Guild Wars 2

Druids, DHs, and Scrappers are all tanky because they have two things: moderate to good healing, and lots of sustain. They aren’t exactly professions that can take a bunch of hits and just heal through them. They have sustain skills that allow heal over time skills to tick or to escape quickly and heal back up. This combination of healing and sustain is a problem. If was sustain was brought down, healing alone wouldn’t help them because damage is so high. If healing was brought down, then sustain could keep them alive, but not for long enough. It’s one reason why Ele isn’t doing as well. They’re healing was brought down, but also buffs to damage (indirectly caused by the nerf to 50% damage reduction buffs) made them unable to tank damage forever. They don’t have as much sustain as Scrappers, Druids and DHs, so those professions are now ahead. Eles are still tanky, but they don’t have the healing anymore to survive the constant CC and damage.

Why do you think Reapers are so hard to play? Because they have no sustain. Why do you think Revs are so good? Because they have lots of sustain. It’s sustain that’s killing PvP balance. And then without high sustain, the high damage problem will be a lot more obvious than it is now and that’ll have to be nerfed. Once those are nerfed, you can nerf healing a tad, and boom, you have TANKY specs instead of IMMUNE specs. Reduced damage will make things tanky indirectly, but with reduced sustain, they WILL take damage and coordinated burst and healing will keep players alive, instead of mindless skill spamming.

Let’s continue this list. Know why Chronomancer is good? Some healing and lots of sustain. How about Berserker? It has ok sustain, but great healing over time, with nearly 1k HPS. Why is Daredevil bad? It only has high damage and no tankiness. You can run staff for ridiculous sustain, but it’s also counterable sustain (through good timing) and the spec isn’t versatile enough. It’s actually the anomaly to the problem. It has high damage and high sustain, but it’s terrible if you aren’t super good at it.

Meta specs according to Metabattle (yadayada Metabattle is for noobs yadayada. Maybe it’s for noobs, but if a noob can learn the specs, they will win because the specs are the best for most situations overall) are:

DH, Chronomancer, Scrapper, Reaper (another anomaly because it has the worst sustain, but it’s team support makes it viable with a good team), Druid and Herald. The other three are Berserker, Tempest and Daredevil. You have to have something especially powerful to be viable without high sustain or healing, and that’s what Reapers have over Warriors. They have something so valuable that the best teams can’t go without: boon corruption. High boon spam is one reason the crazy damage. Might stacking is insane, and being able to corrupt that into damage is invaluable. They also have a trait that stops bleeding on downed targets and onto the Necro, which makes the all too powerful resurrecting extra good. Berserker provides nothing for a team other than some might. And if they go down, they’re unlikely to be brought back up easily.

There are other exceptions I’m sure, but overall, the game is highly unbalanced because of this obvious powercreep. The more powerful the powercreep for a profession, the more viable they become.

Malediktus.3740:

Zintrothen.1056:

Malediktus.3740:

If the game is 4v5 for longer than 2minutes it also should end automatically

I actually like this idea. But make it a forfeit option instead. Some players like sticking around, even in an outnumbered situation, for the sake of a challenge.

I dont want to have to stick around just because 1 or more of the rest of the team wants to stick around. There will always be trolls who will never use forfeit.
Its bad enough that currently in unranked there are always trolls voting for other maps and then making fun in map chat that the people trying to get the achievements got screwed again.

I should have mentioned that what I mean is that players who want to stick around can stick around, but others can just leave if they want. Basically the match would turn into a hotjoin game. Maybe there would even be autobalancing. This way, players who want to stick around, can stick around without punishing those who don’t want to.

These are things that should be mentioned by the PvP tutorial guy in HotM. Nobody cares about how to use a trebuchet lol.

Because at least you can hit a Rev every now and then. When fighting a DHs, all you see is “blockblockblockevadeevadeevadeblockblockblockimmuneimmuneimmuneblockblockblockandbacktofullhealthblockblockblockrepeat”. Of course it’s not really like that and if you’re decent, you’ll hit one quite often, but it’s usually insignificant without perfect play, yet they don’t need to try as hard to kill you. It just feels so cheap to fight. In other words, it’s not fun to fight. It’s also why people hate fighting Thieves and Mesmers. They are annoying. The more annoying a profession is to fight against, the more that players hate them.

Now you’ll also notice that DH gets way more hate than Thieves, even though they are less annoying to fight. Know why? Neither do I. I would rather fight triple DH teams than triple Thief teams, or triple Mesmer. Hell, anything other than Thieves!

Funny that you complain all the time about Necromancers being weak and that Anet doesn’t play it, but then you also call it the “noob class.” If it’s so weak, then it obviously would require more skill to play against more powerful classes.

Oh I see. He’s trolling. He’s saying something nonsensical to start an argument.

But I’ll bite. The most noob class is, and always will be, Guardian. It’s the easiest to learn and the easiest to master. Well, ok, Condi Thief is way easier to master, but it also sucks at high level play. Guardians are at least the most noob friendly meta class.

The system still places people of different skill together. This is partly because matchmaking is kittened up from previous seasons and giving bad players high MMR. So the actual good players end up playing with people they shouldn’t be forced to play with. If Anet would just reset MMR at least for season 5, we could start fresh with a better system that attempts to give quality matches. I mean matches won’t fun until balance is improved too, but reseting MMR is a good start.

Fay.2357:

draxynnic.3719:

Xyonon.3987:

I still wonder if this is intended or a bug, because to me it’s more like a bug that the shield #4 is the only phantasm that can be dodged. I hope they “fix” this eventually

All of the phantasms can be dodged if the enemy times it right, actually. The thing is that the shield phantasm has a really big tell, so people can more easily judge when to dodge. Other phantasm skills are faster-acting (or at least don’t give forewarning in the form of a purple bubble) so they’re harder to predict.

Incorrect. No phantasm skill other than the shield can be dodged.

Why would they only make one phantasm evadable? That seems silly.

Stacking DHs is OP because they can rotate off the point with their crazy sustain. You’ll never get the point because you’ll never be able to keep all the DHs off of it. And of course when they’re at range, they just spam AA and True Faith. Longbow’s AA hits way too hard. Actually a lot of HoT weapon AA’kitten way too hard. AA’s shouldn’t be hitting hard… They should be filler attacks. It’s why Necro scepter is so poorly designed. If you do manage to get off the third attack, it ends up applying THREE conditions. It’s not a hot weapon but scepter was buffed because of the way HoT PvP is.

DHs easily have the longest lasting on point sustain in the game. The only time they can’t be on the point is during their elite invulnerability.

Report for botting is probably your best option. Even a thief can catch up to a lagging Ranger. If a thief can’t catch a player with a little effort, then there are definitely hacks involved.

I already made a trait that applies torment and confusion when taunting an enemy. My concern with adding any more confusion or torment is that it would work too well with the Illusions trait line. It’s already a powerful line being our main condi line as well as our profession mechanic line, so I’m trying to add more focus onto other lines instead so they have a chance to work with Siren. Of course that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any use for Illusions with Siren. There should be as much synergy as possible with every core trait line. Also Phantasm of the Opera might be too silly! :P It would make a fantastic placeholder name at the very least.

Illusionary weaponry sounds interesting. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I’ll think of some ideas myself and message them to you in game.

I like this idea. I also find it annoying when you don’t know their hp, especially with the defender.

Lightsbane.9012:

i like the whole life leeching idea, but i’m hoping that they beef up necromancer’s before even consider giving it to mesmer.

That’s a concerned I have. There’s likely too much life stealing. So I’m making changes to make poison more of a life stealing condition and reducing the amount of other life stealing methods. Instead now, the second minor trait will steal life whenever poison ticks. Some traits like the interrupt one have been changed as well to apply poison instead of instantly leeching. I also changed dagger skill 3 to place a dark field so you can whirl in it with skill 2 for leeching bolts. This also works well with other Mesmer off hands. Focus has the whirl phantasm, torch has the blast finisher, pistol has two projectile finishers, and sword has the leap phantasm.

Wait…spamming evades while apply huge condi damage isn’t OP? That’s wildly OP! Though it’s not the most OP build right now. D/P is still a better build. The reason you don’t condi in high end pvp is because it dies in teamfights too easily, even with all the evading, and in smaller fights, players know how to counter it.

But yes, it is an insanely cheap build. Imo, it’s actually the cheapest and most faceroll build in the game, but it’s definitely not the most OP because it CAN be countered by good timing. Though that’s literally the only counter, aside from maybe walls that stop evading players.

That’s Wanderer’s with vitality over toughness. Basically it’d be more beneficial for Necros who value vitality more than toughness for more shroud. But with the state of the game, Necros need Mercenary’s to survive because it’s too easy for everyone to stick to them, and too hard for Reapers to get away. Plus without sustain skills to stop the constant damage, they need both defensive stats. Anet might as well just go all out and make a Mercenary’s with precision over power because the game will be unbalanced no matter what amulets they make or remove.

1050 precision
1050 vitality
560 toughness
560 condition damage

or

1050 precision
560 vitality
560 tougness
1050 condition damage

The game NEEDS to change. Amulets cannot and will not be the solution. Reduce damage, reduce sustain skills (or increase CDs drastically) and the game will be better.

Malediktus.3740:

If the game is 4v5 for longer than 2minutes it also should end automatically

I actually like this idea. But make it a forfeit option instead. Some players like sticking around, even in an outnumbered situation, for the sake of a challenge.

And now…Skills!

Note: I didn’t give any names for these skills. I also didn’t give damage and healing numbers, but I did give duration, stacks, CDs, etc. No cast times either also.

Dagger

Skill 1: Steal life on hit. Range: 900.

Skill 2: Whirl around and weaken nearby foes. Combo finisher: whirl. Number of targets: 3. CD: 8 seconds.

Skill 3: Teleport to your target and place a leeching field. Enemies in the field have their life stolen. Combo field: dark. Duration: 4 seconds. Radius: 240. Number of targets: 5. CD: 15 seconds.

Skill 3 follow up: Teleport back to your original location and summon a clone.

Heal, Utilities, Elite

Heal: Heal yourself and then steal life. Struck foes are also blinded (6 seconds). Number of targets: 5. Radius: 600. CD: 35 seconds.

Utility 1: Daze nearby foes. Allies gain fury (8 seconds). Radius: 600. Number of targets: 5. CD: 30 seconds.

Utility 2: Steal life from foes and grant it to allies. You also apply weakness (6 seconds). Radius: 600. Number of targets: 5. CD: 35 seconds.

Utility 3: Steal a portion of nearby foes’ defensive boons and grant them to allies. Boons stolen: resistance, protection, stability (1 stack), vigor, swiftness, regeneration. Portion stolen: 50% of duration. Radius: 600. Number of targets: 5. CD: 45 seconds.

Utility 4: Break stuns from nearby allies. Grant stability (3 stacks, 3 seconds) if a stun wasn’t broken, and evasion (1 second) if one was. Radius: 600. Number of targets: 5. CD: 40 seconds.

Elite: Channel an attack, cause foes in a large area to redirect their attacks to their own allies. If no nearby allies to a foe are present, it attacks itself. You cannot move while channeling. Duration: 4 seconds. Radius: 600. Number of targets: 5. CD: 150 seconds.

Shatter

Seduce: You taunt nearby foes. Radius: 340. Duration: 1 second per illusion. Number of targets: 5. CD: 90 seconds.

Traits

Minor

- Gain access to a Seduce, Main-hand dagger and Shouts.

- Steal life from foes who strike you with weakness.

- Illusions taunt (2 seconds) foes around it when they spawn. 25 second ICD. You’re critical strike chance is increased against foes with taunt. Increase: 25%.

Adept

- Blind also applies vulnerability (3 stacks, 10 seconds) and weakness (4 seconds).

- Daze also applies taunt (1.5 seconds). 15 second ICD.

- Deal 10% increased damage to weakened foes. Reduces the recharge of dagger skills by 20%.

Master

- Shouts grant superspeed (3 seconds). Reduces the recharge of shouts by 20%.

- 1 Condition on you is transferred every second to nearby foes that you or illusions taunt.

- Taunt strips 1 boon per second it is taunted. Removing boons also steals life.

Grandmaster

- Whenever a foe that you or an illusion has taunted reaches you or the illusion, they are inflicted with conditions. Conditions: crippling (4 seconds), weakness (6 seconds), blind (4 seconds).

- Allies gain life that you steal. Apply a stacking effect onto a target each time you critically strike it. This effect increases the strength of life stealing on it by 10%. Stacks up to 5 times. Duration: 10 seconds.

- Your shatter skills also steal life. F1: steals some life. F2: steals some life when applying a condition. F3: steals life whenever you daze. F4: steals life when struck. F5: steals life when a taunted foe reaches you.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this presentation! Feel free to give constructive criticisms and suggestions, and I’ll revise this for another thread, separate from this contest.

Edit: I revamped all the shouts and most of the traits. I didn’t like how they worked before, and honestly, I’m not just making this spec for this silly contest! I want to make a spec that I want to play! Anyway, many changes have been made. Some of these are definitely too strong, others too weak. Numbers can be tweaked as always. Mechanics can be changed. For now, these are the ideas I have.

And now…

Introducing: Siren

Siren is similar to Bard in that it’s a musical spec. Though it’s much darker, using life stealing, control, and weakness to take down your enemies!

Themes

The main theme of this spec is life stealing. The new weapon (MH dagger) steals life on AA. There are also traits that add more life stealing or enhance it. A GM trait makes shatters steal life. But a competing GM trait makes life stealing better and grants stolen health to allies. With life stealing, healing power might also become a bit more useful, as long as it scales well.

The next theme is control. Taunt is a common CC with the spec. This keeps with the theme of seduction that Sirens are known for.

The third theme is weakness. You’re enemies become weak from your powerful control and life stealing. Baseline Siren will steal life when a weakened target strikes you. Previously, I had given the spec poison, but that, in combination with life stealing, made it feel too much like a Necro rip off. Though Necros have access to weakness as well, it’s not as much of a focus as poison is for them.

There are some support skills and traits as well. Unfortunately, I don’t think this can be a high damage spec due to all the taunt it offers. However, it will offer higher damage from the constant life stealing.

New weapon and utilities

The new weapon is a main hand dagger! Mesmer’s previous elite spec, Chronomancer, received an off hand weapon. They do not need another OH! So I’ve chosen a MH weapon, and the most suitable one is dagger, to keep the caster theme of Mesmers.

The new utilities are shouts! Previously, I had made the shouts summon a phantasm. But this just didn’t…work. So I changed them to be like regular shouts. And so I revamped all the shouts to something new from before. They weaken, steal life, steal boons, CC… And the best one of all (the idea is by Ithilwen.1529), the elite shout causes enemies to attack their own allies. And if no allies are present, they hit themselves. This of course has a long CD due to its power. I want these shouts to be powerful and worthy of a good fight, instead of something to be seemingly spammed, giving off a minor effect. So the trait only gives superspeed in addition to reduced CDs.

It’s unevadable? I know it’s unblockable, but unevadable? But making a CC unevadable is too much.

Is Robert Gee still working with Necromancers and Mesmers?

messiah.1908:

Zintrothen.1056:

messiah.1908:

Zintrothen.1056:

My concern is the lack of portal. This would work fine in SoloQ, but with coordinated teams, I can’t see not using portal being viable. I suppose you could replace Signet of Illusions with it. Signet of Midnight I think would have more use with its shorter CD and stunbreaking ability.

you right but how many coordinated groups are out there to use your portal and use any portal strategy … common…

only groups who train together might use it

I would say a group that trains together is coordinated! :P

But yeah, of course portal is useless with an uncoordinated group, including uncoordinated premades. But which signet would you replace for portal?

Also, I think stun on dazing is a better trait. Only one stack of vuln per illusion is just not enough. But with the other trait, you have increased stun duration, and the first daze of Chaos Storms will likely be a stun on an unlucky foe! Plus Diversion stunning is also handy.

I like the thinking of this build. It works with condi just as well as power with all the vulnerability stacking, and Mind Wrack hits pretty kitten hard too. It also have some condition cleansing. It would certainly take more skill overall to play though because of the lack of the PD and no healing and condition cleansing on shatters. Have you tried it in ranked or with a premade?

so far mostly soloq ranked or unranked with 3 allies.
is i see 2 necros i would change to healing well and mantra to cleanse and sometime even dueling over domination for more blind and confusion . as in solo q is bit hard to get help from your friends who leave you in 1v2 situations or not +1 in 1v1

the biggest part in most part i am the stomper as i got blind and distortion oh demand
also the vulnerability stack up very quickly so the dmg of my team is 25% stronger

i had 1v1 versus DH and thief came to help me . i saw the thief using basilik and use the f2+f3 combo to stack vulnerability. the guard was down in 2 sec from the thief. and cc chain by me .

Good point on the vulnerability. It doesn’t just increase my own damage.

Have you tried Signet of Domination? I don’t really think it’s better than Illusions, but with Confounding Suggestions, it’s a 3.75 second stun with only a .25 second cast time! It’s a pretty big drop in sustain though without the Distortion reset. On the other hand, it ties in better with CS. You can do that nearly 4 second stun twice in a row!

What about making the mid point halfway between Legacy’s size and the size of all the other maps. The new Coliseum map looks so boring in the middle with such a small circle. But something a little larger would be nice.

Also, did you consider data from before June 23, 2015, when players weren’t running around with massive damage and high defence builds that made small point fights too quick and large point fights too long? Were large point fights still too long?

messiah.1908:

Zintrothen.1056:

My concern is the lack of portal. This would work fine in SoloQ, but with coordinated teams, I can’t see not using portal being viable. I suppose you could replace Signet of Illusions with it. Signet of Midnight I think would have more use with its shorter CD and stunbreaking ability.

you right but how many coordinated groups are out there to use your portal and use any portal strategy … common…

only groups who train together might use it

I would say a group that trains together is coordinated! :P

But yeah, of course portal is useless with an uncoordinated group, including uncoordinated premades. But which signet would you replace for portal?

Also, I think stun on dazing is a better trait. Only one stack of vuln per illusion is just not enough. But with the other trait, you have increased stun duration, and the first daze of Chaos Storms will likely be a stun on an unlucky foe! Plus Diversion stunning is also handy.

I like the thinking of this build. It works with condi just as well as power with all the vulnerability stacking, and Mind Wrack hits pretty kitten hard too. It also have some condition cleansing. It would certainly take more skill overall to play though because of the lack of the PD and no healing and condition cleansing on shatters. Have you tried it in ranked or with a premade?

I don’t have a huge problem with how tanky Druids are. My problem is how much damage they can do with just staff or longbow and especially with their pets. Also, why the kitten is Ancient Seeds still only a 10 second CD? Pet stats should be based on the Ranger’s stats imo. A tanky Druid has a tanky pet. A damaging Druid has a damaging pet.

I have no idea how they could fix the issue of longbow and staff doing too much damage with tanky builds though. Is it even possible? We shouldn’t be removing amulets that have power with any other defensive stat. There needs to be tradeoffs for speccing defensively.

How are Scrappers so defensive while also doing so much damage? Hammer is meant to be a damage weapon. Everything hits hard. But there are also three skills with sustaining capabilities: a reflection, evades, and a block, all on short CDs. If sustain was reduced, players would be taking more damage, and the crazy damage of thieves, DHs, revs, etc., would be clearly obvious to anyone. Then we could get damage overall nerfed. There, now Druids, Scrappers, Dragonhunters, Heralds, Chronomancers, etc., are no longer able to stop every attack, but they also can’t deal quite as much damage. With longer CDs also, players will have to think about when to use skills.

Now Druids will still be tanky, and they’ll still be able to keep themselves alive, but they also won’t be doing quite as much damage.

Oh hey, Anet, how about trying this out on a test server and seeing how this works? Clearly that would work better than making changes and just throwing them out to the world without any feedback before release.

This is a problem I have as well. Small capture points promote more AoE spamming because the enemy can’t go anywhere else. We should have to try to force the enemy off the point instead of just placing any powerful AoE. And with larger points, DH traps won’t be as OP and you’ll have room to dodge and fight them on the point while staying out of the trap. And DHs will have to think about where they’re knocking you around toward. Are you pushing me into an option space of the point? That’s no good! I need to be skillful now to play.

My concern is the lack of portal. This would work fine in SoloQ, but with coordinated teams, I can’t see not using portal being viable. I suppose you could replace Signet of Illusions with it. Signet of Midnight I think would have more use with its shorter CD and stunbreaking ability.

So just like a skill won’t reset if CS ends during an aftercast, activating CS during an aftercast will reset the skill. This is good to know, and it makes is even more important to know how long skill aftercast delays are.

Pyriall.1683:

Hot join maps are still buggy. You try to join one it says the map is full, but it’s not. You also randomly get removed from those maps as well.

So it’s not just me…

Also, keep Mercenary Amulet. The PvP team won’t fix the massive balance issues in the game, so might as well roll with it and make every Reaper, Chronomancer and Berserker as tanky as possible.

If you’re anywhere near one, you can’t win. You’ll never out heal their conditions, even with transfers and you won’t have enough dodges to stop every major attack they throw at you. Simply put, Berserkers are a hard counter. If you are caught in a 1v1, stay far away and pressure him from range or go to another point. He’ll either have to leave the point to attack you or stay on it and take the damage, which is actually pretty deadly when he can’t hit you and doesn’t have Berserker Stance. If you have support nearby, you can survive with careful play, but if not, just leave.

Dolyak runes are only OP with Druids. And this is just because AF generation is based on doing ANY healing, and not based on how strong the healing is. So it’s fine. The problem is how AF is generated, not Dolyak Rune.

Hi, I’m on a Mac and everytime I open the PvP Game Info window (the one that shows teams and such), the game will crash. This is happening in Hotjoin. Is this happening to anyone else? I think the default key to open this window is B.

Edit: turns out I can exit matches either without crashing. So the game is technically playable until the end of a match, and I have to re-log back in and sometimes it totally resets my system.

Honestly, I think just reducing damage overall is the best way to buff Necro defence. Think about this: the more damage players do, the less effective damage reduction becomes and the more effective sustain skills like evading and blocking become. So with a reduction in damage, sustain skills wouldn’t seem as powerful and Necros wouldn’t be taking as much damage. And with reduced damage, you can also nerf sustain skills without destroying specs…hopefully. Knowing anet, they’ll find a way to destroy specs while making good changes at the same time.

Necros can’t do anything because they’re made to take damage, not stop it outright. But because damage is so high, you need sustain to survive because blocking, evading and immunity (Endure Pain counts here) is the only way to totally stop physical damage. But because Necros don’t have those skills, they cannot stop the insane damage going around, unless they flat out buff Necro damage reduction, which would only make the powercreep problem worse.

Nerf damage. Once again, this idea of nerfing HoT specs is proving to be the best solution. And if you don’t want to nerf HoT specs, then buff everything else to be equal in power to HoT specs so that nothing is actually OP anymore.

I can already see the salt flowing after a loss at 449.

Guardians counter thieves. Thieves aren’t meant for fighting equal or outnumbered fights (WvW is the exception). Your role as a thief is to quickly decap points and +1 fights. +1 means you outnumber the enemy in a fight by 1 player. And when you get to a fight, don’t just sit in the middle of it taking damage. Thief is made to burst, run, burst, run etc. That’s why it’s so unfun to fight. Nobody likes fighting someone who hits you and then runs away, but that’s how thief is made. In a fight, stay at range and use SB skills or interrupt important skills with Pistol 4. When you see someone at low hp (like 25%, maybe 50% even), jump in and burst down that target. There are many skills that teleport you to the target. The most burst will come from Pistol 5 – Dagger 2 for stealth – Steal during the jump – Backstab and burst with AAs, making sure to interrupt any healing attempts. If your target is still alive, get to safety and be ready to jump back in at the right opportunity.

That’s thief. You run around decapping points (or full capping if you don’t need to +1 a fight), and +1ing fights. On maps like Forest, you have an additional role of stealing Beast kills.

This sounds easy, but it’s not. If you have good teammates, +1ing fights will be easier, but if you have bad teammates, there won’t be any opportunities to jump into fights because they’ll never have an enemy at low enough hp.

Well a great solution to this is to remove passives and make the game skillful again.

Thief definitely has the highest skill floor. Rev has crazy burst too but its skillfloor is significantly lower. It just takes some time to learn how to manage energy. After that, it’s much easier. All other power burst professions have low/medium skill floors.

Well the problem isn’t so much that boons are too spammy (they are), but that resistance is too good. It could use a duration buff overall but also just reduce the effectiveness of condis by 33%, basically making it a condi version of protection.

…you hope to God you don’t run into that one stealth spamming thief.

Are you bad? If so, you should be losing most games. If you’re playing better than everyone though, then there’s a problem.

Huskyboy.1053:

10 seconds recharge is too long. If I misuse a weapon skill…

…then you should be punished, not rewarded. I misuse skills all the time and I’m rightfully punished for it. You can’t just spam skills and expect to win. That’s the kind of game HoT introduced and you want to make it worse?

And in a game that has instant cast, large traps, the speed of swapping makes sense. It’s almost slower than traps.

How about we nerf everyone else instead… It’ll take more time but it’ll be healthier for the game.

Thieves are fairly weak, but only because DHs are so abundant. Without DHs, thieves would destroy because power damage was indirectly buffed, and they already hit insanely hard.

Ele is clearly the weakest because all they had last season was the very spec they nerfed hard. Without that spec and Cleric’s, they are nearly useless. There’s no way they can stay up close into a fight and heal, even though Tempest is designed for the thick of battle. They totally screwed them by removing all toughness with healing power amulets.

Other weak professions are Reaper, but only because it’s so easy for everyone to stay on them, and it’s still too hard for Reapers to get away and relieve pressure on themselves. Vitality doesn’t help them live longer because power damage hits so hard now and and toughness doesn’t increase Shroud hp.

I’m a bit surprised they’re still considered meta, even though there’s no good reason to take one. You can just do two DHs, a Condi Mes, a Power Rev and a Druid. There, you have a bunker/power dps, a condi/portal bot, another power dps, and a healbot/power dps. And all of them have high mobility and map travel capabilities. If you don’t need extra healing because of the two DHs, switch out the Druid for a Condi Warrior. If you want more dps, take Scrapper over Druid. In pro League, I suspect the best team will be one DH (because you can’t do two), Druid, Condi Mes, Power Rev, and Warrior. This gives, powerful power dps, incredible map mobility, tons of CC, lots of quickly stacking and powerful condis, some group condi cleanse, powerful healing. And you may see Scrapper over Warrior if a team wants more power damage and group utility.

I think when a game is perfectly tied (500-500), the winner is decided based on players’ personal scores. This is pretty much the only situation in which personal score actually does matter!

If a team has one point and the other has two and the score ends with 500-501, then the higher score wins. Just in case you were wondering.

Only one game wasn’t close. And you actually beat some of those premades too. In fact, the one you lost against was the closest of all the games. I’d be totally fine fighting premades as long as they suck as much as the rest of my own team. And if my team is good, then I’d be fine fighting a good premade. This is the only situation, imo (yes, I have opinions on the internet), in which premades vs pugs should be acceptable.

But for the sake of making things simple, just bring back soloQ…

I think there’s a way to set tab targeting to look for player targets first. I forget what it is. Someone else can tell you.

Anyway, I do like the idea of being able to customize your mouse. With the zillion spell effects in the game, it can get lost really easily.

This is such a typical thief thread. OP posts that thieves are OP. Thieves come in and defend, claiming that they are OP in absolutely no way.

News flash! Everyone is OP! Including thieves. Just because you’re “weaker” than everyone else does not mean that you are not OP and that you’re build doesn’t have faceroll skills. Condi thief is absolutely the most unskilled build in the game. However, D/P is still more versatile for conquest and is therefore a better build overall. It also happens to take more skill to play. In fact, I think it’s one of the most skill based builds in the game. The contrast between power and condi thief is mind blowing. One is the hardest and one is the easiest.

So dear thieves, quit acting like you’re weak. Just like you’re telling everyone else to L2P, tell yourself that. Of course you’re going to have a hard time against good players. Good players tend to do that.

Rousing Resilience doesn’t stack. If a Warrior breaks a stun 3 seconds after breaking a previous one, they still only have 8 seconds of toughness. It’s disadvantages to break stuns too quickly, or else they won’t have a CD up once the toughness is gone.

That is, this would be the case if Outrage was balanced. 10 second CD stunbreak is way to low. 15 seconds is better. And if you think that’s imbalanced because Daredevils have a stunbreak and a block on a 15 second CD, do you really think that’s a problem with the warrior CD being too long? Or could that just maybe be a problem with Daredevils having too short of a CD?

Necromancers do not need more blocks or evades or even sustain. They’re designed to tank damage. That’s why they get a second health bar. They’re suppose to be hit. What they need is less reliance on Soul Reaping so that Death Magic or Blood Magic can be selected, while also being able to keep Curses or Spite and generate lots of LF. They should be better designed to take hits and be pressured, but not so much that they can free cast while being pressured.

My suggestion for Soul Reaping changes:

- Make 3% life force on staff skills baseline. Keep unblockable attacks a trait.
- Make Vital Persistence’s degeneration reduction baseline. Keep Shroud CD reductions traited.
- Buff Foot in the Grave to remove stuns when exiting shroud as well.

I only have these two suggestions for Death Magic:

- Unholy Sanctuary belongs in Soul Reaping or Blood Magic. Death Magic has no traits that help generate shroud, so why have a trait that activates what little you have?
- Putrid Defence can also increase poison damage.

Some LF generating skills should be buffed as well.

- Spectral Walk’s CD reduced to 40 seconds
- Summon Flesh Wurm CD reduced to 25 seconds. This will help with mobility.
- Spectral Wall should generate some LF when someone walks into it.

Some skills that don’t generate LF should. Wells are a good start. Let’s say 3% per hit per target, up to 5 targets. That would be 15% per second against 5 targets, which is a rare situation.

My point is this: Reapers rely on Soul Reaping to have any decent LF generation and to survive long enough under pressure in Shroud. Then buff other trait lines to help with LF. Then buff wells to give LF and also buff spectral skills.

And then after all that, nerf condition damage a bit. Power damage is fine, if not too weak, but with less reliance on Soul Reaping, you could select Spite and still be able to survive.

Of course none of this will truly work until HoT specs overall are nerfed, including Reaper. Sustain is the only way to survive the crazy damage because even being speced to take hits isn’t working.

Eles don’t really need a buff. They just need a rework. Traits need to be rearranged and changed, and real balance changes need to be made instead of removing amulets. The way Tempest is made doesn’t allow for spec diversity, and this is amplified by the lack of good amulets for the spec, and the requirement of the Water and Earth lines because of the crazy condi and power damage being thrown around. Add in giant amounts of interrupts and long overload casts without baseline stability, and Eles become prime targets. Tempest’s sustain comes from healing, and Menders and Magi are the only healing amulets left that work with the required trait lines. Neither have toughness, so power specs like DHs and Scrappers, who also have a ton of interrupts, demolish Eles.

To be honest, Eles aren’t weak. They only seem weak because everything else is so much more powerful. With elite spec nerfs, CD increases, CCs reduced, sustains reduced etc., the strength of Tempest, imo, will show through.

The way the game is made is hurting Ele. They needed to be more powerful than everyone else in order to do anything. Now that everyone is more powerful, there is no good reason to run one.

Kuya.6495:

Don’t you think it’s a tad bit ironic to see threads littering the forums complaining about pre mades and threads complaining about queue times?

There’s a simple solution that takes some time and patience on everyone’s part. It’s call making the game good. Give back SoloQ, and then more people will queue solo, thus lowering queue times. With fewer solo queuers getting in the way of premades, those queuing as a team will have more competitive games. If they didn’t want competitive games, then they should be in hotjoin or even unranked. There’s a place for every kind of player in this game, but right now, the PvP places are mixed together and it’s kittening things up.

This sounds more like a problem with DH stacking lol. But yeah, I agree that you shouldn’t be punished double for losing the fight. Just losing the bell once is punishment enough.