Guild Wars 2

DoctorDing.5890:

Is it ok to not be ok?

Hey! No meta questions!

KrHome.1920:

I repeat myself: It’s not the way condition damage works! The problem is that condi builds are by design more tanky than power builds so they HAVE to deal less dps! But at the moment SOME condi builds don’t.

This needs to be fixed and it can be done simply by adjusting some skills.

Except condi builds are not by design tankier. The only reason condi builds are considered tanky in WvW is because TB/Dire. Look at sPvP, where those stats don’t exist. Condi got pushed out of sPvP meta because condi is squishier than power on every single class with the exception of Chrono.

Behellagh.1468:

That would put the catapult on the East side of DR, not the west side which was the Lake Doric map.

No, the angle is clear in the shot. It’s definitely north northwest.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Good post. Terror should be a minor trait to replace soul comp in the death magic line imo

If you are trying to kill off Terrormancer, putting Terror in the DM line would be the way to do it. No condi necro build can afford DM.

I know that Soul Comprehension is a bad word on these boards, but just randomly swapping traits for it isn’t a good solution.

Azoqu.8917:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Windwalker.7421:

Boonstrip is only a hypothetical counter that in practice is either ineffective (reapplication) or not available to condition builds.

All the meta condi builds have boon strip. Not sure what you’re talking about.

And once again, the reason they are meta and not the other condi builds is because they have boon strip. Give it to other classes and watch their condi builds get closer to meta.

Boon rip is not why other condi builds aren’t meta. Other condi builds aren’t meta because they don’t have the damage application or the survivability to be relevant.

Of the 9 classes, Mesmer is the only class where the condi build has greater survivability and utility than the power build.

Cevni.2049:

Changing gear atm is rather easy, earning enough gold to statchange shouldn’t be a challenge to anyone (especially with leather prices going more sane atm). Should it still be too expensive there is always exotic gear which I am sure works just fine for testing out a build, the 5% stat difference wont make or break if the concept of the build actually works and as such you can craft/statchange your ascended after testing the build out. Given that ascended trinkets (previously hardest slot and also where the majority of your stats come from) is now basically handed out for free to WvWers testing out builds shouldn’t be very hard, I know it isn’t for me.

I have never gotten ascended drops from WvW of any type. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but the drop rate is not high enough to be practical.

When I was doing build experimentation for my necro in sPvP, I went through literally every condi amulet in a day of experimenting, without even going into how often I play with different runeset.
I could never afford to do that in WvW, Full regearing with exotics costs me a 4th of my average value, and WvW already costs me with it’s food requirement.

The amount of effort and gold required to do experimentation in WvW is prohibitive to the extreme. Compared to sPvP where I can use whatever I want whenever I want.

Huskyboy.1053:

If there’s only one warrior on the other team then you’ll just have to put up with the fact that that they soft-counter your condi mes. If there’s more than one, switch Illusions for Domination, take the boonstripping trait, and switch sword for scepter. You can outkite a warrior without sword, and the scepter makes up for the loss in condi damage. It will serve you well against both warriors and guardians, though the meta condi build has more general applications. Warrior’s resistance really shouldn’t be giving you that much trouble on meta condi mes though, it takes time but they should be a guaranteed kill. Full melee is a bad matchup versus mes unless you have a thief’s mobility.

I don’t play a Mesmer, and I’m aware that out kiting warriors during the resistance window is a thing.

I was just irked by the other poster’s suggestion that relevant amounts of boon rip are available to non-necro.

Basic issue is that stance resistance is pulsing, and no class beyond necro can rip fast enough to handle pulsing boons. That said I don’t have a issue with warrior, I just enjoy poking holes in people’s arguments.

Cevni.2049:

I am saying that the fact that you can make creative builds and both succeed and fail is part of what makes WvW great, I’d rather not introduce more handholding and more restrictions on creativity.

Right because putting arbitrary crafting/gold gates on changing gear is obviously conducive to creativity.

I keep wanting to play around with builds other than my zerk thief in WvW. But I can’t because I’d either have to waste gold and time on crafting, or waste gold on buying a set of gear, all for a build that I might not keep.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Windwalker.7421:

Boonstrip is only a hypothetical counter that in practice is either ineffective (reapplication) or not available to condition builds.

All the meta condi builds have boon strip. Not sure what you’re talking about.

Last I checked there is only 1 meta condi class. Not much of a sample size there.

Also calling the end of Mesmer sword chain as boon strip access is a bit much. The Mesmer will never be able deterministically clear resistance because of the other boons warrior has.

(I don’t actually have a issue with resistance)

Darknicrofia.2604:

Crinn.7864:

If you don’t have a thief, it’s better for the Mesmer to do it since they do rotate faster.

lol at a thief capping home.

you’re basically praying your opponent 1/4/0 splits or else you’re giving up a free home cap every single time.

If my team sends the thief far instead of home, then we have to send some else home instead, if the enemy goes 1/4 then we are undermanned at mid, and completely dependent on the thief winning his 1v1 at far.

That’s way too much trust to be putting on a pug thief.

Now of course if your team has 2 roamers, then yeah sending the thief to not-home is probably a good idea.

Anet mentioned a week or so ago that there are no class changes planned for ep4 release.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Quick-note-on-Ep4-bundled-updates/first

So I had posted a similar thread in the thief forums awhile back because I have similar issues with some of their skills. I got this as a response.

In the July 26th 2016 update they added the ability to hold down keys to activate skills multiple times. There was a lot of complaints for Revenant facets double activating so they fixed it after a month. As far as I know other skills which can double activate haven’t been adjusted like Shadowstep or Spectral Walk.

This explains my issue, since my shroud problems only started in the past several months. When I tested my keys awhile back I noted that I had unusually long keydown times.

It’s not a double press issue, it’s a keydown issue. I guess I’m going to have to look into seeing if it’s possible to create a macro to fix keydown duration.

Or Anet could just fix everyone’s skills like they did facets.

DeceiverX.8361:

Probably something along the lines of Expertise inflating the duration stat more than necessary while there exists no counter-stat to it.

I’m pretty sure expertise is the counter to all the -duration traits, runes, and food.

If you don’t have a thief, it’s better for the Mesmer to do it since they do rotate faster.

I don’t buy into the “true PvP’er” crap, and this witchhunting of PvE’ers seems more like people looking for a scapegoat than anything else.

Scrubbiness is not limited to PvE inclined players.

It attracts new players, who in turn may become invested in the mode and later become skilled.

Skill doesn’t just pop into existence from nothing.

megilandil.7506:

Crinn.7864:

megilandil.7506:

no, skyhammer is not fine, they had several points with port bugs exploitable for ranged classes to trhow damage whithout retaliation

You do realize that every map has port immunity areas, specifically to offer kiting options for ranged?

kitting is not stay on place without moving in an advantage point laying ranged aoe in capt point

You can easily get up to them the same way they got there. Or you could push/pull them off.

He is actually afk, he is still playing because he is just that good.

megilandil.7506:

no, skyhammer is not fine, they had several points with port bugs exploitable for ranged classes to trhow damage whithout retaliation

You do realize that every map has port immunity areas, specifically to offer kiting options for ranged?

Yeah but since the high ranked player is playing against significantly lower ranked players, the rating gain from beating them is much smaller.

The problem with giving thieves a brawling spec, is that Shortbow exists. Thieves are the highest mobility class in the game, and giving them teamfight capabilities will likely turn thief into the god class of the game.

maddoctor.2738:

If you remove elite specs then the “problem” is still there as there was always a traitline that was a better option for most builds, it’s usually the one that buffed the profession mechanics. And in most cases it’s the one that was swapped out for the elite spec.

Maybe if they turned those into elite specs it would help

The problem with core builds is that there aren’t any builds that need traits from three core lines to function. The third traitline was always a “whats the best leftover traitline.” Elite specs offer something valuable to put in that less that necessary traitline spot.

This is because of how core traitlines are designed. Traitlines each fulfill one area: 1 defensive line, 1 power offensive line, 1 condi offensive line, 1 utility/support line, and 1 class mechanic line.
The problem is that builds are never designed to be filling three roles, so that third line is always a weak pick for any build. Hence the dominance of Especs.

Ithilwen.1529:

Again, the code shows pre mades in ranked in the off season.

That would be re introducing a dynamic that lends itself to curb stomping and exploiting solos like myself.

I have nothing against premades per se. The trouble is that they have been and probably will be used as a tool to game the system and exploit.

Nobody does ranked in the off-season, and we would have been told if 5mans are being reinstated for the next season

I am curious that unranked has a 50ms limit while ranked has a 250ms limit.

Frioniel.7126:

For WvW at least if you’re stuck in Dragonbrand, Borlis Pass, or Anvil Rock, this kind of salt (?) might drive you away from WvW.

Oh is monkey back? Yeah he does that.

Ithilwen.1529:

The psuedo code shows a max of 5 for ranked in off season play. I think that would be a very serious mistake. It will drive off still more players.

Social bonds are the glue that holds players together. It’s what makes people log in everyday. Depriving players of the ability to play together socially and competitively destroys the biggest draw the mmorpg genre has.

The duo limitation was only placed on ranked because of the importance of standardizing the perceived value of ratings. There is no reason for removing groups from the casual queue.

holychampion.7386:

Crinn.7864:

holychampion.7386:

Honestly, Revenant should never have been made and the time spent on it should have been used for making an additional elite spec per class. Revenant basically stole things that other classes did.

They needed to sell HoT, adding a new class was the cherry.

Maybe guardians can still share aegis (?) which should be something better considering that with the AoE spam 1 stack of aegis is pretty much worthless.

Guardians can share both aegis and retal, with intermittent sharing of regen and other boons.

tangent:
Diviner’s Retal share guard is the highest damage output build I’ve ever run in sPvP, especially once you count the fact that retal placed on other players doesn’t count towards the guard’s damage.

Place the build link if you want or elaborate on that aspect on the guardian.

However, that strays off from the topic, unless the hypothethical role of the guardian was to be a damage sponge while making enemies kill themselves.
The idea of retaliation always sounded clunky, specially since guardians are on the low hp classes. Then again, as a party bruiser I’d go for a necro or warrior which would most certainly be more effective and provide more party support.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR5en8cCFditCBmCB8Dhl5BT++1/GgX3rH1MoqBkACAA-TZBFQBFZ/BC8EAiwBBwglBAwFAAA

No it’s not a sponge. But yes it trolls the crap out of cleave builds, because it gives explody aegis and 100% retal uptime to everyone in your vicinity. Bit squishy though, gotta be good with those cooldowns.

Sadly the current murderfest meta is not very friendly to glass guardian builds. The retal share build works a lot better in previous seasons that it does now.

Ithilwen.1529:

Something jumped out at me in the psuedo code. The off season max size for teams is 5. Does this mean ANET intends to pit premades vs randoms again in the off season?

Really? It specifically says on the unranked queue button ingame that the max queue size is 5 for unranked.

Yes you can run 5 mans in unranked. However the matchmaker tends to favor putting 5 mans against other groups, at least in my experience.

And why shouldn’t it have 5mans, are you seriously suggesting that people should never be allowed to run with guildies or friends in any mode?

At least it’s better than Foefire.

I’m pretty sure “Reaper” is the death knight of gw2.

Yeah I came across this event when doing world complete on my necro. It was doable (we did it the correct way) but this random new-looking player that followed me in had a lot of trouble. Think I rezzed him at least 10 times.

Still not as overturned as Nebo Terrace.

The delay on legendary armor speaks more to Anet just not putting much manpower on it, than anything else.

With LS3, next expac, and presumably next raid tier, it’s entirely likely that they only have a artist or two working on lege armor while the rest work on more pertinent content.

Rangerdeity.5847:

Yuffi.2430:

If this is caused by Rune of the Guardian then it is an unintended consequence of Anet making condition damage affect siege.

It has to be unintended because it does not require the Guardian to be able to hit the siege.

If it’s unintended then it’s a bug or an exploit.

exactly and i WOULD NOT suggest using ruin of the guardian until then because anet has a history of lashing out at people who use exploits like this even if they did so unintentionally

The rune is working exactly the way it is stated to work. The behavior of the rune is correct. Anet has no more justification to ban people for it than they do to ban people for using epidemic.

Baldrick.8967:

So despite all the reward tracks for spvp you can’t be bothered to find a decent build and equipment for going into wvw, then go in under prepared and get stomped on, and that’s a turn off?

You lose every 1v1 because you didn’t prepare. And the difference between exotic and ascended isn’t that great- maybe it’s more you’re not used to players moving off a cap circle, or having a better build as they have thought about it rather than ‘grab an amulet and go’.

I can’t think of anything that would make more people quit wvw faster than bringing in the amulet system- apart from replacing all maps with Deserted BL.

People will quit over the amulet because of having all there time spent grind asc wasted. If WvW had always been on the sPvP system none of this would be a issue. You would also have way less balance issues, because you wouldn’t have stat sets designed around PvE screwing everything.

I have played this game long enough to tell the difference between a skilled player and a not so skilled. There are roamers that I have encountered that are exceptionally skilled. There are also players that I have encountered that are getting carried by 4k autos.

grind pvp is stupid. If I wanted that crap I’d go back to swtor.

I really enjoy sPvP.

I keep trying to get into WvW, but the gear grind keeps me out.

Dawdler.8521:

We already have a stat for mitigating condition damage. It’s called vitality.

That’s not mitigation. That’s a buffer. It’s also a buffer that works equally well against both power and condi sources.

That said I don’t agree with OP because I’m not convinced condis are a issue.

All hail the supreme forum bug.

Divine.3279:

So let me get this straight. You consider Herald aka Revenant needs little skill for too much reward?

I’m 90% sure he meant Dragonhunter and not Herald. Unless Anet ninja added Traps to Revenants recently.

ich.7086:

You can’t do 1 without limiting the player creativity.

Restrictions breed creativity because they force the player to problem solve. Unrestricted stats mean that players just grab the optimal, without having to do any problem solving.

For instance when doing necro theorycraft in sPvP I have to consider whether my desired amulet has precision or not. If it doesn’t I need to find to traits to get it, or just not take crit dependent traits, or I change what amulet I want.
In WvW I never think about precision. I can just grab however much I feel is necessary and move on. I never concern myself with whether I have enough precision to be using on-crit traits because I always have enough precision. No thought, no problem solving.

Besides I don’t see how a system that requires a substantial gear grind/gold sink every time you want to change some stats is “promoting creativity”

Also gear grind totally affects WvW. I play more sPvP because every time I try to get into WvW I get exasperated with perpetually losing every 1v1 because kittening optimized ascended peeps that take half the damage I do while dealing twice the damage. Nothing is more of a turn off than dying to a guy who’s auto attack hits as hard as your primary burst skill.

holychampion.7386:

Honestly, Revenant should never have been made and the time spent on it should have been used for making an additional elite spec per class. Revenant basically stole things that other classes did.

They needed to sell HoT, adding a new class was the cherry.

Maybe guardians can still share aegis (?) which should be something better considering that with the AoE spam 1 stack of aegis is pretty much worthless.

Guardians can share both aegis and retal, with intermittent sharing of regen and other boons.

tangent:
Diviner’s Retal share guard is the highest damage output build I’ve ever run in sPvP, especially once you count the fact that retal placed on other players doesn’t count towards the guard’s damage.

Sublimatio.6981:

I disagree with you, I think we need that. If anet made spectral armor turn all incoming damage into life force, you would still have to use 1 utility slot and have a long cooldown for that. The issue is the class mechanic, thats why it needs its own rework.

Paying a utility slot is fine. The non-scalar nature is only relevant to sPvP. And LF skills are already high picks in that mode anyways,

Also I would rather see diffused integration of scaling LF gain. Changes to a few traits here there. *cough*Soul Comprehension*cough*

Your comparision to rev/engi is absurd, every class in the game has at least 2 F# skills already. Up to f5 with engi, ele, mesmer and ranger. Having more F# skills is not an issue – NOT having them is.

My comparison is valid. Your suggestion changes LF into a resource mechanic like revs, even has the 50% normalization. Your suggested F1 is literally rev’s Infused Light has a profession mechanic. Your F2 and F3, are engi kits.

Also, the fundamental nature and playstyle isn’t dramatically changed – you still have life force and it depletes while using shroud skillsets, only now you wouldn’t be 1shotted in shroud while other classes invuln for 3 seconds and more, because you could do the same at it’s supposed to be. You speak of change as it’s a bad thing, while change is always aimed to do good

You changed the entire class from being designed around use of buffer sustain and transforms, to a class build around weapon swaps (your F2-3) and self healing.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Let’s face it. Elite specs are not going to be nerfed too much, because that reduces their appeal, which could (will) diminish sales..

I see this idea everywhere, and it’s wrong.

There is no data or evendience that links power with sales. Class balance and power is the concern of existing customers not potential customers.

Nobody says “Hey that expac has a cool trailer, I wonder what the balance is like.” Flashy trailers and content are what sell copies. If GW2’s F2P is engaging enough players will buy into the expac regardless of elites, simply to access the content. If they aren’t interested in the content then they probably won’t buy regardless of what elites are like.

Sublimatio.6981:

This is what I am talking about – my solution allows the shroud defensive aspect to scale with incoming damage.

And it does so by completely changing he fundamental nature and playstyle of the class.

We don’t need that. Something as simple as being able to covert incoming damage into LF. (at thus being able to rapidly fill shroud under fire) would fix our issues, without changing the fundamental principals of the class.

no need to reinvent the wheel for want of a simple solution.

I don’t see more F# buttons as a problem, and I don’t see that as reinvention of whole class. What I proposed is a relatively small change. It still keeps the visuals, you keep shroud skills, life force, everything nice about shroud is still there, only better.

Because your F#s are turning the class in a engi/rev cross breed instead of a necro.

Justine.6351:

shagwell.1349:

Don’t stand near the npc then? Or don’t stack siege like an idiot.

Don’t support lords,
Don’t use siege,

Oooookayyyyy I will be sure to never defend an objective again. Must be awesome to K-train paper objectives no one defends in t1 like a pro.

He said stack, not in general.

Epi can be countered by spreading out. If you are fighting a epi zerg, then don’t stack on top of siege.

All it takes is some forethought.

duster.7013:

Hopefully once the next expac comes out they can just buff baseline cores to not being kitten, since the hot + next expac cores will be insane.

It’s already known that you will only be able to have 1 espec active. So the option would be Hot build, core build, or new expac build. There will be no HoT+new expac builds.

The not scaling issue with shroud would be fixed if we had LF sources that actually scaled with incoming damage.

I don’t think more F# button is necessary, reinventing the entire class to fix a simple problem.

Cygnus.6903:

For arguments sake, when that heavy armored guy hits you with, say, an Arc Divider, you take 10k+. That’s because you had to sacrifice defensive stats to make unload do an incredible 8k damage.

Arc Divider is only going to be hitting 10k+ on a sub 50% health target. Even then it’s going to require might and zerk gear.

Ok I Did It.2854:

I play Reaper in PvP daily, and I haven’t seen this bug, I would check that a button isn’t stuck, you said you have Shift+1 , if this is for Shroud, check the shift key isn’t sticking, so when you go into Shroud and hit 1 again it isn’t auto cancelling Shroud.

Not saying its not a bug, but I haven’t seen this, and I know several other players who primary a necro in PvP who have not seen or managed to replicate this bug.

I did some tests. When I activate shroud the shift button gets held down for ~50-90ms. The 1 button gets pressed ~5ms after shift down and released 5-10ms after being pressed. The shift hold down is long, but it shouldn’t matter since auto isn’t what I’m going to be using when I first enter shroud.

Not saying its not a bug, but I haven’t seen this, and I know several other players who primary a necro in PvP who have not seen or managed to replicate this bug.

I’ve heard of other players having similar problems. It seems to be a problem limited to certain players.
However just because it’s limited doesn’t mean it’s not a bug to be fixed. I used to do modding for other games, and one of my mods had a issue where a small handful of clients had this bug where there UI icons where 15x their intended size and covered the entire screen. I could never replicate the bug.

Yannir.4132:

Transparency never hurt anyone that didn’t have anything to hide.

Well except in cases where people don’t have the maturity to handle it.

In the last mmo I played there was at least one case of dev’s families being sent death threats because the dev decided to be transparent about how class design was done.

Extreme cases aside. Developers see problems differently than players do, and disgruntled players are rarely interested in seeing things the devs way. We’ve seen this already on this forum with some of responses to Evan Lesh’s posts. We also see this in some of the absurd conspiracy theories player’s hold onto.

Silence is not good, but at the same time total transparency is asking for trouble.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Sometimes a class itself doesn’t need to change. Sometimes the classes keeping THEM back hit a series of changes that allow for these non-meta specs to obtain some semblance of relevance.

Correct that is often what shifts the meta. But it still requires people to go out of meta to change it.

Somebody still has to think “hey Blighter’s works well with spite and soul reaping, and that combo synergizes better with power than with condi, so I should run axe”

SlayerSixx.5763:

Unless literally NOTHING changed between point A and point B, I’m certain the meta won’t shift unless the devs drop changes to make it happen. Very rarely do metas in ANY game shift without change from the devs.

There where no changes made to necro or warriors when the meta change happened.

The only thing that changed was player’s perceptions.

I will also point out that condi warrior existed on day 1 of HoT, but it didn’t become meta until well into s2. Same for condi Chrono.

Some classes are stagnant. (like engi) But other classes like Necro have changed constantly often without any dev input.