My Opinion about WvW Balance

I just finished reviewing the Nov 7th balance patch.

While there were some needed changes that were asked for since the PoF betas, such as weaver sword being buffed and sensible changes to warrior stances and FC to reduce 100% resistance uptime, those mostly effect PvP and small group/roaming WvW. They should have never been released that way to begin with, but congratulations to finally getting to it? Holosmith got buffed. Ranger got a bunch of bug fixes and changes for raids. Mirage got a bunch of bug fixes and tweeks. Renegade will still not be used, most likely.

But the elephant in the room is the necro. I think the vast majority of people, according to polls on the forums and the constant complaints in game, are from boon corruption. Yes, Winds of Disenchantment is very powerful, but it has a 90 second CD and removes boons as opposed to turning those boons into conditions. The forums have been flooded with feedback asking for something to be done about boon corruption, and condition damage in general. What did you guys do? Nothing. Not a god damn thing. As a matter of fact, you focused most of your energy to buffing reaper. Why? Reaper already hit hard. Super hard if in zerk gear. Now you buffed it even more. Yes, I understand that life force is draining faster, but so what [edit: I actually strongly disagree with this change. Reaper is a melee class and already took a hard hit to life force. This makes it even more unpalatable for large group combat, but tbd] This is 2017 and PoF is the release, not HOT. Is this supposed to offset the scourge by giving an option to it? That's power creep.

[Edit: mistaken fact] The scourge still reigns supreme here with Path of Corruption still as it still be able to convert 2 boons from up to 5 people per shade and the necro. Boon conversion is still base to the punishment skills. I still can't understand why this is and it isn't a trait option, forcing the player to make a choice between offence and defense. Desert shrowd now does even more damage. WTF? was anyone complaining about this? Add to this some other small buffs, and the necro was not brought down at all. More power creep. The other benefit from uncoupling corruption effects from the base skills is providing a power option. As it stands, scourge is a condi only class.

A small note on some other things: Did warrior axes need to be buffed that much? Those are massive dps increases. You guys have been playing with axes for 5 years. This is, again, PoF.Daggers are really underpowered compared to every weapon. You still don't understand that guardian mantras are crap compared to other skills that have 600 aoe. It's nice that they're buffed a little, but I don't think it's gonna do anything. I don't understand what's so hard for you to understand that FB is a frontline class and needs to hit allies beside and behind them.

I never expected an across the board change to conditions, resistance, boon corruption, etc. That must be done at some point, especially if you're going to have this power creep. I understand that's gonna take a lot of work and will probably never happen. But until that day comes, things need to be toned down. While there is some decrease in damage, like the very small nerf to Firebrand Ashes, I'd say overall, there's just gonna be more damage, more power creep, with no attention to defense, sustain, or healing. You just don't get it.

Nefarious favor does not convert boons unless traited with Path of Corruption, it converts conditions. Scourge already got nerfed twice in two recent updates.

And in all honesty I am all too happy to farm players who need to be carried by spamming boons.

As far as warrior axe....I don't even know what to think anymore. I just laugh every time because no other weapon has seen no many damage buffs and yet still remains so underwhelming.

TY. My bad. Brain fart. Still too much. (Unending Corruption)

Gw2 pvp/wvw is pretty much done for me, i got already conditions pooped all over me moment i step out of spawn.i also do not believe any1 likes conditions.

i mean if i give some1 chance (ill keep it nice)to blow up a water bottleor just shoot 1 little hole in it till it "bleeds" out.

all choose for blow up aka power play the fuck with these conditions being not nerfed into oblivion or atleast being made in a way if

X (bleed.burn,torn,w/e condition) has been cleansedX condition cant be re applied for X second(s).

done. condi has been fixed and people who do wanna play it enjoy how conditions are suppose to work in my eyes slowly bleed ur enemy to dead.not apply 10 condi, he cleanse em add another 10 of same shit and he litarely takes 10k condi takes from all shit u applied to him within a flash of seconds.

@Spurnshadow.3678 said:But the elephant in the room is the necro. I think the vast majority of people, according to polls on the forums and the constant complaints in game, are from boon corruption. Yes, Winds of Disenchantment is very powerful, but it has a 90 second CD and removes boons as opposed to turning those boons into conditions. The forums have been flooded with feedback asking for something to be done about boon corruption, and condition damage in general. What did you guys do? Nothing. Not a god kitten thing. As a matter of fact, you focused most of your energy to buffing reaper. Why? Reaper already hit hard. Super hard if in zerk gear. Now you buffed it even more. Yes, I understand that life force is draining faster, but so what? This is 2017 and PoF is the release, not HOT. Is this supposed to offset the scourge by giving an option to it? That's power creep.

I understand the vent, but I see a really good reason for them not to change it : scourge has been built around the whole idea of corrupting boons. Removing it would leave the spec as an useless empty shell. Just like Mallyx's rev was after HoT's release because they changed their minds in the last minute. And I think this is the reason why they buffed Reaper : they're trying to make the power counterpart of the whole necro concept more appealing, to divide the necro population more evenly between the possibilities.

Then again, that doesn't mean that I'm satisfied with the situation whatsoever. That said, I'll agree with :

@X T D.6458 said:And in all honesty I am all too happy to farm players who need to be carried by spamming boons.

PS : I also agree spellbreaker's daggers could have used a buff.

I never asked to remove boon corruption from scourge, but I think it needs to be toned down, a lot. When you can corrupt with F1, 2 boons on F2 (which is multiplied by the amount of shades you have plus the scourge itself), boon into torment on every utility skill, boon corrupt with scepter AA chain, aoe boon corrupt on dagger 5, pulsing boon corrupt aoe with well of corruption, that's a metric fuck-ton of corruption. One of the best things they could have done is make Path of Corruption convert only 1 boon. But honestly, I think a fundamental change to the game mechanics needs to be done at this point. The class seems baked in.

Gw2 is not about balance is it suposed to be a easy of access to easy gimmicks to pve players... and pve'er players love broken build in pvp to pretend how amazing they are.

Gw2 isnt about player skill, stack n spam just for the rewards that all athat is about.Anet will never make gw2 a decent pvp game, it was not the ideal they had for the game.

Warrior still has too much access to Resistance.

@reddie.5861 said:done. condi has been fixed and people who do wanna play it enjoy how conditions are suppose to work in my eyes slowly bleed ur enemy to dead.not apply 10 condi, he cleanse em add another 10 of same kitten and he litarely takes 10k condi takes from all kitten u applied to him within a flash of seconds.It's the GW2 way. Look at stealth, for another example, that stealthed guy doesn't get [revealed when he engages in a fight until he gets out of combat] like in sensible games, he gets to spam stealth and even stomp people in stealth. This is the GW2 way! Are Arenanet not delighting you with their game?!

@roamzero.9486 said:Warrior still has too much access to Resistance.

If by "too much" you mean "not nearly enough to deal with Anet's condi meta BS", then I agree.

@James Rustler.7860 said:

@roamzero.9486 said:Warrior still has too much access to Resistance.

Who really has enough to deal with ANET's love for Damage over Time = Burst all the Time design philosophy.

@Spurnshadow.3678 said:I just finished reviewing the Nov 7th balance patch.

While there were some needed changes that were asked for since the PoF betas, such as weaver sword being buffed and sensible changes to warrior stances and FC to reduce 100% resistance uptime, those mostly effect PvP and small group/roaming WvW. They should have never been released that way to begin with, but congratulations to finally getting to it? Holosmith got buffed. Ranger got a bunch of bug fixes and changes for raids. Mirage got a bunch of bug fixes and tweeks. Renegade will still not be used, most likely.

But the elephant in the room is the necro. I think the vast majority of people, according to polls on the forums and the constant complaints in game, are from boon corruption. Yes, Winds of Disenchantment is very powerful, but it has a 90 second CD and removes boons as opposed to turning those boons into conditions. The forums have been flooded with feedback asking for something to be done about boon corruption, and condition damage in general. What did you guys do? Nothing. Not a god kitten thing. As a matter of fact, you focused most of your energy to buffing reaper. Why? Reaper already hit hard. Super hard if in zerk gear. Now you buffed it even more. Yes, I understand that life force is draining faster, but so what [edit: I actually strongly disagree with this change. Reaper is a melee class and already took a hard hit to life force. This makes it even more unpalatable for large group combat, but tbd] This is 2017 and PoF is the release, not HOT. Is this supposed to offset the scourge by giving an option to it? That's power creep.

[Edit: mistaken fact] The scourge still reigns supreme here with Path of Corruption still as it still be able to convert 2 boons from up to 5 people per shade and the necro. Boon conversion is still base to the punishment skills. I still can't understand why this is and it isn't a trait option, forcing the player to make a choice between offence and defense. Desert shrowd now does even more damage. kitten? was anyone complaining about this? Add to this some other small buffs, and the necro was not brought down at all. More power creep. The other benefit from uncoupling corruption effects from the base skills is providing a power option. As it stands, scourge is a condi only class.

A small note on some other things: Did warrior axes need to be buffed that much? Those are massive dps increases. You guys have been playing with axes for 5 years. This is, again, PoF.Daggers are really underpowered compared to every weapon. You still don't understand that guardian mantras are crap compared to other skills that have 600 aoe. It's nice that they're buffed a little, but I don't think it's gonna do anything. I don't understand what's so hard for you to understand that FB is a frontline class and needs to hit allies beside and behind them.

I never expected an across the board change to conditions, resistance, boon corruption, etc. That must be done at some point, especially if you're going to have this power creep. I understand that's gonna take a lot of work and will probably never happen. But until that day comes, things need to be toned down. While there is some decrease in damage, like the very small nerf to Firebrand Ashes, I'd say overall, there's just gonna be more damage, more power creep, with no attention to defense, sustain, or healing. You just don't get it.

Nice post :+1:

Many of my guildmembers were hoping for a "fix" for the condi spam/meta in WvW. Yesterday one of them told me he's already been playing less now because of it, and this balance patch would decide if he'd continue with playing less or playing more again. Now we all know the outcome. I'm afraid that anet doesn't realize that lowering the quality of their WvW game mode has detrimental consequences for it's popularity and its population. We've already seen many seasoned WvW players leave the game, and if this condi meta continues, more will follow.

I think anyone who understands what I'm talking about also knows about how fun WvW fights can be when melee frontline really matters, with a mix of front and back liners. The condi spam is forcing us to play pirateship and even forcing us to play scourge for some because, if one side has no scourges, you're done for. That's not how WvW should be.

People can make post after post about this problem, but I get the feeling that anet stopped listening to their customers. So much was promised for WvW, but nothing really got delivered that would actually improve the gameplay quality of the game mode. The only way for anet to listen is when everyone decides to just stop playing WvW for a week. But who is going to do that?

It's the holiday season with a lot of new games coming out. This balance patch was a turning point for a lot of folks, which you have pointed out. Me included.

@Spurnshadow.3678 said:I just finished reviewing the Nov 7th balance patch.

While there were some needed changes that were asked for since the PoF betas, such as weaver sword being buffed and sensible changes to warrior stances and FC to reduce 100% resistance uptime, those mostly effect PvP and small group/roaming WvW. They should have never been released that way to begin with, but congratulations to finally getting to it? Holosmith got buffed. Ranger got a bunch of bug fixes and changes for raids. Mirage got a bunch of bug fixes and tweeks. Renegade will still not be used, most likely.

But the elephant in the room is the necro. I think the vast majority of people, according to polls on the forums and the constant complaints in game, are from boon corruption. Yes, Winds of Disenchantment is very powerful, but it has a 90 second CD and removes boons as opposed to turning those boons into conditions. The forums have been flooded with feedback asking for something to be done about boon corruption, and condition damage in general. What did you guys do? Nothing. Not a god kitten thing. As a matter of fact, you focused most of your energy to buffing reaper. Why? Reaper already hit hard. Super hard if in zerk gear. Now you buffed it even more. Yes, I understand that life force is draining faster, but so what [edit: I actually strongly disagree with this change. Reaper is a melee class and already took a hard hit to life force. This makes it even more unpalatable for large group combat, but tbd] This is 2017 and PoF is the release, not HOT. Is this supposed to offset the scourge by giving an option to it? That's power creep.

[Edit: mistaken fact] The scourge still reigns supreme here with Path of Corruption still as it still be able to convert 2 boons from up to 5 people per shade and the necro. Boon conversion is still base to the punishment skills. I still can't understand why this is and it isn't a trait option, forcing the player to make a choice between offence and defense. Desert shrowd now does even more damage. kitten? was anyone complaining about this? Add to this some other small buffs, and the necro was not brought down at all. More power creep. The other benefit from uncoupling corruption effects from the base skills is providing a power option. As it stands, scourge is a condi only class.

A small note on some other things: Did warrior axes need to be buffed that much? Those are massive dps increases. You guys have been playing with axes for 5 years. This is, again, PoF.Daggers are really underpowered compared to every weapon. You still don't understand that guardian mantras are crap compared to other skills that have 600 aoe. It's nice that they're buffed a little, but I don't think it's gonna do anything. I don't understand what's so hard for you to understand that FB is a frontline class and needs to hit allies beside and behind them.

I never expected an across the board change to conditions, resistance, boon corruption, etc. That must be done at some point, especially if you're going to have this power creep. I understand that's gonna take a lot of work and will probably never happen. But until that day comes, things need to be toned down. While there is some decrease in damage, like the very small nerf to Firebrand Ashes, I'd say overall, there's just gonna be more damage, more power creep, with no attention to defense, sustain, or healing. You just don't get it.

Warriors are fine, relax

Hey guys relax it's ok. PvE in GW2 is still somewhat decent. Remember this is a F2P game. So ofc gameplay quality is going to take a backseat to nearly everything else.

Hope for other games coming soon where maybe developers know what they are doing and not treating customers like shit ...

@Retsuko.2035 said:

Nice post :+1:

Many of my guildmembers were hoping for a "fix" for the condi spam/meta in WvW. Yesterday one of them told me he's already been playing less now because of it, and this balance patch would decide if he'd continue with playing less or playing more again. Now we all know the outcome. I'm afraid that anet doesn't realize that lowering the quality of their WvW game mode has detrimental consequences for it's popularity and its population. We've already seen many seasoned WvW players leave the game, and if this condi meta continues, more will follow.

I think anyone who understands what I'm talking about also knows about how fun WvW fights can be when melee frontline really matters, with a mix of front and back liners. The condi spam is forcing us to play pirateship and even forcing us to play scourge for some because, if one side has no scourges, you're done for. That's not how WvW should be.

People can make post after post about this problem, but I get the feeling that anet stopped listening to their customers. So much was promised for WvW, but nothing really got delivered that would actually improve the gameplay quality of the game mode. The only way for anet to listen is when everyone decides to just stop playing WvW for a week. But who is going to do that?

I just did. Probably much more than a week.

don't you get it? anet is trying to reduce the power of the BALL META. this is an intentional nerf to how people have been abusing WvW. scourge and warrior are merely the tools to do it. now you can't just stack and precast boon, you have to react to the battle, it make WvW less of a stack fest. the biggest problem with the game has always been stacking, why did you think they created stacking agony in FOTM?

@Retsuko.2035 said:I think anyone who understands what I'm talking about also knows about how fun WvW fights can be when melee frontline really matters, with a mix of front and back liners.

I use to play frontline too. but it getting boring after several years. frontline play has pretty much been perfected before POF, how much further can you evolve the game if you can just steamroll the enemy by stacking?

Yesterday one of them told me he's already been playing less now because of it, and this balance patch would decide if he'd continue with playing less or playing more again. Now we all know the outcome. I'm afraid that anet doesn't realize that lowering the quality of their WvW game mode has detrimental consequences for it's popularity and its population. We've already seen many seasoned WvW players leave the game, and if this condi meta continues, more will follow.

2 issue, one is I agree player will leave because they don't like changes. it is unfortunate, but I do think the change has made the game more challenging and fun. the other point is condi meta is too strong, i agree, it been strong even before POF, and it has seriously reduce the play that can be made. my view on condi is it is too bursty, the point of condi is that it take time to cause damage. imo, condi should be made to cause damage over a longer period of time, and give player time to react or even ignore them for a few second. this make hard hitting power build more dangerous to group that depend on condi damage and restore some degree of balance.

I do not believe that pushing the game back to the state that it was years ago will be helpful, nor do I think the current meta is perfect, but I do think the changes are not all bad. and there is good reasoning behind the change as it would allow gameplay to evolve wider.

Dealing 20k Condition damage over 3 seconds if u can mantain 10 stacks burn , 10 stacks confu and 10 stacks torment is totally broken and unbalanced. It requires 0% skill , because u dont need to attack a Target to inflict conditions. They just appear Randomely and cant be dodged.

On the other hand 20k power one shots ( killing from 100% Health to 0%health in less then 0.5 seconds) should be buffed. The heavy armor classes can Survive this sometimes.

Quote ;

"my view on condi is it is too bursty, the point of condi is that it take time to cause damage. imo, condi should be made to cause damage over a longer period of time, and give player time to react or even ignore them for a few second"

If those 3 seconds arent enough time to react to the conditions u should play tetris. A proper reaction time in competetive pvp games is 0.1 seconds.

• gw 2 community

And pls dont tell me 0.1 reaction time is inhuman - i play league of legends for 4 Years.

@Spurnshadow.3678 said:But the elephant in the room is the necro. I think the vast majority of people, according to polls on the forums and the constant complaints in game, are from boon corruption. Yes, Winds of Disenchantment is very powerful, but it has a 90 second CD and removes boons as opposed to turning those boons into conditions. The forums have been flooded with feedback asking for something to be done about boon corruption, and condition damage in general. What did you guys do? Nothing. Not a god kitten thing. As a matter of fact, you focused most of your energy to buffing reaper. Why? Reaper already hit hard. Super hard if in zerk gear. Now you buffed it even more. Yes, I understand that life force is draining faster, but so what [edit: I actually strongly disagree with this change. Reaper is a melee class and already took a hard hit to life force. This makes it even more unpalatable for large group combat, but tbd] This is 2017 and PoF is the release, not HOT. Is this supposed to offset the scourge by giving an option to it? That's power creep.

[Edit: mistaken fact] The scourge still reigns supreme here with Path of Corruption still as it still be able to convert 2 boons from up to 5 people per shade and the necro. Boon conversion is still base to the punishment skills. I still can't understand why this is and it isn't a trait option, forcing the player to make a choice between offence and defense. Desert shrowd now does even more damage. kitten? was anyone complaining about this? Add to this some other small buffs, and the necro was not brought down at all. More power creep. The other benefit from uncoupling corruption effects from the base skills is providing a power option. As it stands, scourge is a condi only class.

Okay, you've seemingly used the terms Necromancer, Scourge and Reaper interchangeably here and I wanted to point out what the patch did;

• the CONDITION Reaper got nerfed into the ground - These are not viable now,
• the POWER Reaper initially looks like it got a buff, but the reduction in Shroud uptime entirely negates the damage buff,
• VANILLA Necromancer has been a joke since 2012,
• Only the Scourge Necromancer is powerful now (I know nothing about Scourge power/condi, but I suspect you're correct about Condi Scourge being viable), and it's entirely reliant on a horrible circles mechanic that makes the BORING Pirate Ship tactic meta in WvW until the next expansion at the earliest.

I'm so tired of hearing the counter argument that before this we had boons out the butt and it was unstoppable. That's total BS and just shows you were not part of a guild group that comped properly. Boonshare mesmer was nerfed a long time ago. Boons on enemies were manageable. Necros still stripped plenty of boons and sigil of absorption stripped resistance first. One could comp for condi or power and still do well.