Guild Wars 2

Sinzaku.2980:

If only u were playing necro so u could feel our pain
At least guard is pretty strong in pvp atm

LOL. At the competitive level, necro is much better than guardian.

You said Shelter was pointless. I laughed and stopped reading. You have no clue what you’re talking about.

A lot the “variety” you see in ESL and similar tournaments is artificial because of the “maximum 1 of a profession” rule.

One month without ranked – which is really just a grind disguised as a rank system – isn’t killing PvP.

What’s killing PvP is awful balance and ridiculous power creep.

Ubik.8315:

Exedore.6320:

Guardian is really A or S tier. Rev and Mesmer are like SSSSSS tier.

Now you’re thinking like a minister for education. An A is an A+, a B is an A+, a C is and A, and a D is a B+. Nobody can fail!

No, I’m just pointing out the ridiculous power creep in this game.

Guardian is really A or S tier. Rev and Mesmer are like SSSSSS tier.

Guardian is fine. Most HoT specs are just beyond broken and it makes guardian look weak.

In fact, DH is still a little too good and definitely very faceroll. It needs more depth and less faceroll.

It’s just not fun to play once the initial novelty wears off.

Unless you restrict it to no larger than 3v3, team deathmatch turns into spamming overwhelming damage and CC onto one target. If it dies, you win; if it doesn’t, you lose. Even then, balance is put under a microscope and it limits the number of roles. And in a big fight, you have wonderful particle effect spam.

Conquest divides players up into smaller fights naturally, though still can lead to larger fights. It also promotes many different roles through map mobility, survival/bunker, burst, sustained damage, control (including decap), etc. Balance still matters, but there’s more leeway because you can always look for a better fight or add a player to put odds in your favor. Conquest also forces players to engage rather than the “staring contest” of team deathmatch.

DH actually needs toned down a little bit still. It’s just that other HoT specs are so stupidly overpowered that it makes DH seem weak.

HoT specs are just way too powerful. They killed the fun because they’re far too forgiving of mistakes or poor ability use. The only way to make GW2 PvP fun again is to nerf HoT specs down to reasonable levels.

Making the profession mechanic trait line into an elite won’t solve power creep. It nerfs some builds, but others like Tempest and Scrapper don’t use that trait line.

kdaddy.5431:

Im sorry but everything you are saying now is the exact same thing about spirit ranger/ hambow warrior/turret engy/ d/d ele that was said in metas before.

Not in the least. Those builds were powerful (in the case of turret engi, too easy to play at low-mid skill), but they weren’t completely insurmountable. Aside from the latest incarnation of d/d ele just before HoT, none were wiping other builds completely out of play which had been perfectly viable beforehand. HoT specs single-handedly made everything that isn’t a HoT meta build complete trash in comparison no matter how well it’s played.

Please, they are not going back. Many of us have been preaching the give and take of trait lines and classes for a long time.

If they don’t revert their power creeping ways, the game is dead (more than it is now). For what used to be a great game, it’s really sad to see it happening. That’s why so many people are being vocal about it. Unfortunately the current Devs have absolutely no clue how to balance, so I don’t see the game ever being good again.

Treat the disease, not the symptom. Fix balance.

kdaddy.5431:

This needs to stop,

Elite specs are OP but they are working on a expansion and they said they were bringing more spec to mess with.

Its over, join the elite specs and try to make a build with the elite spec line and 2 core ones.

Every meta has had its OP builds and this is no different, GW2 added the 3 point line and guess what they are not taking it back so adapt.

No, it does not need to stop unless you want a dead game.

It’s not just that elite specs are far too powerful; It’s that most are brain-dead OP where you can spam and not be punished for it. THAT has to stop, and in doing so, you’ll bring elite specs down to a reasonable level.

How about a “no HoT” tournament?

That way everyone can see how fun and enjoyable PvP is without the out-of-control power creep.

ANet removed a bunch of amulets because they mistakenly thought “too tanky” amulets created the bunker meta of season1. In reality it was too tanky HoT specs.

mistsim.2748:

^because over half of the core GM’s in the game are garbage, as well as many weapon sets. all that stuff needs to be brought up. this way u get 2 birds with 1 stone. competition for elites, as well as iteration on old garbage.

Okay, but then you have enormous power creep. Everyone has pulsing stability, 3 or 4 “get out of jail free cards”, high mobility and sustain, etc. It’s just not fun.

Still better to nerf elites back to core level and then buff up the core stuff which is a bit too weak.

Sirendor.1394:

But even if all of this is indeed correct, the dilemma for the balancing team is: kitten off their broader HoT consumers who have gotten used to the damage, sustain and CC levels they are seeing; or kitten off those who think HoT needs nerf in order to balance the game.

Their only choice is the former unless they want to kill the game entirely. If everything power creeps to the level of elite specs, it will trivialize all content, including PvE – more than it already has.

OP is spot-on with the problems of HoT specs. They offer too much utility and sustain without compromising damage. They’re too forgiving of mistakes which leads to brain dead skill spam not being nearly as punishable as it should be.

In order to resurrect the fun of PvP in GW2 (let’s face it, it’s pretty much dead), HoT specs need to be nerfed down to core level. If not, brain dead skill spam with build selection completely eclipsing player skill will continue to be the norm.

However, based on the season3 “balance” changes, I don’t think that will ever happen before PvP becomes a wasteland. The Devs are set on buffing everything to ridiculous levels instead of nerfing the few outliers properly (many across-the board nerfs instead of out-right gutting a couple skills).

Hell no. Instead of scaling back power creep, it gutted a few skills and power creeped a ton more.

The devs are completely out of touch. Mesmer gets 0 nerfs for example…

There is no power creep! </Iraqi Information Minister>

PvP in this game will be forever trash. ANet has decided braindead skill spam of elite specs is the way to go. Next expansion will just power creep more. I doubt anyone will be around for a third expansion by then.

Ha, you still had hope…

ANet’s skill and profession team (the “balance” team) is the worst I’ve ever seen. If you expected something other than idiocy in this patch, you weren’t grounded in reality.

The proper nerf to True Shot was to increase the cooldown and keep the damage so that it was a skill-shot. If you failed, you would be out a big chunk of damage for a while.

It helps, but it doesn’t address the true problem, which is ridiculous power creep.

See as ANet has no clue how to balance properly, I expect the reaction to be:

• “WTF are they thinking?”
• Laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all
• Hanging head in disappointment at what used to be a great and fun game

They’ll probably:

• Buff warriors and thieves unnecessarily
• Nerf the wrong thing on ele and necro which end up not affecting them
• Leave scrappers OP
• Buff druids
• Try to buff unused revenant legends
• Make some elaborate nerf to chronomancer Moa that either does nothing or ends up making the skill completely useless
• Remove an amulet or two because that’s the problem…

What they really should do:

• Nerf all HoT specs. All need nerfed, just some more than others.

Anari.2137:

This forum is not about me. If you cannot come up with an argument beyond character attacks stop posting. I did not come to guild wars 2 forums to argue about if some random people on the interwebz approve of me or not.

We did. You ignored them and kept going.

Anari.2137:

Crinn.7864:

I don’t think you’ve ever actually had any real experience with the industry.

When you can provide evidence for that let me know.

Anari.2137, you’re the one who keeps bringing it up as a reason we should accept your ridiculous ideas. The burden of proof therefore falls to you.

@CntrlAltDefeat.1465

Not all ranged is projectile. That simple fact defeats a good chunk of your post.

Further, ranged damage is usually lower than melee damage in order to balance out the fact that ranged damage is safer and easier to land.

Here’s the problem:
Projectile hate is fine when it requires smart use in order to be effective. You waited and reflected that kill shot? Great! The rifle engi ran towards you and you pre-emptively put up a shield to stop overcharged shot? Great!

What we have now is you see a ranged user. You use projectile hate ability #1. It ends, you use projectile hate ability #2. It ends, you use other defense. After that you dodge. Take a few hits maybe and now you repeat because all of that is off cooldown. Timing it properly no longer matters because you can just chain it.

zxstanyxz.8769:

use a non projectile ability until the wall goes down then hit them hard?

Electro-whirl + Defense Field = 40% uptime. Add in Shock Shield for blocks. Why bother using projectiles at all?

The problem isn’t the idea of projectile hate; it’s that it’s too easy to obtain with too high an uptime for too little effort.

Ellie.5913:

The reason people complain is they get countered by something depending on what profession or build they are playing and instead of changing their build/profession/play style they’d rather complain about it and get everything in the game nerfed except for what they play.

In the past, that may have been a proper response. But HoT specs are just so broken that they need to be nerfed. Core stuff with projectile block/reflect often has trade-offs. Usually you have to slot a utility skill and that skill is only good against projectiles. Or the total uptime was pretty low, so the counter was only active for a few seconds.

But now you’re seeing high anti-projectile up-time with almost no counterplay, especially from scrapper. With wall of reflection, you can attack from a different angle. Feedback you can force players out (same with swirling winds). How do you deal with any scrapper anti-projectile abilities besides waiting them out?

Anari.2137:

style.6173:

OP:

Nice try but I disagree with both of your classes so far. I want to see nerfs to elite specs are part of a balance. That’s the biggest problem with the game right now.

No, That is an insane amount of work it wont happen (its almost a gaurentee not to).

Your talking about reworked every math value in the expansion, from gear to mobs, to bosses to damage, and so on. You might as well forget that position.

If it’s not done, the game will be a skeleton before the next expansion. Nothing is challenging because HoT elites are faceroll simple to play. So much so that someone playing a HoT spec poorly will still outperform a well-played core build.

Player skill has to matter. In order to accomplish that, HoT specs must be nerfed heavily. If that requires re-balancing raids a bit, so be it. The HoT zones will be fine without changes even if HoT specs are nerfed.

Sins.4782 hit the nail on the head.

HoT specs need major nerfs to remove power creep and braindead play. Based on past patches, this won’t be happening any time soon. I really wish it would because I love the underlying mechanics of the time, but I’ve accepted reality.

Ninski.5680:

Pvp is balanced well enough at high levels

Yes, it’s balanced when everyone plays one of the same 6 builds. When most games are mirror matches, you can call that balanced.

But it’s not fun in the least. And it alienates people who don’t enjoy those builds. Further, many of those builds require little skill to play well.

Anari.2137:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unblockable

Refer to link

Search of the page shows no mention of “pierce” or “piercing”. Last edit date of the wiki page was in 2015.

Conditions are too plentiful currently because of power creep which needs to be reigned in. You’re adding more power creep to counter power creep. That’s what made WoW PvP suck.

Instead, start by removing power creep from necro:

• Heavy nerf to Deathly Chill
• Remove boon corrupt on scepter auto-attack

You know, things most GW2 players have been saying since before season2 started…

I’m well aware of effects with unblockable. Most are control effects or area effects. There’s been power creep into damaging effects as well. But what does that have to do with anything – especially because your version of Sanctuary granted immunity.

Did you even read about season1? Bunker mesmer didn’t care if it won. It just sat on a node being un-killable. No one could cap any node. That’s what your sanctuary change is doing. If you counter saying “well it prevents contesting the point” then let me point you at Search and Rescue, which is a problem currently with less power and a longer cooldown.

Looking at your guardian changes, you clearly have never played GW2 PvP at a competitive level. Nor do you have any depth of understanding of its mechanics. I suggest you stop with your current effort and learn to play the game first.

Let’s look at some of your guardian changes:

• Smite Condi to 10sec CD with 3 conditions removed. This screams power creep. Condition clear is supposed to be limited, rewarding judicious use. The current meta is problematic because a few builds can crap out conditions continually. Nerf that instead
• Wall of Reflection with a 20sec CD. This is just LOL. So you want to push ranged projectile weapons completely out of PvP?
• Sanctuary at 35sec CD which offers complete protection. This is just laughable. ANet nerfed Well of Precognition to the ground after last season for doing less.

Asrat.2645 had a good list of general rules in his first reply.

Oh, and I’ll re-iterate. This is not WoW. Stop trying to make it more like WoW.

It won’t help until they change the matchmaking algorithm.

GuildWars2 uses Glicko-2 for MMR. That would be fine for 1v1s or fixed teams, but it’s unclear how ANet has adapted it to random teams.

If you have 4 good players and 1 bad player of all unknown rating, how can it figure out the contribution of each? In theory, this should filter out over time, but Glicko-2 has additional parameters for how much your rating can deviate between games and tries to put you at a correct rating quickly and then not change much from game to game. Get in a few games like this early on and you’re stuck always getting players well below your skill who bring down your team.

So if you reset MMR then one of two things happen:

1. Assume MMR is working well: a reset accomplishes nothing other than poor matching in the short-term.
2. Assume MMR is not working well: after a reset, it will continue to not work well.

If no one is going to analyze what is actually happening and adjust the algorithm, then there’s no point in an MMR reset.

I think most players realize there will never be perfect balance.

The current problem with GW2 balance is that a handful of builds (all of them using HoT specs) are far stronger than everything else. It used to be that a good build which was played well could convincingly beat a stronger build which was played by a mediocre player. And there was variation in the top tier team comps as well without ESL having a “one of each prof” rule. We just want that back.

Anari, just give up. You’re making stuff up and then using it to be condescending. You don’t really understand GW2’s balance problems.

WoW capped out at slightly more than 12 million active subscriptions during WotLK. It’s been dropping ever since. Players return when major content patches hit and leave shortly after. That trend has become more pronounced lately, but Blizzard stopped publicizing active subscriptions during their quarterly shareholder calls. That large fluctuation is because most of WoW’s population is driven by PvE, not PvP. And they’re only to a 7th release (Legion which releases late summer) with an 8th likely planned. Not 7 more as you claim.

GW2 is no different than WoW in that its playerbase is driven mostly by PvE and fluctuates with content releases. It’s not as successful as WoW in terms of players, but I believe it is (or was) the second best by a long shot. The fact that it didn’t go over well in China hurt it in that regard.

Balance is subjective. To say that WoW has the best balance out of any MMORPG is pure opinion. Balance also doesn’t necessarily mean fun. WoW PvP may be considered “balanced” because many specs are viable, but it doesn’t mean it’s fun. WoW PvP notoriously suffers from power creep over the course of an expansion and toward the end, players health bars will ping pong from 20% to full every few seconds. It’s not very fun and one of the reasons Blizzard is implementing a new PvP system in Legion.

GW2 PvP pre-HoT, aside from d/d cele ele, was far more fun and balanced than any time in WoW that I played (every cycle besides MoP). GW2’s current balance issues are because of HoT specs; they’re far more powerful while marginalizing player skill as a factor because the mechanics are too forgiving or too easy to execute. Until the skill & trait design team accepts this and heavily nerfs HoT specs, GW2 will continue to have lopsided balance which drives players away.

What I meant by turning GW2 into WoW is your proposal for flashy gimmicks and huge cooldown-based effects with significant amount of RNG while at the same marginalizing profession/build identity. Basically all the stuff WoW PvPers hate.

Charms
No. We already have too much graphics clutter.

Sigils
Disagree. While limiting to one active sigil sounds nice, it’s also confusing (which is the active / why is PvP different) and back-tracking heavily. A lot of people will be angry.
And why remove on-swap, stacking, and force/accuracy? They just need re-balanced a bit.

Amulets
Where will we get stats now? Are they baseline now? That doesn’t allow for proper customization for various builds.

General
Idea in general is bad.
The Rune/Sigil effects being proposed are way too powerful. Effects like these should be profession abilities which are more predictable and where interaction can be better controlled.

Anari, this is not WoW. Stop trying to make it more like WoW.

Stacking stability isn’t a problem in PvP. Elites which pulse stability aren’t a major problem.

Stability is a problem in PvP when it’s constantly applied for basic actions like dodging.

Math shows that MMR hell exists:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/The-nature-of-MMR-hell/first

Math wins over flawed personal anecdote.

Dragonhunter is braindead simple, but that same lack of depth keeps it from being competitive at high levels of play.

Based on past seasons, the April 19 patch will contain “major” balance changes.

Probably living story at the current rate…

Life Force is takes much more time to generate. If you wanted to reset life force, you’d need to boost life force generation to compensate. But then it would be extremely difficult to kill necromancers.

I followed it until you used WoW as an example of good PvP balance. At worst, their balance is as bad as GW2 is now. When GW2 was better balanced, it was far better than WoW because the gameplay is more engaging (WoW relies on beating on someone until they’re out of cooldowns with a bit of RNG).

If they don’t balance after season2, the PvP aspect of the game will continue to die. The health of the game is far more important than the joke that is GW2 esports.

HoT spec power creep is out of control. The worst part is that it made gameplay far too faceroll.

The longer ANet takes to bring HoT specs down to core level, the more the PvP scene will continue to die off.

sephiroth.4217:

I’m going to say no thank you… I’m not against it coming back, but without Cele amulet there has been so many viable builds pop up where you can actually choose what sort of role you want to play and not just equipping a cele amulet and stacking might.

This is less because celestial was removed and more because ANet added non-kittened 4-stat amulets.