Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this what anet had in mind but at the moment elite specializations are in most cases simply better than the original classes and as the meta goes on the gap is getting bigger and bigger.
As a day 1 HoT owner I would have still preferred if the original classes still held their own thus promoting build variety and since anet said they were up to some ideas these are 3 of my own. The third one I believe being the best idea.

1." Make it so that if you use a elite spec trait then you can only use one other trait line."
This one I think is too extreme but will really make people think twice before considering an elite spec and now normal builds have an advantage over elite.

2. “Make it so that certain skills are linked to trait lines”
So at the moment elite specs give you access to a new set of skills, but lets say for example the water trait line on elementalists gave you access to use cantrips, arcane lets you use arcana, earth signets etc.
Only thing is that most elite specs use only the skills that the elite spec unlocks so this could end up changing nothing.

3. "Whatever “normal” trait you put in the last slot is “powered up”."
If you don’t use an elite spec the specialization you put in the last slot has better effects. An example is if you dont go down the tempest trait line you can instead put earth as your last trait line.
While I won’t go through all of them I will kill 2 birds with 1 stone and mention that you can also balance out the earth trait line that everyone has been complaining about as well.

e.g. the minor trait line when in the last slot can instead reduce damage taken by 15% or increase the range in where you take reduced damage or both.
And diamond skin can be nerfed to 95% but back to 90% if chosen as the last slot.

This will really help improve build diversity as elite specs are no longer the obvious choice depending how these are balanced and even within builds without elite specs, people will now have to choose between which trait they want in the last slot

The “Powered Up” core traitline in the third slot sounds like a good idea for a full core build.

Could be as simple as small value increases to traits or other unique effects.

or they could just nerf the elite specs to be more in line with standard specs, to prevent this power creep in the first place.

Or just improve base traitlines. Make it better and stronger.

Curunen.8729:

The “Powered Up” core traitline in the third slot sounds like a good idea for a full core build.

Could be as simple as small value increases to traits or other unique effects.

That is what I was thinking, so it wouldn’t even be that difficult. Simple things like reduced internal cooldown for most traits would suffice

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

or they could just nerf the elite specs to be more in line with standard specs, to prevent this power creep in the first place.

This also needs to be done, but no matter what they do elite will always be stronger than standard specs regardless simply because of the new skills,mechanics and weapon they have as well. e.g. no matter how much you tone it down, chronomancers F5 as well as daredevils extra dodge (and daredevils are not currently OP imo) simply outclass standard build especially since it can be mixed in with standard builds

Theologus.7085:

Or just improve base traitlines. Make it better and stronger.

I still feel there needs to be something more as elite specs bring SO much to the table at the moment. That simply buffing standard traitlines just like that will just add power creep.
For example, tempest will still pick earth, water and tempest and be stronger. Whereas with my suggestion the tempest will gain no benefit (and they don’t need it since they have overloads and shouts) but standard classes will get the buffed traitline and they can afford to make the buffs quite good since it wont be affecting the already strong builds

What makes you think they need to be balanced?

Before you get the wrong end of the stick, yes generally elite specs are stronger, but that may be the way Anet wish to try and balance things, they will I assume add other elite specs over time, so maybe in order to make things easier to balance they want to reduce options and will balance on the basis of 1 elite + 2 normal trait lines.

zinkz.7045:

What makes you think they need to be balanced?

Before you get the wrong end of the stick, yes generally elite specs are stronger, but that may be the way Anet wish to try and balance things, they will I assume add other elite specs over time, so maybe in order to make things easier to balance they want to reduce options and will balance on the basis of 1 elite + 2 normal trait lines.

True, I did mention that maybe anet wants it like this, but just in case they didn’t and in case they wanted standard specs to not completely disappear this would be something they could do that wouldn’t be too hard to implement and would create build diversity which is always healthy for a community

DeltaZero.6310:

3. "Whatever “normal” trait you put in the last slot is “powered up”."
If you don’t use an elite spec the specialization you put in the last slot has better effects.

This is a decent idea, but a lot of the places where elite specs aren’t broken aren’t really the numbers… it’s more that they make the class more well-rounded, and give them more utility, and skills. Like, mesmers are tanky now, you can no longer easily kite guardians, who also do more damage… elite specs basically turned most classes into something that has both high offense and high defense. The exceptions are daredevil and berserker – daredevil improved the thief’s defense, but not significantly enough to help the class keep up with the rest in fights, and berserker didn’t do enough for the warrior’s ability to help it survive in teamfights either.

It’s really difficult to balance things when most classes have both high defense and high offense. I think builds should excel at one or another – not both. So, I should be able to have either a tanky elementalist that can hold a 1v1 without being much of an offensive threat (being able to hold a 1v2 indefinitely is broken), but I should also be able to have a squishy elementalist with poor sustain that can burst people down.

What this comes down to is… elite specs should be an alternative. Herald should turn rev into a lower-dps tanky class, whereas it should be a moderate-dps bruiser class otherwise. Herald becomes not an obvious improvement, but something that changes the way the class is played – it offers benefit at a cost. Dragonhunter should turn guardian into a high-dps squishy class, whereas it should be a lower-dps, tanky class otherwise. I feel like dragonhunter is relatively close, but it should be squishier than it is.

So that’s just my thought. I’d like to see Berserker as a class that gives the warrior even greater offense while making it a bit squishier (maybe applying some damage to self for some insane burst capabilities), but this would only be decent if the other elite specs weren’t giving classes ridiculous amounts of everything.

Elyndis.2130:

DeltaZero.6310:

3. "Whatever “normal” trait you put in the last slot is “powered up”."
If you don’t use an elite spec the specialization you put in the last slot has better effects.

This is a decent idea, but a lot of the places where elite specs aren’t broken aren’t really the numbers… it’s more that they make the class more well-rounded, and give them more utility, and skills. Like, mesmers are tanky now, you can no longer easily kite guardians, who also do more damage… elite specs basically turned most classes into something that has both high offense and high defense. The exceptions are daredevil and berserker – daredevil improved the thief’s defense, but not significantly enough to help the class keep up with the rest in fights, and berserker didn’t do enough for the warrior’s ability to help it survive in teamfights either.

It’s really difficult to balance things when most classes have both high defense and high offense. I think builds should excel at one or another – not both. So, I should be able to have either a tanky elementalist that can hold a 1v1 without being much of an offensive threat (being able to hold a 1v2 indefinitely is broken), but I should also be able to have a squishy elementalist with poor sustain that can burst people down.

What this comes down to is… elite specs should be an alternative. Herald should turn rev into a lower-dps tanky class, whereas it should be a moderate-dps bruiser class otherwise. Herald becomes not an obvious improvement, but something that changes the way the class is played – it offers benefit at a cost. Dragonhunter should turn guardian into a high-dps squishy class, whereas it should be a lower-dps, tanky class otherwise. I feel like dragonhunter is relatively close, but it should be squishier than it is.

So that’s just my thought. I’d like to see Berserker as a class that gives the warrior even greater offense while making it a bit squishier (maybe applying some damage to self for some insane burst capabilities), but this would only be decent if the other elite specs weren’t giving classes ridiculous amounts of everything.

Berserkers are objectively bad, this coming from a warrior. I also have alot of exp with other classes too but got bored of them since HoT cause they are too ez.

Berserkers sort of add to warrior damage if you use GS or Rifle or Mace. Any other weapon and the primal burst skill is just plain inferior to normal burst.

The berserker utilities are also exceptionally bad for pvp, seemingly more geared towards pve. Effects are very marginal such as reflection, launch and kb. Outrage = a bad or mediocre stun break for berserker depending on using melee or range.
Note that the cast time for these utilities have also relatively long cast time and do nothing more than do not alot of damage for their usage. For comparison damage utilities from necro do up to 3k damage rating within respective build or dragon hunter for the same cooldown while being aoe + inflicting controlling effects.
Headbutt is the most usable utility due to instant cast time, and completely filling the adrenaline which is important.

Entering berserker stance is actually a sacrifice because it needs the entire adrenaline bar, which is a hard to pull off unless you go signet of fury or headbutt. I found using either of those utilities to be mandatory when using the trait line and using both for maximum effectiveness. In berserker stance, pulsing stability from eternal champion is only good for down secure for the most part cause it only stop one stun, which in this meta where dh trap daze spam, grav well stun spam, necro fear and stun spam, it serves almost no other purpose.

I can go on but my last point is that berserker damage is also bad. It adds more damage but not to any significant degree that strength trait gives and it removes one of war’s best counter for blind, the rolling.

I agree there are classes like warrior and thief that are suffering from this meta where multihit aoe attacks do more damage than single hit attacks and where clipping a condi can end up doing more damage than getting cleaved in melee range.
But while I am sure that will be sorted out soon enough, I was just hoping for build variety sake if core specs would get some love.
Pretty sure like zinkz said another batch of elite specs will come out soon enough but until then it pretty such seems like we really only have the choice of 2 traitlines since elite traitlines are so mandatory for majority of classes.
But the idea of buffing a single traitline if you don’t go down an elite spec, “since in an essence an elite spec is a buffed core spec in a way” would make core builds viable again and thus matchup will feel more diverse again…once bunker is out of the way of course

DeltaZero.6310:

I agree there are classes like warrior and thief that are suffering from this meta where multihit aoe attacks do more damage than single hit attacks and where clipping a condi can end up doing more damage than getting cleaved in melee range.
But while I am sure that will be sorted out soon enough, I was just hoping for build variety sake if core specs would get some love.
Pretty sure like zinkz said another batch of elite specs will come out soon enough but until then it pretty such seems like we really only have the choice of 2 traitlines since elite traitlines are so mandatory for majority of classes.
But the idea of buffing a single traitline if you don’t go down an elite spec, “since in an essence an elite spec is a buffed core spec in a way” would make core builds viable again and thus matchup will feel more diverse again…once bunker is out of the way of course

“matchup will feel more diverse again”

You see, you lost me at “again”.

The game has, for a very long time, had 4-5 meta builds that pretty much everyone runs & complains about.

Diversity wasn’t really there.

Where as now, despite the complaining, every class except warrior has a moderately viable build. A lot even have multiple…

yes, that includes thief. I know, QQ. I’ve played some matches with it, it really isn’t that bad

Compare that to pre-HoT.
Nearly every mesmer you would run into in PvP, would be a shatter mesmer. Outside of the odd condi mesmer here and there. We actually have a bunker spec now? I mean, wow. Never expected that. We had a traitline that WAS NEVER USED before.
Nearly every thief ran the same D/P build, where as now I’ve seen a lot more high evasion condi builds.
Every guardian would play medi dps. Without fail, without question.
Rangers were not viable, and were really easy to kill. Hilariously, with druid, that’s only vaguely changed. Despite the QQ about druid.
Engineer was just double kit engie back in the day, and hell. Double kit still works. Scrapper didn’t change that.
Necro has multiple builds that work now. VS that one condi build that kinda sorta worked back in the day, maybe.
Warrior has CC? I mean, that’s all I’ve got. They’ve got 1 gravity well worth of CC! Too bad I can drop 2 of them?

Ofc, if we’re talking about the highest end of the game. Yeah, there’s a meta there. You’ll cookie cut yourself into it.

But seriously, how many of you are at that level?
How many of you even want to be at that level?

It’s so much more fun just to play the game with what you feel comfortable with. And I do pretty freaking well on what I feel comfortable with.

What should have been done is this:

Take one traitline from each profession and convert that to an “elite”, so that it cannot be taken with any other “elite” traitlines And go from there.

Take Mesmer for example.
1. Take “Dueling” and make it an “elite” so it can’t be taken with Chrono. Modify/Add the traitline so that its comparable to Chrono. (i.e. Make Deceptive Evasion a minor.)
2. Make the offhand pistol, the Dueling Elite weapon.
3. Make “mantra’s” tied to the Dueling line.
4. Create a “mantra” elite skill tied to Dueling.
4. Make one of the shatters, tied to the Dueling line. (i.e. F1- Mind Wreck)

Now, if a Mesmer chooses Chrono, they actually do give up something. Shield instead of pistol, Wells instead of Mantra’s, Gravity Well instead of Mantra Elite. Continuum Shift instead of Mind Wrack

Of course, its a little too late for this.

Balance the elite specs by 2 ways.

1. Make more elite specs.
OR
2. Make them play differently, not entirely stronger.

SlimChance.6593:

What should have been done is this:

Take one traitline from each profession and convert that to an “elite”, so that it cannot be taken with any other “elite” traitlines And go from there.

Take Mesmer for example.
1. Take “Dueling” and make it an “elite” so it can’t be taken with Chrono. Modify/Add the traitline so that its comparable to Chrono. (i.e. Make Deceptive Evasion a minor.)
2. Make the offhand pistol, the Dueling Elite weapon.
3. Make “mantra’s” tied to the Dueling line.
4. Create a “mantra” elite skill tied to Dueling.
4. Make one of the shatters, tied to the Dueling line. (i.e. F1- Mind Wreck)

Now, if a Mesmer chooses Chrono, they actually do give up something. Shield instead of pistol, Wells instead of Mantra’s, Gravity Well instead of Mantra Elite. Continuum Shift instead of Mind Wrack

Of course, its a little too late for this.

I don’t understand why you would choose an example like this one, power shatter Chrono is not really meta, still it is a straight upgrade to normal power shatter and your method would utterly destroy it and therefore deliver the final blow to shatter Mesmer in spvp while leaving bunker Chrono, which has seen more use than power shatter since HoT, pretty much untouched.

How can you expect anyone to agree with your suggestion that aims to increase build diversity if the example you give does nothing but decreasing it?

That was just an "example’ of my point.

I feel like the “special” traitlines of each class should be buffed to elite spec level and made mutually exclusive with the new ones. Like beast mastery on rangers. Arcana on ele. Virtues on guardians etc.. But make it so that each is as valuable as an elite spec individually.

But I don’t know if this would help build diversity (BM ranger vs Druid ranger) or just crush it (No bm druid rangers.)

EDIT: The reason I say this is because I know for several of the elite specs. There is a VERY real threat of the old specs/skills being nerfed because of there synergies with the new specs. I.E. Unblockable Marks be nerfed on necros due to there synergy with reaper chill traits (staff becomes an EXTREMELY good aoe condi dmg weapon in the hands of a reaper. MUCH more so than in the hands of a non reaper)

Or ranger pets being nerfed (I.E. bristleback and Smokescale) due to there synergy with druid (Druids can go super tanky and STILL have higher than bunker level burst damage ontop of all there control skills making them very difficult to deal with in 1v1s. Even though base ranger doesnt have that number of tools)

What im most afraid of in the January patch is the base core specs/skills being nerfed due to how they interact with elite specs. Meaning that it really will become a case of pay to win. If the classes as a whole become balanced entirely around the elite specs. We have issues for anyone that prefers the old build. Or simply doesn’t have heart of thorns because 90% of the expansion doesn’t interest them but loves the PvP in this game and still want’s to be competitive.

I think that:
1. the new weapons and skills should be accessible without the line. Many of them fill a gap in the class and it would be restrictive for core specs or even future elite specs not to have access to them

2. the elite specs traitline (including updated class mechanics) should be changed (i.e. mostly nerfed) so that they represent a sidegrade.

Many elite specs have a clear “theme” to them and thus should only be an upgrade within that niche:

• Reaper is cleaving and scaling with the number of enemy, so it should feel weaker in 1v1 but stronger in team fights.
• Chronomancer allows mesmers to be useful in team fights, but should not feel like an upgrade for power shatter also (which it is currently thanks to alacrity mostly).
• DH should be a more selfish specialization, so for example their virtue should be stronger but selfish (e.g. Wings of Resolve is an upgrade as it gives mobility and strong heal but then it should not heal allies; Shield of Courage should only block attacks for yourself). DH should be one of the best medi-guards, but not one of the best bunker guard.

3. the many unused (because unusable) core traits and skills should be improved.

One of the reasons the elite specs are usually better is because the devs actually listened to our feedbacks carefully, points by points. This means many (not all but many) of the new traits and skills are good or at least usable. If the devs did the same kind of work with the forum for the core traits and skills, that will make the core specs more attractive.

So a big nerf to elite specs and the power creep, and a big buff/rework of the least viable parts of the core specs.

I still dream of the day where each class could be played in each role (roamer, bunker, bruiser, etc…) as efficiently as any other class but still in their own very unique way (like how bunker mesmer or bunker guard both are bunkers but still very different in playstyle and in the support they provide).

IDEAL ELITE BALANCING

• Bring core classes to be on par with elite specs by revamping the core class, fixing bugs, and making some reasonable buffs or tweaks

ANET’S ELITE BALANCING

• Nerf all elite specs because it is less work for them.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

or they could just nerf the elite specs to be more in line with standard specs, to prevent this power creep in the first place.

With a couple exceptions the elite specs themselves aren’t more powerful. What makes them almost mandatory is that you need to slot the elite spec to get the improved class mechanic, and the ability to slot the new weapon type and utility skills.

Example: The DH traitline doesn’t offer much over core builds, but guardians all run it for the improved virtues, LB, and traps.

Crinn.7864:

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

or they could just nerf the elite specs to be more in line with standard specs, to prevent this power creep in the first place.

With a couple exceptions the elite specs themselves aren’t more powerful. What makes them almost mandatory is that you need to slot the elite spec to get the improved class mechanic, and the ability to slot the new weapon type and utility skills.

Example: The DH traitline doesn’t offer much over core builds, but guardians all run it for the improved virtues, LB, and traps.

As I have said this would be the lazy way to do it, the core specs need help, not the elite specs.

If we ever manage to bring them up to par with elite specs, it will be better for build diversity AND very good time to address the VERY OLD issues the core specs have.

StickerHappy.8052:

IDEAL ELITE BALANCING

• Bring core classes to be on par with elite specs by revamping the core class, fixing bugs, and making some reasonable buffs or tweaks

ANET’S ELITE BALANCING

• Nerf all elite specs because it is less work for them.

Are we forgetting that the core spec is part of the problem?

And that everyone has been complaining about power creep for years?

The elite specs just help push the core specs over the edge of useless, to suddenly OP.

Tempest has crazy heals & protection, which keeps diamond skin up.

Mesmer has alacrity, which brings the already short CD mind wrack off cooldown much faster, bringing with it a small heal, stability, condi removal, and some other boons.

On top of massive CC, which normally wouldn’t be a problem as you could interrupt the well cast, but bunker mes runs stability… on a skill that effectively has an 8 second cooldown.

Bringing the core specs up to par would be more power creep. Which again, we’ve all been complaining about for a long time.

StickerHappy.8052:

Crinn.7864:

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

or they could just nerf the elite specs to be more in line with standard specs, to prevent this power creep in the first place.

With a couple exceptions the elite specs themselves aren’t more powerful. What makes them almost mandatory is that you need to slot the elite spec to get the improved class mechanic, and the ability to slot the new weapon type and utility skills.

Example: The DH traitline doesn’t offer much over core builds, but guardians all run it for the improved virtues, LB, and traps.

As I have said this would be the lazy way to do it, the core specs need help, not the elite specs.

If we ever manage to bring them up to par with elite specs, it will be better for build diversity AND very good time to address the VERY OLD issues the core specs have.

Core specs don’t need help, they are on par with elite specs.

Elite specs are taken for the abilities and new weapon pick. Not the traitline. (some exceptions)