Guild Wars 2

Trap nerfs look fine. Protective Reviver change is nice and will help compensate for the indirect nerf FMW is taking with the Quickness changes (same with Shelter not being affected by Quickness). Smite Condition buffs are great for keeping pace with the current condi meta, but frankly, I’d rather them just nerf condition application across the board. There are a few good nerfs in this patch, but from what we’ve seen, it still doesn’t feel like Anet is backing down from the power creep that began in the specialization update. Unless the rest of the patch notes are amazing, I doubt I’m going to start playing again after this update.

I’m mostly disappointed that the preview didn’t include any potential changes to our weak traits and utilities. I’m assuming that they’re not ready to show yet, but how can we provide any meaningful feedback on what might be coming if we don’t see even a single potential change?

hotcarl.8621:

I agree with most of what you said Soryuju, but I just want to add that I’ve found a celestial trapper build that I’ve had great success with. I run honor instead of valor, which helps with rezzing as well as sustain while fighting on a point.. Basically, I have permanent vigor along with an extra 15% endurance boost which really helps me avoid the big attacks.

The burn damage isn’t insane, but it’s extremely helpful against enemies with protection or immunity to direct damage. I can usually deal between 400k – 700k damage in a match, and the sustain is amazing.

Glad to hear it! I think I tried something similar early on in HoT, but never got back around to playing it again. I did read that the 15% endurance boost from Purity of Body doesn’t stack with Vigor (but I haven’t tested it myself), and it’s kind of lame if that’s true. Honor is definitely great for sustain, though, and these days, I usually run it over Valor if I’m trying to play a DH bunker.

If you’re not opposed to posting your build, I’m sure the OP would appreciate the chance to try it out.

With my points above, I didn’t mean that there’s no possible builds left to try on the Guardian/DH, just that it’s an uphill battle and that it probably won’t get better without fundamental changes to the profession, or at least serious global nerfs that change the entire landscape of PvP. With Anet’s track record, those changes aren’t coming any time soon, so if something works for you, run with it.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Soryuju.8164:

Not if you bring the trait Foot in the Grave and get stability that way. But that means you can’t bring Dhuumfire or Death Perception for the extra raw damage.

1) You shouldn’t need to take a specific trait just to compensate for inherently broken design. This destroys build diversity while skirting around the actual problems.

2) One 3-second stack of Stability isn’t going to help much anyways. That’ll get you through one skill if it’s not stripped and basically force you to always open Shroud with either #4 or #5. If you want to stay in Shroud for more than a few seconds doing anything besides autoattacking, good luck.

You’re overlooking the arching power creep issue.

While stability is vital for Necromancer, that’s only because there is so much CC everywhere on extremely low cooldowns. We now have AoE CC that is massive in size so in order to make up for it there is also stability everywhere.

Dragonhunter, druids, scrappers, reapers, revenants, chronomancers, all have an insane amount of CC on low cooldowns on their traits and skills.

I really don’t think I am overlooking the power creep, though. I’ve already agreed with you in a previous post that there’s too much CC in the game, and I also acknowledge that with the amount of power creep we’ve seen, nerfs need to come down across the board. But that’s not going to be a magical fix for Reaper’s Shroud if you just leave it filled with slow-casting, highly-telegraphed, melee range abilities with no way to protect those channels. When has a setup like that ever succeeded in this game? For context, if you tripled the channel times for each skill on a Warrior’s Hammer (which hasn’t changed much in recent patches), you’d get a similar set of channel times to what Reaper’s Shroud has (if you switched the skill order around). I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have run that even prior to the specialization patch, let alone HoT. At least regular Death Shroud gives you range and shorter channels overall.

You also didn’t address my first point. Any response to that criticism?

Just to reiterate/clarify, I’m not against nerfing Reapers, or even against revamping professions to force them to actually sacrifice things when they spec for offense or defense. I just don’t think that this particular suggestion of yours is a good implementation of that theory.

Not if you bring the trait Foot in the Grave and get stability that way. But that means you can’t bring Dhuumfire or Death Perception for the extra raw damage.

1) You shouldn’t need to take a specific trait just to compensate for inherently broken design. This destroys build diversity while skirting around the actual problems.

2) One 3-second stack of Stability isn’t going to help much anyways. That’ll get you through one skill if it’s not stripped and basically force you to always open Shroud with either #4 or #5. If you want to stay in Shroud for more than a few seconds doing anything besides autoattacking, good luck.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Soryuju.8164:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I don’t play ele, so don’t take this opinion as weighty,

But I think starting off with a complete half effectiveness slash to healing on aura and then the outright removal of regen for torrents is a bit much for the first pass.

Yeah, they’re tanky as hell, but should probably start trimming on the upper end instead of reaching into their entrails and pulling out all the heals.

Don’t think Auramancers will be the only class that needs gutting. People freaking out like it’s the only big problem.

You wanna know what I’d do to Reapers? Increase all the Reaper shroud skills recharges to match Death Shroud, remove the Stability from Infusing Terror skill and replace it with Resistance, changed Deathly Chill trait to only damage nearby chilled foes (although the chill doesn’t have to be yours), the elite shout “Chilled to the bone” would have it’s range decreased by 300.

Worried about Elementalists not being tanky anymore? Boom. Now Reapers also gutted. Dragonhunters, Revenants, power gut. Druids get a nasty CC gutting, chronomancers gets tanking traits gutted and F4 replaced with F5, thieves and warriors might actually see some play.

_

The power creep is everywhere guys. I only talked about 4th of the stuff I’d do on the main post.

I can’t really speak to the Mesmer issues, but for Reaper, I feel like swapping Stability to Resistance on Infusing Terror would actually go directly against the Reaper’s design and be a terrible overall nerf to the spec. Maybe rebalance the duration/cooldown ratio if it becomes a problem in the post-nerf meta. Mind you, I’m a Guardian main who’s none too fond of the Reaper’s condition pressure, but the point of Reaper was to give Necros a melee option. Three of the five Reaper’s Shroud skills have extended channels/animations, and there’s no way a Reaper’s going to fight effectively in melee range when they’ve got no Stability, Vigor, blocks, evades, or the other defenses that core Necros have never enjoyed. At best, you could try to chain-CC targets with CttB/Terrify/Executioner’s Scythe and hope they don’t stun break in time to ruin your combo. Stability is a key part of that kit, and while less of it might be acceptable after global nerfs start coming down, removing it entirely could make Reaper unplayable.

As someone who’s dabbled in Scrapper, however, those nerf suggestions seem reasonable. It’s silly that any Marauder build can sustain better than a bunker Guardian can in this meta, but that’s where we’re at right now.

I understand how’d you think it’d hurt Reapers defense and yes, it really does. Reapers will have to take defensive traits in order to keep up.

As sucky as that sounds, that should be the case with ALL classes.

Wanna know what I’d do to Revenants? Revenants gain 2 seconds of super speed at the end of a dodge instead of stability, remove the super speed from Shiro’s Impossible Odds. And nerf X but I don’t want to hunt down the wiki page and go through all the problems.

Now if Revenants don’t want to be CC’ed to death, they got to bring Great Dwarf Stance or bring more defense. That’s how it SHOULD be.

Even if Reapers started speccing into Death/Blood Magic and bringing more defensive utilties, though, that doesn’t address the problems I was pointing out. 3 of the 5 Reaper’s Shroud abilities are slow casts that leave you mostly or entirely open to crowd control, and the animations on these skills are so obvious that you’ll struggle to land them even against casual players. I understand that you’re advocating a reduction to the amount of CC in the game as well (something I wholeheartedly agree with), but it’s backwards design not to pair all of those slow, painfully obvious casts with any reliable way of ensuring that they can land. Like I said, the best you could do would be to chain-CC a target with your Reaper and pray that they happen to be out of stun breaks (and don’t have any friends around who can CC you for them).

It’s less of an issue to adjust the amount of Stability stacks/uptime a Reaper can have, or their actual sustain so that they’re more dependent on their defensive trait lines to survive. Getting rid of Stability completely just sabotages the specialization’s design, however.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I don’t play ele, so don’t take this opinion as weighty,

But I think starting off with a complete half effectiveness slash to healing on aura and then the outright removal of regen for torrents is a bit much for the first pass.

Yeah, they’re tanky as hell, but should probably start trimming on the upper end instead of reaching into their entrails and pulling out all the heals.

Don’t think Auramancers will be the only class that needs gutting. People freaking out like it’s the only big problem.

You wanna know what I’d do to Reapers? Increase all the Reaper shroud skills recharges to match Death Shroud, remove the Stability from Infusing Terror skill and replace it with Resistance, changed Deathly Chill trait to only damage nearby chilled foes (although the chill doesn’t have to be yours), the elite shout “Chilled to the bone” would have it’s range decreased by 300.

Worried about Elementalists not being tanky anymore? Boom. Now Reapers also gutted. Dragonhunters, Revenants, power gut. Druids get a nasty CC gutting, chronomancers gets tanking traits gutted and F4 replaced with F5, thieves and warriors might actually see some play.

_

The power creep is everywhere guys. I only talked about 4th of the stuff I’d do on the main post.

I can’t really speak to the Mesmer issues, but for Reaper, I feel like swapping Stability to Resistance on Infusing Terror would actually go directly against the Reaper’s design and be a terrible overall nerf to the spec. Maybe rebalance the duration/cooldown ratio if it becomes a problem in the post-nerf meta. Mind you, I’m a Guardian main who’s none too fond of the Reaper’s condition pressure, but the point of Reaper was to give Necros a melee option. Three of the five Reaper’s Shroud skills have extended channels/animations, and there’s no way a Reaper’s going to fight effectively in melee range when they’ve got no Stability, Vigor, blocks, evades, or the other defenses that core Necros have never enjoyed. At best, you could try to chain-CC targets with CttB/Terrify/Executioner’s Scythe and hope they don’t stun break in time to ruin your combo. Stability is a key part of that kit, and while less of it might be acceptable after global nerfs start coming down, removing it entirely could make Reaper unplayable.

As someone who’s dabbled in Scrapper, however, those nerf suggestions seem reasonable. It’s silly that any Marauder build can sustain better than a bunker Guardian can in this meta, but that’s where we’re at right now.

Core Guardian burn builds actually do work a little better than DH burn builds, since you can run Radiance/Valor/Virtues for a good mix of burst and sustain. Dropping Radiance means losing a huge chunk of damage, losing Valor makes you glass, and giving up Virtues keeps you from being good for anything outside of 1v1’s. DH brings Cripple/Vulnerability for control and cover conditions, and potentially better condition cleansing, but unfortunately, it’s just not enough to compensate for the core capabilities you lose when you sacrifice the other lines.

That said, Burn Guardian still doesn’t have the easiest time in this meta. Revenants losing their perma-resistance helped out some, but Burn Guards still hate the abundance of cleansing, Resistance, and CC that the most popular builds have brought along with them. Conversely, condi Reapers and Revenants are bringing along boon corrupts, regular Stability, and a much wider variety of conditions to cover their damage against cleansing, so they don’t struggle with these issues to nearly the same degree. You can have some success with a Burn build, but it’s much harder than it was pre-HoT, and you’re going to struggle significantly more as your opponents get better. Burn Guardian’s biggest advantage, in my opinion, is the psychological impact it has on players with its quick stacking and good re-application of burns. If you can take advantage of that, you can still cut people down who aren’t ready for the build (which is a good number, since it’s all but disappeared from play by now).

You’re also correct regarding bunkers – even with the DH’s capabilities, the sustain is notably lower than it used to be and not nearly as viable in competitive play. My Cele Druid and even Marauder Scrapper feel just as tanky as any variation of Cele/Cleric’s/Magi Guardian that I’ve tried, and they don’t feel nearly as risky to play. If I mismanage my cooldowns on Bunker Guardian, I can be wiped out in short order (especially against coordinated condi pressure), while Druid and Scrapper allow for a number of mistakes before I die (assuming I don’t just disengage first via Ancestral Grace or Stealth Gyro).

Unfortunately, there was a reason why the Guardian/DH was the third profession to drop out of the competitive meta, right after Warrior and Thief. The game’s general power creep has made our build diversity significantly worse than it was in the pre-HoT meta (where it was feasible to run Power Meditation, Burn, or full Bunker builds). While some professions have flourished with the introduction of their elite specs, the DH’s mechanics are too shallow and don’t interact well enough with the core Guardian’s design to open up many new competitive possibilities. Our DH meta build is just our old Power Meditation build with the Zeal line swapped for DH, different weapons (Longbow/Sword+Focus instead of GS/Scepter+Focus), and Purification/Test of Faith instead of Shelter/Smite Condition.

If you’re interested, some further background on the issues at play here:

The Guardian is generally considered one of Anet’s “pet” professions when it comes to balancing, and I’ll grant that there’s a good basis for that opinion. From launch to HoT, we were always meta in every game mode, and I don’t think any other profession can make that claim. The truth is a little more complicated, though. Shouts, Meditations, and Shelter have actually just been good enough to carry us through each meta, despite increasing power creep in the game and the glaring flaws present in many of our weapons, traits, and utilities. As a quick example, 3 of our 5 core utility types have never been viable for dedicated builds in any game mode in the history of the game (Signets, Spirit Weapons, Consecrations), and from these utility types, only 4 utilities are ever used with any frequency in any game mode. To list them, you’ve got:

1. Bane Signet (PvE)
2. Shield of the Avenger (PvE)
3. Purging Flames (all)
4. Wall of Reflection (PvE/WvW).

You might occasionally also see a Signet of Judgment, and maybe a Signet of Wrath in a PvE Burn build (just for the stats), but those are rarities. If you look at all of the Guardian’s utilities, you’ll find that roughly half of them have never been used regularly in any game mode at any point in the game’s lifespan. I’m fairly sure that the Elementalist is the only other profession that’s dealt with such severe utility skill problems, and it should come as no surprise that Eles have also historically struggled with build diversity while riding on the things that make their strong builds so good.

As Ragnar mentioned above, we also have a number of frustrating weapon mechanics that aren’t aging well with HoT, and some traits that should have been obliterated with the specialization revamp (see Wrathful Spirit, Healer’s Retribution, the Zeal Minors, and so on). Many of our trait lines are badly designed in general. Besides the minor trait issues with Zeal, Honor is extremely overcrowded, and Virtues acts as a trait graveyard because of how mandatory Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage are for everything but Burn Guard and PvE Dragonhunter.

At the end of the day, what this all amounts to is that we have no recourse once our main builds finally give way to power creep. We have little room for innovation because too much of what we’ve got wasn’t even viable at launch, let alone now. I wrote this much without even going into our specific weapon issues, or how underwhelming our untraited profession mechanic is (3 crappy Signets, basically). Much like Warriors and Eles, Guardians (and Dragonhunters) are in need of a complete revamp to genuinely be “in a good spot.”

Besides Tempest’s projectile hate rendering the Longbow nearly useless, the meta DH also ran with the Sword (presumably for the teleport and general DPS), which has projectiles on the third step of the auto chain and the #3. Basically all of your DPS is gone with those abilities negated. As soon as anyone starts reflecting projectiles, the only things the meta DH build can do offensively are:

1) Cast unblockable projectiles, which should ignore reflect (Spear of Justice/Deflecting Shot)
2) Set Test of Faith, or Dragon’s Maw if they’re running it
3) Try to cast Hunter’s Ward
4) Cast Shield of Wrath on the Focus.

If the Sword auto chain didn’t cast projectiles (something Guardians have been asking for consistently through the past few years), then the DH would at least have a semi-functional weapon to use against builds with lots of projectile hate, but as it stands, a single aura from a Tempest can almost completely shut down a DH for the skill’s duration. Condi Rev is bad news for DH’s as well, but good teamplay could at least theoretically offset that. There’s nothing a DH’s team can do for them while wide-scale projectile hate is present, though, and there’s hardly anything a DH can do for their team either.

apharma.3741:

Stilgar.6437:

calm down it was the worst build of all time. not only massively OP but so annoying to fight against, it simply made pvp not fun on any level of play. it ruined the pro league and the league system launch. props to devs for hotfixing it. The build is still OP in a way, but at least it has a major downside.

Mesmer is so strong in general due to alacrity, it will still have a place in the meta. But at least this bunker abomination is dead.

So very wrong.

DD ele after spec patch before they nerfed blinding ashes was the worst build of all time. They literally had to change the ESL rules to prevent people bringing 4 and a thief and dominating any team not bringing 4 eles.

Funny how people forget the way teams stacked 2-3 of guards, engies, eles and warriors at various times but suddenly lose their kitten if 2 of necro, ranger, mesmer and probably thief get stacked.

DD Ele was the worst in terms of single profession stacking during ESL tournies (still never went past 2 Eles on a team at the top levels), but games back then didn’t have scores of 35-0 after 10 minutes of play without a single cap for either team. That’s the difference between DD Ele and Bunker Mesmer. Both were dominant builds, but one at least allowed the game to progress.

I do think it’s a little funny that no one so far, OP included, seems to have remembered that “Receive the Light!” exists. Shows how popular of a choice it is for healing, I guess.

Squashing the forum bug.

Can I request advice for how to handle a specific scenario on Foefire?

Say I’m on Blue team (it doesn’t really matter which team, though) and I’m near Waterfall, which we own. Red team has just capped Mine after killing one of our players there in a 2v1 situation, and the same number of players from each team are fighting at mid. Now one of the Red team members who was at Mine is close to arriving at Mid, and the second is likely to follow in the next few moments.

My question is, what’s the proper way to rotate in response to this type of situation?

-I can reinforce mid, but we’re likely to be outnumbered for some period of time on the point, and I’ll likely just end up getting wiped with my team. To me, this seems like the worst idea overall unless I have a very good reason to believe I can turn the fight quickly upon arriving.

-Decapping far to interrupt their momentum is only feasible with a high-mobility profession or one with access to Stealth, since I’ll either have to cut through the mid fight or take the significantly longer way around (which is what makes this situation particularly tricky on Foefire). I’ve been playing on a variety of professions recently, so this may or may not be an option, and I’m not sure how good of an option decapping far is under these circumstances.

-Defending Waterfall seems like the best decision if the opposing team still has members who aren’t engaged at mid, since that would help prevent them from securing an additional decap or full cap while we wipe to the rest of their team. At that point, however, I’m basically just trying to do damage control instead of actively trying to regain an advantage for my team. Is there anything else better to do here, or is that outcome likely to be the best thing I can salvage out of the situation?

Maybe this seems like an oddly specific situation, but I feel like I run into it more often than I’d like as a solo player. Any insight anyone has would be much appreciated.

Speaking as a Guardian main, the DH doesn’t need buffs. The DH needs a complete revamp that lets it bring more to the table than just numbers (damage, healing, quantity & duration of boons/CC/etc). At the end of the day, numbers are the majority of what the DH has to offer, and as players get used to the actual mechanics of the specialization, those numbers matter less and less. What’s even more crippling to the specialization is that those big numbers are often there to compensate for the glaring flaws in the DH’s abilities. For instance:

-True Shot has massive damage because it’s a self-root built into a ranged, low-defense weapon on a profession that has historically had poor mobility.

-Hunter’s Ward lasts forever because it takes years to cast while acting as a second self-root on the same low-defense weapon.

-DH Virtues have over-the-top effects because they put cast times on what we formerly relied on as clutch defensive tools, and made them go on full recharge if they’re interrupted by anything.

-Traps do massive damage and/or have huge utility because good players don’t get caught in them consistently.

And so on. When the meta is focused on things that actively counter our exaggerated strengths (e.g. Tempest Auras), these flaws are even easier to prey on, and that’s why we’re seeing the DH disappear from high-level play. The specialization’s design is too shallow to give us much to fall back on when our one trick stops working.

The DH felt clunky from its first iteration in the HoT beta weekends, but many of the fixes that came its way just involved buffing numbers or stacking effects until it was possible to just beat people through brute force. There were some good changes too, like the introduction of Hunter’s Verdict to help with the poor synergy between Longbow and Traps, or the introduction of condition removal via blocking on Hunter’s Fortification, but many of the poor base mechanics still exist. Continuing to buff the DH will just lower the specialization’s skill floor even further and exacerbate the issues with power creep we’re already seeing throughout the game. It needs to be re-thought instead, and its power needs to be tuned in accordance with whatever nerfs come down for the other elite specializations.

If you’re not willing to show proof for the “sheep” that you’re looking down on, you’re not any more a part of the solution than they are. You’re the one making claims here, and if you’re not going to back them up with any evidence, you’re just theorycrafting. There’s nothing wrong with theorycrafting, but you don’t get to act superior when you’re not doing anything differently from any of the rest of us.

I don’t intend to make a claim for Burn Guard’s viability in this meta, though I will say that it actually does fare decently against Condi Reapers. They can’t cleanse in Shroud, you don’t run with that many boons for them to corrupt (mostly just Fury, a few from Virtues, and Contemplation of Purity’s buffs), and it’s pretty easy to bait their limited transfers. You also benefit from your team’s heavy CC and condi spam.

Banishing the forum bug.

Dirame.8521:

Soryuju.8164:

Dirame.8521:

Silverkey.2078:

I think you are missing many of the points. Personally my main problem with the new meta, is not even how restrictive it is but how unfun it is. Too much CC, too much invulnerabilities, too much damage, too much healing. The fact that they all balance themselves somewhat does not mean the meta is fine.

Doesn’t the main point come down to “Nerf Condi Rev and Bunker Mes?” Or did I get that wrong somehow?

I think it was more along the lines of “Nerf the huge number of passive procs, instant-cast skills, spike damage, invulnerabilities, evades, blocks, and general skill spam that have been steadily introduced into the game over the past couple years.” Chronomancer and Revenant happen to have a lot of those things, but the problem goes beyond just those two. As mentioned earlier in the thread, if you just nerf Bunker Chrono and Condi Rev, you’re not going to see any significant change, because the other Elite specs are still incredibly overpowered, and they’re just going to move in to fill the void. Maybe Daredevil would see a bit more play, but non-elite specs were still completely shut out even before we saw the rise of those two builds.

As a sidebar, I don’t really understand how some people are okay with a meta where two professions are virtually unplayable, non-elite specs are obsolete, and where the general skill ceiling has fallen dramatically. Just because you’re having success in this meta doesn’t mean that the game is in a healthy state. Similarly, the fact that it’s possible to counter certain builds doesn’t mean that those builds are positive factors in the metagame as a whole.

The only reason why non-elite specs are “obsolete” is because we are a bunch of sheep who like to follow instead of see what counters what. Base condi Necro? Easily meta material able to counter all the “OP” specs. Shout Guard? Easily counters condi spam from Revs, DD Ele? that piece of craziness is still hard to kill. We could counter the meta but we’d rather just complain about it because….. reasons.

Post some footage from ranked play with some of these builds, then, and demonstrate how they counter the builds currently at the top of competitive play (or fill the same roles more effectively). If you’re going to make a claim like that, then the burden of proof is on you. But keep in mind, there are lots of players who actually want to play their core specs, and players who are forced to because they didn’t purchase HoT. Support for these specs hasn’t disappeared in the way you’re suggesting.

From my perspective, though, Condition Necro seems like a really bad idea in such a CC-heavy meta, considering the core Necro’s famous weakness to CC of all types. If Reaper’s Shroud didn’t offer an excellent source of continuous Stability, I don’t imagine you’d see nearly as many in high-level play. Many Guardian mains tried Bunker Guard shortly before the Pro Leagues started and got obliterated by this meta’s unique combination of unblockable attacks, boon-stripping, condition spam, and chain CC. And as mentioned above, core Ele actually has seen play at the top level, but its representation has been minimal and more teams are moving away from it as time passes. The new levels of pressure introduced with HoT don’t allow it to have the same staying power that it used to.

And for the record, I’m still running with core Burn Guardian because I don’t really like how the meta DH build plays in PvP. Does Burn Guard work decently (at my level of play)? Yeah, it does. Is it harder to succeed with it than it was pre-HoT? Very, very much so. What used to be a decently tanky build feels like glass against most of the elite specs, and making pretty much any mistake usually means that I’ll be on the ground within the next few seconds. I’m going to stick with it, but I’m also not going to pretend that the game’s been heading in a healthy direction all this time.

Dirame.8521:

Silverkey.2078:

I think you are missing many of the points. Personally my main problem with the new meta, is not even how restrictive it is but how unfun it is. Too much CC, too much invulnerabilities, too much damage, too much healing. The fact that they all balance themselves somewhat does not mean the meta is fine.

Doesn’t the main point come down to “Nerf Condi Rev and Bunker Mes?” Or did I get that wrong somehow?

I think it was more along the lines of “Nerf the huge number of passive procs, instant-cast skills, spike damage, invulnerabilities, evades, blocks, and general skill spam that have been steadily introduced into the game over the past couple years.” Chronomancer and Revenant happen to have a lot of those things, but the problem goes beyond just those two. As mentioned earlier in the thread, if you just nerf Bunker Chrono and Condi Rev, you’re not going to see any significant change, because the other Elite specs are still incredibly overpowered, and they’re just going to move in to fill the void. Maybe Daredevil would see a bit more play, but non-elite specs were still completely shut out even before we saw the rise of those two builds.

As a sidebar, I don’t really understand how some people are okay with a meta where two professions are virtually unplayable, non-elite specs are obsolete, and where the general skill ceiling has fallen dramatically. Just because you’re having success in this meta doesn’t mean that the game is in a healthy state. Similarly, the fact that it’s possible to counter certain builds doesn’t mean that those builds are positive factors in the metagame as a whole.

Assuming that Anet isn’t going to bite the bullet and split skill balance, PvE mobs/bosses can always have their power and HP scaled to match nerfs that are made in PvP. We’ve seen huge amounts of power creep in the past few months, to the detriment of all three game modes. Everything needs a good solid nerf.

Thief and Warrior might be a good point of balance initially, but I feel like to really fix things, we need to return to pre-specialization patch power levels (while dealing with Cele Amulets to prevent another bunker/bruiser meta), so those two professions might eventually need to be included in the global nerfs.

I remember reading here recently that Fire’s damage scales with damage multipliers and Blood’s doesn’t, which is part of why post-nerf Fire is still a popular choice in competitive play. Considering we’ve got potential multipliers from Unscathed Contender, Power of the Virtuous, and Pure of Sight in the meta build, I can understand the choice. It’s also nice for revealing the position of stealthed characters and gives better damage output in teamfights.

I don’t see it used often, but I’ll also point out that the Superior Sigil of Speed/Sigil of Agility has some interesting synergies with the Longbow. Even with the short duration, Quickness on swap can help you surprise opponents with a fast True Shot or make Hunter’s Ward a bit safer to cast. These abilities can be tough to land against opponents who know the timing for when to dodge, so modifying their cast times can shake things up and make them second-guess themselves. Besides the benefits of Quickness, gaining 5 seconds of Swiftness on swap can also help you kite opponents with the Longbow more easily (useful when your Traps are on cooldown).

Solori.6025:

Cynz.9437:

… require a target. To make it fair since steal requires target now. I personally don’t see how it is justified that F-Skills from other classes don’t require target. I think it should be fixed asap

Question….

What did you use steal for without a target?

It doesn’t move you, it doesn’t give you an ability.

It just went on a CD that achieved absolutely nothing.

So…What did you steal from with no target?
Why did you steal with no target?

Steal can be traited for different effects like Swiftness and Stealth, and you could Steal without a target to gain those benefits when you weren’t directly engaged in combat with someone. It could be useful for things like helping to stack Swiftness on your team prior to a match, but now it’s no longer possible.

Since we’re continuing to see “nerfs” to the visual effects of skills, I just wanted to raise a couple of points.

Presumably, these nerfs are occurring for the sake of clarity in group play – not only for PvP, but for group events in PvE and zerg fights in WvW. I’ll grant that some skills are legitimately in need of having their particles toned down (or, preferably, that we could have an effects slider implemented). However, the visual clutter that occurs during group is not only caused by the particles themselves, but also because of the rate that these skills can be used by players during fights.

Opportunity cost is a problem in GW2. Most skills have low cast times (even large AoE effects) and many weapon skills are on rather low cooldowns. Combat often devolves into a mess of skill spam and particles because very few skills actually discourage this type of rapid skill use. It’s fine to have some flashy particle effects in competitive or large-group play, but the scale of the particles should relate to the costs and benefits of using the skill, and not enough skills currently have appropriate costs to prevent the spamming of these particle effects. That’s not to say that all skills should have long cast times and cooldowns, but if a skill has a low cast time and/or cooldown, its power and particle effects should reflect that.

An example of a skill done right would be the Elementalist’s Meteor Shower. You’ve got flashy particle effects in a large area, but these are offset by a long cast time which can leave you exposed if you pick the wrong moment to channel it. Meteor Shower is a high-reward skill that requires some thoughtful use. You don’t need to be a genius to use it properly, but the penalties for spamming it on cooldown can become evident very quickly in a dangerous situation like a PvE raid, a PvP teamfight, or a WvW zerg fight.

An example of a skill done wrong would be the Engineer’s Grenade Kit. Here you’ve got a kit with many rapidly-casting, low-cooldown, low-risk abilities. These abilities have distracting particle effects and encourage skill spam from long range, leading to unnecessary confusion in team fights.

Here are a few other examples of flashy particles on skills with low opportunity costs (low cast time/cooldown, etc.) and/or skills that are disproportionately telegraphed for the impact they have on a fight (e.g. flashy particles for a weak/moderate effect):

Blaze Breaker (Berserker/Torch)
Ice Spike (Elementalist/Staff)
Thunderclap (Scrapper/Hammer)
Searing Fissure (Revenant/Mace)

Traps are another example of this for Dragonhunter, but specifically because of the recent change extending the maximum Trap duration to 5 minutes. This allows the DH to reliably double-set their very flashy Traps if they arrive at a location before a fight begins, and while most traps have the appropriate threat level and opportunity cost to justify these effects, having duplicate Traps filling up the screen can get messy quickly, and there’s very little opportunity cost for pre-setting Traps out of combat (so long as they recharge in time for the fight).

To sum up, visual noise would be less of a problem in the GW2 if there was a more consistent opportunity cost for using skills with flashier particle effects, and if certain skills with low power and/or opportunity costs in particular had their particle effects reduced to reflect this. While certain particle effects may just be too overwhelming in their current state, the skill spam that profession design has enabled is a significant part of the visual noise problem as well. Addressing skill spam is going to be essential for the health of GW2 as an E-Sport (if that’s still where things are going), both for the sake of clarity and for maintaining an engaging competitive balance between professions. I believe that adjusting the skills themselves should be given as much priority as reducing the visual effects, and that we should also at least have a slider option to compensate in the meantime.

I guess my question then is, why not damage as its niche? Our Sword’s most unique property is the sheer number of hits that it can land with its auto chains and ZD. Like I mentioned above, this makes the Sword well-suited to not only landing critical hits, but also to proccing Virtue of Justice for burn damage. To me, the Sword’s basic design epitomizes what an offensive Guardian should look like: it integrates Virtue of Justice for DPS while bringing along just enough defense to be more tanky than what you might expect from melee fighter. The problems just lie with a few of the numbers and the weapon’s quality of life features.

I’m also not convinced that Anet intentionally nerfed the Sword’s damage to take it out of a DPS role. The specialization patch saw Burning damage buffed, so if the removal of the Sword’s damage trait was actually a deliberate nerf to the Sword (which may not even be the case, considering the scale of the changes in that patch), I think it makes more sense to assume that Anet was trying to check the natural rise in DPS the Sword was going to experience from Burning. I also don’t think that we should take the Symbol damage boost as a sign that the Mace is supposed to be a DPS weapon, because Anet balances primarily for PvP, where the Mace is rarely used for DPS. It’s more reasonable to assume that the symbol buff was targeted toward the Hammer and Greatsword (and perhaps in anticipation of the Longbow), with the Mace boost being a secondary benefit.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I forgot to mention, I was going to give FB a Whirlwind Attack style targeting system. Other than that, FB doesn’t need a lot to be in a solid position. The Leap finisher is the right kind of bump both thematically and mechanically.

The Symbol has a much shorter recharge time than CPC and also isn’t a utility skill. It wouldn’t have to compete with CPC nor any of the other Guardian anti projectile skills.

Sword is definitely in a transition state from niche to niche. These changes combined with current traits would solidify its spot.

Could you explain what makes the Leap finisher “the right kind of bump?” You don’t actually offer any reasons for why that is.

Regarding ZD, unless you’re advocating a CD reduction you didn’t mention, the Symbol is at half the cooldown of CPC (untraited, I might add), which isn’t a good deal for something that’s a quarter of the duration, missing the Weakness/Poison pulses with the halfway decent combo field, and lacking ground targeting. The opportunity cost for the Symbol would be taking a weapon with three decent skills as opposed to two. This change would also do nothing to actually help Zealot’s Defense hit people who aren’t standing within range of your auto-attack, which is ZD’s biggest problem after the self-rooting.

What is this new “niche” the Sword is transitioning to? You’ve mentioned it here and in the other thread about our weapons, but since the nerfs to its damage, Sword hasn’t actually been given any buffs that would suggest a new, more useful direction for it. It’s not a good utility weapon, offering only a brief projectile defense and a short, delayed Blind in a small radius. Its multi-hit autoattack and ZD are useful for proccing sigil and trait effects, but the vast majority of these just contribute to more damage, so there’s no utility there. It’s a worse defensive weapon than the Mace by a considerable margin, so what’s left for it if not damage? It’s actually got good potential as both a physical and condition weapon, so a damage role makes a ton of sense for the Sword.

Even if “projectile block weapon” is what you consider a niche, though, just making ZD mobile would still accomplish this better than the Symbol. With a mobile defense, you can at least prevent your opponent from increasing the gap at their leisure while effectively pinning you down in one spot. Combined with the Shield, a mobile ZD would provide a highly flexible projectile defense and synergize better with the gap-closing potential of Flashing Blade.

I do agree that it would be nice to have more Symbols available on our weapons, but if they’re going to put one on Sword, I’d much rather see a short-duration symbol added to Flashing Blade. Dropping a Symbol as soon as you land would help ensure that the Symbol’s damage connects with the target, and unless the target manages to immediately disengage, you’re likely to have the couple seconds you need to enjoy the Symbol’s full benefits. I’d like a Fury Symbol, personally, since the Sword is a critical-focused weapon (given the nature of Right-Hand Strength and its multi-hit attacks). Since I’m not counting on Anet actually adding Symbols to any of our weapons, though, just having FB provide a short Fury buff to nearby allies would also work. Maybe they could add some more reasonable damage to it if they’re feeling generous, but I’m not counting on that, either.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Akijo.7395:

Sword wave is already like that, we want this gone cause it keeps missing and glitching

FB, not really fixing it imo

Zeolot’s Defense sounds more like a nerf to me :/

FB doesn’t need to be fixed, but the leap is almost necessary.

I’m a proponent of every weapon set having a Symbol. Symbol of Defense would trade the incredibly unreliable range for group support similar to Necro’s Corrosive Poison Cloud. Plus, you get the synergy from any of the symbol related traits.

These changes would give Sword a defensive role. Combined with Shield and WoR, you could become the ultimate in anti projectile. Get just a smidgen of oomph from FB, and Symbol of Defense would a dps increase over ZD, which isn’t compared to auto.

Why is a leap almost necessary? I don’t understand. It could provide some interesting utility, I guess, but our only decent combo field is Purging Flames, and we’ve only got mediocre Light fields outside of that, so the mileage you would get out of this change would depend heavily on your group (and it would be a negligible buff for solo play). Also, unless you’re changing FB to a ground-targeted teleport, you’d have to set up the leap so that there’s a field somewhere directly between you and your target to get the effect. If we had stronger inherent combo fields available, that’d be one thing, but as it stands, a Leap finisher is a fringe benefit for the Sword. It doesn’t cater to anything the weapon already has and it doesn’t fix any notable problems.

Also, unless you mean for Symbol of Defense to be a ranged, ground-targeted ability, it doesn’t actually fix the main problem with Zealot’s Defense. If you need to stay in or behind the Symbol to stay safe from projectiles, that just gives ranged attackers the ability to gain distance on you while you’re defending.

The Necro’s Corrosive Poison Cloud works for a couple reasons. One big one is that it’s ground-targeted. You have the flexibility to throw it down around either yourself (if someone’s +1’ing you while you fight someone else in melee) or around a ranged attacker (if you’re dueling or in a teamfight), and if you put it down around them, you’re free to continue closing the gap while they have to re-position. CPC also pushes them to kite around you, rather than simply retreating, since they need to form a new line of sight with you to resume their attack, and you can continually work to break this LoS. CPC also lasts 4 times as long as the proposed Symbol, giving you lots of time to work toward nullifying a ranged attacker’s advantage. Frankly, though, putting a ground-targeted symbol on the Sword would really take away the feeling of it being a Sword at all, and I think a lot of people would take issue with it.

The symbol would fix the lack of DPS from ZD and give us some extra trait synergy, but there are many other ways to raise the value of ZD in a PvE DPS rotation, and a symbol at your feet isn’t going to do much to fix a fundamentally broken skill in the other game modes. It would also require completely overhauling the skill effects and animations, and based on Anet’s rate of balance changes, that’s unlikely to ever happen. Very few skills in the game have ever received that type of treatment, and so it seems much more practical to me to focus on less drastic changes that target the key issues with skill mechanics.

Buran.3796:

Soryuju.8164:

So Guardians leave competitive play alongside Thieves and Warriors , solidifying the 6-profession meta. Also, I count one non-elite spec (Purple Noise’s Ele). Double Revs are present in each matchup and winning consistently over single Rev comps. Lots of exciting games ahead, I’m sure.

I’m not sure about talking about “meta” as soon. A week before the Pro League everyone was crying about how op were the DH and the UA power Herald, and how weak was Mallyx after the nerfs in the HoT release. Then, in the first week of the Pro League, in the EU division DH were only a few (fading in the second week) and love to Daredevils and Berserkers was absent. But meanwhile, in NA Reapers were popular and there was some Daradevil also.

Then, second week, power Herald is degraded from “meta” to “great”, replaced by condi Herald. Everyone was screaming in the forums how broken were the DH, the Scrappers, the Reapers, and suddenly seems that playing with two condi Heralds enhances the chances to win.

It’s funny. We are still in the beguinning of the Pro League/regular leagues. I’m sure that a lot of brainstorming and theorycrafting is still happending behind the scenes. The “meta” is still fluctuating, unstable, voluble. Prior to HoT condi team compositions weren’t successful enough to be competitive, and maybe there’s still room to counter this trending in the current patch. Time will say, but I think that is still too early to predict how this will evolve.

Only thing that is sure is: some builds were broadly overvalued and some others criminaly unnapreciated in the first four weeks of HoT. The forums (we) WERE WRONG.

To the first part of your post, people were crying about Trap DH and trashing Mallyx Revenant in disorganized, unranked play, where these builds actually do perform quite differently than they do in the competitive scene. Many people who played at an ESL level were not at all surprised by what happened with these builds when the actual competition began. Only a handful of teams even bothered to bring a DH in the first place. I’ve read plenty of predictions on these boards describing exactly the situation we’re seeing now. The meta is still in flux, yes, but it hasn’t been as surprising as you’re making it out to be.

Sure, things can change and new builds will develop. But how many new builds do you see high-level players bringing out this week to counter what they ran into last time? There are distinctly fewer types of builds present in this week’s competition than in last week’s, and while I expect to see some variation amongst the NA teams, that’s a really bad trend to start off GW2’s first professional league with. Instead of diversifying their compositions and fielding new builds to shake things up, we’re seeing the major EU teams double down on the current dominant builds. And what’s worse (as noted above) is that the decline in Reaper/Druid representation suggests that we might see the trend continue.

Is anything I’ve speculated about above a certain fact? No, but there aren’t good odds of this meta recovering into something diverse and fun if we end up at a point where 4-5 of the game’s professions aren’t viable for high-tier play, and where core specializations are almost shut out of the meta completely. We desperately need a balance patch.

So Guardians leave competitive play alongside Thieves and Warriors , solidifying the 6-profession meta. Also, I count one non-elite spec (Purple Noise’s Ele). Double Revs are present in each matchup and winning consistently over single Rev comps. Lots of exciting games ahead, I’m sure.

Speaking of which, Cele amulets make up almost half of everything represented. This is dominance in how many consecutive metas? Could we maybe start taking a look at nerfs? Please?

Signets aren’t necessarily bad on Guardians because the effects are underpowered (though some are, like Mercy). The reason why they’re barely used in PvP/WvW is because the utility they provide isn’t matched well with what the Guardian actually needs from its utility slots. Most professions depend heavily on their utilities for sustain and condition cleansing, since weapon skills generally don’t provide enough. The vast majority of utility skills currently used in the PvP meta are geared toward healing, condition removal, and other defensive utility. Just glance through the recent PvP builds used in the Pro League matches or the ones listed as being meta on Metabattle. Almost all of the utilities in those builds are either defensive in nature or can be traited for some secondary defensive benefit. The handful of CC utilities that show up in these builds also generally affect all players in an area, making them another form of reliable defense.

Since Necromancer Signets came up, take a look at them in comparison. Only three are ever used: Vampirism, Plague, and Locust. These utilities have reasonably low cooldowns (promoting consistency and allowing flexibility with the Signets’ passive/active effects), and they offer both cleansing and healing on top of a high-utility trait effect (which can contribute to both offense and defense). We saw the Necro Signet build emerge with the revamp to Signets of Suffering, but the base effectiveness of their Signets in their role as utilities was a prerequisite for that. If you were to swap Guardian and Necro Signet options, I doubt Signet Necros would retain their currently level of popularity.

This is a problem that extends beyond just Signets, though – very few offensive utilities are viable outside of gimmick builds in PvP settings. If we want to see this change, then profession mechanics and weapon skills need to start picking up the slack when it comes to providing healing/cleansing (Dragonhunter does this decently with its new Virtues), and we also need to see a significant reversal in the power creep that’s been plaguing the game (so that there’s less risk of blowing up immediately if you spec for offense).

In the meantime, our Signets could benefit from some cooldown reductions, some effect revamps that would make them more suitable for defense and utility, and another rework to Perfect Inscriptions. I’d also like to see most of the passive effects changed to something more interesting, even if they keep the same basic purpose. For instance, +180 power on Bane Signet is boring and uninspired – I’d prefer something like a stacking buff for +50 power each time Justice procs on a target.

Saiyan.1704:

Soryuju.8164:

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Darknicrofia.2604:

mitigation > healing.

as soon as enemy team finds out you aren’t running shelter, you’ll get targeted and dropped faster than a necro.

Eh, from what I’ve seen, guards not running shelter do just fine. The healing trap saw plenty of action in the pro league.

That’s mostly because it offers Stealth with Trapper Runes in addition to its Blind and Daze on trigger, so it can sort of simulate Shelter’s effect. If it only healed for a large amount of HP, I doubt it would be a consideration.

You’re forgetting that Shelter can get easily interupted now, thanks to all the unblockable CC effects certain classes have. I would hardly ever have Shelter interrupted prepatch but now it’s every other game for me. Especially when I’m against a Reaper.

Right there, is half the reason why people don’t use Shelter in the competitive scene. That and Trap heals is ridiculous if played correctly; precasting the heal off for a chance it can get off cd and casted again.

Unless some skill facts aren’t updated, Reapers haven’t actually gotten any unblockable CC’s that Necros didn’t already use regularly. So long as I don’t try to use Shelter when the Reaper’s got their Staff out, I don’t usually have any issues. Nothing the Reaper has in Shroud is unblockable (Fear included), so you’ve got a free pass with Shelter whenever that’s up, which is quite often. When they’ve got Scepter/Warhorn out and I’m already close, I typically run or dodge directly through them before attempting to heal. The time it takes them to react, reposition their camera to face me, and then channel Wail of Doom’s 1/2 second cast typically buys me plenty of time to cast Shelter.

Druid, Chrono, and Scrapper also don’t have access to any new unblockable CC’s, as far as I’m aware, and they make up half of the new meta. You need to watch out for other DH’s with Test of Faith and Deflecting Shot, and Heralds that are either condi-based or running Staff (but only when they’re in Shiro and after they cast Phase Traversal). You also need to not heal when someone’s got a Shocking Aura up, but you’ve got full control over that one. I don’t think there’s too much else new. There’s way more general CC than there used to be in the game, sure, but only a small fraction of the new stuff is unblockable. I’ve gotten interrupted with Shelter a little more often than I used to, but I haven’t found it to be a consistent problem.

I’ll also just mention that the majority of power-based Heralds in both the NA and EU league matches recently were running the Soothing Bastion trait in addition to the Shield. Personally, if I knew I couldn’t rely on blocks to protect me from most CC, I wouldn’t opt to take a trait that’s going to randomly root me whenever I get low on HP.

I’m not saying Purification doesn’t do its job, by the way – the thread wasn’t even about it to begin with. The league results show that it’s obviously the heal of choice for DH Trapper builds (though that’s all we’ve seen so far), but my original point was that Litany of Wrath isn’t going to get the same results just because Purification happens to be working out for people. A high heal + Fury is nice, but the abundance of CC in the game now works directly against Litany, and without burst mitigation from Shelter or Purification, you’re just asking to get lit up when you run it.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Darknicrofia.2604:

mitigation > healing.

as soon as enemy team finds out you aren’t running shelter, you’ll get targeted and dropped faster than a necro.

Eh, from what I’ve seen, guards not running shelter do just fine. The healing trap saw plenty of action in the pro league.

That’s mostly because it offers Stealth with Trapper Runes in addition to its Blind and Daze on trigger, so it can sort of simulate Shelter’s effect. If it only healed for a large amount of HP, I doubt it would be a consideration.

Reposting this from previous threads on the subject:

I think that the Sword really only needs simple changes to be in a good spot again:

Sword Wave:

1. Remove the “projectile” classification from the skill
2. Reduce the reach of the cone and instead make it wider to improve accuracy.

Fairly self-explanatory. Not having melee autos reflected, having better accuracy while maneuvering around targets, and being able to strike objects properly are all basic quality-of life fixes that will make using the Sword feel much more natural. Otherwise, this is already a good auto-attack that’s unique for having 5+ hits per chain.

Flashing Blade:

1. Apply the Blind instantly upon reaching your destination.
2. Grant 3 seconds of Fury to allies within a 240 unit radius after teleporting.

Instant-Blind at your destination makes it easier to use this skill as a defensive reaction and can help the Guardian make clutch defensive plays. Right-Hand Strength helps make the Sword a critical-focused weapon, so giving it some source of Fury without help from utility skills or Pack Runes makes sense.

I would ask for a short-duration Symbol at your destination that pulses Fury, but given the usual rate of balance changes, minimal-effort suggestions seem more realistic.

Zealot’s Defense:

1. Remove the root while casting
2. Change the projectile destruction to projectile blocking for better trait synergy.

As it stands, using this skill can sometimes leave you in a worse position against projectile users because it allows them to gain distance on you while you cast. If we can move while using the skill, that also helps mitigate the poor accuracy it suffers from as targets get farther away. Changing projectile destruction to blocking shouldn’t make a huge difference now that our block traits have all been nerfed, but more internal synergy is always nice.

I wouldn’t really ask for much else on the Sword at this point. It’s a unique multi-hitting weapon that can be used in both power and condition builds, and it’s not really weak so much as it’s suffering from quality-of-life issues. Fixing those issues and giving it a couple small buffs would stop most of the complaints about it and make it feel much better to use. Changes of this nature also wouldn’t contribute significantly to the power creep we’ve seen so much of recently, which makes them more practical as long-term fixes.

Teevell.1684:

That’s the dream, but it’s very very hard to accomplish. Successful esports like LoL, etc. don’t have that kind of balance. There will always be some champ/class out of the meta or on the bottom of it. It’s not as big of a problem in LoL because there are soooo many characters. There are only 9 classes in GW, though, which makes the gap more apparent.

Not saying there isn’t more Anet could do, balance-wise, but there will always be the classes considered the best for the meta, and the one or two that will lag behind and see little to no play at all until the meta shifts.

Completely agreed about 9 professions making the gap more apparent in GW2 than in other games, and it’s only natural for different professions to perform at different levels as changes are made and the meta shifts. The problem, though, is that entire professions are failing to break into the meta, or they’re barely clinging on with a single build (or sometimes, for the sake of a single skill, like the Thief’s Shortbow 5). When we’re looking at full professions falling out of play, that means that either:

A) No builds that can be made on the profession offer enough tools that are sufficiently appealing to warrant inclusion in a competitive setting over other professions.

or

B) The profession does have tools that would merit inclusion, but these tools are hindered by other profession design flaws that are too severe to compensate for in competitive play.

If only individual builds were falling out of the meta, then that would be the equivalent of certain champions in games like LoL phasing in and out of popularity, and that’d be perfectly normal. Entire professions cycling the way they do is much more significant.

It’s a problem with both general balance and build diversity in particular. Three years into development, almost every profession is still stuck with weapons, traits, and utilities that go all but unused in serious play (including many that are unused across all game modes). Now, I can understand limiting build diversity to some extent, since trying to balance ten viable builds for each profession would be a nightmare. However, in the current state of things, a number of professions are unable to adapt whenever the meta swings away from what they do best, simply because they lack the tools to fill other roles on par with other professions. It doesn’t seem like a problem we should be having this late into the game’s life cycle, but here we are.

saturn.4810:

Also here, they need also to balance the classes around raids and PvE in general.

That makes it really hard.

Fortunately, PvE enemies and raid bosses can have their damage, HP, and timers scaled to match the overall strength of the professions at the time. PvE has been affected by the power creep amongst professions as well, so this may not be a bad thing.

nacario.9417:

Deniara Devious.3948:

This is more than enough proof that the new elite specs are overpowered compared to the base classes.

Or could it be to some extent due to players wanting to play what is new, and turns out to be on par with vanilla classes? Excluding the warrior though.

These are professional players competing for a $200,000 prize pool, and they’ve already had a full month to play with the new specs in casual games. When you’re on a pro team competing in a major tournament, you play what you think is going to give you the best chance of winning, not what you happen to feel like that day. That can even mean switching off of your preferred profession for the duration of a meta where that profession is weak. A handful of pro players do specialize on one profession exclusively, but these players are the minority, and often need to have team compositions built around them to compensate when their profession isn’t “up.”

The results here show that the game’s most competitive players resoundingly agree that almost all elite specs are superior to their base professions, and that Warrior has no place in the competitive metagame. It’s possible that a few regular specs could slip back into the meta if they can be used to counter specific elite specs, but we’re not looking at anything resembling balance between the two. It’s the opposite of what Anet said they were aiming for.

It might help to specify which game mode or type of content you’re asking about, so people can give you more relevant answers. Burn Guardian is still used in all game modes, as far as I’m aware, but its popularity and the tools it brings are going to vary depending on what exactly you’re aiming to do with it.

The only traps they’re able to fart out instantly are rings of swords and shields. The other traps are more lovingly-crafted turds that take half a second each to hit the ground.

Just putting it out there, DH itself can also be made into a very good bunker or bruiser build. No one runs it that way because Trap/Longbow burst is all the rage right now, but there’s nothing actually stopping it from using its various defensive tools to play that type of role. DH has a lot more flexibility with its utilities than the core Guardian (mostly thanks to the superb defense, healing, and cleansing that come with its Virtues). In turn, that allows us to be more flexible with our trait lines.

Burn Guardian also still works quite nicely. It suffers some from the abundance of CC currently in the game, but on the plus side, most people aren’t running as much cleansing in this meta. No one’s expecting Burn Guardians now, so fewer people are equipped to deal with your burst. Grabbing a Reaper buddy to help CC targets and spam cover conditions for you just makes it even better.

Is build diversity great right now? No. Has it ever been? No. Options besides Meditrapper do exist, though.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

You can.

Any teleport, shadowstep, evade, blink etc… will bypass the ring.

Whats more the ring will never do 8k damage to you unless the guardian is loaded up with an insane amount of might.

Self buffed on average with zerk amulet it deals about 4k.

Afraid that’s not accurate – you’re right about being able to evade safely across the ring, but any type of teleport will still cause you to take damage. Check out my documentation near the bottom of the thread below:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/How-to-counter-Hunter-Ward-Dragon-Maw/first#post5762504

Ring effects that activate when the character crosses the perimeter (e.g. Test of Faith, Ring of Fire) will still proc those effects if the character teleports across the ring. Things like our Ring of Warding work differently, and you’re able to teleport out of those without consequence. Teleporting out of Test of Faith just makes you die faster than you would have if you had dodged through the ring.

It’s not clear whether or not this is intended behavior, but as I mentioned in the thread I linked above, it’s extremely counter-intuitive, and even lots of generally knowledgable players seem unaware of the mechanics here. I was skeptical myself until I tested it, but that’s the way it stands, and I honestly think it could use a change.

Chaith.8256:

Why assume no balance patch until Spring 2016? That’s a pretty extreme position. A patch between now and pro league seems quite likely, despite it not falling on the. “two weeks before” timetable as outlined.

Assuming the worst is understandable but in my humble opinion, a bit full on.

Two problems, even if they are intending to patch prior to the start of the pro league:

1) They haven’t made any effort to communicate as such. If plans change, so be it, but why leave your playerbase completely in the dark about what’s going on when all you need to clarify the situation would be a single, brief paragraph on the forums? It would make everyone feel a lot better and lead to more productive discussion. Instead we get threads like this one, where people are just complaining and trashing the dev team.

Supposedly the policy is to avoid making promises to the players because people get upset when plans change and can’t be realized. What gets people a lot more upset, though, is when you promise something, fail to deliver, and then don’t communicate about what went wrong or how goals have changed. Right now, we don’t even know if there was ever intended to be a balance patch for this cycle. We thought so, but maybe we were wrong to assume that? I wish I knew, but we’re being left to guess.

2) If they’re still planning to do a balance patch before Leagues begin, how long are they going to have to test the changes they’re making? How many times are they going to be able to iterate on those changes before they just have to say “good enough” and leave things in whatever state they are? Profession balance is fairly awful right now, with 6 elite specs comprising the majority of the meta and non-elite specs growing scarce.

Is this really the way that Anet wants to kick off its first professional season? The vast expansion of the prize pool made it seem like they wanted to get serious about PvP, but we’re not seeing much follow-through when it comes to making PvP enjoyable to play or watch at a competitive level. It really doesn’t inspire much confidence that they had laid out a concrete plan for change, but now seem to be starting to slip before they’ve even begun.

Last point – I know that developing an MMO is tough, complicated work, and I’m sure that things are busy at their office with all of the content and changes they’re trying to push through for all of the different game modes. However, profession balance is relevant to all of those game modes, it’s something they’ve historically underperformed at, and it’s something they promised to try and do better with. They’ve even staked $400,000 on their ability to create a compelling PvP environment for players and viewers, so why does balance still not seem to be a priority? The way this season goes is going to have a significant impact on future viewership and the profit Anet can make from PvP, so why would they not push to make sure PvP is as healthy as they can get it in the days leading up to the competition?

Maybe there are good answers to all of these points, but Anet hasn’t given us any insight into what those answers may be. Until we get some clarification, I’m going to feel justified in being disappointed with them.

While I’m glad to see Dishonor finally implemented in some form, I’m confused as to why the vast majority of the profession changes today consisted only of “reducing visual noise” or fixing situational bugs. The game plan that Anet outlined prior to HoT’s release consisted of having a major balance patch two weeks before the start of each season, and then making adjustments to the developing meta in the time before the competition began.

We seem to have skipped the major balance patch, so what does this mean for the time leading up to the start of the first PvP season? Are there still going to be adjustments made in the next two weeks to the meta that’s developed since launch, or is this the final draft for balance this cycle? Are we not going to see any changes to any of the elite specs, underpowered professions, or other problem builds for another three months?

Most of the community seemed to be expecting major changes today, since this aligned with the schedule Anet laid out for us, and there was no developer communication indicating that plans for the balance schedule had shifted (or that they were skipping the balance changes this time around). Could we please have some sort of update regarding the plans for this? Right now, this doesn’t seem to bode well for the future of PvP balance, and I think it’s important that the community not be left completely in the dark about PvP development in the upcoming weeks/months. Communication leading up to HoT’s release had been excellent and had the community in good spirits, and I’d hate to see that disappear again in the future.

Please keep discussion here civil.

The fact that it applies to all similar ring effects (like Static Field and Ring of Fire) makes me question whether it’s a bug or intended behavior. Even if it’s intended, it needs to change, because it’s extremely counter-intuitive and probably has a lot of people killing themselves on our traps without realizing it. My friend who helped me test these skills has played Thief for about a year now, and he had never realized he was just hurting himself every time he was blinking out of these effects. Combat is too frenetic to track all of the incoming damage easily, and this probably isn’t helping people’s perception of our traps.

I’ve tested it personally with a friend, and you do take damage from teleporting across the ring. We tested Thief, Guardian, and Elementalist teleports (all of which proc the damage), and I’ve attached screenshots of the Elementalist taking damage from teleporting across Test of Faith below. We also tested the Elementalist Ring of Fire, which does also apply its burn when you cross it.

Here’s another topic where others have reported the same findings:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Shadowstep-crossing-rings-or-barriers

Screenshots (look at the combat log):

1) Before entering Test of Faith
2) After walking into Test of Faith for the first time (initial trigger/damage)
3) Blinking out of Test of Faith with Lightning Flash and taking damage

Exemplar.1479:

Test of Faith counter:
initial damage unblockable, follow-up damage only triggers if you’re walking (or knocked/pulled) into the blade ring. Dodge through the blade ring and you’ll take NO damage. Can also be Blocked, Teleport/Shadowstep, Block/Invulnerability.

Crossing the blades will also cause you to take unblockable damage, and teleporting across the ring will cause to you take damage as if you walked across it normally. Because of these mechanics, blocks and teleports really aren’t counters to this trap.

I personally feel like these mechanics need to be revisited, because they create somewhat limited counterplay for what can be an extremely damaging trap. These mechanics can also be used against the Guardian/DH profession, so it’s not strictly a nerf to revise Test of Faith. The current version can hinder our use of teleports like Flashing Blade and Judge’s Intervention, and also allow DH’s to interrupt our channeled blocks like Shelter and Shield of Courage with an instant-cast Daze (while putting them on full cooldown). It would reduce the complaints from other professions while remaining a very potent ability, and we wouldn’t have to worry about being badly punished for using some of our most important skills/utilities.

Velimere.7685:

Wait, so Dragonhunter is a DPS loss? That’s disheartening.

I’m guessing you’re looking at Obal’s post a few replies above, but bear in mind that he made that post over a month ago, prior to the most recent round of DH buffs (such as the 7%/13% boost on Pure of Sight, the 20% boost + Fury for Procession of Blades, and so on). More recently, he’s edited the original posts with the DH “Bowbear Hunter” as the best general DPS spec for Guardian right now.

BrettM.9062:

Don’t destroy them. The insect collector will give you bags of gear for them. It isn’t much of a reward, but better than just discarding them.

Ah, I thought it was only the unidentified insects he traded for, but I’ll try this out the next time I complete the track. Thanks for the tip!

Sarie.1630:

You require one for, I think, the Glint’s Bastion collection. You need to unlock a specific bug with it. I figured as much and kept one back. There could be other collections requiring a particular fossilized insect…not checked.

Is this the Crystallized Scarab you’re talking about, or something else? The Wiki page for the Glint’s Bastion collection seems incomplete, and I can’t check the collection in-game right now. Unless they changed it with HoT, though, I don’t believe the Cystallized Scarab drops from the Pristine Sand-Carved Cache.

That’s an option, though I think I’d have to use mats I farm over time for it to be worth it. Right now, putting in buy orders for all of the mats off the TP would run me about 7.7 gold for a single Scorpiones, which puts me at over 30 gold per roll in the Forge. At current prices, I can buy four Greatswords off the TP immediately for 12-13 gold, or if I can wait for buy orders, I can spend as little as 6.5 gold per roll in the forge. At those rates, it’d make more sense just to sell the mats I’d be using for Scorpiones to buy more Greatswords off the TP.

It’s definitely an option I’ll keep in mind, though, so thanks for the response! I’m open to any other ideas people may have as well.

I recently finished the Ambrite Weapons collection, but I’m thinking about continuing to repeat the Maguuma Wastes reward track for a while to stock up on Coarse Sand, Geodes for crafting Clay Pots, keys, etc. However, I’m going to continue to receive a Fossilized Insect each time I finish the track, and I was wondering if there was anything useful to do with them after you’ve already crafted all of the Ambrite Weapons.

The Ambrite weapons are account-bound, expensive to make, and have niche stats. Since they’re only Exotic-tier, continuing to invest resources in making more seems like a waste now that I’ve got all the skins. I was wondering if there’s anything useful I can do with all of the Fossilized Insects I earn in the future, or if I should just destroy them as I receive them (I don’t think they can even be sold to vendors).

Thanks!

Speaking as a Guardian main, if Traps are going to get nerfed again, this is the change I would prefer. However, I want to point out that Test of Faith is currently the only DH trap that’s unblockable. The Daze on every other trap can already be blocked.

Haven’t really thought about the implications at all, so this may be a stupid suggestion, but could you give the Lord the same 95% damage reduction that pets have in PvE when they’re not specifically being targeted? It seems to me like the Lord is going to happily stand in any high-damage AoE, not just Traps. If you force players to target the Lord while using these skills, they remain effective when you’re focused on the Lord, but you can’t just drop them under the Lord’s feet and forget about them while you go to stall out the opposing team. Also seems simpler to implement than AI improvements.

glaphen.5230:

Spartacus.3192:

glaphen.5230:

Lol 33.33% chance on your 2 dodges. Yes you might be able to dodge the closing jaws but I don’t really know because the trap animation is invisible to me 90% of the time.

Why is Dragons Maw animation invisible to you but visible to EVERYONE else?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/DragonH-Barrier-cant-be-seen/first#post5693249
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Fix-invisible-dragonhunter-knockdowns/first#post5692461

I wasn’t aware of this, but this would explain some of the complaints about traps. When the trap activates, you should see bright blue fangs materializing on the ground in a circle around you before Dragon’s Maw actually takes effect. If you’re able to see it, it’s easy to tell apart from other traps and gives you time to avoid it (even if they cast JI while setting the trap). Hopefully they’ll get that fixed in one of the mini-patches we’ve been getting daily since launch.

Hannibal.5739:

@ Nova Stiker
That’s funny cuz when I went into the necro sub forum all I saw was how dhuumfire was a dissapointing trait since the 6/23 patch & wasn’t worth picking until reaper came along.
Can i ask what makes it the best trait in the game?

I’m not sure what the poster above was talking about with Dhuumfire running rampant for almost a year, and the main issues with the trait occurred much longer ago (June/July 2013), but the patch that brought Dhuumfire definitely took a toll on the GW2’s PvP.

Back when Dhuumfire was first introduced as a trait, it was a 100% chance to inflict 4 seconds of Burning on crit (not just on Shroud skill 1) once every 10 seconds. This was before Burn stacked intensity, but the standards for what counted as strong damage and strong defense were also much lower then. Burning was a new condition for Necros that amplified their previously Bleed-dependent damage output (this was pre-Torment), and the trait’s passive nature gave them this large DPS boost for no extra effort. Besides Dhuumfire, Necros received many other buffs during that patch, and the result was that Necros briefly dominated PvP before being nerfed (the burning duration per Dhuumfire proc was halved after roughly one month).

The Dhuumfire patch was arguably the patch that began a new pattern for how condition pressure was balanced, introducing the current trend where conditions are applied and cleansed rapidly (as opposed to the more measured rate of application and cleansing that came before). It’s generally considered one of the many low points in GW2’s PvP history.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

I consider this is a L2P issue.
The player should learn to take advantage of this Heal’s strong points.
If your Trap did not activate, it is your own mistake, just like players already know Shelter can be completely interrupted if played wrong. (I have seen facepalm moments where bad players use Shelter and walk over Ring of Warding…)

Minions, Clones and Pets are easy bait to drop the Trap on if you are in need of a quick heal.

You can drop the Trap, wait for recharge, find a way to make it activate, and drop a second Trap right after it activates for 18k heal total. (This is of course a “when the stars align” type of combo, but good players can pull it off).

Shelter can only be disrupted by a small subset of abilities, however (specifically, unblockable skills that can also interrupt, or maybe apply Poison), and these abilities need to be off cooldown at the same time the Guardian uses Shelter in order for counterplay to occur (with things like reaction time, interrupts from the Guardian’s allies, and other similar variables complicating the situation). If consistent counterplay against Shelter was possible, it wouldn’t be the go-to Guardian heal for every build in every meta for the past three years.

On the other hand, all you need to do to counter Purification is to keep at range while maintaining steady damage output, and certain professions will have much more effective responses to a Trap-based heal than others. As you mentioned, something like a Mesmer or Minion Necro might have trouble stopping the heal from going off, but something like a Longbow Ranger/Druid or Engineer/Scrapper with a Mortar Kit with can comfortably sit back at 1500 range and deny you your heal until you can find a way to close the gap (which likely means leaving the capture point in PvP). They don’t even need to be that far away so long as they’re prepared to deal with True Shot from the Longbow. Are you going to start using up your gap-closers just for the chance to heal in a fight?

Purification is probably going to trigger more easily once it’s set if you can keep in the middle of team fights, but this is also where you’re most prone to being interrupted while trying to set it. As I mentioned above, I can see the Daze/Blind combo simulating Shelter’s block, and one point in its favor is that it potentially gives your allies some mitigation as well. In this case, though, you’ve got issues where Stability on the opposing team can now interfere with your damage mitigation, which isn’t a problem for Shelter. I still see Shelter as the most effective heal if you’re caught in a small fight where intelligent opponents are capable of managing your Traps.

Good players may be able to take advantage of their heal’s strong points, but good opponents are going to try to take advantage of that heal’s weak points, and Purification’s flaws are generally easier to exploit than Shelter’s are. Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong in the weeks to come, but I would still favor Shelter as the Guardian heal of choice.