Guild Wars 2

Good ele players will adjust.

Test it all out before you write it off as a bad patch.

Xillllix.3485:

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.

Mist form is only 1 out 19 utility skills. It’s not a core mechanic. It’s only useful in certain situations.

Isaac.6041:

Xillllix.3485:

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.

Mist form is only 1 out 19 utility skills. It’s not a core mechanic. It’s only useful in certain situations.

It would depend also if mistform interrupts any prior casting of the heal spell. If not, you could hit heal right before hitting mistform and negate the changes. We shall see.

Huck.1405:

DevonCarver.5370:

There are very definitely WvW changes in bound. The release notes will be worth reading.

All the changes in WvW aint worth doodly squat if WvW is virtually unplayable due to skill lag. How about fixing that?

ABSOLUTELY

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.

Thieves get damage immunity while stealthed?

If someone is blowing the dev they are biting… dancing daggers, Heartseeker, Mug, assassins signet all nerfed now. They revert one change back in WvW to where it was before because they figured out culling was the issue. L.2.P.

Reiven.2543:

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.

That is exactly why the current system is so broken.

The efforts of 400 people in NA prime is totally wasted because of the efforts of 80 enemies on Oceanic prime.

That means that the effort of 1 person in Oceanic is worth the effort of 5 people in NA. How is that fair?

If every player is indeed worth the same, then the points should be divided by the number of people on the map. With the current system, Oceanic people are worth 5 times more than American players.

Vena.8436:

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.

Let’s see if I understand this correct… according to you, thiefs can do 25,000 damage in 1.5 seconds.

And you think that this does not needs to be nerfed?

You think doing 25k damage in 1.5 seconds is normal??

Really???

This deserves a nerf. Plain and simple. A BIG nerf.

.

Also… anyone… feel free to show me a rotation where a warrior does 25k damage in 1.5 seconds.

Tallis.5607:

(…)

Also… anyone… feel free to show me a rotation where a warrior does 25k damage in 1.5 seconds.

Just asking how much a good speced W for 100B can do?

I can confirm it does ~14k trough 3.2k armor since i felt that death (no chance of evade on root), i wish zealot defense could do a similiar damage at least for the 14k.

Tallis.5607:

Vena.8436:

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.

Let’s see if I understand this correct… according to you, thiefs can do 25,000 damage in 1.5 seconds.

And you think that this does not needs to be nerfed?

You think doing 25k damage in 1.5 seconds is normal??

Really???

This deserves a nerf. Plain and simple. A BIG nerf.

.

Also… anyone… feel free to show me a rotation where a warrior does 25k damage in 1.5 seconds.

Could You first show me a thief that regulary gets this kind of damage?

My damage:
Black powder – around 500
Steal – I don’t use Mug, so 0
Heartseeker – 2000
Backstab – I think I had once 4k crit on an upleveled player, so let’s leave that – 4k
Total – 6.500 – yeah, I feel deadly and op :P

The problem is that there are thieves and thieves – we don’t all use scary glass canon build to bully new players. What kind of damage would You like me to have? 200 crit on backstab, or is it still too much? Nerfing thieves isn’t that simple.

Tallis.5607:

Vena.8436:

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.

Let’s see if I understand this correct… according to you, thiefs can do 25,000 damage in 1.5 seconds.

And you think that this does not needs to be nerfed?

You think doing 25k damage in 1.5 seconds is normal??

Really???

This deserves a nerf. Plain and simple. A BIG nerf.

.

oh well the DEV’s are too busy nerfing the only condition a mesmer has and eles and force people to switch builds now, because maybe they all play thieves and want easy gameplay.

If it was about new players, well make a beginners server where they can train before entering the real wvw. when i started playing wvw i died a lot and over and over again till i figured it out.

Zgorzel.4902:

Tallis.5607:

Vena.8436:

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.

Let’s see if I understand this correct… according to you, thiefs can do 25,000 damage in 1.5 seconds.

And you think that this does not needs to be nerfed?

You think doing 25k damage in 1.5 seconds is normal??

Really???

This deserves a nerf. Plain and simple. A BIG nerf.

.

Also… anyone… feel free to show me a rotation where a warrior does 25k damage in 1.5 seconds.

Could You first show me a thief that regulary gets this kind of damage?

My damage:
Black powder – around 500
Steal – I don’t use Mug, so 0
Heartseeker – 2000
Backstab – I think I had once 4k crit on an upleveled player, so let’s leave that – 4k
Total – 6.500 – yeah, I feel deadly and op :P

The problem is that there are thieves and thieves – we don’t all use scary glass canon build to bully new players. What kind of damage would You like me to have? 200 crit on backstab, or is it still too much? Nerfing thieves isn’t that simple.

Yea those stats don’t look right at all. One he apparently crits on everthing. So somehow he has 100 percent chance on everything. Even it those stats were correct the thief must be a pure glass cannon go against another glass cannon.

I don’t think most thieves run glass cannon builds anymore because sure you can kill someone quick if they are glass themselves, but they have pretty much no survivability at all.

The most I’ve hit a backstab for was 15k, but that was against an underlvled player, so that really doesn’t count. Most of the time my backstab varies from 2k to 10k on 80s. It all depends on what gear they have.

While I am going to reserve final condemnation of the patch until it is fully revealed, if the patch is accurate along the lines of what has been raised then it will be a disaster; and the mess that is WvW wont be worth playing…which is sad because its the only aspect of the game I am now playing.

With regard to the class changes:

Warriors; well, they needed a buff or a tweak with regard to survivability but the planned changes dont really address that.

Ele’s needed to be brought to ground…literally – their mobility was over the top, however they were squishy enough so that they only needed minor tweaks.

Guards were OP (ditched my war ages ago for a Guard). They needed a minor nerf/tweaks specifically with regard to retaliation and prot but nothing excessive.

Rangers only needed a minor buff and the improvement to the pets may just be the ticket….but just because their trait trees arent glamorous doesnt mean the class is kitten

Mesmers needed a nerf – i can understand the confusion changes. I personally didnt die to it but it was highly debilitating and without a cleanse you were useless.

Engy’s got their buff not long ago and now they can be assessed properly in comparison to their peers.

Necros are largely fine.

Ive largely agreed with the changes so far right? However….

The thief buffs are just utterly, utterly, heroically kitten That boon steal is just insane. Expect to see a sea of thieves appear in wvw….

Sablin.8071:

Ele’s needed to be brought to ground…literally – their mobility was over the top, however they were squishy enough so that they only needed minor tweaks.

Necros are largely fine.

“The ele is the PvP extremely powerful at evasion right now. But even then, he bleeds into WvW, he is adamantly not useful in PvE as a damage mitigator.”

This is the opinion of devs.

I know WWW is a mess and most players can t get the difference between PvP and WWW….but its actually HUGE.

That makes NECRO one of the top 3 class of WWW while not even near possibly in PvP.

FOr example…

Same for warrior where its undoubtely strong in WWW aand borderline OP in some circumstances (see ressing banner)…..while bad in PvP.

Another thing i noted is all people saying “oh they finally killed D/D so they can now go S/D that requires skills” and things like that.

Instead S/D was the main issue and the OP cantrip build mostly.

Not to mention RTL is more than cantrip…its the key spell of a weaponset and a 150% nerf is excessive.

Now if you read most opinions on this forum they are talking of wrong informations.
You don t see D/D in zergs you see D/D raoming or more possibly STAFF eles using D/D to get back to their zerg.

People don t play D/D in WWW they mostly use it as a ooc movement tool.
Who would like to cross several glamour fields and marks to get in melee where your healing is useless because you get 2 shot before having the chance of hitting?

Not to mention how that will utterly destroy PVE eles that were all but strong.
P.S. i don t expect thieves to enjoy their new buff they will lack targets…
They still can t kill guardians and you won t see any eles in www from Tomorrow.

Remember the good old days when elementalists carried a focus with them? Whatever happened to the focus? Ah, good times, good times.

Seriously, why remove the ability to block treb fire like that? It’s another zerg buff, making defending even harder than it already is.

i think that is the only deserved nerf.
Focus blocking trebouchets was OP.

LordByron.8369:

i think that is the only deserved nerf.
Focus blocking trebouchets was OP.

Why exactly, when it’s often the only defense against unreachable trebs?

because basically made LEGIT trebouchet useless.

LordByron.8369:

because basically made LEGIT trebouchet useless.

Hmm… I was able to make “legit” (interesting choice of words…) treb use useful regardless of the eles simply by being less static and adding a little variation to firing location and timing.

Now… let me think on this a little, for I’m starting to see how this can make defenses easier in some areas as well, such as towers on the BGs. For example, someone trying to build cats and trebs north of the NW tower won’t be able to protect them from a treb in the tower. So maybe, just maybe, in some areas it’ll balance out a bit. But I see there being a much larger detrimental effect in EB where trebs can fire on many towers with impunity.

Perhaps the solution would be to cut treb range in half so you can’t treb one structure while safely locked away in another. In exchange, double the damage so they’re more valuable on the battle field instead of just building 10 catas to burn down a wall in 30 seconds.

Atherakhia.4086:

Perhaps the solution would be to cut treb range in half so you can’t treb one structure while safely locked away in another. In exchange, double the damage so they’re more valuable on the battle field instead of just building 10 catas to burn down a wall in 30 seconds.

Half would be a bit excessive. I think the range is ok as long as defense remains viable. Removing defense without taking range into consideration though… not sure how this will go.

VOLKON.1290:

LordByron.8369:

because basically made LEGIT trebouchet useless.

Hmm… I was able to make “legit” (interesting choice of words…) treb use useful regardless of the eles simply by being less static and adding a little variation to firing location and timing.

Now… let me think on this a little, for I’m starting to see how this can make defenses easier in some areas as well, such as towers on the BGs. For example, someone trying to build cats and trebs north of the NW tower won’t be able to protect them from a treb in the tower. So maybe, just maybe, in some areas it’ll balance out a bit. But I see there being a much larger detrimental effect in EB where trebs can fire on many towers with impunity.

This applies to any borderland. There are many Positions on which you can’t fire from any angle. In some cases you can place Trebuchets on the open field, but it is way to easy to destroy trebuchets on open field even with very small numbers. If you are already outnumbered it is nearly impossible to defend Trebuchets long enough when it gets attacked by players AND counter-trebuchets. How long should it take to attack the walls and defenseweapons of a tower or keep when already outnumbered? Additionally, if a keep has mortars and trebuchets you can’t even place weapons on the open field anymore, because they will get destroyed before you even start to attack the keep. Keep in mind I’m talking about smaller numbers on the attacking site, so sometimes destryoing the mortas beforehand is not an option.

I don’t understand all the qqing about the ele change. Granted I’m just starting to play my ele again in WvW so I probably won’t notice the change anyway. Is it just Mist Form and Focus 4 that is causing the problem for people? A nerf to two skills is not going to break a profession.

Everyone needs to calm down and stop crying about the changes. Adapt. WvW is getting better and more fun all the time.

Full disclosure: I was qqing about the confusion nerf at first. I overreacted as I think everyone else is too about these changes. So I’m going to not qq anymore. Even about theives

Sablin.8071:

While I am going to reserve final condemnation of the patch until it is fully revealed, if the patch is accurate along the lines of what has been raised then it will be a disaster; and the mess that is WvW wont be worth playing…which is sad because its the only aspect of the game I am now playing.

With regard to the class changes:

Warriors; well, they needed a buff or a tweak with regard to survivability but the planned changes dont really address that.

Ele’s needed to be brought to ground…literally – their mobility was over the top, however they were squishy enough so that they only needed minor tweaks.

Guards were OP (ditched my war ages ago for a Guard). They needed a minor nerf/tweaks specifically with regard to retaliation and prot but nothing excessive.

Rangers only needed a minor buff and the improvement to the pets may just be the ticket….but just because their trait trees arent glamorous doesnt mean the class is kitten

Mesmers needed a nerf – i can understand the confusion changes. I personally didnt die to it but it was highly debilitating and without a cleanse you were useless.

Engy’s got their buff not long ago and now they can be assessed properly in comparison to their peers.

Necros are largely fine.

Ive largely agreed with the changes so far right? However….

The thief buffs are just utterly, utterly, heroically kitten That boon steal is just insane. Expect to see a sea of thieves appear in wvw….

I agree, this patch could theoretically destroy WvW. But the confusion nerf is/will be a huge part of the disaster to come. Confusion was fine and it was one of the only counters to massive zergs balls. If they wanted a nerf it should have been 25%. At 50% decrease it eliminates glam Mesmers and you’ll see much less Mesmers in general. Which means less portals, leads speed buffs, less WvW utility. If the 50% dam nerf is accurate I’ll be re-rolling condition Necro as will a big chunk of the glam mesmer confusion build community. The remaining Mesmers will run shatter cat, which basically turns them into glorified thieves with high single target burst potential. Which leads to more ganking of new players. Which defeats the purpose of all this “Dumb WvW down so new, fickle players can play it with zero difficulty” philosophy. Oh the irony.

Atherakhia.4086:

Perhaps the solution would be to cut treb range in half so you can’t treb one structure while safely locked away in another.

Trebs are currently 10000 range.
Reduction to 9000 range would be enough to stop garrison trebbing bay.
Reduction to 8000 range would stop hills trebbing lake tower, and stop Stonemist from trebbing every tower in EB and vice versa.

Entropy.4732:

I agree, this patch could theoretically destroy WvW. But the confusion nerf is/will be a huge part of the disaster to come. Confusion was fine and it was one of the only counters to massive zergs balls. If they wanted a nerf it should have been 25%. At 50% decrease it eliminates glam Mesmers and you’ll see much less Mesmers in general. Which means less portals, leads speed buffs, less WvW utility. If the 50% dam nerf is accurate I’ll be re-rolling condition Necro as will a big chunk of the glam mesmer confusion build community. The remaining Mesmers will run shatter cat, which basically turns them into glorified thieves with high single target burst potential. Which leads to more ganking of new players. Which defeats the purpose of all this “Dumb WvW down so new, fickle players can play it with zero difficulty” philosophy. Oh the irony.

I changed my mesmer over to power/shatter last night and all the other mesmers I know are doing the same. Actually I’ll probably go back to guardian in WvW most of the time.

I can see how they feel the need to buff thief but it won’t change much. The problem is the profession is very fragile and gets hammered in a zerg setting. Buffing their damage still doesn’t get them into the heart of the battle. And tbh if you get ganked by a thief while running into position you just respawn and head back there via a different route. It’s an annoyance but not really much else.

So I have been thinking about this boon steal strike we thieves are getting, how would it work against Aegis?

Would it steal the Aegis and deal damage, be blocked by the Aegis and steal nothing or steal the Aegis but the damage would be blocked?

Atherakhia.4086:

3.) AE: This has been discussed repeatedly on this forum and others. Many seem to want the cap removed, others want it just slightly increased, and others still want only harmful AE’s increased in cap while beneficial ones/boons are left alone. I fit in the last camp, but I’m very worried that any change to AE without first reviewing the AE offered by many classes will be disastrous because we already see many people rerolling away from Warriors, Thieves, and Rangers. A change to AE without first giving these classes respectable AE of their own will just increase the trend.

I agree with your other points, but only about half with this one.

1. AoEs can be straight damage or other types of boons and/or condition areas that are appropriate to professions, and as burst professions, Warriors, Thieves, and Rangers do have some AoE skills but not always offensive ones. Rangers, for instance, have traps, which is a very specific and appropriate style AoE for that profession and with the long bow there is at least one skill that showers an area with arrows. Thieves have an AoE stealth, which hides every friendly in the range, and has others as well all oriented to this type of evasive combat.

2. The AoE limit is definitely something that is HIGHLY problematic in WvW, and in my experience this is because especially in zergs, Necros, Rangers, and Mesmers start feeding the AoEs cannon fodder—or worse, keep them in the “zergball” to mitigate damage to real players. At the very least, this encourages the use of siege weapons that have much higher limits when defending (or attacking), but I agree with your points about siege being somewhat broken as well. The AoE limit being raised, or adjusted to eliminate any of the “pet” systems (all classes have these, sort of) from being counted toward the total. This would also be effective for both sides, for instance, one minion master Necro could throw off a group stealth from a thief just by having 5 minions up at the time.

Please post the patch notes so we can all cry about them, the suspense is killing me!

If they fix skill lag, zerg won’t be as much challenge. All our dps will go up, and bad players will die faster instead of being safeguarded by ‘does not compute fast enough’ systems.

I don’t care about the balance issues, I care about game mechanics. Only thing I hope to see. The rest is wants versus needs (I say as I eye that ele and the delete button)

Gkitten24:

Please post the patch notes so we can all cry about them, the suspense is killing me!

Ask and ye shall receive.

snaps fingers

Thank you, thank you!

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 clIass 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!

Correction it’s not a engineer buff this patch, it’s a big nerf. As standard every patch since Bwe1 but 1, the devtards select several best loved feature of engineer and destroy them, while pretending they are helping.

Last time included deleting our only half decent power build from the game, and making all multikit builds wothless random crap (and lots more).

This time includes ruining our best remaining utility elixir S, ruining our best remaining trait IP, indirectly hurting our bunker builds only source of damage, hurting damage with confusion changes, creating counters to anyone stacking boons when our passives stack boons and active boon stacking is the only remaining viable damage route for engineer.

This months nerf disguised as a buff is to healing turet, by reducing the initial healing that matters, listing the crappy overcharge mechanic that may our may not already remove conditions a if it it’s a new thing, listing the water field that we already explode the turet in a if it’s a new thing, and pretending that increased healing over time potential isn’t irrelevant to reality. Even if the turet didn’t instantly evaporate to any splash damage, even if survival didn’t mean it’s so far from the battle it’s irrelevant, we detonate the turet in the water field to get it’s heal.

The reason I know the devs are doing a crappy job with engineer for certain is that every patch or 2 I have to farm pve (which I personally detest) for new gear, but all the old gear sets just sit in the bank with no worthwhile new builds opening up to get it out for. If the devs gave new possibilities I’d understand, but they don’t, they just break more of what little works from the half finished engineer mess each month without offering anything useful. Our only buffs come by accident, eg fixing runes givers weapons etc leads to a brief window for HGH.

Xillllix.3485:

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.

Pretty much…
The main contribution of a staff elementalist after the 30th is going to be handing out free badges and loot to the enemy side