Guild Wars 2

Everyone saying “oh but there’s counters” and “you can do x/y/z to beat turret engies” that’s completely besides the point. The fact the build exists is the problem in itself.

“Honestly I don’t know how to fix this, y’all say the problem is that they can stack WAY to much might, but the amount of damage they do isn’t the problem for me rather the amount of survivability. My first instinct would be to just remove the cele Amulet but i’m sure this would have it’s own repercussions.”

Celestial amulet is strong, but only because of the insane healing and that might is so common you end up not losing a lot of damage compared to zerker. I honestly think the only way to fix Elementalists are this time is to do something about Evasive Arcana. It’d obviously need to be done very carefully, but it’s one of the strongest (I’d argue the strongest) trait in the entire game and more than half of the Ele’s utility comes from it (free heals and might stacks basically).

I’d still argue that Cele Engineer is too strong for the amount of skill required to play them well enough to get along. Obviously there are subtleties playing at the highest of levels, but face it, you can be effective enough in mid to mid-high levels by spamming your skills off cooldown with almost no repercussions. It is like Warrior before the patch, but at least with the adrenaline changes on Warrior there is obvious counterplay and mediocre players will be punished by wasting their burst. Engineer still doesn’t have that.

Oh this is amazing.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Standardized models will be nice…

rip in peace asura rifle warrior
you will be missed

It will fulfill the role of “never being used” because it’s objectively worse than Berserker’s.

Zenith.7301:

What warrior/thief nerfs? You mean BP intervals increasing, as if that’s what killed mesmers? No, thief kittened spike damage and mobility killed mesmers. So did warriors, who in fact got a huge buff to greatsword builds with the new arcing slice doing the ridiculous damage it does now.

Healing signet is the same ridiculous heal it has been, cleansing ire is still in, stance stacking is still in. Thieves wiping out over half a power spec’s HP in one backstab combo is still a thing.

Don’t hold your breath, power mesmers will still get trashed by thieves and warriors, and ele probably still as well.

The only mesmer spec, PU, which can handle warriors and thieves, is just a duel spec that can’t even roam because it has no moevement and kills so slowly with no aoe to boot. PU mesmer is a poor man’s necro.

Ele will still be pigeonholed into water/arcana hybrid/bunker or a scepter/dagger spec that is harder to execute than simply playing a thief or warrior. Warrior and thief will still be the premier power based specs that can play glass cannon/knight.

I think you’re going to be very surprised how much different warriors are going to be once you can dodge bursts and they lose adrenaline. Think of it: dodge Earthshaker or Evis and they won’t be able to immediately weapon swap and clear all their conditions. That’s a pretty big deal.

And yes, D/P Thief will inevitably make a comeback but it still has bad matchups against tanky stuff which is still going to be more than popular. Mesmer is going to be scary. Not because of the whatever buffs they’re getting, but their main counters are getting hit pretty hard.

rip in peace kizos you will be misserino

Neschast.7196:

I think you underestimate the buff to scepter. It’s going to apply torment on AAs. The AAs will generate clones that will stack even more torment. Right now, I need to disengage if I get 5 stacks and one or two other conditions put on me. Can you imagine what your condi bar will look like post patch if that mesmer change goes through?

In 1v1 it will probably be pretty strong, but it’s not enough pressure in larger fights to make a big difference.

I just want to write my thoughts about this, because really it seems there’s a whole lot of nothing happening with these classes. However, I have a feeling Mesmer is going to get more popular, not because of the “buffs” they received (which seem almost entirely negligible, save the illusionary leap) but because other changes, specifically to thief.

Really I see nothing changing with Elementalist unless they change runes and sigils again. They can buff signets all they want, but Cantrips will always be superior in every way. Cleansing Fire is just objectively better than Signet of Water, Blink has more utility and is a better getaway than Air, and the other two are just not good. If you want Elementalist gameplay to actually change, ANet needs to completely revamp the water traitline and do something serious about Evasive Arcana. Until then we’re not going to see anything besides the 0/0/2/6/6 build.

I don’t play Mesmer much, but I don’t see scepter becoming popular at all. Complain about PU all you want (yes, it’s annoying) but it’s not good in tournies. The mantras might be a little scary, but I think the main “buff” to Mesmers are the Warrior and Thief nerfs.

The changes mentioned today seem lacking, not to say that’s a bad thing. Yes, I would like to see some difference to the meta Elementalist build, but unless they address runes and sigils we won’t be seeing much of that. But Mesmers will have a lot of potential once Thieves don’t control the meta.

Phaeton.9582:

that said the change to burst skills means dodging warrior attacks could adversely effect their offensive pressure/defensive sustain

crazy!

Holy kitten, counterplay! I forgot that existed.

Unlike the Hunter/Engineer changes they proposed, I think most of these are good. Hunter and Engineer are going to be kittened if they go through with those, but at least these guys will be more moderate.

The S/D thief changes seem correct: you don’t need to directly nerf something to make it less ridiculously overpowered. Those are the kind of changes they should have been making for the past two years, but I digress.

Even though there were no direct longbow/hammer changes, the adrenaline changes will be a huge nerf to warrior. Think of it: Earthshaker gets dodged, you can always recover with a weapon swap and drop your longbow burst, but no longer. This will require you to actually set up big abilities instead of just blow them with no consequence.

I was worried about this “discussion” because they’ve done nothing but wrong in the past few patches, but this is looking like a step in the right direction. I don’t entirely agree with the dagger cleave change, that seems entirely unnecessary, but you can’t win them all.

Also, we haven’t seen any discussion about overall game changes (runes and sigils specifically) so it’s hard to judge strength now.

Marvin hype, best candidate NA. Good luck on your endeavors!

Eurantien.4632:

Wilco.1458:

AK hype! Everyone vote for our favorite static discharge engy and the pioneer of the yolo elementalist! Also Marvin is awesome too. This seems fun, I hope the right people get in!

Congrats on the Gamescom victory EU.

I’d rather lose with fun people than win with jerks.

AK hype! Everyone vote for our favorite static discharge engy and the pioneer of the yolo elementalist! Also Marvin is awesome too. This seems fun, I hope the right people get in!

Mrbig.8019:

Wilco.1458:

Mrbig.8019:

tichorum.2415:

Mrbig.8019:

Not enough.

these runes should be deleted.

They’re basically what they were before they got buffed.

we didn’t have air-fire and uber celestial back then.

something needs to be done: either air-fire nerf or strenght runes disappearing.

Celestial is strong because of strength runes. Nerf strength and celestial becomes worthless again.

Celestial is strong cuz every profession can now stack might sigil thanks to “double sigil patch” along with any other thing they used to equip in the past.

And, moreover, might runes 6th bonus has never worked pre-patch so nobody cared about dem runes, even HGH engies used to mix multiple might stacking sets instead of carrying the whole one.

results?

everything totally broken.

Fix plox.

That’s what I’m saying. If the only change at the feature patch was improve celestial, then it wouldn’t be nearly as popular. -Maybe- d/d ele would be decent but they’re only good because of might stacks anyway.

Second point I agree with entirely. Everything is totally broken.

maha.7902:

Wilco.1458:

I find it hysterical that the PvErs are going crazy over the change and think it’s the worst thing ever.

I find it hysterical you’re talking about PvE in a PvP forum.

Just pointing out that us PvPers are all like “this needs to be nerfed more” while most of the player base thinks the 2% is the end of the world.

Mrbig.8019:

tichorum.2415:

Mrbig.8019:

Not enough.

these runes should be deleted.

They’re basically what they were before they got buffed.

we didn’t have air-fire and uber celestial back then.

something needs to be done: either air-fire nerf or strenght runes disappearing.

Celestial is strong because of strength runes. Nerf strength and celestial becomes worthless again.

I find it hysterical that the PvErs are going crazy over the change and think it’s the worst thing ever.

Leeto.1570:

Mrbig.8019:

Leeto.1570:

Ban all other races, they`re too big.
I know many of you want perfect TOL where everyone is human female with flower in their blue/pink hair but its not gonna happen. Buy glasses/bigger monitor.

Asuras have many animation issues, we all know it and it’s been confirmed. Don’t pretend there is no problem just cuz you don’t want to have your cute asura banned.

Yes 200 animation range on drakes breath will be gamechanger in TOL…
TCG will still win with human thief and guard, its stupid to force people play something else than their mains and pretend that it changes something, i can guarantee you that GW2 is not played on such level of competitiveness where player race decides outcome of match.

Olrun’s killshot warrior worked almost entirely because it’s super hard to notice the animation on asura. I assure you it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well on another race.

Not meaning to attack him, but it was a pretty big factor. You can legit hide in other people’s animations.

Freeelancer.2860:

The fact that you can find a bunch of people (even on this small thread) saying something is OP, but everyone disagreeing what exactly is OP is the only proof you need about balance being quite decent.

If everything is OP nothing is OP. Switch your build or scream for help if you are countered.

This is called power creep and it’s bad for games. If everything is OP then everything is OP.

Here’s a handy video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

Simon.3794:

Wilco.1458:

Inscrutable.8347:

The game is as balanced as its ever been.

What game are you playing?

Klinch.2964:

I feel balance is pretty good right now, not perfect of course, but I don’t see anything that screams “OP!!”.

You too, what game are you playing?

How long have you been playing PvP competitively, you are a WvWer too
Oh please, don’t even get me started.

This meta right now is way better then what we had since last year may and actually feels right as in tPvP perspective, sure mesmer need some tweak and stuff cuz trickery thief is broken, or maybe nerf trickery thief. but other then that, this meta right now is way better then what we had for 1 year.

I’ve been top 100 on leaderboards for a while, haven’t played a game in a week or so .. probably much lower now. How about you, Mr. INeverPlayedTeamQueue?

If you guys really must know the problems with balance in this game, here it goes. First, hard counters to builds is not good balance. It turns the game into rock paper scissors and removes any amount of creativity. For example, engineers are very strong, the argument is “counter with a fearbomb necro”. That’s bad balance, more than a hard counter should be able to deal with an engineer.

Next, you have a number of builds that dominate the scene, including hambow/axebow warrior, d/d elementalist, and any engineer. People complain about s/d trickery being the strongest build but frankly it’s just an easy build to play and a not so trivial build to play against, but at high levels it doesn’t have great matchups (the previous three I listed should beat a trickery thief).

Besides the fact you have this obvious power creep, the bunker and healing meta is way too popular. You can win games without ever killing anyone now, which I personally find super boring. Put a guardian + staff elementalist on point and stalemate anyone you come across. Power creep is way out of control, there are way too many completely useless builds and too many builds that only lose to a hard counter and too many builds that the only job is to not die as opposed to actually do damage.

If they implemented hotfixes balance would be much smoother. You reduce number on like two rune sets and fix incendiary powder and you get a brand new meta once again without any of the fuss of “we’ve been preparing this patch for 8 months.” It would also be interesting to see more game modes than capture point. Engi wins like 90% of battles fighting on a point, but much less so off one. But that’s much more work than simple number changes that can come every few weeks.

ANet just needs to nerf everything. Literally every class.

Inscrutable.8347:

The game is as balanced as its ever been.

What game are you playing?

Klinch.2964:

I feel balance is pretty good right now, not perfect of course, but I don’t see anything that screams “OP!!”.

You too, what game are you playing?

I heard Ferox was kind of a scrub but idk this team might not be that horrible …

Very strong team, awesome people, super fun to play with!

d/d ele is really only strong because celestial and strength runes, so it’s not really the class itself but the surrounding factors. Also d/d contributes to the bunker meta which is totally lame. I play d/d and enjoy it but fighting an ele + another bunker (guard or warrior) you just get stalemates.

And to answer the other question, there’s a bunch of stuff out there that’s fun. d/d ele before the changes was one. I enjoy fighting some mesmers (not pu obviously), both for the same reason: their strong abilities have counterplay. If longbow on warrior was tuned down a bit, hammer might be decent to fight. Necros would be fun if they removed spinal shivers from the traitline. Thieves are always going to be annoying but I don’t really mind them (played one for like 1.5k hours so at least I know how to play against them), but I can imagine they’ll always be annoying to others. Also I love fighting DPS guards even though I think they’re super strong, they’re just not tanky enough to fit into the game. At least they’re interesting.

There’s a lot out there that has potential.

This isn’t a complain about balance post. It really doesn’t matter whether the common builds are strong or weak or whatever. The fact of the matter is pretty much everything that you fight is just not enjoyable to fight against.

The combat in this game gives itself to fast moving counterplay. You have lots of dodges and block and stuff that allow you to outposition and outplay opponents. That doesn’t matter anymore. You’re losing PvPers not because balance is bad, but because the meta gets very stale very fast and nobody is making any attempt to fix that. There can’t be more than like two actual PvP teams that are left anymore.

Dear ANet,
Nobody likes to fight against the following builds: any engineer, any warrior, power necro, staff ele, d/d ele (to a lesser extent), s/d acro thief, minionmancer, spirit ranger, etc.
Whether or not they are balanced is not the question. But if I have to fight against another turret engineer on a point I’m seriously going to freak out. I don’t need advice on how to fight one, but if I wanted to fight inanimate objects I would play another game or perhaps just bang my head against a wall. Who thought this was a good idea to make this build a thing in the office anyway? I want to beat somebody because I’m better than them, can read their moves, and react accordingly.

Basically everything in this game needs to be nerfed and AI builds need to be removed (not nerfed, completely removed). I mean everything, every class can use one. You are rewarded now for fighting to not lose instead of fighting to win. It’s a disgrace that you can’t look back and realize (and fix) the mistakes you made. But I digress…

The combat system in this game is one of the best, if not the best, I’ve seen in an MMO. It’s a shame PvP just went down the toilet.

Please ANet, bring back the fun. I’ve been playing this game a long time and recently broke top 100 on the ladderboards (probably do to most of the better people leaving, but whatever I’m content). You have the potential for amazing PvP. I doubt you guys will really read this because most of these forums are really horrible, but hopefully you realize what’s happening to your best players.

You can kill a burst ele simply by looking at them menacingly.

More and more lately have my teleports been failing. Besides the “trick stuff” or whatever to get over ledges, simple things like stealing has been completely broken. It goes on cooldown, I do damage and get boons and everything works except I’m in the same spot. Has been common with infiltrators strike too, I end up in my original position. I’m getting similar results on ele.

I can’t tell if this is lag or something else but this difference is noticeable and I’m definitely losing kills or dying because of it.

These guys are awesome.

This guy is a genius. ANet should hire him.

WARNING TO ANYONE:

This person has single-handedly ditched and ruined many guilds and basically made an entire server hate him. Be cautious giving him a leadership position.

Wow look at this guy, crawling back to this game again?

:(

SOR RUINED CHRISTMAS! BLAME [DN]

Saying ZDs didn’t win BG the league is like saying Lebron didn’t win rings for the Heat. Could Wade have done it on his own? Maybe. We’ll never know, but I assure you the matches would have been much closer.

We’ll see what happens this week!

I would like to thank TW for supporting us so much.

got it

#justSGthings

morrolan.9608:

What the hell is with JQ in TCBL just now camping SOR stuff and refusing to take any TC camps, keeps or towers? Running a full 80 man map blob as well.

I was told that SoR bags are the juiciest and have the best loot.

Does wiping the two (self-acclaimed) best guilds NA make [SG] the best guild NA?

That’s for you to decide.

Sharia don’ like it ..
rock the casbah, rock the casbah.

profgast.7816:

I still want to see a 1v1 Rock’em Sock’em Golem duel between Jed and Jericho.

With both of them in voice coms making calls like a normal ZvZ fight.

I would pay to see this.

Good fights [PINK] and [STUN] on TCBL tonight from [SG]

Oh no we lost him to the role players. I don’t think he’s ever coming back now.

Let us mourn the loss of our fellow old man, gone but not forgotten.

Awesome fights MagBL, was much fun. Should do it more often!

hahahah hills that fight was stupid

Hahaha .. I have to admit, that video made me laugh.

“Pat yourself on the back, guys”

You weren’t giving any more WxP, we had to fight someone who did.

robocafaz.9017:

Jade Quarry just got wrecked at Mag’s garrison.

#magswag

My bags were too heavy, back started hurting.

I’m actually very disappointed with this forum. I expected much more of you #magswag

This was such a great matchup until SoR gave up.

Play to win SoR, don’t play for second. This is a disgrace.