Guild Wars 2

500 toughness is far more powerful than equivalent traits. If you compare it to stat conversion traits, which are 10-12% at best, they’re at best 250 to a stat. Guardian has one which gives a raw 300 to a stat with other small bonuses.

Yes, I understand that it does take time to stack. However, with various incidental damage that gets flung around in PvP, it will stack pretty quick and stay stacked.

I’d recommend reducing it to 70 or 80 per stack (so 350-400 when maxed) and possibly making the ICD 2s, so that it only stays maxed in large fights.

Bunker guardian can be strong, but it needs the right team and teamwork. It works best with damage builds which can sustain for a long duration or burst builds which can kill quickly and rotate to the next fight. Put it with a team of mostly bruisers and it will hold them back, since the team will be lacking in damage overall.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Right, but you can only reach about 20% life force from just killing boxes before someone comes to greet you. Those box stacks don’t have a lot of hit points either, so you can’t build much off of them regardless.

For life force generation (and the reaper trait Augury of Death), any destructable object counts, even if player abilities can’t damage it. You can auto-attack various buildings on Khylo which only the treb can destroy and build life force. The same applies to structures on Champion’s Dusk.

If you’re using Judge’s Intervention during Leap of Faith you’re doing it wrong. Two large gap closers at the same time? And you should see how buggy warrior GS5 is if you want a rush. I’d much rather have its current form.

Mighty Blow could arguably be reverted, as the short leap doesn’t add much other than style or flavor.

You really only need to split into 3 items such as 50/25/25% or 40/30/30%. That should be good enough to get most stat combinations. If you’re going to invest into a stat, you’ll probably but at least a few hundred into it.

Many offensive builds don’t want to go or can’t support full glass. They’d like a little bit of toughness and vitality in addition to higher power, precision, and ferocity values. Those amounts vary by build and profession. For example, guardian and elementalist probably want more vitality than a warrior. The current amulet system doesn’t allow for that simplistic of a customization level, which is a huge shortcoming.

OP’s post fails as soon as he said Courtyard was good.

People hate Courtyard because 5v5 deathmatch is a mess. Stronghold is disliked because it feels a little too much like PvE (or at least did initially) and lacks a strong comeback mechanic.

That dislike has nothing to do with the lack of build templates.

Aktium.9506:

Because it’s the very reason Anet themselves gave when they were asked as to why they changed the old stat system of Amulet + Jewel to just Amulet.

The only reason I saw given was that Amulet+Jewel was “too hard for new players to understand”.

They did change the system after vanilla BWE1 to reduce complexity. That beta build had 4 items (amulet, 2 rings, 2 accessories). IMO, 3 items would be enough.

Items have a formula that gives a bonus the more you spread out stat allocations. That formula probably needs revised now that healing power is finding more use and conditions are more prevalent and stack.

You take Force of Will for the 300 vitality bonus. The healing increase is just a small bonus.

Sigmoid.7082:

Exedore.6320:

Can we get an answer on splitting amulets into multiple items to allow better stat customization?

They are changing Pvp to be a much bigger thing with the new league and tournaments. They would avoid anything that would be a balancing nightmare which is exactly what your suggestion would do. The more fixed things are the easier they are to balance.

Why does this fallacy keep getting parroted around the forums? More stat customization doesn’t create a balancing nightmare at all. It actually gives developers more freedom in balancing.

You can’t view it as more permutations. Instead, you analyze it as a trade space with boundaries. As long as you have bounds on the trade space – the current amulets – and don’t leave that trade space, you won’t have any balance issues because of more stat customization. Every new mix-and-match will be within the current trade space.

The only balance issues which would arise from more stat customization are more builds being viable. That’s a good problem to have.

Can we get an answer on splitting amulets into multiple items to allow better stat customization?

Scambug.3502:

Also why isn’t SW in the ranked map rotation? Sky Hammer and Courtyard I understand but SW?

Spirit Watch is the worst conquest map by far (much worse than Skyhammer). It’s rightly relegated to unranked play. Just the node structure is poor (lack of LoS or too much LoS, teleports and range damage are extremely powerful). The orb mechanic makes it that much worse. A defensive build with a leap or superspeed (like shoutbow) can score the orb without being stopped except by an overwhelming force of enemy players (which means they lose the nodes). Further, the orb just helps the team with an advantage get further ahead and maintain their lead, instead of acting as a mechanic to turn the tide.

Capture the Flag in general is a bad system for MMOs. Even if you create a myriad of special rules for flag carriers, there will always be some build which is best at it. Using the spirit watch orb as an example, you drop it on teleport, but not leap. Orb negates swiftness, but not super speed. Stealth and immunity drop it, but not evade or block. That instantly favors a flag carrier like warrior or engineer. Meanwhile, the rules become ever more convoluted, which is bad for attracting new players.

Capture the Flag also has problems with stalemating. If both sides grab the flag and run back to their base (since it’s hard to kill the flag carrier en route), it comes down to boring stalemates where teams pile defensive cooldown on the flag carrier and whoever’s carrier is burst down first by a lot of instant-cast or stealth openers loses.

MMORPG PvP works best when you have an option besides out-right killing a player (usually CC or avoiding them for an alternate objective). For example, in conquest, you can push a player off a node and de-cap it; you don’t have to kill that player.

Lack of rune variety isn’t due to their primary stats; it’s because of the rune 2,4,6 piece special effects.

Strength/Hoelbrak, Pack, and Vampirism are the main runes for power or balanced builds (which make up the vast majority of meta builds). Strength/Hoelbrak are used mainly by celestial builds to get more might through procs and extended duration, which offsets the relatively low power values on celestial. Vampirism is used by squishy DPS as an extra and extremely powerful defensive cooldown. The rest use Pack because the raw stats are so strong and the group proc is extremely powerful.

Ignoring stats, pick any other rune set and compare. Would you use it on a power build for the 2,4,6 piece effects? The answer is almost always “no”.

The offending runes or their symbiotic mechanics need adjusted to be on a more level playing field with the rest. For example, Pack should have its 4pc and 6pc swapped and then the precision bonus adjusted down to be representative of a 4pc bonus.

Diovid.9506:

Forsaken i.e. Power main stat / Healing Power / Toughness (which the wiki claims is a thing but which I haven’t seen in game anywhere).

It only exists on the “pick your stats” leveling items.

Echoing what some others have said: it’s still a little too strong, but it’s no longer overwhelming. It consistently wins 1v1s, but doesn’t win them as quickly. It’s still extremely survivable in small fights, but the damage output in those fights is less.

And you have to be somewhat decent in order to deal damage now. It’s no longer face-roll.

Josh Davis.6015:

Hmmm, new amulets. Aside from zealots, anything else you folks think would be interesting?

• Sinister (condition damage/power/precision)
• (maybe) Forsaken (power/toughness/healing)

But more importantly, split the amulets into multiple items and let us mix and match. No need to make additional amulets after this one-time change. No need for over-budget 4-stat amulets.

I’m sick of 900+ toughness (too much) or none at all. I’m sick of limited choices on a guardian because we pretty much need vitality on an amulet.

Bad idea.

Pick/Ban works in LOL because there are so many heroes which adequately fulfill one of the few clearly defined roles. There are also pretty standard team compositions when it comes to roles. It’s also necessary in LOL to stop the game from being completely repetitive.

GW2 isn’t anywhere near as rigid when it comes to roles for a build. For example, if you banned some crucial part of a thief, it completely changes strategy and tactics because thieves could no longer back-cap or +1 fights nearly as well. As you said, runes have the least impact, but by the token, a pick/ban system for runes would have equally as small an impact, to the point that it wasn’t worth it.

If you want diversity in GW2, it’s not too difficult:

1. Allow more stat customization. The PvP amulet system is far too rigid. Many builds work best when they have 4 or 5 stats in different ranges. The current system doesn’t allow for that, so only DPS with escapes and celestial with might stacking are prevalent. Getting a small amount of toughness on DPS builds would help them out tremendously against burst.
2. Address Celestial + Might Stacking The downside of celestial is that its power damage is extremely low, even for sustained damage. However, if you can might stack reliably, that problem goes away, giving you the benefit of reasonably balanced stats (see previous issue). And with the condi system re-work and healing power becomes more appealing, it may be time to lower celestial’s stats a little.

The rest of it just depends on ANet addressing skills or combinations of skills which are a little too good.

Bad players don’t like to accept they have poor positioning and can get knocked off the map. The only cheesy thing is stealth pull.

ANet said there would be some settling time after a patch before they start a league. HoT release will have a patch, so at least 2 weeks before they start up. Maybe more depending on how bad it is.

Proper Change:

• Replace Tornado with Lich Form.
• Increase cooldown to 150s.

Stat Customization (major issues)
The current all-or-nothing amulets are far too lopsided and prevent many potential builds from ever having a chance. With the current system, a DPS build is only viable if it has many escapes/resets. No amulet exists that allows respectable DPS and some survivability in a melee. Professions with low base HP are extremely restricted in what they can choose. Many amulets would be good in small numbers, but are ridiculous in large numbers. For example, Cavalier has 1200 toughness and no vitality as well as 900 ferocity but no precision.

More stat customization can be achieved by splitting the amulet’s stats into multiple items (3 is sufficient) using the same stat combinations. We have all the current extremes, so nothing can be more broken than it currently is. The only balance issues which will appear are new builds which weren’t viable before; that’s a good problem.

Further, inability to mimic a PvE/WvW build is a barrier to entry for many players. Even if their normal build isn’t good for PvP, it’s better to let them see it first hand and encourage adaptation.

This system would not be too confusing for new players, as they already mix and match stats in PvE/WvW. New players have a harder time finding the “PvP Build” button than setting up a build.

@ Nova Stiker.8396

Hot Join isn’t really farm-able for rewards. It caps at 25% of a track per day.

They should revise the reward tracks and have them target different players. Give some extra transmute charges, some extra tomes for leveling characters, and others extra shards of glory for people who want legendary weapons.

Ragnarox.9601:

I don’t get you. You want to nerf build that even now don’t have its place among rated pvp? Why is that?

No, I’m saying that one trait needs toned down and many others buffed slightly.

And why bunkers dont use medi if heal is so strong without healing power?

Bunker medi is a thing, but doesn’t work that well. This just shows how little you understand. Bunker builds are for team support as much as staying alive on a point. Meditation skills don’t offer nearly as much team support as shouts.

And what am I supposed to play else beside medi guard? Bunker maybe or burn guard?

You’re missing the entire point. Monk’s Focus needs to be toned down. Many other traits and skills need improved. You can’t leave Monk’s Focus as-is while buffing a bunch of other skills. Guardian would remain brain-dead to play (lots of instant-cast with almost no counter-play), which would keep it from staying at the top.

How about something like 50,25,25 or 40,30,30? That allows you to have a predominant stat, but off-set it by others.

@ Ragnarox.9601

I think you just proved Obtena’s point. You can’t think about playing anything besides medi guard.

Look at it this way: Do you want to see Zeal fixed for PvP? Maybe they could throw in some healing or damage prevention there. Look at meditations from outside guardian. They are healing for almost 2k each, instant-cast (so no counter-play), with no healing power and Fury on top of that. It’s very hard to justify more survivability, more damage potential, and more utility like being able to stick to a target better.

Shouts work perfectly fine except against signet necro (which is a different issue).

Mintyfreshsmell.1568:

Three months is laughable and lazy. If they want to take pvp serious they need to update the game every 2 months.

3 months is about right, actually, especially the season setup. You don’t want to change things dramatically in the middle of a season, which last ~2 months.

Even if they didn’t work around the league system, the best they could possibly is every 2 months, and that’s pushing it a bit. You need a few weeks to determine if something is truly overpowered or if the community simply needed time to adjust. If something is truly overpowered, the developers need a few weeks to figure out what is the best change to balance it. This is an iterative process of making a change and then doing some testing to see if it’s the right change to make – did it fix the problem, not go too far, and the skill or build is still fun. Tack on some localization and QA time and you’ve already hit 2 months.

During a segment at twitchcon, ANet outlined the cycle for PvP leagues:

1. Balance patch
2. Settling period of ~2 weeks for players to adjust and bugs to be fixed
3. 8 week league season
4. Intermission, possibly with post-league stuff

They hope to get 4 league seasons in per year, which means a balance patch every 3 months.

More Info

This was my first BWE trying Reaper and I did exclusively PvP. I play necro as an alt in PvP normally. Having played against reapers the previous two BWEs, seeing the other side gave a good overall perspective of where it sits.

Greatsword
This just felt lacking. It seems like it should have somewhat high sustain damage to make up for the highly telegraphed big hits, but it didn’t really do anything in practice. It didn’t have enough utility to make up for the lack of damage either.

• Auto-Attack Needs more damage.
• Gravedigger Continually cleaving downed players with this was amusing at first, but the skill didn’t feel practical. Using it on a target above 50% felt like you were being punished, since they would likely drop under 50% from the hit.
• Death Spiral This skill needs to do more. If it had more range, it would make a nice opener.
• Nightfall The 2s pulse interval made the blind feel unreliable.
• Grasping Darkness I use greatsword on guardian a lot, so I’m used to an attack like this being avoided in PvP. But because the Reaper greatsword setup has such a dependency on getting targets into melee and because of all the life force potential lost, missing this attack felt very bad.

Reaper’s Shroud
The damage was very strong overall, completely overshadowing greatsword. It felt far more mobile and reliable than greatsword.

• RS#2 was a great for mobility.
• Stacking stability on RS#3 seemed a bit much. It lasted practically the entire time you would sit in a single cast of RS. For how much damage RS can deal (with Deathly Perception and a damage amulet, it crits all the time) and the gap closer, not being able to stop the necro was a problem for melee.

Shouts
I played around with most of the shouts, with varying degrees of success. I used Augury of Death most of the time.

• YSIM Not bad, but seemed to give an over abundance of life force and not enough HP. Could have just been my poor management of life force, since I’m more used to DS playstyle.
• NCSY Tried it a few times and it wasn’t worth it. If I want boon convert, I’m better off with Corrupt Boon (more boons, longer range), or even Well of Corruption. The unblockable period wasn’t worth it.
• Suffer I liked this a lot for keeping targets near me, and the condi clear was great in a large fight.
• YAAW Didn’t get a good enough feel for it, but I was using it mostly for Weakness. The might doesn’t last long enough to be worthwhile in PvP.
• CTTB Good elite, especially against multiple players with Augury. Could probably cut the cast time a little bit.

Traits
Out of the ones I used

• Augury of Death The cooldown reduction per player needs to be a little higher. [BUG] Objects, like buildings on Champion’s Dusk and Battle of Khylo, count as players.

General
Some thoughts on how Reaper fits with the overall profession.

• Using Spite and Soul Reaping feels too mandatory.
• Greatsword doesn’t have a good complementary weapon. Warhorn for swiftness helps a lot, but then I’m taking axe or dagger, both of which outshine GS. Staff has good utility, but then you have pitiful damage outside of RS and your mobility is awful.
• Alternatively, you can use Signet of the Locust for mobility, but then you’re drawn toward a signet build with Signets of Suffering.
• Felt obligated to take Consume Conditions or Plague Signet in order to deal with condi loads. Neither fit that well with a melee-oriented spec.
• Needs some degree of toughness to survive better in melee, but don’t want to give up crit. This is a PvP amulet problem which hampers Reaper.

Until Monk’s Focus is toned down, it will be difficult to get buffs in other needed areas. And honestly, you don’t even need to compensate for the healing removed. Fixing glaring issues with other trait lines is more than enough compensation.

And to show Obtena’s point, just look at Dragonhunter. What PvP dragonhunter WASN’T medi?

If they would add more stat customization to PvP, you wouldn’t have extremes.

They should never have been removed in the first place. We desperately need better stat customization in PvP.

Mallis.4295:

Yeah I know when I channel revive and bandage they can’t stop me without CC.

Yes, but you can also cleave or stomp the body instead of just CC the playing doing the reviving. You can even launch the downed body out of range.

The need to have CC in order to interrupt channels on stronghold creates a bad gameplay dynamic. Players who can chain stability and are somewhat durable can simply channel without winning a fight or gaining any advantage. The only way for players to directly stop it is with boon convert. To deal with that problem, they made trebuchet strip stability completely, which makes the trebuchet overly important for a niche role.

@OP

The dragonhunter build you mention is a gimmick build. It kills you in seconds, but also dies in seconds. It should only ever kill you the first time.

Chronomancer is too strong, pretty sure most people agree.

Scrapper is too strong as well, but since it’s the first BWE for it, it’s forgiveable as long as they tweak it. There are a lot of +stats traits and overly powerful synergies. In addition, it dramatically lessens two big weaknesses for engineers, which are CC and conditions.

Reaper will beat most pure melee builds, which is a problem. However, it can be kited to a degree and is weak against crowd control outside of shroud. Could use a few tweaks, but not game-breaking.

I haven’t seen any dare devil which is more threatening than a core thief.

If you take the Reaper trait Augury of Death, it’s counting structure as enemies for the cooldown reduction.

Only ones I’m super worried about are Chronomancer and Scrapper. Reaper is powerful in melee, but takes time to kill anything and can’t really escape. Druid gets shut down by CC.

Reaper stability isn’t random. It’s Reaper Shroud skill #3. Also the trait Foot in the Grave.

Fresh Air d/f based around overloading is the only moderately successful tempest build I’ve seen.

Jekkt.6045:

after another weekend of testing, what do you people think, is stronghold ready to become the next esl game mode that viewers will enjoy to watch?

No amount of changes will make it that. As a competitive game mode, conquest will always be better no matter how many changes are made to stronghold.

What stronghold should and does aim to do is get more players into PvP. A larger base is better for competition (larger player pool = better matches and faster queues) and viewership of tournaments. I’m worried about what looks like ANets attempt to monetize PvP in stronghold (hero skins). If that’s true, then they’ll likely push stronghold over conquest, which isn’t good.

The end goal is that specializations are a different playstyle, but not necessarily any stronger than core. Seeing as this is a beta, some elite specializations ended up stronger. It’s not entirely surprising, since making things a little too strong gives you a better overall picture of what to tweak.

I’m only worried about chronomancer, since it’s been consistently strong in all three BWEs. Reaper isn’t too bad. Although Scrapper is too strong, it’s the first BWE with the elite spec.

Conditions are NOT removed last-in-first-out or right-to-left. It may have been that way at launch, but hasn’t for a long time.

I haven’t seen much research on it since the June 23rd patch, but before that patch, the priority was fixed for each skill. Most were similar, but a few were different. After the patch, it’s either maintained the pre-patch system or gone to the random system.

Traps themselves aren’t a problem. The problem is that using traps don’t fit well with the rest of Dragonhunter and actual gameplay.

Here’s what the intent was: You place a trap, then poke a mob with your longbow. You kite backwards, the mob chases you, hits your trap, and takes big damage. You could do multiple traps in this manner.

Here’s the PvE reality: Most mobs are so bad, they can be easily killed from range without kiting. You’d actually want to circle toward the mob so you can loot faster and progress further toward your destination. The trap tactic is only warranted on veteran or higher mobs. However, for elites and champions, you’ll likely be with a group. Those mobs will typically fight nearby players rather than chasing toward the ranged players. So you have to move into melee to place traps, which is the antithesis of the intent.

In PvP, astute players will see you place traps and will just avoid or dodge through them.

Additionally, if you’re a ranged playstyle, you want abilities which can keep allies at range. Traps aren’t very good at that.

If dragonhunter was mid-range or melee, traps would fit a lot better. The utility traps could be good with some core weapon sets and playstyles, but the traits and virtue changes don’t fit so well with those core builds.

Um, Air for Fresh Air is pretty good with Tempest. The air overload is arguably the strongest because of its large AoE (Fire is more damage, but a smaller area, making it easier to avoid).

This would reinforce bad habits just as much. Everyone would zerg bosses in forest. It would teach DPS to stand on point, which is not where they want to be. If it was based on who capped the node, everyone stands on point until it caps for credit and then runs to the next point.

Fixing the scoreboard would be nice, but there are so many other areas on which it’s better to spend limited developer time.

I disagree with some of the OP’s statements:

Fighting for supplies is not essential You’re better off grabbing them and avoiding confrontation. A team holding control of the depot isn’t that viable in an even match. Players need to shift out in order to spend supply and the opposing team can just spread out and kill your NPCs. They can also use the trebuchet to break a hold of the depot.

Heroes are weak but are worth points Yes, the heroes are weak. Most die before ever reaching the lord room. Their damage to gates is okay, but can’t be relied upon for a full health gate. However, in a close match the points they award often determine who wins if the game comes down to time. Grymm is about where the other heroes need to be. He has decent survival and his CC in a fight actually helps.

The trebuchet is very good in limited roles For defending your outer gate, the trebuchet is extremely powerful. A couple taps and you’ll kill a pile of doorbreakers. If you have good mobility and can teleport up to the treb, it’s very good for clearing out DBs coming down your lane in a pinch. Since it auto-repairs (this needs removed), it’s hard for opponents to prevent. The problem with the treb is that it can’t easily hit anything between the outer gate and the inner gate. The angle and power is odd and hitting the inner gate takes almost full power. It’s not really worth using for that purpose.

Guards do not need buffed unless their anti-doorbreaker functionality is nerfed. This mechanic already gives stronghold a PvE feel, no need to exacerbate that. If the guards had more HP and base damage, but didn’t one-shot doorbreakers, they could still assist defenders, but wouldn’t need to be killed over anything.

Archers need a major buff. They should be the slower, but more reliable option compared to doorbreakers. Instead their slower and less reliable. Their HP is about the same as a DB, but they stand still and poke players, making them effectively useless.

Channels being interrupted only by CC and treb removing all stability both need to go. The latter was a response to the former being too good, but feels very clunky. It makes the treb too mandatory.

Xaylin.1860:

Arken.3725:

Remove Kindled Zeal, replace with Writ of Persistence.

Personal opinion: Nope. Looking at Mace and Hammer this is extremly important for supportive Symbol builds. But Zeal doesn’t do them any favour. I’d rather see Kindled Zeal reworked into something else. For example, there could be an additional effect when a Symbol is created instead of prolonging the Symbol. Damage burst. Blind. Or Cripple. Wink, wink.

Writ of Persistence needs to be in Zeal with the other symbol traits. If you’re running a support dungeon build, you’re picking Zeal anyway. If you’re running a support build in PvP or WvW, you’re better off with Pure of Voice or Force of Will.

That’s only dragonhunter, not core.

Obtena.7952:

Anet explained why somewhere, but most people don’t care anyways.

Can you find a link or paraphrase the reason?