Guild Wars 2

I get the feeling there are not a whole lot of new faces showing up in spvp, and if thats true that is a very real problem for new comers and casuals…

I feel for you OP, I’m a veretan player who has spent way to many hours on this game and I my self felt like there were a mountain of mechanics to learn at one point…

Wouldn’t it be nice if the majority of abilitys you were supposed to avoid were tied with some blatantly obvious telegraph? For example a sword lighting up bright with fire indicated you were about to be stunned, a lot of animations just don’t have very specific tells of what is going on. The animation doesn’t need to be flashy but it should be obvious what is being casted. I have talked to anet about this exact thing in the past.

perhaps if there were some better rewards in spvp tied into pve we would see more people giving it a go more often, if we had more players in spvp with a great match making system then I think you’d get the kind of match making you desire.

I also think it would be great to have some sort of tutorial that explained what to mainly look out for vs each class let alone an explanation of how to play your own class vs that class.

Alekt.5803:

Grimreaper.5370:

---

Changes to unused traits I’d like to see:

-Latent Stamina now grants 50 endurance when the Elementalist enters the water attunement along with applying its typical 3 seconds of vigor in a 240 radius.

Thoughts?

My thoughts for that one? Re-read the trait. There is no shame in that, even ESL “tempests” don’t know how to read that trait.

It grants 10 endurance to allies or yourself whenever you apply vigor. There is no ICD; the tooltip is wrong. The trait also applies vigor around you when swapping to water.

I’m aware, you are actually the one who initially informed me, but I belive it would be more reliable if vigor was just granted in a form that would immediately give you a dodge you were wanting. That or change this trait into something that maybe gives endurance upon crits so you didnt have to stack vigor over the top, that could also make for a nice trait for glass build

joshmossas.6542:

ZERKER SHATTER MES \o/

AKA the best mes

That is all I have to say

Hell yeah man, fighting zerker shatter mez was such a rush before hot, a 1v1 for your life which you could lose in a matter of seconds if you were not careful. Ugh I miss how this game was before hot…. And if they added into a fight of yours… Oh god. Its kinda sad mesmer or chrono rather is now usually played like a herpa kitten I press all my shatters and I tank stuff, my dmg sucks but I dun die.

D/D ele should make a return as a glass cannon imo, in which case would mean the d/d weapon set needs a buff to direct damage, we can then compensate by allowing a nerf to potential condition dmg. After that it should recive slight adjustment to some of the weapon abilities allowing it to mitigate potential dmg dealt to you. These abilities should be short in duration so they must be used at a very specific time in order to properly block damage, with enough potential dmg mitigater skills we can then compensate by toning down the healing potential on dagger water 5, my suggestion is to allow it to block for a short duration and if it does then have it heal for the damage that would have been dealt, or something of this manner.

Dude I am 100% there with you with s/d acro thief being one of the more fun builds in this game.

Im actually impressed with your modest suggestions for each class, you seem to care about fair play. As others have also said I dont think that this is enough though to truly balance out each profession.

Mightybird.6034:

Grimreaper.5370:

You have clearly not seen a truely unviable build, f2p core builds are not the worst of builds availiable. In fact a couple of them are pretty good still.

So your argument is you should essentially be able to ‘no skill’ ‘face-roll’ random pick traits and make any random build and it should be viable? That is totally counter intuitive to you wanting a skillful game.

Maybe try a different game.

Nonono thats not what I am saying, I’m apparently just bad at explaining my self to you. I would really appriciate all weapon sets capable of being viable in a meta sense. They’re not all viable as you probably know, this debate isnt even supposed to be about complete noobs getting owned using meta builds when vsing player x who is a veteran and playing a poorly balanced build. I would greately appriciate all weapon sets recive a build that puts them into a meta state.

You have clearly not seen a truely unviable build, f2p core builds are not the worst of builds availiable. In fact a couple of them are pretty good still. And regardless of that dude, dont you want all builds to be on an even playing field?

Edit: sorry I should have said not all f2p core builds.

SlimChance.6593:

Grimreaper.5370:

No mmo is completely balanced so as far as mmos go I think gw2 has decent balance to say the least. My problem with the game is that most of the current meta builds feel dumbed down and not very competitive, I wish most classes required some clutch decision making instead of I spam this rotation and I win as long as it lands.

I agree. But for some profession/builds its seems like its more “I spam this rotation and I don’t die.”

Oh man yeah thats the worst, watching two bunkers duke it our or one unviable build using zerker glass cannon still not able to kill the meta bunker is just so depressing.

Mightybird.6034:

Grimreaper.5370:

I would come back to this game if most classes had a build that did not feel dirty and skill meant being able to easily reduce noobs to dust. Thats not how this game works right now, its just about playing a meta build that trumps over most builds if you care about winning.

That’s just flat out wrong. Meta builds are strong but if you’re good you will decimate new players on any build.

a lot of meta builds are so forgiving that if a decent at best player vsed an esport player using a bottom tier build it would end in a stalemate at best. I dislike this quite a bit because a lot of those non viable builds out there would be a lot of fun to play if they didnt stink so bad.

Can you imagine how awesome this game would be if every weapon set was viable each with its own unique playstyle?

Zodryn.4216:

Thief

Engi, ele, and mes have more complex rotations, but those become much easier with experience and muscle memory. There is definitely still skill involved, but they are all far more forgiving than thief.

A truely skill based build is yet to exist imo, I want something that is far too complex for any casual to truely comprehend. I want to feel extremely emersed in the complexity of my build by having multiple options to use in any given scenario which require superior timing, preemptive decision making and/or an understanding of a given situation in order to be effective. I want to feel like im playing a dash of ddr due to quick decision making required to play at an optimal level, the closest thing I have ever felt to this degree of gameplay would probably be when I am playing invoker on dota 2 but thats still not even as complex as I want some builds to become to be honest.

I would come back to this game if most classes had a build that did not feel dirty and skill meant being able to easily reduce noobs to dust. Thats not how this game works right now, its just about playing a meta build that trumps over most builds if you care about winning.

Seriously gw2 needs to do something like, “a realm reborn” and solely focus on spvp so the pvp in this game can shine like it deserves to, I see the amazing potential this game has to offer, this games one super solid patch away from becoming god tier pvp, I honestly think the devs know what mainly needs to be done but unfortunately they don’t get to solely focus on pvp because thats apparently not a big selling point of the game, everything must be rushed and there is little time to consider much about poor little spvp… I beg of you anet, throw the idea of what will most likely earn you the most buck and see how far building a patch to support your pvp player base gets you, sell the idea the all mmorpg pvp addicts everywhere because there are a lot of us just begging for that next gen clutch/ skill based pvp.

No mmo is completely balanced so as far as mmos go I think gw2 has decent balance to say the least. My problem with the game is that most of the current meta builds feel dumbed down and not very competitive, I wish most classes required some clutch decision making instead of I spam this rotation and I win as long as it lands.

These seem like very fair potential changes

Imo only the initial tp to enemy should be instant, allowing more fluid comboing, the return is fine being near instant but having a very small cast time so it cant be a “stun break”.

If we got a buff like this and possibly a buff making the first sword auto near instant I think we would have a viable s/d build on our hands. Right now staff is superior which makes me sad because I find the play style for that weapon so boring.

We can always try though

Silverbolt.2301:

I also noticed someone talking to Karl (the dev in charge of thief) directly on yesterday’s stream, and still it went ignored.

Oh… wonderful :/

You should try playing blade and soul assassin, I think you would enjoy it in the arena.

Am I asking for too much? I think this its a very reasonable buff to ask for, the sword/x playstyle should be all about faking out your opponent with when you will try and immobilize them. Thoughts?

I’d also really like to see some kind of minor buff added to Cloak and Dagger but I’m not sure what needs to change.

reikken.4961:

try using marauder instead of zerker amulet

^ yeah this

reikken.4961:

Jekkt.6045:

burning speed is instacast

you can dodge things with it, but it doesn’t have evasion frames until the slide forward hits full speed

Yes sir, and this is what I want fixed, I want either an instant slide forward for immediate evasion frames or I want evasion frames immediately upon casting.

FrownyClown.8402:

I strongly believe that the old d/d playstyle could work if we focused on boon duration builds.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYhcMoxhdOwwB0RMsBY0KIDMCqewG8GMNgAQBE-Tpg+AA4+DQZAA

Pretty much a build like this. the only thing that is missing is an amulet that gives 1050 condition damage 1050 toughness 560 vitality 560 concentration.

Nah man boon duration isn’t the problem, d/d right now is basically forced to face tank and then just soak up damage with heals. d/d worked well with cele amulet because it allowed it to facetank, thats boring, bring d/d back by giving it options to completely mitigate damage and compensate by lowering the healing potential.

Wouldn’t it be fun to hear things like, “Bro I know this one ele whos actually super legit, hes so skilled man”. No ones going to think a build made to face tank is that skillful, relying on forever lasting boons isn’t a skillful playstyle either.

I’m sick of only seeing bunker tempest, I’m on a mission to bring back a bruiser build but in a form that takes skill, please tell me wither you think my idea is valuable or garbage.

RUNE: Rune of Leader ship: “change +all stats to +vitality”

ELITE: Rebound cd reduced from 75 to 60 seconds.

TRAITS:

Tempestuous Aria: Add “reduce shout re-charge by 33%” (You can not take regen/vigor trait when aura is used if you take this trait, they are both master traits)
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Selecting the following GM trait would mean tempest no longer takes the beefy heal upon using an aura

Lucid Singularity GM trait: near useless, change the trait as follows:

Overloads now change in nature and become the following,

Fire Overload = instant aoe blind 300 radius

Air Overload = instant 2 second block which if hit into, causes a 200 distance launch
( 1 second cc)

Water overload = instant 1 1/2 second evade which sends the user back ~600 units, cures 3 conditions. (think withdraw with either a minor heal or no heal, remember if this trait is selected the tempest no longer heals from being granted auras)

Earth overload = instant 2 second physical damage immune (still vulnerable to conditions and cc)

when taking this trait, overloads now do not increase the attunement cool down time after use, nor do they have an initial cool down upon entering each attunement. but each ability has its own personal cooldown of something around 25 seconds, so in other words the overload ability is only available when entering an attunement but if it has been used it will not be availiable for reuse upon re-entering the attunement unless the 25 second reuse timer has passed.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Now there is one minor problem with a trait like this in mind, while auras would no longer give regen/vigor and also no longer heal the user upon being casted, overloads would potentially give instant auras from the unstable conduit trait and I think this would be an unfair/unrewarding playstyle. IMO Unstable conduit should have all auras not proc with this GM proposal trait in mind unless the opponent attacks into the overload animation as its casted, reduce the duration of all auras from this trait to 3 seconds.

It was a step in the right direction, I believe anet really tried to dedicate their selves by pleasing the masses. Its just a shame more of their efforts were not put into balance changes alone. I always feel like your die hard, your most loyal fans are constantly neglected.

imo its fair to tone down stuff like true shot, its a great idea to town down mechanics that put us into a pure bunker meta so we may see variety, but why are you only nerfing some classes that really only have one great build instead of also compensating them with anouther good strat to play as well? Your nerfs are usually very severe and destroy a current build, it would be nice if you gave classes anouther potential build to play around with while you figired out how to balance a broken one that you butcher.

I believe a step in the right direction would be to work on giving every class a balanced dps build. By that I mean a build with good damage and survivability that is well off enough to make that class potentially independent in a 1v1 situation while also possibly also having one “oh kitten” button (with a long CD) designed for protection when being swarmed by the enemy.

In order to move away from another bunker meta the defensive mechanics should not focus on heals, we need defense mechanics on each class that potentially mitigate most or all dmg for very short durations, mesmer comes to mind when on this subject. This will make combat feel skillful and rewarding. When I fight an opponent I want to feel like I have to outplay him by mitigating his attacks when the time is right, outhealing all dmg when ever I feel like it or when I do get bursted does not feel skillful, out with the pure bunker meta and in with a skillful one.

Conditions should have only ever been damage that was icing on the cake, the condition stat should be removed and condition dmg should be based on power. Weapons focused on condition dmg should be tweaked to mainly be power oriented. Too much work for anet though I would think.

If this was true skills like pre diamond skin nwrf would have never been meta and more builds would become viable

Would rather the heals get nerfed and active defensive mechanics be implemented.

I agree with op, I and other players have been saying this forever, ele weapons need ways to avoid dmg and then sustain can be toned down.

I WANNA FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO TIME SOME STUFF PROPERLY AND NOT RELY ON HEALS TO BANDAGE ALL MY MISTAKES. S/D thief 2.0 plz

BTW overloads are stupid and dull, anyone with an IQ of 50 or greater can play tempest’s current meta.

choovanski.5462:

ahahahahahaha

you must be new here

Nope… Just dont feel like giving up on being a broken record yet with the hope that one day maybe anet will get the message and at least consider it.

I used to be a die hard player but ever since the HoT patch came out I have lost a great deal of interest in this game. Ever since HoT released I feel like two major flaws spawned, the combat mechanics dumbed down on a good majority of builds, and balance went out the window.

I feel like anet thinks the majority of its players cant handle an interesting and complex build which is kind of a slap in the face to us, they give us builds with silly amounts of heals and by doing so IMO they’re telling us, “Its okay we know you’re bad, here take all this regen and EHP, now you can make as many mistakes as you want!”

And lets not forget balance… What happened anet? Why is balance never a major priority? Does your CEO truely think creating a perfect balance in pvp wont help sales? I can tell you right now that I’m playing blade and soul because I heard through the internet grape vine that the game had excellent balance and fun combat mechanics. Believe me, when an mmo has amazing pvp balance its a huge deal and people will start talking about it, because mmorpgs with great pvp balance and fun combat mechanics are a diamond in the rough.

Saiyan.1704:

It’s not matchmaking as much as it’s how certain players handle the comp they’re in, or the comp they’re facing.

Mistake #1, 1v2ing on points…
Players don’t need to 1v2 or 1v3 in every given scenario. That’s called Zerging and it’s very easy to rotate around a Zergy team and get out manned on other points. If you respawn and you see your own Mesmer 1v1ing home, odds are the Mesmer is going to win that 1v1. No need to go there and waste 30s trying to kill a class that’s likely going to die anyways. What you could do is use a couple skills but immediately rotate out thereafter… you absolutely don’t need to stay there unless..

• Mesmer is losing, tell him to rotate out and you rotate in… he doesn’t have to stay there unless u can’t beat him yourself.
• You see a zerg heading your way due to your team wiping mid. Try to burst the guy the mesmer is already on and stay there.

Mistake #2, Start of Game Rotations
So they have a Necro Ele Engi Druid Rev and you have 2 Necros, DH, Mesmer, Thief… Why go mid and expect to win the mid fight? Why go anywhere on a point with Ele+Druid or Ele + X class? Have 1 necro on each side, DH home and rest go far. Let mesmer portal near home and thief rotate between mid decaps and the other two points. Absolutely no need to go head on into mid with sustain classes who will likely snowball the map… but you have a better chance of winning 2v2’s and 1v1’s yourself.

Mistake #3, Learn Class Counters
Condi Mesmers are one of the better 1v1 classes around. They obliterate Revs, Eles, Druids and some Engi’s 1v1. That means you likely don’t need to help +1 unless you need to rotate out and survive or there’s something else going on with the map that requires you to rotate there.

Guardians can’t beat Engi, Rev, Druids. Don’t go home/far to 1v1 any of these classes. Communicate with your team, tell your druid, mesmer, engi to Home while you go mid. You do best with classes who cc+bursts, communicate with your thief/mesmer/necro and focus target.

Thieves + another cc+bursty class can eat up Ele, Revs, Necs and any one else who can’t handle initial burst+cc at start of fight. Instead of complaining you have a thief on your team, work with him and have him focus target as he’ll likely know who to pick (usually.. if they’re good thieves). Rotate that thief around the map, tell him to glue themselves to Revs and DH.

Mistake #4 Understand Sustain Classes
Any class with an Ele is a sustain comp. Druid+Ele are punching bags so unless you have a thief+mesmer and/or DH to cc+burst these classes, you aren’t going to kill them anytime soon. That means this 3v2 fight will last forever, long enough to lose the other points. Same goes for Engi+ele or Engi + druid comps on sides.

Please correct me if there’s inaccuracies here but, these are the mistakes I’ve been seeing since Emerald and it’s even worse in Diamond. It’s not matchmaking, so much as it’s the game; the game is simply harder to play compared to prepatch… much so that rotations are a bigger factor and in the higher leagues, a single player can throw it away for everyone else. You have to actually think about your team comp vs their team comp and how to change playstyle to make it work. Above all we need more communication and map pings+Focus doesn’t seem to be enough right now.

I don’t even think 90% of the community reads forms, wasting your breath, the majority is still going to go do their own thing.

Alekt.5803:

Grimreaper.5370:

It’s even worse now that energy sigil was converted into vigor proc. I really think the tempest adept vigor trait could be converted into giving back 50 energy instead of 10 when entering water, its a small step towards making a glassier build work again.

You probably don’t understand how that trait works. You gain 10 endurance every time you apply vigor to yourself. Allies also gain that 10 endurance if you apply the vigor to them. Additionnally, you apply vigor around you 240 radius when swapping to water.

So you’re saying its 10 endurance every time the vigor boon is applied, I see. It would be better if it just gave 50 endurance back every time you entered water imo.

overloads should just not be tied in with attunement cd at all, and if they’re going to be revamped or buffed they should add defensive perks so an ele can play more offensive builds.

Mixing two attunements in multple combinations to get a specific overload actually sounds like a marvelous idea. For example, I enter fire then I enter water, I now get an overload based on fire and water combination.

It’s even worse now that energy sigil was converted into vigor proc. I really think the tempest adept vigor trait could be converted into giving back 50 energy instead of 10 when entering water, its a small step towards making a glassier build work again.

I wouldnt try to compare them but I do think its a fair argument to say scepter needs more love because the weapon as of now has no real place in spvp outside of pug matches and dueling mediocre builds. Dps ele in general is just not a viable option because there isnt much dmg mitigation options, its more about out healing dmg done so bunkering up makes most sense.

I agree on your s/d commemts airo, I also think cloak and dagger needs to have stealth duration slightly increased to compete with black powder stealth combos. I also think swords first auto attack needs to be instant since with the way sword auto works now it ends up doing less dmg potential than it used to unless the 3rd hit strikes, and its usually quite hard to land that 3rd strike on a good opponent.

1.) I don’t like that overloads have pretty poor synergy with Elemental Attunement since you lock your self out of an attunement for 17.5-20 seconds

2.) Right now the whole idea around tempest really only works with a bunker like build in the meta scene.

3.) Tempest has very little synergy with scepter/x and D/D… The whole idea of tempest makes a Dagger/Focus bunker build the only real obvious choice if you want to go for a meta build.

4.) The fire and water overload have their uses but they are most definitely not optimal to use a majority of the time.

IMO it would be much nicer if most overloads were instant(or close to it) defensive abilities which were useable after ~1.5-2 seconds after adjusting an attunement, and no longer increase the cooldown of an attunement recharge to the extent they do now, adjusted accordingly for balance of course.

Examples:

Fire Overload = AOE direct damage blind

Air Overload = ground target teleport

Earth Overload = turn into immobile stone immune to all dmg for 3 seconds

Water Overload = AOE ice field with X duration.

If Elementalists are given more defensive skills in nature to avoid damage instead of relying on massive healing potential then I believe more builds and weapon types will open up to the meta, such as burst builds.

MoarChaos.8320:

What would you rather be doing as your most damaging spell that stays with your character goes off?

Also as others have stated you don’t need to use tempest in your builds/the overload spell while you’re playing. It’s not running off to play baseball with your bat at home unless you don’t know how the other builds work.

You don’t explain what’s boring about overloads or what kind of new interesting mechanic you think should replace it, nobody would be against pushing a new interesting mechanic. If anything I think your argument would be better suited for staff number 5 in fire attunement, meteor shower. With the damaging overloads you’re at least moving and keeping your aoe on something, plus applying conditions, and buffing yourself and allies. At the bare minimum it can be saved as an over powered stun break.

I suggest reading the spells you’re rolling your forehead across, and not saying something as cringey as “Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.”

.-.

Im sure you know as well as I do playing tempest with out using overloads is just silly. And I did explain whats boring about overloads, being stuck in a long channel while casting an overload and then being locked out of attunements for even longer than usual after use isnt my ideal playstyle. I’d be up for anything else that didnt take away from the fast paced playstyle that elementalist used to be.

If no one is against a new and interesting mechanic replacing overloads what is there to argue about?

probably the water 1 main hand dagger skill, I’ve had this happen a few times in the past.

Just a friendly reminder that this topic isn’t about balancing the class, its about making the tempest mechanics fun to use and right now I’m under the impression most people would say the mechanics behind tempest are quite boring.

Jski.6180:

Grimreaper.5370:

Wolfric.9380:

:-/ if you wait 5 sec then you are indeed lost … I understand that you might not like the mechnic, but i always did see it as an aditional option. And it realy pays off as stunbreaker, or down cleaver and more. Its situational. Well if you never try to autoattack and want to rotate using arcane traitline fast, then overloads will be misplaced …

Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.

That easy stun brakes before overloaded ele has at best 3 with overloaded they get a posable 4 more most likely just 1 more as needed but still that more then before.

Why are you running tempest if you hate overloads? That is something you realy need to ask your self. Ele as a class has not changed its just all the other classes have.

I’ll answer your question with Gokil’s quote,

“The best we can hope for at this point is for non-elite specs to become viable. But even that is very optimistic.”

Gokil.2543:

The best we can hope for at this point is for non-elite specs to become viable. But even that is very optimistic.

One could only hope…

Wolfric.9380:

:-/ if you wait 5 sec then you are indeed lost … I understand that you might not like the mechnic, but i always did see it as an aditional option. And it realy pays off as stunbreaker, or down cleaver and more. Its situational. Well if you never try to autoattack and want to rotate using arcane traitline fast, then overloads will be misplaced …

Do not tell me you enjoy how overloads work, you really think this is the best design there is to offer? how dare you even try and defend such a boring mechanic just for the sake of arguing.

Kaizoku.1298:

You don’t have to use your overload skills… ? Tempest traitline is great, maybe your build isn’t right ?

You’re basically telling me to play baseball with out bringing a bat. My build? This isnt about a build I used, this is about how boring pressing one god kitten button and waiting 5 seconds to make my next decision is.

What if blinding ashes turned the fire auto atk into an ability that let you instantly blind every 5 seconds and after it was used the fire auto atk reverted back to a normal aa until blinding ashes was ready again? I like the idea of more manual use and less passive play.

This class with most weapon sets used to be more about fast decision making before HoT came out. Overloads have ruined the class for me, it would not matter how hard you buffed the current state of overloads, pressing a button just to watch a massive aoe go to town on your enemies for years on end is just not my idea of a good time.

It’s BORING, and it needs to change! While some people may like the idea of the current state of overloads I have a feeling most of my elementalist bretheren think its horse kitten. I find it really hard to believe people wanted the elementalist playstyle go from DDR level button pressing to a game of Roll your forehead across the keyboard until you hit the overload button.

Please speak up and let anet know they’ve made the class waaaaay too boring.

TL;DR. This aint about balance, this is about removing a boring mechanic and replacing it with something fun and interesting.

Its d/d cele ele complaints all over again huehue

The focus weapon has been the go to choice when looking at the tempest profession for a while now, the off hand weapon provides great utility that can help make life easier when using overloads.

I believe in order for off hand dagger to work with the tempest profession as well as the focus weapon something has to be done about the current design of overloads. As long as we have overloads with a long channel time I dont see the tempest ever leaving its current state in the meta.

Please consider reworking how overloads should be executed, dont make them lock the class out of an attunement for 20 seconds and stay away from the idea of long channel times.

Not only does the current tempest design prevent some weapons from being as useful as others but it also imo has made the class extremely dull compaired to what it used to be.

I haven’t been playing this game much anymore but off hand dagger doesn’t seem to be meta anymore, D/F mercenary tempest seems pretty kitten strong though.

No hope for this games balance, they should just start working on gw3 and focus on it exclusively being an esports worthy pvp game.