Guild Wars 2

yea boi!
/15 for life

(Engineer Wish List)
Change skill 2 to Acid Bomb:
It can be countered by Immobilize/Cripple/Chill, not a disable or interrupt, rewards smart use of auto attack since its the only way to rotate

Throw Junk: Change chance for chill to immobilize, weakness to vuln

Immobilize is supported by other traits, vuln benefits power/crit engi

Personal Battering Ram: Make it transfer 2 conditions
the entire gadget type has no way to deal with non-movement conditions

Overcharged Shot: Change the self-knockback to a backwards leap like Acid Bomb

This will still move you backwards but not put you in a vunlerable position

Throw Mine: Change Remove Boon to Steal Boon if you are in the blast radius

Gadgets don’t get access to the defensive capabilities of the other skill type, this gives a gadget build access to protection, vigor, regen and stability through the enemy

Kit Refinement: Remove the global cooldown and give them different individual cooldowns, Global Cooldown makes this suck

Accelerant Packed Turrets: Move it to adept tier because there are not many adept traits that affect turrets in this trait tree

Performance Enhancement: Change it to 35 healing power for each stack of might, the conversion thing sucks skritt, and this can be countered by boon removal/steal

Rifled Barrel Turrets: Move it to master tier, this would not be worth 30pts even if turrets are made stronger.

Rocket (Rocket Turret Toolbelt): Daze for .1s

Empowering Adrenaline: Make it give 2s of quickness on the use of a gadget

Napalm Specialist: Increase bonus to 45%

Static Discharge: Make it shoot to your selected target, regardless of the toolbelt’s target. This often misses with skills that don’t target the enemy

Adrenal Implant: No negative effect when you gain quickness

Utility Goggles: Make it apply 3s of revealed to enemies in a 600 AoE

Mortar: Change to a kit, remove minimum range.
Stationary+Min Range makes it a bad skill

Armor Mods: Change it to 2s of protection on toolbelt use,
there are not enough traits that deal with the class mechanic

Flame Turret: Make it’s health/armor equal to current value of canine pets

Thumper Turret: Make it’s health/armor equal to current value of drake pets

Rifle/Rocket: Make it’s health/armor equal to current value of cat pets

Turrets do not last long enough to justify their cooldowns, their cooldowns are different so survivability should vary also

Automated Response: Change it from immunity to :copy any conditions you receive while under 25%hp to their sender

I think there should be things that deter condi spam but immunity is a little much. This will still deter condi burst but not render it useless.

Incendiary Powder: Change to burn on next attack after using a toolbelt skill

(Thief Wish List)

Pistol Whip: Increase stun to .8s

Back Fighting: Change to gain 3s retal when struck from behind, cooldown 10s

it still benefits from power damage and its better than the old one

Body Shot: Increase vuln duration to 5s

Haste: No negative effect if used while below 50% hp

Spider Venom: Also transfer a condition on next 5 attacks

Venoms cannot deal with conditions on the user and this would be away to do that, buffing Venom sharing and support thieves

Unload: [also] give reflection for 1s

Scorpion Wire: Make it pierce, switch pull to knockback (only pvp obcourse)

This gives thieves a way to get people off of point besides damage, making them better at defending points on their own

Ice Drake Venom: Make it [also] give 4s stability, affect allies if you have Venomous Aura

If there are other sources for groups stability, someday there may be teams without guardians.

Hard to Catch: Increase dodge distance to 500

Ricochet: Make pistol skills bounce every 5th attack

Larcenous Strike: Change to removing up to two boons if attacking from front or steal if from side/behind

Lowering just the # only encourages more spamming to make up for the nerf, this would reward skilled use and timing just like venerable Colonel Radec

Infiltrator’s Strike: remove the immobilizing attack and add to infiltrator’s return

This would still be able to close gaps but the immobilize would be applied defensively because its part of the return skill, rather than the way it is now as a set up for other attacks.

Elementalist Make-A-Wish Wishes

Fire Shield: Change it so it still gives 1 stack of might on hit, but removes a boon from the attacker

This will be enough to deter constant attacks without needing to be like the other auras

Gale: Reduce the cooldown to 40s, because its way too long

Lightning Flash: Make it a Leap Finisher, this will give more access to auras w/ staff or focus

Arcane Blast: Make it Pierce and transfer a condition because Arcane Skills can’t do anything about them

Cleansing Fire: Reduce the cooldown to 35s

Mist Form: Make conditions not tick down in this form

Conjure Earth Shield: Make it break stun for creator and whoever picks the 2nd shield, because there is no way for conjures to do this currently

Fortify: Remove the rooting effect

Serrated Stones: Bleed a foe when they critically hit you, this benefits from both stats provided in this tree

Diamond Skin: 40 toughness for each stack of might, there should be other ways to be defensive outside of water/arcana

Flame Barrier: 40% chance for all attacks in all attunements, it has a very small opportunity to actually trigger now

One with Fire: Transfer a condition when flame barrier triggers, there are no traits for condition removal outside of water/arcana which pigeonholes elementalists

Signet of Fire: Change the active to 2s of quickness

Persisting Flames: Make your Fire Fields give .5s of stability every second
This buffs Lava Tomb and Focus which has the longest fire field duration on the class among other skills.

Glyph of Elemental Power: Make the next five attacks apply a condition for their attunement instead of rng, change cripple to bleed, No one likes RNG

Glyph of Lesser Elementals: Make them pull a condition from you when summoned and every 25s, Glyphs cannot deal with conditions

Glyph of Storms: Make it give projectile reflection for 1s

Deep Freeze: Remove the self rooting effect

TLDR: Fire traits, Earth traits, Conjures, Glyphs and Focus are too weak, these would be the least possible amount of changes needed to make them good.

Holla!

/15char

To start, just check the sig.

Olà daydreamer! Love the way you think. Also, I’d like elementalists (and other beings too) to get a venomous aura when leaping into a poison/acid field (provided by necros, engies and thiefs), shocking aura when leaping into a static field, (and maybe invisibility when leaping in a blind field).
That would give auramancers more access to auras since it’s the foundation of their build. Also I’d like thieves to be given the possibility to be a better group support.

(+)Warrior(_)—-

Berserker’s Stance: Change from immunity to: For 8s any condition you receive is copied to it’s sender

Arcing Slice: change apply quickening zephyr (debuff) to target for 2/3/4s

Brutal Shot: Change vuln to 1s stun

On My Mark!: Also make it remove a boon

Shouts can have a way to deal with stability and this skill shouldn’t suck

Stomp: Make it ground targetable like Seismic Leap

Sprint: Make it cripple target for 3s

Rush: Add 2s cripple

Kick: Make it transfer a condition

Physical Utilities lack any way to deal with conditions on the user

Distracting Strikes: Change confusion to 3s Haste (debuff)
A way to deal w/ chronic dodgers

Powerful Banners: Change dmg to removing cast time on summon

Plant Standard: Reduce cast time to 1/2s

Adrenaline: Spent even if attack misses or is blocked

Inspiring Battle Standard: Change to 2s of stability when banner is summoned and when planted

Rending Strikes: Raise chance to 50%

Armored Attack: Change it to 7% bonus dmg vs foes w/ protection

Rampage: change its’ skills to physical skill type.

No daggers. Thief only. Temple of the Silent Storm

Super Riceman.8702:

)Warrior(

Berserker’s Stance: Change from immunity to: For 8s any condition you receive is copied to it’s sender Wouldn’t mind this, but it doesn’t fit the stance feel. Right now it’s fine since you’re just shrugging off the conditions as you (should be) charging your foe in a rage.

Arcing Slice: change apply quickening zephyr (debuff) to target for 3/5/7s Should be a condition not a specific unduplicatable debuff. Would be nice to just see a damage up as the fury can actually be nice sometimes.

Hundred Blades: Change from a channeled skill to a attack chain Yep, while we’re at it lets make sure that Hammer 4 ability is usable while mobile. Warriors should be able to use all melee on the go. It’s just what we do!

Brutal Shot: Change vuln to 1s stun Would prefer to just to just put a better rifle 5 effect. As for Brutal Shot just shorten the cooldown. Otherwise it works pretty well in truth.

Frenzy: No negative effect if used under 35%hp Would prefer the effect (current) traded for the one for ranger. Makes sense since the warrior has to be where everyone can hit while the ranger can play keep away.

On My Mark!: Also make it remove a boon Bah, just give back I Will Avenge You! There’s even audio ready for it! (For those who don’t know 85 sec cooldown for: 10 sec of might, regen, swiftness).

Stomp: Make it ground targetable like Seismic Leap YES!

Sprint: Make it cripple target for 4s Good quality of life change. In actually would probably end up as 2 sec.

Kick: Make it transfer a condition Sure if we remove the knockback. OR we could just change knockback to knockdown. Would make it nice for physical builds however.

Throw Bolas: Allow it to pierce Wouldn’t really solve the problem as well would be freaky to see bolas do that. Just up the speed it flies at. Firing it into a group would result in waaaaaaay too OP.

Distracting Strikes: Change confusion to Haste (debuff)
A way to deal w/ chronic dodgers No, keep it to confusion (see reasoning for arcing slice). I’d like to see confusion effect dodge rolls to make it hurt since a dodge roll is an action that is activated i.e. what confusion should effect.

Unsuspecting Foe: Make the bonus last 1s, cooldown 3s

There should not be a reward for spam, there is still a reward for keeping a foe disabled since they can’t contribute to a fight but the warrior does not win by pushing buttons fast.
Unfortunately spamming buttons quickly is something all classes do (engie toolbelt burst, ele utility burst, necro mark spam, ranger surprise shots, and just about everything thief does) In truth nothing needs to be done about this. It is ok with 50% on an adept trait that can only effect 3 warrior abilities. Might I remind those reading this that it used to be stun/knockdown/knockback/dazed foes not just stunned. Also 50% is the same percent as flipping a penny and getting heads. True this means it happens a lot but with the time frame it will appear as frequently as winning a reasonably high amount in a gamble. It has about (from my testing) the same dps increase as weakness takes away (which was about 12.5% before buff and about 20% now, so just throw weakness on the warrior!).
Rending Strikes: Raise chance to 45% Hell raise it to 50% so someone might want to use it!

Armored Attack: Change it to 10% bonus dmg vs foes w/ protection Should leave as is and just allow Destruction of the Empowered to break boons.

Vigorous Return: Change it to restore % endurance when you heal you can already get this effect with adventurer runes. Cool, no? Right now, this trait’s pretty nice for the playstyle it merits at this time.

Spiked Armor: When disabled, apply 4s of Frenzy(debuff) to enemies 120 AoE around you. I would prefer it to be apply 3 sec of retalitation once every 5 sec (2 sec gap that can be boon duration boosted to. Take away on crit requirement and make it 33-50% when hit.

Included are what I think.
I like writing in asides, go find ’em!

[Ranger]

Heal as One: Also make it cure any conditions that both you and your pet share

This would be an indirect nerf to aoe condis, making single target stronger and forcing enemies to aim better

Stone Spirit: Change passive from %chance rng to after every 3rd disable received

Frost Spirit: Change passive from %chance to attacking a foe with swiftness

Storm Spirit: remove passive and move its’ effect to the active

Sun Spirit: Change the active animation to a signet-like effect so it is less confusing, Remove passive and add the burning to the active

These passives function on % chance which means they encourage spamming since the more attacks you make, the more opportunities to proc there are.

Nature’s Renewal: Change it to function more like Toss Elixir R

Rather than a instant up, it would heal % over time

Spirit Actives: Require ground targeting w/ Spirits Unbound and when summoning

More control for the ranger, adds need to aim spirit actives

Stability Training: Change it to 2s of stability for self/pet when you swap to those pets

More incentive to use those pets, better ability to hold points

Intimidation Training: Change it to 2s fear nearby AI-controlled foes when you swap to those pets

Shared Anguish: Change it to trigger every 3rd time you are disabled

90s is too long, punishes enemies who spam

Trap Potency: Make it still reduce the recharge, but change longer conditions to transferring 1 condition

Gives trap ranger other method to remove condi

Quickening Zephyr: No negative effect if used while pet is dead

Remorseless: Change it to: If your attack is dodged the next attack crits

A way to deal with builds that dodge a lot

Vigorous Spirits: Remove 2nd part

Unnecessary if changed from a % chance

Enlargement: Also trigger when they are at 25% hp

Sharpening Stone: Make unblockable

[Mesmer]

Feedback: Set on your position if there is not a target selected

This would make mesmer stronger at defending points or themselves through the projectile reflection and blind if traited

Arcane Thievery: Reduce the cooldown to 32s

Mimic: Blocks the next atk and change echo to the blocked attack

Decoy: Activatable a 2nd to kill illusion and swap to it’s position

This would be a way to not use portal and still be useful

Signet of Inspiration: Change passive to give 3s of swiftness every 10s out of combat and 2s of protection every 10s while in combat

Mirror of Anguish: While they are alive, Phantasmal Defender and Disenchanter receive incoming disables for you.

Everything that is not portal, illusion of life or blink id not good enough to justify not taking portal, illusion of life or blink.

Veil: Make it apply revealed debuff for 1s to enemies

Phantasmal Warlock: Change scaling to scale of off how many condis the creator has

Mantras: Changed number of activations to depend on how long you are able to cast before interrupt/finishing

Portal Entre: Make it a diff color than Portal Exeunt

Winds of Chaos: Change chance for vuln to chance for another bounce

Cleansing Inscriptions: Move to Adept Tier

Signet of Midnight: Change it to send 2 conditions to the last created clone/phantasm

All the signets have long cooldowns so even cleansing inscriptions would not be sufficient

Signet of Domination: Increase cast time to 1/2s, change active to swap positions with target enemy or downed ally

Its similar to Vengeful Spirit’s Swap in that it is used to set up kills or save allies. It allows you to be somewhat mobile without the standard utilities and be more supportive

Signet of Illusions: Add stun break to the active

Phantasmal Mage: Change confusion to bleed

Preach it!
/15baby

[Guardian]

Zealot’s Speed: Change it to give 25% speed boost if you have not taken dmg in the last 3 sec, swap its position with symbolic exposure

Revenge of the Fallen: Make it deal damage to the killer of a spirit weapon

This gives spirit weapons a way to survive (or de-incentivise their death) without needing to buff their health

Kindled Zeal: Change its conversion to reduced incoming condition duration by 1% per 2% of outgoing condition duration

There should be reasons to go 30 zeal other than just for a laugh, this is a passive defense against conditions that is not immunity which is strongest for condi duration users

Signet of Wrath: Change the active effect to recharge Virtue of Justice

Shimmering Defense: Change its effect from burning to shield of wrath

Strength of the Fallen: Make it give 2s of stability when a spirit weapon is killed

Spirit weapon users need a way to stay on capture points without getting cc-ed off

Eternal Spirit: Swap it’s position with Spirit Weapon Mastery

This would allow spirit weapons to survive longer, justifying their stupid cooldowns

Healing Breeze: Make it’s skill type consecration

This would gilette shave its cooldown, and increase the healing

Binding Jeopardy: Make it trigger on blind, apply 2s cripple instead of vuln

Allows greatsword and sword to stick to targets better, more cross trait/weapon synergy

Stand Your Ground!: Remove Stun-Break and move to Retreat!

It is a go to skill because it breaks and prevents stuns for a group. This would force people to be more proactive or use other skills.

Retreat!: lower cooldown to 50s

Orb of Wrath: Change it to Wrath[Downed 1 Ability]

Gives scepter a reliable auto-attack, synergizes with VoJ

(:<) Necromancer

Marks: Change from proximity trigger to manual activation

This would mean that marks wouldn’t automatically trigger when people step on them (cannot be used like traps), so the necro cannot just fire and forget, and there is more opportunity to dodge them.

Mark of Blood: Reduce Bleed duration by 70%, increase by 14% for each enemy hit

Enfeebling Blood: Reduce Bleed duration by 50%, increase by 10% for each enemy hit

Ideally AoE bleeds wouldn’t out do single target ones, this would mean the necro has to aim for the maximum # of targets to get the most out of the bleed. In smaller fights it would make the necro not as strong (EX: 1v1 at mid at necro comes to help)

Spinal Shivers: Change remove to steal

It is very slow w/ casting. Stealing would give necro access to boons they can’t easily apply and gives incentive to use Focus, Chill of Death, and Spiteful Talisman

Terror: Move to grandmaster

Its a little stronk for a master trait

Death Into Life: Change to heal yourself when you reach 0% life force, cooldown when you gain 40% life force

There should be more trait interaction w/ the class mechanic outside of soul reaping, the cooldown would reset when you reach 0% then gain back up to 40%.

Protection of the Horde: Change to 2s of protection when a minion dies

You need a full minion build in order to get enough toughness to still not make it worth it. This change would mean that you would actually get decent damage mitigation if you only used reanimator and a full minion build would still get something decent too.

Dark Armor: Change to 400 toughness when below 40% life force

This would give incentive to playing with a low amount of life force rather than building to 100% or only using Death Shroud when you are being bursted. It would also mean the necro isn’t as weak without deathshroud.

Tainted Shackles: Remove the initial torment and delayed immobilize, only torments if bind is not prematurely broken

The risk vs reward is not there for torment, immobilize also doesn’t make sense on this skill if torment only damages when moving. It might have been there if the necro has to maintain distance the entire time to get any torment

Deadly Strength: Change to 3% dmg for each condition on you

I think there should be more things that discourage the heavy use of conditions the way retal and protection discourage power builds.

Spectral Grasp: Increase projectile velocity

This is too easily dodged making the skill useless.

Dhuumfire: Change from on crit to when Dark Path/Doom hit, or when Tainted Shackles doesn’t expire early

Fetid Ground: Change to Unholy Feast

This would be another way to buy time in downed state since it can remove things like aegis, stability and protection. Fetid Ground is useless anyways.

Out of interest are you brainstorming these entirely on your own, Super? Because they’re almost all astonishingly good ideas.

this deserves more attention

There are a lot of effects that need to be toned down so i’ll plop this down here and keep adding to it

Freeze Grenade: Remove the white powdery effect when it hits

Sun Spirit: Change it from the bright light to a signet-like effect (EX: Sun Spirit Icon floating above it when it activates)

Ice Storm: Remove the white powdery effect when shards hit

Fire Bomb: Remove the mushroom cloud

Big O’l Bomb: Lower the height of the explosion cloud so it can’t cover players, change its color to be similar to the smoke bomb

Glue Bomb: Remove the glue that splashes up into the air

Shrapnel Grenade: Remove the orange flash, lower the height of the smoke

Stone Spirit: Remove mud splashing into the air

Storm Spirit: Remove the tall lightning strikes that occur on the spirits position (not the small ones on the ground)

Ring of Fire: lower the height of the fire at the position of the ele casting (fire in the center of the circle)

Water attunement swap Make the bubble transparent instead of blue

Lightning Storm: Lower the radius and height of the lightning strikes

Cluster Bomb: Remove the orange flash so when the bomb is split into 3, it will just have grey smoke

Infiltrator’s Strike/Infiltrator’s Signet/Infiltrator’s Arrow/Shadow Return/Shadowstep/Steal: Remove the dark blueish/purple rings at the center

Lich Form: Make all but the arms and head transparent

Banners:Removing yellowy glow when they are summoned

Earthshaker: Change effect to be more like Molten Berserker’s Shockwave

Fire Attunement Swap: Change it to look like Arcane Power but with the fire attunement symbol

Sigil of Geomancy: Lower the height of spikes to height of shortest asura, lower the # to 5

Auras: Change from bubbles to silhouettes

Protector’s Strike: Make less blue and more transparent

Arcing Arrow: Lower the height of the smoke to the height of shortest possible asura

Disable the ability to rez defeated players

Change blue team to yellow team: blue effects on blue’s points can be hard to see

A-net higher this man! Or at least use his ideas.

If your busy! at the very least change anything that’s a number value, or what triggers an effect.

Absolutely incredible. I can’t speak to the “balance” of everything, but these are all VERY interesting mechanics changes. Absolutely, ABSOLUTELY a must read for arenanet and i strongly hope they immediately begin testing these ideas in development. The specific graphical changes as well are very detailed and very interesting. I don’t want to overreach but they should hire this guy as a consultant, I’m really not trying to exaggerate, this is a colossal amount of very very very good and detailed changes that would absolutely make me want to start playing again. really. the amount of counterplay that would be introduced is mindblowing.

i don’t say that every single change is a good one, but the volume of well thought-out suggestions and how many of them are good is just incredible.

Can we all agree just up vote his first post like crazy and pray to whatever higher power you believe in that A-net sees this and ya know actually uses it?

inb4 ANet dev comes and say “thanks for feedback will pass on to pvp team” and nothing happens.

Respect for the effort though! was a good read.

no.

i enjoy my 8 vs 8 games when i play sPvP to finish the sPvP daillies and monthlies

Mathias.9657:

inb4 ANet dev comes and say “thanks for feedback will pass on to pvp team” and nothing happens.

Respect for the effort though! was a good read.

Lololololol crush my hope.

My goodness, these are….just……BEAUTIFUL !! I specialy loved the ele, guardian and mesmer ones! Looking foward to seeing some [hopefully most] of those changes!

Anet, please, hire this man, or at least outsource him!

All your(non class balancing) idea’s are great.

Mimic: Blocks the next atk and change echo to the blocked attack

I like this. Would allow some really creative tricks.

A lot of good ideas here.

GJ

I haven’t gone over the class-specific things yet but I am pretty much for the general stuff, except for the Legacy of Foefire change. So +1 on all the other general stuff.
One things which bugs me though, since I haven’t played for around 2 months, is if the frame data for each skill is the same on every class. If so, the toggle option should be no problem. Else, there has to be a different solution to make it completly fair.

Small edit already: I feel that most of the pvp achievements are not really meaningful and just brings in PvE-players for the sake of points. I would instead like to have that being directed to rewards listed in your list. Karma, tickets, etc. I would also like to see real PvP-rewards from laurel vendors. Meaning that (CA) tickets can be purchased from them. Monetizing tickets is, from my view, to some extent a slap in the face for PvP’ers. An other example are class titles. They mean nothing. Okay, maybe champion ones, but there has been “Lf Rank +X” shouted in map chat. With that, I think the achievement system has to be changed to reflect progress more meaningful in a more competitive manner.

Nice ideas, i really like the elementalist adjustments, ty for effort

;]

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Lots of cool ideas here that I’ve been using in my arguments as of late. Been pushing to adjust the meta quite a bit.

ah please please please please please do not remove 8 vs 8 games from anet’s hotjoin servers

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Lots of cool ideas here that I’ve been using in my arguments as of late. Been pushing to adjust the meta quite a bit.

ah please please please please please do not remove 8 vs 8 games from anet’s hotjoin servers

If Custom Arenas can be purchased and maintained by rather inexpensive means, I think it is better for 8vs8 Standard Servers to be removed or changed to 5vs5. Custom Arenas will do the job instead and I am sure that there will be active ones.
Aside this, I hope tutorials can explain that things above 5vs5 will be imbalanced if 5vs5 will be the (main) competitive format, which it has been so far.
I would also not mind any toggle option for 5vs5 servers in the NPC Menu.

Lady Sara Goldheart.2764:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Lots of cool ideas here that I’ve been using in my arguments as of late. Been pushing to adjust the meta quite a bit.

ah please please please please please do not remove 8 vs 8 games from anet’s hotjoin servers

If Custom Arenas can be purchased and maintained by rather inexpensive means, I think it is better for 8vs8 Standard Servers to be removed or changed to 5vs5. Custom Arenas will do the job instead and I am sure that there will be active ones.
Aside this, I hope tutorials can explain that things above 5vs5 will be imbalanced if 5vs5 will be the (main) competitive format, which it has been so far.
I would also not mind any toggle option for 5vs5 servers in the NPC Menu.

Also, 5v5 arenas should be on the top of the list and prioritized instead of the 8v8 zerg clutter mess that is. I know some people like 8v8 but in reality, they’re just zerg grinding in 8v8 since it yields more glory points than the standard 5v5 arenas.

And to the OP, I do love most of your ideas aside from Churning Earth being able to move when cast. IMO more skills should follow a similar fashion since it at least avoids skill-spam and requires a bit more thoughtful play and tricks and stuff.

You should send your CV to ANet and apply for a pvp dev position. You have loads of cool ideas that make sense. Special mention to Mimic skill for mesmer.

What’s with the attitude that players should play content because of the carrot instead of the experience? That’s a bad way to design a game imo. If a PvE player doesn’t want to PvP they shouldn’t have to. Sticking PvE rewards into an arena that doesn’t utilisie PvE rewards is just herding PvE players to play a format they don’t want to play.

It’s easy to get players to play what you want them to play by using carrots, but it’s better to have players playing what you want them to play because the experience itself is the carrot. If sPvP with all of its unique reward systems (sPvP players can earn many skins more easily – some not so easily, can access most runes and sigils for free – try building Divinity runes for PvE – and they never have to spend their hard earned cash on transmutation stones like a PvE player does) and the general game experience are not enough for PvE players to want to do sPvP, it’s not fair to herd them there with carrots. Players from sPvP don’t have to go to PvE to obtain things for sPvP, it should be the same for PvE players.

Make sPvP stand on its own. Don’t prioritise the carrot over the experience. That’s the lazy way out.

Shiren.9532:

What’s with the attitude that players should play content because of the carrot instead of the experience? That’s a bad way to design a game imo. If a PvE player doesn’t want to PvP they shouldn’t have to. Sticking PvE rewards into an arena that doesn’t utilisie PvE rewards is just herding PvE players to play a format they don’t want to play.

It’s easy to get players to play what you want them to play by using carrots, but it’s better to have players playing what you want them to play because the experience itself is the carrot. If sPvP with all of its unique reward systems (sPvP players can earn many skins more easily – some not so easily, can access most runes and sigils for free – try building Divinity runes for PvE – and they never have to spend their hard earned cash on transmutation stones like a PvE player does) and the general game experience are not enough for PvE players to want to do sPvP, it’s not fair to herd them there with carrots. Players from sPvP don’t have to go to PvE to obtain things for sPvP, it should be the same for PvE players.

Make sPvP stand on its own. Don’t prioritise the carrot over the experience. That’s the lazy way out.

No one is FORCING PvE players to go into PvP to get items etc…why would they when they can PvE and get them easier? Devs are focused on getting more people into PvP to grow that player base and one of those ways is to offer various rewards to the greater player base aka PvE.

And as far as the skins and runes go, those can ONLY be used in pvp. Whereas skins and runes you attain in PvE can be used in dungeons, open world, AND WvW so they have to have a value attached to them. The only reason runes are free in pvp is because anet doesn’t want players to have to PvE to be able to perform in PvP. Having the ability to create a new char and jump right into pvp is what the devs wanted, and frankly it is a very good idea that is obviously here to stay.

Playing for the experience has not worked, no one wants to play sPvP because it puts a stop to earning actual rewards. No one is forcing PvE players to play PvP because there are other ways to access the same rewards. The population has died because sPvP stands on its own and is useless to all other players that don’t care about the leaderboards.

These are all amazing ideas. I agree with every single one. ARENANET! LISTEN TO THIS GUY!

Super Riceman.8702:

Playing for the experience has not worked, no one wants to play sPvP because it puts a stop to earning actual rewards. No one is forcing PvE players to play PvP because there are other ways to access the same rewards. The population has died because sPvP stands on its own and is useless to all other players that don’t care about the leaderboards.

I want to add or disagree to/with a few things, but not without explanation.
I first want to say that I think why playing for experience has failed so far is that the experience hasn’t been much worthwhile yet. Less so than months ago. Incentives which are outside of rewards like skins are not really given. Leader-boards are not as fair as many players want, balance is off, some design choices seem flawed, efforts from Anet seem rather more of a band-aid than healing a wound.
I think secondary rewards cannot fix this issue. This is also a reason I recommended changes to make sPvP stand out by its own, which Shiren mentioned in an earlier post. sPvP just doesn’t look appealing with only first class incentives.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Lots of cool ideas here that I’ve been using in my arguments as of late. Been pushing to adjust the meta quite a bit.

That is going to be an uphill battle, but I appreciate the effort!
Good luck
A lot of other great threads with useful information, that unfortunately has been buried by people wanting rewards.

Ilike most of the ideas but the one about increasing the Lord value in Foefire is plain nutiness. If anything it needs to be reduced some beacuse of how kittened his AI is. When the Lord takes a coordinated attack by most of your team then maybe we can revisit that idea. He is a joke currently.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Lots of cool ideas here that I’ve been using in my arguments as of late. Been pushing to adjust the meta quite a bit.

I sincerely hope you aren’t referring to any of the thief changes here.

While I appreciate all the effort you put into your suggestion Super Riceman, I wouldn’t want to see any of them implemented.

The change to haste isn’t a bad one, I’ll admit, but there are bigger fish to fry at the moment. The same goes for scorpion wire, ricochet and ice drake venom.

Your HS change kills Dagger mainhand as a melee set – if sticking close to a thief is all you need to do to neuter his burst, other melee will have a tremendous advantage – Dagger MH will no longer bring much pressure or be very dangerous, except on unsuspecting opponents (which we already have BS for).

The PW Suggestion was made before the Oct 15th patch, so it doesn’t really apply anymore – PW now has bigger issues.

The changes to vital shot and unload manage to keep the issues with P/P (AA and Dual skill at odds for damage source), while also ruining P/D as a condition set.

Hard to catch change won’t help a thief when he’s CC’d, which is the intent of the trait. Getting init back would potentially be nice, but if I’m taking hard to catch, it’s to get an additional save from CC.

LS change is just impossible – how many non-autoattacks can you avoid with a .5 evade? Unless I’m fighting in a 3 on 1, being focus fired, and have impeccable timing, I’ll be stealing 1 boon at best most of the time. S/D needs a zerkers jewel to do respectable damage, and you just designed LS to only really steal boons in team fights where you’re the primary target/wading through a ton of AoE….things that you don’t want when you’re running a zerkers jewel. 1 boon automatically, plus 1 per non-AA dodged (to a maximum of 2 or 3, lets say), could work however.

Shiren.9532:

What’s with the attitude that players should play content because of the carrot instead of the experience? That’s a bad way to design a game imo. If a PvE player doesn’t want to PvP they shouldn’t have to. Sticking PvE rewards into an arena that doesn’t utilisie PvE rewards is just herding PvE players to play a format they don’t want to play.

It’s easy to get players to play what you want them to play by using carrots, but it’s better to have players playing what you want them to play because the experience itself is the carrot. If sPvP with all of its unique reward systems (sPvP players can earn many skins more easily – some not so easily, can access most runes and sigils for free – try building Divinity runes for PvE – and they never have to spend their hard earned cash on transmutation stones like a PvE player does) and the general game experience are not enough for PvE players to want to do sPvP, it’s not fair to herd them there with carrots. Players from sPvP don’t have to go to PvE to obtain things for sPvP, it should be the same for PvE players.

Make sPvP stand on its own. Don’t prioritise the carrot over the experience. That’s the lazy way out.

joke right?

u know that the skins above pvp-rank 30 are easier and fast to get in pve? what with all the eventskins? isnt that pve that pvp-players needs to GRIND to get pvp-skins? isnt that the same? so pvp get “experience” as reward, but pve get gold, achivements, legendarys and so on. so u want say pvp-players are better ppl as pve? pve players are greedy and selfish?

Super Riceman.8702:

[Mesmer]

Feedback: Set on your position if there is not a target selected

This would make mesmer stronger at defending points or themselves through the projectile reflection and blind if traited

Mimic: Blocks the next atk and change echo to the blocked attack

Decoy: Activatable a 2nd to kill illusion and swap to it’s position, range 8k

This would be a way to not use portal and still be useful

Chaotic Revival: Rename it, Make it trigger when you are disabled, cooldown 20s

If a trait only triggers when you rally, it should be worth getting downed in the first place. It would be much easier to just trigger when disabled than to make a really OP rally trait.

Veil: Make it apply revealed debuff for 2s to enemies

Phantasmal Warlock: Change scaling to scale of off how many condis the creator has

Ether Clone: Change them to not cast ether bolt and apply torment when attacked

Mantras: Changed number of activations to depend on how long you are able to cast before interrupt/finishing

Portal Entre: Make it a diff color than Portal Exeunt

Mass Invisibility: Change type to mantra, 3s stealth per charge

Super Riceman.8702:

(Thief Wish List)

Pistol Whip: allow rotation while rooted

(I dont even know what this means)

Heart Seeker: Change its dmg scaling so that increases the farther you are from the target when you cast, scaling from 600 to 130

This would make it not reward spamming like it does now, it would be good when entering a fight, chasing a target or when switching targets. Would not be superior strategy spamming against a slow target over and over and over and over and over and over again

Vital Shot: Increase power scaling, move the bleeding from this skill to each attack on Unload

The power dmg is made useless because there is an easily apply able bleed. If its moved to unload, that skill might be worth it and the power scaling could be buffed on the aa

(this would make P/P theives only usefull skill Unload more so than it already is, bad enough P/P only two viable skills are 3 and 5.)

Haste: No negative effect if used while below 50% hp

Spider Venom: Also transfer a condition on next 5 attacks

Venoms cannot deal with conditions on the user and this would be away to do that, buffing Venom sharing and support thieves

Unload: Make it bleed on each attack, give reflection for 1s

Scorpion Wire: Make it pierce, switch pull to knockback (only pvp obcourse)

This gives thieves a way to get people off of point besides damage, making them better at defending points on their own

Ice Drake Venom: Make it give 4s stability, affect allies if you have Venomous Aura

(No ty, I like my chill on enemies)

If there are other sources for groups stability, someday there may be teams without guardians.

Hard to Catch: Regain initiative when you are disabled(cd 10s)

(No TY, theives trait into that for the current effect)

Ricochet: Make pistol skills pierce

(No TY, as this is the only AoE for P/P)

on the off-chance that a shot bounces, it probably won’t help

Larcenous Strike: Change to stealing up to two boons depending on # of non-auto attacks dodged with flanking strike, 0=0boons/1=1 boon/2 or more=2 boons

Lowering just the # only encourages more spamming to make up for the nerf, this would reward skilled use and timing just like venerable Colonel Radec

Most thoughtful and insightful post in a long time. Amazing job by the OP.

Best Suggestion – dump the 8v8 and 10v10 hotjoins. New players get in, get zerged and its soley responsible for turning people off spvp. It will never attract a following or playerbase in its current state.

le bump
/15char

Entertaining read. The burst skills loses adrenaline if it is blocked or missed is a bad idea though for the one big reason many warriors have stated. Many of the F1 skills become sensitive to ping and terrain. Flurry often over shots its mark, earth shaker often rubber bands you,. Evis moves via flight of the crow and becomes prone to missing on angled terrain, even though your opponent is kissing you. It is the same for all leap, rush skills. They often over shoot their target rubberband and/or don’t compute well with terrain. This change now punishes players for thigs that are out of their control and have been talked about to death in regards of needing some sort of fix/QoL. It would also require that if thieve’s get blocked/missed backstab in stealth..that’s it..they lose initiative cost and become revealed. It would also require that if mesmer clones shatter, but miss..the shatter still goes on effect..even if the clone is running against a wall or stuck on a ledge. It would also be only fair that if a ranger pet becomes snared by terrain when their F1 is used and a has a result misses, their F1 is also reset. Because of the hit/miss window being effected by issues outside of the players control, it is better to leave all f1 abilities as they are until these under the hood mechanics are cleaned up to work 100% effectively 100% of the time.

Having to update for 5 minutes is not a good reason to make balance patches months apart. Small and metered changes should occur over a few weeks, not large changes every 3 months. If its an issue with tournaments, just see if they can be rescheduled. Do not wait months to fix the sigil of paralyzation. It may be bad for the players but it will be better for the game as a whole.