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Let's Talk About PvP Balance


Cal Cohen.2358

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Current metaI'm an average player from Gold/Plat with ambitions to reach the very top. I play builds that top players play on streams or take them from GodsOfPvp website. My experience is that there are builds which are very impactful and don't require a lot of knowledge or skill. There are players who just play a specific combo and have high impact in the game. There are also builds which can stall a node indefinitely and there seems to be no key, no knowledge and no amount of skill needed to possibly defeat them.

Fundamental Issues

  • A class build has more impact than skill of a player.
  • There is not enough teamwork or synergy between classes in the game.
  • Classes aren't complex enough and the fun of playing them is removed at the cost of balance (Blinding Powder nerf removed lots of potential for great and mindful plays; Swipe negatively impacted the most enjoyable Dagger/Pistol weapon set for Daredevil).
  • A skilled player cannot shine and go for a plays that would make them recognizable.
  • There is only one competitive game mode. I wish there was Capture the Flag. It would open up a whole new world of competitive experience.
  • You can only solo or duo queue. A team of five cannot practice without going through too much hassle.
  • The ability to communicate with players and to learn by understanding to their needs and your mistakes is limited to salty chat window.Note: I believe that wintrading in higher ranks would be less effective if the gameplay was more skillful.
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I believe I have said most of what I needed to say in my thread regarding "cheese"

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/86519/the-elephant-in-the-balance-room-how-cheese-has-evolved-to-hurt-gw2-pvp-more-than-balance

The game in its current form is actually pretty balanced if you assume that balance = each class has something viable to play. The problem is there are a lot of bad-for-the-game actors that encourage mindless uninteractive gameplay that no one really enjoys. Read the whole thread for a better explanation.

The TL;DR of it is that there are currently quite a few specs in the game that should be reworked instead of nerfed due to their over reliance on mechanics that lack counterplay. An obvious example would be condi mirage, as the clones output so much damage that it allows you to play super defensive/exploit terrain while AI clones do all the work for you. This tactic is extremely efficient, easy to play, and highly lacking in any real counter strategies. The response from the balance team thus far seems to be randomly nerfing some skill or trait from the mesmer line each patch, when really the problem lies in the overall mechanics being inherently busted and in need of an overhaul.

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On a high level, and without wanting to go into specific details here, I believe that the overall power level in PVP needs to be toned down quite a bit.

Damage Output, Boon Uptime, and healing effectiveness have all become too high, in my semi-experienced opinion. As a result, fights have become more "spammy" where you just throw all your skills into a teamfight. The overall dynamic of a conquest game has shifted towards snowballing and zerging, while other tactics (i.e. the roles of sidenoders) have been pushed into the background. The ability to swiftly move across the map (blink, ports and so on) feels a little overtuned as well.

I would like to see a shift back to allow more tactical gameplay, and less steamrolling, if that makes sense.

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Holosmith

Traits/Utilities/Healing Skills/Elites

Healing Turret's cast time needs to be increased to 1s minimum. 3/4s base with perma quickness is basically impossible to reactively interrupt. Having frequent access to stab coupled with an extremely powerful, reliable heal provides Holosmiths a very easy way to consistently top themselves off. This should be looked at.

Lock On (the reveal trait) should not be DOUBLE proc 12s reveal on a 25s cd that gives fury and applies 20 stacks of vuln.

Kinetic Battery needs to have it's quickness and super speed duration reduced to 3 seconds and increase the maximum stacks to 10 so that it takes Holos 14 seconds to cycle this trait rather than 7 seconds.

Heat Therapy needs it's healing cut to 1/3 of it's current value (from 65 health per unit of heat lost to 22). You nerfed Rugged Growth (another minor trait) on ranger because it was healing around 600 hps on MENDERS amulet while we had protection.

Heat Therapy provides a constant 652 healing per SECOND while at max stacks and causes Vent Exhaust to heal for 800 health every time they dodge. Keep in mind, this insane healing does not require ANY healing power investment asides from the (negligible) amount received from Leadership Runes.

In other words, with permanent vigor and Heat Therapy, a Holo can heal up to 9000 health every 10 seconds (6520 passively through Heat Therapy, dodging 3x = 2400 healing with Vent Exhaust).

This does NOT include healing from Healing Turret. The health regen on Tools Holo is absolutely insane. It's literally more than a warrior's Healing Signet + max stacks of Adrenal Health (the latter of which requires the warrior to land their burst skills) which only heal for a combined 743 hps in comparison.

Invigorating Speed should give 3 seconds of vigor when gaining swiftness on a 10 second ICD. In it's current state, it gives Holos permanent vigor with very little investment.

Toss Elixir S needs it's stealth duration reduced to 3 seconds. The current iteration gives the Holos a LONG 6 second stealth every 30 seconds that is almost impossible to prevent. This single toolbelt skill lets them reset extremely frequently.

Elixir U needs it's cooldown increased from 40s base to 50s.

Prime Light Beam needs a louder sound cue and needs to have the animation cancel bug fixed (the beam animation shows but doesn't do damage).

Photon Forge

Holo Leap needs it's cooldown increased to 4 seconds. Spamming this ability gives the Holo incredible amounts of mobility and damage on a short, 2 second cooldown leap finisher. It moves them 450 range on a 2s cd. In 10 seconds, this enables the Holo to move 2250 range on top of their already (near permanent) super speed uptime with Kinetic Battery.

Corona Burst should apply 2 stacks of stab on the initial pulse with 3 targets max. Currently, it is 1 stack per target hit (max 5) on each pulse. This single skill can give the Holo up to 10 stacks of stability for 4 seconds every 6 seconds and requires 2 defensive skills to avoid.

The fact that a Holo can transform and still retain access to ALL of their utilities/toolbelt skills/healing/elite is very strong but disabling them or even just the toolbelt skills might be too much(?).

Light Strike -> Bright Slash -> Flash Cutter need their ranges reduced from 240 to 130. They are nearly twice as long as the ranges of (every?) auto attack chain in the game on top of the fact that they can out-trade nearly everything in melee range with them as well.

Weapons

Hip Shot needs to have a 1s cast time up from .84s. This skill is a laser beam when the Holo has quickness (which means all the time) and the cast time is so quick that literally tracks a target that entered stealth for 2-3 shots.

Net Shot's immobilize should be reduced to 1 second and the cast time increased to 1/2 seconds.

Blunderbuss needs a longer cast time.

Overcharged Shot needs a longer windup and animation similar to a ranger's Point Blank Shot.

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For me, the real problem is understanding why exactly I won or lost a particular engagement. This comes down largely to tells and the display of information. And I think the game does a really bad job of communicating this information, which leads to fairly mixed opinions of PVP balance and fairly unenjoyable gameplay.

Let me explain by using 2 opposing examples of losses.

  1. Being denied a stomp by a heralds chaotic release. While yes it's a powerful skill, there is 0 doubt about it's use. If you get hit by this skill, you know for sure that it is probably your fault. That thing has a 10 minute animation and it pays off big time for landing it. When it's used properly, the person using it is pogchamp and even often the guy getting hit can't help but to respect the heralds timing and gameplay decision.
  2. Going down in a team fight to plaguelands. This is the opposite, here is a skill in PvP that's hard to see and easy to disguise. If you get hit it's really hard to see what killed you, even the death recap only shows the conditions that killed you and not the reason why you got conditioned to begin with. After a while you'll know it when you see it, and it's not a hugely popular skill in the current meta. But it's a great example of a skill with a "cancerous" design. This to a new player, I have no doubt would cause an immense amount of frustration.

"Nobody likes dying to cheese"

Condition applying skills are all mostly great examples, but it's not just condis. Poor communication can extend to boons even. A decapitate might not kill you, where a decapitate with 25might would.

And yeah I know that a lot of people are gonna say "but boons are l2p." But I say there is a very serious argument for the lack of clarity of boons. Imagine this:A thief +1's you from stealth and you go down, somehow he has 25 might but you don't have time to click on his bar in all of the panic.A thief +1's you from stealth and you go down, but this time when he does it there is a big yellow might symbol over his head that acts like a warning "hey I have a LOT OF MIGHT IM GONNA HURT"

The feedback in both instances would be vastly different. In the first you'd be receiving feedback on the forums along the veins of "stealth op, nerf backstab." In the second case, if you get feedback at all, might go along the veins of "where the hell did this thief get 25 might from, pls help somebody."

Yeah, some things might add to the visual noise of the game. But if we can get it just right- so the important information is toned to be more clear and the less important information less clear, it would be far better. 25 might is a huge game changer, and a little more information other than a symbol on a status bar would be pretty helpful.

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To be honest I believe alot can be done by simply looking at boon durations and the runes that extend them.

For instance, boons should be powerful short term effects - nothing that's up permanently or easy to stack on your own.

As for the runes that give 50% durations, shaving them to 20% total would be more than enough in sPvP. Also see if rune of Leadership can convert 1 less condition whilst having 15% boon duration instead, to open up for other options.

Since gearing for concentration now forces you to make sacrifices, the best way to balance atm is to look at base durations - anything above 5/10 seconds depending on effect should raise a flag, but keep combo field durations in order to increase their relevance.

Small changes can also be made to some boons, like vigor lasts shorter but grants 10 endurance upon application or regen that heals for 3x the first tick. This better rewards players for proper usage and timing than just having it up as often as possible, however not at all necessary as long as all base durations are looked at and balanced.

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Spellbreaker

Traits/Utilities/Healing Skills/Elites

Magebane Tether should flip the Spellbreaker's Burst skill upon triggering this trait on an enemy. It should now be an active effect that the player can manually activate to pull their target but the tether should also break when the enemy moves out of 600 range (possibly increase the tether range to 700 or 750?). This change would give Spellbreakers an active interrupt and introduce counterplay other than stability/stunbreak similar to other chain/pull skills. Currently, it forces the tethered enemy to remain in range of the Spellbreaker's attacks and makes it much, much harder for classes that cannot evade/tank multiple, heavy hits to survive.

Bull's Charge should no longer evade. Or, keep it as an evade but reduce the range from 900 to 600.

Rampage does WAY too much damage. On top of lowering the damage, remove the pulsing stability, 50% damage reduction, and 33% reduction to movement impairing conditions.

Weapons

Arcing Slice's damage does NOT currently scale with adrenaline. A full 3 bar adrenaline Arcing Slice only grants additional fury uptime. This is an issue on Spellbreaker when they gain frequent access to a full strength, high damage Burst skill. Add Burst levels 1 and 2 with the current damage remaining as the level 3 Burst.

Also, a 1/2 second cast time is EXTREMELY quick on a skill that can hit for 7k in an AoE. With quickness, the cast time becomes .375s which is almost blindingly fast and near-impossible to react to unless you have perfect ping and very fast reaction times. Increase the cast time to 3/4s to match the other Burst skills.

Breaching Strike vs. Aura Slicer

Their animations are nearly identical. Unfortunately, Breaching Strike is a very important skill to avoid and Aura Slicer isn't. Please add a flash of light or some other visual tell for people to look out for. Currently, the only way to tell them apart is by the direction in which the dagger swings. Breaching Strike is an overhead attack while Aura Slicer comes from the side. However, the difference is minimal and could definitely be improved.

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Here are a list of traits and skills which are barely if ever used and where just changing the "numbers" isn't going to make them worth or fun to use. In some cases these traits or skills would be so un-fun and passive to fight that if they ever WERE useful it would be damaging to the game mode. Better to change instead of buff. Not going to go through every class here, just the ones I play most.

Warrior:Utilities: All Banners except the elite. Throw Bolas. Sundering Leap.Weapon Skills: Mace offhand (mainly skill 4). Longbow. Sword offhand.Traits: Wounding Precision, Blademaster (was useful when it gave crit), Deep Strikes, Bloodlust (make Arms as useful for power as for condi please). Double Standards. Vengeful Return. Empower Allies. Armored Attack. Dead or Alive

Ranger:Utilities: Every NON-EXPANSION pet except for: Saimoth, Wolf, and Birds. All Spirits, Glyph of the Stars.Weapon Skills: Dagger 2Traits: Invigorating Bond. Eternal Bond, Oppressive Superiority, Essence of Speed (just remove ICD), Natural Stride, Cultivated Synergy.

Elementalist:Utilities: Conjure Weapons. Summoning Glyphs. UnravelWeapon Skills: Eruption.Traits: Power Overwhelming. Pyromancer's Puissance. Bolt to the Heart. Serrated Stones, Soothing Power. Stop Drop and Roll. Bountiful Power. Elements of Rage. Lucid Singularity.

Thief:Utilities: Skelk Venom. Distracting Daggers.Traits: Collateral Damage. Signets of Power. Instant Reflexes.

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Not sure about the short term goals, but long term I have a few thoughts.

1) Address PowercreepObviously easier said than done. Im aware that this can be an excruciatingly long process (identifying the issues -> Implementing changes that, preferably, don't break the rest of a specifiy build -> monitoring the implemented changes -> finetuning ...etc.etc.). But, personally, I think a look at the current relevancy of boons might be much more effective way to go about it. Splitting boon effectiveness by gamemode would address a multitude of powercrept mechanics all at once without negatively affecting overall playstyles and viability of certain specs in other gamemodes (since splitting trait functionalities apparently is not desired).Some examples: Reduced statgain from might or reduced effectiveness of stuff like vigor, fury, quickness etc.etc.

2) Reducing "spammy" gameplayAs of the last time I played this game (pre the latest balance patch), the amount of spam really was atrocious still.The lack of key abilities makes combat feel dull and shallow. While I prefer fast-paced combat over global-cooldown based combat, currently it feels just too spammy.While in vanilla PvP, you had a significant strategic advantage over your opponents if you kept track of their key-abilites and exploiting their downtimes, currently its just about training the other guy down by cycling through all your high-impact skills. And you basically have no down-time or windows of opportunities for counterplay between those cycles. Low-cooldowns on high impact skills are part of the issue here, but whats even more problematic imo is the problem of the following:

3) Reduce skill-bloatSome skills and traits do way too many things all at once. Skills like Reposting Shadows (Revenant: shiro utility) or Binding Shadow (Deadeye Utility) offer way too much value. With the "sandboxy" trait design of some traits, some skills get really bloated and offer too little counterplay to them. Getting hit by a Magebane Tether for instance can decide the outcome of a duel on its lonesome (with the synergy between might makes right for instance). Getting hit by skills like these and dying because of it, simply feels frustrating and "cheesy".....but "just dodge it 4head" am I right?

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I really appreciate this dialogue between community and developer, thank you for taking the time!

In terms of outliers, I think it's Holo, FB, and condi DD.

Holo because it feels like the objectively best side-noder/duelist class.•Tons of sustain compared to damage•Too much protection uptime, which is a huge boon.•Rifle 4 comes out too fast and has too big an impact.•Elixir U does too much. Stunbreak, Quickness, Stability, Might, and Vigor(Which gives 10% damage) all with one button press. Losing the Stability would be a good start.•Elixir X give engineers rampage on a potentially shorter CD than Warrior.

FB because it feels like objectively the best support class.•Too much Stab, protection, and aegis spam.•Symbolbrand is incredibly unfun to fight, even more without unblockables/boon strip.

And Condi DD because; imo, any class that spams a bunch of conditions while being virtually untouchable is pretty not fun to fight against.

As a warrior main i'd really like if our entire class's identity wasn't attached to a single skill(Rampage the class basically). I'd like to see defense come back as an equally viable alternative to strength too. Maybe see some updates to the middle tree in defense, and give it something that makes it more sustainable compared to other classes trying to accomplish the same thing.

A bit confused on what is meant by fundamentals, but i'm sure it just means balance here. Another thread like this that would allow us to delve into fundamental problems with PvP in general would be great though, and overall a lot more constructive. Getting serious with balance is a great start, but I believe that's sort of like a band-aid solution.

When it comes to balance, i'd like to see every class be equally viable for their respective role. IE Druid should be a more equally viable side-noder to Holo, Tempest should be a more equally viable alternative to FB. I understand it's impossible to balance perfectly, but what would be better is having people be able to pick these underplayed classes and not have their teammates feel like they're playing at a straight-up disadvantage. I really think buffs are better than nerfs tbh.

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I know this is mostly about balance, but I would like to second this comment:

@morrolan.9608 said:Biggest problem of spvp is how stale it is with only 1 real game type, maps with slightly differing mechanics do not add the variety needed.

The spvp game mode needs more meat. Please consider looking at competitors or even GW1 for new possible game modes. Ideally with moving away from the 5v5 concept as to add some more possibilities and variety.

The WvW GvG scene is still very active. There is no reason why this format could not be adapted to some extent for pvp with a 10 man player count for pvp guilds or contests. Maybe even go as far as reintroduce something similar as the old Tournament Battles with 3 teams fighting for the win.

Final note, the latest actions against a spvp exploiter lead to some hope that there might be some reevaluation of certain accounts. There is still an issue with certain accounts playing thousands of games per season (let's not call them bots but rather players who need no sleep) as well as match manipulation. Maybe an occasional intervention here would keep certain abuse in check.

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Make rampage reveal holosmith, being able to rampage from stealth is just stupidly overpowered.

Nerf condi mirage hard, this spec has so much evasion it should be pushed more into playing power or hybrid, the same goes for condi theif, it's just not fun to play against, its braindead easy and everyone swaps to boring counters. They ruin the gameplay with low population being the issue here and lower tier players not understanding not to push into them. We have to account for the population here to bring some health back to the game. Staff bunker theif is the same as well really it's just so boring to fight and play.

SB needs looking at, rampage is very overpowered for finishing, even just a slightly longer cast time would help here I think. It's not fun to get an SB down to nothing knowing he has nothing but rampage only for him to get a lucky LoS and pull it off.

Firebrand is just not healthy for the game it forces stacking up and defeats the object of conquest IMO, heal tempest had so much more counterplay to it, but it is a really cool class and if everyone knows what they are doing you can rotate around it and still enjoy a close game. So im undecided on whether it should be touched again.

Scourge even though it is nerfed to the ground its worth saying it is just the same as firebrand really, the two together make things so boring, really they should be pve specs only in my opinion.

Revert portal changes to mesmer or trait the old range into something? We need some counter play back in the game. I also think steal range should be reverted or trait it back into d/p so theif actually has a fun build to play again.

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Good to hear official head-up regarding PVP!

1) Proposed Guardian changes:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/89718/feedback-guardian-random-tweaks-buffs2) UI things (QoL):

  • allow to show/hide player's Names/Titles/Profession Icons above their heads
  • visual FXs from skills are cluttering screen - can't see what's happening - consider further downgrading them to more 'transparent' variants (lowspec?)
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Soulbeast/Ranger

Traits/Utilities/Healing Skills/Elites

Troll Unguent should have it's cast time increased from 3/4s to 1s. Currently, it is too fast to reliably interrupt even though it's the strongest Healing skill rangers have access to.

"Sic 'Em!" should not be a 25 to 40% damage increase for 10 seconds. Lower the duration to 6 seconds (matching the reveal) and change the buff to simply grant the merged Soulbeast 300 additional Power, Precision, and Ferocity (600 of each stat for the pet). This reduces it's effectiveness when scaling with other % damage increases.

Loud Whistle should also reduce the cooldowns of merged Beastmode skills. Currently, it has no effect on the player unlike the other minor traits in Beastmastery.

"We Heal As One!" received a 4 second cooldown increase (from 16s to 20s) a while back to reduce the boon uptime. However, the healing was never increased to compensate. Previously, the 6520 base heal every 16s resulted in a eHPS of 407.5. This got reduced to 326 eHPS compared to Troll Unguent's 424.8 eHPS. Please increase the base healing on WHAO to 8150 (407.5 * 20) to match the previous amount.

Beastmode

Swoop's (Bird Beastmode) cast time should be increased from 1/2s to 1s. Greatsword's Swoop takes nearly 2 seconds to fully cast and Gazelle Merge's Charge has a cast time of 1s. For some reason, the Bird Merge Swoop is exceptionally fast and lets the Soulbeast cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. Also, potentially increase the cooldown from 10 seconds to 12 seconds to match Gazelle Merge's Charge.

Weapons

Ranger Greatsword's skill ceiling got absolutely dumpstered last patch with the removal of the evade on the autos and Crippling Throw. Please add them both back and have Crippling Throw flip to Counterattack Kick when we block an attack in melee range. You could even remove the evade on the Counterattack Kick. It's not very useful. The point of the knockback is to decap in sPvP but if we use it to evade an attack then the knockback can get wasted a lot of the time into stability or blinds.

Stalker's Strike should have it's range increased from 250 to 600. This change alone would make OH dagger useful (like back when Off-Hand Training existed).

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There are two big-picture balance issues IMO -

First - Condi is poorly designed in a way that leads to different problems in both PvE and PvP. Increasing the durations to make them more like EQ dots was a bad direction to go in. GW2 has fast-paced combat, so Condi should be short duration with moderate damage output. Its effectiveness should mostly be tied to target armor instead of fight duration or the prevalence of cleanse/resist mechanics. Condi gameplay is too capricious and clutchy. Condi needs to be "nerfed" without being nerfed. Nerf durations (and therefore total damage application), make Resistance reduce condi damage by 50% instead of negating it altogether and increase the availability of cleansing while reducing its power (i.e. set stack limits or other ways to narrow the scope on them). This would significantly reign in the power creep we've seen but also allow condi to play better in casual open world play. It would also decrease the over-emphasis on building around condi cleanse in PVP and allow for more experimentation.

Second - there's just too much boon application flying around. Too many skills and traits grant them and they are too shareable. Some, like resistance, are also just OP as fuck. You should not be running around constantly with 20 stacks of might and 100% fury uptime. unless you have a heavy dedicated support build. Be more conservative with Boons.

An ancillary item is that I would probably just increase base health, Vitality scaling, or both modestly.

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Druid


(This is from a thread I made a month ago)


Druids have been underperforming in the meta lately. Following the many, consistent nerfs this ranger elite specialization has received in the past, we felt that it needed to be reviewed and brought back in line with design standards. These changes are aimed at reducing the strength of a lot of the problematic skills whilst retaining the old playstyle that made Druid fun to begin with. Underperforming/low impact skills have also been reworked in order to feel meaningful and less passive.

Staff
  • Astral Wisp (staff 2): This skill now deals damage over time (similar to Binding Blade, GS5 on Guardian). Base 400 damage per second, 5 second duration.
  • Ancestral Grace (staff 3): Reduced this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 12 seconds. Removed the 5s recharge reduction when healing an ally.(Do not add the evade back on)
  • Sublime Conversion (staff 5): This skill is now a ring instead of a line.
Celestial Avatar
  • Celestial Avatar: Reduced this skill's cooldown from 20 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Lunar Impact: Reduced daze duration from 1.5 seconds to .25 seconds and now removes 2 boons on hit.(Or, it would be really cool if it floats enemies for .25 seconds. Just like, ya know, being on the moon)
  • Natural Convergence: This skill can now be cast while moving at a reduced speed (similar to Whirling Wrath, GS2 on Guardian).
Traits
  • Celestial Shadow: This trait no longer grants 3 seconds of stealth. Instead, it grants 2 seconds of alacrity to yourself and nearby allies.
  • Ancient Seeds: Removed internal cooldown from this trait. Successfully hitting an enemy with a crowd control now immobilizes them for 1s.
General
  • Seed of Life: Increased the amount of conditions cleansed from 1 to 2. This skill no longer blinds and the detonation time has been reduced to 1s.
  • Druid: The base attributes of pets are no longer reduced by 20%.
Celestial Avatar Rework

If Anet were to redesign the elite spec, I'd love it if Lunar Impact and Natural Convergence were kept, and the other 3 skills reworked with the same theme in mind.Here are my suggestions:

  1. Cosmic Ray: This skill now has the appearance of a wider, blue Solar Beam. It now slows and chills enemies for 1 second on the 3rd pulse. Base damage has been increased from 98 to 196 per pulse and hits up to 3 targets (similar to Split Surge, ambush skill on GS for Mirage).
  2. Seed of Life: This skill now grows a random Spirit on detonation (not counting Water Spirit or Spirit of Nature).(I think it would be super neat because it encourages Druid's to stay in CA rather than cast 2 skills and leave. It also means we could spend 12 seconds of casting Seed of Life to have Frost, Sun, Storm, and Stone Spirits up. So, this not only reintroduces spirits to PvP, but also gives Druids a reason to finally run Nature's Vengeance.)
  3. Rejuvenating Tides: This skill now creates a 240 radius, mobile water field around the player on activation that heals for 2700 health, grants 2 seconds of alacrity (or 4 seconds of protection), and partially revives nearby allies (7% per second, 4 second duration). It is no longer channeled.
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If you really want to find out what is wrong with PvP, an actual ArenaNet employee should actually play PvP more than 200 games a season.

Track and give dishonor to players that AFK in match’s and have a pattern of frequently doing this. Players should be rewarded for playing and should not profit at all if they go AFk and ruin matches for their team.

Do more investigations on potential win trading and more frequent botting bans. If a player has more than 1,000 games a season, that account should be flagged for review to determine whether botting or other illegal programs are being used.

In fact, an ArenaNet employee really should discuss how many accounts were suspended on October 19. The player base will applaud you if you listed how many accounts were actually banned. Of course, don’t release the identity of who was banned, Just the Number of accounts that were banned.

Nerf Rampage on warrior, and nerf Holosmith into the ground it as it is overpowered in just about every category.

When you nerf a class, provide some counter play to the class . For example, Scourge was nerfed into the ground by changing the shade mechanics in PvP . There was mention of possible buffs to Support Scourge that may be coming, but right now, Scourge is almost unplayable in PvP even with a dedicated support to keep a Necro alive. By the way, the changes to Death magic are completely unviable in PvP as a Scourge, and even as Minion Core Necro with Death magic.
Give viable counter play please, not just random changes. In contrast, the changes to Warrior tactics were phenomenal and actually make Core Warrior as strong as Spellbreaker, or at least a viable option.

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There are several issues that annoy me personally.The cc for example, after using stun break and get CCed again feels wrong. Range cc is also annoying not only you get to apply damage from safe distance but now you get stun from there pff,should be just displacement at best, hard cc should come from heavy telegraphed abilities.Soft cces also feel like when one is applied there is no escape and they start rolling one on top of the other so one long cripple and it is kill or be killed kind of deal.Soft CCes are actually stronger than hard cc, since hard cc lasts max 3 seconds while soft cces last 6 to 10 seconds i have seen cripple stack to minute 50s.There is also some problem with some design in some professions like thief and mesmer , where there isn't really opening to pressure them in return from just weaving active defenses, they usually don't get that ou fuck moment where they are open like when necro is forced out of shroud or guardian uses Renewed Focus, they just port out so they either win or call it a draw and run away. That lack off win condition is pissing people off, that is why there are so many complaints about them they just don't really lose fights.We have a problem with bunkers from time to time crono, druid, scrapper now weaver that just ends up boring, people just squatting and rotating defensive cds, usually after some unbearable cheese meta when people don't want to be bothered with hit and run tactics or oneshots.The area denial classes dragon hunter, scourge i will hit you from range and if you come close you get killed but if you stay there you also get killed, if they are strong everyone has to play their game and when they are out of meta everyone is happy cause long lasting no go fields are not fun.Supports kinda feel left out and only FB is sitting pretty, i would suggest per person healed/buffed scaling multiplicator, so they don't end up just bunkers healing themselves, but who knows what it would do to WvW.
There is problem with some telegraphs on skills or lack of such which breaks the pacing of the game. Stealth and quickness could be blamed also making it hard to see the telegraph. Stealth is kinda over the top in GW2 there should be some visual or sound indication when a stealth character is close and maybe a way to feel when a stealth target is hit, maybe hearing a woooo sound like in warcraft or some kind of vague hint prints on the ground or something. I noticed that Sight beyond sight has been changed several times why not make it work as a buff like the maguma mastery Nuhoch Stealth Detection for several seconds instead of being a debuff.Ranged animations are also a problem, projectiles just look small and the same there isn't much distinction between lets say longbow auto attack and pointblank shot on ranger or the reworked focus on guardian Ray of Judgment, hard to dodge free damage mostly because the telegraph is just hand wave motion on far away person, some projectile attacks need some big red flag before connecting. Also why the sniper class does not have a single aim skill, like not a single ability on deadeye is a skillshot just tab target and pew pew (personal annoyance).There is the problem with visual noise, mirage is main culprit these days with the endless supply of clones, when scourge was the big thing the shades combined with FB spells made it impossible to see what exactly is going on. So too much animation and not enough ends up the same.

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Mesmer


(This is from a thread I made a year ago)


Duelist’s Discipline

  • Problem: Combined with Sharper Images, this trait means that Phantasmal Duelist alone can apply anywhere from 8-16 stacks of long-duration bleeding. Also, coupled with Mirage’s exceptionally high access to CC’s, this means that pistol skills can recharge nearly instantly.
  • Solution: Currently, this trait bleeds on EVERY hit from pistol attacks from you and your illusions. Instead, change this to 33% chance to bleed on CRITICAL hits like most other bleeding-related traits. Also, remove the 25% cooldown reduction on interrupt and make it a flat 20% cooldown reduction on pistol skills.

Sharper Images

  • Problem: Again, this trait is 100% chance on critical hits to apply a 5-8 second bleed (Carrion vs. Deadshot amulet). This results in insane amounts of bleeding stacks with little effort on the mesmer’s part.
  • Solution: Similar to Sharpened Edges, Sharpshooter, Barbed Precision, and Bloodlust (basically every single bleed-on-attack related trait), make it 33% on critical hits and reduce the bleeding duration to 3 seconds because the effect can trigger from 3 different sources.

Infinite Horizon

Mirage Cloak

  • Problem: Dodging while disabled should not exist.
  • Solution: Remove the ability to dodge while disabled.

Illusionary Counter

  • Problem: This skill is a 4.75 second cooldown, 2 second duration block that summons 2 clones and applies 7 stacks of torment (5 on trigger, 1 per clone).
  • Solution: Increase the cooldown to 10 seconds (8 seconds while traited) and reduce the torment on trigger to 3.
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@Emapudapus.1307 said:Since i am playing mostly necromancer PvP (mostly legend in HoT times), these things i think are bloated atm, not fun to play against or use, but necessary because of other powercreep. Also i think there also needs to be splits of traits between elite specialisations since they preform so differently and for one specialisation it can be useless and for other overpowered.:

Sorry but im gonna reply to this one cause i see a few things that are concerning and fairly questionable in your suggestions.

-GS 4 reaper: blind, cripple, boon corrupt, dmg, dark field, longer lasting; too much of everything.Really this just needs to be sped up keep the blind and cripple. Depending on how much boons get culled down depends on if it should keep its corrupt or not-Spectral walk: too bloated atm, duration too long or removal of condi removal.This is probably fine as is you have to remember necromancer lost its spectral mastery trait and the spectral skills (except spectral armor for some odd reason) were compensated as a result.-reaper onslaught: too bloated, perma quickness with ferocity too much, previous trait was better. Promotes unhealty oneshot builds.Well there is no such thing as a 1 shot build on necro that simply does not happen right now unless you stand there and let it happen. There is no skill or combo of skills that nukes you from 100-0 in 1.5 seconds in necros kit. Reaper does not do damage that you dont see coming unlike alot of the other professions, ref, mirage, soul beast, etc, Most classes can often survive a full soulsprial even let alone if they dodge its obvious animation.I agree the quickness should be removed from this trait but the ferocity is fine unless we see all other classes also lose ferocity or other similar stat traits. I would suggest making reaper shroud just faster at its base (so its not clunky but also not quickness level fast roughly 30% faster down from 50% that quickness gives) you could easily do this by reducing all the cast times in the reaper kit by 33% of their current base its the same thing as effectively making the skills faster.-Master of corruption: the effect is too strong. For it to be balanced the original cooldowns have to be too long, extra conditions arent fun for anyone (aka nerf to heal from 24 to 30 sec and 2 conditions on heal use)This makes no sense really. Depending on how long you have been playing you would know that Consume conditions for example use to orginally be 24 seconds and got Nerfed up to 30 seconds with the addition of self vuln application.-fear of death: bloated trait. It should give you max 50% fear duration which dont make condi duration less valuable.First of all make fear a hard cc then we can talk about cutting its duration. Currently has way too many counters and this makes core un-viable in the pvp setting as fear application is one of its main lines of defense.-deathly chill: split between reaper-core-scourage.This leads me to think you dont know what you are talking about, or trolling possibly? Because deathly chill is a reaper only trait. There can be no core/reaper/scourge split. Not like this trait is commonly used anyways.-death perception: should be reverted back to 50% crit (too many dmg modifiers give rise to oneshot builds).Necormancer cannot currently perform a 1 shot build unless you stand there and dont do anything at all. It cant sneak up to you and 1 tap you to death. The old version was far too much crit chance at best reduce the ferocity gain only if other professions also lose ferocity/other stats on their stat bonus traits-corrupt boon: its not overpowered but as its design atm with many condi cleanses and many boons, its too spamy and low impact (low impact not by itself but from enemies and their cleanses or bloated use of boons)Im not sure its spamy but the only reason necromancer has so many is because so many other professions have a ton of boons that also need to be removed (way more than the necromancer has) and can handle.

And things that got undeserved, unfun changes or made them useless/pointless:

-Warhorn 5: rework made it prety useless, pointless and unfun, lower range, shorter duration, no cripple, not working with blood traitline for siphons, killing all synergy. Should be rerolled back.I feel like it does not need to totally be re rollled back. How ever the duration that it pulsed over time before should be rolled back. There are some beneifits to having a mobile aoe that does not strike (full counter procs, retaliation procs, shocking aura procs, frost aura procs, etc)-Parasitic contagion: could be buffed little and working while in shroud or split between scourage and others.I feel like this is one of the traits that should not change till we see how all the other nerfs work out.-consume condition: shouldnt apply condition on youBut you want it when traited to apply 2 conditions and have a higher base cd as stated above???-Plaguelands: revert to old spell except for scourage, atm its unfun and useless and in vanilla GW2 it was quite interesting spell to use.No point to doing this now imo the old skill did make you tanky but was not that exciting for me personally-Lichform: rework? I dont know whats its purpuseIt may not need a total rework once we see the other nerfs come through but i still think it needs some major QoL if this gets nerfed as it is right now its a dead skill in general. The cd is already too high and the skills are lackluster and clunky.-Blood bond: it feels little weak atm, before bugfix when it also healed it was good, noone was complaining its too strong.Lol no that was broken you just never saw a good player use it with Signet of suffering. Trust me this trait is fine as it is.-cold shoulder: (for me personaly) less dmg recieved from chilled enemies was better for me than dmg done to chilled enemies, too many +% dmg modifiers makes dmg bloated.If only chill application was viable in pvp (its currently already not a thing and surely wont be with more reductions coming) At best this trait can be one that meets in the middle with 5% offence 5% damage reduction-soul eater: unthematic traitline undergone many iteration now it lost its purpose and its too restrictive (like range or not working in shroud) unfun to use.I would say remove the range limit and healing factor from it all together and it might be fine.-Axe 2: too clunky if ppl use evade or dodge or something on it. Needs quality of life improvements.Lol this is fine as perhaps lower its damage slightly and speed up so that it strikes slightly faster (but can be evaded in a single dodge)-soul spiral: poison duration could be increased back to before nerf, would help with bruiser role little and if someone wants to go back to condi reaper.No reason to do this as reaper as been slowly going toward the power role. The poison is only there to help combat healing for a short period.

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Issues with support classes. Firebrand inherently outclasses other support options due to the damage mitigating boons it gives over other supports. Resistance, aegis and stability are far more valuable as pure damage mitigation over attempting to clear condies or remove conditions reactively.

Tempest, Ventari, Druid, and to a lesser extent Scrapper will always be out classed by Firebrands as support because most of their support comes from some condition clearing and healing. Even though the healing potential is high for them the value of healing is out performed by the pure damage mitigation/prevention that firebrand offers. A blocked attack with aegis, or blocked condi spike with resistance is always better than trying to recover someone by healing them.

Even if the level of power and damage is reduced, other supports may be more viable but still always out classed by the prevention boons that firebrand offers. This is easily seen with firebrand with how they perform between using books 2 and 3. Firebrand and it's team are far more vulnerable when the firebrand is using book 2 over book 3 since the healing is fairly miniscule compared to the incoming damage.

Giving the supports more impactful play/abilities/boons will help the viability of them instead of totally being out classed.

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There's a lot of good comments here already. here's some specifics I think you can adress that would help a lot. This list would not cover everything but only some of the thinsg I think are easy to target :

General :Sigil of Agility : It's a very fun sigil, but also really gamechanging on a lot of skills. I liek the interaction but feel like it should be toned down. reducing the agility to 1sec wouldn't solve the issue thought.Runes of Leadership : Make it so the 6part bonus only affect allies and not you, so people have to make a choice between those and Runes of Lyssa. Maybe reduce Runes of Lyssa from 3 to 2 conditions converted.

Elementalist:increase the cooldown of Primordial Stance back upIncrease the speed of Sword Water 2 the same way you did with Mesmer sword 2 ( same properties, but reduce oeverall evade uptime )Tone down Glyph of Elemental Power Fire

Engineer :Reduce the Stealth duration on Throw Elixir S to 2sec ( 3 with HGH )Reduce the stability from Elixir U from 2 to 1 stack ( This is to keep Elixir U > Riffle 4 but make it so they don't have stability after doing it )Also reduce either the lenght of the boons from Elixir U or increase the cooldown.Increase the cooldown of Holo Leap by 1 or 2secAdd a cast time to Riffle 4

Guardian :Reduce the number of conditions converted by Tome 2 skill 5 from 5 to 3 ( This has to be done to balance out conditions applications versus condition cleanses overall )Signet of Mercy is strong but promotes good gameplay, I wouldn't want it to be nerfed.

Thief :Remove the Jump Staff 3 interactionStaff Master : Reduce the endurance per initiative from doing Staff skills from 1 to 2 in PvPReduce Feline's Grace Vigor from 5 to 2sec ( this will force Thieves to take Vigor on Heal, removing the passive invulnerability proc from the meta )Deadly Ambition : The nerf you talked about is great.Add a telegraph to Binding Shadow ( some kind of projectile maybe ? )

Mesmer :Something has to be done about Infinite Horizon but I'm unsure of how to approach it.Mirage cloak while CC'ed should only be possible with Elusive MindReduce the duration of Lesser Chaos Storm from Descent into Madness from 5sec to 2 ( right now, Lesser chaos storm is literally just Chaos storm )

Ranger :The Gazelle needs really heavy nerfs to damage on every skill.

Warrior :Reduce Might Make Right endurance per Might to 1 instead of 2, reduce the healing part a little bit as wellReduce the Might from the Magetether from 2 per pulse to 1Increase the cooldown of Full Counter from 8 to 10Bull's Charge really doesn't need the evade.Warrior's Cuning is way too one dimensional if fighting classes that Barrier themselves passively.

These are specifics that should go hands in hands with the idea of reducing overall damage / conditions applications.

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