Guild Wars 2

I am making this post in PvP because I believe that the following skills are game breaking in specific situations, but only in PvP.

I will start with Ranger downed state.
Lick wounds.

This skill is fine, it is quite strong but not game-breaking by itself.The problem is caused when the Ranger used Lick wounds, and after that his pet dies.
A dead pet, that cannot be hit/stunned/control since it is invulnerable but can still heal his master on huge amounts.
This needs to be fixed,if the pet dies, it shall no longer be able to lick wounds.

Mesmer downed state.

The mesmer is not that hard to kill when is down,if you can find the real mesmer it should not be a problem.
The problem is created when a mesmer and any other proffesion get downed at the same time.
The mesmer can stack massive amounts of confusion(0.75s cast time for a 5 second duration) making the enemy completly useless.(with his auto attack on downed state)
You will just stop hitting if you want to survive more, but then, if you stop hitting you will be killed anyway.Confusions on downed state need to last a lot less.

Also the Phantasmal Rogue.
The only downed skill in-game that makes more damage than the most utilities and/or weapon skills.
This one skill can crit for up to 8k sometimes.
This is something like 10 seconds of attacking in downed state for all the other classes.

I’m staying in mesmer to talk about Moa Morph.
Moa is game breaking and I am going to explain this.
I know it is a skill that has been discussed a lot but we really need to look at some of it’s aspects.
It is a 10 seconds transform spell that affects enemy targets and gives them special abilities 1s cast time, 3 minutes of recharge.
The abilities are pretty useless and you can hardly even hit your target when you are in Moa, I suppose because you are not intented to hit at that time.
So you are given a Flee skill that will take you far away but it has been nerfed to 2 steps.
The thing about Moa is that there is no chance you break out of it.
No stun breakers will remove it, no skill will cleanse it and all you can do is use your 2 dodges to avoid some damage.
Once you have been hit by moa there is no way back. You are a toy for your enemy for the next 10 seconds.

Possible ways of avoiding Moa:

Dodge. We know that Moa has a unique casting effect, but when you are in a team fight and you have 3 mesmer clones(at least) you are not going to notice it anytime soon.

Block. You can block the moa spell, with aegis or a shield with block but a pro mesmer will interrupt his cast and wait a few seconds before casting it again on You.

Invulnerability. Again, invulnerability will not let moa hit you, but you either have to SEE the mesmer casting it, or the mesmer has to be dumb enough to cast moa while you are on your invulnerability.

Necromancer is the only proffesion without any invulnerability or block(My main is a necromancer and you will see why I am so bathurt.).

Let’s put all these aside and see talk about 2 more things.
Transformations and Pets in general.

Moa on Transformations
Moa will cancel ANY transformation you are on.Elementalists Tornado, Warrior’s Rampage, engineer’s Elixir X, necromancer’s plague or lich form and the list goes on, ALL transformations are canceled and have in mind that ALL transformations currently are Elite Skills.

Conclusion: Moa can even WASTE your elite, completly, it doesn’t even matter if you have stability on you.

Moa and Pets
Once your hero is transformed, any kind of pet will despawn.
From the ranger’s pet or the necromancer’s minions, even the elemental of elementalist, they will ALL despawn and will be on cooldown again.

What does this mean?
A mesmer with One skill(moa) can completly and utterly destroy a WHOLE build. That is the Minionmaster necro.
All of your minions will despawn, living you vulnerable to anything for 10 seconds, and once you are out of it, you will not be able to summon them for a looong looong time.
Does it sound fair or balanced? Not to me!

Go ahead and analyze more game breaking situations, I will write more a bit later(and it includes a lot of mesmer)

Tbh I think Moa is pretty underrated.

In 1v1s is definitely OP and I am pretty sure most mesmers will agree with that. For team fights however it is not as good as the other elites and that’s probably why Anet won’t nerf it. It’s still a great skill in team fights but there are better choices.

The only thing that really bothers me is that Moa has no counter. That should be changed imo. All the other elite skills have a counter, why not this one?

Imo mesmers have the best elite skills in the game but instead of nerfing them I would love to see a buff for pretty much all the other elite skills.

Eles are a good example for bad elites. Instead of the elite skill I would much rather have a 4th utility slot. That’s how bad they are imo and that’s what Anet should improve.

Elite skills are supposed to change the outcome of a fight but currently most professions don’t have really good elite skills.

Retaliation needs to be reworked. I’m tired of fighting people with near constant retal up and eating 20k+ retal every fight. It’s an ability that somehow manages to take less skill to use than heart seeker.

They should change it to charges that last 5-10 seconds each instead of stacking in duration and proccing on every hit. So, retal from a combo grants maybe 3 stacks of retal for 5 seconds, you would get procs on the first 3 times you’re hit during that 5 seconds.

I would like to see the option to turn a elite slot into 2 utility slots.

I would also like to add something about the lick wounds downed skill while underwater.

You need to have a very high DPS to take a ranger from downed to dead in water by yourself since there is no stomp, most classes don’t have that said dps making the ranger practically invincible as once the heal starts it won’t end till he’s back up.

This is particularly annoying in maps like Spirit watch where they can just go into the water and know that they won’t be killed.

Sorry for the pretty huge post but that was the point of the creation of the thread, to discuss game breaking skills/situations.

Indeed Moa is OP mostly on 1vs1, but they are not bad at all at team fights also.
Even in team fights you will find yourself doing 1vs1 plently of times.
There are people that roam, there are the bunkers holding points(also something that has to be looked at) and again , there are necromancers,
If you can use one skill to disable the bunker holding the point for 10 seconds, or take out the roamer,or even make an MM necro useless for the rest of the fight, shouldn’t we reconsider what this skill can actually do?

Anyway I am getting away from Moa for now to touch some other issues.

Stat tuning in SPvP.
I consider this a game breaking issue.

I know ANet wants to have “fix” stats in SPvP but don’t you think that with just ONE item giving stats, and a few runes you take away the possibilities for many good and viable builds?
The stats should be “fixed” indeed, but their allocation should be better.
Give us a chance to make better use of our stats without trapping us between the choice of 2 amulets.This will fix a lot of balancing issues also.

Invulnerability in general
I believe that the way Invulnerability is given to the player as it is right now, it’s gamebreaking.
Invulnerability of engineer(elixir S) and elementalists (mist form) have been nerfed to a point which can still be useful, but not overpowered.
Altho there are skills that grant you other “forms” of invulnerability.
These are Blurred Frenzy,Distortion , Obsidian Flesh .
Distortion comes with a cost of destroying all your clones for a 3 seconds invulnerability and a high cooldown so I do not consider that game breaking.
On the other hand, Blurred Frenzy and Obsidian Flesh are two very dangerous invulnerability skills.

Blurred frenzy is more or less, a 2 second invulnerability every 10(can get down to 8 ) seconds.If you move while channeling it the skill is canceled,but the actual access to invulnerability and the uptime you can keep in an actual fight is what I consider: Game breaking.

Obsidian Flesh, a 5 second instant and stun breaking invulnerability with a high cooldown of 50 seconds(can be reduced down to 40s).
The cooldown is pretty high, but you have a 5 second godly shield,nobody can touch you expect the conditions you Already have on you.
In these 5 seconds an elementalist can do miracles.
The problem with this skill ,as with invulnerabilities in general is the uptime.
Obsidian flesh needs it’s cooldown reduced as also the uptime of invulnerability.

Invulnerabilities in general need to:
Last only a few seconds, be hard to find(all classes need access to it) and not be spammable. 4 Proffesions have access to invulnerability at this point of the game out of the total 8. With 2 of these skills(mist form + elixir S) only used for defense and/or Finishes .

Stealth
Every mechanism in the game has a counter mechanism,except invulnerability and stealth.
It is normal for someone to not be able counter invulnerability, but not for stealth

We need a way to detect stealth, other than using all of our AoE with the hope to hit the stealthed foe.
At this point I would suggest one of the fields if combined with a “Blast” or “Whirl” to reveal players.
2 proffesions has easy access to stealth. Mesmers and Thieves. I won’t place engineer and ranger inside this list because their stealth is minimum to non-existing.

Stealth is the “invulnerability of thief”
A thief can pretty much use stealth to never die.
Access to stealth on the thief is not something that you will do in order to use a strategy or tactic so you can hit your enemy hard and avoid some fighting.
It is something, that most of the time lasts more than HALF of the fight.
The thief will start the combat with stealth, will hit you, stealth again, wait a bit, heal himself, hit you again, stealth himself again until he kills you or realizes that he can’t kill you, so he will just stealth himself again and leave.

I am not saying “Nerf stealth on thieves” etc.
But it has to be something that the thief will use for TACTICS and not to make a total invisible enemy. A way to detect stealth would solve this balancing issue without nerfing the thieves ability to stealth himself.

A bit more ^^

Boon stealing
Boon stealing has been added to the game and now thieves are a bunch of …. stealers …
Boon stealing is a good idea, if we can turn conditions into boons or send them to our enemy, someone should have the ability to steal boons also.

But I think it needs to be looked at..
A thief(like the mesmer with Moa) can use One skill, to pretty much cancel your Elite and/or whole build.
Might stacking builds are getting a kick in the face from boon stealing thieves, not only they make your build turn to dust, but they are also make the stealing thief pretty OP.
Transformations that grant long stability boons(20-30s) are a nice piece of cake for thieves.
I can’t be knocked down, I cannot be feared, I cannot even be dazed, but here comes a thief and sucks up my elite in a snap.

Game breakiiiing.

This new mechanism needs to be really looked up. I have nothing to suggest, because it does exactly what it should, steal boons, but in specific situations it is very, very game breaking.

I am staying on thief for a bit more to talk about his mobility.

Thief mobility in general
Thief is a damaging/tricky proffesion that will annoy his enemies and damage them while he is avoiding their damage.
If a the thief gets “caught” theeeen the end comes for him.
If you can manage and disable a thief he will not last more than your ice cream in sahara desert.
How easy is to catch a thief? “Not easy” could describe it? Nop.. If it was just “Not easy” to catch a thief then things would be OK.
Right now thieves can either be in almost infinite stealth, or keep blinding you, or keep teleporting/hopping back and forth for eternity.
Most of the time they do all of the above.

It is practically impossible to catch a thief that knows what to do.
He will keep himself stealthed, keep You blinded while he unleashes his damage, and if you try to attack him he will just jump around until he stealths again.
Seriously..at least give us a chance..

Plague Form
One of the necromancer’s scariest elites. Not because it makes you a black/green plague that will take over the world, but because the Necromancer can keep a whole team Poisoned + Blinded + Chilled for 30 seconds, while he has 4000 toughness and vitality WITH stability on.
In theory it is an invincible machine and you will need to keep a bleed stacking character out of his range in order to take him down.
With the recent change of boon stealing thief plague form has an other way to be countered, but pretty much anyone else will be pinned down by one skill , no matter the enemy numbers. My bunker necro can hold a capture point for more than 40 seconds even if the whole enemy team is attacking me.
Without plague form I would probably last something like 15 seconds maximum.

Game breaking, needs tuning , a bit on the negative side.

Vengeance

The third downed skill of the warrior.
Warriors have been hit a lot since the release and some of their aspects need boosting.
Vengeance is a fine skill, it can give you a second chance, I would say it is the strongest “3” downed skill but the whole concept is not overpowered.

What is overpowered with vengeance is the “Invulnerability” phase that takes place a few seconds after the skills usage.

On a “downed fight” VS a Warrior, the warrior will always win if he manages to use Vengeance, not because he gets to use his skills again, but because you won’t be able to damage/disable him for a few seconds later, so he can just come over you and finish you without any concern.

Invulnerability must be taken off from vengenance(it is actually much longer than the normal “Rally” invulnerability).

Eh.
A large blarb, but I don’t think that would fix the game for allot of people.

I mean, indeed, the only thing stupider than invulnerability is the amount of it in the game, uncounterable dmg mitigation gives just another divide between team fighting and skirmishing specs (nobody wants to be forced out of teamfights because their spec would be better at lol-backcapping or afk’ing at the back point)
But I think it can be something that can be coped with.
Just like the shoddily setup weapons.

Stealth needs changes. About 6 posts in, a spoiler about thieves. Yeah right now they are a mess and need ALLOT of help.
Anet kittened them up terribly when it comes to their base concepts.

Boons and boon stealing.
It’s too random to be taken seriosly.
Removing 1 boon at a time from a spec with 3-5 and only one of those worth stealing.
It’s not at all a good setup.

Plague form is fine.
Necros are in a bad spot and that’s one of the few reasons they can have a pretty viable stalling/group spec.
Vengeance, annoying but can be coped with.

Anyways, I listed a bit larger of issues (as I see it) in that thread I linked, the main thing seems to be tossing the trinity for nothing (there’s a reason its a staple of the genre…) and map then I just went into all the mediocrity that fills up the rest of the game…
GW2 is a just a bundle of issues, any way you look you could point some large thing out.

Like I didn’t even touch on queing and that has been devastating the game for months (and kind of still is).

natsos.3692:

d state.
Lick wounds.

This skill is fine, it is quite strong but not game-breaking by itself.The problem is caused when the Ranger used Lick wounds, and after that his pet dies.
A dead pet, that cannot be hit/stunned/control since it is invulnerable but can still heal his master on huge amounts.
This needs to be fixed,if the pet dies, it shall no longer be able to lick wounds.

You are wrong, and once again I need to pull out this old screenshot from one of the devs themselves. Talking about search and rescue here, but the same principle applies imho.

As I have said before, I am a necro myself, Plague Form is overpowered when it comes to bunkers and control effects, because of the constant poison and the ability to add chill on a constant blind.
It should be changed, thats risky because it could turn out to become useless, but it has perspective for being a useful elite, that will actually act as an “Elite” skill and not “Lol30SecondsBlind” skill.

Larcenous Strike steals 2 boons and has no cooldown, so stealing 5-6 boons from a guardian is not a problem. Thieves having no cooldowns is a pretty strange thing in general, it also causes issues like Chill having half use on them.

Reading some parts of your article about thieves I can’t say I agree much with your thoughts about them.

This game is very big, as most MMO games, so you can’t go all in with huge changes,but right now I feel that these little changes are in the wrong direction.

@OGDeadHead the way a developer sees this skill doesn’t mean that it is not game breaking.
And for me it is pretty nonsense also, a dead pet that will heal you for tremendous amounts and nothing can be done for this.
It’s like telling all rangers “Hey, send your pet there to die as soon as you are downed so you can ress yourself without issues” ..