Guild Wars 2

What happened to Skill/Class balance in this game?
It seemed that at the end 2014 everything was almost perfect, finally we had something that could be considered an eSport.

Now it feels so broken, and it’s not just the new professions, overall condi damage and burst damage was already off the chart. I’m not going to give examples, I think it’s fair to say that many people feel the same way: When a class takes 5-6 seconds to do 10k damage and another does the same or more in half a second something doesn’t add up, specially when the armor type, defensive mechanism and health pool favor the later.

The game competitive balance has been, in my opinion, getting worse and worse in the last 6 months. When people are getting 1-shot all over the place the game is just not fun anymore. If people rage-quit or stop playing pvp then everyone end up losing.

I’ve seen worse balance in other games, but it’s not an excuse to ruin the delicate balanced you had accomplished in the first 2 years of GW2.

It feels like everything has to be re-balanced from scratch.

Xillllix.3485:

It feels like everything has to be re-balanced from scratch.

Really? I think some small balance tweaks here and there and then everything will be spot on.

It’s true that some nerfs (DH damage or CC, some aspects of Tempest sustain and Scrapper boonfest, the Rev 7k evade nuke, and TBD on Reaper, to name a few), and buffs (I’m looking at zerker warrior, base thief, fixing the long list of base-class ranger issues, for example) are probably needed, but in truth I’m impressed at how balanced the game is right out of HoT release. With only minor tweaks to a handful of skills/traits/classes, things could be nigh perfect!

Salamander.2504:

Xillllix.3485:

It feels like everything has to be re-balanced from scratch.

Really? I think some small balance tweaks here and there and then everything will be spot on.

It’s true that some nerfs (and buffs; I’m looking at zerker warrior) are probably needed, but in truth I’m impressed at how balanced the game is right out of HoT release. With only minor tweaks to a handful of skills/traits/classes, things could be nigh perfect!

Personally, I disagree. While many professions may be on a relatively level playing field, the overall health of the game is still questionable.

I posted something similar in another thread, but I personally hope that nerfs come down for all professions (some more than others) to cut back on the power creep that we’ve seen in the game over the past several updates. Anet is trying to market GW2 as an e-sport, but the game is almost unwatchable as things stand. AoE spam, dozens of passive procs, instant-cast abilities, rampant Quickness, and other viewer-hostile mechanics have just increased as time has passed. Power creep has also pushed most builds out of the meta that can’t either burst hard or bunker.

Elite specs have just exacerbated this, and while I understand that no one likes nerfs, Anet needs to take a hard look at the direction of their balance changes if they’re seriously going to promote GW2 on a competitive level. If Anet succeeds, that means more attention for PvP from the development team, so everyone has something to gain from it regardless of what class they play. If succeeding means things like splitting damage values between PvE and PvP, so be it.

Also, there’s still the issue where most elite specs are still plainly superior to the base professions, despite the fact that they were advertised as a “side-grade.” Maybe a better solution would be to nerf the PvE mobs’ damage/HP alongside the base professions and especially elite specs. This could preserve PvE difficulty while bringing everything else in the game back into line.

That said, I’m not against buffing some weak builds across professions amongst the nerfs to encourage more diversity in the meta. It’d be nice to see something like condition Thieves, Banner Warriors, Signet Guardians, or Shout Rangers having a turn in the meta, and it would help ease the sting of the global nerfs. That said, I doubt we’re going to see changes on that scale prior to the start of Leagues, so we’re probably stuck with what we’ve got for a while.

Salamander.2504:

Xillllix.3485:

It feels like everything has to be re-balanced from scratch.

Really? I think some small balance tweaks here and there and then everything will be spot on.

It’s true that some nerfs (DH damage or CC, some aspects of Tempest sustain and Scrapper boonfest, the Rev 7k evade nuke, and TBD on Reaper, to name a few), and buffs (I’m looking at zerker warrior, base thief, fixing the long list of base-class ranger issues, for example) are probably needed, but in truth I’m impressed at how balanced the game is right out of HoT release. With only minor tweaks to a handful of skills/traits/classes, things could be nigh perfect!

Just FYI, Unrelenting Assault on the Revenant will only do 7k if;
You are alone and are not a pet class,
You dont just dodge its completely obvious animation,
The Revenant is full glass.

Base Ranger gets a lot of good play at high tiers (Their condi potential and sustain is very strong)
Same with Base Thief

All of what you listed is more of a player experience issue. Some things are still new to people who havent really looked at what all the elite specs can do.
Seems more of a learn to play issue really,
Game is pretty balanced as it is, every class can play multiple roles if they wanted to.
Build diversity is better than ever.

This game has been progressively getting worse and worse with every single patch but the one before HoT was pretty good, dps and condition builds had plenty of viable stuff and overall the trait rework was much better for all the classes plus it was fun to play

Then heart of thorns comes with the worst F2P model there is, you can’t have a f2p game in which people that pay have access to more skills not just content cause thats just P2w. Especially considering how ridiculously overpowered the new specializations are.

I wonder if arena net even has game testers or play their own game themselves because i seriously doubt if they did they would release something as ridiculous and kittened as druids or maybe they are just utterly horrible and cant find even semi-optimal build which everybody seems to be running to be unkillable blind-bot. Tank guards were easy as hell before but now druids are even easier than them and that was already a lot.

Also, you people from arena net seem to have some fetish with kittened skills like revenant 3 or whatever it is the one where he teleports around you, does 15mil damage which u cant dodge unless you use your dodges with your limited endurance that you already need for all the other cancer in the game. I don’t understand why there are so many overly-forgiving easy to use skills in this game ? Same as thief 3 which is gap closer, unblockable blind, huge dmg, lol pls and have in mind that revenant one is even more kittened

and then there are mesmers that were already the most overpowered class but no, lets buff them even more, 20 seconds of distortion were not enough so lets give em 20 sec of block and more stuns so they can set up their F1 that already oneshots people even easier

and then they added stealth to engineers, cause stealth wasnt already teh most cancerous and unfun mechanic in the game so lets add more of it. What stealth does is – if you make a mistake or are kittened and end up mis-stepping or just going 3v1 you can always just press stealth and disengage, while a warrior or elementalist can do what exactly? oh right they can die a miserable death and call it class balance. Engineers were already OP and had a stealth why the hell did you add this one ? not to mention their hammer skills do 5 times more dmg than warrior hammer skills

all in all, this patch is horrible balance wise , and if that wasnt enough

FIX THE kittenING QUICKNESS
FIX THE kittenING QUICKNESS
FIX THE kittenING QUICKNESS
FIX THE kittenING QUICKNESS
FIX THE kittenING QUICKNESS

with what mind in your head did you make the change quickness not to affect dash skills which are half of warrior’s skills ? do you have a clue how annoying warrior is to play right now? From the most fun class to underpowered and boring kittenty kitten, like underpowered only wasn’t enough so no lets make it annoying as hell to play when you cant hit a single whirlwind or rush cuz they take 14 seconds to cast

Just a note, the quickness changes to rush skills was actually BECAUSE of warriors and others with similar skills complaining that it screwed up their skill ranges.

This game is balanced. Why? There damage spike forced people to die to somebody. No more immortal specs just faster pace.

At the high tier, this is actually false. In response to the insane damage capability teams are bunking up, causing extremely long fights and thus extremely long games. If their intent was a faster pace it has undoubtedly backfired.

Xillllix.3485:

What happened to Skill/Class balance in this game?
It seemed that at the end 2014 everything was almost perfect, finally we had something that could be considered an eSport.

Now it feels so broken, and it’s not just the new professions, overall condi damage and burst damage was already off the chart. I’m not going to give examples, I think it’s fair to say that many people feel the same way: When a class takes 5-6 seconds to do 10k damage and another does the same or more in half a second something doesn’t add up, specially when the armor type, defensive mechanism and health pool favor the later.

The game competitive balance has been, in my opinion, getting worse and worse in the last 6 months. When people are getting 1-shot all over the place the game is just not fun anymore. If people rage-quit or stop playing pvp then everyone end up losing.

I’ve seen worse balance in other games, but it’s not an excuse to ruin the delicate balanced you had accomplished in the first 2 years of GW2.

It feels like everything has to be re-balanced from scratch.

“The previous meta was always the best”…..dunno how many times I’ve seen this sentence and I’ve seen it during every meta since launch, this reality will never change..
In 2016, the 2015 meta will become the “most balanced ever”

SolarDragon.7063:

Just a note, the quickness changes to rush skills was actually BECAUSE of warriors and others with similar skills complaining that it screwed up their skill ranges.

only the most casual scrub would complain about it and since when is a game balanced around casual kittenters ? (except league which is also balanced on higher levels but its mostly a cash-grab game anyway and they’d do anything for the numbers)

quickness didnt screw up warrior skills at all, it just made them that much faster and better and now playing warrior with heightened focus and frenzy feels kittened cause you’re slow as hell

Not only did they nerf Axe Warrior, they over-buffed other elites because fail idiots like Nightmare think “Warrior is so simple and easy to play and should be UP to be balanced” even though Ranger/Guard/Mes/Ele are ALL EASY TO PLAY and SIMPLE because of priviledged and overloaded kits.

Warrior HAS to be OP if they’re going to stick with this “simple mechanics” idea about it so that it can compete, and this is where the balance devs failed so hard. It’s just simple logic because overloaded kits are just THAT GOOD in this game. Just a bunch of “all diploma yet no talent kids” who balance this game. It’s pathetic.

warrior is so kittened by this quickness change cuz half of their skills are unaffected by it when they relied so much on it

now frenzy/heightened focus is like useless since half of ur skills are dashes so they dont work

There is no such thing as “balance”.
MMORPGs been out for quite some time & in the few yrs I’ve been playing them I’ve never heard of PvP being balanced.

Xillllix.3485:

It feels like everything has to be re-balanced from scratch.

I agree with this. I think the game design is fundamentally flawed from the beginning. There are too many variables and not enough developer attention to create a balanced system.

Hannibal.5739:

There is no such thing as “balance”.
MMORPGs been out for quite some time & in the few yrs I’ve been playing them I’ve never heard of PvP being balanced.

korean mmos are way better than western ones

Hannibal.5739:

There is no such thing as “balance”.
MMORPGs been out for quite some time & in the few yrs I’ve been playing them I’ve never heard of PvP being balanced.

I think that right at the moment when turrets engi were nerfed we had a chance at a balanced esport.
For me that is the turning point where everything balance-related went the wrong way exponentially, starting with the stability changes, to the condi change favoring stats/passive gameplay over skill, the separation of traits and stats, the boon duration nerf and the power creep favoring cheap 1-shot builds with the global stat boost (not all stats were equal in the first place). Then the new trait lines with merged traits and finally the elite professions (which have been made by different people and range from amazing (Reaper) to terrible (Tempest).

It is my opinion that all these changes were made too fast and that they greatly unbalanced the game.

Every MMO has it’s flaws, and with every patch there will be ups and downs.

Learn to adapt, and try to play what combination is good and you know best. In every environment a player tries to find the best weapon or the best tactic to enjoy the game; it’s the same here, try to find the best profession and enjoy it while it lasts, or until the next balance patch is released. Nobody forces you to play anything, so choose wisely.

More than three years have passed since release. An MMO PvP player should know how things work in any game, with ups and downs.

Alin.2468:

An MMO PvP player should know how things work in any game, with ups and downs.

And when is gw2 up coming exactly? because in all this time, pvp has gone from one mess to the next, i still remember the kite wars meta when the warrior was night useless, we have basically come full circle.

@Alin.2468
I find it funny that you say “try to find the best profession and enjoy it while it last” than turn around and say “nobody forces you to play anything so choose wisely” lol.
I choose to play thief & necro (core specs not elite) but guess which one feels like i gotta play a perfect game to have a chance at winning?

I guess learn to adapt means i need to just give up on thief & become a rev, dh or whatever like so many other players. Sorry i won’t do that i will just give up on pvp than jump on bandwagons

Xillllix.3485:

What happened to Skill/Class balance in this game?
It seemed that at the end 2014 everything was almost perfect, finally we had something that could be considered an eSport.

Dhuumfire happened, necromancers were an underwhelming class at the time with 1 viable (but powerful) condi-bunker build.

• ArenaNet decided to buff Necromancers.
• ArenaNet also decided to kitten up royally while they were at it.

Some stupid reason ArenaNet decided to give Necromancers the most powerful trait in the game, Dhuumfire that rivals the potential of todays grandmaster traits. It was that broken.

That trait alone skyrocketed necromancers to God tier, even with numerous nerfs it was stupid powerful. In conjunction with the trait Terror, the damage rivals the condi-burst classes today during a time there was no such thing as condi-burst. There was no counter play, PvP was completely ruled by Necromancers.

Now it’s nerfed to a reasonable line, but when it came out it destroyed the PvP community in mere days.

ArenaNet killed their Esport community with Dhuumfire and allowed it to run rampant for nearly a year.

That sir, is why Guild Wars 2 Esports potential completely died.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Xillllix.3485:

What happened to Skill/Class balance in this game?
It seemed that at the end 2014 everything was almost perfect, finally we had something that could be considered an eSport.

Dhuumfire happened, necromancers were an underwhelming class at the time with 1 viable (but powerful) condi-bunker build.

• ArenaNet decided to buff Necromancers.
• ArenaNet also decided to kitten up royally while they were at it.

Some stupid reason ArenaNet decided to give Necromancers the most powerful trait in the game, Dhuumfire that rivals the potential of todays grandmaster traits. It was that broken.

That trait alone skyrocketed necromancers to God tier, even with numerous nerfs it was stupid powerful. In conjunction with the trait Terror, the damage rivals the condi-burst classes today during a time there was no such thing as condi-burst. There was no counter play, PvP was completely ruled by Necromancers.

Now it’s nerfed to a reasonable line, but when it came out it destroyed the PvP community in mere days.

---

ArenaNet killed their Esport community with Dhuumfire and allowed it to run rampant for nearly a year.

That sir, is why Guild Wars 2 Esports potential completely died.

Thus I pronounce it “Dumbfire”

@ Nova Stiker
That’s funny cuz when I went into the necro sub forum all I saw was how dhuumfire was a dissapointing trait since the 6/23 patch & wasn’t worth picking until reaper came along.
Can i ask what makes it the best trait in the game?

Hannibal.5739:

@ Nova Stiker
That’s funny cuz when I went into the necro sub forum all I saw was how dhuumfire was a dissapointing trait since the 6/23 patch & wasn’t worth picking until reaper came along.
Can i ask what makes it the best trait in the game?

I’m not sure what the poster above was talking about with Dhuumfire running rampant for almost a year, and the main issues with the trait occurred much longer ago (June/July 2013), but the patch that brought Dhuumfire definitely took a toll on the GW2’s PvP.

Back when Dhuumfire was first introduced as a trait, it was a 100% chance to inflict 4 seconds of Burning on crit (not just on Shroud skill 1) once every 10 seconds. This was before Burn stacked intensity, but the standards for what counted as strong damage and strong defense were also much lower then. Burning was a new condition for Necros that amplified their previously Bleed-dependent damage output (this was pre-Torment), and the trait’s passive nature gave them this large DPS boost for no extra effort. Besides Dhuumfire, Necros received many other buffs during that patch, and the result was that Necros briefly dominated PvP before being nerfed (the burning duration per Dhuumfire proc was halved after roughly one month).

The Dhuumfire patch was arguably the patch that began a new pattern for how condition pressure was balanced, introducing the current trend where conditions are applied and cleansed rapidly (as opposed to the more measured rate of application and cleansing that came before). It’s generally considered one of the many low points in GW2’s PvP history.

incisorr.9502:

korean mmos are way better than western ones

No they aren’t. Asians just don’t whine about everything, because Asians are more likely to blame themselves for a failure rather than blaming a scapegoat, due to how their culture works.
.

im not talking about asians im talking about me playing asian mmos for over 10 years now because they look better, feel better, have much better and more impactful animations and are way more balanced in general

gw2 does look good for a western mmorpg (compared to some kitten like wow) but the balance/animations/impact are horrible

incisorr.9502:

im not talking about asians im talking about me playing asian mmos for over 10 years now because they look better, feel better, have much better and more impactful animations and are way more balanced in general

gw2 does look good for a western mmorpg (compared to some kitten like wow) but the balance/animations/impact are horrible

“impactful animations” is a hugely subjective opinion. heck, Game Balance can arguably be subjective..

This game is very well balanced. How do you know? Because in the first two pages of this forum I can find a thread complaining about how pretty much every class bar warriors is overpowered.

Funny part is…none of you ever entered a single ESL tournie, you talk about balance…but don’t see the skill level required to back up of any of the claims seen in this thread…yeah your typical MMO forum