Guild Wars 2

Atherakhia.4086:

2.) Nighttime Coverage: It’s very aggrivating to completely dominate your tier all day long, but still never manage to get anywhere because from the hours of 2am till noon your server loses every single point because of work/school. After the initial cap, if you’re not actively defending something (because no one is attacking) you really shouldn’t get the same number of points.

I thought people would work out after a few months that everyone has different peak times. It really is childish and selfish to even suggest a system where one persons efforts are worth more than another simply because they don’t play in your peak times or have school/work.

we have skill lag in PVE when the bonus chest for dragon events are introduced
overflows, guesting etc etc
after they make the bonus chest to account bound , all the above are fixed

at the current technology, we cannot have 100 vs 100 fights without skill lags
to make it worst, current reward system and queue system promotes the above
added people are transfering to the upper tiers so that they can join the mega zerg
what else can you expect from more skill lags?

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

They really just need to make stealth work in a specific way when it comes to exiting it. If an opponent blocks or evades a skill the thief tries to hit them with while in stealth, the thief is thrown out of stealth with the revealed condition. However if the attack misses due to Out of Range, the stealth stays intact. This would fix the main complaint with thieves.

I just hope the release notes addressing the current problems with skill lag. I don’t care if they reduce the server map cap, upgrade the routers or redesign the maps… but the skill lag has to go if you want people to keep playing WvW.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

They really just need to make stealth work in a specific way when it comes to exiting it. If an opponent blocks or evades a skill the thief tries to hit them with while in stealth, the thief is thrown out of stealth with the revealed condition. However if the attack misses due to Out of Range, the stealth stays intact. This would fix the main complaint with thieves.

They’re getting it slowly. His spike damage just took a small hit in the form of a Mug nerf and they’re trying to make him more skill-oriented by stealing boons from players rather than having to press 3 buttons to kill a target.

One thing I have notice though, Karl McLain is just an absolutely massive thief fan and it seems to be at odds with the game balance decision-making process. Its always so hard for him to mention thief nerfs. Bias has no place in class balance; lets hope the devs aren’t making decisions based on their personal playstyle.

pot.6805:

Dark Omens.5768:

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

Actually warriors dps is prob a tad more with evis and 100b but hey whatever…..

Uhh no. You actually see those coming and can dodge them.

And everyone knows, when a Thief stealths, you just throw your hands up into the air, stand around and let it happen.
What else are you supposed to do? Critical thinking is for nerds.

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

Way to understand basic game mechanics before complaining about them.

tagnut.8621:

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

They really just need to make stealth work in a specific way when it comes to exiting it. If an opponent blocks or evades a skill the thief tries to hit them with while in stealth, the thief is thrown out of stealth with the revealed condition. However if the attack misses due to Out of Range, the stealth stays intact. This would fix the main complaint with thieves.

If you Block/Evade an attack it may not remove them from Stealth, but it does already let you know the Thief is directly on you and trying to attack. There are all kinds of options available to anyone by that point.

People still complaining about eles non-stop I see. None of those changes will effect me. I don’t play D/D near as much as I used to. Thankfully, with multiple sets of gear, and beam tech, S/D/F, and staff are fun imo. I just don’t like how it’s always a nerf for eles and nothing else. We get no new fun things, just things that make it easier for people to kill us. Still, fighting a bunker ele (clerics), when I’m full glass, and they take almost no damage, is really OP. An ele doesn’t need to use RTL to escape 1v1. Only to escape a zerg. Because an ele doesn’t need to run away any other time if he’s playing D/D with the proper gear. Target rabbit, RTL. Repeat. lawl

Ranger pets and UI need buffs.

Thieves stealth is still OP. The reveal from a pistol hitting you from stealth still takes at least 5s. You can see the bullets hitting you from empty space and not be able to tab to the source. Clearly OP. Or un-clearly, since you can’t see them.

Grimwolf.7163:

pot.6805:

Dark Omens.5768:

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

Actually warriors dps is prob a tad more with evis and 100b but hey whatever…..

Uhh no. You actually see those coming and can dodge them.

And everyone knows, when a Thief stealths, you just throw your hands up into the air, stand around and let it happen.
What else are you supposed to do? Critical thinking is for nerds.

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

Way to understand basic game mechanics before complaining about them.

tagnut.8621:

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

They really just need to make stealth work in a specific way when it comes to exiting it. If an opponent blocks or evades a skill the thief tries to hit them with while in stealth, the thief is thrown out of stealth with the revealed condition. However if the attack misses due to Out of Range, the stealth stays intact. This would fix the main complaint with thieves.

If you Block/Evade an attack it may not remove them from Stealth, but it does already let you know the Thief is directly on you and trying to attack. There are all kinds of options available to anyone by that point.

Not worth engaging someone who thinks warrior burst (opening from out of stealth, easy to kite) is better then a thief (opening from stealth). Good day to you sir.

Grimwolf.7163:

And everyone knows, when a Thief stealths, you just throw your hands up into the air, stand around and let it happen.
What else are you supposed to do? Critical thinking is for nerds.

A warrior’s burst is contained in Bull’s -> 100B combo, both of which are linear attacks.
A thief’s burst (soon to be past tense) came from the Mug/Backstab combo which occured either from teleportation or stealth.

Neither was good in tPvP, neither is good for anything more than catching bad players off guard or forcing a cantrip, but the thief’s (former) spike was a completely different piece of crap from the warrior’s laughable 100b combo. (Of course people will still complain all the same.)

With mug effectively de-fanged, the gc-spec is pretty much dead on arrival because Mug was the defining trait of the build (and an overpowered one at that for only 10 investment). You won’t be able to get that massive 7k+ spike out of Mug without which Backstab won’t be anything more than a startling annoyance to most classes.

Not that it matters, WvW or tPvP, the only weapon worth anything in the thief’s armory is the Short Bow with Lotus Poison. That’s likely not going to change so…

Reiven.2543:

Atherakhia.4086:

2.) Nighttime Coverage: It’s very aggrivating to completely dominate your tier all day long, but still never manage to get anywhere because from the hours of 2am till noon your server loses every single point because of work/school. After the initial cap, if you’re not actively defending something (because no one is attacking) you really shouldn’t get the same number of points.

I thought people would work out after a few months that everyone has different peak times. It really is childish and selfish to even suggest a system where one persons efforts are worth more than another simply because they don’t play in your peak times or have school/work.

Well right now the efforts of a small number of people are worth more than mine just because they don’t play at most peoples peak time (thus PRIME time)

Your argument is flawed…

30 Point trait that removes a condi upon gaining regen will have a 5 second CD (Trait is dead).

This pretty much kills the Staff elementalist… Lets go D/D!

Chiolas.1326:

Well right now the efforts of a small number of people are worth more than mine just because they don’t play at most peoples peak time (thus PRIME time)

Your argument is flawed…

It is?
As far as I know the “night-shift” is way shorter than the “day-shift” so I would say the efforts made during the day-shift is way worth more.
Another thing to keep in mind is that prime-time for you might not be prime-time for me and so on.
It is completely impossible to make a system that stops night-capping, since night-capping for some people is “the middle of the day capping” for others.

Slomo.1029:

Ok I Did It.2854:

All these changes and yet Ele’s will still beable to Vapor Form through the portals into keeps/towers etc when in downed state and cannot be attacked, this is the only class that has the ability to escape downed into a safe location. Are you going to boost the others classes so we can escape into a portal to avoid death too????

Holy poo, calm down a bit.
Anet is really trying to make all classes the same to prevent any interesting compositions in groups or different options of playing your own class.
RTL with 40s cd1 if you dont hit anything? Better place a TON of ambient creatures around on the WvW maps. And take every single skill from thief and warrior that can help their mobility! And take the rush from the snow leopard too!
Better take the support out of the staff ele too! Oh wait, he cant remove more than 1 condition with his 45s cd water field!
At least its a buff to necros and engies.

Confusion nerf is ok, retaliation nerf not needed in any kind or form. Warrior new super-trait wont find any use because of the placement.

Guildies were calling me crazy when I said ele will get really boring soon and I rather try to lvl a guardian now. Cant do anything wrong with a guardian! Never in this game!

This update is really putting eles (and i mean here staff eles) at a disadvantage.
I am not a very advanced elementalist and have only recently started playing elementalist/GW2 but mist+heal when it comes to fights is the only thing that helps me stay alive – otherwise where is the fun in running all the way back from a wp just to get wiped again? Aoe’s are capped at 5 which makes things even harder to strive in fights in general. Staff eles are like paper and they dont need to be degraded in their defense.
Feel free to prove me wrong but if that’s the scenario then we should all switch to thiefs and rangers….

Soooo…. what about the staff ele nerf? Me as a WvW roaming group leader personally couldn’t care less about confusion. Pretty much everyone has high vitality and loads of condition removals so it’s never a real issue. As for our mesmers, yes they were supposedly condition built, but I keep them for the utilities mostly their added damage is just a bonus
So onto serious business. As much as I understand. Water master trait will now only remove 1 condition every 5 seconds from the entire group? This means that The whole idea of support eles is now pretty much removed from the game? I know it’s all about no-holy trinity and stuff but as opposed to our guardians and warriors that can keep hitting the enemy while removing conditions, eles had to sacrifice damage anyway in order to heal and cleanse allies. You may as well remove water attunement alltogether from the game. This will make guardians the only viable class in small scale (5-10) roaming. I may as well tell all my guildies to reroll guardian and we’ll guardian-ball every pug zerg and guild group we find. Seriously think! Guardians have 3 AoE condition removals (turning them into boons) or 6 if we use soldier’s runes with ~30 sec cooldown, this is also paired with the 2 / 10 sec condition removal with healing signet and trait which is a must for every guardian anyway. Warriors can do 2 removals (turns into boons) at ~20 sec cooldown and also 3 (or 2 in most cases due to lack of low cd shouts) removals with soldier’s runes at ~30-35 sec cooldown.
Staff eles now have (!)1(!) Not even AoE(not sure if I understood this one correctly though) and that’s every time healing rain comes off cooldown? That sounds really bad to me. You could’ve made the duration of regen longer and less ticks? That would’ve still made eles less effective anyway but this change just takes them out of the game. Dead people do no damage so I’ll take on guardians now instead of our (very skilled) staff eles. You need to understand that “Guild” Wars is about guilds, not blobs and zergs. Why support unorganised gameplay in a game that’s supposed to be the exact opposite? I hope this change is just some late-april-fool’s joke or something.
As a little addition to this: I don’t understand clearly how this change could be made and noone QQ’d about it. Does noone else have staff eles in their group?
Just as a sidenote I play a guardian. I only have a low level elementalist as I have every other class, to understand the mechanics and provide quality builds for my guildies. Still I think guardians are too strong while elementalists are getting weaker and weaker every patch. Why?

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

if zerker thief was all that OP then why didn’t you lot reroll thief?

The problem with the nerf to Confusion is that it takes scepter out of the game since that weapon is heavily confusion-reliant. This makes condition spec less viable – what do you use as second weapon behind staff? Not GS or sword – not really compatible.

This is going to push mesmers out of condition spec and into power or support spec, out of large groups (except as support) and into small ones. Huge change for the profession and one I don’t think Anet has fully thought through. I play guardian and mesmer and this will give my guardian a big edge in WvW groups.

Reiven.2543:

Atherakhia.4086:

2.) Nighttime Coverage: It’s very aggrivating to completely dominate your tier all day long, but still never manage to get anywhere because from the hours of 2am till noon your server loses every single point because of work/school. After the initial cap, if you’re not actively defending something (because no one is attacking) you really shouldn’t get the same number of points.

I thought people would work out after a few months that everyone has different peak times. It really is childish and selfish to even suggest a system where one persons efforts are worth more than another simply because they don’t play in your peak times or have school/work.

Any players contribution to their server should be rewarded and accounted for, but you can’t design a game that shows favortism to those who play the game unopposed and take over everything without any effort at all. that’s the problem right now… you think the system shouldn’t be changed because the system shouldn’t favor anyone in particular, but the system currently does favor people: those who play from 2am to noon every day.

The system should be changed where bonus points are given for attacking a keep and claiming it, bonus points are given for defending a keep. But once you have the keep and no one attempts to reclaim it? No points should be awarded for that, and if they must, they should be so small in value, that you should be able to make up for their gains by simply recapturing the tower back a few hours later.

For example:

Attack a keep and you get 10pts. Hold the keep for the second hour and you get +2 points. Holding a keep for each additional hour after the second will net you +1 point. Defending a keep against invaders that spawn orange swords will give you +5pts once per hour.

This way if you actually played the game the way it was meant to be played and actually defended an objective you would be rewarded. If you capture a point you’re still rewarded. If you run unopposed for 8 hours, when people login later in the day to reclaim the tower, they’ve effectively countered all the points you contributed by doing nothing but capping points and alt+tabing and reading the forums all day.

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

The best part is they are taking away one of the best ways to kill a thief IMO, by nerfing confusion. Most times on my Mesmer if I could get enough stacks of confusion on a thief before he went into stealth a few seconds later they would re appear downed. I don’t think that will be happening anymore.

This kind of patch is the exact reason I made 6 80’s. I am pretty much nerf proof. At least my ranger might be playable now in WvW, and my necro will be more fun. Shelving my Mesmer/Ele.

Atherakhia.4086:

Attack a keep and you get 10pts. Hold the keep for the second hour and you get +2 points. Holding a keep for each additional hour after the second will net you +1 point. Defending a keep against invaders that spawn orange swords will give you +5pts once per hour.

This way if you actually played the game the way it was meant to be played and actually defended an objective you would be rewarded. If you capture a point you’re still rewarded. If you run unopposed for 8 hours, when people login later in the day to reclaim the tower, they’ve effectively countered all the points you contributed by doing nothing but capping points and alt+tabing and reading the forums all day.

And then best way to maintain a lead is to totally abandon the map to the ennemy. He’ll get some starting points and virtually nothing after those. Yay for metagame

Just think about something : why are those people unopposed ? Because you (as in “your world’s players”, not you personnally) weren’t there. Why should they be punished for you not defending your map ?
It being inconvenient for you isn’t a balance issue.

@ those who cry about the confusion nerf : let’s wait and see how far they nerf it before complaining, please. We could very well see a mere 5% reduction in confusion damage, wich wouldn’t kill any spec. Not saying it’ll happen, just that we don’t know. No point in crying before being hurt

DevonCarver.5370:

These balance changes are in no way the bulk of the WvW changes. There are numerous, WvW specific changes in bound.

Sadly, some of these changes and things being implemented are quite shortsighted. There is one undeniable fact that has persisted since the inception of the MMO genre, and it is one that game developers never seem to quite understand. Making too many changes affecting classes and balance at once never never NEVER works. That method has been tried and had repeatedly failed for over a decade by various companies. One of you need to step up and break the cycle.

Marlinn.6428:

30 Point trait that removes a condi upon gaining regen will have a 5 second CD (Trait is dead).

This pretty much kills the Staff elementalist… Lets go D/D!

Sadly, that isn’t going to help you either. Your staff ele is taking a huge hit as your range never made up for having the lowest armor/heal in the game combined with lack of mobility with staff out. Switching over to D/D isn’t going to be much better for you as they are killing the viability of that as well. Not so much from individual changes, but due to the combination of everything they are doing with the class and outside of the class at once. You will be pigeonholed on your ele way more than you are now, the exact opposite thing that should be occurring. Good luck.

Mesmer scepter (the only ranged MH weapon a Mesmer has) is now useless (again).
Mesmer staff builds are now nerfed (changing vulnerability to poison would be a good change).

I guess Mesmers will be running greatswords now.

Atherakhia.4086:

But the way things work right now, defenders are actually at a distinct disadvantage (which makes no sense whatsoever).

This. Only in GW2 does the attacker have overwhelming advantage over a defender that is inside a heavily fortified keep.

Taking over a keep should be a herculean effort, not something that a group of 5 can do with relative ease. Who here has never used Cats to ninja Hills?

It makes no sense.

Elidath.5679:

Atherakhia.4086:

Attack a keep and you get 10pts. Hold the keep for the second hour and you get +2 points. Holding a keep for each additional hour after the second will net you +1 point. Defending a keep against invaders that spawn orange swords will give you +5pts once per hour.

This way if you actually played the game the way it was meant to be played and actually defended an objective you would be rewarded. If you capture a point you’re still rewarded. If you run unopposed for 8 hours, when people login later in the day to reclaim the tower, they’ve effectively countered all the points you contributed by doing nothing but capping points and alt+tabing and reading the forums all day.

And then best way to maintain a lead is to totally abandon the map to the ennemy. He’ll get some starting points and virtually nothing after those. Yay for metagame

Just think about something : why are those people unopposed ? Because you (as in “your world’s players”, not you personnally) weren’t there. Why should they be punished for you not defending your map ?
It being inconvenient for you isn’t a balance issue.

Right, but they’re being rewarded for doing nothing all day. Where as players who actually have to contribute are rewarded the same amount for 10x the work/effort. It’s a legitimate balance issue and games in the past have come up with systems to resolve it.

Shadowbane for example had siege windows where the attackers would choose a window of X hours, but the defenders could choose the time within that window to defend. This clearly isn’t going to work here given the pace of the game, but it doesn’t change the fact that off-hour siege is a legitimate issure that needs to be resolved.

Could be done in GW2 where if you take a camp and hold it for 2 hours it can’t be reseiged for 4 hours etc. I’m not paid enough to come up with a viable option. Only care enough to voice my concerns.

Pedra.4381:

Atherakhia.4086:

But the way things work right now, defenders are actually at a distinct disadvantage (which makes no sense whatsoever).

This. Only in GW2 does the attacker have overwhelming advantage over a defender that is inside a heavily fortified keep.

Taking over a keep should be a herculean effort, not something that a group of 5 can do with relative ease. Who here has never used Cats to ninja Hills?

It makes no sense.

This sounds like a lower tier issue to me. On T2 it is extremely difficult to take a keep. If they made it any harder I don’t think keeps would ever flip. Lol at ninja hills with catas. In fact it is so easy to defend a keep most times we do not even respond to an attempt to take a keep until they are at inner.

Ruprect.7260:

This sounds like a lower tier issue to me. On T2 it is extremely difficult to take a keep.

You may be correct. I have no experience above Tier 5 so that does color my view of things.

Keep-jacking depends heavily on the defender’s manpower and timing. The bit I’d like to see changed would be that back door on Garrison. Why that doesn’t upgrade with all of the other Keep entrances is beyond me.

Pedra.4381:

Ruprect.7260:

This sounds like a lower tier issue to me. On T2 it is extremely difficult to take a keep.

You may be correct. I have no experience above Tier 5 so that does color my view of things.

Yeah,

In tier2 it takes hours of sieging to take a keep many times. most times it will take upwords of 3+ tries just to get to inner of a fully upgraded keep. It is pretty uncommon to find a paper keep after Staurday in the upper tiers. I can’t imagine them making it harder to take keeps. Towers are a little easier but there are some towers that are neigh impossible to take if they have any defenders there.

Advent.6193:

Keep-jacking depends heavily on the defender’s manpower and timing. The bit I’d like to see changed would be that back door on Garrison. Why that doesn’t upgrade with all of the other Keep entrances is beyond me.

When Garri T3s that is pretty much the only way to breach inner if the keep is defended. N and NW inner are deaths traps and no part of ramparts cannot be safely reached from inner. Watergate is the only quick entry to break a front yard stalemate but it comes with the most brutal death trap/choke in the game as well as completely unreachable defensive siege locations.

In T1, taking a T3 keep will more often than not requiring both servers sieging the defender. 1v1 on T3 garrison is almost unwinnable.

Wonder if orbs are making a comeback? Hope hope.

DanyK.3842:

Soooo…. what about the staff ele nerf? Me as a WvW roaming group leader personally couldn’t care less about confusion. Pretty much everyone has high vitality and loads of condition removals so it’s never a real issue. As for our mesmers, yes they were supposedly condition built, but I keep them for the utilities mostly their added damage is just a bonus
So onto serious business. As much as I understand. Water master trait will now only remove 1 condition every 5 seconds from the entire group? This means that The whole idea of support eles is now pretty much removed from the game? I know it’s all about no-holy trinity and stuff but as opposed to our guardians and warriors that can keep hitting the enemy while removing conditions, eles had to sacrifice damage anyway in order to heal and cleanse allies. You may as well remove water attunement alltogether from the game. This will make guardians the only viable class in small scale (5-10) roaming. I may as well tell all my guildies to reroll guardian and we’ll guardian-ball every pug zerg and guild group we find. Seriously think! Guardians have 3 AoE condition removals (turning them into boons) or 6 if we use soldier’s runes with ~30 sec cooldown, this is also paired with the 2 / 10 sec condition removal with healing signet and trait which is a must for every guardian anyway. Warriors can do 2 removals (turns into boons) at ~20 sec cooldown and also 3 (or 2 in most cases due to lack of low cd shouts) removals with soldier’s runes at ~30-35 sec cooldown.
Staff eles now have (!)1(!) Not even AoE(not sure if I understood this one correctly though) and that’s every time healing rain comes off cooldown? That sounds really bad to me. You could’ve made the duration of regen longer and less ticks? That would’ve still made eles less effective anyway but this change just takes them out of the game. Dead people do no damage so I’ll take on guardians now instead of our (very skilled) staff eles. You need to understand that “Guild” Wars is about guilds, not blobs and zergs. Why support unorganised gameplay in a game that’s supposed to be the exact opposite? I hope this change is just some late-april-fool’s joke or something.
As a little addition to this: I don’t understand clearly how this change could be made and noone QQ’d about it. Does noone else have staff eles in their group?
Just as a sidenote I play a guardian. I only have a low level elementalist as I have every other class, to understand the mechanics and provide quality builds for my guildies. Still I think guardians are too strong while elementalists are getting weaker and weaker every patch. Why?

I like what you’ve said and I like what other people have mentioned here about staff eles – looks like I’m not the only one lol
They (Anet) seem to be looking at things completely the other way round.
Staff eles are almost non-existant and after this patch the population will consist of thiefs and rangers for the most part.
It’s just stupid……

Grimwolf.7163:

If you Block/Evade an attack it may not remove them from Stealth, but it does already let you know the Thief is directly on you and trying to attack. There are all kinds of options available to anyone by that point.

The problem is that doesn’t help you considering they can reapply stealth while IN stealth to give it an extra duration. They can hit you at any time, and you only have a limited amount of evasion and when all skills go on cooldown, you’re basically dead, while the thief has quite a lot of skills not on cooldown, since initiative itself is basically their cooldown (but that’s very easy to rectify). This is why there’s a large complaint about stealth. But what happens if reveal is put on when the player evades the thief strike? It forces the thief out into the open for a few seconds to let us battle, at which point the thief will merely stealth and try it all over again or run. While that seems like the same as how it is right now, it makes battles with thieves far less one-sided and more challenging for both sides.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Grimwolf.7163:

If you Block/Evade an attack it may not remove them from Stealth, but it does already let you know the Thief is directly on you and trying to attack. There are all kinds of options available to anyone by that point.

The problem is that doesn’t help you considering they can reapply stealth while IN stealth to give it an extra duration. They can hit you at any time, and you only have a limited amount of evasion and when all skills go on cooldown, you’re basically dead, while the thief has quite a lot of skills not on cooldown, since initiative itself is basically their cooldown (but that’s very easy to rectify). This is why there’s a large complaint about stealth. But what happens if reveal is put on when the player evades the thief strike? It forces the thief out into the open for a few seconds to let us battle, at which point the thief will merely stealth and try it all over again or run. While that seems like the same as how it is right now, it makes battles with thieves far less one-sided and more challenging for both sides.

What do you mean “dead”? Backstab doesn’t do that much damage. Not even a glass cannon vs a glass cannon would lose more than half health without something freaky interfering, like up-leveling or huge Might stacks.

…and down here in T4 we see keeps flip constantly.

So tier 4 and lower servers need some kind of mechanism to make them play like t3 and up servers.

Here’s my idea: automated defense. In t3 and up there is no shortage of people to man the siege like t4 and lower. So let castle defenses operate automatically if no one is on them. Or at least put a npc near each cannon/mortar and if no one is on that piece with enemy in range, the npc will hop on and use it. If a player tries to get on it it will kick the npc off.

This at least will slow down cannon teams from stripping smc of its cannons while the defenders are outmanned/overstretched due to lack of numbers (a lower tier problem).

Lorelei.3918:

…and down here in T4 we see keeps flip constantly.

So tier 4 and lower servers need some kind of mechanism to make them play like t3 and up servers.

Here’s my idea: automated defense. In t3 and up there is no shortage of people to man the siege like t4 and lower. So let castle defenses operate automatically if no one is on them. Or at least put a npc near each cannon/mortar and if no one is on that piece with enemy in range, the npc will hop on and use it. If a player tries to get on it it will kick the npc off.

This at least will slow down cannon teams from stripping smc of its cannons while the defenders are outmanned/overstretched due to lack of numbers (a lower tier problem).

I don’t think this would solve your problems. Cannons in T2 are near useless. They get destroyed right away. AC and ballista’s are much much more useful.

RyuDragnier.9476:

They really just need to make stealth work in a specific way when it comes to exiting it. If an opponent blocks or evades a skill the thief tries to hit them with while in stealth, the thief is thrown out of stealth with the revealed condition. However if the attack misses due to Out of Range, the stealth stays intact. This would fix the main complaint with thieves.

why would stealth remain if the thief misses due to out of range? Thieves should know better about their skill range, if they choose to attack randomly, they should be punished for it. Stealth is already a big advantage, how much leeway are you going to give to thieves to remain in stealth?

Grimwolf.7163:

What do you mean “dead”? Backstab doesn’t do that much damage. Not even a glass cannon vs a glass cannon would lose more than half health without something freaky interfering, like up-leveling or huge Might stacks.

That’s not right; the current combo time is 1.5 seconds (on armor less than 1900/16000 health, ie glass cannons, scale it appropriately with multipliers for your armor/health value):

• Black Powder ~= 1k on crit
• Steal ~= 5.5k on crit + condition on target
• Heartseeker ~= 3.75k on crit + condition + >50% health; 6.6k on crit + condition + <50% health. (Puts you into stealth.)
• Backstab ~= 8.5k on crit + condition + >50% health; 10.2k on crit + condition + <50% health.
• Proc::Lightning Strike ~= 1.5k condition + >50% health; 1.8k condition + <50% health.
• Total = 25,000 damage.

Changing Mug to deal no criticals means that you will never drop the target below 50% for the Heartseeker/Backstab which means that, doing the same math again but without the crit nor the <50% health conditions, you’re left with:

• Total = 15,000 damage (if Proc::Lightning Strike for <50% health on HS/Backstab -> 19,000).

The mug nerf is roughly a 10,000 damage nerf barring very, very fortunate procing on Lightning Strike. Thieves will, as of April 30th, be unable to burst down even glass cannon builds within a rotation.

rchu.8945:

why would stealth remain if the thief misses due to out of range? Thieves should know better about their skill range, if they choose to attack randomly, they should be punished for it. Stealth is already a big advantage, how much leeway are you going to give to thieves to remain in stealth?

Probably because thieves are tied for the lowest health pool in the game and built from sticks and rubberbands. Stealth will drop on miss/block when thieves can either kitten out boons/cleanses/heals/invuln like an Elementalist or abuse Protection/Aegis/Virtue Healing like a Guardian, or some combination therein (toned down of course).

They have their only advantage in stealth, take that away and you pretty much don’t have anything left over for the class… except dodging and infinite weakness.

I wasn’t talking about the full stealth combo most people would aim for, I was only talking about Backstab because that’s what he was talking about. He said that if the Thief is already in stealth (meaning all they have is Backstab), then if they catch you you’re dead.
Your math makes things sound worse than it really is also, since you don’t seem to be taking any Armor into account.

I personally wish that keeps would be easier to take down or siege equipment to do more damage. At the moment, it is ridiculously hard and almost impossible at times to take down a T3 keep.

This totally defeats the purpose of WvW which is to fight people. It could very well be called Siege Wars 2.

It is hardly enjoyable spending hours pounding on a keep structure instead of being out in the open field engaging in battle.

Some mechanic needs to be introduced to get people to get out and actually fight in the open instead of just sitting in a keep firing an arrow cart.

Grimwolf.7163:

I wasn’t talking about the full stealth combo most people would aim for, I was only talking about Backstab because that’s what he was talking about. He said that if the Thief is already in stealth (meaning all they have is Backstab), then if they catch you you’re dead.
Your math makes things sound worse than it really is also, since you don’t seem to be taking any Armor into account.

I did take armor into account, read the preface. You can scale the values by making a multiplier based on ratios of armor values and taking into account how damage is reduced by armor increases (ie. the benefit from the difference).

It doesn’t make it sound “worse than it really is”, that was what it was (still is). A pointlessly bad spec for tPvP and completely irrelevant in WvW aside from ganking wanderers, its only place was in sPvP for glory farming. It is also probably the main spec of XY% (insert random statistic) of all thieves but said XY% of all thieves also only use their shortbow for Shadow Shot and never spec in Lotus Poison, so…

BenL.5312:

I personally wish that keeps would be easier to take down or siege equipment to do more damage. At the moment, it is ridiculously hard and almost impossible at times to take down a T3 keep.

Its supposed to be hard but with the nerf to blocking trebs, it won’t be as hard if its bunkered down. You’re not supposed to be able to easily flip a T3 keep, and you’re not really supposed to be able to beat the home team in their Garrison unless its a 2v1.

Fuzzion.2504:

Ele mist form locks you out of utilities (No more #6 healing in Mist form HUGE change)
RTL Changed to be 40 seconds, but if it hits something it will be 20 seconds (Blocks/invul ect count as a hit).
Signet of Restoration passive nerfed slightly.
30 Point trait that removes a condi upon gaining regen will have a 5 second CD (Trait is dead).
Conjure Duration increased (Still useless).

Ele is dead, I’m gonna choose another class definatly. this sucks after all the time and money and gold invested on my main toon.

Grimwolf.7163:

I wasn’t talking about the full stealth combo most people would aim for, I was only talking about Backstab because that’s what he was talking about. He said that if the Thief is already in stealth (meaning all they have is Backstab), then if they catch you you’re dead.
Your math makes things sound worse than it really is also, since you don’t seem to be taking any Armor into account.

Oh it’s not the backstab by itself that kills you, it’s the fact that if you know the thief is there and already blew your AoE skills and dodges, you’re left with a pretty bad setup against the thief, as with one blow they’re already going to take a chunk off your life (amount varies per class and build, as it does about 20% to me). And even if the dodges come back up, you’re still going to be stuck in a bad position due to the fact that they can keep throwing themselves back into stealth and completely negate your attempts at striking back. At which point ANY attack coming out of stealth will hit you just as hard as the first one. It’s an endless cycle leading to your death unless another ally happens to come along and save you.

quote:Thief Mug Trait can no longer crit, but now it also heals 2K (scales with heal power).

Great that it can no longer crit, but why a scalable heal added? The heal isn’t needed…

About the Elementist changes:
I profoundly disagree with changing something that is at the core of playing a class. And you did just that to my class (I play mostly with a staff and ONLY heal in mist form – Else the hit you take cancels the heal and your dead just after wasting the cast).

The elementist health is already inferior to every other class (they usually get killed in 1-2 hits), their casting times are slow as hell, and now they cant even heal without running away from battle. I know you made this game but now your getting way over your head breaking things. Do you realize what your doing?

Please Explain why:
A thief can become invisible for many seconds and kill you while invisible with 2 fast hits, and that is fine…
BUT: The ele taking 5 seconds to cast a spell that does half as much damage and healing while inv (but visible) for a much shorter amount of time is considered overpowered.

You are actually making your game less and less balanced. Thank you for the effort, but no-thanks for the result there.

Secondly: Focus stopping siege projectiles… well why not? the CD is already slow enough, at most you can stop 1 treb hit if your lucky. I got a focus for that specific situation, but now its considered “cheating” or a unwanted feature?!
I don’t get it, someone in your office had a nightmare about a swarm of eles chaining the block-projectiles skill? It doesn’t happen in reality.

So can we expect to see the official patch notes for tomorrow’s patch soon?

Life.1576:

Slomo.1029:

Ok I Did It.2854:

All these changes and yet Ele’s will still beable to Vapor Form through the portals into keeps/towers etc when in downed state and cannot be attacked, this is the only class that has the ability to escape downed into a safe location. Are you going to boost the others classes so we can escape into a portal to avoid death too????

Holy poo, calm down a bit.
Anet is really trying to make all classes the same to prevent any interesting compositions in groups or different options of playing your own class.
RTL with 40s cd1 if you dont hit anything? Better place a TON of ambient creatures around on the WvW maps. And take every single skill from thief and warrior that can help their mobility! And take the rush from the snow leopard too!
Better take the support out of the staff ele too! Oh wait, he cant remove more than 1 condition with his 45s cd water field!
At least its a buff to necros and engies.

Confusion nerf is ok, retaliation nerf not needed in any kind or form. Warrior new super-trait wont find any use because of the placement.

Guildies were calling me crazy when I said ele will get really boring soon and I rather try to lvl a guardian now. Cant do anything wrong with a guardian! Never in this game!

This update is really putting eles (and i mean here staff eles) at a disadvantage.
I am not a very advanced elementalist and have only recently started playing elementalist/GW2 but mist+heal when it comes to fights is the only thing that helps me stay alive – otherwise where is the fun in running all the way back from a wp just to get wiped again? Aoe’s are capped at 5 which makes things even harder to strive in fights in general. Staff eles are like paper and they dont need to be degraded in their defense.
Feel free to prove me wrong but if that’s the scenario then we should all switch to thiefs and rangers….

They broke staff ele for good. It’s a shame I spent so much money in this game and now they hit with a nerf right at the core of my playing style (mistform-heal). Actually Mist-form and heal are part of the core mechanic of playing an elementist. By nerfing that Anet is telling everyone that they don’t know what they are doing.

Can you post the patch notes today? I miss playing other MMOs where the patch notes were posted the day before.

pot.6805:

Can you post the patch notes today? I miss playing other MMOs where the patch notes were posted the day before.

Should come within the next 24 hours. I feel like I have jelly knees about the ele nerf.

Please say you are removing arrow carts.