Guild Wars 2

yeah ive been suggesting something of this nature since about a month after release…. dont expect it to happen

It was my understanding that different skills had different scaling for power/weapon damage.

I guess I was wrong

Dual.8953:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

ninja.4139:

Those screen shots prove the backstab damage thing, I’ll give you that, but I meant screen shots that would make a good argument for the change you’re suggesting. I don’t really feel like spending time testing, taking screen shots, etc. and if you don’t want to either, then let’s just agree to disagree.

Dual.8953:

/looks

Backstab
-403 (front)
-806 (back)

Triple Chop
-(x3) 858

Sheesh.

This is a good point in my opinion. One of the thief’s strengths is that they can do damage in single strikes while other classes, like the warrior, need multiple hits to deal damage. If thief unstealthed when they failed a sneak attack, using a single block attack or a one blind would be all it would take to nullify all the damage while doing the same to a warrior would only nullify one strike. So it kind of makes sense that you would need to use multiple defensive skills and abilities to dodge the stab. But in the end, you really need to look at the thief and all the other classes as a whole rather than a few skills.

dont forget that the CRIT ratios (% dmg boosted by crits) is higher than that of triple chop from the axe. Therefor a critting backstab is worth MUCH more than all 3 hits of triple chop critting.

I’ve been backstabbed for 9000 before on a glassy build and i can guarantee you against the same build I’d never hit 3000 3000 3000 with triple chop.

Percentages are multipliers. Multipliers have unchangable ratios. If the crit boost was additive it’d be a different story but not. So both skills have an equally scaled maximum damage potential. Now on that note Backstab does have a higher likelyhood of reaching it’s damage potential because it’s all in one shot but triple chop has a higher potential and is more readily accessible.

My mathematical proof is.
9•1.5= 13.5
(3•1.5)•3= 13.5

Right… sorry i mispoke. My meaning was that since they scale differently with power their crits end up different because base damage is not all that is taken into account. Backstab, as I understand it, scales higher with power than a lot of other skills.

Dasorine.1964:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

dont forget that the CRIT ratios (% dmg boosted by crits) is higher than that of triple chop from the axe. Therefor a critting backstab is worth MUCH more than all 3 hits of triple chop critting.

I’ve been backstabbed for 9000 before on a glassy build and i can guarantee you against the same build I’d never hit 3000 3000 3000 with triple chop.

How do you work that out then hmm? Smells like bad math to me

You’d have to figure out what the actual crit ratios are due to runes / traits and all that.

Also let’s not forget that that Attack Power scalings on these 2 abilities are also totally different even though their base damages might be the same

ninja.4139:

Those screen shots prove the backstab damage thing, I’ll give you that, but I meant screen shots that would make a good argument for the change you’re suggesting. I don’t really feel like spending time testing, taking screen shots, etc. and if you don’t want to either, then let’s just agree to disagree.

Dual.8953:

/looks

Backstab
-403 (front)
-806 (back)

Triple Chop
-(x3) 858

Sheesh.

This is a good point in my opinion. One of the thief’s strengths is that they can do damage in single strikes while other classes, like the warrior, need multiple hits to deal damage. If thief unstealthed when they failed a sneak attack, using a single block attack or a one blind would be all it would take to nullify all the damage while doing the same to a warrior would only nullify one strike. So it kind of makes sense that you would need to use multiple defensive skills and abilities to dodge the stab. But in the end, you really need to look at the thief and all the other classes as a whole rather than a few skills.

dont forget that the CRIT ratios (% dmg boosted by crits) is higher than that of triple chop from the axe. Therefor a critting backstab is worth MUCH more than all 3 hits of triple chop critting.

I’ve been backstabbed for 9000 before on a glassy build and i can guarantee you against the same build I’d never hit 3000 3000 3000 with triple chop.

Barock.7183:

So in other words: having 1 block on your character means —-> immune to thief?

no it means the thief has to hit you first and actually think about when they want to stealth…. removing a block aint tough(in terms of aegis) and people should be rewarded for trying to counter something that is currently uncounterable.

Also stealth is SO readily available if someone blocks just cloak and dagger again, who cares. They wasted a cd (10-20sec) and u didnt usually. Initiative can be replenished so quickly I rarely even look at mine. My skills are all pretty much readily available as a thief unless im spamming something like an idiot and drain myself.

I think the OP’s idea is a fantastic one. It would cause thieves to actually think and be skilled to land huge combo hits instead of just spamming buttons and being lucky or eventually getting a hit.

“Punished for short melee range” good… so you have to actually use positioning

“Makes it hard cuz you also have to be behind ur target!” You mean u need timing to pull off combos?

“BUT GUYS STEALTH IS SO HARD TO GET INTO THIS WOULD BE A HUGE NERF” LOL

I mean come on… basically the complaints are people just saying they dont want to have to actually try or think to pull off Backstab combos

Daendur.2357:

bhagwad.4281:

Oldgrimm.8521:

maybe we can discuss this further when stealth changes is in full application,

regardless, we cant apply stealth either when you dodge block and evade

I’m talking about coming out of stealth not going into it…

with a 3 seconds stealth mechanic, it will be stupid to come out of stealth on a block/miss.

When you stealth, you have to hit quickly and a lot of times you don’t have the time to go in a proper melee range so you hit 1 a couple of time, running towards your opponent.

It will be too easy to counter stealth.

You mean it would have to require the person to pay attention and time their stealth?

GOOD GOD WHAT HAS THIS WORLD COME TO…. I refuse to to see stealth become something that requires skill to use.

inb4 random tree in the middle of the clocktower cap point

…surrounded by traps

100B and Thieves are different…stealth plays a big part as you cannot visibly DODGE a backstab. You kinda have to get lucky or the thief has incredibly predictable timing

I personally think cloak and dagger needs a MUCH larger and more obvious animation (swirling black shadows for the 3/4sec cast time it has)

Also mug is WAY out of line for a 10pt trait. It should never be doing more than 2250dmg IMO

i love how everyone is raging about this without having any idea how it will be implemented… as a trait or signet there is no problem with it

also no one stated damage or anything so….can we all calm down until they actually give specifics or we see who gets it and how in 10 days?

What do you think about letting people join the tourny q from outside of the mists?

I know the argument that this would depopulate the mists could be made but I actually think this would be good for pvp. It makes it easier for pve centered players to at least look at the options and choose to go in without having to leave their world.

The only time people go into the mists is to test builds / switch stuff anyway so might as well let us queue from outside with our current setup that is currently being held in the mists?

This is a subtle plot to stop our complaining by killing us all…

it was a joke based in the assumption that you havent been paying attention to how PvP has been going the past 6 months or so…

to answer your question though… No I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. I think that if they wanted to devote more resources to PvP theyd have done it already

The dragon fights are bad. If they are in fact being reworked i wouldn’t expect ANY changes for at least 6-8 months.

the dungeons in this game are really poorly designed. It’s a shame that they dont actually have to be cleared and have pretty much 0 meaningful rewards. I got really bored of the no challenge, stale fight mechanics, and skip everything mentality the game has fallen into.

man it would be so cool if dungeons were challenging, had interesting mechanics, and took skill… but i’m a dreamer

OR just allow weapon swap between conjure items and the normal weps. Each swap uses a charge.

When the game was in development Anet said that traits would change the way we played… but many of them dont and are just numerical boosts. Right now many traits are just plain boring.

Here are some traits that I believe would be awesome and follow that ideal. This standard should be what all traits are based off of. Every trait should be very powerful so that they actually can change how you play and are noticeably in use.

I know people are going to say these would be OP but just consider if everyone had traits THIS impactful how awesome builds could be.

Necro:
-When you enter death shroud transfer all conditions to the target of your first attack. This has a 1min cooldown.
-When a minion takes more than 10% of its health in damage in a single attack it gains invulnerability for 4 seconds. This has a 25 second cool down.
-Well effect linger on targets for 3 seconds after they leave the area of the well.

Elementalist:
-Conjured weapons allow weapon swap between your equipped weapon and the conjured weapon and have 10 more charges. Each swap costs a charge.
-When you pick up a conjured weapon you gain a boon for 6 seconds Axe(5stacks of might), Hammer(fury), Bow(regeneration), Shield(vigor), GS(stability).
-Each time you switch attunements create a combo field under you of the type you are switching to (fire, lightning, water or ice?, Light?)

Warrior:
-You can now carry banners on your back, While carrying a banner you may hit the utility slow button to use its #2 specialty attack in an AoE around you.
-Each time you block you gain 3 seconds of protection (1sec internal cooldown).
-Your physical utilities Stomp and Bull’s Charge create stone walls in a circle or line respectively at their impact / charge paths. These block projectiles and movement for 4 seconds.

Mesmer:
-You have a 20% chance each time an illusion dies to swap places with it (10 sec internal cooldown)
-Destroy all illusions and relinquish the ability to summon more for 5 seconds. Gain 10 stacks of might and all other boons for 10 seconds. Remove one condition for each illusion destroyed in this way.

I could go on forever but you get the idea. I just want interesting things….

Things that arent +5% dagger damage WOO

Traits are disappointing to me in general.

There are awesome ones that actually change how you play, but they are few and far between. I think a lot of the steal-centric traits on thief are a good example of this like bountiful theft or the one that recharges 1 type of utility

most traits are just generic DO MORE DMG WITH SWORDS BUT NOT ENOUGH TO FEEL USEFUL. The worst offender of this is the elementalist, specifically the fire line. They just feel so uninteresting.

if they say
1)“soon”
2)“we can’t talk about it”
3)“we’re listening”

then ask

1)“give us a timeframe because people would rather know how soon and hear it’s being pushed back AS LONG AS YOU’RE VOCAL ABOUT IT then not know and speculate, since us speculating creates pipedreams that you cannot possibly fulfill and explodes in your face”

2) Why not? The community feels you need to more vocal and our lack of knowledge about where the game is headed just makes people more frustrated. especially when the problems still exist from 6 months ago. We feel like we aren’t being listened to."

3) But the community doesn’t feel like you are listening because the PvP section doesn’t ever see responses on REAL questions and instead just sees haphazard answers on things that don’t actually mean anything. When do you see yourselves being more vocal about sPvP? When are we getting a PTR? Why aren’t you more transparent about problems that the community has literally been raging about for months now? (thief spike damage, the lack of build diversity, the insane unfunness of fighting perma stealth, the complete lack of description many traits have, have a visible MMR or ranking, the lost goes on)

can people stop complaining about this now?

Why not allow you to queue for tournaments from the sPvP screen while outside of the mists. You used to be able to do this for hotjoins a long time ago, this would let you keep playing PVE while waiting to get in during non-peak hours and will attract a lot more PVE-ers I think who feel detached from their character or game in the mists.

Darnis.4056:

Necroing threads from a month ago should be a bannable offense :/

It’s just as relevant now as it was then since nothing has changed in months…

also how is your post productive?

ensoriki.5789:

That’s not about pocket healing.
It’s saying a Warrior can whack on you regardless of protection and drop your health like a domino. He’s more efficient if someone removes it for him, but it doesn’t change that he can hit incredibly hard even through protection. On his own? He’s still the hardest hitter. Warriors dilemma is not lacking boon removal on an individual level, they have crippling weakness in other area’s that significantly hurt them.

^that was their reasoning in removing the trinity…so answer why this is suddenly not true when it comes to boons. Damage does not counter boons. Not only does it not counter protection, aegis, regen, but it HELPS retaliation, AND it does nothing against fury, might, vigor, and swiftness. So that argument that a warrior simply powers through things like protection is completely off base.

You didn’t disprove anything in that entire block.

No one has yet explained WHY it wouldn’t be right. All i’ve heard is it would make boons useless, but the suggestions I’ve made require sacrifices in other areas to take boon removal and it is limited in that sense and in the sense that it would only be 1-2 boons removed. So please explain to me how, with how fast i can replace removed boons, this would completely destroy boons rather than MAKE PEOPLE ACTUALLY THING ABOUT WHEN THEYRE USING THEM FOR A CHANGE

People can hardly think about when they’re using them ( to an extent) because of the way most are handled. If more people had boon removal it would just kitten on those who use it period, because they’d eventually be overswamped by frequency and their defenses rendered arbitrary.
As it is now. If your teammate uses boons a lot, there are 3 targets who can be a threat to that, which makes them priority targets in terms of protecting his defense. In exchange he’s generally a priority for him, because he’s what they’re meant to breakdown.
You throw it on everyone and there’s no prioritizing on that level.
It diminishes certain profession relevance and goes against the point of professions tackling things differently, and bringing aspects that the others cannot replicate.
An engi can stealth a teammate.
Not as well as a thief or Mesmer can.
Thief most certainly doesn’t hold pts like a Guardian, Ele, or Engi can.
Should we suddenly give Thieves inherit protection so they can Bunker? Or is it a reason to consider not running 5 thieves because they have class weaknesses that other professions cover up.
In other words, you’re supposed to be weak in certain aspects so others can work with you to accomplish a goal.

The only time that would be true is if literally EVERYONE brought boon removal and nothing else. To do their they would sacrifice a lot of other utilities and damage so i really dont see the issue. It’s a trade off that doesnt exist right now because there is no way for many classes to remove or even deal with boons.

People should think about when they use boons, if they cant then they are not very good players. Timing and strategy is just part of combat depth.

It doesnt diminish relevance because necros and mesmer do not have to build that way and they also will still be the best at it. All other uses are risky and hugely situational, but allow for counterplay. The problem with boons are that everyone has access to it but not everyone has access to things to deal with boons. This is largely different than something like stealth because everyone does not have stealth so there is no expectation for an ability to counter it directly like a “reveal” mechanic. If every class had stealth then I’d argue that it would require specific counter-play too, but since they dont auto attacks / skill shot aoes suffice.

KrisHQ.4719:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

No… people just want the actual builds and traits to be balanced. The vast majority of traits are absolutely useless or at the very least sub-par to all the standard builds. This has nothing to do with the players. The balance is not quite good and that is why we’ve had the same broken meta for nearly 7 months with the same op traits/professions/builds and the same team setups.

Additionally the best roles in the game are glass cannon and bunker… the 2 things you said shouldn’t exist and they currently RULE the meta. They are extreme builds. There are no extreme support builds, they dont exist.

I agree that there should be more viable builds and weapon-sets, but the meta is not BROKEN because Axe/Axe ranger is kitten (for instance).
The balance is not completely broken, more builds just have to be made more viable so that we see a bigger versatility in the game.
So glass cannon builds rule the meta? If i recall correctly (and i’m pretty sure i do) D/D ele is considered OP due to it being the jack of all trades. Nice dmg, mobility, defense and healing it has got it all. It’s not a bunker nor a glass cannon (though can be specced being a bunker).
Trapt rangers have recently made a come-back as well. GC? Nah I dont think so.
Im sry, but it seems you dont really know what you’re talking about. At least this makes me believe so.

I like how you responded to half my post.

I’ll keep this simple. The same builds have been used for 5-7 months now. There has been no change in the meta, which many consider to be extremely lopsided and broken(including pros), since release.

ensoriki.5789:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Boons make up a LARGE part of pvp mechanics and need to have some feasible counter on a 1v1 basis. Not all the time, not in every build, not in every situation or at great lengths… they just need access

1v1? It’s called patience.
If you wanted done in a timely manner you grab a second person.
We could do with some improved/more options but throwing it on every profession ain’t right.

No one has yet explained WHY it wouldn’t be right. All i’ve heard is it would make boons useless, but the suggestions I’ve made require sacrifices in other areas to take boon removal and it is limited in that sense and in the sense that it would only be 1-2 boons removed. So please explain to me how, with how fast i can replace removed boons, this would completely destroy boons rather than MAKE PEOPLE ACTUALLY THING ABOUT WHEN THEYRE USING THEM FOR A CHANGE

And yes balancing on a 1v1 AND a 5v5 team basis is the only real way to make a well balanced game. Classes need to not completely outmatch eachother when they are running similarly themed builds (dmg, defense, healing) and also need to not have insane AOE for teamfights (as an example). This is because a large portion of pvp is in on the small scale. I VERY RARELY see any 5v5 fights in tPvP, if ever.

“A warrior Smashes on you with protection with the highest damage in the kitten game.
Protection isn’t supposed to be worthless. A warrior is not supposed to remove it, he get’s a teammate to do that. Not because he actually needs protection removed to function, it makes his job easier. When you hit as hard as a warrior does, making you cut through all defenses is insane.”

THAT quote sounds a lot like having a pocket healer follow me around…isn’t that directly against the ideals behind the design of this game?

I’m not missing your point, im disagreeing with it. Pure damage (no matter how much) isnt a counter to a % based damage reduction steroid. This is why many games have Armor ignore and Power/Damage on different stats, cuz they do different things. A warrior simply doing more damage only makes protection more effective against that warrior because it isnt a flat amount, its 33%. Conditions are supposed to counter tankiness, but condi removal is so overdone that this is no longer true in most cases. Specific mechanics that already exist (boon removal) are meant to counter other specific mechanics (boons).

You could say “damage counters healing cuz it does more damage, so if they heal just burst them”… ok but it doesnt. Poison counters healing, more damage doesnt counter healing, its just more damage.

ANET: “Professions are meant to be self sufficient and be able to handle situations in different ways specific to their own tools”

^that was their reasoning in removing the trinity…so answer why this is suddenly not true when it comes to boons. Damage does not counter boons. Not only does it not counter protection, aegis, regen, but it HELPS retaliation, AND it does nothing against fury, might, vigor, and swiftness. So that argument that a warrior simply powers through things like protection is completely off base.

Additionally LORE? flanking strike works how in the lore?

A warrior KICKS YOU SO HARD that you lose your balanced stability or protection. This makes sense, he kicks the wind out of you and you lose a boon due to lack of focus. A ele BURNS the boons from you with arcane fire…makes sense to me. A ranger’s pets have all sorts of magical properties that could make it make sense in the lore.

In terms of boon stripping additions being too simplistic look at what i chose to add it to in my OP. The utilities are all underused or not used at all. This increases build diversity and requires you to give up established “necessary” utilities in order to be able to remove 1-2 boons. If you dont time those 1-2 boons to remove stuff you actually need to remove then it goes to waste. No one will have anything anywhere near Necro or Mesmer levels of removal because they still have a specialty in this area and if you want reliable AOE removal you take one of them. This shouldnt bar all others from having this capability even if it is extremely limited. This strategy in timing and countering play increases game depth… so I see NO bearing in your statements.

Skyro.3108:

The devs intentionally put the majority of boon stripping ability on mesmers and necros. It was the same way in GW1. If you simply add boon stripping abilities to each class that would nerf mesmers and necros (relative to other classes) and would mess with the class lore.

The classes without boon strips were balanced around the fact they don’t have them. They even specifically said so in some of the class design philosophies they put out a while ago (i.e. warrior damage was balanced to “power through” boons). So while adding boon strips to every class would add that counterplay for that individual class vs boons, it reduces the synergy between classes (i.e. timing your spike with your mesmer/necro’s boon strips), and if anything I think this game needs more of this class synergy.

See that’s all fine on paper… But in practice it doesnt work and hasnt worked.

The issue is that not just 2 classes have boons. Not just 2 classes assign boons or have the majority of boons. Almost every class has access to almost every boon. Due to their availability every class should have some capability to counter them, which they currently dont.

How does a warrior handle protection? he doesnt… how does he handle regen? he cant poison… so… more damage? I guess he can stun/knock heals if they dont have stability but the main weapon GS and the main utilities dont use interrupts (except Bulls Charge which you cant use for that cuz u need it for UR 100BLADE BRO) Those things aren’t counters warriors just do damage to begin with. It isn’t well thought out or solid gameplay.

how do rangers handle boons… well they have poison for regen… they have unblockable traps against aegis?

how about thieves? well either take bountiful theft which is awesome OR USE THE TERRIBLE SWORD DAG COMBO!!!!!! yeah…

See where the problems are?

Boons make up a LARGE part of pvp mechanics and need to have some feasible counter on a 1v1 basis. Not all the time, not in every build, not in every situation or at great lengths… they just need access

This boss has been solo’d. All complaints are invalid

Honestly though it just comes down to doing the boss a few times and packing some vigor or blocks/invulns. He’s pretty easy if you adjust for him

KrisHQ.4719:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

regardless of that philosophy all builds fall into certain roles. You will never extinguish that

That is correct, but the roles should be never be extreme.
There should be variations of builds, but we dont need people that spec full defensive or full offensive, those types of builds should not be viable imo. That gameplay is already out there in every MMO already released.
If you read my post thoroughly you would notice how i said there should be roles that teams fill out, because they are either good at them or want to. NOT because the game necessarily requires those roles.
So yes there would be roaming builds, defensive builds and supporting builds, but not in the extreme sense that we see now.
Balancing the game based on 5v5 situations would result in very specific cookie-cutter builds and roles, which is what we are currently seeing.
I believe however that this is due to the strength of bunkers, more than the strength of dps. And if we toned down the viability of bunker builds, the gameplay would be much more action-packed.

The balance is actually quite good. The problem with not having standard builds like in other mmorpgs, means that people always blame the builds/class and not the player.
In CS 1.6 one guy could take out a whole team in 2 seconds by spraying. “LOL NERF SPAWN! SK.SWE IS kittenING OP, COLT NEEDS NERF”
This never happened, and of course it never happened. This example is completely kitten since the only variable in CS was skill and team coordination.
A lot of people think that thieves needs a nerf, but in reality I win most the times against a thief. I do agree that i’d like the class to take another direction besides stealth, it is kittening frustrating and not fun for anyone. But the class is not really OP, in sPvP that is.

It seems like people want gw2 to actually reintroduce the holy trinity. Im aware that the current meta still needs tweaking to be fun. But if you really want that role-based gameplay, gw2 is just not for you.
Balancing for me is all about eliminating variables other than individual skills and team-skills, and that is done with 1v1 balance.

No… people just want the actual builds and traits to be balanced. The vast majority of traits are absolutely useless or at the very least sub-par to all the standard builds. This has nothing to do with the players. The balance is not quite good and that is why we’ve had the same broken meta for nearly 7 months with the same op traits/professions/builds and the same team setups.

Additionally the best roles in the game are glass cannon and bunker… the 2 things you said shouldn’t exist and they currently RULE the meta. They are extreme builds. There are no extreme support builds, they dont exist. Support is rather weak in this game BECAUSE of the lack of definition. Everyone has their own innate support, therefore a dedicated supporter is a detriment to the group because it largely overlaps with everyone else. This is the reason why 99.9% of players go full in damage or full in bunker or at least very lopsided and imbalanced (in the sense between dmg and tankiness) builds. This game using conquest does require bunkers and the way to kill bunkers is with glass cannons since conditions are SO easily removed. It’s just a huge design flaw.

This isnt about the ele, its about boons in general and the lack of ability to counter a HUGE part of the game’s mechanics for many people.

My point about nullifcation is that yes they are an option but they are the same option for everyone, so the status remains quo, as opposed to the other things you spoke of that are profession specific and available to you without also requiring criticals to work (presumably) or giving up a sigil. You could argue that you are giving a trait/utility/weapon slot up to get that boon removal, yes, but that trait slot is profession specific and defining and tailor to YOU as a profession, not just some random chance to strip a boon sometimes when you maybe crit.

The other problem is the nullification runes arent timed or on demand. I can CHOOSE when i want boons removed with spinal shivers and bountiful theft. I can play with arcane thievery and flanking strike strategically. Nullification does not give me that option, I am at the mercy of RNG to determine if I remove a boon or not. That isn’t counter play, that’s prayer and hope that it works out for you in the way you want.

ensoriki.5789:

#1: Let us see the % damage reduction our defense/toughness is giving to us in the Hero tab. I need to know how much that extra 273 toughness is giving me (made up number) compared to the 300 power im getting in trade (another made up number). These types of tools are useful and need to be implemented.

It’s giving your divisor in the damage formula an extra 273. It’s negating 300 power, what 91%? However how can you put that as a percent when it’s effect depends on their power. If their power is 500, it only reduces the effect of their Power 54%.
If you look at the formula since toughness is just added to armor to be used as a divisor and Power is a divisor. If I understand math correctly (which I probably don’t) Toughness directly cancels out power. So 916 power is negated completely by 916 toughness. Your additional toughness doesn’t reduce any additional damage than the base unless it’s higher than their power. So how much you reduce damage is character specific is it not?

If someone has 1500 power vs your 1200 toughness it negates 1200 power, so they do more dmg than normal, but if they have 600 power, you’ve halved the effect of power. So they should be doing about half their normal damage no?. If it’s character specific than it’s better to put your armor rating than a fluctuating % which would require you to check the hero tab every time you target someone :P.

#3: Improve scaling of toughness, reduce protection to 25% (down from 33%).
REASON: 33% is too much for a single buff, especially one that everyone doesn’t have access to (cough cough warrior, the only class who cant use protection). So much suvivability should not rely on when one boon is simply up or not. 25% is noticeable, does the job, and is far more fair, allowing for toughness to feel truly protective.

Protection should be powerful. Fury should be powerful. Swiftness should be powerful etc. These are offensive and defensive aspects that can be removed.
They are different from Stealth, Aura’s, invulnerability states, evades, Banners, trait effects, toughness, and armor which cannot be removed.
Removing them is just too weak.
Lulz gw1 had really powerful enchantments, you removed/interrupted them. With typically specific professions that excelled in that. Dervishes, Shatter assassin’s, Mesmers and Necro’s. Thieves, Mesmers and Necro’s retain some of that (poor dervish) no reason to make a Boon weaker. I like that it’s strong. Breaking it down is just a pain when
the weapon sigil that is about that, is mediocre and you get more just popping a flame sigil and of the three, Necro’s and thieves don’t stick out that well (imo) at BR vs Mesmers.

I don’t think it works that way. Also toughness scales poorly and has a form of DR that power doesnt so having it scale like that would only keep 1:1 for a small amount of time. Also placing the variable of how toughness reduces armor to be based off of the power of the thing hitting you innately gives a large advantage to power and is just really bad design. SO I HOPE IT ISNT DONE LIKE THAT.

I agree boons SHOULD be powerful…is 25% damage reduction NOT powerful? I’d gladly give up that 8% to have toughness be worth a kitten thing

Lastly a class’ ability to remove boons shouldnt be based on a weapon sigil that they dont innately have. All that does is move the potential boon removal of everyone up by 1. It does nothing to balance the competitiveness of certain professions because it gives everyone the same boost, leaving those who are bad at it to still be just as bad. Also the sigil sucks. I really wish theyd convert all the 30% on crit sigils to 15-20% on hit ones and the 60% on crit to 30-35% on hit. So many of the good sigils require you to use a crit amulet or at least precision trait lines and that isn’t ok.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Boon removal is a necros thing so I would against them giving it to all classes. Otherwise why bring a necro. Instead just buff the necros boon removal or better yet just nerf those builds which stack boons.

I’ve already answered this. Necros would still have the most efficient and effective boon removals, not to mention just plainly having the most of it and an AOE of it. That doesn’t mean other classes shouldnt have it or don’t need it. You cannot call the game balanced by expecting a team to just always have a necro around.

Boons are too powerful to not let people handle them in some way

Necros hardly have a ton of boon removal as it stands.

Spinal Shivers removes 3 boons, Spinal shivers trait at 25%hp removes 3 boons, Corrupt Boon turns ALL boons into conditions, Well of Corruptions converts boons into conditions… I mean that’s kinda a lot right there. And one of them is an aoe. So at MINIMUM with 1 target having only 1 boon for corrupt boon and the well you are still removing 8 minimum and have a massively huge potential to remove a lot more. Oh also minions remove 1 boon each (10% chance on hit) through a trait. Minions suck tho so… yeah

Compare that to the next highest person, Mesmer, and they get 1 removed (up to 3 in an aoe) on their sword auto chain finisher, 1 on GS 3 in an aoe skill shot, 3 on arcane thievery, and Null field. Oh and boon removal on shatter which is crazy good IMO. So Mesmers are pretty similar but not quite as much.

Now compare that to everyone else. Warrior 0, ele 0, thief (flanking strike, bountiful theft), engi 1 on mine throw, ranger 0, guardian 1 i think in a trait but i cant remember.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Boon removal is a necros thing so I would against them giving it to all classes. Otherwise why bring a necro. Instead just buff the necros boon removal or better yet just nerf those builds which stack boons.

I’ve already answered this. Necros would still have the most efficient and effective boon removals, not to mention just plainly having the most of it and an AOE of it. That doesn’t mean other classes shouldnt have it or don’t need it. You cannot call the game balanced by expecting a team to just always have a necro around.

Boons are too powerful to not let people handle them in some way

KrisHQ.4719:

You cannot compare GW2 to LoL, as LoL has specific roles for each of their heroes.
Gw2 is build with the philosophy that there should be no trinity.
This means that every class should be able to rely on itself, and no classes should be better at 1v1’s. With the current meta there are classes that are too powerful in 1v1’s, and others that are too weak. Balancing the 1v1 issue, will in the longer run balance the teamplay.

Honestly I do not see how 1v1 balance would make the game more static. To me it would become much more dynamic. The way it is now, you’ll just have a bunker ele/guard/engi standing on one point for an entire match. It’s almost impossible to take down a bunker alone, and if you try, you will waste your time.

Having the game balanced around 1v1’s would require more movement and team coordination, as points would be much more vulnerable in general.
The most interesting gameplays are often the ones where each individual are equally matched, leaving only skill as the variable.
That is what made CS 1.6 such a huge e-sport. Each player were equal which meant that the only variables were individual skill and team skill/coordination and strategies. People could still be good at spraying while others were good at strategies or using the AWM (simply put). The point is that the gameplay did not become static or pale, as each team could use different strategies that were all viable. This was the case because of the 1v1 balance that CS naturally had.

The gameplay in CS did not provide any roles, but the teams filled them out based on what the individual players were good at, and that is where gw2 needs to go.
Right now players cannot choose the “role” they are best at, because the gameplay requires specific builds to be competitive.

I hope this is not too difficult to understand!
I believe this discussion lives because people disagree about the direction pvp should take, and not whether the game should be balanced around 1v1 or team synergy (both things can work, but do so in very different ways). In my opinion the best direction for gw2 would be 1v1 balancing, since i feel the gameplay/combat mechanics would benefit from that the most. But if you look at gw2 with a LoL perspective, you might want gw2 to head in another direction.

All that said, i believe gw2 needs another gameplay-mode for it to be competitive. We dont need 20 different game-modes, and imo we dont need death-match (even though it would be kinda fun). We need a game-mode which primary objective is not revolving around holding points OR grabbing flags, because specific builds will naturally be better at such tasks.
We need a very neutral objective, that for instance could be “Red Team needs to defend a Lord, Blue team has to kill it.” And of course the teams would have to switch sides.
This is very basic and would work with a lot of secondary objectives, that could make the game even more interesting. An example of such could be objectives that did not grant points over time, but gave some kind of buff that the teams could go for if needed.

---

TLDR; Gw2 should be balanced around 1v1’s, as the mechanics would benefit from that the most. And we need a new game-mode that does not require specific builds. (“Neutral” primary objective).

regardless of that philosophy all builds fall into certain roles. You will never extinguish that

Thats all fine and good. Most of that I’d agree with

My problem, and the difference I see, is that the traits are integral parts of each professions that are directly linked to them. Runes and masteries are not in lol, they are a general pool.

While they both provide diversity the issue i take with GW2 is that im given all these options, which are presented to me as viable and as a little piece of my class. When a mastery is bad, you don’t use that mastery and it’s whatever because it isnt in keeping with the champion you choose.

When a trait or weapon /weapon skill is bad it’s a missing piece of your professions which brings down their effectiveness and diversity overall while not affecting ANY of professions. Masteries being global but EVERYONE at the same disadvantage if they are bad rather than just that one profession, therefore nullifying it.

also think of this. With 3 points when do you ever really encounter 5v5? It’s been pretty kitten rare in my experience. I think it’s a little naive to balance strictly for 5v5 when MOST fights are nowhere near being 5v5.

Zinwrath.2049:

Well see this brings up an interesting thought.

Who says condition damage is a role?

As my understanding condition damage is simply a damage type which most champions have. Sure i can build to do a lot of it vs direct damage, but how is that covering a needed role?

The scepter actually has a very reasonable direct damage source across its abilitys rivaling its condition damage. You could call this a hybrid item that does both forms of damage equally. but i dont see how this suggests how you will play the game.

Its not like league of legends where you might want to get an AP champ simply to encourage them to have to waste some of their resources on MR. In conquest i have no idea what each professions abilities/weapons are before the match starts…so i have no idea if i should grab a bunch of condition wipe or not, i wont know till the games started and then its too late.

Supposedly its supposed to counter high toughness / mobility / tanky builds because once its on its on…except for condi removal, of which there is WAY too much. Also since it’s basically true damage it goes around toughness…which would matter if toughness didnt suck 100% of the time

Zinwrath.2049:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

yes i can… cuz the builds and trait types/stat lines do have specific roles.

Tankiness
Pure Damage
Condition Damage
Support (healing / boons)
Mobility

You can sum those up to your roles

Additionally if you balance for 1v1 and 5v5 then typically everything in between falls in line because you really have balanced for any “fair fight” (equal numbers and roles) situation. the 5v5 balancing covers things like AoE, bouncing stuff, and combos while 1v1 focuses on burst damage, individual tankiness, and the general competitiveness of each individual class and build.

Problem is some of the professions traits arent as clearly defined or are not working as one would assume they’re intended.

I like your 5v5 and 1v1 balance theory. My only issue is how do you make each professoin able to clearly do each role do you say “this is the weapon and trait and utilitys for this role….this is the weapon trait utilitys for THIS role” and then when each of the 8 professions can handle each role, make sure they are all able to contribute as well as each other in a team fight and handle each other in each respected role in a 1on1 scenerio?

For the most part (with the exception of the elementalist) most stuff is already role defined. Necro scepter is condi, OH dagger is condi, GS is mobility/pure damage. All shields are tankiness/support. Utilities fall into this function too. Elixir gun is support, Assassin’s Signet is damage. According to ANET each profession is supposed to be able to handle ALL roles in different ways. No one ever said each weapon can handle all roles, in fact they’re pretty obviously meant to do 1 or 2 things (IE Thief daggers are pure damage but can also be situationally and limitedly used for condi dmg)

Zinwrath.2049:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

I’d like to add that the lack of a VISIBLE ladder that players can go see where they rank against other players is a huge deterrent from keeping people playing. There is no sense of progression in sPvP and that creates a feeling that your games not only don’t matter, but that GW2 itself is emphasizing that your games don’t matter because it itself doesn’t keep track of them or care. Your glory rank is meaningless because it is about time spent, not about skill or games won. Its more about mercilessly killing baddies in hotjoin than your actual prowess in PvP.

We need a visible system of divisions / leagues / brackets whatever you want to call it and we need some manner of ELO / Points / Scaling so that a ladder can be established and used. You already have that wall of glory on the left side of the mists, let players go check their rankings on that. Easy enough right?

On top of everything we really need a real solo queue… its been said before, i’m saying it now, and i’m guaranteeing it will be said again.

Few issues i have with your wall of txt. But you do make a lot of good points of the bigger issues (need rank visable, better design in general on abilities weapons traits).

However like you said at the beginning ..we dont need multiple maps look at LoL, we also dont need more options for build paths, Look at lol. ..people can happily play the same champ with only 4 abilities and even now your item options are pretty strict to what you will have to buy everytime you play.

or even TF2, was a huge success even when all you had was 3 standard weapons, no choices on changing them out for others.

You can drown a game in options of things to choose before you enter a match all day long, and all it does it make the game messy, difficult to balance, and filled with bad decisions and nubtraps for new players to fall into.

Also most of the maps are TOO BIG. They want 5v5 play styles and you want it to be an esport right? What is funner, watching people travel around a big map, or watching people duke it out? The tighter the map, the more likely people run into each other and have to battle, this is what makes the game mode fun. Fighting other people.

The only point to having nodes to cap, is so people can fight over them, they realized this, and is why the last two maps objectives are close together.

Also, increasing the points to 1000 is pointless. Like you say later there are no big moments. This can be done through things like on temple of the storm, where you have a buff that spawns and forces people into one location for a big turn around moment. You can solve this problem through map design, not increasing numbers.

Also people have short attention spans and like you said, this game only has one phase unlike LoL. Its cap those points…end of story. So games dont need to be much longer, you could push it past 500 but it really wouldnt change much without big maps objectives that turn around the game like Baron (or the temple of the storm buff).

People are unhappy because of bad design, they wanna do certain things with their profession that it does not allow…or they simply suck or dont fit into the game mode.

And yes stealth is bad due to how accessible it is and how long it can lasts. Theifs will complain if you nerf it because they feel they need it. If they need it, thats a design flaw, they need buffed in other areas so they dont need it.

Anyway, these were my only problems. Also elites dont belong in this style of gameplay and should not be impactful, if they were anymore powerful they’d have to be on even longer CD"s and would be overly disruptive ..and you wouldnt get to use them often enough. This isnt LoL, they’re fine where they are if anything i think they should be less disruptive and on shorter cd’s.

About the BUILD roles… that isnt true. The specialization of a character in LOL comes from ITEMS and MASTERIES and RUNES. These things are like the GW2 traits so no people dont play with just 4 abilities but i do see where you’re coming from. One of the problems though is giving those options but having 90% of them just be crap, which is currently the case. If the options never existed but we had one REALLY concrete and polished build per class I feel people would be a lot more forgiving.

The customization (in lol) comes from different areas and has the potential to switch on a game by game basis, or sometimes even in the same game (swapping out items at end game). You also counter your enemies as you build items. If you are building the same thing every game that is more the player’s fault than the items systems since it’s pretty robust, especially now in S3

Also i don’t recall talking about elites at all. I’m just talking about CC mostly.

KrisHQ.4719:

You cannot compare GW2 to LoL, as LoL has specific roles for each of their heroes.
Gw2 is build with the philosophy that there should be no trinity.
This means that every class should be able to rely on itself, and no classes should be better at 1v1’s. With the current meta there are classes that are too powerful in 1v1’s, and others that are too weak. Balancing the 1v1 issue, will in the longer run balance the teamplay.

Honestly I do not see how 1v1 balance would make the game more static. To me it would become much more dynamic. The way it is now, you’ll just have a bunker ele/guard/engi standing on one point for an entire match. It’s almost impossible to take down a bunker alone, and if you try, you will waste your time.

Having the game balanced around 1v1’s would require more movement and team coordination, as points would be much more vulnerable in general.
The most interesting gameplays are often the ones where each individual are equally matched, leaving only skill as the variable.
That is what made CS 1.6 such a huge e-sport. Each player were equal which meant that the only variables were individual skill and team skill/coordination and strategies. People could still be good at spraying while others were good at strategies or using the AWM (simply put). The point is that the gameplay did not become static or pale, as each team could use different strategies that were all viable. This was the case because of the 1v1 balance that CS naturally had.

The gameplay in CS did not provide any roles, but the teams filled them out based on what the individual players were good at, and that is where gw2 needs to go.
Right now players cannot choose the “role” they are best at, because the gameplay requires specific builds to be competitive.

I hope this is not too difficult to understand!
I believe this discussion lives because people disagree about the direction pvp should take, and not whether the game should be balanced around 1v1 or team synergy (both things can work, but do so in very different ways). In my opinion the best direction for gw2 would be 1v1 balancing, since i feel the gameplay/combat mechanics would benefit from that the most. But if you look at gw2 with a LoL perspective, you might want gw2 to head in another direction.

All that said, i believe gw2 needs another gameplay-mode for it to be competitive. We dont need 20 different game-modes, and imo we dont need death-match (even though it would be kinda fun). We need a game-mode which primary objective is not revolving around holding points OR grabbing flags, because specific builds will naturally be better at such tasks.
We need a very neutral objective, that for instance could be “Red Team needs to defend a Lord, Blue team has to kill it.” And of course the teams would have to switch sides.
This is very basic and would work with a lot of secondary objectives, that could make the game even more interesting. An example of such could be objectives that did not grant points over time, but gave some kind of buff that the teams could go for if needed.

---

TLDR; Gw2 should be balanced around 1v1’s, as the mechanics would benefit from that the most. And we need a new game-mode that does not require specific builds. (“Neutral” primary objective).

yes i can… cuz the builds and trait types/stat lines do have specific roles.

Tankiness
Pure Damage
Condition Damage
Support (healing / boons)
Mobility

You can sum those up to your roles. Granted the roles fluctuate but players generally fall into one of those roles. Hybrid builds even have a focus. Placing these things on a charted scale of SUPER DMG to SUPER TANKY allows you to find the medium in hybrid/tanky dps builds (as an example) which still allows achievable balance in a role-based area.

Additionally if you balance for 1v1 and 5v5 then typically everything in between falls in line because you really have balanced for any “fair fight” (equal numbers and roles) situation. the 5v5 balancing covers things like AoE, bouncing stuff, and combos while 1v1 focuses on burst damage, individual tankiness, and the general competitiveness of each individual class and build.

PEOPLE WE AREN’T SPENDING ENOUGH GEMS!
QUICKLY TO THE BLTP

I’d like to add that the lack of a VISIBLE ladder that players can go see where they rank against other players is a huge deterrent from keeping people playing. There is no sense of progression in sPvP and that creates a feeling that your games not only don’t matter, but that GW2 itself is emphasizing that your games don’t matter because it itself doesn’t keep track of them or care. Your glory rank is meaningless because it is about time spent, not about skill or games won. Its more about mercilessly killing baddies in hotjoin than your actual prowess in PvP.

We need a visible system of divisions / leagues / brackets whatever you want to call it and we need some manner of ELO / Points / Scaling so that a ladder can be established and used. You already have that wall of glory on the left side of the mists, let players go check their rankings on that. Easy enough right?

On top of everything we really need a real solo queue… its been said before, i’m saying it now, and i’m guaranteeing it will be said again.

The same game mode isnt necessarily the problem, look at LoL.

The problem is the depth of builds and the combat. Traits dont REALLY feel like they affect very much for the most part, due to many of them being extremely bad. Weapons feel confining rather than defining, and since there are only a few viable builds each class is pretty stale at the moment.

If pvp in GW2 had the depth that LoL matches did (lane phase, mid game, team fight, roaming, etc) just stuff that makes it more than RUN AROUND AND BUNKER ON POINTS OR TRY TO KILL THINGS then the game would be a lot more fun because it would have levels to it. I actually think maps are currently too small. You don’t really have to strategize because you can pretty much get almost anywhere instantly. There isnt much of a risk in running to a point. Additionally I think that matches should be to 1000pts, give more defined timers on special objectives and make them worth more. Spread them out so that going for one risks a cap node more. Make it so that maps start with 1 node active, the mid one, then after a few minutes the second node is active, then a few minutes later have the third node go after. This forces CHANGES IN GAMEPLAY within the match, phases that adjust how something is approached. This is what makes LoL so interesting.

I’d also LOVE to see a map like TF2 capture nodes where each team owns 3, 1 in the very middle is neutral, and you fight to control all 7, pushing through different areas each time a different node is being fought over (THIS is much better IMO). Right now the combat depth is extremely shallow and so there isnt really any way to stop that but rebuild a few systems.

Condition removal isnt strategic, it’s just there for most classes. You kinda just remove conditions cuz you can at certain points. “Oh many i have a lot of bleeding and im poisoned, better clear it before I heal.” But that doesnt feel like its actually necessary or a big deal in any way. Conditions are applied SO readily in many cases that the removal HAS to be like this. Its a mistake on both sides of the design.

Boons are far too plentiful for how good they are. The majority of classes dont have any reliable way to remove boons. Strategic boon removal should be something EVERY class has ACCESS to in some way. This would heavily break down the bunker meta and allow for new builds to emerge.

Many weapons are confused in what they want to do. Swords for warriors are power and condi dmg but do neither well. Daggers for thieves are mostly power but have death blossom in there for some reason (although I’m aware of bleed builds using it and caltrops). Scepter for necro is obviously a condi wep but the #3 scales off of power and gains %power damage per condi applied…how does that make any sense?

There are no real BIG moments. I feel like most of the very powerful abilities have such fast cast times OR roughly NO real telegraphy that you can get lost in the stream of particles. EX Cloak and Dagger should have a BIG SWIRLING BLACK THING OF SHADOWS around the thief’s hand when they are casting it for how important of an ability it is. Otherwise it just looks like a dagger attack and its extremely hard to avoid. An example of this done well is CHURNING EARTH which doesnt even hit that hard(which to me is hilarious for the work you have to do to get it to hit compared to CnD). Stuff just doesnt FEEL like it has impact and things like cripple and immobilize are far too readily available to the point where it doesnt feel like you need to even think about when you use them.

Additionally stealth really just needs to have revealed go to 5 seconds and have the 1 second longer stealth trait reduce it to 4 seconds. Currently 3 seconds is not enough and allows for perma stealthing. Stealth is no fun to fight. It’s not specifically OP but it creates boring and frustrating situations. It is also TOO GOOD for how insanely available it is to use. Anet said, during pre-beta, they understand how powerful stealth was and that’s why they wanted SHORT DURATION stealthing as opposed to the more traditional permastealth prior to combat, come out of nowhere and nuke ur target. Well guess what we got….

What about a special buff that ALL minions, ranger pets, turrets, and the like gain upon entering any dungeon. Since they are instanced zones this shouldnt be too hard (like a zone buff that must have a requirement filled, that requirement is being a pet/minion/etc).

The buff reduces damage pets take by 30% and minions / turrets take by 50%. At the very least this is assigned for AoE.

Everyone is completely off base…

You must balance a game from a 1v1 perspective

AND

You must balance a game from a team perspective.

Look at LoL: Champions are balanced by 1v1 in their perspective ROLES. They are also balanced in a teamfight. These are two different spectrums that influence each other but do not negate each other.

You cannot balance for 1 and ignore the other, you must balance for both.

My necro alt is 14 right now, If you have no one by the time im 35 ill do it.

wait do people actually find thieves fun?

most boring class there is… basically because of how little effort it takes to destroy people.

Ingame name:
Rhengorne, Wjggles, Vryi, Kashious, Ralshiak, Muhrin

Main Class / Potential Classes (Incase team requires):
In order of the above, Engi, Warrior, Ele, Necro, Mesmer, Ranger

Region: NA

Practice Times: Whenever

Experience: Almost rank 20. Been taking a break recently but I’d like to get back into the game and have a coordinated team to play with. I’m not too hard core but decently skilled people who know what they’re doing and play to win are just what I’m looking for

Dragon fights are horrible…