Guild Wars 2

No. Have you even read the forums?

vapour.2916:

This is going to be nice seeing all of the fair weather Mesmers loudly taking their bandwagon boat home.

This is a game played for recreation in people’s free time. It is not a job, it is not a religion, heck, it’s not even like rooting for your local sports franchise, as games are mostly non-territorial. We are all fair weather gamers. If a better game came along or if this one isn’t fun anymore you quit.

If the game isn’t fun and you don’t quit, you may have a problem.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Jester.1236:

No one knows how powerful the interrupt builds are going to be yet. I doubt in the past few hours anyone has completely geared there character and learned the rotation. The buff to PU was pretty huge. Making a lot of stealth builds even better. The same thing with Torment, you all have been using it for a couple hours tops. Maybe try it for a week before you start condemning it.

They did add diversity. Most of the people complaining are angry because of one trait move. And that’s it.

When I saw the leaked notes, I decided to test interrupts. The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to interrupt a skill with less than .75 second cast time. You can still use a lockdown build or w/e, bu the problem is that the majority of the time you will not actually be getting interrupts.

Yeah, to me interrupts are basically random occurrences. And while many mesmer skills have random elements, you generally don’t build around the random chance that something will happen.

I guess dropping Chaos Storm in a zerg is likely to interrupt something. And a well timed interrupt can kill a heal, but that’s about it.

osif.8673:

AfterDark.1920:

I am with you – after 8 months of playing Mesmer ANet has thankfully given me a reason to switch off now.

$20 says the people “quitting” because of this don’t actually leave.

Probably not, people are really upset. Some people are probably going to log in tonight grumbling. Some people are probably going to take a break to calm down and let the meta play out a little bit. Some people who take a break will never come back. It’s just the way these things go.

However, despite the obvious next post, the game will not be better off to see them go. They are not necessarily fair weather mesmers. In fact, I bet some of them were the most committed players Anet had.

Well said, Pyro.

But I think it’s a mistake is to think that most of the nerf’s had anything to do with build diversity. I think that ANet decided that there were a disproportionately high number of mesmers in the game which much mean that mesmers were OP.

It couldn’t possibly be that PvE is so broken that Portal is the only caster skill that has any value.

Nuka Cola.8520:

not much of a nerf, be happy it isn’t on 15sec CD or more

Yes, ANet. Thank you for not kicking us harder.

Yesterday I finally got my second mesmer to level 80. I wanted two different builds to play around with.

The good news is that now i can run both builds
20/20/0/0/30 and
0/20/20/0/30.

Maybe, but I’m not sure, it’s a lot of accumulated nerfs. I only listed the two I knew were fine.

Most shatter builds include 20 points in Dueling for the deceptive evasion and 30 points in illusions for illusionary persona.

The other 20 can either
10 in domination 10 more in dueling (for 30 total)
20 in domination; or
20 in chaos.

The shatter builds took a hit with the nerf to Blurred Frenzy but they are still viable.
The hidden fire build took some nerfs but also gained some buffs.

Sinaya.4201:

LumAnth.5124:

I…. I don’t know what to say.
…

NERF iMAGE

No, not iMAGE!!

Don’t worry iMage is fine, but nerf the rest

That’s what they want. Too many mesmers in PvP.

Ayrilana.1396:

Sigh. Why must people rely on others to find them a build? There’s many of us who actually try out builds for ourselves and actually know what the class is capable of. I can already see at least two other builds that may be viable other than shatter but haven’t had the chance to test them.

It’s not that we can’t figure this stuff out, it’s that we are disheartened at the moment and don’t want to.

ANet apparently subscribes to the Harrison Bergeron school of build equality.

I have alts in different classes (so no re-roll just select a different toon), I may play around with the thief / guardian / or ranger.

Although the ranger got hit pretty hard too.

I’m taking a break and let this all shake out. It seems really bad, but maybe some of the experts (I’m looking at you Pyro & Kylia) can figure this out.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp

But I would wait until we actually see the patch

Carighan.6758:

TooBz.3065:

I would think that during a rebalancing they would nerf what they think is OP and buff other things enough so that the player base would say, “hmmm… I lost this but that looks interest…”

They are sort-of doing that by also substantially increasing Phantasm life expectancy.

Still, it can’t truly be done. You need to do one thing at a time as a dev, and doing this buff/nerf is really difficult to fully test and balance.

The problem is that each nerf makes the game less fun and interesting for the nerfed. For example, I really enjoyed Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, but they nerfed biotic power and buffed weapons until it didn’t make sense to run a biotic class. (At least when I quit). Each time they made the change the game was a little less fun to play.

Now some of this is due to familiarity and learning the skills sets / tactics, but in October / November WvW felt like armies of demigods clashing. Now it feels like armies of kids with foam padded sticks.

That can’t be good.

I think those are just the first leaked notes, there was a subsequent leak that included the IC nerf.

Nretep.2564:

Carighan.6758:

I’d really love to nerf some traits or outright change them (too many traits affecting the same few things, really), but in turn increase base power substantially. Would make lowbie Mesmer less painful to play, too.

Unfortunately you can’t do both at the same time (balancing-wise). And you can’t “passively” increase the skills first, too. So the only way while not overpowering the mesmer is to nerf them to ants and then very, very slowly make them to humans again.

I don’t think this is true. You may be being sarcastic and I totally missed it.

I would think that during a rebalancing they would nerf what they think is OP and buff other things enough so that the player base would say, “hmmm… I lost this but that looks interesting…”

A straight up nerf with tepid buffs is not going to meet the stated goal of build diversity.

But we shall see in a few hours.

I use knights gear (soldiers runes) with zerker trinkets. (0/15/30/20/5)

If works well in WvW and also is okay when I do some PvE (although I wish I hit a little harder).

There’s nothing new that would keep someone who already has a legendary busy for the next two months. The game is more like pick up basketball than a full time sink.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Sinaya.4201:

Actually, I have a question about the iMage.

How does it work when you have the Cleansing Conflagration (Domination IX, 20% reduced Torch Skill cooldown, and Torch Skills remove conditions) trait?

I understand that you clear a condition on yourself when you use the Prestige, but do you also get a condition removed when you cast the iMage? Or does the iMage’s auto attack clear conditions on targets too?

I’m at work so I can’t really test this right now, but I’m curious as to how that trait works exactly… it might make it a slightly more viable Disenchanter-like Phantasm if he actually cures stuff too when traited.

(Thanks to Kate Austinmer on Crystal Desert for pointing this out!)

I believe that it cleanses on the cast, and the bolt will cleanse as well.

Basically it becomes a disenchanter on a 3x longer cooldown that attacks 3x slower, clears half as many conditions, doesn’t remove boons, and requires 20 trait points + a major trait.

Oooh… sign me up.

Drakh.3128:

All Phantasms damage is based on power, why in the world would ANET bury [Illusionists Celerity] at the top of the condition line? That makes absolutely no sense! I thought the whole purpose of the reworking of the trees is so they would make more sense, not less! Might as well just remove that trait completely, I’d never spend 25 points in condition damage for a mesmer with our nerfed confusion.

How about just swap [Illusionists Celerity] for [Confusing Enchantments] since it has no place in the power tree?

It fits because the power tree is also the condition duration tree. (But I have no explanation why power and condition duration go together.)

I don’t think anyone is really saying this helps build diversity. I think some people are saying that we have 5 more points because there’s no reason to go into illusions.

Kind of like looking at a plate full of garbage and saying “at least the silverware is nice”

grimmson.9154:

there was a time in beta where the iMage was totally overpowered and destroyed everything! therefore they have to be very very carefull not to make it too powerfull again!

but yeah torment or burning would be sweet

iMage may have been overpowered at one point, but this is not binary “don’t feed him after midnight” scenario. It’s not like a little buff will turn the iMage into a monster.

The iMage is objectively pathetic and could use some kind of love.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Well I’m not necessarily blaming anyone but a lousy design philosophy, but the pattern has been consistent throughout the months…

People whine = appeasing nerf incoming.

My main problem is that these changes almost always stem from a PvP/WvW perspective… and wasn’t it last month Anet said that they’re going to be splitting the balance more often?

I agree, except that it seems much more like the sPvP group whines and things get changed. People have been complaining about Warriors in PvE forever and Anet doesn’t give a kitten.

If they want to balance around organized groups competing 5 on 5 then that’s the game they should have made.

IMO the only thing a huge nerf does is show that they either don’t know what they are doing now or didn’t know what they were doing in the first place.

I’d like to see condition damage get some attention. When 100 blades can hit for 13-18k in 3 seconds, it’s hard to get excited about 600 hp / second from burning, or 100 hp / second bleed ticks (even if you have 25 stacks, it’s still comparatively pathetic.)

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@fadeaway: You’re definitely right. The question is, would you have rathered this or a flat damage nerf?

The 1v1 masses have been roaring for a nerf to phantasms, so Anet had to do something. That 12 second difference is nuts though… but, on the brightside, Phantasms should be lasting longer with Signet of Illusions working properly.

I disagree. ANet didn’t HAVE to do anything. And if they want to do something, they could have not change the trait to 25 pts., if could have been 15 pts.

Of course, confusion didn’t need a 50% nerf either.

There are many many different mechanics that help someone stomping. Stealth is a big one, but so are mist form, portals, shadow step, haste, stability, and invulnerability.

Why single out stealth?

For dodging, when you dodge, you dodge in the direction you are currently moving, holding down ‘d’ and dodging makes you move to the right, ‘a’ the left, ‘w’ dodges forward, the default (and with ‘d’) is to dodge backward.

You can dodge by double-tapping a direction key. But I recommend you turn this off in the options menu. It’s a disaster later in the game.

Many people rebind their dodge keys to something on the mouse. Personally, I have it mapped to pushing my mouse wheel to the right. It’s an easy action that I can do very quickly.

Also, for guardian, the hammer is a slow but very effective weapon. The third autoattack hit creates a symbol which reduces your damage by 33%. So you can try that. Hammer 2 is very effective.

For the scepter, scepter 2 (smite) is so good that you can get through a lot of the game just spamming that.

Finally, I recommend you get use to moving a lot. Very few attacks lock on, so you can mitigate a lot of damage by running around your opponent.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

tigirius.9014:

Actually no, unless they have some kind of weird overflow thing going that’s not being told to the public because I’m constantly in these zones and no one is there. I rarely see anyone, ever, I see only people in the Queens and the Norn starter zones and I see people in Orr occassionally but never in the mid level zones even with people guesting so that’s one thing you’ll definitely not win the argument on man I have hundreds of hours of play time with it being empty because those are the places I go to to finish my dailies and to gather certain types of materials to sell to the TP because they are typically higher then the ones that sell for copper.

I’m on TC and what you’ve described matches my experience the past couple months. Leveling alts was a lonely—and thus boring—affair. Through most of the mid-level zones I visited I didn’t see another player. I played those characters during US prime-time, so maybe off-hours are better. Either way, it felt empty.

I’ve had the same experience on TC. You occasionally see another person, but just in passing. I think it’s because the end game has absolutely nothing to do with the mid-level zones. (Orr is pretty empty too).

Generally, the end game is either WvW, Dungeons, or whatever living story bit is going on at the moment.

laokoko.7403:

I think people are just clueless. Darkfall is an open world full loot pvp game.

That is why resource isn’t shared. That is why it take time to teleport.

Yeah, that’s why I didn’t mention the game at first. I know its a different kind of game. It doesn’t explain why it can take hours to salvage stuff, or chop down trees. Unless it’s to provide a punishment for getting ganked.

it also may be that other MMO’s are more polished and I’d like them better. However, to me the difference was shocking.

Tolmos.8395:

TooBz.3065:

I may get infracted, but it’s Darkfall Unholy Wars.

Er… I was expecting you to say a different game.

You can’t really compare DF:UH and GW2. People play them for completely different reasons. There are very few people who play DF for its PvE, sort of like EVE.

It’s a very niche game, meaning that the players put up with a lot of BS design flaws to get the specific gameplay element that DF has to offer them and that no other game does. If you aren’t there for that specific gameplay element, then you lasting 10 minutes in that game is a testament to your patience.

I honestly thought you were going to say Rift lol

Yeah, I know. It just happens to be a niche my friends like a lot. So they are willing to put up with the problems. It’s very 1996 in its presentation and UI, so I guess it’s not really a fair comparison. Nevertheless, the experience was terrible.

That said, if you are looking for a PvP environment that is winner take all, why make me run around and do PvE to gear up for it. Why make the experience so terrible?

I may get infracted, but it’s Darkfall Unholy Wars.

It’s from a small developer and is suppose to be full loot PvP, which my RL friends like. But the interface is terrible. Movement is so clunky I don’t know how you are suppose to fight. Every action takes a ridiculously long period of time.

When I started the basics, my friend said to me, start chopping the tree and go hang out with your wife for a while. You can chop the tree for half an hour. WHAT?? Who chops trees for a half an hour????

Maybe it’s suppose to be a lumberjack simulation.

Let’s not even talk about it crashing while I was running around and losing my mount.

OMG is guild wars 2 great.

I can’t believe the amount of bullkitten that other game requires. Clunky interface. Shared resource nodes. Can’t tell if a tree has been chopped down by someone else until after you spend 30 seconds swinging an ax at it. Wait 2 minutes to portal.

It’s terrible design. If they are all that bad I’m surprised this genre ever got off the ground.

jheryn.8390:

OMG! Another ‘I Hate RNG’ thread. I guess 1,203,394,740,135 of these threads isn’t enough. We can always use one more.

It’s too soon to tell, this may become an “I hate grinding” thread, and there are only 1,189,153,924,103 of those.

They plan to have a precursor scavanger hunt; however, as of the last time it was mentioned they are not currently working on one.

I expect that it will not occur until the fall at the earliest.

My personal recommendation is to give up on legendaries or other fancy skins. You will be much happier in the long run.

Nihevil.8024:

AntiGw.9367:

Or perhaps we should all stop making new topics about something that isn’t a problem and already has a billion topics.

This, this, and this.

I agree. All the cries to nerf thieves is getting ridiculous.

Wait, what are we talking about?

In defense of the qq’ing. There is a possibility that these changes aren’t locked in stone. If we are vocal about the parts that we dislike, maybe we can get them changed before the patch launches.

edit: assuming, of course, that the leak is legitimate.

It would be nice if they just made the existing system apply to critical hits or…

50% of normal hits become glancing blows
50% of critical hits become normal hits.

But, but, but…

aren’t you all my minions?

I agree a ty or thanks comment goes a long way. I usually see people double take when I thank them, so it must not be very common outside of rezzes.

While the time spent memorizing a dungeon and boss tells should be rewarded I assume?

What I mean is, there isn’t enough actual “challenge” in the game to justify the skill elitism that I see here. At least not in PvE.

Most of it is just rote memorization.

IMO, the majority of the buffs and nerfs are driven by the PvP community. ArenaNet has a stated goal to make this into a viable e-sport and they will make the adjustments necessary to make that happen.

The problem is that WvW and PvE are very different environments. For example, Warriors rule PvE but are bottom tier in PvP. Thieves rule PvP but are not so good an PvE, especially since the change to stealth that makes enemies just sit and wait for you to reappear.

Because ANet wants to keep the feel of PvP similar to the rest of the game (for obviously good reasons) unless a change is going to break WvW and PvE it’s applied universally.

Edit: For example, why is DPS still king of PvE. The idea that there is nothing that can be done is ridiculous. Even if you didn’t want to change the terrible AI, you could still make enemies with high toughness but low vitality (good for conditions).

Furajir.3815:

Hes not overreacting. Every patch, classes like Thiefs and Mesmers get massive boosts or some new ability, we just keep taking hit after hit, sitting on kittens of bugs and crappy pet AI, yet we are supposed to be thrilled with the Ranger being 50% ranger 50% pet. This is gonna continue to happen, I can only forsee regen taking a hit at some point.

Yes. Ranger was my first character, but I don’t play him much because of this. It seems like the only buffs Ranger’s ever get is arrow speed increases to help deal with the fact that arrows can’t hit a wiggling target. </scorn>

I feel like the developers actually try to facilitate new builds for other classes, but for the ranger it’s always, find a build so we can nerf it.

Godmoney.2048:

Hyung.6140:

Ansau.7326:

Temporal Curtain nerf is due to all the criers in this forum…

Anyway, the notes are unofficial, so don’t take strictly serious.

What criers? I feel like I must have missed all the crying on this.

In a recent SOTG they mentioned this nerf.

Bascially good teams would do this.

AOE stealth, Temporal curtain from stealth (since there was no internal cd the curtain can be trigger without chance to dodge.) MOA the guardian on enemy team, focus guardian………mop up the rest of the team.

The nerf is to address that tactic specifically. Giveing the 1 second internal will give the other players 1 second to see the curtain and dodge a pull to knockdown.

Not agreeing or disagreeing but that’s the reason for the nerf.

Well, as long as it’s good for PvP I guess that’s all that matters.

It’s terrible for WvW. You can’t use it to pull back fleeing targets, they will be out of range before you can catch them. It was already difficult, now it’s impossible.

I know you’re talking about the nerfs, but I think the Ranger really needs some build diversity. And I saw nothing to indicate that new builds were going to be viable.

I may have missed something but it seems like one huge nerf.

When I level an alt I have to split my time between two zones of equal level in order to find things to do at the right level. For example, Queensdale and the Plains of Ashford. Then Kessex Hills, Then Gendarran Fields and Lornar Pass, Then Hirathi Hinterlands and Dradgehaunt Cliffs etc..

Thedenofsin.7340:

Dragnela.6532:

Thedenofsin.7340:

Sepreh.5924:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-skill-and-trait-changes/

Discuss

As a person who plays the mesmer quite a bit, I can state that giving Thieves and Mesmers Torment is, generally, a bad idea!

These classes, along with the Elementalist, are very slippery and mobile classes, requiring opponents to be equally mobile to stand a chance of defeating them. Giving them access to a condition which punishes an opponent for pursuing (or running away from) these classes is entirely too much.

I’m sure the developers already know what I just stated, but I am uncertain if they have really played through the implications of this.

Torment can be used to punish an opponent for acting both offensively and defensively. It can be used to help pin down an opponent and help you escape from one.

Fundamentally, I have seen the ArenaNet developers try hard to push GW2 players in ways that force them to become better at the game. One of the most, and perhaps the single most, important aspect in PVP is learning how to move and position yourself well. Creating a condition that punishes movement of any kind seems counterproductive to that goal.

I think giving Necromancers access to Torment is an excellent idea, or for any class/build that is limited in mobility.

If Mesmers and Thieves get Torment, then basically ANet will have to balance Torment around the damage it does while a person moves. Doing anything otherwise would be pretty silly, and I think that would really marginalize the effectiveness of the DoT for classes like Necromancers.

Dont call the mesmer mobile -_-

Portal, Blink, Decoy, Prestige, Swap, Phase Retreat, Mass Invis and Temporal Curtain. The Mesmer is quite mobile in a fight.

I agree that Mesmers are highly mobile in a fight, but decoy, prestige, and Mass Invisibility are not mobility stills, they are stealth skills. If you are including stealth (which I don’t think you should) you should also include veil.

Amun Ra.6435:

TooBz.3065:

Before everyone QQs too much about mesmers and thieves, there is still a distinct possibility that the OP builds will get nerfed to the ground.

Some the torment condition on mesmers (at least) makes sense because they are 1. one or the two second slowest classes and 2. have no real conditions since confusion was nerfed.

I don’t think they will nerf anything. The way I read it is that Anet wants to entice thieves/mesmers into trying conditions builds. This game will be broken though if those two classes get access to torment without having to sacrifice anything.

This is walking on thin ice here, I hope Anet really thinks this through.

In a rare moment of optimism, I’m just saying wait and see.

The glamour mesmer was one of the strongest builds in WvW and it was nerfed into oblivion, so I know they can / will do it.

They said they were moving around some traits, i can see how reorganizing some of the Mesmer traits could really weaken the current builds.