Guild Wars 2

Hey, guys. Many of us still care about the pvp in this game, and we want to see it get better. Now that we’ve had a few days of playing with the patch, I want to make a thread here for the devs to read about what we think of the patch, what went great, and what went not so great, so they have something to base their future efforts on. One thing I will ask, though, is let’s keep the responses in this thread constructive (no flaming or negative ranting). To aid in doing so, I’m going to use the following categories for my own feedback:

The Good (what you liked about the patch)
The Bad (things about the patch you disliked)
The Missing (things you expected from the patch that weren’t there)

My own thoughts to follow shortly!

Well from a thief pov and my own personal opinion.

The Good
I like Blinding Powder being a Blast Finisher, from one Black Powder alone its possible to get up to 8 seconds of stealth.

Venom Share buff was nice but I think it was not enough, definitely a good change.

The trait tooltips are good changes QoL changes, especially for new players.

Blowouts and Launches, being stun breakable now is a huge deal. Its definitely a positive change to the game.

The Bad

The immobilize change does not help team play any further. A single player can stay immobilized for 10+ seconds by one player, versus they way it was prior, immobilizes did not stack in duration so you wanted to chain them as a team, and not stack them.

The Larcenous Strike change did absolutely nothing. As a matter of fact, it will only further encouraged spam of the FS/LS attack chain to get boon strips off.

The Missing

Maybe this reward system overhaul that is long overdue is what was “missing”, or more incentives to play in general. Their WvW got seasons, could that just be a testing grounds for sPvP to soon be getting them?

I thought nightmare runes were going to have some what of an animation when they are proc’d, maybe that was missing.

The Good

New Trait and Skill Tooltips: This is a great QoL change that affects all players, and it’s very much appreciated. It’s SO much nicer to be able to see at a glance very easily what every skill and trait does with no little details left out. I understand there are a few small bugs left over with it, but on the whole this is a really excellent change and from what I understand it will make future skill and trait updates take less work from the devs, so that is time well-spent.

UI Improvements: Another change that affects all aspects of the game, and another one that made me smile when I saw the preview. Condition damage is much easier to track now with the new floaters, and the blue timers when chilled was a neat touch. Tab targeting finally got some needed love as well; every player that has to fight a spirit ranger or MM necro thanks you! Really great work from the devs on this.

Love for Underplayed Specs: I’m glad that improvements are continuing to be given to builds that aren’t seeing much play in tpvp, and I’ve had a blast exploring the new options. Consecration Guard, venom share Thief, and turret Engi have all been fun to dust off from the “not good enough” pile and take for a spin. I’m sure the community will find some winners and add them to the meta game.

The Bad

QA: It is a bit concerning that every major patch seems to have some major bugs that go along with it. A few small issues here or there is certainly understandable and simply a matter of course in the software development process, but we are talking several big slips each patch. This one, it was Mesmer fall damage, a lack of internal CD for Leg Specialist on Warrior, and another serious lag and D/C issue with Legacy of the Foefire (this seems to happen every patch), among other issues. Granted, the response time on getting these issues fixed has been quick, but it just seems that fewer problems like this could slip through with better testing before releasing the patch.

Immob Stacking: I see where the reasoning comes from here (trying to push support Thief viability), but this is a really scary buff and hurts classes that rely on only 1 or 2 cleanses to get by. My experience with this game tells me that allowing this buff without allowing stunbreaks to cleanse immob is likely going to prove to be a bad idea in the coming weeks, but time will tell.

The Missing

Proper Balance Adjustment: The community waited a long time for this patch, on the premise that heavier balance changes would be delayed until after the PAX tournament, which was on August 30th. Because of that, many were let down by the patch that otherwise had a lot of cool features in it. Here are some of the changes I personally felt were obvious and needed in order to increase the viability of other classes and builds:

Warrior: Decrease Healing Signet passive, add brief cast time to Skull Crack OR slightly decrease its stun duration. Fixing para sigil is clearly not going to be enough, the sustain on Warriors is much too high especially 1v1. Also, Berserker stance should lower condi duration, not give full immunity, no?

Thief: Slightly decrease evasion on S/D build OR remove ability to shadow return (sword 2) while CCed. Just reducing boons stolen from 2 to 1 wasn’t the right angle: they still give Mesmer a very hard time and they don’t even run a ton of boons in the first place, it’s mostly the evade spam that’s a huge problem.

Engi: I expected some improvement regarding stun breaks considering they have very few competitive options at the moment, and buffing bomb radius was probably not for the best for pvp (team fights go KABOOM).

In general, I felt the direction of the balance patch was a bit out of touch with what the community has been asking for (example: improvements to AI specs like MM necro and AoE specs like bomb Engi and staff Ele, when the PvP community has been asking for less AI clutter and lower AoE spam).

Solo Queue Matchmaking: It still doesn’t have it’s own matchmaking system. It needs to pool together 10 players and then split them into roughly even teams from there, and this needed to happen a while ago because it’s turning off a lot of pvpers. A confirm box when the queue pops to reduce 4v5s would have been great as well.

New Map or Game Mode: I’m guessing there’s something coming soon, but we haven’t gotten any new toys since Skyhammer and Solo Queue. PvP seasons would have been cool, just something new and fun would have been a nice treat for us. :)

The Good (what you liked about the patch)

Condition floaters – these look awesome and make quick referencing ticks far easier.

Mesmer scepter buffs – as the weakest weapon mesmers have it’s nice to see a small reduction in CD’s. Certainly nothing major, but it’s nice to know Anet realized there is a problem.

Tooltips – People have been asking for this for a while so nice to see some clarity.

Bug fixes – Things like the para sigil finally being fixed and changing iDuelist so he can’t apply 8 stacks of confusion when traited helps reduce some silly builds.

The Bad (things about the patch you disliked)

How long we waited for this. Especially knowing the lack of changes…

The lack of QC… seriously, how did you miss the chaos storm bug. How was it not considered that if Leg Specialist didn’t have an ICD problems would occur? Every patch seems to bring something game breaking that wasn’t tested… Perplexity runes say ‘hi’.

Lack of actual balance. Particularly regarding warriors regen and mobility (even if you manage to get them low, they can escape far to easily). So much in the game still being based on passive/mindless spam. Things like burn procs need to go.

Immobilize stacking seems like a really bad idea. Ironically I noticed this when running around in pve – even in a level 15 zone mobs were able to chain immobilize and it started getting frustrating. This feels like one of those changes that you know, in a couple of weeks, someone is going to figure out a way to abuse and make the next cc spam perma immob build…

How much more annoying it will be in WVW when thieves can drop blinding powder into Black Powder for even more stealth. Stealth in wvw needs to be brought down, not buffed, it’s over the top as it is. I know this isn’t relevant for this section, but it’s another example of a change intended for pvp which will have consequences elsewhere…

The Missing (things you expected from the patch that weren’t there)

A more thorough attempt at bringing up the ele.

Mesmer scepter – while you said you are aware it’s weak and tried to bring it up, you completely missed the point. The problem with the scepter is the auto attack – it just is not effective. Sure, summoning a clone sounds nice on paper, but the clone is pointless, and in condi builds using your auto attack will often lower your sustain DPS. This needs to be changed – look at sword and staff clones as a point of reference in how they synergize with the weapon and play style, compared to the scepter which is lacking. Torch phantasm also needs to be reconsidered… seriously mediocre at the moment.

good: added description on many tooltips, targetting
bad: immobilize, remove it from game please it isnt suited for fast paced combat like GW2
missing: where to I start…: gamemodes, balance, conversation to new players, builds that dont require skill at all aka spamming a couple of buttons, solo queue, hotjoin abuse for glory rank, incentive to play, rewards,….. etc

Missing: Little Steps to Rewards. Why no Eventskins in Tourneychests?

Good:

- Paralyzation sigil fix. This was actually buffing dazes too, which made certain classes much stronger than others, especially Warrior. Hard CC being that strong was too effective.

- The targeting and casting changes are fantastic.

- Immob stacking is something I think is going to prove to be more inclusive for the 8 classes than exclusive. I know people don’t like the change and see doom and gloom on the horizon, but I think this was actually a much smarter change than the community is perceiving.

- Tooltips are a great first step. They’re still not entirely accurate and missing some things but the amount of work that must have taken is staggering.

Bad

- The pink nuclear bomb was hilarious, but those kinds of things are the kind of things don’t help an already negative community be more positive.

- I would have liked to see the damage condition stacking cap for burning and poison. Sun Spirit, Poison Grenade, and Virtue of Justice in team fights make it easy to put half a minute of those conditions’ duration with pretty short cooldowns.

Missing

- Templates: i’m sure that’s a big project so I’m not too worried about when it comes out but it will be sooo nice when it does.

- PvE and WvW incentives from sPvP. If those players are compensated for their time, and PvP players get big benefits to leveling from glory, the community would be a lot less divisive in my opinion.

The good:
The best thing probably rly was that launches became stun breakable.

The missing
Actual balancing + new PvP content.

The Good

-Ele staff is really complete now, many bugs cleared ( lava font, geyser ), increased shockwave speed( I actually hit people reliably now when I need and can combo eruption easily ), new unsteady ground ( epic buff nuff said ).
Overall this is now my favourite weapon set when I play support role

- one with air - phenomenal new trait, great to escape and to cover great distance in a short amount of time, a d/d ele with this trait on Spirit Watch map..it’s amazing

- ground target glyph of renewal ( OMG “gasp” I’ve actually managed to ress my guardian and win the team fight + match ^^ )

-stun breakers working on launch ( while in the past I was against it, now I’m really glad of the change, skyhammer is now even more enjoyable ^^ )

-Larcenous strike nerf : Omg finally…It feels like the deadliness of s/d thieves has been halved also, a fight now it’s no more a losing battle as it was before

-Sigil of paralization fix : 6s stun?..finally gone ty ^^

The bad

-Conjure= the buffs are really nice and the skills are something worth losing the other 20 skills ( especially the new earth shield which I love )

Despite the benefits, conjure skills still feel very clanky, I’d like to see the casting time removed, ideally I’d love to see a situation where conjure skills overlap the relevant element, EX. lava axe used, now every time I switch to fire I’ll use lava axe skills.

Maybe reduce CD by 10s or change conjurer fire trait to something like this :
“Reduce conjure utility CD by 20% and increase number of charges by 10 "

The missing

-Focus:

1) Flame wall : pls add a dmg component
2) Frozen gust : increased chill duration by 1s or add dmg component

-Scepter:

1) Shatterstone : add torment to it? Increase base dmg maybe or something else, atm it’s rather lacklustre as skill
2) Dust Devil : pls consider faster movement, add dmg or condition ( poison maybe? ) componeny

-Signets

Signet of fire active is pointless in my opinion, remove the burning and add something else

Signet of water, the active can be useful sometimes, but the passive need better stats, maybe remove 2 conditions every 15s?

-Fire trait line
More work needed

The Good:
- Trait Description: a really needed change. I was really bored to look into the wiki to really know what a trait really behaved. Probably the best change of the patch.
- Condition Floaters: good change. A lot less clutter on the screen and a much cleaner idea on how much damage you’re dealing with conditions.
- Stunbreak on launch and blowout: another really needed change
- Engineer turret change: another needed QoL change
- Stealth counter: finally there is a way to prevent stealth

The Bad:
- Too much time to come out: balance updates and QoL changes should come at a way higher pace
- More condition removals: in my opinion, it is the wrong direction to fix conditions. Giving that much condi removals to every profession will only kill mild condition builds and hybrid builds.
- Sigil of paralyzation fix: instead of nerfing warrior, it killed any mild-stun build like S/P thief or GS/SB ranger.
- More stability: stability encourages passive play. It should be way harder to access while making stunbreaker more attractive.

The Missing:
- Real support buffs: most buffed builds and playstyles are still underwhelming. Support Necro, Thief and Mesmer are still bad. Pet changes were not enough. Most of the changes did not affect the game at all.
- Warrior nerfs: how long do we have to live with burst-spamming warriors?
- Nerf to 100% immunity to conditions: we still have no idea whether it is a bug or not the 100% immunity of automated response and berserker stance.

The bad : Venom Sharing is great…if you have allies getting the applied venoms with high condition damage. See This thread Ms Murdock: Link

till the thieves with P/D support specs and Venom share can actually have a NEED to share venoms …such as sharing their condition damage and duration specs for each venom charge, i see no reason why to use the venomous aura on any build…its just simply useless when a warrior is built for power in my party and im the only condition guy…say for instance if i dip my dagger in rattlesnake venom and stab an ettin…and itll die in 3 minutes…why should my venomous aura only do the same for my allies but only make the next ettin sneeze…?

Also see this murdock – its a long overdue request that has not yet gotten a response just as the above thread hasnt(by devs) link

adding a timer to the return on shadow trap…

Good:

thief revisited. Venom spread buffed, however good venom spread build (utilities: venom, venom, shawdow refuge + elite thieves guild) lacks stunbreak. Maybe if basilisk venom were stronger i could use stun break instead of sth.

Condition floaters good.

BAd:
shawdow trap return- channeling time 1.5 sek very bad change bevcouse it is no longer stun break.

Missing:

Ladder position visiable from game level. ladder- divisions from copper to dimond. IN group fixed amout of players. Im best group only 50 or 100 players on the continent. Place in division should be visiable next to the name- for example under the name or title in form of words: Dimond avenger or copper gladiator

Thief Pistol whip should be reworked, but i know it is on the table now.

conditions rule now, so imba necros win. Immunity to condiotions and insta all conditions converters are too strong. Necros should be worked on, necros signets too good

Spirit watch map in solo que. Guardians, warriors and eles are too much favord when holding orb. Most players play one class. Solo que is very random in class distribution, so if one team doesnt get imba orber, game is insta lost. Potential solution: remove spirit watch from solo que. Make solo que maps same as team arena maps.

Capping point when invulnerable or “taking 0 dmg from X seconds” is not fair in comparison to inability to cap when stealthed. I understand inablity to cap in Wvw, but in PvP points are much smaller, so if stealthed player tried to stay in circle, he gets dmged.

Pvp reward system – gold so best pvp player can earn 5-10 gold per hour like it is in PvE now

Urejt.5648:

….
Capping point when invulnerable or “taking 0 dmg from X seconds” is not fair in comparison to inability to cap when stealthed. I understand inablity to cap in Wvw, but in PvP points are much smaller, so if stealthed player tried to stay in circle, he gets dmged.
…

they cant cap!

All the UI changes get thumbs up from me. More options is always a good thing.

Good:

Elementalist:

Staff Changes very good like those alot.

Thief:

Body shot change, larcenous strike change

Warrior:

Healing shout change and lung capacity moved down a tier.

Bad:

Necromancer:

Blood Magic changes did really nothing. The math has been done and spreadsheets done on how the change was insignificant to the point that it is almost a no change. The Transfusion change is good for helping teammates the life siphon changes really don’t do anything to make them attractive or make Necromancers even think about grabbing a different set of gear/amulet. People might play with it a bit to test it out and be disappointed.

For all classes if your trying to make trait lines more attractive look at what the current trait lines that are popular and the traits that are popular, then try to make changes that would people at least think about moving points somewhere else. (but not nerfing an already good trait to force people to abandon it)

I was hoping the blood magic changes would open up the option of going into blood magic where I would be more tanky outside of death shroud but obviously be weaker when I am in it since I would have moved 20 points from Soul Reaping to Blood magic. So there is a trade off a choice.

Elementalist:

One with Air should be 2 secs I don’t really think 2 seconds or 2.5 seconds on that trait would have been unbalanced. It would have made it more attractive. Like I stated if you look at the already popular traits and lines make it so that the choice is a difficult one because the choices are so good. Right now I can’t really see anyone taking that trait over any others in Air.

I personally don’t have any points in Air for my D/D build but if the trait was really good I would move 10 of my points from earth to Air for it but I would be giving something up.

Missing:

Was hoping there would be more balance or trait changes/fixes for unpopular/used traits and trait lines that don’t really get used much. Fire magic for elementalist really needs some love like really.

The Good
- better access to skill informations and trait descriptions (just missing sometimes more information about internal cooldowns and something like that)
- improved targetting (big thumb up)
- a lot of bugfixes
- new condition dmg indicator
- a lot of QoL improvements
- the attempt to enhance support builds (yet the problems aren’t just the build possibilities itself, but the current content doesn’t require support builds)

The Bad
(especially concerning elementalist)
- AoE extremly reduced (harsh nerf for every elementalist build, especially considering all the KI and pets in the game —> definitly the wrong way)
- core issues remain completly untouched (like attunement recharge, jack of all trades, forced into 30 points arcana, extremly squishy and yet always in melee range, forced into certain utilities, low build diversity, focus remains unviable and clunky, staff remains bad)
- every buff to the summoned weapons remains pointless as long as the concept about them isn’t changed —> giving up all 4 attunements for 5 extra skills just doesn’t work
- traits ware barely touched, new Air V doesn’t have any sense at all due to the speedcap —> pointless
- bad utility skills weren’t changed at all (like glyph of storms)
- hidden nerf to arcane skills !!! in dmg
- the balance of the elementalist wasn’t touched at all —> nothing done to create build diversity, to give him better roles, zero true buffes after all these nerfs and after being not played once in the MLG, absolutly no change in the meta
—> very disappointed in this patch, I expected a lot more to come

Missing
- reworks to traits and skills (you did some senseful reworks like the new unsteady ground (earth staff 4), but all in all you didn’t touch the majority of pointless and useless and bad skills at all)
- fixes to important bugs that consist since beta —> e.g. lingering elements
- removal of bad balancing attempts (like dhuumfire, RtL nerfs) and replacing them with something senseful
- improvements to focus (Fire 4,5/Water 4,5/Air 4)
- visual improvements on skills
- rebalancing the classe’s hp pools (why does elementalist have such a low base hp pool and the mesmer such a high one?)
- nearly no improvements concering countering stealth, teleport spam, AoE spam, condition overflow, down state and capturing points —> zero game optimisation

Thanks for the posts and staying constructive, guys. I’m glad people are taking their time to give well thought out responses and keeping on topic, that’s awesome.

cymerdown.4103:

In general, I felt the direction of the balance patch was a bit out of touch with what the community has been asking for (example: improvements to AI specs like MM necro and AoE specs like bomb Engi and staff Ele, when the PvP community has been asking for less AI clutter and lower AoE spam).

Right, because Necros need more buffs.

Neo Annubis.7429:

cymerdown.4103:

In general, I felt the direction of the balance patch was a bit out of touch with what the community has been asking for (example: improvements to AI specs like MM necro and AoE specs like bomb Engi and staff Ele, when the PvP community has been asking for less AI clutter and lower AoE spam).

Right, because Necros need more buffs.

The direction of the balance patch is in the right direction, but I don’t think it satisfied many people in terms of AoE condis still taking over everything. There was also a lot of “hype” around this patch, when really it was just going to be yet another small balance patch. Not that small balance patches are bad, but man there was a lot of hype around this one.

Good:
- Trait & skill information and stuff
- Condition-DMG Display
- New way of AoE-Targeting
- Fixed Paralyzation-Sigil
- necro death-shroud changes

Bad:
- extreme immobilize stacking

Missing:
- Rewards still suck
- Skyhammer-farmers still hurt the pride of honest players
- new stuff (map/gamemode)

The Good
Nice tooltip info

The Bad
Many bugs

The Missing
Amulets-runes-sigil changes
Balance changes,(still the same builds)
Rewards

I will comment on Guardian changes

The good – Fury on Meditations was nice, a small buff, but kinda meh when put into action
The bad – the fixing of POV was devastating for WvW play – Consecrations no one gives a kitten as they are not useful in WvW
The missing – Zeal remains uninspiring and needs an overhaul… speccing into Virtues still costs you Highly for only Medium reward at best – still feel our low health eliminates hybrid play and forces us into bunker/support

The Good:

Condition Floaters
UI Changes
QoL tooltip changes

The Bad.

Para sigil change did nothing for the current meta, warriors are still rife in sPvP and still dominating
Necro changes to the blood magic tree were more or less pointless they did nothing apart from cause brief debate an how much of a non-change they actually were, very, very disappointing
With CC via warriors already causing massive issues for players, you introduce immob stacking….this was in a lot of peoples minds completely un-warranted and un-needed.

The Missing

Warriors Healing signet STILL needs to be adjusted for comparison, a Warriors healing signet OUT HEALS my MM Blood Magic Necro, that’s right, it passively out heals something I specifically have to build, trait and spec for, that alone should tell you how out of balance that signet is.

Bunker based condition builds are too rewarding, they reward low risk/low skill gameplay but give incredibly high rewards

The Good:

Everything Ken (OP) said.

The Bad:

Everything Ken (OP) said.

The Missing:

Competitive play features. Tournaments rewarding QP’s & gems. Weekly tournaments. Monthly tournaments. The original “plan”.

The Good:
- Tooltips
- Tab Targeting changes

The Bad:
- Immobilize stacking, now you can just spam immobilize and it ‘works’, no need to time it with exisiting immobs on target, making the game even less skill based!
- AOE spam, Condition spam, and CC spam still dominate the sPvP meta, not fun
- Passive play is still too effective (healing signet, spirit rangers, etc).

The Missing:
- New PvP modes (deathmatch especially).
- Revamped PvP reward system to get more people trying out PvP or returning.

The Good: tooltips for traits and stuff were awesome, especially for new players.

The Bad: the game, from a competitive pvp perspective, was made easier. (ex. immobilization stacking)

The Missing: stupid builds are not being touched (ex. s/d thief evasion)

I would go into more detail, but I always feel like I just waste my time in doing so!

The Good:
- Tooltips
- Tab Targeting changes
The Bad:
- Immobilize stacking
The Missing:
-* New PvP modes*
-* Revamped PvP reward system*<— a must have. Theres so little incentive in spvp right now. Wheres the weekly tournaments or the gems or the other rewards.

(From a Necromancer point of view)
The Good:
- New casting
- New condition floaters
- New tooltips
- Most Necro changes were really good and in the right direction
The Bad:
- Tooltips are blatantly false in many situations. For example Death Nova (both the listed damage is wrong, and it shows to scale with power, which it does not) has the wrong damage, Vampiric Master’s healing tooltip is incorrect
- Quite a few new bugs introduced, see above.
- New changes just weren’t enough (in context to Necro) for self-sustain. Full-investment siphon builds have never been good enough, and they barely got touched at all with the Bloodthirst nerf
The Missing:
- Putrid mark still doesn’t remove as many conditions as it used to, it still doesn’t remove a single condition from allies
- Marks still go on full CD when interrupted
- No change to Dhuumfire, which still condenses all condition builds into “press 1 until the enemy is overwhelmed because my auto attack stacks three conditions”
- Still no changes to Reanimator, Protection of the Horde, Deathly Shiver, Necromatic Corruption, etc. etc. there are still tons of traits that aren’t just niche, they are outright bad, either for the cost or overall. We are in dire need of a trait rework again, and even very small pushes in the right direction would have been massively appreciated.

The good- The QoL stuff is fantastic. All of it. I love the targeting, the tool tips. Awesome.

The bad- Immobilize stacking. Really odd to me that launches got fixed in the same update that immobilize stacking was introduced. Love the launch/stun break fix though.

The missing- PvP is the only format that doesn’t synergize with the other two formats: WvW and PvE. Rewards are definitely seriously lacking for this format. There need to be skins that drop only in PvP that can be used in PvE.

Mostly was a welcome patch though. Thanks for the hard work

I agree with many posts. I typically play mesmer, engeineer and necro in pvp, sometimes i do play thief but haven’t lately.

The Good (what you liked about the patch)

-nice QOL for necro changes.
-nice changes to engineer elixirs
-warrior stun builds seemed to have been toned down a little bit
-I think the changes in mesmers were overall good.

The Bad (things about the patch you disliked)

-necro blood magic tree change didn’t really change much in terms of vampiric type builds. It’s nice that anet recognized that it needs something, but reducing bloodthirst from 50% to 20% essentially negated the changes they made, as all the other skills are kinda poor in that tier. I think the real problem is that minon master builds with vampiric abilities would probably be OP with 50% bloodthirst, but it really hurt people who want to run vampiric builds but don’t want to use minions. So maybe up bloodthirst back to 30 or 40% and reduce minion siphoning life a little to compensate.

-warrior passive healing is still ridiculous. A bunker heal warrior can literally stand there and out heal me (almost) without even using a skill(i know, i’m a power necro, but still, they literally almost have to do nothing and they live which shouldn’t be even if they are the hard counter to my build)

The Missing (things you expected from the patch that weren’t there)

-improved targeting, as a player who plays mesmer and also plays against mesmer I have seen both sides the argument. I believe that the targeting system gives mesmer a slightly larger advantage than it should be giving the mesmer. This also applies to necro and ranger who use the full amount of minions/spirits. Sometimes the node is just a cluster F* of pets and spirits and clones and it is too much, especially if they are asura. Target nearest enemy player should target the player, not the minion or spirit. I guess if we have “target nearest enemy” and a separate option for" target nearest enemy player" would help a lot.

-pvp rewards… seriously, i don’t even open chests anymore. I have like 500 unopened chests.

-solo q arena is bad. Too many 4v5, too much unbalance sometimes. I still play because I love pvp, but sometimes its so bad it ruins the game.

GooD:

- Tab Targeting changes
- Condition Floaters
- Sigil of paralyzation fixed
- New Ele Changes
- New Guardian Changes
- “Sick Em” Ranger Skill is good
- Warrior’s Staggering Blow (u can now move while casting awesome! )

BaD:

- Immobilize stacking
- Warriors are overbuffed, especially Healing Signet Shout Condition Warrs are very very hard to kill ya harder than bunker guardians.
- S/D Thief Larcenous nerfed again
- Warrior’s Staggering Blow previous castimg time is more balance imo
- Body Shot, im not gonna spend my 4initiatives only for this 1sec immobilize

Thoughts:
honestly the old 4 initiative flanking strike is better, spending 5 initiatives for FS>Larcenous’s slow casting time 0.5 sec+steal 1 boon is nothing. i love S/D only for evading attacks and the decent amount damage of 2nd strike. Forget about “Boon Hate Mechanic” that you guys have talked about 6 months ago

The Good:
-Tab target change
-Ele staff changes
-Condition floaters
-Para sigil fix
-Blinding powder buff

The Bad:
-Immobilize stacking ( I think this is a good change except you can stack too much. Limit to 2-3 stacks.)
-Warrior needs nerf
-Thief Headshot and Pistol whip now need a buff because of para sigil nerf(needed as the nerf to the sigil may have been, now these skills are in a very poor place)
-Necro Blood Magic change is downright useless

The Missing:
-Solo Q NEEDS a change
-Pvp rewards

The bad:
Mesmer great sword auto attack is ear raking.

The Good:
- Ele staff changes, definitely see the benefits
-Conditions are much easier to track, you can now see the actual damage of bleeding
-Sic ’Em, stealth needed a counter
-Scepter buff, on the right track but needs more (see below)

The Bad:
-Warriors are now overbuffed – too much healing and conditions
-Siphoning health in necro blood magic needs a buff still, but not too overpowered
-Immobilise stacking

The Missing:
-Ele focus buffs… this needs a fix and soon. It’s far too underpowered. One invuln doesn’t make up for what it’s lacking.
-Mesmer scepter, auto attack is direct damage when it is a condi weapon, doesnt make sense.
-Changing the condi meta somehow – classes should not be able to press one or two buttons and have a player down. It’s meant to be attrition not burst. Change condi cleanses or something.
-PvP rewards for the time spent.

The Good:
• Ranger pets received a considerable HP buff. I noticed how much longer they last on PVE and because of their longer lifespan they are a bit more useful.

The Bad:
• Ranger’s pets are not yet improved. The AI still sucks and it takes forever to get the F2 to work. Their damage is pretty subpar too…

The Missing:

• Ranger traits need to be revised.
• It was said the ranger weapons would be revised and even changed… what happened to that?

Aden Celeste.3650:

The Good:
• Ranger pets received a considerable HP buff. I noticed how much longer they last on PVE and because of their longer lifespan they are a bit more useful.

The Bad:
• Ranger’s pets are not yet improved. The AI still sucks and it takes forever to get the F2 to work. Their damage is pretty subpar too…

The Missing:

• Ranger traits need to be revised.
• It was said the ranger weapons would be revised and even changed… what happened to that?

rangers are fine now only thing they need to change is sometimes they react 3 – 5secs late when u used F2. but still spirit rangers are very good in tpvp @ all scenario! 1v1 or team clash! most wanted class in tPvP

The Missing: The ability to take our PvE skins to wear in sPvP

Suresure.

The Good:
Build diversity: Loads of stuff made slightly more viable, like DPS guard and so forth. More variety in builds is great and mixes things up a little.

Temple Layout Change: This is something that slipped under the radar a lot but temple is so much better now that the water is gone. My favorite map just got better.

Trait Tooltips: Pretty kittening great, the fact that I can directly check how much damage incendiary powder is going to do instead of having to do calculations is so easy. And trait changes (Like HGH) show up on the tooltips of the actual skills themselves, too. If I were to suggest an expansion on this it would be being able to chat link traits as you can skills, although with my understanding of GW2’s architecture this would be complicated.

Nerfs to OP specs: As far as I can see from my experience, the thing with this game right now is that there are so many builds at 9/10 level being outshone by the ones at 15/10 level. Bringing those down to a rational competitive level instead of buffing everything else seems like the logical solution to me, and that’s what’s started to happen – hammer/longbow is alright now, for example, after the longbow change and nerf to para sigil.

Condition floaters: Easily readable, especially good for bleeds.

The Bad:
Imobilize stacking: Not going to say more, other people have already mentioned why this is just not good. It’s so, so strong.

Delay: This patch took forever to come out and it was very, very needed.

That’s actually about it, nothing bad was introduced in this patch besides the bugs at the start, which is gonna happen whatever you do. More testing maybe?

The Missing:
Lots of things I want so let’s go with the most wanted:

Healing Signet change: Not even necessarily a nerf, just a change to make that sit there and get huge sustain without doing anything playstyle that bunker warriors have. Warrior is just not fun to me at all anymore.

Rewards/incentives: Nothing to bring more players in in general is what I mean by this. Not sure what.

Gametypes: Conquest is fine, don’t get me wrong, but I really would like some diversity. 2v2 survivor arenas where stealth is capped to like 20 seconds total for the team or so would just make my day, would even use the same map.

Hotjoin overhaul: Hotjoins are very spammy and the skill gap is very offputting to new players. Some kind of unranked drop in/drop out queue system instead maybe? That way you could queue with friends.

Visual clutter: I have no idea what’s going on with all the pets and particles and stuff. In my opinion anythin that’s not a player should have an icon instead of a name.

From Ranger/Necromancer/Warrior experience:

Overall:

The Good

Tooltips - Nothing to talk about. Great clarification, demanded and well-implemented. Big +. Same goes for UI
Sigil of Paralyzation Fix - Welcome fix. Expected it to be fixed earlier, coupled with Fear working with this sigil, but still good.
Reducing conditions “cloud” - Helpful tool.

The Bad
We haven’t killed Scarlet yet - lol, trollz
Zerg-friendly mechanics - That’s a big issue in the game. Bosses and Champions still cannot really protect themselves from zerging. The direct damage of AoEs shouldn’t count pets and minions. I feel some things for couple bosses which would help from mindless zerging (sure names have to be adjusted to the lore, theme and background). Examples? Sure! :
“Mirrors of Punishment” – For X seconds, all damage you do to the boss is shifted to you and total 10% of this damage is spreaded as a DoT to all allies within 100 range. To reduce the effect, you have to kill Mirrors spawned randomly, not closer than 1000 range and not further than 3000 from boss in random direction. Total 10 Mirrors. After destroying all, the effect of the spell is reversed for Y seconds for the boss, affecting him instead.
“Corrupted Leech” – Boss starts channeling Corrupted Leech for X seconds on all foes within 600 range, dealing X damage. Corrupts 1 boon every 1 second and deals Y more damage each time boon is corrupted. If there’re no foe within this range, Boss begins to heal for Z each second. Doesn’t count pets and minions.
“I Will Avenge You!” into “Finish Them!” – For X seconds, for every creature spawned by Boss players kill, the Boss attacks Y% faster dealing Y% more damage and heals for Z% of total health. If no creature is slain during this time Boss becomes more vunerable, taking K% more damage. However, remaining creatures from this point take 50% less damage, gain Defiant and do Y% more damage and attack Y% faster for every 5 seconds they’re alive. After all creatures die, the Boss is no longer vunerable.

Condition Spam - Too much condition spamming. Make conditions more tied to 2,3,4,5 attacks thus making them more powerful and telegraphed, but reduce amount of them on AA.
Melee domination - Melee dominates the game. Why? Range of most boons applied is melee range or close-range. Speed reduction when strafing is to great.
It’s very easy to “break” the skill, giving it full cd or ICD when trying to turn or strafe. Strafing left is much less effective and harder than strafing right (no clue here). When those are no real problem in melee, they’re on range, especially on key abilities and skills with higher cast time. Other reason – no reasons for going full possible range.

Missing Things

- More range skills which function like Ranger’s Shortbow #3 (Quick Shot) – “Usable when retreating”. It applies mostly to ranged weapons skills requiring you to face the target (not AA).
- More tactical bosses and mechanics like described ^. Less dodging out of red insta-death circles, more thinking.
- Personal condition cap for every player in PvE ( not WvWvW).
- Lack of Deathmatch.
- “Gargoyles” shown as the creatures from GW1 not kitten eaz-mode griffons painted black. Add Gargoyles and Mergoyles the way they used to be – annyoing, intelligent, humanoid, spellcasters. Currently Ogres are closest in look to old version.

That would be for Overall opinion.

On a side note: Tomorrow I’ll be releasing my PvE/PvP Arena suggestions. Stay tuned!

From an elementalist perspective:

The Good

Immobilize stacking was a brilliant addition. With this mechanic in place, I can finally use arcane power and elemental surge in a useful and productive way. I don’t agree with the naysayers who claim this is going to ruin the game. I believe it’s having the opposite effect in fact, as it indirectly benefits a certain type of build for eles; perhaps the least viable profession in competitive pvp. I’m sure other examples can be found, where this mechanic has been of great help to other underutilized builds/classes.

Staff changes for the elementalist are all very positive. I still find it too cumbersome to be effective in higher level pvp, but I think it’s a serious step in the right direction.

The new conjures are all quite interesting, especially the new ice bow. I’m very happy about this change in particular, as it makes me more effective as an elementalist. I do see the viability of the ice bow in competitive pvp. I’m less sure about the conjure earth shield, flame axe, and lightning hammer, although it remains to be seen what other players come up with. I’ll wait and see before casting my judgment.

The Bad

The changes were simply too mild to bring the needed balance we’ve called for.

The Missing

I’m highly disappointed that nothing has been done to address our innately inferior vitality and toughness. This is a deep imbalance that needs to be addressed. There is no shortage of good reasons for why this cannot stand in the current state of pvp. Our ability to switch attunements is not reasonable compensation for lower vitality and toughness. For one thing, while we have more potential skills at our disposal, our cool downs on those skills are much higher than other professions. Another factor that mitigates our larger skill pool is the fact that, in the course of an actual fight, there is an opportunity cost attached to our use of these skills. What this all means in practice is that we have an equivalent set of skills as other professions. It doesn’t matter if we have more of them than others if we can’t use them to an equal extent. Add to this, the fact that other professions have their own unique abilities: mesmers get shatters, necros get deathshroud, warriors get burst skills, engis get toolbelt skills, and etc. So, can someone please explain to me what justifies this balance? If it cannot be justified, as I believe it cannot, the vitality and toughness of elementalists should be increased. This change alone, I have little doubt, would satisfy the majority of the ele community.

Another problem with this patch was the lack of attention to overpowered builds and classes. Let me put it this way, if the highest dps build/class in the game cannot win in a 1v1 situation against an equally skilled player, using a defensive build (bunker), there is a deep imbalance in the game. If it takes 2-3 players to down a single guardian or warrior then you’ve essentially made the game unplayable, as you will have to match the other team, bunker for bunker, to compensate for the disadvantage. If you have a team, for example, composed of 3 skilled bunkers, then either you require at least 6-9 players to respond to them properly, or you must match them 1 to 1 and hope to capture the point before they do. This has the effect of forcing the meta into adopting a high number of bunkers, devaluing and fracturing the viability of other builds and classes, each with their own unique contribution to make. Until something is done to address the asymmetry of power between bunkers and dps classes, the meta will be dominated by a monotonous bunker or die mentality that is truly unhealthy for the game.

The good:
-UI improvements are beautiful
-Skill fact/trait improvements
-Targeting improvements
-Buffs to some useless skills (conjures)

The Bad:
-Buff to engie bombs only supports more spamming. Bombs were already just right before (had to intelligently zone a player, now you just spam them down anywhere and it all hits)
-Immob stacking in both pvp and pve. This is also an indirect nerf to eles, b/c they don’t have any survivability and immob = dead ele. Its also really not fun in the game when you keep getting immob spammed on you and can’t use your character, especially if you are stuck in melee range. The key issue is that SO many immobs/encounters have been balanced around not stacking, and are not out of hand that they stack.

The missing:
-No real nerfs to the OP specs that are killing pvp (inf strike + evade is why s/d thief is OP, speed of spam is why necro so strong, survivability of spirits related to the 70% buff chance is way too high, warr passive sustain still way to high)
-No fixes to broken traits that have been broken nearly forever (like lingering elements)

The Good

Tab targeting getting better;
Condi floaters are awesome;
As a elementalist player I liked the changes that was made;
Tooltips on the Traits will help many people;
Stunbreak changes was something that makes the game more balanced;
Other minor fixes and balances like, sigil of para fixed, new option for ground-targeting, turret’s targeting, skills that buff allies in an AoE now prioritize party members.

The Bad

WvW season 1, something that was only made to raise money with the transfers, I can’t see how someone playing from tier 2 and other tiers will have fun on this. They will be just steamrolled.

Season 1 Schedule, don’t know who made that, but clearly gave advantage to Jade Quarry to win season 1 easily, putting them with 3 free wins, while SoR and BG will have only 1 free win.

PVE inside WvW, well … this was a horrible idea, people now make long queues in WvW do to some kitten PvE content, they already have Living Story, why made them come and frustrate our determination on PVP, people doing absurd stuffs on WvW that I will contain myself to not lose my mind and make this a bad feedback. Just to name one thing: KITTEN PEOPLE just going for ACHIVS instead of helping us to defend a kittening tower, SRSLY … and mocking us at map chat jesus christ I will stop here.

Immobilize stack is just wrong, making the game easy like spam this that will work, no need to save your cooldowns to make a chain or something more complex. This just make the game easier making people just spam stuff and will work. I really hate this kind of changes that make the game “simple” If I want to play something simple I have plenty of other games to play.

Even with the changes I still think Warrior is the most OP class out there.

Missing:

One of the things that could help make people play more sPvP is make the Tome of Knowledge come along each time you lvl up in sPvP. But only this wont make sPvP reward good, will need more incentive.

MOAR sPvP modes … 1 year really.

Guild management is very poor, in many senses like lack of functions.

A quick suggestion, PLEASE make more options while you are going to teleport out of a Living Story map, like at this labyrinth, you go to Lion’s Arch, nooooooooo I don’t want to go to a 2 min loading city, make me pick from all other cities or at least my home town.

This is from a guardian/necro point of view. Brace yourselves this is gonna be a long one.

The Good:
-Tooltip, targetting, condi floaters, etc.
-Instant meditations, I never really had a problem since Smite Condition was near instant (never cared for MI) anyway but what I did hate was there was a trait that made 2 out of 4 of them instant, making it another useless trait
-Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration buffs. I like the Tranfusion one because it heals other professions and NOT the necro (at least not if they have a lot of LF upon use.) You may see me liking that as odd but I like it because it differs from the usual necro selfishness that our traits/utilities have.
-Focused mind allows me as a DPS guard w/ Zerker amulet to not put traits into Radiance (a trait line I dislike only slightly less than Zeal) and still achieve over 50% crit chance

The Bad:
-Focused Mind is a decent change but the fury needs to be at least 6 seconds for it to be useful since kiting a DPS guard is fairly easy if your opponent knows what they’re doing. With Smite Condition I mean sure that’s decent uptime but the other 3 are 40 and 48 if traited so it’s not that big of a deal if you buff the duration.
-Siphoning as a necro is still terrible, the healing portion is only slightly better if you don’t want to take Bloodthirt than before. I want to play the tanky, attrition profession with no mobility that you guys say the Necro should be but the only decent option is a no brainer Dumbfire build that revolves around facedesking your keys to apply as many condis as possible. How come a warrior can regen so much passively with little healing power using HS and AH (even when stunned) though I have to have 5 people stand in a well that crits on every pulse with 1000 healing power to achieve similar numbers. And on top of that the war still has superior mobility with more access to stability (stuns shut down our siphoning), can apply vigor to himself, and use blocks.

The Missing/Recommendations:
-The Zeal trait line needs more work to see DPS guardians use it. One issue Guards have is mobility and soft CC. I saw a thread a few weeks back with a trait that could be made into a grandmaster to replace Kindled Zeal (which was a waste of a trait, the only thing I liked about it was that it moved Zealous Blade down to Master). A trait that converts all burns you do into Chilled. I don’t see this as horribly unbalanced. It makes Judge’s Intervention into a 3 second chill/teleport allowing us to stay on the target better rather than them just dodging back and once again being out of range again with little hope of catching up because a guard with meditations and no staff has no swiftness. It’s also not that different than warrior sword then. The warrior sword puts a 1 second cripple at the end of the auto, and with this trait guardian sword can apply a 1 second chill at the end since it does five hits when you count the projectiles at the end of the chain.
-No changes to Death Magic. For me personally I would replace all the minors. Take Necromantic Corruption and replace it with Reanimator as a grandmaster and put no cooldown on it (or a 1-3 second if you feel it’s too unbalanced for some reason). Move Necromantic Corruption to Master and move Death Shiver to Adept level, which can then be used by DS 30/x/x/x/30 builds. Maybe add more boon application through this trait line, after all it is the line that gives boon duration.
-No other traits for Corruption utility skills, I don’t know but something new besides a cooldown reduction would be nice (nothing that involves not applying self condis though since that is a strength to us).
-Necro needs “shaving”. It’s so mind-numbingly easy with a 30/20/0/0/20 build
-I know this is mostly about sPvP, but please give necros some group utility besides heals for dungeons. Most groups want targets in melee range (no cleave weapon) so fear will usually be disadvantageous to the group, and most of our “offensive” damage mitigation is useless against champions. Who cares about chill/cripple if you’re meleeing it in a corner and if he just ignores your fear, shrugs off your vulnerability and weakness, further ruined by the fact that you guys nerfed DS “blocking”. We can bring decent utility with wells but who cares when other classes do it better? For example a mesmer’s Null Field does what both Well of Power and Corruption do. Sure WoC does some damage but it’s not a great amount and WoP converts condis rather than removes them but more than likely there’s a guard doing enough of that with PoV. Condi builds are ok against foes that aren’t trash mobs that die in 2 hits, but any other condi builds in the group and your damage starts interfering with the other due to duration/max stacks. I’m not saying we’re horrible, but we need more reasons for groups to want to take us because right now we’re a “eh I’d prefer a war but there’s no one online interested so let’s take em to get it over with” profession.
-Even if you think these are terrible ideas just please consider this: a State of the “insert class name here” again. I’d like to hear what exactly you guys want all the professions to be and if you feel you are accomplishing it. Examples: “Guardian is supposed to be support/bunker, leave DPS to other professions. We have accomplished this.” “Necro is attrition. Death Shroud does an okay job of this 1v1 but we still have work to do to allow necro better sustain against multiple foes since they have no ability to run away.”

The Good:

• [Elementalist] Staff changes are good and makes it much more fun to play.
• [Elementalist] Conjures improvement/attention.
• New UI.
• New condition pop-ups.
• New ground targeting.
• Stun break usable on launches.
• Tab targeting changes.

The Bad:

• [Warrior] They heal for more than they should, even with just 300 healing. Extensive healing gear should provide with good healing, not everything.
• [Elementalist] Conjure Earth Shield is very clunky and lacks animations. It is hard to tell whether you achieve something.
  – Skill 1: Slow and clunky. Second attack shouldn’t be a dash. Lacks impact.
  – Skill 2: Lacking animations. Hard to tell when you have blocked.
  – Skill 3: Has jittering to it, as in the delay before impact. Worst in close quarters.
• [Elementalist] One with Air is underwhelming and doesn’t lend enough mobility to the profession that is needed (for the staff or focus for example).

The Ugly (missing):

• More amulets and gems that opens up for build diversity. I think this is very important. The first of the three below has 798.
  – Power/vitality/healing
  – Power/healing/condition damage
  – Power/vitality/critical damage
  – Variations on some of the current ones, so the main stat changes.
• A solution to SQ matchmaking (which probably is being looked at).
• [Elementalist] Adjusting Conjure Earth Shield.
  – Skill 1: Quicker attacks, no dash on second attack and a single target third attack.
  – Skill 2: Blocks three attacks and adds 1 bleed per block with visuals of it.
  – Skill 3: A fluid charge like Burning Speed perhaps.
• [Elementalist] Less dependancy on arcane traits and traitline for build diversion.
• [Elementalist] Focus attention. Especially fire 4+5, water 4, and air 5 cool down.
• [Elementalist] Making signet and glyph focused builds viable. Glyphs might be impossible since it has no defensive utilities, but I have a few ideas below.

• Signets: They have one stun break and offer few defensive means, like condition removal. Water active could easily cleanse 2 conditions with a small AoE chill. Fire active could be a stun break with small AoE damage. Except for Signet of Restoration and Signet of Earth, I think they should be instant for fluid gameplay. It would be great to focus on signets alone and use the synergy of some traits out there. I do think that Fire’s Embrace should be relocated to adept.

• Glyphs: Glyph of Storms is a strange one. It does very little damage, even when using a berserker setup. If it was redesigned to produce a single hard impact hit with potential after effects (burning/blind/cripple/chill etc.), being telegraphed as it currently is, there would be much more to the skill. The AoE zone should be smaller than it currently is (180 perhaps). That and a lower CD would be in place too, for Inscription to come into the picture.
  Glyph of Elemental Power is EVEN stranger. It was meant to be used right before combat and is way too random for players that rely on skill, instead of luck. The stun break added to it contradicts its role.
  Since glyphs have little to no defensive measures, this particular skill would be a perfect candidate for change. It could produce something (emitting from your character) like a burning pulse in fire, blinding pulse in air, chill pulse in water and weakness or cripple pulse in earth, so a person can choose if they are being defensive or offensive. That combined with the trait Inscription could make it interesting.

Good

Trait tooltips

Bad

Necro blood magic changes – putting 1000 into healing power barely has any effect – is this a bug or is this what was actually intended?

Did anyone test these changes?

The Good
- Staff from Ele: I like the changes but it is still not viable.
- Trait facts: Really helpful.

The Bad
- The meta didn’t change it’s the same after 3 Month of waiting
- Immobilize stack: You don’t need to time you’re immobilize with your team it doesn’t matter it stacks
- Glyph of Renewal got a huge nerf. Now I can’t pre cast it and move towards my teammates when they are low. Throw the ground targeting I need vision to rezz them.
- Conjure Weapons and Mantras are sill pretty useless in pvp.
- One with Air: 1.5 sek is to short. Nobody will take this trait.

The Missing
- More balancing (I know you don’t want to make big changes at once but it was really disappointing to be in this meta after 3 moth and then see a patch that don’t help a lot)
- I would rather see more drastic change that are change more but in a smaller time frame. So the community don’t need to stuck in this meta much longer.
- Build Templates
- The Fire Trait of the Ele is still not worth to spend points in it.

The Good
-Staff changes to Elementalist. It really completes the support roll for them.
-Trait Tooltips changes
-The condition changes
-Sigil of Paralyzation changes

The Bad
-Necro siphoning skills. It should scale much much better with healing power. I’m talking buff it 100%
-No healing signet change on warrior. I wouldn’t mind it so much if they didn’t hit so kitten hard too.
-Immobalize stacking. I would of lived so much more today in wvw.
-Conjures will be in a good place if you would just buff the elementalist already.
-New trait for elementalist is useless. Fire traitline still bad. We get pooped on if we try to go a little bit bursty (tried scepter/dagger in wvw and it was terrible).
The Missing
-Rangers have decent condi builds but no power builds worth using.
-no perplexity rune nerf.
-No nerf to condition bursting (like seriously, it can do better damage than power attacks)
-no stealth mechanic changes. I would like to see a 6 second revealed on thieves that spend too much time in stealth. Shadow refuge stealth duration needs a 2s reduction.
-Warriors can run from fights
-No phantasm nerf.