Guild Wars 2

The first thing that came to my mind after reading the Save Yourselves split for PvP/PvE was: why didn’t they split between PvP/PvE when they changed Symbol of Wrath?

With the SY change, Anet has shown its willingness to split skills to balance PvP without touching PvE, and yet, the Symbol of Wrath nerf 2 patches ago was directed at retaliation in PvP, but ended up as a serious 50% uptime nerf to any PvE GS builds that synergizes with symbols.

That’s not all, SoW is now changed to increase damage by 10%. I certainly hope that isn’t the response to the SoW nerf because the damage increase did nothing to address the 50% uptime nerf to symbol builds.

Somewhat on topic is the frustrating fact that “History repeats”, Anet split skills as far back as Prophecies in GW1, why people dont research a companies products and their past work ethic in regards to a similar thing baffles me, Anet has always been reactive in its updates, overpoweringly so. They WILL nerf everything based on current PvP OP status because they have NEVER respected the meta to even itself out. and in the process they WILL murder PvE for some classes until they become almost entirely cosmetic, only to FINALLY and after almost everyone drops the job, to reactivly fix a jobs pve/pvp standing because suddenly it isnt in pvp which is all they watch.
TLDR; Anet always picks on a job until its pointless and then finally has to pay an intern to fix their mistakes and split the job skills, get used it it.

I’m not sure why people use symbols when most classes are constantly on the move or have ranged attacks..

@wolfie

If you can pull off the Combo Field it has all sorts of benefits. By nerfing the SOW to 20 sec the number of times you can now get the Combo off is very small, expecially with people moving. So in a sense you have diminished the Combo field effect by much less than half. When it was every 10 sec or 8 with a trait, I’d probably catch people in it 50% of the time, now maybe 20% as they have their dodge up if they need it. That is a big nerf IMHO… likely unintended.

Because SoW -> Whirling -> Leap is an extremely strong sequence that basically degenerated the greatsword into a 234 button press sequence against 99% of the pve mobs. It was pretty much mindless. Press 234, and you lose conditions, blind foes and deal huge aoe damage from burning, retaliation and burst damage? Only the 5th skill offered more variance to general gameplay, but then it’s also optimal to use in the symbol.

Now, this sequence is still available, it is still the strongest you can make with those three skills, but you can’t do it every single time anymore. There will be times where you’ll actually whirl without the symbol, and with the leap on a lower cooldown, you’ll also leap between mobs much more often without forcing yourself into the linear symbol sequence.

In my opinion, GS was and is stronger in pve than in pvp, so the nerf shouldn’t be split. SY! drawback, however, is less relevant on smaller teamplay like in spvp, and the self-boons were too strong to the point that they would decide the winner of a 1vs1 match. The split was necessary.

DiogoSilva.7089:

The only problem with this is that the Symbol of Wrath change was sold as a change to Retaliation, presumably for PVP reasons (though that was never explicitly stated). The fact that it impacted PVE AOE damage output was readily apparent to anyone who played a Guardian. In the end that is apparently exactly what it was (cause else they could have changed it for PVP only as they just proved) whoever wrote the patch notes or whoever informed them just didn’t have the stones to admit it or was plain uninformed about both the game and this change.

Which is kinda sad no matter which way you turn it.

@DiogoSilva:

I agree but when they made the patch notes all they said is “because of retaliation”. If they can be transparent about it then cool

DiogoSilva.7089:

Because SoW -> Whirling -> Leap is an extremely strong sequence that basically degenerated the greatsword into a 234 button press sequence against 99% of the pve mobs. It was pretty much mindless. Press 234, and you lose conditions, blind foes and deal huge aoe damage from burning, retaliation and burst damage? Only the 5th skill offered more variance to general gameplay, but then it’s also optimal to use in the symbol.

Now, this sequence is still available, it is still the strongest you can make with those three skills, but you can’t do it every single time anymore. There will be times where you’ll actually whirl without the symbol, and with the leap on a lower cooldown, you’ll also leap between mobs much more often without forcing yourself into the linear symbol sequence.

In my opinion, GS was and is stronger in pve than in pvp, so the nerf shouldn’t be split. SY! drawback, however, is less relevant on smaller teamplay like in spvp, and the self-boons were too strong to the point that they would decide the winner of a 1vs1 match. The split was necessary.

Again, it wasn’t mindless, it was elegant.

The abilities in the weapon dovetailed well with one another and with its trait line.

Tone down the burst damage, sure! Adjust the boons and conditions it applies, sure!

Hobble it, filling it with “dead auto-swing time” and making it completely incongruous with the profession like they just did? Hell no!

You put governors on sports cars to make them street legal, you don’t wreck their suspension, fit them with square tires, or remove 4 of the gears from their transmission.

plasmacutter.2709:

Again, it wasn’t mindless, it was elegant.

The abilities in the weapon dovetailed well with one another and with its trait line.

Tone down the burst damage, sure! Adjust the boons and conditions it applies, sure!

Hobble it, filling it with “dead auto-swing time” and making it completely incongruous with the profession like they just did? Hell no!

You put governors on sports cars to make them street legal, you don’t wreck their suspension, fit them with square tires, or remove 4 of the gears from their transmission.

Hit the nail on the head. The way the GS was before provided for smooth and simple yet elegant gameplay. There was a natural flow or progression within the abilities of the weapon. You could force terrain and positional control since you had access to low cooldown AoE abilities (GS 2 SoW + GS 3 WW). Occasionally you can drag enemies into your AoE abilities (GS 5 BB). Now however, you not only have less build variety due to the horrendous cooldown on the SoW, but you also have less terrain and positional control of the enemy since you can no longer force enemy movement by laying down the SoW as readily.

No matter how you look at it, effectiveness, build versatility and variety, combat flow, and ability to force enemy repositioning was nerfed on GS, and without any kind of improvement, compensation, or exchange in any of those areas in return. There is no added elegance, improvement in gameplay, or other option as a tradeoff (now we can Leap more…woot). The nerf is a total negative as far as the GS goes.

Regardless of how one looks at it however, I would hope that we can all agree that the way the changes were applied (and maybe even the changes themselves) were simply not the best way to go about it all.

Hell, in just a bit of hashing around, the Guardian community has come up with very elegant solutions to the SoW change (the GS nerf) and SY! (Save Yourselves shout). Not going to rehash them here since they have been stated already in various threads and posts.

Time and again though, we get no input or response from development, no explanations (it doesn’t have to be an apology, just an explanation), and nothing other than these nerfs/changes that wind up leaving the Guardian community to hash it all out for themselves in order to come up with a solution or try to understand ANet’s methodology (which appears to be a bit all-over-the-place). In doing so, we wind up becoming divisive and cut into each other.

Not everyone is going to agree on the rationale behind every change, but I think we could at least all agree that it’d be nice to have ANet get in here and do all Guardians a favor by explaining their changes and responding to unanswered suggestions from us (Scepters, Shields, GS come to mind…)

@DiogoSilva:

except SoW is a light field and does neither burn or blind

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_Field

Exemplar.1479:

@ plasmacutter

Hit the nail on the head as far as the GS change goes. Really not more to be said, since it pretty much all has been said in many posts a gajillion times now

That said, I still say the guardian profession is in a very good place and always will be. I was still very attached to the iconic idea of a greatsword guardian, but guardian WILL be the next major project… it will just be a bit longer, because now I have to “get over” my mental ideal of a greatsword guardian because the current SoW cooldown puts the weapon behind everything but scepter — not in terms of damage, but in terms of the “full package”.

I have to give the props to the devs, the game is like a garage full of exotic cars, but it just makes it all the more glaring when I have to get annoyed that they swapped out the short-shifter for a standard one in one of my favorite models.

Aaron Demoncia.2760:

Somewhat on topic is the frustrating fact that “History repeats”, Anet split skills as far back as Prophecies in GW1 (…)

The skill split in GW1 was introduced in May 2008, that was almost a year after Eye of the North, the last Addon to GW1, was released.

The loss of damage its not so relevant for me, the thing i really complain is the loss of the sinergy with trait… simbols are a guardians unique mechanic (like mesmer clones) with 4 major traits and 1 minor traits that modify their effects plus 2 minor trais that “give us” another simbol. So with this distrubution of traits, is supposed that simbols are one of our first defensive and offensive mechanic. (ground control)
Hammer and mace fit this thing, the staff have a very powerfull simbol, so 15 sec are fine… but 20 sec on GS simbol are TOO MUCH… that kittening 10% on damage, cant compensate in any case.

lcc.9374:

@DiogoSilva:

except SoW is a light field and does neither burn or blind

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_Field

I was including the virtue and the leap’s effect into the whole sequence’s effect.

Greatsword is a very smooth-to-play weapon, I agree, but it pidgeonholed us into a linear sequence, so strategically it was a bit mindnumbing IMO. Pressing 423 will still allow you to do that sequence, just less often. I don’t think that makes the greatsword’s playstyle any less elegant, as the skills are the same, the effects are the same, only one of them happens to be used less often (and another slightly more often). In fact, seeing Condition Removal pop up in the screen half the time might add to the elegance (it cleans up a bit), because people chained those skills either they had conditions on themselves or not. It was a very automatic process.

Same playstyle, same combat flow, more variance in skill order and, yes, more positional advantage and direct damage mitigation because of the buff to the leap.

The negative aspects I can see from this change is that the symbol traits became less effective, but I haven’t tested yet how much effectiveness they have lost. And, of course, the greatsword is weaker, because there was a clear intention to be weaker, but if the damage was overnerfed or not I don’t know, and truth is the devs added a bit of GS symbol damage back in the last update.

Greatsword is a very smooth-to-play weapon, I agree, but it pidgeonholed us into a linear sequence, so strategically it was a bit mindnumbing IMO.

i dont think that the 1 1 1 2 sequence of the hammer, its smarter that the “old sequence” of the GS.

The negative aspects I can see from this change is that the symbol traits became less effective, but I haven’t tested yet how much effectiveness they have lost. And, of course, the greatsword is weaker, because there was a clear intention to be weaker, but if the damage was overnerfed or not I don’t know, and truth is the devs added a bit of GS symbol damage back in the last update.

But that +10% damage it mean nothing, because it doesnt make any sense. instead of +10% un damage i prefer -5sec on CD(or one of the other options proposed in the forum.) IM not proposing a simple roll back, but a wise modification of the GS simbol mechanic, because +100%CD and +10% damage, is not wise.

And much more, if the problem is a particular combo field (AOE Retaliation, or leap Retaliation) instead of change the weapons (because im sure that hammer its the next nerf incoming) simply change that particular combo field.

I think the combo field shouldn’t be changed, because one of the greatsword’s niches is retaliation, and the devs want to weaken retaliation, they don’t want to remove retaliation altogether from the game. A greatsword was deemed too strong for what it does, but that does not means it should be completely changed. It should be nerfed, and it was nerfed. I also don’t think the recharge should be shorter here, but I do think that, should the GS reveal itself to be too weak (but is it?) a generic damage boost is probably the best way to fix it.

About the hammer, it’s 1112 sequence is much slower. You can’t grant retaliation to yourself the moment you need it. When with a Greatsword you need retaliation, you put the symbol in. If you need more, you leap in the symbol. But the hammer? By the time you have done your first skill’s chain, your opponent has already spiked you out, so retaliation is more of a bonus to give you time to survive through your remaining HP than a severe punishment at the beginning of a duel. Hammer’s #5 does grant retaliation when you need, but the recharge is much higher, and you’ll want to use that skill in different occasions too.

I’m not saying the hammer is perfect (I don’t know if it is or not, personally), but the hammer is, IMO, very well designed, and you can choose between keeping an opponent snared or keeping an opponent away from you, while slowly but steadily smack them out. Is there even an optimal sequence for movement control? Should immobilize be done first, or should the ward, or should banish? I don’t think there is, it highly depends on the context.

1112 hammer comes at the cost of speed. The old 234 from greatsword was too easy, and the new 423 version comes at the cost of recharges/ availiability. I’d say they’re pretty much on par now, or closer to each other now.

DiogoSilva.7089:

A greatsword was deemed too strong for what it does, but that does not means it should be completely changed. It should be nerfed, and it was nerfed. I also don’t think the recharge should be shorter here, but I do think that, should the GS reveal itself to be too weak (but is it?) a generic damage boost is probably the best way to fix it.

i quote only this part because i dont agree.
Maybe yes GS need a nerf, but not on a Trait sinergy.
The problem was reataliation? ok change the boon of the simbol, and dont touch the combo field, so (with the old CD) you can have a pure GS retaliation only if you leap in your own simbol (every 20 sec).
The problem was the spin condition removal?ok 15 sec on whirling wrath instead of 10… Leap and whirl have no sinergy (excluded the GS Traits) so they can be touched causing less damage to the traits.

There are plenty of solution to modify something without touch something else (or causing minimal damage to the rest) But the cd modification is the exact opposite.

1112 hammer comes at the cost of speed.

every 4\5 seconds when traited?

I think the problem was that the GS was so versatile, yet at the same time not overpowering or underpowering, that tons of Guardians were using them simply because it was the most fun, balanced, and capable weapon available in the game. Anet had it right the first time. Yet I’m guessing the devs must have seen all these GS guardians running around and though, “Well gee, all those guardians are using a GS….it must be OP. We’d better nerf it!”.
True that when a weapon is OP you’ll see alot more people using it, but in this case the weapon was just plain good. The reason so many ppl were using a GS is because Anet had it right. Instead of nerfing the GS they should strive to make the other weapons as synergistic, versatile, and fun as the GS used to be, that is what players want. But I guess that would be to much work…. so they nerfed it.

I actually prefer the new SoW, and GS skills.

At first I was irritated. But I kept playing and learning, and honestly now I really enjoy having my whirl and leap finishers up more often. The SoW is still there when I need it.

Seriously though… Guardians had so much retaliation that it almost felt gimmicky. I honestly feel, after thought and experimentation, that the changes were warranted and wise.

(how irritating it was though, to have my muscle memory screwed for a few days. Leap became a root skill – ARHGGHGGGG!!)

@DiogoSilva I don’t think you see the point of the thread. As Schakal already pointed out, this is a communication issue, not a balance issue.

Again, I started this thread because Anet has shown its willingness to split SY for PvP balance and left PvE untouched, and yet two patches ago, SoW is changed in the name of PvP balance but ends up affecting PvE builds with symbols.

Many people would have been perfectly fine if Anet said they nerfed SoW because of any of the speculated reasons that you posted here. But no, Anet said they nerfed it because of retaliation.

All we are asking for here is consistency in how skill balance is done.

So, please stop derailing the topic on hand. If you or anyone else wants to give your educated guess about why SoW is nerfed because GS is too versatile, too linear, too overpowered, too AoE, too mindless, too overused, by all means, start your own thread and we can discuss about that. But this thread is not the place to discuss about all these things.