Guild Wars 2

JohnnyZero.5619:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I have an experiment for you guys. I suspect that a large part of what people have an issue with is the fire and air procs. Honestly, I can handle rapid fire. It’s easy to see, it’s obvious when they do it. But the auto attacks. WOW they hurt.

So try playing power ranger (6/6/2/0/0) without using fire and air. If you try it, tell me if you feel a difference. I might try that tonight and see what happens.

Fire and air procs are not exclusive to longbow rangers though. Every zerker build uses them, and they still play second fiddle to the celestial, sustain meta. Are you insinuating that fire/air sigils might be a problem?

This thread as been about the discrepancy between the advertised 1500 range of longbow Rangers and the actual range. This post seems a bit out of left field.

A bit, I apologize. I really just want to get a feeling for what players are annoyed by with Power Rangers. Range definitely seems like a major issue, but if the damage wasn’t so high, would they still be annoyed by it? That’s all I was trying to get at.

PvP Specialist here

Few questions about this:

1. How often do you swap from your main class to the class daily to get the AP?
2. Do you enjoy the encouragement to try another class?
3. If you were to change this daily, what would you want it to be changed to instead?

I have an experiment for you guys. I suspect that a large part of what people have an issue with is the fire and air procs. Honestly, I can handle rapid fire. It’s easy to see, it’s obvious when they do it. But the auto attacks. WOW they hurt.

So try playing power ranger (6/6/2/0/0) without using fire and air. If you try it, tell me if you feel a difference. I might try that tonight and see what happens.

PvP Forum Specialist here

Few questions about this:

PvP Forum Specialist here

Few questions about this build:

PvP Specialist here.

I had a few questions about this topic:

I also wanted to outline a few facts about turrets just so everyone understands them:

Exedore.6320:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

When it comes to agreement, engineer has a few skills that everyone pretty much unanimously thinks is OP (Overcharged Shot, Slick Shoes, Gear Block). Even warrior, players can mostly agree that war banner is a very strong skill.

Be careful with the forums. People will say something is OP because it’s the most noticeable ability when they died; not because it’s how they died or what’s too strong.

• Incendiary Powder is too strong because you can’t avoid being hit by it and because it’s difficult to remove with lots of cover conditions. The trait should be completely reworked, but for now, a duration reduction would help a lot
• Slick Shoes is too strong and frustrates players because it’s too easy to knock them down multiple times. However, I would argue that Slick Shoes should retain the ability to knock down twice, but only with good planning.
• Overcharged Shot should be left alone for now. It has no tell for its use, but you can reasonably predict it and it self-CC’s. Unless the engineer uses a stun break, of which they have few, they aren’t going to be able to unleash a ton of damage onto you. You have to anticipate it coming and use blocks, blinds, stability, stun breaks, etc appropriately. It’s not like the old Pin Down (warrior longbow #5) with a 0.25sec cast time and 3sec immob. Fix the first two things before you change this. Overcharged shot doubles as an interrupt and defense against glass cannon melee and adding a cast time breaks that.

1. What skills can both sides of this argument agree on are too strong and COULD be shaved for elementalist? I highly doubt a massive nerf to celestial elementalists is going to happen, so what can we agree is OP or lacks counterplay for elementalist?

There’s no consensus because there’s no agreement about what d/d ele’s strenths and weaknesses should be. Is its sustain too strong and damage okay? Or is the damage too strong, but sustain good? Is the group utility right or is it too much? Should it be weaker in 1v1, team fights, or both? All of the above? I haven’t seen a consistent answer about where d/d celestial ele should fit.

Bout to quote the crap out of this in my report. Exactly what I’ve gathered from all of this debate.

When it comes to agreement, engineer has a few skills that everyone pretty much unanimously thinks is OP (Overcharged Shot, Slick Shoes, Gear Block). Even warrior, players can mostly agree that war banner is a very strong skill.

1. What skills can both sides of this argument agree on are too strong and COULD be shaved for elementalist? I highly doubt a massive nerf to celestial elementalists is going to happen, so what can we agree is OP or lacks counterplay for elementalist?

While that is a lot of CC, CC is kind of the thing of engineers. That’s like faulting the thief for having too much stealth. If you want to say the CC is too hard to counter, that’s a different argument all together.

Is the problem really that it has so much CC? Slick Shoes is a little bit much, but warrior hammer has just as much CC. The difference is that Overcharged Shot is instant and all of the warrior skills have obvious animations. These difficult to counter skills need to be more counterable. The sustain on ele and the CC on engi are very difficult to counter because they’re extremely quick or instant.

Arken.3725:

Their main draw is condition dmg(a bit more physical for cele engie). The amount of sustained dmg coupled with their ability to sustain themselves is what’s the issue. Not a lot of these skills are easily avoidable(Overcharged shot being 1). Hell, even though a lot of the Elementalist’s skills are easy to avoid, there’s only so much you can dodge, you’re going to eat something.

Edit: Still baffles me, after 5 pages of discussion and repeated arguments that some still don’t see the issue’s with the two classes mentioned. Either it’s extreme bias for those who play them or pure ignorance.

Engi definitely has some very hard abilities to avoid (possible, but super super hard). I’m talking pretty much exclusively about ele in this case though. Dodging isn’t the only way to avoid damage. Every build has other methods of shutting down ele damage. Even if you do eat something, it’s not the end of the world.

Since the nerf, there hasn’t really been a moment for me where I went “WOW that damage” from an ele. Maybe engineer, but they’re speccing into it. Not surprising.

After discussing celestial meta for the past few days, I could use a topic that has 100% agreement to ease my mind. Who likes this? xD

jportell.2197:

That’s just it tho. They aren’t “good” at alot of stuff. They are “great” at everything.

Define great. Their burst/DPS is much lower than the vast majority of DPSers in the game. I really only see their sustain/support/mobility being really strong. Their DPS can be pretty easily handled, while their sustain is what is difficult to counter (instant and lots of condi removal for poison/chilled). Their mobility is pretty crazy too with FGS/RTL/LF. Fire Magic accounts for the vast majority of the damage output of DD eles, all of which can definitely be handled. Even with just healing turret, you can simply clear the burning/poison if you mess up a dodge or get locked down. I’m having trouble accepting the argument that the damage on cele ele is too much to handle.

jportell.2197:

I think that the DPS role being filled by celestial engineers is still a problem. Because, these guys put out great DPS and still being extremely tanky. Now the defensive portions of celestial should not be nerfed. The offensive portions should. Once the offensive portions are nerfed, THEN these guys support/defensive role will no longer match bunkers.

It seems like you’re suggesting the concept of the celestial player (good at a lot of stuff, but not great) shouldn’t exist. If the damage on celestial ele is nerfed, then it’s just another bunker.

The discussion seems to be hitting on a big point here:

Bunkers are not used much anymore.

So here’s my questions now:

1. Is this because Cele is too strong or because bunkers are too weak?
2. If bunkers are too weak, should the support be buffed so that Cele Ele doesn’t creep on it?
3. If cele is too strong, what part of it is too strong? Should the defense go down and the support remain just as strong? Should the defense stay the same and the support potential go down? Is it the damage?
   1. On this note, would it help if some of the support that eles have be other ally only? For example, Cleansing Wave only removing conditions from allies or the healing on certain skills being less effective on the ele, but more effective on allies? Please take this as a concept, not a specific suggestion.
4. The DPS role is taken up by pure DPS players still. While you don’t see mesmer/thief/ranger/guardian/necro as a DPS role as often as Cele Engi, you still see it plenty. That said, we sort of scoff at bunker guardians currently.
   1. Is this because the pure DPSers have a niche or because they excel at DPS enough that they overtake the cele engi role? For example, mesmer has an AMAZING burst, but they also have portal (their niche). If mesmer didn’t have portal, would you still take it? What about thief without stealth or power ranger without entangle?
   2. Do bunker roles need this niche (Some special skill that cannot be matched by other builds) or an increase in their ability to support allies (more heals/condi clears/boons)?

jportell.2197:

There is nothing that anyone can say that is going to convince myself and apparently several other players, that these specs are not gamebreakingly overpowered.

Hyperbole doesn’t make your argument stronger. Are they popular? Of course. Are they great S tier builds? Yes. Are they “gamebreakingly overpowered” like the condi necro was when the dhuumfire patch hit or 100 nades? Not at all.

Numbers and solid reasoning will prove your point. Caps lock will not.

To everyone, I highly suggest you try out all of these builds in question. If you have not given them a real good shot, it’s very hard to talk intelligently about the build. Some players have asked for nerfs on skills that aren’t even used on standard D/D builds or skills that are generally considered fine. You might find that these builds aren’t broken when you play them.

Random Weird Guy.3528:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Updraft – 1/2s cast time so you can’t Lightning Flash into Updraft to force a stun breaker.

Only if they do the same thing to overcharged shot, death shroud 3 and nightmare proc.

I’m more than okay with this. Although Necro deserves a present for losing Doom because they really don’t have much else.

Supreme.3164:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I’ve been discussing this build with a few people and wanted to know if people thought this was enough:

1. Ring of Earth – Animation to show that the projectile blocking is in effect.
2. Updraft – 1/2s cast time so you can’t Lightning Flash into Updraft to force a stun breaker.

Otherwise, this build feels pretty balanced to me now. The damage isn’t scary. It’s pretty good pressure, but it’s something I think you earn. The support is strong, but that’s kind of the ele niche in this build. They invested heavily into water so they got a lot of support from it.

Those changes would be more than enough at high levels, which you know it’s clearly not the case on the forums.

A good player facing an ele that use LF and updraft in combo, knows that the ele has just used two high CD skills and the combo can be easily negated:

-You can blind the ele attempting burning speed
-You can block, waiting ofc to be updrafted and negate the upcoming burning speed

Many way to negate the combo without using a single stun breaker, all in all those suggestions are not clearly enough for the type of audience you get on the forums

Standard engineer builds don’t have a good way of doing this without stun breaking. Same with warrior. Thief would have to blow steal.

I’ve been discussing this build with a few people and wanted to know if people thought this was enough:

1. Ring of Earth – Animation to show that the projectile blocking is in effect.
2. Updraft – 1/2s cast time so you can’t Lightning Flash into Updraft to force a stun breaker.

Otherwise, this build feels pretty balanced to me now. The damage isn’t scary. It’s pretty good pressure, but it’s something I think you earn. The support is strong, but that’s kind of the ele niche in this build. They invested heavily into water so they got a lot of support from it.

PopeUrban.2578:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

Simon.3794:

and people saying on crit sigils should be brought down, i mean, it’s not the sigils.
it’s thief and mesmers…

just like it’s not might.
it’s engis and eles

I say just add more on-hit sigils than changing the crit ones. More variety is better and it gives a unique value to precision. (and fury)

Precision and fury already have a unique value in the form of on crit traits and greater DPS. Those are far easier to balance as they sit in a more controlled design space, where as sigils do not. Those sigils don’t add variety at all, and in fact they actively decrease variety by requiring builds that want to utilize them to emphasize critical hits in ways that may not be internally consistant with their class design simply to be able to use a crucial sigil.

Contrast this with all other sigils, which are universally applicable regardless of build. Sure, you might not want to put a + bleed duration sigil on a build without bleeds, but your build does not directly control the access to the sigil’s effects. Crit sigils require, rather than incentivize over-reliance on a particular stat setup because of the double-rolling nature of first having to crit, and then having to roll the dice on the sigil, making them completely unreliable and unusable unless your build includes an inordinately high amount of crit chance.

An on hit sigil is universally accessible to all builds, despite not being overly useful to some and an on-crit sigil is not. In a combat system which prizes active defenses and a lack of passive defenses, and a lack of randomness influencing the outcome of battles, crit sigils are design anomalies that work against rather than in favor of the overall design of the combat system, and the potential for build variety.

This is interesting. Let’s take an example though. Let’s say Sigil of Fire was turned into an on hit sigil. It would need to be nerfed in some way to allow for this extra power (less dice rolling):

1. Reduce the damage
2. Increase the recharge
3. Reduce the chance to proc.

I definitely don’t like #3 or #1, so #2 sounds like the most viable version.

1. If it went to like 10-15 seconds, do you think it’d still be taken?
2. Would it break anything to let basically any build regardless of crit chance take a fire sigil?
3. What about other crit sigils like nullification, generosity or blood? I could see nullification or generosity being pretty good on some builds. Especially Purity + Generosity on a support/bunker build. Even maybe just the defensive set of an offensive build.

The design of the elementalist is that they are weak in the defense department but make up for it in the ability to be good at pretty much whatever they want. If they gained medium health or armor, every single skill would have to be redesigned for elementalist. I’m not even sure if that’s possible.

xDudisx.5914:

1) Burning speed: it is an evade, fire field, does high dmg and burns. Has a low cd.
2) Ring of fire: the cooldown is too low
3) Shocking aura: too low cd for a cc that is so easy to land. Maybe change from stun to daze or increase the cd to 30-35
4) Magnetic grasp: any reason for this to be unblockable?
5)Fire grab: reduce the dmg when enemy is burning and increase the normal base dmg. Could also reduce the cooldown but reduce the dmg.
6) Lightning whip dmg could be reduced a little bit.

I agree with you on magnetic grasp, but I think the other skills are pretty easily avoided. Burning speed is very easy to dodge and walking through ring of fire is your choice. Shocking Aura is strong, but I think it’s a needed defense for eles vs thieves (which pretty readily destroy them). Overall, the damage from elementalist is coming from Drake’s Breath, which got a pretty fair nerf. Fire Grab and Lightning Whip are pretty weak in comparison.

The sustain on ele is a bit strong, but I mean…They did invest ALL of their traits into it. I think they deserve it.

Booms.3952:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

1. Overall, most PvPers seem to like this change conceptually, but worry about the number of stacks chosen for each skill.

Don’t know who you’re talking to. I dont care what hot joiners think about this change. Literally every single person Ive talked to at the high end of pvp (the ones that actually get rewards) don’t like this change. Doesn’t matter if they play a class that has stability or boonstrip or lots of ccs, they think its a worthless change. Stability is already an underused boon. There’s absolutely no reason to change it unless theyre nerfing the CRAP out of cc’s once the change goes through.

Stability is a bit hard to access with a meta build, but I hardly think it’s a bad boon. Just because something isn’t in the meta right now doesn’t mean that the play to it is unfair. The reason they want to change it is that some classes have no good ways of removing boons so they’re just stuck with their main form of defense (CC) being worthless.

Anecdotal stories of other players opinions don’t help me very much. Facts, fair arguments and numbers help me a lot.

It seems like you have the same worries as other players: The CC stacks being too low. Let’s say the Stability stacks were 25 stacks baseline for everything. Would you worry about this change then? Hell no. If they were all 1 stacks, would you worry? Of course. Somewhere in there is a middle ground where it’s just enough that small stabilities can be useful and large stabilities can be strong enough to get stomps and reses off.

Some CCs could use a bit of a warm up time (updraft/overcharged shot), but from reading this thread it seems like the number of CCs on classes that would utilize this change (not thief/mesmer) is low enough that the risk/cost is enough that this change will only marginally help them against smaller stabilities.

From reading this thread, I’m getting that:

1. Doom is in a fair place. It’s the meta that makes it strong.
2. Fire and Air are too strong, but some think that some builds need it to stay viable (S/D Thief)
   1. Is this really true? It’s easy to test this. Someone who plays S/D thief, try running with some other sigil besides fire/air or air/blood.
3. Energy is in a decent place when on classes that need it, but a bit much on builds that take it for crazy amounts of defense.

Any disagreement here?

I find that Elementalist is actually in a decent spot now that Drake’s Breath is a bit weaker and lightning whip is a bit cleaner. I also find that overall Engineer, while a bit OP, is pretty close to where it should be.

1. For Ele, What specific skills do you feel are OP?
2. For Engineer, What specific skills do you feel are OP?

For me, I think this would be what I’d change on engineer:

1. Overcharged Shot – Increase cast time to 1/2 with a warm up animation.
   1. Dodging this purposely isn’t impossible, but it takes a lot of knowledge to pull it off. You have to know how the enemy plays, the tricks they pull, the tells they give…even with all of that it can be tricky to get right. A 1/2 cast time allows you enough time to actively dodge it if you anticipated the shot, but not enough time if you didn’t see it coming.
2. Slick Shoes – Decrease puddle duration from 3s to 2s.
   1. The lockdown on this is just a bit too long. My fights against engineers with this basically boils down to going ham if I have Elixir S up or retreating if I don’t. With a shorter puddle duration, the effect of using my elixir S will be not as deadly. It also requires that the engineer is doing an effective circle around you, not just running over your face because you’ll be able to get away.
3. Gear Shield – Increase recharge from 20s to 25s.
   1. Whenever I fight engineers, it feels like gear shield is ALWAYS off cooldown. I don’t take power wrench, and 20s is more than a generous recharge time.

These changes stem from my fights against engis where I have to avoid two extremely deadly CCs (Overcharged Shot and Slick Shoes) which are instant activation. Granted they’re melee range, but engineer has plenty of tools to get them off. They also chain amazingly well together. Also I think a slightly longer recharge on gear shield will get rid of the feeling that gear shield is seemingly ALWAYS off recharge. Engi vs Engi, overcharged shot and gear shield are almost the same recharge (16 and 15)

What do you think of those changes?

Gorni.1764:

Will these stacks vanish after a certain amount of time or will they last until they’re used? And if yes – how long will they stay? Just imagine CC-spells with long CDs … until now you could/had to wait until stability ended and then apply your CC. As it will be now you can basically never CC your opponent with those long CDs (looking at this revenant trait that gives stability on dodge roll or the ele-trait that grants stability when attuning to earth, etc. ).

Stacks will have a duration. The duration and number of stacks will be determined by the cost of the skill (cooldown, cast time, positional requirements etc etc). There are no specifics just yet, which is where I think much of the debate comes in on this. That said, it seems like most players are for this conceptually (it grants more counterplay), but worry about the stacks being too little and allowing for the already very strong CC to become even more powerful.

Exedore.6320:

Chaith.8256:

Doom is most effective against Eles/Wars/Engineers who have stacked multiple sources of sustain (traits, regen, highly effective healing abilities).

Shaving Doom […] would probably only solidify the status quo more.

But the most prominent users of Sigil of Doom are those same high sustain builds; not the alternate builds, most of which are DPS builds, or other sustain builds outside the meta.

If Sigil of Doom was so crucial to keeping celestial builds in check, wouldn’t we see it being used more by lots of players?

Just taking a look at meta builds:

1. Engineer generally takes it, or intelligence. This is regardless of build besides 100 mines and turret builds.
2. Elementalist takes it.
3. Warrior takes it.
4. Mesmer takes it (generally on staff)
5. Thief doesn’t normally take it, but they always have shortbow’s choking gas, steal and dagger auto attacks.
6. Ranger sometimes takes it, but they also have poison on condi builds.
7. Guardian doesn’t generally take it
8. Necromancer doesn’t usually take it, but they have poison.

So really everyone takes it who doesn’t have a lot of poison in their build.

Arken.3725:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

style.6173:

Wow. There are actually people who still don’t get that cele is over powered?

I’m watching this thread to give feedback to the development team. What exactly about it do you think is OP? What don’t you like about it?

Very kind of you to keep tabs on threads such as these. I honestly don’t believe Celestial is the main culprit here. Does it contribute? Absolutely.

By celestial, do you mean the amulet or the build type? Also, what do you think the main culprit is?

MarkPhilips.5169:

HoT is an expansion, it’s the perfect time to do this move because a lot of people will come back and a lot of new players will buy the expansion and the game. It’s time to not make the same mistake anet did 3 years ago, basically launching the spvp side with a really poor structure.
Now the game is more mature, better rewards, better structure and finally 3 game modes. It’s the right time to let this game to grow. With separate queues anet will have better data to understand favourite players game mode, and release more different maps (not only conquest) if people like the game mode.

Let’s say it doesn’t though. The hype train from an expansion will only exist for so long and as we’ve seen, there have been periods of little change where numbers might be dropping off. If this does cause slower queue times, do you think it’s still worth it?

Kicast.1459:

What will now happen with 10 hammer wars jumping on the ranges with f1 ?
…it will just be game over

Remember that you’re in the PvP forums, not WvW.

style.6173:

Wow. There are actually people who still don’t get that cele is over powered?

I’m watching this thread to give feedback to the development team. What exactly about it do you think is OP? What don’t you like about it?

Arken.3725:

The issue (once again), isn’t the amulet but the professions themselves. Give a look-over the traits/skills utilized by Ele’s/Engie’s. Celestial amulet just accentuates the issue, it isn’t the cause.

Generally the idea behind the word celestial is more about how it plays, rather than the amulet itself. If I was to rephrase it, celestial bruiser builds? Aka, builds that are pretty good at everything, but not a specialist like bunkers, bursters or supporters.

TheFamster.7806:

Have you watched the old matches before the celestial meta? Do you know how boring it was? It was about bunker guardians, spirit rangers and hambow warriors and everyone fighting for one node while each kept their home nodes, and with constant insta rez as well as super tankiness that made the game look really boring. Basically there were only 5 professions (guardian, warrior, ranger, mesmer and thief) and extreme zerg control.
I’d watch fight spread evenly across the node, where the rotation becomes extremely important as well as individual skills to 1v1/2v2 constantly while calculating the respawn timers instead of winning a one combat that lasts 1/3 of the match length which ultimately decides which team wins the game.

This is exactly what I came to this thread to ask about.

If we look at old metas, we have:

1. Bunker (2-3 Bunkers, 2-3 Burst)
2. Warrior (Guardian Bunker, 2-3 warriors, thief and other)
3. Decap (Decap engi, 2 bunkers, 2 DPS)
4. Berserker (Looooong time ago. Lots of DPS)

Now we have the celestial meta.

1. Do you guys prefer this meta to past metas?
2. If you could rebalance the game so ALL of these comps were viable, would you? Do you want to face meta viable Decap/bunker/berserker teams?
3. One thing lost on the celestial meta is rotating the right players to the right locations. While it is definitely still there, it’s not as important as the days were necros were chasing down engineers and guardians had to be in the team fights. Do you like this about the celestial meta? Do you prefer the rotational requirements of other metas or the mechanical requirements of the celestial meta?
4. Generally celestial comps take 2-4 celestial players and the rest are sort of open depending on how defensive/offensive you want your team to be. Do you want celestial builds for all classes so that the role that elementalist/engineer/warrior fill right now could be filled by any class?

Any other comments on these new conditions/boons/CCs?

PvP Specialist Here

It seems like the idea from this thread is this:

1. Doom is strong because celestial is the meta. It’s a necessary evil to counter those builds.
2. Energy is another necessary evil to make up for a lack of defense in certain classes (Mesmer, necromancer mostly)
3. Fire and Air is mostly seen as too much.

Is that about right?

I have some other questions about this topic:

1. It’s hard to bring up Doom without also bringing up celestial. If celestial wasn’t the meta and instead we were back to an old meta (Two bunkers, 3 DPS or maybe the Decap meta), do you think we’d still be calling this sigil OP?
2. Let’s say Air was changed to be 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5s, thus removing this combo. Do you think any builds in particular would no longer be viable? Try to ignore what my example for Air is here. Assume that air would be balanced, but still deal no damage.
3. Energy sigil is fairly uncommon now I’ve found. In the past with builds like the Decap engineer or Bunker Guardian, it was very strong and downright annoying. We’ve now sort of stepped away from that bunker meta and only glassy classes take it (Shatter mesmer, S/D thief). Do you think this is the same case as the Doom sigil in that it’s only seen as underpowered because the meta has shifted this way?

PvP Forum Specialist here.

I want to test the waters on this issue a bit. Here’s a few scenarios. Keep in mind, I have no idea what they’re actually working on. I only tell them what you’re saying:

1. Is the issue that it’s too hard to change a team comp for this map? If that’s the case, would it be enough to implement build templates to solve this issue?
2. Is the issue that you truly only want to play this mode?
3. Let’s say they did put a separate queue (In that you’d select unranked/ranked and it would ask do you want to play Conquest or Stronghold). Would you want Stronghold to be in both unranked and ranked queue based on what you’ve heard?
4. Would you be okay with TDM maps being in this separate queue? I’ve always found that certain builds in Conquest simply don’t work well in TDM so I have to quickly change my build to something else. Stronghold, as it has no points, seems like it would fit better.
5. Here’s the tough question. Let’s say that if there was a a separate queue, queue times would increase for both (after the initial hype of stronghold). Right now, I get matches about every 2 minutes on good days and 4-6 minutes on bad days. If this change would increase queue times or make you face worse players in order to maintain the same queue times, would you still be for this change?
   1. This question in particular I’m looking for the most feedback on.

If you agree but have nothing to add, feel free to quote any posts you feel express exactly what you are thinking. The more feedback I can give them the better.

Zefrost.3425:

5 (FIVE) is the golden number in Guild Wars 2.

The most stacks that a skill like balanced stance, toss elixir b or any other long cooldown stability skill is going to grant you, is 5 (FIVE). At the most. Other abilities such as Foot in the Grave that allow for constant, high up-time on stability? Those will be 1 (ONE) stack of stability. 2 stacks is doubtful but no way in hell will it be higher than 2.

There are reasons to believe this is not the case (as pointed out earlier in this thread). A short spammable stability on the revenant granted 5 stacks of stability for a short time. The truth of the matter is we have no idea what the sweet spot is.

So it seems like the consensus is gearing towards this:

1. Headshot and Diversion aren’t an issue because those classes generally already strip boons.
2. Some players worry about how many stacks there will be for certain skills.
3. Most disagreements seem to be coming from misunderstandings about the change. (Not just one stacks, the number of stacks it will grant)
4. Overall, most PvPers seem to like this change conceptually, but worry about the number of stacks chosen for each skill.

Anyone disagree with any of these?

Keep in mind, we’re not talking about this change in a WvW perspective. We have a specialist who I’m sure is getting buckets upon buckets of feedback about how it will affect WvW xD (Because I for one have a sneaking suspicion it might).

To me, there are a few scenarios where you need stability in PvP:

1. To avoid being trained down by certain heavy CC bruisers (cough engi/war cough).
   1. For this point, remember that stability is still blocking anywhere from 1-5 CCs on low cooldown stabilities. That’s not peanuts. Those dangerous CCers you think of (cele engi/war) have to blow some big cooldowns in order to get you vulnerable.
2. To get off stomps/reses.
   1. I could see high level players knocking out lots of stability (5 stacks maybe), but even then I think it’d just be easier to remove it if the stacks get too high.
3. To avoid being pulled down from areas (skyhammer, temple, even high grounds on foefire).
   1. I see no change here. By the time they know you’ve targeted them, they’re playing defensive and the stability has done its job.

Any disagreement with those statements?

Are there any other scenarios where you need stability that I missed?

Another quick question:

1. How often do you think you’ll utilize the new system? For example, lets say a warrior gains 3 stacks of stability for 12s. Are their any builds were you as a solo player would attempt to remove all 3 stacks to get a CC off?

To me, this nerf seems like it balances out team play while only minorly touching small engagements. I mean, lets say you use 3 skills to remove that stability. You might be saving yourself about 1-9 seconds that the enemy would have stability, but you also have to waste 3 CCs to do this. Even on a headshot thief, that’s 12 initiative (4/5 of your total initiative on a standard DP thief!). Is there any time where you see removing stability stacks as useful in small engagements?

If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m having trouble understanding why people are more afraid of taunt than slow. Taunt to me is just another CC. The only thing that is scary about it to me is that it stacks you up. Otherwise, it’s simply a different fear. Not more, just different.

Slow on the other hand reminds me of faintheartedness from gw1. The melee hate in GW1 was incredibly frustrating. Sometimes it got to the point where it was better just to cancel the skill all together. Assuming what people are saying is true (That it’s the opposite of quickness) this is what it can affect:

1. Stomping
2. Resing
3. Channeling Buffs (Quickness affects tranquility/stillness/ferocity, so slow will as well)
4. All skills
5. Leaps (Jump Shot)
6. Charges (like GS 5 on Warrior)

Some classes like engineer and thief might not notice slow, but I could imagine warrior and necromancer becoming very frustrated with this. Both of those classes have notoriously long cast times for certain skills.

Keep in mind, this completely depends on how they implement slow. By that I mean, do they have it so slow is in big chunks on long recharges or in small chucks on short recharges? Passive or active? AoE or single target?

1. Does anyone agree or disagree with this?

As an aside, try to avoid attacking each other. The more information I get, the better decisions the balance team can make! Disagreeing is great as it illuminates something that needs discussion. Insults are a waste of time.

Taunt is a CC, thus it will overwrite other CCs like fear, launch or sink. Simple as that.

I have a few questions for everyone about this topic:

1. Are there any builds in particular that you are worried about besides Slick Shoes and Diversion?
2. According to This video, stability will be stacking in stacks, rather than duration. This potentially means that if you put up two stabilities that last 10s each, you’ll just have 2 stacks of 10s of stability. Builds like warriors running Balanced Stance and Last Stand would possibly not get 20s of stability if gained at the same time. Do you like this system better?
3. Overall, do you think any potential positives outweigh the potential negatives?

I have noticed that some of the scary berserker like bursts coming from grenade barrage have gone away on celestial builds (at least when they are only using their own might). Have you guys noticed the same?

MarkPhilips.5169:

Slow and resistance seem really interesting, can be removed/healed and give an idea to have a big impact in many situations (first of all on a downed player situation).

Berserker stance is not a great design for sure, there is not a counterplay but was nerfed (3 adrenaline bars instead of 5) and it’s time limited (8-10s).

Diamond skin is worst, no counter play against a condi pure build, basically useless in teamfight.

Automated response was nerfed not really strong now.

But do you think changing those skills/traits to utilize resistance would be better? Like maybe Automated Response granting 5s of resistance at 25% health on a 25s recharge (totally random numbers, but you get the idea).

Muchacho.2390:

Acrisor.8097:

More crowd-control in this game is not good. I do not enjoy getting constant limited and disabled, all the time, when I have very small stability. I left WoW game 3 years ago because of too much crowd-control in it.

If ArenaNet puts more-crowd control in this game, I will leave this game because it becomes a game designed only for kids who want to have fun disturbing, disabling and throwing the enemy all over the map.

Now I am starting thinking of returning to WoW, because they removed 70% of their crowd-control in their latest expansion to bring more customers, while ArenaNet wants more crowd-control in their patches and their first GW2 expansion.

This is my feedback about the first expansion. I want a game, not an antigame. Remove crowd-control and do not add more crowd-control, nothing more to ask.

I dont think we will get more CC in one build. Dont forget unlike WoW gw2 is limited to 10 skills (+weapon swap, attunment swap, kits etc.). So the new CC will be a trade-off for something else. So more CC then a hammer warrior, terromancer etc. is rather unlikely.

I was thinking the same thing. It’s easy to conflate new CC with more CC.

Taunt

Some players here seem worried about confusion and retaliation used with taunt. If we’re talking average amounts of retaliation (1,800 power) and average confusion (5 stacks, 1400 condition damage), this means you’ll be dealing:

1. Confusion – 850
2. Retaliation – 333
3. Total = 1,183

Keep in mind, you’d have to be hitting something that has retaliation working at 1,800 power AND have confusion at 1,400 condition damage to reach this amount. This number fluctuates depending on what skill is your auto attack (Grenade?, Flame Jet, Flip Over Chains). Things I worry about with confusion and retaliation are things that attack a lot, like flamethrower (retaliation) and kit swapping/attunement swapping (confusion).

Assuming that the amount of taunt in one build is reasonable (Maybe a bit less than terrormancer) and the damage gained through retaliation and confusion is fair:

1. Do you still worry about this condition?
2. Do you think you’ll enjoy applying it and having it applied to you?

Slow/Resistance

I haven’t really heard much about this condition in this thread. Most of the worry seems to be about taunt:

1. What do you think about these conditions/boons?
2. For slow specifically, the post says it’s the opposite of quickness. This might mean that it affects things like reses and stomps (like quickness does). Do you like this functionality?
3. For resistance specifically, do you think stances like Berserker’s Stance would be better using this boon instead? What about traits like Diamond Skin or Automated Response?

Looking forward to this! Can’t wait to work with everyone on making this game better.

Kaozkrayken.9570:

I generally like to run classes that require alot of skill and knowledge of the game, but offer the most reward for their playstyle. Hence, I am leaning towards the elementalist bcuz of the awareness needed to play him, but I do like the idea of being able to cast shattering damage to an approaching enemy/squad

I can’t speak for WvW, but you sound like one of these classes/builds:

Elementalist

1. D/D Celestial
   1. Master of all. Your challenge is to squeeze every bit of OPness this build has out of it, from supporting allies to killing enemies to rotating quickly because you’re so fast.
   2. Difficulty: 7/10 (lots of skills and rotations to learn)
2. S/F Burst
   1. Instant bursts. Your challenge is to kill everything you can with stupidly strong bursts while not getting killed yourself.
   2. Difficulty: 9/10 (Burst is hard to pull off, staying alive can be tricky)

Mesmer

1. Shatter
   1. The ultimate mesmer. Set up your clones and spikes right and you can pull off some scary bursts. A well placed portal can totally screw up the enemy team. This is the hardest build I’ve mentioned so far. You have to play super careful, especially when everyone else plays something easier than you.
   2. Difficulty: 10/10 (staying alive is hard, bursts can be hard to time sometimes)

Thief

1. Dagger/Pistol Backstabber
   1. Ganker. Jump into battles, gank someone, get out. Your biggest asset is your ability to get in and get out. This build can travel over 2k range instantly if you blow enough stuff.
   2. Difficulty: 8/10 (knowing when to go in is hard, sometimes landing your hits can be tricky)

Ranger

1. Power Ranger
   1. This build is easy to use at max range and a challenge at close range. Super high damage, super annoying to play against, at least until you manage to get up on it.
   2. Difficulty: 6/10 (the 6 points come from melee range fights. Pew pewing at range is simple and fun)

Engineer

1. Celestial Engineer
   1. High damage and heavy CC. Your job is to kill everything with explosions.
   2. Difficulty: 7/10

All of those builds are challenging to run at max level. Some of them have a lower skill floor and thus will be harder to get into, but in the end can be just as effective. I know how to run all of them, so if you need some help feel free to message me in game (Raine Avina).

I’m honestly interested in what people think about this:

Would you rather:

1. Wait 7 minutes to get a match where you have a 10% chance of winning it (matchmaking saying “screw it, it’s 3 AM” and throwing you into a bad match up)
2. Wait 14 minutes to get a match where you have a 50% chance of winning it (well put together match).

Basically, what’s more important to you? Livable queue times or playable matches? Would you be willing to literally double your queue times at non-peak hours to get better matches? What if the cut off time was closer to 14 minutes instead of 8 (which it seems to be) and it sometimes still would give lop sided matches?

I lean towards longer queue times personally. A bad match is basically just a longer queue time to me because eventually you get so far behind that you just quit trying.

Full agreement.

+1

Timiok.1048:

My main problems are;
·I miss half of my grenade hits on enemies, so I end up doing no damage.

In PvE if enemies are moving, it’s really hard to predict where they will move sometimes. They’ll just completely turn around or start moving for no reason. Your best bet is to lead in with some sort of snare first. You said you’re pistol shield. You might want to try Rifle or Pistol Pistol for the snares on them. I personally like rifle for blunderbuss, jump shot and the two lockdowns on it. Very good for power damage.

Timiok.1048:

·My healing turret acts weird and I have to spam the icon to get the extra heal on it.

Yep! Spamming it is how you get the heal off. Try to get good at choosing to either pick it up for the shorter recharge or blasting for the extra heal. Lots of condis? Pick it up. Lots of damage done to you? Blast it.

Timiok.1048:

·I always use my shield ability 5 at the wrong time.

It’s just practice. In PvE, I wouldn’t even suggest taking it. If you learn to position yourself correctly and dodge big moves, it’s not even necessary.

Timiok.1048:

·I move around WAY too much, because of some overprotective instinct I have, and even though I can take down up to 5 enemies at a time without losing much health, it’ll take me 5 minutes to beat them up. Is there a way to minimize my taken damage and still deal good amounts of damage, or do I have do just deal with it?

No such thing with grenades. You can be facing the opposite direction of enemies and still throw your grenades BACKWARDS to hit them. If the enemies are chasing you, throw grenades at your feet (literally your feet) and by the time enemies catch up, they’ll be pretty much where the grenades are landing. You can defeat any melee enemy with no ranged attacks or engage skills like this. Even works in PvP!

You also have to realize that if you aren’t max level and aren’t maxing out your gear constantly, you’ll fall behind in PvE. Just a few levels behind enemies can really slow things down. It’s totally normal. Just keep working to level 80, get that max gear and coast from there on out. If anything take it as a challenge! I’ve gotten away with beating some personal story missions up to 12 levels behind the recommendation!

If you don’t like being behind in damage, just do some open world stuff that’s your level (Generally events) and level up a bit. The less you worry about leveling and more you worry about just exploring, the more fun it’ll be.

Also, fun exercise to master your grenades: Try running straight ahead in some location and throwing your grenades at all the objects you can see without needing to turn around. You can do this by either binding look behind to some key or using left click-drag. There’s some option (chaith, wtf is it) called autocamera I think? It lets you drag the camera around and keep it there so you can effectively throw grenades backwards.

Novuake.2691:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

ArrDee.2573:

SD burst isn’t that good! And you trade a lot of survivability to take SD traits and utilities! Throw Mine/Minefield is a one trick pony build and isn’t that good either! Maybe you can use the tried and true 30/0/0/20/20 berserker build! Grenade TK Elixir S/Slick Shoes! Grenade Barrage is pretty huge burst! You can even build cele for almost the same damage with much higher sustain!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Cele isn’t a burst build. Berserker is literally stat wise inferior in everyway to cele nades when cele stacks up 5 stacks of might.

He did say: “I generally prefer to play glassy builds that just delete people, " Nothing deletes people like 100 mines!

Good luck getting into position consistently when you can’t take a light breeze to the face…

It’s not for everyone

Lewis Burnell.2493:

It gets overwhelming votes because it’s quick, not because people love it. Courtyard is a terrible map and a terrible game mode for Guild Wars 2.

Nope. You don’t speak for everyone else. I love courtyard.

ArrDee.2573:

SD burst isn’t that good! And you trade a lot of survivability to take SD traits and utilities! Throw Mine/Minefield is a one trick pony build and isn’t that good either! Maybe you can use the tried and true 30/0/0/20/20 berserker build! Grenade TK Elixir S/Slick Shoes! Grenade Barrage is pretty huge burst! You can even build cele for almost the same damage with much higher sustain!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Cele isn’t a burst build. Berserker is literally stat wise inferior in everyway to cele nades when cele stacks up 5 stacks of might.

He did say: “I generally prefer to play glassy builds that just delete people, " Nothing deletes people like 100 mines!