Guild Wars 2

Feanor.2358:

Not necessarily. All existing effects can simply trigger for your most recent (let’s call it “primary”) attunement. The mechanic of the new spec would be the only thing referring to you previous attunement and affect/replace certain skills based on the combination of the two.

Sure, mechanically and balance wise that is the easier approach – only the mechanic of the spec (supposedly the change to the skill 3) is the “mix of elements”

But thematically wise you end up with a spec that is able to mix elements that even if is specialized in fire and water and in combining elements, is simply only capable of a restrict combination and incapable of combining the faster casting (CD reduction) to its mixed element spell or even combining glyphs or utilizing the effects of its mastered elements (while in Y element gain X).

If it ends up like that it would just feel – thematically – has a very amateurish elementalist and not as a specialist.

Feanor.2358:

I find it unlikely, mostly because of traits. Giving the player an ability to render her active traits effectively useless seems like a pretty poor design. On top of that, it doesn’t really tie in with the lore or the class.

The other possible read – you get some effect based on your current and your previous attunement – seems way more sensible and interesting.

For sure that is more interesting but the power creep that would result is astonishing. Just a couple of point:

Imagine you use the arcane trait that gives you X condition on arcane skill, now you double the condi?

What about the traits “while attuned to X you gain Y stat”, now double the effect?

And again glyphs, would you trigger both attunements?

Or they might just give back the previous arcane minor trait that gave lingering elements and say it is “new and exciting”. That wouldn’t be surprising

I know the devs see us as PvErs, but we should at least try to make the WvW section about massive scale fighting rather than jumping puzzles and other PvE concerns, no?

You in the wrong forum buddy, that should go to General.

Valento.9852:

Well, they’re reducing skills if anything. We get a variable skill instead of 10 “free” skills. Situational skills make up the best experiences… I’m still hoping they add more “procs” tied to damage to our beloved class.

Yup, if we assume as true the “only 2 attunements” that means that the class will lose versatility in its play being reduced from 25 skills to 15 skills.

Not to mention, again, we lose a lot on other related traits and skills (glyphs, arcane traits, and the choice of having some traitlines).

Add to that two points:

- Other main hand or two handed will not be adjusted to compensate for the loss of 10 skills, so big risk of sword becoming mandatory with the spec due to being the only weapon balanced around this.

- ANET’s balance approach of “as long as one works its fine” will likely mean that 1 out of 6 attunement combos will likely be the “meta” whilst the rest fades into oblivion – which could mean that some traitlines will be absolutely neglected (and I feel arcane traitline is one that for sure will be absolutely wasted on the spec).

Wulf.5431:

I’m not worried about it being a bad spec, they have to make it good as an incentive to buy the next expac. All elite specs thus far have been the meta for most, if not all, game modes. I do hope that it actually gives us a different style of play though. I feel like core ele and tempest both perform best as team support, and while that is nice, it’d be cool to have a different way of playing. Hopefully that’s what this nest elite spec does – takes away some of our tools to make our remaining ones stronger.

You should definitely be worried. Elite specs have been meta because of powercreep and not simply because of fun factor (although some are indeed fun).

I absolutely hate Tempest elite spec and have been playing my ele less and less because of my absolute distaste of this rushed and poorly planned disaster, but I know for sure that if I don’t use Tempest I am gimping myself from damage and survivability simply because the terrible traits and abilities of the spec still outclass vanilla ele due to ANET’s willful decision.

I would hate to have another poorly planned mess of an elite spec that is not fun, not thought out and just a rushed piece of **** that only works because “let’s powercrep it so the choice is play it or handicap yourself” and then have ANET call it a success because everyone uses it.

First of all, brace yourselves for disappointment – from what I seen in the pics, the elementalist was the only one that didn’t have the trait/skills hero point circle up so that leads me to think that it is not ready yet and needs much more development than the others.

Remember the Tempest that had a lot less work to be done – by not making such a huge mess with the class (mix of elements) and a whole bunch of skills – and the tempest is hands down the most rush and poorly done elite spec of them all (both thematically and mechanically, Heck not even the names make a kitten sense with the spirit of the class – stormcaller).

So yeah, won’t be holding my breath and seriously hope people look at it objectively rather than blinded as first look.

And a few big problems – eles have gigantic cool downs for their skills. If we have less skills, meaning 2 attunements, how will they avoid us sitting using auto attacks? Weapon swap? Major cool down reductions or sword becomes mandatory

Also – if we have both elements in play, how will the cool down traits work? Double effect? Combined effect? And what about the “X” effect when in Y attunement? Do glyphs and arcane traits just get worse if we pick this spec? If we choose to take water but pick “as legends” fire and air do we just lose minor traits of water?

Again, if we get reduced cool down on attune swap between the only 2 we have, what about the on swap traits we have? Added internal cooldown? We can trigger more me frequently and get much more heals and might?

This is starting to feel once again restrictive to the class – possibly ANET decision to not make us so much “jack of all trades” thus nerf baseline so the elite spec is balanced.

Last but not least, how will they compensate with mantras the baseline lack of survivability of the class and also our dependency on water trait line (will that limit us to always having to mix with water other elements to take advantage of the much needed survival traits)? And if they add survival stuff to the traitline how will we not go back to full bunker class again (water + new trait line)?

I don’t know – the path they are going seems hugely complex for the class and will probably end up breaking a lot of the baseline to make the elite shiny… and when the number tweeks creep in * flashbacks of meteor and air overload nerfs *

cough

puts on ANET voice:

“We have evaluated extensively during a period of 3 months and determined that the skill is working as intended. To assist players with a reduced skill capacity to deal with this clearly counterable play, we have added an extra crutch with the changes to light field.

We will continue to monitor how this change reduces the strength of conditions game wide so that adjustments can be made to ensure the continued improvements to condi based play."

/end

Swamurabi.7890:

I thought that Anet said that it was scrapped because it kept getting bigger and bigger, until someone woke up and realized that they really need to work on PvE and sPvP.

They then decided to move the WvW team to the xpac and living story and only do changes to WvW that were quick.

You won’t see any major WvW changes until next xpac release or later.

^This.

The “massive WvW overhaul” was a failure. They said that they had been working on it for a year and continued to work on it for more time, but then just realized it wasn’t working so they scratched it.

Well, not scratched it completely, the WvW pools you have seen were what was left of the “massive WvW overhaul” that was in the oven for those years.

Anything more than what we got is nowhere in the foreseeable future – no word was mentioned at all that the expansion will bring any “overhaul” / change or improvement to WvW in any sort of degree, much less that any patch will bring that to the table at any point in time.

What we have today is likely how it will be for a good while. Don’t put your hopes on any patch / expansion.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Dev’s are answering questions about the balaance patch in the general section https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-Skill-Balance-Thread-22-February-Update/page/5

Let ’em have it.

Thread is closed buddy.

Good riddance though because that was just terrible, with a lot of negativity, a lot of comments ignored and mostly empty and vague answers except for one constant comment “lack of resources”.

Wonder if the “lack of resources” has anything to do with the continuing downward spiral of GW2 financial results – which are likely not to change in the short term and, even if the expansion hits, with the continuing style of development, not likely in the long run either.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Azel.4786:

Sigh…..

Simply no comments on bringing build diversity to eles.

Another patch comes and goes and underused traits, skills, poor elite skills continue unaddressed and ignored.

Having the opportunity to chat with the devs and actually pass along this grief is meaningless if it is just ignored.

I just give up on it.

Did you really read all of their responses? Irenio said he wants to review Conjures already.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

In particular I’d like to review and revisit Elementalist Conjures, Guardian Spirit Weapons, Engineer Gadgets and potentially Mesmer Mantras.

Ok, good that is something. But it is the same as what we have been hearing since forever without any effort to show for it. The rework for conjures has been talked about since years ago, what is the progress on that? Were are they going and what have they tried?

And what about arcane skills? Elite Skills? What about the fact that almost every trait option for ele is a mindless option because you only have 1 that is actually viable or, at most, 2?

HoT has been out for a year and a half and since before then we have talked about underused stuff for eles and nothing. HoT came out and ele has been stuck with one build option (healbot tank) in PvP since day 1 – when we going to change that?

Sigh…..

Simply no comments on bringing build diversity to eles.

Another patch comes and goes and underused traits, skills, poor elite skills continue unaddressed and ignored.

Having the opportunity to chat with the devs and actually pass along this grief is meaningless if it is just ignored.

I just give up on it.

Titan.8215:

I would like that any Dev say something about the ele’s nerfs.
I understand the air overload’s nerf, but what about the meteor shower? The skill now feels slow and bad, its not feel in the line of the elementalist.
Why you didn’t put it a longer CD or nerf the dmg of the meteors? Seriously, when you see the meteor hitting enemies and not being damaged, feel so bad.
I know that ele its top in PvE, but dont ruin the essence of the elementalist’s skills.

I would like a comment on elementalist as a whole.

Very niche, few options and several underused traits, utilities, skills – including elite skills being the worst of all professions.

It just feels that it is a matter of don’t care / too much work to bother….

Since HOT kicked in, elementalist place in pvp has been of a healer with any other build being subpar (in different degrees and, more recently, significantly weaker options). Do you feel that the balance changes are significant to add build diversity for an elementalist in pvp – I.e. Have more than one build with similar strength level or is it just another subpar option that will have a bit better result than previously (if at all)?

If no, why weren’t more changes made and what, if anything, are you considering?

If yes, what new role do you expect elementalist will have with the changes?

Do you believe elementalists elite skills are on par with skills from other professions? I for one feel that the “elite skills” have no elite aspect on them and ele would be significantly stronger if able to slot a regular skill in the elite slot.

If you do not, what, if anything, are you considering on changing and why were no changes made?

Do you feel conjure weapon skills are in an adequate spot? If not, why wasn’t it touched and what, if anything are you considering about them?

A grip I have with elementalist is the lack of option on traits. Generally there is one trait that is substantially better while other are just filler traits that aren’t real options for example, water trait line has little to no variation across all builds, Tempest trait line as well etc.

Do you believe the balance between traits is adequate? If not, are you considering any changes and why weren’t any changes made?

KaporHabakuk.6219:

PvP:Looks like slight microbuff for me.Was hoping for dragon tooth buff/rework and FGS CD reduction with insta cast on it.I had low expectations for me,but result is even worse than i was awaiting.Thou util skills CD reduction is nice,now just have to survive those 50sec for armor of earth to witness it

On other hand,reading guardian notes and “buff” to lithany of wrath,lol,CD reduced to 25sec….. more epic than shatterstone buff from previous balance.

But you can’t improve the epicness and perfection that shatterstone is. That skill was polished to excellence

Gwaihir.1745:

Pathetic complaints. Staff ele was easily 7k dps ahead of any other dps spec in ‘high tier pve’. The numbers are coming and, oh, whats this? Youre still #1 dps. Seems to me the ele community qq’s a lot about nothing.

Since you quoted my moment on High tier PvE as I mentioned above I don’t give kitten about it since I don’t know the impact – much less do I care as I do PvP and WvW.

Now please tell me how the complaint is pathetic on the actual point of the complaint – changes made no difference to bring build diversity, new role, etc.

Before going around the board doing your “damage control” read the complaints.

TorsoReaper.8530:

The crazy part about the whole thing is everyone would have been happy with a balance patch that buffed the underloved traits, weapons, and skills. The #1 complaint is not enough build variety but instead of fixing that they just put on the blindfold and swing the nerf bat and then give token buffs that don’t compensate for anything. It’s like the people doing the balancing don’t even play the game.

Shhhh…. You are making sense before a senseless patch.

It is easier that anet just deletes all the underused stuff rather than go back and improve them.

The problem with elementalist is that the “buffs” were done to compensate for an overnerf that was widely pointed out by the community but ignored.

These “buffs” make no changes to the meta of the class, under used skills, lacking weapon combos, traits, etc. it changes nothing. Or rather, the only thing with substance is the nerf on staff and air overload which still needs to be seen in detail how big that will be.

Mr Godlike.6098:

PVP guy here…

…nothing changed…ele stays healbot for season 6th…only Armor of Earth and Mist Form buff means something…

Anet really wants people to stop playing ele in pvp.

It’s complete waste of time to login in and test the changes.

Perfect summary. No changes, nothing is different. Weapon choices, strategy and meta will stay exactly the same.

Only difference for ele now is to see how the nerf on staff will affect High level PvE and that is it.

Once again, pathetic changes. It is like they don’t want or don’t know what to change

I for one would be really happy if they nerfed the hell out of elementalist.

Heck, if they nerf Elemental Bastion to dust and remove regen on Invigorating Torrents I would be happy.

Fact of the matter is elementalist is profession that requires a ton of work from the developers and – frankly – I don’t think there is anyone left on the team that understands how it works to start.

I have no delusions that before the class is destroyed ANET will attempt to fix its many issues.

So our hope of getting elementalist fixed lies in the class becoming utter trash that makes ANET ponder whether to delete it or to actually put the effort to make it balanced again.

With that said, I sincerely hope this balance patch is a swift and decisive move to put the class on a complete utter trash stage so that we can then hope that in the next balance patch maybe – just maybe – ANET starts, at least with baby steps, to fix the class into something balanced and fun.

Feeling? I think you can go up to certainty.

What we should do, however, is bet on what will be nerfed so we can have some fun in this forum.

Here goes my guess:

Healing Power will be nerfed to “fix” Druids and we will be hit by it – or they just straight up nerf our values.

They will also go across the board standardizing the items / traits / skills that give %boon duration and changing it to give concentration – which will result in a nerf to our Arcane Trait Line.

I think we can also expect a mix of poor buff attempts and some nerf scepter skills (Something tells me that phoenix hitting more than 3 times is about to get fixed this patch).

What is your guess?

Because of work and effort that needs to be put into them.

It is pure and simple that, ANET has limited resources and making new and exciting stuff is better for marketing and sales than making the old stuff appealing/worthwhile (although making variety and you second guessing all your picks would provide so much fun and may have a retaining and a promotion value – but I digress).

Resources are then pulled into making new stuff, new expansion, new etc, whilst balance is kept at making PvP not explode on itself with extremely OP stuff or UP classes.

I am not sure they are succeeding at that goal, but that is the goal they are most certainly pursuing.

Tempest’s design was put into question since the first trailerless reveal.

Those comments produce literally 0 effect, despite being the main complaint and comment on the forums during the entirety of the Beta.

The damage then has already been done, this is the elite spec we have and nothing will change from this.

You have a better shot a hoping the next elite spec has a decent level of effort and development and actually aims at filling a role that was not already filled by ele.

Yeah I have been using the same amulet too, vitality from marauder is meaningless when everything kills you so fast.

I admire your skills, but the build, however, dies immediately to any form of condi pressure. You simply can not put up a fight against them – you have 0 cleanse.

Reason why I find it hard to ditch water and cantrips, but it is a palliative measure due to the abudance of condis in some classes.

It is a good 2v2 build with a good support, no doubt, but by itself it has many issues as you lack a good form of hard mitigation.

Eles,

I share much of the frustration that the latest balance changes brought – heck I even used sarcasm and got agitated by them.

Fact is though that complaining will do nothing but give you the chance of infractions and a ban. If complaining worked we would have a decent elite spec. If making suggestions worked we would have had good interactions with the developer in the design of the elite spec.

If suggestions and complaining worked we would have had changes to the elementalist that gave it mechanics to work as a DPS or as a Condi build, we would have more than just cantrips and shouts as viable skills, heck, we would have halfway decent elite skills.

But we go nothing.

So let it go!

Accept the fact that we got the shaft and go for another class or another game. If ANET ever wants to hear our opinion on what they could do to improve the class there are already countless and exhaustive posts in this forum that they can go back and read.

You said your piece and probably said it well, now ignore it. Posting, commenting, etc will amount to nothing. Maybe the emptiness gets ANET working on it (it worked for WvW after years of neglect and destruction), maybe it doesn’t, either way you will no longer be frustrated by it.

Just let it rest.

Yes, it is intended.

But that doesn’t explain the reason why they kept it so….. if Arcane Shield warrant a buff because it was mediocre, why not do the same for the trait? What logic is in that?

There are a ton of similar – but more effective – traits for other classes, but ours needs to stay the worse – and even worse that the actual skill it mimics?

Didn’t you read the dev in charge of our amazing elite spec and the nerf saying that they used a ton of metrics and that it was decided that the CD reduction traits were overperforming game wide?

The reply to your comment op is simple – Aeromancer’s Training and the CD reduction to blinds, gale, etc were making the S/F FA builds OP, so it had to go.

What you feel was an unjustified nerf is backed up by a ton of data – apparently – so either live with it or pack your things and go home or to a different class.

In any event, I say ANET can keep nerfing Tempest Traits and Skills, but pray they make other trait lines and skills better to use so that we can discard Tempest to the trash it deserves and focus on the more interesting stuff.

slamfunction.7462:

Update: It has happened again. This time with Stabilizing Matrix. Someone over on the subreddit found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4ur0o1/stabilizing_matrices_and_insider_trading/

I really wish Arena Net would put a stop to this. We’re not operating in a fair market at all here. I see this as an outright exploit at this point.

This has been debated, it has been shown to the devs as a concern, it has went to deaf ears.

You need to consider this:

- Insider trading is not considered universally bad, some economists support it. It might be ANET’s resident economist is one of those;

- Those with leaked knowledge are people who had access to Beta and/or that are friends with the developers to know this stuff. So it is likely they know who knows and don’t reprimand them for it.

- Insider trading has been discussed way back and recurrently for almost 4 years now and never acted upon by ANET.

With all the above, accept this is the way it will always be, make friends with someone to give you insider as well or pack your things.

It simply ain’t getting changed.

To add salt to injury, did you guys notice that the cooldown on the trait “Final Shielding” did not get reduced to 60s?

Would certainly like to know the reason for that. Guess it was “overperforming on all game modes across the board” too….

But leaving the CD reduction traits would not affect all other skills and all other builds of the elementalist as clearly intended, or did you miss the part of “issues with both offense and defense game-wide”.

Clearly the devs saw that everything about the elementalist was OP so it needed a massive buff.

Just slot the new Tornando and feel the power – guess that is the idea.

Whaaaattttt… are you guys crazy???

Elementalists got the huge 33% buff to Flamestrike damage against stationary targets!

And what about that huge buff to Arcane Shield, it be so OP to mitigate damage now, every minute you now are able to block 3 full attacks (provided the enemy doesn’t have one of the many unblockable skills!)

Or the huge buff to Tornado! Hey now that skill is still useless – like all other Elites – but with added uselesness!

Who cares about the fact that there were nerfs to overall sustain and a huge nerf to CD reduction and damage across the board affecting builds ranging from Staff Tempest, Fresh Air builds, etc etc.

Build diversity is overrated! In fact playing ele is overrated.

Take it as a challenge, next time you can say to your opponent – Geez you lost to an ele! Git Good!

thefinnster.7105:

WOW just WOW so much nerfage thanks anet for screwing all us eles over its all in the wording of the patch notes you sought to normalise the dps of the tempest so basicly now we do around the same dmg as any other class BUT with still have all the penalty’s GG anet
tested my dps rotation on the golem 9k dps loss from last nights test as someone who mains ele this is a massive demoralising hit to me and seriously has me considering quitting the game coz clearly you don’t seem to understand we are supposed to be a physically weak class with high dmg output I don’t feel like this is the case any more we are now just a weak class with average dmg so why even bother playing it at all when I could just play something else that dosent get 1 shot downed everywhere I go

But you forget that you are not meant to be a DPS class! Elementalists are now designed to be a pure healer.

Stop wanting different builds, Jesus! The class is meant to be a healer and a healer it shall be with its awesome Tempest elite spec!

But look on the bright side, elementalist sustain took a hard hit because of the terrible Tempest elite spec and the huge harm it did and we have no other new play style opened up to give variety.

Next patch maybe elementalist gets deleted and we stop looking into this dying class or we have an elite spec for another class that brings a similar play style of the elementalist and we can finally let go of Ele.

Either way our sinking ship just got a new hole and we are running out of buckets.

I still play it because I like the style of the class, but hate with a passion Tempest and the fact core ele is a shadow of its former self.

But I digress…. as for the patch, I expected nothing and am still disappointed.

ANET can keep doing what they do, I stopped buying gems since HoT for a good reason and I see no reason to going back to buying any gems

Honest opinion:

I expect nothing and will still be disappointed.

- Since Tempest was revealed ANET had almost 0 interaction with the forums and Tempest came out as a (IMO) boring healbot with another terrible elite (/IMO);

- After HoT powercreep came about and elementalist saw its options (D/D, S/F, Staff) reduced to D/F healbot shouter in sPVP.

Shouts, BTW are nothing more than gimmick aura spam for heal and condi cleanse. I dare say that if shouts had lower cooldowns but only gave the aura and had the “shout” skill type, people would call it a buff;

- Developers are clueless on what to do to fix stuff. Main example: consider how since HoT they are saying they are going to make scepter viable, but I have yet to see any ele running scepter – and we had 3 quarterlies already;

- All skills of ele (most shouts (gimmick) and cantrips (which were needlessly nerfed due to trait nerf) excluded) and all of the ele elite skills, have been worthless for years now without any indication that they will be improved in any way that makes you want to consider using them (maybe FGS for the mobility, but a 240s cooldown mobility skill is a joke for an elite, and as for rebound, see my comment above on gimmicky nature of shouts);

- Since before HoT (and even more so after HoT), Ele has been the profession that IMO has practically mandatory trait lines and almost 0 trait competition in the trait lines (i.e., almost everyone that picks a trait line picks the same traits with almost no variation, water and tempest being the most glaring offenders, but all trait lines have reasonable number of options that are marginally better (if at all) than not picking a trait).

With all of this, I truly expect nothing. If you think this patch will make ele have more options, stop being just a healbot, etc, you are truly an optimistic for you see an empty glass as a glass full. And I honestly salute your positivism – no sarcasm -

In the meantime I will continue to express my dissatisfaction in the only way I see as having any effect – no longer putting a single dime in the game.

It’s been almost 4 years and there is no light at the end of the tunnel that water trait line will stop being mandatory.

Arcane is now only partially mandatory due to excessive bunkering capabilities that Tempest trait line allows – which dumbfounded everyone when the forum was rather active and wanted to guide Tempest to something fun and not the boring mandatory spec it is today.

Anyhow, your changes don’t really change much.

Water trait line is still mandatory because it is very efficient at removing condi. You have a cheapo and efficient option of going water trait line to remove condi. Your other expensive and limiting option is to go tempest / shout / trooper.

Or you go crazy and get both….

Without a decent condi clear in other options (e.g., perhaps resistance on Earth? Convert condi into boon on fire trait line, or something else) Water will continue to be mandatory for you to have a decent sustain, even if you go a weird route of simply giving baseline healing abilities to the ele like you suggest.

Your options also do not fix another terrible essential requirement of Elementalist – the dependency on Protection Boon / Boons in general to survive. It saddens me that this was even acknowledged when the Tempest trait line even offers an “upgraded protection”.

To have other viable options, Eles need ways to survive, and if your only way of surviving is healing / boons, you are pretty much stuck with the trait lines of today unless you give another option of surviving (e.g., maneuverability / stealth / realiable debilitating condis, etc).

Give ele a different playstyle – such as a fast paced / stealth capable traits – and you have yourself more options opening up.

If you simply give the base line healing / boons to ele, you are just making it either OP or not really changing the class at all.

Man I just wanted to swing by and say that I hate Tempest with a passion.

The other elite specs are also not too far off although they are at least interesting – generally – tempest is just boring and, worst of all, close to mandatory for you to be able to survive against the other elite specs (which accounts for almost 99% of what the people run in PvP).

It sucks that elites are pretty much mandatory and it sucks even worse that Tempest is the most boring of them all…. my poor ele was so much fun before.

/rant

Roman God of War.6953:

Everyone seems to forget there business model is B2P. You would spend this same amount of money on Witcher, Fall Out, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, Assasins Creed….

You have 0 say in the development in those titles. You have 0 interaction with those developers ever.

What???

Look I stopped playing GW2 and only still follow this forums due to the WvW being the only thing that might salvage this. But I had to drop here and say about Witcher.

You have absolutely 0 knowledge of CD Projekt Red based on what you wrote there. CD Projekt Red is one of the few developers that is actually good and has good communication.

ANET would have to go through a complete restructure to be able to compare to them. CD Projekt Red during Witcher 1, Witcher 2 and Witcher 3 gathered (and still gathers) a ton of player feedback, plus releases a ton of content – the majority of it for free – based on player feedback, including patches, DLCs and Enhanced Edition mode.

Seriously, go learn who you are comparing with before dropping names around.

And lastly, on the topic, the “communication improvement” of ANET these last few days (as well as the recent “March Sale”) is a PR desperate gamble to try and recover from the loss of players and – as I bet NCSoft numbers will show once the 2016Q1 are released – loss of profits.

It is not meant to.

Welcome to Revenge Wars 2, where the balance is designed through hat picks!

Every Quarter the team gathers at ANET’s office to blindly pick certain classes that will be OP and some that will be UP in the following quarter’s meta!

Will this be your turn to shine and laugh at your opponents or will this be your turn to fall consistently to your enemies?

You never know until patch rolls out! But the QQ will always be there!

Akkeros.1675:

if you build a house blindly from beginning to end and nobody wants to live in it because the kitchen is outside, the bathroom is in the basement, and the bedroom is in the front entryway…do you just hire an interior decorator?

Hahaha very well put.

And I add: Going back to the old Alpine BL would be an excellent PR move by ANET.

Think on it, ANET is grasping straws in their attempt to fix WvW. The community is largely filled with negativity and player base in WvW is dropping like flies.

However, if ANET comes back and pulls a “we are sorry” and reverts the Alpine Borderlands (and I would add the reset time as well), they can instantly get a portion of their image back with this acknowledgement of a mistake (and with action on it to boot) and then bring the community closer to try and work on a WvW fix.

Let’s be frank as well.

No matter what ANET has in store for this “WvW Overhaul”, any changes they bring will be filled with bugs, new issues and will not instantly get a WvW golden age player base back. Even if the changes are “very good”.

So, whatever they bring might be a step in the right direction, but actually putting WvW in a good spot will take months, several months at that.

But the longer ANET delays doing the Overhaul, the longer ANET delays in taking any action that is majorly well accepted by the community and the longer ANET takes to do anything to restore the WvW community’s faith in them – well the further any “fix” to WvW gets, simply because players will give up and move to other MMOs or simply because the level of player frustration will reach a point that no matter what amazing fix they bring, it just won’t be good enough for the high expectations the players will have.

At the point we are today, I can already see posts (and lots and lots of them) saying “We wait 1 year for this overhaul and it is only this crap? Only this?” or “The guy literally took 1 year to fix culling, and another year to implement it in the game and it still works like crap?”

In sum, bringing back Alpine Bordelands would fix WvW? Hell no. But it sure would help to get some positivism and support from the player base rather than trying to reach for the starts with over-hyping this “WvW Overhaul”.

ANET is, right now, just setting up the perfect public execution of WvW mode with how they are doing things.

EremiteAngel.9765:

i don’t know why you guys are crying foul. one season of standing at the top necessitates a fall next season. simple maths.

Yes, because balance is not a matter of reaching equilibrium between the classes – thus a point where all classes can be viable in the meta with reasonable build diversity and a reasonable standing in a single season.

Balance is all about making one class OP for a season and others UP so that we can live in a perpetual cycle of revenge and telling the other to “**** it, its my turn to shine now!”

That certainly promotes healthy and non-toxic environments.

You should send a resume to work at ANET’s balance team, you have the right concept and would fit right in.

So, now that the week has ended, will we get a quick summary of what was the impression from the forums that was gathered and presented to the management or this is just meant to die off and go to oblivion?

I would sign in blood a petition to have old maps back.

Could we also add an animation sequence for the return of Alpine Borderlands that shows the Desert Bordelands being destroyed by a Glacial Storm and then, after the whole epic destruction of the map, the Alpine Bordeland resurfaces?

For good measure:

Yes I want the old WvW maps back

My opinion of that news is that the “red alert” was triggered in the WvW department, specially with the upcoming MMOs this year that can take away players, so they need very one to stay around.

What this will represent to WvW resurgence? Simple, a bunch of pretty words to make you stick around in a livestream literally a couple of weeks from now that will divide the forums into supporters of change and pessimists (or more likely realists).

ANET will then go back internally and the following scenario plays out:

“We made it! We bought ourselves some time! Now from that dream list what can we truly deliver?”

“Only more golems Sir”

“Then by god soldier, add Golems to that game, add Beta, Delta, Zeta and whatever other letter of the greek alphabet you can think of Golem in there. Make it so that Golem Week is forgotten and pray, pray to all your deities, that the players love it!”

You are a hero for doing this. Heck, you should probably get paid for being a communication specialist as this thread is bringing more post with developer words than the devs themselves have ever posted in the forums since their existence.

I would suggest this topic also brings the “livestream notes” that Dulfy usually posts on Reddit, I would count that as an “official” dev comment since it is basically a summary of what went on on the periodical streams that ANET does.

Example would be the most recent Guild Chat Livestream notes:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/43alp4/guild_chat_livestream_notes/

Guhracie.3419:

Wow. I’m embarrassed for ANET that a forum-user is aggregating their official news for them.

Yeah. I’m just out of words on this.

What could we expect?

The devs hardly post anything of relevant here, much less discuss ideas/concepts/changes with the players – even when they say they will do so *cough*balance changes*cough*.

So we then have a portion of the player base, that is used to official forums being real primary sources of communication of a company, coming here looking for news but finding nothing. Whilst those that go to the cluster hell that is Reddit getting the real news straight from the developer mouths and having a chance to interact with some of them.

Glad though that a kind soul took upon his hand to teach people where to find “Official Forums” (a.k.a. Reddit).

Jski.6180:

Azel.4786:

Jski.6180:

Sunshine.5014:

Jski.6180:

No its a bug where DS is only working in combat and when it dose this its not dealing with conditions from before getting into combat. Its not working as intended.

The first tick doesn’t count. You need to get struck again for DS to remove the first condition. If your 2nd struck gives 2 conditions, tough love. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s not a great feature though.

Is that how the 10 sec conditions remove effects work too?

No because they don’t have the having to be struck rule. The others, e.g., ranger only has the time component to the rule, so every 10 sec.

Diamond Skin has 3 rules:

- time component (1 sec);
- when struck – so you had to have a condi before getting struck; and
- health threshold – I don’t know this one for sure, but I imagine you need to be at 75% or more of health before getting the hit and not after the damage of the hit is applied.

So what OP described as a bug is a feature and working as intended.

I do hope they changes that it takes a lot of what DS should be doing away.

The fact that it dose not remove the first conduction that is applied to you even though you are in combat seems more like a bug even if you would have to wait 1 sec. So it seems the skill is saying you do not have a condition on you becuse it was not on at the time of the condition i think IS a bug.

Waiting for 1 sec to start up seems ok though.

Again, it is not a bug.

You feel it is bad because it is horrible.

It has no relation with being in combat.

You need to understand it is not remove a condition per second.

The wording is – remove a condition when struck with a 1 sec internal cool down.

So once you are hit, if you have a condi, it removes 1. The trait then has a 1 sec cool down and if you are hit again after the cool down and you have a condi, it will remove a condi.

The above works only if you are above the health threshold.

So in a grotesque example, if you have 10 stacks of burning that last 5 sec and you don’t take any hits, you will suffer the condi for the entire duration because you weren’t hit (trigger to remove condi).

Thus it is not a bug.

If you want to argue it is a kitten tier trait, that is another issue. But the trait works as presented.

Jski.6180:

Sunshine.5014:

Jski.6180:

No its a bug where DS is only working in combat and when it dose this its not dealing with conditions from before getting into combat. Its not working as intended.

The first tick doesn’t count. You need to get struck again for DS to remove the first condition. If your 2nd struck gives 2 conditions, tough love. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s not a great feature though.

Is that how the 10 sec conditions remove effects work too?

No because they don’t have the having to be struck rule. The others, e.g., ranger only has the time component to the rule, so every 10 sec.

Diamond Skin has 3 rules:

- time component (1 sec);
- when struck – so you had to have a condi before getting struck; and
- health threshold – I don’t know this one for sure, but I imagine you need to be at 75% or more of health before getting the hit and not after the damage of the hit is applied.

So what OP described as a bug is a feature and working as intended.

Just before the HoT expansion was the best part, except for the excessive burn damage. That needed to be toned down – but besides that, yeah balance was good.

After HoT ANET just lost it completely and now looks more like they are actively trying to destroy their game (and doing a great job at that).

Up next on ANET priorities list for WvW:

“Hacker Raptor shot down!! Developers rejoice as dwindling populace cry over the loss of their mascot.”

“So what did Jim hit with his dart in the change of the day board?”

“Add More Golems and PVE Sir.”

“Excellent, let’s ship that out and come back after 6 months. That oughta do the trick”

That is not a bug, its a feature.

Working as intended (only remove condition after getting hit).