Guild Wars 2

So let’s look at this protection buff.

This is a buff that about 1.5 years ago was used to actively mitigate burst damage, being available on demand for a short duration. Bunker guardians are a good example of this, able to give AoE protection on demand to actively counter burst on allies through a variety of skills.

Fast-forward to now and 90%+ protection up-time across entire teams is now normal, nobody has to think about using protection on demand because they can simply spam the buff to maintain it. This basically means that all of the power damage in the game is permanently nerfed by 33% (40% with a tempest in the fight).

Protection needs to be brought back to being a buff that is used on-demand to actively counter power bursts by reducing the amount of passive access to this buff. Main offenders are the following:

Rune of Durability (4): 25% chance when struck to grant nearby allies protection and regeneration for 3 seconds and resistance for 1 second. (Cooldown: 20 seconds)
Who even thought that this would be a good idea? Every twenty seconds you and all nearby allies randomly mitigate power damage by 33% for 3s and become immune to all condition effects for 1s (bear in mind this includes both damaging conditions AND things like immob that are used to set up a burst). This is only a single effect on a rune that every class has access to. In a fight where three players are all using this rune, each of these three players all have 50% protection uptime from this rune alone. This needs to be completely reworked. Even just making it only apply to yourself would be a good step to take (though a rework would be better).

Elemental Shielding: Grant 3s protection when applying an aura to yourself or an ally. No cooldown.
This was already a really solid trait for self-sustain before AoE aura spamming was a thing, now it’s just way over the top. This needs an internal cooldown (even 5s icd would make a difference to the current aura-spamming tempest without breaking the trait for other builds).

Chaotic Dampening: Chaos armor grants 5s protection. No cooldown.
This trait is largely responsible for the permanent protection uptime on bunker mesmers, much of this protection can also be shared with allies due to the Illusionary Inspiration trait. The 5s duration is needlessly long when you consider that chaos armor itself already gives protection. I’d like to see a reduction in the duration from 5s to 3-4s. Realistically if you’re being focussed with chaos armor on, you’re going to get at least 1 proc of the 5s protection that chaos armor itself gives anyway. (For those who don’t play mesmer, bunker mesmer has plenty of access to chaos armor through 2 short cd leap finishers and 3-5 ethereal fields).

There’s probably other things I’ve missed, but these are the largest culprits of the AoE protection spam in this meta.

one of the issues are revenants with their 100% AOE Team protection uptimes if they decide that his team needs it…………. they just press that 1 button…………

Zoltreez.6435:

one of the issues are revenants with their 100% AOE Team protection uptimes if they decide that his team needs it…………. they just press that 1 button…………

Rarely anyone decides to upkeep Facet of Chaos because it’s upkeep cost will empty your energy bar rather quickly if you use other skills too. Besides, most common Condition build doesn’t use Glint Legend.

This Facet isn’t problem at all.

Zoltreez.6435:

one of the issues are revenants with their 100% AOE Team protection uptimes if they decide that his team needs it…………. they just press that 1 button…………

This is not nearly as much of a problem because of this:

Zoltreez.6435:

if they decide that his team needs it

They would not normally do this and they have to sacrifice offensive capabilities as well as some personal survival via kiting/cleansing/evade skills.

The three things I listed gives AoE protection without sacrificing anything to get it.

In addition to this, Glint isn’t even the meta currently.

I don’t know if it’s protection or other culprits, but i can easily say this – if i go on full power reaper vs a diamond skin ele (so in short i crit every hit) and still can’t make a decent dent, then something’s indeed wrong here.

You need to take Glint for it and it uses up energy. If you switch to Shiro you won’t have enough energy for a well timed jade wind or stability dodge + superspeed stomp.

“Protection needs to be brought back to being a buff that is used on-demand to actively counter power bursts by reducing the amount of passive access to this buff. Main offenders are the following:”

I completely agree here and not just for the buff itself but invulnerabilities and stability too. There are just way too many passives and yes Glint is guilty too of that.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I don’t know if it’s protection or other culprits, but i can easily say this – if i go on full power reaper vs a diamond skin ele (so in short i crit every hit) and still can’t make a decent dent, then something’s indeed wrong here.

In terms of tempest… The protection buff to 40% ontop of traits/runes you can negate 67% physical damage and be immune to conditions. Earth trait has a -10% damage just from being close to enemy, frost aura another 10% and so on….

Oh and tempest can maintain 15s+ protection uptime from aura spams.

This is probably the best post I’ve seen about PvP balance in the last week in this PvP subforum. Just today I played an unranked game with a bunker Tempest, that was unkillable. His insane damage reduction made him impossible to kill against our team’s power builds and diamond skin made him forget about conditions. I would like to see this nerfed (coming from an ele main!), but if you nerf DS, viper revenant facerolls everyone with its sheer condition pressure. This meta is just a vicious circle. Oh, and that Tempest also had a bunker Chrono, who was spamming him alacrity, so yea… We lost ^^

Tomiyou.3790:

This is probably the best post I’ve seen about PvP balance in the last week in this PvP subforum. Just today I played an unranked game with a bunker Tempest, that was unkillable. His insane damage reduction made him impossible to kill against our team’s power builds and diamond skin made him forget about conditions. I would like to see this nerfed (coming from an ele main!), but if you nerf DS, viper revenant facerolls everyone with its sheer condition pressure. This meta is just a vicious circle. Oh, and that Tempest also had a bunker Chrono, who was spamming him alacrity, so yea… We lost ^^

Really the celestial DS aurashare tempest keeps at bay quite few monsters like power rev, DH and others. Once defenses on the aurashare build get gutted, eles will run selfish builds that will still allow good players to win regardless on ele but will take out eles from the meta.

With ele gone, people would feel again the full brunt of power/condi builds ( no more aoe protection/condi clear on demand) and DH/glint rev would come back with a vengeance.

At that point Anet will do one of these 2 things:

A) Nerf those condi/power builds
B) Buff another spec to replace the now dead aurashare tempest

In the end…people who ask for nerfs never really win anything, they just get their own favourite build nerfed or simply replace the object of their hatred with the exact same thing but on another profession ( shoutbow———>tempest aurashare———-> ???? )

The overpowered skill is tempest earth overload. Cast it and have your allies stand still to give 30s+ of protection.

Overload at the gate so everyone starts the first fight with 10s of protection.

Supreme.3164:

Really the celestial DS aurashare tempest keeps at bay quite few monsters like power rev, DH and others. Once defenses on the aurashare build get gutted, eles will run selfish builds that will still allow good players to win regardless on ele but will take out eles from the meta.

With ele gone, people would feel again the full brunt of power/condi builds ( no more aoe protection/condi clear on demand) and DH/glint rev would come back with a vengeance.

At that point Anet will do one of these 2 things:

A) Nerf those condi/power builds
B) Buff another spec to replace the now dead aurashare tempest

In the end…people who ask for nerfs never really win anything, they just get their own favourite build nerfed or simply replace the object of their hatred with the exact same thing but on another profession ( shoutbow———>tempest aurashare———-> ???? )

I agree that other power/condi builds do need a nerf. The entire meta is simply made up of builds that operate on an extreme level or have multiple get out jail free cards.

DH- extreme burst power, multiple interrupts with traps
Scrapper- multiple get out of jail free passives+heal turret+ elite stealth
DD- evade while doing dps
Tempest- Aura spam, protection uptime, diamond skin
Berserker- weak defense, no fast hands
Reaper- condi spam, boon strip spam, chill spam
Revenant- extreme condi spam, 2 get out of jail free blocks with shield + passive, extreme boon strip spam, extreme burst with hammer, extensive evade frames
Chronomancer- alacrity was the dumbest thing ever introduced
Druid- extreme heal spam, insane AI damage, high protection uptime

The problem is noone has any faith in anet to address these properly because while these aspects of the classes do need to be better tuned, in exchange OTHER parts of each class need to be brought up to a playable level. From watching anet over the past few years it becomes apparent that they have no idea how number changes or reworks effect the greater scheme of combat. Just compare to League of legend balancers, everyone loves to hate them but I really do respect that they understand that something as small as a .1 ratio scaling nerf can make a champion go from playable to worthless. Even when they do some major overhauls the relative balance of the game is still ok.

Heck even gw1 had some crazy balance swings during its lifetime but the thing that still kept it interesting was that balance patches were regular enough that you knew if they messed something up it 1. had a separate pvp balance so that it didn’t impact the greater game and 2. would be changed within ~2 weeks anyway.

Even if you nerf mesmer and revenant to reasonable levels they’ll still be useful due to the core nature of their mechanics. Classes like warrior or thief on the other hand depend on bigger numbers to be useful. Thief has no alacrity and shadow refuge has a hard counter and better options from another class (stealth gyro also washes reveal ) The passive however lasts three seconds and you need to pop it at a tactical moment, which also stops pulsing regeneration.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

So let’s look at this protection buff.

This is a buff that about 1.5 years ago was used to actively mitigate burst damage, being available on demand for a short duration. Bunker guardians are a good example of this, able to give AoE protection on demand to actively counter burst on allies through a variety of skills.

Fast-forward to now and 90%+ protection up-time across entire teams is now normal, nobody has to think about using protection on demand because they can simply spam the buff to maintain it. This basically means that all of the power damage in the game is permanently nerfed by 33%.

Protection needs to be brought back to being a buff that is used on-demand to actively counter power bursts by reducing the amount of passive access to this buff. Main offenders are the following:

Rune of Durability (4): 25% chance when struck to grant nearby allies protection and regeneration for 3 seconds and resistance for 1 second. (Cooldown: 20 seconds)
Who even thought that this would be a good idea? Every twenty seconds you and all nearby allies randomly mitigate power damage by 33% for 3s and become immune to all condition effects for 1s (bear in mind this includes both damaging conditions AND things like immob that are used to set up a burst). This is only a single effect on a rune that every class has access to. This needs to be completely reworked. Even just making it only apply to yourself would be a good step to take (though a rework would be better).

Elemental Shielding: Grant 3s protection when applying an aura to yourself or an ally. No cooldown.
This was already a really solid trait before AoE aura spamming was a thing for personal protection, now it’s just way over the top. This needs an internal cooldown (even 5s icd would make a difference to the current aura-spamming tempest without breaking the trait for other builds).

Chaotic Dampening: Chaos armor grants 5s protection. No cooldown.
This trait is largely responsible for the permanent protection uptime on bunker mesmers, much of this protection can also be shared with allies due to the Illusionary Inspiration trait. The 5s duration is needlessly long when you consider that chaos armor itself already gives protection. I’d like to see a reduction in the duration from 5s to 3-4s. Realistically if you’re being focussed with chaos armor on, you’re going to get at least 1 proc of the 5s protection that chaos armor itself gives anyway. (For those who don’t play mesmer, bunker mesmer has plenty of access to chaos armor through 2 short cd leap finishers and 3-5 ethereal fields).

There’s probably other things I’ve missed, but these are the largest culprits of the AoE protection spam in this meta.

I agree, but you forgot the biggest culprit:

Tempest “Overload Earth”.

This skill alone gives 30s (!!!) of AoE protection. The worst thing about the meta is: everything is shared with your allies. Meta Builds are manageable 1v1 but they are extremely hard to kill if grouped up.

UBcktieDL.5318:

I agree, but you forgot the biggest culprit:

Tempest “Overload Earth”.

This skill alone gives 30s (!!!) of AoE protection. The worst thing about the meta is: everything is shared with your allies. Meta Builds are manageable 1v1 but they are extremely hard to kill if grouped up.

Er….whut?

15 characters

I always say that removing an effect such a condition or boon should make the target immune to that condition or boon for a short time.

That way we can keep their spammability so it can be ready on demand more often for a more action game, but removals are not made pointless for a more tactical game.

MithranArkanere.8957:

I always say that removing an effect such a condition or boon should make the target immune to that condition or boon for a short time.

That way we can keep their spammability so it can be ready on demand more often for a more action game, but removals are not made pointless for a more tactical game.

Yes make the boon part 5s or 8s CD. That’d bring back signet/well necro and standard shatter mesmer to counter boon spamming builds (which is everywhere). It’ll also make those build worth it when fighting reaper or skills that pulse stability etc. But I think reducing stabilities using CC should not be the case.

As for conditions, this is a tricky matter and I don’t think is the way to implement it. Many professions only have access to few conditions like guard, mesmer, thief (when venom is in CD) etc.

I would not go as far as five or eight seconds for everything. That could be way too much depending on the effect.

There’s effects that would be fine with 2s of immunity or less. Like fear or stun.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

UBcktieDL.5318:

I agree, but you forgot the biggest culprit:

Tempest “Overload Earth”.

This skill alone gives 30s (!!!) of AoE protection. The worst thing about the meta is: everything is shared with your allies. Meta Builds are manageable 1v1 but they are extremely hard to kill if grouped up.

Er….whut?

15 characters

So…
I was also kind of like “What”?
And I tested it in game.

He’s not wrong.

It gives pulsing protection, and creates a sand storm that gives very hard pulsing protection.

So during the entire time of the actual cast, I had 3s of protection (Cast is 4s long).

Staying in the sand storm afterwards, I ended up with 21s of protection.

So, I’d say it’s actually between 25~30s. It’s pulsing, so a few seconds go by over the sandstorm. Yada yada.

That’s… Ridiculous.

Edit: It also gives 4s of stab (3 stacks), so good luck stopping it.

It stacks protection on other allies during cast and stacks protection on all allies during the after cast sandstorm.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

UBcktieDL.5318:

I agree, but you forgot the biggest culprit:

Tempest “Overload Earth”.

This skill alone gives 30s (!!!) of AoE protection. The worst thing about the meta is: everything is shared with your allies. Meta Builds are manageable 1v1 but they are extremely hard to kill if grouped up.

Er….whut?

15 characters

So…
I was also kind of like “What”?
And I tested it in game.

He’s not wrong.

It gives pulsing protection, and creates a sand storm that gives very hard pulsing protection.

So during the entire time of the actual cast, I had 3s of protection (Cast is 4s long).

Staying in the sand storm afterwards, I ended up with 21s of protection.

So, I’d say it’s actually between 25~30s. It’s pulsing, so a few seconds go by over the sandstorm. Yada yada.

That’s… Ridiculous.

Edit: It also gives 4s of stab (3 stacks), so good luck stopping it.

I’m all for removing the need for ele to be at mele range to accomplish anything, I will shortly open a [Buff Scepter] thread where I will suggest to reduce ele efficiency at mele..while making him that much harder at range

Basically I would gladly have far less protection and less need to facetank dmg while you happily kite around if…I could burst your @#X open from 900+ range with efficiency

I rarely post but this thread necessitates attention. The Devs have correctly prioritizing minor changes in contrast to systematic overhauls.

This pattern leaves doubt for the breadth of the OP being addressed. The #4 proc on Durability runes need immediate change.

Agemnon.4608:

Even if you nerf mesmer and revenant to reasonable levels they’ll still be useful due to the core nature of their mechanics.

There is only one solution in this kind of problem. and lets face it Conquest is not balanced around 5v5.

Agemnon.4608:

Classes like warrior or thief on the other hand depend on bigger numbers to be useful.

Make 5v5 as a Practicing ground and Bring back 8v8 as their competitive point of view and start playing GuildWars in GuildWars2.

Overload Earth makes keeping protection up very easy and imo it’s quite broken. Currently it gives you nearly 20 sec protection if you stand in the AoE and that’s without any boon duration, you’ll still be able to keep it 100% up time.

Boons in general are out of control.

Want Thief/Warrior brought back into the fold? Make tweaks to have them punish boon spamming hard.

Give Warrior something that bypasses protection. Swap Destruction of the Empowered with the hammer trait and make it GM-worthy. Make some Berserker abilities scale with how many boons are on the enemy.

Un-nerf S/D #3 on Thief a bit, maybe bump it up to a 2 boon steal again. DD Staff could be considered to have something added to deal with boons (Staff #4 maybe?). Maybe make Distracting Daggers or Fists Flurry unblockable and with a boon strip.

Just swing the nerf hammer across all of the elite spec protection application.

Rev: Retribution traitline: Stab on dodge is a joke. Also portection+taunt on cc. Put some stability to another trait or skill (How about Facet of Chaos upkeep effect?)
Ele: remove Diamond skin, nerf elemental bastion, protection on aura limited to weapon skills.