Guild Wars 2

Xillllix.3485:

DeceiverX.8361:

Robert should be head of balance and everyone knows it.

Yeah, Ice Bow in PvP was really a huge problem… /sarcasm “drops mic”

Yeah a skill useless in PvP but breaking PvE was nerfed. And this was a problem how? Are there not already skills useless in PvP anyway?

WvW rallies the closest no?

Well, use protection then. And stuns, knockbacks, weakness!

If the thief is just pressing 1-1-1-1-1-1 and you die, might I suggest some form of mobility and just putting some distance between you two?

Or just bursting down the very tiny 10k HP pool of the thief that has 0 sources of protection.

kdaddy.5431:

(…) and now thieves back stab for 9k, its still a terrible meta.

Thief backstab damage wasn’t changed at all in the patch.

Btw, it takes like kitten cast time to remove a PvP shirt :o Interrupted at the first instance of damage.

You already give Endurance through the signet of agility. It also cures one condition.

Tomerant.2701:

And here I am…. back on GW2 again.

Zones are way to small
Combat is utterly boring, laggy and repetitive
Each loading is potential game crasher
Whoever stuns first – wins battle
Crafting is stupid and time gated as kitten

- They are kinda small yeah.
- What level were you to decide that? Granted, it’s a little old school in that you still get to unlock yours kills looong into the leveling. In fact I’m pretty sure you unlock your last skills at level 45 (the level cap) Aka, low level combat lacks variety but it gets more complex fast
- No problem here. Must be a problem with your computer :o I never had the game crash on me except when the servers go down.
- World PvP at your level is like in GW2 where everyone is either in all greens or in zerk. Yeah fight will end quickly. Also, you don’t have your many stun breaks yet at such a low level. If you tried the Arena PvP that puts you in standard gear and at level cap (but NOT with all the skills so you are still weaker) you’d know that it takes quite some beating to kill people.
- Can’t comment :p

Evilek.5690:

React time on sneaky attack and use stun break is +- 1.5 sec

1.5s is a really really really slow reaction time. You should seriously practice that.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Rather than cutting the cost of weapon skills and increasing the maximum initiative pool (like making Preparedness baseline), which frankly will increase the Thief’s DPS, they instead choose to increase the Thief’s DPS via AA. In their own world and in their own mind, the end result reached the goal of increasing the Thief’s DPS without doing it the right way.

They are trying to increase the thief DPS without increasing massively it’s evade uptime or burst damage potential when they dump their initiative on a poor target.

Because ANet understands now that having thieves need to empty their initiative pool for damage makes for a rather weak and cumbersome class, or on the other extreme a burst master that kills everything in a (short) rotation.

So their plan is to give us real damage that isn’t bound by initiative but is melee and they expect us to spend initiative for utility : gap closers, tankyness etc… and not for burst.

MarauderShields.6830:

So can I have my 15k backstabs back, then?

This is fair since the thief only role is +1, aka they are pets.

A class with the smallest HP pool in the game, weak healing (it only feels strong because it doesn’t take much to fill the tiny HP pool), poor condition removal, 0 access to protection or blocks and only a couple a couple short duration evade talents has talents and traits that allow it to deal with control conditions.

Who would have thought.

Ithilwen.1529:

NO Sigil of energy was nerfed for the express purpose of slowing down Mesmer clone production and therefore DPS/Healing.

One more Ninja Nerf/Cheapshot at Mesmer.

Yeah I mean, the fact ANet removed all the most bunker amulets, the most tanky runes, and at the same time the tankiest sigil. It’s obvious the sigil removal was made only to spite mesmers and isn’t in line at all with a broad move to remove the tankiest stat builds possible in the game no matter where they hide.

Well there is already some PvP/rest split in that the whole stat system is kinda different with the amulets. And the devs are taking more actions on that subject, tweaking sPvP not only by changing the skills but simply by changing the amulets available.

I you think the Alacrity nerf wasn’t aimed strongly at PvE too, you must be delusional :p

You know that the Alacrity nerf was heavily PvE related right?

Shirlias.8104:

it seems to me like all others mmo, moba, class games, etc etc…

5 spot into meta and 9 classes.
there will be 3/5 classes into meta, the others will be out of it.

It’s probably even worse than that since we do not even have 5 roles in the game to fill the 5 players in. So it’s likely the meta teams will use duplicate classes reducing the number of meta classes to 3 at worse I’d say but more likely 4 on average.

Dahkeus.8243:

Eh…Pistol Whip is a tough thing to balance. It’s always on the edge of useless and being an overpowered, cheesy, spam win button.

Pistol Whip will get buffed in some way, mark my words! There’s little point keeping the skill stats as they are if autoattack gets 30% more DPS.

Although I don’t imply Pistol Whip it’ll get some DPS buff of some kind, more like any kind of buff :p

Astralporing.1957:

Except the reason why pvp cele amulet stats were buffed was exactly because anet devs couldn’t do that and used the stat increase as a cheap method to avoid said balancing. Just as they are using removing this amulet as a cheap method to avoid balancing other things.

Yeah well pretty sure the PvP Celestial (and PvE too) were buffed because nobody cared about it.

The amulet change is the easiest they can do to change sPvP without splitting the skills themselves. It’s not a bad idea really.

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

We’re also removing the following amulets:
Soldier’s
Settler’s
Celestial
Sentinel

Balancing PvP by removing amulets feels like a quick and dirty fix. Maybe it’s not the amulets that are the problem? Although if Cele has more total stat points than the others, it should be brought down to match the others.

It isn’t a quick and dirty fix. They have been using that method since the game beta. Think about it : there is a reason why only select stat sets are available in sPvP. It’s for balance.

Removing stat sets and giving us others is ANet using the same reasoning they’ve had since the game release (we should only give hand selected amulets to avoid the cancerous combinations) but tweaking the values.

I’m pretty sure Rapid Fire and Unload are straight light non tracking projectiles.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

So, your saying that all projectile attacks shouldn’t home when casted onto a target? Better nerf it to all classes then; (…) thief shortbow/pistol, etc.

:’(

You do know that the shortbow autoattack used to track targets but was nerfed to stop doing it quite a long time ago? And since that day, nobody ever used the shortbow for anything else than the #5!

Also I don’t think any of the pistol shots track targets.

DeceiverX.8361:

Further, if they remove a lot of defensive amulets, I could potentially see the thief becoming the next bunker with something like D/D Sentinel in durability runes running Acro + Trickery + DD due to the massive evasion D/D offers right now with buffed death blossom. Many chained evades on D/D + endurance regen on dagger auto + Daredevil’s spammable dodges and big heals, good condition cleansing (1x per second like Diamond Skin ele, except all the time), permanent vigor, and tons of initiative regeneration, full block on Bandit’s defense, and then a 2s invuln when things get bad would potentially make the class overly-difficult to kill without outnumbering it.

That plan will not go well, considering they are removing the Sentinel amulet and durability runes. All that while at the same time nerfing the sigil of energy to give a paltry amount of vigor :p

I disagree with the notion that “mega bunkers” are caused by the extra damage some builds can do. Such a notion makes no sense. The bunker builds aren’t unkillable due to the possibility that someone in another game uses a strong DPS build.

The unkillable bunkers are caused by the fact the build exists at all. If they are unkillable by optimal top DPS build, what will the lesser builds even be able to do and in what way would the tank builds not be optimal anymore?

Nova Stiker.8396:

stof.9341:

Nova Stiker.8396:

stof.9341:

That’s not how the game works. The page you linked even gives you all the details.

Skills do NOT have a base power. Skills have a skill coefficient. The base damage is your weapon damage range. The power is the player power stat as you can find on your char screen.

weapon damage * skill coefficient * attacker’s power / target’s armor

Which is a complete lie for PvP, weapon damage has no effect in PvP. Even the base 1,000 power shown on the screen goes completely ignored by the attackers power.

Everything is calculated in PvP as: skill coefficient * (attacker’s power -1000) / target’s armor

Interesting how you pretend the base damage formula in the game is different in PvP when ANet is so resistant to the idea of making a PvP/PvE split :p

And your formula is so funny. Try say a Settler Amulet. Result? attacker’s power = 1000. You are basically saying that settler amulet users do 0 damage in all situations except with conditions

You appeared to have completely forgotten the skill coefficient existed.

And you appear to have forgotten what a multiplication by 0 does.

Nova Stiker.8396:

stof.9341:

That’s not how the game works. The page you linked even gives you all the details.

Skills do NOT have a base power. Skills have a skill coefficient. The base damage is your weapon damage range. The power is the player power stat as you can find on your char screen.

weapon damage * skill coefficient * attacker’s power / target’s armor

Which is a complete lie for PvP, weapon damage has no effect in PvP. Even the base 1,000 power shown on the screen goes completely ignored by the attackers power.

Everything is calculated in PvP as: skill coefficient * (attacker’s power -1000) / target’s armor

Interesting how you pretend the base damage formula in the game is different in PvP when ANet is so resistant to the idea of making a PvP/PvE split :p

And your formula is so funny. Try say a Settler Amulet. Result? attacker’s power = 1000. You are basically saying that settler amulet users do 0 damage in all situations except with conditions

That’s not how the game works. The page you linked even gives you all the details.

Skills do NOT have a base power. Skills have a skill coefficient. The base damage is your weapon damage range. The power is the player power stat as you can find on your char screen.

weapon damage * skill coefficient * attacker’s power / target’s armor

That doesn’t make sense. All the direct damage weapon skills scale exactly the same with power. The skill coefficient is multiplied to the attacker power!

Your remark about Hundred Blades you’ll have to explain your math better because I have no idea how you can reach that conclusion.

Hundred blades has 8 hits for a total weapon coefficient of 4.4, aka 8 hits of 0.55 coef each. And a finisher hit of 1.10 coefficient. It means that the last hit of hundred blades always does exactly twice the damage of all the previous hits individually (1.1 = 0.55×2)

Exarbur.6732:

How the kitten is this possibel after just 1 minut of waiting?

That’s because the game doesn’t care about how long you are waiting but how long the players in the high level divisions are waiting.

It’s also the correct way to do this if you ask else the very high level players would never play at all.

Fat Disgrace.4275:

Flashing blades wasn’t “tanky” at all. It just made you have an 75% chance to evade/block (can’t remember) while attacking. Easy to shut down with mesmer or necro hexes. Secondly that’s an assassin, not a thief :p.

I don’t say if was a good PvP option but was an example :p Also GW1 had plenty of unblockable options to deal with a meta too focused on blocks anyway.

One I liked better than Flashing Blades in PvE was Critical Defenses : 75% block for xxx seconds and duration refreshed to max each time you crit. And one other talent that even got a PvP specific nerf : http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Shroud_of_Distress_

Fat Disgrace.4275:

I agree that staff and dagger are in a good spot for aa, but sword is not. I would like sword to be fixed. The dmg it self on the aa would be ok if they only they increased the aa speed. Also I would like to have the aa itself easily over rided – flanking strike works when you activate the skill, not lock up for half a second then do something. Pistol, meh. Let’s watch this space.

Sword AA might be in a bad spot compared to dagger and staff but it doesn’t mean the AA buff mentioned is meaningless. I think it’s a good change in the end because the current version where lots of the thief DPS comes from dumping our initiative pool isn’t really viable. Bunkers outsustain your initiative then turn back on you while you are out of lots of defensive options. The other way : DPS from AA and initiative for utility/defense has more potential I think.

It’s won’t be that bad in PvP since melee AA is rather hard to stick on targets. You’ll be pushed to spend initiative or utilities to help land your AA chain. And in PvE if gives a controllable and sustainable thief DPS buff they might need.

Well assassins in GW1 had some pretty tanky talents. Shadow Form or Flashing Blades for example. I wouldn’t be against giving the thief some utility that gives some duration of non channeled evade.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Altair.8402:

The next elite spec will cost 2500 skill points to max, and the hero points in the next zones will give 100 points upon defeating a raid boss. Calling it now.

Way too easy and not gw2 like.
All hero points on the map are unlocked by 2 hours long meta event. When meta is complete you have 5 minutes to get hero points before you get kicked out to the empty map. You can not rejoin your map if you had a dc.

More like all hero points on the map are now replaced by a collection that needs among other things 250 cubic meters of coarse sand, the equivalent of the rainforest in spirit wood logs and two chairs.

Agemnon.4608:

TW helps with rezzing and stomping way too well.

It also mentions that quickness and slow will now have no effect at all on stomp and rez.

“Guys, I know we are nearly immortal, but it’s all the fault of those pesky DPS running around! In fact the solution to the current problem of too many nearly immortal people running around it to nerf damage. That way we’ll be completely immortal instead.”

TheLastNobody.8319:

Thieves are still squishy and can’t really stay on point that much, and warriors who rely a lot on passive effects for their defenses, received nothing in regards to that.

I’d argue that DD gives thieves a lot of sustain (of the kind mitigation, not plain heal over every dps). More evades, more dodges, more weakness, protection against movement impairing conditions, easy root removal.

The problem was that at the same time, a huge powercreep on pressure happened that outpaced the improvements DD give.

As it stands, I feel like DD is the only elite class that was correctly designed, with maybe Berserker too. Correctly designed in the sense of not going overboard on powercreep while still maintaining a little edge compared to non elites for HoT selling purposes.

I’m pretty sure the pros are mostly doing that trick to avoid the 2 hour queues and instead get manageable 2 minute queues.

Especially considering you are stuck doing nothing in the mists while waiting.

yolo swaggins.2570:

As an example, I liked how Zack designed his rifle burst skill.

Wait, who? Where ? You never mentionned him or his ideas as far as I can see :p

Also, Shadow Refuge makes any long channel not that long, not that threatening and for sure, not that telegraphed. Let’s not even mention the possibilities to Shadow Step from out of hiding at the split second before the shot.

Varezenem.2813:

If it really is then I agree because the tooltip clearly says “Outgoing Boon duration” not “Boon duration”.
Edit: tested it by using bolster fortification+Ventari’s Will and it is really applying the boon duration to ourselves.

Outgoing Boon duration means boons that the player under the aura effect applies.

Revenant is under the aura effect.
Revenant applies Protection to itself.
Protection duration is increased.

The Greyhawk.9107:

But that still doesn’t make sense, minimizing visual effects should make it harder on the esports bullkitten. Viewers will have even more trouble seeing what happening on screen, especially in regards to the auras. I can hardly see the aura zoomed in on my own character, how can a spectator tell?

On the other hand, it’s easier to see what the player with an aura applied is doing.

eleshazar.6902:

So one thing I’ve always been confused on, is why people who have condition damage want condition duration.

Now hear me out…..

I may be crazy, but condition duration does not increase the damage of the condition at all. It simple spreads out the time in which it deals its damage. So instead of dealing 1000 burn damage over 1 tick, you deal 1000 burn damage over 3 ticks. You decrease the intensity of the tick in favor of it lasting longer.

In a PvE situation where you are worried about prolonging the effects of something like Firey Wrath on guardian, I could see why you might want it. But as a person who is relying on condition damage, wouldn’t you prefer your damage to be more spiked rather than less?

I feel like everyone thinks that condition duration increases the length of the condition and by virtue increases it’s damage (i.e. it ticks 1000 damage each second for 3 seconds as opposed to 1000 over 1 second, WHICH IS NOT THE CASE). For conditions like vulnerability/fear/chill (without reaper dmg) duration is good. For those that deal damage, it is useless…

If you don’t believe me go try it.

You are wrong. The skill tooltips is updated to include the duration bonus.

Just got into the PvP lobby. Found that one of my skills does 2600 bleed damage. Equiped sigil of agony (+20% bleed duration) and now the skill does 3120 bleed damage in total (aka, exactly +20%)

Vitality doesn’t counter conditions more than it does power.

In fact, one could even argue that Vitality is less effective against conditions than against power. This is because the more Vitality you have, the more HP/s you heal out of combat, and conditions due to their lingering effect delay out of combat regen a lot more than direct damage does thus reducing the amount of HP you heal between combat which is proportional to your vitality.

If I needed more HP, I’d rather go with Marauder than Valkyrie. The reason is that Marauder is a 4 way split stat set so in exchange it gets more stat totals than Zerk. And there’s no wasted stats like Celestial might give.

Fluffball.8307:

I honestly wouldn’t mind if they buffed snipers substantially. It doesn’t matter, the goal is to get you to dodge a single, massively telegraphed attack that a toddler could see coming. You’re not supposed to stand in it.

Increasing sniper damage 400% is fine.

Well if you actually played the game, you’d know that in the big events, 9 times out of 10 you get a line or two placed under you without any telegraph because only one player out of your zerk got the telegraph icon :o

And an Elite or Champion burn line is some pain.

That’s a good info, I just need to level a new thief to 80 after I buy a char slot to get the Thief box XD

Or I’ll wait for them to fix the bug I guess.

I know, what I mean is that since you can only ever equip 5 utilities at most, you can tweak the Improvisation rules so that it always has 1/5 chance to a category type you have equiped. You just have to make it ignore one of the 6th utility types you don’t have equipped.

Technically, since it’s impossible to get 6 utilities, you can make Improvisation work with physicals with the same proc rate as before the DD.

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

Night capping sucks but the only fix is for your server to recruit people/guilds from those other time zones to come play on your server. Pointing a big middle finger at everyone who doesn’t play when you do is not the answer.

There just isn’t the population in those time zones to make it work. All it does create is a server tier system where you have in order from “stronger” to weaker :
- night presence
- day presence
- dead server

The problem this creates is frustration on the prime time users which are the majority and stale matchups for them. Nothing says the servers from the top two tiers aren’t competitive wich each other in prime time, but the score system keeps them appart.

The most extreme case possible would be that the current system is perfectly fine matching three servers that are full in their own time zone and empty when the others are active to create the most balanced and boring WvW experience ever.

That’s what I propose. Timezone locked WvW servers you can then get matchups that make sense for your own timezone no matter what or nearly! You can also scale the number of servers as needed.