Guild Wars 2

Elfis.9102:

You say those are agreed upon points, but they are only agreed upon by unhappy people. Most people who think arcane wave was enormously buffed probably don’t bother to post in your complaint threads.

THE THING WAS ENORMOUSLY BUFFED.

Why buff it? What was wrong with it before other than being melee?

Why buff Arcane Wave and not Arcane Blast? Why not add a ranged BLAST finisher for a skill that has BLAST in its name? No one uses Arcane Blast anyways, why not make that a viable option instead of making Arcane Wave harder to use?

bulent.7391:

Disagree. Please do not revert arcane wave. If you cant target a simple skill on your fields that is your problem. Only argument about arcane wave is people don’t want to target one single skill on a point every 30 seconds cus that is so hard. ‘’ oo I can’t do my combos now cus now I have this green thing pops up oooOOooo ’’. Its really easy to use it any d/d or other weapon combos. If you having hard time turn on fast targeting with range. Have you ever played engineer?

You never used it with D/D obviously, you have to aim BEHIND you to get the burst with burning speed.

Talindra.4958:

i am signing a petition to revert back arcane wave …. or at least make players to pick ground target or instant cast. ………………………… SAD day for me!
also, water traits!
not happy
y ruining the fun . ele is my main. and i will always want to play my ele.. the way i like to play. if you want to make more improvement to staff weapon, go ahead but do not ruin the existing. such a disaster!!

lol, I’d sign a petition.

This change was uncalled for an unnecessary, I’d LOVE to hear ArenaNets explanation behind this.
RTL is still nerfed, because Spirit Watch.

Xernth.8561:

I completely disagree and hope they keep the Arcane Wave changes; having a ranged, instant blast finisher is amazlingly useful and I hope we can keep it.

If you want it ranged, then having a trait that turns Arcane Wave into a ground targeting skill would be ideal.

But for now, this kitten is not acceptable ArenaNet, stop trying to force everyone into Scepter and Staff.

/signed

Bumping my own thread to hope that ArenaNet will see what a failure december 10th patch was.

The reason why Elementalists prefer Water and Arcana is not because they are overpowered but because all the other trait lines suck and offer nothing of good use. STILL.

ndrangles.5183:

gandlethorpe.2641:

It’s almost unusable underwater because it’s still ground targeted, hah.

In before “lol underwater balance”

haha. it’s a small thing, but you actually used to be able to stealth underwater with earth 5 and arcane wave. eles aren’t as bad underwater as people say, though they aren’t great. but yeah, water combat in general is bad, so….not that it matters much. but they made it a little worse.

if nothing else, remove the ground targeting underwater. o_o

Elementalists have 4 CC skills, freaking 4! And invisibility, they are amazing underwater, they just don’t have that high ranged damage.

Who is checking quality control of ArenaNet? This change is nothing but trouble :\

Netko.9271:

Nevermind, I was thought it proc when you hit critical, not when you get hit. And was thinking what great trait.

Don’t feel bad, Engineers has like 12 traits that require them to be critical hit by an enemy.
That is why they are very limited to a lot of specific traits and potential is hindered in PvE because of it.
But in PvP, they are probably top tier class now.

Lily.1935:

Mash Hog.5672:

This is hilarious, this is but one example of how fast ANet deals with the Elementalist class.
They want to get in make the change and get out as fast as possible because they feel uncomfortable working with a class they they have NO idea how to deal with.

I love how the glyph problem has been there since the last balance patch and has not even been addressed yet.

if the profession isn’t Guardian, Mesmer or Warrior they don’t care.

Have you seen the status of the Mesmer this patch?

Lowest tier, I’d put it as far as the weakest sPvP class thanks to the MASSIVE nerf to phantasms, the Mesmers best source of damage and every build NEEDS phantasms.

Meanwhile Engineers are still running amok with even more survivability with their high condition damage still untouched.
Warriors are shredding with Longbow+Dual Swords instead, because you can spam immobilize.
Necromancers are running power, with Dhuumfire because Dhuumfire is a must have.
Rangers are still faceroll easy, except with better survivability.
Guardians are still being used as bunkers only, despite getting a good damage buff.

The viable versatility of builds is just awful. They fail to see the problems time and again.

Arcane and Water Magic are not overpowered ArenaNet, just that every other Grandmaster trait sucks balls. That simple.

Dingle.2743:

They explicitly stated it during the livestream on Friday and several threads talking about the new healing skill(s) began mentioning the change to arcane wave as well.

You call that a preview?

Anyways, the new Arcane Wave is a pain to work with now.

Seriously ArenaNet, fix this.

I love it and definitely going to use it, 5.

BUT REVERT ARCANE WAVE!! Then I would be happy with this update…

I wouldn’t say Water and Arcana are good, it’s just that Earth, Fire and Air are just worthless.

There are no reasons to leave Water and Arcana as the other trait lines offer NOTHING good, just gimmicky single builds. No versatility.

The ‘buff’ to Arcane Wave does more harm than good. Making Arcane Wave ground targeting, THAT SHOULD BE PART OF A TRAIT, not the skill.

I don’t want it to be ranged but other people would.

It’s very clear ArenaNet needs help, I wonder when they’ll acknowledge the fact they keep failing time and again…

Don’t be impressed, in team fights Diamond Skin is absolutely worthless, you’d be lucky if you get the trait to trigger once or twice. Anything 2v2+ you’ll find that you are quite squishy.

It’s hard to even justify this in WvW solo builds, it is PURELY situational.

Yet another worthless trait…

Water Adept is absolutely worthless now, something well have to deal with until ArenaNet stops being stupid with traits.

Better than Grandmaster Earth still.

Vissarion.6509:

Xia.3485:

Oh GOD I hate this change…. WHY!? Why didn’t they even preview this.. WHY!?

They did actually.

No they didn’t, the whole change was ninja’d.

It’s not even in the patch notes.

Nyxion.9142:

RoyalCrumpet.5389:

I think that Arcane Wave should be reverted to the way it was and should NOT require ground targeting, especially underwater! There is absolutely no need in that, at all! I think Arcane Blast on the other hand should have like an AoE blast when it hits of like 240 or something, so people actually have a reason to use it.

Blast is the worst of the arcane skills, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad skill overall. It always crits, has insane range and benefits from Arcane Lighting. Also no ground targeting ;P

There are 2 VERY viable solutions to this. That won’t kitten any players off.

1. Get rid of the Ground Targeting on Arcane Wave, give Arcane Blast a BLAST finisher.

2. Add ground targeting to a trait like Arcane Retribution.
Arcane Retribution: Gain Arcane Power when your health drops below the threshold. Arcane Wave now uses ground targeting.

In my opinion, the biggest problems with the Elementalist, is simply traits.

ArenaNet proves themselves time and again they have no clue what they are doing with traits.

For example, the ninja-update with Arcane Wave. Why couldn’t that be mixed in with a trait?

Arcane Retribution: Gain Arcane Power when your health drops below the threshold. Arcane Wave now uses ground targeting.

But no, they just kitten it up.

Diamond Skin, okay, that will stop Pin Down and Necromancer wells. That’s it.
That trait EXISTS to counter the condition meta.

Instead of toning down the condition meta they added, they decided the best route is adding counter traits.
Keep shortening the massive list of viable traits and traitlines.

Why couldn’t this change be a trait?

biofrog.1568:

earth attune + trait + arcane wave gives a glorious area effect immobilise now

Also, I noticed fire ring + arcane brilliance + arcane wave gives a looot of stack mights.. neat having two instant blast finishers on hand.

I’m not denying it’s good.
I’m just saying by buff a skill used often when you have other utility skills that are never used?

I really want the reason behind this…

CuRtoKy.8576:

Because they wanted to make it different from Arcane brilliance which works the same way except it does less damage and heals.

I guess this is the reason.

I’ll add that to the list of ArenaNets terrible game design choices-
Two skills too similar? CHANGE IT can’t have it similar skills and completely ignore the fact 1/5th of all traits in Guild Wars 2 are deal X% more damage.

I’ll add that near the top of the list, right next to, ArenaNet logic: Ride the Lightning to effective on a single PvP map? Nerf it everywhere!

silvermember.8941:

As I was playing blade and soul, I realize just hos horribly illconceived condition is in the game. In that game, condition damage exist but it wasn’t in your face and it wasn’t a main form of damage.

I also realize how this game ttk is so high, in that game one can react (even when playing with 280 ping) and the little things make combat so much more interest than this game.

Most games break damage to things like magic damage and physical damage like League of Legends, condition damage is the same concept.

It’s purpose is for builds and play styles in Guild Wars 2.

It also doesn’t help that some skills don’t have much tells to them or are to blazing fast for their own good.
How can you tell Pin Down from a normal arrow? You cannot. It has the same activation time and look as Dual Shot.
Signet of Spite hits really hard, yet your reaction for the glowing circle above the enemies head is less than a second.

When you look at League, a lot of skills are under a second but they are well telegraphed and have good animations.

I can agree with having 1 class with a viable build GankSinatra.

But I disagree alternating between balance and game design in updates, it can easily run into power creeping.

Miyu.8137:

My question for dev would be, what means balance for them? Is that overall balance across all builds and classes? Or does it mean to nerf the most used builds just to force ppl to use the less used builds?

That is a really good question.
I’m quoting it just because it’s really good.

Balance to me-is skill, fun, punishment and reward.

In fact, fun plays a huge role in balance. Balance numbers and skill level as much as you want, if one class is more fun than the other, regardless of being even, everyone will play that one class more.

Should they continue to buff/nerf certain weak skills or traits?

• After all, it was the dreaded Dhuumfire update that put the balance into a frenzy. Adding a new mechanic and more access to conditions that started the worst meta.
• Making mild changes to mechanics like immobilize utterly breaks the system. Even mild changes isn’t ideal.
• Unbalanced mechanics like Perplexity Runes to wreak havoc for months and other mechanics forcing players into a corner with Lyssa Runes. Making PvP unenjoyable for everyone.
• Even PvP map types will throw the system out of loop, one build that focuses AoE CC maybe balanced in Capture game types but overpowered in Team Deathmatches. What do you do if that happens? How do you balance that? You can’t.

Obviously, to keep PvP balanced and even for all, is not to touch the system. Yeah, the gameplay will not evolve but at least you don’t feel like the game mechanics are cheating you, that you picked wrong. Changing up a balanced system isn’t ideal.
Right?
______
BUT!
______

• The trait system is lackluster, along with Runes and Sigils that don’t contribute much if not anything to the game.
• I’ve already posted threads like changing mechanics and redesigning traits to something more fun, interesting and requires more thought.
• I stated there is a lot of potential for expanding play styles and builds. Opening more opportunity for fun in Guild Wars 2 gameplay.

Obviously, adding new stuff will unbalance the game but the reward is new, fun and exciting things. Some may hate it, others will like it. So, expand and fix later.
You cannot expand gameplay without running into some problems, avoiding that isn’t ideal.
Right?

What is the answer to this? Balance? Improved design? Both but in limited quantities? Both in large quantities?
As players, what do we favor more?

Yeah, no new armors skins in the store, meta achievement still bugged.

You might was well give up on getting the achievement fixed, the Hint Completion Achievement has been bugged since day 1, despite being ‘fixed’, forever on my nearly completed list…

Bugged too. Couldn’t complete it, I couldn’t interact with the cooling cores.

Okay, ArenaNet, these runes have gone to far, they need a cooldown.

Will we see a fix Tuesday or must we wait longer?

How is this trait is remotely considered OP is beyond me.

Basically, this trait is asking the Elementalist not to take 1,300-2,000 damage in a fight to be effective.
ArenaNet is so out of touch with it’s community…

Last time I checked, Necromancers are going the zerker route anyways because scepter has no projectiles, fast and spams 3 conditions in a single combo, surviving thanks to fear and weakness.

HEY ENGINEERS! Want this kitten trait, all Elementalists will happy to take the trait Automated Response, something useful.

unleashed.8679 just stop, you obviously don’t understand the problem.

And I’ve read your post, everything you countered in my argument is not correct. Not a single thing you stated was valid. Simple as that.

In fact, I just gave a good example of why conditions made the Mesmer a no longer viable PvP class and yet you have the nerve to mock me and state conditions are fine.

Prove me wrong on that. Oh wait, you can’t.

Go tPvP more to truly understand the issue that conditions bring into gameplay.

jcbroe.4329:

Nova Stiker.8396:

jcbroe.4329:

Daishi.6027:

IMO there aren’t any big “Condition” skills.
Mesmers use shatter 10 sec c/d + clones and easily avoidable.
Thief has Backstabbing combo not super easy to see but out playable.
Ele has one hit wonder easy to see instagib with ovbviois animation.
Old war had 100b.

Sure things like phats for Mesmers and heart seeker are supplementary moves to go between bursts but clear set up wins you a fight.

Condi dosent have this, if one condi stacking move misses it’s fine you still have auto attack and a bunch of other high stack skills, and all with reletively low cooldowns. I think some skills should be designed as major damage dealers but have more of a heavy shave on the other access to conditions. And I think the damage typing in this maner would justify the tankyness and would be balanced with current removal cooldowns. I think this is a simple but not lazy balance. (I say simple but I mean as opposed to major reworks )

Just wanted to say I like this idea and +1.

If they do this, they’ll have to reduce the amount of condition cleansing, which is a good thing.

Preferably making the majority of cleansing Active options as well.

It does however, bring up another issue.

If you force conditions to be more skill based landing, that actually hurts quite a few traits that spams conditions. Traits offer different ways conditions are inflicted. If they get nerfed, how should ArenaNet replace them?

jcbroe.4329:

Daishi.6027:

IMO there aren’t any big “Condition” skills.
Mesmers use shatter 10 sec c/d + clones and easily avoidable.
Thief has Backstabbing combo not super easy to see but out playable.
Ele has one hit wonder easy to see instagib with ovbviois animation.
Old war had 100b.

Sure things like phats for Mesmers and heart seeker are supplementary moves to go between bursts but clear set up wins you a fight.

Condi dosent have this, if one condi stacking move misses it’s fine you still have auto attack and a bunch of other high stack skills, and all with reletively low cooldowns. I think some skills should be designed as major damage dealers but have more of a heavy shave on the other access to conditions. And I think the damage typing in this maner would justify the tankyness and would be balanced with current removal cooldowns. I think this is a simple but not lazy balance. (I say simple but I mean as opposed to major reworks )

Just wanted to say I like this idea and +1.

If they do this, they’ll have to reduce the amount of condition cleansing, which is a good thing.

Ashanor.5319:

I think a better solution to conditions is to cap the number of things that can be applied in pvp to a lower number. The problem doesn’t come from a single condition spammer, it comes when there are multiple condition spammers and so much cover that you can’t cleanse the damaging conditions before you drop. I hate to say cap the number of bleeds or torment or cap the duration of poison or burning because it means if there is more than one condition user it may be a hindrance to the team, but it may be necessary. Also, while you are capping them for spvp, can you remove the caps for PvE so condition builds aren’t seen as a hindrance there?

There are multiple solutions on how to improve conditions, in my suggestion thread I suggested giving conditions more mechanics than just straight damage.

Your suggestion is also valid.

Another suggestion is more cleanse but I greatly disagree with that. It’s not fixing the problem of a lot of conditions, it’s just balancing more cleanse with the number of conditions. Not a lot of conditions means there will be no need for a lot of cleanse.

Another suggestion is more visibility to skills that inflict conditions.

There are multiple solutions but can only be one answer.
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As of right now for GW2 PvP/gameplay future, it’s pretty bad and limiting.

unleashed.8679:

So much wrong information in the first post:

Really? The way I see, there are plenty of things wrong with your post.

If you believe that using a power based build that spams conditions isn’t ideal, you don’t PvP enough.
I can tell you the top tier roaming necromancer build is using Berserker Amulets wielding Scepter and Staff.
Dealing as much damage as a zerker ranger with a shortbow but spamming 3 conditions with their auto attack and using fear, death shroud and weakness to safely stay alive.
Making it near impossible to beat 1v1, getting 2 zerker necromancers to focus 1 target? That player is going to blow up, 20 stacks of bleeding, near perma burning and perma Poison. Who needs condition damage when you stack bleeding so fast?

It’s basically what killed Mesmers in the meta game. How can a Mesmer hope to survive against it? Blocking with clones is not possible, reflection doesn’t work, how are you going to hide in your clones when your character is green and on fire?

If you didn’t know that, your argument has no weight.
I’m not even going to counter other things you said, go tPvP more and avoid Hot Join.

kirito.4138:

Nova Stiker.8396:

kirito.4138:

Dagger auto attack is faster than scepter and actually does more damage as a power build.

Read Ezrael.6859 post.

I Have

Good, then you understand why scepter+staff is a good idea on a power necro.

Despite the fact dagger is designed for power necros.

kirito.4138:

Dagger auto attack is faster than scepter and actually does more damage as a power build.

Read Ezrael.6859 post.

jcbroe.4329:

I think that the issue isn’t so much as what the OP is highlighting as much as it is how effective you can burst with conditions versus how effective you can burst with a power spec, and the direct stat allocation it takes to be effective in each category.

Technically 2 specs for conditions if you include condition duration.

But I believe that is not the problem. Conditions DPS shouldn’t be remedied by spreading more stats.

The problem is the need to spam conditions and there is no thought or punishment in doing so. Like you said, it’s there for sustained DPS but unlike power, the DPS is constant and reliable.

It doesn’t matter if the opponent is at full health or about to die. You are rewarded by
applying 10 stacks of bleeding, 6 seconds of burning or 5 stacks of torment. It’s simply sustained DPS.

• What if Bleeding deals less damage if the opponent has high health but more damage if the opponent is low on health?
• What if Burning deals more damage if the opponent has high health but less if the opponent is low on health?
• What if Torment, instead of stacking and dealing raw damage if the opponent is moving, instead, Torment stacks duration and spreads when enemies go near one another?
• What if confusion, instead of dealing damage on every skills, only deals damage when the opponent hits a foe? However, it’s damage is considerably higher.

You got yourself a system that doesn’t reward spamming but rewards thoughtful play.

But we both have the same idea, conditions need more thoughtful mechanics.

One thing people keep mentioning is more cleanse.

I GREATLY disagree. Guild Wars 2 needs LESS cleanse.
But at it’s current state, it is going to turn that way.

If classes didn’t have a monstrous amount of various spammable conditions, then there will be no need for so much cleanse.

Also toning down the condition duration, both traits and foods, in WvW you can be running around with over 100% condition duration. Make the foods less powerful.

• I got hit by Throw Torch by a ranger with pure condition damage, no duration increase, with foods it lasted 10 seconds and did 8k damage!
• He showed me Splitblade, then swapped weapons for Sigil then hit with Crippling Talon. 11 stacks of bleeding did 14k damage!!

I actually beat him with my Elementalist 1v1 because of cleanse.

That isn’t right, both the fact he did so much condition damage and the fact I was able to cleanse so much of it so easily.

If you reduce the need to spam conditions, you reduce the need to cleanse.

More cleansing is NOT the answer.

Heta.8629:

Fury change would be game breaking because the game is balanced around cool downs since there is no mana or energy. That being said I would welcome the change and change my build for perma fury

My Elementalist would be running around with perma fury as well, with my suggested changes, conditions and boons will have to be moved around or reduced.

The problem with Fury is that it’s everywhere, it’s a boon that is given out on most skills and traits because it’s pretty weak.

By making it stronger, it would require more thoughtful placement in skills and traits. Making it less spammy.

Which means goodbye perma Fury.

However, if it’s more powerful and stability is less powerful, it will allow a nice balance to availability.

Confusion – Damage only triggers if target does not hit a foe. Increased base damage.
For those that doesn’t know, confusion used to be much more powerful in terms of raw damage. Now matter what you did, dodge, heal, use a kit, swap attunements, you took a lot of damage. Which hurt the condition, a lot, making it not very damaging without several stacks.
I believe returning it’s high damage but instead it only damages foes that use a skill and didn’t damage a foe. Rewarding careful gameplay for players affected by confusion as well as rewarding cautious gameplay for players that can abuse it.
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Weakness – reduce critical chance and damage by 33%, no longer slows stamina regeneration.
Weakness is not a problem because it is too powerful. Which is why you don’t see if very much. By reducing it’s punishing damage reduction it will open up more uses in gameplay. Before critical hits ignores the effects of weakness, following the trend of it’s last buff and giving it a slight nerf, instead of reducing all damage by 50%, reduce the damage by 33% AND reduce the critical chance by 33%
I’d nerf this not because it’s affected gameplay too much, I’d nerf this because it affects gameplay to little. The weaker it is, the more uses it has.
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Vulnerability – stacks duration. Now increases damage dealt to affected target by 10% and increases critical chance of hits to target foe by 20%
This condition is simply too weak, further down, I have a change to Fury and my reasoning behind it. Vulnerability is only used on two professions on two specific builds. That’s it. That is sad. By changing the need to stack it to deal more damage, instead, make it stack duration. It’s basically the new Fury.
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Boons. Boons are good, boons are useful and boons are everywhere. Not matter the situation, a boon is always useful. Some, more-so than others. My focus is to strengthen some weaker boons. Opening more opportunities for using these boons.

Boons are NOT the same mechanic as conditions. As boons only effect the player or it’s allies, punishment is simply bad use. It’s why I believe treating boons the same way as conditions in terms of punishment/reward skillful gameplay isn’t ideal as boons already have a punishment system, which is punishing bad timing. Something the current conditions lack.
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Fury – now increases the speed skills recharge by 20%.
Fury is useful, not matter what profession or build you are using, having that extra 1/5th chance to critical is pretty handy. However, it’s purpose would be better used elsewhere, it’s why Vulnerability would benefit more from it, giving it a nice buff. However, I didn’t want this to have basically the same effects of Vulnerability but not making it too overpower and still useful.
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Retaliation – reduces damage taken and deals the damage back to the source. Ends after taking damage. How much reduced is affected by healing power.
This used to be significantly stronger but it was nerfed for good reasons. It hurt a lot, hit a foe for 800 damage, you’d take half that back as free, extra damage. So it was nerfed, very hard, now it’s often overlooked.
Like Aegis, Retaliation should end after a single hit. However, it should also reduce the damage that was taken as well as dealing damage back. Making it a good defensive option to the boon like protection, speaking of…
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Protection – Amount of damage reduced is affected by healing power.
This Boon is good no matter what you run. Like burning, this isn’t ideal. Instead of making it situational based, the best route for boons is stat based. Rewarding those that build defensively instead of rewarding everyone who has it.
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Stability – Ends after hit with a control effect.
You might look at this and assume I am crazy, you must have stability, you’d get wrecked without it!
That is exactly the problem.
You must have it, you must have several seconds of being immune to control effects.
It’s a powerful boon that is often on skills with very long recharges, most traits that break stun, are on 45-90 second recharge!
You want Stability more accessible yet ends sooner. Timing your stability instead of breaking stun then running around immune to control effects for several seconds.
If Stability gets nerfed, it HAS to show up more in other places. Seeing it in more skills, more traits, instead of sitting in most Grandmaster trait lines.
Opening the way for more useful traits and skills.

For those that don’t know the PvP game, it’s a total mess.
Right now the biggest issue is conditions. For those that remember pre-torment update, conditions weren’t very viable. They worked, to a small degree.

Then the balance geniuses assumed everyone wanted condition builds. Adding powerful traits, adding conditions to skills so they can be viable builds.

It destroyed PvP.
Why?
Two reasons:

• The amount of conditions were to much.
• Conditions do not punish failure. You can dodge skills that lands a condition but it is LESS punishing to miss skills with conditions than with just regular power.

It’s why traits like Dhuumfire and Incendiary Powder are overpowered, often taken in every build, even power based builds.

Giving some professions like the Necromancer, Warrior, Ranger and Engineer just blow other classes out of the water.
It’s not that they are to powerful, it’s that they are not punishing failure enough.

So how to you punish failure with conditions? For starters, limit the effectiveness of every condition in certain situations.
Why?
Look at a lot of skills, Hundred Blades, Fire Grab, Backstab. They all have one thing in common, to be at their strongest, they need a requirement from their opponent.
Which is exactly what conditions lack.

If I were to rebalance conditions, I wouldn’t make them weaker or have shorter durations on every skill, instead, requiring more skill based gameplay.

Burning – deals more damage the higher health the target has. (125% – 25% ratio)
Burning is a powerful condition, it’s base damage is just good. Adding an extra thousand damage to your flurry of attacks. Not matter the situation, burn is useful. Which is also a problem, to make burning more prominent as well as giving it a major damage decrease. I’ve decided the best way to handle burning was to reduce it’s damage the lower the targets health but increase it the higher the health the target has.
(The opponent starts taking less damage from burning after the 75% health mark)
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Bleeding – deals more damage the lower health the foe has. (25% – 125% ratio)
Following the same formula of burning, bleeding has it’s damage reversed. Aiding to the idea of ‘bleeding out’ bleeding will deal more damage the less health target foe has. (Bleeding dealing 100% of it’s damage at the 25% of the opponents health mark)
Now, this may seem like a massive nerf, which it is but remember, bleeding stacks, by the time you apply ~14 stacks of bleeding, the opponent SHOULD already have lower health. This will decrease to need to spike opponents with 10 stacks of bleeding who is already at full health.
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Torment – no longer deals damage upon movement. Stacks duration. Torment still deals damage over time, if the foe affected by torment goes near its ally, it transfers torment. (Cannot transfer more than once.)
The dreaded update brought this monster with it. Torment. By game design, it’s bad. It punishes mobile players and it hits hard.
Too hard.
The problem with this condition is that it’s very damaging giving ANY situation. It needs a nerf, not only to bring down it’s power but to allow more builds. The problem with super strong conditions and boons is you must limit them.
I decided the best route would to bring back a similar effect, a condition in Guild Wars 1 called disease. The change to this is simple, if you go near a player, they become affected by Torment. This will allow more interesting gameplay, punishing enemies that group together. It’s damage is NOT going to be very large, I’d say less or equal damage to poison. It’s purpose is to harm enemies running close together and focusing single targets.
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Immobilize – no longer halts movement. It now slows movement by 33% and Immobilize prevents dodge rolling and slows endurance regeneration.
Immobilize is simply to powerful, not just the fact you cannot dodge roll but not being able to move or turn is asking for a beating.
To nerf this and keep it’s stacking by duration, have it so immobilize simply stops dodge rolling with the effect of slowing endurance regeneration and movement speed.
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Cripple – Now deals damage to moving enemies.
I’m a bit surprised ArenaNet didn’t buff crippling instead of adding Torment. Basically Cripple becomes the new Torment, to a degree. Cripple will not deal damage to non-mobile enemies, because it stacks duration, it’s damage should be between burning and poison.
The animation of a crippled character already makes them look like their in pain, changing cripple to deal damage to moving enemies would add a nice additional damage to the nerfed burning, bleeding and torment.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’ll be reducing the maximum amount immobilize stacks in the near future.

Or just change it back. The game was DESIGNED with ONE stack of immobilize in mind.

Not five, not four, not three nor two, designed for just one.

Stop adding/changing mechanics without considering the entire game! (AHEM torment)

Relentless.7023:

Its one of those “bad for the player, good for the game” changes.

As much as immob stacking is complained about, guess what can let high burst team builds focus fire more effectively?

People complain about evade spam, Anet gives you immob stacking, and now people are complaining about immob stacking and forgot about evade spam. Anet is nerfing evade spam again, and if someone calls for vigor uptime to come back I’m just gonna laugh.

No, this is a “bad for the players, bad for the game” changes.

The developer stream flat out said they’re gonna add it and see what happens. No proper testing, no test krewe, turned a skill based mechanic to a spam based one.

I believe all kinds of CC shouldn’t stack, it would discourage players spamming them.

Remember how PvP was enjoyable pre-Dhuumfire update?

Then the broken update came, ArenaNet all of a sudden started making really bad balance decisions that a lot of their player base screamed not too. One bad decision, after another, after another.

I’m thinking Dhuum has grasped some of the balance team and is seeking to throw the mists into chaos!

I just went into a match where a Mesmer can broke the glass by cannon and always get a kill with Focus.

I had Arcane Shield up, still got pulled. GG mechanics. I love being feared as well when I have a shield up.

I was wrecking the Mesmer 1v1, I managed to avoid 3-4 pulls. I still died because of 1 focus pull. What skill was involved? The part I was punished for playing skillful or you rewarded the mesmer for not?

Still, the map is whoever has the most CC wins. No changes there.

Imagine if Knockdown, Daze or Stun skills actually break all nearby glass instead…

*Added a new damaging condition Torment
To a game balanced without it.

• Introduced a stun bug
  Takes months to fix it.

• Adding stacking immobilize.
  To a game designed for it NOT to stack.
  _________________________________________________________
  This is bad game design, they keep power creeping to try to keep the game interesting.

I’ve made posts about how to make the game interesting. Using traits NOT to make builds but rather play styles.

But I think they are just going to keep making the same mistakes.

McFly.2134:

Lol, seeing the enemy with a big red set of words above their heads was one of the things that made WvW a huge joke to me from launch. I still think it’s a joke for several reason, but that’s a whole new topic

It wasn’t at launch. This was an unannounced change a while back.

At first I thought it was a bug but now, don’t know.

Doggie.3184:

Something I always wished was possible but’ll probably never happen.

It IS possible, a little more than 6 months ago your blaring character name wouldn’t pop up.

Then, unannounced, the change happened.

So let me get this straight.

• Content update every month, which will please a lot players that don’t have a lot of time to play and spend hours doing the new content.
• Every two weeks we get MUCH needed bug fixes, visual bugs, skill bugs and other pesky bugs fixed.
• Quality control so we can expected more balanced gameplay.

This is a great idea! Too bad ArenaNet will never realized we don’t give two kittens about new content every week if the rest of the game is lacking.

How long has my Incinerator had it’s visual bug? I’m still sitting at 82/83 hint completion. PATHETIC. Stop adding new stuff and fix the content you already have!