Swagg, do you want me to upload some of your daily doses of mad from mumble?
Haha oh wow, you have recordings?
Woohoo replies with a long delay!
What I’m pointing out is, you’re trying to control the way people play within a fight when you’ve already told them they can’t play certain builds
I think that’s pretty obvious by the word “rules.”
Trying to control the way someone plays inside the second by second fight can be very limiting because you may just be throwing the dice out on quite a few clutch plays that could possibly happen.
That’s the point. By hinging combat on clutch, well-cued moves, everything not only becomes more legible, but combat also becomes more exciting because we can see the plays happening and we understand what’s at risk when a player leaps through the air or uses a long skill-activation animation. In any case, it’s better than no clutch plays happening at all—which is the typical nature of metagame GW2 combat.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Elementalist-Almost-perfect-3-8/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Necromancer-I-lack-an-identity-1-8/first
This link takes you to a thread that is part of a series of planned threads with the goal of global profession balance. I’d like to open up the thread to the Elementalist Forum’s opinions.
By “global profession balance” I mean that my goals for balancing skills adhere to simple governing rules about how combat works in GW2:
BALANCE GOALS TO GOVERN ALL COMBAT IN GW2
- Excessive spam shouldn’t be a factor in combat because there are no defined healers to address it.
- No offensive skill aside from auto-attack skills should have short cool-downs or activation-times. By adding longer cast-times and supplemental charge-up mechanics to offensive skills, combat will be more legible. More legible combat will bring active dodging and keen positioning back into GW2’s forefront as a means of mitigating damage.
- Condispam should not be more effective than Power Builds because it undermines active damage mitigation by just spamming throwaway skills that never stop onto an opponent. This turns combat into a face-roll of who can press the most buttons the fastest and limits the effectiveness of keen positioning and clutch damage mitigation such as single blocks or dodges.
- Conditions can be as effective as Power just so long as the skills that inflict conditions are as well cued and have both adequate cool-downs and cast-times when compared to their power-based counterparts. This way, dodging, positioning and timing will be viable ways to counter conditions.
FACTORS THAT BALANCE RANGED COMBAT IN GW2:
Guild Wars 2 is a game that was designed to have players read their opponent’s skill cues. To this effect, ANet has designed several manners of reading an opponent’s skills such as:
- Post-cast delays
- Red circles
- Projectiles
- On-caster visual cues
- Long cast-times
- Projectiles that can be blocked, reflected or destroyed
- Gap-closer skills that requires the player to run or leap to a target/target area
However, despite these various cues, there are a many slew of skills in GW2 that forego 2 or more of the above balancing principles. These skills should be looked at critically and probably nerfed or functionally changed in order to bring them into line with how combat should appear in-game. Giving certain weapon sets or play-styles free hits for certain skill usage in a game where the “holy trinity” is absent is asking for trouble. Overpowered ranged skills in this game need to be wrangled back into obedience governed by the balancing principles listed above.
ATTRITION GAME-PLAY IN GW2
In the current meta-game, power is at a disadvantage because it has to actually hit a target while conditions just sort of float about thanks to spammy AoE skills, short cast-times, the ranged nature of most condition skills and passive procs. None of those have to constantly hit, the condition player just gets to use skills willy-nilly and all the while get in damage for free because of conditions. The system is flawed and should really be looked at critically.
Power-based damage should be king with conditions being a supplement. Conditions should only be a viable means of killing an opponent if the skills that apply those conditions are well telegraphed, have appropriately long activation times and long recharges. Attrition combat should be attained through movement control.
Earth Magic traits
Diamond Skin (Earth Magic — XI)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- When you attune to earth, you cure conditions and reflect incoming conditions back to their sources.
- Conditions cured: 3
- Condition reflection: 5 seconds
- Cool-down: 30 seconds
- This trait only triggers in combat.
Water Magic traits
Stop, Drop and Roll (Water Magic — VII)
- If you have 3 or more conditions on you when you dodge, you cast [Cleansing Wave] at the end of your dodge roll.
- Cool-down: 10 seconds
Arcane traits
Blasting Staff (Arcane —
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Area attacks with staff are larger. When you change elemental attunements while in combat, you conjure an arcane orb at your location that explodes after a delay, striking adjacent foes for critical damage.
- Radius increase: 30
- [Arcane Orb]
- Recharge: 10 seconds
- Delay: 2 seconds
- Damage: 101
- Damage radius: 180
- Combo Finisher: Blast
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Cantrip skills
[Mist Form]
- Recharge reduced from 75 to 60 seconds.
- Duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
- Invulnerability reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
- Now also cures immobilize, crippled and chill upon activation.
- Now chains into another skill upon use: [Cold Front].
[Cold Front]
- Cast-time: ¼ second
- Recharge: 5 seconds
- Whirl in a target direction, chilling foes that you strike along the way.
- Damage: 33 (0.2)
- Chill: 1 second
- Evasion: ¾ seconds
- Combo Finisher: Whirl
- Range: 450
- Warrior [Whirlwind Attack].
[Lightning Flash]
- Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.
- Damage reduced from 365 (?) to 179 (0.55).
[Cleansing Fire]
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 1¾ seconds
- Recharge: 35 seconds
- Channel a cleansing fire that pulses around you three times, damaging and burning nearby foes while cleansing 1 condition from yourself and nearby allies with each pulse. The final pulse knocks back nearby enemies.
- Damage (3x): 309 (0.9)
- Burning (3): 1 second
- Knock back: 240
- Pulse radius: 240
- [Cleansing Fire] pulses once every ½ second.
Glyph skills
[Glyph of Renewal]
- Cast-time reduced from 3¼ to 3 seconds.
[Glyph of Storms]
- Recharge reduced from 60 to 45 seconds.
Arcane skills
[Arcane Blast]
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 20 seconds
- Build up an orb of arcane energy above you. After 1 second, this orb flies out at your foe, blasting your foe for critical damage.
- Delay: 1 second
- Damage: 363
- Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile (100%)
- Range: 1500
- Current projectile size increased by 100%.
[Arcane Wave]
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Conjure a ring of arcane energy around target area. After 1 second, the ring explodes, blasting foes in the area for critical damage.
- Delay: 1 second
- Damage: 628
- Combo Finisher: Blast
- Radius: 240
- Range: 900
- The ring floats just off the ground and highlights the area targeted by [Arcane Wave].
- Delay ring shares its coloration with [Arcane Blast]’s projectile.
[Arcane Shield]
- Recharge lowered from 75 to 50 seconds.
- Duration lowered from 5 to 2 seconds.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Signet skills
[Signet of Air] (active)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Strike foes at target area with a blinding lightning bolt.
- Damage: 122 (0.4)
- Blind: 5 seconds
- Radius: 240
- Breaks stun
- Range: 1200
[Signet of Fire] (passive)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- When you blast a fire field, you burn adjacent foes. You gain fury for each foe that you burn.
- Burning: 3 seconds
- Burning radius: 180
- Fury per burning foe: 2 seconds
- Hits up to 5 foes.
[Signet of Fire] (active)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: ¼ second
- Recharge: 20 seconds
- Conjure a fire at target location that burns foes.
- Delay: 1 second
- Damage (4x): 976 (3.0)
- Burning (4): 1 second
- Duration: 4 seconds
- Combo Field: Fire
- Radius: 180
- Range: 1200
- [Signet of Fire] shares the same pulse schedule as [Lava Font].
- Now produces a red circle.
[Signet of Earth] (passive)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- You gain protection when you successfully evade an attack.
- Cool-down: 10 seconds
- Protection: 2 seconds
[Signet of Earth] (active)
- Cast-time: ¾ second
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Create a ring of stones that bleeds and immobilizes foes crossing it.
- Bleeding (3): 5 seconds
- Immobilize: 2 seconds
- Ring duration: 3 seconds
- Ring radius: 150
- Range: 1200
- As a visual effect, a shrunken ring of stones similar to the Sigil of Geomancy proc surrounds the target area for the skill’s duration.
- Now produces a red circle.
[Signet of Water] (passive)
- Cure 1 condition and chill foes at the end of your dodge roll.
- Cool-down: 10 seconds
- Delay: 1 second
- Chill: 2 seconds
- Chill radius: 180
- At the end of the player’s dodge roll, a small frozen ground AoE appears marked with a red circle. After 1 second, a [Frozen Burst] animation plays that inflicts the chill in the description.
- This passive ability will only proc when curing a condition.
[Signet of Water] (active)
- Cast-time: ½ second
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Conjure a font of chilling water at target location that heals allies and chills foes.
- Healing (3x): 1110 (0.5)
- Chilled (3): 1 second
- Duration: 3 seconds
- Radius: 240
- Combo Field: Water
- Range: 1200
- The [Signet of Water] field is a light-blue colored [Geyser].
- Now produces a red/white circle.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Healing skills
[Signet of Restoration] (passive)
- Heal yourself whenever you swap attunements.
- Healing on attunement swap: 608 (0.04)
- Healing/second assuming 10.4 second attunement recharge (20 into arcane) = 233.8756 h/s
[Signet of Restoration] (active)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- This signet now behaves like a glyph in that its functionality changes based on the Elementalist’s current attunement.
- New active healing/second at 0 Healing Power (base recharge): 163 h/s
- New active healing/second at 0 Healing Power (with cool-down trait): 203.75 h/s
[Fiery Signet of Restoration]
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Heal yourself and blast the nearby area with damage.
- Healing: 4075 (0.5)
- Damage: 101 (0.3)
- Damage radius: 180
- Combo Finisher: Blast
[Soothing Signet of Restoration]
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Heal yourself and cure up to 2 conditions.
- Healing: 4075 (0.5)
[Swift Signet of Restoration]
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Heal yourself and gain haste.
- Healing: 4075 (0.5)
- Haste: 2 seconds
[Heavy Signet of Restoration]
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Heal yourself and weaken nearby foes.
- Healing: 4075 (0.5)
- Weakness: 4 seconds
- Radius: 240
[Glyph of Renewal]
- Recharge reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
- Healing reduced from 4894 (0.75) to 3915 (0.75).
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Staff skills
[Lava Font] (Fire 2)
- Tool-tip added: Delay: 1 second.
[Flame Burst] (Fire 3)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 10 seconds
- Conjure an orb of flame at target location. After 1 second, the orb explodes, damaging and burning nearby foes.
- Delay: 1 second
- Damage: 65 (0.2)
- Burning: 5 seconds
- Radius: 180
- Range: 1200
[Ice Spike] (Water 2)
- Tool-tip added: Delay: 2 seconds.
[Gust] (Air 3)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: ½ second
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Unleash a gust of wind that knocks back foes.
- Knock-back: 400
- Range: 600
- This skill uses the Guardian [Healing Breeze] cone.
- Hits up to 5 targets.
[Windborne Speed] (Air 4)
- Now also grants haste for 1½ seconds (only for the Elementalist).
[Eruption] (Earth 2)
- Tool-tip added: Delay: 3 seconds.
- Now produces a red/white circle.
[Shockwave] (Earth 5)
- Bleed stacks changed from 1 stack for 20 seconds to 3 stacks for 10 seconds.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Dagger main-hand skills
[Burning Speed] (Fire 3)
- This skill now moves the player in a targeted direction; this skill now uses the same targeting reticle as Warrior [Whirlwind Attack].
- This skill does not need evasion frames. It’s an offensive AoE with a very high base damage and a 240 blast radius. It only has a short ¾-second animation. Moreover, it comes on a weapon set that also carries [Shocking Aura]. This skill does not need evasion frames.
[Frozen Burst] (Water 3)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: ¼ second
- Recharge: 15 seconds
- Detonate a chilling burst of ice at target location.
- Delay: 1 second
- Damage: 140 (0.5)
- Chilled: 3 seconds
- Radius: 180
- Combo Finisher: Blast
- Range: 600
- The target area is coated with a shrunken [Frozen Ground] AoE model for 1 second before the [Frozen Burst] animation goes off.
Dagger off-hand skills
[Ring of Fire] (Fire 4)
- This is now a ground-targeted skill with a 900 range.
- This skill now has a 1-second post-cast delay before it deals damage and manifests on the field. During its delay time, this skill creates a 240-radius circle ringed by smoldering yellow line. This skill’s red circle appears during its delay period.
[Ride the Lightning] (Air 4)
- Recharge reduced from 40 to 30 seconds.
- Recharge reduction on hit reduced from 50% to 33%.
[Updraft] (Air 5)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 1¼ seconds
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Gain swiftness and evade backwards on a gust of wind. The longer that you channel this skill, the more powerful your wind gust is when you release it.
- Swiftness: 10 seconds
- No channel: Crippled: 2 seconds; Knock-back: 200 range; Radius: 180
- Full channel: Crippled: 4 seconds; Launch: 200 range; Radius: 180
- Evasion: 1 second
- Base evasion distance increased from 180(?) range to 400 range.
- The evasion will trigger immediately upon skill activation if the button is not held down to channel. This makes the evasion similar to [Burning Retreat] in that it has a 0-second (instant) activation time.
Earthquake [Earth 4]
- Damage reduced from 336 (1.0) to 244 (0.75)
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Focus off-hand continued
[Comet] (Water 5)
- Recharge increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.
- Now uses ground-targeting.
- Now deals 30% more damage to chilled foes.
- Now stuns (1 second) foes that are already suffering from vulnerability.
[Gale] (Air 5)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 1¾ seconds
- Recharge: 40 seconds
- Channel a cone of biting wind in front of you that blinds and cripples foes before knocking them down.
- Blind (3): 2 seconds
- Cripple (3): 2 seconds
- Knock-down: 2 seconds
- Range: 600
- This skill hits up to 5 targets.
- The final blind/cripple tick from this skill is the only tick that inflicts knock-down.
- This skill’s ticks strike once every ½ second.
- This skill uses the Guardian [Healing Breeze] cone.
[Obsidian Skin] (Earth 5)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 40 seconds
- Gather an obsidian armor across your body that improves your affinity to the elements and blocks the next three attacks. The next time you swap attunements, you also cast a spell based on that attunement.
- Block duration: 4 seconds
- Elemental affinity duration: 10 seconds
- Elemental affinity (fire): Cast Lava Font at your location.
- Elemental affinity (water): Cast Geyser at your location.
- Elemental affinity (air): Cast Windborne Speed at your location.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Focus off-hand
[Flamewall] (Fire 4-1)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: ¼ second
- Recharge: 20 seconds
- Create a wall of flame at target area that damages and burns foes that cross it.
- Damage: 85 (0.2)
- Burning: 2 seconds
- Duration: 8 seconds
- Now chains into another skill: [Breath of Fire].
[Breath of Fire] (Fire 4-2)
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Cause your flamewall to rile up into a tall barrier of flames that foes cannot cross.
- Duration: 3 seconds
- While this skill is active, the Flamewall riles into a tall wall of fire that acts similarly to the Guardian [Line of Warding].
- This chain skill remains active for 8 seconds.
- This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Flamewall]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately to into recharge upon respective use.
[Fire Shield] (Fire 5)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 30 seconds
- Envelop yourself in a shield of fire that burns foes and grants might each time you are struck (cool-down of 1 second per attacker). If you combo this skill with a fire field, you also gain protection and retaliation.
- Fire Aura duration: 5 seconds
- Burning: 1 second
- Might (1): 10 seconds
- Protection: 3 seconds
- Retaliation: 3 seconds
- Combo Finisher: Whirl
[Freezing Gust] (Water 4)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 3¾ seconds
- Recharge: 35 seconds
- Conjure gusts of freezing wind over target area that inflict chill and vulnerability. If a gust strikes a foe with 10 or more stacks of vulnerability, it immobilizes that foe.
- Damage per gust: 229 (0.75)
- Gust radius: 120
- Chill: 1 second
- Vulnerability (3): 8 seconds
- Immobilize: 1 second
- Spell duration: 4 seconds
- Radius: 360
- Range: 1200
- This skill functions similarly to [Meteor Shower] in how it produces the wind gusts.
- Wind gust models are circular whirls of air. They produce red circles and they have a 1-second delay period upon appearing before they deal damage and their effects.
- Level 1 channel: 4 gusts (1 per second)
- Level 2 channel: 8 gusts (2 per second)
- Level 3 channel: 12 gusts (3 per second)
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Scepter main-hand skills
[Flamestrike] (Fire 1)
- Now uses a projectile: orange Mesmer [Ether Bolt] projectile model.
- This skill shares its projectile behaviour with that of Elementalist [Chain Lightning]..
[Dragon’s Tooth] (Fire 2)
- Added tool-tip: Delay: 2 seconds
- Now uses ground-targeting.
- Damage reduced from 756 (2.25) to 636 (2.25).
[Phoenix] (Fire 3)
- Cast-time increased from ¼ second to ½ second.
- Added a minimum range: 50
- Now, the [Phoenix] audio clip plays immediately as the Elementalist begins casting the skill.
[Arc Lightning]
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 2½ seconds
- Cast an arc of electricity at your foe.
- Stage 1 damage: 90 (0.3)
- Stage 2 damage: 180 (0.5)
- Stage 3 damage: 273 (0.8)
- Range: 900
- This skill now strikes a total of 3 times; one strike every ¾ second.
[Lightning Strike] – named changed to Lightning Bolt (to diminish combat log confusion) (Air 2)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 6 seconds
- Strike foes at the target location with a lightning bolt.
- Damage: 386 (1.2)
- Delay: ½ second
- Radius: 120
- Range: 900
- Now creates a red circle on the ground.
- [Lightning Strike]’s original functionality remains the same for passive triggers such as swapping to Air Attunement with 15 into Air Magic or the RNG proc on Runes of Air (6/6).
NEW SKILL: [Lightning Orb] (Air 3-1)
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 15 seconds
- Conjure a lightning orb at target location that periodically strikes nearby foes with an electrical burst.
- Damage per pulse: 252 (0.75)
- Damage pulse: 2 seconds
- Damage radius: 180
- Duration: 8 seconds
- Range: 900
- This skill pulses 4 times total: the first pulse occurs 2 seconds after the lightning orb is cast and then again at each 2 second interval after that until its duration ends.
- This skill chains into another skill upon completion: [Blinding Flash].
[Blinding Flash] (Air 3-2)
- Cast-time: 0
- Destroy your lightning orb with a blinding flash that briefly reveals stealthed foes.
- Blind: 5 seconds
- Revealed: 1 second
- Radius: 180
- This skill lasts for the entire duration of [Lightning Orb].
- Using this skill prematurely ends [Lightning Orb]’s duration.
[Ice Shards] (Water 1) – Name changed to: [Ice Spear] (Water 1)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Launch a spear of ice that shatters on impact, damaging adjacent foes.
- Damage: 286 (0.85)
- Damage radius: 120
- Range: 900
- This skill shares its projectile behaviour with that of Elementalist [Fireball].
- After-cast adjusted to 0.40 second.
[Shatterstone] (Water 2-1)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: ¾ second
- Recharge: 5 seconds
- Conjure a shatterstone at the target area that deals damage as it grows. After 2 seconds, the shatterstone explodes, damaging and leaving adjacent foes vulnerable.
- Growth damage (2x): 504 (1.5)
- Explosion damage: 252 (0.75)
- Explosion vulnerability (5): 15 seconds
- Radius: 150
- Range: 900
- The first two bursts of damage occur at each “burst growth” animation of the Shatterstone when the model cracks and grows larger.
- This skill now chains into another skill upon cast-completion: [Icy Shackles].
[Icy Shackles] (Water 2-2)
- Cast-time: ¼ second
- Recharge: 20 seconds
- Chill foes in the area of your Shatterstone with a blast of frost.
- Chill: 4 seconds
- Radius: 180
- This chain skill remains active for up to 2 seconds.
- This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Shatterstone]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.
[Hurl] (Earth 2-2)
- Each stone now inflicts ½ second of crippled.
[Dust Devil] (Earth 3-1)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Cast-time: ¼ second
- Recharge: 20 seconds
- Blind foes at target area with a whirling dust devil.
- Damage (2x): 268 (0.4)
- Blind (2): 3 seconds
- Duration: 1 second
- Combo Finisher: Whirl
- Radius: 180
- Range: 900
- This skill pulses twice, once at creation and once one second later.
- Each pulse triggers a Whirl Finisher.
- The [Dust Devil] projectile now spins in place at the target location.
- This skill now chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Whirlwind].
[Whirlwind] (Earth 3-2)
- Cast-time: ¼ second
- Recharge: 40 seconds
- Knock back adjacent foes with a whirlwind.
- Knock-back: 240
- Combo Finisher: Whirl
- Radius: 180
- This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
- This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Dust Devil]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.
- This skill uses a tan-colored [Windborne Speed] visual cue with a different sound clip.
- This skill uses the Engineer [Regenerating Mist] casting animation and after-cast.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Part 3 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.
ELEMENTALIST: “A MODEL CLASS”
As of right now, aspects of the Elementalist could serve best as a pace car for balance in GW2. To that effect—and despite the length of this thread—the profession is very well put together. The profession mechanic is perfectly attuned with its offensive and defensive capabilities. The majority of its offensive skills have appropriate cast-times and even post-cast delays proportionate to the amount of damage that they can potentially inflict. The profession has a wide variety of skills that require positioning, timing and/or aim in order to hit an opponent. Even so, there are many Elementalist skills that break several balance rules related to granting an opponent counter-play opportunity. Most of these skills create play-styles that rely on pressing a lot of buttons very quickly in order to kill an opponent nearly instantly. If this gambit doesn’t work, the Elementalist is often dead to rights.
The goal of this thread is to not only fix the balance issues associated with poorly cued Elementalist burst, but also to address those same builds by giving them more sustainable DPS across a larger number of skills instead of having it all piled into a select few cheap shots as well as to introduce some more survivability options into weapon skills by means of the addition of more CC and mobility.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
I have no idea if this has been suggested earlier, but what if we make the marks an on demand explode skill. Doing so allows you to fake out explosions, and catch groups of enemies by surprise. This also negates people being able to detonate marks by just dodging through them.
I was actually thinking of doing that for putrid mark. However, I feel like just making them explode immediately would also prove to be a bad design due to a lack of proper counterplay measures. At least it should have a 1-second delay with some sort of animation. I feel like making it spawn a bubble similar to a brown-tinted Guardian Sanctuary before exploding after 1 second would suffice. In any case, it would allow Necros to bait more enemies into their mark before blowing it up.
The way I see it, it’s the fact that Marks are GTAOE that is the problem. In the GW1 to GW2 translation, Marks in general were transformed from skills that provided an AOE Debuff centred on the Marked foe into GTAOE spells.
- Design wise, Marks had the effect of forcing Marked opponents in GW1 to separate themselves from the pack unless they burned a Hex removal.
- In GW2, Marks are nothing more than condi-bombs , and their unique nature is lost in the translation.
- I would love to see some Necromancer (and Mesmer) skills centre the Mark automatically over an opponent with a delay, then detonate_ to apply their effect as opposed to their GTAOE nature. Marks would therefore be a way of forcing dodges in the same manner as Ice Spike – except that foes cannot move out of it; they have to dodge when the delay expires. This limited counterplay may lead to outcry.
- Unfortunately, such a design is highly liable to abuse unless no more than 1 Mark can be placed on a foe at a time (new Marks overwrite old Marks)
- This would also make balance more volatile as the Mark has to be sufficiently powerful to require dodging, yet not too much so that being Marked without endurance is guaranteed death.
- On the other hand, centering a tracking AOE over a Foe’s head would bring a new dynamic in teamfights, forcing enemies away from the scrum in the same manner as Marks did in GW1.
While I’d love to see something like the old Mark of Pain come back into the game as a combat feature, without a reliable way to designate a difference something like a unique debuff and a condition, I fear that it might end up just being overpowered or excessively annoying—as you had already said.
The follow-and-delay sort of set-up might be cool as a means of baiting dodges or breaking up a group of enemies.
The more comments that I read about this topic, the more I wonder if the Necromancer staff marks shouldn’t all be individually different. We could have old Mark of Pain for one, a follow-and-delay bomb for another, a triggered AoE for another and maybe something else. We have plenty of ideas for it.
@swagg
first i would take a look of the mechanic of the game.. changing dmg of skills brings nothing..
In a game without very well defined combat roles, damage is the primary mechanic of the game. Even things like CC are often overwritten by long stability durations.
what determine the dmg output is the skillcoeff and a lot of other stuff. so its total worthless to write “dmg 212 (0,4) to 250 (0,4)” as example
second if u want to change so many things i think maybe you play the wrong game.
There’s a lot of hope and potential locked in GW2. I’d be poor form to just abandon it.
except some already called problems axe and shortbow are not that bad like u suggest. axe just need to be a powerweapon
I’ll look at adjusting some of the numbers. The 2 and 3 skill re-designs are already well-cued enough to maybe deserve a bit of a damage buff to compensate. People have also complained about turning axe main-hand into a melee-attack. I’m looking at ways to give it range flexibility; I might just make it a ranged auto-attack chain.
and not a hybrid
Condition damage can be valuable in a power build as a means of supplemental pressure outside of big-hitter attacks. The point is to keep that pressure in moderation and tied to well-cued attacks.
and shortbow a more reliable condiapplication. longbow needs punch and greatsword too.
I’m also looking at [Poison Volley] and [Crippling Shot] as means to provide condition pressure on Ranger shortbow outside of spamming 1 while strafing.
what ranger need is trait and utility overhaul but not the weapons.
Traits are passive abilities that have no visible cues. The best place to start in order to increase combat legibility is with the active skills themselves. I’ve already overhauled the worst offenders of passive, RNG-proc-dependent combat which were the spirits.
I’ll look at the other utilities, though. Did you have any ideas in mind?
Ok I was going to just watch this thread slowly fade out, but you do understand that the primary mode of balance that spvp is going for is conquest right? And in turning more of the game into that would be “overtuned or brain-dead” in a different direction.
By “balance the entire game around PvP” I don’t mean to introduce conquest into PvE. Think of the NPCs with which you can duel in the Heart of the Mists as practice. The duelist NPCs along with the Keep Lord and the beasts from Niflhel (forest).
Those kinds of fights are functionally different and far more engaging than most fights that a player will find in overworld PvE. Even bosses in overworld PvE don’t typically play in the same manner since most bosses in PvE ignore things like blind, CC and often come equipped with unblockable attacks—not to mention their HP-sponge nature that turns most combat into a maypole dance around the target while you mindlessly cycle through a damage rotation. Even though it may not really come that close, fighting things like the dueling NPCs in the Heart of the Mists is the best simulation for fighting another player in GW2. That’s what I’m aiming for.
If we balance player skills around killing other players, then to make sure that the PvE experience isn’t overtuned, PvE encounters would have to be made into something that more resembles PvP with regards to enemy hp, movement and how it responds to CC.
It would actually be nice if leaping gap-closers were ground-targeted skills but only struck your current target out of the targets in the possible AoE.
Removing damaging conditions from auto attacks would make them completely useless to condition builds. How could that possibly be a good idea?
Removing conditions from auto-attacks would allow us to shift them to other better-cued, recharge-bound weapon skills. It would make condition builds more susceptible to things like timed dodges, positioning or single blocks as opposed to what they are now: countered only by extended blocks, invulnerabilities or passive healing while being forced to eat an unending stream of condition spam.
The Shortbow is already near useless in PvE. Cutting it’s damage by half will simply destroy this weapon. Right now the ranger has just one weapon with competitve damage and that’s the sword. Your changes on axe will maybe add a second viable weapon, but nerfing a weapon is a NoGo for the ranger since it will only strengthen sword and maybe your axe suggestion.
Balancing the game around PvP is better for everyone because it leads to more PvP-like PvE encounters. If everything is balanced around PvP encounters, then PvE encounters and bosses would have to mimic players so as not to be too overtuned or brain-dead easy.
If you want to support so called “active play”, you should start with sword, since it’s the best example for a “press 1 to win” weapon. You’ll never use #2 or #3 if you don’t want to lose damage.
I should look into that. I simply didn’t get around to making any concrete sword changes.
If you’re using shortbow, you can atleast use the other skills without disrupting your attackflow.
That’s actually the kind of combat that’s ruining PvP at the moment. If everything just feels like an auto-attack how is it different than just auto-attacking someone to death? The ability for many spammable offensive skills to rapidly snowball on top of an opponent is not good skill design within the context of GW2 combat. That’s the kind of skill paradigm that I’m trying to fix.
Yeah, except that some of your changes make no sense.
Make no sense in what regard? I’ll need some context.
Like the shortbow for example. Right now, it takes roughly half a second inbetween damage ticks when using autoattack. You want to increase the cast time to 3/4 second, and aftercast to .25 seconds?
Well, cast time and aftercast together are already roughly 1/2 second because of the animation when using the skill….., and you want to double that to 1 second. You want to double the time inbetween damage ticks, but only increase the physical damage it does by about 16%? And since you didn’t specify how the bleed works, Im assuming it stays the same, meaning that the bleed aspect gets a 50% damage nerf?
Yes, the goal of this global profession balance initiative is to slow down combat to a more legible state.
uh….where’s the logic in that?
There’s plenty of logic. To make combat more legible, you better define individual skills by lengthening cast-times and making cues more obvious.
I see that you want to increase the damage that skill 2 does, but, its not enough to offset the damage reduction from the autoattack, meaning that instead of encouraging more active play, it just makes the weapon all around weaker.
You’re just using active play as a buzzword here. What you are actually saying is that “active play” is defined by relying on a strong auto-attack. Last time I checked, pressing 1 and strafing while you have a target doesn’t exactly scream “active play.”
You are probably right about the damage, though. The goal is to make other, better cued and cooldown-bound skills into the main sources of damage. I think that the numbers need a little more adjusting.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
my original reply had an error and was eaten by the forum monsters so i’ll condense my response.
so “none of their attacks have any real punch to them.” really means “they need better defined skills.”. gotcha.
Eh, I suppose I should refine my point about ranger damage.
Although Ranger has a lot of whimpy attacks, they all have a spammable nature (short cool-down; nil cast-time) that allow them to snowball very quickly against an opponent that renders timing dodges or blocks irrelevant. That’s what needs to be fixed. Fixing it is a process of making skills slower and more independent from each other.
the main issues are that rangers are tied to the hip with broken pets and are a mesh of bad ideas from 2 classes in beta. nothing you suggest would make any improvements.
I have a suggestion for that, but it’s not nearly as fleshed out as anything else here. I hesitate to put it up because it’s a very, very work-intensive—but ultimately rather simple—solution that I think would turn people off even more than reworking current skills.
your pseudo dev balancing act across all professions only serves to slow down combat through longer cool downs, longer cast times, charge ups, big telegraphed animations
That’s the point. That sort of balance makes for legible combat in which players can actually capitalize on timed dodges and positioning. Right now spam-centric play-styles like those of the typical Ranger rule the metagame.
and favors melee even more.
That’s not necessarily true. So long as a player uses positioning and snare skills properly, melee can be put in check while allowing the ranged player to maneuver about for a little while longer—or at least that is how it should be. There are some aspects of game-play which make it difficult to achieve such a simple paradigm.
no thanks, professions and combat here are already on par with games like co and dcuo, we don’t need to make things worse
I’m telling you right now that dhuumfire and torment brought on the condi meta which brought on things like Diamond Skin. The only solution to the current condi/passive-proc/throaway-skill meta is simply straight up hard counter immunities and/or extended blocks or invulnerability. This trend will lead us down a path of more Diamond Skins, Incendiary Powders and Dhuumfires until everyone is just killing each other with repeated auto-attacks after having haphazardly pressed every other button on their skill bar.
I’m honestly not a fan of a lot of these suggestions. While I do agree with you that the Ranger is probably the least engaging and most boring of all 8 classes to play, I don’t feel you’ve actually solved any of the class’ problems other than making it slightly more dynamic. And by slightly I mean all you’re doing is changing the current ‘always use off cooldown’ abilities into other abilities we’d always use off cooldown but be a little flashier for no apparent reason.
They’re to promote combat legibility. Right now, everything that a ranger does is almost immediately lost in even small encounters because of the spammy, poorly-cued, short-cast-time nature of all of their skills.
The problem with the class is it has no direction. Shortbow and Longbow both deal comparable damage and the condition value of one isn’t offset by a power/burst alterantive in the other. Axe you want to trun into a melee weapon which removes the 1h ranged option for the class, [/quote]
Someone has already made this point and I’ve been reflecting on it. Even so, the change that I made to [Path of Scars] was to circumvent the issue of changing the axe main-hand auto-attack from a ranged attack to a melee one.
so why not just change Sword to do what you descibe? It’s much despised by the Ranger community as well.
I haven’t talked about the sword. You mean just take my axe main-hand auto-attack idea and slap it on the sword? In the last PvP balance livestream, the balance team mentioned that they were working on a server-side fix to allow dodging while in mid-auto-attack for the sword 1 chain. I think that that’s the biggest issue for the weapon.
While I certainly like your activated spirit abilities, when is the Ranger expected to actually use them?
All of the redesigned spirit actives have abilities with the potential to synergize with the spirit passive. Why would you not use them when the opportunity arises? They’re all very straightforward in how they synergize with the spirit.
Giving Spirits 100% more health isn’t going to make them magically go from useless to useful.
Giving spirits 100% more hp is one of the the current functions of the Vigorous Spirits trait.
And is this what you feel is all that’s wrong with the class? Or are you limited in your experience with the class to only Spirit builds in sPvP on the receiving end and you haven’t actually played the class?
I already said that pets were another thread entirely. I would probably put more in there (because, as I’ve said, all ranger skills are rather poorly designed in how spammy and low-impact they are), but I haven’t gotten around to fixing all of the weapons. I thought that shortbow and axe were a good place to start. I’ll probably put torch up too sometime soon if I can get that nailed down.
I agree with this swag. “Outside of bad pet AI (another topic entirely), one of the worst factors ruining Ranger balance at the moment is how none of their attacks have any real punch to them.”
the pets (that are not getting fixed) are the main reason why rangers are weaker offensively. our entire class is balanced around a poorly made mechanic that has been forced on rangers. until pets serve a different function or are handled differently, all these ranger issues will remain the same. yeah, rangers need to do more damage, but not the way you are suggesting to balance things.
Rangers actually don’t necessarily need to do more damage, they need better defined skills. What’s stopping a ranger using [Poison Volley] on recharge or what’s letting an opponent know that a ranger is using [Poison Volley] at all? Does any of it really matter?
Most ranger skills are very much like that: spammable, whimpy, poorly-cued abilities that are instantly lost in even small fights. That’s what needs fixing. I have a fix for pets, but that’s for another thread entirely.
Lots of skill updates. Scepter, staff and utility/healing skill sections received the most updates. Also, I’ve removed the Blood Magic Spells section. It would be best to simply fold some new ideas/functionalities into already existing Necromancer skills instead of attempting to craft an entirely new mechanic.
Oh, right, I took out my suggestion for [Reaper’s Mark]. It is a really clunky suggestion in the end. I’m still somewhat at a loss for what it could be aside from just an AoE fear button. Maybe it should just remain an AoE fear button. Adding a short delay to it as I’ve done to the rest of the marks would work just fine, but I feel like that’d be just a bit of a lazy update.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
-all of those good ideas-
Yes. YES.
You know, it was weird how I somehow just decided that the best way to fix Necromancer was by adding an extra mechanic. I guess it didn’t occur to me that all of those new ideas could actually just be folded into existing skills. I’m going to rework my entire post now. Blood Magic Spells are gone. I’m going to fold a lot of that CC and support into lack-luster Necromancer skills.
Listen Swagg, I really admire the thought and energy you’re putting into your posts.
My one criticism, apart from the massive scope creep is the following (from the perspective of Ele and Necro being the two classes I play the most) …
I’m fed up with skills that pulse requiring CC to land the full potential.
That’s actually my favorite aspect of staff elementalist. However, staff elementalist also grants the player a lot of CC to control opponents. Necromancers really don’t get that, and it would be difficult to add, so I see your point about that.
Also using fireball projectile behaviour as the basis for any other skill is not a good idea until they fix Ele staff auto-attacks.
Actually, that’s also a good point. The reason I had [Putrid Strike] use the fireball projectile was because it originally had an AoE explosion when it hit. However, coding all of the effects and tracking them over multiple targets depending on whether or not [Putrid Strike] hit a patch of enemies proved a little overwhelming, so I decided to drop it. Given that it doesn’t have an AoE anymore, it would probably be best to change the projectile behaviour again, yes.
Other than that I think you have some very interesting ideas. Nice job man.
I appreciate it.
The problem with Ranger damage is that too much of the Ranger Profession relies on Passive effects, traits, pets, and spirits.
That’s what I’m attempting to fix at least with the spirit changes. I’m straying away from traits right now because even though traits are entirely passive effects, they require skill activation to trigger them. If I can change the feel of how ranger skills contribute to the battlefield, I can indirectly balance traits without directly addressing them for now.
Let me guess: OP is a warrior main who somehow got outplayed by a SB/axe-axe ranger? Or a dev?
I haven’t even gotten to the warrior and thief threads yet. Get ready for nerfs and functionality changes everywhere.
Marks can be “fixed” simply by having the mark appear on the ground the instant the mark begins casting, and then you have half a second to get out. Along with more differentiation between the casts. If this makes marks too weak, buff them.
That’s actually how Elementalist [Ice Spike], [Eruption], [Dragon’s Tooth] and [Lava Font] currently work. I simply chose to focus on the [Lava Font] cue because of its short cast-time while still providing a fair tell to opponents. Given that the new marks would have a 0-second cast-time and a visible “after-cast” animation, the mark would immediately begin manifesting upon cast-activation (not cast-completion). That was the goal with my mark suggestion.
So let’s start here:
Which skills could be the best candidate for being remade/adjusted to being movement skills? After pinning down—let’s say—two skill slots across at least two different weapon sets as ideal candidates for movement skills, I could start crafting out ideas. Which weapon skills or weapons in general feel lack-luster or could maybe use some additional combat movement the most? “All” is not an acceptable answer.
See, this isn’t a fix at all. Necromancers shouldn’t have mobility except at the very most things like dark path/flesh wurm/spectral walk; namely things that don’t allow generally allow you to run from fights/outside of fights, but allow you to reposition in them.
[Burning Retreat] is a good in-battle repositioning skill. [Lightning Flash] is also a good example. They’re even better because they’re balanced with rather substantial base cool-downs. The Necromancer repositioning skills that do exist are clunky, have long cool-downs and don’t really often allow for clutch-timing movement. [Flesh Wurm] is more like a portal that can be destroyed while even something like [Spectral Walk] is cool, but doesn’t actually provide the Necromancer with a lot of raw movement abilities like an evading retreat, teleport or directional whirl would. Giving Necromancer the ability to reposition—even just once during a brief encounter—could really be a game-changer in combat that could amplify the profession’s survivability immensely.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Class flavor is actually very important. If you make the classes too similar, it becomes more difficult to distinguish what they are even mean’t to do, let alone balance the two classes around each other when they compete for the except same play style. Never you mind the fact that it would make the game less diverse and frankly more boring. If you’re going to suggest changes, keep true to the class and it’s functions instead of lazily copy-pasting another class into it. Which is actually quite ironic considering the title.
Fair points, but I mean what I said. This game is balanced around reading your opponent. Frankly put, marks are very poorly cued and make it difficult to read a staff Necromancer’s actions. Giving them a faster cast-time and a post-cast delay would help solve this problem.
Furthermore, even though I’m borrowing a balancing paradigm, I’m not changing the base functionality of the skill. That’s the important part. The marks are still marks even if they have a post-cast delay. There’s no arguing that.
Also, just because the Ele’s weapon works like that doesn’t mean the necro’s should. They are two different classes and should remain that way.
We shouldn’t justify ignoring a well-balanced skill functionality just because of class flavor.
“Which skills could be the best candidate for being remade/adjusted to being movement skills?”
-Necro staff #4 teleport as you place the mark, putrid mark reverted and blast finisher activates when blinked.
You mean teleport to the place where you put the mark and then create a putrid mark where you were once standing?
-SW can be reworked,
By that you mean Spectral Walk? I might have an idea for that.
-DS#2 can be reworked
Ah, right. I sort of almost forgot about that one. I have an idea for that too. Hopefully I’ll get them down soon.
snip
After reading all your other suggestions i do get where you are going with these idea’s it’s just very hard to put the idea’s for necromancer into context wiothout reading trough all your other suggestions.
Yeah, that’s really the trouble of it. I wish there were a shorter, easier, faster way of getting everything down but the truth is that there really isn’t. We need concrete examples of how to change aspects of this game and those typically can’t come without detailed skill descriptions.
But I’ll keep trying anyway.
If you want to make the necromancer more attrition based, you need to make power builds have more attrition based conditions/boons like retaliation, regeneration, protection, weakness, ect. IE: give the axe an auto attack chain that applies weakness.
Spamming weakness… ehhhh.
While I understand that it’s in the game (Engineer and Elementalist have options for auto-attacks that spam weakness), I still worry about giving a very, very strong, power-centric weapon set weakness on the auto-attack. Even so, I’ll look into redesigning the auto-attack in general. To be honest, giving Necromancer axe main-hand an auto-attack chain never really occurred to me. I’ll think about it for sure.
Also, power builds should NOT inherently be better than condition builds. Berserker’s should have the highest DPS, sure, but that doesn’t mean condition builds need a nerf in DPS. This is especially true in PvE where condition builds already fall behind, let alone if you have 2 condition damage classes in a party.
I’m trying to revise that statement. I’ve said before, Condition Damage builds can rival Power Builds but only if the conditions granted from a Condition Damage build carry the same skill-usage risks as a typical Power Build. I mean, things like [Jump Shot] or [Earthshaker] are very well-cued attack animations. Using those skills typically incurs a risk (either that the user is CC’ed during the attack or that the opponent dodges/moves out of range of the attack). That’s the kind of paradigm that should work for condition damage builds too.
The current condispam meta that permeates the game at the moment is invested in throwaway spam skills that have no really penalty for one or two missing or going astray. They just all blur together without definition until an opponent is dead. That’s one of the issues that I’m trying to fix with my suggestions.
The addition of 1 second delays, especially that many, would completely neuter the necromancer. Some of those nerfs are completely needless (mark of blood).
The 1-second delay AoE paradigm is not something at which we should be turning up our noses. Staff elementalist has been getting along with these types of skills with proper timing, target-leading and positioning. The 180 base radius of staff marks make them very viable to land despite a 1-second delay so long as the Necromancer properly predicts an enemy’s movement. Moreover, unlike other AoEs, Necromancer staff marks stay around even if they aren’t initially triggered. This creates a mine-field effect that no other class can simulate.
Even so, I understand the issue with marks: they don’t have any staying power. Once they trigger, they go off and that’s it. If an opponent dodges them, that’s it for good and most of them (aside from [Mark of Blood]) have pretty substantial recharges. I’ll look at ways of maybe addressing this, but I don’t want to just make an entire weapon set of pulsing, duration AoEs simply because people say that leading a target in order to land an AoE with a 1-second delay is too difficult.
It is true that Necromancers are very clunky to play due primarily to their lack of mobility. I’m not unaware of that, which is not only why I’ve been playing around with the Necromancer in PvP but also why I’ve opened up this discussion on the Necromancer Forum. There’s a lot to be desired with much of the Necromancer play-style whether rolling conditions or power.
I really do think that adding some key movement skills (leaps or dashes) to the Necromancer’s repertoire would give the class a breath of fresh air. Aside from that, I’m not sure that it needs too much. The trick to adding survivability to a class is to not overdo it. Things got out of control with the Warrior so we can’t make that mistake again.
So let’s start here:
Which skills could be the best candidate for being remade/adjusted to being movement skills? After pinning down—let’s say—two skill slots across at least two different weapon sets as ideal candidates for movement skills, I could start crafting out ideas. Which weapon skills or weapons in general feel lack-luster or could maybe use some additional combat movement the most? “All” is not an acceptable answer.
Tweaked a few damage numbers. [Grasping Dead] received a small update.
Tweaked a few damage numbers on a few skills.
Why should all conditions attacks have long activation and long recharge? Thieves are the biggest users of power builds and they have neither of these, and rely almost exclusively on #1 for damage in some builds.
Although this sort of thread is specialized for Rangers, it’s part of a series to address global balance as a whole. Thieves are by far the worst rule-breakers when it comes to how this game’s combat should be governed. In all honesty, it would be easiest to delete thieves from the game instead of attempt to fix them, but people won’t want that so I’ll have to do my best to somehow fix that awful mess of a class.
Conditions are already weaker than power builds by simply looking at DPS. No full condition spec can match the damage potential of a full power build.
Not necessarily true. While a power build has to land its attacks to be effective, a condition spec has to just spam skills and then kite around while the target dies. This is due to the typical design of a condition-related skill. They’re spammy, throwaway skills that a player gets to use for free. The spam blur adds up and makes it difficult if not impossible for an opponent to mitigate incoming damage with well-timed actions such as dodges or single blocks.
“limits the effectiveness of keen positioning” No it doesnt. Positioning is the only way I beat necros and conditions engis in my build.
You completely misread that. The problem is that the Engineer and the Necromancer get to attack for free from almost anywhere because of the nature of their poorly-cued, no-set-up-time, condition-related skills.
This thread isn’t about how to beat an opponent, it’s about fixing spam-oriented specs.
Power builds can play ranged as well,
Again, this sort of thing is not outside of my scope. Certain ranged power builds also need to be toned down.
Even so, Light of Sight is a thing and players should learn to capitalize on that when fighting a ranged player in general.
But generally.. No.
I don’t think that you even actually followed the link. Despite the governing list of rules that I’ve placed at the top of this thread, the respective goals of the individual profession threads are different. Ranger’s biggest balance issue is that it’s very spam-oriented. I’m trying to fix that by better defining its individual weapon skills.
The other goal is the complete removal of Spirit RNG. RNG passive procs in general are terrible for GW2’s combat. In a game without dedicated healers that is supposed to function around players being able to mitigate damage via dodges and small self-healing capabilities, having passive RNG procs (offensive or defensive) is the worst possible idea. It completely takes out counterplayability.
This is so bad. Proper timing and activation of targeted AoE skills based on one’s positional relation to a target is one of the very few gauges for skill in this game. By making such abilities into things that are auto-aimed for you, it wrecks that skill-based aspect.
This position demonstrates the lack of relevance to the actual game that the rest of your ideas have. I see what you’re doing- you want to bring tactics and skill between opponents ‘back’ into the game. (I say ‘back’ in scare quotes because, IMO, it never had it) Unfortunately, GW2 is simply not that game. This change would be a fundamental change to the pace and feel of gameplay. The goal is worthy, but this method simply isn’t relevant to the style of play the game is designed around.
Fundamental is the kind of change I’m pushing.
Honestly, this game was pretty clutch-dodge-centric back towards the official launch. Power-centric builds were much more common in PvP and created an environment in which things like positioning, timing and dodges often determined victors in fights. Unfortunately, conditions soon took hold and with the Dhuumfire/Torment patch, everything just went to the pits. As I’ve said before, the game’s biggest issue is condispam; and condispam’s existence comes primarily from poor skill design. That skill design is what I’m out to fix.
Case in point- conditions. They are the second worst mechanic I have ever seen in any MMO (and I started with Everquest in 1999). Every targeted effect in the game, other then DD, is done with conditions. This means that every persistent effect in the entire game has the same counter. Bleeding? Cure condition. Confusion? Stunned? Poisoned? Weakened? Crippled? Chilled? Immobilize? Fear? Torment? Cure condition.
You seem like a pretty cool guy. Conditions are in fact one of the worst mechanics in GW2 right now. Even so, they worked pretty alright in GW1. Guild Wars 1 had a condition paradigm based around pressuring opponents with degen that didn’t scale except in duration (and that was influenced by what were effectively trait points). It was rather inefficient or even silly to attempt to kill a player solely by casting degen and then auto-attacking (especially if there were monks around).
Now that I say all that, maybe you too have played Guild Wars 1 and now I feel silly for typing all that out.
In any case, GW2’s misstep was making conditions a viable means of killing an opponent very quickly. This sort of thing is what I’m out to address with targeted skill functionality changes and a few trait adjustments.
The condition system needs to be tossed and rebuilt.
That would be the ideal, but I still see solutions to the problem without completely redoing a core aspect of the game.
Of course, it’ll never happen, since simplistic gameplay is what the designers wanted. The entire OP is asking for something that GW2 is unequipped to ever provide.
So long as the goal is clear, I will fight for balance and a more engaging GW2 experience.
Condition builds do not innately need spam to work, the idea that power = skill and condi = spam is absolutely false. Some skills follow that line of thinking, some don’t.
Sure, conditions don’t have to be constantly spammed to be effective, however all of the condition specs currently in this game spam conditions everywhere due to spammable skills and passive, RNG trait/sigil/rune procs. The skill design is the biggest issue, and that’s what I’m targeting with my suggestions.
I am completely for promoting more active gameplay…
I see people say this all the time, but then never follow up with concrete suggestions or examples on how to actually “promote more active gameplay.” Your sentence doesn’t inspire any confidence or define any goals for anyone to support. “I am completely for promoting more active gameplay” is just a sentence people say to cover themselves when they have nothing constructive to contribute. I’m here offering concrete suggestions with clearly defined goals. That’s what this game needs; not “I think X should be more Y because Z,” discussions.
but I hate the crap that keeps being thrown at us where the only “proper” skillful way to play the game is full zerker melee.
- Conditions can be as effective as Power just so long as the skills that inflict conditions are as well cued and have both adequate cool-downs and cast-times when compared to their power-based counterparts. This way, dodging, positioning and timing will be viable ways to counter conditions.
I never said melee. I never said full zerker. I said power. Power in GW2 implies that you must strike your opponent. Power implies that you must get in key strikes in order to bring down an opponent. Conditions completely undermine that principle and have run this game into the ground with a paradigm that ousts timing, positioning and prediction as viable ways to counter damage. While full zerker is heavily implied when one speaks of “power builds,” it’s not zerker that’s being discussed: it’s the fact that you have to strike your opponent to deal damage; not spam skills at the guy and then run around while pressing auto-attack as he bleeds out.
Condition builds must become more like Power builds in how players strike their targets for initial damage.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Ranger-Spam-to-win-2-8/first
This link takes you to a thread that is part of a series of planned threads with the goal of global profession balance. I’d like to open up the thread to the Ranger Forum’s opinions.
By “global profession balance” I mean that my goals for balancing skills adhere to simple governing rules about how combat works in GW2:
BALANCE GOALS TO GOVERN ALL COMBAT IN GW2
- Excessive spam shouldn’t be a factor in combat because there are no defined healers to address it.
- No offensive skill aside from auto-attack skills should have short cool-downs or activation-times. By adding longer cast-times and supplemental charge-up mechanics to offensive skills, combat will be more legible. More legible combat will bring active dodging and keen positioning back into GW2’s forefront as a means of mitigating damage.
- Condispam should not be more effective than Power Builds because it undermines active damage mitigation by just spamming throwaway skills that never stop onto an opponent. This turns combat into a face-roll of who can press the most buttons the fastest and limits the effectiveness of keen positioning and clutch damage mitigation such as single blocks or dodges.
- Conditions can be as effective as Power just so long as the skills that inflict conditions are as well cued and have both adequate cool-downs and cast-times when compared to their power-based counterparts. This way, dodging, positioning and timing will be viable ways to counter conditions.
FACTORS THAT BALANCE RANGED COMBAT IN GW2:
Guild Wars 2 is a game that was designed to have players read their opponent’s skill cues. To this effect, ANet has designed several manners of reading an opponent’s skills such as:
- Post-cast delays
- Red circles
- Projectiles
- On-caster visual cues
- Long cast-times
- Projectiles that can be blocked, reflected or destroyed
- Gap-closer skills that requires the player to run or leap to a target/target area
However, despite these various cues, there are a many slew of skills in GW2 that forego 2 or more of the above balancing principles. These skills should be looked at critically and probably nerfed or functionally changed in order to bring them into line with how combat should appear in-game. Giving certain weapon sets or play-styles free hits for certain skill usage in a game where the “holy trinity” is absent is asking for trouble. Overpowered ranged skills in this game need to be wrangled back into obedience governed by the balancing principles listed above.
ATTRITION GAME-PLAY IN GW2
In the current meta-game, power is at a disadvantage because it has to actually hit a target while conditions just sort of float about thanks to spammy AoE skills, short cast-times, the ranged nature of most condition skills and passive procs. None of those have to constantly hit, the condition player just gets to use skills willy-nilly and all the while get in damage for free because of conditions. The system is flawed and should really be looked at critically.
Power-based damage should be king with conditions being a supplement. Conditions should only be a viable means of killing an opponent if the skills that apply those conditions are well telegraphed, have appropriately long activation times and long recharges. Attrition combat should be attained through movement control.
Ranger would be decent if we dropped all Shout skills and instead introduced [Pet Whistle] utility skills.
- Each [Pet Whistle] “kit” would function identically to Engineer kits in that you can swap in and out of them at will with only a 1-second recharge on the kit.
- Each [Pet Whistle] kit 1 and 2 skills would be taken up by the current pet’s non-F2 attack skills (the ones that are currently activated at the pet’s AI-based leisure).
- The other 3 skills would vary based on the type of [Pet Whistle] kit equipped.
- All of the [Pet Whistle] kit 3-5 skills would involve pet positioning-based attacks (leaps, dashes, swap location with your pet, etc.) or even combo-attacks between the player and the pet through the use of chain skills.
Power builds should not be innately better than conditions just because you think power takes more skill.
I don’t think; I’ve made the points. This game has active dodge as a core mechanic for a reason. Skill spam of any kind undermines that core mechanic by making combat a craps shoot of poorly-cued attacks that make timed damage mitigation random guess work at best. At the rate this game’s meta is progressing, skill spam will be king with only passive healing and channeled blocks to stop it. There will be no timing; there will be no positioning; there will be no skill because everyone will just sit cycling through the same, auto-aimed rotations. Without aspects of the game such as timing, positioning, prediction or even aim to distinguish player skill, there will be no way to tell who is good or bad at the game and PvP will be utterly dead (even more dead than it is now).
Thanks for the effort to help the game, but I’d prefer the whole “condi takes no skill, power 4 pros” crap that prevails over the sPvP forums stay out of this subforum.
Oh, no, no, it’s much more eloquent than that. And it won’t stay out. This is a valid point that must be made. If you’re here to guard the Necromancer forum from the truth, then you are no ally of balance.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Nature Magic Traits
Vigorous Spirits (Nature Magic – IV)
- FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
- Spirits have increased health and grant extra stacks of their respective buffs with each pulse.
- Health increase: 100%
- Buff stack per pulse increase: 1
Nature’s Vengeance (Nature Magic – XI)
- If a spirit of yours is killed, you gain a bonus based on its nature.
Toxicity’s death (1)
- Duration: 20 seconds
- Your next attack poisons and weakens your target.
- Inflict poison: 5 seconds
- Inflict weakness: 5 seconds
Brambles’ death (1)
- Duration: 20 seconds
- Your next attack immobilizes and bleeds your target.
- Inflict immobilize: 1 second
- Inflict bleeding (2): 10 seconds
Winnowing’s death
- Cure up to 3 conditions
Zephyr’s death
- Gain might and might and swiftness.
- Might (3): 10 seconds
- Swiftness: 5 seconds
Energizing Wind’s death
- Gain vigor and haste.
- Vigor: 10 seconds
- Haste: 3 seconds
Resilience’s death
- Heal and gain regeneration.
- Healing: 840 (0.35)
- Regeneration: 5 seconds
While under the effects of an attack-based bonus, the number of stacks of those effects will decrease if the attack is negated by Blind, Block, Evade, Obstructed, or Invulnerable.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
[Energizing Wind]
- Cast-time: 1½ seconds
- Recharge: 150 seconds
- Elite Spirit. While under the effects of Energizing Wind, you regain some endurance when you dodge.
- Endurance gained: 15
- Energizing Wind (1): 20 seconds
- Energizing Wind pulse: 20 seconds
- Maximum number of allies affected: 10
- Spirit radius: 1200
- Lifespan: 60 seconds
- At leach pulse interval, this skill attempts to apply 1 stack of a unique buff called Energizing Wind to all allies in its radius. This buff cannot change hands or be removed by skills that remove or steal boons. Each time that a target under the effects of Energizing Wind dodges, this skill’s buff deals its effect and decreases in stack by 1.
- This skill chains into another upon activation: [Nature’s Renewal].
[Nature’s Renewal]
- Cast-time: ½ second
- Recharge: 120 seconds
- Toss a seed that creates a healing pool at the target area. This pool removes conditions and revives downed allies at the target area.
- Revive percent per pulse: 17%
- Conditions removed: 3
- Duration: 5 seconds
- Combo Field: Water
- Radius: 180
- This skill shares its projectile behavior with that of [Toss Elixir R].
- Conditions are removed when the field first activates.
[Resilience]
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Recharge: 20 seconds
- Healing Skill Spirit. While under the effects of Resilience, you heal whenever you deal critical damage.
- Healing: 252 (0.2)
- Resilience (2): 10 seconds
- Resilience pulse: 10 seconds
- Maximum number of allies affected: 10
- Spirit radius: 1200
- Lifespan: 60 seconds
- At leach pulse interval, this skill attempts to apply 2 stacks of a unique buff called Resilience to all allies in its radius. This buff cannot change hands or be removed by skills that remove or steal boons. Each time that a target under the effects of Resilience deals critical damage, this skill’s buff deals its effect and decreases in stack by 1.
- This skill chains into another skill upon activation: [Resilient Surge].
[Resilient Surge]
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Heal yourself and create a pool of healing water at target location.
- Initial self heal: 3865 (0.35)
- Pool healing (3x): 1920 (0.9)
- Pool duration: 3 seconds
- Pool radius: 240
- Combo Field: Water
- Range: 1200
(edited by Swagg.9236)
[Brambles]
- Cast-time: 1½ seconds
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Spirit. Creatures under the effects of Brambles take damage and bleed when they are interrupted or disabled.
- Damage: 179 (0.5)
- Bleeding (3): 5 seconds
- Brambles (1): 5 seconds
- Brambles pulse: 5 seconds
- Maximum number of creatures affected: 10
- Spirit radius: 1200
- Lifespan: 60 seconds
- At leach pulse interval, this skill attempts to apply 1 stack of a unique debuff called Brambles to up to 10 enemies in its radius. This debuff cannot change hands or be removed by skills that remove or send conditions to an opponent. Each time that a target under the effects of Brambles is disabled, this skill’s debuff deals its effect and decreases in stack by 1.
- This skill chains into another skill upon activation: [Tanglevine].
[Tanglevine]
- Cast-time: 1 second
- Recharge: 40 seconds
- Cast out a piercing, immobilizing vine at your foe. If your tanglevine strikes a foe that was already crippled, chilled or immobilized, that foe is also knocked down.
- Damage: 111 (0.3)
- Immobilize: 2 seconds
- Knock-down: 2 seconds
- Range: 1200
- Piercing projectile.
- Uses a bright-green, vine-y reskin of the Guardian [Zealot’s Embrace] projectile.
[Winnowing]
- Cast-time: 1½ seconds
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Spirit. While under the effects of Winnowing, each time that you lose a condition, you damage nearby foes and gain regeneration.
- Damage: 244 (0.75)
- Damage radius: 240
- Regeneration: 4 seconds
- Winnowing (1): 10 seconds
- Winnowing pulse: 10 seconds
- Maximum number of allies affected: 10
- Spirit radius: 1200
- Lifespan: 60 seconds
- At leach pulse interval, this skill attempts to apply 1 stack of a unique buff called Winnowing to all allies in its radius. This buff cannot change hands or be removed by skills that remove or steal boons. Each time that a target under the effects of Winnowing loses a condition, this skill’s buff deals its effect and decreases in stack by 1.
- This skill chains into another skill upon activation: [Read the Wind].
[Read the Wind]
- Cast-time: ½ second
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Cast out a whirlwind that strikes foes in a line. For each foe that you strike, you lose 1 condition.
- Damage: 111 (0.3)
- Range: 900
[Zephyr]
- Cast-time: 1½ seconds
- Recharge: 25 seconds
- Spirit. While under the effects of Zephyr, whenever you successfully evade an attack, you also damage nearby foes and gain both swiftness and might.
- Damage: 244 (0.75)
- Damage radius: 240
- Might (2): 10 seconds
- Swiftness: 5 seconds
- Zephyr (1): 10 seconds
- Zephyr pulse: 10 seconds
- Maximum number of allies affected: 10
- Spirit radius: 1200
*Lifespan: 60 seconds- At leach pulse interval, this skill attempts to apply 1 stack of a unique buff called Zephyr to all allies in its radius. This buff cannot change hands or be removed by skills that remove or steal boons. Each time that a target under the effects of Zephyr successfully evades an attack, this skill’s buff deals its effect and decreases in stack by 1.
- This skill chains into another skill upon activation: [Tumblegust].
[Tumblegust]
- Cast-time: 0
- Recharge: 45 seconds
- Evade backwards, gaining vigor and knocking back adjacent enemies.
- Vigor: 10 seconds
- Evasion: 1 second
- Knock-back: 180
- Radius: 180
- Breaks stun.
- Evasion distance: 400
(edited by Swagg.9236)