Hi Everyone,
I wanted to clarify something from today’s blog post while also kicking off a discussion on a topic that’s near and dear to most competitive players: balance.
It’s important to understand that as competitive handles competitive balance, we will continue to primarily use skill splits in order to minimize the impact on the rest of the game. It’s certainly true that not all issues can be addressed through splits, and we will continue to work with the skills team to make sure we are making the right changes for the entire game when splitting is not a viable option.
We have identified the overall power of the game has become an issue and we wish to address this in the competitive game modes.
The next balance update is going to be smaller than usual. We want to make a handful of very targeted changes to address the biggest pain points in the current meta, but we also want to bank some time for bigger plans moving forward. For a future balance update, we are looking at major adjustments across the board. The goal is to re-establish what the overall power level for competitive modes, and then bring everything down to meet that. In true gw2 fashion, everything is on the table.
With that said, we’re not going to nerf just for the sake of nerfing. Every change should make sense, and every change should be working toward a bigger goal. This patch is still super early in development, so I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it’s definitely something we want to talk about more moving forward. As mentioned in the blog post, we want to keep the community involved early and often when it comes to balance.
So, for the purpose of this discussion, consider these two future updates. First for the short-term: What outliers do you see in the current meta? Then think about the big picture: What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed? Think outside of the current meta and instead about what you want the meta to look like from a power-level perspective. Keep in mind that a majority of changes should be splits, but feel free to also call out issues that you feel cannot be addressed by splits.
This post is intentionally starting a broad discussion as a jumping off point into the new communication of the Systems team, but keep in mind that in the future our posts are generally going to be more targeted at specific issues as we won’t have as much time to handle giant discussions.
I wanted to keep this initial post fairly short, so please ask questions about anything that is unclear. Otherwise, let’s talk balance.
cmc
aka cmc
Game Designer on PvP/WvW
Comments
nerf mesmer buff theif.
make renegade viable for pvp a, also shortbow
nerf war elite rampage
cut off holo stabi
Hey there and Thank you for the Update.
I have to ask, are the sentences in bold ment as questions for the players or an example of what is the Team going to ask themselves when balancing/spliting?
Also, you say it should be focused mainly on splits, does it mean we should not expect changes to functionality of skills, but instead simple number tweaks?
Would for example, caping might stacks at 10 be considered a split or somewhat complicated change that is for now off the board?
After seeing the post about the PvE and PvP/WvW balance teams splitting, I think we're finally moving in the right direction. I really want to see some major changes in 2-3 months. I have faith in you cmc.
Edit: I have to say it. Please make power Guardian builds more relevant (core/DH).
An issue I personally see is the nerfing of outlying classes that dominate a certain playstyle (such as firebrand or what scourge used to be). In my opinion these classes are not the issue, it is rather that all the other classes that could fulfil those roles are bad at it. Continuing to nerf firebrand will not make other support classes played more, it will just kill the support role entirely. This seems to have been bourne out somewhat with the destruction of Scourge, as without it teamfights are more like a collection of duelists smashing against one another, rather than what I had come to think of as a teamfight in PvP.
In essense, I would much rather see buffs to the weak classes rather than heavy nerfs to the strong ones (within reason).
To look at the big picture is definetly important to try to make the game more skillful. Single skills shouldnt have an insane big impact in a duel, damage should get tuned down overall. It's important be succesfull, because you deserve it and you know what to do. Best example was HoT meta for this. You've had fairly long duels, which often came down to skill.
Tenacious [Ten]
Welcome to PvP Discord: https://discord.gg/fD6VxyW
Nerf mirage, big time,
nerf condi thief to no existence,
nerf holo damage output and CC(paired with dps) ,
nerf rampage,
Nerf deadeye stealthed dps (its fine if you can atleast target or see it coming)
Nerf condi dmg in general (this is a must)
Nerf power damage very softly, but do so, 12k hits aren't rare anymore.. Which is over the top.
Oh, and nerf mirage
And for the love of rngezus, please, PLEASE BUFF DRUID
Outliers in current meta:
There are a couple others strong specs but I believe these 2 are the most oppressive right now.
About "issues on a fundamental level":
Mirage in general
This spec can dodge while casting skills, stomping, rezzing, etc... The counterplay that exists to mesmer/chrone are almost non existant against this spec because of Mirage Cloak
OneShot builds
No matter what the tradeoff, NO ONE wants to be one shotted from 1000+ range nor from stealth.
If by any means this is possible, there must be severe down sides to this build. Nothing like we've seen from Sic'Em SB or Power Mesmer... Both can screw up their oneshot and manage to run away to try 1 minute later
How Conditions Work
I believe that Conditions should be a Damage over Time effect. And by DOT, i mean that it shouldnt kill anyone as fast as power damage. Condi builds playstyle should be to slowly grind the target HP while being tanky/slippery... Not blinking in your face and dealing like 2k+ burn ticks in an instant
Powercreep/Defensecreep
Damage is too high. Defense/boons are too high as well.
There are specs that can keep an absurd amount of stab or quickness or protection. These boons should be used strategically, not spammed as currently is.
Which brings us back to how conditions work. Neither condis nor boons should be a spamfest. They should be tools to get advantage in fights in key moments, not to keep them up forever.
Since you nerfed my main (scourge) hard for PvP, I want other classes nerfed as well. The main goal would be all classes to be viable. Viable means, that all classes have clear strengths and advantages, but this needs a risk to take. I hate to see high dmg combined with high sustain with not much effort, this is what I consider OP. I want scourge to be viable again, but since the changes will not taken back, I want to see the nerf bat. I would also be happy about an overwork for necro elites, since they are outdated and mostly not that useful for pvp.
My priorities of nerfing classes:
~ Miyu Chan / twitch miyu_chan_serenity
the entire game needs to be nerfed back to pre HoT levels. I mean this in terms of boons, cooldowns, damage and support. things need to be stripped back.
make 7k a big crit again (over 10k dmg from one skill should never happen, let alone over 20-30k which is what we have now).
make 25might and other boons hard to stack. make people use fields and finishers again.
take us back to before the insane powercreep of the expansions, so all the PvP vets who quit can reinstall and have fun in this game again.
//
the game used to be tactical, you had to think about cooldowns and use skills strategically. now you can just spam absurd damage skills and boons, which has dramatically reduced the skill and the fun in PvP.
guild wars 2 PvP is widely considered a joke right now because of this. I gotta say I agree. 30k crits when you have 20k hp is even worse balance than black desert. it's a total meme.
didn't used to be this way tho. guild wars 2 has an excellent combat system, and was once a game I would readily recommend. however the power creep has destroyed what was once a deep and fun RPG.
I thought it was over, that I'd never see a day when guild wars 2 was good again. felt like I never appreciated the game as much as I should have when I played it.
ah, but it looks as if I may be wrong. can gw2 rise as a phoenix from the flames? once again a great PvP game?
some big ol' nerfs and a 2v2 queue would do it I think.
balls in your court @Cal Cohen.3527 . I'm excited to see what ya' do with it
It's coming for me through the trees
Help me someone
Help me please
Take my shoes off and throw them in the lake
GET RANGER GREATSWORD (auto attack) EVADE BACK! class is close to being dead for a reason
[HCM] -jade quarry | Top 20 pvp
youtube channel: https://goo.gl/LCoZL8
A good structural change to start:
Condi shouldnt be able to burst and melt targets like it does now, condi should be slow damage over time, maybe you should remove the insane amount of cleanses we have now, but burst should be only for power build
For this post, these questions are for the players as discussion topics. They are also things that the team is discussing internally as we look toward these balance updates.
I want you all to focus on splits because those are the changes we can do with no impact on the rest of the game. If a split makes sense for PvP or WvW, we can just do it. Functionality changes require larger discussions about the impact on the whole game. We are starting discussions internally about things that are not addressable with numbers changes, because there are things that need a functional change but need to change for the sake of competitive modes.
Game mode-specific boon caps is something that we have talked about, but there are other ways that we can solve some of these problems. For the example of might, I'd want to look at the sources and durations of might applications. 25 might isn't necessarily a problem if it requires significant investment from multiple team members, but a single player self-stacking 25 might is something that probably shouldn't happen. There's also the possibility of splitting the effectiveness on a game mode basis.
aka cmc
Game Designer on PvP/WvW
I am a new player who started playing PvP for the past 6 months. I play Weaver and Firebrand so far. I played PvP in Guild Wars 1 for 9 years as a healer, but I know how to play every GW1 PvP Class.
**What outliers do you see in the current meta? **
Reaper Shroud tends to kill me really quickly. I get that you're supposed to run away but it feels impossible to kite because I'm always chilled
Rampage feels impossible to fight against - unless I have a dodge or invuln up I will die. Rampage feels very strong in comparison to my elites on Weaver and Firebrand because it is very valuable in PvP to do that much damage in such a short space of time, you can +1 people and completely change the outcome of a game.
Mirage - There are too many clones, I don't have time to know which one to attack because there is too much going on elsewhere. The time it takes me to figure out the real person I am dead and the mirage has made more clones. Unless I play furiously offensively on the very start then I will not win. This defeats the point of blocking and using my skills thoughtfully.
** What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed?**
I haven't played the game long enough to have an understanding of the meta changes but I will say as a new player my thoughts for the long term would be
When I see certain classes, I tend to over-use my stability, protection, cleanses etc because I just know they could one shot me. I feel like this is not the gameplay that was intended when designing the game. I think cleanses and stabilities should be reactive rather than casted to prevent you from dying in 2 seconds. So I would say slow down some elements of the PvP gameplay if possible to make it possible for people to improve condi cleanse and protection skills
Encourage more team-play and inter-class synergy - this would promote people to try other classes. Right now it feels like people will ask 'what's the best build/class?' and run that. However I think if you started making certain classes have certain good skills/traits that worked together, you might have more intelligent gameplay and encourage people to try other classes as well.
Extra notes
My opinions:
Outliers on the Upper End (Overpowered)
Outliers on the Lower End (Underpowered)
Skill Outliers
The great god Lagki demands sacrifice!
I think there is (still) a disparity between Elite Specs, and things that have been buffed to Elite Spec levels vs the original Core Specs, and things that are balanced at a Core Spec level.
Eg. things playing at Elite Spec levels of balance:
Eg. Things playing at Core Spec levels of balance:
I can only relay my experience trying to play condi engi and get my damaging conditions to stick. I land my skills, but they are always cleansed much faster than I can apply them because the cleanse in the game seems to be tuned for builds that apply many many more conditions + corruptions (scourge, thief/dd, mirage etc). Where does that leave me with my 12s cooldown blowtorch and a few cover conditions to frantically try and get on top of it?
It just seems like a lot of builds didn't keep pace with the power creep that came with the elite specs.
Personally, I'd prefer if everything was nerfed down to ~2015 levels of balance. However, if that's not going to happen, I'd prefer if the older specs (mostly core specs) were brought up to par with the power creep in a way that doesn't make the current OP specs even worse. I get that that is challenging when elite specs can pick and choose from core as they wish.
I agree with you but there are a few things to consider:
Currently, condi builds don't really have more survivability than power builds thanks to tanky amulets being removed. The ones that do have more survivability (mirage, thief) get it from gimmicky mechanics rather than any innate tankiness.This creates an issue where condi is inherently more difficult to balance as the damage can be cleansed and takes time to apply. To compensate for this, it either needs to deal much more than similar power skills, or there needs to be some other advantage. Otherwise, why would anyone choose DoT instead of direct damage?
Eg. If I land my big condi combo, I am not guaranteed a kill. It can be cleansed. My opponent could kill me first before the condi downs them. My opponent could stall on the point for critical seconds. My opponent could run away to their team for help. etc. If I land my big power combo, my opponent is dead. The end.
Hello new guy, hope you enjoy your stay.
Imo:
-Nerf Holo damage and/or sustain
-Nerf condi teef (CONDI teef, not whole s/d design)
-Nerf staff teef abuse
-Nerf DE Malicious Backstab (in which PvP game one-shotting possibility without counterplay is fine?)
-Adjust warrior sustain
-Think whether letting self-stacking 25 might is healthy (and how can you stack it up to 25, if you spend lots of skills to reach it, its fine, but if it starts working as passive, i dont think its fine).
Main goals to go for at this moment.
Dont mind me, I just randomly spam 35 skill-buttons
25.02.2020 edit - Nevermind, now I spam only 29 skill-buttons
one of my favorite builds and the most fun i had in PvP was back pre-HoT running an apothecary ranger trap build that could hold a point and grind down attackers. i only had to fear thieves with high power damage but there was a tradeoff there, that power damage thief was glassy as heck but could bounce all over the map. once i got good enough there where a lot of fun fights to be had, that's all gone away now, there's too much damage floating around. You should have to choose when you build for high damage to lose sustain or high defense with low damage. all of the increases to condition damage should be looked at too, the way condi's are now it's far easier to kill an opponent by spamming conditions than using power damage.
Hi @Cal Cohen.3527 .
I would like to suggest you include in your OP the old CDI discussion format, where it showed people how to properly talk/ make suggestions about a subject. That way, I feel like the info had a lot of structure and was more approachable than "nerf thief", and a lot of devs praised those threads for being very valuable because of that.I tried finding it on the old forums, but it seems long gone. Perhaps you guys can dig it out.
EDIT: Here you go.
Suggested Idea Format
Proposal Overview
A short description of the proposal that is being put forward
Goal of Proposal
What problem are you trying to solve with your proposal
Proposal Functionality
How does your proposal work in regard in relation to the current design of GW2
Associated Risks
What risks or problems can you foresee with this proposal which you would like to have assistance on from other members of the CDI
Please try to be as concise as feasible with your proposal.
Suggested Discussion Approach
No suggested format.
Suggested Post Word Count: 200
CDI Rules:
1: This initiative is all about discussion.
2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.
3: Anger and emotion will have less impact than intelligent discussion.
4: Together we will share and evolve design philosophies which will impact how we develop the game moving forward.
5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.
6: The teams primary focus is work toward the development of GW2 and therefore posting of discussion and commentary may not be as frequent as you like. Please do understand that the initiative is taken very seriously by us all and that we will be reading the discussions and joining in as often as it is possible to do so.
7: Off topic posts will be deleted.
Please note this is not a competition, either between yourselves or the developers in regard to one up man ship. The point of this Initiative is to work together to make the game better.
Note: We will disclose the ideas we do or don’t like as a group but we will not discuss schedules or timing around implementation.
Does this mean the new team will be reverting the Chronomancer F5-F4 merge that still messes with my 4 years of muscle memory across different classes, and the IP change that removed multiple layers of higher-skill fun, rewarding interactions?
Mobility across the game needs nerf and bring back portal for complexity in the game, make ”bunker/bruiser” 1v1 builds not be an endless stalemate but actually about skill and timings/mindgames. Make teamfights be about coordination and timings w bursts.
www.twitch.tv/sindrener - Rank 55 Dragons/Orange Logo/Team Aggression
Yeah, the holo have a huge damage for a huge sustain ( can refil full HP easily ).
The thief is dealing a lot of damage with condition but won't do anything if u have a FB wander in your team ( but yeah the condi thief is too much op. )
The warrior have a huge sustain man, ther core warrior with tactics traits have a huge tons of sustain against some class ( he is good against barrier, a lot of condi cleans etc.. )
Hopefully the team can aim ensure each class has no less than 2-4 counter options, For example a massive outlier is the fact that under no such reason should mirages main and mostly only counter mostly be thieves.
That said my main questions/statements are
In terms of boon balance i see that you wrote who a single spec self stacking 25 might would be looked at but how would this fair for classes like say warrior or soulbeats which can quickly stack 25 might on its own as well as a generous number of other boons vs necormancer which can also self stack 25 might but is pretty limited on the boon department to just hand full like might, swiftness, (perhaps some protection)
Targeted issues:
BUILDS REFERENCED HERE: https://www.godsofpvp.net/
Engineer:
*Quickness uptime (Elixir U and Kinetic Battery)
*Stability from Elixir U (eliminates need to hit corona burst - taking away skill)
*Overcharged Shot - little-to-no tell, hard to predict
*Function Gyro is far too ineffective compared to other revive utilities (Blood Well, traited Geyser, etc.)
Lots of players here are talking about damage output, this is best adjusted by limiting quickness uptime (therefore allowing the actual dodging of the skills) rather than adjusting the skills themselves.
Elementalist:
*Evade uptime is too high
*Evade animations are inconsistent with actual evade frames (beginning and end)
*Lots of passive damage output - quite unfun to deal with
Mesmer:
*Too many cover conditions over the primary damage source (torment)
*Too high evade uptime
*Evade whilst CCed is silly
*Clone generation is ridiculous - fights are incredibly cluttered
Guardian:
*No specific issues, firebrand has reduced effectiveness due to Scourge nerf
Necromancer:
*Corrupt Boon is very unfun
*Corrupts in general are far too common and allow for far too many cover conditions (not enough cleanses in the game!) - swap some corrupts for boon rips.
*Blood well is far too effective
*Reaper Shroud is far too high sustained damage in lower tiers of play
*Honestly, too many teleports on necromancer in general at this point
Ranger:
*Longbow is still silly burst, and far too effective at lower tiers of play
Revenant:
*Too high sustained damage output
*Too high Quickness uptime
Thief:
*Condi daredevil - obvious, you guys know
*Staff daredevil - obvious, you guys know
*Deadeye - too much stealth uptime from stealth on dodge trait - very unfun gameplay - impossible for lower tier players to track
*Daggerstorm should not be an evade
Warrior:
*Too much might uptime
*Too much sustain from might makes right - health and endurance regen
*Bull's Charge evade forces dodge, when there are at least 6 other high damage skills on warrior that require a dodge too
*Rampage - too much damage and CC
*Warrior's Cunning - 50% damage increase vs barriered foes is too high especially vs classes with perma barrier like scrapper and weaver
Proposed Wider Objectives:
*More skillful gameplay - less value from spamming skills (namely autos)
*Reduce boon of classes - namely Might, Quickness and Stability
*Reduce condition output of classes - namely cover conditions preventing the cleansing of the primary damaging conditions (eg. poison on condi daredevil)
*Reduce sustained damage output - think 'Bruiser meta' - comboed skills should result in kills, not every skill having high damage output.
Angeels - twitch.tv/angeels
https://godsofpvp.net
For sPvP, have you consider a change in the stat budget through amulets? I know this puts WvW aside (or at least it would requires more work) but capping the main offensive stats to lower numbers while having the defensive ones remains the same would necessarily tone down the global power level but keep the power ranking of individual skills. A skill designed as powerful would remain powerful but would give more reaction time to the defender who could survive a bit longer. I thought it was the original idea of having separate modes : balancing the game mode by adjusting the stats and keeping a global balance for skills.
IMO, the problem with Holo has always been that it gets the best damage kit in the game for free with its elite spec. The heat mechanic IS NOT A RISK. It is actually great source of sustain thanks to heat therapy. No player with a modicum of skill ever overheats unless they choose to.
This frees up the entire rest of the build to focus on sustain.
Core engi, by comparison, needs to devote almost all of its build to damage traits and skills in order to compete, and it still doesn't measure up.
Very short summary of current outliers:
Daredevil: Both the condition variant and the Staff version
Staff is almost impossible to kill, as the near constant dodge windows, combined with additional skills like Bandit's Defense or Roll for Iniative make for near permanent dodges. So in 1v1 it's basically impossible and even if you outnumber hard you still waste a huge amount of time because 95% of the time you only hit the dodge timeframes
The Condition variant is a bit easier to kill, but still has a very high dodge uptime. The problem here is that it does very high pressure on essentialle passive/instant effects like sword 2 and dodge. It basically doesnt ever have to use AA, or other sword skills, just the Sword 2 port, dodge and and occasional steal provide for tons of condition pressure that gets constantly reapplied. Also it has a lot of cover condis and the poison stack, which does the most damage, almost gets cleansed last, making it very hard to ever get a full cleanse on the damaging conditions off
Warrior: Mostly Rampage that is problematic. Huge DPS combined with tons of CC, decent mobility, permanent stability, high HP pool, damage reduction. It has basically everything. Profits a lot from damage modifiers too (Strength Line mostly). Almost no counters except massive spam of hard lifesavers or constant corrupt/condi pressure. The slight nerf on CD was definitely not enough.
Holo: Combination of hard lifesavers like Elixir S with very good resustain. With Elixir S and Photon Wall you have a long stealth period, a decent block that allows to keep fighting and a hard immunity with Eli S itself. This in itself isn't op, but the combination of Healing Turret + it's toolbelt skill on a relatively low CD with a lot of combo finishers, permanent regeneration boon and Heat Therapy means that the holo can basically almost always full resustain after disengaging. This makes it too hard to kill for a class with otherwise offensive build (high DPS/CC). Another issue is the excessive quickness uptime from Tools traitline and Elixir U. There is nothing wrong with the build having quickness in general, but the current duration is too high.
Mirage: Even though it has seen some significant nerfs, Infine Horizon is still a problem, as it means you get a ridiculous amounts of condis from clones, especially when they are using staff, as the Staff Ambush Skill is very strong. It also kind of counters your own shatter mechanic, because just keeping the clones up for AA spam does a lot more than the shatters, so they are usually only used as lifesaver (distortion) or to finish people off
Aside from the very recent opinions posted in this thread there -> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/90361/state-of-class-conquest-balance-quality-of-life-discussion-10-17-2019 I would like to make a particular quote of one of the posts that I made in that thread, as it heads a perfect opening for this thread concerning your search for outliers within the intra-class dynamic competitively:
Although this is my subjective opinion, I know that most players would generally agree with this tier list outside of maybe a change or two that they would make from their own subjective experiences. So there you have it, there are your outliers concerning raw performance value.
But more importantly, I'd like to touch on what you said concerning this: "The goal is to re-establish what the overall power level for competitive modes, and then bring everything down to meet that. Think about what you want the meta to look like from a power-level perspective." To be able to do that, it needs to be identified what players view as "feels good" to play as or against. I would imagine that identifying that, would be a strong indication of how the players want the game to feel. The one class/build that I REALLY feel should be very seriously examined concerning your question, is Warrior/Spellbreaker:
Warrior/Berserker/Spellbreaker, but very specifically Strength Spellbreaker in its current state. No matter how badly someone gets trashed in a 1v1 from a strong player on a Strength Spellbreaker, they don't complain about it as indicated by the zero thread representation of Spellbreaker complaints. The funny thing is, this build is actually really strong balance wise. However, there is plenty of counter play to be had against it. If you lose you a Strength Spellbreaker, you either fumbled, didn't run when you should have, or the player on the Spellbreaker was able to trick you and bait you into a good combo. Even if the Spellbreaker is countering your build statistically, there are still ways to deal with him. And even if the Spellbreaker is being countered, the class has dynamic as such that it is still able to find ways to deal with what is countering it. This is very very important to point out because this is rare nowadays amongst the other classes, and that is what makes Warrior/Spellbreaker still feel good to play as and against, because there is real counter play value on each side of the 1v1. Other classes/builds right now have too strong of a rock/paper/scissors effect to such a degree, that as example, when a Necromancer comes around a corner at the wrong time and sees a Power Ranger or Deadeye, the Necromancer knows he's already dead. Or when a Power Shiro Herald gets caught at the wrong time by a Condi Mirage, the Power Shiro knows he's already dead. <- People are getting tired of that and it is largely due to power creep. When overall DPS was lower, something like a Power Shiro Herald would have time to kite a bit and make it back to his team or wait for a + to help him against the Mirage, but nowadays if your hard counter finds you at the wrong time and has a good 10s - 20s time frame to catch you 1v1, you're dead. POINT BEING: None of that hard counter stuff applies to a Spellbreaker. He may be good at fighting some things and some things may have a bit of an advantage vs. him, but anything can deal with him and he can deal with anything. This is what players want the game to feel like again, regardless of the class they play.
Then on the other hand we have those classes that either counter hard or get countered hard. Things like glass cannon rangers & deadeyes. These sorts of designs discourage general skillful play, and encourage the idea of simply targeting the classes that your class is intrinsically designed to nuclear bomb for a hard counter, and to avoid things that are intrinsically designed to nuclear bomb you with no hope of being able to deal with it. This kind of design is what creates several complaint threads about some specific class like a Deadeye, because there are 2 or 3 builds out there that get absolutely trashed by it. The players who play those 2 or 3 builds make it seem like the Deadeye is soooo strong, but in reality the Deadeye is only strong vs. those 2 or 3 builds, and actually loses to everything else in meta. But keep in mind that I am not talking about balance in power right now, I am talking about how the game "feels". Regardless or not of if the Deadeye as example, were actually balanced or not in terms of its weight & worth in a match, players will always still complain about it, even if it is weak and a bad choice for competitive play in the end. This is because they do not like how it feels to get trashed by a hard counter from 1500+ range. This goes for any high damage ranged attacker in Guild Wars 2. Hey, I'm a Ranger main myself and I'm admitting to you that nothing enrages players more, making them want to walk away from the game mode, than nuclear striking them for 1 to 2HKOs at 1500+ range. People hate it. In fact, @Crab Fear.1624 will remember earlier today in a match, where I was playing a Berserker Soulbeast, and there was a particular player on the opposing team who was so upset at me, that he took the time to stop and complain aloud in the /m chat about how I was hacking my damage and how upset he was in general that my Ranger could deal that damage with a Longbow. He went on for several minutes before the match ended and continued to rage me in whispers after the match had ended. I do not see anyone ever act like this when I play on my Spellbreaker as example, even though Spellbreaker is a stronger build than any Ranger spec right now. And I don't see anyone ever complain at other Spellbreakers in my games either. THE POINT BEING HERE: is that this system of hard rock/paper/scissoring needs to be dowsed a bit. Things should be able to deal with each other. It's ok to have a bit of an advantage over a particular class or build, but it's not ok to be able to counter someone like a waterfall coming down on a campfire. That stuff needs to stop. It's making people leave the game mode. As I said earlier, I feel that power creep in the DPS department is to blame for why this rock/paper/scissoring has become too harsh. Players who are in countered situations have no time to stall or retreat when the build that is countering them can kill them in 2 to 3 shots or less.
So as to your question: "What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed?"
Rather than tossing a ton of specific suggestions, I'll only say this: Overpowered outliers need to be nerfed in some way, and weak outliers need to be buffed. Stop changing things in the middle that are already balanced that don't need to be changed. I will also say that after accomplishing that, maybe toss some kind of a universal debuff into spvp, oh say -10% off of all damage types. That might actually be a good idea at this point, and a lot easier than creating a ton of skill splits. But most importantly I really want to point out that people are indeed concerned about balance as they always are, but right now the balance isn't actually that bad outside of the outliers. Right now, people are MORE CONCERNED with how the game feels to play in general. They want it to feel good again. Maybe a good question to ask the player base would be: "What was your favorite meta patching over the years and why? Which meta did you have the most fun with?" I would imagine that this would indicate a good & evident direction towards what type of power level the player base seemed to enjoy the most.
~ There is A LOT more I'd like to say, to get much more detailed in terms of discussion & suggestions, but for now I feel this is a good way to stir healthy conversation. I'll get around to my list of direct suggestions a bit later. Kind of pressed for time at the moment.
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I hope for some rebalance of support classes.
.
Things like druid are now pretty useless in PvP but the community clearly would be against another bunker meta.
Support classes should have a place to noticably buff teams in 4v4, 3v3 situations. I think it will be really hard task to achieve but I believe in you devs
My number one balance concern (which is relevant to PvP but not specific to it) right now is the philosophy of elite spec tradeoffs.
On paper, giving elite specs tradeoffs so that core builds are viable is a good idea. It opens the door for more build options.
Unfortunately, this philosophy was pursued only partway and then dropped. And now we're left with a number of elite specs that have tradeoffs baked into them, and a bunch that do not have any tradeoffs whatsoever.
What are your plans around this philosophy? Are you going to continue it? If you are not, are you going to revert the tradeoffs you've already made to specs like Scrapper and Chronomancer?
I dont fully agree upon not nerfing for the sake of nerfing, sometimes a certain build or trait or skill is so overpowered or just too easy and strong at the same time it needs a hotnerf (dont have to destroy the certain skill/trait/build but just adjust the numbers a bit) so you can 'tweak' the specific issue in a more 'lasting' way (like condi thief).
Otherwise things that in my opinion need 'adjustment';
Things that need buffs;
ye that's pretty much what directly came up into my mind.
Keep in mind that this is my own opinion so if you dont agree, well then too bad.
The effectiveness split sounds like a really great idea.
Soon™ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) nom nom nom🥔
Fun Daredevil
Personal wishlist:
Egregiously good:
Condi daredevil, specifically poison application, sword 2, you guys have been told this, time to take action etc etc etc. In fact, I'd go ahead and say that thief has the most viable builds right now with multiple daredevil specs, a core spec, and deadeye spec all ranging from useful to great to top tier.
Rampage. Please for the love of god lmao. Nerf this.
Egregiously bad:
Dragonhunter and core guardian. Just... everything. They're horrible. Eat a dshot -> ToF -> true shot combo in wvw and I'll be dead. Eat it in pvp and I'll be down 6k health at max on a revenant. What is DH supposed to do? Also core guardian virtues are lame at best, useless at worst.
Renegade has one ok-ish build carried by salvation being op and sanctuary rune. Otherwise it's a garbage spec.
Scourge changes no bueno.
Unfun to play against/bad design:
Condi mirage and clone spam= frustrating and unfun for even the highest tier players to fight.
Deadeye stealth and rifle leading into pistol whip spam= boring to fight.
In addition, too many cover conditions applied by condi mirage and condi daredevil makes it impossible to cycle cleanses enough to cleanse the actual damage source- poison for daredevil, torment for mirage.
good lord i am absolute trash at this video game
im glad ur back at arenanet (:
but yea delete condi thief
Very near future release note:
We're not sure it's enough but hopefully a good start.
Ben Phongluangtham
Design Manager
Have you guys thought about reaching out to each class forum to ask about their major pain points of playing their own class? cough swipe being trash cough
As your team has said before, not what you want to hear, but still as true today as the very first time it was said: Conquest has to be heavily modified, or replaced completely, for any hope of a balanced PvP gamemode.
You cannot equalize the efficacy of mechanics across the professions when the game mode itself provides no outlet for the majority of the games mechanics. Conquest is nothing but bunkering and backdooring; PvP needs a real objective that provides more avenues of play than that.
Hi Cal and welcome to the hell's kitchen
I want to keep this as short as possible while still talking about as much as possible about my observations.
First i want to talk about the current meta builds:
Demolisher elixir holo:
this build has too much sustain for the amount of damage it puts out. the damage should be brought down, or the sustain. either should be fine.
d/sh + gs spellbreaker:
basically the same as holo. one problem skill i see is bull's charge. this skill is too good. it's an evade, it's a gap closer, a 3s knockdown and deals up to 6k damage on a quite low cooldown. rework rampage to something else that isn't a transform. shake it off is too unbalanced. it's too much condi cleanse on one button while warrior doesn't have enough sustained condi cleanse elsewhere.
tactics a/sh + gs core warrior:
damage output is even higher than spellbreaker for the price of a lack of anti pressure tools (full counter) but with higher sustained healing through for great justice and tactics. the anti barrier trait should be reworked, this trait is an unfun hardcounter to weaver and scrapper. some counters are fine, but this is too much.
s/p + staff mirage:
this one is quite difficult. on the one hand, it's very oppressive in a 1v1 and on the other hand quite useless in teamfights. i think both is unhealthy and should be changed. in a 1v1 the problem is the ability to deal a high amount of condi pressure while being invulnerable and in teamfights the problem is that it's hard to apply condis to a target because it's single target and because projectiles hit targets between you and your actual target.
s/d + sb condi daredevil:
many people dislike this build quite a lot but i actually think its power level is fine. what i don't like about this build is that it operates with way less skills than power s/d and d/p that have to use multiple skills to deal damage while condi mainly uses infiltrator's strike. what i would do is move the condition application to skills that come after infiltrator's strike. an example would be: instead of applying poison on immob, apply poison with attacks to immobilized (can even include crowd control effects like stun etc) targets.
healer firebrand:
i think support firebrand is mostly fine. it's possible that its healing output needs to be lowered a bit if it's too much after the power level has been decreased.
shiro power herald:
this build is mostly fine in my opinion. what i'd like to see (and that's my personal opinion) is a very light damage nerf and a bit more condi cleanse.
weaver:
weaver is probably fine the way it currently is. maybe burning duration on skills, or cooldowns on priordial stance could be reduced/increased a bit. i have my personal problem with the design of the whole build though. i dislike the way its defense works, mostly relying on evades, a bit of healing and the invul. i think weaver's defense is no fun.
those are the builds i consider to be on a meta power level.
now i will talk about other things that need some attention.
"stall builds" or tanks, however you want to call them.
Some people might dislike them, but i find them quite interesting. they can change the dynamic of a match which is a healthy addition in my opinion.
with the reduction of power in the game a close eye needs to be put on such stall builds that they don't become completely unviable. they should still keep their worth as a build that punishes the enemy team if they take too long to kill it with 2 players, but should also be balanced in a way that keeps them from being unkillable at all. their balance should be handled very delicately.
healer builds:
i would very much appreciate it if other healer builds could be made viable. currently, the only viable healer is firebrand. tempest for example just falls short in terms of healing output and condition cleanse. tempest has slow sustained healing with not so great condition cleanse which makes it very hard to sustain against heavy condition pressure for an adequate amount of time and struggles in general to heal low hp allies. druid suffers from similar problems. the problem with support ventari revenant are of a different nature. one problem being the tablet. it's quite hard to send it to moving players and heal them. you need to pre cast the heal skill and move the tablet, hoping your ally will not use a teleport. imo the radius around the tablet should be increased to 600 from 240. another problem is the ventari elite. currently, you can use it to decap nodes whichs is kinda fine because rev as a healer is basically unviable (because of the radius). this skill should be changed from a knockback to a stun or knockdown.
there are some other builds that i would like to see buffed and some changes i'd like to see:
core d/d ele (damage output too low to be viable)
shoutbow warrior (longbow pressure is too low. f1 burning needs to be buffed, other longbow skills could use a buff too)
warrior traits: weaponswap cooldown trait should be made baseline. either completely, or at least 7.5s with the trait reducing it to 5s. hammer trait should be moved somewhere else. it's quite difficult to make a hammer build because you need more than you can take.
berserker without burst skills when not in berserk mode feels terrible. also, berserker hammer burst cone hitbox is bad compared to the circle of normal hammer burst.
buff celestial amulet, its stats are currently too low, making it too weak to even consider.
scourge nerf was wrong. the skills should have been tuned down, not its defense/offense taken away.
bring back geomancy sigil but reduce the hit damage it used to deal (the spikes if anyone remembers)
more amulet options, example, thoughness version of vitality combinations and vice versa (example, avatar variation with toughness instead of vit).
reduce boonspam and reduce boon corrupt
I'd like you to consider using Off-seasons to do some experimentation.
For example, "Ranked" could be renamed "Experimental" during off seasons, and queuing there instead Unranked during off-season would lead to matches with experimental changes without affecting unranked.
The experiments would bring some tweaks to mechanics, some drastic, some just for fun, in a similar way to GW1's Flux.
The kind of stuff that would be insane to do during a season, or even for unranked and hotjoin, but that may give interesting data.
For example:
☆ SUGGEST-A-TRON
xxxxxxxxxx
Ideally there is just not enough risk with the spec at least with holo.
As you said fuction gyro is too ineffective i agree with
I would argue the evade up time is fine just the condition dps is instantly melting. Considering its almost on par with its pve split and its pve split when built to condi can out ramp power dps in the first 5 seconds with burning alone is saying something. Ideally it needs to be checked so that its not applying instant melting levels of conditions. The evades should stay no reason to take those.
I pretty much agree on all of this and staff autos / ambush do way too much.
This is not true imo its effectiveness has increased due to the fact that its easier to upkeep boons at least when looking at its offensive variation which is becoming more popular. There is also less risk for firebrands in general no longer having nearly as many aoes that will pop up under them attempting to support or fight.
I agree with this but simply swapping them for rips wont solve anything the issue is alos that boon generation and application is too high across the board and necor should not be acting as the main counter to this being 1 profession having to manage 8 others boons.
To be honest this has already been nerfed a few times its fine as is.
Seriously? What teleports? Wurm? Spectral walk with a fix'ed distance? You know this is a light armored profession with limited boons, no blocks, and extra evades right?
You forgot to talk about how strong some pets become with beast mastery, several pets also need to rebalanced. Far too much use of smoke scale and not enough of every other pet. Pets need more obvious tells on when they are going to use AI cc attacks such as knockdowns.
I feel like the quickness bit is a bit of stretch but you are correct on the damage department its burst is insane atm.
I agree
This is fine as is imo
I agree with this but might makes right is not the problem its other sources of might one of the main offenders being magebane and its rapid might application
This is honestly fine Bulls has a obvious tell
1000% agree its top tier elite in most cases its a free kill when pressed.
^ The trait overall is too strong on both fronts not just the barrier damage increase.
Pretty much anything i didnt call out in your list means I already agree with it to some extent but i feel you are missing some points in some places or just completely incorrect.
spamming skills is rewarded in this game so i'd like to see big increase in cooldowns
some autoattacks are ridiculously high, i'd like to them brought down to chip damage
if you wasted your skills, you should lose the fight - maybe also reduce/nerf mobility skills in general
short term:
condi daredevil, support firebrand, holosmith are specs that prevent other classes from being viable
if you nerf those however other powerhouses will still remain e.g. condi mirage, herald, spellbreaker, fire weaver, deadeye, any boonspammer
the moment core engineer or the current chronomancer becomes even slighty competitive (without it being a silly 1 shot grenade build), you have indication you are on the right track
furthermore i'd like you to reach out to some top players who have been around since launch - who have played good and bad metas - i'm sure they are more than willing to assist into creating a better, more balanced and competitive environment
good luck and have fun with the work
The problem with condi builds isn't their power level, it's the fact that they can spam cover conditions so condition clears can't remove the 1 condition they're doing damage with. We need more skills that are guaranteed to remove damaging conditions (ie Thief's Hide in Shadows heal). That would provide counterplay to condi builds without nerfing them out of existence.
I tend to notice a few things dominantly in the WvW and the PvP sphere :
Scourge is the main offensive force in WvW, and has no equal. It's a staple of zerg tactics. Battles are often won on whom have the largest amount of scourges. While it is hard to get away from what seems to be a quintessential part of WvW, it kills squad variety. And to be fair, it just is not fun. There is no counterplay to it, because the range of their ability is such that most ranged classes cannot bring them down before they're overrun with condi damage.
Warrior is the opposite. It is virtually unkillable on 1v1 because of the amount of blocks and invulnerability it can put in, while retaining a very respectable amount of raw damage through weapon skills alone. Contrary to classes who tank the damage and repair it through Healing, regen, barriers or such, Warriors outright negate that damage, it doesn't rely on stats, therefore warriors can mitigate their damage while being built with stats for damage. There is no exchange. This is not to say that it should change. What should change, is adding a counterplay to these skills. Similar for evasions. There are skills that are unblockable, but they're far and few between, and often have no consequence (you deal a bit of damage, and that's it, skill is on cooldown). A skill that is unblockable and from which the CC cannot be avoided (with a serious cooldown to prevent abuse) would provide that counterplay.
Edit : I feel I haven't expressed myself properly on the subject of Unblockable CCs : They do exist, the problem is when the unblockable skill is Soft CC (doesn't prevent skill usage, and so doesn't prevent the chain of blocks/invulnerability) or they're not CC, so it encounters the same problem.
I join my fellow engineers once more on the topic of core engineer lacking any sort of place anywhere in the game. I also believe that sustain on Holosmith should be axed. Holosmith is made for damage, not tanking. If anything I'd rather they transfer the vitality debuff from scrapper over to Holosmith, as this would make much more sense. Scrapper being made to tank but taking a vitality handicap is nonsensical. Core engineer ultimates are -never- used for serious fights. One is completely unreliable, the other is nothing more than an overly long cooldown area CC skill, due to turrets being so weak. Of course, what has been said so frequently about core engineer turrets, need'nt be said again here.
We're in a pretty good spot in the meta, there are only a couple of major outliers.
Condi Daredevil outshines its brother S/D Core by alot right now, they should be brought in line with the latter.
Staff Daredevil breaks conquest entirely right now, to the point where most comps will run 1 or even 2, resembles the meta shifting power Power Chrono had a while back.
Fire Weaver is very spammy right now with Glyph of Elemental Power being ran, it'd be in a much better spot nerfing that skill.
Tactics Core War's insane modifier should either be slightly toned down, or changed to where the 50% extra damage is only put on the actual barrier, rather than normal HP as well. Bull's Charge could stand to be changed.
For ranked Tools Holosmith is still as dominant as always.
Condi Mirage is in a pretty good spot, I think it should be left as is (i understand its not fun to fight against, but its not OP right now)
I think slight buffs to Soulbeast should be done, the Axe/Axe Sword/WH build got hit really hard, and Ranger is easily the worst class in all of sPvP right now.
I'm a well known nobody.
Former member of [MnF], [DnT], [dP], and [Hg]. Winner of the 2018 ERP Tournament.
The issue with Condi thief is the S/D part of the build, not with any other part of it. D/D or P/D condi thief is not overperforming in any way and has been continuously hit with nerfs targeted at S/D Condi Thief. If you blanket nerf “Condi thief” then you’ll continue to damage other underperforming playstyles as well. My suggestion is to remove the immobilize on Sword 2 and replace it with a 2s to 3s Chill. This would result in more counterplay against S/D condi and also not really nerf Power S/D at all; more likely break even.
Would like to see slight nerfs to Holo damage.
Also to echo some other posters “bringing support builds up to be equal to FB instead of tearing FB down” would be good.
As for damage power level, slightly lower than current would be fine. Let’s not end up in another bunker meta; those are never fun
Boon uptime is definitely something on our radar, and likewise how many corrupts are needed to interact with that amount of boons. In general the thought is that everything needs to come down, including damage, sustain, boons, corrupts, cc, stability, among other things. There's a lot more to it than just blanket nerfing everything by X% but the general direction is definitely downward.
Professions are still going to have their strengths and weakness in terms of what boons they can generate, but the overall effectiveness is going to be lower.
Instant skills are one of the things that we've started discussing internally since cast time isn't something that can be split. One of our main goals for competitive is making sure that there is adequate counterplay. It's going to vary on a case-by-case basis, but cast time increases and adding delays are part of those discussions. Not as splits, but as changes that may need to happen. There's then opportunity for PvE-only splits to compensate skills for these changes.
This falls into the same 'everything is too high' idea. Damage potential is definitely something we will be looking at.
How conditions are applied is a big thing that we're looking into.
For the future big patch, we are primarily looking at nerfs. The idea is that things that are in a good spot in the current meta are overtuned for what we want the game to be. We still want skills and traits to feel strong, but their current strength is too high. Initially we want to wait and see with a lot of things that aren't considered viable right now. As everything else shifts downward other things may become relevant without any changes. There will certainly be things that are too weak and we will revisit them in the future.
aka cmc
Game Designer on PvP/WvW
That's good! Please remember though, that if rapid condi application is nerfed, then condi cleanse options should also be nerfed to match. It is really frustrating trying to apply my 12s cooldown blowtorch burn when my opponents have ample cleanse on a shorter cooldown via traits and other build options. I imagine if mesmer or thief are nerfed to be more like condi engi, they will face the same frustration.
Thanks
Current State of PvP
The amount of damage being pumped into games made the game much more enjoyable for veteran players who know how to sustain a fight, and utilize the damage within their kit. A class like Holosmith has easy tells to what a knowledgeable player can expect, playfulling countering their abilities can give you advantage in a duel or teamfight. Though certain classes like the current rendition of Condi-thief is something of the opposite.
A conditions are rolled out in a first-in-first out basis, digging out a 20 stack of condi from a layer of Bleed, Cripple and other Conditions is rather hard for classes who don't take an arsenal of cleanses. A single thief and dictate a match by forcing players into taking a particular build that excels against the Thief, but may not or be ineffective against the other players. This does cancel out a few players in a match, but makes the experience for the players an absolute hell.
On the flipside, a well designed Condition class like Burn-weaver is much more manageable in this meta. Not for its lack of mobility or cleaving, but its main damage source coming from a single condition; minus the large layer of conditions on top. Playing against a burn-weaver is possible (For how long varies) without overloading on the defensive while still being able to play against other classes without being deleted on sight.
Mirage fits into the same boat as Condi thief, but in another matter. Its damage is spread out through its various conditions but the rate and application of them can shutdown majority of builds. Arcane Thievery being a thing on Core-mesmer allows for disgusting counters against other condition based classes or be a nuisance to others (Arken screaming in the background).
To summarize, classes like Holosmiths or Soulbeasts should be the general power level of builds. Toning down the condi applications of Mesmer and Thief would bring the game down to a healthier state. Certain classes like Scourge could definitely use another pass after the last set of nerfs removed them from the meta.
On the smaller Scale
Coming from someone who only ever plays Engineer, particularly Scrapper (I really hope you have some kind of stats on you end about that) I can give you a good eye to what needs to brought down, and what certain aspects need to be changed. Engineer as a whole has always been the Jack-of-all-trades, and its core abilities generally reflect that aspect.
The first skill that needs to be toned down is Elixir U. The addition of stability on the base skill made it steroids with steroids. A single push of a button can make your Engineer an auto attacking wrecking crew, with some ground to back you up as you dish out damage. The Stability on this skill should be broken up, and replaced somewhere else on the Engineer's traits. As it stands, there's no real passive stability generation on Core Engineer and it's only sources comes from U, Toss B and Thumper Toolbelt (Elixir X if you want to push it)
Rifle has seen a multitude off buffs after the removal of the firearms trait that increased the effectiveness of it, so much that it might be at a tipping point. Rifle 4 is the biggest issue, as its instant cast utility provides little counter play against the Engineer. A point blank shot can easily decimate another player, and its personal knockback can be negated with Elixir U or Toss B. A simple casting animation will bring down this railgun to a more coutnerable level.
Engineer also has a set of completely unusable utilities that have been untouched since launch. Gadgets such as Utility goggles can be bumped up with Resistance application and Slick Shoes could be brought back again with a small Cooldown change. Thought Turrets are another issue, an issue that might be too large to fix without a dedicated rework. Looking into their Cooldowns and Toolbelt skills would give a nice band-aid fix to turrets as the team can look for long-term solutions.
Closing it off with Scrapper, there's still a fundamental flaw with its Barrier application, and that's to do with Barrier itself. A Scrapper would naturally disable and deny damage as its gaining barrier, but as soon as those cooldowns are up, your barrier only has about a 1 second uptime before dissipating. A flavorful fix would be giving the grandmaster traits a way to gain, or effect Barrier as a whole. Impact Savant (An already extremely weak trait) could give longer Barrier Duration (emphasize Passive Play), Kinetic Stabilizers could give barrier on disable (emphasize offensive play) and Applied Force could give barrier on the Might Threshold (emphasize burst).