Guild Wars 2

Chaith don’t rise to it

I’ve been wanting to see a sniper ranger build for a while, so it’d be great if a viable build could form around read the wind. My fear is we will be forced to run 30/30/X for our dps to compensate for class weaknesses as a zerker, and this RNG block trait simple can’t deliver on a zerker build. This puts a lot of pressure on read the wind to be effective, as no signets is a big loss.

For me the skirmishing GM was a ‘make or break’ for glass power ranger that doesn’t look to deliver, like the the new virtues GM on guardian (for dps)…

It’s not just rerolling that becomes an issue here.

Due to the lack of a template feature I have multiple characters for the same class.. This could be a real headache for that too…

Cool thanks

I think LoS is largely map related, something the developers have been more aware of post release.

Josh Davis.6015:

So, let’s say we wanted to look into decap engineer, where would we start? I’ve heard a few different opinions on the topic, and I have a few opinions of my own as someone who has played against decap in top 100 rated solo/team arena games and also played the build myself.

In the same way that it was difficult to look at the September ’13 Hambow warrior and point out a single specific key to its strength, I think decap engineer is much the same.

I think it’s important to understand the areas in our game where decap engineer is strong, and then go from there:

• Conquest
  • Situations where communication is difficult (solo arena)
  • Against teams that have difficulty rotating appropriately

So, with the above in mind, what are some ‘low-hanging fruit’ type of suggestions for changing the way decap engineer works, without affecting existing builds unrelated to decap? That is to say, suggestions that would not require significant amounts of development time to implement.

We’ve already seen a few threads on PW, so I’ll focus on decap for now. ^^

Nerf AR; let them suffer the full wrath of the condition meta like their dps brethren….

The only justifiable reason for condition classes is to prevent stalemates, let them shine here; change AR to a 25% reduction in condition duration (as engi will take this with melandru runes)…

Berk.8561:

Phaeton.9582:

That 30 mark GM will be very nice on longbow. Plus don’t understimate the usefulness of the f2 changes (imagine being able to blind cover stomps easily using a bird etc).

So which two of Eagle Eye, Spotter, and Piercing Arrows should I do without to get it, assuming I’m already willing to do without Signet of the Beastmaster?

Eagle eye and spotter

maddoctor.2738:

Phaeton.9582:

It’s the worst trait change on rangers for sure.

Have you seen Read the Wind?

That’s my faveourite new trait if it’s 100% increase! Shame it’s at the cost of signets..

That 30 mark GM will be very nice on longbow. Plus don’t understimate the usefulness of the f2 changes (imagine being able to blind cover stomps easily using a bird etc).

Works the same on air/earth attunement, and procs from a bug with Phoenix.

If you’re theorycrafting for the patch however I suggest you try burning precision (or whatever it’s called) adept trait in fire. You’ll get the same effect and the 10% fire damage loss can be avoided by swapping to air mid cast of Phoenix.

kirito.4138:

Phaeton.9582:

GUYS they fixed the chest reward bug.

No reason not to test the waters here

LoL, just realized, anet didnt fix the transfer region chest reward bug for over a year because they already had plans to remove chest anyways =]

Their master plan is unfolding..

Tetsuyja.7805:

this thread really exists?!?! i can’t believe it. everybody overreacts. crazy stuff…

This doesn’t make sense, think you might want to read the described thread.

If you have.. then the irony isn’t lost on me…

Sarrs.4831:

My suggestion:
Strider’s Defense: When you land a melee attack, gain 20 seconds of Aegis. 20 second CD
This nails these problems right in the face; it removes the RNG element, makes the ability more practical to use against everyone, and Aegis already has bunches of systems to support and counter it. Duration and ICD are debatable, of course; I would personally put it somewhere between 15 and 25 seconds.

This a cool idea.. you could lower the ICD though..

Sarrs.4831:

Phaeton.9582:

It’s the worst trait change on rangers for sure.

What about ‘your pet f2 blinds and cripples nearby foes’

This double dips with Intimidation Training, so I’m kind of skeptical of it.

‘your pet f2 blinds and cripples weakens nearby foes’ maybe?

GUYS they fixed the chest reward bug.

No reason not to test the waters here

They fixed the chest bug you should transfer to EU dude

It’s the worst trait change on rangers for sure.

What about ‘your pet f2 blinds and cripples nearby foes’

Active: converts 100% of base condition damage into power (15 seconds).

Dunno just thought of the first interesting mechanic that popped into my head Xd

They’re both solid. Think the fire trait needs an ICD reduction to 3 seconds however.

Reposted here, partly because sPvP forums are dead, and because it’d be nice if balance devs could read the feedback…

So for warriors… Toughness on stunbreak looks strong… So does sigil of intellect on a hammer… Discipline trait sounds useless (if you made it 1 second of immunity to counter blinding powder it’d be better though). With the nerf to strength 15 we could see more players run into Arms, we’ll have to see if it’s GM gets any play. 0/0/20/30/20 hambow-wambow aoe might stacking could be funny.

For the guardian, not too happy with the grandmasters.. We needed a boost in zeal and radiance GM for power builds, as the ‘meta’ on dps guard was 10/5/30/5/20 (I run a variation but that 20 in virtues is pretty clutch).

The idea of a viable condition guard that can make best use of retal too scares me. You could change the radiance grandmaster to reduce incoming condition duration by 20% while affected by retal. THAT would be cool, as it’s the vulnerability to condition pressure (spam) that makes radiance builds unviable (hence the need to go 20 virtues for added condi removal).

Anyway on a phone right now so hard to type any more…

Edited: 21/03

For ranger..
#Powerranger2014 meta

If only. What I’d love to see is a balanced survivalist build emerge along the lines of
30/0/10/30/0, as the new GM is cool. This probably won’t be the case however, as (if this nature magic trait works reasonably) then 10/30/0/30/0 could be taken purely for statistical reasons. Unless Mesmers force us into running piercing ofc.

Like the guardian traits, the skirmishing GM really falls down IMO. A 15% chance to block ranged attacks isn’t a cool mechanic, and wouldn’t be much fun to play with/against.. That GM could of been the last piece of the puzzle for running a 30/30X signet build, but alas no…

I’m not the most experience bunker ranger, but I’d imagine a X/X/30/30 job will probably be the only thing people run anyway, even if they swap spirits for survivalist utilities…

For elementalist it’s a tricky one. They’re so up in the air (literally) at the moment it’s hard to suggest builds that will fall out. I’ll just go through each trait instead.

Fire: I love the fire trait line, and this trait is cool. I was (rather fruitlessly) trying to get across in the balance forums how using the fire attune (scepter 4) to reveal thieves would make glass ele more viable. This is a better mechanic, if a tad weak.

Edit: however combine it with burning precision and it could be fairly brainless.. :p

Basically an ele at skillcap could place an (unblockable) flame wall at their feet to counter a thief elite steal etc. It’s cool, but if the ICD was reduced or removed it would push 30 fire eles into the realms of viability.

Air: no good, but nobodies going to stop running fresh air unless it was broken OP. If you need confirmation that it won’t be used see how players don’t bother running glyph of elements, despite that applying perma weakness.

Earth: interesting… 0/0/30/30/10 bunker ele could get some play now. Earth bunker eles already have to rotate carefully around earth attune, this might place a bit too much emphasis on it… But if it works it’ll be a cool mechanic. Bring the res trait in arcana back to adept tier and we could finally see a shift in mid bunker meta.

Water: cleansing water has basically been reborn. That’s exciting. Hope it’s strong enough to survive the power creep of condition builds. The new trait won’t be run over cleansing water, unless people are counter comping with full power teams (because CW is OP).

Arcana: didn’t really want a reason to run 30 arcana, and didn’t get one…

I’ll add some more musings in a bit

Updated OP, due to popular demand.

Justin I really don’t think we should require much time (more than a couple of days) to have access to all 40 traits in spvp. Players capable of managing three GM traits per tree should have the freedom to build what they want…

Deku.3129:

How can you listen to the complaints of people who aren’t playing the game correctly?

You’re basically asking them to ignore the profession balance forum…

That dps guard that’s been trolling all your solo qs is me, and as I’ve already said in a different post radiance GM needs to be some way of dealing with condition pressure for a viable build to come out of running into it. Who’s going to run a settlers ammy radiance guard?

The guardian changes were not good, already suggested changes in a tread below

Yeah that first thing I wrote was to check if I could make threads again XD

So for warriors… Toughness on stunbreak looks strong… So does sigil of intellect on a hammer… Discipline trait sounds useless (if you made it 1 second of immunity to counter blinding powder it’d be better though). With the nerf to strength 15 we could see more players run into Arms, we’ll have to see if it’s GM gets any play. 0/0/20/30/20 hambow-wambow aoe might stacking could be funny.

For the guardian, not too happy with the grandmasters.. We needed a boost in zeal and radiance GM for power builds, as the ‘meta’ on dps guard was 10/5/30/5/20 (I run a variation but that 20 in virtues is pretty clutch).

The idea of a viable condition guard that can make best use of retal too scares me. You could change the radiance grandmaster to reduce incoming condition duration by 20% while affected by retal. THAT would be cool, as it’s the vulnerability to condition pressure (spam) that makes radiance builds unviable (hence the need to go 20 virtues for added condi removal).

Anyway on a phone right now so hard to type any more…

Edited: 21/03

For ranger..
#Powerranger2014 meta

If only. What I’d love to see is a balanced survivalist build emerge along the lines of
30/0/10/30/0, as the new GM is cool. This probably won’t be the case however, as (if this nature magic trait works reasonably) then 10/30/0/30/0 could be taken purely for statistical reasons. Unless Mesmers force us into running piercing ofc.

Like the guardian traits, the skirmishing GM really falls down IMO. A 15% chance to block ranged attacks isn’t a cool mechanic, and wouldn’t be much fun to play with/against.. That GM could of been the last piece of the puzzle for running a 30/30X signet build, but alas no…

I’m not the most experience bunker ranger, but I’d imagine a X/X/30/30 job will probably be the only thing people run anyway, even if they swap spirits for survivalist utilities…

For elementalist it’s a tricky one. They’re so up in the air (literally) at the moment it’s hard to suggest builds that will fall out. I’ll just go through each trait instead.

Fire: I love the fire trait line, and this trait is cool. I was (rather fruitlessly) trying to get across in the balance forums how using the fire attune (scepter 4) to reveal thieves would make glass ele more viable. This is a better mechanic, if a tad weak.

Basically an ele at skillcap could place an (unblockable) flame wall at their feet to counter a thief elite steal etc. It’s cool, but if the ICD was reduced or removed it would push 30 fire eles into the realms of viability.

Air: no good, but nobodies going to stop running fresh air unless it was broken OP. If you need confirmation that it won’t be used see how players don’t bother running glyph of elements, despite that applying perma weakness.

Earth: interesting… 0/0/30/30/10 bunker ele could get some play now. Earth bunker eles already have to rotate carefully around earth attune, this might place a bit too much emphasis on it… But if it works it’ll be a cool mechanic. Bring the res trait in arcana back to adept tier and we could finally see a shift in mid bunker meta.

Water: cleansing water has basically been reborn. That’s exciting. Hope it’s strong enough to survive the power creep of condition builds. The new trait won’t be run over cleansing water, unless people are counter comping with full power teams (because CW is OP).

Arcana: didn’t really want a reason to run 30 arcana, and didn’t get one…

I’ll add some more musings in a bit

To be honest balance tweaks are a bit irrelevant at this stage. Hopefully arenanet will be really responsive with tweaks to sigils/runes on implementation.

Some if the imbalance on release will dwarf the imbalance described above.

For example, putting a sigil of intelligence on a (soldiers) warriors hammer will be broken on implementation.

I think 10 players in the whole community, belonging to the best team (willing to compete) in their region deserve a legendary weapon.

Our community isn’t THAT small rofl

It’s probably the case that if they implement gold into sPvP, then sPvP needs some form of gold sink for the economy to remain stable.

But that’s a bit heady for forum-talk.

The bottom line is as long as it remains just a minor gold sink for regular players and doesn’t limit their ability to multiclass fully then it’s ok.

These decisions, while being great to get new players in without overwhelming them, should have no significant impact on committed players.

If it does then there’s a problem. Still very excited to hear about the new content, it’ll make my train journey tonight go much faster….

Hvaran.6327:

Cool u got pretty funny girls in your team (in a good way).

Bad – u think alot of people watching those pvp?)

Tell to your chiefs please, that even this personal channel
http://www.twitch.tv/chemsorly with gvg and wvw got more views then u)

Althought about skills…show them or not…that’s doesn’t matter much if it won’t change the result)

About balance team and so on, play some 20vs20 or 15v15 in OS and u will get the difference how fun it can be and what’s the meta problem (ofc not from first try)

U can forget about balancing warrior, guardian, elementalist
little fixes needed for theifs and necros, overall classes are good to play anywhere – they are usefull, but got small bugges.
mesmers need little more attention but still they got tones of good stuff for smallscale they just not that good for gvg already.
In the worst line are Egnineers and rangers. Some of their abilities are very strong (rare ones) some are just useless.

Engis – forget about the turrets, let them be broken, focus on fixing other stuff that engis got, cause comparing to war that is let’s say – totally OK, engi suck alot with all that useless traits. And stop conentrating on spvp, BALANCING it’s not only about it, it’s not about spvp at all.

Rangers same, but can’t say more detalized, pretty unbalanced in some bleeding stacking on one hand and don’t have enough gtfo skills on another hand. Just listen to ranger thread.

Teach me.

RaZaC.1963:

How many layers of rock have you all been living under?

Tell that to the scissors

#thismeta

Well if that’s your bag.

I’m off to work

..Yeah but I swear you quit a year ago.

Just trying to understand the motivation behind dragging these forums through the muck since then…

Clearly the forums are useful to you, otherwise you wouldn’t still be here..

Guys, have to say this once, may as well be here.

Although I was at first very keen on skyhammer (it’s funny+ I have no qualms playing troll builds), there comes a point in every gamers playing experience where the novelty wears off and skyhammer stops being fun. It becomes a huge turn off for solo queue (just read map chat – most of the QQ occurs before the match has even started).

Pretty much your entire high end playerbase dreads the prospect of a skyhammer pop, and many of us feel like it’s a big two fingers to us and our playing experience.

I know you’ll read this, so it’ll be my first and last skyhammer QQ post. Please reconsider, and make us happy…

And lo, the dps guard QQ was sung, and the fourth era of OP began.

Problem with this is that most play professions are also usually most needed. Best advice I can give is..

If you want roaming direct damage/back capping roll a thief
If you want to bunk play guard
If you want condi pressure roll necro
If you want front line sustain/semi afk faceroll roll a warrior.

There are too many warriors in this game though, wouldn’t reccomend it in the long term..

Allie Murdock.8152:

This is not confirmed.

We are working on game modes, though, and CTF is one that we have talked about.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Can-we-take-anything-from-SWTOR/first#post3570176

the duo/date offer’s still on the table.

Allie we should duo queue

It’ll be like a date.

Sixtyfivekid.5726:

Datsuni.4678:

So when is the build? Is it that hard to answer? There is no logic in a company with such shady policies.

Apparently you are remembering around instances, when companies have to delay something, whether it is a game or just an update. The backlash is huge and reaches from accusations of lying to the customary threat of uninstalling.
Three weeks ago the update was just delayed by a few hours and people were up in arms, or even that time when the update preview page wasn’t up on a tuesday but on a thursday (shock and horror!).
They will announce the update when they are good and ready, and sure there won’t be any delays.

What they did was give us a fixed date for when they were taking X away. This was done to allow greater flexibility without people logging in one day and thinking “where have my chests gone”.

The problem isn’t the way they’ve gone about it. The problem is the timescale this is all being done over.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Duran.3196:

Well I never said it was well-designed @juan.

But on the other hand is it okay that ppl can spec completely defensive while still having high offensive power by taking condition dmg?

And be honest burning 1500 from an ele shouldnt be that hard for anyone.

But I saw the problems with this trait coming cause that trait isnt well-designed.
Cause there is such a small percentage between being absolutely underpowered and totally OP. As for now the 10% are even underpowered.
And it does not break condition builds in general, only pure condition builds.

So ppl say well Elementalist can heal himself, yes he can but in order for that to be effective he still needs healing power / skill in water for water cd reduction.
So u have to skill 30 earth and 10 or 20 water.
In other words you lose a lot of offensive power, then you are able to survive but you cant finish of your enemy as well.

@Lordrosicky
A full glass S/F ele that is skilled is a problem for me as D/D ele as well.
Met a r54 (I know rank does not equal skill) some days ago (the only one i met so far though) and this was the first ele I met that won >70% of the times we met.
And yeah that guy was strong, but the number of eles I considered strong that I met the last 5 months I can count on one hand.
And by strong i mean just as hard to beat as a mediocre Condi or Minion Necro.

So now imagine that S/F guy didnt build full glass, do you know just how big his dmg lose is if he specs into earth?

Necro only has pure condition builds. Hybrid doesn’t exist because necro’s condition weapons scale so poorly with power. Staff is a poor weapon set. The baddies will qq about marks but staff is one of the most balanced weapon sets in the game because the auto attack is so bad. Scepter carries the offense of a condition necro. Scepter too scales badly with power. If they want all this condition immunity then they have to buff scepter and staffs base damage by 100%. But that is more power creep just to get around all the immunities. The one good thing about a power necro (well lich too) is DS#1. A 1 spamming necro. Hardly skill based. This is the only thing which woud benefit from running a carrion/hybrid necro spec. And really, if you run carrion or go full power then you will just get farmed by thiefs and hambow warriors all game. It doesn’t get played because a thief will just destroy you even worse than they destroy eles.

Necromancer doesn’t have the tools really to play a melee glass cannon class. That leaves its ranged weapons which all scale badly with power and have no direct damage. So this trait, diamond skin, is basically “immune to necromancers”. That isn’t a good trait to have.

All I ask is for skill to be put back in the game. I am happy for necro to be the weakest class. If necro was as bad as ele right now I would make it work. SO would a handful of other necros who have been playing for a while. But I don’t want to be shut out by complete immunities which no level of skill can get around.

Condi necro is also currently the most irritating class to play against unless you have access to insane immunities/invuln (see berserker stance/PW). The idea of constantly laying conditions on players (without avoidable tells) until they run out of cooldowns and insta die is the most ridiculous thing in this game. It’s only been implemented to avoid stalemates, but it’s a rubbish mechanic.

I can beat a decent terror necro with any class in the game (including s/f ele). That doesn’t make their mechanics any less crappy. I mean really, really crappy.

Tldr: QQ necro spamm QQ

zinavlad.7581:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Daishi.6027:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

This build is so fun, it should certainly shake things up a bit.

Crazy changes are crazy:P

#elepocalype

Let the elements guide you

As much as I’d love to see eles being given love <3~ Can this please not just be a trading warriors for eles situation. If we keep going in a round about flavor of the yearly quarter style then there is no real progress, just the status quo with a new face.

It’s not really going to be like that. Everythings getting new crazy stuff, I am just personally overly hyped about the Ele changes. Honestly I see every class being in a pretty good spot. It’s hard to tell what is going to come out of the build. Hence why we’ve kept the balance changes to a minimum amount.

hahahahaahah you think necro is balanced?
hasn’t mechanical survival as invulnerability-force-evade
as all classes.
necro i have so much life, but not comparable with invulnerability.
necro conditions was ALWAYS nerf, to the point that war-engi-mesmer-renger exceed it in conitions spam.
in damage necro is among the worst in the game.
and you think it is balanced?

If you are stating that necro is UP the door’s that way dude >>>

Staff ele may become the first viable support build. It could allow classes with less access to condi romoval (ie not warriors) much more relevance in the meta…

Allie Murdock.8152:

• We’re moving rank points gained from the win chests from the win chests at the end of Solo and Team arenas. This means no more bounce chests. Rewards will go directly to the scoreboard now and will be rewarded at the end of the match.*

Could this fix the region transfer reward bug? Has the day finally arrived???!!

Allie Murdock.8152:

• We’re moving rank points gained from the win chests from the win chests at the end of Solo and Team arenas. This means no more bounce chests. Rewards will go directly to the scoreboard now and will be rewarded at the end of the match.*

Could this fix the region transfer reward bug? Has the day finally arrived???!!

It could be very interesting. On my (axe) warrior I may run sigil of doom, which could well turn hambow warriors into putty. This could be a theme across condi builds too, having a big impact on the warrior meta. It’s too early to say if warrior will become god mode IMO.

If there’s an insurgence of on crit dps or on swap condi sigils, hard damage mitigation may become more popular (that means fewer face-tank builds). It could also push the bunker meta to a greater extreme however if this leads to simply too many attacks that require mitigation.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see, the main thing is things will change!

Staff ele will be 0/0/10/30/30, maybe 0/10/0/30/30 at a stretch. It won’t need more condi removal.

You guys are smoking something funny if you think 0/0/30/30/10 will be made viable by cleansing water (of all things!).

This trait will remain invisible to eles indefinitely. Save you efforts for stuff that actually shuts players out of matches consistently (not some bizarre niche counter for glass condi necro – a crappy build anyway).

Allie Murdock.8152:

• We’re moving rank points gained from the win chests from the win chests at the end of Solo and Team arenas. This means no more bounce chests. Rewards will go directly to the scoreboard now and will be rewarded at the end of the match.*

Could this fix the region transfer reward bug? Has the day finally arrived???!!

John Corpening.9847:

Ah ha, you brought me to my next question xantosnightwish, when should balance patches come in relation to the season? If we had our perfect world, how often would balance patches happen and how would that affect the duration of a season? Some people have suggested fairly lengthy seasons which is at odds with more frequent balance patches. If a balance patch comes out should there be a waiting period before the season begins? If so, how long?

I’d like to see balance every 4 weeks personally. Balance is a whole other issue, which to many far outstrips other potential features. It doesn’t fit well with seasons, but yeah, it’s too big an issue to be sidelined to prevent ‘double X’ teams getting upset mid season.

People REALLY didn’t like waiting for a patch through the weeks leading up to PAX in the summer… And when a meta build emerges that shuts other builds/classes out completely, 8 weeks is too long to wait IMO.

Imbalance is far more restrictive on players than an unapologetic and frequent (spvp) balance patch would be

People are dumb and ignore OP builds/play styles until they are ‘accepted’ by the meta however. The funny thing is I made a post about stun lock warriors in the summer (as the first person to run it viably on NA) only to be shouted down by players like defective about the viability of hammer.

9 months and several nerfs later we’re getting threads like this

Also @red I’ve also gone dps guard, more active play plus future proof mechanics for high tier play (ie not so easy it has to be balanced around casuals).