Guild Wars 2

Chokolata.1870:

Ok guys, there have been a lot of topics that all call for nerfs on this and that. But, taking a serious look at Ele, how would you go about nerfing it?

Personally I would:

-reduce the stat bonus from the Celestial amulet from 560-480

-reduce the damage bonuses from Pyromancer training and Burning rage from 10% to 7% (similar to how the Guardian +% to burning got reduced)

-reduce the burning duration of Drakes breath from 3s to 2s

-reduce the Ring of Fire burn stacks from 3 to 2

-increase Soothing Ice ICD from 20s to 30s

-reduce the Protection duration from Elemental swapping from 5s to 2s

What do you think? Too much? Not enough??

So, almost all of your proposed changes nerf ele as a whole, although there’s arguably only 1 build that is being played like crazy and considered OP.

D/D-Ele needs to be toned down in DPS a bit, that’s all and I’d probably simply nerf mainhand-dagger dps by toning down the physical DPS on drakes breath, burning speed and cone of cold by 30%. It would put the ele more in the niche of condition-dps (which would make him less of a jack of all trades and less bursty).

The meta is IMHO the most interesting and even one of the best balanced ones, ppl leaving now would’ve left anyways….

Blind is one of the things I miss the GW1-version of the most: Very short duration, often only around 3-4 seconds, but nearly everything missed, not only 1 attack. Also, only very few classes had access to it and to really use it frequently (like every 10 seconds), you needed an elite-skill.

Now blind is more or less spammed on many classes (like blinding ashes, which gives you little control over when you actually blind) and you just auto once to get rid of it.

In GW1, ppl had to use their blind to counter dmg-spikes and support had to time their cleanses extremely well to get it off the DD’s.

Also, for some classes, getting blinded can be a huge deal (like D/P-Thiefs), while others couldn’t care less about it.

BadMed.3846:

….but alerting the developers to the fact that certain elements are making a class OP is perfectly reasonable….

Perfectly reasonable? That would be a first for this forum. ^^’

And that’s exactly the problem: the loudest and most obnoxious whiners are most of the time the ppl that are bad at the game. The more they cry, the worse they are is pretty much the norm. Why?

- good players look for answers in their builds/strategy/gameplay instead of crying.
- good players spend less time on the forums/mapchat and more time playing.
- good players know (especially in GW2) that whining is most often useless, since the patch could be several weeks/months away and they’d rather find an elegant solution instead of whining and getting wrecked until the magic nerfhammer fixes their problems.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

If you want to get better you have to play ranked. Playing anything else isn’t going to teach you how to play ranked.

playing unranked in a team is 10x more useful than playing ranked alone. Of course playing ranked in a team is even better.

Advantages of playing ranked:

- ppl take it more seriously, so they play better builds and tryhard.
- No Skyhammer or Courtyard
- Once Ladder is back up there will be…. a Ladder… ^^’
- You can set the character-models/armor to a standard setting, so you can see animations more easily and identify characters better.
- a little less leavers/afk, but it’s still a problem, even in ranked.

I’d probably just play ranked with a build that you’re confident with, when the queue isn’t too long – just give it your best and it really can’t hurt, especially since theres no ladder atm.

It’s mostly ppl that aren’t good at the game that constantly whine and cry for nerfs….

I’m pretty happy with the current meta and even the “weakest” classes aren’t that far away from the “strongest” ones.

The only thing I don’t like is when stuff gets dumbed down and when the skillcap of certain classes gets lowered and currently that is only the case with mesmer, confounding suggestions to be precise: It rewards using mantra of distraction just as a stun whenever you feel like it and ppl often pick mental anguish instead of powerblock, which basically is swapping a trait with one of the highest skillcaps with one that is incredibly easy to use thanks to confounding suggestions.

Simple solution is that conounding suggestions only stuns when you interrupt a skill, which would help to balance mesmer and make it harder and more rewarding to play.

punish leavers and afk’ers, it’s as simple as that.

I’ve played probably 10 matches today and at least half of them were 4v5 or worse for a majority of the game. And it wasn’t much better in the last 1000 games since I came back a few months ago either.

-> if you’re afk for more than 60 seconds, you’re out and considered a leaver.

→ disconnects have 120 seconds to reconnect or they’re out and considered a leaver.

-> leavers are banned for an amount of time from ranked/unranked.

Terrorsquad.4802:

Extreme.8350:

Kenmei.7138:

Mesmer is totally braindead class right now mostly for “wannabe pros”. Except the good ones prepatch, 90% of them are totally carried by the OP class mechanics.

Yes , it’s a rant post.

I have played against ur guild visceral effect and they are totally brainless too
We dont see abjured with mesmer hmm i wonder why

Obvious Mesmer-not-OP-Protector is obvious..
Stop protecting something thats broken, like really..

The only reason why The abjured are not playing mesmer is because they have no Mesmer-player…. Almost every other top-team, especially in EU, run mesmers. It’s clearly one of the best classes atm, there’s absolutely no denying that.

The big question is how to balance it correctly.

• Confounding suggestions only stuns if a skill was interrupted*

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering.

Ah, yes. Can’t forget those OP Necro reflects and blocks.

I am sorry, I can not hear you over the second life bar. Let me move a little… Oh crap, life bar again.

Seriously stop attacking. It is not about necros vs rangers or buffing rangers. It is about debugging them and giving a more skillful rework. I am perfectly aware that necro,ranger and engineer are not in a very good place those three are my favourite professions sadly.

You are doing far more attacking than I am. I’m just pointing out that Necros don’t actually have reflects, blocks, or projectile destruction. Heck, this isn’t even a complaint.

well yes, not every class has it, but many classes have it in AoE form…. It’s actually a valid concern: If a team is running a pewpew, some classes can just switch one trait (like mesmer from the blind to reflect) and they are immune to it. It’s not even a big risk, since even if it’s not a pewpew-ranger, reflect is still pretty kitten good against any other ranger build.

Kenmei.7138:

Mesmer is totally braindead class right now mostly for “wannabe pros”. Except the good ones prepatch, 90% of them are totally carried by the OP class mechanics.

Yes , it’s a rant post.

ANet was so close to make it a very high skillcap-class that’s balanced very well! Look at Powerblock; one of my favourite new traits; really high skillcap but very rewarding and powerful. but what do ppl do with Mantra of distraction now? they just spam it because it’s a guaranteed stun anways! Most high level players don’t even pick PB anymore, but the extremely dumb and boring mental anguish.

I personally don’t think Mesmer is extremely OP and I could live with it being strong (although I don’t main Mesmer), but I hate when sth. that could be so skill-intensive and amazing just gets dumbed down because of bad balancing. I mean; why should I w8 to interrupt sth with powerblock when I can just daze (=stun) and spike it down?

Solution: Confounding suggestions only Stuns when you’re interrupting a skill!

→ This would help to make the class more balanced, skill-intensive and rewarding and it would be an incredibly easy fix.

Let me give some examples how you could buff ranger, while not making it OP and more interesting and skill-intensive to play:

- Wilting Strike should apply weakness for pets that don’t do dmg to opponents, like he brown bear or the fern hound. It could simply be applied in an AoE, like the taunt and blind.
- Give players more control over the pet, like the ability to control the 2 other abilities that aren’t auto-attacks.
- Buff pet-stats: The pet-stats (just like the guild-lord on foefire and the mobs on niflhel) are not on par with the offense and the defense of the current player controlled characters. The only thing they “buffed” was giving the pets half the stats as baseline you got from going full beastmastery before the specializations-patch; this is nowhere near enough. If you combine this with higher control over your pet, controlling your pet properly would be more impactful and require more skill and set the class more apart from other classes.

Nier.8741:

There are a few simple reasons why Ranger isn’t getting buffs right now.

At it’s current state, Ranger is just extremely easy to play, and there are a few reasons supporting this argument. I will use Longbow Zerker Ranger as an example from a team fight perspective.

1.) Pet mechanics. Pet doesn’t even have any “mechanics” going for it. It is just computer controlled and takes no skill, you don’t even need to Macro manage Ranger as if it was another unit kinda like in Starcraft. Pet getting focused/dying? Just press F4 and reposition. Pet knock someone down? Just spam Sword 1 or Longbow 1.

2.) Ranger damage is extremely reliable. Look at longbow auto-attack, it BAITS DODGES SO EASY and it hard punishes easy because of it’s ratio. Now take a look at point #1 and back to point 2. How does the pet mechanic and how a ranger attacks work? You dodge the ranger, you will eat a knock down from the dog. You dodge the dog you will eat ranger damage which isn’t even bad. Yes people, it is THAT easy to play a ranger. Landing Ranger damage is just so easy, it takes absolutely no skill.

TL;DR Because Ranger has an easy time landing damage, they help the team kill EASIER by baiting dodges through their easy means of giving damage.

3.) If you’re getting focused, that is perfectly fine. You have Signet of Renewal, evades, stealth that is easy to time, pet taunt/fear/immob, Signet of Stone, Protect Me, and “Strength of the Pack” for uncounterable stability. All of these tools help Ranger disengage so that they can repeat trying to kill you over and over and over. It isn’t hard to do these things in practice. It doesn’t help that half of those tools can be cast while the Ranger is casting evades.

4.) They have access to certain things such as Quickness Res and Quickness Stomps which can change the game and snowball certain objectives. They can do this extremely frequently too and maybe use Quickness for bursting people down. I don’t understand why people haven’t caught up to this one yet.

Don’t even get me started on Condi Ranger. That spec is just as easy as Mesmer at it’s current state. That’s even worse than Zerker Ranger if it gets buffed considering it’s tankier and has better point pressure. Just evade and spam attacks, traps, condis that’s all Condi Ranger does be it trap or survival, it takes no skill. They CANNOT buff ranger due to how noob-friendly Ranger is in design.

TL;DR They CANNOT buff ranger at it’s current state or it will be like Mesmer. They have to REWORK ranger into something that takes REAL SKILL. There is a reason why people complained about Spirit Ranger and it’s because of how reliable a Ranger can open a player up to burst while not easily opened up himself defense wise.

pretty much shows that you either don’t play ranger, or play it badly.

1) There are tons of mechanics involved with pets, especially with the new taunt-mechanic.
- Positioning your Pet with reapplying target with F1 and calling it back with F3 is crucial in teamfights.
- Offensive/Defensive switching: Sometimes, you need to switch pets to keep them alive, on the other hand, this can reduce how effectively you use the pets abilities.
- Several Micro-tricks like quickness insta-F2, where you hit F2 after a quickness swap at a very hard to hit timing, where the pet instantly shoots out with it’s F2 (works best with the birds).
- Keeping CD’s in mind and knowing animations, so you can effectively use the pet and combo up with it at certain occasions.

2) You know there are other builds than pewpew right? probably not though…. But pewpew is currently heavily underpowered compared to other ranged marauder using DD’s like Mesmer and Engi. And even pewpew ranger is hard to play if you want to use all the skills right and play it on a high level, just because on a higher level, ppl know how to kite, LoS, there are ppl that will jump on you and force you to play defensive etc.

3) Yepp, pewpew-Ranger has good defensive CD’s. A Trapper for example has bad ones. Nonetheless, pewpew-Ranger hasn’t much better defensive CD’s than the glassy builds that are actually played on a higher level, like thief, mesmer (not all builds though), engi etc.
Having very strong defensive CD’s is just about the only thing a pewpew-Ranger has going for it against the other glassy DD’s though, in almost all other aspects, it’s worse than the ones that are actually played competetively.

4) First of all, Quickness fits in almost no builds that are somewhat useable. Secondly, quickness means nothing if you have no stability, which is very hard to come by for the ranger as well. Pewpew-rangers are often too squishy and would pretty much have to use several CD’s to use a quickness-rez.
Even with quickness-rez, the support/utility is much lower than that of the other DD-glasscannons.

srsly, how many ranger games do you have? I guess under 10.

totally unnecessary und pretty dumb, since it’s impossible to balance when the main focus is a team-based game-mode.

Also, there are plenty of 1v1-oriented servers and the possibility for community-run tournaments.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Before this meta, it was kinda useful when everyone dealt little damage allowing for safety stomps and rezzes but now you can be spiked down with very little focus during that 3 seconds

When was tornado ever used for safe stomps? You’d just keep knocking it out of range.

there’s that…. and you can’t stomp in tornado…. -.-°

I like tornado, of course it needs a buff and it’s very situational, but it gave the ele an option to get decaps, which most eles aren’t really strong at.

In stronghold, it’s definitely very useful, just because of the ability to channel with reapplying stability.

It’s also a somewhat decent counter to rampage/lich form, because of the blind. Yes, it’s not a very hard counter, but it helps you deal with them.

I think a slight buff to HP/toughness would be enough.

depends on the MU’s but most likely a 2v1 means death.

It’s IMHO a good thing and it was like this before the patch as well.

Or d’you guys want the bunker-ele bunker-guard meta back that spawned probably 10 times more whinethreads than the so-called “bursty” meta we have now?

I Still don’t think dmg is too high btw. It’s probably easier to get totally wiped away from the map of you don’t pay attention when you’re running a more offensively oriented build, but if you play sth. more defensive and play carefully, the DMG really doesn’t seem too high to me.

Iavra.8510:

Well, bird pets hit me for 4k+ and the traited taunt is unevadable, unblockable and even prevents weaponswap…

It’s very evadeable since it’s pretty clunky to use sometimes, has a limited AoE and is tied to a 15s cooldown. Add all these together and you can easily see when it’s coming and dodge it.

There’s also stability and stunbreakers.

There are literally tons of skills that stun/immobilize that are way harder to evade.

I use BM in some builds, but mostly because of the taunt. I think the pets need a buff though, since the chars themselves all got buffed in damage and sustain, but I don’t think the pets got buffed to make up for that, or did I miss sth.?

Also, the BM trait-line is for the most part beneficial for your pet, which often makes the ranger himself squishier. Yes, taunt is pretty cool and blind/weakness as well, but often, the added protection and condition-removal of nature magic is just better (in many builds I use the choice is either nature magic or BM.)

I think they should buff pet’s a bit in all of their stats and maybe put a more defensive trait for the ranger himself in the pet-line.

What I really don’t like about the pets though is, that some pets just don’t benefit from a lot of traits in the BM-traitline:

1) taunt: basically useless for ranged-pets.
2) weakness on F2-hit: useless for pets with boons that are applied to you that don’t hit opponents.
3) higher critical hit DMG: well, only good for pets with high precision and power.
4) higher healing power: Only good for a handful of pets.

I really enjoy playing taunt though: It really makes controlling your pet correctly and keeping it alive much harder and more rewarding.

I don’t like the concept of a class-specific tier-list, because in most cases, the class itself isn’t too strong/weak, but certain builds are. Here’s my more comprehensive list:

Top
Ele (D/D)
Mesmer (shatter)

Mid
Thief (D/P)
Guard (shout)
Warrior (rampage)
Necro (power or cele)
Ele (staff, S/D)
Engi (power or cele)

Bottom
Necro (condition)
Ranger (power and condition)
Engi (condition)
Thief (S/D)

I think the one that chaith is running is very strong:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhSsYJXw+KQ+FLvF14Z0F5o4F1EJx3QFhBAA-TJxHABXXGYgHAAAXAAR2fAA

I also like to use this, more defensive/stustain version:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUhSsY7Ww+KQ+FLvFVYRFRpm4F1EJx3QFhBAA-TJxHwADeAAAuAAi2foYZAA

It really doesn’t…. Just play a support/tanky build for once. Yes, DPS got higher, but:

1) there are tons of defensive traits that got introduced or buffed, like stoneheart, bunker down, prismatic understanding etc.
2) rez-traits got buffed across the board.
3) secondary rez-skills got buffed/introduced, like feel my wrath, time warp etc.
4) interrupts got buffed and yes, you could use them defensively.
5) More CC got introduced like taunt.
6) Almost every class got more condition-removal.

But ppl run full DPS-builds and get annoyed when they are insta-killed? -.-°

A Volcano.2510:

PowerBottom.5796:

Mesmer: Very mobile and high DPS, CC and Burst, but very squishy an reliant on defensive CD’s like stealth and teleports. IMHO very interesting and fun to play since the new powerblock. Not very good at 1v1’s and as said, very squishy, other than that an absolute monster. You’ll most likely roam to set up good portals and try and outnumber and quickly spike sth. down and/or give DPS and CC in teamfights while trying to stay alive, so good positioning is very important.

Mesmer squishy? Strange, that is not the game I have been playing. PU+mass invis, torch, decoy, veil I suppose. Sword 2. Distortion. Maybe in some alternate world they are squishy, but not in the current incarnation of GW2.

And not very good at 1 vs 1? Is there any profession that is currently better at 1 vs 1 than a mesmer?

To clarify, I’m talking about the current meta shatterbuilds (domination and dueling + either inspiration or chaos).

Squishy=/=easy to kill btw. As I’ve stated, mesmer is reliant on defensive CD’s to stay alive, but if you focus/CC them in teamfights, they definitely are easier to kill than many other meta-builds, especially the mesmers that run mantra of distraction and not a second stunbreaker, which many currently do.

And in terms of 1v1’s, I compare them to the builds that are designed to 1v1 and sent into situations where they 1v1, which in the current meta, are mostly D/D-ele’s, cele-necro’s and nade-engi’s. Against all of these builds, you wouldn’t send a mesmer and expect him to win the 1v1.

There are some other specs that can 1v1 though (mostly condition), that’s true. I should’ve been clearer about which mesmer-builds I mean.

Buzzcrave.6197:

PowerBottom.5796:

Apolo.5942:

This wont stop until

a- Damage goes down across the board.

AND

b- They separate team and solo queue.

how is this even remotely related to the topic? ^^

@Topic: I don’t get it either… How can ANet possibly think it’s a good idea to make a teambased online game and not punish leavers? -.-°

I usually don’t get too upset by it, but it’s just getting too frequent. If I just go random unranked and even ranked, I get more games that are 4/5 or worse than full games, it’s extremely annoying.

ANet really needs to act soon on this and I have no Idea why they don’t….

It is related. People mainly just leave because its pointless to fight the same OP classes every single day. Yes, I’m pointing at you ele and mes. Until they balanced out all classes dps especially the 2 that I mentioned, people will just insta leave because there’s no point fighting a team of 3 mes and 2 ele while your team compromised of rangers,thief and engi. Some classes/build are so broken even keyboard turners can have a killstreak by pressing few buttons without the needs of aiming(due to its insta cast and ai targeting). The skill bar has never been so low, this is the lowest of all. Who jumps first wins, that’s the meta now.

so? in absolutely every online game, even if it’s a magical perfectly balanced one, ppl will find ways to whine and quit. The answer is simple: punish leavers.

Yes, some of the reasons to quit are more valid then others, but that doesn’t justify leaving.

I can guarantee you, that even in the game that has been regarded by many to have near perfect balance (StarCraft Broodwar), ppl would’ve simply quit games because they deemed sth. to be imba and got annoyed.

I can also guarantee you that even if they fix the problems you’ve addressed above, ppl would still quit games if it’s not punished – that’s just what ppl do on the internet.

certain builds can’t deal with them in 1v1…. ppl have to realize that not every build can win any 1v1 (neither should they).

In teamfights, just AoE or spike them down.

Apolo.5942:

This wont stop until

a- Damage goes down across the board.

AND

b- They separate team and solo queue.

how is this even remotely related to the topic? ^^

@Topic: I don’t get it either… How can ANet possibly think it’s a good idea to make a teambased online game and not punish leavers? -.-°

I usually don’t get too upset by it, but it’s just getting too frequent. If I just go random unranked and even ranked, I get more games that are 4/5 or worse than full games, it’s extremely annoying.

ANet really needs to act soon on this and I have no Idea why they don’t….

Floplag.4032:

I’m new to GW2, though i played GW1, recently have been playing SWTOR and WoW an just came back… and I’m having some issues deciding which class to push to end game first so i thought id get some opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of them and what to expect at end game.

I have now brought up an ele, a ranger, and a mes to about lvl 30, and i was hoping to get some pros/cons from the perspective on PVP and some PVE as well, though mainly i PVP a lot at end game.

I’m not really a FOTM/OP class player, i like to have some challenge, but be able to be effective and/or competitive.

Opinions appreciated.

Why don’t you just pvp with them instead of wasting time in PvE if you mostly play PvP endgame anyways? You don’t need to level them up for PvP – you should know that coming from GW1, right? ^^’

If you want to know how the classes are overall played, not just in the current meta, here’s a quick rundown.

Ele: Mostly played as a sustainable char, often roaming and aiming for 1v1’s (D/D-Ele). Other variants are more teamfight-oriented (Staff-Ele). Especially D/D-Ele’s are jack of all trades, good survival, support, dps, mobility. Currently, D/D-Ele is looked at to be too strong, but based on the skills, it’s greatest weakness are probably teamfights. (long channels that are easily interrupted, melee-only and kinda squishy if targeted by a whole team with enough CC).

Mesmer: Very mobile and high DPS, CC and Burst, but very squishy an reliant on defensive CD’s like stealth and teleports. IMHO very interesting and fun to play since the new powerblock. Not very good at 1v1’s and as said, very squishy, other than that an absolute monster. You’ll most likely roam to set up good portals and try and outnumber and quickly spike sth. down and/or give DPS and CC in teamfights while trying to stay alive, so good positioning is very important.

Ranger: Currently not played in high competetive games, but I think trap-ranger has potential, because it offers things no other class quite offers: Being able to set up traps as counter-stealth play is very good and taunt counters stealth as well and offers tons of CC. There are veriations that are better at node-holding and 1v1’s and some that are not as sustainable but better in teamfights.

Silv.9207:

About eles, they had planned a “nerf”: they put Evasive Arcana and Elemental Attunement on the same tier of Arcane magic, forcing them to chose only one of them.

BUT
Eles cry so much for that “nerf” (that only point to make eles unale to be fullbuffed all the time like before the patch and like now, making them OP) that ANet was forced to make Elemental Attunement a minor trait.

If they restore that old fix idea, they will fix the eles once for all.

not very elegant though, since the only ele’s we currently see are D/D’s and occasionally a staff-ele. Why nerf ’em all?

Also, I think buffing some classes might do the trick even better than nerfing D/D and Mesmer.

The most logical nerf for ele would be drakes breath (or burning in general) and/or the burning wrath (3 mightstacks are way too much).

With Mesmer’s, they should really make confounding suggestions only stun when you interrupt sth. It’s just a dumb trait that makes it possible to simply use the potential interrupts (dazes) mindlessly and benefit greatly from it, while also making mental anguish overly powerful.

I very highly doubt that anything will happen tomorrow though.

play 1v1’s against other players that are good (or seem good to you) to know if you’re good in 1v1’s.

Play in a team and see how you do against other good teams to know if you’re good at teamplay/strategy/teamfights.

quite simple actually. ^^’

yeah, bodyblocking was amazing in GW1 and I think it could work in theory in GW2, but I think there might be some problems with the engine or another really good reason why they didn’t implement it in GW2. I think it has something to do with the jumping which makes bodyblocking weird….

Jasher.6580:

I do. This is my favourite meta to date.

yepp, have to agree, I like it very much!

Builds are more interesting in many cases (because of cool now traits like for example the taunt, stoneheart, powerblock etc), builds like the condi-ranger/necro are a bit more viable and it’s overall just more fun.

Tuomir.1830:

PowerBottom.5796:

I think the ability to lay one of the other atk’s on F5 would be absolutely amazing.

Or even the ability to ground-target movement of the pet to a certain point would be pretty useful (obviously with a limited cast and leash-range of like 1200).

“Guard!”

Guard is very different than a simple command to walk towards an area…. Do I really have to explain this to you?

I think the ability to lay one of the other atk’s on F5 would be absolutely amazing.

Or even the ability to ground-target movement of the pet to a certain point would be pretty useful (obviously with a limited cast and leash-range of like 1200).

stof.9341:

PowerBottom.5796:

diamond skin is simply dumb and has to be reworked completely…. My suggestion is tying a DMG/duration-reduction to certain conditions depending on your attunement:

Diamond-Skin Conditions applied to you have reduced duration depending on your attunement:
Fire: Burning-duration decreased by 33%
Earth: Bleeding-duration decreased by 33%
Water: Weakness/vulnerability/blind-duration decreased by 33% (debilitating conditions)
Air: Chilled/cripple/immobilize-duration decreased by 33% (movement-impairing conditions)

Could be pretty cool to use and involve lots of skill to know which condition will land on you next and the opponent has to know what conditions to apply when, depending on the CD’s of attunement-switch.

This trait is barely not even worth a first tier minor trait slot XD

I don’t think so, but tweaking the numbers is never a problem. If it is too bad, just make it 50% or sth….

diamond skin is simply dumb and has to be reworked completely…. My suggestion is tying a DMG/duration-reduction to certain conditions depending on your attunement:

Diamond-Skin Conditions applied to you have reduced duration depending on your attunement:
Fire: Burning-duration decreased by 33%
Earth: Bleeding-duration decreased by 33%
Water: Weakness/vulnerability/blind-duration decreased by 33% (debilitating conditions)
Air: Chilled/cripple/immobilize-duration decreased by 33% (movement-impairing conditions)

Could be pretty cool to use and involve lots of skill to know which condition will land on you next and the opponent has to know what conditions to apply when, depending on the CD’s of attunement-switch.

don’t think it’s meant to make the attacker walk towards the pet – it just makes them atk the pet.

style.6173:

PowerBottom.5796:

Mist channelling is IMHO perfect as it is now. Having to use hard interrupts is a MUST. It brings a whole new dimension into the fights at the channel-spots: dealing damage has to be coordinated with keeping yourself and the one channelling alive, interrupting the other teams channelling etc.

If dmg alone would suffice, it would just be another teamfight….
.

Another team fight is what I want. There is already too much PvE in the map. Anything that can encourage PvP is a positive.

How is it PvE if you need to hard-interrupt a PLAYER channelling the mist-essence? It IS a teamfight, but theres an added layer of teamplay on top of it other than “just” fighting.

I don’t see the problem with that.

GW1 had some modes where ppl constantly needed to interrupt a channelling hero (Hall of Heroes for example) and they were some of the most exiting games where teamplay really had a huge impact. It was fun and rewarding and it made it sth. unique.

plz don’t – ppl didn’t like it and it’s too big of a hassle to balance this other aspect.

oh yeah, I noticed sth. that might have to be changed about nika: If you have 2 mist-essences and you are channeling one and get the other to summon nika, she’ll stealth and therefore interrupt the other channel.
IMHO this shouldn’t happen; it simply shouldn’t stealth the other channeling player.

And did the Lords still atk. when downed and stealthed? didn’t test it, but I think this should definitely be fixed as well.

philheat.3956:

Honestly when i play ranger power/condis this skill is like a real troll skill. Every 15s is a really low cd and it’s almost impossible to avoid Besides the break stun. I think main problem are birds animations, not really clear so hard to avoid and with a really low cd (perfect for taunt sinergy). Other pets have more clear animations.

Anyone has a good strategy against taunt?

taunt actually isn’t tied to the animation; it’s instantaneous.

So you could have a fearwolf taunt (2s taunt) and after 1 1/2 seconds, the fear kicks in.
The Blind is also instantaneous btw, but the weakness is tied to the skill of the pet hitting.

I think taunt is pretty good, but definitely not OP: there are classes with heavier CC and it’s actually not easy to keep your taunting pets alive and control them properly.

Pet’s can’t dodge and have no invulnerability most of the times, so if a taunting pet is annoying you, it’s actually a legit strat to just burst it down, which is sth. ppl might want to do against beastmastery-builds (it takes away tons of DPS because so many traits are directly linked to the pet and often it takes away most of the condition-removal of the ranger as well). Pets also have no own condition-removal, but rather often pour on more conditions they draw from the ranger – so it’s incredibly easy to focus a pet down. Just w8 until right after a pet-swap of course! ^^

biggest problem I have with taunt is that it just doesn’t really work with ranged pets. You can’t make them go close to a target by making them atk. it, since they’ll just atk it from range, where the taunt won’t hit. ANet should come up with sth., like the ability to switch into “melee-mode” for ranged pets or maybe a way to ground-target your pet to move somewhere (of course with limited cast and leash-range, like 900-1200).

Yepp, I think it might be a pretty good gamemode and the latest changes were spot-on.

But I think we really need a bit more time to play it to give proper feedback, because I think many ppl are playing it completely wrong which paints a wrong picture of what needs to be changed.

how ’bout a week with a nice tournament so top-players have an incentive? Of course after the big tournament thats coming soon!

The reason why you balance around high level play are the following:

- On a high level, ppl try to maximize effectiveness, it shows how things should be played and what’s possible.
- High level play shapes the metagame and what ppl are playing: these are the players we watch on streams, whose builds lower level players copy etc.
- Given enough time, lower levels of play will eventually catch up to what was deemed high level play: playstyles, builds and certain amounts of skill will be adapted by more and more ppl, so if you want to balance longterm, it’s best to balance around high level play.
- Often, players that play on a higher level understand the game and it’s underlying mechanics much better, so they will sooner identify and play things that are simply broken or too strong and they will completely neglect things that are clearly underpowered, so a clear distinction between top-builds/strategies and the rest will be seen very quickly. In lower levels of play, ppl don’t necessarily just play the best builds, but more what they like.
- high level of play is mostly well organized teamplay, whilst lower levels of play are often soloQ’ers or random groups, maybe even without TS: You can’t balance a teamgame around that as the highest priority.
- Another big reason is on the top level, you actually have pretty good pretty good measurements of skill (how many tournaments has the team won, can they keep up with other top-teams, how big was the tournament etc.), which is clearly way better than pvp-rank or number of games played. So if you see a top-team or player suddenly loosing to a comp or certain build or sth. like that, it’s a better indication of how good the build/strategy is than sm1 whining on the forums, where you have no clue whether they simply played against much better players.

Of course you should keep all levels of play in mind when balancing (and I think ANet has reacted many times to builds that didn’t see any play at a high level, but that many other players complained about), but the priority should be high levels of play – it just makes more sense.

Mist channelling is IMHO perfect as it is now. Having to use hard interrupts is a MUST. It brings a whole new dimension into the fights at the channel-spots: dealing damage has to be coordinated with keeping yourself and the one channelling alive, interrupting the other teams channelling etc.

If dmg alone would suffice, it would just be another teamfight….

Also, there is no problem at all with transformation that have multiple instances of reapplying stability, because there is:

- Necros with boon-conversions, which is enough for an interrupt
- Moa of the Mesmer and the Moa-Elexir toss of the Engi
- Well timed diversion-shatter can do the trick
- Thief steal with boonrip and daze can do the trick
- if nothing else helps, pure DPS can do the trick as well

It’s clear that it’ll come down to those skills VS the stability granting transformation/elite/consecration, but that’s IMHO totally okay, since every class has either one of those (or both), so no class will inherently be left out.

The hard interrupts/Moa’s etc. also bring some excitement to spectating: it’s an intense and important moment that generates hype and that’s somewhat easy to see as a spectator: You see the channeling and you see when the channeller is interrupted, Moa’d or killed.

@Stronghold-Mode in general, after playing it today again for several hours:

I feel like the problems I mentioned earlier, especially the one with too much running from mid to base for supply, might not be as important if people play the mode right. I think it might actually come down to fights happening mostly in front or within the strongholds and ppl grabbing supply when the opportunity presents itself (which is IMHO how it should be). defending is now always better than running supply and atk-lane first has to clear the NPC’s and treb anyways and then run again etc.

I’d still like to see how the game played, if a small number of NPC’s spawned by default. just like 1 archer and 1 DB every minute or so.

I feel we’d have to have more time to figure out how to ply it exactly, when to go for timing-pushes etc. I feel like the mode hasn’t been figured out at all and it could actually be pretty deep.

But what definitely has to change is: Guards and archers are still too weak. ^^

@Oulov: If you think Trebs are useless, you’re playing it wrong…. When you push with a wave and maybe a champion, it’s absolutely crucial for the defending team to treb and for the attacking team to kill the treb before their champ is there: Another great situation for spectators I might add. Also, the treb should always be the first thing you take out after the guards.

Zoke.2147:

Nothing is fun about getting trebbed from across the map. Please stop giving mechanics for players to never have to play their class and just sit across the map playing some silly timing mini game while other people are trying to have fun playing the actual game…

At the very least for strong hold make the thing take 2 or so players worth of supply so killing the kitten ed thing means something, instead of it just re-spawning 2 minutes later…

So? just take the treb out…. I don’t see the problem…. A Staff-Ele will take care of the treb in a few seconds while sustaining himself easily against the person thats using the treb.

Also, a treb gives options to play around certain very strong build that are very tanky and/or have perma-stability when channelling and it’s a necessary defenders advantage in the still very offensively oriented game-mode.

had no problems with q’s at all….. and the fact it’s new cuts both ways, since the mode still has to be improved a lot and the really competetive players often rather train conquest.

They solved the problem very well IMHO by giving us the option to choose one of the two modes or both, it’s the best way possible, because both modes are so different, that I can’t see an option working out, where you can’t choose at all.

It’s as simple as that: longer queues are a necessary evil and they should come up with other ways to attract more players into PvP other than forcing them to play modes they don’t want.

It’s like saying: Not enough ppl watch womens football, so now they can only watch mens/womens football at random. It doesn’t work.

They could for example give a certain incentive to ppl that queue for both modes at once, just like a small Magic-find- or reward-track-boost. Or they could get rid of other modes that unnecessarily split the community up, like combining ranked/unranked into ranked, while giving the players an option not to let the rating count in the pvp-panel.

another great post lordro…. -.-°

wow, the changes are actually pretty good and go in the right direction, which is IMHO:

- Less running
- more teamfighting
- more incentive to defend
- overall stronger NPC’s

BUT – it’s still not enough…. nowhere near enough!

NPC’s still die way too fast, archers are still useless and there is still too much running involved when getting supply.

Also, the overtime-function is kinda dumb…. you basically just added a few mins to the timer. GW1 did it right with the added DPS-bonus, which forced a quick conclusion with lots of excitement instead of just ending the game abruptly.

How about you just open the floodgates in overtime and NPC’s spawn like crazy and mist essence’s spawn the whole time? Maybe also let the mist champions get a bit stronger etc.

I’d also rework the middle to make running less important. I still think a set amount of archers/db’s should spawn automatically to make fights at the 2 strongholds more important. Right now, 3 points of contestion (AND the treb and mist-essence occasionally) are too much for a 5-man team: When I was defending the base, I was just alone for most of the game.

I really love how defending is more important now because of the supply-drops – really good Idea. It’s also a possibility for comebacks, so I really like this one.

TL:DR: The changes are very good, but too little: still too much running around, NPC’s are too weak (except DB’s) and too few teamfights because the team is drawn out over too many objectives. (atk-lane, defense-lane, middle, supply-running, treb, mist-essence).

Dojo.1867:

PowerBottom.5796:

IMHO, there’s 1 reason to take a ranger into the team; traps.

1) They are a strong counter to stealth-openers
2) If you lay traps on key-points on the map, they give you indication of where the opposing team is, since the ranger can see the condition-ticks, even if they happen far away. This also works against stealth-movement.
3) Traps are a good counter to portals (if the mesmer doesn’t use temporal enchanter that is).
4) Traps offer all around very high AoE condition-DPS and CC, especially the spike trap, so they aren’t completely useless in burst-comps.
5) They can be used both offensively and defensively, for example either to burst the person on the node, or in your backline, to launch and dish out tons of DMG to thiefs or other Melee’s that wanna get onto your squishier targets.

I currently use this build as a defensive roamer (yes, the condition-DMG looks low, but I’ve noticed that I don’t feel like I do too little DMG at all, but cele-amu gives me healing-power and vita that I can use and the Shortbow actually uses power/ferocity quite well).
Also, if you switch to sword/dagger and dodge, it really increases the DPS of the traps to a very acceptable amount, even with a rather low amount of condition-DMG.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8YjMqQ5K2uCusAVLGcEq+bj1KgDgJvy9O/DG9SG1SA-TZRFwANuIAAeAAx3fIxRA4ZZAA

If you have enough swiftness on your team, you can also use Krait-runes and if you have some chars that can AoE-mightstack etc. the build actually gets really strong in teamfights.
The build is also pretty decent in 1v1’s.
You can also use rabid amu, but I feel like the vita is a bit low and you loose a lot of sustain.

For the trap argument to work multi traps would have to be a thing imo. Maybe if a trait allowed to place 2 at a time but guess stacking 2 on each other would be kind of strong.

Laying the same Trap multiple times would be insanely strong IMHO.

But against stealth-openers or melees, just knocking them down and inflicting quite a bit of bleeding/burning/cripple is pretty good. It just turns the initiation on it’s head and suddenly they go from hunter to prey. ^^’

Yes, it doesn’t magically negate stealth-openers and you still need to have good map-awareness and have enough ppl on the point of initiation to capitalize on the CC and DPS, but it’s IMHO one of the best ways to deal with it.

Another good way are Marks, but they are not invisible, so they need to be spread out to not all get triggered by one dodge; therefore, the burst of DPS and CC is much lower.

I’m excited to try out the trapper build in Stronghold, I think it’s much stronger there and you can play it a bit differently (no shortbow needed, because it’s much more open, so you don’t need any precision and you can easily go settlers amu and axe/dagger+sword/torch).

IMHO, there’s 1 reason to take a ranger into the team; traps.

1) They are a strong counter to stealth-openers
2) If you lay traps on key-points on the map, they give you indication of where the opposing team is, since the ranger can see the condition-ticks, even if they happen far away. This also works against stealth-movement.
3) Traps are a good counter to portals (if the mesmer doesn’t use temporal enchanter that is).
4) Traps offer all around very high AoE condition-DPS and CC, especially the spike trap, so they aren’t completely useless in burst-comps.
5) They can be used both offensively and defensively, for example either to burst the person on the node, or in your backline, to launch and dish out tons of DMG to thiefs or other Melee’s that wanna get onto your squishier targets.

I currently use this build as a defensive roamer (yes, the condition-DMG looks low, but I’ve noticed that I don’t feel like I do too little DMG at all, but cele-amu gives me healing-power and vita that I can use and the Shortbow actually uses power/ferocity quite well).
Also, if you switch to sword/dagger and dodge, it really increases the DPS of the traps to a very acceptable amount, even with a rather low amount of condition-DMG.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8YjMqQ5K2uCusAVLGcEq+bj1KgDgJvy9O/DG9SG1SA-TZRFwANuIAAeAAx3fIxRA4ZZAA

If you have enough swiftness on your team, you can also use Krait-runes and if you have some chars that can AoE-mightstack etc. the build actually gets really strong in teamfights.
The build is also pretty decent in 1v1’s.
You can also use rabid amu, but I feel like the vita is a bit low and you loose a lot of sustain.

When one team is just way ahead of the others, it takes real dedication from the other teams to catch up and since the scene in NA is kinda small, even smaller then in EU, it’s probably hard for the other teams to practice well.

I really wonder how the Abjured and other teams in NA and EU as well train. I see some EU teams scrimming against other top-teams and playing together, sometimes also with mixed teams from top-teams.
In NA, I only ever see solo-Q’s on like phantas stream. Yeah sure, they might not show their real training and scrims, but I simply don’t know. ^^’

Problem with training is that when one team is ahead of others, you can’t just train against the “lower” teams, cuz it’s hard to get better when playing against teams that loose to abjured anyways. It’s also sometimes hard and disheartening to scrim against a team that just always stomps you. To get good training, you need teams just slightly better then yours and the more different teams, the better.

the IMHO only viable build that has some aspects it’s really good at that other classes don’t do 10 times better or without the drawbacks of the ranger is a teamfight-oriented defensive roamer with traps:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8YjMqQ5K2uCusAVLGcEq+bj1KgDgJvy9P/DG9C2UB-TpRFABA8AAib/hEOCARVGQhDCQyXAAA

I’ve tested about 20+ variations of this build, with cele/settler-amu, other weapons and runes, sigils, shouts, beastmastery instead of nature magic etc. but this is the one that best plays to it’s strengths and has the clearest role.
Against good players that don’t just walk into your pre-laid traps and run with too less condi-removal, it’s not on the same level as current 1v1 builds, so stay with the team.

What does this build do?

- Traps are pretty strong counter-stealth play, which are very very common in top-tier teams. It’s basically the main way to engage a fight.
- Traps give you kind of mapvision: Place them at key points while roaming defensively and if they are triggered, you’ll see the condition-ticks while looking in their direction. It’s kind of an early warning of movement, even against stealth-movement.
- The build has very high dps to blow up sm1 on a point and good AoE/CC for teamfights.
- Survival is good enough not to be spiked too easily, but the sustain isn’t high enough for 1v1’s. If your team has some other supports for teamfighting, like Shoutguard, Ele’s etc. It’ll be enough for teamfights though.
- Traps also offer you an option to counter offensive portals.

If your team has enough swiftness, you can also use Krait-Runes, which gives some more punch to the build.

messiah.1908:

Aomine.5012:

Changer the Elder.2948:

Eeee…. “Signet of the Hunt”, permanent increase of movement speed by 25%? I’ve been using it ever since I started with the ranger, I swap it out for other skills as necessary and I’m a happy camper. I actually found out that ranger is one of the most agile and mobile classes in the game.

You are very new to this game do you?
While most classes get 25%~33% movement speed by taking a single trait, we always have to either sacrifice a weapon set or a signet, or something like Guard to get that 25% mobility that everyone has…

most classes?

mesmer no
thief – no (while in stealth yes)
guard – no
ranger – no
engi – yes
ele – on air short duration (if i am not mistaken)
warrior – yes
necro – no (only in ds)

Okay, here is the deal:

mesmer can run travelers rune and still have all the stats he needs
thief – doesn’t need it, since his movement is high because of skills like teleporting, HS-hopping etc. Could easily run travelers anyways though without loosing necessary stats.
guard – Shoutguard can use the Retreat-Shout and medi can use travelers runes again without loosing any necessary stats for the build to work

- These are all Zerker/Marauder-based classes (except shoutguard), they don’t suffer much from using travelers runes.

engi – Multiple traits, especially mecha legs, which is very good. He would greatly suffer if he had to use travelers runes IMHO.
ele – They have the air-attunement swiftness, the offhand dagger 4 (which doesn’t benefit from swiftness anymore, so when it runs out, use that one) und if you’re in a bind, you can use updraft.
warrior – multiple very easy ways to get it, you basically get it for free now on almost any build. Many War-builds also need it, cuz travelers runes would destroy certain synergies you have with shouts and soldier-runes etc. The newer offensive wars could easily run travelers runes though.
necro – Necro used to have this problem to the same degree as ranger, but now, they have the one with movement-speed on dagger, which also gives you a bit of recast-reduction, which is perfectly fine as a trait. Now I can run Cele-runes and still get to high condi-dmg numbers and not waste a utility/slot! YAY! PowerNecro’s (which often use cele too, but other runes like strength/hoelbrak) use the warhorn anyways, so they have movement-speed covered.

I can guarantee that many engi’s and necro’s would have the same problems with getting movement-speed and many builds wouldn’t be nearly as strong now if they had no way of getting to movement-speed without sacrificing utilities or using travelers runes.

You know, it’s not gamebreaking, but it’s one reaso why rangers (especially condition-rangers) are not being played on a very high level, at least less often than all the other classes.

mightstacking too high: reduce mightstacks of burning fire to 1 stack for 20 seconds (from 3 for 15).

Bugfixes for the power in fire and arcane precision might help out as well.

I think it would maybe be easier to bring some classes on the same level rather than knocking ele down. ^^’