Guild Wars 2

I and many of us who still play pvp in this game would like to know a little more about what is planned “soon” in regards to balance changes? There are many issues that have been brought up with the current meta, certain classes being much stronger choices, and there has been little communication/recognition by Anet. Can you give us any answers on the following?

-Thief Backstab combo? You guys ok with a mug 10 point trait doing up to 6k damage + being able to pre-cast a CnD before for another 3-4K all hitting simultaneously (not to mentioned followed by a backstab or any other of the thiefs ability’s for 10-15K in 1.5 seconds)

-No body enjoys this and I haven’t heard any player, top or not support this. Do you guys?

-Bunker Guardians being the best at the job and the ideal choice? (Followed by elementalists)?

-Do you see how this limits choices within tpvp?

-Mesmer Portal and Time Warp are just to strong not to have (I mean come on really a 10 second quickness for the team, who ever thought this was balanced?)

-Do you see how this limits effective choices again?

-Top elementalists d/d, s/d, s/f, Staff are the most superior class for roaming/burst/escapes/survivability/support all in one. This comes down to the lingering boons of Elemental Attunment and Soothing mist.

-These just offer to much to the team and no team can pass them up, thus leaving only 2 slots on any given team. Well 1 honestly, since given the above, the best counter to all of the strong survivability classes such as bunker/ele/ele burst-long life up time/ and mesmers drawn fight tactics, the 4th slot and ideal to counter this is a burst class, and generally that is thief and maybe a warrior spec. So choices are fairly slim….

Is this all working as intended? If not, what are your plans or idea’s (I think most of us would like to hear your thoughts even if you chose to go another way that still solves the problem?).

I know if I was in charge and could do a little programming, I would simply……. (and yes I’ve worked in the test department at Lucas Arts and know these could be rolled out in 1 week tops).

1. Half mugs damage and not allow any precasting of abilities while using steal. And increase stealthing debuff an additional 1.5-2 seconds.

2. Reduce the current stability limits of the guardian by about 2 secs per application of its abilities, reduce the passive healing of its regen by 15%, and cut back protection by about 1-2 seconds per ability. They would still be VERY durable if specced, but would give reason to try something else out.

3. Reduce elemental attunement passive boon buff to 3.5 seconds, and lower soothings mist healing by 20%. The class would still be very strong, just not the over-kill in relation to what other classes can bring like it is at the moment.

4. For memsers i would remove AOE quickness (not sure what Id replace with) and remove portal, they are simpley to strong for this game type. For portal I’d replace with an ability like etheral walk of the necro minus the life-force generating lol…. This would be a good source of swiftness that many (casuals and pro’s) have wanted access to and would keep them on par movement wise/secondary point holder as other choices that would become viable.

These are the main topics not commented on so far from what I’ve read and keep coming up within whats wrong with the game. There are other things, but these changes would help A LOT. Also I’d imagine that if you just implement a ladder, custom arena’s and don’t look at these changes, things would become stale faster than is already happening.

There really is no need for ranger, engineer, and warrior in the current metagame.

Some of these things have already been nerfed. Portal has been nerfed to limit the number of uses… (I wish they would make the duration of the portal limitless then but hey I’m a mesmer). I believe the thief mug and or CnD has been reduced in damage… Bunker guardians… I mean come on that is the point of the class GUARDians… Ele’s I can’t give a fair input on… But honestly the game is still in its baby phase and while you may think it could take a week to do what you want… That was at a different place… I am by no means a programmer I can still imagine that it is run differently at ANet then Lucas…

I say to bring balance back.. Change the grenade nerf that was done to engineers (Tht was messed up anyways). And who says warriors aren’t viable? I love having warriors on my team for WvW/PvP and in dungeons… And all classes bring better group utility than thieves

and also if possible these changes should be split between PvP and PvE

jportell.2197:

and also if possible these changes should be split between PvP and PvE

I completely agree. If the skills were split the proper balance for both modes could be better done instead of the mish mash we currently have where some skills are balanced for pvp and some for pve.

I couldn’t agree more with this thread.
Hopefully come this huge pvp update that they will balance some skills.

A time warp nerf and a lengthening of “Exposed” would make me happy and yes prolly a balance on D/d ele with there OP survivability

jportell.2197:

And who says warriors aren’t viable? I love having warriors on my team for WvW/PvP and in dungeons…

None said that warrior aren’t viable in instance or in WvWvW but this is sPvP forum (and we discuss sPvP here). Please refrain from posting when u dont even know what we r talking about.

This is sPvP forum…. Go post in Your PVE forum please.

Maverick Holix.1382:

I couldn’t agree more with this thread.
Hopefully come this huge pvp update that they will balance some skills.

In last “Huge PvP update” they changed few underwatter skills.

PvP is dead.

The ele change u suggest doesnt do much at all, they should replace the EA water dodge heal with something else like maybe cond. removal, i think that would do the trick. But yeah they should then also fix the thief burst guard defense and a couple other classes like the ranger spec which is near imposible to kill too….

Dont expect too much though, alot of this issues have been known for months but it seems like they dont agree with our view, i play alot of paids and too me the bigest problem right now are the thieves, its just not ok to know that a burst from a thief is coming and u have a stunbreak+dodge ready but u just cant avoid most of it because its instant cast + haste + heartseaker spam after it….

guza.6170:

The ele change u suggest doesnt do much at all, they should replace the EA water dodge heal with something else like maybe cond. removal, i think that would do the trick. But yeah they should then also fix the thief burst guard defense and a couple other classes like the ranger spec which is near imposible to kill too….

Eles doding in water with EA already remove conditions, it’s one of it’s best uses

Wooyadeen.6491:

jportell.2197:

And who says warriors aren’t viable? I love having warriors on my team for WvW/PvP and in dungeons…

None said that warrior aren’t viable in instance or in WvWvW but this is sPvP forum (and we discuss sPvP here). Please refrain from posting when u dont even know what we r talking about.

This is sPvP forum…. Go post in Your PVE forum please.

Maverick Holix.1382:

I couldn’t agree more with this thread.
Hopefully come this huge pvp update that they will balance some skills.

In last “Huge PvP update” they changed few underwatter skills.

PvP is dead.

Uhhh did you miss the part where I said WvW/PvP I was referencing ALLLL buddy… not just WvW or just pve…

-Top elementalists d/d, s/d, s/f, Staff are the most superior class for roaming/burst/escapes/survivability/support all in one. This comes down to the lingering boons of Elemental Attunment and Soothing mist.

Oh yeah, the illusive 30/30/30/30/30 spec. Right on.

I’ll speak to option 4. The abilities don’t need to be removed, however a suggestion would be to make portal an elite and move mass invis to a utility. This way aoe quickness and portal are not removed.

1. Half mugs damage and not allow any precasting of abilities while using steal.

Why is this broken idea getting more popular every day ? Because you read it somewhere on the forum ?

First it hardly hits for 6k, and for the love of something, stop testing your numbers on golems
Second, it comes every 40-45s
Third, it’s not the only skill in the game that causes instant damage
Fourth, you’re not only adressing BS burst at all with this suggestion, as a matter of fact you’re on wrong way leading to a nerf that will affect much more than just the BS rotation, further forcing thieves into minmaxing their gameplay around… guess what, backstab, to keep decent damage output against this broken bunker/burst meta.

Not allowing precast is far enough to cut down the burst potential.

muscarine.5136:

1. Half mugs damage and not allow any precasting of abilities while using steal.

Why is this broken idea getting more popular every day ? Because you read it somewhere on the forum ?

First it hardly hits for 6k, and for the love of something, stop testing your numbers on golems
Second, it comes every 40-45s
Third, it’s not the only skill in the game that causes instant damage
Fourth, you’re not only adressing BS burst at all with this suggestion, as a matter of fact you’re on wrong way leading to a nerf that will affect much more than just the BS rotation, further forcing thieves into minmaxing their gameplay around… guess what, backstab, to keep decent damage output against this broken bunker/burst meta.

Not allowing precast is far enough to cut down the burst potential.

I’m not sure how to respond to you. You either don’t max out Thief like I do or you run a 2K toughness plus build. On my ranger with 1800 toughness I get hit for backstab for 3-4K regularly. Now if a person has 900 toughness it will easily hit for 6K. Name one trait that for 10 points gives a skill that hits for 6K, 4K if they area really armored. ??? To powerfull for points spent, even if it were a 30 pt. trait it would still be. Add on top of that pre-cast CnD and yes there is an issue. Not to mention 7-8k crit backstabs with 1800 toughness on a medium class……

I’m a thief myself running with the regular 900 toughness, this is where you may get hit for 6k and that is still a rare occurrence.

Name one trait that for 10 points gives a skill that hits for 6K, 4K if they area really armored. ???

No, you trait it at 10 for it to deal damage, you trait at 30 DA + 30 crits + full berzerker to deal 4-6k damage on paper targets, that’s a huge difference many people here don’t seem to grasp.
The only thieves you will hurt by nerfing mug are the ones who don’t run 30/30 full zerk.

And on a really armored target you will never deal 4k mug, you’re also forgeting protection in your equation.

There’s a ton of other stuff that’s unbalanced and much of it has to do with being able to spam multiple skills in very short periods of time paired with extreme gear choices. This is true for burst and bunker builds (like the Ele’s) alike.

I am not sure if this belongs here, but the constant restealthing thieves can do is just not fun to fight on any of the classes who don’t have a ton of AoE at will. Moreover since some even trait for healing inside stealth .. then it becomes the almost-never-ending-story … just it ends eventually with you going out of cooldowns after what seems an eternity. I have no problem loosing to a better player, but having a bad player chase you for 3 full random spvp bg’s just because he can’t kill you and obviously he is able to escape by stealthing and healing.

More than anything this mechanism is what I consider extremely un-fun. The result has been, that I eventually picked up my mesmer again just to let them taste some of their own fun … but in all seriousness, this can’t be right … . I really hope someone looks at this.

Chi Malady.2015:

There really is no need for ranger, engineer, and warrior in the current metagame.

The team QT runs a warrior and wins paid tournaments.

Sataarcoeny’s team periodically runs Ranger and Engineer at the same time and wins paid tournaments.

My team runs ranger and wins paid tournaments.

We fought a super pug (a group full of top pvpers that aren’t all necessarily on the same team) was winning paid tournaments running Ranger/Ranger/Ele/Ele/Offensive Guardian. They were winning without a mesmer, and without a bunker. They beat us twice today, too.

There’s a big misconception that you cannot win if you don’t run certain things, and this is just not true. The reason certain things are considered “required” is because one top team started using it effectively, and everyone else copied them because it was easy to do that.

Follidus.8027:

Chi Malady.2015:

There really is no need for ranger, engineer, and warrior in the current metagame.

The team QT runs a warrior and wins paid tournaments.

Sataarcoeny’s team periodically runs Ranger and Engineer at the same time and wins paid tournaments.

My team runs ranger and wins paid tournaments.

We fought a super pug (a group full of top pvpers that aren’t all necessarily on the same team) was winning paid tournaments running Ranger/Ranger/Ele/Ele/Offensive Guardian. They were winning without a mesmer, and without a bunker. They beat us twice today, too.

There’s a big misconception that you cannot win if you don’t run certain things, and this is just not true. The reason certain things are considered “required” is because one top team started using it effectively, and everyone else copied them because it was easy to do that.

yes yes yes thank you. I wish more Spvpers had this mindset.

Dude, really thiefs are fine. I was just as annoyed as you and just made a thief a few days ago to be able to fight them better. If they fail their combo (e.g. by you just dodging ONE of the attacks or using a stun breaker) they can’t do kitten for at least 40 seconds. That’s plenty of time for help to arrive or running away. The combo is not as easy to land as one might think. It is just a l2p issue most of the time.

Azadoras.2790:

Dude, really thiefs are fine. I was just as annoyed as you and just made a thief a few days ago to be able to fight them better. If they fail their combo (e.g. by you just dodging ONE of the attacks or using a stun breaker) they can’t do kitten for at least 40 seconds. That’s plenty of time for help to arrive or running away. The combo is not as easy to land as one might think. It is just a l2p issue most of the time.

No idea if it is me you are referring to, but if it is, then you didn’t read my post properly.
And … most of us DO have a thief (and have had for a while now) and play it quite often to get good at it. You can counter-argue: Isn’t it a l2p-issue if you can’t land the combo? I can give an example: I fought someone at the gates on my necro with 2.5k-2.6k armor yesterday (yeah, I know .. should be using another build with even less armor, but whatever). After downing him I was down to 50% hp … out of the gate came a thief and did steal+bs … bam 9.5k hp gone and instead of stomping the guy I fought, I got stomped … I had 0 chance to counter that. I am used to this happening, and I have learned from this … but I don’t think it is intelligent design to allow this.

Still .. it is imo nothing compared to the cheesiness of CnD and infinite stealthing.

Azadoras.2790:

The combo is not as easy to land as one might think.

Haha :P
In what part of <<steal>> that teleports instantly on the target without any warning animation u cant understand ? :P
If the combo would be useless in higher lvl pvp , we wouldnt see any Thief in higher pvp streams :P

Poxxia.1547:

Azadoras.2790:

Dude, really thiefs are fine. I was just as annoyed as you and just made a thief a few days ago to be able to fight them better. If they fail their combo (e.g. by you just dodging ONE of the attacks or using a stun breaker) they can’t do kitten for at least 40 seconds. That’s plenty of time for help to arrive or running away. The combo is not as easy to land as one might think. It is just a l2p issue most of the time.

No idea if it is me you are referring to, but if it is, then you didn’t read my post properly.
And … most of us DO have a thief (and have had for a while now) and play it quite often to get good at it. You can counter-argue: Isn’t it a l2p-issue if you can’t land the combo? I can give an example: I fought someone at the gates on my necro with 2.5k-2.6k armor yesterday (yeah, I know .. should be using another build with even less armor, but whatever). After downing him I was down to 50% hp … out of the gate came a thief and did steal+bs … bam 9.5k hp gone and instead of stomping the guy I fought, I got stomped … I had 0 chance to counter that. I am used to this happening, and I have learned from this … but I don’t think it is intelligent design to allow this.

Still .. it is imo nothing compared to the cheesiness of CnD and infinite stealthing.

So, you already have beaten one enemy, used your cool downs, half your HP was gone and you expect to win vs. another one just entering the fight? I bet any other decent player no matter of what profession he played would have beaten you in this situation. The loose was just situational not thief specific in my opinion.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

In what part of <<steal>> that teleports instantly on the target without any warning animation u cant understand ? :P
If the combo would be useless in higher lvl pvp , we wouldnt see any Thief in higher pvp streams :P

I did not say it is useless. If the Thief is visible and casting a 1s skill he will probably aplly his Basilisk Venom, you can watch out for that and just dodge afterwards so he will miss his steal. If the steal already hit you, just use stun breaker/mist form/plague form/whatever to go out of the way and after that he can’t do kitten for 40 seconds. In a team fight this renders him basically useless for that time. Any good team just focuses the thief whenever he appears and if the target mitigates his combo somehow he is either dead or useless for 40 seconds. So tell me, what is so difficult here?

If their combo can be countered easily , and thiefs dps is useless outside their combo , why we see them in paid ***PvP ? :P

d/d or s/d or s/f or staff eles are joke now they need to be nerfed really its almost impossible to kill = OP

Killthehealersffs.8940:

If their combo can be countered easily , and thiefs dps is useless outside their combo , why we see them in paid ***PvP ? :P

Maybe it is still often just not countered correctly. :P

muscarine.5136:

I’m a thief myself running with the regular 900 toughness, this is where you may get hit for 6k and that is still a rare occurrence.

Name one trait that for 10 points gives a skill that hits for 6K, 4K if they area really armored. ???

No, you trait it at 10 for it to deal damage, you trait at 30 DA + 30 crits + full berzerker to deal 4-6k damage on paper targets, that’s a huge difference many people here don’t seem to grasp.
The only thieves you will hurt by nerfing mug are the ones who don’t run 30/30 full zerk.

And on a really armored target you will never deal 4k mug, you’re also forgeting protection in your equation.

I don’t really want to derail my own thread, it wasn’t meant to be a nerf thiefs thread, but more about whats in the works. I was hoping to get a clear respons from Anet on this issue since its one that tons of people have an issue with, even top teams (not to many people like how it effects the game as a whole, and yes the the theif would need slight buffs to compensate elsewhere). That being said, I run a 1800 toughness med. armor class and I get hit for steal 4K all the time, so your math is not right.

Follidus.8027:

Chi Malady.2015:

There really is no need for ranger, engineer, and warrior in the current metagame.

The team QT runs a warrior and wins paid tournaments.

Sataarcoeny’s team periodically runs Ranger and Engineer at the same time and wins paid tournaments.

My team runs ranger and wins paid tournaments.

We fought a super pug (a group full of top pvpers that aren’t all necessarily on the same team) was winning paid tournaments running Ranger/Ranger/Ele/Ele/Offensive Guardian. They were winning without a mesmer, and without a bunker. They beat us twice today, too.

There’s a big misconception that you cannot win if you don’t run certain things, and this is just not true. The reason certain things are considered “required” is because one top team started using it effectively, and everyone else copied them because it was easy to do that.

I imagine the other three are ele, guardian bunker and mesmer. Thats the real issue, 3 are far and above the right choice for what they do. There are 2 other slots which isn’t exactly a large body of choices.

Azadoras.2790:

Poxxia.1547:

Azadoras.2790:

Dude, really thiefs are fine. I was just as annoyed as you and just made a thief a few days ago to be able to fight them better. If they fail their combo (e.g. by you just dodging ONE of the attacks or using a stun breaker) they can’t do kitten for at least 40 seconds. That’s plenty of time for help to arrive or running away. The combo is not as easy to land as one might think. It is just a l2p issue most of the time.

No idea if it is me you are referring to, but if it is, then you didn’t read my post properly.
And … most of us DO have a thief (and have had for a while now) and play it quite often to get good at it. You can counter-argue: Isn’t it a l2p-issue if you can’t land the combo? I can give an example: I fought someone at the gates on my necro with 2.5k-2.6k armor yesterday (yeah, I know .. should be using another build with even less armor, but whatever). After downing him I was down to 50% hp … out of the gate came a thief and did steal+bs … bam 9.5k hp gone and instead of stomping the guy I fought, I got stomped … I had 0 chance to counter that. I am used to this happening, and I have learned from this … but I don’t think it is intelligent design to allow this.

Still .. it is imo nothing compared to the cheesiness of CnD and infinite stealthing.

So, you already have beaten one enemy, used your cool downs, half your HP was gone and you expect to win vs. another one just entering the fight? I bet any other decent player no matter of what profession he played would have beaten you in this situation. The loose was just situational not thief specific in my opinion.

I didn’t use all my cd’s … but yeah, I used some, And yes: SOME other classes can do the same, if not so extremely easy and fast. And no … I would likely not have won, but I could perhaps have gotten away or prolonged it until reinforcements arrived. It is not the win in itself, but the way it is executed. And seriously .. do you find CnD hard to land .. or Steal? It is not like you have to use it on somehow who can see it coming a mile away.

But again … this is not really my gripe with the class, so I am perhaps not the right one to argue with.

Follidus.8027:

Chi Malady.2015:

There really is no need for ranger, engineer, and warrior in the current metagame.

The team QT runs a warrior and wins paid tournaments.

Sataarcoeny’s team periodically runs Ranger and Engineer at the same time and wins paid tournaments.

My team runs ranger and wins paid tournaments.

We fought a super pug (a group full of top pvpers that aren’t all necessarily on the same team) was winning paid tournaments running Ranger/Ranger/Ele/Ele/Offensive Guardian. They were winning without a mesmer, and without a bunker. They beat us twice today, too.

There’s a big misconception that you cannot win if you don’t run certain things, and this is just not true. The reason certain things are considered “required” is because one top team started using it effectively, and everyone else copied them because it was easy to do that.

This right here..

Is the reason Anet doesnt do kneejerk nerfs cause people cry on the forums..

While I think some things will be changed..
People who are just copying the meta and not trying to experiment with different things only see one side of the coin, and have no knowledge of anything else but whats been spoonfed to them

Zenyoga.6910:

Follidus.8027:

Chi Malady.2015:

There really is no need for ranger, engineer, and warrior in the current metagame.

The team QT runs a warrior and wins paid tournaments.

Sataarcoeny’s team periodically runs Ranger and Engineer at the same time and wins paid tournaments.

My team runs ranger and wins paid tournaments.

We fought a super pug (a group full of top pvpers that aren’t all necessarily on the same team) was winning paid tournaments running Ranger/Ranger/Ele/Ele/Offensive Guardian. They were winning without a mesmer, and without a bunker. They beat us twice today, too.

There’s a big misconception that you cannot win if you don’t run certain things, and this is just not true. The reason certain things are considered “required” is because one top team started using it effectively, and everyone else copied them because it was easy to do that.

I imagine the other three are ele, guardian bunker and mesmer. Thats the real issue, 3 are far and above the right choice for what they do. There are 2 other slots which isn’t exactly a large body of choices.

I believe last i checked QT runs a necro as well as the warrior
and the necro is D/D…
I know..thats what i thought too..

About Time Warp.

I think the ability could be balanced if it was on a different class.

But the fact that it’s part of the Mesmers already amazing repertoire is what makes it OP. If Mesmers weren’t so amazing at pretty much everything we’d see a lot less QQ about Time Warp.

I mean imagine it was an Engineer ultimate.

I think you could balance it by making Portal and Time Warp, both ultimate abilities. That way a Mesmer would have to chose.

Dee Jay.2460:

About Time Warp.

I think the ability could be balanced if it was on a different class.

But the fact that it’s part of the Mesmers already amazing repertoire is what makes it OP. If Mesmers weren’t so amazing at pretty much everything we’d see a lot less QQ about Time Warp.

I mean imagine it was an Engineer ultimate.

I think you could balance it by making Portal and Time Warp, both ultimate abilities. That way a Mesmer would have to chose.

Honestly I think its just poorly thought out design. Having played pvp games for 10+ years the idea that you would give an ability that grants your team effectively double damage for all players with no draw backs for 10 seconds is absurd, utterly. Its an ability that in most cases wins a fight and those who have theirs up win that fight. That is not skill, it is an “I have my I win button ready”. On the same subject there are a few other things that fall into poor design on many levels, such as thief burst w/quickness and 100b. While 100b is much easier to avoid, the design of such things has cost many a new player frustration from day 1 however they thought it was a good idea to keep, rather than make changes that would strengthen the character all around.

just to saye, mug alone does a normal damage. problem is it can crit so numbers grow high.
so u have chances to evaporate opponent if you crit all the combo, but u can also be killed after combo if any hit crit.