Guild Wars 2

Before you comment and look at the rest I want you to read the intro
intro:
This game has an amazing combat system, that’s why many players kept holding on for so long. However the balance and spam in this game is making this game not live up to it’s full potentional, at all.
now these changes that I suggest will require a complete overhaul (which probably can’t be done anymore) however I still want to get the word out there.
The game needs nerfs, and I mean lots and lots of nerfs on everything. However every time there is a nerf people single out that one skill without looking at the whole as for the game. For example (just an example) let’s say incendiary powder would be deleted, this skill nerfed or deleted may harm the engineer in a very bad way, but other classes might be getting nerfs at the same time and making the odds even. LOOK AT THE WHOLE PICTURE PLEASE. Now for the players this is quite hard so this should really be arenanets job to filter out the actual good and experienced feedback from the “omg X got nerfed, now X profession is unviable”.

end of the intro

On to my actual point
1)Skills in this game should be more situational, skills should have less different effects. For example a skill like illusionary leap. I’m just bringing this up for the sake of an example but this applies to every single skill in the game
It send out a clone to the enemy and cripples and vulnerability, after this you can swap with that. This skill is fair design I guess, fairly telegraphed and has a good moment to dodge. The cripple on this skill is good because the enemy should be cripled in order to make the swap work, however the vulnerability has no place here and is stupid. It will only be another random effect that adds on to all the others (other skills in this game with additional random effects). This is just another condition guard really because it’s another spot on the condition bar.
nerfing every skill in the game where it should only really apply the effect the skill should apply would be mandatory here.

2) For god’s sake nerf the auto attacks already, auto attacks are way too strong in this game and should never be better damage than actual skills itself. If an individual would never really use his other skills (the situational ones) the player must be bad and not perform well at all. Now let’s take a look at how this is in the actual game (you all know what example is coming now). Spirit ranger, spam auto and put a massive load of conditions on your enemy without much knowledge of the game. This is bad design and should be changed

3) Nerf “proc X condition on X moment” traits and utilities.
A few examples to name here are “dazzling, incendiary powder, dhuumfire, symbolic exposure, halting strike” just to name a few but there are many many many more in this game. Make them actual skill based situational things, let me out of the list bring halting strike forward here just to set an example.
Make halting strike do his damage equal to the importance of the actual skill. You can do this in the form of looking at heals, elite skills or even just the cooldown of that particular skill. So when you random interrupt an elementalist auto from air you don’t do 2.5k damage just because you used an interrupt, it should matter WHAT you interrupt.

4) Proper animations
This one is quite hard I guess, but it is a must to increase the skill required to play this game and make it less spammy and random luck.
Example is the necromancer staff, it has no indication at all of whether the necromancer is using his fear mark, his chill mark or just his blood mark. It is essentional to make this clear to the enemy to delete having to random dodge in order to not get chilled or feared for example. But again on this, this applies to everything in the game and staff on necromancer is just an example

5) Lessen the amount of skills that apply ticking conditions, with this I meant the conditions that do actual damage (now before you go nuts on this look at point 6).
With less skills that apply conditions you actually have to plan when you will use your skills and the enemy would actually be in trouble if he blew that condition remove at the wrong time

6) Lessen the amount of skills that remove conditions (now this might seem really odd but in order to make conditions still be a thing in this game without it being spammy and kittened we need to both lessen the condition remove and lessen the amount of skills that apply the conditions). Make it so you actually have to choose the condition remove for certain moment and not just remove a condition on using a weapon skill for example. A good example of this would be infiltrator’s return, it makes no sense with this just removing a condition, but again this is just an example. And many other skills should be changed this way too.

there are hundres of threads like this one and im sure it wont be the last one. nothing has been done and nothing will ever be done if the balance team doesnt change broken things.

the new traits wont change much either..

this is the worst meta ever. well i thought that about the last one too but i didnt expect it to get worse lol…

things that have to be addressed the most are:

eles, insane burst, no survivability
warrior tankyness with too much damage output
condition spam, conditions on autoattack pls?
amount of stuns in the game
passive procs of any sort
AI clutter, mesmers clones, MM, sprits

and im sure there’s even more

I think making skills do specific things and cut down on all the extras will strengthen the counterplay and reduce skill spam. Reducing the power of auto attack and shifting the focus to well made telegraphed special attacks also is a good thing. We can then tackle the dodge/invuln spam – these types of builds are so popular because of the insane levels of damage 1 person can put out against you and so not having an immunity/tele/dodgespam ready in a team fight will lead you to death very quickly.

These nerfs to the individual would also give rise, perhaps, to more team builds. Everyone atm is incredibly self reliant in terms of damage output and sustain. If you remove the ability of classes to do buckets of damage AND cleanse/dodge forever/invuln you then require an interconnected team covering each others weaknesses, possibly with real control classes :O (by this i mean classes which chill and cripple while NOT stacking bleeds and burn) – with TDM coming it might be the right time.

Blanket nerfs would however alter the game drasticly – probably to a game I’d personally prefer but we’d need to see if other would too. These sorts of posts have been circulating since launch so I’m not expecting such a fundamental change to the game :P

renegade.4851:

2) For god’s sake nerf the auto attacks already, auto attacks are way too strong in this game and should never be better damage than actual skills itself. If an individual would never really use his other skills (the situational ones) the player must be bad and not perform well at all. Now let’s take a look at how this is in the actual game (you all know what example is coming now). Spirit ranger, spam auto and put a massive load of conditions on your enemy without much knowledge of the game. This is bad design and should be changed

I agree with most of your suggestions. I too believe the game is too rooted to make these changes, but the fact that they are so rooted isn’t what will keep them from being changed. The reason they will never be changed are the parts I bolded above:

• the player must be bad and not perform well at all.
• without much knowledge of the game.

I hate to break it to you, but ANET chose a cusual driven, gem store business model. Now, if you think WoW has become casual, this game is FAR more casual. WoW looks like Dark Souls compared to this game.

I have come to terms with this, I realize that most of their decisions are based on the casual market and will proceed with casual play, because promoting casual play promotes more people playing (since most people are casual) and more people will cause more gems to be sold.

They should have completely separated PvE and PvP at the start, possibly making the PvP part a stand-alone mode for 15 bucks or so, then they could balance the game…for the good of the game…not to make Jane, the mother of 3, feel like she’s doing well, even though she’s being carried by auto-attack.

To 3.) I think A-Net screwed their system already in the beginning, by introducing Traits (not the Traitline itself). There are just way too many things to consider and in my opinion Traits are the main reason why this game will never have great build-diversity.

This system allows you to specc into a defensive traitline while taking offensive traits and vice versa (wtf?!). Besides that it naturally creates synergy of several traits, therefore limit diversity heavily. Another issue is all these random-proc-traits, which you pointed out.

Overall I agree on everything. There has to be a heavy debuff to all classes. It will unlikely gonna happen, do to the amount of work and the pace of A-Nets development. Besides that they heavily lack of knowledge to understand the game and still refuse to cooperate with players that actually do.

R.I.P GW2

renegade.4851:

1)Skills in this game should be more situational, skills should have less different effects. […]
2) auto attacks are way too strong in this game

btw: I think the vulnerability comes from, the clone attacking with the normal ‘Mind Slash’ chain, like every other sword clone (f.e. created by ‘Mirror Images’) does.

I think your idea is easier said than done. It is a very narrow path behind between just spamming ‘auto attack’ and spamming all your skills.

Let us take a look at your example the spirit ranger with shortbow:
Number 1 ‘Crossfire’: Auto-Attack and therefore a filler between everything else; most effective if you can attack your opponent from the side or back.
Number 2 ‘Poison Volley’: Best used if the enemy is close. So better not use it when running towards your opponent, but use it once you reached him. Can basically be spammed, but most efficient in a certain situation.
Number 3 a dodge, well, you can basically spam this ability, but most effective if timed right.
Number 4 ‘Crippling Shot’: You can basically spam it. This ability could need some improvements.
Number 5 ‘Concussion Shot’: Daze, for the best effective try to interrupt a certain ability.

Another example where would be a Scepter/Dagger necromancer. On the first glance it looks like you can simply spam everything, but to be most efficient you have to take a look at the auto-attack chain, to make sure you apply poison (via ‘Putrid Curse’) and don’t interrupt your auto-attack chain with your other weapon abilities. I think the weapon sets, and the game as a whole have more depth, than we give it credit for.

Don’t get me wrong, I also think, that certain weapon sets need a rework. I’d love to have more weapon sets with more situational skills, without resulting in a simple auto-attack-spam, but I think overall they have done a great job so far.
Anyway I will take part in every CDI profession discussion, and include the specific weaponset revisions I’d love to see.

3) Nerf “proc X condition on X moment” traits and utilities.

I think for that we should take a look at the outcome, and not the overall proc.
Is a necromancer with ‘Dhuumfire’ too strong? Then change the trait.
Is a mesmer with ‘haltering strike’ too strong? Then reduce the number, if not, keep it.
F.e. ‘haltering strike’ only really let you benefit from it, once you manage to interrupt skills. This is far a better design than just a ‘increase damage’-modifier like ‘Mental Torment’ increasing the Mind Wrack damage by 20%.
[Personally I think ‘haltering strike’ should have it’s normal damage increased, but be no longer able to critical hit.]

4) Proper animations

Agree with your here. Especially some asura animations need a rework.
F.e. the signet symbol you have above your head while casting one should get a rework.

5) Lessen the amount of skills that apply ticking conditions
6) Lessen the amount of skills that remove conditions

Would love to test around with how condition damage and removal actual works / mess around with the design philosophies behind the condition concept.
I’d love to refer to your intro here → maybe it is too late for changing that.
The game is constantly growing and changing, I think we should focus more on specific things we don’t like and not on core problems.

renegade.4851:

…..Spirit ranger, spam auto and put a massive load of conditions on your enemy without much knowledge of the game. This is bad design and should be changed
…

seems like u know less then the spirit ranger.

at least he knows how to flank you during a 1vs1.. very hard to archive. good qq really, shows your true skill

@teutos
funny how the spirit ranger can basicly “spam” all skills with cooldown.

hooma.9642:

renegade.4851:

…..Spirit ranger, spam auto and put a massive load of conditions on your enemy without much knowledge of the game. This is bad design and should be changed
…

seems like u know less then the spirit ranger.

at least he knows how to flank you during a 1vs1.. very hard to archive. good qq really, shows your true skill

@teutos
funny how the spirit ranger can basicly “spam” all skills with cooldown.

you missed the point entirely, it was just an example of how auto attacks combined with “hit and apply X effect” from something worked together making a bad player still fairly decent.

hooma.9642:

@teutos funny how the spirit ranger can basicly “spam” all skills with cooldown.

Maybe we just have a different definition of ‘spam’. Personally I use it for “mindlessly pressing it once you are able to do so”.

Teutos.8620:

hooma.9642:

@teutos funny how the spirit ranger can basicly “spam” all skills with cooldown.

Maybe we just have a different definition of ‘spam’. Personally I use it for “mindlessly pressing it once you are able to do so”.

well if u have played 1 time spirit ranger in higher tier then u would know that spam wins nothing.

if u have looked 1 time on the skills, then u have noticed that except crossfire and autoattack they all have side-effects that should also be considered as reason why someone used that skill.

on the other hand if u fight a ranger, how many shortbow skills do u think u can distinguish by animation?

on the same time u act like other builds reguire a master in some science to pressing the right buttons at the right time.

hooma.9642:

well if u have played 1 time spirit ranger in higher tier then u would know that spam wins nothing.

Looked you up on gw2score.com – not sure where you get your information from, since it appears you have never played in the ‘higher tier’. Feel free to do the same with me or renegade.

In got into detail about every shortbow-skill, not sure at which point you have been offended. My overall conclusion was that besides number 4 the overall design is good, even tho you can just mindlessly press every button, it is more effective to use the abilities in the right situation.
The real problem with f.e. a spirit ranger starts, when it does not matter if he times his abilities right, but due to offensive procs (f.e. Sun Spirit) deals enough damage while managing to survive due to defensive procs (f.e. ‘Empathic Bond’).
Is there a difference between a good ranger (f.e. like ZeParrot/Niah) and a bad (f.e. like Nary Why Irk)? Yes, totally, but even a bad one can be very effective.

And this should influence the design of the professions and their abilities. Unfortunately like the thread-creator already said in his intro, for most of the core stuff it might already be too late.

As I posted in various other threads: I highly recommend shortening posts to the essence and providing a tl;dr.
This is just too long for a forum post to bother reading – no offense.
It would really help to shorten it – one good way is to check the first sentence of each paragraph (as it usually contains the message) and delete the rest – keep it short and simple.