Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to pop by and tell you that the changes you proposed for the thief does nothing but promote the spammy, passive, AI gameplay together with random dodges that this game needs to get rid off. I honestly disagree with all those suggestions.

All Med Kit Items — Now are immediately picked up if dropped near an ally. Previously, the player had to move to pick up the item, even if it had been dropped or thrown close to them.

Or you could just trait Med Kit.

Elixir R — Now instant cast and breaks stun. The cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

If you’re going to make this skill a stunbreak (again) it can’t refill endurance. That’s saying: “yo break stuns and have 2s of i-frames.” I think Elixir R is fine as it is.

Analyse — This toolbelt skill has been redesigned. It now called “Deploy Detector”.
Deploy Detector
Deploy a detector that applies vulnerability and reveals stealthed enemies within the area.
Casting Time: 0.5 seconds
Recharge: 60 seconds
Range: 900
Radius: 300
Duration: 5 seconds
Revealed: 4 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 8 seconds

I’m very much against implementing such a mechanic in the current state of the game. Maybe once all the appropriate balances have been made we can look at ways to counter Stealth and how annoying it is that Wakkey always gets decapped by thieves.

Supply Crate — Now drops a Rifle Turret instead of a Net Turret. The stun duration was lowered to 1s from 2s, and the cooldown was reduced to 150 seconds from 180 seconds.

I agree with it dropping a Rifle Turrent instead of Net, since if you get hit by the initial stun, most of the time you were pretty much stunned and immobed. But reducing the stun duration of a skill on a 3 minute CD, with one of the most obvious animations in the game seems silly. It’s not that hard to dodge/blind/block this animation.

Automated Response — Now reduces incoming condition duration by 100%, rather than granting complete immunity.

Believe it or not this trait isn’t that useful and it needs a redesign. Again, traits of this nature should just disappear form the game.

Bane Signet — Lowered the casting time to 0.5 seconds from 0.75 seconds, and increased the knockdown to 3 seconds from 2 seconds.

Again, decreasing cast times of no travel CC is bad and it discourages coordination to ensure CC lands. Also, 2s is perfectly fine.

Signet of Wrath — Lowered the casting time to 0.5 seconds from 0.75 seconds.

Same as above. This can remain untouched.

Purging Flames — The casting time was reduced to 0.25 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds. The radius was increased to 300, up from 240.

This would be a good change, but I don’t think I would take it with its current functionality. If instead of reducing condition duration it reduced the damage you take from conditions then it’d be useful. Right now, there’s no point in reducing duration of conditions when they’re so spammable.

Zealous Blade — The healing has been increased to 50 (0.03), up from 25 (0.02).

This trait is strong enough as it is. Doesn’t need another buff.

Kindled Zeal — This trait has been redesigned, and renamed “Zealous Strikes”. It reads, “Deal 10% more damage when under 50% health, and heal yourself for the same amount as the extra damage dealt.”

I agree the current Kindled Zeal suxdix but what you’re proposing would put Guardian healing over the top. Current DPS builds already have excellent sustain I don’t know why you want to overbuff their sustain.

Much like Bear, a lot of these suggestions seem really biased and wanting to buff a class that doesn’t need buffs. o_O

Acandis,

Wait until you read his version of Fear Me!

Acandis.3250:

Elixir R — Now instant cast and breaks stun. The cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

If you’re going to make this skill a stunbreak (again) it can’t refill endurance. That’s saying: “yo break stuns and have 2s of i-frames.” I think Elixir R is fine as it is.

Analyse — This toolbelt skill has been redesigned. It now called “Deploy Detector”.
Deploy Detector
Deploy a detector that applies vulnerability and reveals stealthed enemies within the area.
Casting Time: 0.5 seconds
Recharge: 60 seconds
Range: 900
Radius: 300
Duration: 5 seconds
Revealed: 4 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 8 seconds

I’m very much against implementing such a mechanic in the current state of the game. Maybe once all the appropriate balances have been made we can look at ways to counter Stealth and how annoying it is that Wakkey always gets decapped by thieves.

Automated Response — Now reduces incoming condition duration by 100%, rather than granting complete immunity.

Believe it or not this trait isn’t that useful and it needs a redesign. Again, traits of this nature should just disappear form the game.

I think the elixir R change he is asking for implies it no longer refills endurance, could be wrong though. Regardless I do agree that a stunbreak and filling up the endurance bar could cause some issues.

On analyze, I personally like the changes. Could make for a clutch way to quickly mess up a thief’s initiation, and the vuln would be nice to toss into a group trying to res or stomp a teammate to try and make AoE around a downed body more efficient.

With Automated, it has it’s place, although it may not necessarily be a good one. Decap Engis are slowly becoming a thing (still debatable if they will actually become a thing in NA), and the condi focused versions of the build make heavy use of this to try and keep alive when in outnumbered scenarios. While I dont necessarily agree with the mechanic of condi immunity it definitely assists in tankier types of builds.

Overall I like the direction Ken is going with this. Few things I could be on the fence about (warrior changes specifically) but other than that I would definitely like to see some of his stuff implemented.

Acandis.3250:

I’m only gonna quote the ones I disagree with.

The 6-set bonus of Superior Runes of Lyssa has been changed:
(6) When you use an elite skill, lose 3 conditions and gain 3 random boons for 5 seconds (not including Stability). (CD: 45 seconds)

I don’t think RNG helps anyone…

Sure, I’d be alright with either of the two alternatives you mentioned. The one I’m least inclined to is the increase in ICD, for the mere fact that I don’t like hidden cooldowns, and there are already a ton of traits with them. I went with the 3 random to keep the trend from the (4) bonus, the small amount of RNG introduced is really nothing in a game where damage is dominated by crit chance.

Lightning Strike — Added a 0.25 second casting time.

The problem with Fresh Air is that there is no tell to when they got a proc…

Having a tell when it procs wouldn’t really solve the issue, though. There is still the one-sided mind game of when they choose to use the proc, and since it’s instant, they could just wait till you dodge, or throw a big attack at you and make you dodge. And it’s really not a very big nerf, honestly. But something needs to be adjusted about the actual amount of instant cast damage, not just adding a tell.

Comet — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds. It now uses ground targeting.

I think reducing the cast time of this is fine (because it has air time), but making it ground targetted is not. A ground targetted, fast activation, unblocakble Daze seems too strong. It’s already fairly simple to hit this skill with the appropriate setup.

What’s the big difference, other than it becomes a skill shot rather than being forced to have it centered on a person? The big goal here is to remove the ability to AoE an area without having to be able to see that area, and also to be able to lead a target that is trying to kite you. At 0.5 second cast time, this would still be a pretty obvious skill to see and avoid, especially considering the small radius.

Gale — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds.

I don’t think we should be reducing the cast times of any CC without travel time. It dumbs down the game to the point where you wouldn’t need coordination to land CC.

The casting time is currently absurdly long for its effect and cooldown. 2 second knockdown for nearly 1 second of casting time investment? Yuck. Compare with Updraft… melee range, but still. Yeah.

Ride the Lightning — This ability now has a 25 second cooldown regardless of if it hits a target or not. Previously, it had a 20 second cooldown if a target was hit, or a 40 second cooldown if no target was hit.

The reason this skill got changed was because Eles….

Right, I know why they thought it should be changed, I played ele back then. I just disagree that it was necessary. Reducing the range of the skill was all that was needed. Trying to run away to reset a fight is something a lot of classes can attempt to do, like a thief with a shortbow and stealth, or a warrior with a greatsword. This is the ele version of Rush, there is nothing inherently wrong with abandoning a point in Conquest and rotating to reset your health, as long as the range on the ability isn’t insane it’s fine.

Lightning Flash — Now breaks stuns. Its cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 40 seconds.

Nope…

Uh, one word: Why? Every single other teleport utility skill in this game breaks stuns. Nothing is special about ele where they should not have a move that teleports and also breaks stun, nothing is inherently broken about it except that it can be used in combination with instant burst abilities, which should be dealt with separately. Outside of that particular application, this change made absolutely no sense whatsoever and should be reverted.

Diamond Skin — This trait has been redesigned. It now reduces the duration of incoming conditions by 100% for 2 seconds after switching to Earth Attunement.

I don’t think this would be a healthy change at all…

Sure, I am not the biggest fan of the trend, either. However, it seems that the developers like it. If we are going to have skills and traits with some amount of condition mitigation, they might as well a) be traits at you actively have to choose when to use, rather than just occur passively, and b) reduce condition duration, rather than grant total immunity. In any case, it’d be a huge improvement over what it is now: guaranteed 100-0 vs a condi build 1v1, otherwise useless.

Very nice and detailed post (mostly reasonable, unlike the Bear Document!)

Regarding your elementalist proposal, I agree with some of your changes (i.e., Dragon’s Tooth, Comet, Gale, Signet of Restoration, Ether Renewal, Ride the Lightning, and Arcane Brilliance). Personally, I would not trade a stun-breaker for a longer cool-down on Lightning Flash. Fire Shield also seems too mild.

Now, I disagree with your changes to Lightning Strike and Diamond Skin.

Let’s focus on Lightning Strike for the moment. There are a lot of instant-cast skills in the game (not counting stun-breakers). Why would you want to weaken this skill in particular, when you state you want to “help” the elementalist? I assume it’s because you think offensive effects with zero activation time are too powerful, provide no counter-play, etc. If that’s the case, shouldn’t you also want to normalize the elementalist’s Magnetic Wave, Arcane Blast, Arcane Wave, Arcane Power, Cleansing Fire, Lightning Flash, Sunspot, Electric Discharge, and Earthen Blast? Not to mention all other similar profession-specific mechanics, along with all passive ai, trait, rune, and sigil procs. I would not be in favor of any of this.

In other words, it seems you want to play an entirely different game, where every move is clearly telegraphed to provide an opportunity for a counter-move. But GW2 isn’t an entirely different game; it isn’t chess. As I see it, the tempo of GW2 combat is far too dynamic to be micro-managed in anything remotely like this. Adding a mere 0.25 second delay to the use of a single skill is never going to give you the reaction time you think you need to perfectly outplay your opponent. Instants and passives, whatever you want to call them, are here to stay because they simplify an already complicated game.

As for so-called hard-counters or immunities (Diamond Skin, Berserker’s Stance, Automated Response, et al.), I don’t get where all the hate is coming from. Each of these traits/skills is counter-balanced by clearly defined parameters, situational effectiveness, and a non-negligible amount of risk and/or sacrifice.

To speak only of Diamond Skin, let’s remind ourselves how it’s only effective against conditions when above 90% health. For a tanky elementalist running Soldier’s (0/0/30/20/20), that’s a mere 1,900 points of direct damage to bring them below the threshold. This is why it’s situational. While it might appear overpowered, it only appears this way in a minority of cases where you have a 1v1 encounter against a pure condition build. In the vast majority of cases, however, the Diamond Skin is easily shattered within a few strikes and rendered completely useless by even one player running power/hybrid. The investment for this highly situational trait is not small either, as it forces some very undesirable trait distributions for the elementalist.

Similar to blocks, physical damage immunities, and true invulnerabilities, condition immunities serve a purpose. And that purpose is to provide us with a unique form of attrition, sustain, survivability, etc. The moment you begin multiplying the force of a single player against another, it should be obvious why there needs to be a way to reduce all damage and/or condition spam to zero, even if this is only for a brief enough time to provide a means of escape.

Overall, you have to take the current condition heavy meta and the general weaknesses of the elementalist into account. And in that context, I find Diamond Skin is an impeccably well-designed trait. The only improvement I’d make is to tie the immunity treshold to the player’s armor rating (i.e., 85% max at 3,000 armor).

Funny people still think marks are a problem with necros. Marks aren’t great at all. In fact staff is kind of a bad weapon. It is just all necros have. Necro condition builds are based around the scepter auto attack. Really it is that simple.

As for the other changes. There are some good ideas but generally the changes as a whole are horrendus. You can’t just bash down these changes with little thought like you seem to have done. This is something which anet could spend all week doing. If you spent all week doing this I am sure you would come up with some good changes. But your changes are just bad. Spirits should just be made really bad for 1. None of your changes make the game fun again, which is an issue because this game is terrible.

Acandis.3250:

Or you could just trait Med Kit.

One of the big issues with running Med Kit is the inability to cleanse immobilize. My change is trying to fix that issue without requiring you to trait Med Kit. If you don’t trait it, it’s meant mostly for yourself. If you do, it’s meant to support allies.

Acandis.3250:

If you’re going to make this skill a stunbreak (again) it can’t refill endurance. That’s saying: “yo break stuns and have 2s of i-frames.” I think Elixir R is fine as it is.

No, that’s actually 1.5s worth of dodges, which is not really that strong if you think about it (see: Elixir S). It was always the toolbelt skill that was the broken thing, not the utility. Why wasn’t it adjusted in the first place? I dunno.

Acandis.3250:

I’m very much against implementing such a mechanic in the current state of the game. Maybe once all the appropriate balances have been made we can look at ways to counter Stealth and how annoying it is that Wakkey always gets decapped by thieves.

What exactly is making you hesitant about it? Stealth gib openers aren’t strong enough? Wakkey doesn’t even Engi, though if they add this to the game, I might make him.

Acandis.3250:

I agree with it dropping a Rifle Turrent instead of Net, since if you get hit by the initial stun, most of the time you were pretty much stunned and immobed. But reducing the stun duration of a skill on a 3 minute CD, with one of the most obvious animations in the game seems silly. It’s not that hard to dodge/blind/block this animation.

I could see keeping the stun, though I would also keep the cooldown in that case.

Acandis.3250:

Believe it or not this trait isn’t that useful and it needs a redesign. Again, traits of this nature should just disappear form the game.

I believe it. See my response to Diamond Skin.

Acandis.3250:

Again, decreasing cast times of no travel CC is bad and it discourages coordination to ensure CC lands. Also, 2s is perfectly fine.

I dunno, have you ever tried actually using this ability in PvP? Almost a 1 second cast time investment for a 2 second knockdown and 40 second cooldown is a terrible rate (even traited). Also, the huge yellow circle above my head sort of counts for travel time (though, I suppose you can’t be sure who the target is). Anything longer than 0.5 seconds of casting time is basically unusable as an interrupt and is very easy to dodge/blind/block/etc. If you see a huge circle and a Guardian pointing their finger at you and don’t dodge, it’s time to sit down and think about what you’ve done.

Acandis.3250:

Same as above. This can remain untouched.

Same as above. There’s a good reason that nobody ever uses these terrible utilities.

Acandis.3250:

This would be a good change, but I don’t think I would take it with its current functionality. If instead of reducing condition duration…

Nah, Purging Flames is already a pretty good ability, actually. Almost good enough to open up some new viable bunker builds based around this as the main condition removal. From the testing I did, the main issues getting in the way are: casting time, and radius of effect of the condition removal.

Acandis.3250:

This trait is strong enough as it is. Doesn’t need another buff.

Really? The healing from this trait is pretty laughable, IMO. Grats, you get 225 healing if you connect with a full WW. In which case, you actually really deserved it, because you just connected with a full WW in PvP! I understand the weapon cleaves, but if you’re in the middle of a teamfight cleaving stuff, you’ll probably need a bit more sustain than what this trait can afford you.

Acandis.3250:

I agree the current Kindled Zeal…

Ok, this is admittedly the riskiest/most controversial suggestion in the whole document. My numbers are probably off, and this is where a test realm would help immensely. My goal here is to open up more options for sustain for Guardian that don’t depend on Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing. The problem, of course, is when you combine this, the Greatsword Trait, and Monk’s Focus, and does it create some sort of DPS + sustain monster worse than the Warrior? The fact that it’s a threshold trait reduces that risk somewhat for teamfighting, since if you get below 50% health in a DPS build, often times you’re either eating a lot of AoE or getting trained down, in which case your ability to counterpressure is going to be a lot less. For 1v1s, I admit that this trait is risky without enough testing. I’d like to work carefully on adjusting the numbers, but the general idea of the trait is something that I really like, and makes a lot of sense for the Guardian flavor-wise.

Acandis.3250:

Much like Bear, a lot of these suggestions seem really biased and wanting to buff a class that doesn’t need buffs. o_O

I mean, I nerfed my own build in multiple ways at once. I dunno how you’re getting that I’m biased, since the only things I buffed are specs that either kill me or could possibly supplant me as a mid bunker.

Acandis.3250:

Mantra of Pain

Why… I don’t really understand this. I think MoP needs to be nerfed or at the very least needs an animation, but why would you redesign and entire mantra just to add more quickness to a class? (This is a legitimate question, please explain).

Well, first of all, Time Warp hasn’t really been viable for a while, and nobody uses the Dueling Grandmaster trait. Flavor-wise, it makes sense for Mesmer to have utilities related to quickness (ability to distort reality). Mostly, I believe Mantra of Pain is the weakest of the Mantras in that it provides no utility and has no counterplay — it’s just instant-cast spike damage. If that’s useful at the moment, it’s amazing, but otherwise there is nothing else that it can do. Mantra of Haste, on the other hand, has a variety of uses other than generating quick damage, including synergizing with the other Mantras. Being able to quickly recast Mantra of Healing in a pinch, being able to quickness stomp or res on demand, and being able to quickness Mass Invis are all powerful options, and the combination of these options may be enough to push Mantra Mesmer over the edge into viability. Or at least, that’s the hope.

Acandis.3250:

Deceptive Evasion

I think it’s fine where it is. If you moved it to Illusions, it would be too easy to access it with Illusionary Persona.

Yeah, that’s the idea.

Acandis.3250:

Dazzling Glamours — Moved to Dueling Tree’s Master tier.

Tbh, this trait is too garbage to be moved to any Master tree.

Yes, it could use a redesign. I was lazy.

Acandis.3250:

Putrid Mark

I do think that this mark needs to be given back the support component of cleansing allies, but I don’t think anyone outside the mark should suffer/benefit from the consequences of its trigger.

Fair enough, although 120 radius is pretty dang small for an ally condi clear.

Acandis.3250:

Grasping Dead — Returned the 3rd bleed stack to PvP.

Necros can already sustain 10-13 stacks of bleed on a target, why do you want to give them more?

Because I think they need to break up Dhuumfire/Terror/Master of Terror combo to reduce Necro damage, not fiddle with single bleed stacks. Since I’m doing that, I’m adding back the bleeds and reunifying the game modes. Grasping Dead has a really nice tell to it, if you get hit, take some damage.

Acandis.3250:

Signet of Spite — Changed the active effect to the following:
Damage: 263
Bleeding(2): 7 seconds
Blind: 5 seconds
Crippled: 7 seconds
Poison: 7 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 7 seconds
Weakness: 5 seconds
Activation: 0.5 seconds
Range: 1200

Most of these changes would be fine, but the activation should remain at 0.75s.

Fair enough, I could be persuaded.

Acandis.3250:

cymerdown.4103:

Acandis.3250:

This trait is strong enough as it is. Doesn’t need another buff.

Really? The healing from this trait is pretty laughable, IMO. Grats, you get 225 healing if you connect with a full WW. In which case, you actually really deserved it, because you just connected with a full WW in PvP! I understand the weapon cleaves, but if you’re in the middle of a teamfight cleaving stuff, you’ll probably need a bit more sustain than what this trait can afford you.

You’ve obviously never tested this trait as it hits 14 times not 9, additionally the healing procs per target that you hit with any attack, not per attack (as indicated by the tooltip). So what I’ve seen in testing (since I actually test traits) is that a full WW can heal me for 1-1.5k depending on how many targets are on point.

Edit: The numbers I provided were calculated with 0 Healing Power again 3-4 targets. Additionally, I used to run this trait back when Spirit Rangers were more popular (and it didn’t have a scale) and you could keep yourself topped for a large part of the fight with it, I imagine the same will happen against MM necros and AI mesmers.

Yeah, I’ve tested with the trait a while ago, though I never went and counted the number of procs. It never seemed like it was a reasonable level of sustain considering the amount of risk you were taking in getting it. Not that it should heal you to full health from 0 or anything, but it seemed pretty paltry overall from the games I used it in. Granted, getting free hits on AI does change things. You’ve played a lot more DPS Guardian than I have, though, so maybe I’m wrong. I’ll test it some more. Also, AI builds having a new natural predator isn’t a terrible thing, though I wouldn’t want it to be on the level of a hard counter, either.

Gesamtkunstwerk.6590:

snip

Thanks for the feedback! I don’t want to nerf -all- instant cast damage, and no, I don’t really want to make this game into chess. I just want to reduce the ability of doing several thousands of damage in an instant with zero tell, and that is what glass cannon Fresh Air S/X Ele can currently do. This is, honestly, an extremely small nerf. Most other aspects of Ele need some help, and that’s what my other changes are designed to do. I won’t touch the casting time of arcane abilities, since they were purposely and specifically put into the game by the designers as instant-cast abilities.

As for Diamond Skin and other skills and traits that provide a long or indefinite amount of time of condition immunity: simply put, it’s terrible gameplay. It’s not fun to play as the condition immune guy who just beats up on the helpless condi Necro, and it’s not fun as the condi Necro who goes to defend his homepoint, finds a Diamond Skin Ele capping it, and knows he might as well just leave because he has absolutely zero options in terms of fighting it. It’s fine to be resilient and moderately advantaged against an enemy condition build. It’s not fine to be immune and 100% likely to win against an enemy condition build. Let’s help Eles with their options of dealing with conditions, but ones that require good timing and decision-making on the part of the player and that provide counterplay opportunities to the opponent.

I guess, in this case, I could even be talked into complete immunity from conditions for 2 seconds upon switching to Earth Attunement. That would work incredibly well with Rock Solid and Ether Renewal, because then a Necro couldn’t Corrupt your Stability into Fear during the first 2 seconds of your heal.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

no, seriously, you all should stop.
combustion shot has already been nerfed.
it is really fine now.

it is working exactly as intended.
it is not hard to step out of the fire field to avoid the burning.

again, guild wars 2 is a game for casual players.
the 10 dec 2013 patch has proved that.
more casual players are trying out sPvP now.

more will follow in the future patches to come.

He is right at the second part, gw2 spvp is a game for casuals.
Of course there is clear balance problems and the best builds are also the easiest to use. But if we take into account what the game is trying to do, appeal to the farming pve player, it makes a lot of sense, u can’t force this players to become pvper’s, so u need to provide easy to play and effective builds for them, if u don’t they will be frustrated pretty soon and probably stop playing.
Yeah, i know, this dumbs down the game, so esports, competitive and stuff is even more of a fantasy than a reality. But, spvp is doomed anyways, this way atleast is a side-kick for the pve which is the real core of gw2(their choices where bad, death with honour or live with dishonour, in the latter atleast you are still alive, so i kind of understand their decision-making), so who cares.
I suggest a new document to try to create an easy to play and effective build for ele, it will maybe be read and implemented by arena.net, this one, won’t be.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Acandis,

Wait until you read his version of Fear Me!

Don’t be afraid, Bear. Bunker War is waiting for you with open arms. Heed the inner calling, my friend.

cymerdown.4103:

BlackBeard.2873:

Some nice steps in the right direction. A couple of points:

(Warrior) Cleansing Ire: a very powerful skill because of the condi clear (good). Remove the additional adrenaline gain to bring the power level down slightly but keep the key functionality. If you want the additional adrenaline to spam condi clears, then spec for it.

I agree that the combination of Cleansing Ire, its associated adrenaline increase, and Adrenal Health is pretty strong, but I’m not convinced that it’s too strong. A decrease in adrenaline generation would severely decrease the viability of weapons that depend on frequent use of their burst skills to be viable, like Longbow. I believe the right angle of attack here is first addressing their over-the-top regeneration, and then possibly adding more counter play to Combustive Shot before taking a look at Cleansing Ire.
…

see thats why u have no clue what u are talking about.. 1 u want stop the spam but 2 u dont want stop the spam.

on the other hand seems u havent played ever a warrior who uses burstskills like evis if u mean they should be spammable and contributing active to the adrenalingain is bad

u dont seem to understand whats the root of the problems and want destroy several other builds with your changes .

and on the last part u always say “before looking at cleansing ire”… sure nerf all possible other builds into the ground before u realize what the real problem is.. ignore the ppl that tell it the whole time.. yeah i can understand that. the big numbers come from skills so its hard for a simple mind to think further..

on top of the whole story u create another even tankier bunker war.. with not banner removes conditions 2.. it gets worse

cymerdown.4103:

Engineer
Poison Grenade — Poison clouds now last for 3 seconds, down from 5 seconds, and deal 3 seconds of Poison per pulse, down from 5 seconds.

Agreed

Concussion Bomb — The radius was reduced to 120, down from 180.

Okay? I never really found this that strong.

All Med Kit Items — Now are immediately picked up if dropped near an ally. Previously, the player had to move to pick up the item, even if it had been dropped or thrown close to them.

I think this is only really necessary for Packaged Stimulants and med kit underwater. Part of the design of med kit is that you only get the amazing bonuses (best healing, condi removal, fury and swiftness) if you can grab them. Not to mention the heal is tied to the toolbelt, making it great for builds with Tools traited.

Drop Bandages — Reduced casting time to 0.25 seconds, down from 0.5 seconds. Duration was reduced to 30 seconds.

I don’t get what Duration was reduced to 30 seconds means, but the cast time reduction is welcomed.

Elixir R — Now instant cast and breaks stun. The cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

Toss Elixir R — Now revives 12% per pulse, down from 17%.

What is the real reason you are nerfing this? Is it because of the self res or because of the team utility? Because you’re nerfing both and I don’t think that’s quite fair for how often this actually makes a save (50% of the time in my experience). Simply out damaging the pulse is enough to get through this. A probably stronger nerf would be to hit Inertial Converter by raising the threshold to 50%, so you can’t time this on yourself unless you are REALLY getting bursted by a team. No more double reses. I also think raising the cast time to 1s would be fair too. Give teams a chance to interrupt it.

Analyse — This toolbelt skill has been redesigned. It now called “Deploy Detector”.
Deploy Detector
Deploy a detector that applies vulnerability and reveals stealthed enemies within the area.
Casting Time: 0.5 seconds
Recharge: 60 seconds
Range: 900
Radius: 300
Duration: 5 seconds
Revealed: 4 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 8 seconds

Now that’s something to test 0.0 That could be really really strong against things like PU and when people are ressing in team fights.

Launch Personal Battering Ram — This skill has been redesigned. It now knocks down any foes it hits for 2 seconds, does not cripple, and has had its cooldown increased to 45 seconds.

Love it. I might actually go PBR if this happens.

Supply Crate — Now drops a Rifle Turret instead of a Net Turret. The stun duration was lowered to 1s from 2s, and the cooldown was reduced to 150 seconds from 180 seconds.

Elite Supplies — Now adds a Net Turret to Supply Crate instead of a Rifle Turret.

Inventions is the worst line engineers have, and this is 20 points into it. Unless you make this a 5 point minor, this is a huge and annoying nerf. I also think if you remove the net turret from the elite, nerfing the stun duration is just adding insult to injury.

Automated Response — Now reduces incoming condition duration by 100%, rather than granting complete immunity.

Still completely inactive pure immunity. At most you’ll get like 10-30% condition duration which isn’t even worth mentioning. The tricky part about this is if you do anything less than 100% but a nicer threshold, This kitten will break the game. Maybe “Drinking elixirs grants condition immunity?” 3s duration.

Scope — This trait has been redesigned. It is now called, “Antidote Pouch”, and reads, “Using a toolbelt skill removes 1 condition. (CD: 10 seconds)”

Definitely would be popular on SD builds, as it would give another 6 condi clears per minute. REALLY powerful with Cleaning Formula 409 Maybe make it like 15 seconds or so.

Overall, I see a lot of buffs to the Static Discharge builds.

cymerdown.4103:

Diamond Skin — This trait has been redesigned. It now reduces the duration of incoming conditions by 100% for 2 seconds after switching to Earth Attunement.

I don’t think this would be a healthy change at all…

Sure, I am not the biggest fan of the trend, either. However, it seems that the developers like it. If we are going to have skills and traits with some amount of condition mitigation, they might as well a) be traits at you actively have to choose when to use, rather than just occur passively, and b) reduce condition duration, rather than grant total immunity. In any case, it’d be a huge improvement over what it is now: guaranteed 100-0 vs a condi build 1v1, otherwise useless.

New Diamond Skin:
You are immune to the following conditions when in the proper attunement:
Fire: immune to blind
Air: immune to weakness
Earth: immune to cripple
Water: immune to chill

Doesn’t prevent dps, but does allow you to be more aggressive and avoid being controlled. Also, can be counter-played by just choosing a different skill while they are in a given attunement.

cymerdown.4103:

The 6-set bonus of Superior Runes of Lyssa has been changed:
(6) When you use an elite skill, lose 3 conditions and gain 3 random boons for 5 seconds (not including Stability). (CD: 45 seconds)

Why go through all this effort when simply deleting the runeset would have the same effect – Lyssa never being run again. I’m not of the opinion that the set needs to be nerfed in the first place, but even if I was, this change would be far, far too much. You’re already sacrificing a lot taking Lyssa’s in the first place.

Thief
Shadowstep — Increased cooldown to 60 seconds, up from 50 seconds.

Roll for Initiative — Reduced cooldown to 50 seconds, down from 60 seconds.

Slightly more Init per second via 50s RFI doesn’t do enough to open up builds to justify further reducing condition removal via 10 extra seconds on SS CD. Shadowstep and RFI are fine as is.

Thieves Guild — Reduced cooldown to 150 seconds, down from 180 seconds.

Would this really allow the skill to compete with BV in tourney level play? That’s not a sarcastic question, I’m honestly curious and find it hard to judge.

Quick Recovery — This trait has been redesigned.
Quick Recovery
Gain endurance for each point of Initiative spent.
Endurance: 2

The only suggestion I really like here, though I foresee it going live for about a month before forum outrage forces it to be nerfed (Like LS) – a 10/0/0/30/30 S/D build will be dodging nigh constantly, which is what led to the vigor nerfs in the first place. Regardless, Quick recovery needs something, as it’s currently complete trash.

Hard to Catch — Now also prevents the disable effect from occuring. Raised the shadowstep distance to 900, up from 600. Increased the cooldown to 60 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

Better design then Anet’s, still not great though. Being teleported at the whim of another player is confusing, and removes control from the player – you should always be in complete control of what your character is doing, unless denied by a CC effect (as that is their design). Allowing another player to choose when my position will be changed to a random new position has too many negative consequences to be worthwhile without insanely powerful positive benefits. I can think of a half dozen scenarios just off the top of my head where I’d prefer to just hit a stunbreaker and not lose my positioning.

I think HtC would be interesting if it was designed slightly differently than the other Auto-Stunbreaker traits – instead of being a list of positive effects for the thief, how about negative effects? Something like “Ignore the CC effect and Immobilize everyone in a 240 radius for 2s, 10s swiftness on the thief”? Don’t read too much into the specifics, just throwing out an example.

cymerdown.4103:

General

Elementalist

Summary: Elementalist, as the class currently in need of the most help, is being targeted in two critical areas: sustain and mobility. Signet of Restoration was restored to previous levels, and Ether Renewal was improved. Ride the Lightning’s cooldown was lowered to add back more out-of-combat mobility. In addition, several skills on the Focus were either improved or made more easy to use. Lightning Strike (scepter air #2) was made to no longer be instant, to reduce some of the instant spike possible in the Fresh Air build, and Diamond Skin was redesigned.

Dragon’s Tooth — Now uses ground targeting.

Lightning Strike — Added a 0.25 second casting time.

Fire Shield — The cooldown was reduced to 30 seconds.

Freezing Gust — Now a piercing projectile attack, similar to Dust Devil.

Comet — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds. It now uses ground targeting.

Gale — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds.

Dragon’ s thoot: Making this skill use ground targeting would just slow it down. Better reduce the cast time, or just make it instant.

Lightning strike: This would completely destroy every fresh air build. The instant cast time is absolutely neccessary to keep the burst potential at the lvl it is. Taking it away would slow the fresh air bursts so much down making the build completely unviable as it really relies on the quick air bursts.

Fire shield: No. This skill is really really bad. It needs complete rework and not just a cd reduction.

Here are my suggestions on ele focus skills:

Fire
4: Searing Wall:
- Create a wall of flame and smoke at the target area that burns and blind foes.
- Burning: 1 s
- Blind: 1 s
- Duration: 4 s
- Combo Field: Fire, Smoke
- Range: 900

5: Fire Grip:
- Pull your target to you. Applies burn .
- Range: 900
- Burning: 8 s

Water:
4: Brain Freeze:
- Chill your foe for a brief time. Applies Confusion.
- Damage: 79
- Chilled: 3 s
- 5stacks Confusion: 3 s
- Range: 900

5: Glacial Armor:

- Grants retaliation and heals per cast
- 5 Retaliation: 8 s
- Healing per cast: 150
- Duration: 8 s

Mrbig.8019:

Your “casual” attitude is really insulting for those few players still believing in this game to become competitive.

PvP needs players, casual and not casual alike, to flourish in any direction. So i would recommend you to cut-off your Elitist approach if you want this game to succeed.

Regards

Seed

I’m just going to comment concerning Mesmer.

Deceptive Evasion – There was never any need to move this trait. Putting it into the master tier illusions is very illogical. This is one of the traits that gives good build diversity across most Mesmer builds. It’s in a very good spot where it’s at.

Critical Infusion – Another trait that should not be tampered with, and your proposing a buff for this? No. Any more of a buff to critical infusion and it would be out of control. Furthermore nerfing this minor trait would also deem illogical. It is fine as is, don’t mess with it.

Dazzling Glamours – Also another trait that does not need to be moved.

Runes Of Lyssa – Give it a 90 Second ICD, stop trying to make it a runeset that mimic’s the RNG random mesmer boon and condi mechanics.

Everything else is up for debate, scepter was already sped up once. I’m not quite sure if speeding it up more would be out bounds however, it’s debatable.

I’m also concerned with your idea behind “Mantra Of Haste”. Mesmers would become perma stompers with distortion with this trait. The idea needs to be more thought out. It’s too strong.

In short there are more things to worry about then moving traits where they don’t need to be moved. And buffing things that don’t need buffs. Some of your ideas were decent. But overall I just feel that you didn’t do your homework when it comes to Mesmer as a whole. Also I want Doyourbestbear to be at blame for this. You’ve just spawned a endless wave of “Insert Name Here, Document’s”. Thanks bear. Mesmer is in a great spot “overall”, please don’t mess with it.

Countless

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Okay? I never really found this that strong.

Bomb Kit is very powerful after the recent changes to the radii. Concussion Bomb is a major offender, considering how strong 5 Confusion AoE is if you can’t cleanse it. Dropping the radius on it a bit will reduce the condi spam of an Engi on point to a slightly more manageable level.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I think this is only really necessary for Packaged Stimulants and med kit underwater. Part of the design of med kit is that you only get the amazing bonuses (best healing, condi removal, fury and swiftness) if you can grab them. Not to mention the heal is tied to the toolbelt, making it great for builds with Tools traited

Med Kit doesn’t get used right now because you can’t self cleanse immobilize and dropping the items takes too long for the benefits given. Making the antidote cleanse 2 conditions might be too much help for the kit when combined with the change to Scope, I’d want to test that a bit.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I don’t get what Duration was reduced to 30 seconds means, but the cast time reduction is welcomed.

Oh, it means the maximum amount of time the item will stay before it despawns.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

What is the real reason…

The real reason is for the self res, but it’s too strong for both, honestly. Downed state begins at 65%, so at 17% per tick you’re looking at a 3 second res at most, the same time as it takes to stomp. Sometimes you’re lucky and the first pulse happens as soon as you drop, making it about 2 seconds. And if you get the double R, it’s almost an instant rally. This isn’t a healthy thing for 1v1 matchups, especially when you already have excellent 1v1 potential and the 2nd best 1v1 elite in the game. I understand there is Poison and knockbacks for counterplay, but honestly, it just resses for too much for a non-elite ability with that short of a casting time.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Now that’s something to test 0.0 That could be really really strong against things like PU and when people are ressing in team fights.

Sure, it seems powerful. Pretty long cooldown, though. I’d love to test it, would be a good counter to stealth ganks and shadow refuge saves.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Inventions is the worst line engineers have, and this is 20 points into it. Unless you make this a 5 point minor, this is a huge and annoying nerf. I also think if you remove the net turret from the elite, nerfing the stun duration is just adding insult to injury.

I wouldn’t call it a huge nerf, I would call it a reasonable one. Supply Crate is the 2nd most powerful 1v1 elite in the game, partly due to the really long CC if you get hit by the stun. Changing out the turret raises the DPS but reduces the CC, which I think is the right way to go. Lowering the stun duration I think is necessary in order to reduce the cooldown of the skill, which was the other goal of mine.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Still completely inactive pure immunity. At most you’ll get like 10-30% condition duration which isn’t even worth mentioning. The tricky part about this is if you do anything less than 100% but a nicer threshold, This kitten will break the game. Maybe “Drinking elixirs grants condition immunity?” 3s duration.

I’m not the biggest fan either, but the addition of these types of traits has been a trend that the developers apparently like lately, so I didn’t want to present an idea that goes in a completely different direction than they are.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Definitely would be popular on SD builds, as it would give another 6 condi clears per minute. REALLY powerful with Cleaning Formula 409 Maybe make it like 15 seconds or so.

That’s not really that much, and anything less than 1 condition per 10 seconds is extremely underwhelming, especially for a Master tier trait. See: Purity. I’m not worried that it would be too good with Cleaning Formula 409, since if you’re taking both of those traits, you’re basically making a bunker build, in which case you are going to need the extra cleanses, since Engineer bunker condition removal isn’t good enough yet.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Overall, I see a lot of buffs to the Static Discharge builds.

No, static discharge can’t afford the DPS loss of taking that trait.

Trigr.6481:

Deceptive Evasion – There was never any need to move this trait. Putting it into the master tier illusions is very illogical. This is one of the traits that gives good build diversity across most Mesmer builds. It’s in a very good spot where it’s at.

Diversity? It’s like, nearly required in every Mesmer build, especially shatter. It’s an excellent shatter trait, I think it belongs in the shatter tree. It generates more illusions, why is it in a tree titled, “Dueling”?

Trigr.6481:

Critical Infusion – Another trait that should not be tampered with, and your proposing a buff for this? No. Any more of a buff to critical infusion and it would be out of control. Furthermore nerfing this minor trait would also deem illogical. It is fine as is, don’t mess with it.

What? It’s a nerf of 2 seconds. Getting perma vigor as a 5 point trait is, and has always been ludicrously powerful. This game has way too much dodging, and I understand it’s important for Mesmer shattering and such, but even considering that, it’s way too much. Guardians need the same small nerf.

Trigr.6481:

Dazzling Glamours – Also another trait that does not need to be moved.

Honestly, the glamour traits are all pretty bad and basically could be redesigned.

Trigr.6481:

Runes Of Lyssa – Give it a 90 Second ICD, stop trying to make it a runeset that mimic’s the RNG random mesmer boon and condi mechanics.

It’s possible, but again, more hidden cooldowns to keep track of for a mega powerful effect. I prefer this approach — classes weak to conditions but with low CD elites don’t need this way to completely circumvent class weaknesses. Also, my proposed (6) bonus is derived from the set’s own (4) bonus, not mimicking Mesmer.

Trigr.6481:

I’m also concerned with your idea behind “Mantra Of Haste”. Mesmers would become perma stompers with distortion with this trait. The idea needs to be more thought out. It’s too strong.

It could be, but maybe not. Playing with the cooldown numbers and such would be part of testing. At first glance, it seems fine to me like this.

Trigr.6481:

In short there are more things to worry about then moving traits where they don’t need to be moved. And buffing things that don’t need buffs. Some of your ideas were decent. But overall I just feel that you didn’t do your homework when it comes to Mesmer as a whole. Also I want Doyourbestbear to be at blame for this. You’ve just spawned a endless wave of “Insert Name Here, Document’s”. Thanks bear. Mesmer is in a great spot “overall”, please don’t mess with it.

Countless

I actually sat and thought quite a while about every bullet point that I put on this list. You may not agree with every item, and that’s fine. But thanks for the feedback, that’s why I posted this.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I think this is only really necessary for Packaged Stimulants and med kit underwater. Part of the design of med kit is that you only get the amazing bonuses (best healing, condi removal, fury and swiftness) if you can grab them. Not to mention the heal is tied to the toolbelt, making it great for builds with Tools traited

Med Kit doesn’t get used right now because you can’t self cleanse immobilize and dropping the items takes too long for the benefits given. Making the antidote cleanse 2 conditions might be too much help for the kit when combined with the change to Scope, I’d want to test that a bit.

If you add in the trait listed below (remove condition on toolbelt ability), you don’t need this.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I don’t get what Duration was reduced to 30 seconds means, but the cast time reduction is welcomed.

Oh, it means the maximum amount of time the item will stay before it despawns.

Ah. Fair enough change.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

What is the real reason…

The real reason is for the self res, but it’s too strong for both, honestly. Downed state begins at 65%, so at 17% per tick you’re looking at a 3 second res at most, the same time as it takes to stomp. Sometimes you’re lucky and the first pulse happens as soon as you drop, making it about 2 seconds. And if you get the double R, it’s almost an instant rally. This isn’t a healthy thing for 1v1 matchups, especially when you already have excellent 1v1 potential and the 2nd best 1v1 elite in the game. I understand there is Poison and knockbacks for counterplay, but honestly, it just resses for too much for a non-elite ability with that short of a casting time.

If the time is the issue, make this pulse every 2 seconds instead. Then it would take 4 seconds, giving players a bit more time. I also think that if this had a 3/4-1s cast time, it would be WAY more fair.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Inventions is the worst line engineers have, and this is 20 points into it. Unless you make this a 5 point minor, this is a huge and annoying nerf. I also think if you remove the net turret from the elite, nerfing the stun duration is just adding insult to injury.

I wouldn’t call it a huge nerf, I would call it a reasonable one. Supply Crate is the 2nd most powerful 1v1 elite in the game, partly due to the really long CC if you get hit by the stun. Changing out the turret raises the DPS but reduces the CC, which I think is the right way to go. Lowering the stun duration I think is necessary in order to reduce the cooldown of the skill, which was the other goal of mine.

If this was to go in, I would at least put Elite Supplies as an adept trait. It’s not that good anyways. 20 into inventions is just ridiculous.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Definitely would be popular on SD builds, as it would give another 6 condi clears per minute. REALLY powerful with Cleaning Formula 409 Maybe make it like 15 seconds or so.

That’s not really that much, and anything less than 1 condition per 10 seconds is extremely underwhelming, especially for a Master tier trait. See: Purity. I’m not worried that it would be too good with Cleaning Formula 409, since if you’re taking both of those traits, you’re basically making a bunker build, in which case you are going to need the extra cleanses, since Engineer bunker condition removal isn’t good enough yet.

But this is an engineer trait, not a guardian trait. It’s also in a line that is primarily offensive, so a defensive trait in there would be really popular. Most engineers also take Healing turret (6-8 condi removals per minute) and transmute (4 prevented per minute). With this trait added in, that’s 16-18 per minute. Not half bad. Especially since it fits right into your normal rotations.

cymerdown.4103:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Overall, I see a lot of buffs to the Static Discharge builds.

No, static discharge can’t afford the DPS loss of taking that trait.

? It’s in the same line that static discharge builds go into. I could easily see people running 20/20/0/0/30 if they wanna go full glassy or something more like 10/10/0/20/30 for something more defensive.

Responding to your quote

“Diversity? It’s like, nearly required in every Mesmer build, especially shatter. It’s an excellent shatter trait, I think it belongs in the shatter tree. It generates more illusions, why is it in a tree titled, “Dueling”?”

Especially shatter? That can be debated, lots of builds like deceptive evasion. Also if that’s going to be your argument then what about shattered concentration? That’s considered by most to be a shatter ability because it involves you iunno…. shattering? Lets just move that to illusions while were at it……..no. While were on this topic lets move Rending Shatter, Shattered Conditions, Restorative Illusions into the illusions tree because it has to do with shattering your illusions. See where I’m going with this?

Futhermore deceptive evasion doesn’t belong to any one build. You can try to argue me on this but it’s not going to go anywhere. And who cares about sorting traits by titles and names when it comes to “oh it’s gotta be in the illusion tree because it has illusions in the text”….no. Consolidating abilities based off name is a pretty bad idea in my humble opinion.

Countless

Yeah, I know that a lot of specs like the trait — it’s a really strong trait. My point here is that the trait is an absolutely core trait of shatter builds — you cannot actually make a competitive shatter build without Deceptive Evasion. Not gonna happen. If you ever tried to make a shatter build without the trait, you would do better to just readjust the build to incorporate Deceptive Evasion, and voila, you have a better build. Not so with all those other shatter-related traits you mentioned. Those improve or buff shatter in various ways that are of course good, but are nothing without the required dodge spam fuel to generate those shatters. So, I want to try to unlock those 20 points from the Dueling tree and open up more shatter build possibilities.

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

While you’re at it, lets just give Mind Wrack the Skyhammer effect, as well.

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

I am very happy about these facts. Confounding + Deceptive + IP would be scary as hell.

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

kitten man… If only mesmers had other ways of conjuring illusions than Deceptive Evasion…

Bugfixing CS is part of my notes, but after that, I don’t think it would be too powerful. Testing would tell for sure.

Acandis.3250:

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

kitten man… If only mesmers had other ways of conjuring illusions than Deceptive Evasion…

Not to mention, there are other good traits besides IP. One of the big mesmer builds right now doesn’t even use IP (30/20/0/0/20). Drop the points in Illusion and go elsewhere and have a blast.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Acandis.3250:

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

kitten man… If only mesmers had other ways of conjuring illusions than Deceptive Evasion…

Not to mention, there are other good traits besides IP. One of the big mesmer builds right now doesn’t even use IP (30/20/0/0/20). Drop the points in Illusion and go elsewhere and have a blast.

Mainly because CS is bugged with Chaos Storm and provides more than 50% stuns, allowing you to 100-0 someone with Halting Strike if your RNG is good to you. Outside of that, though, losing IP isn’t worth it in a shatter build.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

I am very happy about these facts. Confounding + Deceptive + IP would be scary as hell.

Can you go a support shatter build without illusionary persona? Yep, the answer is 20-20-0-30-0. Grab shattered concentration, Vigorous revelation, rending shatter, and shattered concentration and every time you shatter you strip boons, grant aoe vigor, stack aoe vulnerability to nearby foes, and cleanse conditions. Who cares about persona when you’re offering that much team support. And it’s within the realms of you guessed it……….deceptive evasion. Confounding suggestions is relevant because it’s a bug, a big one at that. It will fade like a fart in the wind.

Countless

Ok, but the build you’re suggesting isn’t currently tournament-viable. Making it so it could be combined with Illusionary Persona would buff the spec, which is what I’m after.

cymerdown.4103:

Ok, but the build you’re suggesting isn’t currently tournament-viable. Making it so it could be combined with Illusionary Persona would buff the spec, which is what I’m after.

Considering a build to be non tourne viable because nobody is currently running it implies that no build hence forth can be tourne viable because it’s not “popular”. Personally I disagree, I see that build being viable.

Countless

Maybe, but results matter. I personally think the shatter cooldowns are too large for a spec with 0 points in illusions. Your initial effectiveness is ok, but then you have big timers to deal with, and during that time you are pretty much useless to your team. It’s true that this change could end up buffing the spec overmuch, I’d like to test it and consider the implications.

cymerdown.4103:

Maybe, but results matter. I personally think the shatter cooldowns are too large for a spec with 0 points in illusions. Your initial effectiveness is ok, but then you have big timers to deal with, and during that time you are pretty much useless to your team. It’s true that this change could end up buffing the spec overmuch, I’d like to test it and consider the implications.

That’s a player skill issue in my humble opinion. Managing cd’s of shatters is important. Spamming them at all once isn’t the best option obviously.

Countless

I’m just critiquing the power level of the build and its viability — I don’t think the cooldowns are short enough for it to be a powerful spec. It’d be like saying Eles dying too fast is a player skill issue. No, their sustain is just too bad to compete at the top level right now with the other best specs the game has to offer.

But maybe you’re right and the spec is a sleeper that nobody has figured out yet. This is the kind of argument that playtesting would lay to rest.

cymerdown.4103:

I’m just critiquing the power level of the build and its viability — I don’t think the cooldowns are short enough for it to be a powerful spec. It’d be like saying Eles dying too fast is a player skill issue. No, their sustain is just too bad to compete at the top level right now with the other best specs the game has to offer.

But maybe you’re right and the spec is a sleeper that nobody has figured out yet. This is the kind of argument that playtesting would lay to rest.

Just a difference in opinion. Comparing a build to a class is not a very good comparison. What did eles ever do to you anyway :P

Countless

No one playing the game right now is playing at a high enough level of skill to say with certainty whether or not a build is tournament viable – especially map specific tournament viability.

Heads up, the people “decent” at the game now…you know where I’m going with this.

Cool insult, but that’s another popular thing to say that’s incorrect. Top level people that play today are certainly as good or better than the top level players that used to play, it’s just a smaller club. I’ve played against them, and watched the matches.

Anyway, it’s tournament viable if you can bring it to a major tournament and show good results with it. Competition is relative, so hey, if we’re all terribads, come beat us all with support Mesmer and now it’s viable.

It’s not meant as an insult – it’s simple math.

As a community shrinks in volume, so too does the skill level of those playing. Without innovation, variation in strategies and team builds, et cetera, the extent to which you can progress as a skillful player is diminished. This also involves meta-game stagnation as well – less people, less innovation, less counters, less everything.

I’m not even good at this game, and I can say with a level of objectivity that the people playing today, only a small handful play as well as those who have left the game.

The volume of players may diminish, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that overall skill level does. It depends on how many of the people that leave are veteran, skilled players. Some of the people still here have been around from the start of the game, and have played almost daily for months, even a year. Those guys haven’t suddenly gotten worse, or something. Outside of the top bracket, I admit that it does fall off a bit, though. Judging the effectiveness of builds isn’t too hard after a set of matches against these better players, though. You can kinda just feel whether you’re doing work with a build, and what the shortcomings are after a couple of games.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Heads up, the people “decent” at the game now…you know where I’m going with this.

That part is the insult. If you’re saying you said that and didn’t mean it as an insult to a bunch of other players, then you’re lying.

I would just like to point out that

Nature’s Voice — This trait has been redesigned.
Nature’s Voice
Shouts apply protection, swiftness and regeneration to allies, and transfer 1 condition from each ally to your pet.
Protection: 3 seconds
Regeneration: 5 seconds
Swiftness: 5 seconds
Conditions Transferred: 1
Radius: 600

Would be a huge nerf and nobody would ever use this trait. Right now it gives 13 seconds of swiftness and regen. So you have more than halved its swift and regen. Plus I wouldn’t want my pet taking on more condtions from myself or my allies. It already takes enough with singet of renewal and empathetic bond.

It isn’t an insult because the rest of the statement is “relative.”

It’s meant that if the community becomes larger again, people have the potential and opportunity to progress in terms of skill.

It’s 10 seconds before boon duration. That long of a boon will just stack over itself in a full shout build, which this update is aiming to create. Also, Protection is a dramatically more powerful boon than the other two. Shout builds are meant to be supportive, thus the AoE condi clears. It’s a pretty huge buff to the trait, overall.

- if anything 50 sec is rather short actually for a class that doesn’t have any kind of survivability outside of stealth and mobility, nerfing shs won’t make other options better simply because by design they don’t offer good alternative in the world of stun/daze/fear/condi spam; you can’t compare spectral walk to shs simply because necros have other ways of survival (2 healths bars, high HP pool, tankiness, CC, boon conversion, regen etc)… how is 10 sec nerf reasonable? you still didn’t provide good argument why should it be nerfed on first place… thief has stun break and 3 condi removal on 50 sec CD, oh noes! you know how long it takes warrior to apply condis and stun/immob someone? yeah exactly…

- reducing CD on thief guild not gonna make it less silly, thief guild is gimmicky spell and is fine in pve but shouldn’t have place in pvp on first place simply due to lazy ai based gameplay…. once again, pvp is already plagued by AI, we don’t need more of it…

- devs made it quite clear with recent nerfs that they don’t want thieves to have more dodges and s/d definitely has more than enough of those? after all i personally would rather have more ini so i can actually use spells than extra dodge where i don’t do crap but trying to dodge aoe spam on point (which probably won’t do much anyway)

- thieves don’t need stability….. but they also shouldn’t be able to use stun break as often…. do you want them just to stand still and die? what is wrong with you? if we gonna go by that logic then every stun break and stabiluty needs to be removed from this game

what is absurdly good? thieves or runes? lyssa runes are horrible for thieves stats wise outside of 6th bonus and they are not build defining, at least not for thieves again… build definiting runes would be perplexitiy runes for example

venom has very long very obvious animation, runes effect is very delayed as well, that stability doesn’t even last that long, so what that you can’t CC thief for 5 sec, thief can’t do many things to other classes as well (cough endure pain, cough grenade spam on point); why in the world would i blow 45 sec CD to stomp someone? lastly, not even that many thieves use it as ogre runes for example offer way better dmg

nerf condi/CC/aoe spam on points and then come back with lyssa nerf ty (but then it won’t be even used anymore heh)

as far as thief requirement on team, please tell me the source where you got such idea… the reason why high ranked teams still play with a thief is simple: would you rather play with some random person you don’t know for the sake of the class or would you play with the guy you know for long time and you know he good?

i would go with the last and as far as forums go, all i see from posts is that thieves are bottom tier, please prove me wrong

also don’t forget, that this game is not balanced around 10 ppl that are amazingly good at their class but around majority and in big picture thieves are a joke in many cases

Cynz.9437:

as far as thief requirement on team, please tell me the source where you got such idea… the reason why high ranked teams still play with a thief is simple: would you rather play with some random person you don’t know for the sake of the class or would you play with the guy you know for long time and you know he good?

i would go with the last and as far as forums go, all i see from posts is that thieves are bottom tier, please prove me wrong

also don’t forget, that this game is not balanced around 10 ppl that are amazingly good at their class but around majority and in big picture thieves are a joke in many cases

Ok, well don’t read forums to find out about class viability. I’m going based off of tournament results and personal experience with teams. Thieves are highly desirable on teams for the following major reasons:

1) Highest horizontal and z-axis mobility in game, very important in a game mode about point capture.
2) Fast kills on a called target, especially on ones that have used some of their cool downs in a teamfight.
3) Because of evasion and/or stealth, they can build full glass and extend and pressure the other team’s squishiest members without as much fear of counterpressure as other glass cannon builds.
4) Sleight of Hand stops Stability-covered resses, stomps, and res utilities.

A shatter Mesmer is the closest match for the Thief, but are somewhat outshined by Thief at the moment.

I like your sugestions. Good job. Hope Anet read adapt some of the sugestions.

You guys take this game too serious like if guild wars is a science.

Developers dont want problems.
They wont make big reworks at once.

I dont see the point of taking the game so serious.
Just enjoy it as far as you can and move on when you feel is the momment.
Peace