Guild Wars 2

Ventari Rev is extremely unfun to play against… there is little counterplay since no class has stability uptime that can compete with knockback every 3-4 seconds, and even blinds/blocks/evades usually have too high of cooldowns to keep on the point, much less have a chance of winning a duel and killing the rev or even forcing it off the point. Most other bunker specs were nerfed to avoid them being able to hold 1v2+ too easily after sigil nerfs lowered damage output, this should be tuned to similar levels.

The obvious offender is that it’s KB cooldown is highly overtuned compared to CC options on other classes… the vast majority of knockbacks/launches in the game have a cooldown of 15 s or greater for comparison and most of those are single target, not AoE. The reason being overwhelming amounts of CC make the game no fun because you don’t get to play, you just get bounced around endlessly. Nerf the KB cooldown to at least 10-15 s and it’s still a decent decap/bunker build, but not nearly as toxic. If it’s no longer viable without KB spam, give it more damage or healing to compensate, but there is no good reason it should get to break the rules when it comes to reasonable limits on AoE CC compared to other classes.

For me the main questions to ask when considering if something needs a nerf are:
1.) Is it fun to play (i.e. what is the skill floor and ceiling)?
2.) Is it fun to play against (i.e. is there reasonable counterplay)?
3.) And most importantly, is it balanced? (i.e Are the abilities in question over or under-tuned compared to other classes?)

For Knockback spam Ventari Rev:

1.) Skill floor and ceiling: easy to use at low skill, overly effective at high skill… you need little knowledge of the things most classes have to know since you don’t care about actually winning duels/teamfights, you just spam knockback until the point is capped. Add a small amount of skill in rotating to be as frustrating for the enemy team as possible.

2.) Extremely unfun to play against… there is little counterplay since no class has stability uptime that can compete with knockback every 3-4 seconds, and even blinds/blocks/evades usually have too high of cooldowns to keep on the point, much less have a chance of winning a duel and killing the rev or even forcing it off the point.

3.) In terms of winrate, I have less data to work with. The information I do have though is in comparing it to other similar builds. Most other bunker specs were nerfed to avoid them being able to hold 1v2+ too easily after sigil nerfs lowered damage output, this should be tuned to similar levels. The obvious offender is that it’s KB cooldown is highly overtuned compared to CC options on other classes… the vast majority of knockbacks/launches have a cooldown of 15 s or greater for comparison and most of those are single target, not AoE. The reason being overwhelming amounts of CC make the game no fun because you don’t get to play, you just get bounced around endlessly. Nerf the KB cooldown to at least 10-15 s and it’s still a decent decap/bunker build, but not nearly as toxic. If it’s no longer viable without KB spam, give it more damage or healing to compensate, but there is no good reason it should get to break the rules when it comes to reasonable limits on AoE CC compared to other classes.

For me the main questions to ask when considering if something needs a nerf are:
1.) Are these builds fun to play (i.e. what is the skill floor and ceiling)?
2.) Are these builds fun to play against (i.e. is there reasonable counterplay)?
3.) Are these builds balanced? (i.e Are their abilities over or under-tuned compared to other classes?)

For Knockback spam Ventari Rev:
1.) Skill floor and ceiling are pretty low since there is little focus on actually winning duels just on spamming knockback to cap the point.
2.) Extremely unfun to play against… there is little counterplay since no class has stability uptime that can compete with knockback every 3-4 seconds, and even blinds/blocks/evades usually have too high of cooldowns to keep on the point, much less have a chance of winning a duel and killing the rev or even forcing it off the point. Most other bunker specs were nerfed to avoid them being able to hold 1v2+ too easily after sigil nerfs lowered damage output, this should be tuned to similar levels. It mostly just comes down to the KB cooldown being highly overtuned… the vast majority of knockbacks/launches have a cooldown of 15 s or greater for comparison and most of those are single target. Nerf the KB cooldown to at least 10 s and it’s still a decent decap/bunker build, but not nearly as toxic.
3.) In terms of winrate, I have less data to work with, but it doesn’t seem super unbalanced compared to other bunker specs provided the enemy team is on point with their rotation. Even with proper rotating though, it tends to just stall out the game which has a negative effect on matches overall.

+1 to undoing this change, it essentially negates all the positive changes to staff that might have possibly made Staff see a tiny bit more play. No one complained about staff auto-attacks being OP and this nerf just makes no sense.

Am I missing something or is this still overall a big boost to condi builds and a nerf to power builds? I get that there is some RNG involved in on crit sigils, but currently one of the only things that really distinguishes Precision from Power is the ability to trigger powerful On Crit sigils, otherwise Power is almost universally better in terms of DPS.

Also, myself and a lot of players are fine with the way sigils work right now… it would be cool to see some new sigils added, but the existing ones shouln’t be scrapped. PvP is cookie cutter enough as it is, and Sigils should have powerful effects that have synergy with particular builds… we don’t want to see nerfs given out to cherry-picked sustain options of specific classes to compensate for weaker (and therefore less exciting to choose when constructing a build) sigils. As a Power build player I don’t see a single sigil listed here that makes me excited to lose current options and put a new one in as part of optimizing my build.

One of the goals mentioned in the first sigil post of “We heavily reduced the available options” is the opposite of what makes PvP fun. Please leave as many options as possible in case some enable cool niche builds and to give as many fun ways to optimize builds as possible rather than leaving players with a sense of “I guess I’ll choose this sigil because it is the least bad of the weak available options.”

As someone who likes theorycrafting and build optimization, ideally amulets should be done away with and/or available in all the stat combinations available on normal gear like in WvW (but standardized gear so there is no barrier to entry like in WvW.) If certain stat combinations make certain builds OP, the specific skills or traits involved should be balanced to make them not OP, rather than pigeonholing stats into amulets which destroys build diversity/creativity. You should be free to choose the best stats to complement your build, not forced to choose a build that works with the stats available on a handful of good amulets.

Sadly the balance team is unlikely to want to spend the time involved to make that balance happen, so I’m not optimistic it will ever be a reality.

The main problem with Hammer is that almost all of it’s moves are too slow and clunky compared to similar options on other classes.

I agree that Hammer #5 doesn’t really need Reflection, it just needs to be castable while moving like they changed Staff #5 to be (and possibly buff it’s cooldown to 30s for PvP like they did with staff as well.)

Hammer #4 needs to have it’s cast speed changed to 1/2s to be in line with similar knockback options from other classes (Staggering Blow on Warrior, Point Blank Shot on Ranger, etc) since it’s currently hugely telegraphed and too slow to be a useful interrupt.

Hammer #3 isn’t completely useless after they buffed it’s projectile speed a while back, but it’s cast speed is still a tad too slow and should be changed to be the same as the very similar, but generally more useful Vine Surge on Druid (3/4s).

Hammer #2 is fine speedwise, but it’s leap is a bit too short (300) compared to most other similar skills (600 Vault, 600 Savage Leap, 1000 Rocket Charge, etc) and should probably be 600, but at the very least 450.

The hammer auto-attack would also be fine if it actually worked like the tooltip said (1/2s first hit, 1/2s 2nd hit, 1 1/4s 3rd hit) but it’s actually closer to 3/4s first hit, 3/4s 2nd hit, 2s 3rd hit… which is a bit too slow and clunky compared to similar chains on other classes. If even just the last hit were fixed to match the tooltip speed it would definitely be a much more viable alternative, especially given the faster paced combat since HoT.

I’d be surprised if it actually happens, but would really love to see more weak traits and skills buffed to bring them in line with the power creep created by HoT (and balanced to similar skills/traits in other classes), rather than just the usual nerfing of strong things that have been complained about! Buffing lots of weak things creates the excitement of experimenting with new builds rather than the disappointment of seeing currently used builds made less good.

Just got done playing the For Honor beta and really liked the fact that it has separate 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4 (in the case of GW2 it would be 5v5) PvP modes. There are already 1v1 GW2 tournaments done by ESL and I’m guessing it wouldn’t be too hard to make a map that is just the middle cap point of Foefire for 1v1 and 2v2 queue matches. For those wanting to do the current 5v5 game mode there should just be solo queue and full 5v5 team queue.

There has definitely been a lot of power creep in HoT and several of the suggestions here could help make Guardian weapons that have fallen behind more viable again compared to similar options in their own and other classes.

A few small changes I’d personally like to see to balance some things:

Mace – Auto-attack #3 (Faithful Strike) speed changed to 3/4 sec (The same as the equivalent Warrior Mace Auto-attack #3 Pulverize which had it’s cast time buffed a while back.)

- #2 Symbol of Faith speed changed to 1/4 sec and Regen duration increased to 2 sec per pulse (to be on par with the new Symbol of Punishment and Symbol of Blades which are much faster and grant more useful boons.) Currently it’s not a particularly powerful symbol (hence increasing the Regen a tiny bit) and Mace’s main problem is being too slow and clunky compared to other weapons right now.

Scepter – Fix the bug that causes #2 Punishment not to pulse immediately when applied, unlike other symbols. As such, it pulses 4 times rather than the 5 it should.

Hammer – #2 Mighty Blow leap range changed to 600 (same as Vault, Savage Leap, etc.)

Greatsword – #1 Auto-attack chain should grant similar amounts of might to the Scrapper auto-attack chain (8s Might first two swings, 3 stacks 8s Might last swing.)

- #2 Whirling Wrath recharge changed to 8 sec (same as Hundred Blades and most other GS #2 skills) and modify the way it’s damage works so you don’t have to be completely inside an enemy to deal full damage.

- #3 Leap of Faith recharge changed to 12 sec (same as Swoop and most other GS #3 skills)

- #4 Symbol of Wrath recharge changed to 15 sec (same as Warrior and Ranger GS #4) and inflicts 5 sec of Cripple (since most GS #4 skills inflict Cripple.)

I like the suggestion about making the PvP changes to baseline Virtues apply to PvE (I think the only reason they didn’t do this is there are different teams involved and the PvE team has no particular incentive to check and make sure those changes are fine, pretty sure it wouldn’t be game breaking.)

Mace doesn’t really need too much in the way of changes to make it as useable as the other weapon options, but could definitely use a bit of help since it’s always been on the slightly weak side and there’s been a lot of power creep for other weapons (HoT weapons like Longbow, symbol buffs to Sword and Scepter.)

I’d suggest just improving the speed of Faithful Strike to be on par with Pulverize (the equivalent Warrior Mace skill which had it’s cast time buffed a while back, 3/4 sec cast time) and improving the speed of Symbol of Faith to be on par with the new Symbol of Punishment (1/4 sec cast time) should be sufficient and make it feel a lot less clunky. Increasing the duration of the Regen per pulse from 1 to 2 seconds also makes a lot of sense considering it’s a relatively weak buff compared to a lot of the other symbols, but adding might isn’t necessary.

The suggested changes to AH, “Receive the Light”, and Empower also seem pretty good since I don’t see those used much anymore, but they’re a bit harder to evaluate. I definitely like Empower being able to be channeled while moving, as most channels have been changed to be that way now.

I’d love to see a Ranked dueling option available. I personally don’t enjoy the informal duels of Custom Arenas with no real way to measure skill or improvement, having a fast easy way to queue into duels would be a really fun option when losing because of bad teammates gets too tiresome to deal with anymore.

Unfortunately, duels are unlikely to ever become “esports” and Anet is unlikely to devote a developers time to implementing it unless there’s a significant number of people loudly voicing interest in it. Which is sad since it would be the simplest new PvP format to implement… a straightforward matchmaking queue, and a small Courtyard deathmatch style arena.

And here I was excited to finally play necro again. RIP the dream. sigh

PvP should not be balanced around taking away good options from stat combinations… if a build is too strong, the offending skills should be balanced, or counterplay skills buffed, not good choices taken away from all builds so that the strong builds are forced into sub-optimal stats to “balance” them.

There should be no greying out of the ability to leave just to avoid stupid behavior. However, at the very least if “no” is clicked on the join party tab, you should be able to leave immediately.

We shouldn’t have to do some work around to leave a pvp match as soon as it’s over if we want to… if players want to stick around to form a party great. If we lose and I want to dip the second the match is over, it’s incredibly stupid and frustrating to force players to sit around and wait for a timer to run out.

Second this… having to sit there and wait for to leave with a greyed out leave button and “no” button when you had a bad team is stupid and frustrating. If people don’t want to party let them leave the second the match is over.

I very much enjoyed GW1 PvP (as a mostly arena player) more so than GW2 PvP… but it definitely had a “meta” which wasn’t probably terribly much more diverse than the GW2 meta in terms of number of builds. The difference was, GW2 was designed to be more cookie cutter to make it easier to balance, and has continued to become more cookie cutter over time (the trait rework going from choosing individual trait point investment with many options, down to just choosing 3 trait bars with only 1 or 2 viable options per major trait slot for instance.)

In terms of skill choices, the majority of your bar is decided by your weapon (which there are generally only a couple viable pvp options for weapon combinations per class), 1 or 2 viable paths of utility synergies (shouts, signets, cantrips, etc.) and an Elite skill… which used to be exciting and diverse cornerstones of a build in GW1, but which now generally have recharges so high they don’t impact the overall build all that much and are again usually limited to 1 or 2 viable options. Amulets, sigils, and runes likewise don’t usually have that many competing viable options for a particular build, but GW1’s pvp gear system wasn’t really much better in that regard.

Overall though, being able to slot 8 individual skills (including ones from a secondary class) with build defining Elites just led to a lot more options for customization, even though in the end most people in the “meta” still chose pretty similar skill bars. Whereas GW2 just forces much more cookie cutter builds due to severely limited choices (either literally limited, like the new choose-from-3 trait system, or limited by how bad alternatives are in the case of most classes utility skills and elite slots.) And in the absence of a large customization possibility space, the best builds are usually found quickly and copied by the masses.

With the latest update, Bombs had their base radius updated to 240 instead of 180, a change that was already given to Marks when the trait system was updated (Traps were also given a base damage radius of 240.) Symbols deserve the same treatment since the trait system was modified to make it impossible to take the trait that increases Symbol radius and the trait that impacts Shouts (which means the Symbol trait is very rarely taken.)

The Symbol Grandmaster trait will still be plenty powerful just giving a 2 second duration increase and healing effect to symbols for the few builds that really want to specialize in symbols without taking shouts or the vitality increase from Force of Will, but other traits or builds (for instance the fairly weak Zeal Grandmaster trait that boosts damage for fighting in symbols) should not have to rely on taking that trait to be effective against a target that moves even the tiniest bit.

It is actually pretty annoying that with the new traits like remove condition on weapon swap (which is 1 every 5 seconds) and cleansing ire (up to 3 also with very low cooldown) Warrior is already MUCH better at condition cleansing than Guardian with minimal investment, and now they’re getting another tool for condi cleansing which Guardian is supposed to be better at. Guardian has some decent condition cleansing options of course, but they’re mostly skills which limits other options much more and most have much longer cooldowns.

Thanks so much for this update! As one of the players who soloed all of GW1 content, and was extremely disappointed to find that not being an option in GW2 (and as a result taking a lengthy hiatus from even playing GW2 at all), finally being able to finish the main storyline solo is a long awaited addition!

I’m not sure if this has been requested yet in this thread, but I know I’ve seen several other threads about how awesome it would be for other dungeon instances (most especially Story Mode Dungeons) to be adjusted to be soloable as well. Is there any hope of that happening anytime soon?

Really hope this won’t nerf Guardian’s ability to support with stability, since that’s currently one of the only things they do better than Warrior.

I’m sure this isn’t the biggest influence on why the top Meta classes are as dominant as they are, but it occurred to me while looking through the different trait specs for the various classes that when Guardian and Mesmer were more dominant both had their vigor on crit traits nerfed from 5s recharge (essentially perma-vigor) to 10s recharge. Meanwhile, the current meta classes never had their easy perma-vigor traits reduced… Elementalist’s vigor-on-crit trait remains at 5s recharge and Engineer’s vigor-on-swiftness trait also remains at 5s recharge. It’s a small change but can make a fairly big difference, so I hope this will be fixed to bring all the vigor traits in-line before HoT is released.

As one of the many that doesn’t play GW2 super frequently or check the forums very often, I can say that the sudden removal of the vendors immediately at the end of the event rather than a week or two later makes no sense and only causes grief for those caught unaware with stacks of Heirlooms and Belongings still unspent and has no benefit for anyone. If there were plentiful in-game announcements warning of their departure date, rather than only website/forum stuff about it, it would be slightly more acceptable, but even then, there’s just no good reason they need to disappear immediately and plenty of reason for them not to.

I would petition that whenever the merchant that was mentioned for event items like excess blade shards comes (hopefully soon) it offer the same rewards for Heirlooms and Belongings as were offered by the original merchants so the efforts of the many who didn’t get a chance to spend them aren’t wasted and it doesn’t leave them feeling upset/cheated etc.

Didn’t they say they were going to be improving support builds in the next patch? Not nerfing them to make condispam even more unstoppable?

The Exquisite Opal Jewel was changed to the “Assassin” stats of Precision, Power, Crit, but it’s primary stat is currently 24 instead of 25 like all other primary Jewel stats (I’m guessing a typo by someone entering the stat change?)

Anet please restore the previous monthly categories, I also was at 3/4 and will be pretty upset if others out there get two monthlies this month while the rest of us get shafted due to a patch reset error.

I like the idea of eliminating the need to choose between the best combats stats and the “selfish” magic find stat… but I just want to add to the chorus of other players who are seriously concerned about how Anet intends to handle changing our hard-earned Celestial gear!

For me, as many others, I’ve invested a LOT of Laurels, Guild Commendations, and Gold to get a set of max Celestial gear as a way to have a “MF” set while still having decent all around stats. Gear with focused stats (especially Berserker for instance) are going to be better in the vast majority of instances, but having a Celestial set was nice since it added a bit of challenge with reward (can’t kill things quite as easily, or tank quite as hard, but better drops)… plus it can also double as a backup set if the main gear isn’t suited for a particular task.

Considering this investment, I’ll be pretty upset if Celestial gear gets a straight 12.5% stat nerf by removing one whole stat without adding anything to compensate. As it is, the MF bonus is the main draw of Celestial gear… the overall higher stat total is ok, but not enough by itself to be better than focused stat gear. But since it was MF with a decent balanced stat set (unlike pure MF gear which massively sacrifices stats) Celestial was a competitive option. To keep Celestial even close to on par with the focused stat sets, it really needs something to replace what it lost. Boon Duration especially seems to be an easy and popular suggestion that would be nice since there’s only one other set that has it so far, and Giver’s/Snowflake isn’t useable by many builds that don’t focus on Toughness/Healing.

Also, to answer the Dev’s questions, this was on Stormbluff Isle, both the icon and the Audio Log Collector NPC were missing for all the locations I checked, other NPCs were still present.

I also encountered this bug and it prevented me from completing the monthly achievement. Still finding sonic periscopes but the collectors for them disappeared after the patch early in the day and before I could turn mine in (on the last day for the April Monthly achievement which I was at 3/4 on.) The collectors still hadn’t returned after the subsequent patches last I checked as of a few hours ago (around 11pm EDT).

Very upset about missing out on the monthly reward due to a bug and hoping the rewards can be reimbursed for those affected!

This bug also prevented me from completing the monthly achievement. Still finding sonic periscopes but the collectors for them disappeared after the patch and before I could turn mine in (on the last day for the April Monthly achievement.) Very not happy about that and hoping the rewards can be given to those affected by this bug.

It only activates once you enter combat, at least when I was testing it solo in the Mists. It does seem like it should be active all the time though as soon as you select the trait.

The light combo field with “cleansing bolts” from whirl finisher does not seem to remove conditions from the user or nearby allies either.