Being able to click on things through your UI would be an amazing change.
Thief has less stealth than mesmer…
That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all year.
Things you would like to see
Thief nerfed.
Druid nerfed.
Eles are laughing.
The solution to condi defence isn’t to buff already necessary skills like staff 4, but to buff weaker legends like Dwarf and Centaur. One or two more traits could be good too. Staff is fine as is because it’s also AoE. There’s nothing low impact about it.
Skills like Axe 4 and 5 will need longer cast times if you want them to be stowable, making you vulnerable to interrupts. Also, axe 5 is stowable, but not after it’s been cast. If you want it to be stowable after the animation begins, then it needs a half second of casting and then another second or so of animation casting. Once you’re beyond that, you’re stuck with a full cast.
If FoL gets no cast time but is unusable during CC, then the same should apply to the warrior skill that does the same thing (but with a shorter CD because revs get two healing skills). I would be fine with this change honestly since it’s a heal skill with a different kind of counterplay. The only problem comes when a rev/warrior can just run into a massive fight and heal to full with ease because nobody’s just going to stop attacking for 3 seconds all because a rev/warrior used a heal skill. Plus condis heal for the duration, so a condi profession would have almost no counterplay.
Shield 4 has a longer cast time because it’s AoE. It’s far from low impact, just like staff 4. If that skill gets a shorter cast time, then I sure hope they do the same for ele staff skills, especially considering that shield is actually an elite spec weapon.
they forgot to say it requires Diamond rank for the final tier lol.
I sure hope not. This would make it a grind more than something requiring skill to acquire.
Definitely swamp. Nothing wrong with that one. Definitely nothing wrong with that one. It’s by far the least annoying and pug friendly of all the fractals.
So cannons are weak, but everyone still destroys them.
If they are too weak, why are they threatening enough to need to be destroys?
Bumping. Was on 3rd page.
Aren’t those just for reward tracks? This skirmish reward track will be separate from the current reward tracks, so I doubt potions will affect them.
The only things really stopping eles from being able to run other builds viably is poor Tempest design, excessive damage by all professions (including ele in some cases), and no tanky amulets. Auramancer has to be tanky, and tankiness isn’t as valuable with a burst meta. Evades and blocks are the way to go, but eles only have a few evades and no blocks other than an Arcane trait and skill. There are also immunities, and the focus immunity is one of the only things keeping eles alive still. Our healing keeps getting nerfed and other issues are not being solved.
If damage was lower, eles could finally spec away into another trait line for some more offence. It wasn’t tanky amulets that were the problem in season 1. If you hadn’t noticed, Chronomancers actually went down as quickly as any other tank, but then they also gained two blocks and alacrity to keep sword 2 and those blocks on short CDs, so they were able to prevent damage so well that it seemed like their hp never dropped. Then add in a point based game that only requires one player to equally contest a point, even when the enemy has 5 on it, and you get a bunker meta.
What should have happened is nerfs to elite specs. Echo of Memory (the Chrono block) should have always had a long CD (It’s still too short IMO) so that there were more opportunities to pressure. Then with more damage being dealt, we wouldn’t have needed to remove all the tanky amulets. With tanky amulets, eles could choose one and run an offence trait line.
But that’s not the case. The game is still fully of blocks, immunities and evades that prove far more valuable in a burst meta than tankiness, so eles have no choice but to spec the most sustain oriented trait lines along with the tankiest amulet we can find, Mender.
There might be a build that runs Paladin, but anything less just won’t survive under the heavy and fast pressure and CC being thrown around with ease.
Not enough stability? They cut down on stability last “balance” patch because there was too much of it! And I for one loved those changes. Anet is beginning to recognize some of the powercreep issues that came with HoT or even existed before HoT.
The next step to cut down on the CC output so that players have to use their CCs wisely.
Incoming ele/necro teams. Or warrior/ele. Either way, eles will be godly. Any profession that does better in smaller groups will be godly. Thieves maybe being the exception. Mesmers might also be great because they can set up a portal for escaping bad situations, as long as this won’t be a point based game mode. I can see heavy condi teams being fantastic too. Really, anything that previously couldn’t do well in a 5v5 mode because of the extreme damage will have an easier time because only two players can damage them, and it’s a lot easier to run a squishier build in smaller scale fights. Again, thieves being the exception because they just don’t do well in equal fights against competent players.
Maybe it’s set up in custom arenas for the sake of spectating. It would be great to set up a large arena that can allow a large quantity of players to watch. But also set it up so that spectators cannot communicate with players in a match, to prevent griefing. Post game griefers can be blocked.
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Necros are still technically tanky, but tankiness doesn’t mean squat when damage is so high. It’s evades, blocks and immunities that are needed now to counter high damage. Necros only have dodge, so their natural tankiness is meaningless. That’s why they have to rely on support and go for a heavy offence build. There’s no other role for them.
Condi war, IMO, is actually more competitive than power. If you ask me, Macebow beats power any day, especially now with the nerfs power got.
To all those who want the tablet to follow the rev doesn’t understand how amazing it is to have a source of healing that is so mobile. It can literally go anywhere within LoS. Other professions simply don’t have a healing mechanic that versatile. Sure it can be feel clunky at times, but if you put some effort into it, you’ll find it’s super handy for your own sustain and others.
Personally, I love the tablet mechanic. It’s unique within the game (not unique to the game however), and it’s a lot less restricting then so many players think. It’s healing is pretty kitten good too. And just like any support build, its effectiveness is often based on how good the players you are supporting are. If they keep dodging away from the tablet, let them die. It’s definitely not a pug friendly mechanic, but I think it’ll have a lot of use in organized groups with a few QoL changes.
This one time I transferred 20 stacks of burning to a guardian and he died in one tick. Should they nerf burning too?
Yes, yes they should. Burning has always been OP since June 2015. The only reason you don’t see burn builds is because they almost never apply enough cover condis to help counter extreme cleansing, or even mild cleansing.
And they don’t even have to make burn applying professions weaker through a burning nerf. They can find other ways to help them out.
And this is coming from an ele, one who would hate to see the super fun burning raid build nerfed, but would be fine with it if it meant making other builds good too.
I’d rather they just reduce the hp so that it has a bit more counterplay. Currently, it actually takes a few hits, and by then, you’re probably dead cause pew pew + pet pew pew while hitting something that can’t move without blowing a cleanse and dodging or resistance or taking a few seconds to kill the roots… = balanced?
So, more counterplay, or at least easier counterplay because of its short CD. Longer CDs can have less counterplay because then a player has to think about when to use that counterplay instead of just using it whenever and having no problem against the trait.
The other solutions is to scrap it and replace it with something that requires a bit more skill and activity.
There’s nothing wrong with complaining, OP. As long as it’s constructive complaining. Constructive and useful complaints show that something is wrong. Unconstructive complaints are called whining.
Now here’s my constructive complaint about Reaper. Deathly chill is OP. It stacks quickly and is extremely difficult to cleanse when you are being condi bombed every few seconds. I do find it great that Reapers are powerful now, but power should always have a limit. Deathly Chill crossed that limit. Basically everything else about Reaper is fine overall, with a few exceptions of things being weak or too powerful, but that’s another topic and they’re not priorities for fixing.
But the biggest change I’d love to see are damage nerfs across the board, along with a reduction to the quantity of blocks, immunities and evades. That’ll help necro sustain tremendously, while also reducing their own damage output. It kills two birds with one stone.
Just make resistance like protection: 33% reduced effectiveness. They can balance the quantity of resistance later. But this makes resistance not godlike, but still very useful when you can get it.
FA isn’t winning because it’s red. It’s winning because FA was placed in T3, in a matchup that clearly favours FA. Even if we were green or blue, we would win the matchup because it’s an unfair matchup.
What? 3 conditions when you hit with a Primal Burst isn’t enough? 12 seconds of resistance isn’t enough? No profession has enough to deal with heavy condis right now, but warrior is absolutely one of the best. Auramancer is probably the next best viable build to work. After that would be, IMO, Ventari rev. Thief and DH when the proper traits can do fairly well, but those are conditional traits (no pun intended) and can be countered by literally not attacking after bombing them.
And if your losing to one of the most counterable condi specs (burn guard), then I don’t know how else to help you. They have one threatening condi, and almost zero cover condis. Sure their one threatening condi is by far the most threatening one in the game, but there’s no way any decent warrior should be having trouble against a burn guard’s burning. The real trouble would be punching through all their sustain (if DH).
I’m sure Anet sees staff as more of a control and range damage weapon with some decent healing. Of course they’re totally ok with the insanity of ranger and DH longbows or rev’s hammer, or…well…any other weapon that’s anything similar to staff, including in the CC department, but God help us if staff ever does anything comparable. I guess Anet just thinks that everyone’s gonna camp is fire all game if fireball ever had burning added to it or some kind of buff to staff’s damage.
There are ways to make staff work, but the high mobility of so many professions on top of their sustain make the job far more difficult than it should be. And then you also lose sustain because you can’t run focus with staff obviously, but Conjure Earth Shield is actually a pretty decent utility with staff, so sustain isn’t as bad as with other weapon choices.
Anyway, yeah, staff damage is crap in PvP. It’s a slow and easy to avoid weapon, but in the hands of a player who knows how to utilize the control capabilities, you can make it a fantastic support weapon because it also has some decent healing and also weakness on earth’s AA. It’s also amazing at kiting and area denial.
[…] but mesmer is one of the classes that is -fine- right now.
You cannot be serious… The profession that can unleash non stop condi bombs and then stealth when something goes wrong is fine?
I think I’ve been punted a good few thousand units before, by a hammer guardian.
naw i disagree.
HOT made ele a heal bot and 6 seasons later its a heal bot.
Warrior for 2 seasons was the worst class and then for 2 seasons the easiest class to play.
For patches would help the overall balance of the game but it wouldnt change build diversity, team comps, or create a competitive scene.
This is a PvE game and the game gets PvE patches, more PvE patches doesnt fix the game.
How would more frequent PvE patches be bad for the game? We’re not asking for entire overhaul patches every month, just little changes. More frequent but minor changes is going to be far healthier for balance because they can be more precise. The way they’re doing it now is like guessing how much you need to cut something to make it fit into a space well, instead of using a ruler and marking where to cut for a cleaner fit.
PvE could benefit from more frequent patches also because going months on end with something like pre nerf ele is bad, plain and simple. With more frequent shaving nerfs instead of large nerfs, anet can perfect where ele dps should be. And if they need to take more time to figure out those changes in a way that won’t impact other game modes negatively, then they can wait for another patch. And there’s another advantage. If they need 4 months to figure out the proper change and to program it, then that’s 4 months of waiting. But every 3 months means that if it only takes 4 months to fix, then then they have to wait 6 months to ship it. That’s 2 unnecessary months of waiting.
So in the end, there’s less waiting for good changes with more frequent patches. Something that could be shipped out after a month now needs to be waited for by an extra 2 months. And it’s very easy for players to get bored of something in 2 months.
But….second health bar!
Oh wait that doesn’t do crap when it also drains slowly while taking damage. You MIGHT think the necro has 20k extra health, but it’s actually more like 10k when you lose a thousand every second (estimated numbers).
Also, I already explained in a previous post why a second health bar doesn’t work even remotely as well as actual sustain skills. But that would involve a wall of text and I’m too tired to have to keep repeating it. But the gist of it is that necro defences lose value when damage values go up. Whereas sustain skills values go up when damage values go up.
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Don’t know why anyone would take it over reduced fire CDs and 10% damage boost. A build would have go all out auras to make any use out of it, and the use wouldn’t be meaningful enough, if it was working properly.
If warriors get a passive proc CD that matches the corresponding skill, then so does every other professions. As an ele, I’d love to see our passive procs match skill CDs. Instead, one was actually nerfed recently.
Better yet, just remove all passive proc traits. Ones that proc skills but require some activity, such as Plague Sending which requires a crit, are good because they don’t just proc while the necro does nothing. Stun break procs are a bit more tricky, but there are solutions.
Thats because no other class has access to a second life bar. Shut up and quit complaining
That second life bar doesn’t mean kitten when those other professions who have evade and block skills can effectively prevent more damage than the amount of life force a necro can have at once.
That’s why damage needs to go down. The value of a block, evade or immunity is based on how much damage was avoided. Necros have dodge and that’s it. Within a few seconds, a necro can take literally 30k damage. That’s more than the max life force they can achieve with a 1200 vitality amulet. Now imagine another player who has 18k or so hp, like a mesmer. That player, using skills and not dodges, can completely avoid all of that damage with 2 blocks, an evade and an immunity. And then that player can also attack during those blocks, evades and immunities. And in the end, that player still has 18k health. Now of course good players won’t unleash all their damage into an immune mesmer, but they will into a necro, because necro can only stop a portion of that damage by dodging, lasting 3/4 second each.
So it was because necros have a second life bar, but HoT introduced a ton of damage boosts across the board, so that life bar has lost a lot of value.
And before we say that conditions are the other defence of necros? Well, that’s actually true, but resistance and increased cleansing ability that also came with HoT has reduced the value of utility conditions as well. Basically, necro defence is seemingly non existent. Other professions gained actual sustain with HoT, and that sustain goes up in value with damage values. Necro defence goes down in value with damage values.
Imagine if damage didn’t go up but HoT came with an abundance of unblockable skills. Necros would be like before. Their defence value would be like, or similar to, pre HoT, but unblockable skills lower the value of blocks. DHs, Chronomancers, warriors and anything that frequently uses blocks to help with sustain would lose value in their defence. But unlike necro, they have other options. DHs would be hit the hardest, but they do have an immunity elite, Chronomancers have sword 2 and Distortion, and warriors have Endure Pain.
So enough with this extra life bar kitten. Necro defence was hit the hardest with HoT. Their damage values went up with everyone else, but their defence values went down. In this game, 50k hp can be dropped in seconds with enough focus.
It’s not a tether and I hope it never becomes one. One of the great things about it (though I admit it doesn’t completely make sense to me) is that you can hit someone with the first skill and then leap to an entirely different target.
Also, if it becomes a tether with reveal, dagger will become even more mandatory for all builds. Anything to deal with thieves is gonna be used by eles.
Well the problem might be that you’re playing a GS ranger. Ranger’s aren’t that great against conditions. Druids can cleanse all of them and break stuns every 15 seconds, but ranger really just has the cleanse signet and maybe a few other minor skills that I’m not familiar with. You can also run a rune that cleanses conditions.
Basically, run a spec that can pack in as much sustain (evades, blocks, immunities and heals) as possible while also not sacrificing too much damage. That’s all HoT has been: massive damage specs, that force out massive sustain specs, that force amulet removals, that force back massive damage specs, that force out more massive sustain specs which also have to run damage amulets. I’d call it balanced if it was either high sustain or high damage, but now it’s both. Professions that have many evade and block skills can get away with higher damage amulets, and then some can run tankier amulets like Mender’s because of other entities that compensate for the damage loss (ahem pets ahem).
My point is, run Menders with as many evades and blocks as possible. Fight cheese with cheese. You’ll still have trouble against conditions, but if you learn to dodge all the right skills, you’ll have more luck than you’re having now.
So don’t go on the point then. Simply don’t go into a fight alone. Necros are not an independent professions right now. They can’t effectively go into a 1v1 expecting to win like a mesmer or ranger.
Nerfs are bad when something is weak. Nerfs are good when something is too strong. Most things in this game are too strong; therefore nerfs are good. It’s really simple actually.
Anet balance: Arcing Slice is OP. Why? Because of its insane range. Solution? Increased cast time. Duh.
Maybe let things settle down first before we start discussing a “new meta”.
Some professions received nerfs, so they are currently out of the meta, but they will come back once new builds are discovered. Some professions will never be back because their design is just horrible. For example, ele might drop out because there’s no other build that’ll be as good as Auramancer, and that build was nerfed again. DH is already out because its design will never work at high tiers without being insanely OP at low tiers. Druids now have to actually play well in order to survive, instead of just popping SotP, healing/stealthing a bunch and letting their pet do the damage.
But guess what? Guardians, rangers and eles are going to find new builds, and if none of those make it into the meta, Anet will buff them into oblivion again and the cycle of awful balancing will continue. Look what happened to rev? Condi was nerfed a while ago, and power was nerfed later. Rev was out of the meta, but it was still powerful. Now they buffed condi and it’s absolutely going to be meta again. The more condi is buffed, the more necessary bringing as many cleanses as possible will be. And then players will adapt and start running power builds again because Anet will buff cleanses instead of nerfing conditions. It’s an endless cycle of powercreep.
Anet tends to respond to powercreep with more powercreep. This patch surprised me with actual nerfs to elite specs.
It definitely does feel gimmicky, but I think it could have a chance at the top because it can be activated while casting and it’s tell isn’t terribly obvious. It also forces dodges or cleanses. I tried it with both condi and power and I like power more. At least you can make use of the ferocity then. There’s no power, condi, precision, vit/toughness amulet so all that ferocity you get goes to waste. Plus you feel restricted into only using it for the burning. And then there’s the fact that condi sucks everywhere else on ele. But with power, you make use of the ferocity and you can use it for chill, or immobilize without wasting another whole stat. My point is, power makes use of all selected stats and it’s honestly not any weaker.
Frost bow is used in PvE against large target. It’s not that great in PvP. Flame Axe on the other hand is pretty great in PvP. I honestly think it’s underrated. Same with Earth Shield. You just never see them because Auramancer and Cantrip builds outshine all other builds.
Nobody runs power or condi because one is more effective than the other. They play whatever spec grants the most sustain and cleanses while also granting the most synergy. In the case of Mesmers, condi shatter grants the most sustain and also fantastic synergy between traits and utilities. Healing and support specs run power because there’s no amulet with healing and condition damage other than Sage’s, and that’s a hybrid amulet. DHs. run power because longbow is their most powerful weapon and DH offers no real condition synergy. And the synergy through traits doesn’t allow them to spec into Radiance or to use torch because they lose too much sustain. So DH has to run power because it happens to offer the most sustain and synergy. Why power rev over condi rev? Because first, in this case, power actually does do more damage than condi! But also because staff with sword/shield offer the most sustain. Neither of them are condi weapons. Why power warrior over condi warrior? I don’t know why. I’ve played both and condi warrior is easier, tankier and does more damage.
Now the only other reason I can think of that people choose power specs over condi specs is because everyone’s maxing out cleansing and resistance when they can. You know why? Because condis are OP. If we stopped running so many cleanses condition defences, you bet we’d be seeing more condition specs from professions that can run condition specs while meeting the criteria I mentioned above (maxing out sustain and synergy).
Well apparently standing still is the counter to torment… Let me know how that works.
But really, the only true counters are cleansing and resistance. Torment is an OP condition that often lasts way too long and can then be stacked too easily for too much damage. You have to move in PvP, so having torment last so long is going to be a problem. The reason you don’t see it being much of a problem is because condi rev hasn’t been a concern for over a year and torment on mesmers doesn’t last too long from shatters. Mesmers can’t run sceptre in PvP without being demolished in half a second, so you never really hear about OP torment mesmers.
My point is, torment is OP but torment specs aren’t (or weren’t).
One sigil that actually gives people a chance to lock a warrior down for a couple seconds? BIG FREAKING DEAL.
Skull Grinder still bombs you with 4 condis, two of which are unnecessary to the theme of the skill (blind and cripple), and Arc Divider still has an insane range. What changed? AD only takes a quarter second longer to cast and Primal Burst skills have a 1 second longer CD. SUCH A HUGE NERF. What you’re gonna do is pick another weapon, realize that mace and GS are still OP, and then continue to QQ because you have to wait literally 1 more second to use a skill.
Let’s go over what changed and if those changes were good or bad:
- Arc Divider cast time increased. Bad change. AD needed a range nerf, not a cast time nerf.
- Skull Grinder power damage and bleeding nerfed and blast finisher removed. The power damage nerf was decent, and the blast finisher was completely pointless, so both good changes overall. But bleeding? Bleeding wasn’t the problem. It was being bombed by 3 other cover condis, two being control condis. Bleeding nerf wasn’t the best change, but at least it’s something to deal with the condis.
- Headbutt cast time increased and range increased. Not that great. Instead, another 10 seconds to the CD or a nerf to the stun would have been better. I think the CD would be the best change since elite skills are supposed to have long CDs. This one does not have a long CD.
- Healing Signet passive reduced. Good. But it needs to be reduced even more. Nobody’s going to consider the other heals till the healing is reduced to be comparable to the other heals.
- Endure Pain duration nerfed but CD buffed. Overall, not too bad. But it’s still too powerful of an effect, even for 2 seconds, to have a CD of 30 seconds. On the other hand, this is still better than any duration past 2 seconds.
- Defy Pain nerfed. Bad. This trait shouldn’t even exist. It’s passive and lazy.
- Shield Bash cast time increased. Why? This skill was fine.
- Bloody Roar taunt nerfed. Again, why? 2 second CC on something that takes 26 seconds to do again was fine, and you have to sacrifice pulsing stability for it. This trait is actually one example of something that was overnerfed.
- Smash Brawler nerfed. Good for PvP, awful for PvE. This should have been split.
- Eternal Champion stability nerfed. Thank God… But I don’t think having stability for only half of Berserk is a good idea. It would be better if you had to do something during Berserk to get stability. The rest of the trait gives you stability when you break a stun, so why not give it something else that gives bonus stability during Berserk? Like when you hit with a Primal Burst skill, gain stability for 2 seconds. I suppose this could also be considered overnerfed, but not by much. It was necessary.
All other changes have nothing to do with PvP specs.
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""Arcane Power: The number of stacks this ability applies has been reduced from 5 to 4.
Elemental Surge: The duration of burning this ability applies has been reduced from 5 seconds to 4 seconds."
Yep, already nerfed. I feel like a mesmer again.
Yep. No CD skill with a daze. It’s like if Chaos Storm had no CD. It’s just wrong and has extremely little counterplay.
Ranger shouts have cast times. Why should ours be any different? If anything, because they’re elite spec shouts, they should be harder to use but more powerful when successful.
It would just be better if there was no movement impairing effect removal at all on that trait. Give it something else in its place. The condi dodge hurls a condi attack, and Bound does damage on impact. But being able to remove all movement impairing effects with such ease, even with an ICD, is always going to be OP. The CD would have to be pretty long and it’s just a cheap way to balance it. There are better ways to balance, and it’s called reworking.
You want best sustain and best Burst? And be one of the most Passive classes sure that’s interesting gameplay…
Dont find it interesting, play something else.
And best burst? please, not my kittening fault you cant find the stunt brake skill button.
And it’s not our kittening fault if we’re stunned immediately after because of insanely short CC CDs. We can’t dodge every CC a warrior throws at us.
Arc Divider nerf was just plain awful. Nobody wanted a longer cast time. It already had a cast time enough to help players anticipate the possibility of one. Now there’s literally only a quarter extra second. It does absolutely nothing to help anticipation. The only problem Arc Divider ever had that made it powerful was the range. It just needs a range nerf and maybe add a combo finisher to it because that won’t be an extreme buff and it’ll help distinguish it from Arcing Slice.
This was easily the worst change I found in all the patch notes.
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The Primal Burst CD nerf from the trait should have just been for PvP. Power warrior is already one of the lowest DPS in PvE, so nerfing that for PvE as well only made things worse.
And Axe will never be good as long as GS has two traits that don’t conflict in the Strength line. Axe doesn’t have a master trait at all, and Axe Mastery conflicts with Berserker’s Power. So dropping GS loses 30% direct damage. 300 ferocity isn’t going to make up for that and the adrenaline on crit is useless since you already max out adrenaline well before Decapitate is ready because of the Smash Brawler nerf. That extra second on Primal Bursts made a huge difference and was clearly meant for PvP, but they didn’t split it from that.
If they want to make Axe good, then at least the Strength line needs some changes. AM cannot compete with BP as long as GS doesn’t have any competition. So, my suggestion is simple: swap AM with FG. Now GS will be the might stacking spec, but won’t get the 20% damage boost. Axe with its insane adrenaline generation can easily maintain max BP even outside Berserk, whereas GS can no longer do it reliably because of SB’s nerf adding 2 seconds to Berserk’s CD from before. This’ll give axe specs more damage while still making GS useful due its superior might stacking ability. Though this would hurt GS DPS even more, it would at least prevent from being a useless weapon, like axe currently is. They could also remove Body Blow because it has no synergy with anything aside from Distracting Strikes and Physical skills. Then replace it with something that can help DPS for other weapons, including GS. Let’s say every few attacks applies quickness for example.