Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Virtues are not balanced for PvE vs PvP vs WvW they are balanced for combat which is tuned for generally 1-5 combatants.

The problem is your “1-5 combatants” part. If you have 5 allies, and you’ve taken some Virtues traits, they can be very effective. If you’re fighting alone, you almost never want to burst Resolve and Courage regardless of your situation, traits, or play mode. Justice, because of its burst effect and cooldown, is the only Virtue worth bursting on your own, and its almost always better to burst Justice than not to.

Bottom line:

Resolve and Courage are not powerful enough when you don’t have allies.

JonPeters.5630:

Whethe or not they are effective in a given encounter depends on that encounter. Sometimes they are more useful as passive abilities and sometimes they are more useful as actives.

Nobody ever said they should be awesome all the time. We should all be able to agree that all skills should be situationally beneficial and not ‘spam happy’.

Some skills are more situational than others. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for weapons and utilities since you get to choose those. You don’t get to choose your Virtues. You’re stuck with them. They shouldn’t be as situational as something like Signet of Mercy or Sanctuary.

JonPeters.5630:

Finally, they are not balanced against other skills specifically, they are balanced as the class mechanic of the Guardian profession which is an effective profession in nearly all if not all content.

Which can be read as: “Its okay if the Virtues suck compared to the other skills because the Guardian, as a whole, doesn’t suck.” Not a good argument for not changing something.

They’re balanced as a mechanic outside of utilities, weapon skills, elites, and healing skills. Okay, that’s fine. In stating that, you have to look at the difference between functionality of class mechanic skills and standard “bar” skills (1-0). What exactly about the Virtues sets them apart from utility skills and makes them more than just 3 extra signets?

In that respect, look at how you’ve had to buff signets as a whole. Because of their functionality, they can be extremely situational. In the case of Healing Signet for the Warrior, you never want to activate it. At the very least you’d lose 16 seconds of 392 HP/second. You would be trading 6272 healing for 3275. This is extremely situational in the sense that you would only ever want to activate Healing Signet if you wouldn’t have survived without an immediate 3275 HP and you wouldn’t be in imminent danger over a 16 second period.

The GS is actually a very well-off weapon. As a matter of fact, all classes that can use a GS want to use a GS. Whoever was overseeing weapon skills development at Anet certainly loved the GS.

It can also be used twice.

If you turn away from your target on use, you can cause it to “not chain” and remain on “Sword Wave” for another use.

The Sword used to be a semi-ranged weapon with a 450 (iirc) range auto-attack. Sword Wave looks to be using a buggy version of its prior attack type.

JonPeters.5630:

Leonsky.3156:

JonPeters.5630:

This is absolutely working as intended. The game wide rule (minus a bug or two that we are working on) is that once a skill has given you any of the benefits, canceling or interrupting that skill puts it on full cooldown. The alternative, in this case especially, is to be able to make yourself invulnerable for 2 seconds, cancel and then recast 4 seconds later which would be very broken.

Jon

Then wouldn’t it be more beneficial to players to just get the virtues at the start of Renewed Focus instead and ride out the invulnerability duration.

It might, however that is not the only consideration when creating a skill. In this particular instance the idea of refreshing virtues is powerful and we want you as a player to commit to this instead of casting and canceling right away. It is also flavorful in that you meditate for a few seconds to renew your focus not he other way around.

Jon

I think this highlights the key issue plaguing the Guardian class right now. You guys give too much weight to the Virtues. Especially Courage and the Aegis boon.

Brigg.6189:

^You’re not wrong on a lot of those points, but it seems like you’re ignoring things like: melee weapons have higher dps, spvp encourages melee range, every class has ranged options.

Firstly, sPvP does not encourage melee range. It encourages you to fight within a confined area. Melee range is 130 units. You can stay well out of melee range while fighting and contesting points.

Secondly, melee weapons do not have higher DPS. You can’t just compare things so “black and white” like that. Each skill for each weapon has a different coefficient for each class. There are a generally higher number of high-coefficient skills on melee weapons than ranged weapons, but that doesn’t count condition damage. Also, I’d like to introduce you to a skill called “Killshot” … go look it up sometime.

Thirdly, yes every class has ranged “options” but to declare that certain classes are no better than others in melee or ranged situations would be to deny you have any knowledge of the classes within GW2. There are clear advantages to specific combat types based on your class. It’s an undeniable fact.

I can see where my leaving those points out of the argument would seem a little biased on my part, but I assure you I’m strictly objective when it comes to game balance.

Brigg.6189:

Just a couple other tips for dealing with condis:
Runes of lyssa – use as a condi clear
Zerker stance – use after a condi clear, as a supplement to deal burst damage (try to use it after your opponent has wasted a defensive cd or is already in melee range).
LB cleansing ire – use this actively and strategically as condi removal, not just dps. It’s the most reliable cleansing ire proc warrior has.

You’ve built specifically for dealing with condis at this point. The problem is that kite+condi builds do not have to build specifically to deal with any other build. They perform adequately, and can win, against builds designed to fight against them, but anything else just gets thrown to the ground and stomped on.

Brigg.6189:

I’m not saying condi doesn’t hurt, or range isn’t strong, it certainly is. So maybe one of the last things also is to respect the condi pressure. Warrior has a lot of mobility options, so sometimes when you burst unsuccessfully, waste CDs, or a condi class gets the drop on you, it’s time to reset the fight. Classes like the OP mentioned can be a huge uphill battle when you don’t have the tools to deal with them, you can disengage/los and choose to burst on your terms. That’s the advantage you can leverage against ranged condi.

No you’re absolutely not saying condi doesn’t hurt, nor are you saying range isn’t strong. What you’re suggesting is that melee has sufficient tools to play on the same level, and you’re wrong. As a melee build, regardless of class, you are automatically at a major disadvantage against a kite+condi build. You’re engaged at a further distance, your toughness is nearly worthless, your damage is mitigated, and your mitigation relies entirely upon your ability to react with specific skills which you may or may not have brought. The kite+condi build has damage application and mitigation all taken care of passively.

On top of that, you’ve got to tailor your build to fight a kite+condi build. As I’ve stated above, the kite+condi build is strong vs. any other build in the game. It’s the kind of “apex predator” build that Anet has specifically stated that they don’t want dominating their game.

This is actually the meta right now. Kite+Condi. Its not just you, many people are complaining about this type of gameplay since its nearly the lamest thing to encounter in any MMO. The only thing more annoying than the current meta is a stun-locking, speedkill meta. That existed early on with things like Pistol Whip and was further dealt with once Quickness was nerfed.

What is keeping the condi builds alive right now is the fact that they get the best of both worlds. They only need 1 offensive stat from their gear, condition damage, and the other two are normally put in defensive stats such as toughness, vitality, or healing. Combine that with the over-abundance of ranged condi application in this game and you’ve got a super-defensive kiter that damages your HP directly.

The solution to the Kite+Condi builds overpowering the meta is simple and two-fold:

• Make Toughness effect incoming condi damage
• Cap +/- Boon/Condi duration increases at the highest single increase

Stacking effect durations is currently way too powerful and because condi-builds are highly defensive, non-condi-built defenses should counteract them.

And before anyone asks, yes distance from a target is an innately defensive state. Range is defense. The only advantage you can gain from range is defense:

1. If your range is greater, you cannot be engaged at the greatest distance of the fight
2. If you have the same range, there is no distance that grants an upper hand
3. If your range is lesser, you cannot engage at the greatest distance of the fight

At points 1 and 3, there is no offensive advantage. Only one party is gaining a defensive advantage by having the ability to engage without counterattack.

Scoobaniec.9561:

^Focus was 9%. And burst..guess what? Ppl still sits at maxed adrenaline in pve.

Only if they’re nubs.

You’d be completely gimping yourself in PvE if you didn’t have a Hammer on your warrior. There’s too much utility in that one weapon to ignore regardless of your build.

And don’t say “well speed runs blah blah blah” … we all know how speed runs work. You just exploit the hell out of parts of the dungeon which Anet has refused to admit are available for exploiting.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Jae.5138:

did he say mace F1 sucks?

i think his post just gave me cancer

devs please ignore this thread before you meet the same fate

Read it again. I do rebember that i was the olny one using mace mh and everyone around was tellking me how it sux before the buff. Once buff come to +50% dmg and stun upped to 3s, everyone started to use it and in many cases abuse. Thats why its getting a new animation

No the reason why the mace’s burst wasn’t used is a little more complicated:

• Quickness was x2 speed
• Discipline didn’t reduce burst cooldown
• Heightened Focus was a 10 point trait
• Burst skills didn’t clear conditions
• People didn’t overplay Mesmer yet (they have way too many jukes for mace/GS build)

All of this changed. Frenzy is nearly useless now and Heightened Focus, the trait which made HB-built wars hang on to their adrenaline, was pushed to an unattainable Grandmaster level with the same build. Now you won’t gain as much of a benefit from hanging on to your adrenaline and you need a longer period of time to get a full HB off.

Enter the 10 point UF and mace “F1”.

That’s really all it’s used for these days. After December 10th it will have to be re-built again.

Olba.5376:

Though I have to say, I don’t really see what the big deal here is. Even if Generosity procs after Cleansing Ire, it’s still going to be able to do what Cleansing Ire can’t: getting rid of conditions without bursting.

It really depends on the hierarchy of Generosity and CI.

If Generosity procs deliver the shortest condi or the weakest condi applied to you, you would want CI to proc first. Otherwise you’d always want Generosity to have the full gambit of your current condis to choose from before clearing them to get the most devastating effect.

atonyeson.2864:

Fairly sure I read that nearly all concepts of fair from anet is based off of pvp. Not wvw or pve.

WvW = PvP+PvE

Get it right. There is PvP in WvW….just not “build this, not that” mode. Which is why the amount of sPvP that goes on right now pales in comparison to WvW.

They’ve split up skills amongst all three modes as well and they definitely have said that they care about WvW balance.

Josh Davis.6015:

We’ll be reducing the maximum amount of immobilize stacks in the near future.

/goesbacktolurkingWvWforums

Called this from patch day one.

Seriously, you guys didn’t see a problem with immo-stacking?

This is the issue with GW2 balance right now. To quote Office Space: "Thumbs up their [kitten]s. "

…you automatically put 20 points in your class’ second trait line without thinking

AttackAttack.8917:

Right…he was complaining about being stunned for 5 minutes. That is NOT going to change

Oh it already has. The sigils and duration bonuses to stun were rounding up to full seconds. They fixed that in October.

I’ve had to say this multiple times to multiple thieves. Stealth is not damage immunity.

If someone attacks in your area, even if they don’t have a target, and you’re in the way, you’ll get hit. Not just AoE. Anything. Personally, I love using Eviscerate and jumping into the refuge to down the thief sitting in it. I don’t have him targeted, but he’s still there and it still hits him.

As for stomping, if they start casting it and you go stealth but you don’t move far enough away, yeah you get stomped.

Just remember:
Stealth != Immune

BlackDevil.9268:

Nerf that and we’re the 2nd elementalists/rangers. Might take a look a the necro and warrior forum, much more to QQ there (:

Ahwell, just a small ’’hint’’ for those who do care, watch the picture (;

You mean you’d be in-line with other classes? No way! … Can’t have that now can we?

Necros are terrible man. I’m honestly not sure how you’re losing to them. Post a vid of a hard necro fight and I can give you some tips on how to beat them. That is, if you actually lose to necros and you’re not just blowing smoke.

As for the warriors, they’re nerfing the wrong thing. Healing Signet needs to come down and they’re hitting hammer damage. We’ll see what comes of it, but I’m pretty sure it’s either going to lead to more nerfs or beefing everyone else’s access to passive regen.

Watching your vids, excluding your multiple fights with leveled-up players, its clear that if you didn’t spawn a clone and ‘wink out’ on every dodge roll you’d lose.

After all is said and done though, shouldn’t you lose to 3 players at once? … That’s the question you should be asking yourself.

hihey.1075:

I lol’ed so hard at this.

Spoken like someone who’s never actually played a war. Oh wait, I just saw your sig.

How’s that Blurred Frenzy treatin’ ya?

Carnagh.1687:

> The sword is unable to stack bleeds as effectively as thieves and rangers and feels more like a bonus effect rather than a feature.

I thought it a good write-up in general, but the point about bleed stacking for a Warriors I felt was just pulled out of the air. I play war/thief/ranger, and I think the bleed stacking on the Warrior might be the best of the 3 of them. The sword is not shabby applying bleeds, trait for bleed chance on crit, trait for +50% duration of bleeds, both in a branch you want for bleeds…. that’s just as a base before you get serious about stacking bleeds.

Warriors don’t really need to pay attention to bleeds because they have so much up front damage dealing ability. It is an after-thought for many Warriors but that’s nothing to do with the mechanics or swords.

The thing you’re forgetting is that rangers’ and thieves’ condi builds are highly ranged. Using the sword to apply bleed means you’re going to have to be in melee range, not something that happens a whole lot in PvP. Its much easier to keep your condis up when you have 900-1200 range on your target.

If you’re talking PvE, yeah the sword rocks bleeds like a mother from auto-attack and burst.

Sunshine.5014:

Xsorus.2507:

People don’t understand why Bunkers Exist..

Bunker’s Exist because you have specs in this game that can instantly… and i mean that…INSTANTLY kill you.

100 to 0 in 1 second…..

If you’d not one of those classes that can do that, You go Bunker.. its really that simple.

QFT. The old d/d Ele emerged because at that time none of the other Ele spec could handle a few hits without dying. The choice was simple, spec 100% into defense, or die.

As long as there are specs/classes that can instantly kill you, there will still be bunkers.

No the old D/D ele emerged because it was simply a matter of time before people put 2 and 2 together without getting World of Warcraft.

They realized you should swap attunements often: check.
They figured out bunkers can be built from any class: check.
They learned that mobility is key to surviving fights: check.

All of that had already been established by Anet. They’ve built this game as such. People just got the heads out of their kittens and realized how to properly build a class. Pre-conceived notions of GW2 from other MMOs were eventually broken. The “DDele” (pronounced “Double Deli” … yeah I just made that up, so what? ) God-class was born. Then nerfed. Then rivers of tears. Still going on to this day, actually.

Josh Davis.6015:

It’s definitely a possibility. We can try to nudge the meta in certain directions with changes, but ultimately it comes down on the players to establish it.

A meta isn’t established. Rules are established, gameplay is established, abilities and skills are established, the meta is found by the players who use the abilities given. If everyone used guards for spike damage just because they wanted to, someone would come in with a thief and stomp their idea of spike to the ground with one backstab. Then they’d all be looking to thieves.

That’s why it isn’t always easy to find OP skills immediately. If the players haven’t found those builds, they’re not being used. Its all about who uses what and shows people where the tools are available, and that’s only a matter of time and open-mindedness. The former being an undeniable force of progress.

Josh Davis.6015:

Guards, for example, have less access to condition removal than they did in the previous ‘bunker meta’ because of the fix to Pure of Voice. That said, with the proposed changes in the Dec 10th patch, I think we may see even more teams opt for bunker support outside of guardian. Not because guardian is sub-optimal, but because other professions will be able to fill that roll with varying flavor. (Engineer might be able to debunk points easier than other bunkers, but provides little AoE stability. Engineer support is seeing a buff so we could see some interesting things there as well…)

Teams will opt for what works best. If they’re looking for a bunker, and the engi out-performs the guard, they’ll take engis. It’s not hard. It’s not rocket science. It’s the “path of least resistance” meets the “best bang for your buck” scenario. You can only take so many players with you and you only need so many roles. You’re going to go with the best available class for the role. On top of that, players will always build the easiest ‘win button’ setup they can. You can always count on those two things surfacing eventually.

Josh Davis.6015:

Also, S/D thief is taking a hit, which was the main build keeping mesmer and elementalist out of the meta for a long time. It’s hard to predict, but I’d like to personally see a more power-orientated meta surface.

You won’t see that until Mesmer clones stop applying conditions with auto-attacks. Sorry but ranged condi-bunkers are just too strong. Power builds can’t compete.

Azrayl.4936:

I wish 100b didn’t require extra set-up outside of it’s weapon set to use. It’s sad it requires a utility slot or switching from another weapon to use(immobilizing from bola’s or pin down, or stunning from hammer, etc.) Without the extra set-up prior 100b, it isn’t reliable at all. Of course a useless F1 ability doesn’t help either, I agree.

I’d like to see Anet make it so that 100b either has an immobilize effect or that it causes the warrior to evade all attacks while channeling. That is if they are dead set on never making it so you can move while channeling.

Its about time they let the warrior move with that attack.

Rarnark.5623:

Oh well. I guess I can accept the war nerfs and shelf my beloved hammer. I started practicing other professions more diligently after I saw the patch preview and let me tell ya.

I think it’s about to get REALLY ENGINEER UP IN THIS META!

Nah engis got hit too. Only class that hasn’t been significantly effected with its OP is Mesmer. Go roll mes, you won’t regret it.

jmatb.6307:

Greatsword + Longbow + Throw Bolas

You’re welcome

I don’t think you PvP much. Otherwise you’d realize that, besides being easily dodged, Throw Bolas is “Obstructed” or “Out of Range” about 50% of the time its used. That skill is a POS.

JonathanSharp.7094:

The idea we’re operating under:

If you want AOE CC, bring a hammer. If you want burst or DPS, bring an axe or a greatsword.

Then you might want to take a look at GS again. Just sayin’. Its only use is Rush to run away (because it never lands), Whirlwind Attack for an extra dodge, and Hundred Blades on bosses in PvE that don’t immediately turn around and faceroll you.

I think its about time that wars be given the ability to move while casting HB.

Hell mesmers get to evade while using Blurred Frenzy. That DPS is even greater since its 8 hits of a 2.4 coefficient over 2 seconds. That also cleaves….

Whatever you choose, 20 points in Dueling. Rock the perma-vigoring, dodge-cloning, condi-spamming build before it gets nerfed to the ground!

Sorry guys, I didn’t really mean you should stop talking.

Go ahead, talk this build up. Hopefully it will open some eyes at the studio in Seattle!

fadeaway.2807:

Greatsword clones : 3 x tick from range is good for applying bleed on crit proc.

Should be removed. Just sayin.

Clones shouldn’t apply full conditions.

Me Games Ma.8426:

Zen.4678:

It’s not the only class. I watched a thief stealth on his fall damage reduction trait while having revealed (unless it ended right before his impact which is unlikely as he was targeted and I didn’t see it go down). And no, it does not need “fixed.” Its duration does not stack with other stealth skills.

Sorry I believe you just didn’t notice that it has ended short time before.
Do you have a proofe for the thief thing? This is the proof for my post.

I just tryed out the falling thief thing and I was Immune to stealth!

Oh you caught the misinformation going out about how non-OP the Mesmer is. Thank you, I was going to have to post those screens myself (which don’t exist yet…so I’d have to go make them :p)

Zen.4678:

Me Games Ma.8426:

Menaka.5092:

Bacon.4918:

Make the reveal debuff apply to mesmers already!

Try to play a mesmer before posting on the forums, maybe you’ll notice that we already get the revealed debuff, and in many silly ways (bouncing attacks for example)

How would you react when I told you that the most Mesmer players go in stealth whiteout even knowing that they had the debuff? The Mesmer IS the only class that has a stealth skill that ignores revealed debuff. It’s just a single spell but I also think that they should fix this problem.

When a Mesmer uses decoy he’ll always be hidden even if he got the revealed debuff!

~ Me Games Ma

It’s not the only class. I watched a thief stealth on his fall damage reduction trait while having revealed (unless it ended right before his impact which is unlikely as he was targeted and I didn’t see it go down). And no, it does not need “fixed.” Its duration does not stack with other stealth skills.

Regardless of durations stacking, play by the rules. If you’re revealed, you shouldn’t be able to stealth. <— Period.

No I would be all for this. One thing must change though:

Cooldowns on skills that summon illusions can only start after the illusion’s death.

Regardless of this topic, that must change. If that change does come, however, sure have whatever illusions you want up.

Crapgame.6519:

CptAurellian.9537:

ODB.6891:

snip

Quite funny how you interpreted that post. In fact, I don’t give a **** about PvP or WvW, so I’m talking purely from a PvE perspective. And to be honest, I also don’t care for all those guards who run around with the AH crutch. What would be the effect of putting such a trait into 30 zeal? Those who have the slightest idea of what is good or bad in terms of builds will still avoid it and run real DPS builds. Those who want survivability, whether it may be useless or not, will still run AH, since it has more synergies than your trait could ever give. And last but not least, such a 30 zeal build would do nothing better than the existing builds. Compared to AH, it would either give up any support or have no damage/survivability advantage, and compared to DPS builds, it can only give up support without gaining any meaningful damage.

Do you really need survivability in PvE? I mean how hard is it to stack AR, stop, drop, and roll? There are no damage meters in this game let alone inspect, gear score, or anything else that limits you from doing anything and everything.

More importantly, we’re ALL talking about various PvP balance. Balance between classes in PvP is the only balance that matters. That’s why people want the skills split up, so the PvErs shut the f up about changes that need to happen.

PvE is easy and all classes perform just fine. If you’ve got a server full of people who want to exclude you because of your class, time to find another server. Nothing Anet can do will change that.

bri.2359:

Oh, and he finally admitted that the ranger pet AI is so borked due to technical issues that Anet cannot fix it.

So, whatever problems you might think plague guardians, they are small potatoes compared to the ranger’s class mechanic not working properly and will never be fixed.

So instead of fixing problems that can be fixed, you’d rather JP spend his time talking about stuff that can’t be fixed? What are you insane? That’s a complete waste of time. Stop wasting their time with foolish ranger complaints.

And WTF is with people going to all other class sub-forums and complaining about the ranger?

Seriously, rangers have a lot of decent builds and they’ve gotten a whole lot of attention in the past 6 months.

They’re played by the whiny brats of GW2. No matter how much changes or improves for rangers, these guys still whine about everything they have…and then take it to another sub-forum and whine some more.

Not only are they nearly ignoring guards, they’re buffing mesmers. The one class in the game that still has an OP mechanic nobody from Anet has mentioned. At least with the thief they’re trying to make changes to insta-ports and perma-stealth with uber benefits.

Clone on dodge, perma-vigor, and full condi applications from clones, all with only 20 points in Dueling line, hasn’t even been mentioned once.

Edit:

And before anyone gets any ideas, I play almost exclusively warrior. I’ve got engi and necro alts and have played with all classes at 80, but I’m not advocating for/against anything just because I main it. I’m looking objectively here.

BlackDevil.9268:

Traits:
Don’t think theres much to explain on this part besides a few things:
1. Your dps is really high due: domination III, dueling II+X and 15 minor trait dueling and 25 minor trait chaos.
2. Your survivability gets boosted a lot with PU (Grandmaster trait chaos), Chaos III, Dueling X and Inspiration IV.

Why is dueling X good for offensive, aswell as defensive?
Offensive: Basicly because clones do crits which apply bleeding. This can add up, like i said before, with 3 greatsword clones to 10 stacks easily.
Defensive: Since you’ll have constant vigor you’ll be able to dodge a lot, which gives you an upkeep of 3 illusions constantly. This makes it harder for the enemy to spot who’s the real player and also gives you the ability to easily gain the full F4 shatter to stomp enemies or tank enemies till one of your stealths is back up so you can escape much easier.

Its really about time to nerf this. Deceptive Evasion + Critical Infusion + Sharper Images = OP clones and perma-vigor. No PvP build is without 20 in Dueling for that exact reason.

End of discussion.

Wryog.5073:

Another thread about this…
The whole cooldown nerf was a complete fail. The devs lied when they said that it would count blinds/dodges/blocks as hits. I think most of us saw it coming though. Everyone already knew that when your attack gets blocked/dodged while in stealth you stay in stealth.
Fix that stupid bug and you get 2 mechanics fixed at the cost of 1.

The problem is, its not a bug. Its working as they’ve intended.

Their intentions are wrong.

They need to change.

These balance discussions are starting to sound more and more dev-biased every time they come about.

cheshirefox.7026:

Mithfir.1038:

Dont believe I was making reference to lack of mobility but rather lack of reliability but okay thanks for your uneducated rebuttal.

thanks for snidely insulting me over something that wasn’t a rebuttal to anything you said

Orly? lets read:

cheshirefox.7026:

ahahahahah rtl and elementalist mobility is fine
what a complete joke..

Hmm. Gonna have to agree with Mith on this one. Seems like an “uneducated rebuttal” to me too. Either that or a drunken post…

Fishbait.6723:

Why on earth would you nerf/ruin Ele Vigor accessibility of which they need it so much to survive, due to extremely low hp & armour, yet leave Mesmer which can stealth, lower blink etc & guardian which gets free auto blocks & possibly in the future lower theirs?

Free auto blocks? Go play a guard and let me know how often you “block” and how often it strategically benefits you. I have the answer for you, but I feel the need to ask you to educate yourself before you just assume.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Treborlavok.3504:

just like the guardians 5 trait for vigor on crit… its ok for them to have a 10 second single condition cure at adept…?

The Guardian and Mesmer vigor traits are something that were on the table and will be on the table for change in the future. We don’t like those traits being that easily accessible. While they haven’t yet been changed as long as our thoughts don’t change internally they are part of the vigor rework we want to do.

You should be mindful of what lines each trait is in as well as the benefits of dodge rolling outside of the evade to each class.

The guard is a low-mobility mostly melee fighter which is balanced around getting powerful benefits by standing in a designated area (symbol). His vigor trait is down the vitality/healing line which requires that he crit in order to receive the boon. He gains a small heal (129 HP) at the end of a dodge roll 15 points into the line.

The Mesmer, unlike any other ‘on-crit vigor’ traits, has his in the precision line. He also has a major trait that creates a clone on dodge roll. A clone is only one of three illusions allowed up at a time. So it’s one third of his class mechanic refreshed on every dodge. They can also be used as a body block, any of the four shatter skills, and apply full conditions based on traits and weapon selection.

Dodging 100% more often powerful, but synergizing vigor on crit with the crit line and giving a class 1/3 of its class ability on every dodge is extremely powerful.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Jon will you ever address the major problems with condition damage? You keep making changes to condition damage specs but the underlying problems are still present.

Problems:
Condition damage can be maxed easily while keeping 2 of the 3 defensive stats high.

No other build can spike this hard in one direction while remaining effective. The problem is that there are two different types of DPS. Direct and condi. Spiking direct DPS requires all three stats of your gear. Power, Precision, and Critical Damage. Taking this route leaves you extremely vulnerable. Spiking condi damage, however, requires all of one stat: condition damage. That’s it. That leaves the other two stats open for vitality and toughness; defensive effectiveness.

Condition damage must be inherently weak since it is most effectively used as a defensive build. You can’t have people building spike condis of 1k DPS burn or This leads to problem 2:

Might equally adds condition damage and power.

There is absolutely no reason why your condition damage should benefit from boons. Players are not able to gain boons that hinder conditions, why should they help? Protection doesn’t decrease condi damage, Stability only stops Fear because it is considered both a condi and a cc effect, and before you say it, Regeneration is not a condi-counter boon. Its simply healing. There is currently an imbalance between the two systems.

Ranged and Melee condition application.

You’ve obviously seen it fit to decrease ranged damage in comparison to melee damage since being at a distance is undeniably defensive and puts you at a much lower risk. However, you haven’t seemed to be able to translate that to condition application. In fact, most skills that apply conditions have a good amount of distance on them.

The fact is that conditions are better applied from a distance. You have an increased chance to force attacks to miss at a distance, you are able to stay out of ground-targeted and PBAoE attacks, and you have the ability to control your target (cripple, chill, immobilize, blind, confusion, poison, torment) without the requirement of closing the distance first.

In this light, conditions applied at a distance should have their durations reduced when compared to conditions that require a target to be face-to-face.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Is there any progress being made on condition caps?

By which do you mean? 25 stacks of intensity? No that’s here to stay. Bleeding is even too powerful at 25 stacks from a condi build. You can get 3k DPS out of 25 stacks easy. That’s on top of the damage you’re doing with the skills used to deliver the conditions.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Is there any progress being made on the gear scaling discrepancy between condition gear and bezerker gear? (5% vs 17% damage gains on ascended alone)

You mean the difference between zerker requiring all 3 gear stats and condis requiring only condi damage? As stated above, that’s what’s making condi builds OP right now.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Is there any progress being made on the DPS discrepancy between condition damage and direct damage (Specifically in PvE where condition damage is vastly inferior)?

Condi DPS is not inferior in PvE, stacking multiple condi classes in PvE is what is inferior. There’s a huge difference.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Is there any progress being made on the discrimination against condition specs in PvE? (downed PvE enemies dropping conditions, many many bosses cleansing conditions repeatedly, enemies being completely immune to conditions, structures being immune to conditions, etc)

1. Structures are immune to critical hits as well…which hurts zerks a lot
2. What bosses repeatedly cleanse conditions? … Be specific
3. Enemies don’t get “downed” in PvE, they die
4. Which enemies, specifically, are immune to conditions that are not immune to direct damage as well?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

These are are major problems with condition damage that seem to be completely ignored in these balance patches even though they have much much more effect on balance than the changes you are making.

I have a feeling you’re speaking from a purely PvE standpoint. Most of the players who are calling for “balance” changes, specifically the ones listed and discussed in this thread, are speaking from a sPvP and WvW perspective.

JonPeters.5630:

Ok some more incoming updates

THIEF

• No longer swapping Flanking Strikes and Trickster because we felt it was taking away more build diversity than it was creating. We will revisit what to do with Trickster in the future.

NECROMANCER

• Weakening Shroud. This trait now does a smaller version of Enfeebling Blood when entering Death Shroud. Bleeding (1 stack only; 6 seconds [10s with full condition duration spec]). Weakness (2s [3s with full condition duration spec]). No ICD.

Necro one in particular I would love some discussion on I’ll go post in the sub forums for each of these professions to allow some discussion on pros/cons.

Thanks,

Jon

I wish someone would “love” to go into detail about the most neglected, unchanged class in GW2 since release. The Guardian.

Pyroatheist.9031:

The scepter autoattack SHOULD have a unique aspect that the clones can inherit.

The scepter autoattack SHOULD NOT have a condition.

Conditions on autoattacks are bad. They produce spammy gameplay that is only countered by spammy condition cleanses. It’s not fun, it’s not skillful, and it shouldn’t exist. There are already more than enough autoattacks (including Mesmer staff) that have conditions. Scepter doesn’t need to join the already too long list.

Not to mention that clones apply them as they spam auto attack, and bleed on crit if you have it.

Yep.

Clones apply FULL conditions.

They saw fit to reduce clone damage to nil, but for some reason clones applying conditions just like a player would is okay.

Kirito.8796:

Er, where are people getting the notion that guardians base hp is 13k~.. its 10.8k

Low base HP is indeed 10.8k

Jon, I think its about time to discuss the disparity between High/Low HP vs. High/Low Armor. The 291 effective point spread between armor does not justify the 756 difference in effective vitality.

Heavy Armor: 1211
Light Armor: 920
Difference: 291 Toughness

High HP: 9212
Low HP: 1645
Difference: 756 Vitality

Explain yourselves.

I would say that the armor difference needs to be spread out and the HP difference needs to be brought in. My suggestion for doing so would be to reduce the total base armor of light/medium and increase the base HP of low/mid. Across the board.

This would beef the effective stat points of the guard without bringing him out of his designated ‘zone’ as well as make light and medium classes more susceptible to direct damage while increasing their ‘buffer’ zone.

Oghier.7419:

For a class-balance discussion in an MMO forum, this is pretty darned civilized

That’s because Blizzard still exists. If they ever go under, the scum of the gaming universe would rampage out to every other known forum with any kind of popularity.

Ohoni.6057:

The trait you should move up is Uncatchable. That’s a very powerful trait that most thieves take because they’re a dodge-heavy class who benefits most from targets taking damage while they can stealth or move. Definitely worth a Master tier and an important change to keep Trickster from being overshadowed.

Uncatchable is not that great, because the radius is fairly small and bleed caps still have not been fixed. Adding new bleeds is often not useful when the enemy is hovering around 24-25 stacks already. If they moved Uncatchable up the tree it would need a solid buff of some kind, at the very least a radius and duration buff.

If you’ve reached the bleed cap as one player you’re doing 1k DPS base with no extra might or condi damage. I don’t think you realize that caltrops also cripples, which is the more important part. That’s why its called “Uncatchable” and not something related to bleeding.

Auesis.7301:

JonPeters.5630:

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft
I’ve seen a lot of talk about this as well, and discussing this already this morning the current vigor is a bit too high, but we may have overdone the reduction. I was thinking about going back to 5s or 6s on Vigorous Recovery, and going back to 10s or 12s on Bountiful Theft.

Could you please elaborate on why Thief, one of the flimsiest, if not the flimsiest class can’t have access to high Vigor uptime, but Vigorous Precision and Critical Infusion can grant basically permanent Vigor for 5 trait points for 2 other classes? Elementalist a little more understandable with 20 points (as of next patch) for Renewing Stamina, but that’s still 20 points opposed to 30 for the 2 Thief traits?

Critical Infusion? Yes, it grants mes perma-vigor and has to be changed.

Vigorous Precision? No. It’s not down the crit line for guards. Its the same as Renewing Stamina for ele. It is placed in a line that has no increase in critical chance. Which means it requires invested points elsewhere to gain the benefit reliably.

Critical Infusion is also one of the two reasons why every single mesmer drops 20 points down the Dueling line. The other reason is Deceptive Invasion (dodge roll creates a clone) has no ICD.

deathTouch.9706:

Hammer builds will become less popular and be centered around 0/20/20/0/30 (this one much better imo, especially if you slot EP to compensate for losing defy pain) or 0/20/30/0/20 depending on which one you need for your group, balanced or pure survivability.

Players were not taking GM traits in the GM line on Defense. They were taking Cleansing Ire and Merciless Hammer. If you go 20 points in Defense, you’re going to lose one of those two.

JonPeters.5630:

Initiative changes
We believe this is one of the most controversial but important changes this patch. The important thing to understand is that we have been and will playtest this a lot more before we push this change. The default rate of initiative regeneration was simply to low and was causing players to either take traits to suppliment it, or to have their effectiveness suffer. This is something that has to change. What these changes intend to do is to increase the power of every single thief build that is not running these traits, and to ever so slightly reduce the maximum amount of initiative you can have per second if you min/max those traits. I know its easy to theorycraft what is going to happen here and there is a lot of danger in that. It is hard to get a sense of this change without playing it, and believe me if I could I would let everyone test a change of this magnitude and gather some more empirical and data driven feedback, but currently our resources are limited, but we still believe that this is a change whose time has come. We will monitor it very carefully when we do release it to make sure it is working as intended.

Most thief-only players have very little understanding of how combat feels with weapon cooldowns. I wouldn’t expect a lot of them to react appropriately until actually playing with the increased initiative regen.

You’re also getting a lot of stealth-stacking players complaining about the trait working the way you’ve originally intended while totally overlooking this change

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone.

In other words: Play by the rules and be properly countered by players who have some skill. This is important. Thieves currently have many, many skills that can nullify control without actually breaking it. Thief-only players don’t quite understand that those skills have longer cooldowns because they create much-needed openings for specific attacks that would otherwise be useless.

JonPeters.5630:

Infusion of Shadow
For basic use this trait’s functionality is not going to change. By many players it was being used to grant some initiative when going into stealth. However there were some abusive builds that were using this to maintain very long stealth uptime without having to use their utility skills. The problem with this is that it lets them recharge those skills while in stealth, which takes away the risk associated with using them. We are ok with thieves blowing their cooldowns to have longer stealth, and we are ok with theives bouncing in and out of stealth, but we were not ok with thieves maintaining long duration stealth through abusing a single trait.

More “play by the rules”, “stop abusing OP”, “get some skill” changes. Good. Can we get some more of that for the mesmer now?

JonPeters.5630:

Flanking Strikes
The main motivation was that we really wanted to move Trickster to adept tier to encourge use of those utilities

The trait you should move up is Uncatchable. That’s a very powerful trait that most thieves take because they’re a dodge-heavy class who benefits most from targets taking damage while they can stealth or move. Definitely worth a Master tier and an important change to keep Trickster from being overshadowed.

JonPeters.5630:

Vigorous Recovery & Bountiful Theft
I was thinking about going back to 5s or 6s on Vigorous Recovery

Agreed that perma-booning is an issue in general in this game (see Mesmer Duelist line), but be careful about boon duration on Vigorous Recovery. The trait is down the line that gives boon duration and the thief has a choice of two 15s cooldown healing skills.

TheGuy.3568:

Sigh..why bother? Fact is the class was OP (not really) then UP then OP. Players came in like waves and anyone who dare say this class had even one OP trait was branded an traitor and flamed.

The way I see it everything I asked for months ago got done and they went overboard with the hammer nerfs, but who knows how that will pan out. FoTM players will move on to the next top their class if this one still isn’t at that level. What disappoints me the most is that we all know in another class forum conversation will erupt over what is OP and what is not resulting in the same wasted arguments we saw here.

I will be glad to dust off my Lyssa warrior (which I hung up due to feeling too strong), however I feel the community that used to be the best has gone to kitten in this length of time. So many good warrior defended stun lock builds and Ham/Bow as being skill based vs OP traits and mechanics. As much finger pointing goes to the FoTM the same should go to the players who were active and positive members of the community who stayed quiet or simply jumped on the band wagon.

I do not know what irks me more of the two. While some may want to dance on the grave that might be the warrior profession I am honestly not feeling “The told you so!” and feel more like the damage has been done. What used to be the hardest working class has turned into the the cheesiest most disgusting pool of bad players I have ever seen. So while I agree with many of the nerfs coming to this class I feel the opportunity to rework warrior into something good and unique has been lost.

Definitely don’t fall into that category. I never rebuilt and I called for nerfs since day one (day one of seeing the 10/30/30 cheese build). My warrior will always be my main and I will always call OP on any class regardless. I have no bias when it comes to balance and neither should any of you.

I saw the quickness nerf coming since pre-launch. People have to open their eyes. Class-blinders hurt truthful and meaningful conversation.

Silentstorm.7531:

Only things Guardians lack is consistant damage to keep up with condition builds. Or a proper way to combat them. Everything else people say is really over reacting to have to try hard or show some skill.

They lack damage to keep up with condition builds because:

• They can’t keep targets in melee range
• They lack multiple conditions to apply during combat
• They have low DPS in general
• They have to stay in symbols in order to get vital boons
• They have very little available regen from passive traits
• They have to sacrifice much utility to remove conditions
• They have to rely on a lot of active healing to make up for lower HP levels

Every single bullet point made there could be fixed by simply giving the guard more damage, and all of that has been said. So yeah, you’ve just summed it up in a very over-simplified way and then said people are over-reacting. They’re not; they’re being more complex than your “more dmg pl0x” post.

I don’t think Anet just wants to blanket-increase guard damage to the point where all of those crippling weaknesses are balanced. I could be wrong though.

Jon:

• Increase Virtue of Resolve’s Passive
• Combine Writ of Exaltation and Writ of Presence
• Make Shield of Judgment provide Protection AND Regeneration
• Make Shield of Absorption destroy projectiles inside the dome
• Reduce both shield skill cooldowns by 5 seconds

Are these things really too much to ask?

The guardian’s support role is strong right now, but he cannot perform a ‘tank’ role as well as you would have players believe. There’s a difference. Tanking is always support, but support is not always tanking.

Peow peow.2189:

Lets all reroll on DECEMBER 10th 2013 as a celebration for arenanet winning in the thief vs arenanet battle.

Gaurdian or Engineer is looking fun with the new changes

This is the Thief’s version of April Fools day!

Re-roll to guard/war/mes….APRIL FOOLS!! Just log on the forums to QQ about your uberstealth class and continue to play it.

People have been saying the warrior needs a nerf for months. To be surprised that it’s getting nerfed, you’d have to have been under a rock….or work at Anet

BTW, if they don’t nerf perma-vigor mesmers, those will be the next FotM class.