Guild Wars 2

Revives are fine.

[Shadow Refuge], [Battle Standard] and [Nature’s Renewal], however, are not fine.

Thedenofsin.7340:

make Mesmers viable in your cheese meta.

Disgusting.

You don’t fix the cheese meta by buffing builds that are excluded from the meta. Get your priorities straight.

I’m trusting someone in this thread to have already made the point that making pressing a single button over and over into an effective strategy that can kill an opponent is the stupidest idea in any game format ever.

Here you go:

Staff skills
[Necrotic Grasp] (1)

• Projectile Speed increased by 30%.

[Mark of Blood] (2)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Inscribe a pulsing mark that bleeds foes and grants regeneration to allies.
• Damage (3x): 612 (1.5)
• Regeneration per pulse: 1 second
• Bleeding per pulse (1): 5 seconds
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Pulse: 1 second
• Radius: 150
• Range: 1200
  • This skill shares its pulse schedule with that of Elementalist [Lava Font].
  • Now uses a ½-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while disabled or while activating another skill). This is similar to how [Lava Font] functions.
  • The [Mark of Blood]’s mark is now a neon-red and emits a red mist while active (same particle effect as the kind of black mist that comes off of wells).

[Chilblains] (3-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Inscribe a line at target location that poisons and chills foes that cross it.
• Line damage: 101 (0.3)
• Poison: 5 seconds
• Chilled: 3 seconds
• Line duration: 3 seconds
• Combo Field: Ethereal
• Range: 1200
  • This skill uses a light blue-colored Mesmer [Temporal Curtain] model.
  • This skill uses the same hit detection as Elementalist [Unsteady Ground].
  • This skill’s effects have an internal cool-down of 5 seconds per target.
  • This skill now chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Weaken Knees].

[Weaken Knees] (3-2)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 45 seconds
• Evade backwards, and inscribe a mark where you land that knocks down and cripples foes when they trigger it.
• Evasion: 1 second
• Mark knock down: 2 seconds
• Mark crippled: 4 seconds
• Mark radius: 120
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
  • The [Weaken Knees] mark is a neon-blue.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Chilblains]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.

[Putrid Mark] (4) – NAME CHANGED TO – [Mark of Pain] (4-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Hex your foe with a mark of pain. Whenever target foe takes damage, mark of pain deals damage to that foe and all adjacent foes.
• Mark of Pain (5x) (25): 5 seconds
• Mark of Pain damage: 85 (0.2)
• Mark of Pain damage radius: 180
• Range: 1200
  • This skill pulses 5 times total when striking a target. Each pulse applies 5 stacks of a unique debuff called Mark of Pain with each strike. This skill pulses once every 0.25 second.
  • Whenever a foe under the effects of Mark of Pain takes damage, the mark triggers its effect and decreases in stack by 1. This skill’s effect has a 1-second internal cool-down per attacker.
  • The damage from Mark of Pain hits up to 5 targets including the marked target.
  • A foe under the effects of Mark of Pain will have a large golden [Mark of Pain] skill icon above his/her head.
  • This skill now chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Putrid Explosion].

[Putrid Explosion] (4-2)

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Conjure a bubble of dark energy at target location. After 1 second the bubble explodes, damaging and transferring up to 3 conditions from you to the foes affected.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage: 444 (1.2)
• Damage radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Range: 1200
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
  • This skill uses a brown-tinted Guardian [Sanctuary] for the bubble model.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Mark of Pain]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.

[Reaper’s Mark] (5)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 45 seconds
• Inscribe a mark that damages foes and grants you life force. On cast, you gain the reaper’s mark; the next time that you enter Death Shroud, you also fear adjacent foes.
• Reaper’s Mark (10 seconds): The next time that you enter Death Shroud, you fear adjacent foes (180 radius; 1 second fear; ½-second delay)
• Mark damage (3x): 477 (1.2)
• Mark duration: 6 seconds
• Mark pulse: 2 seconds
• Life force per pulse: 3%
• Combo Field: Poison
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • The first pulse comes 2 seconds after cast-completion and then pulses once every 2 seconds afterwards until the mark’s duration is over.
  • Each pulse will only grant life force to the Necromancer if the Necromancer is standing in the field when it pulses.
  • Upon entering Death Shroud, the Reaper’s Mark fear takes a ½ second to activate, thus providing some counter-play.

bhagwad.4281:

Recently I’ve been teamed against strange ranger builds that seem to do nothing but stand outside the circle and autoattack. Considering that I play a decap engi,

You are an expert at making people not care about your opinion.

bhagwad.4281:

I feel my skills are wasted.

bhagwad.4281:

skills

bhagwad.4281:

decap engi

Please, my sides can’t take any more.

Cynz.9437:

30/30/30/30/30 build is so OP

Arganthium.5638:

Ah yes, the supreme D/S thief builds, how I despise them. And D/P? My god man, how can you possibly capture a point while your opponent is stealthed?

One guy makes a snide remark instead of an actual argument; the other guy brings up capture contribution in a discussion about damage dealers.

Thieves, everyone.

Permanent regen/might/swiftness/vigor.
Permanent burning/chill/weakness/cripple.

You have got to get real.

Hammer is strong because of [Pin Down] (which still is not being properly nerfed; increased cast-time and cue is fine, but it needs its immobilize duration reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds).

Hammer is also strong because it’s a big CC chain tied to damage that requires no wind-up, thus allowing Warriors to swap to hammer at any time and go to town on someone.

If you want to nerf hammer properly, add conditional factors to its more powerful skills.

Phaeton.9582:

Ok so quickly

A: I agree with what the devs have said on this matter from launch; increasing the points gained for a kill just pushes the meta further towards bunker comps as team wipes are much more infrequent as well as disengaging being easier.

If everyone’s a bunker, nothing will get done because fights would never end. My hope is that the bunker meta would shift into a balanced meta in which there would be multiple balanced “bunkers” that could take over the duty of watching over a point on the fly but could still contribute damage to fights. Moreover, the same meta would provide even full zerker players the opportunity to contribute to point defense because there would be more room in which to move around.

Furthermore, I’ve already taken steps to address a lot of the unfair spike abilities of several classes. If anything, we could have larger nodes to promote point “bunkering” as an option for every player on a team and then simply nerf super-intense bunker builds that we see at the moment.

Phaeton.9582:

B: Anyone who has played legacy of the foefire can appreciate how difficult it is to debunk and full-cap the mid point (which just leads to snowball matches)

Once again, with additional points per kill added into the mix, bunkers may be more advised to abandon some points under pressure or even have a second player there to back them up for most of the match.

There’s also the option of simply adding more nodes to each map as a means to split up teams even further as I did with Temple of the Silent Storm (I’m not sure if my update to tranquility’s removal and replacement with another cap point was originally incorporated into my firsts posts, but if not then I’ll put it up there after this).

Phaeton.9582:

C: Your comment on decap engis was confusing, sorry if I misread the posts here. If you meant however I was wrong about decap engi not being OP, I’d suggest looking up this thing called stability :p

Not everyone is a warrior that gets 16 seconds of stability, whereby that point CC in all forms is effectively moot. Moreover, the mine-field that some Engineers opt to bring to fights can negate stability pretty quickly if it isn’t covered by every other boon in the game.

Prysin.8542:

swagg, the more i see you post, the more i think this may be the wrong game for you. If you want to slow things down, so it is easier to counter for everyone, then you need to move on to a turnbased system similar to that of the recent final fantasy games, or pokemon.
These systems allow for wide open interpretation of the enemy, while still retaining some of the fabled “element of surprise” as you almost never know what will happen in the next round.

10/10
Funniest post in the thread.

silvermember.8941:

Swagg.9236:

bhagwad.4281:

Giving 15 points per kill would bring back thief zergs. Two of them on a target at a time and boom – it’s over really fast.

If Anet gave 15 points per kill, they’d have to rework the entire thief class.

I’ve already done that.

Honestly, I am begining to think that you should do another one with the assumption that Anet decided “you know what swagg makes a lot of sense, but i just don’t want to spend the effort and money reworking the game.”

I’ve done seven out of the eight professions already. I’ve been meaning to work on the Mesmer one, but CBA most of the time even though I have the ideas down.

Nemiros.3590:

Your pve is good, I guess you cant be good at everything.

PvE is hp sponge trash mobs, defiant and zergs, man. It’s no better than PvP.

bhagwad.4281:

Giving 15 points per kill would bring back thief zergs. Two of them on a target at a time and boom – it’s over really fast.

If Anet gave 15 points per kill, they’d have to rework the entire thief class.

I’ve already done that.

thefantasticg.3984:

Balefire.7592:

Some of them may improve Necromancer attrition, but most involve such radical changes that they will probably never see the light of day. Feel free to post this in the Necro subforum – you’ll probably get a pretty good critique on most things from Bhawb and couple others.

That’s the problem with all of Swagg’s Wanna Be Dev Balancer threads.

Not sure why he isn’t programming his own game.

Because GW2, for what it is at its heart, deserves better than what its getting.

That said, playing through GW2’s wasted potential hasn’t stopped me from starting to draft out a game that learns from the innovations and failures of past MMOs while seeking to push the bar further in the pursuit of more visceral combat.

unleashed.8679:

So you want the scepter to spam vulnerability to increase his direct damage? Because your suggestion is no condition weapon any more and no power weapon either.

It’s a weapon that deals damage while extending the encounter through CC, healing, area denial and Life Force generation: it’s an attrition weapon.

unleashed.8679:

In the end, with all your changes, the necromance (the master of conditions)

The Necromancer was never billed as the master of anything but attrition. Unfortunately, it was never designed well enough to truly fulfill that role in any real capacity. Then the Dhuumfire patch rolled along and wrecked any chance of the Necromancer ever getting a proper identity outside of “PRESS BUTTONS AND KILL PEOPLE WITH 0-CUE CONDITION SPAM!!”

Conditions are inherently overpowered in this game due to the fact that they require so little stat investment in order to be effective compared to direct damage and often come in streams of unavoidable attacks instead of well-cued, single abilities. I actually added some more bleeding to [Foul Feast] so now even the Necromancer can stack vulnerability, some torment, poison and a healthy amount of bleeds. The only catch is now the Necromancer actually has to invest time and aim into landing these attacks instead of just pressing 2 then 1 repeatedly.

This isn’t about “B-but, Necromancer is supposed to do this, guys!” it’s about introducing more skill into GW2 by better defining individual attacks and how players can contribute to a fight.

unleashed.8679:

You know that his changes to scepter will make necros coni builds nonviable?

Or do you think someone would like to play a condi build that is capable to stack max. 1 bleed, max. 1 torment and tons vulnerability (which is useless for condition builds). Okey the chain will get an increased direct damage part, but it is a condi weapon, so who needs that damage?

And in the end the condition necro will be able to stack something like:
1 bleed
3 torment
5 vulnerability
And if there is an other player hitting your foe, you probably can also reduce the bleed and torment by 1 and add more vulnerability. Sounds scary for a condi build, doesn’kitten Would someone even use a cleanse for those few conditions?

Current Scepter

• Expend all cool-downs.
• Give no cares about anything.
• Press 1 to win when out of other buttons to press.

Re-designed Scepter

• Stack vulnerability to boost team damage on a selected target.
• Deny area/bait dodges with AoE attacks.
• Aim your attacks/track your target instead of relying on 0 post-cast delay crutch.
• Use 3 to support allies and yourself (extend the fight) with healing/deny enemy healing with poison.
• Generate Life Force with auto-attack and 3-2 (extend the fight further).

Phaeton.9582:

Or just don’t play skill-less spam builds. They just need to balance some stuff really, so nobody is forced to. The problem is there are already non brain dead builds outside the meta which are hugely OP when played well, they could well dominate completely after the nerfs.

Decap engi isn’t OP though, the average players brain is UP at the moment.

That’s why I’ve taken steps to re-balance the professions in order to bring timing, positioning and aim back to the forefront of combat instead of relying on passives, instant damage and enormous AoEs.

This thread isn’t just because of decap Engineer; you couldn’t be further from the truth on that one.

BlackBeard.2873:

This is what happens when you have larger points:
http://youtu.be/iv2_1BB1zmw?t=13m35s

WRONG.

That’s what happens when you’re bad at developing classes for your MMO.

ephemereldream.7403:

So I guess a TLDR is: help I’ve tried berserker and bunker specs but I’m dying lots is there some kind of inbetween spec that has decent damage and survivability?! And is also relatively simple to play? LOL. Yeah, maybe I should move to make my warrior my main, I know I know! Maybe this class is just the ‘newb-trap’ cries

Get your build. Go into the Heart of the Mists. Kill the Profession NPCs; Svanir and Chieftain too. Try to take as little damage as possible while fighting the NPCs. Try to 2v1 the Guardian and Warrior (aggro the Guardian first and lead him to the Warrior).

Use your own builds or play around with these builds if you want (mess with the stats and traits if you feel like it):
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-k34;2B2VV0v4-NkY0;9;49T;0T4;054B;417A;6sV2DsV2D5BA

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kZ;3BJ-U0v4-NFZ0;9;4TJ;0J56A58;514-U;5sV2DsV2D6Bt

[Lightning Flash] does absurd base damage instantly from range. While it could use a cool-down reduction in order to increase the Elementalist’s in-combat mobility, it also needs a damage nerf to accompany it. Instant-activation, ranged damage should never be something with which one can reliably kill another player (even though that it’s currently a shockingly common thing in GW2).

[Rock Anchor] → [Arcane Power] [Tidal Wave] → [Arcane Wave] → [Arcane Blast] → [Ice Wall] → [Detonate] → [Boil] → [Electrocute] → autoattack in air 1

EVERYTHING IS DEAD. The weapon set is broken as all hell. In any case, why are you talking about underwater combat when everyone knows that underwater combat is a joke anyway?

Thedenofsin.7340:

I’d start with:

Pistol Whip: No longer evades

The thing about this is that while the ideal offensive attack never has evasion frames, not even a medium armor class with medium level health would probably survive the passive, ambient damage spam associated with team combat in this game. If [Pistol Whip] had no evasion frames, it would probably just be a button that a Thief pressed if he wanted to bid farewell to this cruel world.

HOWEVER, that by no means that [Pistol Whip] with evasion frames is balanced by any stretch of the imagination. The best way to properly balance [Pistol Whip] is to throw out the current functionality entirely (because it’s that bad) and make a new one—which I’ve done. I’ve also made the attacks quick enough (and removed the self-root) so as to make them fair for opponents to counter without turning them into suicide buttons for the Thief if he/she were to use it.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Dagger #1 and Sword #1 damage reduced by 30% (including Stealth)

I’ve already reduced the damage of dagger and sword auto-attacks and readjusted the damage and effects of the stealth skills.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Black Powder: Now a dark field

I’ve heard this suggestion before and while I do think that [Black Powder] is stupid strong, I’m not sure that completely stripping the d/p of on-demand stealth is the best option (especially since [Heartseeker] would be getting a damage nerf). I was thinking of reducing [Black Powder]’s duration by a second, though.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Dagger Training: Also increases Backstab damage by 30%

Why?

Thedenofsin.7340:

Right now thieves do a ton of damage with their auto-attack and can conserve their initiative for movement and defensive abilities. Reducing auto-attack damage now forces them to make more tactical decisions.

That’s true and that was one of my hopes for this thread.

Nike.2631:

Your focus is on the Game. What your plans largely ignore is that the first allegiance of the Balance Team must be to the Brand, not the Game. If you can’t create solutions that serve both, they cannot incorporate them.

What in the name of the five (good) gods , Eternal Alchemy, Great Spirits, Pale Tree and Khan Ur are you actually talking about?

Do you not want a good game? “Loyalty to the Brand.” “Loyalty to the Brand” implies that you’re letting game-play take a back-seat to someone’s monetary whims. There’s no spine in that; no decency; no resolve. That’s the weakling’s path.

IN ANY CASE, it’s not like this game is actually making any money off of PvP. All of their money is coming from the gem store and I’m not touching that with any of my changes. Get off your high horse. If you don’t care enough about the game to put game-play first then you have no point to make in this thread.

Well, the other solution would be to simply make points per kill increase over time as the match drags on. They could start out at 5 and then increase by intervals of 3 over the course of the match, capping out at 15.

Anymras.5729:

Alright, I have no comment on any of the proposed changes.

In fact, I’m only posting in this thread to point out the title. I actually went looking for this thread earlier, figuring that it would have Engineer somewhere in the title, thus making it easier to find. All of the other class threads I’ve seen from this author have the class name, and a derogatory, complimentary, or just head-scratching bit of text next to them, after all.

Instead, the thread for Engineers has ‘Grenadier: The Spamgineer’ as a title. I couldn’t take any suggestions in this thread seriously if I wanted to, because the original poster can’t even be bothered to use the class’s name in the title, instead opting to define the class as ‘the one with the Grenade Kit, and the skill spamming.’

Well, I can’t just lie about the profession’s identity.

Anymras.5729:

If OP intends the thread to be taken seriously, it might be wise to change that; it’s inconsistent with the naming theme in general, if nothing else.

The title stays until fixes make it untrue.

Anymras.5729:

That said: I’m looking forward to seeing what’s suggested for Turrets. I can always use a laugh.

I sort of forgot that I had turret changes saved somewhere. I’ll have to go over them.

Addition of a few trait updates. I’m also playing with some radii (skills and traits) in order to make aiming more of a factor when using AoEs.

garethh.3518:

Swagg.9236:

Stun, very high damage, evade tanking, no cool-down in a game without a dedicated healer class.

What??
A squishy high evade, high sustain (not spike) class that uses initiative is unworkable because the game doesn’t have healers… how, where did you come up with that?

Sure other games have healers, but other games also don’t use initiative… by no kittening means, AT ALL will having healers make theives balanced. They will be twice as unkillable, having shortbow will be a get-enough-space-to-get-healed-back-up-free card.
Like theives won’t be less broken with healers, s/p would be nerfed a lil offensively because of them, but cause twice the ‘QQ, this kitten is broken’ on the forums.

You missed the point entirely.

Black Box.9312:

P Fun Daddy.1208:

While I don’t necessarily like all of your suggestions, Swagg, at least you attempt to propose changes and have put a good amount of effort into this, which is commendable despite what all the people hating on your changes say.

Just wanted to put this here because so many people seem to actively hate you for suggesting changes to various things that they obviously treasure in their current state, instead of recognizing that you’re trying to create an entirely new meta based around more skill builds and less builds that focus on reducing the impact of skill and discussing your suggested changes in that context.

The thing that bothers me is that he’s bringing back these threads when they’re clearly dying out for good reason. The conversation is over; please stop bumping these.

I’ve never heard a single good reason to stop. The people who want me to stop aren’t really arguing anything, but rather they either just express vague complaints and opinions or just go full ad hominem/insult. Only one without resolve would give up after someone walks up to them and delivers baseless insults about one’s contribution. I have resolve.

In any case, [Withdraw] is a cancerous skill (not unlike [Healing Signet] or even [Shelter]), and it needed to be addressed. Would you rather I have made 20 individual threads filled with the trickling ideas that I’ve developed over my time here or would you rather me just make a single thread and bump that instead? Obviously the latter is a much more organized and convenient strategy for expressing ideas.

Iason Evan.3806:

Swagg.9236:

WARRIOR: THE CASUAL
Why should any class in an MMO be singled out as the “easiest class to play?”

For the same reason music teachers offer lessons to beginners as well as for seasoned vets. If I had never touched a piano before, I wouldn’t go to a piano teacher that only offered a class called, “Advanced Jazz Technique”.

No profession in this game is difficult to play.

Morever, without any multi-classing aspect to this game, it makes no sense for a player to “train” or “learn the game” on one profession just so that they can play another profession with entirely different main mechanics. It’s nonsense.

You can read on through that paragraph to understand why it’s a bad design, if you want.

Updates to points earned for killing players in conquest. The idea to make kills worth more vs players on a point is actually a very creative idea. Knowing that one’s death on a point might swing the entire game, this factor could lead to more capture node exchanges (lone bunkers without immediate back-up bailing from points under pressure) in order to save one’s team from a sudden 15-point deficit. With capture nodes being more freely exchanged along with kills being worth more, GW2 Conquest would be a much more fluid game-mode with players constantly migrating across the map in order to find weak-points in the other team’s defenses either in the form of lone bunkers without back-up or free points with no defenders.

runeblade.7514:

Swagg.9236:

In any case, the nodes need to be larger. Larger nodes means more room to move. More room to move makes repositioning easier. Easier repositioning means that aiming and timing will become bigger factors in point-taking instead of simply how many AoE buttons one can spam. Aiming and timing supplanting spam as a means to kill players on a point means a more skill-based conquest game-mode overall for GW2.

Larger nodes means bunker wars.

I’ve taken steps to cull Warrior passive sustainability.

Writetyper.1985:

Swaggfriend, I love you. veegee hates you for some reason but you care so much more about this game than any of it’s developers. I just don’t understand how you haven’t picked up yet that they don’t care. Despite how well thought out to the point of being slightly autistic these posts may be, anet will never implement or hire you or anything like that. They don’t actually care, PvP is cost-inefficient at this point. Just give up.

Writetyper.1985:

Just give up.

While I appreciate your sympathy, I’m much too delusional to take your advice.

Updates to [Ring of Fire], [Glyph of Elemental Harmony] as well as some number tweaking.

Updates to healing skills as well as number tweaking across the board once more.

[Withdraw] gets a functionality change because it’s a cancerous freebee heal that should be addressed. Because it is now a two-part healing skill, some healing-skill-based passive procs might need internal cool-downs if they don’t already have them. I also adjusted the healing on some of the other healing skills to compensate for the Thief receiving a base HP increase.

Updates all around:

• Pistol off-hand
• Bomb Kit
• Grenade Kit
• Tool Kit
• Flamethrower

Even though it may be a bit late, I’ll get to replying to the post above this one. All I have to say for now is that it’s wrong to craft balance changes based on PvE-centric thought because GW2 PvE combat is focused on burning through stupid enemies with literally millions of hit-points. Bringing that kind of thought into PvP and making it function as it would in PvE would completely destroy the integrity of PvP without even making PvE any more enjoyable for anyone. It’s a lose-lose situation in the worst way.

Updates to longbow and axe main-hand. People complained about the idea of an axe main-hand that didn’t have a ranged auto-attack so I wracked my brain to come up with an auto-attack chain that could still provide some in-weapon synergy.

Updates all around to hammer, sword, utilities, and traits.

I’ve been working to find ways of culling a bit of the protection that I’ve introduced while also partially reverting some of the changes that would have completely re-worked a few traits/skills. I’m sad about how hammer turned out because of its lack of in-weapon synergy, but I suppose that’s a discussion for another day. As it stands, I’ve made a bunch of updates and I just wanted to get that out the door.

Updates to Death Shroud skills, healing skills, scepter and staff skills.

Menzies The Heretic.3415:

Swagg.9236:

Stun, very high damage, evade tanking, no cool-down in a game without a dedicated healer class.

It’s astounding that it (or the Thief in general) was included in this game at all. The Thief probably simply made it into GW2 because “We have to have our edgy rogue/ninja/assassin class, guuyyyyss!!” given that its play-style completely breaks every rule that governs how GW2 combat should function.

Yep you cracked to code here. Especially the part where you say: "how GW2 combat SHOULD function. Thanks for clearing that up.

I suppose that I’m in the wrong for trusting people to understand simple truths about a game without a dedicated healer.

Brutal Arts.6307:

Swagg.9236:

Blood Pressure Intensifies

Swagg please, you’re going to give yourself a stroke and get an infraction.

This game lies bleeding on the street and the developers just pass on by because picking it up and taking it to the hospital would be too much work. I’ll be the guy to take it to the hospital, even if it gets me infracted.

This thread shouldn’t exist. No one should have to ask why [Pistol Whip] is overpowered; it takes nothing more than mere logic within the context of GW2 game-play as a whole. Asking “Why is Pistol Whip overpowered?” is admitting one’s own unfamiliarity with the most elementary mechanics of GW2 PvP.

Let me spell it out for you:

• GW2 has no dedicated healer/damage-mitigation class.
• Therefore, there’s no one to protect someone from damage that just pops up out of nowhere.
• [Pistol Whip] damage just pops up out of nowhere, moreover, the Thief also evade-tanks while attacking so there’s little that the player can do against the Thief once [Pistol Whip] is in effect.
• Combine this with Sleight of Hand, multiple teleports, blinds, no cool-down and absurd amounts initiative and you have something that breaks all of the rules that govern GW2 combat. There’s no one to heal back the damage incurred from multiple [Pistol Whip]s, personal healing is never enough and personal healing is already jeopardized because of the fact that [Pistol Whip] has a built in stun on top of Slight of Hand already being activated at will with no cast-time or visual cue.

You want a solution for [Pistol Whip]? You can’t handle the true solution for [Pistol Whip] because it’s built into the solution for the Thief as a whole; and the solution for Thief as a whole is just too much work for you, ANet. I can put in the work to solve the problems of this game all day long, but when it comes down to it, it’s just too much for you, ANet.

If you want to have a glimpse of what it would take to make Thief a class that properly participates in GW2 combat, then have a read: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Thief-The-Black-Sheep-5-8/first.

Stun, very high damage, evade tanking, no cool-down in a game without a dedicated healer class.

It’s astounding that it (or the Thief in general) was included in this game at all. The Thief probably simply made it into GW2 because “We have to have our edgy rogue/ninja/assassin class, guuyyyyss!!” given that its play-style completely breaks every rule that governs how GW2 combat should function.

garethh.3518:

Swagg.9236:

I’d be willing to work with ANet to appropriately adjust bunker-intensive builds and specific super-forgiving active abilities and play-styles so as to make node fights not necessarily all based on a player pressing buttons while running in circles.

And if you’ve fallowed this game at all, you should know that that’s not how this works.

Oh, I’m very aware of that, but I’m not one to just throw in the towel and cry about it. I’m going to do everything that I can to push for a more skillful GW2. There is a lot of “Tell me how you feel about X,” and “I think A should be more like B because,” floating around, but I know for a fact that that sort of kitten-footing around talk isn’t going to get anything concrete done. That’s why I’m skipping the thumb-twiddling conversation step and going straight in with concrete changes created on basic logic with relation to GW2 game-play.

garethh.3518:

These devs don’t work like that, they balance this game alone and do it through small changes between long periods of time to see how they play out.
That means if they did push out a patch to enlarge nodes they won’t, like there is no chance in hell, that they will couple that patch with adjustments to mobility. It will take them 3+ months to even address that problem and a year if not more to actually improve the situation.

I don’t need you to tell me that; that’s why I’m here. I’m here to change that. You let me in on the process and you’ll get things done simply because I’ve done the work already. Complaints and airy discussions about what something could be won’t accomplish anything. No one else is making a move on any important issue, so I’ll be the one to change this.

Paragon.5479:

There is also bad thing about larger nodes and thats bunker guards will be harder to bring down

garethh.3518:

Yeah, kitten like that is why I don’t think this would make the game any more fun to play.
Sure there would be a lil more skill through kiting to survive… but it won’t be more fun to fight.

There will be cheese-kiting specs that will be nigh unkillable and just as fustrating.
Like the ranger, with sword he can lol-leap around the place and just passive heal up all the while. Thief can even do that decently well.

I’m not unaware of the fact that builds which survive for extended periods of time on the already tiny nodes would receive an indirect buff to a certain extent with the introduction of larger capture nodes. I’d be willing to work with ANet to appropriately adjust bunker-intensive builds and specific super-forgiving active abilities and play-styles so as to make node fights not necessarily all based on a player pressing buttons while running in circles. I’ve already put hours into reworking a lot of cheesy mechanics in the Profession Balance forums that could be applied to this sort of change.

The goal here is a more legitimately engaging PvP experience based on active positioning, dodging and timing instead of using builds and no-risk skills as a crutch that do all the work for the player.

Moreover, with larger nodes comes something more important that increased node-defender survivability: an increase in node assaulter skill required to de-bunk or kill a node defender. That’s the real goal here because it opens up the option of node defense to players who might not necessarily be geared as bunkers which can shift the meta-game considerably if teams begin running multiple players (not necessarily full bunkers but more DPS/support balanced specs) that can take over the job of node holding on the fly simply because they have more room to move around while defending the nodes.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Swagg.9236:

CONQUEST RULE CHANGES

• Points per kill increased from 5 to 8.
• Competitive match time-limit reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.

why not double the points? make it 10 instead of 8

An extra 3 points per kill adds up quick over the course of an entire match without necessarily overwhelming the points earned from capture nodes. It would give less node-centric teams a means to keep pace with bunker-heavy teams without necessarily just giving a team with a bunch of DPS roamers a free bone for getting kills here and there without actually playing the objective.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

what if more team points are scored if player kills are made inside the capture points?

This isn’t a bad idea, actually. I wouldn’t necessarily set the points earned to your suggested levels, but it would definitely add a new dynamic to the GW2 conquest game-mode and maybe even encourage more rapid exchange of capture nodes between teams with the new risk that dying on point might bring to the overall score/pace of the game.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

or we could intensify it more,

• 10 team points for each player killed outside capture points
• 15 team points for each player killed inside neutral capture points
• 20 team points for each player killed inside own capture points
• 25 team points for each player killed inside their capture points

The reason why I wouldn’t take it this far is because imagine the kind of point break-away that a team could get off of a single point capture if there was a bunker to kill on that point: 25 points for the bunker kill and then also a point capture. That could easily be game-ending right there. While I think it’s worth it to discuss additional points for killing players on a node, I’m not sure that the points should ever exceed 10 just for the sake of giving each team a window of opportunity for a come-back should they lose a point that was beforehand being bunkered by a player.

If killing a player on a point was worth too much, the GW2 conquest game-mode might develop into some sort of weird zerg v bunker game-mode in which the zerg plays tag with bunkers (with bunkers fleeing nodes under pressure for fear of giving the enemy team too many points) across the map instead of players on either side actually stopping to contest a node properly.

THEN AGAIN, the prospect of having two mobile bunkers and a constantly moving team-fight of sorts does sound a little more exciting to watch than what we have going for us now in GW2 PvP. I dunno, the debate is up in the air on that one.

tangatalaga.5943:

I feel like adding more rails similar to Waterfall on Foefire on every side point across the each map would help significantly against builds like the Decap Engi. Also the side points on Foefire offer natural spots to line of sight attacks because the points are elevated somewhat. Perhaps more of this can be implemented as well?

That’s a band-aid patch that doesn’t really solve the problem like increasing node-size would do. Putting baby rails around every node would also strangle player’s abilities to move/reposition with leaps and ground-traveling evasive retreats.

Introducing more elevation differences around capture nodes would be an interesting idea, though. I think it would be best to start out with simply increasing the node size and then discuss what kind of terrain options would be best for some nodes compared to others. Changing terrain height on a node like Niflhel middle might hurt the effectiveness of traveling around to the back of the node, or it could be redundant in the case of the Niflhel side nodes given that there are already terrain elevation differences present that ring around those nodes.

Cynz.9437:

- when standing on point you can’t knocked back, instead you get knocked down

Why would you want to remove one of the best mechanics in GW2 from the only meaningful fights in the conquest game-mode?

Besides, I’d imagine that the coding for that would be tedious and unnecessary in the long run. In any case, with most capture node sizes normalized to what one might see on Foefire sides, removing foes from a node with pulls or knock-backs would be a feat in and of itself so long as the foe wasn’t hanging near the fringes of the node at all times—in which case then it’s the victory of the person using the movement-based CC.

infantrydiv.1620:

But… Runescape has a much larger stream viewership for PvP than Guild Wars 2

That is none of my concern—even if you are just being cheeky. I’m here to help GW2, not garner stream viewership or watch two stationary players slap each other until one of them dies from being unable to continue to stuff their face with sharks or whatever it is now that they’re eating.

bhagwad.4281:

Larger points will break decap engi.

Veto’d.

Larger points would reduce the effectiveness of a skill-less and overpowered spec for what it accomplishes in PvP. However, this sort of change would only indirectly nerf the overall effectiveness of the decap Engineer and would spare the individual skills that contribute to the overpowered spec from crippling nerfs. In the end, the exchange is a net gain for the community without it resulting in a simultaneous net loss for the decap Engineer.

I’ve refrained from making changes to Spirit Watch and Skyhammer because the former can promote zerging and the orb can be overpowered in the hands of certain classes/builds, the latter is a garbage map and neither should be options for PvP outside of hotjoin. Even so, both of them would benefit from increased capture node sizes in the same manner as the above maps.

BATTLE OF KYHLO
[Windmill] (north)

• Capture point width increased from 300 to 450.
• Capture point height increased from 300 to 450.
• The small wooden fence still defines the capture point’s north edge.

[Mansion] (south)

• Capture point width increased from 300 to 450.
• Capture point height increased from 300 to 450.
• The small stone wall still defines the capture point’s south edge.

FOREST OF NIFLHEL
[Henge] (west)

• Capture point radius increased from 240 to 450.

[Mine] (east)

• Capture point radius increased from 240 to 450.

[Keep] (north)

• Capture point radius increased from 240 to 450.
• This point’s position has been adjusted so that it does not allow players standing on the overlook from behind the point to contribute to point capture.

TEMPLE OF THE SILENT STORM
[Gate] (south)

• Capture point radius increased from 240 to 600.

[Altar] (west)

• Capture point radius increased from 240 to 450.

[Temple] (east)

• Capture point radius increased from 240 to 450.

[Stillness] (center)

• This buff no longer exists.
• This buff is replaced by a capture node for the entire duration of the map.
• This capture node has a 240 radius.

[Tranquility] (north)

• This buff no longer exists.
• This buff is replaced by a capture node for the entire duration of the map.
• This capture node has a 240 radius.