Guild Wars 2

TheBravery.9615:

Zelulose.8695:

If this thread is banned make a new thread reporting the results for us to comment on.

Why would they lock this thread when it’s providing constructive criticism for improvements? To lock this thread would be doing arenanet a disfavor by censoring valuable feedback.

@Maelstorm: Why?

In the past I have opened polls on various things the trading post and balance changes and in each case they were removed with the moderator comment that their policies are against polls in the forums. But you can report a polls results without hurting their policies as it is not a poll technically although they might remove it as “harmful to the community” My suggestion to you was a back up in the case they remove this thread. (I note these things because I doubt the moderators will be able to handle seeing the truth.)

If this thread is banned make a new thread reporting the results for us to comment on.

The reason I made this thread is to show the balance team (which isn’t making many changes to fix broken sustainability) that balance is more pressing an issue than they may realize and will be the difference between the future of this game or the end of this game pvp wise.

May I also argue PVP is a large source of gem spending. Players in pvp are much less rich than players in pve. As a result, most of their flashy gear comes from gems. So really…

This thread is highlighting the idea that pvp is being hurt by the lack of balance changes. It is costing the attitude of the community, the communities size, and the amount of gems bought most directly. At least from a business perspective, appease the player base with meaningful balance to increase the games revenue. There are multiple reasons why balance needs to be addressed and at this point I’m just throwing more reason out there.

Anet banned polls but ima vote anyway because I support poll posting.

Hurry and vote before the devs stop it.

They need to send in balances every two weeks to keep things in line so they move with the metas before they take over. And yes all of those builds are on my list of sustain to go.

In the off chance that necro tries to send conditions back the thief can remove them by dodging or using the heal skill. That isn’t easy to do for necro in 1 vs 1 and is much more difficult to land in team fights where players may obstruct the necro. The point is the thief wont die to conditions expecially not necro. The necro will die eventually as the thief will whittle him down with bound or lotus spamming. Putrid mark has a cast animation that is easy to dodge and the mark itself is easy to dodge.

Build diversity is why I wanted the removal of spectate. Having strong builds circulate happened faster with spectate than without it. Spectate delayed the meta and made many different builds seem viable. It also gave guilds secrets to share so they could have an edge verses other guilds. This is why many players left when spectate was added. The mystery behind the game was revealed. Its like someone gave them the spoiler to a movie and now they can’t watch it.

I don’t believe in rock paper scissors builds I believe in rock paper scissors skills.

As the OP I wan’t to clarify that it isn’t 1 vs 1 where this build is op. Condition Chronomancer wastes it and so does berserker warrior. It is however decent in 1 vs 1. It is broken in hot join or tpvp. Sure it may not be super broken in legendary. But it can farm you pretty close compared to other builds. This again is because it lasts significantly longer in a team fight than other builds do. Things happen fast in tpvp and a perma evade thief of any sort just eats damage for the team like it doesn’t exist. It has the sustain of a bunker in 1 vs 5 and the damage out put of… well a glass cannon condition or damage thief depending of course on the Grandmaster dodge role used and the weapon choice (staff or d/d). This build also hard counters some classes.

Any leeching based build /condition transfer necro is punished hard. Furthermore, all non bunkers die rather quickly. Thief also gets punished as there are no backstab openings and CC is met with bandits defense. In a group fight this build simply roles in and roles out. It can provide aoe damage in team fight or just hold a point for a few minutes.

My take on it is that if bandits defense was nerfed this build would be interesting but not game changing. I would suggest 40 second CD or removal of the stun break as thief has plenty of stun break traits already.

It really works best with mesmer.

I have seen venom share work well in a team with a plan. It just isn’t a dueling spec.

Guys be nice on the forums please.

Different players have different opinions that help us narrow down to the truth. As long as they have some evidence to back their claim it is worth listening to.

Ok. Amulets and stats do not equate to build diversity we have enough amulets for diversity. They need to add more useful skills and create connections between skills or connections between traits or connection between traits and skills. Only then will they achieve Build diversity. What you ask for is stat diversity.

It however is not wrong to ask for stat diversity but let sustain get nerfed before we do that.

Bump Thief needs a base of 15k hp no more no less.

Warriors kill any non vitality/toughness amulet thief with one skill.

I absolutely agree with you that venoms could use some changes and actually would like to see the changes you suggested.

If you watch my video you will see that one cc doesn’t work I was cc many times and juts rolled out of it or used bandits defense which is on extremely low CD. My problem with bandits defense specifically is that it is a thief carry skill. It is the shortest CD block that is also a stun breaker.

A 12 Second CD block/knockdown that is also a stun breaker is bound to be called out. Many classes have useful skills but not as efficient as this one. based on short CD, the math points out this skill is equivalent to two bulls charges and 2 warrior blocks. Without even including the 12 CD stun breaker it provides.

Yes I play broken builds to test if they really are broken. It is what I have fun doing. Then I turn around with a full understanding of what is broken and what isn’t. If anything this should enhance my credibility.

I prefer to test builds to see which ones are unfair that is why people often see me playing a variety of broken builds.

Anyway now the Devs can know with video proof why this build like the druid or the guardian trap damage or even the mesmers torment on shatter is taking people away from the pvp player base.

I just played a match where players were saying if you want to play with skill your playing the wrong game. And its Sad because people desiring an ESPORT pvp platform are leaving for other games that are less cluttered with tacky year by year addons that don’t balance the game. It’s the truth. I have already called out the other classes now it is thief’s turn.

This video shows how I used bandits defense to survive a while match without dying even if outnumbered. And again I didn’t have to do much trying more than role. (Similar can be done with damage specs using staff)

Also note how many rage quit the match.

Its been a growing problem since beta. It will get worse next time they add content.

The balance team needs to make a choice. Keep evades or keep healing. Druid shouldn’t have both.

The issue isn’t that it cant be killed by good players. The problem is that it can be played by the masses to kill the masses. Imagine facing 5 of them. The conditions would be max stacked and good luck keeping track of that many perma evades.

My video clearly showed that I was using no skill and hand clicking skills. I’m sure that thief was trying much harder than I was and used more practiced skill. The point is he still lost to the no skill build. This will frustrate players entering pvp.

Bandits Defense is the real issue preventing thief from being killed quickly in SA or Evade spam builds. Its CD should be tripled or the block respond like mesmer sword or scepter blocks.

Thanks I forgot how hard mesmer counters Guardian.

Cynz.9437:

Zelulose.8695:

Cynz.9437:

Zelulose.8695:

Krysard.1364:

I hope you uderstand its hard to take a clicker seriously when talking about balancing issues.

As for the build, it just requires CC lock timing/kiting when 1v1ing or literally ignoring it on teamfights

If they take the 12 sec CD block they fixed their cc problem instead of the skill 9 taken in the video skill 8 also breaks cc a passive is active on this thief that breaks cc. CC will not kill this thief. It can literally tank a point longer than a guardian in 1 vs 5. I haven’t even touched on the thieves that abuse this with SA to hold a point then swap to d/p and run to the next point.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
since when can you hold point while being in stealth xD ?

I know your trolling but I’ll interpret English for you.
1. The thief evades not stealth on point okay? If you understand this….
2. The thief can’t hold the point indefinitely so at low hp escapes the 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 5 Using stealth ? Understand yet?
3. Then the thief decaps another point and contests it as his teams or neutral repeating after a few minutes of 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 5.

This is why you read in context my friend.

Read your sentence again, you said explicitly that they abuse SA to hold point.

Anyways, SA is a joke anyway due to revs and scrappers.

Yes the build is obnoxious, but it works only in lower divisions/HJ.

It depends on the user. Some players can use it to dodge everything because they don’t randomly dodge. With a build like this they can maximize damage or condition damage hitting 10k or dodging to spam conditions.

Cynz.9437:

Zelulose.8695:

Krysard.1364:

I hope you uderstand its hard to take a clicker seriously when talking about balancing issues.

As for the build, it just requires CC lock timing/kiting when 1v1ing or literally ignoring it on teamfights

If they take the 12 sec CD block they fixed their cc problem instead of the skill 9 taken in the video skill 8 also breaks cc a passive is active on this thief that breaks cc. CC will not kill this thief. It can literally tank a point longer than a guardian in 1 vs 5. I haven’t even touched on the thieves that abuse this with SA to hold a point then swap to d/p and run to the next point.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
since when can you hold point while being in stealth xD ?

I know your trolling but I’ll interpret English for you.
1. The thief evades not stealth on point okay? If you understand this….
2. The thief can’t hold the point indefinitely so at low hp escapes the 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 5 Using stealth ? Understand yet?
3. Then the thief decaps another point and contests it as his teams or neutral repeating after a few minutes of 1 vs 3 or 1 vs 5.

This is why you read in context my friend.

Krysard.1364:

I hope you uderstand its hard to take a clicker seriously when talking about balancing issues.

As for the build, it just requires CC lock timing/kiting when 1v1ing or literally ignoring it on teamfights

If they take the 12 sec CD block they fixed their cc problem instead of the skill 9 taken in the video skill 8 also breaks cc a passive is active on this thief that breaks cc. CC will not kill this thief. It can literally tank a point longer than a guardian in 1 vs 5. I haven’t even touched on the thieves that abuse this with SA to hold a point then swap to d/p and run to the next point.

The thief in the video is condition. The same can be done with the staff. Please Nerf it.

Nerf Druid first.

The OP hit home in this article and the last point was perfect. Passive cc prevention should be obsolete.

This is purely a 1 vs 1 thread but recently it hit me and I feel I have made this note before.

I’m wondering if the HoT buffs to character healing and defenses (Active or Passive) were made to divert the player base from the 1 vs 1 dueling rooms. There are many players who enjoy purely playing 1 vs 1 and this year it is harder due to so many stale mates. I have stale mated with elementalists on a thief and mesmer while we both had zerker amulets on. And Druids are virtually impossible to kill.

I understand the developers have never supported 1 vs 1. However, this shift is ridiculous. players should always eventually be able to see one victor. This is how it was designed since beta to prevent the need of a support class. (No More Holy Trinity) that is what the developers promised the community upon GuildWars 2 release yet with the massive sustain support classes are being viable again.

This change was in the right direction. I must say even I’m impressed.

Too late. other games already are doing that.

mistsim.2748:

Seventh Angel.4879:

» Too much stuff is happening. The number of meaningful ability effects filling the gameplay at some given moments is overwhelming for a new player,

oh this isnt a new player issue. gw2 is a clusterkitten spamfest, and it’s only been getting WORSE as theyve added more conditions, boons and overall junk on the screen. it’s a common MMO pvp problem – it’s not designed to be a pvp game from the ground up. and it’s not designed by people who understand pvp.

this is coming from someone with over 3k hours in top mmr spvp. you will realize the same sooner or later. everyone does.

This is why I keep saying league of legends is my go to for pvp. People think graphics and fighting mechanics make GW2 so superior but I argue that league has one thing GW2 doesn’t (this comparison is for the improvement of GW2). League has distinct CD that you can blow and have nothing left to do besides a.a. League also has limitations to prevent skill spamming clutter. It also depends on reaction time to win trades. It also has more active balance. GW2 is far superior in every aspect except these. Until the balance team fixes these weaknesses their game will not be considered a serious esport by a vast community of players. The best players on esports these days desire mechanical skill which takes practice not skill spamming.

They need to add in game polls that pop up upon log in with rewards for this kind of thing.

ShadowHunter.5173:

Lol losing with 4 mesmers requires some unique talent.. I would even bet those 4 can 4v5 efficiently in current meta as broken as they are.

Mesmers can’t hold a point. Just face it with 3 bunkers and 2 roamers. Then out rotate the mesmers. (hopefully having one of your own and maybe a revenant)

This is why new players are leaving Guildwars 2. New players should die but not in 2 seconds. I often come against new players and use simple combos most veteran players would know to avoid to take them down exceptionally quickly.

However, this is far from the problem. Many specs I play are Immortal to moderately experienced players. To a new player I can often ignore them to go for objective maybe even killing them in the process.

A good example of perma evade condition thief. Yes 100% up time of evades exists and I often am able to roll my self though a battle at mid and all the way to the enemy lord. I would ask the balance team to nerf thief evades but they can’t until the ridiculous amount of sustain if fixed for all classes, especially ranger and elementalist, so new players have a chance to at least kill a player they outplay.

Bunker mesmer is fun but it lacks damage for decaping a point verses tanky classes like elementalist and ranger. In my experience alternating between Chaos /illusion/ dueling offer the a similar level of damage benefits. With domination standing significantly above the rest. But domination has proven to not be enough to take down a tanky build.

This is disappointing to hear. I have always wanted to get good at a viable power shatter spec. Still it helps to know I’m not the only one struggling.

Is there anyway to overcome being out-healed by rangers/tanky elementalists/ Condi bunker warriors?

In theory, they should die eventually if they don’t kill a player on a Berserk amulet spec. However, they out heal shatter mesmer by a long shot often never dropping below 80% hp. I usually am able to outplay them to a stale mate but they wont die in a 1vs 1. This is a problem in tpvp as I am forced to play condition just to decap while roaming.

Any tips to squeeze in more damage or am I stuck with condition?

I agree. The issue is that the auto attack spamming meta makes it impossible not be be cc. They just let someone auto attack and they get the interrupt effect. Shocking aura elementalist is a good example of this. As long as they stay close to a target the target is permanently cc. I love the current level of damage for each class. But classes often use cc as a form of defense now. As an advocate against class sustainability I would argue against cc for this reason.

I would play it, but this thread is a poll and will probably get deleted. (I wish they wouldn’t remove the player-base’s voice but they do it on many occasions).
GW1 had a very effective 4vs4 game mode.

All classes with blocks need the CD doubled. This also includes mesmer and warrior. Defenses and sustain need a nerf. I have been repeating this multiple times. No class should be able to 100-0 another class in less than 5 seconds while having enough sustain to last more than a minute. It kills build variety. If the sustain goes many different builds will become viable.

Mesmer is ridiculous. But it is not the damage it is the defense. One trait line offers shatters heal and remove conditions. 50% damage reduction from i defender and healing skills removing conditions. (If you go healing mantra route then even more healing).

Sustain is too prominent in this game many classes just stale mate when good players are trying to decap a point. Even berserk amulet doesn’t make them squishy enough save thief due to 11k hp.

Have you not tried power mesmer verses power warrior? They out regenerate mesmer. if mesmer can’t kill one 1 vs 1 imagine the warrior with regen and soothing mist from an ele in group fights. Mesmers right now need those traits. Mesmer, Warrior, and actually all classes need a sustain nerf to balance the game. (Even thief due to their again infinite dodges).

Less damage reducing defense.

Oh Scept/Shield most likely. One use of skill 5 and the use of skill 3 along with mindwrack/mantra of Pain. This can kill in less than 3 seconds. But who knows. There is allot of damage out there nowadays.

As long as sustain across all classes is nerfed, guardian traps wont be much of an issue. You would be able to kill them before they place them at your location. Guardians then would be forced to be smart about when and where they use traps.

I have wanted to bring up this issue for a while. There are traps that prevent dodging while in them. It means that once must either stand still and have access to block or sit there and take damage.

Examples of these are Slick shoes for the engineer and Hunter’s ward for guardian.

It just feels sloppy to dodge and get knocked down. For this reason I would recommend that skills like these only work the first time.

In the guardians case the chains would do better to immobilize rather than knockdown.

I was curious what the player base had to say about these skills especially since skills like these may be added in the future.

I’ll keep preaching it. All classes need a sustain nerf in order to appear balanced. Elementalists, Mesmers, and rangers simply have too much healing, passive defense, and active defense.

Yes please nerf sustain. I am face rolling necros on every class with condition removal.

Nerf sustain and, power reduction, and condition removal. Then decrease the power creep. Otherwis, the game is balance right now for the Good players.