Guild Wars 2

BOMB KIT- MonMalthias.4763 and Wolf.5816
Bomb

• Engineers now lob this bomb directly in front of them (about 100 range distance; dagger melee-range). The explosion, damage and delayed fuse still function the same as they do now.

BOMB KIT SKILLS 2-5

• Functionality of [Bomb Kit] skills 2-5 has been changed to resemble the functionality of a “charge-up” environmental or siege weapon such as a trebuchet (i.e. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_skill); [Bomb Kit] skills 2-5 are now thrown projectiles.
• Now, when using the 2-5 skills from the [Bomb Kit], Engineers have the ability to throw those bombs in a straight line towards a target (the direction of a thrown bomb will be determined by the direction in which the Engineer is facing). By simply tapping a thrown bomb skill and releasing straight away, an Engineer will throw that bomb in a similar manner to the [Bomb Kit] 1 skill: [Bomb] (a distance of about 100 range directly in front of the Engineer; full animation with no power takes about half a second). The maximum channel time is 2 seconds. Charging a bomb throw for that long will allow the Engineer to lob the bomb a distance of 600 range on flat ground.
• A thrown bomb projectile will behave like a linear projectile as in the case of the Warrior skill [Bladetrail].
• [Bomb Kit] skills retain the same timer with regards to when they explode. This timer starts right as an applicable [Bomb Kit] skill is released/thrown. To this effect, a bomb may go off mid-air if thrown far enough. It’s detonation effect is applied to the ground directly beneath it in this case.

ALL ELIXIR TOOL-BELT SKILLS

• Refer to Attachment.
• I use Elixir U (pardon the MS Paint reproduction) as an example for the visual application of this idea. What I mean to say is that all tool-belt Elixirs as of now give the Engineer an RNG chance for some boon or effect. RNG IS BAD. Good skills in GW2 are good because when people use them, they expect a specific effect, and then receive THAT SPECIFIC EFFECT. [Shocking Aura] wouldn’t be NEARLY as good as it is now if it had a chance to stun, cripple, bleed or knock-back enemies with effects decided by a random number generator. It’s good because you KNOW WHAT IT DOES. It stuns people 100% OF THE TIME.
• Tool-belt Elixirs should have predictable effects in order that they can have a constant and reliable impact on the flow of a battle. I propose that ANet split all of the possible effects of Thrown Elixirs up into unique iterations of the same skill that can be selected in the Tool-belt Skill slot.

“TOSS ELIXIR” SKILLS UNDERWATER – InfamousBrad.5879
All “Toss Elixir” skills underwater are much less effective than their land-based versions. The reason for this is that it is much more difficult to orient a thrown elixir’s direction, and even more difficult to time a thrown elixir’s placement so as to have a meaningful impact on a battle. The suggested solution for this was to make all of the underwater versions of “Toss Elixir” skills immediately trigger their effects in an AoE around the Engineer.

Making the Engineer the focal point of “Toss Elixir” skills would make aiming such skills much more intuitive since it is easier to move the player’s body around than it is to track a target with the current mechanic. Furthermore, it makes underwater “Toss Elixir” skills much more responsive since their effects would be triggered instantly as opposed to having a down-time between throwing the Elixir vial and then detonating it.

ELITE SKILLS
Mortar

• Base range increased to 2,000.
• Range when traited increased to 2,400.

Launch Elixir

• Recharge reduced from 15 to 12 seconds.

Launch Ice Mortar

• Recharge reduced from 20 to 15 seconds.
• Ice field duration reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.
• The mortar projectile’s initial hit now stuns enemies for ½ second.

Launch Concussion Barrage

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 25 seconds.

RIFLE
Blunderbuss

• Range for maximum damage and Bleed stacks increased from 100 to 180.
• Maximum Bleed stacks increased from 4 to 6.

ELIXIR GUN
Elixir F

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ to ½ second.
• Projectile speed increased by 30%.
  • Bring it in line with the firing speed and low after-cast time of Flamethrower’s [Flame Blast]. [Elixir F] could easily be a great rotational burst skill, but its current cast time undermines this prospect coupled with how slowly it moves (it rarely hits anyway if you’re firing it at a moving target from a distance of over 450 range). Simply using this skill often kills whatever momentum the player is generating with a skill chain or rotation. Truth be told, it’s underwater version could be a great model for how it should be above ground. Keeping the current cast-time would even be fine so long as the projectile was more reliable.

Fumigate

• Now behaves as does Cone of Cold or Drake’s Breath. Does not attempt to follow a target when a target is selected. Engineer must actively track a target within the cone in order to inflict damage.
• Recharge increased from 12 to 15 seconds.
• Poison duration per damage tick increased from 1 to 2 seconds.
• Now removes up to one condition from the Engineer upon use.

Acid Bomb

• Now grants a ¾ second of evasion upon use.

FLAMETHROWER
Flame Jet

• Now behaves as does Cone of Cold or Drake’s Breath. Does not attempt to follow a target when a target is selected. Engineer must actively track a target within the cone in order to inflict damage.
• Channel time reduced from 2¼ to 1¾ seconds.
• Total base damage reduced from 490 to 445.

Air Blast

• Now also counts as a Blast Finisher.

Napalm

• Recharge reduced from 30 to 20 seconds.
• Napalm wall duration reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.

Smoke Vent

• Recharge increased from 20 to 25 seconds.
• Now produces a pulsing Smoke Field (180 range) that blinds foes at Engineer’s location. The Smoke Field lasts for 2 seconds.

TOOL-BELT SKILLS
Rocket Kick

• Range increased from 300 to 450.

Smoldering Round (New Flamethrower tool-belt skill; Incendiary Ammo removed)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Fire a surprise round from your belt that burns your target.
• Damage: 70
• Burning: 2 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
• Range: 1,000

Regenerating Mist

• Now also removes 1 condition from allies in its radius.

This would work exactly counter to what you’re hoping. Conditions have better sustained output than power. The longer the fight, the more likely the condition team will win. Power spikes harder than conditions. The more health people have, the harder they are to spike down.

Extra vitality is protection against ‘condi burst’ if you’re having trouble with that I guess, and it does buy you time for your removals to come off cooldown. In general though, there’s a cost for being able to coordinate with 1-2 teammates to instagib someone, and that cost is lower sustained output vs protection+toughness.

i dont like this kind of game design. imo there is a problem with rng mechanics that wouldnt work without it. if u take a look at other progress mmos there is a difference in the design.
gw2 has a horrible game design when it comes to boss mechanics. a good example is cof path 1 endboss. sometimes u cant do anything because there r crystals everywhere and u get kicked from one side to the other without beeing able to avoid them. its rng that makes it like this. if there is the posibility to get killed without beeing able to do anything against it u would rage if there wouldnt be a downed state.

now the design works like “ok, rng kicked your kitten no problem, we can pick u up and u can still engange the fight” u dont get punished hard by the rng because u can get up easy.

the problem is the hole idea behind the fight mechanic. to change the downed state they need to change the hole idea behind the fight mechanic. even if u r a rly good player u can get killed by the rng fight mechanic from time to time because its a lot rng. if they stick to the rng fight mechanic they arent able to change it.

the fight mechanic needs to be more static to fit into a regular death mechanic. so anet is in need of the downed state due to their idea behind the fight mechanic. wouldnt work without it. and there we r at the discussion about the role mechanic. in order to fix this they also need to change the “everyone can heal” situation. to fix the rng fight mechanic they probably stick to “tank, heal, dd”.

in some ways the game is stuck because of these design decisions. to change anything there is the need of a different class setup. the idea behind the “no tank healer” is a joke anyway. it is maybe possible to play most of the content with any setup. but there has always been the need of a guard in your group. most dungeons r horrible without. so this is inconsequent game design. they say “no healer no tank” but there is the need of a guard that kinda fits into this role….

the idea behind this is ok but now we got the problem that they r stuck with the futur game design. with the situation atm they arent able to release good pve content.

Make them immune to conditions to start.
This fits in with the rest of the game where inanimate objects cannot be hit with conditions. It would give them a touch more survivability too.

Combining the 30% less damage and regen would also be awesome. Much like what they did with sitting duck.

Overcharge should reset the attack timer. Sure this would mean that you could double tap your turrets but if you can get two shots with your turret currently, you are having a good day.

If these three changes were implemented the turrets would get a slight boost to survivability, believability and playability.

Turrets pick up nearest target by default but if in range the turrets will pick up the engineers target.

Zeldain.5710:

Soja.5918:

ANet has monetized the downed state via finisher items on the gem store.

It can be safely said that it is not going away.

And this, folks, is the truth of the f2p model.

Because them finishers are SO OP!

Not sure what the issue with finishers are…they don’t affect game-play whatsoever and are purely cosmetic.

Tatsuo.1478:

People should not talk about which downed state is better, it should talk instead if downed state is needed at all. In my opinion, downed state should have never been introduced. It is useless and not interesting (you kill one player, but you actually didn’t then you have to slowly stomp him..)

Well imo downed state is a blight, it stops good players doing well and lets off bad players. Just makes numerical advantage even bigger…that being said there is some tactics to it sometimes.

People should not talk about which downed state is better, it should talk instead if downed state is needed at all. In my opinion, downed state should have never been introduced. It is useless and not interesting (you kill one player, but you actually didn’t then you have to slowly stomp him..)

Ranger #2 isn’t a knockback.
Ranger #3 can be interrupted by more than a knockback.

Why are we talking about this instead of why downed state even exists in the first place…

Fun read so far.
However you’re all somewhat wrong. Counters are a good way to balance – sure. So are the Anet implemented methods.
Do you know what you’re all missing? Why you’re not getting all of it?
Because you’ve started from a wrong premise. This one :

" Yes, it breaks down combat into a form that rewards skill but in reality, the “skill” players were looking for gets replaced by knowledge of the best available strategies and the ability to execute them rapidly and more efficiently."

Now read this :
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skill

“2skill noun
Definition of SKILL

1
obsolete : cause, reason
2
a : the ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance
b : dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks
3
: a learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability <language skills> "

You think using knowledge to constantly change the meta is skill. It is not. That my friend is called careful planning, dedicated research and proper simulation.

Skill is a more organic notion, as stated above it is using the knowledge that you ALREADY have and executing it with machine like accuracy. It is having dexterity, speed, coordination and practice. It is the competent execution of a physical task.

To put this in real world military terms – you mistake planning for fighting. Planning is one thing – you draw up maps, distribute forces and logistics. Fighting is actually shooting, taking cover and so on.
Of course they both overlap a bit – but that’s not the point. An effective soldier does not plan while he’s supposed to be running and shooting and does not shoot when he should plan.

I see a lot of you never play competitive games – otherwise you would have known this.
The meta of the game is not something the individual player will be working with. It all comes down to the few dozens of theorycrafters that decide that THIS or THAT will be played. If you’re smart enough you can do that. But the vast majority of players isn’t – and just want to play what others have proven to be " best " or what’s “comfortable” to them.

Skill – as I defined it is something each player can aspire too. From the 12 year old player that can’t even do basic math to the college degree guy who aced CS. All of them have a chance because it’s something innately human. The ability to use your inherent effector ( hands ) to execute a task with speed and efficiency. That my friends is true skill. The kind you can master and improve.
The kind that separates the " this guy got so stomped " from the " I don’t understand how he’s doing that".

So – discuss balance all you want – it might be right or wrong. But just start out with the basics covered next time

perfect imbalance or cyclical imbalance as used in extra credits is a really terrible term for what they were talking about because it gives people the idea that it is somehow the opposite of balance when in reality it’s just a different type of balance. A better term would be Non-transitive Balance which comes from mathematical term Nontransitive game, which is something like Rock Paper Scissors. Which option in Rock Paper Scissors is actually more powerful? None, they are all perfectly balanced. But if you were to solely compare them in pairs, you would be under the impression that one was inferior to the other. This sort of comparative weakness allows for vast metagames to emerge, and many successful games that rely on strategy often have multiple layers of nontransitivity going on. So please, let’s not call it imbalance, it’s confusing and not really accurate.

That being said, nontransitive balance works best in a competitive setting. The reason for this is because players can naturally adapt their strategy to counter what is commonly being used by other players. In a cooperative (or solo) game, if a single profession or whatever can’t be used to overcome all possible obstacles (since the obstacles generally aren’t going to change to counter you) it suddenly becomes useless and nobody wants it, or vice versa if it counters everything by itself. When the balance isn’t done right, you end up with a Hammer that can counter everything. This generally comes up by ignoring the way different stats interact outside of the direct RPS relationship (speed and attack damage being regular culprits).

This sort of balance is really hard to do, as the more complex the system involved, the more difficult to maintain. So if you are going for this sort of balance, you can choose to either keep the system as simple as possible so as to keep it maintainable, or you make it so complicated that it could take forever for someone to find a Hammer.

Removing secondary professions and making the party size top out at 5 makes the system simpler and easier to maintain, but due to being able to boost the different parts of the damage formula with equipment, it causes tremendous imbalances, especially combined with the fact that damage is the only way the game can count your participation. So there are some systemic issues that would need to be solved before this sort of balance could be completely achieved. Even if this sort of balance was really created, it would probably have to be noticeably different between the gameplay modes.

BadHabitZz.1856:

In my opinion players want balance because theres (allegedly) no holy trifecta. Ive been playing TERA (currently weekly maintanance) since i quited GW2 and nobody cares that zerkers pulls out 1 milion criticals and some classes cant even crit for 10% of this becuase they know thier rolles.
In GW2 theres no healer or tank everybody is damage dealer with few utilities and when some class can fill this hybrid rolle better then other classes its a problem for some players which i honestly believe cant be fixed. One of the reason why i left GW2 was that there will never be high-level cooperation in PvE without trifecta…

I’m sorry, but this is a big load of BS.

Trinity isn’t needed to create teamwork.
Players were lead to believe that running things with the highest possible dps is the best, but that isn’t quite the truth. Support happens and it’s quite better!

It’s a matter of mentalities! Players shouldn’t be forced to go with a predestined class (dps, tanking or healing). In this game they can choose to be more supportive, more tankier or more dpsing, but not exclusively!

The only problem with disregarding balance is that when a clearly superior strategy emerges, it results in the removal of diversity because the rest of the game gets polarized around that strategy. This greatly hinders diversity in the game, instead of fostering it.

For an example: There was an old card game called Duel Masters. For a long time, a single card dominated this whole game, and its name was Corile. It had a simple effect: for the cost of 5 mana, you could summon him, then choose any creature on the field, and put it on top of the owners deck. Pacing meant everything in that game, and this ability to set you back a turn was devastating. It occurred at a crucial point in the game, setting players back a turn using a strange form of creature removal. The problem was compounded with the fact that you could use 4 of them in a 40 card deck, and that through some not-so-clever field manipulation you can use them multiple times, or an infinite number of times.

Setting the opponent back a turn potentially endlessly, combined with the -1 to card advantage it generated, it made it so the entire game was dictated by Corile. It did have one counter: if every creature you controlled generated advantage when summoned, then Corile’s benefit was moot. Because of this, you had to make decks using only creatures that had on-summon effects, or else risk infinite lockdown.

The only time Corile’s reign fell was when the game eventually outpaced Corile, making him too slow to function as a true lockdown. This was not accomplished by some change in present tactics, but through the release of new cards that worked faster to win.

Extra credit erroneously refers to what they have as imbalance. It is not the case. What they are doing is mistaking tactical paper-rock-scissors for imbalance. The idea of this is that A is beaten by B which is beaten by C which is beate n by D, repeating until eventually X is beaten by A again. It can be something as simple as a direct game rule, something as mediocre as an elemental system, or something as complex as situational weaknesses combined with precise tactics and prediction via a proper tool set.

The latter is what everyone should aim for. They shouldn’t make something imbalanced and just watch as it dominates the game in hopes that eventually someone else will become useful along the line.

Erebos.6741:

Chorazin [+1] – (Would plus again )

Excellent example!
I understand why you exclusively hate the rally mechanic; because it punishes good play outside of your control.

Maintaining control is definitely a virtue of competency, but even though your team is able to subside the biased nature of reviving, the comparative ease can still counterbalance the reward of effort it takes to down players.

I also see how your team may take advantage of reviving to help overcome stacked odds; promoting the weight of skillful players to overcome disadvantage, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that reviving doesn’t always trade equal risk to warrant the reward.

Note that I’m not suggesting to remove anything, but when you expense players you put their enjoyment on the line.

Do you agree reviving is poorly designed in this regard?

I think conceptually its a pretty good idea, look at other MMO’s and the healing class is usually the class expected(and given the ability) to rez. So now you have the problem that if you dont have a healer and someone dies you cant get him back up so every group demands a healer, or 2.

GW2 dev team have admirably tried to move away from this ubiquitous role in MMO’s and implement something a little different for the reviving of fallen comrades. Now you dont specifically need a healing class as anyone can revive.

The trouble is it’s far too easy and leans heavily towards greater numbers. A larger group can easily rush 3 people in to revive, have another 3 or 4 dropping AoE on that area and the rest of them putting pressure on players currently still up.

We have made the effort to try and drop a player through prot, retal, CC and heals just for 3 people to rush in and revive him with almost 0 we can do about it. Our Ele has some ranged AoE, but apart from that you would have to stand in the AoE trying to get a stomp off. And even a bunker is not going to survive long enough with the AoE raining down plus any collateral DPS from the other players not involved in the reviving/AoE barrage. And with 3 people reviving he will get back up before your stomp goes off.

Then on top of this he comes back into the game with access to all his skills, 100% dps capacity. Gets back up and starts wading into the combat, us as a group have most likely been chewing through timers to drop targets and they are just coming straight back at us, with little to no drawback from going down.

Flip that around and say 1 of our playes goes down(small man) we dont have the numbers to rush in and revive, we are still under a lot of AoE and dps pressure, and the enemy have enough players with AoE just to rain down enough dps that even an attempt would prove death.

So then the question for me, is the downed state the problem or more the rally/revive mechanics? Im tending to think the latter.

Imagine if for a rally or revive they came back up with some heavy debuff like i mentioned in the previous post, sure we didnt get badges for his death due to good play by others in the area whilst the player was in the downed state. But for our efforts we have taken a player out of the combat for 20 seconds or so as he recuperates and waits for his debuff to drop. Say this happens to 2 or 3 people as we are slowly retreating, this at least gives us a chance for some badges or an escape for our efforts.

Vayne.8563:

OP, I really enjoy this game. I love the new content. You’re right. No MMO has ever done what Anet is doing. Some people like it, some people don’t.

I’m pretty sure those that like it spend more time in game than on the forums.

Enumerate just what GW2 has done, that hasn’t been done before. There isn’t much.

Again Vayne, I question your overall knowledge of the genre.

GW1 is unique. GW2 is everymmo stuffed into a very artistic package.

Interesting statement. Let me see now, John Smedley, CEO of SOE, said “people who like the new game are playing it, and not on the forums” … when NGE lost a ton of subcriptions to SWG and forced them to refund the cost of an expansion to anyone that asked for it. That statement has been made too much, and means nothing.

GW2 is a good game. Or, not so good, depending on your tastes. It is not the be-all, end-all of gaming.

As far as thanking them? They provide a service I paid for. So does my garbage company, my power company, my IP provider, etc. I don’t “thank” them unless they address an issue for me. I’ll thank ANET customer service if they do the same.

I think when im telling my own server players to kitten off and not hang around our small man because of a mechanic theres a problem with it.

The problem stems from multiple rallies off 1 stomp and the difficulty for smaller groups to get stomps off, you have your group all in vent, co-ordinating combos and targets, keeping heals and buffs up. Some newby tags along, hes not in vent he cant hear our push, withdraw, collapse this target, hes not in my group i cant see his life/buffs/conditions. It’s probably not such an issue in sPvP(i dont sPvP so cant comment) tbh and in PvE it works well, it’s just WvW where its truly woeful.

We are doing well have 3-4 people down and bam they rally as noobcake has got himself killed. How about i save the hassle and just tell him to kitten off to begin with, and really the only reason is the rally mechanic.

And thats just the beginning of the problems with it, run into mobs and get free rezzes, it’s like thief strategy 101.

Sure it adds another dimension to the combat, one that favours numbers.

The downed state i dont overly have a problem with if they addressed how rallying worked. Although some classes get shafted on downed abilities Guardian and Engi are laughable, Mesmer and Thief are pretty good but thats for another discussion.

It’s the rally mechanic thats the big issue here for me, if its too hard to fix apply some serious penalties after you rally(clearly thats do-able as you get a debuff from the revive orb), not hey im up with 100% of my DPS full movement capacity and all my kitten off cooldown …. some serious debuffs for 20 seconds to take them out of the combat(50% health, 75%dmg reduction, 25%snare, 75% rez reduction) or all their slot skills and weapon abilities are on cooldown for 20 seconds, so it gives the player a chance to retreat to safety and recuperate, or linger at the rear of the fight. They can return to the battle once the debuff drops.

Take notes about this player’s needs and perceptions, ArenaNet. These are the exact players that we need participating and staying in SPVP to make it grow. They need to be introduced to SPVP in a guided, educational and fun environment, so that they want to come back.

I will list some suggestions to help the game. Then I will give my 2c on your suggested class/spec issues.

WARNING : Wall of Text below

1 – Increase capture point area.
Either we get new gameplay modes or the kittening radius of capture points are increased to the SIZE of the Foefire graveyard point. This is should help against the current “AOE THEM DOWN BOYS” issue (I actually heard a commander say that in WvWvW yesterday lol). Imho AoEs from low cooldown abilities (GS/hammer swings and low cooldown fields) should have their AoE reduced to below that of the AoE of heals/area cleanse/group boons etc to promote proper positioning ie you want to stack fields/finishers but at the ideal spot not to get AoE smashed.

2 – Reduce the overall power/number of passive traits/utilities/runes etc and improve ways to use weapon skills on demand rather than the fire & forget (thanks to weapon swap on a cd) attitude ruling the gameplay at the moment.
Not much explanation here, you are rewarded more if you actually do something rather than faceroll.

3 – Get rid of spiking and condition spam.
No 1 shots should be possible (even on GC vs GC) whether it is 5-7 instant casts like the ele or cloak abuse like the thief (not so much now though) or a quad illusion shatter + blurred frenzy with sigil procs like a mesmer (if you think this is not instant, go watch osicat’s videos).
The other extreme is 6-7 conditions dropping on you from the sky which just cannot be cleansed (cd or feared) and dying without being able to do anything but limp.

A GC should be given at least 5-7 seconds when nuked by another GC for reaction time(for active defense skills). Getting vit/toughness should increase window ofc.

Thats all I got off the top of my head right now. Now moving on to your issues listed.

1 – I agree. Honestly, the phantasm “fix” was really not needed for this weapon (4 second 1200 ranged cripple honestly offset the mediocre damage it did prepatch). Now this weapon is a 1200 range bazooka (especially if ur glass) for blowing things up.
The cripple allows you to set up some nasty shatters by blinking onto your target and shattering + swapping to sword to finish. The only real problem I see with this weapon is the phantasm. It should be toned down for the singular fact that it slows and is AoE.

Mesmers have plenty of tools to survive so honestly, I feel that all their Phantasms should be nerfed and the Phantasm specced Mesmers should have access to offset these nerfs (about 70% of the nerf) along with being able to make their Phantasms splash. A trait could be made to increase the Izerker’s cleave radius, give the Iduelist piercing shots, Iwarden gets movement and the Image/Iwarlock attacks bounce.

2 – Simple fix would be to give the Arcane skills a small cast (1/2sec) while lowering their cd to compensate (20 down to 15 and 30 down to 20 untraited). You still do damage, you set up bursts more frenquently but your opponent gets an increased duration to react to your burst before he bites the dust.
As many have said, taking 2 arcane skills and LF screws with your survivability so I do not think nerfing damage or adding conditions to arcane spells will help the decent burst build that S/D can run now. (Elemental surge needs to become defensive instead of a feeble offensive trait to be useful)

3 – I have argued/complained about them enough and I also believe Necros themselves have suggested balance changes so I will not comment about them. In short, I see the real problem as fear being stack-able (like stealth) from multiple sources.

4 – Do not have enough experience fighting a good one to comment. Most of them I have fought get over confident when I get low and stop their evade chain for me to be able to stun and counter play them. I just made a thief recently to pvp with and have to say one thing though. The stealth nerf is more important than nerfing their evasion since evasion can be countered by waiting out their initiative to fall (they should not be able to go on forever) but stealth stacking is broken.

5 – I agree to this. While weakness is the Necro’s defense against burst classes, I do not understand why they have AoE application power as a defence lol. This condition needs to be single target only (or minor AoE for melee skills).

6 – Stealth is always a slippery slope to balance. Nerf it too hard and the classes that rely on it just melt in a fight. Off the top of my head, I would say smoke fields should not give stealth and should give something else (probably a few seconds of “evade”?).
With that change, I have no reason to see thief stealth stacking being overpowered (at least in pvp with the 4 second reveal). I do want reveal to be implemented in WvW though. Its just stupid that a thief can build pure GC and kill you with 8-9k backstabs and 6-7k heartseekers even though you have 1400-1600 toughness and then disappear + stomp you without any counters.

Jae.5138:

Oh, silly Grackleflint. IF arenanet didn’t listen to those top players, it would be balancing the game around the 0.000001% (themselves)

that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with the devs and the players in this thread. This recent patch was excellent and it sure feels great to think that there’s more coming where this one came from…

Well slappy, let me be less “silly” and more specific, then.

They need to cast a wider net. The top players are not representative of the average skill level and don’t represent a diverse player base. Their builds will always be degenerate and narrow, exploiting only the most powerful profession builds and mechanics, and they will use team comps tailor made to trivialize game modes and map layouts. The majority of players don’t fit into this mold and shouldn’t be beholden to a game built on it.

Clear enough?

Erebos.6741:

jmatb.6307:

I think eliminating passive crap from PvP will instantly make the game more polarized between good and bad players, which favors people who actually earn their production.

[+1] – I worship this opinion

I just also wanted to point out:

Down-state triggers passively...

I would like the down state removed also so this still works with my desire to see all the passive stuff reworked/removed.

edit : re-reading the post I see that was your point as well. Good stuff.

It’s not about scrubs vs. elites I could care less about whether or not the top players get buffs or special treatment.

If they’re really that good they’ll stay good and for the vast majority of the case they have.

Balance is not going to be achieved perfectly that’s not possible. It is possible to prioritize active play vs. passive that’s a relatively easy fix compared to a total revamp of traits, attributes, etc.

I think eliminating passive crap from PvP will instantly make the game more polarized between good and bad players, which favors people who actually earn their production

jimmyimo.2089:

Vena.8436:

Adding skills/traits at a slow pace won’t exactly break the game.

It will however still cause the problems I described; it will require more maintenance.

Also, the 25 June, 2013 patch turned every thing in a hardcore-spam-no-skill festival and all they did was change a few traits – what exactly makes you have faith in them?

Not to mention the " there is too many skills to balance properly " citation by ANet in Guild Wars 1.

Gandarel.5091:

Actually, GW1 was easier to balance I think.

Gw1 had over a thousand skills, and thousands of possibilities; it had the most diversity out of every game, you had tonnes of different game types (“Tombs/HA”, “GvG”, “TA”, “RA”, “HB”, “AB”), and objectives (“annihiliation”, “king of the hill”, “victory or death/lord damage”, “relic runs”, “cap points”). How can you possibly think that is easier to balance than this?

You have a point. But I don’t think we can only look at the number of skills and conclude so easily that it was a million times harder to balance. GW1’s diversity was also its own balancing mechanism. There were so many possible builds and so many possible counter builds, that the GW1 “Build Wars” was not a sign of imbalance, but a sign of a healthy and changing metagame. Its various mechanisms and counter-mechanisms were diverse and varied. Now in gw2 we have what amounts to a dps race that can only be curbed by a boring conquest game mode. It’s likely easier to balance, but at what cost to players?

Great thread, imho this post pretty much sums up the current state of gw2 pvp:

Calae.1738:

We understood a long time ago that repawn time and map design are what dictates the flow of combat.

In GW2 you have invincibility frames (dodging), powerful attacks that are NOT telegraphed, out of combat health regeneration, out of combat movement speed buffs, downed state and rally mechanics all mixed together in a completely incoherent mess.

It’s basically a PVE ruleset applied to PVP is what it is.

My major concerns about downed are:

- downed and stomping skills are not balanced at all
- rally often feels pretty random (its doesn’t even account how low you got in downed state) and is pretty overpowered (you can go on bashing/using skills the moment you got up, there is no penalty for being downed at all)
- it massively favors the bigger group (this is mainly a wvw concern)
- being in downed state is outright boring for some classes, without the ability to show any skill

I find LHounds suggestion about rezzing with a combination of heal+elite interesting, but i can see some balance problems here (differing cooldowns are coming to my mind). I would prefeer one in combat resurrection skill for all (with a long cooldown or one time (per fight) like gw1s signet of resurrection), out of combat rezzing is fine, but could be speeded up a bit (i love to rezz my mates – i allways enjoyed healer classes).

I think some more defensive options are needed as well, imo gw2 puts way too much emphasis on (burst) damage, with downed giving the illusion of longer fights.

The down state is actually a huge improvement over what other game has. When you are down, you can still affect the fight some what and contribute instead of just staying there dead and hope someone cast a resurrect on you. Which do you prefer? Able to do something or able to do nothing?

Yes, down state make it more difficult to win a 1v2 but when you are able to pull it off, the victory is even sweeter. If you are not able to finish, you don’t deserve the kill.

Yes, reviving is very powerful however, it also put the reviver at a HUGE risk to himself. You are basically a sitting duck in that few seconds and if you can’t absorb that much damage, you are downed as well. Risk vs reward, I can’t count the number of times I am downed while trying to revive.

Down state rewards teamwork, knocking off an opponent who is about to stomp an ally and then quickly reviving that ally is a very satisfying experience.

There are flaws in the down state though, such as different class have down states of different effectiveness, some are just not too good. The revival speed could also be slow down some, making reviving more of a risk.

If you look at most PvP games of this type, the Respawn time after death is significantly longer. I know in League of Legends it can get up to around 2mins towards the end of a match. That is 2min where all you can do is decide what upgrade you want next.

I feel the Downed State mitigates some of this time. You either flail around uselessly, then die and respawn 10 seconds later. Or you get rezed by your team and lower the time your out of action. However the time when you are twiddling your fingers not being able to do anything at all is far lower.

In other words, when you look at this question,

One or more players overwhelm you and defeat is inescapable. Would you:
a) Rather delay death by entering the downed state?
b) Die and sooner re-spawn?

b is not really what would happen if the downed state was removed and the game rebalanced, what your more likely to see is.

One or more players overwhelm you and defeat is inescapable. Would you:
a) Rather delay death by entering the downed state?
b) Die immediately and have a significantly longer wait to be able to respawn

It blunts some of the ability of spike damage and makes fights last a little longer. 2 thieves roaming together can’t pick off one person after another as quickly. They have to actually stick around to finish them off which puts them into danger. The last thing I would want to see is 2 Thieves rolling through a whole team.

Without downed state, I feel that maps would also have to be far more spread out. To make up for the speed a team could clear a node and move to the next one.

I personally like the downed state.

Hi everyone,

So I thought about how every sports game has his season of some sort tide with leaderboards. My suggestion is to implement an team season like system into GuildWars 2 along with in game leaderboards and new Armor sets for each season which you can only obtain by winning ranked season games. At the end of a season the best 16 or so teams should be participating in a Tourney against each other which everyone! Can watch in game! ( maybe also shoutcastet in game see DOTA2) The winners of this Tourney should get a stature or something like that in Lionsarch for everyone to see. You could also make a second ladder in which the more armature players cane participate so the pro teams would rush through this ladder or not even get placed in it and the amateur scene has also something to work for of course this would imply also a Tournament for this ladder.

What this would do is bring new players into PvP due to exclusive Armor and Weapon sets ( of course you should be able to ware these outside of the Mist) an give the Pro teams something to represent themselves in the top of the leaderboards.

It should be possible to have more than 5 players register for one team that way it’s possible for guild teams to participate as well. A Team is register under a name and should have an Rating as this particular team. On how to create the rating in the first place I also have some ideas I could also write them down if you want to.
So then discuss I’m really interested in your feedback.

P.S.: English is not my native language so please be gentle

Valkyriez.6578:

I can’t really be bothered argueing the point, but downstate threads have been done to death in this forum since beta.

Some like it, some hate it and some don’t care either way.

The important thing to remember, is that Arena net loves it and I highly doubt it or any part of downstate and how it works will change besides very minute adjustments.

Best get used to it and roll with it, they won’t change it regardless IMO.

The downed State is one of many reasons I quit playing this game.
ArenaNet can “Love” The downed state all they want, Its not going to make me Hate it any less, Downed state is Unbalanced and Game breaking to me and Unless it is either changed in a way that makes the game more balanced or removed I will not be coming back, There are plenty of other games I can enjoy instead of wasting time “just rolling with it” and Im sure there are plenty of other people just like me, so If ArenaNet doesn’t mind losing that chunk of its players then by all means, keep on loving it all you want.
Just my take on it.

Well, because no matter how much you may think they are above it they will be like everyone else, wanting their class buffed and all others nerfed. You really need a objective viewpoint to properly balance.