Guild Wars 2

Ashen.2907:

Its not reasonable to expect people who are paying to have fun to spend their “play” time not having fun. Customers telling you that they do not like aspects of your product is kind of important if you want to continue to sell to them in the future.

You seem to assume all the players have the same tastes and want the same things. This obviously isn’t the case. And frankly, you don’t even need to read threads like this to know this is an unreasonable assumption. You just need to have had contacts with people.

savacli.8172:

Feanor.2358:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Feanor.2358:

Does it give any incentive to master the hard class?

The incentive to master the hard class is because you enjoy the hard class.

Right, and the peer pressure to not weigh your group down? 6-8k or more dps deficit means longer fights. Longer fights mean more mistakes, more mistakes mean even more dps lost. You can enjoy your harder class in the open world just as well, can’t you?

I mean, that’s really up to the squad. If you signed up for a clearing group you know very well going into it that the squad is looking for consistency. Regardless of the class and build, they’re looking for tried and true. Feeling like experimenting with a new class or build? Well that’s up to the squad lead, otherwise you’re looking at experimenting on your own.

It’s a game after all. Some players want a challenge, others subscribe to the “build of the month”, while other couldn’t care less about what’s meta and what isn’t and would much rather go off and do their own thing.

While Staff DD can easily out-perform most classes that are played at a mediocre level…..it’s so boring. So yeah, I’d much rather take condi thief that is more engaging because anything is better than just auto-attacking. Can’t DPS if I fall asleep on my keyboard

I wasn’t talking about snowflake builds. This is an entirely different discussion. And while I agree just autoattacking is dull and boring, it doesn’t mean everyone cares about that.

The remark about PvP was just a stray thought. A clarification, if you prefer. My commends are based mostly on PvE, as it is what I care mostly about. PvP and roaming in WvW aren’t my thing.

ugrakarma.9416:

By the reaction of Kasmeer in the trailer it seems to me that it is somebody.

1-someone she hoped was missing or dead.
2-Someone who is bad.

Anyway it is very reduvious, if the person behind lazarus, is someone bad that supposed to be dead, why not himself? I find the development of this mystery very weak.

It doesn’t necessarily imply L is someone we know beforehand is bad. By this moment he can already played his move and the reaction might be a shock it was actually someone who Kas trusted. We’ll see in a little less than a week.

Rednik.3809:

Amaimon.7823:

you can literally “raid” with a stick of butter in the open world content, what do you care about nerfs outside raid. If you can kill Caudecus with a stick of butter, what does it matter if some powerful spell does 1% more or less damage in open world?

You can literally “live” in a fridge box under the bridge, why do you care about someone making your life worse outside of rich people society?
Other people paid same (if not more) money for that game as you did, and they have all rights in the world to demand attention just as you do.

This comparison is wrong on so many levels…

“The charade ends here”

Right, but… who pulled the Palpatine “emergency powers” trick in Tyria just recently? The similarities are striking.

Feanor.2358:

vier.1327:

Scarlet Briar!

And the forum burns!

There’s certain appeal to that idea. “The lies, the willingness to kill to get what he wants” – definitely matches. But Scarlet was basically a minion of Mordremoth. Now that he’s gone, I can’t imagine a good story reason for Scarlet to reappear. Her story had a good closure, it doesn’t make sense to reopen it for something as trivial as revenge.

flog.3485:

Here we go, Lazarus is kormir and she has an army of margonites she can use to overrule the world, hence the purple/violet glow of Lazarus in the trailer. No it is not a tin foil hat theory, Colin told me about it

Then how does Kasmeer recognise her? When did she have any interaction with the human gods? I don’t think works of art can be a reliable enough source to the looks of characters gone for 250 years.

vier.1327:

Scarlet Briar!

And the forum burns!

There’s certain appeal to that idea. “The lies, the willingness to kill to get what he wants” – definitely matches. But Scarlet was basically a minion of Mordremoth. Now that he’s gone, I can’t imagine a good story reason for Scarlet to reappear. Her story had a good closure, it doesn’t make sense to reopen it for something as trivial as revenge.

Arden.7480:

Hmm I wouldn’t be so anti-Lazarus, I mean the way how the trailer was built- a lot of Commander’s opinions from ep4 in there. Everytime you can see and hear that Lazarus is evil, everyone is in danger etc (in this trailer).

Perhaps the commander’s insinuations about him aren’t reasonable. He stated himself as Lazarus, who has been reborn and he is searching for allies, allies who fight against Dragons. Do you imagine the situation like this: “Hi Commy Tommy or whatever you are called, I just wanna tell you that what I said before to you, Luminate and Jory they are all lies, Yeah Commy Tommy.. Muhahahaha” I can’t imagine he would say this even after we didn’t attack him, we didn’t trust him, but I still believe he is on our side. He wanna kill these dragons, are you expecting he would suddenly join the Dragon’s army? Please… Mursaat is a powerful race and they fought with Dragons before and they escaped, but Lazarus wanna repair the past. I don’t know how you are seeing Lazarus after the trailer, but I believe he is not evil, anyway I think he just wanna help us.

Kasmeer said “it can’t be” without fear, but with surprise. She was surprised. But why? What’s going to happen? We need to wait a bit and everything will be revealed.

Have a good speculating!

He can be evil on its own. He doesn’t have to be a dragon’s minion for that.
Also I don’t see Kasmeer’s surprise as innocent. It looks to be mostly shocking, but nothing in her expression tells me there’s anything remotely pleasant related to this shock.

There’s also the characteristic low and deep evil laughter in the trailer.

Last, but not least, having Lazarus brought back from the dead to just get presented as an unlikely ally doesn’t feel like particularly good writing. Too much deus ex machina. We don’t get to see the catharsis leading to his change of heart and it doesn’t look believable because of that.

So, my money say Lazarus is up to no good.

Rising Dusk.2408:

No, it doesn’t. A player who is not comfortable with a class will down, miss DPS regardless, and require a lot of carrying. If you’re comfortable with a class you’ll have more DPS windows and easily pull modest, comparable damage numbers without ever being a master at the class. I witness this frequently with extremely average players on every DPS class; they pull their 20k DPS numbers on whatever they’re most comfortable on, regardless of what that DPS class actually is.

Except not really. I made the experiment myself – went with a staff thief in a raid and just autoattacked and dodged when the situation called for it. I’m not familiar at all with the class and I was doing 20k+ dps. That’s more than enough to pull my own weight. Most pug eles I’ve seen do 12-14k. Yeah, it’s modest. But it is certainly not comparable.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Feanor.2358:

Does it give any incentive to master the hard class?

The incentive to master the hard class is because you enjoy the hard class.

Right, and the peer pressure to not weigh your group down? 6-8k or more dps deficit means longer fights. Longer fights mean more mistakes, more mistakes mean even more dps lost. You can enjoy your harder class in the open world just as well, can’t you?

I used an exaggeration to answer an exaggeration. Didn’t think I’d have to clarify that.

Jski.6180:

Well that the thing you need to give ppl real options right now there are not real options. The ideal of one being dmg aimed one being def aimed and one being support aimed tends to be the best set up.

We have that actually. Earth is defensively oriented and Water is more support-y. Nobody uses them in PvE, because they hurt your own offensive capabilities too much and they don’t boost your party’s offensive capabilities at all. See Druid for reference about relevant group buffs.

In PvP the situation is different, mainly because the combat wasn’t designed for PvP, the damage numbers are too high making defence and mitigation a necessity. You can’t have a game where you fight enemies with 10-20k health and others with 10-50M health and expect both fights to work equally well. But that’s another story.

Jski.6180:

Any way if Inscription gave you the cdr effect of alacrity for a few sec after use of a glyph i would have a real chose for that staff ele build that i want to see as a viable build.

Soo… take the only sensible choice for a particular build, make it even stronger and that will create a real choice? How, exactly? By the way, the staff build is totally viable. Not the best dps anymore, but still better pick for certain fights.

Jski.6180:

(Needed to add this metor nerf only destroyed staff in wvw vs siege and pve over all it did not fix the hit box problem that ele has it simply shifted it to the real dmg hix box expiation wepon the WH. And i still do not understand how an specialization of def and support is the best dmg ele can do as a class its just silly. Did they changes the meaning of specialization?)

Different performance against different hitbox sizes isn’t necessarily a problem. It just adds to actual choices in a game, like you don’t stick with Staff for all the fights but switch to other weapons when you know you’ll be facing smaller enemy. And there wasn’t any actual problem in the first place. Staff had huge damage potential and staff eles were perceived to be the best damage dealers by a long shot. However, staff needs this damage potential to justify the various requirements you must meet to achieve it. No other weapon roots you in place for 2+ seconds on your most damaging attack. No other weapon is so reliant on the target remaining in your AOEs. The reality is, the vast majority of eles produced pretty low damage numbers in real fights and could easily be outperformed by other classes. And the people would have seen that after the legalisation of the dps meters. As it is now, Staff’s only advantage remains the range. And it’s mostly used as a weapon against inanimate, immobile objects. Quite sad.

The spec is a bit all over the place, that’s true.

Up-to-date ele raid builds

metabattle is pretty outdated on PvE tbh.

“Fresh fire” feels too much of a carbon-copy of Fresh Air. I’d rather have Arcane line do what it is supposed to and make frequent attunement switches possible and rewarding. Main problem is it competes with Tempest mechanic and overloads are just too powerful for Arcane to be a viable alternative.

What would you rather take over Inscription in a Staff build? It’s free dps increase, except on KC where Tempest Defense is stronger.

Aeromancer’s Training is a must in any Warhorn build. Lightning Orb is just too strong.

And there will always be better and worse traits when you want them to have different effects. There will always be those which work better and those that don’t. And people will always prefer the ones that do.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Feanor.2358:

For pretty much autoattack and dodge? No.

I disagree. More important than anything is that classes can pull comparable numbers within their own playstyle regardless of the difficulty of that rotation. If condition Engineer could pull 35k DPS “just because it’s hard to play” and everything else could never go higher than 25k, then you’d create a situation where you’re only ever realistically allowed to play Engineer in the meta and you’d hurt build and class diversity substantially. If people enjoy the challenge, they can play their Engineer right now and enjoy that playstyle in raids without infringing on the ability for others to play other things. It’s good the way it is.

Consider an average player who can get 20k by autoattacking on a staff thief or struggle to hit 12k on ele. Don’t you think it hurst build and class diversity? Does it give any incentive to master the hard class? What for – to achieve the same numbers after a lot of time practicing and with considerably more effort?

What you describe is only true for veteran players with a lot of experience on their characters. And the truth is, they would do just fine on any dps class. Many of them will choose to go for the “optimal”, but that’s a matter of their own choice.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

All of this post-Nightfall lines these guys have foretell Kormir’s eventual and inevitable descent into madness and evil, repeating Abaddon’s actions.

I find that very unlikely, for storytelling reasons. It simply would make a poor and predictable story. If we ever see Kormir again, she won’t be repeating Abaddon’s deeds. She’ll have her own agenda.

Kahrin.2137:

Thief is pure melee, brings no group buffs, and Venomshare can only work in a group setting with 1 per group. Shouldn’t it be warranted to have somewhat higher DPS?

For pretty much autoattack and dodge? No.

Djinn.9245:

As for more difficult mobs in core Tyria, soon it won’t matter whether they do it or not. That game that many of us loved is gone. Soon core Tyria will be an anacronism in the new, different, GW2 with the majority of maps being more difficult with content / mobs.

Really?

Core Kryta is 5 maps, not counting Southsun Cove, all of them easy.
Core Maguuma is another 5, again, easy.
Core Shiverpeaks and Ascalon have 6 each, and I’d rate them all easy again.
Orr has 3 maps, let’s be generous and say they are hard.

So core Tyria has 22 easy maps. How many hard are there? 4 HoT maps. Maybe you can count Lake Doric. Add Southsun to “hard”, Dry Top and Silverwastes to “easy”. 24 easy, 6 hard. Let’s be generous and count FGS and Fireheart as “moderate”, although they aren’t. Let’s also say Bloodstone Fen, Bitterfrost Frontier and Ember Bay are moderate, although they really aren’t either. Still 22 easy, 5 moderate, 6 hard. So how soon do you expect this anachronism to happen, around 2030?

Jski.6180:

CptAurellian.9537:

If that split was complete. It isn’t.

It never will be a complete split it cant be or your just playing different games. But to have raids become the main driving forces behind balancing on the pve side (with most likely the smallest population of gw2) is just wrong.

No, it’s not wrong. What do you expect the balance to be around, open world? Hardest content is the only sensible measure of how good a build, skill or trait is. Much as I hate the Meteor Shower nerf, it was just a poorly timed knee-jerk reaction rather than something actually dictated by the raid environment.

Jski.6180:

Do you realty think getting 10 sec swiftness or 8 sec reg or 3 sec protection or 1 stack of might is worth a master level trait when you already get this from arcain line?

No, but the dps increase from cutting down Storms cooldown is worth it. The rest is just a bonus.

Also, you don’t pick Arcane over Air because either Bolt to the Heart or Fresh Air.

Jski.6180:

The thing is your not just saying ideal are bad your going out of your way to not suggest any thing new to thoughts ideal there got to be a back and forward to getting new ideals. You cant just criticize and think that will fix every thing. Tell me how would you fix inscription? How would you fix utility that are not used at all or trait lines that are not use?

Traits not used by a lot of ele: Conjurer, Inscription, Aeromancer’s Training, Rock Solid, Elemental Surge, Tempestuous Aria, and Imbued Melodies.
Utility not used by most ele: Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Power, Conjure Earth Shield, Conjure Flame Axe, Glyph of Lesser Elementals, Glyph of Renewal, and Signet of Water.

How would you make these more usable?

First of all, why do you think you or I are qualified to fix design issues? Are you a game designer?

Next, Inscription, Aeromancer’s Training, and Imbued Melodies are used and need no “fixing”.

Djinn.9245:

But why are you telling me not to complain?

Because it seems you expect the whole game to cater to your own tastes, and that’s unrealistic.

First of all, the encounters are already easy for the people who can play the hard builds properly. This point is moot.

Second, I don’t think raids were ever meant to be doable by just autoattacking. The staff thief needs a fair bit of its dps shifted out of the auto, but that’s another story.

But as it is currently, the relative ease of reaching certain dps numbers on several builds, condi ranger included, makes the harder builds pretty much useless for the people who aren’t already good with them. Worse, they have no incentive to get good at playing them. Why spend hours in learning something to get the same results you’re already getting, only with more effort?

Not at all, I just want difficulty to be better reflected in final dps numbers so you have an actual reason to pick a hard to play build instead of autoattack staff thief for instance.

Djinn.9245:

I don’t have 4-stat gear and it takes time to get Elite specializations. You can either go back to core Tyria and get your Elite specs the long way, or suffer through HoT to get them.

Neither do I, I use good ol’ Berserker stats. As for getting the Elite specs, that could only have been a problem very early after the release. After that, there are plenty of well-known easy HPs, there are HP trains that don’t even require you to have waypoints, and there’s map chat and players who always come to help with HPs. I spend ~90% of my play time on my main yet I have 9 alts, one of each class, and elite specs unlocked on every one of them. It’s not even hard. Calling it “suffering” is just exaggerating.

Djinn.9245:

Many of us are specifically stating that we wanted more of the same, including my post you are quoting, so idk who you are talking about.

For many other players (myself included) who didn’t just want more of the same. FYI, I returned to the game after HoT launched.

Djinn.9245:

So I should “learn to like it” like its brocolli or something? This is a game – you know, entertainment? If I don’t like it why should I play it? And of course it is Anet’s fault, they made HoT. If a book is not good, it is the author’s fault, not the reader’s.

Sure, if you genuinely don’t like it you shouldn’t play it. Note that you can still play in core Tyria. However, there are other (again, myself included) who genuinely do like HoT. So your assessment that it’s “not good” cannot be objectively true. Meaning ANet didn’t to something objectively wrong. At best It’s a problem of perception. Maybe it’s simply not for you. But hey, it’s a game! Playing all aspects of it isn’t mandatory. I don’t like PvP and I don’t play it. But I don’t complain about ANet putting it in the game.

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

Also balancing around the top-skilled players is balancing for 5% of the playerbase. If that much. It creates flavor choices for said 5%. Whereas proper balancing for the middle-ground players creates a choice with actual meaning – play safe and easy or bet on your own skills with a harder to play class for a greater reward. For a much greater number of players.

You seem to be really unclear about what you want, so i’m going to point the problem to you.

Balancing around a middle-ground players preclude greater reward for greater skill. If that is allowed, but not balanced for, then it is going to create significant problems at the top skill level.

Consider what will happen if there’s that one class/build with much more difficult rotation/gameplay. If the content will be balanced around the mid-tier classes/builds, then everyone playing that class will find the content significantly easier.

Now, you might say that’s the reward for playing better. Consider now raids (basically, the content this topic started with). The content meant to be challenging, and designed for that top 5% players. If you balance them around those mid-tier classes, it will become easy (and definitely not challenging) for the target group. If you balance them around that high risk/reward build/class however, you will force everyone into playing that class when doing said content.

Both options are equally bad. And that’s why any balance attempts must include the “perfect execution” results as well.

Really? Raids are balanced for the top 5%? Then how do they manage to kill bosses with 5 players? Or wearing greens? Get serious please.

Giving greater reward for harder builds will change nothing for the top players. If they play the optimal builds they’ll just speedrun the wings a bit faster. It doesn’t matter for anyone. They can still pick an easier build and cruise through the wings, it’s not like they need the extra dps. It only changes things for the players of lower skill, giving them the same “easy or hard” choice.

Jski.6180:

Relay glyph of renewal is a good heal now for ele its low enofe cd that as a pure self healing effect is the best that ele can run.

That’s Glyph of Elemental Harmony you’re talking about. And it’s good, yeah. Renewal lets you rally downed allies on a 165 sec cooldown, with minor effects depending on your attunement.

Jski.6180:

I am only suggesting alacrity because glyph are lacking in use if you go to the M trait. You could make the boons aoe but agen your doing the same thing that ele dose with aura atumen swaping cantrip shouts (auras too) and blast finners. So its well conved for the ele class there going to be something new or its just the same build over and over by different means. This is true for pvp and pve.

The trait is mostly fine. I like to run it on Staff, because Tempest Defence damage modifier is unreliable (except on KC) and on Staff I really don’t want to spend much time in Air or care about recharges on Air skills. With Warhorn I do, so I pick Aeromancer’s Training instead. Come to think of it, the Master trait choice in Air is one of the best balanced for the class. All 3 are used in different scenarios. Compare to the master fire trait, where you always pick the cd reduction.

Now, suppose you put alacrity on the trait. It makes the strong glyphs even stronger. You take Storms anyway, but now it also gives alac? Sure, more power is always nice. It makes you always take the healing glyph, because no other heal gives alac, and it’s only 16 sec cd so you probably can maintain noticeable amount just by using this one skill. And it makes Inscription the go-to trait in all circumstances, except on KC. Congratulations, you just reduced the build diversity in both Air master traits and heal skills.

Jski.6180:

Also I get back to there a lot of skill that simply do not work in pve such as unblockable and boon removal but they are still in the game stop making this a “it must work in pve and pvp to be a real redesign” and on that point you said nothing to what should be redesigned about ele only what is wrong with other ppl ideals. I don’t want to say it but why are you just going after ppl ideals so hard?

Because their ideas are just wrong. Offering criticism could lead them to rethink their ideas and come up with better ones.

Mathematically it’s 1/3rd. However, it is by far the most important 1/3rd, because the players there outnumber the ones in the other two modes combined. So at the very least Glyph of Storms if BiS in half the game. Which is good enough. Once again, you’re proposing changes disregarding their effects in PvE. Won’t happen. If you’re concerned about glyphs, don’t try to alter their mechanic as a whole, address the underused ones individually. Glyph of Renewal can be pretty much scrapped like it is now and nobody would care. Or notice.

Tempest “utility” is vastly overrated. All it brings is cleave. For PvE, none of its other strong suits matter.

Also balancing around the top-skilled players is balancing for 5% of the playerbase. If that much. It creates flavor choices for said 5%. Whereas proper balancing for the middle-ground players creates a choice with actual meaning – play safe and easy or bet on your own skills with a harder to play class for a greater reward. For a much greater number of players.

Also the days of following blindly the “qT optimal” are more or less over. People now have dps meters and can see for themselves that suboptimal easy choices are often much better than “optimal” hard ones. So don’t give me that kitten about bandwagonning. It was relevant months ago, it’s not now.

All meta PvE builds use Glyph of Storms. If that’s not “fine” I don’t know what is.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Feanor.2358:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

They’re not the highest dps and the classes that are behind them are within 1k to 2k dps benchmark lower.

Except you have to put twice the effort on another class to beat their dps. And in some cases you need to put more effort on another class to stay within 2k lower. It’s pretty obvious many players are phasing to condi rangers. They aren’t doing it because they suddenly liked the playstyle, which is exactly the same it was. They’re doing it because the build is OP. Maybe it’s not very OP, but it is clearly an outlier.

Not really. The other classes don’t have very complicated rotations. Condi thief rotation is even easier and is less than 1k behind ranger.

Different playstyles for different players. Not taking difficulty into account breaks the risk/reward of the hard to play classes. For most of the players, who tend to make mistakes often, it becomes severely punishing to pick a harder class. It’s poor balance.

Djinn.9245:

But I disagree that adding different content to a game is ultimately good. GW2 started as a game that encouraged exploring, play your own way, and was fairly easy ramping up to difficult in Orr / Southsun (talking about my standards). Truly challenging content was relegated to Dungeons (talking about the past), Fractals, and some Story boss fights. (Sad that I have to put disclaimers that this is my POV in my own post. And people will probably still argue with it.)

I’d argue the difficulty of HoT isn’t that much different. Yeah, it IS harder than Orr, but the player characters are more powerful too, thanks to 4-stat gear and elite specializations. More on that in a minute.

Djinn.9245:

The player base for GW2 obviously enjoyed the game or they would not have played it from 9/2012 to 10/2015.

Here’s the crux of it. What makes you think these are the same players?

Players come and go. Giving them “more of the same” eventually tires them and they leave. Giving something fresh and different I think is better for the health of the game. HoT does that and it does it by playing into a strength of the game – namely, how well the game mechanics work with large number of players. I’ve always liked this about the game. It creates a different feel, and it’s a good one. This by the way addresses your “jack of all trades” comment. I don’t believe it is relevant.

Djinn.9245:

When a new expansion was announced, I assumed it would be on the same level as what was already proved a success and enjoyed by the players. Instead I got platforming, 3D maps that I could not find my way around, and packed with deadly mobs with cc (remember, this is my POV). I had been introduced to a more 3D map with Drytop and I didn’t even like that. HoT is an order of magnitude worse. I was stunned that Anet created an entire expansion that was so completely different from the core game. And very disappointed that there wasn’t more of what I already was enjoying.

That’s hardly ANet’s fault though. Let’s be honest – it was your own choice to dislike the content instead of trying to learn/master it. The maps are easy to navigate and easy to play. Yes, they require you to spend some time there earning the masteries which is questionable. But once you get through that, it’s hardly any harder than Orr.

vesica tempestas.1563:

For info, Here’s a couple things i bet my bottom dollar people who struggle with mobs don’t do:

use damage reduction food/util (for e.g -10% all dmg taken)
use toughness food/util
use defensive sigils and runes
use condy removal and toughness talents
stronger preference for defensive stats.

This is why people find HOT difficult.

I don’t use any of these either. I run full zerk ele with the glass meta build and I find HoT piece of cake. It’s just a matter of learning what the mobs do. After it you know how to deal with them properly, when to dodge, when it’s safe to attack and when to avoid them completely if you’re alone for instance.

nsleep.7839:

Please don’t. Difficulty of execution should be a non-factor when it comes to balancing raw numbers, Elementalist is already rewarded through having better flexibility, support and cleave potential when playing a dps role.

Of course it should be a factor. More difficulty = more risk of mistakes = more punishing. Obviously it should be more rewarding to balance that out.

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

It is and I know, for I play both.

Both what? There are 9 classes in the game, not two, you know.

Seriously, just look up the lazy versions of rotations for power engi and staff thief, for example. PS (both power and condi) have it easy as well (with condi having really respectable damage on top of important partywide buffs). Scepter/torch guardians are relatively easy as well. And I’m not even going to comment on condi mesmers…

Basically only eles and condi engi are left with complicated rotations now, without having the sufficiently good lower-effort ones.

Basically, for parity, you wouldn’t want to nerf rangers. You’d want to buff the condi necros (the scepter ones, not the gs kind, that build is a gimmick not really applicable to 99% of groups due to problems with condi fields) and make the ele rotations easier.

I main ele. And I don’t want my rotations easier, there are enough classes for that, including the ranger. One of the reasons I still prefer to play my ele is the way it plays and the rotations involved. I want, however, to have proper reward for harder rotations.

And again, being harder to mitigate is irrelevant for PvE. Damage procs aren’t, unlike soft-cc ones. So you’re proposing to trade something of value for something useless. Arcane isn’t great as it is, but your proposal makes it trash in PvE.

And again, glyphs are fine as they are. Glyph of Storms is borderline OP. Glyph of Elemental Power is really strong in burn builds. Which may be sub-optimal but do exist and are playable. By the way, they utilize the already mentioned burn procs from Arcane, so if anything you’d be reducing build diversity in PvE.

The problem with the underused glyphs like Renewal and Elementals is their effects are more or less irrelevant. Getting someone up from downed once every 3 mins, come on. Strapping a band-aid Alacrity on them won’t make them good or used. It will just make the already strong glyphs flat out overpowered.

It is and I know, for I play both.

No, because of PvE in general they shouldn’t be a focus. It’s fine to design options like this, it’s not fine to dedicate a whole trait line to it.

Jski.6180:

Unblockable and getting away from crit dmg for arcain will help out over all in the open world pve

No, they won’t. In open world you don’t need anything beside raw damage, except if you’re being a special snowflake who likes do solo group events for instance. That’s a small minority of the players.

In raids you need to be efficient, so as a damage dealer you have no use of picking defensive traits. All the defense you need should be supplied by your support characters, your job is to deal as much damage as possible.

Jski.6180:

Most skills and weapons are not use at all in pve and to brush over them that its ok is saying this game has comply become that one wepon one class game and every one is the same builds/ set up something that is so different from gw2 that it WILL destroy the game.

Currently, ele in PvE uses Staff, Dagger, Scepter, and Warhorn. The unused weapons are both offhands, Focus and Dagger. Both aren’t used for the same reason – they don’t have the offensive capabilities of the Warhorn.

Note that ele can in theory be an excellent healer. Which gives more build diversity than just picking a needlessly defensive weapon. What the ele lacks for this isn’t ways to get unblockable or whatnot, it’s group buffs. Druid will always be the healer of the group as long as nobody else can match Spotter + GotL + spirits. Again, it’s all about the damage. Many classes can heal, but only druid boosts the party dps this much while healing.

Also note that we can give stuff like perma prot and vigor instead. And they have essentially zero value in PvE context. Note how different this is in PvP/WvW.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

They’re not the highest dps and the classes that are behind them are within 1k to 2k dps benchmark lower.

Except you have to put twice the effort on another class to beat their dps. And in some cases you need to put more effort on another class to stay within 2k lower. It’s pretty obvious many players are phasing to condi rangers. They aren’t doing it because they suddenly liked the playstyle, which is exactly the same it was. They’re doing it because the build is OP. Maybe it’s not very OP, but it is clearly an outlier.

I disagree. PvE has most of the players and the game is built around it. Yes, it was built knowing there will be PvP aspects – hence the skills/traits that give reveal, unblockable, etc. – but it is still primarily a PvE game.

So while I understand your point of giving certain tools to the profession, it simply won’t happen the way you want it. Because you cannot disregard PvE when trying to design changes. Even though Arcane is underused in PvE, it won’t get shoved out of it completely. Frankly, it is already bad enough Water and Earth are mostly PvP/WvW lines.

You’re talking about PvP, which I don’t care about. In PvE soft CC is situational, like I said. Monsters, as a rule of thumb, don’t dodge. Some occasionally do, but this can simply be ignored, as you’ll most likely lose more dps by using soft cc than using skills actively to counter their dodges. Same goes for blocks btw. AoE blinds and chills have their uses, but most of the time they simply aren’t needed.

Turning Arcane into unblockable/soft cc line will forever make it a PvP-only line. Like it is now, it can be used in PvE. Even if it is suboptimal, it has some nice damage buffs and synergies.

Djinn.9245:

I think its funny how so many people put words in others’ mouths. I don’t recall anyone in this thread saying “I can’t play in HoT.” What I do see is people saying “I don’t like it.”

Now here’s an interesting thought: you literally can’t create content that everyone would like. People are different and so are their tastes. Try to appease one and you’ll upset another.

Creating different content aimed at different players is ultimately good for the game – it expands its potential player base.

Jski.6180:

Soft cc are the most important effect in gw2

Nope. The most important effect is outgoing damage. Soft CC is without doubt an important aspect of the game, however, unlike damage, it is very situational. There are places where it is useful and there are others where it is simply irrelevant. Generally, in the open world it goes like this: Lightning Orb → Overload Air → “Feel the burn!”, everything’s dead. Why would I waste time on soft cc?

Not only that, but proc-based effects like Arcane Precision and Glyph of Elemental Power can’t be precisely controlled. Meaning if you use them for their soft CC it can easily get wasted on a target where you don’t need it. Whereas a damage proc is always relevant (see Superior Sigil of Air for instance). Because of all this, said procs are valuable and used for their damage procs, not for their soft CC ones. Remove the damage procs and nobody will touch them anymore because they’ll be garbage.

I make mistakes, like normal people do. The thing is, there are fewer mistakes you can make on a ranger. Pretty much you can only screw the Quickdraw of your Bonfire. It’s more forgiving, thus it loses less from mistakes.

Of course, there are bosses where we don’t use a condi ranger at all, and some where we do and I can pull a little ahead (e.g. Samarog).

Coconut.7082:

Feanor.2358:

“Best” is relative. Perhaps it’s not best for doing speed runs with the top guilds. But it’s pretty kitten hard to beat condi ranger’s dps if you’re not in that league and it’s among the easiest dps classes to play. Perhaps only the thief is easier.

And should the game be balanced around players that didn’t even bother to read their skill’s description, and are literally pressing random buttons?

Trust me, I’m not pressing random buttons and I certainly have read my skill’s descriptions. I also went to practice my ele on the golem. I still usually get outdps-d by the condi ranger in our group. I also have one myself so I can compare the relative ease of getting certain dps numbers first-hand. No matter how you look at it, the ranger is way easier.

Erzian.5218:

Idk about d/d thief but staff thief is a lot harder to play than condi ranger.

It’s harder to play optimal. But you can stick to autoattacking on staff and still get pretty decent dps. Even the ranger needs to put some effort to get the same numbers. Not a lot of it, just some.

apharma.3741:

Feanor.2358:

Neither is standardization.

Having a certain class excel in dps while another excels in support is perfectly fine. It creates different feel for the classes and it is also better in regards to immersion and game world consistency. Your argument is basically “why can’t a football player be a theoretical physicist”? Because they invested years of practice in different fields, honing different skills. That’s why. In much the same way one class should not be able to replicate ALL results of another. It defeats the purpose of having different classes, and this purpose is having to choose different strengths and weaknesses.

Wasn’t GW2 essentially advertised as some kind of middle ground though? There were no concrete roles, you could play a healer, a damage dealer, buffer etc and not be penalised too much?

We aren’t asking for them to be the same just that there should be just as viable options without making it much harder. At the moment nothing comes close to the 3 support classes for buffing without needing the players to be very good. I don’t want to see more unique buffs either as we are supposed to be playing the game not the UI and it will lead to power creep.

You are asking for them to be the same. There’s nothing to stop you from playing a condi Berserker right now. And you won’t be penalized “too much”. The damage would be lower, but not as low as to cause you to fail, even in raids.

Why would Gleam care about masquerading as a mursaat? What does it gain him?

Neither is standardization.

Having a certain class excel in dps while another excels in support is perfectly fine. It creates different feel for the classes and it is also better in regards to immersion and game world consistency. Your argument is basically “why can’t a football player be a theoretical physicist”? Because they invested years of practice in different fields, honing different skills. That’s why. In much the same way one class should not be able to replicate ALL results of another. It defeats the purpose of having different classes, and this purpose is having to choose different strengths and weaknesses.

“Best” is relative. Perhaps it’s not best for doing speed runs with the top guilds. But it’s pretty kitten hard to beat condi ranger’s dps if you’re not in that league and it’s among the easiest dps classes to play. Perhaps only the thief is easier.