Guild Wars 2

It was a poor design decision to make conditions alone a viable way of killing an opponent in PvP anyway.

Updated changes to [Reaper’s Mark] and the Ranger shortbow weapon skills.

Josh Davis.6015:

It would be in your benefit to salvage the items from the chests for luck.

The luck drop-rate from salvaging pvp items appears to be abysmal.

Cast-time bars would do nothing but send epileptics into seizure fits.

What needs to be fixed is the speed of combat. Reducing the amount of ranged, instant-cast, no post-cast effect delay, no projectile skills in this game is stage 1. Stage 2 is increasing the cast-times of many skills across the board and transforming many skills into longer channeled versions of themselves.

Your goal by introducing cast-bars into the game is to somehow bring some order out of the mayhem that is spamcombat in this game. The only way to bring order out of spamcombat is to actually recreate the skills that cause spamcombat rather than just tell somebody that those skills are happening.

More skill updates. This time we take a look at healing skills.

Elxdark.9702:

It’s not Anet’s fault(at least not all).

It’s just average engis are better than average thieves.

It’s ANet’s fault. I’m not defending thieves because they are the most broken class in the game, but I’m going to assume that most if not all of those engineers mentioned by OP are running the [Grenade Kit]. The thing about [Grenade Kit] is that there is no risk to literally throwing the entire kit onto a point or even beneath one’s own feet. Because we’re forced to play conquest, this sort of set-up outclasses the thief which is generally weak to AoE and also specializes in single-target DPS. Three Engineers will win a lot of matches because of [Grenade Kit]‘s ability to simply pollute points very quickly with damage, conditions and instant-activation passive procs. It’s a bad design and the fault lies with ANet.

Thanks for all of the support, guys. It makes hoping worthwhile.

Inimicus.7162:

Also: no Cantha or Elona? Guess I should quit feeling so surprised… 2 years in and we are only chasing some annoyingly perky Sylvari who’s constantly on the rag rather than deciding which dragon to chase next… and I don’t hold any hopes for the ultra off-the cuff mention made in the new fractal but it isn’t here nor there.

Yeah, I figured that at this point it would be easier to bring a new profession to Tyria than it would be to trust ANet to actually open up a new continent.

Zaoda.1653:

Yeah a heavy class would probably come next. Would be cool if Ritualist came after that one though as a light class.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Unless a ritualist would equip heavy armor, I wouldn’t hold your breath on this one. Reason being they would most likely create an other heavy class so each armor type has 3 professions. I doubt they would release a batch of new classes with other things taking up their time.

Truth be told, I already have a little draft for the Dervish as a comeback heavy armor profession, but that’s for another thread. It’d be much simpler than the design I’ve laid out for Ritualist and probably even easier to write into the current GW2 lore.

Alright, I updated the Channeler Mode a little bit. I’ll probably end up fixing the big infographic at the beginning to be consistent with some of the stuff in the thread next.

Stop being bad.

The only way GW2 sPvP can exit the critical condition ward is if it gains new game modes.

The only way that GW2 sPvP will walk again is if the players get a hold of the GW2 Environment-building Tool. That is to say, GW2 sPvP may be somewhat healthy at some point, but it will never truly walk.

Qaelyn.7612:

Things that are fun:
- Stuff I do that I enjoy and/or that kills other players.

Things that are not fun:
- Stuff others do that I do not enjoy and/or that kills me.

The amount of DoT that conditions can do in GW2 is a little unreasonable given that there’s no “holy trinity.” Some professions and play-style set-ups end up just being helpless against mindless condition spam that carries no personal risk to the spam caster or real limit on the amount of conditions that it can pump out. Moreover, a lot of the most powerful condition spam comes from ranged attacks. This combines to make landing condition spam typically far less difficult than auto-attacking an enemy to death with a melee weapon.

There’s no aim, there’s no risk, there’s not a lot of a cool-down. It’s imbalanced and we should look critically at the state of condition spam in GW2.

Conditions are an issue in GW2 because:

• Conditions in general are often tied to instant, passive procs on sigils and traits. Instant, passive procs are an issue in a game that was originally supposed to have combat that revolves around reading your opponent’s attack cues.
• Damage conditions are often tied to skills that can be spammed.
• Conditions are often tied to skills that have no risk to being used immediately when off cool-down and don’t require any keen aim, positioning or timing to use.

ANet needs to look at how conditions arrive on the battlefield and put more limitations on condition spam via the addition of longer cast-times, channel skills, and post-cast delays. As it stands, it’s far too easy to just dump every condition under the sun onto a target and run around until it bleeds out half of its hp. It turns combat into a mindless spam fest whether it be a team fight or a 1v1.

If applying conditions (especially large amounts of damaging conditions) required more aim, timing, positioning and total cast-time, we could then look at the level of condition removal present in the game and adjust it accordingly so that conditions wouldn’t be entirely negated from combat.

The worst thing that ANet has done with GW2 is attempt to separate PvP from PvE.

ANet could have balanced the entire game around PvP encounters and PvP stats. We could have had enemies in PvE that were similar to the Heart of the Mists dueling NPCs, the Keep Lord and his entourage, and/or Svanir and the Chieftain. However, instead of legitimately dangerous enemies in PvE, we are confronted by health sponges, invulnerability mechanics, and brain-dead trash mobs. To surmount the PvE design, ANet decided to inflate PvE player stats.

Do you really need 25 stacks of might, 1 minute of fury, 3500 base power and 90%+ critical damage to kill another player in this game? No. But you do need it to burn down a typical boss in PvE. That was their mistake.

All of that said, it’s still very possible to rectify this issue, but it would take an enormous amount of work that I don’t think ANet is willing to put in. Even so, further splitting PvE and PvP will only set ANet further down the road of adding in hp-sponge bosses with boring mechanics along with every content update. One of the worst things that ANet could do for GW2 would be to completely divide PvP from PvE.

Eviscera.9703:

buff ele nerf wari and pu mes

Denk u bb.

You’ll never get anywhere without concrete suggestions.

Alrighty. I updated a few skills, in particular [Freezing Gust]. I went with the [Meteor Shower] charge-skill paradigm with that because it’s a great channel skill design and there should be more of them. Also [Freezing Gust] just sort of needs some love in general.

Furthermore, I pitched an idea about stability. Right now stability really is the end-all-be-all no fun allowed boon in this game. Got CC? TOO BAD, I’ve got stability and you don’t have boon hate because it’s super rare, so BUCKLE UP, KID, because I get to do what I want for the next 5-8 seconds! Not only do I think that boon hate should be more prevalent, but I also think that there should be away to preemptively counter stability if played correctly.

Feel free to discuss.

Incurafy.6329:

In other words, you’ve played Thief for less than 12 hours and your only PvP experience with Thief was in hotjoin. I play Thief competitively in a team and I can tell just by reading that portion of your post that you have absolutely no idea about Thief or what it needs changed.

It also brings your credibility into question in relation to your other changes. Don’t get me wrong, I support your idea of making changes to skills to meet the original design proposed by Anet, but you clearly aren’t experienced enough to do so.

Also, Thieves do have cool downs, that’s what initiative is, a global cool down mechanic. It is a discussion for another topic that was done to death a year ago, but it is a fact that you keep changing to suit your posts.

It seems a little unfair that you tell me that even though we can find posts like this on the sPvP forum:

Dee Jay.2460:

Arganthium.5638:

I made my own warrior build, now I’m invincible.

No, seriously though. BS’d something, and I can’t tell you how much better I’m doing on a class I’ve played for an hour versus a class that I’ve played for 1000 hours.

This is true. Close to 1600 hours on a Thief, 100 hours on a Mesmer, 2 hours on a Warrior.

Playing with the Warrior gets me the most wins in tPvP and is the most valuable class to most teams.

I agree that the whole CC-spaming is over the top, but the only serious balance-offender is Healing Signet which for some reason avoided a nerf on December 10th, for no good reason.

Seems a little fishy to me.

Message body length must be at least 15 characters

nicknamenick.2437:

Whats the point of 1500 range??

To give the Warrior space to set up the attack from a distance if he/she chooses.

nicknamenick.2437:

can I use arcing arrow also on 1500 range?

It would never hit, or do you not know how arcing arrow’s projectile arc behaves?

nicknamenick.2437:

And a minimum range is just stupid, why should a arrow miss below 240 range?

Don’t bring “BUT MY REALISM” into videogames.

nicknamenick.2437:

Arcing arrow is slow so its not for using at 1200+ range..

No, but it is used for a PBAoE nuke directly on top of the Warrior after having used [Pin Down] which itself has effectively no attack cue as it stands. The combination is extraordinarily easy to land and does a very high amount of damage. There is an enormous discrepancy between the risk in using the combination and the reward you get for landing it (the risk being effectively non-existent while the reward being able to turn an encounter around). This is a sign of imbalance. It needs to be fixed.

Cynz.9437:

How is BS already having CD due to requirement and debuff is not justification for not adding another CD, please explain.

Revealed is not a cool-down. If a Thief is in stealth, attempts a back-stab and flubs it, the guy isn’t punished for missing. The Thief gets to keep spamming [Backstab] until it hits so long as he/she is in stealth. The same goes for every stealth-triggered 1 skill for the Thief. There is an enormous discrepancy between the risk in using the combination and the reward you get for landing it (the risk being effectively non-existent while the reward being able to turn an encounter around). This is a sign of imbalance. It needs to be fixed.

Cynz.9437:

People been countering your points,

Nobody has countered anything. I haven’t seen anyone attempt to really touch my main points. I’ve also moved what are effectively my main points to the very first post in this thread so that people can seem them easier. If you want to argue me, argue me based on what I have posted there.

Also, Happy New Year everyone.

Arganthium.5638:

Also, by being forced to hit an opponent to get IR, thief will become the most condition-vulnerable class in the game.

I’m pretty sure that Mesmer would still hold that title.

Arganthium.5638:

Nerfing the condi removal

I didn’t nerf condi-removal. I changed the teleport.

Arganthium.5638:

… is going to absolutely destroy what few Sword thieves are left out there.

I see nothing but sword Thieves. It isn’t a rare weapon at all to see on a Thief.

Arganthium.5638:

The “Infiltrator’s Pursuit” nerf is absolutely horrible and unjustified.

Not at all. It’s to prevent Thieves from spamming the dash to freely move everywhere at incredible speed. This could simply be prevented by a cool-down, but Thief “design” goes against that.

Arganthium.5638:

I don’t understand you, man… Why don’t you go play a S/D thief, make a video, then post it so that you can actually try to justify what you’re saying.

I’ve made plenty of points already back in my other thread about why certain mechanics currently in place in GW2 are game-breaking. I don’t need to repeat myself because nobody’s ever tried to counter my points. Also, I don’t have any recording programs, otherwise I honestly would. Last time I ran sword/pistol thief, I was kicked from a server. That was a good time.

aussieheals.6843:

Swagg.9236:

aussieheals.6843:

best ranger ideas 2013!

I’m sure you’d love to see how I’d re-make Ranger spirits.

Maybe so but I would much prefer to see your suggestions for balancing literally ANY other ranger build. Spirits have left a bad taste

Actually, one of the biggest issues surrounding the Ranger is its class mechanic: the pet. Pets are AI meat-puppets that don’t really actively contribute to the battle at all. A Ranger just sics them on an enemy player and sort of forgets that they’re there except for when using the pet skills when they’re off cool-down. In short, there isn’t enough to do with the pet that makes it so frustrating to use. Furthermore, they take such a beating that it’s often annoying for opponents to deal with too since cleaving through 20,000 points of quickly regenerating health just to deal with an AI NPC’s constant, passive assault is beyond awful. The best way to make Rangers really come into their own as a class that isn’t the Warrior with an AI NPC attached to it would be to give the Ranger more precise control over his/her pet.

Without completely redoing the Ranger profession mechanic, the only other solution that I could think of would be to add [Pet Whistle Kits]. These utility skills would function just like Engineer [Tool Kits] in how they activate, stow and change weapon skills. The weapon skills gained from [Pet Whistle Kits] would be entirely pet-centric except for maybe a combo-attack that would involve the Ranger. By quickly swapping in and out of these kits to activate attacks and maneuvers at opportune times, Rangers could do more with their pet with regards to damage and battlefield flow manipulation via CC.

A step further beyond [Pet Whistle Kits] would be to give pets their own traits that could allow Rangers to further specialize individual pets, but I’m not sure ANet would ever do that.

In any case, either of these additions would allow ANet to then lower the base hp of most pets because Ranger’s would have more control over them.

Incurafy.6329:

I love how you replied to everyone but me, lol.

I’ve been fielding a lot of angry shouting. I’ll probably get to you eventually.

aussieheals.6843:

best ranger ideas 2013!

I’m sure you’d love to see how I’d re-make Ranger spirits.

Balance is very possible in GW2, there are just several guide-lines that need to govern skills at all times with respect to how ranged attacks work and how gap-closers work.

Imagine this:
Shrapnel Grenade

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second (channel)
• Recharge: 5 seconds
• Place shrapnel grenades in your hand to throw later. The longer you charge this skill, the more grenades that you throw upon release.
• ½-second channel: 1 grenade
• Full channel: 2 grenades
• Damage per grenade: 179 (0.5)
• Bleeding per grenade: 12 seconds
• Explosion radius: 150
• Range: 1200
• Minimum range: 180
  • Equipping the Grenadier trait changes the amount of grenades thrown at the first stage channel to 2 and the second stage channel to 3.
  • While channeling this skill, the Engineer is posed with his/her arm poised, ready to throw grenades. The player can move while channeling this skill.

Now imagine that that skill was functional within GW2; that despite the potentially long charge-up cast-time, this skill was not left behind by other comparable skills, nor were its mechanics rare throughout the game. There’s your balance for powerful ranged attacks: heavy-hitter skills that take time, positioning and aim to successfully activate.

Teleports are the other skills that tend toward imbalanced play-styles. This game shouldn’t have direct-to-target teleports with cast times below 30 seconds. GW2 really shouldn’t have them at all, but the mechanic is sparse enough outside of Thief that it really isn’t necessarily a huge problem. Being able to spam or use direct-to-target teleports often and without risk doesn’t reward opponents for successfully CC’ing opponents, nor does it punish a player for being out-played by someone that uses CC or positioning properly. Another example:

Infiltrator’s Strike

• Initiative Cost: 4
• Cast-time: 1 second (channel)
• Dash at your foe to deliver an immobilizing strike.
• Damage: 252 (0.75)
• Immobilize: 1 second
• Super speed: 1 second
• Range: 600
  • Uses the Warrior [Sprint] attack animation with a shorter total sprint distance.
  • Using this skill places a unique debuff on the Thief called Infiltrator’s Pursuit. After 3 seconds, Infiltrator’s Pursuit drains 2 initiative from the Thief. Infiltrator’s Pursuit is removed by dealing damage. Infiltrator’s Pursuit cannot be removed by condition cleanse skills. Infiltrator’s Pursuit stacks in intensity.
  • If you strike a foe with this skill, it chains into another skill upon use: [Infiltrator’s Return]

Infiltrator’s Return

• Initiative Cost: 1
• Cast-time: 0
• Evade backwards and lose 1 condition.
• Evasion: ¾ second
• Evasion distance: 600
  • This chain skill remains active for 20 seconds.

After that, blocks and invulnerabilities need to be culled into short-duration, precise counters to one or a mere few attacks.

Then stability could be turned into a boon that stacked in intensity rather than duration to bring back some power to coordinated CC in the competitive format.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Read this once, realized I needed this:
TL;DR
Arcane Blast IS telegraphed and dodgeable.

Only just barely. It activates instantly, has no post-cast effect delay and the projectile moves tremendously fast. When used within 600 range, the effect is almost instant.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Many, many skills are ranged, have no cast time, and hit instantly.

Yes, and they all need to be nerfed. The game needs to be changed.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Unless you also feel like nerfing every air scepter skill (not dodgeable because every single one does instant damage), Lightning Flash (900 range instant AoE), several mesmer mantras, Fear Me, On My Mark, Doom and any others I missed, the game has and will always have an abundance of ranged instant cast instant hitting skills.

I do, and I’ve already made concrete suggestions about how to do it.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

You say that a one-second delay is not that big of a deal,

It isn’t given the average speed of a player in this game coupled with the availability of snares. Like I said, the game needs to be changed.

SoPP.7034:

EDIT: lol Swagg I realised I +1 you over 7 months ago for your other posts on the ritualist. Glad your still here, still playing and still committed to the Ritualist.

Haha, yeah, that thread was the prototype for this. I decided one day to go back to all that data and really adjust the numbers and skills properly to refine everything. I’m much happier with everything now. Thanks again for your support.

Balsa.3951:

respect for ur effort

i wonder how u came to those numbers
are u balancing power already or did u focus on fun?

I’ve actually been using a lot of numbers that are already defined as base-power and damage coefficients for skills in GW2. I felt that sticking to damage numbers that already exist in the game would make the class more balanced than just making up numbers and coefficients myself (even if they were somewhat close to already existing damage amounts). If a spirit or the Ritualist did a leap attack, I would look at leap attack damages and effects, then adjust from there. The process was that sort of thing.

However, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t actively leave fun out of the equation for these skills, haha.

darkfiremew.5937:

What armour type do you want the Ritualist to equip in Guild Wars 2?

As a scholar profession, Ritualists would wear light armor.
As for base health (now that I think about it), Mesmer-level hp might suit them pretty well.

Geff.1930:

Name me ONE mmorpg that has a competitive scene right now with weekly tournaments. There aren’t any. WoW arena might be an exception, I know there used to be professional teams playing WoW arena, but I don’t follow that game so I don’t know if there is still an active e-sports scene there.

Mmorpg gamers tend to expect a certain amount of customization in their games, that amount of customization ability is not conducive for balance.

Your observation has nothing to do with this thread’s main points or discussion.

nicknamenick.2437:

So all a opponent have to do when you spot a longbow warrior is to teleport at its face and just laugh at him.. When you keep in melee range you cant do anything with your suggestion. Making longbow trash.

Re-balanced [Pin Down] would have a 1500 range. You also have teammates. Get into proper position and use your skill. It’s as simple as that.

nicknamenick.2437:

You also add minimun range to every other range weapon??

Did you not read the [Cluster Bomb] and Engineer [Grenade Kit] suggestions (although, I have another idea for [Grenade Kit] already)?

nicknamenick.2437:

What about ele casting everything on you..

Elementalist AoE attacks have a lot of post-cast effect delays which make them balanced even though you can cast them on top of yourself. You still have to bait or lead enemies into your AoEs properly in order to hit them. That’s what makes them balanced. As for the instant-cast nonsense that Elementalist employs, I’ve already taken care of those in my suggestions in case you missed those as well.

nicknamenick.2437:

There are tons of other classes that have instand snare/cc skills, even on range or from stealth.

And a lot of them are more balanced than [Pin Down]. That’s not to say that there aren’t ranged snare skills out there that need to be re-balanced or functionally changed, but I’m saying that [Pin Down] is overpowered for how effective it is in any given situation. There’s no skill or risk involved when using it. You press the button and it almost instantly goes off. It really does turn Warrior longbow into a melee weapon.

nicknamenick.2437:

If you do this and also for engi, lets do it also for hunters, ele, necro, ow and mesmers cant use there shatter skill below 240 range, yeah lets do that lets just apply 240 range minimum to every range weapon, and all we see is thiefs/guardians teleporting at your face forcing you to swap weapon but you cant because its on cooldown.. Lets run and make distance! Oh no thief is faster en guardian pulls you back and lolled more.. Can i get an evade also on longbow so i can evade back to 240 range? No? i get your idea but this turns these weapons into trash!

You’re only looking on the surface. There is a lot of work to be done and if one gets hung up on his own class’ re-balancing instead of looking at how to balance the game as a whole, nothing productive will ever be done.

nicknamenick.2437:

engi

You seriously didn’t read the full suggestion, did you?

nicknamenick.2437:

hunters

You mean Rangers, and Rangers don’t really possess a lot of powerful AoE attacks that they can just drop at their feet almost instantly. That’s what I’m balancing here. Powerful AoE attacks that have no post-cast effect delays should come with either hefty cast-times or minimum ranges in order to add risk to using them.

nicknamenick.2437:

Mesmer shatters

Mesmer shatters are actually one of the most telegraphed attacks in the game. While something like point-blank [Mirror Images] into [Mind Wrack] is pretty nonsense, the mechanic on the whole isn’t bad especially if you can read into the Mesmer’s general attack pattern and anticipate about when the guy is going to blow everything up. There are several attack cues that often give it away, [Illusionary Leap] being the biggest one.

nicknamenick.2437:

Lets run and make distance! Oh no thief is faster en guardian pulls you back and lolled more..

Welcome to calculated combat, kiddo. More attacks in this game need to be things that you can’t just spam off-handedly because they’re off cool-down. Powerful attacks should require positioning, timing and aim. There’s your change to [Arcing Arrow].

As for thief “being fast” (by which you mean that they just have a lot of in-combat pursuit skills), I have an idea of how we can remove spammable direct-to-target teleports from the game without directly harming Thief pursuit. [Flashing Blade] might also need a functional change because of its low cool-down.

Cynz.9437:

I actually did explain why spells like backstab do not need CD yet you chose to ignore it.

I don’t see any justification provided for that anywhere.

Cynz.9437:

you do not possses the right to tell other posters on this forums if their feedback is relevant or not

I have main points behind my suggestions. Nobody’s really attempting to counter those points. Those that join an argument only to spend time not attempting to counter another person’s main points waste time and effort.

Cynz.9437:

Twisting my post can’t be really used as argument.

I haven’t twisted anything. I’ve just attempted to remain on track with regards to my main points.

Cynz.9437:

You tell me “to leave and come back” when i have “better” argument, well aren’t you arrogant?

I’m still trying to help you. If I were truly arrogant, I’d just call you names and not continue to reply to you.

Cynz.9437:

it doesn’t matter how i form my posts, the idea doesn’t change :P

While that may be true, one’s sentence structure (and use of emoticons) often has a strong bearing on rather or not one will be taking seriously in a text-based discussion.

Cynz.9437:

If you want some credibility, you should have spent months playing each classes in competitive pvp before making such suggestions. However i believe that after playing them for so long you wouldn’t make such suggestions on first place.

Credibility in balance doesn’t necessarily come from sinking time into playing a class. Credibility in playing a class well (regardless of whether or not that class employs unfair mechanics) comes from sinking time into playing a class. Credibility in balance comes from analyzing specific class abilities and being able to explain how those abilities contribute to or undermine the general flow of the original intention of how designed combat in a game should work. I’ve already done that here. Once more, I’ll just direct you to the bold post that I’ve made far above this.

Cynz.9437:

Dhumfire change for example: major complain right now is amount of pets running around. Why would you suggest to add another pet? It hardly adresses this issue but makes it worse.

You didn’t understand the suggestion properly. The Dhuumfire suggestion is to give the burning a cue. The NPC that the trait would summon in this change doesn’t do anything but fire off a cued attack before vanishing. It’s not really that much of a battlefield interference.

Cynz.9437:

Or warrior suggestions: major complain is amount of warrior healing. The reason why warrior healing is so stupid atm is HS + adrenal health + banner running together. The change you suggest is not adressing the issue at all. HS by itself isn’t bad, warrior being able to stack many things is bad.

I also thought about this. However, GW2 seems to lack the code to cap the amount of hp gained within a certain time-frame. It’s unfortunate, but the best way to fix passive regeneration stacking would be to simply nerf the individual sources of hp gain instead of asking ANet to take the time to code a way of limiting the total amount of hp a player can gain within a time-frame in order to deal with this imbalance. Moreover, attempting to cap healing at certain levels within given time-frames would probably ruin the way Healing Skills work since they provide so much raw healing upon use. There just isn’t a way to properly balance passive hp regen, so the only solution is to piece-meal it. I’ve chosen [Healing Signet] as the main point of focus because it really is the biggest contributor to Warrior super-regen with ~400 hp gained/second.

Geff.1930:

3) Health is actually a precious resource in competitive games.

Really?? Are there competitive games (I’m going to assume that by “games” you mean “MMOs” here) in which health is not a precious resource?

Geff.1930:

The level of sustain possible in GW2 is unmatched by any game I’ve played. The obvious reason is that each character has heals,

Personal healing skills are not a problem. Passive healing and damage mitigation abilities are the issue. It would not, however, hurt to make using some healing skills more of a risk. There are a lot of healing skills that are often guaranteed to succeed in activation. Guardian [Shelter] is the worst offender of this.

Geff.1930:

Further facilitating this problem is an insurmountably large number of skills that give you immunity to damage for X seconds, and even more on top of that we have dodges.

I’ve already said that blocks and invulnerability need to be greatly culled in GW2.

Geff.1930:

If that weren’t enough, we also have downed state from which you can come back with some HP.

Downed state actually adds a very interesting dimension to PvP combat. A downed player immediately becomes a battlefield hazard due to the typical amount of “corpse-cleave” that falls atop a player the moment that he/she goes down. The trouble with downed state as a state isn’t necessarily the mechanic itself, but the fact that players can often pop god-mode skills to mitigate a lot of incoming corpse-cleave damage. If manually reviving a player in PvP is made less viable by the culling of god-modes, this mechanic wouldn’t necessarily be

Geff.1930:

The culmination of all of these factors makes GW2’s health pool a easily refreshable resource. This ability to have a high level of sustain goes hand in hand with the skill spammy nature of the game because your damage has much less potential than if health were a precious resource, and on top of that a lot of the damage can be avoided due to the large number of immunity sources.

Active skills remain the most pressing matter of balance in GW2. The first thing that needs to be done about GW2 PvP balance is fixing all ranged skills that break the rules that I’ve defined in bold somewhere far above this post.

Geff.1930:

Look at any competitive game (ofcourse, you have to use your imagination because you haven’t played any):

You’re making assumptions.

Geff.1930:

The key in competitive games is relying on prediction

There are a lot of skills in GW2 that turn relying on prediction into a craps shoot of dodges and blocks due to their lacking proper cues or cast-times. Those skills need to be fixed.

Geff.1930:

The system falls apart because of utility skill options, healing skill options, weapon swap, toolbelt skills, toolkit skills, traits.

Incorrect. The system falls apart in GW2 because it is full of skills and passive procs that effectively negate the ability for opponents to properly predict incoming attacks or effects.

Geff.1930:

2) Players know exactly what cooldowns are available to… the opponents team at all times because there are so few skills available to each character,

You can’t be sure of this. Even so, it wouldn’t matter if every skill in this game had ample cues and/or post-cast effect delays.

Geff.1930:

Even in this game you can tell when certain skills have been used, but it bears little to no significance because: a) there are so many skills that are coming off cooldown at a rapid rate,

The true reason why having a lot of skills coming off of cool-down in GW2 being an issue is because there is no mana system. By that, I mean that most skills in GW2 have no real cast-time. Most skills in GW2 don’t have long cast-times or channels that could be debilitating to use off-handedly in the midst of combat. I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again: time is mana in GW2, and the vast majority of powerful skills in this game have little to no mana cost. That’s one of the biggest issues aside from a lack of cues.

Geff.1930:

b) you don’t know what utility skills are available to them

This isn’t an issue so long as all skills are balanced properly to give cues upon use. That’s one of my balance end-goals.

Geff.1930:

c) certain traits can refresh cooldowns or auto-cast active skills,

I’ve stated before in the thread that traits are something that should be critically scrutinized for being nothing but passive procs that simply add poorly cued surprises onto active abilities or trigger without warning at points throughout combat. This is an issue that also should be addressed.

Geff.1930:

d) fights have the potential to drag on infinitely making people be able to use the same skill immediately as they come off cooldown multiple times throughout a single fight. This brings me to my next point, why do fights have the potential to last an infinite amount of time.

The only real reason that this situation may end up happening is, again, because there aren’t enough skills in GW2 that bear with them long enough cast-times to off-set their powerful effects. Furthermore, permanent cycle fights occur because players have god-mode skills that have no effective mana (time) cost and they can just activate them instantly when they come off of cool-down. If weapon sets had 2 skills that might just not be feasible to use willy-nilly in an intense 1v1 or even just a hectic team-fight except via keen positioning and maybe the usage of other supplementary skills.

As for culling god-mode bunker abilities, blocks and invulnerabilities need to be greatly culled in GW2.

Zaoda.1653:

Edit: I agree with Carlos, ditch the mana mechanic and Anet could work on balancing the skills and everything then would be perfect. I want to play ritualist in GW2 now!!! :-

I’ve had this discussion already in this thread. I really do feel that removing or drastically changing the way that the Ritualist mana mechanic works at this stage would really cheapen a lot of the skills that involve mana—especially the F-skills. Since I don’t plan on making any weapon skills cost mana, the majority of Ritualist skills that they would use regularly wouldn’t be hindered by the mana mechanic. In fact, I’m not opposed to designing weapon sets with 1 or 2 skills that help regenerate mana faster. The main goal of having the mana mechanic is to prevent a Ritualist from spamming all of his/her capabilities with impunity (channeler mode, unbind skills, item spells). I really do think that it regenerates passively fast enough, there are enough skills that provide mana, and there aren’t enough skills that consume vast amounts of mana on a regular basis that it won’t be a big issue to manage mana in general.

Zaoda.1653:

P.S. love the charr ritualist. You must have gone to a lot of effort drawing that! :O

If you’re talking about the bottom picture in the first post, that’s actually supposed to be a tengu. Although, charr ritualist is pretty cool.

Ele Lady.6103:

This post has really seen a lot of work. Seems like you’ve almost done all the work for Anet. With the skill ideas you suggest, Ritualist will be viable in both support and damage (direct and condition) when equipped with right skills.

That’s my hope.

Ele Lady.6103:

I guess that the Item Spells which consume mana overtime are slowed by natural mana regeneration. You said it regenerates 200 per every 1/4 seconds but the Fan of Lee Sa the Lively costs the same as natural regenerations,

That was actually the idea behind [Fan of Lee Sa the Lively]. It was actually supposed to be the mana-management [Item Spell].

Ele Lady.6103:

I was bit confused of some Rifts replacing enemy skills, but it seems like a nice idea.

My only worry would be the coding issues with replacing select skills without disturbing others. We have [Moa Form] that proves that it’s possible to forcibly change an opponent’s skills, but the effect isn’t actually a targeted skill replacement, but rather a full shake-up of a player’s skills.

Ele Lady.6103:

Would like to hear more of the Channeler mode and it’s skills.

Coming soon if I can find the time. I already have more or less 1 of the spirits (Pain) finished. It’d really be a bit of work to really polish the whole mode off, though.

nicknamenick.2437:

A minimum range of 240 for arcing?? Lol wtf! Thats the worst i ever! Its a slow arrow so it should be used in close combat but now you want a minimun range on it Lol! Atleast make it a fast arrow also!

There is a clear issue in design when a longbow is used as a melee weapon.

[Arcing Arrow] suffers from the same issue as [Cluster Bomb]. You use it at melee range and it’s difficult to anticipate. Moreover, you can use it after [Pin Down] with its 1/4-second activation time. The fact that [Pin Down] shares a cast-time with 2 other skills on Warrior longbow without giving any indication that it’s different than those other two attacks until after its fired is a flaw in cue design. This effectively turns Warrior longbow into a melee weapon with poor cues. Adjusting the cast-time to [Pin Down] and adding a minimum range to [Arcing Arrow] will fix this.

Also, a 1-second cast-time really isn’t that much at all. It just requires you to keep your distance and know your place when activating a skill. Furthermore, even if a Warrior wants to be irresponsible with a 1-second, rooting [Pin Down] and use it in the middle of a large fight, they have the armor and health to deal with it most of the time. And if they don’t have the hp to use it properly in the middle of a heated fight, then they don’t get to use it. Time is mana in this game. [Pin Down] is a very, very powerful ranged skill. To activate it, [Pin Down] should require an amount of mana that corresponds to how much damage it can do within the scope of combat.

Geff.1930:

There is no point arguing with you because you have never played a balanced game. There is no mmorpg in existence that is balanced and competitive and has weekly tournaments with large prize pools and a slew of professional sponsored teams.

I have repeated over and over again in the past the things that keep this game from gaining recognition by serious competitive gamers. There is no point in me repeating it again.

Once again, you’ve failed to argue anything with regards to my main points. Thanks for the bump.

vashio.6297:

… i’m glad you took the time to write this up.

I really appreciate the support, man.

vashio.6297:

Suggestions:
Have longer swap cooldown 20 seconds instead of 10 this will stop so much spamming of skills and people really need to make a more skillful decision whether to stay within a weapon set.

Actually, this is something that I would not personally advocate. Time to make a statement why:

A STATEMENT ON THE EXISTENCE OF “ENERGY” IN GW2
People say that GW2 has no energy system. While there is no concrete resource system in place in GW2 (aside from Initiative which we see with the Thief), there is a resource that governs whether or not a player can use a skill: cast-time.

Having a lot of skills available to a player is fine so long as some of the more powerful skills are limited in scope by the amount of time that a player has to invest to those skills in order to get the most out of them. A fine example is [Meteor Shower]. Firm but fair, [Meteor Shower] can inflict devastating amounts of damage, but with a 3 3/4-second long channel for maximum effect, the elementalist really needs to either pop some sort of damage mitigation skill or position him/herself properly while using while also aiming the AoE properly. [Meteor Shower] is not something that you can just shoot off mid-fight just because it happens to be off cool-down. That’s the “mana” limitation. Time limits its viability as a skill despite there being no mana to govern its on-the-spot usage. Not only does an Elementalist need to channel the skill for a good 1 to 1 1/2 seconds before a single meteor even begins to fall, [Meteor Shower] is a very lack-luster skill if not channeled to its full extent because of its nature as a charge-up skill. The longer that an Elementalist channels [Meteor Shower], the more meteors actually fall.

There should be many more skills like [Meteor Shower]. In fact, [Churning Earth] used to use a charge-up mechanic but this was changed after Beta Weekend Event 1 without any explanation. Charge-up mechanics and long cast-times are the true key to balancing skills that have no post-cast effect delays. Having longer cast-times on many powerful skills could help clear up the generally messy combat that players often encounter in PvP and also cull the general tendency to spam skills on cool-down (or whenever you have enough initiative) which really is the biggest plague on GW2 PvP.

I updated the little lore introduction post at the beginning of the thread. I also wanted to try to clarify how [Send] works a bit better. Since the spirits are supposed to burst out from the Ritualist’s body, the range limits and line-targeting are supposed to behave as if the Ritualist him/herself were using the skill.

ryston.7640:

Ok Swagg, I’ll bite:

I propose some changes to your proposal. Thematically, for now:

1) Cripple, Poison, Chilled, and Vulnerability should all function in a stacking manner, 1-30. (2x slow, heal reduction, 1x slow, as is)

Could be cool. I still feel that Cripple and Chilled are fine as they are now. Stacking poison would really require poison to be more prevalent than it is now. Vulnerability, I also feel, is in a good place.

I don’t really feel comfortable tacking poison onto attacks here and there just to make it viable as a stacking mechanic. Although, I guess it could be an interesting way to maybe better define the function of a Necromancer in combat if Poison were to become a stacking mechanic. Necromancers could just be better at stacking it than any other class. Some of my long-term balance suggestions for Necromancers actually added poison to several attacks as a means of triggering other skills into flipping into new chain skills that only triggered when striking a poisoned target.

ryston.7640:

2) Auto attacks should not yield significant damage

I actually really like this idea and I’ve agreed with it for a long time now.

ryston.7640:

but should apply stacks of these debuffs, except where class mechanics (such as life force) may take place.

Making auto-attacks stack conditions makes me feel uneasy since I really don’t think that conditions in general should be enough to kill an opponent by themselves. By making a lot of auto-attacks stack damage-dealing conditions and snaring conditions, it sort of cheapens other skills that might have those same mechanics. It also doesn’t necessarily make auto-attacks lesser than other skills either (which really should be a paradigm).

ryston.7640:

3) Auto attacks then need not be subject to the same level of ‘dodgability’ that we see in other skills, where all of your suggestions should be heeded.

I guess if they didn’t do a lot of damage outright, then they wouldn’t really need to be outright dodged all of the time, but I’m not entirely sure that I understand what you mean by “level of ‘dodgability’.”

ryston.7640:

4) FILO condition removal systems should then be used, making active AND passive condi removal tactical, as a quick cover to a high stack could protect you from an interval tick of removal. (passive random still = bad).

You’ve used the term FILO twice now. What exactly does that acronym mean and attempt to describe? I’d like to know because I am open to looking at changing conditions.

ryston.7640:

5) Remove most gap oppeners and closers, so that classes can be dedicated to control type roles.

Gap-openers and closers really define a lot of play-styles in this game. The only broken ones are the direct-to-target shadowsteps since they can’t be CC’ed properly. If anything, those should be removed from the game or wholly redesigned to make them more like a typical gap-closer like a leap, dash or dash followed by a leap.

This doesn’t mean that we should remove teleports entirely, just ones that give a player a free teleport-to-target at the press of a button.

Cynz.9437:

you did suggest CD on few thief spells, look at your initial post… besides you don’t own this forums so you don’t have the right to decide which post is relevant and which is not, no need to be rude just because someone doesn’t agree with you

You aren’t addressing any of my points regarding the reasoning behind my suggestions. You’re just crying that that I don’t own GW2 forums and therefore don’t have any ground on which to stand to make balance suggestions. That’s an Ad Hominem argument and therefore is irrelevant to discussion.

Cynz.9437:

funny how you say Ad Hominem, yet you attack me personally by making fun of my way of typing messages on this forums…hypocrisy?

I told you to leave and come back with a better argument. You did not. I also told you to fix your sentence structure so people might take you more seriously. You also failed there. I’m just trying to help you out here, man.

ryston.7640:

Cush.4063:

Thieves changes are just ridiculous and not plausible……..YET again. Have you played a thief? Hell, has anyone that posts about balance changes on these forums played one? I sure as hell don’t think so. LOL. So wrong in so many ways. Play the class for a week before you guys think of trying to balance it. Ty. Your welcome.

So conceptually, the Thief is a problem. Really, it’s a bursty evasive unavoidable highly mobile class with strong support… It’s assasins creed (a single player game where you murder NPCs) in a multiplayer game (where being murdered isnt fun)… so it gets random nerf bat beatings to it’s knee caps…

what it needs, is a role definition that gives it a narrower niche, then we can balance it within that niche. ‘being a kitten that 1 shots kittenes from nowhere and gets away’ isn’t really a niche that works for a pvp game.

being a stealthed controller who threatens to dissable and expose enemies that are out of position, allowing ones teamates to fall upon them… thats a good role definition. It lets stealth be a good weapon because a stealthed thief forces you to play cautiously with your squishier dps peices… even when the thief is just chillin…

but when everybody gets 2+ buttons that teleport them here or there, making it impossible to punish someone for bad positioning, and making it irrelevant wether you know where the thief is or isn’t (it just presses ‘steal’ and it’s where you didn’t want it to be) …

This guy gets it.

Paulo.8459:

Well…. Arganthium has told you how to counter the “free movement”…. dodge the obvious bullet. You said it is unwise.

It is unwise. Spamming dodges to avoid a single direct-to-teleport skill is unwise when the thief still has [Steal] and maybe [Infiltrator’s Signet]. There need to be more ways to negate spammable direct-to-target teleports in order to preserve dodges for other unfair mechanics. Rather, direct-to-target teleports really should be reworked entirely or removed from the game.

Paulo.8459:

You just explained why shadowsteps are so powerful and i completely agree with you.
Thats part of the thief’s design.

It’s poor design for GW2 because of the reasons that I’ve already listed in bold above this post.

Paulo.8459:

Shadowsteps are in fact a well-implemented kind of unpredictability. A badly implemented example would be fresh air ele burst. (Not crying about eles here, it’s just an example)

Shadowsteps and elementalist S/D arcane burst are on the same level of unfairness. They both lack cues and are instant-activation without post-cast effect delays.

Paulo.8459:

Do you really think that thief skills are too powerful because they have no cooldown?
That are the words from someone who never touched thief.

I took my thief into pvp for several days just because people kept telling me this. I ran sword/pistol and got damage and kills in with impunity. There was literally nothing that anyone could do to stop me even if I didn’t manage to kill a target. I didn’t even need practice.

Paulo.8459:

Managing a resource for ALL of your weaponskills is actually much more difficult than working with cooldowns.

It’s like you never played Guild Wars 1—or most every other MMO in existence. Spammable skills is the most broken mechanic in this game. Thieves recover initiative fast enough to be able to unleash a sustained attack on a target that inflicts high DPS. Even if this attack fails, thieves still have many no-cost stealth options as well as auto-attack damage (which is very high on sword mainhand). The reason why [Infiltrator’s Signet] is so meta nowadays is because it really does help thieves continue to spam attacks in addition to being a free direct-to-target teleport as well as a stun-break.

The problem with thief really is a fundamental profession design issue. ANet didn’t fully understand what they were doing when they made the Thief.

Paulo.8459:

Thieves are punished for their mistakes.

Stealth, blind spam and instant-movement forgives Thieves for everything. You must not be playing correctly. If I can run Thief in pvp without practice and never know the consequences of making stupid moves, I can’t understand what you’re doing.

ryston.7640:

nothing short of a complete overhaul of traits, weapon skills, and basic mechanics (like rallying and a FILO condition system) holds real hope of making this pvp fun.

whats the point in balancing the existing skills?

While your point is true about the only true way to fix GW2, I feel like it is the best option to work with current skills first. Traits are never really a good place to start because every single one of them is a passive, no-cue bonus. Traits are the worst-designed part of GW2 combat. When it comes to actual weapon, utility, heal and elite skills, they are things that (typically) have some sort of cue, cast-time and recharge. There’s a commitment to triggering them (most of the time).

By bringing overpowered ranged abilities and some other salient balance-offending skills into line under the guidelines that I’ve defined in bold somewhere above this post, I feel that GW2 wouldn’t necessarily sit in a good place balance-wise, but would be in a prime spot for going head-long into adjusting more lack-luster, but still balanced skills that could add more flavor and functionality that would otherwise be lacking because of proper skill balance.

Imagine that, balancing skills might actually ruin some of the flavor of classes, but it’s the truth. The trick is making everything fair and then functionally changing the lack-luster skills in the game in order to provide new flavor and function for class combat.

The trouble with posting balance suggestions now is that everybody whines and cries because nobody really seems to see deeply enough into this problem. They’re not on the same level. People really want to see the ENTIRE GAMBIT of balance changes that run from making skills fair, to buffing/functionally changing lack-luster skills, then getting into traits, then working with how conditions deal damage otherwise they’ll just never believe you.

This is what I’m dealing with. I’m dealing with the first stage right now because posting it all at once would be a nightmarishly long thread that would have to be the result of a lot of round-table discussion with strict rules to govern the results of said discussion.

Forums don’t seem to really have that, but I’m fording the river anyway.

EoNxBoNx.9213:

if you wan to be helpful in terms of feedback, be constructive

I don’t see anyone else making multiple posts filled with concrete skill changes. Making posts about “I think this class should do this, or I think that this class should do that” isn’t constructive. It’s airy and weightless emotion. For balance, you need concrete numbers and mechanics. I’ve delivered that.

Go ahead and read the post that I just made to someone trying to start an Ad Hominem argument with me. That bold part is as concrete and constructive as you’ll get.

I’ve defined a problem with a lot of GW2 pvp combat and my suggestions intend to fix it.

Geff.1930:

If your resume consists of only GW2 or other mmorpgs you do not have a frame of reference in regards to balance because you have never played a game that is balanced enough to foster a competitive e-sport audience.

You’ve gotta me kidding me here. What is all this Ad Hominem in here? Look, buddy, this is GW2. Whether or not I’ve played other MMOs is irrelevant in this discussion.

Instead, have a look at my main point when it comes to most of this thread and my suggestions:

There are several factors that balance ranged skills in Guild Wars 2:

• Instant-cast
• Post-cast delay
• Red circle
• Projectile
• On-caster visual cue
• Projectile that can be blocked, reflected or destroyed.

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. 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 need to be culled in this game and wrangled back into obedience governed by the balancing principles listed above.

You don’t have to play anything other than GW2 here. You need to be a normal human that understands that ANet declared that they designed GW2 as a game to be played by responding to your opponent’s visual attack cues. This was the reason that they dropped the cast-bars that were present in GW1. However, despite this, we still see an alarming amount of ranged skills that have poor or no cues at all. This is clearly just bad design.

So take off out of here with your elitist videogame-qualification-nepotism. I don’t need to play your MMO just so that the Game Community On High may anoint me as one that understands how balance works in any given MMO. I don’t need your go-ahead to tell you that the suggestions I’ve made are valid. I’ve played GW2 and I understand its game mechanics and their limitations. I also understand its PvP balance skill flaws. Therefore, I make suggestions to correct those flawed skills without attempting to destroy the original mechcanic of a skill to which a suggestion applies.

And before you go replying to any of this, try to argue against my quote in bold. Even if you do manage to come up with something (and I can say right now that whatever you come back with is going to be nonsense), at least that way you can attempt to start at the top of the argumentative pyramid instead of the bottom where you sit right now.

Paulo.8459:

So countering with dodges is unwise, but using a block is not? I don’t get this.
According to your logic, blocking it would also be unwise since the thief could still use steal/infiltrators signet.

The reason why [Infiltrator’s Strike] and [Shadow Shot] are so broken is that they are free direct-to-target gap-closers. Gap-closers in general are borderline desperation moves. There’s typically something at play when using a leap to get closer to a player. That enemy player can CC you, mid-flight, you could be blinded, you could use the leap improperly and land somewhere unexpected, you could also die mid-leap if you were in dire enough straits.

There’s nothing at risk with [Infiltrator’s Strike], [Shadow Shot], [Steal] or [Infiltrator’s Signet]. You just get a free “Haha, I’m in your face now,” at the press of a button. You can technically block the strike from [Infiltrator’s Strike], but the guy is still right next to you anyway so he wins that, and the latter 3 you just can’t block at all. Moreover, none of those skills really have true after-cast periods, if any at all. In practice when attempting to defend against any of these movement skills, players have to either dodge wildly to somehow avoid [Infiltrator’s Strike], waste possibly multiple dodges on [Shadow Shot] because it has no cool-down, or just eat damage because there is literally no counter-play around [Steal] or [Infiltrator’s Signet]. This is why they are overpowered.

Paulo.8459:

Btw: teef skills have no cooldown! xD

They don’t. That’s really why they’re so powerful. Thieves need a complete makeover in order to make them both fair and effective, but since ANet will never do that, the only other options are responsible nerfs that tend toward a cool-down paradigm.

Cynz.9437:

so much wrong, in so many ways…i don’t even know where to start….

from the pov of the class i play the most: ini + CD is sooo bad, go to other class forums and ask them if they would like to have mana bars/costs + CDs on spells… trust me, they will send you to hell

I haven’t suggested a single cool-down for thief, since I assume that’s what you’re talking about. Your post is irrelevant.

Cynz.9437:

but then again we are probably biting a cake here, looking at OP name heh

Ad Hominem. Come back later when you’ve acquired better argumentative skills. Don’t let any capital letters or full stops hit you on the way out.

Dante.8456:

What astounding detail in this post haha kudos.

Thanks for the support.

Dante.8456:

My only worry would be that the concept of summoning spirits and then sending them at the enemy would be branching too close to mesmer’s phantasms.

If you’re talking about the [Send] mechanic, then I guess I could maybe see your worry. However, I still think that there are enough differences between the two mechanics ([Send] and Mesmer phantasms) to differentiate the two. For starters, [Send] is often on a large cool-down compared to a typical Mesmer phantasm (especially after they buffed the Illusionists Celerity buff). Furthermore, it only strikes once instead of producing an NPC that lingers about and keeps attacking. Moreover, while phantasms are almost exclusively damage-related, [Send] spirits have a lot of supportive options depending on which Soulbound Spirit that you decide to slot. In the end, [Send] is not only more versatile than phantasms are on the whole, but it’s also limited in scope by the availability of free F-skill slots depending how one wants to play the Ritualist (soulbound spirit commands or just load up the F2 and F3 with binding rituals) and which Soulbound Spirit that a Ritualist chooses.

I think it’s more flavorful than phantasms, but I guess I’m biased there.

Dante.8456:

Its a shame we won’t be seeing any new professions for a long while yet

Yeah. However, the reason I decided to finally make this post was because I wanted to have out a concrete idea for the Ritualist before ANet did.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Swagg.9236:

It already passively regenerates at a rate of 200 points every 1/4 second. To this effect, Ritualists always start out with full mana (base 12,000; base amount of mana can be increased via Spawning Power trait-line, but I haven’t gotten to that).

In that case, maybe change the name to something less “mana-y”?
I mkean if it worked kinda the same as Life Force in that:

1) Slowly gained
2) Used for skills

Then i dont see a problem with it.

I chose the word “mana” because it’s generalized enough to serve as the name for an energy mechanic while remaining exotic enough to describe a sort of force derived from an emphatic connection to the Mists. I mean, I guess I could rename it, but I just don’t really see the fuss in the name.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

@swag:
On everything except for the arcane skills, sounds great. On the arcane skills, just no. Never. The only reason these kitten things are even close to useful is because they are not telegraphed and are instant cast. Changing either of them to have delay would make them even worse than they are already, and completely useless as finishers.

MarzAttakz.9608:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

@swag:
On everything except for the arcane skills, sounds great. On the arcane skills, just no. Never. The only reason these kitten things are even close to useful is because they are not telegraphed and are instant cast. Changing either of them to have delay would make them even worse than they are already, and completely useless as finishers.

I gotta agree with this, also if arcane blast is going to be delayed, give it, you know, a blast finisher…

Non-telegraphed, instant-cast, ranged skills go against the core design of GW2: a game in which you’re supposed to be able to play according to what you see happening on the battlefield or what you see coming from an enemy. There are a lot of skills that break this rule. They’re unfair and should be balanced. Elementalist is not immune to this sort of rule just because “but my low armor” and “but my low hp.” Lead your targets, predict moves and chain attacks in an ideal manner so as to prevent enemy evasion. It’s a 1-second delay. It’s much less than you think.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

You could turn the “mana” pool into a sort of Life Force-esque design. Maybe make it so that it regenerates itself over time rather than having to kill things and such to gain it

It already passively regenerates at a rate of 200 points every 1/4 second. To this effect, Ritualists always start out with full mana (base 12,000; base amount of mana can be increased via Spawning Power trait-line, but I haven’t gotten to that).

While testing things on sword/pistol thief, I just ran about getting in damage and kills with impunity until this happened.

Arganthium.5638:

Care to elaborate? This is the part I’m really interested in here.

You’ve never negated an [Eviscerate] or something of its level before with a quick blind? It’s not difficult and it ruins a lot of burst for an enemy. Furthermore, AoE-dependent players are often wrecked by blind because AoEs tick so slowly.

Arganthium.5638:

Spending four initiative for a blind and a teleport, by themselves, is rarely a winning situation for a D/P thief, unless your opponent was already low on health and you’re simply planning on HS’ing him or her to death.

Thieves do the most damage in melee range. Getting into melee range while also blinding a target is nothing but good for a thief.

Arganthium.5638:

The counterplay is very simple- just evade the shot. It’s extremely obvious, particularly with its coloring.

It has no cool-down. Fighting [Shadow Shot] with dodges is unwise since the Thief could still have [Steal] or maybe even [Infiltrator’s Signet] since that signet pretty meta.

Arganthium.5638:

Free movement to a player isn’t necessarily a winning situation for a thief either, especially when the thief moves into an Eviscerate, CC, 100 Blades, or some kind of burst.

Why are you moving into those things?

Arganthium.5638:

Putting the skill into a two-part chain will not fix it. It’ll still allow you to get the blind, and you’ll be able to get the damage as soon as your opponent stops blocking (in a blocking situation). If anything, it’ll make the skill “more” OP.

By moving it into a two-part skill chain, it will be a projectile that players can block, destroy and/or reflect. It gives the instant movement and blind counter-playability. That’s the goal with the change.

Arganthium.5638:

I think I’ve already addressed in this post and previous posts most of the issues with these statements.

I have no reason to not say that my points remain valid.