Guild Wars 2

Leo G.4501:

I had a similar idea posted in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Proposal-regarding-Core-Classes/

The issue trying to be resolved is less reliance on Elite Specs to compete and to make more available specs as well as make them slightly unique.

“If I were making a suggestion for this it would go something like this:
- a distinction between “Specialization” and “Trait Generalization”. At any given time, from the point you unlock traits, you must have 1 Specialization. After that, you can have 2 trait gens.
- your first choice in traits then becomes your Specialization. When elite specs unlock, they are only usable as a Specialization, not a trait Generalization.
- trait gens work like the core specs now. Specializations work like elite specs now with some differences.
- elite specs are different because they unlock weapons and new utilities as well as profession mechanics. Regular specializations offer enhanced versions of utilities and profession mechanics.”

Making a slight example of Warrior again since they are the least complicated:

+Strength – Gladiator+
Become an agile pitfighter, relying on your muscle and quick reflexes to dominate in combat.

*Reckless Dodge > Reckless Dive: As a Gladiator, not only do your dodge rolls do damage, you gain the F2 skill “Dive” which is a movement skill that grants a short duration swiftness and leaps 500 distance. This recharges quickly and costs 10 strikes of adrenaline. Dive does not grant evade and is a leap finisher.

*Building Momentum > Rolling Momentum: As a Gladiator, not only do burst skills restore some of your endurance on hit, but Dive will remove 1 damaging condition (Bleeding, Burning, Confusion, Poison, Torment)

*Stick and Move > Prize Fighter: As a Gladiator, not only do you get a damage bonus while your endurance isn’t full, but using a Physical skill instantly recharges Dive.

The idea is to slightly alter the line to give it a kind of mechanic that makes playing it similar to current but unique if you decide to have choose Strength as your specialization. Perhaps you’d pair it with sword/greatsword and get a high mobility build utilizing Dive to close gaps or open them or couple Dive and physical skills so you can keep on mobile targets with weapons that lack mobility such as mace or longbow.

Yup, that’s the kind of “power budget” I was thinking. Not something so strong that it becomes mandatory, yet impactful enough to allow players to make meaningful decision.
Basically what I picture players doing when opting out of Elite Spec is this:
“I’m a Mesmer with Illusion, Dueling and Inspiration, so I’m enhancing those three components of my profession through my choices in trait lines. Now, If I wanted to get some extra power in one of these, but only one, which one would it be?”.

Ardid.7203:

I don’t think this ever happen, but i DO like Arkblue idea. A lot.

Although, more than automatic buffs, I would prefer the 3d slot activate a true unique “spec mechanic”, like the Elite Specs have.

Example crazy ideas for Engie:

Scrapper->F gyro

Firearms-> Trick shot: Shot projectiles gain the ability to bounce on terrain and objects, allowing the engie to deceive their oponents and pass through their defenses.

Explosives-> Remote Detonation: Explosives don’t explode right away. Instead they gain a window during wich the engie can confirm-detonate them, leading to coordinated combos & better area deny.

Alchemy-> Concoction: using multiple Elixirs at the same time give different extra effects depending on the combination.

Tools-> Momentum Battery: Holding down the button when activating certain skills allow the engie to use Endurance as a fuel to empower attacks or improve movement skills.

Inventions-> Portable Gunnery: Turrets can be moved around similar to banners.

As long as they don’t have any clear winner over anything else, everything is viable.
Plus, they aren’t forced profession changes like, say, changing virtues when playing Dragon Hunter over Guardian.

You don’t want to have turrets to move around? Simply put something less input demanding like the firearm change you proposed.
It’s a win-win situation for both those who want an higher skillcap for their profession, and those who don’t.

Knighthonor.4061:

I believe its fine as is. Just the new Elite Specs need balance patch.

Remember Elite Specs are a new way to play the classes. Thats why you lose one spec line to use it. Its a sacrifice for a new way of playing the class. So in its own self, its a new class itself from the parent class. I say balance the new classes around its own design, dont touch the parent classes.

Well, the point was that sometimes the Elite specializations adds so much to core profession that it is worth using that elite spec line even when you are not actually playing with healing, utility or ultimate specialization skills.

However, this could be partially offset by increasing the return of core specializations when placed in the slot usually occupied by elite specs.

Van Bergen.5084:

To buff the core- specs is always good, but give the same buff to the elitespecs is pointless.

No, you wouldn’t, when you place an Elite Spec in the third slot you are already getting the Elite Spec, you wouldn’t get extra power on top of it, that bonus would only affect core Spec.

One thing that a lot of players complained about was that, in certain cases, Elite Specializations felt like straight upgrades of the base profession and that the extra goodies you could get from the Elite Specializations were worth sacrificing another specialization line even when you weren’t using it to the fullest.

I thought that a way to partially offset this was adding something special to the third specialization slot, the one used for Elite Specialization.
Basically, the specialization placed in the third slot would get an extra trait unique to that specialization and that could be only activated when placing the Specialization in that third slot.

For example, a Guardian using Zeal, Valor and Virtues would have a new trait depending on which Specialization was put in the third slot. This would add nothing major to the profession, but could be a way to increase the customization of the professions, and could also work as an extra balance-lever for developers to fiddle with when balancing professions.

I’m honestly not that dedicated to know which effects could work in a similar scenario, but I always thought that, since the third spec slot is the only one where you can place an Elite Specialization, it could have some extra power even when not using an Elite specialization.
As I said, it doesn’t have to be something incredibly powerful, but it would still increase decision making.

EDIT: since some are mistaken: no, I’m not suggesting to also buff Elite Specialization. The third slot specialization bonus would only affect core specializations.

I read a lot of nice suggestions.
I also thinks that Spirit Weapons should be differentiated from other minions mechanic, and like the idea of keeping them near the guardian and essentially using them as weapons that also attack your target every few seconds while still having their active “command” skill.
You guys have already stated why that’s a good idea (soaking AoE cleaves, being able to take spirit weapons out of AoEs with you, etc.)
I guess the only problems with this change is that spirit weapons would have the hidden benefit of hiding the guardian from enemies, since it would be slightly harder to click him behind 3 spirit weapons.
Regarding damage, I think spirit weapons should stay as they are, and they should be buffed only in survivability: if they become too much of a dps increase then they would become mandatory, and they should increase build diversity, not shrinking it.

Another thing: I’d really like heal and elite skills in the Spirit weapon line.

The Heal could be a staff that pulses the Regeneration Boon every few seconds, and on command it would AoE heal with a Blast finisher.
For the Elite it’s something a little more original: instead of summoning a spirit weapon, you summon a spirit armor: a empty armor that copies either your cultural heavy armor(bonus point if it scales on level with tier 1, 2 and 3) and grants the Guardian a % damage reduction, similar to Phantasmal Defender, but only for the guardian itself. The command would be the Spirit Armor lifting in the air and pulsing blindness to enemies and creating a light field.

Icdan Sevaen.4628:

Arkblue.6129:

It’s 40 token for the first run of the day

60 actually. Per path.

40 are only the bonus one, yes. It’s 40 per bonus daily path+20 path.

However, certain paths like Arah’s last quite a bit.
Sure, 3 Paths are 180 daily, but it’s something close to 2 hours and half.

Cyninja.2954:

It takes aproximately 10 dungeons to get the 500 tokens (actually even less, but I’ll go with 10 since it’s a ncie round number).

That is such an insignificant amount of dungeons compared to the desired effect of removing or reducing the gold reward of dungeons that this is an absolute non-issue.

Good try though.

It’s 40 token for the first run of the day, so maybe you mean it takes 10 runs if you just stick to one path run daily and wait some time?
Well, it makes sense, but if we consider dungeons like Arah it will still be an hassle, because each path is quite lengthy and you have to run all three of them if you want the bonus tokens.

Currently a “Gift of X” costs 500 Dungeon Tokens. Gifts are mandatory to craft legendary weapons.
By nerfing the amount of gold you earn with dungeon, you reduce the number of people who want to run that content and add yet another grind in the legendary crafting process.

Most importantly, you add a grind that require people to do: you’ll need other people to run dungeons with you to craft a legendary because tokens will be the only reason to run them. Legendary gifts are already a goldsink as they are, increasing the difficulty in acquiring Gifts doesn’t seem needed.

Cheezy.2039:

Just farm the tokens in PvP so you don’t have to play these pesky dungeons

- ANet, probably

Eventually, I will have to do that, but I’d appreciate a ton if they increased the token you get per run, considering how harder it will be to find people running the dungeons, and that aren’t selling it.

With the dungeons rewarding less gold per run, a lot of people will move to fractals. While I understand why you don’t want people to grind AC for gold, it will also become exponentially harder to farm token for dungeons weapon and armor skins.

Shield could be fixed in several ways. Currently, both traits synergy and abilities are subpar. The traits suppose that the CD reduction on the shield is worth having (otherwise you lose 150 toughness to allies for 180 self toughness). Currently, that isn’t the case.

Now, some options to increase shield viability:
1) Enhance the trait power, make Shield Skills give boons or remove conditions from affected allies, or restore endurance. Since shield 5 is a channel, stability to the guardian.
2) Rework shield skills and refine its identity, funnel its power into a specific purpose.
My idea is to rework shield 5 into a similar skill with a more defined defensive purpose:
When using the shield, you activate a dome that heals allies inside for a large amount over the duration of the 4 second stationary channel while destroying projectiles that hit the dome.
At any time, you can detonate the dome for an AoE Knockback and a blast finisher.

Khisanth.2948:

Leveling equipment are account bound not soul bound.

True, didn’t notice that. But still, it could be further polished.

for a comparison, here how Heirlooms work in WoW.
http://www.wowhead.com/guides/heirloom-list

Khisanth.2948:

There are already crafting recipes for leveling gear …

You mean like the one you get from the personal story? Well, there are one or two recipes, actually a little more (More info here ), but they are quite more “simple” than an Heirloom.
An heirloom in WoW is an accountbound item that has very high stats and that changes its level with the level of the owner.

Leveling equipment in gw2 are soulbound items that have x levels of stats more than their required levels.

What I suggest is something hybrid, for example a level 20 rare weapon that scales all the way up to 40 together with the owner. Possibly Soulbound, so that you can also trade them.

I’m quite stoked from the new content regarding crafting that’s supposed to come with HoT. However, I’d also appreciate if Anet considered in the future to come back to gathering and low level crafting to add something new or to make it more “entertaining”.
What I noticed is that crafting low level gear is almost pointless, given how fast is leveling and how it’s hard to craft rare gear on low level characters. I noticed that even items at level 65 started blue and only got to green before moving to the next tier of materials.

There are 2 things that I’d like Anet to introduce: a mastery for gathering that makes possible to gather rarer materials (or salvage them), and to use those rarer materials to craft better gear for leveling.
Something like Heirlooms in World of Warcraft.
Sure, it’s not a perfect system, and there are a lot of edge cases to trim, but I think it would contribute in making crafting a little more interesting even at lower levels ("Well, I still can’t craft ascended Light Armor but I can make a rare armor that will fit my Necro from level 20 to level 40) and also gathering a little more fun "Hey, now I actually have mats to make an extra one and sell it or use it on my Elementalist!)

Anyway, that was just a random idea, but I’d really like if 1-80 crafting and gathering were to be improved in the future.

Traps don’t synergize well with longbow, true.
On the other hand, in pvp is quite scary to jump on a Hammer Guardian that has Dragon’s Maw and 2 other traps under his/her butt.

Adrian Guardian.9480:

Arkblue.6129:

I have only one gripe with Dragon Hunter. As many have stated, the longbow is a ranged weapon while traps are cast on position. This means that the best case scenario is only when the DH is when moving backward and setting traps for enemy that chase. This scenario is pretty uncommon in PVE, outside of kiting enemies while leveling or solo.

Because of that, there is one thing that Dragon Hunter sorely needs: a backstep, or retrat. Sure, we have Merciful Intervention, but that requires an Ally to shadowstep. My idea is to add a backstep or retreat to one of the traps OR add a traits to make Judge Intervention and Merciful Intervention ground-cast for DragonHunters. Another useful thing would be increasing the traps cd while drastically lowering the cast time.

Wings of Resolve. Same function as Ranger’s Swoop. The range is a bit lower though.

Well, yeah, but 600 range is a bit short for a retreat.

I have only one gripe with Dragon Hunter. As many have stated, the longbow is a ranged weapon while traps are cast on position. This means that the best case scenario is only when the DH is when moving backward and setting traps for enemy that chase. This scenario is pretty uncommon in PVE, outside of kiting enemies while leveling or solo.

Because of that, there is one thing that Dragon Hunter sorely needs: a backstep, or retrat. Sure, we have Merciful Intervention, but that requires an Ally to shadowstep. My idea is to add a backstep or retreat to one of the traps OR add a traits to make Judge Intervention and Merciful Intervention ground-cast for DragonHunters. Another useful thing would be increasing the traps cd while drastically lowering the cast time.

xinkspillx.3914:

I suggested having skill 5 function more like Sanctuary just based on the idea of having it heal allies while the bubble is up because at that point the only effect it wouldn’t share with Sanctuary is keeping enemies out.

I think it’s the 5 skill that’s the tricky part. Skill 4 is definitely modest, but if skill 5 was significantly more useful I think 4 would be a non issue with its current balance.

That’s what I was thinking .
Let Shield 4 be a more “carefree” ability while putting more “oomph” in Shield 5.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I’d put some mobility on it with Super Speed on SoJ or on the trait on skill use.

Well, it would make sense to have super speed on Shield of Judgement, but you are standing still while channeling shield of absorption.

xinkspillx.3914:

I have to admit . . . I was really skeptical clicking on this thread but I think the idea of reinforcing the Shield roll fits really well. Leaving aside the fact that it feels kind of like the devs should have just swapped the focus skills with the shield skills way back before the game released . . . I’d be pleased to see the shield get changes like this.

I have to say a big yes to the idea of Shield Skills granting Vigor. It seems very much like a Guardian to have a skill that roots them while granting Vigor to allies and creating a barrier against ranged attacks. I wasn’t sold on the idea of the push being on the skills activation, but the way you explain it actually makes a lot of sense. I think I would rather personally like to see the bubble function like Sanctuary and keep enemies from entering, but I don’t see that being likely to happen and it would also invalidate push on activation. Then again, I’m just thinking that a change like that could make running Consecrations with a Shield an excellent way of supporting allies and creating actual bunkers for the sake of guarding allies haha.

I like Shield of Judgement but still think maybe it need a little more oomph! to get it right. I don’t think a damage increase is the way to go though. Perhaps just increasing the range of this skill or giving it a quick 1s block duration on first activation would make it infinitely more useful.

But still . . . Vigor from shield skills would be pretty great.

Yes, I think Vigor fits in quite well.
Dodge are also quite effective against ranged projectiles more than fast activation melee (usually you stun/root the enemy anyway before using an ability with a long wind-up time).

I think that Shield 4 might need some love, but I guess the most useful things it could have is an increased protection duration, or a shorter cooldown. I’d rather go for the shorter cooldown, considering that the ability is designed to not be particularly strong. Reducing cooldown/Increasing duration it’s a good way to fine tune the efficiency of an ability, assumed it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.
For how I see it, Shield 4 should work as an opener when allies get in melee (Damage to enemies and protection to allies) or a way to further aid your allies after Shield 5 ends.
An effect like Sanctuary or Ring of Warding on Shield 5?
Not that I didn’t think of it, but it would skewer the balance. It should have a >60 s cooldown to work properly (Projectiles cannot enter, projectiles can go out, and allies are healed for the duration… it could be a little too strong).

It’s painfully clear how the shield skills don’t met the standard set by the other off-hands for Guardians. Just use google or the search function on the forums and you will see how many people complain about Shield not being viable in most of the game content and just slightly niche in WvW.
To fix this situation, I have an idea: consolidating the Shield identity while trimming away at unneccessary or overlapping powers to keep it balanced.

Shield Identity
What role does the Shield fill in in the pool of Guardian’s off-hand weapons? Well, you will inevitably get different answers from different players, but if we compare that to the Torch and Focus, we can see that each weapon holds a pattern and is more useful in certain situations: With Blocks and Blind,Focus is an excellent defensive off-hand, and is more effective in melee due to bounce mechanic Ray of Judgement and the potential damage from the Shield of Wrath .
On the other hand, torch is good for both condition builds and condition cleanse.
So, where does the Shield fit in? Shield already offers a protection AoE boon for up to 5 players, and a anti-projectile shield, so what I propose is to enhance Shield as a supportive anti-ranged off-hand.

Proposed Changes

• Trait- Stalwart Defender When allies are affected by a Shield ability, they also gain Vigor. Shield ability recharge is reduced.
  Vigor is a boon that is not so common for a guardian, and moving it to a supportive off-hand make sense
• Shield of Judgement is Unchanged.
• Shield of Absorption Channels for 4 seconds, creating a Dome that destroys projectiles and heals. Can be detonated earlier pushing enemies back.
  We basically fix the 4 seconds duration and swap the heal with the pushback. Now the heal is stronger, but requires the Guardian to channel, and the pushback is still present but you have to sacrifice the dome and projectile shield.
  I think it makes more sense: if the shield is anti-projectile, it makes little sense to push enemies away, considering that if they are melee all they have to do is walk back in and hit you during the channel.
  Also, the dome and healing are a good way to grant vigor to nearby allies, which, again, make sense for a supportive off-hand. Gives a brief respite from enemy ranged attack while granting them vigor to dodge again when the shield goes down.

Any feedback is appreciated. ^^

Kidel.2057:

Arkblue.6129:

Interchangable utility should have a downside.
Like, if you change your utility with a non-legend-specific one then you also have to sacrifice an utility slot on the other legend.

The downside is that you can’t choose your utility.
Also 5 more utilities is not too much if you consider that Guardian has 3 extra skills (virtues), Mesmer has 4 (soon 5), Engineer has 5, Necro has 5, and so on. All class mechanic, so it’s not optional and you still have 0 energy cost and utility to choose from.
The only classes with a mechanic that gives 2-3 less skills then Revenant are Ranger, Thief and Warrior. They all have many advantages however (like initiative, pet, highest stats), and Revenant still has energy to manage, so having more skills is actually mitigated.

What I meant is that, if they introduced a pool of utility that you could choose from to customize your heal-utility-elite skills, it should keep a downside so that you don’t end with twice the utilities of other classes.

In this case, you can choose if having 2 set of utilities, but fixed, or utilities of your choice.

Example: If you have 5 Legend skill, when you swap legend you get the other legend’s 5 skills. If you pick a custom utility and a custom elite, when you swap you only swap the 2 Legend utility and the healing spell, because the utility you choose have to be consistent through both the legends skill sets.

Interchangable utility should have a downside.
Like, if you change your utility with a non-legend-specific one then you also have to sacrifice an utility slot on the other legend.

For exemple, you change your Shiro Utility 7? Then when you swap to your other legend the utility skill is still the same you had swapped on Shiro.
Of course you can change the order of the utilities so you happen to choose which utility to sacrifice on each legend, but still, you basically trade 2 utilities for one.

Aeolus.3615:

can u guys keep the absortion bubble in those ideias :| ? in range gank situation it is a life saver

@Amins.3710, shield already works as a taunt weapon, when the adversary notices guardian is using a shield they always think as a free bag :P….

One iteration I particularly liked is keeping the character of the absorption bubble on #5, but change it this way.
On cast, you stand still (gain stability if traited) and create the projectile dome.
On second cast, you detonate the dome knocking back enemies and damaging them.
If you don’t cast, the dome explodes healing allies inside.

For skill 4, I must admit it’s already nice enough, but I still think it should also destroy projectiles it hits.

After the latest changes to Revenant, most of the known issues have been addressed, with the exception of the lack of customization to Revenant, which might or might be not a meaningful weakness to have.

However, as a possible solution, I thought about adding a new line of skills that could be switched with Legend Skills, with the tradeoffs that these skills would remain in the skillbar even after Legend Swap.
In short, to equip a neutral spell you’d need to sacrifice a skill for each of the legend you have equipped. This would bring the total number of Revenant skills in line with the other professions.

However, the main issue about this change is that I’m not sure what a neutral set of skills for the revenant should be.
Signets? Mist skills for Energy management?

TL;DR=
Add a neutral set of skills for Revenant to enhance customization.
Pro:

• More choices
• Less predictable in sPvP and WvW
• Total number of options in line with other professions.
  Cons:
• Equipping a neutral skills replaces a skill for each Legend equipped.
• Skills should be mostly neutral and revolving around passives or energy since Legends already have a defined identity.

Basaltface.2786:

xXBurningEmberXx.6085:

Yes it’ll all come in the next patch. Sane with the engie bs with their 1 million nades skill.

oy get your informations straight. The skill is called infinite grenade works

I am the gunpowder to my grenades,
Zerker is my body and rampager is my blood.
I have tossed over a thousands grenades,
unknown to Asura, nor known to Charr.
Have withstood pain from creating many bombs,
yet my profession will still be the least played.
So as I trait, unlimited grenade works.

ArchonWing.9480:

Staff isn’t a mobility weapon. It has no movement skills and the swiftness is a symbol you have to stand in to get a full effect. It’s more support than anything else.

As for focus 5, that ship has sailed; so no point in screwing that up because focus is fine the way it is.

Well, in that case, I’d suggest slightly increasing the anti-ranged identity of the shield, since mobility is quite hard to implement with the current shield abilities.
Shield 4 could reflect projectiles, considering that is a wave and thus it would be hard to time it right. However, it might be hard to implement tech wise (well, not really considering that Longbow 3 for the Dragon Hunter works the same way).
In that case, I’d just reduce the CD.

For Shield 5, as many have suggested, the priority is to fix the duration. Also, there is this bug reported in the wiki, though i don’t know if it has been fixed or not: After using Shield of Absorption 2 (healing explosion) “The shield will still persist for the two-second cast time, despite the graphical effect.”
Another good thing would make it a blast finisher, so that ending prematurely will combo with the Light Field for Area Retaliation, or you could just use it for blast a field.

But the priority should be fixing the duration.

ArchonWing.9480:

Saiyan.1704:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ArchonWing.9480:

Change shield 4 into “path of light”

It would be a leap forward. You gain protection and leave behind a lingering trail that grants allies protection and blind enemies. Makes it simultaneously harder to use but also more useful.

Stalwart Defender: Shield skills weaken enemies.

I kinda like that.

Me too but that would take developmental time. Lesbihonest, Arenanet isn’t going to spend time and money for something like that. They’ve never added or changed SFX on on a weapon standared before. No reason to start now with the Guardian Shield.

A dev finally noticed the “movement bug” after 2 years. It’s time they reversed that decision and give us that QoL aspect we’ve loved since launch.

Sure, but I resent laziness being used as an excuse to keep things boring, especially when a lot of us are considering shelling out money for a new expansion. I prefer to aim higher and compromise with reality later. =p

You can buff the abilties we have, but IMO they’ll always be inferior to the other two. It’s not like torch where changing the game around allowed torch to become so much stronger all of a sudden. Torch is a damage weapon, and focus is a defensive/burst one. What can shield do then?

In my opinion, if shield had mobility, then it would provide an extra edge over the other offhands, regardless of it being weaker or not still gives it more of a niche and flavor even if it’s not objectively as strong.

Isn’t mobility the core of the staff?
Maybe we should consider focus 5 with shield 5?
The projectile reflects makes sense with focus skills, and the barrier makes more sense with a shield off-hand.

Harper.4173:

Arkblue.6129:

Harper.4173:

Arkblue.6129:

From Software developed Dark Souls 1 and 2.
Dark Souls had better weapon collision and hitboxes than Dark Souls 2.
Either the company decided to make a worse product out of spite, or they simply decide to not waste their resources on the fixing of that issues.
Which is what I think Anet did with GW2 and AoE. They weren’t ignorant of that, they said “you know what? It’s not worth our efforts”.
Rounding up mobs for clearing them with AoE is one thing, always stacking because of a 600 range on EVERY party buffs is another thing.
Currently, the game rewards stacking, but also punishes everything else. If you think they purposefully did that, then I don’t know what to say.

I’m saying that regardless of what you might think the developers were aware of what was going to happen and considered that state of the game desirable since they did not bother to change it.
So I don’t see a lot of validity in arguments that go " The devs wanted this or that" or “the devs never intended this or that”.

The devs knew exactly what was happening every step of the way. The fact that we’re here today proves all those “the devs didn’t want or didn’t know” arguments wrong.

They might say “oh we never wanted or intended for this or that” in fancy PR talks but anyone with a bit of reason can see what I’m trying to say here.

So you’re saying that, IDK, assassin’s creed bugs were intended by Ubisoft instead of the result of poor attention on their part?

There is a difference. A bug is a bug.

An AI behavior that players have been using for advantage for years in your old game that you do not bother to correct in your new game – you can’t call that an oversight.

A bug can be overlooked – you can know it’s not there.

Speed clears, stacking, skipping – all these things have been with the franchise since GW1. The fact that we have them in GW2 is not evidence of oversight – they knew these things existed.

Most devs know of cheap mechanics, they don’t always fix it.
Let put this under another perspective.
Remember PVE Thug life guy? he might have exagerated, but if you were to make a promo video for gw2, would you put there gameplay footage with dungeons and stackings? Because I wouldn’t.

Harper.4173:

Thaddeus.4891:

Ya but Phalanx is still about raw damage. It’s party wide damage over personnal damage.

GW2 have a huge place for support, but it’s underused. You can have enough support from a full dps build to do any content if you are a half decent player. You never really need protection, weakness. You only see sigil of energy in solo run. You never hear someone asking for vigor. Mesmer and Guardian sacrifice some trait to gain more reflect, but that’s pretty much it. If the content would be more challeging, we would have a more wide variety of build between DPS and Support. If they made CC important, then you have the true soft trinity that Anet talked about from the beginning. DPS, Support and CC.

That’s exactly what support is.
In a sense even healing is damage. It keeps the DPS people alive so technically you are trading mana or skill cooldowns for more damage. It’s just that it’s other people that are doing the damage.
Same as with the PS warrior.

When was the last time you played a MMORPG that wasn’t GW2 and didn’t suck?

Harper.4173:

Arkblue.6129:

Dinks.2478:

Arkblue.6129:

Harper.4173:

It’s the players – not necessarily the encounter that push this.

No, it’s the encounter.
The game was never built around a required healer/tank, but the devs intended to built it around a required soft trinity were at least a player was supposed to stand there dodging/mitigating/blocking/kiting the damage. Stacking was never meant to be META. In that scenario regenerations and heals would have proven more useful because it would have been harder to avoid all damage, but still they wouldn’t be needed.
TL;DR= the encounters are designed around not needing dedicated tanks, healers, or anything but dps weapons.

I feel like you’ve never done a dungeon or something. There is a soft trinity. Every single META build accounts for various forms of control and support. Reflects, blinds, vulnerability, weakness, blocks, dodges, buffs, etc. Every single build accounts for this.

Stacking is a thing that is used in literally every single game since the beginning of time. Without stacking we’d all look like we were chickens with our heads cut off running in circles.

Well, reflects are usually brought because they increase dps. Aegis and dodges are used, but I rarely see Warriors bringing hammers or maces to apply weakness. Usually the utility spells offer enough utility to clear content easily. And at that point, why bringing a utility weapon when you can go full DPS, clear faster and avoid even more damage?

Stacking has been around since the beginning of time because that’s how gw works in general, both for weapon cleaves and party buffs, and I can’t say that’s a good thing.
http://gruulchant.ytmnd.com/

Reflects are usually brought because they keep you alive.
Weakness is applied not via weapons but via consumables(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skale_Venom_) If defiant weren’t a thing CC would be much more relevant in this game.

Utility skills are designed to bring utility – are you arguing they are bringing TOO MUCH utility?

Also “utility weapon” ? wow.

You might not think stacking is a good thing but the fact is that we’ve had it in this franchise forever at least proves it’s not unintended.

yes. Utility weapons. If 2 weapons differ in terms of damage output and cc output, what’s wrong in calling it an utility weapon?
Also, you do know the venom might bounce back on your allies with things like Mirror Blade or Winds of Chaos?
And what’s wrong about more CC in the game?
Of course there is a threshold were CC is too important, but we are at the opposite side of the spectrum here.

Harper.4173:

Arkblue.6129:

From Software developed Dark Souls 1 and 2.
Dark Souls had better weapon collision and hitboxes than Dark Souls 2.
Either the company decided to make a worse product out of spite, or they simply decide to not waste their resources on the fixing of that issues.
Which is what I think Anet did with GW2 and AoE. They weren’t ignorant of that, they said “you know what? It’s not worth our efforts”.
Rounding up mobs for clearing them with AoE is one thing, always stacking because of a 600 range on EVERY party buffs is another thing.
Currently, the game rewards stacking, but also punishes everything else. If you think they purposefully did that, then I don’t know what to say.

I’m saying that regardless of what you might think the developers were aware of what was going to happen and considered that state of the game desirable since they did not bother to change it.
So I don’t see a lot of validity in arguments that go " The devs wanted this or that" or “the devs never intended this or that”.

The devs knew exactly what was happening every step of the way. The fact that we’re here today proves all those “the devs didn’t want or didn’t know” arguments wrong.

They might say “oh we never wanted or intended for this or that” in fancy PR talks but anyone with a bit of reason can see what I’m trying to say here.

So you’re saying that, IDK, assassin’s creed bugs were intended by Ubisoft instead of the result of poor attention on their part?

Harper.4173:

Thaddeus.4891:

Harper.4173:

Nil – the question you should be asking yourself is this :

Were the full meta groups much easier and faster because they were full meta or because people knew what they were doing and you were running with good players?

Well the rally system is abused in zerker group. It should be harder in zerker group and it is. As long as it’s against 1 single boss. The moment there is thrash mobs, rally make zerker group so much easier.

So is rally a gear problem or a game design choice?
Rally was put in this game so that the average player can have a better chance at not failing.
A side-effect is that it makes it very easy to stay alive regardless of gear if you have a coordinated team.

Have you watched the WP Video about skulls and Dungoen & PvE difficulty in general?

Dinks.2478:

No, they need to stop trying to cater to both types of players with the same content. You can’t have content that appeals to players that like high difficulty content and players that like casual content at the same time. They need to introduce hard mode. So that less organized or just less hardcore players can enjoy the casual modes and then hardcore or just more organized groups can do the hard modes and get better rewards for their effort.

And no one is barred from experiencing a certain kind of content just because of difficulty. It works quite well in other games, the only problem is that the experience often become dull because of gear threadmill, while in GW2 once you mastered a content with a profession, you are (more or less) aware enough of how to tackle something with other professions. God bless the exotics.

Cyninja.2954:

Arkblue.6129:

Dinks.2478:

Arkblue.6129:

Dinks.2478:

Anybody that has ever looked at one of the meta builds should know right away that it isn’t about raw damage, it is about bringing the most to the party while still doing a lot of damage.

There is nothing wrong in caring only about damage, but still, you are only caring about damage. It’s ok, it’s the gw2 trademark, but it’s also a quite disappointing experience.

I’ve already pointed out that it isn’t about raw damage. To deny reality and live in your own world where you’re right is childish and wrong.

A grand example is Phalanx Strength warriors. Prior to June 23rd they did way less damage than pure DPS warriors. But they were still preferred because they were better for the party as a whole. Instead of more selfish direct damage utilities they’d bring banners, they’d bring might, they’d bring vulnerability.

It isn’t about raw damage it is about the party.

It’s about party damage. You aren’t talking about weakness, blinds, stuns, or controls.
They are not needed.
You aren’t talking about regeneration, aegis, or stability.
They are not needed (except for skips, maybe).

You are talking about:
Party Damage.
PS= party damage.
DPS =personal damage.

currently it’s the least common multiplier of the game.

And I’m ok with them not being needed, I’m less ok with them not having a place in PvE because things dies before they are useful. i.e. before stamina is drained, healing skills are on cd, and personal blocks have been used.

Do you even understand what you suggest?

Increasing the length and/or lethality of combat in GW2 to the point that all the support skills are required (and no, relfects are not taken along only for damage, least not in high level fractals. stop arguing from noob dungeons that are 3 year old content) and your personal skills are required to survive an encounter, would up the demand for very select classes by a LOT.

Certain classes would not get taken a long at all any more.

Your right, none of the defensive skills are needed. Now please go run a fractal 50 without a guardian providing aegis, without an elementalist/thief providing aoe blind, without reflects from mesmer or guardians.

Compare that to a group bringing all those things. Then come and tell me none of those are very useful. True, they aren’t required in dungeons or most open world content, because that content is way outdated. They aren’t required as in the run that takes 45 minutes with them, turns into 1.5-2 hours without them.

high level fractals only prolong the inevitable because most people are new to them, but since the core mechanics are the same as in dungeons, even there people will reach the point where they can just use some utility skills and dive in full zerker, simply because it’s the enemy AI that doesn’t require that kind of approach.

Increasing lethality is not the way go. Increasing complexity is the way to go.

Eponet.4829:

Arkblue.6129:

Dinks.2478:

Anybody that has ever looked at one of the meta builds should know right away that it isn’t about raw damage, it is about bringing the most to the party while still doing a lot of damage.

There is nothing wrong in caring only about damage, but still, you are only caring about damage. It’s ok, it’s the gw2 trademark, but it’s also a quite disappointing experience.

It’s exactly the same with the trinity. Tanks and healers only serve to keep people alive… in order to increase overall DPS.

Definitely not the same, no. But let’s not delve into what other games have, since we aren’t talking about other games.

choovanski.5462:

pve has awful ai and is mad easy, nerfing water fields wont change bad design.

This is also quite true.

Dinks.2478:

Arkblue.6129:

Dinks.2478:

Anybody that has ever looked at one of the meta builds should know right away that it isn’t about raw damage, it is about bringing the most to the party while still doing a lot of damage.

There is nothing wrong in caring only about damage, but still, you are only caring about damage. It’s ok, it’s the gw2 trademark, but it’s also a quite disappointing experience.

I’ve already pointed out that it isn’t about raw damage. To deny reality and live in your own world where you’re right is childish and wrong.

A grand example is Phalanx Strength warriors. Prior to June 23rd they did way less damage than pure DPS warriors. But they were still preferred because they were better for the party as a whole. Instead of more selfish direct damage utilities they’d bring banners, they’d bring might, they’d bring vulnerability.

It isn’t about raw damage it is about the party.

It’s about party damage. You aren’t talking about weakness, blinds, stuns, or controls.
They are not needed.
You aren’t talking about regeneration, aegis, or stability.
They are not needed (except for skips, maybe).

You are talking about:
Party Damage.
PS= party damage.
DPS =personal damage.

currently it’s the least common multiplier of the game.

And I’m ok with them not being needed, I’m less ok with them not having a place in PvE because things dies before they are useful. i.e. before stamina is drained, healing skills are on cd, and personal blocks have been used.

Dinks.2478:

Anybody that has ever looked at one of the meta builds should know right away that it isn’t about raw damage, it is about bringing the most to the party while still doing a lot of damage.

There is nothing wrong in caring only about damage, but still, you are only caring about damage. It’s ok, it’s the gw2 trademark, but it’s also a quite disappointing experience.

Dinks.2478:

Arkblue.6129:

Harper.4173:

It’s the players – not necessarily the encounter that push this.

No, it’s the encounter.
The game was never built around a required healer/tank, but the devs intended to built it around a required soft trinity were at least a player was supposed to stand there dodging/mitigating/blocking/kiting the damage. Stacking was never meant to be META. In that scenario regenerations and heals would have proven more useful because it would have been harder to avoid all damage, but still they wouldn’t be needed.
TL;DR= the encounters are designed around not needing dedicated tanks, healers, or anything but dps weapons.

I feel like you’ve never done a dungeon or something. There is a soft trinity. Every single META build accounts for various forms of control and support. Reflects, blinds, vulnerability, weakness, blocks, dodges, buffs, etc. Every single build accounts for this.

Stacking is a thing that is used in literally every single game since the beginning of time. Without stacking we’d all look like we were chickens with our heads cut off running in circles.

Well, reflects are usually brought because they increase dps. Aegis and dodges are used, but I rarely see Warriors bringing hammers or maces to apply weakness. Usually the utility spells offer enough utility to clear content easily. And at that point, why bringing a utility weapon when you can go full DPS, clear faster and avoid even more damage?

Stacking has been around since the beginning of time because that’s how gw works in general, both for weapon cleaves and party buffs, and I can’t say that’s a good thing.
http://gruulchant.ytmnd.com/

Larynx.2453:

Narrrz.7532:

This has the potential to set up a ‘requirement’ for dedicated healers, ie, those who sacrifice all damage to enable their allies to live longer and thus deal more damage (to make up for the damage the support cannot provide)

this in turn sets up a situation where people are forced to sacrifice their preferred playstyle in order to make play in any way possible. That’s not good design and i’m glad GW2 has never crossed that line.

Why i would like the healing power stat to be more useful and rewarding to those who choose to invest in it, i don’t think that this suggestion is a step in that direction.

as opposed to dedicated healers sacrificing their preferred playstyle and instead being forced to run zerker to be viable?

^ this.

Harper.4173:

Let me point this out to you Arkblue – but Anet is not developing their first game here.

GW1 had corner stacking.
GW1 had mechanics that made mobs run away from AOE attacks and not stack in certain situations.

People abused corners in GW1 and there were mechanics present to avoid it in certain situations.

The fact that the same company produces GW2 a few years later yet these mechanics are not in place makes me feel that they must have wanted for this or at least something similar to be in play.

I can’t imagine them not knowing about stacking or not being aware of how effective it is.

Heck – balling mobs up and burning them down was a critical tactic used in Speed clears back in GW1 ( FOWSC 100b spike).

I really don’t see how your vision of “they didn’t want this” blends with the current state of the game.

Also there’s the issue of how boons work – there’s clearly incentive to stay close to your team.
There’s the way cleave works – if more mobs are closer together you do damage to all of them at the same time.

These didn’t come out of nowhere – the developers put these in.

Are you saying they were ignorant of the fact stacking would become the norm?

From Software developed Dark Souls 1 and 2.
Dark Souls had better weapon collision and hitboxes than Dark Souls 2.
Either the company decided to make a worse product out of spite, or they simply decide to not waste their resources on the fixing of that issues.
Which is what I think Anet did with GW2 and AoE. They weren’t ignorant of that, they said “you know what? It’s not worth our efforts”.
Rounding up mobs for clearing them with AoE is one thing, always stacking because of a 600 range on EVERY party buffs is another thing.
Currently, the game rewards stacking, but also punishes everything else. If you think they purposefully did that, then I don’t know what to say.

Harper.4173:

Arkblue.6129:

Harper.4173:

It’s the players – not necessarily the encounter that push this.

No, it’s the encounter.
The game was never built around a required healer/tank, but the devs intended to built it around a required soft trinity were at least a player was supposed to stand there dodging/mitigating/blocking/kiting the damage. Stacking was never meant to be META. In that scenario regenerations and heals would have proven more useful because it would have been harder to avoid all damage, but still they wouldn’t be needed.
TL;DR= the encounters are designed around not needing dedicated tanks, healers, or anything but dps weapons.

I have followed this game’s new stream since day 1 of official announcement. Never have the devs stated they wanted someone to stand there mitigating stuff.

How exactly do you know what stacking was or was not intended to be?

Because stacking depaupers the game experience and remove mobility and several abilities from the equation.
OHKO? Knockback? Just dodge IF you don’t have aegis or stability.
Really, it’s not about mitigation ONLY, but if they put certain kind of things into the game is because they wanted people to use them.

But hey, if you prefer to believe that the purposely left things to be abused like corner stacking and standing on the ledges against Frost in CM, feel free to do so.

But then don’t be offended when “edgy guy” talks about PVE content that “is not gonna be terrible” during events.

Harper.4173:

It’s the players – not necessarily the encounter that push this.

No, it’s the encounter.
The game was never built around a required healer/tank, but the devs intended to built it around a required soft trinity were at least a player was supposed to stand there dodging/mitigating/blocking/kiting the damage. Stacking was never meant to be META. In that scenario regenerations and heals would have proven more useful because it would have been harder to avoid all damage, but still they wouldn’t be needed.
TL;DR= the encounters are designed around not needing dedicated tanks, healers, or anything but dps weapons.

I think at the moment the shield is really underperforming and that there isn’t any reason to pick a shield over a focus, considering that the Blindness from Focus #4 and the Barrier from Focus #5 also offer complete damage negation.

I personally think there could be several ways to go for buffing shield. Personally, I’d like to see it as a protective/team support weapon, so that it not overlaps with focus or torch.

Ideas: Shield #4 also destroys projectiles, like the Dragon Hunter Longbow #3.
Shield #5 duration fixed. Allies inside gain regeneration.
Shield Traits: Using a shield Skill grants Stability to the Guardian and procs the active heal of Virtue of Resolve.

Rampager and sinister should be equal to zerker and assassin in DPS.
This said, CD should be more about drawn out fights while zerker should shine in burst damage.

CD shouldn’t do the same burst damage as zerker, and zerker and assassin should slightly lose the lead in dps on longer fights. Dire shouldn’t compete in dps with rampager or sinister, and in fact it doesn’t.

In short, make cd more about upkeep and less about burst, but let zerker and assassin have more choices in terms of how to do viable dps (with rampager and assassin)

Crossplay.2067:

[Snip]
As for the current meta, spiking condi damage should never be a thing.

From a gameplay perspective, this is exactly the issue: some conditions are over abudant because, before the patch, people needed to “time” them to get the full effect instead of overlapping them.
For example, as a guardian you didn’t want to use 2 burnings in a row as in that situation a cleanse would remove both istance of the Condition.

Now people can just spam condition, and either they remove them istantly, or they take spike damage, which goes against the expected gameplay of a condition build.

I guess they will have to nerf some condition damage from base abilities and move them on traits, to balance the gameplay to the new rule.
Sure, condistacking should be effective, but not without commitment.
For example, if a Guardian uses Virtue of Justice in PvP and the whole team focuses one person, it’s ok to stack 5+ burning stacks because the whole team partecipated in the effort. However, when burning is already present everywhere because it was balanced to the before-patch mechanics, the burning stacks aren’t 5, they are 10 or more.

Agreed. Also, add more strategies like boon stripping, or the world boss using resistance or spamming Aegis for a while.