Guild Wars 2

Yeah! Raise your voice and complain! that will make the problem go away for sure!

Ithilwen.1529:

At the request of some of the forum, I posted a video today of my gameplay. One particular high level player had agreed to review it and give constructive criticism. So far that person hasn’t responded.

I did get a good, if harsh, evaluation and several very good ideas. However, now being identifiable in game I’m asked to stop playing and told to “kill yourself.”

I took a risk. I knew it was a risk when I did it. Still, this hurts. I do not recommend anyone post video or even ask advice if you are identifiable in game. Check out the feedback I’m getting in game:

Don’t let people bully you that way. It hurts, but if nothing good came out of it, ignore and move on. Strive to seek constructive feedback to improve yourself- there’s always someone willing to help in this sea of cancer.

Thelgar.7214:

Currently GS and S-WH with Zeal, Discipline and Berserker is a viable WvW build for havoc. Your changes shred the Zeal line and the Berserker line in regard to this, nerfing death from above, forceful greatsword and berserker’s power, the base berserker’s mechanic (by removing increased attack speed and adding a single stat bonus limiting the variety of builds it is useful on), eternal champion, dead or alive (150 seconds !?!?!), savage instinct and smash brawler. Did you consider WvW at all in making this?
It basically would eliminate build diversity, eliminating the Zerk and Berserker lines outside of roaming and leaving everyone else to run hammer zerg builds.

Also, the fast hands move to baseline is a huge nerf if you raise the cool down. It is better as it is than doing that.

Zeal is a guardian specialization.

I have several threads discussing balance approaches including power-creep, nerf-bat, equalize, and meta-shift. Quite frankly, I am tired of these discussions and have accepted the fact that everyone has a different idea on how balance should be done. Your comment suggest that you’re vouching for power-creep, which I’m strongly against.

On the contrary, 90% of the time I play GW2 is spent in WvW.

TheSwede.9512:

I don’t like your take on Dragonhunter, simply because I feel you’re making the equation that Dragonhunter = Guardian, which isn’t true.

Dragonhunter was supposed to add an All-out Offensive version of the Guardian, analogous to what an Inquisitor would be to a Paladin (One kills heathens in the name of faith/God, while the other protects the innocent in the name of Faith/God) just without the religious connotations. The name itself was inspired by Witchhunters, and we all know those were ruthless “Shoot first, ask questions later”-kinda people.
The whole idea of Elite Specializations was to add a different Flavor to each Profession and completely throw the concept on its head, not ONLY adding to what was already an integral part to the Profession. The Dragonhunter personifies Zeal, which is the Offensive portion of Guardian. Other Elite Specs will probably focus on different aspects.

But let’s talk about your Weapon changes first:

Greatsword: Nothing to add, looks fine.

Hammer: You’re basically killing the DPS on the Hammer for a slightly faster Auto-chain, and the Ring of Warding change is uncalled for as it is a very strong Lockdown mechanic (Especially for professions that move a lot just by attacking). I would suggest merely reducing Activation Time from 1s to 3/4s.

The change to hammer auto wasn’t originally part of my plan. It was influenced by feedback gathered in this discussion thread- people wanted a faster attack, so that’s what I did.

In response to the ring of warding buff, I designed it balancing it with longbow’s hunter ward in mind. (hunter’s ward being superior due to it’s range, cripple, damage, and the fact that it spawns up to 5 separate mini ring of wardings) However, it’s not to say that I am right here. It’s a valid concern you brought up, and I’ll try to think of other ways. Thanks.

Staff: Piercing Light is unbalanced and OP as they come. 5s Silence on an 8s CD means that a Guardian only needs about 60% Condition Duration in order to keep it up 100% With this skill Alone, which is a Piercing, 1200 units Non-Projectile with an Activation time of 1/2s. AND it Reveals for 5s. I will propose changes to Silence and Purify down below, but in their current iterations and with their current durations, those Conditions are very OP.

I should probably make it clear that silence should not be affected by condi duration stats. Thank you for your suggestions on purfy/silence. I’ll make a note to nerf this a bit more.

Longbow: Made entirely, and completely, useless with those changes. PvP Viability goes out the window if you gotta “Reload” your only source of consistent Damage (Since you suggest nerfing damage on Deflecting Shot to nothing, nerfing Symbol Damage and added nothing to Hunter’s Ward) for 3 1/2s after each shot. That’s a death sentence. In PvE, the DPS drop would be so enormous that noone would bother using it, you’d probably get better DPS with Staff.

Defender’s Arrow is an unnecessery change. The Longbow is not a defensive weapon. Deflecting Shot rewarded skillful use with a big Damage Increase, fitting both the Defensive concept of Guardian, and the Offensive direction that Dragonhunter was headed.

I’m going to suggest the following:

• Increase the Cooldown on True Shot to 5s, up from 4s. Reduce Damage by around 17~22%, and Power Scaling by about 10%. Remove Lockdown, but keep the Activation Time the Same.
• Remove Blind Component from Deflecting Shot. Add that it grants Aegis to Allies it passes through, and gain the Damage Bonus if this happens. (Does not affect the Dragonhunter himself).

Note taken. My change to trueshot was a design decision to make the skill more situational rather than something that people would just use when it’s off cooldown. I’ll probably revert defender’s arrow back to deflecting shot then.

Mace: Protector’s Strike was very Hard-hitting, so the Mace loses a lot of Spike Potential with this, as well as a Block Skill. This synergized very well with Communal Defenses. I don’t particularily dislike your change, but I feel it won’t really change Mace’s situation much.

Scepter: This is a big one, much to go through here. First, the idea of the Auto-attack is very interesting in Theory, however I don’t know how it’ll look in Practice. One important thing to consider is how it’ll perform In Melee, as there the slowness of the Projectiles won’t be an issue and you might be pushing what’s supposed to be a Guardian’s fallback weapon into another Melee weapon through this. Still, 10 orbs is a LOT in order to gain the expected AoE Damage Burst out of it, which might end up being too gimmicky to reliably use over another weapon.

As for the change of Binding Light into Frozen Light… Guardian has very little Synergy with Chilled. The Hammer had use of it due to the fact that a slow-moving target was easier to Strike with Symbol of Protection or trap in a Ring of Warding, however Scepter as you’ve designed it isn’t gonna have much use of it since the Orbs home in regardless.

Here are my suggested changes:

• Orb of Wrath: Simply add Burning (1 stack, 2s) to each Orb and cause them to deal AoE Damage in a small area around their target (About 180 units), in order to give it a DoT Component that synergizes better with the Guardian’s other traits.
• Smite: Changed into Symbol of Smiting. Now last for as long as other Symbols (4s Base) and has 5 Pulses that deal consistent Damage and grants Might (1 Stack, 5s) to Allies within. Synergy again, also now causes consistent hits against all Targets, rather than the RNG from before.
• Binding Chains: Changed to both work as a Single Target Lockdown, and AoE damage Component. Now Immobilizes (1s) your Primary Target, before causing a surge of light (x6 hits) that cause Vulnerability (1 stack, 4s) on nearby enemies.

Might reduce the number of orbs needed for the AOE burst then. Thanks for your observation.

Sword: Needed an upgrade quite badly. However, you didn’t fix the primary issue with Zealot’s Defense which was the horrible accuracy and pathing with its projectiles. The Auto-attack idea is quite interesting, I’ll admit. I wonder how it will look in practice, however (Consider Animation Differences between Humanoids, Male Norn, Charr and Asura.)

Here’s a few suggested alterations:

• Sword of Wrath (AA Chain): Keep the first and second animation Intact, but move the Zealot’s Defense animation to the last instance while keeping the part where it Destroys Projectiles. No need to keep the Fired Projectiles, however.
• Zealot’s Defense: Reworked to rather than sending out several projectile instead Produces a Wave much like Wave of Wrath or Shield of Judgement, only with the Addition that the Guardian Blocks incoming Attacks during the Animation (About 1/2s). Uses Ranger’s Sword #1 Animation (old Hamstring). Cooldown at 8s base.
• Flashing Blade: I like your change, let’s keep that.

Focus: Hoooo boy, you reeeeeally went overboard with this one. This Focus is OP out the whazoo altogether, and will completely throw any other Off-hand out the window in seconds. 10s of being unable to land Conditions, on a 20s (Base) Cooldown? And it Pierces? And Blinds? Waaay too much.

Meanwhile, 5’s “Shield of Wrath” was one, if not the One skill that made Guardians effective. To remove it for a skill that is basically an AoE Version with a redonkelous Activation Time is quite the Hit to the Focus, almost enough to balance it out. Almost.

As with Staff, I’ll go over the possible changes down below we we’ll discuss Silence and Purified.

Shield: Like the 4 skill, but it might be quite OP in Team Fights since it’s an AoE, meaning the Guardian can basically make the team Invulnerable while they wail on enemies. Some slight change is necessery.

I designed shield 4 to primarily be used for difficult pve encounters (if they ever existed…). Quite sure that it won’t be OP outside of that because it’s a self rooted ability with a radius smaller than sanctuary.

Changes:

• Shield of Judgement: Make it into a PBAoE which causes the Guardian to Block incoming attacks for 2s, while granting Aegis to nearby Allies in a 240 Radius. If Fully Channeled, all Allies also gain Protection (3s).
• Shield of Absorption: Make the Channel 2s, but the Shield Duration 4s, meaning that the Guardian must channel it for a while at least, in order to reap the rewards.

Torch: Good enough changes, don’t have anything to add here.

Silence and Purified:
Alright so, these basically do the same thing except that Purified causes enemies to grant Boons when they try to add conditions to foes. All-in-all, both these conditions are Pretty kitten powerful, and we’re talking Fear/Taunt and Resistance-levels of Powerful here. 10s Durations when hitting 50% or even 100% Condition Duration in PvE is common practice means they’re way overtuned since they basically shut down Condition Builds altogether, and completely so.

Here’s what I suggest:

• First, remove Purify. Instead, add a Grandmaster Major trait somewhere (Honor, possibly) that causes Silence to act like Purified, rather than creating two separate Conditions for it.
• Second, either curb Silence’s Base Durations down to somewhere around 2-3s Base, or 5-6s for Long CD Utility Skills.
• OR, cause them to act like Blind, where they block the next attempt at applying a Condition but are then Consumed.

Thank you for providing feedback. Particularly like your suggestions to purify/silence; they’re something I could work with. I’ll try to get around to editing this when I have time.

It seems you’re confusing “quality of life” with the word “buff”.

I wonder if this change was intentional or merely a bug.

Aeolus.3615:

Humm i hardly see those classes getting a bit more balanced, game is very gimmick based, if they balance them they take out the main “objective” that this game has.

DH fits in this damage optimization role, besides any other role than that any guardian build is extremelly easy to defeat (IMO), and if other classes (lets ignore player skill and reflexes for a momment) starting to find guardian a competitor, like the DH trapper, they will ask for even more nerfs.

If any changes occur, traps wont be effective has other classes are and other classes are overall much better, traps to be effective guardian needs to be squishy againt other damage optimized build, if a guardian fails to trap target he is in a very bad situation.

This statement is very vague. Please elaborate more.

edit/ you elaborate more just as I posted this lol

JackaS.9426:

Dragonhunter needs vigor somehow, when I fight revenants i feel like I need to dodge too many skills and I get outsustained so fast. Specially if they go retribution line we do like no dmg on them while they still force us to dodge their combos and the fight can take long, so at the end, my endurance and cds will be gone and I will get oneshooted. I need vigor for being able to dodge more often, also because the virtues can be rupted while casting them the class can be easily outplayed without the boon, specially by thieves. That is the main reason I still play scepter focus over bow, this one is too offensive and has lack of sustain considering the meta builds. But then I got another problem, scepter deals too low dmg vs tanky revenant, tanky scrapper, druid.. Should have the dmg buffed for being viable again imo.

Would much rather see revenant, scrapper, and druid to get nerfed down instead of everyone else buffed up.

Keep champions.

I am a bit busy at the moment with final exams, so I haven’t been responding; but I have been reading everyone’s posts.

Thaddeus.4891:

ronpierce.2760:

I wasn’t specifically talking about DH. There’s a reason DH is not meta, part of that is our “strongest” and best put together things are traps, which are niche at their very core.

I was referring to the uniqueness and complexity of some of the other Elite spec skills and weapons. Especially weapons. While you could tone them down, at its core, a Guardian GS is pretty well put to shame by the Hammer of a Scrapper.

Also, my point is, clunkiness versus shiney new skills are part of that potential for power, as well as the need for all skills to come off as “usable”. Look at sword for example and compare it to Revenant’s sword (though revenant sword has design issues too between single target and multi-target). Blinding Flash is bland, and frankly weak, can’t be used to move forward, like a forward phase retreat, etc. If everything had to be toned down to the level of Hammer/Sword, I wouldn’t be very happy because for the most part, they’re clunky to use and not very fun.

Would also be similar to reverting Warrior Hammer back to it’s slower and immobile former self. There are a lot of things that just need to be reviewed with a modern philosophy lens, in my opinion.

A happy middle ground would be good. Some bumps/fixes/changes to less fluid things, and some nerfs to some things that are a little too encompassing, like the Scrapper hammer.

The other thing is you have to consider how it feels to lose a lot of what you’ve been given. That’s one of the most potentially dangerous aspects of powercreep is that it isn’t easily reversible because it just doesn’t feel good to feel like the Developers are trashing your stuff for some false sense of “balance” or appropriate “power level”. Because for the most part it IS arbitrary. The danger in power creep isnt the power itself, but how much becomes obsolete due to the power creep, especially as developers become tunnel visioned on a specific set of items (such as their fixation on meta builds and elite specializations).

Quality of Design, Diversity of Design and Balance are 3 totally difference things, but you seem to put them all together.

For example, the Guardian Sword is about Quality of Design. Like you said, Blinding Flash is not that useful and the sword auto-attack have work bad in a lot of situation.

But Guardian GS vs Scapper Hammer is all about diversity of Design. The GS isn’t badly design, it’s actually really nicely designed. They are just designed for different thing, so one is better suited for some content, while the other one is better suited for something else. GS have a really great design for PvE and WvW Zerg. You have a leap, you have a symbol, you have a really great CC for some situation, etc.

And finally, you have balance. That’s just the numbers. Something could be well designed, but poorly balance. Or the other way around. For example. You could remake the Guardian sword so it feel more useful. Make Blinding Flash work more like a teleport or a forward phase retreat as you said, rework the auto-attack so it doesn’t bug and change the skill 3 to be useful. That would fix the bad design problem. But it won’t fix the balance issue that Sword is one of the worst dps weapon of the guardian.

I agree that you don’t want to destroy the good design that came with the elite spec. But you can drop balance them without doing so. But like i said and like you said too, you can’t just nerf the elite spec or people will be upset. A middle ground would be the best option here, but I don’t think that it’s what anet want.

As for power creep, you are right and wrong. Yes one problem of power creep is that designed tend to power creep only a part of each profession, making the remaining of the profession weaker by comparison. But the power creep itself is bad because it make older content obsolete. Take dungeon for exemple. My guardian used to do 8k dps when the game started. Now? we do like 20-23k dps. So if you were fighting Subject Alpha it would take you between 24 and 30 seconds to kill him at the end of CoE and he would be able to attack you maybe like 9-10 times. If your group was bad, it could wipe easily.

Now? It would take less than 9 seconds to kill him. Even with a bad group, he will die before he can kill the group, meaning ; you don’t need to dodge, heal, use aegis, blind, protection or anything. The power creep make old content easier and make mechanics completely useless.

Of look at the Effigy in CoF path 1. They also nerfed it, so it wasn’t totally because of the power creep, but we used to need poison and to hunt down crystal to kill him because otherwise he would have too much regen. Now? We kill him in 6 second or less and we couldn’t give more of a crap about his regen. Hell, he doesn’t even have time to do much attack anyway.

This posts adequately explains some reasoning. While I’m trying to achieve balance, I can’t ignore diversity of design and quality of design. That’s why some of the changes seen in this proposal are being made- to distinguish themselves apart.

XxsdgxX.8109:

You nailed it, people here with their “suggestions” would actually make the game even worse although there are really great ones, but that happens only once after 100 posts of crying.

This is what I’m observing as well

I make balance spreadsheets

from what I see, no one wants nerfs and everyone wants buffs.

I suggest a few nerfs and people cry murder.

It’s impossible to seek balance here.

Shadelang.3012:

TheBravery.9615:

That was a good game.

Around 10 minutes in, blue capped mansion and clocktower and that seemed to be where it went downhill from there. No one on red seemed to try to neutralize them for a while, and red never couldn’t make a comeback on time. Not necessarily your fault, it’s evident you had your hands full on windmill.

edit/ Yeah, it’s not your fault. Your team was carrying dolten, which everyone else had at least 3x the contribution he/she had.

Hmm on the part with clocktower at the time you mentioned. Would it have been better if I had stayed there to try and contest and leave home to the respawn that was on the way there? By the time my other ally got to mid it was already capped and he was 2v1d. And the druid came to assist the enemy at windmill which delayed that fight long enough for them to win the mid fight.

From what I saw, it’s just a snowball of events that put blue in a better position. Started with Dolten getting focused down by the mansion at 8:36, which made the fight at mansion a 4v2. Think brensloo saw what was going on, tried to neutralize clocktower and make it to that mansion fight but was too late. Erionator got focused down, then brensloo got into a bad position, then venomguard next.

Yeah. After capping windmill at 9:07, the fight outcome might have changed if you ran in to assist your team instead of capping clocktower. At 9:19, your team had 1 point captured and the enemy team had 0.

That was a good game.

Around 10 minutes in, blue capped mansion and clocktower and that seemed to be where it went downhill from there. No one on red seemed to try to neutralize them for a while, and red never couldn’t make a comeback on time. Not necessarily your fault, it’s evident you had your hands full on windmill.

edit/ Yeah, it’s not your fault. Your team was carrying dolten, which everyone else had at least 3x the contribution he/she had.

They should move all these gimmicks to EoTM

Staff 1 is arguably the best auto attack when it comes to zerg v zerg in WvW. A change is unnecessary.

I don’t have much to say in terms of “fixing” skyhammer, but please consider the asuran mantra- “Embrace simplicity”.

Think of reasons why simple map designs are so popular in competitive games like league of legends (summoner’s rift), halo (blood gulch / coagulation), final destination (super smash brothers series). Maps don’t need all these “gimmicks” to artificially make combat “interesting”. Skyhammer is unsuccessful for the same reason desert borderlands is unsuccessful- it’s too complicated when really, all you needed was a simple hilly area to duke it out.

This is a L2Play issue. OP is clearly inexperienced with the high skill required to play PvE in Cursed Shore. You have counters available at your disposal. Risen shouldn’t need a nerf until those kitten centaurs get nerfed first. If anything, some risen are comparably weaker than others and they need to be brought up to par.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

TheBravery.9615:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

DesuNyan.4783:

So I didn’t realize there were links in the original post.

Speaking from an sPVP POV.

So far, core virtues still suck with changes.

Nerfs to elite spec virtues is terrible. (less cd but more cd now that you change virtues cd reduction) Removing the fun from Spear of justice being unblockable and using it to counter rev shield and alot of reflect. I’d rather never cast it and just keep the dmg buff from supreme justice which is a power creep trait.

Nerf to longbow, useless weapon, rather run scepter with focus/shield and staff, mace is good, sword is meh, gs still the same, hammers a bit stronger, torch 5 being a self root with the same range is not attractive.

From reading traits, zeal/valor/honor for the following traits. Zealous scepter, virtuos speed, ferverous precision and symbolic avenger from zeal. focus mastery/smiters boon, stalward defender, monks focus but i also like writ of persistance(with staff though) for valor. Resonating Symbols(best trait by far), strength in numbers, grandmaster is too juicy to decide for honor.

Virtues is decent, but only if i want to go master of consecrations, supreme justice, absolute resolutions, the nerf to stability stacks I just would rather symbol stability,

SYMBOL OF LIGHT!!!! omfg great heal!

For utilities, I like purging flames, CoP and either JI, signet of judgement only if I’m with squishies, bow might be good now?!?!?!

For elite,Not mentioning anything about passive procs uhm difference or CD on signet of courage so need more info if you ever want me to switch off RF.

Spirit weapons changes are too vague, are u changing the hp pool? changing the ai? I really do like hammer if it wasnt oneshotted after first command cast.

I don’t care for dh traitline so I don’t care about traps(removing the boons though is pretty crappy cause traps were never too full they just put shouts to shame, everything puts shouts to shame).

the increase CD of smite condition doesnt affect the valor heal right(put this seperate cause I’d never run smite condition on 30 seconds)

Thinking mercenary amulet, definitely but I’d love if a teammate could give me good amounts of fury to compensate(gotta love your team)

This ^ more or less.

Buffing the useless traits/weapon skills/utility skills so that they would be useful in a balanced way would be fine (so that there is actual choice).

And you do that somewhat (some are a bit OP, others still dont make much sense, like the 1h sword) but you also nerf a decent number of of other traits to the point that I look at them & think “Why would I ever use that now” (looking at torch and others)
(some like the damage modifier traits are needed fairly badly for numerous offensive builds to remain viable)

There is also the fact that your moving several of the things that heal guardians or allies (pure of heart as an example) out of the honor/valor lines which by definition are made for those things.
The same can be said for some utility skills that add utility/boon effects.

In the end I like a few of your ideas Brave, but I wouldn’t want the whole list.

PS: One way Anet could easily balance a number of builds in game right now would be to tweak traits that add +% damage or spike damage so that they still add that damage but as a cost reduce healing done to others. (or even to yourself by a smaller % of course)

TheBravery.9615:

Zantmar.5406:

power creep obviously, nerf bat kills fun and induce rage, equalizing is a nerf and a buff at the same time which is time/ money consuming on anet’s part
power creep is: fast, easy, cheap, less rage.

edit:
i mean
1. wow this other trait is not as bad as before, maybe ill give it a try some other time
2. kitten this trait isn’t as good anymore but i guess ill still run it
3. wow my build just become trash

Interesting.

Well, like I said, it won’t be possible for me to reach a consensus with everyone here, and there are multiple ways to approach balance problems. The one I’m making is strictly “equalize”.

I have still yet to make balance spreadsheets for other professions that are widely considered overpowered (reaper, scrapper, druids, tempests, and heralds) and when I do, I imagine the approval rating would be <1 / 4. The reasoning is understandable though; no one wants to see nerfs on what made their profession “meta”.

This is the challenge I face when I make these. But consider balance on a macro view (viewing all professions): is power creep healthy for this game? Do you still want to keep your dragonhunter virtues and buffing everything below it? Would you be OK with me buffing every other weaponset / kit an engineer have to their Hammer? Would you be OK with me buffing warrior’s damage capabilities to mirror gunflame?

Where do I draw the line?

First off this is a bit of a simplistic way to look at it.

Just because you boost some traits from absolute crap nobody wants to use to decent choices does not mean the class gets a big power creep.
It means the class actually has alternative choices.

The only real problem is in making sure that the new/revised trait, weapon skill & utility choices cannot be stacked to create a visibly stronger build then the ones that are the best available now (Although in some rare cases that could be a good thing as well)

So yes it is quite possible to rework things on guardian, warrior etc… you just have to be careful how you do it so that balance & trait/gear choice as a whole is better instead of just creating new choices that put everything else to shame.

As Anet said before the game launched, the ideal would be that class X and class Y can do something equally well (if they spec and gear for the same thing) Getting that result however is the tricky part.

From an intra-profession balance problem perspective, this seems easy to do- but ask yourself this. At meta level, are all professions considered equal?

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

TheBravery.9615:

Finalfreefall.8247:

Dragonhunter virtues should be moved to standard Guardian.

They’re really, really cool effects (f2 could have longer range) but they’re built for a melee-type attacker.

Justice: Tether, then a pull. Only useful for ranged as an interrupt or in conjunction with other skills.

Wings cover distance and heal at the end of the jump which means that to heal teammates you have to jump where they are, often putting your longbow-carrying butt in the middle of the action. It gets worse when traited, because it encourages you to jump on enemies.

Shield will cover a ranged Guardian and a melee Guardian equally, but a melee guardian is much more likely to screen his team with the active due to stacking.

They’re all great for melee fights and only decent for ranged, and I love them because of what they add but they don’t work as well with the bow at all.

You know what? This makes a lot of sense and it’s not terribly hard to change. I’ll think about it- but in order to do this, I’ll need virtues and dragonhunter virtues to be equal in strength and ability. Through my proposed changes, are the virtues equal in strength?

Virtue of justice is arguably the only one equal to its dragonhunter counterpart with your changes.
And that is only if you have a few allies nearby who are using a decent amount of +condition damage & duration gear/amulets.

Virtue of resolve, while it has a wider effect radius then its DH counterpart does less then half as much healing (even before the reduction you gave it) and has no mobility effect.

Courage only grants a single AEGIS to nearby allies where its counterpart creates a forward facing shield for 5 seconds.

Frankly my suggestions would be thus

1: Make the Inspired Virtue trait into base line effects for the core (and core alone) guardian virtues.
(this will buff them somewhat to make the actives seem better)

2: Reduce the cool down of resolve to match the DH version, but leave the healing as is (its already less then half the DH version)

3: Reduce the CD of Virtue of Courage to 35 seconds and Shield of Courage to 45 seconds, then reduce the duration of shield of courage on DH to 3 seconds to compensate.

4: Make the trait Battle Presence into a base effect for virtue of resolve on the core guardian.
(this will mean the core VOR will provide AOE healing, some heal over time on active but a lower active heal then DH & no mobility. It will serve to make its activation into an actual choice)

On second thought, this is going to be much harder than anticipated to put in

Virtues, a core specialization is designed to work with dragonhunter virtues. On the other hand, dragonhunter virtues work completely differently from regular virtues and dragonhunter specialization is not designed to work with core virtues.

(e.g. core specialization of dragonhunter virtues, have a trait to increase shield of courage’s radius. Having an “elite” virtues specialization will make no benefit off of it.)

I would have to completely redesign the traits to do that.

also @Xaylin.1860 thank you for the suggestions, i’ll go over them tonight.

Also kindly point out to me which ones made you say “why would I use that now?”

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

DesuNyan.4783:

So I didn’t realize there were links in the original post.

Speaking from an sPVP POV.

So far, core virtues still suck with changes.

Nerfs to elite spec virtues is terrible. (less cd but more cd now that you change virtues cd reduction) Removing the fun from Spear of justice being unblockable and using it to counter rev shield and alot of reflect. I’d rather never cast it and just keep the dmg buff from supreme justice which is a power creep trait.

Nerf to longbow, useless weapon, rather run scepter with focus/shield and staff, mace is good, sword is meh, gs still the same, hammers a bit stronger, torch 5 being a self root with the same range is not attractive.

From reading traits, zeal/valor/honor for the following traits. Zealous scepter, virtuos speed, ferverous precision and symbolic avenger from zeal. focus mastery/smiters boon, stalward defender, monks focus but i also like writ of persistance(with staff though) for valor. Resonating Symbols(best trait by far), strength in numbers, grandmaster is too juicy to decide for honor.

Virtues is decent, but only if i want to go master of consecrations, supreme justice, absolute resolutions, the nerf to stability stacks I just would rather symbol stability,

SYMBOL OF LIGHT!!!! omfg great heal!

For utilities, I like purging flames, CoP and either JI, signet of judgement only if I’m with squishies, bow might be good now?!?!?!

For elite,Not mentioning anything about passive procs uhm difference or CD on signet of courage so need more info if you ever want me to switch off RF.

Spirit weapons changes are too vague, are u changing the hp pool? changing the ai? I really do like hammer if it wasnt oneshotted after first command cast.

I don’t care for dh traitline so I don’t care about traps(removing the boons though is pretty crappy cause traps were never too full they just put shouts to shame, everything puts shouts to shame).

the increase CD of smite condition doesnt affect the valor heal right(put this seperate cause I’d never run smite condition on 30 seconds)

Thinking mercenary amulet, definitely but I’d love if a teammate could give me good amounts of fury to compensate(gotta love your team)

This ^ more or less.

Buffing the useless traits/weapon skills/utility skills so that they would be useful in a balanced way would be fine (so that there is actual choice).

And you do that somewhat (some are a bit OP, others still dont make much sense, like the 1h sword) but you also nerf a decent number of of other traits to the point that I look at them & think “Why would I ever use that now” (looking at torch and others)
(some like the damage modifier traits are needed fairly badly for numerous offensive builds to remain viable)

There is also the fact that your moving several of the things that heal guardians or allies (pure of heart as an example) out of the honor/valor lines which by definition are made for those things.
The same can be said for some utility skills that add utility/boon effects.

In the end I like a few of your ideas Brave, but I wouldn’t want the whole list.

PS: One way Anet could easily balance a number of builds in game right now would be to tweak traits that add +% damage or spike damage so that they still add that damage but as a cost reduce healing done to others. (or even to yourself by a smaller % of course)

TheBravery.9615:

Zantmar.5406:

power creep obviously, nerf bat kills fun and induce rage, equalizing is a nerf and a buff at the same time which is time/ money consuming on anet’s part
power creep is: fast, easy, cheap, less rage.

edit:
i mean
1. wow this other trait is not as bad as before, maybe ill give it a try some other time
2. kitten this trait isn’t as good anymore but i guess ill still run it
3. wow my build just become trash

Interesting.

Well, like I said, it won’t be possible for me to reach a consensus with everyone here, and there are multiple ways to approach balance problems. The one I’m making is strictly “equalize”.

I have still yet to make balance spreadsheets for other professions that are widely considered overpowered (reaper, scrapper, druids, tempests, and heralds) and when I do, I imagine the approval rating would be <1 / 4. The reasoning is understandable though; no one wants to see nerfs on what made their profession “meta”.

This is the challenge I face when I make these. But consider balance on a macro view (viewing all professions): is power creep healthy for this game? Do you still want to keep your dragonhunter virtues and buffing everything below it? Would you be OK with me buffing every other weaponset / kit an engineer have to their Hammer? Would you be OK with me buffing warrior’s damage capabilities to mirror gunflame?

Where do I draw the line?

Finalfreefall.8247:

Dragonhunter virtues should be moved to standard Guardian.

They’re really, really cool effects (f2 could have longer range) but they’re built for a melee-type attacker.

Justice: Tether, then a pull. Only useful for ranged as an interrupt or in conjunction with other skills.

Wings cover distance and heal at the end of the jump which means that to heal teammates you have to jump where they are, often putting your longbow-carrying butt in the middle of the action. It gets worse when traited, because it encourages you to jump on enemies.

Shield will cover a ranged Guardian and a melee Guardian equally, but a melee guardian is much more likely to screen his team with the active due to stacking.

They’re all great for melee fights and only decent for ranged, and I love them because of what they add but they don’t work as well with the bow at all.

You know what? This makes a lot of sense and it’s not terribly hard to change. I’ll think about it- but in order to do this, I’ll need virtues and dragonhunter virtues to be equal in strength and ability. Through my proposed changes, are the virtues equal in strength?

Ricky.4706:

i really think dividing wvw into races would work, because people do enjoy their characters and proud of how they customized them. So this approach simply redefines server pride and doesn’t completely eliminate it with a massive megaserver.. it would allow every one to be with whomever they want by being the same race or even compete as opposite races the next match up…. so not only does it fix balance and coverage issues, it works with game story, and creates opportunities for organized competitions. – plus it’s appealing to pvers who want to get serious about pvp.

and lets not forget the army of asurans – that alone is priceless!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jYANWR5XTM

Then you have to consider that the human population greatly outnumber charr population.

Good luck. Hope a developer reads your thread.

Also, not sure if you want to wait, but ArenaNet claims that they have an “overhaul” in the works for some time now that is SUPPOSEDLY going to fix problems like this.

Your adversary makes the game hard, whether it’s in PvE or PvP or WvW

In PvP, facing off with a competent opponent is challenging and fun.
In WvW, facing off with a competent army with your army is challenging and fun

PvE however..

in PvE mobs just run at you and start attacking like some idiot. The AI is not intelligent at all, and PvE is made “hard” by cheap mechanics like high mob health pools or high mob damage output.

Rednik.3809:

Lots of suggestions on already meta classes, but not even single one about warrior. Woooo.

Here then. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Suggestion-Warrior-Balance/5903014

Windwalker.7421:

( Or preferably nerf the others down, but that’s a lotta nerfs, QQing, etc. Might be easier to bring the 2-3 lacking Elites up to par.)

This is the biggest obstacle I’m facing here when I make these spreadsheets. There’s always a person with that perspective and refuses to accept that power creep has happened and some things need to be brought down. Each profession subforum here has their own agenda- nerf other professions and buff the profession we use. This contradicts balance and every suggestion made through this perspective further misleads arenanet what needs changes. (perhaps, we shouldn’t be looking at the weak skills/traits, and perhaps we should instead divert our attention to the strong and overpowered)

GW2 player mentality:

“Wahhh nerf X and X and Y, but not my profession”

“Wahhh muh profession doesn’t need nerfs, only the weaker/unused stuff needs to be brought up to par”

“Wahhh arenanet what are you doing with all this power creep”

This is why balance is such a pain in the kitten .

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I made roughly 33 changes today (viewable on the cover page of the spreadsheet) based on comments from users here.

Revision 2 released. Criticism welcomed / Please vote on the strawpoll link above. Editing put on hold to collect feedback.

Mioracle.2481:

Thx for the replies everyone!

TheBravery.9615:

This would contribute more to the problem than the solution

You’re suggesting to force utility skills onto players as a method of balancing. As that phrase suggested, all you’re doing is “forcing” and further hindering build diversity, it by itself does nothing to address intra/interprofession imbalance issues.

Furthermore, instead of accounting for less variables, balance developers would have to consider 5 (or whatever you are suggesting). In the end, you’ll end up with the same or worse situation in context of game balance.

I’m not following here.

At the moment I can e.g. chose any out of 24 utility skills to equip in my 3 utility slots on my character.
The devs has to balance and take every utility skill (+ the impact of amulets, traits, sigils and so on) in a possible combination of 24x + 23x + 22x and try to prevent cherry picking the 3 best into a crazy OP build. As one can imagine, this is quite hard and complex.

In one of my suggestions you can, IF you want, choose only e.g. sigils and if you do you get a higher boost to the base stat of sigils (can be a trait).
Since few use only sigils, only glyphs etc. because of the power of the new skills that came with HoT this can make sigils, glyphs etc. viable again. (This would add more builds, not less since you can still chose the old, but also new with a predetermined set of skills).

How is this different to the 5 stances you are “forced” to chose from on the Revenant?
The devs only need to balance the pre-determined skills on each stance against each other, which is 3 utility skills + 1 heal skill + elite skill x5 stances.
You cant combine any skill from any one stance with another. Isn’t this the same (or worse) when it comes to “forcing” the player to chose as you say?

My intention wasn’t to balance builds of profession against each other initially, but to get more viable builds that was just as good as the current “meta” for each profession to start with.

Ofc. if more builds are viable per class instead of just 1-2, then class balancing between professions will be more intricate. But, if I was a dev (which I was many many years ago), I would think that would be more “fun”, and at the same time delight the players in getting more viable choices, then e.g just going through the quite insane testing for balancing any choices out of e.g. 24x + 23x + 22x utility skills that a player can make.

(I might need to change the topic then maybe? Here come’s the problem with English not being my first language, sorry).

What I meant is that by forcing players to choose a set of utility, it’s an artificial form of balance that’s not really balance. It’s easy alright, but it’s not the right approach for the game.

Also not a problem. Your English is very good and I respect you for being multilingual.

Claudia De Anar.6304:

GL with this, no snark, my only worry is that in my experience, going back to GW1, Anet has always over compensated in their changes, using a cleaver where a scalpel is needed.

Ty.

Ended the collection of feedback on Revision 1 (45 voters: 3.06/4 rating – B grade).
Updated the document to include the ability to end berserk mode early.

lynspottery.6529:

Thank you all for your suggestions…however, I am not enamored of pvp, or charr for that matter. I’ve tried both and walked away….far away. I get vertigo when playing the charr and I am not into pvp.

Even though I am not into pvp, I enjoy the group runs in WvW. What I find fun is running around large maps with our group and trying to outmaneuver our opposition. Its the voice chat in the guild runs that is more interesting during these experiences for me. After all, I am not the best player but can help the group out a bit most of the time.

I am often the first to go down and have to waypoint to spawn, but that’s ok, everyone cheers when by accident I end up being last person standing …that is funny.

Are you yaks bend? Please be yaks bend. You sound like a cool person to fight alongside with.

jessiestiles.9437:

I was wrong about necros not needing a nerf. I hadn’t played any that could down you so quick when I posted here.

share with me your experience.

what exactly happened that made you change your mind?

1. Population balance
2. Profession balance
3. More open field fighting
4. Less siege humping / PVD / PvE / Gimmicky components (e.g. banners, airships)
5. Reward in the form of fun over material goods (e.g. no karmatraining)

Asrat.2645:

‘We have about 120 devs working on the live game, 70 devs on Expac2, and 30 devs on core teams that support both.’ (reddit ama)
-Seems reasonable.
I also doubt you have to worry about the next expack coming this year. And finally more elite specs will only increase build diversity. Instead of having one must-have op traitline, you’d have at least two, being forced to choose between them.

Allow me to share with you my perspective, and hopefully someone can refute my thoughts.

TheBravery.9615:

My response is from my perspective and my perspective only.

You’re seeing a lot of complaints and few constructive suggestions because there’s no easy solution to approach the problems. Each time new content is released, it adds to the complications by introducing new variables to account for- thus making fixing and balancing more challenging.

I agree with you that there’s a lack of constructive suggestions on these forums.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Help-ArenaNet-balance-the-professions/6024040

Frankly, I’m tired of all the useless complaints and nothing to work off of- so I’ve taken upon myself to do the job for them. Making facilitated discussions on how to fix the problem, and creating a suggestion spreadsheet that gets refined through community feedback. (about 99% finished with warrior balance proposal, in the refining stages of guardian proposal, about to start a thief balance proposal. See links in my signature to view them, or other profession’s sub-forums to find my discussions on current problems)

Despite our efforts, it’s probably all in vain if Arenanet decides to pump out new unrefined content regardless of what I’m doing. It’s like adding fuel to the fire I’m trying to extinguish- every time there’s content- whether it be a sigil, rune, specialization, or profession, I need to consider more variables to develop a balance plan.

Frankly, I’m surprised Karl, Roy, and Robert have stayed with ArenaNet as long as they have. It’s an uphill battle for them and I know how hard it is to balance 9 professions, >600 traits, >1000 skills, countless sigils, runes, and food effects.

… this thread has nothing to do with raids and their accessibility.

This topic is about balancing the professions. NOTHING IN THE OP SAYS RAIDS

Maybe there’s hope for WvW after all.

Finally, a smart move.

Drizzy.1268:

TheBravery.9615:

Alpine borderlands re-released as DLC. $30 per wvw player

Haha.

The thing is: i would actually pay that!

oh god please don’t give them ideas

Anything you hear from friends are rumors and speculation, unless your friends are ArenaNet staff members.

Here’s a speculation:

Alpine borderlands re-released as DLC. $30 per wvw player

My response is from my perspective and my perspective only.

You’re seeing a lot of complaints and few constructive suggestions because there’s no easy solution to approach the problems. Each time new content is released, it adds to the complications by introducing new variables to account for- thus making fixing and balancing more challenging.

I agree with you that there’s a lack of constructive suggestions on these forums.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Help-ArenaNet-balance-the-professions/6024040

Frankly, I’m tired of all the useless complaints and nothing to work off of- so I’ve taken upon myself to do the job for them. Making facilitated discussions on how to fix the problem, and creating a suggestion spreadsheet that gets refined through community feedback. (about 99% finished with warrior balance proposal, in the refining stages of guardian proposal, about to start a thief balance proposal. See links in my signature to view them, or other profession’s sub-forums to find my discussions on current problems)

Despite our efforts, it’s probably all in vain if Arenanet decides to pump out new unrefined content regardless of what I’m doing. It’s like adding fuel to the fire I’m trying to extinguish- every time there’s content- whether it be a sigil, rune, specialization, or profession, I need to consider more variables to develop a balance plan.

Frankly, I’m surprised Karl, Roy, and Robert have stayed with ArenaNet as long as they have. It’s an uphill battle for them and I know how hard it is to balance 9 professions, >600 traits, >1000 skills, countless sigils, runes, and food effects.

DGraves.3720:

TheBravery.9615:

Let’s not derail this thread please. I’m talking about balance, not talking about making content more accessible

The two are one in the same.

How so?

I’m on the topic about new content’s pacing vs the balancing of old content

How does that compare with making content more accessible?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Datamined-new-sigils/6030398 this is an example of new content pacing vs balancing of old content. It’s like concept designers vs engineers; where the concept designers are designing things that go outside scopes of reason and engineers work to fix them.

This is not the solution.

Rank should change depending on whether you win or lose a match, but should also consider variables such as your ability in teamwork, your ability to carry, and the odds stacked against you. Having “metal pip” would artificially bloat everyone’s rank and would not represent actual player ability (not to say that the current system represents actual player ability)

SolitaryPillarist.5740:

Jahroots, the whole point I am making is that I paid for 2 games. They are giving one of those games away for free now. Why ad content that people are unable to play then charge for it.
I never intended to buy a game which has content that “i’m not intended to complete successfully,” I mean just that last statement leads me to believe they deliberately intended their game to be broken(or geared to only a few special players), and then sold us said broken game(or game geared only to a few special players) on purpose. Which would be bad business in my opinion.

Let’s not derail this thread please. I’m talking about balance, not talking about making content more accessible

This would contribute more to the problem than the solution

You’re suggesting to force utility skills onto players as a method of balancing. As that phrase suggested, all you’re doing is “forcing” and further hindering build diversity, it by itself does nothing to address intra/interprofession imbalance issues.

Furthermore, instead of accounting for less variables, balance developers would have to consider 5 (or whatever you are suggesting). In the end, you’ll end up with the same or worse situation in context of game balance.

lynspottery.6529:

I am very glad I ran into this post. I have never played a warrior in GW2 and I’ve played since beta. But, I am looking to try it for the first time because I want something a bit different than my other toons.

Currently I have one of each except warrior and engineer. I’ve tried engi but just could not enjoy it as much so I deleted her. I like my Revenant too but I should have made her something other than a Norn….why is it Norns feel like they are running under water or caught up in sticky mudd? So slowwwwww….

Anyway, I need something different to just play around with to break up my game play a bit. I only pve and, on occasion, WvW with my guild. I am not the best player out there, I am more interested in exploration and pve experiences…pvp is not interesting to me.

As a senior citizen player, I find it really fun to just run around and enjoy the game environment. I am not into having to be the best …but lets face it, at my age (70+) its enough I am actually gaming. Keeps the mind sharp.

But all that aside, would it be an interesting ride for me to create a warrior ??

It’s interesting to know that players of this game have a diverse range of backgrounds.

Much respect to you.

To answer your question, warrior is among top tier in PvE, but low tier in WvW. Like other professions, you’ll see most of your viable attacks being isolated to several traits, weapons, and utilities and never see use of other weapons/traits/utilities. (In the case of warrior, you’re gonna be using a lot of greatsword for PvE)

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

And how would balancing improve the game if there’s no new content? Replaying old content will become boring eventually, no matter how much balancing you throw against it.

I get your point, but there strives to be a healthy medium between new content and fixing old content. The pace of new content is going faster than what Karl, Roy, and Robert seem to be capable of handling. The balance problem isn’t a small one either. You’re seeing class stacking in PvP, completely useless professions in WvW, and builds that are overused or never used in all areas. To at least achieve reasonable balance so these problems aren’t as significant would be a better move instead of throwing more salt on the wound.

Supreme.3164:

Balance seen in a vacuum always leads to biased suggestions

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Help-ArenaNet-balance-the-professions/6024040

Problem is, they’re not seeing enough feedback and often results in groupthink and bias (me included) because they’re placed in each profession’s respective forum. It’s like asking millionaires if they want to pay more taxes. You the answer you’re going to get. If you’re a warrior, you’re probably all for nerfing a reaper or scrapper, but if you mainly play scrapper, you’re probably not going to be so fond about that idea.

I will be making similar suggestion posts for every profession- eventually getting to making one for PvP as well, but I can’t do it without feedback from players of different backgrounds (e.g. different professions).

With you 100%. bias is a big problem when it comes to brainstorming and forming suggestions on how to “fix” and “balance” each profession.

Rekt.5360:

TheBravery.9615:

Rekt.5360:

The V.8759:

Also more of a functionality :

• F1 is your normal burst skill. Locked while in berserk.
• F2 is your primal burst skill. Locked while not in berserk.
• F3 is your enter/ exit button for berserk mode.

I fail to see how this adds more functionality except for the change on F3. If anything the changes only add 1 different button that will be locked half of the time. You won’t be allowed to use you primal bursts out of berserker mode and you won’t be able to use your regular burst skills in berserker mode. Warrior is a binary class, you’re either in or out of berserker mode, So we definitely don’t need a second button for primal bursts which we won’t touch out of berserker mode when we can just have 1 button that changes according to which mode we’re in as we have now. The ability to leave berserker mode whenever you want is nice though.

Another valid point.

How about

F1 for burst/primal burst depending on if you’re in berserk mode
F2 for entering/leaving berserk mode

Yes, that would be ideal. Also why the heck are there so many people (excluding my 1 vote which somewhat I corrected for by voting again) strongly disapproving the proposal. It’s like people want no change but then they whine that warrior is kitten…make up your minds please. As I see it you don’t have to agree with the whole proposal, I know I don’t but I’d definitely take a majority of what’s in there over what we have currently.

Btw I was looking at defy pain and we should increase the health threshold. 10% on a berserker amulet is 1.9k HP, that’s really small. It’d proc off anything, we should increase the health threshold but also the duration by a bit, maybe double threshold and double duration, while increasing the CD accordingly.

People have different agendas and reasons.

Some are in support of these changes because they benefit warriors.

Others disagree because they fear warrior would be made too strong or too weak (in that case I would like to hear them so I could fix them),

or disagree because they have another idea of what warrior should be (e.g. stances made a warrior mechanic)

or just hate me (Like obama in politics, some people just hate him rather than his ideas. As I was developing this, I received a LOT of flak and disagreements and refused to gain my perspective on the changes. When I was making the guardian rework, someone vandalized my spreadsheet with unconstructive comments and instead opted to throw personal insults.. such as kitten munching monkey or something. People can get so sensitive sometimes)

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

I personally don’t care about that balancing. It’s more that the direction of the game is completely geared towards the hardcore players. Check the latest update. It’s only a raid, nothing for those people that will never be able to do raids as raids are not made for casuals…

I’m going to presume that any new expansion will only add more content for the hard core people, and hardly anything for the rest of the player base.

“hardcore” and “casual” are nonsensical to me. You’re either play the game or you don’t.

In response to you, you should be concerned with PvE balance as well. Excessive power creep will dull your experience, and a profession that outclasses yours would essentially remove your spot from raids.

Balance is a huge deal to WvW and PvP players for obvious reasons.

Rekt.5360:

The V.8759:

Also more of a functionality :

• F1 is your normal burst skill. Locked while in berserk.
• F2 is your primal burst skill. Locked while not in berserk.
• F3 is your enter/ exit button for berserk mode.

I fail to see how this adds more functionality except for the change on F3. If anything the changes only add 1 different button that will be locked half of the time. You won’t be allowed to use you primal bursts out of berserker mode and you won’t be able to use your regular burst skills in berserker mode. Warrior is a binary class, you’re either in or out of berserker mode, So we definitely don’t need a second button for primal bursts which we won’t touch out of berserker mode when we can just have 1 button that changes according to which mode we’re in as we have now. The ability to leave berserker mode whenever you want is nice though.

Another valid point.

How about

F1 for burst/primal burst depending on if you’re in berserk mode
F2 for entering/leaving berserk mode