Guild Wars 2

NdranC.5107:

Khenzy.9348:

Woah, I didn’t know about that new rune. If water2 and water5 count as a ‘heal skill’ it makes extremely good sinergy with this Ele build.

It doesn’t, when runes talk about heal skills they mean slot number 6 and nothing else.

I know that, hence the “if”.
Many things work in a weird or a contradictory way in this game, vague tooltips don’t help either.
Anyways, that rune could be worth sacrificing +10% boon duration if you use Ether Renewal or GoEH.

Woah, I didn’t know about that new rune. If water2 and water5 count as a ‘heal skill’ it makes extremely good sinergy with this Ele build.

BAD move Anet. I seriously /facepalmed as well with this single change. I’d like to hear the reason behind this one from a dev. Maybe for a future ‘tuning down’ of stealth?

The Richochet buff is kitten . Period. (This means I absolutely do not agree with the buff, btw.).

Weird, I’m feeling stupidly strong on low levels, I’m killing lvl 14 mobs while being lvl 7/8 or so (with white/blue gear). Practice the most effective rotations in the mists and Just focus on unlocking the skills asap, that really helped me. My brother’s Ele is 50 and is not getting your problem either, he’s wearing green gear though (like best in slot for his level).

There are speed hackers with instakill damage macros out there, just saying.

Calle has a point actually. With my Thief is much more tricky to land that C&D on a decent moving player and reposition for a stealth skill (when two AOE damaging skills can down me); instead with my Ele I do an extremely adaptable rotation and when things get too much, just switch to water, cleansing wave, dodge (EA cleansing wave) and maybe cone of cold and back to full HP again (not taking into account RTL and other escape or control manouvers). You have to manage more things, but you’re safer doing so (IF properly specced, sadly).

Chill out guys, or else you’ll get the Guardian nerfed to the ground!

/laughs

Xolo.3580:

Concentrate on other aspects of the game until these (known) problems are fixed, it’s the only thing you can do.

I’ve been doing this for almost a month or so now. Things remain exactly the same for what I see… minor fixes here and there, with some new bugs and some blatant balance issues unadressed. It’s ok though, I’m enjoying this other part of the game.

Neoeve.5461:

i havent seen bot trains indeed…but i have seen something else
a player gathering a tree\node\herb then disappears, then appears near another to gather then disappears again and so on
I dunno if this is a bug, exploit, new hack or me becoming crazy…i’ve seen it more than once though.

This is indeed a serious problem and I’ve seen exactly this several times now. They are hard to spot, so they are hard to report. I hope they are investigating this issue.

Lightning Reflexes needs to break you out of Immobilizes too, that’s all I have to say about this skill.

What’s wrong with Ring of Warding? Trapping people in WvW for your zerg to rain death uppon, creating a light field sorrounding you and other melee attackers for your ranged allies to cleanse conditions with their proyectiles or its usefulness on controlling a point in sPvP. Not useful enough in PvE? Put up Protection, run into a bunch of mobs grabbing aggro, trap them, run out and proceed to lay down AoE madness with your buddies.
Hammer doesn’t need a buff, far from it. It’s an utility loaded weapon that relies on two skills for most of its damage, a similar case like the Ranger’s Shorbow.

I know it’s quite a bit of work and I thank you for that Guanglai Kangyi.4318, but do you intend to do these calculations for other professions?

As much as you can find ways of “timing” the dodge between strikes, it shouldn’t nulify your dodge button or your movement keys. Period.

Props to whoever designed this map, it’s compelling, entertaining to play and watch, offers great strategy possibilities and with the emphasis on the verticality, knockbacks, range attacks and several AoE denial and movement skills take a second meaning.

redknight.8036:

Yes, dealing Greatsword damage.
Hitting 5 target per strike – critting too.
At 900 range. Triggering a Sigil of Fire too.
While dropping a Symbol on them and Wall of Reflection.

Stop it. If you think it would be too strong, just throw any suggestion that could improve Guardian’s range capabilities instead of throwing unconstructive crap in this thread.
On my part, I’m not asking for melee level AoE damage at 900 range with the Staff, maybe something like Necromancer’s Staff’s skill Necrotic Grasp, that’s a totally fair thing to ask for.

Rhoto.8791:

@Khenzy

being able to counter all the examples you gave at the beginning of your post is not easy at first. A newcomer can’t just hop into spvp with a new class and expect to do well. It takes time and experience to learn the counters for each class, and thats how it should be IMO.

Of course everyone has to learn sooner or later or else they will get their kitten kicked big time; but certain builds that offer a low risk-high reward and don’t let their foes a chance to retaliate or create unnecessary frustration is basically flawed and needs to end. For example, they created Mesmers following a principle, yet I’m pretty sure they didn’t think about te recieving end of it. The GW1 Mesmer (completely different game, I know) was so much more deeply and better designed than the overpowered overly chaotic illusionist bomber we have right now.

Here is what I see some the problems may be at:

As it is now, Structured 8v8 PvP was designed to be (or intenteded to be) inviting to the new player, but it’s causing the exact opposite. You have your Bacskstab Thief instagibing unexperienced (and experienced too) players here and there (or the untouchable bleeder with the absurd caltrops) with over the top escapability, your Elementalists specced in arcana and 30 water that just refuse to die or you get it down but suddenly full Hp again out of nowhere, shatter Mesmers instagibing you with unavoidable burst which also happen to be extremely frustrating and confusing (pun not intended) to play against, Warriors with hundred blades and frenzy (and some others I’m leaving)… everything is very uninviting to newcomers and that is a serious problem.
Many people will come here and spout out the same crap over and over again: “use your stun breaker n00b!” “but that spec is squishy as kitten” “that’s all that spec does, CDs used and it’s done for” etc, etc. That’s actually NOT helping, it’s only making things worse. You know what they say about covering the trash instead of cleaning it out.
8v8 balance (and now 5v5 which wont change much), is extremely important, you heard me right Eight vs Eight (in this case) or entry PvP balance is extremely important. If this game wants to become an E-sport so badly, players need to feel related to what they see, and they obviously do that by playing, but they have to like it first. I know you had to learn about player psichology devs, put that in practice. A new or common/casual player just doesn’t like getting killed in 2 seconds out of nowhere, or getting frustrated trying to get a kill that’s not going to happen, or trying to guess which is the real one.
You can come now and say “top players don’t have a problem with that other build which is easily countered or is not viable on tounament play”, well… TOP players are NOT the casual players that fill up the streams, play the game to enjoy more than to compete and make for the majority of the game, are more likely to use the cash shop, etc.
The PvP balance of this game is clearly aimed at and only the competitive scene (or so it seems to me), with the examples above still in place (that seem to only happen in the so called ‘pugs’). You can rebalance what’s cousing troubles without affecting or dumbing down the competitive scene, they are obvsiously not aiming for that. For example intagib thieves would have been changed a long time ago and in WvW too, the “only SPvP” changes to some of the nerfs only prove my point even further: they only aim exclusively towards competitive players and everyone else is relegated as in the words of an ANET dev: “pug baddies”.
Also, there’s a serious problem in their priorities and on how slow they are acting to solve these problems. A new game mode needs to come out as people is clearly showing signs of being tired of a single mode, but it has not to be aimed for competitive folk which are the minority.
In the end it’s the player base that dictates what becomes a competition and what doesn’t, you just have to give them the tools that are actually usable for that porpouse, and by that I mean aim the balance for BOTH sides.

Since everyone’s posting thier stats I will too.
I aimed for well rounded stats and this is what I’ve got. It’s a Pure of Voice+Altruistic healing Build. Soldier Runes, a mix of Knight, Soldier and berserker gear with Valkirie amulet, Knight Rings/Earrings with Ruby jewels. I just can’t afford a Triforge pendant /sadface.
My Pure of Voice/Virtues/Signet build only has 20% less crit damage and 200 less armor.

I’m guessing typical bunker guardian running 0/0/30/30/10 , 0/10/30/30/0 or similar with Altruistic Healing and healing symbols.

Humm… I haven’t thought of the possibility of the huge balance of the overall stats plus the big bonus on crit. damage with the Divinity runes (I always thought he had Soldier’s runes), and of course, the (extremely expensive) Triforge Pendant too. That makes perfect sense now, thanks for that Psaakyrn.

I’m still scratching my head how this guy: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/19520/statss.JPG

obtained 74% crit damage while maintaining that level of Thoughness, Power, Vitality and Precision, I don’t see any food either, is it photoshoped?

You’re most welcome! I’m sad about the ‘maintenance’ and those who couldn’t make it.

Im on the overflow with the Event just starting! Join me and then leave the group fast. I WILL BE ABLE TO DO IT!!!! kitten im so happy! EU only.

EXTREMELY annoying.

Kuruptz.4782:

Wow do people mix UP PATCH and the CONTENT

Patch was Supposed to be 15TH and CONTENT lost Shore 16

they unlocked and deleted posts so obv they changed it not much to say

Ninja editting what they previously said is not something that you have to infer and then consider obivous, to my understanding, at least.

I’m postponing RL stuff for these patch notes as well. I know they are reading, so please, an official word on when this is going to be live would be awesome. Thanks!

Lightning Reflexes and sometimes Wolf’s AoE fear is all I need on my underpowered ranger to kill most glass cannon thieves in a one on one situation.

You are not doing anything wrong. Spirit weapons are really that subpar. They have the same problems Ranger pets and Necro minions have, they have an incredibly hard time hitting moving targets, are sometimes unrespnsive and their effects (AND uptime) are not worth all that trait investment.
The hammer can be situationally useful in PvP traited with two three seconds duration knockdowns.
The shield can be situationally useful in WvW as well but it has LOTS of problems following you.
I don’t even know what the internal CD on condition cleanse the bow has or what is its priority, but you will most likely summon it to cleanse conditions from you and sometimes you don’t know where it’s shotting at, the AoE heal it provides is pitiful at best, it should have a stronger effect such as removing several conditions too.
The Sword with all the AI problems and low damage is just a no go.

To make spirit weapon builds viable:
-The AI needs to get vastly improved, the spirits should be able to hit moving targets just like any player.
-Damage needs to get improved for hammer and specially for sword.
-Command effects need to be stronger and more effective on sword and bow.
-The casting time should be much shorter. Spirit weapons need to be casted time and time again and with such a long cast time, it becomes a chore to do so, specially if you go with more than one spirit weapon on you bar.
-Nerfing the stupidly overpowered Altruistic Healing builds and toning down Pure of Voice+Soldier Runes shout builds would make people play something else (or just nerfing shouts to not overshadow everything else except consecrations would be a start).
-The most important one: The uptime of the spirit weapons. When these are on CD you feel like you are that much weaker becouse you spent so many trait points on them. The only spirit weapon that feels reasonably good with its uptime is the Sword with 24 secs CD traited, all the other weapons should have roughly the same uptime as well.
-Edit: Also, one of the weapons should be instant cast and break stuns, I vote for the shield or the bow. You can’t enter PvP without a stun breaker right now, so if you want to go with three spirit weapons, you’re simply screwed.

Mammoth.1975:

Portal and time warp could use looking at, the rest is fine. Null field is pretty strong but if all three were nerfed you’d never see another mesmer.

Woah, we are so conditioned to think that the word “nerf” means completely neutering a skill into complete uselessness that we are starting to claim nonsensical statements like the one above. This can be blamed in part due to a history of poor balance from other MMOs or how difficult it really is to do so (or you know, just collective consciousness nonsense).

Come on people, be realistic for once, several classes need serious adjustments in terms of balance, being it buffing (improving) Rangers or nerfing (toning down) Thieves, Mesmers, Guardians, etc. but that doesn’t mean neutering or overpowering.

Let us wait for the Patch, then we should judge how competent they are on balance.

^Hah! Good one! I welcome all who want to vent like this. :P
The 15th patch may bring tears of joy or tears of sadness to many.

I’ve been naming this build for months now, why does it have so much attention now? I’ve been using it before the Mesmer’s Rune change, the potential was pretty clear with a virtually spammable C&D (with traits) and a 2+ seconds daze, that didn’t change at all since release (also a very Initiative efficient spec). It’s not much of a surprise though, LDB bleed and backstab specs are mindlessly easy to play and too popular.
With this build, sometimes the locking potential can be too much and the Sword chain hits a little too hard. You also remain in stealth for longer than a backstab thief as you don’t burst enemies down with this set which might add annoyance to an already annoying (to fight against) spec.

I have a Logitech G15 keyboard, it has the spanish layout just like the one in the picture (is not a G15 but it doesn’t matter).
I have a problem with the “<” key in particular (circled in red); when it comes to keybinding it for anything in the Control Options in game, it identifies the key as if it was the “º”, the one circled in red next to “1”. The weird thing is that when it comes to type in the normal chat, there are no problems whatsoever, the “<” key shows as <, as it should; in the Control Options it shows as º which is weird.

I’m posting this becouse it seriously screws my keybinds which I’ve been playing with for years in so many other games.

This started happening sometime before the halloween patch.
Anyone else with this problem?

6/6 Rune of the Soldier + Pure of Voice is imba.

Topic tittle already says it. Give to the Staff’s Wave of Wrath skill Z axis capability, if you so blatantly refuse to increase its range and its negligible damage, at least I want my laughable damage blue dust throwing skill to hit enemies 1 meter (~3 feet) above me.
Scepter is not an option (it has its own problems as well), I just can’t give up the swiftness.
Really, I’m not asking for much, just a quality of life change. Thanks.

Relentliss.2170:

Khenzy.9348:

Remove the sharks completely, add cannon balls to the backside of dock and beach, add cannons in each side of the ship, add more cannonballs in the hold of the ship, reduce cannon damage due to ammunition availability, add an easy to see and easily accesible from the Ruins entrance to the back of the ship (some kind of underwater small ramp), place the newely added cannonballs in the hold of the ship near this ramp.
Just make the ship the center piece of the map, with easier accesibility and more impact on the match instead of this annoying obstacle it is right now. Now you have a more clever excuse to go from point to point, this includes the Ruins. Thank you for reading.

Better yet just give everyone a cannon.

Did you read that right? More cannonballs and one cannon on each side of the ship, that’s it.

Remove the sharks completely, add cannon balls to the backside of dock and beach, add cannons in each side of the ship, add more cannonballs in the hold of the ship, reduce cannon damage due to ammunition availability, add an easy to see and easily accesible from the Ruins entrance to the back of the ship (some kind of underwater small ramp), place the newely added cannonballs in the hold of the ship near this ramp.
Just make the ship the center piece of the map, with easier accesibility and more impact on the match instead of this annoying obstacle it is right now. Now you have a more clever excuse to go from point to point, this includes the Ruins. Thank you for reading.

It took me 10/15 minutes to beat it the first time, then I beat it 4 consecutive times afterwards, awesome Jumping puzzle.
Forgot: Human, Thief, no speed boosts (that I remember…).

Fighting a condition (confusion) Mesmer is a constant battle of backing in and out of combat (ideally, with stealth, but dodging well and teleporting is good enough). You want to get rid of his phantasms as soon as possible, you play dodgy and defensive until you get rid of them and them you engage the Mesmer; if you see the shatter, eat it and play defensive until it wears of or cleanse it with shadow step. You can also abuse Cluster Bomb shotgun style with good positioning to get rid of their illusions pretty fast, do that from afar to avoid the confusion when they die. In PvP you should always have autoattack turned off, confusion is nasty at 5 and more stacks.
Also, using Sword main hand becomes that much easier (Infiltrators Strike).

With D/D abuse C&D creating your own time to have the advantage at positioning while waiting in between confusion stacks without attacking (confusion wears off pretty fast) and use Dancing Dagger to get rid of the illusions. Don’t try to burst down a Mesmer, it just wont work against a decent player.

Controling the time of the battle is key in this fight in my opinion.

Edelweiss.9815:

“I love s/d a lot. I use a "daze"build. Superior rune of mesmer for more daze time. Sigil of rage on sword and sigli of paralyzation on dagger."

The mesmer runes and the Sigil DO NOT stack. Furthermore, the Sigil will provide the exact same increase in TS Daze duration as the runes.

15% = 33%, try wrapping your head around that.

^Tried, tested and confirmed. I even think both the the Sigil and the Runes do NOT increase the daze duration at all, but I’ll have to test that more deeply. I’ll update later.

I have to agree here. I play a male Human Thief, and I hate trenchcoats… and 99% of the sets are trenchcoats (and some of them are over the top and horrible). The only sets making me pleased with the aesthetics of my Thief are the starter set (although the small boots break the visual appeal due to the the huge gloves, shocking right?), the Duelist set(this is the PvP name, similar to Human T1), Human T1, Human T3, Vigil set and a mix of Noble chest+Duelist pants (I memorized the PvP names only, sorry). I wanted to make my Thief a sylvari but I didn’t like the cultural armors.

In short, I want to see the legs of my character from behind in a stylized aesthetically pleasing and realistic way for a character that’s going to be constantly dodging and moving all over the place; what I don’t want to see is a pseudo movement impairing cape or a heavy over the top coat all over my character. Thank you for reading.

Mrbig.8019:

Agree with Tulisin: boon stealing would be better.

Imo FS should keep its cost ( 4 ini) , but they really need to make it a boon thievery + fastest animation/ evade during the WHOLE skill.

As it is now, there’s almost no use.

I really like this suggestion, boon stealing+double evade or faster second hit would make for a great skill indeed.

Hey Anet! Are you reading?!

Socram.6587:

Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to it, but I’m pretty sure that the healing component of Cone of Cold does only heal allies and not the Elementalist.
The selfheal whine in this thread would be quite unnecessary, then

Yup, you werent paying enough attention.

Arheundel.6451:

@Khenzy

1) An increase of 200 pts healing on a skill which lock you in a 3s channeling for 1k max healing and at 10s CD can be hardly considered “OP” if we look at professions which deal 2k dmg with auto-attack ( guardian-warrior-thief)

2) A 3s cripple on ring of earth won’t increase dramatically the amount of control of a standard d/d ele non treated, outside the 3s chill of freezing burst, kd and knockback both at 40s+….I really fail to see the “huge control” of d/d eles

3) D/D is the hardest set on eles, given the amount of practice required to master, I think it’s to be expected to being rewarded in equal manner, an ele need to spend 2 months to get as good as somebody who play another profession for one week, if you get beaten by a decent ele you’ve got absolutely zero reason to “cry”, they worked their kitten to get to that level…at the very least you could say “gg” and walk away

1) Watter attunement healing, high regen uptime, cleansing wave… it all adds up in the course of the battle… and it adds up, for a lot.
2) I never said “huge control” as you quote me, I’m just surprised that a solid skill set such as dagger got the control, durability and damage improved, those three that was already good at, that’s it. There’re lots of other sets that need much more attention and this one didn’t even need it (feel free to disagree on that one).
3) I don’t really know what you’re trying to say here, if it’s about the responsiveness of the skills being improved, I said I agree… if you mean this set needed more of a reward through sheer buffs, I disagree.

DesertRose.2031:

Incurafy.6329:

A reduction in the damage buff to 15% is significant. If people continue to QQ then we will just continue to tell them to L2P.

But now it’s +15% damage to Cloak and Dagger and Steal(?).
If we assume Steal deals about as much damage as Cloak and Dagger the damage of the combo was reduced by ~6%, and the two next attacks deal +15% damage. Overall it may have made Backstab Thieves even stronger.
On top of that it’s now easier to perform the Backstab combo.

^This. In addition, it also buffs the heartseekers that come after said ‘combo’. If anything, it could actually be a buff or just a very minor nerf. The good thing, though, it’s actually usable by other builds now. The thief cries will keep coming nonetheless (and with reason in some cases).

It doesn’t need a rehaul, the potential is there. It just needs the Initiative cost to be reduced to 3. If the skill becomes more affordable and spammy, suddenly all those unblockable boon strips, free evades and decent damage would start to come into play more; that’s what I think it needs at least.
Right now it’s not worth using over C&D>Tactical Strike or just spamming 1 (or even Dancing Dagger which does A LOT of damage when two enemies are close).

I’d have to say Engineers and Elementalists (except +Healing power/Bunker specs on both).

shaolin.9716:

I think elementalists should have been buffed for the viability of their damage builds, not their bunker builds.

The increase of Cone of Cold healling was a pretty stupid move, you just wait to see it for yourself.

I may get flammed by Elementalist fans/players, but I don’t uderstand the main hand dagger buffs, specially this one: “Cone of Cold: The healing gained from the this skill’s heal attribute has been increased from 480 to 780 at max level.” They already had an enormous selfhealing potential, now it’s going to be even worse. They didn’t lack control either, so the new Ring of Earth cripple was not necessary. It was a very strong set in the hands of a decent player, now… well… we shall see. I’m all for more responsiveness within the skills though. Also, where’s the Scepter love? Much more needed than dagger main hand.

Pretty smart move on indirectly nerfing Guardian’s Aegis by making several skills unblockable.

Elementalist downed state just became top tier. It can evade stability and blind stomps now.

I was expecting buffs to Warrior’s Longbow damage, specially the 1 skill… NOT to the Harpoon gun burst skill, was that buff such high priority, really?

I’m still expecting a HEFTY nerf to the Bunker staff Ele (or bunker Eles in general), that build is an abomination and should NOT exist in this game (it only got BETTER with the downed state buff).

The nerf to Assasin’s Signet was NOT enough (it may be used now to revert the HS and PW damage nerfs), it will MAYBE prolong the instagib by one additional attack, maybe they will have to do one or two additional heartseekers, so the problem of killing people too fast still remains.
Anyways, a spammable <50% HP leap finisher should be removed from the game forever (the dev. that came out with this one should be slapped in da face).

I thought granade spamming Engineers in underwater were pretty imba, I’ll have to try a Ranger then!

Also, in no particular order (very few things could change if you take utilities and traits into account) :
Killing speed->Thief (Dagger/Dagger), Warrior (Axe/Axe+Greatsword), Elementalist (Dagger/Dagger or Scepter/Dagger), Engineer(Rifle+Granade kit), Mesmer (Sword/Sword), Ranger (Sword+Warhorn/Dagger/Torch), Guardian (Sword/Torch Greatsword or Hammer), Necromancer (Dagger/X).

Numbers killed (AoE)->Guardian (Greatsword), Elementalist (Staff), Warrior (Greatsword), Engineer (Granade kit, Bomb kit), Ranger (Axe/Axe + Lonbow), Thief (Shortbow).

Travel speed->Thief (Shortbow), Elementalist (Dagger or Scepter/Dagger), Warrior (Sword/Warhorn + Greatsword) ,maybe Guardian (Greatsword + Staff), Ranger (Sword+Warhorn), Engineer (Rifle+Med kit).

There are obviously other effective combinations, but those are the ones that came to my mind first.

In short, chose a Warrior, best overall (or most effective) PvE profession right now (according to your previous terms, of course).