Guild Wars 2

Todays patch.

Ranger
Wilting Strike: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from functioning with Heart of Thorns pets.
Companion’s Might: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from functioning with Heart of Thorns pets.
Primal Echoes: Fixed a bug in the skill fact that indicated an incorrect duration when using the Moment of Clarity trait.
Astral force is now cleared at the beginning of a PvP match.

So the match begins with an empty bar of Astral force?
Was that really necessary?

Well, it did feel like nerfs are coming. Atleast its consistent now, it was strange we start with full bar but after you drop down you lose all CF. This change got actually a big impact, Good druids could run a full game on the momentum of starting with full bar.

Anyone else got a strange bug with the CA icon size at the start of the fight and changes back after ou use it once or die?

Of course, it’s in the fine print, “no patch shall go by without nerfing ranger/druid without cause”.

Woah, this nerf seems minor, but it’s actually huge. :/

LughLongArm.5460:

Anyone else got a strange bug with the CA icon size at the start of the fight

Yup.
Its huge. Almost fully overlaps the CA bar.

Khenzy.9348:

Woah, this nerf seems minor, but it’s actually huge. :/

Ya, it hurts.

Yeah, they had to nerf ranger after seven of them made it into the championships, and dominated the matches… What’s that? Oh, right, that was revenant…

Archon.6480:

Yeah, they had to nerf ranger after seven of them made it into the championships, and dominated the matches… What’s that? Oh, right, that was revenant…

This is the part that puzzles me. A few guys that I will never meet, and make up .0025 of the player base (that’s made up but its a very small percentage) have the most control and influence on what gets done to pvp. Why?

rummy.4102:

Archon.6480:

Yeah, they had to nerf ranger after seven of them made it into the championships, and dominated the matches… What’s that? Oh, right, that was revenant…

This is the part that puzzles me. A few guys that I will never meet, and make up .0025 of the player base (that’s made up but its a very small percentage) have the most control and influence on what gets done to pvp. Why?

Just to clarify…

This was said on a reddit post.

“ArenaColin:

In regards to balance – balance is NOT driven by our PvP Pro League, the pro league is a marketing effort that has almost zero impact on our dev team. Drawing parallels between the two is at best disingenuous."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v0x29/how_do_anet_expect_us_to_take_pvp_seriously_when/

However, I do know that one of the PvP coordinators, who has direct communication with the balance team does talk to top players about issues. The issue is that GW2 balance is clearly NOT around top tier play. At the same time it’s not for pure casual play either. I don’t really know what they are doing with design. I honestly have no idea why druid was nerfed. In the last 4 world tournaments, or whatever you want to group them as. There have been 16 teams. That is 80 professions total assuming no teams changed team compositions at all. There have been 2 ranger players. Both teams got third place. The ranger/druid was clearly not the most efficient choice. It has been about a year and we still see ranger/druid nerfs. It really doesn’t make any sense to me.

TBH, this is fair.

Life Force and Adrenaline Both start with 0 at the start of the match

Well this makes fighting a necromancer in a 1v1 at the start impossible

Chokolata.1870:

Well this makes fighting a necromancer in a 1v1 at the start impossible

Actually, its an even fight, its not that hard. Do not hit him when he has spectral. But mostly its kiting/ pet burst and interrupt the heal.

Assuming you run LB/Staff.

i dont know why anet hate us so much .. i mean the nerf may seems minor but its hugh, fell much less afective now + the new icon for af is suck really get it off
why scrapper and necro dont get nerf as well?

Well it is an even fight unless you have to keep a point caped or decaped.

Right now the AF icon bugs is the more annoying thing for me.

rummy.4102:

Archon.6480:

Yeah, they had to nerf ranger after seven of them made it into the championships, and dominated the matches… What’s that? Oh, right, that was revenant…

This is the part that puzzles me. A few guys that I will never meet, and make up .0025 of the player base (that’s made up but its a very small percentage) have the most control and influence on what gets done to the entire game. Why?

Fixed that for you.

it’s a fair nerf, no one else starts off with a full bar and it’s something we shouldn’t have had in the first place.

the 2 bug fixes are a bigger issue to me, i never even noticed these didn’t work…

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

in builds which don’t provide regen+condi ticks and damage it takes ages with damage alone as 1% of a large number is way less than 1% of triple ticks of heal and damage sources ,

so i suggest to those that run druid, spec for support too not just Relying on it to run Ranger pew pew 2.0 or the sorts to compensate for squishy power damage.

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Sure they could wait for Berserk Mode, but they don’t HAVE to. They could use their adrenaline for the burst skills when the bar isn’t full.

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Sure they could wait for Berserk Mode, but they don’t HAVE to. They could use their adrenaline for the burst skills when the bar isn’t full.

Then why trait for Berserker then? 90% of the berserker trait line revolves around berserk mode, I say they are not playing it well if they use their adrenaline outside of it.

DS is the same yes you can get in DS at any life force, but you also get kicked out of it easier and faster too. AF is different you ALWAYS keep AF for 10 seconds Unless you get MoAed

PS: AF is sooo easy to get. I do not even remotely see this is as a problem. Unless you plan on 1v1ing a necro. Even Staff Itself is more than enough to get it every 10 seconds.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

in builds which don’t provide regen+condi ticks and damage it takes ages with damage alone as 1% of a large number is way less than 1% of triple ticks of heal and damage sources ,

so i suggest to those that run druid, spec for support too not just Relying on it to run Ranger pew pew 2.0 or the sorts to compensate for squishy power damage.

Yeah I get that. I’ve tried some condi builds, but generally it seems that I’ve had more success with this power build that I’m running. Maybe I just need more practice with condi or I just haven’t found a build that works well for me.

Also, my other thing with condi builds is that with all these necros running around, I just get my own condis thrown back at me and then end up dying because I still don’t have CA up yet. Of course I’m exaggerating a little bit, it doesn’t happen all the time, but the point is that vs necros, I’ve been having a better time with my power build.

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Sure they could wait for Berserk Mode, but they don’t HAVE to. They could use their adrenaline for the burst skills when the bar isn’t full.

Then why trait for Berserker then? 90% of the berserker trait line revolves around berserk mode, I say they are not playing it well if they use their adrenaline outside of it.

DS is the same yes you can get in DS at any life force, but you also get kicked out of it easier and faster too. AF is different you ALWAYS keep AF for 10 seconds Unless you get MoAed

PS: AF is sooo easy to get. I do not even remotely see this is as a problem. Unless you plan on 1v1ing a necro. Even Staff Itself is more than enough to get it every 10 seconds.

I understand that a warrior would want to go berserk if they trait it, but you’re not listening to what I’m saying. They have the option to wait for a full bar to use their adrenaline. We don’t get an option. It’s fill it up before you can use it or lose it. There is no in-between like they get. That’s all I’m saying.

And this is not meant to be a rude question, I genuinely want to know, what build are using that would get you full AF in 10 seconds?

It only actually takes me about 15 seconds, shoutbow with signet of the wild… but then again your basically forced into support, using staff, and doing very little damage… and hopefully nobody needs heals before that time or they are screwed b/c u cant enter b/c ur not at 100%… stupid anet…

This is very unfair because:

It’s true that Necro start with 0 LF, but when they died and respawn, they get to keep all the LF.

In Druid’s case, once they’re respawned, they always lose all the CF and start from 0.

Why the double standard treatment to ranger as always?

I’m talking to you directly, Anet.
If you’re going to make CF consistent with LF, you better make it consistent all the way, like we got to keep all the LF after we respawn.

This is ridiculous.

• to generate AF you are locked in Staff. Regen ticks will not be able to fill your bar up fast enough if you are alone with your pet. And you only get AF is you heal. So if you are taking damage.
• Staff is a shameful weapon that do no damage.
• Other professions have many means to fill up their bars.
• We lose all our AF after dead.
• We need to fill up the full bar to be able to use CAF.
• We get full damage and have 0 output damage when in CAF. dead meat.
• the only skill in CAF that do damage root us for 3 seconds (pre and aftercast) while we are soaking in enemy damage.

I don’t mean we should start with full AF, but at least fix first the disgrace that is the AF

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Sure they could wait for Berserk Mode, but they don’t HAVE to. They could use their adrenaline for the burst skills when the bar isn’t full.

And they also have skills and traits that refills adrenaline. And reapers don’t lose LF when they die.
Now it really feels like we’re forced to use staff + some healing power with the druid trait line; and it #feelsbadman.

anduriell.6280:

This is ridiculous.

• to generate AF you are locked in Staff. Regen ticks will not be able to fill your bar up fast enough if you are alone with your pet. And you only get AF is you heal. So if you are taking damage.
• Staff is a shameful weapon that do no damage.
• Other professions have many means to fill up their bars.
• We lose all our AF after dead.
• We need to fill up the full bar to be able to use CAF.
• We get full damage and have 0 output damage when in CAF. dead meat.
• the only skill in CAF that do damage root us for 3 seconds (pre and aftercast) while we are soaking in enemy damage.

I don’t mean we should start with full AF, but at least fix first the disgrace that is the AF

You forgot the 10 seconds cooldown on CA.

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Don’t forget that they have a 1 button push → full adrenaline elite now though.

Not that it’s really relevant to discussion Druid.

Having some time to mull over it for awhile now, I find it incredibly odd that the Druid resource mechanic is the only “fill the bar” resource mechanic that only has quantity scaling (how many things you affect). Every other mechanic also has added quality scaling (increased shroud gains on particular skills or in specific situations, etc etc with the other resource mechanics).

jcbroe.4329:

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Don’t forget that they have a 1 button push -> full adrenaline elite now though.

Not that it’s really relevant to discussion Druid.

Having some time to mull over it for awhile now, I find it incredibly odd that the Druid resource mechanic is the only “fill the bar” resource mechanic that only has quantity scaling (how many things you affect). Every other mechanic also has added quality scaling (increased shroud gains on particular skills or in specific situations, etc etc with the other resource mechanics).

the AF mechanic is Truely unquie is it not , i am amazed sometimes when people compair this to other Bar mechanics which as you mentioned in my words doesn’t require a Team or players nearby to charge up this just makes the Druid role a Team player not one of those Decap roles (a generic Ranger Battlecry with gs+s-axe/LB + quickdraw is enough and does a better Decap job than a focused druid build as it does give up its potential for building AF with less allies around.

a great tip for druids trying to build AF in pvp is also to use Leeching sigils builds hp sustain+AF each weapon swap and Steals hp which is a type of damage , starting with no AF shouldn’t be a problem if the role is used correctly anyway.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

jcbroe.4329:

StickerHappy.8052:

ChocolateBlaze.7840:

To all the people saying “no other profession starts off with a full bar,” you’re ignoring the fact that the other professions don’t have to wait for a full bar to use their skill. It takes a lot of time to fill the AF bar.

Berserk Mode requires a full bar of adrenaline for you to use it.

Don’t forget that they have a 1 button push -> full adrenaline elite now though.

Not that it’s really relevant to discussion Druid.

Having some time to mull over it for awhile now, I find it incredibly odd that the Druid resource mechanic is the only “fill the bar” resource mechanic that only has quantity scaling (how many things you affect). Every other mechanic also has added quality scaling (increased shroud gains on particular skills or in specific situations, etc etc with the other resource mechanics).

the AF mechanic is Truely unquie is it not , i am amazed sometimes when people compair this to other Bar mechanics which as you mentioned in my words doesn’t require a Team or players nearby to charge up this just makes the Druid role a Team player not one of those Decap roles (a generic Ranger Battlecry with gs+s-axe/LB + quickdraw is enough and does a better Decap job than a focused druid build as it does give up its potential for building AF with less allies around.

a great tip for druids trying to build AF in pvp is also to use Leeching sigils builds hp sustain+AF each weapon swap and Steals hp which is a type of damage , starting with no AF shouldn’t be a problem if the role is used correctly anyway.

I wasn’t providing an opinion on it, I was just drawing comparisons lol.

I personally don’t mind, it hasn’t really affected my gameplay outside of making a more cautious opening push.

Eurantien.4632:

rummy.4102:

Archon.6480:

Yeah, they had to nerf ranger after seven of them made it into the championships, and dominated the matches… What’s that? Oh, right, that was revenant…

This is the part that puzzles me. A few guys that I will never meet, and make up .0025 of the player base (that’s made up but its a very small percentage) have the most control and influence on what gets done to pvp. Why?

Just to clarify…

This was said on a reddit post.

“ArenaColin:

In regards to balance – balance is NOT driven by our PvP Pro League, the pro league is a marketing effort that has almost zero impact on our dev team. Drawing parallels between the two is at best disingenuous."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3v0x29/how_do_anet_expect_us_to_take_pvp_seriously_when/

However, I do know that one of the PvP coordinators, who has direct communication with the balance team does talk to top players about issues. The issue is that GW2 balance is clearly NOT around top tier play. At the same time it’s not for pure casual play either. I don’t really know what they are doing with design. I honestly have no idea why druid was nerfed. In the last 4 world tournaments, or whatever you want to group them as. There have been 16 teams. That is 80 professions total assuming no teams changed team compositions at all. There have been 2 ranger players. Both teams got third place. The ranger/druid was clearly not the most efficient choice. It has been about a year and we still see ranger/druid nerfs. It really doesn’t make any sense to me.

This is so disingenuous, it ain’t even funny. Of course the PvP Pro Leagues haven’t affected balance or caused these nerfs. PvP has. Period. No doubt. End of discussion.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves or not paying attention. Again, when was the last time a PvE mob complained about getting killed too fast?

Exactly.

I can’t believe he would say something so opposite or reality and try to hide it with selective, word use. Take out ‘Pro Leagues’ and there’s your answer.

I can read the PvP forums and correlate each ranger nerf with specific threads there. Seriously. Please don’t insult the community’s common sense when we have proof to back it up.

I don’t understand your point, Ardenwolfe. Of course PvP influences balance, no one has said otherwise as far as I can see.

“ArenaColin: In regards to balance – balance is NOT driven by our PvP Pro League, the pro league is a marketing effort that has almost zero impact on our dev team. Drawing parallels between the two is at best disingenuous."

He’s saying the comps in the pro-league don’t drive balance as much as what the actual player base is doing in ranked/unranked (I’m suspicious, but whatever.)

No one is saying PvP doesn’t influence balance; it definitely does.

PvP is def a main focus for balance. But top tier PvP is not the main focus. Ranger has always been sub par besides spirit ranger. However they then nerfed spirit ranger and unnerfed the ele they had been power creeping. Since then ranger has been a sub par and been undeserving of a spot in top teams. In the last 4 World Tournaments (well 3 and 1 pro league) there have been a possible of 4 teams x 5
Players each x 4 times so 80 possible players. Of those 80 there have been only 2 rangers. Given that for the first 60 players worth there were 8 classes and ranger was the only class represented by just 1 player and with the most recent 20 players, despite their being 9 classes there was only 1 ranger. That makes 2/80 at the highest tier, the lowest represented class. I think if top tier pvp was the main focus for balance, the way other games that claim esports do, the ranger would be seeing a vast majority of buffs and few nerfs.

The broadcast PvP does highlight problems though, for example the pro league match where someone rage quit over the bunker meta. It’s a kind of chicken or egg thing, pro league highlights chronobunker, everyone emulates it and it becomes this massive problem, but pro league doesn’t dictate balance.

I don’t recall running into a single chronobunker before Helseth ran that in a broadcast match, although I’d heard people theorycrafting about it. Next week, you had 6 per match.

Fluffball.8307:

The broadcast PvP does highlight problems though, for example the pro league match where someone rage quit over the bunker meta. It’s a kind of chicken or egg thing, pro league highlights chronobunker, everyone emulates it and it becomes this massive problem, but pro league doesn’t dictate balance.

I don’t recall running into a single chronobunker before Helseth ran that in a broadcast match, although I’d heard people theorycrafting about it. Next week, you had 6 per match.

That’s a good point. Case and point, all of ROM’s druid builds last season. So many people copied them yet they were not the best options. Granted I think a big thing to do with it is how metabattle copies these builds and then a lot of people copy metabattle.

That being said there is still a disparity. For me the nerfs this week has taken me from Druid kinda works to its just not worth it anymore for Pro league play. For solo queue it works but I know if I go against other pro league players or any good player that I will have to 1v1 I shouldn’t win. Yet I know that at lower tiers of skill Druid seems unkillable god mode. Yet balance is designed around the casual in my eyes which has lead to poor game balance for a lot of players as a consequence.

Eurantien.4632:

Fluffball.8307:

The broadcast PvP does highlight problems though, for example the pro league match where someone rage quit over the bunker meta. It’s a kind of chicken or egg thing, pro league highlights chronobunker, everyone emulates it and it becomes this massive problem, but pro league doesn’t dictate balance.

I don’t recall running into a single chronobunker before Helseth ran that in a broadcast match, although I’d heard people theorycrafting about it. Next week, you had 6 per match.

That’s a good point. Case and point, all of ROM’s druid builds last season. So many people copied them yet they were not the best options. Granted I think a big thing to do with it is how metabattle copies these builds and then a lot of people copy metabattle.

That being said there is still a disparity. For me the nerfs this week has taken me from Druid kinda works to its just not worth it anymore for Pro league play. For solo queue it works but I know if I go against other pro league players or any good player that I will have to 1v1 I shouldn’t win. Yet I know that at lower tiers of skill Druid seems unkillable god mode. Yet balance is designed around the casual in my eyes which has lead to poor game balance for a lot of players as a consequence.

Offtopic but Eura, you should give Blade and Soul a shot if you haven’t already. Once you make it past the Korean MMO PvE aspects, the PvP is so kitten good that coming back and playing GW2 feels like night and day.

Anyhow, GW2 isn’t balanced and never will be, and that’s because of the combination of not splitting balance between game modes, refusing to prioritize balance in one versus the other (because of the community backlash it would have to give the game any sort of specific identity although we all know it’s a PvE first game by now), and the refusal to balance at the highest skill tier of player, which is something that any person looking into balance theory will see immediately that you should be doing.

This is all on top of the issues that the game format brings. It’s a team gamemode, but the lack of specific roles and functional class identity (classes play differently stylistically but perform the same thing realistically) make balancing it with a proper system of checks and balances too difficult (3 years of evidence), not to mention if they even tried to put in a properly checks/balances system to support the team gamemode, there would be community outrage over lack of diversity and ultimately self-sufficiency because “x class can’t beat y” class, even though its a team game mode, so as always, ANet also tried to cater to the class vs class balance perspective, and what we end up with is GW2; a mashup of tons of good ideas into one kitten game mode because ultimately, the game is being led and designed for its market appeal, but at the end of the day, that means ANet will drive away their competitive community because the game is designed for casual play with no sense of motivation to drive competition (balance is a factor of competition) to a level that people that enjoy competitive PvP will want to invest time in.

StickerHappy.8052:

TBH, this is fair.

Life Force and Adrenaline Both start with 0 at the start of the match

Adrenaline also decays out of combat, but it builds really fast so that’s not an issue.

what Life Force you gain during the match stays after you die, so that’s not an issue.

AF completely goes away when you die. If what you gained stayed after you died it wouldn’t be a problem.

Right now, starting with 0 then losing it all when you die and again starting with 0 is a problem.

In short…if we’re going to start with 0 can we at least keep what we’d gained similar to how necros get to keep the Life Force they’ve gained. I’m dealing with it, but I hate it.