Guild Wars 2

Arken.3725:

Some changes are decent while others I wouldn’t bother with. For instance, the proposed changes to Sigil of Energy sounds fair. However, reverting say Signet of Restoration back to its original form is most certainly not. If you’re going to revert this skill, i’d say make it so you have to hit your opponent to produce any healing instead of just blindly spamming while retreating.

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I didn’t want to go crazy with the redesigns, I wanted my suggestions to stay as lean as possible (and still ended up with a pretty big list). It’s a fine recommendation. As someone who played ele back then, it wasn’t the signet heal that was the major issue with eles, and I never thought it should have been nerfed in the first place. Not everyone agrees with me on that, though, and that’s fine.

Interesting list. Hmm, that’s quite a lot of nerfs to trickery thief build. I admit it’s strong, but that could be a bit overboard, no? It already has some tough 1v1 matchups. Also, I don’t think what pistol whip needs is more upfront damage, the burst is pretty high already. My approach would be to lessen the number of hits of it, and maybe lower the damage slightly but also lower the initiative cost. Punish a bit less for retal, but lower the spike generated by the haste proc.

Other changes are interesting, I’d like to see how d/d turns out with your trait. Making it stronger in wvw is kinda sketchy, though. Maybe 5% per dagger? 15% more overall damage is high for Master tier.

1) Pick any recent tournament. There hasn’t been one since the latest patch, but if there were one tomorrow, there would be a thief on each team in the finals, guaranteed. Check EU ESL weeklies, thief on almost every team.
2) Yeah, but a thief can teleport in and burst a mid to low health target instantly, without much warning. Thief is just the best ganker out of any class, given their mobility and on demand burst damage. That’s what they are designed to do, and do it well.
3) I didn’t say you can’t pressure a thief, but one with good positioning who knows when to go in can pick the perfect moment to burst, which again makes them excellent gankers against the enemy team squishies. When things are going badly, good thieves can be very slippery and get away more often than not to reset or rotate to a different fight.
4) But, a thief can stop a res utility through Stability, which is almost always going to be up for a res in teamfight. Only Mesmer has the same power, but Thief is more generally viable than Mesmer at the moment. Solo queue results may vary, and aren’t really indicative of actual thief viability. Shadowstep does a ton for a 50 second cooldown ability, a bit too much in my opinion. It’s a bit overpowered, and contributes quite a lot to a thief’s slipperiness. 60 second cd would bring it more in line with how strong the utility is.

Sorry, I edited my post. And I agree with what you just said about condition Mesmer, giving them a small buff with the trait move might help the spec a bit, and I’d be alright with that.

Thanks for the detailed analysis, Potato. Admittedly, you’ve played a lot more Mesmer builds than I ever have, and probably a lot more than most other Mesmers have. I really appreciate your insight here. I’ve given you some counterarguments to your points privately, but you make some good points yourself, especially in relation to condi Mesmer builds. If someone on the skills and balance team is reading, definitely take both sides into account and see how many points here you agree with.

I’ll only present a few counterpoints, since the discussion can go pretty long if I break down everything you’ve said here:

• Deceptive Evasion does currently go into a lot of builds, but is by far the strongest trait that a shatter build can take. Putting it into Illusions, which I do admit is a bit of an awkward tree for non-shatter, non-condition builds, I am hoping to unlock a lot of shatter build diversity while also encouraging non-shatter builds to shy away from the trait and take other traits, especially Phantasm-related.
• I am also specifically aiming here at somewhat nerfing non-shatter playstyles. Those types of builds are fine, but in terms of high level PvP, it is not a very active playstyle, and should specifically be aimed at lower ELO tiers of play along with other AI-related builds.
• Mantra of Pain and support Mantra builds are not currently very viable, and the damage from MoP doesn’t synergize very well with the build anyway (although the low cooldown does). Mantras are very obvious and interruptable, which hurts their viability greatly for PvP. By adding a Mantra that gives quickness, it both increases the utility of the build (you have to sacrifice things like Null Field, Portal, etc. to slot Mantras, which is a huge loss of utility), and also provides a way to quickly recharge a needed Mantra in a clutch situation. At least, that’s my idea.
• The nerf to Critical Infusion is part of an overall nerf of Endurance regeneration across all classes that began with the changes to Thief, Ranger and Engineer in the last patch. Mesmers do need Endurance in order to fuel Deceptive Evasion, since clones are an important part of their class mechanics, but I don’t think this change would be damaging enough to destroy Mesmer viability or anything. Mesmer would still have a great amount of access to evasion and stealth, and I don’t think it would funnel people harder to PU as you suggest. Lastly, this trait is a bit too powerful as a 5-point trait as it currently stands, and locks a lot of builds even harder into spending points in the Dueling tree.

End-of-season Grandmaster tier reward should be a Rytlock finisher, whose sound effect is him saying “E-Sports!”… make it happen

For Team Arena (I’ll only list the meta/most powerful spec for each class)

S Tier
Hammer Longbow Warrior
Trickery Thief (D/P, S/P)

A Tier
Spirit Ranger
Bomb/Nade/R Engineer
Confounding Suggestions Mesmer (once CS is bugfixed, this would go down to B Tier below Necromancer)
Bunker Guardian

B Tier
Condition Necromancer (tough time with Warrior atm, otherwise middle of A tier)

C Tier
S/X Fresh Air Elementalist

For an idea of what I think should be adjusted about each of these professions, check out https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/The-Ken-Document/first

If it were my choice, I would change Team Arena to be keyed off of GuildID or whatever it’s called in your database, and then a GuildMMR is used to determine ranking. If not everyone in the group is representing the same guild upon queuing, then the user gets a warning and confirmation dialog upon clicking Submit. If they accept, it will queue the group anyway and use a hidden PlayerMMR to determine the matchmaking. This game will not affect their GuildMMR.

For ladders and seasons, just use a tiered system like in other games. It will only ever match you into games against players/guilds that are in your tier, the tier above you, or the tier below you. Here’s some suggested thresholds for the ladder tiers:

Solo Arena
Grandmaster: Top 100
Master: Top 500
Diamond: 85% – 501
Gold: 70%-84%
Silver: 40%-69%
Bronze: 0%-39%

Team Arena (remember, these are whole Guilds, so each placing consists of 5 or more players)
Grandmaster: Top 20
Master: Top 100
Diamond: 85% – 101
Gold: 70%-84%
Silver: 40%-69%
Bronze: 0%-39%

New Player/Guild MMR starts at 20%. Ladder reset every quarter, with end-of-season rewards.

One cool thing about doing it this way is that queuing up with a few of your friends into Team Arena won’t affect your GuildMMR rating — in fact, whenever you play without a full Guild, those games have no visible effect on your rating at all! Used this way, Team Arena can also double as a “Casual Queue”, which some people have been asking for.

Rednik.3809:

cymerdown.4103:

“Fear Me!” — This skill has been changed.
“Fear Me!”
Induce fear in your foes. Allies gain Stability.
400-600 range – Fear: 1 second
200-400 range – Fear: 1.5 seconds
0-200 range – Fear: 2 seconds
Stability: 3 seconds
Radius: 600
Breaks Stun
Cooldown: 60 seconds

This is straight nerf to only reliable skill that can be used on maps like Skyhammer. 3s stability on 1 min cd and still blindable/evadable fear part with 2/3 of previous duration? No, just no.

Some points:

• A 3-second CC for an instant-cast, untelegraphed, unblockable skill is too long.
• Class balance shouldn’t be dictated by a single map in a single game mode
• In the vast majority of cases, this is actually a huge buff. Adding a stun breaker to the skill, and granting AoE Stability are both very powerful additions to the skill, at no increase in the cooldown. The motivation behind the change is to add a shout to the Warrior’s toolkit that can be used to cover stomps and resses, which improves the viability of the shout bunker Warrior build.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

lollasaurus.1457:

Gw2 is for hardcore try hard gamers cuz gw2 is a hardcore try hard game. Thanks for playing bye

qft

qfqft

Power creep… this term does not mean what you think it means, Bear. :P

Honestly, though, we’re just talking in circles at this point. throws a dictionary at you

For a fact check, people brought Eles and almost never Warriors. They brought Engis and almost never Necros. The two classes did need a little work, it just went too far.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

It’s a bit further than that in terms of power creep. There is a distinct type of r/p/s right now in terms of build versus build with very few builds being relegated to skill versus skill without an uneven match up or inherent build strengths.

Anytime a game devolves into r/p/s that is power creep. The only outlier in r/p/s is player skill but the discrepancy needs to be huge in order to account of the uphill battle either way.

Well, rock paper scissors balancing doesn’t necessarily have anything to do its power creep. For example, has rock, paper, or scissors ever increased in power in the actual game of rock paper scissors? No, they’re all equally powerful, and always have been. The issue you’re talking about is designing hard counters versus soft counters. That, I do agree, is an unhealthy trend lately, and should be stopped. Imagine shoutcasting a 1v1 between a Diamond Skin Ele vs. Condi Necro… BLU would have a blast with that one. But this issue has no relation to power creep.

Cynz.9437:

as far as thief requirement on team, please tell me the source where you got such idea… the reason why high ranked teams still play with a thief is simple: would you rather play with some random person you don’t know for the sake of the class or would you play with the guy you know for long time and you know he good?

i would go with the last and as far as forums go, all i see from posts is that thieves are bottom tier, please prove me wrong

also don’t forget, that this game is not balanced around 10 ppl that are amazingly good at their class but around majority and in big picture thieves are a joke in many cases

Ok, well don’t read forums to find out about class viability. I’m going based off of tournament results and personal experience with teams. Thieves are highly desirable on teams for the following major reasons:

1) Highest horizontal and z-axis mobility in game, very important in a game mode about point capture.
2) Fast kills on a called target, especially on ones that have used some of their cool downs in a teamfight.
3) Because of evasion and/or stealth, they can build full glass and extend and pressure the other team’s squishiest members without as much fear of counterpressure as other glass cannon builds.
4) Sleight of Hand stops Stability-covered resses, stomps, and res utilities.

A shatter Mesmer is the closest match for the Thief, but are somewhat outshined by Thief at the moment.

It’s 10 seconds before boon duration. That long of a boon will just stack over itself in a full shout build, which this update is aiming to create. Also, Protection is a dramatically more powerful boon than the other two. Shout builds are meant to be supportive, thus the AoE condi clears. It’s a pretty huge buff to the trait, overall.

Ok, so Warrior got a bunch of buffs to things that people didn’t use until recently. In fact, people basically didn’t use the Warrior at all in PvP until after June 25th. Sounds like a class that needed buffs got them. Too many, granted, but it will continue to get toned down.

Power creep is when you keep buffing all specs so that an overall higher level of power is achieved. This could happen if you keep buffing things to the level of the currently most powerful build. For example, it would be power creep if we now gave the Necro more access to Stability to counter the Warrior, and then gave Mesmer additional boon strip to counter the Necro’s extra Stability, and then gave Guardian a way to be immune to boon stripping to counter the extra boon strip that Mesmer just got. Etcetera.

The volume of players may diminish, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that overall skill level does. It depends on how many of the people that leave are veteran, skilled players. Some of the people still here have been around from the start of the game, and have played almost daily for months, even a year. Those guys haven’t suddenly gotten worse, or something. Outside of the top bracket, I admit that it does fall off a bit, though. Judging the effectiveness of builds isn’t too hard after a set of matches against these better players, though. You can kinda just feel whether you’re doing work with a build, and what the shortcomings are after a couple of games.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Heads up, the people “decent” at the game now…you know where I’m going with this.

That part is the insult. If you’re saying you said that and didn’t mean it as an insult to a bunch of other players, then you’re lying.

Cool insult, but that’s another popular thing to say that’s incorrect. Top level people that play today are certainly as good or better than the top level players that used to play, it’s just a smaller club. I’ve played against them, and watched the matches.

Anyway, it’s tournament viable if you can bring it to a major tournament and show good results with it. Competition is relative, so hey, if we’re all terribads, come beat us all with support Mesmer and now it’s viable.

I’m just critiquing the power level of the build and its viability — I don’t think the cooldowns are short enough for it to be a powerful spec. It’d be like saying Eles dying too fast is a player skill issue. No, their sustain is just too bad to compete at the top level right now with the other best specs the game has to offer.

But maybe you’re right and the spec is a sleeper that nobody has figured out yet. This is the kind of argument that playtesting would lay to rest.

Maybe, but results matter. I personally think the shatter cooldowns are too large for a spec with 0 points in illusions. Your initial effectiveness is ok, but then you have big timers to deal with, and during that time you are pretty much useless to your team. It’s true that this change could end up buffing the spec overmuch, I’d like to test it and consider the implications.

Ok, but the build you’re suggesting isn’t currently tournament-viable. Making it so it could be combined with Illusionary Persona would buff the spec, which is what I’m after.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Acandis.3250:

cymerdown.4103:

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

kitten man… If only mesmers had other ways of conjuring illusions than Deceptive Evasion…

Not to mention, there are other good traits besides IP. One of the big mesmer builds right now doesn’t even use IP (30/20/0/0/20). Drop the points in Illusion and go elsewhere and have a blast.

Mainly because CS is bugged with Chaos Storm and provides more than 50% stuns, allowing you to 100-0 someone with Halting Strike if your RNG is good to you. Outside of that, though, losing IP isn’t worth it in a shatter build.

Bugfixing CS is part of my notes, but after that, I don’t think it would be too powerful. Testing would tell for sure.

Yeah, I know that a lot of specs like the trait — it’s a really strong trait. My point here is that the trait is an absolutely core trait of shatter builds — you cannot actually make a competitive shatter build without Deceptive Evasion. Not gonna happen. If you ever tried to make a shatter build without the trait, you would do better to just readjust the build to incorporate Deceptive Evasion, and voila, you have a better build. Not so with all those other shatter-related traits you mentioned. Those improve or buff shatter in various ways that are of course good, but are nothing without the required dodge spam fuel to generate those shatters. So, I want to try to unlock those 20 points from the Dueling tree and open up more shatter build possibilities.

As examples, can you go x/x/x/30/30 as a support shatter build with illusionary persona? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion. Can you go 30/x/x/x/30 confounding suggestions with imbued diversion? Nope, no Deceptive Evasion.

Trigr.6481:

Deceptive Evasion – There was never any need to move this trait. Putting it into the master tier illusions is very illogical. This is one of the traits that gives good build diversity across most Mesmer builds. It’s in a very good spot where it’s at.

Diversity? It’s like, nearly required in every Mesmer build, especially shatter. It’s an excellent shatter trait, I think it belongs in the shatter tree. It generates more illusions, why is it in a tree titled, “Dueling”?

Trigr.6481:

Critical Infusion – Another trait that should not be tampered with, and your proposing a buff for this? No. Any more of a buff to critical infusion and it would be out of control. Furthermore nerfing this minor trait would also deem illogical. It is fine as is, don’t mess with it.

What? It’s a nerf of 2 seconds. Getting perma vigor as a 5 point trait is, and has always been ludicrously powerful. This game has way too much dodging, and I understand it’s important for Mesmer shattering and such, but even considering that, it’s way too much. Guardians need the same small nerf.

Trigr.6481:

Dazzling Glamours – Also another trait that does not need to be moved.

Honestly, the glamour traits are all pretty bad and basically could be redesigned.

Trigr.6481:

Runes Of Lyssa – Give it a 90 Second ICD, stop trying to make it a runeset that mimic’s the RNG random mesmer boon and condi mechanics.

It’s possible, but again, more hidden cooldowns to keep track of for a mega powerful effect. I prefer this approach — classes weak to conditions but with low CD elites don’t need this way to completely circumvent class weaknesses. Also, my proposed (6) bonus is derived from the set’s own (4) bonus, not mimicking Mesmer.

Trigr.6481:

I’m also concerned with your idea behind “Mantra Of Haste”. Mesmers would become perma stompers with distortion with this trait. The idea needs to be more thought out. It’s too strong.

It could be, but maybe not. Playing with the cooldown numbers and such would be part of testing. At first glance, it seems fine to me like this.

Trigr.6481:

In short there are more things to worry about then moving traits where they don’t need to be moved. And buffing things that don’t need buffs. Some of your ideas were decent. But overall I just feel that you didn’t do your homework when it comes to Mesmer as a whole. Also I want Doyourbestbear to be at blame for this. You’ve just spawned a endless wave of “Insert Name Here, Document’s”. Thanks bear. Mesmer is in a great spot “overall”, please don’t mess with it.

Countless

I actually sat and thought quite a while about every bullet point that I put on this list. You may not agree with every item, and that’s fine. But thanks for the feedback, that’s why I posted this.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Okay? I never really found this that strong.

Bomb Kit is very powerful after the recent changes to the radii. Concussion Bomb is a major offender, considering how strong 5 Confusion AoE is if you can’t cleanse it. Dropping the radius on it a bit will reduce the condi spam of an Engi on point to a slightly more manageable level.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I think this is only really necessary for Packaged Stimulants and med kit underwater. Part of the design of med kit is that you only get the amazing bonuses (best healing, condi removal, fury and swiftness) if you can grab them. Not to mention the heal is tied to the toolbelt, making it great for builds with Tools traited

Med Kit doesn’t get used right now because you can’t self cleanse immobilize and dropping the items takes too long for the benefits given. Making the antidote cleanse 2 conditions might be too much help for the kit when combined with the change to Scope, I’d want to test that a bit.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I don’t get what Duration was reduced to 30 seconds means, but the cast time reduction is welcomed.

Oh, it means the maximum amount of time the item will stay before it despawns.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

What is the real reason…

The real reason is for the self res, but it’s too strong for both, honestly. Downed state begins at 65%, so at 17% per tick you’re looking at a 3 second res at most, the same time as it takes to stomp. Sometimes you’re lucky and the first pulse happens as soon as you drop, making it about 2 seconds. And if you get the double R, it’s almost an instant rally. This isn’t a healthy thing for 1v1 matchups, especially when you already have excellent 1v1 potential and the 2nd best 1v1 elite in the game. I understand there is Poison and knockbacks for counterplay, but honestly, it just resses for too much for a non-elite ability with that short of a casting time.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Now that’s something to test 0.0 That could be really really strong against things like PU and when people are ressing in team fights.

Sure, it seems powerful. Pretty long cooldown, though. I’d love to test it, would be a good counter to stealth ganks and shadow refuge saves.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Inventions is the worst line engineers have, and this is 20 points into it. Unless you make this a 5 point minor, this is a huge and annoying nerf. I also think if you remove the net turret from the elite, nerfing the stun duration is just adding insult to injury.

I wouldn’t call it a huge nerf, I would call it a reasonable one. Supply Crate is the 2nd most powerful 1v1 elite in the game, partly due to the really long CC if you get hit by the stun. Changing out the turret raises the DPS but reduces the CC, which I think is the right way to go. Lowering the stun duration I think is necessary in order to reduce the cooldown of the skill, which was the other goal of mine.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Still completely inactive pure immunity. At most you’ll get like 10-30% condition duration which isn’t even worth mentioning. The tricky part about this is if you do anything less than 100% but a nicer threshold, This kitten will break the game. Maybe “Drinking elixirs grants condition immunity?” 3s duration.

I’m not the biggest fan either, but the addition of these types of traits has been a trend that the developers apparently like lately, so I didn’t want to present an idea that goes in a completely different direction than they are.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Definitely would be popular on SD builds, as it would give another 6 condi clears per minute. REALLY powerful with Cleaning Formula 409 Maybe make it like 15 seconds or so.

That’s not really that much, and anything less than 1 condition per 10 seconds is extremely underwhelming, especially for a Master tier trait. See: Purity. I’m not worried that it would be too good with Cleaning Formula 409, since if you’re taking both of those traits, you’re basically making a bunker build, in which case you are going to need the extra cleanses, since Engineer bunker condition removal isn’t good enough yet.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Overall, I see a lot of buffs to the Static Discharge builds.

No, static discharge can’t afford the DPS loss of taking that trait.

S/P is pretty viable after the last patch, try this build:

http://tinyurl.com/tokerpw

Usual team comps go like this:

Guardian, Ranger, Warrior, Thief, X. X can be a teamfighter like a Necro, another roamer like an Engi or Mesmer, or another Warrior.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Acandis,

Wait until you read his version of Fear Me!

Don’t be afraid, Bear. Bunker War is waiting for you with open arms. Heed the inner calling, my friend.

Gesamtkunstwerk.6590:

snip

Thanks for the feedback! I don’t want to nerf -all- instant cast damage, and no, I don’t really want to make this game into chess. I just want to reduce the ability of doing several thousands of damage in an instant with zero tell, and that is what glass cannon Fresh Air S/X Ele can currently do. This is, honestly, an extremely small nerf. Most other aspects of Ele need some help, and that’s what my other changes are designed to do. I won’t touch the casting time of arcane abilities, since they were purposely and specifically put into the game by the designers as instant-cast abilities.

As for Diamond Skin and other skills and traits that provide a long or indefinite amount of time of condition immunity: simply put, it’s terrible gameplay. It’s not fun to play as the condition immune guy who just beats up on the helpless condi Necro, and it’s not fun as the condi Necro who goes to defend his homepoint, finds a Diamond Skin Ele capping it, and knows he might as well just leave because he has absolutely zero options in terms of fighting it. It’s fine to be resilient and moderately advantaged against an enemy condition build. It’s not fine to be immune and 100% likely to win against an enemy condition build. Let’s help Eles with their options of dealing with conditions, but ones that require good timing and decision-making on the part of the player and that provide counterplay opportunities to the opponent.

I guess, in this case, I could even be talked into complete immunity from conditions for 2 seconds upon switching to Earth Attunement. That would work incredibly well with Rock Solid and Ether Renewal, because then a Necro couldn’t Corrupt your Stability into Fear during the first 2 seconds of your heal.

Acandis.3250:

cymerdown.4103:

Acandis.3250:

This trait is strong enough as it is. Doesn’t need another buff.

Really? The healing from this trait is pretty laughable, IMO. Grats, you get 225 healing if you connect with a full WW. In which case, you actually really deserved it, because you just connected with a full WW in PvP! I understand the weapon cleaves, but if you’re in the middle of a teamfight cleaving stuff, you’ll probably need a bit more sustain than what this trait can afford you.

You’ve obviously never tested this trait as it hits 14 times not 9, additionally the healing procs per target that you hit with any attack, not per attack (as indicated by the tooltip). So what I’ve seen in testing (since I actually test traits) is that a full WW can heal me for 1-1.5k depending on how many targets are on point.

Edit: The numbers I provided were calculated with 0 Healing Power again 3-4 targets. Additionally, I used to run this trait back when Spirit Rangers were more popular (and it didn’t have a scale) and you could keep yourself topped for a large part of the fight with it, I imagine the same will happen against MM necros and AI mesmers.

Yeah, I’ve tested with the trait a while ago, though I never went and counted the number of procs. It never seemed like it was a reasonable level of sustain considering the amount of risk you were taking in getting it. Not that it should heal you to full health from 0 or anything, but it seemed pretty paltry overall from the games I used it in. Granted, getting free hits on AI does change things. You’ve played a lot more DPS Guardian than I have, though, so maybe I’m wrong. I’ll test it some more. Also, AI builds having a new natural predator isn’t a terrible thing, though I wouldn’t want it to be on the level of a hard counter, either.

Acandis.3250:

Mantra of Pain

Why… I don’t really understand this. I think MoP needs to be nerfed or at the very least needs an animation, but why would you redesign and entire mantra just to add more quickness to a class? (This is a legitimate question, please explain).

Well, first of all, Time Warp hasn’t really been viable for a while, and nobody uses the Dueling Grandmaster trait. Flavor-wise, it makes sense for Mesmer to have utilities related to quickness (ability to distort reality). Mostly, I believe Mantra of Pain is the weakest of the Mantras in that it provides no utility and has no counterplay — it’s just instant-cast spike damage. If that’s useful at the moment, it’s amazing, but otherwise there is nothing else that it can do. Mantra of Haste, on the other hand, has a variety of uses other than generating quick damage, including synergizing with the other Mantras. Being able to quickly recast Mantra of Healing in a pinch, being able to quickness stomp or res on demand, and being able to quickness Mass Invis are all powerful options, and the combination of these options may be enough to push Mantra Mesmer over the edge into viability. Or at least, that’s the hope.

Acandis.3250:

Deceptive Evasion

I think it’s fine where it is. If you moved it to Illusions, it would be too easy to access it with Illusionary Persona.

Yeah, that’s the idea.

Acandis.3250:

Dazzling Glamours — Moved to Dueling Tree’s Master tier.

Tbh, this trait is too garbage to be moved to any Master tree.

Yes, it could use a redesign. I was lazy.

Acandis.3250:

Putrid Mark

I do think that this mark needs to be given back the support component of cleansing allies, but I don’t think anyone outside the mark should suffer/benefit from the consequences of its trigger.

Fair enough, although 120 radius is pretty dang small for an ally condi clear.

Acandis.3250:

Grasping Dead — Returned the 3rd bleed stack to PvP.

Necros can already sustain 10-13 stacks of bleed on a target, why do you want to give them more?

Because I think they need to break up Dhuumfire/Terror/Master of Terror combo to reduce Necro damage, not fiddle with single bleed stacks. Since I’m doing that, I’m adding back the bleeds and reunifying the game modes. Grasping Dead has a really nice tell to it, if you get hit, take some damage.

Acandis.3250:

Signet of Spite — Changed the active effect to the following:
Damage: 263
Bleeding(2): 7 seconds
Blind: 5 seconds
Crippled: 7 seconds
Poison: 7 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 7 seconds
Weakness: 5 seconds
Activation: 0.5 seconds
Range: 1200

Most of these changes would be fine, but the activation should remain at 0.75s.

Fair enough, I could be persuaded.

Acandis.3250:

This trait is strong enough as it is. Doesn’t need another buff.

Really? The healing from this trait is pretty laughable, IMO. Grats, you get 225 healing if you connect with a full WW. In which case, you actually really deserved it, because you just connected with a full WW in PvP! I understand the weapon cleaves, but if you’re in the middle of a teamfight cleaving stuff, you’ll probably need a bit more sustain than what this trait can afford you.

Acandis.3250:

I agree the current Kindled Zeal…

Ok, this is admittedly the riskiest/most controversial suggestion in the whole document. My numbers are probably off, and this is where a test realm would help immensely. My goal here is to open up more options for sustain for Guardian that don’t depend on Monk’s Focus or Altruistic Healing. The problem, of course, is when you combine this, the Greatsword Trait, and Monk’s Focus, and does it create some sort of DPS + sustain monster worse than the Warrior? The fact that it’s a threshold trait reduces that risk somewhat for teamfighting, since if you get below 50% health in a DPS build, often times you’re either eating a lot of AoE or getting trained down, in which case your ability to counterpressure is going to be a lot less. For 1v1s, I admit that this trait is risky without enough testing. I’d like to work carefully on adjusting the numbers, but the general idea of the trait is something that I really like, and makes a lot of sense for the Guardian flavor-wise.

Acandis.3250:

Much like Bear, a lot of these suggestions seem really biased and wanting to buff a class that doesn’t need buffs. o_O

I mean, I nerfed my own build in multiple ways at once. I dunno how you’re getting that I’m biased, since the only things I buffed are specs that either kill me or could possibly supplant me as a mid bunker.

Acandis.3250:

Or you could just trait Med Kit.

One of the big issues with running Med Kit is the inability to cleanse immobilize. My change is trying to fix that issue without requiring you to trait Med Kit. If you don’t trait it, it’s meant mostly for yourself. If you do, it’s meant to support allies.

Acandis.3250:

If you’re going to make this skill a stunbreak (again) it can’t refill endurance. That’s saying: “yo break stuns and have 2s of i-frames.” I think Elixir R is fine as it is.

No, that’s actually 1.5s worth of dodges, which is not really that strong if you think about it (see: Elixir S). It was always the toolbelt skill that was the broken thing, not the utility. Why wasn’t it adjusted in the first place? I dunno.

Acandis.3250:

I’m very much against implementing such a mechanic in the current state of the game. Maybe once all the appropriate balances have been made we can look at ways to counter Stealth and how annoying it is that Wakkey always gets decapped by thieves.

What exactly is making you hesitant about it? Stealth gib openers aren’t strong enough? Wakkey doesn’t even Engi, though if they add this to the game, I might make him.

Acandis.3250:

I agree with it dropping a Rifle Turrent instead of Net, since if you get hit by the initial stun, most of the time you were pretty much stunned and immobed. But reducing the stun duration of a skill on a 3 minute CD, with one of the most obvious animations in the game seems silly. It’s not that hard to dodge/blind/block this animation.

I could see keeping the stun, though I would also keep the cooldown in that case.

Acandis.3250:

Believe it or not this trait isn’t that useful and it needs a redesign. Again, traits of this nature should just disappear form the game.

I believe it. See my response to Diamond Skin.

Acandis.3250:

Again, decreasing cast times of no travel CC is bad and it discourages coordination to ensure CC lands. Also, 2s is perfectly fine.

I dunno, have you ever tried actually using this ability in PvP? Almost a 1 second cast time investment for a 2 second knockdown and 40 second cooldown is a terrible rate (even traited). Also, the huge yellow circle above my head sort of counts for travel time (though, I suppose you can’t be sure who the target is). Anything longer than 0.5 seconds of casting time is basically unusable as an interrupt and is very easy to dodge/blind/block/etc. If you see a huge circle and a Guardian pointing their finger at you and don’t dodge, it’s time to sit down and think about what you’ve done.

Acandis.3250:

Same as above. This can remain untouched.

Same as above. There’s a good reason that nobody ever uses these terrible utilities.

Acandis.3250:

This would be a good change, but I don’t think I would take it with its current functionality. If instead of reducing condition duration…

Nah, Purging Flames is already a pretty good ability, actually. Almost good enough to open up some new viable bunker builds based around this as the main condition removal. From the testing I did, the main issues getting in the way are: casting time, and radius of effect of the condition removal.

Acandis.3250:

I’m only gonna quote the ones I disagree with.

The 6-set bonus of Superior Runes of Lyssa has been changed:
(6) When you use an elite skill, lose 3 conditions and gain 3 random boons for 5 seconds (not including Stability). (CD: 45 seconds)

I don’t think RNG helps anyone…

Sure, I’d be alright with either of the two alternatives you mentioned. The one I’m least inclined to is the increase in ICD, for the mere fact that I don’t like hidden cooldowns, and there are already a ton of traits with them. I went with the 3 random to keep the trend from the (4) bonus, the small amount of RNG introduced is really nothing in a game where damage is dominated by crit chance.

Lightning Strike — Added a 0.25 second casting time.

The problem with Fresh Air is that there is no tell to when they got a proc…

Having a tell when it procs wouldn’t really solve the issue, though. There is still the one-sided mind game of when they choose to use the proc, and since it’s instant, they could just wait till you dodge, or throw a big attack at you and make you dodge. And it’s really not a very big nerf, honestly. But something needs to be adjusted about the actual amount of instant cast damage, not just adding a tell.

Comet — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds. It now uses ground targeting.

I think reducing the cast time of this is fine (because it has air time), but making it ground targetted is not. A ground targetted, fast activation, unblocakble Daze seems too strong. It’s already fairly simple to hit this skill with the appropriate setup.

What’s the big difference, other than it becomes a skill shot rather than being forced to have it centered on a person? The big goal here is to remove the ability to AoE an area without having to be able to see that area, and also to be able to lead a target that is trying to kite you. At 0.5 second cast time, this would still be a pretty obvious skill to see and avoid, especially considering the small radius.

Gale — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds.

I don’t think we should be reducing the cast times of any CC without travel time. It dumbs down the game to the point where you wouldn’t need coordination to land CC.

The casting time is currently absurdly long for its effect and cooldown. 2 second knockdown for nearly 1 second of casting time investment? Yuck. Compare with Updraft… melee range, but still. Yeah.

Ride the Lightning — This ability now has a 25 second cooldown regardless of if it hits a target or not. Previously, it had a 20 second cooldown if a target was hit, or a 40 second cooldown if no target was hit.

The reason this skill got changed was because Eles….

Right, I know why they thought it should be changed, I played ele back then. I just disagree that it was necessary. Reducing the range of the skill was all that was needed. Trying to run away to reset a fight is something a lot of classes can attempt to do, like a thief with a shortbow and stealth, or a warrior with a greatsword. This is the ele version of Rush, there is nothing inherently wrong with abandoning a point in Conquest and rotating to reset your health, as long as the range on the ability isn’t insane it’s fine.

Lightning Flash — Now breaks stuns. Its cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 40 seconds.

Nope…

Uh, one word: Why? Every single other teleport utility skill in this game breaks stuns. Nothing is special about ele where they should not have a move that teleports and also breaks stun, nothing is inherently broken about it except that it can be used in combination with instant burst abilities, which should be dealt with separately. Outside of that particular application, this change made absolutely no sense whatsoever and should be reverted.

Diamond Skin — This trait has been redesigned. It now reduces the duration of incoming conditions by 100% for 2 seconds after switching to Earth Attunement.

I don’t think this would be a healthy change at all…

Sure, I am not the biggest fan of the trend, either. However, it seems that the developers like it. If we are going to have skills and traits with some amount of condition mitigation, they might as well a) be traits at you actively have to choose when to use, rather than just occur passively, and b) reduce condition duration, rather than grant total immunity. In any case, it’d be a huge improvement over what it is now: guaranteed 100-0 vs a condi build 1v1, otherwise useless.

BlackBeard.2873:

Some nice steps in the right direction. A couple of points:

(Warrior) Cleansing Ire: a very powerful skill because of the condi clear (good). Remove the additional adrenaline gain to bring the power level down slightly but keep the key functionality. If you want the additional adrenaline to spam condi clears, then spec for it.

I agree that the combination of Cleansing Ire, its associated adrenaline increase, and Adrenal Health is pretty strong, but I’m not convinced that it’s too strong. A decrease in adrenaline generation would severely decrease the viability of weapons that depend on frequent use of their burst skills to be viable, like Longbow. I believe the right angle of attack here is first addressing their over-the-top regeneration, and then possibly adding more counter play to Combustive Shot before taking a look at Cleansing Ire.

BlackBeard.2873:

(Mesmer) Deceptive evasion: CAN NOT be moved to the illusion line. Even with the slight nerf to critical infusion (good) and energy sigil, do you really want to put all of the required shatter traits in ONE line? Just think about 30/0/0/0/30 shatter/lockdown builds (with another 10 somewhere else). You would essentially be merging two of the stronger mesmer builds and making it WAY to strong. This should only happen if you put an ICD on deceptive evasion.

I disagree. After reducing Vigor access and Energy Sigils as well as bug fixing Confounding Suggestions, I don’t believe combining it with Illusionary Persona would be too good. Seeing what happens when you combine Chaotic Interruption and Imbued Diversion would be kinda cool, too. Having different shatter flavors instead of 20/20/0/0/30 would be mega refreshing, and that can never happen when 50 trait points are locked in from the get-go.

BlackBeard.2873:

(Ele) Fire shield: should have a lower CD than shocking aura (which is 25s) straight up. 30s is a step in the right direction, but something like 20s is even reasonable. Its a worthless aura unless you have aura traits, and is only worth using at any time now simply b/c its instant cast and “why not?”

Fair enough. Focus does have some pretty strong abilities in Earth and Air, so I didn’t want to go overboard. Also, Shocking Aura is a main-hand ability, which usually have shorter cool downs than off-hand abilities, so it’s not the best comparison, though power level-wise I certainly agree with you.

BlackBeard.2873:

(Ele) Lightning strike: putting a cast time doesn’t really fix the instant-burst problem, but does neuter the dps of the scepter completely. Scepter auto dps is pretty low, especially in air, because the proc from lightning strike is factored in. A better option would be to increase the auto dps rate and put some utility on the #2 skill, perhaps a short CD way to apply a short weakness, or a slow projectile that can daze.

Except that you don’t usually sit in air attunement while scepter air 1 is channeling. You want to swap out to another attunement during that to get a crit to proc fresh air, so it wouldn’t really affect scepter damage much at all, really. And I don’t really want to mess with adding casting time to arcane abilities, that goes against the whole design of them.

BlackBeard.2873:

Also, I am not sure if you have seen this suggestion for ele survivability, but to remove the reliance on arcana for real:

Elemental attunement:
- Now ALL eles gain boons (as a baseline) with duration equal to 66% of the current duration in elemental attunement.
-Elemental attunement now makes those boons AOE (slightly larger radius than today), and extends their duration by 50% (bringing it back up to current durations with the trait).

Interesting idea, I hadn’t seen that. Thanks for mentioning it.

@OP: The build you linked is my build, and it performs best with a good team and after a lot of practice. You’ll find it has the best results in high ELO Team Arena, and is good but not the easiest to get results out of in Solo Arena. For best results in lower ELO Solo and Team Arena, I recommend a more selfish build, like the following:

http://tinyurl.com/kenguardah03
http://tinyurl.com/kenwarshout01

By the way, these are complete bunker builds. You cannot kill 1v1, and you can’t really decap a point. All you can do is support allies, and maintain control of a point you own or have neutralized. For tanky DPS hybrids, Warriors tend to be much better suited for it these days.

Cynz.9437:

Thief changes:

- why would you nerf stun break from squishy class that has no access to stability outside of very long CD elite that is not even that good in pvp?

Shadowstep is a very powerful stunbreaker for its cooldown, and the existence of it invalidates every other stunbreak utility that the Thief has access to. Double teleport stunbreaker that removes 3 conditions is a very, very good rate for a 50 second cooldown. A mere 10 second increase won’t make it unviable, and 60 seconds is a very reasonable recharge for the ability (compare to Spectral Walk, for example). If a 10 second shorter cooldown is what you’re after, maybe Roll For Initiative will be a good option.

Cynz.9437:

- thief guild is silly elite that is only good for HJ… pvp is already plagued by AI, why would you reduce CD on it?

Because, if it’s a “silly elite”, as you say, then maybe it needs to be more powerful. One of the ways to increase the power of an ability is to lower the cooldown. For instance, if the cooldown was 10 seconds, you would clearly always take it, right? At some number, it becomes worth it to run over Basi Venom in some build. I’m just trying to get it closer to that number.

Cynz.9437:

- why would you nerf quick recovery? was initiative gain not nerfed enough already?

It’s not a nerf, it’s a buff. Getting 1 Initiative back every 10 seconds is a pretty bad rate now. In fact, S/D thief really has very little reason to want to put more than 15 points into Acrobatics at all, now. A bit of extra Endurance regen to couple with Feline Grace might be very tempting, though.

Cynz.9437:

- hard to catch should just break CC but not port thief somewhere where they don’t have any controll over… that was always major issue with that trait…

Understood on that. Rather than trying to totally redesign the trait (which I could have taken a shot at), I was attempting to give it at least a bit more merit. Keeping control of your character at least helps a little bit.

Cynz.9437:

- i understand lyssa is makes warriors too good, but it was only reliable stability thieves had…why nerf it?

Thief honestly doesn’t need access to Stability in order to be good; it’s absurdly good already. Low cooldown access to Stability for un-CCable openers, Stability stomps and such is just not needed in order for Thief to be strong. On the other hand, Lyssa runes are very powerful and often build-defining. Classes using low CD elites to abuse the rune set are commonplace, and a nerf is certainly warranted.

BTW, Thief is nearly required on high level teams.

Dahkeus.8243:

There’s some good ideas in the OP’s post, but I’m glad these aren’t actual patch notes. I remember the days when eles were really imba, so I think it’s going to take a more delicate buff than what is listed here to get them in the right spot.

Also, don’t buff Thieves Guild. It’s fine for PvE, but in PvP, it’s a terrible cheesy I WIN button for 1 v 1s. Basilisk Venom is very popular for PvP, but that’s ok. It’s powerful, yet can be countered. It also requires smart use to utilize well.

Many, including myself, believe that the Ele changes were quite overdone. The major things that needed to happen for eles were: range reduction for RTL, being able to proc signet multiple times with Evasive Arcana, and being able to heal in Mistform. Their damage was fine, and their other ways to sustain in combat were fine IMO.

Thieves Guild still won’t get used in PvP after this, but at least it will be up more often for those that enjoy it as a casual alternative.

Sol.4310:

Nice post Ken as always great idea’s. Just few things with the ranger idea’s.

Stalker’s Strike, I do not approve off many of my builds require the dagger for the poison upkeep. By changing this skill it feels like your favoring the Carrion/Forge SB -S/D Spirit Build, which doesn’t really favor the other builds, if anything it nerfs 3 builds I run which require the offhand dagger with poison upkeep.

Lightning Reflexes, (Evades/Base Damage, Vigor 10seconds, Stun Break) with your update (removes chill, cripple, and immobilize.) It would be awesome skill but its overpowered. It’s almost perfect counter skill vs Warriors that run H/LB means I can break there LB spike and dodge there hammer. Every single ranger build within 1 week would be running LR as its first save me skill.

What I recommend, is there currently trait in Nature’s Magic, that is called Evasive Purity it removes poison and blind on dodge with a 10 second ICD. Now I would change that trait as its rather useless and no ranger uses it at all so it removes chill, cripple, and immobilize rather then poison and blind. Now you might say that could be tad overpowered but it isn’t the only real builds you could run it with is Power builds. Spirit build’s can’t invest into the trait so won’t make them stronger, Trapper builds require 0/30/30 to be decent so they won’t ever trait 20 into NM and final Beastmaster would – there damage in order to get extra condition remove making an already dead build even more useless.

I would recommend adding torment to our trap’s to make the build more viable, Frost Trap is already useless and no viable trap build in SPvP would ever take it. So why not just change it so it pulses torment the longer they stand in the trap. It’s active it isn’t spam-able and opens the window for more builds besides Spirit Ranger to enter the meta.

Also I would nerf Geomancy Sigil, if you compare it to Spike Trap (Trait) its almost stronger. Geomancy = 6 bleeds 7 seconds every 20 seconds with 2x base damage on swap. Now Spike trap is 3 bleeds 10 seconds every 20 seconds with 3x base damage with cripple + imob. But in terms of damage Geomancy needs to be taken down to atleast 2 bleeds with no base damage. It shouldn’t play such big roll in so many builds.

I dunno, I disagree that Lightning Reflexes would be OP that way, it’s basically Roll For Initiative but gives Vigor instead of Initiative and on a little shorter CD. It’d be good, but no team utility compared to the signet, which is what I’m going for. A later update could increase the CD to 50 seconds if 45 seconds isn’t the sweet spot.

Thanks for the feedback, though. Good suggestions.

ahuba.6430:

what exactly is wrong with confounding suggestions + chaos storm?

It currently procs the stun more than it’s supposed to. It’s currently like 75%+ instead of 50%.

Reevz.2617:

if you want elixir R to be a stunbreak and increase the cooldown, you might consider making it instant cast

Sorry, yeah, I forgot to put that. You stickler :P

infantrydiv.1620:

I’d like to see the warrior longbow burst skill at first be a single target skill which creates the same field after connecting successfully with a target. Basically, hit a target and you get that massive OP damaging burning field that has like a 900 radius. This would at least add counterplay to longbow and warriors would start considering running other weapon sets.

Could be fine, I’d like to see how these other changes go first, though.

I think Cleansing Ire is fine. It’s pretty strong with Longbow, but it gives Warrior some necessary sustain and has counterplay to it. Unlike Healing Signet.

Okay, I added a note about Marks.

Reevz.2617:

wtb more counterplay for necro (travel time or delay on marks is ideal)

Agree, ideally I’d like to see a little animation as the mark appears or something.

Warrior

Summary: Some of the Warrior’s best skills: Pin Down, Healing Signet, and Berserker Stance, saw some slight adjustments. Support abilities, like shouts and banners, were given some necessary buffs in order to make them more viable in PvP.

Pin Down — The casting time was increased to 0.5 seconds, up from 0.25 seconds. The skill’s animation has been changed to be more clear.

Healing Signet — The passive heal was reduced to 342 (0.08), down from 392 (0.05). The active heal was increased to 4275 (0.6), up from 3275 (0.5).

Berserker Stance — Now reduces incoming condition duration by 100%, instead of granting complete immunity.

“Fear Me!” — This skill has been changed.
“Fear Me!”
Induce fear in your foes. Allies gain Stability.
400-600 range – Fear: 1 second
200-400 range – Fear: 1.5 seconds
0-200 range – Fear: 2 seconds
Stability: 3 seconds
Radius: 600
Breaks Stun
Cooldown: 60 seconds

Inspiring Battle Standard — This trait has been redesigned.
Inspiring Battle Standard
Banners also heal and remove conditions.
Healing: 1300 (1.25)
Conditions Removed: 1
Interval: 10 seconds (The first pulse happens immediately upon summoning the banner. A short glow animation now plays on the banner every time it pulses.)

Ranger

Summary: Greatsword, offhand Axe, and dagger got some improvements. Lightning Reflexes and Signet of Renewal got some quality of life adjustments, and shouts were greatly improved. Spirit of Nature’s healing was adjusted to match the tooltip. Pets will now scale based on the Ranger’s stats, making lesser-used pets more viable and lowering pet burst potential from defensive or condition-based builds.

Swoop — Added 0.5s of Evade at the beginning of this skill.

Path of Scars — Added a Cripple: 2 seconds to the outgoing half of the attack.

Whirling Defense — Increased total base damage to 1158 (3.0), up from 1008 (3.0).

Stalker’s Strike — Now applies Torment(2): 8 seconds instead of Poison: 10 seconds.

Lightning Reflexes — Now also removes chill, cripple, and immobilize. The cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 40 seconds.

Signet of Renewal — This skill now always transfers all conditions from you to your pet, regardless of range.

“Guard” — This skill now also grants the pet fury and might, but all boons are now granted when the pet detects a target within range to attack. The casting time was removed to make it similar to other Shouts.
Guard
Command your pet to aggressively defend an area. Your pet gains stealth until an enemy is detected.
Stealth: 10 seconds
Protection: 5 seconds
Fury: 5 seconds
Might(3): 5 seconds
Casting Time: Instant
Cooldown: 20s

“Sic ’Em” — The way that this skill applies Revealed has been changed. Instead, any stealthed enemies within 600 range of the Ranger have Revealed applied to them upon use of the skill. The cooldown has been increased to 45 seconds, up from 40 seconds.

“Search and Rescue” — The cooldown was decreased to 150 seconds in PvP, and is once again affected by traits.

Spirit of Nature — The passive healing was reduced to 320 HP/s, down from 480 HP/s.

Nature’s Voice — This trait has been redesigned.
Nature’s Voice
Shouts apply protection, swiftness and regeneration to allies, and transfer 1 condition from each ally to your pet.
Protection: 3 seconds
Regeneration: 5 seconds
Swiftness: 5 seconds
Conditions Transferred: 1
Radius: 600

Pets — Ranger pets have been rebalanced to have their stats scale based off the character’s own stats, rather than having flat stats based on the character’s Level. Different types of pets scale differently with each stat. For example, condition-based Rangers will fare best when choosing pets that scale well off of Condition Damage, like Spiders, whereas defensive Rangers will do well to pick defensive pets like Bears that give supportive effects and scale well off of Vitality and Toughness.

Thief

Summary: Thieves recently had major redesign changes, so my set of changes is relatively light. Shadowstep, the current clearly best stunbreak for all builds, had its cooldown timer swapped with Roll For Initiative to open up more build possibilities and provide extra Initiative for certain builds that need it. Thieves Guild is rarely used, partly due to its long cooldown, so the cooldown of this elite was reduced. Quick Recovery is much worse after the latest patch, so its functionality was changed to better synergize with other Acrobatics traits. Hard to Catch now also prevents CC to increase its viability.

Shadowstep — Increased cooldown to 60 seconds, up from 50 seconds.

Roll for Initiative — Reduced cooldown to 50 seconds, down from 60 seconds.

Thieves Guild — Reduced cooldown to 150 seconds, down from 180 seconds.

Quick Recovery — This trait has been redesigned.
Quick Recovery
Gain endurance for each point of Initiative spent.
Endurance: 2

Hard to Catch — Now also prevents the disable effect from occuring. Raised the shadowstep distance to 900, up from 600. Increased the cooldown to 60 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

Mesmer

Summary: Mesmer saw buffs to their condition build options by having the Scepter skills improved. Some of the weaker skills, including Mantras, saw some needed buffs. Mantra of Pain was replaced by Mantra of Haste, giving the Mesmer a way to quickly recharge another Mantra or to quickly burst down a target. Confounding Suggestions was bugfixed, and some Vigor was removed from Critical Infusion. Deceptive Evasion was moved to the Illusions tree, removing some reliance of the meta shatter build from the Dueling tree and thus opening up new build possibilities. Prismatic Understanding was adjusted downward slightly, mainly for WvW concerns.

Ether Blast — Now also applies Bleed(1): 2 seconds.

Ether Clone — Reduced the casting time to 0.75 seconds, down from 1 second.

Confusing Images — Reduced the channel time to 2.25 seconds, down from 3 seconds. The first pulse now occurs at 0.25 seconds into the channel, with subsequent pulses every 0.5 seconds thereafter. Reduced the base damage to 760 (2.4), down from 840 (2.5).

Mimic — The first projectile absorbed is now also negated.

Arcane Thievery — The cooldown was reduced to 40 seconds, down from 45 seconds.

Mantra of Concentration — The casting time was reduced to 2.5 seconds, down from 2.75 seconds.

Mantra of Distraction — The casting time was reduced to 2.5 seconds, down from 2.75 seconds.

Mantra of Pain — This skill has been redesigned. It is now called, “Mantra of Haste”.
Mantra of Haste
Meditate, charging a spell that will speed up your actions for a short time.
Casting Time: 2.5 seconds
Cooldown: 30 seconds

Power Speed
Quickness: 2 seconds
Cooldown: 15 seconds

Mantra of Resolve — The casting time was reduced to 2.5 seconds, down from 2.75 seconds.

Confounding Suggestions — This trait has been bugfixed to work properly with Chaos Storm.

Deceptive Evasion — Moved to Illusions Tree’s Master tier.

Critical Infusion — Reduced Vigor duration to 3 seconds, down from 5 seconds.

Prismatic Understanding — The Protection granted by this trait has been reduced to 2 seconds, down from 3 seconds.

Illusionary Invigoration — Moved to Adept tier. The cooldown was increased to 90 seconds, up from 60 seconds.

Dazzling Glamours — Moved to Master tier.

Phantasmal Haste — Moved to Dueling Tree’s Master tier.

Necromancer

Summary: The support from Putrid Mark was increased. Lich Form’s autoattack damage was reduced slightly, and two of its other abilities were improved. The duration of conditions caused by Signet of Spite were reduced a bit to lower its extreme effectiveness, especially in 1v1s. Minion Masters saw a slight reduction in minion damage from Training of the Master, and Terror was moved up to Grandmaster tier.

Marks — Marks now start to appear as they are being cast. They start off as mostly transparent, becoming fully opaque as the cast time ends.

Putrid Mark — Now also transfers 1 condition from up to 5 allies within 600 range of the mark when triggered to enemies within the mark, in addition to the 3 conditions transferred from the caster.

Grasping Dead — Returned the 3rd bleed stack to PvP.

Signet of Spite — Changed the active effect to the following:
Damage: 263
Bleeding(2): 7 seconds
Blind: 5 seconds
Crippled: 5 seconds
Poison: 7 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 7 seconds
Weakness: 5 seconds
Activation: 0.5 seconds
Range: 1200

Deathly Claws — Reduced damage by 10%.

Marked for Death — Now gives Vulnerability(10): 8 seconds, instead of Vulnerability(8): 10 seconds.

Mark of Horror — Reduced the casting time to 1 second, down from 1.5 seconds. Now summons 6 jagged horrors, up from 5.

Training of the Master — Reduced damage increase to 20%, down from 30%.

Weakening Shroud — Now applies Bleed(2): 6 seconds, instead of Bleed(1).

Withering Precision — Moved to Master tier.

Terror — Moved to Grandmaster tier.

Engineer

Summary: Engineer AoE abilities are currently dominant in high level play, making them not only good for 1v1s, but also extremely dangerous in teamfights. As such, Poison Grenade and Concussion Bomb saw a slight reduction in AoE power. Med Kit was tweaked to be more competitive with Healing Turret, opening up its use as a support kit. Elixir R is currently still very powerful team utility, and thus was given back its stun break, but saw its reviving capabilities somewhat reduced. Gadgets were somewhat buffed, and Engineer now has a way to directly counter stealth. Supply Crate’s powerful impact in 1v1s was reduced, but its cooldown was also lowered to compensate, keeping it about as strong as before in teamfighting. More options were added in terms of condition removal, which is currently a weak point. Automated Response was changed to add a bit more counterplay to the trait.

Poison Grenade — Poison clouds now last for 3 seconds, down from 5 seconds, and deal 3 seconds of Poison per pulse, down from 5 seconds.

Concussion Bomb — The radius was reduced to 120, down from 180.

All Med Kit Items — Now are immediately picked up if dropped near an ally. Previously, the player had to move to pick up the item, even if it had been dropped or thrown close to them.

Drop Bandages — Reduced casting time to 0.25 seconds, down from 0.5 seconds. Duration was reduced to 30 seconds.

Drop Antidote — Reduced casting time to 0.25 seconds, down from 0.5 seconds. Now removes 2 conditions. Duration was reduced to 30 seconds.

Drop Stimulant — Reduced casting time to 0.25s, down from 0.5 seconds. Duration was reduced to 30 seconds.

Elixir R — Now instant cast and breaks stun. The cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

Toss Elixir R — Now revives 12% per pulse, down from 17%.

Analyse — This toolbelt skill has been redesigned. It now called “Deploy Detector”.
Deploy Detector
Deploy a detector that applies vulnerability and reveals stealthed enemies within the area.
Casting Time: 0.5 seconds
Recharge: 60 seconds
Range: 900
Radius: 300
Duration: 5 seconds
Revealed: 4 seconds
Vulnerability(5): 8 seconds

Launch Personal Battering Ram — This skill has been redesigned. It now knocks down any foes it hits for 2 seconds, does not cripple, and has had its cooldown increased to 45 seconds.

Supply Crate — Now drops a Rifle Turret instead of a Net Turret. The stun duration was lowered to 1s from 2s, and the cooldown was reduced to 150 seconds from 180 seconds.

Elite Supplies — Now adds a Net Turret to Supply Crate instead of a Rifle Turret.

Automated Response — Now reduces incoming condition duration by 100%, rather than granting complete immunity.

Scope — This trait has been redesigned. It is now called, “Antidote Pouch”, and reads, “Using a toolbelt skill removes 1 condition. (CD: 10 seconds)”

Guardian

Summary: Some of the weakest skills for Guardian saw some slight buffs, while the meta bunker build was slightly reduced in power. Purging Flames was made more useful for support in to open up additional build possibilities. DPS Guardians now have new powerful options in the classically weak Zeal tree. A bit less Vigor from the incredibly powerful 5-point trait “Vigorous Precision” will slightly nerf bunkers while encouraging DPS builds towards other trees.

Shield of Absorption — A bug has been fixed where cancelling the channel of the skill would cause the shield to become invisible.

Healing Breeze — The heal has been changed so that earlier pulses provide a bit more healing than the later ones, thus punishing the user less if the heal is interrupted.

Bane Signet — Lowered the casting time to 0.5 seconds from 0.75 seconds, and increased the knockdown to 3 seconds from 2 seconds.

Signet of Wrath — Lowered the casting time to 0.5 seconds from 0.75 seconds.

“Stand Your Ground!” — The cooldown was increased to 35 seconds, up from 30 seconds.

“Retreat!” — The cooldown was reduced to 50 seconds, down from 60 seconds.

Purging Flames — The casting time was reduced to 0.25 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds. The radius was increased to 300, up from 240.

Zealous Blade — The healing has been increased to 50 (0.03), up from 25 (0.02).

Kindled Zeal — This trait has been redesigned, and renamed “Zealous Strikes”. It reads, “Deal 5% more damage when under 50% health, and heal yourself for the same amount as the extra damage dealt.”

Vigorous Precision — Reduced Vigor duration to 3 seconds, down from 5 seconds.

General

Vision: With this update, I am looking to lower the power of some of the strongest builds and skills in the game, while providing more build options for every class. Elementalist and Mesmer are receiving the most help, while Warrior, Spirit of Nature, Engi AoE, and bunker Guardian are seeing some slight reductions in power. In addition, access to Endurance is being lowered across the board to reduce the length of teamfights and the amount of sustain that certain classes have access to. A few ways to counter stealth were added to provide some additional counterplay to the mechanic. Also, some weak or inflexible skills and traits were targeted with redesigns, to increase their viability.

The 6-set bonus of Superior Runes of Lyssa has been changed:
(6) When you use an elite skill, lose 3 conditions and gain 3 random boons for 5 seconds (not including Stability). (CD: 45 seconds)

Superior Runes of the Traveler have been added to PvP:
(1) +10 to All Stats, +2% Critical Damage
(2) +10% Boon Duration
(3) +10 to All Stats, +2% Critical Damage
(4) +10% Condition Duration
(5) +10 to All Stats, +2% Critical Damage
(6) +25% Movement Speed

Superior Sigil of Energy — Now returns only 25% Endurance upon weapon swap, down from 50%.

Transforms — All transforms have been adjusted so that they no longer increase Power or Precision. Instead, their base damage has been increased to provide approximately the same amount of net damage. This was done to eliminate abuse of laying down an AoE, and then immediately using a transform to spike up the damage of the AoE that was previously casted (wells + Lich Form, Meteor Shower + Tornado, etc.)

Elementalist

Summary: Elementalist, as the class currently in need of the most help, is being targeted in two critical areas: sustain and mobility. Signet of Restoration was restored to previous levels, and Ether Renewal was improved. Ride the Lightning’s cooldown was lowered to add back more out-of-combat mobility. In addition, several skills on the Focus were either improved or made more easy to use. Lightning Strike (scepter air #2) was made to no longer be instant, to reduce some of the instant spike possible in the Fresh Air build, and Diamond Skin was redesigned.

Dragon’s Tooth — Now uses ground targeting.

Lightning Strike — Added a 0.25 second casting time.

Fire Shield — The cooldown was reduced to 30 seconds.

Freezing Gust — Now a piercing projectile attack, similar to Dust Devil.

Comet — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds. It now uses ground targeting.

Gale — The casting time has been reduced to 0.5 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds.

Signet of Restoration — The passive healing has been returned to its previous level of 202 (0.1), up from 168 (0.08). It once again behaves the same as it does in PvE/WvW.

Ether Renewal — Condensed to 7 pulses instead of 8, but still provides the same amount of healing as before. The resulting full channel time is now 3 seconds instead of 3.5. Also, the heal has been changed so that earlier pulses provide a bit more healing than the later ones, thus punishing the user less if the heal is interrupted.

Ride the Lightning — This ability now has a 25 second cooldown regardless of if it hits a target or not. Previously, it had a 20 second cooldown if a target was hit, or a 40 second cooldown if no target was hit.

Lightning Flash — Now breaks stuns. Its cooldown was increased to 45 seconds, up from 40 seconds.

Arcane Brilliance — The casting time was reduced to 0.25 seconds, down from 0.75 seconds.

Diamond Skin — This trait has been redesigned. It now reduces the duration of incoming conditions by 100% for 2 seconds after switching to Earth Attunement.

Yeah, I’m not saying that balancing has been perfect, either. There have been specs that have been over-balanced lately (dhuumfire Necro, spirit Ranger, Healing Signet Warrior). But, that’s just over-balanced relative to the other builds that are good right now. In future patches, that will be toned down, and other stuff that’s currently poopy will be tweaked up. Repeatedly buffing the bad stuff and nerfing the good stuff will hopefully end us up in a place where a lot of builds are roughly equal in strength (we are already sort of getting there IMO), and then maybe we can all relax, hug each other, and enjoy the esports. :P