Guild Wars 2

Indeed – you play the game that IS. Right now the dungeons game is very much Berserker friendly… and still will be.

When do people not complain?

But good players adapt.

Warlord.9074:

I don’t think this is correct. Its not 7x small. Its still 6x Small 1x minor just the minor is now smaller because its a 10% nerf.

Nope. Celestial’s crit damage was BOTH swapped to ferocity and reduced in numerical value.

So now Cavaliers with be 1 major/ 1 minor / 1 small.

Also not true.

Chrispy.5641:

Other professions have to unfairly decide which weapon traits to leave at home already, and some people never take all the relevant traits at once because a different trait would make the build more powerful. Should Rangers be the exception to that rule?

Out of curiosity, name three weapons in any profession other than Ranger that you cannot get all the traits for.

As a person tired of being auto-crit stabbed to death from stealth, yeah, I’m not sold on the old school glory of the existing crit damage rules .

But at the end of the day, good players will adapt and one-trick ponies will leave.

haviz.1340:

You know that “best” by definition can only include one thing? You can’t have 2 completely different playstyles being the best.

But you can close the gap between 1st and 2nd place.

Some sports they actually have to track down to the 100th of a second because differences in performance are just that tight .

All sets are having their percent value shifted to an amount of Ferocity equal to the number that would normaly be ther for a main or off stat. This is a nerf for all crit damage gear by design.

Celestial is getting double-nerfed by being changed to ferocity AND being dropped from a primary value all the way down to a tertiary value (think ‘if you have 120 before, now it’ll be more like 38’).

The 6% bonus to other stats is the tradeoff for the second nerf. Cavalier doesn’t suffer the second nerf so its not eligible for the 6%.

I think it might be more intended to hurt all power-based damage builds, while being pretty harmless to condition damage, support, control, and survivability oriented builds.

JahRo.6432:

It wasn’t for full damage. It was to maximize crit damage, while giving up little. I’m not angry about PvE, since anything in PvE is full zerk anyway. This is for WvW only. What kittenes me off is that I spent time and money theorycrafting only to render it sub-par.

So what will you be shifting to?

JahRo.6432:

I’ll be losing the equivalent of 37% crit damage to gain 13.2 of all stats. Seems logical to me.

In all seriousness, it you were focused on doing damage, why were you wearing Celestial?

The trait is interesting (I’m not a big fan of Elementalist gameplay but I like the option). I’m waiting to see what percentage of outgoing healing the Sigil gives because yeah, that looks like an awesome new tool.

And no, 36 is not an amazing jump, but if you largely didn’t care about crit damage in the first place getting 36 healing, power, condition damage, precision, vitality, and toughness does add up.

Chrispy.5641:

I have a small [room full of sharp things] of weapons just for stacking on-kill sigils. on the 15th, depending on the full list of changes, its all salvage now.

I’m not in favor of the on-kill sigil change in any way, since it will reduce build diversity to an extent (for example, preventing an out of combat weapon change with those sigils will prevent me from maximizing my condition build the way I do now), but I understand why they did it and it does keep the game simple for new players.

I’m not in favor of gaining bonuses from gear that’s not actually equipped .

This is about giving those two professions the same number of equipment slots as everyone else without changing their profession flavor as “one weapon, four modes” or “one weapons and kits”.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

If you think the 6% is gonna help you Nike, then your math isn’t very good (no offense meant though). It’s just vit/healing/thoughness combo wise celestial already isn’t very good (there are better options) 6% first of all on it’s own is tremendous low, but with rounding errors, and low value on armor it will be even worse.

Ok, lets pretend I’m playing GuildWars 2, a game were support largely gets crapped on, but you can still do it. No support player anywhere is allowed to just do support – they have to do damage AND support if they’re going to contribute. Prior to the introduction of Zealot gear, your options for single adjective combinations of healing power and power were… Cleric and Celestial. The end.

Since Zealot came out I’ve refit two of my support/damage 80s into it and on the whole I’m happy with the results, but I still have a lot of Celestial armor laying around and losing some crit damage for more healing power and power and everything else is just not making me a sad panda.

I’m not saying its not a nerf to damage-uber-alles set ups that were dipping into Celestial for some cheap crit bonus. I think its a very deliberate nerf to those builds. But for mine its an acceptable trade off.

nicknamenick.2437:

also they deleted my topic, thanx Anet!

They merged it with this one. Your post is still there in all its frothing glory.

It will agree benefiting from a piece of gear you no longer have equipped its not an option anymore .

I will so not miss the players who measure their awesome by the crit damage number on their character sheet.

haviz.1340:

Nike.2631:

DUH. Now read the statement I was responding to and COUNT THE PROFESSIONS BEING LISTED. Do you see two, or do you see FIVE?

Nonsense argument is nonsense.

No, but some of them were.

I could say the same thing about that what you said about the first thing.

And yet the game will only agree with one of us, come April 15th.

They are considered balanced as they are now by the Devs. Giving them more slots does not represent a zero-sum change.

My idea is that you have the potential to hold on to a 250 stack of stat buff while not having that weapon in play (like all the other professions can). If you think that’s worthless in combat you may want to think again.

bigmonto.4215:

How about a show of hands on who plans to keep the new celestial set or pieces with the new stats? I certainly don’t, not even for my guardian. Celestials basically becomes total crap.

I intend to. I wear Celestial on support builds, not DPS. While the change costs me some spike damage, I’m reasonably satisfied the gains in survivability, support, and even base damage (yay more power and condition damage) are adequate recompense for my purposes.

With the changing importance of keeping stacks-on-kill weapons equipped to retain the stacks (a change I’m hugely in favor of) there needs to be a small change made to the two professions with fewer equipped weapons slots: Elementalist and Engineer.

These two profession should be given the 3rd and 4th Terrestrial weapon slots and a 2nd Aquatic Weapon slot — but ONLY be able to swap weapons out of combat.

This gives them the same potential to hold the revised sigils in an “equipped slot” without any change to their combat effectiveness whatsoever.

Its a simple fix. Please make it so.

In an ideal world, Elementalists and Engineers will be given the 3rd and 4th Terrestrial weapon slots and a 2nd Aquatic Weapon slot but only be able to swap weapons out of combat.

Nike.2631:

Really? How? Walk me through it.

haviz.1340:

For eles&engies: they have 2 slots for sigils, others have 4.

DUH. Now read the statement I was responding to and COUNT THE PROFESSIONS BEING LISTED. Do you see two, or do you see FIVE?

Nonsense argument is nonsense.

If that were true, why would they change it?

So every change they made was fixing exploits? :o

No, but some of them were.

Again, they aren’t a reward. They’re a coupon encouraging you to buy another characters slot.

Oh boy, more warriors aren’t OP defenders. If the Devs or anyone else agreed, they wouldn’t be getting nerfed.

Oh, side note – did you see the size of the PvP CDI (4 pages) vs. the size of the others? PvP is a blip compared to the general usage patterns of the GW2 player base as a whole and it needs to STOP being the benchmark the Balance Team designs around.

NoTrigger.8396:

arenanet hast learned absolutely nothing. they are destroying their own game.

Funny. I’d have said stagnation was destroying the game.

i mean guards or warriors can simply use a stacking sigill in the new 2-handed weapon slot. but eles and engis, thiefs, rangers and mesmer are pretty much kittened.

Really? How? Walk me through it.

it was working as intended by design. so no, it wasnt an exploit.

If that were true, why would they change it?

The item is an incentive to make alts. That’s ALL it is. It’s not going to change.

Um, just because I give slightly less than a skrit’s rump that an expansion be about Elona or Cantha, or the Crystal Desert or any other place we’ve already seen brought back for the sake of nostalgia does not mean I’m opposed to expansion. This post makes one contingent on the other and No, I don’t think that’s necessary or desirable.

I didn’t play GW1 for more than about 10 hours and the nostalgia festival means very, very little to me (and given how many more GW2 players there are than GW1, I have to guess a lot of people are not pining for ‘the old days’).

I’d be interested in Cantha because I enjoy just about any fantasy setting that manages to not be poorly re-enacted feudal Europe, but No. I don’t think its the only way that development can or should go.

Berk.8561:

Nike.2631:

Aridia.3042:

Still no piercing and quick draw merge I see.

Really? How can you tell?

The presence of Piercing Arrows as a distinct trait in the screen shot in the announcements seems like a pretty strong clue, does it not?

Yes, but you can’t see what it does, or if quick draw still exists. You have a name and a position, nothing more.

((Shrug)) Could be. Didn’t feel the need to challenge him on it.

Honestly, I don’t think the current system is going to survive long enough for it to have that large of an impact outside of a very small percentage of players.

A guy is my guild was showing off his +30. So I’m not really sure what all the fuss is over one in the teens…

…and this is why many activities are about to be further incentivized by unlocking Traits…

emikochan.8504:

An expansion is just an entire LS season in 1 patch.

That you can play at your own pace…

Painbow.6059:

From a purely PVE perspective, the trait is trash

From a purely PVE perspective anything that’s not ‘moar deeeps!’ is trash because nothing in PVE is dangerous.

Every class is set up ~

Line 1. Damage
Line 2. Damage
Line 3. Survivability
Line 4. Support
Line 5. Class mechanics

The fact that they are not in alphabetical order makes it pretty obvious they are arranged structurally.

Grevender.9235:

who in the world will ever equip a GRANDmaster trait which won’t give him/her aaaany benefit at all? o.O

Battle Presence says ‘hi’.

Pretend for just a moment where there are modes of play in this game where you can die, no matter how clever or hi-strung a dodge-monkey you are. Strong healing can make quite a difference there and this is surprisingly huge magnitude of buff in that field.

Aridia.3042:

Still no piercing and quick draw merge I see.

Really? How can you tell?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Atherakhia.4086:

Not only do Rangers need to choose between piercing arrows, eagle eye, spotter, and signet of the beastmaster, but you honesstly think this new trait isn’t the worst of the ones announced, but that it would ever be chosen over the alternatives? Come on dude… you must be trollin’

It is FAR better than the one Ele got. The class that needs sustain…gets a healing bonus to everyone BUT the ele…

We are the only ones that get a trait that has NO affect on us what so ever.

Guardians have had traits like that since launch, and get along just fine…

Nick.6972:

Great! They’re finally doing what they promised us back in 2010/2011? Trait hunting? Nice.

Link to promise?

So what if the game gets a little tougher while leveling up? The game is mind-numbingly EASY.

(and yes, downscaling needs to be quite a bit more savagely applied than it is now)

I hope that the Longbow skills get a direct +20% to projectile speed (for all rangers) and then this trait is a multiplier on top of that…

1v1… that mode the whole game is balanced around. Not.

And then ‘To a Good Home’ finds another potential user .

Its positioned so you can take 30 Valor and 30 Honor and combine two very tanky grandmaster traits on your uber-bunker.

Short bow is not hurt by Longbow getting a Grandmaster Trait that trys to make the weapon useable, positioned to compete for space with other key longbow traits…

Since all existing characters have all existing traits unlocked automatically… It doesn’t matter where you are at in the personal story. You already have anything it would grant.

The only way it would matter is if some of the 40 new traits were acquired that way… which would be a huge hassle/mildly stupid. So either it automatically grants it because you finished up in the past or they just didn’t link new ones to Personal Story. My guess would be they avoided making a mess for themselves in the first place…

It appears we’ll have the balance patch dropping like a bomb mid-season.

Art of Combat — reducing particle effects spam.

April 15

Interesting to note:

Superior Rune of Exuberance

• (1): +25 Vitality
• (2): 3% of Vitality is converted to Healing Power
• (3): +50 Vitality
• (4): 3% of Vitality is converted to Precision
• (5): +90 Vitality
• (6): 3% of Vitality is converted to Power