Guild Wars 2

Chaith, i like you.. alot

Mike.4830:

swiftpaw.6397:

Yes, let’s nerf one of the only viable builds ranger has left into the ground and then not offer any buffs to any other areas of their class. Good idea.

well swift PAW seeing your a ranger, mabye you should play traps or stick with spirits because it will still work, it just wont be extremely strong

Firstly I would like to thank Swiftpaw for being the only person to comment on the ranger. And Mike, have you ever played spirits? If they could insta kill with dev commands I still wouldn’t play them as they are the definition of boring (in their current state).

Traps aren’t bad but other classes do it better. TBH we have extremely fun weapons that have been underwhelming for far too long. And the axe is confused with itself, I think it got lost on its way to another game.

TLDR: Swift I agree it sucks never seeing great threads like these contain insightful ranger buffs (& I’m not going to provide any here as the fixes we need haven’t been touched in this post) but well done to Bear for his knowledge on each class and the stir this thread has caused.

Edit:

#carebearsareveryevil

^^

Edit 2: MM/condi necro meta 1v1.
no 1vx option for artrition.
#nerfnecrosmorewithoutplayingthemplease.

12s petswap would be so kitten OP, haha. 25% quickness uptime for BM & immortal pets for any spec. ( would loud whistle bring this down to 9s? 33% uptime mmmmmm )

it’s nice to dream.

edit: aussie, i wrote a ranger response on p2.

@Chaith – nice nice, actual feedback

I said in a previous reply that tpvp needs to be balanced outside of the scope of pve and wvw, so therein is the change to the aoe cap.

Having a blocking priority is a game-wide buff that affects any class that has any skills that block. Having a singular attack drop multiple blocks skills is unreasonable.

Conditions are both spammy and unreliable in stacking, same for boons. The discourse is whether we encourage a depth of gameplay by having people pay attention to the opponent and the opponent having counterplay options.

With regards to the repair kit, the math boils down travel time and time spent downing an enemy treb(as it usually will in a conquest game mode, specifically with Kyhlo having such a strong secondary map mechanic). Only two things in the game can down an enemy treb in seconds – flesh golem and an ele glitching out fiery greatsword. Stealthing the repair kit still allows for an element of counter play because it is 1) not an instant repair and 2) stealthing will not last long enough to get you unabated to the treb.

With regards to the base health increase for guardians – there are better solo bunkers than a guardian, just no one experiments and are stuck in the same mind-frame. Guardian is a support/team bunker, not a solo point bunker. You can build a solo bunker guardian, but they pale in comparison to a warrior or engi selfish bunker build.

The banish change to being chargeable only puts the instant in line with other zero cast time (but still with an activated animation you can dodge) knock outs across other classes. Either way, it’s a depth of combat issue – obvious animation either way and reduced effect if instant.

Scepter – is a melee weapon while an opponent is targeted. Even with an increase in orb travel speed, you can still A-D pivot and throw every orb off the target. At range, scepter is a skill shot weapon and attempting to hit a target at range without targeting the player should be possible. To compensate, the base damage is decreased by 5%.

No one in tpvp is going to use Signet of Mercy. Additionally, I do not think that pvp will ever be balanced separately from wow and pve. Also, no guardian build in tpvp will ever have room for Signet of Mercy.

Renewed Focus – the 1 second increase for invulnerability for THIS ELITE SKILL, and makes it marginally more useful when compared cross-class to elementalist, engineer, mesmer, and ranger NON-ELITE options for invulnerability.

Tomes – the buff to tome of wrath base AA damage is closer to 25% increase but don’t worry too much. Tomes still will not be a viable tpvp alternative to renewed focus on account 1)needing stability for longer cast time skills, 2) recharge time of the skill versus sustainability, and 3) half the skills in the tomes being useless/not worthwhile cast time for a 20 second long elite (same thing with lich form not having any other compelling skills aside from the AA and knockback).

As for the four “buffs” – no one is going to take glacial heart in tpvp, kindled zeal is a terrible trait for a class that has native access to only one damaging condition, valorous defense triggers as you’re dying once every 60 seconds (kewl, you can block one attack in a field of aoe spam once every 60 seconds, as opposed to 90 – either way it’s garbage).

The zealous blade change is actually a nerf to DPS guards because it moves an attractive trait further away from being possible in a standard DPS guard trait spread. To compensate for a lackluster move to a build that was power creeping, the damage modifier was increased to 10% from 5% which, mathematically, is reasonable for GM trait buried in one of the worst trait lines in the game. Switching Kindled and Zealous opens up the potential for a hybrid guard builds and nerfs the potentialities of the DPS guard’s power creep momentum.

Chaith, I’m starting to notice a pattern here. You main an engineer, and nothing you said about Guardians makes any sense. All of your points were either unfounded or not based in realm we currently reside in as the points you made were innocuous at best. Clearly you don’t see the inherent buff to engineer viability and variability that was proposed and instead chose to pick apart the Guardian changes.

While I may advocate for the game to separate tpvp from everything, it will never happen – keep that in mind.

Lastly, if you have a skype I can send you the pages I have about travel times on kyhlo and why portal needs to not be able to take the repair kit through.

Loved your changes except for Thief and Ele, those nerfs make no sense at all.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mesmer
Skills
Greatsword – functionality to reflect risk – reward, reverse the distance in which damage is increased – dealing more damage the closer the player is to the target

A PvE/WvW Nightmare. The Mesmer works to keep the target at range, and the target often works to close the gap. The loser of this struggle takes the most pressure from the Greatsword Auto-attacks. What you’re proposing does eliminate a portion of the ‘safe’ damage, but it also eliminates portion of the counter-play. Overall, I don’t feel it’s a worthwhile change.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scepter – auto attack speed travel speed increased by 10%

Acceptable change, the auto attack is definitely not really anything to write home about.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Blurred Frenzy – damage evasion duration reduced to 2 seconds, engi shield stun and nightmare rune proc no longer interrupt the frenzy

Fair enough of a tweak.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of the Ether – passive tick base reduced to 200/400/600

Not sure if my numbers agree with yours here, that seems like quite serious a nerf, for only proposing to lower the cooldown by 5 seconds – even at high healing power levels.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mantra of Pain – damage increased by 5%

Arcane Thievery – cool down reduced to 40 seconds

Mimic – the first projectile absorbed does not cause damage

All fair buffs.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Traits

Prismatic Understanding – duration of protection and regeneration reduced to 2 seconds

Yep, this trait needs some heavy regulating. It will still be good for what it does.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Engineers
Skills
Bombs – all bomb radii decreased by 40 units

All 140 radius, base? Very odd number – with Forceful Explosives, they would be at 200 radius. A 40 radius reduction would be possible – they did get buffed in radius on the 1 & 2 abilities for no reason, spontaneously.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Poison Grenade – poison cloud duration reduced to 3 seconds, base poison duration reduced to 4 seconds

Ok. Reasonable nerf, it’s poison duration is kind of whack.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Traits

Power Shoes – moved to adept tier inventions; might need a qualifier

Good.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Automated Response – condition durations reduced by 95%

Good.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scope – removed from the game; replaced with Back Brace
Back Brace – remove 1 condition when using a tool belt skill, recharge 12 seconds, non-elixir skill

Yeah.. that global cooldown renders that Master Trait pretty bad. 5 Condition removal a minute ain’t bad, that’s for sure. But I don’t think it’s quite attractive yet. You can’t snag it if you want HgH and Grenadier. What if the recharge was specific for each toolbelt ability – IE, If you have 4 toolbelt abilities that have a 30s cd, you could use them all twice in a minute and get 8 Condition Removal. If you optimized your Toolbelt a bit better, an Engi could get the same condition removal as the Cleaning Formula 409 trait. Just an example.

Thief – initiative regen reduced to 0.8/second; build diversity requires a 1.1khp base increase at level 80

This is getting a bit crazy, man. Thieves just had their initiative traits axed. I think it’s better left alone.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Skills
Cluster Bomb – damage reduced by 12.5%

Shelk Venom – recharge reduced to 40 seconds

Traits
Improvisation – changed description from bundle to possessing a stolen skill

All reasonable..

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Sleight of Hand – Internal cool down of 30 seconds

This one is way left field, man. That would make the game feel, and play absolutely terrible. Sitting on your steal an extra 9 seconds to get the darn daze that you Grandmastered’ up for? Nah.. that’s like, rage worthy. 1s daze, every 21s. Deal with it.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Elementalist – base health increased by 2k at level 80 to increase build diversity
Skills
Ice Bow – Ice Storm – reduced damage by 8.5%

Meteor Shower – reduced area by 10%;

Churning Earth – is now a chargeable skill
Traits
Lightning Strike – ICD increased to 5 seconds

Diamond Skin – reduced condition reduction to 95%, down from immunity

These are all mostly nerfs.. the Ele hurts, but the profession is still unable to set foot in competitive tPvP seriously.

@Chaith (part 2)

lol @ power scepter. I was testing some stuff before I wrote that part and Feast of Corruption crit’d for 9k on a hybrid build.

The suggestion you had for Signet of Spite is definitely a reasonable start.

The Healing Signet change needs to occur, for sure, glad you agree. Healing Surge is nice as well, but, through testing, I’m confident that the Heal Stance will obtain some nice play.

Swapping Adrenal health and Building Momentum was something I spent some time on, to be fair. The issue is that, for a number of classes, going into the defense trait line is becoming a mainstay for competitive entry for tpvp and the warrior is no exception. There is a literal ton of sustain in that trait line. When you swap AH and BM you effectively make the warrior choose when and where to use that adrenaline – if you need additional endurance and a possible dodge, use your burst skill; if you need to remove some condi’s use your burst skill. It’s a more active play-style than just regenerating health and allows for the warrior to have some added counterplay to power builds. Additionally, the argument could be made that providing for two adrenal uses in the same trait line could be overkill for sustain because dodging an attack has the potential to be equivalent to more than a 1000hp/3seconds passive heal.

Oh, Chaith, about the Signet of the Ether – bring the passive regeneration down to my numbers, will make it equivalent to my proposed healing signet change.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Chaith, I’m starting to notice a pattern here. You main an engineer, and nothing you said about Guardians makes any sense. All of your points were either unfounded or not based in realm we currently reside in as the points you made were innocuous at best. Clearly you don’t see the inherent buff to engineer viability and variability that was proposed and instead chose to pick apart the Guardian changes.

When I look at your proposals to increase cleric bunker Guardian’s HP by 1500, make Banish super accurate when used correctly, and increase Renewed Focus duration by 50%, I’d say those make sense in the realm we reside in. Since.. y’know, Guardians are in every competitive match.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

While I may advocate for the game to separate tpvp from everything, it will never happen – keep that in mind.

Well that’s kind of disappointing, why don’t you come back to the realm where we PvPers reside in where balance is not totally separate from WvW and PvE?

yea yea yea ad hominem this and that – I said that for the way you came off.

More appropriately, a support/bunker guardian is not a solo point bunker and other classes do solo point bunker better than guardian. Reasonably, this puts, or should put, the guardian in every team fight which makes negligible this base health increase on account of focus fire (which can also be achieved by taking cleric’s ammy/knights jewel).

Again, banish and renewed focus require cross-class comparisons.

Why even bother there has been 10000000 posts about balance and around -100% have made it into meta meaning “They seen what we hated and what wrecking the game and added more of it”. They don’t listen so why bother even posting anymore.

Actually, Sol, I disagree wholeheartedly.

But I could be biased since I got an Arena Net Christmas card signed by a number of people, but also my personal hero Even Lesh <3

But…Scope is one of my favorite Engi traits

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Aussie Archer is best in game imo

Aw thanks mang

I feel like you’ve gone deep down the “let’s make things viable road” on guardian, which is fair, and deep into the “let’s bring rediculous stuff like signet of spite in line” on every other class, which is also fair, but forgotten to mix the two and do “let’s make things viable” on every other class.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

yea yea yea ad hominem this and that – I said that for the way you came off.

More appropriately, a support/bunker guardian is not a solo point bunker and other classes do solo point bunker better than guardian. Reasonably, this puts, or should put, the guardian in every team fight which makes negligible this base health increase on account of focus fire (which can also be achieved by taking cleric’s ammy/knights jewel).

Again, banish and renewed focus require cross-class comparisons.

A solo point bunker? Oye. Do you mean like, a Clerics Amulet Elementalist from January 2013 who would troll far point all game and keep it contested? Can you show me what a ‘solo point’ bunker is, and who’s doing it? Cause I can tell you right now, all the far point assaulting that’s done in my recent tourney experience has usually been a roamer Berserker Trickery Thief, Carrion Spirit Ranger, or Soldier/Berserker Hambow Warrior.

There is no such thing as a solo point bunker in recent months of tPvP. Engies don’t do it. We’re rabid condi. Eles can’t do it, they’re almost guaranteed to die 1v1. Warrior’s don’t bunker up and do it, they just stay offensive Hambow (unless your name is Olruntheblade). People just send a roamer far who can 1v1 really well, or leave that same roamer home.

We played a match this week vs. some Euro players who had a wicked 3 man stealth burst, and our Guardian died in under a second. Don’t laugh at a free 1.5k hp, and 1s of Invulnerability.

But I digress.. what’s inferior about anything Guardians are actually doing today in tPvP?

Reevz.2617:

it’s a point capturing game- how about zerker stance doesnt allow point capping? adrenal skills need to use adrenaline even if they miss— pin down needs a better animation / slight cast time nerf, and hammer 4 needs to be 3/4 cast time

So basically, you want Longbow and Hammer to be made useless. Just like Mace which people kept on “QQ” about it.

Regards

Seed

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Actually, Sol, I disagree wholeheartedly.

But I could be biased since I got an Arena Net Christmas card signed by a number of people, but also my personal hero Even Lesh <3

I disagree, Anet has shown how they messed up. Rather then balance they add counters with very minor balance’s. What this has done to the game I’ll try to explain the best I can. E,g, Ranger’s got the Spirit Ranger it was OP as hell easy to play and with good player behind the wheel it was OP as kitten. Now Anet slowly nerft the build over many month’s but at same time buffed other classes to counter the build, now they are on par they haven’t stopped and looked at other rangers builds it effected.

By adding the counters to a build that was OP they have massively effected other viable builds to point where they can not make a return so they can’t really run these old builds, Traps/BM both are kitten compared to Spirit’s even if they are on par in the ranger world they can’t come back other classes counter them builds to hard now.

So if you really wanted to balance you would have to massive rework taking 4 major builds from each class and matching them up against each other over fairly long time and slowly balance them, Anet won’t do this as they don’t have a test server.

Balance will never be perfect but it keeps getting worse every balance patch. They nerf so little and buff so much and try to rework skills that in effect mess up builds on other classes trying to make a come back.

I currently play Engi now, after latest update Spirit Ranger is still our only viable build after so many month’s, many good rangers have said change this change that and they never listened once. Oh and Engi is stupidly easy to play SPAM SPAM SPAM all that class does.

@Chaith

“A PvE/WvW Nightmare. The Mesmer works to keep the target at range, and the target often works to close the gap. The loser of this struggle takes the most pressure from the Greatsword Auto-attacks. What you’re proposing does eliminate a portion of the ‘safe’ damage, but it also eliminates portion of the counter-play. Overall, I don’t feel it’s a worthwhile change.”

Ummm no? This forces the player to choose what’s more important at any given time, positioning or more damage. Therefore taking great risk when going in close and being rewarded with more dps, but at the expense of positioning. When it comes to your sentence about this change eliminating counter-play, I leave you with the following gif. Enjoy.

Countless

All the ego-swagger and hero-worship in this thread is amusing. I feel rather confident that if some random person posted these suggestions rather than someone who’s apparently famous for some reason I don’t know, that 90% of the people taking them seriously would be laughing at them.

Oh, and while we’re at it – balancing a game around the needs of the top 0.1% of the playerbase is an incredibly stupid way to run a business. If there’s a problem with, for example, how thieves play in top 100 tournaments, then Arenanet could look into ways to tinker with them to prevent those problems, but suggesting that the class be destroyed for the other 99.9% of thief players is, well, foolish.

I belive changes should start from removing the cheese instead of tweaking numbers. Dodge spam, evade spam, condi spam, AoE spam, immunities. These have to go. Then we need to tone down OP stuff, buff UP stuff, revamp unused stuff to create build diversity. Then make new modes that benefit from different builds and playstyles. Then you make rewards/ladders/seasons. Now you have game that is fun to play.

Qaelyn there are 2 ways to balance. For the general population and pro-players at the same time, which is what League of Legends does and because of that it dumbs the game’s mechanics. Or the DotA 1/2 aproach, which is balancing only acordingly to the competitive scene and pro players. This way, any issue the new players have is literally a L2P issue, and not a balance problem. I find this aproach much better, but also less friendly to new players coming late into the game

Trigr.6481:

Ummm no?

Countless

You didn’t have to explain it a second time.. I understand the idea of trading off your positioning and risk your health pool for more auto-attack damage. It’s not a hard concept. I’ll elaborate..

Cute GIF.

I don’t expect you to see it from a WvW/PvE perspective, seeing as you have expressed that you would rather slit your wrists (down the road, not across the street!) than load into PvE or WvW.

In WvW, as a glassy Mesmer, you are also staying dah fuq away from multiple painful objects. It’s not like you can just let the Hammer Train mow you over because you do increased damage up close. It’s just awkward as hell. It’s like just living with with a 40% damage decrease from your Auto-attacks. You can’t just close in, like you could in PvP.

Put it this way, when Karl sends you an email saying: “I just read your post, and I KNEW I put the Mesmer Greatsword on Backwards at launch!” Then I will acknowledge the idea of making the weapon awkward as hell for every PvE/WvW player at the expense of a slightly positive side-grade on PvP counterplay.

Your necro changes are horrendus. If you were in charge of this game you would actually kill it faster than anet. Reduce physical damage on scepter? You must of plucked that one out your kitten as it literally makes no sense. And moving terror to gm just makes necro bad as you lose so much damage and survivability.

You realize the introduction of Dhuumfire merged 2-3 necro builds, right?

DoYourBestBear.6810:

You realize the introduction of Dhuumfire merged 2-3 necro builds, right?

Minor variations of the same build. I have played alot of necro for a long time. Maybe more tournament games than almost anyone else. So I would guess I know more about it than you.

The thing is your ideas create more problems. Everything should be nerfed. You cant nerf stuff like you suggest and then leave things like feline grace untouched. A minor trait with this effect is the best thing in the game – the ABSOLUTE best trait in the game – its that simple. Same with critical infusion. Minor trait. 5 points in a line and you get one of the strongest traits in the game? Same with Incendiary ammo.

Same with ele. You nerf all this kitten and leave ele (largely) untouched and you will get a really broken fresh air build which just wrecks face. Impossible to res against. Impossible to dodge.

This game is so far gone that the only thing that can save it is simply an expansion and rework of the entire system. Any changes like these just add more problems unless they are so significant that they literally nerf everything. And we all know anet wont nerf everything because:

1, they are scared of forum qq from people having their class nerfed
2, it takes them 6 months to knock 1% off OP stuff anyway

Rickster.8752:

Your necro changes are horrendus. If you were in charge of this game you would actually kill it faster than anet. Reduce physical damage on scepter? You must of plucked that one out your kitten as it literally makes no sense. And moving terror to gm just makes necro bad as you lose so much damage and survivability.

Moving terror to gm would make sense if you moved dhuumfire from spite to curses gm. That way, you cannot take both dhuumfire and terror. Build diversity ensues.

Then, spite gm can be replaced with something that is good for non-condition-based-damage builds

Sepreh.5924:

Rickster.8752:

Your necro changes are horrendus. If you were in charge of this game you would actually kill it faster than anet. Reduce physical damage on scepter? You must of plucked that one out your kitten as it literally makes no sense. And moving terror to gm just makes necro bad as you lose so much damage and survivability.

Moving terror to gm would make sense if you moved dhuumfire from spite to curses gm. That way, you cannot take both dhuumfire and terror. Build diversity ensues.

Then, spite gm can be replaced with something that is good for non-condition-based-damage builds

Yeh that would be awesome. I can agree with that. But it should obviously be done at the same time as nerfing all these other specs from other classes. I dont enjoy necro much anymore because there is only 1 spec. The more they nerf bleeds the more reliant necro is on dhuumfire and terror. So do your change – but then all these condi immunities and alot of the condi removal buffs should be reversed. The whole thing is a massive power creep. You cant nerf 1 side without nerfing the other.

On ranger – it needs condi removal on active skills.

Rickster.8752:

I have played alot of necro for a long time. Maybe more tournament games than almost anyone else. So I would guess I know more about it than you.

feline grace untouched. A minor trait with this effect is the best thing in the game – the ABSOLUTE best trait in the game – its that simple.

1) good thing it’s only a guess

2) the two best traits in the game atm, for their respective trait point investment, are protection injection on engineer and vigorous precision on guardian – both need to be addressed, for sure, as they are outliers in terms of relative power, but I’m still working on those

The issue so far in this game’s tpvp development has been the length of time between balance patches, the huge swings in power balance, and the progressive power creep. The easiest way to check two of those three things is to bring entities down in relative power and create opportunities for diversity among builds.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Rickster.8752:

I have played alot of necro for a long time. Maybe more tournament games than almost anyone else. So I would guess I know more about it than you.

feline grace untouched. A minor trait with this effect is the best thing in the game – the ABSOLUTE best trait in the game – its that simple.

1) good thing it’s only a guess

2) the two best traits in the game atm, for their respective trait point investment, is protection injection on engineer and vigorous precision on guardian – both need to be addressed, for sure, as they are outliers in terms of relative power, but I’m still working on those

The issue so far in this game’s tpvp development has been the length of time between balance patches, the huge swings in power balance, and the progressive power creep. The easiest way to check two of those three things is to bring entities down in relative power and create opportunities for diversity among builds.

Its called balance for a reason. The aim is to balance skills and traits. Making a half kitten d list isnt balance. It just introduces more problems that it fixed. Anyone can post a “things that are OP imo” list. That is all this is. Just the opinion of some dude who is too lazy to fully flesh out his ideas into a genuine balance document.

And yeh, I am sure you know loads about the game. You are like a prodigy of gw2 I am sure. You will have made millions of dollars playing the game already right…..get off your high horse. This game is childs play and is totally devoid of any skill whatsoever

As per request I have been asked to mention a few ranger specifics. To start with I’ll sub in a post I just released in the ranger section

Just about warrior:

Healing Signet. Stays the same but it scales with adrenaline (the actual amount at lvl 3 of adrenaline). Double the active healing and provide a bónus when activated.

When a warrior uses a burst skill it loses passive healing from 2 sources (HS and the trait in defense).

The other changes can only be adressed when ANet decide to nerf conditions and AoE across classes.

Bear, what would the numbers on healing signet look like with decent amounts of healing power?

I think what people are missing when he is talking about lowering the base hp/s on healing signet is the fact that it is just the base. If the scaling with healing power is good enough, it allows for as much if not more hp/s when speced for it.

It is a perfect example of a healing skill being useful in certain situations and other healing skills being useful in other situation. Lets say a change like this occurred. If you want to run a berserker amulet warrior, you probably would not take healing signet because the hp/s would not keep you alive long enough. You probably would take healing surge for the burst heal plus ability to use an extra f1 skill. If you want to play a bunker warrior, you could run clerics. The power scaling on warrior weapons would still allow for some damage but more importantly, if healing signet scaled properly with healing power, you could create a bunker that is good at what it is meant to do – stay alive.

I can’t take anybody seriously who believes a #6 heal has to scale with healing power the way it is suggested.

Pro tip: #6 heals, while having the highest stat contribution, have the lowest scaling in terms of power (due to their high relative base values), because they need to be useful for any type of build to close to the same degree.

Builds that choose to be more tanky, rely on secondary forms of healing that scale with healing power in a much more extreme way, which is why they start with a low base and have a decent stat contribution. This is how guild wars 2 smartly addresses opportunity cost by forcing tanky builds to pick up extra survivability and directly link that secondary source of sustain to the appropriate stats.

Feel free to take a look at your #6 heals from other classes and tell me why you think warriors’ healing signet should be scaling any differently by suggesting outrageous numbers with a scaling of up to 220% of its base value.

The #6 skill is the one skill that all classes and builds universally rely on to survive, which is why healing signet’s scaling has always been fine. Only ignorants thought of it in terms of “regen” and subjected it to the same standards.

Chaith.8256:

Whelp, for starters, PvE things can hurt. In PvE you also like to not have to be carried by your group because you’re doing terrible damage. So you can imagine how many people doing dungeons would not be too impressed standing ~300 distance away from the target in order to sustain max AA damage, and taking unnecessary pressure which I’m sure could result in a 1shot if you aren’t on top of dodges.

Most of PvE is about standing on top of the mobs and dodging all of their slow auto attacks. This hasn’t generally been the case with the mesmer because it does more damage at range with greatsword but, if that changed, they wouldn’t have any problems closing on the mobs.

Sepreh.5924:

I think what people are missing when he is talking about lowering the base hp/s on healing signet is the fact that it is just the base. If the scaling with healing power is good enough, it allows for as much if not more hp/s when speced for it.

Current: 392+0.05HP per sec
Proposed: 200+0.175HP per sec
392+0.05HP=200+0.125HP
192=0.120HP
1600 HP

So it breaks even with the old healing signet at 1600 healing power.

Cleric’s Amulet gives 923 healing power. You can get 300 from traits, 250 from Life sigils, and 165 from runes. If you go fully into healing power to an insane degree, then you barely cross that at 1638. Even on my bunker warrior I don’t go for that much healing power, plus it relies on those Life stacks to get that. The proposed change is a flat out nerf.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Sepreh.5924:

I think what people are missing when he is talking about lowering the base hp/s on healing signet is the fact that it is just the base. If the scaling with healing power is good enough, it allows for as much if not more hp/s when speced for it.

Current: 392+0.05HP per sec
Proposed: 200+0.175HP per sec
392+0.05HP=200+0.125HP
192=0.120HP
1600 HP

So it breaks even with the old healing signet at 1600 healing power.

Cleric’s Amulet gives 923 healing power. You can get 300 from traits, 250 from Life sigils, and 165 from runes. If you go fully into healing power to an insane degree, then you barely cross that at 1638. Even on my bunker warrior I don’t go for that much healing power, plus it relies on those Life stacks to get that. The proposed change is a flat out nerf.

Perfect, that’s why I asked about the numbers. The scaling would probably need to be better

It’s still completely amazing to me that Healing Signet has not been touched after the video upon video of how broken a full healing power build is with it.

How anyone can actually believe that it’s good for the game for a class to never have to use its heal and pick its nose all match just goes to show you how desperately some players need OP stuff to carry them.

Note: full healing power, no healing power, doesn’t matter the skill doesn’t have to be used at all. That’s just going to create a legion of baddies, just like how S/D thief created its legion of worthless players

jmatb.6307:

It’s still completely amazing to me that Healing Signet has not been touched after the video upon video of how broken a full healing power build is with it.

How anyone can actually believe that it’s good for the game for a class to never have to use its heal and pick its nose all match just goes to show you how desperately some players need OP stuff to carry them.

If people are complaining about Healing Signets its on a build without healing power moron. Every single class can get way better hps than Warrior with a healing build.

I cried a little inside when I read the OP suggestions

DoYourBestBear.6810:

If anyone wants any of the algorithms, equations, or rationales for some of the choices made, let me know and I’ll elaborate.

Lol, you couldn’t solve x+2=5. And no don’t tell me its 3 its a joke. You don’t have any mathematical proof behind any of these ridiculous changes just your warped biases. Why don’t you post under your old account did it get banned? Right this is god’s gift to GW2 pvp Staaaaarrrrrcoooooeny or whatever it was.

Lol I agree the warrior regen is over the top. But all the thief changes are a little to much imo. I mean I go from beating any team in this game on my thief (which is a given) to my warrior alt, then getting completely smashed on liquor and beating anyone on front page while playing a guardian(while pugging with friends). So what i need from you guys is to train a little harder, strive to be better, use your brain, do some pushups, and motivate each other to do a little better. After that you may find yourselves winning some games.

i agree with magic toker lololol

Ok, I’ll take some time and try to respond to everything here.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

The Bear Balance Document
General

With AoE rebalancing – AoE target cap increased to 8 targets – the aim is to slowly decrease the power and effectiveness of AoE skills to a point of balance relative to single target skills and abilities and a hedge against AI clutter

I’m not really convinced that AoE needs a ton of change at the moment, aside from a few pinpoint changes to specific skills. It wasn’t too long ago that minions and spirits had way too little health to be at all viable in PvP. I don’t think scaling up the number of targets (why 8, exactly?) is the right approach. If minions are tanking AoE too well, maybe a slight decrease in HP is needed. I’m not sure this is warranted, however; minions and spirits die readily enough to just a few seconds of coordinated AoE pressure in my experience.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Introduction of skill/charge shots – increase the depth of game play for some skills and classes, allows for deeper sense of counter play and more inter-combat options

Cool idea.

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Blocking priority system that has aegis as the last block to be used up and with multiple blocks up, only one used per attack – so that some traits and abilities become worthy options

Sort of a minor/nitpicky Guardian buff, w/e. Probably fine, even considering block shenanigans with Unscathed Contender, which I guess is the point of the change.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Repair both conditions and boons to be first in, last out – this is to replace the condition and boon block-style priority system currently implemented, allows for increased depth of combat by being able to cover boons and condis

For boons, this is a substantial nerf to Sleight of Hand, which is a good trait, but I’m not sure it needs to be hit this hard. Conversely, by nerfing Sleight of Hand, you’re giving a sizable buff to res utilities like Spirit of Nature, which don’t really need to be buffed.

For conditions, I totally agree.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Immobilization Stacking eliminated

Not the hugest issue with the cap being reduced, but whatever. Support thief isn’t probably going to “get there”, anyways.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

z-axis and ai/players getting stuck

Yep, a bug fix that’s been needed for a while.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Portal no longer transports repair kit

Eh, disagree. Mesmer has a bunch of plusses and minuses to it, but one of the huge plusses for the team is access to Portal. It’s really strong on every map, not just Kyloh, and fast treb repairs is just a really nice benefit of having a Mesmer on your team. Not in favor of this nerf.

Necromancer
Skills

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Putrid Mark – transfers 3 conditions from the caster to foes on trigger. Additionally, transfers 1 condition from allies (cap of 5) to enemies within 900 range.

Reasonable.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Grasping Dead – reduced physical damage by 12%

Feast of Corruption – reduced damage per condition to 5%

Don’t think scepter power damage is too high, but someone with more Necro expertise would be able to have a better opinion on that.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of Spite – reduced condition durations by 50%

Yeah, something should be done about Signet of Spite. Against power classes that don’t have a lot of cleansing, landing the signet is pretty much a OHKO.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Lich Form – Deathly Claws – 10% decrease in base damage

Yep, Lich autoattack hits too hard.

Traits

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Siphoned Power – health threshold to 65% for trigger

Eh, I don’t think this makes as much flavor sense for a Necro. Also, it gives some play to the class (should I get low enough for this trait to kick in before I hit deathshroud?). I’d leave it without a good reason to change it.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Training of the Master – decreased damage increase to 25%

Yeah, MM Necro’s damage is a bit too high.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Withering Precision – moved to master tier, recharge increased to 25 seconds

Terror – moved to grandmaster tier

Agree. It would eliminate the Dhuumfire/Terror/Master of Terror build (30/20/0/0/20), which is kinda the no-brainer option for condi Necro at the moment. Also, Terror is definitely the strongest Necro trait and deserves to be a GM. To compensate for the loss in damage, let’s revert those “I remove 1 bleed from this skill for PvP” changes.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Gluttony – reduced to 5%

No, I don’t think Necro DS generation is too high at the moment.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Guardian – base health increased by 1.5k at level 80 to increase build diversity

Why the arbitrary low HP increase of 1.5k? Personally, I would change Guardian to middle tier health (we’re supposed to be a heavy, for goodness sake), but lower some of our sustainability to compensate.

Skills

Banish – is now a chargeable skill – holding the skill for longer will increase both the distance launched and damage of the hit; can also be executed instantly for a diminished effect – max charge: launch 750 range, base damage 450; instant charge 300 range, base damage of 375; max charge time, 1 second

Sure, Hammer needs a buff after the stunbreak launch change. I think you should make it execute in 1/4s and make the max charge time 3/4s, though.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scepter – auto attack orb travel speed increased by 12.5% and damage is decreased 5%

Good change, scepter attacks are way too easy to strafe.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of Mercy – cast time decreased to 2.5 seconds, recharge at 120 seconds

Recharge is too low, especially after traiting. 180s is more appropriate for a res utility. On the other hand, are we really trying to make another res utility viable, especially on Guardian, which already has insane ability to hard res? I’d rather see a different active entirely. Maybe a ground-targetable 360 radius AoE heal? Something like that might be cool.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Renewed Focus – increased duration to 3 seconds

Reverting stealth nerfs is always fun. Personally, I think bunker guard is still fine as it is, but it could go back to 3s, I guess.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Tomes: recharge reduced to 150 seconds

Meh, tomes are pretty bad in high tier PvP, but in low to mid tier they’re pretty strong (especially ToC) and they’re good in WvW. I’d be careful about buffing them too much, Guardians are already super needed in every game mode.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Tome of Wrath: Judgment – cast time decreased to 4 seconds
Conflagrate – base damage increased to 500 damage

Berserker Tome of Wrath AoE spam in WvW would probably be the nutter butters after these changes. I’d be careful.

Traits

Kindled Zeal – moved to master tier

Zealous Blade – moved to GM tier, increase damage of GS attacks by 10%

Instead, I like Arken’s suggestion of adding more healing to the trait, and possibly changing how the healing works (per activation rather than per hit). The damage doesn’t really need to be higher IMO.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Valorous Defense – cooldown reduced to 60 seconds

How about 3s of Protection instead of Aegis? Less synergy with your aim of making UC viable though, I guess.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Glacial Heart – chance on critical hit increased to 100%

I’d rather see a change to the duration and ICD of the chill applied. Maybe 2s of chill, 10s ICD?

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Warrior-tentative reduce base health at level 80 by 1k

Again with the small HP adjustments. Warrior HP is fine as it is, IMO, just tweak their sustain.

Skills

Healing Signet – Passive tick reduced to 200hps with healing power scaling coefficient of 0.175

Reduce the passive, but increase the active. Have there be some tradeoff between milking the passive or cashing in for the burst healing of the active.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Berserker Stance – reduces condition duration by 95% for the duration of the stance

I’m fine with -100% condition duration, but not immunity. Have it match the tooltip.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Combustive Shot – radius at 3 levels of adrenaline reduced to 300, 220 at 2, and 140 at 1

Yeah, lower the radius a bit. It’s pretty insane at level 3 atm. Might be a WvW thing, but in sPvP it wrecks points.

Traits

Adrenal Health – moved to minor master trait in strength line

Building Momentum – moved to minor master trait in defense line

Meh, they wouldn’t do this because defensive/regen traits go in defense trees. Don’t really think this is necessary either.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Last Stand – stability and swiftness provided are reduced to 8 seconds

To match Balanced Stance. Makes sense.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Defy Pain – increased to a 90 seconds recharge

Doesn’t match Endure Pain; doesn’t make sense. Also, not really an OP trait, so why nerf?

On a side note happy holidays and I hope everyone is getting as tore up as I’m about to get.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Renewed Focus – increased duration to 3 seconds

Reverting stealth nerfs is always fun. Personally, I think bunker guard is still fine as it is, but it could go back to 3s, I guess.

What stealth nerf? RF was never 3s, it was always 2s with a tooltip error that didn’t get fixed for very long. It’s only 3s if traited for Elite Focus.

I think the current behavior is fine.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mesmer
Skills
Greatsword – functionality to reflect risk – reward, reverse the distance in which damage is increased – dealing more damage the closer the player is to the target

Agree with Chaith on this one. Doesn’t really need to change, especially when considering other game modes where having a weapon that hits hard from range is very important.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scepter – auto attack speed travel speed increased by 10%

Agree, similar to Guardian scepter.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Blurred Frenzy – damage evasion duration reduced to 2 seconds, engi shield stun and nightmare rune proc no longer interrupt the frenzy

Not sure this needs to change, and I’m against weird “exception to the rule” stuff. Evasion is evasion, let’s leave it at that. You get interrupted sometimes, boo hoo.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of the Ether – passive tick base reduced to 200/400/600 q3seconds based on number of clones; passive tick scales with healing power at a coefficient of 0.15; recharge reduced to 30 seconds

Haven’t played with the signet heal, but it seems pretty nuts. Not sure what level of nerf is needed.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mantra of Pain – damage increased by 5%

Uh, sure. Nobody will use it still, I’d guess.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Arcane Thievery – cool down reduced to 40 seconds

Mimic – the first projectile absorbed does not cause damage

Sounds good.

Traits

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Prismatic Understanding – duration of protection and regeneration reduced to 2 seconds

I don’t really WvW so I don’t really see the spec being used. I’d assume that at least the Protection duration would want to come down, Regen is probably fine to leave alone since it’s only a meh boon anyways.

Engineers
Skills

Bombs – all bomb radii decreased by 40 units

Yeah, bomb radius buff wasn’t really good for PvP.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Poison Grenade – poison cloud duration reduced to 3 seconds, base poison duration reduced to 4 seconds

YES PLEASE. Poison nade application rate is off the chain.

Big Ol’ Bomb – radius reduced by 40 units

This is the only bomb I would leave alone. It’s the epic bomb, it has great visibility, it should maintain a good radius.

Traits

Stabilized Armor – moved to master tier inventions added cc nullification on a 60 second recharge

Power Shoes – moved to adept tier inventions; might need a qualifier

Reasonable changes.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Automated Response – condition durations reduced by 95%

See my response to zerker stance.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scope – removed from the game; replaced with Back Brace

Back Brace – remove 1 condition when using a tool belt skill, recharge 12 seconds, non-elixir skill

Good change; engis need a little more condi removal access. I’d just make it “Tool belt skills remove 1 condition. (10s ICD)”