Guild Wars 2

Double eles with cantrips will still reign supreme over PvP let they have been for the past months. Nothing about this patch has changed the status quo.

GG Anet.

So your testers showed that balance/dps ele was too powerful in comparison to tankele. Therefore lets lower build diversity and make room for tank cantrip eles now that every ele will move to them now that these balance changes go in.

Lets target the specific abilities every ele uses compared to just the tanks, so we can realign the class into its one true build vision…..that everyone hates and no one can kill and everyone runs.

Makes sense.

Braxxus.2904:

Valkyriez.6578:

WvW isn’t PvP, it’s glorified PvE.

Funny the roamers in WvW going 2-5 vs 8-20 (often winning) are fighting and killing far more players than you guys standing in your colored circles all day long playing games of tag do.

Funnily enough when I’ve gone in WvW with a group of sPvPers we usually wreck players in zergs because most WvW players aren’t very good(There are plenty of pros and guilds in there to be sure). Its certainly fun but I can’t dedicate to the mode long because how boring it can get with the mindless zergs roaming around all day, and the lack of relevance for smaller group play combined with PvE balance.

“Its like all right we can reset this camp…..so we can barely budge the meter that has been tallying points for days….Blah.”

Too bad sPvP doesn’t reward players either.

Zelulose.8695:

It’s really sad. Perma stealth is made able by the trait for initiative gain during stealth using d/p with skill 5(black powder) and skill 2 (heart seeker) this allows constant backstabbing and perma stealth while heartseeker can damage the enemy while putting you in stealth. When you add regen during stealth and Condi remove every three seconds from other traits its way op. Literally they can never die and will kill you if you can. Plz fix Anet

Am I missing something or is someone complaining about thieves who spec into shadow arts? I think this discussion should at least be bring up semi-viable tournament builds not hot-join hero thiefs.

The reason why most thieves build into burst is because of how thief gameplay works in the format. You can either bring someone down quickly and benefit your team with quicker caps or troll around in stealth all day thinking you’re cool while your team dies around you and they cap the point because your worthless kitten can’t.

Anet should make other lines support less stealth reliance for straight up brawls with evasive movements. Though rangers seem to have that kittenick down pretty well already.

Mufa.1326:

Again more clueless nonsense. Argument does not fail because class has access to two weapons (one single target dmg and one aoe dmg)

When thief switches to bow, it is considered AOE build, when he switches to d/d it is considered single target build.

DMG on those two weapons should follow the design principle stated above. In other words, you should not have thief with “bow only” destroying thief with “d/d only” in 1v1. (i.e. bow should not be stronger 1v1 weapon than d/d).

Clueless ppl should leave these discussions to people with a clue. Problem is that clueless ppl do not recognize themselves as such I guess, so the point is mute.

I cannot believe this community, such a bunch of clueless people scared to death of ‘nerfs’, and not caring about the game one bit.

Uh…what? I guess you kinda prove my point anyways. Your argument kinda breaks down when you stop looking at these elements as disparate pieces(or “builds” as you put it) rather part of a comprehensive strategy that composes a good build. Any thief worth his salt will be switching weapons based on the context and cooldowns of the situation. Like a thief facing another thief will force cooldowns with his melee set, smack the other thief with surprise shot out of stealth and then finish him with cluster bomb spray. Otherwise what you propose would be a simple rock paper scissors solution devoid of anything beyond superficial depth.

If anything I think AOE in team fights causes melee damage to be way too front loaded for squisher classes like thief, and mesmer who smack people with obscene damage in little to no time. They often can’t survive in fights for which is why this occurs in their most viable specs.

There are a couple of large flaws with your analysis of this “dichotomy” you’ve constructed of how damage dealing methods scenarios should play out.

Using the single target vs. AOE argument fails because of how easy it is to hybridize damage sources through weapon swap. Even the thief can easily sit on his shortbow for 90% of his gametime for providing safe highly sustained AOE damage with trick shot, and absurdly high AOE damage with short range cluster bombs along with choking gas for downed enemies and disabling shot for easy resets with damage avoidance. Saying a thief should win 1v1 encounters solely on the basis that one component of its damage dealing is single target is a mis-representation of the complex interactions between classes in team fights when viewed through the lens of 1v1 battle with no contextual value.

This is perhaps why dueling isn’t representative of game balance whatsoever. I could easily make non-standard thief builds and be one of the deadliest 1v1 classes in the game because of how powerful some of the stealth tools are but you wouldn’t be contributing adequately enough in a team fight. Burst specs, while not great in 1v1 fights, maximize their damage potential for priority and out of position targets.

Coming from an ele myself, there are perfectly acceptable ways to tweak the ele from its dominant position, especially the bunker side of things.

1)Move Earth’s Embrace to Tier 2 and switch with strength of stone, etc. With this trait being so low in the Earth tree it allows ele bunkers too easy access while still running full Arcana and water traits. Moving this to Tier 2 would force Eles to have to make the sacrifice out of said trees to access such a powerful survival tool.
2) Nerf Frost Armor chill stacking duration- I don’t know why this doesn’t get brought up more, but this aura is insanely punishing on certain classes. Its almost enough to shut them out of fights or reduce their efficiency to drastic degrees for extended periods of time(4-7 sec stacks should be the highest it goes). I think this tweak alone would help certain classes(Warrior)and make eles seem less nonpunishable. Its still would be an incredibly useful ability just not OP.
3) Nerf heal stack scaling- Bunker Eles can just be too well-rounded in all single areas. Ether renewal provides consistent heals on a low cooldown while wiping all conditions, mobility options in combination with cantrips make them hard to lock down and punish and easy access to mitigation boons and traits like Earth’s Embrace make them hard to burst down. If anything, a bunker ele should be more susceptible to coordination burst efforts than say, a guardian, in exchange for having superior mobility and pure sustain. I think heal stat stacking as it is provides too many benefits and should be curbed at top end with diminishing returns to those who stack amulet and runes with +heals. This way you don’t bring down balanced ele, rather top end bunkers. They still function but SHOULD be brought down if a team coordinates between two players rather than forcing people to bring obscene burst or more assets to bring them down.
4)Less sure about this one, but I think Ether Renewal needs a tweaking in some way as well. Cooldown increase to 18-20 seconds, or far less condition removal pulses.

This is combination with some other suggestions would soften the ele down a little bit without kicking its face in.

Fernling.1729:

WoW PvP is currently dozens of times more active than gw2 pvp is. I would say that Anet could learn a thing or two.

Its a dozen times more active and still failed to achieve any sort of sustained E-Sport status. I think that is more indicative of systemic balance problems and lack of focus more than anything. Pretty much MMO pvp in a nutshell. Often super fun, but shoved to the side for PvE. :/

I think having the fixed weaponset abilities mitigates some of the issues that come up with a viewer not understanding the underlying subtleties of traits. With any sort of regular viewership, someone watching may come to understand some of the key abilities associated with each class when they play a certain weaponset. Like for example, the viewer watching a warrior with a greatsword will quickly come to understand the fight changing performance of landing hundred blades on someone.

Not all classes have such distinctive abilities for their weaponsets, but its certainly a better situation for viewing then a completely malleable skill bar ala GW1.

Sprawl.3891:

SuperHaze.4210:

Wolfheart.1938:

Divinity.8041:

I just hit rank 27 last night, and I was like…wtf am I doing? There are no rewards besides what ANET deems is cooler looking armor.

PvP for better gear, with a ranked system so my gear is not putting me at an advantage versus newer players…whoa wasn’t that simple?

I urge you to reread what you just posted, if you don’t notice a glaring issue with it just ask I’ll point it out.
P.s. Huge WoW E-sports League? I can’t say that with a straight face. Imbalance makes for great E-sport? You must be trolling me…

No one should have a gear advantage. That was what kept games like wow from ever becoming an esport. Why should a skilled player lose to a less skilled player because the less skilled player has more time to grind for the better gear? Skill is skill and that is what it should take to win. Anet just needs to build upon what they already have. Fix the bugs and make a few balance changes. Add some more game modes, ladders, etc. They have a great foundation for esports, but they lack core pvp elements that have already been discussed numerous times on these threads.

gear gaps were a complaint for bad players. Every season gave you plenty of time to max out your gear and then have time to climb the ladder even with limited play time. The only people who complained were the 1500 players who even if you gave them max gear at the start of the season, would remain 1500 players. Good players even made videos of playing in blues and still dominating teams in the 2k ranges who had full gear.

Then why have it in the first place and let skill be the determining factor? Wow’s decision to have pvp gear not easily accessible, and thus needed to be grinded out monotonously was due to the precarious stat and time to attain balance that it had to share with the rapidly creeping power ceiling of the PvE endgame. Both of the modes had to proceed lockstep with each other in terms of stats, otherwise players could gain advantages from dipping into the other side. The meditating factor, known as the pvp resilience stat, could only do some much to stem the systemic stat creep problems that disrupt the tenuous balance between PvE and PvP. This can be seen quite clearly through the rise of the subtlety rogue in cataclysm, who the help of a buff and constantly rising stats, went from a control bot with paltry damage to a well-rounded powerhouse.

So simply put WoW’s balancing is and always be a freaking disaster and will for any game that wants to have some coherency between its PvP and PvE modes while feeding players ballooning stat gears in the hope their sub numbers won’t crash. 3v3 WoW arena was the only remotely balanced arena mode and even that was dominated by predictable comps and specs for each class.

I also don’t think arena is a good match for this type of PvP. It might be short term fun, but it would be an unbalanced mess that would drag down the whole in order to make it a serviceable competitive format. Without healers and low ttk means matches the majority of the time would boil down to simply comp and AOE wars that wouldn’t be fun at any serious level. GW2 could expand into new modes, but I’d like that they’d stick with objective based formats like CtF.

Archaon.6245:

Pretty much everyone with full hp, even running full glass, can survive oneshots if he’s not totally brain dead…you don’t need tons of healing, cond removal, regen, vigor…and…mobility to survive let’s a say a backstab. If you need all this stuff just to counter a backstab thief…well, time to change game..other classes can negate a backstab combo with just one skill(You know..aegis, distorsion, deathshroud, endure pain and so on..)…do you need a complete op bunker spec to counter a burst? Srsly? Is not mist form enough to do so? And eles still claim to be so pro because they play it..

What about thieves that use haste during their burst rotation of mug, backstab and heartseeker from stealth or black powder with heartseeker, mug and backstab followed with heartseeker for finisher? It happens so fast they don’t even render outside of stealth a lot of the time.

Top end healing for bunker eles might needs its scaling toned down, but burst still needs a look at too bro.

I don’t think anyone can honestly argue Tankele isn’t too strong at the moment. The devs talk about the “high skill cap” of the class, but running multiple cantrips for utilities makes the class dangerously easy to play for the amount of impact you can bring to the game. I ran auramancer D/D ele back in September and people would always remark how hard I was too kill. It wasn’t that hard to play because of how many stun breaks I had, and I simply regained so much health by going through my rotations.

Tankele has insane boon uptime, damage mitigation, and importantly mobility. Its too easy to put pressure all across the map for point neutralizes and teams have to invest multiple players for extended periods to take them down given how gank resistant the class is.

I think DPS S/D, and D/D ele aren’t as strong at the moment. They either have to choose between running cantrips for extra-survivability for much less damage, or arcane for more burst but less sustain.

Eles certainly need some slight tweaks to be brought down.

Mosharn.8357:

You do realize that the air rune proc is 5% right?

Check post date, this is an ultimate necro post bro.

Ah, when the game was so young….

I usually don’t have an issue with this, but its a known problem for thieves using haste along with their backstab combo followed by heartseekers which doesn’t render properly.

Its because earth and fire aren’t as strong compared to the returns you get with air, water, and arcana. I’m currently running 0/20/0/20/30 on S/D elementalist which I prefer to the traditional build mentioned in the topic title. Certain traits need to reworked for them for them to viable in comparison.

The rating system is dearly needed at this point(actually a long time ago). Just got done trying to get some friends into PvP after doing hotjoin for a while teaching them their builds, etc. Queues for frees wouldn’t pop so we tried to get ONE person from the mists to join us and all that was available in the empty mists was a “dps” engineer. The friends new to the game didn’t have tickets so I had to pay for all of it. We queued up hoping to get a team that isn’t terrible experienced.

So obviously that didn’t happen and we got set up with a Manvil premade and got destroyed. How are we supposed to motivate people about this game?

While I hardly want to get into semantic argument his phrase regarding “equal/builds and comps” can easily be reference to equal baseline everyone shares in terms of stats along with the ability to change builds and classes easily, thus an equal playing field. This is actually quite a diversion from the norm in MMOs which usually require to grind to top level and then grind even more for adequate PvP gear. It presents a significant barrier to entry when trying out new things in a PvP scenario.

NevirSayDie.6235:

It takes really good timing and is hard to do without a team of five people. If it’s just you and your friend queueing together, and getting the rest of the team filled up by randoms, I would suggest either:

—Choosing a really good time to hit the back point together (such as, right when your three teammates are just getting to mid to start a fight), or
—Split up—whichever of you has a better duel build or can disengage easily (such as a d/d ele) go to the back point alone and “bait” out the portal use, while the other one hits mid with teammates or takes a secondary objective.

Either way, you should choose exactly when you want to put the pressure on. Portal doesn’t give the opposing team the ability to be two places at once; it just gives the ability to choose very quickly between one of two locations. Give them a tough choice.

This right here. Portal is on significant cooldown so if you can manage it within the context of the game, send one of your mobile roamers to attempt the de-cap and then just leave. You CAN attempt to engage them on point but its probably better to utilize your mobility and leave the mesmer to rot on point. Putting you at a equal or superior number advantage in a team fight elsewhere.

You can also combat this by having one of your teammates gear up for a 1v1 situation to prevent the cap at the beginning the game and force the mesmer to remain on point. Depends on the classes in your comp but a symbol offensive guardian, S/D sustain ele, or even another offensive roaming mesmer.

Sprawl.3891:

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

Xom.9264:

Say what you want about WoW but if you played it for the PvP you would know it rewards skill and team work you cannot advance in the ratings unless you win against other high rated teams lose and you drop rating.

I dont know what the game is like now but I played it from launch into being a top rated arena player for years. GW2 is a wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy behind on skill based pvp sadly Anet seems like they want the games pvp to die they are sticking to the farm based system for PvP. I just dont understand what they are thinking, who are they listening too what ‘pvpers’ are telling them the QP system is fine? The people that like the QP system dont like real competition just garbage farmers.

The WvW is not even as good as DAoC, DAoC had points you could earn only by doing RvR to buy pvp skills for classes improving their power.

No long term rewards for WvW zero rewards for Tpvp or even a basic ladder/ranking system = a slow death in what could of been a great pvp MMO.

i cant wait for a rating system and a flood of great players and the dissaperence of QP points.

nobody is coming back sorry bro. I know this is your first pc game but mmo players rarely return to a game that fails so hard and takes too long to fix.

Is this YOUR first PC game, because you clearly and consistently have shown in every single post you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Every single MMO since the launch of MMOs has taken months/years to get into a functional state. Most of them have failed or barely sustained because of that fact, either going free to play to prey off those who will spend tons of money on virtual cosmetics, or fading to oblivion. WoW has survived for as long as it had, because for most it was their Blizzard kiddies first MMO. It was an epic failure for months, having to refund their customers money because servers couldn’t handle the strain of the population. Endgame and PvP infrastructure was still in a fragile barely coherent state by the time the first expansion rolled around, forcing players to give up their lives to achieve worthwhile in the game. Despite all this vanilla WoW was still a great game and many stuck with it because it was fun to play despite the “intolerable” conditions. It wouldn’t have got to where it is today if people stopped playing because of how fundamentally broken everything was. It was just fun.

Listen here and listen good. There is no greener grass. ESO will fail to live up to expectations as will ever single MMO that precedes it. Its just the typical MMO player has become a content locust, consuming everything in their path like a fast food consumer, quick and easy.

Sprawl.3891:

yet gw2 has about the amount of active pvpers as wow has on 1 server

Using population numbers to draw some sort of qualitative comparison judgement is not the best route for argumentation though admittedly the easiest within the frame of one sentence.

I loved playing WoW’s PvP on my mage and rogue since vanilla where PvPers had to scrap the bottom of the barrel so harshly their fingers would fill with splinters. It was fun which is kept me playing for so long, but WoW remains a PvE focused game. GW2 will continue a similar legacy if the much touted features don’t amount to much.

daydream.2938:

Both exlixir s and exlir r, and bomb kit. Takes a huge hit in dps though :/. I’m not sure, this is theorycraft. But if he can make em waste time trying to down him, then his lack of dps is compensated for.
Flamethrower, i dont think its worth it, burning just doesnt seem to be a great condition-its easily removed, and doesnt stack like bleeds for intensity.

I was using tool kit when I switched to flamethrower and I loved it. Incendiary Ammo is just another easily applicable condition that isn’t game breaking powerful but has great duration, so you either force the condi removal or have great constant pressure on your opponent(especially the glassy ones). The build is great at over-whelming opponents with various conditions. The Air Blast is amazing for point fighting, forcing the opponent to either feel pressured while in point with your bomb kit, or by forcing stability and knocking him out with CC. The blind is great for stomps, and if you’re getting chained CC and need to utilize your dodges.

It just sucks when a thief trains you because you don’t have an invuln or easy way to stealth to disengage. The build might have to be reworked to conditions can easily be applied on point en masse from afar, but I’m not going to think about that now. XD

Its just dumb how thief burst shuts out build options.

daydream.2938:

I felt that it was odd his engy wasnt running some defensive skills. Given the cirumstances id have subed flamethrow out for toolkit for block, or even elixir S ( i think its s, the immunity one).
Just because they would have tried to truck him, so being somewhat survivable would waste some of the opposition dps. So, i was surpised when he didnt make that adaptation.
But yes, engy has limits in viability.
@ Condiments ive seen team curse lose to teams not even running a thief. Thief burst is super powerful but so is warrior burst.

I could see Elixir S helping perhaps, but his build would definitely lose some of the good team fight/solo potential that comes with throwing Elixir R. Honestly I’m still not sure Elixir S is enough to save him. They can easily swap right back to him and train him once the invulnerability is over because the lack of disengages the engineer has if he runs a squishier build like that. Going further defensive by equipping tool-kit might work but throw wrench is terrible compared to Incendiary ammo, and while magnet and gear shield are good but the blow back of air blast on flamethrower combined with bomb kit for point combat along with the other CC options makes the build a good point fighter. You’d essentially have to neuter the build options just to have the potential to survive the burst potential of the top classes. Then why bring it if there are better options?

My rant about thieves isn’t necessarily they are the end all be all option. Teams have been very successful without running a thief. Its just that the thief is highly punishing to squishier builds that don’t stack invulnerabilities, thus diminishing their effectiveness and synergy to the point where you’re just like….well why don’t we go thief or screw it and go for AOE spam with rez signets. Its just lame and diminishes options in the game.

After watching Teldo’s stream today with their fights with Curse I can definitely see why they say Engineer isn’t that viable at top level play. Its way too easy to gib a engi because of the lack of easy disengages and invulns. Thief, especially on temple, is too good a roamer and damage dealer. The sheer damage potential of backstab with haste so powerful that it outweighs all other options, and forces a bottle neck of slotting utilities with an “invulnerability” or a disengage(invis, shadowstep) not a stun break. Stun breaks by themselves aren’t enough, because even if you survive some of the initial barrage the follow with heartseeker is too much(seriously hasted heartseeker is insanely fast and can easily do 4-5k a shot. Its WAY out of whack.)

I thought thief damage was ok if you have a proper team and coordination around you, but this is simply not the case.

Yeah I’ve recently started playing Engineer the past couple of days with Teldo’s build and its an absolute blast to play. The first day was pretty frustrating getting use to the hand work required for kit swapping but once you get that down its hilarious what you can do with the class at times. I feel engineers would be a much stronger choice in PvP if backstab thieves weren’t such a hard counter to them. If some competent thief starts butt humping me I have to play perfectly to have a chance of surviving.

What keeps me playing is the potential. You have so many tricks at your disposal and when you line them up perfectly into brilliant combos its a rush you don’t get with other classes.

Sky.9347:

I would like to know if there is ANY possibility for vertical progression to be added to sPvP in the future.

If they still hold to their e-sport aspirations any vertical progression will not be part of their plans.

I’m very much looking forward to this discussion, so thank you for having it again.

I full confidence players like Lowell and Java have to the knowledge and experience to discuss many of the balance niceties that have been brought up at various times during this discussion. I think it’d important, especially early on before everyone starts digging into the details, that we ask Anet to clarify their stance on the current “state of the game”.

1) I think it would be important to ask Anet how representative or close the current framework, mechanics, and class balance is of their overall design vision. We got an piece of that vision in the last patch notes explaining class interaction and balance, but I think it would be good to hear what their “big picture” views are moving forward in terms of balance shifting towards or away from something(burst/bunker for example). Following questions could pertain to how the community has moved to in terms of general “meta” balance. Did they expect many of the prominent specs to be as powerful as they originally intended? Has anything blindsided them specifically? Here they can speak easily speak in sweeping terms about they want to shift things without getting bogged down by individual details in discussion. Obviously it would be important to emphasize that balance changes take time to happen, but I think the community would appreciate knowing what to expect in the future.

2) While many cite individual class imbalances as the “downfall” of GW2’s PvP, but quite frankly I think its hogwash. There are certain design and balance aspects which I feel are out of line but nothing is so overtly broken(Block bug and Svanir runes WERE broken though). The problem with GW2 sPvP has always been systemic. I’m not going to even get into tournament system which has been a hot topic of debate for months, but the problems with hot-join needs to be brought up. Despite is supposed intention for laid back fun(this is my assumption as to the way it was designed), I think the mode is so unrepresentative of the game itself its not a good mode for casual players. Despite the nature of being able to ‘win’ games by gaining point through node capture, much of these matches end up being simply death matches and glory point hoarding. The scoring system, which is why people play the mode, so disproportionately awards bad play that learning anything remotely about being a better team player is nearly impossible. Its embarrassing when I can play matches with uncognizant bloodlust slaying everything in path and accrue ridiculous point totals while contributing nothing to my team. I think the easy fix instead of pouring time into making a representative glory scoreboard system would be to make glory be awarded in much greater amounts to the winning team, thus actively enforcing team play. Also, abolishing 8v8 altogether would do wonders as well. Obviously such focus on something so trite as glory accrual seems unwarranted, but human behavior is often molded by what is rewarded systemically. Changing the rules will allow for a healthier more hospitable irrespective of any class balance considerations. So obviously the question would be how they feel on hot-joins and any changes that could be made.

The game most people complain about(the hotjoiners), is vastly different than the one that is being played between on a successful tournament level. Pushing player behavior to emulate them would be a good thing.

I’ll add more later if I feel I need to add anything else.

Med.6150:

The solution is to nerf the damage modifiers that you can pick up through traits, nothing else. It’s obvious to anybody who has actually put some thought into it and actually played it.

Why do scholar runes add such a huge amount of damage? Why can you pick up 4 traits with damage multipliers of 10, 10 , 20 and 5% respectively that are additive? That’s the root of the issue.

Damage multipliers through traits for each and every class need to be non-additive. The highest multiplier takes precedence, period. Problem solved (once that’s done and we still run into issues, look at crit damage multipliers, because it doesn’t sit well with me that the difference between a non-crit and a crit can make a difference of up to 400+% in an attacks damage. That’s just too broad of a damage spread).

Edit: Before anybody asks 400+% is comparing a non-crit under weakness and a crit (weakness has no effect on crits) with all the crit damage multipliers, you usually see on glass cannons. Bring these closer together, in order to be able to balance damage output easier.

Obviously this needs to happen at the same time as bunkers are nerfed.

I think thief damage scaling is the core of the problem. The damage modifiers are really the source of the problem, with thieves being able to easily stack them through traits, runes, sigils and utilities like Assassin Signet for crazy damage. The flipside is if thief doesn’t stack these modifiers the thief’s damage is very sub-par. There is also very little reason to stack survive-ability and utility considering how lackluster the thief is in those areas.

I think the key problem is that utilities and traits aren’t making classes flexible enough to fill multiple roles. This is obviously something that takes time with balancing, but we obviously see how classes naturally gravitate towards roles. Thief’s limited potentiality stems from the fact that their survive-ability is reliant on evades, mobility and stealth. All these attributes put them at a disadvantage in a point-fighting situation. It’d be cool if a thief had more team-fight/point fighting potential with less reliance on stealth, and shortbow but that is not how its designed currently.

AOE, Burst, and bunkers all need to be addressed simultaneously. AOE forces weaker fighters to front load their damage to bring down targets in team fights so they don’t succumb to AOE, bunkers are the only builds that can sustainability hold points for longer periods of time in team fights where AOE cleave is insane. Nerfing a single one of these elements without the others will still result in an unbalanced meta.

I was the thief in that video, and we were able to stop their advance on the bridge with utilizing the chill fields and CC provided by ele staff with frozen ground and static field, while laying down heavy AOE on their advance. Plus, a lot of them initially got wrecked on the ascent up the hill with the supply drop and static field dropping on their force followed by intense AOE. Seriously the combination of constant pressure with trick shot+cluster bomb along with double meteor shower, the sustain of the water attunement and water fields of the staff ele, with the engineer pulling individual players with magnet for us to pick off was a deadly combination for that situation. Its surprising how effective smaller numbers are against large forces of uncoordinated players. Was fun stuff.

My thoughts on the subject at hand? I think AOE is generally too powerful in this game along with with some single target burst(backstab combo). While this issue I think is more pertinent to sPvP than WvW, lessening overall AOE damage will probably give new players a better chance to survive in AOE dead zones that often appear in larger engagements. In sPvP, AOE damage currently makes normally ressing teammates incredibly difficult/often suicidal, and forces point fighting to be restricted to the classes capable of sustaining the constant pressure(bunkers).

Well I figured the blog post would be stereo-typically vague with more information coming in the next State of the Game in early Feb with an Arenanet dev. I suppose its then we’ll find out if we’re getting anything worthwhile anytime soon.

Honestly, for all the complaints about balance, it really isn’t terrible, especially if you’ve played enough MMOs to know how bad it gets. WoW is certainly not a good example of game offering multiple PvP builds nor well designed PvP. Gear stat creep, gear grind, OP comps, little build variety(played mage/rogue…pretty much 1 spec), etc. And these are unfixed problems persisting through multiple expansions and balance shifts. Loved the gameplay, its just a popular example of pvp system shuffled to the side to push units rather than promote quality. Its also an example of how sweeping changes can ruin any sort of consistency in your PvP. I’d like Anet to be able to take a middle ground, make bigger changes if needed, but don’t go to far. No pvp designer will ever know completely how a community will exploit the changes.

There are certainly a ton of problems for GW2, but I think chief among them is how barren the features are. I haven’t played consistently for a while because I see no way to push myself in this current framework. I’m caught in the yawning void that consists of “frees” and “paids”. This, however, has been discussed multiple times, but the features the devs saying are coming “soon” can’t come soon enough if there is a chance for revival.

Bunker and burst does need to be toned down, but features are whats needed.

How anyone thinks DOTA 2 is more intuitive than GW2 is beyond me unless you’ve been initiated in the format. It, like GW2, requires outside research in order to be ‘competitive’. Its got multitudes of different heroes with different abilities and role proficiencies that can ruin your day, item builds, verbally abusive teammates/enemies etc. I have an invite but I’m sure I want to get into another monolithic scene.

DOTA 2 and most of its ilk just have the availability of nestling their newer players in a matchmaking system where they’ll be linked with similarly skilled players.

I think adding some non-objective game modes for fun would definitely add some variety and fun to the game, but in terms of competitive format? I remain cynical unless convinced otherwise.

2v2 or 3v3 arena might be interesting, but traditional 5v5 arena(1 death and you’re out) would be tough to balance. Conquest is 5v5 but forces players in varying levels of player number engagements as determined by their role or how the game is progressing. The impact of abilities like Time Warp and rez signets is significant, almost too important, but 5v5 arena would force these abilities to be too dis proportionally powerful. There is not enough sustain and AOE is simply too strong to make TDM interesting without any other stipulations.

I’m not sure the game is structured to support non-objective based gameplay.

So……..we may get something February now? We’re looking at over a month wait time to get some basic features for a six month old game? I’ve been patient with this game because of how amazing the content/mechanics are and that I realize pushing out content launch MMOs is difficult….

But I’m seriously tired of the options presented to me. My playtime for this game has fallen off a cliff despite how fun it can be. I’ll probably be taking a few week/month break before I consider playing again. I’ll watch streamers on the good teams, but….can the communication be a little better here? We’ve had this anticipation building for a while and practically nothing has changed. Will there be balance issues addressed Jan? Anything?

Well for one, being deliberately combative in your topic title and your text and calling out individual dedicated players for their “lack of knowledge” is not going to win points whatever your concerns. Especially when you accuse bros like Vain and Xeph.

Secondly, what EU meta? I like this game and try to watch streams so I can become more knowledgeable in how I play the game. I initially favored your guy’s scenes when I followed teams like Paradigm and Super Squad but….what happened? I generally don’t see streams of you guys anymore, and I never see anything dedicated to discussing this evolved “meta” you guys don’t want dearly misrepresented. Its cool you guys have your own thing going but don’t be surprised when people shrug their shoulders at your complaints.

I ended up following the NA scene more with players like Vain, and others that were available at the time. They are pretty informative and helpful players that have tried to help out and inform this community in various ways.

More insight and knowledge on the part of the playerbase is what this games needs. You guys should organize a roundtable of top EU players to discuss the top issues yourselves and advertise it. Obviously these things take time but I’d watch it and others would to.

I was experimenting with the utility last night and it was great when it worked….but it often wouldn’t. Player’s would often run through the trap unimpeded. I attributed it to the player having stability to prevent CC, but the consistency in which it happened made me think something else was going on.

The utility says “unblockable”, meaning it can’t be mitigated in any other way than stability I presume? Has anyone else had trouble with this skill? I’ll have to test more in the future.

Carrioncrow.6872:

No it wasn’t unrealistic.

Yeah it is. There is no game in the history of videogames multiplayer that has provided various viable builds “playstyles” with varied traits, weapons, customization options etc. for different classes on a competitive level in a few months. It takes months, if not years of balancing to get to such a point because of how complex game interactions are in 3D space. Within the couple builds each profession can play(some have more than others), the game is actually pretty balanced.

Also, for what you want bro:
A) Go power necro.
B) Get a good team.
C) Get peelers to keep people off you while you lay down the smackdown.
D) Blood is Power(Necro utility)Empower(staff guardian)Time Warp(Mesmer Elite)+Lich Form(Necro Elite)= Owning entire teams with sick damage.

70% percent of the time you can get a stomp on a mesmer by staggering your stomp so they make their “invis” cast while you’re in the middle of your stomp. You come down when they reappear and you get the stomp with no trouble.

I agree with Caed on conquest being a ‘main’ mode is perfectly fine with Anet possible throwing a bone at the community with new modes for variety. I think 3v3 arena could be an interesting game setup, but balance could be ending up being pretty kitten with comp wars being an over-powering factor.

He is also right that the game is pretty balanced right now for the most part compared to most games. Sure there are problems like the stuff I mentioned above, but compared to other MMOs? The fact some classes have multiple viable builds to run with added creativity is crazy awesome at this point.

Balance will come with time, but its the features that are dearly needed.

Narcarsis.5739:

You cannot balance every spec for every class in a game that is focused on something more complex than team death-match. It is impossible.

This is why there is a class philosophy – read it and deal with it.

True, but if we take their word on the class philosophy I should be able to contribute to my team with traps. XD I was using tripwire all night and it misfired more than it actually knocked people down.

Looks like mount and blade with better graphics and worse gameplay. Might be fun.

That was a good post Caed with reasonable suggestions. After playing thief quite a bit over the past couple of months, I’ll give my two cents into how thief plays into the current game design vision. I do believe Mr. Big has a couple good points on the class and I am reconsidering my commitment to the class.

People saying bunker/burst being so extreme at the moment is misleading. It is true that these roles play a predominant part of the current meta scene and this is reflective of the current class balance, but I’d like to add another piece to the puzzle that truly sheds light on why classes are interacting with each other the way they are.

The current guild wars 2 “trinity” is: Burst, Bunker, and AOE.

The reason you see thief being most successful within its burst role is because that is how it seems to operate most effectively. A thief’s “team fight” ability is purely reliant on shortbow for reliable AOE damage to spread around the fight, poison to hurt heals on corpses/players, and on demand mobility. To contribute within melee range, the window is rather small. So in a sense, thief is primarily ranged with the ability to “snipe” priority targets at close range that fall out of position or need pressure to blow their cool-downs. There is no spec that will allow the thief to brawl with the big boys because the AOE that naturally radiates within the epicenter of these fights would be enough pressure on the thief to force him to retreat. If he was focused? He’d blow up in 2 seconds. Even if you don’t build glass your sustain is still terrible, and you can’t kill anyone reliably. Thief’s sustain and passive protection simply sucks, and the classes godly mobility options are for it to get OUT of fights rather than maintain themselves within it.

The class, for its low hp pool and passive mitigation, doesn’t have much in the way of controlling or mitigating fights beyond stealth within the frame of a team fight. Their evasive options are powerful but they’re entirely active, forcing thief play into a duality of applying pressure and burst or simply surviving and leaving fights altogether. Other classes can apply passive mitigation boons(stability, protection, aegis, regen, etc.) to allow for sustain in team fights while performing class duties, whereas the thief’s ability to apply this to themselves is nearly non-existent. Death blossom conditions is an example of how a thief can maintain themselves over a point against tougher opponents, but specs built around the skill are so insanely gimmicky I hardly want the class to move in such a direction(Nothing against those who play it, I just don’t like it).

This could be related to people’s lack of knowledge of the class at the time, but during BWE3 towards release the thief was one of the worst classes in the game in sPvP. They were venom sharing bots that stood on the edge of battle away from melee with P/D stacking bleeds. I would like for thief to be able to contribute to the team in a meaningful way beyond gibbing people in burst combos, but venom play is horrendously boring and passive IMO.

Warriors are actually in a similar but worse position of the thief because they lack the mobility and adequate ranged options to sustain themselves. Unless they have a good team surrounding them clearing their conditions and reviving them, they get railed with conditions, AOE and simply go down. They can’t run their sturdier specs because their sustain and condi removal is terrible compared to classes like guardian and ele, forcing them into burst to be viable. If you de-fang their ability to burst other classes you’ve essentially removed their worth altogether.

Now, these problems can be addressed with clever balancing, and Anet has already acknowledged they’re going to address the trinity of bunker, burst, and AOE but it will be difficult.

Yeah I was watching the beginning of this before I went to bed after you guys finished doing paids. Surprised how much more discussion there is.

Very informative on the part of you guys. I’m glad people like you and others are talking more about meta and reaching out to others. Seeing the dissonance between the discussion on the boards and actually watching your games is an eye opening experience. Most people here haven’t a wit of what they’re talking about.

Hope to hear from your input in the next state of the game on the 4th(You deserve a spot on there bro).

Its funny how melodramatic everyone is about this. Thieves just need some damage tweaks to their burst, and some buffs to their utility and its less “broken” in the sense its stomping newbs.

Less is more bros.

Arheundel.6451:

On the contrary of you I haven’t got any ego problems, if somebody point me in the right direction I’d rather listen instead than trying to appear clever by attempting a come back..which in your case fail miserably.

The main reason why the ele sub-forum is not littered by “nerf XX profession” crap is because in general ele players have learnt the hard way how to adapt, players from other professions should realize that by now the button smashing strategy that was effective during the first 2 months…it’s no longer viable

Clearly I have ego problems because I responded in kind to someone who attacked my credibility directly rather than discussing the merits of the class. Your quickness to respond in kind without decency especially in regards to the FOTM part shows you clearly had a problem with I said, which certainly wasn’t addressed to you personally even if you perceived it so.

And you haven’t been around long if you think the ele forum wasn’t full of derision and complaints for the past couple of months. The screams over the EA nerf(which was OP in its original state)were everywhere with people claiming it was the classes “only viable build” despite availability of D/D, and S/D. The ele trait lines are still very unintuitive which is probably why people got frustrated right away at the class, but doesn’t change the fact the class was always viable from day 1. That sub-forum alone probably turned off many hopefuls wishing to play the class.

Arheundel.6451:

It seems you don’t know much more than FOTM eles for saying shocking aura works against anybody attacking you, for instance the aura doesn’t work if you attack ele from range, a smart opponent would switch to range..but oh well
Furthermore as long as you play hot join and win against random pugs in a zerg, there is really nothing to comment about..try your rotation against a r40+ during paid tournaments and then come back to me

Haha, did I touch a nerve FOTM D/D ele? Using D/D and thinking you’re pro? I’m not going out of my way to put an anecdote as to the skill specifications on shocking aura when anyone who knows what the skill does knows how powerful it is especially in combination with powerful auras.

You were also pretty swift with your ad hominem against me even when I was debating the merits of the class. So lets please stop with pedantic “HUR, LAND DA COMBO ON DA PRO PLAYER AND DEN COME BAC TO ME”

D/D ele is a fun and difficult class to play, I’m not arguing that. I respect players like Qt Vain, who bring the build/weapon far beyond my capabilities. But you guys are kidding yourselves if don’t think D/D eles are one of the strongest builds in the game at the moment right up there with GC thieves(not quite Guardian and mesmer powerful though).

Do they need to be nerfed? I don’t think so, maybe minor tweaks at most. Other specs should be brought up to par with the capabilities of this build rather than outright nerfing a fun, viable spec to play. But pretty much all weaponsets for ele are viable, they just need the right team/build to support them.

D/D Eles are definitely one of the strongest close range melee in the game at the moment. Their burst isn’t as high as other melee types, but the AOE pressure and sustain they can bring is pretty crazy.

I think the deadliest thing about them is simply how much they punish you being in their range. When I ran my D/D ele after launch(when you FoTM losers though ele was terrible, its always been a L2P issue), there wasn’t a single class I couldn’t bring down with my ele, especially if you run multiple cantrips. 90% percent uptime on protection, fury, and swiftness in combination with condi removal and crazy self regen I would often kill sub-optimal players with near full hp. Passive protections like shocking and frost aura are insanely punishing against anyone attacking an ele during that time. Seriously, shocking is borderline OP.

I ended up liking S/D more because D/D ends up feeling way too restrictive in the end. I don’t really agree with the “high skill cap”, but you end up being too reliant on skill rotations that it almost feels on rails. The only real agency I ever felt was whether or not I should use an off-hand cooldown or not given the long time for recharge. Its a fun class though.

I agree with your assessment on the PvE vs. PvP argument. The amount of features PvP has received has been lackluster overall. The lack of continuance between both respective realms is rather off-putting to the progression based(carrot on a stick or whatever you wanna call it) motivated players who he see the mode putting them behind their friends/guildies.

The other side of the game is pretty insane in comparison. On the flipside, the lack of “grind” for sPvP makes the switch to PvE rather annoying. I’ve recently hit 80, and looking at the gold bill to get my character just “up to par” is rather….uh crazy? Farming nodes in Orr is already getting on my nerves. At least with PvP I get to have fun right off the bat just by playing the game.

Solution: Open scoreboard(set to b) and join the opposite team when a spot opens. I do it all the time when I play with my brother.

Premades in hotjoin would be too strong IMO. I run just with my brother and we top the scoreboard in every match we go in. Letting full teams in would turn the uncoordinated zergy fun mess of hotjoin into a massacre.

quercus.9261:

95% of the people on this thread have no reading comprehension.

THIS IS A BUG

There is a bug with shatters that will cause big broken damage if you go in a certain order. People in the know are being hush-hush because they don’t want this widely known. Somebody posted what is going on a few times in this thread however.

Devs know about this and it will be fixed.

Is this a recent bug? Because mesmer still did pretty big damage even before the patch too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpE2k3ZN1vU

At least you can react to this, but its still pretty high on a 1700 toughness target.

Yeah, they need to add something for glory. After you reach your next tier, there is practically nothing to use the resource for other than buying more chests and getting more reagents that you’ll use a fraction of. There needs to be other avenues because its pretty lacking as it is currently.

I’m rank 37 btw.