Guild Wars 2

So, I mean this sincerely.
Where do we see balance as being currently?
What are the singular biggest issues?
How do we recommend fixing these (and why)?

From my perspective being a primarily Mesmer player since day one with ~2800 matches under my belt, I see a lot of issues one of huge concern for me is the removal of celestial stat, while often criticized I see it as extremely vital for ele since they’re skillset is based around being able to switch roles consistently. While I’ll be the first to admit that this doesn’t lend to build diversity in ele’s, I’m not too concerned and from my perspective this is the primary function of classes to begin with and given that in every balance we see a trend for classes to whittle down into 1 or occasionally 2 builds, where one is used far more commonly than the other anyway.
So now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s proceed and see what we can identify and fix.

My personal opinion is as follows:
Damage and defense are usually too far apart, and bringing the extremes of both (low and high) much closer to the middle-ground would actually allow more diversity of play and greater deviation in roles, mayhaps not for the individual classes, but for the game-type in general and will help to eliminate curiosities like the overloading of individual classes/roles. I suspect this may even (by establishing a baseline) make future balance issues easier to identify and quicker to correct for extremes (i.e. balance hotfixes).

I’m interested to hear any thoughts as to where we can go from here and I hope to hear well thought-out discussion, even nitpicking at my own idea’s. Perhaps the dev’s could scribble-down a few notes and keep them in mind for next balance patch.

Balance is good atm. people need to learn to adapt.

A good balance goal would be to have a real choice between traitlines, weapons and utility skills. Necro for example is great design-wise, because even though in pvp you can hardly play anything else than Reaper and Soul Reaping (these names…) you can play Spite, Curses and whatever the minion line is called, and still be effective. You can play signets, you can play corruptions, and you can play shouts, and they are all good choices (even though signets have a slight advantage still). Mesmer is another good example: even chronomancer doesn’t stand out to much now.

So first of all, I think some of the elite weapons (particularly druid’s staff, scrapper’s hammer, DH’s LB, etc.) should be nerfed. What Anet did with shield for chrono and herald is a good example of good balance: it’s still strong in pvp, but not OP. Then, a lot of the elite traits should also be reworked. A lot of them are much, much better than what other lines offer, which is bad for build diverity, and condemn older builds to uselessness.

RaGe.9834:

So, I mean this sincerely.
Where do we see balance as being currently?
What are the singular biggest issues?
How do we recommend fixing these (and why)?

I currently see balance focused on e-tourneys and the entire game population quite literally suffering for it.

The biggest issues are ignorance of anything other then 5 vs 5. How about 20 vs 60 assymetric combat for example ?

I recommend to completely scrap and ignore the e-sport tourneys in order to make people in the rest of the game to stop hating the e-sports because of it and so that they actually stay in the game instead of leaving it due to the balance issues being focused on 5v5 combat.

Tongku.5326:

The biggest issues are ignorance of anything other then 5 vs 5. How about 20 vs 60 assymetric combat for example ?

20 vs. 60 balance matter because…?

- Pvp/pve split

- Remove artificial damage from sigils.

- Remove pasive traits.

- Tone down condition damage.(condi spam is not interesting to play or to watch as an expectator).(this is a personal opinion).

- Single target to aoe damge ratio balance.

- Boon spam/corrupt balance .Rather than giving necros the Oprah treatment ,better to look at boon producion of some classes.

- Rework of many useless traits.

- Dont be afraid of redesigning some profession mechanics,weapons and utility skills.

- Frequency of balance patches,not big patches,but small changes that dont need 3 months to be looked at.

tigrawahi.2694:

- Pvp/pve split

- Remove artificial damage from sigils.

- Remove pasive traits.

- Tone down condition damage.(condi spam is not interesting to play or to watch as an expectator).(this is a personal opinion).

- Single target to aoe damge ratio balance.

- Boon spam/corrupt balance .Rather than giving necros the Oprah treatment ,better to look at boon producion of some classes.

- Rework of many useless traits.

- Dont be afraid of redesigning some profession mechanics,weapons and utility skills.

- Frequency of balance patches,not big patches,but small changes that dont need 3 months to be looked at.

i agree on most of this except the passive traits. i dont think its too much of a problem. and i made a seperate post on another thing id like to add to the balance of the game:
no class stacking in ranked.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/No-class-stacking/first#post5964606
^ my post

1. Update/strengthen core specs
2. Completely rework some/most of traits (especially those with falling damage)
3. Nerf Scrappers, revenants, daredevils, elementalists (certain things about them are too overpowered, but any smart players already know that)
4. Update some weapon abilities for some classes (for example make pistol build for thief actually good; make reaper greatsword useful in pvp; etc)
5. Rework some conditions (bleeds, torment, confusion)
6. Reduce number of condition cleansing, blocks and invulnerabilities.
7. Make necro’s minions actually useful.
8. Reduce number of hard CC.
9. Reduce healing and damage overall. Make fights longer and more strategic, not just a button mash.
10. If a lot of people complain that something is very weak – investigate it thoroughly (berserker, core spects, etc).

Would like to see dodging as the only evasion. All others evasion and invulnerablilties changed to blocks.

Regon Phoenix.8215:

3. Nerf Scrappers, revenants, daredevils, elementalists (certain things about them are too overpowered, but any smart players already know that)

I’m not a smart player. Enlighten me please?

Bring back hambow. We need something like this to keep the necros in check.

Scrappers need a bit more shaving.

Eles still seem relatively solid. I’m not sold on the doom and gloom over this class quite yet. Whatever changes they get should be pretty minor and should probably be more damage focused than sustain focused.

Some of the mesmer nerfs could honestly just be reverted.

There is nothing wrong with the balance… like someone said, people have to adapt to the new meta;hence why they gave us a month off. I also wanted to thanks Anet for the balance because I am enjoying every second of it.

How exactly does ele need nerfed? They already got nerfed in the ground. I’d also just like to say in my opinion there is quite a bit wrong with this balance as in it isn’t balanced…

Very short list of things I’d like to see:

- Nerf to on-swap sigils, changing Energy to restore maybe 30 Energy on swap instead of Vigor. Improvements and changes to some on-crit and on-hit sigils.

- This may be tad controversial, but…reduction of Thief’s hard damage mitigation in form of blinds and kiting especially. Thieves restrict all other Power builds. Only power builds used in PvP are ones that can 1v1 a Thief and win.

- Similarily, removal or change of Plague Signet. It shouldn’t be instant.

Lastly, separation between Control (Chill, Cripple, Immobilize, Fear, Weakness, Blind, Slow) and DoT (Torment, Bleeding, Poison, Confusion, Burning) Conditions. Then, change to Condition removals – less DoT cleanses, Control cleanses more popular. Possibly making Fear a hard CC and no longer a condition. Followed by reducing the amount of DoT application and couple tweaks to DoT balance (Burning being very short but high damage DoT without bs like Burning lasting 10s etc.)

Dahkeus.8243:

Eles still seem relatively solid. I’m not sold on the doom and gloom over this class quite yet. Whatever changes they get should be pretty minor and should probably be more damage focused than sustain focused.

Nah, we’re fine. We got that godly buff to SHATTERSTONE.

Oh I forgot about that. If you hit anyone with shatterstone they instantly go down cause it so great now!

Tone down passive regen, tone down condi bombs (or rework condi cleanses to work over time).

^ What classes other than thieves & wars have issues with condis?

The game has the mechanics in place for good players to outplay others. They simply need to tone down singular skill burst and sustain options and make both DPS and sustain/support require combos. Make it so that a major source of healing should come from comboing with a water field, or burst combos require setup like shatter mesmer does. Less stealth or less stealth burst. Better primary game mode. More emphasis on active defenses instead of passive loltraits. Less invulnerabilities (not that there’s much left anymore anyways). The list goes on and on. Until anet creates emphasis on outplaying your opponent and making a game mode that fosters actual tactical awareness (rotating shouldn’t be the only game mode related bit of skill required to play at a high level) the PvP will never become a serious e-sport (or a good game at all).

bbennett.7463:

Balance is good atm. people need to learn to adapt.

Not really. It is not fair currently.

The perfect balance would be to have all classes viable for tournaments. And way more than 1 builds for each of those classes. For instance, Revenants able to go damage or support or hybrid (via Ventari), Elementalists able to go damage (and not just with scepter: staff too.), Warriors able to do something… Never until then will this game be at its best.

General

- A bit more selfless and pure supportive skills/traits that are actually good enough to use would be nice.
- Also we desperately need more healing power based runes.

Ele
- 1 Stability on Overload baseline
- Some traits (minor) should add either healing power/vita or toughness, cuz Ele’s stats are becoming a big problem
- Buff Scepter AA

Necro
- tone down dmg of chill
- slight buff to Dagger AA

Scrapper
- Reduce DMG of Hammer…. greatly

Ranger
- Tone down dmg of Bristle and Smokescale
- Buff Staff-DPS

Mesmer
- Give old Alacrity back, or at least 50% reduced recharge

Warrior
- Needs truly strong defensive traits in zerker

Rev
- Buff Centaur Stance (should have more burstheal)

Balance needs to go away from ArenaNet

Seriously, they are just awful. Like… I’d love to meet their reasons for this absolutely stupid balance.

So after a few days to summarize, simplify, and expand upon what I’m seeing we should focus on for the next balance patch is to:
- Less overall damage (to bring it more inline with defense)
- Defense is relatively fine as is for now, maybe tweak later, but goal is on damage mitigation rather than hard-counters and maybe a few more options to help mitigate conditions, not cleanse or completely nerf them.
-Cut back on the elite spec reliance and aim to make them on par with base class (or reasonably close at least)

-Aim for Warrior inclusion (note that this does not mean make them overpowered) more or less a reduction in the capabilities of other classes to fully mitigate a warriors capability (i.e. blind, cripple, block, evasion, and chill having an exaggerated effect due to the classes natural mechanics) or alternatively (not in tandem) increase the warriors ability to mitigate these effects like a trait to avoid excessive blinds like “you have been blinded and cannot be blinded again for __ seconds”, a “cripple only slows by 10% instead of 50%”, and/or block bypasses being a little more usable in general for basic examples.

Things I excluded (and why)
-Balance around common players and/or WvW:
I agree WvW should have its own, but to balance around that is EXTREMELY difficult at best. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, I’m just focused more on PvP, once the balance is established there a sizeable amount will transfer over and allow easier balancing of WvW.

-Balance is good learn to adapt. (a.k.a. get good scrubs) there’s always small issues that can be fixed and even if a single number is 0.01% off it may be worth the discussion.

In conclusion does anyone agree with this list? Does anyone feel we should expand upon it? or do you disagree with this list and why?

nicknamenick.2437:

Regon Phoenix.8215:

1. Update/strengthen core specs
2. Completely rework some/most of traits (especially those with falling damage)
3. Nerf Scrappers, revenants, daredevils, elementalists (certain things about them are too overpowered, but any smart players already know that)
4. Update some weapon abilities for some classes (for example make pistol build for thief actually good; make reaper greatsword useful in pvp; etc)
5. Rework some conditions (bleeds, torment, confusion)
6. Reduce number of condition cleansing, blocks and invulnerabilities.
7. Make necro’s minions actually useful.
8. Reduce number of hard CC.
9. Reduce healing and damage overall. Make fights longer and more strategic, not just a button mash.
10. If a lot of people complain that something is very weak – investigate it thoroughly (berserker, core spects, etc).

on point 3. can you add Druid/Pets, Reaper and DH?

In general they need to bring down elites..

Druids might be annoying, but they are not as op as Scrappers or revenents. Reapers are well balanced, but core necro (especially pets) is bad. DH is as well pretty balanced, but maybe traps are too good for group fights. However, traps can be easily activated by pets and avoided by dodges.

It is not that all elites need to be toned down, but core specializations needs to be upgraded.

Glenstorm.4059:

Regon Phoenix.8215:

3. Nerf Scrappers, revenants, daredevils, elementalists (certain things about them are too overpowered, but any smart players already know that)

I’m not a smart player. Enlighten me please?

Extreme AOE burst. No other class can do that. Problem is not in AOE or in burst, but in the fact that they are together. AOE should be low to single target, but high damage to whole group. However, elementalist does high AOE damage to single target and devastating damage to whole group.