Guild Wars 2

Lord Helseth voiced his thoughts on the planned changes to critical damage, sigils and professions. It is a discussion about the good, the bad and power creep.
You can find it here

I wrote this already on here. Power creep is gonna be mad with sigils – it is power creep to every build in the game. EVERY BUILD. EVERY BUILD. Anet have to take that seriously. Have fun people. Those fresh air ele/thieves/mesmers gonna 1 shot you with fire and air procs now. And nerfing minion master (which is not totally op – lame yes) and refusing to nerf spirit ranger for ages (when its more clutter and way way more OP) is a joke. Haha

Why do you keep shooting yourself in the foot arenanet?
-Immobilize stacking, no one asked for it, the flaws are obvious and you still went for it.
-Skill/accessories unlocking. It’s probably the one thing that is unanimously GREAT about gw2, and you are slowly removing it. Why? My brain can’t even process it! No need to unlock anything is a GOOD thing that everyone loves about this game, why are you doing this? I always find those “devs are purposely destroying the game” conspiracy theories really silly, but this is… a weird decision to say the least.
-Sigil no longer sharing cooldowns. Again, why? All I’ve ever seen was people asking for two sigil slots for two hand weapons, the shared cooldowns are fine! They have always been fine! It does nothing for the game.

It really worries me to see Roy say “we feel crit damage is fine in spvp”. It takes my hope away to know that you guys think that damage in this game is fine.

And not the mention the completely meta shifting decisions you made for some classes (Mesmer) while the most broken meta build, the build that is defining the meta, get’s an 8% heal shave off of its heal…

So, NO to immob stacking, no to new sigil mechanics, no to skills unlocks, NO to power creep.

I agree with everything Helseth said to be honest. I’m just sad to see soon the only viable (and rather boring as kitten) build for mesmers will be with PU. Although if the sigils on 2h come across without nerfs i can see some kittened builds who will be strong with GS/Staff. Really don’t like the change on deceptive evasion…………………………………… for the same reasons it was mentioned by Helseth honestly.

Crit:
Air + Fire
Air + Strength
Fire + Strength
Earth + Ice
Earth + Fragility
Earth + Strength (My warrior loves it)
Nullification + Purity

On Swap:
Doom + Geomancy (8 out of 10 engies agree on that combo)
Energy + everything
Superior Battle + Intelligence
Superior Battle + Geomancy/Doom
Hydromancy + Energy (perfect for escaping)

Pick your combos, gentlemen!

Honestly Helseth might be a great mesmer player but he doesn’t seem to have any idea about eles. Burning speed change doing nothing? LOL.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Oh for fracks sake. They said in the stream that every single sigil and rune had a balance pass. Which – get this – means that they actually know that doubling sigils is power creep and will probably make all of them a bit worse. Just like they said that on crit sigils will probably be 100% chance but then do way less damage.

I imagine stuff like energy only giving 25 energy, battle maybe giving only 2 might, etc.

This is actually a really good point. While this seems like it could be a massive power creep at first glance, they are going over everything – and with this change in mind. Expect nerfs to a lot of sigils with CDs – presumably enough so to make sure the current always-on sigils aren’t completely useless.

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Honestly Helseth might be a great mesmer player but he doesn’t seem to have any idea about eles. Burning speed change doing nothing? LOL.

He doesn’t say it is worthless. He said it is a worthless change in respect to the power creep. Stop taking things out of context, you are literally a problem.

bubberducky.3420:

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Honestly Helseth might be a great mesmer player but he doesn’t seem to have any idea about eles. Burning speed change doing nothing? LOL.

He doesn’t say it is worthless. He said it is a worthless change in respect to the power creep. Stop taking things out of context, you are literally a problem.

You are literally using literally wrong. Whatever your point maybe…

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

bubberducky.3420:

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Honestly Helseth might be a great mesmer player but he doesn’t seem to have any idea about eles. Burning speed change doing nothing? LOL.

He doesn’t say it is worthless. He said it is a worthless change in respect to the power creep. Stop taking things out of context, you are literally a problem.

You are literally using literally wrong. Whatever your point maybe…

He mentioned its not a big impact to change eles bringing them back to the meta, which he is right…

I was thinking if anything the extra sigil and the crit change will even out at worst so you won’t neccessarily be getting killed faster

Crit change is not being included in spvp. It is a pve and wvw only change.

i think the devs are trying their best to get us to a good balance, but i dont think they can do it on their own. they need to get a testserver for good/pro players. So they can test their changes first with them and then decide if its worth to go online with these change or not.They seem to try this thing with the balace preview, but i think a testserver will serve this better.

about the patchnotes itself:

-pls dont bring the douple sigil thing to pvp. back up an test it again. this will buff every single 2-hand-weapon. And btw hambow has two of it -.-
-dont make these unlock-things happen in pvp. Not having to unlock things in pvp/ having a equal level to all others, is a huge thing. This may be one of the may reasons to buy gw2 if you want to pvp.
- pls nerf the immobstacking

overall i like that they dont want to make these big changes and that they want to make smaller steps. (btw sigils-changes is the opposite of what they try to do )
also i really like the pindown thing. thx for that anet

edit: i like that they try things out in pve/wvw first (like new sigils and runes or maybe the critchanges)

Wispy.8679:

Crit change is not being included in spvp. It is a pve and wvw only change.

Ah ok nvm then

With all the sigils/rune up for possible rework isn’t a bit over the top to be speculating a power creep…. for all we know putting air/fire on a single weaponset will probably just equate to having one as it is. Thus, it would actually be a nerf to some weaponsets that had fire + force or w/e now. All it’s going to be is speculation…

I do agree that we need PTR already; with some of the changes that have been made over the past year (dhuumfire, healing sig, nerfing eles and buffing a bunch of counters to the class, etc.) having been pretty poorly tested before they were rolled out to the live servers.

I’ve been trying to play/enjoy my Ele again for the nth time, and it’s just kinda nuts to think of all the nerfs that were made to this class, and the buffs to at least a few counters that didn’t really exist when this class was at it’s apex (condition spikes being as prevalent as they are now, ham/bow/hsig warriors, S/D & D/P trickery thieves). You can look at sustain all you want, but the class really needs some mobility back to compete for spots on a team that aren’t easily/better filled by others.

The ele buffs really aren’t going to do anything, he is right. 3 second regen on water trident is near useless, and the reason eles don’t use d/d is because it’s MOBILITY was gutted.

Ride the lightning needs a reduced cd; the old ability was 1550 range and now it’s 1200 range with double the cooldown.

power creep is two words

checkmate, nerds

I thought the sigils change ment that you could use something like fire on one set and energy on another without the icds interfering with eachother. which is okay i guess.

If you can use 2 procs on one set and 2 swaps on another…. things like a thief with fire/air on d/p and geo/hydro on short bow would be kittened….instead of 1 weapon proc on top of burst you would get 4. ROFL

Also engi/ele with battle AND energy would be really strong too… etc

Even if that isn’t the case a set up like geo/fire + hydro/fire would still be really strong with out re balancing…. they could lower the damage on geo and hydro to compensate however…

For ele’s revert the icd on cleansing water for pvp only…..
and please remove diamond skin so you do not have problems with signet of restoration …. right now diamond skin isn’t a big deal but if you buff sustain enough….. …… ….. …..

I’m glad to hear he had the exact same thought I did which was that this was a whole lot of power creep. Just on the Mes alone, I can run Energy and Fire blast now (on 2h’ers to boot!), it’s basically ~2k+ extra damage that’s just been introduced to the game now.

Their approach to things like Dhuumfire and the Ele in general just baffle me, why keep tinkering and reworking? Why not just scrap the trait for being more trouble than it’s worth and come up with something else? The Ele, again, it’s more power creep, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the Ele that demands piling on the buffs it’s that many other things need toning way down. They are either blind to see this or just totally stubborn.

Josh Davis.6015:

@Sigil stacking – I guess we didn’t make it clear enough on stream – many of the sigils will be rebalanced to compensate for the ability to stack two of the same type.

I really wish you had lowered the crit damage potential for pvp as well. That would have been the greatest change since release for the same reason you did so in the other areas. Whenever I see a 100%+ difference in my damage simply because I crit, I realize how big of a difference in pressure that makes and how single crits can turn fights due to that.

The difference between a crit and a non-crit on big attacks is up to 4k and higher for the strongest skills and the main reason why dps classes will never use anything but berserker.

My prime issue with anet is their follow-up to a balance change which is often long and doesn’t actually occur until another balance change.
If Anet closely monitors their changes and is willing to make prompt tweaks and decide not everything needs to be monitored for a month, everything will be all good.

Lordrosicky.5813:

And nerfing minion master (which is not totally op – lame yes) and refusing to nerf spirit ranger for ages (when its more clutter and way way more OP) is a joke. Haha

Spirit ranger is being consistently nerfed directly and indirectly in recent balance patches and they just announced another nerf compared to actual state. You can’t use that excuse.

At least people finally agree there is power creep.

It’s been obvious for a long time and I’m tired of arguing with people about the existence of power creep in GW2 tpvp.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

At least people finally agree there is power creep.

It’s been obvious for a long time and I’m tired of arguing with people about the existence of power creep in GW2 tpvp.

Sorry if this sounds stupid but what is “power creep”? Is it just basically buffing everything?

Power Creep is pretty much what is sounds like… power continually creeps up until everything starts becoming too powerful. A good example of this would be the initial buffing of conditions through dhuumfire, and other condition related items to make them viable. Then instead of reverting the changes when it becomes too powerful instead of nerfing it to a lower level to get the gradual balance, the counter (condition removal, condi immunity) gets raised. This continues to happen until the problem is identified or everything is a battle of the one hits. There can also be power creep in defensive areas as well.

<— Extra Credits Power Creep

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-Bear-Document/page/7#post3439923

Halfway down page 7 starts a brief synopsis of the power creep in guild wars 2 pvp.

First off THANK YOU helseth, I sincerely appreciate you having a calm collected discussion on the changes presented. For me, unlocking things is BAD for PvP, don’t use unlocks as your form of progression for PvP please.

Sigils and runes are good changes contrary to what helseth said because theres less confusion to new players, from his reaction I think he might misunderstand how new players really don’t know what stacks what doesnt why etc. This change will eleviate that, BUT he raises and amazing point. You NEED to do blanket nerfs to those sigil combinations that you KNOW are going to really cause problems.

Pindown amazing change thank you ( i play warrior and I’m happy at this. )
Healing signet proposed change is awesome to me. In my eyes, if we get that 30hps nerf it goes from 392 to 362 it brings it in line with healing surge at max level ( I still think thats too much ) but the idea of promoting use for an active especially if its NOT just a larger heal etc is good, promote use of the signet so enemies have a 20 second window with which to punish the warrior. What makes healing signet too strong IMO is our ability to condi cleanse poison. Poison and burst screw up heal signet right now, but we condi cleanse poison and hammer can crowd control efficiently enough to stop damage periodically and let the regen do its thing.

Cleansing Ire needs to move as a trait, what if cleansing ire and merciless hammer were both grandmaster traits in the defense line so you had to choose?

where are these changes listed? wtf

here:
http://de.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1vharm/ready_up_livestream_notes/

Sigil stacking is good if they rebalance values.

Them not stacking was crazy unintuitive.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

At least people finally agree there is power creep.

It’s been obvious for a long time and I’m tired of arguing with people about the existence of power creep in GW2 tpvp.

Anet dont agree because they are still power creeping the ele.

How to balance this game
1, Ele should be left alone. EVen receive nerfs
2, Everything else should be nerfed more
3, All bad runes and sigils should be buffed (build diversity)
4, All pointless traits and skills should be reworked.

Their aim should be build diversity and reversing the power creep in an aggressive way. Then they should balance once the game doesnt have so many broken traits/skills which nobody would ever use.

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, Ele should be left alone. EVen receive nerfs

Ok, enough forums for today.

Josh Davis.6015:

@Sigil stacking – I guess we didn’t make it clear enough on stream – many of the sigils will be rebalanced to compensate for the ability to stack two of the same type.

How about his other suggestions concerning the powercreep or backwards powercreep (aka weaknesscreep)? his example about the necro dhuumfire nerf (relocation) in regards to previous nerfs.?

Lordrosicky.5813:

Those fresh air ele/thieves/mesmers gonna 1 shot you with fire and air procs now

They only trigger for 800~ dmg.
Sure that’s helping burst dps, but it’s not anything crazy enough to turn specs into 1-shot kills….

And people are kittening freaking out.
I straight up laughed when Helseth said that theives will now be insta-gibbing you since they can deal 800 dmg on 1/3 of their crits at most every 5s.
Bad change, but nothing wild.

garethh.3518:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Those fresh air ele/thieves/mesmers gonna 1 shot you with fire and air procs now

They only trigger for 800~ dmg.
Sure that’s helping burst dps, but it’s not anything crazy enough to turn specs into 1-shot kills….

And people are kittening freaking out.
I straight up laughed when Helseth said that theives will now be insta-gibbing you since they can deal 800 dmg on 1/3 of their crits at most every 5s.
Bad change, but nothing wild.

mmmm it is actually more like 1k (if not higher)

so 2 procs is 2k+ initial attack, let’s say backstab for 7k= you are looking at 9k backstabs in pvp from thieves that are not even specced full glass; given that crit thieves have 100% crit chance from stealth, another such BS and you are dead

this is just an example, i am sure other classes will do similar dmg

I want to add, as an elementalist player, that the buffs done to d/d ele are relevant enough to make a positive difference, without leading to power creep.

The evasion in Burning Speed is a beauty. There was once a time where I believed this skill had inherent evasion, because I remember using it successfully as an evade skill about an year ago. I’m not sure if it that was indeed an hidden feature that was later removed, or if I’m just imagining things. When I came back to the game after a three month hiatus, I was strangely surprised that it didn’t prevent any damage or that it was sometimes interrupted. I could swear it was once an evade skill. Anyways, I still have the twitch in my fingers to time it off as a defensive skill, and for an elementalist player, doing it successfully is very satisfying and rewarding (same with Updraft’s evasion). So points off to not being a cheese buff here.

This change will allow several nice things that can, ultimately, tip the battle to your favor:
- Evade & burst back the moment your opponent attempts to burst you down. Try it out everytime a hammer warriors jumps into you – with a bit of practice, it’s easy to time it of, and you so would wish it had evasion everytime you do it.
- Evade & burst even higher while under immobilize. This is especially lovely against thieves, because Burning Speed is stronger when all hits connect, and nothing more satisfying but watching a fast & deadly immobilize burst being wasted.
- Leap into a foe while wasting necromancer’s marks or ignoring fear walls inbetween, or time it against those annoying, huge radius launching bombs the engineer puts out in the points. This evade is the difference between bursting down or being bursted in those scenarios too (and keeping your point a while longer versus losing it).
- As an escape skill. Certainly not the most effective escape skill out there, but still nice to evade a gap closer or go through 100 red circles on the ground unharmed.
- And finally, it’s in the fire attunement, our least defensive element. Anyone who plays an elementalist and must take attention of their attunement cooldowns knows how handy this is (as staff’s burning retreat proves).

You’ll be able to make a difference between surviving or not surviving, keeping or not keeping a point, and even landing your burst or not landing your burst, every 15 seconds.

Maybe it’s because that I once thought this skill had an inherent effect, that I notice, every time I use it, how handy an evasion effect would be.

Cynz.9437:

mmmm it is actually more like 1k (if not higher)

so 2 procs is 2k+ initial attack, let’s say backstab for 7k= you are looking at 9k backstabs in pvp from thieves that are not even specced full glass; given that crit thieves have 100% crit chance from stealth, another such BS and you are dead

this is just an example, i am sure other classes will do similar dmg

Sigh…
I did the math.
You lose 40~ dmg on average on a 100% crit chance 7k backstab by taking that sigil, you’re better off with 5% dmg.

The sigil can’t crit and has a low power coefficient so doesn’t tend to scale very high (+.1dmg/power).

So much QQ.

Josh Davis.6015:

@Sigil stacking – I guess we didn’t make it clear enough on stream – many of the sigils will be rebalanced to compensate for the ability to stack two of the same type.

It would be nice if the Ferocity changes affected pvp too. I mean, why not? Unless you drastically nerf sigils, the new change will still make current builds stronger, and Anet themselves have said they think the current Time to Kill in too high in pvp. Runes also seem to be getting a slight buff overall.

I feel ferocity should work in pvp as it’ll work everywhere else, both to compensate for all that, and to make the game less confusing to new players. Especially considering that the condition meta is also being addressed.

Helseth spot on, as always. I especially appreciate him noting how the devs seem to try and fix the symptoms of a disease instead of curing the disease – ex. removing tons of bleeds from Necromancers that weren’t a problem ever instead of fixing Dhuumfire. Now, they are changing the problematic trait but Necros have less bleeds than they used to.

It’s this type of development that is keeping the game from reaching its full potential.

Just few words from semi-competitive player.

Idea behind changing how sigils works are a bit misty for me. Yes, it took time to understand how sigils work in the first place, but Devs clearly stated why 2h weapons have only one sigil slot – they’re more powerful than 1h weapon in first place.

What I would change to make new players less confused:
1. Better tooltips on sigils – simple “on crit”, “on swap”, “stacking”, etc. with recharge written same as traits now have.
2. Video tutorial and explanation why and how this work – with good tooltips it should be easier.

Unlockable stats:
Another thing, that came from not making good tutorial videos, being able to watch in game. New players don’t know anything about what’s going on, they try and fail with everything and sometimes end up with a knowledge.

If you want to give them a knife and go to the wild, so then can learn for their own – I don’t accept it. They’ll meet bandits with better weapons, wild animals, etc. That’ll scare them off. Player base is too small to divide new players from experienced players. If we could divide these two groups – we could give new players some easier start, but since we can’t, we’ll send them for sure death. After they’ll see they cannot yet take stats they need to, they’ll run away.

With that said – I think unlockable skills was a shot in the foot. You started it, and before you’ll see the results of that decision – it may be too late for changes.

Small nerfs and buffs here and there.
I agree with Helseth – we’re having power creep. You gave more deffensive options, so to compensate it – you gave more offensive options, after that you again gave more deffensive options, and so on, and so on.
Look at hambow warriors now – they have most of the stuff you need in just one build – hard cc, medium dps, tankiness. It’s better to take second hambow warrior, than second character with only some of these options. I remember, when I start playing pvp – guardian needed support from, for example, necro to deal with condi cleanse, mesmers needed someone with cc to make good combo, warrior needed cc to land 100-blades. We’ll have less viable builds, since people can’t take one role in a fight, because it’s not enough. You need to be super tanky on your own and additionally really supporty, or semi tanky and have high dps, etc.

Additionally – one day you nerfed hgh engi, now we have more sd builds, which are even worse, because they have the same problems hgh had then – they’re superior in 1v1. And they can’t go less dps, because of warriors and guardians.

Obviously, I like current meta more than spirit ranger + dhummfire necro meta from few months ago. But games are still less strategy, than they should be.

Josh Davis.6015:

@Sigil stacking – I guess we didn’t make it clear enough on stream – many of the sigils will be rebalanced to compensate for the ability to stack two of the same type.

We all know how well you balance . . .

Divus.3175:

Devs clearly stated why 2h weapons have only one sigil slot – they’re more powerful than 1h weapon in first place.

I assume they will lower 2h weapon’s damage to the same values of 1h weapons.

I can understand how this change raises some balancing issues, but design-wise, it’s clearer and more exciting this way. No hidden restrictions, and more options for buildcrafting.

has anyone wrote any bulletpoints of things from the ready up?

Liewec.2896:

has anyone wrote any bulletpoints of things from the ready up?

A lot of people in a lot of places, it’s seriously everywhere. 2 Threads on reddit, more than 3 in this forum.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Josh Davis.6015:

@Sigil stacking – I guess we didn’t make it clear enough on stream – many of the sigils will be rebalanced to compensate for the ability to stack two of the same type.

We all know how well you balance . . .

May god have mercy on our souls…

LelouchViBritannia.3607:

Liewec.2896:

has anyone wrote any bulletpoints of things from the ready up?

A lot of people in a lot of places, it’s seriously everywhere. 2 Threads on reddit, more than 3 in this forum.

ah, thanks, found one on page 2, didn’t think they’d get buried that fast!

Guess I am going to go sell off my energy sigil supply. They are obviously going to nerf it into the ground because it is going to be OP used along with certain other sigils.

I like the sigil change as long as the reduce the efficacy of the “strongest” ones. I would guess energy is going to be 33% or 25%, Battle will be 2 stacks of might for slighty shorter duration, Geomancy will be 2 stacks of bleeds for slightly shorter duration, hydromancy will be shorter duration, etc.

These would be great things, improve build diversity by allowing you to choose more combinations, and make the sigils act as they intuitively should.

However, if the strongest ones aren’t nerfed, then it would be insane.

Finally, about “power creep” – there is some, but people tend to ignore nerfs that usually happen at the same time as buffs (or vice versa when talking about how their class is only nerfed). 2x sigil is a buff, but nerfing sigils can make it a wash.