Guild Wars 2

I am of the opinion that the only way to make the game more enjoyable for everybody, the nerfs should come in the form of specific mechanic changes rather than deliver another string of stats nerfing.

Every build should have Pro and Cons, there should be no one-man army, this for sure.
There should be several ways to exploit the cons of each build and it should be left to the player ( based on his level of skill) the decision on how to proceed.

The playstyle should be left as it is, the player when choosing a build must have a purpose in mind, a favoured role to cover..but right now it’s more :" ok this single build is what works now..on other choices"

It has been always Anet intention to have a set of viable builds for every profession..but the community seems to focus more on nerfing what viable now rather than buff what it is not, if you had a set of viable builds it would be that much easier to lower in efficiency of what seems to..work too well, while still maintaning its viability and purpose.

For instance I’d like to see changes of this nature on what considered “OP” right now:

1) Spirit Ranger
-Lower CD of spirits
-CD starts the moment the spirit die

2) Necromancer
-reduce number of conditions from signet of spite( bleeding and poison preferably )

3) S/d Thief
-Shadow return = 4 inititiative ( if you want to mele, you need to take risks, not simply hit and run 24/7, the return should be a tactical choice and not something that can be spammed with impunity)
-Larcenous strike = 3 initiative ( pick carefully the boons you want from the enemy)
Possibly the 4 intitiative shadow return would make a 3 initiative larcenous strike an overnerf so this is up to debate really

I don’t think these changes would make any of these 3 profession unplayable, but decision making would be finally forced on players and we would move away from the current mindless spamming

The thief case is probably easiest to fix but also probably the deadliest to the viability of a build. Their initiative is their lifeblood, change the costs of the extremely long dodge frame skills to be rather substantial and you’ll bring in cost vs. benefit considerations (and a loss of offense when all that is spammed are dodge frames), but you might also murder the spec and people will just find some other cheese to cheese.

Necros, honestly, I’d tackle in different ways. For example I’d make their marks have a delay on activation irregardless of when they are cast (probably do this for a lot of AoEs in general) such that if I am on a node or engaged with a necro, he cannot just drop every mark ontop of me in quick succession without my ability to do anything about it (and especially given their bafflingly bad animation frames). Instead, make marks have a sort of ramp-up time of a half second to a second (humanly possible to react to such). In this case, if he just tries to crap them all out in spammy fashion, he’ll just end up having all of his marks dodged through, harmlessly as would be the case if they are preemptively all just set on top of a node. This also adds a level of decision making on the defender’s side as they can choose to possibly avoid a certain mark or tank another.

Spirit Rangers I’d change to go on cooldown when they die, as well as in general lower the potency of their passive effects.

Shadow return is only the tip of the problem – it’s the number of dodges you can get with a s/d thief that’s a problem. You can catch people with shadow return, you can’t do anything about dodges because you can chain them…it’s pretty much a invuln if you chain your dodges.

Guys the problem with the thief class is deeper imo. I doubt this game will ever be balanced. I still remember this amazing interview:
http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/06/exclusive-interview-arenanets-jon-peters-and-jonathan-sharp/

Freya: Which of the professions has been the team’s favourite to design and implement, and which aspects/stages of the design process for professions do you find most enjoyable or rewarding? (i.e. initial concepts, skill design, the reveal, first demo play of a new profession etc…)

Jon P: I’m going to say thief because it was super easy. For whatever reason we came up with the initiative mechanic, we were like “this is cool, put it on thief!” Design thief skills: “Oh yeah, they should have these dual skills!” We put them in the game, people played them and were instantly like “thieves are the most fun thing in the game now!”

I laugh every time i read this. This is super c0000l!!!!11

I think all AOE should be apparent and obvious. A half way point between the elementalist lava front and the necromancer’s marks. So it will give the player enough time to react properly.

I think all skills need a global CD for (.25-.4 second) to reduce the amount of spaming of skills. This only applies to non chained skill.

ADDED: remove all instant cast skills and or exaggerate the animation for every skill.

Guys the problem with the thief class is deeper imo. I doubt this game will ever be balanced. I still remember this amazing interview:
http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/06/exclusive-interview-arenanets-jon-peters-and-jonathan-sharp/

Freya: Which of the professions has been the team’s favourite to design and implement, and which aspects/stages of the design process for professions do you find most enjoyable or rewarding? (i.e. initial concepts, skill design, the reveal, first demo play of a new profession etc…)

Jon P: I’m going to say thief because it was super easy. For whatever reason we came up with the initiative mechanic, we were like “this is cool, put it on thief!” Design thief skills: “Oh yeah, they should have these dual skills!” We put them in the game, people played them and were instantly like “thieves are the most fun thing in the game now!”

I laugh every time i read this. This is super c0000l!!!!11

cool story brah,

But how is that helpful to the points above?

Amaterasu.6280:

Shadow return is only the tip of the problem – it’s the number of dodges you can get with a s/d thief that’s a problem. You can catch people with shadow return, you can’t do anything about dodges because you can chain them…it’s pretty much a invuln if you chain your dodges.

If you dodge you don’t do dmg and I quite intrigued by the whole evasion mode playstyle that is linked to the sword MH for thief and I don’t see why it should be removed for the list of possible combination.
There are ways to reduce the amount of dodges you can do ( like weakness ), with right timing you can see through the pattern of attack used by a s/d thief, a challenging fight that can be made even more enjoyable by giving minor changes there and there, let’s not take away that sense of danger you get every time you see a sword thief on the horizon, it’s what make the game fun for me ( In GW1 I used to swear everytime I seen a powerblock mesmer in the opposite team, fun times ^^)

Vena.8436:

The thief case is probably easiest to fix but also probably the deadliest to the viability of a build. Their initiative is their lifeblood, change the costs of the extremely long dodge frame skills to be rather substantial and you’ll bring in cost vs. benefit considerations (and a loss of offense when all that is spammed are dodge frames), but you might also murder the spec and people will just find some other cheese to cheese.

Necros, honestly, I’d tackle in different ways. For example I’d make their marks have a delay on activation irregardless of when they are cast (probably do this for a lot of AoEs in general) such that if I am on a node or engaged with a necro, he cannot just drop every mark ontop of me in quick succession without my ability to do anything about it (and especially given their bafflingly bad animation frames). Instead, make marks have a sort of ramp-up time of a half second to a second (humanly possible to react to such). In this case, if he just tries to crap them all out in spammy fashion, he’ll just end up having all of his marks dodged through, harmlessly as would be the case if they are preemptively all just set on top of a node. This also adds a level of decision making on the defender’s side as they can choose to possibly avoid a certain mark or tank another.

Spirit Rangers I’d change to go on cooldown when they die, as well as in general lower the potency of their passive effects.

Yeah maybe they could try with 3 initiative on shadow return and see how it goes.

About necro I agree, to give a delay of activation on wells would help a lot and still not make the necro staff completely unviable in my opinion, it’s worth a try

silvermember.8941:

But how is that helpful to the points above?

Is it too hard to understand? There’s no way to perfectly balance classes anymore. They can nerf a spec, the result is nobody will play that spec anymore. They will find something else and, for thieves, that “something else” will be something to spam. Unless ofc a class is so badly nerfed to become not viable (or considered not viable). In this case a balance patch will probably overbuff that class, like happened for necros.
Their stupid “class philosophy” has been broken since the beginning. They balanced classes around what looked cool, that’s why we have so many AI based kitten and so many flashy animations.

Arheundel.6451:

Amaterasu.6280:

Shadow return is only the tip of the problem – it’s the number of dodges you can get with a s/d thief that’s a problem. You can catch people with shadow return, you can’t do anything about dodges because you can chain them…it’s pretty much a invuln if you chain your dodges.

If you dodge you don’t do dmg and I quite intrigued by the whole evasion mode playstyle that is linked to the sword MH for thief and I don’t see why it should be removed for the list of possible combination.
There are ways to reduce the amount of dodges you can do ( like weakness ), with right timing you can see through the pattern of attack used by a s/d thief, a challenging fight that can be made even more enjoyable by giving minor changes there and there, let’s not take away that sense of danger you get every time you see a sword thief on the horizon, it’s what make the game fun for me ( In GW1 I used to swear everytime I seen a powerblock mesmer in the opposite team, fun times ^^)

You’re missing the point – the problem with the current meta with s/d thieves is that they too rewarding in both offense(with dmg+boon stealing) and defense (shadow return + dodges + almost perma vigor). Your point of – if they are dodging, then they are not doing damage makes no sense…no one is arguing that they are doing immense damage like 100b wars, the problem is that they are TOO slippery and very hard to kill, and I’m saying the main problem is the dodges.

What is weakness going to do when shadow return + signet of agility can cure it instantly? I agree, there is often a pattern like waiting for the dodge then hitting them, but anyone with decent reactions can just react and dodge again and/or withdraw.

I believe something should be done to punish the amount of dodges you can get and with shadow return.

There is a reason why people in some of the best teams are quitting their classes to re-roll a s/d thief. It’s the same for spirit rangers and necros.

Arheundel.6451:

3) S/d Thief
-Shadow return = 4 inititiative ( if you want to mele, you need to take risks, not simply hit and run 24/7, the return should be a tactical choice and not something that can be spammed with impunity)
-Larcenous strike = 3 initiative ( pick carefully the boons you want from the enemy)
Possibly the 4 intitiative shadow return would make a 3 initiative larcenous strike an overnerf so this is up to debate really

Bad ideas.
The issue with the s/d thief isn’t the initiative costs on abilities.
Initiative has already taken a place in the class that screams ‘be a one trick pony spike dps or stack initiative like a motherkittener so you can actually kill someone before running out’

That is bad.
Initiative should be more pushed to a secondary mechanic… abilities should be like flanking->larcenist strike and shadow return, not in the OP nature they are atm, but that they have secondary abilities attached to them. The secondary ability should be the only thing costing initiative. That’d make a class where, if you use an ability it, goes ‘on CD’ for 7-15s as the secondary ability takes its spot. It’d give dozens more strategic options if the secondary abilities are made well, it’d make ini regen a perc, not a necessity for most thief specs but most importantly… it’d make a situation where if you wanted to spam an attack, you could, at a large price.

A simple fix to make initiative into a working and strategic mechanic.

Amaterasu.6280:

Arheundel.6451:

Amaterasu.6280:

Shadow return is only the tip of the problem – it’s the number of dodges you can get with a s/d thief that’s a problem. You can catch people with shadow return, you can’t do anything about dodges because you can chain them…it’s pretty much a invuln if you chain your dodges.

If you dodge you don’t do dmg and I quite intrigued by the whole evasion mode playstyle that is linked to the sword MH for thief and I don’t see why it should be removed for the list of possible combination.
There are ways to reduce the amount of dodges you can do ( like weakness ), with right timing you can see through the pattern of attack used by a s/d thief, a challenging fight that can be made even more enjoyable by giving minor changes there and there, let’s not take away that sense of danger you get every time you see a sword thief on the horizon, it’s what make the game fun for me ( In GW1 I used to swear everytime I seen a powerblock mesmer in the opposite team, fun times ^^)

You’re missing the point – the problem with the current meta with s/d thieves is that they too rewarding in both offense(with dmg+boon stealing) and defense (shadow return + dodges + almost perma vigor). Your point of – if they are dodging, then they are not doing damage makes no sense…no one is arguing that they are doing immense damage like 100b wars, the problem is that they are TOO slippery and very hard to kill, and I’m saying the main problem is the dodges.

What is weakness going to do when shadow return + signet of agility can cure it instantly? I agree, there is often a pattern like waiting for the dodge then hitting them, but anyone with decent reactions can just react and dodge again and/or withdraw.

I believe something should be done to punish the amount of dodges you can get and with shadow return.

There is a reason why people in some of the best teams are quitting their classes to re-roll a s/d thief. It’s the same for spirit rangers and necros.

But you can’t spamm shadow return on the contrary of weakness and what if weakness if covered by other 2-3 conditions?

I agree the degree of evasiveness should be lowered a bit, I have proposed to increase initiative cost but there can be of course a far better solution, anything in mind?

garethh.3518:

Arheundel.6451:

3) S/d Thief
-Shadow return = 4 inititiative ( if you want to mele, you need to take risks, not simply hit and run 24/7, the return should be a tactical choice and not something that can be spammed with impunity)
-Larcenous strike = 3 initiative ( pick carefully the boons you want from the enemy)
Possibly the 4 intitiative shadow return would make a 3 initiative larcenous strike an overnerf so this is up to debate really

Bad ideas.
The issue with the s/d thief isn’t the initiative costs on abilities.
Initiative has already taken a place in the class that screams ‘be a one trick pony spike dps or stack initiative like a motherkittener so you can actually kill someone before running out’

That is bad.
Initiative should be more pushed to a secondary mechanic… abilities should be like flaning->larcenist strike and shadow return, not in the OP nature they are atm, but that they have a secondary abilities attached to them. The secondary ability should be the ones costing initiative, it’d make a class where, if you use an ability it goes to its second one for 7-15s and that ability costs initiative, so if you want to spam an attack you have to blow through initiative casting that second abilities to use the first again, but if you juggle your CDs well you can conserve initiative.

A strategic and simple to make class that makes initiative into a working mechanic.

Let me understand you propose to add normal CD on skill for the first part of the sequence and initiative to the second part of the sequence, wouldn’t this double tax a thief for using his skills?..or maybe I have understandood wrong

Arheundel.6451:

Amaterasu.6280:

Arheundel.6451:

Amaterasu.6280:

Shadow return is only the tip of the problem – it’s the number of dodges you can get with a s/d thief that’s a problem. You can catch people with shadow return, you can’t do anything about dodges because you can chain them…it’s pretty much a invuln if you chain your dodges.

If you dodge you don’t do dmg and I quite intrigued by the whole evasion mode playstyle that is linked to the sword MH for thief and I don’t see why it should be removed for the list of possible combination.
There are ways to reduce the amount of dodges you can do ( like weakness ), with right timing you can see through the pattern of attack used by a s/d thief, a challenging fight that can be made even more enjoyable by giving minor changes there and there, let’s not take away that sense of danger you get every time you see a sword thief on the horizon, it’s what make the game fun for me ( In GW1 I used to swear everytime I seen a powerblock mesmer in the opposite team, fun times ^^)

You’re missing the point – the problem with the current meta with s/d thieves is that they too rewarding in both offense(with dmg+boon stealing) and defense (shadow return + dodges + almost perma vigor). Your point of – if they are dodging, then they are not doing damage makes no sense…no one is arguing that they are doing immense damage like 100b wars, the problem is that they are TOO slippery and very hard to kill, and I’m saying the main problem is the dodges.

What is weakness going to do when shadow return + signet of agility can cure it instantly? I agree, there is often a pattern like waiting for the dodge then hitting them, but anyone with decent reactions can just react and dodge again and/or withdraw.

I believe something should be done to punish the amount of dodges you can get and with shadow return.

There is a reason why people in some of the best teams are quitting their classes to re-roll a s/d thief. It’s the same for spirit rangers and necros.

But you can’t spamm shadow return on the contrary of weakness and what if weakness if covered by other 2-3 conditions?

I agree the degree of evasiveness should be lowered a bit, I have proposed to increase initiative cost but there can be of course a far better solution, anything in mind?

Weakness on a s/d thief honestly doesn’t do all that much. Even with endurance regen -50%, they have enough dodges to go around. Not to mention if you pop signet of agility, you get 2.5 instant dodges, weakness or not.

Shadow return is also very spammable, and when I played s/d thief I would spam sword 2 on the spot just to cure 1-2 condis if i need to.

I think a solution might be to decrease the number of invuln frames on dodges. As of now you are invuln for the entire duration of the dodge animation…so timing dodges isn’t as crucial as they could be and makes it VERY hard to punish anyone spamming dodges. Maybe dodges would give you the invuln in the first 5 frames, then people could hit you…mid dodge. Now I know that can sound crazy, but a lot of the OP classes allow people to be too trigger happy with dodges with absolutely no consequences. If you are dodging, it should be because you are purposely trying to avoid something. Having a 5 frame invuln will still allow you to dodge at crucial times, but will allow people to bait your dodges and punish you for them if you don’t use it smartly.

I feel dodges should promote skill and and reward people who try to react and time it. The problem is with builds like spirit rangers + s/d thieves you just spam dodges and evades just because you have it and get rewarded for that…it makes the whole skill ceiling so much lower.

Arheundel.6451:

Let me understand you propose to add normal CD on skill for the first part of the sequence and initiative to the second part of the sequence, wouldn’t this double tax a thief for using his skills?..or maybe I have understandood wrong

The secondary ability is the ‘CD’, just like on flanking->larcenist strike.
Just imagine specs typically regening much less initiative and having most every attack have a secondary one that costs 3-4 ini.
Initiative regen would be lessened, most notably on a few traits, to ensure that people can’t easily get such high ini regen that they can still lol-spam certain abilities/combos without largely hurting other parts of their spec or situational requirements (gain more ini when not attacking/moving exc.).