Guild Wars 2

http://youtu.be/TjfOvMwt5vg

You can skip to the last 5 minutes for a recap of everything although the explanations throughout the videos as to how those conclusions came to be are rather important.

Happy Holidays!

Feel free to share and discuss.

BAM. I showed up Zoose. Looks like you put a lot of work into this video. Well done sir.

Sounds good.
Just one other thing i would change on intelligence sigil.

From:

• Your next three attack after swapping to this weapon while in combat have a 100% critical chance.
  (Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

To :

• All of your attacks will have a 100% crit chance for two seconds after sweaping to this weapon while in combat.
  (Cooldown: 9 Seconds)

This change would make it more appealing for professions with channeled flurry of blows.

Best regards!

I strongly agree with your critique on weapon swaps. Ele/Engi/War swap weapons better then every other class so I think that should be a focal point. My concerns are by bringing down too many sigils it would affect other classes so I’m cautious about changing too many sigils at once. But enjoyed the video you def put a lot of thought into it.

Nice video What I’m thinking though about the weapon swap / might stacking issue – wouldn’t it be better to increase the cooldown on the sigils and/or decrease the might duration? That would achieve the same thing (ie. nerf to cele/might) but would be more specifically targeted at classes that can abuse the sigils with faster swaps.

Phantaram.4816:

BAM. I showed up Zoose. Looks like you put a lot of work into this video. Well done sir.

OH NOOOO Phanta I forgot to say you suck so you’d bump the video still. You suck :^)

Also that change could be good to intelligence sigil…trying to think how that can get abused though xd

Zoose.1640:

Phantaram.4816:

BAM. I showed up Zoose. Looks like you put a lot of work into this video. Well done sir.

OH NOOOO Phanta I forgot to say you suck so you’d bump the video still. You suck :^)

Also that change could be good to intelligence sigil…trying to think how that can get abused though xd

rapid fire from 6 0 2 6 0 valkirie ranger would be quite lol worthy

How are you nerfing doom? Are you suggesting nerf the condition poison in all the game? Looks like a terrible idea. The celestial meta is great and 1 player can do anything. Much better than try to force people into bunkers no dmg or 100% zerkers. Celestial brings a much better balance to the game.

Summarizing the video: op suggests celestial to be nerfed to the ground and become useless to force people run zerker mesmer/thief and bunker guardian.

xDudisx.5914:

How are you nerfing doom? Are you suggesting nerf the condition poison in all the game? Looks like a terrible idea. The celestial meta is great and 1 player can do anything. Much better than try to force people into bunkers no dmg or 100% zerkers. Celestial brings a much better balance to the game.

Summarizing the video: op suggests celestial to be nerfed to the ground and become useless to force people run zerker mesmer/thief and bunker guardian.

your summary is bad and you should feel bad

a t s e.9614:

Lol that passive shoutbow warr build is so kittened. Nerf this kitten into the ground and bring back the old school hambow. There needs to be something to punish these celestial heroes that can face tank the whole hammer chain nowadays.

At least it takes a bit of skill to land the telegraphed hammer attacks on a good player. But this warhorn build is the biggest joke I’ve seen. All passive sustain from shouts and passive dmg from sigils.

Warr is always nerfed into the wrong way to create a next level passive build. Most warriors players don’t like to use this build. It doesn’t even feel like playing warr. A duel warr vs warr is pretty much all decided on sigils swaps. Who ever can random dodge Geo/doom wins. GG

Fix this shoutbow cele kitten already and bring game the old hammer damage. PSA old school hambow would easely counter bad cele engis/ele who are unable to dodge the hammer telegraphs.

I dont play warrior but I agree that fighting a hambow is more fun than the shoutbow sword/warhorn meta spec. A damage buff to hammer would be very good for the game. As you said bad players can die rather quickly to a hammer/longbow warrior if they don’t dodge anything. Maybe people would complain less about celestial engis/eles if a warrior can destroy them in a matter of seconds.

Lachanche.6859:

Zoose.1640:

Phantaram.4816:

BAM. I showed up Zoose. Looks like you put a lot of work into this video. Well done sir.

OH NOOOO Phanta I forgot to say you suck so you’d bump the video still. You suck :^)

Also that change could be good to intelligence sigil…trying to think how that can get abused though xd

rapid fire from 6 0 2 6 0 valkirie ranger would be quite lol worthy

uh no, only the first 3 arrows crit. sigil of intelligence is only good for one-shot nukes (earth shaker, maul, etc.)

really well thought out changes, +1. some of us are hoping anet is already aware of all this and there’s a large balance patch coming in January. we can hope right?

Interesting video. I personally don’t think it will work though. Diminished returns is a difficult concept to get across to players and I think the majority of players will just get frustrated. I agree with the other approach by just shaving might on battle/finishers, increasing the swap timer, or going back to unique sigils (which really wouldn’t impact your target classes unfortunately).

I’m also curious what your intention is with these changes? While it will certainly nerf Elementalists and Engineers somewhat, do you feel it will nerf them enough so the classes they’re currently kittenblocking can get into the meta? Even when you consider the changes you’re proposing will impact those classes as well?

Id like to add a couple more changes as well:

Engi: Rework incin Powder, make supply crate not an “I win” button and buff the other elites. Slick shoes should also be less dominating and should only work once per target instead of 2-3 times, but make the knockdown 3 seconds, up from 2.

Ele: Drake breath burning from 3 seconds to 2 seconds. Otherwise the sigil changes should be enough nerfs. Also remove the lightning whip “trick” or whatever you want to call it (Mesmer gs1 also should be included).

Necro: I realize that you didn’t focus on necro but their passives could be toned down. Reapers prot needs a indicator and nightmare runes 6 bonus needs a rework.

Warrior: Most of the damage (shoutbow) comes from geomancy/doom procs and with your suggestions they will definitely become less powerful.

Great vid and I hope anet notices these changes, +1

I like the proposed might stacking changes, the numbers seem pretty good. I don’t like the idea of diminishing returns on things like doom sigil. It’s already pretty strong, why not nerf the poison duration by 1-2 seconds instead of the effects intensity? Also I don’t feel like intelligence is that strong to warrant a nerf.

P.S. Nerf celestial by 38 points per stat so it’s 400 each and it can satisfy my OCD ____

While this might tune down warriors else and engis, this will not help other classes. I want you to do the same type of video except crunch numbers and compare how much healing output every class is receiving. There will be no balance until everyone is in the same scale of healing output. Engis warriors and ele dominate in the area.

I agree with your analysis that celestial bruisers are more efficient than glass cannons and bunkers.

I also think that the game needs to come away from heavy emphasis on swap sigils in particular, mostly due to their power being magnified by profession differences in swapping. I would do some things differently, I think it would be weird to implement diminishing returns on sigils even if it is the right direction to go.

I just wanted to add some things that are important to note, on the subject. I might be talking semantics here, but I think it’s important to see the whole picture:

• “Cele Engies/Eles/Wars should all be able to hold points equally, as ‘bruisers’.”

This shouldn’t be the case because there is more to a role than the amulet. Rifle Engies can’t, and don’t want to stand on point. They are roamers, the opposite end of the bruiser spectrum as Cele Eles and Cele Wars. There’s one big reason for this: Ele, built for 25-30 condition removals per minute based on efficiency of rotation. Warrior, built for 30-31, assuming realistically, Combustive Shot every 12s, Engies, have 6-8, and 4 transmute blocks. One does not simply stand on points and have 20 second gaps in removing condition. Nope train -> eff-that-ville.

This is all understandable since the meta Cele Ele has 0% of their traits in offensive natures, meta Cele Wars have 29% of their traits in offensive natures, and meta Engies have 71% of their traits in offensive natures. This is why Engies deal good damage, it’s not because they have high base damage on the Rifle, in fact it’s quite the opposite in that Rifle scales well.

It’s good to draw the line here between the two completely different roles amongst the 3 good Cele builds. Cele Wars and Eles are the on-point role fillers that are competing with, and beating Bunker Guardians and Tanky Ranger & non-cele War back-points out of the meta.

Rifle Engies are built to roam, drop CC kill combos & downed body cleave. They’re competing for roamer spots, against Power/Condi Necro, Shatter Mesmer, Fresh Air Ele, Power/Condi Rangers, Condi Engies, arguably Thieves, Condi/Power Guardians, Condi/Power Warriors.

Utilizing Cele stats, I’d say Rifle Engi is among the top picks of Roamers, up there with Condi Necro, Thief, Mesmer, Condi Engi. I agree Rifle Engi needs a shave at the same time that Cele Ele and Cele War get it.

Something else to note:

The old PvP Celestial Amulet & Gem, Celestial Stats at the time were: 20% Crit damage which equalled Berserker, and a stat budget that was boosted 19% above the Berserker counterpart.

At the April rune/sigil revamp. Cele Stats have a 29.7% boost compared to Berserker now, and the builds went completely from zero to hero. That seems really bizarre to me, and I feel that the big swing in how sigils can be harnessed had much more to do with it.

My proposed Changes:

Re-introduce some of the previous limitations on Sigils.

• Swap sigils when activated, incur a global cooldown that prevents other swap sigils from activating.

• Crit sigils when activated, incur a global cooldown that prevents other crit sigils from activating.

This will end the reign of Battle/Doom or Battle/Intelligence. And it will also end Fire/Air. Stacking sigils (bloodlust/corruption/life) become a much more viable option now, if one can’t use crit sigils. Swap & crit sigils being used together will be the meta. In the old sigil system, you couldn’t even activate crit sigils if your swap sigil was on cooldown – you had to use Force or a Duration/Stacking Sigil. This wasn’t even a bad mechanic, it was fair to all, but going back to this would be another big swing.

Too many restrictions were removed at once, in April! Clawing back one of those restrictions, as per my suggestion I feel is the best middle ground.

Last suggestion:

Introduce a new hybrid damage PvP amulet! One that’s not glass cannon like Rampager & Sinister (if it was brought to PvP), but has more balanced offensive stats than Rabid & Carrion. Essentially the offensive version of Celestial like Zoose was hinting at, with less total stats than Celestial due to more focus.

• [PvP] Maniac Amulet

600 Power
438 Precision
438 Toughness
438 Ferocity
600 Condition Damage

I think this would be a great amulet for Hybrid professions that aren’t supposed to be glass cannon, deal hybrid damage, but aren’t interested in stacking healing effects like Regen, Shout heals, Water attunements – ie: Hambow/Axebow/Greatswordbow Wars, Rifle Engineers, Mesmers, P/D Thieves.

Chaith.8256:

message was over 5001 characters

I can always count on you to be the forum warrior we need, Chaith.

Yeah it would be nice to be able to have the diminishing returns effect in to play because you could potentially make some cool niche builds off that without having to be limited in sigils, but I get that.

After thinking more about it though I think it’d be best if poison effect wasn’t reduced by % but rather the duration or poison damage was lowered instead. That seems to make more sense.

However, if they aren’t going to go the route of diminishing returns then going back to the way sigils worked before with ICD (internal cooldown) between weapon swap sigils would be excellent as well.

And yeah, I do understand that engineers are best when being the offensive roamer as opposed to being the defensive node defender, but there’s still the option of standing on point for a little while at least to relieve pressure off your primary node defenders. Too much to talk about in the video I just didn’t want it to go on forever.

That amulet looks interesting.

Thanks for the input boyz.

Zoose.1640:

I can always count on you to be the forum warrior we need, Chaith.

Lmao, thanks. I think.

Chaith.8256:

Zoose.1640:

I can always count on you to be the forum warrior we need, Chaith.

Lmao, thanks. I think.

Yeah it’s mostly a good thing. I was talking to Phanta yesterday, and he just said that you’re like the forum god ready to smite any keyboard warriors or something like that. And I just said you’re like batman lurking and ready to vindicate some forum warriors.

I just thought it was funny lol

Lopez.7369:

Adding a diminishing return on different on-swap sigils is a bad idea. It’s unintuitive and punishes classes that don’t really need that kind of nerf.

What classes are those and why?

I agree with a lot of this and I think the whole video is a perfect analysis of what’s going on in PvP right now. However if you want to attack double on-swap (or double sigils of same type) it’s bad design to have them work diminishingly, I’d rather have them removed all together. Like pre-powercreep-patch, you can use one and that’s it.

Also air/fire is the only reason S/D thief is a thing right now, something you might have overlooked.

I hope the main ideas go through (lower stats on cele, lower swap sigils). I’d also like to see something done about boon duration too, but that’s more complicated to balance I think.

Also @Chaith I know you get a little wet when you see an amulet with the exact 5 stats you want on your engineer, but those perfect amulets take a lot of the decision making away from the game and frankly make it too trivial.

Wilco.1458:

I agree with a lot of this and I think the whole video is a perfect analysis of what’s going on in PvP right now. However if you want to attack double on-swap (or double sigils of same type) it’s bad design to have them work diminishingly, I’d rather have them removed all together. Like pre-powercreep-patch, you can use one and that’s it.

Also air/fire is the only reason S/D thief is a thing right now, something you might have overlooked.

I hope the main ideas go through (lower stats on cele, lower swap sigils). I’d also like to see something done about boon duration too, but that’s more complicated to balance I think.

Also @Chaith I know you get a little wet when you see an amulet with the exact 5 stats you want on your engineer, but those perfect amulets take a lot of the decision making away from the game and frankly make it too trivial.

If you go back to the way thieves were before air/fire stack it would just be air/force or air/accuracy again.

The reason that S/D thieves are a thing is because of being able to freely traverse the map in conquest with the highest mobility as well as having the ability to evade and port a ridiculous amount of times. Their core issues have been in the acrobatics tree as well as the weapon set itself for quite some time now. Air/Fire only enhanced the faster you die to them. And air is where the real damage is at, fire is just there as a placeholder because it’s better than anything else an S/D thief could use (Force/Accuracy examples).

It’s also a nice plus that S/D thief pretty much dumps on any viable mesmer build.

Thanks for the input. I would like for the main core components to go through as well because regardless of the finer details, I think that’s what will address core issues between what’s being dominated in the meta currently without destroying those builds/classes completely.

Mesmer actually does fairly well against s/d if played properly. Furthermore mesmers pigeon hole themselves into running staff/greatsword – which is a good weaponset but provides nothing against thieves. Sword/torch and sword/focus with greatsword is a lot more well rounded, far from unviable, and has a good match up versus thief.

Don’t blame one weapon set for keeping a class out of the meta when the players of the class are too stubborn to adapt.

Wilco.1458:

Like pre-powercreep-patch, you can use one and that’s it.

Yep.

Wilco.1458:

Also air/fire is the only reason S/D thief is a thing right now, something you might have overlooked.

I think S/D Thief would still be a thing if it ran Force, Energy, or Leeching with Air, instead of Air/Fire. They already run Energy/Generosity on the Shortbow, I think it’d be all good if we re-introduced a GCD for each sigil type.

Wilco.1458:

Also @Chaith I know you get a little wet when you see an amulet with the exact 5 stats you want on your engineer, but those perfect amulets take a lot of the decision making away from the game and frankly make it too trivial.

It might appear that way, but probably would have the opposite effect. Cele Amulet is fine for Rifle Engi. There’d actually be decision making if there were other options. Cele Amulet is fine for shout Warriors, but there’d be more decisions made if non-shout Wars had good itemization. I have no clue how to even offer Ele any decision making, Celestial is too perfect. Elementalist traits need to change, badly. Offensive based hybrid Mesmers with basic toughness, that’d definitely be a decision to make over standard shatter with berserker.

I’m generally down to increase the decision making, not trivialize it. I think amulets like : Assassin, Barbarian, Cavalier, Magi, & Rampager – these are the trivial options. I wish they’d have their stats either spread out, or buffed.

But this whole convo is just theorcrafting, who knows what direction Arenanet would like the build options to go in. Anet? **Crickets***

Narcarsis.5739:

Mesmer actually does fairly well against s/d if played properly. Furthermore mesmers pigeon hole themselves into running staff/greatsword – which is a good weaponset but provides nothing against thieves. Sword/torch and sword/focus with greatsword is a lot more well rounded, far from unviable, and has a good match up versus thief.

Don’t blame one weapon set for keeping a class out of the meta when the players of the class are too stubborn to adapt.

Interesting, I’ve never heard anyone come from that direction of the S/D Thief v. Mesmer debate.

I’ve seen notable Mesmers practice on Sword/Torch but usually it’s a quick revert back to Staff/GS when it’s serious time.

Also what do you think is keeping Supcutie’s GS/Sword&Focus Mesmer from being dominant if the matchup isn’t bad vs. Thief? Everyone usually agrees that Mesmer is huge in ability to kill Celestials.

I don’t think you will see more than a 50/50 match up against s/d without doing portal – which is not realistic. Mesmer has a reliable window to land shatter on flanking strike however. It just takes patience to land burst but it’s a gauruntee with the right timing, and is enough to kill our force the thief to fully reset if you land the right abilities. For some reason people forget the busy potential of mirror images as well. Coming from a time where mesmers used to one shot everything I’m sure you can recall how mirror images adds to Mesmer burst potential.

I have different opinion on this video than others. (not because I’m warrior)

I believed that the reason why the meta happening now isn’t might stacking but classes mechanics. If you look at engineer, they can’t really do might stacking but they are pretty much killing everything super fast. The reason why is because all their weapon skills on rifle, belt skills, and pry bar scales well with power stats, and also all other skills scale well with condition damage stats. Also, healing turret scales well with Healing Power Stats. Also, zero animation of big cc skill (overcharged shot) that knock back people for almost 6 seconds.

Let’s look at ele, the water attunement scales super well with Healing Power stats. Plus they have 4 blast finisher and 1 leap finisher (That’s how they get so many might stacking). Plus they have perma. Vigors, 80% up time protections, 90% up time regeneration, pretty much every boons in this game that they can access by themselves. They have blink and fire greatsword and RtL to compete their mobility with thief. A skill call Ring of Earth that blocks projectile without showing any blocking animation. The lighting whip abuse that makes Ele Healing Signet 2x Healing. That’s what makes this class op.

For warrior, (the class nerfed the most in 2014 because of me), I believed that the shoutbow warriors is created to counter the current condition meta. As I play shoutbow probably the longest, I know the counter of shoutbow is Dps burst. Shoutbow doesn’t have protection, immune to direction damage, conditions.

The sustain is not even comparable with dd Ele and probably only a bit higher than celestial engi. The reason why people think it’s op now is because they are playing meta builds that gets counter by shoutbow warrior. DD ele can’t kill shoutbow warrior because their burning gets cleanse. Celestial engi can still kill shoutbow because they have a lot of direct damage + condition damage at the same time.

The only thing makes shoutbow warrior op isn’t sigil of intellgence nor sigil of battle. It’s the combination of sigil of doom and geomancy. And that’s the only benefit that warrior can get from swap sigils because of the trait “Fast Hand”

If you are asking “well warriors can get 25 stacks of might easy” I will answer you in this way. We trade one utility slot for might stacking “For Great Justice”, comparing to dd ele they don’t have to sacrifice anything to get 25 stacks easier than warrior. We can’t keep 25 stacks of might because we have 0 might duration.

If you are nerfing the meta by nerfing the swap sigils, you are pretty much nerfing the counter of the meta right now because swap sigil is only thing warrior has now. Other classes doesn’t scale that well with swap sigils. That’s pretty much the unique mechanic that warrior has.

Another thing I want to mention is that Celestial Amulet isn’t 100% beneficial for warrior because Healing Power is useless for warriors.

If you really want to balance this game, you should tone down the amulet, nerf the classes mechanics (Eles: Perma boons? Mobility close to a thief? 4 blast finishers? So much heals?) (Engi: almost instant cast aoe heals? 16 sec blocks? op direct damage with little power stats? 0 animation 6 sec CC?)

Nerfing sigils are also nerfing other classes such as Nerco, Ranger, and Guardian. Which I don’t think will balance this game, instead it will make the bad classes even worse.

And I believe, if Shoutbow hasn’t been discovered, warrior is still a low tier pvp class like people used to think on September, 2014.

Chaith.8256:

Wilco.1458:

Also @Chaith I know you get a little wet when you see an amulet with the exact 5 stats you want on your engineer, but those perfect amulets take a lot of the decision making away from the game and frankly make it too trivial.

It might appear that way, but probably would have the opposite effect. Cele Amulet is fine for Rifle Engi. There’d actually be decision making if there were other options. Cele Amulet is fine for shout Warriors, but there’d be more decisions made if non-shout Wars had good itemization. I have no clue how to even offer Ele any decision making, Celestial is too perfect. Elementalist traits need to change, badly. Offensive based hybrid Mesmers with basic toughness, that’d definitely be a decision to make over standard shatter with berserker.

The real problem with Ele are the traitlines. You either fresh air (weaker but still a possibility) or you’re forced to go 6 into water 6 into arcane. Basically D/D elementalist has two trait points they can work with, and choosing anything that’s not elemental shielding is basically incorrect. It’s a shame that the biggest argument is where you put your one point to remove more conditions.

I talk about this a lot, something like Rock Solid is a super awesome, interesting trait but it’s not possible to get to because I don’t have enough trait points to use. I think Evasive Arcana is the problem, I’d like to see some changes moving EA to adept or master (obviously reducing numbers in places, maybe removing blast finisher) which frees up some points to use elsewhere.

Chaith.8256:

Wall of text

For maniac amulet to be balanced, I think the 600 toughness should be healing power..

600 power 438 precision 438 ferocity and 600 condition should definitely be stupidly glass cannon at this point. And let’s just say those stats by itself is just a stupidly better version of Carrion. 600 Toughness would just be overkill.

The reason why might stacks became a problem is because Celestial’s defensive stats made it so that you can sustain until you get high amounts of might. I honestly think they should just modify the defensive stats much like how they added vitality on Berserker Amulet in spvp (Because Berserk does not have vitality outside PvP) to balance it out.

Anastasis.7258:

Nerfing sigils are also nerfing other classes such as Nerco, Ranger, and Guardian. Which I don’t think will balance this game, instead it will make the bad classes even worse.

I think nerfing everything is a good thing. Everything is too strong right now. Nerf everything, nerf some things harder than others.

Just because those classes are outdone by ele and engy doesn’t make them bad.

Wilco.1458:

Anastasis.7258:

Nerfing sigils are also nerfing other classes such as Nerco, Ranger, and Guardian. Which I don’t think will balance this game, instead it will make the bad classes even worse.

I think nerfing everything is a good thing. Everything is too strong right now. Nerf everything, nerf some things harder than others.

Just because those classes are outdone by ele and engy doesn’t make them bad.

Keep that in mind that nerfing a class means buffing the other class. That’s why I think we need to balance classes mechanic before balance sigils.

Anastasis.7258:

Wilco.1458:

Anastasis.7258:

Nerfing sigils are also nerfing other classes such as Nerco, Ranger, and Guardian. Which I don’t think will balance this game, instead it will make the bad classes even worse.

I think nerfing everything is a good thing. Everything is too strong right now. Nerf everything, nerf some things harder than others.

Just because those classes are outdone by ele and engy doesn’t make them bad.

Keep that in mind that nerfing a class means buffing the other class. That’s why I think we need to balance classes mechanic before balance sigils.

Yeah that’s why you do it across the board. Fix the major problems in each of the classes and fix runes/sigils. At the very least we get a few weeks of figuring out new builds and stuff which is fun.

The absolute last thing ANet should be doing is buffing anything. The last PvP patch however many weeks ago that did slight buffs to a number of things is completely unnecessary. Slick shoes being a thing now makes puppies cry.

I enjoyed the video. I think that you’re using the word ‘efficiency’ but that conceptually you’re talking about ‘synergy.’

For instance you point out the enormous synergy between celestial amulet stats and d/d ele, nade/kit/rifle engi and sw/lb warr damage because all three builds have a combination of power and condi damage built into their attacks. They also have access to a lot of soft cc and cover conditions (blind, chill, vuln, immob etc) making the bleeds, burns and poison hard to consistently cleanse.

Celestial amulet also simultaneously boosts the effectiveness of water attunement/signet of restoration, healing turret and shout heals/healing signet giving these builds ample sustainability as well as damage, hence “bruisers.”

You also point out the tremendous synergy between battle sigil and might stacking runes like hoelbrak and strength. You point out that not all classes can take equal advantage of might stacking though which suggests an imbalance.

I personally think we can look at every major meta build from the perspective of identifying synergy and find a pattern.

The strongest builds are the ones that are able to make the most of the synergies between their respective classes’ traits and skills and the game’s amulet/rune/sigil setup.

Amir.1570:

For maniac amulet to be balanced, I think the 600 toughness should be healing power..

Meh, in the theorycraft, nerf it until it’s fair. But if it had healing power, it’s literally just a worse Cele amulet. It has worse stats, but still needs builds to have condis, power, and healing, same as Cele.

Chaith.8256:

Amir.1570:

For maniac amulet to be balanced, I think the 600 toughness should be healing power..

Meh, in the theorycraft, nerf it until it’s fair. But if it had healing power, it’s literally just a worse Cele amulet. It has worse stats, but still needs builds to have condis, power, and healing, same as Cele.

But it has precision and power with 600 condition damage. And ferocity too. So it’s a worse celestial amulet sure, but it would be balanced that way.

Any text summaries?

I don’t like watching videos that discusses stuff.

Zoose, the changes that you proposed only takes the might stacking capabilities of celementalist down by around 2. That is Not a major enough nerf that will all of a sudden Not make it able to 1v1 everything, do massive damage in the team fight, and not maintain uptime on 25 might stack when someone else happens to blast a fire field in a team fight. If this were the only change implemented I guarantee it would be hardly noticed.

First, you glossed over the fact that lightning whip/stow weapon is broken
second, CELEMENTALIST NEEDS LESS PROTECTION
third, remove the blast finisher from water attunement.
Also, vigor for days? devs look into that.

Oh before I forget, I am for the removal of 50-100 points off each stat for cele, and IMO nerf holbrek and strength runes might duration a LOT, like hack 50% off a LOT.

Or delete celestial amulet please.

Firebird.8324:

Zoose, the changes that you proposed only takes the might stacking capabilities of celementalist down by around 2. That is Not a major enough nerf that will all of a sudden Not make it able to 1v1 everything, do massive damage in the team fight, and not maintain uptime on 25 might stack when someone else happens to blast a fire field in a team fight. If this were the only change implemented I guarantee it would be hardly noticed.

First, you glossed over the fact that lightning whip/stow weapon is broken
second, CELEMENTALIST NEEDS LESS PROTECTION
third, remove the blast finisher from water attunement.
Also, vigor for days? devs look into that.

Oh before I forget, I am for the removal of 50-100 points off each stat for cele, and IMO nerf holbrek and strength runes might duration a LOT, like hack 50% off a LOT.

Or delete celestial amulet please.

Reducing battle sigil from 3 to 2 would cut a bit more than 2 stacks. Seeing as it stacks 4 times…..

Profession A deals 10k damage, heals 10k.

Profession B deals 10k damage, heals 5k.

I’m trying to explain that nerfing damage won’t progress balance if the class can sustain itself, whilst other classes have sub-par sustain and receive these proposed nerfs as well, because when you nerf these sigils/runes/etc you nerf other classes as well.

mistsim.2748:

Lachanche.6859:

Zoose.1640:

Phantaram.4816:

BAM. I showed up Zoose. Looks like you put a lot of work into this video. Well done sir.

OH NOOOO Phanta I forgot to say you suck so you’d bump the video still. You suck :^)

Also that change could be good to intelligence sigil…trying to think how that can get abused though xd

rapid fire from 6 0 2 6 0 valkirie ranger would be quite lol worthy

uh no, only the first 3 arrows crit. sigil of intelligence is only good for one-shot nukes (earth shaker, maul, etc.)

really well thought out changes, +1. some of us are hoping anet is already aware of all this and there’s a large balance patch coming in January. we can hope right?

Do you know what the proposed change to sigil of intelligence was ? Someone had the idea to make it affect all attacks for 2 seconds, zoose wondered what classes would be affected the most, I answered longbow rangers as they would be able to use valk amulet.

So yeah, I know that it only affects 3 hits right now but that’s not what we were talking about.

Clearing some things up:
Mes does not do well vs. s/d. S/d can always get away.
S/f and s/t with shatter reset do better vs. thief especially d/p but are worse in more matchups overall. You don’t actually need to go s/f or s/t just because a thief is on the other team.
We have tried many things to make mes viable. It’s clearly a balance problem at this point. Condi classes in general have more defenses while doing similar damage, but over time. Power shines in the beginning of fights but their openers can be stopped by any number of things, leading to a very difficult uphill battle for the power team.

You clearly didn’t ready anything I said if you think I insinuated that mesmer did “well” against S/D thief. But I’ll lay some things out for you. It’s by no means impossible to kill a thief on a mesmer. Mesmer is also quite far from unviable. I also never said that you need to go S/F or S/T to kill a thief, it’s more than possible to do it on Staff/Greatsword as well.

Mesmer has the highest consistent damage output, and it can do everything from range. It has the second highest burst combo (second to fresh air ele), and it has one of the largest team utilities in the game. You give up potential in 1v1 situations to utilize that utility except you expect to be balanced with the notion that you can have everything.
Despite playing with a team utility you still have extremely good match ups with 7 classes if played well, a strong team fight presence, insane map mobility and yet claim that you aren’t viable because of thief. Not only can your teammates lock down a thief, the amount of burst you can hit one with is substantial enough to force them to back off – if not kill them (and more than enough for your own thief to finish them with ease).

Condition classes are easier to play because they are more forgiving, they work through applying consistent and small amounts of damage (albeit rather quickly). While there are a few key abilities to land it’s usually not a big deal if you miss some of the other stuff, the damage still adds up. Burst requires patience to land, and has a high (debatably higher or lower) payoff – but if you miss you have nothing to follow up with.

The two are not comparable, they fulfill different roles. So saying that they do similar damage is completely false.
Power classes shine so long as you land your burst – regardless of whether it’s the beginning, middle, or end of a fight.
Playing a glass cannon takes thought, patience, planning, anticipation, and quick fingers. If you have a hard time doing that don’t blame the game.

Edited for clarity and commas.

Totally agree with Caed’s above post.

Haven’t watched the video yet so won’t comment on it

I’m confused, you say:

Mesmer actually does fairly well against s/d if played properly. Furthermore mesmers pigeon hole themselves into running staff/greatsword – which is a good weaponset but provides nothing against thieves. Sword/torch and sword/focus with greatsword is a lot more well rounded, far from unviable, and has a good match up versus thief.

Don’t blame one weapon set for keeping a class out of the meta when the players of the class are too stubborn to adapt.

Then:

You clearly didn’t ready anything I said if you think I insinuated that mesmer did “well” against S/D thief. But I’ll lay some things out for you. It’s by no means impossible to kill a thief on a mesmer. Mesmer is also quite far from unviable. I also never said that you need to go S/F or S/T to kill a thief, it’s more than possible to do it on Staff/Greatsword as well.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to kill a Thief on Mesmer, I’m just talking about realistic scenarios in a match. I won’t be 1v1ing, I never talked about that.

You don’t actually need to go s/f or s/t just because a thief is on the other team.

This was meant to imply that Mes success is team based and I totally expect my team to help me with Thieves while I support the team in other ways.
The key here is that we are talking about effective damage. Condi damage is often more effective because there is more application, and condi classes usually have more CC. Power has more damage overall but less CC and are more fragile, so the effective damage is arguably similar, but condi classes have more room for error.

My main concern is with statistics like this:

Just checked the profession usage from 7 out of top8 teams(except for zero to hero) in the recent NA ESL.
9 engi, 8 ele, 5 warr, 4 thief, 4 necro, 2 ranger, 2 guard, 1 mes.

Even if I do mention Mes vs. Thief, s/d vs. Mes is not 50/50 in a match.
Put yourself in Mes shoes – what would you drop for Mirror Images? Blink? Decoy? Portal? Even if I drop Portal I would take Mantra of Resolve. Those are all better than Mirror Images. If you’re losing to Mes as s/d you’re doing it wrong.

Wording can be confusing when taken from two different contexts, despite similar language.

To say you can do well against an S/D thief if played well by no means translates into all mesmers do well against S/D thieves. To no means did I generalize that and the “if played properly” plays a large part of my point. I don’t think there are many, if any, good mesmers for one reason or another.

Putting the word “effective” before something doesn’t really do anything but glorify a point you’re trying to make. Damage is damage, and a mesmer does a lot more damage than most everything else, if not everything else in its entirety.

Also, statistics play to what people enjoy playing. Some people enjoy easy classes, some enjoy what certain classes over others. To say something isn’t good because it’s not easy and not many people play it isn’t an accurate statement.

I never said it was a 50/50 match up – I said it could approach that if you dropped portal. Again, you didn’t even read what I wrote before you came in here all Gung Ho for your class.

Just to clarify, the “other” reason isn’t game balance.

Oh, and “fairly” well is a subjective term that can be interpreted in different ways. I should be more precise in my language so that people don’t misinterpret the message I try to deliver through forums. I apologize for that.

Supcutie.2538:

Clearing some things up:
Mes does not do well vs. s/d. S/d can always get away.
S/f and s/t with shatter reset do better vs. thief especially d/p but are worse in more matchups overall. You don’t actually need to go s/f or s/t just because a thief is on the other team.
We have tried many things to make mes viable. It’s clearly a balance problem at this point. Condi classes in general have more defenses while doing similar damage, but over time. Power shines in the beginning of fights but their openers can be stopped by any number of things, leading to a very difficult uphill battle for the power team.

Mesmer is very very strong.

I would be strongly opposed to them buffing a class which has such high damage, ports, invuln and incredible utilities like portal which transform the game.

The mesmer/thief comp is the strongest comp if played well. Nothing can beat it because the ceiling of insta gibbing people with mad mobility is so high.

However a few kitten ups and a bunker comp will just beat the mesmer/thief comp.

I really dont think they should buff mesmer when it can be so dominant. Its unforgiving to run that comp vs a bunker comp, but if played perfectly it is better.

Narcarsis.5739:

Wording can be confusing when taken from two different contexts, despite similar language.

To say you can do well against an S/D thief if played well by no means translates into all mesmers do well against S/D thieves. To no means did I generalize that and the “if played properly” plays a large part of my point. I don’t think there are many, if any, good mesmers for one reason or another.

Putting the word “effective” before something doesn’t really do anything but glorify a point you’re trying to make. Damage is damage, and a mesmer does a lot more damage than most everything else, if not everything else in its entirety.

Also, statistics play to what people enjoy playing. Some people enjoy easy classes, some enjoy what certain classes over others. To say something isn’t good because it’s not easy and not many people play it isn’t an accurate statement.

I never said it was a 50/50 match up – I said it could approach that if you dropped portal. Again, you didn’t even read what I wrote before you came in here all Gung Ho for your class.

If there are no good mesmers how can you be so sure a mesmer can kill a thief “if played properly”.

Also of course statistics don’t really work how you describe them, at least not in Gw2. There is a reason we see an abundance of engis and eles now compared to what we used to see (before sor buff and celestial and whatnot), and the reason is not that people suddenly think ele and engi is fun.

I’m enjoying this discussion. gets popcorn om nom nom nom

I agree with a lot of these suggestions, but there is some harm to all classes with sigil changes, although to a far lesser extent.

I think there are more common attributes among those top classes though. They all have powerful, uninterruptable (or practically so) heals and easy access to burn in addition to what was already mentioned.