Guild Wars 2

Whatever it is, I just hope it isn’t The Pinnacle of Failure. Fingers crossed.

Ben Phongluangtham.1065:

Matteonite.6419:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/get-ready-for-the-june-2017-competitive-feature-pack/

“Structured PvP will also be updated with a custom arena map for 2v2 battles and a new and improved PvP lobby to hang out in.”

So does this mean we are going to be able to queue 2v2s now instead of just 5v5 conquest? Am I reading it right? Curious cause no one seems to be talking about it.

Only custom arenas. We don’t have plans to support a 2v2 game mode with a queue.

Well at least I know there’s no reason to come back… That’s useful.

I’m not sure why you guys are making this harder on yourself than it needs to be. Just make it so that if you’re in a group of 2 or less you can que all 3 game modes and you won’t have to split the community beyond people who just simply don’t want to do conquest (which I have quit because I’m that done with it). We’ve had successful stream events for 2v2 for years and you guys added the failed Stronghold and still tiptoe around adding 2v2 despite obviously knowing how popular it is. What exactly is your end goal with this…?

The push for 2v2 arena is very dated now. They had so many great opportunities to add it. It should have been added instead of Stronghold, which is now a huge waste of resources, where as an arena scene could have boosted the ESports scene and players in general, as Arena is hugely popular from WoW, and GW2 has the benefit of not having to grind to stay relevant.

Horrible decisions from ANet, and sadly, it seems like the PvP team is slowly dying off at this point.

I’m still pretty bitter over the lack of 2v2 in HoT since 2v2 tournies were already popular in the community. Completely ignored requests. No one asked for a poorly made moba mode.

I haven’t played in quite a while. These days when I’m in spectate (enter a room or otherwise) but close the scoreboard, I can’t bring it back up via hotkey. It works just fine if I am in the match, just not spectator mode. Similarly, I cannot use my chat-reply while in spectator mode. Can anyone help me here?

I see your point, or something.

Condi as attrition doesn’t work with how many condi removals there are, either… The whole removal/condition system could use a large update, but it isn’t likely to happen. Until then, condi burst is the only way to even do conditions.

Can I have gold and rare items? Anything you guys would like to donate, just send to that tag over there. Appreciate it!

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Power Necros are not underpowered.
Conditions are more powerful than they need to be right now, game wide.

It isn’t the scepter, it’s conditions in general.
Condition builds only need 1 attribute allocated for DPS, rest can be defensive.
Power builds need 3 attributes allocated for equal DPS, none can be defensive.

The answer lies in reducing the amount of condition spam. In other words, skills should not spam so many condis so quickly.

That’s actually incorrect. Power Necro is UP. Both Base and Reaper, though I miss base more than anything. Their damage isn’t so much the problem, but that they are slow, predictable and have very poor sustain compared to just about any other primary build these days. They’re certainly below DH which says something in terms of overall meta placement.

If Power (especially base) necro gained some baseline sustain options and avoidance to actually compete with other specs running sound, many people would flock to it over conditions.

Beyond that, Conditions aren’t necessarily “OP”, the condition cleanse system is flawed. I had a post recently on how to fix that, but the likelihood of a change of the magnitude needed just isn’t good since they are focused on Exp 2.

SlimChance.6593:

So with the change to deathly chill…

You attack the necro>your feared., chilled and bleeding…

You can use up a cleanse and hope the bleeding gets removed
Or
use up your stun breaker to get control back. But still bleeding.
Or
Don’t waste a cool down. Eat the bleeding and lose a couple k of health., and have no control of your character.

And the necro did NOTHING.

but you know its a ‘L2P issue’.

Lol you’re trying to cleanse a 1 sec fear or a single stack of bleed? This is exactly why people lose in this “condi meta”. People freak out at the littlest of conditions on heir bar and waste everything they have.

First off, Deathly Chill’s damage is horrible right now. A single bleed is not killing you, nor is that 1 second of fear that might let them get off one mark in that time.

This is the goofiest hyperbolic complaint I’ve ever seen…. “I hit a necro and basically blew up! I had to chose with my single condi removal to either die to eternal bleeding or be Stun locked until I uninstalled the game!”

This is a bit short sighted. As far as I know it doesn’t display “Physical damage taken”, it divides them into their skills, while conditions are lumped together. Carrion Necro can often times come out of a match 50% condition damage and 50% power damage (or close to it) and you’d get the same results because the physical damage is spread out and while condition damage is too, it’s all calculated together. Conditions could be literally underpowered and you’d get the same results of a condition build was around.

Arcaedus.7290:

I’m opposed to this. I hate immobilize more than any other condition (hmmm, except for maybe confusion). It’s already always the last condition to be removed during cleansing (can give multiple actual examples of this) and making it even harder to remove would give me a much worse experience.

I think a better solution, if any is even needed, would be to create a somewhat arbitrary priority algorithm for condition removal that factors in: # of stacks, duration of the condition and the actual condition effect. While difficult to design, I’d be willing to wager that most players would be pleased by it and in MOST cases it wouldn’t really hurt condi builds too much (except for builds that rely on 1 or 2 conditions).

This would not make it harder to remove. If anything, it removes 5 condition types from possibly covering Immoblize, so long as you run impairment removal skills. Separating them like this allows you to make more impactful decisions on removing damage or, just like Thai scenario, impairments more quickly and reliably. Conditions are removed on a LIFO system, so if you are quick on the draw, your impairment removal should remove that immobilize very easily, and certain skills like Pin Down that also apply a bleed would no longer prevent that removal.

I, in no way, want to bash GW2, I’ve spent a lot of time with it, but the game just isn’t made for viewership in mind. I made a post recently about conditions, following combat and good plays is very difficult from a viewership point of view. Spell effects are everywhere, balance is wonky, and they have a very limited amount of game modes (wtb 2v2/3v3) and the one that is championed really isn’t that fun to watch (in my opinion) and forces close quarter fighting which messes with balance in a way it shouldn’t. The list goes on, but honestly, they should really take a step back and look at cleaning up combat if they expect to have people want to watch it.

Overall though, I think it’s too late, probably not worth the effort.

phokus.8934:

ronpierce.2760:

phokus.8934:

I’d rather there be more access to Resistance.

That would not fix the issue of how the game plays, it would be an easy fix bandaid at pushing conditions out of viability, and would likely end up very similar to diamond skin. Resistance, as it is, is a very poorly designed Boon designed to hard counter. It has its uses in moderation, but like Quickness (should have been), it should not be easily stackable.

This solution fixes many issues at once without trying to give the finger to conditions, but rather, making their play and counter play more defined, controllable and easy to follow. This should lead to better and more fun gameplay without masking the problem out of existence.

I’m not quite seeing how adding more access to Resistance would be a band aid. What you’re proposing is a completely huge overhaul that just won’t happen so let’s be realistic here for just a minute.

Condition cleansing priority would be a start followed by access to Resistance but in limited duration.

I’m not debating which is easier. I realize adding more resistance is the easy way to go, hence bandaid. It’s a quick and efficient “fix”. My suggestion is, overall, better for the health of the game for the reasons listed in the OP, giving more impactful choices and allowing clearing to work in a more intuitive way. This also benefits the e-sports crowd, making impactful decisions more noticeable. Resistance is designed a lot like Diamond Skin. It’s designed as a short hard counter, which is why there is so little access. That said, triggering a boon that just makes you immune is hardly interesting game play and only serves to push conditions out of play, rather than making them more interesting to play against. Resistance is by far not an interesting mechanic.

phokus.8934:

I’d rather there be more access to Resistance.

That would not fix the issue of how the game plays, it would be an easy fix bandaid at pushing conditions out of viability, and would likely end up very similar to diamond skin. Resistance, as it is, is a very poorly designed Boon designed to hard counter. It has its uses in moderation, but like Quickness (should have been), it should not be easily stackable.

This solution fixes many issues at once without trying to give the finger to conditions, but rather, making their play and counter play more defined, controllable and easy to follow. This should lead to better and more fun gameplay without masking the problem out of existence.

Not to hijack the thread but I think splitting the condition types as i detailed in this thread is a much better solution to combating condition removal problems caused by a breadth of conditions being put out frequently these days. This also leaves developers with a lot more creative power than just making all condi clears clear the whole bar… o.O

(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Discussion-Thoughts-on-2-Condition-types/first#post6156483)

Zelulose.8695:

Maybe if they saw this thread sooner they wouldn’t have had to remove merc amulet lol.

It’s the type of thing that could be revisited and readded later, though. My biggest concern with this is simply the competence level required to do a transition like this and make it work. I do feel this is a very important change that they should work toward, which is the only reason I bring it up. I usually tend to shy away from suggesting very large changes because it’s not likely to happen, but there are so many issues that could be fixed by adopting this method, and in the process could be a great opportunity to dial back some power creep.

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s a build that allows you to be effective with little to no effort.

This is the real answer, the first answer is a kitten answer.

Cheese builds are builds that you can play fairly safely and win in most cases, often with an easy means of escape. The context of a cheese build changes depending on the situation but is most commonly used for builds that are too strong in small scale fights. Condition mesmer is a prime example of this.

Zelulose.8695:

They should have separate removal for damage dealing conditions.

Long story short, this is the idea. If anyone needs a TL;DR, this would be it.

Hello, everyone! Sikari here with another discussion on game improvements. I’ve had this thought almost since I began playing GW2 but more than ever, I feel like it may be the best direction for the game. I’ll highlight the basic idea and then give my list of pros and cons, so people see why exactly I suggest this change. Please feel free to add your comments and criticisms, but keep the thread civil!

Two Type of Conditions:
In guild wars 1 there was a similar system to what I want to suggest, though it was handled differently and generally had a different purpose. In GW1 there were different types of debuffs (conditions and hexes) which were removed through different means. I think this idea of a condition type split could vastly improve many aspects of GW2 by adopting a “Condition” and “Impairment” condition type split. As such, conditions would fall into the following categories:

Condition:
Bleeding
Burning
Confusion
Poison * (A partucularly unique condition that has an impairment effect.)
Torment

Impairment:
Blind
Chill
Cripple
Fear
Immobilized
Slow
Vulnerability
Weakness

Change Purpose:
This change is being suggested for multiple reasons. The first reason is to enable developers to handle incoming condition damage and removal more easily. Condition (damage) removal would become more streamlined and easier to calculate. For players, this means smart use of removals (which would likely be reduced in net) would have more impact and less risk of being blocked by (seemingly) random effects such as a short duration cripple or vulnerability found on many common attacks. This also increases how noticeable a strong anti-condition play was as the impact of ability usage is easier to gauge and watch (for streaming/viewer purposes).

The next reason is to empower (though, this could also mean a possible nerf to Chill and Weakness) “Impairments” that are intended to be the offensive equivalent to boons by reducing how often they are cleared compared to now, which has become noticeable as condition clear hit a power creep to combat the growing condition spam in the game. As it stands, in most cases, condition duration is a pointless stat because condition removal has had to become so powerful in order to ensure offensive conditions are at least removed at some points.

A less obvious, but in my opinion, very important role that this change plays is allowing more diversification in skills. This allows developers to create more unique skills by splitting up how removal is handled. For example, a skill that once removed 3 conditions may remove 2 conditions or 1 condition and an impairment, and so on. This allows traits to be created that create interesting decisions between removing (personally) or supporting allies in removing damage versus allowing them to be more effective fighters by removing impairments.

The overall goal is to put more play and build power into the hands of the player by allowing skills to more accurately do what they are intended to do, whether it is avoiding damage or shrugging off impairments to remain effective fighters. In another sense, this is another step to move away from the “one build does all” to also add an additional consideration to a bunker or support build.

Handling the change:
While condition application has admittedly grown vastly out of hand, condition removal has, too, as a necessary evil. Many skills would need to be reworked to chose either impairment removal or condition removal, ideally with a healthy mix of both to chose from for each class, with some classes having stronger preferences for flavor.

Some examples would be:
Plague Signet – Transfers up to 1 condition and 1 impairment from nearby allies to the Necromancer every 3 seconds. Use: Transfer 2 conditions and 2 impairments to the enemy.

Empathetic bond: Your pet takes 2 conditions from the ranger every 8 seconds.

Brawler’s Recovery: Removes one impairment when swapping weapons.

And so on.
___________________________________________________

Considerations: What I consider a pro and a con may differ to other people, but these are my thoughts on adopting a two-type condition system.
Pros:
- Skills more defined and reactive for specific uses.
- Gives more options for building toward specific roles.
- Allows impairments to have more impact, more similar to boons without being constantly washed off due to high removal to combat damage conditions.
- Game play is more understandable to watch, and a strong play is more noticeable.
- Breaks up some condition defense to be less all-encompassing (a major part of the high bunker DPS).
- Weakens the impact of Condition damage by making it less hap-hazard to remove, especially in multi-man fights.
- Lessens the impact of condition-bias, favoring classes that can handle many conditions over classes that focus on only a few.

Cons:
- In one sense, more complex, needing to know what skills are used for what types of conditions.
-In another sense, dampens the “skill” factor (though, I use this lightly because of the nature of today’s spam) of condition coverage.
- Risk that the condition and impairment removal changes are not handled correctly, leaving removal lopsided and untested by developers.
- Risk some people just simply may prefer the one-size-fits-all model for condition removal.

Let me know what you think on this topic, I’m really interested in hearing what other major PVPers think about the pros and cons of this type of removal model, as opposed to how it is now.

Note: Conditions and Impairments would need to be grouped separately, possibly separated by an empty space on the bar for easier tracking.

I don’t understand the fuss. The difference, in my opinion, while maybe noticeable, will be minor at best. Carrion and Wanderer will suffice in most cases. I doubt it’s going to be as impactful as people thing if people really want to go condi, and in no real fashion pushes people into viper’s.

All that said, I still hope they give a little back to Deathly Chill now.

I can’t believe you posted this 6 minutes ago, and it’s already 6 minutes into the future.

Many of us has said this, as it’s probably one of the stronger (and more fun) non-standard community game types that tournies are held for. People obviously like it. They’ve even acknowledged that people like it, it’s just not a priority.

A few friends and I are just waiting for Legion since they’re finally taking PvP in a slightly better direction in WoW and hoping it does good things. We’re always prepared to do 2v2/3v3 here whenever it comes, if it comes. Conquest has just gotten so old and Stronghold just doesn’t have the player backing to be as fun as it could be.

Biggest shocker to me is that they felt the time spent on SH was more important than a game mode already recognized and enjoyed by the community. Maybe next expansion, I hope.

I beat a condition Chronomancer a few days ago with my Base power Necro… Please send all gold and congratulatory comments to the name to the left.

I also do training classes for 20g for 10 minutes, outside of expected donations.

Good luck everyone!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/TY-Anet-for-Transgender-NPC/first

Why are you remaking this thread? Is it specifically to push the main character thing…? Because please, no.

Edit:
Also https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Time-for-Transgender-NPCs/first#post5123822

You seem pretty fixated on this idea… o.O

Good luck finding a Necromancer! Watch out for them reapers while you’re out there.

FrownyClown.8402:

This would cause too many issues if new specializations are introduced. You basically have a new ele specilzation crippled by a 12s attunement swap when its based around swapping attunements.

No, not quite. I essentially raised the attunement cooldown on a spec based around empowering their attunement and enduring longer cooldowns. The spec in no way is based around quick swapping, the whole idea of tempest is actually the longer cooldown for stronger attacks. If anything, I provided more incentive to use the overcharge by allowing it to initiate quicker. And yes, the idea is to push elite specs further into their niches to provide base specs with some retained unique power.

Elpredator.8523:

you honestly think guard is in a good spot even though half the base skills (weopons,traits aswell)are useless in comparison to not to mention our sustain is awful its not wonder we are at the bottom when people think like this lol.

No, I never said Guardian was in a good spot. I very specifically said that the STYLE of trade off is how it’s supposed to be, though the balance between base Guardian’s virtues and DH virtues is off. I was very clear on this. There are balance issues, but this is not a discussion on raw balance, but the need for a trade off between base classes and elite classes.

Grimreaper.5370:

Im actually impressed with your modest suggestions for each class, you seem to care about fair play. As others have also said I dont think that this is enough though to truly balance out each profession.

Likely there would still be some nudges required to make it work. My biggest concern is that I strongly feel there needs to be SOME benefit for being a “base” class, and I also don’t want to hurt diversity in the process. This is a rough go at it, but the conversation is worth having.

We’ve been pushing for 2v2s forever… I still don’t understand why it doesn’t exist, it’s such a simple design and they have flat arena-style maps made that are unavailable.

Perhaps they are afraid of splitting the community, though, to that I say just do what you did with Conquest. Make it a check mark that’s part of the viable que pool for teams under 3 players. No need to split anything up, unless they specifically opt out of conquest/Stronghold. Make it best of 3 for pacing reasons.

I have a lot of WoW and other buddies that have been waiting for this but left because the current modes just don’t offer what they want, pure combat.

Sirendor.1394:

I appreciate the effort you’ve done ronpierce, and I do think that your suggestions are on the right track… however they are not enough.

For example: thief getting stolen skills twice… honestly that will not bring them at the same level as daredevil. And just because mesmer gets Distort and chrono doesn’t, chrono will still be stronger overall. Same applies for Berserker not getting the normal burst skills, but only his berserker burst skills.

- So if I say it’s not enough, what needs to be done to make it enough?

In this thread and many other threads there have been suggestions of making the ‘base class’ trait line LOCKED for elite specialisations. That way they don’t have access to it, so they give up stuff for picking their elite specialisations. Elite specialisations have too much synergy with the base class trait lines.

For example trickery is an awesome trait line, so is daredevil, makes sense that daredevil loses it. Same applies for all the other classes.

I considered that. Two problems strike up with that, and I’d say they are legitimate.
1. It might feel counter productive to make changes to increase diversity while removing diversity.

2. Some classes would need significant re-balancing since many of the Elite specs still rely on the old “class mechanic line”.

To extend on this, for example, Necromancer (most specifically for pvp) almost requires Soul Reaping because it’s the primary defense for Necromancer and generation/sustainability without it is too far diminished. Similarly, Fast Hands has become a core consideration of making a Warrior work in a lot of people’s minds, thief and initiative benefits too. Meanwhile, other classes such as Elementalist, Engineer and Revenant can forgo these lines without much consideration because while they affect the core of the class, the core of the class isn’t generally what makes each of those work.

I’m not off to it, but it’s a much deeper problem.

Kayberz.5346:

Your assessment that the problem will only get worse as more elite specs are released is completely false, the whole problem stems from there ONLY being 1 elite.
You can only have 1 elite spec equipped at a time, but you ALWAYS have at least 2 core specs at all times. As they release more elite specs the build variety will increase, while no mater what core specs will always be relevant because they are required.
Down the road when we have like 3 or more elite specs to choose from this system will work very well, its just a temporary issue of being shoehorned into 1 elite spec because thats all thats available to us at the moment.

You’ve mistaken what problem would become worse. General diversity would increase. In a year’s time we might have 2 viable builds, sure, though, I wouldn’t consider that a ground breaking fix. The problem I’m referring to is that the longer this is ignored, the more obsolete playing a base class will become. For some classes that may not feel like it matters, but for others it most certainly does matter.

It’s where i put my flying carpet or magic broom stick. It’s the perfect place.

lLobo.7960:

No. Please no more power creep.

Tune the ESpecs down.

Especs are supposed to be “different ways” to play the class. But the thing is, now they are way too good to not take it, with some rare exceptions.

One of this exceptions, that shows how Especs are supposed (IMO) to work is the condi engineer. As a condi engi, going scrapper doesnt improve your dps, but can give you access to nice utilities and support, in exchange to dps (as you need all your utilities to get good dps as a condi engi).

So yea, tone the Especs down so they become a real trade off instead of the best choice for every build.

There is a level of power creep that cannot be undone. Elite specializations add elements to differentiate, it is no longer reasonable to expect that to be reversed. As it stands, if we just ignore it the best we can expect is choice between two elite specializations, assuming and hoping there is no proper creep from the next expansion over current elite specs.

This suggestion, which yes, buffs core specializations, it also in some cases nerfs the elites. I consider it a trade off to reduce current power creep, increase diversity and make a better foundation for future elite specializations so that power creep doesn’t need to keep happening in order to shape classes into unique sub-classes.

The element of “trade-off” has been missing from the start, and this is specifically to address that issue.

Edit: Perhaps you should just read some of the suggestions. In a lot of cases the “bonuses” to the core classes are things they already have, but are instead made core-only. That might address some of your concern too.

Salamander.2504:

ronpierce.2760:

Burtnik.5218:

ronpierce.2760:

Sirendor.1394:

1. Replace ‘Distort’ with ‘Continuum Split’ when you take Chronomancer specialisation
2. Continuum Split no longer affects Elite skills
3. Continuum Split gets a cast time which can be interrupted
4. ???
5. Balanced

I agree with this, but then again, Mesmer isn’t the only offender… Warrior, Druid, Tempest, and Revenant need similar treatment. I thought about writing a thread to actually differentiate core from elite specs a little more but it’s a tough thing to do when you know there will be heavy resistance, lol.

Im up for removing f2 from rev (but that may cause some issue as right now you only bring rev tor aid for f2), burst skills from berserker etc.

Well it could go two ways, and would probably have to in some ways. For instance, removing F2 on revenant leaves with without any technical changes (Glint is just essentially utilities). Base revenant would likely need a more Generalized F2 that could be substituted in the future or altered somehow. I’d have to do some digging to say for sure.

Berserkers, ideally, wouldn’t have the base burst skills and either only berserk/Primals (which is a majority what is used anyways, the impact would probably be minimal but at least set the classes apart). Or have Primals usable any time but weaker without Berserk. The Burst skills themselves should be Warrior only. Tempest should theoretically have a slightly longer attubenent cooldown regardless of being used or not, and longer when the primal is used. (Like 8 base, 12 tempest/20 Overcharged). That would be a subtle enough difference to make it feel like a trade off, and slightly reduced power creep. And yes, Mesmer’s CSplit should actually replace Distortion.

My idea with thief was slightly different, since the difference is more subtle, the idea was to baseline Improvisation’s “two stolen usages” for the thief, since you know, it’s a thief. Then change how the Improvisation trait works (which it needs anyways for other practical reasons.

Guardian and Necro are already correctly done, even if tuning differences are off.

The major thing is, there would need to be some sort of icon on the build screen that indicates that you are a “pure” class and the benefits that come with that (i.e., Death Shroud, Distortion, Burst skills, and so on).

Most of these changes wouldn’t be overly hard to do and would also help work away from power creep. People might hate it for a second, but then there would be a real reason to play base classes again.

Please make this thread. I think you’d be surprised at the amount of support you’d receive. This needs Dev attention stat.

Alright, I did it. Lets see how this goes. Hopefully it won’t be bogged by people scared of being nerfed and take it for what it is intended to be. Fingers crossed!

Sorry, my spoiler tags aren’t working like they used to, so I just removed them for now. I tried to save you guys some space.

Feel free to crack the ice and keep it civil! Remember, this discussion is not 100% about balance but the design of the game and moving forward to keep base classes relevant and to improve on decision making and interesting choices among builds. And yes, to some extent, this would include an amount of power creep minimizing. These changes would also most likely not be without other balance considerations.

Anyways, thanks you and keep it civil, please!

Warrior:
I see Berserker as the specialization that goes nuts when triggered. As such, I think it could be very viable and thematic to give Warriors “Burst skills” all to themselves, the Warrior Purity bonus simply being “You gain access to Burst abilities based on your weapon of choice.” This would make Warrior the more steady fighter while leaving Berserker as the fighter who blows up and gains more quick access to their finishers but with the lock out of Enrage being on cooldown.

Now, I realize there might be some contest to this idea, though I find base-Burst abilities to not be used overly frequently on berserkers, I suspect some amount of resistance to not having burst skills outside of Berserker might spring up. To this I suggest either:
- Berserk skills are only available while Berserking. (As stated above, and in my opinion, the best way to divide the niches.)
- Or alternatively, Provide a weaker version of the Primal skills that are sub-par to Burst Skills that are enhanced to full power while Berserking. This isn’t ideal, but it is another option worth throwing out there for sake of discussion.

Thief:
Daredevil was not a major offender, but it does leave Thief feeling empty handed. While considering what it meant to be a thief, I decided this could be a great opportunity to take out two birds with one stone. Improvisation has become a highly problematic trait for reasons of fluctuating skill reset categories and RNG ‘over poweredness’. Overall, it’s not a fun situation. My idea with thief would be to have the “Thief Purity” become “When you steal, you may use the stolen object twice,” which makes perfect sense for the actual thief to be perfected in their stealing capabilities. This leaves Improvisation to a potential rework, which I suggest: “When you steal, the cooldown of the next utility you use is reduced by 50%. This makes it far less “rng” gives it very smart play and is generally more fun. Tuning may be necessary.

Mesmer:
What I’m about to say for Mesmer is not new, and has been said by others. Distortion is a defensive/Offensive skill, and so is CS, one is just used slightly different than the other. Together, however, they’ve proven to be highly problematic, and simply not fun to deal with (sorry, Chronomancers, but it’s true…) The Mesmer Purity would very simply give the Mesmer access to Distortion, while Chronomancer would still gain CS, but now as their f4 ability. This way, there is a distinct difference between how a Mesmer and Chronomancer goes about their defensive/offensive pressure with their f4 shatter.

Ranger:
Ranger is a bit harder simply because of how the Elite was handled. Unfortunately, we don’t know if ANet intends to have a Pet-Focused Elite specialization, so offering ideals here would be impossible. However, we do have two routes we could take:
- We could introduce a passive benefit which either affects Pet power or abilities or cooldowns, if they intend for Ranger to be the most pet-oriented “class” at its core over any elite specializations it could gain.
- Otherwise, we could introduce a more Ranger-general f5 cooldown ability that the Druid would not have access to.
I’d love for Ranger mains to chime in here and let me know what you think.

Revenant:
Revenant would most likely follow suit with Ranger. Because the design of Revenant already lacks a lot of flexibility as far as the Class Mechanic goes, a Revenant-general type f2 cooldown would likely be the best fit, likely one that is focused around the core Legends they have now. This is very open to discussion, since it could be anything, but I’d like to throw in an idea. Since Revenant at the basic level only has 4 Legends, it’s safe to assume they are likely to build around one more than the others. That is to assume, they might wish to stay in one legend longer rather than swapping each time they run out of Energy. My suggestion would be an F2 that has a 30-45 second cooldown that instantly gains 50 energy in your current Legend. This would support that flexibility of swapping or staying in a specific Legend longer, and would greatly differentiate the base Revenant from the Herald Elite.

Guardian:
Guardians, like Necromancer are already in a relatively good spot in terms of uniqueness. My primary problem with Guardian and Dragon Hunter is the blatant difference in power between their skills. Virtues could stand to be buffed and perhaps even gain some benefit to them that actually sets them apart from the Dragon hunter abilities.

Engineer:
Engineer is a real weirdo. I’m welcome to feedback, here. I’d imagine it would be similar to Thief or Elementalist by somehow giving them some benefits to their F-bar that are forgone with Elite Specializations. I’ll leave this one open because I honestly don’t have an idea that jumps out to me as a “great idea” that I must share, so feel free to add your input.

Conclusion:
As you can see, yes, there would be some amount of power lost from some of the current Elite specializations that could be considered a combat to the Power Creep, and each specialization would now have to consider some form of loss in return for their unique gain. Balance and numbers, while a concern, are not the primary focus of this discussion. The focus should be centered on making the core classes unique again, and paving the way for future elite specializations to ensure all future specializations are met with unique and interesting decisions to be made.

Thanks for reading, give it some thought.

Introduction:
Hello everyone, High Warlord Sikari. I wanted to discuss an idea I’ve been piecing together for a little while that I shied away from discussing due to it being fairly controversial (no one wants to be nerfed). But with a little nudge and my passion for bringing back some of the old classes, as well as my love for the idea of elite specializations truly being “trade-offs”, I decided to throw it out there and just see where the discussion goes.

Note: Numbers and technicalities may need adjustments. Consider this as a basis for discussion, not a final call.

The General Idea:
The general idea I had is to introduce a relatively simple “Pure-Class Bonus”, which is activated if you currently have 3 base specializations set, similar to the special Icon on elite specializations, it would need a UI element to show you when this “bonus” is activated. The reason this type of idea is important is that the core class is intended to be more generalized, but there needs to be thematic benefits for using the base. Initially, Elite specializations were intended to be focused on a specific role, therefore, you would expect to “give up” something for a more specific benefit. This hasn’t been the case however for all but 2 classes (Guardian and Necromancer). For the most part there is no reason to revisit base classes since Elites tend to only gain in power over their base counterparts.

This is expected to become more problematic as more elite specializations are released in the future, especially as new specializations are set up to compete with our current elites, the issue should be addressed sooner rather than later, especially while class specializations are in early development. For the most part, giving classes a little uniqueness while an elite is not equipped doesn’t even have to be a hard task and separating Base from Elite could go a long way to combat the power creep we’ve seen.

The best way to explain the idea would be to just toss out several of the examples. Remember, the examples are ballpark ideas aimed to explain the direction I feel we should be moving toward.

Pure Class Bonus Examples:
Necromancer:
Necromancer is probably the easiest, since it currently substitutes the current Death Shroud with Reaper’s shroud which has a large and noticeable difference from the base Death Shroud. While the balance is not perfect, there are certainly things Death Shroud can do that Reaper’s Shroud cannot, and vice versa. This is not a hard balance discussion, so I will leave it at that. Necromancer has the ideal style of give and take to separate the classes, so much so that they feel like two entirely different classes.

Elementalist:
Elementalist is a bit more unique in the way that Attunements are handled. Seeing as how Tempest is designed around Overloads, my idea here would be to bump the natural cooldown of attunements to 12 seconds, but activating Overloads slightly sooner and keeping the 20 seconds overload Cooldown. With the Elementalist Purity activated, the cooldown of all Attunements would be reduced by 33% (8 seconds). This supports the concept of being a pure Elementalist practiced in their fluid shifting and handling of multiple elements. This natural increased cooldown also effects future specializations allowing more freedom of attunement play without having to be a blatant step up over the base Elementalist, who will always maintain that quicker attunement cooldown.
Side note: With the increased cooldown to Tempest’s attunements, it’s fair to discuss the effects of Chill on attunements. Be aware though, this would have to include alacrity!

Lawton Campbell.8517:

Hypothesis confirmed correct. Only one person has ever gotten the PvP Destroyer Scythe, and it’s a GM.

Hype train derailed :>

You just shattered so many dreams right there… You monster.

Burtnik.5218:

ronpierce.2760:

Sirendor.1394:

1. Replace ‘Distort’ with ‘Continuum Split’ when you take Chronomancer specialisation
2. Continuum Split no longer affects Elite skills
3. Continuum Split gets a cast time which can be interrupted
4. ???
5. Balanced

I agree with this, but then again, Mesmer isn’t the only offender… Warrior, Druid, Tempest, and Revenant need similar treatment. I thought about writing a thread to actually differentiate core from elite specs a little more but it’s a tough thing to do when you know there will be heavy resistance, lol.

Im up for removing f2 from rev (but that may cause some issue as right now you only bring rev tor aid for f2), burst skills from berserker etc.

Well it could go two ways, and would probably have to in some ways. For instance, removing F2 on revenant leaves with without any technical changes (Glint is just essentially utilities). Base revenant would likely need a more Generalized F2 that could be substituted in the future or altered somehow. I’d have to do some digging to say for sure.

Berserkers, ideally, wouldn’t have the base burst skills and either only berserk/Primals (which is a majority what is used anyways, the impact would probably be minimal but at least set the classes apart). Or have Primals usable any time but weaker without Berserk. The Burst skills themselves should be Warrior only. Tempest should theoretically have a slightly longer attubenent cooldown regardless of being used or not, and longer when the primal is used. (Like 8 base, 12 tempest/20 Overcharged). That would be a subtle enough difference to make it feel like a trade off, and slightly reduced power creep. And yes, Mesmer’s CSplit should actually replace Distortion.

My idea with thief was slightly different, since the difference is more subtle, the idea was to baseline Improvisation’s “two stolen usages” for the thief, since you know, it’s a thief. Then change how the Improvisation trait works (which it needs anyways for other practical reasons.

Guardian and Necro are already correctly done, even if tuning differences are off.

The major thing is, there would need to be some sort of icon on the build screen that indicates that you are a “pure” class and the benefits that come with that (i.e., Death Shroud, Distortion, Burst skills, and so on).

Most of these changes wouldn’t be overly hard to do and would also help work away from power creep. People might hate it for a second, but then there would be a real reason to play base classes again.

Sirendor.1394:

1. Replace ‘Distort’ with ‘Continuum Split’ when you take Chronomancer specialisation
2. Continuum Split no longer affects Elite skills
3. Continuum Split gets a cast time which can be interrupted
4. ???
5. Balanced

I agree with this, but then again, Mesmer isn’t the only offender… Warrior, Druid, Tempest, and Revenant need similar treatment. I thought about writing a thread to actually differentiate core from elite specs a little more but it’s a tough thing to do when you know there will be heavy resistance, lol.

Broken.1386:

I love chaos gloves but hate the clipping on most armors like my ele’s armor.

Although it looks fine to me from behind.

Yeah, the clipping limits its uses significantly. I wanted to use them with the Arah light armor chest, but it looked AWFUL… Alas I like my work around but still sad.

Gaile Gray.6029:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Gaile Gray.6029:

They are bright, there’s no doubt about it. I mean, the modrem will see me coming from the next region.

And yet… I love them.

Wait? They can be dyed??

shoves traveller’s cheques in the screen

For full disclosure: It’s a subtle dye. Mine are dyed purple, and you can see that in the glow, but they did not — as they did not in GW — turn a bright, blistering purple all over.

I was iffy about this at first, but I am glad now. They make a really interesting pairing with the Necromancer starter eye head armor. (Seen in the picture on the first page.) I hope they don’t adjust it. fingers crossed

Edit: Or make it two dye channels, one for the gloves themselves and one for the aura…

Just fyi, a dev said “sword scaling – known issue on our radar. it’s a tech issue of firing skills in different ways in the back end. The damage will have to be looked at and adjusted once this is fixed.”

So just because it gets fixed, don’t expect some sudden massive shift in damage. I do think people are fooling themselves here crutching on this bug as if it’s going to make a world of difference. It might, but they also seem totally prepared to nerf it at the same time as they fix it. I’d expect minimal change.

Randulf.7614:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Mesmers are all about creating illusions… they’re good at it… so they just made you think they’re OP.

~EW

In that case, his class should be able to “engineer” a way to be op

All I can do is Necro old threads asking for buffs.

Silverkey.2078:

May I ask what is your staff skin?

It’s a part of the newest BL weapon set, Spectral.

I posted these in Necro forums, but they work great with Death shroud and Reaper’s Shroud. And interestingly, they actually look very different between the two.

Just wanted to point out, DS and Chaos gloves go great together. The effect in DS is actually significantly different than RS, which is still cool, but not AS cool.

Just thought I’d let Necros know in case they go away, they’re pretty solid. :P

PopeUrban.2578:

ronpierce.2760:

PopeUrban.2578:

This just in: Everything is a conspiracy.

The fact is that, when an Anet employee plays the live game they are always privy in one way or another to some form of insider information. That’s unavoidable.

However, the fact is that those same employees don’t really care to utilize that information in ways that impact the economy overly much, as they are such a small percentage of the live player base that any move they make can only result in negligable economic impact.

You seem to be under the impression that a significant portion of these weapon skins rested in the accounts of Anet employees. Given the cluster-wide nature of the GW2 auction house, it’s inconcievable that Anet employees’ live account make up a significant enough portion of the market for anything to have a notable impact.

When you see speculators buying things up or price fixing, the law of averages indicates an almost direct certainty that it’s another normal player, not an Anet employee responsible, simply because the auction house system serves the entire region

I’m not sure only Devs have access to private test realms at all times. I know for a fact there have been instances of too tier players having access to content early to test the changes and provide feedback. Now, I don’t know how common that is, but if it does happen more regularly than expected (which is never announced anyways, as far as I can tell), it’s not so much a conspiracy as a problem with people using early information to their gain. That’s… Really not that hard to believe… And who’s to really fault them other than ethics police?

@Razor, yeah it can be a big deal. If it is in fact the case (and there has been other evidence of this), it explains a lot of large price swings which affect all players wanting to get in on new content that is pre-rigged, if you will, to cost more and line the pockets of early testers.

Of course, that is, depending on how often these private testing a occur with players close to the devs.

I’ve discussed and understood some class changes, for instance, by working closely with the devs on balance and feedback. Luckily that’s just PvP and has no real lasting benefit, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

ALL that said, it’s probably not that big of a deal overall. It’s just really kitten lucky for those players. I can’t blame them though. Especially ones who dump high priced items about to crash to limit the losses coming. It’d be hard to not want to jump at that, knowing the price was soon to plummet.

Sure, but even if we’re talking about people with access to those testing environments, it’s still a small enough portion of the population to be of negligable impact.

What’s interesting about MMO economies in a game that isn’t designed around economic fairness is that nothing is sacred. The value of an item can fluctuate wildly at the drop of a hat. Combine that with almost certain inflation in MMO economies (especially economies, like GW2, where the vast majority of final product goods experience no repeat purchases due to there being no attrition/desctruction of those items built in to the system) and you find an environment almost openly hostile to long term investment.

And that’s okay. The economy isn’t designed around long term investment. it’s designed around short term trading for personal gain, and it expects players to immediately spend that wealth.

Economic fairness in terms of any sort of “investment economy” simply isn’t a pillar a game like GW2’s economy is designed around. It’s important that costs to crate/acquire items are reasonable, not that the payouts for hoarding items and consistant, because the core acquisition structure of the game is modeled around using, not saving items.

Just so we’re clear, I’m not the one complaining here. I’m just explaining the possible validity of the situation. It’s very plausible. The issue at hand lies within fairness, and it’s easy to be upset a very select few get an upper hand and more game enjoyment because of developer preference. If (I say IF) it’s true, one could potentially make HUGE profits on expected price changes due to a single patch.

I don’t really care, if it is the case, lucky them. I don’t do a ton of pve anyways (so it affects me less). But to say it’s just a crazy conspiracy and paranoia… I just don’t think that’s so easy to say, that’s all. Trying to be fair here.

Very possible, no I don’t really think it matters that much, but yes, I think it can be fairly impactful even if I don’t agree that impact matters.

PopeUrban.2578:

This just in: Everything is a conspiracy.

The fact is that, when an Anet employee plays the live game they are always privy in one way or another to some form of insider information. That’s unavoidable.

However, the fact is that those same employees don’t really care to utilize that information in ways that impact the economy overly much, as they are such a small percentage of the live player base that any move they make can only result in negligable economic impact.

You seem to be under the impression that a significant portion of these weapon skins rested in the accounts of Anet employees. Given the cluster-wide nature of the GW2 auction house, it’s inconcievable that Anet employees’ live account make up a significant enough portion of the market for anything to have a notable impact.

When you see speculators buying things up or price fixing, the law of averages indicates an almost direct certainty that it’s another normal player, not an Anet employee responsible, simply because the auction house system serves the entire region

I’m not sure only Devs have access to private test realms at all times. I know for a fact there have been instances of too tier players having access to content early to test the changes and provide feedback. Now, I don’t know how common that is, but if it does happen more regularly than expected (which is never announced anyways, as far as I can tell), it’s not so much a conspiracy as a problem with people using early information to their gain. That’s… Really not that hard to believe… And who’s to really fault them other than ethics police?

@Razor, yeah it can be a big deal. If it is in fact the case (and there has been other evidence of this), it explains a lot of large price swings which affect all players wanting to get in on new content that is pre-rigged, if you will, to cost more and line the pockets of early testers.

Of course, that is, depending on how often these private testing a occur with players close to the devs.

I’ve discussed and understood some class changes, for instance, by working closely with the devs on balance and feedback. Luckily that’s just PvP and has no real lasting benefit, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

ALL that said, it’s probably not that big of a deal overall. It’s just really kitten lucky for those players. I can’t blame them though. Especially ones who dump high priced items about to crash to limit the losses coming. It’d be hard to not want to jump at that, knowing the price was soon to plummet.

mexay.3902:

RoseofGilead.8907:

mexay.3902:

Over 800g (~1.2k staves) into the forge and nothing.

The drop rates on these are abysmal.

The next time you want to burn 800g, you can feel free to send some to me for the Buy Pretty Things For Me Fund.

I’d rather just get my god kitten destroyer scythe

Probably smarter (don’t take this the wrong way) to wait for the full and explained MF patch before getting too loose with your golden goose.

slamfunction.7462:

John Smith.4610:

Ha, I went right to urban dictionary assuming it was more…slangy? I should have searched better.

Thats great John…so what can you do about this? Its unfair on both accounts. You are the ‘economy guy’, so therefore, you are essentially the game’s “SEC”. Can you review this, and report back on what steps or actions are being done to prevent or correct it?

According to that other post in this thread, it seems to be an ongoing thing. Since real money can be involved here, i can’t stress the seriousness of this matter. Please advise.

Public PTRs and open display of PTR data mining would curb it. Not a likely route they will take though.

@Razor, I think the idea is that the secret few they allow on private test realms are subject to sensitive material they can leverage for profit on live servers, anticipating price changes.