Guild Wars 2

I feel personally that berserker is too powerful. They don’t sacrifice much in order to have high sustain, high damage (be it condi or power), and high defensive abilities (blocks, stances, high hp, high armor, etc.). It seems like it’s too easy to get everything now rather than having to invest more in order to be effective in a certain area.

@Darknicrofia, If it’s gold/gems just send it to me in game. I’ll gladly take donations from those humbled by my genius.

@Arcaedus, the cc-chaining aspect is harder to with this yes but there is a fairly decent cc chaining ability given through binding blade and spear of justice for pulls and wings of resolve and lb 5 for immob and aoe cc. I really just wanted to get away from the trap spam type build dh is associated with and I found something that works well the way I play. ToF is good when you have multiple ways to get people through the proc area to maximize damage and as you have already pointed out mine isn’t built for that so I actually think I’d be hindering myself running ToF. Proj reflect only counter aa and true shot on lb. The rest isn’t affected by that so the reflect doesn’t play as big a role as one would think.

@Yannir, what I found was that the vamp runes 1) added an extra 1k to my heal which is always nice especially when you have to rely on outhealing the damage you take due to lack of aoe cc and traps to prevent pressure from being applied. Plus it actually allows the damage the heal trap does to be fairly significant especially against squishier chars. I haven’t gotten to play it enough to find that perfect rune to complete the build but so far vamp has actually done a pretty amazing job on the build. Scrapper is a good substitute in power focused matchups if you find yourself unsatisfied with vamp. Also note the damage leeching does ignores armor so that 1k damage is free damage, offensively, there isn’t much of a gap though i could possibly see scholar runes working due to the many ways you can keep yourself at high hp, I’ll give that a look.

As the title says, has there been any statement from anet regarding whether we will have future content that requires tickets? Or are we best just spending them all now to get ascended backpacks for chars?

Mizu Misa.8730:

Vornollo.5182:

Agreed on all accounts here.
…
As for Acrobatics… There’s certainly potential for the traitline if it’s going to have a bigger impact in the areas you specified. Aside of that, I think the traitline would benefit of seeing a form of the old “Power of Intertia” trait back (Might on Dodge)

…

I like the idea on might on dodge. It basically makes acro more about building up momentum in fights that last longer, rather than the bursty specs with D/P or others in DA.

The balance of Boonsteal on S/D needs to be thoug of in perspective of future elite spec balance (*cough*boon inflation)

How would people “fix impacting disruption”?
The main problem is also the powercreeped elite specs, I can see the trait getting an internal cooldown thoug. What I like about it is how rewarding it makes hitting interupts, I’d hate to see that go away.

@Highly
Atm it’s not hard to stalemate a ele on thief. But I still feel pathetic considering the amount of effort it takes for me to stay alive vs. the Ele…

Yeah acro used to do that which gave it a cool playstyle but anet though at the time that running around with perma 5 might was too much so they dumped it. It’d be cool to see it make a return and possibly bring s/d into the meta agin.

I honestly think s/d has a pretty decent balance on boonsteal right now considering it sacrifices the blind and stealth of d/p and has to be able to go toe to toe with other specs. However if it goes any higher then we may have an issue.

Impacting disruption could be “fixed” by giving it a 50% damage reduction (4k is too much for such a skilless passive) and adding a 5 sec cd to it. If it’s still too much then reduce the scaling but it should be fine after those changes

Yeah, if base damage on some ele stuff gets looked at then hopefully we won’t have to try so hard just to stalemate a cleric healbot…

Probably not with all the cc running around but it would be interesting to see how high someone with experience on those sets could get in pvp.

I see three thieves in this video that aren’t very good. 1 that can’t land a burst (1st thief you fought), 1 that has no idea how to properly escape (2nd thief you fought), and 1 that doesn’t seem to be able to play without using the two most broken dueling traits the thief has and thinks they are some sort of god for it (sorry but that’d be you).

Mizu Misa.8730:

Imo sword stealth can be pretty effective with “impacting disruption” running S/P.

The issue is we shouldn’t need a broken trait like Impacting Disruption to actually do significant damage or have a strong effect on combat.

@Blaquefyre,
In some cases they could be considered passives because they promote passive gameplay
Case 1) Lotus training and DB condi dodge spam
Case 2) Bound and vault spam

Outside of those sure you could make the argument that they aren’t passive in which case I’d agree with you so I’ll give that point to you outside of these scenarios.

So I put this build together awhile ago for pvp purposes and it has been working pretty well. The build functions best as a side point fighter but due to the AoE cleave and cc you have you can still do fairly well in a mid fight.

For those interested:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJARTn8cClDhVDBeDB8DhlEi6aZDgEIL/+vAU+5j+rH-TJBFABC8AA0Z/h/LDAwVAAA

Note: the open sigil slot on the lb can be used for either bloodlust or blood (If you generally survive well then bloodlust is better for the power increases)

This is the greatest gw2 video I have ever seen. Well done on thinking of that.

The way I define passives would be:
Any effect that procs randomly (I.E. not a consistent effect like pet taunt) without an animation before it does so or a large enhancement that doesn’t change gameplay, only adds extra damage/effects. So in essence we are looking at:
-All on crit/on hit sigils
-Every proccing effect when you are struck or when you strike someone else (rune, trait, etc.)
-ALL anti cc traits
-ALL low hp procs
-Impacting disruption
-All Daredevil dodges
-Ancient Seeds
-Chill of death

There are probably more but for the sake of not ranting too long this is what I’m putting out as passives that need to be changed/removed.

Rastaman.9015:

Ario.8964:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsY8an0MBlOhVOBGmC8PhFqiau67+yvrnCgDwLDShSA-TJBFAB3v/AAPBAxLDQwJBAA

Ill give that a try bro. I’ve been doing alot of testing and what i have so far…. counters just about everything. What i need help on isn’t so much survivability but to add as much damage without sacrificing too much of my survivability. Especially condi bursts.

I switched blackpowder to Assassins signet and changed the amulet to zerker. Which i did see a difference in numbers. But them waiting till i switch to s/p to burst me puts me in a choke hold without stealth options. I even tried bound dodge (the one that adds damage), and I definitely saw a difference in damage but then the condis….

I can pretty much evade all the power build bursts with any variant of this build. My main problems are condi clear if im not running the first build mentioned as is. And in almost all variants, damage is sometimes too low epecially for heal classes(which is why I added poison sigils).

What do you think?

Bound is definitely a possible option as EA with PR should be plenty of over time clear with trickster and shadowstep for on demand clears. Running marauder ammy I think is your best option because you don’t want to accidentally get caught by a stealthed d/p burst thief and be 1 shot. To make up some of the damage if you can stay high health you could run scholar runes to provide high power, some extra fero, and a 10% buff while above 90% hp. I’d keep the trait setup I have for the rest of your stuff because it provides higher sustain and regen abilities without sacrificing your damage. Unfortunately there is no fool proof way to destroy all condi builds with thief BUT this setup should yield some good results.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQRAsY8an0MBlOhVOBGmC8PhFqiau67+yvrnCgDwLDShSA-TJBFAB3v/AAPBAxLDQwJBAA

These are the choices I would’ve gone for. The blood sigils and scrapper runes help you to heal a little more and tank more damage so you can be in combat longer. I know you didn’t like it but I preferred bandit’s defense to give you more face to face brawling ability. Traits I swapped to sleight of hand so you have more cc and can interrupt with steal, hard to catch so you can have an extra stunbreak and endurance refill to help you in combat, and quick recovery to give you more sustain via regen and extra initiative to use in your fights because you evade like crazy with this build. Having the ini recovery will allow you to stay in combat without having to leave to get your cd’s back.

Agemnon, I’m going to rebuttle (and agree with) some things for the sake of discussion and the fact that I’d like to hear more of what you have to say regarding some of these things.

1) Regarding ports, yes there should be counterplay BUT there should also be counterplay to the cc’s you may get caught in. You can’t dodge through the walls, classes like thief and Mesmer don’t have stab so they can’t use that to get out, most of the port focused classes lack blocks long enough to protect them during the duration of the cc. I personally could settle with leaving the cc procs there but not the damage ones. The fact that I get killed despite using escape utilities because porting through a trap did huge damage to me doesn’t make sense imo. Plus it would help to reduce the severity of guardian hard countering thief.

2) Regarding hp pools, the reason I suggested this is because the game has evolved past the old system where the lower hp pools had better active defenses because now pretty much everyone has the same defenses. Add to the fact that build diversity is severely limited due to the fact that 11k hp is simply not enough to survive at all anymore. These classes NEED to build heavily into vitality in order to function which imo should never be the case. The less you force people to take or do things to be effective, the more diversity you will achieve.

3) Ok I’ll agree backstab doesn’t need 20% but maybe 10% because it’s damage is not good right now when you compare it to the other options you have to burst with. Backstab needs to be the best damage option a d/p or d/d thief would have when it’s set up properly and right now that isn’t the case. Only time you end up seeing anywhere near 4k is when you’re hitting squishies (pvp talking ofc, wvw is a whole different ballpark)

4) With other changes to thief then I can accept not making the heal base.

5) Regarding pistol auto, I don’t think it would be OP at all. If I remember right it would only end up critting for like 2k w/ mara ammy. If I estimated too high then that would need to be adjusted. With p/p though the bleed would be gone so the skill would need some solid damage.

6) Withdraw can be 14 sec cd now with trickster and It’s nowhere near op. I think making it 15 sec but the cd being unadjustable would be perfectly acceptable.

7) Yeah improv needs some sort of change cause right now it’s too random to be balanceable so the function needs to change

8) With engi nades, if my condi suggestions in pvp went through then the poison field would be fine as there’d be no stacks in pvp, only duration increases.

9) Power Mesmer as it is now just needs straight buffs. After it takes some buffs then sacrifices can be looked at based on what it ends up utilizing best. Right now I just think it needs some love to get it back into the game.

10) Reason I suggested giving rev more condi removal is right now they gut completely shut down by anyone with condi. Soft counters are fine imo but hard counter shut downs are a big no no.

11) Elementalists arcane shield I could see as a 20-30 sec cd given that it only blocks 3 attacks

12) For class swapping, Again, with changes going through you wouldn’t have straight up hard counters so every challenge would be able to be overcome with skill. Also with 0 class stacking it’s highly unlikely you could be up against a full counter comp without having some advantage of your own to utilize. The issue is when you allow class swapping that defeats the purpose of no class stacking because people can swap to the same class inside a match.

I personally would like to see a hotfix. As someone who has been on the not as fortunate end of the matchmaking it’d be great to not have to put up with it anymore. Compensation would be a great way to show the community that anet listens and are trying as hard as they can to find a solution. Especially considering how much toxicity is surrounding the system as it is now, a fix would be a huge step in ensuring the entire pvp playerbase doesn’t quit.

However, based on how a ton of people have reacted to stuff like this I’m guessing the people who lucked their way to legend or premade farmed it will say no so they can get more rewards and try to act cool by talking down those who did not get so lucky. But we will see as more reply to this.

So with all the balance talk going on I’m gonna post my ideas and suggestions here for you to agree with, ridicule, argue with, whatever the heck you feel like doing with, etc. Right now, this is what I feel would be the best changes to make in the game.

General Balance:
-Ports no longer proc effects from traps and aoe cc (ring/line of warding, test of faith, static field, etc.)
-Boon access reduced (boons should be present but not permanent, there are too many out there right now and it skews balance too much when you have to take into account how many perma boons are possible to achieve)
-Stealth removed from all classes except thief to allow for a change in interaction and behavior (stealth stripped but revealed not applied when you hit a block, evades behave the way they do now. S/d 3 will cycle using this interaction as well)
-CC access reduced significantly
-Overall condi access reduced and duration increase stats no longer exist in pvp (for boon and condi both). condi is split between pvp and pve (pve stays the same, pvp takes the pre stacking change approach and most are limited to 1 stack with confusion no longer having ticking damage)
-All base damage and healing reduced and scaling increased (forces people to invest into what they want to do, no more tanks hitting like zerkers)
-Thief, elementalist, and guardian health pools increased to match mesmer health pool
-All passive counter-cc traits removed (players should be rewarded for timing and landing cc properly, idiots should be punished for eating it)
-All passive low hp procs removed (people shouldn’t get freebies when it comes to combat, if you take too much damage you die learn to survive if that’s a problem for you)
-All passive procs on runes, sigils, and on hit traits removed (random procs have nothing to do with skill. Removing them is the best way to make the game more competitive and easier to understand.)
-Krait rune 6th effect dodgeable/blockable

Elementalist:
-All scepter autos have increased attack speed/shorter cast times to allow synergy with on cast healing signet and damage increased by 15% across the board
-Phoenix speed increased by 20-30%
-Ether renewal cast time reduced to 2 seconds, conditions cleansed reduced to 6
-Glyph of elemental power trigger chance increased to 33%, cd reduced to 40 sec
-Glyph of storms cd reduced to 45 sec
-Arcane shield cd reduced to 60 sec

Tempest (or things associated with it)
-Aura heals reduced by 30%
-Protection duration of elemental shielding reduced to 2 seconds
-Hardy conduit reduced to 10%
-Invigorating torrents reduced to 3 seconds per boon instead of 5

Thief
-Shadow shot damage reduced by 20%
-Auto attack damage reduced by 5% (dagger)
-Backstab buffed by 20-25%
-Unload might removed, damage buffed by 7%
-Body shot now rolls back and evades (similar to staff 3)
-Vital shot when p/p is equipped changes to remove bleeding and buff auto damage by 30% (stays the way it is now when p/d is equipped)
-Trickster recharge reduction removed and replaced with gain 1 stack of stability when you use a trick (5 sec)
-Withdraw returns to 15 sec cd
-Roll for initiative 45 sec cd
-Haste cd reduced to 50 sec
-Scorpion wire reliability issue fixed
-trapper’s respite cd reduced to 15 seconds (allows it to be used with any heal)
-deadly trapper gets a 5 sec internal cd (helps to stop extreme might stacking)
-Improvisation changed to recharge one random skill on your skill bar (allows good thieves to time their steals with certain skill recharges to gain the benefit they want) cd given of 40 seconds (once every 2 steals if the skill was used off cd)
-Practiced tolerance changed back to buff vitality instead of ferocity
-pain response regen duration reduced to 7 seconds
-upper hand regen duration reduced to 3 seconds cd increased to 3 seconds
-slight of hand recharge reduction now made baseline

Daredevil (or things associated with it)
-Impacting disruption damage reduced by 50% internal cd of 5 seconds
-lotus training condi durations halved and impacts changed so that each enemy may only be hit by 1 impact
-bound damage removed but leap finisher stays (should be a utility not a burst skill)
-Dash has a 3-5 sec cd on condi removal
-Bandit’s defense cd increased to 18 seconds

Warrior
-Defiant stance changed to behave like the glint heal
-Body blow only has an effect on interrupt
-Fast hands made baseline

Berserker (or things associated with it)
-Smash Brawler trait removed (too much spam with it)
-Quickness on Fatal Frenzy replaced with 5 might
-Bleed duration on Skull grinder halved
-Only 2 confusion stacks are applied per normal hit (4 if it interrupts)

Ranger
-Spike trap cd reduced to 30 seconds
-All base ranger pets become more reliable when it comes to hitting the target
-Pet base damage reduced by 7% (allows them to have similar damage to now because the pet will hit more often instead of missing the target)
-Pet stats now match that of the ranger rather than each pet having their own stats (will stop full bunker builds from being able to deal significant damage through their pets, but will make full glass builds very threatening as both the pet and the ranger will deal high damage but be very squishy)

Druid (or things associated with it)
-Ancient seeds cd increased to 20 seconds
-Primal echos no longer dazes
-Natural convergence no longer roots the player

Necromancer
-Boons are no longer corrupted by scepter auto
-Deathly swarm projectile moves 30% faster
-Corrupter’s fervor toughness per stack reduced to 20 duration increased to 10
-Vital Persistance baseline

Reaper (or things associated with it)
-Deathly chill bleed duration reduced to 5 sec

Guardian/DH
-I don’t have enough experience playing on this class to even take an informed guess at what needs to change. If some ideas are posted below I will add them to this

Engineer
-Rifle damage increased across the board
-Net shot projectile speed increased and reliability increased
-Shield 5 reduced to 30 sec cd
-Glue shot immob increased to 2 sec
-Grenade 5 made a poison field again
-Ground target bug fixed (the one that causes nade and mortar to fire into the ground and get no effect)

Scrapper
-Hammer damage reduced across the board
-Rocket charge only gives 1 leap finisher
-Final Salvo stability duration reduced to 3 seconds (gets an internal cd of 5 seconds)
-Gyros get a cast time of 1 second
-Bulwark, purge, and medic gyros cd increased to 30 sec

Mesmer
-Greatsword 2 gets it’s extra bounce back
-Greatsword auto damage increased by 5%
-Sword auto damage increased by 7%
-Blurred Frenzy damage increased by 7%
-Illusionary counter torment duration reduced to 5 seconds
-Confusing images confusion duration reduced to 6 seconds
-Main the disillusioned torment duration reduced to 4 seconds
-Mantra cast times reduced to 2 seconds

Chronomancer (or things associated with it)
-Continuum split no longer affects elites (as a result moa cd reduced to 100 seconds and time warp cd reduced to 100 seconds)

Revenant/Herald
-Given more condition clears through traits
-Direct damage mitigation reduced (fewer evades on weapon skills like surge of the mists and unrelenting assault and a cd of 5 seconds of the shiro evade)
-Facet of strength base might duration reduced to 10 seconds

PvP system changes:
-No class stacking in queues (premades will not be allowed to queue until all duplicate classes are changed)
-Profession based mmr introduced to make learning a new prof easier
-No swapping inside matches (both before and during will be locked)
-No more forcing players to 50% wins (if a player is good enough to win 99% of their matches then let them, don’t try to rig the system as it frustrates the good players forced to carry noobs and it frustrates newer players who feel they can’t contribute due to all their opponents being beyond their skill level)

There ya go

Ep. 2 of my reviews hope I can still be helpful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_JjC4fVOPk&feature=youtu.be

Lexander.4579:

Ario.8964:

@babzhook
I agree thief is often unnecessarily called spammy, BUT when builds like d/d condi exist that is when spam is an actual thing. You use #3 and your dodge over and over again. The reason it is spam and not normal thief gameplay is because there is no skill required to play it and it can actually be a threat. The bound+vault spam build is the same way, it relies on using 1 skill and dodging. It doesn’t require any skill and in the right cases it can be a threat (granted there’s a ton of easy lockdowns to it but that is not the point)

Resource based gameplay is power d/d, d/p (without bound and ID), s/d, staff (when not using the vault/ bound spam build), and p/d because they rely on using combinations of skills that can be used as many times as they want in a row but only when their resources allow them to. Yes most thief builds fall into that area but there are a few spam builds and only clueless players don’t see that or are too ignorant to recognize it as a problem. (not an attack on you, just turning around what Lexander said)

no need to flip my words in that way bae

your poor example with kitten d/d and staff bound builds is a joke and you know perfectly well that people bm thief with the “spam” word on any build as long as the situation requires thief to use the same skill 3-4 times in a row:
- elem stuck at 25% hp refusing to die with all his b/s healing cooldowns so i repeatedly use dagger 2? spammer noob thief
- warrior running at me spamming his bow 1 so i punish him with pistol 4 repeatedly? gg noob thief spam more

and there are more examples now and in the past, for example when dagger 4 was actually a real skill you could simply bounce it between zerk-geared gankers and drop them like flies punishing them for poor positioning, what then? thief is spammer

if people called “spam” only d/d condi and staff vault build nobody would even care about it, but the ignorance spreads much further and people just use this word to bm a thief rather than reflect on the actual gameplay

I’ve always wanted to be bae (jokes aside I’ll get to my actual post so I’m not too off topic)
I was providing true examples of spam for those who were looking for what an actual spam build is. In some really weird way I’m supporting what you’re saying with people BMing thieves for “spam” when it’s really just a situational benefit using a skill more than 2 times. My intent was to outline the difference between legitimate spam on the thief and situational usage of a skill.

The sad thing is yes, people are very ignorant of how the thief is to be played (hence why we still get rage pm’s for ganking and running out of fights) but we can’t really change that view. What we CAN do is limit the powercreep from HoT by nerfing everything from it that is overperforming. But even if all that is done people will still complain about thief because #blamethethief is still a thing.

@babzhook
I agree thief is often unnecessarily called spammy, BUT when builds like d/d condi exist that is when spam is an actual thing. You use #3 and your dodge over and over again. The reason it is spam and not normal thief gameplay is because there is no skill required to play it and it can actually be a threat. The bound+vault spam build is the same way, it relies on using 1 skill and dodging. It doesn’t require any skill and in the right cases it can be a threat (granted there’s a ton of easy lockdowns to it but that is not the point)

Resource based gameplay is power d/d, d/p (without bound and ID), s/d, staff (when not using the vault/ bound spam build), and p/d because they rely on using combinations of skills that can be used as many times as they want in a row but only when their resources allow them to. Yes most thief builds fall into that area but there are a few spam builds and only clueless players don’t see that or are too ignorant to recognize it as a problem. (not an attack on you, just turning around what Lexander said)

1) Why does a system stack matches with 3 revs and no support on 1 team with 2 condi lockdown warriors and a druid on the other? This system stacks classes so much you can almost never play on your main because there will be 2 more of it on your team no matter what you queue with.

2) Who is the idiot who designed a system to force you to a 50% win ratio? I started out the season at a solid 55% and then I found my groove and began win streaking, all teams seemed evenly matched and were solid fights to the end. Then, I get huge loss streaks to force me from the 75% I had climbed to back down to 50%. How did it do this? By rigging every single match i played in to be a blowout where either comp is stacked and nobody on my team is willing to swap (me swapping wouldn’t help because i was the only one playing my specific prof in these matches, otherwise I’m always the first to swap) or rigging it so I’m playing with people who somehow manage to die in less than 2 seconds on a full bunker build under almost no focus fire while I’m the squishiest one on the team and I’m surviving the whole match under extreme focus fire…

The design of the system is trash, the implementation is even worse. To add the terribad balance into the equation makes your entire pvp setting a giant fustercluck of spam builds where nobody can progress to the level they want to if the system decides they have to carry every match.

How to fix a problem like this?
Start with no longer allowing class stacking in any queues (even if it is a premade, they will not be allowed to queue until they remove all duplicate classes) and no longer allowing swapping before a match (it doesn’t solve all of the imbalance in matches but it does help significantly with avoiding blowouts due to complete counter comps). Also implement a class specific mmr so people can learn to play on alts without instantly being forced into their highest level of play.

Then they need to trash whatever it is that forces people to a 50% win percentage, if a player is good enough to win 99% of their matches (I’m not but I’ve met many who are capable of such a thing) then for the love of tyria let them. Don’t rig the game into forcing higher skill players to carry noobs and don’t force new players into an environment where they can’t play because all their opponents are too good for them to handle.

I know the pvp team doesn’t control this but class balance needs to be looked at severely. The amount of powercreep present in every HoT spec is still completely overshadowing all the vanilla classes. Condi is running wild on a few specs while others have power levels that dare i say it feel like they are over 9000. Healthpools should be normalized or at least have the bottom tier pools brought to 15k to match mid tier. Passives need to be removed completely and overperforming sets and traits need to be toned down while underperforming sets and traits need to be brought up.

This is only a small bit of the stuff that needs looking at but even fixing this stuff would take large steps towards fixing this fustercluck of a pvp system.

Ports need to not proc trap effects or aoe cc effects. It’s stupid to port out of traps in order to not get bursted down by the dh only to be hit by a 5-7k proc from a trap that kills you anyway. Same goes for any sort of aoe effect, you are porting to try and avoid it not take the full effect of it anyway. This really ought to be looked at imo cause it’s ridiculous how it works right now.

Ok, it took me forever to get settings and such figured out but I got it.
I butchered your name so much Agemnon so for that I’m sorry but here’s the video, I hope it’s at least somewhat helpful. (also sorry for the quality not being amazing, still trying to figure out settings.)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-QuPeq_zuI&feature=youtu.be

I’m not mainly condition but i do have a condi set for when i feel like it but overall I feel like berserker stats give you a better time in pve if you care about speed. If condi is what you like then it will work just fine. PvE you can actually play the way you want so just do what’s more fun for you.

If you mean the warrior espec then I can’t give you an accurate read because I don’t play war very much but it does generally do PvE better if i remember right.

No it absolutely does not. We do not need more immortality being given through a tempest. Right now condi is a pretty decent shutdown against an ele if it’s set up correctly. By giving resistance you’d have perma prot, resistance, almost perma reflect, and ridiculous heals all on 1 character. That is bad and should never be implemented imo.

We need more maps but without stupid pve gimmicks (lord on foefire or beats in forest) or ways to score that don’t involve holding points (I.E spirit watch orb). Just give us straight up conquest maps so we can play some pvp not pvp with pve to try and make power plays look cool (temple does the best job, the meditations still revolve around holding points and allow for some really awesome comeback plays but only if you can outplay the other team.)

Also please fix the quarry node, the area is riddled with flat terrain that still leaves you with no valid path. Puts all port classes at a serious disadvantage and does not allow for fair play to occur.

Give us profession based mmr, no class stacking in queues even if people are premade, and no class swapping.

It will create much better matches and will make it impossible for players to stack a match so the comp is in their favor. Plus it will allow other players to get used to new classes before competing at a level their main is at.

The gameplay was pretty nice given the build was full glass so any teamfights would be too dangerous to enter.

My biggest comment was about how you could change your opener. I personally, given how much damage you have, think going pistol 5 then bound and steal followed instantly by backstab would be a stronger opener and would help you to take out targets significantly quicker with less danger to yourself.

In pvp if you use dash you can replace sb with staff and run with another set as staff offers high utility and some mobility from vault. Is it optimal mobility? no but if you don’t want sb it is definitely doable and can be highly effective if used right.

Anyone on NA is welcome to join me for pvp. I’ll activate missions if i get the chance but the issue is getting the group together and having to activate pvp missions BEFORE the q pop. Makes getting everything done in the required time very hard.

I’m pretty busy today but hopefully in the next few days I can take some specific notes and make a response video with all my comments and feedback. I’ll post it to youtube and then to here so you’ll be able to review what I have to say as many times as you need or would like to.

This game is so far beyond kitten that you can’t describe it anymore. Literally who in their kittening mind thought it was a good idea to load a skill that can have a 3 sec cd with enough condis to 1 shot someone without a clear? Or to make a healbot that is kitten near unkillable? Or to load the game with so much passive kitten that 90% of builds nowadays play themselves? Literally whoever the idiot is that thought any of this was a good idea needs to be fired and replaced with someone who has half a mind when it comes to balance. Look at this mess, 3 big patches later and vanilla specs are still obsolete, passive play still dominates the game, condi is king (DoT condi builds that kill slowly like they are meant to are all okay but condi that melts people in seconds is bad and needs to go), overtuned power skills that let people run full tank and still shred opponents with damage are still here, dodge spam is still the thief’s only reliable defense and even that isnt enough, cc is still through the roof (80% passive procs), power shatter mesmer still nonexistent, spam builds are the only builds being played, too many classes have too many defense sources which are too easily combined to give near immortality, and the list continues for much longer than i care to spend time typing my rage here.

This can be disregarded unless you support the need to actually make meaningful changes to the game at a reasonable pace (I.E. stop waiting 3 months to do changes that NEED to happen like nerfing warrior’s mace primal skill or nerfing the healing from auras) This game has so much potential and this lack of meaningful action is ruining every aspect of it.

Summary:
Get good at balancing pls. kthnxbye!

@Aza,
GW1 worked really well with it because it didn’t have a league system where you were punished for losing. It was a much more casual pvp system which is why this option worked well. Now in unranked sure this could work but absolutely not in ranked.

We absolutely do not need this. This would add a whole new level of toxicity to the game. Either people would just resign every match because they lost the first midfight or they’d rage at you and harass you for not resigning. If you don’t want to waste time losing then don’t lose, simple. If you queue solo you will have bad matches, it sucks but it happens so deal with it. If you have friends in game then play with them and win as a premade. There are plenty of other options, adding this option would be unnecessary and would bring about a whole new level of toxicity bad enough that I’d quit the game the day the patch came out.

Low hp procs are passives, they go as well. Thief functions without it and revs are playing without those procs too. They are unnecessary and will be removed as well. It’s not just one class or rune that’d have passives removed, it’d be every class, every rune set, every sigil.

Basi can stay where it is for all i care. It’s good but it’s not gamebreaking atm. Impacting disruption is a carry trait that needs to go. Yes other classes have their bad stuff too but it’s not like hitting daredevil where it needs it will stop the other specs from getting changes too.

My thoughts:
-Remove bound’s damage so it can still be a heavy utility dodge with a leap
-Remove impacting disruption or at the very least give it a 5 sec cd with a 33% damage reduction
-Put a 5 sec cd on dash’s condi cleanse but it will only go on cd when it actually cleanses a condi
-Add some more damage to backstab so it is consistently hitting higher (with the other damage sources removed, backstab can be buffed without overtuning thief damage)
-Take some damage from shadow shot and put it on backstab (d/p has too much damage on it’s main attacks, if it’s going to be a bursty set it needs burst not shadow shots hitting for 3-5k)
-Make 3 sec reveal universal (possible buff to d/d)

Take into account this is only able to be put through if other classes have defenses majorly cut. Im talking tempest healing ability destroyed but compensated so it can function as something other than a healbot, druid healing nerfed to high heaven with pet damage cut down on so the pet by itself can’t carry damage, scrappers sustain nerfed like crazy, etc. Additionally all passive effects in the game (i.e. auto proc traits, sigs, runes, etc.) are removed entirely. At that point then balance will at least be somewhat visible and more changes can be made to balance especs to the vanillas

Remove all passives from the game. Doesn’t matter if everyone uses them or not, passives are bad for a game and they need to be removed completely. No exceptions.

Reducing damage gives room for reducing the ridiculous amount of healing and defenses in the game. The way to combat power creep isn’t to keep building higher, it requires you to take some stuff down and while that seems counter intuitive it needs to happen.

Damage can always be buffed after but take into account there were not as many builds back then that could utilize condi effectively because the ammy choices were limited. It is a whole different selection now and that could be the difference that needed to be present to make condi viable in that state.

Don’t see why it’s so hard to just make condi behave in pvp like it did pre stacking change… literally would fix a ridiculous amount of the problems we are having with condi right now.

You could run S/D as the mobile part of your set and have an alternate way to stealth via CnD. It’d offer your more sustained damage while P/P could handle your burst. If you use EA with Dash then you shed condis really well and you become hard to hit due to the blinds from pistol and the evades from sword dagger 3 augmenting the damage mitigation DD offers you. Plus take into account if you are careful with when you swap weapons you will never be without the utility you need. P/P will still have your interrupts and S/D would have cripple for you to catch people with.

I’d break it down but Zodryn hit it hard and I’d rather not make a copy paste response for you to waste your time on so I just threw some points up there as food for thought. Good luck with the build!

S/D was strong because it was a dodge build that didn’t need stealth to survive or maximize damage. At that time the D/P build was executioner so people ran S/D to sacrifice some burst damage for much greater survivability.

Now with DD the D/P build has the same amount of evades as S/D with the addition of blinds, stealth, more gap closers, more damage, more utility, etc. The unfortunate thing is that while S/D is so much more fun to play and fight against, D/P is objectively better in almost every respect (except style :P)

foste.3098:

Druid:
-Pet damage significantly reduced as base and pet stats now match that of the ranger (do not change if the ranger is given might but the pet is not. Do not benefit from food buffs) no more full bunker druid’s killing people because AI does the work for them

Try to play 5 games with non hot pets, actually play with the wyverns, and then realize how wrong you are. Only 2 pets are good for damage and that is only because they can hit moving targets reliably.

Just to remind everyone a canine pet can crit up to 7k (depending on armor) with brutal charge or crippling leap while under the effect of remorseless & attack of opportunity (signet of the hunt, moment of clarity, hilt bash), a drake pet can hit even harder with tail swipe but these pets are not reliable. Hot pets are not the ones with the biggest burst but they are the ones that hit most often with theirs, so stop kittening about it.

So you’re justifying 2 overly strong pets based on the fact that the other pets aren’t as reliable? That is one of the worst arguments ever. The goal is once the damage is toned down on the pets to an acceptable level, the burden falls on anet to make every pet as reliable as smokescale and bristleback. You have to look into the future for these types of changes not just at the now. I personally can deal with it the way it is but for the sake of balance in the game there should be changes. I’d rather all pets be viable options rather than 2 be too strong and every other pet be put into a shelter because people like you neglect it.

Sorry if i seem aggressive but I’ve had a rough night and I apologize beforehand if i offend anyone but this needs to be said.

Removing amulets is all well and good if they are overperforming but let’s take a look at the reality of the situation:
-Literally only 1 build in the entire game is overperforming with this amulet, removing it just limits build diversity in other classes.
-The overperforming can be changed with 1 easy fix and then the rest of the ridiculous balance can be addressed after
-Build diversity will never exist if we make stupid band aid fixes like this. Hybrids are a good thing to have in a game but where cele was too strong, most of the other ammys are either not utilized because something is better or being removed because ONE build is too effective. Sorry for being straight forward but this is what i honestly consider to be a stupid balance decision.
-You see how once you remove these ammy’s the builds stay the exact same but with a new ammy? It’s not a problem with the ammy and if it’s not in your power to make balance decisions then don’t touch it. Instead put pressure on the balance team to start making better decisions, take community feedback and act on it quicker, separate balancing in each mode because it is atrocious right now, and if need be hire new people to be in charge of said projects because as it is now, the only thing keeping most people from playing the game is how gimmicky and faceroll it has gotten due to opness in builds.

Now that I’ve listed complaints, here are some suggestions to take into account right now to either give you guidelines or possible approaches to balancing (I’ve said this a ton of times but I’m obligated to list these things if I’m going to complain):
1) Revert the condi stacking change in pvp and wvw. Make every condi unstackable (in intensity) outside of bleed and reduce the damage they do so that condi builds will actually be DoT not alternative burst.
2) Remove ALL passive counter cc traits. The auto break can stay in those traits or gaining prot/retal/etc. but passive counter cc needs to disappear COMPLETELY
3) Reduce base everything across the board but improve scaling. Force people to invest stats into an area to be effective there, not barely touch it and still get the full benefit. The issue right now is so many HoT things do such high base damage that people can build tanky and still hit as hard as a vanilla zerker. Forcing investment will remove the “ideal build” situation we have gotten into and it’ll open up a place for actual roles to emerge within the many game modes.
3) Reduce the amount of aoe present and reduce the damage of aoe so that single target always hits harder. Should be common sense but it is not this way right now and something needs to be done to make it so.
4) Reduce the amount of blocks/invulns in the game. Things like chronomancer, scrapper, dh, etc. all have insane amounts of blocks, invulns, and heals that they are either unkillable or they take a ridiculous amount of time to kill which should never be the case.
5) Reduce cc present because it’s silly how much there is. The game should be designed around comboing and chaining to beat opponents, not button mashing until something dies.
6) Remove any buffs to ressing (any 10% faster traits, S+R, etc.) so it’s uniform across the game
7) Reduce the amount of defenses combined with strong attacks. I.E fewer evades that do damage simultaneously (Thief sword 3 is good because the damage is low and after the evade. Rev sword 3 and scrapper’s rocket charge are bad cause they do damage and evade at the same time while sticking to you hard. Mesmer sword 2 is okay because you are rooted)
8) Remove all gimmicks from the game. This should be accomplished if everything else above is done but in the future all gimmick builds need to be destroyed because there’s no fun in that and there’s no skill involved.
9) Remove the full investment into traitlines change. Let people take multiple parts of multiple traitlines to increase diversity. (basically the old trait system with enough points to max 3 and no stats gained from traitlines)
10) Reduce the presence of boons in the game and remove some of necros corruption ability (corruption on scepter auto) but in return add more boon hate to other classes. (I.E. stolen boons steal the full stacks and duration).

Class Specific:
Daredevil:
-Remove Bound’s damage and keep the leap
-Add a 5 sec icd to impacting disruption
-5 Sec icd to dash’s condi removal
-Reduce the condi stacked by lotus training (1 impact per person)
-Increase cd of bandit’s defense
-Reduce the endurance gain from channeled vigor to 50 endurance total given at the end of the skill

Thief:
-Reduce cd of Roll for Initiative
-Sword 2 return is instant but can’t be used while hard cced. Remove 2 condis
-Sword 3 cycles on blocks, after all it hits something (still fails to cycle on blind, dodge, etc.)
- Backstabbing into a block strips stealth but no reveal is applied. Reveal only applied when damage is dealt
-Stealth removed from all other classes and given only to thief in order to balance its possibility as a defensive tool. Other classes compensated with alternate defenses for the loss of stealth.

Scrapper:
-Hammer damage toned down significantly
-Hammer 3 does 1 leap
-Hammer 2 damage reduced and reflect now instant. Longer cd.
-Block gets damage removed and instead does damage to those who hit you while you are blocking
-Hammer 5 reduce range to 900

All other vanillas are fine imo so especs are the only ones that need addressing. Keep in mind that all the other changes above would be put in place so if there aren’t many changes lsited keep in mind there’d already be a ton beforehand.

Druid:
-Pet damage significantly reduced as base and pet stats now match that of the ranger (do not change if the ranger is given might but the pet is not. Do not benefit from food buffs) no more full bunker druid’s killing people because AI does the work for them

Tempest:
-Aura heals reduced
-Obsidian flesh now prevents you from attacking. Utility skills still available.

Herald:
-Surge of the mists damage reduced significantly (like 40% damage reduction, it’s already a strong evade and cc, doesn’t need a ton of damage too) as compensation some of that damage is given to other parts of the set.
-Shiro teleport no longer makes attacks unblockable. a port is strong enough on a 5 sec cd
-Precision strike damage buffed by 10% but only 1 projectile can hit a target. cd increased by 2 sec
-Unrelenting assault damage reduced and cd increased

Reaper:
-Reaper shroud 5 damage reduced by 10%
-Scepter auto no longer corrupts boons

Dragonhunter:
-Block uptime reduced
-True shot cd increased by 3 sec
-Test of faith damage reduced
-Remove daze from traps and instead just reduce the recharge
-Porting/shadowstepping through traps no longer procs cc from them or damage

Chronomancer:
-Clone summoning abilities reduced (chrono only, base mesmer is fine)
-C split no longer affects elites (moa duration can be reverted if need be to compensate)
-Shield block is 3 sec and only happens 1 time, not 2 times.
-Reduce access to cc HEAVILY

Berserker:
-Range on arcing slice rage mode skill reduced
-Stuns will only apply condis if they interrupt. Spam needs to be discouraged while skilled timing is to be rewarded

This is by no means my full proposal but it is a very big taste of what I believe needs to happen. Please put time and efforts into this rather than limiting our options by removing stats! I have defended this company for a long time saying “they will fix it all soon” please don’t prove me wrong.

Edit: Forgot runes
-Passive “when you are hit” procs removed

I very much disagree with the proposed egun changes. It’s the engineer’s best source of weakness and that is my favorite part about it. You sacrifice doing burst to prevent the burst of other players which gives it usefulness on every build, not only condition stacking builds.

I stopped playing scrapper ages ago because it got too boring to play in the first 2 weeks of having it so I’m not going to comment on any other proposed changes but I will leave this here:

What needs to happen to increase build diversity is to create a sacrifice based system, you get what you invest in. If you build for tank why should you do any damage? And if you build full damage why should you be able to tank 3 people at once? We need to get away from this system of allowing everyone to create their ideal ultimate build. Too many things are too close to unkillable with ridiculous amounts of damage, utility, group support, aoe, cc, etc. So what I’m proposing is overall reduction is base everything and increase the scaling it has so people who try to build for everything can do everything but only barely enough to get by.

Add onto that the need to remove passive cc from the game, trait overdependence, design flaws with especs, etc. Build diversity on engineer can’t exist just by tweaking stuff on the engineer, there are large game wide things that have to be addressed before focusing solely on individual classes.

The issue they have run into is the fact that elites didn’t change the way you play your class. It gave you a straight upgrade. Don’t believe me?

Ranger to Druid:
No mechanic change, just new and stronger pets with an additional healing form that sacrifices no aspect of ranger gameplay

Thief to Daredevil:
Add an extra dodge

Guard to DH:
Smaller cd’s on virtues, more functionality on virtues, more adaptable virtues that are better than the originals in every way.

Engi to Scrapper:
Add an autostomp/autores

Mes to Chrono:
Add a free reset within combat

See the trend? There was no sacrifice from taking the elite, just a straight upgrade to what you already had or some added functionality on top of what you already had. That’s the fundamental issue with elites and core specs are being punished because anet has no idea how to dig themselves out of this. They need to nerf the elite specs and/or redesign them in order to sacrifice something within the core class and change the way you play it.

For example:
Alter daredevil to focus on rather than just adding dodge spam to a class (btw, that’s not a class specific mechanic so the whole idea of the spec is… well… wrong) play around the use of steal and the alternate side of stealth: reveal. Give the daredevil changes to how skills interact in order to allow it to play around with reveal but sacrifice stealth gameplay. That’s a new style and a new mechanic on the thief class and then acro can have the buffs from daredevil it needs so dodge focused builds like s/d can still exist but then we begin fixing the fundamental flaws of the espec system.

Hope my points were clear. I got a bit ranty but it is what it is.

Best way imo to start messing with condi balance is to revert the stacking of all condis outside of bleeding, torment, and confusion in pvp. (basically pre condi free stack change) Every other part of the game would remain the same so condi can be used in pve but pvp is not capable of being balanced with condis able to stack as much as they can. Remember, the game was pretty balanced right before HoT came out. I think rather than scaling everything up to new power levels and making everything else stronger, they need to tone down the game to pre HoT levels. If that means nerfing the hell out of all especs and things relative to the expansion then so be it. The point is the game will never be enjoyed fully until relative balance is achieved and gimmick builds are destroyed.

Regon Phoenix.8215:

Ario.8964:

This is one of the single worst “balance” lists I have ever seen.
1) You have absolutely zero knowledge of the thief class as evident by your suggestions

Let me stop you there, before you embarrassed yourself even more.

Salty cause you know I’m right? You provide no evidence to back your claims and all your claims are absolutely ridiculous. Unless this is meant to be a sarcastic thread you have demonstrated yourself to be one the dumbest players I have seen on this forum to date. If it is sarcastic then I appreciate the humor and would like to say my earlier post was typed in a rush so i didn’t have time to interpret the sarcasm and I apologize for the harsh words.

This is one of the single worst “balance” lists I have ever seen.
1) You have absolutely zero knowledge of the thief class as evident by your suggestions
2) You have zero knowledge of the mesmer meta (hint: power builds are next to non existent now)
3) Condition warrior is an exceptionally strong build when used in the right situations but it loses it’s spot because of reapers condi transfers
4) You completely left out the ridiculousness of condi reaper’s damage
5) You neglected to talk about reaper’s condi transfers and unnecessarily high boon corruption ability
6) You ignore the fact that revenant has next to no way of fighting condis and therefore needs to have some added to compensate for the nerfs to it’s direct damage defense
7) You gloss over the real reason there is imbalance due to especs
8) You fail to provide a single suggestion on how to fix ANYTHING.

Summary:
This is not a balance list, it’s a string of grievances just like every other so called “balance expert” in the playerbase

Nerfing heal turret would be a dumb af decision. There is nothing wrong or out of balance with core engineer. All the problems are with scrapper and if you nerf core engi via heal turret you ruin the class.

If you’re NA I’ll jump in and help with my scrapper. In legendary right now so you’d have tougher fights but if we get some other good people we can make it work.