Guild Wars 2

Here’s my super fun matchmaking experience. I’m not sure how these matches are happening, and for reference I hit the button to queue and 30 seconds later was pulled into this match.

I’ve been arguing for this since day one. I play all game modes (less WvW now, but played a lot of it at one point) and I’m sick and tired of the balance being the WORST aspect of this game. Most of it could be solved if they split it into at least two different forms of balance (PVE and PVP/WVW). They play very differently and classes ususally end up suffering in one game mode because of something that has nothing to do with that form of play. It is definitely a reason why each game mode has acceptable classes to play at a given time, and ones that everyone rages against when people use them.

This is my new favorite past time.

Aza.2105:

eleshazar.6902:

Really, I appreciate it that AA on guard is now better dps on at least 3 of our weapons than the skills that have cool downs. I thought guardian was a little too hard to play before. I really needed the decision to use True Shot taken away from me.

Guess we are back to press 1 guild wars. There’s a reason no one is playing guardian outside of the lower tiers. But by all means buff mesmer, ignore CS + moa, and let’s buff eles too.

Stop the crying. Guardian is fine. Traps are basically untouched and that’s where mostly all of guardians damage is coming from. How can you complain about being able to stack traps and potentially 100 to 0 a player?

Not to mention the extraordinary amount of block uptime guards have and invul.

The problem is that Anet just took the nerf hammer to the class without understanding that there really is no viable build for guard other than the questionable trapper one. I say that because that one is worth nothing against non newbie players. You can’t 100-0 a player who knows what they are doing because stunbreak (assuming you SoJ-ed into the traps) and dodge will avoid 100% of the damage of traps. What happened is that Anet made it more beneficial on another weapon to just stick with AA instead of the other skills. HW should have seen tweaks in the hold duration, not in the skill itself like it is now. It will never hit a player that has half a brain anymore.

It isn’t just that this one nerf destroyed a good class, it’s that this nerf hit a class that really couldn’t afford to lose anything else because it is already that bad in all game modes (has been in pvp for a LONG time).

Really, I appreciate it that AA on guard is now better dps on at least 3 of our weapons than the skills that have cool downs. I thought guardian was a little too hard to play before. I really needed the decision to use True Shot taken away from me.

Guess we are back to press 1 guild wars. There’s a reason no one is playing guardian outside of the lower tiers. But by all means buff mesmer, ignore CS + moa, and let’s buff eles too.

Very well done! Wouldn’t consider myself a metal fan, but I really liked this!

Evan Lesh.3295:

Players must be disconnected for 2 minutes (total) for it to register as an abandon.

Is there a way we could decrease that time? When a player leaves for 1 minute or more of a match that can easily decide a victory or a loss. When it is 5v5, every body really does make a difference. Maybe if it were 10v10 it would matter less, but here I’ve definitely lost games because someone was gone for ~1 minute ~1:30

DoctorDing.5890:

Legal challenge: not going to happen. Everyone is an armchair law expert. Most of them are wrong.

Refund: also not going to happen unless you bought the game very recently. Even then, good luck.

If you believe anything else then, frankly, you are dreaming.

Well I’m dating a lawyer (have helped him with his briefs, read plenty of his law books, and talked with him about this specifically etc), and you are semi-correct, semi-incorrect. There is sufficient grounds to file a suit in civil court against them for violation of tort law (aka not necessarily a crime, but someone suffered some ill as a result of the tortfeasor’s actions). That doesn’t meant that you are going to win, but someone could argue (as I pointed out in an earlier post) that they executed their end of the contract (paid $50) to legal detriment. AKA they took an action expecting the other party to fulfill their end of the bargain, and they did not. EVEN in cases where the understanding of the contract was incorrect by the party that acted, there are cases where the party that benefited from the actions of the detrimented party has to pay retribution. So you are wrong in saying that there is no basis for a legal claim.

The part that you are more correct in (sort of) is that it would make no sense to file this claim since Anet offers refunds. I highly doubt any court would offer punitive damages (especially seeing as the customer got access time to the game), so the most you would get is $50 (the suit would basically be symbolic and not financial) or whatever you paid for the xpac. The only reason you would ever file suit here, is if Anet refuses the refund, and you want to make a point. You’d have to hire a lawyer, or be one though which is going to cost you in and of itself far beyond the $50-$100 you paid. Which is what Anet banks on.

Same disclaimer as before: Not offering any professional legal advice in anyway, and I take no responsibility for actions that people take off of any interpretation of what I have written above.

Is there any possibility at all that you will reverse your decision on legendary weapons? There is definitely plenty of evidence that the players care just a tad more than you anticipated they would.

Personally, gems wouldn’t appease me in the least. I wanted legendaries because it was something to DO in this game where there is so little right now giving players a reason to log in. Giving me gems means that I can buy some skin, look at it for a minute or two, and then log out because there’s still nothing to do in game. I’d rather they reverse the decision, and fulfill their promises. They need to learn that deadlines are a thing, and while there are times where you have to push deadlines, you can’t do that time and time again like this company does.

Razor.9872:

This is not directly a thread to discuss the legendary weapon issue. Rather, this is a thread to discuss the broader topic of dev-to-player communication.

For quite some time, we the community have been heckling A-net on their inability to communicate their plans and intentions. We often grew frustrated when we saw so little dev comments in the forums. We asked ourselves “do they even care?” or “The heck is A-net doing?!” We spent so long “in the dark” that when an A-net employee would finally arrive to provide us with details, we would lap it up like a thirsty dog. This lead to the community begging for more communication from A-net so as to know their plans and pathway. This is, understandably, a very difficult thing for them to do because of the lucid nature of game development. Take, for example, this ancient image of what the Tequatl fight was originally planned to look like [see attached] shortly before release.

While I wouldn’t say A-net has exactly completely opened up on their ideas yet, I believe they have taken a step in the right direction by announcing their plans for Legendary weapons. Now, whether or not the plans for said weapons are good/bad is up for another discussion. What I want to ask today is:

What is a good way for A-net to continue to improve being open to the community, but not drop expectations, raise false hopes, or cause unrest through controversial in-the-works decisions?

I agree that communication and transparency is a good thing, and out of all of this, I will applaud them for being open with us about this. The problem with why people are so angry, however, is past the communication side. This isn’t similar to changing Teq because this is something that has been promised to us since 2013. It was supposed to be finished by end of 2013, didn’t happen. Heard nothing about it in 2014. In 2015 we were told it would be coming, but behind the pay wall of HoT. Now we are being told it isn’t coming. THAT’S the problem at hand here. You can’t market something as part of a product and then after people pay for it say, “Naw, it’s too much work.” It’s one thing to change a random development thing that was never promised as part of a product, another thing entirely to sell something as part of a product, and then pull it after people pay.

Rococo.8347:

I think he should get a new nickname, ive liked a lot that are being thrown around but im thinking:

Halfpac Mo ( a homage to Tupac Shakur)

SAB will NOT save this kitten at this point, so I hope they have more up their sleeves for April.

I’m not going to lie, I like this nickname.

But guys! There is a new bubble glider skin in the gemstore! That’s what you all asked for….right guys?

Archon.6480:

If you are in the MMR-snowball, you need to find 2-3 allies to queue with. That should help. Don’t let the matchmaker pick your team. It is most likely hosing you. Either that or pull out some ESL level skill and pull off some amazing clutch carry victories.

This is actually great advice, I paired up with a random person last night (they weren’t amazing, but hadn’t been stuck in MMR hell like I had been) and instantly my matches improved DRASTICALLY. I’m going to try to find some people I know tonight just to help level out the MMR. Once I finish this last tier of saphire I can be done with caring about W/L ratio because I just needed to get into ruby in order to get my wings this year. And I only need a 3-5 win streak to get it. :-/

Locuz.2651:

Sigh, so let me break it down for those who don’t understand why skill isn’t part of the equation.

Assume for a second I’m absolutely horrible, and have gone as far as I can in leagues. Because of how MMR should work, I should be at a near exact 50-50 win loss ratio if I had hit my skill cap. The problem is that I’m not at a 50-50 which would be what happens when you hit your skill cap. I’m at a much worse ratio. Which is why people say MMR hell exists in this season’s matchmaking. Because my loss ratio shouldn’t be happening, ever. The worst that should happen is 50-50.

Thing is:

U can get up to higher divisions/tiers due to lucky streaks or teaming up. U cant go down afterwards due to safeguards like not being able to lose tiers or divisions.

So a lot of players are stuck at higher divisions and tiers than where they belong. To make things worse u get grouped with ppl that are in the same boat. Guys that are stuck at a higher division than where they belong who end up in everlasting loops of losses.

The only real fix is to remove those safeguards so youre able to lose tiers and divisions at all levels. That way you create a natural flow and u you drop or rise untill u play vs even minded and skilled players.

eleshazar.6902:

Yup, I’m actually done with this season. I’m not touching it again. I don’t care if it makes it so I can’t get the backpiece. I’ve been sitting on the last tier of saphire for the past ~35 games. And almost everyone has been a loss. It’s statistically impossible that this is happening by some random chance. Their algorithm is trash and they should be ashamed. I won’t be going back in PvP for quite some time, and I have little motivation after this to log in period.

This is a prime example; u get pushed up due to some lucky streak. Once at the last tier u end u playing vs mostly ppl who are above your skill level. But since u cant lose tiers youre stuck in an overlasting loop of losses.

This is where you don’t understand the matchmaking system this season. The different tier that you are at in a division means nothing. What matters is your MMR and your division. If what you were suggesting about me was true (that I was simply pushed up by dumb luck, which I disagree with but for sake of argument we’ll go with), then I should have hit my oh kitten point where I start losing like crazy in tier 1 of saphire after being pushed out of emerald by luck. You don’t move all the way up to the last tier in a division without hitting that oh kitten point you talk about where you lose because you aren’t good enough. The safeguard against going down because the matches are too hard is the beginning of the division (when the change in difficulty happens), not at the end.

The devs have basically admitted in another thread (the one where the guy models out how the algorithm is broken and MMR hell exists in matlab) that they messed up and the matchmaking this season isn’t working as intended. That’s what I’m complaining about. I’m one of those that got stuck in this mmr hell, and because they refused to fix it mid season, have gotten royally screwed.

Legendary Ascendant

/15chars

Chase.8415:

So basically, you’re not good enough to proceed in leagues. Not everyone can be legendary =/

Sigh, so let me break it down for those who don’t understand why skill isn’t part of the equation.

Assume for a second I’m absolutely horrible, and have gone as far as I can in leagues. Because of how MMR should work, I should be at a near exact 50-50 win loss ratio if I had hit my skill cap. The problem is that I’m not at a 50-50 which would be what happens when you hit your skill cap. I’m at a much worse ratio. Which is why people say MMR hell exists in this season’s matchmaking. Because my loss ratio shouldn’t be happening, ever. The worst that should happen is 50-50.

ibkillin.9610:

Do yourself a favour and just stop playing. The MMR and class balance are screwed this season. Unless you want to play for hours and not even progress, but then that’s on you.

Honestly, go with this. I’m quitting the season too. I’ve been stuck on the last tier of saphire for the last ~35 games. Almost everyone has been a loss. I tried going at different times of day, different classes, etc. Doesn’t matter. Always lose. Their algorithm is utter trash as is balance. Do yourself a favor and just stop playing this season. You are only going to get more and more angry with the game. Leave it to anet to take what was a bad algorithm in season 1, and just make it worse.

Yup, I’m actually done with this season. I’m not touching it again. I don’t care if it makes it so I can’t get the backpiece. I’ve been sitting on the last tier of saphire for the past ~35 games. And almost everyone has been a loss. It’s statistically impossible that this is happening by some random chance. Their algorithm is trash and they should be ashamed. I won’t be going back in PvP for quite some time, and I have little motivation after this to log in period.

I was thinking more along the lines of the expletives I want to use. And this is all the history can show, if you look back at my last 30 it’s far worse than this.

It’s not just you. I’m stuck in the same thing. I can’t get a match where my team wins. I’ve played about 30 matches over the last two days, and I’ve won about 6 of those (never together of course). It’s the horrible matchmaking system they put in place this season. When you lose you get paired with worse people, but the other team’s skill has nothing to do with your team’s skill. All it does is pair you with people it thinks are close to your mmr and then matches you against another team in your division. So the more matches you lose, the worse your teams are. It’s the most idiotic system I could think someone could come up with.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The words this picture says aren’t appropriate for the forums.

Seriously messed up. I’ve been waiting on the legendary longbow (have most of the other components done). Don’t promise content with your xpac and then fail to deliver it.

The gemstore skins keep rolling and you have a ton of devs working on the next expansion. You wouldn’t be so offended by the statement that you shipped half an expansion if you didn’t deep down know there is truth in what we say. Honestly I think this company needs new leadership, because right now it definitely isn’t cutting it.

Now at 1 in 8.

/15chars

I don’t know if you guys made a change to matchmaking recently, but my mmr was working just fine, I was winning slightly more than losing. Then all of the sudden after the patch I’ve lost 6 games out of seven, and I’m paired with players that barely know how to play (several standing on a point at once, get confused on the map, etc.).

Seriously not fun to play like this. I get needing to lose, but this is a little ridiculous.

(Screenshot attached: One victory was in custom so doesn’t count.)

Can you please change it so that when someone dc’s from a match, but comes back at the last second we don’t still lose a pip? I’m tired of losing a pip after someone dc’s long enough to make us lose a match, but they come back right before the end. It’s not fair to the other four people on the team… It really shouldn’t be that hard. If they are gone longer than 10-20 seconds it can really alter the game (in our case it was about a minute which completely screwed us over).

Another thing to keep in mind with those drops in fractals is that you can promote/demote them.

If you have a lot of coagulated mist essence, or vials, you can promote them in the mystic forge to make the shards.

Look on the wiki for the recipe: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shard_of_Crystallized_Mists_Essence

Khisanth.2948:

eleshazar.6902:

So one thing I’ve always been confused on, is why people who have condition damage want condition duration.

Now hear me out…..

I may be crazy, but condition duration does not increase the damage of the condition at all. It simple spreads out the time in which it deals its damage. So instead of dealing 1000 burn damage over 1 tick, you deal 1000 burn damage over 3 ticks. You decrease the intensity of the tick in favor of it lasting longer.

In a PvE situation where you are worried about prolonging the effects of something like Firey Wrath on guardian, I could see why you might want it. But as a person who is relying on condition damage, wouldn’t you prefer your damage to be more spiked rather than less?

I feel like everyone thinks that condition duration increases the length of the condition and by virtue increases it’s damage (i.e. it ticks 1000 damage each second for 3 seconds as opposed to 1000 over 1 second, WHICH IS NOT THE CASE). For conditions like vulnerability/fear/chill (without reaper dmg) duration is good. For those that deal damage, it is useless…

Enfeebling Blood used in both cases

First picture is without any duration and 473 Condition Damage

473 × 0.06 + 22 = 50.38
x 2 because it applies two stacks = 100.76 per tick
x 10 ticks = 1007.6 total damage

Second picture is with a Koi Cake
That is +20% duration and +70 Condition Damage

543 × 0.06 + 22 = 54.58
x 2 = 109.16 per tick
x 12 ticks = 1,309.92 total damage

If you don’t believe me go try it.

I am missing some rounding but it doesn’t work the way you claimed. Did YOU go try it? If it worked the way you claimed it would be

543 × 0.06 + 22 = 54.58
x 2 = 109.16 with base duration of 10s
x 10 = 1091.6 total damage
/ 12 = 90.966666~ per tick damage which is obviously not the case in the second picture

Not shown in either picture but the game also supports partial ticks in cases where your duration increase doesn’t increase it by a whole second.

That’s what I don’t understand. I tried this in HoTM a year ago and it did decrease my burn tick. I just went with Judge’s Intervention against a golem. I tried it with and without condi duration added in my build (this was back when condi duration could be tied to traits). Maybe it has changed since then, but I am 100% positive it worked that way 1 year ago. The discussion page on the wiki for condition duration also notes that this is the way that it works. So I don’t know if it was changed in that timeframe. If it has then I get why people want condi duration. I’ll jump in hotm when I get home and try it again now to see if it has changed.

So one thing I’ve always been confused on, is why people who have condition damage want condition duration.

Now hear me out…..

I may be crazy, but condition duration does not increase the damage of the condition at all. It simple spreads out the time in which it deals its damage. So instead of dealing 1000 burn damage over 1 tick, you deal 1000 burn damage over 3 ticks. You decrease the intensity of the tick in favor of it lasting longer.

In a PvE situation where you are worried about prolonging the effects of something like Firey Wrath on guardian, I could see why you might want it. But as a person who is relying on condition damage, wouldn’t you prefer your damage to be more spiked rather than less?

I feel like everyone thinks that condition duration increases the length of the condition and by virtue increases it’s damage (i.e. it ticks 1000 damage each second for 3 seconds as opposed to 1000 over 1 second, WHICH IS NOT THE CASE). For conditions like vulnerability/fear/chill (without reaper dmg) duration is good. For those that deal damage, it is useless…

If you don’t believe me go try it.

I don’t think it is fair to say that pug groups can’t beat this honestly. I beat VG with a Pug group (only two people knew each other, the rest were all LFG). Admittedly we didn’t have time to start into Gor because people had to leave, but I think the whole thing can be pugged eventually. The problem is that this content isn’t even a week old, so there are a lot of people that don’t know the fights. That’s true of an new “hard” content that is added. Eventually people learn the mechanics, and finding a good pug group gets easier and easier. Those that aren’t really finding raids to be their cup of tea will stop playing them, and only those that want to get better will be left (for better or for worse). Personally I like people’s idea of having difficulty levels (easy, medium, hard) which have the same rewards, but with vastly different rates of awarding them (i.e you get 8 shards on win for easy, get 30 for a win on hard). That way casuals can still enjoy the content they are just going to have to invest a lot more time in order to get the same rewards as those that are actually very skilled players.

I’m ok with the cap, but I agree it should be higher.

I beat VG with a pug group, and helped out my guild just to learn the initials of the fight. After that, I had very little incentive to go and help others learn it. I also wouldn’t mind a slight buff to the amount from beating it. Right now I could see bursting it down to 50% and then failing intentionally being a legitimate farming feature in the future.

lilz shorty.1879:

eleshazar.6902:

I’m just hoping that they don’t destroy the spec. Removing Runes of the Trapper from PvP and getting rid of daze (instead add in 25% move pls?!) would definitely tone it down. I ‘m also fine with spreading the damage to the tail end of the traps as opposed to initial burst, but I really don’t want them to just nerf damage and cds since that negates the usefulness of the skills altogether.

The other issue isnt just pvp lol. In pve, cc is needed to kill bosses effectively now. Traps daze, the pull and the lb knock-back give us ways to CC now or interrupt effectively.

Also the damage is needed otherwise our damage would suck in pve/wvw. Then trueshot would really be our only form of damage every 4 seconds in a raid, which keeps u stationary and stationary is bad for raids.

And if you look at the cc provided by traps in PvE you would realize it is next to nothing. Each skill provides a different amount of “damage” to the new break bar. Traps do next to nothing. GS 5 does more than all the traps combined. F1 pull at the very end of Big Game Hunter affect even does more than a trap does. The daze loss isn’t a big on in PvE.

And I’m very against them nerfing the damage, I’m saying that if they have to touch the damage they should move it to a shift towards end of trap (as opposed to burst) PvE meta guard only calls for PoB right now (based on obal’s DnT guide) and shifting the damage around isn’t going to hurt that skill in PvE much. And traps have nothing to do with LB dmg. Longbow is now in the meta for guard for PvE solely because of Trueshot. The only things I recommended was removing Rune of the Trapper from PvP, and killing daze in favor of 25% run speed.

I’m just hoping that they don’t destroy the spec. Removing Runes of the Trapper from PvP and getting rid of daze (instead add in 25% move pls?!) would definitely tone it down. I ‘m also fine with spreading the damage to the tail end of the traps as opposed to initial burst, but I really don’t want them to just nerf damage and cds since that negates the usefulness of the skills altogether.

Aggrostemma.1703:

F3 is indeed blocking everything afront of you… AFTER you have finished the cast… I do not know if this is a tooltip error or a bug.

This must be a bug, because while I get blocks for things that didn’t used to be “projectiles” I’ve still gotten hit by melee attacks (Example snowblind boss’ ice breath is blockable with VoC DH mode). My guess is that instead of using the same tech as WoR they went with any attack that comes from beyond the shield gets blocked (which means things at max melee range could get blocked as well as non projectiles). I tend to activate it in close melee range, so it doesn’t block melee attacks. Will have to test it out tonight to see.

So I’m curious, do you hand-draw these, or are they computer assisted drawings? (Not saying that computer assisted drawings are worth less by any means, just curious)

Also, you should seriously consider selling some of these to the community. I for one would love to have one of your pieces of art hanging from my walls. They’re gorgeous.

Edit: Typo

Viralseed.9362:

While this would indeed be a QoL change, it cannot be done without exploits involved. Any skill that would have a benefit during the casting period of the skill would allow a player to interrupt said cast in order to receive the benefits at a higher frequency than intended. This would then require internal cooldowns to prevent such events from happening. These internal cooldowns may not properly sync with the original cooldown of the skill. Alternatively, Dragonhunter’s Virtues would have to become instant cast which defeats ArenaNet’s desire to have offense-oriented Virtues.

Imagine for a moment all of the runes in the game with the “when you use a heal skill” ability. These rune effects have a cooldown of 10-20 seconds, and the majority of healing skills in the game have a cooldown greater than 10 seconds. If players could interrupt the heal and still receive these benefits, it would create several balancing issues. Thus, ArenaNet would have to increase the internal cooldown on runes which would break the balance for professions with short-cooldown heals. The same could be said about the “when you use an elite skill” runes.

The above examples are the same reasons both Shelter and Renewed Focus lose their healing and recharge effects respectively when interrupted (either by self or by crowd-control effect). If the player receives a benefit, the skill should not receive the interrupt cooldown.

Ok, this explanation makes sense, didn’t think about that aspect before. Guess the only way we would get this is if they made VoC insta-cast, which I doubt they will do.

As to the others. The reason why you would want aegis to be on the front end of the skill is becaue VoC does NOT block all attacks. It only blocks projectiles. The projectile block is nice, but most of the times you want aegis it isn’t for a projectile, it is for a hard hitting melee range attack.

Personally I don’t get why they display them period. I’d much rather not see them since there are some people who have farmed to 130+ already and then there are those of us at 30 who refuse to farm cof for them. Mastery points like AP (I think I’m at 18K now?) aren’t an indication of anything besides how much time you invest in the game.

Overall I’m fine with central tyria masteries. My problem is more with HoT ones. I agree with OP in so far as there need to be more ways to earn the MPs. More diversity in ways that you can earn them doesn’t hurt anything (imo), and just gives people the ability to find other ways to get them.

I personally don’t enjoy map completion (I’ve done it once on my main, and dread having to do it again). But I’m kind of being forced into doing it for some of the mastery points. I love the achievement based ones and I’ve done a bunch of them already. I would just like a more reliable way of getting them. Even if it is exchange 25-30 tomes of knowledge for 1. (Kitten knows we have nothing else to spend those endless tomes on with 9 level 80s).

It’s basically back to pre-nerf healing sig warrior. Again another example of why they need to get over it and balance PvE and PvP separately. I guarantee you the reason druid heal is so strong is because of raids. But that screws over PvP balance. If they nerf it, however, that is going to screw ranger over in PvE.

When will they finally give in on separating balance. We’ve been asking for it for 3 years now.

I’m solely not buying them for the same reason as OP. I have the money, but I refuse to pay 15g for the OPPORTUNITY to unlock a new champ. Turai Ossa is my friend for the foreseeable future.

I know why virtues with DH can’t be insta cast. I’d love it, but I get why they can’t be.

But please put the boons at least as instant. Mainly with Virtue of Courage.
Aegis really has to be insta cast in order for it to be useful. A delayed block really is quite a detractor and the only way you are getting it off in response to a telegraph is if you weren’t attacking in the first place. It basically turns VoC into solely a projectile negation skill with aegis being an odd afterthought.

It would definitely be a nice tweak to make our Virtues not feel like they are weakened by going the DH route.

Khenzy.9348:

CORE Guardian (not DH or any other future elite specs) should have a 25% passive speed increase trait somewhere. This “weakness” not only removes a great deal of fun from the profession, it also greatly limits rune choise in many areas of the game and reduces some potential build diversity for no reason at all.

I’d implement said trait in the virtues line, it makes sense thematically (imo), and most importantly, it seems to be the standard trait line for the vast majority of ‘viable’ guardian builds.

It’d put it in the adept line, along with some other trait effects, Unscathed Contender maybe?

Unscathed Contender: Deal more damage and move 25% faster under the effects of Aegis.

Thoughts?

Problem with that is it negates the swiftness add on a skill like retreat. I bring retreat more for the aegis (because UC) but still I don’t think this is the route to go.

My personal opinion is that they should remove the daze from piercing light and instead put 25% runspeed with the trapper trait. Call it trapper’s agility. It makes the people complaining about DH OP in pvp happy, and makes every guard and their mother happy that we finally get move speed.

SlayerSixx.5763:

eleshazar.6902:

SlayerSixx.5763:

It isn’t that he thinks they need an adjustment. He just wants to suggest changes that won’t break him when the nerfs do come.

So you think taking the cc off of these doesn’t make a huge difference? The main complaint against DH is that it hits hard and it’s too difficult to dodge out of it between the daze and the initial burst. The comparison always comes back to ranger traps and how you can move out of them easily.

So toning down the CC makes a huge difference. Also without trapper runes you wouldn’t have to deal with guard disappearing constantly.

My points I’m trying to make is that your approach to balance shouldn’t be just hit cooldowns and damage. Because when you do that you are left with skills that no one wants. You can nerf things without making them useless. You want to bring them in line with other things. I think your problem is that you just want to completely obliterate traps because they make you salty. The point is to make them fair, not to make them useless. Guards already have enough useless skills to their names that Anet refuses to reinvigorate.

Woah, idk if you looked into my post history, but I agree with toning CC down (or limiting it entirely to maw, as far as traps go).

I’m more pointing out the fact that you were attacking me by claiming that I’m only suggesting changes that won’t break “my build”. Hence why I was defending my proposed changes.

I know it’s going to happen anyway because anet has the soft touch of a rampaging gorilla when it comes to nerfing, but I really just don’t want to see them nerf the damage. The traps don’t really provide utility, they are meant as dps boost skills (which guard has very few of without traps). Nerfing the damage or cooldowns will just make these skills not worth taking anymore. Guard already has too many “not worth taking skills” to add more to the mix. I’m tired of always running the same 3-6 skills because the others are so bad.

I recognize that account name. ;-)

Just figured I’d give you some info from my forum perusing.

1) They haven’t made it very clear, but from a variety of off hand comments they are going to have a fix for the map completion bug in the patch this upcoming Tuesday. It sounds like if you revist a map that you should have gotten loot for after the patch, you will then get your chest.

2) Not sure about this one. I did it on my guard and got the reward. You only need to get silver if I recall, and the achievement doesn’t unlock until you actually open the silver chest. I’m assuming you opened it, but in case you didn’t….

3) This one is correct. I did the treasure mushroom on my guard and it unlocked for my reaper first. The reason for this isn’t alphabetical. It is whichever one is closest to the “top” of your achievements. In other words, if you are 5/6 on reaper and 12/14 (making these numbers up) on your guard, it will go to your reaper. If you get to 7/14 on your reaper and are 12/14 on your guard, it will go to your guard. Fortunately for this one, you can just kill the mushroom again and since it already satisfied the one on “top” it will go to the next one in the list.

Hope that helps until they patch.

runeblade.7514:

Give traps an arming time/cooking time, or whatever it is called. When I mean arming time, I meant the cast time for it to be ineffective to effective. For example, If I place a trap under an enemy feet, the trap will last a few second shorter, and it will do less damage. Meaning, if I drop Test of faith under an enemy, when an enemy pass through it, they’ll take only 1.5k damage instead of 5k damage.

This is to encourage players to use traps like traps instead of Point blank AoE spells, but it also gives them a choice to use it as a PBAoE(But weaker!). My suggested arming time would be 1 second. This is enough time to reveal to enemies where your traps are, and it is enough time that you can’t place it under your enemies feet to do massive damage. 1 second is enough time for traps to not be totally useless.

I know some Dragonhunter will come here and say: “TRAPS DON’T NEED NERF!!!!!” But, Dragonhunters will get nerfed, and this is probably the best possible middle ground for both sides. Dragonhunters cannot drop traps under enemies feet for instant win plus, Dragonhunters can keep their massive damage to win. It also means DH don’t get a longer cast time to place traps, so that Runes of the trapper isn’t useless.

For Rangers, it could also mean that the condi damage is more frontloaded than over time. Meaning all traps work like spike trap, they place more condi damage upfront instead of over time.

They will never do this because of one thing: PvE.

When you make balance suggestions for either PvP or PvE you have to remember that both players have to be taken into account because of Anet’s absolute refusal to balance separately (which would solve so many kittening problems).

In PvE you will ALWAYS drop the trap right on the enemy. You don’t set it up and then try to kite the AI onto it. So this solution would never work for that game mode, even though it is a good suggestion for PvP (I would change it to arming time and it doesn’t activate until it is done arming, as opposed to deals less damage if it activates early, but again this will never be made to work this way because of PvE)

SlayerSixx.5763:

It isn’t that he thinks they need an adjustment. He just wants to suggest changes that won’t break him when the nerfs do come.

So you think taking the cc off of these doesn’t make a huge difference? The main complaint against DH is that it hits hard and it’s too difficult to dodge out of it between the daze and the initial burst. The comparison always comes back to ranger traps and how you can move out of them easily.

So toning down the CC makes a huge difference. Also without trapper runes you wouldn’t have to deal with guard disappearing constantly.

My points I’m trying to make is that your approach to balance shouldn’t be just hit cooldowns and damage. Because when you do that you are left with skills that no one wants. You can nerf things without making them useless. You want to bring them in line with other things. I think your problem is that you just want to completely obliterate traps because they make you salty. The point is to make them fair, not to make them useless. Guards already have enough useless skills to their names that Anet refuses to reinvigorate.

I just don’t like TD. It’s far too confusing and I can never tell where anything is. The corridors are very narrow and twisted, and it’s hard to tell where you are going when everything cripples you and one shots you. I like tough mobs, but I don’t like the maps to be mazes that I can never find my way around. Add to that the fact that I’m on the only class without a run speed boost….

I like the other maps though. They add enough of the interesting layers without being overly confusing and downright frustrating. Auric Basin is by far my favorite so far.

brannigan.9831:

They need to do something with traps and the unblockable auto attack. You can’t have something that can hit for 1-2k be unblockable. Traps probably need a 15-20% timer increase and maybe some kind of time limit on how long they will last on there own. Getting to an important area and laying a trap down and then if you have a little time you can basically double trap is really strong. I would probably settle for just the auto attack not being unblockable I would be fine with something added to it to compensate.

This is probably my favorite so far.
From the wiki: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Puncture_Shot

Yup… it’s oh wait… not unblockable?

But on a serious note. If Anet is going to tone down DH (which I as a guardian main can see some justification for) here are the ways there should do it instead of just a dmg and cd nerf (which is a lazy unimaginative way of balancing).

1) Get rid of trapper runes. They shouldn’t be in PvP in the first place.
2) Take the daze off of the adept trapping trait. Add in +25% move speed instead (since guard is the only class without a movement bonus somewhere). Call it trapper’s agility or something.
3) Tone down the damage or the CC on Dragon’s Maw. That skill on a conquest style map is really strong. It is elite, but with its cd I can see where both dmg and CC of that duration is too strong.

PLEASE DON’T JUST NERF THE DAMAGE/CD. Get rid of the things that are actually causing problems.

As an aside a big part of the problem is simply that this is a conquest only PvP game. Traps would suck if they didn’t cover an entire point which people have to stand on.

I think it is related to the retry mote. Never had a bug except for when the map resets. And it’s usually because it doesn’t seem to reset properly.

Run DS a bunch of times, and never crashed (running the 32bit client). It takes a half a second for that last video to load, but I’ve never crashed from it.

Not saying there isn’t a problem, but not everyone is experiencing it, so it isn’t like the game is completely broken as you are suggesting.