Guild Wars 2

Hope there is something for Earth shield in there too.

Conjure meta is here motherkitteners.

Too bad earth shield was skipped. Agree with all flame axe changes.
Don’t play staff so idk.

Lots of cool stuff here.
Aoe increases are worrying though.

timmyf.1490:

As far as the OP, don’t 2-handed weapons also have higher base damage to help compensate for the single sigil? Just wondering if you think that would/should be adjusted down if 2-handed weapons get 2 sigils?

The base damage of the weapon doesn’t mean much given that each skill has its own damage co-efficient made with the weapon in mind. If the base damage of 2h weapons were lower they’d just raise skill co-efficients.

Demonts.4593:

First of all i would like to say in this meta s/d is not OP compared to many other things that i won’t get into right now. However, assuming all the meta builds are brought down to balance i have a suggestion to balance s/d thief. I believe that the evades and damage of s/d thief is not overpowered at all because s/d thief is not a great 1v1 spec and has no AOE. The overpowered aspect of s/d is the fact that u can basically reset whenever and nobody can find you. In order to fix this i think that they should simply make sword 2 (infiltrators strike) have to be in in line of sight. This will make it so you can no longer simply dissapear from the fight and be nonpunishable. An example is on khylo i can kill the treb by just porting up and down and there is nothing the other team can do. Other than that i think s/d if perfectly fine. They should not nerf the damage, initiative cost or evades in any way. I hope this all made sense! Thanks

If this was a fact why is S/P not on the same state given that they both have Inf strike and shadow return? in fact S/P’s numbers have been declining from October, and dipped again after March patch back when it was still a better set than S/D and was capable of the same feats and more. I’d disagree given S/D’s state is literally due to a change to one ability. Given that it and it’s brother set have had the same ability since launch with little fuss.

I Treb warp as well, there actually is some counter play to it given your profession allows it. Point defense mechanics like Traps, Marks, and even Wards like Ring of warding, mess with the strategy, slowing it down and putting risk on you as a thief. A Mesmers Portal allows a team to just bring the treb up without much fuss. Same with another thief using Shadow trap. Instant interrupts like SoH and Mantra of Distraction can actually interrupt IS (well all can but these are the only ones that can sanely do it) putting IS on CD and preventing a shadow return. Ranged attacks (especially gtaoe) allow you to position yourself at the edge to hit the thief whichever position he decides to be in. Any of these put pressure on you to warp out again which slows you down and allows for back-up to come or puts a drain on your initiative. Especially given that you’re generally doing insignificant if any damage to the actual trebber doing so.
Funny enough S/D’s brother set does allow you to punish because PW is interruptable on many levels and outside of thakittens disengage is limited to SR which doesn’t by itself break range auto-aim spam.
It’s honestly very clear that if anything is wrong with S/D it’s the 3.

Stability.

There is an item called Dragonite?
Lmao.

Melee auto attacks better be strong.

Likely Last refuge will never be changed for a trait that doesn’t cause stealth because it breaks the flow. If the trait doesn’t give you stealth than you can’t trigger 15 or 25.
Likewise If you look at DA serpent’s touch is a catalyst for Lotus poison and Exposed weakness. If Serpent’s touch suddenly became Mug, you’d have to trigger Lotus poison and Exposed through means which you may not normally have (eg P/P, P/D, S/D, and S/P lacking poison).
If they were going to swap traits then Hidden thief makes sense since pretty much 15 SA and 25 SA build up on it far better and reliably than they do Last Refuge, but then thieves would complain about hidden thief being impossible to play around or some bullkitten like that.

Blimm.5028:

But this game definitely needs a gamemode which offers progression. Node defense mode is just boring to watch.

It’s boring to watch because scoring lacks impact.
1 point a second per node is a lame score system.
The highest visual tension has pretty much nothing to do with the node scoring system and instead points from boss/lord/player kills and orb runs.

Signet of toxic shock.
Passive: 20% condition duration
Active: Applies poison for 10s. If foe is already poisoned applies Toxic for 1s.
Cool down: kitten
Cast time 1.5s.

Create a new condi called Toxic. Does 2.5x condition damage.
With 1200 condi power its a 3k spike. Throw in might and sigil of corruption and you can get a nice burst. In that respect condi builds will lean to whittling down enemies to burst with Toxic shock.
Brb brought Gw1 into gw2.

P/P has no mobility which is odd for the mobility class. However that may be acceptable if it excelled at what it did enough to warrant the trade off for stealth and mobility.
S/P and SB make up for lack of stealth via mobility and evasion.

P/P could just excel at range murder to the point we can ignore it no longer.

As an idea making vital shot do extra damage to vulnerable foes. Synergizing with sundering strikes, body shot and CnD.
Drop body shot to 2 INI and the vulnerability increased to 3.5 seconds. Increase unload damage 20-30% but increase the initiative cost to 6.

With the purpose that unload is your finisher but you don’t rely on it due to high INI cost. General damage without unload goes up due to body shot and VS change. At 2 INI body shot is a lot more appealing and has synergy for BP and VS while the vuln sets up teammates your unload or a melee burst.
P/P would excel at scaring the kitten out of anybody it looks at but due to lack of defense be very easy to force out.
Might be to effective in PvE though.

Or they can put in Bombing run/reverse CTF.

I wouldn’t stop playing Smite Conquest for GW2 of it. They’re built on the premise and the mechanics of their skills lead to play satisfying for that format. GW2’s auto-aim, instant target mechanics would be frankly a step backwards. I won’t say MMO’s are too far removed from MOBA gameplay because they don’t feel that way, but precisely because of the similarity It’s better to just play an actual dedicated Moba.

Leuca.5732:

You could say the same thing about Shocking Aura/Frost aura, and they both have superior effects, with one having a much lower cd. Fire Shield just doesn’t cut it. I think it needs to be considerably stronger, and it also needs to be unique to the ele’s weapon. The leap finisher version needs to be weaker if it’s going to be so much more accessible.

Definitely but with D/F you only have two auras and S/F Fire shield is all you have. Like I said I think at a base level its pretty mediocre if you throw some traits on it however it’s just somewhat under par.

Buffing them to make them have amazing synergy would make Water much more worthwhile to attune into than for just heals; you wouldn’t feel like you were wasting the attunement if you went into it for the FG/Comet combo.

Well I dont feel like Water attunement is a waste when I use comet because I find comet useful. I do feel that Freezing gust is mediocre but Comet is a useful skill not for damage really but the utility works fine. It doing more damage to chilled foes would be an interesting ploy to give it a nostalgic one at that. Since for D/F that would mean Frozen burst into FG would work nicely.

At 50 second base cd it’s completely inferior to pretty much every stun/kd in the game. I think 40 seconds would be fine; it still wouldn’t be spammed and traited would bring it down to 32. I wouldn’t propose something like 30 seconds, because if you trait for reduction that would get ridiculous, but it needs to be less than Updraft, which has every advantage in the book but range right now. It’s aoe, applies a boon, and has a built in evade.

Im not going to look at things like that. I mean as a thief, Signet of Air > Signet of Shadows but it’s not a biggie. Gale does have a long CD, but it’s not really a precedent and it probably backfire in Eles face if they made changes all at once and then started nerfing random unrelated kitten afterwards. Fire attunement and FG need something.

Rerolling only makes sense if you like what you reroll to. Otherwise if you’re coping out what you enjoy for that purpose and you aren’t trying to make money from the game its better to just walk away until things are fixed.

But the same is true for weapon sets as well not just professions.

The PvE versions aren’t necessarily an issue 1) Due to the large amount of players
2) due to the large amount of NPC’s.
3) Doors.
WvW isn’t balanced but neither is Spvp outside of Food buffs things aren’t that far out of proportion given the scale.

Zerging exists in spvp as well just the reality and to that extent the same ideology for dealing with it in Spvp transfers.

I think for WvW focusing on whether it’s balanced or not is the wrong way to look at it. It doesn’t “have” to be. The main point is that players of notable individual and group skill exist on both sides of the table and it be silly to dismiss either.

However WvW is straight up less organized and Xom is frequently bringing up things not even related to WvW itself in his GvG discussion. It’s pretty much the same as talking about players in duel rooms/ CA as members of Spvp when they may or may not actually indulge in Conquest.

Anyone who wants to death match can grab a CA, and if it’s a big enough group even that doesn’t need a CA as there are enough empty servers to dogpile into one.

A single elim death match would be pretty lackluster
Not because Conquest is great or something, I don’t feel it is. However the length of time team any 5v5 or 8v8 team fight actually goes on for is rather small.
Annihilation might work but thats a big “might”.

Anyways I think you are under an illusion Xom. It’s one that frankly a lot of MMO’s have that just because there is choice that it’s meaningful choice. They could relax on the restrictions for gear however then again the specs would be min-maxed regardless.

I don’t know why you feel compelled to advertise WvW here. Everyone bought the game already if they want to play WvW they will if not they will not. If not for food buffs WvW is pretty much the same at it’s core once you gear up, it’s large scale conquest and you’ll find good and bad players on either side. “The most competitive players in WvW” is hyperbole and you can continue to preach it if you want but you’re discrediting yourself.

Puma you are talking to a wall.

Leuca.5732:

ensoriki.5789:

Focus is fun to play.
If I had a priority list of things to look at on focus it be
1. Flame wall
2. Freezing gust
3. Fire shield
4. Gale.
Fire shield and gale to me are pretty much fine, they may need nothing to them or just a CD drop. Something is wrong with Flame wall that skill may just need to be reworked or replaced.
However for the idea of salvaging it they could increase the duration of the burn to say 1.5s base, and double the current power damage. That might bear fruit.
One thing I’ve been toying with in my head is Flame wall not doing damage but instead healing allies with a high base but low scaling.

Flame Wall should do heavy damage upon crossing imo, akin to the great effects you see from Spectral Wall and the like. Because its actual area covered is small, you could give it a very high number (way more than double what it is now) and it still would pretty much serve as area denial or a single packet of damage off of Gale. I think the fact that it lasts so long (easy finishers) is enough of a team utility aspect, but perhaps you could have it apply a random boon upon crossing with an internal CD of 4-5 seconds so you can only receive that benefit two times max.

I think similarly however I feel double with a burning duration increase is a “safe” bet.

I disagree with your point about Fire Shield. The elementalist has no motive to take the hits required for it to stack any substantial might and the burning is negligible. I think it should also be a punishing skill that damages attackers (like retaliation) but is like other auras in that it cannot be removed. This gives it a defense-into-offense feel and keeps the theme of the focus true. All an attacker has to do is not hit you with multi-packet attacks or simply stop attacking for a few seconds to avoid the damage. Think of how fun that would be against Hundred Blades, especially with warriors being so annoying to punish nowadays; you could deal significant damage even when stunned. I think this would justify the longer CD it has. (though it could still be reduced from a 40 second recharge)

The reason I support Fire shield is Elemental Shielding. With it Fire shield is an easy source of Protection and becomes a nice defensive buff but the CD can be fairly tough for that purpose. Untraited yeah Fire shield isn’t all that but I like that Protection play.

The problem with Freezing Gust/Comet is that they have no real synergy with each other. I mentioned in another thread how I thought the damage on both could be upped very slightly. Then you make Freezing Gust affect foes adjacent to your target as well and add an effect to Comet that makes it stun chilled foes.

Mmmm don’t see their connection to each other as a problem atm. It’s more that I land comet im wailing on them with dagger 1 or scepter 1, hit freezing gust and it’s just underwhelming of it’s own accord, nothing with Comet. Even then Freezing gust to some extent makes comet/Dragon’s tooth/burning speed easier to land. It’s like you tap into water land your comet and then boom got no damage. Tbh I think it should be almost a water attunement version of Fire grab. Does extra damage to (already) chilled enemies . Which helps D/F get in some extra damage naturallyand lets S/F capitalize on that through speccing.

Gale just needs a recharge reduction. It’s otherwise a great skill but necessitating Aeromancer’s Alacrity just to make the recharge bearable is really not an ideal situation.

See the thing is to me between Flame wall (primarily) and freezing gust it may not. Those two skills being improved may boost the performance enough that it’s no biggie for it to stay as it is.

Focus is fun to play.
If I had a priority list of things to look at on focus it be
1. Flame wall
2. Freezing gust
3. Fire shield
4. Gale.
Fire shield and gale to me are pretty much fine, they may need nothing to them or just a CD drop. Something is wrong with Flame wall that skill may just need to be reworked or replaced.
However for the idea of salvaging it they could increase the duration of the burn to say 1.5s base, and double the current power damage. That might bear fruit.
One thing I’ve been toying with in my head is Flame wall not doing damage but instead healing allies with a high base but low scaling.

Let’s not and say we did.

Talking about how it works.

All classes need not be the same.

Leave SoM as it is.
The concept would however be interesting as a Venom heal when they include additional skills.

Maugetarr.6823:

What’s funny to me is they now want to nerf fs/ls when they created the spam in the first place. Looking at it:
AA remains unchanged

IS was nerfed for both the range and stunbreak, so its better to not get hit in the current meta than to react to getting hit

FS/LS buffed to track properly and steal the boons from its first iteration. Initiative cost increased to compensate, but still decent

DD huge damage nerf across the board, slow moving, and (lately) easily obstructed on flat ground

C&D damage reduced significantly in PvP

TS daze duration shortened in PvP which doesn’t make sense anymore considering the control capabilities of the other classes in the current meta

Revealed duration at 4 seconds instead of 3 further reducing survivability and also effectiveness of TS.

Its weird to me that the nerf the damage, survivability , and control of the rest of the weaponset and then complain that thieves use the remaining unnerfed ability excessively. S/D in WvW doesn’t play the same at all where some of the other skills still deal decent damage and have decent control. Maybe before they nerf FS/LS in whatever capacity they are thinking of, they should revert some of their previous changes and see what happens.

Basically this. They’ve nerfed everything on S/D except1 and 3 which they fed steroids. Naturally those are going to be your most used abilities when everything else has fallen to the wayside. Brb throwing an inf strike nerf to hurt S/P due to your overbuff. That being said Tacticals still dazes for 2s as it always has they made it impossible to daze for 3 which shouldn’t of been as big a problem as it was but given the DD and CnD nerfs I suppose it was too much nerf all at once…

Had a good time with 30 trick in January to March (then haste nerf).
Still feels good to me, Shadowstep, Refuge, haste; haste is certainly ditchable but I prefer to ditch refuge if Im doing so.

Dagger/Focus is probably the least played Ele set. I can’t even recall seeing it. I’ve seen everything but it, but no one cares apparently to say anything about it.
Must be OP.

Decklan.7540:

I am glad people agree with me here. Everytime I see, this is imba, this is too OP, this is that, it’s generally from the spvp crowd. And I know I am casting a broad stroke here, but if they want things to be truly equal, maybe they should force spvpers to work just as hard to get gear, work just as kitten the new crafting cap to get ascended weapons, and work just as hard to farm mats to stay competitive…then let’s see how eager they will be to ask for nerfs for a specific class/build.

10/11 months ago I gathered all my exotics only for the ascended bullkitten to come out.
Pardon me if I don’t feel any inclination to play PvE all day after previous efforts were invalidated at the QQ of lack of progression some players who have probably never touched foot in the game again after 8 months gave.

Having said that my gear still gets updated ocassionally.
So in that regard I meet the horsekitten qualifications you desire of having spent time to gear. They still need to do balance.
Mind you it is not actually hard or work, gearing up in GW2 is pretty kitten easy (as it should be) it’s just time-gated and somewhat tedious.
Though given the money I’ve thrown at this game previously I’d find any notion that I need to “work just as hard” ridiculous.

Spvp balance isn’t the reason conditions have an issue in PvE.

What happened to shaving?
If there is an indication that previous numbers of Healing Signet were not adequete and current are too much. Then there should be a number between those two values that works just fine.

The December Patch possibly earlier then that.
In terms of base simplification.
However GW2 was an odd fit for “esports” before it even got out of Beta.
There was so much RNG in just pre beta-interviews most didn’t see it like that.
It’s like Tripping in Brawl, only weaved into nearly every area of the game. GW2 is best at being some light fun, the seriousness it takes itself is semi-ridiculous given what it keeps and disappointing given what it wont add.

Craving for a sort of reverse-CTF/bombing run/touchdown mode.

Mesmers have been playing Berzerker specs for the past kittening 12 months. Being a dominant force for the majority of the year. They had to overbuff the kitten out of other professions to actually decrease the mesmer presence because it is that strong.

Burning Speed is the best designed attack in the game.

“Too much spam so lets remove roots on skills so the idea of punishment which is preventing spam diminishes and we can spam more effectively. Two months later I may complain about increased spam in game”

Gonna follow up with Blurred Frenzy, Pistol whip and Zealot’s Defense.

You don’t need mana to make people stop “spamming” skills.
Dragon’s, Eruption, and Mantra’s for instance have enough of an opportunity cost that just spamming them doesn’t give you benefit.

You can’t interrupt Withdraw either or be hit during it.
I aint even mad.

Why would spirits have to be any more active than banners? They in practice always have been but mind you for what? Then again you didn’t make them more active, you made it more efficient at using it’s skill.

Meh didn’t find Rangers that “over the top” to begin with, but felt something should be changed. Dont know how I feel about this, Might drive them into the ground or may not. In some circumstances the lower CD itself can be considered a buff, in another a hassle or nerf.
Spirits were and are really easy to blow up, not that they needed to be hardier in that spec, they were certainly hardy enough however because of the threats of things like Necro, war and Engi’s as well, smashing the ranger became a problem with that kind of pressure. Ele, thief, mes, Guardian and another ranger were a lot more “ignorable”.
Now I’ll probably have to see RaO rangers lurking again and I hate that elite, srs.
Ideally it’s still in use, because rather that and traps then BM.

Still think Base spirit range is too low (but its fine for spirit unbound range).

Manijin.3428:

I actually predict that a few rangers will stop taking the “Spirits move with you” trait for something else, and just start planting them in locations where they are less likely to get killed by AoE and trigger that cooldown, which is GREAT, allowing rangers to setup in interesting ways without giving away the nature of their build.

This doesn’t work because spirit range is not large enough which I’ve mentioned in the past. Part of the reason warriors drop banners on a point is for optimal coverage where you need it. For a spirit to do the same it always has to be in danger due to the range.

If the majority gave half a rats kitten about your wall of text explanation they would be in solo que instead of hot-join. The reality is most just want to fight, for those who don’t mind dropping in a que, Hot-join fills the void of just waiting (if you dont want to pve) or if you just want a quick game or two but don’t want to commit yourself you can pop in and out at your discretion.

I used to think it should go, now I feel it is one of the more…ergonomic(?) features in GW2.

1. Delete necro,warrior, mesmer, guardian, and ranger.
2. Delete Tpvp, Solo que and hotjoin
3. Fox only
4. No items
5. Final destination.
—————-

~ Would like to see a dishonor system trigger faster but last less time.
~ Adding chat macros? (would this be hard outside of UI?)
~ The mist to count as a pvp zone.
~ A Confirmation check when que is ready.
~ exp gain in Mists.

In on multi-page thread.

Connor Wilson.1964:

oh ok thanks pal! i think im sorted mostly lol btw when i get on the game whats fastest way to lvl ? like questing/grind tbh if grind is faster thats better lol because i like solo grinding

For PvP you’re automatically able to get the gear you need and are scaled up so you dont have to worry about levels. It’s a “skill based” format.
WvW you’ll need to get gear and level.
To Level up you can a) play WvW capturing objectives will give sizeable exp. You’ll find a guild to join quite easy and help coax you in b) Follow your personal story while completing events and Heart quests. Maxing out map achievements will give you additional rewards and experience.
If you chose to craft you’ll get exp for doing that as well, and if you are in a rush you can buy gems with IRL cash and convert it to gold using that to buy crafting materials and speed level that way.

Go to Desolation if you want a pvp community in the heart of the mists.

Connor Wilson.1964:

thanks ensoriki . but still not answered my question … duels and 1v1 arenas are there?

You can duel players inside of hot-join/custom arena. While 1v1 encounters are fairly common, no specific area of the game is dedicated to solely 1v1.

Connor Wilson.1964:

mmm what about theif? looks good and you can use pistol to looks fun this is best?
although theif is the only class i seen – youtube lol

Like I said thief, ele, engi. Those are your options or you are terrorist. Don’t listen to them about this Ranger stuff. Ranger is a terrorist.
I remain fixed that P/x thief sets are underwhelming I’d even include D/D in there as well. Outside of that solid stuff.

Thief, Ele or Engi.
Everything else is for terrorists and you aren’t one of those are you?

I had given my feedback in the thread…now disappointed.
~ Devs are capable of faster update frequencies relating to balance at least as shown at Dhuumfire pax change.
~ Weapon set issues take far too long to resolve relative to when Anets aware of them. P/P issues addressed by Peters himself and when the pistol change did little, nothing was seen for many months. S/D Tactical -> April change as another time gap. Dancing daggers > 3 ini change another huge gap. Quickness changes “felt” slow but in reality Anet actually did follow up on trying to improve those skills relatively fast compared to what they normally do. They didn’t get it where they wanted it at first either they had to go back at durations and consequences which is fine because they were at least actively changing it.

tl;dr. The game may be complicated and sure it may be difficult to prop in features in a time fashion we would like but “smaller” tweaks like the skills themself, the team is capable of doing with greater frequency even if the buffs and nerfs to those effects are small.

You know a change like skill changed 5%, then two weeks later, skill damage increased 3% shows to me that they’re actively working on something being better, but taking a cautious approach. Doing nothing or basically doing one chunk and then another month just feels slow, and it’s not effective to me.
If there is a bunch of things you can’t change (large feature release time) can at least do the “small” stuff.

Scare you for what. When S/D was nerfed PvE and WvW were barely affected. Tactical strike is still 2 seconds in those modes for instance and CnD is still at a higher damage.
The only players who should be worried for S/D are Spvp players.

Mesmers don’t need any buffs outside of what every class wants, increased diversity of available options. However the “norm” for them is fine and will pop back in when some other threats come down a tad.

I don’t see feel any reason to turn P/P into a condition heavy spec and certainly dont think body shot should be a blast finisher. There should be a divide between /D and /P throwing more stealth on /P sets such as in the case of D/P only serves to marginalize the /D offhand further. Nor do I think it’s necessary given S/P and SB are better sets despite also lacking stealth.

The 3 suggestion is an interesting iwarlock direction.