Guild Wars 2

Hey, so I know I am going to get a lot of hate for this, but I thought I would do it anyway, hopefully it will spark some nice discussion.

I recently picked up the game again, albeit my low experience at the moment, I just wanted to comment on a few things that I had hoped would have changed in the three months I had left the game.

Passive play, I was really surprised that passive play still remains at the top, especially the warrior healing signet, and to a lesser degree spirit rangers.
I do understand that these two classes could use a little bit of a nerf, and it would bring them perfectly inline with everything else, in the warriors case the fix is simple; its just that I find it frustrating to be beaten down by a class that has room for so much error because the sustain is infinite.

Burst Damage, halting strike on Mesmer hasn’t seen a reduction; I find that at the moment it does far too much damage, along with Thief and Ele burst; because lets face it once other classes get nerfed, the former kings will rise to the top again, but if their damage is also brought down inline, I believe that people are going to try and diversify their class compositions.

All in all, since I do lack the experience with this patch, I was wondering if we could have a civil discussion regarding the matter, because I am genuinely interested in what the community thinks, since I have been so out of touch.

Thank you.

Sounds about right to me.

Passive / AI play is too powerful, healing sig warrior, spirit rangers, MM necros; all to good for being so easy. But just outright nerfing these 3 things must be done with care IMO, lest another frustrating meta take hold.

You are pretty much spot on regarding passive play. Many people (including me) keep saying build power should be proportional to how difficult it is to play. While easy, passive builds should not be nerfed to oblivion, their power should be much lower than it is now. Ranger who choses to go 5 spirits and spam 1 on shortbow all day long should NEVER be stronger than say D/D ele who chains 10-15 skill combos.

There was no sign of Anet listening though, or planning to change the situation. Hell, even Clik, who always kept saying ‘Give them more time, it’ll be fine.’ couldn’t stand dumbing down the game anymore and left to look for something new.

As for halting strike, imo main problem is the same as with any ‘on interrupt’ effects, where interrupting auto attack is enough to trigger them, this should’ve changed long ago.

It’s like Age of Conan all over again. Every patch since launch has made class balance and the meta worse and worse.

Xeph.4513:

Hey, so I know I am going to get a lot of hate for this, but I thought I would do it anyway, hopefully it will spark some nice discussion.

I recently picked up the game again, albeit my low experience at the moment, I just wanted to comment on a few things that I had hoped would have changed in the three months I had left the game.

Passive play, I was really surprised that passive play still remains at the top, especially the warrior healing signet, and to a lesser degree spirit rangers.
I do understand that these two classes could use a little bit of a nerf, and it would bring them perfectly inline with everything else, in the warriors case the fix is simple; its just that I find it frustrating to be beaten down by a class that has room for so much error because the sustain is infinite.

Burst Damage, halting strike on Mesmer hasn’t seen a reduction; I find that at the moment it does far too much damage, along with Thief and Ele burst; because lets face it once other classes get nerfed, the former kings will rise to the top again, but if their damage is also brought down inline, I believe that people are going to try and diversify their class compositions.

All in all, since I do lack the experience with this patch, I was wondering if we could have a civil discussion regarding the matter, because I am genuinely interested in what the community thinks, since I have been so out of touch.

Thank you.

I have barely played for a month+. But yeh, I think your post is very accurate.

The burst on classes like mesmer, ele and thief is too high, I played as many tournaments as anyone in gw2 and I just find I insta die at times due to the crazy burst. It is really not fun. That is a fact. The passive procs like spirits, healing signetiors, dhuumfire and incendiary ammo are also too strong.

These are the main issues with the “meta”. The game has bigger issues but these easy to fix issues (it is just editting numbers) could give them the ability to change the bigger issues with the game whilst the game isn’t horrible.

But people will come and say “WHY NERF ELE, WTF, THEY SUCKSSS!11!!!”. But that isnt the point. Ele burst is ABSURD. It should be nerfed significantly, but at the same time sustain from regen, dodges should be nerfed further on other classes. And passive condi procs should also be nerfed.

They will continue their power creep and this game will continue its decline. They listen to the wrong players. Those are the class forum qqers. 95% of class forum people think “anet hates my class”! And just illogically asks for buffs to their class

The feel I get from the last patch, is that the problems have been slightly toned down, while still remaining there. It certainly feels a bit more reasonable than before.

Talking from my experience, and not being a top player, I used to range between 80-89% range in the EU leaderboards before the december patch as an elementalist, while I seem to get along fine between 93%-800. Of course, this could be for several freasons (top players leaving and getting decayed, or simply myself getting better at pvp, or a bith of both), but I can certainly notice a shorter (even if yet unfair) gap between my profession’s effectiveness and the top meta builds. So I can say I’m enjoying it a bit more.

I agree that elementalist’s (air) burst damage should be toned down sometime in the future, although it’s a non-issue at the moment. The numbers don’t even need to go down, I think, because each skill in the burst sequence is individually fine, and making them weaker would make other non-air burst builds weaker. The problem I see with it is how it’s possible to stack so many instant-cast effects all at once, and not the damage values themselves.

First, I would like to see scepter’s earth skill, Hurl, to have a slower damage input. This would be, in my opinion, a good change for two reasons: it would tone down the speed of the burst, while creating a new skill sequence with hurl -> ring of fire to proc the burning from projectile finishers. Kinda like a reversed field->finisher sequence, much what staff already offers with eruption->fields.

Second, I think the arcane utility skills should remain instant-cast, but have their damage input delayed. For example, arcane blast could get slower projectile speed (and 1200 range instead of 1550), and arcane wave could have an extended animation and delayed damage (think: dragon’s tooth, but faster). And a slight cooldown decrease to compensate for this nerf, of course. Maybe 5 seconds each, or only for arcane blast at the very least. Much like my Hurl suggestion, this change would both tone down the instant-cast burst potential, while offering more utility/ strategy elsewhere. Win-win?

Finally, phoenix could see its damage slightly toned down in exchange for more party support (have it remove 1 condition from allies it passes through, too?), and Dragon’s Tooth be made more effective. No matter how much more effective DT is made, without any revamp, it probably won’t a role in the current instant air burst sequence, so ultimately, the phoenix change would tone the burst even more, while having the plus of giving more build viability to scepter eles that don’t invest heavily in the air burst build.

As an ele player, I think solutions like those are smarter than just a general “nerf that burst’s damage now!”, because a direct damage nerf to the ridiculous instant burst sequence would also affect all other poor elementalist’s builds, so we have to take that into account.

Pretty much you summed the problems with the current state to be honest.

Warriors have way to much room for errors in sustain.
Passive builds shouldn’t be more powerful then active builds, such as MM Necro, Spirit Ranger, and to some degree the Healing Signet from warriors.
Along with the above point, comes the screen cluster due far to many pets.
Guardians still king for team fights, access to far to many stability and AoE cleanse & healing.

Once you bring the above down, the old burst thief, elementalist & mesmer will come up again, and then a necessary damage overall needs to be brought down.

There have been MANY posts rightfully complaining about passive play as of late, the three worst offenders being healing signet, spirit rangers and minion necros. Hopefully things will get better out in the next patch.

I am surprised this is the first time I have seen it being mentioned- but I agree about halting strike- it is currently a very strong trait! However chaos storm is bugged to proc daze like crazy, and it is getting fixed next patch! (according to dev), so less halting nukes from that.

welcome back Xeph

Xeph.4513:

All in all, since I do lack the experience with this patch, I was wondering if we could have a civil discussion regarding the matter, because I am genuinely interested in what the community thinks, since I have been so out of touch.

Xeph,

Balance is a touchy subject. If you nerf damage too much, then everyone will go sustain. If you nerf sustain too much, then everyone will go burst. Right now, sustain is pretty much king with examples of 800+ healing per second via warrior and ranger elite spirit. The best thing that can happen, in my opinion, is for a better (more experienced) testers testing the new patches before any of the patches go live.

Nerf everything, leave nothing unerfed. I disagree.

I think Thief and Ele damage is fine. I agree that Warrior Signet can do with a reduction, indeed but they should also nerf the 100% invuln from condis that Bezerker stance provides.
Warriors wouldn’t be what they are but they would be sensibly balanced.

It makes sense that this passive and easy to use specs exist and are really good.
Right now the only playerbase pvp can appeal to aren’t pvper’s (those are only the remaining ones from hyped times), it only can appeal to pver’s, and you need to provide to them an easy and powerfull spec.
I think this plus the new rewards is working quite well and made a lot of pver’s come and play pvp. Of course, competition is kind of a joke when the best is the easy to use, but competition it’s been dead in this game for some months, so who cares. Atleast pvp will be something pve players can do to spice things up.

Heya Xeph, just want to say it’s nice to see ya back.

( and the passive play of MM necros makes me want to vomit )

The rewards are pretty pathetic in comparison to what you can get via PvE; opportunity cost racks up.

If they continue on this path of passive gameplay being the standard meta, then the game becomes shallow and wont have any endurance. There will be a real lack of desire to learn and people will get bored. Why do you think so many people left in the first place? Here , this explains it pretty well.

You are essentially saying that anet should just give up on pvp in this game. You might have this attitude as a pve’er, but I hope anet doesn’t just pack things up and say “kitten it, we’re done here”.

Everyone has been saying (since the dhumfire patch!!) if other classes are nerfed ele will be fine….what everyone seems to forget is that ele has suffered MANY MANY Nerf. Even the last patch nerfed their sustain. A lot of their old stun breaks no longer remove stun. Ele also has no reliable way to get away or even survive if two intelligent players focus him. Going 30 air for fresh air is just asking to be downed and is a terrible investment for the sustain you lose out on. The damage does not need to be reduced, the suggestion about giving arcane skills a slight delay is a good one.

Ele is the only glass canon that HAS to take damaging skills for utilities. This means death at the slightest error. Even if you play perfectly all other players have to do is drop a smoke field blast and sneak up to the ele and he is done! No threat at all! Then have your teams thief go to the enemy spawn and camp the ele while also harassing far point. GG! Nerf eles yes!

Regarding ele burst.. I think it would be bad for the ele to nerf their weapon skills, as it would have a major impact on Fresh Air and other builds. Currently the build is very high risk, high reward, but the 100-0 is perhaps too fast and the reason for that is arcane utilities.
Something should change for the two offensive arcane skills.

As the person above me stated, the burst gc eles produce is only doable thanks to 2x instant damage utilities. I would like to see Arcane Wave with a 1/4 delay and a small animation + pushback and Arcane Blast be remade into a mobility or defensive utility to avoid too much instant damage and provide arcane with necessary mobility/defense.

Xeph.4513:

Burst Damage, halting strike on Mesmer hasn’t seen a reduction; I find that at the moment it does far too much damage, along with Thief and Ele burst; because lets face it once other classes get nerfed, the former kings will rise to the top again, but if their damage is also brought down inline, I believe that people are going to try and diversify their class compositions.

Jump back to the nerf of Mug (4-5k dmg loss due to executioner). Noone played thief until Larcenous Strike gave thieves a viable build. Caed, for example, played arcane s/f ele (pre-freshair). Not even 25DA does half the amount of burst as ele can do. It can match a mesmer maybe, but with extremely low utility. After that, a buff/rework was made to the Trickery traitline which brought back a very different D/P thief.

tl;dr: D/P Trickery has mediocre burst. With an extremely strong 21s instant boonsteal/interrupt that carries it to top tier just below warriors and necros. If anything, its a one-trick pony completely opposite from scepter ele, with the trick being Steal.

Winning strategies

• passive play
• spam conditions
• roll s/p thief

Losing strategies

• using power
• timing dodges (it doesn’t matter anymore because the spam doesn’t stop)

Welcome back.

you can use two sigil of energy to spam dodge according to the spam of attacks.
i do it all the time on my shatter mesmer, it also helps with clone generation

Wait, how much damage does Halting strike do? Sorry I’m too lazy to test atm, but I thought it was around 700 base damage with zerker.

Lachanche.6859:

just spam dodges because they’re spamming attacks

Do you have ANY idea how awful that sounds? Do you have ANY idea how awful it is that your advice is actually remotely valid in a game like GW2? Also, your dodges come back slower than an enemy’s condition spam recharges because condition spam just doesn’t stop.

GW2 PvP suffers from horrendous balance issues and bad design decisions.

Swagg.9236:

Lachanche.6859:

just spam dodges because they’re spamming attacks

Do you have ANY idea how awful that sounds? Do you have ANY idea how awful it is that your advice is actually remotely valid in a game like GW2? Also, your dodges come back slower than an enemy’s condition spam recharges because condition spam just doesn’t stop.

GW2 PvP suffers from horrendous balance issues and bad design decisions.

Sarcasm…

Jumper.9482:

Xeph.4513:

Burst Damage, halting strike on Mesmer hasn’t seen a reduction; I find that at the moment it does far too much damage, along with Thief and Ele burst; because lets face it once other classes get nerfed, the former kings will rise to the top again, but if their damage is also brought down inline, I believe that people are going to try and diversify their class compositions.

Jump back to the nerf of Mug (4-5k dmg loss due to executioner). Noone played thief until Larcenous Strike gave thieves a viable build. Caed, for example, played arcane s/f ele (pre-freshair). Not even 25DA does half the amount of burst as ele can do. It can match a mesmer maybe, but with extremely low utility. After that, a buff/rework was made to the Trickery traitline which brought back a very different D/P thief.

tl;dr: D/P Trickery has mediocre burst. With an extremely strong 21s instant boonsteal/interrupt that carries it to top tier just below warriors and necros. If anything, its a one-trick pony completely opposite from scepter ele, with the trick being Steal.

Arcane skills are dumb and boring anyway. They are just instant damage on a short cooldown without any pizzazz. I’d love for them to bake Elemental Surge into the arcane skills, remove all the autocrit stuff, lower their damage, and give eles another arcane grandmaster trait. That would make arcane utilities actual utility (you could burn, chill, blind or immobilize foes with them) instead of 2 more buttons to press for burst.

Zirith.6429:

Swagg.9236:

Lachanche.6859:

just spam dodges because they’re spamming attacks

Do you have ANY idea how awful that sounds? Do you have ANY idea how awful it is that your advice is actually remotely valid in a game like GW2? Also, your dodges come back slower than an enemy’s condition spam recharges because condition spam just doesn’t stop.

GW2 PvP suffers from horrendous balance issues and bad design decisions.

Sarcasm…

You can’t rely on sarcasm in a text-based discussion. Unless you just got wrecked and changed to “I was only pretending.” Your post did seem pretty specific.