Guild Wars 2

Tim.6450:

MethaneGas.8357:

It doesn’t put you in combat.

Cast corrosive poison cloud (or w/e that utility is called) and see if you’ll get in combat with the self weakness. Try the same with Epidemic. Does it put you in combat?
I know poison cloud doesn’t, but if epi doesn’t either, the consume conditions won’t either, 100%.

I’d write a bit more if I wasn’t on a train…. on a phone X_X

Both don’t I tested it already.

Regardless of combat, can you even see using that skill because you have taken a lot of ac fire in WvW? Trying to get through a choke? Youre getting focused and now you need to heal, and right after that you take 10% more damage.

The condition they chose just doesnt consider why you need to use a heal in the first place other than you are low on health. They dont consider why you may be low on health at all.

lighter.2708:

Good thieves have being playing 26006 S/D in duels and doing completely good.
not sure how this nerf would do a lot except for bad thieves who just spam dodges, 6 in acrobat still gives more dodge then others and they are nerfing dodging for all by nerfing vigor.

A lot of people refer to balance in terms of duels and I never really understand why as in any game mode landing a 1v1 is pretty rare and I thank the MMO gods for it when it happens.

Most of the time, youre in team fights whether PvP or WvW unless you are specifically dueling with the purpose of dueling. This is where this hurts is in team fights where there is a ton of crap being laid down from engies or any aoe class and you are fighting other stuff and you need those dodges. Thieves dont have anything but stealth and dodge really for defense. Yeah the few times you get to 1v1 you should still be good, but thats really not the majority of my fights.

I just dont see how you can measure balance in terms of duels in this game. I mean it would be right for them to at least make that skill 100% more effective bringing to its current state as its vital to thief defense.

Still waiting for the Consume Conditions correction of “Sorry we meant to say 10s of Invulnerability.”

Tim.6450:

nightblood.7910:

I would agree that consume conditions in its current state isnot OP, but combined with the ability to run all the health siphoning from blood magic is a bit much. I dont think vulnerability is the answer though. 10% more damage is a beast of a downside that now I need to think “Ohh god staff 4 right after I heal.”

What so op about siphoning haven’t you seen the AOE healing of a shoutbow?

Necro’s basically have two life bars to get through. Of which you will be taking on some of that healing while in DS.

But the main point is that I can see their logic and why they chose to back up that heal a little bit, but they went overboard. With the new changes to how vulnerability affects condi’s the new Consume Conditions can literally end you up worse off then when you started.

Where Poison is something that will not do that. I tend to be a reasonable person, and well I have played necro though I dont main it, and I can see some poison far better than being wrecked just because I need to heal because Im being wrecked.

It just doesnt make sense, you would use that heal because of massive damage coming your way or massive conditions. In other words, youre likely targeted.

So after that heal, youre going to get it all right back from the attacks and its going to do far worse damage than before in both condi and power damage.

Where as poison would not do that, it would just cut some of the siphoning some for a period of time and its the lowest damage condi in game, next poison is connected to condi damage. So it also pretty much has no effect in terms of damage on power builds.

If they are going to change it and they are hell bent, I would rather see poison than vulnerability.

Cecilia.5179:

Don’t even say Consume Conditions needed a nerf, OP. Necros didn’t need nerfs. The only thing we should accept from them at this point is Consume Conditions being returned to how it is and every other heal skill that we have being buffed to compensate to this foul insult to our class. Remember how they nerfed Well of Blood a few months ago for no reason and gave us the worst signet heal in the game? The only heal they haven’t destroyed was the Blood Fiend, but they pretty much did simply by not making it the starting heal because nobody would ever waste their time obtaining such a terrible heal skill.

I would agree that consume conditions in its current state isnot OP, but combined with the ability to run all the health siphoning from blood magic is a bit much. I dont think vulnerability is the answer though. 10% more damage is a beast of a downside that now I need to think “Ohh god staff 4 right after I heal.”

But Poison is the least damaging condi in game and would offset the passive heals from blood magic that will now be available to so many more builds due to running 3 trait lines. Not to mention it almost does no damage on power builds now.

I can personally see the unbalance with blood magic even if anyone cant and can justify the extended CD myself because of blood magic. I just think vulnerability is the wrong answer.

Honestly, I think they just need to change the vulnerability to poison on Consume Conditions and transfer all your conditions to foes around you when leaving plague.

So yeah you stack condi’s in plague but you blast everyone around you with whatever is left on you when you leave it. This includes any you picked up while in plague, it is an elite skill and is justified by the long CD.

The poison on Consume Conditions will offset the heals from Blood Magic and the blood magic heals really justifies the longer CD on Consume Conditions.

Get rid of the random condition to go along with the heal when traited.

Pregnantman.8259:

I think this would be a fair change if they increased base heal by like %50, made it instant cast or short cast like other Corruption skills and/or apply the Vulnurability while casting the heal so that it is removed when cast is finished (and is consumed) or it stays if cast is interrupted (counterplay). Consume Conditions is chosen more for the full condition removal and much less for the amount it heals, so adding something to counter that without buffing the skill is just butchering it.

If they insist on keeping the skill the way it is maybe they can change Resistance in a way that it negates the damage increase that comes with Vulnurability along with its capability to negate condition damage – it wouldn’t be that far off considering the upcoming Vulnurability change. It can be further improved in QoL – players having damaging conditions with Resistance can remain OOC – similar to blocking/dodging/invulnurability to normal attacks. Then they can just slap Resistance on Master of Corruption trait to have it apply to all Corruption skills and normalize the durations of the self applied conditions. Or better yet, have the trait apply Resistance to allies within range as well.

Resistance negates all effects from conditions from what Im seeing. Which would be vulnerability as well. I made sure a while back on whether it said damage or effects.
So you will not feel immobs even if they are put on you.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Resistance

Ravezaar.4951:

As a WvW player mainly I also agree with DemonCow and tho Iam looking forward to Reaper cant believe they did stuff like this, ok we got alot of good Buffs and Necro is one of the classes that benefits most from getting 3 full traitlines imho. Nerfing CC and Sp.W is insane 2 skills that made us intresting is now badly hurt.

For WvW Guild raids I think I will swap to the Shout Heal with HoT (5 targets + LF gain) seems stronger now and lower CD then CC. Never tought this would come…

Well just to be sure Shroud Knight is required to run it, so you wont get quicker wells from Blood Magic if youre running a backline build.

Unless you opt out of spite or soul reaping which would be insane.

Necro got the shaft I think. Thieves got a couple of nudges I dont like, but Necro Consume Conditions is a kick in the nads.

I just dont know what they were thinking there, that skill is a staple in every single build. I could have seen it give poison more than vulnerability. The CD is a thing of taste, being they added more health in the Blood Magic lines, Im not so concerned about the CD. And making it poison instead of vulnerability would have balanced the blood magic line on power builds because well less heals. (as long as it gave the poison after the heal of the skill.)

If traited though, the random condition is even worse. As others have stated, just when you need a heal because youre getting hard focused, am I going to immob myself?

EDIT:
Also does it apply this random condition before or after the heal part. As if you poison yourself before the heal well…….. Less heals.

I also dont know the reason for the reduction in Lich time. As it can be pretty time consuming as it is to catch people at the right time limiting the number of skills you can use altogether. I have no idea why that needed a reduction in time, but this isnt the biggest concern.

Condi builds running plague stacking bleeding on themselves when their condi’s have 100% duration with no option to give it back while in Plague.

I could understand if there was some condi trasnfer to plague where you give foes around you all your conditions when leaving plague form.

Tarkan.5609:

nightblood.7910:

Something along the lines of “you can use stolen goods twice but they are 33% less effective” on the improv trait. Allowing full use if you decide to go to Executioner instead.

then a trait would make worse what it is targetting.
not a good way to balance it imo, then executioner would definitely be the way to go, if you reduce the viability of stolen bundles with improvisation i would never ever take it. 33% less dmg on the warrior’s stolen bundle with the same time it takes to get it through – completely unviable.
What you’d get from the trait is a possible skill recharge (like atm) and 133% (2x 66,6%) of the effevtiveness of your stolen skills while they are taking up double the time.
Letting executioner pass while taking this (which is also a situanional and rng based trait as you may not get a skill recharge and find the stolen bundle to be unusuable in the current situation) wouldnt make sense.

Well I was throwing numbers, meaning something like 33%. Make it effective, maybe 20 or 15% but the point was about the reduction of stolen goods effectiveness because of the improv trait. Because as they said in the livestream previously and they did enact, ,they were reducing the effectiveness of stolen goods to account for the improv trait.

In other words, what I was trying to say was “leave them alone unless the person traits improv.” so they stay at their current status unless improv is taken.

Now taking executioner is a hit on stolen goods from their current status like fear for no good reason other than improv was buffed.

So it makes more sense, if youre going to change a mechanic because it would be OP if taking a specific trait but otherwise not, then only change it if that trait is taken.

Currently it makes no sense to me why my stolen goods are being reduced because of a trait I have no plan on taking because I like big numbers.

Edit: Clarity

Bountiful Theft: Stealing grants you and all nearby allies vigor. You rip boons from your target and grant them to nearby allies.

This trait now affects the slow and resistance boons.

I thought slow was a condition. Maybe you were thinking quickness or alacrity?

Or wait is alacrity a boon that can be stolen like that?

yeah in 1v1 I think thieves need to be more concerned about this:

Blinding Dissipation: Whenever you use a shatter skill you blind foes around you for 3 seconds.

I think this is going to give shatter mes a chance with thieves.

Tarkan.5609:

They wont simply add that bonus so that we are back to our current vigor number.

Currently, we are getting double the endurance with vigor, no changes can be made to that. Thats our current 100% of vigor effectiveness.
With the changes, we will be getting 1,5x the endurance with vigor, but that will be the new 100% for vigor. meaning, if they say that that minor is making vigor 50% more effective, we are talking about 150% of vigor effectiveness with the changes.

Meaning:
- Vigor right now: 2x the endurance gain (100%)

- Untraited vigor with the changes: 1,5x the endurance gain (100% then, in comparison to now 50%)

- Traited vigor with the changes: 1,75x the endurance gain (150% then, in comparison to now 75%)

Hope you get what i mean

Yeah its 50% of 50%.

So if it did 100 points for example previously. Now it does 50 points, and the 50% up is 25 points bringing it to 75 points.

So its not even going to 100% of what it is now and even with the trait youre going to be at 75% of what it is now.

They really should have made it to be at least 100% more effective giving acro thieves the current status of vigor.

The “you can still dodge more than other classes” justification doesnt change the team fight survival that vigor gives thief. Vigor is a whole different idea and well acro thieves depend on it highly for survival.

Of all the thief things they could nerf, it would seem that survival would be the last on the list as that is where thief is currently the weakest.

If they wanted to nerf something, damage would make far more sense than survival.

Regardless, as long as the venoms continue to use the thief’s condi damage, it will synergize well in team environments with a mix of condi and aoe damage.

The reduction of the immob duration + resistance is going to kill it in WvW as it is used now. But, with the changes in condi’s and condi damage nerfed on power builds (which makes sense), it will still turn a group of power necros into a condi spamming monstrosity with wells.

That is as long as it uses the thief’s condi damage for its calculations.

Soo yeah Im kinda confused on this.

If this stacks with vamperic, does it also stack in a team environment.

5 necros on the same team stacking siphoning so each hit siphons that much more?

Or for that matter, 3 necros and 2 guards (that will never die) or 2 eles or whatever.

Honestly, they brought down some stolen goods to account for Improv. I requested in the beginning that if they were going to do that to tie it to improv.

Something along the lines of “you can use stolen goods twice but they are 33% less effective” on the improv trait. Allowing full use if you decide to go to Executioner instead.

Giving each their viability. Improv is very viable as you can basically get two heals and stolen goods out of it.

I dont think it will put consume ecto too high as it is. We do need to see the changes to amulets in PvP and gear in WvW to really decide if executioner is going to be a mandate for all thieves.

If the changes to gear is powerful enough and executioner does not HAVE to be taken, then I think you will see improv used more than most think as it will raise QoL greatly.

Tarkan.5609:

yeah and they even nerfed vigor… dont really like that on paper, not sure how it will turn out to be

gonna quote myself from a different thread:

S/D was nerfed. Not gonna discuss whether it was necessary or not, but it got nerfed.
Sure, there is that nice trait for initiative regain, but:
1. the new Feline Grace reduces the overall amount of dodges
2. vigor got nerfed, of course that also hits other classes but S/D is the only build that entirely depends on dodges (and teleports)
3. the current Endless Stamina ensures that S/D thieves have more regular dodges than other classes, but you dont get that +10% dmg from Fluid Strikes

sure you can take panic strike and executioner/improvisation now, but i left that out as thats simply due to having 3 full trait lines which every profession/build gets

Yeah that would be the reason I posted this was the vigor nerf in complete of being 50% less effective.

So now all the acro line does is bring you back to vigor being what it is right now.

Im going to give Acro a shot (As active defense really fit my playstyle way much better than passive defenses), but on paper it just really looks like the clear winner is going to be SA.

I was actually looking forward to D/P acro thief. Still might, I dont know. It will be far more vigor than I currently run in a crit strikes D/P build for PvP.

I do think S/D is going to feel a hit though. I just thought it was hilarious that they sold feline grace on “But look vigor is 50% more effective on you” then they nerf vigor to being 50% less effective.

So am I the only one that watched them sell the acro line feline grace nerf by saying “look but vigor on you is 50% more effective”?

Its interesting that I see so many PvE players saying things like “Well you should have to play that character first before opening the abilities.” In other words, in your minds you have some idea that progression is tied to PvE only and valid in PvE only.

Ive already been told I did nothing to level my toons from gaining mass amounts of skill scrolls in WvW and Tomes in PvP.

Sorry there are other game modes here and I can tell you right now, you bring your dungeon running skills to WvW roaming and youre getting wrecked.

I think most of the PvP competitive players, (I consider both WvW and PvP as PvP modes as well they really are Player Vs Player modes) are most that are screaming about this.

And the argument of “Well PvP gets all the skills unlocked.” Well I use the same thief in WvW as I do in PvP. And actually run different builds in each.

I dont even comprehend the need for WvW players to have to do anything in PvE for elite specializations.

People keep saying you will need +-65 points, nah actually its 220 points if you want all options on your toons opened. The +-65 gets you to core speclializations.

Thats 220 Hero Challenges times 9 or 10? Really?

Ive said it many times, unless they make these maps impossible to just walk through (If its a map within your level) unless you have a group of people with you and bring back some of the challenge that gw1 PvE offered, I have no interest what so ever.

The creativity is nice and on point, but they left behind all the good stuff of gw1 PvE.

So I have no interest there and dont want to have to do it just to ge the functionality of my toon in the game modes of choice, including WvW.

I wouldnt mind so much if they took a chapter from WvW and said that every hero point you open you open it on all toons. Just like the WvW ranks.

Then Ill do it once and never do it again. They can level gate access to those skills as well, wouldnt bother me as I still have stacks of tomes.

Dante.1763:

thrag.9740:

ugh, im a pve exclusive player pretty much? I have 1 of every class so I can step in and do any possible dungeon/fractal role my team needs.

This is bigger than just lost gold/sp. This is about a large design philosophy shift. Previously, players could play however they wanted to earn gold and skill points. They could then use that to buy traits/skills. Now players are forced to do open world pve to become better at other game modes. So do you just prefer everyone is forced to play game modes they don’t enjoy? I prefer the “play how you want” philosophy.

PVP is not affected at all, so they dont count, and they should have to play their character in PVE to use stuff in PVE. If they want to PVP then they can PVP with everything fully unlocked already.

WVW IS PVE. Anet has stated that many times, and so yes it makes sense to them that they want you to play both.

Now i agree that WVW should have at least enough hero challenges in WVW to get all 65 HP and unlock everything(That they have now). But after that, they will have to step foot in PVE to get more HP. My opinion of course, and im sure it wont be popular. I too am a pve exclusive player and all my characters, all 12 of them have at least 40 Skill points by the time they get to 80. The exception to that is my engineer, who i leveled via skill tomes. So someday ill run her through to get those 65 HP, someday.

I disagree. While Anet intended WvW to be a PvE game mode. WvW has taken on a life of its own. Having its own politics, its own community, its own 3rdparty forums, its own internally managed competitions that you cant find anywhere else in game, and its own salty attitude.

As a matter of fact, most WvW people are looking for a release from the strictly PvE players that ruin WvW server populations.

phys.7689:

nightblood.7910:

phys.7689:

Gibson.4036:

phys.7689:

Based in that, I doubt they would make it account wide.
its actually really alt friendly compared to almost any other game

GW2 the MMORPG for those who hate that’s not quite as bad as other MMORPGs.

so what you are saying, is you really think its a good idea that you never have to play a charachter/proffession at all, and can full unlock all its abilities? You really think that is a winning strategy for PVE?
No incentives for playing pve other than the most effecient farm?
want to level a revenant? play staff guardian in silverwastes, then presto new level 80 revenant max power with an age of 10 minutes.

you really think that is a good idea for pve?

they are being extremely alt friendly by allowing veterans to essentially skip the level 1-80 process while farming gold. to have to actually play the class for 3-5 hours is not an insane asking price.

keep in mind the initial system had no means of alt leveling transference, aside from maybe doing tons of crafting, which for 80 levels would take longer than it does to do skill challenges.

Well the problem is that for many what you consider and incentive doesnt incentivize anyone. There are many just like myself who could care less about legendary weapons because they dont feel like engaging the carebare PvE this game has. I mean come on, in Guild Wars, you either had to have a party or a runner just to get to the next city. In that game map completion was something interesting and extremely difficult.

The challenge in PvE is not there so its just mindless running around to do stupid things like pouring water on sleeping drunks.

Ill give to GW2 the creativity is there in full force even with complete revamps to maps to go along with new stories. Too bad the mechanics and idea of challenge were lost in it all.

So with that said, Its a rare thing that you even see me in a PvE environment at all. And well unless they plan on revamping PvE altogether to put in some challenge there, I dont want to have to bother with it at all.

so what mode do you want to play?

I play WvW and PvP. PvP its nto such a big concern but WvW yeah its a concern.

And I see many people discussing 65 hero points.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_point

This says there are 400 hero points from leveling and then another 220 hero points from challenges.

My assumption is that we will be seeing the 400 from leveling automatically and will have to go PvE to open our toons completely?

phys.7689:

Gibson.4036:

phys.7689:

Based in that, I doubt they would make it account wide.
its actually really alt friendly compared to almost any other game

GW2 the MMORPG for those who hate that’s not quite as bad as other MMORPGs.

so what you are saying, is you really think its a good idea that you never have to play a charachter/proffession at all, and can full unlock all its abilities? You really think that is a winning strategy for PVE?
No incentives for playing pve other than the most effecient farm?
want to level a revenant? play staff guardian in silverwastes, then presto new level 80 revenant max power with an age of 10 minutes.

you really think that is a good idea for pve?

they are being extremely alt friendly by allowing veterans to essentially skip the level 1-80 process while farming gold. to have to actually play the class for 3-5 hours is not an insane asking price.

keep in mind the initial system had no means of alt leveling transference, aside from maybe doing tons of crafting, which for 80 levels would take longer than it does to do skill challenges.

Well the problem is that for many what you consider and incentive doesnt incentivize anyone. There are many just like myself who could care less about legendary weapons because they dont feel like engaging the carebare PvE this game has. I mean come on, in Guild Wars, you either had to have a party or a runner just to get to the next outpost. In that game map completion was something interesting and extremely difficult.

The challenge in PvE is not there so its just mindless running around to do stupid things like pouring water on sleeping drunks.

Ill give to GW2 the creativity is there in full force even with complete revamps to maps to go along with new stories. Too bad the mechanics and idea of challenge were lost in it all.

So with that said, Its a rare thing that you even see me in a PvE environment at all. And well unless they plan on revamping PvE altogether to put in some challenge there, I dont want to have to bother with it at all.

Well I have to say I would like to see something to help with the population differences and making the game more competitive for all servers.

Honestly my first idea is that you combine EU and NA. This would allow for more round the clock uptime of the game itself. Ive also heard that some EU came to NA servers just because the ping was so much better. (Correct me if Im wrong).

But overall, with the game the way it is right now, it doesnt promote server loyalty. Once you understand that, then you understand that for you to have fun, you have to land yourself in a tier that will be fun to you.

Ive found tier 4 to be the best time so far.

You get a change up in matches and not the same 2 servers every weak like t1 and 2.

Its not a queue fest.

It works for me.

The biggest problem is, among zerk classes thief is one of the top. Guard zerk hard counters.

Thats not to say other classes cant run other builds that a thief has no answer for (or in the case of bunker will tie up a thief entirely too long), Its that in a pure damage spec, up against other pure damage specs, thief has other ways of protecting itself than passive attributes like armor and vitality.

Up against most other zerk classes thief still has all their defenses of which those other zerk classes do not have.

This doesnt mean there are not viable counters to thief, just most dont want to run them and they want to be a heavy hitter to. Unfortunately for those people, there is a class out there that is guaranteed to punish you if you do run a full damage spec.

And theif’s defenses are still there whether they run full damage spec or not. So they dont bother with anything else.

This doesnt make them OP it just means they have a niche.

MiniEquine.6014:

nightblood.7910:

MiniEquine.6014:

nightblood.7910:

Yeah but what people seem to forget about is that, you have to do more to open current functionality of your toons. Everyone seems to be putting this into a perspective of having to do 65 challenges on ONE toon.

Nah now its all my alts. Having to do the same crap over and over and over again on each one to get the same functionality I currently have.

Then on top of that, I still have to do more for elites as there are 220 hero points after the 400 they give you from leveling.

So if its going down to zero. To fully open a toon I have to do 220 X 9 hero skill challenges? Screw you. 1 toon yeah whatever I would probably do it anyway, but after that WTH?

Part of the problem with this argument, though, is that you technically didn’t do anything to get most of those skill points on your alts. Skill scrolls are found passively; they just sort of stockpile from random stuff if you don’t use them. If you spend all of them on a level 2 alt that has done nothing then you could buy (nearly) every skill possible. But that isn’t doing anything. You aren’t losing actual progress. You are losing skills that you currently have unlocked, but that’s because of the system change. You’re still going to get those Spirit Shards from the non-Hero Point skill points, unless they’ve said something contrary to that.

Yeah I would just stand in LA and my inventory would all of a sudden get full of Tomes and Skill scrolls while I did nothing. I dont know how that would happen.
Its great because I could just leave for work with the game on and come home with enough in my inventory to level a toon.

Get real dude, actually I did work to level that toon. Just on another toon. No it wasnt passive, it required action to accomplish it.

No I didnt PvE to do it, I WvW and PvP’d to do it. And from a perspective of challenge, I would personally say both of those game modes are by far more challenging than PvE.

Strawman much? I didn’t say you get them for standing around and you know it. You get them passively by playing the game. Fact is, if your character is level 80 you will have almost everything available to you to begin with. If it’s not, Tomes still work and provide a large amount of the points. PvP is irrelevant because there’s literally no need for scrolls or tomes in PvP. The only issue is with WvW, and I agree that something should be done about that, however the only real solution I could see is making WvW have “instanced” skills and traits similar to PvP. Maybe you have to earn these by doing WvW instead (like unlocking “WvW Hero Points” according to your rank or something). I know of many players who almost exclusively do WvW (I’m in a WvW guild) and I don’t think it’s fully fair to have pure WvWers not be able to unlock all the skills for WvW when PvP doesn’t have to touch either game mode at all.

Well youre not getting what Im saying. Your arguement is saying that I earned them passively and did nothing to earn those things and your only idea of progress in this game is centered around PvE.

Yet Ive played 1000’s of PvP matches, Ive got a toon for every aspect of WvW from roaming to zerg busting to whatever. Ive opened all my WvW points. To say Ive done nothing and have put no time in the progression of my toons is BS just because I bypassed story progression to do it and did it in the mode of the game where I enjoy the most.

I bypass certain things in game because I get insanely bored with PvE. I dont have legnedaries because well Im probably not going to spend my time running around mindlessly for world completion.

My very sarcastic argument is really to shut down the idea that if you dont do the work on the toon in the story modes and story progression that you “didnt do anything” to achieve that.

To say that you passively earned those things while playiung the game, wouldnt that be in ever aspect of the game? You passively leveled your character while playing the game, you passively gained skill points while playing the game even if they are not scrolls. Thats every game mode and every possible way to level and open things on the toon.

You cant even argue intent.

MiniEquine.6014:

nightblood.7910:

Yeah but what people seem to forget about is that, you have to do more to open current functionality of your toons. Everyone seems to be putting this into a perspective of having to do 65 challenges on ONE toon.

Nah now its all my alts. Having to do the same crap over and over and over again on each one to get the same functionality I currently have.

Then on top of that, I still have to do more for elites as there are 220 hero points after the 400 they give you from leveling.

So if its going down to zero. To fully open a toon I have to do 220 X 9 hero skill challenges? Screw you. 1 toon yeah whatever I would probably do it anyway, but after that WTH?

Part of the problem with this argument, though, is that you technically didn’t do anything to get most of those skill points on your alts. Skill scrolls are found passively; they just sort of stockpile from random stuff if you don’t use them. If you spend all of them on a level 2 alt that has done nothing then you could buy (nearly) every skill possible. But that isn’t doing anything. You aren’t losing actual progress. You are losing skills that you currently have unlocked, but that’s because of the system change. You’re still going to get those Spirit Shards from the non-Hero Point skill points, unless they’ve said something contrary to that.

Yeah I would just stand in LA and my inventory would all of a sudden get full of Tomes and Skill scrolls while I did nothing. I dont know how that would happen.
Its great because I could just leave for work with the game on and come home with enough in my inventory to level a toon.

Get real dude, actually I did work to level that toon. Just on another toon. No it wasnt passive, it required action to accomplish it.

No I didnt PvE to do it, I WvW and PvP’d to do it. And from a perspective of challenge, I would personally say both of those game modes are by far more challenging than PvE.

From a perspective of a person who has played many other games even gw1. The fact that you can pretty much walk around any of these maps naked with no weapons and not die while opening the map, the PvE in gw2 has been unimpressive to me.

Yeah but what people seem to forget about is that, you have to do more to open current functionality of your toons. Everyone seems to be putting this into a perspective of having to do 65 challenges on ONE toon.

Nah now its all my alts. Having to do the same crap over and over and over again on each one to get the same functionality I currently have.

Then on top of that, I still have to do more for elites as there are 220 hero points after the 400 they give you from leveling.

So if its going down to zero. To fully open a toon I have to do 220 X 9 hero skill challenges? Screw you. 1 toon yeah whatever I would probably do it anyway, but after that WTH?

thrag.9740:

I don’t know why they want to suddenly make alts so much more of a pain to make. Personally I think map completion should just be account wide because its boring the 2nd time, let alone the 5th.

However, that will never happen because they (foolishly) tied legendaries to map completion. So, how about an npc in lions arch you can pay gold to recomplete the skill challenges in a specific map on your alt at the same rate that we currently pay for traits? Make it so you can only do this for skill points you have unlocked on at least one other character.

Exactly account wide map completion wouldnt work unless all your alts and new toons automatically got gifts of exploration.

If they did that, it would work.

Im feeling just the same as everyone else, the new toons thats one thing, but to have to go back and complete hero challenges all of a sudden to get the same functionality out of my current toons that I already have.

Well then dont put your update on my computer then.

I could even somewhat understand it if you had to do a few hero challenges to open elite specializations only, but that would get old real quick.

Its not about so much what I have to do for one toon, its after Ive done that crap Im not going to want to have to do it over and over and over and over and over for every single toon I have now and future ones.

MiniEquine.6014:

nightblood.7910:

It sounds like they need some new reward tracks in PvP to gain said hero points then.

This wouldn’t work with the new system. There is a fixed number of Hero Points out there: 400 from leveling to 80 and the remaining number from skill point challenges throughout the world. Nothing else gives Hero Points. The reason is, when you have a completely maxed build, you will have 0 Hero points remaining.

O.K. so once you gain the max amount of hero points you can just no longer gain more.

Ill be honest, Ill do like I do with all games, take one toon through the new story and then be done with it.

Heck I havent even done all the living stories so that might not happen either.

Whats got my goat is not only do I have to do this with a toon I insta level to 80 after xpac, but all my current ones as well if I want to open specializations and the like.

And to the person that doesnt hoard Tomes, sorry bro, but PvP gives em out like candy. I have tons of them of which I have been saving up for xpac to insta level my toons and unlock everything on them immediately and be able to use them immediately in WvW.

Arioso.8519:

Protection working on Conditions: Great Idea!

Retaliation procing on conditions OH GOD NO!

Your typical condition user is using many conditions. If every applied condition caused retaliation, then a condi user would be eating around 5-8 ticks of retaliation damage ON TOP of physical attacks.

yeah for them to balance it, Retal would follow the same pattern with condi damage as it does with power for condi’s. Therefore, for many power specs it will likely scale to not much. So I dont see a reason why it shouldnt as long as it scaled with condi damage for condi’s.

Then the immediate hard counter to all condi specs, burn guard.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The venom sharing works quite well with arrow carts.

This is basically the same as when warriors used to be able to proc their leg specialist trait off of arrow carts, but they got rid of that. I guess they never bothered to do anything about venoms because of how crappy they’ve been overall and the unpopularity of venom share builds. I don’t really know what triggered this sudden fad (made those 5v30 videos that people keep trying and failing to replicate), but it is definitely something that should be fixed. It’s really just a matter of when it’ll get fixed.

AoE resistance will kill it again dont worry.

Well if they are done announcing revenant skills then revenant has probably the smallest set of skills than any toon in game. I would say “more to come”.

Honestly fall damage should scale with distance. Though that would likely take a whole rework of the code base controlling fall damage. Thus a big fall might put you in the downed state but that damage carry to the downstate as well. So you are at 15% health and the fall damage would take 30% of your health, that extra 15% takes away from your downed state.

I also think any spike damage should carry over into the downed state. Excuse me if it does already, as I really havent looked or tested to see if it does.

The biggest thing with the new condi specs is thief’s access to resistance will be entirely too limited.

They will need to add resistance to the SA line, maybe gaining the resistance boon when entering stealth for a few seconds to allow the SA line to work in time before all those stacks wreck you.

The way I see it, these intensity changes are balancing out with the resistance boon, but in core specializations that boon is very very limited for almost all classes.

If these changes happen before HoT specializations and new skills like Rev’s aoe resistance, even zerg fights are going to be condi fests with no way out.

They also said this in regards to duration stacking condi’s changing to intensity:

“Since both of these conditions will stack intensity, their damage formulas will be adjusted to account for this.”

What Im gathering from this is that condi’s will be closer to damage based builds in that it will be more about bursty damage than duration than long constant duration. And if you have more options to avoid the condi damage or clear it, then timing is everything.

The change in poison being a very big change. No more keeping someone poisoned by stacking duration of it. Allowing for better heals and more access to your better heals.

Believe me Im not saying its perfect and the most immediate class that comes to mind is mesmer, due to clones. They very well may need to nerf it down. If clones gain the same condi damage as the mesmer than thats literally taking condi damage from 4 sources of what would be formulated and balanced for one. Not to mention the additional bounces from staff. Its too much if burning stacks intensity and it scales higher than currently.

Mesmer staff clones will be overpowered and mesmer staff clones need to have a reduced attribute base to account for this.

Like I said, though, I see increases to the access of the resistance boon for many classes is going to be needed. I dont think it will be completely balanced right away and adjustments will need to be made, but certain skills they cant reduce duration like poison durations since they dont stack. Poison can be very friendly to a damage spec just in its affects on heals. (which is a nerf to some damage specs that could stack poison duration as now they cant. Reducing durations even more because it stack in intensity would be even more of a nerf to damage specs.)

Nuzt.7894:

Well a Ranger can put up 25 bleeds within seconds, they can maintain 25 stacks as well. So now instead of maintaining they’ll just throw A repulsive amount of stacks and gg. They will lawl in your face if you clear them, followed by quickly replacing it with more stacks. That’s just rangers, I don’t even want to get into all the other classes.

Yeah but if you look they are lowering the overall damage that condi’s can do per tick to compensate as well. Not to mention changing the scaling of how condi damage works with condi’s. So you dont have a power class overpowered with condi’s they lay down.

Now I dont know what those formulas are and therefore cant say whether its balanced or not. That will be the other aspect to it which is currently unknown as most of this stuff is that people are freaking out about. Until we see those forumlas and the actual damage new condi’s will do and how it scales with condi damage, you really dont know what will happen.

Yeah I would think these changes would need a complete balance change to compensate.

Those classes with extreme mobility are also some of the most defenseless classes in game. Their defense is they can out move you and disengage when needed. If they cant out maneuver you, then how do they defend themselves?

Nuzt.7894:

Rip WvW roaming and small man’s. As if Condi’s weren’t cancer enough. I often wonder if the majority of devs play anything but PvE because that is the ONLY game mode that this change makes any sense.

Yeah I dont like thief’s access to resistance at all. I mean you can somewhat compensate with SA, but SA worked with condi’s because of the duration system and not intensity system. I think thief will need some resistance in the SA traitline maybe while in stealth.

Or better yet gain 2 to 3 seconds of resistance when entering stealth to give current SA mechanics time to work some of its magic. So the moment you SR you are immune to condi’s currently on you for a few seconds while you drop a condi. Maybe give it a long CD so youre not able to completely CND out of condi’s and it still makes it competitive.

(Yes I know thief is not the only roaming class but they are the ones I see most affected by it.)

Well the problem is, if you put together the resistance boon and its short time frames, they are balancing the condi damage around the resistance boon.

Boosting standard resistance to 10 or 20 seconds to compensate longer condi durations would be too OP when you take into consideration things like immob.

So if they allowed for extended durations they would have to extend the durations of the resistance boon to compensate the balance. Otherwise, resistance would be useless in its current state of 2 and 3 secs.

Obviously youre going to have to use resistance with some thought and cover up the most intense of condi damage. While not really getting rid of those condi’s just negating the damage.

Resistance is also the reason they can raise the condi cap in WvW. Because no matter how many condi’s you have on you resistance negates all damage from them.

I would think resistance would also negate the effect poison has on heals as well.

So all in all, the resistance boon is going to play a big hand in the counter to the new condi specs. I also think it will be more skillfull play as as a condi class you would need to pay attention to how you lay down your condi’s and if you burst too hard too much, everything you have may just get negated. So youre going to have to pay attention and look for resistance.

But yet they took a boost, but at the same time an introduction of a whole new boon to counter it is in place.

EDIT:

Also I might add, you still have access to all condi clears plus the resistance boon now. So once again requiring even more skillful play from condi classes.

Edit 2:
I will add that I think these changes will give mesmer condi classes way too much. Condi’s from clones will need to take on the same scaling damage does to compensate.

HawkMeister.4758:

nightblood.7910:

LOl This is all software. Its actually better that they dont throw a hard deadline too early.

Sure but the actual problem here is that the HYPE started a couple of months ago.

And by now it´s obvious that they haven´t even remotely finished all elites, let alone the major parts of the expansion.

Quite frankly I wouldn´t have logged back in if I knew that the hype was THAT premature.

The launching of the expansion announcement was simply VERY dishonest leaving us hanging all these months. It should´ve been revealed at the NOW imminent E3.

Well if you havent noticed, they are using a lot of recycled assets to create a quicker deadline.

From using the same icons for skills from GW1 to even using old ideas and old artwork they had laying around.

They are doing a lot of shortcuts. But I do remember Anet taking forever to release gw2 from their first announcement of it. Years in fact.

So if this gets released this year, Id say they have improved greatly.

Donari.5237:

SPvP will not have to do any unlocking, per

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/

“In addition to these changes, the need to unlock skills and traits will be removed from Player vs. Player entirely, and you’ll automatically have all the specializations available to you whenever you’re in PvP.”

Yes but, you can play hours of PvP and not accomplish anything. Its currently why Tomes of Knowledge exist in PvP, I have stacks of them. Level has no concern in PvP, yet its a way for PvP exclusive players to insta level toons. And currently with scrolls and tomes I get all traits, skills, and so on if I decide to jump over to WvW.

Youre talking to a guy who would fail in a dungeon speed run as I have no clue what happens in PvE at the moment. Dont care to either. I already bypass PvE exclusive content such as legendary weapons and dont own a single one of them. I buy my mats for Ascended for WvW and get plenty of Laurels for trinkets. With me being the occasional dead weight in guild missions for trinkets because I dont know a single one of them.

I would love it if I didnt have to do any of the PvE content at all for any reason what so ever.

I did the main story once, Im done with it. Still havent done map completion and even though Ive tried Its like a horrible boring grind to me. So I just gave up on that because I dont care.

Honestly I think this game needs exclusive rewards in PvP game modes, including legendary weapons and high level armor skins.

With specific weapons and gear requiring high level competitive AP challenges accomplished. IE WvW avenger. Something that most causal players in WvW and PvP wouldnt get very easily unless they spent some real time in there. Not vice versa where if any PvP game mode player wants something even in the core of their toons they need to go play PvE.

LOl This is all software. Its actually better that they dont throw a hard deadline too early.

Software is tedious, mistakes can be abundant, and when companies put deadlines ahead of quality, you end up with a subpar product.

I would be much happier if they just took their time and got it right the first time than release something that was so bad in terms of bugs and quality issues that you wish you never spent the money in the first place.

spoj.9672:

Why would you need them in PvP? You have everything unlocked. WvW has hero challenges. Maybe they will just add extra ones to the new borderlands maps so you can get your extra 65 purely from WvW.

Because you may use the some toons in both game modes. I play both and do use the same toons and would like to level my toon while I play it in any game mode.

Currently PvP is the best place to get Tomes of Knowledge. I have several stacks of tomes right now because of PvP. If I want to roll a new character, I just roll it and insta level it and dont worry about PvE content at all. You dont really need em there, but they were put there so PvP players can level their toons though level really doesnt matter in PvP.

Same philosophy.

There are many players that dont PvE in this game, I mean to me yes PvE is boring compared to the real challenges of PvP and non-logical driven opponents give a far better game play to me. If others feel differently thats cool and why there are different game modes.

Take map completion. They took out the WvW maps because PvE players QQ’d so much about it, yet there is no way for you to accomplish this completely in the PvP game modes. So you still have to PvE if you want a legendary but not vice versa.

Well the problem is that you would have to make events that you would have to attack or lose something for people to want to pay attention to. As most people currently dont even bother with the grub in the first place.

So you have this attack from a world boss or something that could very well take your keep. What time zone is this going to happen in? Is it going to happen a different times throughout the 24 hours and now we have a centaur night capping?

And if it doesnt happen at night (NA time zones), wouldnt we be excluding those servers who have populations in other time zones.

The best events Ive found in WvW are community driven ones. Mainly the golem rushes to take a keep in a competitive match up.

The problem of nothing to do comes from match ups that are not equally competitive.

Thus Anet really needs to fix the time zone issues and server populations to really fix that.

And dont get me wrong, I think having an AI aspect to WvW would be interesting.

Can we get some lightening hammers and some guards and play dev golf with you?

Actually Ive never understood why certain condi’s do not affect siege, like burning.

You got these wooden siege weapons that dont burn, doesnt make sense.

This would also give better options for destroying siege with mortors.

Yeah I have to say the trait changes are killing off some builds, balancing others, while opening options for different builds.

What Im also seeing is more valid condi play and valid counters to condi play.

Im actually curious to the overall change and how attribute points are going to be added to gear to compensate the loss in the trait system. Whether its going to dull down power creep some or not, basically how all that is going to play out and make sense.

Other than that, I have seen a couple builds get destroyed, while other builds getting minor changes and the possibility for completely new ones.

Yeah these hero points need to be obtainable in other game modes except PvE. IE new PvP reward tracks and something within WvW. Its getting old that people who come to play this game competitively are forced to endure the PvE crap. I like fighting things that can react to what Im doing and give a real challenge rather than running world boss runs pressing 1 at some giant dragon. Its already bad enough I tend to endure guild missions because I need the commendations.

Can we please just allow each game mode its own way of unlocking and while youre at it, exclusive high level gear and legendary gear to those game modes.

It sounds like they need some new reward tracks in PvP to gain said hero points then.

Well that seems backwards, they already are having problems with screwy populations in both game modes. Why make those people PvE for anything.

And if so then return that precious map completion back to needing WvW maps as well.