Guild Wars 2

Great idea, I have posted this idea somewhere earlier on some general thief change topic but it’s worth a topic of its own.

Smoke field+leap or +blast combo is way superior to CnD since u dont need a target, u cant be dodged, blinded, invulnd, outkited etc in order to stealth. smoke field offers aoe stealth capability and countless blinds. And when u finally land CnD you are still vulnerable because ppl can just cleave around them. CnD is way behind so if its this hard to land it should blind around you the very least.

You guys agree/disagree?

what things like this need is a better indication outside of ui. some easily recognizeable effect on resistance, berzerker stance, quickness so the more important effect in general

This game mode is pretty well tought out.
However, anyone I talk to says it is too much moba or too many NPCs which I agree.
Killing the NPCs is very quick and doesn’t require any skill; protecting them is not possible.
To me it seems Anet tried to add as many things to it as they could think of but IHMO it would be better without the guards, doorbreaker and archers. The heroes and the lord room are cool.
This of course needs some replacement(like environmental weapons or some tool to destroy gates that replaces ur weapon skills) or instead of removing the npc entirely make them invulnerable to player damage. This way only trebs could help taking out NPCs and stopping someone from trebbing is a viable notion unlike stopping someone cleaving down the npcs from melee and then running off.

Running the supply back and forth also seems lackluster to me so the supplies could have an immediate NPC summoning effect. As soon as you pick a supply up you can choose with an instant skill what to summon. This of course would require somewhat longer reloading times for the supply stocks.
This game mode got a lot better than originally, good work!

This game mode is pretty well tought out.
However, anyone I talk to says it is too much moba or too many NPCs which I agree.
Killing the NPCs is very quick and doesn’t require any skill; protecting them is not possible.
To me it seems Anet tried to add as many things to it as they could think of but IHMO it would be better without the guards, doorbreaker and archers. The heroes and the lord room seems cool.
This of course needs some replacement( like environmental weapons or some tool to destroy gates that replaces ur weapon skills) or instead of removing the npc entirely make them invulnerable to player damage. Running the supply also seems lackluster to me so the supplies could have an immediate NPC summoning effect. As soon as you pick a supply up you can choose with an instant skill what to summon. This of course would require somewhat longer reloading times for the supplies.
This game mode got a lot better than originally, good work!

cry more. cele necro is really strong for pvp ATM
(they have 4skills and 1 trait that converts 2 boonds into condis+ remove condis trait while sending back conditions to enemies constantly; goodpower and condi dmg)

Bunkers are boring to play on and play against. just no. don’t make them more survivable. 1 person can’t kill a bunker as of now anyway and its bad enough

This is exactly why i wanted to make a post but since u already made one I’ll just comment.
Put revenant in unranked areana maybe or on a test server… but in ranked? there is always 1 or 2 people who don’t care about anyone else but themselves and when i tell them to go unranked instead because noone has any experience with revenant and is appearantly weak and incomplete. they say just say IDC or something and even refuse to reroll….

Shouldnt matchmaking separate ppl who just made the class from ppl who have been playing a class for months anyway??!?!?!

Solution: just forbid going ranked arena with experimental classes.

If they added sensible stats to rune of the adventurer that would help S/Ds a lot. (175 condi dmg ATM makes it pretty weak). I don’t get why dont arenanet makes at least 2 rune types with this effect 1 with condi dmg 1 with power or something. or just remove stats from runes and let us choose effects and stats separately

Maugetarr.6823:

I’ve been having fun with S/D. Traiting acro with it isn’t really worth it now, but taking signet of agility with signets of power is pretty good.

FG+ES need some help. The decent traits in acro now are really just there to mitigate some of the effects of getting hit. This is a real contrast to before the patch where the traits helped you avoid getting hit.

Hit with a stun? -> HtC
Condi Bombed? -> Pain Response
Immobilize, crippled, chilled? -> Don’t stop

I don’t enjoy auto procs making up for my inability to dodge a hit.

Well I main an S/D thief but it isn’t viable anymore . I agree with the rest tho: They totally missed the point with acro, these passive traits are pretty useless since they all incentivize taking the stuns/immobs/condis and have totally random effects like when u get stunned u gain 100% endurance when u might have it on full already and pain response can activate when u have no condis and just grant a weak regen….
you didnt have too much problem with immob anyway becaue u can still use sword2 to return or flanking strike/disabling shot in place to evade attacks or simply withdraw,shadowstep of cleanse with signet of agility.(or counter-steal)

So the result is CS being way better than Acro but you are too glassy that way

Warhawk.7095:

now useless sword!"

Sums it all up. Sword needs a traitline it synergizes well with. Like old acrobatics with IMPROVEMENTS rather than nerfs. It hadn’t been meta even before patch hit.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Kicker.8203:

Retargeting can be just enough time to get urself killed

So, basically what you have to deal with vs mesmers and thieves?

I see.

What?

FlawlezZ.3178:

acrobatic specialization is crap now
choking gas is very bad

practiced tolerance “nerf”
withdrawn has higher cd and is slower

dagger training is crap now

cloaked in shadows now gm trait

Agree with these.
Acrobatic needs a huge buff.
Withdraw had its cooldown increased so if you get the recharge tricks 20%faster it stays at about the same however this competes with 2boonsteals, aoe boon distribution and aoe vigor. Other trick skills are not useful enough for use in pvp. No wonder I haven’t seen anyone go for this trait. Just revert withdraw changes or make tricks more useful.

Hammerguard.9834:

I have to agree with acrobatics now being terrible. Thieves need the 15 endurance regen on dodge. Even pre-patch D/P thief was better than S/D and everyone knew that. I still played S/D because it was so fun. Now I can’t play it anymore. Thieves are way too squishy to take hits. You either used stealth and blind spam to live, or you used dodge and evasion to live. Vigor alone even with the 50% increase trait is not enough to keep a thief alive especially considering S/D doesn’t have the burst potential D/P has. S/D needs even better sustain.

And speaking as someone who has also played against hundreds of thieves in this game, I haven’t noticed them being overpowered in the slightest. Every fight I play with or against a thief, I know exactly why I won or lost.

I’ve played 5k games, 2k of it are thief games most of those on S/D.
I completely agree. I(&pretty much every tournament player) also felt D/P was stronger even before patch but now… S/D is now unplayable unless you want to farm newbies in hotjoin(shame on you if you do).

D/P thief is alright, the problem is they made all the others thief specs unviable.

Saiyan.1704:

Kicker.8203:

The problem is that you target the pet unwillingly and during taunt u can’t change target.
Edit: To clarify the problem is NOT that you can’t change the target of your autoattack, but you can’t change target in general.
This takes away too much control for a cc effect. Can’t use Steal, Judge’s intervention, or dazing mantra etc. on the ranger, moreover you can’t even target the ranger so by the end of taunt u still have to change target. Please remove this target changing component from the effect.

Understood. My initial post still stands. I don’t think a person should change targets during a Taunt. Period. Like others have already stated… it’s kind of weird auto attacking a person while looking (targeting) some one else.

Why is it weird? U can already to that with melee attacks. If anything is weird it’s taunt itself. Which part of the UI comes next? will the next cc open your chat and u start typing there instead of using skills? C’mon…

Saiyan.1704:

It’s not hard re-targeting a person. It adds more playability in a match, lets not dumb the game further because solo players can’t click or use “T” effectively.

Retargeting can be just enough time to get urself killed with maul or something. If anything it removes counterplay rather then adding.

Aggrostemma.1703:

*Taunt: can be used to close the gap, prevent res, landing AoE and it forces the taunted to autoattack it’s locked target.

There is a nice pattern in the design of these CC skills. The slower effects namely Fear and Taunt have an added effect. Pull and Push happens instantly while Taunt and Fear have less distance but an additional “side effect”.

Sounds balanced for me.

Does anybody even read my post or just read the title and misunderstand the whole point?

Aggrostemma.1703:

EDIT: can anybody confirm if the Taunt works on downed players? If it does it also useful to secure stomps so it’s much better then a Pull from it’s category or the Fear from the other group of CC’s.

No, it doesn’t, I have just tested it.

blitzkrieg.2451:

Tim.6450:

blitzkrieg.2451:

I knew the whining about taunt would come sooner or later. Only one class has it and it can only happen every 20 seconds. Now, it currently goes through block and invulns right now should be fixed but if you do ANYTHING else to taunt, you will make it COMPLETELY worthless. I cannot stress that enough. It has a unique purpose.

This is just wrong it still has the function of a regular cc, moving towards the target is also usefull.

blitzkrieg.2451:

I know because ranger has it, the most hated class in the game yet hasn’t seen a top tier tournament final in nearly a year (apex w/ nnight and he plays mesmer nowww) that doesn’t mean it’s deemed automatically OP at all… Also if you have teleport (thief / mes) you can use that or any other stun break that doesn’t require a target. Quit kittening whining already, also STEAL ISN’T A STUN BREAK that’s why you can’t use it while taunted.

First I don’t care if the ranger got it, the guardian got it or an engineer got it. The target lock is beyond what control skills should have.

I really wish these hotjoin heroes would quit whining and worry about more important issues like tank eles, mesmer burst w/ survivability, burning stack dmg, engi 100 nades bug, etc etc etc….

Anet knows these plights from the player we got threads enough about that.

blitzkrieg.2451:

If you nerf taunt, you will nerf rangers even MORE than what they already are to be honest, the class is is in the bottom bracket out of ALL classes right now in terms of team viability in top tier pvp. Taunt isn’t even a gamechanger for ranger anyway lol.

Allowing targetting another character during a cc will not hurt ranger that much.

You can use stun breaks to get rid of it. Enough said, get over it and quit whining.

No, you quit whining about your ranger, Tim has it right.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Maybe they don’t have the technology to make your character do that unless the game actually targets the thing you should move towards?

They do. Just explained…..

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

IMHO SWTOR did taunts (and tanks) in pvp best: If I taunt you, you will do 50% (or was it 30%?) less damage to everyone but me for a few seconds.

Kicker.8203:

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Does this mean that for example Elementalists can’t even swap attunements while taunted?

Obviously not. I’m talking about instant skill that require a target(Blinding Flash, Arcane Blast, Signet of Air, Infiltrator’s signet, necro death shroud 3, targeted shouts etc.)

Oh okay, but you should be able to use targeted instant skills on the pet then, right? Seeing as the pet is the one that actually taunts you.

Yes but you don’t want to use them on the pet 99% of the time.

Zietlogik.6208:

Kicker.8203:

Zietlogik.6208:

Taunt is a mechanic that causes players to only autoattackthe target, that has been stated.

It is basically: Walk towards and Autoattack the target.

So it makes sense, it isn’t a stun, or a daze, or a knockback, it is a taunt, a new mechanic.

That’s perfectly fine but why does it have to change my target to achieve that? And deny me from targeting anyone else for the time of taunt.

That is just how taunt is designed to work (in every game so far that uses it pretty much)

I do not agree that taunt should even exist, I am opposed to any skills that would take direct control of your character (fear shouldn’t exist either imo)

If they allow you to properly stunbreak (removing the impairments) and select targets freely, it wouldn’t be so bad.

This is just how Anet is building the game right now, they are moving away from innovation and well thought-out improvements and replacing that with more traditional “WoW-like” mechanics, with the addition of taunt/tanks/healing coefficients, power creep and almost ascended gear grind….who knows where we end up.

In other MMOs taunt is PvE only… and anyway auto-attacking doesn’t necesserily require a target. Proof: your character with autoattack on keeps on attacking your foe after detargeting. (Unless you have “stop autoattacking after changing target” on)

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

Does this mean that for example Elementalists can’t even swap attunements while taunted?

Obviously not. I’m talking about instant skill that require a target(Blinding Flash, Arcane Blast, Signet of Air, Infiltrator’s signet, necro death shroud 3, targeted shouts etc.)

Zietlogik.6208:

Taunt is a mechanic that causes players to only autoattackthe target, that has been stated.

It is basically: Walk towards and Autoattack the target.

So it makes sense, it isn’t a stun, or a daze, or a knockback, it is a taunt, a new mechanic.

That’s perfectly fine but why does it have to change my target to achieve that? And deny me from targeting anyone else for the time of taunt.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

If I could play hotjoin again while waiting for a tournament queue pop I WOULD BE SOOOO HAPPY.

They don’t want that because u might miss the queue in the loading screen.(A risk that would be worth taking IMO) therefore I suggested adding more time-killing activities inside the mists.

If they miraculously allowed travelling again personally I would visit the custom 1v1 arenas probably or do a jumping puzzle maybe.

Solo and team progression should be only separated on leaderboards.

SchmendrickTheMagician.8247:

I haven’t actually been taunted yet, but taunt is a hard cc, right? So it makes sense that you have to use a stunbreaker to get out of it. Steal and Dazing Mantra don’t break stuns so you can’t use them.

Not being able to use Judge’s Intervention seems like a bug though seeing as that is a stunbreaker.

Dazing the ranger would serve the purpose of negating their burst rather than breaking the stun. Instant cast spell are still available to you while stunned doesn’t matter if they are stunbreaks or not.

Each build would benefit from a different stat combo. So they should add all the pve ones and reintroduce Jewels beside Amulets to restore the ability of mixing stats now that the trait stats are gone.

CodeHavoc.7926:

I can’t wait for the complaints about reaper.

Reaper’s seem to be their answer to necro viability in dungeons. Skills with this high cast times, and slow movement gonna be totally unviable for pvp. They are still gonna be outranged because they added another melee weapon instead of a proper power based weapon for 1200 range. Staff is the only ranged option but it is meant for condi builds.

Taunt is not too common yet because only ranger pets have acces to it SO FAR.
With more taunts to be added I’d suggest fixing it now.

The problem is that you target the pet unwillingly and during taunt u can’t change target.
Edit: To clarify the problem is NOT that you can’t change the target of your autoattack, but you can’t change target in general.
CCs should only affect one’s character, not the UI. By this logic Fear should clear your target and deny targeting anyone. Stuns, dazes, knockbacks, knockdowns should not let you cast anything instant either but arenanet allows these on purpose since launch thus taunt creates inconsistency.
This takes away too much control for a cc effect. Can’t use Steal, Judge’s intervention, or dazing mantra etc. on the ranger, moreover you can’t even target the ranger so by the end of taunt u still have to change target. Please remove this target changing component from the effect. Meanwhile the autoattacks could keep on hitting the one who applied the taunt.

(This ranger trait is also bugged ATM and it penetrates invulnerability, evades and blocks.)

Stunbreak skills all have a secondary effect like blinding or shadowstepping people. What I’m pointing out is that as a stunbreak you have to “waste” that secondary effect on that pet just to stunbreak unlike any other cc in this game. In my eyes that is unbalanced.
Stunbreaks affected: Infiltrator’s Signet Judge’s Intervention, Plague Signet, Signet of Midnight, Signet of Air, Sic’em and On My Mark with proper runes, Mirror Images, Decoy(illusions attack and are shattered at the wrong target)

This makes EVERY targeted instant skill which does no break stun also useless: Doom, Steal, Air Attunement, Lightning Strike, Arcane Blast, Blinding Flash, Ranger pet skills, Mantra of Distraction and so forth.

It has also been since the beggining that while cc’ed you could target the foe to not only target your skills but also see crucial information about your enemy.

It is strong enough already that taunt can lure you into aoes(especially in the future) opposed to fear which can actually save you if you run fast than ur pursuer, and fear can’t hold people in aoes or trigger confusion, reflects, retaliation, spectral armor; remove stealth etc.

Edit: Added some arguments, thanks to Tim.

Forgot to add: Enable default character models at the very least for unranked arenas. Asuras are invisible in the heat of combat.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Maybe it is not an easy fix. Z axis is not a trivial thing you know.

Yeah it could take up to several seconds.

Other than balance these things would help growing the PvP community the most:

-Dueling or something to do in lobby while waiting for ques

-Buildsaver+loader

-Character specific keybinds(it would be so easy to implement but would be so much better)

-Better rewards(ppl who don’t play pvp say that it’s pointless and they r right. Having fun is not enough reason to play PvP for the majority of players.)

Thoughts?

Beastmastery grandmaster trait with taunt bypasses invulnerability, evasion, blocking, anything, plz fix

lot of people are still using berserker amulet but now they have 11k hp with it. Why isn’t marauder the default? some ppl didn’t even notice that it used to have vitality

Zephyra.4709:

dave.5219:

I am loving my s/d even more than before….as far as the acro nerf….have you looked into Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat stew?
100% Might on dodge, 40% to endurance rate…..

This. This. This.

I’ve been running this food since day 1 of ever playing S/D thief and it’s hilarious. Paired with Strength runes = might on dodge… might for dayzzzz… dodges for dayzzzzz.

It never stacked with vigor because endurance regen capped at+100%. The 5secs of might from it was negligible. Omnomberry ghost was way more useful. Now i guess it helps more with the dodges but d/p is just better especially for wvw
. foods dont exist in spvp what most of us refer to. The fights are even there unlike wvw.

EremiteAngel.9765:

The scenes in PvP has long been stable, with engineers and elementalists standing at the submit while necromancers and rangers made up the base.

With the coming update, PvP faces an unprecedented change.

From Strongest to Weakest:

1) Mesmers

4) Warriors

6) Thieves

Poor thieves. They used to take 3rd place, the spot just behind elementalists/engineers because of their mobility and their ability to make mesmers cry. Having lost their ability to oppress mesmers, they have sunk to the lows of 6th rank. Future PvP teams would naturally replace thieves with mesmers.

7) Rangers

The base-lining of many of their longbow mechanics have made them stronger. But they are a one-trick pony and easily countered. Ranked behind thieves as thieves can still make them cry.

Agree or not? Give your own ranks!

Mesmers aren’t gonna be THAT strong. Now they just won’t be forced to keep away from thieves all day. D/P thieves are getting lots of buffs too, so they won’t be simply replaced by mesmers.(S/D is gonna get completely worthless thanks to Karl or whoever made the changes) Now they will be about on even ground but we’ll see. Thieves gonna continue to have party stealth and get venom shares for free.

Rangers gonna witness even more hate towards them coz they won’t get harder to play but they will have even more rapidfires.

Warriors (shoutbow) are already top-notch and they get their best traits merged together. I don’t get it. Every type of warrior already uses longbow(zerk,soldier,celesital) but they buff it… what?!

BTW This is a weird comparison because u cant compare DPSers to bunkers.

This patch often seems to reflect the philosophy: OP? Let’s make it more OP. Barely viable? Let’s make it worse or leave it the same.
(D/P thief vs S/D; Shoutbow warrior vs other warrior builds; engineer get buffs as if they weren’t op already; necros not getting too much better)
Fresh air ele’s weak in teamfights but strong in 1v1? Let’s give them passive burning and crit every 3 sec to be even better at 1v1s and to the one class that has 9921931923 insta-casts where there isnt much counterplay anyway. And to encourage macros and further decrease counterplay let’s remove Fresh Air’s CD. When what they need is some kind of team fight sustain or support.

There are also many smart changes tho.

Edit: fixed typos

Dr Hashbrown.7104:

Please add something to the UI that shows CDs for Runes, Sigils, and Traits.
K thanks baii

Agree, especially ones with long CDs like fear rune or rune of the grove.
Yeah also add time remaining to Traps and to Portal, plz.

Also, now condi and boon durations would disappear if they just go with the stat boost on amulets so jewels or something should be added, i agree.

Also add more stat combos to pvp plz.

Iavra.8510:

Seeing that ele autoattack was fixed to remove the cancel-exploit, it seems only fair to give mesmers the same treatment.

That is a completely different thing. Eles could literally double up on their signet’s passive heal with that trick while dealing the same/slightly more dmg on a strong autoattack. Do whatever with mesmer’s just don’t make it worse than it is now using the trick coz its already bad.

Besetment.9187:

Making Illusionary Persona baseline and reordering trait lines so they actually make sense is all that I really wanted anyway. Everything else was a pleasant surprise to me.

Illusionary Persona and Deceptive Evasion have always felt essential – if you do not have both of these traits, your own profession mechanics don’t even work reliably. Although there are some builds that do without 1 or the other (like MoTD precluding IP), you pay a very high price to stray from the beaten path.

You have a few days to make a shatter variant and play the old way. Try going a few solo queues without Illusionary Persona or Deceptive Evasion.

Yeah deceptive evasion deserves to be baseline just as much as illusionary persona or even more but i guess for some cheesy phantasm builds its not beneficial so to solve this simple alter it not to spawn a clone if it can only replace a phantasm. Not for mesmer’s strength’s sake but just to free up more choices Maybe nerf something in return or something.

Kicker.8203:

autoattack sohuld have the slacking peroid removed from its end.

It is a little weird but it is one of the tricks that distinguishes good plaers from bad ones and makes auto-attacking less boring.

Mesmer gets some well-deserved buffs but

Especially with Torch 5 not removing condis on hit anymore they should change that 1.5% recharge/sec in stealth trait(The Pledge) on torch to plain 20% recharge decrease since if you use torch 4 on its own you only get 4.5% recharge decrease. + it incentivizes stealth camping and I don’t get whats fun about that for any1 really. (torch phantasm is already the weakest phantasm with the highest cd)

Desperate decoy (stealth when hit below 50%) is pretty weird too. It is gonna trigger the same time as Panic Strike which every1 thief is gonna have from now on making it completely useless. (panic strike should be evitable, i.e. when a thief hits some1 below 60% they immobilize for 2.5 s on next attack for 5s); and passive stealth traits should have a wind-up because u get insta-revealed rather than stealthed way too often. About 0.75 sec stealth delay after animation would be great to let you stop attacking. (Thieves should have this for Last Refuge too)

Edit: Oh and Imagined burden. :you get the might stacks at the end of the gs auto attack but noone with experience ever finishes casting it because the attacks finish before the casting ends so it is faster to stow wepaon and restart the casting. It should be either applied in the middle of the cast or autoattack sohuld have the slacking peroid removed from its end.

25% is still op. Especially combined with the ressing minor

it was too RNG with aoe immob potential anyway. Should have internal cd or something

Fay.2357:

Kicker.8203:

You guys don’t get it. Of course you don’t have to target anyone in order to see which one is the real mesmer practically noone acts like a clone. Why? Because they would spot the real one in 1-2 seconds by randomly targeting them.

A good player spots the Mesmer near-instantly without even having to target them. It’s a nonissue either way.

Did u even read the post? I’m talking about mesmer acting like clones.

You guys don’t get it. Of course you don’t have to target anyone in order to see which one is the real mesmer practically noone acts like a clone. Why? Because they would spot the real one in 1-2 seconds by randomly targeting them.

skowcia.8257:

Kicker.8203:

MadVisions.4529:

skill changes:

Shadow shot: blind duration reduced to 3 seconds from 5,5. Projectile is no more unblockable

It should still be unaffacted by reflects.

And steal does need some range increase IMO with warriors having 1200+ range on longbow and rangers 1800 on theirs

Yeh, cause war lb is soo stronk at long range (if it even hit anything) and thieves cant walk over rangers as they wish already right?

Steal is for now the most op ability ingame

Yeah by some i meant maybe the middleground between 900 and 1200, so about 1050.
Thief is all about mobility so they are supposed to catch up fast.

I’m not gonna go into the stupid Steal OP argument.

MadVisions.4529:

topic would be too long so i decided to upload all the trait changes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H8B4SXn0iB58kUQCjJOAYZeCgPF52w5SqSyHxhqVFQw/edit?usp=sharing

what are your thoughts?

Most of it is very insightful and I agree but I’d like to add:

No Quarter: was a good trait too as the developers did it.

Power of Inertia as minor trait would be great and might duration could be a bit less, like 6-7 base but shouldn’t have internal cooldown. This trait would have a lot of play to it

Assassin’s Reward is pretty lackluster as well, it should give 0.5 s vigor/initiative spent instead of healing.

Dev’s version of Don!t Stop is way stronger but that removes skillfullness and all the immob immunity was a bit op

MadVisions.4529:

skill changes:

Shadow shot: blind duration reduced to 3 seconds from 5,5. Projectile is no more unblockable

It should still be unaffacted by reflects.

And steal does need some range increase IMO with warriors having 1200+ range on longbow and rangers 1800 on theirs