Guild Wars 2

ronpierce.2760:

Ah, I love seeing all this MM hate.

Started from the bottom now were ’ere! >:D

I love when the enemy team in soloq runs a Minionmancer.

My findings have shown that when the enemy team has a person totally dedicated to virtually AFKing on their home node, and leaving a 4v5 situation on far & mid, the probability of that person being a Minionmancer is 75%+.

Minionmancers have no mobility, so roaming between mid and home is a bit unpleasant, especially when a fast enemy just beats you back to the home you need to defend. Minionmancers have no decapping power, so assaulting far point is impossible as a double-role. Minionmancers have mediocre teamfighting power.

A Minionmancer in solo queue just stares longingly across the map, chained to home point. Please, fight me.

Lol, if that’s the role you enjoy, why aren’t you on a decap Engineer already?

bhagwad.4281:

Personally I think decap engis are totally in line with the conquest mode of PvP as we have today. The game revolves around taking and holding points. The decap engi is the distillation of this philosophy. There’s no way around it other than to introduce new game modes.

That’s where I think that you are incorrect.. the fact that decap Engineers revolve arond taking and holding points has nothing to do with the “are you kiddin’ me?” aspect of it. In fact, this is totally fair and balanced.

What’s not ‘ok’ about Decap Engineers’s is the strategy around abusing Automated Response for as indefinite a period of condition immunity as possible. The millisecond that the Decap Engineer has a goal of keeping his health level above that of his enemies, that is the precise time when Decap Engineer will be balanced in conquest.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Neoheart.2750:

lol epic. What did u back stab? an aircraft carrier?

Judging by the battle log, worse: A Warrior.

Looks like a front-stab to a Guardian with Protection up.

(Hammer Swing, Mighty Blow in log: Guardian Hammer #1 & #2)

Josh Davis.6015:

Josh Davis.6015:

We’ve mentioned a few times prior that we’re looking at rebalancing the top-end of ranks to make them more attainable. We came to this decision after player feedback persuaded us to leave ranks into the game, rather than cut them.

Yep, I was pretty pumped to hear that as well. I’ve noticed personally that going from 150,000 per level right to 450,000 per level was especially cruel and unusual, lol.

Josh Davis.6015:

The amount of rank points needed to hit 80 is too darn high.

Phantaram.1265:

Despite the video quality you were very articulate and showed the problems well. High Five! (borat voice)

There is some odd-behavior for abilities like Dragons Tooth too where if it gets interrupted it still goes on full cooldown. That’s only 2 seconds longer though so hardly noticeable especially since I usually rotate out of fire very quickly.

Nice to see such an educational post and vidja around these parts.

I pretty much echo this, nice

SonOfKrypton.4357:

I’m absolutely sick to death of players who don’t know what to do in PvP matches.

They fight off point and clearly the capture points part of the game is lost on them.

I feel like I’m the only person on my team looking at the map icons, seeing where players are, playing strategically.

All I want is my Champion title and I’ll be goneski from PvP. It’s disappointing that my success in achieving this goal is dependent on players who have no idea what they’re doing.

/rant

Every Hotjoin/SoloQueue/TeamQueue/Battleground/Warfront/Warzone/Arena across all MMO titles have teammates in which directly influence your win or lose.

Rant noted. But there’s only one actual helpful way to remedy this problem, and that as a community, we become – on average – better educated players about the conquest gamestyle. It’s an extremely, extremely difficult concept to master due to the very different, dynamic circumstances that enemy rotations can put you under.

I feel that anet should add some how-to videos on their twitch channel documenting on how to rotate properly and manage their behaviour/positioning in teamfights properly.

There are basically zero resources that I’ve seen on how to play conquest..

GrandmaFunk.3052:

- show the number of players on each team next to the score overlay.

Lol, it’d be sad if this was implemented because that would imply there is a significant amount of time where there is not 5 players on each team. The existence of that display would almost like admitting that the system loads in a ton of AFK players, and doesn’t punish rage-quitters enough to curve that tendency.

Spooko.5436:

I have to disagree with u because, most thieves and mesmers are really bad at the game, making stealth an imbalanced gimmick. It’s a crutch, not a compliment.

Throwing a blanket statement on most thieves & mesmers – them being really bad makes stealth an imbalanced gimmick? Ok, not sure I follow. There are definitely lots of powerful abilities in this game that are definitely pretty much instant ‘nope’ buttons. Stealth is definitely one of them. But not out of line when used sparingly.

Guarding close is even more complicated than what you would expect, from reading this thread.

When you are dedicated to close, meaning by your definition you are NOT teamfighting mid, like, ever – there are many things wrong with this.

While defending home, IF your team has anyone that pushes far, and I’m talking even dips out of mid for a second, it’s like condemning 60% of your team to an outnumbered 4v3 death. You can’t control when a PuG in solo queue goes to fight/decap far. It could happen anytime. You have to play intelligently and leave home when you see there is an outnumbered fight mid or a 1v1 happening far. It’s then your job to train anyone back to the point who breaks off.

Basically, defending home without being on VOIP and without map awareness is impossible to perfect. Getting mad at the home point defender for rotating when it appears there is nobody able to contest it – not entirely helpful.

Arenanet needs to streamline the way that the homepoint defender gets information about the rest of the battle to determine where he’s needed without VOIP.

Spooko.5436:

Tab targeting needs to make a comeback in pvp, is the point. Anyone who has ever fought a MM asura or SR asura understands. Also, when u target the actual mesmer, with the target functionality, it needs to not ever drop off of them, even if they stealth, same with thieves. So many times i will target the thief/mesmer that is about to die and then they stealth and my team will just go back to non-focusing and hit whatever is closest to them, like the full hp bunker

I think that Thief/Mes are definitely balanced around the de-targeting. That’s pretty much the only deterrent from sitting multiple people on them once the teleports are down.

Stealth I think is super effective at giving glass builds something to function with. It’s a focus/awareness check to fight a Thief or Mesmer. There is a science to it, and it often exposes lazy players who’d rather hit non-ideal targets than do the legwork.

So that’s why I would be against having the game re-target the player who comes out of stealth. Besides, that would only make the player want to stealth longer. People would literally waste their time waiting for the game to find them. Staying in chained stealth would be an obviously better solution. That’s a bad strategy to promote..

What I hate about stealth is that there can be more than 3-5 seconds of stealth chained, ever, depending on the ability of course.

There is absolutely no plays to make when somebody stealths for 15 seconds. They could be at any point on the map, making faces at you from behind a rock, or laughing because they just point committed you until they pop up somewhere.

Dahkeus.8243:

I’m not a fan of #2, but the rest sound solid.

Also, I’m still hoping that Spectator mode gets added to high end Solo Queue and Team Queue PvP games.

A resign feature would definitely be a different spin on a way to avoid part of an un-dignified 3v5 or 4v5 loss. A better solution would be to make sure that grossly imbalanced matches never occur, but… performing euthanasia on the match would often be a welcome upgrade.

ZilentNight.5089:

My suggestion would be to take the evade functionality away from the thief when pistolwhipping.

Laughed for a good 15-30 seconds.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Chaith.8256:

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Your answer is the same as the two aboves, just more precise . . . (hope you realized that)

I’m ok with that! After talking with really good Mesmers and participating/watching a lot of tournaments I feel like what the two posters above me and I are saying is pretty close to reality, currently.

I’m aware of the fact that Mesmers have a hard time to deal with the meta (our core Mesmer rerolled to Thief too). Totally agree with you here.

Oh, lol. It appeared you were sarcastically saying that every Mesmer that has a hard time getting initiated’ on in teamfights by Thieves are low quality players.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Your answer is the same as the two aboves, just more precise . . . (hope you realized that)

I’m ok with that! After talking with really good Mesmers and participating/watching a lot of tournaments I feel like what the two posters above me and I are saying is pretty close to reality, currently.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

OhMyTaeyeon.5831:

Paolo.1467:

Zerker thievs are the reason why i play zerk Shatter mesmer ^_-

Let me guess…you like playing in downstate?

^^ the quality of players posting here is amazing.

Top quality Shatter Mesmers DO spend a significant amount of time in the downstate vs. teams that properly execute D/P, S/P, ganks, or persistent, difficult to peel, S/D aggression.

It’s actually a pretty much a common theme amongst leading Mesmer mains to get so frustrated with Mesmer, roll Thief, and make attempts (some attempts more/less feeble than others) to compete with it.

Rezz.8019:

As top spirit ranger NA I volunteer for this.

- Trollbait

Fixed for clarity

Condi Engi POV
1) Downed Bodies
2) Spirit of Nature’s Renewal if no enemy is sub 50%
3) Revealed Thief
4) DPS Ele, Mesmer, Engi, Necro, Guardian.
5) Whoever’s badly out of position, even if it’s a really beefy Ranger or Warrior.
6) Nuke the point, pressuring Guardian and others dumb enough to be on point.
99999999999999999999) Warrior using cooldowns.

Reikou.7068:

How about a simple spectator mode for highly-rated team arena matches…

Already exists!

It’s just reserved for developers and people in the Shoutcaster program.

BlackBeard.2873:

Chaith.8256:

Spooko.5436:

How’s about some functional tab-targeting?!?! Hmmm ?!?!?!!!?

Heh, yeah. That’s a big one. I hear they’ve acknowledged that one and have a fix somewhere in the mix.

Didn’t they fix this once, but PvE-ers and those who played pet classes complained? I mean, why even have a small army if you can’t abuse it for a further advantage due to the difficulty of fighting the UI?

I am not sure, actually! I think that nobody wants to target minion after minion after spirit. I personally doubt that PvE players and pet class users would be so selfish, haha.

Spooko.5436:

How’s about some functional tab-targeting?!?! Hmmm ?!?!?!!!?

Heh, yeah. That’s a big one. I hear they’ve acknowledged that one and have a fix somewhere in the mix.

NinjaYoshi.3429:

My question is, when did Tool Kit become OP?

Arguably when the shield was buffed from 2 → 3 seconds.

But I think it’s always been great!

Aza.2105:

scabrous.7835:

It’s a L2P issue.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnet
^if this is what we’re talking about. For the whole duration of the channel there’s a semi-transparent grayish sway/line between you and engineer. Once you see it, count one second and dodge – no ‘spam random dodges’ involved’.
If you get hit you can still stunbreak before you reach that engineer and avoid getting hit.
I would be concern about more intelligent players that bait out your dodge with tool kit stow just to do it 5 seconds later.

Invisibility is bad for any competitive game.

Not sure I agree with you there.

kirito.4138:

add

• Make all current town hats wearable in-combat.
• Make more new hats
• Let community design hats

Done

Sins.4782:

Chaith.8256:

You basically can’t run Bomb Kit and Tool Kit in the same build. An overwhelmingly large % of Engies with Bomb Kit don’t have Tool Kit.

TIL I’ve been playing bunker engi wrong all along.

I was referring to damage oriented builds, not bunkers! Bombs & Toolkit is somewhat awkward due to the lack of chasing ability / ie: hitting moving targets.

glaphen.5230:

Meanwhile every single Engineer uses Tool Kit with every current meta build.

Well, this is false. You basically can’t run Bomb Kit and Tool Kit in the same build. An overwhelmingly large % of Engies with Bomb Kit don’t have Tool Kit. Bomb kit definitely gets play, and is included in meta builds.

I’ve been running Elixir S and Toolkit together since fourth quarter 2012, and I can tell you, it’s not always been a popular choice among Engineers.

Seeing as every Mesmer you face will use phantasms from stealth to front load surprise damage, and every Thief has a few good powerful front loaded damage surprises from stealth, why is it too much for a 60s CD Engineer stealth to be potentially devastating? Stealth is inherently good.

If you get pulled from stealth, try stunbreaking to counter the Engineer’s subsequent combo. Guaranteed, it won’t be a wasted stunbreak if the Engineer who’s pulling you is good.

GW2 PvP Quality of Life feature list:

Really short and sweet – most speak for themselves.

• #1: Overlapping audio notification upon queue popping. (Overlapping means, ‘plays regardless if GW2 Window is active’.)

• #2: Resign Option that becomes active when there is between 8:30-10:00 and less time left on the clock. Exact time to be decided. (Requires consent of 3 members to successfully resign)

• #3: Pause functionality added for Custom Arenas. Disconnects are a serious issue plaguing competitive play, that completely cheapens the production quality of this game.

• #4: Detailed match end statistics that matter. Kills(sending enemy into downed state)/Deaths/Assists – Damage, Healing, Boons Removed, Conditions removed, Revives, Stomps, Neutralizes, Captures. (Possibly even display the amulet/enhancements/trait distribution at the match-end scoreboard)

• #5: Ability for build templates to be added to the PvP hero interface, simultaneously, the ability to reset traits and change templates during the pre-game waiting period.

The goal around these suggested changes are to improve the overall production value of GW2 PvP, by adding helpful PvP features present in many other online games.

Also, these suggestions are not meant to overlap with the big projects (game modes, a reward system, and a ladder).

What are your top tPvP quality of life features? Discuss.

kirito.4138:

add

• Make all current town hats wearable in-combat.
• Make more new hats
• Let community design hats

^^

Acandis.3250:

Each of those knockback skills need animations and cast times, it’s not something you need to sit and test internally for 3 months. It’s not something that you need to discuss for 2 months prior. It’s something that should’ve been done months ago.

No. Automated response needs a significant re-direction ASAP. You don’t need to kick Flamethrower and Rifle builds in the nuts so eagerly when there are many less intrusive fixes, in regards to already weak builds.

The fact that Overcharge Shot and Air Blast are so precise, are to actually carry those terribad weapons via active disruption. Flamethrower as a weapon set is carried pretty hard by the 3 skill, we’ll just say that. Rifle is carried hard by Overcharged Shot, too.

Another good reason why Engi Knockbacks such as Air Blast and Overcharged Shot don’t have cast times, are because they serve as clutch projectile push backs, and immob/chill/cripple cleanses, respectively.

If both of the weapon’s budget wasn’t purposefully dumped into making Overcharge Shot and Air Blast instant, I would for sure agree with your assessment.

Either way, Decap Engineer is here to stay – I have serious doubt that there is any change coming on March 18th. It will have to be the next balance pass after that. If the update pattern holds up, then probably mid-late May before Decap Engineer is touched, lol.

I’m hoping for a hotfix (re-purposing) of Automated Response, but I’m about 75% sure it’s just going to slip through the cracks.

I’d say the only hope to curve this disgusting decap playstyle that hinges on holding 20% HP for 120 seconds is to hope for a hotfix to the trait. That’s the hands down, best way to not affect existing Engineer builds that are both honest and challenging. If the trait were obliterated, it would pretty much affect no damage, or teamfight focused Engineers negatively. The biggest reason for my hatred against Automated Response is that it is purposefully designed to troll the hell out of people in 1v1s and rob them of their rightful downing of their enemy, while simultaneously being completely freaking useless in teamfights.

glaphen.5230:

The base stat difference is almost nothing. Engineers can have far far far far far better healing than a Warrior could ever dream of. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elixir_R
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Adrenaline_Pump
Also mentioning clones is a laugh since any decent player knows where the Mesmer is at any time not stealthed.

The mace block only blocks one attack so if you use any attack at all it is gone. Warrior shield gives 2 skills and takes up the off hand slot, Engineer Tool Kit takes up a utility slot and gives 6 skills with a far better version of the block. The reflect takes up the same trait slot as the cooldown reduction trait, Dogged March and Sure-Footed. If you see a projectile reflect maybe just stop attacking since it will be blocked anyways?

I really don’t know how people can complain about Healing Signet when Healing Turret is 50% better if you have just 1 ally around at all and is still almost equal not even counting the condition removal or rune synergy. Also it actually scales with healing power far better than most skills.

FYI Cleansing Burst, the Turret overcharge always does 2520 healing, even with 20000000000000000000000 healing power. So, might wanna fact check your ‘scales with healing power far better than most skills’ fact.

I think that Aussie is just joking.. but it’s hard to tell.

Either way, laying claim the current Decap Engineer is like me running a pure glass, Greatsword & Axe/Shield Warrior again, and said I invented bulls charge 100blades.

Just because builds are included and excluded from the meta doesn’t mean you get to ‘re-invent’ them, lol.

Morderger.6298:

My guess would be Karma. Would probably be easiest to switch between both pvp and pve. I don’t think gold cause we already have access to it now.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i thought gold (silvers) is the replacement?

would be very nice if we can get both karma and silvers together though.

Very very doubtful!

Unique PvP PvP crafting mechanic that’s being built from scratch, is my guess.

Cynz.9437:

pro cursor aiming

I’ve actually found that when the cursor is properly aimed, and the ‘grabbing-hand’ cursor appears, I still can’t take an orb from a downed player until that player gets punted, moves, or is stomped.

I feel like it’s an intended mechanic, but I can’t be sure – it’s only happened to me a few times.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Sauncho.8076:

Do me a favor and hire the guy who made these fake patch notes, at least for guardians, he knows what he is doing.

No he doesn’t. These notes include buffs to spirit weapons. That is the last thing this game needs. And if you think it does then congrats you think like anet.

It’s kind of an awkward predicament ..

I never want to see a Spirit Weapon army, (or Turret Forest) in PvP Maps in addition to the already awful presence of Minions & Spirits that are there currently.

So, from one perspective, a lot of players and shoutcasters would be glad to never see another A.I nameplate as long as they lived.

From another perspective, it’s a shame that the staggering number of utility slots dedicated to pure A.I minions in GW2 should be just treated as empty slots – that should not be the case.

In terms of direction where A.I in this game should be, it’s obviously an extremely muddled and near inoperable subject.

My opinion is that general A.I (Minions, Phantasms, Turrets, Spirit Weapons, Spirits, Elementals) should be heavily buffed and optimized for PvE/WvW zergs – and have a PvP split where pure A.I Health levels are nerfed into un-viability. Easy builds need corresponding rewards in tPvP.

My 2c..

But yeah, pls, no Turrets or Spirit Weapons in tPvP, it’s bad enough. There should be less Minions and Spirits too, pls. Pls.

DivaDanelle.3927:

Most people probably go with the default settings, thus ruining your characters appearance.

If people don’t care enough to uncheck the box, it’s a 100% guarantee that they don’t share your opinion that the appearance of characters are ruined. Or they are a shoutcaster using team colours to actually improve the visibility of the game.

If the box was unchecked by default, and one has to check the box to get the team colours, would that appease you?

What a weird thing to rant about, when it’s clear that anyone who’s played the game for more than an hour will have the settings tweaked to their liking already.

Edit: It actually seems like you want the removal of optional features that you don’t agree with. It’s such a big deal to you that other players can’t opt out of seeing your ‘fierce-ness’, LOL?

Turn your team colours off, and continue playing with the knowledge that only you really care how you think your character is really, really really, ridiculously good looking.

gesho.9468:

glaphen.5230:

Healing Turret-2520
Cleansing Burst-2520
5s Regeneration-650
Detonate Healing Turret-1320
7010 every 20 seconds with 4490 of that being AoE.
It’s also possible to use stuff like Jump Shot/Acid Bomb/Rocket Boots and a Throw Mine detonate for another 1320 each.
You can also use Thumper Turret for 3 instant blast finishers every 50 seconds whenever needed.

you are getting different number

Yeah, I didn’t include the regen, and I called the blast finisher 1350 by mistake.

It’s 2520, 2520, with a potential blast for 1320. And some regen. However you’d like to present the number, heh.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Think you’re good because engineer carried you to the top spots. Says Engineer is fine Yet runs bunker engineer. Chaith you have no credibility.

It’s predictable you would attack me to divert attention from how you have been creating multiple threads & comments in where you spout your inaccurate opinions, 100% based on your random personal experiences, regarding the current Meta & balance, and pass it off as fact.

RE:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvP-Glass-with-Invincibility/first#post3658520

^My Favorite, for various reasons. But going through your post history is good enough.

Credibility, this word you use, I do not think you know what it means. Playing Power Engineer, Power Necro, or whatever other professions you find ridiculously OP, is definitely a better first step than coming on the forums and saying that “Blocks and Death Shroud OP.”

BTW, my build is an offensive all-purpose teamfight & 1v1 build. It can’t fight on-point, so calling it a bunker is about as accurate as saying that your Soldiers/Soldiers D/D Ele can kill the crap out of Warriors (which you do say).

Nova Stiker.8396:

Chaith you’re complete shrub

hihey.1075:

Chaith.8256:

What’s actually bad about the new changes to On-Swap sigils is not only that one profession can utilize them far better, it’s the fact that every other sigil will be completely obsolete.

Well, at the moment I see a lot of Sigils which are completely obsolete, so the issue will always be present…

Somewhat… but, there are about 17 Sigils that see play in PvP. Its quite a lot. Out of 37. That’s not bad, with 46% of them seeing play once and a while.

After the patch, it’s just going to be ONLY the handful of on swap sigils, unless we see a big rebalancing.

What’s actually bad about the new changes to On-Swap sigils is not only that one profession can utilize them far better, it’s the fact that every other sigil will be completely obsolete.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Chaith.8256:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Chaith can never beat me in a duel and you cannot either. I know that for a fact.

I was changing my traits when you jumped me!
No bowing, I didn’t even swap from my bloodlust weapon, I get it, can’t win without cheating, it’s okay I understand you’re bad.

When you stop running I’ll be happy to duel you again.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Chaith can never beat me in a duel and you cannot either. I know that for a fact.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

With warrior 5 second weapon swaps, they can utilize 4 different on swap sigils as compared to what most classes can do with 2.

Off-topic, but I’m going to go cry now, because this was confirmed to be a thing.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Ele should technically be in a much better spot come the feature build.

Pretty anxious not gunna lie..

Looks like you start buffing classes again. The biggest mistake your development has done / is doing and probably will never understand.

I dunno! Eles would also be in a ‘much better spot’ for a lot of reasons, it’s not a good idea to assume that it’s going to transcend into ‘broken’ territory.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Chaith can never beat me in a duel and you cannot either. I know that for a fact.

LOL’d at this comment..

Nobody has called your dueling skills into question, there, sparky, we’re talking about the disturbing lack of knowledge you possess about tPvP meta builds and strategies.

Nova Stiker.8396:

I stopped reading after that. I’m talking about competitive PvP, not hot join.

There is also no such thing as a Warrior mowing in tPvP. I stomp Warriors all the time on my ‘underpowered’ Elementalist. Nerf pin down and boom, Warriors balanced and I might leave Lyssa Runes, the reduction/change to Healing Signet is utterly pointless in my opinion.

If you are a glass necromancer or engineer getting stomped by warriors, that is sad.

Well you might want to read the rest of my post, because I am not talking about hotjoins. If you are a top player on EU than what I’m saying applies less to you, but right now, assuming I can draw experience as a high ranked player on NA.

I don’t really know how to respond to what you are saying because every word that you uttered was batsheit’ crazy. But I will attempt..

“tPvP is NOTHING but either glass/decap engineers, glass power necros, a single thief and one or two bunker guardians.”

On NA, tPvP is nothing but a Bunker Guardian, Soldier’s Hambow Warrior, Carrion Spirit Ranger, Berserker Thief, and the 5th is often a Carrion Dhuumfire/Terror Necro, a second Warrior, or a Rabid Engineer.

I’m 4th on the NA Team leaderboards, and I’ve fought every team on NA, and did my best to be in every NA tournament in the last 4 months, and rarely do you see a variation from that template above.

• There’s a huge difference between a Glass Engie and a Decap Engie. The only person who consistently plays Glass Engie that comes to mind in NA who could compete in Tournaments is Woodstock. Decap Engis we’ve seen, yes. Teams that run them often run one instead of a thief, like I said, if at all.

• I haven’t seen a glass Necro in a big tournament in months, man. I don’t even know who would do that. Dhuumfire/Terror/Master of Terror/Carrion Amulet is all that exists in NA, and Necros aren’t typically top picks despite having many strengths.

• No team in NA currently would consider 2 bunker Guardians.

• Your announcing that your Ele stomps the crap out of Warriors all the time leads me to believe that I am just buying into a convincing troll. The only Ele that I’ve seen in NA tournaments in the better part of a year was Chubbz on his staff support build, with Apex Prime.

• Nerf Pin Down and ‘boom’, Warriors balanced. Ok brah, whatever you say. Many disagree with that assessment, myself included.

Nova Stiker.8396:

The point is, low recharge invincibility + glass cannon builds has to end as skilled players know exactly when and how to abuse their get out of damage free cards and return favor with massive damage.

It GREATLY limits high end PvP to favor classes with low recharge, damage denying skills that can dish out major damage.

The getting of out damage for X seconds free buttons with high damage needs to end for every class.

All the Glass Warriors with Berserker Stance & Endure Pain, all the Glass Engineers with Toolkit… all the Glass Necromancers with deathly perception.

What kind of burst meta are you playing in? Because surely it’s quite different than the one that everyone else is playing in. I would love to be playing GW2 in your world.

I rarely ever see Berserker amulet Warriors in high end tPvP – they’re mostly all soldier’s amulets. And even when they are Berserker, good luck calling one ‘glass’ with 20-30 pts in the Defense trait line as a given, with insanely high condition removal.

Glass Engineers simply don’t exist in competitive tPvP. Countered too hard by Thieves, Warriors, and Necromancers.

Glass Necromancers don’t exist in competitive tPvP either. Deathly perception? It might be good if you could actually run that build without getting mowed down by Thieves and Warriors.

It’s freaking hard to survive on a glass Engineer, Warrior, or Necromancer. Even with the active defenses that you would have torn to the ground. You’re calling out the professions with a few decent ‘get out of jail’ cards, but with overall the fewest? Look at all the active defense abilities Mesmer has, but it’s in a below-par state right now in tPvP too. These are needed for the professions to work, or be considered as a candidate for a successful glass cannon build.

I know that your problem is specifically with the active defense skills (Berserker Stance, Death Shroud, Gear Shield, Decoy), etc. Unfortunately if you mess with these things, then the glassy underdogs that depend on using these abilities with fast reflexes fall even farther behind.

I think that a better area to focus on are the blatantly over-represented defensive traits. Straight up tanky damage focused builds are what’s wrong, not the legitimate glass cannon builds that require proper cooldown management and twitch reflexes to survive.

The tPvP game has all-together lost the need to build glassy. Every player is risk-adverse when building their character, and the state of balance is that there simply isn’t enough benefit to building glassy. The tPvP experience has lost the feature of protecting/peeling for your squishy backliners. Right now, it’s all about cramming the most damage and control on to a basic foundation of super strong defensive traits.

Basically, active defense – good, straight up tanky damage builds – bad. At the same time, there has to be introduced counterplay to the active defense abilities (which is slightly lacking), but it’s a complex issue.

TLDR, I disagree with your vision/goals strongly, and feel that if you nerf active defenses, you only increase the lifespan of our current ‘safety’ meta. Which could be hopefully shifted back to a burst oriented meta.

Bombsaway.7198:

Right now warriors cleanse conditions using adrenaline. That creates a situation with cleansing ire where the warrior’s key weakness of being subject to a lot of condition damage no longer applies.

Two changes to Cleansing Ire and Berserker Stance could make warriors more fun to play and play against.

1. Change Cleansing Ire to:

On a kill for the next 5-10 (tbd) seconds, the warrior can remove 1 condition for every bar of adrenaline spent.

Why? You eat conditions if you can’t get a kill. When you run away, you are very susceptible to conditions (warriors fight they don’t run).

2. Berserker’s Stance should be 50% condition immunity UNTIL you get a kill while activated (in which case it would then be 100%). You might increase the duration.

In other words, tie warrior condition cleansing to rushing in and slaughtering enemies.

I’m definitely of the same opinion that Warriors are currently too resilient to conditions, however I don’t think I can get behind your suggestions.

On-kill mechanics are extremely wonky and, in my opinion, never good to balance skills around. Consider multiple game modes.. Berserker stance that gets extended by kills would be unfathomable in the difference in WvW zerg value, compared to tPvP value.

Cleansing Ire is no doubt a super strong trait… a contender for best Master Trait in-game. With the crazy adrenaline increase it offers, the high condition removal seems pretty over the typical budget for Master-tier traits.

• Cleansing Ire: Possible shaves..

Cleansing Ire: Gain Adrenaline when hit. Remove 2 conditions when spending full Adrenaline.

This provides further incentive to Warriors to only use fully charged Burst attacks, and is not deleting the trait from all but WvW zerg builds.

• Berserker Stance: Possible shaves..

Berserker Stance, like all the condition immunities, should not be a straight up immunity, but actually reduce conditions by 100% duration. But this is a dead horse that all balance posters have beaten to death, with no Arenanet response (as far as I know).

An alternative would be to reduce Berserker Stance to 6 seconds duration, base, 7.5s with Surefooted adept trait.

I am positive that the sustain warrior in it’s current iteration can take a few more nerfs to the face and still be highly competitive.

felivear.1536:

I will preface this by saying that I could be mixing two people up here, so if I’m wrong, let me know and I’ll correct it….but…

Aren’t you one of the people that “took advantage” of the birthday booster bug and ended up with millions of Glory? If so, I’m sure you’ve gotten everything out of PvP that you could ever ask. Some people have played for 1.5 years and have little to show for it and feel slighted by the direction that PvP is going. Currently, there are very few people that have stuck around to play PvP since launch and instead of rewarding those few while AT THE SAME TIME promoting the game to the PvE/WvW crowd, they are instead turning their backs on us, handing out free stuff to them and simultaneously farting in our general direction.

Nope.. I didn’t cash in on Birthday Boosters or Skyhammer Farming, w/e. Mostly because glory was a simply not worth thinking about, much less stockpiling until we got a massive amount of gold, PvE levels, and other asorted free stuff, handed out on Dec. 10th.

How can you keep a straight face when you say we only got farts from Arenanet? I suddenly had like 600g, which turned into double Aetherized Pistol skins, a bunch of cultural/dredge/nightmare PvP gear, all professions lvl80 and geared in exotics, etc. It was pretty much a handout.

Again, I do not PvE, or WvW, except for a brief Legendary crafting stint where I started broke, crafted the Predator, and ended broke.

I had 1,500,000 Glory saved up when Dec. 10th hit from … pretty much never using Glory Boosters, Birthday Boosters, or any kind of artificially altering that. That’s the kind of reserves someone will have who is mid-rank 60’s, even after purchasing 600,000 glory on rank chests on the way up, too.

If you aren’t in the 60’s, rank wise, I don’t know if you are allowed to say you’ve PvPed loyally from the start. To those that still think PvPers get farted on by Anet as you put it, have simply chosen to ignore the Dec.10th vendor, or have squandered 1,000,000+ glory on dye.

Personally, I’m not surprised that the perspective of any new PvP incentives, whether that be the brand new reward overhaul coming in, or the ready-up weekend bonuses are tailored to bringing non-PvP players into the system.

Of course you would tailor an incentive campaign to the proper demographic.. the goal is to create incentive for a growing PvP population. Where do you think these people are going to be coming from?

Yes, this is a huge improvement for PvE/WvW folks. Yes, it’s assumed that PvE skins would carry over and PvP progression will be ‘reset’ in a way. This is breaking down a massively huge barrier for PvE/WvW folks to playing PvP.

Why can’t anyone understand that breaking down barriers to entry is a great start to improving the QOL of PvP players too? Stop being so ‘them vs. us’ and just realize that PvP isn’t private property in which a bunch of foreigners are getting day passes for.

In the new progression system, all the PvP players that have played for 1.5 years will be Shark/Phoenix rank, with nearly all access to any skins that will carry over to the new system. Nobody can know how advantaged the PvP players will be until the new system drops. What if it’s extremely hard to get skins?

All your remarks about PvPers being such peasants who have no gold, and were unable to play WvW/PvE because they had no money for food/oil.. wow. I received hundreds upon hundreds of gold from Wintersday gifts from my glory, so.. I think you missed the boat on a lot of things. Now I’m making good gold for just playing PvP… and I pretty much want for nothing. I have 9 chars lvl80 from Glory alone.. all geared in exotics from Glory to Gold conversion (Wintersday Gifts)

So, I think you’re just doin’ it wrong.

You should add to your tearfully written list of what PvPers get for playing from day 1, with a smile on their face:

• Every Profession in PvE Lvl80 from Tomes of Knowledge
• Every Profession in PvE geared in Exotics from Wintersday Gifts
• Cash per match completed. To maintain the huge cash reserve from Wintersday Gifts.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Engineers HAVE to take Grenades, they HAVE to take the Tool Kit, traits do not allow variety.

Whoa there, Sparky. Many non-tool kit builds exist in PvP. I personally feel that in a teamfight carry role, Engineers aren’t optimal without their only pure DPS kit, yes. “Non-optimal”, however, is not a death sentence. Some people detest Grenade Kit, and they don’t mind that their builds are non-optimal, but which are viable in whatever tier of competition (lol gw2 competition) that they are in.

Nova Stiker.8396:

In my opinion, the first step to balancing engineer is hands down getting rid of Static Discharge.
That trait alone is holding back variety for the Engineer, it’s an okay trait but can be utterly broken if built around it.
Like PU Mesmers spamming invisibility while their phantasms do damage, alone PU is okay but built around the single trait, it can be utterly broken.

Ok, so, now Static Discharge is on your figurative chopping block? It’s mere existence is holding back the profession? Dedicated Static Discharge builds are utterly broken (OP)? Oye.

Seeing as Static Discharge has no link whatsoever to any good/meta Engineer PvP builds, I’d say that being fearful of Static Discharge preventing future positive healthy change in META builds is pretty silly, no?

Look man, dedicated Static Discharge builds are card carrying members of the rock bottom tier in PvP. The bottom of the barrel. Glass Ele is more fruitful. Power Engies could stand for a buff, as long as it’s far enough down the road as to when all of this power creep is no longer a threat, if ever.

Well that was fun.. hit me up with a reply if you feel more subjective hatred towards any innocent-bystander traits/mechanics, looool. I will do my best to clarify.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Engineers are in the BEST place. They can do everything well and effective, with everyone crying about Warriors, a good engineer is an unbeatable one.

This just isn’t true.. To address the ‘Engineers do everything well’ comment, here’s one: Engineers are on the lowest tier of condition removal in-game. Almost all builds in PvP rely solely on healing turret for removal. That leaves the frequency of condition removal to once every 15 seconds at the fastest. When you see healing turret go up, and the Engineer explodes it, you can confidently burn/torment/bleed that Engineer for 20 seconds of guaranteed ticks. It’s a big hole in the armor, try it!

To address the ‘unbeatable’ comment, if you’re talking about dueling over a point 1v1, the meta-engineer damage builds are great at dueling, yes, but it 100% involves giving up the neut/full cap when faced against the meta-spirit rangers, warriors, or necros. And let me add that if you face a common condition Necro, at even in the ballpark of equally skilled, it’s pretty much auto-lose.

Engineer is up there with the best of them, but there are more downsides to having Engineers on your team than there are to having Warriors, or a Spirit Ranger (if you don’t already have one). Engineers are much more affected by melee pressure, as well as condition pressure when compared to similar teamfight-carry roles – like Warrior & Ranger. Period!

Nova Stiker.8396:

Engineers effective build high power AND spam conditions on a single tree. That needs to change.
Also, why is Autodefense Bomb Dispenser in Explosives?

People have always been trying to justify their opinions that each trait-line should be clearly dedicated to power damage, or condition damage. Unfortunately the fact that many, many trait lines have hybrid elements means that it is an intended design.

And I gotta say.. I got a laugh out of your mention of Autodefense Bomb-Dispenser. Yes.. it perhaps might be in the explosives trait line because it is literally an explosive, and benefits from explosive traits such as: Forceful Explosives, Shrapnel, Short Fuse, and Steel-Packed Powder.

Nova Stiker.8396:

There is a reason why it’s the spamgineer.

Spam is truly a problem in GW2.. Thief (All Weapons) 33333, Engineer Bombs/Nades, Necro Staff/Scepter/Shroud, Ranger’s Sword/Dagger/Shortbow, all of these weapons are chock’ full of short-cooldown spammy goodness.

If someone suggested a way for all these professions to actually be required to SAVE key abilities for critical moments, I’d be down. But jeez man, implying this is an Engineer specific issue is a bit left wing.

Currently, there is a small amount of counterplay to Engineer ‘spam’. The accuracy of Engineer Bombs vs. non-point committed, mobile enemies being.. extremely low, meanwhile the reaction time available to grenades increases every unit of distance farther from the Engineer.

Agree that spam is a problem, but some spam playstyles are punished far less in accuracy than Engineer (lookin’ at you, Necromancer.)

Nova Stiker.8396:

High healing on a low recharge with a get out of damage free card.
The block everything button on Tool Kit has to end.

Mm… Tool Kit is not a tool that every Engineer can justify. Personally, I love it, but there are many competitive utilities. Like bombs! Personally, I feel it’s good for the game if more people hang up their AoE bomb spam in favor of single target utilities & blocks.

Healing Turret is a sweet heal. At 0 healing, it heals for 6390 every 20s, (53% of that is AoE) with 2 condition removal. That’s awesome, not disputing that, but when Engineer is still commanding less on-point presence & staying power than their Ranger/Warrior counterparts, I question that nerfing Engineer sustain is the key to better balance.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Grenades have a lot of conditions and a lot of damage, pick one or the other ArenaNet. Both is simply not acceptable.

Have to disagree here. Seeing as there aren’t any optimal ways in PvP to stack tons of hybrid damage, IE: Fully offensive Rampager-esque stats, or high perma-might stacks, this argument is pretty poop. The meta-Engineer builds do very little power damage with Grenades. The odd-ball power nade builds need all the help they can get.

Blackhat.4016:

If you implement the red circle you should think about compensation as well.

Whether it’s only a bug or not doesn’t really matter, it’s a huge nerf for staff eles in WvW and further encourages people to join the melee train (which is already the majority of players). MS is one of the few skills which is decent against those warrior/guardian groups and that shouldn’t change.

By compensation I don’t mean something like 5% damage increase. More damage doesn’t help since MS won’t hit anyway. The compensation should help the ele to hit the targets reliably without making it overpowered.

Please keep that in mind before nerfing eles again.

Forget your ‘compensation’. Lol, good joke.

Just like how Grenade Barrage now puts down 7 red circles up to 3 seconds before the Grenades actually hit. Considering it is one of the hardest skills to fully hit with in the game, and there was no ‘compensation’ done for that, I think it’s pretty unlikely you’ll get a re-work to the hit rate of Meteor Shower.