Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying I love this newest patch, PvP has been revitalized and Anet should be proud of themselves for the work they’ve done. PvP has quickly come a long way and has brought many veteran and pve players to the field, and is more active than it’s ever been.

That said, I know it’s been beaten to death, but this Meta is probably one of the most un-entertaining we’ve had. Teams can run 5 Psudo-Bunkers with team support and heals and we have matches ending with 1 minute left on the scoreboard and bunkering down points for three and a half eternities.

Double sigil procs have all but shut down glasses from any class, furthering the bunker problem. And Celestial is so strong, it can be run on literally any character, including thief, to make obnoxious builds with require low skill and have high impact.

Bunkers run rampant, and surprisingly, the “Core” bunker, Guardian, has almost been pushed out of the meta.

That said, a few things need to be done for the health of the game in my humble opinion.

Celestial needs to be nerfed, when you give people 600 more stats than everyone else theres going to be some imbalance. The general concept makes sense, but we’re seeing full teams of celestial run around, and being successful at that.

Warriors signet regen needs to be lowered, other warrior heals need to be brought up in strength to bolster warriors massive hp pools (this was one of the only real issues with warriors from the start, massive hp pools, kitten poor heal skill with the inability to sustain it).

Realistically, all heal skills should be balanced towards the base hp of the class it’s associated with, it’s painfully obvious that many classes are not balanced around this concept. Heal as one is a great example for rangers, it does roughly 33% of the targets hp, which is terrible. This is why so many classes only have 1 “Real” heal skill they can use. That, and the insanely limited access to condition removal (usually only one skill per class clears conditions, which is beyond insane.) Not having a condi clear on a heal should be the exception, not the rule, and you should be gaining a powerful effect for giving up that condition clearing.

Sigils need to be rebalanced, again. With the ability to double stack sigils, stacking 2 of a kind has lead to some insanely cheesy and powerful setups. Giving proc sigils insanely high proc rates requires 0 investment into crit to achieve these highly powerful effects, allowing anyone to burst.

Nightmare Runes proc needs to be reworked.

Things like Sigil procs, incendiary powder, spinal shivers, etc. Need to be looked at reworking, the damge is undodgable, because the moment you actully are touched (regardless of how skillfuly you dodge or avoided most attacks) your instantly blown up with procs that require 0 effort or skill to execute.

Llamas, With Hats. – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVzaBq4ycWg Viewer Discretion is advised.

Players instantly dying from procs is terrible for the game for a number of reasons, especially for all of these brand new players that just got drawn into pvp, now instantly dying from a random auto attack that procced several crit effects and killed them with an autoattack. They have no idea how / why they died, or what’s even going on. This just leads to frustration and leads them to not play PvP. Not to mention it’s just poor design, and isn’t fun for anyone.

Balthazaar needs to be fixed. It’s inexcusable that 9 months after this has been acknowledge, balthazaar proc is still unblockable and undodgeable.

Grenades on Engi’s, need to have a minimum range requirement, bombs are for close proximity, nades are for throwing, not spamming at your feet and slaughtering everything around you without effort.

Thieves need to have executioner removed, and their base multiplier lowered, with an increase to base damage to compensate, and give thieves access to different build options. As it stands currently, Thieves have one option because of the poor balance, Running zerkers, or doing virtually no damage. (Consider that a class like warrior always has his HP regardless of his build, A thief sacrafices his hp for his, but has insanely low base damage and gains nothing in return besides skewed multipliers, which is why thieves always have to run berzerker, mathematically, they aren’t given any other option.) Unload needs to be significantly faster, having a channeled skill as the only source of damage on a medium ranged weapon is ludicrous on a super squishy target. Fix death blossom Fix death blossom Fix death blossom Fix death blossom Fix death blossom Fix death blossom Fix death blossom. And please, For the love of Llama kitten, Fix Death Blossom.

Rangers pets need an increase in their range so they can attack more consistently. It’s a core class mechanic, and still feels second class in quality.

Teleport bugs need to be corrected again. They broke after the recent patch, as they almost always do.

Utilities for every class need to be looked at individually, and buffed / nerfed accordingly. Less focus on builds, and more focus on the numbers and logic behind individual skills / utilities will allow us to have significantly more viable options, balance the utilities first, then

There are skills that have been laughable since launch, for no reason. We’re years into the game, it’s unacceptable that we still have skills on a kitten cd with 3 seconds of chill and no added effect taking up utility slot. (Ice drake venom). Things like this should not still exist 2 years after launch. It’s either stubbornness, or laziness. Venom Share thief has never been viable, stop it. Just make the skills legitimate and able to stand on their own without gimmicky builds required to make a utility worth any value, that’s terrible design.

Most of this stuff is low hanging fruit, that really isn’t complicated if it’s not over-thought, which will result in drastically improved balance, build options, enjoyment, and a better game and more flourishing community, and last but certainly not the least, Esports. Because half of this kitten makes it neigh impossible to shoutcast this game successfully.

Also /golfclap, Thank you for getting rid of the god kitten sharks. Now get rid of the god kitten hammer from competitive game types, no one is amused.

i’d agree with some of what you are saying.

min req for grenades – i would not be very opposed, but not for either. doesn’t melee out-dps even shotgun grenades?

i would not touch thief base init.
however, i would make sure interrupt costs something, either half of skill init cost, or 5 sec cooldown.
i wouldnt touch executioner. for grand trait it’s reasonable.

no way ranger pet range increase. enough with ai.

I personally like playing against executioner but I think guardian is the only class that can actually play around with their health due to their large amounts of quick healing effectively front-loading their EHP.

Sigil problem seems to be more of a problem with burst classes running fire and air. Personally I like running energy and intelligence on guardian, I think it adds some needed damage. I do not like having low percentage procs unless they use a chance based system like dota 2. In dota 2 after every non-proc your chance goes up to prevent lull of procs and after you proc you chance decreases to prevent super lucky periods, while maintaining the same effective % proc chance.

Nerf Condi bunkers like engineers and necros. Their damage is insane while having the toughness of a bunker. I think make rabid have as much toughness as zerker has vit, then give it some offensive second stat. Reduce the toughness on settlers as well to maybe current rabid amounts.

Take conditions out of auto attacks almost entirely and put them onto 2-5 skill, make it so condition classes must hit with their major skill like everyone else. Condis are a cool type of damage that has its place but it need to be more skill based in its application and have more counter-play.

My ideal game is where any class can beat another if they play correctly, and there are never any unending/unwinnable fight e.g. bunker guardian can eventually kill a bad condi warrior, engi can beat necro and theif can beat a good guardian.

Godlike points by a brilliant man. Listen to Steb, he is very knowledgeable. Steb numero uno.

gesho.9468:

no way ranger pet range increase. enough with ai.

+1

Ranger pet needs to be more reliable AND controllable.

Steb.2571:

And Celestial is so strong, it can be run on literally any character, including thief, to make obnoxious builds with require low skill and have high impact.

In terms of Competitive tPvP usage, Celestial is only getting play from D/D Eles, and Rifle & Nade Engineers. Warriors, Guardians, and P/D Thieves have a mediocre Celestial build, that usually produces a slightly unfavorable side-grade for tPvP usage. There is no Ranger, Mesmer, or Necro Celestial build that seems to have surfaced yet. I think Celestial is not over-performing. On Engineer, Rabid builds are often a lot more threatening, and EU Engineers commonly regard the Celestial build as straight up bad.

Steb.2571:

Bunkers run rampant, and surprisingly, the “Core” bunker, Guardian, has almost been pushed out of the meta.

So, care to play a competitive game without a Guardian? Yeah, me neither. You can’t put a value on the Stability, Healing, and Resolute Healer trait. They’re invaluable.

Steb.2571:

Things like Sigil procs, incendiary powder, spinal shivers, etc. Need to be looked at reworking, the damge is undodgable, because the moment you actully are touched (regardless of how skillfuly you dodge or avoided most attacks) your instantly blown up with procs that require 0 effort or skill to execute.

I only really notice that this is a problem in Lich Form. If Lich form had an attack that did 1 damage, when using this hypothetical attack on a squishy target below 50% hp: You get: Up to 7,200 Spinal Shivers (Chill of Death), up to 2,800 Air Strike, up to 1,800 Flame Blast = 11,800 free damage all procced at the same millisecond that an often 4-5k Deathly Claw will land. People are literally getting one-shot if the Deathly Claw pushes the 50% Mark.

I suggest that Transforms stop giving high increases to Power/Precision (increasing the base damage of skills to compensate), or suppress the usage of procs while active.

Other than these silly circumstances, I feel that Sigils have definitely added an increase in base damage, that’s fully effective by poking. It’s sure something else, but I don’t feel that it’s affecting the game in a very negative way.

Steb.2571:

Celestial needs to be nerfed, when you give people 2000 more stats than everyone else.

Ok this is a huge exaggeration. Celestial has a total of 3038 stats. Berserkers has 2340. Rabid has 2208.

That’s only 698 difference between celestial and berserkers. You can argue whether or not the gap is too much to compensate for celestial’s lack of specialization but the numbers you have here are plain wrong.

I think Celestial is fine. You lose a lot of specialization for the extra stats elsewhere. Celestial was terrible before the buff and no one used it. It got buffed up about 658 points from 2380 (including jewel).

isolatedchimp.2510:

Steb.2571:

Celestial needs to be nerfed, when you give people 2000 more stats than everyone else.

Ok this is a huge exaggeration. Celestial has a total of 3038 stats. Berserkers has 2340. Rabid has 2208.

That’s only 698 difference between celestial and berserkers. You can argue whether or not the gap is too much to compensate for celestial’s lack of specialization but the numbers you have here are plain wrong.

I think Celestial is fine. You lose a lot of specialization for the extra stats elsewhere. Celestial was terrible before the buff and no one used it. It got buffed up about 658 points from 2380 (including jewel).

Sorry, I was trying to exaggerate, I suppose I shouldn’t have (I sometimes forget sarcasm is impossible to convey properly in text. It has an additional 20-30% stat bonus depending on the amulet your comparing it to. It’s significant by any measure.

Edited to remove the unnecessary hyperbole from the OP.

Steb.2571:

Sorry, I was trying to exaggerate, I suppose I shouldn’t have (I sometimes forget sarcasm is impossible to convey properly in text. It has an additional 20-30% stat bonus depending on the amulet your comparing it to. It’s significant by any measure.

Edited to remove the unnecessary hyperbole from the OP.

I think the point is it’s not the amulet’s fault. As Chaith said, there’s only one top-tier celestial build, and a second pretty good one. That’s…hardly gamebreaking. If celestial eles are too over the top, adjust traits or skills, not the amulet.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Steb.2571:

Sorry, I was trying to exaggerate, I suppose I shouldn’t have (I sometimes forget sarcasm is impossible to convey properly in text. It has an additional 20-30% stat bonus depending on the amulet your comparing it to. It’s significant by any measure.

Edited to remove the unnecessary hyperbole from the OP.

I think the point is it’s not the amulet’s fault. As Chaith said, there’s only one top-tier celestial build, and a second pretty good one. That’s…hardly gamebreaking. If celestial eles are too over the top, adjust traits or skills, not the amulet.

There are at least 4 Celestial builds that are viable and run at top end.

Cancer Warrior (Triple Shout S+S / LB)
Celestial Engi, Self explanatory
Celestial Ele, Pretty much the only run build.
Celestial Spirit Ranger

All Four of which are over the top, with one thing in common, the amulet.

Steb.2571:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Steb.2571:

Sorry, I was trying to exaggerate, I suppose I shouldn’t have (I sometimes forget sarcasm is impossible to convey properly in text. It has an additional 20-30% stat bonus depending on the amulet your comparing it to. It’s significant by any measure.

Edited to remove the unnecessary hyperbole from the OP.

I think the point is it’s not the amulet’s fault. As Chaith said, there’s only one top-tier celestial build, and a second pretty good one. That’s…hardly gamebreaking. If celestial eles are too over the top, adjust traits or skills, not the amulet.

There are at least 4 Celestial builds that are viable and run at top end.

Cancer Warrior (Triple Shout S+S / LB)
Celestial Engi, Self explanatory
Celestial Ele, Pretty much the only run build.
Celestial Spirit Ranger

All Four of which are over the top, with one thing in common, the amulet.

condi war should use settler or rabid and have stability
engi and ele yes
spirit ranger? haven’t heard anyone say how celestial works on spirit ranger

Steb.2571:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Steb.2571:

Sorry, I was trying to exaggerate, I suppose I shouldn’t have (I sometimes forget sarcasm is impossible to convey properly in text. It has an additional 20-30% stat bonus depending on the amulet your comparing it to. It’s significant by any measure.

Edited to remove the unnecessary hyperbole from the OP.

I think the point is it’s not the amulet’s fault. As Chaith said, there’s only one top-tier celestial build, and a second pretty good one. That’s…hardly gamebreaking. If celestial eles are too over the top, adjust traits or skills, not the amulet.

There are at least 4 Celestial builds that are viable and run at top end.

Celestial Engi, Self explanatory

What alternatives do Elementalist have when they are screwed by Arenanet’s lack of foresight and thought into game balance.

There was not nearly enough talk about llamas in this thread. Disappointed.

I do agree that extra procs are a big problem for a lot of builds. For instance, S/D thief is really strong, and mostly relies on maintaining high evasion uptime and poking away until it gets a few lucky crits + procs to whittle you down. The necro example is another good one. Even when I play a spike build, just trying to get a few unavoidable procs for heavy burst is generally skill-less and detracts from the potential depth of the game. Big effects should be tied to big animations.

Also, as far as celestial goes – I feel the amulet is in a good place. Celestial ONLY works when you can might stack like crazy and make good usage of all the stats. If strength runes/battle sigils were brought more in-line (these are the problem), celestial builds would probably be more generally par for the course. I do think might stacking as a strategy is an o.k. thing, but it needs to be harder to do, imo.

alemfi.5107:

There was not nearly enough talk about llamas in this thread. Disappointed.

Seconded. Disappointed in that.

Decent post otherwise though.

Steb.2571:

There are at least 4 Celestial builds that are viable and run at top end.

Cancer Warrior (Triple Shout S+S / LB)

The “cancer” warrior ( … -_- ) performs less optimally when using the new celestial amulet. Settler’s amulet remains the top amulet for this build to achieve maximum survivability, damage pressure, and sustainability.

Celestial amulet works with the triple shout condition warrior in the vaguest of definitions.

zone.1073:

Steb.2571:

There are at least 4 Celestial builds that are viable and run at top end.

Cancer Warrior (Triple Shout S+S / LB)

The “cancer” warrior ( … -_- ) performs less optimally when using the new celestial amulet. Settler’s amulet remains the top amulet for this build to achieve maximum survivability, damage pressure, and sustainability.

Celestial amulet works with the triple shout condition warrior in the vaguest of definitions.

Yeah.. agree. Steb says:

Celestial needs to be nerfed, when you give people 600 more stats than everyone else theres going to be some imbalance. The general concept makes sense, but we’re seeing full teams of celestial run around, and being successful at that.

However, I’m not seeing more than 2 people using Celestial in a team ever. Engi and Ele are the only professions that get a new competitive build that’s unique, and not just straight up inferior to other options.

Celestial hambow is amazing. with strength runes = permanent might stacks the celestial hambow is the perfect combination of tanky + DPS. 2,100 power, 55% crit (most of the time), 200% crit damage, 3,100 armor, 24k health, 600 condition damage, 400 healing power. 2/0/6/0/6 with sigils of purity, energy, doom, and battle, all proc’ing about every 10 seconds.

the direct damage is very solid. bursts doing +7% damage from burst mastery, +7% from runes, +might stacks, +bonus damage from merciless hammer, +good crits

the condition damage is also solid. longbow burns and bleeds doing significant condition damage while arcing arrow does big direct damage and blasts even more might for you.

the healing power adds sustain from heal signet and adrenal health and dogged march.

great CC from low CD stuns, knockbacks, and immobilize.

Solstice.1097:

Celestial hambow is amazing. with strength runes = permanent might stacks the celestial hambow is the perfect combination of tanky + DPS. 2,100 power, 55% crit (most of the time), 200% crit damage, 3,100 armor, 24k health, 600 condition damage, 400 healing power. 2/0/6/0/6 with sigils of purity, energy, doom, and battle, all proc’ing about every 10 seconds.

:balance:
:sigh:

The best first step for this meta is to remove rune of strength from PvP. That will help with the bunker meta. Right now they can run that rune and still do a good amount of damage even though they are so defensive.

Next up is to reduce the condi spam.

The only problem I see with the ’’fixing’’ of proc crit sigils and stenght runes is that it will be impossible to take down a pure bunker without those things.

If the damage output became crap then bunker banner warriors , turret engis and MM necros would be all over the place .

You can already tank quite well 2v1 with a bunker build imagine if proc sigils and all the might stacks were gone. Those bunkers would be able to handle 3v1.

Not sure what really can be done to push thief out of berserker, but removing executioner is not something I’m voting for… As for celestial, the strength runes / sigils are the real problem here. Celestial is doing great because of the possibility for stacking might, and a lot of it too.

For Anet to have any chance in making this an esport they have to get rid of AI and all the passive procs. There’s no skill in running full spirit or minion master. There’s definitely no skill in having different conditions applied when struck…

Anet need to start promote skillful play. Something that’s interesting to watch instead of having 10 bunkers slapping each other with wet noodles.

Lich necro coming off re-spawn wiped mid 4v1, in yolo que. Check out the image to see how much damage he did to my bunker warrior with 1 attack. Not sure any class should be able to hit that hard ever. What would be point of any other glass class when 1 player could wipe mid solo. I know there are counter’s but say your Yolo and you don’t have any counters.

http://i.imgur.com/F0roSEH.jpg

I don’t play warrior I just wanted to see how they bunker and team support as a bunker.

Steb.2571:

Grenades on Engi’s, need to have a minimum range requirement, bombs are for close proximity, nades are for throwing, not spamming at your feet and slaughtering everything around you without effort.

This would remove all builds with grenades we have. But if you add a minimum range to grenades, please add a minimum range to bows as well. Same argument.

Steb.2571:

Balthazaar needs to be fixed. It’s inexcusable that 9 months after this has been acknowledge, balthazaar proc is still unblockable and undodgeable.

Patch nodes from today:
Rune of Balthazar: Fixed a bug on the 6-piece bonus that caused the burning effect to go through blocks and evades.

Lupanic.6502:

Steb.2571:

Balthazaar needs to be fixed. It’s inexcusable that 9 months after this has been acknowledge, balthazaar proc is still unblockable and undodgeable.

Patch nodes from today:
Rune of Balthazar: Fixed a bug on the 6-piece bonus that caused the burning effect to go through blocks and evades.

Splendid, one down.

“… Celestial is so strong, it can be run on literally any character, including thief, to make obnoxious builds "

followed by;

“..As it stands currently, Thieves have one option because of the poor balance, Running zerkers, or doing virtually no damage.”

I am respecting what you’re saying, and how you’re currently see the meta,but didn’t you just contradict yourself with these two statements?

“Rangers pets need an increase in their range so they can attack more consistently. It’s a core class mechanic, and still feels second class in quality.”

Ranger pets can continue to attack you on mid when the ranger is on home. There is no range farther than that. To sic a pet onto a player that can now allow it to follow from home node to far is the paramount of Obnoxious builds. If anything pet skills need to be disabled when the ranger is downed. Lick wounds and stun is enough. No other profession can still utilize their f1 abilities, or do it through a 3rd person mechanism that is still delivering damage outside of their downed skills. I feel a lot of the community already believes ranger pet leash lengths are already over extensive. If 1500 units is the maximum range a weapon can attack at with traiting, then there is no legitimate reason ranger pets should go beyond this either. This only denies fair competition, which is what you seem to wanting. Range is its own defense inherently. If you can attack them at range, and they are melee you can hit them, while they can’t hit you. If long range goes against short range, long range has the advantage again. If long range goes against long range, then there is no advantage or disadvantage . This is exactly why pets need their range limited more than what they currently do. It allows for aspects of the rangers damage and control to be delivered before your target can even get into minimum long range distance. Which as the simple example above shows a clear advantage. The easy answer to this for melee is gap closers, which as you have also kindly stated are 50/50 at best and rush/leap skills have had multiple complaints since release. Effectively you have shown the flaw in this argument. This alone highlights why pet ranges need no more range, but in fact less. It means the ranger and pet both have to be in striking range and the ranger has to have full control of the pet and not the ability to simply sic. Which your article seems to favour the idea that players have to have full control of their build and not relay on automatic procs/passive effects and in this case, over far fetched AI pet range.

Sol.4310:

Lich necro coming off re-spawn wiped mid 4v1, in yolo que.

Well you should all stop afking in the middle of the match. lol.

Welcome to power-creep!

Looks like engi was kicked out of meta in EU. Watched the ESL cups and only 1 engi in all the games and the team lost with the engi. In ToL EU and NA very few engis left.

Power/bunker meta is not good for engis :/

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

“… Celestial is so strong, it can be run on literally any character, including thief, to make obnoxious builds "

followed by;

“..As it stands currently, Thieves have one option because of the poor balance, Running zerkers, or doing virtually no damage.”

I am respecting what you’re saying, and how you’re currently see the meta,but didn’t you just contradict yourself with these two statements?

“Rangers pets need an increase in their range so they can attack more consistently. It’s a core class mechanic, and still feels second class in quality.”

Celestial is the exception that proves both rules, they can run it with p/d successfully. Outside of this recent change, the statement still stands true, that since the dawn of time, thief has zerker, and that’s it. It’s the base math associated with thief and the damage multipliers their given that force them into this.

isolatedchimp.2510:

Steb.2571:

Celestial needs to be nerfed, when you give people 2000 more stats than everyone else.

Ok this is a huge exaggeration. Celestial has a total of 3038 stats. Berserkers has 2340. Rabid has 2208.

That’s only 698 difference between celestial and berserkers. You can argue whether or not the gap is too much to compensate for celestial’s lack of specialization but the numbers you have here are plain wrong.

I think Celestial is fine. You lose a lot of specialization for the extra stats elsewhere. Celestial was terrible before the buff and no one used it. It got buffed up about 658 points from 2380 (including jewel).

People seem to swear by celestials but I tried it on my Ele and was not impressed. Not enough damage to kill anything effectively, and not enough vit/tough to outlast anyone. I go Soldier’s instead and kill effectively while still having some sustainable HP. Not critting sucks, though.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

“… Celestial is so strong, it can be run on literally any character, including thief, to make obnoxious builds "

followed by;

“..As it stands currently, Thieves have one option because of the poor balance, Running zerkers, or doing virtually no damage.”

I am respecting what you’re saying, and how you’re currently see the meta,but didn’t you just contradict yourself with these two statements?

“Rangers pets need an increase in their range so they can attack more consistently. It’s a core class mechanic, and still feels second class in quality.”

Ranger pets can continue to attack you on mid when the ranger is on home. There is no range farther than that. To sic a pet onto a player that can now allow it to follow from home node to far is the paramount of Obnoxious builds. If anything pet skills need to be disabled when the ranger is downed. Lick wounds and stun is enough. No other profession can still utilize their f1 abilities, or do it through a 3rd person mechanism that is still delivering damage outside of their downed skills. I feel a lot of the community already believes ranger pet leash lengths are already over extensive. If 1500 units is the maximum range a weapon can attack at with traiting, then there is no legitimate reason ranger pets should go beyond this either. This only denies fair competition, which is what you seem to wanting. Range is its own defense inherently. If you can attack them at range, and they are melee you can hit them, while they can’t hit you. If long range goes against short range, long range has the advantage again. If long range goes against long range, then there is no advantage or disadvantage . This is exactly why pets need their range limited more than what they currently do. It allows for aspects of the rangers damage and control to be delivered before your target can even get into minimum long range distance. Which as the simple example above shows a clear advantage. The easy answer to this for melee is gap closers, which as you have also kindly stated are 50/50 at best and rush/leap skills have had multiple complaints since release. Effectively you have shown the flaw in this argument. This alone highlights why pet ranges need no more range, but in fact less. It means the ranger and pet both have to be in striking range and the ranger has to have full control of the pet and not the ability to simply sic. Which your article seems to favour the idea that players have to have full control of their build and not relay on automatic procs/passive effects and in this case, over far fetched AI pet range.

Limiting pet range any further, even if it was pvp specific, would utterly destroy the pet mechanic. It may not be obvious, but the “if within range” check performed by the servers before attacks is seriously slow whrn it comes to pets. It is not uncommon to have pets get “out of range” errors even at 1200 range.
There is no map in existence that is small anough for pet leash to reach far frome jome point.
If the ranger isnt running bm, then the pet will barely be a nuisance to anyone it chases. Ifthe ranger is running bm, then he basically sent away 60% of his dps potential, in addition to utilities and cc that aso comes with pets.

@Geiir
AI mustn’t be removed, that would only cripple the game. It must be improved so that it cannot be very effective on its own, but with proper player management it will be a force to be reckoned with. I do love my ranger, i love bm builds, but i recognise that there must be given more control over the pet.

Personally, all pets, be it ranger pet, ranger spirits, guardian spirit weapons, ele elementals, mesmer clones or necro minions should have a rudimentary control system that could be put on F5 to F8. Giving you basic controls similar to ranger pet control. Ie: attack, retreat, utility 1 and utility 2.

Ranger pets should have their controls extended to 3 pet attacks, only 2 AI based skills should be AA and a autoheal w/evasion that triggers at 30% pet health and heals pet for 20% of max hp. Similar system is used by all guards in wvw.

Guardians pushed out of meta?

Never. That class alone is responsible for the entire bunker-meta in the first place and turns all team-mates into immortal heroes as soon as it joins a fight.

I agree that this is probably the kittentiest and lamest meta we’ve ever had dominated by low-risk/high reward builds with perma Protection, Vigor and Regeneration that simply refuse to die.

Dee Jay.2460:

Guardians pushed out of meta?

Never. That class alone is responsible for the entire bunker-meta in the first place and turns all team-mates into immortal heroes as soon as it joins a fight.

I agree that this is probably the kittentiest and lamest meta we’ve ever had dominated by low-risk/high reward builds with perma Protection, Vigor and Regeneration that simply refuse to die.

You might as well just say Engi. It’s a shame, when I used to play that class all the time it felt so much more challenging. Now, it seems like half of the sustain is automated and the only thing I have to do is use my heal and the block on the Tool Kit.

I agree with some of what you said, but this specific point should be their top priority:

Utilities for every class need to be looked at individually … utilities will allow us to have significantly more viable options, balance the utilities first, then

One of the biggest issues holding back most classes are utility skills that only become viable when traited.

Looking at Guardian and Mesmer utility skills, nearly all of them are useful on their own; and they should be the model example for all other profession’s utility skills. Sure, some utility skills may be better than others depending on your build, but those two profession’s skills are all moderately useful regardless of build. The mesmer’s Arcane Thievery may not be that useful to your build if you’re focusing on using primarily glamour skills and traits, but it’s still effective even when untraited and is useful in any Mesmer build. Same goes for the Guardian’s concentration skills; they might not be optimal depending on your build, but they are all still useful when untraited.

Contrast that with Thief and especially Ranger utility skills: most of them need to be traited to be viable. Most thieves are not going to take venom skills without at least 1 venom related trait, and no rangers are going to take “Guard” without the Grandmaster “Nature’s Voice” trait, which removes those skills as a utility option in nearly all builds.

Requiring utility skills to be traited to be viable hurts build options immensely. Utility skills need to be more universally viable without traits.

The current “meta” has accessible counters that already exist so it will shift on its own. I foresee celestial amulets and strength runes becoming a bigger part of the meta than the already are in the near future. teams of full guard/war/ranger/thf/ele all running celestial + strength.

Roy.7405:

I agree with some of what you said, but this specific point should be their top priority:

Utilities for every class need to be looked at individually … utilities will allow us to have significantly more viable options, balance the utilities first, then

One of the biggest issues holding back most classes are utility skills that only become viable when traited.

Looking at Guardian and Mesmer utility skills, nearly all of them are useful on their own; and they should be the model example for all other profession’s utility skills. Sure, some utility skills may be better than others depending on your build, but those two profession’s skills are all moderately useful regardless of build. The mesmer’s Arcane Thievery may not be that useful to your build if you’re focusing on using primarily glamour skills and traits, but it’s still effective even when untraited and is useful in any Mesmer build. Same goes for the Guardian’s concentration skills; they might not be optimal depending on your build, but they are all still useful when untraited.

Contrast that with Thief and especially Ranger utility skills: most of them need to be traited to be viable. Most thieves are not going to take venom skills without at least 1 venom related trait, and no rangers are going to take “Guard” without the Grandmaster “Nature’s Voice” trait, which removes those skills as a utility option in nearly all builds.

Requiring utility skills to be traited to be viable hurts build options immensely. Utility skills need to be more universally viable without traits.

agreed. Not to mention some utility skills, no matter the traits, this goes for several classes, simply cannot stand up to other utilities, even when the other utility is untraited and therefore slightly rubbish.

BurrTheKing.8571:

You might as well just say Engi. It’s a shame, when I used to play that class all the time it felt so much more challenging. Now, it seems like half of the sustain is automated and the only thing I have to do is use my heal and the block on the Tool Kit.

What specifically changed about engineers that you don’t like?