Guild Wars 2

I’d like to make a point about this quote specifically “Good enough for Hot join/Yoloq fun but not much else category, and nothing in that category is strong enough to deserve nerfs."

Pistolwhip was meta a long time ago and it was nerfed hard because it offered too much for a single skill. Now we’re talking about an entire build and armour set and you try to justify by saying its not ran outside of hotjoins?

Reality is Arenanet will nerf what the players QQ the most about and that’s the truth. If this thread gets enough attention to be noticed by so many people jumping on the nerf thief bandwagon then it will happen. None of you have any real power except the masses. Majority rules in this world guys.

Fix Plz Arenanet

You’re all wrong dual swords on thief would be even more OP than S/P was before the nerfs. Proof below lol:

All of my comments will relate to the S/P weapon set which I still main despite the many nerfs ;(
Steal from a warrior→Black Powder→Whirling Axe skill→AOE Blinding Projectiles
Also works with Smoke Screen→Daggerstorm
(Very useful combined with Signet of Malice for lots of healing and blinds.)
Precast Pistolwhip→infiltrators signet or Steal or even Shadowstep if you can aim it right.
(Make sure to teleport at the exact moment Pistolwhip starts the attack and stun, don’t worry with enough practice it will be easy.)
Sword 2→Pistolwhip→Teleport out
But the best tip of all for S/P is use Pistolwhip for evades combined with Acrobatics Feline Grace. Don’t spam it for damage instead use it defensively. I’ve even made this build work with a Soldier’s Amulet. People don’t expect a tanky thief lol. But yeah S/P has gotten alot of nerfs. It used to be a noob destroying machine and I would dominate entire 8v8 or 10v10 customs. I do alot of hotjoin and experiment with builds. So I’d recommend you do the same to master thief

No, but seriously guardian can be a very effective tank in WvW especially in big zergs. We have many blocks and the shortest cooldown group stability. We also have great sustain via Altruistic Healing and Staff’s Empower. In general if you want to learn to play WvW with the frontline roll a guardian. Here’s a build that works for me:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAW5dlsApUotCxZI8DNRCRl1Mg9HECl51PQAcAA-TFCDAB/q+zqKBB4JAIkyPBuIAov/gI6GKz8HpAYSZE-w

It has lots of healing and regen as well as many blocks. If you tag lots of enemies with staff 1 and they die every time one dies you can dodge roll twice for more healing and about 700 health per kill. Guardians are the kings of frontline WvW, so if you’re considering big fights in T1 this is the class for it.

Let this double as an I quit pvp post. It’s obvious this game will never improve and there’s many other games that aren’t grindy kitten MMOs to spend my time on. Thanks for the fun and great memories from GW1 Anet. Shame you sold out to a corporation like the rest of them.

Elementalist and Engineer the 2 classes with the most area of effect skills are dominating the meta. We fight each other on small circles. And we have to hold these circles to win the game.

It’s not celestial or might stacking that is the reason these classes are the best. It’s simply the fact that everything else that could counter the Conquest Meta has been nerfed by Arenanet to make way for Esports.

Instead of a power based twitch reaction time meta we have an abundance of conditions and passive gameplay. We have area of effect skills ticking away on a point. We have Bunker Specs putting out enough damage to kill players.

Why is this? Because Arenanet has slowly nerfed burst damage and replaced critical damage with ferocity. Now instead of dodging power based attacks with well timed evades we have classes running max AOE condition bunkers.

These classes are dominating because other classes cannot bring enough sustain to compete with them. They are kings of conditions and AOE at the same time with the best ability to stack might.

You want to know why this game isn’t an ESport Arenanet? Because you catered too much to casuals and made this game too simple. If we had Monks they at least could heal the other classes without sustain directly instead of them slowly dying to AOE and conditions.

I call this game Gank Wars 2 and there’s a simple reason why. Immobilise stacking, Stun/Daze chaining and CC spam is neverending and only certain classes have enough Stability or condition removals to escape.

There is a general lack of sustain and too much dps (both conditions and power). What is the counter to DPS? Nothing…but in GuildWars 1 it was a Monk and that is why this game lacks depth. Dodge rolls aren’t a replacement for healing and protection that a monk class would offer.

This post is not meant to offend anyone. It is simply my opinion on the current state of the game and I welcome all discussion and opinions about the meta.

Very detailed and truthful post that I’m going to link to on the unofficial wvw forums if you don’t mind. If only Arenanet put as much effort into WvWvW at the start of the game as they did into trying to make Spvp into an esport. Then things might be different.

Please refer to these threads for discussion of nerfs for thief:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Nerf-Wish-list/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/sPvP-Thieves-gameplay-concerns-possible-solutions-merged/first

Also stop QQing and get good scrubs. Stop making excuses for losing and play to win:
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win

My favourite skill for Thief is definitely Pistolwhip. What’s not to love about an evade, stun and lots of damage? Oh that’s right you can also precast it and teleport as well. This skill is the only reason I was able to farm r50+ in pvp. And I had heaps of fun doing it too with signet of malice killing noobs in hotjoins lol. I really miss 8v8s.

Empower! Why? Because ever since I started playing mmos I wanted to be able to tank with a staff like Gandalf in the frontlines of war. And now I can finally do that while full healing with stability in the middle of a zerg clash. Now if this question was best trait then that would have to be Altruistic Healing of course.

AmFah.5974:

oxtred.7658:

Can you please share your build?

secret Diamond Legend build:

(WARNiNG: only for advanced players)

First of all Congratulations on your dedication to WvWvW. It’s good we have players like yourself whether they be in EOTM or “real wvw”. I’m sure you have commanded your fair share of new players and taught them how to have fun together.

Secondly is that Full Nomad’s Stats, looks pretty impressive the numbers you’re getting. I mean 4k toughness almost with Strength in Numbers in combat. Over 30k health, admittedly with guard stacks but still and 1k healing power. Dude that build must be tanky as hell.

Thirdly I’ll admit I’m impressed by your account and time to achieve all that you have. It reminds me of when I used to grind RS which took ages to get level ups too.
And I’m sure many of the players mocking you probably played WoW or if not grinded some other mmo, so most of them are just jealous.

I find it funny when people assume GW1 was only theorycrafting builds and counters. The combat was just as if not more active than GW2. The fact is it had interrupts and hexes (based around punishing enemy for spamming). Proper protection and healing spells (able to almost full heal from a spike of dps). Along with Conditions, Melee and kiting, Aoes, block skills/spells and teleports. Also I probably need to mention you couldn’t just spam skills either. They were reliant on energy which you had a supply of and when you ran out it had to regenerate.

^ There’s an example of what is possible with monks. Also here’s a list of monk spells in gw1: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_monk_skills

What: Thief Mobility
Why: Isn’t it obvious thieves move too much in combat and teleport and evade all over the place. This makes it hard for other classes to 1shot their health. The solution is simple nerf all of thieves teleports increasing the initiative cost. Also add huge aftercasts to every thief skill so they can be sitting ducks for all the passive no skill classes to kill.

Thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-combat-mobility-is-too-much/page/3#post4313421

What: Initiative, Zerker amulet, Evades, Stealth, Teleports

Why: Because I’m sick of running out while spamming teleports and pistolwhip and then dying. Then I get accused of being a noob spammer who needs to L2P. Even though I don’t rely on stealth and just evade spam. Also nerf zerker cause I like playing thief soldier amulet bunker with signets and pop them for all like 20 stacks of might. And nerf Daggerstorm too cause I don’t deserve to tank everybody with signet of malice even though they all abuse AI builds.

The Pistolwhip nerf S/P thief. They increased the initiative cost by 1 in pvp. This basically destroyed the set for most thieves apart from a teleport in 1-shot build. In doing so Arenanet may not have realised but it pushed many thieves to S/D evade spam acrobatics build instead. So which is worse S/P stationary burst that can be avoided? Or S/D teleporting evade spam combined with boon steal? The answer is obvious to me and probably to many of you also.

My beloved Charr Guardian Goku style. Updated with more flames lol :P.

I cannot agree with Forced GvGing. Even with all the rivalries between servers, the bandwagoning, “buying guilds”, spying in TS, etc. There are big server communities behind each server. Players work together and form real friendships in WvWvW.

I believe this is something GvGers forget about server based WvWvW. GW1 had GvG but I don’t think Arenanet will ever support it completely in GW2. The simplest is that unorganised zerging with “PUGs” is easily done with a commander tag.

This is just my opinion of course but I think that GvGers are too elitist and even mean sometimes to the players on a server. The militia fight for their server too. They may not all be on TS, some may even be on uplevels but without them at all WvWvW would be much more emptier place.

Please love the random players aka the PUGs of your server and teach them how to WvWvW even encourage them to join a guild or give advice on builds and gear. But don’t just hate on them for the sake of it. Thanks for reading. <3

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

1) Players in combat mode may not resurrect defeated allies.

2) The gates of towers, keeps, and Stonemist Castle upgraded to the “Fortify” state (T3) can not be damaged by player skills. Only siege weapons can deal damage to these gates.

3) World Score points are awarded to the server which succeeds in capturing an actively defended objective. Actively defended is defined as at least one player who belongs to the world which owns the objective having been present within the objective’s sphere of influence (the “Defend the X” event radius) at any point during the current siege; they do not have to be present at the moment of capture. Each objective awards a base amount of World Score points on capture plus additional World Score points for each completed upgrade built at the objective.

4) No World Score points are awarded to a server for capturing undefended objectives (PvDoor will award nothing).

5) No personal rewards (loot, experience, karma, etc.) are given to players for capturing undefended objectives. The current rewards for capturing supply camps, towers, keeps, and Stonemist Castle will only be given out when capturing an actively defended objective (per the definition given in #3). To give even greater incentive for attacking actively defended fortifications, perhaps scale up the rewards based on the number of upgrades built at the objective.

6) The rewards for defeating real players are substantially increased over their current level.

7) World Score points are awarded for each player defeated in combat by default rather than being an award associated with the Bloodlust Buff. Maybe even give a bonus for stomps; sending a player to defeat without stomping awards 1 World Score point, stomping awards 2 World Score points.

8) Supply camps, towers, keeps, and Stonemist Castle no longer earn World Score points for the owning server unless upgrades are built there. The amount of World Score points earned every 15 minutes (PPT) will scale with the number of upgrades; the more upgrades built, the more PPT an objective earns.

9) For each “Defend the X” event completed at an actively defended supply camp, tower, keep, or Stonemist Castle, the owning server earns World Score points. In recognition of the fact that the defenders have the advantage, the World Score points awarded will be a fraction of what the attacker would earn on capturing the objective; a 10-to-1 ratio is suggested as a starting point.

For example, if capturing a keep with some upgrades would award 50 World Score points to the attackers, the defenders will earn 5 World Score points for each “Defend the X” event successfully concluded at the keep. This only applies while there are players belonging to the world which owns the keep actively defending it; the owning world earns nothing if there are no players defending the keep during any 3 minute “Defend the X” event.

The above shifts WvW from passive rewards (earning PPT by sitting on empty, unupgraded objectives while PvDooring) to active rewards for engaging in conflict with real players and/or making investments in and defending one’s holdings while also addressing the issues of karma training and zerging.

There was a time when it may have made good business sense to turn WvW into a karma training zergfest. With the advent of EotM, however, that’s no longer necessary. Perhaps now, WvW’s potential to become a game of much deeper strategy can finally be realized.

Agreed with every point made. WvWvW should be like chess not a glorified karma train. Maybe then it might attract more players who want battles and fights rather than just loot. As you said EOTM is the place for ktrains the map is so big you barely even have to fight other players.

None of your points are too restrictive as long as they are not applied to EOTM. Let that be the “KTRAIN” map for pvers and as you said let WvWvW be all that it can be. There are so many good ideas on these forums. Please Arenanet just implement some of them for example better loot for wvwers. Thank you for your post and time.

Good points and discussion everyone LordByron, Carighan, Nike and anybody else I haven’t mentioned. Looks like Arenanet noticed this forum with this Red Post. Please direct all the feedback on the metagame there thanks.

Carighan.6758:

Nike.2631:

But the first thing most people playing in PvP modes throw out the window is that when the system is working right you should lose a lot. I mean a whole lot. Like 5 times out of every 10 encounters

That is true, and was a major issue for Starcraft II when it released.

The matchmaking was so good that it managed to get players to a near-perfect 50% win/loss chance. In fact that’s essentially what it tries to do: If you win 60% of your fights, it matches you against continuously higher opponents until you either a) qualify for a league rank-up or b) your win-rate is down to 50% again, then it eases up if you drop below 50%.

But here’s the real issue with it: Red traffic light syndrome.

Because while Blizzard was proud as hell that they made a near-perfect win/loss ratio matchmaker, the players were complaining hard that they were losing “most of the time”.

Because that’s what happens. We remember the bad moments much more vividly than the good ones. In win/loss percentages, we don’t consider 50% balanced. We just… don’t.
I remember reading somewhere that on average players will state they win/lose evenly if they actually win ~70% of matches. Now, ofc you can’t make a matchmaker for that, which means that any good non-pub-stomp-enabling matching system can and will make you feel unhappy. It’s in the nature of how we perceive it.

The really tricky thing is to make players not feel like they’re losing until the score screen. That way, they mostly get enjoyment out of it. They’ll still be unhappy that they lose “most of the time”, ofc.

Very good point Carighan because the way we experience competition is by winning or losing. But also Nike I understand that by being too subjective in our opinions of balance is bad feedback. By making the pvp combat challenging but also not too hard to learn creates a diverse pvp community.

The problem is when the game is objectively balanced completely without any player feedback then it becomes very unpopular quickly. This is why Balance is subjective because players who pvp want to have fun which is highly subjective. This is just my opinions of course because I’m sure that general balance is much harder than it seems.

Nike.2631:

“Balance is Subjective”

What is this? Degenerate game design for people who think tic-tac-toe is DEEP?

Balance is ANYTHING BUT subjective. That’s kind of why its a job. There’s art to it, but there’s also PROCESS. And process is by far the more important element of herding a game system.

Players are subjective, because the sum total of their experience (their sample size) will never amount to anything larger than a rounding error at the scope at which this game operates. And so their input/feedback tends towards the deeply personal rather than addressing the environment as a whole – its not worthless, but man do you have to filter it thoroughly. In fact about the most important things a single player can do are A- find and report an exploit, and B- create a build that so blows the performance curve that it virtually IS an exploit. All this sniveling about other people’s builds/play, that’s pretty much garbage compared to what a Dev can pull directly from the game itself with a half decent set of database queries. Please, do go on wasting your breath doing it though. If it makes you happy wasting your breath.

If you think a build you’ve encountered is OP here’s what you actually need to do to get it nerfed:

PLAY IT.

Put more data into the system about it and draw attention through the metrics gathering that it’s a bit above the line — assuming that in your hands it actually is above the line and you didn’t just get schooled by a better player in the first place.

And could you kindly do this for me? Stop being such a narcissist and actually realise that a MMORPG is nothing without the players. Actually it’s right there in the acronym “Massive Multiplayer”. Next time you come onto forums where people discuss things based on their experiences realise that we are a community not “data”.

Complexity in pvp is good but it also makes it more difficult to balance. But hey “Variety is the spice of life”. I don’t think anyone enjoys a game of rock paper scissors anyway lol. Balance is a general concept to me that means that all professions have the same capabilities of dps, tank, healing and avoidance. To be honest that sounds pretty boring to me.

Thank you Arenanet for this game where I can learn to play different builds that can counter each other. Just like Guildwars 1 except maybe not as complex which might be good thing :P. #ESPORTS can suck it because Guildwars 2 is fun

Bump /15 rock, paper, scissors.

Sadomasochism, Habitual, Inferiority Complex, Bipolar disorder, Autism, Aspergers syndrome, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Social Phobias, Obsessive Compulsive disorder, Antisocial personality, Adjustment disorder, Agoraphobia, Avoidant personality disorder, Borderline personality disorder, Depersonalisation disorder, Major depression, Impulse control disorder, Insomnia, Intermittent explosive disorder, Narcissistic personality disorder, Pathological gambling and Intellectual Disability. I think that covers them all.

1) I would like to say that EOTM is a very well designed map and makes keeping certain objectives important. If people thought it was more competitive and less “K-train” that might help. I personally think it’s a fun map but gvgers kinda take over it if they join the overflow.

2) The game was just released to China and I have seen screenshots of massive queue times. So I don’t think the game or wvw is dying but perhaps in NA and EU it may be “declining”.

3) Elitist guilds as others have said do not help new players and “pugs” to join wvw. I love pugs and I personally think it’s very fun to teach them stuff about wvw. But some gvgers do not and I guess I can understand they just want to gvg.

4) Seasons with a reward encourage overtime and burnout which follows. Many servers and guilds wvw community is simply tired after 9 weeks of competition. Perhaps Arenanet might consider shortening the seasons I don’t actually know just ideas.

5) The players need to be more of a WvW community and love each other rather than try to destroy each others server. It’s just a game and if we try to kill the competition completely then it’s not much fun for anyone in my opinion. In conclusion I am sorry to anyone if I have offended anyone because I love wvw and I love the pug players too.

Good posts and discussion of the topic everyone, hopefully Arenanet takes notice of this thread when making the next balance patch.

I think the biggest problem as has been discussed earlier is balancing for different skill levels. Because some players have better reflexes or more experience playing a profession. This means that it is not even the professions that are unbalanced but the actual players themselves.

So what I have seen Arenanet do is make very easy builds like condition bunkers that everyone can use. Then there’s zerker thieves, elementalists, bunker guards, etc, that take a bit more skill. The main problem as discussed in Sirlin’s book is balancing for skill.

This is very difficult and he said that by giving easier options that can work, but don’t work as well as something which requires more skill. That is balance and I think Arenanet know this and what we have is a game balanced for different skill levels.

That seems to be the logical way of thinking about the metas of this game in pvp and wvw. And to me it does seem balanced and if people complain they simply need to “learn to play”. But that does not mean that builds that require much more skill should faceroll everybody either.

So in conclusion Balance is very subjective but if you balance for different skill levels it becomes much easier. And that is why a game can not ever be truly balanced. Because players and people have so many different skill levels. At least that’s my opinion about this subject anyway.

Bump. Agreed with the post above, because it is mainly the design of conquest for both pvp and wvw that is unbalanced. And the classes must be balanced to be good at both of them which makes it even harder especially if you include pve as well. I think that perhaps Arenanet did not realise how much more complicated the balance of wvw and pvp was than pve.

I mean it’s easy to fix a class for pve just give it more dps but for pvp and wvw it gets much more complicated. Because of this power creep in the last patch many builds are over the top but it’s ok because they are all “overpowered” lol. The solution according to the elite pro players of this game is to learn to play.

Anyway please continue to debate the balance and meta of this game. Perhaps we can even find counters to the most commonly used builds so that players don’t have to play the same old builds and classes all the time. Thanks for the discussion and posts so far.

Bunker Meta is here and it’s strong. Conditions or Power damage it doesn’t even matter they still do good damage. Most players are a bunker of some sort because there is no monks. This is why you should of copied your own Guildwars 1 instead of WoW or LoL, Arenanet.

Everybody plays for or against a profession and thinks it is Overpowered. Well I am simply going to say that is your opinion. There is no balance when everything is “overpowered”.

Arenanet will not listen to your complaints obviously biased against certain professions. Because all you want is for them to be nerfed and your own profession buffed. I will link “Playing to win” by Sirlin now.

Play to win, don’t be a Scrub

The truth is Guardians and Warriors are the most unbalanced professions in the game when it comes to “zerging”. Guardians have traits like Altruistic Healing where they can full heal with Empower, clerics dodge roll spamming, Elite Tome 1 heal spamming (also full heals) and a heap of boons.

And Warriors well…Do I even need to explain these guys have got Healing Signet, Earthshaker, Cleansing Ire (to remove conditions), Highest base stats and an Elite WarBanner to res 5 downed allies.

Both of them are what makes “Zergs” strong and it will continue that way because of the “Hammer Train” meta. Both classes are easy to learn for most players and perform very well. That’s my opinion about this anyway.

Yeah ok Zacchary you win because this is just my opinion and Arenanet probably don’t even care. Guess it’s wrong to want some balance when we can just have every profession overpowered in its own way. Sorry Thieves your class is just fine because I’m just a noob who needs to learn to play.

I have changed the topic’s name 2 times. The first and original title was “This is why we need a monk” or something like that. Second was “Better Healing Power Scaling”. And Third is “[PvX] Thieves need a nerf”.

I have come to this conclusion because it is the worst offender with a zerker amulet. But hey I currently play an “OP thief” myself and it works great. Doesn’t change the fact I think it needs a nerf.

You see I want a balanced game that is fun and challenging. Not just stomping noobs all day in hotjoins easily. Anyway thanks for the contributions.

Why do you need to read Zacchary? Because you like all the other players in this thread cherry pick information from my post to suit yourself. Try searching Burnfall.9573 posts. He has been posting for a year about how thieves dominate all other classes and he hasn’t given up. Maybe you could learn something about class balance from the rangers?

Survivability hahahah did you even read what I posted maybe try taking off the zerker amulet? Thieves have lots of survivability built right into their weapon skills. Sorry but every class has bad traits and skills. No deal Zacchary Thieves need a nerf and you know it. Maybe after the spam from Thieves is toned down they can start nerfing condition and power bunkers on every other class.

The problem with Thieves is the counters they have can also be used to their advantage. Try soldiers amulet and you might understand the class which is the best bunker in the game. Good Thieves will never even need to “facetank” damage. Stealth, evades, teleports and dodges will do that for you.

All I’m asking is maybe consider a rebalance on thieves because of the initiative system. They are built to be assassins and they’re the only class with that system of skill usage. Basically without Monks they have no counter other than going bunker and spamming AoEs or conditions.

The zerker damage they can put out is insane also and very fast while also having an escape every time. I know many people enjoy and love playing thieves because of this so they probably won’t be nerfed. But they really can own every other class very easily once you learn counters.

It all revolves around spammability of teleports, evades, evades and boon steal, stealth and blinds which makes them simply have counters to nearly everything. Not to mention Steal and how much it can be traited to poison and heal, give might, fury, swiftness and vigor, daze, boon steal and it also gives you a bundle for more counters to the class you used it on.

A good thief will dominate the battles easily unless people bunker up and drop AoEs and conditions at their feet. This is what thieves tell you to do when they say “learn to play”. Meanwhile Thief just spams more evades, boon steals, teleports, stealth, blinds and anything else they can get their hands on.

Thieves dominate once they each a certain skill level and this is where it’s no fun to fight against them. The game revolves around bunkers because of thieves. It’s all very obvious and simple once you start thinking about it. A class that can spam so many “Get out of jail free cards” is bound to attract good players. And only the best can play thieves they will tell you.

The above reasons is why I believe Thieves need a nerf because of their unique initative based system allowing their dps and avoidance to reach levels no other class can. If you want balance then nerf the Thief Arenanet. If you don’t then simply keep buffing everyone else to keep up with them.

As I read about and do more pvp and study the meta. It just seems more and more about dps and avoidance. These are arms races as said in many other threads.

I don’t know anymore what is best for this game. Theorycrafting can only get you so far until you hit a brick wall. I think I have made my points in this thread. I leave it up to others to discuss what needs to be done. For balance in pvp, wvw and pve.

I have played thief alot lately and it is very powerful both as a bunker by evading and also by stealth to res allies. It is a class different from all the others. Bunker Condition Builds just get stronger every patch because of it.

I am sad to say it but perhaps the Thief needs a nerf. Every other class has to set up its burst while being reliant on cooldowns. Meanwhile it can just backstab from stealth or spam evades all day with pistolwhip.

This is why if a Monk is not added then the Thief class needs severe nerfs to stop this arms race and Power Creep. Arenanet know this too I think but just keep buffing everybody else to keep up with them.

It is not Warriors that are the problem with this game it is Thieves and their overpowered builds. People will say I need to learn to play or counter them somehow. But the simple answer is stealth is not predictable at all.

And Thieves can spam stealth and then they can backstab you and if it doesn’t work they can do it again over and over and over. They force any other zerker profession out of the meta by simply existing. Condition Bunkers are because of them and Bunker Guardians are also because of them.

I don’t think Thief has much area control but for blast combo finishing nothing can really beat a thief. I mean just look at this skill: Cluster Bomb

Spamming that on a water field will definitely give your team some “survival”. I use this build and it works well: Bunker Evade

Edited: to clarify specifics since OP asked for a survivable build.

Very good points Rym I especially like the idea of increasing the blast finishers range. Maybe it could work in wvw and pvp too I hope. Maybe increasing all professions access to stability, cleanses, boons and healing with new skills and traits might be good.

Also the “Power Creep” I have heard players talk about seems to be here. The new sigils, runes and traits all seem to be powerful. I don’t know if the answer is to just keep buffing every profession until they’re all “overpowered”.

Just some ideas and my opinion about the different builds. Since the meta seems to be either extreme conditions bunker or burst spike with not much room in the middle. I’m hoping healing support can be made more viable instead of people just seeing green numbers but not getting any loot.

Please continue the discussion and debate, thanks everyone.

Good discussion everyone especially your post Blood Red Arachnid. The condition bunkers (with some healing power) are very strong at the moment. It takes almost full burst spike dps builds to take them down along with CC of course.

I don’t know how to solve that problem except by just increasing the base heals on the #6 button skill slot for everyone regardless of healing power. Maybe when Arenanet add new skills or traits they could give more condition removal to all professions.

It just seems that at the moment it is impossible to tank conditions since they are constantly reapplied and ignore toughness. Perhaps as I have seen suggested they could add a new stats that protects against conditions.

The problem is of course that the condition bunkers get the best of both worlds. While burst spike dps builds usually need a zerker amulet to stand any real chance. Maybe this is what Arenanet wants by creating easymode “cheese” builds. Personally I don’t really care as long as there is people to fight.

I guess the problem with Guildwars 1 was its pvp was too complex for most people to get into. Unless you did some research and build theorycrafting then you couldn’t really get into it in my opinion. And even then it took a lot of practice too.

Guildwars 2 may be more casual but at least lots of players can get into it and all I’m suggesting is more healing for all. Please continue to debate and discuss and hopefully Arenanet reads this thread.

Better healing please and thank you.

Yes Rym and that is because guardian was supposed to be the Paragon, Monk and Ritualist professions all tied into 1. In a game with no healers it is the closest thing we have to one. Why not just let all professions have the ability to heal more since they all have their own ways to mitigate damage anyway.

Boons run out and can be stripped not to mention if the player isn’t in bunker gear they won’t be enough usually unless they have a good amount of toughness. Healing and condition removal is what keeps you alive in an actual fight and it seems to only work in wvw with lots of players running support. This is why a real buff to all base healing in general would be a good thing for everyone in my opinion.

Exactly Digiowl they balance for pve and it’s not good for pvp and vice versa, The skills need to be split like gw1. There is many lessons to be taken from gw1 such as all professions having the same base health. Also healing being much more effective than it currently is.

Then the pvp in this game might be more than just spamming of conditions and dps. There would be a true counter rather than just damage avoidance. PvP fights might last longer even if they just buffed the base heals on all professions. Remember these are all just suggestions and I welcome any feedback, discussion and debate.

Extreme roles are bad because it becomes a counter vs counter battle. If somebody is running full zerker damage set then you need to either be zerker too or bunker up or condition them. The damage mitigation just isn’t enough to outlast the dps in this game. This means the fights don’t last very long unless you’re in a huge zerg (wvw) but even then pro guilds will wipe pugs every time.

Also base stats like toughness and health are different across professions. Stability, condition removal, healing, crowd control and dps is unevenly spread across them too. This means that some professions are more suited to “tank” roles. While others are more suited to “condition spam”. Then there are others suited to “zerker” burst dps.

This makes the game very difficult to balance because it is unbalanced to begin with. While yes it is true every profession can be any role some are more suited to it than others. The game can not be balanced except by numbers it seems. Maybe the first step is to bring the health differences of the professions closer together.

I am sorry if I have offended any players in this thread. I am only trying to think of solutions to the zerker and conditions meta in all aspects of the game. In my opinion the best way to solve it would be to add new skills on all professions so that we can heal and protect against burst damage. But I welcome all discussion and debate in this thread.

Also if Arenanet sees this thread it would be nice to consider some of these ideas to make fights last longer. They don’t need to last half an hour but 5 minutes minimum would be nice. The idea of lowering the extremes of zerker damage or conditions vs bunker and support could work.

digiowl.9620:

The problem in essence is that ANet is heavy handedly promoting “active combat” (dodge the spike attack) in PVE. Never mind that they seem to have mistaken tanking for standing there and taking a beating.

Agreed but I feel something needs to be adressed. Elitism in the pvp, pve and wvw or gvg communities is literally killing this game. There is no way but their way and if you don’t like it then you don’t get to play. If you don’t run the meta builds you basically don’t stand a chance in pvp and wvw. Especially in gvg if you’re not an experienced player with the right profession and gear then you will never be invited to join.

In pve dps is king and I’ve seen players demand gear checks before dungeons. I was even kicked a couple of times for not having full ascended armor. Fractals require agony resistance which is yet another gear grind which we were promised would not happen in gw2.

All these things combined is what annoys me about gw2 and compared to gw1 this game’s balance is just sad. Gw1 must of had 1000s of skills yet still was balanced and now they can’t even balance a fraction of that. Arenanet need to stop with the pve player favouritism and develop some complexity and depth to pvp in this game.

I have given up guys it seems there will never be true monks of protection and healing in this game. Everyone has their own damage mitigation already in some form or another. Even if they did make healing power scale better it would still not fix the focus on dps for all of the game modes.

People like to zerg and win and a monk has no place here because they can tank and heal damage themselves. People want easymode not challenging pvp or wvw. I have deleted my guardian and only have pvp characters now. I just cannot enjoy this game without monks.

I might just reroll to a more dps oriented class. Because it seems no matter how hard I try to be an actual monk in this game it just doesn’t work. Support is not strong enough and people die too quickly. It’s also sad when you’re a guardian who actually cares about support and not just dps and facetanking.

Maybe it’s just nostalgia from my days of playing monks in Guildwars 1. I just can’t enjoy trying to mitigate damage for players anymore. Players just go zerker damage and don’t care if they die because the zerg will just revive them. What’s the point when wvw and seasons is just zerging against siege capped structures with arrow carts?

I don’t know the direction this game is heading, but I’m sick of trying to support players who really couldn’t care less about me because I’m not full zerker in pve for example. DPS is killing this game’s depth and strategy but whatever I am over it. Thanks for all the contributions in this thread and I wish you all good luck and have fun in gw2.

Agreed Carighan it’s the first thing I thought to balance the meta since healing power seems to scale so poorly in my opinion. And yes Terrahero eles can have some good damage while in pvt/clerics, but so can most classes. It’s the full zerker or condition builds I’m worried about mostly. Their damage increases exponentially while bunker’s damage decreases the more support based you become.

Edited Topic Name. I think it suits the topic of this thread better since it’s a quick easy solution.