Guild Wars 2

Rubik.7192:

If they do I’ll use a decap engi and show them everything that is wrong with the game.

Please do,

drown the devs in their own cheese.

Run 1 Decap Engineers, 2 Bunker Guardians, 1 Hambow and 1 Pistol Whipper.

I admit I feel a little cheap using Pistol Whip. But the ability is so good you rarely do not want to use it.

It’s only against Warriors and other melees where I opt for Black Powder instead.

But unlike Decap Engineers, Pistol Whip doesn’t ruin entire game-modes.

Billaboong.6821:

I can’t remember the post but once a dev said: what if in order to rally you need to stomp the enemy and not just kill it.
Well, this would balance the WvW scene so much, right now having an upscaled player on an organized group means having 5 potensial rallies for the enemy. The ratio of good players you need to balance a single upscaled is insane, 1 to 5. Right now you just autoattack on downed enemy and make your allies rally, the fact of stomping would make downed skills much more usefull and change the WvW scene.

Another idea for balancing the rally problem could be to reduce the rally ratio 1 to 1, so only 1 enemy gets the rally when an enemy is killed or just remove the rally mechanic

EDIT (from comments): The rally mechanic has created an us (hardcore) versus them (casual) split on every server

Yeah, that’s what I was really looking forward to most with this update.

The whole Rally system is such a snowballing mechanic it really makes you detest fellow crappy players.

But alas, it’s just another important change that isn’t going to happen. But hey, at least they nerfed something that didn’t need nerfing.

Yeah, I’m not even too worried about the zerg-tactics.

I’m most concerned about Conditions running rampant with nothing to keep them in check.

I see entire Zergs stacking Dire gear + Perplexity + Food + new Sigils and ruining the game for everyone.

Condition spam encompasses the worst of this game. Passive play, untelegraphed attacks, unavoidable damage and things are just going to get so much worse.

Given that Critical Damage is being changed in order to fix scaling issues it would cause in future content, is the same being done to other %-based stats?

Most notably Condition Duration and Boon Duration?

I ask, because they follow the same logic as Critical Damage and would cause the same scaling issues in future content.

They also cause massive balance issues given that +40% Condition Duration food is 4-times over budget when compared to Power food (10% Condition Duration = 100 Power).

If Condition Duration was given the same treatment as Critical Damage (ergo 15 C. Duration = 1% C.D) we would see the +/- 40% Condition food being reduced to +/- 7% Condition Duration.

Kind of a big deal.

butch.8136:

Why try and balance it when you’re about to change the entire game with the runes, sigils and GM changes.

Fair enough. In theory it would make sense to wait out how things evolve before getting into actual balance issues.

But some things aren’t hard to predict. Conditions especially, are going to run rampant in WvW if they are not addressed in this patch.

Everyone and their mother will be stacking Dire gear with Perplexity Runes, with +40% Condition Duration and the new Sigils and going to town with massive amounts of near unavoidable and uncleansable conditions.

This is not a hard prediction to make given how this is already the case and Crit-builds are getting a hefty nerf.

My only hope at this point is that Condition Duration gets changed to, just like Critical Damage.

This has been the case since day 1 of the game.

Bunkers define the meta-game of Guild Wars 2.

If you had any hopes ANet may address this at some point, well as of yesterday ANet officially considers Guardians to be “fine”.

So nothing will change.

No other class will get a chance at being a main bunker. All a Guardian has to do is run in circles, spam 1 and occasionally use his cooldowns whenever he/she feels like it.

That my friends, is skillful play in GW2. If you want a fun and enjoyable PvP experience, look elsewhere.

Communication helps, apparently. Not every skipping trick is common knowledge.

If you want me to stealth the group, just say so.

Black Teagan.9215:

Arkantos.7460:

the only question for myself:
WHERE are the PROMISED pistolwipe changes ……?

I ask me: Where is the classmechanic, that give us our name :/

So many bad designed coremechanics, which are untouched for 18 months and I see no improvements in the near future

Yeah, I will wait and see the entire scope of this patch but if it’s anything like what it currently seems, I’m out.

Condition spam unchanged, sPvP meta practically unchanged, WvW scoring system unchanged, downed-state/rally/revive mechanic unchanged.

Instead a series of changes no one really asked for. Some are nice, more interesting than others but none really change anything about the fundamental problems of this game.

If this Ferocity change was supposed to fix balance or make Berserker gear less attractive in PvE it entirely missed the point.

People run Berserker gear in PvE because nothing except damage matters.

And guess what? Nothing has changed about that.

People will run just as much Berserker as before, not because it’s more or less powerful than other stats but because nothing else matters except DPS.

Hopefully they activated that Blade Shard merchant.

It’s still unclear if this trait has been fixed in the upcoming “feature patch”.

If not, this must be the most ignorant and self-absorbed MMO developer I have ever witnessed.

Reading these changes just proves how ignorant and out of touch ANet Devs are with this game.

Did they even fix Last Refuge?

I hope they still fixed Last Refuge because I’ll be kittened otherwise.

The rest of the traits are…so so. The Shadow Arts one sounds rather powerful, but Shadow Rejuvenation is tough competition.

What bothers me more is that we still don’t have better Condition removal outside of stealth and frankly, it seems like we’ll be seeing even more condition spam than currently.

Shinjo.6092:

Dee Jay.2460:

Arlette.9684:

Dee Jay.2460:

I don’t think this change would achieve much given how fast Initiative replenishes.

This! They need to make stealth a more limited mechanic. Been guaranteed the first hit in the fight alone, is a huge advantage. The proposed change with the initiative just won’t cut it. Either let BS drop stealth even if it’s dodged/blocked etc. or they can go for the whole initiative refund deal on dmg but the initiative cost needs to be increased so that it actually penalizes the thief if he fails to hit.

You know I’ve always felt that having Stealth drain Initiative made way more sense in this game than what we have now. Force Thieves to chose between offense and defense and not get both in one.

You want to stealth? Sure, go ahead, remove conditions, blind, heal etc. But your ability to dish out damage will be severely kitten for the next few moments.

Want to apply serious pressure? Go ahead, but beware you won’t be able to stealth for a few moments thereafter.

Isn’t this exactly how stealth is implemented right now? You can use stealth defensively but you won’t be able to attack since it’ll take you out of stealth, and you lose all the defensive goodies. You want to attack? Sure. But now you are revealed and won’t be able to stealth for the next few moments.

No, generally you want to stealth as much as possible since the stealth-attacks are also the most powerful.

P/D builds are the best example where anything aside from Sneak Attack does pitiful damage.

Currently stealth has both offensive and defensive benefits and Thieves aren’t forced to chose on over the other.

Arlette.9684:

Dee Jay.2460:

I don’t think this change would achieve much given how fast Initiative replenishes.

This! They need to make stealth a more limited mechanic. Been guaranteed the first hit in the fight alone, is a huge advantage. The proposed change with the initiative just won’t cut it. Either let BS drop stealth even if it’s dodged/blocked etc. or they can go for the whole initiative refund deal on dmg but the initiative cost needs to be increased so that it actually penalizes the thief if he fails to hit.

You know I’ve always felt that having Stealth drain Initiative made way more sense in this game than what we have now. Force Thieves to chose between offense and defense and not get both in one.

You want to stealth? Sure, go ahead, remove conditions, blind, heal etc. But your ability to dish out damage will be severely kitten for the next few moments.

Want to apply serious pressure? Go ahead, but beware you won’t be able to stealth for a few moments thereafter.

I sort of agree.

This Season seems to offer little room for new developments.

At least the WvW scoring algorithm could have done with a revamp. Points-per-tick, regardless of hour, activity or participation, just isn’t fun and leads to snowballing results.

A change to the scoring system would have at least ensured a less predictable outcome.

But basically I already know what my server is capable of, and what not. It’s not hard to predict where we’ll land.

I agree with your first 4 points.

Vitality should be more even among classes. I’ve argued this case a number of times but basically having an 80% difference between the lowest and the highest base HP, even excluding differences in Armor, is a balancing nightmare.

The game would be much more fun and balanced if developers could work off the assumption that every build hat at last 13.000 HP.

I agree with Conditions too. Having them be powerful is ok, but they are too abundant, too easily applied and require overpowered cleansing to compensate.

I like your idea on duration-stacking.
I also agree that Burn needs to be more telegraphed and less auto-applied.
It would be interesting to see Poison’s healing debuff increased, maybe at the expense of it’s damage.
I also agree that auto-attacks shouldn’t apply conditions, at least not by default.
I’m not sure about your proposed Cripple/Chill change however.

I think there is an issue with Crowd Control, but I’m not sure your solution is the right one. I also don’t see it as a huge problem. I think it would suffice to just replace some of the abundant CC moves (does a Hammer really need 3 different stuns?) with something different.

I also agree that the game has too many entirely passive traits. Every trait should impact your play-style or gear-choice in some tangible way. But many don’t.

What I don’t agree with though is any of your proposed class changes. They all seem short-sighted and lack understanding of actual class-mechanics. Pin Down already has a very long cooldown, giving Thieves Stability inside Shadow Refuge would remove one of the few well-designed counter-play opportunities. I’m not sold on the other class changed either but aren’t qualified to evaluate them.

Comparing abilities side by side doesn’t help your point as you obviously gloss over some pretty important aspects.

LoL especially at the Mass Invisibility (quick-cast, applied instantly, lots of targets, usable on the move) vs. Shadow Refuge comparison (ground-targeted, fairly obvious, easy to counter with a knock-back or damage).

Or the fact that Portal can teleport up to 20 targets but Shadow Trap only the user and can’t even be controlled. And really, do many Thieves use Shadow Trap? Not to my knowledge.

Mesmer has always had more of a support aspect to it and that shines through in the way their abilities are designed. Let’s not forget that during the early days having a Mesmer was considered ESSENTIAL for any competitive team.

I’m not saying you’re wrong about Thieves being more desirable than Mesmers currently. But I disagree with your reasoning. You seem to blame the profession entirely (although balance really hasn’t changed much at all in the past 7 months).

I say it’s because the current meta has become so bunkerish that the support the Mesmer used to bring to the table is no longer appreciated. You don’t need Portal for fast home-ports when you have a Minion Master or Spirit Ranger who can tank two players for 60 seconds.

Boon removal, interrupts and general chaos that Mesmers added to a fight just aren’t as appreciated as they used to be. But it’s not the Thief’s fault, it’s the meta’s.

Just fyi, Thieves have a pretty bland talent too. 5% healing from crits isn’t exactly powerful either and I doubt many Thieves will pick it since they already have numerous sources of passive healing.

I agree that the projectile speed from bows in this game is a bit of a joke.

Arrows in real-life are actually pretty kitten fast, often faster than you can see with your eyes.

And yet GW2 simulates them as if they were thrown by hand.

I’m on the opposite side of the spectrum.

If you give and ability to everyone, you might as well not give it to anyone.

Passive speed-increases are convenient, that’s why everyone loves them. But they don’t make for interesting game-play. It’s a choice of convenience vs. actual power and that’s not a good one.

Passive Signets also undermine the value of Swiftness, which is only 8% faster.

In my book it would be better to remove all the passive speed signets and replace them with something more interesting instead.

I don’t think this change would achieve much given how fast Initiative replenishes.

I’m sure the “feature patch” on April 15 includes a series if balance changes.

Oh for christ sake spending a few hours exploring the world isn’t going to kill you.

There are things worth QQing about.

This is NOT one of them.

Yes, Thieves and Mesmer compete for the same roles and yes, Thieves have an easier time applying their damage.

But they also pay a price by having much lower base-line survivability.

Even a glass-cannon shatter Mesmer has a decent base-line survivability thanks to their Illusions and shatter skills. Mesmers are unpopular focus targets for a reason. They also get to apply much of their damage passively, in the form of Phantasms, while being able to do something else for a moment (like revive or stomp).

Mesmers also have their Portal, which means near-instant relocation in the right scenario.

The only defense and 10/30/0/0/30 Thief brings to the table is his offense. When focused they drop much faster than any Mesmer.

Point being, Thief and Mesmers are different classes with different mechanics. Thieves just happen to be more popular and more “workable” in the current meta. But it’s not because they are somehow overpowered or Mesmers are somehow underpowered.

It’s just that the meta has no room for sort of hybrid builds. You’re either as bunkerish as you can be or you are as bursty as can be. And in terms of burst, nothing beats a Thief due to the way the class works.

Yeah, walls being more of a death-trap than an actual aid while defending is problematic. I don’t think it was ever intended this way. It’s just a side-effect of how the ground-targeting works.

It’s really annoying because it forces you to place siege in very particular places to avoid the AoE, often limiting what they can shoot at. It’s all a bit contrived and non-intuitive.

It would be nice if attacking from above actually gave you a real, tangible advantage rather than being a great way to get killed.

But that would probably require reworking the aiming mechanics in a pretty fundamental way.

An interesting trait but considering Assassin’s Reward and Signet of Malice work in a similar fashion I don’t think it will do well in place of Hidden Killer or Executioner.

It might make way for some interesting cheese-builds, maybe using Pistol/Pistol or Shortbow. But it’s going to be a very niche ability.

I actually like just doing the standard content for a while. No more chasing after zerg-content all the time, no more frustrations about achievement hunting, no pressure to farm enough X in time for Y.

Maybe we’ll give Tequatl a few more visits, maybe even do the Wurm again.

Who knows. It’s easy to forget the content this game already has when you’re constantly being spamed with Living World stuff.

The more experienced you are, the better Berserker gear is.

Survivability from stats (Vitality, Toughness) is meaningless in PvE. Aegis , Blind, Protection, Weakness, Dodge and Block are your avoidance and mitigation tools.

This goes for all classes. It might seem tough at the beginning but once you figure out just how simple and predictable PvE is, it won’t be a problem. It helps having a competent group that stacks and supports each other.

If Thieves can survive in melee with medium armor and barely half your hit-points, so can you.

Carpboy.7145:

Dee Jay.2460:

Ah yes, because maths and EHP have such a relevance in PvP.

You can’t crunch PvP into a spreadsheet.

Sure, but you can crunch stats into a spreadsheet, and the stats on that build are mathematically better than any other. How does that not apply?

Because it doesn’t account for my play-style.

Theorycrafting always makes a series of assumptions to reach an objective conclusion. For example the DPS calculations must assume a constant DPS uptime.

But maybe my play-style is different. Maybe I only engage for Cloak and Dagger and Backstab. Maybe I don’t auto-attack much. The way Yishis plays for example is almost exclusively dealing damage with Backstab and using relatively little auto-attack or even Heartseeker.

This means Precision is less valuable as Hidden Killer contributes a larger share of your DPS and throws off any assumption you made in your calculations.

EHP is in a similar boat, as it too assumes regular incoming damage. But again, maybe due to your traits and play-style sustained damage isn’t all that threatening to you. Instead it’s condition bombing you fear and big unpredictable burst. This means Vitality is more valuable than your calculation might imply because they are based on a theoretical scenario that simply doesn’t occur.

bhagwad.4281:

You might as well go to hotjoin no? I don’t get it. Do people want to win or not?

Edit: This was a ranked tournament

Yeah, I get this too.

I typically say “hi” and then ask “who close?” right away.

Normally eerie silence until the beginning of the match when some random shmuck goes close. Ironically they all become very vocal once things start going south.

You probably stood in his Caltrops while he had Singnet of Malice which is not uncommon with Death Blossom spam-builds.

Wouldn’t this place the feature patch right in the dead center if the WvW season?

I consider that unlikely.

Ah yes, because maths and EHP have such a relevance in PvP.

You can’t crunch PvP into a spreadsheet.

phaeris.7604:

Thing is, any coordinated team worth their salt will just say ‘Thief, focus ele all the time every time’

And there’s nothing the ele can do. In pvp you spec all damage and die to absolutely anything, or non damage, and contribute very little. Before it was bunker or damage, bunker was stopped, so what are you left with.

But isn’t the point here that you’d send a Thief after an Ele for a good reason? And that’s because the Ele will f*** you up if you don’t pay attention to him. You could send your Thief after any class, but you chose the Ele because Eles make a big difference in team-fights.

At least that’s my interpretation of it.

Like most, I queue solo into teamQ.

Now Elementalists have had a reputation for being “underpowered” for a while now and when asked, are generally considered “weak” by most players.

Yet surprisingly, I’ve seen a very large number of Elementalists in teamQ recently and nothing that suggests they’d be somehow underpowered. It seems as if teams have really started to appreciate Ele’s ability to apply AoE pressure in team-fights.

Meteorshower especially seem to elevate them because the skills isn’t particularly visible and despite the name, isn’t as obvious as one might think.

Now granted, they still die quickly when focused, but their Mistforms allow them to delay kills long enough to make a difference.

I’m not saying that Eles are “fine”. I’m sure they have issues. But I don’t feel they are quite the bane to your team as previously implied. To me it seems like they do manage to fill their niche (AoE node pressure) quite well, until as Thief sits on their face.

The difference between a “good” and a “bad” server is almost entirely coverage.

So a bad “bad” server may only have a few dozen people online at midnight while a “good” server will still be packed full at that hour.

That’s the only difference. Anything said about skill, commander quality etc. is purely anecdotal.

First off, you should be able to run this build without Infusion of Shadows. Personally I’d never leave the house without Shadow’s Embrace because even getting rid of Weakness or Cripple is a hassle without it.

As for the classes.

Generally I would have said that D/D does very well against Mesmers because you can Cloak and Dagger off the Clones and Illusions. But with the rise of PU also came the rise of Aegis, a boon that counters Cloak and Dagger rather brutally. The constant condition spam is also hard to deal with.

It’s not an easy fight and more often than not, you’re better of just walking away. The Mesmer can’t stop you from doing that. I have beaten a few PU Mesmers at times, using D/P but it’s a lengthy and boring fight and basically rests on your ability to 60%→0% the Mesmer within a few seconds.

Against other Thieves it depends. D/D has one thing going for it, and that’s strong burst. You need to be able to instant-gib people with Cloak and Dagger + Backstab, preferably from range with Infiltrator’s Signet. Otherwise you’re going to have a rough time, especially vs. D/P Blinds and P/D immortality.

D/D is a very unforgiving weapon-set as a single Aegis or Blind can ruin your day if it counters your Cloak and Dagger. And nowadays there’s a lot of these conditions flying around.

D/D works best when your targets are distracted, like in zergs or when running in a group. But for solo roaming it’s incredibly unforgiving.

doomknife.7498:

How S/D doing these days? I’ve tried it last night and felt pretty solid, nice pressure with auto attack and plenty of survivability. And it feels somewhat simpler and more straight foward.

Sometimes I think I’m just not skilled enough, since I just couldn’t adapt well to D/P. That thing of heartseeking out of the BP circle to get stealth and stuff just felt weird.

I’m probably playing it wrong anyways Any good gameplay videos for reference would be awesome!

I used to feel that way about D/P too. I would constantly Heartseeker into mobs or critters, gain Revealed and subsequently die. It was really frustrating. But over-time I seemed to get the hang of it somehow and it’s no longer an issue.

I agree that the stealth-mechanic is a little clunky but ironically, despite the ability to “perma-stealth” you stealth a lot less than anything that uses Cloak and Dagger. Because the ability to go toe-to-toe with Warriors and other melee classes is what really stands out about D/P.

The Ranger class itself does have a few very strong builds (Spirit Rangers) and can require some finesse to play well.

Unfortunately the Ranger archetype has also established itself as the MMO profession that attracts the largest portion of slackers, afkers and poor players. They are generally drawn to this archetype because the pet combined with a ranged weapon makes it virtually impossible to fail.

It’s been the same in every MMO and GW2 is no exception.

Yes, Rangers could do with a rework, especially concerning passive play and pet AI. But it’s the Ranger player-base themselves that have earned it the terrible reputation it has.

I like the idea and could see why it seems sensible.

But it really doesn’t address the core issue of sPvP in GW2 as that it is simply and unappealing game to play.

The various MOBAs all have a very intricate and complex meta game, involving various builds, items and heroes. GW2 just doesn’t have that, at least not at the same level. 90% of Runes and Sigils are crap and the rest is used to exploit a very specific element.

The meta game itself isn’t hugely appealing either, with Bunker Guardians being the backbone of practically all teams and all they need to do is run in circles and chain their cooldowns.

Unlike Battlegrounds in WoW or Warzones in SWTOR, sPvP is not something I’d ever just play “for lolz”. It’s not inherently fun. It’s “fun” because of progression/achievement points/rewards.

GW2 has no subscription.

That’s a pretty strong hand already.

ESO will find it’s fan-base, surely. Maybe even capture some of the WvW crowd. But the whole game-play and combat feels rather poor compared to GW2 and I’m not sure if much of the GW2 community will like it.

I didn’t which is also why I won’t be spending 120$ to play and MMO for 4 months like I did with SWTOR.

That said, I’m not sure how long I will stick with GW2 either. It depends on the feature patch.

ANet obviously has a kitten for raid encounters but forcing you to do them with a bunch of random slackers isn’t fun.

It’s taking all the worst aspects of raiding (the frustration about slackers, the waiting) and removing all the good stuff (sense of progression, community etc.).

It’s like LFR quality raiding except with 150 people.

It’s just so incredibly frustrating.

And there is literally nothing I ca do about it. My home server barely fills LA during peak hours and guesting to other servers just dumps you in Overflows.

Seriously, just give us raid-instances already (or password-locked overflows) and be done with it. All this open world BS is just bad with no upside whatsoever.

Character level doesn’t really make much of a difference in this game. All it does is gate content and withhold certain levels of gear.

Content-wise the final was ok, although the whole zerg-events lose their appeal very quickly.

But the achievements, especially this last time round….oh my god, they are the worst.

Just made me hate the whole overflow BS system ANet has designed.

This achievement has caused me more grief and frustration, combined with an absolute disdain for Overflows and lazy players.

It’s like it took the worst parts about raiding and then put it under a microscope.

Never before have I been so fed up with the game.

I want to do this achievement, but I can’t. Not because I’m incapable but because the game won’t allow me to.

I’m not sure what you expect ANet to do about it. I don’t think there’s an easy fix.

Zerg fights, due to their nature, just lend themselves toward heavy, resilient classes. Warriors and Guardians effectively take the roles of tanks in WvW. And if they can’t deal massive damage, CC is the second best thing as it enables others to deal great damage.

I knew Hammer was broken way before the Hammer-Train meta even started. Being able to chain 3-4 consecutive stuns into a target was never going to be fair or balanced in a game with so few abilities.

My effective Karma has stagnated for a while now so they seem to have found a balance.

That said, it would be nice if there were more effective ways to spend Karma directly, instead of having to go through the mystic forge or other convoluted measures to get something useful out of it.

Personally I’d like to see Karma become a universal currency for just about anything. T6 mats, various crafting ingredients and anything else that can otherwise be hard to come by. This would give Karma a sort-of economic balancing purpose.

Yes, using Karma to buy stuff should be less efficient (say 1000 Karma per T6 material) but it also puts a cap on how far things will increase.

Wait a second….

480p?
Captured via cellphone straight from the screen?
Clicking?

You got to be kidding me…

And yes, the reason people tend to avoid Zerker gear in large scale warfare is because it makes you a rally-bot for the enemies. It can work in roaming though, no one ever disputed that.