Guild Wars 2

CnaeusDane.2938:

Sir, while I have to respect anyone who wants to bring balance to this game I have to tell to please stop trying to suggest guardian changes unless you have a serious grasp of all areas of the game. Given that you suggest changing shelter, which is our best heal and a crutch we rely on, I don’t believe you have the qualifications to do so.

The reason behind my change to [Shelter] is the same reason behind a lot of my changes across all of these threads (and those to come): powerful skills should pose risk to the user. [Shelter] is one of many skills that’s effectively a freebee in practice despite it’s effect being potentially so powerful. The enormous discrepancy between [Shelter]’s risk vs reward factor denotes imbalance.

Furthermore, one of the primary goals of these threads is to make slow combat down and make it more legible across the board. With a goal like that, “block the next 3 attacks” becomes a very powerful skill ability that is only quickly overcome by a team effort.

CnaeusDane.2938:

Many of these changes would break guardian in some aspects, such as lowering Signet of Resolve to 30 second. You’re changing it from approx a 203h/s heal to a 201h/s which is not bad in of itself however then traiting signet recharge will shoot it up to 250h/s which is not a change it needs. 250h/s + absolute resolve would bring our total theoretical heal per second to 350 to 400 depending on healing power. Run meditations heal on top of that and you’re creating a warrior now.

Can’t believe that I forgot about the signet cool-down trait. Well, that’s a thing. It’s just sad to see [Shelter] completely monopolizing the Guardian healing skill slot—another denotation of imbalance. Maybe we could try improving the passive (make it the same, but put its proc in the hands of the player by tying it to dodging, virtue use or something).

And shelter. The reason shelter is perfect is because it’s a great trade off. Either you run 30 in valor and the might on block + AH allows for a more potent heal which requires good timing to maximize it or you don’t run AH and it’s a low heal block that allows you to escape situations given the relatively low mobility compared to other classes and lack of soft CC. Anyone who says guardian has great mobility even in meditations has never tried to out run other classes, especially when all our mobility is target required.

CnaeusDane.2938:

It’s a nice thought but attempting to create balance threads for all classes while having limited knowledge outside of your main class will only create problems for this game. That’s why I will gladly share my guardian knowledge after 2k total hours of WvW, PvE and PvP on a guardian while not even thinking I know how all the other classes work. Sure I may have an idea but you lack the depth people who main one class for that long have developed.

Go ahead, then. I’m glad that these threads can spark debate, and I’d be happy to hear you out.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Same. Skimmed thru the rest though. The shortbow auto cast time made me cringe, the rest were just unsightly. Sword 2 cooldown increased 8 -> 10 secs

Non-targeted, leaping gap-closers were getting a tiny nerf across the board. Although, since [Hornet Sting] doesn’t deal tremendous damage and it sets up the telegraph for [Monarch’s Leap], the combo might escape any nerfing.

Moreover, it’s 2 seconds. It’s not like the 2-second increase to [Blurred Frenzy] made that skill any less viable.

Wondrouswall.7169:

and Healing Spring cast time increased to 1sec

Healing Skills should be things that incur risk on the player using them because they often have as much of an impact on a battle as powerful offensive skills. To that extent, powerful skills need cues/cast-times to break up combat. Besides, 1 second is pittance, and [Healing Spring] is not the only skill to receive cast-time increases within the scope of these threads (and those to come).

whyme.3281:

It should be clear, that if the pet hits more often, its damage needs to lowered (rebalanced).

Rangers are designed, with pets, that deals part of their damage, if they cant hit properly, than this is a broken mechanic and needs to be fixed.

How do we balance the pets as they are right now? 100% hit chance on static targets or <30% chance on moving targets? Thats a huge difference (theoreticly 3 times more damage).

So why dont fix this obvious broken mechanic (as we see with morph)? And I can ask you again, what do you want to control, if this stupid pets misses anyways?

It’s a good point, but just giving Ranger free DPS without any investment feels very brain-dead, especially with the hp level of the pet (and even worse if the Ranger is toting Signet of the Wild).

whyme.3281:

Pet HP are the second design issue, because they cant evade automaticly, they are lifesponges now. More control wont fix this either.

One of the biggest control issues with the Ranger pet is that the pet queues commands 1 by 1 instead of prioritizing anything. This means the player has to constantly press the “Return to Me!” F-skill before giving the pet commands. The best way to fix this would be to make any player-input commands interrupt the pet’s current attack queue and prioritize the player command. This would make more pet-related commands a good thing.

whyme.3281:

Btw. I made some suggestions fix the whole pet problematics on page 1 of this thead, but you completly ignored it.

I apologize. I’ll look at it today. It’s been a bit of a challenge to manage 4 threads (soon to be 5).

Sirendor.1394:

If you ignore:
- Lack of burst potential

You’ve gotta be joking. Have you never seen a burst meditation Guardian?

Sirendor.1394:

- Lack of mobility UNLESS you get traveler’s and trait for meditations.

Sword has a spammable teleport. I’m addressing that, though, by not only limiting the the teleport, but also giving the Guardian an actual targeted leap (a very useful movement tool).

Sirendor.1394:

- Lack of active abilities: zero movement, active skills (similar to necromancer)

That’s what I’m addressing with my torch skill changes.

Feel free to suggest anything, though. Despite the arguments that typically come along with these thread, they’re mainly a forum for potential changes. I just happen to have a set list of rules that govern balanced combat in GW2 to which I adhere.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

So rather than buffing the class as a whole you just want specific weapons and skills buffed? Meaning the people that don’t use them don’t get any benefit…

…Where as Buffing the CLASS would benefit EVERY ele.

By buffing various skills (weapon and utility) across the board, we can change the class overall by opening up new ways to defend one’s self as an Elementalist. One of the biggest issues of S/D right now is its lack of defenses aside from healing in water attunement and updraft (which doesn’t even really clear much distance). We can address this with key weapon skill changes.

Buffing Elementalist hp or armor is signet-level design. Let’s try to keep it active.

whyme.3281:

Havent tested it, but I think they will improve too, because of the 130 to 250 range increase.

Making all of the pets guarantee hits with their attacks would be very, very powerful. They’d need an hp decrease for something like a 250 range auto-attack. That’s a huge range. That’s why I’m taking the more control route.

Simply pushing buttons to make numbers go up and down isn’t the best way to fix a broken mechanic. The mechanic has to be completely improved upon; we can’t just buff damage. We already buffed hp (literally doubled the base hp in many cases) and look how useful and intuitive that made Ranger pets.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Swagg.9236:

I still argue that the best option to bringing the Elementalist up to compete with other professions is by increasing its defensive mobility ([Burning Retreat] is an excellent example of defensive mobility) and soft CC on sets that have very little of this. I’ve also read the discussion about other proposals to scepter buffs/changes. While I’m wary of giving something like [Shatterstone] a chill, I do think that scepter is in dire need of some soft CC as a means of not only self-defense but also a means to hit targets with my skill shot redesigns of a lot of skills.

That change while decent, solves nothing. We have no sustainability due to how how our stats are and how high all of our defensive cool downs are. All it would take is a few changes to our stats that would mean that players werent forced to go into defensive stats thus meaning they do terrible damage.

After that then sure, they could see the feedback but more importantly they should PLAY the class themselves see what it is like and then make tweaks.

The reason that I personally like to play staff Elementalist so much is it has a play-style that says “I’m too good to take damage.” There is a lot of soft and hard CC available to the player in order to manipulate the movement of most opponents while still dealing out damage. Combined with [Burning Retreat], this makes the staff very capable in avoiding damage. [Burning Retreat] was actually my inspiration for the [Updraft] change. In the end, while still very vulnerable to attacks, staff Elementalist can come out on top in fights with keen timing, positioning and careful placement/use of CC in conjunction with its attacks. That’s what I’m trying to give to scepter. Dagger main-hand already is pretty solid in its play-style.

Giving the Elementalist more defensive movement (movement that puts space between the player and an enemy) is a nice way to increase scepter survivability while also increasing overall mobility. Adding soft CC to otherwise raw damage skills is another way to increase survivability. Making it harder for an opponent to hit you makes you increases your survivability if you specialize in ranged attacks. My changes to things like [Signet of Earth], [Signet of Water], the cantrips and dagger off-hand are all aimed at increasing an Elementalist’s overall survivability through means of CC and mobility. Hopefully, I can keep going with future changes to [Shatterstone].

Simply making numbers go up is a band-aid fix that wouldn’t add anything new to the Elementalist profession or its overall play-style. It’s not a proper fix.

Dual.8953:

I’d like to add, you miss the value of an aimable Dragon’s Tooth. When it’s aimable it can be used as a detourant. A Soft CC so to speak that will make your opponent steer around it.

That’s another good point. Having big, well-cued danger zones floating above the battlefield can really affect the movement of enemy players. This kind of thing is really good in situations where someone (either an ally or enemy) goes into the downed state. I actually play my fair share of staff Elementalist in PvP and I cannot overstate the value of maintaining a lava font or casting a meteor shower on top of downed allies or enemies. This is actually an ability that scepter Elementalist sort of lacks (especially if someone drops a Shadow Refuge or something). By turning a lot of current scepter cheap shots into skill shots, the scepter Elementalist not only gains a higher skill cap, but it also gains more corpse cleave abilities.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Personally, rather than buffing/changing traits, skills and such. All they should do is start off by bumping up our Health and/or Armor. This alone would open up more options when it comes to be builds as players are pretty much forced to go into Toughness/Vit lines as well as getting Toughness/Vit gear thanks to the fact they start off with the Lowest health and Lowest Armor.

Of course at the start where they were pretty much unkillable that was an acceptable decision. Now with the nerfs to healing, defense, mobility and the insanely long cool down on Utilities i think it is about time that they were buffed up a bit in Health and/or Toughness so they CAN spend points and gear more damage rise.

The trouble of buffing Elementalist base armor or hp is that its sustainability is balanced around its ability to heal up fast in a lot of situations. If we were to increase the Elementalist base hp and/or armor, there would have to be a load of other changes associated with it if we didn’t want to the profession to immediately become overpowered.

I still argue that the best option to bringing the Elementalist up to compete with other professions is by increasing its defensive mobility ([Burning Retreat] is an excellent example of defensive mobility) and soft CC on sets that have very little of this. I’ve also read the discussion about other proposals to scepter buffs/changes. While I’m wary of giving something like [Shatterstone] a chill, I do think that scepter is in dire need of some soft CC as a means of not only self-defense but also a means to hit targets with my skill shot redesigns of a lot of skills.

MonMalthias.4763:

Points on signet passives; signet passive change suggestions.

More amazing ideas. The idea of tying signet passives to dodges remind me of some of the ideas I had for Engineer gadgets (there was a discussion about the possibility of giving them signet-like passive effects). Yes, honestly, I don’t quite understand why there aren’t more passive bonuses tied to active dodge. It’s an obvious animation, it breaks up combat by (typically) preventing a dodge-user from using offensive abilities, and it can’t really be spammed over and over again.

If you don’t mind, I’ll just slip your ideas right into my signet changes.

Little Thom’s Brawler

• http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s7Bh;1VKkM0S4cL-60;9;4J-J9J27;218-0;029-UNF6;2TsW6TsW68v

Zho’s Rampager

• http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Fg-o;1sE-v-d2JEV-0;9V1F;1T9T;037A1;059A;4N-k6;2_JH8_JH85k

Cynn’s Nuker

• http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kZ;3BJVV0v4-NFZ0;9;4TJ;0J56A58;514-U;5sV2DsV2D5S

Gadd’s Demolition Scout

• http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-V70;2cPkq0f63Ukw0;9;49J-JJ4;005;205-57-U;5sV2DsV2D5V

Grevender.9235:

Dragon’s Tooth targeted? no thanks. Just make it land 20% faster and add 6% more burning damage, and it’s perfect.

Skills that require the player to aim them are skills that possess a skill cap. This game deserves a higher skill cap than it has currently.

Making skills auto-aim for you just turns combat into a button-mashing fest.

gesho.9468:

Swagg.9236:

Part 1 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.

NECROMANCER: “I LACK AN IDENTITY!”
Necromancer is billed as the “attrition class” of GW2. However, it is in fact just another DPS class that typically focuses on spamming poorly-cued, low cool-down ranged skills to deal excessive DoT via conditions.

how will shifting dmg to power make necro attrition class? isnt that opposite of attrition? attrition = delayed condi damage, while surviving.

necro has top condi dmg (so strong that more talk of condi spike than attrition) and enough survival to be one of top tiers in sPVP. means = leave him alone.

The effort was sort of compromised when I deleted a huge section of suggestions that aimed to give Necromancer more hard CC/supportive active abilities. I’ve been looking to fold those ideas into current Necromancer skills.

I remembered that I had forgotten a few suggestions: healing skill updates are now with the trait post.

Kiriakulos.1690:

Couple of suggestions for you Swagg.

A few easy modifications to try and avoid the imminent fiasco of the Dhuumfire change:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Feature-Build-Balance-Preview/page/5#post3570656

Second a way to fix lifestealing and make the Blood tree more appealing:

Change the minor traits in Blood Magic and make them 5 = Vampiric, 15 = Vampriric Precision, 25 = Bloodthirst.

This fixes the inherent OPness that Bloodthirst brings in the 10 slot and actually makes the tree scale the more you invest in it.

Also change lifestealing so it’s flat recovery with no damage inflicted and use 30 + 0.01 for Vampiric and 100 + 0.05 for Vampiric Precision, both scaling with healing power.

I’ll take it all into consideration. I’ll have to read over your post again. I’m going through a myriad of replies right now.

Arken.3725:

Are we just talking from a skill point of view or traits as well?

Well, I’m focusing on skills because even though traits are passive procs (one of the worst things about this game) they are at least tied to active skill use. By adjusting active skill use, we can indirectly address some issues associated with passive trait procs.

That said, feel free to suggest anything here. I’m considering everything that people say in these threads.

Sarrs.4831:

Is Tequatl a balanced encounter?

Even though you’ve strayed way off from my main discussion point, I’ll humor you anyway:

• GW2 PvE combat has no well defined roles.
• Because GW2 PvE combat has no roles, DPS is king.
• Because DPS is king, every overworld PvE boss requires super high hp.
• Because every overworld PvE boss has super high hp, every encounter is a maypole dance around the boss/corner-stack in a boss’ blind spot, spamming skills until its dead.

ANet wanted to change this with Tequatl. Unfortunately, there is no real way to change this at all. Since GW2 has no well-defined profession roles, there’s no way of making a natural transition to self-organization in GW2. Therefore, they decided to invent roles and make them necessary by giving bosses invulnerability mechanics that could only be removed by these invented roles.

• ANet invents turrets as a means to defeat Tequatl’s invulnerability mechanic.
• The entire encounter hinges on 6 people knowing how to press a few buttons in exchange for abandoning their normal profession mechanics.
• The rest of the encounter is “Hail to the DPS King” as usual.
• End result: No change in PvE DPS paradigm.

Sarrs.4831:

Does Tequatl resemble a player?

No, because you don’t need to use a special turret to kill an otherwise invincible player opponent. Otherwise, you’re LITERALLY playing rock-paper-scissors.

Sarrs.4831:

This [reasoning] might seem like a copout

That’s because it is.

Back to the matter at hand:

• ANet continues with this Tequatl trend.
• ANet creates more rock-paper-scissors boss encounters because the lack of defined combat roles permits little else.
• The result of this is that players that don’t understand the encounter can come in and ruin it for everyone.
• ANet has not succeeded in creating encounters that “teach the player base self-organization,” they have succeeding in creating encounters that require the player base to all be in teamspeak simultaneously. That’s not the same thing. Besides, one plays a game to relax and enjoy its core mechanics; not to be schooled on how to play something with rules that change on an encounter by encounter basis. We’re playing an MMO, not Wario Ware: Smooth Moves.
• Furthermore, things like the newest overworld bosses to be added to the game, confirm that ANet isn’t even segregating roles anymore. Despite the mechanics present to undo the individual Wurm bosses’ respective invulnerabilities, the timed-kill aspect of the encounter simply turns the entire event into another DPS spank. The only catch is now it’s “DPS in this spot. Now DPS in this spot. Now DPS over there.” Instead of corner-stacking or doing the maypole dance, we’re now chasing the carrot across the map.

The fact of the matter is, if we want to use our own profession mechanics that we have supposedly mastered, we need player-like enemies (maybe even more than 1; or many more than 1) against which we play.

Also, there’s also the question of why haven’t we seen jumping puzzles incorporated into boss fights? Jumping Puzzles exploit a universal mechanic (jumping and reaction time) that doesn’t detract from an individual player’s own profession mechanic. Why is the Marionette destroyed by funneling into lanes and killing NPCs or completing mini-games? Why aren’t we hopping up to its face on temporary panels to deliver strikes at its weak point?

Sarrs.4831:

but this is the fundamental difference between spvp and pve/wvw; any delicate balance that’s constructed on the small scale does not scale up.

Yes. Sometimes I feel that GW2 would have been much better if everything were just instanced like GW1.

Sarrs.4831:

[All armor being balanced to sPvP levels] is a Pandora’s Box problem; that box has already been opened. Ascended gear is already in the game, and people have already spent a lot of gold, and therefore money/time, on it. You’ve probably already seen the thread about Celestial being impacted by the Ferocity change just as much as Berserker’s gear is; how big do you think the thread saying “we’re deleting all the time and effort you put into your ascended gear, sorry folks” will get?

Yes. And I’m in that group too. I have my ascended everything, but I know that the only way to truly save this game is to fully balance everything around sPvP. Although, at this point, I’d be better off making my own game. Even so, I’d still like to help ANet with GW2.

Sarrs.4831:

ANet disagrees with you.

ANet needs assistance.

Sarrs.4831:

I know that’s really lazy justification, but part of the reason they’re making the Ferocity stat is because critical damage distorts how small-scale combat/roaming works in WvW. They do think balance is important for WvW and PvE.

The Ferocity “nerf” won’t bring any sort of real balance to WvW. Zerker’s will be just as insane there as it has ever been. Furthermore, let’s not try to pin down the source of the Ferocity nerf on an attempt to balance WvW. The real reason came from people that complained how zerker is objectively the best stat option in PvE (because it is).

Regardless, sPvP, stats are infinitely more balanced across the board.

Sarrs.4831:

As logical as it might be to root changes in sPvP and let them spring from there, the PvE and WvW crowds do need to be considered too when making changes.

Here’s the best part:

• Balancing the entire game around sPvP means to balance the entire game around player-like encounters.
• Balancing the entire game around player-like encounters means having to use PvE enemies that resemble players.
• Having to use PvE enemies that resemble players means more overworld enemies like what one might encounter in the Heart of the Mists (dueling NPCs, Svanir, Chieftain, Keep Lord and his entourage).
• Encountering Heart of the Mists enemies in overworld PvE means having to rely on CC, timing, positioning and teamwork in order to defeat them (soloing a lot of those enemies at once is very, very difficult).
• Because these enemies are so complex, they wouldn’t necessarily need huge hp pools in order to be a challenge to fight. Their skills and mechanics already make them a challenge—especially if they’re in a group.
• Because enemies don’t have huge hp pools, the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables to kill them.
• Because the players don’t need inflated stats or consumables, sPvP stats can be implemented everywhere.
• Because sPvP stats are implemented everywhere, stats are more stable and balanced everywhere.

That’s how you do it.

Sarrs.4831:

Lazy suggestion; make it target the most heavily conditioned player, and have it heal the target and remove 2-3 conditions from them. This directly buffs its output and makes it more relevant in the current meta.

It gives me an idea. I’ll work with it.

unleashed.8679:

It is not a problem, that the ranger has not enough control over the pet. You can call targets, change the pets behavior and use its F2 skill. That is enough control for the pet. Why should i sacrifice control over myself to control my pet?

The pet has 2—typically powerful skills—to which the Ranger never has access. By not having access to those skills, the Ranger loses control of timed usage of a possibly game-shifting ability. The Ranger deserves that level of control.

unleashed.8679:

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

The Ranger has to think about that. Even so, the pet utility skills would have either instant or very short cast-times to allow for quick movement or attacks (since the 1-3 skills would only activate the command to the pet; the pet has a command queue through which the pet progresses on its way to making its next move). Because of the nature of the 1-3 skills, using them shouldn’t be that much of an issue in combat. The brief pause in ranger attacks would also give the opponent a cue to know that the pet might be attacking now.

unleashed.8679:

And additionally: It is not a problem of control, that the pet misses every attack, it is a design problem! The pet stands still and casts it’s attack. Therefor the fight is 5m next to him, when the cast has finished.

Well, I suppose that is an issue that pervades a lot of PvE creatures. Regardless, the pet’s movement speed does keep a lot of pressure onto players despite the fact that players can typically move while making attacks.

Even so, I suppose I can understand the frustration. It’d be something to discuss because just making the pet have the ability to attack on the move would make it very, very, VERY strong in combat since it would never let up on a target, and pets really can contribute a lot of damage when they strike.

unleashed.8679:

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

You will die instead, because you can’t cast a block or something else. You will lose 2s of using skills, just because you swap back and forth between this skillbars.

You aren’t sitting in that kit for seconds at a time, standing still to activate abilities. Moreover, you aren’t stripped of your utilities or dodging abilities while in the kit. FURTHERMORE, as I’ve said before, the 1-3 pet commands are just like the current F2 commands (No cast time). The 1-3 are already instant cast. The 4-5 skills would be quick-snap reaction skills that provide evasion, movement or maybe a combination attack between the player and the pet. These things aren’t long, channeled cast-times that cripple a player’s survivability.

The only issue would be a learn-to-play issue. After learning to play, the Ranger would have a lot more control over and combat options with the pet.

unleashed.8679:

[Traits] will probably make the problem even worse, because now you can spec every pet for this hibrid builds and get even more effective ones. Not only because you can spec your pet into one specific direction, you will also get bonuses (traits) for doing so. This will buff hybrid builds (condition bunker + direct damage pet) and those are the builds, that are broken right now and lead to the bad situation of the ranger. You cant nerf the condition part and you cant nerf the dmage part, because both are fine for them self. It is the combination that makes balancing of the ranger impossible right now.

The only solution to solve this problem is to make the pets stats depending on rangers stats. Which was suggested a lot in this thread, but you seam to ignore this.

Not a bad point. I’m still not in favor of simply buffing pet stats in line with Ranger stats, though.

OOHHHH, RIGHT, that was another thing:
I forgot that when I first proposed Ranger pet traits, I also proposed that once pets get said traits, their hp levels be reduced to pre March 2013 levels (when a lot of them were literally doubled).

Sarrs.4831:

Guardians are already one of three mandatory pieces in a WvW train (guardian, warrior, elementalist).

Let’s stop here for a second.

WvW is this game’s second form of PvP aside from sPvP. In WvW, players fight each other. However, unlike in sPvP, the numbers of players and the stats players achieve vary wildly compared to what one might find in even an sPvP hotjoin match. These variables completely throw off any attempt at all to properly balance any aspect of WvW.

Even though changes made from an sPvP perspective would flow over into WvW, it is for the best in every regard since there is no conceivable way to properly balance something from a WvW standpoint due to the inflated stats, the consumables, the number of players and the stability bathing that occurs in that game-mode. It makes no sense to ever balance from a WvW perspective.

Sarrs.4831:

This change would basically make it so that Guardians can easily add another ability into their repertoire which adds a whole bunch of healing onto those water blasts. They’re already a core part of a big group’s functions, and this would make them even moreso.

With that attitude, [Merciful Intervention] is just a dead skill then. Do you have a suggestion to make change it so it would work well in PvP without somehow further breaking the mess of a game-mode that is WvW? I guess I could go off and come up with some solutions of my own in the mean time.

Sarrs.4831:

Is the problem here the way Marks function, or the staff’s skillset? The staff is mostly doomed to spam Marks because that’s all it has to spam. If you want it to not spam Marks, change some of its abilities to not-Marks.

Then maybe I’ll do that. I still don’t see why that’s necessary, though, since it’s not like there are Marks elsewhere on Necromancer skill sets.

Sarrs.4831:

You’re already radically changing the functionality of, or outright deleting existing skills. Don’t see why this is any different.

Potentially compromising multiple weapon sets just because one weapon set has very poor combat flexibility is not a good decision. Loading up already functional Necromancer weapon sets with mark one-shots won’t add any new play-style dimension to the profession.

Sarrs.4831:

Also precludes the possibility of them adding new weapons.

Yes, true, but I’d rather ANet just invent new skill functionalities instead of reusing old ones. I’ve already made a new weapon set for the Engineer using new-to-players (but already implemented in the game) skill functionalities. Using entirely new skills and abilities is a better way to diversify the metagame. We don’t need old stuff with new names.

Sarrs.4831:

Not to try to be mean or anything, but I honestly doubt that they’ll try to rework the weapons instead of doing the absolute minimum and continuing on with expanding the game.

I understand, but I won’t stop until I help change this game for the better.

Sarrs.4831:

I dunno if Sword really needs to be changed; this change subjects it to a lot of rules. You can’t use it to blink past a fear wall or line of warding, the projectile will get reflected, etc etc.

Yes.

Sarrs.4831:

Also making 2-1 use Hip Shot’s projectile behavior would make it pierce I suppose which should be an expensive effect on a blind.

Actually, the goal was to make it not a piercing projectile. I would have said otherwise. It just needs the speed of [Hip Shot] to make it a fast blind.

Sarrs.4831:

Changing Line of Warding has very very serious implications for WvW.

sPvP is a far more balanced place from which to stand when making skill changes. All of these changes come from an sPvP stand-point.

Sarrs.4831:

Zealot’s Flame sounds really really cool because let’s face it RTL is a cool ability but I think that the burn->burning req might be a little redundant?

Could be. That thought had occurred to me long before I had decided to post this, but I liked the chain skill too much to give up on it. If anything, it makes the incoming launch attack even more cued, though, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing especially since it has a potentially long active time as a chain skill.

Sarrs.4831:

I’d personally be okay with a traited Zealot’s Flame just applying a gigantic pile of Burning and not having a chain skill.

Removing chain skills from the game only further narrows the offensive and defensive possibilities for a given weapon set. This game honestly could use more skills.

Sarrs.4831:

Not sure why we’re changing Cleansing Flame. IMHO guardians are in a good spot when it comes to how well they take conditions. My lazy suggestion if I’m allowed to (you’re overhauling the game why can’t I); turn it into a ground pulse that burns enemies and cleanses conditions on allies, a bit like a mix of Ele staff 2 and Ranger healing pond thing.

Having to aim a cone and track your teammates has a higher skill cap than quickly tapping the ground. Moreover the long channel associated with [Cleansing Flame] is another obstacle that a user must hurdle with proper timing and positioning so as to not be interrupted.

Sarrs.4831:

Changing Merciful Intervention like this will probably make guardians even more desired for WvW. As written, it doesn’t trigger combo fields, so it’ll make them even more mandatory for big fights.

Is that bad?

Sarrs.4831:

I don’t know about tomes because I’m not really that experienced with guardian and mostly talking out my kitten .

The biggest issue with Guardian Tomes is that it really pigeon-holes a Guardian’s ability with not really that much benefit. With something like Tornado, you can power up a Meteor Shower or other skills; with Lich Form, you just auto-attack everything to death; with Juggernaut, you can CC a single target into the dirt while inflicting heavy damage. Guardian Tomes have a super powered ability, but it’s balanced with a very long cast-time. In order to promote more useful and flexible application of potentially game-changing abilities, Guardian Tomes could be turned into another version of Engineer Utility Kits.

Sarrs.4831:

Identical in what sense?

Functionally identical. One of the biggest detriments of Necromancer staff is that it pigeon-holes itself into Mark spamming. There’s no other weapon set that does something like this in the game, and moreover, Marks don’t even really have that much of an impact on a fight over time. Depsite the fact that some of them inflict conditions, they’re all one-shots that a player just throws across the ground and hope people step on them. At it’s core, it’s hardly a combat-shaping mechanic and more importantly it’s a very poor design from a defensive standpoint. It would make much more sense to just design individual Marks around unique, potentially combat-changing abilities just as all weapon sets strive to do.

Sarrs.4831:

Just had a thought; Marks would be nicer if different weapons had them, like how Guardian symbols are spread across weapons. I really don’t care much for changing marks one way or another and I don’t care for changing the Staff, I don’t mind it being a Mark dispenser, but having marks be a more universal class mechanic and not exclusively tied to two traits and a stick might be nice.

I’ll disagree with you there. Doing something like that would require outright deleting already existing skills and shoehorning Marks into random spots in other weapon sets that wouldn’t necessarily benefit from such a change. The whole effort would come off as haphazard. The best solution to improving Necromancer Marks is to address the already existing marks and change their underwhelming, one-shot skill design into something that has a bigger impact on how a battle would develop over time.

Black Box.9312:

Flashing blade on sword is fine.

Instant, 600-range, direct-to-target movement doesn’t promote legible combat—especially on a 10-second or even an 8-second cool-down. I’ve preserved the clutch blind aspect of the skill to preserve its defensive capabilities. The only reason I didn’t touch [Judge’s Intervention] was because of its cool-down.

Black Box.9312:

What sword needs is to have the ability to move while casting zealot’s defense,

Rooting yourself with that skill adds a skill cap to it. Bad positioning can ruin that skill. That’s why it’s very well-made.

Black Box.9312:

and guardian in general needs more access to soft CC and mobility (when built for it, we don’t want to have another warrior on our hands).

The torch suggestions were to promote more mobility and CC. As for soft CC (I’m assuming you mean things like immobilize—which Guardian already has—cripple and chill), what did you have in mind? Where would you put it and in what amounts?

evilapprentice.6379:

Please somehow qualify and clarify this long list of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion fallacious “arguments”

Instant teleports, evasion while attacking, blind spam while attacking, very high damage with every attack, no cool-downs, very short—if non-existent—activation times do not combine to make a well-telegraphed profession play-style. That’s not up for debate.

I’m not saying that other professions don’t have access to these kinds of abilities, but the Thief is founded on them. The Thief is founded on the kinds of mechanics that undermine the fundamentals of acceptable, legible GW2 combat.

We don’t have monks to reduce obviously incoming damage or heal back damage that just pops up out of nowhere. If we had monks, Thieves might be OK. But since we have no monk, damage mitigation in GW2 is achieved by active dodging, positioning and/or timed blocking. However, the speed and spammable nature of Thief skills reduce most of this sort of counterplay to mere guesswork. Cool-downs are blown quickly to avoid the enormous incoming damage inflicted from every attack and soon the player is left defenseless while the thief still has plenty of initiative because of 30 into trickery, Signet of gain more initiative and Signet of regenerate extra initiative.

There’s nothing fallacious about saying that Thief is a poorly cued offensive class that breaks a lot of balance-related rules that govern GW2.

unleashed.8679:

Why should a third weapon set fix the pet?

It gives the Ranger more control over the pet.

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet misses a lot of hits

The Ranger now gets control over when the pet will use its skills.

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet will die fast in dungeons

The 4 and 5 skills will often be associated with quick repositioning, movement or evasion, giving the Ranger a means to mitigate damage on the pet in a high damage environment.

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem of balancing hybrid builds

That’s why pets should get traits.

kyubi.3620:

I personnaly think that the only thing that can make pet viable in pve and not so broken in pvp would be to scale their stat with the master own stats therefor preventing pet bunkers while doing the promotion of actual glass cannon and maybe even of the rampager specialisation. Fools think managing pets and summon is easy…

Managing most pets and summons are easy because there is almost literally nothing to manage. It’s not a matter of “Oh no, I should do something!” it’s a matter of “Oh, I guess I can’t do anything.” Pets are brain-dead easy to manage because they’re forced to be that way and they lack any basic customization (for good reason in some cases).

kyubi.3620:

An AI fix will only help pet in pvp it will in no case make them any more viable in pve.

An AI fix is a complicated thing. It would be easier (and more of an active solution in the end) to simply give the player more options to control a pet.

kyubi.3620:

Even if they did dodge the aoes theid still be useless damage wise.

Making pets immune to or actively avoid certain types of damage is entering “Thief Imbalance” territory (I’m a poorly made class/mechanic so I need evasion frames or other freebees in order to deal my damage). It’s not a good design.

kyubi.3620:

I do greatly aprove the increase in the control of the pet. However it will serve no purpose if the pet remains the harmless puppy it is at the moment… our pet NEED better damage. Aka pet stat scaling with master or an actual direct buff.

Pet’s don’t need direct damage buffs. Pet’s need traits and more intuitive player controls to ensure their survival and to customize how they contribute to a battle.

Radiance traits
Inner Fire (Radiance — IV)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Using your Virtue of Justice grants you and nearby allies fury.
• Fury: 2 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Cool-down: 20 seconds

Valor Traits
Glacial Heart (Valor — VIII)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• [Mighty Blow] now also creates a burst at the target location that chills adjacent foes.
• Chill: 4 seconds
• Chill radius: 180
• Cool-down: 15 seconds

Virtues traits
Elite Focus (Virtues – VII)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Increased the duration of Renewed Focus and removes the recharge on tome skills.
  • Renewed Focus duration increase: 50%
  • Tomes no longer have recharges when stowed.

TOME OF WRATH

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to 0 seconds (instant).
• Recharge reduced from 180 to 10 seconds. This skill goes into cool-down when the tome is stowed.
• No longer has a duration limit.
• No longer grants stat bonuses or boons upon activation.

[Conflagrate] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 10 seconds
• Burn foes at the target area.
• Delay: 2 seconds
• Damage: 386 (1.0)
• Burning: 4 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • A tongue of fire lingers above the target location before crashing down to inflict the damage and burning in the same manner as Elementalist [Ice Spike].

[Affliction] (2)

• Damage adjusted from 409 (current damage modifier?) to 244 (0.75)
• Recharge increased from 3 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Weakness duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
• Crippled duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

[Smiter’s Boon] (3)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2½ seconds
• Recharge: 40 seconds
• Channel a cone of empowering energy that damages foes while granting might and swiftness to allies.
• Damage (4x): 672 (2.0)
• Might (1 stack per pulse; 4 pulses total): 10 seconds
• Swiftness (4): 3 seconds
• Range: 400
  • [Cone of Cold] cone.
  • The Guardian also receives the boons listed in the skill’s description.

[Zealot’s Fervor] (4)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 5½ seconds
• Recharge: 210 seconds
• Channel a spell that grants fury and quickness to all allies in the area.
• Fury (5): 2 seconds
• Quickness (5): 1 second
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Maximum number of affected allies: 10
• Radius: 1200
  • This skill pulses its boons once each second.
  • Movement interrupts channeling.
  • This skill uses the Guardian as the focal point for the radius.
  • Upon activating this skill, the Guardian gains a debuff that makes him/her immune to gaining boons. This boon immunity debuff lasts 5 seconds and cannot be cleansed by condition removal skills.

[Judgment] (5)

• Recharge increased from 30 to 180 seconds.

Elite Skills
TOME OF COURAGE

• Cast-time reduced from 1 to 0 seconds (instant).
• Recharge reduced from 180 to 10 seconds. This skill goes into cool-down when the tome is stowed.
• No longer has a duration limit.
• No longer grants stat bonuses or boons upon activation.

[Heal Area] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Recharge: 30 seconds
• Create a spring of spiritual water at target location that heals allies.
• Healing (3x): 1320 (0.5)
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Combo Field: Water
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200

[Purifying Ribbon] (2)

• Cast-time reduced from ¾ second to ½ second.
• Recharge increased from 3 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Conditions cured on ally increased from 1 to 2.
• Blind duration increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Number of bounces adjusted from (current?) to 5.

[Protective Spirit] (3)

• FUCNTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 90 seconds
• Cast a protective spirit over target location that weakens foes while granting protection to allies. Protective Spirit heals allies whenever they are struck for critical damage.
• Weakness: 3 seconds
• Protection: 3 seconds
• Protective Spirit (3): 10 seconds
• Protective Spirit healing: 392 (0.5)
• Maximum number of allies affected: 10
• Maximum number of foes affected: 10
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • Allies affected by this skill gain 3 stacks of a unique buff called Protective Spirit. Each time an ally with the Protective Spirit buff is struck for critical damage, the buff reduces by 1 stack and heals the player for the described amount.

[Pacifism] (4)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2 seconds
• Recharge: 90 seconds
• Pacify foes at the target area, dazing them.
• Daze: 2 seconds
• Maximum number of foes affected: 10
• Radius: 300
• Range: 1200

[Light of Deliverance] (5)

• Recharge increased from 30 seconds to 180 seconds.

Sword skills
[Flashing Blade] (2-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 12 seconds
• Unleash a wave of light from your blade that blinds foes in front of you.
• Damage: 33 (0.2)
• Blind: 3 seconds
• Range: 600
  • This skill uses a Guardian [Wave of Wrath] hit-box for its attack.
  • This skill uses the Guardian [Wave of Wrath] attack animation.
  • This skill now chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Brilliant Leap].

[Brilliant Leap] (2-2)

• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Leap to target area, damaging foes when you land.
• Damage: 118 (0.4)
• Damage radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Leap
• Range: 600
  • This skill uses the Engineer [Jump Shot] attack animation.
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 5 seconds.

Torch skills
[Zealot’s Flame] (4-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Become a ball of flame and charge your foe, blasting and burning foes adjacent to your target
• Zealot’s Flame duration: 1 second
• Damage: 252 (0.75)
• Damage radius: 180
• Burning: 3 seconds
• Range: 600
  • This skill strikes up to 5 foes.
  • Using this skill puts you under the Zealot’s Flame effect for 1 second, during which you will move at a rate of 600 unites per second and cannot use skills. The effect ends early if you are knocked down, die, enter underwater or reach your target. This is identical to [Ride the Lightning].

[Zealot’s Fire] (4-2)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¾ second
• Recharge: 50 seconds
• Leap and smite foes at the target location. You launch burning foes that you strike. You gain regeneration and retaliation for each burning foe that you strike.
• Damage: 244 (1.0)
• Damage radius: 180
• Launch vs burning foes: 400
• Regeneration: 2 seconds
• Retaliation: 1 second
• Range: 600
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
  • This skill strikes up to 5 foes.
  • This skill uses the Warrior [Earthshaker] animation.
  • This skill creates a blue, human-sized Sigil of Fire proc animation when its attack lands.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Zealot’s Flame]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.

[Cleansing Flame] (5)

• Recharge increased from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
• This skill’s first and last pulses now each remove up to 1 condition respectively from the Guardian.

Meditation skills
[Merciful Intervention]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 45 seconds
• Teleport to target location. If there was another ally at that location, you create a healing field.
• Field healing (3x): 1890 (0.2)
• Field duration: 3 seconds
• Field radius: 180
• Combo Field: Light
• Range: 900

[Judge’s Intervention]

• This skill now uses ground-targeting.
• Damage reduced from 122 (?) to 101 (0.3).
• Range decreased from 1200 to 900.

Healing skills
[Healing Breeze]

• Recharge lowered from 40 to 25 seconds.
• Self-healing lowered from 6525 (1.0) to 4850 (1.0)
• The final channel pulse now removes up to 2 conditions from the Guardian and allies inside the cone.

Part 4 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.

GUARDIAN: ALMOST PERFECT 2
The Guardian is actually in a pretty good spot at the moment. The initial main goal of this thread is to address the issue of imbalanced gap-closers and bring some underused skills up to a more competitive level in order to promote more Guardian build diversity.

Hammer skills
[Mighty Blow]

• This skill now uses ground-targeting.

[Ring of Warding]

• This skill can now be used while moving.

Mace skills
[Faithful Strike]

• This skill now cleaves.

Shield skills
[Shield of Judgement]

• Recharge reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Cast-time increased from ½ second to 1 second.
• Now also inflicts a 50 range knock-back to affected foes.
• Now, for each foe struck by this skill, the Guardian gains 1 second of Retaliation.
• Protection now normalized to 3 seconds in both PvE and PvP.

[Shield of Absorption]

• Recharge reduced from 40 seconds to 35 seconds.
• This skill now counts as a blast finisher.

Staff skills
[Wave of Wrath]

• At 600 – 300 range, damage adjusted to: 134 (0.4)
• At 300 – 0 range, damage adjusted to: 222 (0.6)

unleashed.8679:

too complicated

Then enjoy your useless pet forever. It’s not even that complicated. Minimal skill additions and the swap-related mechanics are already in the game’s code.

unleashed.8679:

and wont fix anything.

It would give the Ranger more control over the pet. I don’t understand how that isn’t solving the “useless sack of meat at my side” problem.

ANet said that GW2 was a game that was supposed to be played by reading your opponent’s skill cues and then reacting or planning ahead appropriately in order to counter any incoming attacks.

And then they made the thief.

The Thief profession is a lie incarnate that shouldn’t even belong in the game. It really would be simpler to just delete the Thief from the game rather than attempt to properly balance it because of the sheer amount of effort that it would require to address the many rules that it breaks with regards to balanced combat in GW2 without COMPLETELY changing the profession.

I’ll open it up to anyone here:

I think that Necromancer marks fall short of something truly interesting because they are all identical. I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to make the marks into different things. We have suggestions for bringing back something like the old Mark of Pain (something that we could do with the current game mechanics) among others. I’m also working on a few chain skills for marks to provide more utility (possibly mobility) to the Necromancer while using staff.

Mbelch.9028:

Swagg, read through everything here. You’re not in touch with elementalist as it is now, and you’re suggesting a new elementalist all together. It won’t work.

People keep saying that. Truth be told, the only things that are truly game-changing are the scepter changes and maybe the updraft change.

Mbelch.9028:

Operate within the confines with which we have now, and you’ll receive better comments, and your ideas won’t seem so whacky.

I heard Phantaram put it rather well a little while ago with regards to “the elementalist confines” (I’ll paraphrase): the Elementalist is in a dangerous spot in which certain buffs or nerfs to anything would completely throw off the entire class.

Mbelch.9028:

At that, you’re giving a boat load of our skills cast times, ect. where they don’t need them. Mist form doesn’t need a damaging attack at the end..

You don’t damage someone with a chill-inflicting skill with a 61 base damage attack and a 0.2 damage coefficient; you make escapes with it. The [Mist Form] change is about giving the Elementalist more survivability by giving it some more in-combat mobility.

Mbelch.9028:

The change to cleansing fire is poor at best. Easily interruptible, and it’ll go unused just like ether renewal does for any D/D ele with a brain (in WvW).

Sure, but ether renewal doesn’t cure conditions on allies or knock back enemies. Having a knock-back and AoE condition removal that requires investment opens up the door to really neat plays for the Elementalist.

Mbelch.9028:

Lastly, I’ll end on the thing everybody is criticizing. The burning speed evasion. It is necessary, the skill already should have had it (continuity with burning retreat) and it gives D/D ele (such a fragile thing) a bit of an opener that can’t be stopped by a randomly swinging hammer warrior.

I’ll refer you back to what I’ve said below my [Burning Speed] comment. Truth be told, giving an offensive attack evasion frames is a DANGEROUS slope. It’s the reason why Thief is so stupid. ANet quickly realized that the Thief was a worthless profession because it couldn’t do anything without dying repeatedly, so, instead of actually designing a worthwhile profession that has a unique function or flavor on the battlefield, they just gave it huge damage, blind spam and evasion frames everywhere to make sure that it hit everything without instantly dying. It’s not a good paradigm. Giving [Burning Speed] evasion frames is step 1 on the way to making Elementalist into Thief 2.0 (as if scepter/arcane burst isn’t already that).

Mbelch.9028:

Best of luck,

Thanks.

Mbelch.9028:

P.S. Where the heck do you get the idea of changing nothing about Dragon’s Tooth but the base damage by a few points of damage? Please explain.

Being able to aim [Dragon’s Tooth] would be an enormous game-changer, the magnitude of which I don’t think that anyone truly comprehends. Because of that factor, having a targeted, 4-6k, 180-radius AoE damage bomb appear on the field once every 6—or even 4 3/4—seconds that also inflicts a hefty duration of burning is a scary thought from a balance perspective.

Actually, now that I had time to post in this thread I had an idea for better pet control (whether or not its taken seriously by anyone is another thing):

F2 SKILL FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
Pressing the F2 skill will now change the Ranger’s current weapon skills.

• Skills 1-3: Current pet skills (both the current active F2 and the other two skills that the pet will use at its own leisure).
• Skill 4: Unique pet-based attack/maneuver/combo attack based on the main-hand weapon.
• Skill 5: Unique pet-based attack/maneuver/combo attack based on the off-hand weapon.
• A two-handed weapon will provide both a 4 and a 5 skill for the F2 weapon skill set.
• Swapping back and forth between current weapon set and the F2 weapon skill set will function the same as swapping between Engineer Utility Kits.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I think I’m going to be sick… I play a Ranger because it requires more effort than other professions. You don’t hammer spam-stun to win, stealth-dodge-spam to win or condition dump and immunity to win.

Not necessarily. Due to the nature of ranger skills, a player can snowball them very quickly against an opponent because there typically aren’t any well-telegraphed individual skills outside of a select fuew.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

You actually have to utilize your abilities at certain time intervals and handle your weapons with care rather than facerolling the keyboard.

You must not use spirits, or shortbow, or axe, or off-hand dagger, or—look, this is the issue: having multiple instances of entire weapon sets composed of attack skills that have 1/4 or less cast-times is an awful paradigm. Being able to throw all of those abilities off willynilly whenever the player sees fit makes calculated counterplay all but impossible. It’s bad design for what GW2 is at its core: a game without healers to counter spam and a game in which active dodging and positioning are supposed to circumvent the issue of not having dedicated healers. If we ruin the possibility of clutch damage mitigation via dodges, positioning or single blocks, then the entire combat paradigm is ruined. That’s what I’m fixing here.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Please don’t suggest in any way shape or form that Rangers need a nerf. Suggesting that our weapons need a longer cooldown puts us from weakest profession to non-playable. At least in our current state I can still win fights if I play my cards right. Reducing ANYTHING of ours is like cutting that last thread we’re holding on by.

I already said that I’m going to adjust the damage on some of those skills. The goal is to turn Ranger into a better cued, but still hard-hitting profession instead of the ranged stream-of-spam profession that it mostly is now.

This isn’t exactly a nerf since there are a lot of functionality changes. It’s a paradigm shift in how the profession plays to a legible combat style that allows better clutch counterplay.

Engineer template 1

• http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-V70;2cPkq0f63Ukw0;9;49J-JJ4;005;205-57-U;5sV2DsV2D5V

Elementalist template 1

• http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kZ;3BJVV0v4-NFZ0;9;4TJ;0J56A58;514-U;5sV2DsV2D5S

Penguin.5197:

I think you should try posting a video so we can see how it goes. If we can tell what’s happening and its not just a cluster of aoe and minions everywhere it can have potential.

I wish that I could, but I don’t have any video capture program nor a video card that has any innate video capture capabilities. In short, I play on a toaster. If you had any suggestions for a recording program, though, I’d hear you out.

Serious about fun.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

I do think that the version of your lightning strike should be 1/2 second delay as opposed to the full second, mostly because of the extra delay it will already receive by way of ground targeting.

Actually, if you—and anyone else in the thread—want to go see something really neat, head to Orr. I’m not sure which NPC enemy it is exactly (it’s a wizard/spellcaster of some sort), but there’s an enemy risen spellcaster that casts a delayed AoE version of scepter air 2 [Lightning Strike]. It’s actually beautifully made. The delay isn’t terribly long, but it’s long enough that you can dodge it with good timing. I should go back there and find the NPC again, get hit by it and then get the name of that skill in the damage log. That’s what we need [Lightning Strike] to be.

P Fun Daddy.1208:

EDIT: something terrible happened to the quote.

Yeah, that was pretty horrifying. I think that that happens when you try quoting two quotes at the same time.

Axialbloom.8109:

For some reason he made every single ele ability like that…

It’s going to be a learn to play issue. It won’t be at all impossible, but it would require a little practice—unlike most things in this game.

Axialbloom.8109:

There is already too much dodging in this game,

Trait-related vigor nerfs are coming. Sigil of Energy is pretty crazy, though ESPECIALLY now that you can just get one for free on two-handed weapons. That might be something to think about.

Axialbloom.8109:

and half the abilities you altered can just be walked out of, yet require a target.

AoE’s don’t require a target. They can even circumvent line of sight if you play it right. As for worrying about enemies walking out of a delayed AoE, then DON’T cast it on top of them. It’s a learned finesse to be able to lead a target with a delayed AoE attack. Plan ahead. Use your friends as help if need be.

That said, once again, I think that my current suggestion for [Lightning Strike] is a little too unforgiving. I think it’d be best to tweak the damage and then give it a 150 radius AoE. If I was still managing to hit people with the first tick of an untraited [Lava Font] in pvp, a 150 radius AoE would be very viable, would raise the skill cap of elementalist and also provide scepter with some additional AoE.

Axialbloom.8109:

Also, there are these things called lag, and Anet’s horrible rubberbanding code.

There is that, but I won’t consider “lag” or “rubberbanding” as something to consider when balancing. Although it exists, one can’t just factor in random variables into the balancing process; one needs a clean slate.

BlackDevil.9268:

Im curious if you gonna do one about mesmers actually ^^.

I have a few things planned by it’s by NO MEANS as extensive as these first three threads. These first three are probably going to be the only big ones. Warrior might get a little long—OH WAIT, no, Thief will be really long too. Man, that class is an absolute mess.

Well, I did have an idea on how to make phantasms something a little more complex than just “press button, receive damage,” but it’s another one of those fantasy-tier suggestions that I fear would be incredibly off-the-wall.

In any case, Mesmer is actually also in a tight spot with its playstyle. It’s a very time-starved class (aside from PU) with little sustain or CC in most set-ups. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about Mesmer, though. Once I make the thread, I’d be happy to receive input.

Shockwave.1230:

swagg I can appreciate the goal you’re trying to achieve here

one crucial thing that’s left out is that simultaneously these types of changes would have to be made to every single other class out there

That’s why these threads are part of a series. So far we’re at 3/8.

After practicing with untraited lava font for some time in pvp, I have discovered that landing a 1-second delay 120 radius AoE is indeed doable, but still pretty difficult. I’m not saying that it isn’t impossible, but it’s difficult enough to warrant a bump to 150.

Axialbloom.8109:

Why did you make everything the ele has counterable by moving or dodging?

Axialbloom.8109:

Why did you make [insert anything here] counterable by moving or dodging?

Why would you ever say that? You don’t want to see offensive abilities evaded by clutch dodges, blocks or positioning?

Besides, it’s very possible to strike a moving target with a 1-second delayed 120 radius AoE (since that’s probably everyone’s primary worry). It just takes practice. Changes like these would promote a higher skill cap for the Elementalist, and, no, pressing a lot of buttons very quickly doesn’t necessarily denote a high level of skill.

Even so, maybe lowering it to a 3/4-second delay would be best. I wonder if that’s possible.

Brutal Arts.6307:

As soon as the words “godkitten pistolwhip” or “pistolwhipwars2” come out of your mouth I start recording.

Oh, lovely. Glad to know that I’m putting on a show.

Brutal Arts.6307:

Also stop making these threads.

Nope.

MarzAttakz.9608:

I’m going to say what I said in your Necro thread Swagg, you’re further crippling a class that’s already crippled by delayed skills. Until hard CC lasts longer than the multiple delays you’re proposing you’re flogging a dead horse.

Again 10/10 for effort though!

The only thing that cripples the Elementalist is bad operators.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

He has a vision. In this vision eles are nearly perfect and warrs nerfed to the ground.

“Almost perfect” does come off strong, but the main points to take away from the title and the first paragraph is that Elementalist has some of the most well-balanced individual skills in the game and we should be using those as models for balancing other skills.