I know people running very successfully with only power/critical damage/toughness builds, while getting all precision through food and traits, so that argument doesn’t hold up. But it is anyway too theoretical, if we have not a wider understanding of condition damage mechanics in the community.
Just take a second and look at the trait lines. A fully-specced trait line will give you 30% Condition Duration or 300 Power/Precision/whatever stat.
The food gives 40% Condition duration. That’s the equivalent of 400 Power. Where is the food that gives 400 Power? I must have missed it.
The + Condition Duration food is insanely overpowered even compared to regular condition enhancing food. It’s like it was balanced for a different game entirely.
+1 for effort.
I wholeheartedly agree that all Signets should encourage regular use, rather than just taking them for the passive effect.
I agree with that Condition builds need some fixes.
1. You’re right about the food. +40% duration on all conditions is ridiculously overpowered. Make people chose what type of condition they want to focus on.
2. Countering conditions is mostly down to traits and class mechanics, not active play. Unlike direct damage dodging and active combat won’t help you much against conditions. How well you deal with them is almost entirely down to your build. There is no active mitigation.
3. Most condition dumps are very poorly telegraphed. A single Engineer auto-attack can apply 5 different conditions at times. Signet of Spite has a barely visible animation and no projectile you could actively dodge.
4. Lack of trade-offs: Condition builds allow you to stack insane survivability and avoidance with high damage. It’s not a very compelling play-style and rarely involves acting or reacting to your enemies moves.
In general the condition play-style goes entirely against the whole “active combat” ideal ANet established for Guild Wars 2.
With Megaservers coming I feel now would be the best time to get rid of contested dungeons. For simplicity’s sake you can retain the events, just not have them lock the dungeons. It’s been a stupid feature ever since they made guesting so easy and feels even dummer now with megaservers.
I just don’t like the idea of having to shop around for a player who is in a uncontested version of the map while everyone else is picking their noses.
Let us access any dungeon we want at our leisure. Anything else is just awkward.
A lot of good ideas here and I agree that the scoring system is the biggest flaw in WvW.
Priority No. 1 should be a flexible “tick” rate based on the current player activity.
Assuming each WvW map can host 500 players (165 per server) it would mean 2000 players will up all WvW maps.
When this is the case, the score should tick every 5 minutes instead of every 15 minutes.
When the map empties, the effect should be reversed so when only 100 players are active at 4 AM the score only ticks every 30 minutes or so. Much less frequently than during peak hours.
Additionally 1 kill, regardless of finisher, should award 1 warscore.
Optionally the Bloodlust buff could award 1-2 bonus points for finishers only. But the buff should only open up every 30 minutes so there’s a window of contention rather than constant capping and avoiding the enemy.
And that’s why I suggested adding more obvious animations. Berserker Stance for example is “only” 8 seconds and can be kited easily.
Same applies to Endure Pain. When a Warrior triggers it that’s the right moment to go defensive and kite him for a moment. They are hardly “I win” buttons.
Originally I rolled my Warrior to have something to fall back on in sPvP when something tanky was needed.
But I’ve had far more fun with her zerging in WvW. It seems to be an environment ideally suited for Warriors. My guild is fairly casual about WvW so we get to run any build we like. But most of the time I zerg in PuGs, following a random Commander with the occasional roaming and small scale fights.
Since I was most familiar with my Hambow build and it worked rather well, I took it into WvW as well. All I really did was move 10 points from Tactics into Strength because Leg Specialist didn’t strike me as all that useful in zerg-fights.
Now I run Hammer + Longbow most of the time, just because it seems to work best for me. Hammer is obviously the backbone of zerg-warfare and thus more or less a given and Longbow has some nice AoE that allows me to tag lots of enemies. The ranged DPS also comes in handy when encountering guild-zergs that train everywhere and we just all spread out to avoid while picking-off their backline.
And yet somehow I’m not that happy with my build. Access to Swiftness is limited and I often find myself falling behind the zerg and thus missing out of caps or getting picked off by roamers.
On the other hand Sword + Warhorn feels so useless except for the AoE Swiftness. It’s also rather crap in small scale fights where the Longbow would be much more useful.
My current gear is 80% Soldier’s with a few Berserker Accessories tossed in for added DPS. I use Melandru Runes and a 10/0/30/0/30 build. Most of the time I use Omnomberry Compote to sustain myself during zerg clashes.
So what I’m really asking for is a build that gives me the AoE, mobility and sustain I need to be useful in zerg fights without making me an easy target in small scale combat. Sounds like I’m asking a lot but I really just need more build inspiration.
There seems to be a very real chance that ANet will add Power, Precision, Toughness armor in the upcoming patch since it was one of the most popular requests in the respective thread.
P/P/T seems to be armor that has “Warrior” written all over it. It’s certainly what I’ll be going for.
I don’t think either ability is OP per se. But I do think they need to a much better and more obvious animation.
Fighting a Warrior it is imperative to watch their buff bar for these abilities or you end up blowing your cooldowns into them. And playing the interface is something ANet wanted to avoid.
Berserker Stance is also incredibly important when fighting certain builds or classes, especially Thieves and Necros. Against D/P Thieves it gives you a short window of opportunity to get through their blind-spam and against Necros it’s important to maintain momentum.
WvW really is all about coverage. Nothing else seems to matter. Even the number of quality of guilds is fairly meaningless for the score overall.
Case and Point: Drakkar Lake, Gandara and Gunnar’s Hold were all roughly equal throughout the evening, yesterday. All servers had queues and kept each other at bay.
Log in the next morning and Gandara has overtaken everyone else by more than double the points.
It’s really disheartening to have coverage decide EVERYTHING in WvW. Might as well just skip WvW all together and just give the rewards to the most populated servers.
Even in PvE Immobilize stacking is ridiculous. Running past a pack of Spiders earlier this day I found myself rooted for a solid 15 seconds.
15 seconds….wtf.
And as more and more Spiders added, they added to the immobilize too.
It’s quite obvious this change was never really thought-through.
Imo, every added stack should only add 50% of its standard duration. This should apply to every condition. At least that way timing your skills becomes slightly more important.
I remember that at the end of this Living World chapter ANet said they’d add a merchant who will trade our Blade Shards for something more useful. But it’s been a few weeks and there have been a few patches already, enough to activate something as trivial as a merchant.
I was wondering if anyone had spotted the merchant yet or if it was even still on people’s radar?
Blade Shards are still occupying a significant portion of my inventory and I’d like that to change.
.75 seconds is plenty of time to react and avoid Signet of Spite.
Funny because I still don’t know what the actual cast looks like.
That’s half the problem with condition builds. None of their attacks are properly animated or telegraphed.
Personally my Warrior would like to see:
Primary: Power
Secondary: Precision, Toughness
Amen brother, Amen.
It has been complained about for over a year now and I can’t think of any other trait in this game that so regularly causes its owner’s death.
But I really don’t know what else to do. I’ve made angry threads, I’ve made patient threads and constructive threads.
But Last Refuge is just completely ignored for over a year now.
You think with all these sweeping changes they might take 15 minutes to fix this thing, but alas, all is vain.
I would like to see you replace the static, predefined stat-combos with a system that allowed you to socket any stat combo you like.
So basically every piece of armor has one primary slot and two secondary slots and you can insert whatever you like.
For PvE I think it’s great.
No more having to guest to various servers to find an uncontested dungeon.
Now we can finally make serious attempts at Wurm and other hard world bosses even when on a dead server. Maps will constantly be full of life, no more annoying Overflows.
I’m curious to see how this will affect WvW but I’m optimistic ANet will find a solid solution.
In general I value server identity and the likes, but in GW2 servers were always very flexible. It just makes sense.
I think Omega Golems are ok in general.
I see them as a high-investment path to almost guaranteed success in penetrating the enemy’s defense. Without Omega Golems it might be a bit too easy to bunker in with a waypoint.
Omegas are too expensive to use constantly but I think they should remain a viable option.
Then again, defending is hard enough as it is, especially with gates being as fragile as they are. I can see why you Omegas seem excessive in the current way of things. Maybe they do need harder counters.
PU Mesmers are the incarnation of a cheese build. In that regard they are quite similar to P/D with Dire gear and Perplexity Runes.
My advice would be to simply not fight them. PU Mesmers know they can win any fight if they just make it last long enough. But WvW doesn’t always offer that luxury. Kill speed matters and PU Mesmers can’t kill you quickly and can’t stop you from walking away.
And that’s exactly what I do….walk away.
If they want to kill people they should go ahead and play a build that can do just that.
I agree that ranged weapons and spells should not damage gates. It just makes no sense.
I still think melee weapons should damage gates. It might also make Burning Oil more attractive to use.
It would also help if reinforced gates was the first upgrade to a tower, rather than walls. 90% of the time you enter a structure through the door.
They announced a few smaller changes and new traits, enough to shake up the meta a little. That’s good enough for now, but obviously not forever.
I fully expect them to alter balance within a month of this feature patch going live.
My big concern is conditions, which are already incredibly powerful and lame. They will go completely overboard if not held in check.
I like how Waypoints can cuase some pretty epic Siege battles but I dislike how you can just beam around the map at times.
I don’t expect this to change though since it’s a pretty fundamental aspect of the game.
I agree with the OP,
changing so many things and leaving Conditions untouched is a bad idea.
GW2 combat is ideal when you have 2 semi-offensive Power builds fighting each other. Something like 50% Berserker, 50% Soldier. That’s when combat is most fun.
Spaming nigh unavoidable Conditions at your enemy that can only be countered by traits you may or may not have is the pinnacle of bad passive play. It’s a horrible thing to encourage as it emphasizes all the bad aspects of GW2 combat.
The least they could do is nerf the grossly overpowered Rare Veggie Pizza. It does after all have 4-times the stat-budget of any other food in game.
When you spend all day dodging, when do you deal damage?
I mean isn’t this exactly what S/D Evade-spam was about? And that’s no longer meta for a reason.
I was wondering what those people who have experience playing on both sides of the pond thought about the differences in WvW between the two continents.
Are there significant differences between WvW in the US and the EU?
How is coverage?
Are people more or less casual and how in general is the quality of play?
S/D is a more sustained build that lacks the burst of Dagger builds but makes up for it with more utility and evades. I consider it to be one of the strongest dueling sets for Thieves because it does well against everything.
S/D was meta for while thanks to evade-spam but has since been replaced by S/P.
As for gear, you will generally want to mix Berserker and Soldier gear to a point where you feel comfortable.
We’ve been through this a dozen times.
The tick needs to scale with the overall current player activity. The more players are active in WvW, the faster the score ticks, the less players are active, the slower it ticks.
That’s fair for everyone involved and makes victories feel more meaningful when achieved against serious opposition.
8-12 PM might give you the most epic battles and most awesome WvW, but is relatively meaningless for the overall outcome of the matchup. That’s not ok. It’s not ok when 80% of the WvW activity only contributes 20% of the score.
I’m still waiting for that Blade Shard merchant. So I hope there will be.
I agree,
I too love dueling Thieves on when on my Thief and like fighting them on my Warrior too, unless they are P/D.
It’s because once you know and understand the Thief mechanics, you can actually counter them. Denying Cloak and Dagger is the key to beating many Thief builds and it can make a fight quite thrilling.
Against many classes it’s obvious who will win within the first 10 seconds. But against Thieves it’s always exciting since many of them like running glass-cannon, and thus can die at a moment’s notice.
I can see though why other classes might dislike Thieves, especially if they don’t fully understand the Thief’s mechanics. Thief’s put a lot of pressure on an enemy, often unannounced, forcing them to react quickly. Many players can’t handle that sort of pressure and thus cave in quickly.
I know forums are primarily a place you go to complain, and I’ve done my fair share of complaining.
But currently I have nothing. I am pretty content with GW2 as of now.
I’m excited about the coming feature patch, now that they have actually committed to nerfing certain builds.
The new WvW season has granted me some of the most intense and exhilarating WvW experiences I’ve ever had (seriously, 300 kills on the first evening alone) and it looks to continue.
TESO is too expensive and “meh” for me to give it a try, so I won’t be heading down that path.
So that’s it really. I got nothing.
I doubt there’s s big portion of the player base that plays one aspect of the game exclusively. Even a rank 60 player will dabble in WvW on occasion and vice-verca.
I disregard the notion that there’s a thing like “a PvP player” or a “PvE player” that are somehow in competition. Every player is an individual and focuses on content he/she enjoys, for whatever reasons.
I believe the need to run story mode again has technical ramifications rather than being a game-play decision.
The nerf is justified. Arcing Arrow can hit for insane amounts, even on tanky classes.
It get 5-6k crits with it on my Soldier Warrior. Clusterbomb reaches the same amount only if my Thief is full Berserker.
I’ve encountered Berserker Warriors with a Longbow that can nigh-instant gib you with a single Arcing Arrow. Not cool.
Not gonna lie, your movement is pretty ace.
I don’t see how Infusion of Shadow’s is necessary when you already have 15 Initiative to work with. I mean you only use 3 skills, only two of which actually cost Initiative.
You could replace it with Shadow Protector for added Regeneration when stealthed. That way you won’t ever die…..ever.
Assuming Divinity’s Runes don’t undergo a change I do think they will be a very unappealing Rune-Set to pick. The generous Crit-Damage was really what made the set so appealing to many and with some Rune-Sets buffed I don’t see Divinity’s being a good choice.
Lyssa Runes depend. There aren’t very many Runes-sets that help counter excessive condition spam that is only going to get worse at this point. They may well remain a popular choice for Thieves since they still lack regular condition removal outside of stealth. But other classes will probably resort to better options.
.
As for WvW, well that’s harder to predict. I expect Condition spam builds to rule the world, but we’ll have to wait and see.
The problem is if everyone builds Condi bunker, no one will be able to kill each other because there will be so much vitality to cut through. Burst will always have a strong presence, especially for thieves, because of stealth.
Conditions aren’t countered by Vitality, they are countered by condition removal. And not all classes or builds have abundant cleanses available to them.
I think mechanically Blind is fine. But it does last rather long if you have a little +Condition Duration. Imo it should only last 2-3 seconds at most.
But I agree it is too abundant on some builds. P/D Thieves are obviously main contenders here as they have abundant access to Blind, both in Field-form as well as a directed attack. They even have a trait that Blinds as well. That’s all rather a lot.
You don’t tend to play something as long as it takes to reach rank 60 and be bad at it. It just doesn’t happen. Anyone who is bad probably quit long before that point.
That said, while I’d pick the rank 70 too, I have met some massive egos close to that rank that would forfeit any game if it didn’t go their way.
In those rare cases they were more useless than even a bad level 40.
I do agree that Badges of Honor could do with some alternative ways to spend them.
Currently you can only spend them on…
- Armor, which is a one-time purchase,
- Siege, which while always needed, is often only provided by a small portion of the player base.
- WXP, which also costs Laurels and once you reach rank 500, seems rather unnecessary.
I think it would be cool if you could spend Badges of Honor stuff like T6 mats because you don’t usually get a lot from WvW alone.
Sigils don’t seem like a great choice since you already have a reasonable chance of getting them from WvW, same as PvE.
I like the nerfs, they seem appropriate.
But I still despise this Rune-set after having to endure it for over half a year. It’’s still one of the few Rune sets you build your entire build around, just so you can exploit these Runes as much as possible.
Giving every class access to abundant Confusion, an incredibly powerful condition, is not a good idea given how conditions help cover each other and thus make each other more effective.
Dealing with 3 conditions is possible, dealing with 5 different conditions stressful and more than that often impossible for many classes and builds. And Perplexity Runes just make it that much easier to stack multiple different conditions in a passive manner.
I applaud these changes as they will hopefully influence the meta in a positive way. These minor nerfs, + the new traits, + rune and sigil changes will hopefully all come together in a positive manner.
My biggest concern now is Conditions, especially with the introduction of Perplexity Runes into sPvP.
I just wish ANet would have reached these conclusions about balance by themselves instead of having them force-fed to them by the community.
(edited by Dee Jay.2460)
People have become so complacent with Bunker Guardians they’ve given up QQing about them, despite them basically defining the sPvP meta since launch.
Their support is unmatched, their role uncontested and they are heavily thought-after in every content.
Well they had to do something and I’m glad they actually did. I just wish they’d be more straight-forward about it as I feel like the community has to force-feed them every nerf.
I doubt this will be the end of Pistol Whip spam but it might make it just a little bit harder to use all too liberally.
You have got to be kidding me!
Perplexity already ruined WvW roaming. It still is the most ridiculously overpowered Rune-Set in this game and it will break sPvP if you introduce it.
A Rune set should synergize well with your build. It shouldn’t be able to carry entire builds that would otherwise be non-viable.
(edited by Dee Jay.2460)
Hey, didn’t you read? The Devs once won a 4 vs. 5 so it isn’t a problem!
I actually think the opposite. I personally think the stun is fine and the evade is to much for the thief on this skill.
Thinking of the stun as a means of allowing the skill to hit but still leaves enough room for play feels more balanced.
But remove the Evade and you might as well delete the entire skill. It would become completely useless. Thieves can’t afford to channel a melee attack, stationary, for even 2 seconds. It makes them far too susceptible to damage.
Pistol Whip doesn’t deal more single target damage than Backstab, an instant attack from stealth that allows you to retain your mobility.
The stun is the only excessive part and also makes Headshot redundant. It should be the only thing considered for the cutting board. Otherwise you might as well design a new skill.
I’m curious as to how the launch of TESO will affect WvW. But there’s no reason to believe it will hit one server harder than another.
Anyway, as usual the server with the best coverage wins, and while I don’t know much about other servers I do recall Piken Square having a massive WvW population.
Gandara is already dominating Silver League and will probably continue to do so.
Everything else will just stay as is. The WvW hierarchy has been clearly established for a while now and I don’t see it changing.
Ascended gear in total does make a difference.
Ascended armor, the most grindy and expensive part of Ascended gear, does fairly little. The main advantage you gain from Ascended armor is more access to Agony Resistance, which is only needed for Fractals.
GW2’s entire technical frame-work seems outdated for a game that’s only 1.5 years old. It’s obvious that the years of delays left much technical potential unused.
I think it was originally planned for 2010 but wasn’t released until 2012.
The engine has obvious issues:
- It’s extremely CPU limited,
- it has poor multi-core support,
- it’s a 32-but application,
- can’t harness more than 2GB of RAM,
- it doesn’t benefit from DirectX 11,
- it has a very limited map-size,
- it has issues with calculating conditions,
- it has issues with AoE affecting more than 5 players.
According to the steam hardware survey less than 2% of steam devices have a DX 9 GPU. And I doubt any of them are used for serious gaming. I doubt a significant portion of the Guild Wars 2 player-base has a DX 9 GPU too (probably less than 1%).
World of Warcraft has both had a 64-bit client and a DirectX 11 client since even before Guild Wars 2 was released.
I believe many limitations of the game could be overcome is they updated their engine to support more modern APIs and hardware.