"Remove Amulets, increase cooldown by 500%, etc" - Anet never learns

Another patch day, another disappointment.

Again, no communication, and solutions that remove diversity and break things even further.

Increase for example Unholy Sanctuary cd from 30 seconds to 120 seconds as passive - this won't be used anymore.

Removed another amulets from game.

Congratulations,

You have changed nothing...again.

Oh yeah, bringing unholy sanctuary in line with other lifesaving passives is such a bad move (oh wait, it still has a 3min shorter cd)

@Tharan.9085 said:Oh yeah, bringing unholy sanctuary in line with other lifesaving passives is such a bad move (oh wait, it still has a 3min shorter cd)

I think we all agreed that 5 minute cooldowns were ridiculous, and 2 minutes is still really long too, especially since we can't see the CD of traits (Anet plz fix that).

Paladin amulet was unnecessary. If 100 toughness and vitality was removed could it be put somewhere else? Like precision and power??

Removal of amulets and tweaking some specific stats looks a lot like "band aid" solutions to me.

Yet, we lose more amulets, got more 1 hour cooldown skills, more dps or sustain out of control, less build diversity and better, less communication. And now, this professionally encourage me as a player and customer to support them either by playing their game and / or bying gems?

Some of you might be happy with these changes. Me? This seriously lacks professionalism.

For the skills, build diversity and gameplay mamagement, both PvE, PvP and WvW has huge problems that yet the company seems unwilling to solve for some weird unknown reason.

@Stallic.2397 said:Paladin amulet was unnecessary. If 100 toughness and vitality was removed could it be put somewhere else? Like precision and power??

At this point, why not removing all amulets except of Berserker, Viper and Mender?

I'll keep saying it until people finally listen. Asking Anet for nerfs won't get you what you want. If it were a different company with better communication, perhaps. If they were willing to revisit old changes that missed the mark, perhaps. Anet is neither of these things.

So chill with the "Nerf X" posts and start discussing how you would fix classes rather than destroy them. For a start, we should start fixing bugs, and give Chrono and Scourge a second pass. Figure out how we can make them viable without making them broken.

Its seems pretty inherent that the team isn't up to the task of what is required to provide ongoing quality balance updates and design/mechanic changes where and when necessary. If it's due to lack of resources etc that sucks but as much as I like the game if I was ncsoft I'd cut the losses that gw2 is becoming and I hate saying that.

@Edge.8724 said:

@Stallic.2397 said:Paladin amulet was unnecessary. If 100 toughness and vitality was removed could it be put somewhere else? Like precision and power??

Sooner or later, Anet will remove all amulets and just let players rely on trait buffs

Very bad execution arenanet, instead of adding something new/reworking stuff just press delete button.... Big Disappointment. Not sure who is leading all of these but i think it is worse than previous team who did balance.For every patch there should be big text of why you guys are doing such changes. We want to hear your goals with destroying something that works. What we can expect next? Will there be some good changes or just cutting off what's left ... Classes that feel strong deserve nerfs but instead of nerfing and deleting stuff, try to change the way it plays.

I'd love to see some points based system that allows for using the own stats combinations - instead of amulets.Get x points each player.Then use them on the stats. But each stat would cost differently. (Stuff like boon duration super expensive for example.)

The more you put in one stat the more expensive becomes. 1000 power the first 500 are cheaper than the 501 to 1000.If you want to avoid power + toughness combos make putting points in one making the other one more expensive as well.

Complete nonsense.

Amulets have always been bloated. There are still too many. Over half don't see any use. Big brain fact - balancing is easier when there are less things to balance.

All nerfs were laser-focused, basically addressing the top 3 problems in spvp (Holos, necros, and derpy core rangers).

I like this CMC guy. Let him work without whining like a little bitch. The only reason I reinstalled this trashfire of a PvP game was the nerf to powercreep in February. Balance is the best it's been since pre-HoT.

@mistsim.2748 said:Big brain fact - balancing is easier when there are less things to balance.

Actually this isn’t a fact.

Take Nature as a real life example, of an extremely diverse system that is able to self balance itself. By extremely diverse, we are talking trillions if not near infinite things that Nature has to deal with, and yet we have a planet that can self sustain itself quite well for billions of years.

The exact definition of balance means that two (or more) things have to be equal. This is an inherently impossible task because two things that are different can never be equal until they are the same.

This has to do with the study complexity theory, something probably to big brained for you.

Given the trend of these balance patches, it’s easy to predict why they continue to face harder and harder balance issues, going now as far as removing nearly all the amulets. Instead of looking at natural balance systems that are exhibited in nature (which is balance by way of diversity) they tend towards this other form of balance which simply doesn’t work in highly complex/diverse systems like gw2.

@Tao.5096 said:Increase for example Unholy Sanctuary cd from 30 seconds to 120 seconds as passive - this won't be used anymore.

I think thats the intent.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:Big brain fact - balancing is easier when there are less things to balance.

Actually, it is. It's easier to track the different permutations when there are less of them, identify what's OP/UP, and make changes accordingly. Spvp always had too much pointless bloat that made balancing difficult. If you were around for 7 yrs like me, you would have observed this as well. This is just common sense, there's nothing to discuss here.

time to remove all amulets and let players play with their own gear.No need to be lazy and lend some stats

@Tharan.9085 said:Oh yeah, bringing unholy sanctuary in line with other lifesaving passives is such a bad move (oh wait, it still has a 3min shorter cd)

The entire idea of giving any of those passives more than 30 seconds is stupid.

Passives should be passives, tweaking certain aspects of the builds - as it was back when we had points to distribute over traits (not perfect, but hundreds of times better than now).

And not be hidden utilities with auto activation...as it's now.

If you're giving those passives more than 30 seconds of cooldown then you're destroying their purpose, because you want passives to either be active all the time or on certain conditions as frequently as possible (low cd).

But they can't be all powerful stuff that even outshine Utility and Elite skills which are used on-call and should be used carefully in the right momentum, and not bashing like some Street Fighter game...

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:

Very true. Nerf complaints will never end so long as Build diversity exists. We may clap ourselves on the back now, that we managed to take down a few more outliers, but what happens in a few weeks when the new meta is discovered. Now that Ranger, Necro, and Engi are weakened, what of Burn Guardian. It's an emerging build that's starting to gain traction. What of power classes that were on the verge of being overpowered, but not quite at that level (Power Rev). With toughness removed, that may just push them over the edge.

We return to square one. Asking for a new set of OP's to be nerfed. We remove a few more amulets perhaps. Maybe Berserker is removed and everyone is forced into Assassin... in order to balance out classes that naturally have high crit chance and make them more similar to classes that don't. Perhaps we ask for sustain nerfs for classes with good sustain (Rev, Ele) in order to bring them in line with classes that don't (Mirage).

Soon we ask for evades and invulns to be brought down on classes like thief and ele because reverse power creep has made those mechanics OP. Damage gets nerfed so low that having evasion uptime that high is oppressive. So we give DrD an endurance penalty and remove the evade from twist of fate.

PvP will never be balanced so long as variety exists. If we want classes to feel fun and satisfying to play, we have to allow for some things to be just a tad broken. We have to accept the fact that some will do certain things better than others. We also have to accept that certain metas will reward certain qualities over others. Only way to prevent that is to make all of those qualities the same. Homogenization

@mistsim.2748 said:Complete nonsense.

Amulets have always been bloated. There are still too many. Over half don't see any use. Big brain fact - balancing is easier when there are less things to balance.

All nerfs were laser-focused, basically addressing the top 3 problems in spvp (Holos, necros, and kitten core rangers).

I like this CMC guy. Let him work without whining like a little kitten. The only reason I reinstalled this trashfire of a PvP game was the nerf to powercreep in February. Balance is the best it's been since pre-HoT.

Then let's cut the balancing by half and remove all amulets and introduce gear stats in PvP and have it working like in WvW?Like what's the deal with not doing it?Because we'll have few more vendors?

Small scale fights in WvW are more balanced than those ridiculous Metas in PvP for years we have...

It's not about whining like a little kitten, but this was supposed to be fun game no?

You are saying that balance is the best since pre-HoT - then why we have less viable builds now and we have ten times more CC spams than we had back then?

You do realize that because of this approach of killing the build diversity and making fights frustrating due to massive amount of CC spams, the PvP community is in such smaller state and is more toxic?

And also Anet with it's balancing decisions becomes more of a hypocrite...

Anet never learns is correct, making Partial Treatment is history repeating itself all over again. Necromancer Profession nerfed while Revenant a non-condition Profession is favored in its place

REVENANT PROFESSION IS NOT A NECROMANCER PROFESSION!!!

SHAME!!

Hey! don't forget the usual PVP ONLY

WITH 8 CONSECUTIVE YEARS.....STILL FORGOT ABOUT TOXIC STEALTH MECHANIC AGAIN??!!

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"mistsim.2748" said:Big brain fact - balancing is easier when there are less things to balance.

Wow dude, you should probably just not talk, because it makes you look like an idiot. Nature doesn't have one person, or a team, or anything at all, trying to control its balance. It achieved, and maintains, its balance without any external input at all, something that can't happen in a video game because it can't modify itself to adjust things (yet).

Two (or many) things being balanced does not mean they have to be the same, it means they have to cancel all of the forces among themselves with opposing forces. Generally, for balance to have any meaning, you have to define your conditions. If you want two objects to be balanced, you have to define exactly what you're looking for. A sport bike and a family sedan could be balanced with each other depending on how you define it.

Looking at the wiki history, it appears that there were 25 amulets about a year ago, now there are 19. "Removing nearly all the amulets, " right.

There's an old game called "blockhead" I believe. The goal was to take turns stacking the various pieces on top of each other without toppling the stack. You could go as far horizontally or vertically as you could manage, but only one piece could be touching the ground. I suggest you go find that game, or something similar, and see if it's easier to do with more pieces, or with less.

@Ralgha.4109 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"mistsim.2748" said:Big brain fact - balancing is easier when there are less things to balance.

Exactly. He's so out to lunch that there's literally no point in countering his argument.

ENGINEER:Team sees Prot Holo used in PvP..... Thinks to itself"What if we intensely punish literally ALL engineers, even scrapper, because prot holo exists?"Clap clap clap clap

I get the will the change Hard Light Arena but... 50 seconds? It's going to be very hard to justify for any reason in PvP after this.... the Prot Holosmiths are just going to use some combination of Thumper Turret/Utility Goggles/Rocket Boots/Slick Shoes.

In fact, with the nerfs to Alchemy being the way they are, people are either going to use Comeback Cure or Backpack Regenerator if they will continue to use Alchemy for bunkering purposes and most likely Iron-Blooded and the super-bunker problem will not go away. These nerfs are simply going to make people quit engineers for DPS purposes, unless they go the condi route which even then is limited.

Or the super-bunkers will switch to Tools (where Mechanized Deployment will reduce the cooldowns of Bandage Self, and Gadgeteer will reduce the cooldowns of A.E.D., Rocket Boots, Utility Goggles, Reactive Lenses, and Healing Mist).

Or they will switch to Explosives for the HP, barriers, and healing of Big Boomer and combine it with Mender's Amulet (which hasn't been nerfed here) and Rune of the Sanctuary - that build is still quite bunkery.

In essence, these balance choices are going to make it really difficult to play rifle holo and core engi rifle builds for direct damage purposes. Prepare to abuse the love out of Grenade Kit, people. It's going to be your main application of direct damage in your utilities from now on.

Again, I don't see where mortar kit damage was the issue... mostly I just see people upset with the, in their opinions, 'low' cooldowns of the combo field mortar kit skills or the fact that the fields last 'too long.' Couldn't you guys have nerfed, you know, Explosive Entrance which can hit for 3K off a dodge on multiple targets in a way where the player did not even have to think about applying it? Or Grenade Kit, whose Tool Belt skill can hit for 5-10K with a sizeable radius? I would've been happy with those nerfs, especially with this whole "We don't like bursty builds (and then we let new bursty builds arise because severe myopia - like BURN GUARD)" philosophy which isn't very consistent as of late. See, I actually identify problems with my build and am not an apologist, unlike some people on this forum.

Oh yeah, where's Prime Light Beam's damage again? Oh that's right.... it doesn't exist and the skill is fairly useless... STILL. At least a dmg multiplier of 1.00, still not here. Big SAD.

RANGER Good. I tried that meta ranger build the other day, and it was so easy to pick up and do so much damage and avoid damage that I was wondering how it could be conceived that it was fair to leave ranger in such a state. Ranger apologists did this to themselves by denying that Ranger was overtuned.

REVENANT I don't see anything about bunker Renegade, Renegade AoEs, so that's going to be even more overtuned now. Same for Herald - where are the Herald nerfs? That class does unparalleled damage and now the formerly busted ranger will not be around to control it. It's going to shred teams even faster, especially a duo of them.

GUARD Where are the burn guard nerfs? You can't cleanse 10 stacks of burn fast enough, especially when they have a .15 multipler for 100 condition damage... Gee whiz. Also, where's the Firebrand pull radius nerf? That's too strong, imo.

NECROMANCER Shroud definitely needed some more nerfs, especially the bunkery shroud users. With that said, the only nerf to Reaper is indirect and even then it's fairly weak. I'm a little concerned that Reapers may come out too strong in terms of DPS with this particular patch, especially with the games I've played it on.

ELEMENTALIST I think Lightning Rod's damage multiplier should've been reduced to .8, but that's just me. The Tornado needed a cooldown nerf, especially with comparable elites Rampage and Elixir X having such high cooldowns.

General balance trouble: Why do the CC skills on Longbow for Ranger and Dragonhunter not penalize the user with a self-CC like they do on rifle engineer? The engineer CC chain isn't a thing anymore, no one uses prime light beam, and no one uses Personal Battering Ram... not like either of them does any damage now. If your concerns are rooted in Photon Blitz and Grenade Barrage... then maybe nerf those skills' damage output? Just my thoughts on the matter. Otherwise it just seems really unfair. Also, why are Toss Elixir skills (minus Toss Elixir R) not all unblockable? All of them should be unblockable, they literally do no damage to enemy players and it just disables a key skill for engineers when AoE Projectile reflect/block skills are used.

@Kuma.1503 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@mistsim.2748 said:

This is 100% accurate.thats why mmo's need teams that play the game frequently and have a great understanding of where all classes and skills are in the game and make balance decisions based on their vision alongside with the design team. Yes community feedback is important but 90% of balancing feedback is biased nonsense and it's up to the team to know what small bits of info are relevant and accurate in the mess of nerf and buff discussions.I'm not sure that's this team.

@Ralgha.4109 said:Nature doesn't have one person, or a team, or anything at all, trying to control its balance. It achieved, and maintains, its balance without any external input at all, something that can't happen in a video game because it can't modify itself to adjust things.

errr, no. Balance in the game is adjusting and modifying itself as we speak always. It is maintained without a team, and this is what the meta basically is. Autonomous agents that are creating builds to try and compete with each other. Bad builds fall out of favor, good builds survive and become meta. This is the balance that occurs naturally in gw2. Anet intervening has repercussions on what exactly is able to survive (this is part of the problem), but aside from their input every few months, the game follows game theory , complexity theory and pseudo-natural selection laws. Because we live in a world where we follow physical, describable laws whether you like it or not. Games, and systems are no exception.