Guild Wars 2

Every 3 months is fine.

The problem we have right now is that balance is so bad that players want it fixed right away.

Or
Or

We just reduce the damage from chill and take the ridiculous boon corrupt off scepter auto-attack.

I would really like this. It would make it a lot more useful in PvP. Right now it fails half the time because the target is strafing.

There will likely be a balance patch on April 19 (Tuesday after season2 ranked play ends). It will be a big (by ANet standards) balance patch.

If it doesn’t nerf elite specs considerably, PvP in this game will continue to wither.

If you’re near the top of Ruby, you can be matched against people who are low in Diamond.

Lol, tier depends more on luck and time played than skill.

Best was just before Dhumbfire patch. But I would gladly take anything pre-HoT.

So does 1 mean I want less of it and 10 mean I want it to be more like that? The survey isn’t well defined.

Sounds like a job for Target Golem!

I’d like to see it return. Quickness and Slow on stomp/res was fine until elite specs + Revenant. Quickness was usually on long cooldowns or had trade-offs.

With elite specs and Revenant, there’s too much access to quickness and slow with no real trade-off. Unless quickness and slow go back to pre-HoT levels, rez/stomp needs to remain unaffected by them.

The lord needs condi clear and has for a while.

But most of the problem is power creep from HoT. Bring elite specs and revenant into line with pre-HoT stuff and it will take time and skill to solo the lord.

Legendary has worse players than I’ve ever seen in Diamond and Ruby.

RS#5 animation doesn’t play properly half the time.

Nope, he’s at the keep at the top of the eastern stairs facing the node.

There’s actually multiple teams in the picture.

1. PvP Development Team They work on stuff like Stronghold, leagues, and various PvP systems.
2. Profession Design Development Team These are the guys who do balance updates. It’s quite obvious they have very little knowledge of PvP.
3. Marketing They ponied up the money for ProLeague and other events.

What’s wrong exactly?

The Wings of Ascension item is supposed to work that way. Either you’re good at PvP and play fairly regularly and get it quick, or you’re not that good or play infrequently and it takes you a lot longer to obtain.

How about instead of removing amulets, we nerf the traits and abilities which are too strong?

I played non-HoT bunker guard for about half my games from Diamond to Legendary.

What I found is the most important factor in advancing is having a proper team comp over playing a single build. You need at least one point holder, though two is ideal. One should be able to survive and support in team fights. A mobile damage dealer is also very useful, but having more of your damage able to swing bigger fights is preferable.

They’re trying to balance. They’re just really bad at it.

Jekkt.6045:

there is no mmr hell. the only “hell” some players are in is their own, thinking they are better than they actually are.

Your personal anecdote serves no purpose. As long as you keep a decently high MMR, you get matched with better players, you win a good amount of the time, and your MMR stays high.

In another thread, someone has evidence based on math that it does exist. I think I’ll trust that over elitism.

MMR hell exists for the players who are good, but not as good as proleague. If you get a bit of bad luck, it drops your MMR and then the system begins to pair you with bad teammates. If you don’t break out of that, your MMR just drops more and you get even worse teammates who are beyond carrying. Some of them are so bad, it would be better to not have them because they’re rally botting.

This is particularly prevalent if it happens right after your cross into ruby, diamond, or legendary. All the people who advanced through luck and being carried but are terrible players pool at the bottom of the tier. If you get on a losing streak at the bottom of a tier, you’re pretty much gonna be screwed.

Sarrs.4831:

Game needs more divisions with tier loss.

I’ve seen awful people in legendary. Even with loss throughout, it wouldn’t matter.

Just because you have something which isn’t meta doesn’t mean it’s bad. I’ve seen tons of people with meta builds who are, mostly because they have no clue what their role is or how to rotate. Thinks like druids who try to be teamfight anchors, mesmers who don’t look for de-caps, necros which run into lost fights, etc.

In diamond, that’s been the biggest cause for losses.

There’s really no point in leagues either.

Getting to Ruby is just time. Better players get there faster, but anyone can get to Ruby.

Ruby and Diamond are having some semblence of skill, but getting through them depends mostly on luck and what times of the day you play. Skill gets you to legendary faster, but it’s less of an influence.

When the vast majority of GW2 players are Ruby and Diamond, is there really any point in having any other leagues?

I disagree that we need to restrict players to fixed builds.

The problem with current PvP is that a handful of builds are better than everything else. If you go back even just a year, you had many builds which were “meta” for high level play and many more which were competitive. There could be slight variations in them and they were still useful.

Further, few of these builds were decided by ANet. Most were figured out by players testing various combinations of traits and amulets. Without the ability to test and discover new combinations, PvP will stagnate. Variation is what keeps the environment fresh and interesting.

Lastly, this is an MMORPG. Part of that is a large degree of customization. If you restrict that too much, it kills the feel of the game. If you have to play with set abilities in PvP, why not just play a MOBA?

MarkPhilips.5169:

It can be better because you can balance an entire game around it.

So you basically want templates to turn PvP builds into MOBA characters where they have fixed abilities and you have to choose from a list of pre-defined builds.

How would this help in the current environment? There’s basically 7 meta builds across 6 professions (revenant can be power or condi). They’re just so much better than everything else.

Anari.2137:

The reason is because we are not addressing the cause of the disease (in balance) we are addressing the symptoms (op classes/specs).

Sorry, but OP classes/specs are the problem. With a worse amulet/rune system than we have now, we had much more variation in competitive builds prior to HoT.

The only problem with the amulet and rune system is that we don’t have enough stat customization on the amulets. No need to completely change it.

Statistics/metrics will tell you what you want them to. They have to be taken with a grain of salt and approached in different ways. It’s why matchmaking looked like it was working correctly at first (different from the design, as opposed to bad design).

Mooncow.6847:

What about what I said makes you think that?

Here’s a start at what you did wrong or failed to do:

Revenant

• General Revenant abilities need a pass on cooldown, energy use, and effect, especially because they can weapon swap (not part of the original design). A lot of abilities have low cooldowns or low energy cost for a larger benefit than abilities of other professions.
• Surge of the Mists The problem isn’t the evade. In fact, it should have an evade or else you’re screwing yourself over. The problem is the damage it can put out. It’s acting like the old “whirlwind against a wall” mechanic. If the damage was significantly reduced, the ability would be mostly fine.
• Enchanted Daggers Consuming a charge when an attack fails to land (block, miss, evade, immune) is more than enough of a nerf.
• Riposting Shadows Agree about removing endurance gain, but the stun break needs to stay. However, adding a long cooldown to stop that goes against the Revenant playstyle. It is a 30 energy ability (could stand to be a bit lower w/o the endurance gain), so it’s not exactly spammable.
• Banish Enchantment This ability needs an energy cost increase to limit how much it can be spammed. It has to remain unblockable so that it can corrupt Aegis (other boon strips are unblockable).
• Mallyx Abilities need a re-design now that they don’t apply self-conditions. The Demonic Defiance trait should be re-designed, since the entire purpose was to protect you from self-conditions, and those no longer exist.
• Pain Absorption This ability is fine. It’s Revenant version of a cleanse. The problem is the Demonic Defiance trait.
• Retribution Some of the passives aren’t too bad, but are too broad. If stability on dodge was limited to Jalis, it would be fine.
• Eye for an Eye This trait is a shining example of passive traits gone too far. Remove the taunt and re-balance.
• Radiant Revival Infuse Light is the problem, not the revive speed increase. Practically every revive trait has the 10% increase now.

Necromancer
You went way too far on this. Condi reaper is supported by two things. Nerf them and it’s pretty balanced:

• Deathly Chill Scaling needs a hefty nerf. It should be a small bonus; not tied for the main damage source from a condi reaper.
• Putrid Curse (Scepter 1c) No longer corrupts boons. This is was a very shortsighted attempt to counter boon spam from elite specs.
  A few other things to look at:
• Signets of Suffering Number of boons corrupted reduce to 1.
• “Rise!” Damage reduction should be based on number of minion hits, not 50% as long as one hits.
• Plague Sending This eventually needs changed, but it’s main strength is against condition damage builds. It can stay for now.
  Chill durations are fine when they aren’t dealing lots of damage. The reaper shouts don’t need many nerfs; they’re a little weak in small fights and stronger in big fights. It’s an interesting mechanic with trade-offs which should stay. If you want to remove life force on death, Necros need to be able to build it much faster and start the game with some. Better to leave it alone for now. Staff is good enough for now.

Guardian
Dragonhunter needs a hefty re-work. Also, you missed the more problematic stuff, including a brain-dead passive:

• Heavy Light Change to 100% chance to knockdown when longbow#3 hits. If you increase the cooldown on True Shot, that may even be a better candidate.
• Purification Healing reduced signficantly
• Wings of Resolve Healing needs reduced
• Traps No longer grant boons.
  Once the elite spec nonsense clears up, guardian will need a thorough review of its core trait lines. A lot of them are too weak, even against core specs, and held up by a handful of overly powerful traits.

Engineer
I haven’t played scrapper a lot, so can’t say what to do with hammer, but

• Slick Shoes Leave it as-is and reduce the total ability duration. That means less puddles total, which means you can’t knock someone down as much.
• Hammer Not sure if it needs a damage nerf. Scrapper’s strength is that it has so many defensive abilities on low cooldowns which also deal significant damage. If you make those less available, it might solve the problems.
• Elixir B Just remove retaliation from it completely. It’s not something engi should have unless they combo for it.
• Healing Turret I’m pretty sure that he cooldown reduction comes from overcharging it. If you explode or pick it up without overcharging, the CD is 20 seconds. Just make it always a 20sec CD regardless of overcharge or explosion.
• Elixir X Change tornado to Lich, increase cooldown of the ability. It’s now a dependable heavy damage elite. Alchemy changes fix the rest.
• Alchemy This trait line is as good as the scrapper trait line or better and needs nerfs. Minor grandmaster is only boon duration. Remove the elixir duration increase from HGH and put the condi clear on elixir use there. Consider removing cooldown reduction from elixirs since it affects so many abilities now.
• Rapid Regeneration Suggest removing swiftness from this altogether. It’s far too easy to have permanent swiftness as engi.
• Perfectly Weighted The stability on evade needs to change (way to easy since you can get it from evading random attacks), but scrapper needs another source of stability which has better counter-play.

That’s a start of what I meant.

Ragnarox.9601:

Wait wha? You are suggesting DH nerf? You know that DH is just boring and predictive class that is easily killable by all specs? Do you even DH bro?

DH needs nerfs to its passive, brain-dead mechanics and buffs which add depth.

Here’s what I could focus on:
Virtues

• Justice Active buffed
• Resolve and Courage Reduce cooldown on active.

Weapons

• Sword #3 Best option is to replace the ability. Distinguish it more from greatsword (mobility) and mace/shield (blocking, anti-projectile).
• Staff #2 Give it a timeout so it doesn’t get stuck on 2a, forcing you into 2b and activating the cooldown.
• Hammer #1c Clunky to use and scales too well with symbol bonuses in Writ of Persistence.

Traits

• Zeal Make this line more broad by making symbol traits a choice, not minors. Give some form of utility instead of just increased damage.
• Radiance Change minors to not focus on giving tons of benefit from killing mobs quickly and little benefit otherwise. Do something with grandmaster major to provide a choice.
• Valor Monk’s Focus is too strong while providing little counterplay. Needs up-front healing reduced (add over time or more scaling). There are other less than ideal traits, but each slot at least gives a bit of a choice. It’s the least bad trait line.
• Honor Relies too much on healing power scaling, especially on Selfless Daring. Needs a bit more offensive utility.
• Virtues Nothing can compete with Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage.

Skills

• Spirit Weapons They need fixed, but until AI improves, it’s wasted time. Maybe give them extra hit points in the interim, at least on sword.
• Merciful Intervention Suggest changing to a ground targeted teleport with a long CD. If allies are in the target area, they’re healed and cooldown is reduced.
• Signets Change Wrath to precision. Give Mercy’s active to Courage, reduce the cooldown on Mercy, and make it’s active a partial heal.
• Consecrations Need to be more powerful or lower cooldowns. Need a reason to stay in the affected area for the duration.

Dragonhunter
This thing is such a mess. It’s a pile of faceroll abilities with little depth. It needs to work better without longbow while not overshadowing core specs for raw damage. At the same time, it needs to have depth of skill to be competitive in high-end PvP.

• Heavy Light Should not be passive with such a short CD. Doesn’t need stability. Tie to longbow#3 instead.
• Pure of Sight Make a major trait, change to only affect longbow.
• Purification Healing is way too high
• Spear of Justice / Hunter’s Verdict This can tie the spec together very well if improved. Suggest lower cooldown on Hunter’s Verdict, need to wait a few seconds after Spear of Justice before activating it. Spear of Justice is no longer unblockable.
• Traps Boons removed from traps unless it’s crucial to the functionality of the trap. Longer activation time. Consider stronger initial effect and less duration once triggered to distinguish them from symbols.

Until elite specs can be brought back to realistic balance, I’m all in favor of removing them from PvP.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

Questions:

• Kyhlo’s treb:
  • Do we consider it a swing mechanic?
  • What do we think of it being up all the time?
  • Does it need to be reworked to make it fit “periodic secondary mechanics”, and if yes how would you change it?
  • Is the treb fine as is, and why?
• Would we want to have secondary mechanics that are up all the time in future maps?

Almost fine as-is. OP elite specs are making it less effective than it should be. Minor gripe that mesmer portal with repair kit makes fighting against one using the treb a bit frustrating.

To address the range issue, you just need to fix staff#2 so that it doesn’t get stuck, forcing you to use #2b and put it on a 12sec CD.

I think Skyhammer could be competitive with some work.

• Improve A and C nodes The area is too tight, which heavily favors close combat builds and it’s too easy to knock players into the holes or even fear them off the edge. Make the general area larger, which includes pushing the side panels further from the node. Remove the odd half-panel.
• False bottom below B node You can AoE the bottom of node B from below it. That needs to be fixed.
• Control Room Falling from this should not be instant death if you’re over half HP. If it dropped you onto the plateau below, it would be a lot better. It’s also a bit too small and fighting turret or minion builds in there is frustrating.
• Skyhammer Animation/Audio Out of Synch This is just as annoying as not getting the callout for the Khylo treb. What’s the use of it being dodgeable if you dodge based on the animation, but it still hits you?
• Jump Pads at Node B to get to the upper catwalk These get in the way a lot, and I sometimes hit them when trying to stomp or res. Not sure where to move them, though.
• Split in walkway on the path from spawn to B Attacks which follow the ground fail when they try to cross this gap. Suggest removing the small gap.
• Remove some of the sloped terrain The area right in front of the skyhammer portal, between A/C and B nodes where the lower level slopes up to meet the eastern side. There are quite a few attacks which don’t work well on sloped terrain.
• Idea: Skyhammer no longer dodgeable Increase cooldown between attacks and reduce turn speed. This gives it powerful area control, but now easier to out-rotate.

Feast of Corruption is Scepter#3. Unholy Feast is Axe#3. Neither corrupts a condition. Unholy Feast corrupts a boon, which is fine.

Agree with OP.

Leagues need to be less about direct rewards and more about skill ranking.

I got through the first three professions and stopped. OP doesn’t understand how any of these builds work.

Agree with Ghotistyx.6942. A lot of the changes were made just because you wanted to change it, not because it improved balance. Further, changing tons of things takes a lot of time. You need to really cut down your list to what is a problem and what can be reasonably changed.

Condi spam thief typically uses venoms and most thieves use them all at once. As soon as their charges are gone, you condi clear and the thief isn’t a huge threat until their venom cooldowns are back. By then, you likely have another condi clear cooldown ready.

Condi chronomancer spreads tons of conditions on shatters. They can do that a bunch and use continuum shift to do it again. So you have to wipe a pile of conditions over and over in a short time and it usually overwhelms someone’s condi clear cooldowns.

On top of that, condi chronomancer can survive a lot of longer, especially in team fights while providing tons of team support (Moa is almost an instant win, portal controls two nodes, group evade really helps on res/stomp).

1. Nerf elite specs and revenant down to core level.
2. Remove silly power creep in the base (e.g. necro scepter boon corrupt)
3. Split the PvP amulets into multiple items and allow players to mix and match stats
4. Develop a better MMR system which at least tries to identify who is carrying the team and who is causing losses.
5. Match based on rating. League reward progression should not dictate matchmaking.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Well even before HOT core guardian had a large array of problems.

A good chuck of that came down to the awful PvP stat system. Guardians need vitality and toughness, but after the trait revamp, you couldn’t get that while having viable damage or support.

Welcome to HoT power creep.

Scrapper has Healing Turret, Transmute, Elixir use removing condis, and if they run Adaptive Armor, reduced condi duration.

Condi mesmer is blocking, evading, or invis most of the time, so it doesn’t care.

That leaves non-Mallyx (power) Revenant as the only one which has trouble with condis. Druid and Dragon Hunter are barely hanging in the meta.

Tim.6450:

Well to be quite honest , I would consider the ‘problem’ with conditions more a meta problem especially for reapers. You see back in the day (before HoT) people ran much, much more condition cleanses then now.

No, players have even more condi clear and still can’t keep up with the massive amounts of brainless condi spam. Power revenant is about the only one without heavy condi clear, but it gets by with evades and glint heal.

If it gets bad enough (it’s already pretty bad), then they’ll do mid-season balance.

But their general schedule is:

1. Drop a bunch of balance changes, half of which don’t make sense (like necro scepter boon corrupt) and completely ignore other broken things.
2. Wait a month and do nothing useful, despite players repeatedly pointing out obvious imbalances
3. Run a season for 2 months which becomes a complete mockery and drives people away from the game.
4. Repeat

velmeister.4187:

10 shards for 1 league ticket seems to be solving your problem

But shards are absolutely worthless. 50c on the TP.

Only if you have nothing left to spend league tickets on. Shards of Glory are dirt cheap on the TP if you need more.