Guild Wars 2

Cecilia.5179:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cecilia.5179:

So I took a look at the damage numbers for Chilling Nova on a condi spec. It definitely won’t be breaking a diamond skin. The trait that is supposed to be great for the condi chill spec is not that great for a condi chill spec…

It wouldn’t break Diamond Skin anyway, because it’s a condition.

I was talking about the sigil of fire style on proc damage they boosted and how it doesn’t do anything for the condi specs who were probably the only ones even using Chilling Nova.

That couldn’t break Diamond Skin anyway because it requires the person you crit to already be chilled. Which, if Diamond Skin is intact, they aren’t.

Cecilia.5179:

So I took a look at the damage numbers for Chilling Nova on a condi spec. It definitely won’t be breaking a diamond skin. The trait that is supposed to be great for the condi chill spec is not that great for a condi chill spec…

It wouldn’t break Diamond Skin anyway, because it’s a condition.

hennrick.4623:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The only issue with Vampiric/Vampiric Aura right now is that they balance it around the best-case scenario instead of the average-case scenario. Yes, it could use a buff, but the basis to how it works is fine as-is.

The problem is: how can you buff the average scenario, without buffing the best case scenario? I can imagine some things like having the buff on yourself be more powerful, but solves not everything and sorta defeats the purpose of the trait.
Stuff like ICD could actually greatly help the balance of the game, making more smooth the difference between cases, thus granting a more satisfying power since it becomes easier to balance.
Probably making it too much smooth, however.

Also, we must consider what is the identity of Vampiric Presence. Empowering multi – hit skills? Empowering allies? Giving sustain no matter what?

Simple: they currently balance around the best-case scenario on the assumption that is the average-case scenario.

Basically, vampiric/vampiric aura (at least on self) are balanced for a 5v1 where only one of the five is actually hitting you. This is the dream scenario, but will literally never happen.

If instead they were balanced around the actual average scenario, then the ideal scenario would actually have awesome results, not just “decent.”

The perfect situation for anything should have awesome results.

Vampiric Aura, since it does give benefits to others, does get trickier.

Matt Stacey.7415:

Xyonon.3987:

Matt Stacey.7415:

Xyonon.3987:

losing dps in order to get health back while being open for counterplay sounds totally correct to me

While that makes sense, it doesn’t work the way it should. The amount of health you gain doesn’t make it worth it to use that skill in the first place.

Well it’s a 3k heal on a fairly low cd, it’s not too much but it’s “ok”. Sure it could be more, but that’d be just “nice to have” but not required to declare this skill as useful. In my humble opinion at least.

To be honest, I think the time you are getting hit during the channel far outweighs the measly ~3k HP

Not if you’re playing it right. It’s 600 range and doesn’t require facing once the channel starts. It’s actually quite easy to avoid heavy damage while channeling.

It does need a cast time reduction, but the effects of the skill are pretty much perfect as-is.

hennrick.4623:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Gravedigger hitting once and stealing 400 health every 2 seconds is better than Gravedigger hitting once and stealing 100 health, sure. But which is better: Gravedigger hitting five times and stealing 400 health or Gravedigger hitting five times and stealing 500 health?

This is where ICD’s and siphons don’t mix well: multi-hit abilities. Any time an attack hits more than once, whether it’s on the same target or different ones, an ICD prevents any hits beyond the first from doing anything.

This is a good point and is what makes me most dubious: how much can it be valuable to have it benefit more spread hits? But then again we fall in the category of somethign that has a really jumpy scaling, and msot of times is almost out of control.

Also, is more valuable in pvp letting it have an ICD? let’ s suppose people hitting in the face nonstop, a VA without ICD would work better only ic a character manages to hit many people, which can be really hard since you might not fight 5 people together in a match.

The only issue with Vampiric/Vampiric Aura right now is that they balance it around the best-case scenario instead of the average-case scenario. Yes, it could use a buff, but the basis to how it works is fine as-is.

For PvP, situations where we hit multiple targets are much more common than you give credit for. Happens all the time against Mesmers, frequently in teamfights (yes, Necros do participate in those), and also dealing with times like Lord assaults on Foefire.

spoj.9672:

I dont really see the point in having soft CC’s if they dont actually provide unique effects. This is a bad change. It removes a layer of complexity to the game. And prevents certain approaches. Such as using chill and cripple to create a chance for players to recover by giving time to create distance (the entire purpose of those conditions).

Basically we have a ton of conditions in game but none of them work on anything anymore. It was bad enough that blind didnt work on bosses (although justified because of how overpowered it is). Now the rest wont work either. This is a step back.

I can understand you wanting to restrict these conditions due to broken effects like slow and blind. But that doesnt mean you should do it for every soft cc condition. Weakness, chill and cripple should all work as intended and not effect the breakbar. Immob is debatable.

This restriction further emphasizes the dominance of boons over conditions. And right before we even get the chance to see if harder content actually closes the gap and makes debuff conditions desirable. People were looking forward to debuffer classes maybe having a chance to compete with heavy buffers. Thats being completely shut down before it even started with this.

Really unhappy with this change. And i really hope you reconsider. Even if it means compromising and making some of those conditions work with reduced effectiveness on the big bosses.

Also whats the point in having unique hard CC’s and soft CC’s if they all provide the same predetermined effect/stun on breakbar destruction. Its dull. Please at least spare soft CC’s from this fate.

I too echo this sentiment. If debuff conditions do the same thing as hard CC, why even bother bringing them at all? You can’t relieve pressure on your allies and it dumbs down the game. Just bring someone with heavy hard CC instead and forget actual debuffing even exists. More efficient and probably more damaging anyway.

Plus, this really kills any shot of Necros being wanted in raids or other future content. Necros probably have the best and most reliable access to these debuffing conditions, but against Defiant foes, a Hammer warrior will deal more damage to both health and defiance bar as well as bringing superior party support.

Aatrox is pretty much the ideal model for a siphon build: If you don’t lock him down or limit his healing, he will out-sustain whatever you’re throwing at him.

Captain Unusual.9163:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Captain Unusual.9163:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Simply put, because any ICD negates the ability for it to scale. Any build gets a pretty decent heal off of Life Transfer or Soul Spiral with Vampiric/Vampiric Aura traits, so this isn’t that any build can’t use it well. Sure, some builds can use it better, but that should always be the case. You invest in using something more effectively, it should be more effective!

Life Siphon will always be a volatile mechanic, but all that putting an ICD on it does is chop off the upper end of the bell curve. It doesn’t flatten it or help the lower end in any way.

In what way does increasing its value but putting an ICD on it not help the lower end of the curve?

Because the lower end of the curve is still reliant on being able to hit someone which, between Blinds, blocks, evades, and disables, can be shut down for extended periods.

I’m still not getting it. Explain to me how a Gravedigger hitting once every 2 seconds and stealing 400 life is not better than a Gravedigger hitting once every two seconds and stealing 100 life.

Gravedigger hitting once and stealing 400 health every 2 seconds is better than Gravedigger hitting once and stealing 100 health, sure. But which is better: Gravedigger hitting five times and stealing 400 health or Gravedigger hitting five times and stealing 500 health?

This is where ICD’s and siphons don’t mix well: multi-hit abilities. Any time an attack hits more than once, whether it’s on the same target or different ones, an ICD prevents any hits beyond the first from doing anything.

Robert, since Shambling Horrors are getting a unique model, is there any chance you could poke the art team about giving Jagged Horrors a unique model as well instead of sharing it with Bone Minions?

Captain Unusual.9163:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Simply put, because any ICD negates the ability for it to scale. Any build gets a pretty decent heal off of Life Transfer or Soul Spiral with Vampiric/Vampiric Aura traits, so this isn’t that any build can’t use it well. Sure, some builds can use it better, but that should always be the case. You invest in using something more effectively, it should be more effective!

Life Siphon will always be a volatile mechanic, but all that putting an ICD on it does is chop off the upper end of the bell curve. It doesn’t flatten it or help the lower end in any way.

In what way does increasing its value but putting an ICD on it not help the lower end of the curve?

Because the lower end of the curve is still reliant on being able to hit someone which, between Blinds, blocks, evades, and disables, can be shut down for extended periods.

Jekkt.6045:

this is a double edged sword because it’s only a block now, not an invul anymore. this means that all the unblockable skills like greater marks 5, mirror blade, phoenix, tool kit pull will go through this.

not saying that it is bad, just saying that it also has new downsides.

On the other hand, now it synergizes with Runes of the Guardian.

Defiance bars everywhere need tuning (and in PvE especially, scaling!). The concept, even on player skills, is fine. It just needs to be tuned properly (and not eat soft CC like Cripple and Chill, too many traits tied to those conditions being on a target).

Is the Defiance bar trivial to break? Adjust how much is needed to pop it. Also, why is it breaking? Is it usually from burst CC or is it from sustained applications? If the later, boost it’s regeneration rate. Is it not getting broken except in total focus fire CC burst? The bar should probably be reduced.

Additionally, they can play around more with how a break bar works. Warriors and Necros could both thematically have a break bar that fills when CC’d and degenerates over time, leading to a massive attack or steroid when it peaks.

Vapour.7348:

If beginners gravitate towards condi builds, then they should understand the basic mechanics of condition damage and therefore be aware of its effects. Awareness includes the importance of having cleanses.

If you conclude beginners gravitate towards condi builds, isn’t it weird for them to easily die from it at the same time? More than anyone else, they should be more cautious towards other conditions and have good defense against the same exact thing they try to kill others with.

I actually believe that beginners are more inclined to high dps physical damage more than conditions. Of course the difference between a highly skilled player and a noob is how much of their skills actually land on opponents and how much longer they survive in combat.

You would think so, which is why these threads are always so silly.

Muchacho.2390:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Muchacho.2390:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

anduriell.6280:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Forgetting Executioner’s Scythe? We have a buttload of Chill in Reaper’s Shroud thanks to that ice field and finishers. It’s very, very easy as a Reaper to have high Chill uptime.

Executioner’s Scythe only apply 1 second of chill that last the same as the Stun it applies. I think the chill there is just to give a nice touch to the skill more than actual utility.

In my tests i couldn’t get any uptime with chilled in gameplay, no theorycrafting here. The base of our chill uptime is the Chilling Scythe but that AA chain is so slow that your target is out of reach most of the times. I think i could land it like 10 times in pvE none in WvW.

Executioner’s Scythe pulses Chill with the ice field.

I dont think this is correct. Most of the chill should come from comboing the field (deathspiral and deaths charge for the frostarmor) not the field itself.

It is, actually. The Chill listed in the tooltip is based on the Ice Field, not the actual hit.

No i meant that the field doesnt pulse.

The stun and damage is single traget, the chill is aoe but it doesnt pulse.

I could have sworn it was pulsing, but there’s no way to check that right now.

We can revisit this in a couple weeks when we can test.

Muchacho.2390:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

anduriell.6280:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Forgetting Executioner’s Scythe? We have a buttload of Chill in Reaper’s Shroud thanks to that ice field and finishers. It’s very, very easy as a Reaper to have high Chill uptime.

Executioner’s Scythe only apply 1 second of chill that last the same as the Stun it applies. I think the chill there is just to give a nice touch to the skill more than actual utility.

In my tests i couldn’t get any uptime with chilled in gameplay, no theorycrafting here. The base of our chill uptime is the Chilling Scythe but that AA chain is so slow that your target is out of reach most of the times. I think i could land it like 10 times in pvE none in WvW.

Executioner’s Scythe pulses Chill with the ice field.

I dont think this is correct. Most of the chill should come from comboing the field (deathspiral and deaths charge for the frostarmor) not the field itself.

It is, actually. The Chill listed in the tooltip is based on the Ice Field, not the actual hit.

Blaine Tog.8304:

I don’t mind the channel time, personally. What I mind is how you lose so much DPS and don’t even heal for that much. Without several lifesteal traits to back up Life Siphon’s 9 hits, it heals for bubkis; with them, it’s only kindasorta ok. I’d prefer for the number of hits to go down (to normalize the skill between vampire and non-vampire builds) and for the damage and healing to go up so it would feel really good to use the skill rather than just something to kill time with if I’m ever forced to back away from a boss mob for a few seconds.

Try building some healing power instead of insisting Necros scale badly with it. Necros have some of the best scaling in the entire game with Healing Power and Life Siphon works out to heal for more health/second than Consume Conditions had pre-nerf.

Yes, that’s a weapon skill that acts as a second heal skill. It’s easy for me to heal up 9k with Life Siphon in between casts of Consume Conditions. That’s not “healing bubkis”

anduriell.6280:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Forgetting Executioner’s Scythe? We have a buttload of Chill in Reaper’s Shroud thanks to that ice field and finishers. It’s very, very easy as a Reaper to have high Chill uptime.

Executioner’s Scythe only apply 1 second of chill that last the same as the Stun it applies. I think the chill there is just to give a nice touch to the skill more than actual utility.

In my tests i couldn’t get any uptime with chilled in gameplay, no theorycrafting here. The base of our chill uptime is the Chilling Scythe but that AA chain is so slow that your target is out of reach most of the times. I think i could land it like 10 times in pvE none in WvW.

Executioner’s Scythe pulses Chill with the ice field.

In my experience, so long as you’re running Blighter’s Boon, Reapers can do quite well on frontline. You do need to work some Protection into your build (Spectral Wall is good for that and Chaos Armor provides synergy with Blighter’s Boon), but you can beat things up with the rest of them, since Reapers have decent Stability. Shouts are actually really strong in ZvZ, especially NCSY, YAAW, and CttB. Augury of Death is a good pick there to amp up your shout frequency.

Greatsword also works fine on frontline, since in the chaos, people will miss seeing your animations (or just be out of dodges) and Nightfall and Grasping Darkness are great tools for zergs.

If it’s safe for Warriors and Guardians to be up there, it’s most likely safe for a Reaper. You just need to watch out for counter-pushes more.

Forgetting Executioner’s Scythe? We have a buttload of Chill in Reaper’s Shroud thanks to that ice field and finishers. It’s very, very easy as a Reaper to have high Chill uptime.

Simply put, because any ICD negates the ability for it to scale. Any build gets a pretty decent heal off of Life Transfer or Soul Spiral with Vampiric/Vampiric Aura traits, so this isn’t that any build can’t use it well. Sure, some builds can use it better, but that should always be the case. You invest in using something more effectively, it should be more effective!

Life Siphon will always be a volatile mechanic, but all that putting an ICD on it does is chop off the upper end of the bell curve. It doesn’t flatten it or help the lower end in any way.

ronpierce.2760:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ronpierce.2760:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yeah, the change to Chilling Force is, in most scenarios, a buff. Against one target, there is no difference. You have to have two chilled targets, then hit each one with a separate strike to even have a difference.

That’s not entirely true. (Though the might duration is a buff), intervals allow zero hit frame delays on effect. Essentially, it was easy to get the benefit every 1 second you were attacking. With slow attacks of GS, you might trigger the 1 sec CD, attack at .8, and not get to hit again until 1.6 and trigger the 1 second from that point. In the long run you actually lose out quite a bit of potency, especially with a slower weapon. By all technicality, the Life Force generation was nerfed.

No, it is entirely true. Chilling Force before would not proc on successive pulses of Locust Swarm or a well, for example. Now it still won’t, but multiple Reapers can all get life force from the same foe at the cost of rapid hits hitting two separate, chilled targets without overlap on the first strike not proccing it on the second one hit.

The “interval” was still an ICD with all that entails, but it was on the target instead of the player.

That’s how intervals work? o.O Is there a source for that?

I was under the impression they were just personal time lapses that reset at certain intervals. Well my bad if that is the case, but I’m a bit surprised they’d design anything like that, where as what I assume was how they worked would technically be the best way to handle short ICDs to normalize against attack speeds.

Gee explained the reason for the change as to allow multiple Reapers hitting the same target to benefit in the first post.

It’s not so easy to code a proper per-enemy ICD that allows multiple people with the same ability to benefit. Unfortunately, doing that would also put a heavy strain on the server.

Consider a standard PVP match where one team is all Reapers with Chilling Force and the other team has none. That is a minumum of 25 separate cooldowns the game has to track, and this is assuming no summons, pets, or NPC’s on that map. Say one on the non-Reaper team is a Ranger. Immedietly, another 5 cooldowns need to be tracked.

Expand this to WvW where it can easily add another 300+ cooldowns to be tracked and you can see where things get dicey for the server.

ronpierce.2760:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yeah, the change to Chilling Force is, in most scenarios, a buff. Against one target, there is no difference. You have to have two chilled targets, then hit each one with a separate strike to even have a difference.

That’s not entirely true. (Though the might duration is a buff), intervals allow zero hit frame delays on effect. Essentially, it was easy to get the benefit every 1 second you were attacking. With slow attacks of GS, you might trigger the 1 sec CD, attack at .8, and not get to hit again until 1.6 and trigger the 1 second from that point. In the long run you actually lose out quite a bit of potency, especially with a slower weapon. By all technicality, the Life Force generation was nerfed.

No, it is entirely true. Chilling Force before would not proc on successive pulses of Locust Swarm or a well, for example. Now it still won’t, but multiple Reapers can all get life force from the same foe at the cost of rapid hits hitting two separate, chilled targets without overlap on the first strike not proccing it on the second one hit.

The “interval” was still an ICD with all that entails, but it was on the target instead of the player.

Yeah, the change to Chilling Force is, in most scenarios, a buff. Against one target, there is no difference. You have to have two chilled targets, then hit each one with a separate strike to even have a difference.

RedDeadFred.1256:

I think that this is part of the theme of mesmers. It only makes sense that there should be some confusion when someone is going in and out of stealth and creating clones. Having you automatically retarget the player for a mesmer sort of mitigates what I find makes them unique.

Minion necromancers is another story though. The clutter of all the minions swarming around them does make the fight a lot harder than it should be. They basically have a distinct advantage in that they are attacking you first. This confusion theme doesn’t really go with them.

However, I don’t think they should have the autoretarget for one and not the other, so I say leave it as is and let people get better at dealing with them. I say this as someone who regularly loses completely winnable 1v1s to minion masters.

Hit tab. You have the Necro targeted.

Why do people not understand this?

Very fun to watch.

Atherakhia.4086:

Sigmoid.7082:

D best.3547:

skill coeficient*power is what appears on the skill tooltip.

All tooltips show:
Skill coeff*power*average weapon damage/2600

as 2600 is armour of a heavy golem.

This is correct. The wiki assumes a base power of 916 iirc as well. That’s where its damage comes from.

Come to think of it, that should all get updated to the 1,000 base we now have.

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

Cynz.9437:

Constant target dropping is the whole idea of stealth/clones…… let’s not make this game more braindead than it is already.

which i would be content with if it soley applied to just stealth and clones. But this goes father, pets, minons, other players, NPC’s. It’s ridiculous. I should lose my target cause i accidentaly grazed a kitten raptor in a wvw match.

Good thing that doesn’t happen then. The only time something akin to that happens is when you have auto-target on (turn it off, dummy) and your target stealths.

It does not happen when you are fighting someone and accidentally hit something else. You don’t change targets that way. Try not clicking on the guy that’s right in front of you. You really shouldn’t be left-clicking anything in combat unless you want that as your target.

Bobby.3721:

Even had friend get an artist to do an awesome picture of my main.

Same here. Of course, I paid her to do it, but still…

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

I have to agree, targetting is such an chore. I completely believe that stealth, Or player moving far enought out of your reach should warrant you not bieng able to target them and you should have to retarget. However yeah the targeting bussiness is either very complicated or just outright annoying. Appearantly even with hitting tab, u stand a chance of targeting a clone. It’s a chore. It does sometimes suck losing fights to rangers, necro’s or mesmers because u spend half of the fight trying to target the right player. I honestly wonder why it’s so kitten complicated.

Like i seriously wonder what is so hard for an target to actually keep the target on said target untill you choose to change? it’s ridiculous. that even with said tab button u only stand a decent chance of hitting the right person. Well mesmers can prolly get a pass here. But i feel the auto targeting system can definately be shaved up.

Rangers and Necros are easy. Mesmers are the only profession where Tab targeting has a chance of hitting a non-player because clones are supposed to be confusing.

That said, for stealth-happy foes, call target on them when they’re visible. When they unstealth, just hit ’t" and you have them locked again.

Embolism.8106:

As for sPvP, well, I think the fact that no true condition build other than Burn Guard has seen tourney level play says it all. If you’re arguing about condition builds being too effective against newbies (which may or may not be true, not the point here), I’d say balance should not be based on the lowest common denominator.

Terrormancer saw tourney play for a while, but its output kept getting nerfed repeatedly due to Dhuumfire. Then the condition overhaul happened and, due to Necro not having decent burning and the bleed nerfs, it dropped even further into being totally unviable.

Sarevok.2638:

Heavy Clutter from Minionmancers or Mesmers is an absolute chore to wade through with a mouse especially when ALL OF THEM ARE MOVING, and in the heat of a fight it is only further to their advantage that you need to cycle with your keys to find them again.

It isn’t an entirely invalid point.

You don’t need to cycle! That is what people keep failing to grasp. If you don’t have a target, hitting “tab” will not select a pet, minion, turret, spirit, spirit weapon, elemental, summoned thief, or phantasm. It will select a player or a clone if there are any in range and not stealthed. And it will cycle through players/clones until you have gone through all of them. Then, and only then, will it select an NPC.

Vague Memory.2817:

Necros with lots of minions are a problem with targeting. The point of minions are not to confuse the opponent’s targeting, but Mesmer clones are specifically there to do that. I can’t think of many cases where you would want to target and kill a minion rather than the Necro, so you should auto target the necro every time you attack or press tab, but that doesn’t happen. In this case I think this is an unintended beneficial effect.

If you have a minion selected, deselect and hit “tab.” You now have the Necro targeted. Or some other player.

Other than Mesmer clones, all player-created things are on a lower targeting priority than players are. There’s no excuse to have difficulty getting a Ranger over his pet or a Necro over his minions.

Blue Arremer.9628:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Balanced games are more fun to play, plain and simple.

It’s not that cut-and-dry, though I guess for an MMO balance becomes a lot more important.

It is a bit more complex, but that brings in the concept of “perfect imbalance.” Things will be different and thus unblanced. But to be fun, those unblances can’t be too large.

Allow me to put this in perspective from a broader design standpoint.

The primary goal of game developers is to make something that is fun to play. By pursuing this goal, balance also occurs. Balanced games are more fun to play, plain and simple. Goldeneye on the N64 is considered a very fun game, until some jerk picks Oddjob, then the game becomes drastically less fun. Why? Because Oddjob was by far the best character (everyone else was equal). If Goldeneye were released today, Oddjob would probably get patched to be more in line with the rest of the characters.

For another example, League of Legends patches for fun. The recent Juggernaut update is a prime example, as Garen already saw decent use, but got updated anyway to define his particular role. Skarner, however, was the massive benefactor, jumping up to the highest winrate that LoL has ever seen on a champion (65%+). Yet despite the cries to nerf his damage and tankiness, they nerfed his passive in a way that did neither of those things in most teamfights. Instead, it slowed down his jungle clear early game and actually made him even stronger late. This weird change had the desired effect: Skarner’s winrate, while still over 50%, dropped very significantly.

So why that change? It created new openings to counterjungle Skarner or to fight him when he was invading your jungle. It toned down his greatest strength while leaving his playstyle intact. If the opponents never tried to fight Skarner, though, it meant nothing, since it barely affected his clear time and he’s basically a no-risk champion on actually clearing it all.

Vague Memory.2817:

Even before the big (so called) balance changes, pugging against a condi team is very difficult, and from matches I’ve played would tend to win mid, and the match. After the balance changes I found this to be even more true. Being able to plaster a point with huge lingering aoe condition fields definitely gives an advantage to that team. There is just no way you can cleanse multiple conditions that are constantly being reapplied. So you have to fight off point or try and tag their home point.

If they’re plastering the point with AoE condition fields, go cap the other two points. There are only two of those fields with any strong uptime (Combustive Shot and Corrosive Poison Cloud) and only one of those is any good. So if you can’t avoid the pulsing condis, it’s because the majority of their team is sitting on that one point. So go cap the other two.

Lily.1935:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Good suggestions for sure. I want to have a legendary trail with my Frostfang, dangit!

At least, I will if axe ever not sucks.

expect something in November or December for necromancer. I honestly don’t see anything sooner than that for fixing our god awful weapons.

By then, Frostfang might be living on my Revenant :/

Garm.9750:

Charr running animation is quite stupid really. First off, it doesn’t make character go any faster, so it feels really awkward. I see the reasoning, but when you play as charr that doesn’t make any sense and breaks up immersion. The second thing is that is the only animation which makes character run on his fours. If you strafe right/left character will suddenly go bipedal, if you get slow/chill condition character will use bipedal animation as well. Walking? Bipedal. Standing? Bipedal. Not to mention NPCs, I never seen them running on fours.

What you’re seeing there is a mechanics/lore disconnect for the sake of balance. Canonically, charr can outrun any other sapient race on Tyria. In Ghosts of Ascalon, Ember Doomforge uses this to her advantage and outrun basically every ghost in Ascalon City at once. Buuut, we can’t have one race running so much faster than all the rest for reasons of game balance.

As for strafing, that one is simple. Quadrupedal stances don’t strafe well. Since Charr are capable of walking on two legs, they do so to strafe much faster.

Before you say that running is the only animation that has a charr run on all fours, pick up a Greatsword on your Guardian, Ranger, or Warrior and use the dash skill. Or give them a banner and use that dash. The “surprised” emote also has them standing on all fours.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Tuomir.1830:

Ice.5162:

I always was confused by the hunch-back phenomenon. It’s as if all the art designers in all these games have this bias that hunch = barbaric and beastly. Which I find laughable, just put them upstraight like any two-legged vertebraetes known to man and every imaginable universe and hunch them down when holding weapons / combat stance.

The charr aren’t fully bipedal, though – even though npc charr run on two legs, player charr clearly prefer running on all fours when possible. When your primary means of running is by four legs, hunched back makes sense – having the back curve backwards to stand up straight would put too much strain on the spine of such a heavy creature on transition to running.

Also, are you aware of bipedal dinosaurs?

Or birds for that matter. Or kangaroos. They don’t stand up vertically like humans.

Take a look at basilisk lizards. Quadrupedal animals that run on only two legs.

Good suggestions for sure. I want to have a legendary trail with my Frostfang, dangit!

At least, I will if axe ever not sucks.

Doggie.3184:

My only problem with Charr is there’s no option to make them stand upright like some proud noble GW1 Charr did. Would like to have some primal/tribal looking armor though for Charr and Sylvari.

Because the flame legion (hardly “noble”) were constantly craning their necks and making themselves very uncomfortable for aesthetic purposes. If you notice, the other three legions didn’t use that posture in GW1.

To give you a hint how that position would feel to a charr, stand up and stare straight at the ceiling for ten minutes. No looking anywhere else.

That gives you a taste.

Silverkey.2078:

Muchacho.2390:

Silverkey.2078:

The number on the tooltip is already
Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor

but computed with a specific armor value which I don’t remember.

According to the wiki it is dependend on your level. For level 80 characters it is 2600 armor.

See: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage under tooltip damage

This value works well in PvE, but in PvP, in my experience, it does not quite work. Or maybe they just do not use the weapon strength we think…

Tooltips automatically take your equipped weapon into account, regardless of its weapon strength.

Basically, finding the coeficient of weapon skills is easy. Utility skills are tougher, since those tooltips do not reflect your equipped weapon’s damage, but do use your current Power.

To find a weapon skill coefficient, do the following:

1. Look at your skill’s tooltip. Take the damage value listed. Remember that if a skill’s damage is listed as something like “1,000 (x8),” this means that the total skill damage is 1,000, but divided over 8 hits. It is not 8,000 damage.

2. Take the value from step 1 and multiply by 2600 (assuming you are a level 80 character).

3. Find your Power stat. Divide your step 2 value by your Power stat.

4. Find your average weapon damage. This refers to the actual piece of gear you have equipped. In PvP, you may have to do this through the PvP panel (I haven’t paid attention to see if the weapons update on your hero panel to the fixed PvP values). Take the minimum and the maximum, add them together, and divide by 2.

5. Divide your value from step 3 by your value from step 4. The end result is the skill coefficient for that skill. You may have to do a bit of educated rounding, since this almost always results in many places beyond the decimal.

For example, let’s look at Ghastly Claws, the Necro Axe 2 skill. We’ll be looking at a Maurader Amulet with Vampirism runes (viablility of the build is unimportant for showing the calculations).

This skill has a tooltip value of 2,504. Multiplied by 2600, we have 6,510,400. This value here is known as raw damage and can be used to calculate your average non-crit damage against any armor rating you choose. Just divide this value by the armor rating you want to work with.

Back to the calculation we were working with, we have a Power stat of 2,225. So, that 6,510,400 divided by 2,225 results in 2,926.0224719

Told you that educated rounding would be a thing. Now, we need to factor out weapon damage. Average PvP axe weapon damage is 952.5 Divide the prior number by that and you get 3.071939. Some educated rounding and you get a total coefficient of 3.0.

Well of Blood really needs its healing power scaling on the pulses upped by ~83% and it should be fine. The Light field with Reaper finishers is actually pretty potent.

Corrosive Poison Cloud needs some extra effect, and Projectile destruction seems like the best fit, both thematically and with the needs of the profession as a whole. It also turns CPC from an ignorable circle to a “you fight me here and on my terms” skill.

Spectral Grasp really just needs improved projectile speed and homing ability. Give it those and it’s a fantastic skill.

Signet of Undeath just needs a shorter cast time or a complete overhaul.

Well of Darkness… I don’t know what to do with that but it needs a major change.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

runeblade.7514:

Elementalist don’t have the lockdown + burst.

They have high pressure, high sustain. But they cannot 100-0 in a few seconds.

Fresh Air says “hi”.

Yeah, Fresh Air can burst any player down from full health in less than a second. However, that build doesn’t have “high pressure, high sustain.”

Eles as a profession don’t really have any weaknesses at all. A particular build might have something it doesn’t do so well, but the profession doesn’t. Only thing they can’t do is strip boons (and then Tempest came along…)

Rym.1469:

First I’d just like to make it work in Shroud. We don’t have PTRs, so just make it live. If it continues to suck balls as hard as it does now, then think about changing that.

This. Make it work in shroud first, then evaluate from there. Chances are, it will still suck, but then it would be a more mathematical problem than design.

Necro’s are even better defined than Engineer’s, actually. Necros lack mobility and avoidance ability. Basically, whatever you want to do to a Necro, they have to take. They can’t run away, they can’t ignore CC, and they can’t prevent you from hitting them. Their sustain also relies upon hitting their foes, so if you can avoid that, you starve them.

They also lack burst ability, lucky Lich Form crits (proccing Fire+Air+ Chill of Death) notwithstanding.

Forsaken.7015:

So now your arguing what ifs… perma endure pain… DS isnt perm its only 1500 hp thats it. So if you have some direct damage wait till the hp drops save your condi burst then use it when its effective. Problem solved but now where back at the point I originally made smart players know how to deal with it, and on the power its not a condition or a secondary stat but can be countered by weakness endure pain there are several invuls not to mention you die very easily if you make a mistake.

Sad that changes keep getting made to cater to casual players that dont think about what they are doing and just QQ…. end rant

Here’s the thing: that 1700 hp is incredibly difficult to break, even for Carrion builds. The Ele keeps healing back up faster than it can be dealt. In fact, it’s usually impossible, as the Ele’s healing/second is higher than a Carrion build’s physical DPS.

So what are the counters to the constant healing? Well, Poison. Which…can’t be applied. Hmmm.

Okay, what else? Hard CC like Fear…oh wait. Well, I suppose you can immobilize them to set up what limited Power burst you do have. Crap, that’s negated too.

Condition builds cannot break this trait, even taking Power as a secondary stat. This isn’t a “Oh, well, if you outplay.” No. This is a literal impossibility. The healing/second of a Celestial Diamond Skin ele with Signet of Restoration just sitting in water attunement and auto-attacking (with no other actions) is higher than the direct DPS of a Carrion build. Diamond Skin cannot be broken.

In the slim chance of a long string of lucky crits (remember, no Precision), the ele finally has to do something else, which usually could just be “dodge roll to proc Cleansing Water, putting you well above the threshold as well as cleansing whatever they did manage to put on.” So, not only is the effort of maintaining the DS trivial, restoring it when it gets broken is pitifully easy.

Can you out-rotate? Not usually. Condition builds tend to have fairly poor mobility (Mesmers being an exception). In live environments, you frequently have to deal with teammates being occupied or reinforcements being delayed.

Diamond Skin Ele vs. Condition build is the only matchup in the entire game where the result is a foregone conclusion. You can’t out-play it, and you can’t brute-force it.

And yet, against anyone else, the trait barely does anything at all.

So why do people continue to defend this trait’s current incarnation? What people have been arguing is to make the trait more intelligent, removing the niche auto-win while still making it good in those situations and making it good against everything else as well.

style.6173:

Some of you actually seem to think that burning is balancing right now.

Burning in and of itself is fine. There are lots of factors, though, that put it over the top.

For example, you’re a lot more concerned about the burning from an Ele than a Necro, even if their condition damage is the same. Application rate is everything for this particular comparison.

Forsaken.7015:

Your apparently missing my point you notice when I said smart players have no problem dealing with it. It is not a “guaranteed win” If you fail to have direct damage in your build then you have essentially put all your eggs in one basket shame on you. He may win the fight but this is a team based game if you realize the fight will be lost you rotate. Once you know the build you know how to deal with it and if its a counter to your build you +1 the build or rotate around it. Work smarter not harder.

So, is a shatterburst mesmer putting all of their eggs in one basket? What if they run into someone who is permanently under the effects of Endure Pain? Shouldn’t they have some condition damage in their build? Of course, so shame on them for not having it.

Oh wait…the game doesn’t work like that.

Bhawb.7408:

Focus 4:
Now a Projectile Finisher
Regeneration replaced with Might/Fury or some other better boon than regen

Focus 5:
Cast time to 1s

That’s pretty much all it needs to be much better.

I’d like to see Focus 4 get a cast time reduction to 1/2 second from 3/4.

Bumy.8057:

choovanski.5462:

evades, blocks, and most invuns work against condi damage, and you have resistance

I don’t know how delusional you are but, evades and blocks do nothing against condition damage. You can’t evade conditions nor block them once they are applied to you the only way to get rid of them is through cleanse.

You could try avoiding the application. It’s no harder than avoiding a Power based attack.

For example, Grasping Dead is no harder to avoid than Maul, but I bet I know which one you dodge and which you ignore at the time.