf to the new Virtues (namely Shield of Courage).

For the most part, Engi & Rangers “are in a good spot” so they’ll be nerfed & buffed based on the rework of other classes. Other than Gyro changes and pet damages that could happen, I don’t see them changing a whole lot.

Engineer is nowhere close to “in a good spot”. As things stand now, Hammer does way too much damage (which is why they’re free to use Paladin’s Amulet over Marauder) and has multiple things about it alone that need nerfing. Perfectly Weighted isn’t okay. You also have Sneak Gyro (as you mentioned) and Slick Shoes; both mechanics in need of changes as well.

I can excuse you on this one however because DH is really the only power option that can fight a scrapper and not be at a constant disadvantage.

Ranger will probably see, at most, a nerf to bristleback and possibly smokescale damage. maybe, although unlikely, a slight nerf to healing power scaling but again i doubt it because it doesn’t need it.

In the last patch they gave thieves a lot of cool unlbockable stuff and some serious damage buffs. Warriors got ….maybe 50 hit points a tick added to their heal signet.

Basically, thieves got a big push towards where they needed to be and warriors got almost nothing.

The buffs need to be huge, otherwise we may as well remove warrior from the pvp scene at this point, because they will continue to be a forgotten class.

You cant buff warrior. You need to redesing them. Their desing doesnt fit in this game. They will remain as either underpowered or overpowered as there is no way in between.
Look that warriors are fine in pve, they always been and where they struggle is pvp. Its due to the game mechanics this game offers to other classes while leaving warrior with nothing.

chronometria.3708:

In the last patch they gave thieves a lot of cool unlbockable stuff and some serious damage buffs. Warriors got ….maybe 50 hit points a tick added to their heal signet…

It was 20, in case anyone actually cares. Even that amount does make a big difference though.

Burtnik.5218:

You cant buff warrior. You need to redesing them. Their desing doesnt fit in this game. They will remain as either underpowered or overpowered as there is no way in between.
Look that warriors are fine in pve, they always been and where they struggle is pvp. Its due to the game mechanics this game offers to other classes while leaving warrior with nothing.

If you looked you could find this exact sentiment applied to every single class. Apparently, Ele’s need to be redesigned from the ground up, along with warriors, necro’s, mesmers, guardians, etc. I think not…

Salamander.2504:

chronometria.3708:

In the last patch they gave thieves a lot of cool unlbockable stuff and some serious damage buffs. Warriors got ….maybe 50 hit points a tick added to their heal signet…

It was 20, in case anyone actually cares. Even that amount does make a big difference though.

Burtnik.5218:

You cant buff warrior. You need to redesing them. Their desing doesnt fit in this game. They will remain as either underpowered or overpowered as there is no way in between.
Look that warriors are fine in pve, they always been and where they struggle is pvp. Its due to the game mechanics this game offers to other classes while leaving warrior with nothing.

If you looked you could find this exact sentiment applied to every single class. Apparently, Ele’s need to be redesigned from the ground up, along with warriors, necro’s, mesmers, guardians, etc. I think not…

Warriors and ele are the only classes that need overhaul. Im sorry but guardian skills for example needs a few tweaks here and there to be decent. Now take a look at warrior axe skills and tell me they are fine and that they just need some number adjustment. Or physical utilities. Or maybe about the lack of sustain due to the fact they have no additional ways to sustain themself other than healing signet?

There is time for small adjustments and there is time for a overhaul.
As example guardian sword;

-remove projectiles from last aa strike
-allow guardians to move during zealot defense, lower cd to 12.

Voila, guard sword viable af.

Burtnik.5218:

Salamander.2504:

chronometria.3708:

In the last patch they gave thieves a lot of cool unlbockable stuff and some serious damage buffs. Warriors got ….maybe 50 hit points a tick added to their heal signet…

It was 20, in case anyone actually cares. Even that amount does make a big difference though.

Burtnik.5218:

You cant buff warrior. You need to redesing them. Their desing doesnt fit in this game. They will remain as either underpowered or overpowered as there is no way in between.
Look that warriors are fine in pve, they always been and where they struggle is pvp. Its due to the game mechanics this game offers to other classes while leaving warrior with nothing.

If you looked you could find this exact sentiment applied to every single class. Apparently, Ele’s need to be redesigned from the ground up, along with warriors, necro’s, mesmers, guardians, etc. I think not…

Warriors and ele are the only classes that need overhaul. Im sorry but guardian skills for example needs a few tweaks here and there to be decent. Now take a look at warrior axe skills and tell me they are fine and that they just need some number adjustment. Or physical utilities. Or maybe about the lack of sustain due to the fact they have no additional ways to sustain themself other than healing signet?

There is time for small adjustments and there is time for a overhaul.
As example guardian sword;

-remove projectiles from last aa strike
-allow guardians to move during zealot defense, lower cd to 12.

Voila, guard sword viable af.

Warrior axe could definitely use some love. But a number tweak would be fine. For example, if you increase the damage coefficient of axe 2 to actually make it on par with other burst skills (guard hammer 2, rev sword/hammer 2) etc, it would be fine. Axe 3 could probably use some attention as it has no clear identity from GS 4.

Warrior physical utilities are bad, but they are hardly the only example of horrible and unused utilities: ranger spirits/traps, guardian spirit weapons/consecrations, etc.

Warrior sustain could use some help but that doesn’t require a total redesign. For example, if they made the stance trait reduce stance CD by 20% instead of duration, that would help, etc.. I know folks are asking for more sustain in other lines besides defense, but really every class only has 1 sustain-oriented line. The major difference between warrior and the other classes is that the other classes got a lot more sustain with their elite spec. My stance on this is that elite spec sustain should be nerfed and brought on-par with warrior sustain, rather than buffing warrior sustain.

Burtnik.5218:

Salamander.2504:

chronometria.3708:

In the last patch they gave thieves a lot of cool unlbockable stuff and some serious damage buffs. Warriors got ….maybe 50 hit points a tick added to their heal signet…

It was 20, in case anyone actually cares. Even that amount does make a big difference though.

Burtnik.5218:

You cant buff warrior. You need to redesing them. Their desing doesnt fit in this game. They will remain as either underpowered or overpowered as there is no way in between.
Look that warriors are fine in pve, they always been and where they struggle is pvp. Its due to the game mechanics this game offers to other classes while leaving warrior with nothing.

If you looked you could find this exact sentiment applied to every single class. Apparently, Ele’s need to be redesigned from the ground up, along with warriors, necro’s, mesmers, guardians, etc. I think not…

Warriors and ele are the only classes that need overhaul. Im sorry but guardian skills for example needs a few tweaks here and there to be decent. Now take a look at warrior axe skills and tell me they are fine and that they just need some number adjustment. Or physical utilities. Or maybe about the lack of sustain due to the fact they have no additional ways to sustain themself other than healing signet?

There is time for small adjustments and there is time for a overhaul.
As example guardian sword;

-remove projectiles from last aa strike
-allow guardians to move during zealot defense, lower cd to 12.

Voila, guard sword viable af.

Many of warriors skills and traits need to be made more practical. That in a nutshell is what is wrong with the class and of course the lack of sustain outside of healing signet and the defense trait line.

sinject.4607:

All DH needs to really see is a nerf to the daze on trap (1/4sec instead of 1/2sec)

had to LOL at this one. 1/4 sec daze? May as well remove it.

Imo warriors needs something to make them unique in terms of sustain. We have guardians who rely on blocks, we have revs who rely on evades and then we have facetank warriors..

Think about “facetank” cause we could add “new” mechanic to game designed just for warriors which could be absorption (similiar mechanic to deflect but working on all hits/dots) on specific weapon skills/class mechanic. Along with this new mechanic we could add traits that would provie futher benefits from it. That could potentially give warrior identify in this game and much needed sustain.

Im sorry but locking warriors into stances just to survive few seconds is terrible solution.

Burtnik.5218:

Imo warriors needs something to make them unique in terms of sustain. We have guardians who rely on blocks, we have revs who rely on evades and then we have facetank warriors..

Think about “facetank” cause we could add “new” mechanic to game designed just for warriors which could be absorption (similiar mechanic to deflect but working on all hits/dots) on specific weapon skills/class mechanic. Along with this new mechanic we could add traits that would provie futher benefits from it. That could potentially give warrior identify in this game and much needed sustain.

Im sorry but locking warriors into stances just to survive few seconds is terrible solution.

Well yes, stances being the only practical choice is terrible. I agree.

Originally Anet had a idea on why warriors are the way they are. Guardians for example had low health, medium damage, but high sustain, boon up time, boon spread to allies and access to block and aegis and oh slow run speed/mobility.

Warriors were suppose to make up for their lack of boons, aegis/block with a high base hp. That was suppose to be their balance. With the power creep, warriors having high hp means nothing really. A DH has way higher sustain and effective health than warriors have. This is a problem, because it shows that Anet’s original philosophy on warriors design is no longer working.

Fixing the problem will be tricky, because the wrong change can make warrior very overpowered. If you look at Anets balance record, it tends to be the small changes that end up being big problems.

Exedore.6320:

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

I know this has been quoted a lot in this thread, but kitten , you’re right on the money – I wouldn’t be surprised to see this exact list tomorrow.

For Elementalist, I expect:

1. Reduce Overload Recharge to 15 seconds, down from 20.
2. Increase Protection duration from Hardy Conduit to 5 seconds, up from 3.

Nerfs.
1. Wash the Pain Away’s healing to allies is reduced by 50%, but the radius on first pulse and second pulse is improved by 240 and 360, respectively up from 180 and 240 radius.
2. Elemental Shielding is now a Master Trait competing against Geomancer’s Training. (To limit Focus’ synergy with the Earth Line).

Example of Arena net Balance (recent passive Example)

First some basic math for thief’s. And an explanation on there new passive bullkittentery:

You get 1 init every 10 seconds with a thief, you can increase that to 2 with inf signet
Flanking Strike Cost 5 int, and Has been Nerfed Normalized to 1/2 evade frame. we lost out on 1/4 E Frame
The Trait “Who needs to hit a button” or some Evasion name is on a 40 second cooldown and it give’s 2 seconds of Evade at 50% life.

Since every thief in existence (sounds like alot but it’s only 10 at most) takes preparedness we have 15 base int plus the 8 we will get from regin over 40 seconds. (2 X 4 = 8 i think) which gives us a total of 23 INI. divide that by 5 (FS cost) you get 4 Uses. So 4 × 1/4 = you guess’d it 1 seconds of evade over 40 seconds…

this is how Arena net “Balances” this game, by removing player interaction (in this case it’s 4 keystrokes)and replacing it sub par AI driven Crap. There are better examples out there for most classes but i decided on this one because it was recent and the math was simple.

This post is already long so i’m not even going to start in on the why would you take S/d over D/D now point..

TLDR: I expect them to nerf active abilities and replace them with passives. which is the cause of the state of balance we have today.

Simple math but i still failed, had a 2 instead of a 1

I’ve said these suggestions for War many times but I’ll says them again.

I have always loved the concept behind the Warrior that they get more dangerous as the fight goes on. I also enjoy the simplicity behind the class mechanic.

Defy Pain: Gain a stack of Defy Pain per bar of Adrenaline used in a burst. These stacks will give a bit of toughness and reduce the damage taken by conditions by a small amount as well. Note that you can only get a max of 3 stacks per burst, no getting 9 stacks for a AoE bursts that hot 3 guys. These stacks should last for a decent amount of time. This means that the more Bursts you land will make you even harder to kill. It’s also skill based as well.

Physical Skills: Peak Performance should reward landing Physical skills. Maybe have a few seconds of a flat % damage reduction? Make Mending a Physical skill and the heal might actually be worth using.

One last change is that I would make the bottom line of Berserker traits affect nearby teammates. Eternal Champion would have to pulse out the stab at a lower rate for allies but a AoE stun break and a bit of a heal while you’re berserk would give the class some sort of support.

Nothing needs to be nerfed… just buff everything that’s weak and bring back old builds that got nerfed ages ago so we can have more variety.

Spartacus.3192:

sinject.4607:

All DH needs to really see is a nerf to the daze on trap (1/4sec instead of 1/2sec)

had to LOL at this one. 1/4 sec daze? May as well remove it.

the trait is not balanced with a 1/2 daze; this is lockdown-duration, something guardian DOES NOT NEED already equipped by Hunter’s Ward, Dragon’s Maw, Heavy Light, and Spear of Justice. A 1/4 daze is still incredibly useful but limits its purpose to interrupts rather than lockdowns; Thief’s Headshot is a good example of this.

If you still think you need that 1/4 second more, you’re just entitled and going to complain about any suggestion that isn’t a buff.