Guild Wars 2

I wish the leap was faster and did more damage. Aside from that I rather enjoy the skill as-is. It’s quite nice for tracking stealthed foes even if they move as you land it.

Blimm.5028:

Wow, everyone crying for focus buffs… And I can mash face with the current state of the focus 1o1 and even up to 1v3…
I will be so op if the devs come by and read this… oh wait.

Also don´t DARE change gale in any negative way, like that 1.5 second cast. We don´t need another dragonstooth!

If u guys don’t believe ele focus is a (in comparison) viable offhand choice WS me if you are on an EU server and we can beat each other up!

Nobody is saying ele focus doesn’t have its uses, but some of its skills are seriously lacking, and it doesn’t have any significant team play once you’ve burned Swirling Winds, aside from using Obsidian Flesh to get a clutch res on a downed party member.

sorrow.2364:

Thief can easily have a cheap blast finisher by picking Shortbow as secondary set, which is mandatory anyway in most thieves build. That’s 4 cheap finishers in 2 weapon sets.

It is all a matter of where they want to bring GS for rangers.
If they designed it as a support/defensive weapon, then a blast finisher on Maul is the best choice.
If they designed it as an offensive weapon, then a vulnerability boost on Maul is the way to go.

Both choices are good, it is all a matter of where the Devs want the weapon to be.

Bolded is important because:

1. It requires a second set to achieve that many finishers and

2. Thieves have a paltry selection of fields to combo off of; their only real advantage is smoke. That is a totally different context when compared to a profession that has both water/fire fields which are much more broadly useful from a team perspective.

On another note, I dislike using thieves as examples for balance, because Anet inherently made them much more difficult to balance by changing their skill attrition function.

Terkov.4138:

Even if our GS dealt as much dmg as warrior’s one, that wouldn’t make us wanted in zergs. What we need is some addional utility, not just bigger numbers. Adding blast finisher would make it interesting option for raid composition.

Which is why the auto attack needs to have its speed improved and have the evade be the same speed as the regular attacks on top of the damage increase. Maul needs to have a better coefficient and more vulnerability with the ability to hit 5 targets instead of 3 like auto. Response time and distance knocked back need to be improved on 4 to either sync better with Hilt Bash, which needs to sync better with traits like Moment of Clarity so that you are not wasting a potential damage buff.

Even a change a simple as increasing the vulnerability and targets hit by Maul would be a great start, because its the one condition that amplifies the damage of everybody attacking your target. It’s amazing offensive utility that doesn’t break the weapon or necessitate nerfs to anything.

Maul wouldn’t be an easy blast finisher. It is still locked to a 6s cooldown and melee range.
Cluster Bomb is an easy blast finisher.

Weapon sets with multiple combo finisher aren’t a problem either.
Just look at D/D on thief. Leap, whirl and projectile finishers on the same set.

A traited GS gets a 4.8 second CD on Maul. If GS receives other QoL adjustments it needs, adding a blast finisher will definitely make GS too appealing.

GS already has multiple finishers; leap and projectile, and these are not overtly problematic by themselves. Thief D/D (I think thieves have a terrible design to begin with) at least doesn’t have a blast finisher, which is a very reliable and efficient aoe, and whirl finishers are pretty insignificant due to their usually short duration as well as unpredictability of the finisher effects.

What you are saying is that we should compound upon the problem of weapons having a lot of finishers by adding another one instead of fixing core problems the weapon will have regardless.

Fuzzion.2504:

If the ele is an avatar, does that mean the necro is a blood bender and hence our greatest enemy?

Very little of the necro’s work has to do with actual blood.

sorrow.2364:

Healing Spring water field is too long, regardless the hypothetical buff on Maul, period. As you can see, it stops the Ranger to get more useful buffs just because of that water field. 8-10s is more reasonable to me.

If Rangers need more condition removals, it is a good thing to spread them among other utilities/skills/traits. Packing everything in a single skill has never been healthy for the game.

No, if that happens you’ll still have a problem with rangers having access to fields with such an easy blast finisher. GS already has two finishers. If the weapon functioned nearly as well as it was probably envisioned to, people probably wouldn’t even be discussing adding anything to Maul.

You’re bringing up another problem in this game, which is the ease of access to blast finishers. There are far too many and suggestions like this would serve to exacerbate the problem.

Rangers need more condition removal options; the fact that Healing Spring is one good option doesn’t mean it has too much.

sorrow.2364:

Leuca.5732:

Healing Spring+Maul+Swoop+Auto+Maul and leave field.

Let’s do some math with this relatively quick set of actions, with 0 healing power.

Healing Spring+3 finishers is 4920+(1320×3)=8880 health. If you are contesting a point it will be much more than this, and if the Engineer wants to stay off the point and use grenades, he’s losing the point.

With un-traited cd greatsword, you can use Maul x 3 and Swoop x 2, which is 6600 health at 0 healing power. That’s a ridiculous amount of healing.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is still less than 0 Healing power Healing Surge max healing.

Blast finisher on Maul makes sense if Healing Spring duration is reduced.
To be honest, its duration is kinda ridiculous even without blast finisher on Maul.

I guess I forgot to mention the fact that blast finishers are aoe heals, meaning it’s actually more than the number I gave you if there is at least one ally nearby. In a team fight, that can mean an additional 1320-5280 per finisher. If you get at least 2 finishers off on (as an example) you and two other people, your total health gain between you and those allies is 12840 before you factor in any regeneration they received or any finishers they used themselves. If you are getting all four of your teammates, that’s 18120 between all of you.

Healing Surge doesn’t remove conditions, doesn’t provide a field, and has an either-or option by getting less healing for maxing your adrenaline after usage, or healing before using it to get more health back.

Nerfing Healing Spring is the last thing rangers need because its ticking condition removal is crucial to holding points. (as well as being extremely helpful in PvE)

I’m just not seeing a good reason to nerf anything just to give GS a blast finisher it doesn’t need, when it still needs other improvements to basic function.

Their most recent maps are Anet’s worst ones. It’s getting progressively worse.

Conan.8046:

Dirame hit the nail on the head. People just cry about anything…so better to keep them in the dark untill they can at least try it…might not be bad as they think. In fact chances are it won’t be.

If the changes are that bad, they will cry anyway. If the changes are pretty good, the crying will last only a short while. In the case of this last big balance patch, it was actually that bad.

Remove torment from the game please; it’s unnecessary.

Razor.9872:

For people complaining that putting a blast finisher on GS #2 would be too OP due to Healing Spring:

Yes, maybe, it would be powerful if the ranger were to stay in the field, but would any good player just let a ranger do so? No. They would move away, and force the ranger to follow. How often do you stay in the field for the full duration? An engi, for example, could possibly just stand away and pepper the field with grenades. You’d be at a disadvantage to stay in such a deathtrap.

Healing Spring+Maul+Swoop+Auto+Maul and leave field.

Let’s do some math with this relatively quick set of actions, with 0 healing power.

Healing Spring+3 finishers is 4920+(1320×3)=8880 health. If you are contesting a point it will be much more than this, and if the Engineer wants to stay off the point and use grenades, he’s losing the point.

With un-traited cd greatsword, you can use Maul x 3 and Swoop x 2, which is 6600 health at 0 healing power. That’s a ridiculous amount of healing.

ensoriki.5789:

The reason I support Fire shield is Elemental Shielding. With it Fire shield is an easy source of Protection and becomes a nice defensive buff but the CD can be fairly tough for that purpose. Untraited yeah Fire shield isn’t all that but I like that Protection play.

You could say the same thing about Shocking Aura/Frost aura, and they both have superior effects, with one having a much lower cd. Fire Shield just doesn’t cut it. I think it needs to be considerably stronger, and it also needs to be unique to the ele’s weapon. The leap finisher version needs to be weaker if it’s going to be so much more accessible.

Mmmm don’t see their connection to each other as a problem atm. It’s more that I land comet im wailing on them with dagger 1 or scepter 1, hit freezing gust and it’s just underwhelming of it’s own accord, nothing with Comet. Even then Freezing gust to some extent makes comet/Dragon’s tooth/burning speed easier to land. It’s like you tap into water land your comet and then boom got no damage. Tbh I think it should be almost a water attunement version of Fire grab. Does extra damage to (already) chilled enemies . Which helps D/F get in some extra damage naturallyand lets S/F capitalize on that through speccing.

Buffing them to make them have amazing synergy would make Water much more worthwhile to attune into than for just heals; you wouldn’t feel like you were wasting the attunement if you went into it for the FG/Comet combo.

See the thing is to me between Flame wall (primarily) and freezing gust it may not. Those two skills being improved may boost the performance enough that it’s no biggie for it to stay as it is.

At 50 second base cd it’s completely inferior to pretty much every stun/kd in the game. I think 40 seconds would be fine; it still wouldn’t be spammed and traited would bring it down to 32. I wouldn’t propose something like 30 seconds, because if you trait for reduction that would get ridiculous, but it needs to be less than Updraft, which has every advantage in the book but range right now. It’s aoe, applies a boon, and has a built in evade.

Daishi, have I told you lately that I love you?

Darnis.4056:

WvW is inherently imbalanced; you use pve versions of skills not pvp versions of skills; You have 15(?) broken pve only skills, broken food buffs, broken Stat allocations, broken Sigils, Broken Runes, Broken pve bundle items, imbalanced gear(Ascended legendaries etc).

Nailed it.

Terkov.4138:

Maul + Blast Finisher = more love for ranger in melee trains

Blast finisher will also make them nerf other functions of the weapon, which we don’t want. Give it better base damage and more fluid/effectively hitting skills.

Azunai.5974:

Avead.5760:

I disagree with freezing gust and comet not having sunergy together.
The plain obvious that comes to my mind is using comet to itnerrupt a key ability like heal and then freezing gust to slow down the cooldown of the enemy skills.
I use those skills in that order every time after i heavily burst someone when i play s/f burst

Really? I use gust to slow down the target to make comet easier to land and then comet to interrupt him to increase his cooldowns and set up a burst.

I don’t mean they lack inherent ability to combo or stack effects, but there’s nothing really combat-changing about how they work together. They don’t help each other function in a really fluid way. Look at Updraft; it sets you up at the perfect distance to use Burning Speed, and they’re not even in the same element. You could achieve the same thing Freezing Gust does if you are in melee and use Frozen Burst, only you’ll chill up to 5 people. FG doesn’t even do more damage to compensate for its higher recharge; it’s just ranged and single target.

On the subject of staff changes, I don’t think Blasting Staff should have its current function. Base aoe should just be increased 25% on aoe staff skills. Blasting Staff should be reworked to avoid its requirement for staff to really work everywhere you bring it, while still being appealing for certain situations.

I like your changes to fire, but I think it needs more than that. It’s our damage element but the only reliable damage it has is in the first two skills. I think Flame Burst should have some initial aoe damage to help facilitate a choice between power and condi builds. Burning Retreat having a small burst of aoe damage upon activation would hardly be OP because if you are in Fire your opponent can expect it anyway if they charge you in melee. I don’t think it should be as big or strong as Burning Speed but it’s definitely lack luster. Meteor Shower also needs to be usable while moving. Movement is so crucial to the staff because it has so much trouble if it gets caught in melee.

I don’t think Ice Spike needs to be a blast finisher. We should be keeping away from adding so many finishers to promote more active and thought out combinations. However, I do think it needs an animation time reduction (not cast time reduction) because it’s so telegraphed that even if you can’t get out of the circle you can still dodge it way too easily. I think the vulnerability is fine; it’s better to play it safe with those kinds of effects.

I like your cone effect idea for Gust, but I don’t think it needs a cripple. I think Static Field should stun every time it’s crossed; it poses no threat after the first time somebody enters the field and the fact that it only gives swiftness with blast finishers compounds this problem.

I think a problem with your change to Eruption is similar to that of Ice Spike; it’s so telegraphed that it will still be way too easy to dodge. Reducing the blast to 2 seconds after casting with a cast time of 1/2 second is more than enough time for somebody to avoid it and also increases your choices of element swap rotations for combo finishers.

I’m pretty against Torment even existing because it was an unnecessary condition to add to the game, so I’m just going to say that I think Unsteady Ground should do more damage and apply a longer cripple per hit. As for Shockwave, I wouldn’t change it to a single target skill. The fact that it can hit multiple people is what makes it so good. I would increase base damage/bleed slightly and increase the immobilize to 2.5/3 seconds from 2. I think its strength lies in the immobilize, so that should be the priority to keep it from becoming a damage/control powerhouse skill. It should also home in better on targets.

ensoriki.5789:

Focus is fun to play.
If I had a priority list of things to look at on focus it be
1. Flame wall
2. Freezing gust
3. Fire shield
4. Gale.
Fire shield and gale to me are pretty much fine, they may need nothing to them or just a CD drop. Something is wrong with Flame wall that skill may just need to be reworked or replaced.
However for the idea of salvaging it they could increase the duration of the burn to say 1.5s base, and double the current power damage. That might bear fruit.
One thing I’ve been toying with in my head is Flame wall not doing damage but instead healing allies with a high base but low scaling.

Flame Wall should do heavy damage upon crossing imo, akin to the great effects you see from Spectral Wall and the like. Because its actual area covered is small, you could give it a very high number (way more than double what it is now) and it still would pretty much serve as area denial or a single packet of damage off of Gale. I think the fact that it lasts so long (easy finishers) is enough of a team utility aspect, but perhaps you could have it apply a random boon upon crossing with an internal CD of 4-5 seconds so you can only receive that benefit two times max.

I disagree with your point about Fire Shield. The elementalist has no motive to take the hits required for it to stack any substantial might and the burning is negligible. I think it should also be a punishing skill that damages attackers (like retaliation) but is like other auras in that it cannot be removed. This gives it a defense-into-offense feel and keeps the theme of the focus true. All an attacker has to do is not hit you with multi-packet attacks or simply stop attacking for a few seconds to avoid the damage. Think of how fun that would be against Hundred Blades, especially with warriors being so annoying to punish nowadays; you could deal significant damage even when stunned. I think this would justify the longer CD it has. (though it could still be reduced from a 40 second recharge)

The problem with Freezing Gust/Comet is that they have no real synergy with each other. I mentioned in another thread how I thought the damage on both could be upped very slightly. Then you make Freezing Gust affect foes adjacent to your target as well and add an effect to Comet that makes it stun chilled foes.

Gale just needs a recharge reduction. It’s otherwise a great skill but necessitating Aeromancer’s Alacrity just to make the recharge bearable is really not an ideal situation.

Azunai.5974:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Azunai.5974:

Reduce cooldown on air 5, earth 5, change the skills on fire, and modify the water skills to function better.

agree on everything but earth 5. earth 5 is incredibly strong, it is fine how it stands. however, still,
+1

Considering it’s on a 50 sec cd for only 4 seconds and that we can’t take the cd reduction trait, I’d feel better if it was at 40.

Of course, it seems a bit strong because of the number of cantrips we take to increase survivability. We also need to have utilities and traits revamped to make builds nore diverse and cantrips not an auto-include on anything that isn’t burst.

If Fire/Water were up-to-par I think its recharge would be fine.

Birds occasionally attack the area next to your target. I’m not sure why, but they can actually get stuck attacking nothing if the target doesn’t move.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Leuca.5732:

Searban.5984:

Are we talking about both cripple and blast finisher? Because as much as I like the idea, that would probably end with “it’s so OP” cry.

That cry would be completely justified. GS doesn’t need a blast finisher; it already has two other finishers. It needs better base damage and better execution of its skills.

And a complete redesign of Maul, as right now it’s practically useless with it’s token vuln.

I don’t think it needs a complete redesign; it has potential to be a valid source of burst damage/somewhat sustained dps. The activation time should be reduced by about a fourth and the damage/vuln should be increased, so that it doesn’t break even with auto attacks. As it is, the base damage is actually equivalent to two auto attacks before the lowsy coefficient.

Searban.5984:

Are we talking about both cripple and blast finisher? Because as much as I like the idea, that would probably end with “it’s so OP” cry.

That cry would be completely justified. GS doesn’t need a blast finisher; it already has two other finishers. It needs better base damage and better execution of its skills.

Searban.5984:

Leuca.5732:

Xsorus.2507:

Add Torment to Maul.

say 2 or 3 Stacks.

An interesting way to punish people for kiting, but GS is not a condi weapon and you will be wasting stats if you try to gear for that.

Well… Runes of Perplexity + Torment on Maul + Hybrid Build… Now, that does sound interesting. And fits the weapon to a point, with GS being half about damage, half about control.

No it doesn’t; that’s a completely niche use.

Writetyper.1985:

He was also discussing giving a leap finisher and short backwards dodge on thief pistol 2 so that pistol/pistol has an escape mechanism.

Um, what? It already has range; it doesn’t need to leap finish through black powder to dodge/stealth at the same time.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

hmmm. i thought people were complaining about conditions being too powerful?

and the direct counter to conditions would be more health, right?

Only in the immediate aspect; without a long term way to mitigate the damage, you have no way of really fighting back and will just have the same result later on. Vitality is not the condition equivalent of Toughness to power damage. Vitality is more of a counter to long-recharge burst than anything.

Conditions are too powerful, but giving people more health is only a band-aid solution.

dreztina.4820:

It’s nice that staff is getting some buffs, but I’m annoyed that they are limiting ele improvements to just the one weaponset. I don’t want to see the devs calling all elementalists perfectly fine just because they threw a bone to staff.

Agreed; there’s still a LOT that needs work.

The damage is fine; it needs QoL adjustments such as animation time and a few functions reworked.

Xsorus.2507:

Add Torment to Maul.

say 2 or 3 Stacks.

An interesting way to punish people for kiting, but GS is not a condi weapon and you will be wasting stats if you try to gear for that.

No, it would just delay the inevitable.

If heal as one applied some kind of boon(s) to you and your pet, and ranger condi removal didn’t suck, I would use it. A small increase in the heal couldn’t hurt either.

BurrTheKing.8571:

We had to adapt in order kill you, now you have to adapt if you want to kill us.

No, you got buffs.

Daecollo.9578:

I also play Necromancer too

So your agreeing with my main post? Or are you just trying to divert it away from the topic?

He’s somewhat calling you a hypocrite, which I’m starting to agree with. You state that warrior’s effortless regen from Healing Signet is fine because poison is a counter, yet state that it’s not (enough of) a counter for Troll Unguent when the only efficient condition removal a ranger has to deal with it kills the pet in the process, which you failed multiple times to acknowledge in your calculations.

Hyena.2037:

Thanks for the suggestions.

I’m a little curious about aura sharing. It seems like it could be useful with the earth trait that gives it protection, but are they really that useful with their cool downs being what they are? Up until now I’ve been using them more as emergency buttons or a might builder in the case of fire shield, so it feels a little strange to create a build around them, but then I haven’t been in many situations where it might be worth trying quite yet.

Also, what about Persisting Flames? I know it’s a deep investment in fire, but AoE Fury on fire busts sounds kind of awesome, and longer fire fields doesn’t sound too bad either.

Powerful Aura isn’t quite as strong as it used to be, but it’s still a valid option.

The problem with going that far into fire is that it decreases your survivability immensely; as soon as you switch from staff to d/d or d/f in WvW you’ll probably die. Fury’s also common enough that you’ll really mostly be benefiting from the prolonged fire fields, which isn’t really an issue to begin with because most of their durations are fine.

Dirame.8521:

If you don’t feel it’s ‘optimal’ that’s up to you. The other two skills are on a short cooldown so I can easily use them again after a few seconds so for me it’s just an additional way to burst not “the only way” as you guys seem to be alluding to.

Also the Arcanes definitely do a lot of damage, else they wouldn’t be used in several burst builds.

It’s not numerically efficient and certainly not even close to being universally practical. That kind of use is too niche to justify the state of the skill.

The Arcanes do modest damage; the reason they are part of spikes is because they are instant. If they all had a separate cast time you would quickly see burst eles fall out of the small favor they have right now.

nagymbear.5280:

Show Spoiler

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1. The autoattack chain has decent damge, provides 33% evades at melee range and does decent damage. Its a lot more than what the other ranger weapon auto attacks do, and even better than some of the auto attacks other profs have.

2. The telegraphed animation is necessary as it deals high damage on a single attack. Of course you need crits for that, just like on every other damage skill.

3. Swoop does better damage than the auto attack, its not maul, but I don’t think it needs to be.

4. The damage on Crippling throw is higher than the auto attack. I wouldn’t call it insignificant or negligable. It probably won’t 1shot anyone, if that’s what you mean.

5. Hilt bash is an interrupt with a range of 300. It works well with moment of clarity as demonstrated from time to time by others on this forum.

You want the greatsword to be an uber weapon, its a good weapon and doesn’t need improvement to every skill on it. As for landing hits in high level play, I am sure that most weapon skills of most profession is harder to land in high level play.

1. It does less damage than almost all of our other power-weapon autos, and has an evade that is not on-demand, as it requires you to hit twice before it activates. The evade also prolongs the damage you would get from your third attack since it’s slower than the first two attacks, decreasing your potential dps even more.

2. Maul has nothing going for it other than damage. I’m fine with it being telegraphed, but you don’t even gain dps with it unless you crit, necessitating higher precision for the skill to do more than break even, since you have a higher chance of critting on either of your first two auto attack chains than you do of critting on just Maul. Its slightly higher coefficient does little to remedy this problem.

3. Swoop nets you no additional dps if used in melee range, due to activation time. That’s really my only problem with it, though that’s easy to ignore given the fact that it’s still a leap finisher.

4. As an individual packet, yes, it has slightly more damage, but it’s slow to activate. It should be faster given the fact that it’s telegraphed by the blocking animation. You still lose dps if you aren’t gaining from the cripple. The counter attack animation/effects are still pretty bad and don’t accomplish either of their possible goals.

5. Hilt Bash actually has redundant synergy with MoC because the buffs cannot stack on your pet, meaning you are wasting potential damage. If MoC either stacked with other damage modifiers or simply increased your damage to stunned/dazed foes, it would be much better. MoC is also pretty much the only example I see people use when justifying the state of Hilt Bash, which isn’t particularly encouraging.

nagymbear.5280:

How is there a problem with the flow between the skills on GS?

Let’s address each skill on the weapon.

1. Chain has very little damage and it’s slow to boot. This means it cannot capitalize on the vulnerability provided by Maul and provides nothing that would discourage your enemy from facerolling in your direction. Anet focused on the evade over its damage functionality and kitten GS as soon as they nerfed it during beta. I’m not saying it was balanced during beta, but it’s in a sad state now.

2. Maul is a very slow, very telegraphed skill with no notable functions besides damage, and even then it has to crit to be noticed. Its vulnerability stacking would have potential if it had more of them and they lasted a bit longer; as it is the only skill this really has synergy with is Hilt Bash.

3. This is honestly probably the best skill GS has right now; I don’t have much to complain about here besides possibly damage because it has clean animation/execution and has a great recharge+a finisher.

4. This skill could have been great, but both of its second functions are too slow and too clunky to be effective in higher level play, and neither does significant damage to punish your foes for bad positioning/actions. The counter doesn’t put them in a good position to Hilt Bash, nor does it put enough distance between you and your target, and it’s too vulnerable to skills like Whirlwind Attack, that go right through you and pretty much dodge the counter. (which is slow enough to side step anyway if you have swiftness up and are already moving as you trigger it) The throw doesn’t do enough to really have much impact since the damage is negligible and the throw can be intercepted by something else really easily due to its speed.

5. Another skill that could have turned out really well, but fails due to no damage, clunky animation that has no gap closing ability yet is still affected by slows, and a buff to your pet that can’t even stack with signets/traits. This has marginal synergy with maul because of the stun, even though it doesn’t really increase its damage, but it’s too slow to combo well off of Swoop.

All of these issues compound upon each other in combat.

nagymbear.5280:

The biggest hit on GS is maul. I don’t think its a good idea to put the vulnerability on it. Maybe they should put vulnerability on swoop and give maul a blast finisher.

As for more pet controllability I think its pretty basic and very reasonable to have control over a mechanic that is so integral to the class. Regardless what ANet thinks about the skills involved with controling our pets.

Please, please, please can everybody stop suggesting Maul get a blast finisher? It will necessitate rebalancing for the entire weapon set and won’t solve the core issues of the weapon itself. It needs more responsive skills and better flow between the skills, as well as a minor damage buff. Vulnerability on Maul would be fine if the condition was a) longer, stronger, or both and b) applied before the attack damage.

We need more info than that, though I guess we have to appreciate anything we can get right now.

DaShi.1368:

Yes, if ranger’s want more damage, then something has to be done about their healing. This is why the pets had to be nerfed. I’ve seen rangers tank full berserker warriors in WvW thanks to troll ungent.

That is a combination of the ranger evading+lack of warrior CC. If you stunlock a ranger, they are going to take damage regardless of their stats if you are a berserk warrior.

TGSlasher.1458:

Leuca.5732:

TGSlasher.1458:

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

Shh, don’t tell everybody :p, I want to keep my 35 seconds of burning a secret :p

What do you cover it with?

Chill + stealth.
But taking Frost bow with arcane power and elemental surge is for fun, not what I normally play.

You cover a condition with another condition that should be covered?

SynfulChaot.3169:

Leuca.5732:

— snip —

Neither would be too bad, but the lessening of the evade isn’t necessarily needed. Not in PvE, anyways. Maybe in PvP, but letting PvE continue to be dictated by the needs of PvP will only continue to drive players away.

As for the block? Probably pretty useless in PvP, but it can be quite useful in PvE. Probably could use some improvement, but it should remain a block/counter instead of getting replaced IMHO.

I think finding a happy medium between damage/relevant evade will greatly help GS’s auto attack flow. The block’s counter/throw functions need to be sped up, and the counter needs to follow its target better. An adjustment to either the knockback distance (or better imo slightly increasing the potential distance you move when using Hilt Bash) would also be good.

Mice.8921:

Thanks for the great advice, I sense a trend here about Healing Power lol

It’s definitely a good idea to have at least some Healing Power what with our really low base health and being a light armor profession, but overloading it won’t help in the long run; the amount you get from speccing into Water Magic with a very modest amount of equipment help is more than enough.

Rennoko.5731:

On a personal note, this seems to indicate anet is accepting that Necro is fine everywhere but SPVP, which makes those of us in WvW much happier.

I think it was a fine change though, and really would not have been bothered if it happened in WvW as well. The spell has a fast cooldown, a huge area, and a good side-effect (cripple).

Yeah, because WvW necromancers were really in danger of becoming UP, right?

SynfulChaot.3169:

That evade is what keeps me alive in any protracted melee fight. The flow of the auto-attack is pretty good. Unfortunately, there is little reason to break the auto-attack most of the time. Only when you need a block or a CC. Maul is kinda useless atm.

I don’t think they should shorten it that much, but keeping all the sequences of the chain at the same speed and then increasing the attack speed slightly would keep the defensive utility while adding to damage. Your evade will be noticeable but it won’t be the only thing you rely on. (if the weapon actually gets needed adjustment)

Think of it this way: If you are doing more damage while still retaining some defense, your opponent will have more reason to avoid you, decreasing your need for the evade in the first place. It should have been the greatsword’s counter pressure ability, but instead it pretty much became a low damage survival tool.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Mostly with damage buffs, I think. A two-handed melee weapon should out-DPS a single-handed weapon. But our sword outshines our greatsword in damage, which is completely opposite of all other classes that can wield both.

I mean things like the awkward counter attack that can be completely sidestepped due to activation time or even ignored if you are using something like Whirlwind Attack, which completely messes with how your counter attack is supposed to work because you block only the initial attack then fail to counter because the warrior is moving through you and is not where the initial hit took place. The counter attack also doesn’t push them back far enough to put comfortable space, nor does it put them at an optimal range to use Hilt Bash, which has its own set of problems.

Hyena.2037:

Mostly I just don’t like dodging when I don’t have to. I still rely heavily on dodging to not die so wasting endurance to produce an effect I don’t find particularly useful just makes the trait feel wasted. When I dodge away things are rarely in range and when I dodge into things to hit with the effects my life-span become significantly shorter. The earth burst feels like the only one that’s really useful anyway, and only because it’s a blast finisher, and I get the importance of building might, my main is an HGH engineer, and it’s cool that blasting like that can share the fun. beyond that singular purpose I just feel like I’m not getting the mileage out of it I should for a grandmaster trait, and doing so usually leaves me feeling like I’m in an awkward situations afterward because I wasted a lot of endurance and CDs to do it.

As far as what I’m hoping to do, I don’t really have a set plan. I’d like to start running dungeons but I don’t have a set ‘role’ in mind. I’ve been a fan of staff for events thanks to the water fields and control effects, but it probably won’t being the damage people are expecting for that sort of thing.

I guess I tend to approach the trait from a SPvP perspective; I can see why the fire/air effects might not appeal to you as much in a PvE setting, though the water heal is definitely nice.

a 0/20/0/20/20 (leaving you 10 points to spare) will give you a lot of options when it comes to crit chance/damage, heals and utility. From there you have a few options:

1. Dip into Fire for some extra damage via Internal Fire or Spell Slinger

2. Dip into Earth for defense via Elemental Shielding or Earth’s Embrace. You can also use something like Serrated Stones to get a nice bonus by transitioning from Earth into Fire during combat and getting more damage out of Lava Font/Meteor Shower after Eruption, while also increasing bleed duration. I would save that trait more for PvE than anything else.

3. Max out your Air magic and get some extra precision/crit damage while adding to your offensive utility with Tempest Defense or Fresh Air. (Fresh Air is probably better suited for a scepter, which you don’t particularly like)

4. Max out Water, giving you amazing synergy within the entire traitline and increasing your potential condition removal/boon sharing with your team considerably. A trait like Cleansing Water will make your Healing Rain skill remove up to four conditions on everybody it affects instead of just the normal two, since it applies regeneration that will proc the trait.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Which is why I don’t think that it needs to become a blast finisher. Maul’s old role was as a DPS spike. I feel that is how it what it should become again. The rest of the weapon is pretty balanced, if a bit low on the damage scale.

I should have clarified that I was agreeing with you; sorry for that. I think most of the weapon’s problems are in basic skill flow. Its animations are clunky and the auto attack is too slow to pump damage; even if the base values were increased it wouldn’t mean much. Anet placed way too much value in the evade when it should have just been a neat little bonus.

Quarktastic.1027:

I would argue that maul needs to hit 5 targets. I wouldn’t mind a damage/attack speed increase on the auto chain either.

I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you on that change, but GS needs a lot more QoL improvement than on just the first two skills.

Quarktastic.1027:

The problem with the vulnerability change is, there isn’t enough vulnerability to make up for the loss of bleed damage. Unless the target is already capped, the bleeding dealt more damage at +0 condition damage/duration than the new vulnerability adds.

Which is why the stacks need to be improved, as I said before. Vulnerability will amplify all of the damage done from your attacks, whereas bleeds do not. Having a sufficient stack of vulnerability in this case will help since the weapon has no other condition damage to rely on.

TGSlasher.1458:

FrownyClown.8402:

elemental surge works really well in spvp

Shh, don’t tell everybody :p, I want to keep my 35 seconds of burning a secret :p

What do you cover it with?

Quarktastic.1027:

The whole greatsword skill chain needs to be changed to flow better. Hilt bash>maul is fine, and made better with moment of clarity. But you can’t really do anything with that measly 3 stacks of vulnerability, since all of the weapon’s burst damage is on the skill which applied it.

My suggestions: Add a clause to power stab (3rd hit in the auto chain) that says “deals 25% more damage to vulnerable foes”

Alternatively, change the moment of clarity trait to “you and your pet deal 30% more damage to stunned or dazed foes, increase stun and daze durations by 50%.”

Auto attack chain needs an attack speed buff and a slight damage increase. The evade should be a small bonus to staying on the weapon, not your incentive to even use it, so decreasing it slightly in favor of more dps will help the weapon in the long run while still retaining some defensive function.

nagymbear.5280:

1. Reverse the vulnerability change on GS#2, it just doesn’t make sense, and the bleed was nice.
2. Give blast finisher to GS#2 so rangers can contribute more in zergs.

The Vulnerability would make more sense given that it’s a power-based weapon; the condition function just needs an improvement on duration, stack strength or both.

Adding a blast finisher won’t solve core problems the weapon faces (clunky animation response, bad base damage, bad trait synergy) but will force a nerf on other weapon functions. If the weapon receives its needed QoL improvements, I’m sure everybody will be singing another tune when it comes to this potential blast finisher.