Guild Wars 2

Aeolus.3615:

Straegen.2938, can u imagine how many players are being carried in this game?
If Anet adressed that every one would cry its build and class is now dead cant win and stuff like that…

Class balance is important otherwise we end up with everyone migrating to an ever shrinking pool of meta builds. This happened just before HoT with PU Mesmers.

All builds should have trade-offs as they specialize. If a build emerges that has too much access to escape, bunker, damage at the same time those builds need to be brought back in line before every other player we see is the same variation of the same class/build.

Aeolus.3615:

They still can bunker much better than bunker guard/DH, well alot of classes do, and druid still does a very good damage.

• Every class that goes bunker should loose damage as guardian do, classes need to be less gimmick while still maint damage and resilience/ bunker alike sustain.

To me the fundamental balance should revolve around your stated principle. Classes that bunker should trade off damage, speed and escape. Likewise high escape classes shouldn’t be able to have high sustain damage, be able to bunker, etc. Hybrid builds should likewise have exploitable weaknesses.

The current meta Druid has high to medium level access to it all which is just too much. The Boon Duration Warrior is in the same ballpark.

I agree with most of your points but I am finding condi far less problematic in small scale compared to bunker and defensive sustain builds. I believe if they toned down Mesmer Confusion spam, the condi issue wouldn’t be a serious issue.

Condi is a non-issue in large scale.

The Bunker Druid and its hybrid cousin are both OP. When played well they essentially cannot be killed short of 3+ players hammering them and even then it is often a race across the map to a door.

These build variants aren’t particularly effective in zergs but in small scale the Bunker variety is indeed as stronger than the D/D eles of old and the hybrid versions are nearly as tanky but far more dangerous.

Attached is a screenshot trying to hit an NPC in NW Alpine Camp. I get continual “Obstructed!” messages. I am sure it is some terrain issue but this one is particularly egregious.

I believe many voters thought the maps would be rotated in and out. Alpine is a superior map but it does get old after years. This partial map decision seems a bit odd.

Battle is one of the easiest to attain. Takes a relative fixed amount of time (about 8 hours) and all of that can be done following a tag around.

Warhawk.7095:

Base warrior still has access to stability, EP, and berserker stance, any one or two of which is more than enough to secure a stomp in nearly all situations.

I understand your counter point, but just to make small point of my own. Your guild seems to be built around stealthing a player when they go down. Stomping one of you fellows when you are in a team is ridiculously difficult… and I think you know that.

Dawdler.8521:

Whats the justification? Teamplay. Yes, its as simple as that. This is an MMO and rallying makes us help each other.

Players on here aren’t complaining about Rally itself but that it is basically a revolving door with no end. Besides there are already several skills that are built around rallying team players without the need for a near limitless mechanic.

Dawdler.8521:

Its a core mechanic and why GW2 is fun for a large amount of people rather than only the small elite. Remove rallying and you will kill the game.

Players on the forum have been screaming about rally for so long it hurts. It took YEARS for Anet to finally make some modest changes to the system. Those changes… nobody cried, most cheered.

Saying near infinite rallies is a beloved and critical portion of WvW is ridiculous. Never ending rallies is a lame system centered around weak play and superior numbers.

Dawdler.8521:

And there are even more tools to prevent people rallying. One necro in the mix can easily bomb the downed player delaying said guardian enough for a stomp.

There are far more rally skills/traits than there are stomp skills/traits (I think there is one and it has that Invuln problem).

Traits, Skill, etc that rally players faster or completely:
Signet of Mercy
“Search and Rescue!”
Glyph of Renewal
Illusion of Life
Signet of Undeath
Battle Standard
Nature’s Renewal
Symbol of Judgment
Toss Elixir R
Life Leech
Bandage
Protective Reviver
Determined Revival
Radiant Revival
Function Gyro
Nature Magic Allies’ Aid
Merciful Ambush
Arcane Resurrection
Medic’s Feedback
Ritual of Life
Transfusion
Life from Death
Superior Rune of Mercy

Oil has always been borderline useless. Nobody can stand on that while a large group is below. A player might get one or two off before they die or get pushed off. Course the same can be said for cannons.

P/P AA is trash. Body Shot is fairly crappy but can have its moments. Unload is the only solid skill but chews through init and the might buff rolls off too quickly. Headshot is pretty awesome once it is mastered. Black Powder has no synergy with P/P outside of taking Bound.

All that is fine but what is missing… any form of built in escape and no multi-target pressure. Unload reads like it does amazing damage until a thief finds themselves against multiple opponents where AoE begins to dominate. Escalate more players and P/P is outclassed by even the most basic of AoE spam.

Dawdler.8521:

But your group wasnt good enough (or they wherent bad enough) to weigh up for the difference in numbers and you didnt bring any tools that could have tipped the scales. Numbers won. Outcome obvious.

There are more tools for rallying a player than there are tools for stomping them. One Guardian in the mix can easily invulnerable rally a player while reflecting everything landing on them.

Why should players that get downed twice in 60s not die? What is the justification for allowing a player to continually rally despite poor play?

BTW it gets particularly annoying when a player goes down they become invuln for a couple seconds making timing fast stomps overly difficult.

Celsith.2753:

I’m finding it pretty hilarious that you are insisting on telling me i’m wrong about something I did every day we were green. Maybe you should ask, ‘How’?

A cannon cannot fire past its ground target. If you can show me a screenshot or a video of that happening, I would be impressed because that would mean a cannon actually has about 30% or more distance than its specs. If you have somehow found a way to beat the range limiter that others on this thread haven’t found kudos.

BTW I aimed my mouse purposefully at the back of the cave. That cannot be seen in my screenshot as the screenshot disables the mouse cursor.

Celsith.2753:

Actually the cannon absolutely CAN reach to the back of the dredge cave. Not knowing how to do it is not the same as something not being possible.

It absolutely CAN NOT reach the back of the cave. I attached a screenshot with the ground target lit up. That is the max range. Catas can be built all the way back to the water in that cave and were able to hit the wall.

Even if in some magical world it had mortar level range, a player could not sit on that cannon for more than a few seconds without a staff ele or necro lighting it up.

Isn’t this a rewards track reward? It might be something different in the tracks but I thought one track was called Triumphant.

To kill someone through downing, the enemy has to be downed 4 times in a minute or less. It rarely happens and very rarely happens in small scale fights.

Players should only be able to go down once every minute or two.

As a side note, I still believe dead players should have to port. The current system offers no tactical advantage for a smaller group to engage a larger one so long as a larger force can easily reconstitute itself in seconds. sPvP does it this way and it is vastly superior.

The entire system values larger numbers over skill at every turn.

Svarty.8019:

I want to express my empathy with the OP – you are not alone, Tolira. We all hope the system is improved sooner rather than later. Hopefully the upcoming scoring changes go some way towards providing more appropriate matchups.

I believe you will be sorely disappointed if you are hoping that scoring will fix the primary issues with WvW. Scoring cannot fix population imbalances or coverage issues.

Changing scoring is the proverbial lipstick on a pig.

Aezyr.5304:

The Cannon can hit right into the back of the dredge cave. There’s also bali spots that are right on the edge of aoe range. You could also flash build bali’s right in front of their faces to make them leave the catas while a group hit them from behind. Lots of tactics. The new wall is just.. happen to pass by with your eyes open, summon blob, or hop on smc or wc mortar :/ Too easy to defend against a smaller group, almost impossible to defend against a very large blob that places their catas in the nook behind.

The cannon absolutely cannot hit at the back of the cave. No ballista can be built that can fire over the wall, hit the back of the cave and be safe from Ele fire. Too far back from the wall and it clips the wall. Too close to the edge and well dead before it has a chance to do any real damage.

The nook is vulnerable to securely positioned ACs. It is one of the worst places to put catas IMO. Hill top is far better but it is also somewhat vulnerable.

Years of play in every tier has taught me that WC even without SMC treb fire was one of the easiest towers to take in EBG. Klovan even put up more of a fight before this change.

Lag and population balance have plagued every MMO with a mode like this mainly because every MMO built typically bolts this onto their PvE game. The first game that builds around solving population balance, class balance, low lag AND has modern combat will dominate the RvR scene for a very long time.

RlyOsim.2497:

Camelot Unchained.

What a disappointment. If I wanted to play a game from a decade ago, I would play DAoC which is still around. You better like static skill rotations because action combat is not in CU.

Even if it is working properly the current downed mechanic is a system designed to support numbers over skill.

Players that are downed more than once in a one or two minute window should go instant dead. Course I think dead players should have to port so what do I know.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Stealth Gyro is an abomination, a very stupid idea. It should only detect stealth but not apply stealth. Should be renamed and redesigned as Anti-stealth Gyro.

I think the Gyro by itself is fine but they paired it with two blocks, two invulns, additional stealth, easy reflect and sometimes Bulwark. They have so much defense accessible pure bunker builds are nigh unkillable outside of an outmanned situation.

Although my FA Tempest has been blowing them up with relative ease. Course it gets torn up by a variety of other classes/builds.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Yeah haven’t had issues yet, I’m not running the pure Yolo build, and I kite, now if you dump absolutely everything into it and fail then yes you will die instantly but with Shadowstep, Blinding powder and positioning I can normally bait out all of the defensive Cooldowns to allowing me to open up for the kill. I have also ran Staff as secondary in some matches when I play DrD for this build and it allows me to burst/survive if they do close on me.

Sounds nice at low level unranked play. I wouldn’t bring that into ranked play particularly at the higher levels. The first point defense Druid, Scrapper, Tempest, Guardian, etc just tears through them. Its not like those other classes don’t have an answer for Shadow Step. When I play thief I have to keep Shadow Step and SB up just to get a slight distance from Druids.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Pretty big thread just to kill a bunch of npcs lol.

I contributed to partially derailing for a while.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

P/P in sPvP brings out all the salt. I love it.

Until higher levels of play where virtually every point defense build laughs at it.

They gifted us with Bandit’s Defense and Steal is already extremely powerful. Not sure I would mess with it.

Understand the technical issue but surprised the drive system doesn’t use snapshot volumes.

We snapshot just before an install, run and if there is a problem restore the release snapshot which typically takes a few seconds. Course a good snapshot system like NetApp or EQLogic isn’t cheap.

For those that say the dredge tunnel was defensible, how? Trebs from LL can’t hit in there. Balistas built to hit in there are open to Ele wall fire. ACs fall short. Catas cannot hit far back in there since they either hit the ceiling or fall short. The mortar is completely useless.

DeLys.5380:

I agree that you shouldn’t be able to cata WC from Dredge, but making the wall completely indestructible was stupid. No tower should have indestructible walls …

I believe all towers have only one or two damageable walls and have since release. There probably is a couple out there with three but it is at best rare.

I hope so if only to protect those that would actually do such a thing.

Triggered.1850:

Ah huh, whatever puts you to sleep. Real issue is perma quickness, not invuln.

Yes because we live in a binary existence in the game and we can only have one “problem” at a time.

I can fight Quickness the entire time, we have no counter play to shut down abilities. Invuln and Resist as they are today wouldn’t be a huge problem if players had to trade off HP, Armor, etc to get them. These skills as they are really shouldn’t be attached to builds with heavy armor, large HP pools, etc.

Jeknar.6184:

These stats sound too weird to come from you alone that I honestly find hard to belive it. Care to share it?

The stats are running full Might and Bloodlust stacks (extra 1k power) along with Fury (extra 20% crit). The base stats are 2500 power and 50% crit chance. Armor is just over 3k and HP is somewhere north of 22k with over 100% boon duration using Commanders/Concentration. The build runs Dmg Reduction/Boon Duration food, Durability runes, several Stances and healing sigil.

It is actually a very straight forward build that gens might with the Greatsword and other sources, then switches to Axe/Shield for defense and big hits. Because of the long boon duration, Sigil of Strength, Signet of Rage, Versatile Power, Shield Master and Forceful Greatsword’s multiple hits (I am probably missing one or two more sources) getting to full might stacks is pretty easy.

Hexinx.1872:

They have to come up with a calculation whereby an enemy zerg grants there world reduced points on capture to a minimum.

If they wanted to fix zerging (and I don’t think they do), they could simply make each objective a fixed amount of points divided by the number of players taking it. That would certainly put a massive dent in zerging but would also kill WvW since few would progress.

I also think for every 20 players in close proximity they could put a zerg speed debuf in place of an additive 10%.

We could get radical and have friendly fire.

Triggered.1850:

A warrior that is full kitten survival isn’t going do much dmg. A group with 50+ sec of quickness will.

They don’t have to run full survival. My Boon Duration Stance Warrior has all that defensive sustain and often has five digit Eviscerates. You don’t want to be anywhere near it once the Might engine kicks in.

My Warrior running full tilt with boons often has near 3500 power, 70% crit chance and 1.8 crit magnitude. In addition to the massive Quickness and Resistance up time along with perma Protection, Regen, Swiftness. That is running solo… it gets WAY better near other boon buff builds.

In a full minute Warriors currently have the potential of 33% up time on no damage taken between Invuln/Block. Often 100% up time on 50% or more direct dmg reduction. Add on 50% or more on Resistance. There is this tiny, tiny window to actually land something that sticks on defensive sustain builds.

Scrapper isn’t much better with Invuln, Stealth, Block, Invuln, Block, Stealth, repeat. Then there are the others that are nearly as bad.

I don’t want to remove these as player options but few if any abilities in WvW should completely shut down opponents.

Yes they know about it and no they likely won’t do anything about it for months. Boon sharing is yet another crappy meta direction WvW has taken.

Uhg… another score thread. Scoring isn’t the problem and it never was. They can keep changing how we count crap in WvW but it won’t change population imbalances, coverage issues, etc.

How about we put more energy into making the mode more fun to play and stop mucking with how we are counting the widgets.

I have to say it… I hope they don’t change anything on this skill. It is almost a guarantee if ANet goes near it even for a buff, they will screw it up and we will be stuck with a kitten version.

This trait needs a new name because it doesn’t steal. Instead it removes stacks and returns exactly one stack with a fixed time and goes from a predetermined order. If it actually stole boons, thieves would have an easier time in the current meta.

Aside from aggro issues, GW2 has a couple of crazy good tank builds. Throw Durability, Dmg Reduction food and Boon Duration on Tempest, Guardian or Warrior and the tanking is crazy good. A Warrior can keep Protection up full time and Resistance up most of a fight. Tempest’s can stay up under crazy damage while buffing and healing everything around them.

GW2 didn’t have the trinity at launch, but Durability runes and boon duration have essentially created builds with massive defensive sustain.

Rather than have completely immune damage periods, what if these damage eliminators instead reduced incoming damage substantially for their duration. Invulnerability and Resistance would say reduce their specific damage types by 75%. To compensate for this reduction, those skills would run a bit longer or come up a bit faster.

This would at least allow some counter play rather than an attacker just sitting on their hands.

Jana.6831:

You do get that I’m complaining about them being op because the game is bugged not because anet made the Elites faceroll, yes?
I’m “fine” to lose against them if I’m even allowed to hit them.

Broad complaints typically get completely ignored. Specific complaints made for long periods of time sometimes get adjustments. It is very unlikely Anet is going to do a mass class balance from general player complaints.

I agree with your base statement, but my point is do you want to make things a bit better by posting a specific issue or be mostly if not completely ignored by ANet?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Your likelihood to interrupt anyone with a .75s casting time is way less than the likelihood of Head Shot to interrupt with no casting time. Your statement is based on wishful thinking and is far from reality — just as your claim that IS sets up PW.

The reality is the skill interrupts frequently in active play. The number of WvW players that have their AA auto turned on is stupid high. Even those that don’t just pound their AA constantly. In a duel, S/P performs poorly admitted but for roaming it is solid. We run this and aren’t speculating.

Last night alone we killed a dozen plus warriors while they were in Hundred Blades. It became comical. DH Trappers are particularly fun as they tend to die in one burst.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I’m sorry but I call BS on this.

First you assume that your target is stunned, thus how the heck are you gonna trigger the “on evade” if no one’s attacking you?

Because many, many builds out there run AoE, traps, passive damagers, etc. I see it on my Chrono as well. 90% or more of players just keep attacking or the evasion portion is sitting in a DH trap, some field, etc. Again in a duel, doesn’t work but for fighting roamers it works great.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Second, two hits from the sword attack IS NOT a sizeable burst. Yes you only get 2 hits before your target dodged away.

If a player is spamming PW, then yes it isn’t effective. Use it when BV is up. Use it when they drop below 50%. Use it on the steal when it can be primed. Players have to pick when they drop that big hit. In the meantime, Head Shot Ints and the AA pick at the target until the situation arises to drop it. Once the enemy is on cooldown, PW utterly decimates almost any target.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

I don’t really get how players are having a hard time landing a Backstab. Must be a L2P thing.

Using it against stealth targets it is pure luck now. Against everything else any dodge, evade, block, etc screws it up.

I rather use Vault than use PW.

Vault is fine but lacking for all the reasons I mentioned earlier. It is particularly problematic against other players that are decent and blinding fields.

As long as Vault has a hitch, the weapon set is mostly second tier.

Prior to HoT… hell no. Post HoT… hell yes.

Thieves need more tools to counter the Bunker meta. GW2 WvW really needs to go through an UnBunkering. This passive bunker meta is trash.

Dawdler.8521:

dire perplexity is alot stronger in pretty much any situation. But does p/p work? Yes.

Dire Plex is dead on thief more or less.

skogkatt.7586:

Yes, the joke class of the game needs more nerfs.

In the case of the Trapper thief, yes it needs to be nerfed. The mechanic is absurd, annoying and outright dangerous when two or more are around.

MangoCrush.7819:

its ok a lot of damage doesnt even appear in the combat logs, for example the mesmer mantra skills. You get use to it after a while and it will probably never be fixed

Been four years… it won’t be fixed.

Jim Hunter.6821:

In a winner up/loser down system CD would have moved up after the first week and rotated in and out with SoS who has a much smaller NA population.

This would have kept a lot of people from transferring off of the T4 servers. That and the fact that they would relink soon enough.

T4 was getting crushed by CD for weeks. Moving them up just made it worse as a stronger server moved into T4. This also unbalanced T3 which was very competitive before CD got locked into it. Your system wouldn’t have fixed anything as T4 would have been getting crushed by stronger populations just as it is today.

ANet should have balanced out the T2 and T4 in week 2 by unlinking a server or two from CD. This would have made T4 competitive and brought T2 into a closer match as well.

There was no downside to tweaking the links in week two or three.

CoP is an obvious change.

Changing some sigils out will help. Generosity would be a solid start. You could also switch your runes to Durability. While you won’t move as fast, you will be far more durable in every fight. You can always offhand a staff between fights to move faster.

All MMO’s suffer meta builds. About the only thing you can do is use fire to fight fire. Find a meta build and run with it. Move to another MMO and you will probably see the same thing.

Complaining about a very specific thing might generate a small adjustment but it takes a LONG time in most cases. Perplexity was OP for years, PU Mesmers basically ruled roaming for months, Durability has been busted for months, Confusion has been perpetually broken sans a handful of months, etc.

Game is too old and set to do that. The population of WvW hardly merits any significant change these days.

If you are the dev and you can work on project that 90% of the players will enjoy or one that less than 5% will, what would you focus on?