Guild Wars 2

Playing ranked and there are so many sustainable builds it’s absurd. Majority of HoT elite spec traitlines are defensive. There’s too much access to stability and protection. ANet is too dumb to realize this. Remember when bunker amulets were a problem pre-HoT? I didn’t. Pre-HoT there were bruiser builds due to celestial amulet, however it feels that 1v1s in post-HoT last longer.

Honestly its more of a problem that came with specializations themselves. We started seeing traits with stacked affects. Largely a reason why we see druids and guardians with such a strong ability to pump out boons.

Agreed, it’s not just at the traits though. It goes further. A lot the active skills are defensive.

Look at chronomancer for example; shield alone gave:

• 3 seconds of block
• 4 seconds of slow from phantasms
• Aoe cc that can be used offensively and defensively.
• Projectile destruction
• Cool down reduction

That’s from a single off hand weapon. It’s a lot of defense. Then add on the utilities; the heal (condi clear and sustained heals), well of precognition(stability and protection) , well of calamity(weakness and cripple), gravity well (mass pulsing cc). Then the almighty reset button the chronoshift. You have an overloaded defensive kit, before traits, which just happen to have nice defensive options.

Currently on mesmer you can run around with zerker amulet and be as difficult to deal with as cele ele was before it was removed. Here is the thing tho. The issue isn’t mesmer or mesmers kit, its chrono’s. Chrono isn’t solely the issue either, every class got defensive additions similar to the descriptive chunk above. Then compound all this defense with damage/utility increases that came with the elite specs on top of that and you realize it’s raw power creep. Every single elite spec is grossly overtuned to the point that your selling your self short if you don’t take them. Elite specs were from my understanding supposed to change the class functionally, not define them permanently.

Sadly, that isnt what anet’s interested in, all they care about it selling a product. OP elite specs continues to sell expansions. So it won’t change. I’ll call it here and now, the next expansion is going to have even more power creep. Prob to the point that our current elites are unuseable.

Boons, and boon sharing is another problem on it’s own, but isnt exclusive to HoT. I can think of various ways to break boons with the base classes in it’s current state. It’s why cele ele was so strong back when it was a thing. People are just more aware of it because we have them coming out the ying yang now.

Basically the HoT-specs give too much of everything, and indeed including defense. Also just too much CC, too much boons, too much condi’s, too much healing. It seems that every profession is getting less and less an individual role; the potential of doing damage by necro’s, mesmers, guardians, warriors, revenants, rangers and engi’s is just too high as their survivability is also high.
You got to be a ‘’can-do-it-all’’ for the meta, which shouldnt be the direction that the game wants to go to (as can bee seen from for example the removal of the celestial amulet). It is not surprising that Thieves and Eles were barely used in the recent pro league matches: they aren’t can-do-it-all professions at the moment. It makes the game much less interesting.

Eval.2371:

Agreed, it’s not just at the traits though. It goes further. A lot the active skills are defensive.

Look at chronomancer for example; shield alone gave:

• 3 seconds of block
• 4 seconds of slow from phantasms
• Aoe cc that can be used offensively and defensively.
• Projectile destruction
• Cool down reduction

That’s from a single off hand weapon. It’s a lot of defense. Then add on the utilities; the heal (condi clear and sustained heals), well of precognition(stability and protection) , well of calamity(weakness and cripple), gravity well (mass pulsing cc). Then the almighty reset button the chronoshift. You have an overloaded defensive kit, before traits, which just happen to have nice defensive options.

Currently on mesmer you can run around with zerker amulet and be as difficult to deal with as cele ele was before it was removed. Here is the thing tho. The issue isn’t mesmer or mesmers kit, its chrono’s. Chrono isn’t solely the issue either, every class got defensive additions similar to the descriptive chunk above. Then compound all this defense with damage/utility increases that came with the elite specs on top of that and you realize it’s raw power creep. Every single elite spec is grossly overtuned to the point that your selling your self short if you don’t take them. Elite specs were from my understanding supposed to change the class functionally, not define them permanently.

Sadly, that isnt what anet’s interested in, all they care about it selling a product. OP elite specs continues to sell expansions. So it won’t change. I’ll call it here and now, the next expansion is going to have even more power creep. Prob to the point that our current elites are unuseable.

Boons, and boon sharing is another problem on it’s own, but isnt exclusive to HoT. I can think of various ways to break boons with the base classes in it’s current state. It’s why cele ele was so strong back when it was a thing. People are just more aware of it because we have them coming out the ying yang now.

I think it’s just an example because you can take all the professions;
Dragonhunter:
- virtue 3: 5sec block (7 traited) + aegis block
-medit elite: 3 sec immunitiy + heal traited + virtue 3 another aegis+ 7sec block
- focus 5: 4 sec of block
- aegis block: a lot of trait procs aegis on cc, on block
- masse 2: 3 sec of block
- shield, consecration, new consecration: projectile immunity.
Etc etc
And we can do the same for scrapper, herald, berserker.
For other professions have also their mitigation but not blocks, evade/sltealth:mobility for thief, heal/mobility/stealth for druide, death shrould for reaper, damage reduction/healing for tempest.
Sorry but actually run with a zerk amulet with a chrono and power weapon and all professions will gank you! (Power chrono havent a sustain damage)
You talk about well utilities? They are not usefull, just the heal and maybe the elite if you dont like moa.

For me the probleme actually is the health pool, they have to normalise it. The build diversity, and the role of certain profession (give to tempest a decent power build). Also the professions stack: three zerk build just one shot you, and three condi build just one shot you also. How to manage zerk and bomb condi usefullness?

GhandiBot.6257:

Playing ranked and there are so many sustainable builds it’s absurd. Majority of HoT elite spec traitlines are defensive. There’s too much access to stability and protection. ANet is too dumb to realize this. Remember when bunker amulets were a problem pre-HoT? I didn’t. Pre-HoT there were bruiser builds due to celestial amulet, however it feels that 1v1s in post-HoT last longer.

Outstanding. You are smarter than the PVP team.

They didn’t realized this, since they are only removing amulet trying to fix PVP.

Rev, Mesmer, Warrior don’t need cleric amulet to be sustaining… Guard, Ele are broken and need it to be something. And they removed it anyway. It shows they don’t understand the game at all.

So… It’s seriously dangerous to ask the PVP team control on “skills” when they removed amulet on the fly by “feeling” without having any tools like spreadsheet and matrix to balanced their classes.

Mathematician should do balancing in all game. Not sales department, nor forum moderator, not marketing guy.

Balancing to “please” the crowd since the last 2 years, just did killed viable build diversities.

The the update did make this game easier for bunkers that’s for sure. Just look at my druid. I was eating and skill clicking and face-rolled the match.

Jourdelune.7456:

Outstanding. You are smarter than the PVP team.

They didn’t realized this, since they are only removing amulet trying to fix PVP.

Rev, Mesmer, Warrior don’t need cleric amulet to be sustaining… Guard, Ele are broken and need it to be something. And they removed it anyway. It shows they don’t understand the game at all.

So… It’s seriously dangerous to ask the PVP team control on “skills” when they removed amulet on the fly by “feeling” without having any tools like spreadsheet and matrix to balanced their classes.

Mathematician should do balancing in all game. Not sales department, nor forum moderator, not marketing guy.

Balancing to “please” the crowd since the last 2 years, just did killed viable build diversities.

Oh they know that Guards have trouble sustaining, they’re just afraid of giving them sustain. Source.

Guardians have no issue sustaining for 2 minutes as that is the limit of their block rotations. After that they are on CD. and in pvp that is plenty considering you don’t need a bunker amulet to use a rotatable block defense.

Zelulose.8695:

The the update did make this game easier for bunkers that’s for sure. Just look at my druid. I was eating and skill clicking and face-rolled the match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9kssxSvF24

Can’t be bunker if you can’t eat Cleave.

Sorry, bro.