Guild Wars 2

JonathanSharp.7094:

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

[snip]

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

This is the same reason that Red doesn’t get interrupts in Magic, the reason that Zergs, normally, have much more mobility than Protoss (since Toss are usually stronger unit-by-unit), and why Karthus has no escapes. By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.

This seems to be a point that a lot of people do not understand/do not like. They get attached to one class and as a result want that class to have the ability to do everything/have all boons/have all condis/have all utilities/play all roles, when really this would kill the game and make it a homogeneous mess where the classes themselves were just ‘skins’ with slightly different animations over the same underlying abilities.

Shar.3402:

snip (sorry but message body length)

As a side note,

We all agreed that pre-patch power was dominating everything. Now it is the opposite.

As it currently stands regarding power

1.It is sided to either being sustained damage (S/D thief) or applying pressure (i.e CC warrior).
2.One class has got the ability to provide raw and thus burst damage (i.e elementalist with either traited 30 on Air, 20 on Water and 20 on Arcane or 20 or Air, 20 on Water and 30 on Arcana both of them using Valkyrie Amulet).

The good thing is that finally condition specs are in game as well. If we are going to concentrate “easy cheesy” comps, the any other team who was or wanted to spec condition-based team comp would argue back that power-based team comps were easy cheesy as well.

It is an extremely good for the balance, that a class such as a mesmer cannot bring all of that Portal + Illusion of Life + Moah/Stealth and do everything else superb. If you want to talk about broken mechanics and not BS ones like (Stealth Openers) because stealth openers do have counters -> i.e Stealth After, then objectively when it comes to team contribution no other class used to be as broken and superior as a mesmer. If it was able to provide the team with stability to the team then clearly a mesmer would have been a league on its own.

It is then a good thing that now a mesmer have to choose their utilities. Why is that a good thing?

1.It allows other classes to come into game.
2.It allows other classes to replace mesmer’s role – close holder, team supporter, X (power/condition) aoe-damage.

Thirdly regarding the BM ranger comment. Lets compare two X team comps in which one has got one BM ranger and the other doesn’t.

The first team comp would a BM ranger would have obviously the advantage of a very strong-close holder. However its disadvantage would be that in team fights (where everyone gathers in mid-fight) a BM ranger would be standing on a cliff at best sending off his pet while the other team would have the advantage of pulling off more DPS or as soon as they would see that BM ranger that would send a fast roamer to decap his point and then join the rest of his team in mid.

Same thing would happen with a mesmer off-point (far enough from her point) where sometimes she was forced to go back to her point immediately and disengage from mid-fights.

That all comes down to strategies and tactics dictated by team composition. Now if a Team with an X team composition feels that having everyone on mid fast enough counters-logic because their close point will always be contested by i.e a close-holder engineer then they got two options.

1.Be more effective in team fights and rotate faster/outplay them.
2.Send one class to keep him as busy as possible so he doesn’t run off effectively from roaming from close to far like that.

You would bring a mesmer because that can compliment Condition damage (Aoe or Direct depending on weapon sets) and cleanse-conditions-for-groups every 45 seconds with Null Field or 36 seconds with the trait.

Just like S/D thieves, CC warriors, condi-Specked Mesmers are now complimenting other classes or fulfilling a specific role depending on the team comp.

Lets look at the Condi-specked builds.

Balanced Version (See stats)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArf8alwzKqHVTrGbNJyJFQn0hqw1RShq9alUwbXIA-TwAAzCpI+S9l7LzXyisFNqYVx+jpAA

Clone Spammer
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArf8alwzKqHVTrGbNJipCBHaGXX1RqQpVmBvdhA-TwAAzCoI+SVk7LzXyvsFN+YVx+jpAA

Shattering Aoe-Condi damage + Aoe-Condi removal
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW8alwzKqHVTrGb9IypHQn0NdoKcdlewbXYuB-TgAAzCpI+S9l7LzXyisFB

Straight up condi
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArf8alwzKqHVTrGb9IyJFQn0hmx1VdlZwbXIA-TwAAzCpI+S9l7LzXyisFNqYVx+jpAA

Now if you ask me what type of mesmer I would play in a group, I would probably go Staff, Sword/Pistol + Shattering (aoe-condi damage + aoe-condi removal). So more of a supportive-role.

Lastly, before the Pax mesmers will get the adequate buffs 100 percent so no need to really over-exaggerate on viability.

PS: Builds do not belong to me and I have adjusted them as I see fit to get a rough idea (not claiming that everything I changed is the best; i.e some prefer staff over scepter/torch, nor that all are viable).

PS2: Shatter Mesmer builds are still strong. Just bring more condi removal from traits and utilities.
Long version cut short – Mesmers either can go for full spec condi builds (scepter/torch + sword/pistol) or supportive spec condi builds (staff + sword/pistol) with shattering removing conditions from them and for their group.

I have two proposed changes for S/D thieves(considering people think they are too strong) these can, and will change a lot in terms of them having “too many” dodges.

Sigil of Energy; change it so it either, cannot be weapon swap spammed, back and fourth, or so it gives endurance over time.

Signet of Agility; simply just make this give 50% endurance. This is will instead give them one dodge and not two.

Effectively giving the thieves one dodge on a weapon swap, and one dodge when using their signet. Now instead of using weapon swaps, whenever you feel you need initiative or endurance, you might have to save it you swaps when you really do it.

Personally I think we should stay away from changing traits because there are other builds that could be viable if the 15 minor acro trait is left alone, and same for the 10 adept 3 acro trait.

I really don’t know how much this Sigil change is going to effect any other profession, but the biggest benefits S/D gets are from that sigil, and the signet.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

I have two proposed changes for S/D thieves(considering people think they are too strong) these can, and will change a lot in terms of them having “too many” dodges.

Sigil of Energy; change it so it either, cannot be weapon swap spammed, back and fourth, or so it gives endurance over time.

Signet of Agility; simply just make this give 50% endurance. This is will instead give them one dodge and not two.

Effectively giving the thieves one dodge on a weapon swap, and one dodge when using their signet. Now instead of using weapon swaps, whenever you feel you need initiative or endurance, you might have to save it you swaps when you really do it.

Personally I think we should stay away from changing traits because there are other builds that could be viable if the 15 minor acro trait is left alone, and same for the 10 adept 3 acro trait.

I really don’t know how much this Sigil change is going to effect any other profession, but the biggest benefits S/D gets are from that sigil, and the signet.

sure! and wile you are at it, pls make another weapons set viable from competitive PvP since with this changes S/D will join the rest of our weapons sets in the “Trash” category.

thanks!

Sample build of possible ways to remove conditions as a Mesmer
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7fl0zKqHVTkGb9IypHQHzNdkU0avWJF82FC-TgAAzCpIKSVkrITRyisFB

Ways for a mesmer to remove conditions (rounded up or close 30 seconds);

1.Remove two conditions every 30 seconds (using mirror as heal every 15 seconds)
2.Remove two conditions every 25 seconds (using two torch skills)
3.Remove ALL conditions from ALL allies every 36 seconds and remove ALL boons from ALL foes (Null Field)
4.Remove a condition from you and ALL your allies every time you shattered (shattered conditions)
5.Remove ALL conditions every 90 seconds (using runes of Lysa)
6.Remove two conditions every 20 seconds (Mantra of Resolve)

Remember when Elementalists were not viable? Bunker Ele came.
Remember when Thieves got nerfed extremely hard? Sustained Thief came.
Remember when Warriors got nerfed extremely hard? CC Warrior came.
Remember when Necromancers were not viable? Condition Necro came.
Remember when BM ranger was considered worthless? Spiritmaster ranger came.
Remember when Condition Necromancers came and everybody thought Engineer will be replaced? Bunker Engineer came.

Fact is that all mesmers in TPvP are like wet cats. They want to do everything great, excel in all roles without risk. The class itself can produce an outstanding amount of power-condition-support builds or a little bit of all.

PS: Remove cast-time on mantra on resolve.

After having tested post-patch necro in a mix of PVE, WvW and PvP, I think the overall changes are good. What was not clear in the patch notes is the severity of the Death Shroud bug, which made a big difference in overall survivability.

Edit: I retract my retraction.

Reevz.2617:

I think some sort of way to deal with stealth would be great, though obviously they would need to be careful about how they approach it as to not also shaft thieves.

An anti-stealth thing would be fine by me who has played thief exclusively to rank 50 and is my one true love. But keep in mind its more of the stealth abusing specs that need toned down(you know those thieves that backstab-heartseeker-heartseeker-stealth-backstab-heartseeker-heartseeker-stealth…)

Also you/they must keep in mind the reason thives are playing those specs is because all other specs suck nuts, the classic backstab spec, pistol whip, pistols, condi specs are all now pretty garbage, worse than warriors before their most recent buff SO that leaves being a troll and only a troll for thief to do anything other than die.

Oh and I agree the current meta is by far the worst I’ve seen either. It was enough to make me PvE. Now that is significant.

Authority.6145:

Sample build of possible ways to remove conditions as a Mesmer
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAW7fl0zKqHVTkGb9IypHQHzNdkU0avWJF82FC-TgAAzCpIKSVkrITRyisFB

Ways for a mesmer to remove conditions (rounded up or close 30 seconds);

1.Remove two conditions every 30 seconds (using mirror as heal every 15 seconds)
2.Remove two conditions every 25 seconds (using two torch skills)
3.Remove ALL conditions from ALL allies every 36 seconds and remove ALL boons from ALL foes (Null Field)
4.Remove a condition from you and ALL your allies every time you shattered (shattered conditions)
5.Remove ALL conditions every 90 seconds (using runes of Lysa)
6.Remove two conditions every 20 seconds (Mantra of Resolve)

Remember when Elementalists were not viable? Bunker Ele came.
Remember when Thieves got nerfed extremely hard? Sustained Thief came.
Remember when Warriors got nerfed extremely hard? CC Warrior came.
Remember when Necromancers were not viable? Condition Necro came.
Remember when BM ranger was considered worthless? Spiritmaster ranger came.
Remember when Condition Necromancers came and everybody thought Engineer will be replaced? Bunker Engineer came.

Fact is that all mesmers in TPvP are like wet cats. They want to do everything great, excel in all roles without risk. The class itself can produce an outstanding amount of power-condition-support builds or a little bit of all.

PS: Remove cast-time on mantra on resolve.

Im going to respond with this post to the quoted and the previous one…

The only reason to bring a Mesmer is its utility and the not too bad dmg, if shatter actually hits (if you hit a real shatter combo your target is insta-gibbed, but who doesnt dodge when there are 8 or even 9 illus towards you..). If you now change the Mesmer traits or utilities for condition remove, you better take any other class, acutally just take another class. When you dont change, you will be useless in the curent meta, if you change other classes can do your job better.

The shatter build is pretty much the same since release, because you simply need the traits you can get with 70 points.

You need 20 points Dom for 20% MW-DMG and Boon removal (at LEAST 10 for Mental Torment)
You need 20 points for deceptive evasion (no illus no shatter)
You need 30 points for IP (no IP = instagib and because the trait is strong)

So you can probably spend 10 points somewhere else, probably in inspi for menders purity. Means 1 cond remove every 20s. yay! (you could acutally bring sigil of purity!)

-> You cant get enough cond remove with the current build. So what to do?

Change it completely to a support? Why should you? There’s no need for support right now, because in the current meta its just the question “who kills quicker?” You could play complete deff ele and guard and would get destroyed in seconds due to this cond meta. Yay, lets support my teams with boons, oh wait!, they will just get more condis ’cuz of the nec and die even faster. Acutally our guard is very carefull with using stability for this reason. Using stability is the fastet way to get caught in a fear chain.

If you play a cond Mesmer w/o support, its senseless because of nec/engie. If you say, well lets do less dmg and more sustain in a shatter build, by taking out Mental Torment (means 0 in Dom = 20% Dmg on MW get lost) you can get 20 into Inspi, but beside Menders purity the traits which you can choose in master tier are crap and even if you could get more cond remove, the Mesmer would get picked. Need sustain? Take a s/d thief! Faster than a Mesmer, harder to kill than a Mesmer while acutally still brining the team utility with stealth…

Mesmer right now is pretty much unviable imho. At least when you fight against top100 teams. There is a reason why Xeph and Adeera changed to thief, it fills a pretty similar role while just being much better at it.

Current Meta: Dots, Dots, more DOTS guys, MORE kittenING DOTS DOTS DOTS DoTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Issues.5789:

Current Meta: Dots, Dots, more DOTS guys, MORE kittenING DOTS DOTS DOTS DoTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This actually seems likely to change soon because now that warriors can totally counter that spam of conditions and lock them down. They have to start bringing more stun breaks or they’ll just keep getting stunned over and over.

josh.7390:

Snip

Lets look at some classes again,

Spiritmaster Ranger,
CC Warrior
S/D Thief
Bunker Engineer

Quiz Time

Do those classes excel in everything?

No. Each classes has got a specific role; Spiritmaster Ranger (Supporter), CC Warrior (Stun locker), S/D Thief (Disturber), Bunker Engineer (Contester)

How can a Mesmer fit in?

Learn to Adapt.

a.Compliment aoe-condtion/direct-condition damage of other classes and support.
b.Drop Greatsword and replace it with Staff.
c.Decide whether you want to use Runes of the Undead or 2x Runes of Lysa + Runes of Nightmare (Amulet will be always Rabid or Carrior to reach 24k HP with 2.7-3k power).
d.
e.Decide HOW you want to support (i.e applying condition pressure +/or utilities your team, aka

Through Staff
Through Staff + utilities (illusion of life/portal, Null Field every 36 seconds),
Through Scepter/Torch
Through Scepter/Torch + utilities
Through Sword Pistol
Through Sword Pistol + utilities

Example of supporting your team through staff

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArfWlwzKqHTzgGb9IhpHBH5A/kCoLdSKK9rB-TsAAzCpIaS1krJTTymsNNqY9xUAA

HP:17K
Armor: 2.8k
Condition: 1.7k
Boon Duration: 30%
Condition Duration: 20%
Power: 2.1
Critical Chance: 35%
Cooldown Reduction for Staff, Scepter/Torch: 20%

So now you are telling me that will all of that variety (power-shatter-support; 30 on Inspiration + utilities, condition-shatter-support, bunker-condition-support) – which does my heading thinking about it – a mesmer is not viable because for you a mesmer to be viable it needs to be a league on its own; i.e being able to bring

illusion of life + Portal
Superb Aoe-damage
Super power-damage
Superb Aoe-condition damage
Superb Condition-damage
Superb Condition-removal
Superb support (fitting both illusion of life+portal)

ALL in one build. If that ever happens we might as well rename mesmer to Super Saiyan Mesma. Anyway, I am done arguing regarding the viability of a Mesmer. I rest my case.

PS: Everyone is adapting. It is not our issue what weapon sets, what utilities, what sigils, what builds a Mesmer chooses for his/her team.At the end of the day you might as well rely on X player rerolling and keep on pitying your class.

Completly agreeinig with Xeph, this game is just no fun at pvp, especially since the last patch. Hopefully the balance team makes “luckier” decisions with the next patches.

@authority

you made an staff build without deceptive evasion.

do you play a staff condition mesmer at all?

your build can easily be beaten by a condition necro

I agree with Xeph.
The biggest problem lies with conditions, as I think we can all agree.
Direct Damage is generally easier to counter using strategic play.
A couple of examples:
If you’re getting spiked as an elementalist you can swap to earth attunement to negate som of the damage, if you have traited to get Protection when swapping to earth.
This goes for a lot of other classes as well, for instance Guardians with either Hold The Line or Virtue Of Courage.
Blind and Block are also ways to fully negate high burst dmg abilities like Fire Grab or Churning Earth, Mighty Blow and Pry Bar.

The most important thing of notice is that these skills usually have a long casting time or cooldown. Which means that if you successfully negate the damage, you get the advantage for a small period of time.
Another thing of notice is the fact that if you get hit by any of these skills, you won’t necessarily have a disadvantage.
What I mean by that is that surely you will have lost a rather large amount of damage, but more often than not you’re not weakened by a secondary mechanic like reduced healing effictiveness.
This means that ANY class will be able to use their Primary Healing skill and be back in the fight.

With conditions this is not the case. Pretty much since release the most favorable playstyle with conditions has been to “spam” them.
This is due to the availability of the conditions in contrary to their cooldown and duration. Waiting for your opponents primary healing skill before applying poison is worse than spamming poison whenever you can.
This is because it’s very easy to keep a permanent poison on someone that has not specced for maximum cleansing, waiting would result in the opponent taking much less dmg from the DoT. And the 33% reduced healing is not enough to justify that loss in dmg.

Imo the roles of DoT and Secondary Mechanics should have been switched from the start, so that condition builds were more about supporting your team by weakening the opponents, rather than being a burst dps role.
If poison reduced healing by 50% with no DoT and was a limitied condition with a short duration (3-5 seconds), it would HAVE to be played strategically or else it would be useless. Skills granting poison should then have a casting time long enough for people to interrupt it.
This would result in counter-play where people would fake their primary healing (Start animation -> Sheath Weapon) to force the poison just to interrupt it.

Edit:
This got longer than expected, I don’t expect people to read it.
TLDR; Conditions require no strategical use and has no counterplay, for the game to be competitive this has to change.

KrisHQ.4719:

TLDR; Conditions require no strategical use and has no counterplay, for the game to be competitive this has to change.

imagine the upheaval from pve players if their condi builds did no damage

milo.6942:

KrisHQ.4719:

TLDR; Conditions require no strategical use and has no counterplay, for the game to be competitive this has to change.

imagine the upheaval from pve players if their condi builds did no damage

it’s impossible that condi do no damage.
Conditions’ problem is not the damage being too high, but the damage being technically unavoidable in PvP, even by competitive players, whereas power-based bursts can be mostly defended against

Ferik.3127:

milo.6942:

KrisHQ.4719:

TLDR; Conditions require no strategical use and has no counterplay, for the game to be competitive this has to change.

imagine the upheaval from pve players if their condi builds did no damage

it’s impossible that condi do no damage.
Conditions’ problem is not the damage being too high, but the damage being technically unavoidable in PvP, even by competitive players, whereas power-based bursts can be mostly defended against

I’m aware that it would be impossible due to the game having PvE-Content.
But in sPvP it would be ideal.

The thing about sPvP contra PvE/WvW is the huge imbalance in “freedom of movement”. the sPvP arenas are way too small to effectively scale the two types of combat. What is OP in sPvP may barely be viable in PvE/WvW, and vice versa.

If a split is not to be implemented anytime soon, a % increase on PvP maps and increase in max team size could offset this issue. It would also make PvP slightly more interesting, as you could mix up teams a bit more.

Dual.8953:

shimmerless.4560:

Dual.8953:

shimmerless.4560:

Dual.8953:

shimmerless.4560:

Kavia.8249:

Oh, and another idea for a stealth reveal mechanic would be to make light fields reveal opponents. Has counterplay because enemy could always run around the field, but if you had good game sense and placed the light field effectively you could reveal whole teams. Light fields are available to a good spread of classes, about half of them, and the guardian has plentiful light fields which addresses the guardian stealth gank in particular.

Could also make it so it doesn’t reveal opponents completely but maybe just they become visible while in the light field (returning to stealth when they leave it).

this is a really cool idea however i wonder if this wouldn’t make guards ubiquitous again for high-level play.

on a somewhat-related subject i have never understood why you can stack SR with blast finishers and BP and whatever else you have in your pockets but you cannot stack veil or mass invis. doesn’t make much sense to me.

I know the Veil reason is Viel has no AoE limit.

i am not sure what this means i figure you’re referring to the cap on the number of players who can benefit from a combo field?

Yeah. Veil can stealth an infinite number of players, while smoke blast caps at 5. It’s the same reason Temporal Curtain doesn’t stack swiftness.

on the other hand though surely this only has ramifications for WvW and not sPvP where teams are capped to 5 anyway. (i do not include 8v8 hotjoins in this case)

Yeah. I gather Spvp isn’t where 100% of the balance is decided. WvW is probably how Mesmer got 90% of it’s nerfs. Mesmer’s may complain, but it’s undeniable the impact one mesmer can have on a large group fight.

indeed PvP isnt the only factor, but while mesmers proved extremely powerful in open world content, other classes such as rangers are the polar opposite. While rangers are what i would consider a “good choice” in sPvP, they are almost hopeless in open world content. The learning curve to perform on par with the other classes in such settings are quite steep, however while the nerfs to rangers are justified in PvP, they wreck havoc in open world content.

Which is why many of us WvW players find it very frustrating that the game revolves around the want-to-be esport PvP section. Let’s just face it, GW2 has massive potential, but Arena Net is going forward at an alarming pace, trying to push for sPvP to be a proper eSport. I don’t think their ambitions are wrong, it just happens to overshadow the other aspects.

Their ambitions are wrong, watch a tournament. The game is too fast and there is too much movement and skills used per second to know what the hell is going on, even the casters miss 70% of the action.
But that’s not the worst, the worst is that it’s not even played by a lot of people, which is required to be an esport. They don’t even have the base to push anything.

I don’t understand why they are throwing the investors money at tournaments and stuff like that. There is no way that tournament is going to make anyone buy the game or atleast start watching tournaments.

In balance and in new content, WvW and PvE should be the focus, since it’s what is to some extent a success. Spvp should live with the scraps and the remains.

Aside from one or two classes the amount of skills used is pretty low imo. It isn’t like we all have 4-5 hotbars fully keyed with no cd on most skills (outside of gcds) like some MMOs. People doing the commentary will get better as the game/sport progresses.

Also super sad to see WvW viability hurt by spvp changes, I know plenty of teams who focus on spvp probably don’t think so but the top tier play of WvW is crazy competitive.

zhi.3918:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Also, a lot of our changes happen VERY far ahead of what you guys see on live. What do I mean?

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.
• We then have to make sure we work with artists for any visual changes
• We also have to work with sound to make sure we have sound for any changes
• We have to work with icon artists for icons if they’re needed (in the case of Death Shroud 5)
• We have to make sure the changes get through multiple stages of QA testing
• Then with the changes in, we get time to play them before we do final changes
• While doing all this, we have to take the current meta, be it in dungeons/wvw/pvp, and from that, try to extrapolate what we think needs to be done a few months in advance.

This process can take a LONG time, as you can imagine. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, let’s change this to a 2, and change that to a 7.”

I know the video game industry in general is not very transparent when it comes to how things actually work, but I wanted you guys to know that a lot of times, there is a LOT of process for even the SMALLEST balance/content changes.

That it takes you months to implement changes would certainly make it difficult for you to observe the emergent behavior of your changes this month and account for them. What’s confusing is why this is your process, why not improve it?

Why does it take you a week(s) to do an editing pass? Do you not have someone capable of editing on the PvP team?

Does the company not trust you to write a tool tip? With the quality of the tool tips so far it’s not like you could do much worse…

If you had a test server set up, as many people have suggested, or a alternate Mist in game that people could try out your work in progress you don’t need polished art or sound. This would save you a significant amount of time in the development flow, and greatly improve your feedback loop (and even extend it to the development of the art). You would get players to assist with your QA, in fact they already do. The lists of bugs and glitches the community has provided you is huge. Other games already utilize such a process, why isn’t ArenaNet?

Same with ability icons, why are you requiring fully finished art for unstable releases? In a variety of other more popular games the player base is entirely understanding of works in progress and is happy to see changes and improvements in vfx, sfx and icon art weeks or months after implementation of new, reworked or tweaked content.

When you say things like ‘this is how games are made’ when many other companies that have more success also have a superior development processes, what you are really saying is ‘this is how we are making this game, even if it is quite inefficient and leads consistently to significant problems in our ability to do our job as well as we would like.’

You’re in control of your own development, you could change it so it doesn’t have such a negative impact on your ability to perform.

Have you ever worked in a big company before? I think not. In a big company, everyone has a designated role and you can’t just simply "hey you know what this is braindead easy I think I know how to change a tooltip on my own so i’m just gonna go ahead and do them’. What happen when the tooltip actually turned out wrong? who is responsible? The guy letting some one from other department handling their work, or the guy who thought he could go around doing other people’s work for them?

Game development doesn’t work that way. Your day to day job doesn’t work that way, and life certainly doesn’t work that way. If everything is as easy as saying ‘hey you know what this process is complicated let’s do this, this and this instead to speed things up’ ,the world would be perfect, and there’ll be no starving children in africa.

It’s childish to assume that a better system can be implanted on a whim simply because such system “appear” to be better at the first glance. The person in charge of the company has to take into account the different roles and dynamic of each company before deciding any major changes. Just because the player base is okay with what you suggested, doesn’t mean it’s not gonna create utter chaos within the company.

There seriously needs to be a class or a skill that is capable of revealing stealthed enemies. Maybe add a torchlight to some of the points in pvp (keep in FoN, Graveyard in LoF) that allow a player to grab it and cast a spell that reveals all stealth enemies and disabling stealth for a few seconds within the circle. It will have a charging effect and other player can interrupt to buy time.

This way every class will have access to this and no one will bish about stealth any longer.

Dralor.3701:

Aside from one or two classes the amount of skills used is pretty low imo. It isn’t like we all have 4-5 hotbars fully keyed with no cd on most skills (outside of gcds) like some MMOs. People doing the commentary will get better as the game/sport progresses.

Also super sad to see WvW viability hurt by spvp changes, I know plenty of teams who focus on spvp probably don’t think so but the top tier play of WvW is crazy competitive.

not only is top tier WvW extremely competitive. But what seems like small changes to sPvP can infact topple entire battlefield tactics, rendering entire guilds unable to perform as they used to.
This is one of many reasons that rangers, outside sPvP and PvE, is hated. Because the changes they experience are often game changing. For those that play rangers, like myself, it is only a matter of adapting. One month, we can be in a really good spot, balance wise, the next, everything can be upside down. It may sound dramatic, but in the 7 months iv’e played, iv’e experienced 3 builds emerge and disappear, mainly because of changes done to fix issues within sPvP.

showatt.9413:

There seriously needs to be a class or a skill that is capable of revealing stealthed enemies. Maybe add a torchlight to some of the points in pvp (keep in FoN, Graveyard in LoF) that allow a player to grab it and cast a spell that reveals all stealth enemies and disabling stealth for a few seconds within the circle. It will have a charging effect and other player can interrupt to buy time.

This way every class will have access to this and no one will bish about stealth any longer.

not skill, i would suggest a potion (spanner buff), that would reveal stealthed enemies every 10 seconds in a 900 radius.

Artisan level 400 or chef level 400. Avaliable to all, even thieves.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Also, keep in mind we’re trying to get 8 classes to fit into 5 slots

What exactly are this 5 slots, you’re referring to? Groupsize or something like Burst/Sustain/Condition/Support/Tank?

what ANet could do, is what the creators of EVE online does. Host the patch on certain servers AHEAD of normal release schedule. These servers are open to players, players find bugs, glitches, and what is OP and not, before it hits all the servers.

It saves the company money by utilizing players to speed up their bug fixing process, pre patch. Such a solution would most likely cut down on the number of hot-fixes following patches. Thus allowing the designers and content creators to set up a “buffer” in terms of “unforeseen issues related to released content”

The root of the necro problem is the Signet of Undeath nerf. Since its casting time is 3 sec now, up from 2, nobody brings it, making a free slot for another skill: people take more fear through Spectral Wall.

Before this nerf, necros didn’t faceroll fear on cd, staff skill #5 was something I for example didn’t use in a teamfight until someone gets downed from my team or the enemy, so I can either make a granted rally with the Signet or better chances for a stomp. – Nerfing this skill and adding more fear resulted in the complete vanish of tactical playfrom another class.

But now, having no signet results in basically 2 more fears in 40 secs. Also, the DS fear duration is doubled.

Signet of Undeath nerf is a core element in this problem. I’d say they should restore it to the pre-patch state and let’s see what happens.

Maybe increase the CD by 20 secs but not the cast time.

#BelieveinMesmer

Prysin.8542:

what ANet could do, is what the creators of EVE online does. Host the patch on certain servers AHEAD of normal release schedule. These servers are open to players, players find bugs, glitches, and what is OP and not, before it hits all the servers.

It’s not only eve, most online games these days has a public test server. It really baffles me that after 8 years of running online RPGs ANet hasn’t clued in yet.

Authority.6145:

#BelieveinMesmer

You are ridiculous, the thing that condi mesmer would not work right now is it applys no condi pressure at all, the scepter can only apply torment once you block an #1 normal attack, theres no way you can spec a decent condi mesmer compare to engi, necro or ranger, the only thing thats good for a mesmer now is portal. So why will I use mesmer, just to lose? And power shatter mesmer is still ok but the thing is you need a thief in your comp and mesmer is very vulnerable to thief.

I think we all saw today in the tournament just how kittened OP S/D thief is.

Pretty OP if you saw how often one of those gibbed the necro. Can’t exactly call s/d weak because it took 2-3 people cleaving a point to get you dead.

Who besides the s/d thief and necro doesn’t run bunker level toughness anyways?

Evade spamming as a whole needs to be reevaluated. It makes fighting both Spirit Rangers and S/D thief stupid b/c the only counters to them are more precise evade spamming.

Necros were pretty strong too, but at least they were getting downed with focus fire. Anybody who can run Zerker ammy and be more capable of handling focus fire than someone in Clerics/Soldiers ought to be on the nerf chopping block.

Teutos.8620:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Also, keep in mind we’re trying to get 8 classes to fit into 5 slots

What exactly are this 5 slots, you’re referring to? Groupsize or something like Burst/Sustain/Condition/Support/Tank?

Pretty sure he means the 5 in 5v5. Though since the team also needs to consider balance, your second point follows as well.

Change spectral wall to spectral circle / bubble, same radius as greater marks, fears anything inside towards outside, and anything trying to get inside outside. Same mechanic / cd / duration etc. Also make it reflect projectiles since is a freaking spectral thing.

showatt.9413:

This way every class will have access to this and no one will bish about stealth any longer.

Earlier in the thread, someone suggested making Light fields reveal Stealthed players inside them.

It seems kinda sensible that that would work, and also that being affected with Burning would reveal you. I mean, if they can’t see the fire, they’d probably see the smoke.

Anelyn.4593:

Change spectral wall to spectral circle / bubble, same radius as greater marks, fears anything inside towards outside, and anything trying to get inside outside. Same mechanic / cd / duration etc. Also make it reflect projectiles since is a freaking spectral thing.

Yep and increase the fear duration of it and clean conditions while staying inside of it. Or mabye invulnerable during its duration. How about that?

Didn’t read trough everything but in my oppinion (emphasis on oppinion!):

1. GW2 classes are already too similar
2. Trait system is not that good. We should have more skills to change – for example swapable skills on weapon sets.

I miss diversity like in moba games, where every match is different (gw1 was way better at this). Gw1 had way more skills which imo brought more diversity, but Gw2 went for less skills and traits system. But with so many useless traits and so many passive traits it does not bring the desired level of diversity.

But hey, I’m no PRO and this is just my oppinion.

P.S.

With that said. I’m probably going back to Dota 2. Sadly, I had high hopes for gw2.

Which is more OP though?

S/D + S/D Thief or S/D + Shortbow Thief?

matjazmuhic.1649:

We should have more skills to change – for example swapable skills on weapon sets.

Why not simply add more weapon sets (or full but fixed secondary skillsets)? You’re not factoring in that they are balanced against each other. You can put a weak snare on a weapon if you put a high spike skill on it or vice versa, but obviously not both. Meaning an as-of-now strong weapon skill would never make the transition 1:1 if they changed it, and overall they would rather get weaker and more pigeonholed than the other way around. Worse, unlike in GW1 or most other MMO, you wouldn’t even have to factor in your mana expenses. You can go 100% burst glass cannon or 100% bunker with nothing holding you back. How about a 24/7 fearbot or cripplebot just annoying other players?

Gw1 had way more skills which imo brought more diversity, but Gw2 went for less skills and traits system.

Lay down the rose tinted glasses. Release GW and release GW2 actually have about the same number of skills. And a lot of skills from GW1 are now being served by traits or chain skills, meaning you have even more to put in your slots.

matjazmuhic.1649:

Didn’t read trough everything but in my oppinion (emphasis on oppinion!):

1. GW2 classes are already too similar
2. Trait system is not that good. We should have more skills to change – for example swapable skills on weapon sets.

I miss diversity like in moba games, where every match is different (gw1 was way better at this). Gw1 had way more skills which imo brought more diversity, but Gw2 went for less skills and traits system. But with so many useless traits and so many passive traits it does not bring the desired level of diversity.

But hey, I’m no PRO and this is just my oppinion.

P.S.

With that said. I’m probably going back to Dota 2. Sadly, I had high hopes for gw2.

There is no diversity in MOBAs, its always the same top tier characters using the same builds/items in pretty much every game. (mid/high elo) Same goes for other games, look at WoW arena and the number of mirror comps that show up in most of the tournaments.

Some builds and classes are always going to be better but things will fluctuate. This holds true for all PvP.

“… I have been having a very big problem getting a grasp on what Arena Net was thinking…”

followed by

“… I however do understand the thought process behind what Arena Net is trying to do…”

Ok so, that appears in the FIRST PARAGRAPH.

Staggering how one can be so controversial and appear s t u pid

I hope they do something about mesmer illusions and mesmer condi removal cost. Mesmer survival needs a bit of help, especially against s/d thieves it’s just dumb.

Right now the only thing you can play is shatter because in team fights it is impossible for illusions to last longer than a few seconds.

Mesmer condi builds are also largely lacking because the staff applies vulnerability, which is useless on a condi build, and then they don’t have any other secondary weapon that can sustain conditions because somehow they removed confusion from the scepter autoattack in beta. The scepter does a long cd channel confusion stack spike and that’s as far as it goes.

The torch phantasm is still terrible. It should be like 7 stacks of confusion for 7 seconds and bounce among targets.

Condi mesmer just has a lot of ramp up.

Cry of Confusion is not rather good as a shatter. It was supposed to be revamped in the BWE, shortly after release we got Peters asking for suggestions for it, but nothing ever happened.

…and as i said way before…why should someone run a condition mesmer if you can just bring a necro and spam aoe condis 24/7 with more survivability and effectiveness? Other classes can do far better than mesmer outside dps shatter…and dps shatter is useless atm…so…hotzerg, die or reroll…no other options aviable…

Archaon.6245:

…and as i said way before…why should someone run a condition mesmer if you can just bring a necro and spam aoe condis 24/7 with more survivability and effectiveness? Other classes can do far better than mesmer outside dps shatter…and dps shatter is useless atm…so…hotzerg, die or reroll…no other options aviable…

Because the condi mesmer has better survival outside conquest formats.

In case you haven’t come across PU mesmers in WvW winning 1v4’s. It’s an extremely potent attrition build. It just takes time that you don’t have in spvp, and the mobility/stealth of the build is not helpful when you need to stand in a point or kill people quickly to reclaim that point.

The problem is how the conquest format emphasizes the strengths of some classes and builds while leaving others out in the cold.

A format in which holding points is key, and to do so you need to stand on them, and aoe skills have the very same ratio or bigger of that point you need to stand on, that’s a problem. Because you’re forcing people to eat skills that in places like WvW they wouldn’t eat as there’s nothing compelling them to clump up in tight quarters.

Guardians also complain about condis in spvp because unlike wvw you have no 2-3 staff eles laying down healing rains while you run 6-7 guardians with shout condi removal and lemongrass food/melandru rune reducing condition uptime to sub 30%.

The format really dictates what is valuable. It’s not the build itself inherently that’s broken.

I also think that their design for the condition mesmer also had him spreading boons with the staff. So it’s more of a supportive shutdown conditions build but it just doesn’t do it effectively because the only conditions it has access to are damaging conditions.

The necro is supposed to be the master of conditions, the class whose offense comes mostly from conditions at the expense of lack of boons and mobility and burst (which was made pointless by terror fear chains).

But the condi mesmer was never defined. All that was said about mesmers is that they rely on their illusions, but the clones themselves are pretty lackluster outside shatter builds and phantasms are mostly single target and thus useless in teamfights. And clones have no survivability in team fights.

You pretty much have to trait your clones for on death traits to get some use out of them in team fights.

Zenith.7301:

Archaon.6245:

…and as i said way before…why should someone run a condition mesmer if you can just bring a necro and spam aoe condis 24/7 with more survivability and effectiveness? Other classes can do far better than mesmer outside dps shatter…and dps shatter is useless atm…so…hotzerg, die or reroll…no other options aviable…

Because the condi mesmer has better survival outside conquest formats.

In case you haven’t come across PU mesmers in WvW winning 1v4’s. It’s an extremely potent attrition build. It just takes time that you don’t have in spvp, and the mobility/stealth of the build is not helpful when you need to stand in a point or kill people quickly to reclaim that point.

The problem is how the conquest format emphasizes the strengths of some classes and builds while leaving others out in the cold.

A format in which holding points is key, and to do so you need to stand on them, and aoe skills have the very same ratio or bigger of that point you need to stand on, that’s a problem. Because you’re forcing people to eat skills that in places like WvW they wouldn’t eat as there’s nothing compelling them to clump up in tight quarters.

Guardians also complain about condis in spvp because unlike wvw you have no 2-3 staff eles laying down healing rains while you run 6-7 guardians with shout condi removal and lemongrass food/melandru rune reducing condition uptime to sub 30%.

The format really dictates what is valuable. It’s not the build itself inherently that’s broken.

I also think that their design for the condition mesmer also had him spreading boons with the staff. So it’s more of a supportive shutdown conditions build but it just doesn’t do it effectively because the only conditions it has access to are damaging conditions.

The necro is supposed to be the master of conditions, the class whose offense comes mostly from conditions at the expense of lack of boons and mobility and burst (which was made pointless by terror fear chains).

But the condi mesmer was never defined. All that was said about mesmers is that they rely on their illusions, but the clones themselves are pretty lackluster outside shatter builds and phantasms are mostly single target and thus useless in teamfights. And clones have no survivability in team fights.

You pretty much have to trait your clones for on death traits to get some use out of them in team fights.

So first you say condition mesmer is viable, then talking about WvW (wtf?!) and in the last part you argument condition mesmer is not viable due to conquest. Rather confusing dude.

no more posts from TP members after they won the tourney ……….XD XD

theres just nothing to say anymore – ppl write same crap over and over^^

sup !
I didn’t read all 12 pages of this thread xd
But, what if you drop 30 in illusions to 30 in inspiration.
no need to change Accessories & Jewels
Because in my opinion, IoL and portal are very important for the team
Play staff if you want for more survivability, but you can deal same amount of damage, removing boons / condition and so on
Moa Morph the Necro during his elite is too cool ;0

Windu