Guild Wars 2

Ghostwolf.9863:

I like most suggestions.

But I feel dying should be more punishing to encourage staying alive and improve the importance of utilities, traits and builds for ressing and keeping teammates alive.

Not really sure how to change it, first that pops in my mind is -10 team score if you die. I would like the idea of being able to stall the game while attempting to even the scores, instead of speeding up the game by many kills or deaths.

Could be interesting, but would probably suit tpvp more than spvp and require lowering the required points to win depending on whether or not other objectives were adjusted. Spvp is for people to hop in and get going, having a match last 20 minutes would probably tire people out and depending on the map make them quite sick (image death-by-lazer for 20 minutes…)

oZii.2864:

NinjaEd.3946:

Counterplay against signet of restoration is needed. Even if I get chill on them, it doesn’t last all that long and they just cycle 1-5. Its very pathetic. That signet should be changed to a bigger heal but when you proc a combo effect or something, because pressing 1-5 and swapping attunement is kitten. I don’t see them bursting anything, as much as just tiring you out because something is gana hit you.

Also idk their exact trait set up but having perma ~20 stacks of might effectively negating the need for heavy power investment is pretty kitten to me but I guess ele spent such a long time on that dirt nap I’ll let em be gods for a lil. Boon strip? Next rotation they get it back. Then the fresh air ele who could not be anymore obnoxious. “Ha, I’m smacking you for 10k, oh you come after me? I’ll just run away. I really should locate the attunement swap button”. Wish we all had fly swatters to get rid of these pests from pvp.

@Andele

I knew it wasn’t long before this petty argument turned on thief. Feel free to join the millions of other kittens who have no basis for changing the initiative system other than that they don’t like it.

Your obvious thief bias and lack of knowledge shines through in this post. How can you claim ele is face roll when you don’t even know how a ele stacks might that’s like basic.

Your thief isn’t some over complex class nothing in gw2 really is. Most people that have been playing this game long enough can pick out what utilities you probably will pick and what you will do when you get low health. You probably think you should burst a ele when it is in water instead of after water. At least learn what your fighting before calling it face roll.

You are the same person that said you should condi burst a Necro before a Mesmer so your class ignorance is documented.

No sense argueing with you, like I said. Ele main’s are still kitten over their weak performance after the numerous nerfs. Ever since the feature update ele is certainly not an underdog but I’ll let you ride this one out, still doesn’t make what I said any less true. I’ve spectated numerous elementalists to see what their exactly doing, it’s down right pathetic. The ones who are surviving are the ones who press 3 then 2 or some variation of it, in the end it’s all about clicking through to the next attunement to get on attunement boons/spells and w/e else they have tied to it. A majority of the builds these days seem to be like that sadly.

And I would gladly attack a target who rarely dodges and has terrible stun breaking vs one who blinks and evades constantly. Locking a necro down and loading them up is far easier than against a Mesmer but you keep chasing fairies. Every post I see you claim that no ele build is obnoxious well I guess speed clearing dungeons can’t be annoying can it :/ Enjoy your pve bud.

P.s Quit quoting something I haven’t said or bring up topics completely irrelevant to the matter at hand, if you’re searching for dirt there is no point in taking your posts seriously. There are issues with a lot of builds out there, don’t think ele is the 1 and only because someone is against their recent play style.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Pecar.1236:

vs Warrior healing signet its underpowered warrior 362hp every 1s vs 202 every cast spell so warrior dont need do nothing and got regen every second we must cast spell so after 2s warrior got 724 healing we got 404 if we casting spell and with Cone of Cold/Drake’s Breath we got healing only on activation for another 3 tick of dmg we dont got healing

Then what do you think of the thief? 220 hp per attack, Dagger auto-attack is 3 times a second applies poison and does pretty good damage. That’s 660 hp per second (with cleric runes, with celestial runes its around 190). If you add in a couple more traits you can up that healing to well over 500 per attack.
I slightly disagree with your note though, The elementalist also has access to near permanent regeneration, soothing mist and a couple healing skills and heal on dodge, atunement swap and with sigils even more heals. We have more than enough access to heals and the signet greatly compliments our already amazing heals.

Thief with cleric’s gear, HA.

Don’t kid yourself, SoM doesn’t compare to HS or SoR when you look at the requirement to make it heal something valuable and not make you anything less than a fly on the battlefield. SoM isn’t that great for thief aside from pve.

Knowing the name of the skill does little really, you have to know what each skill looks like to avoid it and you can’t do that by reading a list.

I dunno the distribution of pvp/wvw/afk/pve hours but 1471 hours on my main thief, 58 on my pvp-only thief.

2428 across all characters and not a single precursor :/

Bunker in spvp are supposed to stand on point, you can’t do that with a single target ranged weapon set that enter’s stealth or backsteps.

Bunker thief isn’t nearly as viable as any other but I’ve made one with so-so results. I can hold out on a 3v1 w/o stealth but it comes down to the build of those 3 more than my build’s capability. Unfortunatly healing power sucks on thief so it’s hard to ever make a bunker thief viable anywhere else than a gimmick for hotjoin.

Rudy.6184:

I’m maining ele and you get 20 stacks of might only when making every blast in fire field (to make it and deal dmg enemy must stand in middle of fire field like kitten), and it takes like 30 sec to get that much (some skills have 40 sec cooldown, so you wont regain it likely, and those stunning too). That is how ele works, he has low base power/condi and need to stack up. Nerf ele plax, my hambow too weak. Compare to it – base health 8k more, base armor 300 more, better cc (3 stuns with cooldown like 8 sec, immobilise and ele has 2 with cooldown 40 sec), better dmg, better healing signet, only worse mobility, he can get likely over 11 stacks of might. So much l2p issue. Other classes get might too, all classes run sigil of strength now.

Cuz I’m definitely advocating that hambow is not an issue :/

Hard to argue with an ele when they spent months taking it up the kitten. I’ll let you rest up before presenting something rational. The pre-nerfed ele when they were gods didn’t just forget their training wheels. Many of them are either back or never left and know how much better they are now (still not like they used to be, thankfully) but, enjoy your vacation. Can only show you how thoughtless these builds are, can’t make you change your build though.

#buttonwars2

Small question, I logged on with my guardian who was in the mid 40’s when I saw the season chests finally come out, so I jumped into EoTM real quick to collect and without thinking opened it getting a bunch of greens. Was this the result from opening it as a level 80 as well or did I unfortunately screw myself over?

I still got my tokens and the big jug of liquid wxp but I was told we were getting a asc weapon of choice, so hoping I didn’t mess that up.

Rudy.6184:

NinjaEd.3946:

Counterplay against signet of restoration is needed. Even if I get chill on them, it doesn’t last all that long and they just cycle 1-5. Its very pathetic. That signet should be changed to a bigger heal but when you proc a combo effect or something, because pressing 1-5 and swapping attunement is kitten. I don’t see them bursting anything, as much as just tiring you out because something is gana hit you.

Also idk their exact trait set up but having perma ~20 stacks of might effectively negating the need for heavy power investment is pretty kitten to me but I guess ele spent such a long time on that dirt nap I’ll let em be gods for a lil. Boon strip? Next rotation they get it back. Then the fresh air ele who could not be anymore obnoxious. “Ha, I’m smacking you for 10k, oh you come after me? I’ll just run away. I really should locate the attunement swap button”. Wish we all had fly swatters to get rid of these pests from pvp.

Hahaha funny to read. Now rage on eles, i should take a photo of this. Negating heavy power investment? How about worst stats in game? How about no stats gain in obligatory arcane (except boon duration influencing that might u cry about)? Now you see might ingame and op as hell? Ele has to have might to do something because of heavy investment on defensive stats (and they did it long before patch). And if they get 20 stacks you mindlessly stand in middle of fire field and get all blast finishers on it and on your face. About restoration signet – have you ever seen warriors healing signet? And other thing – NONE ele plays 1-5 cycle. But why am I even writing this whiners gonna whine.

You seem to not understand what ~20 stacks of might is. That’s 700 power and condition damage, something the pvp amulets don’t even get up to so yeah, an amulet within an amulet is a little difficult. It’s not like those 20 stacks are difficult to maintain, and if they lose a few or get them stripped they don’t take long to regain them. A group giving heavy might to each other is one thing but doing that on your own is beyond reasonable. They wiggle you down between the conditions and DD while being very sustained, out lasting you in a fight. The few skills that might actually hit you for something they put no effort into landing, its just cast the skills and swap. I’m not saying its necessarily OP but watching it, fighting against or along side it, is quite dull.

Counterplay against signet of restoration is needed. Even if I get chill on them, it doesn’t last all that long and they just cycle 1-5. Its very pathetic. That signet should be changed to a bigger heal but when you proc a combo effect or something, because pressing 1-5 and swapping attunement is kitten. I don’t see them bursting anything, as much as just tiring you out because something is gana hit you.

Also idk their exact trait set up but having perma ~20 stacks of might effectively negating the need for heavy power investment is pretty kitten to me but I guess ele spent such a long time on that dirt nap I’ll let em be gods for a lil. Boon strip? Next rotation they get it back. Then the fresh air ele who could not be anymore obnoxious. “Ha, I’m smacking you for 10k, oh you come after me? I’ll just run away. I really should locate the attunement swap button”. Wish we all had fly swatters to get rid of these pests from pvp.

@Andele

I knew it wasn’t long before this petty argument turned on thief. Feel free to join the millions of other kittens who have no basis for changing the initiative system other than that they don’t like it.

Alphabet.7392:

so how would you stop someone from resetting fights and regen in stealth

I wouldn’t be wasting my time looking for them especially when roaming. Roaming is the most profitable place for thief to be, you can’t be upset that they cling to it. They don’t do well in zergs, they are barely of any use in havoc squads, they are a generally selfish profession. Even in wvw I don’t use SA for anything more than shadow’s embrace, but if you want to nerf SA then I want to nerf the Defense and virtues trait line for the heavy professions. If you don’t want us roaming why should you be able to help out in a blob?

Meh, this is about pvp QoL not profession balance. For example, there is no one culprit to the cc power on skyhammer.

1. Increase map sizes.
Why: Far to easy to station 1 bunker at a point while 4 people bounce between mid and home. Further objectives means deciding who to put where to successfully hold points. Spreading out would be more vital than “zerging” so to speak.

2. Lower or remove points on kill.
Why: Another thought to demoralize “zerging”. The game mode is domination with a unique side objective, it’s enough to keep things interesting. If thing’s lost their touch there is always the possibility to explore other game modes but they are generally covered by the side objectives.

3. Add bonus objectives.
Why: For example, “The next team to hold 2 points after 60 seconds gains 25 points.” or “the next team to ascend the orb gains double points for it’s effect.” It keeps things evolving and pushes the team to relocate their efforts. These would be semi-random depending on the state of the match so if 1 team is falling far behind a double or nothing event would come about, giving them a chance to get back up or push them much further down.

4. Remove skyhammer
Why: J/k, but seriously this map needs changing. The side objective along with cc power is overwhelming to many professions. Allow blocks/dodge to work against the laser attack, increase the recharge time on it’s attacks, and possibly grant a passive 20% reduction in disable time to all players on the map. That or don’t let this map be anything but a custom match up. If people like it, fine let them play it at their choosing. People might of liked raid of Capricorn though and it flat out got deleted so..

5. Increase transmutation charges from reward tracks (3?).
Why: 1 charge is bupkiss. Before atleast lower levels transmuating gear was incredibly easy and it was 100% free in pvp. Now it’s leveled at any level and it costs to change the looks in pvp. Giving 1 luxury by taking away another seems unjust especially for those with characters that are only there for pvp.

6. Remove locked traits/skills from pvp.
Why: Pvp is the 1 place in the game that should be free to build and test and for the longest time it was. Now we have to pay to change our looks, pay to test new traits/skills. I actually like the trait hunting in pve/wvw to some level (kind of an old school pve junkie) but leave that non sense out of pvp. They aren’t necessarily overpowered and mandatory traits/skills but the fact that they are aren’t usable without an insane investment or leveling up to safely walk to the place and learn it seems beyond me.

7. Return old weapon selection when entering/re-entering pvp.
Why: Not a huge biggie as I’ve gotten somewhat used to it, but still one of those things that don’t belong in pvp. I get the idea of merging pvp/pve closer but my weapon selection in pvp should remain in pvp, and vice versa for pve. I hate having to carry around common quality transmutated weapons just because trans charges are a pain and I don’t have a bank in the mists to pull them out of when I feel like doing some pvp or going to pve with basic weapons wondering why my dps is down the kitty litter. Again, not a huge issue but it’s still annoying to deal with.

That is all.

I don’t use staff at all and I can get life force easier than endurance. I actually don’t mind DS as it is, but I wouldn’t mind speeding up the dark path projectile a little.

Most of the Mesmer’s I find aren’t stupid, it’s not a class you can just pick up and get going so the, shall we say, “Sucky” mesmers aren’t in high supply. Most will just quit it after realizing what it takes to be “effective”. Necromancer on the other hand is a lot simpler to handle. It isn’t a brainless class, but when I see fear spam and MM everywhere it strikes me as an easier task to get into. Happened yesterday with the same situation, necro was using staff but putting marks at their feet, didn’t have OH dagger, actually thought I was a condi necro when I was power. This is just an example of necromancer’s I keep running into, their possibly new or just haven’t explored options that take more effort.

With that in mind, the Mesmer’s I see are constantly kiting you, they don’t pounce and keep the pressure up. They are avoiding you from teleports, constant dodge/blocks/invulnerablities/stealth and don’t let you get time on them until the time is right for them to pounce again. If they use GS its a different story and are quite easy to stay with but staff is a nightmare to catch.

I’m not focusing necro over Mesmer thinking necro has worse condition clearing, I’m focusing necro over Mesmer because knowing how they work I can actually land my conditions and evade their methods of condi xfer fairly easy. Even if the necro transfers the conditions to antoher target say a pet or ally, that means I’m untouched by that and can just go to reapplying. Only counter to that is consume conditions which I can either interrupt or let it slip by knowing I have 25 seconds to get something going. I focus necro because right now, I’m not seeing a high volume of necromancer’s who effectively deal with conditions or counter my pressure. Mesmer avoids me like I made a bad family joke, and I can rarely lock them down long enough to get anything going on a condi build.

warriorjrd.8695:

DeceiverX.8361:

warriorjrd.8695:

DeceiverX.8361:

Simonoly.4352:

Crossfire is probably one of the best designed skills in the game because you can actively counter-play the condition application through positioning. It’s nowhere near as ridiculous as other condi auto-attack skills like Blood/Rendering/Putrid Curse.

And I thought people whining about backstab was bad (the same thing applies), but now people are complaining about the effectiveness of condi shortbow rangers?…

That said, I will give the OP that rangers are BORING. They play overly-passively and its ranged flavors are far too dependent on their auto-attacks than actually using their skills.

Only difference with backstab is you can’t see your oponent, making proper positioning much harder.

Not really. Stabs are pretty choreographed. You might not be able to physically see your opponent, but you for the most part can tell exactly when it’s coming so you can either dodge, aegis, flip backwards, cc nearby, or whatever it may be to prevent it from happening.

I didn’t say impossible, I said much harder. If you can see your opponent you know which way to face. When a thief goes stealth you know hes going for your back, but don’t know where to put your back. It’s much harder to counter back stab than ranger sb AA.

I just don’t want people getting the wrong idea is all. Your statement was true but just not the full truth. From experience I see these kind of things turn from “X is unbalanced” to “thief op” rather quick. Figure I’d put in some guard rails before it escalates.

I’d focus Mesmer over necro because I’d be chasing a Mesmer, necro isn’t dodging or blocking nearly as much or using stealth to recover and avoid. Mesmer doesn’t have terrible condition clearing, mix that with their ability to avoid things altogether versus taking it and potentially sending it back yeah, I’d focus necro first. Condition transfer only works if they don’t dodge or block it, otherwise it doesn’t remove them. Mesmer is below necro as far as removing conditions, assuming perfect conditions are set which is rarely ever.

warriorjrd.8695:

DeceiverX.8361:

Simonoly.4352:

Crossfire is probably one of the best designed skills in the game because you can actively counter-play the condition application through positioning. It’s nowhere near as ridiculous as other condi auto-attack skills like Blood/Rendering/Putrid Curse.

And I thought people whining about backstab was bad (the same thing applies), but now people are complaining about the effectiveness of condi shortbow rangers?…

That said, I will give the OP that rangers are BORING. They play overly-passively and its ranged flavors are far too dependent on their auto-attacks than actually using their skills.

Only difference with backstab is you can’t see your oponent, making proper positioning much harder.

But not impossible.

I have in the past run condi thief, never in tpvp though. I’ve run in overall game modes (wvw, spvp, tpvp) condi engineer, thief, and ranger, and I do play a necro just not condi spec’ed. Granted I can stay in DS a LONG time and have hoelbrak runes + unholy martyr I can get loaded with conditions pretty quickly forcing me to back off, use [Consume conditions], or combo something to make sure deathly swarm makes contact because it clears 0 conditions if it misses.

In a normal situation, my target focus depends on the build. Most of my builds, I’m on the side lines picking off ranged or support classes. With a condi build, I’ve found it much easier to lay pressure on a necro than a ranger because I always see them running empathic bond + renewal signet which is 4 conditions removed every 10 seconds. Guardian, warrior, conditions are meaningless unless you have a ton of sources that are quick to apply and reapply, elemenatlists don’t seem to have troubles with it either.

I apologize if I made it sound like necromancer has terrible condition clearing, I meant to say they are better targets than most, while some are even better targets. I look at necro condition clearing like how TC used to be in wvw (I think SoS took that spot for now). They aren’t quite Tier 1, but they are better than tier 2 if that makes sense. I’d still focus a necro with conditions over a Mesmer even if Mesmer isn’t superb at clearing conditions.

Yet I constantly see them putting marks at their feet, which means you can run up and dodge through them and waste it. Only necro’s I see using staff are MM or fear spam, neither of which are very thoughtful and are played by pretty kitten people.

Tossing a care package worth of conditions isn’t difficult, you can often force them into using it without having put out your full condition burst. If they enter DS its even easier to unload, and it gets that much easier.

@ Meta

The only necromancer’s I run into who give me troubles on a condi build (which that situation is rather rare because I hardly run condi and I hardly run into necro) is MM and those using OH dagger. Consume conditions is basically standard, so I will push them into using it with a “burst” of conditions and hold the real overload for later. Outside of that the well just means “AoE at this spot” or stop hitting them while its up since it has a 50 sec cd, signet is a 60 sec cd and not something I worry about, putrid mark is like any mark when it comes to dodging (many seem to think they need it at their feet for it to xfer, so makes it easy to dodge through). Necro doesn’t have mediocre condition clearing, but if I see a group with guardian warrior necro ele and ranger I’ll put my conditions on the necromancer. Thief Mesmer engineer are tied in my mind for overall builds, necro sits smack dab in the middle of them and the rest.

@Ozii

A lot of thieves moved away from SA which means no shadow’s embrace (pvp). The SA thieves out in wvw are just an obstacle you should skip, because if they’re at all competent they cannot die and will waste your time. In pvp, they get sword or PR, generosity sigil, SS (utility) but otherwise don’t have a way to deal with AoE conditions let alone AoE anything. On my necro I’ve often used deathly swarm on a thief during a group fight and watched them run off to either die or recover, they don’t handle them well sadly.

Traits like cleansing ire and empathic bond are an awful method to dealing with conditions, because they are almost essential by doing the job almost far to well to pass up. It isn’t really build diversity if there is a best in slot solution to deal with vulnerability.

Also few professions have effective means to deal with condition overload, and many professions lack sufficient condition clearing period. If I play a condi build and I see a thief or engineer or necro I focus them, because they don’t deal with them too well. There are a good chunk of builds that have well known vulnerabilities that even if they try to spec to deal with it, it just doesn’t quite work. Ever cc a thief and pour liquid conditions on them? It’s quite tasty.

They won’t respond to every post, but even the posts that they do respond to like the ranger CDI don’t go like people expected. I’d say it’s good they reach out at all but the results aren’t quite sensible. Many patch notes I see are left with questions like, “why was that changed?” or “thank you?” or my favorite “X still broken, Wth”. They nerfed healing signet passive, didn’t touch the active at all, and strangely it is still the most used healing skill.

@ Ozi

“If you have a problem with a specific build and think it needs to be changed in some way call out that build on that class. Generalizing all condition builds under 1 umbrella doesn’t really do anything except make it appear as if you don’t know what the problem is or if there is even one to begin with.”

Idk if this was aimed at me but in any case, I did say most. The most being the ones who can put out severe condition stacks or variety while being incredibly beefy to any source of damage.

If it wasn’t aimed at me, well I still stand by that. I’m all in line with the OP, conditions aren’t overpowered but they aren’t tricky to invest into. I understand you can’t make a build that is meant to melt someone down to be squishy or that defeats the purpose, but its pushed to the extreme on some builds that can be very tanky and still put heavy pressure even on groups. There are a few fingers to be pointed at specific classes but its not exclusive to 1 or 2, so generalizing it is appropriate to determine what condition builds are problems and which are pathetic and maybe need attention. Finding out what’s overpowering can also lead to finding what is underpowered which can tip the scale in the right direction which is good for balance.

There are quite a few “basic” factors at fault here, which applies to everyone like 40% condition duration food for example, and these things get addressed from time to time, but their fear of “wack-a-mole” is far to influential on their patch work and is keeping pvp from its deserved attention. Almost 1.5 months between the last update and the next, and apparently pvp needs to follow the pve schedule.

Next week, expect a nerf thread on concealed defeat. If they can’t auto attack you with range for 7 seconds after downing you, it must mean their invulnerable with no counter O.o

That’s pve/wvw exclusive, I mean you get dire stats and perplex runes in there. It’s hardly worth mentioning how kitten it is in there. Pvp gets special treatment on a lot of skills and traits, and in there, no sigil of bursting exists.

babazhook.6805:

>>You ever press deathly swarm on a necro just because? If so I don’t value your opinion.

I personally do not care whose opinion you value. It does not take anymore skill to press buttons on a power build then on a condition build.

My thief has ZERO invested in power line. His autoattack from his pistol does 1.4k damage. How is this considered skillful if pressed over and over again while pressing an autoattack for the bleeds on a condition build is “just button mashing”.?

My warrior has zero invested in Strength and has an attack of 2200. He gets 340 power just based on a trait called “Armored Attack” . How is choosing that trait more skillful then wearing dire and traiting in shadow arts?

There are warrior builds galore that do not even trait for strength or Critical strikes yet are still very effective. Why is that “skillful” ? they still press buttons when they fight, Just because they are different buttons does not mean it more “complicated”.

Pressing buttons is pressing buttons . it is not harder because one does condition damage and one does power damage.

Ones timing and when to do what might take a bit of practice but it no different in a condition build then in a power build. Condition builds still have to dodge. They still have to time their stealths if a thief. They still have to use all of their skills to maximize the chances of survival.

If they have more armor it more forgiving but wearing more armor does not preclude one from doing damage And a warrior with nothing in the strength trait line can still lay out a lot of damage even without going conditions. As can a lot of other classes.

Except button smashing on a power build doesn’t amount to much excluding the few builds that are plaguing all of pvp partly due to strength runes being far to easy of a solution. Power builds pack a big kick and then it’s just tap dancing with them till it reoccurs, condition builds you put on some conditions and just use the aa to sit back and play it safe. Button smashing on a glass build is light years from button smashing a condi build.

If you button smash on all builds then stay in 8v8 hot join matches, but don’t take that mentality elsewhere especially if you’re going to argue balance. Condition builds are easier to run than power builds in general as far as offense goes. There are a small few exceptions but that’s mostly due to strength runes and the ferocity change which unfortunately made critical damage traits and runes less relevant when the zerker amulet got a buff (went from 20% critical damage to 30% since 300 ferocity didn’t equal 30% critical damage like it used to)

Popcornpasta.7605:

The 2 things you absolutely need to be wary of are longbow #5 (pin-down) and sword f1. The windup on pin-down is quite obvious now, so that’s not much of an issue. As for flurry, if you see the warrior leap at you (sword #2) dodge roll/run away/evade (I have no idea what tools rangers have to work with), because that leap is 9/10 just a setup for landing flurry (which is where the huge bleed spikes come from).

The leap is homing, so if you dodge they will still make their way to your location. What I do is let them hit me with savage leap but dodge right after that. Solves the immobilize though, not much to do against 8+ second auto attack bleeds which are usually mixed with cripple and/or immobilize from leg specialists and the occasional vulnerability.

Ahh minion mancer, the ranger, a ranger could never be. I concur with putting the majority of a minion function in their active ability. I’ve seen quite a few mm in the past, but lately mm + rune of flock a.k.a tropical bird of hell and high toughness makes these guys incredibly annoying. Managable, but annoying. I think they unintentionally buffed MM when they pushed the old minor traits out in favor of a more universal set up which is good for people who didn’t use that trait line for minions, but really good for those who did.

NevirSayDie.6235:

NinjaEd.3946:

NevirSayDie.6235:

NinjaEd.3946:

Also food has no place in pvp, which is another place that has problems with condi spam.

Well not really—condition builds have seen some nerfs and PvPers have in general figured out how to deal with them. That’s not to say there aren’t some unfortunate builds still remaining: mace/sword-longbow warrior is ridiculously strong in duels, for example. Turret engineers sometimes use conditions, and they are an unfortunate plague on solo arena and pug team arenas atm.

But in standard team or solo arenas, things like scepter/dagger-staff condimancer have been figured out. They don’t wreck people any more; in fact, they’re barely good enough to compete.

I haven’t played much WvW recently so maybe p/d thieves and PU mesmers are still running rampant there. That’s more a flaw with open-world PvP than conditions, though. You could cut condition damage in half and those builds would still wreck new players in WvW because they can’t be pinned down.

In tpvp whether its power or condition (although power tends to work better in groups due to condi cap), all I see is AoE spam. I watched 1.5hours of the EU ToL and probably an hour of the NA ToL and was not impressed. First off the spectators were kittens, always monitoring the hambow or altruistic guardian and rarely ever panning to the others, and secondly it was just a pile up at mid over and over. People weren’t doing side objectives, they weren’t back capping, it was just a duel at mid. If this is how tourny’s were supposed to play out then just make death match and be done with it.

I don’t roam nearly as much as pvp, but I still have gone out there and seen a huge difference between playing a power and condi spec as well as fighting against power and/or condi spec’s. Conditions were far more lethal because I couldn’t burst them down (built more defense) and on mine I was never near risk unless it was a zerg incoming in which I would Chain CnD off ambient creatures and gtfo. In pvp I can deal with condition builds on most of my builds but there are a few who put them out way to easily and frequently that even timing my condi removal does nothing. Often I just move to another objective because it’s a waste of my time.

I mentioned that in regular old run-of-the-mill solo and team arenas, things like condi necromancer have been figured out and usually get destroyed now. I’m not even talking about top players, just regular arenas. At the top level, of course, there are even fewer condition builds. Not sure if that’s what you meant by bringing up ToL.

Sounds like the worst that ever happens to you in a duel vs. a condition build is that you might get into a stalemate. That doesn’t sound too OP now, does it?

Not op, no. Never suggested they were op, but the risk/reward of using them isn’t right in my eyes. If they were op I’d suggest nerfing them and their durations and buffing condition removal to the point where conditions became irrelevant. Even in an earlier post (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/pvp-Toughness-Vs-Vitality/first#post4044916) I may of stepped a bit over suggesting condition builds are everywhere but never once suggested conditions be nerfed. I don’t want them nerfed, I just want them to be more thoughtful and less button smashing. I’ve been melted by conditions far more than I’ve been spiked by power bursts, and that’s me focusing more condition removal than toughness. I know what the skills look like, but there are only so many dodges/blocks/teleports in the game to avoid soaking up long term DoT.

On a side note, torment seems like the most ridiculous condition, when I hear statements like, “limit movement till they wear off”. I think a sitting duck is far more vulnerable than a bleeding limping one. Who ever thought a fast paced game should have a parameter against mobility should have a brick dropped on their foot.

NevirSayDie.6235:

NinjaEd.3946:

Also food has no place in pvp, which is another place that has problems with condi spam.

Well not really—condition builds have seen some nerfs and PvPers have in general figured out how to deal with them. That’s not to say there aren’t some unfortunate builds still remaining: mace/sword-longbow warrior is ridiculously strong in duels, for example. Turret engineers sometimes use conditions, and they are an unfortunate plague on solo arena and pug team arenas atm.

But in standard team or solo arenas, things like scepter/dagger-staff condimancer have been figured out. They don’t wreck people any more; in fact, they’re barely good enough to compete.

I haven’t played much WvW recently so maybe p/d thieves and PU mesmers are still running rampant there. That’s more a flaw with open-world PvP than conditions, though. You could cut condition damage in half and those builds would still wreck new players in WvW because they can’t be pinned down.

In tpvp whether its power or condition (although power tends to work better in groups due to condi cap), all I see is AoE spam. I watched 1.5hours of the EU ToL and probably an hour of the NA ToL and was not impressed. First off the spectators were kittens, always monitoring the hambow or altruistic guardian and rarely ever panning to the others, and secondly it was just a pile up at mid over and over. People weren’t doing side objectives, they weren’t back capping, it was just a duel at mid. If this is how tourny’s were supposed to play out then just make death match and be done with it.

I don’t roam nearly as much as pvp, but I still have gone out there and seen a huge difference between playing a power and condi spec as well as fighting against power and/or condi spec’s. Conditions were far more lethal because I couldn’t burst them down (built more defense) and on mine I was never near risk unless it was a zerg incoming in which I would Chain CnD off ambient creatures and gtfo. In pvp I can deal with condition builds on most of my builds but there are a few who put them out way to easily and frequently that even timing my condi removal does nothing. Often I just move to another objective because it’s a waste of my time.

In pvp, lich form is like a beacon. You either run from it or focus it, and its easy to be overwhelmed in that form due to no utility/healing skills.

It does the trick if they don’t notice me (use it off in the distance, damage isn’t range related) but I ALWAYS get focus fired and often have my stability stripped. I don’t know where the issue with lich form is lol, pretty hit or miss if you ask me.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Wall of text.

Ok, don’t see anything bolded but I’ll bite.

Direct damage is done instantly, you can soften it with weakness, protection, toughness, even vitality. Many high power attacks like whirling wrath, eviscerate, SoW, jump shot, etc are highly telegraphed, and among that list many skills have methods to counter them or waste the effort like forcing a frontstab or moving past the target interrupting a channel, etc. Power builds need power, precision, and ferocity in some various amounts (although ferocity is less relevant since the change) to do anything. Tied to that, there are direct damage modifiers and trait lines having little to no dual applications of offense and defense, which is fine. Bottom line, you have to pump yourself up to put out the nasty hits, and you can only go so far before you’re too squishy to even bother with targeting.

Conditions aren’t some rock you try to lift over your shoulders, their applications are mostly straight forward and easy to get out. Throw down this AoE field, hit them with a few stacks and laugh at their armor rating. Mix in multiple sources of DoT and they will have to use some condition clear because it will bring you down quick if you don’t. You can pump defensive trait lines, get vitality or toughness or healing power because even with a short condition duration, viable condition builds have more than enough variety to bring the pain. Bottom line, I don’t have to plan some combo off or spike anyone, I just hit them with a condition and hop around while they chase me.

Those “conditions on hit/crit/skill” effects don’t last all that long, because it would be insanely broken if on crit I was getting anything more than 4 second bleeds. Burn on (critical) hit only comes from offensive trait lines, which means less defense which is fine as far as what bothers me.

As for the scepter argument, that’s just an auto attack doing that, and nothing else. Link me a scepter condi necro and list off the rotation they can easily get through, then list your numbers. I can easily list you a p/d thief build with or w/o condi duration food and show how ridiculously easy it is to put out damage and still stay at a safe distance. Not sure you’ve fought or used a condi build lately to know how much safer you can play with one and still get kills.

And expecting people to, in the middle of an ambush select your target and determine what food they have just to put on the opposite food is asinine. This isn’t food wars 2, don’t use that as an argument for balance. Also food has no place in pvp, which is another place that has problems with condi spam. Condi spam is basically what I’ve been saying this whole time, fire and forget. I don’t need to worry about doing too little damage with conditions because it’s easy enough to put a few stacks and start ticking their life away. Most people aren’t swimming in condition removal, and you can’t evade a “tick”.

@ Brando, All that video showed was how simple warriors are (speaking of the second video). Notice #2 warrior was able to cc spam you, he clearly knew how bad necro stun breakers are and used it to his advantage to wiggle you down. I don’t think you were playing glassy, so it took awhile but when you are a sitting duck there ain’t much to it. Warrior #1 was also GS hammer, you really going to use him as an example?

Brando.1374:

Kharr.5746:

The problem with conditions has, and will always be, the fact that they bypass toughness, protection, and weakness. It’s possible to do very high condition damage while having very high toughness thanks to rabid stats.

This means that power builds are useless against you since toughness reduces power damage significantly, plus you can usually put up protection and/or weakness to reduce power damage further while your condition damage rips through the enemy like butter. The only counter to condition builds are condition builds due to the high toughness/weakness/protection uptime. This is why almost everyone in s/tpvp is playing rabid-condi builds right now.

so what you are saying is that you want conditions to take the same damage reduction from weakness/toughness/protection correct?
if thats the case you will need to allow % damage modifiers (sigil of force/traits) to also increase condition damage.

I don’t agree with Kharr but the fact that we have a 5% direct damage sigil bonus kinda speaks for itself that power needs some bonuses to do anything worth mentioning. I mean look at some of the minor traits, 10% bonus damage for (insert threshold here), 5% there, 1% per (insert condition here) on you or target. You don’t see even 1% more condition damage anywhere in traits, because condi damage alone covers all that mess. The few traits that modify condition damage at all are GM traits and only affect 1 condition. There are traits that however affect condition duration which almost fills this role but not quite.

Either way, you know something is underwhelming when they have huge damage modifiers that are pretty much always active.

You don’t dodge the aa because it would be pointless when they just keep using it, that doesn’t mean they don’t stack conditions on top of the other weapon skills in lethal amounts. Necro scepter, thief pistol, warrior sword, these kind of auto attacks that can stack high on their own when spec’ed, and there is nothing you can do if you don’t have good condi clearing because it’s just reapplied in mix with the other conditions.

Like I said, I’d be in favor of stronger DoT with less condition spam than what we have now. On power builds I don’t press 1-5 just to swap to the next weapon set, I combo them and save them for when I really need it. On my condi builds I can quite literally press 1-5 and swap asap and get the same if not better results without being squishy. I’ve ran 3 different condition professions(multiple builds however) and only hold onto 1 because it’s boring playing fire and forget without any risk. I can screw up a lot on a condi build and pull myself together, I can rarely do that with my power builds because of the investment needed to make an impression with one.

That’s exactly what I’d rather see, dangerous condition applications but with visual counters. This doesn’t mean put a ridiculous channel time or have it move like hammer toss, but I’d rather have done research and known what each of these skills look like and react accordingly then have to eat up spammable conditions that have no real counter. Removing them only resets the intensity stack at best, they’ll just reapply it soon after that and only a handful of builds have any form of cleansing multiple condition bursts.

Thief pistol stealth attack is fairly easy to counter if you watched them enter stealth. First off cnd is highly telegraphed (Except on asurans, sadly) and the bleeds don’t come from 1 bullet it is over five, which is actually visible before they hit. If you see a trail of bullets coming for you, you can usually soak up atleast 1 and dodge (careful timing) which only applies 1 bleed while revealing them wasting the burst. I actually like this skill as an example of balanced condition application, where it has means to counter but packs a big punch if they get it through.

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

NinjaEd.3946:

Call it “sizer’s build”, I call em phonies who make thieves look bad but hey, it’s still not as kitteneeing p/p thieves.

That’s it. I’m taking you to e-court for slandering dual pistol builds (which I own all rights to and can be rented out for the low, low price of 5g/hr). You’d better lawyer up, pal.

You Can’t handle the truth!

Ok tom, now you can sue me.

babazhook.6805:

I play condition builds and power builds.

They both involve pushing buttons. There no real difference between pushing 5 11 1 2 on a power build and pushing 1 1 1 2 5 on a condition build. The number 2 or 3 or 4 is not harder to press then pressing 1 and 1 an d 1 and 5. They are just keyboard strokes.

As to 8 seconds of a condition off the auto attack. How is that different then my getting 3k in damage off my auto attack in a power build. Why is the latter “more complicated” or more skill full?

Well then you likely die a lot, considering you get 3k auto attack and and press 2-5 at random times. 3k auto attack means you invested a lot into power and critical hits which could mean 2 or 3 stats used up for your damage. Many builds only need condition damage because traits/sigils can be enough to maintain high condition duration so yes, investing so little for 8 second bleeding auto attacks is different from going full glass cannon. You ever press deathly swarm on a necro just because? If so I don’t value your opinion.

oZii.2864:

So what is your definition of hard condition use and easy condition use?

Skills that have avoidable counters but force you to choose between taking the hit or using up another defense to avoid it(dodge/block/LoS/teleport/etc). Example like ring of fire where you can either stay in the circle making it more difficult to avoid AoE or pass through and get burned. Projectiles like pin down with a visual queue where you can either dodge/block/etc or take it. Icons signifying an incoming effect like sigil of doom or venoms or incendiary ammo (although quite difficult due to 0 cast time). Things that punish you for soaking it up but also make you think on how to avoid it.

Easy condition use are skills that are spammable from either low or no cooldowns (auto attacks, certain weapon skills) or are near impossible to avoid which are basically fire and forget. Not suggesting any 1 skill is op on its own but mix in their easy application and they basically get to kite you while steadily putting out more conditions. The fact that they can take up 2 defensive stats and still dish out heavy DoT seems a bit un settling. Mix in condi duration and things get scary in the right hands.

I’d suggest making conditions stronger (more damage per ticks) but lowering intensity caps (15?) while also lessening their durations and application frequency. Right now I feel like its just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, because as long as you get some variety out there its doing the job. It would make conditions harder to use yes but getting them out there would be far more lethal. However this can’t even be attempted without total restructure of every skill and trait dealing with condition removal and application which imo would be a waste of resources considering the million other things that should be addressed like server lag, trait/skill/tooltip bugs, futile skills/traits, lack of pve rewards, killing zommoros, etc.

I ran 10/0/15/15/30 just a week after steal had its cd reduced to 35 seconds. I was sooo close ; ;

But who cares what build is labeled as, hell I’ve found a way to get rich quick on the tp by buying mats making an exclusive recipe and selling the results back, but I could care less if someone put up a guide and said they’re a genius. Honestly I’d be upset if I were sizer not from this thread but from being praised like some religious figure and spawning a wave or poor thieves who can’t think for themselves. Call it “sizer’s build”, I call em phonies who make thieves look bad but hey, it’s still not as kitteneeing p/p thieves.

I don’t see anything wrong with asking for build advice, but when people literally copy paste some YouTube hero’s build and multiply in numbers it gets really boring really quick.

This message brought to you by Death-to-Hambow. May you perish slowly and painfully.

RedSpectrum.1975:

What isn’t overpowered about the thief?

Ice drake venom, improvisation, hard to catch, last refuge, ambush trap, p/p, etc. Oh I mean, yeah really what isn’t thief good at?

I’ll just top the iceberg, conditions are far to easy to use on most builds (notice the bold).

In wvw its far more noticeable due to condition duration food but in pvp it still has a presence, and this is a problem on multiple fronts. Between condition clearing, auto attack’s applying conditions, and passive condition application with no sign its all too passive. Then you look at condition removal and how some classes cannot stand a chance without certain traits or skills which leads to little build diversity due to the endless fear of being melted by conditions. I’d compare them at face value but it does little good since the list is too big.

There needs to be some restructure to condition builds like less potential stacks but higher DoT for some conditions, shorter durations on some skills, more viable options of condition clear in fair places especially in classes who lack it. Luckily pvp you can put on a generosity or purity sigil at will but again it’s not opening doors to diversity if that’s the solution that people are expected to take.

SB on ranger is imho a good example of a balanced condition set, with situational DoT on the aa, and fairly short cooldowns with short lasting conditions on the other skills. It isn’t overwhelming to go up against unless the ranger has some skill, and even then I don’t run into issues with it all that much. That is how all condition sets should behave, thinking of using the skill instead of just putting it on cooldown because it’s AoE on a short cooldown with a high uptime on it. Auto attacks should amount to a steady pressure of DoT, not become lethal with 8+ seconds of a bleed which many builds can accomplish.

Not saying condition builds should be incredibly difficult to use and amount to almost nothing, but they should require more active thinking than press 11111 2-5 11111.

DEAR ARENA NET

Your servers are kitten. I’ve gone through 3 different ISP, 4 different routers, doesn’t matter. Other games do NOT lag to this degree, and if they ever do its usually spelled out loud and clear as a server difficulty somewhere on their official site or launcher. If you have the time and resources to put out childish gem store items, you should have fixed this non sense ages ago. How am I supposed to enjoy ANY content when the ghost of Christmas lag is lurking about waiting to kick me off at any given time?

Signed, annoyed customer since launch.

Einlanzer.1627:

While I’m certainly not closed-minded to getting new weapon options, despite what WoW has led people to believe, using two swords at the same time is not very thematically appropriate for a thief class. Actually, dual-wielding period is not very ‘thiefy’.

I really wish I could play a viable single-dagger or single-sword thief, personally.

Unlikely they would ever dump an entire system to make 1 1h weapon cover up 5 slots. WAAY more effort needed but also why fix what ain’t broke?

I use D/P for the utility, and not so much the stealth. IF I really need to gtfo I use the bps+Hs combo to escape but otherwise blinds interrupts and constantly hopping around are enough for sustain damage. The poison on the aa is quite important to get through, or you’ll just be countering regeneration on those heavies.

Benjamin.8237:

It appears I have come across incorrectly, as what Ninja has said very well applies in WvW and hotjoins and maybe even duels. Maybe this is where I’m wrong because I’m talking about the one viable tournament build, which I don’t change to duel as I feel I should only practice in the build I always use. In this case I am talking about a Staff and Greatsword shatter build with no stealth. Thief does seem to counter this well as I have no way of locking them down, and I usually credit myself of playing very well when I beat them in this set-up. It might be that I am being too specific when comparing an entire class to one build, but as far as tournaments go for supporting my team and playing my role, phantasm won’t work, PU won’t work, Condition won’t work.

But I also only Play tpvp where normally the thieves I meet are of a much higher skill level to the rest of the game.

Usually, but not always. Bad thieves are at every reach of the game. I only compared Mesmer to thief in general, not in any specific game mode but still the group utility a Mesmer can bring to tpvp (ethereal fields + chaos armor is really, really good) while also dishing out damage, etc etc. Basically they bring more to the table than a thief can even outside of stealth. Not all of us thieves enjoy our selfish nature.

Until they separate the % heal based on single and AoE attacks, this trait will be no more than a gimmick test along with some pve builds.

Crossplay.2067:

NinjaEd.3946:

Also “when hit” rune effects are terrible. Too much gameplay is passively done with no thought, and many of those effects are have terrible duration settings (perma might, but ~22% uptime on regen from dwayna as if regen is that strong).

I have a Cleric mesmer that uses Runes of Dwayna with Phantasmal Healing and Signet of the Ether. Since I’ve set that up, I’ve only used the active part of signet to recharge skills. I’ve never needed it to heal. This is even against the Champion Risen Baron in front of the Gallow’s Hang skill point. It took me forever to beat her but she just couldn’t outdamage my passives.

Under the right circumstances, regeneration is insane.

If you have near-limitless condi clear and high armor yeah regen is quite good, but more importantly who cares about pve for balancing runes? PVE is far to awkward to use as a reference for balance, because everything is so telegraphed and focuses on either 1-shot mechanics or tons of add on’s.

Likely new, give em a few months to sort through it all pending the inevitable, “oh…”

BurrTheKing.8571:

Luke.4562:

+1

EDIT: What the heck do you mean by “denaturalizing?”

Misleading, watering down the meaning of my argument by associating it to something which isn’t directly related to it.

I can make the same comparison as you did:
The fact Necro have more aoe condis doesn’t balance a thing, Arcing Arrow deals a ridicle amount of Aoe damage on a way larger area of effect and can be spammed on a short cooldown; keep in mind the LongBow also is used in berserker builds, with no need of condi damage because of their ridicle damage.

So what do we have? Ridicle single target damage and ridicle Aoe damage.
This justifies the fact that Warrior has still better traits than most classes. Sure.
Where’s the balance you were arguing for?
Don’t even try to come and say Burning isn’t Bleeding, blah blah blah.. Imbalanced damage is still imbalanced damage.

The more, i love how people use the verbalizations “comparing apples to oranges” to apparently giving more emphasis and meaning to their arguments…

Did you miss the 15% Arcing Arrow dmg nerf ON TOP of the ferocity nerf? Burning on Warrior is only damaging if you somehow manage to not evade a single one of the Pulses (btw Combustive Shot was also nerfed several times), the duration isn’t that long unless you take runes/sigils for it. It sounds like you’re living it the game of several months ago.

The apples to oranges statement holds true because every clas is so different design wise that it makes zero sense to compare traits in a vacuum. You can’t just ignore the other mechanics the class has in place. You can’t say “X class has this and this and this” without also saying “it lacks that that and that.” As stated before, giving some of the traits that Warrior has to Necro would make them crazy imbalanced. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I for one see more Necros (Generally Power or Corruptomancer) and Engis (Bunker or Decap) these days than I do Warriors. Even when Warriors were at their peak popularity it was generally because they countered the condition meta at the time.

Your arguments are fundamentally flawed because you seem to think that you can just pick one part of what makes a class and disreguard anything else. Least I checked Necromances are still the superior condition class.

Also, I’m still not sold on your use of denaturalize, but that’s just semantics.

Yeah, 15% was a shave at best I can still crit for 5k with it and I’m not running full zerker.

Also despite the combustive shot “nerfs”, it can still have a 90% up time, cover the entire capture point and acts as a fire field which you know, can be used for multiple effects (3rd tier combustive shot, not hard to get however since adrenaline is incredibly easy to obtain).

If you want to compare the class as a whole, then your argument fails in countering the need to merge some ranger traits. Sure rifle isn’t all that good, but warrior is. Longbow(ranger) has a bunch of spread out traits, and ranger is most certainly not on the same level as warrior, not even same district.

See the issue or you going to continue thinking it’s all gravy after the “Balance” patch that barely touched warrior? I don’t even need healing power gear and I can still get 391 hps from healing signet, still no incentive to ever use the active. Warrior can be beat, but the risk:reward in playing one could not be any more wrong. Ranger can win in fights, but they suffer the exact opposite risk:reward that warrior has.