Guild Wars 2

josh.7390:

Mammoth.1975:

So you’re running all those since they’re the strongest builds atm right?

Imho the biggest balance issue is the various easy to play builds. It’s ridiculous that some guys pick up a necro or a spirit ranger, roll their face over the keyboard and are able to win vs. others who play their class near perfect. The kitteny thing is, that those guys dont get punished if a neff comes in, they just switch to the next flavor of the month op build.

When BM ranger came up (the old one) a lot of ppls switched on it and they easily won most 1v1 just because its face rolling. Same thing for Mesmers 8 months ago. Its a easy to pick up class. You can play an effective Mesmer after 5h of practice. As soon as you play vs. better opponents you need do adapt, because every1 dodges your spikes. Thats the point where you can actually spot good mesmers because they can set gheir spike properly and close to instant, but that needs a lot of time. I mean there are not many mesmers left, afaik even xeph switche on thief

This just happens to many classes. They get a cookie-cutter build, it gets nerfed – ohh just pick up the next one, np. So bring up some builds which are harder to learn but in the end are more effective than all those cookie-cutters. Engi is probably a good example for a hard to pick up class (except hgh)

+1

yeah and people who actually like the class – like for me thief – miss depths to the class. i would love to have so many tools like for example an elementalist or an engineer but im stuck on a class that is best while spamming 2-3 buttons. yeah i could reroll, but for that i like the class too much and my team needs me on the thief.

@Phantaram

Why, would a thief not use Shadow Trap? It has amazing utility and allows for decaps on far, when used in that way. Or can be used defensively to help your back point on home, it makes the thief that much more mobile. And that is exactly what I meant, the thief would go for a decap on far (stealthed), and if the player they have on backpoint comes back, he will be able to pick to fight, or leave.

As far as refuge goes, there are so many knockbacks and pulls and blowouts, you can stop a revive in refuge. Considering they have stability, none of this will work, but as well that means they won’t have stability for stomping. I said it is good, really good. But increasing the cooldown, how would this effect the thief? Shadow Refuge is not only used for team utility but can be used to drop on oneself right before they are downed and alert teammates.

I know stealth is hard to balance, and its difficult because of the innate reason it effects one class in particular so much.

josh.7390:

Mammoth.1975:

So you’re running all those since they’re the strongest builds atm right?

Imho the biggest balance issue is the various easy to play builds. It’s ridiculous that some guys pick up a necro or a spirit ranger, roll their face over the keyboard and are able to win vs. others who play their class near perfect. The kitteny thing is, that those guys dont get punished if a neff comes in, they just switch to the next flavor of the month op build.

When BM ranger came up (the old one) a lot of ppls switched on it and they easily won most 1v1 just because its face rolling. Same thing for Mesmers 8 months ago. Its a easy to pick up class. You can play an effective Mesmer after 5h of practice. As soon as you play vs. better opponents you need do adapt, because every1 dodges your spikes. Thats the point where you can actually spot good mesmers because they can set gheir spike properly and close to instant, but that needs a lot of time. I mean there are not many mesmers left, afaik even xeph switche on thief

This just happens to many classes. They get a cookie-cutter build, it gets nerfed – ohh just pick up the next one, np. So bring up some builds which are harder to learn but in the end are more effective than all those cookie-cutters. Engi is probably a good example for a hard to pick up class (except hgh)

The question remains. If these are the strongest builds, then these are the only builds anyone is running right?

LeGi.3921:

josh.7390:

Mammoth.1975:

So you’re running all those since they’re the strongest builds atm right?

Imho the biggest balance issue is the various easy to play builds. It’s ridiculous that some guys pick up a necro or a spirit ranger, roll their face over the keyboard and are able to win vs. others who play their class near perfect. The kitteny thing is, that those guys dont get punished if a neff comes in, they just switch to the next flavor of the month op build.

When BM ranger came up (the old one) a lot of ppls switched on it and they easily won most 1v1 just because its face rolling. Same thing for Mesmers 8 months ago. Its a easy to pick up class. You can play an effective Mesmer after 5h of practice. As soon as you play vs. better opponents you need do adapt, because every1 dodges your spikes. Thats the point where you can actually spot good mesmers because they can set gheir spike properly and close to instant, but that needs a lot of time. I mean there are not many mesmers left, afaik even xeph switche on thief

This just happens to many classes. They get a cookie-cutter build, it gets nerfed – ohh just pick up the next one, np. So bring up some builds which are harder to learn but in the end are more effective than all those cookie-cutters. Engi is probably a good example for a hard to pick up class (except hgh)

+1

yeah and people who actually like the class – like for me thief – miss depths to the class. i would love to have so many tools like for example an elementalist or an engineer but im stuck on a class that is best while spamming 2-3 buttons. yeah i could reroll, but for that i like the class too much and my team needs me on the thief.

Actually thief is another topic. The initiative system was probably the biggest mistake anet ever did. There’s no reason to use other skills the best 2 when you can spam them (heartseeker anyone? tripe evade on shortbow, port spam on shortbow, evade+boonsteal on sword). For example, if a Mesmer wants to escape you have to use knockbacks, cripples, pulls, swiftness. Thief? Just port the kitten out of it.

Imagine an ele who could spam phoenix or rtl multiple times.

Whe Im at it anyway here are some more issues:

Some classes miss combofields and finishers. The only combofields a Mesmer has are chaos – ya thats sooo cool. Combofields and finishers should be splitted trough classes. So you actually need teamplay for nice combos that would bring deeper gameplay.

To stack stealth you just need an engi and a thief, but why the kitten is a thief the best combofield stacker with clusterbomb when he has aoe stealth anyway? why dont you give more blast finiahers to other classes so you can play.around a thief with engi+another class who provides blast finishers. Ele has them – on staff, yay. So instead you get a thief who can A just pop an aoe 10s stealth and B stack stealth with engi like no1 else. Give blast finishers to wari maybe

1. thing that i probably hate the most atm are skilldodges while immobilized. Why the kitten is it possible to evade while not able to move. s/d thief spam evade. When you play against them and actually catch the with a well timed immobilize – well kitten it, just switch on shortbow and evade the kitten. So ppl who play bad and get immobilized dont get punished, that sucks. You can evade an immobilize but even if you dont – doesnt matter dude. Same thing for ranger and BF on mesmer. Pls punish ppl for bad playing!

@mammoth

sure they would. But you have to actually learn it! You couldnt just switch on the next op build and be as effective as effective as before. I play Mesmer for 10 months now, but there can come a Nec with 50 matches and stomp me into the ground, just because its so easy. Nec gets nerfed? Np switch on spirit ranger and stomp everyone again without knowing what you’re actually doing. Sure ranger is a better 1v1 class. And a hih skilled ranger has to stomp me, but he doesnt even have to be good. He doesnt even need to evade ileap cuz he can evade while immobilized and evade the whole shatter. It’s just braindead

Nikkle.4013:

jcbroe.4329:

Particularly, if this game is going to push for streaming viewership, there needs to be some understanding that watching a class do strong condition just by strafing and autoattacking (or spamming on a short cooldown), and then watching the defender drop all the conditions randomly, and then have the commentators explain that you passively apply and remove them and then describe the builds so that viewers understand, is boring.

Agreed, there’s to much autoattacking. I like the big cooldown big number format. Promotes counter-play, as long as skills can be anticipated or are telegraphed. When Jsharp was talking about toning down necro’s I think he mentioned grasping dead and maybe tweaking those numbers. I think thats the wrong way, nerf auto’s instead and add a tell to gd(ground goes brown during the cast, samething with marks), give players a chance to respond to it. Weakening blood is a very obvious skill animation and I think thats a good thing in this game. When explaining how to fight a condi class it should be just like explaining how to fight a power build. Watch out for ‘x’, it has ‘y’ tell. Currently, I don’t think thats the case.

I completely agree, Weakening blood is a perfect example. Whenever I see that animation I say to myself “kitten need to avoid that.” Stuff like Engi pistol autos and Necro scepter autos make me sad.

That’s why either, key-skillz have to have a special/obvious animation or there has to be some sort of cast-bar. Because fighting a necro for eg. doesn’t give me any clue which marks he used, when I dodged them. There is a big empty room in this game, where the skillfloor could be so much higher. Too many things are still random . . .

Though I don’t vote for castbars because then you’ll be playing the UI again. Distinct animations for every single skill on the other hand Is something I’d support.

Siric.3589:

There seems to be a lot of talk about offensive-ish guardians. Seeing as I played one for 5+ months and was one of the only ones NA (kaypud was the other that comes to mind) I have a pretty decent grasp on the subject.

There are 2 big issues with the specs that keep it from seeing competative play.

1 – condi removal
2 – swiftness/passive speed buffs

On the topic of condi removal the guardian, like the warrior, is subject to massive amounts of condi cleave. As a melee class you have to focus on chill, cripple, and weakness to allow you do just do damage, but if you waste removals on those then you die to poision, bleed, burn. The way bunkers survive condi clear is via shout build + 20 into virtures wich force you into vit armor and 30 points into the vit tree. People have toyed with an “offensive” shout guardian, and it works good enough for hot join, but it lacks mobility and damage for tPvP. Then again shouts are much more of a team support-esq skill so they really shouldn’t be super offensive. There are 2 ways to fix this: remove shout runes from the game and make the extra condi clear part of teh t3 traits for warriors and guardians OR (and this is the better solution I feel) buff non-shout removal. Smite condi buff would be huge here, something like doubleish the recharge, remove up to 3 condi deal extra damage for each one. Try to keep the DPS about the same but make it so it can remove covered condis. While your at it, meditation traits need to be more compact so you don’t speed all 3 tiers just making medis worth while. Either move the instant cast in like with the 20% cd OR make instant cast base functionality of smite condi.

The other problem with guardian is that they are easily kited in team fights. While the class should not be a super roamer like thief or ele, it needs more access to swiftness and a passive 15-25% speed buff some how (when traited). This problem can be worked around(kinda) with runes like Pack or Speed… but they arn’t good enough, and again if you are forced into shouts you can not take them. Retreat has WAY to long of a CD. Aegis isn’t as strong as devs thought at launch, something like a 30sec CD with lower durration swiftness to compensate (15 sec? 20 sec?) would be good. As it is right now it just gets stripped. Staff is also the only other form of swiftness, the problem is, a guardian who is speced offensivly cant waste 10 sec in a staff to get this swiftness, to much damage is lost. An idea here would be to move the swiftness symbol to focus thus allowing for sword/sceptar and focus play so you can do damage even when u are in ur swiftness set.

Some other random concerns:
Too many traits that are not as compact i.e. symbol has 3 traits in 1 line and 2 in another, medi has 3 traits, spirit weapons have serveral traits across many lines. These need to be more compact.

I feel like you covered all the problems dps Guardians currently face. I think the biggest offender is definitely traits imo. So much wasted space with traits spread all over the place. If some were more condensed and at least in the same trait line it would open up possibilities to fill the now vacant spots with some of the answers a dps Guardian needs. I’m playing a Guardian so I don’t expect or need to do as much damage as say a Warrior or Shatter Mesmer. I want to be able to at least do respectable damage and be Viable in the process. I made my Guardian specifically for being a dps with a touch of supportive capabilities to help out my team a little bit while I fight, rather than full blown burst. As it is now, Bunker is the best option :/

josh.7390:

Mammoth.1975:

So you’re running all those since they’re the strongest builds atm right?

Imho the biggest balance issue is the various easy to play builds. It’s ridiculous that some guys pick up a necro or a spirit ranger, roll their face over the keyboard and are able to win vs. others who play their class near perfect. The kitteny thing is, that those guys dont get punished if a neff comes in, they just switch to the next flavor of the month op build.

When BM ranger came up (the old one) a lot of ppls switched on it and they easily won most 1v1 just because its face rolling. Same thing for Mesmers 8 months ago. Its a easy to pick up class. You can play an effective Mesmer after 5h of practice. As soon as you play vs. better opponents you need do adapt, because every1 dodges your spikes. Thats the point where you can actually spot good mesmers because they can set gheir spike properly and close to instant, but that needs a lot of time. I mean there are not many mesmers left, afaik even xeph switche on thief

This just happens to many classes. They get a cookie-cutter build, it gets nerfed – ohh just pick up the next one, np. So bring up some builds which are harder to learn but in the end are more effective than all those cookie-cutters. Engi is probably a good example for a hard to pick up class (except hgh)

I am going to use your post for my new blog-post. Hope you don’t mind.

+1

What are the top players’ views on the bunker guardian?

You can add Revive, Rally and Stomp mechanics to the list; basically the whole Down-state.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Being able to res yourself is just broken.

It does lend itself to being overpowered, doesn’t it? ^^

EoNxBoNx.9213:

Shadow Refuge is a great skill to be used for reviving it really is, But it is not an instant revive, say Illusion of Life, or Signet of Undeath or Warbanner. The thief or teammates still have to actually revive that downed player, and that is the difference.

Yes those are more potent skills, aren’t they?

Phantaram.1265:

Resurrection is effectually stronger than any of your other disagreements! As the ease at which players can revive is conditionally more rewarding than alternative strategies at the given times.

IMO rangers regen wayyyy to much, and sword/dagger has access to to much doge.

Daishi.6027:

IMO rangers regen wayyyy to much, and sword/dagger has access to to much doge.

Huh… I never saw many sword wielding Rangers at the end of my time. I felt special in this regard ^^
Even had an Elementalist ask me for my build once hehe.

I will list some suggestions to help the game. Then I will give my 2c on your suggested class/spec issues.

WARNING : Wall of Text below

1 – Increase capture point area.
Either we get new gameplay modes or the kittening radius of capture points are increased to the SIZE of the Foefire graveyard point. This is should help against the current “AOE THEM DOWN BOYS” issue (I actually heard a commander say that in WvWvW yesterday lol). Imho AoEs from low cooldown abilities (GS/hammer swings and low cooldown fields) should have their AoE reduced to below that of the AoE of heals/area cleanse/group boons etc to promote proper positioning ie you want to stack fields/finishers but at the ideal spot not to get AoE smashed.

2 – Reduce the overall power/number of passive traits/utilities/runes etc and improve ways to use weapon skills on demand rather than the fire & forget (thanks to weapon swap on a cd) attitude ruling the gameplay at the moment.
Not much explanation here, you are rewarded more if you actually do something rather than faceroll.

3 – Get rid of spiking and condition spam.
No 1 shots should be possible (even on GC vs GC) whether it is 5-7 instant casts like the ele or cloak abuse like the thief (not so much now though) or a quad illusion shatter + blurred frenzy with sigil procs like a mesmer (if you think this is not instant, go watch osicat’s videos).
The other extreme is 6-7 conditions dropping on you from the sky which just cannot be cleansed (cd or feared) and dying without being able to do anything but limp.

A GC should be given at least 5-7 seconds when nuked by another GC for reaction time(for active defense skills). Getting vit/toughness should increase window ofc.

Thats all I got off the top of my head right now. Now moving on to your issues listed.

1 – I agree. Honestly, the phantasm “fix” was really not needed for this weapon (4 second 1200 ranged cripple honestly offset the mediocre damage it did prepatch). Now this weapon is a 1200 range bazooka (especially if ur glass) for blowing things up.
The cripple allows you to set up some nasty shatters by blinking onto your target and shattering + swapping to sword to finish. The only real problem I see with this weapon is the phantasm. It should be toned down for the singular fact that it slows and is AoE.

Mesmers have plenty of tools to survive so honestly, I feel that all their Phantasms should be nerfed and the Phantasm specced Mesmers should have access to offset these nerfs (about 70% of the nerf) along with being able to make their Phantasms splash. A trait could be made to increase the Izerker’s cleave radius, give the Iduelist piercing shots, Iwarden gets movement and the Image/Iwarlock attacks bounce.

2 – Simple fix would be to give the Arcane skills a small cast (1/2sec) while lowering their cd to compensate (20 down to 15 and 30 down to 20 untraited). You still do damage, you set up bursts more frenquently but your opponent gets an increased duration to react to your burst before he bites the dust.
As many have said, taking 2 arcane skills and LF screws with your survivability so I do not think nerfing damage or adding conditions to arcane spells will help the decent burst build that S/D can run now. (Elemental surge needs to become defensive instead of a feeble offensive trait to be useful)

3 – I have argued/complained about them enough and I also believe Necros themselves have suggested balance changes so I will not comment about them. In short, I see the real problem as fear being stack-able (like stealth) from multiple sources.

4 – Do not have enough experience fighting a good one to comment. Most of them I have fought get over confident when I get low and stop their evade chain for me to be able to stun and counter play them. I just made a thief recently to pvp with and have to say one thing though. The stealth nerf is more important than nerfing their evasion since evasion can be countered by waiting out their initiative to fall (they should not be able to go on forever) but stealth stacking is broken.

5 – I agree to this. While weakness is the Necro’s defense against burst classes, I do not understand why they have AoE application power as a defence lol. This condition needs to be single target only (or minor AoE for melee skills).

6 – Stealth is always a slippery slope to balance. Nerf it too hard and the classes that rely on it just melt in a fight. Off the top of my head, I would say smoke fields should not give stealth and should give something else (probably a few seconds of “evade”?).
With that change, I have no reason to see thief stealth stacking being overpowered (at least in pvp with the 4 second reveal). I do want reveal to be implemented in WvW though. Its just stupid that a thief can build pure GC and kill you with 8-9k backstabs and 6-7k heartseekers even though you have 1400-1600 toughness and then disappear + stomp you without any counters.