Guild Wars 2

YourOwnFear.2743:

I would say like thieves but mesmers are pretty slow and easy to catch if you don’t get juked by a clone. Anet wants thieves to be the most mobile though so putting us on par with them isn’t going to happen. We already have great mobility as it is with the right weapon loadout. This would just put it over the top.

The only problem with mesmers is their ability to throw out clones and have them apply conditions to you without putting them in combat.

Make conditions you apply keep you in combat for the duration of the condition, then you’ll see mesmers QQ about a stealth nerf to movement speed :p

VOLKON.1290:

Hickeroar.9734:

VOLKON.1290:

Pavel.8531:

Sure, data before panic. We don’t have any reasons to fear the Anet WvW balancing team, right? Right? RIGHT? Look what great job they did with the ACs.

I have been. Been playing extensively with ACs since. We’ve adjusted tactics to account for stronger ACs. Apparently not everyone has figured that out yet though unfortunately.

Player tactics have been easy to change. What’s sucked is the fact that they murder siege so fast. After getting used to the damage increase against players, I don’t mind it.

… Which is why I’ve been seeing a lot more flash built trebs taking out the ACs before the rams get placed.

The only reason they need to take out ACs before putting rams on a gate is b/c the ACs are anti-siege kings due to Anet’s fumble on the April patch. They’re patching on the 14th and the incoming fix to ACs will make your points invalid. Once they make ACs unable to damage (or severely reduce damage to) the siege, your “strategy” of tedium anti-anti-siege flash trebs will return to the level it was prior to the AC damage buff.

Also, once you can effectively siege a keep without being shut down by a few 30-supply, indirect, overpowered, spasm cannons people will stop complaining. The angst is correctly directed at OP ACs. Devs have stated it whether you like it or not. They made a mistake, now let them fix it.

Hickeroar.9734:

I feel a disturbance in the force… O_o

That feeling is the death of yet another bandwagon server. RIP Dragonbandwagon.

Dawdler.8521:

Maybe more people should rethink their glasscannons as well and actually wear WvW armour.

You do know that PVT armor is available outside of WvW and Zerker/Cleric/Carrion/etc armor is available in WvW…right?

I mean, you weren’t really under the impression that Soldier’s stats only came from WvW were you?

Straegen.2938:

jesterscript.7493:

Every time I spend the 30 minutes necessary to kill one of these super “skilled” thieves in WvW they always come back with 8 – 20 other people as back up.

Basically doing their “job”. Many thieves build to harass and tie up players keeping them distracted. If one thief keeps a half dozen players running around chasing their shadow, that is helping the server overall and generally does require skill.

Firstly, that’s not even his point.

Secondly, if hitting ‘5’ every 3 seconds without attacking anything else is what many thieves would consider ‘skill’ then no wonder the forum trolls are upset with the nerfs to the class.

No, staying stealthed in GW2 does not take skill. Sorry. Especially not when you can get it from a target that doesn’t fight back (wall).

Well did you guys REALLY think they were going to revert the change to revealed and not put something else in place? How much more obvious did it have to be after the new AC cart skill add?

They’re going to make AoEs that reveal stealthed players. That’s it. That’s how they’re fixing the stealth problem. End of discussion.

Perma-swift and 1550 RtL that isn’t effected by slows on a 15s cooldown. As long as you knew how to push more than one button at a time, you could get away from anyone.

The builds that didn’t get nerfed this time around DO work, they’re just not OP like the dd bunker ele. Now that it’s all but lost the OP, assuming you ran one, you’ve got to learn how to not faceroll your keyboard ftw.

Its kinda like how mesmers QQ’d about needing Line of Sight to land their clone attacks and being able to be blinded/dodged/blocked/etc. Learn how to play by the same rules everyone else does, or find the next FotM OP build in class “x”. Either way, the problem is the player needing OP to win.

Bottom line is, ele is ‘jack of all trades’ class in this game. He was king of mobility, and now he’s not.

Also, the bug fix from 1550 to 1200 was delicious news.

Leo G.4501:

If they implemented a better use for adrenaline, be it healing, cleansing, defending or supporting, that’d be plenty of reason to use Arcing Slice or any Burst skill. It might not be as good as Earth Shaker or Flurry for what they do, but those weapons also don’t have Whirlwind/Rush, Hundred Blades and the cosmetic looks of GS…

…but if they want to buff the attack too, I’d almost think they should make the other weapons’ bursts even better to compensate.

That’s assuming you gain the “new” benefit on top of the skill you already have. More than likely any additional adrenaline usage will not be simply tacked on to the ‘F1’ key. Say they do tack on an effect to adrenaline skills though. Then all other skills will get it as well; meaning Arcing Slice would still be the worst burst skill in the game. The issue is not solved.

They’ve been saying they wanted to change it but haven’t even hinted at details.

We should be so lucky that they change it back to a leap with distance based on adrenaline level.

DevonCarver.5370:

I’d like to shed some light on our thinking with this AC change as well as tell you all what we are doing right now to balance it.

Firstly, when siege weapons were originally created, they had the intent of being really good at some things and not so good at others. The arrow cart is intended to be the anti-personal siege weapon. It is intended that arrow carts are all about controlling an area through damage. If you remain in the area that is being hit by the arrow cart, you will die. You can however, move out of the space and/or find a new way to attack the intended target. That being said, they are not intended to be so good against other siege weapons and we are in the process of addressing that right now. We are also addressing their range when upgraded to be more in line with the range of ballistas.

Secondly, this change is going to require new tactics and those tactics include things like using ballista and catapults to destroy arrow carts. With that in mind, we’ve been looking more closely at the numbers of all the siege weapons and there are definitely some changes that need to be made to bring them in line with their intent. We are going to take a holistic pass at siege weapons in the coming months and drop a rebalance of all of them to get them to more closely align with what they should be doing.

Finally, the feedback you all provide is a very useful part of this whole process. WvW is a living, breathing game type and any changes we make have numerous consequences that don’t become fully visible until everyone starts interacting with them and devising new strategies. Our goal is to provide a complex combat space that rewards skill, tactics, and ingenuity and while we haven’t fully achieved that goal yet, I like to think we are getting there.

Translation: Oops. Well now that we’re taking the time to look at siege balance, we’ll look at all weapons and not just one.

Can we at least get an apology for a hastily-made decision that went wrong because SOMEONE forgot that ACs can damage siege? … sheesh.

Lord Haw Haw.2648:

I could live with this if I my two most played classes were not a:

1. Confusion Mesmer
2. d/d elementalist

fml

Wait for the good players to find the next OP class/build and then copy off of them again. Shouldn’t take too long.

Vizier.3164:

We should be demanding a total refund :@ all that gold (gems for gold in my case), laurels, karma ,etc, etc is now wasted….

The question I have is: are they even allowed to totally destroy something that we paid for with real money? :/

You’re….not serious…are you?

They have the right to take the servers down and never run the game again regardless of how much cash you give them. Its their game, and its in the agreement you clicked “I Agree” on in order to play.

Q: What is the point of Mist Form now?

A: The same as it was before, take no damage for 3 seconds.

The reason why you can no longer heal in Mist Form is because the ele has the highest healing in the game regardless of spec. Coupled with an invuln where you can’t be interrupted, its OP.

Now Mist Form is no longer OP. Hope that clears things up.

That was the whole point of the nerf in the first place.

And unfix the bug? … no.

If anything, the cart is now the undisputed king of siege slaying. It will be nerfed specifically because of that. That was the main strength of ballistae.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Tallis.5607:

tagnut.8621:

Seriously is someone blowing the thief dev on a regular basis? So they get to spend 50% of the time invisible and immune to all damage whilst pumping out insane dps? Really? Really? 4s revealed reverted to 3s? Should be 10s min.

<nods in agreement>

It’s amazing that thiefs get BUFFED. Just before the last patch, they announced that thiefs will get their DPS down to more normal levels.

But they chickend out and didn’t do the change, they just changed the timer from 3 to 4 and called that a nerf (lol).

Now, it’s back at 3 and thiefs are just as OP as before.

I really, really wondered what happened inbetween.

Did all the WvW DEVs got a 80 thief on their accounts with zerker gear or so? It’s amazing how they can keep one class so OP. Highest DPS and stealth at will.

What’s next, give them clones or so? Oh, wait…

They really just need to make stealth work in a specific way when it comes to exiting it. If an opponent blocks or evades a skill the thief tries to hit them with while in stealth, the thief is thrown out of stealth with the revealed condition. However if the attack misses due to Out of Range, the stealth stays intact. This would fix the main complaint with thieves.

They’re getting it slowly. His spike damage just took a small hit in the form of a Mug nerf and they’re trying to make him more skill-oriented by stealing boons from players rather than having to press 3 buttons to kill a target.

One thing I have notice though, Karl McLain is just an absolutely massive thief fan and it seems to be at odds with the game balance decision-making process. Its always so hard for him to mention thief nerfs. Bias has no place in class balance; lets hope the devs aren’t making decisions based on their personal playstyle.

Aberrant.6749:

As far as it countering a heal… all my other classes can do far more than just a 8k damage spike… which would also counter that heal.

You actually have to land that damage spike in order for it to work. Not sure if you noticed, but Confusion allows you to continue operating while the enemy is damaging himself.

Confusion is doing too much damage for it’s ease of use and the proof is its incoming nerf. The question is not whether or not it needs a nerf, its whether or not this is the appropriate method.

Aberrant.6749:

The only thing that confusion really punishes are people who can’t avoid a shatter/big pink beam and then choose to keep spamming after.

Shattering isn’t the only way to kill illusions and trigger confusion. Actually killing them (because they’re harmful) triggers confusion as well. I’m sure you know this though. And the rate mesmers can put out illusions is staggering. Especially when dodge rolling creates one on top of all other methods. If you can’t keep spitting out illusions as a mesmer, you’re doing something wrong.

I know Anet likes to act as if illusions are precious and mesmers can be cought without them. That is absolutely not the case…go play against someone who knows the class and they’ve always got a clone or a phantasm somewhere the entire fight.

Even if you don’t specifically target the illusions, you’ll probably end up killing them with AoEs and cleave attacks.

Daecollo.9578:

When you hit yourself for 5k when you use a skill its pretty self explanatory.

I was about to say the EXACT same thing…lol

Yeah 1 stack of Confusion isn’t all that OP. How about we just stack it in duration instead of 50% damage nerf?

Something’s gotta change when people get their 8k healing skill nullified by one condition.

Azunai.1065:

Mist Form: No utilities or heals can be cast for the duration of this skill.
Ride the Lightning: Now recharges 40 seconds out of combat after use, 20 seconds if you hit a target with it
Signet of Restoration: Reduced passive heal, unknown amount
Water Grandmaster Trait: Removes only one condition every five seconds now.

So they take away mobillity and Heal!?
Its ok to nerf a dd ele, but why in hell would you do it like this
out of my 7 Characters i played like 1.3k hour on my ele and like 150 on all the others together

now tell me one reason to keep playing GW2

Because those were the OP parts of the D/D ele? … The healing and the mobility made him like a guard with thief mobility.

Oldgrimm.8521:

oh wow

mug cannot crit anymore, but you gain heal for 2k and will scale with healing power

S/D flanking strike will steal boons, For the win!!!!! guardian i will hug you

and so on

we did not get boon hate, it went to warriors 3% damage per boon

Yeah if they don’t decide to back off it at the last minute like the March patch…

Also, thieves were never going to get boon hate. Ever. That was something someone misheard from last SotG and assumed they were talking about thieves. Its a warrior thing.

Ekemeister.8905:

Also, thief is probably the farthest from God mode. Thief takes planning and good execution to simply be average and predictable. Playing my warrior after running as a thief is like taking off the weight vest after owning a 2 on 1 match in a sports drink commercial. If you want God mode, roll Guardian. I walked through packs of hyenas that killed my warrior without a single down on my guardian. Guardian buffs, traits, and aegis can mitigate huge amounts of damage, while the guardian still is a significant dps and hps source. Roll a thief, get to lv 40 without any sort of crafting or wvw leveling, and then come tell me how OP they are.

Rolling a guard in PvE and soaking damage while sucking on your thumb is not comparable to what it takes to PvP with one. Sorry, but your talking about the opposite side of the game here. Warriors are PvE gods because the mobs in this game don’t kite you, they hardly CC you, they have big “dodge now” telegraphed hits, they don’t go invisible every 3 (now 4) seconds, they don’t heal themsleves, and they sure as hell don’t cure their conditions.

So yeah, go roll the CnD/Steal/BS thief in PvE and let me know how terrible he is. How much he needs improvement because he doesn’t one-shot Kralkatorrik and therefore he’s worthless. I’ll still be fighting them in sPvP and WvW because its just such a terrible build.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Until I actually went and made such a thief out of spite. I’ll admit right now I am not much a thief player… Only about level 30 in PvE, and about 10 games played as thief in SPvP – but in those few games I would just dominate people.

And you don’t see a problem with this? A self-admitted unskilled player dominating because of what a class can do, not because of what you personally have done. This is the problem with the thief. Not that skilled players can’t counter them, that unskilled players can catch a MAJOR break simply by rolling a thief.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

But in playing that thief, I learned how to counter that thief. Bring a stun breaker, a condi removal, some CC, and know how/when to dodge roll. It doesn’t work all the time, especially if my stunbreaker is on CD from a previous fight (Pistol Whip is rough!), but if a thief gets the jump on me I have about 2 seconds to react, and then I make the thief pay.

You learned how to play period. Its just that the thief was the class that forced it upon you. You need a stun breaker, you need condi removal, you need CC, you need all of that in almost every fight. The difference is, with thieves, you’re forced to react much faster than with other classes, and you need ALL of those tools available. That’s why it “doesn’t work all the time” … those are the times you were either slow on the draw or fought a thief after fighting [insert non-thief class here].

The problem with the current situation is that reaction time fights always favor the attacker, and you guys have built an invisible, teleporting, spike damage, lock-on, skill spammer class. Unless your attacker has the reaction time of a drunken snail, you’re constantly playing catch-up. If you’ve got good enough skill, you can pull yourself out a win. The theif, on the other hand, does not have to perform nearly to the same standards in order to achieve victory. Put that kind of a buffer zone in the hands of an attacker and you’ve got the ultimate “noob ganker” class.

This is why there are so many “L2P” posts in the thief forum. There are literally people in this world who will play one class and never care/desire enough to play another to equal lengths. When it happens to be the thief, they have a skewed perception of what it takes to play the game well.

Leo G.4501:

pot.6805:

miniL.7361:

Start with nerfing the bloody longbow, #3 skill blasts 10K hp easy with a nice build and even on hybrids. Now remove the aoe, or drop the damage and add that to the bloody ranger longbow who should have skills like that on a bloody bow!

Are rangers still crying for buffs? You do everything better then warrior currently, hell you even tank way better then warriors.

Wow are people really that dense?

Do everything better than Warrior? I guess that’s why people only want Warriors in their speed runs or why glass Rangers aren’t as good at sniping in WvW…because Warriors aren’t better at it?

Logic.

Speedrunning:

• Time Warp is needed in speed runs, that’s not a warrior skill
• Quickness got nerfed, speed runs got nerfed

Rangers ranged:

• Rangers don’t get Killshot…deal with it? (I sense…envy)
• Trait perma-regen nature/beast and tank while your pet hits like a DPS build
• Pets have an unlisted siege-like range

Rangers melee:

• Rangers have auto-attacks that evade
• Rampage as One grants 20s of stability without removing your weapon skills
• Movement skills are not hindered by cripple/chill

Rangers are currently in a much better position than warriors in PvP. Well, lets face it, ALL classes are in a much better position in PvP than the warrior. Warriors are at the bottom of the totem pole right now. The only reason you want warriors in PvE over any other class is because PvE is exceedingly simple and there are very little, if any, conditons being applied by mobs.

If the mobs moved like players and conditioned you like players, warriors would be useless in PvE as well.

Sarrow.2785:

Um…

roll a warrior?

The ultimate counter to thief QQ.

Roll another class and count the minutes until you’re back on your thief.

MiLkZz.4789:

SOR + warhorn is 100% uptime, you don’t have to trait anything. Not the warhorn, nor the signet. So be careful before you correct someone. And yea the ele can, that makes 2 classes. It still is a big advantage. People rarely get away from a good warior.

You’re quite right, if you hit your signet and warhorn back to back, immediately, asap, one right after the other…you can.

I’m kiiiiiinda not counting that as possible unless you’re just running around the map. Not only will you have a good chance of not being on your warhorn weapon set in a fight every 20 seconds, but you’ve also got to count interrupts. The warrior and guardian classes are unmatched in their predictability and can easily be interrupted on almost any skill.

So, in-combat perma swift isn’t really a warrior’s possibility if you’re not traited.

Eles and thieves get away from warriors all the time. Thieves I get, they’re supposed to be kings of mobility…eles…not so much. Time for a mobility nerf I think. And more than just an increase in RTL cooldown for God’s sake!!

MiLkZz.4789:

And my opinion comes from organised guild raids, GvG and yes zergs. But also from a ton of solo fights. And a solo warrior doesn’t get stomped in WvW (unless he is a zerker). Zerkers are a different story, they stomp some classes/builds hard and get stomped hard by some classes/builds.

Solo bunker builds are tough, yes, but they usually can’t stop the DPS builds from leaving the fight. Thats the way bunkers should be balanced…tough but escapable. The ele isn’t escapable even as a bunker build, which is what makes him OP.

My opinion of solo WvW is this: There are a TON of bad players out there. Most of the good players who roam in WvW play the most powerful classes to do so. Thieves and eles roam a lot. Many of them are bad and they don’t put up much of a fight, but the ones that are used to their potential are unbeatable unless you build bunker. Then they just end up leaving or winning when friends drop by to visit.

The reason eles are OP is because people learned to swap attunements constantly in battle. When this game first came out, everyone wanted to be the WoW fireball mage. That didn’t work. Then they all thought they could use lightning and swiftness…better, but they still got reemed. They tried out water bunkering, which was much easier to win a fight but they hit like wet noodles.

So some “genius” decided that instead of focusing on one element per build, like most games expect you to, s/he would swap elements as often as possible (when prudent) and gain the benefits of every single heavy-hitting skill on the bar. It wasn’t hard to figure out, you just had to break from the traditional mentality of “I AM A FIRE MAGE…I DO FIRE STUFF…THAT IS ALL!”

Now I hardly see eles ever using their auto-attack spells. That should tell you something.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Even for classes without tools to directly remove boons, just apply poison consistently and you’ll win (if you know the elementalist’s healing/damage rotation, if you don’t, then learn, the PvP in this game is about knowing your enemy).

You….don’t play a warrior much…do ya?

No boon removal. No poison. (Irish accent) Have a glorious day.

Thrashbarg.9820:

Don’t run from a d/d elementalist. They can and will chase you down. If you are running, you aren’t damaging them, they are healing while they chase you.

If they’re smart, they’ll use that same mobility to avoid you. It works both ways…everyone always ignores that.

Thrashbarg.9820:

I can’t imagine a good way to nerf bunker elementalists without making the other (arguably weaker already) builds even less viable besides a straight nerf to the scaling of healing power. Maybe some sort of diminishing returns on healing power over 300. Maybe even across the board for all classes, bunker guardians, despite the statement of the previous poster, can heal themselves to full from basically nothing repeatedly as well.

The difference between bunker guards and bunker eles is that bunker guards have a very visible and very interruptable cast time on their healing. Eles do not. They also have a lot more access to mobility to make that healing count.

randomfightfan.4091:

The +1s on revealed debuff is still very much a problem and NEEDS to be reverted. It was a terrible balancing decision and failed to hit it’s targeted group of wvw and pvp thieves. The only ones feeling the massive pain of this nerf is us pve thieves. If you’re wanting to nerf wvw and pvp then leave us pve’ers out of the way of your nerf bat! We were in a good place before and now we feel clumsy and off-balance.

You do realize that the added second was a lesser nerf than what they were going to do to stealth right? They were about to make stealth cast revealed every time it went down regardless of how you come out of it. Massive thief QQ changed their mind.

Actually, I like to believe this happened:
Anet tried to nerf Stealth, but it stealthed up and Anet missed. They went off in a different direction and stealth got away with minor injuries. Stealth is so OP it can escape the nerf bat!

pahldus.1678:

Don’t know how you can say the quickness nerf hurts Warriors the most. It took the only decent elite Mesmers had and made it near useless too. I mean Mesmers have to waste an elite slot and it is on a super long CD and they didn’t get any duration increase unlike frenzy.

You mean Moa Morph is no longer an automatic ‘win’ button? … When did this happen? Its news to me…

The problem is, in and of itself, quickness. It needs to be removed and replaced…period. By nerfing it 50%, they’ve proven that increased attack speed breaks their game.

Do the right thing, remove it and replace it.

Varyag.3751:

Empiren.6401:

Well that and they aren’t any better than another proffesion’s alternative.

Is my Elementalist’s alternative the ranged weapon (staff) or the melee one (dagger/dagger)? Who are you to determine what is or isn’t the alternative? Warrior should also be a great ranged class.

I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news, but 400 range is hardly melee. Try 130. Do elementalists have any skills that require you to be within 130 (melee) range of the target?

Ken Virgo.6084:

It’s kinda sad that some players get upset because they cant hit the PvP i win button. No class is perfect. not warrior,guardian,mesmer,thief,ranger,elementalist,necromancer, or engineer. Everyone is going to make mistakes OR sacrifice one part of the class for the other. Learn to play the class and get a build/class that works for YOU.

Yeah that is sad. I don’t see any of that here though, so I’m not sure what your point is.

Most of those players have already moved to the classes that CAN do that. Like the thief/ele/mesmer.

MiLkZz.4789:

I disagree with almost everything. But I am assuming this is for sPvP/tPvP and considering the builds for these are totally different from the ones used in WvW (heck, I can’t even make my build in the mists…) I can’t say much.

Your damage section must be troll thou, warrior had almost the best burst in game. And we can give ourselves 100% movement speed uptime (traited with warhorn offhand) which no other class, besides the elementalist, can this easily.

Fixed is in bold. The problem is your opinion of the warrior comes from zerging; and while I agree with you on your points, you can’t disagree with someone on a completely different premise. The warrior has a lot of “diversifiable” negatives that nearly, if not completely, disappear in a massive ball of players. Even in smaller groups he can sometimes get away with controlling a fight, but most of the time he gets stomped outside the zerg.

Leo G.4501:

I guess you’re trying to talk to me as if you’re some Warrior sage?

If explaining how foregone opportunity costs work is sage-like, I guess so…

Leo G.4501:

Just because there are traits for having Adrenaline doesn’t mean they are the only traits nor that you give up anything for using your skills so you really miss the point I was even trying to make.

If you have adrenaline you’re not using, and you don’t have traits slotted for passive benefits of adrenaline, you have to concede that you forego (or “give up”) those benefits. Its a simple fact.

And that was your point, you can build to not give up anything for using adrenaline. You could, but you’d have to be able to use your adrenaline effectively every time it reached stage 1. That’s not possible.

Leo G.4501:

And then you try to tell me about elementalist? Ppssh, 4 sets of powerful skills? Whatever…dismiss that those 4 sets of skills have individually different purposes so it’s not like having 2-3 Hundred Blade type of skills. Try going to the elementalists and asking exactly how their rotations work rather than figuring they have 4 sets of OP skills.

The fact that you’ve actually typed out “ppssh” nearly proves you’re not arguing facts, you’re just mad. All four attunements do indeed have 4 main purposes, but they do not work against each other at all. All fights with all classes run the gambit of every scenario. The ability of the elementalist to swap to a particular attunement in order to best fit that scenario, regardless of weapon chosen, is a perk no other class has. That’s why he’s considered the “Jack of all Trades” class…although right now he’s more like the “King of all Trades” class.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Eviscerate – Same damage across all levels of adrenaline. Reduces cooldown based on adrenaline level. So basically if the total cooldown is 10, each stage of adrenaline reduces it by three. (Note that this takes effect WHEN the ability goes into cooldown. You’re not speeding the cooldown up by gaining adrenaline after the fact, you’re causing the the Stage 3 Eviscerate to put the ability on a 4 second cooldown as opposed to 10). This would create scenarios where the player could think “If I wanted to deal consistent damage, I trait for increased adrenaline gain (axes already have traits for that) so that I can do an eviscerate every 4 seconds. Or if I want to do a quick burst, I do a maxed eviscerate, then immediately eviscerate again as soon as I hit one stage of adrenaline.” That allows for higher burst, but then puts the skill on a long cooldown. Obviously those exact values are pretty crazy, and it’d probably be best to increase the base cooldown of the skill in order to make the whole cooldown reduction thing feel more useful.

Kill Shot – Greatly reduce the charge time and damage, so maybe you only need to stay still for a quarter of a second. The skill doesn’t improve based on adrenaline, but instead only ever uses 1 bar of adrenaline, and has no cooldown. So basically, if you have 3 bars of adrenaline, then you can chain off 3 kill shots back to back. Again, actual numbers would have to change to compensate, this is just from a mechanics standpoint.

This is not a bad scenario. The problem is that they’ve put so many traits in place that are generalized and would need to be removed and re-tooled. Reduced burst cooldown, reduced adrenaline used on burst, restore endurance on burst, 10% burst skill crit chance, all of these would have to be considered when changing the mechanics of the burst skill as you’ve suggested.

I’m in your corner on this one though. I think they need to spend as much time, if not more, re-tooling the warrior as they have on the engineer…but will they?

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Greatsword’s burst really just needs to change.

Anet has also specifically said this. I think they need to have a “warrior meeting” one of these days to just sit down and evaluate where they want this class to be. They’ve said a lot but haven’t really done much at all.

Arcing Slice just needs to be a 600/900/1200 leap skill…like it was going to be.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

As do the two traits based around adranline, Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus. I don’t think a build/playstyle that causes you to not make use of your class’s mechanic is a good idea. Why not switch those traits to apply those boosts when you use a burst skill? So Berserker’s Power applies a 7% damage boost for say… 10 seconds when you use a burst skill at 2 stages of adrenaline. The boosts would only stack in duration, with the higher damage version replacing the lower one if it gets applied. I would not make these actual boons, so the enemy couldn’t actually remove the effect (this would keep them in line with their current power), though it might help to have some sort of indication as to what your damage increase is at (if I’m not mistaken they’ve started doing this with some of the non-swiftness movement speed buffs).

Berserker’s Power, Heightened Focus, and Adrenal Health should all be given this positive use mechanic. They need to have a long, non-stacking duration buff given to you from landing your burst skill that basically equates to the same amount of bonus per adrenaline level currently available. You should be able to have the buffs up throughout the fight by using your burst skills in the situations they were meant to be used, but not be able to stack duration and carry them all over the battlefield.

Leo G.4501:

In essence, you can build so that there is no reason not to use your bursts.

In that case, you’re not wasting something for the potential of something else, you’re gaining extra for what you already do normally.

Using your adrenaline ASAP is usually not the best way to go with any build. In the situations where you’re not using your adrenaline, you’re losing potential benefits for not having traited passive bonuses from adrenaline.

No matter which way you build, unless you “F1” as soon as you get 1 adrenaline bar, you’re losing something.

Leo G.4501:

And elementalists spam their attunements mindlessly, eh?

Not mindlessly, no. They do spam their non-auto-attack skills before swapping attunements, rinse, and repeat though. There’s no reason not to, by the time they cycle back to that attunement they will be off cooldown.

Eles are the only class in the game with four full sets of weapon skills. I guess Anet doesn’t understand that having the ability to cycle through 4 sets of powerful 20-40 second cooldown skills in comparison to everyone else’s 2 (sometimes only 1) may be just a little OP.

How powerful would warriors be with the ability to bring, say, Greatsword, Hammer, Axe+, and Rifle to every fight with the ability to choose between them individually?

Mikemad.2495:

The class is fine for everything outside of tPvP. The average skill levels of your opponents in hot join and WvW are low enough that you can do pretty well. As people have said, most of the whining comes from tPvP where your opponents will look to exploit every single one of your weaknesses. Unfortunately, warrior’s weaknesses are rather numerous and easy to exploit. That said, however, warriors are absolute beasts in pve so its a bit of a tradeoff.

In a game that they’re trying to tout as an e-sport, this post should never be factual of any class.

The problem is that the warrior is lacking in AoE lockdown capability that ALL other classes have. This is the only class in the game with only one combo field on an extremely limited skill (longbow burst) outside of which he has absolutely ZERO skills that can be placed to give control and allow further skill use.

Lets just rattle off a few examples:

• Guardian: symbols, wards, consecrations
• Mesmer: glamours, phantasms, clones, manipulations, hell the ENTIRE class
• Elementalist: ditto…nearly all weapon skills AoE and about 1/2 of them have a duration
• Engineer: turrets, various kit-specific and weapon-specific fields
• Thief: traps, tricks (caltrops), deceptions
• Ranger: traps, survival, various pet-specific skills
• Necromancer: wells, marks, corruptions, spectral

I could get technical, name every single one, and take up an entirely new post, or I could invite you to spend time figuring them out for yourself.

Here’s what the warrior can do:

• Longbow burst skill Combustive Shot
• Banners of Discipline, Strength, Defense, and Tactics
• Battle Standard elite skill

How many of those have an offensive capability? One. How many of those are even remotely useful in PvP? I would say MAYBE the Battle Standard, although you absolutely NEED the swiftness from the signet elite. Depending on your build, you would be using the longbow…so possibly combustive shot.

How many skills does the warrior have that can lay down an AoE field of ‘shut you down’ without interrupting all skill usage? Zero.

The problem is not the warrior’s inability to play to the weaknesses of other classes nor is it his inability to escape his own. Its the issue of how MUCH can he do at any given point in time? All other classes have at LEAST two different skills firing at all times during any given fight.

Edit:
To make a quick musical analogy, its like all other classes in the game are being played with both a Treble and Bass clef while the warrior simply has a Treble clef.

Try pitting two equally skilled pianists against each other but removing one’s hand. There’s no chance. The guy with two hands will seemingly play better even though the one is doing just as well but with 1/2 of the music.

SHAKA ZULU.3128:

Arbagast.5817:

Evalakitten480:

still no clue why my account name is censored when someone quotes me, QQ

My best guess…reverse the last 4 letters of your name. Perhaps their filter can detect naughty words spelled backwards.

I actually checked this, lol. That word isn’t censored in preview.

Look at the letters taken from his name. It starts at the “n” and goes through to the 5.

The string together makes up “n”, “a”, “.” and “5” …. alltogether, “kitten” is censored. I thought it was censoring “nads” … but I can say that. If I say the last part of that sentence with the censored word in it with the quotes surrounding multiple strings, you get “kittens censored”. It took the 4 characters, plus the space, plus the “i” in “is” away. That kinda sounds like a certain socialist worker’s group that rose to power in Germany in the 40s. You know…the kittens! I had to lol. Sound it out with the “5” as a “z”.

So yeah, maybe it thinks you have THAT word in your name.

Sinifair.1026:

I am curious, how many of you guys remember to combine your attacks with those of your fellow players? Or to set up fire walls or other ground abilities to strengthen your allies attacks?

- I’m curious because it is a feature that I sometimes forget when solo’ing (mind you, I meet other players, but sometimes they seem to forget the people around them and use their abilities to max the damage being done), but playing together with some buddies makes Guild Wars 2 a much more enjoyable experience, because we are more keen on combining our strengths to defeat our foes when in a group.

- So, are you playing Guild Wars 2 together with your friends, or just along side them? Are you being socially active in combat, reviving players that are downed, combining your attacks, setting up barriers that deflects the enemies arrows, but aids your allies’?
- Feel free to share your experiences in Tyria.

You can self-combo on any class but the warrior without a longbow. The longbow’s adrenaline skill is the only field warriors get. So have fun…unless you’re a warrior.

The warrior also happens to be the class struggling the most in PvP. Hmm. The elementalist is pretty much the strongest class in the game and he gets tons of fields and finishers. Curious…

Maybe there’s a connection between your ability to self-combo and how powerful your class can become. Could it be the rediculous buffs you get from blast/leap finishers?

For the good of game balance, self-comboing needs to be removed. Combos are very powerful and are best left that way. Lets just keep them something you need more than one player for.

Devs are already too anime-prone with their greatsword models, we don’t need people running around with two of them drawn clipping into the ground and looking absolutely foolish. And yes this would define the warrior class; it would define him as the class that is the most annoying to look at.

Thanks but I’d like to keep the WoW kiddies on that game until bliz shuts the servers down…god that will be a terrible day for the gaming world…

Someone needs to make a sped-up montage vid of the TC zerg chasing the FA zerg around the map to Yakety Sax.

…they just keep running….

Pandemoniac.4739:

I think that the D3 AH troubles are just a symptom of deeper game design issues and really doesn’t tell us anything about the TP in GW2.

I think D3 was just a big middle finger to the original creators of the Diablo series for leaving blizzard like they did. They went on to make Hellgate London which failed miserably but some of them stuck with what they knew and found success in the Torchlight series.

The storyline in D3 was tasteless and predictable. Environments were like a gothic take on the Wizard of Oz meets Candyland. They made the Barbarian go SSJ3 and they made Super Ultra Mega Diablo that you had to fight in heaven and smash all the way back down to hell. The gameplay and loot systems that brought people in and made them addicted to the original series was left untouched because they knew that was the true moneymaker.

Pandemoniac.4739:

That indicates to me that there really wasn’t enough thought put into the loot system and how adding an auction house was going impact that aspect of the design. That’s not a problem with the AH, that problem is laid right at the feet of the leader of that design team. Another indicator of not really thinking through the implications of your loot system on the economy: gems have no level requirement on them and it costs far too much to upgrade lower tier gems into higher tier gems given the drop rates. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it makes everything but the highest quality gems worthless. D3 is riddled with those kinds of problems.

The people they had on the development team for D3 had absolutely zero experience with that genre of game. A top-down isometric RPG like Diablo or Torchlight requires the depth of screenplay that an RTS provides but the feeling of character customization that is likened to table-top games. They got the first part right and the second part WAY wrong. In their defense, they had no idea what they were getting into.

If the guys at bliz really thought that there wouldn’t be masses upon masses of people hoarding server space for the littlest trades ever, then not only did they not play D2, they’re also completely oblivious to online markets. Everyone wants to trade what they don’t want for a type of currency which allows them to buy what they do want. Its how we all live our lives right now, why would it be any different in a game that allows you to do the same exact thing?

Sunspots.9861:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Sunspots.9861:

Evalakitten480:

capuchinseven.8395

How about I “think” we took first place twice this week and contuine to “think” we’ve dominated FA all week and “think” our bags fill up just as fast?

Did you finish in first place ::looks at the scoreboard::? We had first place a time or two early this week too…

It’s okay – I’m not going to stroke your ego too hard in my next comment, you do that enough yourself… However – TC did bring the pain this week, for sure, but I wouldn’t go around bragging about being ‘amazing’ because, really – You only finished in 2nd. Regardless how many times you took first. ::pats you on the head::

I am curious though… (lost the prediction link, sadly) – Is FA still blue this week?

::edit to add:: – I really don’t think what you did was ‘dominate’ us – unless you call throwing a crap ton of lootbags at us while we were eating your faces off in open field dominating us.

Do you really want to push this vibe into next week? We all get bags. Good luck next match.

TC and Kain have been spewing bags after culling fix. No clue on who from FA is spewing bags. But I think if there was K/Dr stat to look at mine would be pretty superb this week.

I think at some point people need to adjust their game after the culling patch.

Its funny because you really believe it.

Actually the funny part is that he’s not realizing how TC’s score shot way up immediately after the update and FA was crushed this week.

He’s like the sniper on your team in Battlefield with a 10-0 K/D sniping out of uncap spawn and claiming he’s won the game when clearly he’s bieng spawncamped.

“Yeh yeh my K/D boi! Wut wut!” … have fun when people start ragequitting FA and you have to spend 1000 gems to xfer again and bring your team down.

Zenith.7301:

Even at 2.1k toughness if my ranger ate a full 100b, he was reduced to around 10% HP left.

100b is ridiculously strong if it lands.

Its very strong. It also takes 3.5s to complete without Frenzy. It roots you, and without being coupled with a gap closer and an immobilizing ability, its the easiest player skill in the game to avoid. I think the only thing easier to dodge is the ettin’s wind-up smash.

The bigger question in my mind is, aside from being stuck in one spot by some freak accident of you not dodging the bolas or bringing a stun breaker with you, why are you eating a full Hundred Blades attack? Especially as a ranger? Just because you’re a bunker build with high toughness doesn’t mean you facetank a high damage attack and expect to shrug it off. Its channelled for a reason, so you have time to leave.

Zenith.7301:

What? Given that most guardians are not traited for spirits not destructing when commanded, most guardians don’t get to use the command ability because it’s BAD. Especially in the case of the spirit shield. It already costs them a utility cooldown since they’re not carrying shouts — with the exception of the spirit hammer all command abilities are useless.

Regardless, it is there. I’m not questioning how good/bad/useful these skills are, I’m providing you with a reason as to why the spirit weapon is destructable and the banner is not. If you want to change the subject to usefulness of skills, we can go there instead.

Zenith.7301:

Spirit boons are short duration, have no uptime comparable to banners. And to even bring their activated abilities as if you would set them down in the way of harm, which is where they need to be because their ability is activated UNDER them, will not happen given their frailty.

Again, their active abilities usefulness was not in question. The fact that it exists is what I’m comparing to the banner’s indestructability. If you want to compare usefulness, how useful is immobilizing and crippling a warrior closing the distance on you vs. an extra 170 power and 170 condition damage within a limited 600 radius? How important is it that a melee class must leave you to focus a summoned creature down in order to not be hampered by it? Do you even notice that being able to be attacked means a spirit can body block for you as you escape attacks? That question even eludes mesmers as they don’t seem to consider their clones as a miniature aegis against single-target attacks.

All of these things must be considered when balancing summons.

Zenith.7301:

You’re also exaggerating the inconvenience of carrying banners around — I bet rangers would kill for this inconvenience. You talk about cooldowns, but don’t care to pay attention that banners have full uptime.

The ability to pick up and move banners is as much a benefit as it is a curse. Tell me you’d rather have a moveable spirit with no active ability on a 120 second cooldown that can be moved at the cost of your weapon skills’ readiness; then you would be asking for a banner.

Spirits and spirit weapons have full uptime too, its just not guaranteed. They certainly can last for as long as they’re supposed to.

Zenith.7301:

The spirits die within seconds of being targeted

Bingo, you’ve hit the nail on the head. They have to be targeted. You have to actively use time, concentration, and skills on them in order to bring them down.

Zenith.7301:

their cd is also tempered with their much inferior proc effects while your banner gives benefit 100% of the time.

I would not consider a >1/3 of all hits proccing 3 base seconds of protection inferior to any banner. In fact, when traited in Nature Magic, one of the Ranger’s most potent lines, you can nearly perma-protect if that spirit is up. That’s all the more reason to let it be kill-able don’t you think? Well maybe not, but most people would.

Rangers can already perma-regen from Nature Magic. Perma-protect on top of that, add 1200 range, and a pet that melts faces off with a near infinite range and you’ve got an extremely powerful build.

Zenith.7301:

You cannot counter banner benefits, but you can shut down spirits immediately and casually with cleaves.

You absolutely can counter banner benefits. Simply move outside of the radius. The warrior has to get to you, you’ve got superior range. How is it that ranged players always forget about their distance advantage?

As for cleaves: if you’re standing next to your spirits fighting a melee as a ranger, you’re not doing it right. If you’re fighting a warrior in a banner’s buff circle, you’re not doing it right.

Zenith.7301:

And when you list the inconvenience of switching weaponsets while carrying a banner, you forget the rather useful groiup wide boons their wielded abilities provide.

Which are so very useful when fighting other players. They’re almost OP. In fact, I specifically call a banner, pick it up, and spam ‘1’ with it because its just so powerful. Please…

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sorry I can’t respond to everyone, but I’ll try to hit some other issues you’ve brought up:

Thanks for responding at all! Your words, however many or few, are always appreciated!

JonathanSharp.7094:

we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

Hundred Blades was only powerful when coupled with Frenzy, a gap closer, and an immobilization. Otherwise its nearly pointless outside of PvE.

JonathanSharp.7094:

-Responding overall: We read a ton of things on the forums, but as you can imagine, we can’t respond to them all. When time allows, like today, I try to get on the forums as much as I can with actual responses – not just reading.

Again, thank you very much for your time. As we all know it is not required of you to do so. Your insight can do a lot to quell unsubstantiated speculation and arguements.

Zenith.7301:

Why did spirits and guardian spirit weapons become destructible while banners remain immune?

That’s an easy one. Spirit weapons act on their own while following the guardian and still allowing him to use weapon skills; they do not immediately cost a utility cooldown because of their command ability. Ranger spirits grant spirit-specific buffs much like the banners do, however they continue to be a useable utility after placement much like spirit weapons.

Both spirits and spirit weapons have much shorter cooldowns than banners as well, so their uptime in spots where you need them is much more likely and would not require you to literally carry one of your utility skills around in place of a weapon from encounter to encounter.

Atherakhia.4086:

I don’t know if I’m just understating all the issues with this class or what, but I feel like the problems this class has are so blatantly obvious and esay to fix that the fact they haven’t done anything about it now has left me dumbfounded.

The truth of the matter is that Anet devs are pretty bad at playing the game in general. I mean in the last SotG, Karl was calling the guardian’s teleports “Shadowsteps” … Really man? The guardian doesn’t shadowstep!! You’re playing a thief too much aren’t you Karl?

And no, I don’t care if the mechanics are nearly coded the same way. What you chose to name one ability, regardless of how it looks underneath, is the name of that specific ability. Liken it to assigning a variable. Just because X = 125 and Y = 125 doesn’t mean you can use them interchangeably. X is still X and Y is still Y.

Honestly I’m not all that upset about it. It was probably just a simple mistake and we all make them. Its just that to hear a dev consistantly make it is disturbing to say the least.

Atherakhia.4086:

I mean this class has only one real primary weapon option because this class can’t function as it is without the mobility greatsword provides.

Anet: “We hear you loud and clear! Thats why we’re slashing the Greatsword’s mobility next patch and buffing Dolyak Signet to 100 toughness up from 90. That should fix the issues at hand, right?”

I just find it amazing that they chose now, 7 months after release, to finally admit that quickness was a problem. People have been complaining about it in almost every sense and/or aspect it was granted so much that they were getting carpal tunnel and calloused fingertips. They all eventually shut up about it and now Anet makes a move. Finally!! Where have you been?!

Also, not only did they decrease quickness to 50% without addressing the fact that warriors still take the heftiest penalty ever placed on a skill in the game, they increased the duration by 1 second. You know, I don’t think I want to take 50% more damage for 1 more second. Thanks, but no.

docMed.7692:

My only gripe here is the remaining 50% dmg received.. should have been nerfed to 33% or so.

Actually it should be removed. Quickness in general needs to be removed.

They’re trying to make unused utilities useful but they’ve successfully made all quickness utilities pointless. Change them to something else and just admit quickness wasn’t a good idea in the first place.

How about the warrior’s quickness trait?

• 4s of quickness
• 90s cooldown
• Must hit target of <25% HP

Can that at least get a buff or something?