Guild Wars 2

The interesting thing about the patch that “killed” bunker mes is that to a large extent, they didn’t kill its survivability. The block duration and precog were already nerfed before the end of season 1 without taking it out of the meta. The amulet change did reduce the survivability, but this affected all classes.

So the only thing they changed was really killing the support. Quickness rez gone. Alacrity halved (which to be fair does also reduce personal survivability). I really don’t think that was the best way to go since to a large extent, the complaints we have currently about condi mes come from its bunker-like survivability while doing decent damage.

And that is I believe the problem we have currently with this build. You survive, but is the support enough?

The few times I tried again a bunker mes (with a few variations), I didn’t feel like I was contributing much to my team effort which is why I stopped.

Tomiyou.3790:

How about you increase the number of illusions required to 3? This would make it much more skillful too and it would reduce the current kittened condishatter spam mesmer has. Most mesmers like shatter spam, but I absolutely pity them for having to rely on something so braindead to even stay in meta. When I played mesmer, it used to be definiton of skill. Now it is spam.

I do not like the shatter spam build, so much that I stopped playing mesmer (my main) except for occasionally some fun with berserker power shatter. Yet what you suggest is not a good idea I think. Having 3 illusions when shattering is not skill, it’s luck. Illusions die at the first cleave, so you pretty much cannot be sure that in the split second you need to click on the shatter your illusion count will remain.

I already disliked the requirement for 2 and preferred the iCD idea, but 3 is just too difficult to guarantee regardless of your skill.

If we really really need to nerf the condi application of mesmer there are better ways to do it (for example: switch the confusion and torment only on F1 and F2 instead of all shatters, with a corresponding buff to the number of stacks, this way it is again about landing a few important shatters and not rolling through your keyboard).

Another reason for the failure of TDM is the lack of build template. You don’t build the same way for TDM or conquest. If you introduce build template AND/OR make a separate queue for it, it would immediately be more popular.

The problem with separate queue, and a-net has already mentioned it, is another fractioning of the PvP population which makes good matchmaking more difficult.

Agemnon.4608:

Balancing is very tough. In a purely 1v1 setting you’d go by this formula for potential matchups:

y(x) =x(x+1)/2

We have nine classes so that would be:

9(9+1)/2 = 45 match ups.

That is for 1v1, for 5v5 we surely have many permutations. There are five players per team and nine classes from which to choose.

If there are nine classes in 5v5 then the number of combinations is obviously much bigger. The formula could be read as follows since classes can be repeated combination formulas apply rather than permutation and put some factorial operations to work:

(9 nCr 5)² / 2 + (9 nCr 5) / 2 =

9C5=9!/(5!*(9-5)!)

362,880/(120*(9-5)!)
362,880/(120*4)
362,880/480
=756

So 756^2/2+756/2= 286,146 potential matchups. As you can see that’s very hard to balance and doesn’t even factor in possible trait, gear, and rune combinations between them.

Except we do not ask each match up to be balanced. We are fine (even happy) with some soft counters and some specialization (bad in team fight but good in roaming). So at the end, we just want all classes to be balanced with a “reference level”. So take one build as your reference and just make sure all classes are “overall” (meaning for their role and on average of possible matches) as strong. The problems of elite specs are obvious to many, many have good ideas how to balance them.

And a-net does not even need to try all possible combinations: they have a devoted PvP community (and in particular pro leaguers) who do that for them. So as long as they work by increments (and not by a release every 3 months) they have very little chance of destroying everything.

I think custom areas are just the wrong place to look. Those are typically fully unorganized teams and just go wherever.

If instead you look a pro games (many on twitch) you will see that there is often one big fight and possibly 1 small skirmish (depends also on the map, temple usually ends up in many 1v1 across the map for both the nodes and the buff).

I would say currently the meta is very team-fight centered.

Ravenmoon.5318:

I always find it hilarious when people say that revenant block needs to lower duration completely ignoring the fact that its one of the very few blocks that lock the character in place.

Do you like … spam all your high dps/cc abilities when you see the BLOCK popup. Like seriously … you guys make me cringe when you type bullkitten like that.

If you can’t gut a character that has stationary block you are not good at this game. Regardless of how you feel about yourself or what yo mama tells you.

Having block on shield, evade on sword, more block on staff, evade on Shiro util +technical invuln on heal means that you can delay your death for very long, so long that your cooldowns have a chance to come back.

I will just say that like for the mesmer, a shield block when you already have good evade on your main hand weapon is a lot. So duration probably needs to be reduced a bit.

This sentence right there is the only reason revenants are locked into specific weapon sets if they want to be viable. Even you OP, as a non rev realize that revs are locked into using sword in at least one of their hands.

So then you agree that this needs to be nerfed because it also reduces diversity for the revenants. Balancing weapons means buffing bad ones, but also nerfing the too good ones. Revenant weapons are all fairly good (unlike their legends), sword shield is just too much.

Everybody shouts nerf this nerf that nerf this nerf that. How about you suggest something innovative like i don’t know … maybe rework ventari stance in something useful and have it match healbot ele or bunker druid and not being a complete trainwreck with 0 synergy with everything else and borderline impossible to control tablet.

I don’t disagree with that. My post was about reducing the OP components of elite spec. There are a lot of things which can be changed to improve the game, but I don’t intend to suggest how to fix it all in one post :p

So my previous post on balancing Moa but in a clearer form. What about:

1. increase significantly the visual cues for moa cast (noob protection)
2. because it will be avoided more often now, reduce its cooldown to 60 or 90s (anti-uselessness protection)
3. because it has shorter CD, reduce a bit its duration (6s) it should not be less since moa has good disengage so if less, moa would actually help the target survivability
4. change Moa AA so that it does not move you towards the target (noob protection)

CS would still need to be changed, but I think this is a more balanced version.

Fay.2357:

Every 70 seconds:

3 uses of Well of Action: 9s quickness
3 uses of Tides of Time: 9s quickness
3 uses of Signet of Inspiration: ~5s per use, generously for a total of 15s

This totals to 33s of quickness on a 70s cd, or 47.14% uptime.

Time warp is 11s every 135s, for 8.14% uptime.

In total, we end up with 55% base uptime if continuum split does not affect elites. If continuum split does affect elites (current situation) time warp jumps to 11s every 70s, for a 15.71% uptime to reach a total of 63% uptime.

With a revenant providing 50% boon duration, we have the nerfed uptime placed at 82.5% final uptime, and the un-nerfed uptime at 94.5%.

While I do accept your comments about the faulty assumptions, I’d like to mention that based on your calculations, you should not even use CS at all: ToD and SoI are 30s CD (actually you could easily trait for BI making the signet CD lower) and WoA is 25s CD. So every 68s (90s but reduced with alacrity) you would already cast 3 of each (without needing to wait for CS). In this case, not using CS is actually an improvement because WoA has slightly lower CD and this prevents the second signet use (right after CS) to be negated by already fully saturated quickness stacks.

Or instead (more likely) you could manage to put 4 uses of all quickness sources in your rotation, let’s say every 75s. With your numbers, you get 58% quickness uptime + 8% for TW, with 50% boon duration, you reach 99% uptime.

The problem of courtyard was that once you lost a fight, often people would just respawn one by one and get slaughtered. Regroup is even more important than in conquest.

Maybe the mode should be like different rounds, where you don’t respawn once you are dead (so most likely you team has lot), but then you all respawn together on the next round.

For GvG, I would love it, but it feels like it would be impossible to find a game. It is just too many people. GvG could be better supported in sPvP but would really work best with premades only…

Your solution does not change anything compare to pre-update since you still need to know to which necro the chill belongs.

I believe the change of functionality is great and I have been preaching for it for a very long time. Now you can argue about the balance (number of stacks, duration etc…). Maybe it needs to be shorter but more intense. I think the point was to make sure RS 4 combo did not make you explode, so too strong conditions were ruled out as well as too high stacks.

As Khand mentions though, the -66% debuff is what was the most OP about previous chill. I think it should have been nerfed to -33% and the duration kept, but that would have been a nerf to hydromancy and other non-necro chills. But I think this would have been fine. Chill was often used mostly for movement speed, but the CD increase is just too much.

While you can argue that chrono is currently too strong, that does not mean it does not have its counter. Look at the AG of last week and you will see how a team shut down the enemy chronomancer by bringing a DH.

I have not been playing the meta chrono for a long time, so I don’t know about matchup with a berserker. But it could very well be a counter (or at least a tough matchup).

NinjaEd.3946:

Don’t own HoT expansion so I can’t say my experience playing them, but I being a gw2 player since per-launch I can share my experience playing against them….

Kitten Horrible

It’s not impossible to use a core spec and win, because the elite spec’s are being used by new players as well but in ranked season 2 and even unranked the effort that they have to use to be “efficient” in pvp, now put that build in the hands of a competent player who knows the class and mechanics of pvp?

No its horribly unbalanced and needless to say Arena Net will NEVER admit that Hot spec’s are better than Core spec’s because of politics. Whether this was done intentionally (which 99% would probably say yes) or that it was done to address profession issues and give them an option to break free of them the fact remains that Core builds are by no means statistically or mechanically comparable to the new elite specializations.

To put old players who don’t own HoT or new players who haven’t purchased HoT at this disadvantage is pathetic, it only shows the power of greed and not the satisfaction for the players. I still managed to get 3/4 of the way into ruby using non-HoT builds playing maybe 6 hours a week only because the professions I played I know well, but I still died to complete fools (shown by playing the easiest builds in beginner armor) countless times and I’d see them just button smashing to win. The good players using those builds just recked me over and over and I had no choice but to run or re-queue. Past update did several good things but balance should NOT be done in these quarterly updates, fix your game Arena Net. Do More balance patches, even if they are small changes address things that aren’t used and the ones that are overused, isn’t rocket science to know what is working really well and what doesn’t work.

I don’t know if this power creep was intended, but I think it is not such a great strategy actually. The reason is that they went free to play not so long before, meaning that there is a large influx of new players owning only the core game. This is a bad first impression when you start playing a game and you are severely outgunned by everyone else (on top of your own inexperience).

aelfwe.4239:

stuff

I have already answered to every single comment you just made. So I won’t bother do it again. I think I have made my point and everybody can now make its own opinion (I don’t actually think it is a matter of opinion but apparently some people disagree).

Congratulations, you won the debate!

Stand The Wall.6987:

make meditations heal allies.

Meditations are selfish skills. It’s not meant to heal allies. On the other hand, consecrations are meant to be support skills. So… make them actually interesting for support?

Well outside of the nerf/buff debate, the problem with DH is that it has some absurdly powerful mechanics but which a good player can completely negate.

Let us be honest DH traps can mean insta-death for any non-tanks character. If you get trapped in a superposed ToF + PoB + DM combo, you eat massive damage + you are a free kill for team since you can’t move out. Same for LB 5.

Basically those skills are too strong for their own good, meaning a-net had to nerf them. On the other hand, good players will simply dodge most of those and come out without a scratch. This reminds me in a sense of Moa. Moa is a massive CD, negated by one dodge. But lower tier players don’t dodge.

So I think the DH traps (especially DM) and LB 5 have to be redesigned to be less overpowered against “bad” players but still reasonably efficient against good players.

So, I think some upgrades to Moa can be good, though I think the main issue is continuum split (which should not reset elites).

My main issue would be that AA is moving towards your target (or at least this is the feeling I have when moa-ed), which is usually not what you want (go away from your target). Any good player will usually not use AA (especially currently with the confusion stacks) but bad players do. So I would like a fix so that it behaves more like a usual melee auto attack (you can hit while moving, but it does not move by itself).

Also, currently, the moa cast is fairly “discrete”. The animation is fairly limited (looks very much like a staff AA but with more pink glow basically). For a skill of this strength, this is bad. The animation should be more pronounced (think “Chaotic Release” of Revenant). In exchange, reduce the CD of Moa significantly (90s) and its duration a bit (6 to 8s?). and we are fine.

Exciton.8942:

Okay. Let me ask you the details.

How do you assume SoI simply double the quickness uptime you calculated?

Note the following:
1. Timewarp is applying 1sec quickness every second. If you don’t have boon duration, you will end up with 1 sec of quickness in the end.

2. Tides of time apply 1.5 sec quickness on first touch and 1.5 sec quickness on second. There is like an almost 2 sec interval in between. So you won’t get 3 sec quickness in the end either.

3. SoI has 3/4 sec cast time. With quickness it has 1/2 sec cast time. So you will automatically lose that 1/2 sec quickness time to copy over to allies.

I will tell you my gut feeling is that w/o CS, raid mesmer will still be viable but just barely. Very likely you will be asked to have that super annoying-to-get commander gear to play.

Well I only assumed SoI doubles tides of time and well of action. The reasoning is simple, at the start of the fight, you cast TW which applies 1s quickness every second (assuming 0 boon duration). This means the first 11s, you have quickness on you. During this time, you also cast well of action + tides of time. Those 6s quickness just add up to what you currently have, you don’t consume them thanks to the already existing quickness from time warp. So SoI effectively double those 6s.

In reality, because of boon duration, time warp will actually also stack a little extra quickness, and thus my calculation actually underestimate the final result.

Then, the second time, when well of action and tides of time are back on CD, you still have the accumulated quickness from before (for this you DO need boon duration, but I did say that) and thus the 6s extra second of quickness DO stack and are multiplied (on top of whatever quickness left from the first casts) by SoI.

So it does work as long as you have enough boon duration to get 100% uptime.

If CS is not removed but just changed to not cast TW, then this is even easier since the second SoI will double not only the current WoA + ToT but also the very high amount accumulated during CS.

So here, reaching 100% duration is even easier.

Exciton.8942:

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t play it, but I followed discussions on the forum and I can do some maths, so overall, I know what impact my suggestion will have. Fun fact, irl I am a theoretician, meaning that I never do any experiment myself but just based on theory I can still give valuable results. Same thing here, I don’t need to try it to know what is the DPS contribution of mesmer.

What you do need to calculate to claim that even PvE mesmer is more balanced without low CD timewarp is that to compare the dps from two compositions with and without mesmer.

The one you provided in the original post proved literally nothing.

Nope, the original post proved that in a 5-man content, a CS nerf does not result in a loss of quickness/alacrity uptime.

AND, it was already proven (by many) in other threads that 100% alacrity and quickness uptime give chronomancer a top DPS contribution.

And again, if 100% alacrity/quickness on 4 other players is enough to boost your DPS to top, then applying those buff to 9 other players is too much.

aelfwe.4239:

So if you want to use that argument to ask a pve chrono nerf, keep go! It’s like asking to

My point is as simple as that: CS probably needs a nerf for PvP because it is a skill which makes thing absolutely unbalanceable. If you nerf Moa instead, then you nerf core mesmer even more compared to chronomancer.

Then people argued that PvE mesmer would suffer from that. My point was to prove that in a 5-man content, a CS nerf does not prevent you from reaching 100% alacrity and quickness. Then people argued that it prevents you from reaching it in 10 man content, and I said that you should NOT reach it in 10 man content or your DPS contribution is simply way superior to other classes.

So summary, if you nerf CS

• PvP is more balanced
• 5-man PvE is identical
• 10-man PvE is more balanced

So yes, good nerf!

So basically you telling me that you are asking a nerf for a class in a content you don’t know, but that doesn’t make you wrong?

Err, well, that makes you ignorant, and expressing opinion over unknowed stuff isnt the smart thing ever..

I don’t play it, but I followed discussions on the forum and I can do some maths, so overall, I know what impact my suggestion will have. Fun fact, irl I am a theoretician, meaning that I never do any experiment myself but just based on theory I can still give valuable results. Same thing here, I don’t need to try it to know what is the DPS contribution of mesmer.

Silverkey.2078:

For the health of the game, no one should have a DPS contribution more than 50% higher than the others. Chrono in raids is way beyond that!

In fact i want ANOTHER elite specialization for mesmer focused on dps, so than, when i join raid i can chose between goin support (chrono) or dps (the second specialization).

Your being pointless it’s not about willing to have a dps viable build on mesmer.

You are pointless because you ask it at price to kill the support role of the chrono.

You misunderstood me here. I am saying that the DPS contribution (meaning sum of personal DPS + DPS increase of other players thanks to your support) of chronomancer is too high in a raid, not that I want a high personal DPS.

I am fine with chrono being a support-mainly specialization. And if the next specialization is a DPS specialization, great! I would personally like if core mesmer could be the DPS specialization (see my phantasm rework for example in my signature), else core mesmer simply does not exist in PvE. But if they choose to have an elite spec instead, that’s good too.

In open world, I usually use blink + mimic for some additional teleport.

Salamander.2504:

Nothing. Just nerf the other elite specs. Reaper and DH are finally where they ought to be, or pretty darn close (and maybe warrior/scrapper but jury is still out). It’s some of the other elites that are an issue.

Another +1

Though I still think DH is superior to core guardian, and in particular virtues need a nerf to reach better balance, while virtue of courage (core) could get a buff. The same way, I think reaper is still better than necro.

But yes, DH does not need a buff but simply other specs to be reduced to core specs.

aelfwe.4239:

Pve it’s in a good state like now, there are 3 class over 10 that are mandatory or nearly there (chrono, druid, ps) and all other class are viable.

If 3 classes are mandatory, then it is not balanced. Simple as that.

Silverkey.2078:

Fun thing, 10 man content is 2 times 5 man content. The DPS increase that 1 mesmer brings to 4 members means that it is also viable in 10 man content. Actually if you cannot share alacrity and quickness to the 5 members not in your party, that means that you may actually need a second chrono.
From what I understand anyway, since you cannot change party anymore to share your boons to both, only shield 5 will affect all members and not having CS-time warp will change nothing to that.

The fact itself you are even not sure even about the formations used in raid make It clear you have no idea of the content you are asking nerf for.

It’s even clear that, in the best scenario, you have not putted a feet in a raid from 2 balance patch ago.

So asking for a nerf of a content you never been in makes you last sentence

I have never been in raid period. I Don’t deny it. Which is why my last sentence started with “if I understand well”: I was not sure of this point and I was not pretending I was. But that does not make me wrong in the first point and thus my conclusion. My point was to say that since a chrono provides an insane DPS boost to 4 other people, even if you provide STRICTLY NOTHING to the other 5 your place in raid is guaranteed. And you want to make sure you extend this insane boost to the other 5… Anyone who wants balance across all game modes (like me) thinks this should not happen.

Silverkey.2078:

So thanks for your input, it made me realize that I should definitely change the title of this thread to “CS should be nerfed for PvE balance”.

something to have piety about, more than something to take into consideration for the health of the game.

For the health of the game, no one should have a DPS contribution more than 50% higher than the others. Chrono in raids is way beyond that!

eldenbri.1059:

I don’t mind the elite specs being generally more powerful. Anet needs to make money somehow, and the price of HoT is really not that high.

The reason many of us want balance between core and elite is not because we don’t want to pay (most of us have already paid anyway) but because this would increase build diversity and also because some of the elite spec mechanics are really not fun (massive sustain usually).

abrogations.3274:

Axe needs a longer range, faster attack speed, and a rework of #2

Axe already got a range increase, which I felt was good already.

What kind of rework you would like on 2? I feel like 2 has a clear goal (burst) while #3 is the one which is lackluster.

I doubt that nobody is interesting in the subject, so maybe I just didn’t phrase my question properly. Let me be more general:

What weapons need some love right now, and what change would you like to see?

If possible mention a build type/role where this weapon would be the best pick.

BetterHappy.2517:

@Sunfish

Your balance idea has a huge gaping hole in the fact that split isn’t the issue, rather casting specifically one elite twice. Moa, is mesmers unique “Anti-Transformation”. Much like chill is the opposite of alacrity (in regards to player icd’s).

Furthermore, nurfing split to the extent you call for would not only nerf Moa application but every other skill mesmers may find a reason to cast in conjunction with split. Example, Double popping well heal.

Don’t tear down an entire building to replace a door…

I’m all for mesmer being given a chance or completely new elite skill in replace to Moa, but:
- If you have transformations that greatly improve player abilities (necro, engi, warrior) it stands to reason that an anti-transformation of some kind should exist.
- If you remove the current functionality of Moa, something must be buffed in it’s place. Moa, is a defining point of the Mesmer class. Something loss, requires something gained. Nerfing Moa for the “state” of the game.

CS in its current state prevents skills to be balanced by their CD, which is specially bad for large cooldown skills like elite skills. Double Moa is the “OP of the moment” but then it will be double gravity well (6s hard to escape AOE CC + damage) etc… So preventing elite CD reset is a reasonable nerf. It also ensures that the skill becomes more fun since now you can actually choose what to use it for (unlike now where you are basically always using it for elites).

Ananeos.4587:

Everyone here realizes that you activate the Moa first then CS? You can’t prevent the use of elite skills if elites are used first and then CS is used before the elite is resolved.

I think the idea is rather that the elite skill CAN be used but won’t see it’s cooldown reset.

Conspiration theory v 2.0:
Did CC DDOS Frosty to make vM loose against TCG so that Frosty would accept to play with them and increase their chances against TCG???

o.O

Darknicrofia.2604:

Silverkey.2078:

from an average opinion of 10 pro league players:
http://academygamingnet.com/guild-wars-2-class-tier-list-april-27th-2016/

thanks, I totally didn’t just post that 2 posts above yours.

My bad!

I think the HP gap should be reduced by half or so between the different professions. It is easy to see that some classes have become unbalanceable because of their low health pool (ele and thief mostly) and I feel like the high health pool also struggle because of this since devs use this fact to deny them some defenses/healing (for example, necro and warrior both have low heal compared to their HP pool, so it does not help their sustain at all but only help to survive the initial burst).

from an average opinion of 10 pro league players:
http://academygamingnet.com/guild-wars-2-class-tier-list-april-27th-2016/

So the current leaderboard for EU pro league would be:

1. 12pt rank 55 (8:0)
2. 9pt TCG (6:2) -> changed from (6:3)
3. 9pt vermillion (6:2)
4. 6pt More Guns (5:4)
5. 3pt Purple Noise (3:5)
6. 3 pt Super Smash (2:5) -> changed from (0:7)
7. 3pt Orange Logo (2:6) > changed from (0:8)

In particular, TCG gets on top of Vermillion now (not to mention the handicap for Vermillion of losing their mesmer)

aelfwe.4239:

stuff

May I ask a question: do you even want the PvE of this game to be balanced?

What you are saying is you want 1 mesmer to be able to buff 9 other players with about 80% uptime of quickness and alacrity? Do you realize why this is not a good idea?
1 mesmer buffing 4 players is already the highest DPS buff of all professions, but you want to be able to buff 9 players????

You see that is why I say PvP is definitely more sensitive to balance than PvE, because PvE mesmer is currently beyond OP (whether you like or not the buffing role) and you complain about a change which will reduce this OPness by a fairly small amount.

So thanks for your input, it made me realize that I should definitely change the title of this thread to “CS should be nerfed for PvE balance”.

aelfwe.4239:

1- Then rename you thread title to “5 men pve content” rather than claiming “pve viable” since pve is not just 5 men content.

Fun thing, 10 man content is 2 times 5 man content. The DPS increase that 1 mesmer brings to 4 members means that it is also viable in 10 man content. Actually if you cannot share alacrity and quickness to the 5 members not in your party, that means that you may actually need a second chrono.
From what I understand anyway, since you cannot change party anymore to share your boons to both, only shield 5 will affect all members and not having CS-time warp will change nothing to that.

After that redo your math, they’re wrong.

Simplistic but not wrong

You start from the assumption we can maintain 100% alacrity uptime on a 5 men party, that is, indeed, impossible right now. Alacrity is a buff, not a boon, and it’s not affected from boon duration.

I only used boon duration for quickness, I am not completely ignorant.

If you have 3 well and soi from when you use cs the 1st to when you use cs the 2nd time, you will cast the 3 wells 3 times each one.

That bring up to 9 wells that gives 2 sec of alacrity each (atwew) for a total of 18 sec of alacrity.

Since 3 of that 9 wells will be wor you will have additional 15 sec of alacrity that bring up to 23 sec of alacrity over 59 sec (cs cd with illusion) or 67 sec (cs without illusion).

18 + 15 = 23… good start.

Now let’s say you have an average of 1 avenger up from the start you will get another 14 sec of alacrity between it and chronphantasma you will get to:

- 37 sec of alacrity over 59 sec (with illusion) aka 60%

- 37 sec of alacrity over 67 sec (without illusion) aka 55%

Avenger is 2s alacrity every 8s. That means a bit more than 7 attacks in 59s, a bit more than 8 in 67s. Also I specifically said 2 avengers.
33+14x2 =61 every 59s
33+16x2 =65 every 67s

not too far from the claimed 100% I think.

But keep on, to bring 100% of quick on a 5 men party now you dont need soi, so you can bring 3 wells +1 utilty (example feedback for fotm). After the nerf you have to bring always soi, everywhere, that means where you have to bring to feedback (mathias? sloth? fotm? ever heard of them?) you have to leave out recall for an addiational lost of 25% alacrity uptime (that drop to 35%) that end up to additional quick loss.

So you are saying that you cannot bring the highest DPS increase possible of all professions AND reflects at the same time…

You do realize that I am already not overly happy in principle of having a class like chronomancer being essentially mandatory in all organized PvE content, so what you are telling me is for me one good reason why we should nerf CS “FOR THE SAKE OF PVE BALANCE”.

2- You proved me you are unable to do math

again 15+18 = 23…

your logic fail to the point that you are telling me “since anet cannot do the right thing (split balance) and since you don’t like to balance cd on cs (an actual mechanic of the game) then we should halve the support of a support class, because your wrong math show up it doesnt change anything in a 5 men enviroment” wow, i’m amazed O.O

Yes, a-net refuses to split balance. And I see this mentioned so often as the white knight of balancing. Fun facts, most if not all balance problems can be solved without separating balance. Yes, separating make things “easier” but if a-net refuses to do so, I won’t complain because I really think it is not needed.

3- the core mesmer is dead the day of hot release, as every core class. This is what happens in every game when they release an xpac with specialization class. That’s cause software house do xpac to sell them, and its kinda impossible to sell an xpac that offer worst specializations than core base classes. Deal with reality and ask for another specializations to fill different roles with mesmer.

I am fine with chronomancer being a support class. Actually I love that chronomancer is a support class. Don’t try to interpret my thoughts

Wow, this has become a heated debate. So let’s make a few things clear.

1. I do not ask to remove CS from the game. I just showed that even if we did, you could maintain alacrity and quickness to a 5 man group. I personally only ask elites not to work in CS (and I would ideally like only 4 shatters for chronomancer, CS replacing distorsion and the 3 other shatters reworked to fit the chronomancer theme with for example alacrity and quickness support built in)
2. I did not suggest splitting PvE/PvP balance because we know this is something a-net is reluctant to implement. And in any case, I think I proved you don’t need to
3. nerfing Moa is not a good way to go because it continues to increase the gap between core mesmer and chronomancer. This is precisely what I want to avoid: as apharma says, I don’t want cooldowns to be balanced around CS.

Zenith.7301:

No. PvE has suffered enough at the hands of PvP.

Well that is the point of this thread: there is no sacrifice. I don’t want to reduce PvE mesmer to uselessness (as we have been so long) and I am saying that this nerf will not make that. It changes little to PvE mesmer and a lot to PvP mesmers.

Also, once CS is nerfed, a-net may not feel as guilty in increasing our sustained damage which would be positive for both PvE and PvP mesmers.

denis.9487:

So pvp is finely tuned balance. Should tell that to some posters.

sPvP NEEDS finely tuned balance more than PvE. Simply because putting all classes against each other is more susceptible to their differences.

I just wanted to clearly debunk something I have seen over and over when mentioning a nerf to CS. Many people (including mesmers) suggest a nerf to CS, often by preventing elite skills to be cast. And many mesmers argue this would kill PvE mesmers. So this is simply not true.

First, if one simply prevents elites, then alacrity is untouched and 100% alacrity can be reached “easily”. If this is the case, then

• Tides of Time: 3s quickness every 30s (22.5 with perma alacrity) = 13% quickness uptime
• Well of action: 3s quickness every 25s (18.8 with perma alacrity) = 16% quickness uptime
• Time Warp (untraited): 11s quickness every 180s (135 with perma alacrity) = 8% quickness uptime
• Signet of Inspiration can be assumed to simply double Tides of Time and Well of Action (good approximation since they have the same cooldown and you have already stacked quickness thanks to TW so you don’t loose duration while casting the signet): 26% quickness uptime.

So here we go, even without CS, you get 63% quickness uptime, which will be higher with boon duration and can reach 100%. And with nerfed CS, you can get an additional ToD + WoA + SoI for another 12s quickness every untraited 90s (68s with alacrity) for an extra 18% quickness uptime.

On another note, with similar calculations, I saw that perma alacrity is also possible (with 2 iAvenger, even easier with 3) without any CS, and therefore definitely possible with the “small” nerf suggested.

So no, CS is not needed for PvE viability and also threatens PvP balance and therefore should be nerfed before a-net decides to instead nerf core mesmer even more.

I think the stability change were really good, 0.75 seems indeed to be a sweet spot. This really bring better dynamics to the large fights where CC was just too strong in the past. This change rewards coordination (to ensure the stability is kept by your team) without making stability overpowered. This is really the best compromise between the old (1 stack only = immunity) and the less old (1 stack per CC) version.

I also think it is great in PvP, even if the effects are probably less obvious.

It is a bit more complicated. First, in some cases, even if you go power, assassin (or at least a mix of berserker and assassin) can be better since you reach 100% (or more) crit chance. This is particularly true for reflects.

Then, the question condi vs power is not trivial. Power is the current meta, but to be fair, the build is not aimed at doing damage but at buffing your party with alacrity and quickness. If damage was your only focus, then actually condi does currently better DPS. Ultimately it also depends on the encounter. High toughness favor condi, but short fight favors power. But as I said, in a 5 (or 10) man group, your DPS is secondary to your utilities (alacrity+quickness).

Also, I think viper is more DPS than sinister.

If you remember well, scrapper was already OP in season 1, and yet did not get much nerfs. On the other hand, mesmer was nerfed in so many different ways that chronobunker is just not viable anymore (actually the reason why they buffed a bit the wells in the last update, they realized they went too far).

Balance in gw2 is a wheel. Last time was mesmer turn, this time was engineer, and most likely next time will be mesmers again.

I am very curious to know what they will do with Bubbles. Can they really release this dragon without a large underwater combat rework?

I would really love if this happened though. I love underwater combat and I really think gw2 is doing it right in many ways.
What I think is needed is “only”

• balancing current UW skills
• additional weapons, like one-handed spear/trident and some good off-hands (a net-shield, so basically a shield but with holes to ensure less friction in water?)
• having all of those fit in the build system, the easiest being by having the different weapons correspond in role with the standard weapon on land (just a bit more polyvalent since there are fewer UW weapons)
• a way to have “ground” targeting work. I think they could use a discrete “UI plane” showing a partly transparent grid indicating the plane our character orientation is defining. Ground targeting would then simply be at the aimed distance on that plane. So to target someone, you need to first look towards him (thus defining a plane on which both of you are sitting) and then aim your ground target as usual. “Snap skill at current target” will also be very useful.

Well I went slightly off-topic, but basically, for the sake of underwater I think what a-net should do is:

• introduce UW changes (not as part of an expansion else people may complain)
• one expansion for Jormag which contain a lot of land, but also decent amount of UW combat. This will ensure good reception of the expansion (thanks to land) and also be a good way to “take the temperature” about UW
• if UW has good reception, Bubbles can be the following expansion, not fully UW still, but in majority. Else, find a way to ensure Bubbles attack on land…

I still think this trait was great in the fact that it allowed allies to support us (while the shroud make it otherwise difficult), while its current iteration does not.

The best way (as I mentioned when the trait was nerfed) is to change from

• get healed each time you get a boon

to

• get healed every few seconds depending on the number of boons currently on you (up to let’s say 5 boons).

this way there is a limit on the max regen you can get but you still benefit from allies help (since our own boon generation is low).

May I ask what is your staff skin?

A-net is currently trying to make unused weapons used again.

As often, the first thing to make something viable is assigning it a niche. So do all necro weapons have a niche? In particular, while most classes have defensive or support weapons, only staff seems somewhat fitting this description for us. Should some of our weapons be reworked to be more defensive or more supporty (but still in a necro way)? Maybe more debuffing conditions could count as “necro defense/support”?

Overall, I feel like necro weapons are just often very lacking in utilities. No mobility, no block/evade, etc… CC is the only saving grace for some weapons (staff and warhorn) and probably the reason those are the most used weapons in our repertoire.

Ideas?

Dying in 3s from a condi build? That sounds unlikely. Even if you literally eat all the damage and shatters and run around spamming AA in the air (to eat max torment and confusion damage).

Dying in 3s from a power build? Are you a berserker elementalist?

I do agree condi mesmer is too strong and just annoying (both to play or to play against) but you seem to be slightly exaggerating here.

In any case: just a hint. You can actually dodge stuff.

mrauls.6519:

You don’t understand DH. Daze helps traps trap people and interrupt potentially harmful skills. What needs to change with virtues is the time the boons trigger from the virtues traitline. Also, DH F1 can hit more than one person.

Stability and LB knockback is beautiful. It shouldn’t change.

First: daze don’t help trapping people. You can still move and dodge. If anything, daze warns you that there is a trap so you can dodge it.

Second: interrupting potentially harmful skills is great, and clearly the point of a CC. But you don’t just put a CC hoping you interrupt something good. You put a CC to interrupt something specific. While as a DH I do sometimes use traps specifically for interrupting, I often use them for their damaging effect, and the CC just becomes annoyance but not clever play. AOE CC should not be a “side effect”, it should be a deliberate choice and the skill should have CC as a main effect. I don’t mind changing one of the trap to be a CC trap. But it should not come with all of them simply as a trait.

Finally, I am not against knockback on LB, but again, not random. I think it should be attached to a specific skill for it to work properly. You may even see it as a buff.
To some extent, this is not the worst part of the DH. You pretty much expect the knock back on the first LB skill after weapon swap, so you can play with it (as a DH) or avoid it (as the enemy).

Sad that there is not more european teams, but looking forward to see this tournament, especially with the new meta.

Entropy.6784:

But your points on CS or shield are wrong.
Shield is a great support weapon and that’s that. Great cc is a bit of an overstatement given that it’s on a 30s cooldown if executed properly. A supreme breakbar breaker? Sure! Cc… Not so much. Shield compensates for it’s ability with abysmal damage.

You seem to be speaking mostly from a PvE point of view. But still in terms of CC:

• GS: 1 AOE push/30s
• Staff: random AOE daze/35s
• sword: 1 target daze/12s (hidden behind a block)
• focus: 1 AOE pull/25s
• pistol: 1 “AOE” stun/daze/25s
• shield: 2 AOE stun/30s

while you could argue that push and pull are stronger than stun, shield remains one of the strongest CC. Only pistol can beat it if traited because the pistol recharge on interrupt can be massive.

Now CS should be left intact for the time being, given that it’s the only thing keeping pve mesmers in the ‘Meta’.

I’ve read that a lot, from Pyro mostly. But this is not true. Even if there was NO continuum split at all (which is not what I am suggesting), 2 shield phantasms up + traited recall, eternity and action used off-cooldown means more than 90% uptime on alacrity. Action, untraited TW and shield 5 off-CD and assuming SoI doubles on action and shield 5 means 60% quickness uptime with 0% boon duration, meaning 100% easily reached with investment in boon duration. And since I suggest just preventing elite in CS, you would actually get much more than that. So no, PvE mesmer would survive EVEN without CS, definitely if CS is simply changed to prevent elite. As a matter of fact, Time warp is the lowest contribution to the quickness uptime.

Chrono atm is the mesmer’s identity. You’ve talked about defining roles, but core mesmer are what? Low dps, bad mechanics, long elite cooldowns, questionable support.

Here again, you seem to mention PvE. In PvP, mesmer had its place pre-HoT. In the current state, chrono is needed for PvE and it will still be the case with my suggested changes. Ultimately, I would love if the sustained DPS of mesmer was increased, see my suggestion for that in my signature.

The title master duelists is the biggest deception mesmer’s have been able to pull off.

This is and always was the case. Both condi and power mesmer are a forced to be reckon with in a PvP duel. And chrono finally allows mesmer to join team fights.

Yannir.4132:

I think most people perceive this “issue” with elite specs wrongly. I don’t deny that what skills ESpecs brought are a bit stronger than what base classes had, but most of it is just that ESpecs bring more choice. You get to mix base skills with the normal skills, and that’s mostly what brings out their power.

It is impossible to balance out ESpecs with the core professions without completely shutting out the base class or bringing out a new set of ESpecs. Or elevating the main core traitline to ESpec status and quality. And not locking these changes behind HoT.

What needs to happen is they bring out more ESpecs ASAP. Another 2 years for the next expansion is way too long a time to wait for these.

Edit: Okay, got a bit mixed on topic but what I said stands.

I’ve read that argument many times, and I can’t say it is not partly true, but I think it is not nearly as much of a problem. As I said, elite specs have (or should have) a different role. So the amount of overlap between the best core specs and the best elite specs is not too much. Let’s look at mesmer (because it is my main). Core mesmer meta build before HoT (power shatter) was domination + dueling + chaos (PU)/illusion, running GS, sword+torch (PU) or staff. Bunker chrono was chaos, insp, chrono running wells, staff and sword shield. They use different traits and different weapons, so making sure that both are in the meta is fairly doable by selective balancing on those traits, skills and weapons.

So in summary, as long as the core and elite offer different roles, it is easy to keep balance.

Thins get difficult when the elite spec also synergies well with the core role. And this is a bit more controversial because one could argue that for higher build diversity, elite specs should synergies with many core traits and skills. And it was definitely built this way. For example, still in chrono, alacrity reduces all cooldown and thus helps any build, superspeed on shatter favors mostly shatter builds, etc…
This is more difficult to balance.

However, regardless of this problem, I think some changes (like the ones I suggested above) would go a long way and at least reduce the gap.

Varezenem.2813:

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t think it is that difficult. Sure, those teams won’t be meta-tier, but if you just try to think of roles and stuff, you can easily make up 5 different builds. Also, the rules are still fairly loose, so you can easily run variations of the meta. For example, you could imagine a 5 necro team with

• a dueler: MM necro
• a roamer: power necro
• a healer/damage: Sage necro (I usually played that with crusader, but they removed it so only condi is possible now)
• bruiser/condi DPS: corruptmancer
• bruiser/condi DPS: signet condimancer

I don’t pretend this is a good set up (probably more boon corrupt than needed for example), but I mostly wanted to show that you don’t usually need to go completely out of your way to find very different build. The rules are not that strict and small variations still work.

It’s really not that I am against 3v3, but I would like conquest and not just fighting, because it has more depth (I think). And conquest is just sad with only 3 players per team.

Try that on Revenants…

Invocation herald
Retribution herald
Condi herald
Condi Revenant
Bunker/Support Herald

Did I do it right?

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

And thieves?

Well yes, this team works (except that they all have swords). I do not know if you were trying to prove that this is possible or to prove that this is stupid. Overall, the rules are here to prevent exact same builds, but does not prevent very similar builds to be used. Hopefully, synergy and roles will ensure that there is some diversity.

Now I agree it will be more difficult for some classes, and thieves are a great example. But this is also a good way to highlight the weaknesses in the design of some classes.

Maybe after trying a few match, we will see the inherent flaws of this tournament concept. I am personally very interested in seeing such games which is why I suggested this. But I am not 100% sure indeed that all games will be highly competitive.