Guild Wars 2

Engi by far:

• AoE Moa
• Blast on dogde
• Any blast will heal, of course that means blasting water field heals even more
• A bunch of skills got cool down reduced (like Slick Shoes—as if it’s too weak)
• Drop a mine and med kit that heals for ~1000 icd only 2 seconds
• 6 blast finishers with crate if needed. Potential to heal party to full in a few seconds, while doing damage and stun.
• If you want, perma stability that refreshes every 3s. Gotta dominate that stronghold/stomp/rez

Engi will continue to be meta for pvp.

P.S: oh, and that Lock On gonna be fun for Thief/Mesmer too. Basically the buffs move Engi to the top of God Tier, where each team must have one.

Velimere.7685:

You guys are kitten crazy. This change makes way too much kitten sense and you need to seriously stop.

Should I count your post as +1 too?

+1 thank the balance team!

Nothing is perfect (like I don’t understand why Slick Shoes even get a buff reducing cool down) but it’s a huge steps in the right direction.

Some of us here appreciate you hard work greatly. Sure there will be people complaining about OP stuffs when the patch land. Just keep tweaking it, balance patch every month, and this game will be the best!

Vieteriukko.6075:

+1 provided that it wouldn’t impact performance / skill lag on wvwvw side.

This feature will require no work from the server. It’s purely client side code for visual. The client already has all the information it needs. So no worries, it won’t affect performance/skilllag in WvW

Can we have a red post in this thread?

This would help GW2 a lot by making the game easier to understand. It will help bringing in more audience and gamers watching the stream!

oscuro.9720:

1) Confusion:
Confusion does not have an estimated total damage over time effect. It is on skill use, making it much harder to judge, and very difficult to implement on this format.

2) Torment: same situation. If you move, it hurts bad, if u don’t, it’s not so bad.

3) Vulnerability stacks in the upcoming patch:
This may be easier than the other two, but with it affecting condition damage affecting you, it can be difficult to implement.

Easy, just gray out the DoT future damage
1) Confusion: only the damage per second part, not the per cast part
2) Torment: only the normal damage per second part, not the extra from moving
3) Vulnerability: not show at all

Are we good now?

Support it! Give us a +1 xD

I’m excited xD. Mad Monday is coming.

stof.9341:

Sunshine.5014:

If your berserker thief gets two shot by any class, then a berserker Ele, with even less HP, will get one shot by any class?

Thief needs:

• reveal on block/miss/evade
• affected by Chill. Generate one initiative per 1.66s

Do you play the game at all? Thief got the same HP as Elementalist. They also only get a tiny slight bit more of armor so practically not mentionnable.

Fixed. Armor. Now, do you agree?

Murmaider.1805:

Thieves don’t need a fix. We can get two shot by any class and god forbid theres an aoe we can’t get out of. Our abilities are tied down to shadowstep because it’s ESSENTIAL if we want any survivability at all. We have 1 Elite skill that grants us stability, takedowns are kitten near impossible so we’re forced to jump in, hit really hard and fast and then jump out. If you have trouble with a thief, it’s because you’ve never played one. Thief of course is hands down my favorite profession, but I find myself running Warrior way more in groups because… well Kitten, Warriors destroy.

If your berserker thief gets two shot by any class, then a berserker Ele, with even less armor, will get one shot by any class?

Thief needs:

• reveal on block/miss/evade
• affected by Chill. Generate one initiative per 1.66s

Jekkt.6045:

been playing heroes of the storm a bit lately because gw2 doesn’t offer much atm and in that game DoT damage is displayed as muddy green part of the hp and HoT as dark green part. so you kinda always know where your hp are even with heals or condis.

wouldn’t be opposed to this suggestion.

Yup. This small change will help promoting the game a lot, since it makes the game much more easier to understand, more spectators friendly, especially for the casual audience.

To whom reading: If you like this idea, post more and let ANet know!

GoatCheese.2704:

I’ll admit I may have come off as a bit aggressive, but you there is a very fine line that eles walk when it comes to game balance.

Enabling staff burst and scepter DPS would be AMAZING, I agree. However, if you give a jack-of-all-trades class even MORE tools to work with, and make those tools better, there will be serious balance issues.

Food for thought.

With better weapon skills, ANet can start reducing our reliance on traits.

I rather have more active style weapon skills than passive increase in damage/heal, or random proc. It makes Ele fun to play, and is also fun to play against.

Jekkt.6045:

would be enough to just fix skills and make the useless ones less useless. hello shatterstone.

Definitely Shatterstone. If the dev only wants to fix one skill, we must push for it.

This helps a lot with streaming and spectators too. The viewers watching the stream will be able to understand the game much faster, without having to burn their eyes looking at the small conditions stacks.

It’s good for GuildWars 2. It’s good for the players. It’s good for the audience.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Also, can we stop with this “Make it like RTL” garbage? Warrior and Ele are totally different classes and in WvW Warriors would just target a ambient mob to escape and keep the lower CD.

It seems that you say it’s easy to target an ambient mob for Warrior to escape? Great, then you shouldn’t be afraid for it to have the same treatment as RTL. Double cooldown if you miss the ambient mob. As you said, it barely affects warriors at all.

GoatCheese.2704:

…

I made a lot of changes based on your comments

GoatCheese.2704:

Geyser: Is fine as it is. It comes out fast and heals a lot at base, with a poor scaling, just like you suggested. The full heal from all 3 ticks results in a total heal of 2,424 with a 0.75 healing power scaling. Healing Ripple (Water magic 3 point minor) heals for 1,302 with a 1.0 scaling. You don’t have to stand in one spot for 2 seconds to get this heal and it comes out every 10 seconds rather than 20. If you want to nerf healing from bunker eles, look to nerf Healing Ripple and Evasive Arcana. Doing so would nerf every ele though.

It’s actually a strong heal. I don’t have a strong opinion on this. I just don’t want Cleric Staff ele to become so unkillable. It’s not fun to play against. The fewer people complain about immortal Ele, the better our life will be.

Healing from Evasive Arcana’s Cleansing Wave is reduced by 50% in PvP.
Healing Ripple only has 1302 base healing.

GoatCheese.2704:

Frozen Ground: Neat interaction.

Thanks!

GoatCheese.2704:

Eruption: Another powerful zoning tool and hits like a truck while also applying heavy condi pressure. They’ve already buffed this skill quite a bit from its original and it’s fine how it is.

It’s fine in PvE, but it’s not fine with PvP. Unless you’re only talking about standing-on-the-point Conquest mode, it’s extremely unlikely that any opponent will stand on it for 3s for it to burst. Even then, applying 2 stacks with each pulse instead of applying 6 stacks at the end deal the same damage to the above opponent.

GoatCheese.2704:

Magnetic Aura: Adding this would be cancer. You have Gust for a melee range knockback. This is to stop long ranged pressure. A reasonable buff would be for it to prevent damage from ranged non-projectile abilities. (Mesmer GS auto attack)

1s knockback in melee range every 30s is hardly OP. Warrior has a lot more CC’s, with longer duration. Do you think Dagger Earthquake is cancer too? It has more damage, and longer stun, and a blast finisher. Focus Magnetic Wave cures 3 conditions, deal damage, and has a lower cooldown. The additional of knockback makes this skill become more tactical. You have to think about when to use it. It’s not exactly an “oh !@#” button either, but you can time it right and gain an advantage. It’s not spammable with a 30s cooldown.

GoatCheese.2704:

Static Field: Is amazing as it is. It has no limit to the amount of enemies it can hit. You either do unblockable damage to a large group of enemies and/or strip a stack of stab or stun them. The synergy with Lightning Rod is also very strong. The daze while inside isn’t needed to make this skill strong. The lower cast time would be nice but the idea is this skill needs to be placed with thought, not thrown willy nilly.

In HoT, the radius of Static Field will be increased. It is actually much harder to hit. Secondly, I don’t agree that Static Field is that amazing on its own. Yes, if you spend a Grand Master trait on it, it’s amazing. However, without Lightning Rod, it has a 40s cooldown, and deal very low damage. And then can only stun the opponent at most once. Adding a 0.5s daze is actually not OP at all, considering it still has a very long cooldown.

GoatCheese.2704:

Ice Spike: Stop it with these instant cast skills. Do you realize that “instant cast” means you can cast it while under the effect of control abilities? Ice Spike is also the highest single hitting move a staff ele has. It hits harder than a meteor or an eruption, plus it applies a lot of vuln. With how you’re changing things, I can cast a signet of earth or shockwave, attune to water to start the ice spike, attune to fire to apply burning and cover the immob/bleeds with another condi, then attune to air and burst them using Lightning Surge. This is all within 2 seconds. Staff is an AoE control weapon, not a single target burst weapon.

I like your above suggestions, but for this one, you’re getting to hyperbole. First, even with instant cast, it still has the activation delay. It’s very telegraphed, and you can even walk out of it when you see it (even with the instant cast). Next, 5 stacks of vuln is just 5% more damage. I wouldn’t say it’s a lot.

Second, the combo you said is what I want to enable for Ele. We should be able to combo/mix up skills more instead of just relying on a fixed rotation! However, it’s hardly as OP as you said.
Signet of Earth: 3/4s cast + animation
Shockwave: 1s cast + animation
Attune water: instant
Cast ice spike: instant
Wait 1.5s attunement cooldown
Attune fire: instant
Cast flameburst: instant
Ice spike drops: damage!
Wait 1.5s attunement cooldown
Attune air: instant
Lightning Surge: 1s cast (we agree to not make it instant anymore above)

The above burst takes ~ 4s and deals a chunk of damage. However, it has just a bit higher damage than staying in Fire, throw 1 Fireballs, 1 Lava Font, and Flameburst (instant), while it wastes 3 attunements. Even then, a thief can burst for even more during that kitten . It’s fun to play! I’d love to enable this. Nevertheless, it’s hardly as OP as you say.

Also, there is nothing wrong for making Staff being able to burst. As is there is nothing wrong for making Scepter having more sustain damage.

GoatCheese.2704:

Lava Font: You would give up one of the ele’s strongest area denial skills (and PvE forms of damage) for instant cast. Not a needed change imo. Let it hit like a truck but be avoidable.

I don’t advocate for instant cast Lava Font. It still has the same cast time. What other Ele in this thread and I want is for it to tick as soon as it touch the ground. It is still an area denial skill. People still need to avoid it. The tick damage is even lowered. The current Lava Font is suitable for PvE, but hardly hit in PvP. The change I proposed makes it work equally well for PvE, WvW and PvP. It even opens more possibility for a burst build. Notice that I know it’s a strong skill, so I also added -15% damage and increased cooldown to 8s.

GoatCheese.2704:

Lightning Surge: Shorter cast time? Yes. Instant cast? HELL NO. This thing hits like a truck. It needs to be telegraphed. Instant cast blind is meant for scepter, not staff. Also, this attack hits up to 5 enemies. An instant cast AoE blind nuke would be too strong.

I agree with you that Instant Cast would be too strong. I’ll modify the proposal to shorter cast time instead.

GoatCheese.2704:

Gust: Use it in melee range and it’s fine. This is a GETAWAY FROM ME skill. Not a long range knockback.

The problem with Gust is not the range, it’s the hit box. I proposed to increase the hit box width, not the range. In fact, you’re right that the range currently is a bit long. It should be reduced by 25%.

GoatCheese.2704:

Windborne Speed: Fine as it currently is. You seem to be forgetting the part where this skill removes all movement impairing conditions. This is extremely powerful. The swiftness is nice, but this skill should be saved for a condi cleanse.

Ele need more innate way to escape without having to rely too much on traits. Being able to remove Chill/Immob once every 20s is not really OP in any sense. It has a medium cast time, and does no damage. Warrior movement skills also allow them to escape Immob, but with a much shorter cooldown and deal damage as well. I don’t think it’s too strong at 20s. But if you still think it’s strong, we can agree with 25s?

BlackBeard.2873:

I like most of your changes, but have different opinions on scepter a bit.

Thank BlackBeard!

I changed the Dragon Tooth, Phoenix, Lightning Strike a bit to reflect yours. I don’t think we should change Arc Lightning the way you described though, since it will open it up for weapon stow exploit.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

These are sensible changes!

Thanks!

I also notice that Impale is kind of lacking recently. I need to stay really close to the enemy to use it. I added a suggestion to increase the range to 480.

For Churning Earth, if they implement my change, to allow a “detonate” option, then the current cast time would be fine. Freezing on Cone of Cold would be too OP though haha. We can buff the healing part (to make Ele be able to support better) but I don’t want it to be too OP.

The movement skills should have the 40s cooldown like Ele has. A greatsword warrior will be able to escape almost any fight, since they have https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mobile_Strikes which removes immob on movement skills. Basically, no more way to stop a greatsword warrior from running away and regen max HP.

All the movement skills should be revisited and given the RTL treatment.

Erasmus.1624:

Sunshine.5014:

Guys, what if we didn’t actually change… ANYTHING… but instead all of the offensive effects that elementalists inflict… were just faster and therefore harder for anyone to properly mitigate? We could even increase recharges to make people wait even LONGER in order to do things again!

Now you’re thinking like anet.

First, I didn’t write that. It’s a strawman.

Second, it appears that you didn’t even read the change before you try replying with a snarky comment.

• the only cool down I propose to increase is Lava Font, and it is because we add another tick, as soon as the spell is casted. The total damage is increased, so of course there should be a minor change to keep it balanced.
• I stated that I didn’t want to propose changes that would make Ele OP. I want to propose needed changes that helps keep the Ele’s play style active and fun.
• Staff’s weapons are just too slow, making none bunker staff not viable in PvP. That’s a fact. During the time you cast one Static Field/Gust, a decent thief can already instantly down you. The projectile speed tweaks I proposed, while minor (as you said “didn’t change ANYTHING”), make it easier to react to the opponents’ move, while not making the Ele OP, and promote a more active playstyle.

Do you have anything valuable to say? I’d love to hear it.

Bump for a little bit more visibility. People focus on trait changes too much, they hardly remember that Ele weapons need some love/tweaks too.

Panic? No, I’m not panic. I’ll actually glad I also play thief. We’ll have good buffs coming in HoT, and Chill/Cripple will be useless on us. It doesn’t do anything to reduce our heartseeker/movements/teleport skills.

I just need to beware of slow. But seeing that Mesmer gets it, I’m not that worried

Stop spectaculating guys. Wait and see.

Xcorpdog.2840:

Sunshine.5014:

Chill needs to slow initiative regen.

It’s a bug, and it should be fixed.

It’s not a bug, it effected it in the early betas, thieves got completely destroyed by it with no counter play so they removed the effect.

With the up coming buffs in HoT, they have an opportunity to rebalance thief. So it’s a good thing to make Chill effect thieves, then buff thief slightly in other areas. This gives a way to counter, and leads to better balance in the future.

Chill needs to slow initiative regen.

It’s a bug, and it should be fixed.

Those people complaining about PvE in Stronghold, do they consider Dota or LoL pvp? You kill 300+ npc per game with LoL/Dota.

Stronghold is fine.
It’s competitive.
It’s fun.
It’s better than Conquest.

Supreme.3164:

I’m do ask myself what we will lose in return for this change, if they touch arcane precision…I’ll go Ape kitten on the forums..I swear, like arcane precision is off limit.

Half the reason to go arcana is for that minor trait alone, now my fears are rising…

A trait that proc on 10% of a critical hit? You miss that?
Let’s say you have 30% crit chance, 10% of a critical hit is 3%. That’s 3% chance on attack to proc 1 sec of burning, that causes 500 damage.

I don’t miss that trait at all, it’s worse than the adept minor.

Thank for the news Laraley!

I encourage everyone to just take the “wait and see” approach from now. Let’s see what’s the whole package look like, and how’s Tempest before we discuss further.

+1 bring Stronghold back please. Conquest is too boring after you have a taste of Stronghold.

For the people who complain about PvE, I bet they also complain that LoL and Dota are PvE, since you kill 300+ NPCs per match.

Superform.1067:

Coulter.2315:

I played 3 games my opinion stil counts, right? RIGHT???!!!

well i’m new to the game but came 4th on the pvp ladder – i was also a hardcore dota 2 player, i have also been a pvper for 15+ years

i know what a moba is, i know what pvp is and stronghold isn’t either – i don’t need 1000 games to make up my mind, form an opinion and give advice.

i’m also sure if i played my little pony a few times i could give you an opinion about it

but thanks for your valuable input

So, is Dota PvP or PvE? (I hope you answer MOBA)

style.6173:

sendaf.8375:

Your complaint is self-contradicting. You say that as a defender all you do is fight npcs but then say you are facing 4 enemy players.

Vs a lord rush all you have to do is call in a 2nd teammate, spike the door breakers and then laugh as the other team flounders with no supply and noone defending their base. They will HAVE to turn around for supply because your inner gate is still up and then you can harass them all the way to the supply stacks.

Anet has made it clear that they dont want to have their game revolve soley on even fights. They want tactical objective based maps were sometimes lasting as long as possible 4v1 is the best thing you can do for your team. If you want to 1v1 go to custom arenas. If you want mindless Team Deathmatch play CoD

It seems like you are one of a very few who defend the game mode in thread after thread. That should tell you something.

What can I tell you? Conquest has been here for 3 years, and there are still people who refuse to acknowledge that holding 2 points gives a much better chance of winning than running around dying at far. I’m sure you don’t like teammates who tunnel far and fight on the enemy capped point, leaving mid 3v4, right?

The same for Stronghold, a lot of people don’t do defense, then complain. Just like they don’t defend the cap point in Conquest, and complain it’s a mindless zerg. They blame it on the premade instead.

Defending is a very viable strategy. In fact, it’s a winning one, since with 2 players, you can shutdown their push. I know it because I have done it multiple times.

Nevertheless, if you don’t enjoy it, don’t play it. Just like I said the same to the zerging people in Conquest: if you don’t like defending the point, just go to a custom king of the hill and enjoy your “pure” pvp experience.

Ristillath.6745:

sendaf.8375:

Ouroboros.5076:

sendaf.8375:

Obviously you didn’t try defending your base….

There is 0 need of killing players as a defender, unless they broke your two doors. And at this point it’s just a DPS race.

Using a staff mace/shield guardian I was able to heal even the archer guards long enough for them to 1 shot the 5 doorbreaker rush that starts every game. As a dedicated defender I allowed my team to focus on supply and pushing. I was always available to drop support on a hero cap or even better use the treb to gurantee heros for my team. I think that that aslight boost to guard vitality and toughness will make a huge improvement though.

All I read is PvE, PvE, PvE … oh and more PvE

So league of legends is also PvE right? You spend the majority of your time killing NPCs, sometimes more than 300 NPCs per game. Then you farm the jungle, then you farm the dragons. Most of the fights are avoided/flashed away. Once in a while (5 minutes) there is a small fight. Once in a long while, there is a team fight that last 15s.

So it’s also PvE right?

With your definition, I wonder if there is anything that satisfy you except the death match arena and Conquest.

I enjoy Stronghold a lot, and I know a lot of people enjoying Stronghold. I’m looking forward to the day it’s released, for real, so I can play something else beside the boring Conquest. Of course you can stand on your points (pun intended) and rant about how other people love the new “PvE infested” mode.

Haters gonna hate

Frenk.5917:

witcher.3197:

Currently the best tactic is to avoid any PvP interaction and fous on NPCs 24/7, by spawning, escorting and hunting skritt down. It’s basically Silverwastes with worse rewards.

So much this.

Spawn skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.
Occasionally check for the Hero.
Resupply.
Spawn more skritts.

Enemy team defending? Waste of time. Too many skritts.

Every time I see this, I have to ask: do you use the treb in game? It kills the whole groups of npc in just a few hits.

Stronghold is already better than Conquest. It just needs a few tweak here and there:

• taking damage stop channeling
• after 15 minutes, both Lords lose impatience and go to mid to attack each other, with all their guards.
• no more timer.

RlyOsim.2497:

As a WvW main I hope to god perma-stealth, perma-reset or condi thieves become the meta in Stronghold and get nerfed into ground.

And Shadow Arts got buffed in HoT. I sure hope that it will get nerfed.

There are two camps of people, the ones who like fast games, and the ones who like 45+ minutes games. ANet try to please both with a 15 minutes games. Personally, I think the timer is about right.

Bugged queue. Nothing to see here.

+1 I like the map too. Stomping the lord has a lot of drama effect! Ganking is also very fun. Popping up from a corner, and kill the enemy. It feels a lot like MOBA, but with even better combat system.

Tips for new comers: Bring a lot of CC/Immob for this maps, it’s very fun.

Stronghold is so much fun!

When people realize ganking is much more fun (and more change of winning) a new meta will arise. Right now, most people don’t know how to gank/def, since Conquest didn’t train them on that (only train them to stay on point), so people think rushing lord is good. I’ve been playing ganking/def strat and has been on a 10+ winning streak.

Saiyan.1704:

Played a game against Radioactive team.

They were all Sustain Bunker classes and went 100% defensive.
They grabbed every Heroes channel because there’s no counter for it.

In short… no one knew what to do. Lost 80-600

And in another thread, people said defending is too hard. They don’t realize that defending is a very viable strategy.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

players needs to learn use the treb properly.
the treb one shot archers and gate breakers.

the problem is that most players do not use the treb.

Exactly!

This mode is actually the most fun I had with PvP for a while. Much better than Conquest.

Evan, any reply for my suggestion above?

Sunshine.5014:

So now the problem is hidden number. Let’s solve it the easy way too: unhide the number.

No, I’m not kidding, lol. Let’s make it so that only the signed in player can see their own MMR. Everyone can see everyone Leaderboard Rating. Only the signed in player can see the matches history, and how many Leaderboard Rating they gained or lose per match. No one will see how their MMR changed per match, only the latest MMR number.

Luthic.7290:

Thier is no reliable counter-play to the stability channel and i request that it should be changed!!

The reliable counter play is “be there first”. They gave a 30 seconds long warning before the buff appears.

Capitol City.4856:

Sunshine.5014:

Capitol City.4856:

I did try that, that’s why I made this post. When you defend, you have two options: go tanky so the enemy players beating on you while you attack doorbreakers don’t instantly down you, or: go glass cannon so you can take out the doorbreakers quickly.

Your guard instant down door breaker in one hit. And they attack other players too. Then you have the door to go in and out. Defending just have so much advantage, I’m not sure why you have problem with it. Unless you’re severely outmanned, I don’t see how you lose an equal fight defending.

The guards are dead as soon as the players walk out of the spawning area, unfortunately. That’s part of the problem with doorbreakers, their counter is dead before it counters.
As for the treb, I agree, I think if people learned how to use it, they could use it fairly effectively.

You know why? because people rushed mid instead of rushing defend. Go directly to the guard. There is another path from the starting point, just FYI.

Oh, and the treb, people just don’t know how to use it. It kills the door breakers in 2 hits. You can even aim it backward to your 2nd gate too.

Capitol City.4856:

I did try that, that’s why I made this post. When you defend, you have two options: go tanky so the enemy players beating on you while you attack doorbreakers don’t instantly down you, or: go glass cannon so you can take out the doorbreakers quickly.

Your guard instant down door breaker in one hit. And they attack other players too. Then you have the door to go in and out. Defending just have so much advantage, I’m not sure why you have problem with it. Unless you’re severely outmanned, I don’t see how you lose an equal fight defending.

Defending is a very viable strategy. Honestly, you can’t count much on pugs to defend. That’s not the game’s fault though. People like to kill, and they forgot that they need defending to win.

Last beta, the meta was about full defense. Go try that out, and you will see