Guild Wars 2

GreyerSkies.6287:

YuiRS.8129:

It’s just here to prevent the double Killshot Signet of Fury stuff.

Use Killshot at 2 stacks of adrenaline, then pop Sig of Fury and see what happens.

Wow. I didn’t know about this. I just tested it and, sure enough, the cooldown on rifle burst is instantly reset along with the adrenaline gain.

I hope we can infer from this that we have bad technical writing and confusing/confused dev commentary on a rifle burst fix, rather than a global burst nerf.

I’ve been away for a LONG time. I didn’t even know this could happen…and I understood it word-for-word.

I’m not sure whats so hard to get. Tier 1, 2, and 3, of the same burst skill is acting like 3 separate skills. This seems like a bug that should have been caught years ago (literally).

jpersson.7368:

I for one, don’t think 1v1 balance in WvW is a big deal. If you ask me, WvW is not (first and foremost) a 1v1 arena and I like the uncertainty when roaming.

---

Now… if I read other posts in this sub-forum correctly, I guess many of you disagree with me. I’m fine with that, but I do feel it makes the dialogue harder if we don’t share basic ideas about “balance”, or at least know how other players think about it.

The feature pack is about to hit, I guess we’ll see a lot of posts regarding “balance”, and I’m interested in your views. No details, not WvW specifically, but rough ideas about the game mode(s) you know best — like how I started this post.

Tia

This is always the stance taken by people who either play whatever class is best at roaming or avoid 1v1 at all costs.

So which one is it?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

if it got any more rewarding (like this additional trait) it’d be OP for sure.

ftfy

whyme.3281:

Redscope.6215:

Secondly, direct damage is countered directly by toughness. Use that big, sexy human brain of yours and figure something out. Since conditions have no direct counter, they effect everyone equally. Therefore, high toughness targets don’t counter condi damage. So while Might-stacking is there to boost your damage against the toughness counter, why does it boost condi damage?

Ever thought about this: conditions are meant to counter tanks?
And that low toughness tagets (like zerkers) counter condition builds, because they wont get any extra damage because of their lack of defense?

That’d be great if direct damage countered conditions. It’d be like rock/paper/scissors. Tank counters direct, condi counters tank, direct counters condi.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Conditions can counter every build.

korelg.7862:

Redscope.6215:

korelg.7862:

OP is so wrong that it hurts… condition damage can certainly do really high damage BUT! it takes a loooong time and it can be cleansed midway, no decent player will ever let a condition run its full duration, doing that is like staying still taking a beating of direct damage

you see, cleanse is to condition damage what dodge/block is to direct damage and you have to learn to use it, condition damage is quite well balanced and, as with any other skill, there might certainly be some op skills that need some tweaking, bun that does not make conditions, as a whole, unbalanced

What class(es) do you play and how are you cleansing your condis?

Got any vids up so you can prove that there are periods of time that you’re avoiding condi damage just as long as those where you avoid direct damage?

I play Mesmer (main), Guardian, Thief and Warrior.

on Mesmer I use cleanse mantra and cleanse on heal, on Guardian healing signet, 1 cleanse every 10(?) sec trait and consecration depending on the situation, as for my thief and warrior I havent played much pvp with them.

now, as Dalanor and Whyme said, you can even prevent condition from being aplied to you, so for condi damage you have the usual active defense (dodge/block/blind) and on top of that you can cleanse them midway AND the full damage takes a really long time, in some cases you can even heal twice in between

for direct damage you have the usual active defense and toughnes/armor, so both are pretty much balanced

direct damage can be diminished pasively via toughnes, condi damage can be diminished actively via cleanse. Both sources of damage have their own gameplay and are quite well balanced

See, this guy gets it. CONTEXT.

Anyway, yeah your Guardian has 10s of all condis up and then he clears one. My guess is that you’re burning through Purging Flames as often as it comes back, if you’ve got no other condi removal.

Also, you have good condi removal on your Mesmer? You should take that build to the mes forums. I’m not being condescending or anything here…I’m serious. They all seem to think that mes is terrible for condi cleanse.

Condi damage doesn’t take a ‘really long time’ to stack up depending on your situation. A mes with 20 in Dueling can stack a consistent 10 bleeds on you during the fight. On top of everything else he’s doing, just add about 5-10 stacks of bleed. That’s 212 to 425 damage per second with no extra condi damage. That means in the amount of time it would take your Signet of Resolve to clear it, you would have been hit with 2120 to 4250 damage from a mes’ clones with no extra condi damage.

With a condi-built mes in sPvP, you’ve going to have at least 1.1k Malice. Which means every bleed stack you get hit with does 152 damage per second. That same situation with a condi build would have nailed you for 7620 to 15250 damage over a 10 second period.

Those bleeds don’t go away simply because you used a clear. They keep getting re-applied by clones. And don’t forget, the mes isn’t just hanging out while all this is going on.

Guardians are about the best condi clearing class in the game and they’ll still die to bleeding more often than any other incoming damage.

whyme.3281:

korelg.7862:

you see, cleanse is to condition damage what dodge/block is to direct damage …

You know that you can dodge/block/blind/… condition damage as well? Ok you cant dodge the conditions still applied but all the new one from the blocked attack. So it is the same thing it would do against direct damage.

Conditions apply their damage over time and you can still cleanse them midways. Power builds deal more damage and you cant do anything after you got hit. Theoretically conditions are much more forgiving for the target then direct damage is and people still have more problems with conditions then direct damage.

You act as though you cleanse a condition and that’s the end of the fight. They’re re-applied faster than your clearing skills come back.

Not to mention the most effective way of condi application is short, frequrent bursts to nullify cleansing.

Dalanor.5387:

Redscope.6215:

korelg.7862:

OP is so wrong that it hurts… condition damage can certainly do really high damage BUT! it takes a loooong time and it can be cleansed midway, no decent player will ever let a condition run its full duration, doing that is like staying still taking a beating of direct damage

you see, cleanse is to condition damage what dodge/block is to direct damage and you have to learn to use it, condition damage is quite well balanced and, as with any other skill, there might certainly be some op skills that need some tweaking, bun that does not make conditions, as a whole, unbalanced

What class(es) do you play and how are you cleansing your condis?

Got any vids up so you can prove that there are periods of time that you’re avoiding condi damage just as long as those where you avoid direct damage?

Are you aware of the fact that your active defense against direct damage is limited too? Or you have some magical infinite dodge build that isn’t affected by Weakness with 0 condi cleanse?

Actively dodging an attack that applies a condition dodges the condition too. That point is moot. You’re conflating the issue with falsehoods. Dodge is not there to specifically dodge direct damage, it avoids all attacks made at the current point in time.

You’re making my point. Condis are up for long periods of time and clears have long cooldowns. Dodging is extremely limited (outside of Thieves and Mesmers) and Weakness can be kept up almost indefinitely for some classes. You’re basically proving that the best way to fight is to minimize direct damage through condis, apply damage through condis, stay at a distance (kite), and save your dodges for when your target nearly lands something large on you.

korelg.7862:

Condition damage can certainly do really high damage BUT! it takes a loooong time and it can be cleansed midway, no decent player will ever let a condition run its full duration, doing that is like staying still taking a beating of direct damage

you see, cleanse is to condition damage what dodge/block is to direct damage and you have to learn to use it, condition damage is quite well balanced and, as with any other skill, there might certainly be some op skills that need some tweaking, bun that does not make conditions, as a whole, unbalanced

What class(es) do you play and how are you cleansing your condis?

Got any vids up so you can prove that there are periods of time that you’re avoiding condi damage just as long as those where you avoid direct damage?
—————————-
Edited by Moderator

K U T M.4539:

Redscope.6215:

Problem #2 with condis: damage is not spread out over multiple stats…you only need condi damage. Which means stacking defense and kiting is the best way to use condis since you’ve already maxed your damage through one stat.

Try playing condi necro or condi engi with no condi duration or precision.

Try getting condi duration on your gear. Let me know how that stat works out for ya.

Dalanor.5387:

Mbelch.9028:

And again, if you don’t understand the point of the thread, why comment? I’m remarking about how nuts it is that a skill can be thrown, a person can walk away, and the opponent is hit by enough damage that one skill would down the person. That is crazy in my opinion, no matter how much counter play there is for it.

Because this thread is just a trolling bait and don’t makes sense?
As i said before, you ate a big amount of damage while doing nothing and you died … Well thats what people should expect. You know, damage kills you, but conditions need time, while direct damage deals the same in way less time. Get it? No? Your problem. Just don’t whine, it’s boring that everyday someone come to the forums with the same pointless stuff.

Except Torment punishes you for moving. So him doing nothing is actually a way of avoiding 50% damage from Torment.

It’s a bone-headed condi and it’s the complete opposite of what it should have been. 50% more damage for standing still.

And people come on every day posting about how condis are OP, but I guess that means they’re just fine…right?

Problem #1 with condis: Might grants extra condi damage…why? Give me a solid reason why Might is the only boon that effects condis. Protection doesn’t reduce incoming condi damage, Retaliation doesn’t proc off of condi ticks/applications, Stability doesn’t protect against cripple/chill/blind, Fury doesn’t grant 20% more proc chance to condi procs. Why does Might give condi damage?

Problem #2 with condis: damage is not spread out over multiple stats…you only need condi damage. Which means stacking defense and kiting is the best way to use condis since you’ve already maxed your damage through one stat. You’re not trading defense for damage with condi builds, you’re gaining both defense AND damage.

Brando.1374:

Mbelch.9028:

I have 15.5k hp. I can’t tell you details about the Warriors th, but it got me down in 10-15 seconds and I was amazed.

Any might stacks.
Did you notice how much the dmg floaters ticked for? That will help determine a lot.

But even with 3k Condi damage torment ticks for 144 to 288
So 5 stacks for 10s would be 7200
5 stacks for 20s would be 14,400

Change #1 that should happen. Why is Might giving players more condi damage?

No…just no. Anet, you’re not thinking again.

RlyOsim.2497:

Mbelch.9028:

This thread may be pointless to some of you. If so, kitten off lol.

You can’t say anything about skill. Yes, I swapped to water attunement and saved myself before death, but the point is someone can throw one skill, walk away, fight someone else and his target will die.

No power build can do that. And if you say it can, prove it with video evidence. It’s just not possible.

Im just staying in general that I feel condis need a shave down. Coglin, you are a condi engie who will forever want condi buffs. I’m happy for you. You can stand down, As I already know your position.

A warrior could 100b me, but the one skill wouldn’t kill me. It could kill shot me, but it wouldn’t kill me. A thief could backstab me, but even at its glassiest, the thief can’t 1 hit me unless it gets sigil procs.

And again, if you don’t understand the point of the thread, why comment? I’m remarking about how nuts it is that a skill can be thrown, a person can walk away, and the opponent is hit by enough damage that one skill would down the person. That is crazy in my opinion, no matter how much counter play there is for it.

sigh.
logic op:
if any skill was to hit you for 20 seconds you would be dead.

conditions are not the problem here. what it boils down to is a l2p issue: cleanse condi damage/conditions are a DOT element of the game; block direct damage/direct damage is a burst element of the game.

just because someone can use a skill and walk away doesnt mean you will die; you wouldnt just sit and let a warrior autoattack you for 20 seconds…. its the same thing.

The problem is that actually attacking someone for 20 seconds takes effort and skill. A condition just sitting on a player doesn’t.

Chant “condi cleanse” all you want, its still effortless damage stacked on top of anything else you’re doing during the fight. It isn’t OP because he stood there and let it hit him, it’s OP because he could have also been getting slapped with multiple stacks of bleed, cripple, chill, poison, etc.

Also, anyone who thinks condis aren’t re-applied faster than they are cleansed simply doesn’t play at a high-level of skill. Watch any fight at any point in time between any two classes. Condis are always up at any given point…..well except against most guard builds, they’re left in the dust in that department for some unexplained reason.

If you fight someone and you don’t have condis active on you, chances are he’s a terrible player that is reacting poorly to combat.

hihey.1075:

This thread is kind of funny.
The only thing I agree with the OP is that Impale needs to be reworked a bit.
Also, anyone with half a decent understanding of the game would know that any skill with 0,5s cast time is undodgeable unless predicted or unless the opponent is simply spamming his skills.
But that’s it. It’s “only” impale that needs rework. Anything else is fine. I have fought condi users as a power user, and have fought power users as a condi users. Conditions are fine, some classes have better condition cleanse than others, but believe me that most things are quite balanced at the moment.

Your power builds were what?

Your condi builds were what?

For example, power war vs. condi mes = mes stomps ur face unless he’s high/drunk or both.

You have no context to your claims and nobody knows what kind of players you fight against. Are you constantly fighting terrible players that would lose to you no matter what your build is?

Why do I hate PU Mesmers? … Because they stink.

HAR!

Seriously, you guys that play Mesmers, you haven’t figured out that you actually go stealth whenever you summon a clone for a short period of time?

Really?

None of you?

None of you actually paid attention?

Go back and play the game, and watch when your character blurs out on your screen. To others, you actually go invisible for a short period of time.

Maybe that’s why PU is so hated…maybe its bugged and its making that duration last way longer than it should.

Travlane.5948:

Interceptor.2653:

Warriors are too good, but not because of anything you proved in an experiment with some average-ish D/P backstabber. A competent P/D condition Thief would have beaten you up and taken your lunch money. That fight either ends with the Warrior 1) dying, or 2) running away.

They are scaling back Healing Signet some. That will help.

not to play “point-counterpoint” with you but the build literally had half a dozen ways of dropping conditions. some thru utility. somethru adrenaline. some thru 2 traits. and all thru lyssa runes. p/d wouldntohave done much. need 7 stacks of bleed justto get inthe positive.

Not to play “point-counterpoint” with you, but if you had played a zerker spike build war against a zerker spike build thief, you would have lost every single time. Hands down, no contest, resulting in throwing your mouse and keyboard through your monitor.

What you’ve proven is that bunker > zerker. Good job. This is WAI according to Anet devs from day one.

Travlane.5948:

i wanna see somebody else join theif…..play full zerk…. show that they have 0 experience in thief …… and then score in the top kills top defense top offensive ranks in spvp on first try.

try ranger. try engineer. 0 experience. that means no lvl 80s. and 0 tries in spvp .

I stand corrected…you actually think full zerk is the way to play?

Classic case of L2P.

/thread

Black Box.9312:

The way I see it is that it’s really more the principle than anything else. Things like this and Dogged March just give the impression that warriors are supposed to have easier access to skill and trait modifications than other classes, which leaves them more room to incorporate more different elements into a given build.

There’s a big difference between having a class that’s easy to learn and a class that’s easy to excel with, and Anet seems to be unaware of this when it comes to their balancing of the warrior.

Their addition of Dogged March is a shining example of how they misunderstood the issue, and continue to.

The problem with balance is ranged condi application and kiting. Its an issue that permeates GW2, yet they considered it to be a warrior-only issue. So they gave the war tools to combat condis (Cleansing Ire and Dogged March) while leaving everyone else in the stagnate pool of ‘kite+condi or die’.

What they should do is remove the regen from DM, remove the adrenaline on hit of CI, and allow Vitality (the stat, not the base HP) to combat incoming condition damage in a way similar to Toughness.

Reasoning: burst condi removal is good. Burst condi removal with an OP method of generating Adrenaline is bad. Duration reduction of cc condi application is good. Reduction of soft-cc with an unneeded increase in survivability is bad.

Maliel.8362:

Deep Cuts increases bleeding duration by 50%, why so much?, Serrated Stones and Hemophilia increase is only 20%, no wonder condition warriors are so cheesy to play.

Lets see: Deep Cuts…Warrior…low condi class

Hemophelia…Necromancer…high condi class

Serrated Stones…Elementalist…extra 5% damage to bleeding targets

You seem to have left out that little tidbit.

You need to re-examine traits as part of the class and not as a direct comparison. Then you need to stop crying about war’s condi builds being OP. If wars win against you because of bleed, you’re doing something wrong.

Sarrs.4831:

LordByron.8369:

1) unnneded nerf to critical damage
2) celestial being a victim of war of a nerf aimed at DPS equip while being amongst lowest dps equip
3) ascended it is one of the issue.. the game was designed with 0 grind in mind and that is the reason why stats are tied to equip….differently from other games where you get the top Stats and you use it with whatever build you use.
4) THE SKINS…..have a cost….
5) people that still fuel the wrong idea that crit damage on celestial is a mistake…
It was instead a planned balancing from developers simply using math…. (there was a discussion when was released that explained how despite the sum of the stats being higher, the result was slightly lower than mixing)
6) no reason was given to convert it AS it is….unless you or anyone other proves me that its OP (people already proven the opposite in many threads), or will be OP after conversion you don t have really any point.
(to be fair should be both converted as it is AND slightly buffed on power to avoid an unintended nerf)

1. The nerf is needed. They explicitly said that crit damage is exceedingly high compared to sPvP.

That’s not their reason, don’t conflate the issue. They’ve said sPvP will not be taking a hit due to its unusually low amount of crit damage to begin with. Not the other way around.

LordByron.8369:

As i already told, we are supposed to talk about the game….
If you need personal Attacks to prove your points means you have nothing to say…

The issue are many:

1) unnneded nerf to critical damage
2) celestial being a victim of war of a nerf aimed at DPS equip while being amongst lowest dps equip
3) ascended it is one of the issue.. the game was designed with 0 grind in mind and that is the reason why stats are tied to equip….differently from other games where you get the top Stats and you use it with whatever build you use.
4) THE SKINS…..have a cost….
5) people that still fuel the wrong idea that crit damage on celestial is a mistake…
It was instead a planned balancing from developers simply using math…. (there was a discussion when was released that explained how despite the sum of the stats being higher, the result was slightly lower than mixing)
6) no reason was given to convert it AS it is….unless you or anyone other proves me that its OP (people already proven the opposite in many threads), or will be OP after conversion you don t have really any point.
(to be fair should be both converted as it is AND slightly buffed on power to avoid an unintended nerf)

P.S. ascended has slots…that is the reason to get one fast…if you can t see why you should read vertical progression CDI and all other plans.. (infusions are coming…)

1. Untrue. Crit damage was beside the entire stat system. They should still go change condi duration and boon duration into stats as well.
2. Untrue. There is no war on direct damage and because of crit damage celestial was actually better than some zerker gear for DPS.
3. Untrue. Stats are tied to equipment like almost every other RPG in existence. Celestial has nothing to do with the grind-like aspect of Ascended gear.
4. Skins were meant to be your main time/money sink in GW2, not stats
5. If you can make up truths like “crit damage was balanced using math” then you can also say “Ferocity was balanced using math” and just kill your own argument
6. Celestial was meant to be all stats gear with a lesser amount of stats than all primaries but a greater amount than all secondaries, but it always had less crit damage. Due to Ascended gear, and the possibility of moving beyond it, Anet has realized that their model for Celestial gear in the crit damage department is simply unsustainable. Trying to balance percentages where numbers are balanced for scaling is unsustainable. I’m waiting for the change to boon/condi duration.

Razor.6392:

Oh gosh please. I wish there was a way to filter out the least skilled players from posting on this specific forum section.

You’re basically saying that a 180ish seconds cooldown ELITE skill shouldn’t kill you if you have 2 people currently attacking you? I don’t even play mesmer and I infact hate them, but that’s just nonsense. Not to mention that most good mesmers run cloak on pvp.

So you’re basically saying that the cooldown dictates whether or not a skill should be powerful enough to be a win button.

Awesome.

By your logic, I want an elite that has a 2 day cooldown so I can log on, win, and then leave with a false sense of accomplishment.

Mindless logic has no place in the balance forums….

Not saying Moa is OP or UP…but seriously…come on pal.

Viralseed.9362:

As a Mesmer, I use main-hand Sword exclusively (with various off-hands) since I cannot be bothered with the awkward Clone upkeep of the Scepter.

I would love to see the developers take a balance pass at the #1 abilities, at least for me to consider some of the lesser used weapons.

As a side topic, Mesmer scepter is lackluster because of Deceptive Evasion. Since you make a clone on dodge rolls, the benefit of the Scepter’s ‘1’ chain is lost. You’d absolutely be in love with that skill if they’d balance that trait and give it a cooldown of approx 10 seconds.

Einlanzer.1627:

Mesmer Scepter. Thief Pistol. Ele Staff. I could go on. All of these weapons are clumsy and feeble in large part because their #1 skills are not tuned well. Since the #1 skill plays the primary role in sustained DPS, they all end up being terrible in any even slightly passive or prolonged fight – i.e. almost all PvE encounters.

Mesmer’s scepter feels awkward because its one of the only ranged chains. Most other ranged “auto-attacks” are one individual skill.

Not exactly sure about ele staff. Thief ‘1’ is one of the most useful, and possibly OP, forms of bleed application in the game outside of Sharper Images. Play the thief right and try the pistol. Don’t try and face tank with a pistol, don’t try to spike damage with a pistol, don’t try to permastealth with a pistol. Keep at a distance and condi the target to death.

Chains are what is wrong with the ‘1’ skills in this game. They need to be rebalanced such that all of their attacks are powerful in their own right. None of this ‘third hit’ being the meat&potatoes stuff anymore. Melee gets the biggest shaft when it comes to this.

Einlanzer.1627:

Guys, guys – my point was that they need to do a review pass on #1’s for all weapons in the game, not to argue that x weapon is more broken than y weapon, although some are definitely in worse shape than others.

Should have lead with better examples, though I do agree with you in spirit.

Aegael.6938:

As far as I see it, Ranger has just one problem.

Pets are completely unreliable.

There’s a reason why a huge number of rangers take the wolf – it has an AoE cc that’s at least somewhat reliable to use.

They take the wolf for perma-regen and the fact that its other two attacks are leaps. Leaps that get it to actually land attacks on kiting targets. Which returns to my original point, ranged vs. melee is the real issue. Not AI.

Aegael.6938:

The issue with pets isn’t so much lack of damage or lack of support, it’s the fact that what we do have in our pets is COMPLETELY unreliable. That moa will never heal me when I need him to. That devourer will tunnel away and evade just when I need him to DPSing his target. Our pets already have a ton of stuff in them, the main problem is we’re playing the RNG game anytime we want them to do what we want.

The problem with Rangers is that most of them are completely unsure about how exactly to use the pets and how they will react to specific skills. Relying on AI you don’t understand can seem completely random and will never be used by the player as it was originally intended.

What the Ranger needs is better control over his pet. A better understanding of the AI itself will help, but if players expect it to perform in certain ways its usually best if the player is forced play it that way.

I would be all for letting F1 through F4 control pet skills. Then just remove the Ranger’s swap. Not everything needs to have the Warrior’s original intended design of weapon swapping guys. By all appearances of the Ranger’s UI, it looks like that was the original intent of the pet, but then they got all ‘swap’-happy and gave everyone and everything a reason to swap…including Ranger pets.

That being said, trust me on this, your pet isn’t doing things when it’s not supposed to. It’s using the skills in it’s own best interest. Player control could end up being worse in that respect. For instance, that devourer may not have been hitting the target when you wanted it to because it used an evade, but would it be around to hit the target at all if it didn’t?

Aegael.6938:

In balancing the Ranger and his pets, I’d also like Anet to keep in mind that the Ranger’s mechanic is not at all unique in its current incarnation. Any other class with summons gets pretty much the exact same functionality – Summon the pet, and after being summoned, the skill chains into a pet attack. For the Ranger’s mechanic to truly feel special, it would be great if control of the pet was explored more. No other class gets to specifically command their pet’s actions, so if that were brought to another level it would really feel great to play a Ranger.

This is a major point I will concede on. The Ranger’s class ability is absolutely not unique. However, you may very well get a Guardian-esuqe answer from the devs about how other things make up for it and blah, blah, blah.

It would be nice if all classes had a mechanic that was unique. While they’re at it, maybe they’ll give the Guardian’s signe…I mean…“Virtues” a looking at.

EverythingXen.1835:

I hope Ms. Murdock gets a lot of information from the AI programmers before she starts the thread on Monday, and sets as clear ground rules on it as possible.

Rangers are certain to win the vote, and I’d hate for the thread to waste time on Pet AI complaints/suggestions that have zero technical feasibility of ever being fixed/implemented.

I’d hate to see people spinning their wheels about “pet AI” when they have no idea what they’re talking about.

It’s not the AI, its the state of melee vs. ranged combat in GW2. If you’re playing melee, that pet is on you like crazy glue. If you’re playing ranged, it never touches you. That’s not an AI problem. The AI is performing just fine.

As far as PvE is concerned, make the pet dodge roll when you do. That’s all. Simple fix changes the entire QoL of the Ranger class in PvE.

You’re nerfing direct damage once again and still not touching condis.

Iavra.8510:

Disclaimer: I don’t care about PvE, my opinion is mostly based around WvW roaming/duelling.

I think it’s fine for some classes to have better access to vigor than other. Warrior has a lot of immunities, block, the highest hp and armor, so it doesn’t need vigor that badly. Eles and mesmers, on the other hand, are a lot squishier and have entire builds relying on on-dodge traits (ele might stacking, mesmer shatter/clone death).

Removing vigor would only server one purpose: It makes warrior an even more dominant class than it already is.

Necros could use more (or better…any) access to vigor, though.

Better stop right there. Putting eles in the same boat as mesmers? Those two classes are polar opposites as far as PvP effectiveness. Mesmers have way more jukes, invis that doesn’t follow the ‘revealed’ rule, and soft-cc than eles could ever hope to have.

Every single good pvp mes build traits 20 points down Dueling for a reason.

phys.7689:

vigor’s value differs a lot depending on what class you are, and what other defenses you have. Anything across the board would be illogical.

Also dodge/reacting to enemies is fun. Having less reactive play is not.

Agreed.

Having Vigor up is much more valuable to classes and builds that are supposed to be balanced by weaker defenses but stay at a distance.

Perma-vigor on a mesmer, for instance, is much more valuable than perma-vigor on a guard. In the 3.5 seconds that the guard isn’t dodging, you’ll be landing hits on him. In the 3.5 seconds the mesmer isn’t dodging, you’ll be looking for him, trying to close distances, getting hit, killing phantasms, etc.

Bran.7425:

A lot of the problem is recently Anet address vigor/endurance recover on Engineer, Ranger, and Thief. And the vigor on critical hit possessed by Elementalist, Guardian, and Mesmer along with Signet of Stamina (passive effect) on Warrior remained untouched. So in the patch that was adjusting vigor/evasion balance ignored most of the professions, but stuck professions that are in an evasive Archetype (and are jokingly stating that Warrior needs a certain level of sturdiness that would be considered slightly off topic but show that Archetype within play should be maintained at least some professions) .

Except SoS is 1/2 of Vigor and does not stack with the boon. But yeah, they decided to pass over some of the classes that really needed those traits changed.

This is why they have a “Balance” sub forum….because they suck at it and it took them a whole year of getting many things wrong for them to realize it.

vanensang.1389:

Hammer is too slow against a mesmer. I main a Mesmer while I actively play a Warrior (Axe/Mace-S/Sh) and I don’t have huge problems with Mesmers since they are predictable as Greatsword Warriors. Most bad Mesmers expose themselves in a battle by moving completely different than his/her clones.
Though Greatsword is a good option against Mesmers since you get an additional Dodge-skill which is great to avoid damage spikes.
But I think that Shield always does a great job combined with Endure Pain.

If you put enough traitpoints into Defense (At least up to Cleansing Ire) and at least 10 points into Strenght you will have enough condition cleanse along with Berserker Stance or Signet of Stamina . Its the most important thing against Mesmers and Necros.
And try runes and bufffood which reduces condition duration on you.

Also try to strike when they already dodged twice. Do something unpredictable and try to control them.
In my opinion warriors are able to eat tons of damage and conditions and you are still able to dodge a huge damage spike of a mesmer.

• Perma-vigor takes care of any window of opportunity you think you have after the second dodge roll.
• Mesmers go invis for 1/4 a second and de-target every time they spawn a clone or use a clone skill. Which means every single dodge roll when they take Deceptive Evasion (and they will take DE if they have half a brain).
• Good mesmers do not damage spike, they let their clones condi you to death while using skills that grant them invis outside the normal “revealed” mechanic.
• Players who build properly have a 24 second cooldown 900 range blink that breaks stun…don’t ask why it was OP for the ele to have it but not the mes.

The problem is that kite+condi is the best build right now since you sacrifice no defense for pure, unmitigated offense and soft CC. Mesmer is the king of kite+condi and its going to be hard to find a playable counter build that isn’t more of the same.

Just remember this: if it seems easy to beat a mes, especially on a war, you’re not playing against people who know the mes class well enough.

In other words, it should have been instant cast?

Like I said?

Like many of us said?

…Anet man…I’m pretty done here.

xFireize.6318:

Go ahead and play Warrior. Why struggle playing a class that’s constantly compared to another? I’m fine with Hammer #5. There are other more important things to fix.

Why even bother though…

Devs like JP come on and ask for feedback, get tons, and go back to doing what they would have done without the feedback.

Getting changes made to the Guardian class is like trying to squeeze water from a stone with your bare hands. It may feel like you’re getting somewhere, but that’s just the sweat from your palms…not the stone.

selan.8354:

icewyrm.5038:

Everyone would swap to mesmer for the reflects and stability.

?!?!?!wat? stability from mesmers?!?! u know that we only have 1 mantra and that stability lasts 2s? reflects? against warrior trains? what is there to reflect? we have terrible access to stability while no viable aoe in zergs. nowadays u can barely get a mesmer to portal golems because of the terrible meta.

If you’ve got any mesmers on your server sitting out in WvW, you must be on a low tier server with a whole lot of bads.

Mesmers are apex roamers. 20 points in Dueling and they’ve secured the top of the totem pole for OP.

Sharper Images alone makes the clones do more damage on auto-attack than the player does.

This is the exact reason that +/- Boon/Condi durations need to be rebalanced

It should take the maximum benefit from any one source and not stack.

Errant Venture.9371:

f you’re just playing PvP for the achievement points then you don’t really belong in PvP at all…

Here we are trying to create a competitive environment and we’re getting dragged down by PvE players who need to farm their AP so they can brandish their big fat farm score to other farmers

How about this: take ALL of the achievements out of PvP so we don’t have lousy PvE players joining tournament matches to make their PvE score go pewpewpew

The problem is sPvP had very little in the way of rewards…and children kept complaining.

Now you’re all complaining that there are rewards in sPvP that make PvE players come to get them. Well you’re going to get that with rewards.

Deal with it and stop being so childish.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I just realized how silly this skill will be if you hit one of the ambient critters during your buff time. Instant full heal right there.

Did you try that? They probably made sure those don’t actually heal you.

Of course, if they didn’t, I wouldn’t be surprised. They’ve had their thumbs up their butts for the last few months as far as balance is concerned.

Trancid.8514:

+1, this can get crazy with max range cluster bomb, cause it takes forever to land.

This is the exact reason they shouldn’t change how it works. Last thing we need are thieves cbombing while invis. That’d be the new meta. Cbomb+invis+IA, rinse, repeat.

Mikau.6920:

Harbinger.8637:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Harbinger.8637:

The base heal seems to be around 1.7k. So you really do need to trait meds.

If this and the 20% heal per hit for 5 seconds is true, Shelter and Signet are still going to be better. Lower that CD, then, we might be talking up to par to them.

Actually it’s less then that. About 1.5k, this time I did it with zero healing power. Here’s a screen.

Lol. This skill is junk. May be good on PvE, but on WvW and PvP is useless.

PS: The Ranger and Warrior skills are so OP!

@edit
They are probally still balancing those skills, look at the duration on both Print Screens:
http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gw2-litany-of-wrath-guardian1.jpg
https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/123998/gw013.jpg

Those two screens are the difference between being traited Meditations and not.

Still has a 1s cast. Still garbage.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Again, didn’t know you were a dev. Since you are, why don’t you explain to us why it’s not an instant cast.

I’m trying to explain to you that there was a reason why Meditations were changed to instant cast. You can find it on the forums. I think it was the “big” October patch that they changed them all to instant cast, and they gave a reason.

I’m going off of what they’ve said. Now you can choose not to believe that, that’s on you. I don’t have any powers of clairvoyance. I don’t know their reasoning without them stating why.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

To-may-toe, to-maw-toe?

Concede accepted.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Redscope.6215:

Based on your opinions of this healing skill, you could have fooled me; and apparently other posters as well.

Corrected you. I don’t recall a discussion by me on the other instant cast skills.

Your discussion about how this particular skill wouldn’t benefit significantly from instant cast leads me to believe, and others (above), you don’t have much experience with utilizing instant cast skills and all of their benefits. It is related to this skill, but specific to how instant cast works.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Redscope.6215:

Perikittenor.1892:

We no longer has any trait that directly impact our elites, well we do have one in virtue tree. 50% longer duration.

Which, incidentally, increases the cast time of RF.

Renewed Focus was just a combination of two things that should never have been combined: A benefit and a drawback.

The cast time on any skill is intended as a drawback, but with RF it was given the benefit of immunity. I’m not even sure if there’s another skill in the game that works this way.

The guard class seems to be plagued with little remnants from ‘old’ skills. Renewed Focus would probably have used the “channel” mechanic where you hold down the skill key and, essentially, “manually” cast the skill.

Another one is “Sword Wave” … yeah that skill is all kinds of buggy.

O.o

Erm….. what are you talking about?!

Anyways, you want to talk about broken remnant mechanics, have you played the Ranger class?

Please. Just don’t. Don’t bring ranger QQ outside of the ranger forums again.

What is with the people who play rangers doing that?

If you can’t grasp what I’m talking about, then that post wasn’t for you. Those of us who followed where the intentions of this game have been and have gone will remember things like channeling, stat points, and mana (energy) which never even made it to beta much less live.

Not saying I’m a fanboy, but I kinda have a fanboy-ish knowledge of the evolution of GW2.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Erm, didn’t know you were a dev. But, I think the point in them making this skill a med was to take advantage of utiliting the Fury boon.

Re-read why they’ve made all Meditations instant.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Uh . . . po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe? /shrug.
I guess it’s a matter of perspective. I can see both ways having to do with skill.

You could argue both ways but you’d be wrong. A cast time has the specific intention of providing a detrimental window of opportunity for skilled (or non-skilled) interruption. There’s no other reason for it to exist.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

The idea of the heal would indicate that the majority of the heal came from the DPS, not the initial heal. You have 5 seconds to get optimum damage put out before it runs out. If you are out skilled, CC’d, make a personal mistake, whatever, etc, etc, you are up the creek and don’t have that 5 seconds paddle anymore.

You don’t see how a heal skill being instant would provide for more of the much-needed flow of direct damage to make the skill work?

What you would use this skill for is to supplement keeping pressure on a target. Breaking that pressure up for a 1 second cast time is just counter-intuitive. Putting good damage on a target is extremely inconsistent in GW2 and you’d have to be able to utilize that 5 seconds ASAP once you’re in a good DPS situation.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Yes, I know very well what instant cast skills can do. There were several instant cast skills in the game before, and I’ve been using them before Meds were put on instant cast.

Based on your opinions of instant cast, you could have fooled me; and apparently other posters as well.

Perikittenor.1892:

We no longer has any trait that directly impact our elites, well we do have one in virtue tree. 50% longer duration.

Which, incidentally, increases the cast time of RF.

Renewed Focus was just a combination of two things that should never have been combined: A benefit and a drawback.

The cast time on any skill is intended as a drawback, but with RF it was given the benefit of immunity. I’m not even sure if there’s another skill in the game that works this way.

The guard class seems to be plagued with little remnants from ‘old’ skills. Renewed Focus would probably have used the “channel” mechanic where you hold down the skill key and, essentially, “manually” cast the skill.

Another one is “Sword Wave” … yeah that skill is all kinds of buggy.

styx.7294:

I can’t believe this is a topic.

Every time a guardian stops to think on something, it doesn’t need to trigger monk’s focus.

If you think making RF a meditation was so people could get 4 seconds of Fury, you need to learn the class a little better.

Meditations are instant-cast skills. Ponder, or rather meditate, on that fact for a few minutes.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

See I don’t see cast time as a big deal compared to the other faults of the skill, unless it’s super long or something. We’ve already gotten used to cast times with the other heals. So if you can’t pull off a heal with cast time, it’s a player’s skill issue.

First of all, the whole point to making it a Meditation was so that it could be instant. That’s a balance point for Meditation skills.

Secondly, getting a heal off doesn’t mean you’re skilled, it means your opponent isn’t. When you have something with a cast time, it’s a window of opportunity for the opposing force to interrupt. Allowing a player to be interrupted from a critical task (such as healing) puts the burden of skillful play on the opponent.

Its just like when you’re fighting others and they heal. It means you weren’t quick enough to interrupt. They didn’t have to do anything other than push a button.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

The problem is you have to do some consistent, heavy damage to even make it worth anything. There’s a LOT of room for error during those 5 seconds. With the 6 heal being the emergency button of sorts, having a lot of room there is not good.

Cast time is just the nasty icing on an already bad tasting cake.

Actually, being an instant skill would provide a lot of necessary “wiggle room” with this skill. You could make sure that you’re already in a situation where DPS isn’t a question of “if”, and fire off your heal skill, assuming it was instant cast.

You do know that instant cast skills can be used on top of skills like Whirling Wrath right? That would have been the entire point of having this skill instant cast; opportunity to capitalize on the damage portion without telegraphing.

Edit: So as not to double-post needlessly

What I don’t do is PvP, so I can’t speak for that.

Don’t worry, nobody freakin does that. Nobody likes playing a PvP mode where they can’t use the build they enjoy because there’s no amulet with the right stats. In other words, let people choose their stats in sPvP and it’ll see a lot more play. Not to mention a lot better balance.

Hunter.4783:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Aza.2105:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Brutaly.6257:

On a serious note, totally useless skill unless you land a focus/mb burst or lay down the smack with symbol bombing on a crowd while having it active.

I completely, and extremely disappointedly, agree with you. I think even for PvE, this skill is a HUGE let down.

I imagine you will be lucky to land one skill when you consider lag, animation time and after casts. Really the duration is way to low to be able to do anything.

I’d actually might be okay with this skill entirely if the CD was lowered.

No, whats the breaking the skill right now is the CAST TIME. They went out of their way to make all meditations insta cast to make em viable to shouts. And now they introduce a medi heal with a cast time?

If they remove the cast time, It will be the skill the choice for medi builds, if it retains the cast time, it will be trash

Pretty much.

I’ve lost faith in these guys. They couldn’t balance their way across a bridge that was 1ft long and 1mile wide.

Asmodal.6489:

well… I am biased on the topic Running a100% boonduration Build.

I Love my virtues – of course they are traited

i think the comparison to warr is shortsighted. yes they get an over better reggen. But we have Access to a Lot of Protection and multiple heal sources. Means what we reg stays longer.

I agree However that the cd on voc are to Long for what it does despite the Protection it Grants. Maybe make ist a 3x Pulse aegis every two secs.

And while you are at it pleaaaase priotize Blocks over aegis. Nothing Sucks more to waste a Block and aegis at the Same time.

You’re running a 100% boon duration build, you’re traited for virtues, and you can still honestly say that VoC’s cooldown is too long.

JP, something’s got to change here. I think you guys have put way too much weight on the Aegis boon. It’s not even as good as a Blind. At least Blind will initiate combat and break chain attacks. Blind is able to be re-applied much more often than Aegis and some classes can even spam it (I’m looking at you necros and thieves).

Perikittenor.1892:

It used to be a meditation but changed due to programing complication, i have explained why in a recent post, so i wont explain again.

Programming complication. Lol.

It changed because there was a trait that made all meditations instant. Which made Renewed Focus instant. Which removed the invulnerability.

You’re only invulnerable while casting. Since you have no cast time on an instant skill, you had no invulnerability on an instant Renewed Focus.

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

Ravenmoon.5318:

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

easiest class to use that excels at every aspect of the game.

either warrior need more nerfs or other class need to be boosted up to the same level.

OR! You ACTUALLY need to learn 2 play your class!

This is Gw2 people. Anyone can beat anyone. You have no excuse!

PS: <3 slaughtering unsuspecting warriors with my thief _

haha! warrior is so easy to use that i think my 5 signet warrior can beat your thief u want it in wvw or tpvp?
its ok if i lose,i can just say “i used a 5 signet warrior,what do u expect?” haha!

I’d like to watch a complete moron warrior get beat by a condi troll thief!

Where are you getting your backside handed to you so I can watch?

Haralin.1473:

I have a suggestion for you go play an engi, or a ranger in WvW come back and then say Warriors are not OP.

Engi gets nerfed in mostly every patch.

Now when the warrior gets a little nerf the crying starts, you will get over it!

Anyone who doesn’t play a kite+condi engi build is gimping their class for no reason.

The engi, ranger, and mesmer all have “apex predator” kite builds that are only OP because of the broken condi meta. Which, even after Dec 10, will remain broken.

mini.6018:

You guys …:oh dear ,

Vitality is the only stat affected by condition damage you know ? You think that toughness will save ya agaisnt a necro ? Knight has lower dps too than soldier with uf.

Vitality has no bearing on condition damage. If you have 1 Vitality or 1 million Vitality, incoming conditions will perform exactly the same on you.

Just because you die faster with less life doesn’t mean conditions do more to you. You die faster with less life because you have less life…

New skills; not new or rebalanced traits but entirely new skills? Hmm… How about an entirely new line of skills? You know, like Physical, Stance, Signet, Shout, and Banner.

Maneuver – Maneuvers are powerful abilities with short cooldowns that the Warrior performs in response to a combat situation. They are locked out during combat until a specific prerequisite has been met.

• Forced Opening:
  • Useable after being blocked 5 times within a 10s time frame.
  • Your next attack is unblockable and stuns the target for 1.5s
  • 20s Cooldown.
• Assault:
  • Useable after gaining 10 stacks of Might with Fury present
  • You rush toward the target (900 range)
  • 20s Cooldown.
• Repose:
  • Useable with 5+ conditions present
  • Remove 3 stacks of all conditions present (cannot remove stack of 1)
  • 20s Cooldown
• Reverse:
  • Useable after blocking 5 attacks within a 10s time frame
  • Gain Reflection for 3 seconds
  • 20s Cooldown

Of course none of this is balanced or anything…just an idea. So don’t flame on improper numbers…

Inspiring Battle Standard could change to: Combat Squire

Combat Squire: Instead of summoning your banner on its own, you call upon a squire who will carry the banner alongside you in combat and apply its benefits as often as another player would. Only one Squire may be summoned this way. 90s ICD

Benefits:

• Mobile Banner
• Passive use of Banner skills (Squire will use 1-5)
• A “pet” skill for the Warrior class
• Additional AoE targets

Drawbacks:

• Banner Squires can be killed, causing the Banner to be used normally
• Banners do not all provide perma-regen (they really shouldn’t anyway)
• Players cannot use Banner skills while Squire has the Banner
• Multiple Banners will not summon multiple Squires
• Elite War Banner does not spawn an “elite” Squire; only a normal one

Gaiyeerishima Cat.1082:

Oh my god, reading this is depressing lol. You guys should not be trying to change one of the best elites in the game, for one of the strongest professions in the game. The dev is right, guards are more than usable in top tier pretty much anywhere, and if you don’t think that you must be pretty blind.

Man what game are you playing and where can I buy it?