Guild Wars 2

Khristophoros.7194:

…The second issue is the root cause behind people wanting only level 80 characters in dungeons. Sub-80 characters are usually extremely weak because of how the downscaling system works….

I always viewed that as being due to lack of traits/skills because sub-80 character’s don’t have fully unlocked builds.

SonOfJacob.7396:

TLDR of your post is “please consider, allowing us to choose multiple traits from lower tiers.”

I agree.

I’m on the fence about this.

There’s no denying that the game’s had various balance issues since launch. This change should make balance more achievable (fewer variables) and allow the devs to improve class balance over all. If that actually happens then I’m OK with the change. If not, then we’ve lost build diversity for nothing.

Either way, I judge there’s no chance they will reverse the decision. It’s too integral to the introduction of future content & changes.

Mostly because the devs think necros should be ping-pong balls.

The Corruption concept just needs a rework as it is currently a joke. I’m avoiding them like the plague.

(hides from pun police)

Salamander.2504:

By seeing the cooldowns of our utility skills, we can then more strategically use Death Shroud, promoting skilled play/counter-play, and it will help balance the necro as a class.

Bump if you agree!

Edit: You really can help by posting a +1. According to ANet support, “Members of the Development Team read the forums daily…[and reading suggestions] helps them gauge the level of interest in a particular idea,” so lets show that our level of interest is high.

I support this.

But… I would prefer that we be allowed to use our utilities in shroud as well as all healing. And yes, shroud would have to be adjusted to compensate. I’m good with that. Tired of anti-synergy and my ‘core profession skill’ locking me out of the rest of my character.

I’m not convinced Reaper & GS are worth giving up another trait line for.

Necros already have a problem with being shut down easily; all melee shroud with no mobility will make it worse.

I’m waiting till I can play-test it to decide.

I’ve gotten 6 or 7 ascended drops (random weapon chests/rings) from WvW rank up chests. That’s out of almost 1500 ranks.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Magicus.4302:

Please remember that a very minor portion of your player base doesn’t agree with the court’s decision today.

FTFY

Also you’re in breach of the code of conduct.
Do not post:
which promotes hatred of any kind, including that based on nation, race, religion, age, sex, gender orientation, or culture.

I don’t agree with the OP, but I don’t agree with this either. The OP expressed a personal opinion, as such, without any derogatory/hateful/inflammatory statements. That’s perfectly acceptable.

The amount of censorship modern society pushes on us in the name of ‘freedom’ is appalling.

Breedlove.1245:

… I dont even use it in PvP…

This is why you aren’t having problems with it. In PvP combat 4s is a very long time.

Everyone’s burst damage is just higher atm. It’s not a health issue.

Mallis.4295:

Mystogan.6832:

Not with hotkeys, I ain’t about that skill clicking life.

Double press your hotkey.

That just casts @ mouse location. Does not work to cast on self without deliberately making sure the mouse is on me or on some UI element like the map (which is an invalid place to cast, so it casts on me by default).

Default ground targeting on some consecrations is cool… but not this one. Really the targeting system should let us “lock” specific skills to be always cast on us (while leaving other skills we choose “unlocked” so we can ground target).

Zaroua.2714:

The bleed formula was changed from .05 +42.5 to .06 + 20, which means you need over 2000 condition damage to break even. They announced that you’d need 700ish condi damage to break even. Nerf number one.

They removed built-in condition duration from traits and gave nothing in return. Nerf number two.

They gutted our bleed on crit trait to 33% chance. Nerf number three.

Epidemic has a 13½ cooldown, up from 12 seconds. Nerf number four.

Consume Conditions now blinds us, nerfing our damage output. Nerf number five.

Plague is unusable due to the stupid changes. Nerf number 6.

But hey, we can get to like 35 bleed stacks and do slightly more damage than we did before, so at least there’s that.

Hey, you can use condi duration food and make Consume Conditions blind you for longer!

You’ll be pleased to know that our corruptions and associated traits are fully functional (unlike so many traits that were broken for since launch and just fixed earlier this year).

The self-inflicted conditions benefit from your condition damage and duration.

Yay!

No, no, no. This is how you do economic predictions…

I don’t have a problem with the expansion. I got almost 3 years of entertainment from my first $50; it has paid for itself many times over. I don’t see paying another $50 now for an expansion as ‘paying double’.

Anet’s real mistake here was in the way it was communicated; they screwed up the presentation in a way that made a lot of existing players feel like they were being ripped off (even though they aren’t).

JakHammer.7094:

When I read that there was a game wide hard nerf to Vigor, reducing the buff to Endurance gain from 100% to 50% I expected to see a LOT of wailing and moans, especially from guards as it is a further nerf to selfless daring, which has already been hit hard twice, iirc.

But I don’t seem to see any threads about this anywhere.

I thought dodging, with or without a dodge roll effects, was a critical and defining skill in the GW2 Combat system, and that a major nerf to dodge availability would be important. What have I missed?

This based on this quote from the Specialization Changes thread.

•Vigor: Decreased the endurance regeneration rate from 100% to 50%.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/June-23-Specialization-Changes/first

• It’s less obvious than things like reduced damage modifiers.
• It may hurt, but not more than other classes.
• Evade-for-days thieves are most impacted.

I’m also curious about how/if the 30% boon duration (or condi duration) we are losing from trait lines will be made up in base stats or if we will need gear to make up the difference. A lot of professions stand to lose there, but not much QQ about it yet.

WhiteCrow.5310:

The answer is, none of us won the balance changes. I’ll cite my source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am9gVQB8gss

Priceless.

As to who won: since we don’t have the ability to play-test, I suggest we decide based on the level of QQ on each profession forum. Should be worth some good entertainment value.

They explicitly said it would probably be ‘adjusted’ (read: nerf) if given a category. Do you want the Consume Conditions treatment? Leave well enough alone already.

I suggest replacing the name with ‘Suicide’.

… oh that’s not what you meant is it?

It would be nice if we could keep it but even Devs are allowed to change their minds once a year; and it is an extreme outlier in terms of functionality.

Abusing spectral walk was a fun gimmick but I’m far more concerned about our new Suicide Heal.

+1 for the bull-kitten being made real. best thread on the whole topic

Wanze.8410:

Lishtenbird.2814:

It’s not that players do not want ascended to be better, it’s that they want it to not feel grindy which it always did, especially for light classes, especially if you play more than one class, especially in fractals, and it does feel more grindy than ever with the rocketing price.

The price is relatively irrelevant in determining if its more grindy now, as long as the droprate stays the same.

It’s dependent on drop rate and # of silk scraps required for ascended crafting. Silk requirements are disproportionately high, and have been for a long time. The OP suggests changing that.

I wouldn’t mind if they slightly raised the # of leather/mithril needed while dropping silk requirements to the same level. Currently you need lots of silk regardless of armor weight (heavy/light/medium) that you are crafting. Requirements for mithril/leather are far less and it should be normalized.

The behavior is clearly not intended and has been very well publicized over the last year or more. It’s been fun, but I’m not surprised that it’s changed.

I’ve heard a few RP’ers chatting in Rata Sum while doing crafting. Where appropriate, I like to interject an in-character comment about the drunken bear

It’s funny that I haven’t seen screaming about this on the Ele forums yet… maybe none of the ranting types have thought of it yet…

Sariel V.7024:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Valento.9852:

Where did you see that it will be removed?

http://www.dragonseason.com/activity/390/

In order to make this change, Antitoxin Spray has been removed from the game.

More than likely a hoax. Antitoxin Spray may go away, but it won’t be Dragonseason breaking the news.

I have to wonder if someone is trying to abuse the silk scrap market.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19748

where is the source of this information on the ascended gear change?

where is the source of this information on the ascended gear change?

Yea, that particular change is pretty bad; 10% more incoming damage for 4s when you are already under enough fire to need your heal.

• PvE: probably won’t be a huge issue
• PvP: 4 seconds is a long time in a PvP fight; easily long enough for people to see it and spike you. Near suicidal to use.
• WvW: depends on positioning. Well positioned backline might be able to use it except that you aren’t taking damage if you’re positioned well. The only time you need the heal is when you’re in trouble, and then 10% more damage under zerg fire + 4s of guaranteed combat to make sure you move slower is near suicidal.

That said, the numbers are not set in stone. When data mining shows how many players have abandoned the skill they will probably adjust it (eventually). I could live with 5 stacks for 1 second.

Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.

Is this going to teleport allies that are currently being rezzed by other teammates? That could be a problem.

Bear in mind that conditions as a whole have been changed/re-scaled and burning will stack now so it may not be the straight nerf you’re anticipating.

Bit of a mixed bag but overall leaning towards positive.

@Anet: regarding this:

Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.

Is this going to teleport allies that are currently being rezzed by other teammates? That could be a problem.

Where does the Elementalist Shine?

Wherever I am.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Technically not perma, you can have the stack stripped and then get CC’d again.

And if you swap out of flamethrower, it’ll go away pretty fast.

So more like a pseudo-perma stability, which is still quite nice. Might see more people running it just to help avoid CC’s although it does mean locking yourself into firearms.

They still might end up nerfing it yet, there will be adjustments after the patch goes in once they see how the dust settles from all this.

Yes, I realize that 2 CCs in a row will get through. But that descriptions doesn’t say anything about Flamethrower…

[edit: Yes, I know it’s a flamethrower trait on live. But… not in the new description! Oversight or crazy buff?]

I’m not too disappointed. Sure losing the easy adept trait 100% swiftness up-time is sad, but base 50% up-time is not bad. And the other buffs are… very nice.

Juggernaut: one stack of might for 15s and one stack of stability for 3s every 3s.

o.O

http://dulfy.net/2015/06/15/gw2-ready-up-skill-and-balance-changes-livestream-notes/#Engineer_Changes

Given that the range of Soothing Mist will now be 300, the new GM trait (Soothing Power) isn’t worth a GM spot.

I suggest a range increase be added to the GM trait.

• Limited number of utility slots: Spectral Armor, Walk and Wall are all typically more useful. And there are non-spectral utilities that are better too.
• Spectral Trait placement: One competes with Terror, another with very good DS traits. Most builds that go into those lines are better with other traits.

Why you are surprised by the results of this process?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=mawdrey+guide

Linnael.1069:

GreyWraith.8394:

Xillllix.3485:

The AoE cap greatly favors bigger zergs…

Please explain how this is true. Removing AoE caps would give bigger groups even more damage and allow them to blanket a larger area with insta-death AoE damage – killing smaller groups even faster.

You literally just agreed with him. Like what the kittening hell I feel like i’m in another dimension.

Apparently you are because that was the opposite of agreement. Let me try to break it down in small pieces:

1) OP says: AoE cap favors zergs and this is a problem, so remove the AoE cap.

2) I say: removing the AoE cap will favor zergs even more, which will not solve the supposed problem. Removing AoE cap is bad.

Taking a wait-and-see attitude here. They are changing the base damage and scaling with the condition damage stat; the numbers aren’t even finalized yet.

Personally I suspect condis will become very good for PuG dungeons but coordinated guild speed-runners will still use zerk. Condis take time to stack and I’m guessing zerk will be faster.

Xillllix.3485:

The AoE cap greatly favors bigger zergs…

Please explain how this is true. Removing AoE caps would give bigger groups even more damage and allow them to blanket a larger area with insta-death AoE damage – killing smaller groups even faster.

Palindrome.8904:

GreyWraith.8394:

Palindrome.8904:

With respect to keeping unlocked things unlocked, it would require them to allow your account to have negative hero points, since there is an exact number of them available in the game. You couldn’t have 400+total skill challenges+whatever you have unlocked now available to you. Future elite specs would be trivial for anyone in this circumstance and would result in a permanently unfair arrangement as a result.

All my characters are pre-NPE so I’m only worried about skills unlocks via scrolls on my PvP/WvW leveled characters, but this is an issue for anyone who leveled primarily in those game modes.

Negative hero points? Silly. There are any number of other ways it could be done. For example: they could award a proportional number of hero points based on what you have unlocked at the time it changes and cap the max number of hero points a character can have. Yes that would make the remaining skill challenges pointless on those legacy characters (except for map completion), but the alternative of re-locking PvP/WvW leveled characters that have been fully unlocked for years is far worse.

Negative points would, in theory, not require extra implementation effort. Or at least minimal. What you describe is a significant addition to the system. Engineering something for a one-time conversion just isn’t resource-effective.

It’s a major expansion. There are quite a few things being engineered for a one time conversion. Including skill/hero/spirit points. ‘Negative hero points’ is nonsensical.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

1. Yes

2. A level 80 character (with no Skill Challenges) will have 7/8ths of all possible Hero Points unlocked and ready to spend. (400/465) To accrue the final 65 Hero Points, said character will, indeed, need to venture forth and complete the 65 remaining Hero Challenges (formerly Skill Challenges).

Good luck.

They specifically said 465 will unlock all core (existing) specializations. So you will need more to unlock the elite spec.

TexZero.7910:

Normalizing system allows them to do proper balance on skills and traits.

So put me in the OP is wrong about everybody not liking it.
I like it.

^This.

I had a nice reply to the OP typed up but the forum ate it when I tried to post.
:/
Nerf forum gremlins plz.

Dinks.2478:

Why? Anet has never been about giving you back gold for stuff you spent it on after changes. You spent it, you used the stuff you bought. You think people who spent all the time farming the traits are going to expect to get their time back too?

As far as the other stuff, You need 65 skill challenges + lvl 80 I think they said to unlock everything. So at least it won’t be too bad.

Not everything – just currently existing core specializations. On the gold thing – I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect retroactively re-locking content that someone paid to unlock with real money would be potential lawsuit material in some jurisdictions. I’m not saying the player would win, but no company wants to provoke those kind of suits.

Palindrome.8904:

With respect to keeping unlocked things unlocked, it would require them to allow your account to have negative hero points, since there is an exact number of them available in the game. You couldn’t have 400+total skill challenges+whatever you have unlocked now available to you. Future elite specs would be trivial for anyone in this circumstance and would result in a permanently unfair arrangement as a result.

All my characters are pre-NPE so I’m only worried about skills unlocks via scrolls on my PvP/WvW leveled characters, but this is an issue for anyone who leveled primarily in those game modes.

Negative hero points? Silly. There are any number of other ways it could be done. For example: they could award a proportional number of hero points based on what you have unlocked at the time it changes and cap the max number of hero points a character can have. Yes that would make the remaining skill challenges pointless on those legacy characters (except for map completion), but the alternative of re-locking PvP/WvW leveled characters that have been fully unlocked for years is far worse.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

4. Lack of proper mobile guarding skills.
I’m talking stuff like revenant moving projectile block, and similar skill on dragon hunter spec. If we’re to protect npcs and ranged fire from enemy is 95% certain we need skills that can protect those NPC on the move, and not be useful for 1-2s that they need to walk out of immobile protection zone.

This I think is an issue with all of GW2. The game is heavily focused on mobility and positioning, but we have an absurd number of fixed location pulsing skills. The mobile nature of NPCs in stronghold just highlights the problem.

Try the SilverWastes, much less annoyingly vertical terrain.

I’m not sure why game developers get occasionally obsessed with designing ‘vertical maps’ but the result is invariably a pain in the kitten .

I’m not a military expert, but don’t sergeants to the immediate short-term directing with officers handling the longer range planning?

Appoint a sergeant to serve as zerg pin and take directions from the commander. If he goes down, the commander can take immediate control till the sergeant is back.

[edit: my point, which I didn’t make very well, is that this is not an issue due to a problem with the game. It’s an issue because removing the enemy’s leadership is a good strategy. As such it should be countered not by Anet ‘fixing’ but by players developing counter-strategies.]