Guild Wars 2

Please buff ranger shortbow.

Josh Davis.6015:

In general, our goal for PvP is to be faster-paced with a higher-level of lethality than what we’re seeing in S1.

I think this has been the problem with the buffed conditions and the elites. It is getting pretty hard to follow what is going in combat with stealth, fast evade, swiftness and superspeed. At the moment lethality is already very high for some classes. This just sounds like more imbalance will be created if these are the end goals: faster-pace and lethality. This seems to balance around esports rather than the PvP 99.9% rest of us play.

Josh Davis.6015:

Mysticjedi.6053:

Josh Davis.6015:

Aside from skill adjustments, another way we can adjust balance in PvP is by looking at the runes/sigils/amulets that are available for use through the customization panel.

I would be interested in hearing thoughts (with the high-level goals from the blog in-mind) on adding/removing various sigils/amulets/runes. In general, our goal for PvP is to be faster-paced with a higher-level of lethality than what we’re seeing in S1.

I know we’ve had this conversation a few times before, but it’s always important to have this discussion with the correct context in mind.

It would be nice to be able to customize our amulets instead of being stuck with static amulets. This would open more possibilities for players to make more unique builds. Allow for the amulets to be either 3 stat or 4 stat combos.

More variety in stat combos can definitely be a thing – but I don’t think manual stat allocation is in the cards currently.

How about a system where you can pick one amulet, ring and earring, in which case the amulet stands for 60% of today’s stat, while both the ring and earring stand for 20%? This way you have a system that allows people to fine tune their build, allow classes to pick up amulets they else would never be able to use, while keeping it simple for newer players.

Diamondskin is Meta for eles for a reason, cause u guys boosted condicancer to a point of being completly ridiculous. So not using diamondskin is not viable as an ele in pvp.
Instead of nerfing it, cause the condikiddies are whining about it, u should think about, why it is used by nearly every ele.

I am excited about the rez changes, but I want to point out that quickness rez while it was a problem, the issue was the on demand quickness.

For example, as a war the quickness rez is on the frenzy cooldown. So it was once a minute, not for every down body.
Now this may be a good chance overall, but the side effects are to my class again. I will be even more vulnerable trying to save teammates since I do not havr an invuln.

Our grandmaster discipline trait is gain quickness when enemy is at 50%. This implies I am supposed to speed up the kill. I can’t quickly finish anymore.
Its not as on demand as a mesmer one. This hurts me more than the meta builds in terms of effectiveness.

I guess invuln stomping will take over again.

Palimpalim.2063:

Diamondskin is Meta for eles for a reason, cause u guys boosted condicancer to a point of being completly ridiculous. So not using diamondskin is not viable as an ele in pvp.
Instead of nerfing it, cause the condikiddies are whining about it, u should think about, why it is used by nearly every ele.

Oh, the anti-ele crusaders are the problem.

This is the main issue, condition spamming has always been strong, you can never outcleanse conditions now.

Palimpalim.2063:

Diamondskin is Meta for eles for a reason, cause u guys boosted condicancer to a point of being completly ridiculous. So not using diamondskin is not viable as an ele in pvp.
Instead of nerfing it, cause the condikiddies are whining about it, u should think about, why it is used by nearly every ele.

Yeah Diamond Skin is the symptom not the cause. They should focus on making build variety.
For Diamond Skin I would suggest they give resistance for 5 seconds on earth attunement.

Josh Davis.6015:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Snip.

I’ve thought through the implications of removing cele from PvP and what would happen to elementalist quite a bit, actually. It’s pretty risky. I think elementalist would need a new 4 stat combo to be viable at roughly the same level (maybe something like 1050pow/1050condi/560vit/560healing).

So put the new trinket in, instead? If you take out a trinket, things will evolve. Sure, some people might think that you’re destroying a class, but let’s be real: you’re only destroying specific builds and even then, it’s not like you haven’t killed builds before.

Removing cele will change things. Will it fix things? No idea. Nobody can know. However, it will force a few things into being. You’ll be able to get an amulet which is fairly sustainable, but it won’t have the power/precision/condition damage/etc combination that cele has. You’ll be able to have an amulet which allows you to do lots of condi damage, power damage or both, but you’ll have to sacrifice sustainability to do so.

At the very least, cele should be nerfed to the extent that it is noticeably weaker than running settlers/marauders/carrion, etc. Cele should be a compromise, not a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario. If I take cele, I want it to be because i want the condi and power and precision, but i want to keep some toughness/vitality at the price of damage.

I can accept no Fast Hands baseline, heck I could even support it being removed, if the devs are willing to make significant changes to weapon skills. I’m kinda afraid that these changes will involve making them easier to use and will just make Warrior even simpler to play. I pray that the sustain changes are skill based, the one positive of the current state of Warrior is that even doing moderately well gets you respect.

Josh Davis.6015:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Snip.

I’ve thought through the implications of removing cele from PvP and what would happen to elementalist quite a bit, actually. It’s pretty risky. I think elementalist would need a new 4 stat combo to be viable at roughly the same level (maybe something like 1050pow/1050condi/560vit/560healing).

It’s not just a risk, it would be a complete disaster with the new trait system, unless you plan on redesigning the entire class.

So quickness cleaving is still a thing but quickness rezzing isn’t? Why would anyone opt to even stomp now? And instead of just fixing the quickness stomp they remove it. Wow.

Season 2: No point rezzing.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I can accept no Fast Hands baseline, heck I could even support it being removed, if the devs are willing to make significant changes to weapon skills. I’m kinda afraid that these changes will involve making them easier to use and will just make Warrior even simpler to play. I pray that the sustain changes are skill based, the one positive of the current state of Warrior is that even doing moderately well gets you respect.

again, Dev said warrior skills generally and overally have reduced cd time on most of skills or equivalent way to let us play with one weapon set longggggger which means they want to rather reduces the need of fast-hand trait.

It is rather away from warrior being weapon master but passively play with one weapon longer..

I don’t think it is good idea tho. Lol

Plz consider bringing back a mechanic like jewels, having all stats tied to 1 amulet is soooo limiting on builds. May be make it a 3 way split (70%, 20%, 10%), this way it would be much easyer to make builds that are not all out glass or bunker.

Also i have a question: At the HoT announcement it was said that the elite specializations are going to be on par power wise with the core ones. That they are suppose to give classes play styles that they did not have before.
Now the latter is true, engineers have a viable melee build, guardians a range one, ect but the elite specs ended up, for the most part, stronger than the core ones.
My question is did the philosophy behind elite spec change to where they are suppose to be stronger than the core ones but balanced between themselves (when more than 1 per class is released), or is the original statement still valid and they are going to get tuned in the upcoming patches?

Josh Davis.6015:

Aside from skill adjustments, another way we can adjust balance in PvP is by looking at the runes/sigils/amulets that are available for use through the customization panel.

Well, currently the most popular spvp amulets are:
- marauder (power, precision, vitality, ferocity)
- celestial (all stats)
- viper (power, condi, precision, expertise)

In WvWvW soldier stats (PVT) have been dominant in zerging situations since 2012. In WvWvW roaming several condition combinations, like dire+perplexity, have been very prevalent, but they have never been allowed in spvp. In pve viper and berserker are the most sought after stats now. Celestial requires might stacking to give enough DPS, nerf might stacking and celestial is fine.

I would want Arenanet go back to their earlier system, where each amulet can embed a gem which can different set of ability scores attached to it, thus you can create a combinations e.g. berserker amulet with soldier gem, which would lead to similar results like marauder. I know this makes balancing more difficult, but allows greater flexibility. I use also combination of runes in WvWvW (e.g. 4 runes from set X and 2 from set Y), which is not possible in spvp.

Here are my suggestions to fine tune overused runes and sigils:

Superior Rune of Durability
- gives too much tankiness to otherwise fragile builds
- remove protection from 4th rune

Superior Rune of the Hoelbrak
- reduce might duration to 10% (from 30%), the -20% condition duration is extremely strong itself, making Melandru runes almost redudant

Superior Rune of the Strength
- reduce might duration to 30% (from 45%)

Superior Rune of the Krait
- remove torment and poison from 6th rune effect (activating elite)

Superior Rune of the Perplexity (missing from pvp, but extremely common and abused in WvWvW roaming)
- change 4th effect, next attack causes 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds, when using a heal skill, cooldown 30 s
- change 6th effect, gives only 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds when interrupting

Superior Sigil of Fire
- cannot trigger same time with other crit proc sigils, like sigil of air
- combined with sigil of air allows fairly durable builds hit extremely hard on crits

Superior Sigil of Air
- cannot trigger same time with other crit proc sigils, like sigil of fire

Superior Sigil of Doom
- give 4 second of poison (instead of 6)
- allows too long lasting poison

Superior Sigil of Energy
- give back 33% of endurance (instead of 50%)
- allows extra dodge on too low cooldown

Superior Sigil of Geomancy
- give 2 stacks of bleeding for 8 s (instead of 3 stacks for 10 s)
- current version allows too large AoE condition spam for very little

Superior Sigil of Intelligence
- gain fury on weapon swap for 5 s (cooldown 10), the current version allows 100% crit chance with zero investment to precision, which allows tanky builds to hit too hard

Some other sigils and runes, which are currently too weak, should be buffed slightly.

Examples of underused runes: Rune of the Citadel (drop bomb is kinda superficial, replace with something fitting to name of the rune, like -15% condi duration), Rune of the Speed (traveler and pack runes are better), Rune of the Rage (fury alone too weak). Rune of the Lyssa has been subject to multiple nerfs and it is rarely used. Give it minor buffs e.g. 2nd rune will give +10 % condition duration instead of current +5 %.

Examples of underused sigils: sigil of nullification (increase to 100% chance),
sigil of incapacitation (increase to 100% chance)

I could go on and I probably forgot many.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I can accept no Fast Hands baseline, heck I could even support it being removed, if the devs are willing to make significant changes to weapon skills. I’m kinda afraid that these changes will involve making them easier to use and will just make Warrior even simpler to play. I pray that the sustain changes are skill based, the one positive of the current state of Warrior is that even doing moderately well gets you respect.

Here’s a quick story.

Years ago rangers pushed for pet skills skills to be controlled via f1-f4, guess what the devs said? It would make ranger harder to play.

Well Anet logic. More power creep inc and thats all.

This is what they do whole time . " We gonna nerf this and this but buff that and that"

Why cant u simply nerf and leave it like it is.

online.1278:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I can accept no Fast Hands baseline, heck I could even support it being removed, if the devs are willing to make significant changes to weapon skills. I’m kinda afraid that these changes will involve making them easier to use and will just make Warrior even simpler to play. I pray that the sustain changes are skill based, the one positive of the current state of Warrior is that even doing moderately well gets you respect.

again, Dev said warrior skills generally and overally have reduced cd time on most of skills or equivalent way to let us play with one weapon set longggggger which means they want to rather reduces the need of fast-hand trait.

I don’t think it is good idea tho. Lol

If each weapon gets increased functionality on lower CDs then rapid weapon swapping won’t be as needed. I would even take losing Fast Hands entirely if it was replaced with a trait that removes blind on Burst Skill use. I like the idea of frequent swapping, but if they can make our weapons more varied I won’t be too put out.

WINTER 2016 ?? So it’s not gonna be any balance patch soon???
w/e i don’t kittening care anymore.

If you are just going to nerf gaurdian elite damage and cc and not offer any improvements gaurdian won’t be worth playing at all. You made non-elite specs not viable now youll make elite specs worthless. Gaurd is my first and main character and I had to quit playing it in league because it lost it’s survivability against other professions. Unless you want gaurds to go the way of power rangers you’ll make them unviable. If you dropped some of the damage and made the traps heal and give boons to allies in the area that would be more in keeping with the gaurdian as a damage support class. Theyd be contenders against the other bunker buff heal professions too.

In group fights gaurds can do ranged damage which isn’t very effective. Or run into the fight and lay traps and get focused down. 1v1 they can’t stand up to professions that know what they are doing. 2+v1 forget about it.

You might as well say gaurds aren’t designed for league any more and stop them competing.

The real problem lies in the combo of Revs and Mesmers. Not the classes independently.

Boon duration+Swiftness+Alacrity, makes it unnecessary to run any other classes. Put this with the ability to just portal from point to point when you have two mesmers on a team, and you have the current meta.

Which cuts out 5-6 classes.

How boon duration is given out, how alacrity is given out, swiftness and slow really needs to be closely monitored.

Taking away the diamond skin, and no I dont main an ele, doesn’t really help ele’s. They are barely holding on as it is…

Most of the other classes besides perhaps engineer (I think that we just have some amazing engineer players who do great area damage) tend to not have the attractive traits of , swiftness, alacrity, and boon duration dispersion.

Dioxin.7892:

WINTER 2016 ?? So it’s not gonna be any balance patch soon???
w/e i don’t kittening care anymore.

You do realize that winter is December to the March Equinox, right?

AegisFLCL.7623:

Khenzy.9348:

Did I just read they are planning on buffing Thieves AA damage? Really? What the hell?

If they touch any initiative based skill remember that it becomes spammable, that’s there only choice without creating a huge imbalance for a damage buff. The problem with any of that being we do not need the damage, we need survivability and massive updates to utility skills. Don’t understand why they think thieves need an AA buff…

Probably cause the burst damage is in an alright place. Buffing it would probably result in everyone complaining about the instant burst kills from thief as was complained about at release. Also, improving burst skills wouldn’t change much when an autoproc negates it all. Improving the sustained damage (autos) though while leaving the situational utility on the 2-5 skills is probably the better way to go. In that way, if a proc eats the burst or a bunker renders it a 4k crit, a glass thief would still probably be a threat and push the person off the point. Hopefully this involves fixing the skill lag/aftercasts on the sword autos, and fixing OH dagger. If the damage output of the mainhand is decent, the rest of the weaponset can be tuned for utility (hopefully) making it slightly easier to balance and avoiding the spam you were talking about.

As for sustain, we’re probably not going to get it in terms of the base of the class. Utilities need to be fixed, but it seems we’re still going to fulfill the role of glass cannon. People understand how to counterplay thieves now, but we’re just going to be a threat while they’re counterplaying us now based on what they’ve said here.

Was anything actually said in this post? It seemed like a whole bunch of “we’re going to be changing something” vagueness. I play all those classes, and have no better idea today how they’ll be in three months than I did yesterday, only that “some things will be different, maybe.” This is not news, this is “this is not news.”

Will cooldowns see a general reduction to account for how much chill is flying around (especially global cooldowns and interrupts)?

Josh Davis.6015:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Snip.

I’ve thought through the implications of removing cele from PvP and what would happen to elementalist quite a bit, actually. It’s pretty risky. I think elementalist would need a new 4 stat combo to be viable at roughly the same level (maybe something like 1050pow/1050condi/560vit/560healing).

shouldn’t you then balance elementalist around not requiring every single stat in the game to work?

because celestial really is a big problem. it allows you to be too good at everything instead of picking a role. keeping an amulet that hurts build diversity and encourages sustain + DoT + support + DPS all in one package just because one profession, right now, isn’t balanced to survive without it is kinda ridiculous. it’s been the go-to amulet of choice for at least half the builds in every meta ever since it got reintroduced.

i’m aware that it’s probably a hell of a lot of work to “fix” ele so it can work well without celestial amulet, but isn’t it in the long term the healthier choice for the game, and less work than constantly juggling the 6-7 professions that can abuse the amulet under the right meta?

Josh Davis.6015:

Aside from skill adjustments, another way we can adjust balance in PvP is by looking at the runes/sigils/amulets that are available for use through the customization panel.

I would be interested in hearing thoughts (with the high-level goals from the blog in-mind) on adding/removing various sigils/amulets/runes. In general, our goal for PvP is to be faster-paced with a higher-level of lethality than what we’re seeing in S1.

I know we’ve had this conversation a few times before, but it’s always important to have this discussion with the correct context in mind.

Aww, I really wish those missing skills /cry so I could finally make a well skills only necro or a signet only thief =\

Seems like they are purposely trying to remove stealth from the game by feeding in these filler things no one really ever used like acrobatics for thief. Unlike the other professions that their elite spec branched out covering multiple areas of a class the daredevil only focused on acrobatics for the most part. So as they are saying they think it needs more is not a good sign for those of us who liked our shadow arts builds. As well as deadly arts and critical strikes will be gone soon too. Reason I say that is the way that daredevil works pretty much almost all thief/dd builds require trickery because of its steal and initative management. So essentially with the meta you the player only get to pick 1 specialization which is pretty much a heavy and hard nerf to thief. So eventually mesmer will be the only actual thief class in the game(atleast where stealth is concerned). Overall though they should be leaving acrobatics alone and focusing on the critical strikes and shadow arts areas or even replacing some of these unused daredevil traits and making them something in conjunction with shadow arts so that possibly we could use shadow arts instead for our steal and initiative management. Another thing would be removing the thing where you can’t move while doing pistol whip otherwise it would be a good pulmonary strike setup.

Revenant: Nerfing sword is bad idea especially with offhand one. Axe and Shield are always used over offhand sword due to are you going to take a short block and a pull that most likely won’t pull your target or will you pick a teleport and interrupt or healing. Just feels like a lot of these nerfs and focused areas are not being used or targeted to the right areas of the different classes such as ele with a billion condi removals going to use their condition counter to add to the massive pile of condi removals which makes no sense to me.

So I had no real complaints about HoT but what this blog is saying to me is making me start to regret getting it now.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Josh Davis.6015:

Aside from skill adjustments, another way we can adjust balance in PvP is by looking at the runes/sigils/amulets that are available for use through the customization panel.

Well, currently the most popular spvp amulets are:
- marauder (power, precision, vitality, ferocity)
- celestial (all stats)
- viper (power, condi, precision, expertise)

In WvWvW soldier stats (PVT) have been dominant in zerging situations since 2012. In WvWvW roaming several condition combinations, like dire+perplexity, have been very prevalent, but they have never been allowed in spvp. In pve viper and berserker are the most sought after stats now. Celestial requires might stacking to give enough DPS, nerf might stacking and celestial is fine.

I would want Arenanet go back to their earlier system, where each amulet can embed a gem which can different set of ability scores attached to it, thus you can create a combinations e.g. berserker amulet with soldier gem, which would lead to similar results like marauder. I know this makes balancing more difficult, but allows greater flexibility. I use also combination of runes in WvWvW (e.g. 4 runes from set X and 2 from set Y), which is not possible in spvp.

Here are my suggestions to fine tune overused runes and sigils:

Superior Rune of Durability
- gives too much tankiness to otherwise fragile builds
- remove protection from 4th rune

Superior Rune of the Hoelbrak
- reduce might duration to 10% (from 30%), the -20% condition duration is extremely strong itself, making Melandru runes almost redudant

Superior Rune of the Strength
- reduce might duration to 30% (from 45%)

Superior Rune of the Krait
- remove torment and poison from 6th rune effect (activating elite)

Superior Rune of the Perplexity (missing from pvp, but extremely common and abused in WvWvW roaming)
- change 4th effect, next attack causes 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds, when using a heal skill, cooldown 30 s
- change 6th effect, gives only 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds when interrupting

Superior Sigil of Fire
- cannot trigger same time with other crit proc sigils, like sigil of air
- combined with sigil of air allows fairly durable builds hit extremely hard on crits

Superior Sigil of Air
- cannot trigger same time with other crit proc sigils, like sigil of fire

Superior Sigil of Doom
- give 4 second of poison (instead of 6)
- allows too long lasting poison

Superior Sigil of Energy
- give back 33% of endurance (instead of 50%)
- allows extra dodge on too low cooldown

Superior Sigil of Geomancy
- give 2 stacks of bleeding for 8 s (instead of 3 stacks for 10 s)
- current version allows too large AoE condition spam for very little

Superior Sigil of Intelligence
- gain fury on weapon swap for 5 s (cooldown 10), the current version allows 100% crit chance with zero investment to precision, which allows tanky builds to hit too hard

Some other sigils and runes, which are currently too weak, should be buffed slightly.

Examples of underused runes: Rune of the Citadel (drop bomb is kinda superficial, replace with something fitting to name of the rune, like -15% condi duration), Rune of the Speed (traveler and pack runes are better), Rune of the Rage (fury alone too weak). Rune of the Lyssa has been subject to multiple nerfs and it is rarely used. Give it minor buffs e.g. 2nd rune will give +10 % condition duration instead of current +5 %.

Examples of underused sigils: sigil of nullification (increase to 100% chance),
sigil of incapacitation (increase to 100% chance)

I could go on and I probably forgot many.

Durability really is too strong right now.

Hoelbrak is really strong right now in comparison to Melandru, but +10% might duration is a joke when you can get that from other runes for all boons.

I’m not sure if Strength needs priority in nerfing. It is very strong, but it isn’t breaking the game, just bunkers.

Krait rune doesn’t need a nerf like that. It would make it totally useless.

Perplexity is pretty scary. I’m sure WvWers would rejoice if these were toned down.

Fire and Air trigger on separate hits iirc. They do add quite a punch to otherwise weak weapons, however.

Nerfing Sigil of Doom hurts any condition build that doesn’t have poison. It also makes bunkery builds stronger. Wrong move imo.

I don’t feel like Sigil of Energy warrants a nerf. The one extra dodge it gives requires a high skill level to make full use of.

Geomancy really isn’t that insane. I’m not sure it warrants a nerf.

Intelligence is only 3 hits. Changing it to Fury on swap changes the audience to bursty builds that can put it a lot of damage in 5 seconds. Also, eles would love to have even more fury to reduce the need for precision. I think a fury on swap sigil would be cool, but it may be too much.

I could spend all day naming bad runes and sigils.

Ohoni.6057:

Was anything actually said in this post? It seemed like a whole bunch of “we’re going to be changing something” vagueness. I play all those classes, and have no better idea today how they’ll be in three months than I did yesterday, only that “some things will be different, maybe.” This is not news, this is “this is not news.”

Pretty much this, either the balance team are unsure of how they are going to balance the problematic areas or they have no idea what are the exact issues with the balance.

Either way it’s REALLY not a good sign.

Their change to diamond skin already shows they have no idea how to address certain issues. More condi removal? If Tempests want more condition removal they’ll take cleansing water.

The power creep is absolutely insane right now and you can flat out tell what parts of the combat fail to keep up.

Unless you’re willing to nerf Revenants there is no hope for balance. If you nerf Ele one of the few actual anti classes to the Revs without touching Revs the new meta will be 5 Revenants.

Your elite specs should not be more poweful than a base spec but that ship has sailed.

Create an anti bunker spec and teams will stop running 4 or 5 bunkers. Thieves have the mobility to be anti bunkers and 2v1 across the map, give them the tools to lock down a bunker and steal their lunch money. No bunker should be able to hold a point 2v1 if an anti bunker is on them. Add mechanics to steal to reduce the effectiveness of the bunker builds say a “cracked armor” mechanic, not able to 1v1 a bunker but able to 2v1 one.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Unless you’re willing to nerf Revenants there is no hope for balance. If you nerf Ele one of the few actual anti classes to the Revs without touching Revs the new meta will be 5 Revenants.

Your elite specs should not be more poweful than a base spec but that ship has sailed.

Create an anti bunker spec and teams will stop running 4 or 5 bunkers. Thieves have the mobility to be anti bunkers and 2v1 across the map, give them the tools to lock down a bunker and steal their lunch money. No bunker should be able to hold a point 2v1 if an anti bunker is on them. Add mechanics to steal to reduce the effectiveness of the bunker builds say a “cracked armor” mechanic, not able to 1v1 a bunker but able to 2v1 one.

so why the teefs should have anti bunker spec?

Why buff theif damage? It will be buffed massively when other classes have their sustain nerfed.

And remember what happened last time warrior sustain was buffed….

“With the release of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ and the unlocking of elite specializations, we’ve seen a decent shift in play styles and power throughout the game. "

Well, that’s one way to define power creep hahah. Really sounds like they’re going to be rebalancing some vanilla skills too, which is pretty awesome. And on the celestial amulet topic… it is very strong for so many builds. Theoretically PvP would be more strategic if you had to choose your 3-4 stats instead of taking a decent amount of all of them. I almost don’t want to say it since playing cele builds can be a lot of fun, but like some people are saying it might be better for the game if cele were removed.

ronpierce.2760:

Galandil.9641:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Don’t understand why they think thieves need an AA buff…

They don’t either. :>

If they think thief AA could use a buff, maybe Necromancer Staff could get one. Not specifically asking for global buffs, but man I wish Staff 1 on necro was less boring. >_<

I think it’s pretty decent. Some damage buff, be it either base damage increase or power scalling.

If we go more imaginative, it could do more damage the more conditions target has on himself with some generous modifier, like 8% from old Feast of Corruption. Staff already has some variety of conditions and being hybrid weapon, would make AA more interesting.

I will also take an opportunity and discuss some things about sigils, runes and amulets:

1. Many on-swap Sigils became waay too powerful after introducement of new ways to trigger multiple weapon swaps in HoT. Shaving on-swap Sigils, especially ones that apply conditions or do effects in AoE may be first step to reduce viability of ultimate bunkers with damage.

2. Rune of Durability has to be changed. It became universal rune for everyone and comes with general boon duration increase which is extremaly dangerous in PvP and causes serious imbalance with current number of boons.

3. Mightstacking Runes need to go in general. I would welcome Sigil that increases Might duration however. That would be some option for mightstacking builds, but with a loss of sigil.

4. With above changes, Celestial builds would take direct nerf without messing with Cele amulet itself. Removal of this amulet is an option, but I’m not sure how would it impact Necromancer’s and Elementalist’s viability in Tournaments.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Why buff theif damage? It will be buffed massively when other classes have their sustain nerfed.

And remember what happened last time warrior sustain was buffed….

Because they probably want thief to be a glass canon, but right now the reward for the risk of it is not there at all. Do you feel threaten when a thief auto attack you uncontested right now ?
Not really, only by blowing all his initiative into a burst that he does any meaningful pressure. By buffing thief’s auto damage, thief can pressure and use inititive in more calculated ways without sacrificing all defense.

Please introduce a 3-item (40/30/30 split) or 4-item (25/25/25/25) stat system for PvP. The resulting ability to fine-tune stats on builds would increase build diversity a lot I believe, without compromising balance by allowing OP combinations like minstrels.

I sincerely hope you guys are working on bringing elite specs in-line with core specs (and not the other way around!), and continue working on it until they are actually equal strength for most professions. This should be a big priority, as it will (again) significantly increase build diversity, as well as allowing f2p players a chance to compete, get addicted, and buy the full game/expansion.

As an engineer main, please nerf hammer hard. I’d like to be able to play a fun weapon set again without completely gimping myself. Rocket Charge needs a complete rework, as a triple leap finisher is just too freaking strong on a profession with easy access water fields, else it would need something like a 40s cooldown to be balanced in its current state. Thunderclap needs a significant range reduction or a big CD. Shock Shield also needs to do less damage— there’s simply no reason for a low cd defensive skill like that to put out decent pressure.

HGH also needs to be looked at. It’s currently mandatory for nearly every build, even those that don’t take elixir skills, thanks to the synergies it has in its own alchemy line (free 50% fury/retal/swiftness uptime in cb, get out of dead free card every 48s against everything but full condi builds, that can also be used as a safestomp/saferes). I think one of the biggest issues with HGH is that it affects nearly every other skill we have, and in a big way with much higher uptime on boons/fields as well as free might generation. Personally I would like to see HGH reverted back to 20s might duration, but changed to only affect consumed/thrown elixirs. As cool as it is to have all the elixir skills on the elixir profession tied into one trait, it just doesn’t work out balance-wise. The cooldown reductions/etc for egun/mortar could be moved to their respective traits instead.

Sneak Gyro is also too strong right now, as it allows you to get a free res almost whenever you need it thanks to having a tiny cooldown. It needs a significant cooldown increase, and I would also like to see a small cast time added to it so that some forethought is needed when using it.

Some other various non-engi balance thoughts:

• Please consider adding downed penalty to make power ressing someone over and over again less effective.
• Chill damage is currently too high
• Ranger pets need balancing
• Bunker mesmer can’t be allowed to be a strong thing because portal movement gives them too huge of an advantage
• Auramancer projectile hate is currently too strong, and it has killed off pretty much every build relying mostly on projectiles for damage. I’d suggest a reduction in duration for non-staff magnetic aura procs.
• Shocking Aura and Magnetic Aura also need to actually be visible. Please revert the visual changes on these 2 at least. Some shocking aura procs may also be too long for the effect they have on a fight.
• Please rework the way revs are designed to deal with incoming condi pressure and CC. Double stab on dodge is just cancerous.
• Get rid of that passive taunt trait, and rework most of the other passive ‘when CC’d’ traits.
• Take a look at the amount of CC/immobilize druid can currently put out.

EDIT:

• Durability runes also need a nerf. Remove the +125 vitality from them, or replace it with something weaker. They (still) do too much right now.

Do self rooting melee skills make cense any more?
They never made much cense to me, specially on a game centered around fluid moving combat, more so being them melee.
The big bad boogieman used to argue for keeping self rooting skills was blurred frenzy, now we have Unrelenting assault and its meh, and this one has a blink effect associated to it.
100 blades, blurred frenzy, zealots defense and so on should be revised.

Nocta.5274:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Why buff theif damage? It will be buffed massively when other classes have their sustain nerfed.

And remember what happened last time warrior sustain was buffed….

Because they probably ant thief to be a glass canon, but right now the reward for the risk of it is not there at all. Do you feel threaten when a thief auto attack uncontested you right now ?
Not really, only by blowing all his initiative into a burst that he does any meaningful pressure. By buffing thief’s auto damage, thief can pressure and use inititive in more calculated ways without sacrificing all defense.

They are a serious threat to anything that isn’t a meta “OP” build. The OP builds just have to be nerfed. Thief is really strong its just other stuff is too strong. If the sustain of classes like revenent or whoever is nerfed then thats a huge buff to thiefs.

Imagine if necro sucked and then suddenly they did a patch where they nerfed everyones condi removal. Suddenly necro would be much better. Even without changes to the class itself.

More thief damage will just continue the power creep towards other classes needing more (often passive because its instant) damage reduction in order to cope with the high damage. How do you think mesmer became so unkillable? The power creep of having to survive thieves damage.

SO thieves don’t need buffs. That would just continue this games rapid decline in skill level and FUN (most importantly). Just giving thief uncounterable huge damage is not going to be fun for anyone. Auto attacks across the board are the one thing which should not be strong as you can’t dodge or avoid them because they have no cool down. Auto attack spam is as brainless as it can get. You dont even need to touch your keyboard to do it.

As for the other changes. The diamond skin change was needed 2 years ago when I told EVERYONE about 100 times that it was an unfun and stupid mechanic. Celestial amulet should be removed. Its been 2 years where this amulet has probably been 50% of builds. As in ONE AMULET OUT OF ABOUT 25 is about 50% of the meta for 2 years. It should be 5% of the meta if it was balanced.

50% is alot more than 5%. This is SIMPLE MATH. As in, this is what development companies do. They have statistics which show how much a particular stat arrangment is used and if it is used way too much then its OP and should be nerfed. Apparently anet don’t use such basic statistics in their balancing which leaves balancing open to human bias and results in a terrible meta over and over. The fact celestial hasn’t been removed or nerfed is pretty much amazing given the clear FACTUAL AND MATHEMATICAL evidence that it should be.

Serious Thought.5394:

Thief players so no to auto attack buffs- SHUSH. Take your buffs, and be happy. If you say no, we won’t receive buffs. GAAAH.

Good Thieves will do well with even this small change. Bad Thieves will never do well again.

Bad Thieves will continue to insist everyone else is being carried by their class, though.

1) Since you are looking at normalizing rez and stomps (by making it so quickness and slow don’t affect rez/ stomp speed) … Please also consider making it so that anything that prevents point capture, prevents stomps, too. (such as stealth, blur, etc) But especially , make it so that teleporting away breaks the stomp attempt, too.

2) I like the idea of a power/ condition (major) , vitality / heal (minor) amulet…. But I would also love a power / toughness (major) , precision / condition damage (minor) amulet. But please add them to PvE as well!

Gokil.2543:

- Warrior: I’m not very comfortable giving much feedback on this one. Burnzerker needs looking at, but besides that, I think taking a look at how specifically the mobility changes hit warrior harder than any other profession by far. Their mobility got absolutely gutted in that patch. I’d agree it was out of line before, but I’d say they were hit too hard. Giving them back some of that good stuff will alleviate their worries much more than other changes of similar scope, since it allows them to pick and control their engagements more aptly.

Great review overall, but I will only use your part about warrior and complement it with information I once gave on the GW2 forums concerning mobility of warriors.

You pretty much hit the nail, or atleast one of the nails that were loose. Warrior mobility was hit really hard when other classes gained mobility (see here druid, DD, Rev and such).

-Basic skill behavior

(1) : Warrior’s gap closer need to be more accurate. As an exemple [Rush] and [Bull rush] would need to get us on our target on a near 100% basis (see here terrain bug that could be the only non-player related reason for the skill not getting us on top of an ennemy). Those skills often get us behind our target, still a few steps away from them simply because the skill failed to identify where the person was walking to (see here simply walking and not actually blinking or dodging).

(2) : Gap closer skills should land their hit on a near 100% basis. Warrior’s gap closer skill have a hard time actually landing their hit. Taking [Savage leap] as an exemple (even if the skills cited as point 1 automatically result in a problem on landing the hit since you are not where your target is). As for [Savage leap], the movement part of the skill is pretty fine, it will get you to your target, sadly the animation when the warrior land and try to hit the target will sometimes bug and the warrior will swing the sword where the ennemy is not, resulting in a miss simply because the ennemy was moving (see here simply moving and not dodging or blinking away).

(3) : Warrior’s gap closer distance should not be affected by minus % movement speed. Since the 23rd of june patch, warrior movement skills have been made baseline and +% movement speed doesn’t affect them anymore, so why should -% movement speed affect them? Take [Evsicerate] as an exemple. This skill will travel about 200 range only when affected by [Chill]. This behavior is also true for [Shield Bash]. Especially since chill is now even more present with the new specialisation (Reaper). [Chill] could still make the skill behave slower than intended, but the distance traveled should still be what is written, a simple spammable condition should not punish a warrior mobility to that extent. Warriors needs to get back their mobility.

Balancing should be done around mechanics that are working as intended.

I wish all the GW2 players to get a good balanced game once this patch goes live.

vlad.4871:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Unless you’re willing to nerf Revenants there is no hope for balance. If you nerf Ele one of the few actual anti classes to the Revs without touching Revs the new meta will be 5 Revenants.

Your elite specs should not be more poweful than a base spec but that ship has sailed.

Create an anti bunker spec and teams will stop running 4 or 5 bunkers. Thieves have the mobility to be anti bunkers and 2v1 across the map, give them the tools to lock down a bunker and steal their lunch money. No bunker should be able to hold a point 2v1 if an anti bunker is on them. Add mechanics to steal to reduce the effectiveness of the bunker builds say a “cracked armor” mechanic, not able to 1v1 a bunker but able to 2v1 one.

so why the teefs should have anti bunker spec?

Thieves are the class in desperate need of buffs, the only one, so they’re the class I chose to illustrate with.

The anti bunker would have to be glass or they would be even more OP than bunkers they were created to kill. Steal would make sense design wise as it has a decent CD.

Rym.1469:

ronpierce.2760:

Galandil.9641:

AegisFLCL.7623:

Don’t understand why they think thieves need an AA buff…

They don’t either. :>

If they think thief AA could use a buff, maybe Necromancer Staff could get one. Not specifically asking for global buffs, but man I wish Staff 1 on necro was less boring. >_<

I think it’s pretty decent. Some damage buff, be it either base damage increase or power scalling.

If we go more imaginative, it could do more damage the more conditions target has on himself with some generous modifier, like 8% from old Feast of Corruption. Staff already has some variety of conditions and being hybrid weapon, would make AA more interesting.

Thats an excellent idea, staff AA is so simple and worthless…

I mean, as necros we are supposed to AA as much as possible :p

Big post inc:

Runes:
Removal-
Trapper (not sure why this was ever put into the game mode)
Mercy (with the idea of normalizing res this rune being removed would assist with that idea as it will no longer be a way to boost res speed)
That list was shorter than I thought it’d be… oh well, on to sigils

Sigils
Removal-
Geomancy (passive procs like that sway combat too much when combined with doom and/or leech)
Hydromancy (again passive proc damage for doing something not related to actually dealing damage is dumb and it is even worse when on chill reaper)

Nerfed-
Energy (just needs to have endurance restored be about 33% of endurance to stop every bunker from having mega evades but at the same time benefit those few builds that rely on pure dodging ability to survive)

Amulets:
Removed-
Celestial (replaced with multiple 4 stat bruiser type amulets that can still allow classes to achieve similar things to what they had before but not being all around amazing at everything) (p.s. nerfing might access and prot access will help with this)

Issues that need to be addressed relating to amulets:
Condi duration bases need to be lowered overall if viper is going to remain in pvp and with it people have condis that last an absurd amount of time. Even DOT builds should have to constantly be engaged in combat in order to win fights, not just able to stack 30 yrs of 10 stacks of condis and then leave and wait til the enemy dies.

Base damage and healing everywhere needs to be reduced and have scaling increase. If someone invests in a bunker build, why should they be able to do significant damage? If someone invests in pure dps, why should they be super hard to kill when they face tank you or be able to full heal themselves any time they want? I know you want to avoid the holy trinity style of play but there is too much base stuff that people don’t have to focus on investments in stats hence why cele ammy becomes a problem when applied to certain classes.

Boon access needs to be toned down for most classes. Nobody should ever be able to maintain perma 25 might and/or perma prot. That eliminates the need for investments and serves to only allow boon heavy classes into the meta. Boons should serve as small buffs used to turn the tide in a crucial moment or benefit a team in a fight when it’s most needed. Right now builds are being made around boons so you have bunkers getting 4k crits on other bruisers while being mega tanks as opposed to zerkers who get maybe 4.5k on the same targets. That is not a big enough margin between the dps focused players and bunkers.

Professions:
Elementalist-
DS being reworked is great but with tempest there is still the issue with ridiculous amounts of reflect uptime. Hardcounters are bad and the amount of reflects they have are near hard counters to ranged builds and then the heavy aoe they have makes them strong anti melee fighters. There needs to be counters but not this level of a counter. Small number tweaks to duration will go a long way to making this a wonderfully balanced class with skillful play required to be good. I’m not an ele main so I’m not comfortable going further into base mechanics on this class as I do not possess the exp necessary with this class to tell you those things. But I will say scepter needs better autos and I think we all agree on that.

Guard-
Trap interaction with ports needs to be addressed. Right now porting through one of their traps like dragon’s maw or test of faith will still proc the cc or damage from the trap. That eliminates the biggest possible counter to a class that already hardcounters the classes that focus on ports. Unblockable cc needs to be looked at too as that is just unhealthy design. What’s the point of blocking vs a guard or DH if their attacks can just go through your blocks? Outside of that a few buffs to base guard to make it a real choice between that and DH are in order but seeing as how I don’t main it I don’t feel I should speak on what that should be.

Thief-
Mostly in a good spot, I would prefer DD didn’t give damage on dodges as it eliminates dodging as a strictly defensive tactic but others would disagree. A few weapon buffs (not to autos or to d/p) would be nice to allow thief to have greater build diversity. For example I would like to see sword 2 return cure 2 condis and have a quicker cast. Also would like to see sword 3 cycle on blocks as the hit still connects it just has it’s damage mitigated. Also Double dagger needs some looking at without buffing d/p at the same time (otherwise it will continue to overshadow the set). Can’t speak a ton on traits as we don’t know what acro looks like yet but I will say preparedness out to be made baseline and mug should maybe be looked at as being baseline (right now our class mechanic requires too much traiting to be effective for us to use and it’s not healthy imo for that to be a thing). Revealed should be normalized across the game at 3 sec again for the sake of possible D/D builds emerging in pvp. Revealed needs to be looked at as other classes imo should be able to rip the thief out of stealth (being able to extend reveal like sic em and analyze I can see as a possible ok thing but taking them out of stealth is just not good as it shuts down half of what the class can do)

For the three classes above: Buff hp pools (at least to 15k like Mesmer) to allow them to have greater diversity in how they make their builds (I’d suggest normalizing hp pools across the game but maybe that’s just me)

Warrior:
Seems like you guys have the right idea, giving them the ability to sustain in combat better. I don’t have intimate knowledge of warrior so unfortunately there’s not much I can say here. This one I will leave to the professionals. (p.s. defiant stance needs to have the same functionality as infused light)

Mesmer:
Gravity well I think should be looked at. It is a large cc with pretty heavy damage and can be used twice. Seeing as how it is unique to the chronomancer I could argue nerfing the duration on it as every person who uses it will be able to channel it twice. Or you can keep the duration but remove the cc for every pulse except the last one and then MAYBE buff the damage so it can still be an influential skill but it doesn’t function as a “gg” button. Rest of it you seem to be handling pretty well with your post so I will leave it as is for now.

Necromancer:
Reduce base chill damage and take steps towards removing the large hitting passives on the class. If the nerfs to boon access go through then this class should be fine in terms of not having ridiculous damage. At the same time it does need a bit more utility in the form of heals not tied to shroud or AI.

Revenant-
Reducing the amount of base healing goes a long way. But they also need to not be able to pulse perma boons to their party. If the suggestions I put above for general balance go through rev should be fairly under control. (most of its issues are boon access and spammable condis that last for a long time). A reduction on confusion stacks from banish enchantment would be great. Maybe just from 3 to 2.

Ranger-
Pet damage is silly. A bunker druid should never be able to kill someone and the fact that with pets like smokescale and bristleback they are able to burst heavily is bad. Now all the pets ranger has should hit as reliably as those two, but the damage should not be that significant if it’s going to be hitting you as much as pets will with reliability increases. Reduction of base heals (with scaling increase to benefit investment) and base pet damage should be a strong start to fixing this problem. Now to avoid the class becoming trash tier they would need to be compensated by giving the weapons on ranger more synergy with trait options and some of the damage taken from pets would need to be given as base damage onto the actual ranger.

Engineer-
Hammer 3 could be changed from 3 leaps to 1 to help cut down on sustain for mara builds. Hammer 2 needs to be either a defensive or offensive skill, not both. Cutting down on might stacking overall will also help with the issues on this class. Reducing hammer base damage would be good, and changes to stealth gyro would be awesome (removing the reveal and giving it a cast time to avoid the whole instant stomp avoidance.)

General balance and QoL improvements:
I realize not all of this can be done right away but looking into the future it would be great to start working on these things-

Stealth needs to be unique to thief to allow for it to be balanced as a defensive tool for the class. Other effects can be given to other classes to balance losing the stealth on their skills (possibly even a parallel effect called invisibility or something to still keep the effect but have stealth be an actual tool for the thief to utilize and allow anet to balance easier without the hassle of having to worry about making mes or engi too strong)

Boon base durations need to be reduced if there are going to be stats and amulets giving boon duration as a benefit in order to help deal with the whole perma boon build thing going on now.

Passives (invulns, counter cc’s, etc.) need to be removed from the game. It does not promote healthy gameplay (as was seen with vamp runes pre nerf) and the counter cc’s punish players for timing bursts properly with cc which should never happen in any game that wants to build a pvp playerbase.

I’d love and support a split in balance for pvp and pve if the resources are acquired, if not then I’d like to see pvp be the balance focus as pve can still be completed with any build on any class so there’s not too much of an issue there outside of elitists who will never be pleased.

Class stacking (even in queues) needs to go. Balance issues are just exacerbated when you have the ability to use multiple of the same op build in a team. Yes queue times may be slightly longer for some but if it means more balanced and enjoyable matches I’m sure most would be okay with that.

We need to be able to queue from outside of Hotm, whether that means letting us pve or letting us duel/hotjoin is up to anet but pvp players need something else to do while they wait in queue (which could help balance out the long queue time that may come out of removing class stacking).

Over time it’d be pretty cool to see people instead of picking 1 amulet for use in pvp be able to pick choices for stats on armor, weps, and trinkets just to add some extra diversity and make more builds transferrable from wvw and pve to pvp. Also lessens the chance of “1 meta build to rule them all” type situations as customization options will be greater also preventing the issue you encounter with amulets where some combos are completely overshadowed by other options.

That’s my list atm, I will add in more if I think of it. Great start on balance changes from the post Josh, love them so far and can’t wait to see where this takes us in the future

Edit: oh I almost forgot, the amount off cc overall is too much. Maybe some skills need a functionality change to stop this perma cc nonsense we are seeing. It is not healthy for a game trying to be competitive in pvp for the amount of cc present right now to be there.

Fix a bug, fix a bug…

Ario.8964:

snip*

Read most of it, decent suggestions, but I’d like to make a note on rangers.

Yes the pets are incredibly strong currently, but I strongly believe some scaling on power weapons needs to be adjusted, as they move damage away from the new pets they should pack a little bit more into the actual weapon skills.

What also strikes me as odd is that Beastmastery is where the GS traits are, and yet there are no secondary effects for your pets on your GS weapon skills. Outside of your unique pet abilities most ranger builds don’t output very high damage (the number of reflects really hurts LB in the current meta), and I don’t find a rangers power damage to be as sustainable to certain condi builds. While GS builds in a lot of useful defensive skills, aoe chill and cripple everywhere often make the weapon rather clunky. Without pet damage I don’t believe power based ranger specs to be a highly viable option in the current meta.

You know, re-reading over the article, I’m still concerned for warrior. Its great that berserker is getting another pass, but issues go deeper than that.

What I’m getting at is, the trait lines are really all screwed up, where some things need moved around or changed, and I didn’t see any mention of that.

Power, vitality, ferocity, expertise

Power, ferocity, vitality, expertise.

Ario.8964:

Pet damage is silly. A bunker druid should never be able to kill someone and the fact that with pets like smokescale and bristleback they are able to burst heavily is bad. Reduction of base heals (with scaling increase to benefit investment) and base pet damage should be a strong start to fixing this problem.

I have to point out that only the smoke scale and the bristlback do alot of dmg. This is largely due to the other pets having issues hitting moving targets, smoke scale can reliably burst with shadow assault and bristlback can reliably land auto attacks because it is a ranged attack with fast projectiles (unlike spiders).
All pets should be able to reliably hit like thees two, and then their damage balanced accordingly.

But yea no one can deny that bristilback’s damage is a bit over the top at the moment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-DxXEgH3Gg

Also yes, to the base heal rebalance on druid life shroud. Reduce the heals on all of the astral skills but increase the scaling so that with x amount of healing power they become the same as they are now.