Guild Wars 2

Here’s the issue:
Chilled is a utility condition, like poison. But it has the damage akin to burning of the old system, back when it stacked duration. However, Chilled damage should be more similar to poison in the old system.

Old Burning: 328 (0.25)
Chilled 202 (0.3)
Old Poison 84 (0.1)

It also wouldn’t hurt to reduce Sigil of Geomancy to 2 stacks from 3, so that it has similar numbers to power damage sigils.

Down state is fine. Power creep is too high.

The problem isn’t traps. It’s that DH can build for heavy damage while having an obscene amount of utility and survivability which doesn’t take much effort to use and has limited counter-play. If trap-spam DH died as fast as it killed people, it wouldn’t be more than an annoying glass cannon.

Things which need addressed:

• [Bug] Traps sometimes are invisible once they trigger.
• Wings of Resolve (F2) is an almost 4,000 heal (with 0 healing power) on a 30s cooldown (less with Virtues specialization). It’s almost as good as some heal slot skills. This value needs reduced significantly or the cooldown increased. Remember that Renewed Focus resets it. For reference, the core is 1625 on a 50s CD.
• Spear of Justice (F1) is 1200 range, 0.25s cast and almost instant flight (so not realistically avoidable) and unblockable. That was fine originally, but with the addition of the chain ability, you can use it to pull from 1200 range – usually into a pile of traps. That style of CC with little counter-play is terrible for the game. The general idea of a pull into traps is good.
• Shield of Courage blocks attacks from a very large angle, so it’s very difficult to hit them in melee.
• Pure of Sight grants an unconditional 7% damage bonus inside 600 range. Similar traits only grant a damage bonus conditionally. This was a knee-jerk reaction to the old version of 10% at over 600 yards, which didn’t fit as a minor trait.
• Boons on trap placement were overkill, especially with such long durations. Many didn’t need them.
• Heavy Light is terribly designed, giving DH too much CC against melee. Since it’s a proc, dodging attacks only delays it. It should be tied to a specific ability, something guardians have been saying since BWE1.

Trap damage is fine. The problem is the utility and sustain DH has even when the trap pile fails.

Conquest is still the competitive mode. I don’ think it will be adjusted any time soon.

There are some subtle advantages for blue, but I don’t think any are game-breaking:

• Blue seems to start closer to the gate and it’s not on a hill, so they get an extra second or two to pre-buff and can get back into action a second or two sooner.
• Blue can drop down directly on the DB barracks, but the red DB door is slightly off-set.
• The path between outer and inner for blue is a little narrower and the first set of inner guards is a little closer to the path compared to the same set for red.

Scrapper is basically like d/d ele but stronger. Still dies when focused hard, but in smaller fights, it’s near impossible to kill while putting out significant damage.

It’s more important that they tone down some elite specs and a handful of core traits first.

No Man.4180:

Uh there is no poison sigil in pvp mate… stop using straw man attacks =/

Try again. Sigil of Doom. Poison on next attack after weapon swap.

Reaper is pretty balanced now, after having received the most nerfs since HoT launch out of any of the elite specs.

If your issue is constant boon corrupt, then complain about the signet trait, which is part of core necro. If your issue is rampant condition spam, it might be the on-swap sigils.

Unrelenting Assault is so frustrating because even if you dodge once, you still eat a huge chunk of damage. For most builds, there’s nothing they can do other than double-dodge or eat the damage because the revenant is evading during the entire attack and can’t be CCed (hard or soft). If a single dodge avoided more of the damage, it wouldn’t be so bad.

You can’t look at it as healing. You need to look at it as support. Support can take the form of damage/CC prevention as well as healing. Guardian tends to be the former, whereas something like a Druid is the latter.

Leaderboards on the website are only updated during league seasons.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

but the reds says no, and all of this will be in vain.

Why do they say “no”? I haven’t see any reason other than “it’s too hard for new players to understand.”

@OP

What amulet were you using? I’d recommend Soldier to start out on necro. It helps survive being focused. And remember, no matter how you build, necro has trouble with chain CC.

El Psy Congroo.7965:

“I want to play my guardian in PvP. But it sucks”
Seriously?

The only option for guardian now is going DH and abusing how overbuffed virtues and traps became after BWE3. Good players can avoid that, and they the overbuffed DH stuff will eventually be rolled back.

Medi guard that isn’t DH is dead and has been for a while. Burn guard is easy to counter for players who know it’s coming. Bunker guard is dead because its HP pool is too low (in particular, I’m highlighting this). Forget any kind of hybrid build.

Kharr.5746:

It’s impossible to balance customized stat distributions.

Far from it. Read my post.

The limited stats available in sPvP exist to promote healthy and skillful game play. E.g., Dire Stats

Not asking for stats which don’t already exist in PvP. Just let us mix-and-match the ones which do. You can’t get Dire out of any of those combinations.

The many runes and sigils allow for plenty of customization regarding stats. You can make pretty much anything work if you spend the time looking through them.

No, you can’t. Bunker guard is dead, not because it’s weak, but because it can’t obtain a proper stat mix to survive burst and sustained damage while still bringing support.

And this isn’t just about guardian. Offensive builds have trouble too. For example, s/f fresh air elementalist (non-tempest) was limited because it couldn’t get vitality and toughness while still having a reasonable crit chance and power. If it could pick up a few hundred toughness, it could survive stealth burst. There’s a huge gap between marauder and soldier. Most want more than 10% crit chance, but don’t need 50%. They’d rather have some toughness instead.

Mak.2657:

There already was such spvp system iirc. Stats was splitted between amulet and jewel. Anet decided to merge them (idk why, mb forum qq too).

The only reason I ever saw was that it was “too hard for new players to understand”.

Theologus.7085:

I have answer for you. Celestial, fury and some might.

Guardians have very little access to might stacking, and most of it sacrifices other powerful traits for much weaker ones. It’s nowhere near what a d/d ele can do. Even necromancers are better at it.

Shirlias.8104:

u serious?
all spvp games now have 2x guardian dh on each side.

Dragonhunter was way overbuffed between BWE3 and HoT release. Even then, it dies quickly when focused due to the same reasons I outlined above. How do you think it will be once it’s more balanced?

and guardians played always with that hp ( cause have invul, reset invul, block, healing block, aegis, healing meditations, vigor, etc ).

Not true at all.

Before stats were split from traits, bunker guardians had +300 vitality from trait lines which gave them a reasonable amount of HP. In the same system, medi guards had +300 toughness, which gave them some staying power in a fight. And before the jewel was removed from amulets, bunker guardians used an HP jewel like barbarian in a cleric amulet, which also boosted their crit chance for vigor procs.

Guardians were much better in older systems. Bunker guard is almost non-existent now because its HP is too low to survive burst. Medi guard lacks staying power in a fight. Both of these would be fixed by overhauling the PvP amulet system.

Preface
I want to play my guardian in PvP. But it sucks. Not because the profession is poorly designed designed, but because the PvP stat system is terrible. Guardians are low HP, so they need vitality. They’re also predominately melee and don’t have strong mitigation or escapes, so they need some toughness. In order to deal decent damage, it needs quite a bit of power as well as precision and ferocity. Healing power also wouldn’t hurt. That’s 5-6 stats in unequal quantities. No amulet comes anywhere close. Even bunker guard is weak because it can’t obtain a decent mix of vitality and toughness.

Problem Statement
The all-or-nothing PvP amulet is a major detriment to PvP. It significantly limits build diversity, which causes “meta” builds which have no strong counters. Further, the limitation in build diversity discourages PvE and WvW players from taking part in PvP because they can’t play a similar build or playstyle in PvP.

The current amulet system even looks ridiculous. An amulet with 900 ferocity, but 0 precision? No one wants 1200 or even 900 toughness with 0 extra vitality either. You’re only viable in the current system if you can offset the deficiencies of the current amulet system. For Berserker/Marauder, you need to have decent base HP and tons of escapes, evades, or immunity to damage. That’s why you really only see Thief, Mesmer, and sometimes warrior using these amulets. Celestial offers a decent stat balance, but the power is sorely lacking. If you can easily and quickly stack might (d/d ele), you’re able to offset the low power and deal decent damage. Having access to bonus conditions or copious amounts of burning just makes it stronger. Soldier lacks in precision, so you need high fury uptime or another crit source (e.g. Death Perception) to deal respectable damage and keep up pressure.

That leaves many builds which rely on a healthy combination of 5-6 raw stats out to dry. Guardian is the biggest loser, though elementalist isn’t far behind. Damage builds with less escapes would love a few hundred toughness so that they don’t die so quickly to stealth burst.

Solution
The solution is relatively simple: split the current PvP amulet into multiple items. Since ~300 stat points is where you start to a see a difference, I would recommend a split of 40/30/30%. For a 3-stat amulet, 30% would be 360/270/270. It’s a one-time UI change for ANet to make, so there’s not much overhead. In addition, if the 30% item was a ring, artwork exists for a lot of them from the old jewels, saving artist time. Unlock cost can be split and if you’ve unlocked an amulet already, it can unlock both or ANet can refund the gold like they did with Minstrel amulet.

This is NOT difficult to understand. Players mix-and-match stats across many more items in PvE and PvP in this game and in many other similar games. PvP entry is gated for new players, so they’ll have some exposure to the PvE system before setting foot in Heart of the Mists. The biggest hurdle for new players in the PvP interface is finding the “PvP Build” button.

Balance Implications
The most common mistake is to see three choice in place of one and instantly claim it’s too hard to balance because it adds too many permutations. This view is flawed. Instead of viewing it simply as permutations, it needs to be evaluated as a trade space. The total number of stats you have never changes and the extremes are already bounded (the current amulets). Gimmick builds typically reside at the extremes, not in between. And because you’re using the current stat combinations, you won’t see the problem that Minstrel amulet presented.

The only balance problems that will arise are new builds which previously weren’t viable coming into the mix and providing counters to the limited number of current viable builds. This is a good problem to have. For example, you could now have a wider variety of DPS with staying power. These can help counter bruisers by providing enough sustained damage while similarly being hardy enough to stay in a fight. DPS builds won’t be forced out by stealth burst (thieves and mesmers).

TLDR
Current PvP stat system is too rigid and limits builds. Split amulet into multiple items, which allows players to mix-and-match. It’s not a balance problem to do this.

It’s mostly you.

1. Core guardian has a few trait issues which make some lines very lackluster or weak.
2. Most elite specs are significantly overpowered and will be toned down with time.

The guards just inside the outer gate are directly and immediately in the path of the DBs. Those guards have enough HP that if you don’t CC and kill them in a few seconds, they can cleave some or all of the DBs. It only applies to that set of guards.

Morwath.9817:

Currently defensive NPCs are completly meaningless and die too fast, how they can be “less meaningful”?

One of the big differences between success and failure is getting the doorbreaker past the first inner set of guards. If you can stealth the DBs or keep that set of guards CCed until they die, you get your first set of DBs to the inner gate and have a commanding lead.

The necessity of killing the guards above anything else (including players) in order to progress makes the PvE aspect too strong. If the guards were a danger, but not enough to make them the priority, it wouldn’t be so bad. They should stop players from being careless and help defenders. But they shouldn’t be the dominant defense; that should be players.

Defensive NPCs need to be less meaningful, not more. If anything, the one-shot doorbreaker mechanic should be removed.

Archers need buffed regardless of what happens with guards. They need to not “squirrel” as much and need far more HP. They should be the slow and steady alternative to the quick but risky doorbreakers.

@OP

There’s a difference between skillful play with avoidance of key abilities making a huge difference and “lol, I blew you up out of stealth”.

You also have builds doing roughly equal damage, yet one can live twice as long in a fight (Scrapper). Risk vs. Reward for damage builds needs to be maintained.

Morwath.9817:

Indeed. So why I can’t use Minstrel in Stronghold?

Stronghold is casual mode. Balance is done around conquest.

Morwath.9817:

Why Stronghold has to suffer because of horrible Conquest mechanics?

Um, the stalemate problem was in Conquest. You’d have a bunker from each team on a node with minstrels, keeping the node neutral for extended periods of time. Games ran to timer and no one was near 500.

PvP amulet system needs to change so that we can mix-and-match and pick up some vitality.

Minstrel amulet spent all its stat points in defensive stats. It would be similar to adding Nomad to PvP. Tanky builds could stay alive forever and stalemate matches. That’s why it was removed.

• Keep Minstrel out of PvP.
• Break the amulet into multiple items to allow better stat customization.

Minstrel was far too defensive, which wasn’t healthy for PvP. Breaking up the amulets into multiple items and allowing mix-and-match solves the problem of too low HP or too low healing on bunker builds, while not making them too heavy on defense.

Some of it is justified, most isn’t. Silly amounts of damage and long range CC that’s near impossible to avoid could stand to be nerfed.

Stronghold isn’t that bad after some iteration, but it still has room for improvement. And it will never have the depth which conquest has.

Stronghold’s main purpose is an alternative to conquest which can also encourage new players to try PvP.

TheLastNobody.8319:

[Blighter’s Boon] was op pretty much because of boon spam from other classes, but instead of putting an ICD, or reworking the trait so that that you didn’t have crazy amounts of helping and life force influx in teamfights from revs, eles, and guards, they made it selfish and only work with the very little boon generation necro has. Without it I don’t see how reaper is gonna be able to sustain itself in teamfights.

Robert Gee said they looked at some of those solutions internally, but it didn’t work out.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/First-Reaper-nerf-of-the-expansion/first#post5673251

This rapid balance pace for the elite specs is good. Some of them are way too powerful or cheesy.

Saiyan.1704:

To be honest, the only thing that can be toxic is two players offering two different experiences based on their own point of view that may or may not be 100% accurate. These heated debates could originate from

• #1 The competitive realm they compete on.
  SoloQ meta is different than Team ESL play

• #2 Learn 2 Play elements from the player himself.
  including engagement strategies on the map

• #3 The build a particular person plays
  using a non-meta build for example

• #4 A one sided aspect that’s seen on one build from one class, while the other professions have 0 issues

5. Saying a mechanic or build is fine because it isn’t prominent in high level play.

Don’t forget about all the unblockable nonsense which keeps being added.

Been asking for this since release. ANet seems dead set on the all-or-nothing amulets.

I would recommend going with 3 items over 2 though. A 40/30/30 split would cover pretty much every stat configuration you could ever want. With a 2 item system, you still struggle to get exactly the right ratio for hybrid builds.

There’s a lot of pushback from people who think that more choices means more permutations to balance. But that’s a poor way to view stat selections. Stat selections are a trade-space and as long as you have extremes (the current amulets) and deal with balance there, nothing in between will be too powerful. The only balance issues which would arise are more builds being viable, and that’s a good problem.

Kuya.6495:

I’m so confused by all these threads. I can’t tell if people wanted or hated the minstrel amuletanymore.

Both. It offered a more balanced stat combination than clerics (no vitality on cleric really hurts guardians and eles). However, the fact that it had purely defensive stats make defensive builds way too survivable.

Dojo.1867:

What makes you think it cannot be salvaged/improved? The layout is not bad even if different compared to the other maps.

The layout is awful compared to every other conquest map.

Here are the problems:

• You can zone out the entire map from a vantage point at the side nodes. Because both entrances to the mid node go through middle, it’s easy to react and keep enemies without nodes for far too long.
• In a more even match, it’s near impossible to hold the middle node because you can’t scout both sides without allowing a decap. In high-level play, you need to call enemy movements to your team as soon as possible.
• The stairs and ramps break a lot of ability which move parallel to the ground, and this map has quite a lot of them.
• The nodes areas provide almost no cover against ranged attackers.
• Similarly, the platforms heavily favor long range while making it hard for melee to reach those enemies before they can move.
• Cross map play is hard to pull off because of the huge open middle area.
• PUGs often get stuck fighting in the orb area because of the exit design.

Removal of PvP Minstrel Amulet was good. It had far too many defensive stats.

However, this leaves a problem, which is the lack of stat customization making many builds too weak or not viable. The PvP amulets need to be split into multiple items. It’s been needed for over a year now.

Two main issues with greatsword

1. Damage and utility are lacking Right now, greatsword feels like a utility weapon that you only use for specific abilities. You don’t want to sit in it. However, the utility which it provides is lacking compared to staff or even off-hand weapons. For starters, I would increase the range on Death Spiral to ~400 and increase the damage on the auto-attack chain by 5% (if it was increased by about 12%, it would roughly match MH dagger DPS).
2. Gravedigger While it seems interesting, it’s annoying or boring in practice. In PvE, you just spam 2 against high HP mobs for several minutes. In PvP, it’s hard to land if when you use it against someone to them under 50% HP, it feels frustrating to have to wait out the cooldown. The after makes the down state cleave not that impressive against most targets.

Disagree with OPs suggested fixes

Skyhammer
This map has potential and could even see ranked play if given proper fixes.

• Make skyhammer undodgeable again. Give it a slightly longer cooldown between shots and turn between points slower. This forces enemies off points that it’kittenting, but remains reasonably avoidable.
• Side nodes areas need to be expanded and the breakable glass moved away from the point slightly. Remove the half-panel at the side nodes. Right now they heavily favor close quarters combat builds and it’s really hard for a ranged build to kite effectively.
• Expand the cannon room and move it above the middle plateau at a lower height. The room is too cramped and it becomes too gimmicky due to the small size. Getting knocked off should hurt, but not be so punishing. Taking moderate fall damage and being somewhat out of position is good enough.

Spirit Watch
This map can’t be salvaged. It’s the worst conquest map by far.

• The orb only helps teams which are ahead get more ahead. The restrictions for it make little sense (you can use superspeed and leaps/rushes, but no teleport, regardless of distance and needing a target). Making it more of a decap mechanic would be a huge step in the right direction, since it would then help the team which is behind.
• The map layout is poor. The node areas don’t provide much cover, the stairs wreak havoc on range abilities which don’t have a z-axis, the middle node doesn’t offer a good vantage point for incoming enemies, and the spawn gates funnel teams into a mess at middle.

Sandzibar.5134:

> longbow, the virtues, and traps need better synergy or at least not work against each other

How exactly do you feel that these mechanics don’t synergise well together?

Longbow and associated traits focus on keeping players at range (knockback, increased damage at range). Spear of Justice and Wings of Resolve focus on keeping players close. Traps could help keep players at range, but are placed in melee and the DH doesn’t have any disengage to help take advantage of that once you lure an opponent into a trap.

The myriad of buffs to damage and utility over the course of the BWEs have masked that.

How did DH go from laughable in its preview to overpowered at launch? It’s pretty simple really. You start with problematic base mechanics and in order to make it viable, just keep buffing the crap out of it until people use it. It doesn’t fix the inherent flaw, just masks it or completely removes a limiting factor.

Here are a few examples (forums are slow, so this is from memory):

• Trap arm time 0.25 or more was shaved off the time from the start of the cast to when the trap would trigger. I believe this was off the arm time, but maybe it was on the cast time. That means the first trap triggers sooner and you can stack multiple traps faster. Instead of being a trap, they’ve become a point-blank well.
• Trap damage Initially no one used traps. They were too weak for how hard it was to get them to trigger. The damage was increased, increasing the reward for managing the setup. When the setup was still clunky, it was reduced, but the damage reward wasn’t adjusted down to match the lower risk.
• Spear of Justice The skill was decent originally, but didn’t mesh with the 1200 range of the longbow. This was increased, as was the projectile speed. However, the designed counter, which was out-ranging its leash becomes less valid. And because this was an over-time ability, it had a fast cast. Now it’s unblockable (no idea why), and it has a chain with a pull ability. So now you have a nearly unavoidable 1200 range pull.
• Utility Traits One of the big complaints is that dragonhunter utility was lacking and clashed with the Virtues line, which is a key source of utility. A number of traits were modified giving anti-CC or condition removal, CC durations increased, and virtue cooldowns were reduced.
• Boons on Traps This change wasn’t thought through. A boon was thrown on each trap, in addition to all the other buffs to traps, just to be thematic. Some boon selections make a decent ability overly powerful. Boons should have only been added to weaker traps.

Combine all that and you have too much in one trait line. When you consider how powerful the Valor line is for PvP and most other core lines are comparatively weak, it’s easy to add Dragonhunter in place of a core trait line with few trade-offs.

Without a change to core design, dragonhunter will be ridiculous damage for average skill PvPers until that damage is brought in line and it loses viability in PvP due to poor base mechanics.

To truly fix dragonhunter, longbow, the virtues, and traps need better synergy or at least not work against each other, and the trait line needs to give up some utility. Other core trait lines need buffed in order to compete and Valor could probably stand to be toned down a little, especially Monk’s Focus.

I played around with “Rise!” for a bit in PvP. It was decent, but not overly powerful. It really only overwhelms professions with NPCs. Otherwise, the minion count in manageable.

Trap spam being highly effective at low and mid skill levels for not much thought or planning involved is the main issue. But it’s not very different from ranger trap spam.

I think the biggest issue is that the Spear of Justice pull is too much, especially in combination with the trap pile. The spear itself is 0.25s cast with a fast projectile and the pull is 1200 range. It’s effectively un-dodgeable CC with no drawback, which can be comboed into more CC and heavy damage.

Everything is overpowered so everything is balanced. Love that logic.

Dragonhunters with lots of traps are a cheesy gimmick reminiscent of the launch day 100blades warriors. They crap on mediocre and lower players with a few key presses and not much thought. Better players can avoid the silly burst most of the time, but in group fights will still be insta-gibbed every so often.

I’d really like a system like the one which exists in WvW where you can unlock hero points at a reasonable pace. Maybe change some of those tomes of knowledge in reward tracks? If I spend most of my time in PvP, I shouldn’t be so heavily punished in PvE/WvW for it.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Right now, Reaper and Chronomancer are better than Necromancer and Mesmer in every possible aspect. Now there is no reason to play Necromancer or Mesmer anymore, if you try, you are just being held back.

Reaper is pretty good and could actually use a few buffs to some of its weaker abilities.

Chronomancer is strong because base mesmer is so strong. Base mesmer needs toned down a bit in addition to tweaking Chronomancer.

Scrapper needs toned down in both offense stacking and defense stacking. It currently overshadows core engineer lines for defense. Players take it even if they don’t use hammer or any gryo utilities.

The elite specs are supposed to be side-grades, putting a twist on the core playstyle. They are not supposed to be better than core professions.

What happened with most of the the elite specializations was they overbuffed them during test to make sure they felt good mechanically and haven’t yet done a solid balance pass on it.

Movement speed bonuses do not stack in intensity. The highest one takes priority.