Guild Wars 2

Hi Mleko,
I play both bersi staff and viper thief (d/d).

For me viper thief is mainly a build for raids as it has the highest dps output of all the thief builds at the moment.

However in open world PvE stuff ususally does not live long enough to take advantage of those high damage numbers because for that you need the mob to live for a considerable time.

My clear opinion is to go bersi staff for open world PvE and if you raid prepare a viper set for certain bosses if you want to optimize your dps.

Greetings,
Eleandra

I concur, it could be funny if it weren’t so sad. I switched from Thief to Ele for this season but two times I had to switch and used Thief as there were none.
In one of the two matches I went close at the beginning getting a Thief and Mesmer directly at the start of the match.
I stalled a little then ran to far and capped that.

All while my team got destroyed on mid – all were killed in a 4 vs 3 match. After the match they blamed me for not wining my “duel” and kapping far instead of close.

shrug

Than that probably means it is time to finally switch to Overwatch for PvP. At least that game does a better job at balancing, class roles and matchmaking.

Preamble —-—————
I know topics not unlike this one have been made more than once during the last few days but the issue I have seems to not have been discussed as much.

If it has, please forgive me and I would love to be pointed to the right thread.
——————————————————

I am at a loss at this moment in regards to the following conundrum:

I started my placement matches for Season 5 ranked a little late due to a demanding work life.
However the matches were some of the best I had in years. Active, intelligent players who fought for a win. The outcomes of these matches reflected this feeling by being very close with ~100 points or less difference at the end of most of the matches being it wins or losses.

I ended my 10th qualifier match with a ratio of 7 wins and 3 losses placing me squarely in gold 2.

So far, so good. PVP is fun again: Check
——————————————————

Now comes the bad:
From the first match after these placement matches I encountered the following situation:

1. Nearly 100% losses, most of them with > 250pts. difference at the end.
2. Players who seemed to not only never played their class but also the game (a warrior in lvl 1 gear following a mesmer to close and standing around the rest of the match dying seconds after an enemy engaged him/her).

Easy answer: I suck! I am probably the reason my team gets stomped.

But wait: Were the placement matches not designed to ensure I will be placed with other players who are at my level skill wise?

So where did everything go wrong?

• Were the placement matches wrong by placing me into gold 2 (I am silver now) or
• is matchmaking kittenty?
• Did I switch classes between placement matches and later matches? Did I use my “main” to do placement and later switched to a class I play much worse? The answer is NO to that. I main Thief since the beginning four years ago but find myself unable to make an impact by rotating and +1’ing. Therefore I switched to support Tempest some time ago and did all the matches since then with her apart from two.

This cannot be an “it is you” issue as long as I did not play vastly superior during placement compared to now – the structure of the season is specifically designed to ensure that.

So what happened between the engaging and fun pvp I had during placement and the total crapfest I see now?

I would like if anyone apart from me made the same experience or if someone has an idea why this is happening. The change was like day and night and its terminator lies between my 10th placement match and the first season 5 match as if two completely different algorithms are used to compute the match-ups.

Please bring back the

Incarnate Armor Skin

I WILL use gems paid for with real world money

My tempest channeling her arcane powers ^.^

Yes,
I like both the glider and the toy and I have both.
But levitating above ground or in front of a NPC looking at the ground in front of one’s feet looks a little silly unfortunately ^^
I agree that the pose is good for the glider but I hjope to convince Arenanet to chance the inclination of a character model using the toy.

Yes indeed, I am talking about the toy not the glider.
That was a misunderstanding then. ^.^

I (obviously) do not think you are right. As backup for my point of view I want to bring the definition of the terms “ascent” and “levitate”. Even though the “Electromagnetic Ascender” is named as such it is clearly a levitation device:

ascent [uh-sent]

1. an act of ascending; upward movement; a rising movement: the ascent of a balloon.
2. movement upward from a lower to a higher state, degree, grade, or status; advancement:
His ascent to the governorship came after a long political career.
3. the act of climbing or traveling up:
Three climbers attempted the ascent of Mount Rainier.
4. the way or means of ascending; upward slope; acclivity.
5. a movement or return toward a source or beginning.
6. the degree of inclination; gradient: a steep ascent.

source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/ascent
————————————-
levitate [lev-i-teyt]

verb (used without object), levitated, levitating.

1. to rise or float in the air, especially as a result of a supernatural power that overcomes gravity.
verb (used with object), levitated, levitating.
2. to cause to rise or float in the air.

source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/levitate

And just to perhaps explain my point better and stir your imagination:

http://wallpaperbeta.com/wallpaper/girl_mage_flame_orcs_battle_rocks_fantasy_hd-wallpaper-403537.jpg

Dear ArenaNet Team,
during the sale a few weeks ago I purchased the “Electromagnetic Ascender” toy for my tempest. Basically I am very happy with the idea of that toy, especially because it fits the theme of “levitating Archmage” I had in mind for that character’s theme.

However there is one point to the toy that I feel could increase the style of it manyfold:

The toy effect itself is very nice but the caracter’s inclination ruins the effect.
If the character’s inclination could be altered in such a way that the character is more vertical I think it would much more be like a “levitating mage” highlighting his/her power over the elements of nature and magic instead of a “statically charged mage falling over”. The effect would be altogether more impressive.

I am not sure if I am the only one feeling this way but perhaps others shre my opinion or do not agree with me.
Whatever you think about this please feel free to add to this thread in a civil manner.

Here are two pictures to hopefully explain what I mean:

The first picture shows my tempest from the side, not very impressive. Forever doomed to run into walls because she can only see the ground in front of her or living with a stiff neck ^.^

The second picture shows her from the front in worm’s-eye view. From this perspective the look is roughly as I envision it.

Best regards.

P.S.: I am aware of the fact that this character is slightly laden with particle effects and I understand that this is not to everyone’s taste but this is not the topic of this tread so please refrain from derailing it.

I know I am repeating myself but this seems to be the correct thread to post my wish:

Dear ArenaNet please bring back the “Incarnate Armor Set” to the gem store. I need this set to make my Necromancer’s outfit perfect.

I would be reeeaally grateful if you could do this!

I would even post a screenshot of her with her perfected outfit for you

Just look at these two options:

First picture is the outfit as it is now, the other one is with incarnate shoulders and reading glasses, it should be obvious that there is no alternative to bringing the incarnate armor set back tomorrow ^.^

P.S.: PLEEEEEEEAAAASE!

edit: Evil spelling backstabbed me!

Please bring back the Incarnate Armor skin! I really need it to complete my perfect maid outfit

Also (a little) off topic: Please change the inclination of a character using the Electromagnetic Ascender toy. The way it is now looks strange (to me at least). I would like to have my character more vertical not always looking at the ground.

I know it is rude to repeat oneself but pleeeeaaaase add the Incarnate Armor Set to the sale. If short notice additions are possible, here take my money ^-^.

Edit: Stupid auto correction.

Please bring the “Incarnate Armor Skin” back for this sale! I really need the shoulder skin for my character it is unique and cool!

P.S.: PLEEEEAAAAAASE!

This is my fairy space alien.
Switched to this armor set because I had it lying around with Valkyrie stats.
And it fit with the new back item

Normally I use the strider set.

NP

Happy that you like it.

I use d/p + sb DA/SA/TR pvp standard build with thief guild and sofar it works well in the new pve content.

much better than DrD or Staff or DrD + Staff actually.

Another thing you could try is s/d DrD but I do not like this playstyle and therefore did not try this.

I vowed to play through the story in HoT using DrD + Staff, in order to learn it.
Had to switch to D/P + SB for survivability at some point.

It is playable with DrD + Staff but soooo much easier using D/P + SB.

That is truely sad if I think about the fact that DrD was meant to be about scirmishing.

If I extrapolate this to PvP I would say you should definitely wait IF they fix thief AND DrD because atm the only thing good about the class is the staff animations.

That is actually not correct.
Many people actually stated that burn damage was fine but sustain was the real culprit of ^2 state of elementalists.

Also the un-“balance” team employed at ANet did not really nerf RoF but created a skill that was a little bit more forgiving to bad players and much less forgiving to good players.

The only real nerf I can remember from the top of my head was the might stack via cantrips nerf.

The only strange thing I have seen more often recently is downed players whose life bar is depleting (so no stealth rezz) suddenly springing back to live at full health.

Has anyone witnessed this? Seems to happen a lot in the last weeks.

Edit: Grammar

My (fun answer) would be : “Just cleanse it.”

And as condi players like to tell all power players to “just cleanse it”; use all the other invulnarabilites to counter the burst You have tem so stop slotting you condi utilities and get defensive.

That is what condi players do.

You are right UmbraNoctis though. It would be unfair.

The problem stays that condi builds are very strong against power builds and those are very weak against condi builds in return because condi builds have a LOT of sustain usually and since 26.6. also a LOT of damage.

I have played condi and find it very unskillful and boring but if I do not want to only play in coordinated groups which are completely built to counter condi, I have also to play condi in order to be able to help my team.

Condi or power should be a choice made by preference, both should be valid. Outside of coordinated teams many classes have no valid way to beat condi classes and that should be corrected.

Condi players are correct insofar though as that many solo cue players seem to not pack any condi cleanse at all and that is also stupid.

Infantrydiv:
You list a lot of cleanse skills but you do not list how many conditions they cleanse and in what timeframe.

Let us take Shadow’S Embrace:
The first consition is cleansed after three seconds, then after every three seconds one more.

In combat this means you have at a maximum one condition cleansed and which one is randomly decided by the program.

If you want more you have to resealth giving the enemy an easy way to find your position and aoe you to death.

Another thing:
Toker seldom died because he chose to do the cap thing and had a coordinated team communicating via teamspeak/ventrilo/we.

I agree with you that there ARE classes with powerful condi cleanse. Heal guard being one of those and naturally necros if correctly traited but placating all the condi cleanse skills onto the wall is not a very good argument in my opinion.

If however you would take the time and try to check out condi application potential against condi cleanse potential, then you would perhaps see that they are not balanced at all if you do not have a dedicated team.

Also, I propose to reduce the sigil of generosity sigil internal cooldown to 3 seconds.

If what the people playing condi saying is true, they should have absolutely no problem to manage the conditions coming back to them.

I joke obviously but I would be intrigued to see what happens.

The point made by the anti-condi people in this thread is that condi builds can have similar dps as power builds and also that the condi cleanses of most classes (eles are a different kind of beast) are on much higher cooldown than condi applications.

This means one can simply outsustain power builds.
If the build is cleverly designed utilizing sigils and runes you can also apply two more types of conditions at the same time as your min damage dealing condi.

This combined means that a condi build can have higher dmg/sec than a power build (because you do not need to actually hit the opponent the whole time), can make it very hard to cleanse condis because there is no order in which the conditions are cleansed.

And have much better susutain than any powr build.

If condi cleanse would always cleanse the most damaging condition first, would do a lot to make a fight against a condi vs. power build more fair.

Actually on my thief it happened to me more than once that I tried to cast shadow refuge (for my only condi cleanse – thx for that Anet) but before the cast was done I was downed.
Similar thibgs happened on most other classes.

Similar things hppened to others when I played condi against them.

So

The need to outsustain is a weak argument if this can be done by a condi build in my opinion.

Perhaps for engi, but generally speaking you can successfully run a condi build sporting +condi dmg, + toughness, + vitality.

If you do this with a power build you will kill nothing on most classes.

So if one class either has such powerful defenses that it can run fully offensive and be as effective as if using defensive stats the class hould be nerfed. My point still stands, though.

If contrary to this one class is absolutely squishy independently of the fact that it uses defensive stats or not, it should be buffed in my opinion.

As engineer is the only class I do not play, I cannot say which is the case but it seems to be an issue of the class not cond vs. power judging from your answer.

For all the other classes there is a definitive difference in survivability/sustain with condi and power builds this I know first hand.

But a power build has much less options to specc into defensive traits to be effective, this is always ignored by anyone defending the momentary condi playstyle or do I miss something?

Condi Builds should be as weak as direct damage if soldier amulet is used and in order to buff it to the strength it has now, three offensive stat amulets sould be needed in my opinion.

Should the question to be answered first no be:

Are the classes who use stealth are too strong at the moment (or more accurately coming HoT)?

And if so: Which class using stealth is too strong?

If the answer is all —> Nerf stealth.
If just a few: Nerf the class.
If none: This whole discussion is moot. Or you need to buff the classes utilizing stealth after nerfing stealth.

As a thief main I feel thief hardcounters inexperienced players. I cannot say when I fought the last time against an opponent who was unable to counterplay me stealthing. That does not mean the other player was always successful but that is also not the meaning of counterplay.

Counterplay means to give you a fighting chance.

Edit: As a counter example let me say the following:

I, as a thief, cannot fight against a Warrior who activated berserker, or his invulnerability, both of them last longer than three seconds. I simply cannot counter play that apart from running away or dodging.
Despite the fact that the thief is very weak against these mechanics I have seldom seen a thief (apart from very novice ones) ask for these two mechanics being nerfed because we recognize that the mechanic is MEANT to be strong against us.

And to counter the “But fighting stealth classes is sooo frustrating” argument: Fighting invulnerable classes or classes with huge health pool is frustrating to me too, but I do not ask them to be nerfed, it is just their class mechanics. And it creates a diverse and challenging pvp environment.

Different does not necessarily mean op and frustrating for someone does not necessarily mean for everyone.

Edit 2: spelling

Love the changes so far but DrD still has no reliable condi cleanse or am I missing something?

Karl, please, if HoT is as condi heavy as it seems give us a good way of cleansing condis.

Would it not be better to change conditions such that a condition damage build has to invest as heavily in offensive stats as a berserker?

This means:

• Create three different stats affecting conditions positively like e.g. Conditioin damage, ticks/second, condition duration (these are just examples)
• Change conditions such that they are really weak if these three offensive stats are not taken (probably stronger than direct damage with a pure defensive amulet because most classes have more condi cleanse than heal)
• Create a set of amulets just like for power based builds that give the player an option how offensive or defensive he wants to build his character.

This would remove the extreme tankiness of many confition speccs and force the m to consider the same balance as power builds between survivability and damage output.

Du to the fact that condi cleanse is easier to do than heal (but offset by the fact that most classes have to spcifically trait/build for condi cleanse – not for healing) condis should be a little bit stronger than direct damage if e. g.g a soldiers amulet is being used or something similar like dire.

Hi,
especially the Dmg reduction on dash!
I am finally looking forward to trying Daredevil.

Actually I ran a similar build during BWE3 for a few matches and was rather successful.
However I found it very cheap (but this is solely my peronal preference).

I want to have my staff melee ^^ main weapon whine

I love the idea of giving the thief a bruiser style melee specc that has sustain and does not have to either spam evades or use stealth for everything (I REALLY like d/p in pvp but holding point would be a nice change of pace).

I am happy that Karl went with staff, I just despise the way Staff and Daredevil is implemented unfortunately.

So yes, please give Daredevil some actual sustain and group utility.

Hey guys,
check that out:

Thiefs ask for better Daredevil Staff animations since BWE2 and no answer from Karl in regards to this.

Now check out the Druid BWE3 thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Beta-Weekend-Druid-Feedback-Thread/page/13#post5575742

Answer from “Irenio CalmonHuang” after the idle animation was critizied because it looked like holding a hammer.

I really respect the people who are the warning voice against the winers and flamers (as I have become by the blatant lying and inconsistent bullkitten that has been fed to us) but I really cannot see ANYTHING that would make this right apart from Daredevil also getting a shiny new set of staff animations.

I followed this thread stating different numbers:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/What-is-Staff-good-for/first#post5569279

I did not verify them though.

But Arachnid even though I do not like his attitude usually checks his numbers beforehand

It comes down to personal preference.
For me Daredevil is an utter mess.
It has to be differed between staff and Daredevil and also between pve and pvp though:

Staff:
Staff has good damage, better than dagger/dagger actually but nowhere near top of the line compared to other classes/specialisations.
Apart from damage there is not much else and you are definitely NOT an infighter staying close up contrary to what Karl tries to sell.
Also I find it very spammy and not very controled to play it is either spamming (in the worst sense of the meaning of spamming) evades or insta death.
I tried more balanced stat combinations but with those survivability is around the same and damage is completely gone.

Other weapon combinations:
I did not try S/D but read here on the forums that it is nearly as good as the old Acrobatics traitline but not quite.

PvP:
If you want to do PvP keep away from thief. It is very powerful against newer players but as soon as you meet a competent player of any class he will be your hard counter.

Thief is not so much hardcountered by class but more by player skill. New player’s die easily okayish players put up a fight and good players are nearly unbeatable because the thief relies on the other player making errors while you play more or less perfectly.

At the moment one can cope but with the introduction of the real elite specs even meta d/p will be a thing of the past.

I would say: Create a revenant and play shiro, is more powerful, more fun and has aactual animations.

Best regards,
Eleandra

The funny thing is: Playing Revenant with ONLY Shiro for the first time even in PvP reaading the skills while fighting is more efficient than Staff + Daredevil with a fairly good knowledge of the class and weapon.

That is so sad I do not even know what to say.

PvP wise:

Daredevil brings the s/d thief to 80% of what it was before the Acro nerf.

The staff does 80% of what the s/d weaponset does for survival.

And every other class is at 120% of what they were before the June balance patch.

I have no feedback left but this:

From a pvp perspective.
Regarding Daredevil + staff:
I feel impotent like someone watching a traincrash happen. I see as in slow motion what happens and I know how it will end. It will be horrible.

But the people responsible for the “balance” currently in the game will still be the same…

Dear Ray I am stuck in the pvp queue, too. I cannot leave the queue which says it is waiting for the rest of the party but I am in no party.

Please help and tell us if it is save for us to join another queue or if this would lead to the same issues all over again.

Hi Nyx,
I applaud your effort to explain yourself but I have to admit that it feels as if no one interested in constructive on-topic discussion is making contributions to this thread.
All the answers boil down to off-topic attacks against your skill level, person or intentions – this is why I have stopped talking to thos people and instead decided to only recognize those posts who are constructively talking about what you proposed.

As a message to those who attack the basic idea of this thread:

• Please be aware that it is completely okay to disagree with the basic concept or the doability of the TTK or the idea of creating a mathematical model but then there is nothing you contribute to the discussion so please accept that there are people who are of the opinion that such an approach is feasible.
• The idea that Nyx for example should simply do it is easily dismissed because you would have to have access to the sourcecode of the game in order to re-engineer the combat system already present.
• To those who attack the idea of using a mathematical approach by simply stating that perhaps there already is one and it just does not work as we would expect it to because we do not know all the parameters. This is certainly a possibility but take a look at burn damage scaling and especially Elementalist balancing at the moment:
  The same day ArenaNet published the formulas for condition damage as of 26.6. an outcry arose incuding examples that this would lead to a massively imbalanced game. Something that would have been easily avoided by using not even a wholistic mathematical model but by simply checking how many burn stacks a single class could achieve in what time and using one’s own formula to see what that meant. The fact that ArenaNet nerved burn damage only days after releasing the patch is a strong indication that they in fact did not even do that. Now after a few weeks of the system running rampant Arenanet even posted in a thread about the state of Elementalist in pvp indicating that still they feel that either the class or burn damage is too strong. This means – for me – that they created a formula which clearly they did not fully understand (which is quite sad actually as it is something you could give a six grader and he would possibly be able to solve it (1)), further indicated by a nerf that did not correct the issue that many random people from the internet saw before Arenanet did.

@ Nyx and everyone who is interested in a on-topic discussion on the things that are worth dicussing like:

• Is the TTK approach alone viable or do we need a more complex approach splitting travel speed/mobility and other mechanics from it?
• How can one put numbers on hard to quantify skills?
• etc.

I would be happy to go into further dicussions bout this.

(1): No disrespect meant to Arenanet personel. I am aware that they are most likely very much able to solve the formula it just seems that they either did not put in the effort or were not able to because of their workload, then this would be a clear management problem. On tpoic: If they had created a mathematical model it would have taken them no time to see what effects those formula would have on the equilibrium of the system.

Nothing to contribute to what Nyx said, I just wanted to strongly state that this is one of the most civilized and fruiful discussions I ever wittnessed on a MMO board

Great posts btw. Nyx and thank you for acknowledging my post.

Hi,
I followed this thread and read all posts (I think).
I am not going to dive into the many topics being discussed here in parallel but for me there seems to be one argument underlying all of them:

Disclaimer: Thief main/defender here. I have all classes but engi and hunter at level 80 and play them all in pvp.

I read quite a few posts in the thief-is-okay camp that postulate that “if thief wants to beat others in 1v1 then …” “beating” seems to be used in the form of allways beating or with a great chance of success.
What I feel most of the “thief is up”-crowd wants is basically that thief has an equal chance to beat other classes. The better player should decide the match not the better class.

I would like to make the following thought experiment (can I say this?):

On the + side

1. It is accepted by most that thief is the most mobile class due to SB5
2. It is dabated if thief is the best +1 class. I personally think it is not. Warrior and Mesmer are better at it I would say but one can disagree. So let us take the +1 as a feature of the thief class.

On the – side

1. Most people posting here, I feel, also accept that the thief class has virtually no chance of winning a fight against an equally skilled player of any other class (I compare meta builds here as I somehow have to limit the set of permutations and this seems feasible because takking first time players and non functional speccs into consideration serves no means in the context of this discussion).
   #No point holding capability due to stealth and the fact that one simply loses agains equally skilled players. (I know that “equally skilled” weakens my argument because I could basically postulate that whenever I win the other player was unskilled when in-fact my class carries me – I am aware of that but as this is the only way to compare classes – taking the player skill out of the equation – I see no other way)

As a counter example let us use Warrior (On a GS/H – Build for example)(not mesmer Because I do not want to derail the discussion by inviting that crowd ^.^):
on the + side:

1. Good mobility albeit less good than thief.
2. great 1v1 capability
3. great teamfight capabilities (elite)
4. Extremely great sustain, CC, Dmg output
5. Great point holding capabilities

on the – side:

1. not very good in condi cleanse compared to other classes but not much worse than thief actually, I think it depends a little of the nerf to condi cleanse in stealth has been reverted or not (I have to admit I am not quite sure if the fact that thief goint into stealth only starts dropping conditions after three seconds and not initially and then after three seconds has been reverted or if it is still in effect, need to check that).

No let us just assume giving the thief class (not the player as we removed the player variable from the formula) a 50/50 chance of winnging agains a warrior on point if both players are playing equally well.
This would leave the thief class with its superior mobility.
The warrior however would still be able to:

1. decap points from the thief because of stealth
2. would still retain its great teamfight capabilities
3. would retain its superior cc abilities (which is in fact just a part of the teamfight capabilities so scrap that)
4. retain its great point holding capabilities (keep in mind: This is against the thief class. Warrior against mage may look different but that is, as the sages say: Another story)

This would hoewever mean that the thief has a chance of getting the point back by dropping the warrior.

Also the argument that mobility + 1v1 capability = thief kills everyone makes no sense objectively because if the balancing is 50/50 hunting =/= winning. It would only mean that, if the thief decides that he has to hunt someone in order to win he will have a CHANCE of fullfilling this goal which would be exactly 50% (Again: Please do separate this class balancing discussion from discussions of player skill etc.).

As it stands now, if anyone decides to harrass a thief, he can do so with >>50% chance of succeeding (by e. g. positioning her-/himself smartly killing the thief when he tries to move through a chokepoint).

I feel (naturally or I would not have written this post) that the scenario above does not make the thief in the least overpowered against the warrior, even if you as a reader are of the stone/paper/scissors-school of thought (which I THINK was actually postulated as something not desired by ANet in their manifest). On the contrary it would still give the warrior roles where it would be stronger than the thief.
Point holder for example. Thief and warrior have both a 50% chance to win but the warrior can cap the point as soon as the thief enters stealth while fighting.
Teamfight capabilities are also much stronger for warrior as for thief due to great aoe cc abilities and sustain (and banners but these are not used in most meta builds so I will not bring them in here).

This would create two classes with different roles:
*teamfight/pointholder/bruiser -> Warrior
*roamer/point capper (with 50/50 chance if contested)/ +1 fast dropper -> thief

LEGEND:
=/=: “does not equal”
>>XX% : “much greater than XX percent”

I really feel there are a lot af valuable arguments here.

One of them being: Art vs. Math.

Art vs. Math:
Nevertheless I disagree with this argument. Not only video game programming is an art but programming in its entirety.
I understand the “math vs. art” part as the art of creating an immersive game, not the art-WORK (cg, animation, sound, etc.) in the context of this discussion, please read the following taking this premise into consideration.

As I have posted before just giving everyone one attack doing 1 dmg and 10 health is clearly not leading to an entertaining game and it is certainly also the most basic concept there is.
Think of it as the “Hello World!” of TTK balancing. this makes it ALSO a good starting point.
Going from there you can add different attacks, heals, defensive moves subsequently adding depth to the combat system and also add to your mathematical model of the combat system.
This is not an art vs. math problem because there is no “versus” in this, it is a hand-in-hand approach between two disciplines: A discipline of art and one of science.

Also, the combat system in Guild Wars 2 CAN be reduced to logic and math because this is the nature of a computer programm. If it were not so a “turing machine” (which is what all our computers are), would not be able to run the programm at all. It HAS to be a deterministic logical-mathematical model (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine).

If you have a sound mathematical model you can create a system were killtimes and damage output over the classes are not identical but TTK (as a binomial relation between two classes) is still even. This allows the designers to dreate an attack, a skill, a move that can be incorporated into the mathematical model and the numbers can then be tweaked by looking at the output the model creates.

As a last point: The model needs not be 100% correct but it would GREATLY increase the quality and speed of the balancing process (just look at the different power levels of the elite specialisations which are to be released in less than 60 days). Again a good example btw.: There is power levels (where a mathematical model would be very helpfull) and the ergonomics/flow/whatever you want to call it where the mathematical model will not be helpfull.

It is just too complex
Nothing much to say to people being of this opinion actually.
I assume it is an opinion at least. I am no statistical mathematician but as a counter example to your “it is just not possible” argument I would like to point at global climatic models, high-frequency trade models and the mathematical model of the LHC which is used to tune the experiments executed there in therory before doing it using the physical system which are all much more complex than everything GW2 brings to the table.
(The software model of the LHC is actually a very good example of what is discussed here, it serves exactly the same purpose of veryfying somethin in theory before letting it run wild in the world)
Also, I would (from my professional background) assume that most (if not all) of the mathematics involved in GW2 is linear which is in itself very simple to compute in comparison to the non-linear models created for the models above.
I understand if you answer: “Okay but these models all cost billions of dollars, took decades to create and implement and need super computers.” That is true but complexity wise this is all NOT true for a model of the GW2 combat system which, again, needs not be perfect but a reasonably good approximation of reality to base balancing decisions on in contrast to the “try and error” approach that seems to be used in GW2.

Disclaimer: I do not want to slight anyone of this opinion, the idea to use a mathematical model for balancing and that it is possible to do so is also just an opinion until someone dispoves it mathematically.
I have however strong examples on my side (see above) and no one has brought a proof of the impossibility of creating such a model. This is, I admit much harder though.

The TTK is not a good approach
THIS is an argument I can understand and i think it to be very constructive.
I feel that people who make this argument generally agree with the need of a sound mathematical basis for a combat system but do not agree with it being based on TTK.
If I understand this correctly, I would like to say that I can understand this. I think TTK is a simple axiom that can be used but surely there are different systems.
I myself proposed to use different TTX systems like the:
Time to Kill
Time to Goal
etc.
in parallel in order to be able to cover the different facets of this game 8high mobility, high combat prowess, high group sustain etc)

Please make your own propositions for systems to balance Guild Wars 2 on.

Hi Nyx,
thank you for this clarification.

My question was actually not if the amount of time used in your example was important but more in the direction of your third paragraph – which directly made it clear for me.

One could have been of the opinion that each and every class has to have the same TTK in comparison to all other classes and by this eliminating different playstyles. This would be the easiest model to construct and would basically represent a one class system, where different classes mainly are represented by different animations etc. but survivability (or sustain as it is called here) and damage output would be equal globally (1).

The system that I would like to see, and that you proposed I now understand, is a system where different TTKs are allowed for different classes but a shorter TTK for the class is offset by its ability to kill opponent classes faster.

FOOTNOTES:
(1): I oversimplyfy, eben in a system as described defensive and offensive mechanics could differ between classes but if reduced to the numbers I think it could be seen in the way described.

@Archon:

I have to admit, that I feel aggression comes mainly from the first paragraph of your post not so much from others but aside from that:

You are right that most likely the focus is on the backend side of things where high fidelity server responses to the client packages for thousands of users are concerned and I do not argue that this part of the software is neither negligible nor even from a complexity point of view comes behind balancing in any way. Also Arenanet is doing quite a good job at this.

I also understand Nyx, if he refuses to see this game as a huge high performance/availability database with added frontend, because even though it is perhaps the most expensive part of the whole game, it is not the game by itself.

Also no one in this thread even talked about this, the discussion was about an approach to balancing the game combat-wise not about what is the most complex part of programming the distributed software that is Guild Wars 2.

In the great scheme of the parts comprising this game such as, but not limited to, database management, response times, 3D engine, trading post, etc. the class balancing is something that takes up its place in the list of things to be handled by someone who has the right education for this job (education here used in terms of “knows how to achieve it”).
I feel that balancing is something that is not handled properly at the moment, successivley getting worse over the last months. I am also pretty sure that some changes which have been done during that time were done in preparation to HoT which does not make it better.

I also agree with Nyx in sofar that a wholistic mathematical approach is not only better but the only way to handle this complex topic. Apart from this there are still questions I at least need to understand concerning his idea.

The mathematics are surely not “simple” but they can be handled, mathematical/statisitcal models can be constructed with reasonable effort I believe and they are, at least in my opinion, the better approach. Even if they are not 100% correct, as models are seldom, they can give you a suitable approximation of reality to base your decisions on.

(at the borders of this discussion at least I have vented a little bit my frustration about some of the issues plaguing this game in pvp and pve. If you feel offended by this, please just ignore it or view it as the combination of professional pride in combination with a passion for this game)

I do not agree with you apharma on several points:

1. Just because one playstyle of one class decides to/has to avoid fighting, the basic principle in itself is not wrong.
2. This is a purely personal reason (and therefore can be ignored if you wish): I myself main thief (but have every class to 80 apart from engi/hunter and play them in pvp) and feel that the “no fight”-playstyle of Magic Toker was only because he HAD to play in this way precisely because there is no balancing of the game as proposed by Nyx and because TCG failed at rotating in this match.
3. You are correct in my opinion though that the pvp game mode of GW2 is not purely about fighting but about capturing and holding points. This is however a different discussion from what Nyx started:

• Nyx says (as far as i understand) that balancing (implicitely combat pvp balancing) should be around number crunshing and he/she proposes as a basis of this to use the TTK approach.
• If there are different dimensions core to the pvp gameplay (and please keep in mind that stronghold is coming) these need to also be balanced but on a different scale, perhaps the “time to target”-approach would be feasible for that.
• In conclusion: Just because the TTK approach does not cover the whole of GW2 pvp concepts does not make it wrong just not complete. And just using the TTK approach would in my opinion greatly enhance GW2’s pvp even without taking in consideration the other aspects of balancing.

So many good points made here.
Especially your opening post Nyx! Kudos for that.

Just as a short introduction of my background:
I myself own a MSc in Computer Science and work in the field of “safety critical systems” basically the total opposite of game designing as for us everything is about crunching the numbers so that the Boeing/Airbus/car/highspeed train/nuclear powerplant does not go boom.

The ranting part:
There is virtually no evening when I am logged into this game where it does not scream into my face that the class developers/designers of GW2 are not only no mathematicians but most likely not even programmers (as indicated to me by the absolute lack of understanding of basic principles of programming – I might be wrong though) but game designers.

Back to topic:
I totally agree with you, Nyx that crunching the numbers is the only way to get pvp right at this point and that there is most likely no one at Arenanet who has the mental capacity/skillset to do that (perhaps the trading post experts, as they seem to have at lease a firm knowledge of statistics).
I also fear that no one will be hired for this, unfortunately because some of the basic concepts of GW2 pvp are very, very promising I think.

Just one question about your stance Nyx:
What I am not sure of is the following:
You say that TTK should be equal over all classes. How is your stance to offsetting this equilibrium by e. g. saying: “It is okay if it takes 20 seconds to kill class A if Class A needs also 20 seconds to kill everyone else.” and (using your 10 second example).
Is this something you find acceptable or would it already, in your opinion, corrupt the principle of using TTK as a balancing axiom?

For me this is actually important in order to promote the bunker, dd, bruiser playstyle which I like in its versatility.

Neverthelsee your basic idea that there needs to be a basis of numbers that give a metric of the tradeoff one makes if deciding to play a bunker setup instead of a dd setup is exactly what I feel is needed.

Wall of text incoming (seriously it did not look this long when I wrote it, got carried away it seems):

The intention of this post:
I would like to add to the feedback given in this thread a more general note about the concept of the AoE Infighter as the DD was at least hinted at by Karl.

The situation at the moment as sen by me (after just a few hours of practicing – I have to admit)
For me it seems (all sarcasm aside) that infact the acrobatics traitline was changed during the balance patch in June as a preparation for the DD, which in itself is okay (even though many S/D-players will disagree with me here).

The problem is, that the ability to stay in big fights comes through sustain which is more or less passive or at least usable while dealing damage.
Dagger/Pistol manages that by utilizing the “Black Powder” Skill to blind a chosen enemy andy stealth in order to reposition without being hunted.
Sword/Dagger manages that by using flanking strike. Stealth and teleports are both used for repositioning and condi cleanse.

Now comes staff:
- No (usable) AoE blind to reduce damage taken while attacks are executed, no stealth for repositioning, no teleports to throw the enemy off their game (which is as far as I understand one of the reasons S/D works so well: The combination of attacks with evade frames, dodges and teleports in combination with stealth).
- No teleports apart of the utility skills present.
- No stealth in order to open up a tight situation and create some breathing space.

Staff for me lacks all of this and therefore there is absolutely no sustain. It is true that one can dodge a lot with the new three dodge bars and if taking the “Acrobatics” traitline this becomes even more (and even do damage) but that is still no sustain.
In order to utilize the traits from the Acrobatics traitline one has to attack, something that is utter futility if done in an infight with more than one enemy.
There simply is no way of staying in melee for more than a few seconds meaning that “vaulting” in and getting out using “debilitating arc” seems to be a type of playstyle that is needed with a a dust strike thrown into the mix.
Unfortunately the thief and therefore the DD does not (in contrast to all the other classes) have different cooldowns on all his skill but shares one big global cooldown called “initiative” "and if I just vault in (6 ini) and get out using “debilitating arc” (4 ini) there is (if I waiit for two seconds room for exactly onr (1) dust strike and then the DD stands there pants at his ankles directly infront of a big group of enemies looking pretty stupid.

When looking at successful (or as they are called in this communnity) meta-builds they all have a (semi)-passive way of damage mitigation either trough continious healing (ele), invulnerabilities (guard), huge health pool + high armor + etc (warrior) or through blind/dodge + stealth/teleports (thief).
Apart from all the feedback already received which I completely agree to btw, especially that the whole gameplay of DD is not only NOT FUN but AGGRAVATING to such an extend that I consider playing the DD spec a chore.

An idea for allowing the DD to sty in the fight (perhaps not a good one though):
I like what the developers did to “black powder” when they considered it to be too good, they did not completely remove it but lengthened the time between the pulses so that it allowed counterplay without killing the spec.
This showed me that smoke fields can be balanced to mitigate not 100% damage but less (as it is now the case with the “black poweder skill”).
I feel that the DD needs to have some moves that allow us to stay in a group for a few seconds not mindlessly bouncing over the battlefield until we can dodge no more and our “initiative” is used up. This could be one of those super fancy moving combo fields used for the warrior for example.
I am aware of the fact that some of the attacks which are at the moment whirl or leap finishers would perhaps have to be removed (or perhaps not looking at the sorry state the developers put the thief at the moment – and the even worse state the DD is now) but this is still better – for me at least – as the way the DD plays now.

I have tried the DD mainly in PvP (as it is what i mostly do – with all classes but engineer and hunter but I main thief) and in Silverwastes because if I understand correctly the HoT content is going in the direction of SW.
I feel that the amount of aoe effects and damage + cc by the NPCs active in SW is a good benchmark for the validity of the DD and I have to say that there is no feel of anything with the DD but the whish to throw it into a dark corner and never visit it again.

If this is read by the developers responsible for the DD I would like to add that i like the idea and was hyped at the demo, I even bought the ultimate Hot prepurchase edition (something that i vowed not to do) because I wanted to try out this power house.
I assume you will not fix it, because frankly I think you are not capable of it (in time) but PLEASE surprise me by creating something for the thief class that is not horrible!

My sincerest regards, someone who would like to give back his Hot pre-purchase because of the DD at the moment.

No Thief build can rely on only one type of damage mitigation and this will never work for staff.

Only one screenshot per post as it seems?

Second spot in Divinity’s Reach where the issue is even clearer.

Please have a look at the screenshot.
If the avatar is positioned as in the screenshot and one tries to use infiltrator’s Arrow to teleport from the “Central Plaza” into the hall beyond the teleport fails with the message “no valid path to target” which is clearly not the case as one can direclty walk to the teleport destination over a flat surface (please see screenshot gw336.jpg).

Since the March 16th patch I noticed that several teleports that have been “fixed” in the March 16th patch are not working correctly anymore even if the path in front of my character is clearly traversable.

I have attached a screenshot showing an example of this behavior in Divinity’s Reach near the “Central Plaza” POI.

If one places one’s avatar in front of the steps facing south (see screenshot “gw333.jpg”) and tries to teleport beyond the two steps using Infiltrator’s Arrow the teleport will fail with the message “no valid path to target” (see screenshot “gw333.jpg”) even though the avatar can easily just walk over the two steps in a direct line without deviation from the path the teleport would have taken.

I noticed similar behavior of other teleport skills like e. g. “steal” failing despite the target being in range of the skill, and having a clear walkable path between my avatar and the target.

Best regards Eleandra