Guild Wars 2

*Continued from last post*

Fix the effectiveness of AoE
- There’s simply too much, it’s too strong, and it’s too easy to land. Make more AoE act like the Warriors Whirlwind Attack. Reintroduce Charged Skills (These are great, as their Risk/Reward ratio is excellent), and reduce the overall damage of AoE skills. Preferably, introduce some kind of diminishing return on them, like: 100% damage when 1 enemy is hit; 90% damage when 2 is hit; 80% damage when 3 is hit, etc.

Redesign Elites - They should be gamechanging
Look at how Dota 2 / HoN / LoL incorporates elite-skills. A well placed elite can change everything. There’s an absurd amount of skill involved in these, as placing, interrupting, positioning etc., all decide the effectiveness of said elite. In GW2, a Warrior will spam Signet of Rage every single time it’s off Cooldown. No one really notices it, and no one cares. For this, I’ll quote KrisHQ:

KrisHQ.4719:

Tornado - should only briefly or for a very short period of time transform you. When activated it would Launch (900-1200 range) all enemies within a pretty large radius (vague, I know) back and deal a high amount of direct dmg. Cooldown should be adjusted accordingly.

Plague Form - should function similarly to Enigmas "Black Hole" from Dota, only it would be the Necromancer himself that sucks and draws enemies closer while dealing dmg and leaving them unable to use skills. Duration should be again be pretty short.
The reason why the durations need to be short, is because then your teammates would have to react and utilise this moment, this would seperate good players from the bad. Also, some of these elite skill should have a channel time allowing for better players to purposefully interrupt them.

Rampage (Warrior) - "Could" (just an idea) grant increased damage, attack speed and life-steal for a brief period of time (Would allow Warriors to do clutch plays, while still easily countered since the skill would not grant any form of stability). Telegraph this by making the Warrior glow intensely red like it already is.

Fix the way Condition Damage / Conditions work
- As of now, you only need 1 stat to deal great damage through conditions, and that’s ’Condition Damage’. If you wanted to spec into power, you’d need: Power, Precision and Critical Damage. This means, that speccing in to Condition Damage, leaves you a lot of stats to put in defense (Healing, Toughness, Vitality). Again, there’s no risk. You get the damage as well as the defense with conditions.

I propose something drastic: Make Burning and Bleeding the only conditions that deal damage over time. Make Torment deal 0 damage to anyone who stands completely still, but up the damage if they move (Like Bloodseekers Elite, from Dota). Make conditions, and condition removal, less spam-able, by either;

a) Increasing the cooldown on skills that inflict conditions, or
b) by removing conditions from a lot of skills.

This would promote a meta, where conditions were to be applied effectively and situationally, and removal-skills saved until completely necessary. Imagine using Poison just before an enemy heals, Blind before the big Churning Earth, Chilled right after (to prolong the cooldown), Vulnerability before a burst, Weakness when he’s out of dodges, etc.

Clearer animations on important skills
- A game-changing skill should be accompanied by a very visual animation. Give us a chance to dodge / block / interrupt that skill. Churning Earth is an example of a good skill, while Signet of Spite is an example of a bad skill.

Reducing Endurance regeneration
- I saved this one for last. It’s a huge problem at the moment. Dodges should be preserved and timed, but the endurance regeneration is so high, that the best use of dodges, is to spam them. All passive endurance-regenerating traits / skills needs to go. Sigil of Energy needs to go, Vigor needs to be toned down.

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If you’ve made it this far, thank you! I could go on for days, but I tried to keep it short and precise. I know some of my suggestions are drastic, and that they’ll most likely never be implemented, but a little goes a long way. The combat of GW2 is great at its core, but we need an overhaul before the actual fighting is a fun experience.

Very good post Adian, hope ANet takes notice of it.

Kentrey.3251:

Well the difference is the clones on a mesmer are the only thing that keeps him alive.

And, of course, easy access to invis, invulnerability, distortion, and blinks dont give mesmer survivability. Its all hiding in clones, yeah.

Adian.8756:

What GW2 PvP really needs
An overhaul to the combat system. Sorry ANet, but changing numbers is not going to cut it.

I think that changing/ADDING cast times to skills may help a lot.

Lower Autoattack Damage
Agreed, but in case of ele autoattack is fine.

Remove all passive traits
Kinda agreed. All traits based on procs should be removed. Traits which eats CC should be also removed/reworked. For example, i think that warrior’s trait “Last Stand” should at least not eat CC, but give stability. So, warrior will be CCed, but you won’t be able to chain it.
I also think that traits like Necromacer’s “Full of Life” or “Furious Demise” are fine.

Well, my idea is to add traits which check if there is some boon on your target or condition on you and if it is, you gain something.
Existing example is Guardian’s “Inner Fire” (when you are set on fire, you gain fury), but i didn’t use it at all and i think that it’s pretty weak and should be buffed. I might be wrong though.
I also may suggest something like “whenever you hit a foe with protection boon, your critical attacks do 30% more damage”. It’s just an example.
So, traits like this should become a counters or just be useful if your opponent is using some boons or conditions.

Adjust Risk vs. Reward / Melee vs. Ranged
Agreed, but, well, some classess have NO access to melee weapons. I’m talking about engineers and elementalists. Yes, engis have kits and eles have conjures, but with that changes they won’t be able to build as bunkers because to do that one should stay at point, and with default ranged weapons i’m sure their damage will be very bad, if not worse than damage of bunker guardian. I’m talking about build diversity, and that sort of changes should be applied carefully.

Skull Crack is incredible. Low cooldown, high damage, no animation and stun. Whats the risk? There is none.

Absolutely agreed.

Fix the effectiveness of AoE
Agreed except for diminishing. Don’t like any sort of diminishing in games. Diminishing is a bad method of balancing for those who don’t know what to do.

Redesign Elites – They should be gamechanging
I’m worried about amount of CC in this game. I think that we DONT need more CC than we already have, even if we will remove stuns from mace and hammer burst skills. I will accept this changes ONLY if duration of other CC’s will be reduced by 30-50%. I want to control my character. If you want elites be strong, then give them damage, boons, conditions, but not CC.

Fix the way Condition Damage / Conditions work
I agree and also find your ideas very good.

Clearer animations on important skills
Yes. Also, give us option to toggle models of all players to human males for example.

Reducing Endurance regeneration
Agreed, but DON’T reduce base endurance regeneration, it’s fine.

A lot of Adian.8756 said is an over-reaction. Some of the assessments are way off or take a few outliers and apply it as the whole. Numbers changes can address a great deal of issues quickly.

- For the most part, auto-attack damage is fine, and melee does more damage than ranged. There are problem areas like mesmer greatsword auto-attack and AoE damage spam from ranged that do need addressed. What needs fixed is the situational use of skills instead of most players spamming 2-5 and being almost as effective. Area damage skills from ranged should either be delayed, spread over time, or less total damage. Melee is a bit harder to address because of any area attack has to be better than the cone on auto-attack.

- Risk vs Reward is there for a lot of abilities, but needs tweaked a little. Skull Crack is so powerful partly because of a bugged sigil and other influences. Remember that at 1 second less, few people used it. The risk is that it has to connect and it’s only a single target. The ability is adrenline-based so not immediately available on a cooldown. Blame Cleansing Ire for absurd amounts of adrenaline generation. Compare that to say Earthshaker which has a very obvious animation, but stuns an area.

- Agree with the change to certain passive traits, in particular burning. Ideally these should be included with other actions or be of less impact. Passive condition removal isn’t nearly as bad, as most are 1 condition every 10 seconds. You may not get it when you need it, so changing it isn’t as imperative.

- The problem with powerful elites, which ANet explained during development, is that the battles then come down to who has their elite off cooldown. Elites as a concept were designed so that counter-play is possible without using your own elite. The problem is that we mostly got transformation elites that mostly suck. Tornado is actually a good elite as-is, and Plague Form to a lesser extent. The solution to not using passive or transformation elites is to provide good short-duration activated elites like Basilisk Venom as new skills. High-level PvPers much prefer activated abilities.

- Conditions and condition damage are fine for the most part. A handful of builds are making conditions too powerful not because of the condition mechanics or condition damage, but the volume, rate, and variety of their condition application. As designers, ANet needs to make a decision as to whether condition damage alone should be competitive damage, or if conditions should supplement power as an alternative to critical chance and critical damage.

- Endurance regeneration bonuses are a sticky spot. I used to think it was too powerful, but that’s not the case. What’s too good is extra endurance regeneration combined with other defenses like block, evade and CC’ing an enemy. Even with all that extra dodging, people still die a lot, and good players know when to use their dodges. And active avoidance is good compared to passive defense. I would just change Sigil of Energy to grant Vigor on weapon swap instead of instant endurance. That way it won’t provide additional benefit when combined with skills and traits which grant Vigor. Address the rest on a profession level through trait and skill tweaks.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

Adian.8756:

What GW2 PvP really needs
An overhaul to the combat system. Sorry ANet, but changing numbers is not going to cut it.

I think that changing/ADDING cast times to skills may help a lot.

Lower Autoattack Damage
Agreed, but in case of ele autoattack is fine.

Nooo.
What they should have done is make auto attacks the main thing that scales with Power/crit.
Ability dmg will scale for half if even that much comparitively.

It’d make burst/insta-gibs into much less of a deal and give glass dps a complete revamp when it comes to how they play… instead of aiming for bursting before you can be burst, they have high sustained dps and can use their abilities more for mobility/debuffs instead of relying on them for dmg.

Pretty much agree with everything Adian said. Before class balance should even be addressed, core fundamental game design elements need to change.

Exedore.6320:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Gw2-PVP-Community-Improvement-Ideas/page/2#post2923844

To perceive his post as over-reacting highly depends on subjective satisfaction with the game.
I am basically a 100% certain that the game cannot reach a competitive state only by tweaking numbers. A game will reach a point where that is the case, but GW2 is far from there. I obviously cannot give you any facts, just like no one can really prove me wrong. But with the competitive experience I have both in gaming and irl, I really believe a few minor/major overhauls are necessary.
Keep in mind that when I refer to the competitive state of a game, I refer to a game relying solely on it’s competitive nature and not rewards in any way. There will always be people who play “competitively” in any game, even though the game is very limited in that area, just like there is still people participating in GW2 tournaments. However, this does not mean the game is at a great competitive state.

Furthermore, I have to disagree with a lot of your points. There is for instance very few skills that have a balanced risk/reward ratio.
And regarding elite skills, you will always be able to counter the elite by blocking/dodging or activating stability.
The ideas that Adian and to some extend I have been proposing will pretty drastically change the meta and the way to think about GW2.
We’re trying to reach a action/reaction team-based game. Why? Because GW2 is great at it’s core mechanics.

A very basic rule of thumb is to ask: Will E-Sport montages and/or movies/replays be exciting to watch? Will this game provide the competitive environment for that to thrive?

I’ve not seen a single video where I’ve been impressed in any way. I’ve seen a few entertaining movies, but they were never impressive.

Thanks for the support guys, means a lot

Ryld.1340:

It’s funny. All the people that are against the Necro marks don’t realize that a 1/4th second activation time is NOTHING compared to Elementalist Staff skills. Literally. Nothing. I would kill to only have to wait 1/4th of a second for my skills to hit. Current necro staff can hit you before the mark even appears. That’s silly.

Give me the damage of Meteor storm and we can talk about bumping up the activation time.

All staff marks have already a nearly 1 second cast time (3/4ths second) with a big hand-wave movement. If you can’t dodge in 3/4s then that is on you. The problem with them is that 3 of them are very similar movements, they should change them like Reaper’s mark so each mark gets a unique cast animation so you can actually decide whether you want to dodge or not.

Other than that, you are taking overall pretty weak (per use) weapon skills, and making them impossible to land against anyone with a functional brain.

Bhawb.7408:

Ryld.1340:

It’s funny. All the people that are against the Necro marks don’t realize that a 1/4th second activation time is NOTHING compared to Elementalist Staff skills. Literally. Nothing. I would kill to only have to wait 1/4th of a second for my skills to hit. Current necro staff can hit you before the mark even appears. That’s silly.

Give me the damage of Meteor storm and we can talk about bumping up the activation time.

All staff marks have already a nearly 1 second cast time (3/4ths second) with a big hand-wave movement. If you can’t dodge in 3/4s then that is on you. The problem with them is that 3 of them are very similar movements, they should change them like Reaper’s mark so each mark gets a unique cast animation so you can actually decide whether you want to dodge or not.

Other than that, you are taking overall pretty weak (per use) weapon skills, and making them impossible to land against anyone with a functional brain.

I know you’re biased and all, trying to keep your class strong but objectively the way marks work are unhealthy for the game and need to be changed.

This coming from a once necro main lol. Staff mark telegraphs are virtually non-existent.

On the flip side, taking about risk/reward, you’re right, marks should be buffed if changed, both should happen.

Just make marks have a 3 second pulse on the ground, atleast for Blood/Chillblains, the 2nd is already a poison field so why not.. Then just make them stronger, it would feel much, much better as a standalone weapon then, especially for PvE.

#4/#5 are both very strong skills and should definately have a good telegraph, have the mark swell on the ground half while the casting animation is going off and half after it’s cast, then burst and cause it’s effect and give both a unique little border animation to distinguish them, easy.

I’m 100% for more visibility/telegraphing from the marks, even if they aren’t buffed at all, simply because it makes the game better (if they end up too weak just buff them). But giving them a post cast activation time of 1/4s is far too forgiving. That is 1s to respond to a skill, and 1/4 to respond even if you already completely kittened up. How are you supposed to land a mark on a ranger or thief spamming evades with that? They can get hit, and still not get hit, that’s ridiculous.

If they do make the change, they would need to make marks a lot stronger to compensate. And tbh 4 isn’t a strong skill anymore. Its weaker than dagger OH 4 in team fights, its just slightly more reliable on the removal.

KrisHQ.4719:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Gw2-PVP-Community-Improvement-Ideas/page/2#post2924517

I’ll agree that the game needs more than numbers changes to add depth to the gameplay. But it can also take a large step forward toward that goal with only numbers changes. It still needs some skills or traits re-designed or moved, but I disagree that re-building much of the established gameplay is required.

Most skills have balanced risk/reward. It’s just moderate risk with moderate reward. What you’re asking for is high risk/high reward. And it’s great to have some of that, but you can also have too much of it. If too many abilities become like Churning Earth, Dragon’s Tooth, etc. then the gameplay becomes slow and dull. Situational abilities that are powerful but only when used at the right time are another tenant of competitive depth.

I don’t find balancing primarily based on watching someone play the game to be the best approach. If you can play the game and if you understand it enough to tell when someone used their skills at the best times or didn’t waste them for little benefit, it’s accomplished depth. The same is true for team coordination. And that leads into the entertainment factor.

Exedore.6320:

If you can play the game and if you understand it enough to tell when someone used their skills at the best times or didn’t waste them for little benefit, it’s accomplished depth. The same is true for team coordination. And that leads into the entertainment factor.

Problem is that with GW2, there is basically no difference between spamming your skills and/or using them intelligently.
So it’s almost impossible to tell if someone used their skills at the best time, and to be honest it doesn’t really matter, since the CD is usually so low that spamming is in fact
more efficient than waiting for the “right moment”.

By the time the right moment appears, you could have spammed your skill three times. I know what works the best.

Adian.8756:

Ah. Yet another case of “Please don’t nerf my profession – I want to kill people with no effort.” Necro’s are borderline brainless OP. Something needs to change.

Yes, my profession.. my only profession, and i will try to defend it in any way possible ^^
-Colored marks.

No, they won’t gain anything from colored marks. And rightfully so, they are too good already. Colored marks would help promote skillful play. Timing your dodges/blocks to purposely evade the correct incoming attack.

I agree with the color, i disagree with doing their job laying on the ground without being activted.. iow, totally useless, with what you just said. It would mean the staff will become obsolete since its job is to funnel players into what? melee range? my awesome traps? iow marks are more then cc.. and if what you are saying is correct then, for instance, you wouldnt mind all marks having spite signet damage traits + fear.. since their job is crowd control and not damage.

#necrofanboy

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

Adian.8756:

Ah. Yet another case of “Please don’t nerf my profession – I want to kill people with no effort.” Necro’s are borderline brainless OP. Something needs to change.

Yes, my profession.. my only profession, and i will try to defend it in any way possible ^^
-Colored marks.

No, they won’t gain anything from colored marks. And rightfully so, they are too good already. Colored marks would help promote skillful play. Timing your dodges/blocks to purposely evade the correct incoming attack.

I agree with the color, i disagree with doing their job laying on the ground without being activted.. iow, totally useless, with what you just said. It would mean the staff will become obsolete since its job is to funnel players into what? melee range? my awesome traps? iow marks are more then cc.. and if what you are saying is correct then, for instance, you wouldnt mind all marks having spite signet damage traits + fear.. since their job is crowd control and not damage.

#necrofanboy

You do realize that Marks would still be large enough to almost cover an entire node, and with the amount of vigor and endurance regeneration decreased, marks would still be incredibly powerful in teamfights.
Difference would be that people could actually choose to get hit my some of the lesser painful marks, and try to block or dodge the powerful ones.

I too agree with pretty much everything Adian.8756 suggets, great post.

Though with regaurds to AoE I’d rather see it impactfull but riskier (longer cooldowns &/or charged cast) than watered down and spammy. I also think diminishing effect scaling is a bad idea due to unintuitivness, as CutePicsHunter.7430 suggested above.

KrisHQ.4719:

Problem is that with GW2, there is basically no difference between spamming your skills and/or using them intelligently.

There most certainly is a substantial difference. It’s not as big as it could or should be, but it’s there.

Here’s a few examples:
- Necro saves putrid mark (staff #4) for until he has a lot of longer duration damaging conditions on himself and positions it to hit only one enemy.
- Guardian saves his heal skill and uses passive healing instead.
- Anyone counting enemy dodges before unloading CC or heavy damage.
- Saving dodges for CC, high damage abilities, or to break an attack chain.
- Thieves that skirmish and re-stealth waiting for their opponents to use up stun breaks, heals, and other defensive cooldowns.
- Saving stability or other cooldowns for difficult stomps or revives.
- Using blind to counter high damage attacks or CC or delay your opponent from using it.

Notice that any CC, burst, or movement skill (or counters to those) can be influenced by proper timing. But there are many weapon skills that are basically auto-attack damage in a different form or with a mostly inconsequential boon or condition.

Exedore.6320:

KrisHQ.4719:

Problem is that with GW2, there is basically no difference between spamming your skills and/or using them intelligently.

There most certainly is a substantial difference. It’s not as big as it could or should be, but it’s there.

Here’s a few examples:
- Necro saves putrid mark (staff #4) for until he has a lot of longer duration damaging conditions on himself and positions it to hit only one enemy.
- Guardian saves his heal skill and uses passive healing instead.
- Anyone counting enemy dodges before unloading CC or heavy damage.
- Saving dodges for CC, high damage abilities, or to break an attack chain.
- Thieves that skirmish and re-stealth waiting for their opponents to use up stun breaks, heals, and other defensive cooldowns.
- Saving stability or other cooldowns for difficult stomps or revives.
- Using blind to counter high damage attacks or CC or delay your opponent from using it.

Notice that any CC, burst, or movement skill (or counters to those) can be influenced by proper timing. But there are many weapon skills that are basically auto-attack damage in a different form or with a mostly inconsequential boon or condition.

Well. All of these points are very basic and can be learned in a few hours of play.
Counting dodges is not really reliable, since people can basically spam dodges due to vigor and Sigil Of Energy.
Saving dodges is probably one of the worst things you can do atm (I’ll spare you for the explanation as to why), unless you specifically know that there is a very devastating move you need to dodge, and those skills are extremely rare. Skullcrack isn’t one of them for obvious reasons.
Saving stability for a stomp is not really doing anything out of the ordinary, it’s one of the most basic things in sPvP and WvW.
Furthermore, even if you consider these points to be less spammy, they wouldn’t make a noticeable difference.

Exedore.6320:

Here’s a few examples:
- Necro saves putrid mark (staff #4) for until he has a lot of longer duration damaging conditions on himself and positions it to hit only one enemy.
- Guardian saves his heal skill and uses passive healing instead.
- Anyone counting enemy dodges before unloading CC or heavy damage.
- Saving dodges for CC, high damage abilities, or to break an attack chain.
- Thieves that skirmish and re-stealth waiting for their opponents to use up stun breaks, heals, and other defensive cooldowns.
- Saving stability or other cooldowns for difficult stomps or revives.
- Using blind to counter high damage attacks or CC or delay your opponent from using it.

I agree that there is a huge difference. Shortly after launch, top-tier players talked about how most of the skill of the game revolved around avoiding damage, not dealing it. Specifically, skills auto-face and even auto-target, so you can deal damage pretty well by pressing buttons in any order.

That doesn’t come close to meaning the game is easy, though. If two skull crack/HB warriors duel, the winner isn’t going to be the one who spams the most damage. Even in a total cheese build duel, the winner will be determined by who dodges/baits/pressures better. Much more so in a teamfight or a duel between two actually interesting builds.

What about making necro marks chanelled skills skills so they work similar to ranger traps: ill give you an idea:

Mark of blood

This skill now inflicts 1 stack of 6 seconds bleeding and 1 stack of 3 seconds regeneration up to 5 stacks on its full duration, as long as the necromancer keeps chanelling the skill, the mark will be pulsing everi second up to 5 times

Mark of evasion

This skill now ow inflicts 1 stack of 6 seconds bleeding and 1 stack of 3 seconds regeneration every pulse, it pulses 3 times.

Chillblains

This skill now inflicts 1 stack of 3 seconds chill and 1 stack of 3 seconds of poison on every pulse up to 5 stacks on its full duration, as long as the necromancer keeps chanelling the skill, the mark will be pulsing every second up to 5 times

Putrid mark

This skill will now transfer one condition from allies to foes every pulse up to 5 conditions. The mark will pulse every second as log as the Necromancer keeps chanelling it.

Reapers mark

This skill will now inflict 1 second fear every pulse up to 2 pulsesThe mark will pulse every second as log as the Necromancer keeps chanelling it.

This will make Necromancer’s marks easier to counter while making them more powerfull if not countered.

This kind of mecanic can be inplemented on other skills like lava font for example, but giving something in exchange like reducing its cooldow to 2 seconds so they can have something similar to two Auto attacks.

Thank you guys for your feedback

Bumping for great justice.
Lots of good ideas in this thread, let’s hope the Devs take notice.

KrisHQ.4719:

Exedore.6320:

If you can play the game and if you understand it enough to tell when someone used their skills at the best times or didn’t waste them for little benefit, it’s accomplished depth. The same is true for team coordination. And that leads into the entertainment factor.

Problem is that with GW2, there is basically no difference between spamming your skills and/or using them intelligently.
So it’s almost impossible to tell if someone used their skills at the best time, and to be honest it doesn’t really matter, since the CD is usually so low that spamming is in fact
more efficient than waiting for the “right moment”.

By the time the right moment appears, you could have spammed your skill three times. I know what works the best.

+1. And it comes a lot because they are being way way too innovative, so they removed energy management for 90% of classes, now it’s just cool-downs, so for a lot of what maybe situational skills you are better if you use them whenever they are not in cool-down, since the risk is too low (not having the skill for that situation where it works best, but since cool-down is low, you could maybe have 3 full cool-downs before that situation happens).

For example, the mark 5, the fear one, deals fear and damage. But since the damage is nice, the cool-down is not that huge and fear is another condi for extra damage, you are better using this skill with the usual condi-combo to deal extra damage, instead of saving it for avoiding a stomp of one of ur teammates.

Sensotix.4106:

we have no ranged dmg when they change the gs like he said or u said

Is the greatsword ranged?
Does the greatsword auto attack do damage?

Congratulations, you’ve just answered your own questions.

Also the staff auto attack does damage from range, just not as far of course as GS. Besides, these are suggestions. Don’t get your panties in a twist over it

Countless

KrisHQ.4719:

You do realize that Marks would still be large enough to almost cover an entire node, and with the amount of vigor and endurance regeneration decreased, marks would still be incredibly powerful in teamfights.
Difference would be that people could actually choose to get hit my some of the lesser painful marks, and try to block or dodge the powerful ones.

Marks aren’t large enough to cover an entire point unless you get greater marks, which no one gets anymore.

You already have the chance to dodge the biggest one, now that it has had a fairly obvious animation added, and still has a 3/4 second cast time. Though they definitely need more readability, especially with a bit more obvious difference in casting animations, the things suggested here would make marks completely irrelevant to any player that had any kind of avoidance up.

Bhawb.7408:

KrisHQ.4719:

You do realize that Marks would still be large enough to almost cover an entire node, and with the amount of vigor and endurance regeneration decreased, marks would still be incredibly powerful in teamfights.
Difference would be that people could actually choose to get hit my some of the lesser painful marks, and try to block or dodge the powerful ones.

Marks aren’t large enough to cover an entire point unless you get greater marks, which no one gets anymore.

You already have the chance to dodge the biggest one, now that it has had a fairly obvious animation added, and still has a 3/4 second cast time. Though they definitely need more readability, especially with a bit more obvious difference in casting animations, the things suggested here would make marks completely irrelevant to any player that had any kind of avoidance up.

You mean just like every other balanced skill in the game?
It’s like saying: “Fire Grab is competely useless if the enemy has any kind of avoidance up”
Yes? Isn’t that the whole point? People saving their few dodges for more powerful attacks?
People have gotten used to things being far too easy in GW2. And even the idea of not being able to instant-hit their opponent with unblockable skills, they start to call “useless”.

KrisHQ.4719:

Bhawb.7408:

KrisHQ.4719:

You do realize that Marks would still be large enough to almost cover an entire node, and with the amount of vigor and endurance regeneration decreased, marks would still be incredibly powerful in teamfights.
Difference would be that people could actually choose to get hit my some of the lesser painful marks, and try to block or dodge the powerful ones.

Marks aren’t large enough to cover an entire point unless you get greater marks, which no one gets anymore.

You already have the chance to dodge the biggest one, now that it has had a fairly obvious animation added, and still has a 3/4 second cast time. Though they definitely need more readability, especially with a bit more obvious difference in casting animations, the things suggested here would make marks completely irrelevant to any player that had any kind of avoidance up.

You mean just like every other balanced skill in the game?
It’s like saying: “Fire Grab is competely useless if the enemy has any kind of avoidance up”
Yes? Isn’t that the whole point? People saving their few dodges for more powerful attacks?
People have gotten used to things being far too easy in GW2. And even the idea of not being able to instant-hit their opponent with unblockable skills, they start to call “useless”.

I guess ill respond,
Marks are traited to be unblockable and bigger.
I play without traits, so without traits you still feel marks should have an activation time?

I would only agree with that if marks get a huge bump in direct damage and marks will be unblockable and twice it’s size and staff #4 & #5 will be an aoe non-mark.

Otherwise marks WILL be useless considering all the evades, stealth, blink and huge leaps players make.

example:
Thief sees marks: oh look marks.. > stealth > skips whisteling to the necro.
Mesmer: oh look round things on the ground > blink > or walks trough
Warrior: oh look things i ignore anyway> walks trough marks automativcaly negating all effects
Guardian: oh look necro marks > leap>blink> or walks trough without any serious damage
Elementalist: doesn’t notice marks since he moves too fast to even care about activation time > and if one hits.. cleanse..
Ranger: oh look marks> uses ranged attacks> automatically sends pet trough and follows while he gets autocleansed.
Engie: oh look marks> stealth>leaps>rocketjump>quickness and other goodies to negate any possibility of activation..

(*or dodges trough) add this behind any profession.

So yeah… Useless.

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046:

KrisHQ.4719:

Bhawb.7408:

KrisHQ.4719:

You do realize that Marks would still be large enough to almost cover an entire node, and with the amount of vigor and endurance regeneration decreased, marks would still be incredibly powerful in teamfights.
Difference would be that people could actually choose to get hit my some of the lesser painful marks, and try to block or dodge the powerful ones.

Marks aren’t large enough to cover an entire point unless you get greater marks, which no one gets anymore.

You already have the chance to dodge the biggest one, now that it has had a fairly obvious animation added, and still has a 3/4 second cast time. Though they definitely need more readability, especially with a bit more obvious difference in casting animations, the things suggested here would make marks completely irrelevant to any player that had any kind of avoidance up.

You mean just like every other balanced skill in the game?
It’s like saying: “Fire Grab is competely useless if the enemy has any kind of avoidance up”
Yes? Isn’t that the whole point? People saving their few dodges for more powerful attacks?
People have gotten used to things being far too easy in GW2. And even the idea of not being able to instant-hit their opponent with unblockable skills, they start to call “useless”.

I guess ill respond,
Marks are traited to be unblockable and bigger.
I play without traits, so without traits you still feel marks should have an activation time?

I would only agree with that if marks get a huge bump in direct damage and marks will be unblockable and twice it’s size and staff #4 & #5 will be an aoe non-mark.

Otherwise marks WILL be useless considering all the evades, stealth, blink and huge leaps players make.

example:
Thief sees marks: oh look marks.. > stealth > skips whisteling to the necro.
Mesmer: oh look round things on the ground > blink > or walks trough
Warrior: oh look things i ignore anyway> walks trough marks automativcaly negating all effects
Guardian: oh look necro marks > leap>blink> or walks trough without any serious damage
Elementalist: doesn’t notice marks since he moves too fast to even care about activation time > and if one hits.. cleanse..
Ranger: oh look marks> uses ranged attacks> automatically sends pet trough and follows while he gets autocleansed.
Engie: oh look marks> stealth>leaps>rocketjump>quickness and other goodies to negate any possibility of activation..

(*or dodges trough) add this behind any profession.

So yeah… Useless.

Well. You’re thinking about this change in the context of the current state of the game. If you do that, everything will be a bad idea, since the amount of evades, dodges and low cooldown on condi-removal etc is out of control.
Giving Marks an activation time would be perfectly fine if the amount of condi-removal and vigor/endurance regeneration got decreased, which if you read the whole thread, has been suggested along with the mark change.
But well. If you’re playing Necro I guess it’s pointless to argue.

KrisHQ.4719:

You mean just like every other balanced skill in the game?
It’s like saying: “Fire Grab is competely useless if the enemy has any kind of avoidance up”
Yes? Isn’t that the whole point? People saving their few dodges for more powerful attacks?
People have gotten used to things being far too easy in GW2. And even the idea of not being able to instant-hit their opponent with unblockable skills, they start to call “useless”.

Ah yes, I forget how often I hit a 10k Putrid mark… oh wait. Edit: just realized that was a PvE video I saw that in. Anyway, point is skills that are very easy to avoid need to have very strong effects to make up for it. Meteor Storm, Fire Grab, 100b, are all examples of this. Necro staff doesn’t contain any such thing.

You’re comparing marks, 3 of 4 of them being fairly mediocre as far as per-hit effects go, to a skill that can win a fight just by landing it, because of how much damage it does. Next you’re going to come here and say “well yeah, but 100b is really easy to dodge, so marks should be to!”.

If you are going to make marks as easy to dodge as something like Fire grab, then make them as strong as fire grab. But they aren’t, not even close.

Bhawb.7408:

Ah yes, I forget how often I hit a 10k Putrid mark… oh wait. Edit: just realized that was a PvE video I saw that in. Anyway, point is skills that are very easy to avoid need to have very strong effects to make up for it. Meteor Storm, Fire Grab, 100b, are all examples of this. Necro staff doesn’t contain any such thing.

You’re comparing marks, 3 of 4 of them being fairly mediocre as far as per-hit effects go, to a skill that can win a fight just by landing it, because of how much damage it does. Next you’re going to come here and say “well yeah, but 100b is really easy to dodge, so marks should be to!”.

If you are going to make marks as easy to dodge as something like Fire grab, then make them as strong as fire grab. But they aren’t, not even close.

Comparing Marks to 100b is a bad idea. While 100b deals more direct and immediate damage, Marks have the added effect of being able to hit 5 enemies simultaneously, and inflect conditions on every single one of those enemies – 100b don’t. And with the way conditions and condition damage works at the moment, you’ll arguably get a higher total effect out of Marks. Add unblockable, no animations and no casting time to that, and you can hopefully see why Marks are currently broken.

@Merlin
As I mentioned in my earlier post, people seem to think, that every weaponset and every skill, should be good in all situations, against any profession. This shouldn’t be the case. Yeah, if you give marks a trigger time, they’ll be hard to land on Rangers and Thieves, but that’s okay. You shouldn’t be using staff because it’s a great 1v1 weapon – You should be using it because it’s good in large teamfights. And no, you can’t have best of both worlds, that’s not how balance works. If it’s good in teamfights, it should be bad in 1v1s.

Adian.8756:

Comparing Marks to 100b is a bad idea. While 100b deals more direct and immediate damage, Marks have the added effect of being able to hit 5 enemies simultaneously, and inflect conditions on every single one of those enemies – 100b don’t. And with the way conditions and condition damage works at the moment, you’ll arguably get a higher total effect out of Marks. Add unblockable, no animations and no casting time to that, and you can hopefully see why Marks are currently broken.

They’re too situational to be compared to start with, but each can be broken in certain situations:
Down a player and have 2-3 players try rezzing them up with a warrior unloading a hundred blades chain on the rezzers, and compare that to a necro spamming all marks.
I wonder who will blow up faster.
Yes, you will realize quite fast that the only mark of merit in that case would be the fear one, and even then only if there isn’t any stability, invulnerability, block (granted marks aren’t traited), blind etc. present at the moment the mark is tossed in.

So it’s not only marks which can be considered broken. Even grenade spamming on a downed player can blow up entire teams if they try to rez, but no mark in the world will be able to do that. Having an average cast time (mind it is 3/4 of a second ,which is a rather normal cast time), marks only really need a clue on which type is being cast.

@Karla

I already addressed AoE in my big post. It’s generally broken. And skills being situational is great, that’s how it should be - which is why I don’t understand those who oppose a nerf to marks with the reason; that they’ll become bad in 1v1.

As mentioned towards the end, I think they’re fine in their current state (which, I presume, is identical to how it was ca. 2 months ago), the only thing missing is a good clue (and possibly more telegraphed animation) on which mark is being cast.

Writetyper.1985:

GW countbro. It all checks out in my opinion.

I wrote a transcript as I listened/waited for queue (No offense meant, not everyone has as much time as you and I, and this needs to be out there):

-All ideas/suggestions suggested by a player were run past 6 other experienced players in the class.

Mesmer:
-Reverse the greatsword damage mechanic – more damage closer, less further away, risk/reward
-Speed up scepter 1 autoattack
-Scepter autoattack should apply a bleed on third auto chain
-Scepter 2 should always hit the target only if the target you have selected hit you
-More access to swiftness

Elementalist:
-Buff conjures.
-Armour of earth CD to 60 seconds
-Lower damage of lightning strike and electric discharge by 10%
-Dust devil instant cast
-Reduce arcane wave/blast damage by 20%, then give them the benefits of elemental surge, while giving elemental surge a cooldown reduction trait instead.
-Reduce attunement CD by 1 second.
Warrior
-More telegraphed skull crack
-Fix para sigil
-Lower the amount of signet of healing by some degree.
PERSONAL OPINION ON THAT ISSUE: Make it more active, it’s so passive and boring right now but so good. Slash it’s base healing to half, but then make it heal more over time temporarily if you successfully use adrenalin via skills on a target.
-Fix zerker stance to reflect tooltip (-100% condi reduction)
-Can double use the same adrenalin pool (mainly longbow)
Thief
-Pistol auto damage boost
-Pistol 2 rehaul (gets imob according to leak)
-CnD aftercast reduced, damage lsightly buffed.
-Flanking/larcenous 10-15% damage reduction, flanking required to get larcenous
-Shadow trap active removed
-Initiative price increase for infiltrator’s return, reduce range to 900
-Infiltrator’s strike should require LOS

All in all, great list, please take note developers.

Nice nerfs to the ele. This is the problem… another individual who cant deal with a certain build (burst s/d I assume) and asks for nerfs all builds use.
Seriously? Let me go through some of your ‘improvements.’

-Buff conjures: Um… yep. This is not pve and it’s already going to happen but will never be viable for pvp.

-Lower damage of lightning strike and electric discharge by 10%: A big LOL. Without going pure zerker these damage for under 1.8k. Again, a direct attempt to nerf the damage of the s/d burst.

-Reduce arcane wave/blast damage by 20%, then give them the benefits of elemental surge, while giving elemental surge a cooldown reduction trait instead. : Are you for real? Firstly, who uses that trait? going 30 in arcana is only for evasive arcana. Secondly, 20% reduce in damage? Another direct nerf to the s/d burst. 20% damage decrease will completely make them obsolete and give the eles another bunch of useless utilities. I strongly suggest you go out and try the ele.

-Reduce attunement CD by 1 second. : Yep, ok thats cute.

I also see you main the mesmer. I don’t play one, but they all look like proper buffs – try remain neutral if you’re going to make a video like this. And the suggestion to nerf the healing signet by 50% but increase healing if you use adrenaline. Firstly, with the average of 400/s, 200/s will completely put the warrior back at the bottom. Why not improve poison? Improve poison duration and maybe cut healing under the effects of poison for 40% from 33%.
Sorry for the minor rage, but with the ele needing so much help in pvp atm, these ‘balance suggestions’ put me off big time.

AtoBoss.2906:

And the suggestion to nerf the healing signet by 50% but increase healing if you use adrenaline. Firstly, with the average of 400/s, 200/s will completely put the warrior back at the bottom. Why not improve poison? Improve poison duration and maybe cut healing under the effects of poison for 40% from 33%.

That was my suggestion that I snuck in there, not countless’s. The thinking was (And I main warrior) that the healing signet right now is very very boring play. With other heals you can counter them using interrupts etc at the correct times, but the healing signet is just another thing thrown out of the equation that simplifies play quite a lot. I’m saying there should be some active conditional – adrenalin usage being an example – that brings the healing from 200hp/s up to something like 6/800 hp/s temporarily.

That way the healing signet becomes something that comes into play on both sides – avoiding adrenalin skills as well as ensuring you land them to get that ridiculous regen instead of just having it all the time. Those are not exact numbers and you’d have to do the maths to balance out the HP increase to get an overall HP gain similar to what we have now. You also have to remember that the other warrior heals were also buffed significantly.

And if you intend to analyse the list so much I recommend you watch the video – a lot of stuff had the reasoning discussed in more detail that I could put in a skim-over transcript.

This is just my thoughts on your points: the reccomendation on ele being nerfed in places is true, but S/D burst is strong due to the fact that a majority of the skills are instant, which is hard to play on the ele’s side but if he knows what he’s doing then there’s literally nothing you can do to counter it. If you look across the rest of the list you’ll notice that there are general nerfs across the board – to bring everything down from the power creep patch that took a lot of “almost viable” builds out of the fray and replaced it with a whole new set of “super meta” easy builds like hammer/lb war and necro and such, where ele was forgotten. I think that in combination with the -1 second on attunement swap that could bring ele back into the fray, although -20% on arcanes is really very harsh, I’d agree there.

I also think quite a few of the ideas are quite over reaching on this thread.
I think auto attack damage itself is fine. But should be reworked a bit. Auto attacks should function more or less like the guardian hammer auto attack. Where it does 2 decent attack and then charges up for its final hit thats easy to read. Can be cancelled to be used again after a dodge.
In short I think all auto attacks should be made into sets of 3, that the first 2 are basic pretty low dmg (about 50% of what they are now) and the last one is easily telegraphed along with having whatever added effect (increased dmg by about 12% and/or have its effect bleed,poison, evade, whatever)
I’m sure i don’t have to explain the effect of what that would do. But it would both allow players to keep pressure on with auto attacks (which are a great action oriented idea btw, but would also very much allow counter play_

Passive traits are a great idea. They allow another level of build choices and incentives. And builds themselves would be fairly stale without it. Though on a level i do agree with you that some of them don’t allow counter play. And more important ones should have their information displayed to allow play around that.

Such as the guardian passive condition removals should display a timer (right over the signet) clearly showing how much longer time is until the next condition clear so you have the chance to either not use conditions or drop a buffer for one you want to apply.

Okay i think a lot of people might have a misconception here.
Risk Vs Reward for Melee Vs Ranged isn’t in a bad place at all.

In almost any game you play you’ll find that Ranged Do just as much dmg as melee easily.

But the difference is normally melee have the option to burst their dmg out while ranged deal sustained dmg. If you take a competitive mmo i hate to say wow. But lets go with wow.

And you put a Hunter Next to a warrior. On DPS charts (not counting slight differences in patches) They’ll do relatively the same dmg. So why doens’t the hunter just destroy the Warrior in PvP since it does just as much dmg from ranged.

Because the way an ideal match would go. Is the hunter would open up on the Warrior. And get the lead in the fight. The warrior, Having tools to close the gap and stop the ranger, gets in close after taking hits and unloads his/her dmg on the ranger taking the lead in the fight.

The ranger having the tools to get away uses his/her skills to regain the distance slowing snaring ccing and stunning the warrior and continuing its sustained dmg to even the fight out and take the lead.

The warrior tries to mitigate that damage and reclose the gap to reburst or stay on top of and burst/sustain damage the hunter.

You’re right there are some ranged classes (cough necro cough) who can hit like trucks, survive, and cc all without ever having to get into melee. But its not the issue of Ranged just out classing all melee (cough look at warriors cough) its the issue of some type of damage, conditions, being too easily applied and then re applied and those conditions not only using power but tons of condition damage not making much room for counter play

KrisHQ.4719:

Tornado – should only briefly or for a very short period of time transform you. When activated it would Launch (900-1200 range) all enemies within a pretty large radius (vague, I know) back and deal a high amount of direct dmg. Cooldown should be adjusted accordingly.

Plague Form – should function similarly to Enigmas “Black Hole” from Dota, only it would be the Necromancer himself that sucks and draws enemies closer while dealing dmg and leaving them unable to use skills. Duration should be again be pretty short.
The reason why the durations need to be short, is because then your teammates would have to react and utilise this moment, this would seperate good players from the bad. Also, some of these elite skill should have a channel time allowing for better players to purposefully interrupt them.

Rampage (Warrior) – “Could” (just an idea) grant increased damage, attack speed and life-steal for a brief period of time (Would allow Warriors to do clutch plays, while still easily countered since the skill would not grant any form of stability). Telegraph this by making the Warrior glow intensely red like it already is.

Exedore.6320:

- The problem with powerful elites, which ANet explained during development, is that the battles then come down to who has their elite off cooldown. Elites as a concept were designed so that counter-play is possible without using your own elite. The problem is that we mostly got transformation elites that mostly suck. Tornado is actually a good elite as-is, and Plague Form to a lesser extent. The solution to not using passive or transformation elites is to provide good short-duration activated elites like Basilisk Venom as new skills. High-level PvPers much prefer activated abilities.

Both ideas are just too good to pass up.

KrisHQ Brings up a great point that having amazing game changing elites would making for very exciting clutch plays.

But Exedore is also 100% right that team fights would just come down to which necro had its elite off CD.

Bask Venom is a great example of a very powerful elite that allows counterplay if its seen coming. And with things like Lyssa Runes and venom shares elites like that allow for diverse and strong builds.

So honestly i’m on the fence. Though i’d love to see some very powerful -useful- elites. I think for competitive healthy gameplay they should be strong but not so strong as 1 mistake would take you out of the fight. Such as an instant AoE blowout that specced right could drop a glass to half HP alone. Or A necro dropping marks on his own space running minions forcing 3 – 4 people to fight him. And dropping the 2 glass to 25% and the one tank to 50% because he dodged and got his elite of forcing them onto his marks.

But the sound of a warrior using his rage signet to instead time out a fight so he has just enough damage and lifesteal to stay alive sounds great

CutePicsHunter.7430:

Kentrey.3251:

Well the difference is the clones on a mesmer are the only thing that keeps him alive.

And, of course, easy access to invis, invulnerability, distortion, and blinks dont give mesmer survivability. Its all hiding in clones, yeah.

You call those easy access but 2 (3 if you have a torch off hand, and 4 if you use an elite) invis for a max of maybe 10 sec isn’t what a normal person would call a lot. Invun for about 6 secs (3 or so from the sword skill, and at max 4 (if traited) from f4, and 2 blinks ( you have to have staff). Comparing it to other classes not only would that not compare but it would easily fall short and pigeonhole you into both weapon sets, 2 outta 3 of your utilities, your elite, and most of your trait points. So yea there is a reason why mesmers have to use clones.

Last Post for now promise.

First

This section should also cover skills like Skull Crack and the Warriors Adrenaline mechanic in general. Skull Crack is incredible. Low cooldown, high damage, no animation and stun. Whats the risk? There is none. If you miss, there’s a small internal CD. I propose; If any Warrior F1 skill misses, the Warrior loses all Adrenaline.

I think that would be way to big a hit to warriors who are currently on top but its shaky at best.
You’re correct skull crack has too low a cooldown, doesn’t telegraph at all and hit way too hard (largely in part to unsuspecting foe)
It should have a charge time (which would be cancelable to a much shorter Internal CD). And should glow that dull yellow during its charge (as i think all F1 Warrior skills should)
But to drop all their adrenaline for any form of miss is just too big of a nerf to it and all F1 skills. Not every build is promoted around constant adrenaline upkeep. And i’m sure you’ve been in a fight where the difference between 4 – 8 seconds is the difference between life and death. The real issue is that warriors aren’t pressured enough and have too much natural survivalbility via cleanses, heals, and cc. But if the warrior is pressured and his single target skull crack misses he doesn’t have the time to wait those like 4 seconds for the internal CD he’s going to have to switch to his hammer and time his next stuns better and hope for the best. I think telegraphing the move along with adjusting stunwarriors dmg and innate survival would easily put warrior right where they should be.

Okay i lied sue me.
But this last point was way too good to not agree with

Exedore.6320:

- Conditions and condition damage are fine for the most part. A handful of builds are making conditions too powerful not because of the condition mechanics or condition damage, but the volume, rate, and variety of their condition application. As designers, ANet needs to make a decision as to whether condition damage alone should be competitive damage, or if conditions should supplement power as an alternative to critical chance and critical damage.

- Endurance regeneration bonuses are a sticky spot. I used to think it was too powerful, but that’s not the case. What’s too good is extra endurance regeneration combined with other defenses like block, evade and CC’ing an enemy. Even with all that extra dodging, people still die a lot, and good players know when to use their dodges. And active avoidance is good compared to passive defense. I would just change Sigil of Energy to grant Vigor on weapon swap instead of instant endurance. That way it won’t provide additional benefit when combined with skills and traits which grant Vigor. Address the rest on a profession level through trait and skill tweaks.

I think you’re entire post was great.

Though these are two points i really couldn’t stress enough. Conditions are the bane of almost every class i enjoy playing. But I in no way think their OP.
There are some great Necro, Engi, Mesmer, to a lesser extent thieves and rangers, to a much lesser extent warrior builds whos rate of application is a bit to high mixed in with the amount of conditions that can be laid on (mostly Necros and Engis) where conditions are complimenting power a bit too much with out enough give back into being a glass build.

Conditions shouldn’t be so easy to apply, along with being so easy to build into while also having the freedom to build tanky.

Kentrey.3251:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Gw2-PVP-Community-Improvement-Ideas/page/2#post2999274

I just wanted to reply in regards to the “fights shouldn’t come down to which team has their elite on CD”-argument.
With having Elites that are very important to fights, we bring another aspect into the game that GW2 is lacking.
The dilemma
Do I use my elite now to secure our backpoint in this 1v1 scenario? If I do I will most likely not be able to use it in the next team-fight. Is this the optimal time to use my elite?

Such questions really decrease the amount of spam, since there might be a consequence using it too early or too late.
How many Necros are saving their fears to interrupt a stomp or a ress? How many Warriors are saving Skullcrack to do the same?
You got it. None.
It’s simply bad to wait for certain situations in GW2, hence the amount of spam people are complaining about.
Elite skills would be a great place to start.

@Kentrey

I’m going to address the entirety of your posts at once, because I don’t have time to quote each individual thing right now.

You’re currently looking at my suggestions one by one, as if they were to be implemented individually. Like the Warrior Adrenaline suggestion - Yeah, implementing that one its own might be too big of a nerf (in the current meta), but you have to look at the big picture. I’m suggestion a large overhaul to how GW2 is played. Not changing numbers, not changing a few skills or traits. Forget about how GW2 is played right now, and focus on how it could be played.

Passive Traits bring absolutely nothing that active traits can’t. While you might be right, that having X conditions passively removed every X seconds will allow you to pick that trait, along with any skill/weapon, it still doesn’t promote more build diversity (if done right), or more importantly, more skill. For instance, you could have a trait that removed 2 conditions every time you dodged. Active, and can be used in any build (Don’t comment on that specific idea, it was a completely random example).

As to what Exedore said about elites:
No one said that powerful elites should give you stability. Everyone can still interrupt said elite, blink away, dodge, go invur., etc. Just look at Dota/HoN/LoL.
Also, what KrisHQ said.

PS: Nice septuple post Kentrey. lol

Gandarel.5091:

#believeincountless

Bursties be with this list.

Haha I try my best