Guild Wars 2

Honed Axe and Empathic Bond should be swapped. It is silly having two condi clears in the same tier. Empathic Bond makes more sense in the Beastmaster line because it depends on the pet. Honed Axe is not a good trait, ferocity doesn’t really fit a weapon that has limited power scaling. If something else like condi duration (stacking buff?) was added, and then it could be combined with the increased condi damage from the offhand trait for a bit more synergy than currently.

Shared Anguish should move in place of Two-handed Training, which moves to Skirmishing instead of Strider’s Defense. Shared Anguish just makes more sense in Beastmastery. Choice of masters in Skirmishing is lacking, either Spotter for power, or Hidden Barbs for condi.

Strider’s Defense is a bad trait design. If it went to Wilderness Survival it could be reworked as protection against stuns, rangers used to have two traits to deal with stuns. It could be replaced by bringing back Hide in Plain Sight, or get new functionality like getting Whirling Defense effect (shorter duration) when stunned (the cd could be affected by Honed Axe in the grandmaster slot).

I can’t understand why they made it a corruption instead of a spectral skill. They had to change CC to fit either of those motifs, adding a self-inflicted condition for corruption or something like reducing the healing and giving 1% LF per condition removed to fit a spectral skill as suggested.

It was disappointing that mimic lost the block, probably to add a block skill to the shield. It would be neat if the 4 sec block was returned and if the toggle skill added up all the damage blocked then did 20% of the damage to 5 targets.

Signet of Midnight could make a smoke field around the mesmer when activated, so there is a slight synergy between getting to combo for stealth, the boon duration and the boons from PU.

Taunt makes sense to me, it would mean that opponents couldn’t ignore the phantasm and would have to destroy it or be forced to stop attacking the mesmer for a short time, which the current skill design does not. Even 1s of taunt would be effective, 2s would be strong. If the phantasm was stationary and only closed the distance (range: 600) to the target when it was about to use it’s taunt it would be more obvious, and have a cast time so it could be outranged, so it would be counterable.

At the moment this GM looks weak, instead it should give 1/2s or 3/4s evade on both Gravedigger and Death’s Charge. Gravedigger has such a long wind-up time, a 1/2s evade would not cover half the cast, what is the necro doing holding that pose for so long. Death’s Charge has such an over-the-top twirling animation that it is surprising it doesn’t evade.

The stability on RS #3 is useful, but I’d preferred some kind of defiance bar. If the necro was invulnerable to CC effects while they had life-force, and each CC stopped took a chunk out of the life-force pool in a similar way to how the new defiance will work, that would be more interesting than getting more stacks of stability. There was supposed to be more interesting ways to interact with life-force. It could replace Unholy Sanctuary so it is available to base necros, and because of the proposed changes to Blood Magic it’ll probably mean other siphons would need to be rebalanced because of it.

Since both swords have a leap finisher, it would be nice if there was some bonus when the mesmer did leap combos, getting fury with a long duration would fit the trait-line.

Yeah with that retaliation logic, they should revisit chaos armour. Although the guaranteed protection with the new staff trait is a good change, if it applied to chaos armour from ethereal blasts/leaps a build could be made with sword/sword and glamours to maximise uptime of protection but the way the new trait is phrased it looks like the protection is acquired from the staff skill only.

A trait that gave the boons (shorter durations) of chaos armour even if not getting hit, in addition to the boon on hit. Would prefer that in place of PU and make a build that is centered around applying chaos armour to self and allies. So PU would become a support trait than a selfish one.

Another possible change, what if chaos armour converted a condition on the mesmer into a boon every sec, and convert an enemies boon into a condition whenever an enemy hits the mesmer, possibly making it more of a deterrent and giving mesmers another condi removal option.

Would like to see chaos armour being more central to a mesmer build in some way.

Menaka.5092:

One interesting note about GS trait is that the cooldown reduction now only works when you’re actively using the weapon and won’t apply when you switch to your other set.

Good point. I see that as a negative though, and an argument why flat 20% reduction can be better, it promotes weapon swapping and not staying with a weapon (/staying in stealth) set to maximise the benefit of a weapon trait.

Although the GS counter suggestion would have that same problem unless the counter stayed when swapping weapons but would only increment with GS skills or even remove the GS requirement and have it affect all weapons but it would benefit GS more with the multiple hits of Spatial Surge/other AoE GS skills build the counter more rapidly.

Surprised that these survived the cull, and that they are not more interesting than before, even Greatsword Training is now a GM and still only gives +100 power, the cooldown reducing portion could be good but it is promoting just spamming Spatial Surge. Would prefer the flat 20% reduction and have the traits reworked to be more interesting and augmenting an aspect of each weapon.

Duelist Discipline is a nice rework. Warden’s Feedback was always good, and is unchanged. The torch trait is better now it is moved to Illusions, but would be further improved by lowering the baseline cooldowns, 25s for The Prestige and 20s for phantasm, and have the phantasm apply fury instead of retaliation.

Sword is unchanged and it really does need to be changed, what it should do is a boost when both swords are equiped. One thing that dual swords does is 2 (3? your illusions get the fury too?) leap finishers, so giving fury for performing a leap combo. With dual swords it should give a good uptime of fury, and fits the ‘precision’ line.

What I’d like for staff is not to do with Chaos Armour (although a Chaos Armour build would be nice: Replace Prismatic Understanding with Chaos Armour (on allies and mesmer, from blasts in ethereal fields) gives boons every second in addition to those when being hit, and Temporal Enchanter gives 2 sec of Chaos Armour instead of the superspeed), instead if the phantasm could be traited to hit one or two additional targets that would be a nice boost to power builds using staff, benefitting most from reduced cooldowns.

Scepter, besides have the animations cleaned up, and while the additional torment damage is nice, it should really be added to Maim the Disillusioned. Malicious Sorcery should bring back at least one trait that applies conditions on clone death, including replacing clones, weakness/cripple would be good but just blind would be nice as well, which would then synergize with Blinding Befuddlement (why this is a GM trait and mesmers will have even less blinds than before?). Clone death should be exclusive to scepter clones, it gives the weapon some much needed defense if it was cripple/blind/weakness.

Greatsword is a tricky one to get a good trait idea. What it does is lots of little hits against multiple targets, while reducing the cooldown (does Spatial Surge reduce the CD by 2% per hit or skill use?) I don’t like the playstyle it promotes. One idea for baseline GS is that instead of the more damage the further away the target is, the damage is increase by how many targets the beam passes through. In addition the trait should give the mesmer a counter on the buff bar, every time a target is hit it increments the counter, when it reaches 15 it spawns a clone beside the mesmer. This would reward maximising the number of targets that Spatial Surge/Mind Stab with each use, and mean less reliance on DE.

Spite

• Has perhaps one too many traits that apply vulnerability, what about replacing one with something that takes advantage of vulnerability stacking, replace Death Shiver. It would be nice to have an ally bonus e.g. whenever you apply more than 25 stacks, you give allies a boon, fury or might or quickness with an appropiate icd.

• Spiteful Spirit needs something else to be worthwhile, since it removes boons, a bonus to all boon removal would be nice, and have nice synergy with Chill of Death/Focus 5.

• I don’t like that the minor traits all have a different threshold, why not pick just 50%, so all the minor and major traits in Spite are consistent.

• Signet Mastery needs to give more might, another 2 stacks, and lower cooldowns on signets to be worthwhile.

• The cooldown reduction on axe training is a bit gimicky, while it is more interesting than a flat cooldown, would prefer the flat 20%, that goes for all the Mesmer traits as well.

Curses

• As others have said and bears repeating, needs more traits for power necros including a grandmaster.

• I liked the synergy between Signet of Spite and the damage boost from Target the Weak, maybe the old effect could be made a grandmaster and Terror moved in place of Reaper’s Prescision. Else Reaper’s Prescision could be swapped with Terror and greatly buffed, 4% life force 50% on crits.

• Don’t prefer CPC and Enfeebling Blood on traits, especially with Enfeebling Blood having a 25 sec CD, and CPC applying weakness to necro.

Death Magic

• Needs lots of work.

• Would prefer if Deadly Strength was the grandmaster minor and Beyond the Veil merged with Flesh of the Master in place of the extra toughness and remove that caveat from the game.

• Is there ever a chance that we get a horde of jagged horrors for a grandmaster, that can be replenished more easily like minion masters from GW1, remove the icd from Death Nova.

• This trait line is completely selfish, Unholy Santuary should aid allies while the necro is in DS. Add another master trait that is more supportive, and/or increases the defenses of the necro.

Blood Magic

• Also needs lots of work, more than Death Magic. None of the traits are appealing.

• Revive speed bonuses of 10% are too low, that goes for all professions, should 20%. Why are necros not the best at rezzing, it is a completely missed opportunity.

• Life siphoning is never going to be worthwhile until it heals the necro hp while in DS.

• Unholy Martyr is not a good GM, neither is Deathly Invigoration for that matter unless the numbers are spectacular. The life force gain of Unholy Matyr should be added baseline to Plague Signet. Then Unholy Martyr replaced with a trait that allows passive effects of signets to persist in DS.

Soul Reaping

• Seems to be fine.

Most of the traits are good choice, the two issues I’d have is that ‘lowers recharge on water skills’ is combined with the wrong trait, it could possibly be it’s own adept trait instead of ‘Stop, Drop and Roll’, which is still not a great choice, or a better fit would be to add it to ‘Cleansing Wave’. If some kind of endurance regen was added to ‘Stop, Drop and Roll’, increased endurance regen if movement is impaired (i.e. crippled, chilled, immobilized, slowed), it could be made a viable choice, I doubt arcana will keep all the endurance traits so adding one to water would be nice.

I wished they made Arcane Thievery slightly better, 5 boons/condis swapped, that’s a unique functionality, and then gave Mimic something different. The previous functionality was redundant with Distortion/Mirror, so rather than put it back the way it was, would rather a new function. So look no further than GW1 for inspiration:

Mimic: Copy the last skill your target used.
Arcane Echo/Echo: Copy one of your own skills.
Arcane Thievery/Larceny: Disable a random skill of target, gain that skill.
Simple Thievery: interrupt a skill, gain that skill.
Symbols of Inspiration: Copy the elite skill of target foe.

Could’ve tried sending a ticket to support asking for a refund of your gems if you actually bought the stones from the store rather than earn from map completion.

It kind of defeats the purpose of taking an account-bound resource with no value that you want to be rid of, and then get soulbound/accountbound items back that can’t be salvaged or sold, only destroyed which is what could have been done with the bloodstone dust in the first place.

Building on the current, informal ‘taxi’ system in the Open World LFG, could squads be added to this and allow for more organisation.

A commander could put an ad in the Open World section of LFG, and then players can join their squad rather than their party, and then join in on the commander to get to their instance.

That’s the first step, going a step further, a squad in PvE is limited to 20 (and 10 in pavillion) and a commander can reserve that number of slots for their squad. I think 20 is the right number for most content, small enough to be given a specific task and not too large so up to 6 squad slots are available on each map, 6 * 20 leaves about 30 places excess.

Add a new section to the LFG, just below Open World, call it ‘Local’, and this shows the up to 6 squads that have claimed a slot, with the name of the commander, their guild tag, and the numbers in their squad. The number of slots available would change dynamically depending on how full a server gets, but 6 is the maximum. When slots are claimed by a squad, the only way players can claim a spot in a squad, is either through the ‘Local’ section (i.e. they are on the same map) or if the commander advertises their squad across the region (Open World section).

It should be possible to mark squads as private too, they would still show up in the ‘Local’ section, but could not be joined except by players of the same guild as the commander.

In the ‘Local’ section there would be a new bit of UI that only commanders could see, it would allow them to move to a map by choosing if they want 1, 2, … or 6 squad slots available, if none is available a new instance is created.

How it would work in practice: A commander with up to 5 second-in-commands in their squad would travel to a map, and check in the ‘Local’ section how many slots are available. If there is enough the commanders can split up and claim the slots, making them private or open, advertising in Open World or not. If there is not enough slots, the lead commander clicks the button ‘take me to a map instance with enough room for 1, 2, … or 6 squads available’. The commanders reach the new instance and have a grace period of 2 minutes, where the megaserver doesn’t add any random players. There is another limit of 10 minutes from joining a map instance to fill 15/20 of the places, if the quota is not met, the reserved places are lost. If a commander fails to meet the quota, they are prevented from reserving a slot for a time (24 hours or more), with some punishment for continued abuses. Another commander can claim that newly freed-up slot if there are 20 spots still available on the map, there is always a maximum of 6 squad slots appearing in ‘Local’. If a player that joins a squad and then leaves, there is the possibility they are booted from the map if the instance is otherwise full, or remove the squad from the ‘Local’ list, but allow the commander to relist if there is enough spots left in the map instance.

Likely a lot easier on paper, but it would be great to see the squad system developed and make it a workable solution for large-scale content.

For both PvE and PvP, the transmutation system is a big obstacle to an appearance save system, at the moment you can’t change appearance independent of stats. This should be revamped first, copy the system in Rift/Lotro, keep t-stones for weapons only, then give and/or sell for gems multiple appearance tabs that saves an appearance for free and can be swapped independently of build. That still means you are going to be stuck with an appearance attached to each weapon, and all weapons still need to be kept in your bags. Unless of course you can come up with a smarter system that checks what weapon is slotted and assigns an appearance that a player previously chose to it. In PvP this could work differently, a player could select the weapon slot and get a list of all possible weapons, regardless if these are in their inventory or not, the appearance could be over-written by a PvP only appearance tab.

Ascended gear is another place where it becomes trickier than it shouls. If exotic was still the highest rarity I don’t think many would mind if the build system only dealt with level 80 exotics. And then there is the account-bound feature of ascended. Some changes to ascended I think will make the task easier:

When a piece of ascended gear is acquired, it unlocks the stat combination and armour weight and slot across the account e.g. acquiring a berserker heavy glove lets all heavy armour wearers select berserker stats for their ascended gloves, and then every time another heavy glove with different stats is acquired the increases the options that can be selected. That’s of course if they want to keep the special quality that ascended gear is always account-bound, don’t see how shuffling ascended gear around characters can be made work with a build save system easily.

Runes and sigils are more problematic, the PvP build system has a work-around (one item for 6 runes, not slotted into armour) but it would be more difficult for PvE/WvW, the build system could ignore them completely but that defeats the purpose really. The upgrade components could be crafted into an ascended version, same stats but ascended rarity, and then slotted into an ascended armour piece, which permanently unlocks that upgrade component for that equipment slot. Or the whole upgrade system could be changed to match PvP more closely.

Now that leads to a situation where you can click an ascended item you have equipped and then be able to select any stat combos and upgrade components that are unlocked on the account. Include some of the ‘fill down’ buttons that the online builders have, and then add a save button to save the current set-up, with an option to save both equipment and traits or just equipment. Exotic gear would stay the same way, and would be potentially easier to manage since it is character bound.

The ideal situation is one where you can swap equipment, traits and appearance independently of each other, and without your bags filling up with various equipment. I think if the appearance system was looked at first, it would make the task much more easier, plenty of other shortcuts to consider like make back items and aquabreathers cosmetic only.

Just throwing out an idea of a potential way to make gameplay involving spirits more interesting.

One change I’d like to see regardless is that as well as a buff on the player showing when the effect is available that the spirit lights up and the corresponding icon appears above the spirit. It should help visibility and less having to look at the buff-bar.

In GW1 spirits/nature rituals had a neat mechanic of affecting all targets in range (allies and enemies), it was something to build around but usually a bit gimmicky. Hilariously powerful effects like EoE are off the tables, but if the spirits in GW2 were redesigned to respond to either an action from the enemy or the ranger/ally that could be interesting.

For example, with Sun Spirit if every 10 secs the spirit could either a) if an enemy applies burning to the ranger or an ally, the burning effect applied is copied (not removed) back to the enemy OR b) if the ranger or an ally applies burning to an enemy the spirit copies the burning to nearby enemies. Give the spirit a cast time (1s) for either effect so there is time to cleanse the burning or interrupt the spirit or dodge or waste the effect with a short duration burn, so it is a more powerful effect but can be avoided.

For other spirits it is important that the effects trigger on different actions to make spirits more interesting, as well as a unique ‘copy’ mechanic:

Frost Spirit: Copies ‘chill’ back at an enemy, or applies frost aura (the version with 10% damage reduction) to an ally that gets crippled/immobilised.
Stone Spirit: Copies ‘stability’ to an ally when applied by an enemy, or applies ‘protection’ when an ally is stunned or knocked down.
Storm Spirit: Copies ‘fury’ to an ally when applied by an enemy, or casts ‘swiftness’ on an ally when they crits a target.
Water Spirit: Copies ‘regeneration’ to an ally when applied by an enemy, or when an ally dodges heal nearby allies at end of dodge roll.

Frost Spirits damage increase should be a baseline function of all spirits or an adept in nature magic, whenever a spirits triggered effect is used nearby allies get the damage boost, Fire/Storm/Water should be easiest to trigger.

One additional mechanic is that while a spirit is ready to trigger it’s effect and the activated skill is used, then this consumes the triggerable effect as well as boosting the activated effect e.g. solar flare on the sun spirit gets an additional pulse of blind. So there is more choices to make when using spirits.

If it was further nerfed to:

Remove 4th bonus confusion proc, move the +20% confusion duration bonus in it’s place. Reduce the duration of the 6th bonus confusion to 4 secs.

I’d still think it was a strong runeset to slot. I thought confusion was always meant to be a short duration, high impact condition, and not giving some classes (with high condi duration, I’m hoping the +40% food was taken a look at) the opportunity to have 5 stacks up on a target almost permanently.

Renewing Blast needs to have something else to make it relevant, I’d suggest giving the necro 1s of vigour or 5 endurance for each ally that is hit by the lifeblast.

Since necros have access to the most life-steals I’d really like if they could be made work in DS, what is the point of all the lifestealing traits in Blood Magic if they are nullified by the class mechanic, two options:

1) Life-steals heal your health pool even when the necro is in DS.
2) Life-steals heal your health when out of DS, and add to your life-force when in DS (your suggestion #2).

I don’t mind that Unholy Santuary is ‘Regeneration in DS’, but they need to revaluate what is allowed and disallowed by DS (signet passives!).

Venus In Furs.9756:

Muchacho.2390:

Venus In Furs.9756:

Hey all, in case anyone else raised this question, I was informed by Tyler Chapman (a.k.a. Powerr) yesterday that the Plague Signet passive does not proc the 5% life force gain from Unholy Martyr. Just thought I would share this. Looking forward to the new traits, let’s brew some builds.

Why should it does that in the first place? I mean signets only work outside of ds and unholy martyr is ds exclusive.

D’oh! You’re correct. Silly thing is that I realized this soon after I asked the question, too. Pay me no mind!

Well I’m glad you asked Powerr about it because it seems like an obvious synergy to me, hopefully it will be passed along to devs and reconsidered. It would make the trait more useful, triggering both while in DS and outside of it and give Plague Signet a bit of a buff. It is so odd having a trait that replicates the passive of Plague Signet, all because signet passives don’t work in DS. Now if one of the new grandmastes was ‘your signet passives work in DS’ that would be a nice trait.

I can’t see the potential combination of Dhuumfire and Parasitic Contagion being that strong. The new Dhummfire you need to get a LB to hit and then to spread the burning to multiple targets for health gain to be noticeable. Plus you’d need to give up Master of Terror for a 30/30/x/x/x build.

Rym.1469:

As it stands now, no Necro Signet works in DS.

I’m all after your proposal. That change, especially with Dark Path buffing LB and corrupting 2 conditions would not only be very good PvP option for Powermancers, but would also make Path of Modnight more attractive when Conditionmancer would be gratified by spreading his conditions using Corruption skills which are alo in Curse line.

Ah you’re right about signets, though I wish it was different, if Signet of Vampirism passive worked in DS that would be a little too OPed I think but it would be a big buff for that heal and solve all necros sustain problems in one change, maybe a little too well.

If the new blood magic GM trait was split in two, you take one condition from an ally every 3 secs in DS, and a second part where you gain life-force whenever you draw a condition (incl. signet, while in DS with trait, underwater DS 4 and any other skill added in the future that ‘draws conditions’). They need to add more synergies to make traits more interesting, especially grandmasters.

For Dath Path I was shooting for just the +50% damage on LB, but adding both the corrupt boon and the damage boost should make it a versatile trait for both power and condimancers or hybrid, except it might be too strong and especially when combined with Chill of Death. Still, I’d really like some burst for a power mancer.

Having to go into Spite to get sustain for a condi build doesn’t open up builds in the least, it maintains the 30/20/x/x/x status quo. If the sustain was in Curses, and with the change to Dhuumfire making it not as essential as before, and hopefully at least one runeset giving a good proportion of condi duration (20 – 25% for all 6 runes!), this swap would give more options to condimancers.

If the new Dark Path trait should do anything, it should give a 50% damage bonus to the necros next Life Blast or two. Dark Path moves the necro to the target, Life Blast does bonus damage the nearer the target, so why not boost it further and give the necro some burst if they land the Dark Path.

I’m hoping that the new blood magic trait works with Plague Signet. It sounds like the trait and the passive effect of the signet work exactly the same, so why not both trigger the life force gain effect if two conditions were transferred. It is an obvious synergy, and Plague Signet needs a slight boost.

^Yeah it’s kinda like that but would require a target. I’d prefer the animations for the way Marjory does it, more subtle and less flashy, maybe there is a video of it somewhere…

During the Tower of Nightmares Marjory had a unique skill, where she dived head first into the ground and appeared behind the target, it looked great and fits the necro theme and really like it to be added to the necro class in some way. It would make a great replacement for the ‘dark path’ that necros currently have. With a short build-up , diving or melting or disappearing in a puff of shadows (the animation is already done for humans), instantly breaking targeting that is on the necro, teleporting behind the target, applying the chill/bleeds, and rising/jumping out of the ground (many mobs respawn with that kind of animation). Being more reliable and taking a shorter length of time than the homing projectile now, and quickly interrupting any focus on the necro/causing skills that are in transit to miss.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Rework ‘Guard’

Proposal Functionality

Guard is a poorly designed skill, and doesn’t work so well. The ranger can define a ‘safe spot’ but if they move, the location is cancelled. The pet will attack despite being on ‘passive’.

How I think it should work: The ranger casts a targetted AoE on the ground, marking the ‘safe spot’, the pet will gain 3 sec prot/3 sec aegis every 3 secs that they remain in the ‘safe spot’. They won’t attack unless commanded with F1 or F2. When the pet is attacking and the ranger hits F3, the pet will evade/shadowstep/leap/swoop etc to the ‘safe spot’, this can happpen once every 10 secs, else the pet will just run to the ‘safe spot’. The ‘safe spot’ is not removed until ‘guard’ is recast.

Long term: I think that ‘Sic ’em’ and ‘Protect Me’ should be reworked to give greater control over the pet. Right now, there are three pet skills under AI control, if these were divied up into an ‘aggressive’ and a ‘defensive’ skill plus ‘auto-attack’, and when the ranger used ‘Sic ’em’ the pet uses the agressive skill (e.g canine leap), and ‘Protect Me’ the pet uses the defensive skill (e.g. Moa heal). If neither skill is slotted the AI will use the skills as normal, but if either or both of the two shouts are slotted then the skills are not used randomly by the AI and the ranger gets greater control over what the pet is doing. It would be adding optional complexity to the class, without being required for all rangers to have that extra control.

Cooldown on Search and Rescue greatly lowered. What is the pet doing but rezzing at half the speed which every player can do by running up to a downed ally and pressing revive. It can’t be used as a self-rez. It’s not worth giving up a slot for in it’s current form.

The simplest change for Healing Signet active is to make it a strong Heal over Time for several seconds (1200 per sec for 5 sec?), adjust the numbers so it isn’t always the right decision to leave it on passive.

Just some suggestions on rune/sigil redesign, I’m hoping that combos will be worked into the redesign, e.g. instead of all the on-hit, on-crit, getting hit by enemies or weapon-swap, that there is some bonuses that trigger or have a chance to trigger on using a particular finisher, or on using one particular combo like the blasts in fire fields giving fury trait for eles, or boosting the effectivness of your combos. Whirls in particular could be boosted in this way.

Since some of the profession have some specialities, rather than trying to make every rune set desirable to every profession, it would be interesting if some rune sets were better on some classes than others, e.g. rune of vampirism being better for necros, since they have more access to life-steals through traits, rune of vampirism could give a life-steal at a low set bonus, but give interesting procs when life steals are applied at the higher set bonuses, giving one stack of might when a lifesteal is used or a chance of applying weakness (10%) to a target when they are hit with a life-steal. Hopefully, there is an effort to take some interesting builds that don’t work so well now and boost them with runes/sigils.

One way to do secondary professions is to create a skillset of 4-6 skills that are representative of each profession, but weaker in power than the primary profession like racial skills, and then let any character unlock them by completing a themed challenge.

When the queen’s jubilee returns, introduce a skillset that work in a similar fashion to some of the skills used by the bosses in the gaunlet, and to unlock all the skills in this skillset the player must beat certain bosses that use a particular skill.

Develop Modus Sceleris (remember those guys!), make them solo challenges that a player must pay skillpoints to challenge, repeated attempts cost more skillpoints, beating all the fights reward a player with an unique, flavorful profession skill(s) e.g. glue turret for engineers, rat swarm for necros.

There should be a variety of ways to get the skills, with different stories associated with them, just spending skillpoints or a signet of capture or a faction grind like GW1 are not that interesting.

Changes that should make for better horizontal progression, i.e. skill should save time spent:

1) Remove agony, or else rework it to be completely avoidable, make it a hate magnet. Remove agony resist completely, grind should never take the place of skill.

2) Introduce a range of runes/sigils that give bonuses specific to certain areas of the game e.g. WvW or Fractal themed and that can be only be placed in ascended armour and weapons, but are not more powerful than other runes/sigils. Players can then differentiate themselves, along the lines of generalist (exotic gear and normal runes/sigils), WvW player (ascended gear with WvW runes/sigils) or Fractal player (ascended gear with fractal runes/sigils).

3) Remove stats from back items so appearance can be changed more easily. Same could be done with aqua breathers. Useless getting a load of back items and not being able to swap them.

4) Rework ascended items so they have the same stats as exotic, but act as account-wide unlocks. Once an ascended item is obtained, any number of copies of it can be accessed on one character or on alts. This is an example of horizontal progression, the longer the game is played, the more options accessible to the player and can be changed between at the click of a button.

5) Or how about adding solo bosses around the world (in small instances), in fractals or dungeons, that can be challenged and if you defeat them you get to unlock a new stat set for your ascended gear. It would be something similar to how elites were captured in GW1. Every time a new stat set is added, a new boss is added too. Maybe theme each challenge to the stat set that will be unlocked. It could be further split by weapon type and armour slot, e.g. boss A drops soldier’s gloves, boss B drops soldier’s helm. Add some distinct cosmetics to it too.

6) Copy the cosmetic system from Rift. Or Lotro. Or TSW. This should have been priority number one after launch, a year later and still not on the horizon.

7) Add fractal armour with exotic stats, but which can be upgraded in appearance not stats as the player gets higher in fractals. Not just shiny effects, but if the armour appearance started off as basic and that everyone could get at ~level 20, then adding more dye channels, more detail and decoration and layers, more effects as the player progressed that would be horizontal progression.

8) Having the new heal skill costing 25 skillpoints is too much, 8-10 would be more appropriate. If players have too many skillpoints, reduce the drop rate of scrolls or add more consumables that require them. Future utility skills should cost the same.

9) The rank abilities in WvW need to be rebalanced so there is more distinction between characters. The two stacking buffs need to be neutered or else that will be the goal for every WvW player. If everyone aims to have the same setup that is a failure of a horizontal progression system.

Ascended gear needs an USP, and being able to change stats and appearance easily is much preferable than those small stat increases.

How about adding solo bosses around the world (or in small instances) that can be challenged and if you defeat them you get to unlock a new stat set for your ascended gear. It would be something similar to how elites were captured in GW1. Every time a new stat set is added, a new boss is added too. Maybe theme each challenge to the stat set that will be unlocked.

Orr Temples.

How about revamping the rewards here. At the moment the armour stats are all scattered, why not have the same pattern as the trinkets:

Balthazar – Cavalier
Lyssa – Magi (this is an useless stat set to be honest, it can never be the main focus of a armour set, instead Pow/Vit/Heal?)
Dwayna – Rabid (don’t know how Dwayna ended up with Rabid, it doesn’t fit her theme)
Melandru – Dire (there should really be both dire trinkets and armour here)
Grenth – Soldiers
Arah – Assassins (or a new stat set based on Pow/Pre/Vit)

Each rune could be purchaseable separately for karma.
Add each corresponding insignia so it is easier to get these to craft the ascended armour, purchaseable with karma.

Dragonite ore could be purchasable too for karma.

Or add ascended armour with corresponding stats for a large karma cost and/or dragonite ore cost. So players can buy just by farming both currencies instead of having to craft the armour.

I think it would be a good idea to let ascended crafting raw materials to be used as a currency if a player has no interest in crafting. e.g. buying Sunless weapons for dragonite ingots (7-10) as the the only required currency, using the mystic forge to allow conversion of ore into ingots.

Allowing raw materials to be converted one to the other would be something to consider, besides rebalancing their acquistion from different areas of the game. Turning 10 bloodstone bricks into 3 – 6 of the other ascended materials for example.

VOLKON.1290:

I wasn’t clear, sorry ‘bout that. I just meant as a means to acquire new skills. Maybe a boss drops a ranger skill book that contains one of n new skills. No guarantee that you’ll get the one you want, or even for the profession you want, but it would be a different way to open skills up for your characters. If you get one for a profession you don’t have, either sell it or save it for later. Or maybe toss four in the Mystic Forge for a random book.

Having skill tomes that can unlock any skill regardless of points would help if they are going to keep the high costs of 25+. They could be passed on or sold to new players entering the game, help them catch up.

Thighum.7295:

*Vertizontal Progression – taking the best from both worlds.

-Agony resistance is the primary form of stat progression, and starts being used in future maps, helping ANET gate the content a little bit.

…

New skills should come from achievements gain by killing a certain boss (Who better be using said new skill in a very flashy way to show it off! ./remembers signet of capture).

No agony outside fractals, mobs such as karka and reef drakes are challenging enough without having to cause agony too. No gated content in the open world.

They could have given the anti-toxin spray to everyone who completed the ‘nightmare within’ meta, and for players who didn’t, allow for it to be bought as it is now.

Ascended gear and agony resist are poor vertical progression systems. Ascended is an unnecceasary stat increase that is earned not for completing challenging content but for time spent in game, which is another knock to the original manifesto. This is disrespectful to many players, myself included, instead of providing a fun and satisfying challenge to keep players playing, all that is being offered is a time-sink for a stat increase. I will not be wasting my time on acquiring ascended armour or weapons, and being forced to play the game a certain way i.e. going around with a list of daily chores, it not what I wanted from the game.

Agony resist should be removed, there is good reason that both Turbine and Blizzard stopped inflicting these types of resist mechanics on their playerbases, well before GW2 was released.

The cosmetic system in this game is woefully lacking. How is the game supposed to be about cosmetic rewards, when the system doesn’t let players change their appearance easily and independent of stats? Adding the new ascended armour and then being stuck with those appearances unless transmutation stones are used was a lazy and cheap decision.

Suggestions:
1) Remove agony, or else rework it to be completely avoidable, make it a hate magnet. Remove agony resist completely.

2) Remove stats from back items so appearance can be changed more easily. Same could be done with aqua breathers.

3) Rework ascended items so they have the same stats as exotic, but act as account-wide unlocks. Once an ascended item is obtained, any number of copies of it can be accessed on one character or on alts. This is an example of horizontal progression, the longer the game is played, the more options accessible to the player and can be changed between at the click of a button.

4) Copy the cosmetic system from Rift. Or Lotro. Or TSW. This should have been priority number one after launch, a year later and still not on the horizon.

5) Add fractal armour with exotic stats, but which can be upgraded in appearance not stats as the player gets higher in fractals. Not just shiny effects, but if the armour appearance started off as basic and that everyone could get at ~level 20, then adding more dye channels, more detail and decoration and layers, more effects as the player progressed that would be horizontal progression.

6) Having the new heal skill costing 25 skillpoints is too much, 8-10 would be more appropriate. If players have too many skillpoints, reduce the drop rate of scrolls or add more consumables that require them.

7) The rank abilities in WvW need to be rebalanced so there is more distinction between characters. The two stacking buffs need to be neutered or else that will be the goal for every WvW player. If everyone aims to have the same setup that is a failure of a progression system.

8) Personal rank in fractals should go, players should get rewards on what they are capable of running instead of having to grind out the levels before hand. That would have solved the need to reset it for players above 30 previously, just remove it.

Plenty of lazy and unimaginative vertical progression was added, but we hardly saw any innovation in horizontal progression.

It might be an idea to consider separating Terror from condi builds, both could create strong builds on their own, giving more variety, and hopefully being able to more easily balance.

Terror moved to GM in Spite, and it’s damage based off power, either as a single packet of damage when the enemy is feared(so even if the fear is removed, the damage happens, thought that might be too evil) or DoT while feared as it is now. A 30/x/x/x/20 power build would leave 20 to spend, and with plenty of choice where to spend it.

Rename Dhuumfire and move it to GM curses, so now the necro has a choice there between burst condition or longer duration conditions. The way the trait works is not too fun, alternative suggestions(with no ICD):

1) Life Blast adds 1s of burning.
2) Crits on Life Blast add 2s of burning.
3) Hitting a target within 600 with Life Blast has a 100% chance to add burning, 50% chance at range greater than 600.

EDIT: Obviously to prevent Carrion from being OPed, the burn should trigger on crits, and it would mean 30 in Curses and 30 in Soul Reaping for +50% crit would be a nice build and break away from all condi builds being 30/30/… these days.

Condi specs need more reason to cast Life Blast. It would be fun to stack bleeds, then drop into DS to add burning and finish an opponent off. Using Life Blast as the source of burning is more counterable than how the trait currently works.

Remove Withering Precision and add a new master trait in Curses, something to do with fear, two suggestions whichever a necro needs more:
1) Fears add 2 stacks of torment for 2s (making up for changing Terror to a power based trait)
2) Fears add 7-8 sec of weakness (this would a good alternative to Weakening Shroud)

I think the most fun skill that would fit the name is to receive an illusionary weapon (i.e. bundle) that has the same weapon skills as what the target has equipped when the skill is cast on them. The mesmer can then use 1 skill from the bundle before it disappears (maybe two when traited with Chaos III). The skills the mesmer gets when used on NPCs could be predetermined by the devs, rather than leaving the mesmer to be able to cast any saved skill back at a vulnerable target, but most of humanoid NPCs could be given the same weapons that the player professions equip.

Echo is nice idea as well, but I’m thinking that is more an elite level of power, so Echo could very well be a future elite.

For scepter clones there is two problems with them, they are the worse clone for applying conditions (with Dueling 15 Sharper Images, they don’t attack often enough or with a chain of skills) and they don’t do anything special unlike other clones that copy skill 1 on their respective weapons.

The clones should cast the exact same sequence as the mesmer, when they cast the 3rd skill of the chain they destroy themselves and appear beside the target, skill activated every 8-10 secs.

That would really combine the three traits that cause conditions on clone death into a unique build for mesmers i.e. a build that is especially punishing to stationary targets and really make the scepter into something special.

Even without the traits, clones that automatically recreate at the target every 10 secs would have a benefit for a shatter heavy build, with timing shatters when most or all your clones recreate at the target, something for an opponent to watch out for.

…

For Mimic, I think the most fun skill that would fit the name is to receive an illusionary weapon (i.e. bundle) that has the same skills as what the target has equipped when the skill is cast on them. The mesmer can then use 1 skill from the bundle before it disappears (maybe two when traited with Chaos III). The skills the mesmer gets when used on NPCs could be predetermined by the devs, rather than leaving the mesmer to be able to cast any saved skill back at a vulnerable target, but most of humanoid NPCs could be given the same weapons that the player professions equip.

One idea for Kindled Zeal is that burning scales with power instead of condi dmg when traited. I wonder if it possible to do a change like that or would it just not work with the current system. It would make burning a strong source of damage for a guardian, 2000 power giving a burn of about 800 a tick, Kindled Zeal in it’s current form and even if they bumped the scaling to 50% would be about 3/4 that amount. It makes sense that guardians should get something special to boost burning when it is their only condition.

Guardian:

Kindled Zeal, needs a redesign to make 30 points in Zeal desirable. +50% to spirit weapons doesn’t scale with the guardian’s power. Right-Hand Strength is a better damage increasing trait than any of the GM traits in Zeal. One suggestion is that burning uses the guardian’s power stat instead of their condi dmg. It’s a good way to get around the problem of guardian’s only having one condition, and stacking condi dmg being useless to them.

Mesmer:

Protected Mantras, is poorly designed: the mesmer does nothing while channelling a mantra and this trait is so they don’t get beat up too badly while channelling in combat? Some kind of defensive aura that affect the mesmer and allies in a small radius would be better utility, maybe have different effects depending on the mantra being charged, this would make mantras more fun to play.

Confounding Suggestions, still won’t take it since most mesmer dazes are 1s (except pistol), even adding this new trait and runes of the mesmer and sigil of paralyzation that ends up being 1.5 -1.75s it might work nicely with Diversion and Imbued Diversion, on second thoughts that might make a mesmer shutdown build viable.

Thief:
Assassin’s Reward should be a trait to improve a thief’s sustain when they stay in a fight. If as the notes suggest Assassin’s Reward is going from 0.035 to 0.05, I think more is needed, especially for thieves without much healing power, e.g boost the base healing as well since it is going up to the GM tier.

Reanimator. The lower cooldown won’t make it much more desirable.

It has no synergy with the Death 15, since the minion doesn’t last long, and if you have no other minions Death 15 is also a waste for non-minion specs.

If Death 15 gave 2-3 sec of protection when a minion skill is used or when Reanimator triggers that would be a much better synergy.

Also it would be fun to get the GW1 minion horde back to some extent, if a master trait worked like this (so it is something that needs to be specced into): remove the ICD of Reanimator but only 3 jagged minions can be active at a time.

The change to necromancer’s Signet of Spite seems a bit odd, as if it is to shave sources of bleeds, but still leave intact the number of conditions applied.

I’d suggest replacing the 2 stack of bleed with 1 stack of torment, if the necro is using this signet with Target the Weak or with FoC on scepter, then they will likely have bleed already on their target, but changing to torment would be a slight buff while reducing sources of bleeds.

I was hoping Dhuumfire would be getting changed already, it is an oddly designed trait, an on-crit trait in a power tree, the simplest solution is to add 1s of burning to Life Blast, no ICD because it would take fearing an opponent to make them land, but each Life Blast could only apply burn once even if it pierced multiple targets.

To compensate for the increased ICD on Weakensing Shroud, which I’m guessing it is to cut AoE bleeds too but I’m worried about having less access to weakness then, Withering Prescision should be moved down a tier.

The goal should not be to get evenly populated servers, players have a preference how stacked they want their server to be and esoteric things like camaraderie, but efforts should be made to balance population score-wise. If a server can be successful despite population imbalanes they should be rewarded for it. To combat the effect of stacking, population imbalances and nightcapping, these would be my suggestions:

Primetime scoring
For each region a primtime of 16 hours should be determined, or have it based per server, or when servers are matched an averaged primetime is determined. During those 16 hours scoring is doubled or similarly modified. This should mitigate the effect of night-capping.

Population score modifier
There should be more granularity in the outmanned buff with several different tiers, outmanned I, outmanned II, … outmanned V etc. Having one of these buffs should give a modifier to score for the map that the outmanned buff is present, e.g. a 1.6x mod for outmanned III, so instead of getting 5 for a camp, the server gets 8. Outmanned buff at present is the time that most players log off, it is such a great way to get players to stop playing for the night.

Bloodlust as a comeback mechanic
It should benefit a server that is in second or third place more than first place. Third place should get +50 to stats per buff held, second place should get +30 per buff, and first place should get +10. Even if 1st decides it is not much of benefit stat-wise, it may be still worth it to keep the buff away from 3rd and also the +1 point per stomp per buff.

Remove Glicko/matchmaking and make leagues permanent
I don’t get this obsession with Glicko/matchmaking, it does no good for a small number of widely disparate teams, instead a permanent league system should be adopted and a new one starting up every 7 weeks. The scoring at the moment is meaningless, and having to loosen the matchmaking system and then ending up with stupid match-ups, make it pointless. A league system with relegation/promotion (e.g bottom two go down a league, top two go up a league) would be more interesting, even for the bottom teams fighting to avoid relegation. Tieing the score to the magnitude of the win is pointless too, a simple scoring of 2 for win, 1 for 2nd, 0 for 3rd, is much easier to understand, and allows for closer fought contests even with server disparity. (A scoreboard in-game is a must, there is no way to know how well your server is doing)

The ‘population’ reason for a permanent league system is that it allows paid transfer to be based on whichever league a server is in e.g. 0 to bronze league, 800 to silver league, 1800 to a gold league. With a relegation/promotion system, it could be that to transfer to the top two servers of bronze league costs 800 gems (same as silver, they should be promoted at the end of the league anyways), to transfer to bottom two of silver league costs 0 gems (they will be relegated). Hopefully this causes players to spread out among leagues, but not to choose only the two best from a league or those about to be promoted.

Pace of content is too fast
The two week cadence is too fast, especially when two or more disconnected stories are squeezed into one month. A story should unfold over a month or two, with small changes happened every so often, but the bulk of the story needs to stay around for more than two weeks. It is too much pressure to log in and get stuff done before it goes away.

Attempt more events like Southsun
Instead of the ancient karka appearing once, several attacks on Lion’s Arch could happen, and the ramifications of the attack stay around for days.

Needs more foreshadowing in the actual game world
The changes in Kessex Hills was well done, so all living stories if possible should have a lead in phase with clues as to what to expect.

Living Story achievements need to go
Replace the ‘story’ achievements with a new ‘storybook’ interface, handling the story and unique rewards for that phase.
Keep adding new dailies based on the Living Story, to keep things fresh and interesting, but enough of having to complete dailies to finish the meta, it is not fun or interesting.
Permanent content should have a separate achievement section like Tequatl and Aetherpath.
With those in place remove the living story category in the achievement panel, in order to downplay achievement ‘grind’.

More permanent content
The ratio of temporary to permanent additions is still not good.

Dynamic events are completely ignored.
The promises from just after launch with adding more events over time is completely neglected in favour of going for a more static story typical of other MMOs. It is disappointing that the LS moved the game to being more like other MMOs and neglecting what made GW2 unique in the first place. Scarletts Invasion is not any different from zone events in Rift. Disappointing.

3 runes of melandru + 3 runes of sunless would be nice for a WvW condi spec, trading some condi dmg for -20% condi duration.

Ok so more control of pet skills is considered too complicated, but what if it was optional.

If when you slotted Sic ’Em, that the pet stopped using one of it skills (an aggressive/burst skill e.g. maul, frenzied attack) automatically, and instead whenever the ranger clicks the Sic ’Em skill the pet uses that attack next.

It would mean redefining the pet skills so each would have a big hitting attack or a volley style attack with a cooldown of 20-25 secs. It would also be nice that most of these attacks would be a combo finisher e.g bears get a blast, canines/cats have leaps, drake/jellyfish have whirls.

There is a interesting trade-off involved, without Sic ‘Em slotted and leaving the pet to use the skill automatically they should use it every 20-25 sec, using Sic’ Em it would be under the control of the ranger but can only be used every 40/32 sec. So there is not a outright better choice.

Likewise for Protect Me, redefine the pet skills so each has a high cooldown (40 sec) defensive skill that combos when Protect Me is used.

The skills should be mostly AoE CC. Some skills such as Defy Pain for bears would already be a good fit, allowing both the ranger and pet being invulnerable without signet of stone and 30 in marksmanship, armourfish and devourers could also become invulnerable. Sharks have a fear, make it AoE. Jellyfish have an AoE persistent blind. Spiders could get a cone AoE that pulses an immobilise. Pigs get a charge that stuns targets in a line. Drakes get an AoE knockdown. Some other interesting functionalities such as a full condi transfer/cleanse would be nice too. Birds give AoE quickness for 2 sec. Moas have their big AoE heal.

Last pet shout is Guard, which is a really confused skill to be honest. The way I’d like it to work is that the ranger defines a safe spot for the pet, for some bosses that would be behind but out of PBAoE, or a spot that is out of line of sight. Mark the spot with a ‘refuge’ symbol on the ground, enemies can see it. The ranger can cancel the guard spot at any time with a toggle skill on the Guard slot, and then make a new guard location.

Whenever the ranger uses F3 and a guard spot is defined the pet will dodge, doesn’t need an animation just a 1-2 sec invulnerable frame, or maybe better a shadowstep, and move to the guard spot, which is what it does now, if not a bit unreliable and the guard spot seems to disappear if the ranger moves away. It would likely need an ICD of about 10-15 secs, if F3 is pressed with the ICD in effect, the pet will just move normally to the spot.

Whenever the pet is in the guard spot they get stealth and protection for 2 sec, pulsing every 2 or 3 sec. It could also be a heal or aggro drop, but that seems unnecessary (pets should get their aggro reduced across the board anyways).

I feel this is a good way to give a pet dodge, because you can define where the pet dodges, it is not always to the ranger’s location and they tend to run through enemies otherwise.

Pet shouts should be the skills you slot when you want to maximise control of the pet.

I feel the current system is more complicated and subject to RNG than it should be. I think more than gold (there will always be more mindless grinds to get it in PvE) or XP (this would be a nice addition) or gems, as a possible reward added to sPVP, a wardrobe system of unlocks and the ability to purchase the skins for use in PvE/WvW would be a desirable reward to many, myself included.

The first change is to allow a player to buy the skins directly in the PvP locker by spending glory, with some skins having a varying rank or achievement requirement. Players can right-click the skin they are interested in, then click ‘unlock’ and a dialog pops up saying how much glory the skin costs and the rank requirement. They can then purchase the skin if they have the funds. It should be a permanent unlock and the glory costs should reflect that, because trying to get two matching skins or to have the same skin on multiple character is not fun having to rely on RNG or playing a lot of games. Players can see exactly what they need to unlock each skin.

In the same way that badges of honor can be used to purchase single-use skins in WvW, players should be able to purchase single-use skins in sPvP too. It is likely best to do it via a new currency “shards” that are given for completing the daily (5 shards) and monthly (60 shards), and for competing in a tournament match (1 shard) or winning a tournament match (2 shards). With skins costing a set amount to buy e.g. 20 shards, or a scaling amount starting at say 10 shards and up.

-Remove all arcane materials, arcane converter, salvage kits, rank tokens, rank vendors, mystic forge, tournament chests, leaving just two currencies glory and shards, both going in the wallet.

-Rare drops ‘universal unlock token’ that lets a player unlock any skin for free regardless of glory and/or rank, and a ‘free skin purchase item’ that saves the player from spending shards to acquire a single-use skin.

-A vendor beside the PvP lockers to sell unidentified dyes and glory boosters for shards.

-There can be a banner at the top of the PVP lockers with something along the lines of: “Right-click to unlock a skin or purchase a single-use skin for use outside the mists”.

-Players can deposit a one-time use PvE reward, cash-shop items, e.g. Dragon Bash helm, and then make multiple copies of it via shards. There should be a PvE locker too, but it is much more convenient to develop it for PvP first when the the locker system is already in place.

Of course having unique skins say one for each champion ‘class’ deed that unlocks when the achievement is complete, and can be turned into a single-use skin for PvE via shards is where the system should eventually end up going.

It would end up being simpler and easier to understand than currently. Hopefully, it would lead to a situation when a player wants a dungeon skin and are faced with the choice of run all 3 paths of a dungeon for 2-3 days or compete in 20-30 tournament games, with winning games, completing daily/monthly decreasing the number of games needed, a lot would just stick to PvE, but many would take either of the two options depending on their mood, both options need to balanced against each other.

If the iMage did an AoE attack, and cleansing conflagration allowed one condition to be removed from up to 5 targets, that would be a nice addition to the class, I think mesmers could do with an AoE cleanse on a weapon skill, albeit traited in this case. At the moment the best you can expect is one condition being removed by the phantasm.

Probably the original idea of having the phantasm move towards the target and explode is not the best implementation, but I think its attack should be AoE and a blast to bring it in line with other phantasms. If like iSwordsman, when you cast the phantasm in a field you get the combo, but also when the phantasm does it’s attack the combo also applies to them, centered on them.

Also like iSwordsman, I think that iMage should stay at a distance, it’s attack would be it disappearing in a puff of smoke, and reappearing 3 secs later at the target and doing it’s attack (AoE damage, confusion, blast), before leaping away from the enemy again.

Besides lowering the cooldown on the skills, two things I think would help the weapon are:

1) Make the phantasm work like Iliadri’s visions, i.e. they are created and move towards the target before blowing up. They give confusion (5 stacks) to 5 targets caught in the blast radius (240?). It also does direct damage, and scales better with power, so it is more useable in power or condition damage builds. A 20 second recharge would be about right.

2) The phantasm should have the blast finisher instead of ‘the prestige’, because doing the combo in a damaging AoE removes the stealth e.g. Chaos Storm, which I’d have thought was an obvious combo, plus it comes more in line with other phantasms having a combo finisher. The delayed triggering of the combo with ‘the prestige’ isn’t that intuitive or reliable, with the phantasm being the blast finisher you could summon the phantasm on top of the mob if you were standing beside them.