Guild Wars 2

Has ANYONE on the dev team played an actual pvp match with Elementalist WITHOUT celestial amulet? Because that’s the only thing that keeps them from exploding. And thieves are even getting damage buffs, the No. 1 ele killer.

After factoring in the changes to the professions, these proposed changes are not heavy-handed. No, this is dropping a semi-truck on those that need a slap.

Please hold off on these amulet/rune/sigil changes until after the season is complete and the profession balance changes have had a chance to shake out. In your zeal to curb bunkers, instead of hitting them with the nerf bat, you instead dropped the nerf nuke on them.

It was fun while it lasted.

sure will be impactful….. I kinda like it, just take that sledgehammer and bash this meta to bits! ^^

The amount of crying in this thread is lovely. Finally, the bunker/condi bs is hopefully gonna stop being so dominant and we get a faster game again.

Nina.4317:

Need:

1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Toughness
560 Healing Power

This, I’ll wait to experience and know all the changes before further comments. Ele could never be the same

Mercenary’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

isn’t this close to dire stats but with an extra kick? whats going to happen is condi builds will run this and be able to tank hits yet still put out high condi damage. That’s one of the biggest complaints in the past about dire condi pu mesmers builds in wvw.. Yea I know this isn’t wvw forums but I do pvp sometimes and see this as being the new amulet for tanky condi builds. I’ve messed with dire on necro, thief and mesmer and they all get hated on equally lol

I want those stats in Pve, Please add them

Mercenary’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

Sage’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Healing Power
560 Vitality

Paladin’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Precision
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

Mender’s Amulet
1050 Power
1050 Healing Power
560 Precision
560 Vitality

Sagat.3285:

Nina.4317:

Need:

1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Toughness
560 Healing Power

This, I’ll wait to experience and know all the changes before further comments. Ele could never be the same

Ele defense is utterly useless without at least ~500 vitality, toughness and healing power.

Removal of celestial without adding an amulet with power/crit/ferocity/toughness/vitality/healingpower makes ele unplayable.

oh kitten, anet wvw balance team moved to spvp balance team

Hammerguard.9834:

OMG Mender’s is my dream amulet.

Ikr?

Honestly, the suggested changes are outrageously bad. If you nerf bunkers there will be 1-3s kills everywhere again.
Better start with nerfing all AOEs, amount of cc and remove minions/pets.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Sagat.3285:

Nina.4317:

Need:

1050 Power
1050 Condition
560 Toughness
560 Healing Power

This, I’ll wait to experience and know all the changes before further comments. Ele could never be the same

Ele defense is utterly useless without at least ~500 vitality, toughness and healing power.

Removal of celestial without adding an amulet with power/crit/ferocity/toughness/vitality/healingpower makes ele unplayable.

It’s too early but I predict the struggle as well eles goes hand to hand with cele at least necro has shroud for HP. He did claim those are not irreversible changes.

Malediktus.9250:

Honestly, the suggested changes are outrageously bad. If you nerf bunkers there will be 1-3s kills everywhere again.
Better start with nerfing all AOEs, amount of cc and remove minions/pets.

Ferocity buff gonna be OP? PogChamp

Lythoc.6307:

The amount of crying in this thread is lovely. Finally, the bunker/condi bs is hopefully gonna stop being so dominant and we get a faster game again.

Don’t be so happy, remember what happened last time? Shatter mesmer was running around popping people like zits from stealth. Now that we have AOE insta death rings, no defense and reduced dodging it will become a spam fest. Skill ceiling will be even lower.

Are all the ppl up in arms about these changes oblivious to the fact that these are base changes to the core of PvP and that huge profession balance (which we have no clue of so far) are, most likely, being taken into account with these changes. They want to get back to exciting gameplay and ‘purity of purpose’ among the professions, builds, and roles.

I think some sneak peaks into their plans of, as recently stated in blog post, ‘changes to professions to have a more unique feel and play style among them’, would alleviate a lot of this. This was obviously eluded to when they referred to there idea of Thief returning to that high damage assassin that should always be in the back of your mind as you play. Surely this will apply to other professions too.

These changes all seem reasonable, with the understanding that this is only half of their strategy moving forward with balance (and I repeat this thread is to change the foundation of PvP as a whole) and there is still another half to their balance ideas moving forward (ie. prefession/trait/skill balance.)

So these ‘X profession is now useless’ and ‘this ruins so many builds’ comments are kneejerk and hold no merit. If anything, I see this opening up more builds if anything as now we won’t have so many homoginized/generalized builds and team comps could be more varied than ever.

Just trying to stay positive here really, but let’s wait to see the other half before freaking out folks.

Honestly, the more I think about all these changes the more I love them.

Good riddance to Celestial Amulet, it will not be missed by me.

Cele gone is OK. But ne new power/condi/tough/vit amulet is dangerous like hell.
Necro buffs also. I feel necro will pick this amulet and rip apart evrything. Possible 4 Necro teams incoming …. My first impression is Necro gets totaly OP while Ele is dumped in the sewers.

Josh Davis.6015:

…if we identify a change that isn’t accomplishing our goals we’ll have time to address it before the season begins.

Definitively the most important sentence of your post.

About the changes, the only I want is ENJOY the PvP, a place where I can pass time and relax. Not a place making me feel ANGRY with unfair losses, unkillable people, or people that kill you with 2 or 3 skills without any effort or skill (experience), etc.

Well they haven’t removed Wanderer’s or Rabid so as a condi necro I could care less about the QQ in this thread.

No soldiers? Really? Like I get settlers and sentinel even cele but soldiers? I’m so confused. The new amulets are a little scary that they may become meta but we’ll have to see. At least we won’t have bunkers and I can watch games without passing out

CodeHavoc.7926:

Well they haven’t removed Wanderer’s or Rabid so as a condi necro I could care less about the QQ in this thread.

It is ‘I could NOT care less’. If you could care less, it means you care. And you really need to think about the overall balance of the game.

Tman.6349:

Are all the ppl up in arms about these changes oblivious to the fact that these are base changes to the core of PvP and that huge profession balance (which we have no clue of so far)

But we already know 100% of the balance changes from the “preview”. Remember, 100% of the time when Anet previews stuff, those were 100% of the changes.

So will I be getting my gold back for unlocking the stuff you remove now?

Amaris.9135:

So will I be getting my gold back for unlocking the stuff you remove now?

This thread would be half as many pages of people read the two red posts on the front page…

Josh Davis.6015:

Bradley.8520:

do i get my money back for buying the runes/amulets?

Any sigil/rune/amulet you purchased you’ll get refunded for. The new amulets we’re adding will be free since we’re removing a number of other core amulets.

Josh Davis.6015:

Bradley.8520:

do i get my money back for buying the runes/amulets?

Any sigil/rune/amulet you purchased you’ll get refunded for. The new amulets we’re adding will be free since we’re removing a number of other core amulets.

Frenk.5917:

The sigil of Energy nerf is extreme, to say the least: Sigil of Energy currently grants 50 endurance which is 50% of the total endurance.

Vigor is a 50% buff to endurance regeneration, which happens to be at 5% per second. This means that having vigor is equal to a 2.5% extra endurance gain, since 5% * 1.5 = 7.5%, and 7.5% – 5% = 2.5%.
The new Sigil of Energy grants 7s of Vigor, which means that the new energy gain is 2.5% * 7 = 17.5%, which is 17.5 endurance.

Current sigil of Energy awards 50 endurance instantly
Post-nerf sigil of Energy awards 17.5 endurance in 7 seconds.

Please, just nerf the endurance amount from 50 to 25 and call it a day. The new Sigil of Energy is extremely underperfoming with respect to the current Sigil of Energy.

Actually it’s only 5 seconds of vigor, so it’s 12.5% over 5 seconds, as I and someone else noted. I was mad at first, still am, but now I am also laughing at how ridiculous this is.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Sigil of energy nerf severely harms shatter Mesmer, a glass cannon losing clone generation seems an odd fix if you want faster matches…. Explain?

I completely agree. Because power and condi shatter mesmers were what everyone has been complaining about, and they need to be nerfed, am I right? (sarcasm)

Not only that, but dueling already gives ~100% vigor uptime, so this sigil will be completely useless on any shatter mesmer that uses dueling.

So basically the only class where dodge-spamming is really an issue, daredevil, will still be able to abuse that mechanic, while the classes with limited sources of endurance are getting the shaft. As for auramancer tempest and bunker chrono, they are both getting nerfed with the removal of celestial amulet and the huge nerf to well of precognition, as well as possibly by the change to diamond skin (yet to be seen how effective this is, though I think it might help). I still don’t see why it’s necessary to kill this popular sigil.

Hooglese.4860:

No soldiers? Really? Like I get settlers and sentinel even cele but soldiers? I’m so confused. The new amulets are a little scary that they may become meta but we’ll have to see. At least we won’t have bunkers and I can watch games without passing out

Sentinel is out too. They didn’t say anything about Barbarian amulet, but I imagine Paladin’s will be a superior choice anyway.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’re also removing the following amulets:

• Soldier’s
• Settler’s
• Celestial
• Sentinel

/discuss

PS, gold for purchases runes/amulets will be refunded, and the newly added amulets will be free.

Concerning cele amulet:
All classes except ele have viable builds w/o cele. So obviously you need to buff ele or they will die in a second. You could do this in the following ways:
A) Increase the ele’s base health and toughness
B) Change mistform into basically signet of stone. Currently its only function is to delay incoming damage while not returning any pressure.
C) Buffing the ele’s damage (which could only be done by making sPvP different from PvE again)
D) Give the ele a ton of teleports
E) Do nothing and people won’t play the class anymore.

I really hope this helps. Please give Anet constructive feedback on HOW they should buff ele.

Removing Settler’s? Is there actually a good reason for this? I’m guessing to reduce bunkers being hard to kill, but could you at least have a something like Sage’s but with toughness instead of vit?

If anyone thought a class like warrior was unplayable these past 2 months, wait until elementalists have to play without celestial amulet.

Seigfried.5938:

If anyone thought a class like warrior was unplayable these past 2 months, wait until elementalists have to play without celestial amulet.

As an ele myself I’ve had to go through a whole year of being useless in pvp until they added celestial amulet.

The class needs major work and they aren’t investing time in it. Even the Scepter overhaul is just a lame change to a useless skill. Warhorn is beyond useless and they aren’t even improving 1 skill.

Actually I’m almost glad about this, just makes me more convinced about the fact this game is crumbling down instead of improving and that I was right to leave until the WvW overhaul is released.

Amulets are fine for almost 3 years. HoT hits everyone uses new stuff exclusively. Everyone is incredibly tanky. Remove tanky amulets. Infallible logic…

The problem is elite specs (and revenant) which HoT added, not any of the amulets being removed. And instead of making up a ton of new combos, just break the amulets into multiple items already. 4 stat amulets are contributing to power creep as well.

Out of the ones being removed, you could argue for a shave on celestial, but the real problem is lack of stat customization and needing more than 3 or 4 stats to be well-rounded.

Dark Blue.4530:

Removing Settler’s? Is there actually a good reason for this? I’m guessing to reduce bunkers being hard to kill, but could you at least have a something like Sage’s but with toughness instead of vit?

Well there was a nice troll build for ranger: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAnY8fjEqQNL2yCWsAVLW4EMn/2A4wB3Svp90mhVfLAUyzSD-TpRAwAdOCAGOBAsLDE4gAYb/BAPAAA

Basically permaregen and 5% damage reduction + protection when health above 90%.
It is Gladomer’s build and it is “not fun to fight against”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh1kb_9BjZY Just a funny video of a thief trying to kill this thing.

Exedore.6320:

Out of the ones being removed, you could argue for a shave on celestial, but the real problem is lack of stat customization and needing more than 3 or 4 stats to be well-rounded.

The original developers of Guild Wars 2 understood this, which is why you used to be able to get points from the trait lines. The new developers that took over ruined all the work of the original developers since they came up with the “new trait system” that completely destroyed build diversity, and are trying to fix their crappier system ever since.

Usually its 2 step forward 1 step back, but in the case of the new trait system it’s been 1 step forward and 10 steps back. Unless they completely change the trait system back again of offer amulets that let you spend points (like you used to be able to with traits) it will never get better.

So… ANet’s response to the bunker meta they created is… to remove the bunkers? You’re removing an entire role from your only competitive game mode? You’re going to shift the core of the game’s mechanics and game play in order to accommodate your overturned elite specs, which are getting nuked and not just nerfed?

All this is going to accomplish is to send the balance pendulum swinging wildly in the other direction. None of this will improve the game play. It will simply create a whole new batch of problems.

L2ProblemSolve, ANet.

Why can’t we just pick the 4 stats we want, and just make it so that at least two of those are offensive stats? (since they don’t want any full bunker amulets)

Hi josh ,

I personnaly think adding these new amulets was a good choice. These changes promote a more offencive gameplay. (@ least on paper)

I think the settler’s and soldier’s amulets should be changed into 4 stat amulets but in a more offencive way to prevent Super tanky bruisers :

Soldier could become something like :

1050 Power
1050 Ferocity
560 Toughness
560 Vitality

Settler’s :

1050 Precision
1050 Condition
560 Healing Power
560 Toughness

I think celestial amulets is fine but it has over 700 stat points compared to 4 stats amulets celestial amulet should look like this to be on par with the other amulets :

+460 Precision
+460 Power
+460 Ferocity
+460 Vitality
+460 Toughness
+460 Healing Power
+460 Condition Damage

And finaly 3 stats amulets lack 220 stat points and should be given these 220 stat points.

I think Dire / Trailblazer like stats should be removed in all game modes since condition damage doesn’t drop a lot when it lose a complementary offencive stat.

Sentinell stats are fine to me since they give a lot of tankyness but not alot of durability ; low damage (maybe replace power with precision to reduce damage even more) and since slow/quickness don’t affect stomp/rez anymore i don’t see how this stat combination could be abused. And finaly i think all stats should have the same names across all game modes (ex: wanderer in pvp isn’t the same than in pve … WTF ?!)

(ministrel and other pure tank/support amulets are fine but should never been introduced into Spvp)

Impact.2780:

I don’t think Soldier’s should be removed. It has been a part of many non-game-breaking builds in previous metas, indicating that it is not a problem. The same could be said of celestial, although a lot of players direct hate toward it. I just think the removal of celestial will really hurt elementalist/tempest, which only seems to be viable in a support role as it is. I’m not sure removing Celestial is a good idea; it might be better to tone down the problematic builds that use it, instead.

Settler’s, I’m in two minds on. There have never been any good builds from it, game-breaking or otherwise, so it’s not problematic in that regard. However, I have seen many players think they are being useful by running it in a build when they are really just being extremely ineffective, but refusing to listen to anyone attempting to help them see why. So with that in mind, removing it could be of some benefit, while keeping it will be of no foreseeable benefit, so I suppose it’s logical to remove it.

Sentinels is just bad for PvP, for the same point about Settler’s and bringing about ineffective builds that the user thinks is strong, and more. I agree with removing it.

I can assure you that it makes things stupid tanky. Try to kill a zoo necro as a warrior full zerker even. They can just stand there and rotate their shrouds and just outlive you most of the time. Yes, by STANDING there. This includes 100b, all burst skills, 25 might due to pets… etc.

I will enjoy this fix very much.
More skill > build/numbers, plz.

Arenanet please think about this:

Celestial has 7 stats on top of having more overall stats, with it removed we only have 3 stat and 4 stat amulets. Please also put in some 5 stat amulets at least, so we have more ability to fine tune stats. Something like:

1050 Power
560 Precision
560 Ferocity
560 Vitality
560 Toughness

Or even a 6 stat amulet:

1050 Power
480 Precision
480 Ferocity
560 Condition Damage
560 Vitality
480 Toughness

Krittz.6013:

Impact.2780:

I don’t think Soldier’s should be removed. It has been a part of many non-game-breaking builds in previous metas, indicating that it is not a problem. The same could be said of celestial, although a lot of players direct hate toward it. I just think the removal of celestial will really hurt elementalist/tempest, which only seems to be viable in a support role as it is. I’m not sure removing Celestial is a good idea; it might be better to tone down the problematic builds that use it, instead.

Settler’s, I’m in two minds on. There have never been any good builds from it, game-breaking or otherwise, so it’s not problematic in that regard. However, I have seen many players think they are being useful by running it in a build when they are really just being extremely ineffective, but refusing to listen to anyone attempting to help them see why. So with that in mind, removing it could be of some benefit, while keeping it will be of no foreseeable benefit, so I suppose it’s logical to remove it.

Sentinels is just bad for PvP, for the same point about Settler’s and bringing about ineffective builds that the user thinks is strong, and more. I agree with removing it.

I can assure you that it makes things stupid tanky. Try to kill a zoo necro as a warrior full zerker even. They can just stand there and rotate their shrouds and just outlive you most of the time. Yes, by STANDING there. This includes 100b, all burst skills, 25 might due to pets… etc.

I will enjoy this fix very much.
More skill > build/numbers, plz.

Are you sure you were in Zerker amulet and not Magi’s or Sentinals? MM Necro, even in Soldiers amulet, is nowhere close to that tanky.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Are you sure you were in Zerker amulet and not Magi’s or Sentinals? MM Necro, even in Soldiers amulet, is nowhere close to that tanky.

Nope, they had soldiers and I was full zerker ammy.
I was also running Str, Arms, and Disc.
Warrior dmg is a joke anyways, but I still try. :P
(100 feathers)

You underestimate the power of a necro’s shroud. :P

Josh Davis.6015:

/discuss

PS, gold for purchases runes/amulets will be refunded, and the newly added amulets will be free.

Hi Josh,

Thoughts:

1.) Thank you for refunding gold to players. I suspect someone inside the company fought to win this for players and I commend the effort.

2.) Why did it take a Ranked PvP season for ArenaNet’s developers to figure out that certain mods created such unbalance in the game. In the weeks following HoT’s launch prior to the new ranked season starting these problems had already become obvious to those of us participating in PvP daily. I feel certain ArenaNet employees also knew this was a problem so why was a decision made to proceed forward with a ranked season knowing the impact? I stopped taking the ranked season seriously early December when I decided I would not allow a horribly unbalanced meta to suck me in overt he holidays, but many players have continued to put in 40,60,80,100s of hours. Sure, ultimately it’s their choice to keep playing, but don’t you think allowing these problems to persist up to this point shows a great deal of disrespect to the player base?

Frankly, everything you’ve announced is “too little, too late” IMO. I imagine that response may upset someone on the other side who thinks “we just had a successful HoT launch we deserve a break”. The bottom line is the game is a product and a well managed company would NOT take take a hard break from upkeep and maintaining that product. If vacations were planned and people needed time off, a better decision would have been to lock down PvP and to keep Elite Specs, etc… out of ranked season. Too much work? Another solution would have been to delay the ranked season. When you have these horrible balance issues and you KNOW that and still allow a sPvP ranked season that says a lot about how ArenaNet views sPvP. The integrity of the game was sacrificed for the novelty of delivering promised features on schedule. I see no indication that philosophy has changed. I believe when future updates come, again we’ll see a reactive ArenaNet not a pro-active ArenaNet and I take great issue with this. It’s a horrible way to run a company.

I’m just stating my opinion on it, but I remain very disappointed in ArenaNet. I think this ranked season is unacceptable and I think the decisions made destroyed the momentum GW2 sPvP was gaining leading into HoT. As a company, there is nothing ArenaNet can do at this point to win me back as a believer in GW2 sPvP as a serious game. You would need a separate sPvP client and a dedicated team for sPvP not a team subservient to needs and goals of the teams designing for the MMO side of the game.

And the reason for removing settler while keeping magi …is?

Question: how are we supposed to stand against DH now? Less evasion, less armor, same big Ring-o-death. It is going to be too rewarding for DH to press 1 button to insta port to you on point, and another button to instantly poop out a magical trap. Shouldn’t you increase the trap cast time to 1s for all their traps, to balance this out?

This way we can interrupt it, so they can’t get a guaranteed decap on us? With the tanky amulets and evasion we could dodge a few pulses and swallow the others. Now we’ll have no choice but to leave the point.

Archon.6480:

Question: how are we supposed to stand against DH now? Less evasion, less armor, same big Ring-o-death. It is going to be too rewarding for DH to press 1 button to insta port to you on point, and another button to instantly poop out a magical trap. Shouldn’t you increase the trap cast time to 1s for all their traps, to balance this out?

This way we can interrupt it, so they can’t get a guaranteed decap on us? With the tanky amulets and evasion we could dodge a few pulses and swallow the others. Now we’ll have no choice but to leave the point.

DHs are having their trap damage nerfed.

R.I.P. sPvP ele. We have no options. 13k hp facepalm. How it even possible to play? I don’t wana play Call of Duty sPvP. Cele was one options for ele. All builds was made around cele amulet. And now what? Ele has no defense. Sustain was our defense. Now staff is simply usless (no defense weapon skills), d/d and d/x usless because of one reason, we dont have defense and cant melee with 13k hp. Omg i done with ele sPvP. Power builds will just destroy us. What reason behind all this weapon cobinations d/d, d/w, d/f? Melee weapon comb cant survive with out cele. Anet your so lazy.

Kadaj.1582:

R.I.P. sPvP ele. We have no options. 13k hp facepalm. How it even possible to play? I don’t wana play Call of Duty sPvP. Cele was one options for ele. All builds was made around cele amulet. And now what? Ele has no defense. Sustain was our defense. Now staff is simply usless (no defense weapon skills), d/d and d/x usless because of one reason, we dont have defense and cant melee with 13k hp. Omg i done with ele sPvP. Power builds will just destroy us. What reason behind all this weapon cobinations d/d, d/w, d/f? Melee weapon comb cant survive with out cele. Anet your so lazy.

Can’t your class get over 45 seconds of prot with tempest? :|

Your health pool is supposed to go up and down. When I was hardcore playing ele (pre-HoT), that’s what mine did all the time to the point that I stopped worrying about it. And I’m not talking about celest D/D. :P

Krittz.6013:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Are you sure you were in Zerker amulet and not Magi’s or Sentinals? MM Necro, even in Soldiers amulet, is nowhere close to that tanky.

Nope, they had soldiers and I was full zerker ammy.
I was also running Str, Arms, and Disc.
Warrior dmg is a joke anyways, but I still try. :P
(100 feathers)

You underestimate the power of a necro’s shroud. :P

You..have looked at my signature, right? I underestimate almost nothing on Necro at this point.

Granted, I may overestimate others at times, but a MM Necro can’t survive the situation you described.

Krittz.6013:

Kadaj.1582:

R.I.P. sPvP ele. We have no options. 13k hp facepalm. How it even possible to play? I don’t wana play Call of Duty sPvP. Cele was one options for ele. All builds was made around cele amulet. And now what? Ele has no defense. Sustain was our defense. Now staff is simply usless (no defense weapon skills), d/d and d/x usless because of one reason, we dont have defense and cant melee with 13k hp. Omg i done with ele sPvP. Power builds will just destroy us. What reason behind all this weapon cobinations d/d, d/w, d/f? Melee weapon comb cant survive with out cele. Anet your so lazy.

Can’t your class get over 45 seconds of prot with tempest? :|

Your health pool is supposed to go up and down. When I was hardcore playing ele (pre-HoT), that’s what mine did all the time to the point that I stopped worrying about it. And I’m not talking about celest D/D. :P

Protection wont help. No toughness options. Overload earth can be interrupted. If i want overload with stability i will lose sustain again. harmonious coduit (for safe overload) over invigorating torrents (regen + vigor from auras) trait = -regen – vigor.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Tman.6349:

Are all the ppl up in arms about these changes oblivious to the fact that these are base changes to the core of PvP and that huge profession balance (which we have no clue of so far)

But we already know 100% of the balance changes from the “preview”. Remember, 100% of the time when Anet previews stuff, those were 100% of the changes.

So they’ve already given us a 100% thorough preview to all the upcoming skill balance changes, trait changes, and ‘profession identity’ changes (the ones they mentioned in the blogpost’)?

Sorry for the confusion. I guess I missed that. Where can I find this comprehensive list of these Jan. 26th changes? I’d love to do a bit of early theory crafting with these new amulets and all the revamped skills, traits, and profession changes.

I guess I missed it. I found what I’m looking for.