Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

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Posted by: haviz.1340

haviz.1340

Can you CC the boons from Battle Standard (how Aetherblades get their boons)? What about HotW p1 boss? No, you can’t. Dredge spam it from multiples at once, so CC is also ineffective.

No other enemy in the game uses boons, really.

I think I wrote ‘mobs’. Only disaggregators apply boons and a lot of CC is AoE.

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Posted by: Azo.5860

Azo.5860

Mesmer, In WvW[Zerg](Sync ed- ORGANIZED)

Meta (in mean of Most efficient tactics available, in quality of state of mesmer atm),
Strenghts,

  • Having room for every organized groups..

Weaknesses,

  • There is no room except veil botting. (1 or 2)

Kryptonite, (dunno what is it exactly mean. if it is same mean as antidote)

  • Mesmer`s archetypes doesnt work, she should be adaptade to large scale fights (require independant balance from meta balance philosophy)

Reasons:
- S: Having unique skills Veil/portal
- W: There is no better effcient role compare to other classes..[WvW-Zerg] and there is no cap to choosing any other classes than mesmer in your organized group.. Mesmer overall efficient&effectiveness decrease in larger scale fights not like as other classes efficient change to larger scale groups ..

Should be, in first think (subjective) (objective should be working optimizable/customizable builds for differ/various roles/styles)

Strengths,

  • at least (if guess mesmer archetypes(shatters, phantasm, etc etc) works as required level/quality as in pvp for wvw zerg enviroment) and example of pure shatter spec
    - Burst Damage
    - Damage Negation from damage Prevention [Survival for anti-burst]
    - Positioning

Weaknesses,

  • Low Survival from sustain (dps/focused/dot) damages
  • High unconnection time to damage deal, mesmer bursts required sync/sinergy from others

In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite?

kryptonite:
if part 1 https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Ready-Up-Balance-Philosophy-6-13-Noon-PDT/4115421 already done.. go Part 2: Understanding Large scale fights/environments inputs/out puts
then would be better to go Part 3: As your Question about Classes S-W should be..

offical quote from anet staff: Frankly, we don’t like sitting around spamming “looking for healer” to global chat. That feels an awful lot like preparing to have fun instead of having fun…

  • Mesmer meta in Large scale fights.. COmmander : Ready up Veil.. 1 2 3 Veil Veil Veil…
    then dont be rally bot and try to do best efficient.. in 30 teammed party: Mesmer #3 Hey guys i back.. Commander: Swap to bla bla.. (staff ele, shout war, dps war or whatever)
Azolina – Mesmer
“There Is No Shame In Not Knowing; the Shame Lies In Not Finding Out.”

(edited by Azo.5860)

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Posted by: NinjaEd.3946

NinjaEd.3946

I’ll follow a system from a guy who posted here. W= weakness S= strengths

Warrior
S: High spike damage, heavy cc, very durable both to DD and conditions, strong group utility, highest health and armor tier allowing more build choices
W: evasion(self), being kited on certain spec’s, boon stripped(from enemy)

Guardian
S: Heavy group utility, durable, good melee pressure, high condition removal
W: Low health pool, weak mobility, fairly telegraphed skills, weak build diversity

Ranger
S: Ranged dps, evasion, mobility
W: pet, weak melee(self), extremely limited build diversity, weak to constant melee pressure

Engineer
S: Multiple cc, condition application, high sustain, strong versatility.
W: Condition overload, condition transfer(from enemy), slowed (chill, cripple, immobilized), retaliation (on some builds)

Thief
S: Single target dps, dmg negation(evasion, blind, teleport), high mobility, combo finishers (blast, leap, projectile).
W: recovery, condition removal, stun locked, mobility conditions (chill, cripple, immobilized), retaliation (on some builds), low health

Mesmer
S: Burst, kiting, boon access, boon removal(enemy), overall sustain
W: Condition overload, interruption, boon stripping (from enemy), retaliation (on some builds).

Necromancer
S: Condition application, AoE effects (wells, marks), sustain
W: Mobility, stun lock,

Elementalist
S: Versatility, boon access, sustain, combo fields,
W: Locked down (conditions or disables), telegraphed offense skills, low health + light armor.

ArenaNet
S: Making a potentially great pvp experience, sponsoring events from time to time
W: Taking far too long to dish out balance updates, ignoring design flaws, tip toeing around the meta, breeding a toxic environment from lack of communication and the above.

Solution to all:
-Take note of the constantly mentioned topics, act on them if appropriate (meaning a justified reason to change other than Q.Q)

-make more frequent but small changes (atleast once every 2 weeks) towards the above

-more communication to the players (don’t respond to every post or roam in game necessarily, but the dead zones of no content and the lack of response to awful game bugs/designs should be mentioned. Many people have traits/skills that don’t behave appropriately and don’t seem to be addressed, ever).

- Less worry about wac-a-mole, letting things settle in isn’t working, people take a day or 2 to adapt and suddenly the next best thing takes over for months on end. A Lot of this game seems to be about optimal builds rather than build diversity and that makes for a very stale experience which the ToL only backs up. There are a ton of traits and skills to choose from, should look into why people don’t use a majority of them and possible scratch it for something relevant.

“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”

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Posted by: displacedTitan.6897

displacedTitan.6897

If they are going to use “Shaving” as their balance metaphor than I think they should have to “Shave” as often as people have to. I.E. AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK! (not asking for every day). A couple “Shaves” a month would go a long way to making the meta game and balance much better.

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Posted by: Markus.9084

Markus.9084

From an engi playing WvW (roaming) :

Strengths :
Can apply lots of conditions with low cd
Easy access to vigor and swiftness

Weaknesses :
Little access to stability : vunerable to soft CC
Hard to master (kits management )
Ugly -> hobosacks !!! And legendaries don’t ‘fit’ with the profession (hip shot with a sniper, or use a clown pistol)

Kryptonite :
soft CC, burst of conditions

(edited by Markus.9084)

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

Wish I’d come across this thread earlier. Unfortunately, it’s too late local and I’m too tired right now to go into any in-depth analysis, and by the time I’ve rested, it’ll probably be too late.

Most of what I would have said seems to have been said earlier in the thread by somebody, though.

The one question that hasn’t really been asked (although somebody did refer to it obliquely):

What do you see as the role for the engineer flamethrower?

Currently, it’s reached the point where it really only gets used by three groups – people who are still leveling, people who haven’t realised how outclassed it is damage-wise by grenades (and to a lesser extent bombs), and people who know this but play it anyway for the fun factor.

Damage-wise, it’s mediocre. There are a few nice control options, it’s not like engineers are lacking in that respect. It has a nice fire field, but so does the bomb kit, and bombs and engineers largely benefit from the same traits while the flamethrower has a heavy investment in traits that it only shares with the elixir gun. While it does have a few advantages, they just don’t measure up to the loss in damage output, and grenades and bombs can usually deal damage over a similar area with less risk to the player (in PvE, a bomb user can often run around in circles dropping bombs to explode on chasing enemies).

So what is its intended role? DPS? Control? Tanking? Fire field support with blasts from other sources such as the elixir gun, a combination of the above? Basically, under what circumstances would you generally think it’s appropriate for an engineer to think ‘okay, a flamethrower build is the right setup for what I’m planning to do’?

Is it affected by Precision, I admit I’m a bit noobish, especially when it comes to conditions? And condition duration isn’t a gear stat unless I’m mistaken.

Basically to max power builds you need 3 stat gear focused on that. With Condition gear you get secondary stats. I think that is enough to say that the potential shouldn’t be the same.

A lot of condition builds rely on critical hits to proc conditions via traits and/or sigils, which is where precision comes in.

On top of that, even condition builds like to have SOME ‘white’ damage as well, so they may well want to mix in some power and ferocity as well…

To those who think Scarlet hate means she’s succeeded as a villain:
People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

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Posted by: andy.7813

andy.7813

When is this promised ranger fix patch coming?
1 Ranger is the only class that does have to triat to use active signets effects why?
SOR does not work when pet is dead and if its out of range how is this fair ?
To long cds on the ranger signets vs its functionality.

2 Shouts : Why ranger shouts have smaller radius than war/guard shouts? Also long cds on sic em, S&R, Protect me, vs very limited functionality. 3 sec reveal lol , or kill ur own pet with protect me while its standing in place. Guard should be changed so it would create area that no enemy could cross with buff or debuff inside radius. Why our shouts do not remove cond and buff other players around us? Again it needs triat to be used as support .

3 f2 skills are still million light years behind other classes f2 skill way to slow. More f2 options per pet would be nice as well. Boars F2 should work similar to thief steal pop up that env. weapon in to f2 slot so I can use it when I need not on the ground.

4 pets die to fast and cant keep up with targets, drake don’t turn and don’t follow the target after you hit f2.
4 LR finally it removes root, but its bugged and it should have its cd reduce to 20 sec tops ( eng. rocket boots, or 15 sec cd on thief healing skill that packs in to one our LR as well, sweet that thief always get best toys)

5 for the love of god change sword animation on AA so we can dodge. People ask for this and it should not be such a big deal. In last patch you did changed NORNS GS AA animation. now it is a bit harder to dodge as well while char is in mid air.

6 ranger does have the highest number of bugs ,lame triats and useless skills and you simply neglect this class since day one . Stop this favoritism toward war/thief and look around, this game does have other classes as well. To be honest I just wasted my time typing this because you wont do nothing proper for this class, there is way to much stuff to fix with ranger and I bet you wont bother.

(edited by andy.7813)

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Posted by: Phoebe Ascension.8437

Phoebe Ascension.8437

Post is about wvw, pve, pvp. It’s a rant against bringing more boredom in the game by nerfing.

Rush is WAAAAY out of place in the current pilosophy. Warrior is tanky, bursty, sustainy, of all classes they should be punished with slow movement. The amount of times Rush was the difference between survival and death, in wvw, is probably over 1000 000 now.

Pigeon holing roles is wrong imo. Every class I mained was because they could do more stuff then other profs. Why? Not to be more powerfull (if I want creep i’d main warrior, wich i don’t), but to be able to chain between more roles/builds, and be less bored etc.

I have a spreadsheet of all profession, with more then 60 aspects evaluated, all given a max point that i think says how important each aspect is. To give an example, underwater is one of them. Engineer ends up high there. Ele pretty low. The accumulated results, tell me wich professions are better allround. Again this is not to find the strongest profession. It’s to find the most future proof profession. I have different numbers, each time a big ‘nerf/boost’ update came. And funny thing is scores only went down. Only the recent ele boosts, give a decent boost to some scores. But overall scores went tremendous down, getting more profession to the bottom of ‘utility allroundness’, being future proof, against new content, new builds, new roles, and boredom. If they nerf more just to pinpoint the roles more, then i’m 100% again this.

To give you an example Ritualist was my gw1 favorite. They could replace monk (or be second healer), with some very strong healing spirit builds. They could be tank with spirits. Or they woudl be damage dealer with spirits. They were welcome in any party. They also were amazing for solo runs. Only in pvp they sucked (for wich i used mesmer).

Some profession in gw2 qualify for being good at everything (or close enough at least). However the ‘close enough tresshold’ has been played with fire lately, and it’s about to break for some profession. Making them just as boring to play as guardian (very pigeon holed builds, boring (animation, satisfaction after using them) skills, different weapon skills, dual purpose skills (lack off, look at temporal curtain, best multipurpose skill in game).

Stop doing this Anet. Warrior is escaping the ‘all must have weakness’ rule anyway. They have no true ‘super’ weakness. (like no stability at all (engie comes quite close to that), is a huge weakness, no condi damage at all (guardian, apart from lonely burning), big weakness).

With 600+ hours on every profession, if you want to keep people in the game, more ‘hole in the profession’, nerf, removing some of their ‘roles’, is the wrong advancement. You will get me so bored, so fast, it will be an easy choice to leave. I had to re-evaluate 3x, if the role allroundness still was viable enough, in january i took a 2 month quit. Atm it’s still viable, but if you guys insist in nerfing, another break might come in.

TL:DR Role nerfing (removing a role from a profession) is a bad idea. GW2 strenth is that all profs have a heal, all of them have stunbreakers, all of them have ranged/melee, etc etc etc. Stop removing that great aspect. Cause then you are back to the reason you removed monk from gw2. Cause monk was to boring/single aspect.

Legendary weapons can be hidden now!
No excuse anymore for not giving ‘hide mounts’-option
No thanks to unidentified weapons.

(edited by Phoebe Ascension.8437)

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Posted by: Phoebe Ascension.8437

Phoebe Ascension.8437

What balance team since the launch of the game seems to forget is that role nerfing, equals content removal. Like the nerf on poison grenade, thief poison arrow skill. On first sight is perfectly ‘good’ choice. But after looking at superior sustain builds (healing signet, guardian mediations etc), only permanent poison is a good counter, poison is useless as condi damage (bleed much better as all other condies that do damage). Now warrior can just cleanse it even easier, with much less pressure on him. 50% uptime on poison? versus warrior? lame. especially since you chose that skill. Both skills (poison grenade and arrow) also do extremely low power damage, and the weakness blast finisher is kinda meh (and hard to pull off most of time). For a nr 4 /5 skil you basically made these skills just a ‘use as bonus if you can, but it’s just a bonus, it’s way to weak in serious situations’. That’s a role/interesting skill removed from the game, wich makes content more boring. Just like removing the watermap from pvp makes pvp more boring.

Boredom is a big enemy of mmo’s. IF anet doenst realize that, they will get a cold shower. You must keep people in game. So again, stop nerfing roles, thanks. Balance should only ever focus on fair play pvp/wvw/pve (as much as possible at least) balance. Not ‘we put a hole in you, so that we can be satisfied that you have a weakness’.

Mesmer weakness: no aoe, no condi removal, no decent stability, few decent auto attacks, profession skills (and illusion) are very fragile, they are not usefull in a lot of (heavy aoe for instance) situations. If you like tricks, mesmer is ok, but they suck at almost anything else. Why cut so much roles from mesmer, then from warrior for instance? That is not fair. Mesmer gets boring fast in wvw. Warrior doesn’t (if you like winning). You went to far with this on mesmer. Like all the phantasm nerfs (-20% trait place way to deep, and other nerfs) make it all to bad.

Legendary weapons can be hidden now!
No excuse anymore for not giving ‘hide mounts’-option
No thanks to unidentified weapons.

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Posted by: deepwinter.9015

deepwinter.9015

I was nodding my head at all of the things Jonathan and Karl said regarding class balance philosophy – until they got to Warriors, then they just fumbled the ball terribly.

During the stream, Jonathan and Karl stressed the idea of “holes in roles.” They spoke about Guardian’s being able to commit to the front line but being unable to disengage. In contrast, Thieves can jump in, do lots of burst damage, and back out because they’re not strong with sustain.

Warriors, however, currently break all of those rules:

• Warriors have high toughness, high health, and a lot of regeneration (Healing Signet), allowing them to tough it out longer.

• Warriors have incredible mobility, both into and out of a fight. It is exceptionally difficult to lock down a Warrior who does not wish to engage because of their unparallelled access to swiftness, leaps, rushes, and blocks/immunity.

• Warriors have both incredible burst AND sustain damage! They can hit hard, lock down a target, and bleed/burn them out over a short or long period of time. (For example: Longbow/Axe+Shield build)

• Warriors have access to too much condition counters. Dogged March and Cleansing Ire are a baseline for nearly every Warrior build. What’s worse is that they’re both in the same trait line!

Jonathan and Karl, you hit the nail on the head with every other class, but you dropped the ball big time on Warriors.

Azhandris – Sylvari Thief
Tarnished Coast

(edited by deepwinter.9015)

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Posted by: robertul.3679

robertul.3679

And legendaries don’t ‘fit’ with the profession (hip shot with a sniper, or use a clown pistol)

It’s not even about “fitting” the profession. They flat out don’t work with a kit which is how engi is 90% of the time.

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Posted by: Harper.4173

Harper.4173

Warriors have the most telegraphed skills in the entire game.

If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”

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Posted by: Roe.3679

Roe.3679

I was nodding my head at all of the things Jonathan and Karl said regarding class balance philosophy – until they got to Warriors, then they just fumbled the ball terribly.

During the stream, Jonathan and Karl stressed the idea of “holes in roles.” They spoke about Guardian’s being able to commit to the front line but being unable to disengage. In contrast, Thieves can jump in, do lots of burst damage, and back out because they’re not strong with sustain.

Warriors, however, currently break all of those rules:

• Warriors have high toughness, high health, and a lot of regeneration (Healing Signet), allowing them to tough it out longer.

• Warriors have incredible mobility, both into and out of a fight. It is exceptionally difficult to lock down a Warrior who does not wish to engage because of their unparallelled access to swiftness, leaps, rushes, and blocks/immunity.

• Warriors have both incredible burst AND sustain damage! They can hit hard, lock down a target, and bleed/burn them out over a short or long period of time. (For example: Longbow/Axe+Shield build)

• Warriors have access to too much condition counters. Dogged March and Cleansing Ire are a baseline for nearly every Warrior build. What’s worse is that they’re both in the same trait line!

Jonathan and Karl, you hit the nail on the head with every other class, but you dropped the ball big time on Warriors.

Warriors are capable of all those things, surely. But not all at once. I believe warriors need shaved, too, but as much as I think they need some tweaks, I feel your post was inaccurate.

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Posted by: displacedTitan.6897

displacedTitan.6897

I was nodding my head at all of the things Jonathan and Karl said regarding class balance philosophy – until they got to Warriors, then they just fumbled the ball terribly.

During the stream, Jonathan and Karl stressed the idea of “holes in roles.” They spoke about Guardian’s being able to commit to the front line but being unable to disengage. In contrast, Thieves can jump in, do lots of burst damage, and back out because they’re not strong with sustain.

Warriors, however, currently break all of those rules:

• Warriors have high toughness, high health, and a lot of regeneration (Healing Signet), allowing them to tough it out longer.

• Warriors have incredible mobility, both into and out of a fight. It is exceptionally difficult to lock down a Warrior who does not wish to engage because of their unparallelled access to swiftness, leaps, rushes, and blocks/immunity.

• Warriors have both incredible burst AND sustain damage! They can hit hard, lock down a target, and bleed/burn them out over a short or long period of time. (For example: Longbow/Axe+Shield build)

• Warriors have access to too much condition counters. Dogged March and Cleansing Ire are a baseline for nearly every Warrior build. What’s worse is that they’re both in the same trait line!

Jonathan and Karl, you hit the nail on the head with every other class, but you dropped the ball big time on Warriors.

Pretty much this. Warriors weakness is supposed to be condi but they have slowly closed that with all the traits and skills they get now. In addition Warriors should NOT be able to escape a fight as easily as they do, they are the 2nd most mobile profession after thief and that is NOT balanced at all.

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Posted by: Dracatis.1908

Dracatis.1908

Mesmer

I really like what you’ve done for Mesmer for the most part, in GW1 I was ele/mesmer and the mesmer was just for one or two utility skills to round out my build. Now we are a pretty interesting and somewhat viable class but I see two main glaring issues. Our limited ‘spike’ damage requires fairly precise traiting. The biggest issue I have though is, as a mentally based thinking class, our counter-tactic play is pretty weak, in my opinion this is where our ‘spike’ damage should be.

Strength: Build Variety – There are several mostly viable builds which makes us somewhat hard to read before fighting us. Unfortunately good players can see Mantras and Sigils so they can guess at our builds some, but that should be our hard counter out-thinking us.

Weakness: Movement Speed. Honestly I don’t mind this weakness, while several people will try to bypass this with runes… it’s a game to me, can I outsmart my opponent and make it to safety if the battle turns against me despite them being quicker… I would like a ‘shatter’ bar skill that just makes your clones run away until they pop from distance for more distraction, but that is just me.

Kryptonite:
No counter-tactic that works well against Warriors. Warriors are too tanky, too mobile, recover too easily and can still output the DPS and have enough interrupts to counter most our own tactics. While I can 50/50 with a lot of skilled players of other classes, I can’t seem to dent a Warrior(Though probably because I don’t go full zerker like most, I prefer Knights)

Discussion: So as we finished beta it became obvious that our main counter-tactic was Confusion, a specialty that mainly our class could only get(with one or two in warrior and eng). Quickly we found out that this was quite overpowered against players and worse with the diversity of conditions it was hard to strip. So you nerfed it’s damage, ok. Then we found out that building for it we could get nearly 20 second long confusions making it still viable… so that got nerfed too. Unfortunately, most of our play was solely based on that being our DPS so we were forced to go the Power route. The problem is without confusion our counter-tactics is pretty much limited to a couple blocks, reflect(which I love we are the best class for it and build on it), a ton of traits based on interrupt when most of our interrupts are fairly random or hard to land(Staff 5, GS 5’s chargeup time… Sword 4, if you can get it off before you accidentally block and hit with a slow moving straight projectile is a good example, penetration is nice but rarely useful especially the small range and projectile hit size, Pistol 5 and Mantra of Distraction being the only decent ones, though Focus 4 could be good if it triggered them, Signet of Domination having too long a CD and condition damage when most the interrupt traits are power based).

Suggestions: As everyone has said before BUG FIXES are our biggest concern, nothing worse then trying to make a nifty attack or escape to realize nothing happened.

But honestly I’d love to see some tweaks to our class that focus us more to counter-tactic play. More damage to our blocks, easier ways to get longer retribution and protection, fixes on our distortion to work with Masterful Reflection (ie. Triumphant Distortion… would also love if Sword 2 got that reflection traited even if it’s only blur, do some Jedi-style countering). I would also love a trait that punishes for us evading their attack; we have several fairly lame blinds that only stop one attack(or the first swing of 1 attack) where we should be taking advantage of them missing in our theme.

Lastly, one decent counterplay we have the start of is boon stripping, but really it’s pretty weak especially compared to those that can CORRUPT boons. I’d like to see this increased because some depend too much on this which is a tactic we should be able to counter, even not fully spec-ed for it. Null Field should strip everything since that is all it does. I’d even love if it stripped other buffs that normally can’t be stripped while just when they are in the field (They get them back once outside). iDisenchanter and Sword 1 should do an additional one at a time. I’d even up Arcane Thievery again since that is ALL it does with a big CD(and the new meta seems to be big all condition/buff spam).

Lastly I’d love to see Signet of Midnight swapped active and passive (Passive: X% chance to blind when hit[10-20 second CD], Activate: Double all current boons on you. This would give some good counter-tactic play along with synergy with Signet of Inspirations and maybe make a Signet Build viable(might need a few more traits though).

“We are the makers of the music, we are the dreamers of the dream”
-Willy Wonka(Gene Wilder)

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Posted by: deepwinter.9015

deepwinter.9015

Warriors are capable of all those things, surely. But not all at once. I believe warriors need shaved, too, but as much as I think they need some tweaks, I feel your post was inaccurate.

Inaccurate? Let’s go point-by-point:

• Warriors have high toughness, high health, and a lot of regeneration (Healing Signet), allowing them to tough it out longer.

Warriors match Necromancers with the highest healthpool in the game, they also wear the heaviest armor type, making them the only class in the game with both of these. Guardian, by comparison, has the lowest healthpool and heavy armor, while the Necromancer has the highest healthpool but wears light armor.

Healing Signet is the most popular healing ability, and can be seen by almost every player in the game. The developers have mentioned in the past (about 6 months ago), that they were looking at addressing the Passive vs. Active on Healing Signet. They have since nerfed the passive healing by 8%, but it continues to be worn by Warriors for its Passive heal – not its active. On top of this, they also have passive healing through Regeneration via Dogged March (more on that later).

• Warriors have incredible mobility, both into and out of a fight. It is exceptionally difficult to lock down a Warrior who does not wish to engage because of their unparallelled access to swiftness, leaps, rushes, and blocks/immunity.

Greatsword 3 and 5 (weapon, 10 and 20 second cooldown).

Sword 2 (weapon, 8 second cooldown).

Shield 4 (weapon, 25 second cooldown, untraited).

Bullrush (utility, 40 second cooldown, untraited).

Berserker Stance (utility, 60 second cooldown, untraited).

Defy Pain (traited and utility, 60 second cooldown, untraited).

Mobile Strikes (trait, no internal cooldown).

These are the most commonly encountered abilities that Warriors use to engage and disengage combat. Note that the first two are the most commonly encountered ones in WvW and are on significantly low cooldowns. By their own words, the developers stated that a hearty, “sustain damage” dealing class should not be able to leap in and out of combat like a Thief or Mesmer, and yet… there it is! Plain as day.

• Warriors have both incredible burst AND sustain damage! They can hit hard, lock down a target, and bleed/burn them out over a short or long period of time. (For example: Longbow/Axe+Shield build)

I mentioned a build in this bullet point that has been increasing in popularity in both WvW (roaming) and PvP. The AoE burn from Longbow F1 and the insane burst from Axe F1 give the Warrior a choice between high sustain or high burst. The shield gives the Warrior additional survivability as well as a strong CC/gap-closing mechanic.

Similar builds include a variety of weapons, but many can provide intense burst and long sustainability (especially given the Warriors extraordinarily high health and armor). Couple a Greatsword with a Sword/Warhorn and you have a high mobility, high burst, high sustain class – which is why its the most popular build for WvW roamers.

• Warriors have access to too much condition counters. Dogged March and Cleansing Ire are a baseline for nearly every Warrior build. What’s worse is that they’re both in the same trait line!

With only 4 points, a Warrior gains access to two of their best Major and two of their best Minor abilities for a PvP encounter. These traits synergize so exceptionally well that its almost unthinkable not to take them! This, again, contradicts what the developers said during the stream.

Everything else they said on the stream was accurate, but when it came to Warriors, it was simply untrue. Their idea of the Warrior is NOT on par with what the community thinks!

Azhandris – Sylvari Thief
Tarnished Coast

(edited by deepwinter.9015)

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Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

Actually, I believe Warriors can be easily brought back into line PvP-wise with the following, global change:

  • Movement-based abilities which are not ground-marker targeted will not cast if you don’t have a target they can move towards.

Warriors could then engage like no one else. Only fleeing would be quite restricted.

It’d also just be healthier for the game as a whole, IMO.

The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.

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Posted by: Sarrs.4831

Sarrs.4831

make leaps consume endurance so that you can only do two in a row, like fireball form in sanctum sprint

Nalhadia – Kaineng

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Posted by: deepwinter.9015

deepwinter.9015

Actually, I believe Warriors can be easily brought back into line PvP-wise with the following, global change:

  • Movement-based abilities which are not ground-marker targeted will not cast if you don’t have a target they can move towards.

Warriors could then engage like no one else. Only fleeing would be quite restricted.

It’d also just be healthier for the game as a whole, IMO.

Which is a great idea and would also put them in line with Guardians, who typically need a target to teleport to (i.e. Sword 2 or Judge’s Intervention).

Alternatively, these abilities can invoke a double cooldown time, a la Ride the Lighting, making it more difficult to flee a fight.

Either way would make the game a healthier experience, because right now, Warriors are no fun to fight.

Azhandris – Sylvari Thief
Tarnished Coast

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Posted by: Cletus Van Damme.2795

Cletus Van Damme.2795

Actually, I believe Warriors can be easily brought back into line PvP-wise with the following, global change:

  • Movement-based abilities which are not ground-marker targeted will not cast if you don’t have a target they can move towards.

Warriors could then engage like no one else. Only fleeing would be quite restricted.

It’d also just be healthier for the game as a whole, IMO.

That’s a good change.

Magumer Ranger

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Posted by: Roe.3679

Roe.3679

Warriors are capable of all those things, surely. But not all at once. I believe warriors need shaved, too, but as much as I think they need some tweaks, I feel your post was inaccurate.

Inaccurate? Let’s go point-by-point:

• Warriors have high toughness, high health, and a lot of regeneration (Healing Signet), allowing them to tough it out longer.

Warriors match Necromancers with the highest healthpool in the game, they also wear the heaviest armor type, making them the only class in the game with both of these. Guardian, by comparison, has the lowest healthpool and heavy armor, while the Necromancer has the highest healthpool but wears light armor.

Healing Signet is the most popular healing ability, and can be seen by almost every player in the game. The developers have mentioned in the past (about 6 months ago), that they were looking at addressing the Passive vs. Active on Healing Signet. They have since nerfed the passive healing by 8%, but it continues to be worn by Warriors for its Passive heal – not its active. On top of this, they also have passive healing through Regeneration via Dogged March (more on that later).

• Warriors have incredible mobility, both into and out of a fight. It is exceptionally difficult to lock down a Warrior who does not wish to engage because of their unparallelled access to swiftness, leaps, rushes, and blocks/immunity.

Greatsword 3 and 5 (weapon, 10 and 20 second cooldown).

Sword 2 (weapon, 8 second cooldown).

Shield 4 (weapon, 25 second cooldown, untraited).

Bullrush (utility, 40 second cooldown, untraited).

Berserker Stance (utility, 60 second cooldown, untraited).

Defy Pain (traited and utility, 60 second cooldown, untraited).

Mobile Strikes (trait, no internal cooldown).

These are the most commonly encountered abilities that Warriors use to engage and disengage combat. Note that the first two are the most commonly encountered ones in WvW and are on significantly low cooldowns. By their own words, the developers stated that a hearty, “sustain damage” dealing class should not be able to leap in and out of combat like a Thief or Mesmer, and yet… there it is! Plain as day.

• Warriors have both incredible burst AND sustain damage! They can hit hard, lock down a target, and bleed/burn them out over a short or long period of time. (For example: Longbow/Axe+Shield build)

I mentioned a build in this bullet point that has been increasing in popularity in both WvW (roaming) and PvP. The AoE burn from Longbow F1 and the insane burst from Axe F1 give the Warrior a choice between high sustain or high burst. The shield gives the Warrior additional survivability as well as a strong CC/gap-closing mechanic.

Similar builds include a variety of weapons, but many can provide intense burst and long sustainability (especially given the Warriors extraordinarily high health and armor). Couple a Greatsword with a Sword/Warhorn and you have a high mobility, high burst, high sustain class – which is why its the most popular build for WvW roamers.

• Warriors have access to too much condition counters. Dogged March and Cleansing Ire are a baseline for nearly every Warrior build. What’s worse is that they’re both in the same trait line!

With only 4 points, a Warrior gains access to two of their best Major and two of their best Minor abilities for a PvP encounter. These traits synergize so exceptionally well that its almost unthinkable not to take them! This, again, contradicts what the developers said during the stream.

Everything else they said on the stream was accurate, but when it came to Warriors, it was simply untrue. Their idea of the Warrior is NOT on par with what the community thinks!

So if they take a build that does little damage they can have high mobility. My point stands that they can’t do all of what you outline at once.

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Posted by: shadowpass.4236

shadowpass.4236

I was a power ranger before it was cool.
Guild Leader of Favorable Winds [Wind]

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Posted by: Josh Davis.6015

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Josh Davis.6015

I think some of the sentiments expressed on the livestream are being misinterpreted – that’s probably on us. So, let’s clear things up! With each profession, we discussed where players felt they were strong, where they were weak, where they SHOULD be strong, and where they SHOULD be weak. We also presented what we feel the strengths/weaknesses of each profession was, and sort of our long-term high-level goals for balancing.

So, here’s a few notes on warrior:

Warrior:
Of the heavy classes, the Warrior is able to balance sustainability and damage. They bring high sustained damage and opponent control.

  • Strengths:
    • Sturdy body
    • Able to apply physical or condition damage
    • Sustained melee AoE DPS
    • Melee crowd control
  • Weaknesses:
    • Little ability to deal with enemy boons
    • Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities
    • Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire

The point about warrior low/high mobility was actually community feedback that we were relaying, in that you would like to see the warrior have less access to mobility skills – not more. We don’t think warrior should have more mobility.

Our list of long-term balance goals is something we created independently of forum feedback, and honestly, we’re pretty happy with how closely your thoughts and our ideas coincided. Sorry for any confusion.

-Josh

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Posted by: Iason Evan.3806

Iason Evan.3806

  • Stop talking about Ranger fixes and actually fix them please.
  • Today’s stream was discouraging. I was hoping that all of the hours we have all poured into the Ranger CDI would finally be bearing some fruit in terms of progress. That sadly wasn’t the case.
  • Rangers are in a great place in PvP if they run one of 2-3 builds. They have no diversity. That to me is the weakness of GW2 PvP. Build diversity is sorely lacking. Rangers are in a terrible spot when it comes to PvE or WvW. Sadly, I feel like it won’t change because if you change them, they will be OP in PvP. They feel like the GW1 Paragon to me in this regard. You could count on 1 hand how many viable builds were available to the GW1 Paragon in PvE and PvP. It’s a waste of a class.
Leader of The Guernsey Milking Coalition [MiLk] Sanctum of Rall

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Posted by: Zanshin.5379

Zanshin.5379

Yeah. You lost us, there.

The warrior is the only class that has heavy armor, high HP, high DPS, can jump in a fight very fast and run away very fast. So it didn’t make any sense to want more mobility.

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

The point about warrior low/high mobility was actually community feedback that we were relaying, in that you would like to see the warrior have less access to mobility skills – not more. We don’t think warrior should have more mobility.

I think it would be enough to give most warrior mobility skills a target reqirement. So they could go in a fight an stay on thier targets but not leave at will.

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Posted by: Abrilete.1439

Abrilete.1439

The point about warrior low/high mobility was actually community feedback that we were relaying, in that you would like to see the warrior have less access to mobility skills – not more. We don’t think warrior should have more mobility.

I think it would be enough to give most warrior mobility skills a target reqirement. So they could go in a fight an stay on thier targets but not leave at will.

Nice idea!

Baruch Bay, Ranger.

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Posted by: shadowpass.4236

shadowpass.4236

I think some of the sentiments expressed on the livestream are being misinterpreted – that’s probably on us.

So, here’s a few notes on warrior:

Warrior:
Of the heavy classes, the Warrior is able to balance sustainability and damage. They bring high sustained damage and opponent control.

  • Strengths:
    • Sturdy body
    • Able to apply physical or condition damage
    • Sustained melee AoE DPS
    • Melee crowd control
  • Weaknesses:
    • Little ability to deal with enemy boons
    • Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities
    • Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire

You would like to see the warrior have less access to mobility skills – not more. We don’t think warrior should have more mobility.

Our list of long-term balance goals is something we created independently of forum feedback, and honestly, we’re pretty happy with how closely your thoughts and our ideas coincided. Sorry for any confusion.

-Josh


1.
Destruction of the Empowered.
__________________________________________________________________

2.
Cleansing Ire makes building adrenaline a breeze. Also, only their f1 “abilities” rely on adrenaline. As well as being on a 7 second cooldown if traited (10 if not). There are only 3 traits that rely on adrenaline. Cleansing Ire, Berserker’s Power, and Heightened Focus. Heightened Focus is rarely used, Berserker’s Power is mainly only used in max dps builds, and Cleansing Ire is a staple for nearly every warrior build regarding PvP. There’s a reason for that… It’s stronger than most other condition removing traits.

Look at ranger’s Empathic Bond for example. Its on a longer cooldown (as long as there are any points in a warrior’s discipline tree, again, most have at least 15 for Fast Hands), is a passive condition removal, and its tied to the pet. Heck, it doesn’t even actually cleanse the conditions, it pulls them to the pet instead. So instead of actually removing them, the pet, a “major” part of our class, it gets hindered greatly (when movement impairing conditions are involved) and they can potentially die against condition classes due to being overwhelmed by damaging conditions (bleed and burn are the ones that pop into mind the first).

More importantly, when the pet dies, we lose the effect of Empathic Bond and pet swap goes on a 60 second cooldown…

I can list more, the most prominent being that Empathic Bond is a grandmaster trait while Cleansing Ire is only a master… Is it just me or is this a bit unfair…?
__________________________________________________________________

3.
Lol ok.
– Berserker’s Stance is 8 seconds of condi immunity (10 seconds if traited).
– Shouts with Runes of the Trooper (“Shake It Off!” and the trait Shrug It Off are the main ones).
– Traited warhorn.
– Signet of Stamina.
– Dogged March + Lemongrass Poultry Soup + Runes of Melandru makes a warrior near immune to movement impairing conditions (which, Dogged March, of all classes, I believe a ranger should have).

Hah, I didn’t even think I needed to say this. Cleansing Ire alone is already very powerful. While it may not work against full condition built classes, its more than enough. Coupled with any of these in the list, warriors can practically be immune to conditions.

I was a power ranger before it was cool.
Guild Leader of Favorable Winds [Wind]

(edited by shadowpass.4236)

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Posted by: Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046

54 infractions and counting because a moderator doesn’t understand a joke when he/she sees it.
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Posted by: Cynz.9437

Cynz.9437

Balance philosophy: condi bunkers, nerf everything else

don’t need to watch stream to know it heh

All is Vain~
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Posted by: maha.7902

maha.7902

If you give their mobility skills a target requirement, at least make it pvp only – warriors are very map completion friendly atm because you can rush forward a lot and make a lot of ground, make everything require a target and it becomes 100x more tedious.

Serah Mahariel – Death and Taxes

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Posted by: Muchacho.2390

Muchacho.2390

If you give their mobility skills a target requirement, at least make it pvp only – warriors are very map completion friendly atm because you can rush forward a lot and make a lot of ground, make everything require a target and it becomes 100x more tedious.

No this has to be in WvW mostly and i am not sure if they ever have splitt a skill between pve and WvW (normally only between spvp and pve/WvW).

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Posted by: etiolate.9185

etiolate.9185

I struggle to think up a weakness with Warrior. I recently got my War up to 80 after leveling up and playing at max level a Mesmer (main), Engy, Ele, Necro, Guardian and Ranger. Out of all those classes, War is the only class I struggle think of what their weakness actually is. My War sheds condies like nothing. It can trait heavily towards survival and still pump out lots of damage. It has high sustain and high burst. I can trait and build to support with shouts or banners. I have excellent mobility into fights and excellent escape from fights. And I absorb damage like a Guardian.

The Warrior is out of balance with the rest of the game. Pretty obviously so. And the worst part is that there is very little skill check on the Warrior. So much of what I do is passive through traits. So much damage is easily done just via weapons.

Being a Mes, where I find that I’m only around for class specific tricks like Time Warp, Feedback or Veil, I start to feel like the juggernaut when I switch to my Warrior.

Zed Zebes – SBI Mesmer

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Posted by: lunyboy.8672

lunyboy.8672

  • Weaknesses:
    • Little ability to deal with enemy boons
    • Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities
    • Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire

This is somewhat incorrect though.

*Warriors

  • Deal more damage via trait for every boon on an enemy.
  • are only reliant on adrenaline to use 1 ability, with no less than 3 other skills that give adrenaline while giving added utility, condition immunity, heals, etc.
  • Can disengage from any condition class once their defenses expire, because their mobility is only matched by a movement built thief.
Miss Fisthammer – Engineer | Urgard Fistorsen – Guardian
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Posted by: Julie Yann.5379

Julie Yann.5379

Tagreting in a zerg fight for a melee character = certain death. The thing about requiring a target for movement skills is that it really hurts those who don’t use them to run away but to navigate the battle field. I savage leap a lot to avoid the melee train or to rush through a ton of AoE to attack the backline. Auto target and tab target are all sorts of messed up and can’t be relied upon to target properly. Point and click would work if the stupid mouse cursor didn’t disappear and blend into all the particle effects.

The culprit is the GS/Sw-X troll build, mainly the GS part of it. Just fix the mobility on GS.

Be careful what you wish for, Anet might just give it to you “HoT”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”

(edited by Julie Yann.5379)

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Posted by: Drarnor Kunoram.5180

Drarnor Kunoram.5180

I have to say that you guys seem to be a little off on Necromancers and sustain right now. Necromancers are actually weaker as the fight wears on because they cannot replenish their actual health well. Because Death Shroud decays naturally, they can’t hide in death shroud for extended periods of time in a fight and the damage they take in between sticks. It sticks really hard.

Yes, they gain life force, but in the time it takes them to gain enough life force to matter, they’ve lost a very significant amount of health that they can’t recoup outside of the healing skill. There are a number of reasons why Consume Conditions is the only Healing skill that necros really use (and it’s a great heal), but the primary one is that you can’t waste its effects entirely due to death shroud.

In addition, the life force disappears really quickly due to the lack of evades/blocks/invulnerabilities/Protection). We may have more sustain than a Thief or Mesmer, but that’s honestly not saying a whole lot.

Dragonbrand |Drarnor Kunoram: Charr Necro
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Posted by: Zenos Osgorma.2936

Zenos Osgorma.2936

If you give their mobility skills a target requirement, at least make it pvp only – warriors are very map completion friendly atm because you can rush forward a lot and make a lot of ground, make everything require a target and it becomes 100x more tedious.

how do you think Sword rangers feel short range leaps , doubled up no target required but!, it can only be done once and once on gs 3 swoop, both skills on a 12-15sec cooldown, leaving use without movement skills for 10-12secs after use, the warroirs movement skills can be chained indefinetly Rush>gs whirl>sword leap>bulls rush , and repeat. a continuous chain.
no class can do that even a thief only use 3-4 heart seekers or 3 shortbow teleports in a row then its got about 8-12sec till his got enough InT to perform it all again, if he don’t save InT he can only perform one shortbow teleport every 4secs but doing so leaves him on empy of InT for skills,
where the warroir can chain these go straight into combat like he hasn’t paid anything for that speed. to fix this only a few secs of cooldown changes would upset this chain making them still mobile but only chain able for a few skills but not all.

that would be a fix too so they can’t escape so quickly but they can get away to about 1000yards and that still leaves them in a Rangers grasp currently they can even out run 1500yard rangers and that is just wrong.

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Posted by: Carighan.6758

Carighan.6758

Tagreting in a zerg fight for a melee character = certain death. The thing about requiring a target for movement skills is that it really hurts those who don’t use them to run away but to navigate the battle field. I savage leap a lot to avoid the melee train or to rush through a ton of AoE to attack the backline.

And how is this not an issue for any other skill which currently requires a target?
We handle it, you know? :P

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Posted by: Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046

Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046

As long as there are professions that can fear longer then a necromancer on non duration traits, i can’t take anything said about balance serious.

(steal)

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Posted by: Julie Yann.5379

Julie Yann.5379

This is somewhat incorrect though.

*Warriors

  • Deal more damage via trait for every boon on an enemy.
  • are only reliant on adrenaline to use 1 ability, with no less than 3 other skills that give adrenaline while giving added utility, condition immunity, heals, etc.
  • Can disengage from any condition class once their defenses expire, because their mobility is only matched by a movement built thief.

1. which is weaker than corruption, stripping, stealing

2. F1 on most of our weapons delivers the most damage. It’s where most of our burst comes from. It is also a source of condi clear if traited so yes we are pretty reliant on it.

3. only 1 build is able to do so

And how is this not an issue for any other skill which currently requires a target?
We handle it, you know? :P

Not all gap closers on every profession require a target, many of them only require a ground target and some not at all. If you do force targets on gap closers then it should be applied across the board not just to warriors.

Be careful what you wish for, Anet might just give it to you “HoT”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”

(edited by Julie Yann.5379)

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Posted by: etiolate.9185

etiolate.9185

Also, I feel Mesmer single target DPS is being overrated. It’s high in theory, but those theoretical situations are not reliable within actual game situations. The Mesmer has to have a target to do it’s high damage or its high burst. It’s sustainability relies on there being no AOE and having a target. Overall, the class has way too many conditionals that must be met before it reaches its apex and that’s why it’s starting to fall behind and become a time warp/veil bot.

On the other hand, outside of the deception/evasion, special utility, and highly situational damage, the Mes has a lot of “holes” not listed in this discussion.

-They are terrible at group support.
-They are bad against burst. (mentioned, but roll down to the PU comment)
-And despite all the stealth and evade, they have poor escape due to being unable to get distance. They are great at movement within battle, but cannot disengage or move quickly outside of battle. This gets back to being slow, but I think people mistake evasion for escape. A thief has evasion and escape. A Mes is evasion without that level of escape.
-PU is its best survival build, but its actually a very poor build overall and doesn’t fit into high PVE or group PVP or zerg WvW. It’s basically for roaming and that’s it. It’s a low skill, passive build made to survive and be annoying while providing little else.
-Against good players, the “deception” factor of a Mes vanishes. I can’t think of another class like this. I still have to deal with a Guardians boons or a Warrior’s high armor, or an Ele’s ability to switch into support, or an Engies CC just as much when I’m experience now as when I did when I was new to the game. But once you figure out the Mesmer shell game, that’s it. You know the right target 98% of the time. It’s something wrong inherit to the design of the class. (As is clone dependency creating target dependency.)

Zed Zebes – SBI Mesmer

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Posted by: atheria.2837

atheria.2837

I’ll follow a system from a guy who posted here. W= weakness S= strengths

Warrior
S: High spike damage, heavy cc, very durable both to DD and conditions, strong group utility, highest health and armor tier allowing more build choices
W: evasion(self), being kited on certain spec’s, boon stripped(from enemy)

Guardian
S: Heavy group utility, durable, good melee pressure, high condition removal
W: Low health pool, weak mobility, fairly telegraphed skills, weak build diversity

Ranger
S: Ranged dps, evasion, mobility
W: pet, weak melee(self), extremely limited build diversity, weak to constant melee pressure

Engineer
S: Multiple cc, condition application, high sustain, strong versatility.
W: Condition overload, condition transfer(from enemy), slowed (chill, cripple, immobilized), retaliation (on some builds)

Thief
S: Single target dps, dmg negation(evasion, blind, teleport), high mobility, combo finishers (blast, leap, projectile).
W: recovery, condition removal, stun locked, mobility conditions (chill, cripple, immobilized), retaliation (on some builds), low health

Mesmer
S: Burst, kiting, boon access, boon removal(enemy), overall sustain
W: Condition overload, interruption, boon stripping (from enemy), retaliation (on some builds).

Necromancer
S: Condition application, AoE effects (wells, marks), sustain
W: Mobility, stun lock,

Elementalist
S: Versatility, boon access, sustain, combo fields,
W: Locked down (conditions or disables), telegraphed offense skills, low health + light armor.

ArenaNet
S: Making a potentially great pvp experience, sponsoring events from time to time
W: Taking far too long to dish out balance updates, ignoring design flaws, tip toeing around the meta, breeding a toxic environment from lack of communication and the above.

Solution to all:
-Take note of the constantly mentioned topics, act on them if appropriate (meaning a justified reason to change other than Q.Q)

-make more frequent but small changes (atleast once every 2 weeks) towards the above

-more communication to the players (don’t respond to every post or roam in game necessarily, but the dead zones of no content and the lack of response to awful game bugs/designs should be mentioned. Many people have traits/skills that don’t behave appropriately and don’t seem to be addressed, ever).

- Less worry about wac-a-mole, letting things settle in isn’t working, people take a day or 2 to adapt and suddenly the next best thing takes over for months on end. A Lot of this game seems to be about optimal builds rather than build diversity and that makes for a very stale experience which the ToL only backs up. There are a ton of traits and skills to choose from, should look into why people don’t use a majority of them and possible scratch it for something relevant.

I beg to differ.

Warrior at 1000 Range does more “dps” damage than my “Long Range Shot” does at 1200+

It’s not a strength, it’s still a weakness when only “some” of the arrows do what they are traited to do.

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Posted by: atheria.2837

atheria.2837

  • Stop talking about Ranger fixes and actually fix them please.
  • Today’s stream was discouraging. I was hoping that all of the hours we have all poured into the Ranger CDI would finally be bearing some fruit in terms of progress. That sadly wasn’t the case.
  • Rangers are in a great place in PvP if they run one of 2-3 builds. They have no diversity. That to me is the weakness of GW2 PvP. Build diversity is sorely lacking. Rangers are in a terrible spot when it comes to PvE or WvW. Sadly, I feel like it won’t change because if you change them, they will be OP in PvP. They feel like the GW1 Paragon to me in this regard. You could count on 1 hand how many viable builds were available to the GW1 Paragon in PvE and PvP. It’s a waste of a class.

I agree.

As a Ranger I have no way to beat a thief – ever.

As a Ranger I have no way to hit an “Archer” even at 1500+ traited range – they can still outshoot me at every tower and keep.

As a Ranger I am focused first and foremost in any crowd – melt.

As a Ranger my “range” skills seem sadly lacking – even a sword should do some range – a lot more actually – after all, we are magic users. (re: Mesmer GS – WoW)

In WvW where I reside, Rangers are the lowest of low and derided for their “lack of utility” and “others do much better on every single skill that can be brought to a group”.

Not my words, the words of commanders and players for almost two years.

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Posted by: Dracatis.1908

Dracatis.1908

I hate to continue the bandwagon but the times I best a thief they stealth and I have to guess the way they escape… sometimes I do catch them if I’m lucky. I can’t, as a mesmer, catch a retreating warrior. At all, ever. My cripples don’t last, my iLeap will fail… twice, my blink might give me one extra hit, their stability/stun break ignores my Temporial Curtian pull and my stuns… (Dogged March… v.v)

Honestly, I know how much it doesn’t SOUND correct, but I think they might need less stability/stun break. Think about it, their the tankest class statwise so they can readily ‘ignore’ most damage… so their weakness should be not being able to ignore things that stop them. While, I don’t mind them being able to last the punishment and do decent DPS IF they build for it or escape IF they build for it or help their team IF they build for it, but they need to specialize to do any of those and they need a weakness they can’t so easily cover.

Also FYI, Healing Signet condition defense doesn’t ever expire, just sayin’ and most condition builds use movement imparing so Dogged March…

“We are the makers of the music, we are the dreamers of the dream”
-Willy Wonka(Gene Wilder)

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Posted by: deepwinter.9015

deepwinter.9015

I think some of the sentiments expressed on the livestream are being misinterpreted – that’s probably on us. So, let’s clear things up! …

Thanks, Josh, for such a quick and honest reply with clarifications!

Azhandris – Sylvari Thief
Tarnished Coast

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Posted by: Dracatis.1908

Dracatis.1908

Sorry for so many posts but honestly I think the classes should follow a bit more logical and stereotypical basis with customization be at the players whim and willingness to sacrifice(maybe add negatives to each major traits?). Somewhere along the way I think you lost sight of balance with ‘check this out, I think this is cool’.

Warrior should be able to soak damage with the highest armor/hp, I don’t even mind healing signet to let them stay in a bit longer but like any good tank, without support they should be done.

Ranger should well be able to outrange anyone… it’s in their name.

Guardian should have the best healing like a cleric and buffs, but if you spike them they drop.

Elementalist should be a glass cannon with some escape abilities (not invulnerabilities)

Mesmer should be a counter-tactic class if they are set against something you depend on too much, you should lose. Otherwise they annoy you but you’ll probably win/chase them away.

Theif should pop in spike some damage, hope something dies and pop out. Stealth in general should be more like shadow refuge. If someone push/pulls/knocks you up, you should lose stealth(who can’t see a thrown body? Even if it’s true invis you’ll see/hear some impact) Or maybe give a faded or fast vision of them if they get hit. (And this is coming from a main Mesmer) Go play a Spy in TF2, something like that…

Necro has high hp and death shroud so we got basically a depleting tank, a delay tactic which works well for condition damage… except they don’t have the strongest condition burning much. Sure they’ll eventually go down in a prolonged fight… someday, but that is what teammates are for.

Engineer, should be full of surprises, not so much like Mesmer which should daze and confuse you and make you think hard, but can pull out a powerful flamethrower, turrets or bombs/grenades and force an opponent to fight differently to survive an encounter. In concept this works well, but it doesn’t seem to translate in game currently. Engineer rarely frightens/surprises me, when I rarely get to fight one I find a crate has fallen on my head so I have to back off a second then maybe if they are tossing grenades they might be more threatening/annoying then some other target… maybe. Probably not. Take Engineer from TF2 again, can hurt a bit if ignored, chase him down for an easyish kill unless you find his turret… then you might be the easyish kill. This should be the same but more flavor(MMO vs FPS, duh) but still the same defensability to an immobile spot. Maybe have turrets and mines have a cast time where you are immobile but are more powerful. A set engineer is something you want to avoid without help.

“We are the makers of the music, we are the dreamers of the dream”
-Willy Wonka(Gene Wilder)

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

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Posted by: Axialbloom.8109

Axialbloom.8109

I think some of the sentiments expressed on the livestream are being misinterpreted – that’s probably on us. So, let’s clear things up! With each profession, we discussed where players felt they were strong, where they were weak, where they SHOULD be strong, and where they SHOULD be weak. We also presented what we feel the strengths/weaknesses of each profession was, and sort of our long-term high-level goals for balancing.

So, here’s a few notes on warrior:

Warrior:
Of the heavy classes, the Warrior is able to balance sustainability and damage. They bring high sustained damage and opponent control.

  • Strengths:
    • Sturdy body
    • Able to apply physical or condition damage
    • Sustained melee AoE DPS
    • Melee crowd control
  • Weaknesses:
    • Little ability to deal with enemy boons
    • Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities
    • Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire

The point about warrior low/high mobility was actually community feedback that we were relaying, in that you would like to see the warrior have less access to mobility skills – not more. We don’t think warrior should have more mobility.

Our list of long-term balance goals is something we created independently of forum feedback, and honestly, we’re pretty happy with how closely your thoughts and our ideas coincided. Sorry for any confusion.

-Josh

Those weaknesses are not really true…

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

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Posted by: Silberfederling.9302

Silberfederling.9302

if I understand the most demands here right:
- the warrior should have lesser stability, making him a playball for necromancers mesmers and cc in general that you have to take in a zerg fight ( caster don´t take that they stay behind actually, where as a warrior your sole function is to break the line)
- because class xyz can´t this and that the warrior should not be able to do it as well because he is so op
- i wan´t my mesmer/ranger in the frontline taken dmg dealing dmg but i hate those warriors because they allready can, gues why; because thats their purpose ( tell me: how long does a warrior survive in burst dmg after his invulnerability has worn off, and don´t assume everone runs “ignore pain”, “berserkers stance”. some of us actually try to play for the zerg via support)
- because the warrior has so much hp and armor he should be no good for anything else but that because his dmg is so op (actually i agree that some weapons do ridicoulus amounts of dmg while others could need a buff)

after reading the 6 pages in this thread I ask my self:

why do most of the players writing in this thread actually and their “suggestions” aim to disable the warrior from beeing able to do anything (really sum all this brilliant suggestions up: lesser heal, lesser dmg, lesser armor, lesser movement, more cd, target for movement) would you guys feel satisfied when this all happens?
so the nxt endless stealth condition dmg thief can slaughter 4 warriors at once? is that what you wan´t?
to sum it up most posts aim to destroy the base mechanic of the warrior. ok take him out of the game lets all run in circles and cloak and dagger ourselves to death.

from my point of view there are 3 major problems with the warrior:
1. extreme dodge via gs “3”= either reduce the dmg or lower the evade time/distance
2. gs “5” sprint range = this is for all classes: no class should be able to run or sprint via skill that fast that far. the range you run should be reduced drastically
3. the sigils= i am not sure how to interfere with this: the sigils will grant yourself extreme boni combined with ignore pain, you are not supporting your zerg but have the time of your life, i don´t know how to change that, but there should be looked into.

so why do i react so intense?
playing on a server where we fight most zerg fights in the ast 3 months outnumbered and in addition with many unexperienced wvw players you lern the value of warriors that, as a matter of fact, are able to take conditions break though the line and disrupt the enemy “paintrain”. this could not be achievend by other classes, nor without them because even if most of you won´t admit it the warrior needs the support of other classes if he intends to live longer than 8 sec (max) in (burst) dmg.

and in addition to that i think if you only could use either berserkers stance or ignore pain at the same time this would be worth looking into.

Ready Up: Balance Philosophy - 6/13 @ Noon PDT

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Posted by: Swagger.1459

Swagger.1459

thanks for taking the time for the ready up guys, but 2 years in, i think we got it already. time to start getting some serious work done on professions and combat and stop wasting the great potential this game has.

New Main- 80 Thief – P/P- Vault Spam Pro

221 hours over 1,581 days of bank space/hot pve/lion’s arch afk and some wvw.

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Posted by: Julie Yann.5379

Julie Yann.5379

I hate to continue the bandwagon but the times I best a thief they stealth and I have to guess the way they escape… sometimes I do catch them if I’m lucky. I can’t, as a mesmer, catch a retreating warrior. At all, ever. My cripples don’t last, my iLeap will fail… twice, my blink might give me one extra hit, their stability/stun break ignores my Temporial Curtian pull and my stuns… (Dogged March… v.v)

Honestly, I know how much it doesn’t SOUND correct, but I think they might need less stability/stun break. Think about it, their the tankest class statwise so they can readily ‘ignore’ most damage… so their weakness should be not being able to ignore things that stop them. While, I don’t mind them being able to last the punishment and do decent DPS IF they build for it or escape IF they build for it or help their team IF they build for it, but they need to specialize to do any of those and they need a weakness they can’t so easily cover.

Also FYI, Healing Signet condition defense doesn’t ever expire, just sayin’ and most condition builds use movement imparing so Dogged March…

I believe this issue with warrior mobility stems from WvW. The problem is not the warriors, it’s the ridiculously OP combo of dogged march, melandru, and -condition food (mainly the food). It’s makes us almost immune to CC which should not be. Combine that with mobility from GS and yes you can escape any situation. If Anet is serious about balancing professions they should start by removing foods and oils/stones from WvW.

BTW the runaway warrior build is built just for that. You can really kill anything but an NPC with that build.

Be careful what you wish for, Anet might just give it to you “HoT”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”

(edited by Julie Yann.5379)