Guild Wars 2

selan.8354:

its actually quiet big as now it will be hard to stack for non confusion classes.

this is good.

but for confusion classes……its still strong (you’ll probably be tanky and you’re going to get “struck”) and the 6 slot is relatively the same.
but agree that the 4 slot is a significant nerf against pet/clone classes (like any “on struck” trait).

overall its a nerf…….but only a deal-breaker of a nerf for non-confusion classes….

not much of a nerf

don’t know….don’t really care. i like the game and will play it casually as long as they keep it going. But i think it would be really wise for Anet to balance/bug fix/add permanent features more often than they currently do (ideally once a month). If it means living story stuff is once a month or every 6 weeks, so be it.

as for patch……great QoL changes…..garbage new GM traits (and likely poor balance of existing traits/skills)….and jury is still out on sigil/rune changes.

Mightymealworm.8409:

Wow, thanks for shooting down the only new guardian GM trait I was interested in.

no shocker.
maybe 1 or 2 of the new GM traits were vaguely interesting per class………and all of them have been clarified to be the worst possible scenario.

balance team drops the ball once again….and we get to wait another 6 months for ineffective tweaks.

at least the QoL stuff of this patch will be mostly good. its just so disappointing.

by far the most fun to play…..but how much more fun if it was more rewarding?

but we are what we are for the next 6 months until the next lame balance patch.

Volrath.1473:

style.6173:

If there are balance updates, I hope the OP 5 are being addressed:

hambow, decap engi, s/p thief, spirit ranger, mm necro

i’m quite sure that every spec that is “out of line” atm will surely be addressed.

they will more likely be buffed.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Karl McLain.5604:

Thanks for the questions. Here are some answers:

• Blinding Ashes ICD (Internal Cooldown) is ‘global’, where it activates once and goes on recharge. The trait works much better in small engagements.
• Elemental Contingency’s Internal Cooldown is currently once every 10 seconds.
• Lightning Rod has no ICD. It will activate as often as a target allows you to interrupt them. The damage value of this trait is similar to that of Halting Strike.
  Weakness duration is 4 seconds base (but you’re putting points into Fire, so add 30% duration on that).

Thanks for the answers, Karl! I have a few comments:

• You mentioned that “we’re putting points into fire” in your Lightning Rod’s comment. I assume you made some sort of confusion with blinding ashes, am I right? So, the blind effect will be the one to have a 4 second base duration (aka, 5 with 30 fire), and not (only) weakness. Is the weakness duration still at 4, nonetheless? EDIT: NEVERMIND

• Elemental Contigency’s global cooldown will make it impossible to build around as it is, due to the combination of being triggered by your opponent and having a global ICD. This will mean that this trait will proc randomly, except at the beginning of a fight. It’ll be therefore impossible to trigger each attunement’s effect reliably, making it especially ineffective as an anti-burst tool.
  From my experience with Magic: The Gathering (and by the words of its own game designers), randomly-triggered effects like these are almost never viable, even when the innate effects are stronger than normal, because any innate advantage comes purely from sheer luck. It’s also impossible to build around this. I very objectively think this trait is ineffective as it is.
  Making the ICD per attunement would fix all that.

• Blinding Ashes ICD mechanic also cripples its potential build diversity, but at least it can still be worked around it. Burning Precision, Glyph of Elemental Power, and single target builds (say, fresh air scepter eles) can take full advantage of this trait. MH dagger and fire focus, however, and their respective aoe burning procs, will be confined to 1v1 situations, and only against non-pet builds. Understandable if it’s intended, but unexciting for those who were hoping to bring 6 fire d/f builds into pvp.

this.

please reconsider these unfortunate design decisions.

confirmed as global cooldown (one proc…then goes on CD) in readyup thread……so disappointing.

would have been fun in pve/wvw…now pointless in those modes.

village idiot.1436:

Also interested in how the imbalance caused by the sigil changes will be addressed. Warriors with five second weapon swaps (traited) and eles and engineers only having access to two sigils while other classes have four.
…

won’t be addressed….they deleted a thread with this very topic from the balance forum, with no explaination.

the level they protect the warrior class from scrutiny is amazing.

agree….this is probably the worst new GM trait in all classes…………would even have to think about at a 10 pt cost.

DarkWasp.7291:

You do realize that in order for 1 blind per 5 seconds to be permanent, you would have to have an attack rate against that ele as slow as 1 attack per 5 seconds.

this.
the trait is not crazy OP/

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Cush.4063:

I understand the concern of this but I think it’s only fair to realize that Ele’s and Engineer’s get the advantage of “On Swap” sigils. An example would be the “Sigil of Energy” where an Ele would get 5 dodges automatically while a Guardian would get 3. So I think it’s ok to assume that since Ele’s/Engi’s have the advantage of “On Swap” sigil that other classes can have the advantage of “On Kill” sigils. I think the only thing up for debate would be the question that, are “On Swap” sigils equally as powerful as “On Kill” sigils. If not, then one class would definitely have the advantage with sigils over the other.

You forgetting that Sigil of Energy has a 9second cool down? So how would this benefit Ele and Engineer more than any other class? Seeing as it has the same cool down as every class is given with it.

On swap sigils have a cool down. Thus the benefit is not applicable when you get into it. EVERY class has the same cool down when it comes to a sigil. No one class has a benefit over another class with that in mind.

this.
on swap cooldown levels the playing field.
as an ele…fresh air gives me fast “on swap”…..multiple kits do the same thing on my engi………….cooldown doesn’t change.

the problem is the on kill sigils

Rangersix.1754:

Cross posting from another similar thread, but I’m curious for other people’s thoughts on this. Follow my thought process for a second. Let’s compare the new talent (+33% burning damage) to kindled zeal (13% of your power to condition damage).

The base damage of burning is 328/sec and scales with condition damage for .25 per point of condition damage. The new trait adds 33% burning damage, resulting in 436 damage/sec (at +0 condition damage). This results in a difference of roughly 108 damage.

In order to add 108 damage to burning, you need to have 432 condition damage. That translates into 3330 power for the Kindled zeal talent. Why on earth would anyone going for condition damage ever choose Kindled zeal over the new talent? Even for power Guardians, who usually invest into Radiance, Kindled zeal is clearly the worse of the two (at +250 condition damage from 25 points into radiance, you would need 5253 power before kindled zeal is equal to the damage added from the +33% damage trait) . How does simply adding more damage to burning all of a sudden make it viable when it didn’t before?

What was Anet’s thought process behind this new ability? It seems to overshadow kindled zeal while providing the exact same end result, to boost burning damage. The only way Kindled Zeal still can pull ahead is when you go for a power build that ignores radiance (the tree that’s all about boosting burning damage) and manages to get 25 might stacks, a warrior banner and various consumables (and avoids any and all boosts to condition damage in any shape or form).

agree….horrific/lazy design

clipnotdone.9634:

Relshdan.6854:

terrible trait unless it stacks per interrupt…..

Even if it did, its still worthless, Mesmers cant really do much with healing power.

agree…..unless they change how some skills/traits work or scale with healing power to make it interesting. don’t know that yet………but i agree, its a silly trait as is.

why not a glamour trait instead? like a GM that brings back the functionality of the old www condi-bomber.

terrible trait unless it stacks per interrupt…..

not sure if the 25% is enough to break “zerk gear or get out” PvE….but i sure as kitten am going condi in wvw

not viable, because we have no reliable cover conditions…..we only have one reliable condition.

it baffles me why they keep buffing our condi damage without giving us access to more conditions to cover the burning damage.

Talyn.3295:

zapv.8051:

Just gotta say, there have been many many threads complaining about how overpowered conditions are. Then one class gets a gm that gives them 3k more health directly countering condition builds and complains about it.
#gw2forumlogic

Gonna go out on a limb. Though in this case not that far. You are not a guardian player. If you look at the other grand master traits you will see PoV. Which is not selfish like this trait and does more by removing conditions like cripple chill etc. It beats this trait hands down

yep……..the complaint is not the actual trait, but the placement of the trait.

nykcu.2936:

There are two sides to this, the one with people who play warriors and the other with people who play other classes.
Sadly the first side has more members.

lol…..this (and i leveled a warrior to 80). a pretty ridiculous class right now. boring play-style to boot.

nothing wrong with engi pistol or rifle….but obviously i’d love the occasional extra shot. would need to be a grandmaster major/minor trait (depending on proc % chance) of course

seemed like a CDI destined to be combative (most negatively broken class due to a class mechanic that we all know they are reluctant to change/fix).

that said, if somehow, ranger gets passive buffs based on stowing pets….i’d consider the whole thing a win.

personally, i wish more was said about traps……..potentially aawesome playstyle………just give use fields on all of them.

not sure i’d ever give up going 30/30/x/x/xto ever get this trait………but it seems like a tactically fun trait in the right game-mode. having a 4-second mesmer feedback on your low-cooldown turrets seems like something worth exploring. let’s see how gear/stat revamp works out….can easily work rifle and healing turrent into most dps builds. with trait points becomeing free to change out of combat, might be a fun trait to add when you need it.

Black Box.9312:

It’s a good trait; it’s just in the wrong traitline. Honor already gives a vitality boost, so honor-based guardians are about the only build that won’t be able to make good use of it.

I’d honestly much rather see it go in zeal, so that there’s a reason for glass guardians to take zeal. Right now it’s still a traitline with mostly garbage traits.

this.
so much.
should have been put in zeal.

don’t know if LB auto/skill base cast time will be lowered/damage will be increased…..2x travel speed could end up being nice. that said…not an exciting reveal without knowing the whole landscape of ranger changes……….if that’s the best they got, i can see some even greater QQing than usual.

we don’t know the trait’s cooldown (or if it will have one)……..the panic is silly until then.

conceptually….i love the trait……………reward skilled shutdown play (mesmer passive options are just so strong right now)….the cooldown will determine whether its OP broke or underwhelming.

gawker.8340:

Ranger vs Mesmer:
Ranger tries to lay healing spring, mesmer interrupts. heal goes on 60s CD

Necro vs Mesmer:
Necro tries to consume condition, mesmer interrupts. heal goes on 50s CD

Thief vs Mesmer:
Thief tries to hide in shadows, mesmer interrupts. heal goes on 60s CD

Warrior vs Mesmer:
Warrior doesn’t activate healing signet. warrior survives.

I see what you did there Anet.

wow….just wow.

LOCK this. OP doesn’t/can’t read.

… and wait for patch to see what the trait’s cooldown is before you whine/kitten/moan.

its a fictional city in a video game franchise..

I’ve had more fun jumping through the wreckage this week than i had the first week of exploring LA a year and a half ago (and nearly 10 yrs ago in GW1)…….the vistas are different, the scenery is interesting in a post-apocalyptic way (looters/workers/wreckage to climb on..etc)…….i like that Anet is willing to alter areas based on story/events.

now if they’d just adjust their 2-week schedule to 1 LS patch a month alternating with one balance/bug-fixing patch a month, i’d have a hard time complaining.

and love the new vista (almost JP worthy) by Trader’s Forum Waypoint…

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL161/1538330/2940054/409044966.jpg

…..because there is little for them to offer that won’t result in mass negativity thrown back at them (significant nerfs to desireable skills/traits and undesired/un-needed buffs);
the leaked patch notes are brutal (very brutal if the TC change doesn’t end up working like guardian symbol)……and past leaked notes have ended up being extremely accurate.

i’m not……..i like that i don’t have to do it unless i want a back skin (which i do, but its not much grinding to get one). its fun to do one or twice a day….and it will reward me toward my goal of the skin whether we save 500 citizens or 1500. its nice to have a casual/ignorable LS meta achievement evewry once in a while.

that said…….i much prefer content like Marionette and Aetherblade Retreat over these total zerg events…….but i think there is room for both and i’m not going to kitten and moan every time content update doesn’t strike my fancy.

Danikat.8537:

GstarHood.7186:

You have a good point, I do like the event but it will not keep me doing that one thing for longer than a few days. Should of added some more interactive parts to the story. But still can’t wait to see how it ends

I don’t think it’s intended to keep you doing this for the whole 2 weeks.

Some people will do that, either because they want to farm it or because they have very limited time to play, but for most people it will take a lot less. The entire rest of the game is there to give you something to do the rest of the 2 weeks.

Personally I much prefer it this way. Back in July and August (and June to a lesser extent) they did have very grindy achievements that were intended to take most of the month to complete and it was horrible. I was seriously considering quitting the game at that point because I felt like I was just playing to keep up and never had time to do the things I really wanted to do (like dungeons, map completion, levelling alts) because I had to prioritise the temporary content.

this.

its basically adding a MASSIVE hour-long world event for casuals who kittened and moaned about Teq/ tri-wurm/ marionette. its a step in the story….and a nice diversion from the normal stuff you do, but its not mean to be ground endlessly for 2 weeks (unless you want multiple back skins). You don’t have to zerg (tho zerging is most profitable….but profit isn’t really the complaint; “fun” is) to do the event…..

that said……..its been a long while since the last non-fractal dungeon/5-man focused LS……could use some new party content…………i long for another Aetherblade Retreat.

Better yet, add more stuff like marionette (starts as “zerg”, but eventually breaks down into parties), but this time the party aspect consumes more time and attention. can’t stress enough how great iot feels to do an event as part of a greater whole, but be responsible for victory on a small/personal scale.

Erukk.1408:

…. absurd cost of the damask recipe.

this needs to be normalized with leather and metal…..the material and money cost to craft light armor is absurd. they reversed the original problem of cloth being worthless.

agree with the praise………while it doesn’t really fit my aesthetic preference for my themed characters, i do think the “transformational” building of it in tiers through game play and crafting is nice. i always admired that aspect of the fractal backskins………its so much better and more interesting than just getting the finished product upon meta completion.

well done.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Let’s reserve judgement for the patch. It’s good to start thinking about what sigils you might run now but it’s not going to really get ya any advantage over anyone this early when a lot of things are still missing. Most sigils have received balance changes. Duration sigils, on-crit sigils, and on swap sigils have even seen a few changes. But wait until you see the runes along with our other content coming in. There’s now a lot of options that look really good so like I said, it’s hard to foresee; and even if I foresee a meta (which I have my speculations), I personally can’t really do anything about it other than give my honest feedback to the team and communicate it back to you. I just make sure the stuff coming in isn’t broken bug wise and pester these guys with my delusional GW2 balance ideas, none of them which ever make it in(except these ele changes) :/ Also, Roy’s engi shames my warrior internally, so maybe blame me not being good enough:(

unless you get rid of Fast Hands on Warrior……there is no reason to reserve judgement…….you will have screwed up yet again buffing what doesn’t need buffed……………….and we will have to wait 5 months until you change it (all the while ignoring bugged and garbage traits ).

thank god i don’t pvp…..

love it….reminds me of the classic film, Metropolis. really well designed (minus the blue skin not being dye-able). will be buying one for my ele.

surprisingly great looking….though not my cup of tea (unless i decided to make a sailor scout).

would use the sword, though………..another rapier design is always welcome (and the heart is small enough just to look like a red glow).

looking forward to the rune/sigil revision, but there’d better be 5x more skill/trait improvements than is shown here.

waiting 4-5 months between balance patches for a handful of small changes to skill/trait balance (like the last one) is horribly timid/inadequate for a game that still has so many useless and misplaced traits/skills.

class balance is truly the weakest link in this game right now….no time to be timid.

Terravos.4059:

haviz.1340:

kyubi.3620:

BLeh you just hate anything that actualy get trought a AI. Minion masters and ranger did nothing to you in pve why hate them so much? I think MM should hold a place of choice in a dungeon party.

Its prety much the world reversed
GW1 MM:
PVE: (We absolutely need one else we gunna get eaten by the mobs!)
PVP: (ahahaha look at the noob he got no corpse so he cant raise any minion then he try spamming echo aura of the lich!)

GW 2 MM:
PVE: (god that guy deals no damage and only cure cond while buffing regen kick it)
PVP: (OMG we are getting swarmed by minion heeeeelp meeeeeeeeee ‘’strangled voice with sound of massacre in background’’)

Pet is a build in its own right and deserve an actual niche in the game. Why a build would be destroyed so that yours can trive on the benefits of its death? Im sure Anet aim to make pet build as viable as other builds. They just have trouble doing it right.

Pet builds deserved to be used only by AI. AI controlled by AI, nothing else. Anet should murder those builds and never again make them viable. Game would become better, especially in pvp.

What did you do against pet builds in Rift,Warhammer Online, DAOC, EQ, WoW, UO, ect ect?

whined on their forums, i’d bet.

no excuse for any server not to be able to do marionette regularly during peak hours…….and if they really tried/organized as hard as BG and Deso, same thing for wurm.

its not rocket science….its gaming.

good.

15 characters

HappyPrimes.3904:

I’d have much rather paid $60 for GW1 with an open world over what I’ve gotten out of GW2, because I certainly don’t feel like I’ve gotten my $60 worth out of the game yet..

wow. i disagree with some of your statements (especially that you actually liked the combat of GW1 over GW2), but you are entitled.

if all you’ve received so far in this game with respect to the free content updates has not been worth your $60 (seems crazy to me, but whatever), why don’t you move on to another game? seems like masochism.

Ace.1726:

Thanks for the great post Josh. Please don’t listen to the people saying it’s too hard because it isn’t.

This is the best PVE content Arenanet has made and they’ve come a long way. Arenanet should be proud of themselves, please continue to make more.

agree…..and have messaged them so.
this is very near the sweet spot between 1111zerg and small group dungeon content……while not perfect (the inability for finished platform groups to help unfinished platform groups in some way), the event is awesome and they should build on this for future PERMANENT content.

also….don’t think the wardens need any tweaking…..they are all very doable if you know their gimmick. commanders almost always explain these mechanics before event begins.

win/loss ratio has increased greatly over the last few days….i think players are getting better (or bad players are playing less).

to add something different to the thread, i’ve seen many chain fails due to buggy things.
#1: the “can’t attack bug”… skills no longer work unless you waypoint (sometimes works), get downed, or re-log.
#2: the propensity for knockback skills to trap a warden in position where they can’t be damaged……this happens in various boss events in pve.

general rule………DO NOT USE KNOCKBACK SKILLS IN PVE LARGE GROUP CONTENT.
so many bad/ignorant longbow rangers and hammer/spear guardians knocking bosses out of AoE and/or trapping them in terrain.

bigmonto.4215:

Guys whether or not celestials should have higher than normal crit dam is not the issue. It should not be players responsibility to guess developer’s intend, period.

Players make decision to purchase or craft a gear based on what currently is the stat on that gear. It should not be player’s responsibility to try to 2nd guess these stats or predict what the developers might do in the future. Anet NEEDS to remember this when they make a decision to change the stats on a piece of gear.

Just like how Anet gives us a free re-spec when they drastically change the talents for a class, they should let us reselect the gear stats when they decided they want to make major change to the stat distribution or the function of a stat. I believe it is only reasonable that Anet allow us to do this for all soul or account bound gear with crit dam on it, not just celestials.

agree. not the player’s repsonsibility to guess if the stats a developer put into game is what they indended….especially 1.5 years after the fact.

the theory crafting guessing-game is an irrelevant point (we don’t know how the numbers work out until its all in place).
BUT significantly changing an armorset’s stats without compensation (free stat-set change) would be a terrible move…….especially with this change occurring so long after ascended crafting was introduced. if celestial takes as large of a hit as is expected…..i hope Anet does the right thing.

Carighan.6758:

Hrm, though I would be against an outright removal, I will say that I think many boons – and also many conditions – are too easy to get.

For example, pre-nerf WvW Confusion was really strong, but the problem was not in it’s raw power – you had to stop attacking – but in how easy it was to apply to entire groups.
On a specific single target, Confusion in a less readily available state would be rather balanced. Stop attacking, or suffer – back then – major damage.

Likewise Vigor is a realy powerful boon, I’d maybe even buff it. But it should be something you get rarely, and then you notice it. Something giving a group vigor should be really rare, and on a fairly lengthy.

Same for Protection, and probably Swiftness.

These things can be fight changing, and the correct approach is not to make them ubiquitous as a result of that.

agree…and maybe as along-term goal, its something that can be worked toward (as long as the classes that are currently balanced entirely around their access to these boons/conditions are compensated or keep their relative access).

a guardian has junk stats because of its easy access to boons like aegis and protection (and the blind condition). limit these, and you have to re-balance the guardians stats and traits……….and you also kill a specific play style that people like myself enjoy (active negation). but, if one did limit the usage of these boons/conditions for a guardian…..you’d have to almost completely remove them from other classes to preserve the need/uniqueness of the guardian class (which is already difficult to justify with how OP warriors are in all facets of the game).

for Guardian Staff…..i mostly like it how it is……….but wouldn’t mind sacrificing a bit of dmg on the auto-attack, for improved healing on the the 2skill (or better yet, stronger heal on Empower). as might as we dislike light fields, at least it makes sense on staff.

the auto is only good for tagging mobs anyway (and it does that amazingly well regardless of damage)….so lowering that damage to up some of the healing would be pretty nice….and a positive step toward making a healing/support playstyle more viable (even if its only in one class).

Kelthien.8593:

Mesmer here! In my magical fantasy world, Staff’s Phantasm (does more damage per condition on enemy. single target) replaces the Torch’s phantasm. The staff would get a new, AoE ranged phantasm.

Additionally, I’d let the “bouncing attacks bounce one additional time” trait in Illusions affect the staff clones.

That would beef up Torch, give mesmers some reliable AoE, and make the bouncing trait more appealing.

i like this…..but would have to be careful not to make the new staff phant too strong. Its already a pretty great weapon.
also wouldn’t mind a slightly faster AutoAttack.

moving staff phant to torch could be fantastic….better for a power/hybrid spec and would still fit well with a condi-spec due to nature of its damage multiplier.

Izer.2083:

I’ll agree with this, but u should make all char have the same hp pool and same armor

would have to do something that drastic to make removing vigor altogether, semi-fair.
so lets not (you’d invoke a player riot anyway).

the upcoming nerfs to the remaining perma-vigor-on-crit traits is fine for now.

agree that CD needs dropped (and bug fixed). 25 seconds.

nerf OP’s posting power w/ a “block function” so i no longer see or accidentally read his/her posts.