Guild Wars 2

Great post. You are right to bring this topic on the forum. +1

Everyone that agree, please +1 it.

+1 I agree the balance team have the ability to control this.

Cleric Amulet was strong on Ele but not particularly strong on Bunker Guard (wasnt enough to get it into the meta) so ANET could have just restricted its use .

Spartacus.3192:

+1 I agree the balance team have the ability to control this.

Cleric Amulet was strong on Ele but not particularly strong on Bunker Guard (wasnt enough to get it into the meta) so ANET could have just restricted its use .

Cleric Transfusion Reaper was nice unranked casual builds. Rezzing two people at the same time, was awesome. Cleric is need to do those things!

Banner Warrior was fun to play with Cleric.

To anyone reading this, if I am wrong about any of the points I am making, please let me know. This is so I can better my understanding as this post is my interpretation of Josh’s post and I want it to be as accurate as possible.

Dr Patrik.3642:

To anyone reading this, if I am wrong about any of the points I am making, please let me know. This is so I can better my understanding as this post is my interpretation of Josh’s post and I want it to be as accurate as possible.

They changed Cele twice for the sake of helping the Balance team but alas, it was a frustrating experience trying to make 1 amulet either work too well, or no one used it. You could also say that Celestials were balanced on Engi, Ele and Warrior while unbalanced on other classes because these three were the first Bruiser classes at the time. Since the removal and addition of HoT, now everyone is a bruiser class. There’s no need for Cele.

It’s a double-edged sword when it comes to balancing the game with multiple amulets because like you said, PvE and WvW effectiveness is also taken into consideration.

Then you have “unhealthy” gameplay like invincible bunkers in S1 or the zerker burst meta ages ago. They flipped two extremes so that every class could be one and the same. From what i’ve seen from Marauders this post patch, Clerics, Soldiers, Sentinel, with Rune of Mercy would indeed be an unhealthy addition to PvP so i’m glad they removed them.

TL;DR
The possitive side is the Balance Team, through PvP Team’s suggestions, are now able to balance the classes who were effected by the amulet removal without it having a transverse effect on some other item. If everyone is a bruiser class, then no one would be missing out. In theory. Build diversity is a different story.

There are already semi-exculsive runes…

Rune of the Chronomancer affects wells, which only 2 professions have access to.

Rune of the Druid affects glyphs, which only 2 professions have access to.

Rune of the Ranger affects a player that has an active companion… whatever that can mean.

Runes of the Dragonhunter and Trapper affect traps, which only 3 professions have access to.

Oddly enough, Runes of the Daredevil and Thief can be useful for everyone.

So I don’t see why there cannot be semi-exclusive amulets and sigils… or even completely exclusive.

Though I think it would be better to just overhaul the entire PvP building system.

Dr Patrik.3642:

Finding out that the PvP developers can only balance the amulets, runes , and sigils (as far as I can tell from the forum post Josh Davis made) was really eye opening to the all the limitations they face. Now, given that the classes are balanced for all game modes, making them not optimally balanced for any one mode, I think it might be a good idea to make amulets, runes, and sigils (the things the balance team can control) specific for each class (only when necessary) to counteract the inequalities in balance inherent to the classes.

For example, back when dagger/dagger celestial elementalist was king, that amulet was fine for almost all the other classes, but it was way to over powered on elementalist. So, if that amulet was just restricted or toned down for elementalist it would make that amulet’s effectiveness more equal in practice.

Also doing this to runes and sigils would only give the developers more control as to what types of builds they want to see without having to rely as much as they do on the skill balance team.

Now I know this is not a perfect solution. In a perfect world the skills would be balanced enough to where this isn’t necessary. But sadly, imbalances do exist and complaining to the PvP team about over powered skills they can do nothing about isn’t going to accomplish anything. Also, I believe that this idea could be improved with feedback from others and that my iteration is in no way set in stone. If anything, the main goal of this post is to get people involved in PvP thinking about possible solutions to improve balance with the tools that are available to the PvP team.

Link to Josh Davis’s post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Removing-Amulets-will-NOT-Solve-the-Problem-Merged/page/3#post6263782

Nope, sorry. This just makes the situation worse. Now, you’re not just removing amulets, you’re removing amulets from certain players. Again, tinkering or removing amulets will not solve the problem. The problem is balance not amulets. Amulets are just an addition. As a matter of fact, they might not even exist if the professions were properly balanced for PvP. Anet needs separate balance teams for all 3 game modes.

But sadly, imbalances do exist and complaining to the PvP team about over powered skills they can do nothing about isn’t going to accomplish anything.

Well….that has to change! How put getting into a position where they can do something about it? The balance problems will not go away!

+1 Certain classes almost NEED specific stats on amulets to be competitive. For example, my Guardian is very hesitant to even consider an amulet without vitality on it. Clerics kind of worked only because it had both toughness AND healing power. If devs could tailor make amulet stats for specific classes you could create many new viable builds for each class, and easily control their balance without skill changes.

We could have a large pool of universal amulets as we have now, and a special pool of class exclusive amulets. Perhaps even tie some of them to specific trait lines.

This is a great idea. It could power creep runes and sigils so the Devs have more impact on GW2. For example they could add a sustain reduction sigil and rune. Furthermore, they could add addition stats for healing reduction on amulets. Then they could balance everything without the guys who fix up our skills.

JTGuevara.9018:

Nope, sorry. This just makes the situation worse. Now, you’re not just removing amulets, you’re removing amulets from certain players. Again, tinkering or removing amulets will not solve the problem. The problem is balance not amulets. Amulets are just an addition. As a matter of fact, they might not even exist if the professions were properly balanced for PvP. Anet needs separate balance teams for all 3 game modes.

Well….that has to change! How put getting into a position where they can do something about it? The balance problems will not go away!

I understand your concern, but like I said, I am not only suggesting that the developers remove amulets for some/all classes if necessary, but also adding amulets for some/all classes and tweaking amulets for some classes. Now by tweaking I mean give an amulet more or less stats either in total or in specific categories so it makes the overall build more balanced when taking into account the way the rest of the class functions.

As for what you said on balance being the problem, I completely agree. However, if the many months that HoT has been released has shown, it is that for whatever reason(s), the developers cannot balance the skills of the classes for all game modes effectively. That is not to point fingers at anyone, just stating an observation. Now, since one of the goals of the PvP team is to balance for PvP and PvP alone, I think that if they had more control on the individual classes overall effectiveness with specific builds, they could achieve a far higher quality of balance. This idea simply suggests a means of doing that with the tools and areas of the game they already have access to and have control over.

Rather than getting Anet to change the structure of their company, I think it is far more likely that the forums could influence the actions of the developers of to the point of at least getting them to consider different ideas. Now I am completely in favor of putting the PvP developers in a position where they do have complete control over class’s skills in PvP. However, seeing as how this hasn’t happened in the entire history of Guild Wars 2, I am not very confident it will ever happen at all. So here I am trying to come up with and suggest ideas to the community and developers as to how a more balanced PvP scene can be achieved.

I disagree with this idea (exclusive amulets/class).

For example:

Elementalist has SO many unused/useless traits and skills.

New/exclusive amulets will not solve this!

Need to ajust skills/traits to make them usable.
(ALL ELEMENTALISTS ASKED FOR BUILDS VARIETY!!!)

When you saw last time for example a build with conjured shield? Or any other conjured build? Never!
Or who take today “blinding ashes”? No any single player.

Bacause just too big CD, or too long execution, or no damage, or uselsss effects, or bad synergy,
All these things are solvable.