Guild Wars 2

Topics like this have been posted before, but I want to go more in depth and provide specific examples.

Let’s talk about effort and difficulty versus reward for skills. Basically, to achieve balance, there has to be a proper proportion. What I mean by this is that if a skill is more difficult to pull off and requires lots of effort, it should reward the player greatly. If the skill is face roll easy and requires no strategy or thinking, then it should give much less rewards.

Here is an example of a GREAT skill that all other skills should be envious of:

Burning Speed. This skill is a perfect example of what a skill should be like. It is difficult to pull off in that it requires positioning and timing to pull it off. Not to mention, actually getting it to land is also difficult. The usage of this skill divides less skilled players from the more skilled ones. As a result, if pulled off correctly, the user gets a nice 240 radius flame blast for decent damage. Not to mention that this skill is FUN.

Let’s look at an example of a bad skill: Cleansing Flames

You’re probably thinking, “What? Cleansing Flame is fine!”. So let me explain why this is a bad skill. 95% of all pvp elementalists run a build that is a D/D auramancer and cantrip build. This is fine. What isn’t fine is cantrips.

Take a look at what Cleansing Flames offers: Stun break, 4 condition cleared, burning on enemy, 3 stacks of might (depends on variation of this specific build that almost all ele’s run), regeneration, and vigor. Either this skill offers WAAY too much for one click, or other skills don’t offer enough.

Another example of a bad skill is steal.
1. 5k damage.
2.Steal skill (which ranges from a 3 second fear, all boons for some seconds, a devestating whirlwind attack, and more)
3. Instant teleport from 900 or 1200 range.
4. Poisons

And finally one more bad skill: Heartseeker.
1. Flies you to your oponent. No need to aim, think, have proper timing, just superman over to your target.
2. Hits for nice damage.
3. Leap finisher.
4. Cheap initiative cost.

There is one redeeming trait of heartseeker and that is that it does more damage based on the enemy’s hp. This is a good idea. More things like this should be implemented. Things that take thinking and strategy.

10k Damage in one hit is fine. What isn’t fine is how a player doesn’t need to put in effort or overcome some difficult obstacle to bring the pain.

Thanks for reading. Please post your thoughts.

Good ideas i feel wen i use heartseeker its cheap.. I think they should take the leap and maybe make it a target area type of thing just like shadowstep utility id love this game more if it was more skill based i commonly think of this game as wow and monster hunter combined

i was baned till yesterdday and i dont like to be reported just now..but..
it is only a whine about thief…still….you wrote in dept thread. and u did 3 examples, 2 of thief.
why didnt you take in example shatters?
you were right, at the first part: cleansing fire may be “cheap”, because whatever u are doing, its effect works.
but what is the effect of steal if you dodge it? the answer is: if trickery trait V u take just 3 boons for 45 (37) secs cd. so steal is cheap? i think it is some kind of “high risk high reward”. obviously against decent opponents.
HS works better against newbies who dont know how to dodge. try use hs spam against war shield or guardian barrier. or against #3 thief shortbow/evasive attack shortbow ranger. it is a waste of initiative. it doesnt mean it is not strong. yea it is strong!

Shukran.4851:

i was baned till yesterdday and i dont like to be reported just now..but..
it is only a whine about thief…still….you wrote in dept thread. and u did 3 examples, 2 of thief.
why didnt you take in example shatters?
you were right, at the first part: cleansing fire may be “cheap”, because whatever u are doing, its effect works.
but what is the effect of steal if you dodge it? the answer is: if trickery trait V u take just 3 boons for 45 (37) secs cd. so steal is cheap? i think it is some kind of “high risk high reward”. obviously against decent opponents.
HS works better against newbies who dont know how to dodge. try use hs spam against war shield or guardian barrier. or against #3 thief shortbow/evasive attack shortbow ranger. it is a waste of initiative. it doesnt mean it is not strong. yea it is strong!

I promise you this isn’t a whine against theives. I think theives are in a good place right now, except for what I’ve mentioned (but that goes across all classes). I didn’t use shatters as an example because I feel the way they work is in the right direction. Meaning a mesmer has to build up clones/phantasms, keep them alive, then shatter them. I disagree with how easily a mesmer mass produces clones like china produces mcdonald toys, but I’m not trying to individually pick apart classes here since every single class has skills that need to be adjusted.

Yes, I agree with you in that there are many ways to counter HS but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that HS takes no skill to use. No planning, You don’t even have to aim. Yet it still pulls 3k+ damage with a superman attack at a low initiative cost.

@andyj.5809 : well u read almost all the post so i am quite happy oh and enjoy the report

@Turbo Whale.1738 : i sayd and i repeat HS is strong, but why it is strong? because thief put all his effort in damage output gear and traits. obviously his skills does so much damage. but HS doesn’t give any kind of protection, so in the time you leap at the target u can be focused. and a thief with 14k hp with no protection during skill animation means that he must (should) think about risk/reward everytime he “spam” hs.

try to play every class with berserk – scholar – 25/30/x/x/x and see how long you live.

I never mentioned anything about spamming HS, so I have no idea where you are able to quote the word spam.

Turbo Whale.1738:

I never mentioned anything about spamming HS, so I have no idea where you are able to quote the word spam.

your description of hs 1+4

Shukran.4851:

@andyj.5809 : well u read almost all the post so i am quite happy oh and enjoy the report

@Turbo Whale.1738 : i sayd and i repeat HS is strong, but why it is strong? because thief put all his effort in damage output gear and traits. obviously his skills does so much damage. but HS doesn’t give any kind of protection, so in the time you leap at the target u can be focused. and a thief with 14k hp with no protection during skill animation means that he must (should) think about risk/reward everytime he “spam” hs.

try to play every class with berserk – scholar – 25/30/x/x/x and see how long you live.

HS doesn’t offer any protection, no, but why would you use it to leap into a situation where you can be focused (implying 2 or more living enemy players in the battle)? Doesn’t that go against the very core of Thief gameplay, and better describe a situation where you should be standing back with a Shortbow?

Typically when I get hit by HS, it’s by a roaming Thief who used it to end a 1v1 I was having with another player. I haven’t experienced many Thieves wading into teamfights to use it, and that’s because (as far as I’m aware) most Thieves prefer to save it for low-risk situations, where their target is weakened, outnumbered, or 1v1’ing. In these sort of situations, HS ensures very, very high returns without requiring the player to do anything besides look at the opponent’s HP and press a button. No aiming or positioning is required, and this is what is most upsetting about HS. Its spammable nature isn’t even the issue – if someone wants to burn all of their initiative trying to finish me, let them go ahead. The problem is that they even have a chance to kill me by mindlessly pressing a single button, when my survival is likely to require considerably more effort on my part.

In my eyes, the only players who should be opposed to an aiming requirement on HS are bad thieves. Good thieves don’t need the autotargeting – presumably, they’ve had to aim other skills before, and being able to successfully aim HS will help set them apart from the mindless HS spammers plaguing hotjoin. As a good thief, your gameplay will be unaffected as soon as you get used to aiming HS, and you’ll probably get a lot more recognition for your abilities when bad thieves are launching themselves halfway across the map with the skill.

I sense that this topic is quickly going to become another full-fledged argument about everyone’s favorite stealth profession, but in general, I agree with the OP that skills which don’t take much effort to use shouldn’t be as rewarding as skills that do, or should at the very least come with significant risks/drawbacks (such as the infamous Hundred Blades).

Turbo Whale.1738:

I never mentioned anything about spamming HS, so I have no idea where you are able to quote the word spam.

Why are you backfooting with him? Be straight.

HS isn’t high risk, nor does it have to be, but it is a very rewarding skill. These are the realities. The risk of using Heartseeker is the same as using your auto-attack, you are in melee range. Hell it’s less risky in one aspect, because your auto attack won’t propel you to your opponent if you decide to fight with your eyes closed.
The risk in Heartseeker is the opportunity cost of initiative, and the standard fare of being a melee attack. Straight.
The risk of being a glass cannon thief in melee is low health, this is not Heartseeker specific, this is true for any thief melee combination and skill that you use. You can use Infiltrator’s strike as an attack and get smashed by Volley, these are the realities, how you gonna put low health as a risk of the skill itself as if that wasn’t ones own choice. Not like you couldn’t just put more vitality on yourself and still hit hard due to the nature of executioner.
It’s not a HS exclusive thing, most Leaps are on auto-pilot, some with greater range than HS, but HS hits harder than most, and is reusable. The risk in using it is bloody low. If it wasn’t for many of the games other skills being on auto-pilot it would be even lower by comparison.

That being said Burning Speed? It’s not on auto-pilot but lets not pretend it is not fairly forgiving. Burning Slime trail that projects you through enemies if you so choose to escape every 15s? At least you can body block Heartseeker. If you land it, it hits hard, if you don’t, it still leaves it’s relevancy on the capture point and Heartseeker isn’t aoe.
It’s a good skill mind you, but if HS worked like Burning Speed, it’s not leaving blinding smokefields in it’s wake to make up for missing. If Burning speed was to be amazing skill of positioning for all to aspire to, all it’s power would be in the explosion and not partially in the field.

Good thoughts by the OP, and not in the slightest a “whine” thread. Even in glass vs glass duels, fights are usually decided by which player AVOIDED attacks the best. There isn’t much emphasis on hitting—hitting is something that automatically happens when your opponent misses a dodge.

That said, I think the combat system itself is pretty sweet. It doesn’t seem to be very casual-friendly, because if don’t have those reflexes for avoiding stuff you’re straight out of luck. Once you get used to it, it’s tons of fun.

Trebuchet
Having a Mesmer on your team cause Time Warp and Portal
Double Ele nowadays

Would be nice if ANET actually fixed this pathetic BS.

I’m surprised you never mentioned grenades. I’ve played a nade engi for over 1600 games and it’s sad to see when I actually hit an opponent with a shrapnel nade I end up dealing the same damage as a mark of blood. Except the mark is twice as easy to use.

Grenades continue to see nerfs despite the fact that it actually takes skill to regularly land grenades at mid range. Long range is nearly impossible unless the person doesn’t see you and is running in a straight line.

Burning speed is ez mode compared to nades.

OP makes a good point.

Certain abilities definitely need revision.

But you also have to take cooldowns into consideration as well, not just the “effort”.

You make some good points, but it is incredibly hard to balance a game only based on combos, as new ones are often created by players all the time. You also have to give players a way to easily pull off something cool and rewarding, because not everyone has the skill or time to think about combos. You can’t just balance a game around the experienced players, you also have to consider the casual player. Some professions are also purposely balanced to be easier to play then others.