Guild Wars 2

HeliaXDemoN.1208:

I am playing with turrets now on WvW.

The MAJOR problem is the CD. If you throw a Rocket Turret in a battle, but the battle move a little this brake you hard. ;p

I am using the flame turret a lot because of the low CD and the Rocket I need to think a lot because the high CD and if It die fast(for ACs basically evaporate in 2 seconds), you can only cry.

Look at what I suggested for rocket turret lol. My suggestion was to lower it’s CD to 40 second from 50. The Trait Metal Plating (Turrets take 30% reduced damage), I suggested that a 20% turret CD reduction be placed on that in addition to the reduced damage.

You silly no reading peoples. It’s like I’ve been listening to the community or something.

lakdav.3694:

Indeed, reliability is key. I would prefer more control over turrets, or at least their AI changed so that it always targets the enemy currently selected by the engineer (or at least react to Ctrl+select targeting), and doesnt attack unless the engineer is already in battle with that enemy.

That change is both an advantage and a disadvantage. I like the fire and forget mode they have currently. With proper placement you can get them to target what you wish most of the time, that works well enough for me if we can get them reliable and survivable.

Overcharge abilites need to trigger immedietly on command. When i press the overcharge on healing turret, i need that three stacks of conditions removed NOW, not 3 seconds later. When i want to overcharge my thumper, i want it work its magic when the mob is right around it, not after they ganged up on me outside of its range 2 seconds later.

Agreed the thumper turret needs a more responsive active. I’ll add that. Healing turret however activates pretty quickly so I will disagree at the need for that change.

XelNigma.6315:

Healing Turret, Still needs to be changed so having it deployed is a better option than Placing It->Overcharge->Pickup/Denote. There going to have to break down and change it from adding regen to direct healing pulses that adds regen on overcharge. That way the combination of the overcharge’s regen and the turrets pulses will be enough that you want to keep it deployed.

While I want to agree, this is only from the perspective of a solo player. Truthfully in a combat situation in WvW leaving it deployed and you free to continue fighting is very helpful. The current situation makes healing turret useful in both ways and I see no problem with it.

Especially since any stronger and the healing turret will be too good.

I’ve started playing a ranger, and iv notice that my pet will always go after the target im attacking, even if I change targets while the first is still alive, the pet will immediately change to my new target . Unless I order it to attack a target then it will stay on that target until it dies.

Our turrets should always try to do the same, attack what we are attacking unless they are unable.

Aside from the additional server strain and the possible coding issues you mentioned this limitation also leaves for room to make them a bit stronger than normal. Currently they are effective enough if you made them reliable and survivable with good placement. Good placement SHOULD be rewarded.

Rezzet.3614:

give turrets 30% damage reduct and replace the trait for deployable turret

lower rocket turret and Rocket tool belt cooldowns to 40

lower thumper turret’s cooldown to 30

add rifle turret to supply crate and remove the trait thats adds it to supply crate

bam everything works on a single traitline now and is somewhat viable.[/quote]

I see you didn’t read. While I appreciate your support you should read before commenting, Supply Crate is really good already, everything else is dealt with as part of my changes and then some.

Situation mesmer/thief team well versed in perma-stealth and hiding is in your keep after a flip. How do you reliably counter this? There isn’t a reliable counter currently.

Permastealth mesmer portal teams need a reliable and viable counter. Currently the best available “counter” is to try and throw enough people at the teams and hope you get lucky and hope they are not good. IE sweeping. Otherwise you might as well hand the keep back over.

I’ve spent alot of time trying to think up and test viable counters. I’ve asked many people about viable counters. I’ve been part of countless discussions on viable counters. I even made a thread on the mesmer forum asking for viable counters. I’ve put in the time trying to find the answer but there is currently no reliable counter in existence to the best of my knowledge. This is untrue of any other tactic in the game that I know of.

Mesmer thread located here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Portals-Objectives-Play-and-Counterplay/first#post2052825

So ya, please give a reliable counter to this tactic so that it has valid play and counter-play. Currently it’s just frustrating, luck based, and requires a heavy investment of people vs an extremely light investment of their people (2) if they are good.

Dynnen.6405:

Gonna need quite a few guardians to paint an entire zerg with retal…

No you don’t you need light fields and blast finishers. Guardians just have good personal access to AOE retal that supplements the light field symbols they lay on the ground like candy in every spec.

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Your math is way way off. First, if you hit each person 1k three times, so you dealt out 15-20k or so. Retal then deals around 380 each hit for a total of 5700. This is a far cry from the 12k you are talking about.

Barrage has the capability to hit 5 people 12 times over it’s long duration.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Barrage

Retal hakitten me for over 400 damage per tick before, but lets assume a more modest 350. 5 X 12 = 60 potential hits from barrage, 60 potential retal procs. 60 X 350 = 21,000 potential damage. It’s extremely easy to down yourself from a single barrage on a zerg that has retal. Likely in fact unless you are tanky. Even then it does most of your life and could still down you in worst case scenarios.

Against high guardian concentration groups retal is indeed pretty much permanent. Against other groups it’s present at least the first 15 seconds of a fight. Are you saying because I’m Ranger I shouldn’t AOE at all? Elementalist shouldn’t be able to AOE at all? What else are you supposed to do against masses of people, single target damage?

I’m ok with the concept of a damage shield, it’s a very old concept. However the damage returned from retal is wildly inconsistent and destroys some weapons and builds while barely even touching others. It’s not dependent or effectiveness of attacks. Just hits.

VOLKON.1290:

Thaia.5146:

1. Anti Stealth Traps are USELESS. Period.
10 supplies and nearly 4 seconds cast? Really? Seriously guys? Thief will kill me before I open my Inventory…

OK, this needs to be clarified. Anti stealth traps are NOT meant to be used to fight a thief that you’ve already engaged in combat. If you’re trying to use it that way then you deserve to be face down in the dirt. They’re meant to be tactically placed in order to minimize access to a certain area of stealth players. For example, if you know when the enemy breaks down your tower gate that they’re going to try to sneak a stealthed mesmer in there with a portal…

Please, stop with the complaints that the traps are useless. A blueberry pie is useless if you’re trying to drive in a nail with it. But it still makes one tasty snack when used properly.

Blink.

Because once you’ve passed the chokepoint there is tons of random open space to try and guess where the stealthed person will go. Ironically both stealth classes have multiple teleport skills. Thus a smart mesmer or thief will not hit a supply trap in a location such as you described.

In any keep there is a ton of open space, also mesmers get this thing called distortion. I hear it can be used pretty effectively.

Net Turret No changes

A situation-ally powerful turret that is also in the supply crate. Net Turret is a solid all around turret that needs nothing to be viable. Likewise the toolbelt skill is well balanced when combined with the turret. The HP changes and cooldown changes won’t even improve it’s viability much due to the nature of it’s use, but that’s ok because it is already solid.

Thumper Turret:

A fairly solid turret with a high cooldown and only achieves it’s potential by being in a situation most certainly fatal to it. It’s tougher than other turrets currently, but that’s not saying too much because it still gets killed pretty quickly by multiple enemies and there isn’t any reason to use it outside of multiple enemies. It has decent damage with a nice attatched cripple, but next to zero range. It has a very nice overcharge, but a fair sized delay on applying it.

It needs a little help in making it useful for what it is intended for….taking a little damage and dealing decent AOE damage with a useful cripple. Surviving long enough to do it’s job is key, and the HP change is almost enough. The toolbelt skill is nice though.

Change cooldown to 40 seconds

Because this turret needs to be placed directly in harms way against multiple people or mobs it should be expected to die alot faster, even with the added health and armor. You cannot offset this with good placement like other turrets. With that in mind the cooldown needs to be lesser so you are not always left on cooldown and this turret can do it’s job.

Increase the armor on the turret to 2,000 from it’s current 1,600

Essentially this turret needs that extra touch of survivability on top of the extra health and metal plating. Considering that the turret doesn’t have the expected survivability of many other pets that can be buffed, healed, and move, I think this is fair. If anyone is worried that an engineer could make the turret “immortal” by using a tool kit to support it remember that the engineer just gave up 2 utility skills and countless trait points to make this turret less tough than a Ranger bear pet. And it’s immobile and cannot be buffed or crit.

Make the overcharge more responsive

This overcharge seems to happen on the next attack, it should override and happen immediately. 3 second delay can really wreck the usefulness of it.

Wrapping up!
I think this should be enough to make turrets alot more competitive. They still won’t have the damage of some other builds, but they will at least be alot more reliable. Leave feedback, comments, and opinions please.

Suggested Individual Changes to turrets:

Rifle Turret: An overall pretty decent turret, it’s nice when it’s overcharged but outside of overcharge it’s pretty negligible unless it blows up on someone. That should be fixed. The cooldown of both the toolbelt skill Surprise Shot and turret feel right.

Add a 2 second bleed to the rifle turret when not overcharged

The base attack of the turret is a pathetic and ignorable. 476 damage sounds good until you realize it cannot be increased by stats or buffs and cannot crit. A 2 second bleed would help make it not quite as terrible and provide additional viability for condition damage builds.

Make base attack pierce like overcharge shots do

The overcharge Rifle Turret shots pierce but the base attacks do not. Even with the bleed addition adding this to match the overcharge shots in theme wouldn’t imbalance anything with the base attacks still lowish damage and would be a nice boost to the rifle turret. It also makes the overcharge match the original shot thematically.

Add a 2 second bleed to surprise shot:

The additional damage is ok and it’s instant, but if your turret is down your DPS is also going to be down considerably. 2 second bleed would help this a little bit as well as add additional viability for condition damage builds.

Flame Turret: No changes.

The Flame Turret is in a good spot. It does pretty good condition damage, has a nice overcharge active that is very useful (especially with deployable turrets and accelerant packed turrets!!), the recharge is well balanced, and even the toolbelt skill is both useful and well balanced.

Rocket Turret:

An overall good turret hampered by excessive recharge. Rocket Turret has nice range, pretty decent damage thats a combination of direct and burning, and a useful overcharge. It’s toolbelt skill is a decent moderate damage pop as well. But recharge kills everything.

Reduce the recharge on both the turret and the toolbelt skill from 50 seconds to 40 seconds.

Seriously the recharge on this is way too much, even with the changed I suggested to Metal Plated Turrets it’s excessive. This results in Rocket Turret being down the vast majority of the time.

Add 3 seconds of burning to Toolbelt skill “Rocket”.

This just fits with the other rocket attacks and if the turret is down our DPS is down significantly. I see no harm in giving it a little boost with it’s longer recharge.

Either fix the tooltip of give these actual AOE’s

I can understand the current recharges if rockets actually did AOE damage. They do not. Neither your turret nor tool belt skill does AOE yet it claims that it does AOE in a 240 radius. Please amend the tooltip or give it the AOE.

Personally I think with the changes I have mentioned the turret will be balanced for single target, so the tooltip can just be modified.

I’ve been playing increasingly with turrets. I don’t think they are as bad or useless as many say, but they do need help. Here are my observations:

Turrets are decent damage and used constructively are viable in PVE and WvW. WvW absolutely requires deployable turrets to be used viably. Turrets have several advantages such as being able to be placed on walls and thrown from the top of walls down without the need for LOS. Considering their frailty this is fair and easily counterable. Accelerant Packed Turrets makes this turn into improvised AOE when used on zergs many times.

However, Turret heath is a little bit too low and the cooldown on specific turrets is too high. Additionally they target the closest target so they will be on poor targets many times. This is the greatest weakness of turrets, they are flat out unreliable. If you knew they would live for at least 10 seconds on average they would be worth the cost, but they many times will not live that long in high end PVE and in WvW.

Turrets do not scale with Player stats with the exception of condition damage. The base damages of the turrets are currently pretty good considering what they could do if they were reliable, extra condition damage makes a few of them hurt pretty badly. Turrets cannot crit and cannot be healed outside of specific means. Again this is a tradeoff and if they worked reliably it would be fine.

Changes I believe that Turrets need:

Overall Changes:

Add a 20% cooldown reduction to all turrets on the Trait “Metal Plating”

Turret Build DPS isn’t even equivalent to alot of more reliable, more versatile, and more survivable builds. This change will help turrets be a little more reliable and combined with the HP change will give people a reason to grab this trait. Currently turrets die fast enough most times it doesn’t make much of a difference.

About 30% more health across the board. Turrets need a bit more survivability to do their job. Not too much, but enough to take a few hits. I included an additional number with their Effective HP after gaining the Metal Plating Trait. The Metal Plating Trait reduces the damage turrets take by 30%.

Without the Metal Plating Trait the damage mitigation of turrets is pretty negligable. I just tested a direct comparison against raptors in WvW for 10 minutes or so. I tested with my engineer built reasonably durable, each turret, and then retested with my sheer glass cannon Staff Elementalist. I’m only including the Ele numbers because it shows the situation very clearly.

Average damage Glass Elementalist recieved with 2,200 armor = 1,300 per hit
Average damage Glass Elementalist received naked = 2,600 per hit
Average damage turrets received = 2,000 per hit
Average damage Thumper Turret received = 1,600 per hit

So Turrets have next to zero mitigation. After additional testing with various stages of partially naked (ooh la la!!) I discovered:

Turrets mitigation is equal to 1,300 armor.
Thumper Turret mitigation is equal to 1,600 armor.
Glass Elementalist = 2,050 Armor. (For reference)

Current Values (With Metal Plating Trait):
Thumper Turret: 11,950 (x1.3 = 15,535 EHP)
Flame Turret: 8,960 (x1.3 = 11,648 EHP)
Rifle Turret: 7,470 (x1.3 = 9,711 EHP)
Net Turret: 7,470 (x1.3 = 9,711 EHP)
Rocket Turret: 7,470 (x1.3 = 9,711 EHP)
Healing Turret: 5980 (x1.3 = 7774 EHP)
Glass Elementalist: 12k (15k EHP) again for reference.

When a glass Elementalist is much MUCH more survivable AND can heal and move, you can see why turrets don’t survive at all currently. I think everyone knows exactly how squishy a glass staff ele is.

Suggested Values (With Metal Plating Trait):
Thumper Turret: 15,535 (x1.3 = 20,195 EHP)
Flame Turret: 11,648 (x1.3 15,145= EHP)
Rifle Turret: 9,711 (x1.3 = 12,625 EHP)
Net Turret: 9,711 (x1.3 = 12,625 EHP)
Rocket Turret: 9,711 (x1.3 = 12,625 EHP)
Healing Turret: 7774 (x1.3 10,105 = EHP)

runeblade.7514:

We’re going to T4!
We’re going to T4!
We’re going to T4!

Yay!

Meanwhile, AR is going to stay at T5 and BP will drop to T6.

Gird your loins and get ready. This will be Ebay in an actual fight. Lets see how well we fare and how many end up saying the exact same things BP and AR have been saying about us.

Either way, blood will be spilled and I will be covered in the slightly charred blood of my enemies. (Ele after all)

Dovgan.8605:

I can only hope EBay players somehow improve. What do you do when you outman and outnumber your opponent 2 to 1? Simple answer, run like a terrified schoolgirl back to siege, because you know how lacking your players are in skill. However it IS fun to pick you smart and skilled EBayers off. Honestly I see more skilled players on BP, many more. I see an Ebay player, and the first thing I have to do is wait to see how many are running in tow.

P.S. I enjoyed the ## vs 3 in Panglos earlier, I say ## because I stopped counting at 10. You really showed that three people can easily last quite a while on 4+ to 1 odds as long as the opponents have no clue what they are doing.

This happens to all sides. My guild regularly makes BP and AR scatter like roaches. Does it make you feel imposing? Yes. Is it a realistic representation of player skill? No. Is it a good representation of how important morale and surprise is? 100%

Gorefiend.9675:

KStudios.2850:

Our opponents are people too. They have feelings, families, pets, jobs, and taxes.

Exactly, so I am going to try to use those emotions to my advantage.

Attempting to use the feelings of an opponent against them only works against an opponent that can be defeated and is also not a viable long term strategy regardless. The reason it’s not a viable long term strategy is a thing called reputation.

We are playing a game for fun against opponents who can never be truly defeated in an engagement that is strictly long term.

PinCushion.7390:

WvW makes this even worse.

Picture it. You’ve opimized your build for 7 months, collected the perfect gear setup, carefully chosen the optimal consumable buffs to run, took the time to farm mobs to get 20-25 Bloodlust stacks, and even bought a few consumable karma items to give you that extra edge. You run across 3-5 people. They are a random collection of total strangers. They aren’t grouped up, but just travelling together. They aren’t talking or chatting with each other. 2 of them aren’t 80 yet. 2 of them are in their PvE, super squishy gear/builds. 1 of them is in his zerg-farming, keep-siege build that’s amazing as long as he can get to an arrowcart. You destroy them all.

You think they’re pathetic. They think you’re OP, and they all go to the forums and whine about it. It doesn’t even matter what class you’re playing, because you’d probably win that fight on any class.

Nice logical fallacy:

This sometimes happens, therefore this must be how it usually happens. Buttressed by a completely unsupported assertion.

I do however like the last several posts. Those look at things in depth and honestly. I have a few issues with things being rather unfun to play against and/or having lose or draw gameplay in WvW, but otherwise balance is pretty good overall.

Andele.1306:

Its only utility vs utility and elite vs elite (since all healing skills are playstyle based), weapon skills are overall more impactful than utility slots so you cannot compare them.
Bola and Wines are both based on the immoblization trick, but Wines has 1 second longer duration at base and twice the duration if the wine isnt killed, its only missing the damage (and even with 100% cond dur wine still has a second over bola).
Hidden pistol is not only a projectile finisher but has the ranged damage advantage so in most cases a ranger would get more benefit from it (not to mention that the vigor part of LR is wasted by 5 trait points) and no it can be cast from behind (will do same rotation move as with shortbow, but unlike shortbow you can interrupt it since the cast time is longer).

Hounds of balth is possibly the most damage a elite can do by itself in game (right under lich with perma 1 spam and guardian book derplz on aoe), its constant aoe burning 2×3k hits (around 2k on bosses), 2x knockdown leap from 600 range and 2 tanky pets, they together have same hp than traited spirit (kittens each from lich form vs 8 on spirit, but are thus weaker to powerful aoe) and deal more damage than warband and thieves guild (that apply 1-2 conditions from time to time and got no utility past tanking), also the stronger skills from spirit are random… what is qutie the problem.
Also flesh golem is only 1 summon and only gets stronger than the hounds (1 of them getting 2 leaps pre 30 seconds total of 4 possible ccs over a 30 second spam instead of 1 linear minion position based charge cc) if fully traited, but true if you can keep him up he is stronger as a long term minion and open pve/bosses with high defiant stacks.

Vines has over double the cooldown of bola, does no damage, is not a finisher, and is very vulnerable to blinks and smart players killing it very quickly. It’s good on a single use vs bad players though.

Hidden Pistol is just a plain good skill.

Your estimation of hounds is indeed correct. I love that skill even though the recharge sucks. I find it superior area damage and my ele even uses it instead of glyph of elementals due to it being a reliable effect vs an attunement based effect. I don’t have time to choose X or Y attunement to start a battle and lock myself out just for a summon, nor do I have time at many times to fit the summons in before combat. I needed something I could precast and forget right before battle joined and Hounds is that.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

At first I was like “oh no not another CPC hater” but you made valid points and I approve of your ideas. When all other racial skills were meant to be weaker than normal skills, I think this proves that CPC needs some tweaking. I personally love the heck out of this skill, I think it’s one of our best ones honestly, but you’re right, it should at least be better than a racial and your ideas for it are reasonable, wouldn’t make it OP, and would bring it in line with where it should have been at the beginning without destroying the racial skill, should other classes still want to use it (I am never a fan of nerfing racial skills, they are weak enough as it is, which leaves the only option of buffing CPC to be on par). The only other thing I wish we could see out of it, but would probably make it too OP would be pulses or some mechanic to allow for health siphons off of it. It’s not something I think it needs per-se but definitely something I would want.

Thanks. It was difficult to make sure I thought it through to buff it without making it OP. While I wouldn’t be terribly against it siphoning health I’m not sure if it thematically fits the skill as it isn’t a darkness move like the wells but instead a poison move and it does no direct damage.

KnattyDreads.1856:

Ralathar.7236:

This is mainly because capitalism is based around the fact of “feeling better” than someone else while forgetting your life still sucks because you are a jerk who has two faced friends just like themselves. But you have money right?

Wow, how insightful.
You should stick to coddling the enemy.

They are not the enemy, they are other people who play the same game as me. They are the competition. There is such thing as friendly competition, I believe they call it sportsmanship and it started falling out of style years back in favor of “get on my level brah”.

I remember when forums were all about 1-3 classes being OP. (Here is a hint, most of the time it was right) Now all classes are UP according to forums.

What happened to the gaming community lol? We went from pursuing competitiveness to trying to overpower ourselves so we can prove our “leet skillz”. Just sad.

Actually ya know what, it’s not all gaming forums, it’s just these forums. WTH lol, WTH.

KStudios.2850:

I’d be forced to disagree with the bussing tables being being a fine job statement lol. You wanna talk about a profession in the world where people feel they have the right to treat you the way majority of this forum talks to one another, go bus tables for a living. Did it for two years to get myself through college. Never… again. Lol!

This is mainly because capitalism is based around the fact of “feeling better” than someone else while forgetting your life still sucks because you are a jerk who has two faced friends just like themselves. But you have money right?

Strang.8170:

Ralathar.7236:

So your class is no longer worth playing because they can’t buzz across the map quite as fast even though they are still one of the top classes for mobility? Forgive me if I laugh.

Except that its the least mobile of the mobile classes…

In pure speed:
Rangers, faster.
Warriors, faster.
Mesmers, as fast if not faster.
Thieves, the fastest class in game.

Only necros, engis and guardians are slower than ele.

Pure speed over a long distance is not the same as constant in fight mobility. Ele’s are certainly not out in the cold for long distance mobility being middle of the pack in your statement. Meaning you can go alot further before being caught if you do it right.

They also have really good in fight mobility, beaten out by thief but warrior mobility outside of combat and warrior mobility IN COMBAT are two different things. Warriors and rangers are far more susceptible to CC effects for example and combat also means weapon swap timers apply. You also won’t see Rangers and Warriors applying chill, cripple, and stun to their chasers without so much as missing a step.

Skyro.3108:

Speaking from a tPvP perspective, it’s hard to see this skill getting much use even if it is improved. While Poison fields are nice to put on points and on top of corpses to prevent/slow down rezzes, it is easily accessible from Thieves w/ shortbow (which nearly all Thieves use) and Engi grenades. The weakness aspect of it is not all that awesome either since you can just blast finisher in the field to apply AoE weakness (which is also readily available with Thief shortbow). And the area control aspect of it is better done with Necro wells.

Poison application for Necros is a problem however, but IMO it should innate with the Necro’s weapons, rather than be forced to use a utility slot on it. Chilblains should leave a poison field which ticks poison in the field (it already leaves a poison field for combo’ing stuff, but doesn’t continually tick poison), and Corrosive Poison Cloud should just be scraped entirely IMO, and it’s slot should be replaced with some other interesting mechanic.

As you stated this will never be viable for tPVP. This is why I am not trying to make it viable for tPVP, that would require a complete rebuild of the skill to be something different than what it is. Any buffs to tPVP necro should be pursued elsewhere. This is strictly PVE and WvW where this skill could actually see good use if it was a little better.

Andele.1306:

Couldnt we change cpcs self condi into cripple or blind, weakness kinda wrecks a necro (lowering already bad scailing and/or weak at base damage abilites and less dodge….) id be fine with that, oh and maybe letting use use it underwater (spawning around the target) itll be pretty cool.

The point of corruption abilities is a trade-off, or if you are spec’d for it an additional condition you can inflict on an enemy. Considering the field itself is long duration and the self-weakness is short it’s not hard to time your hard hitting power abilities outside of that time. Also, keep in mind you could easily place this before using consume conditions.

In essence you have 2 really good uses for this: Consume conditions = more heal, Plague Signet = more conditions sent to foe. If neither of those are options in your build you can still just try…playing well. This will greatly mitigate the temporary weakness with good timing.

50% chance for glancing blow only applies to direct damage, not condition damage. The only real concern of having weakness on you is endurance regen and lets be honest necro’s have great survivability in nearly any spec when played right.

Last note: If you think weakness is really that bad for you then it’s even worse for the targets you’re giving it to with poison as well in an AOE…right?

Corrosive Poison Cloud needs to be improved. Want proof? Even the Auran Racial is better.

Corrosive Poison Cloud:

Duration: 12 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Weakness: Self Weakness 6 s
Radius: 240
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 900
Cast Time: 1 second casts while moving
Cooldown: 40 seconds

Radiation Field:

Duration: 15 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Radius: 240
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 1,200
Cast Time: 1/4 second cast while stationary
Cooldown: 60 seconds

Radiation Field has a 400% faster cast time, 25% longer duration, 25% longer range, and does not inflict self weakness. However it also has a 50% longer cooldown and cannot be cast on the move. In a typical scenario however both these drawbacks do not show as a long duration field is not useful for a highly mobile fight, the cast time is tiny at 1/4 second, and 40 second vs 60 second cooldown doesn’t make that much difference when most battles are over or decided in within the space of either cooldown.

Please Improve Corrosive Poison Cloud.

My Suggestion:

Corrosive Poison Cloud: (Improved!)

Duration: 15 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Weakness: Self Weakness 6 s
Radius: 360
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 1,200
Cast Time: 1/2 second casts while moving
Cooldown: 40 seconds

This would Increase the range to the much more useful 1,200 that Radiation Field enjoys, increases the AOE radius by 50%, increases the duration by 25% to match Radiation Field, and lowers the cast time by 50% while keeping the other benefits.

This makes it far superior to Radiation Field as it should be (especially since engineers get even MORE use from Radiation Field). It’ll still be lesser used than alot of other things, but it’ll be much more competitive at least this way.

Now, I would be open to the option of people being able to salvage siege for a fraction of the supply/badges used to create them however. To make this less of a waste. Lets say 60% of initial costs modified downwards by damage received or a straight 40%.

Hmmm, on one hand it sucks. On the other hand it helps balance siege out. Currently it’s possible to rotate hitting different objectives as a viable way of draining supply. You hit an objective, they build siege, you hang in there for a little while and they build more siege, then you back off.

However if siege timers were 1 hour or more this would not be possible. Essentially most of the siege would be perma. While this is good for defense, defense is also getting alot more out of the sizable buffs to siege in recent game patches.

Giving siege a long timer currently would make turtling way too easy. Lets wait until we see the trebs/catas masteries one day before we ensure that any prime-time attack will run into 6 arrow carts on a door. (this in Tier 5!)

A couple quick built arrow carts is enough to hold until the main forces arrive. If you want to defend carry some arrow carts with you or….I dunno….DEFEND.

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

No, we thought it was sad. Please do bot speak for EBay any more. You make us look like we care. If you wish to kiss our enemies kitten do so as yourself and not as an EBay representative.

People that don’t care ignore, they don’t respond. That goes for this comment as well as this thread. Take the 2,500+ views vs the <150 actual comments. That’s 2,300+ times someone didn’t care enough to respond to anything.

Yes, I speak for Ebay. Pot to kettle. Looks like we both do and we both care .

PaLeRiDeR.5908:

If you wish to kiss our enemies kitten do so as yourself and not as an EBay representative.

All Ehmry Bay represents Ebay. The actions of every single player here help paint the picture of a server, regardless of how they conduct themselves. In that respect we are all representatives. I have never claimed to be nominated by anyone or even in the majority on these forums, so I cannot consider myself an official Ebay representative and so do not. However I do represent Ebay, insomuch as you do as well.

Curtis.1562:

My main was an ele..full ascended and everything. I liked playing D/D but now it feels so slow. RTL was my favorite skill for getting around the map, now it’s so nerfed we basically just have swiftness and lightning flash. I’m almost a strictly PVE player so I wasn’t on the SPVP bandwagon. We were already weaker in PVE than most classes but at least it was fun. I keep trying to return to my ele, but it’s so hard to get into now. 15sec 1500 range to 40sec 1200 range is insane. (CD is nearly always 40sec even if you try to use it offensively). Since Ele is no longer fun, I’ve been playing on my guardian/warrior/thief(wvw only)…and things have never been easier.

So your class is no longer worth playing because they can’t buzz across the map quite as fast even though they are still one of the top classes for mobility? Forgive me if I laugh.

Something that small doesn’t make or break a class. They still play 99% the same. You just open-world RTL travel less. I of course still support the CD being 20 seconds even on misses and blocks as long as the enemy was in range though.

Ehmry Bay is still a good server full of good people, but man some of the more vocal are really compensating for something. A little trolling is one thing, a lot done consistently is another.

nothing.7941:

Doesn’t make it right. I can’t enforce forum etiquette, I get that. I’m not crying, don’t think any of you are getting under my skin just because I call you out. But my opinion is if you wouldn’t say it to my face, it’s pretty gutless to hide behind your comp screen and yell dumpster, you’re so bad, etc. If you and I were sitting around having a beer after a wvw match, I guarantee we wouldn’t talk like that to each other (Archer maybe). We also wouldn’t leave the bar early because no one drew a weapon fast enough. Why can’t we have that conversation here?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Kardiamond.6952:

What is happening with EB? Is that why you guys are called Ego bay?

You have more hardcore WvW player, for sure you’ll be able to adapt and fights harder. I’m not hardcore, I won’t sleep 2 hour less just to gain 2 points on the glicko system and the right to brag on an internet forum. Our hardcore communty, they don’t play WvW, they play tPvP. We are left with mostly casual and roamers.

Re-read your lasts posts guys, all of those are about pating yourself in the back.

It easier to act all mighty when you are winning a tier, yet I didn’t see you guys “adapt” again CD or Kaineng.

I will keep my “bad” server. As long as it never turn out like Ebay forum poster.

Don’t label us all mind you. There are stalwarts like me here who are not like that. Most of the people with an Ego were not here until after Ebay had already built itself up alot or you didn’t hear diddly from until after Ebay had built itself up a bit.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

As Pedra put it a couple posts back: pot, meet kettle. Nice to meet you Kardiamond, I’m kettle.

For dear kitten’s sake would people stop misusing this phrase? What you said was essentially “I am just as bad as you, you are just as good as me.” That actually doesn’t counter his argument, it agrees with it. Only difference is it’s a thinly veiled mudslinging as well.

I won’t disagree entirely with the point you are trying to say, but you are not effectively supporting it and are indeed lending validity to some of his points.

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

I think that would depend on the faction you played in DAoC. Hibernia was the whipping boy of most servers and as a whole didn’t show up much in RvR due to being outnumbered most times. They’d pop out every now and then, but for the most part just got treated like a pawn by Albion and Midgard. And rarely would Hibernia ever have access to Darkness Falls.

I played Hibernia too. It depended on your server and there were also times of great hibernia popularity. DAOC tended to fluctuate based on what the current FOTM classes were. Animists and Bainshee’s certainly had their day.

Its really not surprising to see a decrease from BP and AR after a week of semi working together against Ebay and still not even really being a threat.

That’s a bit short sighted. True they lost in overall points about the same because they pretty much stopped after the weekend. But while they worked together they had Ebay beat most of the time they were on, with us still losing in the point totals after night capping. The only reason we had a lead was the initial reset night, both servers closed in over 5k points after that over the weekend.

Me personally, I’m just sort of bored with WvW. For a short time I had this false sense of accomplishment that flipping a camp and holding it as long as our team could, sniping yaks, etc, actually did something. But in the end, it really doesn’t. Only zergs really make a difference. Which I suppose is the point of WvW. Zerg vs Zerg just doesn’t really appeal to me, but oh well — I’m just finding something else to do. No big deal.

Zergs are certainly not the only thing that make a difference at all. However it IS difficult to counter a zerg with vastly inferior numbers regardless of the strategy. but small group play is still very important and allows the big groups to do their thing without losing the match because of it.

Thorson.9218:

Back on topic of AR/BP/EB, it looks like 5/28 may be our salvation:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Upcoming-WvW-changes-may-28th/page/2#post2063640

I peed myself a little.

Dovgan.8605:

I have been on, not as much as usual (mostly due to the real world) and I get a general feel players are just extremely bored. I still enjoy running around doing small squad things, but the larger AR groups just haven’t been engaged. Popped into Eternal yesterday to harass a little, wound up 3 manning a tower and flipping various supply and NPC camps then running into overwhelming numbers from either BP or EBay. It’s fun showing new people how to lose a huge force, but odd when that’s all you see on a map.

The thing I don’t understand is why people simply gave up. Yeah I know the points end up around the same and everything but when we were facing Borlis Rock there was a TON of good fights.

I mean really, that’s what I play for. In all honesty I don’t give a rats about tiers or winning. I will try and win if I can, but that is just a way to get more good fights. I don’t care if I’m getting smashed or smashing, as long as there is enough give and take to make it fun.

It’s funny, it worked back in the day in Dark Age of Camelot. But now everyone just wants to give up because of some silly point board.

Thorson.9218:

Dark Aidget.3879:

Thorson.9218:

Dark Aidget.3879:

Even my hopes for ESO have been dashed.

Gah!! Don’t say this! What about ESO has your hopes so…..hopeless? I was really looking forward to that one……

Someone leaked beta gameplay. Turns out to be kinda… meh. I know, I know, betas are still betas and stuff can change, but not an old game engine. It was depressingly underwhelming. That cinematic trailer set the bar too high. They better cancel their PtP plans or it will be the biggest flop since Warhammer online.

Ugh.

OK, now I’m depressed……

Dark Age of Camelot was not a revered game due to it’s visuals. People get too caught up on game engines needing to be bright and shiny and awe inspiring when older game engines are typically more stable and far better able to handle the load of many players on screen at the same time.

I dislike modern gamers sometimes lol. Graphics =/= a game. Gameplay = a game. There are countless examples of this out there of games with subpar graphics or even downright simplistic graphics that are great games.

Also you can thank WOW players for killing WAR. The game was headed in a good direction until the swarm arrived. Then EA forced Mythic to cater to the WOW players until it destroyed the game instead of dedicating the proper resources to the things that actually needed help.

No, I’m not exaggerating. There was quite literally a several hundred page thread about “The time cycle should be like WOW’s.” on the official forum. It was that bad and frankly quite disgusting.

So we have established 4 things firmly:

1. Sweeping is the only reliable counter to portaling in towers/keeps, period. Scouts help, but only give you a chance of responding in time depending on how well the enemy tapped WP’s and gathered intel on your main force’s location.

2. Sweeping is unfun for most people, being a hiding mesmer can be extremely unfun as well. Someone mentioned hiding for as long as 30 minutes. I’ve had guildies hide for as long as 4 hours.

3. Even if you kill a mesmer a perma-stealth thief can rez them. The devs themselves said you will not kill a good perma-stealth thief, to just move on. Therefore unless the thief is bad you have to camp the dead body.

4. Even if all hiders in the keep are killed they can still easily win the tactical exchange by tying up more people than it is worth.

Both massive zergs and arrow carts actually have a fair number of counters but they require that people use them. Arrow Carts are a bit strong atm BUT if people would AOE properly and clear siege before moving in they would be much less of an issue. The biggest impact Arrow Carts have is preventing a ram rush if built properly, forcing a slower cata take. IF however you have enough to kill the defenders in a normal fight you should have enough to deal with said arrow carts once the wall goes down. It’ll be even easier once a balance patch lessens Arrow Cart Range a bit more.

Mega zergs are easily baited into death traps and defended against with proper coordination provided you have a reasonably competitive force. IE 30 against 50 for example. Mega zergs also suffer greatly in mobility and while they tend to steamroll things in their path until predicted and slaughtered, it’s merely temporary victories and they lose badly overall. You can also hit an enemy borderland to siphon away some of the Mega Zerg, diving them into more manageable pieces.

Protracted siege is the counter to turtle defense. A good turtle defense provides a tough shell to crack, but it eventually cracks. Another counter to turtle defense is mobility. They can only turtle one place at a time effectively and if you hit 3-5 places in succession, spending 10-20 minutes at each clearing siege and damaging walls, you’ll find their supplies will dry up rather quickly. It’s a long term victory and not your easymode tower/keep stomp with ram rush lawlz, but it’s quite effective. If they are not fast enough to transfer defense you just take objectives they are not properly defending.

Just had a fight outside NE tower in BP Borderlands. Me on a level 6 Necro (I was bored) and Guildie on his level 80 Engineer against 4 BP. We killed 1, then both sides got an additional player and we killed 2 more before more BP showed up and wiped us with in excess of 2:1 odds. Never got to kill the mesmer since he reset 3 times by blinking away to go OOC heal at his tower. (be glad this wasn’t open field haha)

I could say things considering, but only thing I am going to say: this was the most enjoyable fight of the day. The rest of the day has honestly been far too easy.

You guys trying to bore us into staying out of WvW or something? We went from eating you both easily for various reasons, to yall giving us all sorts of kitten, to AR almost completely disappearing and BP seeming more disorganized than ever. We faced so little meaningful resistance today people started logging out of boredom. PVDoor is not fun.

shyrith.3462:

As a mesmer myself, I have not stayed in a keep to portal. But I do know that a mesmers stealth options do not last long, so they had better have a thief. I go into corners and use the temporal curtain pull, and chaotic field. And I stay there for at least a minute and then move on. I have found mesmer and thief parties a few times that way.

Also, I do not do this alone. I usually have a thief friend with me to stealth me so they don’t see me coming.

Good advice on how to sweep effectively.

I hope you guys team up again sometime. This is boring again. I stopped playing my main because it’s not needed at all.

Parktou.4263:

The only thing that should be improved about staff is the base damage of the #1 abilities specifically fire #1 it should be a bigger hit then it is currently and Earth #1 should stack 1 sec of bleed imo like it does underwater Water #2 could use a small dmg increase as well or even just increase the stacks of vulnerability it applies perhaps Staff works fine with eles, I can hold choke points like a mad man with my ele, so I see very little wrong ith ele atm.

I disagree on fire #1. It hits pretty hard for an autoattack with a small AOE. Stoning DOES need the bleed or something, nice weakness but no real reason to use it. Underwater #2 is a bit tricky to get the most out of by using the projectile damage and then detonating it to get both damage hits. But it fits well in the overall Water Attunement underwater giving us a strong and versatile power/support option underwater.

Xillllix.3485:

Some elementalists in my guild are moving to another class, guess which ones…

The bad elementalists. Sorry, it was there lol.

ExZee.8109:

Read the entire thread over again.

I did, Crossplay made a post on how to potentially sweep more effectively, though it would take a bit more time. SurburbanLion did an overview on where portaling fits in as a tactic. Bobross did a look at perspectives on how people view portals. Dracatis did a comparison of the rewards/loss of losing the players hiding for portaling.

While these are interesting and good perspectives they are not saying any additional counters. So it is still sweep or lose as Saturn suggested. Scouts are a good safety net that should always be in place as he also suggested and they can stop an outer portal from resulting in a keep take with a quicker defender response, but an inner portal will still be an instant loss without a defending zerg.

I see alot of fear or portal hate and nerfs. However I do not see any information or suggestions. I did not say it should be nerfed, just that the current counter-play was extremely limited (a single option apparently) and sucks for the side that has to sweep.

So, I’ll try again:

How do you counter Mesmer’s in Tower/Keeps other than simply sweeping? Keep in mind that people do make Mesmer parties specifically so they can stay stealthed.

Before replying to this thread please watch: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play

A mechanic properly designed should be fun for both sides. Portals in objectives such as keeps or towers are really fun and neato, but they are only fun for one side. The counter-play is not fun and with proper mesmer parties even a 10 minute sweep can miss the mesmer spending most of their time in stealth. As a direct comparison open field portals have plenty of play and counter-play.

Additionally what If I show myself intentionally as a mesmer, stealth, and then waypoint? Suddenly you have to sweep for 10 minutes with kitten knows how many people to find one single person or you risk the keep or tower being lost. Meanwhile they can be taking another keep/tower. If the BOTH the play and counter-play are not interesting it is an overall bad mechanic.

That’s the primary problem most people have with portals. Essentially it limits you down into a single uninteresting option to respond with. You counter portals in towers/keeps by sweeping.

So, I came to the Mesmer community. Sweeping is not fun for the other side and ties up countless amount of people looking for a few, not a balanced trade-off either. Without more options and preferably options that help makes things interesting it just doesn’t feel like a fun mechanic for the other side.

How do you counter Mesmer’s in Tower/Keeps other than simply sweeping? Keep in mind that people do make Mesmer parties specifically so they can stay stealthed.

Adding my voice to the pile, it’s bad design for the scepter to replace a phantasm with a clone. Phantasms are always worth more.

Fox.3562:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, using skills in a unique way, i.e portaling behind keep walls and using portals to make golems move faster makes WvW infinitely more interesting than it would be without it. It adds a layer of stealth and tactics beyond “bring a zerg, set up 50 rams, make 25 golems, and throw down one arrow cart to cover you” to take a tower.

Do I care that people don’t like sweeping towers and keeps to make sure we’re not inside? Absolutely not. It’s not my job to make the game fun for you. Don’t want to lose a newly captured keep? Sweep it. Don’t like sweeping newly captured keeps? Lose it, or hope we’re not inside.

If anything, they never should have changed swirling winds. Certain classes should have skills that are useful to WvW beyond PvDooring down gates. Stealth and portals are two great examples.

TL;DR: Quit kittening about portals inside enemy bases, skills useful to WvW outside DPS are a good thing, and quit white knighting for AR/BP.

Check out this video by Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play

A mechanic properly designed should be fun for both sides. Swirling Winds duty was fun for nobody required to do it and often ended in a stalemate. Portals are really fun and neato, but they are only fun for one side. The counter-play is not fun and with proper mesmer parties even a 10 minute sweep can miss the mesmer spending most of their time in stealth.

Additionally what If I show myself intentionally as a mesmer, stealth, and then waypoint? Suddenly you have to sweep for 10 minutes with kitten knows how many people to find one single person or you risk the keep or tower being lost. Meanwhile they can be taking another keep/tower. If the BOTH the play and counter-play are not interesting it is an overall bad mechanic.

That’s the primary problem most people have with portals and stealth, and HAD with swirling winds. Essentially all of these things limit you down into a single uninteresting option to respond with. You counter portals in towers/keeps by sweeping, you counter swirling winds + counter siege with swirling winds and counter siege, you counter stealth by…well you don’t counter stealth against a good thief. Even stealth traps only really work on inexperienced or bad thieves that overplay their hand.

Amins.3710:

Cookies is a horrible mesmer. I wish someone could teach him how to portal.

Nuff said.

I personally hate that Mesmer’s are pigeon-holed into portaling and how important portals are to WvW as a whole. It’s a single utility skill that is quite literally game changing for WvW. The same way swirling winds used to be.

On one side I feel It’s a nice tactic for open field. On the other I feel like it’s way too good when bypassing walls and the counter is to spend 10 minutes sweeping to make sure you didn’t miss them if they were smart enough to bring a mesmer team instead of just a solo mesmer.

I think it also limits what they can do with golems.

Archer.1658:

My characters name is in my signature.

I was gonna tell him, but I figured you’d enjoy doing it more and he kind of asked for that one haha.

Because, I’m loyal to my server and friends in the end, I will never ever bandwagon even if it means finding a better fight.

Me and Archer/Cookies might disagree on some things and I might even call him out on his forum trolling or some such, but here we agree completely. Regardless of his trollish nature though when it comes time to fight for Ebay I will fight side by side with him just like I did this morning outside of Bay.

Sadly the character I was on was nowhere near as durable as your Mesmer build so I had to content myself with covering you with the mortar for a good while Cookies, jumping down only a few times when you had support (after suiciding many times to deal alot of damage to the treb.)

KStudios.2850:

Don’t let Cookie’s forum kitten-slinging fool you, he is indeed quite good. As are many of the “fight mongers” in the [GF] 1v1 community. On the rare occasions I find him and hang about for a bit, I generally won’t even join him in a small scale fray. Unless one, he asks or we’re after something specific and have larger goals in mind. Second, the enemy numbers against him are more than 4 (personally seen him handle 4 at once a time or two). Or his health drops below half. Fully content to hang back and let Cookie play.

I won’t say Cookie is bad, I’ve watched him fight and troll quite a few enemies at once. But he’d never be able to do that on something other than a mesmer or a stealth spam thief.

For all his trolling he is a good player, but the mesmer class is also kinda silly good when used right. He uses it pretty well.

Brando.1374:

nothing.7941:

Ralathar.7236:

Also, I do believe you managed to rustle your own jimmies.

Is this some British thing or what? Never heard it before viewing tier 5 match threads.

I think I am to blame for that.

Ironic for me to be quoted, I’ve used that a total of 1 time ever hehe. It’s been slung around for pages and pages now. I admit being highly amused at the phrase and it’s playful usage.

LordByron.8369:

Stealth.9324:

makku.2508:

Stealth.9324:

Wait what, more Nerf coming?Where is the SOTG video, I gotta watch it. thanks mate

AoE Nerfs were announced some time ago already. Basically they stated they don’t like how people use AoEs on single targets or downed players in WvW, and they want to change that. They announced significant updates to all AoE skills in the game (looking at their current track record, that will probably result in something along the lines of 50% damage reduction for every AoE in the game). Doesn’t take a lot to imagine what this is gonna mean for staff.

Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Energy (battle being the most popular sigil for D/D by a longshot) are considered too strong by the Devs and will be ‘reworked’ (my guess is battle will lose might application entirely and get stomped down to useless-tier). This has been confirmed in the same STOG that announced the RTL + Mistform nerfs IIRC.

Thanks for the Infos. I believed they said it after watching a team of 5 Staff Eles wreck a Zerg on a choke point..Shame…

no they explicitly said aoe are OP in PvE…

And that was the time i lost every single hope i had in balancing.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Incoming-AoE-nerf-and-rezzing-in-WvW/first

This was back in January. I wouldn’t expect AOE nerfs atm, they appear to have rescinded their idea. I believe they said they would be doing individual reviews on the power of each AOE skill and adjusting accordingly, not just a blanket AOE nerf.

PistolWhip.2697:

Warrior:
PvE – Great
WvW- Moderate
SPvP – Horrible. So bad that the pvp community has given it its on baby tier. Its really sad to see.

Ele:
PvE – Bad (arguably moderate as I find it insulting that other ele’s inability makes mine look bad but, I will give the rest of the community the benefit of the doubt)
SPvP – Godly before patch, very good after patch.
WvW- Moderate (arguably good but moderate seems to be consensus)

WHAT!!?? Hammer/sword/horn/solider rune Warrior and Staff Ele are considered mainstays of group composition in WvW. How the heck do you figure moderate?