Guild Wars 2

I main elementalist and right now I feel a bit overpowered but it’s to early to tell.

Here is my take for every class I played against since 10 this morning.

_

Warriors: With everything dealing more damage, Shouthorn can no longer survive a 2v1 for 5 minutes. That said, they can still build very tanky and can easily wreck in team fights. Plus, I no longer sigh when I see a Warrior with a warhorn offhand. I think they’re great, my friend says otherwise so we’ll see.

Necromancers: Power necro got buffed significantly, in contrast, they are infinitely squishier. Making for a lethal glass cannon, now if it becomes a problem has yet to be seen as they are now even more yummy food for thieves. Are they a problem? I don’t think so. Speaking of which-

Thieves: Hell. Yes. They are so beast, dealing lots of damage, REALLY fast but in contrast, squishy themselves. It’s a VERY welcome change that now I have to be extra careful when alone with a thief. Their team fight ability has yet to be determined but I welcome these new thieves meta dealing huge damage very fast.

Guardians: It’s a mixed bag, condition guardian is legit and bunker guardian is now very strong. Overall, I’m welcoming the return of bunker guardians with condition guardians. Are they the best? Can’t say, I can’t say they are useless however.

Mesmers: These guys feel a bit weak compared to other classes. Everyone says otherwise, maybe it’s my build but I fail to see them destroying everyone.

Elementalists: Maybe because everyone is so used to (and using) zerker amulets is why I feel so broken. Using powerful aura and just wreck team fights, even alone I can deal tons of raw damage. I’m thinking ArenaNet should watch that Fire Magic traitline Fire Auras. Granted, I’m not nearly has tanky as I was before but I got enough experience where I can abuse my escapes quite easily. This feels like the most broken class, but then again, I’m the most experienced with it.

Engineers: HAHAHA Git gud spamgineers. But seriously, these guys feel the most underpowered, it’s hard to tell if it’s the sheer reliance on being naturally tanky or maybe the Engineers I fought were just bad. I probably fought against a twenty or more engineers since patch launch. I doubt running 2-3 kits is ideal anymore, we’ll see if something broken pops up but until then, beware of me.

Rangers: Mixed bag, on one hand, I fought against a ranger that just destroyed me with conditions in seconds. On the other hand, I watched a thief just face roll that same ranger with ease.

Post patch note tip:

Ditch.
The.
Zerker.
Amulet.

Ditch the zerker amulet. Unless your build is designed with range or evasion in mind. The meta has changed, you can no longer survive well with a zerker amulet. And for that, I love it <3

D/D Elementalist will surely make sure that everything is nerfed tightly and leave Staff to rot.
Again.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Mesmers: These guys feel a bit weak

LOL.

thief is amazing xD it’s like i am playing with ascended stuff + food in wvwvw, never seen heartseekr crit 7k on a engi

The ditch the zerk amulet part is way too true. My life is easier with marauder now

+1, this is much more fun!

Thieves and Mesmers are just silly OP currently. They have way way too much damage in Zerker.

displacedTitan.6897:

Thieves and Mesmers are just silly OP currently. They have way way too much damage in Zerker.

I honestly do not mind losing 1v1 against a thief with massive burst. In contrast, they struggle with team fighting as they break if you team just breathes on them.
It’s a fair trade in my opinion.

pvp shouldn’t revolve around who lands the 1st burst.

Love this patch—Combat feels much more fluid, fast-paced, and skillful.

+1 I love this patch so much! Fluid combat, and fun gameplay. No more two bunkers poking at each other for 15 minutes. This is fast pace gameplay.

I never thought I would say this. But well done ANet, well done!

Please keep up the good work! I have just bought the $99 xpac. Keep it up!

Two bunker eles still cant kill eachother :/ on the bright side I dont feel like im stuck with playing bunker on ele anymore, dat scepter burst potential!

+1 first day was fun. Combat was faster and more fun. many different builds. Hopefully it will stay like this

There are some definite balance issues, however the overall pace of the game is vastly more enjoyable. My mistakes are “bigger”, with people being able to blow you up so quickly you can’t afford to be careless like you used to, and I feel it really shows off the combat GW2 is great for. That, and a lot of the new traits are genuinely fun. I have to actually think about my traits and how everything interacts now, rather than just having my abilities all do X more damage on Y less CD.

Ristillath.6745:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Mesmers: These guys feel a bit weak

LOL.

yep lol indeed. nothing new there!ty anet for the first nerf right away.

Grimreaper.5370:

Two bunker eles still cant kill eachother :/

If you’re referring to Celestial D/D, my experience says otherwise. I’ve beaten over 20 other Celestial D/D today doing PvP for 6 hours. My FWA always beat their AWA and EWA.

I am playing a thief and I totally hated the latest patch. Thief is just “burst or die” now. With the latest changes, many thief options are not viable anymore, so you either go " zerker suicidal omg damage!" build, or you see the conditions kill you fast

But I agree, ele’s are insane right now. I was shocked really shocked when I wiped the entire are with my ele. It felt wrong somehow

alain.1659:

I am playing a thief and I totally hated the latest patch. Thief is just “burst or die” now. With the latest changes, many thief options are not viable anymore, so you either go " zerker suicidal omg damage!" build, or you see the conditions kill you fast

But I agree, ele’s are insane right now. I was shocked really shocked when I wiped the entire are with my ele. It felt wrong somehow

I main a thief and I found myself surviving situations in pvp that before I wouldn’t have. Not to mention, if they weren’t just mindlessly spamming different conditions (which I hate to wreck your hopes and dreams, but conditions will ALWAYS break a thief. Just how it is) I was able to clear them with either the passive stuff (Acro traits/Shadow Arts traits, Sigils, etc.) or with my heal skills. There’s more room for thieves to sacrifice some damage dealing for damage mitigation after this patch from my observations.

My experiences have been a little mixed. I used to like the more slow-paced gameplay pre-patch. I’ve played with Necro and Warrior so far. Necro has always been abysmal so no change there. Warrior however did have certain roles it was good at like the Shoutbow for holding points and support, which opened up more options for other teammates. I feel the roles people can take have been limited to 2 roles, condi or power. The damage everybody can dish out is just absurd in my opinion. You can argue that it now requires more skill and I agree, but the balance is just gone.

Maybe it’s just a matter of letting it sink in and adjust and accept PvP is a completely different animal now. I for one hope it’s not.

^ You should try the signet necro build, it’s pretty fun.

Ristillath.6745:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Mesmers: These guys feel a bit weak

LOL.

PU should be nerfed, else it is ok. If you are having trouble vs an interrupt mesmer, fake casts are REALLY important in this patch.

+1 I really love this patch.

Faster paced combat, greater reward for dodging, stunbreaking, and evading the right skills. Ranger feels so fluid now. (Thanks for not destroying Celestial, and at the same time making the other amulets more useful)

Kagamiku.9731:

pvp shouldn’t revolve around who lands the 1st burst.

It’s a bit caricatural: you can always use a tankier amulet, and you can most of the time survive the first burst if you have some CDs up. Remember that in FPS games, the guy who delivers the initial burst usually wins. I like that GW2 is more fast-paced than ever.

But I think a lot of people didn’t realize that the berserker amulet doesn’t give Vitality anymore. I played all my games last night with this amulet, not knowing why people died so quickly. Once everyone settles for the Marauder amulet, it might get better.

Bhawb.7408:

There are some definite balance issues, however the overall pace of the game is vastly more enjoyable. My mistakes are “bigger”, with people being able to blow you up so quickly you can’t afford to be careless like you used to, and I feel it really shows off the combat GW2 is great for. That, and a lot of the new traits are genuinely fun. I have to actually think about my traits and how everything interacts now, rather than just having my abilities all do X more damage on Y less CD.

This. Much more risk and reward, making every hit seem damaging rather than “whittling down health”
Making the combat very fast paced and every decision is crucial.

It very clear since last meta how many people just… accepted getting hit.

I 1v1’ed this engineer who started the fight with Gear Shield. I wasn’t attacking, he just ran in with his shield raised. Last meta, that would be acceptable (and stupid) but needless to say he was quickly punished for starting with his blocking skill.

I can see a lot of people hating the change, but lets be real, if you are dying a lot you are making a lot of mistakes and now you can be greatly punished for making those mistakes.

+1

I love this patch as well.

The changes to conditions have made conditions viable again. Sure the damage is a little crazy right now but they have addressed that and said they will work on it. Getting that middle road between OP and UP is not that easy. Anyone who thinks it is has never tried to do it.

Also from what I have seen it has brought back some diversity to builds. I have seen different builds people have shown to be effective and have even run my own build reasonably effectively (if not a bit squishy). Taking stats away from the trait lines helps with this because it doesn’t make that trait line a requirement for your stats allowing the choice of traits to make that decision and not stat points.

I disagree with the statement that has been seen a bunch that this patch reduced diversity due to lack of adaptability to a new thing and imagination from the people saying their isn’t. I have listened to different theory crafting ideas and find different things that can be done with traits and worked with that. Every meta build was just somebody’s theory before it became meta. Also keeping in mind that the meta is what people at the top tier of talent are doing. 98-99% of the people in PvP are not top tier and don’t work to be top tier like they do, we just play the game.

Hating change is a natural thing. Humans do it a lot because it takes us out of our comfort zone. So many things change and people hate it at first but once you start getting used to it you find it was better than before. You just have to start by not being afraid of being taken out of that comfort zone, which is where the root of hate of a new way of doing things comes from. Fear of the unknown.

PvP seems fairly balanced, WvW is unbalanced in the aspect that Conditions can be boosted to being just crazy OP. Any class that has access to easy 4+ conditions (Mesmers, Engi’s, Rangers) can just tear you apart in seconds while remaining rather tanky (Dire gear..) It’s rather skewed for solo or small group play. In zergs/raids, Power still seems to be the best way forward.

Nova Stiker.8396:

I can see a lot of people hating the change, but lets be real, if you are dying a lot you are making a lot of mistakes and now you can be greatly punished for making those mistakes.

Exactly!

Mistakes are more costly, and that’s a Good Thing.

Vigor nerfed, so people run into a fight and randomly dodge will find themselves dying quickly. It’s a more active combat now. People have to drop the mentality of “oh, I’ll just take the hit, I’m not gonna die”. Mistakes will be punished, greatly.

Vornollo.5182:

PvP seems fairly balanced, WvW is unbalanced in the aspect that Conditions can be boosted to being just crazy OP. Any class that has access to easy 4+ conditions (Mesmers, Engi’s, Rangers) can just tear you apart in seconds while remaining rather tanky (Dire gear..) It’s rather skewed for solo or small group play. In zergs/raids, Power still seems to be the best way forward.

Yah, I agree that the food buff makes damage/conditions go too crazy in WvW. They should reduce all the +- conditions duration food to max 15%. Conditions stack now, so that’s already 15% raw increase on damage. That’s a lot! For the food on power, none of them has the potential to increase power output by 15%. Right now we have food to increase conditions duration by 40%. That’s too much :O

In PvP, it’s fine though. Loving PvP!

I agree with the diversity, I’ve been seeing a lot of different things and seeing a lot of it actually work. People run into a 2v1 and instantly blow up, and then they think they can’t run that.

I watched a condition ranger blow me up with conditions, yet, the ranger got melted by a thief. And just last match, I owned that thief.

There is no longer a “jack of everything” like the last meta where your build is just as powerful alone as in a group.

I’m using Powerful Aura’s now, sure, Cleansing Water is pretty nice for 1v1’s but now it’s not so great with team fighting as everything does quite a bit of damage.

Kagamiku.9731:

pvp shouldn’t revolve around who lands the 1st burst.

I know right -_-

This is how the game was at launch, High burst reaction based combat. if you played at launch you will adept pretty quick. Those 15 min fights never belonged in this game. The game is simply not designed around it.

Not to be rude but if your looking for that style of combat there are plenty of other games out there that follow it. There are very few action based combat games so please don’t ruin this one. (again)

I love the new build diversity. It feels like i can try new things that before would never work, and they don’t do half bad. Ele Conjure/fire aura for example, has been pretty different, and while I’ve had mixed results, it was awesome to try something new.

I think the one thing that has REALLY suffered, is the poor new people, who just aren’t really good at pvp to begin with (and in some cases, will never get really good). Speccing heavy tanking, or shout warrior made it so they could stay in the game long enough to learn. For us vets, we already know how to dodge, and what to expect. For players who are just meh, I think there should be a little more love. The ones i play with who i got into this really don’t like the insane punishment for being new.

Otherwise, i love this. As a vet, I love this. Going forward would really love to see vit/tough being a viable spec, or almost necessary for some people. But its been good so far.

Highlie.7641:

This is how the game was at launch, High burst reaction based combat. if you played at launch you will adept pretty quick. Those 15 min fights never belonged in this game. The game is simply not designed around it.

Not to be rude but if your looking for that style of combat there are plenty of other games out there that follow it. There are very few action based combat games so please don’t ruin this one. (again)

I agree. I like the craziness. Feels more action packed. I think this will improve map rotations because a bunker won’t last forever at home and you have to pick your fights. Fund new ways to midi gate damage, close gaps, sustain or but damage. Team fights needs need lots of utility to counteract how punchy everyone is.

Don’t worry about new players they will adapt to it as well, they don’t have to be able to 1v1 sface roll vets on a point because of cheese builds. There are other ways to be useful. Bring some team support, get with amother mid point attacker and get out there. People are built to adapt.

Yeah I enjoy the craziness as well. It’s nice watching your skills have an effect instead of getting eaten as though they never happened.

I prefer this ambience if WvW is giving trouble as always it’s food and buffs you shouldn’t bring WvW scenarios into balance anyway so adjust those (finally).

I don’t think you guys realise that the only reason there is build diversity right now is because no ‘Meta’ has settled, no optimums have been found and a lot of people are so in flux that running anything is viable as long as you play okay.

Wait a bit, soon enough, everyone will polarize to the most optimum builds, people will learn to play them, render your personal build (if not a variant of the meta) obsolete when played at an equal skill level and you will moan the meta is horribly stale again.

In fact, many theory crafters+deeply invested PvPers are at work right now doing just that.

Also as a ‘vet’ this is the easiest PvP I have played so far. Sure I die time to time, but now at least my builds are faceroll passive damage, as opposed to any rotation. it is a good thing instagibbing is seen as high risk/high reward, now ganking any player who just missed me at the side of their screen makes me seem like a God.