Guild Wars 2

Seriously after the patch every singe thief i saw is ether spaming vault and dodge or unload and dodge or pistol whip and dodge or death blosom and dodge. Wtf is this kitten thief is reduced to a 1 button spam class, is this due to poor design, poor balance or something else?
I wish they changed the weapon skills to be more like the gw1 assassin chain skills, something like your weapon skill 5 costs the same initiative as it does now but it costs an additional 3 ini if you do not use a weapon skill 2 before it or a utility skill (or something like that). Put some similar requirements on skill 3 (doesn’t have to be increased ini cost can be something like ’do a evasive maneuver over your target inflicting bleeding for 5 sec and striking nearby foe. Bleeding duration is doubled if you used the weapon skill 4 before using this skill.) anything just to turn thieves away from being a 1 button mash fest.

Ether rework this skill or just leave a blank slot in its place. After the patch there has been a resurface of the d/d condi thief build (odd since this particular build got absolutely no changes), and while i have no problem with thieves playing condi i do take a issue with a build that only spams the number 3 weapon skill and the dodge key.
It is not fun to play it is not fun to play against it looks kittened and it is a testimony of poor skill design, i mean ask yourself this: is something wrong with a weapon set and a build that only ever uses 1 out of 5 skills? It is an abomination do something about it!!!

Johnsen.6253:

Why? What did change that makes power nekro viable again?

They put in a good amulet that synergies with death magic and gives you a ton of armor making you not squishy, they buffed chill of death by 40% if it lands on 3 boons (which it always will with all the boon spam).
Power necro was never bad it was just not as good as the facerole chill reaper, and reaper just got a hard nerfing.

If i were a dev i would change it to: whenever you strike a chilled foe you apply 1 stack of torment for 5 sec (1 sec icd per target)

Basically making it so that picking up this trait means your targets will always have torment on them.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndWjc0QtN2XD+0AHOOwFKYbGAHgsH66wmeGtxzC-TZBFwALeAAy3fo9JAQwhAAwRAAA
Something like this with the new demolisher amulet, you have 2.7k armor with corrupter stack up and do ~4k dmg per life blast. Axe is good for stacking corrupter buff and so is unyielding blast but the weapons and traits are flexible the main thing you really need is deathly strenght and demolisher amulet, rest of the traits can be anything.

there is a bad bug with signets that give stats such as signet of stone or signet of agility ect. Basically after you use a signet and it recharges it will not give the passive stat boost that it should (it gives nothing).

I tested it with signet of stone, agility and assassin’s, plz fix this fast.
Also lots of qol changes to clunky skills and the new amulets are awsom i like the patch o/ *high five the devs.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So, on one hand I’m pleased to see the buff to the lord.

On the other, this also sort of implies that the HoT power creep isn’t going away. Which I’m not pleased about. Sort of squashes the hope that they might still bring elite specs in line.

Idk the way i see it, also considering the ranger sword auto attack change that they tweeted, is that they are listening to the player base because both of thees things are something that was brought up by the players (and believe me i have been making post for sword change for like a year now).
So they might bring elites more in line, we shall see.

Finally the pushover lord is getting a downed state, now it will no longer be a indefensible rush that wins the game at 350. Now a ranger with s&r or a thief with impact strikes will be the clutch players at defending and killing lords.

https://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/722047553135583232

Here is a tip for you: look at the kitten mini map!

Way to many players just zerg mid (especially on legacy) and do not rotate to stop a decap or to get a free cap on far. Watching the mini map is key to outrotating your opponents but players as high as diamond seem to have a blind spot on theirs for some reason.

‘What could be changed to improve balance’
-delete elite specializations from the game. Instant reduction in aoe, sustain, passive bullkitten, and other op crap that was put in to make ppl buy HoT.

Wait for the april quarterly ‘balance’ update before you do anything. I do not own HoT (got gw2 ~2 months after it launched) and i still got in to the diamond division with ranger so you can hit legend without the op elite specialization but it takes double the effort.

For whatever my opinion is worth i will not buy HoT any time soon because of the way they treat balance and because the broken promises they made. When anet show signs of changing those things i will change my stance on HoT, but you decide for yourself.

Salamander.2504:

As mentioned above, one major problem I see is that it prevents chronomancers from running condition builds. Other than that, it is a cool idea.

So instead you play a condi mesmer with the illusions elite specialization i don’t see a problem. The idea is to have both the HoT and the ‘vanila’ elite specs equal in power the only legitimate issue would be that there are some builds that would get deleted because you need to slot in 1 of the 2 elite specs (such as a fire air water ele but lets not kid our ourselves, this would not make a impact as there is 0 build diversity now).

How can a warrior be disciplined and be a berzerker at the same time? Makes no sense thematically. Anyway it would make the most sense if all elite specializations replaced class mechanics like they do with the guardian virtues or necro death shroud. This way it would not be a bland upgrade like it is with mesmer where you get a f5 and loose nothing, lets say if you slot in chronomancer you loose distortion shatter but get the continium split.

also this:

What if the trait line that enhances your profession mechanic was turned in to a elite specialization (discipline, trickery, soul reaping, beast mastery, illusions, tools, invocation, virtues, arcane). This way they can giving us some build diversity (before another expansion), you ether stick with the vanila elite specs (and therefor the base class name) and 2 other core ones or the HoT elite spec (and change to the different class name) and 2 other core ones.
Of course there would have to be some rebalancing done to make the ‘new’ vanila elite competitive in power to the HoT elite, but we can all agree that the game is in need of balance as is so it woild not be a big deal.

The reason i bring this idea up is because thees specializations are used in almost every build anyway (most warrior builds take discipline, every thief pick trickery, every guardian build pick up virtues, infact only mesmer, engineer and ele do not pick theirs currently) and by making them elite the players would be forced in to a choice, and non HoT players will have access to a competitive build. This is assuming they balance them according to the power level of HoT elite specs, and every future elite spec.

‘’we updated the xyz skil tooltip to reflect the correct value of damage’’
‘’we reduced the coefficient of xyz by 0.0001’’
‘’we reduced the base damage of reaper chill trait by 2’’

I expect insignificant ‘patches’ like thees, don’t get your hopes up if they had some exciting and significant update they would probably be ecstatic to share it with the community for both feedback and to show us that they care.

style.6173:

All elite specs need a nerf. Some of them, like warrior and thief, just need less of a nerf.

This sums up all possible discussions to this thread, anyone who played the game a decent amount will agree that all of the elite opilazations need nerfs. Problem is the devs will not do any significant balance changes, as they have repeatedly proven over the years, hell they do not even have a dedicated balance team. Just accept the fact that gw2 pvp and esports is a joke and move on.

I am still advocating this solution

What if the trait line that enhances your profession mechanic was turned in to a elite specialization (discipline, trickery, soul reaping, beast mastery, illusions, tools, invocation, virtues, arcane). This way they can giving us some build diversity (before another expansion), you ether stick with the vanila elite specs (and therefor the base class name) and 2 other core ones or the HoT elite spec (and change to the different class name) and 2 other core ones.
Of course there would have to be some rebalancing done to make the ‘new’ vanila elite competitive in power to the HoT elite, but we can all agree that the game is in need of balance as is so it woild not be a big deal.

The reason i bring this idea up is because thees specializations are used in almost every build anyway (most warrior builds take discipline, every thief pick trickery, every guardian build pick up virtues, infact only mesmer, engineer and ele do not pick theirs currently) and by making them elite the players would be forced in to a choice, and non HoT players will have access to a competitive build. This is assuming they balance them according to the power level of HoT elite specs, and every future elite spec.

Honestly i login every now and then just to flip items on the trading post and pick up gold, when i actually force myself to play some pvp more often than not i rage quit mid game (aoe cc spam and brain dead passives will do that to you after a while). Honestly at this point i find it hard to care about gw2 and the decisions the team makes with the game, if they suddenly decided to put up a monthly sub fee i would not care.

Also i fully expect the ‘big’ quarterly patch to be a bunch of tool tip corrections and a nerf to scrapper: "we reduced the damage of the last hit on the hammer auto chain by 5’’, seams in line with anet patch policy.

Cynz.9437:

Been saying it since beta tbh. Elites are OVERTUNED for the sake of sales. They don’t care that people leave game later because game is so broken and very boring due to low amount of builds available (the elites are pretty much shoved down your throat and even if you go hipster and play core spec you will be forced to reroll elite eventually since elites from other classes are just stupidly broken).

Well that may have been the case but they did change game directors recently, so maybe they will also change their stance on the mater too? I mean if you make something op for the sake of sales there is no reason (it is even bad for the game) to keep it broken for a long time after the initial release (even when games like league release a new champion and make it op to drive sales they eventually nerf it down to normal).
After all people have done a 5 man vale guardian kill and a no updraft gorseval kill both of those before the enrage timers ticked to 0, so the raids will not suddenly become impossible to complete unless you play gw without a mouse or something.

Tman.6349:

The “REAL” question is exactly ‘how to balance ’Elite Specs’ with/against ‘Core’?’
Fortunately, the answer was already expressed long ago (by myself and others;even before HoT). There should have never been ‘elite specs’ in the way they exist now. They should have been balanced specs. If you want to introduce some new specs to cover some profession weaknesses, then that’s fine. Great even. The problem comes when you make several ‘elite specs’ that synergize SO WELL with the ‘profession mechanics’ (5th) line that it’s hard to do w/o them. The 5th lines should have been turned into an ‘elite spec’ too and then both be balanced accordingly (and exclusive, as well, of course). Nearly all of the current powercreep is a result of taking advantage of the fact that you can dedicate two entire traitlines to building your profession mechanic to be more ridiculously powerful than ever (with only a couple of exceptions…sorz Eles). This is only how/why the “HoT is P2W” threads ever came about. It was destined to be unbalanced from the beginning…

This is exactly the thing i suggested a month ago:

What if the trait line that enhances your profession mechanic was turned in to a elite specialization (discipline, trickery, soul reaping, beast mastery, illusions, tools, invocation, virtues, arcane). This way they can giving us some build diversity (before another expansion), you ether stick with the vanila elite specs (and therefor the base class name) and 2 other core ones or the HoT elite spec (and change to the different class name) and 2 other core ones.
Of course there would have to be some rebalancing done to make the ‘new’ vanila elite competitive in power to the HoT elite, but we can all agree that the game is in need of balance as is so it woild not be a big deal.

The reason i bring this idea up is because thees specializations are used in almost every build anyway (most warrior builds take discipline, every thief pick trickery, every guardian build pick up virtues, infact only mesmer, engineer and ele do not pick theirs currently) and by making them elite the players would be forced in to a choice, and non HoT players will have access to a competitive build. This is assuming they balance them according to the power level of HoT elite specs, and every future elite spec.

From a pvp point of view this to me seams like one of the best ways to narrow the gap between people who have HoT and those that do not, as well as force players in to an actual choice when making a build. Right now we have the celestial equivalent of traits, you always slot it in no matter what just like most builds used celestial amulet even if they only utilized 4/7 stats.

Salamander.2504:

Don’t buff thieves.

Don’t buff guardians.

Don’t buff anything.

I think I speak for the entire community when I say that the consensus is to *nerf the elite specs already. Bring them in line with the core specs.

yes YES YES anet needs to do the thing that they said they want to do and make elite specializations serve as ways to enable classes to fill and play roles that they otherwise cannot, not make them stupid op auto include in every build.

The best thing they can do is not buff anything, nerf elites (as you said while considering how classes interact with each other), and then buff/rework skills and traits that are underpreforming in a different patch since they cannot fix everything in 1 go without making more issues. Also they need to stop ‘shaking up the meta’ like they did for s1 and s2 as an excuse to hide the poor class balance (if a class is garbage in one season ‘shake up the meta’ so in the next it is op to shut up the players of that class).

Here are some balance ideas:
-nerf elite specializations
-nerf elite specializations
-nerf elite specializations
-did i mention elite specializations need a nerf?

In all seriousness op’s suggestions are more or less dead on.
In case of the ranger/druid perhaps nerf the base healing of astral skills but increase the scaling so that you cannot play a marauder that can heal ppl from 1% to 100%.
Another thing that they could address regarding rangers are the pets, not so much balance but the pathing and some skills that almost always miss such as the drake breath f2 skills (that by the way work the exact same way as the bristilback f2 and that got a update so that the bristilback can rotate while channeling his f2 so now it can actually hit player that slightly sidestep, why not do the same for drake’s f2?).

Scrapper hammer skills need a few nerfs, i think making the block not do damage but inflict vuln and cripple with each pulls would be a fair change (just for a comparison imagine if net shot on rifle did 2 sec immobilize and did 600 dmg per sec to the target, because that’s what the hammer shield feels like).
In fact what if dh’s virtue block, scrapper hammer, and revenant staff block only blocked attack that hit the character from the front. It would make them in to skills that require situational awareness not just things you spam off cd or would that be too much of a nerf?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA1CiNsA+sActgBGhiD3vNA6xdDyg/JKhU/ij9kC-TpRBABA8AACa/h4LD8wFAgvDBAHHBAA

I also do not have HoT and i got to diamond (last season as well) with the build. I can probably hit legend if i play more.

Also metabattle is a terrible place to look for non hot facerole builds that play themselves. There are allot of perfectly functional HoT and core builds that, although not meta, can still work well enough to win games and not be a liability.
Metabattle mostly post builds that show up in tournaments and pople fail to realize that some of them are not very good in solo queue with randoms that do not rotate properly or support you.

Why do you not take quick draw when slotting in skirmishing? It is one of the top 3 best non druid traits we have especially good in power builds, yet it looks like ppl ignore it on purpose.

I do not have HoT and i am in diamond with his build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA1CiNsA+sActgBGhiD3vNA6xdDyg/JKhU/ij9kC-TpRBABA8AACa/h4LD8wFAgvDBAHHBAA (you can swap in rune of the soldier for shout condi clear, but i prefer more toughness and melandru also helps vs condis)

and am fairly sure i can get to legend if i sink enough time in to pvp (which i did not since pvp is not much fun when you fight the same 3 classes with the exact same build over and over again).

I wouldn’t get my hopes up for any big changes regarding class balance, especially not with elite specs since it is highly likely they were made op on purpose (gotta get those sales in). Most you can expect given the track record is a bunch of small number adjustments.
Also they just disband the team working on legendary weapons, do you really think they will spare a team for a lobby rework? The only thing that might get an improvement is the matchmaking but thees other things you pointed i can wager on not happening.

Turn off chat and just leave on the damage tracker option thing. Thees days 8/10 matches no one tries to strategize or says anything related to the match anyway. And why would they all you need to do in order to win/have a chance is slot in your class’s elite spec and spam aoe on points, gg wp you can now reach legend.

Deniara Devious.3948:

1. Each well-rounded skill should do one thing well e.g. damage, utility or defense, maximum 2 from that list and that should be countered with heavy cost (mana, energy, sacrificing own life force etc) and/or long cooldown. E.g. a well-rounded defense skill only provides defenses and does no damage or does very little damage and offers no utility. If skill does two things well at same time it should never have a relatively cheap cost or cooldown.

While reading this open a new tab go to the wiki and stare at the scrapper hammer skills. They all completely ignore this step. Infact most of the elite spec weapons ignore this step. What was anet thinking?

Removing more amulets will do nothing for the game, what needs to happen is actual class balance nerfs buffs whatever it takes to bring things in line. If you remove mercenary then whoever used it will just swap to wanderer or carrion, remove that and next up is rabid, and then probably sage or something. Amulets are not op, traits and skills are (elite specializations in particular).

Why was op infracted for this thread? It might be a kittenaotic and lots of posts with censor kittens but no one said anything wrong.

edit why is the word chao_tic censored?

TheLargeUnit.2793:

2) This brings us to point number two. Shaving numbers off the elite specs is the single largest requirement for a balanced environment. Not only has this imbalance between core and elite specs caused countless complaints both on the forums and ingam. Nerf EVERY elite specialization until they are in line with the core specs.

But if they do that then they hurt HoT sales as the broken elite specs were the main reason for allot of pvp players to get the expansion. The way things are you can expect the next expansion to bring even more op elites.

Tim.6450:

The reason is that for the elite spec to be on the level it has to be the 3~4 stongest trait line (so much for being elite) and every utility/healing/weapon/elite skill of the spec has to be weakened dratstically to the point of not being used because the added vertical progression created by the horizontal progression.

This has been said a million times now, elite specs are not suppose to be stronger than the core ones (that was said by the former game director on the HoT announcement event) but merely open up new play styles to classes. The phrase elite in this cases is to do with the fact you can only have one slotted when they put more than one per class, it has nothing to do with the power of them (or that was what we were told).

The added utility skills and weapons will have nothing to do with the strength of the elites if they are balanced accordingly (look at the scraper hammer every single skill is overloaded with utility for no reason other than more HoT sales) the main offenders are the augmented class mechanics. Problem is they are straight up upgrades to the core class (chronomancer is the most obvious in this regard) and if they actually replace the class mechanic the replacement is more powerful than the original (dragon hunter is the best example here, you may argue you give up some team support with the new virtues but you have to consider just how absurd the new ones are, just compare Shield of Courage and Virtue of Courage there is no comparison).

Shovel Face.4512:

Just wanted to say that 2 players going far is not a bad rotation but a L2P issue on your part, assuming you and the other player went to go mid. If there are 2 players going far, you have 4 options. 1. You go help defend home. 2. You go to far to help as they will realize you all went to their close. Or 3. You stay in mid but as soon as you get pressured, you HAVE to bail mid and LIVE. And of course there is the option where you run into a 4v2 in mid and both of you die. Of the 4 options, 1. And 2. are good calls.

Did i ever say that is was a bad rotation? i never mentioned 2 players going far at the start what i said that one necro decided it was a good idea to go far at the start. A necro the slowest class in game with 0 life force (he did not sacrifice flesh worm at the start or use a spectral skill with the trait to get lf) and then proceed to die there.

Looks like you have a l2r issue, lean to read.

*bring elite specializations in line with the core ones or

*make the trait line that enhances the profession mechanic a elite specialization (discipline, trickery, soul reaping, ect). This way you create build diversity (before another expansion)and enable non HoT owners to make competitive builds because they now have access to a elite spec. You ether stick with the vanila elite specs (and therefor the base class name) and 2 other core ones or the HoT elite spec (and change to the different class name) and 2 other core ones. This rout would mean that elite specs are stronger than the core ones (like they are now) but it would be ok because everyone will have access to one.

*repurpose the underwater weapon test area in hotm and make it a dueling ground so that ppl have something to do while queuing.

*give us more options when it comes to stats (amulets). Ether introduce more amulets (1050power1050precision560ferocity560tougness plz) or introduce a system that allows players to select a amulet type and stats, i shall now elaborate:
You start by picking ether a 3 stat or 4 stat amulet and then pick what stats you want for the major slot(s) and the minor slots.
but the 1200 and 1050 point major slots cannot be vitality, toughness, concentration or expertise and you cannot slot in more than 2 defensive stats (vitality toughness healing power and concentration are to be considered as defensive stats).

*nerf the passive ‘i ignore a cc/i cc you back’ traits for all classes (eye for an eye, shared anguish, hard to catch, last stand, reaper’s protection, mirror of anguish, ect).

*nerf the boon spam of all classes; boons were suppose to be buffs that provide immediate advantage for a short/modest time period (protection and retaliation are perfect examples), not something you have up 24/7.

*buff revenants ventari and jalis personalities and nerf shiro and the staff skill 5 as it alone can shred 3+ stacks of stability in less than a sec. No one skill should do that unless it is a boon steal or corruption.

*other class specific stuff than i am to lazy to write because i have no faith a dev working on balance will read any of this.

I sometimes go afk when a match is a certain loss with a score of 300- <50 or something like that (unless the map is legacy because anything is possible on that broken kitten of a map). There are games where ending (loosing) in order to save time is the only option left because it reached a point where it is unwinnable, and because we do not have a /resign function afk is the way to do it.

Now there are many reasons why a match goes to a state of unwinnablnes (is this even a word?), but from what i can tell it is most often because a team has bad rotations (had one game where at the start a necro went far) or because teammates do not know how to play against certain builds.
Dh with trap spam is the most qq’ed about spec, but it is so easy to outmaneuver that it is baffling how during a match ppl keep dying to it repeatedly.
It is understandable If you die to traps in the middle of a team fight to an enemy dh that+1s it with a blink and traps the point, as you did not see it coming due to lots of skill effects making it difficult to spot him blink in and place traps. But when ppl run to a point where a lone dh is stood and then just walk in to traps and get instagibed i just facepalm. Thees are the type of games that end up as blowouts and where you might as well go afk when you see that your team has 0 chance.

Agree with everything you said, but it is also true for pretty much all classes. You pick the spec no matter what especially in pvp because they are stronger that the core ones (this is most obvious in reaper scraper and chronomancer).
Instead of making elites open up new play styles to classes, which they do for some, they made them a strait up upgrade to most classes which is not what they said they wanted for them when they revealed the plan for HoT and character progress.

What needs to happen is a nerf to almost all elites across the board (or a buff to the cores but we do not need more power creep), or a more drastic change where the class mechanic trait line (beast mastery in case of ranger) is made a elite specialization and brought up to the level of the hot elite specs. This way you would have to make a choice when making a build (because allot of classes take their mechanic buffing trait line and the elite), and non hot owners would have access to a elite spec and will be able to make a competitive build for pvp.

But honestly what i expect form anet at this point is that they introduce a second wave of elites with another expansion, and they end up more powerful than the current ones to drive sales for some reason.

Wolfey.3407:

I can see this becoming a “well we lost mid at the start… everyone forfeit so we can get into the next game” rinse and repeat till you win the mid fight and have a lead.

Simple solution would be to enable the /resign function a couple of minutes in to a game, lets say 3 or when the enemy team reaches a certain score. This way ppl will not be motivated to resign out of the gate, and the function becomes available just about when you see whether or not a match is a doomed blow out.

Implement this just like in gw1. If within 30 sec every team member types /resign the game ends and the other team wins regardless of the score.

To many games are over 2 min in to a match and it is absolutely pointless to try and make a comeback because it is impossible 90% of the time. So why not give us the option to just move on to the next game when it is clear you will not win or even come close to wining.

briggah.7910:

matches are not that bad

They are, 90% of them are games like this one. In this particular case the other team was clearly new to the game and they just roled with builds that are on meta battle not knowing how to deal with a opposing team with 3 necros 1 scraper and 1 ele (they had 2 scrapers 1 burn guardian and idk the other 2 classes i did not see them because i was defending home the whole game).
At the end of the game 4 out of 5 of them had 0 points meaning they were not able to contribute to their team at all (i am surprised no one went afk).

Now the question is why did the matchmaking make totally new pvp players face veterans? I know my teammates got got high up on the ladder last season judging by the way they played and the fact that they discussed strategy before the match started and i got diamond t3 last season solo without elite specializations, so why were we matched against players who cannot out rotate us when we have 3 of the slowest class in the game??

1050 power
1050 precision
560 toughness
560 ferocity

I want this, because the only viable amulet with ferocity is marauder and this would be a good alternative for classes with medium and high base hp.

Or anet can expand the system and let us select stats on amulets or at the very least bring back the jewel, 1 item that holds all tats is way to restrictive on builds.

Yup every game is a blow out, the team i am on wins 500-<100 or we loose by the same score. The fact that every mach is plagued by at least 2 reapers and or scrapers does not help ether (last game the other team had 3 reapers and the game before that had 4).

Balance is a joke and elite specializations are still stronger than core ones. This is where i remind you that the game director said (during the HoT reveal) that elite specializations are not going to be more powerful that the core ones, that they are merely going to open up new play styles to classes. I guess they decided in order to drive HoT sales they better make elites crazy broken.

I think i am going to push gw2 in to my ‘stuff that i may come back to’ folder and occupy my time with some other game, team fortress never gets old.

No one else has anything to say about this idea? It would be a big change and would force players to make a decision rather than just slot in the hot elite spec and 2 other whatevers.
Maybe i should move the post to the general section.

What if the trait line that enhances your profession mechanic was turned in to a elite specialization (discipline, trickery, soul reaping, beast mastery, illusions, tools, invocation, virtues, arcane). This way they can giving us some build diversity (before another expansion), you ether stick with the vanila elite specs (and therefor the base class name) and 2 other core ones or the HoT elite spec (and change to the different class name) and 2 other core ones.
Of course there would have to be some rebalancing done to make the ‘new’ vanila elite competitive in power to the HoT elite, but we can all agree that the game is in need of balance as is so it woild not be a big deal.

The reason i bring this idea up is because thees specializations are used in almost every build anyway (most warrior builds take discipline, every thief pick trickery, every guardian build pick up virtues, infact only mesmer, engineer and ele do not pick theirs currently) and by making them elite the players would be forced in to a choice, and non HoT players will have access to a competitive build. This is assuming they balance them according to the power level of HoT elite specs, and every future elite spec.

There would be a difference between the vanila elite spec and the Hot one, namely the association of a weapon and skills to a trait line but besides that the vanila elite would bolster your class mechanic while the Hot one (and every future one) would augment it to be something different (reaper is the best example of this).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8XjEqQLL2wCmsAXLGYEq3wm6c4e0BQPudeIUyHOD-TlSBQBUSVlEqWBe0NgGlgdRp3EuIAPZ/BsoMAAPAANcEACAgAczbmNbzgje0je0je0azje0bezyAwMGA-w (all 3 adept bm traits can work, i personally like go for the eyes)

Unless you go with a roaming party druid is unnecessary for wvw, only notable thing it provides in a solo situation are ancient seeds and mobility both of which you can get elsewhere (biggest thing hot gives ranger are the pets and those do not require druid).
Druid is only mandatory in spvp (still debatable since it is dictated by the meta, and this meta is about bunkers) because you are forced to stand in a 400 range circle, on the open battlefield that is wvw it is not nearly as useful as ppl make it out to be.

The build above has everything you need for solo roaming (or going in with a small group): kiting ability and mobility (quick draw hornet sting/hunter’s shot), damage and respectable defensive stats so that you do not get one shot.
The bigest weakness are some condition builds but they are not unbeatable, you just have to manage your utility cooldowns and make good use of quick draw in order to get the most burst or to kite while your cd’s come back (qd and double hunter’s shot or point blank for creating distance or qd and rapid fire/path of scars for burst combined with a taunt from fern hound, ect).

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

crusader amulet was really fine.

i demand a replacement !

maybe

1050 power
1050 toughness
560 precision
560 ferocity

call it templar amulet perhaps. a variant of marauder and paladin

It would have to be 1050 power 1050 precision 560 ferocity 560 toughness because of the no main stat toughness principle, basically another version of marauder.
That said i really want this combination it would work well for ranger warrior and necromancer and it is no more tanky than marauder so there should not be a issue from a balance side of things.

Plz anet put this stat combo in pvp plz other than marauder amulets with ferocity are garbage and not usable, berserker is the only other one that can work but is inferior to marauder, so another good ferocity amulet will do wonders for build diversity, plz PLEASE >hyperventilates<

The matchmaking is so bad that in almost every game after ~3 min one team gives up and goes afk, so why not just let us save time and end faster?
Just like gw1 had the /resign we also need it, so that when the matchmaking puts you in a game that will end up 500-100 (aka 4 out of 5 games) you and your team can go through the motions faster and move on to the next blow out game.

Only 1 amulet with ferocity is viable, marauder. Berserker can be used by necromancers mesmers and revenants but is to squishy so it is never picked and so is assassin, valkyrie is awkward for most classes (necromancers can make use of it bust again marauder is just better), cavalier is even more awkward and even less classes can utilize because of their base health.

Now that crusader (a ferocity amulet that could be used by rangers and necromancers) and vigilant (a amulet used by no one) are getting axed can we get some more versatile 4 stat amulets with ferocity? I would love a amulet with 1050 power and precision 560 toughness and ferocity.

I would love for an amulet with 1050 power 1050 precision 560 ferocity 560 toughness to be put in pvp as a replacement.

Or maybe it would be best if we could select stats on amulets. You start by picking ether a 3 stat or 4 stat amulet and then pick what stats you want for the major slot(s) and the minor slots.
but the 1200 and 1050 point major slots cannot be vitality or toughness and you cannot slot in more than 2 defensive stats (vitality toughness healing power and concentration are to be considered as defensive stats).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8XjEqQLL2wCmsAXLGYEKOcP6AoH3OPE+WfYT9S+wZA-TZRBABTcRAivMAAPAgg2fgjjAAA
I use this build to get to diamond (completely solo) last season. It still holds up now especially because tempest got nerfed and the build got buffed – vigor stacks with natural vigor trait for a 70% endurance regen.

Well of oblivion:
90 sec cd
duration 6 sec
pulse 1 per sec
breaks stun
Conjure a powerful well that pulses the effects of lesser wells

Pulls 1 is the well power
Pulls 2 is the well of blood
Pulls 3 is the well of darkness
Pulls 4 is the well corruption
Pulls 5 is the well suffering
Pulls 6 is every other well effect together (all the above effects pulse one time together and the well ends)

Here is a build that has a high potential to be one of the go to thief meta build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MBlOh9OBGPBkmildCb+A+AvgeThtwVYLAUbaTA-TJBFABE8AAA4CA8fZgd2fAA
and a variant of it for ppl who do not own HoT:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQNAsYVl0MhSnYvTw4Jw/EH7ElfK2iro/WzwPsDgarNB-TJBFAB/XGAgTAwO7PQwDAAA

You can role with a d/p and that is probably the best weapon set, but this trait and amulet/rune setup can work with any weapon really so i used the ones i prefer in the links.

You will have high pressure and damage as long as you have fury on (you have 195% crit dmg with fury on, which is more than a marauder amulet), and although your burst is lower than the standard marauder + power rune build you more than make up for it with defensive stats that allow you to actually stay in a fight and trade some blows and not just run away like a kitten.

Another benefit is very strong and consistent condi removal especially chill so you can comfortably solo reapers, also 3/3 utility skills are stun breakers so you should never get wombo combo killed while cc’d (especially not if you run the acrobatics line it is insane for sustain post pach, try it drop dd for it and play a couple matches).

Save shadow step for when you actually need to stun break/retreat, use role for initiative when you need initiative mid fight (and don’t want to pull out to wait for it to regen), and haste is best used with just auto attacks.

You should be the one who starts a fight (picks a target) for your team since you are always running with critical strikes (more dmg vs targets above 50%) and quickly bring down ppl to a uncomfortable hp amount. Another reason for you starting a fight is to draw out cc from the enemy since you can always easily escape and it is highly unlikely that you are going to die on the spot, you are a thief but you are also a brick wall in disguise (if your team mates give you protection you are golden).

I hate the druid spec it is the worst designed elite out of them all, as the celestial form has nothing to do with the core class mechanic (notice how every other class gets something that ties in to their mechanic.
I don’t hate supporting or anything but It feels like they wanted druid to have something else but scraped it last minute for this life shroud, making it have nothing to do with the rangers core mechanic and making it disconnect the flow of gameplay (the rushing is also evident by the god awful wyvern pets that cannot land a hit on moving foes).

the end result is you look like playing a bipolar character: I AM DEALING DAMAGE AND I AM CC’ING DIEEE, i am healing and curing nasty conditions from friends, I AM BUMPING OUT DAMAGE BUFFS SO THAT I CAN BURST WITH MY PETS, i am rezing my ally and regenerating his health.

Natural healing
You and your pet gain natural hp regeneration while your pet is alive. your pet gains increased healing power.
Make the pet healing better (let’s say 200hp) and the ranger gets 1/3 of it, or something like that.

Honed Axes
While holding a main hand axe gain 10% condition duration. While holding a offhand axe gain 150 ferocity. Winter’s bite is a aoe and you can move at a reduced speed while channeling Whirling Defense (similar how a guardian moves slower while doing the great sword spin).

muddy terrain
Cover the target area with mud that cripple foes with each puls and immobilizes on the first (same as now). Enemies who are standing on mud cannot gain swiftness or super speed.

sharpening stone
Your next 5 attacks bleed foes and have a 15% increased chance to critically hit. Also lower the cooldown to 30 sec.

and the last one because it kittenes me off, not because it is a bad trait
quick draw
duration of the quick draw effect increased from 5 to 9 seconds.

Because if you do not finish (or cancel) a channeled skill such has rapid fire or barrage before the effect ends the skill does not get a cd reduction. most noticeable with Whirling Defense where you cannot get a cd reduction if you let the skill go on for the entire duration.

L2P, troll, dh is in the worst class replies incoming.

I do not play a guardian so i cannot give to much input but i can say that the virtues are 100% an upgrade if you play a aggressive build, which every dh is. The core virtues are arguably better if you want to support/bunker since they have a larger range.

But the main thing i dislike about dh is how one dimensional it is compared to other elite specs. It is geared to only do damage and nothing else (compare that to let’s say chronomancer who can be a decent bunker or a burst machine).