Guild Wars 2

So much misinformation in this thread. It makes me mad.

BG does not have zergballs running 24/7. Far from it. On reset, map ques start opening up soon past midnight. I am often outnumbered on a map. Look at the reality. If server A has 10 players on a map and B has 5 players, then odds are the server with 10 players is going to win the ppt on that map. One doesn’t need a zergball to win.

We don’t have a hybernation conspiracy. Occasionally, if there’s nothing going on in the game, and there’s a guild that really does want to transfer, some of the guilds will try to organize a week off to game the que, but it usually doesn’t last longer than that. Everyone does that. It isn’t unique to BG. But this is very rare.

We don’t have hybernating massive amounts of guilds just waiting to pounce. What we have had are massive amounts of guilds leave over the years, and even recent months, we’ve lost some big guilds. I mean leave, transfer, not buy a new account on another server. This might open things up for a brief time.

We do have a large, loyal player base that is very organized and dedicated. This makes BG operate on a slightly higher level then most servers. I’d like to think that we’re better than most and don’t soley rely on numbers. I think the proof of this is during reset nights when all maps are qued on all servers. The KD ratio and PPT scores reflect that.

We don’t win every matchup. Frankly, Maguma has the potential to beat us. They have some fantastic guilds there who are great at organizing and fighting. But it is my theory that they want to loose as they don’t like being in T1 and would rather be the ones bouncing back and forth via the one up one down system for match variety.

Re the OP, this is a terrible idea. New games come out, expansions for old games I’ve played come out, and I stop GW2 and play those, sometimes for months at a time. I don’t want to come back to GW2 and know that the guilds, friends, organization, and playstyle that I’ve have for 5 years and would expect upon return has been revoked.

Maybe you should look inwards at your own playstyle, your own guilds meta, you own servers organization. Put forth some effort in that direction. Recruit. Participate more. Instead of asking the government to lower the bar to your level.

Zeeck.9025:

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been getting more and more in to WvW and have been enjoying myself for the most part, but one thing that I keep seeing pop up every so often is the active hate against players who join as ranger or thief and more then a few want to kick them out of the main group just for playing one of the classes.

I honestly don’t understand why, I mean does it really matter what class someone plays as long as they follow what the commander says and stick to the objectives?

What exactly are the “issues”?

Welcome to WvW. I hope you’re enjoying yourself.

It matters immensly what class and what build in that class you are running. This includes your stats, traits, weapons, and utility skills. Keep in mind that if you are not playing something that is more effective, you are taking up a slot in the party and the squad, you are most likely dying and rallying the enemy. WvW is all about complimenting your party and filling the deficit of the party and group composition. WvW has spent years developing the best classes and builds that work well together.

Here’s an analogy that I give the PvE folks: Raids. Raids have a very specific group comp and builds they want that basically = maximum dps with minimal effort put towards survivability. This usually means one PS warrior for 100% might stacks, 1 mesmer for constant alacrity and 100% quickness uptime, 1 healer, usually a druid, and 2 dps classes, which over time, just like WvW, has been figured out to be certain classes and builds, such as a condi ranger as opposed to condi necro. You want your dps running PTV gear as it’s pulling down the group.

It’s the same thing for WvW, but with a different goal in mind, balancing survivablity vs dps. Over the years, it’s generally aggreed that the most effective party comp is 2 guards, 1 rev, then, it gets a bit hazy. Usually a mesmer for defence/utility, necro for dps, warrior for CC/dps/banner/might, ele for dps/heals, druid (not ranger) for heals, engi for dps/cleanse/reflects. If you’re group is lacking one of those classes, then you’re taking up a spot. Rangers/dps druids are best at single target damage. That’s not what’s best for WvW. WvW is much more about area damage. Even if my aoe does less damage than your single target, if you multiply it by 5, it will do way more dps than your single target ever could. Much of ranger dps is also tied to their pet, which dies on incoming and has poor control. Also, most rangers/theives don’t supply the boons/cleanses that other classes do. High dps rangers and thieves are very squishy and will die on inc if they are trying to run with the main group. If you’re dead or downed you are a liability, no matter how much single target dps you do.

The one and only exception is for a pick team. This means you’re not running with the group and “picking” off people on the fringes. This tactic should only be utilized if there are enough core classes to deal with the main threat. This is the other reason why folks get upset, because it’s usually better to run a core class and be part of the group as everyone is stronger that way. If there are too many people playing pick, then the enemy will just run over the main group, then you.

There’s a lot of grey here, mostly regarding your numbers and the numbers of the enemy, as well as whatever the main guilds meta is, but look at the squad. If there are 30 people, and you have 3 parties that are comped well, and 3 parties that are a mess of all necros/thieves/rangers/eles, then those parties are gonna die fast. That’s why people don’t want you playing a thief/rangers. They want you on a guardian/rev to fill out the other parties and make them stronger. There are also just too many viable WvW builds to cover here, and it really depends on the main guild and what they need. Not ever group runs the same. Some are heavy power, some are heavy condi, not all runs the exact same guardian build or rev build, mesmer build, etc. Best thing, is find a group you think you enjoy running with and join their guild, learn what their meta is, and conform to it. Yeah, that’s an ugly and hard word to swallow in gaming, conformaty.

And for God’s sake, get in whatever VoiP your group is using.

Ubi.4136:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Wall of text.

*looks at above signature

You do realize, that everyone bandwagoning to create a superserver that can never lose probably cost the game more players than any skill balance or changes…right?

Right?

How does that “opinion” negate anything I or others have said? It doesn’t.

I completely agree that condi damage has gotten out of hand and it should be more DoT like, damage over time. Condis should eventually do more damage than power, but take time to ramp up.

The biggest offender to this is the guardian. With opening bursts that is able to put well over 10 stacks of burning, it can kill you in a couple seconds. This should not be allowed and is the biggest problem. If you’re able to get out of it, it is able to keep very high pressure on you with burn on block, which the burn guard has a lot of.

I’d say a trap thief is another example. Massive opening burst condis. But if you’re able to get out of that, they usually can’t keep up the pressure like the burn guard. Some good players with the right build, can, though.

I can ususally handle most of these guys 1v1, but usually only if I attack first. If it’s 2v1, no chance in hell to last more than a few seconds. If there’s multiple condi professions fighting me and allies, the condi professions usually wins.

If I could change one thing, it’d be the ability for classes to dump massive amounts of condis on someone all at once doing just as much, if not more damage than any power build.

Solori.6025:

Spurnshadow.3678:

This is the most troubling thing to me when I hear this. This attitude is what’s wrong with gaming and the world. If you condone this mentality, then there will be very few, if any, quality players left in the game. We already lost a lot of good, quality guilds with HoT because they didn’t have it anywhere close to right upon release and it took months for them to fix. I think so many of us are super concerned because we don’t want to see another mass exodus.

.

I predict this is hyperbole, I predict people will see new things, cry about them, a-net will nerf a lot of classes to be unusable, then we will be right back were we started.

A change in the meta scares people, and in this game like others, peoples first reaction is to cry about it, and create (OR showcase as the OP has done) unrealistic scenarios where what you want changed is at it’s peak performance, un-countered and unchallenged. Then you take that scenario and promote it as a common occurrence. Even though people tell you what you can do to counter or stop said build and scenario, you will continue to ignore them until your goal of getting class A,B,C nerfed.

Then your class will be on the chopping block, and you will come to it’s defense and naysay everyone, those people will do the same thing you did, present a scenario where your class performs unrealistically until it’s nerfed. The cycle will then continue.
What I would love to see, is actual substance to a “please nerf” post, not showcasing disorganized fights, or one sided matches. Post an organized fight, with you fighting a group or guild of organized people. Post what you had trouble with and explain why that build or group wont be common to encounter.
Not the showcase.

What I’m talking about, and others, isn’t hyperbole because it actually happened, and not long ago, so it’s still fresh in our memories. Hyperbole is taking an exaggerated, singular stance on a subject that is ignoring a lot of nuance or gray area of the topic. I’m not doing that. It is a fact that we lost a lot of guilds and good players when HoT came out. Some people who got bored with the game came back to try it and left. We warned Anet about all the issues that were bad, like with DBL, but they ignored us.

IMO, WvW has never recovered from this. The higher quality guilds and players made the bar of excellence lower.

PoF idn’t releasing a new map, but PoF does have a class that a lot of people are considering totally OP. HoT didn’t have that. Yeah, a lot of the classes had some over the top damage, like the rev hammer auto, CoR, a couple other things here and there, but it was consistently across the board, and usually had an attack having a lot of damage. It was manageable. But, I’m sorry, when one class is able to convert boons with almost every single skill, and passively do so, and adding barrier to it, and a high health pool and toughness, that is completely broken.

That will turn a lot of people off, just like HoT, It will make people find a new game, and they won’t come back. The bar of excellence dropped after HoT, and if nothing is done about this, it’s gonna drop even lower. That’s hyperbole.

SkyShroud.2865:

It is a return of pirateship meta, the boonstrip is real, is not joking! Your stab won’t even last!

K, I’ve seen a lot of responses like this. I don’t know where it’s coming from. This mentality didn’t play beta weekend, didn’t watch the mutiple videos of a scourge heavy gorup, and haven’t looked at the spec.

A scourge group want’s to be in melee range. The shades benefit allies and hurt enemies.

Artaz.3819:

Oh how theorycrafting can be fun…

Tome of Justice spam (start with 5, then just face roll) + Renewed Justice (gives perma use when targets die) + Legendary Lore (more burn stacks). Then
sprinkle in Amplified Wrath + Wrath of Justice (1200 range immobilize too good) + the lovely GM trait combo of Loremaster + Permeating Wrath (for passive AoE burn) and always pumping out AoE perma-Quickness boon and equip mantras for insta AoE condi cleanse and elite AoE stun break/stab of course and don’t forget the beauty of Purging Flames in this spec…wow! I dare not mention the Aegis spam share version (real invincibility).

Ooo the fun. Let’s see if I can find another premade coordinated 40-man version that will annihilate in AoE at range against any PUG zerg.

Common man. A rev in every party would shut this down. Most condi centric groups do very little damage as is due to Rev’s spamming resistance and mesmers duplicating it. ONly a very well co-ordinated necro boonstrip group shuts down the rev/mesmer combo. Why? to get rid of resistance.

Stop being so hyperbolic and use well though out arguments to justify your position that scourges are ok as is.

Some of you guys just want to put your heads in the sand. This isn’t about the video. The video is just theory put into motion. Is it the perfect form of proof? No, but it’s kitten good and much better than people like me saying the scourge will ruin WvW cause of x,y, and z.

Before any of these videos were made, however, people like me DID say scourge will ruin WvW because of x,y, and z. It’s so obvious to many of us. Why do some of you say this is healthy for WvW? Why do some of you defend the class as is or near to it?

WvW, like any game mode in any MMO will gravitate towards the highest dps with the best survivablility. This one class supplemented by a guard, will do that. No other class is necessary. I truly think that many of you haven’t been playing this game since launch and don’t know some of the completely dumb things Anet has done over the years. This will be one of them.

I like the pvp mode where you have to get through a series of doors to an objective, then repeat the process but flipped sides. One team defending, one attacking. Whoever gets the objective fastest wins.

Confusion used to work the way the OP wants. They nerfed it by 50% mainly because of WvW because people were too dumb to look at their buff bar and notice that they had confusion, and they’d blow themselves up. So the big nerf. Add to that the massive portal nerf, and almost no one played mesmer anymore.

They much later added the passive confusion damage to bring it back to competition and to make a condi build more viable for pve. Previously, mesmers just used power for pve.

2 topics.

1) Why does it seem like every match I get is either competative or a total blow out, but it seems like it’s more a blow out than competative. And I’m not just complaining that I’m paired up with idiots who do really stupid things. I’m often on the winning team and see the loosing team doing really dumb stuff. Actual close matches are very rare.

2) Why is it that I have a 50/50 win loss, but I see people in my friends list and other lists that also have 50/50 win loss but are much higher in the ratings?

ugrakarma.9416:

Hana.8143:

To explain a little bit more, we were 40 scourges (and probably 25 at the end of the event) We

Any classs stacking class zerg is a test driven error, is not an appropriate test. 40 guards zerg is over-powerful. 40 minions necros or rangers win by laggins the server with pet spam and so on.

An appropriate test would be with zergs stacking by groups formation, like classic 2xguards/necro/ele /rev VS to any zerg also with groups formed by some new elite specs.

OK, first off 2 Gaurds, necro, ele, rev is not classic. Heck, the rev wasn’t even introduced until HoT. The fifth slot is up for grabs really. But lets break this down as it is wehre we are now.

It has evolved that way mainly becuase we need 2 guards siince they ruined stability 2 years ago, made it better, then just ruined it again a few months ago by getting rid of all pulsing stability. So, we use 2 guards. it’s also useful for the sustain healing from dodgerolls, F2, might, protection, and cleansing, medium dps pressure.

The necro is the big dps dealer and it’s his main function. Whether power or condi, that’s what he’s there for. If condi, then also focuses more on boon corruption.

Rev. Main role is resistance. For some guilds, also high damage dealer

5th slot is guild choice depending on how the others are built. Popular choice is mesmer for boonshare/lots of group invunrability, veils, portals, etc. Another is a healer but not really necessary if guards are more supportive. Another popular choice is another dps, like necro, warrior for more CCs, or engi for more reflects, water, cleanses.

So, I think that covers most of the current meta. There might be a fringe here or there, but GENERALLY, I think that about covers things. Now that we see how things are broken down into roles, lets look at a scourge heavy group.

Guard: Could still use a guard for stability. That’s really it. Medium dps preassure? Nope, scourge has that covered. Protection or other defensive things? Nope, don’t need it. Condi cleanse? Scourge is doing that in spades. Barrier pretty much has everything defensive covered plus they do generate other defensive boons. Scourge puts out a lot of group might.

Rev: Resistance? Not necessary. There’s so much condi to boon conversion going on, you actually don’t want resistance. High dps? Who needs it when the enemy is already dead from the scourges.

Necro. Already got it.

5th slot:

Mesmer: Boonshare is always useful. Don’t need the invunerability, as we already have barrier for days, but being invunerable every 5 seconds is still great. But might use one or two for veils or a longer portal (lol, yeah, the scourge does portals too) than what the scourge does. So, mesmers will still be relevent.

Healer: Don’t need one. Already healing allies and barrier prevents most damage. Another necro? Hell yeah. Just make it all necros!!! Warrior. OK, this might be good to have a couple spellbreakers as there’s one skill that is OP, still good for might generation and CCs, but you don’t want too many as that will compete with the scourges boon corruption. Engi? Why when you could have another scourge?

………………………..

See what I mean? The scourge, as it is, makes all other classes pretty much irrelevant. My personal biggest concern is just the massive amount of boon corruption, that is both active and passive, will ruin things. Whoever gets hit first will win. That’s just dumb.

Tzozef.9841:

Whoever started this post needs to calm down.
Number 2 – This hasn’t been released yet. Let it play out for 3-6 months at most and the determine course of action balance wise.

This is the most troubling thing to me when I hear this. This attitude is what’s wrong with gaming and the world. If you condone this mentality, then there will be very few, if any, quality players left in the game. We already lost a lot of good, quality guilds with HoT because they didn’t have it anywhere close to right upon release and it took months for them to fix. I think so many of us are super concerned because we don’t want to see another mass exodus.

Tzozef.9841:

This is what the Scourge does, LET IT PLAY OUT. If anything, Scourge doesn’t need attention.

Seriously? It’s called using ones mind to predict an outcome. There are a lot of people here in the WvW forums and the other forums saying this is bad. They like the class, find it interesting where it’s going, but it’s bad for the game. Why is that so hard for folks to understand. Prediction based on past behavior and extrapolation information presented to us.

We’re not talking about roaming, or 1v1s. Most of WvW is large group combat. I think that’s another point of failure here and another reason why so many people don’t want any “nerf.” But multiply this class, as is by 20 or more, and it’s game over. Throw in a guard or warrior spellbreaker for good measure. No reason to have any other class.

THIS ISN’T HARD TO FIGURE OUT!!!

Tzozef.9841:

The core necro needs buffs FIRST. They should leave Scourge as is, let it play for 3-6 months tops, buff core necro if they decide to nerf Scourge.

These are two different arguments completely and should not be joined. All base classes need to be buffed, not just the necro. Reaper is superior to base necro, and the scourge, in WvW, will be better than both. Making the base necro better will not change how damaging the scourge is to WvW unless drastically changed.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

Hana.8143:

It’s like the mesmer in 2013 (or 2014 ?), when he had that trait, and took fall damages, and did 20k every sec with the aoe that pop under its feet.

I’m sorry, what?

Chaos storm has never done 20k damage a second.

It was a bug and lasted like 2 weeks. Fun as hell while it lasted. Only affected Chaos Storm from the falling trait.

You guys defending scourge are in total denial. I tried it and it was obvious to a toddler this class will ruin WvW.

There are many of you saying, yeah, but put it against 40 of this or that. Sure, that might work for a bit, but the scourge has barrier, boon corruption, healing, and massive damage output. No other class has this much survivablity/boon corruption/damage.
Other classes, might have 2, but not 3. That’s what makes it so OP. Just the massive boon corruption with almost every single skill makes this totally op. Basically, whoever attacks first wins.

I mean, hey, if you don’t want team work, build diversity, If you want to play one class and press a few buttons, then WvW will be for you if this doesn’t get changed.

Why are you asking here instead of map chat?

Threather.9354:

Some EU servers use discord, not gun name them cuz you will just bandvagon, pleb.

Discord over TS advantages:

• Has chat channels included (possible builds, videos etc), no need for server forums thro web browser.

TS does this

Threather.9354:

• Voice quality is higher and delay is less, haven’t had “server crashes” or “robotvoices” due to too many online even once like in TS.

Many say the same about Discord. Argumentative.

Threather.9354:

• Supports YouTube videos and lot of other sites (can setup perma music bot where people request songs for free)

You can do similar things with TS

Threather.9354:

• Is Free

It’s not free. Not if you want to set up something large, which is what we’ve been talking about.

Threather.9354:

• Accessible with web browser and joining server is easier for first timers

Again, not really. Sure, you can use your web browser, but there are a lot of features that you can’t access through the web (like push to talk. Pretty essential for WvW players), you have to download the Discord client. Is it really that hard to download TS? Both takes like 5 minutes.

I have no idea if discord does this. Probably not. One of my favorite features of TS is being able to subscribe to channels. I have everything compacted, and subscribe to all the channels I want which shows all the nested channels and anyone in them. Makes it very easy to see who’s on where and limit the guild channels to my favorites.

OK, so I was wrong about the API, good for them to catch up. Great, so they both do that.

Also, their plug ins are “bots?” If I’m correct? perhaps limiting? Really minor as I think most people just want an overlay. Both do that.

When I said channel interface, I was speaking of the left side where all the channels are, not the right side that shows stuff when you click on a channel. That’s a big deal. As one person said, most TSs are a mess. BGs is very clean and well organized. If people don’t want to take the time to organize their TS, it’s on them. But you can’t do that with Discord. Not nesting channels is a big deal and part of organizing and managing a whole server. One does need more permissions than what a previous poster mentioned. And I’m not just talking about /invite or /kick, multiple level of channel permissions. I think Discord has 4? Not good enough.

Look, it just can’t be argued that from an admin and organazational standpoint, TS is superior, and that’s needed for a server wide voip.

TS is far superior to Discord.

Discord can NOT set up as many sub-channels and organize those with large amounts of separation in the UI. This is a big deal for a server wide voip.

Discord does NOT have nearly the permission level that TS has.

Discord does NOT support plug-ins

Discord does not integrate with GW2 api. That alone is probably a deal breaker for BG as we’ve developed auto permission system.

Discord still has issues with latency, bugs, dropping packets, etc. I.e. general dependency.

Channel ui is limited in size, scope, and user customization compared to TS.

Discord does NOT have whisper lists.

I’m sure there’s more bullet points I’m missing.

Many of us have invested a great amount of time into building and perfecting our community voip. It would be dumb to switch to a system that just is not as robust as TS. From a user perspective, you probably don’t see much, but from an administration, server leader, or guild leader perspective, TS is just great.

All that aside, as others have stated in other posts, Discord shares all your data. There is no privacy with Discord. Also, the owner is know to build and sell projects, so there is no guarentee that discord will still even be around in years to come.

Yes, Discord is prettier and able to do some things that TS can’t, like chat features. But as a gamer, why do you care about that stuff? You shouldn’t. You’re here to play a game. If you want to socialize, go get a beer.

I afk all the time, but it’s when the match is obviously over. For example, if the score is 400 to 200 and it’s just obvious we can’t win. I usually announce it, as well. I just want the match to end as soon as possible, and I see no point in continuing getting my ass kicked for whatever reason. That’s just not fun for me. I want to get to the next match asap.

The funny thing is the people who report me, say they’re reporting me, regardless of my announcment in chat.

Rangerdeity.5847:

i mean just …. get good there is a reason in 5 years this has not happened and WvW players have enjoyed the game mode.

Wrong.

Things were pretty balanced at first. Started about 3 years ago.

Just because something is bad, even since launch, doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be changed.

While some of what the OP talked about can be fixed with l2p, it can’t be argued that there’s been power creep in the game. For those who don’t know, it started about 3 years ago when they decoupled stats from traits. The balance was never quite right from the baseline stats, and it definitely favored power. Then with HoT, some builds and core specs put out insane burst damage, not just power burst, like DD thief or GS headbutt warrior, but condi burst as well, like with mesmers putting 25 stacks of confusion or guards with burning in one second. We’ve all been one shotted or close to it, and that is just unbalanced gameplay. I’ve advocated for years that they up toughness/vitality base. I’m not alone. Not by much, maybe 25%, but it needs to be done.

Here’s another one: have a mirror that makes a clone of not just you, but any allies within range. I mean, it’s a mirror, right? That’d be awesome!

Here’s another one: if you were going to make a clone centric build, why not increase the active number of clones to 5? I mean, if the F skills were to change from shatters to something else, why not?

I’ve got about 4K hours on a mesmer and I found the new spec to be a mess. I won’t rehash all the issues, as plenty have already stated them. What I wanted to say is that its such a shame that you guys, Anet, had a great opportunity to make something really different, and we got something that felt like three people competing on making the class. There are just too many mechanics, and none of them work well, or work at all. (ie, mirrors, blur, evade, mirror blur (or whatever) keep clones alive, shatter them, ambush, too much) Stick with one theme and make that work. Just off the top of my head, here’s some ideas to rework this spec. I’m sure there’s no time to implement any of this stuff, but here’s hoping.

I like the idea of having something more clone centric, but you didn’t go far enough with this. If you want something clone centric, then make it that way. Get rid of shatters but one. Instead, make the F skills something new and interesting. For example, buff the auto attack to something really big. Swap places with one of your clones, heal yourself and all your clones. Bounce enemie(s) around your clones. Bring back some damage on clone death, but just for this spec.

Edit: some more stuff: Take the whole mirror mechanic and change that to your clones. IE, if you run into your clone, you get a buff. That consolidates that mechanic and makes it simpler. Another F idea, clones retarget.

Edit: Or, drop some of these shatter trade offs and go full on with mirror mechanics. Make that the center of this spec. Make all but one of the F skills have to do with mirrors. Make them more frequent. For example, have one of the mirrors that generates be long, like a barrier. If an enemy touches it, they’re teleported away. When you run through it, you generate 2 clones. I could imagine trying to box in your enemy with mirrors. Have a mirror fall from the sky and shatter dealing massive damage. Have a mirror be a blink like teleport or give an aoe buff in it’s area. Have an elite mirror with a huge aoe that passively generates clones if you’re standing in the area. I mean, lots of possiblities here, but the point is, you can’t have both. Go one way or the other.

Overall:

I have very mixed feelings about these new specs. They seem to be pushing condi damage big time with most of these and introducing more condi removal via the guard. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be another class that’s pumping out lots of resistance, like the rev. The rev PoF spec also has lots of condi damage reduction in it, making it more necessary as a protection class in a group for WvW. They didn’t introduce another spec with lots of resistance and I can only recall one skill on another class that had resistance. That is a failure imo. No matter how many cleanses your group has, resistance is a must, especially with the necro having a ton of boon corruption. Honestly, there’s so much boon corruption here, add to that the existing boon corruption, the new warrior spec, all the condi damage with the new specs, and it doesn’t matter what your resistance is. It will be stripped and I see this needing a massive nerf or it will be the end of WvW. No joke.

Another failure is not having another class with heavy alacrity. This makes raids want only a chronomancer. This was a great opportunity to get the other classes or specs into the rotation, as it seems that’s Anets whole motus apparandi regarding balance.

There already was way too much damage being put out with HoT, and it seems that it is only going to get worse with PoF. They really need to increase the base toughness/vitality of classes to compensate if they don’t tone down the damage. I doubt they will, however.

I’m glad to see some classes got some really cool and interesting specs that truly drastically change them. That’s great and it keeps things fresh and makes us all have to sit down and rethink group comp, builds, etc. Maybe some of you don’t like that, but I know lots who live for it.

Is it going to be worth the money? I don’t know. That’s so subjective. I think it’s a bit of a mess right now and needs a lot of work to balance these classes and tone down the damage. I’ll probably wait until well after release to see what the feedback is and if you guys get your act together balancing these specs and if WvW has been ruined by boon corruption.

my first impressions:

Guardian. With practice, this could be crazy powerful. Tons of aoe quickness, tons of aegis, more stab, more cleanses and support. Seems a bit clunky at the moment though and would require much more testing than just one weekend with all the new classes to settle on a conclusion . Axe is meh, but it’s another choice in the kitten nal, and a dedicated condi weapon. Whole spec seems condi based which is dissapointing. Good for large group combat. Maybe not so much for roaming pvp. Could be viable in raids to replace or suplement mesmers although I don’t see any alacrity, so mesmers will still rule the quickness side. Overall, a big option.

Thief. Again, with practice this could be really fun and super trolly. I like how they are balancing the high dps with lack of mobility. Wish they did that with the rifle warrior, but whatever. Definately takes some getting used to. Definately not for zerg fights. With some practise, might be good for roaming/pvp. May have a place in raids. Time will tell whether the lack of mobility will be it’s downfall and people will just revert to daredevil but it’s a good option to play with.

Mesmer: This is a total fail, imo. [Edit: btw, I have about 4000 hours on mesmer]Most of the other classes I’ve played have major changes. Like the guardian gets an axe, big deal. But it also gets 3 new skill bars with every virtue. Ele, massive change. That’s a lot. Mesmer doesn’t get this. It does get an ambush skill, like a special thief stealth attack, but the timing needs to be improved as there’s a very short window to utilize it. There’s a lack of control regarding mirrors which is never good. Clone ai is an improvement, but that’s something that should be done as a whole. I tried and tried to understand where they were going with this, but can’t figure it out. The axe is a terrible weapon as it’s melee range condi weapon, so it’s just better to use a scepter and stay at a safer distance with better clone generation. Without having crunched any numbers they seem to be about the same damage. But since you can’t spec chrono, you can’t use a shield. It’s nice to be able to generate an extra clone with your utility skills, but some of them seemed lackluster. Over all, I don’t see this replacing anything in WvW, even for roaming, maybe pvp for a dedicated mesmer that wants to make this work. It’s like they had an idea of something but couldn’t refine it into anything good.

Elementalist: Briefly played with this and it’s very cool. New weapon, the sword, which opens up 12 new skills for the ele. Add to that the combo attunement skills, a #3 like with the thief, that changes depending on your attunment choices and weapons. That opens up your options even more. A lot of work went into this and I think it’s a great addition and increases the skill level of the ele. How many times have we cycled through our attunements only to skip stuff we knew we didn’t need? Now we can have a much more robust rotation. There’s more survivability with the new barrier trait, and lots of it in this class. Doesn’t seem to favor either power or condi, like most ele things. But it’s definitely not, as far as my first impression, something for large group combat. Seems much more appropriate for smaller scale, roaming, pvp, as it lacks the plethora of tempest aoe attacks and support. Overall, seems really good. Might be OP in the right hands.

Warrior: didn’t test but I hear it’s great at boons stripping. This will be very popular in WvW.

Necro: This is a total fail because it is completely overpowered. There’s just too much boon corruption, and as it is, this will ruin WvW. But the skills are ideal for large group combat. This might be ok for pvp to camp a point, but not roaming or small scale combat as it’s just too easy to avoid the sand totem things. I don’t see this having a place in raids. Centers totally around condi, so not much choice there. Again, dissapointed with that.

Revinent: I’ve heard others say this was the worst and I can’t disagree more. [Edit: appologies, as the summons can die and be CCed so, yeah, maybe not so much. I was doing massive damage in my small scale testing with trait changes.] This is insainly op for WvW, small or large scale combat, pvp, and if the numbers are good, raids, but it would be best at large group. Massive buffs to allies and tons of damage output. I think the negative comments really haven’t looked into the traits and how everything works together. Really really overpowered. The skills seem to use up too much energy. Again, specs heavily into condi, but seems like the traits can work with power if you drop the bow. Bow is condi.

Engi: Don’t play engi much.

Ranger: Don’t play ranger much. I hear bad things.

Necro will ruin WvW unless the boon corruption is toned down. Most of the PoF specs are very condi heavy. Some guilds were already heading in this direction, and I see it getting more dominant. Nothing viable like a Malyx resisntance rev introduced, but with all the corruption and stripping, resistance won’t mean squat. Whoever attacks first with CCs and massive boon corruption from necros will win.

I haven’t played them too much, but my first impressions:

Guardian. With practice, this could be crazy powerful. Tons of aoe quickness, tons of aegis, more stab, more cleanses and support. Seems a bit clunky at the moment though. Axe is meh, but it’s another choice in the kitten nal, and a dedicated condi weapon. Whole spec seems condi based. Overall, a big option.

Thief. Again, with practice this could be really fun and super trolly. I like how they are balancing the high dps with lack of mobility. Wish they did that with the rifle warrior, but whatever. Definately takes some getting used to. Definately not for zerg fights. Time will tell whether the lack of mobility will be it’s downfall and people will just revert to daredevil but it’s a good option to play with.

Mesmer: This is a total fail, imo. Most of the other classes I’ve played have major changes. Like the guardian gets an axe, big deal. But it also gets 3 new skill bars with every virtue. That’s a lot. Mesmer doesn’t get this. It does get an ambush skill, like a special thief stealth attack, but the timing needs to be improved as there’s a very short window to utilize it. There’s a lack of control regarding mirrors. Clone ai is an improvement, but that’s something that should be done as a whole. I tried and tried to understand where they were going with this, but can’t figure it out. The axe is a terrible weapon as it’s melee range condi weapon, so it’s just better to use a scepter and stay at a safer distance. Without having crunched any numbers they seem to be about the same damage. But since you cant spec chrono, you can’t use a shield. It’s nice to be able to generate an extra clone with your utility skills, but some of them seemed lackluster. Over all, I don’t see this replacing anything in WvW, even for roaming. It’s like they had an idea of something but couldn’t refine it into anything good.

Elementalist: Briefly played with this and it’s very cool. New weapon, the sword, which opens up 12 new skills for the ele. Add to that the combo attunement skills, a #3 like with the thief, that changes depending on your attunment choices and weapons. That opens up your options even more. A lot of work went into this and I think it’s a great addition and increases the skill level of the ele. How many times have we cycled through our attunements only to skip stuff we knew we didn’t need? Now we can have a much more robust rotation. There’s more survivability with the new barrier trait, and lots of it in this class. Doesn’t seem to favor either power or condi, like most ele things. But it’s definitely not, as far as my first impression, something for large group combat. Seems much more appropriate for smaller scale and roaming, as it lacks the plethora of tempest aoe attacks and support. Overall, seems really good. Might be OP in the right hands.

Warrior: didn’t test but I hear it’s great at boons stripping.

Necro: Seems like it could be good, but I don’t get it. There’s no death shroud. On paper, yeah, there’s a ton of boon corruption, really, too much. It’s overpowered. This could be great for WvW. But like half of the necro traits centers around death shroud skills, like gaining buffs or applying condition when you use shroud 1 or whatever. That doens’t exist here. Some of these traits are the adept ones, so you can’t even spec out of it. They are basically trying to make the necro into a different class, and it just doesn’t work in the theme and traits. That’s very dissapointing. But the skills are ideal for large group combat. Centers totally around condi, so not much choice there. Again, dissapointed with that.

Revinent: I’ve heard others say this was the worst and I can’t disagree more. This is insainly op for WvW, small or large scale combat, but it would be best at large group. Massive buffs to allies and tons of damage output. I think the negative comments really haven’t looked into the traits and how everything works together. Really really overpowered. The skills seem to use up a bit too much engergy. Again, specs heavily into condi, but seems like the traits can work with power if you drop the bow. Bow is condi.

Engi: Don’t play engi much.

Ranger: Don’t play ranger much. I hear bad things.

Overall:

I have very mixed feelings about these new specs. They seem to be pushing condi damage big time with most of these and introducing more condi removal via the guard. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be another class that’s pumping out lots of resistance, like the rev. The rev PoF spec also has lots of condi damage reduction in it, making it more necessary as a protection class in a group. They didn’t introduce another spec with lots of resistance and I can only recall one skill on another class that had resistance. No matter how many cleanses your group has, resistance is a must, especially with the necro having a ton of boon corruption [edit: honestly, there’s so much boon corruption here, add to that the existing boon corruption, and it doesn’t matter what your reistance is. It will be stripped and I see this needing a massive nerf ir it will be the end of WvW], the warrior with boon removal, and the massive condi damage that will come form revs, necros, guards, and what have you, this seems like the inevitable meta shift, and I find that a shame.

There already was way too much damage being put out with HoT, and it seems that it is only going to get worse with PoF. They really need to increase the base toughness/vitality of classes to compensate if they don’t tone down the damage. I doubt they will, however.

I’m glad to see some classes got some really cool and interesting specs that truly drastically change them. That’s great and it keeps things fresh and makes us all have to sit down and rethink group comp, builds, etc. Maybe some of you don’t like that, but I know lots who live for it.

Someone else started a thread like this, but I couldn’t find it to contribute.

So, yeah. The new spec is neat and all, but like the other guy said, half of our traits compliment us when we’re in shroud, even the adept ones. I’ve tested this and I can’t see them doing stuff when I hit F1 or anything else, like granting fury or whatever. Sure, the mechanics are new and neat, but it just doesn’t mesh with, like, everything else about the necro? It’s extremely limiting as far as what else we can trait into.

What gives?

Haaaaaahahaaahahahahaaaaa!!

When I read the patch notes, I was like, “huh, ok. That makes sense. Good change, too. Get rid of the point blank catas, and use them like they’re meant to be used. If you want to be point blank, fine, you just have to charge them up.”

I was under the impression, like so many others, that the low charge damage would be very small, and full charge would equal what it used to be.

What a joke.

It amazes me how little thought is put into programming of major changes like this. Time and time again. Especially when there are no test servers in this game and the general public has to go through all the headache.

Yeah, so as other’s have pointed out, my basis for calculations was wrong, but it still amounts to a drastic change. 70% reduction in area as opposed to my miscalculated 75%. That’s still huge. It means I won’t be hitting 5 targets per attack, which means the damage is gonna be totally sub par compared to other weapons, and ruins some builds, such as AH with EM.

I don’t understand everyone laughing about loosing our “loot stick” as necros and eles and thieves tag just as much and have access to massive frequency of aoe abilities that hit for a lot more dps.

They need to either increase the damage co-efficient or make it a 360 degree attack in order for the staff to be a competitive weapon.

As far as I’ve known, the attack angle of Staff 1 has always been 170 degrees. That’s what I based my calculation on.

Turk.5460:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Amazing how many _ people there are here. Either that or you’re just trolling.

The staff’s auto attack IS it’s main dps. It doesn’t have any burst dps like the hammer or GS. It’s auto attack’s damage is much lower than every weapon, for a reason! Because it’s essentially an aoe weapon limited to a cone in front of the guardian. It depends on hitting 5 people to make up for it’s lackluster dps. THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT!

Let me put this in another way as I don’t think people understand just how much of a nerf this is. While the range has been cut in half, it’s effectiveness has been nerfed way more than that. At 600 unit range with a 170 degree ark, it covered an area of 534,000 units. Cut the range in half, it will now cover an area of 134,000 units. That translates to a 75% reduction in area! That’s insane!

Also, the auto attack was great for proccing your justice burns and was essential to an AH/EM sustain build as you would statistically always crit granting might to you and your allies giving you about 400 in heals / sec. That’s now out the window.

Anet just made this a completely broken weapon and any build centered around it. If they didn’t like the range, and decide to keep this, then they need to make it 360 degrees. That still won’t equal the area it was before, but it won’t be as bad.

You’re trying to make points as if this were a damage dealing weapon kit. It is not. It is support.

Mace / shield is also support, but does a lot more damage. The point is, kitten many are failing to understand, is that the sub-par damage of the staff is made up for by hitting 5 people and having a big aoe

Yeah, I laughed when I read this. Ele actually started getting to a good place regarding dps vs sustain. According to Anet, every WvW player, every pvp player and every Raid has all eles cause it’s the best at everything at once in game.

Please.

OK, i do recognize that the staff is supposed to be a support weapon in some regard, but there are better choices. It’s designed to be an aoe weapon limited to a cone in front of the guardian.

Here’s a quote from another post in the WvW forums. Maybe this will shed some light about just how big of a nerf this is:

“Let me put this in another way as I don’t think people understand just how much of a nerf this is. While the range has been cut in half, it’s effectiveness has been nerfed way more than that. At 600 unit range with a 170 degree ark, it covered an area of 534,000 units. Cut the range in half, it will now cover an area of 134,000 units. That translates to a 75% reduction in area! That’s insane!”

Amazing how many _ people there are here. Either that or you’re just trolling.

The staff’s auto attack IS it’s main dps. It doesn’t have any burst dps like the hammer or GS. It’s auto attack’s damage is much lower than every weapon, for a reason! Because it’s essentially an aoe weapon limited to a cone in front of the guardian. It depends on hitting 5 people to make up for it’s lackluster dps. THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT!

Let me put this in another way as I don’t think people understand just how much of a nerf this is. While the range has been cut in half, it’s effectiveness has been nerfed way more than that. At 600 unit range with a 170 degree ark, it covered an area of 534,000 units. Cut the range in half, it will now cover an area of 134,000 units. That translates to a 75% reduction in area! That’s insane!

Also, the auto attack was great for proccing your justice burns and was essential to an AH/EM sustain build as you would statistically always crit granting might to you and your allies giving you about 400 in heals / sec. That’s now out the window.

Anet just made this a completely broken weapon and any build centered around it. If they didn’t like the range, and decide to keep this, then they need to make it 360 degrees. That still won’t equal the area it was before, but it won’t be as bad.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I don’t really mind the range nerf…. And I main guard.
It might be because I always saw the weapon as a support weapon. Which it now may do even better… though Im unsure how much it matters in comparison to other professions.

I wouldnt mind it getting a more physical looking staff swipe animation for it though. Never lliked wave of wrath.

I don’t think you main guard. The staff isn’t a support weapon. Mace / shield or focus is. The staff is the only midrange damage weapon. The auto attack is the only real damage the weapon does. The orb is meh, and reserved for healing anyway. The symbol does poor aoe damage. That leaves the auto attack. For 5 years this has been the case and has never been an issue. It’s designed to be 600 range because it hits 5 enemies. That means that on average, you are doing the same damage as the auto attack on the GS or hammer which only hits 3. But with 300 range, one will now, probably not hit 5 targets, so the damage is much less. The difference between 300 and 180 is pretty neglegable, especially considering all the movement in the game.

With the staff, we sacrifice having higher burst damage for the other abilities, but if relegated to 300 range, it’s probably better to go with a true melee weapon which will do more dps. And if we want to do some support, a one hand melee with a shield or focus.

And to all you people complaining about a loot stick, I get just as much using a staff on my necro, or a tempest, or thief with a shortbow, etc. If you’re gonna farm stuff, there are some builds and classes that are better at it. Don’t be angry that you aren’t getting as much stuff on a pistol thief, or whatever.

The staff is now totally useless.

Yup, this is probably the dumbest balance change ever.

The auto attack is the only real offence on the weapon. The orb does nothing and the symbol, well, it’s a symbol. It’s meant for large amounts of enemies as it’s the only auto attack that hits 5. This made up for the lackluster damage. On average, it equals the auto attack damage on hammer or sword. But that depends on it actually hitting 5 enemies. If it’s reduced to 300 range, then the odds of hitting 5 enemies is drastically reduced, and is now a rather useless weapon.

Seriously, totally dumb change. No one ever complained about this.

Nate.3927:

Korgov.7645:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hello, Mist Warriors!

/facepalm

Out of rebalancing world populations, eliminating server lag and separating skill balancing from PvE, Gliding was the one you chose to work on?! Seriously?

You still have not met all the goals of the Scoring changes: reduce need for off-hour coverage, reduce number of lopsided matchups, give teams real opportunity for a comeback, and decide matchup winner fairly.

I bet you next work on getting those PoF mounts, and HoT mastery track PvE crap to WvW. Oh, wait! You already added Blazing Speed Muchrooms (Blessing of Elements), Bouncing Mushrooms (jump pads) and Nunoch Wallows (more jump pads). Perhaps a more proper greeting would have been “Hello, PvEers!”.

I will give you some basic information here. The people working on server lag is most likely different from the people that worked on gliding. Server lag is more the domain of the network and infrastructure side of things. Features whether temporary or otherwise are likely done by designers and devs who do scripting, not network code.

It’s like saying “how come your hospital can’t do a brain operation when you have so many heart surgeons just chilling and sitting around” The answer is “because brain surgery is not the same as heart surgery and requires a different set of knowledge and experiences”

Gotta start somewhere, and I like this analogy. I find it apt, but completely wrong with why people are upset. We’re not stupid. We understand that it’s different departments. Our problem is with the hospital because it didn’t hire any brain surgeons. It’s where the company is putting it’s priorities.

If people remember, Server lag was in a kitten good spot at the beginning of 2015. Then they added the Stability change in Mid-March and the servers went to hell. It took about a year to get into a better place, and I’d say another 6 months before it was not as noticable. Priorities.

It’s also a matter of different departments communicating and the lack of test servers. When they introduced DBL, the central event crashed out many players from the game and made anyone still in the game experience it through molasses.

My gripe:

What kittenes me off is that they can make 5 huge, complex, maps for HoT and now 5 even bigger maps for this expansion, but they can’t make new maps on a regular basis for WvW. Yes, DBL was not that great when it came out. They pretty much didn’t listen to the beta testers, but it was too late at that point. Lets also not forget all the new raid content. Massive, massive updates to pve, but jack for WvW.

Anything WvW does get, usually ends up being much later than any other game mode.
Reward tracks, legendary backpacks, ascended rewards vendors. WvW has been getting everything last.

I am aware of all the things that HAVE been done for WvW, and there have been a lot of good changes and additions. But most of this is just really late. All of this just shows how few human resources are in this department.

I haven’t even logged in yet, but I’m sick of the complaints about scouting. If you really are scouting, then you should be in a squad and get participation sharing. You literally don’t have to do anything and you get participation. If you don’t want to join a squad, and don’t want participation because you want to flip camps/sentries, then you’re not scouting. If you don’t want to join a squad, really scout, get the squad participation, then you’re just not even being a team player. There’s a big difference between actually scouting an roaming.

You don’t have to craft anything. Buy the Tier 2 exotic. It also unlocks the sublime (T3) which is ascended and requires no crafting.

PierPiero.9142:

There is a huge different u forgot. PVP is balanced. Every people has access to the same stats … no food , no ascended .. nothing. It is a balance fight 5 vs 5 and you start with the same tools as your opponents … wvw is a mess where there are a lot of unbalanced builds. Someone who buy this game now, after the starting matches of pvp ( rank 20 , if i remember right ) can then go to ranked and tournament and have the same instruments of other people …. for wvw it is not the same … there are power warrior for example in wvw really strong… not unkillable but really hard to take down … in spvp it is completely another story … if u make great damage you also eat great damage …

Sorry, gotta call BS on this. Balance is an illusion. A purely balanced game would have everyone playing the same class with the same stats. Once you start introducing different stats and builds, then balance goes out the window. The best they can do is try to keep any OP builds from existing.

The other reason balance is BS is because it doesn’t prevent stupid from occurring. Someone could be running bad traits, bad weapons, bad whatever. So, it’s impossible to balance against that.

And there are still OP builds that exist to this day. For example, I ran to cap a point. No one there, ran into condi thief traps, and died in 2 seconds. Burn guards are also op with their initial hit of @20 stacks of burning. Stunlock warriors are also pretty bad. PvP is not balanced and never will be unless everyone plays the same class/stats/traits.

Seriously? This is the so much of a worry for you, you feel the need to post? It’s a non-issue. Common.

Is anyone contributing anything new in this thread? Common. I’ve seen the same arguments over and over again. Let this die.

I’m not a big pvper. I’ve played only one night so far in this new season. I hopped into the forum to see what the news is about recent changes and the season. I can say I’ve already seen some of this happening after playing just one night.

What a pain in the ass doing all this is. I mean, you gotta be a serious looser to waste so much time and effort doing this sort of stuff. I don’t get why people don’t just play and have fun. Trying to game the system is not the game, but unfortunately there are many folks out there who do see that as the game. I’m sure they’ll make great accountants one day. Loosers.

The amount of time it takes you guys to write all this crap, you could have gained a few ranks. Tickets are more of a time gate and grind issue than rank.