Guild Wars 2

Razor.9872:

Salamander.2504:

Let’s hope the “outlier” shaves include Revenant, now that mesmers and necros will no longer be able keep power rev’s in check (without toughness).

Have you visited the Rev forums lately? I’m not against it, but I can already smell the smoke from the inflamed QQ over another nerf.

Have you ever visited any profession forums? :P Any nerf is taken as an absolute disaster.

I actually liked merc on my engi, had decent sustain and condi + regular damage… with sig of intelligence it was a fun guild…. sniff

So we’re back to square one, I guess. Now we will have even less build variety.

Quo vadis, Balance Team?

How long until we get a proper multi-item stat system in PvP? I’m getting pretty tired of this “shuffle the best stat combination around every 3 months” game.

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not necessarily because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

Glad I’m not the only one. Wow. There goes my kittening burn guard. Had some promising results in unranked. I was like maby. Just maby this could work. But nope. Guess i won’t get the chance to find this out in ranked. On the other hand necro’s and mesmers are a lot squishier now. So yeah. And how funny, to do change this right before the season starts.

Dustin.2793:

I knew chaith would pull through with this one…Kappa

Bait not taken it seems.

Good change for thief?

carrion is still in the game. time to forget op amulets and go back to the balanced ones.

so no change to MMR? guess I’ll sit this one out too, after destroying my stats last season, so I always ended up on the worse team.

Thiefz.3695:

So this will take mesmers out of meta.

Funny. That’s what people said when quickness rezzing/stomping and alacrity got nerfed.

But then magically, mesmers were still top tier the next season.

Good mesmers will still do fine.

Sinister amulet will rise now along with every other condition power amulet.

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

This literally doesn’t effect burn guardians one bit. We died the moment HoT released, as did most core builds.

Zelulose.8695:

Sinister amulet will rise now along with every other condition power amulet.

Lolwut. Sinister? I think you mean Vipers…

Zelulose.8695:

Sinister amulet will rise now along with every other condition power amulet.

Rampager still sux

Josh Davis.6015:

Salamander.2504:

Thanks for the comms, Gaile, we definitely appreciate it. Any update on when Season 3 starts? We’re all dying to know.

Next week.

In that case when will details about matchmaking changes be released?

DrMatt.9408:

‘As mentioned in the OP, there will be a few balance changes coming next week as well, but runes/sigils/amulets are one of the things the PvP team can change on our own without impacting the rest of the game. To be clear: the PvP team, just like fractals/raids/wvw/etc, does not handle profession balance – there is a separate team for that.’

Pretty sure deleting amulets and the builds that rely on them has a significant effect on profession balance.

Josh Davis.6015:

To be clear: the PvP team, just like fractals/raids/wvw/etc, does not handle profession balance – there is a separate team for that.

Where is this mythical balance team and what have they been doing? According to Karl from the reddit AMA:

“We do have a team that works on skills. We focus on maintenance and balance of current skills, in addition to the implementation of new player skills down the road (I.E. H.O.T. Elite specializations)…When discussing changes for classes, we look to a variety of areas to determine what should happen. We use metrics from many areas of the game, feedback from a plethora of sources (yourselves included), along with our own spreadsheet comparisons and experiences. In addition, we have meetings with each feature team to discuss the issues in that we then investigate and come up with solutions for. We balance from many different perspectives, top tier pvp is included as well as Raids, Fractals, WvW roaming/group play, casual open world, huge map-wide encounters and a few more that I’m not thinking of at this moment.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/48zlyd/im_mike_obrien_here_with_gw2_dev_team_ama/d0ny67s

It sounds like this team should have their hands full and we should be seeing constant tweaks, but it’s more 2 changes every 3 months.

Please tell me this is an actual team composed of permanent members and not some temporary rotating team of summer interns or something.

Saiyan.1704:

This literally doesn’t effect burn guardians one bit. We died the moment HoT released, as did most core builds.

Core oh ya absolutely. I meant the DH derivative. I mean its a toy build its nothing serious to begin with but you know it’s one less thing to mess around with in unranked for the lulz the lack of tough on the other amulets will just make it squishier than it all ready is with the current trait setups.

FINALLY GETTING RID OF THAT BS MERC AMULET THANKYOU.

Seriously tho… bout time.

ok guys, imo the removal of this amulet is not to balance classes, but this amulet is the amulet that kept other amulets from being used, no matter how you balance a game, condition builds will always take mercenary over every other amulets, it simply has the advantage over others and it is simply too good of an amulet. if it makes any sense.

I still think mesmers will do just fine with vipers amulet. They can pretty much just avoid damage most of a 1v1 anyways.

lighter.2708:

ok guys, imo the removal of this amulet is not to balance classes, but this amulet is the amulet that kept other amulets from being used, no matter how you balance a game, condition builds will always take mercenary over every other amulets, it simply has the advantage over others and it is simply too good of an amulet. if it makes any sense.

+1

Josh Davis.6015:

there is a separate team for that.

could you talk to Mr. O’Brien to force these ppl to use forum actively?

We have seen skills from pvp balance team in livestreams and skills in balancing this game. Saddly nothing will change.

Step in the right direction IMO. The game should be more defense = less offense and vice versa. Tired of tanky builds that also deal crazy damage and Merc Amulet combined the two main offensive stats with the two main defensive stats lol. Bye felicia.

lighter.2708:

ok guys, imo the removal of this amulet is not to balance classes, but this amulet is the amulet that kept other amulets from being used, no matter how you balance a game, condition builds will always take mercenary over every other amulets, it simply has the advantage over others and it is simply too good of an amulet. if it makes any sense.

I can use the exact statement for power build and marauder amulet. Almost all power builds use marauder, why? It has vitality. So.. should we remove marauder amulet as well?

This is a banded to counter exclusively one build for one class, condi mesmer, yet it wipes out a whole bunch of builds for several classes that are not even remotely out performing, now cannot even remotely perform.

The ever lasting question, how is limiting stats distribution options is good for game play?! Might as well have one amulet for everybody (and probably one build) and call it a day. Great balance idea.. isn’t it?!

lighter.2708:

ok guys, imo the removal of this amulet is not to balance classes, but this amulet is the amulet that kept other amulets from being used, no matter how you balance a game, condition builds will always take mercenary over every other amulets, it simply has the advantage over others and it is simply too good of an amulet. if it makes any sense.

^ Best reply in the thread.

I think this was a solid change. Mercenary’s was too good compared to other condi alternatives and this also helps tone down mesmer a bit.

Now if we could get maybe another small shave to revs and buffs to guard, I think we’d have one of the most balanced metas in quite a long time.

Rym.1469:

So we’re back to square one, I guess. Now we will have even less build variety.

Quo vadis, Balance Team?

It was not the balance team who did this, it was the PvP team.

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not necessarily because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

Glad I’m not the only one. Wow. There goes my kittening burn guard. Had some promising results in unranked. I was like maby. Just maby this could work. But nope. Guess i won’t get the chance to find this out in ranked. On the other hand necro’s and mesmers are a lot squishier now. So yeah. And how funny, to do change this right before the season starts.

Have you considered Viper? It has expertise and burning while having a high damage modifier lasts a short while, so expertise and burning go really well together.

Agemnon.4608:

Have you considered Viper? It has expertise and burning while having a high damage modifier lasts a short while, so expertise and burning go really well together.

Its just not even remotely viable due to the lack of personal sustain with the traits you have to take for the build. No toughness or No Vita with no personal sustain traits on a class with the lowest base health pool next to ele with all the burst damage that’s around? Nope.

Sins.4782:

How long until we get a proper multi-item stat system in PvP? I’m getting pretty tired of this “shuffle the best stat combination around every 3 months” game.

How would having a multi-item stat system solve 3-month meta shifting.

Agemnon.4608:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not necessarily because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

Glad I’m not the only one. Wow. There goes my kittening burn guard. Had some promising results in unranked. I was like maby. Just maby this could work. But nope. Guess i won’t get the chance to find this out in ranked. On the other hand necro’s and mesmers are a lot squishier now. So yeah. And how funny, to do change this right before the season starts.

Have you considered Viper? It has expertise and burning while having a high damage modifier lasts a short while, so expertise and burning go really well together.

Guardians will only have 10k vitality then. The difference in base-vitality stats is also a huge limiting factor for Eles Guardians and thieves as far as what amulets they can use.

Agemnon.4608:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

Shadow Bane.9362:

RIP Burn Guard too? It was a fun distraction. In the right comps it could even work. More of a toy build but now less fun options for guardians again. I have a swell of pity for everyone who mains guard right now not necessarily because of this but in general they’re in such a kitten situation in almost all game modes.

Glad I’m not the only one. Wow. There goes my kittening burn guard. Had some promising results in unranked. I was like maby. Just maby this could work. But nope. Guess i won’t get the chance to find this out in ranked. On the other hand necro’s and mesmers are a lot squishier now. So yeah. And how funny, to do change this right before the season starts.

Have you considered Viper? It has expertise and burning while having a high damage modifier lasts a short while, so expertise and burning go really well together.

yeah but then i’d be squishy as hell. the low health pool and the 2.1 k toughness were pretty much the dealbreaker as to why went with mercenary. Also i could use radiance and signet of smoldering to increase burn duration. They just wiped the mercenary amulet simply cause chronophantasma was overperforming. So they destroyed condi malyx, corruption mancer, signet condi necro, certain variants of the longbow burnzerker and other condi warriors.. It’s ridiculous that the mercenary is gone. Hope they give us an decent amulet in return.

Josh Davis.6015:

UmbraNoctis.1907:

When will anet realize, that amulets are not the (main) issue?

As mentioned in the OP, there will be a few balance changes coming next week as well, but runes/sigils/amulets are one of the things the PvP team can change on our own without impacting the rest of the game. To be clear: the PvP team, just like fractals/raids/wvw/etc, does not handle profession balance – there is a separate team for that.

But amulets are added or deleted for balance reasons. Surely they work together? And if certain balance changes are made then an amulet wouldn’t need to be deleted.

I guess it’s easier to just remove stats (amulets) to render multiple builds useless instead of balancing certain overpowered parts of a class. Just leave berserker only and let the meta fix itself. lmao

What about Warrior? Warrior has not even been remotely viable the first two seasons, and we finally get an OK build. Then the amulet that makes us some what viable gets removed. Sure there’s Viper’s, Destroyer’s, and Wanderer’s but at the cost of significant amount of damage and/or defenses stats needed to survive. Which only puts back into the kitten tier category. Balance classes, not remove amulets and destroy not so strong classes’ builds.

Its a step in the right direction to remove the amulet. Its forcing condi builds to sacrifice survivability for the damage potential. It provides room for under par classes to perform better as well, namely thief and warrior. Fresh air ele will still be bad though lol.

Yes!!!!! I am viable again!!!!

Power warrior is back in the House

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the PvP Team:

Hi all,

PvP League Season 3 is just around the corner, and with that we’d like to let you know about a few upcoming PvP amulet changes.

The following changes will take effect on May 17:

• Mercenary Amulet will no longer be available for use.
• The cost for Viper’s Amulet will be eliminated. Anyone who had purchased this amulet prior to May 17 will be refunded the full purchase price via in-game mail.

On a related note, the balance team has been keeping an eye on how things have settled after the April 19 release, and you can expect some adjustments to some outlier skills with the launch of PvP League Season 3. More news on that front next week.

i demand a replacement amulet for the short demise of mercenary amulet.

no, making viper free will not cut it.

Ouch, necro was already hit hard by this patch, without this amulet I fear necro is going to fall back to garbage tier.

You already over nerfed reaper (at least relative to rev/chrono/ele/druid), but this will render us useless.

While this, hopefully, is not the only balance change, the issue with Merc amulet is that it was the best-in-slot option for almost all condi builds. So, hopefully again, they’re removing “build diversity” as most of you call it for… more build diversity?

FrownyClown.8402:

Its a step in the right direction to remove the amulet. Its forcing condi builds to sacrifice survivability for the damage potential. It provides room for under par classes to perform better as well, namely thief and warrior. Fresh air ele will still be bad though lol.

But what about builds that already have low toughness or mediocore healthpools? Necromancers are hardly tanks, same for condition malyx.

Like seriously how many condi builds are there in the meta and or a tier below? Like 3 or 4 tops? Only or two of of them can be argued to be a tank somewhat. And that is the chronophantasma shatter and druid. the other tank is pretty much a cleric tempest which is anything but a condi build.

What about power builds using marauders, palladins or demolisher amulets? Should they also be removed? Or is the problem rather with certain traits and skills of the classes themselves.

The mercenary amulet provids only 560 toughness and 560 vitality. Most builds do not magically become tanks.

heck condi warriors also suffer from this you know.

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

FrownyClown.8402:

Its a step in the right direction to remove the amulet. Its forcing condi builds to sacrifice survivability for the damage potential. It provides room for under par classes to perform better as well, namely thief and warrior. Fresh air ele will still be bad though lol.

But what about builds that already have low toughness or mediocore healthpools? Necromancers are hardly tanks, same for condition malyx.

Like seriously how many condi builds are there in the meta and or a tier below? Like 3 or 4 tops? Only or two of of them can be argued to be a tank somewhat. And that is the chronophantasma shatter and druid. the other tank is pretty much a cleric tempest which is anything but a condi build.

What about power builds using marauders, palladins or demolisher amulets? Should they also be removed? Or is the problem rather with certain traits and skills of the classes themselves.

The mercenary amulet provids only 560 toughness and 560 vitality. Most builds do not magically become tanks.

heck condi warriors also suffer from this you know.

I can’t argue too much since I don’t play warrior, but from what I can tell this is a soft buff to power warriors. I believe removing the amulet can push thieves and power warriors to a better point than before

maybe the amulet is fine, maybe condi it self needs to be adjusted. just a thought.

Josh Davis.6015:

UmbraNoctis.1907:

When will anet realize, that amulets are not the (main) issue?

As mentioned in the OP, there will be a few balance changes coming next week as well, but runes/sigils/amulets are one of the things the PvP team can change on our own without impacting the rest of the game. To be clear: the PvP team, just like fractals/raids/wvw/etc, does not handle profession balance – there is a separate team for that.

Class design has shifted substantially since launch. It seems far better suited to PvE now – especially post-HoT.

Is there a strategy in place to bring back more PvP-friendly mechanics now? There’s a wealth of fan-favourite builds to choose from (that were enjoyable in a meta), have these been considered for future patches?

Good change. There was a reason (before HoT) there weren’t any condi amulets with tough + vitality. A step back toward having to choose a weakness .

And what has already been said, this will increase amulet use, instead of every single condi build using mercs.

Why not remove paladins too? Same exact stats as merc. but instead of condi damage it has precision.

I understood the previous rule, with the whole “no defensive stat primaries” thing, but there is no reasonable or broad explanation to justify the removal of this amulet, aside from the fact that it was used by several broken builds.

What is the president set then? “No hybrid damage stat amulets with more than one defensive minor stat”? Come on.

I understand that the PvP team doesn’t control class balance, but maybe take a hint from the glorious Hugh Norfolk (Our God) and ask for community feedback before announcing a change at this level for no justifiable reason

PS: I’ve been playing thief, dragonhunter, and revenant for the past few seasons, so I’m not biased towards any of the affected classes

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the PvP Team:

Hi all,

PvP League Season 3 is just around the corner, and with that we’d like to let you know about a few upcoming PvP amulet changes.

The following changes will take effect on May 17:

• Mercenary Amulet will no longer be available for use.
• The cost for Viper’s Amulet will be eliminated. Anyone who had purchased this amulet prior to May 17 will be refunded the full purchase price via in-game mail.

On a related note, the balance team has been keeping an eye on how things have settled after the April 19 release, and you can expect some adjustments to some outlier skills with the launch of PvP League Season 3. More news on that front next week.

i demand a replacement amulet for the short demise of mercenary amulet.

no, making viper free will not cut it.

And I demand a free pizza!

…and maybe a Pepsi to go with it.

FrownyClown.8402:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

FrownyClown.8402:

Its a step in the right direction to remove the amulet. Its forcing condi builds to sacrifice survivability for the damage potential. It provides room for under par classes to perform better as well, namely thief and warrior. Fresh air ele will still be bad though lol.

But what about builds that already have low toughness or mediocore healthpools? Necromancers are hardly tanks, same for condition malyx.

Like seriously how many condi builds are there in the meta and or a tier below? Like 3 or 4 tops? Only or two of of them can be argued to be a tank somewhat. And that is the chronophantasma shatter and druid. the other tank is pretty much a cleric tempest which is anything but a condi build.

What about power builds using marauders, palladins or demolisher amulets? Should they also be removed? Or is the problem rather with certain traits and skills of the classes themselves.

The mercenary amulet provids only 560 toughness and 560 vitality. Most builds do not magically become tanks.

heck condi warriors also suffer from this you know.

I can’t argue too much since I don’t play warrior, but from what I can tell this is a soft buff to power warriors. I believe removing the amulet can push thieves and power warriors to a better point than before

i agree it will definately benefit power warriors and thiefs. However the soft buff affects so many other classes that aren quite op. I play warrior and DH. I guess i will perform better as well but still. This is too much imo.

Eh another proof that nobody from balance team reads profession forums…and any other kind of player feedback…I just waiting when they will remove cleric amulet and buff sceptre dps on my ele so it will be removed from pvp completely.

All hail the new revenant overlords