Guild Wars 2

Vuh.1328:

And not just a special stun which makes you move in weird ways?

Would help alot vs all these condi immunity skills for necro, engis can kinda deal with them with knockbacks etc.
Wouldn’t it also be easier to balance if it worked by same mechanics as daze and stun? like it wouldn’t be affected by condition duration anymore for example.

Meh just something that has been on my mind since release of the game >_>

I agree.

I think that Fear should definitely be a control effect covered by stability. It needs to be balanced around being a set, specific, and fair duration.

This means that it would hit through abilities that prevent the application of conditions, but also be non-affected by +condition duration.

If you want a great WvW racial elite to escape any zerg, pick Norn. An actually extremely useful racial elite?

If you want to look like a bad mutha’ in gear, pick Norn.

Just don’t be a fat norn. The cool ones are on the lean & keep it under 7ft height.

Ok! Basically, this analysis is run on the basis that to create a balanced team, there needs to be: 1) A dedicated Bunker/Support, 2) ‘Three’ High Pressure Damage Carries which are as safe as possible, with a minor in support, and lastly 3) An individual that can pressure far point.

Position 1) Job Description – On point Bunkering, Stomping, and Reviving/Condi Removal/Peeling Support.

Tier S:

• There’s Guardian. There still is no other way to opt out of having a Guardian that both bunkers and supports that I can see.

Tier A & B & C & D In descending order:

• There’s the Warrior’s Bunker & Support. Nails the bunkering, but falls short on allied condi-removal and area denial.
• There’s the Engineer’s Bunker & Support. Adequate in support, but lacks sufficient stability for getting revives/stomps.

Position 2) Job Description – Far Point Interference & Supplemental damage

Tier S:

• There’s the Thief. (Shortbow & D/P or S/P). Thief is king due to the mobility – It’s hands down the most mobile profession that’s capable of contributing in almost every situation, too. Getting a fast decap and ganking mid is almost always better than having someone fight a prolonged fight in order to neutral it, that’s inherently more risky a decision.

Tier A & B & C & D In descending order:

• Knockback focused Engineer (A Combination of Flamethrower, Rifle or Shield, Mines, Elixir X.) Highly successful at decapping, but simply locks the Engineer in an un-ending 1vX, as opposed to simply giving the Engineer’s team an extra man at a teamfight.

• Offensively Portaling Mesmer (Portal). Highly under-utilized – great far point pressure, but this could only be a Mesmer’s side job – it needs to succeed in securing another role before a Thief would not be needed for this.

• Various strong 1v1 builds, that rely on countering anyone watching far point, eventually killing them, and neutraling the point. Highly risky, big time investment. Includes: Soldier’s Amulet Warriors, Berserker Meditation Guardians, Rabid Condi Engies, Soldier Minionmancer Necros, Carrion Spirit Rangers. This strategy is simply out of desperation, at times.

Position 3) Job Description – Teamfight Carry – Sustained Damage with a minor in Team Support

Tier S:

• Warrior (Soldier’s Amulet, typically, Hammer/Longbow). Best set up to win a sustained engagement, by far. Hambow Warriors apply massive pressure while remaining an extremely safe option. (It’s preferably to focus a bunker/support Guardian who has to remain on point, than a Soldier’s Hambow Warrior). A must pick, if a team is looking to maximize their ability to win engagements.

• Spirit Ranger (Carrion Amulet, typically). Extremely good mix of sustained damage, granting reprieves to Guardians by temporarily evasion bunkering, and massive support. Spirit Ranger has taken some nerfs to their sustained damage, but remain a must pick for their support capabilities when considered in the context of the whole package.

Tier A:

• Condition Engineer (Rabid Amulet, Nades/Toolkit, or Nades/Bombs). Extremely high sustained damage, busting bunker Guardians in among the fastest times. Has adequate support through Supply Crate, Healing Turret and Elixir S tosses, Elixir R, or Elixir Gun. Lacks the sheer safety options of other S Tier sustained damage choices. Engineer has remained very focusable, so great positioning and slipperiness are paramount. Condition Engineer is an amazing pick for it’s high sustained damage, with a minor in support.

• Condition Necromancer (Carrion Amulet, Dhuumfire, Terror, Master of Terror) Probably the highest sustained damage and top Bunker busting profession in the game. It’s definitely overpowered in that respect, but that is overcome by bigger weaknesses. The Necromancer offers little in the way of support, and is extremely committed to every fight that it enters. The Necromancer is hard countered by Hambow Warrior trains, because they lack any way to make the pummelling stop, and resume free-casting. Thus, Necros are even more rush-able than the Engineer, and this removes them from the current meta, because they must survive long enough to survive prolonged battles.

Tier B, C, D (In Descending Order)

• Mesmer (Berserker, Shatter, Confounding Suggestions) Pushed out of most group comps because of the lack of staying power to carry teamfights.

• Guardian (Berserker, Meditations) Pushed out of most group comps because of the lack of staying power to carry teamfights.

• Engineer (Berserker, Grenade & Rifle) Simply a more risky option than the Rabid counterpart for a trade-off of sustained damage & survivability, for downed body pressure.

• Elementalist (Berserker, Fresh-Air, Scepter-Dagger) Can be useful in straight up ‘annihilate the enemy’ plays. Pushed out of the meta because of lack of staying power to carry teamfights.

Balefire.7592:

Chaith.8256:

• Death Shroud no longer removes Spectral effects (massive focus fire buff)

In exchange for that, they now have a 1 second ICD, so in reality, they are objectively worse when being focused fired by multiple people. Moreover, running out of Deathshroud can no longer serve as Aegis – the damage rolls over. These were substantial nerfs to sustain.
Whether or not Necros are weaker than before in terms of damage is questionable, but Necromancers a certainly much weaker to focus fire than they used to be. Hence, their DPS was increased (far too much) to offset, and has been brought down slowly.
Many Necros would gladly trade condition damage for sustain (see Necro forums), given they’re meant to be the “attrition” profession, but ANET doesn’t seem to like that idea.

The fact that you are getting back 8% shroud every second while you’re IN shroud is definitely a focus fire defense buff. You can handle a lot more burst this way.

Before you were getting back multiple life force increases while you are losing all your HP from the 3 people training you. NOT being in Shroud while you sustain many hits is not a good strategy vs. focus fire even if you pull up a full Death Shroud while you are at 1% hp.. And if you went into shroud anyways, the Spectral Armor would be just .. gone. Remember that the 15pt Soul Reaping minor benefits from this greatly, too. If you weren’t paying attention, you could ruin it completely. Objectively, I don’t see how it could be worse when taking focus fire. Mostly because you need to be in shroud.

zapv.8051:

http://youtu.be/1zKIo4MlZ9U

Watched 20 minutes of this video.. he is plain wrong in his calculations.

17:12: “We lost 600 damage from Mark of Blood. We lost 400 damage at grasping dead we lost 2000 damage at Weakening Shroud trait, that’s 3000. We also lost 17% from terror damage. What does this mean? *Compared to when we were so bad that everyone was complaining about Necromancers performance we (only) got Dhuumfire, which does 3 ticks of 700 damage, so that’s 2100, BUT in the process, we lost 3000 + 17% terror damage. We got 2100 damage, and we got 3000 + 17% terror damage. We’re lower than we are than when Necromancers were terrible! (Pre-Dhuumfire patch)”

Sorry, but this guy is a moron if he credits the only buff Necromancers ever got was Dhuumfire. What you both conveniently seem to forget:

Buffs for 30/20/0/0/20 build since June 25th:

• 1.5s base Fear duration -600 range from terror, that gives Fear & Terror damage to offset the 17% terror nerf.

• Signet of Spite was massively buffed.

• Death Shroud no longer removes Spectral effects (massive focus fire buff)

• Putrid Mark transfers blind instead of getting blinded. Not a bug fix.

• NEW ABILITY: Tainted Shackles – does a crap ton of free counter-pressure where nothing was present before. Thousands of free AoE damage. Is this registering? Lol.

• Marks increased from 120 to 180. Frees 10 points for Master of Terror, if you can deal with blockable marks.

• Many tiny buffs that were dismissed as insubstantial on the Dec. 10th patch.

As you can see, Necromancers like Zapv and have the memory of an elephant when Grasping Dead & Mark of Blood applies 2 bleed instead of 3, but seem to have convenient amnesia when it comes to the buffs they’ve got since June 25th.

“We do worse damage than ever, guys, RIP in peace Weakening Shroud, 1 bleed on Grasping Dead, 1 bleed on Mark of Blood, and 17% Terror nerf.”

EDIT: So yeah, this is remaining kind of off topic, but I get the feeling that this thread is kind of….. [/thread]

zapv.8051:

Since the dhuumfire patch on June 25th every class bar none have gotten at least a minor buff to condition removal. It isn’t a balance problem if they decide not to run these.

Instead of just repeating this untrue statement, could you explain how every profession, except for Warrior (which is obvious) has gotten a buff to condition removal?

And Zapv, if you’ve read my other posts in this thead, you’d understand that I am of the opinion that Necromancers are balanced right now, in context of the strength levels of other professions, and the fact that they do get countered by the proper control & persistence. However, I am of the opinion that Necromancers, offensively, need much more thought behind their abilities and should not so readily be able to land 10 consecutive attacks without properly informing the victim of where and when these attacks will be landing, so the proper countermeasures can be taken. I feel that Necromancer abilities take very little precision, and that’s why spammy tactics without needing to work off of a stun or immob first are common.

ahuba.6430:

kitten some necros actually believe they do LESS damage than before the dumbfire patch? lol the things people tell themselves…

I don’t know either, man. It’s pretty obvious to me too, that a lot of professions are still maintaining decent power net-increases.

ensoriki.5789:

Chaith.8256:

ensoriki.5789:

This forum still believes condis just appear in thin air without an attack successfully landing?

You’re correct, obviously. But it’s understandable that people believe this considering the way that players get ganked by Necromancers from 900 range without any give-away as to their position while the victim panics and knee-jerk-reactionary dodge spams.

I understand the frustration or the guessing game to stay alive vs certain specs however its a sad affair that the misconceptions about how conditions work continued this far past launch.

True true.

What also contributes to the misconceptions that conditions appear on your bar is definitely Dhuumfire, Incendiary Powder, Sun Spirit and Virtue of Justice.

For example, I can be AFK booping someone with my Engineer’s Pistol 1 skill repeatedly. I might proc Incendiary Powder, which burns for 5.25s. Someone can react to that and cleanse it, and then my second Pistol 1 skill procs Sun Spirit burn. And then my third Pistol 1 skill has the Guardian’s Virtue of Justice behind it. Mean while the Ranger’s Pet is applying freaking Justice and Sun Spirit burns, too.

During all this time, the only freaking thing the victim can react to is…. Engineer Pistol 1, and Ranger Pet auto-attacks, just as an example. There’s all this damage coming from all these ridiculously meaningless attacks. There needs to be proportional meaning behind the attacks, based on how frequent, and how telegraphed it is, vs. what damage it actually does.

To the victim, conditions are literally appearing on his bar and as far as he can tell, he’s reacting properly to everything he can react to.

ensoriki.5789:

This forum still believes condis just appear in thin air without an attack successfully landing?

You’re correct, obviously. But it’s understandable that people believe this considering the way that players get ganked by Necromancers from 900 range without any give-away as to their position while the victim panics and knee-jerk-reactionary dodge spams.

zapv.8051:

Chaith.8256:

djooceboxblast.9876:

If you are refering to necro – go spam all your marks and every single ability and see how well you fare. You will not be able to kill anything.

Scepter/Dagger: 2, 5, 3 Switch Staff: 2, 3, 5. Switch , Enter Deathshroud: 2, 3, 5, 4.

If you blindly spam this combo and don’t fail at aiming poorly telegraphed, large 240 radius abilities, you will do better than any other profession for the same effort of training a monkey to input this button sequence.

People are forced to Random dodge when the necro is flexing, because they can’t actually tell when/what is coming. This results in a poor mitigation of the 10 incoming damage abilities. Besides, avoiding 10 consecutive attacks back to back is hard I hear.

The current build for Necro is the absolute definition of ‘spamming every single ability and faring well’. You only have to manage Putrid Mark and Deathly Swarm. Other than that, bombs away!

Fortunately, Necros have generally a pretty pathetic defense against being trained by multiple attackers, (especially un-peelable Warriors) so they’re kept in balance.

Necros being not overpowered, relatively speaking, in team queues doesn’t mean the offensive nature of Necromancers isn’t completely broken and spam happy.

Very yucky. I hope that one day Necros will be required to give more phucks when casting their abilities (besides Putrid Mark & Deathly Swarm.)

Except no necro can get all of those skills off consecutively against any good player who uses their interrupts. That and the fact that necros condition damage has been nerfed quite a bit since dhuumfire to the point of being about the same as it was before dhuumfire. That and the fact that every other classes condition removal has been buffed. I’m in disbelief that people still aren’t speccing for decent condition removal after 6 months. Condition builds have hard counters now in engineers, eles, and warriors. At the same time every other class has soft counters in decent condition clears if traited. Right after the dhuumfire patch necros were op, but since then they have had nerfs to fear damage, bleeding on several skills, and dhuumfire itself while ever other class has had their condition removal buffed. Suggestions like the ops are from people who still don’t spec condition removal and don’t realize the popular 30/20/0/0/20 build that people complain about is extremely vulnerable to cc and focus.

This is the sPvP forum so I’m assuming you’re talking about PvP. Ok,

1) Necro damage is the same as it was pre-dhuumfire. You are absolutely out of your mind, lol. This is not even close to being true. The invention of Tainted Shackles, double Doom duration at close range, Dhuuumfire, Signet of Spite… I know it must have been very traumatic to lose a bleed on Grasping Dead, but let’s get real. Necro pressure has seen a massive increase since that July 25th patch. Warriors and Rangers creeped way up as well, so it may not seem like it – but what you’re saying is just incorrect.

2) Every classes condition removal has been buffed. No, remember how Eles had amazing group condition removal before they were gutted? Two Eles in their peak of overpoweredness cleansing each other on point was the pinnacle of condition removal. If anything, condition removal has been nerfed, and condition application has been buffed (dhuumfire, sun spirit, tainted shackles, other torment). Mesmers commonly run on pretty much no condition removal, Engineers commonly run on an adequate 8-12 condition removal per minute, Rangers have huge condition removal, but that’s always been there, Guardian’s Pure of Voice trait nerfed, Eles condition removal gutted, Thief condition removal pretty much untouched since launch. Warriors condition removal has went way up through Cleansing Ire, and Necromancer condition removal pretty much untouched since launch. So basically by saying every class has received more condition removal, you meant the Warrior has received more condition removal – while Necros and others received increased condition application.

3) I’m surprised people aren’t speccing into decent condition removal after 6 months. Well, let’s see.. uh, everyone does spec into decent condition removal. Unfortunately in PvP, things don’t quite work when the roamers build really defensively, so Shadow Arts thieves and Inspiration Mesmers haven’t caught on, but everyone else has condition removal to the max. Unless you care to explain to Shout Guards, Elixir Engies (or equilivant), Empathic Bond Rangers, Berserker Stance & Cleansing Ire Warriors, Water Elementalists with Ether Renewal, how these players can possibly get more condition removal?!

I find your lack of knowledge of sPvP disturbing..

djooceboxblast.9876:

If you are refering to necro – go spam all your marks and every single ability and see how well you fare. You will not be able to kill anything.

Scepter/Dagger: 2, 5, 3 Switch Staff: 2, 3, 5. Switch , Enter Deathshroud: 2, 3, 5, 4.

If you blindly spam this combo and don’t fail at aiming poorly telegraphed, large 240 radius abilities, you will do better than any other profession for the same effort of training a monkey to input this button sequence.

People are forced to Random dodge when the necro is flexing, because they can’t actually tell when/what is coming. This results in a poor mitigation of the 10 incoming damage abilities. Besides, avoiding 10 consecutive attacks back to back is hard I hear.

The current build for Necro is the absolute definition of ‘spamming every single ability and faring well’. You only have to manage Putrid Mark and Deathly Swarm. Other than that, bombs away!

Fortunately, Necros have generally a pretty pathetic defense against being trained by multiple attackers, (especially un-peelable Warriors) so they’re kept in balance.

Necros being not overpowered, relatively speaking, in team queues doesn’t mean the offensive nature of Necromancers isn’t completely broken and spam happy.

Very yucky. I hope that one day Necros will be required to give more phucks when casting their abilities (besides Putrid Mark & Deathly Swarm.)

Regarding the OP:

No can do, sorry. You’re proposing that we attach massive condition clear to dodge rolls, that would break the game.

Look at how many times you can dodge roll in one minute to see how badly this would mess up the system. Considering you can get like, 6 dodges a minute from an Energy Sigil, and 12 dodges a minute with vigor, it’d be just like giving dodge spamming morons who are just not wanting to die another 18 condition removal a minute.

In fact, anyone with high vigor and energy sigils just got 18 condition removal a minute with your changes. Engineers, Mesmers, Guardians, Eles, 18 morecondition removal a minute for everyone! lolol.

I live off of 6-8 condition removal per minute on my Engi, to put things in perspective. This would break the game really badly and make only 1 Sigil possible: Energy. Great way to completely de-value intelligent dodge rolling, too.

So for those reasons, I pretty much vehemently oppose allowing something as common as dodge rolls to remove conditions each time.

Qaelyn.7612:

No, what we are suggesting is that if you have a headache you should stop hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, rather than lobbying for the sale of hammers to be prohibited.

There’s nothing wrong with the system. There’s something wrong with how you’ve chosen to use it.

Yeah. I think we all underestimated how far Achievement Point OCD Maximization could go. Quit all other activities for .. what appears to be an extra 4 Achievement Points a day tied to Solo Queue and Team Queue wins? He has it it bad.

You get bonus rank points from winning team/solo queues. You also get an amount of rank points determined at the end of every game.

Where the difference comes in, is that the ‘rank points’ described by the Achievements only take into account your SCORE from the matches.

Basically, the Achievement’s version of ‘rank points’ wasn’t update with the new way rank points are dealt, and still goes off personal score. It’s a known bug, but I don’t think it’s really a priority to fix.

Malediktus.9250:

There will never be hundreds of people in first place as long as anet adds new content to the game with new achievements. If that would ever happen it would be clearly anets fault because there would not be enough difficult achievements (which the game lacks currently, only hitting Liadri with 8 orbs could be considered difficult so far).
Most achievements in this game are based on how much time you invest, eg how much gold you farmed for legendaries, cultural armors, killing specific groups of enemies etc. Its just a list of tasks you work off with no skill whatsoever required, just time. JPs can be done with mesmer portals in all cases, dungeon pathes can be bought and fractals be farmed at lvl 1 difficulty.
So I would like Anet to stop with the daily madness and add more very difficult achievements such as the Liadri one or even harder ones.

Since the introduction of the new dailies I went from rank 96 to rank 47 on the leaderboard and climbing. Did I spend more effort than usual on permanent achievements? No. I only did the new PvP dailies almost every day, so a lot top 100 people must have given up already.
Am I proud of raising in the ranks? No, I did not really earn it if my competition gives up because of daily chore burnout.

Ok, so your gripe really isn’t even with the new PvP dailys being time consuming, seeing as you’ve been completing them non-stop and climbing the ranks over many others. Your gripe is with the fact that there aren’t any achievements that are gated by a high degree of coordination & skill, and so you are disappointed with the reality of what it takes to be in the top 100 Achievement Point leaderboards.

Woe are the Achievement Point min-maxers who want to over-complete all the line items, past what the daily requires of the player to be easily ‘Completed, 4/4’

Qaelyn.7612:

If you don’t want to do them, don’t do them – stop asking for optional features to be removed just because you don’t like them.

^Pretty much, this. If you want to be the best nerd point hunter, than hop to it, sparky. You don’t have a legitimate reason for the new dailys being unfair because there are new ways for the best nerd point hunters to elevate themselves above people who find it too time consuming.

Josh Davis.6015:

Imagine you’re in-charge of creating the ladder/season system.

• How would you design it?
• How would you incentivize teams to stay together?
• Would you penalize them for splitting?
• What types of rewards would you include for each ‘division’ on the ladder?

• How would you design it?

We know a little bit about the upcoming ladder design from John Corpening’s blog post: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/player-vs-player-rewards-roadmap/

^For those who haven’t seen it. Quote:

“At the end of a season, players will earn PvP-specific rewards both for their ladder standings and for their level of participation. "

I will talk about season end ‘ladder rewards’ and ‘participation rewards’ separately.

Season based. Season duration – 2 months per season, 3 max. Quarterly seasons are very simple to track and would be plenty long enough for players to persevere through RL barriers to playing a healthy amount to place in the proper rungs of the ladder. Enough time must be reserved for teams that break up to reform and re-place on the ladder, as well.

Team based. Similar to how guilds function, I feel striving for a ‘team’ identity, and promoting ‘teams’ would definitely be the way to generate the most interest. Teams are memorable to viewers, and teams are the glue that holds player commitment to each other strong. A TEAM PvP interface tab is ideal, with cool PvP Features: Active Timeline: Events noted in timeline: adding/removing individuals from roster, placement in tournaments, as well as previous seasonal ladder positions. The date, ranking, and event names are included. Active Roster: Roster of 10 slots available for the team. Displays all members based on character that was present when the last tournament match ended. Beside each member of roster, displays profession logo, WINS, LOSS, % of total games played.

In the Roster, a player can take on one of 3 categories: “Captain, Member, or Sub” would be displayed on the roster, as well. Each player is permitted to be a ‘sub’ on up to 3 teams – the player cannot generate end of season ladder rewards from playing as a sub, but can generate participation rewards. This is because often times a casual team will not always be able to get together in a week’s span.

Participation required! No carrying by ‘subs’. To be eligible for rewards at the end of season, a player must have participated in 33% of the team’s games.

• How would you incentivize teams to stay together?

This relies heavily on the rewards. The rewards for making an attempt at conquering the ladders must be very sexy, that is obvious. But incentives directly tied in to keeping teams together?

Rewards for consistently playing every week! We can build off of the ‘participation’ rewards for players by increasing the participation reward by 20% each consecutive week that the individual player has participated the minimum amount on that team. Stacks 5 times, to a maximum increase of an 100% increase to participation rewards. Players can only generate this participation buff by playing on their team – playing as a sub generates participation rewards, but not this stacking buff.

• Would you penalize them for splitting?

Teams would forego the stacking ‘participation’ buff that they had accumulated if they choose to split and play for another team. This should be a big deal, if done correctly. Forming a new Team would be associated with a decent cost, as well. Adding a full member to the team should have a cost associated as well. Replacing someone who didn’t work out should be a minor cost, but one that adds up quickly.

• What types of rewards would you include for each ‘division’ on the ladder?

UNIQUE, kitten SKINS!!! Once/if there is something like a properly working ‘wardrobe’ function where aesthetics are universal in all game types, unique, rare skins are going to be all the more important. Armor/Weapon sets, minis, town clothes, everything – top PvP players should be equally decked out as any fractal goer.

UNIQUE, kitten FINISHERS!!! The game still needs to be as de-cluttered and clear as possible, but there are so many possibilities for finishers. They don’t need to remain as a flag to the face, either. Truly, the sky is the limit. Literally – for a Top ladder spot finisher, there could be an account unlocked finisher that literally causes clouds to appear far and wide overhead, and destroy the stomped victim with a flash of direct lightning. Put those artsy arts guys to work, or something.

Titles, based on ladder performance: this is a secondary reward compared to unique skins & finishers, but still very important. Noobs must see the great PvP titles and tremble, etc etc.

That’s all I got! Fo’ now.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Restoration

This is an example of a defeated heal. Lol.

168 healing per cast in PvP with 0.08 scaling. Oye. Needs to be reverted ASAP, lol. 202 healing per cast with 0.10 scaling is hardly Healing Signet, eh.

Slim.3024:

And I will never understand why people think buffing the active and nerfing the passive will solve anything. If you buff the active to make it good, people will just use the active and the passive becomes useless. Congratulations, you have just created another simple heal.

If you buff the active and it’s not worth casting, you have basically nerfed the passive for no reason, because the active will only ever be used to heal in any near death escape scenario.

Heals like the signet can not have both passive and active solely heal, because the usage of either is mutually exclusive.

If for whatever reason you wanted to “nerf” the passive of the healing signet, which I repeat is absolutely fine and balanced, you need to incentivize using the active by adding a different effect to it that is not just a different way of healing.

They’re not mutually exclusive. Close, if you use the Active on cooldown, before every fight, maybe. Let’s say that the Active was the most healing over time to use – you can usually milk 10+ seconds out of the passive healing before having to use it at the start of the fight. If you were busy ganking someone when your Healing Signet recharged, you can milk the passive healing until you are ready to cast it.

I’ve discussed my preferences for Healing Signet in the past.

The design goes something kind of like this:

Healing Signet Passive: 225 healing every second, with the same 0.05 scaling.
Healing Signet Active: Heals for 625 every second for 10 seconds. 0.10 scaling.

Don’t nit pick my numbers, focus more on the design. Heh. Warrior has to keybind his heal, or lose out, and gets comparable sustain to the old design when traited for Signet Use, and successfully spamming Healing Signet on 16s cooldown.

The result is that the Warrior gets some stable healing from the passive until he needs to activate his active. This active can be interrupted, and that means the heal goes on cooldown for 4s, where the Warrior gets nothing. When it recharges, the Warrior will get some passive healing until he can successfully activate it again!

I don’t think that Healing Signet should be gutted, but I think if we can introduce penalties for being interrupted, and actually having to keybind the heal / use it properly, it’ll be a huge step in the right direction that’s not so drastic.

Qaelyn.7612:

This thread, in which proposals are being made that top PvP players say would be good for the high-end competitive matches but that more casual players say would be disastrous at lower levels.

Nobody will agree with all of the balance changes. I sure don’t – I think a lot of the suggested changes are clunky and counter productive. But I can tell you that that it matters a LOT more if the person has actual perspective as to what’s overpowered and in need of tweaking at different skill levels than if the person is ‘casual’ or ‘high-end’. I also think the ‘casual’ player on the first pages lamenting about how Warrior is perfectly balanced right now lacks perspective – because Warrior mechanics such as Healing Signet and Berserker Stance are even more unbalanced at the casual level. It’s super hard for casual players to overcome those barrier skills.

Chaith.8256:

You keep going on about the ‘needs’ of the top 100 players and how they’re to blame for the negative experience of casual players, because the top players’ needs are being prioritized over the others.

Qaelyn.7612:

Didn’t say that.

“Specifically, making game balance decisions in a casual game that tick off 10,000+ players because of game balance issues that affect 100 players is bad management. Many of the proposed changes in this thread fall into that category.”

^You’re saying exactly that. You’re saying that these kinds of changes that you perceive to be only catering to the needs of ‘top players’ would be directly to blame for the negative experience of casuals (ticking off 10,000+ players, as you put it).

I think you’re mostly referring to the Thief and Mesmer changes proposed by Bear. Don’t confuse terrible design choices for casuals and top players alike as being something all Top players want for Tournament balance. You have to be able to differentiate. Phucking around with Mesmer GS and Thief Initiative is not going to make high end PvP a better place, and yes, will undoubtedly tick off everyone in the game.

Qaelyn.7612:

I already did (as did others). To reiterate, off the top of my head, the proposed changes to GS for mesmer would be a disaster, as would the massive nerf to thief initiative regen without restoring the traits that were already nerfed before the base rate was increased.

Like I just mentioned above.. these are not changes that the ‘high end’ PvP community is calling for. The OP is merely trying to improve the Risk / Reward of certain abilities at all costs. A noble cause, but not aimed at the right things. In high and especially low level PvP where Mesmers haven’t skill capped Phase Retreat or Blink, running a Mesmer is EXTREMELY risky enough – the Greatsword changes to incentivize more risky behaviour is not needed.

For thieves, after the big nerfs to Sword 2, Thieves can’t constantly reset when swapped to. D/P & Shortbow builds are extremely risky, and require a great player to be worth it in high end tPvP. Even the best thieves often get caught occasionally. At a casual skill level, running Thief is absurdly risky and difficult when encountering the huge amount of Hambow Warriors, Spirit Rangers, and MM Necros. Casual skill level thieves nor top level thieves need a toning down of initiative.

Top level thieves are always going to be present for a combination of their mobility (decapping power), ganking power & boonripping, and intimidation power (causes squishies like DPS Guard, Power Necro, Power Engi, Ele, Mesmer to live in fear, if ever present). Thieves in top level tPvP provide massive map pressure from a combination of these factors. Nerfing thief initiative across the board is clearly not the right call if a nerf to high end tPvP thieves is desired.

Qaelyn.7612:

I don’t oppose them because a “known PVPer” is suggesting them. I oppose them because I think they are bad ideas. In response, I am being told these things are needed at the high levels of competition, which is why I believe there’s a difference.

So, I guess we agree that these proposed changes would be bad, but you’re still not looking at it the right way. I say this because you have been told that these (Thief and Mesmer) things are needed at high levels of competition, and you just accepted this. It’s not at all true.

I understand that you’re sticking up for the casual majority, which is obviously a great thing. Unfortunately, you need to be able to recognize a harmful change in general, and not assume high end PvPers endorse all of these changes blindly, and that there is a real conflict of interest.

Acandis.3250:

Also, it breaks even with 1130 Healing Power, not 1600. please revise your math before embarrassing yourself further.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Current healing at 1536 healing power: 392 + (0.05)(1536) = 392 + 76.8 = 468.8
Proposed healing at 1536 healing power: 200 + (0.175)(1536) = 200 + 268.8 = 468.8

Maybe you should learn to count before trying to correct my math.

Oh, you guys. So cute.

Bear and Acandis are simply calling the ‘break even’ point how much healing power it takes to get the results you previously got with NO healing power. What these guys calculated was the ‘recovery cost’ – how much healing power you need to have in your build to get back to what you had previously, for no requirements.

They should also look up what a ‘break even’ point is. And stop being so snarky.

Kensuda & Olrun, you guys are correct in finding the true ‘break even’ healing power point where both variations of the Healing Signet (actual, and suggested) are giving the same return for the same investment.

Valentin.2073:

it’s because of the new heals. MM’s benefited the most from the new heal skills.

Valentin.2073:

the new heal on a necro is specially designed for minion masters (siphoning) although i prefer consume conditions over it. :P

That moment when you realize that Signet of Vampirism is only procced by players – 1 Necro can only get a max of 4-5 procs even if he hits the targets with his zoo and himself 40 times in 2 seconds.

Trigr.6481:

Ummm no?

Countless

You didn’t have to explain it a second time.. I understand the idea of trading off your positioning and risk your health pool for more auto-attack damage. It’s not a hard concept. I’ll elaborate..

Cute GIF.

I don’t expect you to see it from a WvW/PvE perspective, seeing as you have expressed that you would rather slit your wrists (down the road, not across the street!) than load into PvE or WvW.

In WvW, as a glassy Mesmer, you are also staying dah fuq away from multiple painful objects. It’s not like you can just let the Hammer Train mow you over because you do increased damage up close. It’s just awkward as hell. It’s like just living with with a 40% damage decrease from your Auto-attacks. You can’t just close in, like you could in PvP.

Put it this way, when Karl sends you an email saying: “I just read your post, and I KNEW I put the Mesmer Greatsword on Backwards at launch!” Then I will acknowledge the idea of making the weapon awkward as hell for every PvE/WvW player at the expense of a slightly positive side-grade on PvP counterplay.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

yea yea yea ad hominem this and that – I said that for the way you came off.

More appropriately, a support/bunker guardian is not a solo point bunker and other classes do solo point bunker better than guardian. Reasonably, this puts, or should put, the guardian in every team fight which makes negligible this base health increase on account of focus fire (which can also be achieved by taking cleric’s ammy/knights jewel).

Again, banish and renewed focus require cross-class comparisons.

A solo point bunker? Oye. Do you mean like, a Clerics Amulet Elementalist from January 2013 who would troll far point all game and keep it contested? Can you show me what a ‘solo point’ bunker is, and who’s doing it? Cause I can tell you right now, all the far point assaulting that’s done in my recent tourney experience has usually been a roamer Berserker Trickery Thief, Carrion Spirit Ranger, or Soldier/Berserker Hambow Warrior.

There is no such thing as a solo point bunker in recent months of tPvP. Engies don’t do it. We’re rabid condi. Eles can’t do it, they’re almost guaranteed to die 1v1. Warrior’s don’t bunker up and do it, they just stay offensive Hambow (unless your name is Olruntheblade). People just send a roamer far who can 1v1 really well, or leave that same roamer home.

We played a match this week vs. some Euro players who had a wicked 3 man stealth burst, and our Guardian died in under a second. Don’t laugh at a free 1.5k hp, and 1s of Invulnerability.

But I digress.. what’s inferior about anything Guardians are actually doing today in tPvP?

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Chaith, I’m starting to notice a pattern here. You main an engineer, and nothing you said about Guardians makes any sense. All of your points were either unfounded or not based in realm we currently reside in as the points you made were innocuous at best. Clearly you don’t see the inherent buff to engineer viability and variability that was proposed and instead chose to pick apart the Guardian changes.

When I look at your proposals to increase cleric bunker Guardian’s HP by 1500, make Banish super accurate when used correctly, and increase Renewed Focus duration by 50%, I’d say those make sense in the realm we reside in. Since.. y’know, Guardians are in every competitive match.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

While I may advocate for the game to separate tpvp from everything, it will never happen – keep that in mind.

Well that’s kind of disappointing, why don’t you come back to the realm where we PvPers reside in where balance is not totally separate from WvW and PvE?

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mesmer
Skills
Greatsword – functionality to reflect risk – reward, reverse the distance in which damage is increased – dealing more damage the closer the player is to the target

A PvE/WvW Nightmare. The Mesmer works to keep the target at range, and the target often works to close the gap. The loser of this struggle takes the most pressure from the Greatsword Auto-attacks. What you’re proposing does eliminate a portion of the ‘safe’ damage, but it also eliminates portion of the counter-play. Overall, I don’t feel it’s a worthwhile change.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scepter – auto attack speed travel speed increased by 10%

Acceptable change, the auto attack is definitely not really anything to write home about.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Blurred Frenzy – damage evasion duration reduced to 2 seconds, engi shield stun and nightmare rune proc no longer interrupt the frenzy

Fair enough of a tweak.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of the Ether – passive tick base reduced to 200/400/600

Not sure if my numbers agree with yours here, that seems like quite serious a nerf, for only proposing to lower the cooldown by 5 seconds – even at high healing power levels.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mantra of Pain – damage increased by 5%

Arcane Thievery – cool down reduced to 40 seconds

Mimic – the first projectile absorbed does not cause damage

All fair buffs.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Traits

Prismatic Understanding – duration of protection and regeneration reduced to 2 seconds

Yep, this trait needs some heavy regulating. It will still be good for what it does.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Engineers
Skills
Bombs – all bomb radii decreased by 40 units

All 140 radius, base? Very odd number – with Forceful Explosives, they would be at 200 radius. A 40 radius reduction would be possible – they did get buffed in radius on the 1 & 2 abilities for no reason, spontaneously.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Poison Grenade – poison cloud duration reduced to 3 seconds, base poison duration reduced to 4 seconds

Ok. Reasonable nerf, it’s poison duration is kind of whack.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Traits

Power Shoes – moved to adept tier inventions; might need a qualifier

Good.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Automated Response – condition durations reduced by 95%

Good.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scope – removed from the game; replaced with Back Brace
Back Brace – remove 1 condition when using a tool belt skill, recharge 12 seconds, non-elixir skill

Yeah.. that global cooldown renders that Master Trait pretty bad. 5 Condition removal a minute ain’t bad, that’s for sure. But I don’t think it’s quite attractive yet. You can’t snag it if you want HgH and Grenadier. What if the recharge was specific for each toolbelt ability – IE, If you have 4 toolbelt abilities that have a 30s cd, you could use them all twice in a minute and get 8 Condition Removal. If you optimized your Toolbelt a bit better, an Engi could get the same condition removal as the Cleaning Formula 409 trait. Just an example.

Thief – initiative regen reduced to 0.8/second; build diversity requires a 1.1khp base increase at level 80

This is getting a bit crazy, man. Thieves just had their initiative traits axed. I think it’s better left alone.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Skills
Cluster Bomb – damage reduced by 12.5%

Shelk Venom – recharge reduced to 40 seconds

Traits
Improvisation – changed description from bundle to possessing a stolen skill

All reasonable..

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Sleight of Hand – Internal cool down of 30 seconds

This one is way left field, man. That would make the game feel, and play absolutely terrible. Sitting on your steal an extra 9 seconds to get the darn daze that you Grandmastered’ up for? Nah.. that’s like, rage worthy. 1s daze, every 21s. Deal with it.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Elementalist – base health increased by 2k at level 80 to increase build diversity
Skills
Ice Bow – Ice Storm – reduced damage by 8.5%

Meteor Shower – reduced area by 10%;

Churning Earth – is now a chargeable skill
Traits
Lightning Strike – ICD increased to 5 seconds

Diamond Skin – reduced condition reduction to 95%, down from immunity

These are all mostly nerfs.. the Ele hurts, but the profession is still unable to set foot in competitive tPvP seriously.

CONTD!

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Necromancer

Grasping Dead – reduced physical damage by 12%

Feast of Corruption – reduced damage per condition to 5%

Signet of Spite – reduced condition durations by 50%

Lich Form – Deathly Claws – 10% decrease in base damage

Traits

Training of the Master – decreased damage increase to 25%

Siphoned Power – health threshold to 65% for trigger

Withering Precision – moved to master tier, recharge increased to 25 seconds & Terror – moved to grandmaster tier

Gluttony – reduced to 5%

To summarize: 1) A handful of small Power Necro nerfs. 2) Giving Signet of Spite the axe. 3) A big nerf to the current top condition burst Build. 4) 5% Nerf to traited Minions.

Necros are pulling numbers & spammy, devastating attacks that are definitely above the curve, in test-dummy scenarios. If Necromancers were allowed to run free, more people would see that they are indeed, out of line. Unfortunately, this leaves many things to be desired.

1) Necros are on the ropes in tPvP viability. Warriors, Thieves, and anyone else riding the CC pain train will poop on your Power/Condition necro. Only Minionmancers are commonly getting play in solo queue & team queue as of late. This is just one of the shortcomings of your ‘mathz’ – you advocate massive nerfs for builds that are already kept in check by external factors, like the presence of counter-comps. For God’s sake, leave the ‘power scepter’ Necro alone, too.

2) There’s little that’s suggested that could help to improve the counterplay & possible strategies when trying to deal with being attacked by a Necro. You can’t tell when/where the ground targeted abilities are coming – have fun rando-dodging when a Necro opens on you, and proceeds to mash Staff 2-3-5, Scepter 2-5-3, DS, 2-3-5-4 on you, without any phucks given to if you’re able to dodge. Spammity spam spam. This is where we need balance attention.

3) Your suggested change to axe Signet of Spite in half is too heavy handed. Signet of Spite is not a must-have for every Necro. Let’s try a 30% reduction for starters. 7s base, or 9s with 30% condition duration. It definitely beats the 10s base, or 13s with 30% condition duration

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Warrior – Reduce base health at level 80 by 1k

Healing Signet – Passive tick reduced to 200hps with healing power scaling coefficient of 0.175

Berserker Stance – reduces condition duration by 95% for the duration of the stance

Combustive Shot – radius at 3 levels of adrenaline reduced to 300, 220 at 2, and 140 at 1

Extremely heavy handed changes here .. but I understand where you’re coming from. Ok, so I don’t like base HP changes for reasons I’ve stated before – every profession falls into a specific category. Reducing the Warrior Signet heal from 392 base to 200 base is something I can get behind, if you can get around 450 healing from it when you’re a full Clerics bunker. Bunkers would still take Healing Signet, but the meta builds would definitely think about turning towards Healing Surge, IMO. I would support this change going in, as opposed to nothing.

Berserker Stance change: very fair, and only would serve as a tiny kitten in what, for all purposes, is a pretty kitten unstoppable ability in the right circumstances.

What’s missing: Still no reason for some select brainless Warriors to keybind their heal.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Traits
Adrenal Health – moved to minor master trait in strength line

Building Momentum – moved to minor master trait in defense line

Defy Pain – increased to a 90 seconds recharge

Defy Pain is bad, leave it alone. If you’ve ever played Warrior, you’d know that Defy pain over Merciless Hammer, Cleansing Ire, Dogged March, Last Stand, Missile Deflection, or Sure Footed is pretty MEH at best.

Swapping the Strength and Defense minor traits out at the same time would be too heavy a hit to Warrior sustain.. that’s pretty much gutting it from every direction. I think this is far too heavy handed, overall.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

General
With AoE rebalancing – AoE target cap increased to 8 targets

Good for PvP in theory. Unfortunately, this has huge PvE and WvW impact. AoEs hit 60% more things now?

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Blocking priority system that has aegis as the last block to be used up.

Sounds like a reasonable buff to Guardians with blocks.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Repair both conditions and boons to be first in, last out

As for the boon removal priority, I’m not sure about that. Actively USING a boon rip at the right time needs to be protected as a viable strategy. Your proposed system will allow for Guardians to hide stability very well under bunch of boons – boon removal is only made widespread by the Thief’s Bountiful Theft and the rare Mesmer’s Shattered Concentration in the current competitive scene. I think that generating a ton of boons as a counter to boon ripping is an unhealthy, spammy form of counterplay compared to managing a cooldown to rip stability off at a clutch moment.

As for condition removal, again, I feel the strategy needs to be viable on the side of the person actively USING the condition removal. The pre-determined condition removal priority has to go – the person using the Condition Removal at the clutch time to get immobilize off should not automatically take off every single condition before getting to the immobilize.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Immobilization Stacking eliminated

Good.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Portal no longer transports repair kit

This has been a contended issue since the beginning, meh – you can still pick the kit up, and Shadow Refuge until it’s repaired. Where to draw the line? I’d like to see the page of math, if possible.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Guardian – base health increased by 1.5k at level 80 to increase build diversity

A significant baseline buff to Guards. This is clunky, as there are only 3 health tiers which the professions each fit exactly. What you’re suggesting has some merit, but it needs to be done in a smoother way.

The bunker Guardian is pretty much a given in competitive tPvP. This is just uncalled for.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Banish – is now a chargeable skill

This is a clear buff to Guardian’s banish to allow it to be be super unpredictable if desired, and usable in many more situations.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scepter – auto attack orb travel speed increased by 12.5% and damage is decreased 5%

This is a small buff to Guardian’s Scepter auto-attack damage.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of Mercy – cast time decreased to 2.5 seconds, recharge at 120 seconds

This is a clear buff to Guardian Support – 33% reduction in cast time, and 20% reduction in cooldown.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Renewed Focus – increased duration to 3 seconds

This is a clear buff to Guardian survivability across the board.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Tomes: recharge reduced to 150 seconds: Tome of Wrath: Judgment – cast time decreased. Conflagrate – base damage increased.

17% recharge reduction to tomes, 20% damage buff to Tome of Wrath Auto-attack. Fair buffs.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Traits
Kindled Zeal – moved to master tier

Zealous Blade – moved to GM tier, increase damage of GS attacks by 10%

Valorous Defense – cooldown reduced to 60 seconds

Glacial Heart – chance on critical hit increased to 100%

4 more minor buffs to underpowered traits.

Bear, I’m starting to notice a pattern here. You main a Guardian, and 12/12 or so of your Guardian suggestions were all either reasonable buffs to underpowered traits, or blatant survivability buffs to Guardians across the board, who definitely don’t need any developer help in obtaining permanent spots in competitive tPvP. At the same time, you denounce power creep as you advocate it. All these huge nerfs to other classes, and Guardian buffs all around? Come on.

Lookin’ pretty smart with your ‘feelings’-free and bias-free claims towards your proposals, lol.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

I hope you realize each assertion is accompanied by about a page long mathematical flow that includes cross-skill/trait and cross-class comparisons.

Even if you did post any rationales, algorithms, equations, for any of the big proposals, it’s very obvious that you are more knowledgeable about certain professions than others. Of these professions which you’re highly knowledgeable about, you’re making some assertions (not all) based on your personal experiences, as opposed as to what needs to be done for proper balance.

Also, 200 pages of cross-profession calculations do not mean your cause is righteous if you don’t properly take into context the entire profession’s uniqueness, as well as overall tPvP viability.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I would just keep doing what you’ve always been doing. Collect skins. Craft all the skins you can but don’t already have. Make some dyes

Buying consumable tokens or Arcane Converters (whichever comes first) is a really terrible way to spend glory atm. Making Dyes are not really an option when Glory can be used to purchase the Giant Gift Packages and selling them.

The opportunity cost renders all powder, orbs, crystals, slivers, tokens and everything else a waste of space.

Chokolata.1870:

Honestly, i do not see what makes the pro in gw2 so pro. Game is easy enough to play. Perhaps team coordination but individual skill is not that high because the skill ceiling is rather low

Sure.. if you always hit 100% of your abilities, and your enemies find it impossible to read your attacks & dodge any skill shots. :P.

Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY, even the ‘top players’ have totally mastered the game to the point where they never burn dodges badly, or miss attacks. Personally, I do noob crap like missing my grenades on long distance targets, and I often foolishly pump strong attacks into people who are able to dodge my attacks all the time.

If Korean fighter-game genre veterans played this game competitively, we’d all be completely doomed. Nobody in this game is even close to playing it at the skill cap. We’re almost all lazy, and almost all of us tend to be very predictable. Myself included.

Just letting you guys know that every boon steal/corrupt/remove has it’s own unique table of what boons it steals/corrupts/removes. Some of these tables are common, (steals prioritize stability, corrupts do stability last) but mostly you have to learn each ability.

Lupanic.6502:

We have beeen kicked out of the current tpvp/spvp meta. I guess we have nothing really imba at the moment.

Good one, lol. Engies are just as good as they’ve always been.

Tken.1986:

I just wanna know how are people dealing with this new healing skill.

I don’t deal with this new healing skill.

Let’s review?

Just as an opening observation, you can only use A.E.D one way. If you want to have comparable healing to taking other heals, when you use A.E.D, you need to have your health reduced to zero, and you need that 12k ‘defy death’ heal. If you use it without the possibility of ‘defying death’, then the game is telling you that you’re bad and should use any other heal. A 4.5k heal on a 40s cooldown without any secondary effect (evades, water fields, condition removal, etc), easily takes the ‘worst heal in the game’ award. So, use A.E.D properly.

Weak Synergy with existing traits & abilities. This is how it disagrees with a lot of good Engi mechanics:

• Automated Medical Response (Inventions 15pt). This trait works with all the other heal fine – you’re going to use your healing skills as early as possible without wasting the healing to get maximum healing over time. Naturally, when you hit 25% and your heal refreshes, it’s like ‘oh, sweet, this trait is awesome’. With A.E.D, you hit 25% and the trait is rendered useless because the ability isn’t even on recharge until sub-15% typically. It’s true you can track the internal 90s cooldown of this trait, and know when your heal is about to refresh – enabling you to use A.E.D at high HP without ‘defying death’. But really.. I don’t have time for that crap.

• Automated Response (Alchemy 30pt). This trait has the opposite effect that you want when you are sub 25%. When you’re sub 25%, and want to ‘defy death’ using A.E.D, the last thing you want is to have a never-die trait kick in, pretty much hindering your goal of getting the full A.E.D heal. People typically run very glassy builds, or use A.E.D for enemy zerg denial – traits like Automated Response combined with passive healing makes it extremely difficult to get the ‘defy death’ A.E.D heal, and therefore have bad synergy.

• Speedy Gadgets (Tools, 10pt). This trait brings A.E.D down to a 32s cooldown, which is cool. The biggest question is how can one justify taking this over Speedy Kits, Static Discharge, Power Wrench, or other essential traits? Not super attractive. It’s not that A.E.D is bad because of this, but since it’s a Gadget, it’s subject to all the lackluster gadget traits (or lack thereof).

• Condition removal. Equipping A.E.D pretty much removes all the viable ways Engineer has to remove conditions. 1) Healing Turret, and 2) Cleaning Formula 409. The only other significant condition removal you can get while running A.E.D is from Elixir C. Even if you manage to make this work in your build, you’re pretty much at the ‘shatter mesmer’ level of condition removal outside those long CD Elixir C uses. In PvP, as an Engineer with relatively low evade/invuln/stealth uptime, that’s like asking to be burned for 30s straight.

• Static Shock (A.E.D Toolbelt ability). It hits decently, that’s good. 3/4s cast and 1/2s aftercast equals 1.25s of self CC for 1s of enemy CC. That part isn’t so good. You only have .5 seconds to actually do something with this stun. I can see this being fun in a Static Discharge build, but one has to be extremely quick. Meh, overall. Useless outside of a Rifle SD build if you don’t even have enough time to cast a skill after using it due to the big aftercast.

• Opportunity Costs. Healing Turret is pretty much the best sustained healing, the best condition removal, hardest to interrupt, the best group utility, that requires no traits. Might Stacks decently well with Enhanced Performance too. Med Kit is great sustain with deep tools builds, and the best at might stacking. Elixir H is the best in Elixir Builds. I think these are the real reasons why A.E.D seems so disapponting – Engineer has really well integrated and awesome healing skills – and A.E.D is like 3 steps back.

Lyssa runes are super slow. There is a gap between the condition removal and the boons. Sometimes it takes a whole second for it go come up – and it’s not a stunbreaker, man.

Justin ODell.9517:

Spectator mode has been re-enabled.

Only 4 hours too late. God kitten it, lol.

Well, thanks for the update anyways.

Dragonar.1342:

1. ‘Remove’ the amulets and make gear like in wvw and pve. This will make ballancing a lot easier, i think. (and more builds in spvp)

2. There are too many conditions and boons.
It’s impossible to keep track of whats all going on.
Make conditions stronger and/or longer lasting, but make it so that less skils can inflect them. Also a skill should never inflict more than 1 boon/condition.

Just my ideas, discuss them please!
I don’t say they are THE solution. But it’s good to look into.

More stat combinations makes balance worse. WvW is an imbalanced cesspool compared to PvP. Dire stats? Enough said. I understand the Amulet & Rings & Earrings system could be decent. In WvW though, the glassy professions are glassier, and the tanky professions are tankier. This is because of WvW’s Amulet & Ring & Earring system as opposed to the PvP Amulet system. I see this as a negative thing for player enjoyment – I’d rather players be forced into at least some slight version of ‘middle ground’ when it comes to character building. 10khp thieves with 2500 power, I just don’t want in my PvP. Not fun to play against or as, imo.

Apart from that, breaking down the differences between PvP and WvW is dangerous, because it would set a precedent for determining what new mechanics would be shared with PvP as well. I think it’s good that PvP is protected..

PvP can’t be subject to new, stronger foods, maintenance oils, OP runesets.. it would be very hurtful.

As for the Condition/Boon system.. I’m sure that what you’re suggesting is a commonly agreed upon principle – conditions, boons, condition removals, dodges, condition application, it’s all on the high side. Add it to the pile of things that could benefit from a rework, I guess.

Josh Davis.6015:

I think Skullcrack is a good place now. Ideally, all of our high impact skills should allow for counter-play via a clearly telegraphed attack animation. It’s something we’re constantly thinking about when we look at existing skills, and doubly so when we brainstorm new ones.

Love you, buddy.

Attack my target! * Calls target on Pin Down, Necro Marks & Scepter *

Thoughts:

• If Arenanet just sets base MMR much, much lower, this problem would be resolved very quickly. No restrictions to entering tPvP, I feel any restrictions, no matter how small would be a drag.

• In high level tournies, or tPvP when EU/NA tournament players have to transfer to the other region to play in a tourney, they have to use a new account. Even though these are largely done in Custom Arenas, wanting to do some practice queues before or after with your friends isn’t uncommon. Don’t crap on these people, competitive play is tough enough not being able to consolidate the regional servers.

• Rewards are NOT ruining tPvP. In the short run, an influx of new players can be a drag, if your MMR is equally bad (har har, get good, basically, not meaning to be rude) but more players = the MMR system working better!!!! So in the long run, the new players will be able to take advantage of a better system and get better. And then maybe 1% of those waves of players will become a part of a competitive team .. but I don’t wanna get ahead of myself.

Zenith.7301:

Sizzle Hint.1820:

Zenith.7301:

lordhelmos.7623:

It has begun. Discuss.

Stop moaning about dueling builds that are uselsss in tpvp.

If it pains you that much to lose to a dueling spec, roll a warrior with signet heal build and never die to them anyways even if you can’t kill them.

Or you can reroll necro/engi and murder them with aoe condi spam.

PU condi doesnt lose to Necro / engi not even Close lol

they also eat warr for breakfast

PU mesmer has crap for condi removal. If you lose to a PU mesmer as minion condi necro or a grenade engineer, you are terrible.

Yeah.. grenades have never countered stealthy/aegis spamming/teleporty duel mesmers. Mesmer mechanics counter Engineer mechanics quite hard, due to the positioning requirements of the Engineer.

teg.1340:

As mentioned in the Dulfy link: The synergy with Automated Medical Response could be interesting:

- Trigger AED when >25% HP
- AED cooldown resets when < 25% HP
- “Die”
- Get healed for 12k+

If you dont “die” within 4s you can use AED another time.

Just because you have Automated Medical Response, you should never use A.E.D with the knowledge that you won’t die from the damage. I suspect that Automated Medical response only triggers when your heal is on cooldown and you pass the threshold.

Ideally, use it sub-25%, “die”, get healed for 12k, when you get further dropped, the trait will kick in, and you can “die” a second time, and get healed for another 12k.

Edit: If I’m incorrect, and Automated Medical Response will be consumed and add no value if your heal not on recharge when you hit 25%, then it seems to have far worse synergy than I thought (unless you always know 100% when your 90s cd trait will proc.)

Wolfheart.1938:

Just what Engineers needed. More CC!

3/4s cast and aftercast all for a 1s stun? More like a self CC.

Hawk.7628:

I don’t enjoy PvE, I shouldn’t have to play it to have an advantage in PvP. By allowing some to have the heals unlocked, while others do not, it puts these players on unequal grounds, as one has access to a skill that the other does not.

Can we just add PvE stats to PvP gear and call it WvW Arenas at this point?

Don’t overreact, the difference in ‘equal footing’ by those who have the new heals and who don’t is pretty abysmal. I think only a couple of them are even conceivably better in some situations. A majority of PvE Group Support heals, far and wide.

I question the decision too.. seeing as PvP is first and foremost where you go to unlock all the skills and gear. But nobody’s really suffering, is my point.

PvP and buy Tomes of Knowledge to unlock!

Phineas Poe.3018:

Chaith.8256:

I might run this, too:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIqiYnvSyF1LJyoCdGoC5lIF6nl95xbxWQIA-ToAAzCuI+S9l7LzXyvsfN+YuA

Leaving Vigor alltogether, getting Protection Injection & Backpack Regenerator in Alchemy. Take Energy Sigil to compensate!

I’ve actually been running Protection Injection over Invigorating Speed for the longest time. Overall very similar to yours, but I only take 5 points in Firearms for Sharpshooter and run 15 points in Inventions for AMR.

It’s viable. I’m a little more #YOLO though, and run Rampager with Carrion. Maybe I’m just a scrub that goes against the grain, but I don’t think toughness is all that useful with all the conditions flying around these days.

Perhaps I’m assuming too much here, but that would mean you’re running 30/5/15/20/0 if you are running a grenade build with firm 30 explosives – similar build to mine.

You must use runes of speed – I’d die without swiftness after having it for so long.

Also, I am fearful of power damage in PvP. That’s mostly the reason why I value protection injection so highly.

nekretaal.6485:

Are the glory vendors getting removed tomorrow? I am not clear on how long they will stay with us.

They’ll be here for months, until the new system is implemented. The glory vendor with all of the good stuff is coming in tomorrow.

GeminiArcher.7809:

Chaith.8256:

• Convert the remaining glory to gold? Every player with significant glory will engineer how much glory they want to spend, and convert the rest into gold. Anet is very against a glory -> Gold conversion.

And I mentioned converting to the rewards chests that are currently bought with it. What’s wrong with auto-converting into those? People who were proactive would get more ability to choose what to buy, but people who didn’t aren’t left out in the cold.

• It is difficult to leave the NPC sitting there. Anet is trying to get people to use the actual ladders/new reward system that will be in, once the Glory vendor is gone.

Why is it difficult? Was it difficult to leave the Zhaitaffy vendor sitting around in LA for months after the Dragon Bash event ended? Once the new rewards system is in, obviously people will be using that for their new rewards, but why should past rewards earned be forfeit?

• It’ll be months and months before the Glory Vendor goes, in favor of the all-new rewards system. I don’t have much sympathy for the players who’ve hid under a rock for 3-8 months from the game, without checking updates or logging on for 5 minutes to purchase their phat gears. Lol.

You don’t have to “hide under a rock” to not pay attention to proposed future updates. Especially those of us who don’t actually do sPVP very often probably aren’t paying that much attention to it. And I really hope the folk at Arenanet have more concern for the satisfaction of their customers than you do- imagine them giving “I don’t have much sympathy for you, LOL” as a response to irritated players. :o

Agree to disagree on all points.

Zhaitaffy vendor is a hugely wrong comparison.

With this vendor, you essentially have purchasable PvP progression. When the REAL PvP progression system is in, it won’t work if people could choose to progress through a vendor rather than use the system.

Disagree all you want, don’t shoot the messenger delivering the message that Arenanet will never ever convert Glory to Gold.

Have a nice day!

^___________^

Not to pick at you here… but a lot of your suggestions would throw a lot of things under the bus.

• Convert the remaining glory to gold? Every player with significant glory will engineer how much glory they want to spend, and convert the rest into gold. Anet is very against a glory → Gold conversion.

• It is difficult to leave the NPC sitting there. Anet is trying to get people to use the actual ladders/new reward system that will be in, once the Glory vendor is gone.

• It’ll be months and months before the Glory Vendor goes, in favor of the all-new rewards system. I don’t have much sympathy for the players who’ve hid under a rock for 3-8 months from the game, without checking updates or logging on for 5 minutes to purchase their phat gears. Lol.

I might run this, too:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIqiYnvSyF1LJyoCdGoC5lIF6nl95xbxWQIA-ToAAzCuI+S9l7LzXyvsfN+YuA

Leaving Vigor alltogether, getting Protection Injection & Backpack Regenerator in Alchemy. Take Energy Sigil to compensate!

Well.. just because it’s short range-ish, why did you pick the Ranger’s Greatsword as a template for what you feel the Engi Rifle should be, lol. There’s no logic here, really.

The Rifle is indeed quite difficult compared to most weapons when actually trying to get the damage out. Blunderbus is very choosy on whether it wants to hit or not. It only strikes things directly in front of the player, pretty much.

Dueling in the mists would be amazing to reel new PvPers into the game.

There’s a massive community of people that love to participate and spectate duels/2v2. Lots in the PvP community, a huge amount of them exist in the WvW community, some in the PvE community, too, I’m sure. Everybody in an MMO wants to know if they can mess their friends up or vice-versa.

If the Mists became a more universal hang-out for players, you can be certain there’d be more people in the mists chat forming pugs. That’s something that I haven’t seen for months.. LFM tPvP – this never happens. SoloQ has definitely filled that niche. I think anything that gets players together in a PvP environment, like dueling, would have enormous value on the tPvP community.