Guild Wars 2

Why on-swap sigils should not be nerfed

1. Their effects are player-controlled rather than RNG.
Therefore their effectiveness is determined by player skill rather than a roll of the dice. I.e. a good player might consistently time a geo-doom swap between an opponent’s evade frames, achieving high effectiveness, whereas a bad player would miss a large percentage of them, achieving much lower effectiveness.

2. They open up options for counter play.

To illustrate my second point: Some classes are naturally countered by others due to the difference in speed. For example, thief is a natural counter to warrior because warrior has no skills fast enough to hit thief between evading/blinded/blocking intervals, meaning thief can simply evade/blind/block everything the warrior attempts to do on reaction. Warrior can acquire some level of counter-play in this matchup by using on-swap sigils such as sigil of agility (to speed up skills in order to hit the thief during vulnerable frames) or sigil of hydromancy + intelligence (for an instant attack, also to hit the thief during vulnerable frames). This is just one example among many (another one would be a necromancer using geomancy+doom sigils in order to hit a mesmer between invulnerable/evade/block frames).

When the stealth attack goes on the 1 second cooldown, flip it over to the regular auto attack, then flip it back after 1 second. Being unable to deal ANY damage without spending initiative is bad design.

If there is going to be a 1s CD on stealth attacks, then stealth attacks should either deal way more damage or be unlockable, since they were originally balanced around having no CD.

NA tournament when

UmbraNoctis.1907:

You shouldn’t mix up passive traits in general and passive procs. Yes, many traits are more or less passive and this is totally fine, because they still need active input to be useful. The OP is talking only about passive procs though. Those things that punish you for successfully hitting the opponent without him doing anything. They don’t need any skill to be usefull. They promote lazy play, because you get rewarded (or at least not punished in case of those 25% health procs) for taking some hits instead of actively avoiding the enemy’s attacks.
This includes warrior’s defy pain and last stand, which are actually quite strong procs and only a non-issue because of the weak state of warrior in the current meta. Which might change soon.
Diamond skin is passive but not such a passive proc. Imo it is still a bad designed trait, but for different reasons.

It seems like several people did not understand my point in the OP. Thank you for clarifying.

@Pepsi.8907 thank you for that comment. Agree 100%.

+1

Wolfric.9380:

I also disagree.
If you base a game purley on fast internet lines, computers and reflexes (Skill) you will long tern destroy it. There will be an elitist shrink and less and less new players joining(staying).
So a bunch of passives in each class is good for the games health even if they carry bad players. They still won´t be good enough for high tier play.

Look at the most successful e-sport in the world: League of Legends. There are NO defensive autoprocs in that game, and NO offensive autoprocs that rely on RNG. Yet it manages to be very casual-friendly while also having an extremely high skill-cap which allows top players to play to their full potential. Each year, more people start playing League of Legends than the last. Therefore, the non-existence of defensive autoprocs does not affect how well a game can attract and retain new players.

ArenaNet has made it clear that they want Guild Wars 2 to be a true e-sport. Removing defensive autoprocs and balancing the game around active abilities is a great first step toward that goal.

Onlysaneman.9612:

Toughness is passive defense, should we remove that from the game? Vitality is a passive defense, should we remove that?

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

Crinn.7864:

You talk about skill, so tell me why can the attacker be skilled enough to account for the passives? Revenant’s passives proc at well defined points, if you can’t adjust to that maybe you aren’t as good as you think.

Right now the main problem with Revenant’s Soothing Bastion is the cooldown of 25 seconds. It essentially means you have to kill the Revenant twice within 50 seconds in order to get him down, since each Soothing Bastion proc will heal enough and buy enough time for the Revenant to disengage and fully recover.

Other passives, such as Guardian’s Hunter’s Determination, simply cannot be played around. Either your big CC gets nullified, or you proc it with a smaller CC, which gives the Guardian a bunch of free aegis. The best example of this is, a Thief doesn’t even want to use steal when fighting a Guardian because giving him a free Fragments of Faith is worse for the Thief than landing Steal benefits him. A passive trait made it always undesirable for a Thief to use his profession mechanic…

Blue Hare.8612:

To my defense tho , you listed Strider’s Defense in those passives in your post. Strider’s Defense needs action to work, altho it is in autoattack but you would not normally swing your sword around when there is a ranger 1500 away shooting at you. It changes the way you play in some situations, it is not just “trait and forget”.

You’re right on that actually. Although Strider’s Defense is problematic design in a different way, it’s true that it doesn’t belong on this particular list. I will remove it from the original post.

Blue Hare.8612:

CaptainShrimps.9143:

Blue Hare.8612:

Passives that require you to do something to proc them are good.

If it requires you to actually do something to proc it, then it’s active rather than passive.

To give an example of what I mean: Lets look at Diamond Skin, we all agree that it is a passive right? Diamond Skin requires constant healing/regen to keep it working so the player has to focus on staying above 90% health. As hated as Diamond Skin was it did have an “active component” to it. I’m not saying that Diamond Skin was well designed but it works for my example.

Another one is Panic Strike for thief. It procs when the enemy is below 50% health, so as a thief you can try to find a target that is already below 50% and finish the job or try to nuke someone from full health that to get the immob. This one is maybe a bit borderline for what I mean by “require you to do something to proc” but I’m sure you get my point anyway.

Maybe not the best examples but that is what first came to my mind.

Neither of these traits are passive though. Both require the player to consciously decide to do something in order to get the trait’s benefits. The ele has to heal himself back up, and the thief has to hit the opponent who is under 50% hp.
The passive proc traits with problematic design are the ones I listed in the original post.

Blue Hare.8612:

Passives that require you to do something to proc them are good.

If it requires you to actually do something to proc it, then it’s active rather than passive.

MLGKorno.5419:

Many of GW2’s passive procs aren’t very powerful but that’s not the problem at hand. The problem is Anet being so obsessed with all these “when your hp falls below X, active Y skill automatically” traits. They carry bad players and they’re the reason people aren’t dying in the current metagame. NOT the amulets. Back in 2012/2013 when there weren’t so many passive traits, cele, bird runes etc. existed in PVP and the game was way healthier than it is now. taking out the tanky amulets isn’t going to do anything to make the meta more skillful. It’ll just be a bunch of glassy people with matchups that have a random result instead of the better player always winning because so much of the game is not able to be influenced by the player.

Precisely why I made this post.
Anet needs to acknowledge that this is a huge problem especially if they want GW2 to go esports. Notice that in successful competitive games like League of Legends and Dota 2, all procs are controllable by the player. Even critical hits are pseudo-random instead of truly random. That is to say, every time you don’t crit, the chance for your next hit to crit goes up slightly based on your crit chance.

Removal/rework of all effects that proc without the player needing to do anything is the least Anet can do if GW2 is to be respected as a real esport.

It’s not the stats (like celestial) that carry bad players and create a boring meta, it’s the impactful defensive passive procs that activate when an opponent successfully does something to you.
These traits are bad design and need to be removed or redesigned to make builds in PvP more skill based instead of playing themselves.
Here I will list all of these traits in the game.
Although many of them are currently weak and/or not used, they are just as bad design-wise as the ridiculously overpowered ones (like Soothing Bastion).

Elementalist: Burning Fire, Tempest Defense, Earth’s Embrace, Soothing Ice, Elemental Contingency, Final Shielding, Gale Song, Imbued Melodies, Elemental Bastion

Warrior: Defy Pain, Last Stand, Shrug It Off

Ranger: Enlargement, Shared Anguish, Protective Ward

Necromancer: Reaper’s Protection, Last Grasp

Guardian: Valorous Defense, Hunter’s Determination

Thief: Last Refuge, Pain Response, Hard to Catch, Don’t Stop, (and the passive evade on reaching 50% health that Anet wants to add next patch)

Engineer: Automated Medical Response, Autodefense Bomb Dispenser, Protection Injection, Transmute, Self-Regulating Defenses, Reactive Lenses

Mesmer: Desperate Decoy, Mirror of Anguish

Revenant: Pulsating Pestilence, Eye for an Eye, Versed in Stone, Soothing Bastion

Anet, for the sake of healthy and active PvP, please remove or rework all of these traits and refrain from making more of them in the future.

Can confirm, it is bugged.

In the attached screenshot, the revenant has the Glint utility skills on but the F1 skill button indicates that he is in Shiro.

This bug has happened when spectating revenants in PvP.

I agree. It also takes much longer to react to a visual cue than to an audio cue, and it was much easier to cancel an attack in time to avoid being stunned by shocking aura when it had that very recognizable sound.

If you get taunted in stealth, spam your stow weapon button.

What would it look like if I dodge directly to the side?

One of the mods, Bear (Cat Wrangler.9176), was flaming in map chat, calling participants things such as “f*ggot ret*rd” and “stupid f*g”.

This is unacceptable behaviour for a tournament moderator.

Do you mean warrior has a favorable matchup against CS thief or SA thief or both?

If you get taunted while you have resistance, you will no longer be able to target anyone else, forever. Unless you get taunted again while not having resistance. Or if it was ranger’s pet taunt, if the ranger swaps pets.

@Auldon more of a PSA.

Each hit of Unrelenting Assault counts as a skill. This means it will stop if your target becomes stealthed, and it also means each hit will proc confusion damage.

Staff 1: Damage too low. Also, the first hit in the chain needs to come out faster, like the sword and dagger auto attacks. As it stands, the staff auto attack starts up too slowly and deals too little damage.
I propose 10% damage increase on the first two strikes and make the first strike come out fast like the sword auto.

Staff 1 from stealth: Barely deals damage at all.
Staff 1 from stealth into staff 2: ~4.5k damage, 3 initiative, opponent has a chance to stunbreak and dodge.
Backstab: 5k damage, 0 initiative, no tell for the opponent.
It needs to deal at least as much damage as tactical strike.

Staff 2: Is alright. Maybe make the animation a bit faster.

Staff 3: It doesn’t make sense nor is it useful that the evade skill on staff sends you backward.
I propose making the direction of this skill ground-targetable like warriors’ whirlwind attack.

Staff 4: This skill is just bad. 3/4s cast is way too long for a single blind. There’s no reason to use this skill to avoid hits instead of staff 3.
I propose reworking it so that it is instead a sweep around yourself which sweeps enemies off their feet (1 sec knockdown, 180 radius). Reduce the damage to compensate. This also fits the theme of staff much better.

Staff 5: That 1 second cast time without evade frames is like asking to get killed. You could only ever use this skill for downed cleave and even then staff 2 is more initiative-efficient.
I propose shifting the appeal of this skill to the mobility it offers. Increase the vault range to 900.

Please share your thoughts

Seeing as there isn’t a limit on how many players we can block, I don’t see why there should be a limit on the number of players we can ban from a custom server.

@SchmendrickTheMagician

You clearly haven’t even read my posts.

https://i.imgflip.com/o1ifu.jpg

@Laraley.7695

Marauder thief can hit 6-7k backstab with critical strikes trait line as well as executioner in deadly arts. I have no idea where you are getting 9k from. If you are including double proc, that’s only 25% on crit for both fire and air to proc. If the thief has any survivability (shadow arts), he will be hitting for under 6k even with executioner. Also, it’s harder to set up a backstab than it is to do burning speed, and there is approximately the same amount of time between backstabs and burning speeds. Another thing is that most classes now can eat a backstab and hit the thief for more damage than they took while they are revealed.

You cannot run away from Drake’s breath like you can run away from whirling wrath, since Drake’s breath does not slow the ele down, and also has 400 range.

Burning speed is easier to land than you say. Just stick onto someone with Drake’s breath and if they don’t dodge, they are done. If they do dodge, you use burning speed. Then they either have no endurance left for everything else you throw at them or have eaten a massive chunk of damage. Only bad elementalists use ring of fire immediately after burning speed and as a result both get evaded with one dodge.

Also, how are you supposed to know if the firegrab will be stow-canceled or if they will lightning flash to hit you with it? If they stow-cancel the firegrab and you dodged, you’re screwed. If you don’t dodge and they lightning flash, you’re also screwed.

I haven’t even mentioned that eles now spam blind as hard as d/p thieves with blinding ashes.

@cilliard.3986

You’re going to need to dodge two Drake’s breaths , a burning speed, and a ring of fire every time the ele goes to fire. You endurance doesn’t recharge that fast even with energy sigils. Also, have fun dodging firegrab-lightning flash.

@Laraley.7695

Once you stack some might, Drake’s breath alone can easily deal over 8k total damage, and burning speed can crit for over 5k against zerker/marauder builds. Fire grab will crit for over 7k.

Edit: a half decent cele ele won’t die to any Mesmer.

Speaking from a PvP perspective here.

Elementalist is currently jack of all trades, and master of all. There is no build on any class that can win a 1v1 against 10011 d/d or d/f cele ele now, on point or otherwise (except maybe cele engi with egun and hgh but that’s because bunker down is OP). The best any can achieve (i.e. PU Mesmer, SA thief, settler ranger) is a hard-fought stalemate. Cele ele currently can burst harder than a marauder thief using any combination of Drake’s breath, burning speed, ring of fire, and fire grab, all of which will be traited for 33% cooldown reduction. All this while being able to outheal almost any marauder or zerk build’s DPS. All that while being one of, if not the best builds for team support.

Elementalist needs nerfs, period. Many people have already made good suggestions on how to tone down ele without breaking the class. I hope Anet implements some of them.

15 ini should be baseline and boonsteal on steal should be baseline. Period. Giving Mesmer IP baseline is like giving thief sleight of hand baseline. But I’m not even asking for that. Just make 15 ini and steal boonsteal baseline at the very least.

@Aomine.5012

Like I said in the OP, if ranger is underpowered then buff areas other than this trait. This specific trait is one that is indisputably overpowered and deserves a nerf.

If you have suggestions for how to buff ranger in other areas, I suggest you create a thread about it.

Right, stability. Forgot about that. However, attacks (especially cc) hitting through evade is unacceptable.

I still think that taunt should be a condition, as it is so similar to fear.

I agree that increasing the cooldown would be a good approach that doesn’t involve removing the instant-cast. A cooldown somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds should be sufficient.

1. It hits through evade. If you are evading and in range of a Beastly Warden taunt proc, the taunt will INTERRUPT YOUR EVADE. The only way to prevent being taunted is with invulnerability, which only mesmers, d/f eles, and guardians have access to on 50s, 50s, and 90s cooldowns respectively.

Edit: and stability, which adds warrior to that list.

2. It activates on f2 cast start, not on cast completion. This means that, combined with point 1, the ranger can taunt you at his convenience since there is no opportunity to even move out of range.

3. Why is fear a condition that can be cleansed, but taunt is a hard cc? Especially since the taunt lasts 2 full seconds with only a 15s ICD.

If nerfing this trait will cause ranger to be underpowered, then Anet should buff other areas of ranger as well instead of leaving this trait in it’s current form. An instant aoe 2 second hard cc with a 15 second ICD that cannot be evaded is blatantly unbalanced.

I suggest making it not hit through evade and making it activate on f2 cast completion instead of on cast start.
If the trait would be too underpowered without being instant cast, then make taunt into a condition instead of a hard cc.

@Sanadar.8327

1. There is no acceptable reason for trolling.
2. The only acceptable reason for ganking is to gank the troll so that he leaves.
3. Why would a server owner troll his own server? If that happens, the person on the receiving end obviously got on owner’s bad side somehow and is therefore not welcome in that server anyway.
4. If I went to someone’s party and punched the host in the face, the host would (rightfully) not invite me to his house again for an indefinite amount of time (unless a sincere apology is made).
5. If you really got “instabanned” without doing anything (which I doubt) then what you did before must have been bad enough for you to have been remembered even after 2 months.
7. If you are innocent and the owner banned you only by accident, this forum conversation probably killed your chances of being unbanned for a while. Do try to clear things up with the owner at least, if you really are innocent.

@Sanadar.8327

By ganking the owner of a dueling server in a dueling server, not only are you kittening him off, but also showing yourself to be a troll. He has every reason to ban you from his server. By posting here complaining about it, you have shown that you are the one who is (wrongfully) salty.

Also, the condi clear from Trickster removes a condition after the healing portion of withdraw, which means that instead of removing poison and then healing, withdraw will heal with reduced healing before removing poison.

This is NOT how condition clear on heal traits should work.

OP accurately identifies the issues with Mesmer and his suggested nerfs are fair.

10/10 quality post, haven’t seen one of these in a long time.

The Shadow Rejuvenation and Withdraw bugs need to be fixed ASAP. A mere 4344 heal on 18s cd is ridiculous, and the initiative regen on SR only applying after 3 seconds promotes stealth camping, which a lot of people QQ about thus bringing us nerfs.

Withdraw’s cooldown has been increased to 18 seconds as per the patch notes, but the 10% healing increase in the patch notes has not been applied. Withdraw is still healing for 4344 hp with no healing power instead of 4778.

I’m also getting this bug. The second Power Return won’t proc the cleanse trait no matter how long I wait after casting the first one.

I hope this gets fixed ASAP.

IGN: Yukiè
Playstyle: PvP and WvW
Server: Yak’s Bend
Experience: I’m a ninja

I posted this on the bug forums but it hasn’t gotten any replies, so I’ll post here too. The original post on the bug forums can be found here.

The thief trait Shadow’s Embrace is no longer removing a condition at the end of 3 seconds of stealth, only at the start. It used to remove a condition at the start and at the end of 3 seconds of stealth.
I believe this change happened in the most recent patch, and it was never in any patch notes.

VIDEO
The video shows me testing this bug using stealth from 3 different sources: cloak and dagger, blinding powder, and a heartseeker through black powder.

The thief trait Shadow’s Embrace is no longer removing a condition at the end of 3 seconds of stealth, only at the start. It used to remove a condition at the start and at the end of 3 seconds of stealth.
I believe this change happened in the most recent patch, and it was never in any patch notes.

VIDEO
It shows me testing this bug using stealth from 3 different sources: cloak and dagger, blinding powder, and a heartseeker through black powder.

Developer comment on this would be appreciated, as this is a huge nerf to thief’s already-weak condition removal.

Zealot’s Defense should “Block” projectiles instead of absorbing them, specially since the Revenant’s Warding Rift projectile blocking skill gives “Block”.

This is especially important because Guardians have several on-block traits.

The answer is condi engi with goggles. Analyze them as they are heartseekering through black powder and toss a shrapnel grenade and pistol 3, 2. Watch them get 100-0’d by the condis. You don’t even have to chase.

What happened to the tournament page? It just gives 404 error when I try to go there now when it was perfectly fine an hour ago.

Bash.7291:

Mace symbol actually has the second best base damage and damage scaling for all guardian symbols

For power damage, there is actually no such thing as base damage. It is scaling damage only. Condition damage however does have a base damage component along with scaling damage.

How GW2 calculates power and condition damage is explained here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

The more you know :^)