Guild Wars 2

PvP will still suck. This is ArenaNet guys, at this point the balance team needs a balance team. I’m certain at this point many of us can create a more diverse, complex and fun combat balance than ArenaNet at this point.

More garbage balance patches will still create more trash.

But hey, we got EEEEEEESSSSPUUURTZ

If you feel that PvP sucks, maybe a different game mode or game would be better for you.

Yes, the balance team isn’t great, but the core conquest game mode is fun. Stronghold, however is horrible.

The problem with Anet’s balance patches is that they are overly-reliant on number tweaking, and that method, by itself, has proven to be unpopular and insufficient for years. This last balance patch proves that they haven’t learned with their so-so-at-best balancing record, or probably that they do not have the budget nor the manpower to pull off larger mechanical changes. And that puts us, the playerbase, in a position where we just stop believing that things will ever get better.

If you compare Anet to Riot, for example, Riot is consistently updating old champion kits with new technology and healthier class design (more opportunites for high plays, more innate counterplay, higher clarity, well-defined strengths and weaknesses, etc).

As long as Anet’s balancing patches continue to be about “let’s buff this instant-cast skill’s damage by 10% in the hopes that an inefficient skillset is going to be viable”, we won’t go anywhere.

^^ what that guy said

You can clearly see the difference in balancing philosophy between Anet and Riot. Riot fixes core problems underlying a champion’s ability system. ANet does number tweaking.

DenimChicken.8639:

^^ what that guy said

You can clearly see the difference in balancing philosophy between Anet and Riot. Riot fixes core problems underlying a champion’s ability system. ANet does number tweaking.

Don’t confuse quality change by how much change was actually done.

Besides, Riot is not the epitome of good balance developers. Juggernaut update was broken on the PBE, despite everyone spouting how broken it was; it still made it to the live servers for god who knows.

In fact, a lot of problems with this current meta can be fixed with number tweaking.

• Change Reaper Shroud cooldowns to match Death Shroud.
• Reduce the defense from Adaptive Armor and healing from Rapid Regeneration.
• Give all Dragonhunter Traps casting time, increase the cooldowns of Dragonhunter Virtues to match Guardian Virtues.
• Increase the cooldowns of Bandits Defense and Distracting Daggers, give Impacting Disruption a cooldown.
• Etc.

Yes, the game would be better if ArenaNet goes in and improves on a lot of combat design and mechanics. But they can’t even get combat balance right, let alone ‘improve’ combat.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Yes, the game would be better if ArenaNet goes in and improves on a lot of combat design and mechanics. But they can’t even get combat balance right, let alone ‘improve’ combat.

No company can get balance right if the core balance mechanics are not balance-friendly in the first place. That’s why Anet has been walking in circles for so many balance patches.

How do you “balance” so much condition/ evasion/ on-cd-skill-use/ passive proccing/ AI spam in this game? How can you make bland and uninteractive skillsets strong without ruining pvp? If you buff them, they’ll become cheese because of their design flaws. if you don’t, they will be underpowered instead and no one will pick them.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Yes, the game would be better if ArenaNet goes in and improves on a lot of combat design and mechanics. But they can’t even get combat balance right, let alone ‘improve’ combat.

No company can get balance right if the core balance mechanics are not balance-friendly in the first place. That’s why Anet has been walking in circles for so many balance patches.

How do you “balance” so much condition/ evasion/ on-cd-skill-use/ passive proccing/ AI spam in this game? How can you make bland and uninteractive skillsets strong without ruining pvp? If you buff them, they’ll become cheese because of their design flaws. if you don’t, they will be underpowered instead and no one will pick them.

You can easily bring balance to an action combat game like Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet has been walking in circles because they are terrible at balance, the balance team is just bad at their jobs. Nothing more to it.

Heck, if I make only 10 max changes for each class, that alone will make PvP, PvE and WvW infinitely better and even more fun.

what about balance in League of Legends? Idk since i don’t play that game but is it terrible than gw2?

online.1278:

what about balance in League of Legends? Idk since i don’t play that game but is it terrible than gw2?

Oh, it’s significantly better. Although they have made some stupid decisions, decisions they even publicly regret (AKA Rengar)

Balance is also done in vacuum; I cannot remember reading patch notes with combat changes that reflected what I had seen as general consensus in the community.

This is particularly true for elementalist and even more so for tempest; like none of the changes Karl made I can recall reading as a suggestion. The diamond skin was kind of close, since general consensus was it was broken. But the actual change just rendered it impotent;. condition removal is reactive not proactive. It’s relatively easy to do a full condi dump and then burst with the small amount of damage to the lowest armor, lowest hp class required to neutralize the effect before it can even remove one condition.

This is also an example of balance changes being made that are largely impotent, but seem to be done just to get people to shut up. Elementalist community has been kittening forever about scepter as a broken weapon. This is now the second round of changes to the scepter and I called it two weeks before the patch that the changes would be just worthless as the first set. Which they were.

Elementalist has been largely broken as a class forever and the “op” nature of it has historically been based off one or two unbalanced game mechanics. Celestial amulet, diamond skin, excessive protection uptime due to earth overload, the power creep of burn damage after the initial specialization rework, combos with a few broken mechanics in scepter to do heavy burst damage…

Elementalist has spikes in turns of historical viability and they are caused by “balance patches” targeting the mechanics.

MadRabbit.3179:

This is now the second round of changes to the scepter and I called it two weeks before the patch that the changes would be just worthless as the first set. Which they were.

It’s actually the third or forth if we take into account all similar attempts to make scepter viable since launch.

Nova Stiker.8396:

PvP will still suck. This is ArenaNet guys, at this point the balance team needs a balance team. I’m certain at this point many of us can create a more diverse, complex and fun combat balance than ArenaNet at this point.

More garbage balance patches will still create more trash.

But hey, we got EEEEEEESSSSPUUURTZ

Post your top 10 changes to each class then, if every single person that reads it agrees wholeheartedly with you, then you might be into something. Chances are though, is that no one will agree with them, and you would be in the same position as Anet. You simply can’t make changes without a segment of the community thinking they know a better way to do it and they will whinge incessantly about it.

You guys cant compare League of Legends with Gw2 Balance cause how many champions league of legends has? and how many character’s gw2 has? its way easier to balance some character’s then the whole champion’s list..

PS: And Riot is doing a pretty good job comparing to gw2 and they have the triple of the job, Tho i dont play much League of Legends, but switched to BnS tho xD

Nova Stiker.8396:

In fact, a lot of problems with this current meta can be fixed with number tweaking.

• Increase the cooldowns of Bandits Defense and Distracting Daggers, give Impacting Disruption a cooldown.

…lol…wot mate?

Foggy.9213:

You guys cant compare League of Legends with Gw2 Balance cause how many champions league of legends has? and how many character’s gw2 has? its way easier to balance some character’s then the whole champion’s list..

LoL has more champions than GW2 has classes, yes. but each class in GW2 is many times more complex than a LoL champion is. And combat itself is much more complex in GW2.

Balacing GW2 is a more complicated affair than balancing LoL. But even so, Arenanet is doing a poor job of it. Having 2-3 dudes work on balance for one week every 3 months isn’t going to cut it.

I guess GW2’s pvp just isn’t profitable. So they have no incentive to pay for a full time balance team.

reikken.4961:

And combat itself is much more complex in GW2.

Champion skillset is, but combat as a whole, I’m unsure. MOBA’s game mode is far more complex than conquest/ stronghold, with deeper map design, AI and an entire mid-combat progression system.

the game mode is more complex in LoL, yes, for sure
but the combat? most certainly not. If it seems close or greater in complexity, that is only because the simpler combat makes it easier to analyze the fight on the fly and make more informed decisions

reikken.4961:

the game mode is more complex in LoL, yes, for sure
but the combat? most certainly not. If it seems close or greater in complexity, that is only because the simpler combat makes it easier to analyze the fight on the fly and make more informed decisions

And in the end, that’s a good thing. GW2 is more complex in theory, but when you get bombarded with condditions, boons, fields, particle effects, pets, stealth spam and active defenses everywhere, it becomes impossible for the human brain to follow all that information at the heat of battle. A lot of GW2’s complexity is then lost as gameplay gets to revolve around basic instinct, build knowledge and knowing what skills to use when you have no idea what is happening.

LoL’s simpler combat allows for clearer complex scenarios, while GW2’s is just bloated.

If this is the kind of balance patch that Anet plans to release once every 3 months, this game might feel remotely balanced by the year of 2284.

Warrior will still be trash tho and they will still have no idea what they want to do with the class.

I agree that most of the balance to the usable stuff can be done with simple number tweaks, and as someone above has stated those include:

- Reaper shroud CDs to equal vanilla shroud CDs
- DH virtues to equal vanilla virtue CDs
- slight nerfing of scrapper hammer power coefficients
- slight nerfing of Rapid regen and Adaptive armor
- nerfing of bristtlebacks F2 damage
- so on and so forth…

We would however be left with some of the gaping flaws and inner imbalances with some of the classes, namely the warrior. But even that could be changed by one simple tweak making fast hands baseline