Anet: did they learn from beta?

Reading the specialization notes.

Guardian: WTF is with the cones? This seems so arbitrary. So many classes, well, every class has aoe damage and support skills. Forget the fact that so many of them are 240 or larger and ranged, just look at the ones that center around the caster: shouts, all classes, 600, mesmer matras, 240, glyphs, 300, attunement overloads, 360, and on and on. So, wtf did you not listen to everyone who said that the cones are lame and no one will use the mantras because of this? Adding a 180 radius is not a solution. You need to be almost on top of the guardian for this to be effective. And if you guys do have such a hard on for a cone, then it needs to have a long range, like 600-900 for it to be a viable choice. We only have 3 utility slots to choose from and these mantras will be at the bottom of the list. Fail on this.

Mesmer: In just reading the notes, I can see issues with the core class still. It's good that you improved the ambush abilities and mirage cloak, but some of the traits, and the core class in general is still antithetical to the mirage. For example, you reworked some of the utilities to generate a clone, but there's still the trait where your utility skills generates a clone only if you have 2. Well, You can't have both, so that trait works against the class. Same thing with the fact that the whole point of the class is to have maximum clones up, but you still did nothing to the shatter skills, which works against the class and is a tremendous missed opportunity. Elite still seems like a utility rather than something powerful. This still seems primarily geared towards PvP or WvW roaming.

Renegade: Well, here you actually did listen and properly reduced energy costs across the board. I still don't see anything regarding CC and warband death being changed thereby completely negating those abilities, so... kinda important there. While not widely said on the forums as most everyone was so turned off by this profession, I personally think it is OP. Icerazors Ire is a one shot skill and there are so many things that massively buff your group lending to the general power creep of the game. Good or bad? TBD, but I see a lot of this being tuned down in the future.

Scourge: It's good that you recognized the fact that this was totally op in WvW. Will the target cap reduction be enough? We'll find out. I don't think so, as the biggest issue is the massive amount of boon corruption. Every utility skill corrupts, even the healing skill. Wtf? That should be a trait at best and not baseline. Add in the unending corruption trait, and it's near endless. Add a scepter or axe and dagger, forget about it. This is the issue in conjuntion with the target cap of the shades. Reducing the target cap helps a lot, but we'll see. Considering this spec seems to be primarily for WvW, I still see it as ruining the game mode. But I'm a negative nancy.

Warrior: Not many issues from beta, so not much to say, but Winds of Disenchantment is completely OP. What are you guys thinking? This is totally out of line with every elite skill or any skill for that matter.

Weaver: K, so you buffed the sword abilities a bit. Good. That was an issue people had. But this wasn't the central problem. The main issue was having all your atunements on a long CD. That effected every weapon in the game, not just the sword. That seemed unnecessary and could have been reworked so atunement swapping could flow better. Due to this, I feel a lot of folks just aren't going to pick the weaver and would rather stick with base ele or tempest, as it just has more to offer.

Thief: Weren't a lot if issues before except for the op single target damage. You addressed some of this, so we'll see how it plays out.

I didn't play engi or ranger, and don't main them.

Overall, I guess you guys did listen, and fixed what you could, but did you do enough? Did you address the big concerns people had? Weaver, no. Scourge, sort of. Mixed here. Maybe it was just a matter of what you could do with the time you had.

There are still some glaring problems. These specs seem much more specialized and not as flexable as the HoT ones let alone base classes. For example, the scouge will have no place in raids, fractals, or any pve environment as it's half or more of its focus of dps is boon conversion. Same thing with the warrior. Those are just a couple exmaples. Also, some seem to be pigeonholed into power or condi. Scourge: condi, Warrior, power, etc. You still missed a glaring need for another class to provide alacrity and resistance making Chronomancers and Revs a must for many situations. It's good that you gave a ton of quickness for the guardian, but it still won't beat out a chrono because it pumps out alacrity (and it's abilities are aoe and not cone based (palm slaps to forehead)). These specs are competing with the HoT ones and base classes, and some of them just don't feel worth it, especially when compared to the HoT specs. It seems like a lot more development needed to be done in order to think about these issues and how to address it but you guys ran out of time.

Yea...ranger got more nerfs, and hardly any fixes that it needed so..

Btw, as of this writing, I'm one of those people who didn't buy PoF and still won't. I see class balance and these specs as being the main selling point. I can blow through the pve content in a couple days, but the specs last for years. There are just too many issues for me to reward Anet with my money. I'm waiting to see how it plays out as I generally am a negative person. I do hope I'm proven wrong.

Of course ANet learned from Beta. The problem is some folks expect ANet to fully agree with the players' analysis and resulting recommendations. Most of us tend to evaluate balance from our own perspective, based on our skill level, style of play, preferred role/professions, experience, etc. ANet has to balance the game for everyone, not just e.g. QT or e.g the non-raider.

Yes. .

I think that they learned that time ran out before they could finish the elite specs, and I leanred to never have any faith in Anet.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:Of course ANet learned from Beta. The problem is some folks expect ANet to fully agree with the players' analysis and resulting recommendations. Most of us tend to evaluate balance from our own perspective, based on our skill level, style of play, preferred role/professions, experience, etc. ANet has to balance the game for everyone, not just e.g. QT or e.g the non-raider.

Completely agree with this. Like they say, can't please all the people all the time. It's literally impossible.

we only know there are balancing changes since beta, what kind of changes those are is something we will find out about at release.

@makagoto.1204 said:we only know there are balancing changes since beta, what kind of changes those are is something we will find out about at release.

Theyve actually posted them(at least for the elite specs) so you can read up on those at least. More might be done, but i highly doubt it.

Self decpetion on mirrage was buffed to produce a clone, if u have at least 1 illusion active, which is comparable with illusionary reversion, and in my opinion even better when looking at jaunt, illusionary ambush (20 sec cd now) + Healing skill (now 25 sec Cd). Mirrage has got a lot of help right now, but still some issues. I do think those issues mainly come down to the strength of mesmer overall in wvw and PvP. For example ; Mirage Mantle is pure nonesense. 1,5 sec protection in a master trait. Comparing it with chaotic dampening shows, restorative illusions or blurred inscriptions clearly shows this. Either needs another bonus to the protection or a full rework into a healing/barrier trait. Normad's endurance vigour should again give power damage too, and speed of sand is still underwhelming as tier 3 minor. Quickness on dodge would be fitting in my opinion, and by far not too much to ask for.

@Dante.1763 said:

@makagoto.1204 said:we only know there are balancing changes since beta, what kind of changes those are is something we will find out about at release.

my bad, i just found out about it after i wrote that.

@makagoto.1204 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@makagoto.1204 said:we only know there are balancing changes since beta, what kind of changes those are is something we will find out about at release.

Not something to feel bad about, they have the class threads on the bottom! xD

The scourge nerfs should of been a pvp wvw nerf only. They gutted the class for pve.

Majority of the players in this game are PvE players and they focus way too much on balance for pvp and kill PvE. They need to just separate these better for all the modes

@Sylent.3165 said:The scourge nerfs should of been a pvp wvw nerf only. They gutted the class for pve.

Majority of the players in this game are PvE players and they focus way too much on balance for pvp and kill PvE. They need to just separate these better for all the modes

The scourge will most likely not be used for pve as most of it's dps comes from boon conversion. Monsters don't have boons, or very very little. Yeah, pretty lame for anyone who likes to play necro and pve will not get much from this.

They have, buy it or don't.