Guild Wars 2

Silverkey.2078:

We don’t only want to make chronomancer non-OP, we ideally also want build diversity. Core mesmer should still exist, and alacrity is what makes chronomancer an almost always superior choice. I think ideally, a-net should not nerf any core trait or skills, but just bring the elite specs in line by nerfing them directly. For chrono, this is alacrity, for reaper this is chill, etc…

You do realize that no amount of nerfing Chronomancer, will somehow make the core mesmer desirable in PvE right? The reason the core mesmer is not desired in PvE has nothing to do with the Chronomancer or alacrity. The reason is the core mesmer. It does not offer any real value to a PvE group. The sustained damage is low. Reflects are complete garbage now in any relevant PvE instanced content. Boons are omnipresent from all classes except necros and thieves now. The question becomes….why would you want a core mesmer in your PvE group now? It has to offer something of value to make it desirable and it currently does not. This is the same design fail that thieves and necros are experiencing. It has nothing to do with the chronomancer elite spec….it has everything to do with the lack of anything good in the core specs.

The core mesmer was barely holding onto a niche PvE group spot pre-HoT. Once the reflect nerfs happend…the core mesmer was dead in PvE. Its dead in PvE still…for those same reasons as pre-HoT. All you are going to accomplish by nerf crying over Chronomancers is to make all mesmers be dead in PvE. The focus should be on building the core mesmer up…instead of trying to drag the elite spec down to trash level. ANET has repeatedly demonstrated inability to identify the actual problems with balance and implement any true fixes. The idea with well of precog…to increase the cast time…on a stun break…is a prime example. The only problem with well of precog was point capture contribution, but their lack of controlled testing lead to both a fix for the point capture and a mind boggling cast time increase. They apparently just throw the kitchen sink at any problem and hope they manage to randomly fix the problem as a result. They are getting a huge vote of no confidence regarding balance expectations.

Yes, tired of all the butt capes and full body coffins. Definitely a fan of the “less is more” armor design.

Henry.5713:

ODB.6891:

BlackDragon.3752:

Who needs protection, who needs might with warrior, who needs regen, fury is okayish but can be handled by condi wars/tiger pet of druid. CC is nice but you loose alot of DPS if you go staff and the CC can be handled by other classes aswell for example Headbutt. 50% that’s a quite good and unique buff so that one is good. The DPS is fine but not so good if you AA only also as a power class Tempest is way stronger. There is no combo of usefull things tbh. A good rev would even use only 2 facets in glint to get the trait while being over 50% energy on swap for more DPS.

EDIT: the combo atm is a bit of usefull buffs with good DPS. Without the DPS rev is just to weak.

Agreed…the rev haters are just too short sighted and single minded. They are just so focused on finding a way to nerf the class they don’t like. Its illogical to nerf the dps of a class that isn’t doing anywhere near the most dps. Its short sighted and narrow minded to ignore the design of the herald itself…that the facet passives are extremely situational…based on what you already have in the party/raid. You don’t have all the facet passives active at the same time…you turn on what your party/raid is missing. Wasting all your energy on maintaining buffs that are already present is stupid. The only pairing where using FoN (boon duration) is even relevant is when you are grouped with a Chronomancer for perma quickness. That is just as described…a pairing/combination….not available in every group. Not a standalone reason to have a herald in your group. They need to wrap their minds around the fact that individual dps does matter. It matters slightly less for us in the presence of a Chronomancer, but it still matters. It matters more for us and for groups in the absence of a Chronomancer. So this nerf they are crying for…would essentially make us unwanted in any group without a Chronomancer. I know I don’t want to bring sub par dps into a group when I have options for dps that is up to par. I don’t get this logic of crying for a dps nerf for a class not doing top dps…that’s anti logic.

Don’t think either burnzerker or herald should have their damage touched.
The raid balance looks pretty good to me.
Some classes could be brought up a bit more and it would be perfect.

Still, kind of wondering about that anti logic you are talking about…

I find it kind of weird that anyone would only consider nerfing something if the class outdoes all other classes in this one aspect. That is so short sighted.

Just as an example (not any classes in particular):

class A: class B:
Damage: 80% Damage: 100%
Defense: 80% Defense: 60%
Healing: 50% Healing: 20%
Utility: 70% Utility: 10%

or something like this

class A: class B:
Damage: 70% Damage: 30%
Defense: 70% Defense: 50%
Healing: 70% Healing: 100%
Utility: 70% Utility: 10%

Is class B supposed to have the damage/healing nerfed because it is the only class in the game that can do that 100%?
I’d consider class A to be much more powerful and maybe in the need of some rebalancing. Maybe that is just me.

I agree with you that class A appears to be more powerful in both scenarios…primarily because the utility of class B needs to be improved in both scenarios.

BlackDragon.3752:

Who needs protection, who needs might with warrior, who needs regen, fury is okayish but can be handled by condi wars/tiger pet of druid. CC is nice but you loose alot of DPS if you go staff and the CC can be handled by other classes aswell for example Headbutt. 50% that’s a quite good and unique buff so that one is good. The DPS is fine but not so good if you AA only also as a power class Tempest is way stronger. There is no combo of usefull things tbh. A good rev would even use only 2 facets in glint to get the trait while being over 50% energy on swap for more DPS.

EDIT: the combo atm is a bit of usefull buffs with good DPS. Without the DPS rev is just to weak.

Agreed…the rev haters are just too short sighted and single minded. They are just so focused on finding a way to nerf the class they don’t like. Its illogical to nerf the dps of a class that isn’t doing anywhere near the most dps. Its short sighted and narrow minded to ignore the design of the herald itself…that the facet passives are extremely situational…based on what you already have in the party/raid. You don’t have all the facet passives active at the same time…you turn on what your party/raid is missing. Wasting all your energy on maintaining buffs that are already present is stupid. The only pairing where using FoN (boon duration) is even relevant is when you are grouped with a Chronomancer for perma quickness. That is just as described…a pairing/combination….not available in every group. Not a standalone reason to have a herald in your group. They need to wrap their minds around the fact that individual dps does matter. It matters slightly less for us in the presence of a Chronomancer, but it still matters. It matters more for us and for groups in the absence of a Chronomancer. So this nerf they are crying for…would essentially make us unwanted in any group without a Chronomancer. I know I don’t want to bring sub par dps into a group when I have options for dps that is up to par. I don’t get this logic of crying for a dps nerf for a class not doing top dps…that’s anti logic.

Kagamiku.9731:

…snip

So the short of this is there has not been a justification for a damage nerf…as I saw zero of those questions actually answered.

Kagamiku.9731:

Because when a classes damage is all relegated to his auto attack it becomes much too easy to bring out the max output of his damage. Take warrior for example, he misses a HB and his damage drops massively. This isn’t the issue with a revenant because all he needs to do is stick close and 11111 and swap stances when necessary.

So the gist of the argument isn’t that they are doing too much damage, but that you feel it is too easy? Okay, I’ve already commented on that…so I’ll just repeat what I said before…spread the damage around between the weapon skills if that is what it takes to make people happy. Like I said in my previous post, that would probably be a good thing to put some distance between good and bad players. Others seem to want that too…so that looks like a winning idea. That still does not support this desire to decrease the total damage of a profession that is not doing top tier damage.

You use mallyx when you have a chrono on your team because impossible odds (shiro stance skill) isn’t needed and you want to have 100% FoS uptime. Mallyx is good for the elite skill because at least it provides a 10%boon to all stats while allowing you to maintain FoS. Impossible Odds can’t be used in conjunction with FoS so even if the Chronomancer doesn’t provide perma-quickness, you’d probably be better off running Mallyx.

I think its been noted multiple times that might generation (FoS) is not really why you bring a herald. You bring a herald for FoN and FoD…boon duration and fury respectively. I mentioned earlier, that the herald is a gap filler in regards to boons. In the absence of a PS warr/berserker…then we can fill in with slightly lesser might generation…but that role is more effectively filled by others.

I’m seriously doubting that Mallyx is a legend to run in raids unless you either really need boon stripping or condi defense. You aren’t going to spend enough time in that legend otherwise for that self 10% elite buff to outweigh the damage you get from the Shiro heal or possible CC from the Shiro elite.

Kagamiku.9731:

Fury, Might and Swiftness are the important ones for raids. Revs can maintain more than just a few might stacks. While in Dragon Stance they can maintain upwards of 17might on their own, and with high enough boon duration they won’t lose many when swapping to shiro/mallyx. They can maintain even more in conjunction with Unrelenting Assault. Warriors can technically provide full might stacks on their own, but not on moving targets. It’s not that Revanents have a unique party buff, it’s that they can passively apply many of the most important boons to the whole party. FoS is icing on the cake and it’s one of the best skills in the game.

Yes, heralds can maintain that much might if needed due to the absence of a PS warr/berserker. Which requires running FoS (facet of strength)..in addition to FoN (facet of nature)…when we are highly likely to be running FoD (at the same time). We are back to the legendary 6/6/6/6/6 type build this sub conversation started with….more upkeep than the herald has available. Also completely redundant since the might part should be handled by others instead…and it usually is handled by others instead. I’m just assuming that every time you say FoS you are actually referencing the utility by those initials…and not actually talking about FoN (facet of nature)? When you say it is one of the “best skills in the game”, that seriously makes me think you are just calling it the wrong name.

Kagamiku.9731:

Utility skills as in party-wide damage buffs. Banners/Quickness/Alacrity/Fury and so forth. Any damage related skill that buffs the party is far more important than individual DPS. An extra 10% damage to your class is miniscule compared to party-wide fury or the prec and ferocity provided by Banner of Discipline. Mesmer DPS is atrocious and it’s still the most valued member of a raid because perma-quickness and alacrity is insane.

Okay, here’s the logic here. You can bring all the utility you could possibly imagine…in a full nomad party. Is damage still unimportant? The answer is of course its important to bring damage. Here’s another bit of logic….Raids are a very tiny percentage of the total game. Where’s the logic in nerfing damage for a profession…that is already acknowledged as not being in the top damage rankings…because it offers useful buffs…or because you feel its easy to play…specifically because of maybe 2% of the content in the entire game? I’ll stop now with these questions. How would a damage nerf to heralds improve the game? How would a damage nerf to heralds improve profession balance? Are heralds over represented in raids? Without a valid and truthful answer to these questions…how can this sub conversation continue? Regardless of how much you may dislike the auto attack of heralds. Regardless of whether you just dislike that heralds have the intentionally designed role of being a buff gap filler as needed. This sub conversation about justifying a damage nerf to heralds is without merit if those above questions do not have valid and truthful responses with justification. A damage nerf does not just affect group play btw.

Kagamiku.9731:

Rev is one of the classes I use for raids(warr/rev/mes currently), I’m not for or against a damage nerf. But in my opinion, they simply provide too much damage with their auto attacks. And even if their damage was nerfed, their utility would still make them meta.

Not getting this fixation on which attack does the majority of their damage. Would all this nerf crying really stop if it was spread out more between the weapon skills? I’m not seeing the actual logic here. The only real reasons to decrease the damage output of a class would be if either they were actually doing too much damage (which we already know isn’t the case) or if the class was disproportionately represented due to being deemed indispensable (also not the case as heralds are not being stacked in any content mode). This whole, “they would still be meta” argument doesn’t really make sense to justify such a change in damage output, when neither of the previously mentioned conditions are met.

As for your final point, yes, I know. But without making sure facet of strength is depleted before swapping then you can’t impossible odds. Of course, with a mesmer that’s not even needed since you’ll be running Demon Stance anyways…making the whole skill that much stronger.

I’m assuming you mean the Shiro legend and not Mallyx? Mallyx is pretty weak for instanced PvE as its primary condi is torment…which requires enemies to run around a lot to be at max effectiveness. So assuming you meant Shiro…this legend is actually less effective with a Chronomancer…as the quickness from impossible odds becomes unnecessary.

Kagamiku.9731:

Well with that you just showed why it doesn’t need to be 6/6/6/6/6 to obtain perma of all of the boons +fos. Their duration is long enough to persist when out of DS until you swap back into DS to replenish their durations.

Again, the only boons consistently being applied by a herald are fury and a few stacks of might….the might part being completely overshadowed by PS from a warr/berserker…so what is this “perma of all the boons” that we are generating? I’m pretty sure the perma fury is intended…and we aren’t the only class capable of that. Warrs do perma might without us involved. If it was necessary, guards could do perma prot without us. The only boon that we make perma is quickness…and Chronomancers could come pretty close to that without us if necessary. Its FoN btw and I’m still not seeing how this ties into needing a damage nerf for the revenant/herald? By that token any class that has a unique party buff or has synergy with another profession, needs a damage nerf…which also makes no sense.

I’m also pretty sure the intended design of the revenant/herald is to swap legends and maintain the buffs glint provides…that’s why the herald mechanic persists between legends, the legend cool down is as low as it is, our only energy replenishing mechanic is legend swapping, and why we can’t customize our utility bar in a legend. Not seeing this “everything all at once” that you are saying revenants/heralds are doing. What I do see is that our mechanic works well with one class in particular…which benefits the group play of all…while still not causing an over representation and still not having us topping any damage dealt rankings.

Kagamiku.9731:

A classes damage is far less important than their utility when it comes to group content. The only reason thieves and guardians are rarely ever seen in raids is because they provide almost nothing for the team. Reflects and invis are pointless in the first raid wing.

Not sure that is a completely true statement. Utility is important, but at the end of the day…utility does not kill the enemy. The objective in this game is still to make enemy health bars = zero. That being said, I’m still not seeing an actual justification for why revenants/heralds need a damage nerf. All I have seen so far is hyperbole regarding what a revenant/herald does and is capable of. Well, to be fair…I’ve also seen dislike from other professions about the distribution of damage between weapon skills for revenant/herald 1h sword. By all means..if that is such a game breaking issue…yes..swap some of the damage to sword #2 and #3. That may actually be a decent change…as it would possibly accomplish some of what others are asking for…more of a skill cap to distance them from players who just spam 11111 all day in glint. Maybe add a small energy cost increase to sword #2 to make it run us out of energy if we don’t legend swap frequently.

I agree with you 100% about thieves and guardians…ANET missed the mark designing any profession without meaningful utility to provide a group. I’d also include necros in that as well…I think they are the worst case of that design problem. Not only do they not contribute to group buffs…but they also are problematic with receiving group buffs. Self might stacking that isn’t shared with the group….preventing them from benefitting from shared group might stacks…since they are already at max might stacks from their own traits. Missing group heals…since shroud still blocks those. 100% crit chance from their own traits…not shared with the group. I’d wager all the nerf cries would stop if ANET would make all professions provide useful group utility.

Kagamiku.9731:

ODB.6891:

Kagamiku.9731:

Lendruil.9061:

Tbh revenant is only medium dps. There are three classes that do more dps (ele,engi,war). If revenant dps gets nerfed, at some point people will just run mesmers with commander gear, since mesmer dps is bad anyway, and no one will take revenants anymore.
Anet wont buff sword 3 because then it would be too strong in pvp. Sword 2 is already good. So if anything they should rather improve the utilities in Jalis and Mallyx stances since on both stances you only use one skill that stays then passive for the whole duration of the stance.

Passive Perma-fury/+50%boon uptime / Might stacks. And the perma-swiftness is nice. They do many essential things with little to no effort.

Revs DPS has nothing to do with why they’re important for raids. A damage nerf would not change that.

Don’t really think it’s necessary to nerf their damage, though.

Back to the classics I see….the old 6/6/6/6/6 builds. Those “essential” things you listed are not things the profession does all at the same time. That’s between 7-9 upkeep there…the difference between 7 and 9 being whether or not they are actually running facet of strength to make the might stacks relevant.

This isn’t a 6/6/6/6/6 build. Just because a rev has to occasionally swap to a different stance when it runs out of energy. You can perma upkeep all of that except for the boon duration which obviously leaves you when you swap. But you’re in dragon stance the majority of the time and you only need the boon duration when the chrono is stacking quickness on everyone. The boon duration and the perma fury is insanely good. Not to mention the added might stacks to help the PS warrior maintain the full 25 stacks and the swiftness for added movement. Yes, other classes can do this stuff too, but none of them can do it as easily as a revenant and none of them can do all of those things like a revenant can. The 50% boon duration seals the deal as being one of the best utility skills in the game.

So yes, I still believe they would be meta even if their damage was reduced. Their utility skills are simply too good to not have.

Whether they would be “meta” or not is not even really relevant to the issue. The issue is the intense desire you guys seem to have to nerf the damage output of a profession that clearly isn’t in need of a damage nerf…for whatever personal reasons. Its pretty well agreed that revenants/heralds aren’t top contenders for the damage title. They are about top of the middle tier…which is where most professions should be.

The whole “meta” angle you guys are taking just seems like an excuse to take a stab at a profession you don’t like for some reason. Just because they offer a useful buff to the party…does not mean that it should be neutered in other areas. I can’t believe there’s this much hate over a boon duration buff…that’s shared with the entire party. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised though….players came after PS warriors, chronomancers, and even Elementalists (in their fire field blasting days) with similar zeal. They even came after guards and mesmers about reflects. I guess anything that anyone else has…that is desired…is going to be a target.

I’m seriously questioning your knowledge of heralds, with that statement about the boon duration leaving when you swap…because it does not. The only thing that swaps is the utility bar, when you swap legends. To my knowledge the only two ways to make the boon duration stop are to run out of energy or actually activate the final stage of the facet.

Coulter.2315:

ODB.6891:

Coulter.2315:

ODB.6891:

Coulter.2315:

Sword please and make it pretty!! I want pink crystals and sleekness!

No offense, but I hope they stay away from the cutesy stuff for legendary weapons. That’s pretty much where they went wrong with several of the first generation legendary weapons…why people don’t craft them. Too much of a niche item…too few interested in the cutesy items. Maybe if they make alternate versions of the same legendary weapon…where you get a choice of which one to make based on items required.

Bolt already exists if you want a noncutesy sword.

Its so ugly though lol. I’d actually craft bolt if they made an alternate version of it that looked better.

Exactly, it is ugly, which is why I need my fancy sword – work with me here!

Well here’s hoping they give us both something that meets our expectations :-)

Coulter.2315:

ODB.6891:

Coulter.2315:

Sword please and make it pretty!! I want pink crystals and sleekness!

No offense, but I hope they stay away from the cutesy stuff for legendary weapons. That’s pretty much where they went wrong with several of the first generation legendary weapons…why people don’t craft them. Too much of a niche item…too few interested in the cutesy items. Maybe if they make alternate versions of the same legendary weapon…where you get a choice of which one to make based on items required.

Bolt already exists if you want a noncutesy sword.

Its so ugly though lol. I’d actually craft bolt if they made an alternate version of it that looked better.

Obtena.7952:

They have to fix the events for the current ones first. No point in introducing more with broken mechanics to get them.

I’d at least like to know what to start working on to get them..or at least be able to start the collections.

Coulter.2315:

Sword please and make it pretty!! I want pink crystals and sleekness!

No offense, but I hope they stay away from the cutesy stuff for legendary weapons. That’s pretty much where they went wrong with several of the first generation legendary weapons…why people don’t craft them. Too much of a niche item…too few interested in the cutesy items. Maybe if they make alternate versions of the same legendary weapon…where you get a choice of which one to make based on items required.

Orpheal.8263:

Hmm, thinking about legendary weapons..

Sword .. here I would love to see a kind of epic sword of light that has some kind of similarities with Excalibur from fate/stay night with a golden shining white aura around its blade that lreaves also with its swings shiny gold white trails.

Name it the Sunbringer to have a legendary sword fitting to the title as a purified sword made out of the bones of tequatl, improved, blessed and sanctified by various races, like the hylek, skritt and norn, forged under endless days of sunlight with magical sigils and gifts of light. <3

I’m loving this idea. Would be a good contrast to Astralaria. Maybe have two versions of it…similar the current GS legendary swords Twilight and Sunrise. One could be a dark version and the other light.

spoj.9672:

Erm revenant weapon skills still have cooldowns. The design flaw stems from a far too significant portion of the damage being on auto attack.

I dont have a problem with the way the class is designed. I have a problem with its results from completely passive play. Its imbalanced.

Also before people were stacking burn warriors. They were stacking heralds for dps.

If you are referring to cool downs of 4 seconds, 12 seconds, 12 seconds, and 15 seconds respectively…after the auto attack…then these cool downs are pretty much meaningless…just like the cool downs on most classes when in the pairing this all seems to be about…with a chronomancer. Exactly what’s going to change by redistributing this damage more across the other weapon skills besides the auto? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against them redistributing it among the other weapon skills to a small degree…but like in my previous post…not really trusting them to redistribute…they are bad about making one sided changes…taking and not giving elsewhere. I just don’t see this being the major issue you are making it out to be…especially not for the underlying motivations you seem to have.

I also don’t see the play style of the revenant/herald through the oversimplification lens you are seeing it through. Just because the facets are toggle/upkeep abilities…does not mean the play style is “completely passive”. Facets have an active ability, just like signets. Good players will activate the active when appropriate…not passive play. Good players will not be running redundant upkeep facets when that buff is already present in the group…situation awareness…not passive play. Good players will swap legends to gain access to useful utilities/legend swap effects as appropriate….not passive play. Good players will also weapon swap as appropriate for useful weapon skills like the hammer reflect, blast finishers, knock down, etc…not passive play. I’m not really seeing how this profession is all about completely passive play like you are portraying it. If you are referring to how bads play it…then you can say that about any profession.

Yes, when there is a shiny new profession out there…people will see it and bandwagon that it is OP. So, of course, there was high representation until people paid attention to what the other professions were actually capable of in comparison. People thought tempests were weak too…now look at them. Once people back off from their bias and pay attention/learn the changes…then things even out. You see they are no longer stacking heralds for dps…because doing so is redundant and does not equate to a dps gain.

spoj.9672:

Im not saying its hard to pull off max dps on other classes. But there are certainly huge losses from dodging at the wrong time etc etc on all classes except for revenant. Thats the key difference.

Now that is a design issue. I say this because the revenant/herald is not gated by cool downs…but by energy managment and legend swapping mechanics. Even if you redistributed some of the damage (still not top tier damage) between weapon skills instead of the auto, there still would not be huge losses in dps due to an unplanned dodge or two. They made a conscious decision, due to class mechanics, to not have revenants/heralds quadruple gated…by energy, legend swaps, weapon swaps, and cool downs.

It sounds like the playstyle of revenants/heralds, by design, is just not to your liking. You’re right, it does not and probably will not have as complex of a play style as an Elementalist/Tempest or Engineer. Its pretty much as complex as a Berserker/Warrior though…due to the need to swap legends, weapons, manage energy, and use the appropriate actives and passives of facets as needed. Overall, the issue you have with the auto attack is not a major issue like you are making it out to be…at least not in PvE…which is the focus of this thread. If it was an issue, there would be much more revenant/herald representation in raids…instead of 1 or 2 per raid. Instead we are seeing the condi/burn meta in raids for dps representation. PvP/WvW may be a different issue though…but I don’t really play those game modes…so I just go by what I see people post…and that is about Mallyx condi issues. That seems to have nothing to do with auto attacks.

spoj.9672:

Im not fine with its damage in its current form. There has to be some skill requirement or catch to high dps. Even eles and warriors have that catch going on. If they interrupt or miss their big attacks/channels they suffer huge dps losses. Revenant doesnt because its the auto attack that is so strong and its other big hit attacks are almost instant to top it off. There is almost no chance for poor execution which causes major dps loss on revenant. At least not compared to the level on other classes.

Its a slightly different problem to the other classes. But its still a major imbalance. Id be happy with either an overall slight damage nerf or a major change to make rev damage much more rotational and skill orientated. Seeing as a general nerf is easier and the class will stay in the meta due to boon duration while also still retaining high safe dps. I dont really see that as such an unthinkable change. For the sake of balance all problems should be addressed. Not just the absolute 1 or 2 worst offenders….

I could definitely be wrong about this part, but aren’t Ele and Engi the only two professions with any type of true rotational dps? That’s pretty much a class design/play style issue. Are you really advocating that for all classes?…in this game? I have no idea about chances of failure on dps execution on an Ele/Tempest…as I always get tired of it and delete it before max level, but I have yet to see this high chance of failure on any class thus far…dps wise. I see you talking about chances of interruption…so I’m assuming you are referring to cast times? What melee build, on any class, has at least 1 second cast times on melee? If you are talking about cast times on long range attacks…that is apples to oranges.

Is this still about reapers?…and the design decision by ANET to make them slow attackers in melee? I’m still with you on the lack in logic with that decision…compared with every other profession. There’s not a lot that we can do about their design decisions on reapers/necros, but lets not take that frustration out on other professions in PvE. You seem to be pushing this agenda pretty hard. I see you talking about how professions that buff others should not have high dps…and I see follow up statements about how Ele/tempest, Berserker/Warr are “abusing”. I see your laser focus on Heralds…even going to the extent of advocating dps nerfs for a class not even at top dps levels….just because their dps is loaded on auto attacks. Ideally, this game should have every profession dishing out buffs/supporting groups, but ANET seems to be adamant on sticking to their selfish design for necros/reapers. If your underlying goal is to have everyone that can share buffs nerfed…to make necros/reapers seem more appealing in PvE…that’s a bit unfair.

I’ll throw this in there as well, not all revenants are heralds. Basing the validity of an unnecessary and unwarranted dps nerf…on the erroneous assumption that they still have 50% boon duration to contribute…is unfounded. All this based on the design outlier that is necro/reaper?

spoj.9672:

The boon duration buff is enough to keep it in the meta simply because of quickness sharing on chrono.

Dont know why people keep claiming rev is not in top tier dps. It clearly is. Just because it doesnt do as much as extreme aoe abuse from ele and scorched earth abuse doesnt mean its low dps. You cant compare to broken damage and say its not top just because its not AS broken as the others. It comes down to one single truth. An auto attack should not be that strong.

If there is a significant gap between it and other classes…who are definitely at the top…then that is literally the definition of not being at the top. Perhaps that is the reason people keep claiming it is not top tier dps…because there is a tier of dps above it. Just because you are defining those in that group above, as “abusing”, does not make them not be above it. You already said that you were fine with the damage a herald does, in a previous post…that indicates that it’s dps isn’t a problem.

You have this fixation on which attack does the majority of damage on herald, but when you stop to think about it…would you really want them to redistribute the damage onto the other attacks? One being an aoe cleave, another being an aoe evade/attack, another being an unblockable ranged gap closer/attack, and another being a ranged aoe pull. This is the sword/axe set up that I’m just assuming you are referring to. I could see serious complaints if they upped the damage on either an evade/attack or an unblockable attack. I can see sword #2 and/or axe #5 getting some of the damage moved from the auto though. I don’t see how its that big of a deal considering the auto is melee range only and those other two actually have much better range. Its much easier to avoid a melee range attack than the other two. Plus the design of the profession makes the auto the only thing that works when energy is depleted. I can see how letting your energy get completely depleted is terrible play anyway and should not be rewarded though.

I agree though, the boon duration does keep it in the meta as long as chronomancers are in the meta. Synergy with other classes is a good thing.

Kagamiku.9731:

Lendruil.9061:

Tbh revenant is only medium dps. There are three classes that do more dps (ele,engi,war). If revenant dps gets nerfed, at some point people will just run mesmers with commander gear, since mesmer dps is bad anyway, and no one will take revenants anymore.
Anet wont buff sword 3 because then it would be too strong in pvp. Sword 2 is already good. So if anything they should rather improve the utilities in Jalis and Mallyx stances since on both stances you only use one skill that stays then passive for the whole duration of the stance.

Passive Perma-fury/+50%boon uptime / Might stacks. And the perma-swiftness is nice. They do many essential things with little to no effort.

Revs DPS has nothing to do with why they’re important for raids. A damage nerf would not change that.

Don’t really think it’s necessary to nerf their damage, though.

Back to the classics I see….the old 6/6/6/6/6 builds. Those “essential” things you listed are not things the profession does all at the same time. That’s between 7-9 upkeep there…the difference between 7 and 9 being whether or not they are actually running facet of strength to make the might stacks relevant. Revenants only get 5 energy generation pips maximum. Every attack and utility costs energy except for the auto attack. Perma swiftness is not a combat essential…that’s the first thing a herald disables during combat…unless other players are providing fury/might.

There were and still are other sources for anything the Herald provides, with the exception of the 50% boon uptime. Tempest/Ele can still provide perma fury, warriors/berserkers can still provide 25 might better than any other profession, many professions provide aoe swiftness when needed. This is basically an exaggeration some people have in their heads about revenants/heralds and how much they think groups depend on revenants/heralds for. Revenants/heralds are gap fillers buff wise…they only run facet of strength (might) in the absence of a PS warrior. Its really only important to run facet of nature (50% boon uptime) in the presence of a chronomancer who actually uses wells. Facet of darkness (fury) is the boon we bring most, just because it is more consistent/less work for others, if we provide that boon.

A damage nerf…based on exaggerations of buff utility…for a class that is already not in top tier dps…would be ridiculous. That much is a agreed upon.

Its been a while since the first three generation 2 legendary weapons were introduced. Any time frame on preliminary information on what the next wave of generation 2 legendary weapons are going to be? I’m hopeful there will be an alternative to bolt for a one hand legendary sword…and possibly a new legendary shield.

spoj.9672:

Yeah see i dont usually advocate nerfs. Because i think a bit of powercreep is good for the game. But lets be honest its a bit much right now. And the powercreep is stacked onto the classes/places which were already strong. Theres only two solutions. Nerf the outliers or buff the rest. Since we already have a lot of powercreep nerfing seems like the only viable option.

Im not lobbying for everyone else to get nerfed. Im lobbying for the clearly over the top factors to get toned down. Id say the same thing for reaper if there was anything that was broken on it but anet have always been very careful with necro (see cast times and cooldowns on reaper compared to revenant). So far the only broken thing on necro is a gimmicky niche usage of epidemic and jagged horrors on Sabetha.

And just to go on record. I would be perfectly fine with revenant achieving as much dps as it does if it had a much greater skill requirement to pull off. Its baffling that people think an auto attack that strong is balanced.

I’m on board with them redistributing a small amount of rev/herald auto attack damage onto the other weapon skills, but I don’t really trust them to do a good job with that. They have a bad habit of taking without giving back. Ultimately, redistributing aa damage over other weapon skills is a minor issue…since you already acknowledged that you were fine with revs achieving as much dps as they already do. It looks like its just the issue of that damage being on the auto attack, that you really don’t like. We also have to factor in ANET’s focus on trying to ensure casuals/bads play with as few reality checks to their skill level as possible. Revenants/heralds and thieves/daredevils are the only classes with default weapon skills gated by their class resource. I’m sure ANET doesn’t want terribad play to completely lock them out of even being able to kill something by auto attacking.

Rym.1469:

spoj.9672:

Revenant will be meta even without its broken damage. Dont see why you are so against minor nerfs to bring equality among the other classes. Power creeping the classes to get equality is not going to happen and it shouldnt happen. So the classes that are too high on the damage table need to be brought down a notch especially if they already have indispensable other roles (this goes for all classes in this category, not just revenant). It doesnt make sense to give a class some of the best utility roles and the best damage at the same time. I dont understand why people dont get the logic of this concept.

Look at chronomancer. Its absolutely amazing for utility and unique buffs. But its damage is rather mediocre. Thats perfect balance wise. Its how it should be. The only classes that should be top dps are the ones which have very little utility and group buffing.

As pretty much Revenant main and player since first profession preview beta, I agree. I’m fine with nerf to AA coupled with maybe little damage increases to other skills.

I think people who yell that they would have to use other skills costing energy for max DPS forget that Revenant’s profession mechanic is energy management, not enabling 3 facets and watching netflix.

Upkeeping facets in combat forever should have never been the case and optimal thing. Sure, there are things that separate good PvE Revenant from bad one, but aside from some moments, upkeeping facets and AAing is what you are doing for majority of the time, regardless of encounter.

I agree with everything you said except the last sentence. What will separate good PvE revenants/heralds from bad ones is utility usage and legend swaps for utility usage. Playing a revenant/herald is almost like playing an elementalist. You have 10 utility skills to consider at any point in time + your legend swap traits. Its like attunement switching except you aren’t swapping just to cycle through them for damage….you cycle through them as needed for functionality. The herald utilities have two stage usage, so you need to make use of the second stage of activation as well when it matters. Every one of the herald utilities has a useful second stage…situational but useful.

SlyDevil.3952:

Thief really needs a buff that applies to party each time they steal. Like, each successful steal gives a 2% damage buff(condi/power) that lasts 2mins, applies to 5 nearby players at the location of the target.

That would be huge! I can’t help myself but to have negative thoughts when a thief/daredevil joins an instanced PvE group. I immediately think about the opportunity cost of not having a class that provides some useful team wide buff instead. 100% support adding something like this to thief/daredevil.

spoj.9672:

Its not terrible dps. Thats some major hyperbole.

harold.3526:

Nerf Gravedigger, has more DPS than rev AA, and is easier rotation than revenant AA.

Rev auto and gravedigger do the same purely coefficient wise. Rev has more modifiers and rev auto is more reliable than gravedigger. And it can be used at all times. Gravedigger spam is only below 50% and is easily interrupted which causes major dps loss. But i sense you arent being serious. :P

Ive been suggesting buffs to necro for 3 years. Id continue to do so if i thought it would get anywhere. But history says otherwise. Besides that doesnt really solve the problem for anything other than necro. There would still be major class imbalances. I also dont think reaper dps is in a bad place objectively speaking. I feel its around the level that should be max dps. Shame the rest of the classes also got major power creeps as well.

And looking at the bigger picture. These nerfs would make the enrage timers tighter. Surely thats a good thing for those of us seeking challenge?

I’m kind of shocked you just came out with it like this. You’re clearly saying that you have accepted, after 3 years of lobbying, that ANET is not going to balance necros/reapers for instanced PvE…at least not equal to other classes in instanced PvE. You also seem to be saying that you would like all other classes to be brought down to the instanced PvE levels of necro/reapers as a direct result of ANET being unwilling to change their balance stance on necros/reapers. I was right there with you on the lobbying for ANET to finally balance necros/reapers for PvE. I had high hopes that reaper would be the opportunity for them to do this, but they let me down on that too. I can’t, in good conscience though, lobby for everyone else to get nerfed just because of ANET’s decision on necros/reapers though. I can’t base the design/balance of other classes on any necro/reaper skill…including gravedigger. That would be selfish of me to expect that. I leveled my reaper, geared my reaper, and shelved my reaper…and moved on to other classes that ANET has designed properly for PvE.

NoTrigger.8396:

spoj.9672:

Revenant will be meta even without its broken damage.

the damage isnt broken when 3 other classes deal a good amount of dps more than revenant.

spoj.9672:

Dont see why you are so against minor nerfs to bring equality among the other classes.

im not against equality among classes. i am against dps nerfs to certain classes when other classes are far higher dps. on top of that it seems like you havent completely understood yet how revenant works and how the class design is different.

spoj.9672:

So the classes that are too high on the damage table need to be brought down a notch especially if they already have indispensable other roles (this goes for all classes in this category, not just revenant).

good, and anet should start with the 3 top dps classes first.

spoj.9672:

It doesnt make sense to give a class some of the best utility roles and the best damage at the same time. I dont understand why people dont get the logic of this concept.

in the case of revenant it isnt best utility and it isnt best damage. the only thing which is unqiue to revenant is the boon duration and you are not doing anything else except buffing fury anyway. but other classes could easily buff the fury.

spoj.9672:

Look at chronomancer. Its absolutely amazing for utility and unique buffs. But its damage is rather mediocre. Thats perfect balance wise. Its how it should be.
The only classes that should be top dps are the ones which have very little utility and group buffing.

“perfect” balance wise would mean all of the classes deal equal amount of dps on paper, have something unique and useful to offer and dps completely depends on player skill and situations in an encounter. and that has never been the case in gw2 and will probably never be unless anet starts to focus more on pve when designing classes and making balance decisions.

apart from that even if anet nerfs revenant dps, it wont change a single bit about necro, because some other classes will still be higher dps than necro and offer more useful utility at the same time.

Pretty sure you nailed it with that last paragraph. This argument is probably about necro/reaper being sub par in PvE instanced content. This argument between you two seems to be a balance philosophy issue by ANET in instanced PvE that ends up being a moot point…because ANET is clearly designing necros/reapers for PvP/WvW instead and refuses to split the balance. I think Revs are just at the top of his hit list because they are new/shiny and their design encroached into necro/reaper territory regarding theme/utility.

spoj.9672:

NoTrigger.8396:

spoj.9672:

Scorched earth needs toning down to balance the condi classes. I dont see how its even a topic up for debate.

Also revenant sword auto needs nerfing. It has the same coefficient per second as gravedigger spam. While also having way more damage modifiers in traits and so much group buffing. How that came to be, i have no idea… Reminds me of old school warrior.

rev auto isnt what makes revenant dps strong and if they nerf it they will have to rework the class entirely.

Well it clearly is a big factor since it has the same coefficient per second as gravedigger and the class has way more damage modifiers….

And i dont see how they would need to rework it. Just tone the numbers down slightly. And reduce the damage modifiers from 7% to 5%. If its brought down to 1.3 per second instead of 1.5 then its still very strong but not brokenly strong on a buffer class.

Every class (except necro/thief) is supposed to be a buffer class. Revs/heralds aren’t putting out more buffs than say a warr/ele/mes/guard/engi. That being the case, that shouldn’t factor into a nerf being warranted.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Sadrien.3470
Your friends should l2p and then raid with you.

No they shouldn’t. Not if they don’t WANT to.

It is the entire problem with HoT. It only caters to 1% of their player base.

There is no problem. If I “don’t WANT to” l2p <insert game x here>, then I don’t HAVE to. At the same time, I shouldn’t expect people to invite me to play <game x> with them when I refuse to learn to play <game x>. This pretty much applies to every game that exists…not just video games either. This encroaches into the area of respecting other people’s time and effort. If others are putting in the time and effort into improving to accomplish something…and you are not willing to even try…because you “don’t WANT to”…then it becomes disrespectful to nag/complain/cry about not being included.

It is also obviously not 1%, so stop exaggerating or regurgitating non-factual stuff you have read. ANET would be highly unlikely to go to this much effort for that small of a percentage of their player base. There is literally no area of the game that is inaccessible to anyone…good or bad. You are more than capable or organizing your bad friends into a raid and playing that content. They even reward you for failing…how much more can you ask? You and your bad friends can go in their and phiw to your heart’s content and still be rewarded. They would learn to play just by side effect of playing the content. If the OP’s complaint is that he can’t “carry his bad friends to victory”, then that is a different issue. Victory is supposed to be a challenge in this content…that’s the entire reason it was added…you aren’t supposed to be able to solo a raid.

Its been said already, but HoT is like 90%+ open world content. Open world content is zerg content. Faceless blobs of players swarming mobs all around the maps. How is that catering to 1% of the player base? Literally, the only instanced content in HoT are the 50+ fractal levels and the one raid. People need to step back from the whine pedestal and really look at how far ANET has gone to making content accessible to everyone.

phys.7689:

Raizen.7981:

“nerf other people playstyle’s because I’m offended by how they play”
I don’t know, how exactly does other people playing particular fractals affect you? Was your boss going to give you a raise, but then said “oh, you don’t run the fast fractals? Go be poor”. Did your wife leave you? Kids flunked out of high school? I really don’t get this stupid kitten argument. I recently did my 1-100 fractals for ze first time, and I had no issues at all filling parties for the “non swamp” fractals. It took me at most 5 minutes to fill for the most annoying ones. So again, how does other people’s choice of fractals affect you?

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

Hot fixing some terrain/geometry issues will not change the preference in fractal levels run for dailies. What would go a long way to incentivizing different fractals would be a true reward for doing longer fractals. They said they were doing that…at least I don’t think I imagined that, but I don’t see the implementation. I waited until the alleged improved rewards patch to start my 75+ fractals and I only saw improved drops for the first two days after the patch. The gold rewards are still there, but not so much with any other drops. I’m also not seeing any difference in rewards when I run a level other than swamp/duo…versus swamp/duo. If they really want to incentivize…they need to actually incentivize, instead of presenting a temporary illusion that they are incentivizing. They said they toned down the toughness scaling past level 50, but I can’t tell. Either the pugs are secret nomads or the toughness is still jacked up too high. No one wants to spend extended time grinding away at toughness…with longer runs…when they can get it done faster on a shorter run.

My key issues are:
Toughness still too much at high levels
Stupid instabilities (social awkwardness/boon fumbler)
Imaginary increased rewards (drops) for longer fractals

I’ll also say they really shouldn’t have moved away from the random fractals if they wanted all levels to get equal play. That was the key thing that made all levels get done….otherwise, why would anyone do a longer fractal?

Jski.6180:

Kusa.6438:

Kusa.6438:

That’s your opinion. Alacrity is in a perfect state and shouldn’t be changed. Mesmers have always been a utility/support class. Please don’t start crying because you have an opinion of something.

Also, just be glad that we do have the Chrono line. If it weren’t for the Chrono line, no you would take mesmers into raids what so ever… much like theifs. Just be happy that every raid requires 1 mesmer spot because of Chrono line.

That alone shows you there is something wrong with the Chrono line and the mez class. A lot of that has to do with the cdr of alacrity simply out classing EVERYTHING mez has on all of its lines.
Most classes have strong attk or stronger def or stronger support though boons and class only effects but alacrity being able to effect every thing even the ability that make alacrity makes it the true end all be all effect in GW2. It even goes as far as effects sieges skills in wvw making it a MUST when trying to take down a door or wall. Its even more of a “must have” in wvw then the old vit/power stacking from wvw rank that they removed.

I’m just going to go out on a limb and assume that all these tears are because you either don’t want to purchase HoT or are just being stubborn about playing a meta build? Those are the only two possible reasons I can see for this thread. Neither of which is a valid reason for any nerf to alacrity.

Its been said before and I’ll say it again…you should be thankful that they gave us alacrity. Without alacrity, we were completely a niche class…barely accepted in any instanced content. When were were tolerated…we were relegated to reflect/veil/portal bots. Any content that did not have need for those things…ended up being content we struggled to get to participate in. Now we are no longer niche. We have something that is a valuable contribution to groups and here people are letting a flood of tears loose on the forums.

I see these false/over the top complaints that alacrity makes everything better…but those statements are just false/hyperbole. All alacrity does is decrease cool downs. It doesn’t make a weapon/utility hit harder. It doesn’t affect auto attacks to any noticeable degree if at all. All it does is let you use abilities that have cool downs more frequently. It does not change the nature of the abilities themselves. It does not even provide the same level of benefit for all classes/builds. It has almost no effect on my Herald…as the class is not gated by cool downs..but by energy instead. I’m pretty sure that the situation is very similar for thieves/daredevils. The Chronomancer, themselves, have their weapon/utility cool downs designed with alacrity in mind…which is why it takes alacrity to get the cool downs to a respectable time. I think this just boils down to players being either cheap or mad that their preferred build is not preferred by others. That has nothing to do with anything being wrong with alacrity. That is an issue with the core mesmer class or with the bad build the person is running.

I think there are multiple game mode specific builds for the mesmer class. There are stealth/shatter builds that are better choices for player versus player modes. There is Chrono, which is the undisputed PvE meta. There is even a signet build I used to run in fractals for shared distortion. Players need to stop expecting ANET to force their play style on everyone else and play what is effective/preferred when grouping with others. Its not like you are being asked to re-roll into another class. Its just another trait line in the same class. Its not like there was not a meta build before Chrono. Nothing has changed except which trait lines are meta in which game mode….all this crying is ridiculous. Before…PvE builds meant you needed reflects and portal traited or gtfo…now its pretty much the same for wells/alacrity….and its not so niche anymore. I personally prefer to have a build to play…that’s actually wanted…versus being forced to portal bot everyone. I had actually stopped playing my mesmer before due to portal crying in random groups. I’m unhappy with the PvP based nerf we just got to well of precognition and echo/deja…but overall I love where the mesmer is now in PvE.

I wouldn’t mind if they finally did add an elite spec with a drastic change to the way illusions work though. A spec that makes illusions deal no damage and be purely there for their support functions. A spec where the mesmer weapon skills actually deal all the damage. My biggest complaint about mesmers are their low direct sustained damage ouput versus other classes. I can see why they would not make that part of one of the core trait lines…as that would overpower shatters and be too much when factoring in the Chrono line.

Astralporing.1957:

ODB.6891:

There were many us making a huge stink on the forums, before launch, specifically because they were being excessively vague about what the expansion would contain. They eventually gave up the goods and made posts detailing what it would be like. They told us it would be more challenging.

They still were really vague on that point. That might have meant a multitude of things. It definitely didn’t have to mean maps where everything is part of a meta on a timer, and most things are made for groups. It didn’t have to mean guildhalls, legendary crafting and many other things hidden beyond massive material and gold sinks. It didn’t have to mean nerfing dungeons into the ground (which, btw, happened for the players that didn’t buy expac too). They also didn’t say that all of the expac would be for hardcores.

I’ll give you that much, that they didn’t reveal the map metas. Its a bit much to expect every detail of the expansion to be given before it is launched. They did go into significant details though…granted not until very close to launch…which is when I held out to to make my purchase. I’m really not seeing what your problem is with the map meta though…its not like you are forced into participating in any part of it that you don’t want to. There is literally no downside to participating in the map meta. As far as them not explicitly telling us about these map metas…they sure left some huge breadcrumbs to let us know they were coming. Hello Dry Top and Silver Wastes.

As far as the group content…that was definitely advertised. They didn’t specifically say that they were not going to have an abundance of solo content though…so I’ll give you that. I spend the majority of my game time solo….I’ll group up or follow a zerg if it benefits me…but that’s entirely at my discretion…just like its at yours. I’m really not seeing the reason for this aversion to being in a group…in a MMO.

I’ll agree with you completely on the gold sink issue. I think that was an attempt at a gem store cash grab…fortunately they have backed off of that a bit with the fractal rewards. I’m not the guy to farm anything…and I’m also working towards my legendary items at my own pace. I’m not having any trouble with acquiring the funds or the items now…so long as I don’t mind doing it at a casual pace. I think you may need to re-evaluate your definition of hard core.

ODB.6891:

Why would you buy something that you know in advance, that you don’t want to play? That isn’t ANET’s mistake…

Astralporing.1957:

Of course it isn’t Anet’s mistake. They intentionally marketed the expac to players it was not meant for. They had to, because the number of players it was meant for was too small to support that expac on their own. Which is why they haven’t given me enough info to realize the expac wasn’t for me. On the contrary, the whole time what they were saying was that i’d better buy HoT because core will be left forgotten. Guildhalls? Need HoT. New specializations? Need HoT. Masteries? need HoT. Precursor crafting? Need HoT. Participation in all future Living Story chapters? Definitely need HoT. Any changes and improvements for the game? Need HoT.
They kept repeating that day after day – this was their message. Not “buy HoT only if you want challenging group content” as you claim.

Of course they are going to advertise the game to everyone….they are a for profit company. Its up to customers to have enough intelligence to read between the lines. Of course they are going to reserve their product for those that pay for it….what do you expect? Core content has not been forgotten btw. Seems like they are going out of their way to get players back into forgotten map areas. I just ended up in the forsaken halls jp/mini dungeon in the course of my legendary weapon crafting yesterday. I haven’t been there in years until yesterday. I think you are just confusing them continuing to let you know about not supporting dungeons…with forgetting about core content. How many games continue to update 3 year old content….especially a b2p/f2p game.

Tommyknocker.6089:

ODB.6891:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Malediktus.9250:

It is still very casual friendly, just not friendly to bad players who are unwilling to improve. Casual does not equal bad player. Even players with a low amount of time can play very well if they desire.

And that in a nutshell is the problem with the direction ANet has taken. When it was first introduced it was advertised as the game for those that don’t like the traditional MMO. Friendly atmosphere, no grind, no “I swing a sword again”.

But the current iteration is EXACTLY what many of us were running away from!

The entire “get gud” attitude was something I never wanted to see in this game, now it seems that GW2 is no better than any other WOW clone out there.

Good luck finding any MMO that can survive long term, without any type of challenging content for their players.

The thing is that I am not alone in my wishes and eventually an MMO will come out that caters to our way of wanting to play. Where the money goes so does the direction of the gaming industry, and many of us older players are the ones with the means to propel the industry where we want it to go.

And truth be told, I found many of the starting areas boring as well, and wanted some improvement in the challenge the mobs offered to me. I did not however want the new challenge" to be gated behind timers or 99% meta events.

Also, and TBH many of us cannot “improve” beyond a certain point due to age, muscle problems, bad connections, the list goes on. So telling us to improve is just an insult as we are indeed doing the best we can!

MMO gaming will never be targeted to the elderly. That’s just not the realistic target audience of a MMO…especially not an action based one. I’m not young anymore either, so there are things that I struggle with as well. I do not expect this genre of gaming to cater to that….I’d be up for a lot of disappointment with that expectation. That’s like expecting pro sports leagues to introduce and maintain a special league for retired players…not really going to happen. Good luck on finding that unicorn.

I do partially agree with you on having available time to participate in map meta events, but here’s the thing. You don’t have to play the whole time during the meta event. You don’t have to be there at the start of the meta event. You still get some rewards for various stages of the meta event that you participate in. I have also found that you can go to LFG and take a taxi into a map that does have a meta event in progress…if your issue is finding one in progress to participate in. You can also just do your own thing on the map and ignore the meta event.

I don’t have a problem with timed events either. There’s nothing wrong with a timed event…so long as its not mandatory, there are not too many of them, and that they are available often enough to retry very soon after failing. The only timed events that I do have an issue with are these mini games that are holding my character building hostage via ANET’s intentional mastery point scarcity. I’m giving up and slowly getting these mini games out of the way so that I can go back to enjoying my semi-casual game play though.

DoctorDing.5890:

Core game is still casual-friendly but HoT is definitely not.
The mistake they made is to launch an expansion that is so dramatically different to the core game.

They told us exactly what the expansion was going to be about before it was even launched. There were many us making a huge stink on the forums, before launch, specifically because they were being excessively vague about what the expansion would contain. They eventually gave up the goods and made posts detailing what it would be like. They told us it would be more challenging. Why would you buy something that you know in advance, that you don’t want to play? That isn’t ANET’s mistake…its the customer’s mistake. Its on the customer to be intelligent enough to pay attention to what they spend their money on.

That being the case, there is still plenty of casual content in HoT. HoT is even more about open world content than core Tyria. There are zero dungeons and zero fractals in HoT. The only instanced content in HoT are raids. There is currently only one raid. That means 90+% of HoT is open world zerging. Nobody checks your gear, food, build, etc for open world zerging. You can participate or not participate in open world events at your casual leisure. You can group or stay solo for any open world content just like you did pre-HoT. There will be mobs you are going to get steam rolled by if you try to solo them…just like pre-HoT. Yes, the maguuma mobs do have better AI and hit harder than central Tyria mobs, but guess what…if you don’t like fighting them…you don’t have to spend any time in maguuma areas if you don’t want to. Central Tyria is still there. If you want the rewards for the content, you will do what every mmo that has ever existed requires….toughen up, adapt, and possibly group up to get what you want from the new content. Less whining and more playing IMO.

I would consider myself a casual in the sense that my play time is very limited and restricted to unusual hours, but I have no problems with anything in HoT except stupid mini games. That part isn’t a difficulty thing exactly…its more of an aversion to platform gaming. I have taken 5 characters through this expansion and completed their elite specs with no issues. I find the HoT areas infinitely more engaging than central Tyria. The multi layered map design, the new map navigation methods (gliding, mushrooms, wallows) are amazing. Step out of your safety routine for a minute and learn something new. The only things really different are these new ways to get around the map (which you had an intro to in dry top and silver wastes), mobs being tougher with new mechanics (which you had an intro to in dry top and silver wastes), multi layered maps (which you had an intro to in dry top and silver wastes), and raids (which are just advanced dungeons/fractals…that have been present in the game for years now). There is literally nothing in HoT that should be such a shock to anyone that has been playing the game for years now. Its just an issue of players refusing to adapt/improve and choosing to whine on the forums instead.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Malediktus.9250:

It is still very casual friendly, just not friendly to bad players who are unwilling to improve. Casual does not equal bad player. Even players with a low amount of time can play very well if they desire.

And that in a nutshell is the problem with the direction ANet has taken. When it was first introduced it was advertised as the game for those that don’t like the traditional MMO. Friendly atmosphere, no grind, no “I swing a sword again”.

But the current iteration is EXACTLY what many of us were running away from!

The entire “get gud” attitude was something I never wanted to see in this game, now it seems that GW2 is no better than any other WOW clone out there.

Good luck finding any MMO that can survive long term, without any type of challenging content for their players.

kratan.4619:

I am extremely casual in the way I play the game. A normal played day was about 8 hours on a worknight and about 14 per day on a weekend.

I was excited to see that legendary armor was going to be added, but they are locked behind a single way to obtain them, and this is a way that is entirely NOT casual. I have no interest in grouping with other players for their “skilled” event. I don’t even group with players when just farming world bosses. But I can still join in the event even without their permission or consent.

I would much rather play solo and “casually” join a group for an open world event rather than need to study and learn an encounter so that I can assist beating the redundant AI in an instance where we are limited in the number of people to bring.

Solo and Casual are not the same things.

#facepalm….why would you increase cast time on a stun break to begin with? Why does a stun break even have a cast time? If you have already solved the problem with capture point contribution for well of precognition, why do you need to do anything to the cast time…much less make it longer…for an ability that was supposed to be a stun break? The logic with these changes does not exist sometimes.

BrbTea.3805:

All I am trying to say is that most of the feedback around here is unsubstantial and does not provide exploitable information other than the fact that most people don’t want to work for achievements anymore. Which curiously takes away the meaning of achievement.
There is still plenty of enjoyable content around (and I doubt anyone has ever done everything) which is why I really do not understand all the fuzz.

This whole issue is apparently flying completely over your head. It has been explained repeatedly, why we do not like these mini games (substantial). There have also been multiple posts with solutions (exploitable information). You just decided to come here and throw a few insults with your opinion you already had formed as soon as you read the thread title. This issue has nothing to do with achievements. I’d wager the majority of the posters who do not like these mini games…could care less about the achievements from getting mini games done. It has repeatedly been expressed that the issue is the mastery points and collections being locked behind content we do not enjoy in the slightest. I’d wager the posters here also don’t have any issue with working through difficult content either….so long as its content they actually like. I enjoy raids, fractals, world boss events like Teq, I even enjoy map meta chains. No issue with whatever difficult content…so long as its not dumb and irritating content that doesn’t even fit the game. You just decided to make a completely baseless assumption, that was not even on topic…and run with it. This has nothing to do with other content being available. It has everything to do with the scarcity of mastery points and blocking collections. If that “plenty of enjoyable content” had maguuma mastery points, then this wouldn’t even be a discussion. This is a completely obvious and intentional move to pressure/force any player that is remotely interested in completing their character/getting a legendary/etc….into doing these mini games. They clearly know that players do not want to do them…that players do not enjoy them…which is the only logical reason for them to make mastery points scarce enough that we have to do mini games to have enough mastery points. That is the issue, not laziness, not unwillingness to work towards and achievement, not whining….it is dissatisfaction with the product. When a customer is dissatisfied with a product…they provide feedback/complaints….which is exactly what is happening here.

misterman.1530:

Not me! I want more “adventures”! I want to be able to choose between fighting an end boss in a raid OR playing a Tyria-inspired game of Candy Crush™. Oooo Tetris!

And I think we should have some sort of…I don’t know…place where we grow crops and such and we can have our “friends” help us out. Call it the “Place-where-you-grow-your-crops-Ville”.

If they were completely optional…meaning just for fun (if you find that type of activity fun)…then yes. I personally do not find candy crush, tetris, or any mini game activity to be fun. What I find fun is the core content of GW2…which does not include mini games. I have no problems with the existence of these mini games. What I do have an issue with is ANET locking core GW2 content behind mini games. I don’t appreciate them blocking character progression behind these mini games. My character is not fully functional until I complete all the masteries. There will be places I can’t reach without leyline gliding. I will be missing out on conveniences like auto area loot and movement speed in major cities. I will be vulnerable to chak acid. I’m sure there are other parts of the content I paid for with the expansion…that I will also miss out on if I don’t cave into the pressure and complete these mini games. I wouldn’t mind them as much if they were the same type of content/mechanics as the rest of GW2.

I personally think ANET needs to add additional sources of mastery points and mastery experience to the maguuma areas. These areas are going to die once players have gotten their masteries and achievements completed. I know they have this absurd aversion to dungeons, but they need something that players actually want to repeat…that does not involve zone wide coordination and up to an hour of this zone wide coordination. I originally thought adventures would be this content…until I played the first one and just realized they were mini games instead. If they invested any amount of focus group testing…they would have scrapped these current adventures before launch.

I’m in agreement with the OP on this one. I despise mini games in MMO content. No matter how much the next guy may like mini games, I never will. If I’m playing a sword/magic MMO…I’m playing it for the sword play and magic play…not to do platform jumping, race car driving, shooting galleries, etc.

I would honestly be fine with this content being in game if ANET wasn’t blocking character progression behind these mini games. It would be different if it was some cosmetic/vanity item locked behind them…if these mini games were of the same actual content type as what we bought the game for…but that’s not what I’m seeing out of these mini games.

ANET is just trying too hard to force us into specific content. That’s not really what a MMO is supposed to be about….at least not what we had previously come to expect from GW2…what lead us to trust ANET enough to purchase a GW2 expansion.

My real issue is that mastery points are a direct impediment to maximizing the capability of our characters…which is what I really play games like this for. Ultimately I like to build my characters out and try to squeeze out maximum performance from them. There are literally places in the game that you will not be able to explore and content you will not be able to complete without these mastery points. I don’t mind the mastery points themselves….its limiting the relative scarcity of them and blocking some of that limited quantity behind mini games that is irritating me. I would never play a mini game if I did not have to in order to complete my characters. I can’t say the same about any other content in this game. I’ve been to WvW and will undoubtedly do that again…not because I’m being coerced, but because I want to. I haven’t been to PvP yet, but I will likely eventually go…not because I’m being coerced, but because I want to. I’ve been into raids and will go whenever I have an opportunity go…not because I’m being coerced, but because I want to. Even if I never step into a raid or any of that other content…my character would not be any less functional…with the exception of these mini games…think about that for a second.

What needs to happen is the addition of new sources of mastery points for the HoT areas. I personally think there is plenty of open world PvE so far…like 90% of HoT is open world. HoT needs some instanced content smaller than raids. I think this should have been in 50+ fractals…especially since they were introduced with HoT. There should be some Maguuma themed fractals introduced. There should be maguuma mobs in there, maguuma xp, and maguuma mastery points tied to achievements in them. They should even use the maguuma mastery abilities like gliding, nuhoch stealth detection, nuhoch alchemy, itzel mushroom jumping, etc. It blows my mind that people at ANET get paid to think up stuff like this and have failed to do so. Fractals are stale and unrewarding now after their HoT changes….this would definitely breathe new life into them.

HoT maps are dead/dying currently due to players either being burnt out on open world zerging or focusing on different content now. At least that’s how it is during my play time. This makes it a boring/grindy experience trying finish out maguuma masteries. I’m either looking at solo farming mobs or individual events….boring. I keep checking on the meta event chain status on the different HoT maps and rarely even see anyone tagged up…much less a coordinated effort anymore. My play time isn’t matching my guild’s few raiders play times…so I don’t currently have a dedicated raiding group…so I guess I’m waiting until pugs L2P before I really get to raid much. I would very much appreciate some smaller group content (fractals, since you killed dungeons) to continue my maguuma masteries. I’m already beyond irritated with these mini games after only a couple of weeks of them.

I think 1h sword and shield should be the priorities in the next round. I can see great sword as needing an alternative too though. I would have worked on a legendary a long time ago if there was an alternative to bolt for 1h sword. I like the lighting effect, but dislike the actual sword graphic. I think this new round of legendaries needs to be a bit more varied than just adding a sleeve effect though. Maybe more auras like predator and juggernaut.

I know this is somewhat of a minor issue, but could we get an update to the profession icons in the LFG tool? Especially since I saw another thread mention that you guys will possibly improve the LFG tool to also facilitate raiding…hoping you can just include this minor fix as well.

Iason Evan.3806:

I disagree with having to buy an item to get a reward. That’s not a reward. It’s a thinly veiled gold sink. I also disagree with hiding core game content(high end fractals and their rewards) that was supposed to come out two years ago in the “Fractured Update” behind the HoT paywall. I shouldn’t need HoT masteries to do core GW2 content.

Fractals aren’t HoT content. If you added new HoT themed Fractals, that would be one thing. You didn’t. You took old content and put rewards behind HoT’s mastery system. That needs to change. Fractals and their rewards should all remain as core features seeing as they are core GW2 content.

I can’t help but agree with this. No new fractals added for HoT. No Maguma based items or even Maguma mastery…even from the new 51-100 fractal levels. No Maguma mob types or Maguma themed fractals. None of the new stat combos dropping…exotic or ascended. Completely not HoT content in regards to fractals. I would change my opinion on this completely if all these things were not true though.

I also agree 100% about it being wrong to make us pay to receive rewards from content. There is literally no reason for the encryption keys to exist other than a contrived gold sink. The encryption boxes should be unlocked by default. We already have black lion chests for gold/gem sinks.

SteepledHat.1345:

Fay.2357:

Dalent.9358:

MAGpie.7962:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.

If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?

You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.

Except that’s not how that works. At all.

That’s absolutely how it works. There are many very complex systems in this game. RNG boxes are not one of them, so don’t try and white-knight by pretending that coding an RNG box takes any amount of skill or experience, because it doesn’t.

You literally just slap an RNG with a if check onto every item in the loot table. If RNG produces a number above a threshold, then it appears in the box. This is not complex, and saying that they ’didn’t expect rates to be this low’ is either flat out lying or admitting they literally don’t have the first clue of how either math or coding works.

Exactly, that’s why I maintain it’s a PR move. Over nerf, claim a mistake, un-nerf but put it at a lower threshold than you started with. You get the level set to where you want it AND you get positive spin for “listening.”

Pretty sure this is exactly what is happening. I’m just waiting for these “fixes” to be implemented so we can end up seeing some ridiculous “increase” by 0.00000001% from this already terribad current reward structure. I can tell by the last paragraph of the OP …in the “gold” section…where they seemed to go above and beyond to obfuscate what they were saying about variation in liquid rewards and relying to greatly on highly valued rewards, that they are just trying to disguise what they are saying. I’m skeptical this will be an actual improvement in net rewards…especially since this would directly conflict with buying gems to get gold.

Alphard.6529:

deSade.9437:

Rag.3258:

spoj.9672:

Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.

Yes they were. Fractals have been rewarding enough.

No they weren’t.

The 50+ ascended armor and 20+ ascended weapon boxes in my bank would like to disagree.

Edit: Also the hundreds of gold from selling fractal 50/40.

While I agree that the ascended drops were rewarding…when not factoring in the rng nightmare, selling fractal runs is definitely not part of the reward structure. That is just an unsupported opportunistic/predatory activity that ANET chooses not to punish.

On a side note, arguments either stand on their own merits or they don’t stand at all. Having someone/alternate account…that is commonly known to parrot anything you say…pop in and repeat anything you say, does not strengthen an argument.

Astralporing.1957:

Blaine Tog.8304:

But while it’s fair to petition ANet for better design, it isn’t fair to rail against the players who are merely reacting to that design. That’s just silly.

Which is why OP is aiming his complains at developers, not players. It’s Anet that messed up.

ANET didn’t mess anything up. This content is exactly what it was supposed to be. Difficult/hard/challenging content. Content that requires more than just berserker gear (they have successfully included condi, tank, healer, and beserker). Content that requires more than just stacking on a boss and spamming dps….there are tons of mechanics that require movement, coordination, and accomplishing specific/crucial tasks during the encounters. Content that requires more than active defenses to survive…hence the need for healing. Content that can’t be face rolled by 10 nomads…hence the timer. Content that isn’t tedious and boring…like puzzle requirements. This content is exactly what it was designed to be….there is nothing they did wrong.

Coming here complaining about not being able to force others to include you is what’s ridiculous. Coming here requesting bans for players that want to make sure you don’t waste hours of their time by being selfish/incompetent is what’s ridiculous. This entire thread is pretty ridiculous. Its common sense to make your own group if there aren’t groups out there that want to play the way you want to. There is no one punishing you.

You choose your own experience in this game based on how you build your characters, the content you choose to attempt, and the people you choose to play with. I have no interest in PvP, so I don’t bother trying to play that game mode in gear that I know will likely get me destroyed and cause any PvP team I try to join…to fail. I’m not on the PvP forums complaining about the way that content is designed…just because I refuse/fail to adapt to that content. If I want those PvP rewards bad enough, then I will adapt and play that content the way it is designed.

What’s messed up here is the sense of entitlement. Raids are one part of this game. A very small part at that. They are one small part of PvE. This game’s PvE is about 70% open world content. You still have dungeons, if you really want that content. You still have fractals. You still have WvW. You still have PvP. You do also have Raids…you just have to be willing to adapt and put in the effort to complete that content. Threads like this, expecting to be able to force yourself upon others…to have everyone else just deal with whatever you want to do….while at the same time wanting to ignore their expectations…or even punish them for having expectations…is just too much.

Fermi.2409:

Kyon.9735:

you still support toxic exclusion in the game. No more point in arguing.

I’d argue that forced inclusion is a great deal more toxic then allowing people to play with exactly who they want to play with, but that’s just me.

This^

No one can be happy when you have others forced upon you that you don’t want to play with and who actively make your experience miserable. Players would be much more likely to have an enjoyable experience if they are allowed to accurately choose who they play with…like minded individuals.

You haven’t earned right to be in 51+ if you haven’t at least progressed to that level. Its just that simple. If you want to do 51+, then progress your fractal level to 51+. They don’t need to open it up, to let every fractal level 0 player jump into fractal 100…to make it a terrible experience for everyone else.

Rising Dusk.2408:

This thread is incredible.

ANet said nothing about wanting to remove Berserker’s as a viable gear stat combination. What they wanted to inhibit was having your entire team be Berserker’s and outright ignore mechanics because content was too easy. They wanted to change the paradigm from “finishing content as fast as possible” to “struggle to finish content at all”. Thus, what they did was create content that was hard enough and damaging enough to force a couple players in a group to think about things from a different angle, and thus you get healers. Cleric’s Healers. The very fact that people are arguing about how necessary healers are indicates that ANet succeeded at doing exactly what they wanted to do: diversify the builds and roles that people are using. Ten days ago no one in their right mind brought Healing Power to instanced PvE content.

I agree with you on what the message was that ANET likely intended to convey, but their word choices were really bad. They need to put a muzzle on some of their employees or get someone new to write their public facing comments. They seriously over estimated the intelligence/reading comprehension of a lot of their customers. When they made statements like paraphrase: “berserker’s not going to cut it” and “end of the berserker meta”…they were seriously asking for this type of misunderstanding from phiw. That had to have seemed like the phiw wish had finally been granted to make damage gear no longer able to even be able to be equipped….to make the game actually crash your client if you even tried to login wearing berserker lol. Even when I watched/read some of ANET’s customer facing comments, it made me irritated at the possibility of their direction being negative towards players in damage gear. When the ranger developer openly smiles while bragging about the end of the berserker meta…the developer of the notorious bear bow…its hard to take that a different way. Maybe those situations were purposefully set up that way though…to increase sales hype in the phiw customer base…since its hard to imagine a successful gaming company not being able to control their public comments. Either way, their comments are what brought threads like this into the forefront this time.

bai long.2085:

With this raid, I have a lot of fun. A success for ArenaNet? Yeah! That is, until the timer reaches 00:00 and my fun is over because I chose to try to have fun playing the build I wanted to play in the first place. If I wen’t Berserker’s the fun would be over for me at 08:00.

I’m curious, what buttons would you press differently if the stats on your gear were different? Would you still not heal when necessary? Would you still not block when necessary? Would you not attack at any available opportunity to contribute to reducing enemy hp to zero?

Distaste.4801:

They took a mechanic without knowing why it was created or used and are using it to artificially increase difficulty while in the process are killing the class customization that’s supposed to make them unique. I can’t think of another way to describe that except bad design.

You are supposed to be changing your traits on the fly, based on the encounter, to optimize your chance of success. How are enrage timers killing that off? Gear stats have nothing to do with your character being unique. All your skills have the same functions regardless of what gear stats you have. A heal still heals. A condi attack still applies conditions. A boon/active defense skills still applies that boon/active defense. There is no uniqueness added by wearing self survival gear or stats to increase your healing output. All this is is stubbornness/unwillingness in the face of needing to adapt to the content. You guys were all in when you thought it was only players in zerk gear that would need to adapt….river of tears now that you realize you also need to adapt lol. Its actually pretty funny watching this blow up in your faces. We told you so….well in advance.

Distaste.4801:

The only question you need to ask yourself to determine if the fight is poorly designed or not is to ask this “If there was no enrage timer would the fight be hard?”. If you think the fight would be really easy, then clearly it’s not that well designed. If the fight would still be hard then it’s a well designed fight. This isn’t to say that enrage timers can’t be used to make great encounters, quite the opposite, but they can’t just be slapped on to add difficulty of what would otherwise be a cake walk.

How exactly could it possibly be hard if it allowed face tanking to win? The best they would do if they allowed that would be “tedious” or “annoying”…not “hard”. If face tanking to victory in nomad gear was allowed…the only possible challenging encounters would be some stupid puzzles or mini games…which the general consensus shows us that players really dislike and will not repeat unless they absolutely are forced to (TA aetherpath). That path got abandoned really quickly by so many players once they experienced the mini game/puzzle content. I’m pretty sure ANET does not want raids to be a repeat of that.

Nova Stiker.8396:

ODB.6891:

hurrado.2346:

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

Clearly you don’t even understand what the zerker meta was even about. I’ll enlighten you. The zerker meta was to bring ALL zerker geared players…no healers, no tanks, nothing but top direct damage (builds, gear, etc). That is clearly not what is happening now as you have healers, pseudo tanking, and condition damage builds/gear. Please stop regurgitating things that you don’t understand.

Stop posting when you never gotten past the Vale Guardian.

I can tell you for a fact, after dozen hours of fighting, trying different builds, professions I will tell you what you need for success:

• 1 Tempest Auramancer to tank and heal.
• 1 zerker Revenant
• 2 condi trap rangers/bomb engineers
• ZERKER EVERYTHING ELSE

I cannot stress enough how taking Soldiers, Celestial, Shamans can mean you and your team will never beat raids. If you cannot beat phase 1 in 2 minutes, your team does not have enough DPS.

Good game design?

P.S. A full nomad team would be more build diversity
P.S.S. A fully defensive team will never get past Grosval anyways, so defending the rage time is really stupid.

What on the hell are you talking about? You clearly are another person who doesn’t know what they are talking about. My post had nothing to do with beating the Vale Guardian in particular…it was about phiw tears regarding a false assertion that the berserker meta was even a problem in the new raids in general. Your post was so ignorant that you even proved that there is no berserker meta with your own reply. You are apparently so ignorant that you couldn’t understand your own response. You clearly listed non berserker geared roles in your formula for success. You are the one who should stop posting if you cannot comprehend the posts of others or even your own.

hurrado.2346:

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

Clearly you don’t even understand what the zerker meta was even about. I’ll enlighten you. The zerker meta was to bring ALL zerker geared players…no healers, no tanks, nothing but top direct damage (builds, gear, etc). That is clearly not what is happening now as you have healers, pseudo tanking, and condition damage builds/gear. Please stop regurgitating things that you don’t understand.