Guild Wars 2

Sure, if you can convince me that today’s top builds wouldn’t get stomped by the builds possible at this time last year, I’m all ears. If you wanna read off a bunch of buffs to various things and gloss over the nerfs to the actual bugs/OP stuff, I’m not sure you’d be proving a relevant point.

Power creep… it’s such a popular term to throw around on forums. Let’s really unpack the term and make sure we know what we’re talking about.

If there really is overall power creep in the game, that means that today’s top of the line, most powerful builds in the game are overall more powerful than the best specs in the game used to be.

Are we really saying that today’s Spirit Ranger and Healing Signet Warrior are more powerful than block bug Guardian and Haste D/D instagib Thief? Dhuumfire condi Necro more powerful than the old Time Warp Lich Form power Necro? Confounding Suggestions Mesmer better than 25 Might instakill shatter? Because that’s what you mean when you say power creep. IMO, the best specs are overall lower in power than before (dying in less than 1 second is very rare now when it was sort of commonplace in the old 100% quickness days), but other specs that were unplayable before are being pushed up to meet this level. Power is being added, but only in places that sorely need it. That’s not power creep, that’s trying to reach an equilibrium.

jmatb.6307:

Your Offense > Defense bit made me think a bit about how you could run a Bunker Warrior more effectively than this Banner stuff.

Here’s a shout build that might be interesting to try:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-sB0t;1NKVP0Y4JLVQ0;9;6TT9;418918B3;0UJk6;2ZF18ZF183NV

Hammer and Mace would be effective CC. The group condi cleanse would be pretty nuts, and the weakness would be strong enough to prevent quick ganks. You’d have dodge spam, knockbacks for Kyhlo and point capping.

Yeah, a build like this is more competitive in terms of support with a Guardian, although I recommend mace/shield sword/warhorn, and I’d take Last Stand over Merciless Hammer. The main issues compared to Guardian are lack of AoE Protection and Stability, (AoE Stab instead of self-only makes sure your DPS can help res and cleave downed without interruption) but you gain some personal tankiness and CC.

Alright, so I thought what I meant by the comparison was pretty obvious. Assuming we’re comparing with Banner of Defense, what I meant is:

• 12 Might AoE = 420 Power + Condition Damage. I know it’s not 100% uptime, but burst is what matters in this game. Banner of Defense gives 170 Vitality and Toughness. I understand not every build can use both Power and Condition Damage well, but hey, just +420 of one of those is already pretty good.
• Power and Condition Damage are offensive stats. Vitality and Toughness are defensive stats. The offensive stats are better because you can have multiple people with the offensive stats all focus a single guy with the defensive stats. The 3-4 other buffed people picking on a single guy with the defensive buffs is more powerful, the 2-3 other enemies with the defensive buffs may not matter because of how focus fire works. To say another way, if you have 3 buffed people attacking someone, it’s like you have 420*3 = +1260 Power and Condition Damage of extra “pressure” on a single guy with +170 Vitality and Toughness, if that makes sense. I understand that AoE and such makes the argument more complicated than how I’m laying it out, but it is at least partly true.
• 2.7k or so burst AoE heal, I know it’s not as much over time as Regen, but burst healing > Regen for squishies.
• Banner Regen doesn’t stack well with other Regen sources. We live in a world where Healing Spring Rangers and Healing Turret Engis are commonplace.
• It doesn’t take up one of your precious 3 utility slots.

And this is just where a Guardian’s support begins. Aside from warhorn, slightly buffed res speed (not even, after you consider Poison on the body that you can’t cleanse), and elite banner, that’s about where the Warrior’s support ends. That’s why I compared it to Empower — I was comparing the banner Warrior’s main source of support to a single source of support of a Guardian. No, they’re not the same, but they’re at least comparable, which is pretty telling.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Actually, yes. At the moment, however, a warrior has access to more stability (not necessarily group wide) and more condition removal for the GROUP per minute than a guardian – not to mention banner regeneration is far stronger than Virtue of Resolve.

Oh, pssh, banner regen. I prefer to compare banner to Empower… not so great now, is it?

Actually, I guess after thinking about it some more, it’s really the condi clear that I think needs work for Lyssa runes, not as much the boons. So I guess I’m a bit more in favor of my original proposal, or something similar to it.

Chaith.8256:

They’re not mutually exclusive. Close, if you use the Active on cooldown, before every fight, maybe. Let’s say that the Active was the most healing over time to use – you can usually milk 10+ seconds out of the passive healing before having to use it at the start of the fight. If you were busy ganking someone when your Healing Signet recharged, you can milk the passive healing until you are ready to cast it.

I’ve discussed my preferences for Healing Signet in the past.

The design goes something kind of like this:

Healing Signet Passive: 225 healing every second, with the same 0.05 scaling.
Healing Signet Active: Heals for 625 every second for 10 seconds. 0.10 scaling.

Don’t nit pick my numbers, focus more on the design. Heh. Warrior has to keybind his heal, or lose out, and gets comparable sustain to the old design when traited for Signet Use, and successfully spamming Healing Signet on 16s cooldown.

The result is that the Warrior gets some stable healing from the passive until he needs to activate his active. This active can be interrupted, and that means the heal goes on cooldown for 4s, where the Warrior gets nothing. When it recharges, the Warrior will get some passive healing until he can successfully activate it again!

I don’t think that Healing Signet should be gutted, but I think if we can introduce penalties for being interrupted, and actually having to keybind the heal / use it properly, it’ll be a huge step in the right direction that’s not so drastic.

I think the active should stay as a burst heal. This way, when you start getting low on health, you have to decide if you are going to need the burst heal from the active in order to stay alive, or if you should leave the passive and continue getting the best HP/s. Right now, the burst healing of the active is so low that it’s very likely that you’ll be wrong to activate it, thus the active is only rarely used. But if you lower the passive a bit and raise the active, it becomes much more likely that activating the heal is the correct decision at low health. I think that’s all that is necessary to do here.

Acandis.3250:

cymerdown.4103:

Actually, I had another idea for Lyssa runes. Rather than putting an ICD, which is kinda awkward (I hate having to keep track of hidden cooldowns, especially for such an impactful ability), let’s just nerf the ability a little bit. How about: “You lose 3 conditions and gain 3 random boons (not including Stability) for 5 seconds when you use an elite skill.” If that would be too heavy of a nerf, you could buff the 4-set ability slightly by having it also remove 1 condition when you heal.

I don’t think adding more RNG would benefit anyone. But I like your line of thinking, you’re almost there. I think if instead the (6) bonus was: convert all conditions into boons(max 5s duration) and the (4) bonus was convert a condition into a boon, that would be much more balanced.

Sure, that sounds good. And you could never get Stability that way, I like it.

Actually, I had another idea for Lyssa runes. Rather than putting an ICD, which is kinda awkward (I hate having to keep track of hidden cooldowns, especially for such an impactful ability), let’s just nerf the ability a little bit. How about: “You lose 3 conditions and gain 3 random boons (not including Stability) for 5 seconds when you use an elite skill.” If that would be too heavy of a nerf, you could buff the 4-set ability slightly by having it also remove 1 condition when you heal. If done this way, the rune set would be about as strong as it is now for Withdraw/Basi thieves, a sizeable nerf for Warrior with Healing Signet/Signet of Rage, and a small nerf to Mesmers with Ether Feast/Mass Invis.

Tman.6349:

I’ve bursted a bunker guard from full health to downed in less than 3 seconds. No he was not a terrible guardian and yes he saw me coming from a mile away.

Guardians have a 2 second block heal and a 2 second invuln. He was a terrible Guardian.

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Anyway, the most guaranteed healing power you can have on a warrior is 300 from traits, 170 from the Banner of Tactics, 798 from the amulet, 125 from the jewel, and 165 from runes. That totals 1558. I didn’t include life stacks because those aren’t guaranteed. Basically this means you have to spec 100% into healing power to break even with what it was before the nerf. I don’t know a single warrior who uses healing power runes, and few enough use the Banner of Tactics.

It would definitely be a nerf, but then you have to ask whether or not that’s a good thing. Personally, I think that such a change would make it a bit too weak.

Agree, his nerf would make Healing Signet utterly unusable outside of a cleric bunker build, unless the active was drastically increased. 4k HP per 20 seconds is a pretty terrible rate.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

OlrunTheBlade.1486:

Current: 392+0.05HP per sec
Proposed: 200+0.175HP per sec
392+0.05HP=200+0.175HP
192=0.125HP
1536 HP

There’s the correct math. No need to be an kitten about a typo.

I’m going to need you to stop posting numbers in such a haphazard way, please.

Proposed
Healing Signet – Passive tick of 200 with a coefficient scale with healing power of 0.175
Passive tick = 200 + (0.175 x healing power)

Of course the active portion of the skill will need to be addressed to compensate, but the base active heal will be closer to 4000 with a healing power coefficient of 0.005

Yo Bear, there’s nothing wrong with his post. What he’s doing is figuring out at what value of Healing Power do the two passives give you the same amount of healing. To do that, he just did the basic algebra thing of setting the two heals equal to each other and then he solved for Healing Power. To check his work, just plug his answer to both sides of the equation.

392 + 0.05(1536) =? 200 + 0.175(1536)
392 + 76.8 =? 200 + 268.8
468.8 = 468.8

So, at 1536 Healing Power, both passives will heal the player for 468.8 HP per second. Below that, the old passive will heal for more, and above that, the new one will.

Dustin.2793:

Lol I agree the warrior regen is over the top. But all the thief changes are a little to much imo. I mean I go from beating any team in this game on my thief (which is a given) to my warrior alt, then getting completely smashed on liquor and beating anyone on front page while playing a guardian(while pugging with friends). So what i need from you guys is to train a little harder, strive to be better, use your brain, do some pushups, and motivate each other to do a little better. After that you may find yourselves winning some games.

Wow, Toker just went ham. Happy holidays, buddy.

Acandis.3250:

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Renewed Focus – increased duration to 3 seconds

Reverting stealth nerfs is always fun. Personally, I think bunker guard is still fine as it is, but it could go back to 3s, I guess.

What stealth nerf? RF was never 3s, it was always 2s with a tooltip error that didn’t get fixed for very long. It’s only 3s if traited for Elite Focus.

I think the current behavior is fine.

My bad. It always seemed like a short 3 seconds, but I guess I never checked.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Thief – initiative regen reduced to 0.8/second; build diversity requires a 1.1khp base increase at level 80

Initiative changes seem fine to me so far. Pretty early to be calling for changes, at the very least. Don’t give Thief more HP, they’re fine as they are now (16k HP on zerker with no points in vitality tree, with Practiced Tolerance and Divinity runes).

Skills

Cluster Bomb – damage reduced by 12.5%

Probably too big of a nerf, honestly. I think a slight nerf is in order, but cutting it by 1/8 is kinda harsh. I’d start smaller, it’s not like it’s destroying the game or anything.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Shelk Venom – recharge reduced to 40 seconds

Maybe, but honestly, I’m not sure venom share is the spec we should be trying the hardest to balance right now. It’s very easy for it + pet builds to become absurd. Let’s fix less risky things first.

Traits

Improvisation – changed description from bundle to possessing a stolen skill

Ok, w/e.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Sleight of Hand – Internal cool down of 30 seconds

Same opinion as Chaith, it’s fine as is.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Elementalist – base health increased by 2k at level 80 to increase build diversity

Nah, just fix their sustain. Their health is low, but they’re a caster class. If they can heal themselves up adequately, keep range on their ranged weapons, and give themselves boon support, it should be alright.

Skills

Ice Bow – Ice Storm – reduced damage by 8.5%

Meteor Shower – reduced area by 10%;

Meh, when people start actually using these things to good effect in high level PvP, I’ll worry about it. Leave for now.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Churning Earth – is now a chargeable skill – instant cast will yield 2 bleed stacks at 2.5 second duration, 1 cripple application at 1 second, and base damage of 650; max charge will yield 8 bleed stacks at duration of 8 seconds, 4 cripple applications at a duration of 1 second, and base damage of 1,050; total charge time for max charge is 3.25 seconds

Could be cool if the numbers are done right.

Traits

Lightning Strike – ICD increased to 5 seconds

Definitely, instant cast burst spam is bad for the game.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Diamond Skin – reduced condition reduction to 95%, down from immunity

Nah, I would change the trait to be something else. How about, “Incoming condition duration is reduced by 100% for 2 seconds when you switch to Earth attunement.”? And give it the same treatment as zerk stance and AR as above.

Ranger
Skills

Spirits – all non-elite spirit passive effect radii are decreased to 650; actives are decreased to 240 radii

Spirit of Nature – recharge increased to 200 seconds; passive heal tick reduced to 300hps

Sounds good, but you can leave the recharge on Spirit of Nature. Also, the condi wipe on SoN should go down to 3 condis, or something.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Sword – decrease of evasion frame durations during auto-attack by 25%

Not sure this change is needed.

Traits

Bark Skin – damage reduction reduced to 45%

I dunno why they buffed this trait; not as though Ranger can afford to lose the condi removal from EB, anyway.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Empathetic Bond – is now activated on pet swap; 3 conditions transferred to pet; recharge time of 12 seconds

Hmm, interesting idea. Keep in mind that part of the strength of Empathic Bond is the ability to swap right after the trait procs, reducing the damage done to the pet by a lot. Maybe you just lose the 3 condis when swapping pets (it isn’t transferred)? Otherwise, your new pet could die pretty fast and then the Ranger gets put in a pretty bad position. Overall, this is a pretty huge nerf to Ranger, and will accentuate their fairly bad condi removal options without other changes. I’d be really careful with this.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Nature’s Vengeance – spirit activated radii decreased to 100

Nah, leave it.

Runes

Lyssa – ICD of 60 seconds

I think going up to 90s would be fine; people would still use them.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mesmer
Skills
Greatsword – functionality to reflect risk – reward, reverse the distance in which damage is increased – dealing more damage the closer the player is to the target

Agree with Chaith on this one. Doesn’t really need to change, especially when considering other game modes where having a weapon that hits hard from range is very important.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scepter – auto attack speed travel speed increased by 10%

Agree, similar to Guardian scepter.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Blurred Frenzy – damage evasion duration reduced to 2 seconds, engi shield stun and nightmare rune proc no longer interrupt the frenzy

Not sure this needs to change, and I’m against weird “exception to the rule” stuff. Evasion is evasion, let’s leave it at that. You get interrupted sometimes, boo hoo.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of the Ether – passive tick base reduced to 200/400/600 q3seconds based on number of clones; passive tick scales with healing power at a coefficient of 0.15; recharge reduced to 30 seconds

Haven’t played with the signet heal, but it seems pretty nuts. Not sure what level of nerf is needed.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Mantra of Pain – damage increased by 5%

Uh, sure. Nobody will use it still, I’d guess.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Arcane Thievery – cool down reduced to 40 seconds

Mimic – the first projectile absorbed does not cause damage

Sounds good.

Traits

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Prismatic Understanding – duration of protection and regeneration reduced to 2 seconds

I don’t really WvW so I don’t really see the spec being used. I’d assume that at least the Protection duration would want to come down, Regen is probably fine to leave alone since it’s only a meh boon anyways.

Engineers
Skills

Bombs – all bomb radii decreased by 40 units

Yeah, bomb radius buff wasn’t really good for PvP.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Poison Grenade – poison cloud duration reduced to 3 seconds, base poison duration reduced to 4 seconds

YES PLEASE. Poison nade application rate is off the chain.

Big Ol’ Bomb – radius reduced by 40 units

This is the only bomb I would leave alone. It’s the epic bomb, it has great visibility, it should maintain a good radius.

Traits

Stabilized Armor – moved to master tier inventions added cc nullification on a 60 second recharge

Power Shoes – moved to adept tier inventions; might need a qualifier

Reasonable changes.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Automated Response – condition durations reduced by 95%

See my response to zerker stance.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scope – removed from the game; replaced with Back Brace

Back Brace – remove 1 condition when using a tool belt skill, recharge 12 seconds, non-elixir skill

Good change; engis need a little more condi removal access. I’d just make it “Tool belt skills remove 1 condition. (10s ICD)”

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Guardian – base health increased by 1.5k at level 80 to increase build diversity

Why the arbitrary low HP increase of 1.5k? Personally, I would change Guardian to middle tier health (we’re supposed to be a heavy, for goodness sake), but lower some of our sustainability to compensate.

Skills

Banish – is now a chargeable skill – holding the skill for longer will increase both the distance launched and damage of the hit; can also be executed instantly for a diminished effect – max charge: launch 750 range, base damage 450; instant charge 300 range, base damage of 375; max charge time, 1 second

Sure, Hammer needs a buff after the stunbreak launch change. I think you should make it execute in 1/4s and make the max charge time 3/4s, though.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Scepter – auto attack orb travel speed increased by 12.5% and damage is decreased 5%

Good change, scepter attacks are way too easy to strafe.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of Mercy – cast time decreased to 2.5 seconds, recharge at 120 seconds

Recharge is too low, especially after traiting. 180s is more appropriate for a res utility. On the other hand, are we really trying to make another res utility viable, especially on Guardian, which already has insane ability to hard res? I’d rather see a different active entirely. Maybe a ground-targetable 360 radius AoE heal? Something like that might be cool.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Renewed Focus – increased duration to 3 seconds

Reverting stealth nerfs is always fun. Personally, I think bunker guard is still fine as it is, but it could go back to 3s, I guess.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Tomes: recharge reduced to 150 seconds

Meh, tomes are pretty bad in high tier PvP, but in low to mid tier they’re pretty strong (especially ToC) and they’re good in WvW. I’d be careful about buffing them too much, Guardians are already super needed in every game mode.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Tome of Wrath: Judgment – cast time decreased to 4 seconds
Conflagrate – base damage increased to 500 damage

Berserker Tome of Wrath AoE spam in WvW would probably be the nutter butters after these changes. I’d be careful.

Traits

Kindled Zeal – moved to master tier

Zealous Blade – moved to GM tier, increase damage of GS attacks by 10%

Instead, I like Arken’s suggestion of adding more healing to the trait, and possibly changing how the healing works (per activation rather than per hit). The damage doesn’t really need to be higher IMO.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Valorous Defense – cooldown reduced to 60 seconds

How about 3s of Protection instead of Aegis? Less synergy with your aim of making UC viable though, I guess.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Glacial Heart – chance on critical hit increased to 100%

I’d rather see a change to the duration and ICD of the chill applied. Maybe 2s of chill, 10s ICD?

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Warrior-tentative reduce base health at level 80 by 1k

Again with the small HP adjustments. Warrior HP is fine as it is, IMO, just tweak their sustain.

Skills

Healing Signet – Passive tick reduced to 200hps with healing power scaling coefficient of 0.175

Reduce the passive, but increase the active. Have there be some tradeoff between milking the passive or cashing in for the burst healing of the active.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Berserker Stance – reduces condition duration by 95% for the duration of the stance

I’m fine with -100% condition duration, but not immunity. Have it match the tooltip.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Combustive Shot – radius at 3 levels of adrenaline reduced to 300, 220 at 2, and 140 at 1

Yeah, lower the radius a bit. It’s pretty insane at level 3 atm. Might be a WvW thing, but in sPvP it wrecks points.

Traits

Adrenal Health – moved to minor master trait in strength line

Building Momentum – moved to minor master trait in defense line

Meh, they wouldn’t do this because defensive/regen traits go in defense trees. Don’t really think this is necessary either.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Last Stand – stability and swiftness provided are reduced to 8 seconds

To match Balanced Stance. Makes sense.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Defy Pain – increased to a 90 seconds recharge

Doesn’t match Endure Pain; doesn’t make sense. Also, not really an OP trait, so why nerf?

Ok, I’ll take some time and try to respond to everything here.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

The Bear Balance Document
General

With AoE rebalancing – AoE target cap increased to 8 targets – the aim is to slowly decrease the power and effectiveness of AoE skills to a point of balance relative to single target skills and abilities and a hedge against AI clutter

I’m not really convinced that AoE needs a ton of change at the moment, aside from a few pinpoint changes to specific skills. It wasn’t too long ago that minions and spirits had way too little health to be at all viable in PvP. I don’t think scaling up the number of targets (why 8, exactly?) is the right approach. If minions are tanking AoE too well, maybe a slight decrease in HP is needed. I’m not sure this is warranted, however; minions and spirits die readily enough to just a few seconds of coordinated AoE pressure in my experience.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Introduction of skill/charge shots – increase the depth of game play for some skills and classes, allows for deeper sense of counter play and more inter-combat options

Cool idea.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Blocking priority system that has aegis as the last block to be used up and with multiple blocks up, only one used per attack – so that some traits and abilities become worthy options

Sort of a minor/nitpicky Guardian buff, w/e. Probably fine, even considering block shenanigans with Unscathed Contender, which I guess is the point of the change.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Repair both conditions and boons to be first in, last out – this is to replace the condition and boon block-style priority system currently implemented, allows for increased depth of combat by being able to cover boons and condis

For boons, this is a substantial nerf to Sleight of Hand, which is a good trait, but I’m not sure it needs to be hit this hard. Conversely, by nerfing Sleight of Hand, you’re giving a sizable buff to res utilities like Spirit of Nature, which don’t really need to be buffed.

For conditions, I totally agree.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Immobilization Stacking eliminated

Not the hugest issue with the cap being reduced, but whatever. Support thief isn’t probably going to “get there”, anyways.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

z-axis and ai/players getting stuck

Yep, a bug fix that’s been needed for a while.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Portal no longer transports repair kit

Eh, disagree. Mesmer has a bunch of plusses and minuses to it, but one of the huge plusses for the team is access to Portal. It’s really strong on every map, not just Kyloh, and fast treb repairs is just a really nice benefit of having a Mesmer on your team. Not in favor of this nerf.

Necromancer
Skills

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Putrid Mark – transfers 3 conditions from the caster to foes on trigger. Additionally, transfers 1 condition from allies (cap of 5) to enemies within 900 range.

Reasonable.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Grasping Dead – reduced physical damage by 12%

Feast of Corruption – reduced damage per condition to 5%

Don’t think scepter power damage is too high, but someone with more Necro expertise would be able to have a better opinion on that.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Signet of Spite – reduced condition durations by 50%

Yeah, something should be done about Signet of Spite. Against power classes that don’t have a lot of cleansing, landing the signet is pretty much a OHKO.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Lich Form – Deathly Claws – 10% decrease in base damage

Yep, Lich autoattack hits too hard.

Traits

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Siphoned Power – health threshold to 65% for trigger

Eh, I don’t think this makes as much flavor sense for a Necro. Also, it gives some play to the class (should I get low enough for this trait to kick in before I hit deathshroud?). I’d leave it without a good reason to change it.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Training of the Master – decreased damage increase to 25%

Yeah, MM Necro’s damage is a bit too high.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Withering Precision – moved to master tier, recharge increased to 25 seconds

Terror – moved to grandmaster tier

Agree. It would eliminate the Dhuumfire/Terror/Master of Terror build (30/20/0/0/20), which is kinda the no-brainer option for condi Necro at the moment. Also, Terror is definitely the strongest Necro trait and deserves to be a GM. To compensate for the loss in damage, let’s revert those “I remove 1 bleed from this skill for PvP” changes.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

Gluttony – reduced to 5%

No, I don’t think Necro DS generation is too high at the moment.

Where’s Good Fights? QQ

Just kidding, great video!

Backpack nuhmba wahn ehn ay!

Cool, enjoy. Added a new section for expert tips, and moved some of the content into it to make the earlier sections a bit shorter.

Nefejrangh.2584:

Hey, i’m back to spvp after months of WvsW and i really enjoy guardian in bunker role. Atm i’m playng this spec http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAse5dlUgqCnFyMEf4ES2DRCBTQsHYEH1RXFoIA-TwAgzCtIySllLLTWyssZN+Y9xmgJBA . Usually i join tournament in solo or with 2-3 friends, i dont have a team for spvp. In your opinion, your spec its the best choice even without a premade ?

Yes, I recommend my build over that one. Staff heals you and buffs allies; it’s a very powerful support weapon.

Added some gameplay from my twitch stream.

No problem; everyone starts somewhere. Happy bunkering!

Great replies so far, for the most part! I like a lot of these lists. Just a reminder, let’s keep the posts constructive, and keep in mind that sometimes things are designed or adjusted for parts of the game other than sPvP. The devs are doing their best, so let’s do ours to be thoughtful and rational with our feedback.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

TeamQ advantages:

• No Skyhammer
• No Spirit Watch
• Better rewards for winning/losing
• You get to duoQ with your friends
• Faster Queue time

This is why a great deal of SoloQ’rs are switching to TeamArenas! Keeping up this pace and Solo Arena will end deserted and we’ll be back to square one.

Discussion on how to improve Solo Arenas?

1. Remove “w t f skyham”
2. Allow 1-3 people to queue together for it (call it “Standard Arena”) like in SMITE
3. Make Team Arena 5-person only queue

The Good

Changes In PvP Rewards: My god, these changes have been AMAZING so far. I think I speak for a lot of PvPers when I say that finally having some attachment to the rest of the game and being well-rewarded for our time spent PvPing was a vitally-needed change in order for sPvP to succeed. I personally have seen a lot more people in HotM lately, and I think these reward changes have a lot to do with that. Great job here, and I expect some really cool additions in the future.

Keeping Ranks: When I first heard that ranks were going away, I was a bit surprised, since I knew there would be a lot of people upset by it. For so long, that little number was just about the only sort of reward to work towards in sPvP, and taking that away suddenly would be jarring to many people. Thankfully, a feedback thread went up, and the people concerned about it spoke up. Glad you guys listened to feedback, and in fact doubled down on it by increasing rank point rewards from Solo and Team Arena. I liked the little acting job on “Ready Up!”, well played indeed.

Thief Updates: I might get some backlash for this, but in my opinion and from the results of my team’s testing so far, the Thief changes seem to have gone pretty well considering the broad extent of the tweaks that occurred. Not only was the outlier spec adjusted in a necessary way, but the power level of other specs were raised appropriately. Time will tell for sure, but so far it seems that the changes here are going well.

Patch Preview Thread: For the first time, we were shown most of the patch notes from the upcoming patch well in advance, to get a good feeling of the community’s responses to the changes. This was a very good idea, and I’m glad that some changes were adjusted based on the player’s responses. I’d love to continue seeing this going forward!

QA: As far as I know, I don’t think there were any major hiccups related to this patch. Great job, QA!

The Bad

Attention to Balance Feedback: Relating to the patch preview thread, there were some changes made that the community by-and-large thought were negative. A big example is Diamond Skin — most PvPers dislike 100% immunity traits that have no cooldown (Automated Response is another example). Despite much feedback given in that thread and many other threads regarding the topic, the change ended up going through. Of course, it’s impossible to support every single opinion, especially when many of them contradict. In this and some other cases, though, it was pretty much a landslide of opposition, so it’s understandable when there is some disappointment after no adjustments were made.

New Heals: I love the concepts of the new heals, but they aren’t looking terribly useful for sPvP so far. I understand a lot of them may have been designed with WvW and PvE in mind, which is fine. Testing has shown that many of them are too unreliable or are missing something that the other heals have when it comes to sPvP.

Elementalist Updates: We’re only a little over a week after the patch, so it might be premature to give feedback here. So far, though, nobody seems to have been able to make Elementalist work in high level play (GF has been trying as well). The main problem seems to be their sustainability and ways to deal with conditions (Ether Renewal is too unreliable against Trickery Thief). A lot of their sustain and mobility was hit too hard in previous patches, and this last update did very little to restore those vital aspects that made Ele viable in the past. Also, D/D Ele is too similar to Warrior in role, but Warrior currently just does it better.

The Missing

Adjustments to Healing Signet and Spirit of Nature: Warrior and Ranger saw some adjustments to their best specs, but I was personally baffled that nothing was changed to the two skills in the game that I believe are far and away outliers in power level: Healing Signet and Spirit of Nature. These two skills far outstrip the healing and elite skills for other classes in PvP for high level play, especially in small-scale conflicts. I think most of the changes made in the last patch were more or less on the mark, but hopefully these two skills will see a little attention in the future.

Ready Button For Solo Arena: This is a highly requested feature, and it was a bit disappointing not to have yet. Having a popup to test if the user is AFK (if so, drop them from queue and requeue the others) when the queue pops would drastically reduce the amount of 4v5s seen in Solo Arena.

These are the exact kind of responses that should remain out of the thread; let’s keep the feedback constructive and detailed. For negativity, there’s a lot of other threads out there.

Hey, guys. It’s that time again! Now that we’ve had over a week to let the new patch settle, let’s put our constructive thoughts about it in a place where the developers can easily find out what the community liked, disliked, and thought was missing. We’re going to follow the same format as the last thread, since I thought that worked out really well. Please use the following headers for your comments:

The Good (what you liked about the patch)
The Bad (things about the patch you disliked)
The Missing (things you expected from the patch that weren’t there)

Let’s keep the negative rants and flaming out of this thread and keep to constructive criticism only, guys. Thanks! My own thoughts to follow in a future post. For examples of how this thread went previously, check out the one we did for October:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/October-15-Patch-Our-Constructive-Feedback

@brannigan.9831: Yeah, I know I didn’t invent the wheel here or anything. I just often get questions about my build and such, so I figured putting this here with some in-depth explanations might be of service to the community. There are several other bunker Guardian builds that are various levels of viable, I’ve tested many of them and this is the one that I believe is (still) overall the strongest in Team Arena. Also, my weapon selection wasn’t really “meta” in NA for a long time, people used to run CC setups with hammer and scepter instead of what I used.

@BlackStabbath.9780: Whirl finisher in a Light field doesn’t cleanse conditions on yourself, only allies hit by the projectiles. I find it’s pretty unreliable to use for team condi cleanse, since the projectile paths are kinda random. The best way to deal with Corrupt Boon is to a) avoid using Stability near a Necro unless you really need to, and b) try to juke the Corrupt as best you can. Good Necros usually have a trigger finger for Corrupt as soon as they see the Stability go up, so that’s usually a good time to dodge. Better ones will wait till you dodge, then hit the Corrupt at the end of the dodge. That’s rough. Try to have at least one cleanse on hand around a Necro at all times in case you do get Corrupted, so if you’re out of them, that’s a good time to use your elite. In general, though, Necros and Engis are sort of meant to be bunker busters with the wide variety of conditions they have at their disposal. It’s not a matter of if you’ll die, it’s a matter of when. But if you’re using your cleanses wisely and holding cap/neutral for your team for a while before you die, you’re doing your job.

@Qaelyn.7612: If you wanted a more selfish bunker build that’s generally going to do well in Solo Arena, try this one. That build should perform well for you up to around mid-high tier, and is much more survivable and forgiving than the build I originally posted.

And no, don’t expect to kill anything on either of these builds. They’re meant to defend a point and support, leave the killing to the DPS.

Thanks, buddy!

Ok, I added an extra section at the bottom regarding role and rotations

Sure, I’ll add some gameplay strategy to the guide in addition to some expert-level tips. To answer your questions:

Sxalpha.5063:

“I try to use Protector’s Strike (#3) when I am being focused by multiple enemies, "

I don’t get this as I think Protector’s Strike (#3) only blocks one attack?

Yeah, I meant just using it to absorb a little bit of the incoming damage, but you should generally use dodges first as they will avoid more attacks than Protector’s Strike. I’ll have to clarify that.

Sxalpha.5063:

Also a video with this build including a couple tourney games would be much appreciated and lots could be learned from this.

Yeah, I need to stream and record more often. I’ll record a few team arena games and link them in the guide.

Sxalpha.5063:

A few questions too, as a bunker do you just sit at mid when the fight is over or do you keep finding team fights to win.

Generally, I’ll rotate to the team fights and we’ll leave a 1v1er to watch nodes, like Warrior or Ranger.

Sxalpha.5063:

Also when in a outnumbered situation, do you stall for that time or just ditch the node?

It depends on the situation. If it’s our point, I’ll typically stay and die on point to delay losing the point as long as possible. If it’s neutral or their point and we’re 2 men down (we have 3 and they have 5, with 2 of our guys on respawn), that’s usually a good time to book it and regroup rather than full wiping.

Sxalpha.5063:

Both of these sets of questions are for when you do not know if your teammate will back you up. I would love to improve my solo queue

In Solo Arena, I typically don’t play the way I just mentioned. I will usually just stay and defend mid, and not leave bad fights (just die on point) unless the rest of my team is also running away. It’s harder to play in a coordinated way in solo queue, it’s better to just play solid and predictable so your teammates aren’t confused.

Seen him around, plays well in solo q. Give him a shot!

No problem, glad to help out.

It’s because you want to run shield (for defense) and warhorn (for support). So, you need two mainhand weapons to go with those. Mace is an obvious choice, and sword is what’s left. Plus, sword gives you an extra CC and a leap for mobility.

Hey, guys. I’m the bunker Guardian for Team Good Fights, one of the top-tier NA teams at the moment. I took some time today to put together a very in-depth guide on my build and how to play it in tPvP (notes are mostly in regards to Team Arena, but can be applied well to Solo). If you’re interested in a good bunker/support build, or just want some helpful tips to improve your play, check it out! A lot of it is beginner-oriented at the moment, but I plan on adding some expert tips in the near future.

http://intothemists.com/guides/2221-kensudas_bunkersupport

Here’s some gameplay of me using this build:

http://www.twitch.tv/cymerdown/b/489517687

Thanks for checking it out!

black powder heartseeker backstab daze your heal gg

would like to see ele rtl cd go to 25s flat instead of 20/40 split

Acandis.3250:

good ranger

what does this phrase even mean?

:P

all jokes aside, Genyen is a very good player

for me to poop on

Just wanted to say from a tournament organization point-of-view, this is a good time to review QA processes. Having spectator mode in a turned-off state with a major community event happening the same day is a very unfortunate turn of events, and steps should be taken to prevent or at least reduce the chance of a repeat occurrence from happening, thanks!

Due to technical issues with spectator mode, the tournament had to be postponed. Watch the event thread for further details.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/events/Good-Fights-1st-Invitational-Tournament-1-25

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Spectator-Mode-Temporarily-Disabled

Due to technical issues with spectator mode, the tournament has been postponed to January 25th, 2014. Sorry all! Check the event thread for more details.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/events/Good-Fights-1st-Invitational-Tournament-12-14

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Spectator-Mode-Temporarily-Disabled

this may delay the tournament or cause it to be postphoned, we’ll see what happens :\

Donari.5237:

I’m a bit confused, you say “come watch the drama unfold” but the rules in the original thread say “no spectators allowed.” And the prizes go only to the team members. So this thread suggesting anyone can come watch and have a chance at stuff seems counter to the actual announcement.

“No spectators” is referring to the PvP arena that the matches will be played in. Those are limited to 20 players max, and two teams = 10 players, + 8 shoutcasters + 1 admin = 19 people. If we allowed any extra players into those arenas, it would go over the maximum. You can, of course, watch the twitch streams of the shoutcasters themselves to see the games, though!

The tournament prizes and the giveaways are separate funds. The viewers will have a chance at hundreds of Gold and thousands of Gems over the course of the afternoon!

Fair enough, thanks for at least checking out the thread!

Hey guys, we are having a big PvP tournament today! We’ll be seeing 16 great teams from across the world compete for a total of 3,000 Gold and 14,000 Gems in prizes. Come watch the drama unfold and earn your chance at hundreds of Gold and thousands of Gems in giveaways! If you love PvP, or just want a chance for some free loot, make your way over to the official Mistpedia channel at 1PM Eastern (10AM Pacific) today to watch the Good Fights Invitational. You won’t want to miss it!

Stream link: http://twitch.tv/blu42

Event post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/events/Good-Fights-1st-Invitational-Tournament-12-14

Thanks for the support guys, and special thanks to our EU brothers that are making the trip over to NA to compete!

Just wanted to post a reminder here for those that don’t watch the other subforums, we’ve got a big tournament happening tomorrow at 1PM EST. There will be 16 great teams battling it out for 3,000 Gold and 14,000 Gems in total prizes, plus there will be Gem and Gold giveaways to the viewers ALL AFTERNOON! Come watch, chat it up, and support the PvP community!

Link to the stream: http://twitch.tv/blu42

Event thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/events/Good-Fights-1st-Invitational-Tournament-12-14

Hope to see you all there!

RaZaC.1963:

Age:
< ~25 years

Oh snap, no old farts like me :P

google.3709:

Well Jin, toker is a beast and I’m pretty sure he was 3v1 all match long and winning. and backpack maybe be backpack but he’s still a great skyhammer troll.

Agreed on both accounts. Toker is, in fact, a beast, and Backpack is about as Backpack as you can get.

As I understand it, this should be the norm going forward. Also, ranks are no longer planned on going away, it’s just that rewards (except finishers) won’t be tied to it anymore.