Guild Wars 2

Terrahero.9358:

I think these traits are bad mostly because they are boring, but if you want to pick on passive traits dont forget the defensive ones.
These are often even more passive, to trigger something on hit means atleast i need to attack, to get a free Endure Pain or transfer a CC to my pet doesnt require any input from me at all.

So dont single out offensive passive traits, but take them as a whole.

True, Engineer as a whole is filled with these lazily designed passive defenses. But I do think that this is a topic for another thread. We haven’t even touched upon crit-proc condition application traits yet, and how they contribute towards mindless autoattack spam.

Malcastus.6240:

The fire auras and adept minor will be much more useful with the new burn/blindness grandmaster trait on the horizon though. I understand that retaliation would be universally good and fits into the power traitline, but I doubt we’ll be given it beyond the new arcane grandmaster trait.

Not sure which I’d prefer.

I do agree with moving Fire’s Embrace into Adept Tier as by itself, Fire Aura is pretty underwhelming. It really does require Elemental Shielding to be strong. Taking hits to gain Might sounds like a bad idea on the lowest EHP class in the game.

Fire Aura’s effect in general should be made stronger. I would rather Fire Aura’s mechanic be that for every enemy Burned, a condition is Cleansed, ICD 1 second, maximum 3-5 conditions. In this way, Fire Aura becomes a deterrent towards autoattacks applying crit-proc conditions, which is what overwhelms Elementalist cleansing capability at the moment (Incendiary Powder being one of the main culprits).

This would also address Signet lack of condition clear indirectly (Trait dependant).

To specifically address Signet’s lack of condition clear, I do feel that Signet of Water should be made more active. Perhaps one of these:

• Cleanse a condition when you dodge and heal a small amount (ICD: 10 seconds). If you successfully dodge an attack, cleanse an additional condition.
• Cleanse a condition and heal a small amount when you dodge. (ICD: 10 seconds) (less of a skill floor and therefore should not scale as high. Still a straight buff to Signet of Water.)
• Cleanse a condition when you dodge (ICD: 5 seconds) (This is pre-nerf ele level and possibly too strong)
  • This would tie Signet condition clear proc control to the dodge mechanic. Most importantly it is to serve as a replacement for Evasive Arcana/Cleansing Wave, which is a bare minimum for Signet of Water to be competitive.
  • Unlike most other Signet passives, this one does have a counterplayable weakness, which is Immobilise. Good for the game, possibly bad for the Elementalist.

The Signet of Water active, as well as the Fire active should also be re-examined. A utility slot for…Condition application is quite underwhelming.

• Signet of Water should create a 3 second Ice Field that cleanses 1 condition after 2 seconds. Foes passing through the Field are Chilled for 1 second every second, so it has dual purpose. Also blastable for Frost Armour.
• Signet of Fire should create a 3 second Fire Field that Burns foes for 1 second every second.

Overall the aim should be to not only make the Signets a stat buff but also to make the actives more compelling.

Terrahero.9358:

Malcastus.6240:

I find it rediculous. It affects everything on the ele and almost nothing on the thief. Attunement recharge rate should not be affected, unless Anet wishes to change it to affect every professions weapon swap CD.

That, and it needs to affect thieves and their initiative accumulation.

This is actually a strange claim when you think about it.

Attumenets are Elementalist “weapon swap”, but they are also the Elementalist class-mechanic. Just like Initiative is the Thieves class mechanic.

You are asking that Elementalist class mechanic is no longer affected by Chill, but then you are turning around and harping on Thieves because they are the only ones who have a class mechanic that isnt affected by Chill. And saying theirs should.

In my opinion no one should have their class mechanic exempt from Chill, and so thieves should be made to have Initiative effected by Chill aswell. Not a straight 66% carry-over, thats absurd given how the mechanic is very diffirent, but noticeable nonetheless.
But in the same way, i do not believe Elementalist should have their attunements completely unaffected by Chill either.

It may be the equivalent of a weaponswap, offering alternative nr#1-5 skills, but it is still a class mechanic and not actually a weaponswap. I also dont believe it was an oversight but done on purpose, as part of the tradeoff for all the extra weapon skills.

And therein lies the core of the problem for me, its not that Chill is to powerful its just that Attunements as a mechanic are to weak. And rather then making Elementalists another exception and exempting them from consequences other professions suffer from, similar to Thief.
I believe it is Attunements themselves that need to be buffed. I find the baseline cooldown still to long.

But a far bigger problem is that Attunements are often so poor on their own. That should you be forced to stay in an attunement longer due to Chill to have very little you can do while in this attunement. Because each individual attunement often just lacks real potency.

I play D/D myself, say i get into Earth. What do i have? A weak AA, a gapcloser that works rather clunky as a semi-CC, and an aoe cripple. On my off-hand two massively long cooldowns of 45sec aoe knockdown and a 30sec highly telegraphed, long channeled aoe.
Very rapidly will i exhaust my options, and as such my reason to stay in Earth. And thats just one example, the other attunements arent much better.

And thats what i see as the problem. A warrior or a thief can fight perfectly fine with just 1 weapon set, using the other for CC or mobility almost exclusively. Yet an elementalist that sticks to 1 attunement will quickly run out of abilities to cast, due to a lack of power or massive and unreasonable cooldowns.

Thats why Chill is perceived as this overpowered condition, because when you are locked into an attunement longer you have nothing left to do in that attunement. And i think that is perhaps a far bigger concern.

This is also a very good point. Being “locked” into an attunement is mainly due to the vast disparities in autoattack damage output and utility though. Instead of making Elementalist able to play 1-3 attunements Arenanet chose to emphasise the “attunement dancing” aspect of Elementalist and in so doing inadvertently made the Arcana traitline pretty much necessary for all builds.

The solution is not going to be easy as it would essentially require a complete 180 in Arenanet’s design direction. But, here are a few intermediate steps on the way to making this possible and indirectly reducing the impact of Chill on the attunement dancing Ele:

1. Increasing autoattacks damage output/reliability for Dagger and Scepter outside of Air attunement; and outside of Fire for Staff.
2. Making Pyromancer’s/Aeromancer’s/Geomancer’s/Aquamancer’s Alacrity decrease Fire/Air/Earth/Water attunement CD as well (down to minimum of 10 seconds) <- This is probably the single most important step
3. Diversification of functions previously limited to certain Attunements across more attunements. Condition cleansing, for example, should not be localised to Water Attunement. Fire should allow cleansing by Blasting combo Fields, Air should allow cleansing on Blinding and Interrupts, Earth should allow cleansing through condition transfers/application of snares, or Reaping conditions to deal extra damage for each condition cleansed (both self and enemy). Similarly, functions like snares should not be the exclusive purview of Water and Earth.

pza.8024:

i totally agree with OP. The passive traiting does nothing but be a minmaxing feature that does nothing to benefit the actual build diversity. you either pick more damage when this or more damage when that. or better you pick every single one.

I would probably like synergies more, since there is close to none until now.
by synergy i mean stuff like the engineers’:

• swapping to medkit trigger on-heal-runes
• getting swiftness via a trait on kit swap and then getting addtionally vigor via another trait

fictive examples for well designed traits that add diversity, meaning you can use skills in a different way than before, aswell as adding synergies, means a net of different skills, traits and runes working together in a meaningful way:

• Greater Conflagration: burning you apply spreads up to 4 nearby targets (120 range) —-— people could start using single target skills in more situations
• Active Defense: blocking a melee attack using shield stance knocks the attacker down (X s cooldown) —-— produces synergies with blocking skills and attack skills
• Slippery Ground: when attuned to water your attacks on blinded, moving targets knock them down (X s cooldown) —-— creates synergy between attunements and traits
• “Bed of Coals”: when attuned to fire, your weapon skills apply burning on knocked enemies. —-— creates synergy between attunements and traits
• “Come at Me, Bro!”: gain adrenaline each time you attack an enemy with a melee attack above 90% health (x s cooldown) —-- promotes not using a ranged weapon before entering a combat
• _ “I Meant to Do That!”_: When you get knocked down, you gain one bar of adrenaline and gain 3 seconds of quickness (X s cooldown) —-— promotes not using perma stability.
• Furious Healing: Reduces the cooldown for your healing ability by 30%, but also reduces its healing by 15% —-— creates synergy with runes that trigger on healing

it’s important when adding trait to not simply BUFF a certain way of play like those %dmg traits, but instead adding DIVERSITY, by adding a different synergizing effect or enhancing a secondary effect. only this promotes build diversity.

gw1 was full of those synergies. they all got lost in gw2. i believe it’s more “newbie friendly”…. the big boys in anet should start playing other games like diablo 2 and 3, to see that this concept was a successfull one, and the main reason why guildwars was alive for so long.

The last time players discovered multiple synergies across utilities, traits and weapons was during the era of the 0/10/0/30/30 Elementalist – and this was nerfed over a period of 12 months to weaken the class to the point that it was only good to build glassy with and kill before being killed. I wouldn’t exactly say that GW2 is bereft of Synergy as a result; rather, builds that have demonstrated extreme synergy have in general been considered a little “too good” and removed from the meta by dint of successive nerfing.

Having said that, I would love a return of things like Slippery Ground or Bed of Coals. There is also a significant lack of conditional triggers for skills, which is why combat is “spammy” – there is little incentive to combo your skills when they all do damage in different ways. The only classes significantly affected by conditionals are Thief and Ranger by dint of flanking. Comparing GW1 Freezing Gust" to GW2 Freezing Gust , it is disappointing that this legacy of clever skill design was abandoned in favour of making the game more “accessible”.

There is a point where treating players like idiots does have a negative impact upon the depth of a game and no-where is it more evident than within the design of the weapon skills for many professions.

Pyroathiest.4168:

I think an important point that the op failed to clarify is that a change like this wouldn’t (read: shouldn’t) be an actual nerf to damage output, but instead of having simply damage boosting traits, cause the player to actually use the traits to get the damage boost.

Warrior definitely isn’t the only offender here. Look at empowering mantras on Mesmer. % boost traits don’t get any more boring than that trait. It actually gives you a damage bonus for not using your utilities.

If these borin passive boosts were replaced with active effects that boost damage instead, not only would it make pve more interesting, but it would also raise the potential skill cap for dealing hgh damage, and allow highly skilled players to do even higher damage than just with the boring % boosts.

This man knows what’s up. Percentage damage boosts do not alter gameplay in any meaningful way except making combat encounters shorter. When traits like these exist, they also introduce artificial caps to weapon power, as now balance must also consider the damage increases through traits. Conversely, altering playstyle by making players “earn” the damage boost then allows weapon power to be “uncapped” and then the individual traits balanced upon their power level alone.

This is an extremely important factor that people against removal of percentage damage boosts should also consider. As an Engineer, I remember well December 2012 as that was the time when Grenade Kit damage was reduced 30% overall by nerfing the coefficients. The balance change was spun as reducing GK’s relative power due to Kits being made to work with Sigils. Instead of addressing the source of imbalance – Grenadier improving Grenade Kit condition application and damage output by 50% – Arenanet chose to make the baseline Grenade Kit practically useless, with the Grenadier trait bringing back prior GK damage output. Mechanically, Grenadier did not alter Grenade Kit’s playstyle as it simply added another Grenade. This is a prime example of a DPS output increasing trait causing negative balance repercussions on the baseline presentation of a weapon.

Xaylin.1860:

Jackums.3496:

Xaylin.1860:

Moving down DE a tier does not improve build diversity. It just open ups 10 points. DE will still be mandatory. Shatter builds will still lack build diversity.

10 spare points is build diversity, because you’re not forced to go 20 into Dueling, and therefore have more points to allocate elsewhere (ie. diversity).

How is it build diversity when still everybody picks DE?
How is it build diversity when the remaining 10 points all land in the same spot?

When talking about shatter Mesmers, even if they don’t all pick the same trait, are 10 differently spent points considered ‘build diversity’ if literally everything besides that is the same, plays the same and performs almost the same?

Not a Mesmer, but I do understand such “class defining” traits as problematic. Elementalists are in a similar predicament with Elemental Attunement.

Pursuant to this, why not make an alternate method for rapid clone generation for Mesmers, such as triggering on-weapon-swap or extending Decoy’s functionality for clone generation to more utilities?

Or are you more into arguing for differences in kind? As in, pursuing non-clone dependant builds for Mesmer? The easiest example is probably Interrupt Mesmer, but even that still relies upon clones for defense and burst.

insanemaniac.2456:

MonMalthias.4763:

Just to expand on SZSSZS.3784’s point about Invigorating Speed / Speedy Kits, because this is an easy example within the class, the only other traits providing equivalent functionality require 50 (!!!) points of investment:

• Adrenal Implant
• Power Shoes .
  These sorts of vast inequities of differences in kind have a chilling effect on player innovation. The phrase “pigeonholed” will be bandied about until Arenanet finds a way to equalise these factors within and between classes such that true diversity can prevail.

bleah, i think this is a poor example. the thing is, there is equivalent functionality. we have 4 options for perma swiftness on engi. we have 4 options for more dodges on engi. none of which require extreme dedication on their own. sure, speedy kits + invigorating swiftness requires the lowest investment of trait points for full functionality, but saying that we need 50 points for the next best option is just plain misleading. we can use 20 points + rune or sigil slot, we can use 30 points, we can use 20 points to have both in combat, we can use runes and sigil, or we can use 50 points as you stated.

thats a great example of build diversity, because engi will almost always incorporate swiftness + vigor in any build, but theres no telling which its gonna be. speedy kits + invigorating swiftness is most likely because its very obvious and probably the closest to optimal.

I think we’re agreeing in different ways in this case. Bolded the “probably closest to optimal” for emphasis. Yes, absolutely, Engineer has multiple methods for attaining permaswiftness including Infused Precision, IMS Runes (Travellers, Speed) and also multiple ways for extending evade frames (Sigil of Energy, Adventurer Runes, Infused Precision/Invigorating Speed). Each of these ways involves more sacrifice than 10 Alchemy/10 Tools. But yes, I do agree that it was a poor example.

Jedge.3619:

MonMalthias.4763 – Deserves a medal.

Listening to the community is the essential first step in gathering information about the current state of the game. Unfortunately, the game is not receiving justice through balance patches that are several months apart. Instituting small balance changes to the game every couple of weeks will surely help game balance. For example, mesmer’s iLeap (sword 3) has not been addressed since launch. There have been countless threads and suggestions on how it should be fixed. It is quickly dismissed as a pathing issue with no hopes of any concrete solution. Perplexity runes would be another example of a poor decision that took several months to implement a minor change. I primarily WvW and it is curious as to why these runes haven’t been added to spvp, yet it runs rampant in other areas such as WvW.

Balance shouldn’t been something that the community is waiting for every several months. I believe if you started to slowly resolve some of the bug fixes every month and worked toward that, you would receive more positivity throughout the forums and the game. Unfortunately, adding such a large patch will come with even more bug fixes/other issues that may need to be addressed – history will repeat itself and it won’t be pretty in the least.

I’ve covered this very thing earlier in the thread in subsequent posts after my OP. I found this feature patch to simply be business as usual with Arenanet – bundling bugfixes with Feature patches, delaying eminent balance issues to bundle “shaves” with the Feature patch, and just a general push to put absolutely everything into this huge feature “pack”. Again, this is a negative trend that goes against the good policy of failing faster.

As I mentioned in a previous post, what will be interesting is not the feature patch, but the followup patches that fix emergent bugs and balance issues. With such power-creep potential such as the lifting of Sigil proc GCDs and rune reworks (notice how the main stat of a 6 set is higher now? It’s a small but significant boost in power level) it is almost inevitable that someone, somewhere finds a spec that is absolutely ridiculous.

The question up in the air is – will Arenanet pick up on it and fix the issues that crop up within weeks? Or will it be months before new apex predators and new bugs are re-addressed?

The former demonstrates adaptation and learning. The latter means business as usual, and the relinquishing of the last vestiges of community goodwill they hold.

Oh hey, it’s Swagg. I’ve not seen him around for a while.

Interesting finally hearing the voice behind the text.

Carighan.6758:

My point was that on most classes, swapping blindly because of the on-swap sigils is rarely a productive thing. You want to swap when you need the other skills, not because you need the sigils to proc.

On my Engi – I can’t judge Ele too much, still levelling that one – I can easily double-tap to proc a sigil. It takes very little time really, considering that I get my original abilities back 1 GCD later.

That’s what I meant by “consistently”.

That’s very true in the Engineer’s case and as an above poster mentioned with Elementalist, Fresh Air will also allow procs. With that being said, the point remains that due to the new mechanics – the following scenarios will present themselves:

• 4 On-swap sigils: Fast Hands Warrior gains the most benefit. Other classes limited to 2×2 on-swap procs per 10 seconds. Engineer and Elementalist: 2 on-swap procs per 10 seconds only.
• X On-swap/on-hit sigils, Y permanent bonus/stacking sigils: Equal across classes except Engineer and Elementalist who simply have fewer sigil slots. Merely equalises 2handers with 1hander + offhanders. Classes that slot the same sigils across both weapon sets are equal to Engineer and Elementalist.
• W stacking, X On-swap sigils, Y permanent bonus sigils, Z on-hit sigils: Again, due to less overall sigil slots Engineer and Elementalist simply cannot take advantage of all 3 mechanics – merely 2 out of 3. Other classes normalised.

The challenge will be in considering whether being able to proc a cooldown-limited sigil that is on-hit or on-swap on demand consistently is inferior, equal to or better than simply being able to proc more cooldown-limited sigils. Personally, I feel that when considering the relative power increase, Engineer and Elementalist will be inferior or equal with other professions; with Warrior potentially coming out on top of everybody else running 4 on-swaps.

Having said that, being able to run, say, Battle/Energy on Engineer Rifle or Elementalist Staff will be a significant buff to both. The issue remains that other classes have the potential to get more and all of this conversation is moot until more details concerning the Sigil changes become clear. The only possible scenario I can foresee in which Engineer and Elementalist come out in relative equity with other classes is in the event that on-swap sigils are nerfed into the ground and on-hit sigils have their damage outputs decreased to the point of simply adding another auto-attack. In that scenario, permanent bonus sigils would reign supreme and in this, all professions are on relatively equal footing.

Mbelch.9028:

I believe this is relevant to bring to the top again, especially given a topic I saw about thieves not affected by chill.

So. TTT.

If you’re referring to this thread it is interesting to see the Thieves attempt to justify their double standard position. That being said, it is likewise difficult to make a cooldown-agnostic class like Thief susceptible to Chill in a way that is “equitable” when it is very much an apples-and-oranges scenario. It’s a no-win for either side but having said that leaving Thieves completely unaffected by Chill was probably the wrong step for Arenanet to take. Thieves with Shadowsteps already bypass the snare portion of Chill and Initiative bypasses the rest. Possibly the only solution I could see is to make either cast times longer for Thief, or to decrease Initiative by a degree lesser than 66%, or increasing Initiative costs by 1-2.

As for Lily it is interesting to see the hysterical kneejerk posts against him when he was – and still is – one of the top players in the game .

Having said that, I do hope that Chill affecting Attunements is fixed. If not in the feature patch, then in the followup patches. The nerfs to Elementalist condition clear have really emphasised the deficiencies and secondary mechanics to Elementalist in recent times and it is just one aspect in a long line of problems every profession faces.

Carighan.6758:

Glenstorm.4059:

The argument I’ve heard in favor of this upcoming change is that Elementalists are compensated for having only 2 sigils by having access to more skills and traits that proc on Attunement swap (Sunspot, Electric Discharge, Earthen Blast, Healing Ripple.)

The argument is actually that Eles and Engis can trigger on-swap Sigils much more consistently. And they won’t trigger them less in total either, they just have less variety.

To explain it differently:
If the two-weapons user had the same sigils on both sets of weapons, the sigil-mechanic would really favour Ele/Engi. The only balancing act is that they are limited in versatility, because those two classes are forced to kinda have that same set on “both” weapons.

With that being said, there is nothing stopping other classes from using 4 dis-similar Sigils across their weapon sets. Indeed, with the lifting of GCD across sigil types and permanent bonus sigils being buffed like Sigil of Smouldering, would only encourage diversification instead of consolidation of sigils across professions.

In that scenario, Engineer and Elementalist do come out behind as they have no “off-set” to gain the benefit of those 2 extra sigils.

Right now the only solution I can think of is introducing a “ghost” off-set weapon that can accept the 2 extra sigils that provide their bonuses but that which cannot be swapped to. This will give Elementalist and Engineer the benefit of 4 sigils as it is across every other class, merely simultaneously instead of on separate weapon sets.

It is however, an inelegant solution. Upon unequipping, where would the “ghost” sigils go? Are they destroyed or returned to the player’s inventory? These are unanswered questions that may simple lead to Arenanet keeping the status quo for simplicity’s sake – and to the Engineer and Elementalist’s (relative) detriment.

I sincerely hope that RTL is reverted back to its 20 second cooldown. Even without this luxury, I would be happy with a 15/30 cooldown – as long as the blocking/Aegis forcing long cooldown bug is fixed. The problem was always the range. Splitting the cooldown simply emphasised the bugs inherent within the skill and it is unfortunate to have not been fixed.

As for D/D specific problems, the Burning Speed evade frames and Blast finisher on Frozen Burst do nothing to address the ongoing problems the weapon set faces – that of being kited to death. D/D ele now faces the same problem double melee warrior did prior to the Dhuumfire patch as its cleansing capability has been severely cut.

A proper buff for the set would include:

• Burning Speed cleansing movement impairing effects like Immobilise and Chill. Cripple cleanse optional, but Chill and Immobilise in particular are the bane of D/D.
• Increasing the healing reward of Cone of Cold if it strikes an enemy. For a channelled Healing over Time, there is no skill floor reward for using Cone of Cold offensively. An alternative buff would be to make it cleanse 1 condition after its second pulse, which encourages opponents to interrupt the Elementalist and provide counterplay opportunities.
• Making Dragon’s Claw fire 3 parallel projectiles to guarantee more hits out to 400 range, and increasing its coefficient by 0.1. This would reduce D/D’s reliance upon Fresh Air to outdamage Warrior’s Healing Signet passive and open up better sustained damage for Elementalist that isn’t Air. To elaborate using Zelyhn’s Skill Data

Zelyhn.8069:

Dagger Main Hand

Dragon’s Claw: 0.375 (3 hits)| cast=0.5 aftercast=0.5 (DPS=1.125 coeff/sec)
Vapor Blade: 0.33 (2 hits) | cast=0.4 aftercast=0.6 {vuln 6s per hit} (DPS=0.66 coeff/sec, increasing to 0.739 coeff/sec @ 12 stacks of Vulnerability)
Lightning Whip: 0.7 (2 hits) | cast=0.5 aftercast=0.65 (DPS=1.217 coeff/sec)
Impale: 0.5 | cast=0.8 aftercast=0.25 {bleed 8s} (DPS=0.476 coeff/sec + Bleed to 42.5+0.05xCondiDamage /sec, maximum 7 stacks of Bleed for 42.5+CondiDamage x 7×0.05)

• As you can see, merely increasing Dragon’s claw by 0.1 coefficient overall (0.034 per projectile) would bring it mathematically on par with Lightning Whip – and this is without the cleaving capability that Whip provides also. Right now all of D/D’s sustained damage is loaded into Lightning Whip and with the proliferation of Soldier’s/Healing Signet/Cleansing Ire Warriors, Fresh Air is needed more than ever, which only serves to pigeonhole builds.

These 3 changes alone would do much to improve the sustainability and sustained damage of the set whilst leaving the opportunity for counterplay. Contrast this with Evade frames which removes opponent interaction whilst the Burning Speed animation plays, or 3 more senseless Might stacks from Frozen Burst that do not address the set’s core issues.

I’d just like to give you much kudos for bringing up such an important point about the state of the game, infantrydiv.1620. I’m a little jealous as to not have been the first. I’ve reposted your OP into my other thread – I hope you don’t mind, because it’s an important issue that bears mention and action.

To provide another example, Elementalist’s extremely low EHP is tempered by Elemental Attunement. It’s the reason why practically every build has taken it and despite Powerr’s (unsuccessful) push to make it baseline Elemental Attunement was made Master Tier, 30 Arcana builds remained unshifted (Blasting Staff/Renewing Stamina, Elemental Attunement, Evasive Arcana)

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Lian Olsam.9541:

Evasive arcana on fire-air-earth adept and attunement
Cd range 11-8 on attun swap
elemental attunement on 5 of arcana
renewed stamina on adept

Make those change and u will unlock every kind of builds, sadly to say but imo every one wanna those traits at any cost… it s a must have for any ele build… otherwise this topic is only gossip… u wanna make more viable build just do this modify

I’ve always personally felt as well that Elemental Attunement is a class defining trait. I’ve been arguing to make it baseline or to bring it back down to tier one but the decision we’ve made instead is to bring Renewing Stamina back down to adept instead. This will prevent the dps ele nerf and even though we might all perceive that EA is a “staple” trait we do luckily have options to trait up instead to make up for the loss if you wish to spend points elsewhere. [Elemental Shielding, Zephyr’s Boon, Soothing Mist, etc. etc.] and yes… I know its more than one trait to make up for one but at least they are there and accessible low in other trait lines.

Our hope is not to destroy builds but to make more. Right now the way it looks for Elementalists in PvP is that most builds will still be the same, maybe with a little less AOE condition removal, but there will be more accessible options when going higher in the Fire, Air, and Earth trees.

I personally can’t wait for the Soothing Mist + Cleansing Water synergy. I think I will be enough for me to opt out of taking Cleansing Wave.

Then there are traits that are required just to make a weapon work, like Forceful Explosives for BK Engineer, Grenadier for GK Engineer, Blasting Staff for Staff Elementalist, the list goes on. With April 15th, Rangers can now have Read the Wind to make Longbow work. There is something quite disconcertingly lazy to introduce traits just to allow proper function, and it’s a disappointing trend.

Just to elaborate on some of the initial examples I gave I’m cross-posting some key posts from infantrydiv’s thread:

Aedrion.6483:

I heartily agree. I play a guard and I often look at some of my utility abilities and wish there was a build in which they would be useful. Spirit weapons are cool, but really, they’re not viable at all.

I agree that balance means any skill can be useful in any build. The fact that most people probably don’t even know Healing Surge, Mending and Defiant Stance means that Healing Signet is just that powerful.

infantrydiv.1620:

Trigr.6481:

Mesmer – Deceptive Evasion, you have no idea how many builds would open up if this came as a default for the class. It’s not that the trait is op, it’s just that the trait is a necessity to be viable in any way.

Countless

Yep, this is a perfect example I had in mind while making this thread.

Technically, mesmers only have 50 trait points they can spend while remaining viable due to the sheer necessity of this trait.

infantrydiv.1620:

zone.1073:

Have you considered that perhaps the reason why certain classes have trending builds is due to the meta itself? In your example, many warriors use healing signet, cleansing ire, longbow, but is it because these are overpowered or imbalanced, or is it a direct answer to the meta of extreme AoE condition pressure from tanky builds?

What if the meta shifted back to high burst glass cannons, where encounters are decided in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Warriors would not be able to keep up with the fast tempo using sluggish heals from healing signet or low direct damage weapons like longbow. Therefore, the rise of greatsword will take place due to its high burst, high mobility, and versatility. Etc.

Don’t single out a few traits and abilities and say that just because everyone uses them, that they are perhaps imbalanced. A class should have access to all the tools necessary to adapt to a meta shift, and perhaps these are the tools that are being utilized to adapt to this meta. You can’t blame players for finding a way to survive and thrive in a meta. Warriors are, in your terms, “pigeon-holed”, not primarily because of the shortcomings of the warrior class itself; they’re pigeon-holed due to the overall meta forcing them to build a certain way to survive the meta.

This is simply not true. Warriors are probably the best against bursty builds like ele and mesmer. Healing signet is not weak to burst when in the hands of the class with the highest health, armor and on-demand personal stability and immunities. The fact is that Healing signet + automatic cleansing Ire + stances makes warriors good against everything.

Also, if you think that Pin Down + Arcing Arrow + a point blank Fan of Fire is low direct damage, I dunno what to tell you.

SZSSZS.3784:

Compare an untraited Healing Turret to a fully traited Elixir H.

How is it that Healing Turret stands so superior? Even if I were to go full on HGH, with every exilir trait, I’d still be reluctant to forgo the turret.

This sheer disparity is suprising given the engineer had only 3 healing skills for so long.

Staples (like Deceptive Evasion) would be alright if our “deck” were larger. If we could slot more skills or had more trait points to spend, then 20 required would be forgivable. As it stands it’s too great an investment. Not to say that’s a viable solution for GW2, but staples are so crippling with the current build size and gated trait structure.

I have to bring a pair of Energy Sigils (say on Guardian), but I only have 3 to start.

It’s always a pain abandoning Invigorating Speed and Speedy Kits in favor of alternate traits. 20 points that provide such all purpose functionality are hard to forgo.

Just to expand on SZSSZS.3784’s point about Invigorating Speed / Speedy Kits, because this is an easy example within the class, the only other traits providing equivalent functionality require 50 (!!!) points of investment:

• Adrenal Implant
• Power Shoes .
  These sorts of vast inequities of differences in kind have a chilling effect on player innovation. The phrase “pigeonholed” will be bandied about until Arenanet finds a way to equalise these factors within and between classes such that true diversity can prevail.

Back onto infantrydiv’s post though:

infantrydiv.1620:

The ideal ‘meta game’ for Guild Wars 2 would be one in which every class was not forced into particular traits or weaponsets in order to be viable but instead could create a kit designed for a specific purpose and do well with it.
This thread intends to serve as a discussion of balance of a class within the class itself. This is not a topic I often hear discussed when balance is on the table. “Individual Class Balance” explores the idea that a Ranger requiring Empathic Bond, or a Warrior requiring Cleansing Ire is bad design.

---

I’m going to start with Warrior as an example:
Warriors are intended to be the strongest melee class with a weakness to conditions and being kited. Their high base health and armor is supposed to in part, make up for this.
Back in the first half of 2013, warriors were not considered viable and received a number of extremely large buffs which turned their weaknesses into strengths overnight.

Currently, any ‘meta’ warrior spec has four (or five) things in common:

1. Healing Signet
2. Longbow (Primarily, Combustive Shot and Pin Down)
3. Cleansing Ire
4. (Burst Mastery)
5. Berserker’s Stance

These five aspects of the warrior represent a tiny part of the class as a whole, but for the past 6 months they have been allowed to pidgeonhole both warrior build diversity and other class diversity as well. In fact, each class has a choice of 75 traits, dozens of weapon skills, and over 25 slot skills.

Now, if I was balancing for Arenanet, I would try and conduct my balance endeavors in the following way:
1. Single out the biggest problems making a class too powerful as I have done above
2. Give those things substantial nerfs.
3. Look for the weakest parts of the class
4. Give those parts substantial buffs

For example, “On My Mark” applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to a single target on a 30 second cooldown. This utility is terrible by any sense of the word. I would look for a way to improve the worthless skills in a class kitten nal like “On My Mark” until finally, someone says, "Wait a minute, “On My Mark” is good for this situation or this build!"
By balancing classes like this, instead of doing extremely minor nerfs to the meta builds, we would see classes because more balanced within themselves. We would also see a much slower power creep, if any, if this was done correctly.

---

A different example of the same type of internal class imbalance could be Ranger. Rangers are completely reliant upon 30 points into Wilderness Survival which increases Toughness and Condition Damage for survival. This line contains the Grandmaster trait Empathic Bond which is their only good condition removal. In addition, the only build that allows a ranger to have a substantial effect upon a team fight is through the use of spirits, and the Elite Spirit of Nature is by far the best Elite skill they can take.

So, Rangers are pidgeonholed similarly to Warrior:

1. Empathic Bond (parallel = Cleansing Ire)
2. Spirit of Nature

Just to acquire these two things causes Rangers to use up 50-60 trait points. Pidgeonholed? I think so.
If for example, Empathic Bond and Spirit of Nature were removed entirely, Ranger would be on a completely different power level than what it currently resides at. It would also actually be better balanced as well because these two things are just so much stronger than any other options. I’m not saying that these two abilities should be removed entirely, just that they should be brought down while other Ranger abilities are brought up.

---

To me, when I hear Arenanet talk about balance, it always feels like they are looking at overall class balance. In other words, they look at it like this: Warrior? Ok it has a role in the meta, good! Ranger? It has a role in the meta, nice! Elementalists? Hmm, it doesn’t have a role in the meta, better give them some crazy buffs!

This style of balancing will never lead to an interesting game. Guild Wars 2 only has 8 classes. We need these classes to be diverse in what they can bring to the table. We need them to be balanced within themselves, so that you aren’t forced to take 1 or 2 major abilities that completely define your gameplay experience.

So I’ve been reading various forum threads and stumbled upon this gem from infantrydiv in which he touches upon one of the reasons why balancing as Arenanet has done – identifying problem “meta” specs and adjusting those – will not lead to greater build diversity. I feel as it is important as it also touches on Yoh’s points about differences in kind, if not differences in playstyle.

Yoh.8469:

Cogbyrn.7283:

@Yoh: The fact that GW2’s design philosophy fundamentally differs from GW1 has been beaten to absolute death. However, I’m going to entertain it for a second and ask a question:

What kept you interested in GW1 that had you playing for years?

Was it the more frequent release of new abilities? Was it new content in the form of new lands to explore? New classes? A certain PvP mode? Lore-based quests? Hero configuration/flexibility?

In short, differences in kind. Variation, the feeling that I could always take the pool of skills that I had available and come up with new builds, even entirely unique builds.
And have those individual builds feel and function very differently.
For that you have to have a certain amount of stuff to work with.

I don’t quite get that feeling here, almost, but not quite.
Between the over empathize on DPS and relatively small pool of skills, builds across professions tend to largely do the same small set of things, and feel very samey.

For example, a condition build on my Necro feels a lot like a condi build on my Engineer. Even with different conditions, they both function very similarly. AOE spam.
And the same can be said, within reason for many zerker builds. Thou a lot of combat in general tends to be very spammy.

Where as two hex builds in GW, even within the same profession could function and feel completely differently, and have very different goals to victory.
Thou part of that is because GW had more depth and nuance in it’s mechanics then GW2, but it does make up for this in other areas, such as movement.

But overall, there is only a handful of viable builds per profession in most modes of play, and many of thous overlap with each other and fill very similar roles with minor modifications. And there is only so long that can continue to entertain without new content to change things up.
Polish and tweaking can only go so far. snip

Yoh brings up an important point in that many builds, even those across professions, can feel very “samey”. Condition builds overload cleansing, for example. Some of Arenanet’s design decisions of mirroring proc mechanics across professions like condition application upon critical hit, or percentage health triggers, or percentage damage increases when wielding a weapon has resulted in similarities in kind without a diversity in play.

Similar examples exist across all classes, not just Warrior or Ranger. Elementalists are balanced around, and rely upon, Elemental Attunement/Arcane Fury. Without points in Water Magic, there is no other reliable access to condition cleanse. Engineers would do themselves a dis-service without taking Grenadier, or 10 Alchemy, 10 Tools for Speedy Kits/Invigorating Speed. Guardians give up a lot when skipping across 5 Honour, 5 Virtues; and Absolute Resolution is extremely difficult to pass up. Mesmers without Deceptive Evasion don’t do so well. Necromancers without Near to Death are missing out a lot of their access to their offensive and defensive mechanic. Thieves without 30 in Critical Strikes…aren’t. And of course, Rangers without Empathic Bond put themselves in a bad position.

Arenanet’s policy of concentrating certain mechanics, like condition cleansing, or access to Boons, or mobility or CC mitigation or CDR or DPS into certain lines has in a way, restricted build variety more than any nerfs have provided. I feel that this is yet another long term goal for Arenanet to strive to correct, and provide players with the ability to play differently in kind and still perform at an acceptable level.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Yeah, I get what you mean, and my perspective is admittedly limited because I mostly just run around WvW in sandbox PvP mode. Decap Engis and Hambow Warriors just aren’t really things in my world. On the contrary, Backstab Thieves are very much in my world (took a cool 14k damage from the Steal/CnD/Backstab combo today, but that was also after I dropped some Thief in 4-5 seconds and wrecked a few other Thieves. #powercreep).

That being said, I’m very curious to see this list of things that have little counterplay. I think it’s a very valuable discussion to have, and I also just enjoy discussing mechanics in general. Your comment below sums up precisely how I feel about a few different scenarios, but I think a clarification might be needed for interpretation purposes:

MonMalthias.4763:

snip

When you say “the burden of counterplay”, I think you mean that “the person who is attempting to defeat the ‘ez’ build/strategy has to go well above and beyond normal standards to win” instead of that the defender is responsible for simply appropriately playing against the cheese build.

snip.
That’s where I get hung up: how do you make a build like that for every class that doesn’t creep its way in to being impactful in the competitive scene?

I’m sure it can be done, but I haven’t thought of a good way in an MMO scenario quite yet. Perhaps those ideas aren’t for this thread, but I’d love to hear them.

As you said, these ideas probably aren’t for this thread, but I’ll elaborate for the sake of fleshing out the phrase “burden of counterplay”.

Your inferred definition that the “person attempting to defeat the ‘ez’ build/strategy has to go well above and beyond normal standards to win” is apt. Some matchups at present are simply unpleasant for all the wrong reasons due to lack of counterplay.

The easiest example is Healing Signet. In a game where most outcomes of player vs player combat largely hinge upon the interruption or Poisoning of the healing skill, Healing Signet removes this entirely from the equation and allows the player utilising it to focus entirely upon offense and active defense without regard for hitting the 6 key and risk being interrupted. Combined with Cleansing Ire, even maintaining 100% Poison uptime to counteract the regeneration is difficult due to the potential for 3 cleanses per 10 seconds. The burden of counterplay is therefore upon the player defending against Healing Signet/Cleansing Ire to supply high enough sustained DPS to counteract the passive regeneration, or monstrous burst damage against one of the highest EHP classes in the game – damage unseen since the days of the Quickness meta – as damage has been toned down overall since those days.

An alternate example would be Pistolwhip Thieves, or Stealth-based Thieves in WvW. In a game-mode where there is ample space to run, extreme mobility combined with the capability to drop targeting and disengage beyond the range of many gap closers – or vanish entirely and remove a player’s ability to read the Thief’s animations – makes classes with low EHP extremely unpleasant and extremely short.

One of the reasons why Thief has supplanted in PVP the Mesmer or Elementalist in the role of roaming DPS is due to the fact that a Thief can force long utility cooldowns with weapon skills alone. For Elementalists, this means CDs on the order of 40-75 seconds to simply withstand the opening strike – and the Thief hasn’t even burned its own Heal or Utilities yet. This puts the Elementalist or Mesmer at a constant cooldown disadvantage, if not a health disadvantage. The burden of counterplay is on the Mesmer or Elementalist to burst out the Thief in the opening salvo. Any less would mean a cooldown disadvantage from then onwards.

Again, these are things for discussion in another thread entirely. An important discussion, to be sure, but these are balance issues that should not even be so problematic if only Arenanet combines “shaving” with constant, frequent balance updates with a view towards root-cause analysis of problem matchups.

Cogbyrn.7283:

furryangel.4623:

Watch closely as the intelligent points are skirted around and the problems specifically mentioned here are made worse. So far I haven’t seen a single fix that didn’t feel like a teenagers response to criticism. It doesn’t get better, it gets awkward. Then they just storm out of the room to program whatever they feel like instead of balancing like they were supposed to.

The tone of your post makes you sound like the teenager’s friend who didn’t get his/her way, stormed home, and unfriended your friend on Facebook in a fit of rage.

Not a single fix that “didn’t feel like a teenager’s response to criticism”? Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

I do think that Cogbyrn has the right of it in this case. Overall the game is more bugfixed and more polished than it has been since launch. If the April 15th feature patch preview is any indication there are more bugfixes incoming – although many class issues will remain untouched despite 5 incoming new Grandmaster tier traits for all classes.

That being said, Arenanet has a worrying trend for sticking to their guns despite player feedback that it is a bad design decision. They did so for Diamond Skin and Elementalist active condi clear through Traits, they did so for Dhuumfire and condition application outside of Burning for Necromancer and only now are they beginning to relent on issues like Warrior Healing Signet.

Now, what will be instructive is not, in fact, what comes out of the April 15th patch and whether the meta across all 3 arenas – PVP, WVW, PVE – is shifted in a positive fashion. It will be the followup patches that will be important to gauge Arenanet’s response to emergent issues when such power-creeping potential is introduced with the lifting of Sigil proc GCDs and overall reworks to Rune sets. It is almost inevitable that some player, somewhere, stumbles upon a setup that will be utterly ridiculous. What comes next, and Arenanet’s response, will allow us as a community to gauge whether Arenanet has learned.

Personally, given Allie Murdock’s response and escalation of these concerns, I hope Arenanet does learn, for their sake. The last of their veterans hinge upon a better response time towards identified bugs and balance issues and if indeed, it’ll be yet another 6 months before the OP setups generated in the wake of April 15th are addressed, Arenanet may as well hand their community over to rival MMOs on a silver platter.

Josh Davis.6015:

So, let’s say we wanted to look into decap engineer, where would we start? I’ve heard a few different opinions on the topic, and I have a few opinions of my own as someone who has played against decap in top 100 rated solo/team arena games and also played the build myself.

In the same way that it was difficult to look at the September ’13 Hambow warrior and point out a single specific key to its strength, I think decap engineer is much the same.

I think it’s important to understand the areas in our game where decap engineer is strong, and then go from there:

• Conquest
  • Situations where communication is difficult (solo arena)
  • Against teams that have difficulty rotating appropriately

So, with the above in mind, what are some ‘low-hanging fruit’ type of suggestions for changing the way decap engineer works, without affecting existing builds unrelated to decap? That is to say, suggestions that would not require significant amounts of development time to implement.

We’ve already seen a few threads on PW, so I’ll focus on decap for now. ^^

Dirame.8521:

fishball.7204:

I think the problem with decap engineer in general is the insane survivability by combining several key traits. By changing some of the traits around to make them less bunkery they would be killable much easier since most decap engineers sacrifice a lot of defensive stuff like Toolkit to decap.

In addition to AR, the protection on crit and reduction to damage when stunned and so on all stack and creates a situation where an engineer can have 25% hp yet be tankier than a warrior. Perhaps moving some traits to Grandmaster level would alleviate some of this? Or maybe increasing the ICD of the protection on crit trait?

I disagree with making points bigger simply because a bunker banner warrior would be the new ‘decap engy’ if every point was like the center of foefire.

You don’t want to overnerf the abilities that the build has. Give it one weakness and that should be enough to put it down.

Ceimash has the right of it. When nerfing a build, do not only consider the strengths of it, but also consider introducing a weakness where there previously was none. Given the multitude of Engineer pushes and the importance they play as part of Engineer survival and active defense through control it would be…suboptimal to do a balance pass reworking Engineer pushes as they could all be potentially used in a decap Engineer build.

Nerfing one push would simply make Engineers gravitate to the next one, and the next, and the next after that. In the mean time, Engineer survivability through range control and enemy displacement would become increasingly tenuous – all the while reducing the profession’s viability overall.

Removing the condition immunity on the other hand, would decrease decap Engineer’s TTK massively. JinDaVikk’s build running Med Kit, Throw Mine, Flamethrower, Toolkit, Rifle hinges upon the condition immunity at 25% HP because it has extremely weak condition clear. Similarly, most decap variations – even those running Healing Turret – are still easily overloaded with condis without the presence of AR.

The following threads should be instructive:
Decap Engi

RazaC’s thread on decap Engineer

In terms of removing the condition immunity, how about finally introducing mechanics to Engineer that boost condition clear without reliance upon Elixirs or Passives? Examples include:

• Your next attack after using a Toolbelt skill transfers 1 condition. At 25% health, instead transfer 2 conditions.
  • This removes the immunity whilst adding active play to Engineers and retaining the 25% HP trigger. Would have semi-negative synergy with Cleansing Formula 409, but then again, decap builds wouldn’t use Elixirs and it is builds that don’t use Elixirs that have weak condition clear.

• To make it stronger, simply remove the on next attack to remove dodging the proc and simply make it proc on toolbelt use to convert 1 condition to a Boon.
  • This gives compelling competition to HGH whilst retaining the Boons flavour of the Alchemy line.

Regardless of whatever is implemented, please remove the condition immunity. Hard counters do not belong in any competitive environment without introducing abuse potential.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

+1
Even though it won’t Change anything. I feel sorry for the time you spent.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. To say nothing is tacit support of impropriety and Arenanet has much to lose if they fail to heed the lessons of their own past.

Cogbyrn.7283:

MonMalthias.4763:

Cogbyrn.7283:

MonMalthias.4763:

snip

double snip

snip snip snip

I totally agree, actually. I wanted to add more substance to this post, but I simply agree.

However, I’m not sure that you can universally remove “average play resulting in excellent contribution” from a game and have it be widely popular. I think there’s merit to limiting the effectiveness of “simple” combos of abilities and trying to emphasize positioning/reading your opponent, but I think it’s part of the game mode’s responsibility in a game to also de-emphasize simple class execution and enforce to minimize the impact of average play on an “excellent” build.

But I digress. I still agree with your original point, and with basically all of your recent point.

To expand on my point of “average play resulting in excellent contribution” – it is not to say that I would advocate its complete removal. All games – and especially those with a player vs player component – require some kind of “entry level” spec to become successful. I use and abuse Extra Credits a lot, but their video on Balancing for Skill is a perfect springboard. Simply put, for a game with a competitive component to achieve success, there should be room within the scope of the system to allow for players to enter at all levels of skill and have a chance (note I did not say an even chance) of winning. Having “low skill” mechanics in a game is not in itself bad, provided that they are not just as easily applicable to the highest levels of play.

To elaborate, strategies for success at lower levels of skill, for example, should have a lesser chance at higher levels of skill. Probably the most concise examples I could bring up is 6pool “cheese” in Starcraft before the balance changes, or closer to Guild Wars 2, the IWAY team comp in Guild Wars 1. In the context of shooters, people might be most familiar with the “noob tube” of Call of Duty infamy. Having these powerful tools accessible to the lowest common denominator allows a game to grow its population. When these tools become a dominant force, however, the skill ceiling is diminished and this is exactly what is happening right now.

A game with a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling has the best of both worlds, providing entry level players a way to get into the game, whilst stratifying “skilled” players from newer players. Having room to grow as a player demands learning and demands investment of time to be competitive and this is what distinguishes “playmaking” from simple execution of a build – using a build’s unique capabilities to do something a player just picking up the build for the first time cannot do. It is unfortunate then, that the majority of the meta builds today do not have this requirement. The skill ceiling differentiating a new Hambow Player from a top level Hambow player is not great, nor is it that great for a decap engineer, or MM necro, or Pistol whip Thief, or S/x Fresh Air burst ele, or Spirit Ranger, or Clone death Mesmer. That these builds have little room to play badly or misplay is just as toxic to the game as any other hard counter or RNG proc mechanic.

The burden of counterplay rests on the player defending against these builds and this is why Arenanet needs to sit down one day and consider whether the mechanics that they have introduced like condition immunities or immobilise stacking or stunlock combos are actually fun to play against. But this is an entirely different topic, so I’ll stop now. I heard CMC was compiling a list of things with little counterplay, so I’ll wait for his thread before starting my own. Nevertheless, Arenanet’s balance direction treads a dangerous path when mechanics are introduced that diminish counterplay. I only hope that the decap Engineer debacle can begin to open their eyes as to why hard counters are extremely exploitable.

Cogbyrn.7283:

MonMalthias.4763:

snip

When I mention that a community never forgets and will always link old comments, this is what I mean. I think you have great ideas, MonMalthias, but I’ve listened to the Manifesto video 3+ times now, and I don’t hear them ever even say you can “play how you want”.

And even if they did, do you really think they meant “play how you want competitively” or “play how you want and the community will accept it”?

So let’s assume they said: “Guild Wars 2 is a game where the player can truly play how they want.” What does that mean, exactly? Does it mean you can build however you want and be successful in your chosen game mode? Does it mean you can adapt any style you want on any class you want to play?

Or does it maybe mean you can almost immediately jump into whatever you want to do, whether it’s top-level sPvP, PvE, or WvW? Or does it maybe mean that in PvE, you can play each heart how you want because their are options, whether that’s gathering, or killing or what have you?

The phrase “play how you want” can be interpreted a thousand different ways, and if they said it (which I still don’t even think they did), is it truly ANet’s fault when the players all interpret it their own way without trying to better understand what ANet actually meant?

And if they meant that you can build however you want and you’ll be competitively successful, would you really believe such a bold-faced lie? Name a game that works like that, in PvE or PvP. Name a game with a competitive scene where you don’t have a group of players who can tell you exactly what you “should” be doing. Your talent/gear/glyph choice in WoW, your team comp/item build in DOTA 2, your set of builds in a game like Starcraft 2, all of these things become established and branching is either a stroke of meta-changing genius (.001% of the time for most players), or frowned upon.

I agree that ANet could adopt a more frequent iterative balance paradigm, and I would enjoy it. But why does a 4 year old video have to be brought up and (seemingly) misrepresented? Let’s work with what is current, not old marketing hype.

Touche, Cogbyrn, touche. My post was out of line, for sure. Thank you for your perspective. I will have to stand by my point however, that build variety has been curtailed by lack of attention to aspects of each profession that remain under-leveraged. For Engineer, it is a plethora of RNG procs or percentage HP procs and a startling lack of procs or utility upon Toolbelt use – part of the reason why Kits are so essential. For Elementalist, the staid 30-60 points in Arcana and Water has remained staple despite repeated nerfs. I’m sure that as a Necro you could also list some examples also.

For me, personally, a meta that strongly features play, counterplay and counter-counterplay with enough room for player-driven innovation is the idealised, utopian state for GW2 balance – ideally without widespread splits of skills, for both player and developer sanity’s sake.

Right now the apex predators that have been created in the wake of the Dhuumfire patch are the antithesis of this ideal. AI-Centric specs like Spirit Ranger and MM Necro require little mechanical execution for much player reward. Engineer is a cloud of crit-procs or an obnoxious CC bunker with untelegraphed pushes. Thief has the upper hand in any glass vs glass fight and in part has driven players to build more tanky. Warriors are carried by Healing Signet. Elementalist has become another Stealthless Thief – having to build as glassy as possible to contribute enough damage due to being extremely time-starved in this condition-heavy meta; and what’s worse, Elementalist burst is similarly untelegraphed and unpredictable thanks to Fresh Air/Air 15.

When players run such setups, the question has to be asked – are they being “competitive” – which is to say, playing to win – or simply working with what they have because any other build would contribute too little to be significant? Even more stultifying and presenting a chilling effect on player innovation is the perception that these apex predator specs provide even average players the opportunity to perform at top level.

In such an environment, there is little incentive to improve as why play excellently to just contribute in an average fashion when one can play at an average level to contribute at an excellent fashion? Arenanet’s dream of a player driven meta seems distant when it was their changes that drove this meta.

That being said, hopefully Arenanet with their April 15th feature patch can drive the meta towards something that isn’t cheese vs cheese, in Leman’s words

niconori.7235:

change burning speed to home in on target. and if there is no target, works the same as it is now.

how can we have a spell that has an unreliable factor i.e. does not hit when directly in front of enemy. why can’t this spell work the same as savage leap, swoop, ride the lightning, fiery rush etc.

why anet has to go through the lengths to make this spell “unique” and in the process making it worse? what is the reason?

The point of Burning Speed is not as a gap closer but actually as a line skillshot. Parallels can be found across all classes. If you fail to land a Burning Speed it is not because the skill is “unreliable”, it is because you are not aiming it, or you have incorrect spacing. Running D/D, the correct spacing is the range 130-300, which is the range where all your skills are guaranteed to hit, yet outside of melee range where D/D does not have the EHP to survive for long. Indeed, if you Burning Speed at 300 range you will end up in the perfect position to land a followup Fire Grab on a Burning Target.

My only beef with Burning Speed in any capacity but more against D/D in general is the fact that it completely lacks snare clears. Prior to the Water Magic nerfs, Elementalist had no issue with Chill, Cripple or Immobilise as its cleansing capability was unparalleled. Now, however, Immobilise is extremely dangerous for Dagger mainhand Elementalist and it is easy to be kited to death.

To wit, an alteration to Burning Speed could be to make it break Immobilise (+/- Cripple or Chill) instead of giving it the proposed Evade Frames. The evade frames proposal outlined in the Feature Patch preview is completely senseless and does not address the core issues, but then again, that hasn’t stopped Arenanet before.

Carighan.6758:

Seras.5702:

After over a year and a half, we need more skills, and broader traiting.

I just hope it won’t be as extreme as in GW1. The raw amount of skills really brought that game down,because the classes were never designed to have that many options, and each classes’ identity was completely washed out.

I’m not even sure we need more skills/traits, tbh. Why?
Each class has ~50%+ skills/traits which are never taken. Balancing those would be a much much greater influx of diversity and gameplay variety than any new skills could ever be.

Absolutely. I mentioned in my OP as to how balance has largely concentrated upon the “meta” few skills and traits that crop up, whilst it seems as though other skills and traits are ignored – until they become a problem. Most prominently for the Engineer has been the Grenadier/Incendiary Powder traits, for Elementalist, it has been the entire Water Magic trait line. The list goes on, and all the while, build diversity has been restricted more and more.

One can attribute this to 2 reasons:

• The playerbase has gotten to “know” the game better. That is to say, more and more of the game is becoming a known quantity, and players would gravitate towards the stronger specs.
• Despite a multitude of changes, Arenanet has not brought up build diversity in any significant degree across all classes. In fact, the only class that seems to have been brought broad base, strong build variety is Warrior – yet their strongest builds concentrate 20+ points into Defense. One wonders whether Defense has become the new “Water Magic” for Warriors as it did for Elementalist – and certainly, the cleansing capability would appear to mirror that.

What it means for the game is that players cannot truly “play how they want” as espoused in their Manifesto video given the established superiority of “meta” specs. Sadly, it seems that the pattern has been for Arenanet to only alter “off meta” traits and skills in their “overhaul” patches – and this pattern has problems of its own.

Jocksy.3415:

JorneMormel.9850:

@ March 18th update.

Too little, too late.

What do you mean there is nothing?

I have been on a break since the swift retribution to the Eagle Eye bug. Waiting around until this patch because Ranger balance was announced to be worked on and to be released in March.

Correction:
Changes were announced for the balance patch following the LS, but no devs stated it would be on march 18th – that patch, they called a maintenance patch.

Players assumed it would be the balance patch, but Anet never stated it would be so, and even posted it wouldn’t be the one…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-Feature-Patch-is-NOT-March-18th/first

True. It is of note that I wrote the OP in February when the general community impression at the time was that the “feature” patch would come on March 18th, until the clarification in the first week of March by various Arenanet staff including Allie Murdock (for which she copped no small amount of flak). It is a disagreeable state of affairs, to be true, but all we as a community can do is to push for better release practices in the future, as it looks like Arenanet is staying the course for keeping the release date of their feature patch under wraps.

insanemaniac.2456:

best bet for why is red tape from upper management.

and id bet on 4/1 or 4/8 for the feature patch. theres a reason theyre doing 3 ready ups in a row and its unlikely theyd tell us “were finally ready to talk about the feature patch” unless its ready to deploy. 4/1 is 2 weeks away, in the normal patch cycle.

This has been one of my suspicions since I saw that Cameron Dunn GDC Lecture in which he demonstrated that anyone can kick (upload) a build using the Arenanet Duo system, which I referenced in my other thread. Credence to this theory is also reinforced by Tyler Chapman’s Posts in the Mesmer bug list thread in which bug fixes have been declared, yet were with-held from the March 18th “maintenance” patch:

1. Fixed
2. Fixed feature build
3. Complicated, technically terrain related bugs. All classes have this issue to some extent.
4. Working as intended. Good topic for debate on changing in the future.
5. Deceptive evasion clones attack closest target, otherwise no repro.
6. Fixed some while after feature build “logged”
7. Fixed feature build
8. Intended, same reason as los…Counter-play.
9. Intended, follows standardized shadowstepping rules. No repro otherwise.
10. Fixed some while after feature build “logged”
11. Fixed some while after feature build “logged”
12. Intended. Those skills bounce to allies and only grant the POSITIVE effects “boons” its not attached to reflect. (Trick: use your reflect to grant extra bounces:D:D)
13. Fixed in feature build
14. Server-side, can’t fix at this time. “Lag related” Blame living world updates
15. Intended. This is how projectile/missile “tracking” works.
16. Fixed
17. Intended. All ranged and melee skills have a 15% buffer range to take account for tracking.
18. Fixed on feature build if not on live.
19/20 Intended. Shouldn’t be able to utilize both at the same time.
21. Globally intended. Buffer range.
22. Intended. Current trait system swaps to different versions of skills from traits, which can trigger weird recharge issues. Such as that one with glamour CD. I wanna say that bug is fixed in the feature build but it’s a weird repro.
23. Fixed some while after feature build “logged”
24. Some issues regarding this fixed in feature build
25. Intended
26. Fixed in feature build
27. Fixed in feature build

Hope that helps

Again, this is an ongoing problem of Arenanet’s stance on bugfixing and it’s something that the community should push for Arenanet to change.

On topic, I do find the proposed changes of reducing Immobilise duration on Net Turret + Supply crate to be off-base, when the issue is clearly Immobilise stacking in duration causing the issue, followed by Engineer’s massive condition diversity allowing easy coverage of the Immobilise. Many classes also lack a targeted cleanse of Immobilise as well, which is a secondary reason why Immobilise is so strong.

With regard to Grenade Kit “shotgunning” of Grenades – this has been an issue since GK became one of the “meta” Engineer kits. The issue has always been pinpoint accuracy at point blank allowing Engineers to Triple stack Poison Fields, or Triple Chill (brutal against Elementalist due to Steel Packed Powder +/- Incendiary Powder procs), or Triple 12 second Bleed. Pinpoint accuracy at point blank was also the reason why 100nades was so strong pre-nerf, as even if the double Barrage did not 100-0 a target, the Shrapnel Grenades with their high power Coefficient certainly would, and Poison Grenade shotgunning precluded healing.

These problems will persist until Arenanet stops treating the symptom and instead targets the problem by inverting Grenade accuracy such that minimum spread is obtained at max range – makes 1500 range casting onto point less potent but no less deadly if it hits – and maximum spread is obtained at minimum range – precluding Triple Poison or Triple Chill. This would force Grenadiers into mid-range – 300-900 units. The skill cap required would increase, which would then possibly justify a baseline buff of Grenades to 3 Grenades thrown as base, with the Grenadier trait simply increasing Condition duration and/or a damage bonus no larger than 10% total across 3 grenade hits.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, MonMalthias.4763! This post is exactly what we talk about when we mention formatting and concise feedback. Even though it’s a lot to take in, you do a great job of separating the ideas and making it easy to navigate.

I will be passing this on to the team to think about!

Thank you for your response. I would just like to reiterate my main point which is that balance changes need to happen more frequently. The Extra Credits video on Failing Faster expands on my point perfectly, I feel. Changes do not have to be sweeping, nor meta-shifting overnight. Steady bug fixing of skills, tooltips accompanied with tweaks fortnightly – good or bad – will achieve a balanced result faster than the current Arenanet balance stance.

There is one post, however, that does concern me

Absinth.6917:

I posted the essence of this on another thread but I’ll get right to the point.

When will ,you, the Anet pvp dev’s grow some dang balls? (yourself excluded Allie)

By this I mean when will you shake up the current “meta”?

I’m not talking about slight changes to observable metrics. I speak of a complete overhaul. Give us something fresh! Obviously new game modes are out the window or at the very least on the distant horizon. IE. Mars….

So my true question would be this:

Can you effectively disrupt any current “meta” on a monthly basis?

If you dared to do such a thing you would cure GW2 of the current stagnation that we are all experiencing barring new game modes.

For better or worse if you could shake up the “meta” on a monthly basis; encouraging me to play unfamiliar classes or unused trait lines (builds) to be optimally effective then you have my attention. Perhaps you might come close to that gamer utopia that we call “balance”.

Or do we as pvp’rs not garner such consideration from Anet?

edit – oh wait this is a meet and greet BS session. I apologize. So my question would be this Allie….

Boxers or briefs?

Allie Murdock.8152:

We expect the feature build to sufficiently shake up the current meta. There will be lots… of fresh… stuff…

Monthly basis is not 100% feasible right now like it was before. We tried to bring you guys consistent updates, but as you noticed not all of them really shook up the meta. The upcoming build will do a better job at that for you. Hopefully in a good way.

One of the secondary points I had made throughout this thread was Arenanet’s stoic stance on refusing to revert certain changes despite causing a demonstrable balance issue like Warrior’s Healing Signet. My earlier examples included nerfs to Necromancer condition application outside of Dhuumfire that have no indication of being reverted once the feature patch comes to pass, or the possibility of Fresh Air/Diamond Skin burst Ele becoming yet another obnoxious build once Signet of Restoration is unsplit.

Given that the followup patches to Dhuumfire – August, September, October, November, December 2013 did not change the meta created in June-July 2013, this is one of the other stances that Arenanet needs to acknowledge and change if 50/50 matchups determinant by skill are ever to become a reality.

To reiterate my healthcare example once again:
When a medication is causing problems, the doctor does not then prescribe multiple other medications to deal with the side effects. Instead the problem medication is withdrawn.

This emergent pattern with Arenanet’s balance changes is worrisome, and the upcoming Feature patch has the potential to be a repeat of June 2013 if Arenanet does not heed the lessons of its own history.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Great read.

What do you make of this little, possibly isolated development.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/20-Mesmer-s-Bugged-Skills-and-Counting/page/3#post3750901

I think it’s certainly an interesting point that Pyroatheist has brought up – and that which Carighan reminded me of also. That it is working as intended would invalidate my claims that it is a bug – then again, we see Jess Boettiger using Temporal Curtain with Swiftness already applied and getting no additional benefit from it.

Either this means that devs that supposedly frequent WvW with some regularity need to know how to learn to play around the little nuances of their profession skills, or that Temporal Curtain is working in a way that not all developers are up to speed on. Either way, Curtain is anomalous, and it remains to be seen whether it is altered further in a later patch or not.

This is certainly not an unprecedented development either. Engineer skills feature significant amounts of inaccurate tooltips across Traits, Utilities, Skills descriptions – you name it, it’s probably got some inaccuracy therein.

So I’ve been browsing through the Extra Credits backlog and I’ve found this gem

The video echoes my sentiments far more eloquently, but the core mantra that is seemingly being ignored by Arenanet is “Failing Faster”.

The upcoming Feature patch that has so much promised to be bundled into it, along with so many fundamental changes such as lifting of the GCD of dissimilar Sigil procs and Rune overhauls – these are changes have the potential to unbalance the game as we know it. Delaying balance changes and bugfixes whilst bundling them into this overhaul means that Arenanet will not only fail slower, but also fail harder should the patch result in overpowered combos and builds due to something that the balance team failed to catch.

We know from experience that this is true, because the Dhuumfire patch demonstrated to us that players swiftly find and exploit all that is potentially broken within every single balance patch.

We know that all of a sudden, introducing massive condition variety to the condition necro in the form of Torment, Immobilise and Burning suddenly meant that it could operate freely of the Engineer’s covering conditions for its Bleed stacks. Sigil of Paralyzation didn’t help either, nor did Signet of Spite getting a significant buff to the number of bleed stacks applied.

We know from experience that a simple numerical change to Healing Signet resulted in a class that went from being kited to death into an immortal death machine with build variety centering on 20+ points in Defense.

We know from experience that merging Spirit traits suddenly made Ranger spirits – previously sidelined – into ridiculously strong passive-proc machines.

We know that introducing hard counter gameplay in the form of Automated Response – then “bug fixing” it to make it an even harder counter will result in imbalances – if not at the time of the change, then later on, once the appropriate confluence of circumstances is met.

Arenanet’s stance for balance needs to change, because their current stance is unworkable right now. As I quoted from Phaeton earlier:

Phaeton.9582:

But I think one of the biggest changes that needs to happen first and foremost is a change in the way pvp balance is perceived. It’s not development.. or a feature. It’s maintenance. And just about every player in the mists is looking for new ways to vandalise it.

Amins.3710:

When you have CC, you have Diminishing Returns: All problems solved.

Anet fails at this, which is why there has been a massive exodus.

./remove head from @$$

Carighan.6758:

Meh, Diminishing Returns is a bandaid, because you have issues balancing your CC. Specifically, your game has too much CC (across all classes), so you need to add a mechanic so that users cannot easily pile up the plentiful CC they have. DRs.

The correct solution is to not have so much CC in the first place. Specifically, not share CC across all classes. It’s ok if only class A and B have access to say, Stun. And only one of them can do it with more than one attack and for more than one second. And the other 6 classes don’t have it at all. That’s fine! The codebase won’t bite back!

But it’s a difficult concept for players to swallow. Players see their neighbour having X, so they want X, and keep N, which they have. In turn the other player wants N, while keeping X.
If a dev listens to that (“washing out the classes”), then they end up in a situation where most classes have access to many types of CC in one form or another, leading to exactly the situation where you need diminishing returns.

This is extremely true. Diminishing returns will always be a bandaid when the source of the problem is an overabundance of CC. That being said, “Hard” CC (That which takes away all control bar Stunbreaks i.e. Stun, Launch, Knockdown, Push, Pull, Fear) have never actually been that prevalent save for very specific setups like Mace/Shield Hammer Warrior, or Decap Engi, or Lockdown Mesmer, or a few others that I’ll neglect to mention.

Some of these sources of CC are “fair” in that they have telegraphed windups. Others come out instantly. Still others have excessive durations like 3-4 seconds. Most recently, Immobilise stacking has become a problem with durations stacking up into the double digits in some circumstances, which obliterates classes without teleports.

All of this comes down to 2 things:

• It is quite easy to produce a setup incorporating multiple hard CCs that also does good damage by itself. The most damaging skills should require some element of CC to setup and land, but a CC oriented build should not be able to put out significant pressure by itself.
• Vast inequities of Stability uptime across classes, or CC mitigation that is largely passive, or CC mitigation that does not provide Stability such that Stunbreakers might break 1 hard CC, only to be layered with another.

That being said, CC should be capable of being layered as a team effort towards focusing a target. This is one of the core bases of teamfights and this should not be discarded. So here are two things that can be done:

• Give most stunbreakers for most classes some minimal Stability uptime. 1-2 seconds is already enough to break chained Hard CC.
• Eliminate Immobilise stacking with a view towards incorporating snare-breaks (targeted cleanses of Immobilise) into more skills.

There is something to be said about Stealth mechanics in that it, just like immunities and hard counter mechanics and overpowered passives puts the control of the encounter largely on the person using the mechanic.

There is little play to Stealth right now that isn’t predicated upon the user rather than predicated on the person Stealth is used against. Combat log does not show that you are damaging a Stealthed target. Similarly, hitting a Stealthed target has no visual feedback on whether you are doing enough pressure or not; nor does it let you predict what the Stealthed target’s next move is. In a game that was originally designed with the intent that players could read each other’s skills, Stealth throws most of that out the window.

The point is that playing with and around Stealth is an underdeveloped mechanic. Right now, only Sic ‘Em is a direct counter to Stealth and what’s worse, it’s a hard counter, which means that it’s going to be overpowered in the specific circumstance it is useful, and _useless everywhere else. You see the same thing in Automated Response, Diamond Skin, Berserker Stance, Stability, and a whole slew of other mechanics.

Making Stealth a Boon, then increasing access to Boon Hate and increasing access to short durations of Stealth to all classes would fully flesh out Stealth as a mechanic in this game. Until then, everyone is stuck with spamming AOE and autoattacking the air and random dodging or 180 turning.

Dirame.8521:

I don’t believe that numbers is what makes this game unbalanced. I believe that creativity is what makes this game unbalanced.

Changing numbers will not change Automated Response, changing numbers will not change Dhuumfire, changing numbers will not change the thieve’s ability to keep spamming the same button because he knows that he can’t be touched, changing numbers would not fix everything that is wrong with this game.

In fact I don’t believe the numbers are that inflated. At most it’s a bit of a hinderance but the main factor is in the way things function or are executed. For instance, if the thief worked on a combo system, we would have 2 spams or 3 spams, we’d have combo spams that can be seen and countered. If the Warrior Beserker stance, blocked only a few conditions it would be a skills that could seen and countered. If Automated response did something totally different, that would be a lot more skillful than what we have now.

Anyway I hope that Anet bring the rain, else this town will become a desert.

I have to agree with this. Dhuumfire/Aetherblade patch introduced a slew of changes – nearly all of which were seemingly aimed at taking counterplay out of the game. Passive regeneration, hard counter condition immunity, untelegraphed bursts, damage application whilst evading, damage application whilst invulnerable , autoattack condition application outcompeting utility slot condition removal – these leave the control of the encounter solely in the control of the person with the passive with little possibility of outplay.

It’s almost as if the design team took a look at this video , then discarded the concept of fun to play, fun to play against and threw it out the window.

Stats might be overinflated from gear, and base stats may be over/underbudgeted between the heavy and light classes, but the fact remains that stats can be designed around. Introducing mechanics that are unfun to play around on the other hand, goes above and beyond anything that stats can determine.

Do you truly feel that your current schedule of balance releases is justifiable when apex predators have been extant for nearly 9 months, and that every delay extends a stale meta?

• Keep in mind that nearly every single Apex predator build was created by the Dhuumfire/Aetherblade “balance overhaul” patch – Spirit Rangers, MM Necros, Hambow/Triple Stance warriors with Healing Signet, Decap Engi, S/X Fresh Air instant untelegraphed burst Ele, Clone Death Mesmer, Pistolwhip Thief. These are all builds that minimise counterplay, with the result of low skill floor, low risk, high reward in terms of Damage vs Survivability ratios.

• Do you truly feel that these apex predators should persist, pushing others out of competitive viability for so long?

• Your subsequent balance patches have done little to shift these builds. Does this not mean that your changes have been ineffectual at best, reflecting a lack of root cause analysis?

Why does Arenanet insist upon bundling balance “shaves” like Healing Signet 8% or Spirit of Nature bugfix (a bugfix of all things!) into Feature builds when these “features” are clearly being exploited?

• How is it that your rate of turnover for profession-affecting balance changes and bug fixes can be so minimal compared to the sheer number and efficiency of PVE only bugfixes and changes? It would seem that content designers are far outperforming their erstwhile colleages in balance and profession QA.

Carighan.6758:

Small pedantic correction: Mesmer Temporal Curtain not stacking is not a bug. It should (IMO) work like Guardian Symbol of Swiftness ofc, but it’s intentionally not stacking right now.

I was under the impression that it was a bug and given its wiki entry it would also seem to be anomalous when compared to other Swiftness granting Fields. Where did a developer say it was intentional?

The real problem with GW2’s balance has always been damage multiplication. Arenanet sought to make balance more granular by inflating every stat such that a difference of, say, 1 Power or Vitality or Condition damage was hardly significant.

Then they introduced +Critical Damage and +Condition Duration.

Theorycrafters will already be familiar with the mantra that for direct damage, Power, Precision, Critical damage is needed. For condition damage, some combination of Condition Damage and Condition Duration is needed.

With regards to Direct damage, +Critical damage being multiplicative scaling means that damage output can easily double if not more when comparing bunker DPS vs zerker DPS.

This website gives the “Effective Power” calculation to be:

• Effective Power = Power × [1 + Critical Chance × (Critical Multiplier – 1)] × Damage Multiplier where Critical chance is given as a decimal, Critical Multiplier begins at 1.5 and increases by 0.01 per 1% of critical damage
• This thread is also instructive although more from a min-maxer’s point of view that demonstrates the multiplicative scaling of Power, Precision and Critical damage
• When the difference between a normal hit, and a critical hit is literally double damage at +50% Critical damage you can see where the problems begin. Balancing by adjusting weapon damage coefficients is almost futile when you consider that the difference in direct damage output between a Bunker and a DPS is almost double.
• If anything, Critical Damage is one of the reasons why a Bunker is so tanky – non-crits become almost insignificant, whilst crits are almost required to put pressure on Bunkers.
  • Consider the damage reduction formula of Damage Reduction = (Armor – Reference Armor)/Armor, where Reference armour is 1836, which is the Armour rating of Light armour (920) + base Toughness (916). In damage calculations, Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor).
  • Thanks to this formula, damage reduction scales with incoming damage which is why building straight Power is often not enough – Crits and Critical damage are needed to cut through that damage reduction
  • As a side note, the power of Protection (the boon) at 33% damage reduction = an additional 2750 Armour.

This is why Zerkers are so good against other Zerkers – 2 squishy targets meeting is invariably explosive. Fights can literally end due to 1-2 skills critting. For Zerkers against Bunkers, the outcome is more grey. Critical damage has essentially made it so that it affects squishies more than bunkers. This inequality in both damage scaling and damage mitigation is why damage is so inflated in GW2, and why instant burst with lots of escapes invariably leads to that build outcompeting other squishies.

Sunshine.5014:

What GW2 really need is an overhaul, closing the gap between bunker and zerker. Make the trait point give 1 stat points instead of 10 stats point, and bring both the base stats dramatically up, and the top stats down. Add more base stats, and make gears give less stats too.

I think it’s certainly an interesting concept to bring the range of variability closer together. That being said, stats from Traits have never been the overwhelming problem for buildcrafting – rather, I would posit that the Gearing is. For example, let’s look at the PVP Soldier’s Amulet and Jewel stats provided:
Amulet:

• +798 Power
• +569 Toughness
• +569 Vitality
  • Total stats: 1936

Jewel:

• +125 Power
• +75 Toughness
• +75 Vitality
  • Total stats: 275
    Grand total stats: 2211

• In the case of Critical Damage, Amulets are budgeted at 19 stat points per 1% of Critical Damage on Amulets, and 6 stat points per 1% of Critical Damage on Jewels.
• For PVE and WVW, budgeting is wildly different, but suffice it to say that in general, Armour’s budget ranges from 12-16 per 1%, Traits are 10 per 1%, with the most efficient being Beryl or Ruby Orbs, or Divinity Runes

Compare this with stats gainable from 70 points of Traits (Assuming 1% Critical damage = 10 stat points).

• Each Trait point is 10 Primary stats (Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, Critical Damage) and
• 10 Secondary Stats (Condition Duration, Condition damage, Healing Power, Boon Duration, Class Mechanic)
• 70×10×2=1400 stats. (And this is including secondary stats that do not directly contribute to DPS/survivability such as Class mechanic or Boon Duration)

I’m not going to go into PVE/WVW gear budgeting because this is the PVP forum.

Even on a mathematical basis it is clear which source of stats has the greater impact on character customisation – not Traits, but _gear. This is the reason why builds are possible in PVE and WVW that would be unworkable in PVP, or at the very least, significantly diminished in survivability or damage output. Gear, not traits, is overbudgeted.

Dividing stats given by Traits by 10 will not grant significant differences between DPS and Bunker because that’s not where the majority of the disparity lies. In fact, reducing the impact of Traits can only increase the significance of gearing.

What needs to change instead is the fact that damage scales multiplicatively rather than linearly in GW2 as opposed to GW1.

coglin.1867:

They have exceeded their prophet expectation by a vert large margin every quarter since the games release. So I don’t know why they would want to change the ships course in the least. Much less turn it aroumd.

True. I’ll not deny that their business model has earned Arenanet a ton of money. There is a point, however, when short-term profits are gained for a loss in long term viability. Guild Wars 2 is rapidly approaching this situation, when ESO and Wildstar hit their launch windows. It is instructive to see how earnings from GW2 have transmuted from Box sales at launch into earnings from microtransactions. Hopefully Arenanet can replicate this success when they launch in Asia also. Then again, Arenanet has much to lose if they cannot replicate the competitive circumstances that made GW1 so successful, as evidenced in this thread from May 2013.

Chun Jae Lee.2751:

Lux dude your joke was bad really… —’
We stopped gw1 3/4years ago.

2) No korean own server but game is released yeah..

3) No we quit Gw2 4 months ago and no come back for a while. Sometimes we log on. We are actually waiting for next games as Neverwinter or Black desert online.

4) wot is a mmofps so… Sc2 or gw aren’t same gameplay…

5) Some WM guys i know stopped gw2 for same reason as It’s not competitive as they wanted to. Same for iQ,iB,EW,rawr,LuM,… said to the top.

6)# of koreans Decrease

Chun Jae Lee.2751:

I can’t say. real prize is a thing but game play is another thing. I longly talked with Pyo(danjang) and he’s agreed that game is unbalanced,…we don’t like gameplay that much. Then I can’t tell u if we come back as Im not entire EvIL manager.

Of note is the time in particular – May 2013 was pre-Dhuumfire/Aetherblades and forum negativity regarding game balance has only deteriorated since then. One wonders if we could ever see the likes of War Machine in PVP or WvW again, or indeed, if even the Monthly Automated Tournament system could ever make a resurgence.

Now, thankfully, it’s not all dark clouds and scary shadows. As it turns out, Arenanet has been (probably) practicing complaint driven development all along – that is, listening to players. The CDI initiatives have resulted in changes, and patch previews have resulted in feedback that is executed upon, such as Renewing Stamina not receiving the uptime nerf or being moved up a Tier to share Master with Elemental Attunement .

My ongoing premise for this thread has been to get the community galvanised to push Arenanet to alter their schedule for releases, just as Arenanet was pushed in certain ways regarding balance and content delivery. The community has done it before, and with luck, it can do so again.

Draugl.8079:

I don’t think he insulted the devs. To say they “neglected to even look into it” of course is an assumption, but i think that is by far the most likely possibility even though it is phrased harsh. The alternative would be that they looked into it and weren’t capablle enough to fix it fastar than in nearly a year and i don’t think the devs to be that bad at their jobs, it’s seems more like a resource problem.

So i think that the reson for this probably isn’t that they actively decide not to fix things.
Firstly the long time between the balancepatches delays implementation even if they maybe would be able to fix this earlier.
And secondly that Anet decided to put much of their resources into creating new content and mechanics and less in polishing existing stuff. This of course is again an assumption but i think you can deduce that from the way the game developed since release. Things are changed and fixed, but it is at a relatively slow rate compared to other games.
(Malthias already said most of this, but i agree with it and think it answers you post)

And again: i don’t think that his posts are that insulting, they of course are critical about the way Anet balances the game as that is the topic of this thread, but i must have missed the points where he is insulting the devs.

Thank you for wording a more erudite response than I could put together in fewer words.

There is a window of opportunity for Arenanet to turn the ship around, before the last of their veterans quit. WvW season has ended, as has Living Story. There is now time for Arenanet to correct the mistakes that have been a thorn in their side since launch. LS should not come at the expense of game iteration, yet, this is the pattern that has emerged over time. The pattern should – and must – stop if the veterans of the game are to be persuaded to stay.

Carighan.6758:

Frenk.5917:

Great post. This deserves more attention by the devs than the other rage/nerf/lulz topic in this forum section. And I’ll keep bumping it untill an official reply from devs.

It’s a shame that most of the forum is just “My class is too weak” / “That class which killed me is too strong” / “I was hit for X by Y” whining, yeah. I think the main reason this forum was created was to contain the rage, so to say. Keeps the rest a bit more sane.

One of the biggest issues I have with the Profession Balance thread is just how little Balance is actually discussed, in lieu of shouts for learning to play, posts listing out of context soft counters, and posts attempting to justify a broken mechanic because “that’s all the class has to stand on”. I created this clarion call of a thread because no-one else was taking Arenanet to task for allowing extant balance affecting bugs to persist, or addressing the issue that the meta is dominated by specs that were created by the Dhuumfire “overhaul” patch – months down the line with no change on the horizon. All of this is attributable to a lack of priority being placed upon bug fixing and polishing the very professions that interact with the game, whilst temporary content gets multiple bug fixes, sometimes several times within a week.

As examples, here are bug compilations for all professions – some of which have remained extant for months, some of which are still in game today.

Elementalist:

• Elementalist bugs and glitches thread
• More recently, Zephyr’s Focus and Evasive Arcana traits
• The aforementioned Shocking Aura/Halting Strike/Mirror of Anguish bug

Engineer:

• Engineer Bugs compilation
• 27 Turret bugs and counting

Guardian:

• Guardian Bugs Compilation 2012-2013
• Guardian Bugs Compilation 2013-2014

Mesmer:

• Mesmer’s 20 bugged skills and counting
• Customary Temporal Curtain not applying extra Swiftness when Swiftness already on video and what better VOD to showcase it than an Arenanet dev on Mesmer GS/Scepter Focus. (Timestamps 12:52, 14:07, 18:26, 30:32, 37:56, 38:47). The VOD also showcases the Fall Damage bug.

Necromancer:

• Necromancer bug compilation mark 2
• Necromancer bug compilation 2014

Ranger:

• Ranger Bug list
• Ranger CDI thread reiterates extant bugs and mentions new ones.

Thief:

• Thief bugs and issues compilation

Warrior:

• Warrior Bugs thread

The game would be better for it if one day Arenanet knuckled down and tackled some of these (often long) lists of bugs. The attitude should be for Arenanet to try to break their own game in order to hunt down bugs even before the community discovers them. Security through obscurity has been proven by this community to be unworkable, because players will always have more collective man-hours to test and break the game than developers. Fixing temporary content that disappears within 2 weeks might please the occasional PVE player that stumbles upon those bugs – but fixing bugs that impact the way players interact with the game – their professions – can only improve the long term prospects for Arenanet now, and into the future.

coglin.1867:

That is my point as well Drarnor Kunoram, and I completely agree with you. What I was disagreeing with was his act of accusations and negative comments towards the devs for it. They did post and specifically state that they were working on it and having difficulty sorting out the issue a few times. Which is also why it is discouraging to see him imply they were ignoring it.

I totally agree it was a long time till it was fixed. I didn’t like it either, but to claim the devs “neglected to even look into it” as he stated specifically, is simply unfounded accusation. Anyone making claims to know what they devs are doing or why they are doing it, is working completely against the benefit of the community and more specifically the thread. If you like, I can quote you multiple dev post in which they specifically state that they intentionally, completely ignore post and threads in which they accuse or insult the devs.

I’d just like to touch on your stance of me using negative comments towards the devs and the risk of the topic being ignored.

To me, that’s fine. If it takes pointed language to get the point across and galvanise the community to push for a change in Arenanet’s stance on balance, so be it. That being said, responding to tone, which is what I have gleaned from your arguments, sits just above Ad Hominem on the Pyramid of Refutation (see attached). So far I have not yet seen arguments against my central thesis – that Arenanet should change their priorities towards fixing and balancing their game.

I will agree that I am harsh in language. It’s true. I will not argue otherwise. My turn of phrase may be disagreeable to you. I have not set out to please everyone. I suppose I should mention at this point that my OP was originally 5000 words (!!!) pushing 25k characters. Whole swaths of research, links and so forth were cut. I suppose it is only natural then, that I come across as terse, somewhat haranguing. But I hope that I have gotten my point across to you. That is all that matters to me. If developers should tend to skip it due to it offending their delicate sensibilities, so be it. Better that frustrations are aired than kept simmering, as CmC seemed to be doing yesterday during his soloqueue. The whole community is hurting for lack of updates – Living Story Bugfixes notwithstanding (How is it that LS can get hotfixes multiple times in a week when Rune of the Ranger can be bugged for so long? Or any number of Trait, Utility, Rune, Sigil bugs).

When changes are Promised like PVP rewards in 2013 , then not followed up upon then goodwill is lost. When bugs are still extant 5 months later or in the case of Turrets, almost 7 months later, goodwill is lost.

And of course, new bugs, glitches and exploits are discovered all the time, like Shocking Aura/Halting Strike with VODS here:

• http://www.twitch.tv/narcarsis/c/3813299
• http://www.twitch.tv/teamriottv/c/3820424
  Not to mention the well known, well abused Lightning Flash/FGS Fiery Rush glitch:
• http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/c/3775673
• http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram/c/3782451
  Time will tell how swiftly Arenanet responds to these as well.

One post I have found particularly instructive is this one, by Phaeton:

Phaeton.9582:

Snip
Action: Players want to think a game is constantly being balanced. Conversely many of us sit around thinking of ways to unbalance your game, hence the constant need for adjustment. We enjoy doing this. snip

What falls out of this is the message that the game is actively being balanced, and also shows the game is changing. Players want to know that when Joe Blogs beat them with his cheesy hambow last week, this week his sustain has taken a hit and the matchup will be different. It’s an example of a small % tweak which is much more exciting for a competitive player than say, a buff to shouts.

Of course we want other stuff. Game-modes are a big one, as you guys are well aware. But I think one of the biggest changes that needs to happen first and foremost is a change in the way pvp balance is perceived. It’s not development.. or a feature. It’s maintenance. And just about every player in the mists is looking for new ways to vandalise it.

So in other news, Cheese Mode , one of the top teams at the moment, has quit, citing lack of updates.

Fraelin.7409:

With no New game modes coming in January 2014 no rewards coming in December / February and No balance patch coming in March [CM] have decided enough is enough.

Anets lack of updates in pvp means that it is no longer possible to motivate a team to play with no rewards, goals and no new content to look forward to. [CM] is not the first team to stop playing Gw2 due to lack of updates in Spvp and I wonder how long will it be before the rest of the ‘higher’ tier teams will follow?

Anet have created an extremely great game with so much potential but all of it recently is ruined by keeping secrets. Why can’t you just tell us what we are getting and when so that we all aren’t just wasting our time on hoping and not receiving?

Gl Gw2.

~Fraelina

The thread on Arenanet’s Shaving Philosophy is also instructive, and it highlights an ongoing, self-defeating balance approach that combines incremental balance changes to apex predator builds with a glacial update pace. DiogoSilva sums it up best:

DiogoSilva.7089:

That’s what I’ve been saying on some other threads.

The shaving balance philosophy is very underwhelming and unsatisfying when patches can take up to 4 months to release. It’s a cool philosophy for a monthly or 2-weekly balancing pass pacing, as it allows devs to slowly but safely adjust the meta and analyze the consequences, but because shaving is a very safe process and does not always brings enough results, having to wait 4 months for something like that will feel almost always underwhelming.

The previewed changes we know of so far would be perfect to be released the next patch following their confirmation. Slow, “safe” changes that would carefully adjust the meta into a more acceptable state, and hook us deeper into pvp while we wait for the feature patch.

Instead, Anet decided that those shaving adjustments had to be bundled with the big patch and not before, leaving pvp at its current, decaying state, and taking two big risks unnecessarily: the risk of those changes not being enough after such a long wait, and the risk of those changes being meaningless after whatever’s to come that can potentially change the entire meta.

Arenanet’s policy of bundling balance “shaves” with large infrequent feature patches has ongoing impacts on a stultified point of balance. It is felt in every aspect of the game every day. Veterans of the game are feeling increasingly disenfranchised and disillusioned with the game’s direction.

There is a window here for Arenanet to seize: To decouple their Healing Signet and Spirit of Nature “shaves” and introduce them as a hotfix. Other changes can also be decoupled, but these in particular will have significant impact on 2 apex predator builds and the shift in meta caused should be evaluated independantly of the Rune and Sigil overhaul.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Something else that needs to be fixed for Dagger/Dagger, Auto attacks. They are all rather weak damage wise.

snip

This is something I can get behind. Right now D/D as a set struggles with Warrior Healing Signet without Fresh Air to maintain Air Attunement as the autos outside of Lightning Whip are not strong enough to out-damage the HPS passive. Normalising AA DPS of 1-2 more attunements outside of Air to bring them closer to Lightning Whip DPS would go a long way towards shifting D/D ele out of 30 Air, 20 Earth, 20 Arcana towards a more balanced setup. It would also open up nerfs to Scepter/X burst without affecting ancillary setups, which will become an issue if S/X sustain is further buffed.

The problem still remains that Lightning Whip is still mathematically and mechanically the strongest, being a 300 range Cleaving attack that outperforms Dragon’s Claw, Vapour Blade and Impale (lol) by significant margins. I feel that outside of DPS upgrades to Vapour Blade and Impale, Dragon’s Claw should be brought up to a level similar to – yet distinct in utility from – Lightning Whip.

Bringing up Zelyhn’s Skill data of Dagger mainhand (I’ve added DPS in coefficient per second in bold):

Dagger Main Hand

Dragon’s Claw: 0.375 (3 hits)| cast=0.5 aftercast=0.5 (DPS=1.125 coeff/sec)
Vapor Blade: 0.33 (2 hits) | cast=0.4 aftercast=0.6 {vuln 6s per hit} (DPS=0.66 coeff/sec, increasing to 0.739 coeff/sec @ 12 stacks of Vulnerability)
Lightning Whip: 0.7 (2 hits) | cast=0.5 aftercast=0.65 (DPS=1.217 coeff/sec)
Impale: 0.5 | cast=0.8 aftercast=0.25 {bleed 8s} (DPS=0.476 coeff/sec + Bleed to 42.5+0.05xCondiDamage /sec, maximum 7 stacks of Bleed for 42.5+CondiDamage x 7×0.05)

As you can see, almost everything is inferior to Lightning Whip, which is why you see some setups running Fresh Air for greater Lightning Whip availability right now in D/D.

• I believe that due to this, Dragon’s Claw could be made Piercing and have its deviation reduced such that more than 1 hit is guaranteed out to 400 range. 3 parallel projectiles would do much to normalise Claw with Whip already as the coefficient per second difference is on the order of 0.1.
• Due to Dragon’s Claw’s lesser ability to cleave targets, I believe that the coefficient should be raised by 0.1 per projectile to bring Claw DPS to the range of 1.425 coefficient per second. This would make Claw superior to Whip DPS at the cost of single target focus. Adding Piercing would then put Claw on the mechanical level of Whip – giving D/X Ele a second option and reducing the reliance upon Fresh Air for appreciable AA DPS.

So I’ve been away for a few days, and I’ve come back after having done some research to fully confirm the claims that I have made in the OP. Most of this work is still exploratory, so it is by no means exhaustive. Now, none of this is intended to derail the topic from the core issue – that Arenanet should change its balancing tempo from once every several months to a fortnightly schedule – but this is merely to show my work and demonstrate that these are things that could have been addressed in a stronger fashion – had the priority been given to give the game the polish that it deserves.

To begin, let’s look at Sigil of Paralyzation and the subsequent handling of issues relating to Control effect duration increases, including ancillary effects of Runesets like Mesmer and Melandru altering CC duration

The earliest reference I could find to Sigil of Paralyzation being bugged was in November 2012, in a post submitted to the Bugs forum, but never followed up upon. This is the seminal thread that demonstrates that Paralyzation Sigil does not work as intended – affecting Daze as well as Stun, and with numbers that indicate that the duration is rounded up to the closest second

Threads like these continue to pop up in ensuing months, with evidence mounting that something is Not Quite Right. It should be noted that these threads

Nov 2012: Sigil of Paralyzation increasing daze
Feb 2013: Sigil of Paralyzation demonstrably increasing Daze
Mar 2013: Sigil of Paralyzation increasing Stun duration by 1 second rounded up
Mar 2013: Publicising widely known exploited bugs including Sigil of Paralyzation
Apr 2013: Sigil of Paralyzation increasing Necromancer Warhorn Daze
May 2013: Sigil of Paralyzation and Rune of Mesmer interactions

Given the proliferation of this issue throughout various profession forums as well as the sPVP forum, it should have been clear from the outset that something is wrong. Fast forward to the leadup to the Dhuumfire Patch and you begin to see these threads pop up:

Jun 15, 2013: Fear is a stun and is increased by Sigil of Paralysation
Jun 15, 2013: Sigil of Paralyzation works on Fear

And of course, post-Dhuumfire, Sigil of Paralyzation exploitation really begins to pick up.
Condition duration, Terror, Sigil of Paralyzation
Generating data regarding extra Fear duration from Sigil of Paralyzation

As a further realisation of Fear being included in the tables of both a Control effect and a Condition, Melandru Runes were the next to be brought up:
Jun 4 2013: Melandru Runes reduce Fear duration twice

Thankfully, the fix for Fear was swift. It came only a week post Dhuumfire – with the attendant threads of Necromancers carried by the Sigil begging for its return:
“Please retain Fear duration increase for Sigil of Paralyzation”https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Please-Don-t-Break-Sigil-of-Paralyzation
Three weeks later, Fear was also removed from the Rune of Melandru table for condition/stun duration reduction.

The subsequent handling of Stun duration rounding up on the other hand, was not so smooth, only being addressed in October 2013 – “some 4 months of exploitation:”http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/October_2013". Due to space issues, I will not link the QQ threads regarding Sigil of Paralyzation with Mace/Hammer stun.

The lesson here is that despite longstanding community feedback, the bug-fixing team neglected to look at the deeper implications of control-effect increasing Sigils and Runes and, due to the decision to effectively freeze the meta after the PAX Tournament was announced, the problem persisted for months.

coglin.1867:

As much as i want to agree with a fair portion of what your saying MonMalthias, the fact is, you make a lot of "statements’ that you either have no evidence what so ever to support, or are blind conjecture, or just your personal opinion. The problem is, you state them as if they are fact, then go on to continue working off of opinion and conjecture as the building blocks for your statements.

You make statement after statement after statement claiming this issue or that problem with Anets management, or balance team, or testers. MonMalthias, I have to ask, what do you do for a living, and where did you go to school? I ask, because to make as many claims as you have, and to word it as you do, to suggest you have some reason to have more insight then the rest of us, should at least come with come credentials.

I challenge you to prove your claims and exclamations. You make claims slandering management, you make statements about their processes for fixing bugs and balancing (while I doubt you have any more insight then anyone else on this and your statements are 100% assumption and conjecture), and frankly, a good portion of your wording is misleading and you make a lot of accusations as well as many disparaging comments in an effort to come across as is you have proof, facts, or special insight, when you absolutely do not.

I am all for expressing an opinion on the game, its direction, and what you feel about it. As well I am all for having discussions based on those opinions. But once you begin to pretend you have a clue about individuals, their jobs, how their processes work, how their structure actually functions, then make negative remarks and disparaging remarks, all i feel you are doing, is using the forums to promote the equivalent of your own personal blog. No where in your original post’s do I see you seeking other feed back or take steps to open discussions, you simply have 3 full post to open up this thread, all full of personal opinion, accusations, conjecture, and negative claims, with no real facts to support it, then continue your discussions under the pretense that all of your conjecture is actually true.

This lecturing, personal blog of yours, has no business here. You don’t appear to discuss any actually balancing discussions. Not to say that your opinion doesn’t have value or that this post doesn’t belong on the forums, I am more specifically referring to it being in the balance subforums. Your OP has inspired literally zero honest balance discussions, and should be placed somewhere more appropriate.

You make valid arguments, and I agree with some points on your stance. I had elected to avoid putting inline citations in Vancouver form originally in order to cut down on character limit as my OP was already far in excess out of the 5k chars. I had hoped that putting a few of the threads on the PVP forums as inline links would be sufficient. Your post has demonstrated to me that it clearly is not. Therefore I will, over the next few posts, attempt to correct my error. I will not edit my OP accordingly, however. They are already at or as close to 5k and adding citations to those would necessitate more bothersome editing.

As a more broad commentary on the direction of Arenanet’s balance and priorities, it would be necessarily vague, and I apologise for not going more in depth with the issues I brought up as this would have required that I mine several months of threads and posts for each individual issue – which would have cluttered my OP to an unacceptable level (to me).

As for the Glass Door reviews site coming under a lawsuit, I was not aware of that. In light of this, this would strengthen my decision to delete and withdraw those posts – which I have done and I will make no further reference to the management of Arenanet from this point forward.

Anymras.5729:

Engineer is already balanced in such a way that main hand weapons are intentionally less effective than other classes’, by the admission of the devs – to encourage using Kits, of course, though this also places the burden of damage-dealing upon Utility skills in general.

Figuring out whether Turrets should deal more damage or not is actually kind of a pain in the kitten on the one hand, they’re less effective than autoattacks, on the other hand, we can have up to…five, I think, with Elite Supplies X.
Combined with the Engineer themselves, that makes a potential total of six separate sources of damage – and we’ve seen Anet’s reaction to Supply Crate pushing something over the line.
It really doesn’t help the situation that Turrets don’t scale, leaving them lackluster to begin with.

Complicating the issue is that, well, even with the things that Engineers are balanced around, there’s only one source of damage, that being the Engineer themselves.

Personally, I think they should at least have scaling, have cooldowns start when they’re placed, and…just see where it goes from there.
An improvement to the handling of cooldowns could allow Detonation to occur more often, which would encourage a more dynamic playstyle without directly buffing anything, while giving them scaling would let them stand more evenly alongside other skills, especially toward endgame.

These are all valid points. I believe that the first issue to be addressed after bugs are fixed for Turrets is the cooldowns and turret scaling. Turrets should at least scale off of Power and Precision such that their direct DPS will be at respectable (Critical damage debatable) levels similar to Engineer autoattacks. After scaling, then comes finishing the implementation:

• AI should be fixed such that Turrets target what the Engineer targets, without exception. Even if the turrets are out of range. Range control is Engineer’s specialty, and introducing the possibility of playing Turrets badly increases the skill floor. More on that on a later point.

• I do think that Turrets should remain almost as fragile as they are at present. (Hitboxes notwithstanding) With low cooldowns and low durability and (hopefully) a high rate of fire to match, Turrets would become highly disposable area control tools that present a clear and present enough threat to draw focus fire for the precious few seconds.

• Toolbelts should then be rebalanced to offer higher utility than pure damage – to reflect the lower turret uptime. Traits tying into Toolbelt use would then have greater synergy than is currently possible. Engineers still lack Condition cleanse on Toolbelt use outside of Elixirs, and lack mobility tools and weapon swap mechanics when running triple Turrets. Traits and possibly new skills should fill these gaps.

• For Engineers wishing to preserve their turrets, a Turret Recall chain skill coming after the Overcharge skill that transports Turrets to the Engineer’s current location will allow the Engineer to save them from incoming AOE for precious seconds more. In addition, Recall would also be useful with controlling range, allowing Turrets left behind to catch up when Recalled in the context of mobile combat, without introducing free Turret movement. Traits tying into Healing Turrets with Recall or extending Overcharge should replace Autotool Installation or Metal Plating or other useless traits at present.

• The primary concern with Turrets is to make them fun to play with, fun to play against. Managing Turrets should require the same skill floor as Kits. Right now AI dominated specs are extremely passive and playing against them is a highly binary experience: Either your build has enough ranged AOE to kill it, or it doesn’t. AI specs are extremely dangerous to Melee specs with many procs and triggers like Death Nova becoming suicidal to face with melee attacks. Turrets should be strong to the point that counterplaying them does not result in the same binary experience. Forcing Recalls or Detonations or Overcharges should be as much a part of fighting against Turret specs as Turret specs should exploit these mechanics to succeed.

Seras.5702:

Everything that MonMalthias said is true.

…for now.

Anet is changing critical damage to Ferocity (in March iirc) and it could very well change the levels on many armors/trinkets, including Celestial. I’d hold off on sinking laurels or gold into anything until that update and we see what changes.

Poliswag.8240:

Anet plans to buff celestial gear. They’re aware of celestial getting hit hardest with the ferocity change and are going to be buffing the overall stats of celestial to help compensate. As far as armor vs trinkets, chest and rings are nearly identical. This is a good setup and one I’ve been running for months; it works exceptionally well.

These are both very true. I would hold off on investing in anything Celestial for now until it is clearer to what extent Celestial is going to be nerfed or buffed as a result of the changes. Celestial in particular will be hit the hardest by the Critical damage change – the buff to other “all stats” will need to be big enough. Whether it is big enough or not is the question up in the air at this point.

Yamsandjams.3267:

MonMalthias.4763:

That said, care needs to be taken, as I have mentioned before, to not turn Turret Engineer into the next MM Necro or Spirit Ranger – both of which rely largely on AI as a shield and the source of their DPS. Turret control should be made as responsive as possible and Turrets should be strong area denial tools, but Engineer Weapon skills should retain the bulk of the damage output in such builds – with Turrets providing the Control and the Support.

I don’t agree. Why should engineer weapon skills retain the bulk of the damage output? Why can’t there exist a possibility of an engineer build that has a large part of its offensive or defensive power come from the turrets?

Furthermore, if all turrets should only provide methods of control or support, it reduces the variety they can posses. For instance, rifle turret has pure damage for all of its abilities with no semblance of control. Flame and rocket turret are also largely damage based and have some control or defensive style abilities linked to their overcharges. The only real control turrets are the net and thumper turret. If you decide that all turrets should be primarily for control or support, you either need to implement a healing “turret” junior (I say “turret” because healing turret is not an actual turret, it’s just a water field maker), or you have to alter the existing abilities (i.e. rifle turret cripples on each attack, flame turret always blinds, rocket turret… gives aegis or something).

Additionally, a turret engineer would largely suffer from the same shortcomings as a minion necro or a spirit ranger. That is, they are dependent on those entities to perform their jobs. Failure to do so means that the engineer is inherently subpar. For instance, if a minion necro has its minions destroyed, it is much weaker compared to other necro builds until it is able to resummon its minions. Similarly, if a ranger’s spirits expire just before a battle or end up being killed off, there is a period where the ranger is playing a spiritless spirit build.

Likewise, an engineer who has its turrets destroyed meets the same issue. In addition, the stationary nature of turrets means the opponent can choose to disengage from the turreted zone, and the engineer must either allow them to go away or decide to fight without their turrets. Obviously this wouldn’t be so much of an issue for the engineer when defending a specific objective, but it makes it more difficult for them to act offensively.

So I would like to see some kind of engineer spec that can be highly dependent on damage output from turrets

The point is that being highly dependant upon AI results in knife edge balance and passive gameplay. AI entities becoming too strong in and of themselves results in opponent complaints against it for little investment in mechanical execution – and there already enough brain dead specs as is. Adding one to the pot does not help matters.

On the other hand, AI entities becoming too weak then become a “dead” skill on the utility bar.

The point is that making the AI skills strong would necessarily introduce the need to reduce the power of the Engineer him/herself – and this is exactly what happened at the time of the Beastmaster Bunker Ranger nerfs with the nerfs to Shortbow and Longbow. Remember the developer posts at the time with their internal calculations saying that pets accounted for ~30% of Ranger damage? This is exactly the lesson that needs to be learned – and avoid being repeated – with Engineer Turrets.

Phantasm Mesmers also lost their 100% Combo Finisher with iDuelist as a result – 8 stacks of Confusion through an Ethereal Field for each iDuelist was highly exploitable.

What I’m trying to say is that historically speaking, the trend of AI dependant specs has not been positive for the game and in each and every case, has led to passive play (and unfun to counterplay) once the appropriate confluence of traits and stats has been found. Making Turrets strong to the point that they comprise the majority of an Engineer’s damage invites the same mistakes to be made.

Arcane Brilliance just requires that its heal be less predicated on other people and it would be strong. A cooldown reduction to 20 seconds from 25 would also be favourable, but the issue is the extremely low baseline and extremely high scaling – if you hit multiple people. Skills that require an outside factor to be strong are weak in and of themselves.

I would rather the baseline heal be closer to 4746 and the damage scaling per opponent struck be reduced to 10% as opposed to 20%. This keeps the maximum potential heal at 7120 assuming 5 opponents struck; however, the baseline is better by itself, and is highly competitive if used within a Water field.

Xillllix.3485:

The Game Slayer.7632:

1- Make elemental attunement baseline , with the trait making it aoe to your team mates.
2- Revert RTL. The range nerf alone was enough, it was overdone by doubling the cooldown.
3- Fix focus. Water attunement and fire attunement specifically.

If all 3 of these things actually were changed, ele would be very balanced.

^
What this guy is saying, with extra mustard on top (by that I mean with an improvement in Staff auto-attacks casting times/speed and a weapon swap button).

I actually think that Elemental Attunement becoming folded into Arcane Fury or Lingering Elements with a Master Trait making the boons AOE would be better because some investment into Arcana should be encouraged. Arcane Fury getting Elemental Attunement’s functionality would be especially nice, and it gives a clear source of the boons without the pre-existing Boon duration to make uptimes of Protection or Fury OP.

As for RTL, 15/30 or even 15/25 would be favourable now that the bug has been fixed and mobility of Elementalist has been far surpassed by Thief and even Warrior with GS.

Staff autoattack projectile speeds should absolutely be increased and should be the first fix before any other changes to Staff occur.

Mbelch.9028:

That trait was brought up before I think on page two.

It’s an interesting idea, but not necessarily a fix for what I perceive this problem to be.

If the trait were to work, I’d say it would need to cure X condition and make you immune to it while in that element.

Air should be less powerful like blind. (This would also help a little with missed RTLs, blind can be applied while riding the lightning)

But earth should definitely be immobilize I think.

If it worked with lingering elements it’d be even better.

At the risk of going off topic

Personally, any immunity trait, no matter how situational, is just asking for abuse. If not at the time of implementation, then far, far down the track. Automated Response for Engineer as an example was an Immunity trait since launch. Yet only now is it seeing use and abuse given the proliferation of Rabid or Dire setups with little Power damage output – and this is even with the fact that pre-existing conditions are not cleansed. AR abuse has led to the Decap Engineer setup that aims to sit at around the 25% threshold with regeneration and other slow healing traits. The same thing could well occur with Diamond skin if left untouched and Signet of Restoration is ever buffed, or Stow Weapon+1 spam to eliminate aftercast is exploited to increase effective HPS.

Even if only situational immunity exists such as to particular conditions on particular attunements, the potential for exploitation will remain. I would rather that traits like Diamond skin or AR or any other immunity trait discard immunity entirely in favour of a different mechanic.

One of the persisting issues with Elementalist is that specialisation within trait lines is still very much prevalent. Fire works off of Burning procs or Fire Fields and lacks Cleansing (Burning Fire is terrible before you start, adept tier at best), Air lacks defense (Fresh Air would be less abusable if Air 15 was Blinding Flash instead of Lightning Strike), Earth lacks offense, and Water’s meagre offensive abilities are entirely overshadowed by the defensive abilities, especially now that Bountiful Power has been nerfed. Only Arcana has enough broad base applicability that it is the de jour line for investment.

I would rather that Diamond Skin as a GM Major trait instead be:

• 10% of Toughness becomes Condition damage, 10% of Toughness becomes Power (Combining old Diamond Skin with Warrior’s Armoured Attack for a hybrid tanky DPS)
  or
• When you are afflicted with a condition by a foe within 600 units, your foe suffers it also. Gain 1 stack of Might for 5 seconds for each incoming condition. ICD of 1 second. (Getting into Mesmer Territory with Mirror of Anguish ) but removes the hard counter gameplay and makes Elementalist get stronger the more conditions are spammed against its low HP pool.

All of this discussion is off topic, however. I would recommend that a new thread discussing Diamond Skin and associated traits be created instead.