Guild Wars 2

Personally I dislike how Flamestrike is pretty much a condi focused, projectile-less attack with stupidly long aftercast. Making Flamestrike a projectile would definitely justify a bump in power due to increased counterplay, and that’s great, because I am hard pressed to find a use for it at all when running S/D.

As for Blinding Flash doing damage…it would make Fresh Air burst more potent without changing anything appreciable about the build. However, if Arcane skills were reworked to have the Arcane Precision trait as baseline and their damage was nerfed, I could see Blinding Flash receiving damage as compensation.

I love the idea of Dust Devil being a GTAOE Skill. It would give S/x Ele a defensive option outside of the off-hand when the cooldowns aren’t up. Would actually make Dust Devil actually useful for damage too. Right now, it’s not that useful due to slow travel time making it hard to use as a clutch Blind; and the Bleed idea is also nice because it might make condi ele possible.

Shatterstone definitely needs Chill on placement to force dodges. It’s not worth casting otherwise. Even 1 second of Chill would make Shatterstone infinitely more viable. I don’t agree with Torment on placement because people are still going to move out of the way of Shatterstone and it’ll still be useless as a result.

runeblade.7514:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Bombsaway.7198:

I wouldn’t wanthem to weaken individual immob skills (critical for squishy classes to keep heavies at range). Instead, they should have a maximum duration one can be immobilized for.

This isn’t ideal either, it still rewards spamming immobilize to keep the duration at the cap.

1 stack. That’s it.

Old system wasn’t good at all. Refer to quote.

runeblade.7514:

I disagree. When I was playing a sword and board war and I was using flurry, people use their 1 second immobilize and then the enemy gets away. I rather not get greifed by my own teammates accidentally every time

In your situation, 2 maximum stacks of Immobilise would still be fine. As it stands, 3 is leading to silly durations like 5-10 seconds depending on what skills are stacked. That’s…a little excessive.

Balefire.7592:

Swagg.9236:

Oh, right, I took out my suggestion for [Reaper’s Mark]. It is a really clunky suggestion in the end. I’m still somewhat at a loss for what it could be aside from just an AoE fear button. Maybe it should just remain an AoE fear button. Adding a short delay to it as I’ve done to the rest of the marks would work just fine, but I feel like that’d be just a bit of a lazy update.

If it makes you feel better about it, it can still only hit 5 people to Static Field’s zerg-stopping prowess. I fully agree that poorly telegraphed skills are bad, especially CC skills, but I don’t think that changing the activation parameters of the skill (save for, say, casting time) would do it any good. I feel like if marks had better tells, people would quickly realize that they are in fact weaker than they appear.

The way I see it, it’s the fact that Marks are GTAOE that is the problem. In the GW1 to GW2 translation, Marks in general were transformed from skills that provided an AOE Debuff centred on the Marked foe into GTAOE spells.

• Design wise, Marks had the effect of forcing Marked opponents in GW1 to separate themselves from the pack unless they burned a Hex removal.
• In GW2, Marks are nothing more than condi-bombs , and their unique nature is lost in the translation.
• I would love to see some Necromancer (and Mesmer) skills centre the Mark automatically over an opponent with a delay, then detonate_ to apply their effect as opposed to their GTAOE nature. Marks would therefore be a way of forcing dodges in the same manner as Ice Spike – except that foes cannot move out of it; they have to dodge when the delay expires. This limited counterplay may lead to outcry.
• Unfortunately, such a design is highly liable to abuse unless no more than 1 Mark can be placed on a foe at a time (new Marks overwrite old Marks)
• This would also make balance more volatile as the Mark has to be sufficiently powerful to require dodging, yet not too much so that being Marked without endurance is guaranteed death.
• On the other hand, centering a tracking AOE over a Foe’s head would bring a new dynamic in teamfights, forcing enemies away from the scrum in the same manner as Marks did in GW1.

Turrets are pretty godly in 1v1’s…and that’s about it.

• Their CC , damage , and utility is almost entirely single target focused , or extremely short ranged . This makes them potent 1v1 area control tools, but introduce just 1 more target and it all goes to pot.

• I agree with some of the earlier posters in making the Turret CD trigger as soon as it is placed – in that way, losing a Turret to AOE isn’t as devastating if you’ve been well established in the area; whilst losing a Turret straight away is. Would force Engineers to think carefully about placing their Turrets. As it stands, the current thought process when an Engineer loses a Turret is “welp, that was useless”. Turrets are undervalued as a result.

Traits for Turrets need to incorporate more utility into the skills instead of merely extra Toughness , range or damage . Turret builds lack the following: Condition clear, Down State Control, Support.

• Moving Accelerant Packed Turrets to Adept was a good start to enhancing Down State Control (pushing enemies back trying for a Stomp) but Turret builds still lack any appreciable Stability uptime or Poison . There is a reason why Bomb/Nade and/or P/S are dominant. The combination provides all of the above even untraited

• Turret Toolbelts need to be more than just about damage or CC. Where are the Interrupts? Or Mobility to save Turrets?

Until Turrets become a more complete toolkit in and of themselves, they will always be undervalued compared to the sheer utility that Kits can bring. Adding more utility and support into Turret traits and Overcharges as well as increasing mobility of Turret builds through Cooldown manipulation is necessary before any strong Turret builds outside of trolly 1v1 specs see the light of day

Please refer to (and bump with your own suggestions) the following threads:

• Turret Bugs

• Turret Hitboxes

• General Turret PvX Discussion Thread

Posting negativity doesn’t get you anywhere.

Just bumping this thread because Immobilise stacking needs to be re-addressed by the devs.

• With regard to Net Turret being nerfed, I can see the intent behind it. Even without Immobilise stacking one can still time the skills such that Net Attack can be followed up with Net Turret to put up to 6 seconds of Immobilise on a single target. Assuming the Net Turret doesn’t simply fire at something else entirely, because the AI is borked to hell and back ; or be useless due to any one of 27 Turret bugs .

• That being said, I do think it’s a good first step to re-evaluate Immobilise applying skills in a balance pass across all professions. Some skills that pulse Immobilise, or certain combinations that can quickly stack large amounts of Immobilise should be looked at.

But really, making Immobilise stacking to only 2 or not at all should be the first step. And it’s disappointing that Arenanet is not looking at doing that first over doing balance passes across individual skills.

RTL for elementalist honestly needs only a few changes to make it useful again. The first is to fix the skill such that a “hit” is registered as such on Block or Aegis as originally promised on the GW2Guru April 26th 2013 SOTG .

• As a further buff (optional), RTL could also be made to go into short CD on Evasion or Blind because it was used as a gap closer. But I think making RTL go into short CD on Block or Aegis is definitely the first thing to alter. Giving short CD on Evasion or Blind may take a little too much risk out of RTL.

The second thing to change about RTL is to change the cooldown from 40 seconds max cooldown, 20 seconds when halved to 30 seconds max cooldown, 15 seconds when halved.

• 30 seconds max cooldown is still punishing for Elementalist and 15 seconds definitely re-emphasises RTL as an engagement tool over its escape utility.

I’m honestly confused as to why there is so much discussion revolving around Warrior’s GS Rush and comparing RTL to it. It’s completely off topic – not to mention entirely useless as comparing 2 professions is an apples and oranges thing. Why persist?

Arganthium.5638:

Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS.7625:

I agree the earlier nerf to RtL can be partially reverted. The extra mechanic on it atm encourages skillful play, so I’d say keep that but reduce the recharge from 40 (20 on hit) to 30 (15 on hit).

Actually, quite the opposite. It encourages you to use the skill solely for damage as opposed to mobility, and so there isn’t a risk-reward tradeoff any more because it’s almost infinitely more beneficial to use the skill just for damage than it is to use the skill for mobility purposes.

Speaking of damage, RtL still has it’s “punishment” CD of 40 seconds when Blocked, Aegis’d etc. when the developers apparently stated to not implement such a thing in both their Patch Notes and in their GW2Guru SOTG (Skip to 37:00 for precise moment, 36:39 for full context) . This has yet to have been re-addressed.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I don’t think “Fresh (Attunement)” traits address our core problems, however, they do offer an interesting playstyle, and more importantly, staff dps builds would greatly benefit from a “fresh fire” trait because of how reliant they are on fire attunement to deal damage.

It would allow an elementalist to switch between support/ control and damage more efficiently. And of course, it would probably come at the cost of Persisting Flames.

Eh, I’ve always felt that while something like Fresh Air was interesting, the weapon skills made available were boring; limiting you to Lightning Strike procs for something like S/X, or making Lightning Whip more available for D/X. I like the idea behind it, but until Elementalist weapon skills are strong enough independantly in each individual attunement, the non-attunement dancing playstyle will ever remain suboptimal . Unless you’re running Staff Fire 1 autos, but even then, you’re missing out on a lot of potential damage not running your Ice Spikes and Eruptions.

I see where you’re coming from in terms of switching from Support/Control to DPS more efficiently, certainly. But I do feel that Fire traits are weak not because of a lack of efficient ability to switch, but that there is too little Utility loaded into the Fire trait line. Water has both Offensive (Bountiful Power, Vital Striking) and defensive (Cleansing Water, Cleansing Wave) loaded as options in the same trait line, whilst Fire is practically entirely offensive. With Water, you could get your damage agnostic of Attunement or meeting certain conditions like “enemy is Burning”. It’s this more niche application and more boring DPS boost setup for Fire that has left it weak and largely ignored outside of Lightning Hammer DPS Conjure builds, for example.

I also feel that Burning could also be better interacted with. Not just as a DPS condition or DPS boost , but also as a method of Boon Hate – stripping Boons from Burning foes. For a class that literally swims in Boons with just a few points in Arcana, there is surprisingly little interaction with enemy Boons

Finally, onto Defile Enchantments. I feel that the proposal is largely sound, however, giving a Boon Hate Meteor Shower to Necromancer doesn’t address the AOE “problem” of GW2.

[Defile Enchantments]

• Cast-time: 3¾ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 4000
• Corruption. Channel a hex over the target location and make the ground bubble. When these bubbles pop, they damage and remove up to 1 boon from foes. Foes without boons that are struck by one of these bubbles are dazed.
• Mark of Apostasy duration: 7
• Damage: 244 (0.75)
• Bubble damage radius: 120
• Daze: 1 second
• Radius: 360
• Range: 1200
  • This skill functions the same as Elementlist [Meteor Shower] in how it decides to produce the bubbles based on how long the Necromancer channels the skill.
  • The time it takes for a bubble to appear and then pop, dealing damage and effects is 1 second.

• This one definitely is Utility slot worthy. Boon Hate along with interrupts is extremely powerful and is a powerful Shutdown/Control skill. Putting this on an independant bar is definitely OP.
• As a Corruption, an additional “cost” to such a powerful skill could be losing an equal number of Boons for each full second of channelling (up to 3)

To make it fit more into the current design paradigm of Necromancer and give Necromancer more control over where the Boon Hate lands, I would instead make it a Charge Skill and a Chain Skill:

• Charging the skill makes a special Desecrate Enchantments icon appear above the Necromancer’s head, just like the Reaper does for Necro Terror at the moment. The longer you charge, the more Mark of Apostasy charges you get.
• At full charge, the skill chains into Defile Enchantments . The Necromancer designates an area of radius 360 . The area pulses Chill for 1 second every second on foes caught in the area; and removes 1 Boon on impact. Bonus Damage on Boon Removal optional. The skill then chains into:
• Mark of Apostasy . The Necromancer may then lay down Marks of Apostasy (as many as there are charges) onto the designated area. The “bubbles” would remove Boons and/or Daze after the delay as originally proposed.

This “triple chain” not only gives Necromancer proper risk-reward for such a powerful skill, it also has plenty of opportunity for counterplay – from the long charge time, to being able to simply leave the area (after burning an escape or blink, but Still losing at least 1 Boon.) Finally, foes caught in the area are then forced to dance around exploding bubbles.

• This implementation is yet more defensive counterpressure that Arenanet seems to like to push for Necromancer
• By splitting the skill into a triple chain, balance is highly granular, allowing for adjustments to designated area, charge time ; even down to individual Marks.

Continuing on from my previous post, onto the Blood Magic spells:

Blood Magic Spells – THE SKILLS CONTINUED
[Insidious Parasite]

• Cast-time: 5½ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 3000
• Corruption. Channel a spell over allies at target area. Allies under the effects of an insidious parasite steal life from foes that strike them for damage.
• Insidious Parasite (5): 5 seconds
• Life steal damage: 221 (0.5)
• Life steal heal: 370 (0.15)
• Maximum number of allies affected: 10
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Radius: 360
• Range: 1200
  • This skill pulses once each second. Each pulse grants 1 stack of Insidious Parasite to allies in the area that lasts for 5 seconds.
  • Each time that an ally under the effects of Insidious Parasite takes damage (condition damage or direct damage), that ally loses 1 stack of Insidious Parasite, heals health and damages the foes that damaged that ally. There is no internal cool-down for this effect.

As I mentioned earlier, I feel that the Necromancer would be better served by having some of the Blood Magic spells folded into existing Spells and utility.

• Insidious Parasite would be well served having its functionality folded into Well of Blood . As it stands, Well of Blood is rarely taken outside of PvE or WvW supporty builds due to its long CD, whilst its HoT nature offers little interaction with Enemies aside from drawing a lot of AoE fire.

• Folding the Life steal into Well of Blood and reducing the initial heal would bring Well of Blood more into prominence in all areas. It also provides the counter pressure necessary for Necro survivability due to few escapes.

Swagg.9236:

[Transfusion]

• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 3000
• Well. Target area pulses with blood energy, healing allies and curing conditions.
• Healing (5x): 1010 (0.5)
• Conditions cured: 3
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Combo Field: Water
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • This skill only cures conditions once: right after it is activated.

• To me, the skill feels like an uber version of Putrid Mark. So why not make Putrid mark just that? Have Putrid Mark transfer 1 condition per pulse for 3 pulses over 3 seconds. As for allies in the field, I’m unsure as to how the targeting would work, but it should also be “supporty” instead of being all about selfish utility.

• Necromancer seems to be Field heavy, but Finisher weak. All the same, more combo fields can’t hurt. Necromancer as a class is kind of facerolly; introducing the need for certain rotations to get Combo Finishers would not only increase utility and survivability but also support potential.

Having read through your proposals, I especially like the changes to Staff Marks and other Weapon Skill changes, aside from the Scepter 1 auto and a few other things.

One thing that I appreciate is the attempt to give Necromancer a more clearly defined role. That said, I do agree with the other posters here that adding a secondary Class Mechanic in the form of the Blood Magic spells is not the way to go. 2 class mechanics introduces not only another resource for Necromancers to have to manage, it also introduces massive potential for imbalance until the design could be iterated into. Adding Blood Magic would essentially require the Necromancer profession be scrapped and remade anew to incorporate Trait support, in addition to rebalancing nearly all weapons and utilities. I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but I feel that a lot of the utility you are proposing could instead be folded into existing Utilities and Weapon skills through the Charge skill and Chain skill mechanics

Onto specifics:

Scepter main-hand skills
[Blood Curse]: Name changed to [Putrid Strike] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED; AUTO-ATTACK CHAIN REMOVED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Cast out a bolt of energy at your foe that inflicts bleeding. If you strike a foe that is already bleeding, you instead inflict torment. If you strike a foe that is already tormented, you instead inflict vulnerability and gain life force.
• Damage: 229 (0.55)
• Bleeding (1): 3 seconds
• Torment (1): 3 seconds
• Vulnerability (1): 6 seconds
• Life force gained: 4%
• Range: 1200
  • [Putrid Strike] uses the Elementalist [Fireball] projectile speed, arc and pathing.
  • [Putrid Strike] uses a bright-green colored [Ether Bolt] projectile.
  • After-cast adjusted to 0.15 second.

• While I appreciate the idea behind adding risk to an auto-attack chain by making the projectile slow, the condition spam is probably counter-intuitive to your design goal – 3 conditions that could potentially be used as cover is just as bad as the current autoattack that Bleeds and Poisons, if not worse – replacing them with Bleed, Torment and Vulnerability leaves you where you started. Vulnerability in a condition-oriented Weapon especially, is nothing more than a junk covering condition and feels out of place.

[Grasping Dead] (2-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Raise skeletal hands from the ground to damage foes at the target location.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage (3x): 732 (0.75)
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Range: 900
  • This skill hits up to 5 foes.
  • Uses a ½-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while activating another skill).
  • For the first second, nothing happens. [Grasping Dead] produces a red circle with skeletal hands dotting the ground after the cast. After one second, the animated arms then trigger the hand-grabbing animation once each second, inflicting damage with each pulse.
  • This skill shares the same pulse schedule as [Lava Font].
  • This skill chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Vile Grasp].

[Vile Grasp] (2-2)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 15 seconds
• Conjure a hand above target area. After 1 second, the hand crashes into the ground, crippling and bleeding foes.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage: 118 (0.4)
• Bleeding (3): 5 seconds
• Crippled: 5 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Range: 900
  • This chain skill remains active for 5 seconds.
  • This skill hits up to 5 foes.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Grasping Dead]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately to into recharge upon respective use.[/quote]

• If anything, I would move the Torment and Vulnerability from the auto to Grasping Dead, and put more Bleed stacks onto Vile Grasp . If Scepter is to be the condition spam weapon, then it should be as telegraphed and as “fair” as Power Spike. Cooldowns should then be reduced to compensate. I get the feeling from the chain that you want the application of condis to only happen on the second chain – if you want to make a condi-focused weapon, make it apply condis straight up to “telegraph” the weapon itself.

Engineers lost 2 condition cleanses from multikit builds when Kit Refinement was nerfed into the ground – mini Cleansing Fire on swap to Flamethrower was replaced by Fire Shield (Most useless aura and skill in game) and Super Elixir on swap to Elixir Gun was also lost. That was when I stopped running FT/EG, although I still see people running it because the traits at least have improved.

The buff to Weakness definitely puts EG in a good spot 1v1 wise but to be honest without condition duration buffs it’s definitely not as strong as it could be. I definitely use it in WvW when running EG because the food buffs are absolutely stupid – 40% condition duration is just ridiculous. But elsewhere, the Weakness does not have 100% uptime unless you cancel-cast to get around the Aftercast of Tranquiliser Dart – and that can be a problem because you might tank a hit not reduced by Weakness that you shouldn’t have.

(Tip: bind “Sheath weapon” to Scroll Up and “1” to Scroll Down on your Mousewheel. You lose Zoom, but gain the ability to cancel cast Autoattacks. Really strong on D/D elementalist and GS Mesmer. For an example, see this video ; skip to 48:27 and see the difference it makes).

As for buffs to Fumigate also cleansing 1 condition on the Engineer, it’s an idea that I’ve seen parleyed around before, and it’s definitely something that could bring EG more into prominence.

That said, the only thing I would change about EG is for Acid Bomb’s casting time to actually be 1/4 second, and for it to remove a boon. It’s something more like 3/4 second with the windup and I’ve been able to interrupt myself trying to shorten the distance of my leap.

Boon Removal is also something that’s been severely under-represented on Engineer outside of HGH builds and Throw Mine – Kits and Turrets still lack any “boon hate” options and this change might make Acid Bomb actually be useful outside of its Blast finisher. 180 radius on a 6x Pulsing damage field is something only useful against Target dummies and immobile bosses.

@OP: I agree wholeheartedly that updates should occur more frequently with regards to balance. Balance is all about iteration – sure, time should pass to allow the meta to settle, but ultimately, more frequent iteration means that you achieve a more balanced result faster.

I think a lot of the problems with GW2’s balance, bugfixing and polish could simply have been bypassed or iterated past if instead of there being 4(? I think it was said there were 4 or so teams) Living Story teams there were instead 2 teams committed full time to fixing bugs, addressing class issues and brainstorming and iterating on balance.

It’s one thing to provide content to keep players playing, but it’s another thing to say, write more code or rewrite code to improve long standing class issues and bugs. I would say that a lot of the superficial polish and low-hanging fruit has now been all but spent for most professions – the real test is now for developers to really flex their muscles and fix deep seated profession problems like the fact that entire categories of certain utilities of most professions are pretty useless, or addressing build diversity by iterating useless traits instead of simply tweaking numbers every few months.

Having 2 “Balance Living Story” teams would also abnegate the calls for a PTR and the utter fiasco that the Dhuumfire patch brought. Simply put, there is no way for any developer no matter how thorough their testing, to catch all the potential balance implications of a change. It was clear in Arenanet’s response and subsequent patches that they simply did not anticipate the results of their changes. Having 2 teams would not only have allowed one team to check the changes of the other – but also have allowed Arenanet to push out rapid hotfixes, like the Sigil of Paralysation bug that allowed Fear and Stuns to gain a full extra second yet was not addressed for several patches.

Speaking of which, it also seems that Bug Fixing – if it potentially pertains to balance, is also coupled to the large feature patches. Sigil of Paralysation was one such famous example. The most recent one, the Ranger Spirit of Nature healing more than intended, is another. If the Ready Up show is any indication, it will only be fixed in March.

This is absolutely the wrong thing to do. If a bug is reported and confirmed, you fix it in the next update. Reporting a bug in the official channels of communication like Ready Up then sitting on it for months is not only stupid, it leads to the perception of paralysis – that the Balance team is not only ineffectual at balancing the game, but also inept at handling errors with their hands tied by some higher authority.

Bug fixes must be decoupled from feature patches even if they pertain to balance. Especially if they pertain to balance. It’s lunacy to do so otherwise, and yet I’ve just listed two examples.

In summary:

• Helseth is of the opinion that the community should be vocal, consistent and constructive about upcoming changes discussed on the 14/1 Ready Up show.

• He is disappointed that the nerf to Critical Damage will not make it into PvP.

• He is concerned that the addition of a second sigil to Two handed weapons, along with removing the shared GCD of Sigil procs, will be an immense creep in power across all classes. The potential for abuse is massive, and in his opinion, the PvP meta is not ready for it unless many things are shaved or all sigils are significantly nerfed

• With regards to unlockable Runes, Amulet statistic combinations and Skills, Helseth feels that the change is overwhelmingly negative. It will hurt the playerbase and turn new players away from PvP. At the moment, new players are in no way disadvantaged when they enter PvP but these additions will not make it so.

• He feels that the Balance direction requires critical re-examination. Many “shaves” of nerfing and buffing he feels will do too little – until Arenanet “gives in” and gives a massive buff to a certain aspect to a profession and makes a monster. As an example, he gives the Healing Signet buff and how this single change has made Warriors jump from non viable to ridiculous. Or the Dhuumfire changes.

• Regarding Dhuumfire – he brings this up as a change that leaves Necromancer overall weaker than when Dhuumfire was introduced. Ancillary nerfs, like hitting the Bleed stacks and Weakness have left the class weaker without Dhuumfire and now that Dhuumfire is being hit, Necromancer (condi) will overall be weaker for it than if Dhuumfire had not been introduced in the first place.

• He also feels that some changes, like the 3 Second Regen on Elementalist Water Scepter 3 or Signet of Restoration change, do too little to bring a class back into a fold, while also potentially becoming a problem later in the lifecycle. A massive buff could occur to Elementalist later on, and things like Dagger Fire 3 Evasion could become part of a multi-factor systemic problem of Elementalist OP. He claims that this has already happened to Warrior.

• He feels that Power Creep is a massive problem and that developers will need to be very cautious with things like Double Sigils because there is very little room for error.

Anyway, Discuss

So, summing it up, the changes that I believe were the most impactful, was the most meaningful? I did note it down, let me see if I have it here so I just don’t forget about it…

Oh, here we go. So Mesmers were change, the Deceptive Evasion. I think it’s, I don’t like it – the change they did to Deceptive Evasion [Deceptive Evasion will no longer create new clones if you already have full images]. Obviously not because of Clone Death, but because – for example:

• If a Thief jumps me, as a Mesmer, I want to be able to have the option of being able to dodge, then Daze him, or dodge and Shatter. But if I have 3 clones up, my Deceptive Evasion isn’t going to do anything. So it kind of hampers my movement.

• And if the only thing it really benefit to [sic] was the really facerolly Phantasm Mesmers that want to be able to spam dodges while having 3 Phantasms up without overwriting the Phantasms. Which just makes the build even more brainless for them. They don’t even need to keep that in mind, which I don’t like at all. Like, at least you had a minor form of management before, but now it’s even more brainless.
  Luckily Phantasm mesmers aren’t good builds – in particular a very good build. So that’s not much of a problem in the meta. But it’s still a bad design decision in my opinion. But yeah, that was Mesmer and there are other changes to Mesmer like Vigour.

• I would recommend to all Mesmers that once Confounding Suggestions is nerfed, you go 20 in the Domination line, 20 in Duel line and 30 Chaos. You get the Boon Duration and that was already a build we were already starting to lean towards anyway. So just go Prismatic Understanding, get some Stealths along with you, and you’re still going to have Vigour, you’re going to have some Protection. You’ll do fine. Don’t worry about it, breathe. But it’s still not an enjoyable nerf to have.

• The Pin down nerf. I like it a lot, obviously, because Pin Down is ridiculous. So that will be really good. There’s not much else I could say about that, it’s just a good change that needed to happen earlier.

• And the Sigils. The third thing: Sigils no longer sharing cooldown. That one I’m not excited at all about. See, that one, how do I put it, without wanting to just cry. I obviously, all I can say is kind of – if they don’t nerf the Sigils – all of the Sigils – sweeping nerf, then that change is just ridiculous power creep. That’s the – one of the biggest Power Creep buffs that they’ve [Arenanet] have ever done. And there’s no reason to do it. The reason they said they did it was because it was confusing or something. What? What? You don’t do buffs like that just because they’re ‘confusing’. STOP IT. I really hope that they’re nerfing the Sigils along with that.

• And I really hope that they look deep – alright. Devs, before you do this change – Fire/Air, those combinations. Look at Geomancy, oh my god there’s just so many ridiculous changes with that. The Sigil thing is not ready. I’ll say that. You need to prepare that with a bunch of shaves if you are going to do that. Otherwise you’re introducing yet another broken concept. And we don’t need more of those.

• And the final, absolutely final thing, was the progression thing. I don’t want new players to come into this game and lose to me, and feel like they have to grind to Level 80, or get whatever skill point or get whatever armour set. Because we don’t know what the meta will be in half a year. The metagame for what we know might be full equipment of nothing but what you have to unlock. You don’t want to put – one of the greatest benefits of Guild Wars 2 PVP is that you don’t actually have to care about gearing up. If you put that in, then you’re hurting your playerbase a lot and we don’t need more of that. That’s about it.

“Net Turret immobilise” – There was nothing wrong with Net Turret of course, the problem is Immobilise stacking. Something that every single top player – naturally including myself – have been very vocal about being an issue. The sooner, the sooner you guys – the sooner you balance developers realise that the issue isn’t with Immobilise, similar to how the Bleed stacks weren’t the issue with Necromancer, or how the issue isn’t the lack of 3 second Regen to Water Trident. The sooner you realise that, the better. Because otherwise you’re just going to keep nerfing all sorts of Immobilise things; eventually the Immobilise stacking will have to be nerfed or changed drastically and then you’re left with an even weaker Net Turret for no reason.That’s just how it’s going to be.

“Poison Grenades” – doesn’t really matter.

“Toolkit Box Of Nails” – this one was hilarious to me. Like, high level PVP changes. This isn’t even a change. Like, what is this. What. Is. This. What’s This? What on Earth is this? What’s this supposed to be? I don’t even know.
Apparently Spirit of Nature is bugged. Which is beautiful to me. I didn’t even know. But apparently Spirit of Nature is bugged and it’s been healing too much. Pretty ridiculous since it’s been a meta spec since the dawn of time essentially. The fact that it hadn’t been fixed yet, like whatever, it’s been fixed, it’s whatever. I mean shrugs.

• And here’s the Dhuumfire change – and that’s what I mean with all of this. [Arenanet nerfing things ancillary to a problem change, then nerfing the problem change, class is weaker for it.]

• Interestingly enough, they’re nerfing Training of the Master. [Damage bonus reduced form 30% to 25%]. And various different Minion Master things. Yet again, it’s similar, it’s not going to fix the main issue of what makes Minion Masters good in that it’s pretty brainless in its play. And the second that you put a big nerf on minion master now, all these things are going to stack up; Minion Master’s going to be bad. That’s just how it’s going to be. But still funny, because they’re nerfing Minion Master, but they’re not nerfing Spirit Ranger, aside from the bug fix. And Spirit Ranger is stronger than Minion Master. Just a funny note.

And of course, this is what everyone’s been asking me about. [Healing Signet passive healing reduced by about 8%, ~30HPS*]. So Healing Signet. I was really worried when I was watching the stream. Naturally, I believe, well, I’m confident that me and Arenanet – the staff – have different opinions on how the game should be. And that’s something I’ve come to terms with. But when the dev said that they’re pretty satisfied with the whole passive, but they just want to have an active so good that it will make it worth using despite the passive being like so ridiculous – that should just pop up one word in your head. And it did to me. And I hope it did to you. And that’s “Power Creep”.

We need to reduce the Power Creep at some point. Power Creep is the reason there’s so – it’s so little room for error. Like, Power Creep is the reason why someone who’s terrible at Warrior could still manage to kill me if I screw up. Because everything’s just so ridiculously strong that it’s, it’s just ridiculous. Like what kind of active will you give the Warrior to make it worth using at some point over the passive? And more importantly, why should that be in the game? Imagine what kind of ridiculous active that will be. Like will that be some buff to Power, or what would it be?

• The Pin down change is a good one [Pin down has a new animation/tell, cast time increased from 1/4 to 3/4 sec]

So where we are now, is the Runes. And what I’m more afraid of with the Runes is the idea that they want to [omitted for repetition] remove, remove the idea that the game can be just completely open for everyone. Like, you can’t just go in as a Level 1 player and just compete with me on equal terms in terms of gear. Right now they’re adding these new Amulets, they’re continuing to add more Runes, possibly with a cost. People will have to grind to get in and there’s already way too little people in PvP. And this is just going to make it even worse.

Again, a huge mis-step in my opinion and I hope the community will be vocal about it and will be constructive when they’re vocal. If you complain, you can do something. Soloqueue wasn’t on their [Arenanet’s] plan until people talked. So many things that have been changed has been changed because people have been vocal about it consistently, and there’d either been people that have been great posts and videos and whatever about it and it does lead to a change. So be consistent. Continue with mentioning what needs to happen if you want something to happen.

They’re fixing bugs on armours which is hilarious. I mean, I’m happy that it’s happening, I suppose, its just that it’s been years.

• And yeah, this: “Adding new unlockable stat combos for PvP”. It’s a really bad idea in my opinion and I don’t like it at all.

So let’s get to the Balance Preview for a little bit, why not.
“Signet of Restoration restored to full power” – doesn’t matter. The problem doesn’t lie in the Elementalist sustain, rather, it lies in the the damage of the game having increased so much. The largest source of damage back then, when Eles were common and viable was Mesmer with Sword and Staff. Right now,

Mesmer is the least damage dealing out of all the damage professions, and Mesmer’s running Greatsword now. That’s, that means that there’s a huge difference in damage and that restoring the Signet isn’t going to do anything to fix it.

“Armour of Earth cooldown goes from 90 seconds to 75 seconds” – not going to do much at all. Might be good versus Warriors, but that’s about it considering that Thieves can just eat their boons, Necros and all that.

“3 seconds of Regen added to Water Trident” – which is hilarious to me. The idea that this is supposed to do anything at all. “Shave” they say. But changes like this are bad for the same reason that changes for the Bleeds for Necromancer were bad. There wasn’t any problem with the Bleeds for Necromancer.

• And the PVP developers tried to keep Burn as it was while nerfing everything else on the Necro like, “okay let’kitten the bleed, let’s keep hitting the bleed, nerf Enfeebling Blood, nerf this, nerf that.” And they kept nerfing the other things about Necromancer and now they’re butchering Dhuumfire.

• And what you’re left with is a weaker Necromancer than what you had to start. And this is the same thing, although to the other direction. They’re going to keep doing buffs, small buffs, over and over again. Until they’re like, “Screw it.” And then they’re going to give a massive buff to the Ele.

• And all of a sudden, the Elementalist will have all these ridiculous options, and every single one of these buffs will matter. And they’ll matter for the worse. All of a sudden it’s been on top of the broken stuff. Similar to how Healing Signet, Cleansing Ire, was not a problem about Warrior. But then Cleansing Ire became a huge problem when Healing Signet was brought up. And this is similar.

If you make these shaves, then you need to be consistent about it. You need to shave everything down to the same level, and you need to shave everything up. You can’t just shave, then give up after 3 months, then just take an axe and just chop it. You’re not going to shave it that way. At all. And that’s the – we’ve had the same difficulties with them not wanting to go overboard but they always seem to do it.

This is another example: “Burning Speed – evade” [Burning Speed now Evades during cast]. Won’t do anything, really, meta wise, at all, but this might be a problem along with many other things when they finally just give in and try to ridiculously buff this.

Oh Boy! Is it time for another transcript again?
This is a belated transcript of “Helseth’s Opinion on the 2014-1-17 Ready Up Show”:http://www.twitch.tv/helsethgw2/c/3565511
(only 5 days late)

These are not my words. Transcript as follows (Some errors will follow):

Sup stream. Let’s just do this as fast as possible. I should add that…You know, I’m not even going to need this overlay. I’ll just go into camera. That’s me beautiful…
So what I’m going to do is obviously I’ll upload a highlight of this. And that’s the way I’ll reach almost all of you. For those of you that are here right now, what’s up? Make sure you spam it around because as you are all aware, I’m kind of muffled.

Anyway, what I have here is a list of changes that have happened and before I say anything I want to say that keep in mind that first of all this isn’t set in stone. Nothing that they [Arenanet] say is completely set in stone. And it’s very likely that things are happening as they said it. But it’s not completely set in stone. Which means that if there’s something that you really don’t like be vocal about it, try to do something about it. You won’t get anything from uh, just accepting things as they are. More importantly when you’re being vocal about it make sure you’re doing it in an as constructive of manner as possible [sic], since you’re really not going to reach them if you’re like, completely just whining.

With that said, let’s get onto the list for a bit. I am completely aware this is not everything that’s on this list. It’s just what they said on the Ready Up show and that will have more later. But I’ll work with what I’ve got right?

• Funny thing about this critical damage change, I was actually looking forward to it a lot. I was like, “oh my god the power creep is disappearing!”, because that was something that I’d been vocal about forever. And then there’s at the end of the description of the whole critical damage thing I was like “oh 10 percent less critical damage this is awesome, great start for everything” and then they went “by the way this is not for PVP.” So the critical damage thing doesn’t matter. This is right away, I’ll jump into [sic] what I believe is the biggest issue of this patch. The changes that are coming in. And again, this could be not as bad if there’s a lot of nerfs to the sigils.

• I am of course talking about the double sigils and the fact you can stack, well, on cooldown effects. For example the first thing that comes to mind is a Necromancer with Geomancy and Energy. Or a Thief with Air and Fire. Thief with Air and Fire is really wierd, because it could essentially mean that a Thief could have, for example a Backstab Thief would be able to have enough damage to just 100-0 people with viable builds, mind you. Viable builds that could 100-0 people. From Stealth, with Backstab. And Instant, mind you. It’s not something you dodge. So that’s going to exist. That’s going to be a thing and I don’t see why. Fire, Air, Energy, Geomancy, all of these were not weak by any means, rather the opposite. So this change is confusing to say the least. They’re buffing, a lot. This is a huge power creep. This is by far the worst change. And the problem with this change is that it’ll lead to so many more problems in the future. The sigils are going to be really problematic in combinations in the future, and they’re going to have to nerf sigils that would have otherwise been fine.

• For example, the Immobilise. When they made stacking Immobilise work, which was never a good idea – they still did it. They now had to nerf the Engi Turret Immobilise. Even though there was nothing wrong with it. Even though there was nothing wrong with the skill itself, they’re now forced to nerf perfectly okay skills just because they introduce new systems that just shouldn’t be there in the first place.

• There’s a lot of disgusting combinations I could give. But I’ll just leave it at that. It’s a really really really scary idea. It furthers the Power creep and I am not at all excited about that. The Runes, I don’t know yet, obviously. Like, they just said some random thing about the Strength Rune which is too little information for me to make a conclusion. What I can say is…maybe I should do this. Give me one second. I’m going to show my screen so you guys can follow what I’m doing a little bit more. It will have the drawback of you guys not seeing my face in fullscreen completely. And truly, I do apologise about that.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Auto-attacks are a well-known problem with the elementalist class.

• Staff autoattacks are (potentially) very good compared to other ele weapon autos, it’s just that the projectiles are so slow, and their aftercasts are so long, which makes autoattacking feel slow and cumbersome.

• If anything, some autoattacks like Chain Lightning and Stoning could have their cast time increased and their aftercasts decreased. Overall projectile speed should be increased – Fireball, in particular, is easily sidestepped.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Making air attunement more effective, in adittion to enhancing self survival

• Gust and Shockwave – Increase the line width.

• I think that either Gust OR Shockwave should be reworked into a cone AOE like Mesmer’s Illusionary Wave . Keeping Gust as a projectile is clearly not working. The Piercing attribute addition on June 2013 did absolutely nothing – it’s still easily missed. Making Gust a Cone AOE would also justify its 1/2 second cast time (Despite what tooltips say, frame data suggests Gust is closer to half-second casting; not the 1/4 second cast it would seem to be)
• For aiming purposes and visibility for counterplay, a wavy “air cone” particle effect should be added. Right now you don’t see anything come out, which makes aiming Gust intransparent until you hit.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Further trait support

• Fresh Fire
  DPS staff builds would greatly benefit from lower fire attunement cooldowns.

• If Fresh Air taught me anything, it’s that S/D Zerker one shot Ele is hilariously dumb. Pressing 11 buttons every 40 seconds to delete someone is probably not what Ele should be about, and although I like the idea behind it, Fresh (element) doesn’t address Elementalist’s limiting factor, which has always been that you need all 4 elements to be combat effective. I’ve yet to see a build that emphasises 2-3 or even just 1 element with trait support to match.

• Trait lines for Elementalist are too specialised at one thing or another. Water holds nearly all condition removal and regen, for example. Earth holds all Bleeds and condition duration mitigation. Air holds all the DPS boosts. Fire holds all the Conjures and Burning procs. There’s no “in-between”, which is why the Water trait nerfs have been so crippling for Elementalist survival. Nearly all survivability is in Water and nothing much else.

What Fire traits are missing is something instead of Burning Fire for condition mitigation; and a bunch of other stuff like proper zoning. How about this to start:

• Cleanse 1 condition when you Blast a Combo Field. Executing a Blast finisher in a Combo Field inflicts Burning in an 180 unit radius for 2 seconds.

Reesha.7901:

MonMalthias.4763:

I disagree that nerfing CC across the board is the way to go here. Clearly the issue at fault is Immobilise stacking – every other CC at the moment has no such problems with stacking.

I thought that was exactly what the topic was about. Did I misunderstand something?

Just some posts arguing for nerfing CC (all types) rather than tackling one thing at a time.

I disagree that nerfing CC across the board is the way to go here. Clearly the issue at fault is Immobilise stacking – every other CC at the moment has no such problems with stacking.

Not sure where the high level decision was made to make Immobilize stack, but it clearly has not worked out for the best. Engineers will also take a hit to Net Turret completely out of the blue as well as a result of this decision – both the utility Net Turret and the Supply Crate will be hit.

The solution here is not to tackle the symptom – Long Immobilise durations resulting from certain skills that allow repeated Immobilise application – but instead to tackle the root cause of the problem – which is to eliminate Immobilise stacking.

At most , Immobilise should never stack past 2, to allow for some leniency on co-ordinated teams CC-Chaining a target. The maximum number of stacks at the moment is 3, but 5-10 seconds of Immobilise are possible, which is clearly something that is highly abusable.

Certainly, some skills with Immobilise duration could be looked at and have their duration reduced, but I do think that 2 stacks or even no stacks (again) should be seriously considered. 3 makes it too easy to initiate an Immobilise chain and maintain that CC.

And besides, wasn’t Immobilise chaining in the first place made so to make a Thief venom reliably apply its effect? I feel that the whole issue could have been sidestepped if Arenanet had merely altered the venom’s effect rather than change a mechanic that lead to all this abuse.

haviz.1340:

Please stop creating same threads that use hyperboles, misinformations and misconceptions. Research the subject matter at hand before doing that.

I would like you to lay out in detail which of my hyperboles were misinformative and misconceived, please. I would find it edifying and I will make every attempt to correct my errors given sufficient evidence.

@Ambrecombe:
I agree with your points on leg specialist and your notes that Leg Specialist is not the sole source of Immobilise, though this is kind of taking the thread off topic.

I do agree that it is the bandages that can turn 1v1 fights in Supply Crate to some degree, but watching streams of higher level play and Blu’s shoutcasts, you can clearly see instances of Supply Crate AOE stun and single target Immobilise (quickly covered by Flame Turret Burning) can allow a team to quickly follow up that single target lockdown to burst it out and turn an even teamfight into an outnumbered fight.

Crate unambiguously, as a very potent CC, is a fight turning Elite. And that is as it should be – it doesn’t deal ludicrous burst damage or transform you for gimmicky effects – it just gives you that extra CC edge you need while being a goodly heal while having ample counterplay by having easily destroyed turrets and little heals you have to run around and collect and (most likely) not be dodging in the mean time. It’s a pity that not more Elites are as well designed. A nerf while justified doesn’t justify having knock-on nerfs to an ancillary utility in the form of Net Turret.

I would like to see Anet “fork” the Net Turret utility from the Elite Net Turret, but that further complicates Turrets and could very well lead to more bugs. It’s an absolutely no-win situation, and it sucks.

Geff.1930:

At first I was thinking that maybe they nerfed it for necros and not engis because necros have access to more DoTs like Torment and traited fear. But, then I realized that Engis have confusion, one of the most powerful condis in the game.

So in response, I don’t know why.

That assertion is a complete non-sequitur. The two claims – that Necros have more access to DoTs and that Engineers have confusion simply do not relate. You’ll note that Engineer, with Sharpshooter, Steel Packed powder (in a Bomb/Nade Grenadier build), and general condition “variety” has a lot more applicable conditions in a single attack than a Necromancer.

Indeed, before the Dhuumfire patch, Necromancers simply could not maintain their uptime on their Bleed stacks because having one heavily damaging condition was being negated by cleansing; Necromancers required Grenadier Engineers to cover their Bleeds to have good effect in teamfights.

Engineers take Incendiary Powder, despite its repeated nerfs and despite disliking its passive play, because there is little else worth taking in the Explosives line. Little else is as build agnostic or as useful to put out sufficient condi pressure. For the Bomb/Nade build and Teldo’s Condition Node Fighter build, Burning was the entire and only extent of their condition pressure._ This is NOT to say IP should not be changed, however.

Necromancers still have Bleed Stacks and Terror and now that changes can let them cover their bleed stacks, they are a lot more independant of Engineers in Teamfights. I get why Dhuumfire has been moved to DS. The fact remains that Arenanet has chosen to target Dhuumfire for skill-floor raising and overall nerfs while leaving IP intact. I suggest you read these threads:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dhuumfire-and-Incendiary-Powder/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Engineer-responses-to-the-Dec-10-changes/
and come up with a better idea of how to raise the skill floor of IP (and/or nerf its uptime) rather than posting non-sequiturs and negativity.

garethh.3518:

MonMalthias.4763:

If Incendiary Powder were instead nerfed to:

• “For the next 2 seconds after activating a Toolbelt skill, your next critical hit has a 100% chance to cause Burning for 4 seconds (Cooldown 15 seconds)

Uhm.

Your suggestion

hide spoiler

It is already hell to watch all the animations and keep track of the skills in this game.
Adding another skill that requires staring at the opponents buff bar to counter… that is just largely counter productive.
No one will ever counterplay that.

my suggestion

hide spoiler

Traits shouldn’t be effects that need constant watching in the game, but instead just emphasize things that already exist.
exc.
exc.

Things like… ‘reduced CD if you have 3 toolbelt skills on CD’, or ‘if you use an ability’ or ‘if you use a toolbelt skill’.

That’d create more of a risk/reward playstyle, if you burn skills you get more back faster, but the enemy will see you burning your CDs so have an idea of how/when your vulnerable.

Honestly, what I’d do if I were Anet… I’d cut back the trait tree so hard, I’d just make 1 traitline with 5-6 slots and you pick an ability from a certain list for each slot.
It’d really narrow down the class, that is good, it’d make most engineers build around the same core mechanic, say that central sort of trait is ‘more skills on CD, the faster they recharge’. You can build an engi to sooo many different ends around that core one mechanic, it’d create more dynamic gameplay and people watching will always have a decent idea of how your spec works. That’s an improvement in next to every aspect by doing less work.

Anyways, idk.
Anet seems to like to do their own thing

Proposal to completely scrap the design of engineer and by extension every other class that used the 5 trait line system aside, I do think that there is some merit in revolving more traits around cooldowns, cooldown resets and play more around the “cast, aftercast, animation, cooldown” design Anet has implemented.

Some more ideas:

Incendiary Powder

• While all your Toolbelt skills are on cooldown, your weapon skills apply Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds)

• When you apply Burning to foes, every two ticks of Burning damage reduce the cooldown of your Toolbelt skils by 1 second (Cooldown 2 seconds)

• The perennial The next attack after using a Toolbelt skill applies Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds)

• While a Utility skill is on cooldown, your Weapon skills apply Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds)

• Successful Blast Finishers in Combo Fields cause your next attack to inflict Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds) (Dirame’s idea)

TL; DR: Nerfing Incendiary Powder in such a way as to increase the skill floor has been discussed in multiple threads multiple times already. It’s up to the community to find a consensus and push for it to Arenanet.

2 months ago I created 1 thread , expecting it to be swiftly buried underneath all the Skyhammer threads, conditions too OP threads and Warriors are ridiculous threads. The responses I got were surprisingly level headed, although I will say that I didn’t appreciate garethh.3518’s negativity and lack of contribution to the brainstorming, merely shooting down ideas without trying to add anything to the conversation. I appreciate his stance against procs, and I too would like to see crit-procs through traits die a fiery death.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dhuumfire-and-Incendiary-Powder/first

Traits shouldn’t be effects that need constant watching in the game, but instead just emphasize things that already exist.
exc.
exc.

Things like… ‘reduced CD if you have 3 toolbelt skills on CD’, or ‘if you use an ability’ or ‘if you use a toolbelt skill’.

That’d create more of a risk/reward playstyle, if you burn skills you get more back faster, but the enemy will see you burning your CDs so have an idea of how/when your vulnerable.[/quote]

garethh.3518:

MonMalthias.4763:

I will say this: I agree with your assessment that the game is already busy enough with particle effects but your reply kind of says to me that you missed the “after using a toolbelt skill” trigger.

That being said, one can also rework Engineer traits to focus around Fields and Finishers,

And?
If you want to counterplay it?

It seems like you’re trying to make the skill more engaging, I like the effort.
But just know that those added proc ideas are, individually, fine ideas they add a bit to gameplay and more is more, but in GW2… they are hurting the game something terrible. It’s piling complexity and a little depth onto a system drowning in complexity (with little to no depth).

burning after certain action

hide spoiler

It’s a flaming trait, people don’t want to stare at a buff bar, or get pegged by it, before knowing what they have to do.
To boot, it’s adding the burning to ANY attack after, it means it adds an auto attack or next to instant attack (blunderbuss, exc.) to the already lengthy list of things to avoid…
That’s really bad.

The finisher idea is the closest to great, I see so much potential in combo fields, but with the current setup they are ENTIRELY rotations, you setup your own combos and blast right after, not much coordination or skill involved in it… your idea is almost a good improvement because it switches that up a bit to make where you do that rotation matter more… but the down side is… well, already explained the whole ‘nother effect deal a few times now didn’t I?
Complexity verse depth, complexity is the one you want to have the least of in a game, not most

Anyways.
What I’m saying won’t fix the game in a day but is pretty necessary for GW2 to have PvP’ers in a year.

That being said, I do agree with his assessment that procs in general add complexity without depth to play. Design wise, it is difficult to implement procs that increase depth and add variety and differentiation to combat whilst limiting the increase in complexity; whilst having adequate counterplay to balance its power.

I do have the concern that Necro could well become a one trick pony if too much is loaded into Death Shroud. Survivability, condition cover and CC are already loaded into DS – and while I appreciate the why of Dhuumfire moving into DS, I don’t agree with the how.

I also don’t agree with the stance that Dhuumfire should be restricted solely to 2 weapons like Staff or Scepter. There is a risk of making a trait too build-specific, and it’s why Dhuumfire was made to be on-crit in the first place – On-crit is reasonably build-agnostic.

Thankfully, there are other mechanics other than DS to put Dhuumfire on. I’m just brainstorming here, so feel free to input your own.

• On Weapon Swap – Your next attack after swapping weapon sets inflicts Burning (10 second CD). This is reasonably build agnostic, but currently, Weapon swaps aren’t that strongly cued, so the visual effect of green fire enveloping the Necromancer’s weapon can be used. Or a green ring of fire around the Necro’s waist level.

• On applying a control effect – Your next attack after controlling a foe (Immobilise, Fear, Stun, Daze, Knockdown) will inflict Burning. (10 second CD). This restricts Dhuumfire to a condi Terror build, which I guess doesn’t do anything too meta shifting. It does stop the autoattack spam though, which raises the skill floor.

• On manipulating conditions – Your next attack after transferring a condition, drawing conditions to yourself, proliferating conditions or cleansing a condition inflicts Burning. (10 second CD) Necromancers are the kings of conditions and condition control. This makes Necromancers taking Dhuumfire a force to be reckoned with against condi classes, but does restrict Dhuumfire to off hand focus and certain utilities. It will also be a massive nerf to Dhuumfire’s possible uptime.

• On enemy health threshold – Your weapon skills (i.e. 2-5, not autoattacks) inflict burning on foes under (25-33%) health. (10 second CD) This turns Dhuumfire into the condition equivalent of Bolt to the Heart. Unfortunately, it is also extremely poorly cued because opponents running low will suddenly find themselves swamped with condis and burned to death. It also makes Necros running Dhuumfire into a cleanup crew of conditions in a teamfight. Could well be very polarising. Then again, Bolt to the Heart and similar traits don’t seem to receive much flak either.

Maesk.8753:

Didn’t read anything else in the thread but… Turrets need wheels. Make it a gm trait or something. It’d be pretty funny to watch.

Actually on second thought. kitten that. This game doesn’t need more AI clutter.

No. We do not need another MM necro, or Spirit Ranger, or Phantasm Mesmer.

There have been many posts over the past few days with regards to the PVE meta, the upcoming nerf to Critical Damage stacking in Berserker gear, and the ongoing problems with most Dungeon encounters being largely a DPS race. Co-ordinated groups roflstomp content in clear times that were probably not expected by the content designers, whilst PUG groups struggle to even get to a dungeon boss. There have been assertions that GW2’s lack of MMO trinity (Tank, healer, DPS) muddies the waters between roles and as such full DPS has emerged as the way to go given the lack of complicated scripting AI for most PVE encounters.

The problem with GW2 dungeons is not the lack of trinity at all. That assertion makes absolutely no sense when GW2 was designed from the ground up to eliminate the necessity of the Trinity.

What is the problem with GW2’s PvE is 2 things: Defiance, and slow, instagib attacks.

Defiance: It was a slapdash bandaid solution to bosses being stunlocked to death since the public betas and it has never been re-addressed since to the detriment of the PvE community (which is arguably the largest)

• Defiance single handedly eliminated the support/control archetype from dungeon running builds. Content designers have since designed around the Defiance mechanic also, further entrenching this halfway house solution. There are practically no worthy attacks to interrupt because you can just DPS race the boss down before the sequence initiates.
• Interrupting is also not rewarded with a shorter encounter either – which further erodes support/control. DPS has become entrenched in such a toxic fashion because there is no other role that is as efficient. There are no roles because the only role is DPS.

Slow, instagib attacks: – Bosses attack slowly and hit extremely hard, often meaning that Toughness is essentially a wasted stat because it slows you down.

• What attacks there are are therefore one-shot mechanics to punish players that don’t dodge. Again, this further reinforces the DPS race meta.
• If you are to be one shot anyway, what does it matter to have 10% damage reduction when you can DPS the boss down 10% faster and take less attacks?

What should be done is this:

Reworking defiance to re-introduce Support/Control.

• Interrupting a key boss attack should be rewarded with bonus damage to shorten the encounter – the boss should not simply repeat the attack with 5 extra defiance stacks to completely negate your CC efforts.
• This is an interim solution that requires no extra AI – just scripting for the boss to delay its next attack, and for a percentage of its health to drop off and make the encounter easier.
• Rewarding clutch interrupts will slowly bring back the control/archetype, but this is not enough on its own.

Bosses must attack faster, but hit softer.

• Toughness is a wasted stat at the moment. Semi-tanky builds are numerically inferior to Glass cannons.
• With this change, Toughness does have a value in surviving an encounter along with all the other support stats like Boon Duration or Healing Power.
• This is an interim solution until more advanced efforts, like designing Bosses to have PvP centric mechanics can be implemented. Bosses cannot simply be a damage sponge that you dodge. It must have combos it will try to pull off to try to kill you. Before you start, spamming AOE Red circles does not engaging boss fights make.
• In terms of advanced boss AI design, I’m talking Poisoning your heals, Dazing your rezzes, interrupting your burst combos, ripping/corrupting/stealing your Boons, teleporting to a Trebuchet and AOE nuking your dungeon runners.

For the future
Make it easy on your content designers and give a boss a PvP meta build, like Condi Necro, Bomb/Nade Engi or Triple Stance Hambow Warrior with a Doom Sigil, or something super cheesy like 1-shot Signet Thief.

• Make your players fight several of these builds all at the same time.
• Now you have research data and metrics on how these builds are strong.
• You have insight into balance because you’ve now got an underground PTR of players fighting against and learning how to counter these builds
• This also introduces the possibility of introducing new skills, traits and mechanics into the game through the PvE “ghetto PTR”. You can test your changes before they go live against groups of varying co-ordination so you can have an estimate of the effects of your changes at all levels of play and skill.

Ambrecombe.4398:

If they reduce the duration of net turret immobilize to 2sec, they should consider to drop the firerate to 10sec to make it on par with the Warrior Bola and the Leg Specialist trait wich have both a 1/5 immobilisation uptime. This way Net Turret shall have a 1/5 immobilize uptime to and it will all be fair.

I don’t see why our turret should be nerfed if the Warrior can do even better when it comes to pinning down targets.

Leg Specialist is unambiguously a Melee oriented trait though, while Net Turret is potentially a ranged CC. Albeit with heavy heavy counterplay, but still. The Leg Specialist trait is balanced around that.

Anyway, as I have said before, the whole discussion is moot if Turret bugs are left unaddressed. Balance should not even enter into the discussion when bugs that affect the basic functionality of Turrets are left unchecked, because “fixing” the imbalance could well leave the bug that causes the underlying issue unaddressed.

I can see where Anet is coming from with the nerf though. Supply Crate is arguably the best Elite in the game in terms of 1v1s – 1 clutch crate can turn a duel or even a teamfight. What disappoints me is that Anet has taken the lazy solution of leaving the Net Turret “unforked” – when Anet changed Healing Turret, they “forked” the Healing Turret of Supply Crate and left it as the old implementation. As it is, Net Turret is pretty under-represented in most of Engineer’s Meta builds and this change will further entrench its place in the “ignore” pile.

[Corruption.]
Create a pulsing field at target location. The field cripples foes. Foes in the field that are already crippled are chilled. Foes in the field that are already chilled are knocked down.

To clarify this, do you mean to say that the field first Cripples, then Chills, then Knocks down after every pulse? Keep in mind that in terms of CC, the only class with AOE forms of it on weapon and utility slots are the Necro (Fear wall) and Warrior (Hammer Earthshaker). Even Engineer, king of CC, is only allowed AOE CC on its Elite – and at 3 minutes of cooldown it is still far and away the most potent skill of the Engineer profession – if not the best in slot Elite.

With regards to Blunderbuss, I feel that the skill is fine as is. However to balance it in the context of your vision for combat, it could be made more cued. The classic “shotgun loading ch-chk” foley SFX could play instead of the more ambiguous “charging up” SFX.

• To increase risk reward, it could be made a charge skill with increasing damage the longer you charge, up to 2 seconds – which would allow for duel-ending bursts, but unambiguously requires hard CC from utilities.
• To punish people “fishing” for enders, the cooldown could be increased the longer Blunderbuss was charged – up to 25 seconds. So you could “spam” Level 1 Blunderbuss as poke, or charge it to level 4 and hope you don’t miss.
• Longer CD for missing could also be an alternative, but having a strong hybridised burst in a CC heavy class that is potentially spammable at 15 second CD would simply raise the skill floor without addressing abuse potential.

The problem with GW2 dungeons is not the lack of trinity at all. That assertion makes absolutely no sense when GW2 was designed from the ground up to eliminate the necessity of the Trinity.

It’s like saying that WoW’s success as an MMO was due to the graphics at the time. It is a complete non-sequitur.

What is the problem with GW2’s PvE is 2 things: Defiance, and slow, instagib attacks.

Defiance: It was a slapdash bandaid solution to bosses being stunlocked to death since the public betas and it has never been re-addressed since. Defiance single handedly eliminated the support/control archetype from dungeon running builds. Content designers have since designed around the Defiance mechanic also, further entrenching this halfway house solution. There are practically no worthy attacks to interrupt because you can just DPS race the boss down before the sequence initiates. Interrupting is also not rewarded with a shorter encounter either – which further erodes support/control

Slow, instagib attacks – Bosses attack slowly and hit extremely hard, often meaning that Toughness is essentially a wasted stat because it slows you down. What attacks there are are therefore one-shot mechanics to punish players that don’t dodge. Again, this further reinforces the DPS race meta.

What should be done is:

• Reworking defiance to re-introduce Support/Control. Interrupting a key boss attack should be rewarded with bonus damage to shorten the encounter – the boss should not simply repeat the attack with 5 extra defiance stacks to completely negate your CC efforts. This is an interim solution that requires no extra AI – just scripting for the boss to delay its next attack, and for a percentage of its health to drop off and make the encounter easier.

• Bosses must attack faster, but hit softer. Toughness is a wasted stat at the moment. Semi-tanky builds are numerically inferior to Glass cannons. With this change, Toughness does have a value in surviving an encounter along with all the other support stats like Boon Duration or Healing Power. Before you start, Agony is not this mechanic as Agony is a Gear check.

Anyway, thanks for the non-sequitur.

Happy travails!

That’s a good idea, actually. Half the brouhaha around stances revolved around them being simply “too weak” for their long cooldown. Half duration for half cooldown would be a pretty smart change as it bypasses that.

DiogoSilva.7089:

“Okay, this builds is really strong. But it’s also way too easy to master. Before nerfing it, let’s make it more skill demanding. Okay, done. Now, will it still need a nerf?”

This is a concept that should have been explored more thoroughly earlier in GW2’s lifecycle, in my opinion. Play at all levels revolves around execution. In theory, Higher power builds should require marginally higher mechanical skill to execute. Extra Credit’s video on balancing for skill says pretty much everything I need to say regarding the topic, so I’ll leave that linked.

The problem comes when powerful skills require almost no thought at all. It’s unhealthy for the game’s longevity because it crowds out players and builds with higher execution, and the result is a stagnant meta where; whilst new players can pick it up and play, they soon leave for the lack of depth.

A nerf by raising the requirements for execution may also simply involve introducing a better mode of counterplay. Take the nerf to Rappel for Elise in League of Legends for example.

Rappel is a skill where Elise gains temporary invulnerability and can later drop on an enemy target within its circular range.

• The previous version of the skill also incorporated a little extra range outside of the targeting circle as “training wheels”
• The nerf happens when the community improves (Riot tracks its metrics for win rates) with Elise to the extent that the little extra range is no longer needed
• As a result, enemy players now have a clearer way to counterplay Rappel where previously this was not as clear.

A balancing change like this can be seen to follow the Extra Credits model of “taking the training wheels off” strategy of balance. GW2’s community is mature enough now that a lot of, say, auto-tracking skills that might be considered “cheap”, or hard to counterplay skills, could be nerfed in such a way that the skill floor is raised, and the community is better for it.

Even if we as players do not consciously notice it happening, Arenanet is in fact moving away from the crit-proc condi application concept

• Dhuumfire implemented the “nerfed” version of Incendiary Powder. At 100% to apply on crit every 10 seconds, the requirement of Precision is essentially abrogated to achieve full uptime of Burning procs. The old version of Incendiary Powder whilst having the possibility of 100% uptime through Nightmare Runes, Sigil of Smouldering and 30 points in Explosives required a crit chance of 40%+ to achieve full uptime. Otherwise your crit rate was just too low to get the most out of the trait; which limited IP to Rampager or Rabid builds.

• Unfortunately, Arenanet still seems to be sticking to it’s core design for now in terms of merely requiring a critical hit. If anything, the Condi meta will end when the crit-proc mechanic is replaced by something else, and not any time sooner.

• Crit procs are easy in terms of implementation and (theoretically) introduces the Precision requirement, which is probably why Arenanet went for it in the first place.

• Replacing the “On crit” mechanic will not be easy. “On Weapon swap” is probably out of the question as it turns an RNG problem into a time-gated problem. Ultimately, a rework will require a critical review of what each profession is good at and starting from there. For Engineers as an example, several Crit procs could be replaced by “on executing Blast finisher in Combo Field” as Blast finishers abound in the profession.

• Similarly, the “condi-counter design” needs to be further developed. In this vein, GW2 devs could look at GW1’s conditional trigger design for debuffs. I’ve yet to see things like “gain a stack of Might for each Condition cleansed” or “deal more damage for each condition on you” – these are triggers that should be further explored.

Cleanse and counter-cleanse is an arms race. It’s a zero sum game. New concepts need to be introduced.

It will be a lot of work and a lot of balancing headaches if we are to move past the condi meta; which is probably why things are as they are right now. It will take a large, concerted effort of changes and I’m not sure that is something Arenanet will be willing to execute right now.

Fundamentally, the whole Condition system is not as flawed as people make it out to be.

• The “stacks” of Conditions gives granularity to the defending player and a good estimation of how fast they are ticking down → Mo’ stacks, mo’ damage. Recent changes to the Condition tickers further enhances the player’s ability to track their status.

• The “last in, first out” mechanic allows tactical play. In theory, you are supposed to bait out opponent cleanses before applying your doom stack of Bleeds or that 10 second Burn, then “cover it” with another separate condition to seal the deal.

• Conditions do take longer to kill than direct damage, despite what people say about instagib Necro fearchains or “forever burning” condi-bomber Engineers. The design decision to allow Condition classes to have defensive stats is sound. You have a duality of playstyles – semi-tanky Condi, or GC Power. Remember that Condition damage stacks linearly while Power damage stacks _multiplicatively. – so your returns on Condi damage come up only when you’ve invested significantly more point for point than when you invest into Power, Precision and Crit damage (unfortunately the current layout of Amulets in no way reflects this).

The “condi meta” is a confluence of several things to form a “perfect storm” as it were. It is not solely due to the emergence of “condi-bunkers”.

• The first was that players realised that even with high stacks of DPS DOTs, lack of condition variety to “cover” stacks meant that even single cleanses had high potency

• The second was that the classes with the greatest mitigation against conditions – Guardian and Elementalist – were nerfed in terms of their survivability against conditions. This eliminated a key predator to condi builds.

• The third was that people started to employ crit-procs more, as well as Sigils of Earth (Engineer) or Hydromancy/Doom (Necromancer). More “junk” conditions → more “covered” stacks.

• The addition of Burning through Dhuumfire on Necros as well as the addition of Torment added to the condi diversity which further reinforced the covering of DPS DOTs by more Junk conditions.

The Condi meta is now in full swing, due to large amounts of condi-applying auto-attacks proccing more condis; high condition diversity to cover DOT stacks; and an immature Condi-counter design

What I meant by “immature condi-counter design” is that up until now, Arenanet had not fully considered the possibility of a Condi-meta taking hold. People had been fully occupied with the Direct damage/quickness meta for so long that the traits, skills and toolset with regards to direct damage for most classes was well developed – Aegis, Block, Blind, Dodge, Port, Weakness

Unfortunately there exist only 2 mechanics to directly counter conditions: Cleansing and converting. This exists across most classes thanks to various traits, utilities and Lyssa runes; however Necromancer also has access to Condi transfer as an exclusive to its class design. Compare this with the 3 against Conditions – Dodging, Block and Blind (Most condi builds have a condi-applying autoattack which negates Aegis; Teleports don’t work when most application is AOE and a single hit can still proc the full effect of condis. Weakness does not affect Condition damage).

Since Dodging is the one thing that all classes have in common, along with Vigor and Sigil of Energy, of course there’s going to be an explosion of professions and builds that abuse it. You have to be able to dodge more than once per 10 seconds to survive in a condi meta where even a single autoattack is potentially thousands of HP left uncleansed.

In my view, addressing the Condi Meta will not come from completely reworking Conditions to crit.

Instead, Arenanet needs to abandon the crit-proc condition application concept altogether

Gokil.2543:

While this solution is very appealing to all of us experienced players on the forums, it’s not exactly a pure win-win. By making every skill harder to master, your pvp becomes less accessible. From an outside standpoint it always seems better to solve things ‘intelligently’, but in the long run, after countless skills and traits have been rebalanced to be more active, combat starts becoming less reactive. Which is the current strength of GW2 combat. The simplicity allows for a setting in which you can easily learn how to deal with other professions, whereas the more of these changes you implement, the more you need to know about the game and particularly what the meta builds are and what their weakness is.

What I’m trying to say is that your solution is fine for experienced players, but people who are just getting into the game will be less effective, and this gets worse the longer you keep up this approach. GW1 was an extreme example, where new players were mathematically ineffective unless they looked up what builds to run and mindlessly wrecked people until the meta shifted

I do agree with you in that GW1 was clearly an example of an extreme outgrowth of the whole “Build Wars” problem where buildcrafting trumped mechanical skill, but the thing is that GW2 combat is dominated at the moment by these very “Build Wars” builds that are low skill floor (and ceiling) and high reward in terms of achieving very good survivability and damage (Case in point: Hambow Warrior). I can tell you now that people entering PvP as a newb will be just as flummoxed and frustrated by low skill floor builds as they would be by high skill floor builds.

The only difference there would be that the new player would see the veterans executing cool mechanical stuff like animation cancels and think, “how can I do that?”. With low skill ceiling builds such development can be stymied.

In fact I’d argue the complete opposite here – high skill floor and ceiling builds, while mechanically demanding, require a player to learn mechanical mastery. Whilst in GW1 a player could look up a meta build template, spawn in with a quick readthrough and be potent enough, GW2 combat is mechanically demanding enough that you can quickly tell which players are new – even if they are playing a meta build.

I’d also argue that with the proliferation of hard counters, passive procs, internal cooldowns that remain difficult to track (Where was it that a dev promised that we could be able to track Trait ICDs again?) – the game has become more obtuse and hard to get into than it was from launch. As an Engineer fighting a Spirit Ranger, I had no idea that it was the Lightning Spirit that was spiking me for 4k to my death for the first couple matchups. I had to look up LS and discover that it was a passive proc of the Spirit, not the Ranger. That’s not “simple combat”

We told them about Kit Refinement

We told them

It keeps happening

All is vain

Now, presuming all Turret bugs are fixed, sometime in the near future (hopefully before 2101AD, when War was Beginning), there are several aspects of Turret builds that Engineers lack:

• Burst damage – Turrets have a dire lack of followup DPS after their CC, while their inconsistent Condi application means that even if they do scale with Condi damage, they still suck in a Condi build. Lack of Power Scaling also severely curtails any direct damage Turret build.
• Condition Clear – Only Healing Turret can Cleanse and no traits support Cleansing from Toolbelts or Turrets
• Down State control – (By which I mean, Stealth/Stability uptime to secure stomps and rezzes, corpse cleave, Poison uptime) – The only “hard CC” Engineers have for stomp denial is Accelerant Packed Turrets, Overcharged Net Turret, Overcharged Rocket Turret – but all other aspects of Down State Control are completely absent
• Immobility – Turrets may establish a strong firebase of CC and condi application, but their immobility means that many opponents can engage outside of their range, and their fragility makes Turrets a liability in today’s AOE heavy meta. Turrets by themselves also have no ability to bring an opponent into range – they are only threatening if an opponent chooses to engage.
• Dull and Weak Toolbelt Skills – Turret Toolbelt skills are almost entirely boring – from straight damage like Surprise Shot and Rocket, to situational utility like Rumble.
• Finisher heavy, Field weak – Weapon Kits can bring so many more Combo Fields and Finishers to the table that Turrets are completely outclassed. Blast Finishers dominate the Turret skills, yet Engineer Weapon skills by themselves have no Combo Field. Also keep in mind that while Blast Finishers do dominate, to execute one requires the sacrifice of a Turret – often for inconsequential reward.

Hopefully this post can spur some discussion to address some of these weaknesses in Turret builds – while remaining fair and readable (and therefore counterplayable) and keeping in mind the possibility of Power Creep. Remember, builds other than Turret Only builds can also utilise Turrets. Keep in mind the abuse potential that may result.

herrard.1274:

I would like to see turrets give off a buff specifically stability which I think engineers need better access to. I don’t mind turrets being stationary (they’re turrets after all) but we need help to be able to stand around it to at least try and defend it (the thing is made of glass) without being tossed around by hammers or perma-feared everywhere..

While Engineer as a profession has poor access to Stability, more passive procs and auras is not what it needs right now given how many there are already on Engineer:

• From critical hits (Incendiary Powder, Shrapnel, Sharpshooter, Infused Precision, Precise Sights, Go for the Eyes),
• From health thresholds (Reserve Mines, Exploit Weakness, Target the Weak, Low Health Response System, Automated Medical Response, Hidden Flask, Self Regulating Defenses, Protection Injection, Automated Response, Inertial Converter)
• From enemy triggers such as enemy hits and critical hits (Protective Shield, Stabilised Armour, Cloaking Device, Acidic Coating, Protection Injection)

As you can see, there are a lot. Trait passives are also rarely playstyle-altering. How would a Turret Engineer play any different if instead he had perma-Stability? I’m going to take a wild guess and say – not too much different, except he now laughs at CC. The same can also be said of things like Self Regulating Defenses. Engineers have exactly the same order of priorities and thoughts at 100% HP as they do at 25% HP – except now they get a brief invuln at 25%.

Turrets already have Passive traits – Metal Plating, Autotool Installation, Rifled Turret Barrels. The only 2 out of 5 “Active” Traits are Accelerant Packed Turrets and Deployable Turrets. Less than half. Adding a Stability aura won’t change how Turret Engineer plays aside from introducing new imbalance.6

K U T M.4539:

MonMalthias.4763:

Eh, for Power builds, double-dodging then placing a Bomb with BK or putting up some CC can be that last spike of 3-4k you need to down someone.

But yeah, Evasive Powder Keg is a pretty trash trait. That said, I don’t run Cloaking Device and I Stealth using Jump Shot, Rocket Boots or HT Detonate to guarantee that I don’t do damage when trying to escape. I’d have used my dodges earlier during the duel so the point is moot.

I wouldn’t mind if it did something else entirely, for sure.

Perhaps this:

• Drop a blinding Flash Grenade when you dodge (This grenade deals no damage, and detonates 1 second after your dodge).

The Flash grenade is well cued visually, and a 1 second delay is plenty of reaction time for your opponents to counterplay and also try to dodge it. Now both you and your opponent are a dodge down – or, if they weren’t so clever, a weapon skill down.

Engineers should definitely become batman.

I long for the day that Engineer gets the Grappling Hook and the Utility belt.

I AM THE NIGHT!

I do like this idea of making a “nerf” to a skill or trait something that raises the skill floor of it.

As an Elementalist, how would you change S/x Fresh Air Zerker to make the burst have better counterplay? As it stands, the burst comes out instantly and is poorly cued – It usually starts with LF→Updraft→Arcane Skills→Lighting Strike→Fire Attunement→Phoenix→Ring of Fire (Maybe fire grab if Target is Burning)

I like this idea from this thread…

ELEMENTALIST CHANGES
Scepter main-hand skills
[Lightning Strike] – named changed to Lightning Bolt (to diminish combat log confusion)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Strike foes at the target location with a lightning bolt.
• Damage: 403 (1.2)
• Delay: 1 second
• Radius: 120
• Range: 900
  • Now creates a red circle on the ground.
  • [Lightning Strike]’s original functionality remains the same for passive triggers such as swapping to Air Attunement with 15 into Air Magic or the RNG proc on Runes of Air (6/6).

Working off this idea what do you think about making the Lightning Strikes from Scepter 2 Air, Fresh Air and Electric Discharge having a delay before the damage applies? What I mean is:

• When you Lightning Strike a foe from Fresh Air/Scepter Air 2/Electric Discharge, a Ring of Electricity appears around the target’s feet. 0.75 seconds later, the target is struck by the Lightning Strikes and Damage

The same delay could also be applied to a lot of other instant damage procs besides Lightning Strike but the thing here is that if the target Stunbreaks the damage and has Endurance, the damage can be dodged.

What do you think?

Mightymealworm.8409:

F2- attempt to block the next attack, consumes adrenaline. 0 adrenaline, 0% blocked. 1 bar, 33% damage blocked. 2 bars, 66% damage blocked. 3 bars 100% blocked. 10 second cool down.

Now its part of class mechanic. Sacrifice burst for blocking.

I dunno, tying percentage damage blocked to Adrenaline would further entrench Cleansing Ire as “mandatory” for all Warrior builds.

Maybe 1 second of Block out of every 5 seconds? or 2 out of every 10? The cooldown should be short enough that you can block for a short duration very frequently.

Maybe make it so that if you Block you stand still or have a ~50% movement speed penalty, so you sacrifice mobility for defense.

Also Blocking should generate Adrenaline such that Cleansing Ire should not be the “only trait to take for frequent Burst skill users” – though the condi removal is extremely valuable.

Finally, more skills like Riposte and Counterblow should be implemented. There are far too many DPS skills and far too few “Punisher” skills – and what Punisher skills there are are essentially only used for their secondary effect.

Tim.6450:

I think this would be a great idea, we could even tie it to adrenaline. It would also promote defensive gear to reduce that last bit of damage. Only downside we practily have to redesign every weapon.

Unfortunately this is absolutely true. Introducing a completely new mechanic like this may prove to be “too much work” for something so fantastic to see the light of day.

One can dream though. Get hype about this!

adrianz.9672:

Anymras.5729:

I think there’s a few things that should be done to improve Turrets. Some of them have been brought up already – Digiowl, for example, brings up an interesting suggestion which I will shamelessly bolt onto my already existing two. Ignore the weld-marks, it was there all along.

1. First and foremost, fix the bloody bugs.

MonMalthias.4763:

Turret Bugs should definitely be fixed before anything else.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Fix the 20+ turret bugs first before discussing possible balance.

I know that there is a list of those bugs somewhere on the internet. Do any of you have a link?

Anymras’s 27+ Turret Bug list of fear and wonderment

Rieselle.5079:

JonPeters.5630:

The biggest problem is IMO is actually the active heal. If we reduce the passive without doing something to make the active useful, we are just creating a different problem. Truly the active on this skill right now is in the following place. When I see someone press it I think “No No No don’t do that!” We are discussion some options here so if you want this to be constructive give suggestions towards improving the active. Reducing the passive is easy to do but we will not do it without solving the other problem. Also we will not greatly reduce it because it is giving Warriors a sense of sturdiness that we want their profession to have. Without strong heals, Warriors feel too much like everyone else. Setting them apart with strong heals has been good for changing their playstyle feel, but we agree it needs some tweaks.
Jon

“Without strong heals, warriors feel too much like everyone else.”

This is the justification given for Warriors having a powerful passive heal.

I totally disagree with this. If we want warriors to feel different, why not give them fighting-game style on-demand blocking? Or some other form of active defense?

Let’s make block reduce damage by 80% (instead of 100%) and make all warrior blocking skills have very short cooldowns and fairly short durations.

Also let’s give them some sort of block skill as a utility so all warriors can have at least 1 block move. (lets say the utility version reduces damage by 50% only…)

Now warriors feel different to other classes. So maybe you could remove the warrior’s passive healing. (replace with some other effect, like damage boost whilst full health or something.)

Holy kitten this idea is amazing.

You are amazing.

It’s “active defense”, addresses passive regen, and allows the Warrior to be the “tanky beast” Arenanet wants it to be.

I long for the days that Shield Bash in its GW1 form can also be implemented. It’s design like this that needs to return to GW2.

Eh, for Power builds, double-dodging then placing a Bomb with BK or putting up some CC can be that last spike of 3-4k you need to down someone.

But yeah, Evasive Powder Keg is a pretty trash trait. That said, I don’t run Cloaking Device and I Stealth using Jump Shot, Rocket Boots or HT Detonate to guarantee that I don’t do damage when trying to escape. I’d have used my dodges earlier during the duel so the point is moot.

I wouldn’t mind if it did something else entirely, for sure.

Perhaps this:

• Drop a blinding Flash Grenade when you dodge (This grenade deals no damage, and detonates 1 second after your dodge).

The Flash grenade is well cued visually, and a 1 second delay is plenty of reaction time for your opponents to counterplay and also try to dodge it. Now both you and your opponent are a dodge down – or, if they weren’t so clever, a weapon skill down.

amiable.4823:

MonMalthias.4763:

The purpose of this thread is to explore various ways we can change certain traits for the Engineer such that:
- They are no longer predicated by RNG and thus more reliable
- Without RNG to hold a mechanic back (due to risk of consistent reapplication), traits can be changed to be more situational and therefore more powerful
- By making traits more situational, trait choices can predicate new playstyle choices: more builds are possible
- Having a reliable situational trigger deepens tactical depth by allowing counterplay. Counterplay reinforces and rewards mechanical skill

I was answering your question. The RNG we are discussing here is the application of conditions upon crit mechanic. I was just pointing out that there is clear counterplay to that because the damage is not frontloaded and by definition there is at least sometime to react. If the problem is condition spam (which this effectively is) a player can defeat it using condition removal mechanisms.

You don’t like RNG, I get it. Most good players hate RNG because they want to know what their keypress does, every single time, it’s what makes things like Elixer X, U and many of the toolbelt elixir skills (non-traited) impractical in serious play. It makes it difficult to really excel with the class. Hoewever I think the IP example you use really isn’t the best example of this, because as you point out it is reltively consistent pressure that an opponent can understand and expect (they will most likely be getting a 5 second burn every 10 seconds). That understanding allows a counter.

Ostricheggs also mentioned the “5 second metronome” out of every 10 seconds. It’s something to counterplay Dhuumfire/Incendiary Powder, but I feel that it’s basically “every 5 seconds, Dodge the Engineer’s autoattack”.

MonMalthias.4763:

amiable.4823:

MonMalthias.4763:

• Do you think that Engineer is improved in gameplay with RNG procs? If so, how do you counterplay against such procs?

There is clear counterplay to all conditions in the form of condition removal/melandru runes, certain foods in WvW, support builds with condition removal, etc…

If the current Meta is heavy condition then you need to adjust your build to account for that, almost every class can have very good condition removal on a relatively short cooldown IF they decide to spec for it. Many classes can apply that condition removal to others as well.

@Amiable:
I don’t see where you’re going with your post. I also don’t think you’ve read the OP.

Your answer essentially boils down to – “In a condi meta, bring more condi removal and counterbuild against condis”

Well that’s great and all, but it fails to address the topic at discussion.

Right now condi-burst is a thing – where you load up the opponent with as many DPS conditions as are possible (Burning, Bleed stacks 6+) through RNG crit-procs, condi-loading autos, and utilities that inflict condis – then cover with “junk” conditions like Torment (Necromancer, Thief, Mesmer, Warrior); Vulnerability (Engineer with 25+ Explosives); Weakness (Necromancer, Mesmer); Poison (Engineer, Thief, Necromancer) – then play defensively until the opponent dies of DOTs.

The issue being discussed is not “bring condi removal in a condi meta”.

The issue here is that many condition applying skills also proc other conditions ; typically through RNG Crit-procs.
Traits, sigils and yes, even Runes (Nightmare, the worst offender) exist to turn even a single auto-attack into Bleed/Burn/Poison/Vulnerability/Whatever.

It leads to:

- Random dodges, because you don’t know when an opponent’s ICDs are up – See: NevirSayDie’s points about fighting Necro Staff marks – dodge pre-emptively (Visually unscoutable procs lead to uncertainties of play and erodes the tactical use of the dodge mechanic in lieu of dodging whenever, because you’re bound to dodge something)

- Skill spam – hey, if X trait procs off RNG surely rolling the dice more often will make it come up, right? Especially egregious with Necromancers, but also present in Engineers

- An increase in the complexity of the game whilst decreasing depth . The game becomes more “spammy” and more about casting on cooldown rather than intelligent, measured play.

- Obtuseness of play. When you have died to Spirit Ranger procs and have gone “wtf happened to my last 5k HP?” you’ll understand what this means. Basically, players don’t know why they die and/or what they die to – neither of which is conducive to fun. It leads to QQ threads and forum toxicity – where is the fun in that?

- No counterplay. What incentive is there to become mechanically proficient if you are playing against the RNG? Just spam away and hope for the best that your spam beats your opponent’s spam. It lowers skillcap to rely on passives – look at the entire Ranger profession and shudder.

The purpose of this thread is to explore various ways we can change certain traits for the Engineer such that:
- They are no longer predicated by RNG and thus more reliable
- Without RNG to hold a mechanic back (due to risk of consistent reapplication), traits can be changed to be more situational and therefore more powerful
- By making traits more situational, trait choices can predicate new playstyle choices: more builds are possible
- Having a reliable situational trigger deepens tactical depth by allowing counterplay. Counterplay reinforces and rewards mechanical skill