Guild Wars 2

nothing short of a complete overhaul of traits, weapon skills, and basic mechanics (like rallying and a FILO condition system) holds real hope of making this pvp fun.

whats the point in balancing the existing skills?

Cynz.9437:

from the pov of the class i play the most: ini + CD is sooo bad, go to other class forums and ask them if they would like to have mana bars/costs + CDs on spells… trust me, they will send you to hell

but then again we are probably biting a cake here, looking at OP name heh

If I understood this correctly, you just labelled the idea of balancing out skills with both energy cost and a CD as terrible?

You do realize one of the main reasons things are so hard to balance out on GW2 – one of the main reasons there’s SO much spam in this game, one of the main reasons pretty much everything is out of control – is the lack of an energy cost, don’t you.
No? Really really no?
Oh waw.
No facepalm meme on the interwebs could possibly display the sheer amount of stupid you managed to infuse that brilliant brainfart of a post with.

I mean, I just…
The kittens are strong with you, my friend.
Pve game yawn.

One sugestion about thief. One thing that could prevent some spam (the way it hapens now) its give them a cooldown like this: You use a skill and for about 5-10 sec (time depending how efective the skill is,) if you use the same skill in that time you will use extra iniciative (+2 for a example). They still could spam skills but not the way it was before.

Jesus christ everyone crying about their class being “nerfed” in this suggested changelog. It’s a global change to every single class to promote:
1) Increased cast times
2) higher Time-To-Kill
3) Provide Reaction time windows to many skills without visual cues
(Afaik plus a few other nerfs and buffs to promote diversity)

YES your backstab now has a cooldown but at least that Warrior you’re trying to kill can’t just nuke the ground he’s standing on to deal 7k damage to you instantly any more as you’re trying to backstab him.

Thank you for putting the time into this Swagg, here’s hoping that someone at Arenanet reads this and forwards this to the relevant authorities.

People just shouldn’t post their suggestions on how to “balance” the game if they didn’t play all classes extensively.

these are so bad changes they might just add them in

srsly though all that text didn’t really seem address any real problems at all, rather op’s personal preferences.

i give this 5/10 coz it managed to make me read first 2 posts.

Paulo.8459:

So countering with dodges is unwise, but using a block is not? I don’t get this.
According to your logic, blocking it would also be unwise since the thief could still use steal/infiltrators signet.

The reason why [Infiltrator’s Strike] and [Shadow Shot] are so broken is that they are free direct-to-target gap-closers. Gap-closers in general are borderline desperation moves. There’s typically something at play when using a leap to get closer to a player. That enemy player can CC you, mid-flight, you could be blinded, you could use the leap improperly and land somewhere unexpected, you could also die mid-leap if you were in dire enough straits.

There’s nothing at risk with [Infiltrator’s Strike], [Shadow Shot], [Steal] or [Infiltrator’s Signet]. You just get a free “Haha, I’m in your face now,” at the press of a button. You can technically block the strike from [Infiltrator’s Strike], but the guy is still right next to you anyway so he wins that, and the latter 3 you just can’t block at all. Moreover, none of those skills really have true after-cast periods, if any at all. In practice when attempting to defend against any of these movement skills, players have to either dodge wildly to somehow avoid [Infiltrator’s Strike], waste possibly multiple dodges on [Shadow Shot] because it has no cool-down, or just eat damage because there is literally no counter-play around [Steal] or [Infiltrator’s Signet]. This is why they are overpowered.

Paulo.8459:

Btw: teef skills have no cooldown! xD

They don’t. That’s really why they’re so powerful. Thieves need a complete makeover in order to make them both fair and effective, but since ANet will never do that, the only other options are responsible nerfs that tend toward a cool-down paradigm.

Cynz.9437:

so much wrong, in so many ways…i don’t even know where to start….

from the pov of the class i play the most: ini + CD is sooo bad, go to other class forums and ask them if they would like to have mana bars/costs + CDs on spells… trust me, they will send you to hell

I haven’t suggested a single cool-down for thief, since I assume that’s what you’re talking about. Your post is irrelevant.

Cynz.9437:

but then again we are probably biting a cake here, looking at OP name heh

Ad Hominem. Come back later when you’ve acquired better argumentative skills. Don’t let any capital letters or full stops hit you on the way out.

Not even going to read the quotes from the OP. This kind of feedback isn’t all too helpful, if you wan to be helpful in terms of feedback, be constructive, don’t come off so bias, and don’t make class balance lists.

I can’t even play this game anymore but I can tell its getting better (slowly). This thread is only helpful in the sense that Anet knows and will always know they cannot please everyone, and their game is not perfect, who would have thought.

Geff.1930:

If your resume consists of only GW2 or other mmorpgs you do not have a frame of reference in regards to balance because you have never played a game that is balanced enough to foster a competitive e-sport audience.

You’ve gotta me kidding me here. What is all this Ad Hominem in here? Look, buddy, this is GW2. Whether or not I’ve played other MMOs is irrelevant in this discussion.

Instead, have a look at my main point when it comes to most of this thread and my suggestions:

There are several factors that balance ranged skills in Guild Wars 2:

• Instant-cast
• Post-cast delay
• Red circle
• Projectile
• On-caster visual cue
• Projectile that can be blocked, reflected or destroyed.

There are a many slew of skills in GW2 that forego 2 or more of the above balancing principles. These skills should be looked at critically and probably nerfed. Giving certain weapon sets or play-styles free hits for certain skill usage in a game where the “holy trinity” is absent is asking for trouble. Overpowered ranged skills need to be culled in this game and wrangled back into obedience governed by the balancing principles listed above.

You don’t have to play anything other than GW2 here. You need to be a normal human that understands that ANet declared that they designed GW2 as a game to be played by responding to your opponent’s visual attack cues. This was the reason that they dropped the cast-bars that were present in GW1. However, despite this, we still see an alarming amount of ranged skills that have poor or no cues at all. This is clearly just bad design.

So take off out of here with your elitist videogame-qualification-nepotism. I don’t need to play your MMO just so that the Game Community On High may anoint me as one that understands how balance works in any given MMO. I don’t need your go-ahead to tell you that the suggestions I’ve made are valid. I’ve played GW2 and I understand its game mechanics and their limitations. I also understand its PvP balance skill flaws. Therefore, I make suggestions to correct those flawed skills without attempting to destroy the original mechcanic of a skill to which a suggestion applies.

And before you go replying to any of this, try to argue against my quote in bold. Even if you do manage to come up with something (and I can say right now that whatever you come back with is going to be nonsense), at least that way you can attempt to start at the top of the argumentative pyramid instead of the bottom where you sit right now.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

if you wan to be helpful in terms of feedback, be constructive

I don’t see anyone else making multiple posts filled with concrete skill changes. Making posts about “I think this class should do this, or I think that this class should do that” isn’t constructive. It’s airy and weightless emotion. For balance, you need concrete numbers and mechanics. I’ve delivered that.

Go ahead and read the post that I just made to someone trying to start an Ad Hominem argument with me. That bold part is as concrete and constructive as you’ll get.

I’ve defined a problem with a lot of GW2 pvp combat and my suggestions intend to fix it.

ryston.7640:

nothing short of a complete overhaul of traits, weapon skills, and basic mechanics (like rallying and a FILO condition system) holds real hope of making this pvp fun.

whats the point in balancing the existing skills?

While your point is true about the only true way to fix GW2, I feel like it is the best option to work with current skills first. Traits are never really a good place to start because every single one of them is a passive, no-cue bonus. Traits are the worst-designed part of GW2 combat. When it comes to actual weapon, utility, heal and elite skills, they are things that (typically) have some sort of cue, cast-time and recharge. There’s a commitment to triggering them (most of the time).

By bringing overpowered ranged abilities and some other salient balance-offending skills into line under the guidelines that I’ve defined in bold somewhere above this post, I feel that GW2 wouldn’t necessarily sit in a good place balance-wise, but would be in a prime spot for going head-long into adjusting more lack-luster, but still balanced skills that could add more flavor and functionality that would otherwise be lacking because of proper skill balance.

Imagine that, balancing skills might actually ruin some of the flavor of classes, but it’s the truth. The trick is making everything fair and then functionally changing the lack-luster skills in the game in order to provide new flavor and function for class combat.

The trouble with posting balance suggestions now is that everybody whines and cries because nobody really seems to see deeply enough into this problem. They’re not on the same level. People really want to see the ENTIRE GAMBIT of balance changes that run from making skills fair, to buffing/functionally changing lack-luster skills, then getting into traits, then working with how conditions deal damage otherwise they’ll just never believe you.

This is what I’m dealing with. I’m dealing with the first stage right now because posting it all at once would be a nightmarishly long thread that would have to be the result of a lot of round-table discussion with strict rules to govern the results of said discussion.

Forums don’t seem to really have that, but I’m fording the river anyway.

Thieves changes are just ridiculous and not plausible……..YET again. Have you played a thief? Hell, has anyone that posts about balance changes on these forums played one? I sure as hell don’t think so. LOL. So wrong in so many ways. Play the class for a week before you guys think of trying to balance it. Ty. Your welcome.

Ok Swagg, I’ll bite:

I propose some changes to your proposal. Thematically, for now:

1) Cripple, Poison, Chilled, and Vulnerability should all function in a stacking manner, 1-30. (2x slow, heal reduction, 1x slow, as is)

2) Auto attacks should not yield significant damage, but should apply stacks of these debuffs, except where class mechanics (such as life force) may take place.

3) Auto attacks then need not be subject to the same level of ‘dodgability’ that we see in other skills, where all of your suggestions should be heeded.

4) FILO condition removal systems should then be used, making active AND passive condi removal tactical, as a quick cover to a high stack could protect you from an interval tick of removal. (passive random still = bad).

5) Remove most gap oppeners and closers, so that classes can be dedicated to control type roles.

6) the stuff you proposed

Cush.4063:

Thieves changes are just ridiculous and not plausible……..YET again. Have you played a thief? Hell, has anyone that posts about balance changes on these forums played one? I sure as hell don’t think so. LOL. So wrong in so many ways. Play the class for a week before you guys think of trying to balance it. Ty. Your welcome.

So conceptually, the Thief is a problem. Really, it’s a bursty evasive unavoidable highly mobile class with strong support… It’s assasins creed (a single player game where you murder NPCs) in a multiplayer game (where being murdered isnt fun)… so it gets random nerf bat beatings to it’s knee caps…

what it needs, is a role definition that gives it a narrower niche, then we can balance it within that niche. ‘being a kitten that 1 shots kittenes from nowhere and gets away’ isn’t really a niche that works for a pvp game.

being a stealthed controller who threatens to dissable and expose enemies that are out of position, allowing ones teamates to fall upon them… thats a good role definition. It lets stealth be a good weapon because a stealthed thief forces you to play cautiously with your squishier dps peices… even when the thief is just chillin…

but when everybody gets 2+ buttons that teleport them here or there, making it impossible to punish someone for bad positioning, and making it irrelevant wether you know where the thief is or isn’t (it just presses ‘steal’ and it’s where you didn’t want it to be) …

ryston.7640:

Cush.4063:

Thieves changes are just ridiculous and not plausible……..YET again. Have you played a thief? Hell, has anyone that posts about balance changes on these forums played one? I sure as hell don’t think so. LOL. So wrong in so many ways. Play the class for a week before you guys think of trying to balance it. Ty. Your welcome.

So conceptually, the Thief is a problem. Really, it’s a bursty evasive unavoidable highly mobile class with strong support… It’s assasins creed (a single player game where you murder NPCs) in a multiplayer game (where being murdered isnt fun)… so it gets random nerf bat beatings to it’s knee caps…

what it needs, is a role definition that gives it a narrower niche, then we can balance it within that niche. ‘being a kitten that 1 shots kittenes from nowhere and gets away’ isn’t really a niche that works for a pvp game.

being a stealthed controller who threatens to dissable and expose enemies that are out of position, allowing ones teamates to fall upon them… thats a good role definition. It lets stealth be a good weapon because a stealthed thief forces you to play cautiously with your squishier dps peices… even when the thief is just chillin…

but when everybody gets 2+ buttons that teleport them here or there, making it impossible to punish someone for bad positioning, and making it irrelevant wether you know where the thief is or isn’t (it just presses ‘steal’ and it’s where you didn’t want it to be) …

+100 to this post.

Swagg.9236:

Paulo.8459:

So countering with dodges is unwise, but using a block is not? I don’t get this.
According to your logic, blocking it would also be unwise since the thief could still use steal/infiltrators signet.

The reason why [Infiltrator’s Strike] and [Shadow Shot] are so broken is that they are free direct-to-target gap-closers. Gap-closers in general are borderline desperation moves. There’s typically something at play when using a leap to get closer to a player. That enemy player can CC you, mid-flight, you could be blinded, you could use the leap improperly and land somewhere unexpected, you could also die mid-leap if you were in dire enough straits.

There’s nothing at risk with [Infiltrator’s Strike], [Shadow Shot], [Steal] or [Infiltrator’s Signet]. You just get a free “Haha, I’m in your face now,” at the press of a button. You can technically block the strike from [Infiltrator’s Strike], but the guy is still right next to you anyway so he wins that, and the latter 3 you just can’t block at all. Moreover, none of those skills really have true after-cast periods, if any at all. In practice when attempting to defend against any of these movement skills, players have to either dodge wildly to somehow avoid [Infiltrator’s Strike], waste possibly multiple dodges on [Shadow Shot] because it has no cool-down, or just eat damage because there is literally no counter-play around [Steal] or [Infiltrator’s Signet]. This is why they are overpowered.

Paulo.8459:

Btw: teef skills have no cooldown! xD

They don’t. That’s really why they’re so powerful. Thieves need a complete makeover in order to make them both fair and effective, but since ANet will never do that, the only other options are responsible nerfs that tend toward a cool-down paradigm.

Well…. Arganthium has told you how to counter the “free movement”…. dodge the obvious bullet. You said it is unwise.
If you dodge the bullet, the thief won’t teleport to you. Why do you really need to block it? Why is a block different from a dodge roll? Both are defensive mechanisms wich prevent you from being hit by an attack. Dodge the unblockable skills, block the blockable skills. The only unblockable skills are shadow shot and larcenous strike. Both are well telegraphed.

You just explained why shadowsteps are so powerful and i completely agree with you.
Thats part of the thief’s design. Thats what a thief is good at. A thief is weak. He has to be mobile, stealthy or evasive.
Shadowsteps are quite unpredictable, so the enemy has to react very quickly.
Shadowsteps are in fact a well-implemented kind of unpredictability. A badly implemented example would be fresh air ele burst. (Not crying about eles here, it’s just an example)

Do you really think that thief skills are too powerful because they have no cooldown?
That are the words from someone who never touched thief.
Managing a resource for ALL of your weaponskills is actually much more difficult than working with cooldowns.

Well, lets make a hypothetical scenario…
You are fighting a thief.
Thief uses shadow shot (4ini), you dodge the bullet, because you remember, it is wise to do so, because the thief will not teleport.
Now the thief uses shadow shot again. Because OP he has no cooldown. You don’t dodge it, because you don’t want to waste all of your endurance. That’s ok.
Now the thief is in your face. He spent 8 initiative. 8 out of 12. Ok, lets assume 1 initiative already regenerated.
Thief has 5 initiative left. That istn’t even enough for a black powder. The thief would have to autoattack you.
As i said, a thief is very weak. You don’t want to sit in your enemy’s face autoattacking. Not managing your initiative properly results in death. But as i said, non-thieves will never understand this. I don’t want to list the pros and cons of initiative, that’s another topic. It’s perfectly balanced as it is.

Just like i said… make a thief, play tpvp and tell me again that thief has to be nerfed.
Thief is probably the most nerfed class in gw2. Have fun playing it.

As i said, nobody should think they can jugde a class, without playing it extensively. It’s just QQ based on personal experience and frustration. QQing is always the easy way.
Thief is fine as it is right now. There is no cheese any more. Thief is hard to play in comparison to the other classes. Thieves are punished for their mistakes. The only thing thieves are good at is escaping. A part of the reason why everybody is QQing.

@ KarlaGrey: ironically thieves are actually in fact less spammy for simple fact that they are resource and not CD based, if i play necro and used my skills, i just switch weapons and can spam my skills again, if i switch weapon on thief i am still sitting at 0 ini and have to wait… i don’t think BS needs CD as it already requires stealth which IS already limited by CD (refuge, HiS, 6 ini for CnD etc.) and revealed debuff (4 sec in pvp)

i don’t think that CD + resource is bad idea, many games (wow for example) follow that system, but forcing only one class into it is just complete bias

overall, i understand he wants major changes so just viewing one class is probably wrong, but outside of few visuals i don’t think those changes would really balance game and i honestly doubt OP has a lot of experience playing every single class in this game

@OP: you did suggest CD on few thief spells, look at your initial post… besides you don’t own this forums so you don’t have the right to decide which post is relevant and which is not, no need to be rude just because someone doesn’t agree with you

funny how you say Ad Hominem, yet you attack me personally by making fun of my way of typing messages on this forums…hypocrisy?

Paulo.8459:

Well…. Arganthium has told you how to counter the “free movement”…. dodge the obvious bullet. You said it is unwise.

It is unwise. Spamming dodges to avoid a single direct-to-teleport skill is unwise when the thief still has [Steal] and maybe [Infiltrator’s Signet]. There need to be more ways to negate spammable direct-to-target teleports in order to preserve dodges for other unfair mechanics. Rather, direct-to-target teleports really should be reworked entirely or removed from the game.

Paulo.8459:

You just explained why shadowsteps are so powerful and i completely agree with you.
Thats part of the thief’s design.

It’s poor design for GW2 because of the reasons that I’ve already listed in bold above this post.

Paulo.8459:

Shadowsteps are in fact a well-implemented kind of unpredictability. A badly implemented example would be fresh air ele burst. (Not crying about eles here, it’s just an example)

Shadowsteps and elementalist S/D arcane burst are on the same level of unfairness. They both lack cues and are instant-activation without post-cast effect delays.

Paulo.8459:

Do you really think that thief skills are too powerful because they have no cooldown?
That are the words from someone who never touched thief.

I took my thief into pvp for several days just because people kept telling me this. I ran sword/pistol and got damage and kills in with impunity. There was literally nothing that anyone could do to stop me even if I didn’t manage to kill a target. I didn’t even need practice.

Paulo.8459:

Managing a resource for ALL of your weaponskills is actually much more difficult than working with cooldowns.

It’s like you never played Guild Wars 1—or most every other MMO in existence. Spammable skills is the most broken mechanic in this game. Thieves recover initiative fast enough to be able to unleash a sustained attack on a target that inflicts high DPS. Even if this attack fails, thieves still have many no-cost stealth options as well as auto-attack damage (which is very high on sword mainhand). The reason why [Infiltrator’s Signet] is so meta nowadays is because it really does help thieves continue to spam attacks in addition to being a free direct-to-target teleport as well as a stun-break.

The problem with thief really is a fundamental profession design issue. ANet didn’t fully understand what they were doing when they made the Thief.

Paulo.8459:

Thieves are punished for their mistakes.

Stealth, blind spam and instant-movement forgives Thieves for everything. You must not be playing correctly. If I can run Thief in pvp without practice and never know the consequences of making stupid moves, I can’t understand what you’re doing.

ryston.7640:

Cush.4063:

Thieves changes are just ridiculous and not plausible……..YET again. Have you played a thief? Hell, has anyone that posts about balance changes on these forums played one? I sure as hell don’t think so. LOL. So wrong in so many ways. Play the class for a week before you guys think of trying to balance it. Ty. Your welcome.

So conceptually, the Thief is a problem. Really, it’s a bursty evasive unavoidable highly mobile class with strong support… It’s assasins creed (a single player game where you murder NPCs) in a multiplayer game (where being murdered isnt fun)… so it gets random nerf bat beatings to it’s knee caps…

what it needs, is a role definition that gives it a narrower niche, then we can balance it within that niche. ‘being a kitten that 1 shots kittenes from nowhere and gets away’ isn’t really a niche that works for a pvp game.

being a stealthed controller who threatens to dissable and expose enemies that are out of position, allowing ones teamates to fall upon them… thats a good role definition. It lets stealth be a good weapon because a stealthed thief forces you to play cautiously with your squishier dps peices… even when the thief is just chillin…

but when everybody gets 2+ buttons that teleport them here or there, making it impossible to punish someone for bad positioning, and making it irrelevant wether you know where the thief is or isn’t (it just presses ‘steal’ and it’s where you didn’t want it to be) …

This guy gets it.

Cynz.9437:

you did suggest CD on few thief spells, look at your initial post… besides you don’t own this forums so you don’t have the right to decide which post is relevant and which is not, no need to be rude just because someone doesn’t agree with you

You aren’t addressing any of my points regarding the reasoning behind my suggestions. You’re just crying that that I don’t own GW2 forums and therefore don’t have any ground on which to stand to make balance suggestions. That’s an Ad Hominem argument and therefore is irrelevant to discussion.

Cynz.9437:

funny how you say Ad Hominem, yet you attack me personally by making fun of my way of typing messages on this forums…hypocrisy?

I told you to leave and come back with a better argument. You did not. I also told you to fix your sentence structure so people might take you more seriously. You also failed there. I’m just trying to help you out here, man.

ryston.7640:

Ok Swagg, I’ll bite:

I propose some changes to your proposal. Thematically, for now:

1) Cripple, Poison, Chilled, and Vulnerability should all function in a stacking manner, 1-30. (2x slow, heal reduction, 1x slow, as is)

Could be cool. I still feel that Cripple and Chilled are fine as they are now. Stacking poison would really require poison to be more prevalent than it is now. Vulnerability, I also feel, is in a good place.

I don’t really feel comfortable tacking poison onto attacks here and there just to make it viable as a stacking mechanic. Although, I guess it could be an interesting way to maybe better define the function of a Necromancer in combat if Poison were to become a stacking mechanic. Necromancers could just be better at stacking it than any other class. Some of my long-term balance suggestions for Necromancers actually added poison to several attacks as a means of triggering other skills into flipping into new chain skills that only triggered when striking a poisoned target.

ryston.7640:

2) Auto attacks should not yield significant damage

I actually really like this idea and I’ve agreed with it for a long time now.

ryston.7640:

but should apply stacks of these debuffs, except where class mechanics (such as life force) may take place.

Making auto-attacks stack conditions makes me feel uneasy since I really don’t think that conditions in general should be enough to kill an opponent by themselves. By making a lot of auto-attacks stack damage-dealing conditions and snaring conditions, it sort of cheapens other skills that might have those same mechanics. It also doesn’t necessarily make auto-attacks lesser than other skills either (which really should be a paradigm).

ryston.7640:

3) Auto attacks then need not be subject to the same level of ‘dodgability’ that we see in other skills, where all of your suggestions should be heeded.

I guess if they didn’t do a lot of damage outright, then they wouldn’t really need to be outright dodged all of the time, but I’m not entirely sure that I understand what you mean by “level of ‘dodgability’.”

ryston.7640:

4) FILO condition removal systems should then be used, making active AND passive condi removal tactical, as a quick cover to a high stack could protect you from an interval tick of removal. (passive random still = bad).

You’ve used the term FILO twice now. What exactly does that acronym mean and attempt to describe? I’d like to know because I am open to looking at changing conditions.

ryston.7640:

5) Remove most gap oppeners and closers, so that classes can be dedicated to control type roles.

Gap-openers and closers really define a lot of play-styles in this game. The only broken ones are the direct-to-target shadowsteps since they can’t be CC’ed properly. If anything, those should be removed from the game or wholly redesigned to make them more like a typical gap-closer like a leap, dash or dash followed by a leap.

This doesn’t mean that we should remove teleports entirely, just ones that give a player a free teleport-to-target at the press of a button.

What you’re asking is for the thief to get nerfed down even more with CD’s that also cost initiative on top of that. What the thief really needs is major buffs in other areas regarding cc and more weapons. And maybe a whole new complete redesign. It needs more diversity. You complain about a thief spamming the same attack but other classes can spam all their attacks continuously. The thief can’t do that. It runs out of initiative while other classes have CD’s on individual attacks so they can keep attacking while once a thief runs out if initiative it can’t do anything. Thief needs more diversity. The only reasonal build a thief has are just critical strikes and trickery. It has low health so it makes up for it with higher DPS and mobility. People complain about back stab but you have to time it perfectly. Its not like you just press one button and it works. You have to get into stealth and maneuver around the enemy in order to get it and with aoe and everything going on its not that easy. You have 3 seconds to get it unless you use a high CD utility to gain a longer stealth. Most people see a thief coming. With more nerfs thieves are going to be where the ele is. Nerfs need buffs to go along with it to compensate. I don’t think any thief likes where the class is right now being stuck using d/p with really only one viable build.

This is what really does need to happen to the game i’m glad you took the time to write this up. One of the main problems of gw2 is we have so many skills so we can spam all of these and on top of that these skills have fast cast times/barley noticeable animations. They really need to ton down the amount of these skills and improve upon them better like you have suggested. Making this game a lot more enjoyable for the players, the shout casters for tournaments, and the viewers of the game. I think a lot of people would probably agree that in pvp we can’t tell whats really going down in a teamfight because there is just to much coming out at once and over a constant period of time. I think this game needs to be toned down some how and i think this might be the solution to its problem.

Suggestions:
Have longer swap cooldown 20 seconds instead of 10 this will stop so much spamming of skills and people really need to make a more skillful decision whether to stay within a weapon set.

vashio.6297:

… i’m glad you took the time to write this up.

I really appreciate the support, man.

vashio.6297:

Suggestions:
Have longer swap cooldown 20 seconds instead of 10 this will stop so much spamming of skills and people really need to make a more skillful decision whether to stay within a weapon set.

Actually, this is something that I would not personally advocate. Time to make a statement why:

A STATEMENT ON THE EXISTENCE OF “ENERGY” IN GW2
People say that GW2 has no energy system. While there is no concrete resource system in place in GW2 (aside from Initiative which we see with the Thief), there is a resource that governs whether or not a player can use a skill: cast-time.

Having a lot of skills available to a player is fine so long as some of the more powerful skills are limited in scope by the amount of time that a player has to invest to those skills in order to get the most out of them. A fine example is [Meteor Shower]. Firm but fair, [Meteor Shower] can inflict devastating amounts of damage, but with a 3 3/4-second long channel for maximum effect, the elementalist really needs to either pop some sort of damage mitigation skill or position him/herself properly while using while also aiming the AoE properly. [Meteor Shower] is not something that you can just shoot off mid-fight just because it happens to be off cool-down. That’s the “mana” limitation. Time limits its viability as a skill despite there being no mana to govern its on-the-spot usage. Not only does an Elementalist need to channel the skill for a good 1 to 1 1/2 seconds before a single meteor even begins to fall, [Meteor Shower] is a very lack-luster skill if not channeled to its full extent because of its nature as a charge-up skill. The longer that an Elementalist channels [Meteor Shower], the more meteors actually fall.

There should be many more skills like [Meteor Shower]. In fact, [Churning Earth] used to use a charge-up mechanic but this was changed after Beta Weekend Event 1 without any explanation. Charge-up mechanics and long cast-times are the true key to balancing skills that have no post-cast effect delays. Having longer cast-times on many powerful skills could help clear up the generally messy combat that players often encounter in PvP and also cull the general tendency to spam skills on cool-down (or whenever you have enough initiative) which really is the biggest plague on GW2 PvP.

There is no point arguing with you because you have never played a balanced game. There is no mmorpg in existence that is balanced and competitive and has weekly tournaments with large prize pools and a slew of professional sponsored teams.

I have repeated over and over again in the past the things that keep this game from gaining recognition by serious competitive gamers. There is no point in me repeating it again.

Geff.1930:

There is no point arguing with you because you have never played a balanced game. There is no mmorpg in existence that is balanced and competitive and has weekly tournaments with large prize pools and a slew of professional sponsored teams.

I have repeated over and over again in the past the things that keep this game from gaining recognition by serious competitive gamers. There is no point in me repeating it again.

Once again, you’ve failed to argue anything with regards to my main points. Thanks for the bump.

I took my thief into pvp for several days just because people kept telling me this. I ran sword/pistol and got damage and kills in with impunity. There was literally nothing that anyone could do to stop me even if I didn’t manage to kill a target. I didn’t even need practice.

In other words, you’ve played Thief for less than 12 hours and your only PvP experience with Thief was in hotjoin. I play Thief competitively in a team and I can tell just by reading that portion of your post that you have absolutely no idea about Thief or what it needs changed.

It also brings your credibility into question in relation to your other changes. Don’t get me wrong, I support your idea of making changes to skills to meet the original design proposed by Anet, but you clearly aren’t experienced enough to do so.

Also, Thieves do have cool downs, that’s what initiative is, a global cool down mechanic. It is a discussion for another topic that was done to death a year ago, but it is a fact that you keep changing to suit your posts.

Swagg.9236:

Geff.1930:

There is no point arguing with you because you have never played a balanced game. There is no mmorpg in existence that is balanced and competitive and has weekly tournaments with large prize pools and a slew of professional sponsored teams.

I have repeated over and over again in the past the things that keep this game from gaining recognition by serious competitive gamers. There is no point in me repeating it again.

Once again, you’ve failed to argue anything with regards to my main points. Thanks for the bump.

I won’t argue with your main points because your suggestions are exactly the same as what the devs have been doing in the past. Making small insignificant changes rather than looking at the big picture.

Look at any competitive game (ofcourse, you have to use your imagination because you haven’t played any):

1) Players know exactly what each other player on their team and their opponent’s team is capable of even before the match starts. This is because even though there might be a ton of characters each individual character has a homogenized skillset to work with. There is little to no diversity within a certain character. The only diversity comes from itemization which results in differences in the numbers rather than the skills themselves (each player also knows what items the opponent and their own temmates have). The key in competitive games is relying on prediction and the skill based aspect of it comes when a player is able to appropriately use prediction and know which skill is going to be used even before your opponent thinks about using it. By contrast in this game you can know only a small pool of the skills that are available to your opponent from the weapon they are carrying. The system falls apart because of utility skill options, healing skill options, weapon swap, toolbelt skills, toolkit skills, traits.

2) Players know exactly what cooldowns are available to their teammates and the opponents team at all times because there are so few skills available to each character, at the same time each cooldown is much more impactful than in this game (part of the reason why is explained in the next point). In those games skilled players adjust their strategy, their aggressiveness and their defensiveness based on what cooldowns have already been used by the enemy team. Visual and auditory cues with the skills certainly play a part in it, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Even in this game you can tell when certain skills have been used, but it bears little to no significance because: a) there are so many skills that are coming off cooldown at a rapid rate, b) you don’t know what utility skills are available to them, c) certain traits can refresh cooldowns or auto-cast active skills, and d) fights have the potential to drag on infinitely making people be able to use the same skill immediately as they come off cooldown multiple times throughout a single fight. This brings me to my next point, why do fights have the potential to last an infinite amount of time.

3) Health is actually a precious resource in competitive games. The level of sustain possible in GW2 is unmatched by any game I’ve played. The obvious reason is that each character has heals, but the more important and less obvious reason is that there is no secondary more difficult to regain resource pool such as mana. Further facilitating this problem is an insurmountably large number of skills that give you immunity to damage for X seconds, and even more on top of that we have dodges. If that weren’t enough, we also have downed state from which you can come back with some HP. The culmination of all of these factors makes GW2’s health pool a easily refreshable resource. This ability to have a high level of sustain goes hand in hand with the skill spammy nature of the game because your damage has much less potential than if health were a precious resource, and on top of that a lot of the damage can be avoided due to the large number of immunity sources. The two factors work together in a cyclical fashion, you need skill spam to counter the high level of sustain and you need a high level of sustain to counter skill spam.

nicknamenick.2437:

A minimum range of 240 for arcing?? Lol wtf! Thats the worst i ever! Its a slow arrow so it should be used in close combat but now you want a minimun range on it Lol! Atleast make it a fast arrow also!

There is a clear issue in design when a longbow is used as a melee weapon.

[Arcing Arrow] suffers from the same issue as [Cluster Bomb]. You use it at melee range and it’s difficult to anticipate. Moreover, you can use it after [Pin Down] with its 1/4-second activation time. The fact that [Pin Down] shares a cast-time with 2 other skills on Warrior longbow without giving any indication that it’s different than those other two attacks until after its fired is a flaw in cue design. This effectively turns Warrior longbow into a melee weapon with poor cues. Adjusting the cast-time to [Pin Down] and adding a minimum range to [Arcing Arrow] will fix this.

Also, a 1-second cast-time really isn’t that much at all. It just requires you to keep your distance and know your place when activating a skill. Furthermore, even if a Warrior wants to be irresponsible with a 1-second, rooting [Pin Down] and use it in the middle of a large fight, they have the armor and health to deal with it most of the time. And if they don’t have the hp to use it properly in the middle of a heated fight, then they don’t get to use it. Time is mana in this game. [Pin Down] is a very, very powerful ranged skill. To activate it, [Pin Down] should require an amount of mana that corresponds to how much damage it can do within the scope of combat.

Geff.1930:

Look at any competitive game (ofcourse, you have to use your imagination because you haven’t played any):

You’re making assumptions.

Geff.1930:

The key in competitive games is relying on prediction

There are a lot of skills in GW2 that turn relying on prediction into a craps shoot of dodges and blocks due to their lacking proper cues or cast-times. Those skills need to be fixed.

Geff.1930:

The system falls apart because of utility skill options, healing skill options, weapon swap, toolbelt skills, toolkit skills, traits.

Incorrect. The system falls apart in GW2 because it is full of skills and passive procs that effectively negate the ability for opponents to properly predict incoming attacks or effects.

Geff.1930:

2) Players know exactly what cooldowns are available to… the opponents team at all times because there are so few skills available to each character,

You can’t be sure of this. Even so, it wouldn’t matter if every skill in this game had ample cues and/or post-cast effect delays.

Geff.1930:

Even in this game you can tell when certain skills have been used, but it bears little to no significance because: a) there are so many skills that are coming off cooldown at a rapid rate,

The true reason why having a lot of skills coming off of cool-down in GW2 being an issue is because there is no mana system. By that, I mean that most skills in GW2 have no real cast-time. Most skills in GW2 don’t have long cast-times or channels that could be debilitating to use off-handedly in the midst of combat. I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: time is mana in GW2, and the vast majority of powerful skills in this game have little to no mana cost. That’s one of the biggest issues aside from a lack of cues.

Geff.1930:

b) you don’t know what utility skills are available to them

This isn’t an issue so long as all skills are balanced properly to give cues upon use. That’s one of my balance end-goals.

Geff.1930:

c) certain traits can refresh cooldowns or auto-cast active skills,

I’ve stated before in the thread that traits are something that should be critically scrutinized for being nothing but passive procs that simply add poorly cued surprises onto active abilities or trigger without warning at points throughout combat. This is an issue that also should be addressed.

Geff.1930:

d) fights have the potential to drag on infinitely making people be able to use the same skill immediately as they come off cooldown multiple times throughout a single fight. This brings me to my next point, why do fights have the potential to last an infinite amount of time.

The only real reason that this situation may end up happening is, again, because there aren’t enough skills in GW2 that bear with them long enough cast-times to off-set their powerful effects. Furthermore, permanent cycle fights occur because players have god-mode skills that have no effective mana (time) cost and they can just activate them instantly when they come off of cool-down. If weapon sets had 2 skills that might just not be feasible to use willy-nilly in an intense 1v1 or even just a hectic team-fight except via keen positioning and maybe the usage of other supplementary skills.

As for culling god-mode bunker abilities, blocks and invulnerabilities need to be greatly culled in GW2.

Geff.1930:

3) Health is actually a precious resource in competitive games.

Really?? Are there competitive games (I’m going to assume that by “games” you mean “MMOs” here) in which health is not a precious resource?

Geff.1930:

The level of sustain possible in GW2 is unmatched by any game I’ve played. The obvious reason is that each character has heals,

Personal healing skills are not a problem. Passive healing and damage mitigation abilities are the issue. It would not, however, hurt to make using some healing skills more of a risk. There are a lot of healing skills that are often guaranteed to succeed in activation. Guardian [Shelter] is the worst offender of this.

Geff.1930:

Further facilitating this problem is an insurmountably large number of skills that give you immunity to damage for X seconds, and even more on top of that we have dodges.

I’ve already said that blocks and invulnerability need to be greatly culled in GW2.

Geff.1930:

If that weren’t enough, we also have downed state from which you can come back with some HP.

Downed state actually adds a very interesting dimension to PvP combat. A downed player immediately becomes a battlefield hazard due to the typical amount of “corpse-cleave” that falls atop a player the moment that he/she goes down. The trouble with downed state as a state isn’t necessarily the mechanic itself, but the fact that players can often pop god-mode skills to mitigate a lot of incoming corpse-cleave damage. If manually reviving a player in PvP is made less viable by the culling of god-modes, this mechanic wouldn’t necessarily be

Geff.1930:

The culmination of all of these factors makes GW2’s health pool a easily refreshable resource. This ability to have a high level of sustain goes hand in hand with the skill spammy nature of the game because your damage has much less potential than if health were a precious resource, and on top of that a lot of the damage can be avoided due to the large number of immunity sources.

Active skills remain the most pressing matter of balance in GW2. The first thing that needs to be done about GW2 PvP balance is fixing all ranged skills that break the rules that I’ve defined in bold somewhere far above this post.

Amir.1570:

The Warrior suggestions are actually plausible.

Definitely not…
Just horrible :/

My suggestions are:

- Decrease or balance the efficacy of all form of AI (actually clones, phantasm, minions, turrets and spirits are hitting harder than originals… horrible)
- Decrease or restrict the access to stealth (Mesmer, Ranger and Engineer don’t need too much stealth).
- Define a counter to stealth (could be disable and/or burn).
- Remove AoE limit (no more limit of targets, AoE affects all eligible targets on the radius)
- Balance high reward skills and traits (Mesmer for example have near perma invulnerability, extra precision, and 20% faster cd in sword skills with only 10 points in Duelling. No comments more :/ )
- Decrease or balance all forms of 100% passive gameplay (Automated Response for example… No comments :/ )
- Rework maps that benefits some classes over others such how Skihammer and Spirit Watch.

Again, sorry bad english

Swagg.9236:

Geff.1930:

3) Health is actually a precious resource in competitive games.

Really?? Are there competitive games (I’m going to assume that by “games” you mean “MMOs” here) in which health is not a precious resource?

Name me ONE mmorpg that has a competitive scene right now with weekly tournaments. There aren’t any. WoW arena might be an exception, I know there used to be professional teams playing WoW arena, but I don’t follow that game so I don’t know if there is still an active e-sports scene there.

Mmorpg gamers tend to expect a certain amount of customization in their games, that amount of customization ability is not conducive for balance.

Swagg.9236:

Cynz.9437:

you did suggest CD on few thief spells, look at your initial post… besides you don’t own this forums so you don’t have the right to decide which post is relevant and which is not, no need to be rude just because someone doesn’t agree with you

You aren’t addressing any of my points regarding the reasoning behind my suggestions. You’re just crying that that I don’t own GW2 forums and therefore don’t have any ground on which to stand to make balance suggestions. That’s an Ad Hominem argument and therefore is irrelevant to discussion.

Cynz.9437:

funny how you say Ad Hominem, yet you attack me personally by making fun of my way of typing messages on this forums…hypocrisy?

I told you to leave and come back with a better argument. You did not. I also told you to fix your sentence structure so people might take you more seriously. You also failed there. I’m just trying to help you out here, man.

I actually did explain why spells like backstab do not need CD yet you chose to ignore it. Nowhere in my post i “cried” about you not being owner of the GW2 forums nor that it could be used as argument ground, i just pointed that you do not possses the right to tell other posters on this forums if their feedback is relevant or not. Twisting my post can’t be really used as argument.

You tell me “to leave and come back” when i have “better” argument, well aren’t you arrogant? I was saying that i do not believe, weither you like it or not, that your post is serious simply because some suggestions are quite ridicilous not to mention the account name, that is not an argument, that is an opinion and i am free to express it here.

it doesn’t matter how i form my posts, the idea doesn’t change :P

As for topic: i don’t play every class in this game and i am not arrogant enough to assume that i know everything about those classes w/o playing them and make suggestions for radical changes for those classes hence why i also won’t leave feedback on changes for classes i don’t play. If you want some credibility, you should have spent months playing each classes in competitive pvp before making such suggestions. However i believe that after playing them for so long you wouldn’t make such suggestions on first place.

Dhumfire change for example: major complain right now is amount of pets running around. Why would you suggest to add another pet? It hardly adresses this issue but makes it worse.

Or warrior suggestions: major complain is amount of warrior healing. The reason why warrior healing is so stupid atm is HS + adrenal health + banner running together. The change you suggest is not adressing the issue at all. HS by itself isn’t bad, warrior being able to stack many things is bad.

@Geff: ironically wow arena is even more imbalanced than gw2 pvp and been dying out for a while now simply because wow devs care only about pve and balance pvp around pve, so wow arena had stupid things like everyone running with 350k HP and warriors being able to do 420k dmg with 1 attack since blizzard wanted to buff warrior dmg in raids (pve).

Cynz.9437:

I actually did explain why spells like backstab do not need CD yet you chose to ignore it.

I don’t see any justification provided for that anywhere.

Cynz.9437:

you do not possses the right to tell other posters on this forums if their feedback is relevant or not

I have main points behind my suggestions. Nobody’s really attempting to counter those points. Those that join an argument only to spend time not attempting to counter another person’s main points waste time and effort.

Cynz.9437:

Twisting my post can’t be really used as argument.

I haven’t twisted anything. I’ve just attempted to remain on track with regards to my main points.

Cynz.9437:

You tell me “to leave and come back” when i have “better” argument, well aren’t you arrogant?

I’m still trying to help you. If I were truly arrogant, I’d just call you names and not continue to reply to you.

Cynz.9437:

it doesn’t matter how i form my posts, the idea doesn’t change :P

While that may be true, one’s sentence structure (and use of emoticons) often has a strong bearing on rather or not one will be taking seriously in a text-based discussion.

Cynz.9437:

If you want some credibility, you should have spent months playing each classes in competitive pvp before making such suggestions. However i believe that after playing them for so long you wouldn’t make such suggestions on first place.

Credibility in balance doesn’t necessarily come from sinking time into playing a class. Credibility in playing a class well (regardless of whether or not that class employs unfair mechanics) comes from sinking time into playing a class. Credibility in balance comes from analyzing specific class abilities and being able to explain how those abilities contribute to or undermine the general flow of the original intention of how designed combat in a game should work. I’ve already done that here. Once more, I’ll just direct you to the bold post that I’ve made far above this.

Cynz.9437:

Dhumfire change for example: major complain right now is amount of pets running around. Why would you suggest to add another pet? It hardly adresses this issue but makes it worse.

You didn’t understand the suggestion properly. The Dhuumfire suggestion is to give the burning a cue. The NPC that the trait would summon in this change doesn’t do anything but fire off a cued attack before vanishing. It’s not really that much of a battlefield interference.

Cynz.9437:

Or warrior suggestions: major complain is amount of warrior healing. The reason why warrior healing is so stupid atm is HS + adrenal health + banner running together. The change you suggest is not adressing the issue at all. HS by itself isn’t bad, warrior being able to stack many things is bad.

I also thought about this. However, GW2 seems to lack the code to cap the amount of hp gained within a certain time-frame. It’s unfortunate, but the best way to fix passive regeneration stacking would be to simply nerf the individual sources of hp gain instead of asking ANet to take the time to code a way of limiting the total amount of hp a player can gain within a time-frame in order to deal with this imbalance. Moreover, attempting to cap healing at certain levels within given time-frames would probably ruin the way Healing Skills work since they provide so much raw healing upon use. There just isn’t a way to properly balance passive hp regen, so the only solution is to piece-meal it. I’ve chosen [Healing Signet] as the main point of focus because it really is the biggest contributor to Warrior super-regen with ~400 hp gained/second.

nicknamenick.2437:

So all a opponent have to do when you spot a longbow warrior is to teleport at its face and just laugh at him.. When you keep in melee range you cant do anything with your suggestion. Making longbow trash.

Re-balanced [Pin Down] would have a 1500 range. You also have teammates. Get into proper position and use your skill. It’s as simple as that.

nicknamenick.2437:

You also add minimun range to every other range weapon??

Did you not read the [Cluster Bomb] and Engineer [Grenade Kit] suggestions (although, I have another idea for [Grenade Kit] already)?

nicknamenick.2437:

What about ele casting everything on you..

Elementalist AoE attacks have a lot of post-cast effect delays which make them balanced even though you can cast them on top of yourself. You still have to bait or lead enemies into your AoEs properly in order to hit them. That’s what makes them balanced. As for the instant-cast nonsense that Elementalist employs, I’ve already taken care of those in my suggestions in case you missed those as well.

nicknamenick.2437:

There are tons of other classes that have instand snare/cc skills, even on range or from stealth.

And a lot of them are more balanced than [Pin Down]. That’s not to say that there aren’t ranged snare skills out there that need to be re-balanced or functionally changed, but I’m saying that [Pin Down] is overpowered for how effective it is in any given situation. There’s no skill or risk involved when using it. You press the button and it almost instantly goes off. It really does turn Warrior longbow into a melee weapon.

nicknamenick.2437:

If you do this and also for engi, lets do it also for hunters, ele, necro, ow and mesmers cant use there shatter skill below 240 range, yeah lets do that lets just apply 240 range minimum to every range weapon, and all we see is thiefs/guardians teleporting at your face forcing you to swap weapon but you cant because its on cooldown.. Lets run and make distance! Oh no thief is faster en guardian pulls you back and lolled more.. Can i get an evade also on longbow so i can evade back to 240 range? No? i get your idea but this turns these weapons into trash!

You’re only looking on the surface. There is a lot of work to be done and if one gets hung up on his own class’ re-balancing instead of looking at how to balance the game as a whole, nothing productive will ever be done.

nicknamenick.2437:

engi

You seriously didn’t read the full suggestion, did you?

nicknamenick.2437:

hunters

You mean Rangers, and Rangers don’t really possess a lot of powerful AoE attacks that they can just drop at their feet almost instantly. That’s what I’m balancing here. Powerful AoE attacks that have no post-cast effect delays should come with either hefty cast-times or minimum ranges in order to add risk to using them.

nicknamenick.2437:

Mesmer shatters

Mesmer shatters are actually one of the most telegraphed attacks in the game. While something like point-blank [Mirror Images] into [Mind Wrack] is pretty nonsense, the mechanic on the whole isn’t bad especially if you can read into the Mesmer’s general attack pattern and anticipate about when the guy is going to blow everything up. There are several attack cues that often give it away, [Illusionary Leap] being the biggest one.

nicknamenick.2437:

Lets run and make distance! Oh no thief is faster en guardian pulls you back and lolled more..

Welcome to calculated combat, kiddo. More attacks in this game need to be things that you can’t just spam off-handedly because they’re off cool-down. Powerful attacks should require positioning, timing and aim. There’s your change to [Arcing Arrow].

As for thief “being fast” (by which you mean that they just have a lot of in-combat pursuit skills), I have an idea of how we can remove spammable direct-to-target teleports from the game without directly harming Thief pursuit. [Flashing Blade] might also need a functional change because of its low cool-down.

Geff.1930:

Name me ONE mmorpg that has a competitive scene right now with weekly tournaments. There aren’t any. WoW arena might be an exception, I know there used to be professional teams playing WoW arena, but I don’t follow that game so I don’t know if there is still an active e-sports scene there.

Mmorpg gamers tend to expect a certain amount of customization in their games, that amount of customization ability is not conducive for balance.

Your observation has nothing to do with this thread’s main points or discussion.

1. you need a life.
2. you really need a life
3. you could work for A-net, your suggestions are even worse than theirs…

^ In fact he has no idea what hes talking about. What class do u playing OP? I will make my own balance suggestion to nerf it into ground and laugh in ur face

How is BS already having CD due to requirement and debuff is not justification for not adding another CD, please explain.

People been countering your points, you simply chose to ignore it or twist it the way you like it. Funny how you say it is waste of time not trying to counter main point yet you chose to not only commendt on suggestion that your post might have not been serious but also decided to personally attack the poster and at the same time complaining that the poster used your personal features as argument. You are contradicting yourself too much, imo.

As far as twisting the post, it doesn’t matter how you call it you still altered the meaning of the post to your liking under excuse of staying “on track with regards to main points”, my point stands: it can’t be considered as an argument if you alter the meaning of the post of the opposite side.

Also, i find it interesting that you keep insisting on “helping me” when all you did is calling my posts “not relevant” just because you don’t agree with them as well as criticizing my way of forming the posts. None of those really help me in any way and according to your defintion are actually “waste of time”.

I personally don’t find game forums the place where i should be too picky about proper gramma. As long as the post is readable and within the forums rules, i think it is acceptable. The message is more important than the form, imo. For example: All is Vain https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/gf-left-me-coz-of-ladderboard/page/5#post3423997 while being half a joke probably and wtitten in quite “not serious” form as you would express, it does carry the message that many can relate to – class imbalance and frustration of soloQ. It doesn’t matter if you don’t take the post serious because of the form it is posted in, the issue is still there. As far as serious in general goes, this are game forums, games are played for fun, serious business happens at the work and real life :P

I don’t agree that analyzing the the spells alone will give you the idea of how balance looks like. That mistake been done many times by devs (not talking about Anet, hello mods) in the past of many games because they were too attached to data they had and lost the feel of the game which led to big frustration from players side and eventually people started to leave game.

Many things look good on paper but don’t work so well in reality. You forget human factor, you forget enviroment, you forget skill lag due to latency, you forget the joy factor as well. Did you ever wonder why there is no MMORPG game that has only 1 class with 1 spell on flat field w/o any los? That would be the most balanced game but it doesn’t exist… why? Dodge is amazing mechanics yet classes also have blocks, invulnerability, walls etc. why? Why is there CC in game, why do conditions exist, why there is cast time? Did you ever ask yourself that?

As far as dhumfire goes, i do think extra pet is still an issue even if it disappears after cast besides it still doesn’t adress the problem. I don’t think that you understand the issue with dhumfire. The reason is not even trait itself, but the whole tree and how much you can stack with just scepter AA to round it up with nice feast of corruption. Personally i would replace dhumfire with something different but not another codition proc.

You kind of did buff HS in a way though, you realize that right? The problem is stacking and passive gameplay, your suggestion doesn’t adress neither of those problems.

Your thief changes are horrible, thankfully they will die in this thread…

I love how you replied to everyone but me, lol.

best ranger ideas 2013!

Incurafy.6329:

I love how you replied to everyone but me, lol.

I’ve been fielding a lot of angry shouting. I’ll probably get to you eventually.

aussieheals.6843:

best ranger ideas 2013!

I’m sure you’d love to see how I’d re-make Ranger spirits.

Swagg.9236:

aussieheals.6843:

best ranger ideas 2013!

I’m sure you’d love to see how I’d re-make Ranger spirits.

Maybe so but I would much prefer to see your suggestions for balancing literally ANY other ranger build. Spirits have left a bad taste

aussieheals.6843:

Swagg.9236:

aussieheals.6843:

best ranger ideas 2013!

I’m sure you’d love to see how I’d re-make Ranger spirits.

Maybe so but I would much prefer to see your suggestions for balancing literally ANY other ranger build. Spirits have left a bad taste

Actually, one of the biggest issues surrounding the Ranger is its class mechanic: the pet. Pets are AI meat-puppets that don’t really actively contribute to the battle at all. A Ranger just sics them on an enemy player and sort of forgets that they’re there except for when using the pet skills when they’re off cool-down. In short, there isn’t enough to do with the pet that makes it so frustrating to use. Furthermore, they take such a beating that it’s often annoying for opponents to deal with too since cleaving through 20,000 points of quickly regenerating health just to deal with an AI NPC’s constant, passive assault is beyond awful. The best way to make Rangers really come into their own as a class that isn’t the Warrior with an AI NPC attached to it would be to give the Ranger more precise control over his/her pet.

Without completely redoing the Ranger profession mechanic, the only other solution that I could think of would be to add [Pet Whistle Kits]. These utility skills would function just like Engineer [Tool Kits] in how they activate, stow and change weapon skills. The weapon skills gained from [Pet Whistle Kits] would be entirely pet-centric except for maybe a combo-attack that would involve the Ranger. By quickly swapping in and out of these kits to activate attacks and maneuvers at opportune times, Rangers could do more with their pet with regards to damage and battlefield flow manipulation via CC.

A step further beyond [Pet Whistle Kits] would be to give pets their own traits that could allow Rangers to further specialize individual pets, but I’m not sure ANet would ever do that.

In any case, either of these additions would allow ANet to then lower the base hp of most pets because Ranger’s would have more control over them.

Cynz.9437:

The message is more important than the form, imo. For example: All is Vain https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/gf-left-me-coz-of-ladderboard/page/5#post3423997

No. It’s not. If you can’t be understood your message is meaningless. Much like that “420epicblazeitswagamoto” poem. The medium is the message.

nicknamenick.2437:

Whats the point of 1500 range??

To give the Warrior space to set up the attack from a distance if he/she chooses.

nicknamenick.2437:

can I use arcing arrow also on 1500 range?

It would never hit, or do you not know how arcing arrow’s projectile arc behaves?

nicknamenick.2437:

And a minimum range is just stupid, why should a arrow miss below 240 range?

Don’t bring “BUT MY REALISM” into videogames.

nicknamenick.2437:

Arcing arrow is slow so its not for using at 1200+ range..

No, but it is used for a PBAoE nuke directly on top of the Warrior after having used [Pin Down] which itself has effectively no attack cue as it stands. The combination is extraordinarily easy to land and does a very high amount of damage. There is an enormous discrepancy between the risk in using the combination and the reward you get for landing it (the risk being effectively non-existent while the reward being able to turn an encounter around). This is a sign of imbalance. It needs to be fixed.

Cynz.9437:

How is BS already having CD due to requirement and debuff is not justification for not adding another CD, please explain.

Revealed is not a cool-down. If a Thief is in stealth, attempts a back-stab and flubs it, the guy isn’t punished for missing. The Thief gets to keep spamming [Backstab] until it hits so long as he/she is in stealth. The same goes for every stealth-triggered 1 skill for the Thief. There is an enormous discrepancy between the risk in using the combination and the reward you get for landing it (the risk being effectively non-existent while the reward being able to turn an encounter around). This is a sign of imbalance. It needs to be fixed.

Cynz.9437:

People been countering your points,

Nobody has countered anything. I haven’t seen anyone attempt to really touch my main points. I’ve also moved what are effectively my main points to the very first post in this thread so that people can seem them easier. If you want to argue me, argue me based on what I have posted there.

Also, Happy New Year everyone.

Incurafy.6329:

In other words, you’ve played Thief for less than 12 hours and your only PvP experience with Thief was in hotjoin. I play Thief competitively in a team and I can tell just by reading that portion of your post that you have absolutely no idea about Thief or what it needs changed.

It also brings your credibility into question in relation to your other changes. Don’t get me wrong, I support your idea of making changes to skills to meet the original design proposed by Anet, but you clearly aren’t experienced enough to do so.

Also, Thieves do have cool downs, that’s what initiative is, a global cool down mechanic. It is a discussion for another topic that was done to death a year ago, but it is a fact that you keep changing to suit your posts.

It seems a little unfair that you tell me that even though we can find posts like this on the sPvP forum:

Dee Jay.2460:

Arganthium.5638:

I made my own warrior build, now I’m invincible.

No, seriously though. BS’d something, and I can’t tell you how much better I’m doing on a class I’ve played for an hour versus a class that I’ve played for 1000 hours.

This is true. Close to 1600 hours on a Thief, 100 hours on a Mesmer, 2 hours on a Warrior.

Playing with the Warrior gets me the most wins in tPvP and is the most valuable class to most teams.

I agree that the whole CC-spaming is over the top, but the only serious balance-offender is Healing Signet which for some reason avoided a nerf on December 10th, for no good reason.

Seems a little fishy to me.

I can only laugh at the people who are crying about profession-nerfs, in a random thread created by a player. All professions in this game, needs to be ’nerfed’ to some extent. Continuously buffing skills and traits, as well as reducing the cooldown on everything, is what created this spammy no-skill meta in the first place.

In a game with no mana/energy, cooldown-management is the only skillfully thing anyone needs to focus on. And yet, ArenaNet keeps reducing the cooldown on UP skills, instead of increasing the cooldown on the OP ones.

While I didn’t read the entirety of your post Swagg, you seem to understand what this game needs in order to improve the gameplay. Kudos.