Guild Wars 2

I wondered why the playing GW2 PvP today feels random and that my actions cannot change the outcomes if I did something wrong at the beginning~

Don’t want to be a jerk. But it’s likely ANet is going to ignore this thread like they did to most really important/non-whining thread.

I very, very much hope that ANet proves me wrong. TOTALLY

I appreciate your engagement for this game to succeed, I really do. Also your argumentation and over explanation is pretty objective and reasonable.
However, this would really bring a big gap between PvP and PvE. Especially for condition classes (they’re allrdy in a bad state there). I think this is something that scares A-Net to actually renew their whole concept, as it is now. Wheter it’s good or not is another question.

All in all E-sport at the moment is just not possible and I hope A-Net will realize if they stay on the same train, it will never be. Therefore some points are a MUST to get into the right direction. However these are huge changes, so this won’t likely happen this or next year.

Good post but like it’s been just said – balancing PvP would require major reworks that include heavy PvE/PvP skills split and I don’t see it coming. Perhaps with new skills that are gonna be introduced later in 2013 we will see some PvP-only skills that cater to current issues.
In my ideal PvP players have ~600 hp tops, 100 damage is a lot, there is an energy pool and no traits. ;(

Remember when anet used to boldly proclaim how proud they were about their iterative process? “if we don’t like something, we scrap it completely and try a whole new revision” or something along those lines. I agree with the op almost completely and think this is an excellent write up of what’s wrong with “the state of the game” right now and I pray they actually have a discussion about toning everything down next sotg, maybe it might actually bring great threads like this into their due spotlight.

Metatail.1306:

In my ideal PvP players have ~600 hp tops, 100 damage is a lot, there is an energy pool and no traits. ;(

I see what you did there.

And i second.

On topic: points are valid, but must be done with a huge number of skill splits.
Destroying AoE might be beneficial for spvp with small maps and mechanics that force you to hold the ground on a cap point to win, but would crush the whole WvW where you have large groups, opne field playground and cap points are structures.

I think there needs to be a distinction between meelee AOE and ranged AOE. Ranged AOE is clearly utterly out of hands. Meelee AOE on the other hand I feel is OK because it has lots of counters (just don’t stack up on the melee, move around, kite him, etc.).

To summarize this: GW2 was created as a PvE-Game in mind. PvP was just an additional feature to get the majority of GW1 players in it and sell it as AAA-Title with E-Sports for the future. And now they try to adapt a PvE game into a PvP, which hardly work.

leman for pvp dev 2013
From what I can gather, the primary reason this won’t happen is management within the company is reluctant to take pvp seriously / implement drastic changes. But it is a fact that this game will remain a joke pvp-wise unless it happens.

Love the post, also what I’d like to see eventually is a tone-down of this sort:
- all stats are removed from trait lines (power, vit, …)
- trait system is reworked, so that passive and proc traits are removed, and only imortant/role defining traits remain like illusionary persona, altruistic healing ect.
- boons can only be gained actively from utilities (maybe increased durations, but nerf stacking/application, but not from traits), and from some weapon sets
- damage is determined more by stats and weapon sets, rather than all sorts of bonuses (e.g. thief has horrible damage unless traited for it, but the number of traits that increases damage is kitten high)

Simply said, traits would determine build potency (utility in order to do what you want to do), amulets would determine build orientation (damage/tankiness), weapon sets would determine playstyle and sigils + runes would only complement them (you want to get a bit more survivability or damage, you pick specific runes/sigils)

Something a friend just brought up that i thought was a great idea, make ALL weapons in PVP function as the steady weapons.. as in static damage, no random 620-1080.
Change precision to critical % to make it easier for new players.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

I appreciate your engagement for this game to succeed, I really do. Also your argumentation and over explanation is pretty objective and reasonable.
However, this would really bring a big gap between PvP and PvE. Especially for condition classes (they’re allrdy in a bad state there). I think this is something that scares A-Net to actually renew their whole concept, as it is now. Wheter it’s good or not is another question.

All in all E-sport at the moment is just not possible and I hope A-Net will realize if they stay on the same train, it will never be. Therefore some points are a MUST to get into the right direction. However these are huge changes, so this won’t likely happen this or next year.

Reducing the stacks you output but increasing the damage per stick actually helps condi classes a lot one would think.
In pve conditions max out at 25 which means with classes that can put up 18s of bleeding themself in pve they’re already dropping the synergy with other players. If they could stack up to 5 for instance, than 5 other players could come in and stack 5. That helps condi classes in pve get more recognition when their individual stacks are worth more, but they have less. Also should save Anet money on bandwidth considering they track each stack and an individual now puts out less.

Great points. I also belive that every single AoE skill should be channeled (like meteor shower or whirling axe) so you have chance to counter it, bad AoE is what wells are for example.

Jzaku.9765:

Remember when anet used to boldly proclaim how proud they were about their iterative process? “if we don’t like something, we scrap it completely and try a whole new revision” or something along those lines. I agree with the op almost completely and think this is an excellent write up of what’s wrong with “the state of the game” right now and I pray they actually have a discussion about toning everything down next sotg, maybe it might actually bring great threads like this into their due spotlight.

The have actually done this iterative process. The old tourney system didnt work, it was completely removed and 1 round tourneys were added. They arent working because of team vs solo players so they are redoing it again with that split.

I’ll just leave this here.

Anyways, its a stagnated game, GW2 is beyond getting the numerous if not massive changes it needs to just be good… completely tragic because of the potential the game had, but whatever….
GW2 never had the AAA dev team it needed, people who could work through one change after another MAKING THE GAME BETTER continuously and in a timely manner….

What about just reducing the size of all aoe to 180 radius from 240 + that is it currently?

Lordrosicky.5813:

What about just reducing the size of all aoe to 180 radius from 240 + that is it currently?

What would that solve? People will still spam AoE on CC’d opponents. Warriors will still have to run through whole AoE cluster. The goal is to change the AoE so that it serves a purpose complimentary to the mostly single target damage.

I believe it would make the game more skill-based, coop-oriented and plainly better overall where people actually have the time to play those interesting mind games between each other.

Seriously, I believe that everyone got so used to the AoE that they forgot how in games the area-of-effect spells used to be the minority of available arsenal, not the viable majority.

To picture how things are right now, I played a tourny yesterday and we faced Henry and another necro in one team. At one point I got condi-spiked (good job, guys, btw) and I used my Plague Signet to send the whole load to you, Henry. Do you want this game to be like that? I use my signet and you get downed before you can react to it? Not to sound like bashing Henry, I’ll add that we lost to something like a 150, because I’m terrible. Just making a point.

Oh god, everything you said in this thread OP. Yes yes yes and more yes!

leman.7682:

• Stacked spirit weapons and spirit weapon guardians

You are unbelievable. PLEASE IGNORE OP. THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. (Yes atm I use spirit weapons and they were nerfed once already bc of pvp whiners)

A question for the op. What profession and build do you like to play the most?

wolfie.7296:

leman.7682:

• Stacked spirit weapons and spirit weapon guardians

You are unbelievable. PLEASE IGNORE OP. THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

A question for the op. What profession and build do you play most? What is your favourite?

;)

To make sure we understand each other. I like how those weapons look like, I like that they provide nice utility, but…

They are as guilty of creating unnecessary clutter and AI reliance as are minions and spirits. You just don’t see them that often.
If you’re a spirit weapon guardian and are afraid that I’m advocating the spirit weapon nerf, rest assured. On the contrary – I am all for making spirit weapons even more awesome, more fun and more viable.

And to answer your question, the lion share of my GW2 experience constantly since the beta was taken by the necro and recently by a ranger, both having had and still having problems in different aspects of the game. I also played a little bit of a warrior in PvP. These are my favourite professions.

Ill bump this as well. I believe PvP has gone in a very awkward direction. It seems to be based now almost entirely on condi application and cleansing.

The overcompensation thats occurring is the exact opposite of what anet claims they are trying to accomplish. They want to slow the fight down, this isnt occurring. They want to avoid having to rebuild after every patch, this isnt occurring. They want to cut down on the spike damage, again, not happening.

I agree that the changes are cultivating lack of skill. Point in fact, duals with an r3 necro and an r6 mesmer who can consistently, and easily, put down, an r41, and at the end claim they dont know what they are doing, they are just pushing buttons, then the system has spun out of control.

Not even going into the PvP rewards which have been promised for months, and not delivered.

Take a lesson from the PvP community Anet. If you are losing a fight, back out, reset.

For Ranger’s, imo pets should be a choice you sacrifice something for, like bow training. I hate being forced to have one out. I’m sure other Rangers would like a choice to have none. As for Necromancers I have no idea what the pets do but targeting a Necro in a zerg of pets is the biggest problem and the biggest pain. I like the mesmers clones and think they should stay.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

To summarize this: GW2 was created as a PvE-Game in mind. PvP was just an additional feature to get the majority of GW1 players in it and sell it as AAA-Title with E-Sports for the future. And now they try to adapt a PvE game into a PvP, which hardly work.

Sadly true. But why exists a video in which Martin Kerstein mentioned, that the PvP in GW2 will be much better than PvP in GW1? More wrong he couldnt be..

I’ll bump it as well. IN MY OPINION at least if U don’t care about singel person opinion, which is quite helpful in this particular topic wrote by Leman, try read it once and make your own conclusions finally. I heard that game suppose to be player friendly device instead of artistic project run for visual purpose with pointless changes.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please try to consider this, and think about how you would feel if you dedicated most of your time to something that people constantly bash.

If there’s one thing I could never be, that would be a game developer. There’s so much negativity on these forums lately, from people that forget they’re dealing with other people, that I’d just get fed up and quit. Thank you for replying to the thread, Allie.

Also, nice work Leman. Constructive and thoughtful suggestions are always nice.

While you’re eating, how’s that patch coming along?

2. Consider the creative mind of the playerbase.
Sometimes, there are really good builds that are not discovered for months on end. This is affected by our current playerbase, as well as a revolving meta.
This is not meant as a slight, but the truth is that sometimes things are changing so quickly that you guys just don’t have time to explore new builds and find that one gem that has escaped others.
3. Allow previous changes to settle.
This ties in to the previous two listed. The balance changes we make are very deliberate and calculated. This means that we need to give you guys time to find the gems that we have put in the game, and then allow the meta to adapt to your creative mind.

Sadly the majority of the player-base does not want to adapt, they find a build and that is it, they want to run with that particular build over and over again , as soon as they lose to a counter build..they’ll come to complain on the forum, while maybe using a different set up, runes, utilities they would be perfectly able to beat that counter build.
To put it simply not everybody follow a strategical approach, the majority only wish for “a build to rule them all” .

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please try to consider this, and think about how you would feel if you dedicated most of your time to something that people constantly bakitten

hink a lot of people who post on these forums could benefit from paying close attention to these sentences.
It seems a lot of posts contain the assumption that Anet actively want to make the game worse. It’s also worth bearing in mind that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you want to influence the devs maybe trying writing posts that won’t make them want to quit their job and instead engage them in an interesting and reasoned conversation about how to improve their product.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We wanted to tease you guys for a little longer.

It’s coming! Soon! In the (near) future! I can’t say too much!

What was the other one?

Seriously though: it’s not far off. We had a little hiccup that was corrected, but it’s on it’s way.

you forgot “it’s on the horizon” XD

The OP here is short sighted. You are not good at working within the bounds of the game, you want to totally change the nature of the game to be a specific thing you prefer.

heres the truth

Some players prefer a fast paced battle.

Some players use AI minions to control the battlefield and plan tactically and strategically. Its not a lesser skill set to properly make use of AI. Just because believe that the other player didnt beat you, the AI did, and dont like having to pay attention to multiple things on the battlefield doesnt mean the mechanic shouldnt exist.
you can argue the balance, and power of Pets, but you are not really looking at the situation if you claim mesmer pets are bad.

Mesmer pets act more like skill/hexes than AI.

Ibeserker: Target creates a line AOE dmg every 5 seconds starting from last position and is crippled
iwarden. damage over time ground targeted AOE that absorbs projectiles.

iduelist. Take 8 ticks of dmg every 8 seconds, each tick has a 20% chance to proc projectile finishers.

Mesmer is actually the perfect example of AI that isnt really AI, its actually a Hex come to life. The method of removal is down the mesmer or use DPS on the hex itself. If you are getting beaten by a mesmer, its because they used their skills, not because an AI played for them.

If your solution for pvp IN THIS GAME is to erase one class, change everything about combat/hp/classes in this game, then you probably should be talking about a different game.

This whole thing about should be fun to play against is being taken too far. Everybody likes and hates different things.
Should dribbling be taken out of basketball because the center hates how some little guy can run around and confuse people, and make them go the wrong way instead of heading directly for the basket?

3 point shooting be removed because its hard to defend against reggie miller? Its not fun when a guy hits 4 three pointers in 30 seconds and ties a game that should be over.

Really guys, play the actual game, not your fantasy of what guild wars 1 could have been. Stop hating on perfectly acceptable and balanced builds because you dont like the way it makes you feel, or you dont like that fighting them takes you out of the style of fight you think every fight should come down too.

Im not saying somethings dont need to be balanced, but some of these “solutions” are just wanting to play a different game, or, i hate that not every player likes to play the way i play.

thnx for post allie, but you didn’t address any of op’s points…

edit: you didn’t even give a general overview of where devs see this game in future vs what op said…

Allie Murdock.8152:

Please try to consider this, and think about how you would feel if you dedicated most of your time to something that people constantly bash.

Word.
So in that case -This bash has been removed for feedback-
Body shots vulnerability could be a second or two longer so in exchange of taking shortbow or double melee, you could set-up vuln with P/x more practically for your melee or team spike. Even better if you eventually increase the vuln duration increase given by sigil of peril to 15 or 20%. At present the window of opportunity is incredibly low after a body shot, and at anything outside of preparations 15 ini bonus, you will lose your first strikes bonus from CS without popping another sort of ini management mid-combo, which is obviously a trade off of another skill to make-up that 3 ini + the ini of whatever melee skill you use. Would just be more appealing at a higher vuln that can also trigger exposed weakness for longer.
K thanks.

Amazing post. ARENANET PLEASE HIRE THIS MAN!

Balancing a game is hard and requires understanding more then just numbers. It requires a bit of philosophy and understanding player behavior. The following videos might give you some insight of the topic to help you address your true concern more precisely.

@OP reading this from the perspective of an engineer this is what you propose nerfing

HGH builds
Juggernaut builds
Enhance Performance builds
Grenades (which aren’t all that great in Spvp as it is due to needing to close the gap to guarantee landing them and their slow projectile speed)
Bomb kite (de facto due to your nerfs to AoE)
And all condition based engineer builds (already undermined by the current state of necromancer)

Whats left at the end of your nerfs SD builds and a psuedo bunker Engineer. I actually understand what your saying but doing this is like going back to the days of pure bunkers. You would kill the meta leaving only a handful of builds in each class viable.

If this bled over to PvE you would kill the game. No one would play it. warrior would surpass so many classes more than it does already that it would make PvE terrible for all other classes.

Wvw which simply is not plagued by the condition and AoE problems of Spvp would see power builds becoming the only viable option. I understand that conditions would see the balancing then need but wiping would be the equivalent of winning. even if you talk about toning down condition removal how many skills would you have to nerf? What about rune sets like Melandu and Lyssa?

If anet were smart enough to leave the nearly balanced (thief being the relative outlier) WvW alone and PvE which is skewed in entirely the opposite direction then Spvp would be a break way from the reality of the rest of the game.

The type of balancing you suggest is half kittened at best as some classes simply would not be touched and others nerfed entirely into the ground.

But..

Surprising none of this is as big as the glaring issue that this would bring about. No one would Spvp. Every team in order to down a target would need to act as a well oiled machine. While this would improve play for experienced Spvpers this would kill play for casuals or anyone new. Most of the pop refuses to spvp as it is due to WvW being the better option (progression, gear, etc) or general dislike of PvP. This would make spvp an elitist only game (though it is skewing more in that direction as it is). There would be no such thing as a good build for general play, duelist build, or burst build. there would only be team builds and while that would be good for tourney with the current lack of dueling maps 2v2 and death matches a major change like this would kill spvp’s population and if it went outside of that the game.

Small tweaks are the best way to go IMHO. Small tweeks have already ruined and created new meta (see terror). Big changes like this could rune the game or alienate the rest of the population from spvp. The general consensus that the pvp nerfs are hurting PvE is not entirely incorrect.

I concur with all notes posted by the OP. This needs more attention and support by both the community & devs to help make a GW2 competitive play better.

Allie Murdock.8152:

leman.7682, thank you for your constructive feedback!
…

Thanks for taking the time to make a detailed response, Allie! I think most of us here understand that trying to balance a game as complicated as GW2 is not a fast or easy process, and that trying to anticipate all of the consequences that will result from changes can sometimes be an impossible task. Nasty posts from frustrated players are inevitable, but if it’s any comfort, this community is still quite friendly compared to those on certain other game forums. Here, at least, developer communication is welcome and largely respected.

I think most of the current player frustration comes from the fact that the metagame has recently moved in a backwards direction, while issues from January (such as AoE) still remain unaddressed. Players will be much happier and hold greater respect for the development team if they see consistent progress in the game, even if that progress comes slowly. Situations like the current one, however, where problems are arising faster than they can be solved, shakes the players’ faith in the devs. It makes them wonder if the people making the changes have a full grasp of the situation. That leads to the sort of negative feedback and criticisms that have been so prevalent on these forums the past few weeks, more so than the rate of changes.

Xeph did a wonderful job of outlining some sources of player frustrations in his recent post in this forum, and perfectly illustrates how the previous balance patch was out of alignment with Arenanet’s balance philosophy. The Necromancer profession was clearly in need of help, but in trying to push them to strong levels of competitive play, the developers bombarded them with a series of powerful buffs. New conditions, new build-defining traits, huge buffs to certain skills, even a new skill for Death Shroud! Those sort of changes don’t resemble the methodical balancing Anet has advocated since launch, and were more indicative of the whack-a-mole balancing that Anet has argued against in the past. To make matters worse, most of the changes failed to address the concerns that the Necromancer community had been most vocal about, emphasizing damage when players felt more limited by the profession’s sustain and capacity for attrition. The changes cast Anet in a bad light with the community, indicating that they were balancing without regard to their design principles and without a firm understanding of the metagame. By your own definition, these rapid, sweeping changes to the profession constitute a bad balance patch, and the recent metagame reflects that.

I personally don’t have an issue with slow changes, so long as they’re done right when they come. I admit, it would be lovely if these changes could be timed with the newly announced bi-weekly content releases, with each release targeting a few aspects of balance (AoE, conditions/cleansing, etc.) or underplayed builds (Condition Mesmer, Offensive Guardian, Power Engineer, etc.), but if this isn’t possible, so be it. It’s mostly just discouraging to see the metagame deteriorating after the developers have had a year to analyze how classes are working and what needs improved, while old balance issues continue to linger for months after they became problems. Posts like the OP’s appear because players are concerned about the direction of the game and want to help steer it back on course. Most of us don’t expect miracles, but right now, we need reasons to believe in the people who are making changes, and to know, definitively, that things are going to stop getting worse and start to finally improve.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Arheundel.6451:

2. Consider the creative mind of the playerbase.
Sometimes, there are really good builds that are not discovered for months on end. This is affected by our current playerbase, as well as a revolving meta.
This is not meant as a slight, but the truth is that sometimes things are changing so quickly that you guys just don’t have time to explore new builds and find that one gem that has escaped others.
3. Allow previous changes to settle.
This ties in to the previous two listed. The balance changes we make are very deliberate and calculated. This means that we need to give you guys time to find the gems that we have put in the game, and then allow the meta to adapt to your creative mind.

Sadly the majority of the player-base does not want to adapt, they find a build and that is it, they want to run with that particular build over and over again , as soon as they lose to a counter build..they’ll come to complain on the forum, while maybe using a different set up, runes, utilities they would be perfectly able to beat that counter build.
To put it simply not everybody follow a strategical approach, the majority only wish for “a build to rule them all” .

Aww, that’s not fair! I think a little more credit is due. Consider this though: the players that spend their time arguing on the forums are maybe not the ones spending all their time in the game trying to find that innovative build. Not saying that’s always the case, but it’s yet another thing we have to consider. The amount of active participants on these forums is actually an extremely low percentage of our playerbase. That’s not to say we ignore them.

But we’ve seen some of the top teams/players on these forums, and are there opinions on class balancing not worth more? If the game is balanced at the top level the rest of us can just try and slowly get there.

More to the point, though, it’s unfortunate that so many are, as you say, ‘bashing’, but at the same time, I think Xeph’s post is a very reasonable and detailed description from one of the top players in this game. I don’t think these top players have such a huge problem adapting, but it seems like he honestly believes these patches have been a step backwards. The thread is almost 500 replies long, and if even 90% of those are just useless complaints, that still leaves 50 posts with constructive criticism.

leman.7682:

Ad. 1.
AoE should be utility-focused instead of damage-focused.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Examples of good AoE skills:

Well of Darkness, Well of Power, Epidemic, Frost Trap, Ring of Fire, Churning Earth (with maybe a lower raw damage or without it completely), Entangle, even Bone Minion explosion and Ranger Drake’s F2 (big damage, but very hard to pull off) …

Why are these AoE skills well-designed? Because they are strong and still have very good counter-plays. Ring of Fire for instance forces your opponent to make a choice, either stay inside of the Ring and endanger themselves to any pressure that you may put inside, dodge through losing endurance, pass through getting burned. Churning Earth is a another great skill, because it requires the ele to come close to you possibly endangering himself and forces you to step outside of the channel area and anticipate a possible Lighting Flakitten also has many counters to it – you can interrupt the channel, block the skill, dodge it, eat the damage and so on.

Compare it to the unblockable Well of Suffering or Grenade spam. Both from a safe range, dealing huge damage, no skill, no danger, no fun. Every profession has those skills.

Proposed fix:
AoE in general gives utility mostly. The damaging AoE skills are either situational, elite or require a close range and have possible counters.
Examples:

• Well of Suffering – huge damage + some vulnerability -> no damage + a lot of vulnerability
• Grenades – same thing – remove damage, focus on utility.

The ouctcome:

• No more safe, long-range AoE damage dealing.
• Offensive AoE being used with more thought, more timing, and more team cooperation, in the spirit of ‘The target is immobilized in the Well, huge vulnerability inc, JUMP on him, Mr Warrior!’, instead of ‘The target is immobilized in the Well, …, stomp him! … actually don’t! I’ll just throw in another AoE.’

As a Grenade spamming PvE engineer(also warrior, thief and elementalist. the rest are not played as much) who does not play sPvP I have to ask. Is the typical PvPer really so terrible than they will just stand in one spot and let an engineer spam grenades on them? Even with PvE mobs you have to account for their movement, this is usually easy but it is still possible to misjudge. I would expect actual players to be better. Grenades are neither instant nor the fastest flying projectiles either.

So assuming people are smart enough to move then the engineer must also move to maintain distance. Without bothering with the other issues this now requires the engineer to correctly aim the grenades while both the engineer and the target are on the move. This does not require any skill at all? People are still charging at the engineer in a straight line at a consistent speed? If they replace Shrapnel Grenade with a Stun Grenade then this might be more accurate.

AndrewSX.3794:

Metatail.1306:

In my ideal PvP players have ~600 hp tops, 100 damage is a lot, there is an energy pool and no traits. ;(

I see what you did there.

And i second.

On topic: points are valid, but must be done with a huge number of skill splits.
Destroying AoE might be beneficial for spvp with small maps and mechanics that force you to hold the ground on a cap point to win, but would crush the whole WvW where you have large groups, opne field playground and cap points are structures.

Skill splits aren’t absolutely necessary if they are going to be adding skills. Not like in GW1 anyway. There are already skills that are more useful in some format than others. Things like the res skills and the various traits that affect you while you are down are rarely useful in PvE but I could see them being more useful in PvP(note again I don’t play sPvP but I would expect to be downed a lot more often in a single PvP session than several days of playing in PvE unless I decided to charge at crazed karkas all day long). They can continue down that path for similar results without the barrier to entry issue.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Arheundel.6451:

2. Consider the creative mind of the playerbase.
Sometimes, there are really good builds that are not discovered for months on end. This is affected by our current playerbase, as well as a revolving meta.
This is not meant as a slight, but the truth is that sometimes things are changing so quickly that you guys just don’t have time to explore new builds and find that one gem that has escaped others.
3. Allow previous changes to settle.
This ties in to the previous two listed. The balance changes we make are very deliberate and calculated. This means that we need to give you guys time to find the gems that we have put in the game, and then allow the meta to adapt to your creative mind.

Sadly the majority of the player-base does not want to adapt, they find a build and that is it, they want to run with that particular build over and over again , as soon as they lose to a counter build..they’ll come to complain on the forum, while maybe using a different set up, runes, utilities they would be perfectly able to beat that counter build.
To put it simply not everybody follow a strategical approach, the majority only wish for “a build to rule them all” .

Aww, that’s not fair! I think a little more credit is due. Consider this though: the players that spend their time arguing on the forums are maybe not the ones spending all their time in the game trying to find that innovative build. Not saying that’s always the case, but it’s yet another thing we have to consider. The amount of active participants on these forums is actually an extremely low percentage of our playerbase. That’s not to say we ignore them.

Heyyy, while you’re here actively discussing, could you answer one quick question?

How do the devs think of current Ride the Lightning? It was so immensely fun with lower cooldown and what brought a lot of people to roll an ele at launch (it was the deciding factor for me between ele and engi at least). It looks awesome, it sounds awesome, it was awesome.

But then pvp balance came and killed it.

Now that bunker eles aren’t anything close to OP anymore, how about some love for RTL? Cooldown reduction? Going from 15 seconds 1550 range to 40 seconds 1200 range is the most severe nerf to a single ability in any MMO I’ve ever played.

Khisanth.2948:

As a Grenade spamming PvE engineer(also warrior, thief and elementalist. the rest are not played as much) who does not play sPvP I have to ask. Is the typical PvPer really so terrible than they will just stand in one spot and let an engineer spam grenades on them?

How else do you suggest preventing the engineer from capping the point?

stof.9341:

Khisanth.2948:

As a Grenade spamming PvE engineer(also warrior, thief and elementalist. the rest are not played as much) who does not play sPvP I have to ask. Is the typical PvPer really so terrible than they will just stand in one spot and let an engineer spam grenades on them?

How else do you suggest preventing the engineer from capping the point?

Mauvering around the point maybe? That might work. Or, if you play a thief, 6x dodge, because that isn’t ridiculous. Dodge, Dodge, Change to same weapon set (why is this even possible?), Dodge (energy), Heal (dodge heal lol), Dodge (adventurers), Dodge (normal recharge)

Personally I would prefer this to be PvP not PvAI. Currently there is so much crap going on, it reminds me of alliance battles, watching 1 red dot with 1billion triangles coming your way.

I also find it funny that Mesmers pets have aggro, either that or 1 randomly wails on me for no reason when the Mesmer is fighting someone else. And it only takes 2 hits to kill the mirros … 2x dragons tooth with zerkers on an ele is totally they way they were designed. While I’m all for them not dying so I don’t get covered in confusion, I hate it when playing an ele. With the ele, you auto attack damage is so low (even with zerkers) that when hitting one of these things with full traits for hp it looks like a real player.

Normally I can tell the difference because the real Mesmer is a chicken who runs off and lets his pansy men fight you. But every now and then the clones do some pretty stupid looking stuff that makes you think, nah that is defiantly the real one. So you proceed to immobilise it (30 sec cd) and dragons tooth into phoenix (30 sec cd) then watch it not die, and your like yep defiantly the real one. Finally kill the bugger and nope, you just waisted all your cds. 1 or 2 hits Anet, 1 or 2 hits. 2 or 3 Dragons tooth != 1 or 2 hits.

Personally I think some of the later patches have been good, finally seen more then just FOTM D/D ele (they were easy to beat anyways, finally getting some challenges). There are some things I didn’t like, such as increasing Sig of Airs cd, but not reducing a cd elsewhere, also the bugs that came with the patch. I believe this is just oversights mainly, not creating all the possible test cases.

What I don’t like about the balance patches is that there are very few bug fixes, mainly relating to the lists of bugs on each of professions forums. Some have been there since release and seem like easy fixes, of course that would depend on the way the game is coded. If they used classes and variables at all, most of the changes would be a simple change x variable to y. However, from looking into the skills and recent changes it appears that this is not the way the game is coded. You can generally tell when they change a CD of a skill and the Tooltip doesn’t change and it isn’t affected by traits correctly. Seems like everywhere that cd is affected is hardcoded in, that must be a nightmare to sort out.

This is leading right back to my point I always make.

The nodes are too small. The reason the AOE feels too strong is bc the nodes are too small. The reason grenades are insanely effective is because on a small node they hit most of the area. A chill grenade WILL hit the whole area, traited bombs are almost the size of the node, traited Necro marks are the size of the node, etc.