Guild Wars 2

Thief:
One of the issues we are working on for thieves this patch is the dependence on the traits which boost initiative. We did this by shaving a significant amount of initiative gain from these traits while simultaneously boosting the generic rate of initiative gain by 33%. We have also somewhat reduced the effectiveness of high evasion thieves by reducing vigor up time and adding some cast time to the Shadow Return skill on the sword. This prevents these thieves from evading too much and too easily dealing with being disabled (stun, daze, fear, knockdown, etc.). Also we are trying to improve the survivability of thieves in the Acrobatics line through easier access to the Hard to Catch trait and increased effectiveness of the Assassin’s Reward trait. This will reward thieves who are actively engaged in the fight rather than those who are just dodging over and over again. The change to Infusion of Shadow is meant to stop players from gaining initiative by applying stealth while already in stealth. This should keep thieves from being able to recharge all of their power while idling in a very long stealth. We felt that using a lot of different abilities to maintain stealth is ok, but re-using the same ability over and over for almost permanent stealth was just bad for the game, especially when gaining large amounts of initiative.

• Increased the base rate of initiative gain from .75/second to 1/second.
• Shadow Return on Sword. Renamed to Infiltrator’s return. Added a 1/4s cast time.
• Pistol Whip. Reduced the after cast on the first half of this skill by .25 seconds.
• Deadly Arts VI – Sundering Strikes. Increased the trigger chance from 50%. Remove ICD. Decrease Vulnerability duration to 6s.
• Critical Strikes VI – Practiced Tolerance. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%.
• Critical Strikes 15 – Opportunist. Increased trigger chance to 50%. Increase cooldown from 1s to 5s.
• Critical Strikes VIII – Signet Use. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Critical Strike X – Critical Haste. Increase trigger chance to 25%.
• Shadow Arts V – Infusion of Shadow – This trait functionality has been changed to “Gain initiative when you enter stealth.” 2 init.
• Acrobatics III – Vigorous Recovery. Reduced Vigor duration to 5s from 8s.
• Acrobatics IV – Assassin’s Retreat. Increased swiftness duration to 20s.
• Acrobatics IX – Quick Recovery. Reduced initiative gain from 2 to 1.
• Acrobatics X – Assassins Reward. Increased healing scaling by 35%. Moved to Grandmaster Tier.
• Acrobatics XI – Hard to catch. Moved to Master Tier.
• Trickery 5 – Kleptomaniac. Reduce initiative gain from 3 to 2.
• Trickery IV – Flanking Strikes. Move to Master tier.
• Trickery VII – Bountiful Theft. Reduced vigor duration to from 15s to 10s.
• Trickery VIII – Trickster. Move to Adept tier.

Warrior:
The overall goal here is to reduce the damage for the very high control warriors. This means reducing some dependency on going 30 points into discipline for Burst Mastery, making warriors spend 20 points in Arms to get the benefit of Unsuspecting Foe. We also reduced the damage on the hammer’s burst skill to separate the control from the damage. We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area of effect control, but we’re trying to prevent them from easily doing both. We also increased the readability of Skull Crack, which will allow opposing players to more easily react to it. Combustive Shot on longbow also saw some rework. It will scale better with adrenaline levels, and still provide strong burning per adrenaline level, but the raw damage was toned down slightly.

• Strength 5 – Reckless Dodge. Increased Damage by 25%
• Strength III – Great Fortitude. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
• Arms IV – Unsuspecting Foe. Moved to Master Tier.
• Arms VII – Crack Shot. Moved to Adept Tier.
• Arms XII – Last Chance. Increased the threshold form 25% to 50%. Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 40seconds.
• Defense 25 – Armored Attack. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 10%.
• Defense XII – Spiked Armor. Reduced the recharge from 15s to 10s.
• Tactics 5 – Determined Revival. Now correctly displays the amount of toughness.
• Tactics 25 – Reviver’s Might. Now applies 3 stacks of Might instead of 1.
• Discipline II – Thrill of the Kill. Increased Adrenaline gain from 1 to 10.
• Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.
• Skull Crack. Increased the cast time from 1/4s to 1/2s. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.
• Combustive Shot – Increased pulse duration to 3s. Increased burn duration per pulse to 3s. Normalized damage per pulse. Updated pulses per tier to 2, 3,and 4 respectively for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3. Overall physical damage has been reduced by 15%.

Hi All,

I would like to thank everyone for their support toward the pioneering work we are doing, as we drive the world of Tyria forward.
The passion, and intelligence that our community devotes to making this game great is both humbling and essential.

Regarding our process in terms of forum usage as a development tool:

The reality is we do read our forums, and others, every single day. If you look over the last year, and cross reference with community feedback you will see many ideas actioned and many more not.

The communication pipeline in most part lacks one very important component. Specifically, ArenaNet having more time to feedback on your ideas, concerns and our own plans.

I am not one for excuses, but I do believe in being black and white. ArenaNet has been extremely busy of late listening to you all, evolving systems, providing ground breaking content, delivering adventures at a near real time pace, and tackling some very exciting problems.

We have, with your support, created a truly unique platform. One which is in its infancy, and one we build with the continued support, and collaboration of the community.

We do need to build out more time to be in dialog with you, specifically, following up on our own investigations of your suggestions and concerns.
We will work harder to achieves this.

We are also trying to forge a truly ‘Living World’. Therefore with your continued support, and patience we can continue to break new ground. Not just with world of Tyria, but with the method by which we build worlds ‘together’.

All of this said, I wanted to make it clear that whilst we avidly read our forums, we pay little, to no, attention to posts that are disrespectful to other members of our community or our development team. Our developers work very hard to listen to the community, and work tirelessly to create content and features that they hope the community will love. Likewise, the constructive members of our community work hard to provide our development team with feedback that abides with our collaborative standards and overall community philosophy of having a productive, welcoming, and friendly culture. This is a true partnership.

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 is to drive the creation of online worlds forward, thereby creating original, ‘stand-out’ content that pushes the boundaries of what it means to journey through a Living World. Any endeavor on this scale is going to have its challenges, and therefore as a team, we are fully prepared to make mistakes, learn from them, and make even better experiences as we move forward. We see problems not as failures but as opportunities, essentially a necessary part of Tyria’s and our Team’s evolution. It is with this understanding that we work with our community to move forward in the space and truly realize great things.

One key to understanding our philosophy to building worlds is that we don’t give more attention to feedback simply because it is the noisiest, most aggressive, or delivered in the most inflammatory way. We take on board all constructive feedback and actively discuss it, and then make a decision to backlog the item or move forward with it (the development of which can sometimes take longer than some give it credit for). Therefore do not expect feedback to be implemented just because it is something you feel very strongly about. We just don’t develop like that. We instead work with our community to help us navigate these uncharted waters, taking on board all advice and measuring them against the pillars of the Guild Wars 2 and the direction we ultimately want to move in as a whole.

Therefore you have to ask yourself: Is this a journey you want to take? Are you comfortable with expecting the unexpected, and ultimately working together in a positive and productive manner through thick and thin, to pioneer in a space that the team at ArenaNet feel is of huge importance? Many of you are not only comfortable with this paradigm but embrace it, and your contribution, as you know has already shaped Tyria immensely, for which we are extremely grateful and excited about.

Regardless of whether you wish to collaborate in the spirit outlined above or not, I ask that you remain respectful to your fellow man/woman, and be constructive in your approach to the development of the game, and understand Tyria is made up of communities and not individuals.

So thank you all so much for your support, passion and collaboration, and please understand that Arena is an amazing team with an amazing community. And together we build worlds!

Chris W