Guild Wars 2

I’ve had some fun using Death’s Charge -> Soul Spiral with a sigil of rage.

Reverting nerfs isn’t going to fix DD, Acro, or even thief.

DD + Acro given a restored Acro trait line would be deemed as too overpowered by a large number of people and I’d almost be inclined to agree with them. The current game state is absolutely broken and the thief sucks because it isn’t. The problem is that adjusting balance by throwing in more imbalance does not resolve core design flaws particularly when it comes to such disparities.

While I fully endorse the concept of an evasion-based thief being viable, and agree the concept of the daredevil was unnecessary and the cause for ruining the Acrobatics line, the two trait lines share such similarities that allowing them to work in tandem with what was once already a very strong trait line would cause massive waves of complaints and potentially allow the class when played correctly to be virtually if not literally unkillable.

Winning a fight should be based on a few factors, namely involving the skill of the player and subsequently his ability to judge and counter-play each individual incoming attack. The thief should flourish when played well, but so should all professions; making the thief do inherently better by playing well isn’t a proper way to consider balance in game design, for then you end up needing to set a common denominator for balance and anything above or below such a mark would result in awkwardness and disparities in gameplay; rewarding people in general for playing better than their opponents should be considered as the proper approach.

Yes, I would love DD to get thrown out the window. But guess what? It’s not happening. ArenaNet is stubborn, they’re milking HoT to get sales by leaving the ESpecs overpowered and imbalanced, and frankly, I don’t think Karl is motivated or concerned enough with the class (I think the evidence for this claim is substantial) to make such sweeping changes. Frankly, if he wanted to put a lot of time into the profession, age-old design flaws and reworks would have been resolved a long time ago.

Acrobatics, the thief in general… they need a lot of work, yes. I just don’t think you’re going to gain any traction suggesting they outright remove the DD, nor do I think solely undoing nerfs is the place to start.

If you’re on the front-lines and you’re ticking conditions, there’s a problem.

If you’re roaming or doing small-group play, conditions are overpowered in general so it doesn’t really matter what class you play.

Unless they changed something strange regarding hotboxes with Action Camera (which I doubt, but who knows), I can’t see any reason why it would miss other than internet connection problems.

As mentioned, the color/rank choice allocation is not balanced in such as simple way. Discrepancies between tiers and within them are massive. EoTM is unbelievably imbalanced.

It needs to keep track of way more server-specific metrics and match servers based on internal data pertaining to the servers like guild coverage, population density coverage, player-activity mapping for blob sizes and havoc, objective flips, siege deployed, objective loss rate, and so on.

With this kind of data and an algorithm to combine servers paired with some sort of random-basing for allocation for fluctuating match-ups, only then can an “alliance” model be absolutely preferable for balancing matches.

EoTM purely, however, is absolutely NOT the answer.

Haptic Repulse.9437:

Nobody here is trying to get the skill nerfed. The skill is fine, the point is the degradation of Backstab over the years and the sheer level of disparity between the two skills. And the argument against Backstab about how vault is much easier to predict is kind of one sided. I mean, everytime a thief goes into stealth the opponent knows exactly what they’re going to try to do. IE Backstab. A decent opponent can use good positioning, intelligent about faces, and prediction to avod the Backstab or at least a make it land frontally and do much less damage.

Agreed.

That said, I don’t think there’s a single skill at all on the thief that needs a damage buff with things in their current state. The thief has access to a lot of raw damage from numbers, but getting the damage and numbers to stack appropriately is extremely difficult to do without major sacrifices. Some skills like True Shot and CoR are massively over-tuned on other classes.

CS doesn’t so much need a blatant rework as much as a lot of its traits are not very good and don’t offer a real reason to use the line. The big appeals to CS are NQ and HK, with HK taking a lot more precedence for “required” purposes. D/P SS spam and P/P unload spam get more of a benefit from CS as direct bonuses than D/D backstab.

HK as a GM is in many cases not a very good choice, and frankly, feels like it should be offering more than just a single crit, especially since DD runes now give the crit chance. We’ve seen a signature grandmaster trait be comparative to a rune combination, not to mention the sigil capabilities as well. Honestly, a hammer warrior could maintain 100% crit uptime on critical skills via fast hands and DD + Intelligence sigils. NQ is fine as a DPS tool, but a trait being built around revealed to make a build concept functional pigeon-holes the thief into needing SA or DD for defenses. Putting something like a condition cleanse on HK, merging Ferocious Strikes and Keen Observer, moving PT to the minor grandmaster slot (nobody runs sundering or ankle anyways at the moment), putting Signets of Power where PT is, and then putting a new trait to make Stealth skills unblockable would move CS from the excuse for HK to actually being a threatening trait line rivaling DA’s damage benefits but with anti-bunker capabilities rather than just pure damage and CC for blowing up squishies.

Doing so would put CS into a very strong position by allowing the class to decap but also bring immense pressure to what is currently an overly-defensive block/invuln meta with no way for the thief to get its damage in. It also makes S/D a very strong offensive choice through having daze/blind be able to penetrate a critical block.

CnD as a skill needs some loving and I don’t think blind is the way to go about it. The skill is weak because of consistency problems, not because of it getting interrupted or taking heavy damage after use. Consequently I think it’d be too strong to make CnD and stealth attacks unblockable in one trait, but one or the other puts better emphasis on D/P than D/D by a large margin.

No issues from me unless I’m undergoing latency issues. High jitter on a low ping will still cause it.

Very much so in support of statements stating to use regular DS. Reaper does quite poorly on the front lines and also lacks the range for the back while not having the mobility for periphery.

Depends on how they would do it.

I explained… thoroughly… in another thread in around what would constitute posts measuring around 25k characters on how they could properly implement such a system. Nay-sayers for the most part were either convinced or considered it “reasonable” albeit a bit begrudgingly.

Unfortunately the thread was deleted.

A summary in discussion/clarification of some of the principles of it are located here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Much-like-ESO/page/2#post5821015

I’m fully expecting WvW to fail soon enough, though, given ANet’s attitude, lack of community involvement, and their tendency to screw over WvW as both a direct consequence of their lack of understanding of the game mode or inadvertently causing substantial damage to the format through things like new skills like CoR.

DD is fine; more elite specs in the future will compensate.
Not sure if the thief needs innate buffs, but what you’re proposing isn’t overly-extreme. That said, I’d have to look into it more later. Pretty tired right now. It won’t really solve core issues with the thief, though. A lot of problems lay in the foundations and principles of other trait lines/utilities. Infiltrator’s Return is iffy on the no casting time; it can be both wildly overpowered but not so at the same time.

As far as the reddit thread:
Gross. He pretty much gutted backstab builds for anything they were worth.

I mean there’s always signets if you’re really intent on bursting.

Just building burst damage gets you nowhere in this current balance state.

yolo swaggins.2570:

TwiceDead.1963:

Shovel Face.4512:

Azukas.1426:

sinject.4607:

Azukas.1426:

That would be extremely OP when you can go /p and just spam head shots.

Considering you must trait for it, spend plenty of initiative per Headshot, and hope your enemy has no stability and/or further trait for some reliability against stability spam by investing in Bountiful Theft over Trickster in a build without Escapist’s Absolution (rendering you extremely vulnerable to conditions) I’d say it really isn’t that overpowered of a concept at all.

Bountiful theft removes stab 21st so it’s always an interrupt.

Having that much damage on a,interrupt spamming class is,broken

Lol what class isn’t broken in this gahd awful system they have. I mean seriously, u don’t think DH traps are cheesy as hell?!

Just because something is broken that doesn’t mean you have to go and add to the pile to make things “fair” …

If everything is broken, then everything is more or less balanced. Letting one thing suffer because “its the right thing to do” isn’t an excuse nor does it excuse bad design.

Not really sure whether or not you’re supporting the notion of completely breaking Mug and PI.

Everything being overpowered is only “fair” when truly everything is overpowered, including defensive options, and this model is not sustainable for growth, either.

Since that part clearly isn’t… upping damage and making the scaling problem worse will not do anything.

A lot of skills and abilities across multiple professions need toning downwards, and sPvP needs a better amulet system for customizing builds. As it is, stats cap at like 3/4 what you can get in PvE in exotic gear without food or anything. Upping coefficients to compensate is a horrible idea.

Everything will two-shot you unless you go well over 3k armor and maintain high health (I.E., nomad’s). Of course, you’re then not killing anything, either.

WvW’s pretty broken right now because ANet forgot PvP was imbalanced because of trinkets causing low damage instead of ratios, so now a lot of skills are wildly overtuned in their damage. Frankly, I think it’s best to still be in primarily Valkyrie gear. Forget Berserker.

If you’re intent on being durable, I’d probably suggest something like this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAW8Yn0MBFmiFOBmOB8PhFYCzLNEHaDzfwS4KULBEA2NA-TVCEAB1v/wTK/UU9HEeAAVcBAA4gA8wRAwQlgupbgUACq1C-w

Because you’re not in sPvP, the shortbow isn’t necessary. S/D gives you the movement, cleansing and engage/disengage you need while maintaining lots of evasion, boon-stripping, and stealth, and the staff lets you bomb players for massive damage and maintain weakness while also providing solid mobility. Shadowstep swapped in for IS because you shouldn’t need the stunbreak often with how durable you are and how much you should be evading CC; it lets you recover better from condition bombs without blowing unnecessary cooldowns and lets you really run/reset hard if necessary in place of the shortbow. Bound is preferable to UC in this build because you’re using Withdraw. You could likely afford to switch to UC if you make the move to Channeled Vigor for your heal, instead.

You’re dealing less damage obviously, but the damage gained from the bonuses from Bounding Dodge and the staff in general with reliable crit vaults put you in a position of potentially out-bursting your other build despite the lower ferocity and power.

More appropriate of an analogy is using Dancing Dagger and then gaining stealth while the projectile is still in the air, or in between bounces.

Such a combination will also reveal you.

Unlikely to be an intended design decision for PL, but a lot of other skills work this way even though they probably shouldn’t.

Reaper’s the reason I bought HoT.

The class has not disappointed. The rest of them and the actual content of HoT have, though.

It’s extremely fun to play. Base necromancer was way too slow for me, but the reaper’s a blast with its higher pace. I know I’m in the minority, but I particularly like Reaper’s Onslaught and the constant movement resetting on kills.

It’s a terrain issue. It happens on all pulling effects except the engineer’s (it always succeeds per the skill’s design for some reason), and many teleport skills as well such as steal.

With use you’ll eventually figure out how and what terrain to look for. Would be nice if they could find a way to overcome this issue, but I know it’s a hugely complicated issue. Pathing isn’t easy to work with.

These two skills shouldn’t crit.

In its current iteration, I could land 10k mugs easily. Closer to 15k in WvW. That’s broken. Allowing crits for more damage would have to justify nerfing the skill heavily, likely by removing the heal. No thanks, I’ll take the heal for sustaining which we already lack and the fact the class itself doesn’t need more front-loaded damage.

Actually, the whole game currently has a lot of it. I think most of the nukes elsewhere need to be toned down.

Impact could at a lower coefficient, but why do that when its crits would have to be close to the value currently used? Without substantial reductions, two easily-landed interrupts from headshot spam could kill pretty much anything. No thanks.

CS/crits don’t need buffs by promoting more damage but giving the thief usable utility. Currently the necessary utility is in other lines which boot CS out of the equation for viability. Cover something slightly like condition cleansing which SA and DD have, and you end up with a trait line that’s somewhat reasonable to use rather than just a worse-damage DA because “crits are stronger”.

Depends a lot on how you’re wanting to play.

RFI’s better if you’re spamming skills whereas the signet is better if you’re going to be playing around more with mobility or sticking to your target. It also depends on the build.

A defensive or D/P thief might prefer RFI with steal, Shadowstep, Shadow Shot, and shortbow covering engages and potentially disengages or maintaining skill spam, whereas an offensive D/D thief might prefer the signet for the better engage and stickiness.

I don’t know, I’d just say try using both and seeing what you prefer stylistically.

That’s the big thing; setup and risk don’t seem to outweigh the benefits.

This isn’t just about Vault, either.

Unrelenting Assault, Gun Flame, True Shot, Unload, and Faith offer similar or better damage yet do so with huge additional benefits such as range and finishers, evades, AOE/piercing, or similar or lower cooldowns.

I have issues with buffing the damage on backstab because frankly right now I think there are way too many abilities than can one-shot kill people or close to it. Backstab was the king in the regard for low-cooldown and low-telegraph single-hit damage, but it’s no longer the case by a mile. Doing so also used to bring quite the cost to the thief; if you wanted to do extreme damage, you had to spec deep into damage and make huge defensive sacrifices. I think a lot of the one-shot skills right now are extremely forgiving to use and work in very defensive build paths. sPvP finally picked up some pace but rather than just adjusting amulets, they brought in busted skill damage ratios, so the extreme power creep has massively affected WvW in a negative way, and has rendered a lot of big-play skills as simply poor.

Swagger.1459:

2- server merges imply loss of players to everyone and shows signs of distress to stockholders.

Not so much stockholders but stakeholders in general. Merges imply a lower population which implies the success of the game is declining. Stockholders are going to be less willing to invest unless player data is there to support that the revenue stream across the game is still fine (with the format being unsuccessful). From the player community point of view, however, merges imply that the game’s got fundamental problems and poor management and/or a dated game are usually to blame. This reduces morale from prospective customers who do their research as well as the existing ones.

Merges are only a particularly good idea if the aspects of the game which caused a dwindling population are worked on and resolved (“resolved” implying community acceptance), and either new servers are created as a “refresh” point to isolate past problems, or if the game starts getting dated and the populations are knowingly decreasing as to save money for the business and potentially increase morale of existing “low population” problems where stakeholders are aware that there will not be many new players coming in for some time.

Narcarsis.5739:

It’s kind of sad that no one realized he was slowed by a down-state Revenant and that nothing’s changed.

Right?

Knee-jerk reactions.

Not sure what to change but it definitely needs changes. WvW’s pretty broken because of it at the moment.

Swagger.1459:

I would like to mention that megaservers, ultraoneworldsuperservers, mass alliance/faction wars… are not new design concepts. These are things that other games have implemented and are using already. This is not 1990 anymore. Some of you seem to think we live in the digital dark ages where things like these are out of the realm of possibility to do or figure out.

Colin just confirmed there has been work going on behind the scenes for wvw for a YEAR now, and that all the engineers are still slaving away on wvw stuff as we speak…

And I believe it highly unlikely the system will be implemented properly based on their current track record for WvW.

These aren’t new ideas. The problem is that ANet’s never communicated that they want to make changes, or interact with the community on how to properly – or at the very least – know what not to change or what not to do.

I disagree. If at first you don’t succeed, die, and try again.

Playing some meta-scumbag build won’t make you a better player. Arguably it’ll make you worse, because they typically are exploitative and abuse a gimmick or overpowered ability.

As long as the build you’re playing is coherent, anything can work. And if it’s “sub-optimal” and you manage to pull ahead sometimes, you’re better than the majority of the people following such builds blindly.

Of course if you’re struggling in everything, you can tweak, but play what you’re best with or most interested in doing. Odds are is has a role, purpose, or some kind of viability in WvW. As long as you’re not a blatant liability and dying in situations you either shouldn’t be or can’t afford to be, there are no problems in death. Step back, learn from it, and keep improving, and you’ll be fine.

Due to text size limitations, I’ll respond in sequence in a new post, Jayne.

Fair warning, this is a pretty huge wall. Sorry for big blocks of text in advance. You’ve been warned :P

As far as the capability of players to self-regulate the matches, clearly NA just doesn’t operate that way. If it did, we’d probably have seen such attempts in the past, but the pursuit of fights and stale matches with the glicko system responding too slowly has resulted in a lot of issues. I know on one of the servers I was on some months ago, we had a huge surge in WvW performance, constantly ticking almost 500 24/7. This effort lasted a while, too. We tripled or quadrupled our competitions’ scores. For almost two months, we stayed in the same match-ups/rank, though. In the end, there was no fighting back from our enemies; we demoralized them so heavily they didn’t even come to fight. This led to many of our own getting extremely bored and leaving towards the end; no reason to stomp so heavily. As such, a lot moved to T1/T2, and when the score finally updated, we had lost the majority of the WvW presence we had from boredom. Having been in many WvW guilds in the mid/lower servers with all the moving around I do, I can say that the big appeal to T1/T2 isn’t blob-fights so much as it is consistency in fights in general. Nobody likes a dead server, particularly for PvP formats. The culture’s pretty different in NA; WvW on pretty much anything but the high tiers is run by PvX players/guilds, so even in attempts to re-distribute, stomps are imminent unless the entirety of the high tiers would disband. And that would only bring some vitality to the lower tiers, and likely would make the incoming transfers going downwards even more bored. From what I gather historically, EU has had a larger WvW population than NA, and I suspect the culture difference is both a cause and result of the different approaches to WvW. EU’s distribution also likely worked in the past when overall there were more people playing and more people devoted to the format distributed beyond just a few stacked servers. NA’s so deep in the hole and player counts are dwindling so fast that I don’t think there’s actually a big enough population to cause such distribution to even work without just making everyone more bored. While it could be possible, doing so would be a massive risk to the format in general, and I’d rather see some solid, guaranteed systems handle making the match-ups good than a volatile player-base which may very well fail and completely destroy the remnants of what we currently have.

As far as scouting goes, I can relate to an extent. Usually I run alone or in a small group if the numbers aren’t needed for a siege, and I’m usually one of the few people tracking enemy movement and investigating swords. I haven’t seen a commander tag in over two months, though, and I’m on a middle-tier server. Scouting, roaming, havoc, whatever it may be has the limitations that it’s dependent on a blob to be functionally useful assuming the enemy has a “larger” group. A few groups of five or so players doing camp havoc and slowly flipping towers won’t do much without blob support, just as a lone player can’t do much scouting if there’s nobody to report to. You’re right in that judgment would be difficult when getting reports from randoms, but it was alright near launch. People can organize accordingly, and this is also why I suggest the server-specific chat option; your server-mates know your calls are good. At the very least they’ll listen, and you’ll have an impact on their movements. If the commanders are communicating or are worth their salt, they’ll realize calls you’re making are good, and a few days into the week you’ll be recognized as a valid caller. If the scout is really good, he may get attention for longer, and if server assignments vary, it’s also possible a given server will be fighting alongside an ally for the next week, which may remember said previous well-known scout.

Who knows, I could be horribly wrong. I know of few “reputable” scouts in general, but that’s typically because the attitude of said demographic is focused on server loyalty and a sense of duty and contribution, so random pairings and associated fame would never span beyond their current server, and I’ve never been a dedicated scout enough to gain reputation other than thanks from a few commanders and some prioritization/recognition of my information if not conflicting with another immediate concern.

As far as pushing large fights or not promoting alternative play styles than blobbing, more or fewer players isn’t really going to change player mentality in that regard. Out-numbering opponents will always increase the chances of winning a fight (assuming geared/remotely skilled players on both sides), and the rewards for blobbing are quite good whereas small group play is underwhelming and costly. It’s not really a map/population concern but a side effect of players not seeing the value of smaller group play. Smaller group play is also only really effective when said small group is extremely organized. It’d only end up overly-blobby if everyone got put in one smaller map (the player per unit of land ratio is too high). It doesn’t really matter how big the map is or how many people are fighting but rather the ratio of the two. If there’s one instance of the combined maps with hyper-blobs because the players largely want to blob fight in that instance, most likely the other will be smaller groups of similar sizes or maybe one smaller blob on each side due to some overflow on the main map. As long as small group/havoc players don’t try to take on the blob in the map which has blob action and instead move to the “quieter” maps, matches will end up pretty balanced for everyone and you won’t end up with the “blob vs roaming” scenarios we have now, or at least in theory if people don’t intend to screw themselves over. Yes, there would need to be map caps as currently, and that’s fair and good because the caps are more for performance purposes than actual design intentions from what I can gather.

As far as “tiers” go, they would also still exist from the leaderboards POV. Remember that each server’s data is tracked independently still in this system. Servers with low contribution scores would thus be “tiered” (as an informal use of the word, not a system) even if the concept of tiered fighting is no longer. I used T1 and T8 as descriptors which align with current WvW vocabularies meaning WvW population/contribution. In the revised system, even the low-population, low-contribution servers would get the equivalent of the highest-population/contribution ones as to keep the format exciting no matter which arbitrary server one selects at the beginning of the game, and can therefore stay on a server for community reasons rather than fights and fights alone, for the system will auto-balance this.

For “separate matches” I think there is again some misunderstanding. There would be no way to stack the servers. Just for an example consider if half of the servers filled to current T1-esque performance from a numbers and activity point of view. It might be wise in the phase of creating a match-up to break this down a bit to keep the number of needed map instances lower for such a booming population. Right now combining lots of servers doesn’t seem so bad since the population is low, but needing to create 20+ instances of the sets of maps because everything filled up would be kind of silly, so creating separate concurrent matches like what we have between the tiers now could rectify this issue of map-instance explosion while not throwing match balancing out of whack.

Definitely a different culture for the reasons of splitting up as stated above (again I think EU has higher population density in WvW so queues were longer as well); the wait on the queue is less boring than literally not having a fight in the entire week in NA. Like I said, it’s definitely a concern, but a system acknowledging such metrics for player entry and balancing around that (probably giving player participation some of the highest weighting, thinking for general balance and queue purposes) would likely help resolve this problem substantially, and the number of map instances could vary per week. The mathematics would need to be checked a lot, and perhaps random assignment isn’t best for this purpose but instead random assignment of servers at the beginning while maintaining some kind of constraint for population spread. The AI for this would be pretty complex for me to devise as a non-expert (and I couldn’t even fathom perfect implementation), but ANet has hired-out AI experts in the recent past, and might have some staff with some background knowledge who could work with this problem. Done right, it could have a massive impact in WvW for the positive and bring back a huge number of people to both the format and the game in general.

The only thing really holding base necro behind the reaper is the stability in RS. Lack of stability would make the reaper almost objectively worse except for condition DPS builds; base power necro already does substantially better burst damage with ranged pressure while maintaining better defenses across the board in terms of the capacity to take and deal with hits.

Due to the amount of CC in the game right now, on overpowered specs, though, base necro has troubles enough to warrant a lot of attention to the reaper having high stability uptime and lots of cleave.

Jayne.9251:

DeceiverX.8361:

I don’t think you’re reading what I’m writing, here. I disagree entirely with the notion of “joining” any kind of system. I disagree with guesting or whatever you’re referring to in any such system as well.

To be fair, I’m not sure you had the chance to read that massive thread that was here yesterday in its entirety before it was deleted. I’m also not sure if you’ve read this one carefully either.

This thread outlines how GW2 WvW rumoured format change will be similar to ESOs. It requires “joining” .. much like GW2’s current system does. The guesting is part of the discussion in this thread about how ESO’s RvR functions. Believe that starts on the first page.

DeceiverX.8361:

The notion of “picking” a side would lead to stacking and is entirely contrary to what my post entails.

Perhaps we just have our wires crossed. You are talking about X and I’m talking about Y.

This new proposed alliance system won’t change the stacking. It’ll just be stacking under a different name, ie. alliance.

If players couldn’t get their act together and spread out prior, can you guess how they’ll behave when a new system is introduced?

DeceiverX.8361:

Recall my post mentions smarter balancing systems paired with mutations and random seeding to create new match-ups very frequently, and since servers can be distributed to each alliance unevenly, this can create completely new and foreign scenarios. This fixes night-capping and outnumbered/transfer-out server problems for the entire format holistically;

Ok this is where I think I’m having trouble understanding. You mention servers and alliances in the same sentence. I do believe the proposed system is an either/or. Servers will be eliminated entirely. And I’m not sure I understand what you mean by using “mutations” and “random seeding” to resolve nightcapping.

DeceiverX.8361:

A lot of people in NA move not because they want to stack servers but because they want to fight

You can believe that if you want, but if NA players truly wanted fights, they’d have spread out so that servers rotated up and down frequently instead of remaining stagnant.

DeceiverX.8361:

and I imagine a lot of EU are hesitant to move because of language barriers between servers.

And you’d be incorrect about that. EU players have jumped from english to german to spanish to french servers without even knowing the language. The key was to get the best fights, even if it meant working around language issues. They spread out.

DeceiverX.8361:

But claiming that no shared “alliance”-or-whatever terminology is an inferior solution or not a solution simply reeks of bias without looking at the greater system.

It’s not bias. It’s years of playing a game mode and having enough foresight to see how the destruction of servers will erode WvW until it becomes a giant ktrain pve map.

If you are thrown in with random people every week (if you don’t belong to a massive guild), and you have no guarantee of getting on the same map because it’s filled up quickly (because of the new stacking tactic), then you lose a sense of team and cooperation because you cannot reliably count on your scouting or defensive calls to be responded to. Nobody wants to scout for people they don’t know. That will lead to traditional scouts/defenders abandoning their jobs they’ve done for the past three years because lack of response = job is pointless. Once those people are gone, there’s nobody left to defend — so that leaves only attackers. Having a map with only attackers leads to guess what? Ktrain.

And how many guilds do you know that focus solely on defense? Guilds are not going to split their ranks to scout the maps.

Suggesting that the alliance system is the holy grail for WvW is far worse than bias. It’s inexperience, or a stubborn self-serving ideologue.

I’ve been participating in a few threads regarding alliance-based system and the discussion of the server model. I’ve posted similar remarks in them as well.

A lot of NA moved to get fights. Problem is as soon as a fight tier server started to lose and lose repeatedly, they’d flee into another server when they lost pug morale for losing the week. This leads to a crash of one and ultimately an escalation of another. It ends up disrupted again, and people yet again move around to try and find a good place to WvW and fight. People leave with the cost of moving and general fragmentation, and a lot of the guilds just end up relocating to T1 because they’re sick of moving. It’s why there’s a lot of volatility in the top half of NA, but none in the bottom; people jump ship a lot to fight in the upper tiers, but never move downward because it’s just so unbelievably boring.

Perhaps I can’t speak for EU. I was operating on assumption that people would prefer to stay on the server they’re on for community rather than just for fights. If people only want fights, there’s no reason to care about server because the name is arbitrary, and such a proposed system (below) would end up yielding way more action while simultaneously preserving community.

People should be willing to scout to benefit their team, particularly if it benefits them. If you’re on the same side, there’s not much of a reason to actively avoid divulging information about the common enemy to others, even if you don’t know exactly who they are. Dunno, maybe the culture is hugely different, but transfers on all of the servers I’ve been on have always been welcomed and given information about TS and assisted pretty readily by the top dogs to help a win. Not really much of a difference here. Guilds can transfer out the next week just as being rotated can.

I posted what I posted because I believe my suggestion lies supporting neither the purely EoTM/ESO models nor the server model. Since clearly the idea isn’t jiving well with you or I’m failing to explain it properly (having done so multiple times I can’t really say my will for clarity is there :P). I’ll simplify it regardless.

- Basically, all servers stay as they are. Everyone has a home server, just as it is now.

- Glicko rating and tiers are removed altogether.

- “Alliances” are created for each color currently in WvW, and the matchmaking system selects servers based on a set of data to determine the most “balanced” match-up by allocating each server to a color. Multiple servers fight for one color for the week on the same team color as like in EoTM.

- A surveillance system records and tracks notable metrics for each individual server’s WvW data. This data measures metrics such as player participation, number of kills, number of deaths, heat-mapping group sizes, guild claims, timezone participation and flip times… lots of statistics per server. All of these metrics have weights associated to them and therefore count as a percentage of the factors that influence matchmaking. I can’t tell you the specifics of what is needed for this data or which data members should be selected or what their weights are based on the fact I couldn’t begin to tell you this since I lack those metrics and this would likely need to be done by some kind of genetic algorithm simulating matches before deciding a balance state. Note this is different from the alliance’s performance.

- At the end of the week or near the end of the week, data from the past 7 days is compiled and applied to a function to determine each server’s capabilities under various scopes; coverage, population, guilds, commanders, peak times, etc.

- The function using a certain amount of past data weighted against what occurred in the previous week updates performance measures of each individual server.

- Some servers are chosen at random to generate the next base match-up, and a matchmaking system using the performance metrics just calculated attempts to make an optimal decision of how to allocate the servers in the “fairest” distribution. Random base servers means that the distribution can change weekly, such as one week where all of the highest-scoring servers might be allied against a split of the rest of the game combined, or another where the split is relatively even by performance across all three.

- Maps need adjustments not to be fully instanced like EoTM to ensure players can move where they want to.

- Server chat and server-specific commander tags are created to prevent spying issues and maintain server integrity/identity within communities. Server Ally Joe will always be using his server tag to command your pugs or might work with some other servers and run a general pug tag on a particularly intense night. A havoc guild might interact with another on a different server which has a community that doesn’t promote havoc, say, or people meet across servers and end up friendly, causing people to now only move for community reasons instead of stacking servers for wins, because next process the system assigns a new random spread of base servers causing a constant change in alliances and therefore preventing stacking from being done. Server identity is much more about internal community than just winning, and now the lowest of “T8” have action-packed maps to enjoy while “T1” might get some hefty GvG or retaliation from a coalition of smaller guilds. You now also end up with fewer servers “on the fence” of two distinct tiers, where they dominate below but get dominated above, for they have additional support and vice versa.

- Additionally, if WvW booms beyond this point such that it causes population inflation, these can be factored into breaking the setup down into additional alliances running independently while balancing each out separately and sharing the same pool of servers.

The only concern is map instances, but I think these could be resolved by just again having the system scale expected player numbers at any given time to generate more maps if necessary before the week’s battle begins. There could be better alternatives, and this is definitely the primary concern design-wise. But I think it’s manageable considering population : map sizes is already a huge problem, particularly on the new BL’s, and BL’s and the map and its interfaces need to be changed as they’re not fully developed yet for the HoT maps.

Hope that helps explain things a bit better.

I think giving HK a single condition cleanse per stealth attack would probably move HK into becoming a very viable trait while offering the thief good in-out condition removal and lack dependency on SE/SA for basic condition cleansing.

But that’s just me.

Yup. It’s pretty stupid and is really destructive to the format right now in its already-problematic state of weakness and concern.

Just being there is pretty much always a benefit at this point, though if you’re on a low-population server it probably will be pretty slow. I recommend learning in EBG because there are more people there (new BL’s are largely dead no matter what tier or server you’re on), and EBG is much simpler and easier to navigate.

If you’re not geared for durability or are playing a squishy class like an ele or thief, avoid being on the front line of a blob when engaging another one. Dying in the middle of combat where other players are involved can be a huge deal, as if someone gets even one hit on you, goes to downed state, but you end up getting focused and killed before he does, your death will rally him up and potentially make him better off than before.

That said, I suggest staying near the blue commander tag (usually blue = general pug commander) and just kind of getting a feel for the way combat approaches. Stay close to him and you should be okay. Always keep your eyes open for enemies and make sure not to wander too far away from allies. Tunnel vision on an objective or destination gets a lot of people killed. Once you learn the maps a bit better, siege placement, find people who may want to play with you often/join a WvW guild, you can work with them to flip smaller objectives either in a small group deviating away from the blob or do so alone.

If you see a large number of enemy invaders, shout out in map chat their approximate numbers and their server, and where they’re heading. This information is really helpful to leaders assuming you give them proper numbers. Don’t exaggerate, and make sure you list numbers. If you’re not sure, take your best guess or use more vague descriptors if you really have no idea, or if it’s a guild raid, you might be able to get away with the guild tag if you’re unsure of the numbers as well to give an indication of how big a force it was to those who have been seeing them around.

Don’t freak out over lost camps or non-upgraded towers. It happens.

Lastly, be very weary of incoming damage. The format is extremely fast. If you play sPvP, expect double or triple damage values and much tankier foes. Stats in sPvP are vastly lower compared to PvE/WvW. If you’re full glass, expect to die in one hit from a plethora of builds and classes if you get baited to take their burst.

All people try to optimize their chances of success.

Why bother playing a competitive game if you don’t care to win, amirite?

Can’t blame the players. Companies need to expect that kind of behavior.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

DeceiverX.8361:

I played the staff briefly. Vault’s damage is too oppressive as a DPS ability. Just need to expect what the opponent will be doing and it’s incredibly easy to land. Like using cloak and dagger on a stealthed enemy thief. Learn how to judge positioning and it makes matches easy. Built-in evades are icing and make it too safe.

Not sure I believe you.

Dunno what to tell you, then. I found the weapon rather corny with too big of an emphasis on the abuse of vault. Shadow Shot spam is pretty much the same thing, which is also why I refuse to play D/P; it’s too easy and makes the class when played optimally towards it a hell of a lot less fun, and is a big player in why I believe the class is deemed in an acceptable balance state just because of a few over-tuned abilities abusable by the initiative mechanic.

Jayne.9251:

DeceiverX.8361:

Consistent and stagnant matchups up the current system are no better.

This was more of an NA issue than EU. We didn’t have those problems in EU really. And the reason for that is because players took the initiative to spread out for the fights instead of stacking a few servers. I kept hoping NA would do this, and they started to, but then this stuff emerged.

DeceiverX.8361:

The consequence is some guilds might back down a little, but maintaining tag control over their own server would keep them relevant and if they do well, potentially bring some stragglers along for the ride.

No sadly it’s a bit more dire than that. Guesting is capped, and given the history of players stacking in NA, that means that it’s a crap shoot what map you get each week if you miss a reset. I don’t think people are understanding that.

There’s no bottomless guesting map. There’s no bottomless home map either. It will have a cap and once capped, it’s locked.

So either you join another campaign, or you sit out the week and try the next week to get a good “spot.”

As for guesting itself. Oh gee, can ya’ll see how that will be gamed?

I don’t think you’re reading what I’m writing, here. I disagree entirely with the notion of “joining” any kind of system. I disagree with guesting or whatever you’re referring to in any such system as well.

What I am stating is that explicit server vs server match-ups as we have exactly right now at this moment are getting the format nowhere and are ultimately responsible for a lot of the problems that are currently plaguing the format, such as night-capping, transfers, and stagnant matches. These are the results of communities stacking knowing fully well the mechanics of the game eventually lead to stagnation by glicko’s PPT balance and the subsequent demoralization of players, leading to population imbalances. Since glicko is slow and does its best to balance everything game-wide, it can’t account for discrepancies within match-ups to create a more fun experience. Less fun means less interest to play which means less people playing which means less development focus and population imbalance problems, which leads back to less fun.

In EU it’s not as pronounced as NA, either, because the fear of night-capping is lessened due to the closer proximity to pacific players. When you’re against a server which is primarily lead by Oceanic/Asian players in NA, you’re looking at what is literally opposite time-cycles. The matches are boring because nothing happens, but glicko considers them balanced because each server ticks opposite the other.

Players should not be allowed to pick their server assignments except for when starting out or unless they pay gems to transfer permanently. The notion of “picking” a side would lead to stacking and is entirely contrary to what my post entails. Recall my post mentions smarter balancing systems paired with mutations and random seeding to create new match-ups very frequently, and since servers can be distributed to each alliance unevenly, this can create completely new and foreign scenarios. This fixes night-capping and outnumbered/transfer-out server problems for the entire format holistically; Asian players are feeling just as bad for the NA servers “night-capping” them or subsequently missing out on all the action. There’s therefore no way to resolve this properly and fairly for all players except to pool them together, and do so with smarter and more dynamic systems with a slight twist of randomness.

A lot of people in NA move not because they want to stack servers but because they want to fight, and I imagine a lot of EU are hesitant to move because of language barriers between servers. This is the truth when dealing with a bigger timezone variance and a unified language. Keeping server integrity is important to maintain sub-communities speaking a common tongue and having cultural relationships align. I recognize this. But claiming that no shared “alliance”-or-whatever terminology is an inferior solution or not a solution simply reeks of bias without looking at the greater system.

Ayrilana.1396:

DeceiverX.8361:

Ayrilana.1396:

These are elite specializations. There’s no reason that they have to be acquired by the doing whatever you want.

Okay.

The next set of elite specializations should be themed around learning about the mists with the advent of the revenant, and thus should only be achievable by playing in core PvP and WvW (not EoTM) and acquiring a combination of WvW objectives such as around a thousand player kills, many objective flips, map completion elements, and odd specifics dependent on winning with certain stat distributions and gear.

Per character.

I mean there’s no reason your other characters should learn about the mists by not being there and practicing for the new specialization, right? That really cool new support thief concept should require a lot of practice playing a cleric’s build in current gear, or pistol mainhand DPS mesmer downing players using OH pistol moves.

Sure. That would be an interesting approach that unlocking an entire elite specialization line can be done by doing a themed set of tasks and such. It certainly would have made the process of unlocking the existing elite specializations more meaningful.

Yet the complaint threads were massive when map completion was part of WvW. You seriously think that the majority of PvE and sPvP players would be okay with this implementation? There’s no way in hell.

Jayne.9251:

Wryscher.1432:

Jayne.9251:

Wryscher.1432:

Jayne.9251:

morrolan.9608:

Jayne.9251:

Wryscher.1432:

They could respond to population increase and decrease by simple opening a new campaign or closing them as they finished. They had campaigns of different legnths some 7 days some 30.

What happens when the maps filled up? They opened a new campaign right? People couldn’t get into the existing campaigns they had to join one of the open or new ones.

There are campaign queues. When a campaign reached a certain point it did close though and you could enter another campaign as part of your faction so you were still fighting for your faction. Plus they have a guesting system so if your home campaign is queued you could guest to another campaign.

Yes, but you couldn’t get in the same map as friends who’d started the other campaign.

That’s my point.

It’s random and will frustrate a ton of players if they don’t get their “spot” at first go.

And the leftovers will be a mish-mash of pugs and small guilds who will give up after a couple days in and leave empty maps.

As random as picking a server when you create, even when you have no idea what it means?

Yes, but on a weekly basis.

There’s no way you can develop a team like that.

But you don’t actually get kicked out of a campaign each week. You have to make the choice to move. So you could build a team.

lol, watch how it gets abused by guilds and players.

Consistent and stagnant matchups up the current system are no better.

I think it goes without saying each server would need the capacity to have their own separate chat and commander tag visibility as well, distinct from their alliance.

A smarter system that tracks performance metrics of each individual server within an alliance structure and creates a logical combination of teams using this data reassigned weekly or bi-weekly based on weighted performance measures by a history of performance with some potential random seed as a root for allocating three distinct servers and a percentage of enforced mutation over time could make for some amazing matchups. The distribution doesn’t even need to be equal, either. Imagine all of T1 and T2 against the entire rest of the game one week with an even split of the tiers for the most part (still balanced by performance/play metrics) three ways the next. Spying would become an immense chore for those who do with the constant rotation of servers within alliances; it’s entirely likely spies would end up on allied teams, etc.

Considering the brunt of WvW leadership is done by guilds, anyways, I don’t see how it’d be much different than how it is now when a guild transfers or raids occur simultaneously. People just need to work that out, and higher populations would let that flourish a bit easier, and smaller/lower-tier guilds could rise to more prominent positions of leadership within WvW.

The consequence is some guilds might back down a little, but maintaining tag control over their own server would keep them relevant and if they do well, potentially bring some stragglers along for the ride.

Would rather it be a +1 initiative cost for sequential reuse of the same skill within like a 3s window. Hell, it might fully justify baseline preparedness.

This way total spam is punishable but being resourceful if the optimal move is a repeated use is allowable and rewarded for good initiative management.

I played the staff briefly. Vault’s damage is too oppressive as a DPS ability. Just need to expect what the opponent will be doing and it’s incredibly easy to land. Like using cloak and dagger on a stealthed enemy thief. Learn how to judge positioning and it makes matches easy. Built-in evades are icing and make it too safe.

Automatic upgrading is fine as a concept, just the implementation now is pretty poor. No real reason to need to spend lots of money and/or have players sit in the keep waiting on supply to upgrade a structure.

The ignorance of Dolyak deliveries is the big problem. It should really be based on incoming supply from camps like it used to be rather than just time alone.

Virtute.8251:

Swagger.1459:

how do you make the masses loyal enough to participate in wvw consistently?

You don’t. Where WvW lacks or loses player loyalty, it is a problem of boredom.

There is no “make the masses” do anything in gaming. You encourage it, with fun that is addictive and inspires desire. That is how WvW became a thing to be argued in favor of by its fans.

When it is forced as in “make” someone do something, you have conditions like relentless grinding, time-gating for its own sake, and collective cognitive dissonance between company and customers where neither side can agree with the other’s mental image of the thing despite being able to see the other’s perspective clearly. All things that the silly GW2 Oath propagandized against. They are old mistakes all over again.

Those mistakes are the root of the GW2 complaint meta.

Precisely. That said, just upping the rewards enough or allowing WvW-only food buffs to be purchasable for BoH would probably help promote the game mode a lot. Right now a lot of people burn out from lack of funds (and are forced to PvE/grind and then burn out or just leave altogether) and other various roadblocks that inhibit the “fun for the hell of it.”

This is kind of why the server entity ideology is a bit flawed; you end up being supported by a small community of leaders which is volatile, and success of the server and WvW as a format pretty much hinges on that willingness to keep playing the game. If they burn out, they take a lot of other people as collateral, and the cycle continues. This has happened many times with guilds or even individual players leaving their servers/the game. The constant demand or sense of obligation is abrasive and ultimately hinders the format more than helps.

Yea, server and community pride is good, but the coupling it brings on its player leaders needing to continue to lead is unhealthy and unsustainable.

briggah.7910:

Lots of action such as roaming in t1? I think not.. Been there a few weeks now and the one thing I miss is solo roaming. Its hard enough getting back to the commander when I die in some big fights. There are always gank groups around camping places that make running around by yourself not very fun to do..

You’ll see when it comes if it comes..

Thing is, the “solo roaming” role really never existed for particular reasons and the constant gank groups have been here since day 1.

Dunno about you, but I jumped into WvW the first thing I did after leaving the starting zone initially at launch. All maps were queued on all servers. It was a massive cluster of people running around “solo” because nobody had commander tags or guilds made or heavy organization. Over the next few months everything turned to small guild and gank groups of 5 to 10 running objectives or just generally plundering.

As the mode and organizations within it became established, less and less players had the capacity to run alone. Near launch, the maps were all still on a 24/7 queue or close to it, so the maps were absolutely packed with gank groups and beginnings of the formation of the beginnings of larger main guild groups for taking big objectives.

You think T1 kills you a lot, near launch, the spawn point was one of the most difficult places to be in because you were camped. Needed a thief or two to SR you and your friends out undetected otherwise a group of ten would jump you.

Now disperse havoc and hate squads all around the map instead of the 70-man megablob. That’s what you dealt with as a solo roamer.

Solo roaming became more common because blobbing and people outright quitting let it be possible through lower dispersion of gank groups around the map.

From the get-go, the format has been heavily-influenced by small havoc and hate groups. It’s never been a better time to roam solo, even in T1.

In the rest of the tiers, though, the maps are so dead you rarely find individuals, and even rarer you find small groups.

Would much rather have a few people to fight than find another lone straggler as a lone straggler after searching for 20 mins in a dead area. You’re finding one or the other in WvW; groups are strategically of more value, even when only of 2-3 players (this can be optimal depending on situation, my guild breaks our own havoc of about seven into sub-havoc of 3-4 and 2-3-2 on occasion).

I don’t want to be a downer, but that’s just how WvW is. You’re never going to find WvW in a healthy state with lots of solo roaming unless you’re playing with unskilled/unaware players. That’s just contradictory to the mechanics and design of WvW and the trends that dictate its success.

Ayrilana.1396:

These are elite specializations. There’s no reason that they have to be acquired by the doing whatever you want.

Okay.

The next set of elite specializations should be themed around learning about the mists with the advent of the revenant, and thus should only be achievable by playing in core PvP and WvW (not EoTM) and acquiring a combination of WvW objectives such as around a thousand player kills, many objective flips, map completion elements, and odd specifics dependent on winning with certain stat distributions and gear.

Per character.

I mean there’s no reason your other characters should learn about the mists by not being there and practicing for the new specialization, right? That really cool new support thief concept should require a lot of practice playing a cleric’s build in current gear, or pistol mainhand DPS mesmer downing players using OH pistol moves.

Mostly nooby D/D thieves spam HS because it’s the most optimal damage source to do beyond the initial CnD + stab, and D/P is just as capable given sitting in stealth regenerating initiative for a few seconds, which most D/P players do anyways. Spamming Shadow Shot from the getgo is better damage and more reliable, anyways.

Vault spam is just dumb. There’s no reason for the skill do deal that much damage and cost strictly less initiative than the other “major hitting” ones, and a high-power vault isn’t an excuse for the rest of the kit to be as clunky as it is.

I’d also really like to see a reaper landing 15k’s every two seconds in skilled environments. 15k implies glass, and most of the reaper builds being played competitively don’t involve pure DPS, and 15k is only reachable post-skirmish against one with 25 might/vuln. I’ve found GD better as an enabler skill to force cooldowns rather than a finisher in PvP because nobody of reasonable skill lets you sit there next to them with that huge wind up and spam, and if you’re clustered fighting next to the guy it’s kinda your own fault for bringing multiple people to fight a class that scales when against multiple people.

Vault’s inhibiting the staff and the rest of the DD and thief in general from receiving love. I hate high-damage skill spam on no cooldowns because it is for this reason we get nerfed.

In sPvP:

The thief only counters uncontested points and low-health and/or unskilled players.

In terms of class matchups, though, they do not counter or have an advantage against anything.

In WvW: They can do decently if you vastly out-play your opponent and really make sure your build is optimized. Still no direct counters favoring them in terms of class matchups, though.

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

To make it easier for spectators to watch PvP Leagues.

Yes, you don’t care about PVP, and neither do I. But ANET makes money off it, so they prioritize that over their actual playerbase.

Yea. Those 5k viewers at peak times are definitely raking in the dough.

They’re losing tons of money from sPvP “e-sports”, it doesn’t take a lot of analysis to notice, and any half-wit with sales and player data would realize the overwhelming majority of their profits come from sources not related to sPvP or the tournaments.

They’re just so utterly delusional it’s almost sad.

Who needs logic when you have self-proclaimed e-sports? Skill is everything, not logic!

I’m expecting nothing good to come from this company again at this point. Seems GW2 has hit the end of the road. Time to move on.

Communication is so poor it’s rivaling or worse than a lot of Asian imports that have no local development staff. That’s so disgustingly pathetic for the western market that it pretty much defines poor management and bad business.

Such a shame, too, considering this game had amazing potential and started out so strong, and has a lot going for it still. But I expect silence to continue and the complete lack of understanding of where to focus attention and resources to only get worse as recent trends incline.

I’d love to be proven wrong, but I sincerely doubt I will be. Until then, the search for a new game to give my business continues. Hell, I’d love a worthwhile sub game like this to ensure quality.

Glenstorm.4059:

Fireball and Auras weren’t the big offenders for visual clutter. Stuff like the Burning condition visual and on-hit animations that SCALE WITH THE MOB are.

This is just fixing something that isn’t broken and ignoring the real problem…

“Low-hanging fruit”™

Dunno if I’d correlate skill ceiling with adaptability. A build can be adaptable but also be incredibly imbalanced and easy. A class with nine skills on zero cooldown with no resource which all stated: “Kill target of x profession” and a heal would be extremely adaptable but with pretty much no skill ceiling. As such, the engineer is also in a wonky state like d/d ele as it’s very much rotation-based; there’s not really so much a skill ceiling in terms of smart play but learning the kit, and that only goes so far. The thief in its design is exploitive which makes it seem either really OP or really bad depending on the skill of the opponent.

Unfortunately the warrior is so simplistic and offers so little in terms of gameplay depth that it’s really hard to balance due to a low barrier of entry and relative ease of mastering the core mechanics without much substance behind them; do well as a warrior, and odds are you can do better on another class, because behind its complexity lies more utility and hidden potential.

Warriors have the difficult problem, as someone mentioned above, that in this design ideology, they end up overpowered from an objective/numbers perspective, or end up too weak to function in competitive environments. The lack of depth is holding the class back a lot, and the power creep from the rest of the professions paired with repeated nerfs and trait line dependencies for core functionality, like the thief, isn’t helping.

While I’m no expert on the warrior, I think the diagnosis of how to attempt to balance the class better are similar to the thief’s in that the problems persist more on the design/mechanics level rather than in implementation and numbers. Just bumping stats up or making things baseline to give the illusion of more choices won’t resolve the underlying problem with the class; for the warrior, it’s the lack of depth which keeps it from being unpredictable, and like the thief, it lacks overlapping of abilities/necessary capabilities within trait lines to open up opportunities in other build concepts.

Obviously there are OP specs keeping the class (and many others) out right now. This will likely change. The design flaws really holding the class back need much deeper evaluation.

Tumult.2578:

DeceiverX.8361, your post is exactly correct. It’s length will unfortunately discourage many readers. Can you say it in less words without it sounding like just your opinion?
It would go a long way towards making a lot of players understand the real long term effects of raiding, as it’s designed, on this game as a whole.

I’ve tried to rephrase the concept many times. It ultimately always ends up a bit lengthy because the information contained in such an explanation has to drive the point home that such systems are actually very unhealthy for the game. Simply stating so yields no reason for people to understand why this is and is usually dismissed as equivocal to those who promote the dungeon elitism mentality.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Silverbolt.2301:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Silverbolt.2301:

If you want to make D/D better though, what you should fix is C&D.

Backstab has nothing to do with CnD since CnD is just one of many ways to go in stealth. Fixing CnD will not fix backstab if you’re not using D/D.

That’s because there’s nothing to fix on BS.

If you give a kitten about your class, you should be asking for and suggesting meaningful changes. Not nonsense like buffs to BS.

It’s not nonsense at all. BS has been the same since release while other parts of the game received power creeps.

BS should ignore armor and should be unblockable.

LOL

You do realize this would cause the skill to deal an upwards of 40 million damage at times, right?

Yea, no. Maug has it right in that stab is fine. The rest of the skills surrounding it need work, though, primarily OH dagger. It’s more of a trait issue than anything and the rest of the game getting a lot of power creep that’s hopefully balanced out tomorrow or in the near future.