Whoever is buffing the Ranger weapon skills needs to realize that upping numerical values wont fix crappy weapons like SB (seriously, upping swiftness on Quick Shot when high swiftness is already easy is pointless, the axe auto is not going to stop sucking with extra might duration). They have the right idea with the Winter’s Bite change though, MH axe really needs to made to be 100% condi weapon. I think the sword auto is worse than before but thats personal taste because I didn’t mind the animation lock before.
btw. Whats the problem with shortbow? its amazing!
Puck’s also right about Light on Your Feet being mediocre… Imo, it should just be similar to ambidexterity where you gain condition damage/duration for wielding a shortbow instead of a boon at the very least, especially for being a GM tier trait.
Shortbow is so bad that you could easily take some of the LoYF stuff and make it baseline (20% skill reduction and piercing). I would then make Quick Shot grant superspeed and make LoYF then extend all applied superspeed by 2s in place of the Shortbow specific stuff.
30 seconds of resistance how? It requires full party of cronos with good cordinations to achieve this stab might don’t stack in duration and protect and regent can be stacked without mesmers help
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Resistance
My guess would be a combination of a couple Mesmers running the signet, Temporal Enchanter at 100% boon duration (easy when there are nearby Heralds) plus people running durability runes.
It really depends on how loose your definition of P2W is. I would say any MMO with gem($$)->gold system with an trade post is somewhat P2W. Luckily with GW2 everyone ends ups roughly in the same spot stat-wise after playing the game normally so any advantage in throwing money to shortcut to ascended gear isn’t huge.
It also depends on what your definition of “win” is too. If “winning” to you is slapping on the rarest and most expensive skins possible then GW2 is very much P2W. There is also the thing with HoT specializations being better in most cases than vanilla.
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It would be easy enough to move all the camp guards closer to the center, so you’d always have to fight all of them to flip a camp. But to be clear, you guys are arguing that you want to do ‘more PvE’, which seems to go against the forum’s current agenda of ‘less PvE.’
If we are going to go in a more pvp and less pve direction, a good change would be to remove the delay on white swords for camps. I understand why it was put in place for towers/keeps, but if someone keeping an eye on a camp can respond quickly that’s more pvp for everyone. I would also consider increasing the CD on guard respawn but also increasing the time needed to stay in the circle to cap a camp.
Projectile hate in this game is pretty ridiculous. And it’s odd because so many ranged attacks in the game aren’t projectile at all, such as beam attacks, ground target aoes, necro scepter, mesmer shatters, utilities etc, so its not like projectile hate is pushing melee to the front. And projectiles don’t seem to be any stronger than non-projectile oriented ranged options, so I really don’t understand it.
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Considering the time investment I definitely think they should be buffed a bit visually. All the effort seems comparable to that snowy shoulder item from the Wintersday festival, and in that case it was just a straight grind or pay up thing without much skill/practice involved.
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Anet fudged big time with raids. Living Story and the raid content should have been basically the same, with some story culminating with a 5-man easy version of a raid wing so casual players could familiarize themselves with the mechanics. After getting their feet wet players could then ease into the 10-man harder version.
PU should never have been buffed and should have stayed what it was pre-specialization, but Chaos/PU isn’t really the issue IMO. It’s the Inspiration traitline that is broken. Either up the ICD on Mender’s Purity or remove the condi removal on Restorative Illusions…
There are two kinds of premade, the pug premade and the teamspeak tryhard premade. Unless by sheer luck you end up making pug premade with a good comp and good players, it will almost always lose to the tryhards, which you’ll inevitably be matched up with. Without built in voice comms in GW2, it’s just easier to solo/duo queue most of the time.
The only viable condi classes in PVP are Necro first and Mesmer a distant second. If any more condi-hate gets thrown in the game then Anet might as well patch out condition damage altogether.
Do you even play PvP? Necro and mesmer are both insanely strong right now.
That’s my point. Currently where are the condi rangers/engies/guards/thieves/etc? It doesn’t take much to completely shut out condition builds, so we only see the ridiculous Necros/Mesmers.
Remember when shoutbow Warriors were a thing? Remember anyone running anything condi in that meta? If Anet throws in more condi mitigation then we’ll be seeing zero use in the condi amulets again, when the smart thing is to just tone down Necros/Mesmers a little and bring up the other classes a little.
The only viable condi classes in PVP are Necro first and Mesmer a distant second. If any more condi-hate gets thrown in the game then Anet might as well patch out condition damage altogether.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a Ranger running around with a SB. Unless Anet buffs Ranger SB to the point of being not-garbage again, the only class this new legendary will used on is Thief lol (and even then only as a utility weapon)
Should be cool, but its kind of sad that Shortbow’s presence in the game is a utility weapon for Thief and one of Ranger’s crappiest options.
Fix pistol mainhand and up the boon stripping.
So something like returning the 2 boon steal on S/D #3 from one and have Body Shot strip boons also. Other candidates for boon stripping might be Death Blossom, shortbow auto and Dust Strike on staff.
Also give back Thieves ability to stack might, you used to be able to easily hold 10 stacks by taking Acro and Shadow Arts. The might stacking on signets/traps just isn’t cutting it.
I’d like to see a tonic that temporarily changes your race and the skills associated with it. With racial specific skins just convert them temporarily to the appropriate equivalent. Would be cooler than most of the ignored garbage tonics Anet like to throw into the game.
I think the main problem is double moa. It’s kind of dumb that the only viable condi builds are Necro followed by Mesmer. This condi/anti-condi arms race needs to stop because it’s leaving build options like condi ranger/engie/thief/guard etc in the dust.
Gunflame and Taunt→Skullgrind Berserker builds are pretty kitten cheesy in WvW
Knowing Anet it’ll probably be an even nicer looking legendary BP, which would explain why The Ascension looks like a gemstore reject that got some particle effects lazily slapped on.
Looking at what legendary weapons have associated with them (sounds/footfalls/auras) the BP just doesn’t measure up, it should at least be fixed so the animations for it are less stiff (the fractal BP has the same issue)
The stability change is an interesting thing to focus on that I think highlights a major problem that’s never been addressed in WvW gameplay, the rift between small scale and super large scale combat. Old stab is completely broken in small fights, but new stab isn’t viable in huge combat.
Instead of veering between both sides Anet should balance to both. Just create a “fog of war” radius or something around orange/white swords (the indicator for large scale combat) that toggles the new stab to the old. They could then introduce other mechanics when fighting in such an area (such as downstate/rally tweaking).
Anyway my 5 priorities would be:
1) Populating imbalance – sides that win by pvdooring while the other side sleeps is just no fun, and being stuck in a low activity tier is also super unfun, I dont want to spend hundreds of gold just to transfer and then witness the server I transfer to also die.
2) PPT changes to encourage defending. It’s very easy to things to fall into a musical chair situation where blobs just avoid eachother and back cap, PvDoor is no fun. Adding more PVE elements that interfere with the PVP is also super unfun (like all the extra guards you guys added, if anything they should be reduced by a lot and the PVE areas in EB like the Hylek converted to shrines)
3) Rewards – WvW needs a sPvP reward track overhaul. I want more stuff to spend badges of honor on too. Rewards should be equal between zerging/small scale (maybe like a reward track for capping camps vs capping big structures)
4) Skill balance – This should address all the different playstyles of WvW, from large to small scale. For example conditions, they are worthless in large scale and a little too strong in small. Changing things based on whether you are fighting in an orange swords area could open new things
5) Risk/Reward tweaking – The pips system in PvP leagues is great IMO, where individual players risk something and get rewarded for success. WvW needs something like that. Making shrine buffs go away on death instead of timer could also alter the way people play, giving players something to lose if they aren’t careful.
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I would like to see Ranger get some thiefy stuff. Dagger mainhand. and change the pet to a shadow version of your char, with mechanics that allow you to insta swap your char with your shadow.
Seeing people run around with the legendary BP, my big complaint is how stiff the wings are animated. Couldn’t they be more flowey like the other wing back pieces? The fractal BP has the same problems.
Some core classes are still strong and viable. Mantra and condi Mesmer, condi Engineer, rampage power Warrior are some that come to mind. Generally speaking though elite specs are a straight upgrade.
Moa needs adjustment. Either make stability counter it or make the transform increase vit a lot so that it’s a disable instead of free kill (unless the target is low health).
I wouldn’t mind this, but mesmer projectile reflection would have to be toned down. It’s bad enough that mesmers can hide behind their clones to block ranged attacks that don’t pierce and take reflect traits at the same time.
Mesmer. Pick your poison, condi PU cheese or power mantra PU cheese. Be sure to also take the OP Inspiration traitline if you want to be extra unkillable.
Annoying and incredibly hard to kill builds are there for Druid/Scrapper/Ele but nothing tops Mesmer.
Put gliding in the Desert WvW Bolderlands. Let non-HoT players rent basic gliders for badges of honor (because as I understand it, gliding was removed there because it would create a kind of p2w gameplay split). As someone with HoT I dont care if F2P people can glide if it means I can too.
It would also be neat to see portable launchers there, so you can deploy gliders in sticky situations to escape zergs or setup ambushes, and also wvw items you could use to bomb zergs from above.
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Gunflame is super cheesy, at the very least the damage levels for it should be swapped with Eviscerate. Why does a 1500 range attack that’s easy to land do more damage than a close-range telegraphed melee attack?
I like it the way it is now, it feels in line with the other GM traits, and fixes the issue of DS being broken OP in a 1v1 against a condi enemy but worthless in a team fight, since you are going to get hit in a team fight with all the aoe/cleaves flying everywhere.
Body Shot is definitely garbage, something should at least be done to that.
On one hand Reaper probably needs to be tone down (chill damage), on the other hand it’s pretty sad that it’s the only viable pure condi build. Has there ever even been a condi meta? Or at least one not involving Necro?
In WvW taunt cheese and gunflame cheese are incredibly effective.
I think k/d stuff would just encourage people to play as safe as possible. But I do think a risk/reward mechanic, like pips in sPvP leagues, could and should be added to spice things up.
I think a bigger issue is that gunflame/killshot does more damage than evis :/
Just enjoy having a potential 100% resistance uptime against opponents that can’t boon strip :0)
It’s bad enough to see zerg balls running around with nearly 100% uptime on all boons, including resistance now. I’d rather not see boon spamming get even worse.
I have a bigger issues with the 1200 range insta pull. Should be reduced to 900.
Hopefully Anet will at least tweak some things before the next league season hits.
Lol Honed Axes is still garbage. Make it give the Axe autoattack a condi like torment or bleed and it’ll be good. Shortbow still needs an overhaul.
Other than that the changes are mostly good.
Might be good with Defender runes.
Im worries about Warriors getting overbuffed as they have been in the past, Engie bunkering getting a pass, and Diamondskin somehow still being OP.
I dont see the issue really, it’s not like the Bristleback does it all by itself, in order to get the most out of it the Ranger still needs to set up the attack by buffing the pet/cc’ing the enemy and actively pressing a button while dealing with the crappy AI of the pet. Really all the pets should be as useful as the Bristleback.
People might have a problem with Rangers/Druids building to tank/heal while having access to such a burst, but that’s a perk of their class mechanic. You know, like Thieves being able to spam attacks because of initiative, the extra health pool that Necros get in DS, etc.
I remember the good ole days when LB was so bad they nerfed SB to try to make it look good.
Now SB is garbage. I really, really want to like the weapon. but it is. Even Sharpening stone + Sharpened edges trait with LB makes for a better hybrid playstyle.
I really wonder what the balance devs actually do in the months between buffing/nerfing stuff, twiddle their thumbs as they wait for tooltip text to be translated for all the languages Gw2 ships in?
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Would it be so bad if non-HoT players had access to gliding in WvW? I have HoT and it wouldn’t bother me at all if it meant I could freely glide. For non-Hot players just add a vendor that sells a temporary glider for badges of honor.
Mending needs somekind of neat mechanic attached to it. Something like “Mending applies 5 bandage stacks when used”.
Question is, what would the stacks do?
Instead of, or in addition to, a health threshold the new DS should break and go on cooldown after X number of conditions are removed. Maybe like 15.
Yes! Since celestial is a little of all stats I think it should also provide the boon/condi duration stats. Make this happen Anet.
Predator’s Onslaught needs to boost the duration of soft CC in addition to what it already does to be GM worthy.
Hidden Barb’s should stay at 20% and sharpened edges be merged with it, and a new t1 trait added.
If true, I like that they are bringing back some might stacking for Thief, I just hope you get more than a single stack on evade.
Will the rest be enough to bring Thief into meta in PVP and wanted in raids? I have no idea, there doesn’t seem to anything bringing group utility for PVE and the DPS stuff just makes it a slightly better +1 class in PVP :/
Sad to see absolutely nothing regarding pistols. Body shot needs a boon strip or something.
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