Guild Wars 2

/agreed – Please help with this Anet

3 guardians
2 mesmers
3 eles
12 warriors

JQs only remaining weakness is NA primetime.

Tulisin.6945:

Mindvibe.4630:

Tulisin.6945:

Mindvibe.4630:

leave thieves as they are. nerf stealth into the ground or disable its offensive capacity completely. all offensive abilities need counters, and stealth has none.

You can’t “leave thieves as they are” while also “nerfing stealth into the ground”. Major stealth changes would require major thief changes to rebalance the profession so it is less reliant on stealth as an offensive mechanic.

And whether there is “a counter to stealth” is pretty subjective. It all depends on what you consider a counter.

i consider a counter to be any ability that gives you an advantage against the initial ability. there are 0 abilities when used that give you an advantage over a stealthed player.

So you define a counter as something that turns an opponent’s advantage into a disadvantage. Under this definition most conditions are un-counterable unless you’re one of the few professions able to turn them into boons or redirect them.

That aside, to understand how to counter stealth under your definition you have to understand that stealth has innate advantages and disadvantages. Stealth gives the advantage of traited benefits and being untargetable, and the disadvantage of lowering combat uptime if you want to maintain that advantage.

first things first. stealth has no disadvantages. not one. dont insult peoples intelligence by trying to sell the idea that stealth is a complex thought process for a thief. it isnt. intelligent players arent baiting a thief in stealth, because they dont even know if hes there to be baited. what is more, “maintaining the advantage” boils down to using one of your 4 stealthing abilities, two of which do significant damage.

second, having an advantage vs the original ability can obviously mean just negating it. all classes can remove debuffs, so you example is actually the best example to prove my point.

lets compare with stealth. how many classes can negate stealth? how many classes have an advantage vs stealth? oh right. none.

Tulisin.6945:

Mindvibe.4630:

leave thieves as they are. nerf stealth into the ground or disable its offensive capacity completely. all offensive abilities need counters, and stealth has none.

You can’t “leave thieves as they are” while also “nerfing stealth into the ground”. Major stealth changes would require major thief changes to rebalance the profession so it is less reliant on stealth as an offensive mechanic.

And whether there is “a counter to stealth” is pretty subjective. It all depends on what you consider a counter.

i consider a counter to be any ability that gives you an advantage against the initial ability. there are 0 abilities when used that give you an advantage over a stealthed player. count them. zero. defensive abilities dont all need counters. offensive abilities do, because if they dont have one, the forums look like they currently do.

what possible rebalancing does a thief need aside from stealth nerfs? their damage is more than capable. they have multiple specs that are no more or less viable than other classes non-flavor-of-the-month builds. as ive said the problem is not thieves at all. the class is completely fine. sure heartseeker topend damage vs cost vs utility is a little silly, but nothing that really needs adjusted drastically. lets face it, any thief that is afraid of a stealth nerf is very likely terrible. and any thief that isnt is just smiling saying god that was great while it lasted.

or the most trollworthy solution for wvw: make thieves the primary render targets for just a week. for them the game will be working as intended, so i cant imagine any thieves would actually complain about the rendering system then right? RIGHT?

honestly its only after actually playing thief that i realized how much of a joke it really was. i went into wvw fully untraited. 700 stat points, and matching class perks short shouldnt feel viable. it felt viable.

leave thieves as they are. nerf stealth into the ground or disable its offensive capacity completely. all offensive abilities need counters, and stealth has none.

ive had 30k on other frenzied rifle warriors several times before. the funny ones are the piercing shots that do like 50k+ dmg to a fresh pile of portal bombers.

also ive had a volley or two do 18-22k. yeah its as balanced as it sounds.

id probably just 2shot you, laugh at your corpse, and catch the karma train before they even noticed i was gone. the next time i walked by youd be the person behind the guards. see how that works?

i constantly see thieves start a fight by using their stealthing heal skill. regardless of the actual logic of using this method, the message the average player is and has been getting is clear. stealth is more powerful than healing or condition removal in its current form, and that is the problem.

there has been a post about killshot on average every 3 seconds since my warrior hit 80. im sure its just a coincidence.

i literally do everything you found to be worthless and find guardian to be one of the most effective wvw classes. perhaps you should stop trying to think outside the box and just think inside it, because i can assure you life inside the box is pretty overpowered.

15k killshot that wasnt even aimed at you. sounds like a really well thought out change.

mediocre pvpers always have the best suggestions on how to improve pvp without having to get better.

The skillpoint was moved off of the dock since the last time i was there. This is probably not a coincidence. How about it ANet?

Raven Paradox.1860:

I feel bad for SoS. Really, we in Blackgate stopped giving a darn and went to WvW only to lvl our alts in the past 2 weeks.

Welcome to seeing SBI attack you from the right and JQ from the left. Welcome to seeing them never attack each other.

Welcome to seeing every SBI enemy have WM over their name and see every bandwagoner talking trash on the forums.

Welcome to seeing your opponents QQ on these forums about every single tactic you use yet they use it all the time too.

Seriously, that is all T1 is. I pray that SoS wins this upcoming week. I pray you kick the crap out of at least JQ so they leave T1 and Blackgate can go where it belongs and it’ll actually be a 3 way fight.

Best of luck to SoS, and congratulations on your achievement. But be prepared to be annoyed, especially by all the kids that talk trash on these forums when they aren’t the ones doing anything in game.

day 1: blackgate vows to put sbi in t2 forever.
day 2: 2v1 claims begin, but blackgate welcomes any challenge from mere mortals.
weeks later: we were just levelling alts bro.

is it true indo plays on sos now?

TLSolomon.6083:

We didnt think so. Busted!

update: its a thief. how embarrassing.

something tells me youre not very good at chess.

solid plan if you want matches to be decided on who makes more golems.

Kuthos.9623:

Mindvibe.4630:

ComeAndSee.1356:

Guardians and Mesmers are really the only classes that can change the outcome of battles in WvW.

this person has a good understanding of the wvw meta.

you are battling for ground in wvw, and there are two methods to get it. short cut with mesmer, or brute force with guardian. you are kidding yourself if you think any other class is as good a pusher as guardian, or better at shortcutting than mesmer.

Elementalist in the right hands is a better pusher than guardian. It’s jut there’s not that many good ones out there.

any time someone says another class “if played well” beats another class, it doesnt. the guardian skillset is designed for pushing with almost every weapon choice. spamming aoe damage does not equate to pushing. you can jump into 20 people and make them move on a guardian. you can jump into 20 people and respawn on an elementalist. we both know unless youre in someones face with any class, they arent moving. in a 50v50 ranged battle in south borderlands ruins, as im sure every server has had the unfortunate experince of seeing, the battle never goes anywhere. its back and forth kiting around the ruins, with very very few people ever dying. you throw 1 guardian on either team, and the other is suddenly pushed to their tower within 5 minutes. its not a coincidence. sure the meteor showers hurt, and people will inevitably die to aoes, but as much as people say ranged are op in wvw etc, they really arent. you want melee on your team to bully the other zerg around. if no one hard engages on the other zerg, group, whatever, the fight is always a stalemate. theyll shoot lasers at each other for hours with no real progress.

other classes can push, its not guardian specific. guardian has by far the best skillset for doing it. especially so if factoring in the cooldowns on those skills.

ComeAndSee.1356:

Guardians and Mesmers are really the only classes that can change the outcome of battles in WvW.

this person has a good understanding of the wvw meta.

you are battling for ground in wvw, and there are two methods to get it. short cut with mesmer, or brute force with guardian. you are kidding yourself if you think any other class is as good a pusher as guardian, or better at shortcutting than mesmer.

entirely too much potential griefing. veto.

blackgate appears to be struggling without the aid of questionably obtained global buffs.

you have one person to thank for this. kefro. his posts for several weeks have done nothing but badmouth the casual wvw community, and pronounce blackgate as gods gift to wvw. as long as he is posting, blackgate will be considered the most cancerous thing to happen to t1.

please use the same voice for future videos.

its actually the aoe healing that needs to be nerfed, not this tactic. i watched a stacking group bathe in the burning oil no problem. you have to realize that even if aoe hit everyone, those people are healing for like 3-4k a second. they make no effort to avoid cannonfire or aoes, because the heals are too strong. i dropped wall of relfection right on top of them, and the amount of damage they were doing to themselves was absolutely obscene. tens of thousands of damage, probably over 100k by the time the wall ended. they made no effort to move or stop firing. they just tunnelvision turret as a little clump because theyre invincible with that much healing.

guess ill just have to start being a dbag and dropping sanctuaries right on top of them. its really sad what t1 has become. so much trash.

Zahdane.4029:

Not even 24 hours in and I’m seeing what, 3-5 cases of orb hacking?

Where did all this trash come from?

mostly europe. a little from asia. but its all built up on blackgate atm.

Ynna.8769:

It’s not mandatory, but you’d need a pretty good reason not to take it.
I have the same thing with 5 points in Virtues.

i feel fiery wrath is a more mandatory spend than a blind on justice for guardian, and the two dont harmonize well at all in most situations. you cant rightly save the cooldown for both defense and offense. dueling with melee would be the possible exception. i wouldnt trade any of my traits for it, which is why i dont have it.

10/0/10/30/20 is what i use. my interest lies in wvw for the time being, and i find very few flaws with this build.

draxynnic.3719:

Mindvibe: You have to look at the profession as a whole. A guardian going into melee from a fresh state will have the first hit negated by Aegis. With 5 points in Radiance (if you don’t have at least that and you’re at least around the mid levels, why?) activating Justice will blind foes in your vicinity, protecting you from another wave of hits, and activating Courage will stop another hit (and possibly heal you if you’ve taken that trait). Depending on the nature of the enemy and the player’s timing, this has the potential to stop the damage that the warrior has extra health in order to be able to take. Meanwhile, Resolve is ticking away to undo whatever damage slips through.

And that’s without going into skills. A guardian with a bladed weapon is going to have at least one other area blind on a shortish cooldown besides Justice, and the sword provides a shield against projectiles as well. Blunt weapons will give you the opportunity to plant a defensive symbol on a regular basis – a symbol that can be traited for additional heals. If you really want to go defensive, mace/focus will give you a heal on a chain, a healing symbol, a block, a multitarget blind with healing to boot, and a shield that can be activated while stunned. And then you can add utility skills on top of that, such as Wall of Reflection’s “okay, I can now ignore any projectile user attacking me from over there” behaviour.

Warriors just don’t have this kind of damage mitigation. Yes, they have decent heals, and they have defensive skills on some of their weapons, but even a mace/shield warrior has less ability to prevent damage than a guardian (it might match the guardian mace/focus in terms of what’s on the skillbar, but the guardian gets to add virtues as well). What does the warrior get to compensate for this? The extra health to survive the hits that a guardian could have blocked, blinded, or otherwise prevented. This is how the two professions are balanced against one another – the guardian is based on active defenses provided through skills and the profession mechanic, while warriors are just plain tougher.

why are you trying to convince me of everything ive already said?

also i dont have 5 points in radiance. its not mandatory for any build, including melee only.

i rather enjoy people logging on my server and telling me im bad and my hair is ghey. those laughs really get under peoples skin.

the Guardian’s low health pool is actually a good thing. rofl

1. HP is Ablative Mitigation

…. A warrior with 25k HP can survive frontloaded, burst damage, but will likely spend the rest of the fight bouncing between 4k and 10k HP. Being healed back to full just doesn’t happen often in this game.
the damage that brought a warrior to 4k made the guardian a corpse. if youre talking about wvw or pve, resetting hp is very easy and common.

2. Armor/Toughness is Proportional Mitigation; Healing is Linear Mitigation
your post is about effective health, which increases linearly with armor. youre also more likely to be healed (buff ticks, healers, self ticks) with more effective health. honestly no idea what youre even trying to convince people of in this entire bullet.
…

3. Avoidance Is The Best Mitigation
every class has this. warriors have as much of this as guardians. quality of said cooldowns is open to debate, since its mostly situational and a matter of opinion anyways. how does this in any way prove more HP for free less valuable? like every other bullet, it doesnt.
…

4. In PVE, Incoming Attacks Are Predictable

…

CONCLUSIONS

• ….Warriors don’t necessarily have it better than us. Their health pools are much higher, true, but high health usually just serves as a buffer, absorbing the first few big attacks but never really getting back to 100%.
  its not a matter of having a tradeoff for getting the extra hp. they literally get it for free. of course its better. again resetting hp is not very difficult in most situations.
• ….Lower health pools means greater vulnerability to conditions. Luckily, a Guardian can hardly sneeze without removing conditions, but it bears mentioning that our low health pools do come tacked on with this basic weakness. Conditions are potentially our undoing provided we’re not smart about removal, or lack removal options (certainly possible).
  to mention nothing of buff stripping. if you dont depend on buffs and are naturally more tanky, youll survive better vs dispellers also.
• …Guardian self-heals come in steady streams of small values rather than big bursts, making it ideal for builds with decent health/vitality but very high armor and toughness. Our readily available Protection boons multiply this effect. Guardians are therefore capable of much higher sustained survivability with lower health pools.
  situational. i dont feel its fair to compare aoe spammed buffs like protection and regen when the warrior is designed to give offensive buffs. every class can get buffed by guardians, and warriors alike, thats just how it is.
• …You don’t have to sacrifice damage for defense. Guardians do need Vitality, but not as much as you may think, and survivable builds probably don’t have to build purely on Power/Toughness/Vitality. If you have enough vitality to survive big attacks, you’re good to go. You have more than enough raw mitigation (Protection boons) and Avoidance (Blind, Vigor, Block, Invul) to handle telegraphed attacks.
  replace guardian with whatever class you play, and you just described gw2.

• …There is a sweet spot for Guardian health, and I don’t know what it is, but it seems to be about 15k to 16k health. This is usually enough ablative defense against frontloaded damage, but also relatively easy to heal back to 100%

Sorta TL;DR Version: High health pools are basically ablative defense. They let you survive big, frontloaded damage, but you’re almost never going to be healed to 100% in an aggressive fight. The lower your health pool, the more mileage you get out of each individual HP healed (false). The lower your health pool, the more vulnerable you are to condition damage. The lower your health pool, the more vulnerable you are to spike damage. The higher your proportional mitigation (armor, toughness) and the more options you have for total avoidance (dodge roll, invul, block, miss), the less vulnerable you are to predictable damage. Most spike damage in PVE is predictable. Therefore Guardians actually don’t need that much health to perform well.

Thoughts?
——
there arent very many absolutes in this game. but its always good to get free stats of any kind. i mean do you understand how much difference just the hp buff alone from 3 orbs in wvw makes? its broken, and warriors get multiple times over this amount over guardians for free.

base level 80 guardian hp: 10805
base level 80 warrior hp: 18372

both are soldier classes and have access to the same armor, meaning any armor value you assign to one class, you can assign to the other.

effective hp is the amount of damage your character can soak up after damage reduction before death.

given that both classes are able to reduce incoming damage by the same amount, how is it mathematically possible to say a guardian has higher effective health while having less hp?

say both reduce incoming damage by 50% to make it easy. that would make effective health for each class:
guardian: 21610
warrior: 36744

assign any numbers you want, its obvious a warrior has higher effective health. not only that but higher health helps vs condition damage, which ignores armor.

why do i disagree with each argument? it doesnt address the fact that WARRIORS GET EVERY SINGLE THING HE MENTIONED ALSO. healing for a higher proportion of health? that means its more likely you will overheal, wasting a partial heal, and it also means since you have lower EHP youre less likely to receive a heal in the time youre alive from an outside source, as well as any heal over time effects. every single paper statistic points to warrior for being more tanky.

his post should have nothing to do with comparing to warriors, and everything to do with why having low base hp is COMPLETELY MANAGABLE with the guardian class.

i play guardian, and prefer it over warrior. i feel they are the superior class, and still extremely overpowered. but the reason has absolutely nothing to do with what he listed.

i disagree with almost every point here. infact im not sure if youre just trolling. warriors and guardians have the same armor in the same gear. warriors have more health in the same gear. to say that warriors arent naturally more tanky is only viable if you ignore mathematics.

sbi bl was one of the most exciting maps for the majority of the weekend. now its mostly esol-tier people mindlessly zerging supply camps in squads of 40. FUN WHILE IT LASTED.

subtract 700 health and 100 power for food i had at the time, otherwise unbuffed. stats using greatsword. force sigils.

greatsword/ sword+shield 10 l 0 l 10 l 30 l 20

people suck at pvp. its wvw, theyre allowed to suck at everything. look around, its not uncommon.

vistas have panoramic views of the surrounding area. it just so happens most siege weapons benefit from this. if you consider this griefing, you are a handicap to your team.

mass building flame rams inside a keep to waste supply and limit siege cap is griefing. buiding on top of vistas is not. you can still get the vista anyways by carefully navigating until view becomes an option. the biggest culprit of complaints is the garrison vista. 1 ballista right on top of that vista is extremely dominant vs attackers at that inner gate.

this proposed solution would result in even more griefing than intended, and a fix like “no siege interaction”, even if made a keybind to be temporary instead of a setting would be much more helpful to novices who cant figure out how to get the vista anyways.

PsionicDingo.2065:

I am packing a Staff as I hear that’s the WvW tool of choice, and I rock the Scepter/Focus in cases where Melee isn’t an option.

there is only one rule in wvw when you play guardian. melee is always an option. and i do mean always. embrace melee and realize that guardian is by far the most overpowered pushing class in this game.

-change the orb buff to an individually gained, progressive server loyalty reward. the method chosen to obtain this could be wvw participation related (time, kills, karma, any number of barometers), or simply a timer based powerup (1 month, 1 orb bonus, up to 3). the method for acquiring this buff should only focus on server loyalty, but be fair to any role played inside wvw.

-the new orb buff affects pve only. 15% magic find, 5% gold find per orb. the numbers here dont really matter. make it attractive without making it ridiculous.

consider the possibilities of this change:

-most importantly anet sends the message that server loyalty, and therefore community within their game is importantto them, and they want it to be to players. closer knit players do not give up as easily, which is one problem the vast majority of wvw matchups face.
-transfers do not autowin wvw for any one server, infact they handicap it. the transfers that do happen may be more pve related in nature. i say may because lets face it, people will still server hop to be on the winning side until transfers cost $200.
-people will think twice before transferring strictly for wvw related reasons. those that flew the coop at the first site of trouble before may reconsider when they realize the other team wont have 3 orbs on them for five more days. it will be longer this time, and the cause is purely them.

negative effects:
-people dont like being penalized for anything. seriously anything.
-some servers may decide to completely avoid the orbs. the money sounds nice, but competitive servers may decide the influx of newcomers is not worth it.
———
the negative opinions on orbs and transfers havent been much of a secret on these forums. im trying to look at this from a new perspective, rather than eliminating free transfers prior to guesting, which anet seems unwilling to do. i think this is a positive change even after guesting, but am curious as to why you feel this will be a welcome or unwelcome potential change.

chances are high if youve read the wvw forum at any point you realize 90% of the topics are complaints. this idea is mostly open for discussion or criticism, and hopefully on par with what the developers are hoping to achieve in their game.

-change the orb buff to an individually gained, progressive server loyalty reward. the method chosen to obtain this could be wvw participation related (time, kills, karma, any number of barometers), or simply a timer based powerup (1 month, 1 orb bonus, up to 3). the method for acquiring this buff should only focus on server loyalty, but be fair to any role played inside wvw.

-the current orb buff affects pve only. 15% magic find, 5% gold find per orb. the numbers here dont really matter. make it attractive without making it ridiculous.

consider the possibilities of this change:

-most importantly anet sends the message that server loyalty, and therefore community within their game is importantto them, and they want it to be to players. closer knit players do not give up as easily, which is one problem the vast majority of wvw matchups face.
-transfers do not autowin wvw for any one server, infact they handicap it. the transfers that do happen may be more pve related in nature. i say may because lets face it, people will still server hop to be on the winning side until transfers cost $200.
-people will think twice before transferring strictly for wvw related reasons. those that flew the coop at the first site of trouble before may reconsider when they realize the other team wont have 3 orbs on them for five more days. it will be longer this time, and the cause is purely them.

negative effects:
-people dont like being penalized for anything. seriously anything.
-some servers may decide to completely avoid the orbs. the money sounds nice, but competitive servers may decide the influx of newcomers is not worth it.

i wish i had come. you sound like free badges.

melchiz.7182:

Anyone who thinks that JQ will not suffer the same demise as HoD, for many of the same reasons, is purely in denial. Expect this to last a few weeks and then JQ to die as another FotM world takes its place.

I pity the chest-thumping JQ diehards, as they will have to watch their beloved home fall.

its natural to be in denial. theyve only had the cancer for 10 minutes and are still feeling strong. its just a matter of time before even the diehards realize theres more cancer than JQ now.

inb4 hods noob train steamrolls them in t2 lollllllll

kefro.9312:

feel free to join us

Our main goal is to punish the ppl who transfer just to be on the winning side

someone needs to drive the noob train, i suppose it might as well be you.

Ianervan.3415:

Stop posting nonsense Mindvibe. Funny how you thieves think everyone else should build full toughness full vitality and go Guardian just so you don’t 2-sec instakill us.

Grow up and learn what balance is. Put your ego and supremacy aside. Play some other classes. No other class in this game comes even close to what Thief is. No matter what people mention, I’ve played WvW for a while and never have I had a “WTF” moment with any other class.

i dont play thief. i also pointed out that a counter exists. what gear you decide to wear is completely your option. until you realize its no ones fault but your own, keep respawning.

DustyRhodes.9407:

Mindvibe.4630:

one day arenanet will realize thieves would be a lot more balanced if they added a set that had toughness and vitality on it. perhaps theyll even hint that this a staple set to wear for wvw by making it purchasable with badges dropped in wvw. until that day keep making these threads.

You realize the pvp exotics you buy in WvW with the badges are power, vitality, toughness, right? its around 300 badges per piece.

so basically arenanet did everything they possibly could to help the original poster except put the armor on for him and issue him a wheelchair? is that a fair summary of the situation we find ourselves in?

one day arenanet will realize thieves would be a lot more balanced if they added a set that had toughness and vitality on it. perhaps theyll even hint that this a staple set to wear for wvw by making it purchasable with badges dropped in wvw. until that day keep making these threads.

use a reflect, retal, or escape ability. every class has multiple choices. guardian greatsword 2 is an extremely hard counter to it.

the primary reason something needs to change is players ALL want to be challenged to make intelligent decisions during their gaming time, no matter what time of day. bringing more people is not an intelligent decision for anyone, even if it is organized.

winning by default is boring.
losing by default is boring.

everyone who matters feels the team who plays better should win. this SHOULD be an average of the skill level of a server around the clock. this SHOULD NOT be weighed so heavily on any timeframe for any server.

lower wvw queues with more players? it happened on every server. people are losing interest because the outcome of the match is out of their hands.

as long as the current system holds, arenanet is catering to the population minority.

It doesnt mean that at all. It means ANY player regardless of what time they play will have their effectiveness limited by the numbers of their opponents.

Implementation of this may be difficult, but I feel this solution should at least be considered. Before I begin, I will say I’ve played on the higher ranked wvw servers, with little to no comprehension of how games are played out with lower populations.

ANet said they would consider options that had the following criteria in the sticky:

Everyone should have the ability to contribute no matter what time of the day it is.

*No player’s time is more valuable than another. *

Every players contribution will be valuable.

Players should not be punished or unable to experience and view the same content as everyone else because they play at a different time.

The Basic solution:
Scale a world’s point gain off of the number of opponents they are facing. This change will not do anything to the current gameplay except keep the score more even for servers who are less represented in number (even if only so during certain daily time stretches).

I don’t see a downside to implementing this. All of the above points are followed. A server able to take a night/daycapping advantage will still have a significant advantage with territory, upgrades, supplies, prebuilt siege defenses, and siege offenses as well. The main turnoff to people entering wvw after several days of battle is a massive point disparity. This idea is targetted specifically at that.

After this change people will still complain about nightcapping. All of their hard earned upgrades will probably be lost overnight. At least theyll bother to queue past the first two days though, since the point margin wont be as insurmountable.

If this idea does nothing else, it challenges all wvw players from all servers to make the most out of their time spent fighting, which regardless of having queues or not, is what wvw is all about.

Would ArenaNet consider making this change?