Guild Wars 2

So before I rant about this I have been playing since launch, pvp (r80) is where I spend most of my time in GW2. I play 6/8 classes now and love crafting builds.
However, after this specialisation patch I am left disappointed and disheartened by recent changes.
1. Burning – This ticks waaaay too high, guardians especially. You don’t even need to build for condition damage for your burning to kill people.
2. Rampage – The new lich form, overpowered with recent changes and anyone with half a brain can use it effectively
3. Mesmer stuns – insta-kill on almost every class and loads of people have started playing it for easy wins

And most importantly of all
4. PLEASE GIVE US SOME KIND OF WAY TO ASSIGN STATS OTHER THAN AMULET. Take some stats away from the amulets that are currently in game and give us back the ability to have an amulet and gem like the original way. Trying to create a build that is versatile or hybrid in any way is near impossible, there is only certain classes that can do this now. Its all zerk or marauders, get in, instakill, get out.
I love builds that give survivability and damage at the same time (mainly cele engi, which still works) but I can’t find many anymore.

Give us some way to add some vitality to a build or toughness, take that ridiculous amount of damage away. Most of the amulets in pvp are useless since they completely lack very important stats we used to be able to get from trait lines. Essentially its Zerk, Marauders, celestial or carrions.

I love the new traits and the system don’t get me wrong, but what you have made up for in build diversity by removing stats from trait lines you have cancelled out by not letting us assign those stats elsewhere. Major changes are needed and soon.

Fix the balance please.
Sincerely
A very concerned player

Amulet stats keep balance. You can balance amulets much more effectively than balancing point distribution.
While I think some amulet stat combinations are strange, that was their decision.
Amulets force you to pick a play style. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. i.e. (Power, precision, crit damage, toughness, vitality). You must pick what you value.

That’s so true.
I’ve always liked balanced builds, but it’s next to impossible to run one after the patch.
It’s not that you can’t build such a build, it’s just that it totally doesn’t pay off – eventually that healing condi bunker ele is going to win that fight after those 5 minutes of spamming anyway.
I’m looking forward to a balance patch that will fix the bugs introduced in the recent imbalance patch.

rampage is very balanced with many counter play available.

any player with good mechanical skills can dodge avoid most of the highly telegraphed attacks.

You identified the same exact things everyone else has identified as “problem areas”.

Rarely are things to fix so obvious, but, overall, Anet deserves credit for only having these few MAJOR issues to address.

The problem now is…how long is it going to take to fix?

If it’s several more weeks, then I doubt the game will have gained a net plus in players. I’m already seeing my friends list as low as it was pre-patch, and the rage quitting/bandwagon jumping due to burning, mesmers, and rampage is rather high.

It’s been the story of this game since release…they are oh so close to being as good as it gets, but always let 1 or 2 things linger way too long to corrupt things…such as eles, hambow, shoutbow, turrets, etc.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Amulet stats keep balance. You can balance amulets much more effectively than balancing point distribution.
While I think some amulet stat combinations are strange, that was their decision.
Amulets force you to pick a play style. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. i.e. (Power, precision, crit damage, toughness, vitality). You must pick what you value.

By limiting stat combinations, it makes many professions and builds useless, while keeping others who can work around the stat combinations viable.

For example, try running guardian or elementalist with an amulet that does not have vitality. That alone significantly limits what those professions can do and how well they can perform. Do you know anyone who wants 1200 toughness with 0 vitality? Part of the reason for the “cele meta” was because nothing else could survive while still dealing damage, largely because of the amulet system.

Instead of balancing professions around all-or-nothing amulets, allow a reasonable amount of stat customization and then make balance decisions on overall play. It’s much more fun, you have more variety, and balance won’t be any worse than with all-or-nothing amulets.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

rampage is very balanced with many counter play available.

This is a prime example of why few people take you seriously.

Ya, you can avoid a few attacks from rampage. And then you’re out of cooldowns and endurance. Now what? You can’t hard CC them. Blind doesn’t work until their Berserker Stance ends. Rampage laughs off soft CC, especially with Dogged March. If they land a couple attacks, you’re pretty much dead or stuck in a CC chain and will die soon; rampage’s CC cooldowns are shorter than most defensive cooldowns. You can’t out-right kill the warrior because the automatic Endure Pain will trigger. The only sure-fire way to live is to run away completely.

So no, it’s not “very balanced”. It needs some tweaks to make it more reasonable.

The major problem in terms of the amulets is that most of them suck. No one is ever going to take half the stat combinations because they have no synergy (especially magis). There needs to be a condition version of maruader with condition damage, power, precision and vitality. More amulets with 4 stats, and more hybrid amulets.

If we could have a stat system where they give us a fixed amount of stat points which we could allocate freely ourselves, it would be kittening awesome.

Exedore.6320:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

rampage is very balanced with many counter play available.

This is a prime example of why few people take you seriously.

Ya, you can avoid a few attacks from rampage. And then you’re out of cooldowns and endurance. Now what? You can’t hard CC them. Blind doesn’t work until their Berserker Stance ends. Rampage laughs off soft CC, especially with Dogged March. If they land a couple attacks, you’re pretty much dead or stuck in a CC chain and will die soon; rampage’s CC cooldowns are shorter than most defensive cooldowns. You can’t out-right kill the warrior because the automatic Endure Pain will trigger. The only sure-fire way to live is to run away completely.

So no, it’s not “very balanced”. It needs some tweaks to make it more reasonable.

rampage only has 3 gap closers, one of which has such a long cd it can only be used at the beginning of and end of the transformation. if you dodge them the warrior has to run after you, so kiting is easy. the auto endure pain wont stop conditions but will activate stopping inta gib even outside of rampage so it’s not a rampage problem. not all warriors pop zerker stance before rampage, and even if they do its a big cooldown used. don’t face tank the autos, just like you shouldn’t stand in wells. ideally stack condis on the warrior so they are forced to end the transformation or die, but regular kiting will work too.

if rampage needs anything done to it it’s not allowing stances to continue (like spectral skills for necro) and maybe a slightly longer cd (20s or so).

oh yeah, and you can interrupt the transformation

The problem is that due to the trait. Condi damage got spiked and boons got spiked. But it is who got the condi spiked. Because now we have Condi Ele, Condi Rangers, Condi Merz, Condi Enge and even Condi Guards. While Nercos can’t go full condi without dieing to their own condis due the whole requirements to use them. Also rangers who got even scarier can now even stack crit and might to the point of painful.

Vigil.8205:

Also rangers who got even scarier can now even stack crit and might to the point of painful.

I disagree. Rangers can gain fury from survival skills and might from signets but you can’t stack it high enough. And you can’t call them scary cause they are in the trash tier. Don’t get me wrong I main ranger.

Trouble with rampage right now is that it’s balanced vs. some classes, OP vs. others.
Thief and mesmer have no trouble vs. rampage
Ele and guardian are about even; if they have cooldowns available they should be able to outlast
Necro, ranger, and engis get dunked on

Brigg.6189:

Trouble with rampage right now is that it’s balanced vs. some classes, OP vs. others.
Thief and mesmer have no trouble vs. rampage
Ele and guardian are about even; if they have cooldowns available they should be able to outlast
Necro, ranger, and engis get dunked on

i can fight it as engi, and ranger should have evade spam if condi or be able to stealth/swoop away/signet of stone if power. necros… im sorry necros… uh pop plague and hope for the best?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

rampage is very balanced with many counter play available.

lol. Did you actually say this with a straight face? You made me lol. I hope that was the intent.

engi can throw elixir x on rampage as well

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

engi can throw elixir x on rampage as well

Maybe so but have you tried to use the AoE Moa effectively in pvp? It is pretty tough to land it when in an intense game and everyone is moving, then you have to wait 105 seconds minimum to try again

The point is rampage is currently ridiculous and while I did manage to kite a warrior on my condi ranger today it is a rare occasion that it happens since i have no stability on my build

zapv.8051:

The major problem in terms of the amulets is that most of them suck. No one is ever going to take half the stat combinations because they have no synergy (especially magis). There needs to be a condition version of maruader with condition damage, power, precision and vitality. More amulets with 4 stats, and more hybrid amulets.

This is exactly how I feel, Please ArenaNet rework the stats to work with the new specialisation system. They worked in the previous system because it left a lot of points to be distributed. Let’s stick with magis example, you are 100% stuck with just healing power and a minor in vitality which is great sure but precision? What good is that precision without any way to get ferocity or any actual power? And what about toughness you’re just gonna get melted by pure damage anyway…

I used to play a really fun sentinel’s bunker guard where, in well balanced games, the mid fight could go on for most of the game, I miss the challenge and intensity of that. Bunker builds are dead, specialisations have basically killed them with some still around (e.g. WP’s revive ele sentinels build)

If any Dev can have some input here it would be majorly respected

Metabrit.1839:

zapv.8051:

The major problem in terms of the amulets is that most of them suck. No one is ever going to take half the stat combinations because they have no synergy (especially magis). There needs to be a condition version of maruader with condition damage, power, precision and vitality. More amulets with 4 stats, and more hybrid amulets.

This is exactly how I feel, Please ArenaNet rework the stats to work with the new specialisation system. They worked in the previous system because it left a lot of points to be distributed. Let’s stick with magis example, you are 100% stuck with just healing power and a minor in vitality which is great sure but precision? What good is that precision without any way to get ferocity or any actual power? And what about toughness you’re just gonna get melted by pure damage anyway…

I used to play a really fun sentinel’s bunker guard where, in well balanced games, the mid fight could go on for most of the game, I miss the challenge and intensity of that. Bunker builds are dead, specialisations have basically killed them with some still around (e.g. WP’s revive ele sentinels build)

If any Dev can have some input here it would be majorly respected

Yeah I don’t understand how there aren’t some more 4 stat amulets, especially ones with 560 toughness and 560 vitality that could give everyone a bit more defense against huge burst while also still providing 2 offensive stats at 1050 points.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Metabrit.1839:

zapv.8051:

The major problem in terms of the amulets is that most of them suck. No one is ever going to take half the stat combinations because they have no synergy (especially magis). There needs to be a condition version of maruader with condition damage, power, precision and vitality. More amulets with 4 stats, and more hybrid amulets.

This is exactly how I feel, Please ArenaNet rework the stats to work with the new specialisation system. They worked in the previous system because it left a lot of points to be distributed. Let’s stick with magis example, you are 100% stuck with just healing power and a minor in vitality which is great sure but precision? What good is that precision without any way to get ferocity or any actual power? And what about toughness you’re just gonna get melted by pure damage anyway…

I used to play a really fun sentinel’s bunker guard where, in well balanced games, the mid fight could go on for most of the game, I miss the challenge and intensity of that. Bunker builds are dead, specialisations have basically killed them with some still around (e.g. WP’s revive ele sentinels build)

If any Dev can have some input here it would be majorly respected

Yeah I don’t understand how there aren’t some more 4 stat amulets, especially ones with 560 toughness and 560 vitality that could give everyone a bit more defense against huge burst while also still providing 2 offensive stats at 1050 points.

I was delighted to see Marauders and Crusaders amulets after the patch! We need more of them for sure

Agree 100% OP. I play a Necro so I’m sure that explains the perspective but Rampage and Mesmers are ridiculous right now.

Metabrit.1839:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

engi can throw elixir x on rampage as well

Maybe so but have you tried to use the AoE Moa effectively in pvp? It is pretty tough to land it when in an intense game and everyone is moving, then you have to wait 105 seconds minimum to try again

The point is rampage is currently ridiculous and while I did manage to kite a warrior on my condi ranger today it is a rare occasion that it happens since i have no stability on my build

i main engi. throwing elixirs takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s pretty easy to hit with X when you’ve used it a bit. the AOE is big and the travel speed is decent, i hit the moa nearly every time.

if your condi ranger has sword and torch then you can make distance with the sword and evade while applying heavy burning damage. rampage has no condi clear so the damaging condis will stack. however with your build running no stab you are going to have issues with heavy CC full stop. i bet you would hate my mace/sh hammer warrior. it’s got more cc than rampage and a stupid amount of condi clear. however in rampage my build like all warriors who didn’t save zerker stance to pop before rampage (and tbh rampage should cancel stance effects) is weak to condi. torch skills and a successful entangle will stack a good amount of bleeding and burning that can’t be cleared until rampage is left.

first of all, every single rampage skill are insanely telegraphed and super short range.
only throw rock is ranged skill, and 3 5 are gap close, 2 can’t even be considered as a gap closer because it’s so short range, basically if you have swiftness which you should have, you simply avoid 3 4 5 which are all one hit telegraphed skill, and just start walking away, rampage will not be able to chase you at all.

on top of that, with mesmer blind spam, mesmer can literally stay on point with the rampage within 20 second frame rate, if you simply chain your shatter blind and kit properly.

any form of dd ele can easily 1v1 rampage.which is why abjured did not pick rampage, and pick DD ele instead. because it’s so strong.

necro can simply go in plague and the rampage will be completely useless, while plague still has use.

engi elixir X can delete not one but multiple rampages at once.

let’s not mention evade ranger, or burning guardian which can kill a rampage in seconds.

rampage has no condi cleanse, any form of weakness stacking can render it useless damage wise.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Amulet stats keep balance. You can balance amulets much more effectively than balancing point distribution.
While I think some amulet stat combinations are strange, that was their decision.
Amulets force you to pick a play style. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. i.e. (Power, precision, crit damage, toughness, vitality). You must pick what you value.

Actually some people can have their cake and eat it too, they take celestial and then thanks to Arenanet’s brilliance, they are able to self stack might to max, allowing them to tank / sustain better, while dealing actual hybrid damage that out classes someone vested into one or the other.

Either more classes need self stacking might mechanics so that more than one class can run it dominantly (with two-three others who’re okay with it), or more realistically, the self stacking might mechanics need to be toned the @#$% down so that celestial is more of a support amulet rather than a god-tier ‘I will out-role you in every role thanks to my class being built the way it is’ amulet.