Guild Wars 2

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Redscope.6215:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Elwinson.5962:

Some of you have observed that sometimes when the Mesmer downstate teleport takes you apparently out of range of the initial stomp, you get stomped anyway.

In at least some of these situations, the stomper may be using a teleport to complete the stomp. It works like this:
If the Mesmer hits 2 too early, the Mesmer will be visible at the teleported location before the stomper’s stomp animation has finished. The stomper, who has been watching for where the Mesmer teleported to, uses Blink or a similar skill to teleport to the Mesmer’s new location mid-stomp, and successfully finishes the stomp.

I have never experienced that, every time it happens to me the person doing the stomp DOESNT move. However if their is a problem with that it needs to be fixed using a teleport mid Stomp SHOULD break it and make them start from the start.

Again, a thief-specific downing issue. If it isn’t stealth-stoping crazyness its Steal’s port-stomping crazyness. We should just rename thief to “Troll” and be done with it. lol

That still doesnt get around the fact that its the MESMER downstate #2 that has the issues. They should NOT become useless against a class, Ability or Spec. That goes for everyone elses as well. Sure Conditions and Boons but NO way should some of them be countered by Stealth which is seriously messed up with the Culling issues and everything.

None of the Other Downstate #2 relies on LUCK for it to actually work. Sure some can be countered by Conditions and Boons but when other classes use them are they thinking “god i hope it doesnt teleport me right next to where i am already” or saying “God i hope it decides to work this time”

It IS the most unreliable downstate in the game. I think Ele though very strong is balanced, They are meant to delay getting “Finished” some of them do this, some of them dont Mesmer one IF you got ported a proper distance and not right where you were and it stopped the Finish (just like the Thief one does!) then it would be fine, Except…

- You can use the Port and be behind them and in Stealth and STILL get killed when they finish the stomp

- You can port right next to yourself and get killed when they finish current stomp

- You can port right next to where you were and not get killed when they finish the stomp

Its just to Unreliable and THAT is the biggest weakness of it, when it works its strong when it doesnt work its useless.

I’ll at least agree to this.

Mesmer’s downed state port should probably just port him in one direction and summon a clone in the other direction so you have to choose the real one instead of just randomly porting around to a possible location that can be planted on from his original spot.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Redscope.6215:

The issue is stealth. It’ll get nerfed after the culling issue is fixed.

You mean IF its fixed – How long have we have Culling issues? yet thanks to the way they designed the game (sloppy at best) i dont think it can or will be fixed, An easy way to get around this is remove Stealth its VERY over powered

No they can’t remove it, a class is based around needing it. That would require too much re-tooling.

What they should do is remove the ‘revealed’ debuff, allow stealth to be stacked (not like it isn’t already), and make damage break stealthed targets.

Then thieves would actually have to think every time they used stealth skills.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Elwinson.5962:

Some of you have observed that sometimes when the Mesmer downstate teleport takes you apparently out of range of the initial stomp, you get stomped anyway.

In at least some of these situations, the stomper may be using a teleport to complete the stomp. It works like this:
If the Mesmer hits 2 too early, the Mesmer will be visible at the teleported location before the stomper’s stomp animation has finished. The stomper, who has been watching for where the Mesmer teleported to, uses Blink or a similar skill to teleport to the Mesmer’s new location mid-stomp, and successfully finishes the stomp.

I have never experienced that, every time it happens to me the person doing the stomp DOESNT move. However if their is a problem with that it needs to be fixed using a teleport mid Stomp SHOULD break it and make them start from the start.

Again, a thief-specific downing issue. If it isn’t stealth-stoping crazyness its Steal’s port-stomping crazyness. We should just rename thief to “Troll” and be done with it. lol

daydream.2938:

The DEVS themselves said thiefs level out and are not OP at high end play.

Devs make the game, that doesn’t mean they’re good at it.

Today in the HOTM , power the #2 ( i think still #2) rated Qp player in north america said thiefs almost dont exist in the top level of Na meta. Certainly that they are not too powerful.

So because people haven’t figured certain things out, they’re not OP?

When the game first released, everyone was dying to Frenzy+HB and all the players at the top were warriors. Now they’re complaining that the warrior is useless. People are evolving with this game and learning how to not play like WoW. It just hasn’t happened to the thief class yet. Currently the limelight is on the ele.

daydream.2938:

Those are good sources.
And wvwvw is a whole other kettle of fish. IM refering to within the context of SPVP.

I’m referring to a specific downed rotation that thieves can use which gives them an unfair advantage over all other classes downed states. Stealth stacking.

Believe it or not, stealth will be nerfed. Its a major issue. In sPvP you don’t see thieves because their instagib was taken away and people need to learn how to build bunker. Once they do that, you’ll see bunker-stealth built thieves in nearly the same position the ele is right now.

Then I guess my point would be that it really is a “L2P” issue…on the thief player’s end…how ironic.

Everyone wants to make the ‘stabbystabbyyourdead’ class. That doesn’t work in sPvP. Now what you’re noticing is people flocking to the easier played class/build of bunker ele. It will be bunker thief soon enough.

daydream.2938:

Culling is a bug and of course needs to be fixed. Interestingly i dont have a culling issue myself ever, at least not in spvp.
Also, the point stands thiefs are not OP.

Your point about thieves not being OP was cited on players that don’t exist from teams that don’t exist. Names and ranks would be crucial for your point’s validity. My point was cited in actual reproduceable skill usage and effects. Go try it. Its OP.

No sPvP usually does better with culling. Specifically in matches with better players that understand balling-up and ‘zerging’ points is not the winning strat.

Culling is being addressed for WvW purposes. Until that is fixed, its unclear exactly how much stealth is helping or hurting the thief’s gameplay.

daydream.2938:

Also, since learning to play somehow makes one able to handle thiefs. I’d say that its definately a L2p issue.

Learning to play makes you better equipped to handle any and all classes or builds. Its not thief-specific.

Again, you’re making no sense.

daydream.2938:

My point is thiefs arent op.

My point is that they are. So I guess since I used a real scenario and you used a made-up stat that doesn’t prove anything, you’ve still got a point to make.

daydream.2938:

Also im not a child assumptions about peoples lives out of game, stick to the issues.

First thing’s first, I don’t care about your personal life. You log on the forums to make a sarcastic post to defend something that doesn’t warrant defending. You’re acting like a child. I just call it like I see it.

daydream.2938:

Today, the devs, in broadcast said while thiefs give people at the low end of play alot of trouble there effectiveness goes way down at the higher end of play.
So the issue with thiefs isnt there balance, if theres any issue its to do with skill curve. -ie how hard it is for a casual to learn to counter them.

The issue is stealth. It’ll get nerfed after the culling issue is fixed. Right now, they’ve got lots of work to do on their side making people not just go invisible at random times because the server decided it was okay to.

daydream.2938:

But high end players dont consider thiefs to be OP, they are considered middle of the pack in terms of power.

High-end players understand that the issue is stealth and nothing more. No, thieves got their sPvP damage nerfed to the ground. Many players were saying it was a “L2P” issue before that happend. They still are apparently. News: its not a “L2P” problem.

Its okay though, its always tough being at the top of the pile. Eles are up there too, and their nerf is coming as well.

daydream.2938:

Redscope.6215:

Liewec.2896:

guardian: you start downing, they push you back, you run over, down them.
warrior: you start downing, they knock you, you get up, down them.
mesmer: you start downing, they port, you wait for them to appear, down them.
ranger: you start downing, they rupt, may even wolf fear, down them.
engineer: you start downing, they pull, you get back up, down them.
thief: you start downing, they port, you run over, down them.
ele: you start downing, they mist, you follow, down them.

These are all 1v1 scenarios. In 1v1, all downed states are annoying at best…but not game-changing. (thief exception below)

The problem with downed states comes from more than a 1v1. Try to think outside the WoW box for a minute.

Also, a thief’s downed state stealth can be added directly to shadow refuge’s stealth. In other words, he puts SR down, you down him, he uses downed stealth, ports, heals, gets up, runs away.

Thieves are so OP right now it isn’t even funny. Stealth needs to change in a big way.

Thiefs are so OP half the top teams dont even run one.

Thats crazy OP.
./sarcasm.

So….half the top teams don’t run one? Which means half of them do…

What exactly is your point child?

felivear.1536:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Great post, some great points in here.

We know a lot of this, but a lot of times we can’t speak to specific plans to fix things. We also know full well what’s good in the meta (or OP). We sometimes just can’t reveal what we’re thinking about balance until our lists go final.

A lot of people assume that silence = ignorance, and often times, that’s not the case.

Great read! Enjoyed it.

Clearly it’s your company philosophy and I know it’s probably not going to change, but I think it a terrible philosophy. You don’t say anything in fear of causing a stir on the forums, but your silence (at least on the SPVP boards) causes one of the biggest stirs.

Here is the best way I can describe it:
Let’s say that you had decided to come to the forums and tell the players “We finally have our PvP system in place and it’s going to be an 8 team tournament system where you need 40 people to start and it will be 3 rounds.”

I can assure you if that was discussed during the initial implementation, it would have never made it in and then had to be changed 6 months later because it clearly was a bad idea.

My fear is, you guys are being so secretive about stuff because it may or may not be fully ready, but what if it’s a terrible idea? It doesn’t matter how good of DEVS you guys are, there are few of you and exponentially more of us. We can quickly pick out flaws and give positive constructive feedback….for free.

I am in no way saying we are better at developing a game than you guys, we most assuredly are not; however, we play the game non-stop, and we have very good ideas about what would be great for the game, and what would be terrible. Just go look at SWTOR to see examples where DEVS were completely silent on features and when they were rolled out, they sucked…bad.

Case in Point

• WoW, for all its flaws, is actually pretty open about what they are planning. The perfect example: Blizzard was going to implement a feature where your real ID along with your real name would be displayed on the forums with things you posted: a terrible terrible idea. They were dead set on it and people voiced concerns about how our privacy would be at risk and how we could be attacked in real life by players that didn’t like what we posted. Bashiok kept stating that we shouldn’t have any concerns and were being paranoid and your real name can accomplish nothing from someone trying to find out who we are. Someone challenged him to say his real name if he didn’t care. He did. Next, they found his address, his salary, a picture of his front door via street view of Google maps and even facebook pages of his parents.
• That feature never saw the light of day. Had they secretly implemented it, someone could have been killed by some crazy forums stalker.

Food for thought

Blizzard’s forum fk-up is a really bad example.

How often does blizzard announce GAME-RELATED information that is changed by people complaining on the forums? Cite a few of those if your going to compare them to Anet in that realm.

The only reason they didn’t go ahead with their moronic real-name forum idea was because the forum coordinator had real harm brought to him in the form of stalking. In other words, they’re so dumb that they need to be stalked and taunted by forum/internet geeks before they realize that being anonymous on the internet is important. Man…the children that work at bliz…amazing.

Yeah, lets all NOT take a page out of the fktard (blizzard) handbook.

Liewec.2896:

guardian: you start downing, they push you back, you run over, down them.
warrior: you start downing, they knock you, you get up, down them.
mesmer: you start downing, they port, you wait for them to appear, down them.
ranger: you start downing, they rupt, may even wolf fear, down them.
engineer: you start downing, they pull, you get back up, down them.
thief: you start downing, they port, you run over, down them.
ele: you start downing, they mist, you follow, down them.

These are all 1v1 scenarios. In 1v1, all downed states are annoying at best…but not game-changing. (thief exception below)

The problem with downed states comes from more than a 1v1. Try to think outside the WoW box for a minute.

Also, a thief’s downed state stealth can be added directly to shadow refuge’s stealth. In other words, he puts SR down, you down him, he uses downed stealth, ports, heals, gets up, runs away.

Thieves are so OP right now it isn’t even funny. Stealth needs to change in a big way.

Minoru.1237:

They will need to increase ele base damage if they nerf ele healing.

Based on?

Currently the issue with ele healing is that he’s got too much of it to be coupled with his defense, movement, and damage. Something needs to change.

In my opinion, being able to self-combo and keep 4-5 boons active for an entire fight is the issue. Not the number or power of his healing skills.

Keep players from being able to self-combo. Then see whether or not the ele needs a buff/nerf.

Guys the D/D bunker ele is next on the chopping block for nerfs. Devs have all but said it in the past twitch.tv interview. Bunker ele is on the “watch” list.

The problem has been stated here in this thread. Bunker builds usually lack in their ability to bring the fight to the target. In other words, their mobility is low.

The ele has WAY too much mobility for his survivability in bunker form. So their either going to have to tone down his survivability or tone down his mobility. One or the other, take your pick, something has to change.

Personally, I think his problems lie in the ability to self-combo his own fields. Most classes have a ton of starters and not a lot of finishers, or vice versa, but never both. Eles have nearly every type of AoE field starter in the game and the ability to blast finish multiple times (which is basically the most powerful finisher). This allows him to put up multiple boons for extremely long periods of time. No other class can really do this, nor should they be able to.

I think the main question here is: should we just refrain from nerfing the ele and first remove the ability of players to self-combo?

Jedbacca.6297:

I still noted teams attempting to utilize culling to their advantage after the patch went through. This saddened the SF team

Speaking of which, about 2-3 hours after the patch in T2 WvW, the GSCH guild had a massive culling portal bomb attempt and immediately failed.

You should have seen all the red downed arrows. It was amazing.

Props to GSCH for failing so hard, I didn’t think it was possible to be that reliant on exploiting a buggy mechanic.

TheMerc.4850:

I could see complaints about the combo in groups when you get blindsided, that’s never fun. But that’s also fairly true about most classes with burst, getting blindsided in the middle of a fight by a glass backstab thief isn’t much fun and there’s much less of a chance of seeing it coming (and unless someone decides to aoe around you it’s almost a guaranteed stealth/blind finisher) . That’s mostly why I enjoy Spvp most, face offs with 2 people are a lot more fun.

When considering groups, bursts, and general cohesiveness, you also need to think of coordination.

If everyone in a zerg was coordinated enough to focus fire on an individual, you would have little recourse outside of respawning at the nearest waypoint. There would be no forewarning, no blindsiding, no massive burst, just a wave of what appears to be random swinging weapons; all of them in the general direction of one person.

Now imagine that level of cooperation spearheaded by there only being ONE target to attack, the warrior trying to Frenzy+HB one of your zerglings. The only reason focus fire from one zerg to another doesn’t happen is because people all like to decide for themselves what a ‘high priority’ target is. If you jump into the enemy pile, you’re automatically ‘high priority’ to most, if not all, of the nearby players (who can see you). You’ve got no chance.

A coordinated push by a small team, even as small as two, can instigate a retreat by the enemy zerg depending on how many players you cause to self-micromanage. Then we would have to question how balanced certain skills are from one class in combination with skills from another class. Which goes beyond Frenzy+HB.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

How annoying would it be if the player who created the guild switched servers and took the guild’s upgrades (incl. the bank) and influence with them?

Would there ever be a system put in place for server movement of a guild? Like a movement vote or ‘member majority’ localization?

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Good points you made. D/D eles are pretty close to melee range when you think bout it.

Melee range is 130. Most of the D/D ele skills are 300-400 range, some of them are longer. The only one that is melee-ish is “Ride the Lightning” which is a 1200 move to begin with.

Even as D/D eles are hardly a melee class.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Considering killshot on rifle can do 14k damage you could technically one-shot a badly played D/D ele at 1200 range.

Fixed that for you.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

Cripples also are pretty much useless against a good D/D-ele since they effectively have 4+ condition removals.

And perma-swiftness, don’t forget about perma-swiftness.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

The warior can have enough mobility to keep up or choose to go for some ranged but don’t expect to beat an elementalist with your hundred blades. More likely to win using whirling axe, sword-2 spamming to keep up + signet of rage with 30s swiftnes.

A few points about the rest of this:

• The warrior can only keep up with the 600 and 1200 dashes, not the 900 teleport
• Savage leap has a 8 second cooldown; hardly a spammable skill
• Whirling axes does nothing to help you chase a target
• 30s of swiftness is no comparison to perma-swiftness
• Chill/cripple hamper the distance of all your movement skills as a warrior

Until they remove the ele’s ability to combo in his own fields and buff himself with long durations of every known boon in existance, he’s going to be OP. Its just that simple.

First of all, bunker ele is the next class/build on the nerf list. It, in and of itself, was a minor topic on the latest twitch live feed.

Secondly, AoE is being rebalanced…and most of the ele’s attacks will probably be within range of the nerf bat.

Lastly:

KeepersWay.4159:

there is no perma stealth glitch. stop posting false information.

The culling issue is giving thieves an unreasonably short duration of ‘visibility’ by other players. It’s not something they do on purpose, its just what happens.

Many guilds have found a particular method of forcing server culling on players while launching an attack…and this does involve Shadow Refuge.

Stealth is currently problematic in WvW and it is definitely giving thieves an unfair advantage. To deny this issue is to say one of two things; either you’re completely oblivious to the current issues of the game or you’re defending a broken mechanic that you knowingly overuse.

Neandramathal.9536:

Plenty of mobs which count for rally don’t count for vengeance, and then there are some that don’t count for either. Sucks bad cos it’s the only situation I actually bother to run the trait!

I should also mention that the ones which don’t count for stacks and loot also won’t proc food that has an ‘on kill’ trait.

It seems trash mobs need a bit of looking at.

Your entire build clenches on whirling axes and omnomberry food.

Glass cannon indeed.

Ansultares.1567

Hundred blades isn’t OP; hundred blades + frenzy is OP.

Actually even with Frenzy, HB is still not all that powerful. You have to couple it with CC first. So it would have to go Frenzy+HB+Bull’s Charge or Throw Bolas.

Even then, stunbreaker, stun warrior, dead warrior, /laugh.

I’ve got a “Frenzy+HB” build. I use Frenzy to break the Bull’s Charge, roll behind the warrior, whirlwind, dead warrior, /laugh.

You want to know why Frenzy+HB is not OP? … +50% incoming damage.

Everyone’s quickness buff should be +50% incoming damage; with the exception of the mesmer elite because you don’t have a choice when he puts it on you.

Not sure if there’s actually a bug for SR in dungeons, but I know for a fact that there are mobs which don’t count for much. The trashiest of trash mobs. Novices in cliffside are among them.

They don’t count for loot, they don’t count for stacks, and so there’s probably a bug where they don’t count for triggering a rally from Vengeance.

I’m still waiting for the “Firing Squad” tactic.

Full zerk wars with “Crack Shot” traited. Frenzy up and cast “Kill Shot” into oncoming masses. Or imagine “Volley” going off from like 10+ of them all lined up with “Frenzy” on. It’d be like taking a gattling gun to a zerg.

CoaxialMazer.9140:

GS
yea… not even gonna say

Great, now you’re gonna get ME started

CoaxialMazer.9140:

This was my reasoning to use burst skills less. Don’t get me wrong, most burst skills are great in a way, but i feel that our basic attacks and other skills outway the benefits of losing adrenaline from pure dps perspective. Utility wise, I agree that some skills like skull crack and flurry for example, are great in that aspect. Either way, i have my adrenaline bar full most of the time, and hardly ever use burst skills. As warriors being able to swap weapons so frequently (fast hands)[I find it far more efficient dps wise and health wise (adrenal regen + healing surge)] that it makes more sense for me to use both my weapon sets consistently rather than use a burst skill and gimp my dps/hp regen while im on lower adrenaline. Of course adrenaline gain is easy to obtain, but most of the time, I never had to say “Crap, shoulda used that burst skill, coulda won there”.

The key point here is highlighted in bold. What your build focuses on is what will determine the effectiveness of the burst skill. Most weapon sets and builds do not give an overall DPS positive for bursting adrenaline, but most of them have burst skills that can be useful in situations you would be putting yourself in given that build and set.

I can honestly say the Greatsword is the only burst skill in the game that you can never find a use for outside of PvE trying to combine it with “For Great Justice” and “Signet of Rage” in order to keep a perma-fury going. And even that’s not all that easy.

The problem with using your burst for perma-fury is that you’re giving up the adrenaline specifically for an increase in DPS that you aren’t getting. This is mostly why the GS F1 is being looked-over.

I would still like a 600-1200 leap based on adrenaline level.

YojimboJones.6243:

Redscope.6215:

Oglaf.1074:

Well, there are still some odd skills here and there that technically fits into what they could classify as “problem AoE”.

Like Earth Shaker on the Hammer.

It’s targeted after all.

I would agree that some skills on the warrior may need to be looked at. Probably not Earthshaker but Combustive Shot comes to mind. The amount of burning I can stack on a target with that skill (by shooting through the field) is rather absurd to be able to do on my own.

That’s something I think needs a looking-over on its own time. Classes and weapon sets that can self-combo.

Arcing Arrow and Combustive shot are actually very strong skills, the warriors only long range AOE abilities. If they nerf those I hope it’s only the # of targets, because if they take away the damage or shirnk the radius that pretty much bones our only means of applying ranged pressure in WvW.

Well if there was an overall reduction in AoE radius for ground-targeted AoEs, I wouldn’t expect Combustive Shot to be given any exceptions. That radius, along with many others, is far too large.

Yes it would hamper the Warrior’s capability to place ranged AoE denial on the battlefield, but if they hamper others in the same way then it would be a comparatively even reduction.

Besides that fact, the Warrior is a class stated to have viable but significantly less options for ranged pressure. They, like the Guardian, are a mostly melee-focused class.

Oglaf.1074:

Redscope.6215:

The OP’s point was to say that the loss of adrenaline for the ability of the burst is not a good enough trade-off. In some cases it isn’t but in most cases it is.

I feel the total opposite, In most cases it is not worth it, but in some cases it is. But that also takes into account something I haven’t mentioned before: Healing Surge. I don’t like being caught off-guard and getting the crappiest heal available cause I “wasted” my Adrenaline.

Well its base is higher than the other heals, but I do see your point. Considering all it does is heal for little more than “Mending” without the condition cure and 5 more seconds of a cooldown, its base should probably be a little higher.

Here’s my issue with Healing Surge though: Using it at full adrenaline is like foregoing an entire adrenaline bar, but using it at 0 adrenaline is robbing yourself of >40% heal effectiveness. Something needs to change with that skill. You’re always losing something when using it.

Oglaf.1074:

The Axe trait is not exlcusive to the Burst; it also works with auto-attacks. The biggest advantage of the Axe is also somewhat of a disadvantage; the auto-attack is so good that you penalize yourself far too much if you stop using it in favour of something else – which is why Axe is generally a poor choice for Off-hand weapons due to Whirling Axe not coming close to the damage of the auto-attack.

Just to address the issue of usefulness, the axe’s main hand attack IS its main form of damage. Other weapon sets have their damage and effectiveness spread out but the axe puts it all in one spot (Hundred Blades comes to mind rather quickly). The off-hand attacks are importantly synergized with the main hand as well. Dual Strike grants you a few seconds of Fury to be used in combination with Eviscerate and Whirling Axes hits 15 times which can fill your adrenaline bar immediately when traited. The skills do other things besides damage and they’re balanced around their effectiveness within the intentional build. All but two of the axe main and off-hand skills hit more than once because an axe build relies heavily on bursting adrenaline.

The OP’s point was to say that the loss of adrenaline for the ability of the burst is not a good enough trade-off. In some cases it isn’t but in most cases it is.

Landing an Eviscerate on your target and continuing to spam your chain is an overall increase in DPS as well as a ‘burst’ of damage at a chosen period of time. This is how the skill was intended to work. It wasn’t meant to be a “no-brainer walk in and spam F1” skill (not that you’re saying it was, but some people here would like it to be).

I would have to say that most burst skills are “worth it” if you’re built properly.

• Axe does massive damage on a short leap
• Sword immobilizes in an AoE and stacks up tons of bleed
• Hammer is a leap, an AoE blast finisher, and a 2s stun
• Longbow lays a massive fire field which causes burning and does damage
• Rifle does massive damage at 1500 range

The only ones I’d consider “not worth it” are the Greatsword’s trade off (which they are admittedly looking at) and the Mace’s stun. When compared with the Hammer, the Mace seems rather lackluster. Maybe since I’ve never built around the Mace I don’t know how to use it effectively, but I doubt it’s worth dropping the adrenaline on over whatever your other weapon set is.

The Discipline line needs a stat change. The percent-per-point was decreased to .1 because of overpowering damage skills like Eviscerate and Kill Shot but it isn’t effective enough for the burst skills that are not massive damage increasers; which is most of them.

Oglaf.1074:

Well, there are still some odd skills here and there that technically fits into what they could classify as “problem AoE”.

Like Earth Shaker on the Hammer.

It’s targeted after all.

I would agree that some skills on the warrior may need to be looked at. Probably not Earthshaker but Combustive Shot comes to mind. The amount of burning I can stack on a target with that skill (by shooting through the field) is rather absurd to be able to do on my own.

That’s something I think needs a looking-over on its own time. Classes and weapon sets that can self-combo.

TheMerc.4850:

I doubt they think that using cleave damage intelligently on a reviver and revivee is an issue. If they do then, they’re even more out of touch with their game than people have said.

Not only that, but they’ve also made it a point to explain time and again that the AoEs being looked at are the ones which involve little-to-no risk to the player.

Standing within melee range of the target is about as risky as you can get.

I’m not worried about a melee PBAoE “cleave” nerf.

FateZero.8536:

The only Champion I find it hard to solo or even 2-man is the Champion Modniir High-Sage in Harathi Hinterlands. His spells literally 2/3-hit anyone.

Yeah he’s particularly strong. I’ve been running that fight as a fully geared sidekicked lvl 80 warrior and I think I know what his problem is. Burning damage.

His burning damage appears to be doing as much as a lvl 80 boss character, and it lasts a LONG time if you don’t move from those circles. The AoE’s radius is also massive for that attack and he does about 3-4 of them at a time (before the first one disappears).

I think he needs looking into, personally. He’s definitely not a normal champion fight and he’s no standard ‘group’ event either.

Just to clarify, check this quote from Matt Witter on the AoE rebalancing:

There are a few different knobs we can turn in regards to AoE some of the bigger ones being:
Radius of the AoE
Frequency of the AoE Damage
Damage of the AoE
Max Targets of the AoE

Currently, some players causing the AoE are able to do more damage to one person while also controlling a portion of the field, compared to a player with single target damage.
In our balance discussions we always look at what these changes could do to PvE as well as PvP. Any changes we make will undergo a lot of testing, both internal and by our trusted alpha team. It is important to understand that we are not doing a blanket nerf to all AE’s or a dramatic adjustment of the damage AoE’s can do. There may be some cases where players can build for AoE damage, but are just not viable or other cases where AoE is clearly the dominate way to build, and as such the other builds get left on the side lines. Its these classes/builds that we are concerned about.

They’re talking mostly about rebalancing the AoE skills that can be laid down on the battlefield and act on their own while the player is able to continue attacking.

Hundred Blades only hits 3 targets. That’s as many as any melee chain attack. If you consider that an AoE you’d have to consider all melee attack chains from all players AoEs. It’s not getting a nerf unless they do an ‘across the board’ damage nerf, and I don’t think anything of that nature would be all that large.

These guys want to rebalance the attacks like Meteor Shower, Barrage, Feedback, etc. The skills that do tons of damage/control and allow the player to continue mashing buttons. They even mentioned siege weapons briefly over twitch. I think Arrow Carts are due for a nerf as well.

As of right now, go to WvW and check any attacking/defending situation. Its just a cluster fk of AoEs laid down while players are continuing to be picked off by those casting the AoEs. There’s a massive section of denial and there’s absolutely no risk involved for creating it. It has to change.

I would advocate forcing players to channel most of those within line of sight…but that’s just me.

congalong.9620:

What I find hilarious about these posts is that it’s basically summed into this.

“I don’t like the way you do things and things should be done my way.”

You are free to make non-skip LFGs and find like minded people. People that want to skip can find groups that want to skip. That’s the beauty of it, choice. Forcing people into something they don’t want to do is basically asking for something to be not done.

Nobody is forced to play this game. You’re not forced to do dungeons. Skipping content, and therefore possible loot, is a decision you’ve already made on your own. You’re willing to forego that extra set of tokens because it’s not worth the time. If it was worth the time, you’d be doing it. Rewarding players who want to play more of the game is not a bad thing.

You just disagree with what changes may come because they could possibly make the game more difficult for you. It sounds like you fall into your category above.

congalong.9620:

Sure, fix exploits which trivialize an encounter but making mobs perma-aggro is NOT a solution.

Making dungeon mobs not fall-off is a solution to players skipping content, yes. As Robert Hrouda has already stated. Is it the right one? No, not for Guild Wars 2 and possibly not for Anet’s general outlook on gaming. But it would solve the issue.

congalong.9620:

Nor is “stacking-MF on kills” as that basically rewards players who put in a lot of time/have a lot of time.

Players who have more time will always achieve more in-game. That’s a simple fact of gaming. You can minimize it, but you can’t get rid of it. If everyone did speed runs and nobody stopped to do anything that wasn’t 100% necessary, the players who had more time available to play the game would still achieve more.

congalong.9620:

I would prefer dungeons have low amounts trash that is relatively low HP but test certain mechanics and skills such as dodging on time, reflecting on time, etc.

And people who complain about a guardian/tanky character skipping because they can endure all the damage and get away so the mobs de-aggro but they can’t….that’s a L2P issue. My glass cannon mesmer (full zerkers) can skip just as well as any other character and most people, at least in my guild don’t seem to have a problem with it.

After reading the above quote, see the top of this post for irony.

Dingle.2743:

Redscope.6215:

Khisanth.2948:

At least two problems with this. Certain mobs are just completely out of the way. In CM some seem to be behind closed doors. Many paths do not have a chest at the end, for all those there is never a reason to go for 100%.

If you’re looking for a reason to go 100%, DDO did it perfectly.

Number of kills, objects destroyed, and ‘side-quest’ objectives completed were a few of the many ways dungeons racked up their own set of points to be tacked on to the final run-end reward.

That encouraged people to kill, break, find, help, and essentially ‘complete’ as much as they could to get that top-end reward.

Perhaps a system like that could be worked out for dungeon tokens on the ‘first run’ daily bonus.

Logged in to say something along these lines.

If you don’t want to give players an incentive to kill the early monsters on the basis that they’ll clear the early content of the dungeon and then leave to respawn the enemies, hence never clearing the dungeon – instead give the players a reward at the end of the dungeon based on the amount of content they cleared.

For example, rewarding dungeon tokens based on total kills rewarded after clearing (perhaps 1 per regular enemy, 2 per veteran and 3 per champion), or have mobs drop keys which are needed to open chests that spawn at the end of the dungeon – incentives that make players want to kill mobs, but also want to clear the dungeon.

Not only that, but continuing from this reward strategy, you can essentially ‘build-in’ speed running methods for people who have less time to complete content but still desire to make progress towards a goal which requires specific content to be done.

In other words, you can do a speed run, and it’ll be legit, but you’ll end up with more loot (given a relatively same amount of total time spent) if you take the time to 100% the dungeon.

Khisanth.2948:

At least two problems with this. Certain mobs are just completely out of the way. In CM some seem to be behind closed doors. Many paths do not have a chest at the end, for all those there is never a reason to go for 100%.

If you’re looking for a reason to go 100%, DDO did it perfectly.

Number of kills, objects destroyed, and ‘side-quest’ objectives completed were a few of the many ways dungeons racked up their own set of points to be tacked on to the final run-end reward.

That encouraged people to kill, break, find, help, and essentially ‘complete’ as much as they could to get that top-end reward.

Perhaps a system like that could be worked out for dungeon tokens on the ‘first run’ daily bonus.

RaymondFung.2805:

I think the term “unique” is confuse for most people. Isolate may be a better term

I think the real problem is that people played other games where the word “unique” was a reference to rarity level and nothing else (i.e. Diablo 2). If you look at the rarity levels in GW2 and see that there is no “unique”, then you must logically come to the conclusion that it refers to something other than rarity.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey guys,

Just to help provide some clarity on this, we’ll be releasing within the next couple of weeks a high level summary of our big plans for the first half of 2013 to help provide more transparency into our plans with the game going forward. This will include providing more details about our goals for the game, information about the stories and features that you’ll see in the Jan/Feb/March releases.

To set expectations accordingly, the January release will be a relatively small release that sets the table for the stories and features we plan to roll out with the Feb/March releases and beyond. Also, there will be no new race, profession, or new region with these larger Feb/March releases. One of our major goals with these releases is making our existing world as strong as possible, ensuring there are reasons to go to all the locations in the world we’ve already built, and strengthening the core game we’ve provided. In saying this will be an expansions worth of stuff in these releases, we’re talking about the number of new features that will be rolled out across PvE, WvW, and PvP in early 2013, which usually you’d only find in an expansion for a traditional MMORPG.

More details and specifics to come in the next couple of weeks, but I hope that helps provide some more insight into what to expect at a very high level.

Anyone else notice that he didn’t say “No new skills/weapons.” ?

Hmm?

Maybe…?

Shukran.4851:

Redscope.6215:

The problem is, the thief is the only class you really don’t have to play intelligently right now and still have a good chance of winning. Even if you don’t win, you have the best chance to escape alive in the game. If you’re a very skilled player, you just never die as a thief…you never have to.

TILL this part i though i could have a good discussion about thief. nevermind.

There’s only two things you can have a discussion about with thief-only players: how much nerfing needs to be undone, and how much other people need to “L2P”

Since I’m talking about niether, I wasn’t expecting a good discussion from you.

Shukran.4851:

Redscope.6215:

I’ve got an idea and I’ll probably be flamed by thief-main players for this one….but how about this to control spam:

• Base Initiative regen increased slightly
• Initiative regen slows as more initiative is spent
• Spending all Initiative triggers a long-count cooldown to start Initiative regen

That last part wouldn’t be longer than maybe a second or so, but it would be enough to give pause. And these changes would be enough to make thieves think a little more and possibly have a rotation instead of going D/D and spamming 22222222 when their Steal+CnD+Backstab didn’t finish their target immediately, then swapping to a shortbow and teleporting at a 900 range twice while stealthed.

Assuming i dont spam any skill but i just, as thief, use all 5 skills in a row, you dont die. i have cd to start initiative regen+ slow regen cause i used all my initiative.
cool way to destroy thief class.

So we’re assuming that you don’t play intelligently, yes you’d get destroyed. Like any other class. Your overall base regen would be faster and your top-end regen would be faster…so assuming you ‘pounce’ and eat your initiative up, you’ll have to think on your feet a little like anyone else that facerolls their keyboard.

The problem is, the thief is the only class you really don’t have to play intelligently right now and still have a good chance of winning. Even if you don’t win, you have the best chance to escape alive in the game. If you’re a very skilled player, you just never die as a thief…you never have to.

I’ve got an idea and I’ll probably be flamed by thief-main players for this one….but how about this to control spam:

• Base Initiative regen increased slightly
• Initiative regen slows as more initiative is spent
• Spending all Initiative triggers a long-count cooldown to start Initiative regen

That last part wouldn’t be longer than maybe a second or so, but it would be enough to give pause. And these changes would be enough to make thieves think a little more and possibly have a rotation instead of going D/D and spamming 22222222 when their Steal+CnD+Backstab didn’t finish their target immediately, then swapping to a shortbow and teleporting at a 900 range twice while stealthed.

Pyrial.2917:

Redscope.6215:

S H A K U R AS.9536:

JonPeters.5630:

Because Jonathan knows more about what we are doing with PvP, and because we don’t say we are doing X until we are 100% doing it or else we get a lot of you said X, I wants it NOW!!!

So in short, we wants to know:

1) When do u going to start ladder games.
2) When do u going to remove tournaments and start normal daily AT’s.
3) When can we see new maps.
4) When are u going to put observ.
5) When are u going to inform all pple in the same moment about PvP changes, dont split pple like in gw1, “top” teams have forum and know ~half year faster what going to be changes and other pple know it in the day of update or from friends from tk.
6) When are u going to respect pple who paid for this game, u demand respect but dont respect each others.

I think its enough for begin, do it what i wrote and then except respect from pple, who bought this game for PvP not PvE or WvWvW.

You bought the PvP box set? With extra emphasis on the PvP? …. C’mon now, don’t be silly. Whatever your personal reason is for buying the game, it didn’t have to cost you any more or any less than anyone else and you didn’t end up with any more or any less of a game regardless how much of it you desire to play.

JP has it right, and your numbered list is a prime example. Too many people crying, “You said [X] and I want my [X] NOWW!!!!ONEONEONE” This is why we don’t get info until nearly the last minute. It is about building community respect. They don’t want to continue to “fail” in our eyes by promising the world and delivering nothing (which is why I wonder how politicians still get elected with that strategy).

Any person who has worked a day in their life understands that these guys don’t just sit down at their desk each morning, wave the “Magic Wand of Change” over the keys, and then get up to have a coffee. All changes that go through the game span multiple levels of the company in an effort to create the best situation for the players. They take this stuff so seriously that they have “Balance Meetings” … its their JOB. They make money when they do it right, so they want to get it right the first time.

I’d rather be missing a feature for a relatively short period of time instead of having something that is so broken that every single patch changes something about it to the point where you just give up that it’s ever going to work properly and you lose all faith in Anet’s ability to do anything in proper form.

That’s all well and good, but they’re running out of time…

I agree, they’re cutting things close here…but as I’ve said in other posts, their main issue was the release date being so close to the NA holiday season with big plans in mind.

They still have many features outside of PvP to implement and it looks like WvW will be the first go-round in Feb.

Sprawl, that kinda rhymes…

Actually there is enough competitiveness in this game’s community right now.

The players who take themselves too seriously to play GW2 because it hasn’t reached a level of ‘par’ that they hold themselves to had best keep moving. They’ll never really play this game well anyway so they’d be disappointed in their ‘skills’ when they decide to try it and fail.

S H A K U R AS.9536:

JonPeters.5630:

Because Jonathan knows more about what we are doing with PvP, and because we don’t say we are doing X until we are 100% doing it or else we get a lot of you said X, I wants it NOW!!!

So in short, we wants to know:

1) When do u going to start ladder games.
2) When do u going to remove tournaments and start normal daily AT’s.
3) When can we see new maps.
4) When are u going to put observ.
5) When are u going to inform all pple in the same moment about PvP changes, dont split pple like in gw1, “top” teams have forum and know ~half year faster what going to be changes and other pple know it in the day of update or from friends from tk.
6) When are u going to respect pple who paid for this game, u demand respect but dont respect each others.

I think its enough for begin, do it what i wrote and then except respect from pple, who bought this game for PvP not PvE or WvWvW.

You bought the PvP box set? With extra emphasis on the PvP? …. C’mon now, don’t be silly. Whatever your personal reason is for buying the game, it didn’t have to cost you any more or any less than anyone else and you didn’t end up with any more or any less of a game regardless how much of it you desire to play.

JP has it right, and your numbered list is a prime example. Too many people crying, “You said [X] and I want my [X] NOWW!!!!ONEONEONE” This is why we don’t get info until nearly the last minute. It is about building community respect. They don’t want to continue to “fail” in our eyes by promising the world and delivering nothing (which is why I wonder how politicians still get elected with that strategy).

Any person who has worked a day in their life understands that these guys don’t just sit down at their desk each morning, wave the “Magic Wand of Change” over the keys, and then get up to have a coffee. All changes that go through the game span multiple levels of the company in an effort to create the best situation for the players. They take this stuff so seriously that they have “Balance Meetings” … its their JOB. They make money when they do it right, so they want to get it right the first time.

I’d rather be missing a feature for a relatively short period of time instead of having something that is so broken that every single patch changes something about it to the point where you just give up that it’s ever going to work properly and you lose all faith in Anet’s ability to do anything in proper form.

firebreathz.7692:

ranger is one of the most underpowered class in the game atm and your complaining its not even easier to kill them?

You’re either blind or you don’t play sPvP (which begs the question of “why are you in this sub-forum?”). The perma-regen ranger is currently FOTM in sPvP. Try building it first, then try to justify why you play easymode to help you sleep at night.

Better get your kicks in before its nerfed lol.

Asomal.6453:

ilJumperMT.4871:

Why dont you give Thieves .25 GCD like mesmer?

Because they already have. They can’t cast 2~4 skills at the same time (weapon skills). It would be like using HS + Death Blossom together, it doesn’t happen.

Forcing you to use one skill at a time is not a GCD. You can’t say that skills have a GCD because there’s a cast time or an animation duration. GCD is a cooldown that is placed across the board. Most skills cannot be used while using another skill. That’s how most of these games work. If you had a GCD on your weapon skills, that would mean all your weapon skills get a “greyed-out” effect for the duration of the GCD. This does not happen.

Edit: possante beat me to it, but yeah.

hharry.1967:

JonPeters.5630:

felivear.1536:

JonPeters.5630:

This is not true, skills have a cast time and after cast based on the animation they use. To ease any thief worries we are not limiting back to back skill use on purpose. This is in fact the point of initiative and why thieves feel different than other professions.

just curious, are you happy with and is it your intention for moves with no cast time to be able to be used in the middle of a move with a cast time? For instance lightning flash during churning earth and steal during cloak and dagger.

Yes this is part of the design of the combat.

Does it only work with utility skills? Because i cant cast heal and ride the lightning for example, while rtl is instant cast. Same with updraft and other instant cast skills. Maybe this only applies to casting skills that pins you in place?

No what he means is that certain skills can be used on top of others that have a duration. For instance, Shout skills can be used at any point in time regardless of actions being taken by the player or effects being placed on the player. You can be knocked down and use “For Great Justice” as a warrior.

Now that isn’t to say that certain skills don’t still need balance work around what they can and cannot do, but it was intentionally built that way.

Actually if bolas worked better it would be a more balanced fight. Alas, running sideways means you’re either “Obstructed” or “Out of Range” …

neon.4863:

BobJoeXXI.2493:

HawkMeister.4758:

Y E S !
That´s exactly what´s needed right now!

I agree that it is very needed. However, I expected them to make the core of their game stronger during release and shortly after it. Not however many months it’s been since.

Unfortunately there’s no way to go back and make the core stronger when the game was brand new, so better late than never.

Well no, its not even that.

In my opinion, their main issue is that they pushed a massive game out at the end of August with only the month of September to be sure that most of the game-breaking functional issues got fixed. They wanted to make their Halloween event huge, and it was, but that ate October.

Then the Lost Shores event in November was part of a larger system of changes cracking down on bots, freeing up gold in the TP by handing out precursors, and letting the gem system eat the gold. On top of that, they most likely collected invaluable data on how well their servers perform at maximum capacity.

At which point December rolls around and it was on to the Winter’s Day event set. If you watched the first part of the interview, you’d know that Winter’s Day is nothing to sneeze at for Anet and the Guild Wars series. But knowing Anet is based in the USA, this led straight into the holidays where I’m sure many of them have taken some much-needed time off.

Even on top of all that, they’ve been doing all kinds of balance changes, bug fixes, enhancements and probably even back-end tweaking that we don’t see during these builds. And they’re still trying to rectify their decision on player culling which encompasses multiple systems.

Long story short, they had big plans for the holiday season and they released very close to it. What we’re getting from Colin in this post is a confirmation that they’ll be dedicating a lot of their time towards strengthening their foundation before moving on to true ‘expansions’ of the game.

There will still be more content, but most of the upcoming updates (apparently all the way through March) will focus on resolving bugs/issues, adding options that were planned but weren’t able to make release, and tweaking balance of classes, worlds, and dungeons/events.

As far as I’m concerned, they could push any paid expansion content (new races, classes, weapons, skills, etc) off for as long as it takes to get the game solid. It still feels like a really big sand castle, it took a lot of time to do and it looks amazing…but the tide is rising.

maddoctor.2738:

I don’t know how much you “imrpoved” the drop rates of Champions but obviously it’s not enough

The problem is, if you have a .01% chance of finding an exotic from a normal monster, and you increase that by something outstanding, say 40x, you’ve still only got a .4% chance of finding an exotic.

Not only that, but you’re getting ONE loot. That means, if you don’t find something substantial, the opportunity cost of fighting that one monster for as long as it would have taken you to fight ‘x’ number of normal monsters is greater than the reward. Opportunity costs should always be taken into consideration. For the sake of arguement, lets just say it was 40 normals to every champion in keeping with the 40x loot table. You’d have to increase ALL loot AMOUNTS by 40x

That means even junk loot. That’s right, junk loot. If you can kill about 40 normals in the time it would take you to kill 1 champion, you can get 40 pulls from the same loot table that the champion has. Even though he’s got a better chance to drop uncommon+, you’ve only got one loot (maybe). That means, if he doesn’t give you the ‘awesome’ item you’re hoping for, you’ve foregone 39 OTHER attempts at the same table. Even with a lesser rate for top-tier loot, you’re looking at more junk, more common, and more uncommon+ loot.

Champions’ tables need a look at. They should all ALWAYS give off a silver amount equal to the relative time expected to be spent by the same expected group of people killing normal monsters.

Which means the champion’s loot rate AND silver should scale up at a slightly accellerated rate than the difficulty of the event as more people arrive. Anything less than that and you’ve just given people incentive not to play together. If it gets harder but your loot doesn’t get better, why bother? If the difficulty goes up but the loot matches it, who cares? If the return becomes greater, even slightly, than the time involved as more people show up, you’re inviting team play and cooperation.

Kyosji.8961:

How about there not being a problem with the drop rates, but a problem with magic find?

I’m not the first to notice this, not by a long shot.

It seems that for whatever reason, the higher your MF is, the LOWER your drops are. It almost seems that if your MF is over 100%, your DR is maxed out before you even start farming.

Friday I bought 20 gold worth of MF gear, and my MF went from a base of 0% to a base of around 150ish (at work so can’t give you an exact number) with luck runes that add up. With omnomberry bars that adds 30% plus any buff banners I find which adds 10%.

After 3 days of farming, I spend 12 hours with my normal gear with a 0 base and 30% from food, and 12 hours with my MF gear on and food, this is what I was tallying up:

0% base armor I use for everything:
7 rares
52 greens
71 blues

150% base MF gear:
0 rares
37 greens
32 blues

Again, this is what I tallied after 12 hours of use of EACH armor set.

There is obviously something not right here.

note added
I am farming in the same areas, so it’s not location

What you should also be keeping track of is the type of monster and the number killed over the same period.

When you equip MF gear, you lose out on a main stat. Doing that for all of your gear can significantly hamper your effectiveness at killing monsters and lower your rate of loot attempts.

That’s always been the problem with “Magic Find” … if you don’t have it innately, you have to weigh the opportunity cost of a more effective stat which would increase your rate of pulling from the loot tables against a higher chance of better items from a lower number of pulls from the same table.

Point being: Is the number of times you’re looting significantly lower with “Magic Find” gear? I would say since you’ve got a total of 130 uncommon or better items with no MF vs. a total of 69 uncommon or better with 150% MF, you’re amount of looting has significantly decreased to the point of MF being a detriment to whatever style of ‘farming’ you were using.

People talk of cliche races in a game where you can play a human…or a BIG human.

Please…

If they add a playable race, chances are it will be one of the many fleshed-out races that already exist as only NPCs. They’ve put tons of work into storyline of NPC races in their game.

Do it like DDO did the DM…early on before they went all kitten on the game.

A short voiceover reading for every PoI which can be turned off in the options.