Guild Wars 2

Halting Strike: Yes i am a mesmer and since this post aims to show an objective point of view i also have to talk about this trait…when you talk about halting strike you talk about – instant – damage that can reach up to 3-4k (not dodgeable) imo it should either be removed completely or the dmg nerfed
Warrior in general: Imo apart from the healing signet and berserkers stance there is no such thing as a broken trait in general when it comes to warrior…imo it’s the combination of the things a warrior has that makes it too strong
Survivability: healing signet, bersercer stance, endure pain, toughness, vitality, elite signet with lyssa runes
Physical damage: a lot of physical damage due to the 50% crit chance on stun trait even when using soldier’s amulet
Condition damage: even a soldier or berserker warrior can deal a lot of its damage with conditions because the duration of the bleeding stacks on pindown is huge…and burning has a very high base dmg and can be used almost all the time..imo condition damage should scale more with the amulet a player is using
Condition remove: Cleansing ire, elite signet in combination with lyssa runes, (immunity with berserker stance)
*Mobility: 25% movement speed increase all the time when wielding a melee weapon
Warrior’s Longbow: Add a better animation to pin down and reduce the size/duration of the f1 burst skill…in a game where you have to fight on a point a skill that allows a player to cover a whole point with burning for a such a long duration is not a good thing

Warrior’s Hammer: the animation of #3 and #5 are too similar especially when playing asura which makes it really hard to dodge the right thing
Healing Signet: One of the main sources why warrior is so strong.. (also it’s passive play again that doesn’t acquire any skill) no matter how hard hammer longbow will be nerfed next patch..healing signet will still be one of the main factors why other warrior builds will still be too strong
Bersercer Stance: this trait promotes passive play and a 100% immunity to condi dmg which is never a good thing in a game (the question if it is good or not is not my main point here) my main point is that it doesn’t take any skill which can actually lead to a lower skilled player winning against a good player
The problem with that is that all warrior builds will be too strong if none of the things get nerfed

Ranger’s Pets: the damage of a ranger pet doesn’t scale with the attributes of the ranger very well…the problem is that even a spirit ranger using rabid amulet can let his pet hit up to 4k (not talking about bouncing attacks here which can actually hit up to 8.k)…let the pets attributes scale with the attributes with ranger more and then we might see some condi rangers using pets that actually apply conditions on enemies or heal the ranger
Another thing I want to mention here is that since ranger is a very passive class, rangers should have more possibilities to control their pets

Thief: I am not sure how thief will develope so I will try to be a little bit careful here..imo the possibility to dodge a lot even after the patch will still allow very good players to be “beasts” and completely destroy other classes…the unbalanced thing here is that other classes don’t have that possibility which makes it unbalanced imo

General Changes:

-Conditions:-
Bleeding/Burning: let the damage scale with condition damage more so that berserker or soldier classes don’t deal that much damage with conditions
Blind: make the skills that apply a blind instant (like we see on ele) but decrease the blind duration
Poison: remove damage
Torment: change the skill so it does half the damage when moving double dmg while the target is not moving (in a game where good positioning and movement is a key to win a fight moving should not be punished) it also can lead to nice combinations with stun and immobilise
Immobilise: max duration 5 sec
Fear: move the “terror” trait on necro to grandmaster
Weakness: let it stack in intensity and reduce the duration of weakness applied by skills a little bit

How will that affect the Game:
Conditions will be used more carefully and we don’t see the spam we all hate

Runes:
Remove passive effects that depend on luck like the fear when fighting against somebody using nightmare runes

-Autoattacks-
Imo the design of the mesmer’s sword autoattack is awesome and balanced..it doesnt deal that much damage and since you are very squishy you dont want to spam it in a fight..the third attack of the chain is sweet tho since you rip off one boon from your target (risk of hitting the enemy three times with the attack – little reward..boon rip)
The problem is that other autoattacks are way better (apply conditions, deal a lot more dmg) which is the reason for people spamming them
In my opinion the effects of the “strong” autoattacks should be nerfed and the other attacks of the weaponset should be buffed a bit in order to balance that

-PvP Rewards/PvP in general-
- Have a monthly tournament that is being advertised like the Scarleth Pve stuff
- Implement Seasons with new armor skins at the end of every season for very good teams
- Implement leagues (gold, silver,bronze etc etc) at the end of every season the best team of the silver league moves up to the gold league and the team on the last place moves down to the bronze league (team leaderboard kind of thing)
- Implement ingame video tutorials on how to play pvp for new players
(I would be up for working on one but it has to be easy accessible for new players)
- Let players enter solo q/team q only after they have reached a certain rank or have played a certain amount of matches
- Legendaries: when reaching a certain position in the leagues you get a reward with which you can craft a legendary (so people can’t farm them)
- Let players display their leaderboard rank ingame (number next to the name)
- Implement a trading post npc in the heart of the mists
- Implement a system where players can place bets on teams in tournaments
—>>> easy gold for players but they have to watch streamed tournaments to know which teams are good so they don’t lose their money when placing bets (very good for the shoutcaster community)
-Implement X vs X arenas (FOR FUN)
-Implement a leaderboard ingame so you don’t have to check your rank on a website
-Let a player decide in the character creation if he wants to start his adventures in pve or pvp

Some things for the end here:
I know that I have listed a lot of things and didn’t provide a solution for everything but the aim of this thread is to point out what is going wrong atm and to solve those problems I think Anet will find a lot of experienced players that will help find solutions for the problems because imo it is not a good idea if I tell Anet how to balance the Engineer for example if I don’t know everything about this class – what I would suggest here is sitting together with some really good/experienced engineer players and ask them what they think needs to be done and then sit together with good/experienced players of other classes and ask them what they think about the suggested engineer changes.

If I forgot anything I will add it to the thread later.

Writing this thread took me quite some time so I would appreciate constructive feedback and no offensive behavior in the comment section below. If you find any mistakes in this thread since English is not my mother language and I don’t really have the time to control everything I wrote three times you can keep them and eat a cookie.

Since I have gotten some comments on this thread that made me question the community a bit had to set up this here:

Question:
How will buffing the thief affect the game?

1 [ ] thief will be unviable
2 [ ] it won’t change anything
3 [ ] it will be impossible to kill a good thief for some classes
4 [ ] classes like mesmer or ele will be buffed to compensate this

Correct Answers:

1 [ ]
2 [ ]
3 [x]
4 [x]

Question:
Why is it not good to buff the other classes in order to compensate the thief buff?

1 [ ] when all classes are insanely buffed the damage in the game is too high
2 [ ] ofc it’s guuud mahn wadd a u talkin’ bout?
3 [ ] less build diversity because everything focuses on the buffed traits etc
4 [ ] wadd is a bhuild?

1 [x]
2 [ ]
3 [x]
4 [ ]

If you could answer the questions correctly you may post a comment in the comment section below..thanks

i think you mean while someone isnt moving give double damage on torment, but ye really good points, i agree with all of it.

Jomo kenyatta.7351:

i think you mean while someone isnt moving give double damage on torment, but ye really good points, i agree with all of it.

ah yes indeed thanks!

Telling us that Anet wants experienced players like you to contribute and that you had a wonderful team tournament experience rather distracts me from reading the rest of the post. Thats an awesome talent.

But I try to read it anyway.

I agree with everything you’ve said. The healing signet in particular. Really, the main things that needed to be fixed with warriors was Pin Down and Healing Signet. The same thing with Thieves, the main issue with the thieves isn’t necessarily the boon steal on larcenous strike, but rather the fact that you can spam evade while still doing good damage with flanking strike.

The warrior hammer nerf, although I see where they are coming from, doesn’t make much sense. Hammer is probably the most difficult weapon to reliably land, so if you can land it, it should do good base damage. The problem is with healing signet being so strong, the entire time you have an enemy stunned, you are healing quite a bit, so while you are locking up an enemy, you are staying at full health.

For warriors, just do 15% nerf to healing signet and nerf pin down. On thief, increase the initiative cost for sword 2 along with the boon steal nef.

felivear.1536:

I agree with everything you’ve said. The healing signet in particular. Really, the main things that needed to be fixed with warriors was Pin Down and Healing Signet. The same thing with Thieves, the main issue with the thieves isn’t necessarily the boon steal on larcenous strike, but rather the fact that you can spam evade while still doing good damage with flanking strike.

The warrior hammer nerf, although I see where they are coming from, doesn’t make much sense. Hammer is probably the most difficult weapon to reliably land, so if you can land it, it should do good base damage. The problem is with healing signet being so strong, the entire time you have an enemy stunned, you are healing quite a bit, so while you are locking up an enemy, you are staying at full health.

For warriors, just do 15% nerf to healing signet and nerf pin down. On thief, increase the initiative cost for sword 2 along with the boon steal nef.

indeed glad you see my point

I think there are some very good points in this.
Personally I am not a fan of high damage instant attacks, where you have no chance to react, other than a lucky guess, nor am I a fan of anything that dumbs down a profession and reward passive play more than actual skill.

ITT: Keep Ele’s as stomp fodder

I don’t really understand why you want to remove the dmg from poison – because that is actually what a poison does… it kills you!
Same with chill, if i see a condition like “freez”, “chill”, “Forst”… my intuitive understanding of the word tells me that it slows me in some way. If you remove this effect it is some sort of couter intuitive.

But i agree with you, conditions as they are atm are not in a good place. I would prever to have them more weakening the oponent over a long duration, similar to the buffs. For example we got “protection” which is reducing the dmg by silly 33%, while the “counter condition” “vulnerability” is only increasing the dmg by poor 1%. Conditions deal to much dmg and last not long enough, imo. I would rather like to see it similar like in gw1 where conditions where a huge preasure, which killed SLOWLY over time. What we have atm is rather the possibility to ignore the targets armor.
The problem with changing something here is, that it inflicts everything… Weapon skills, healing, condition remove, condition duration, utility skills, traits…

What i also don’t like is the massive ele weapon BUFF, almost every ele i see is running at least ice bow – even in pve

Tranassa.4968:

I don’t really understand why you want to remove the dmg from poison – because that is actually what a poison does… it kills you!
Same with chill, if i see a condition like “freez”, “chill”, “Forst”… my intuitive understanding of the word tells me that it slows me in some way. If you remove this effect it is some sort of couter intuitive.

But i agree with you, conditions as they are atm are not in a good place. I would prever to have them more weakening the oponent over a long duration, similar to the buffs. For example we got “protection” which is reducing the dmg by silly 33%, while the “counter condition” “vulnerability” is only increasing the dmg by poor 1%. Conditions deal to much dmg and last not long enough, imo. I would rather like to see it similar like in gw1 where conditions where a huge preasure, which killed SLOWLY over time. What we have atm is rather the possibility to ignore the targets armor.
The problem with changing something here is, that it inflicts everything… Weapon skills, healing, condition remove, condition duration, utility skills, traits…

What i also don’t like is the massive ele weapon BUFF, almost every ele i see is running at least ice bow – even in pve

The reason i think dmg should be removed from poison is that we already have bleeding, burning, torment and fear that deal damage so we dont need another one..also poison would be used more specific when it doesnt do any dmg…and i think chill should not slow people down because cripple already does that so why have two condis that do the same?

Sensotix.4106:

Tranassa.4968:

I don’t really understand why you want to remove the dmg from poison – because that is actually what a poison does… it kills you!
Same with chill, if i see a condition like “freez”, “chill”, “Forst”… my intuitive understanding of the word tells me that it slows me in some way. If you remove this effect it is some sort of couter intuitive.

But i agree with you, conditions as they are atm are not in a good place. I would prever to have them more weakening the oponent over a long duration, similar to the buffs. For example we got “protection” which is reducing the dmg by silly 33%, while the “counter condition” “vulnerability” is only increasing the dmg by poor 1%. Conditions deal to much dmg and last not long enough, imo. I would rather like to see it similar like in gw1 where conditions where a huge preasure, which killed SLOWLY over time. What we have atm is rather the possibility to ignore the targets armor.
The problem with changing something here is, that it inflicts everything… Weapon skills, healing, condition remove, condition duration, utility skills, traits…

What i also don’t like is the massive ele weapon BUFF, almost every ele i see is running at least ice bow – even in pve

The reason i think dmg should be removed from poison is that we already have bleeding, burning, torment and fear that deal damage so we dont need another one..also poison would be used more specific when it doesnt do any dmg…and i think chill should not slow people down because cripple already does that so why have two condis that do the same?

The reason damage should be removed is because you should not be rewarded for spamming abilities. When you have damage on your conditions, it removes the need to put out a well timed poison (say on a rezzing body or when an enemy is about to heal) because you need that damage output.

Conditions in this game are insanely spammy, and should be more situational. ANET needs to do everything in its power to remove passive/spammy play from PvP.

Good post Sensotix. I’ve watched most of your videos and you play extremely well. The poison idea is actually quite interesting. I like the idea of removing the damage component of poison, and potentially increasing its duration in general when applied. It would make the condition more effective against classes that spam regen.

I agree very strongly with your comments regarding passive play: it’s becoming a disturbing trend in the game.

Healing Signet is simply overpowered and scales too well. You should record a quick video of a Zerker Phantasm hitting a Warrior with HS, and watch as the HS fully regens his health in between attacks! (This happened to me and I had a phantasm build at the time). It’s insane.

No worries. Everything you listed will be fix in 2014!.. maybe 2015.

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

Dahkeus.8243:

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

okay lets put it like this its a passive trait that requires active play happy now? read the rest please and don’t QQ about things we both know you knew how i meant it
Edit: changed the description

Great effort.

I hope you’re mailing Anet an invoice for this.

GW1 had the same thing chill/cripple chill had like 66% reduction and cripple about 33% if that is the case in gw2 also than I think it is cool.
Removing poison damage could be nice though since it already reduces heal by 33% I think.

Sensotix.4106:

Dahkeus.8243:

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

okay lets put it like this its a passive trait that requires active play happy now? read the rest please and don’t QQ about things we both know you knew how i meant it
Edit: changed the description

Your logic still doesn’t add up. In that “perfect moment” you outline, the player still has to be active in how they play since they have to be especially aware of physical attacks. They have to be active in watching their health to know exactly when that 90% threshold is broken.

I mean, if you think that this isn’t active enough play, let’s complain about flanking doing extra damage for rangers. I mean, sure they have to be aware of when they are to the side of their enemy, but they aren’t hitting any extra buttons! And what about Heartseeker. It gives extra bonus to low health players, so thieves have to watch enemy health and adjust what abilities they use accordingly, but they’re not hitting additional buttons!

The point here is that you’re getting caught up in thinking that active play has to involve pressing buttons, but in truth, active play is what makes players have to think and consider additional factors which drive the choice of their action. This is exactly what Diamond Skin does.

Dahkeus.8243:

Sensotix.4106:

Dahkeus.8243:

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

okay lets put it like this its a passive trait that requires active play happy now? read the rest please and don’t QQ about things we both know you knew how i meant it
Edit: changed the description

Your logic still doesn’t add up. In that “perfect moment” you outline, the player still has to be active in how they play since they have to be especially aware of physical attacks. They have to be active in watching their health to know exactly when that 90% threshold is broken.

I mean, if you think that this isn’t active enough play, let’s complain about flanking doing extra damage for rangers. I mean, sure they have to be aware of when they are to the side of their enemy, but they aren’t hitting any extra buttons! And what about Heartseeker. It gives extra bonus to low health players, so thieves have to watch enemy health and adjust what abilities they use accordingly, but they’re not hitting additional buttons!

The point here is that you’re getting caught up in thinking that active play has to involve pressing buttons, but in truth, active play is what makes players have to think and consider additional factors which drive the choice of their action. This is exactly what Diamond Skin does.

so you think that a 100% condition immunity at the start of every duel vs any condi class without doing anything is okay? and no i am not playing condi classes at all
so you also say that an elementalist has to actively heal when he gets dmg is something that diamond skin brings into the game?
and still you don’t get the main point even tho i have outlined it several times now
its a → 100% immunity to condition damage <- that shouldn’t be in any game that aims to be balanced

Reikou.7068:

Great effort.

I hope you’re mailing Anet an invoice for this.

I sent the link to this thread to grouch but i know he is very active on the forums and reads every post so I don’t worry about him not seeing this..

Dahkeus.8243:

Sensotix.4106:

Dahkeus.8243:

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

okay lets put it like this its a passive trait that requires active play happy now? read the rest please and don’t QQ about things we both know you knew how i meant it
Edit: changed the description

Your logic still doesn’t add up. In that “perfect moment” you outline, the player still has to be active in how they play since they have to be especially aware of physical attacks. They have to be active in watching their health to know exactly when that 90% threshold is broken.

I mean, if you think that this isn’t active enough play, let’s complain about flanking doing extra damage for rangers. I mean, sure they have to be aware of when they are to the side of their enemy, but they aren’t hitting any extra buttons! And what about Heartseeker. It gives extra bonus to low health players, so thieves have to watch enemy health and adjust what abilities they use accordingly, but they’re not hitting additional buttons!

The point here is that you’re getting caught up in thinking that active play has to involve pressing buttons, but in truth, active play is what makes players have to think and consider additional factors which drive the choice of their action. This is exactly what Diamond Skin does.

Your logic doesn’t add up. By your definition every passive ability is an active one. Healing Signet is active because if you don’t pay attention you will take more damage than it heals you for. Endure Pain is active because you have to try to avoid condition damage. Automated Response and Berserker Stance are active because you have to avoid direct damage. Hell, toughness is an active stat because you need play actively to avoid condition damage.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Dahkeus.8243:

Sensotix.4106:

Dahkeus.8243:

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

okay lets put it like this its a passive trait that requires active play happy now? read the rest please and don’t QQ about things we both know you knew how i meant it
Edit: changed the description

Your logic still doesn’t add up. In that “perfect moment” you outline, the player still has to be active in how they play since they have to be especially aware of physical attacks. They have to be active in watching their health to know exactly when that 90% threshold is broken.

I mean, if you think that this isn’t active enough play, let’s complain about flanking doing extra damage for rangers. I mean, sure they have to be aware of when they are to the side of their enemy, but they aren’t hitting any extra buttons! And what about Heartseeker. It gives extra bonus to low health players, so thieves have to watch enemy health and adjust what abilities they use accordingly, but they’re not hitting additional buttons!

The point here is that you’re getting caught up in thinking that active play has to involve pressing buttons, but in truth, active play is what makes players have to think and consider additional factors which drive the choice of their action. This is exactly what Diamond Skin does.

Your logic doesn’t add up. By your definition every passive ability is an active one. Healing Signet is active because if you don’t pay attention you will take more damage than it heals you for. Endure Pain is active because you have to try to avoid condition damage. Automated Response and Berserker Stance are active because you have to avoid direct damage. Hell, toughness is an active stat because you need play actively to avoid condition damage.

Thank you you nailed it

I hope it isn’t too late for anet to listen :/

Sensotix.4106:

Some things for the end here:
I know that I have listed a lot of things and didn’t provide a solution for everything but the aim of this thread is to point out what is going wrong atm and to solve those problems I think Anet will find a lot of experienced players that will help find solutions for the problems because imo it is not a good idea if I tell Anet how to balance the Engineer for example if I don’t know everything about this class – what I would suggest here is sitting together with some really good/experienced engineer players and ask them what they think needs to be done and then sit together with good/experienced players of other classes and ask them what they think about the suggested engineer changes.

If I forgot anything I will add it to the thread later.

Writing this thread took me quite some time so I would appreciate constructive feedback and no offensive behavior in the comment section below. If you find any mistakes in this thread since English is not my mother language and I don’t really have the time to control everything I wrote three times you can keep them and eat a cookie.

What is your view on Phantasm Mesmer? Is it passive play? If so, do you think it needs a nerf so that the class may get buffs in other areas?

Lordrosicky.5813:

I hope it isn’t too late for anet to listen :/

should have maybe posted this earlier :/

Thedenofsin.7340:

Dahkeus.8243:

Sensotix.4106:

Dahkeus.8243:

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

okay lets put it like this its a passive trait that requires active play happy now? read the rest please and don’t QQ about things we both know you knew how i meant it
Edit: changed the description

Your logic still doesn’t add up. In that “perfect moment” you outline, the player still has to be active in how they play since they have to be especially aware of physical attacks. They have to be active in watching their health to know exactly when that 90% threshold is broken.

I mean, if you think that this isn’t active enough play, let’s complain about flanking doing extra damage for rangers. I mean, sure they have to be aware of when they are to the side of their enemy, but they aren’t hitting any extra buttons! And what about Heartseeker. It gives extra bonus to low health players, so thieves have to watch enemy health and adjust what abilities they use accordingly, but they’re not hitting additional buttons!

The point here is that you’re getting caught up in thinking that active play has to involve pressing buttons, but in truth, active play is what makes players have to think and consider additional factors which drive the choice of their action. This is exactly what Diamond Skin does.

Your logic doesn’t add up. By your definition every passive ability is an active one. Healing Signet is active because if you don’t pay attention you will take more damage than it heals you for. Endure Pain is active because you have to try to avoid condition damage. Automated Response and Berserker Stance are active because you have to avoid direct damage. Hell, toughness is an active stat because you need play actively to avoid condition damage.

No, you’ve missed the point if that’s what you think. Healing signet is 100% passive because you don’t need to do anything but forget about healing with something like that. It doesn’t change the way you play. Signet renewal is the same way. There’s no change to the decisions you make with something like that.

The difference with Diamond Skin is that it requires you to play differently. Instead of waiting until you’re at low health to use a heal, you will want to use it early against a condi-heavy enemy. Against something like a thief, you’re better waiting until you’re at a low enough health where you won’t overheal.

When going against a condi-heavy enemy, you’ll also want to use dodges and defensive cooldowns early. Instead of dodging big bursty hits, you’ll want to dodge even medium hits while above 90% hp.

These are ways that the playstyle with this trait is more active than it is without it.

This is different from something like healing signet where you play the exact same way as you would with a normal heal, aside from not thinking about using a heal.

@ Sensotix: You’re bunkering up in a bunch of defensive rhetoric without listening to what I’m saying. I’m not saying Diamond Skin is balanced. I’m not saying it’s not overpowered or underpowered. If you’re arguing against me from that perspective, than we can probably stop here because you’re not even reading what I’m saying and are instead just getting upset that I’m disagreeing with you. If you want to check out the points I have made and address what I have said, feel free to, but don’t bother arguing against points I’m not making.

Balance the conditions : when i cure a condition i’m immune to the condition cured for X seconds.

This should be the 10 dec patch,but maybe is too hard to understand.

felivear.1536:

Sensotix.4106:

Tranassa.4968:

I don’t really understand why you want to remove the dmg from poison – because that is actually what a poison does… it kills you!
Same with chill, if i see a condition like “freez”, “chill”, “Forst”… my intuitive understanding of the word tells me that it slows me in some way. If you remove this effect it is some sort of couter intuitive.

But i agree with you, conditions as they are atm are not in a good place. I would prever to have them more weakening the oponent over a long duration, similar to the buffs. For example we got “protection” which is reducing the dmg by silly 33%, while the “counter condition” “vulnerability” is only increasing the dmg by poor 1%. Conditions deal to much dmg and last not long enough, imo. I would rather like to see it similar like in gw1 where conditions where a huge preasure, which killed SLOWLY over time. What we have atm is rather the possibility to ignore the targets armor.
The problem with changing something here is, that it inflicts everything… Weapon skills, healing, condition remove, condition duration, utility skills, traits…

What i also don’t like is the massive ele weapon BUFF, almost every ele i see is running at least ice bow – even in pve

The reason i think dmg should be removed from poison is that we already have bleeding, burning, torment and fear that deal damage so we dont need another one..also poison would be used more specific when it doesnt do any dmg…and i think chill should not slow people down because cripple already does that so why have two condis that do the same?

The reason damage should be removed is because you should not be rewarded for spamming abilities. When you have damage on your conditions, it removes the need to put out a well timed poison (say on a rezzing body or when an enemy is about to heal) because you need that damage output.

Conditions in this game are insanely spammy, and should be more situational. ANET needs to do everything in its power to remove passive/spammy play from PvP.

If your build has one poison which comes from weapon so you could maybe possibly kill any half decent bunker it’s spammy??? You probably mean good, but it’s not that simple. If you remove damage from effect which barely lets you down the enemy – if you’re lucky – there needs to be compensation for lost damage if you take it away. Poison doing damage probably isn’t like, top priority that way. It seems to work pretty okay tbh, compared to a lot of other stuff in game. Condition bursting is another case..

Cripple stacking in intensity takes the cake. How did you come up with that nonsense?

Slim.3024:

Cripple stacking in intensity takes the cake. How did you come up with that nonsense?

because a duration stacking cripple is useless you dont need to have a guy crippled for 10 secs or smth since you are fighting on a point anyways but to slow somebody down so your team can spike him easily is far more effective and requires coordinated play…also since the slow down effect from chill would be gone you need something to compensate this

Diamond Skin is an active trait disguised as a passive trait.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Diamond Skin is an active trait disguised as a passive trait.

Which button do you press to activate it again? I can’t remember.

felivear.1536:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Diamond Skin is an active trait disguised as a passive trait.

Which button do you press to activate it again? I can’t remember.

nailed it again

Sensotix.4106:

felivear.1536:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Diamond Skin is an active trait disguised as a passive trait.

Which button do you press to activate it again? I can’t remember.

nailed it again

If you think that good PvP comes from hitting more buttons 1) you’re in the wrong game and 2) even more reason to not continue reading.

Also, hooray for throwing out rhetorical one-liners instead of actually using reasoning and logic.

Dahkeus.8243:

Sensotix.4106:

felivear.1536:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Diamond Skin is an active trait disguised as a passive trait.

Which button do you press to activate it again? I can’t remember.

nailed it again

If you think that good PvP comes from hitting more buttons 1) you’re in the wrong game and 2) even more reason to not continue reading.

Also, hooray for throwing out rhetorical one-liners instead of actually using reasoning and logic.

well he just nailed it man…this trait is passive and has a passive effect which you don’t have to activate – > passive … too much passive stuff in a game → doesn’t require a lot of skill…the reason i am not commenting on everything that long is that players should know that too much passive stuff can ruin a game

Dahkeus.8243:

I stopped reading when you said that Diamond Skin will be passive.

On the most technical level, it does provide a passive benefit, but it requires active attention to use defensive cooldowns early and to watch your health so that it stays above 90%. This is why it’s different than something like Signet of Renewal which is basically an excuse to ignore one of your utility skill slots.

when youve played more than 10 games in pvp youll understand that some classes have it easy due to passive abilities that req no skill at all, where as other classes must play there best with out making any mistakes, its not fair when 1 class can make so many mistakes but not pay for them like others do, dont get involved and ruin a perfectly good post with your one sided not looking at the big picture opinions. thanks again for this post sensotix really well explained and so accurate passive skills need a serious rethink if this game is going to continue down the right road.

It also takes no skill to keep an ele above 90%! You are just a genius! And of course they should remove Fresh Air too!

You don’t need to tie an effect to a button to make it active. How active an effect is depends on active it demands the player to be. Effect = Button is a simple, effective way to do it, but not the only one.

In the case of Diamond Skin, it’s true that there is no button associated with it. But it needs to be maintained, and it can be counter-played. Anyone can nullify its effect, and the elementalist must work to get its effect back. This creates some sort of dancing between gaining and losing the effect, which is determined by the skill of the two combatants. This make the trait highly interactive and playable.

In comparison, passive traits like Dhuumfire are the opposite. They proc at pretty much anything that hits. They can’t be countered. They don’t require special or unique playing to be activated. They don’t depend on the player skill. They’re mindless and unhealthy to the game.

I would go as far as argue that skills like Enduring Pain are more passive than traits like Diamond Skin. Why? 1) Because the active maintenance required to make use of the Diamond Skin’s effect is far more demanding than simply prssing a single button. 2) Because once Endure Pain is activated, the opponent can’t do anything but wait until the effect ends, while the opportunity to counter-play Diamond skin is always there.

Let’s put it in simpler means and with different words: Diamond Skin is only a passive trait if no one attacks the elementalist.

Diamond skin will be an incredibly hard trait to build around and play with effectively. Not sure why this isn’t obvious to some of you.

I’m very much of the same opinion for a lot of this, good post Sen.

DiogoSilva.7089:

You don’t need to tie an effect to a button to make it active. How active an effect is depends on active it demands the player to be. Effect = Button is a simple, effective way to do it, but not the only one.

In the case of Diamond Skin, it’s true that there is no button associated with it. But it needs to be maintained, and it can be counter-played. Anyone can nullify its effect, and the elementalist must work to get its effect back. This creates some sort of dancing between gaining and losing the effect, which is determined by the skill of the two combatants. This make the trait highly interactive and playable.

In comparison, passive traits like Dhuumfire are the opposite. They proc at pretty much anything that hits. They can’t be countered. They don’t require special or unique playing to be activated. They don’t depend on the player skill. They’re mindless and unhealthy to the game.

I would go as far as argue that skills like Enduring Pain are more passive than traits like Diamond Skin. Why? 1) Because the active maintenance required to make use of the Diamond Skin’s effect is far more demanding than simply prssing a single button. 2) Because once Endure Pain is activated, the opponent can’t do anything but wait until the effect ends, while the opportunity to counter-play Diamond skin is always there.

Let’s put it in simpler means and with different words: Diamond Skin is only a passive trait if no one attacks the elementalist.

Please stop ruining this constructive thread sensotix created! you told your point, disagree’ers told their point, let it rest now (as your logic is already).

Gesamtkunstwerk.6590:

Diamond skin will be an incredibly hard trait to build around and play with effectively. Not sure why this isn’t obvious to some of you.

For me, I’m not looking at its placement in the skill line, or the likelihood of it being played. That doesn’t concern me. What mostly concerns me is yet another addition of a passive ability even when so many players have been begging to remove the existing passive abilities. I don’t want to debate with anyone else in this thread about why AI clutter or passive abilities are not good for the game.

I would rather a larger base switch before going into all these details, they are nicely written fixes for the details though, don’t get me wrong.

GW2 is balanced around extremes, you either need high power a good source of crit chance along with crit dmg (to deal viable physical dmg), if you can’t, since physical dmg stats scale so much off of each other, you will deal negiligble physical dmg and be forced into bunker or condi/half-bunk…

That is crippling GW2, the build diversity blows, no matter where the meta is, high phys dmg (scrubs hate dying in a blink of an eye), condi (everyone hates being helpless and losing to players that are waaaay worse than them) or bunk (plz god no) many people are going to be annoyed….

That’s a core issue in GW2 and won’t change with minor tweaks to balance.
If stats scaled differently, like crit dmg was bonus dmg based off of the base ability dmg (barely if at all scaling with power), then more middle of the line power specs would open up, more power/condi specs would open up, the meta would explode…

What would be great is that then the game could then move over a large chunk of the condi dmg over to physical (high dmg specs that use conditions would be dealing that high dmg partly through physical dmg since phys dmg already has good play/counter play) that would also let condi dmg better fits the cleansing in the game (a nice perc but not god-kitten necessary to stack as much as possible).

That’s the only way I see GW2 surviving after new MMOs are released…
It’s the only step I can see to allowing this shenanigans to begin to play like a real AAA MMO.

Fresh Air: The air attunement of the elementalist with its insane instant damage is another thing that leads to an unbalanced game in connection the recharge with fresh air…also in my opinion traits such as fresh air and diamond skin really destroy the elementalist’s playstyle…some time ago ele was used as an allrounder class that can be really supportive while dealing a nice amount of dmg which can be combined in spikes (buffing stealth, might) as well as for supporting allies (swiftness, heal)

Er, have you ever tried fresh air on an ele? It requires alot more depth gameplay then any other build in this game. Also insane instant damage? Are we playing the same game? A full glass ele (62% crit damage)that dies within 5 seconds will crit for 2-3k with Lightning strike. I think you are referring to s/d 1-2 damage? And still the problem with that build is not Fresh Air, but dubble arcane burst.