Hi Everyone,
Today we're previewing the next set of balance updates to come to Tyria.
With this release there are a significant number of changes we've put together for the the competitive game modes, but many of the fundamental principles are applicable in every game mode. In particular, the focus on gameplay being more active is a big piece of the planned changes.
That said, we recognize that there are many specific differences between game modes and the nature of changes for game modes should follow suit.
eg. Many bosses and creatures in instanced content focus attacks on the player with the highest toughness. A minor trait, Stone Flesh gives an Elementalist additional toughness while attuned to earth and can cut off both going into Earth attunement and selecting the Earth traitline. So we're changing that trait to grant 7% damage reduction instead of 150 Toughness, allowing it to play well with that type of content and expand some build options.
We're planning many changes of this nature, as well as re-works and more. We look forward to seeing your feedback both on this set of changes as well as future potential changes.
We've posted additional threads for the more PvP oriented changes and WvW oriented changes.
-The Systems Team
Irenio 'Kui'
GW2 Systems
Comments
General:
Elementalist:
Summoned elementals offer a unique gameplay option for Elementalists that want to fight alongside an ally, but their short duration means that they can die frequently during fights. We have increased their summon duration, but we don't want to make them last indefinitely like necromancer minions as we feel part of the identity of glyphs is being able to switch attunements to have different options available. Additionally we felt that the lesser elemental summoning glyph didn't feel distinct enough from the elite glyph since the elite elementals had the same skills as the lesser elementals. To better distinguish the two glyphs, the command skill for lesser elementals is no longer present, which allows for multiple lesser elementals to be summoned at once.
Engineer:
The Explosives line for engineer is seeing some major changes in this update. We are removing several traits which had weak or lackluster effects such as Minesweeper, Orbital Command and Blasting Zone and reorganizing functionality from others like Short Fuse and Big Boomer to be more unified. The Evasive Powder Keg trait has been removed and replaced with Explosive Entrance, which similarly adds damage after a dodge roll but does so in a more controlled and modifiable way. Finally we are updating grenade skills for better clarity in competitive modes where it can be hard to tell the difference between the different grenades during the cast time.
Explosives: This traitline has been reworked, the new traits are as follows
Minor
Adept
Master
Grandmaster
Guardian:
Dragonhunters are solid damage dealers, but there were a couple spots that needed some tuning. Deflecting shot, in particular, had a very short cast time and became crowd control when traited with Heavy Light. We've rolled the crowd control into the skill itself and increased its cast time to ensure that it feels reasonable for its effect. Several traits have also been improved for ease of understanding, like Dulled Senses affecting any foe you crowd control, not simply those you knock back. A couple particularly unused traits in the core Virtues specialization have been retired and replaced with fresh options.
Mesmer:
In this update we are making some changes to the greatsword and domination trait line in order to provide a more reliable baseline ranged damage build or mesmer. We are removing the Confounding Suggestions trait which has been problematic to balance in the past due to its power level and adding in a new trait Vicious Expression which plays better with the Domination line's boon removal. Finally we are changing the Mirage Elusive Mind to no longer break stuns as we feel that the necessity of including exhaustion as a balancing factor has made it too binary as a choice.
Necromancer:
Necromancer has always been designed to be a resilient profession that was light on Stability. Since this update specifically is removing some stability from their traits we made sure to buff their stunbreak skills appropriately in response. Additionally we've fixed a few issues with minion responsiveness and buffed a few of the weaker minion command skills.
Ranger:
Soulbeasts, long standing without a tradeoff, are now receiving theirs - they lose combat access to a second pet and must choose carefully which pet they are going to be bonded with in battle.
Revenant:
Revenants are seeing a large number of changes in this update. In addition to reworks of both the Devastation and Corruption trait lines we have also revisited several of their skills. Precision Strike has been reworked as an actual melee attack as we felt didn't really make sense for it to be a projectile skill. We have however kept its emphasis on single target damage if you can isolate a foe. Confusion has been removed from various Revenant skills as they didn't really have any meaningful ways to take advantage of it and instead we've replaced them with Torment which can be used in a more cohesive character build.
Changes to the Devastation line are aimed at two major areas. The first is that several traits are highly niche such as Malicious Reprisal and Jade Echo. These traits are being removed and replaced with new traits that have more broad uses. The second issue is the opposite, some traits are too similar to each other such as Ferocious Strikes and Vicious Lacerations that they don't offer any meaningful choices. The siphoning traits are a part of this change and we are unifying the siphoning effect into a single buff for the combat log and making it a bigger part of the overall line. The new siphon effect named after Shiro's classic skill "Battle Scars" is a stacking buff that is expended when attacking and is more restricted in its applications but stronger than previous siphoning traits.
Devastation: The Devastation Trait line has been reworked, the new traits are as follows
Minor
Adept
Master
Grandmaster
Similar to the Devastation rework we are also re-centering the Corruption line around a new mechanic. Invoke Torment occurs when switching legends and causes nearby foes to be inflicted with torment. This ability can be upgraded with the grandmasters based on your preferred playstyle. The boon removal traits have also been removed as we felt that they had trigger conditions that offered little gameplay. In exchange we've added a few new powerful traits with drawbacks as we feel this is in line with the spirit of the Mallyx line and skills like Pain Absorption.
Corruption:The Corruption line has been reworked, the new traits are as follows.
Minor
Adept
Master
Grandmaster
Thief:
Thief pistol has been updated some to better smooth its gameplay and its associated trait (and harpoon gun's), Ankle Shots, has been replaced with a new trait - Deadly Aim, which causes attacks from those weapons to pierce, allowing for strategic movement and positioning relative to your foes.
Thief Bundles: We did a pass on all thief bundles and found several that were using some pretty old numbers. We've done a tuning pass on these to make sure that they feel impactful enough in PvE for both power and condition spec builds.
Warrior:
Warrior's rifle has been somewhat lackluster in its gameplay feel, so we're updating it to create some rotations by giving its 2-4 skills ammunition, shorter cooldowns between uses and slightly longer cooldowns to recover shots, plus successfully using Rifle Butt will allow the rapid recovery of the ammunition for those skills. Warrior hammer has a pretty good gameplay cadence, so we're pushing a bit further on what it does well - hurting crowd controlled enemies. Its iconic second skill, Fierce Blow, now does significantly greater damage to disabled foes, and Backbreaker will automatically recharge fierce blow for immediate use when you successfully knockdown an enemy.
Irenio 'Kui'
GW2 Systems
Elementalist
"Obsidian Flesh: This skill now locks the player's skill bar while invulnerable." Please be pvp only >.<
"Obsidian Flesh: This skill now locks the player's skill bar while invulnerable."
Why? Where was this an issue? So many other classes have aegis / distorts /multiple dodges etc and this was the one thing I got as condi weaver that allowed me to ignore a mechanic or 2 in raids, if I ensured I was in the right attunement at the right time. What's wrong with condi weaver having a 4sec invuln occasionally?
Deadly Aim is a welcome trait. Not quite Ricochet, but I hope it will still have the same satisfying impactful feel. That change to Head Shot is pretty big; it should deal some wicked defiance bar damage now! I should consider changing my Night sigil on pistols for an Impact sigil now. Choking Gas change is also much appreciated to make use of the skill both in solo/group play more skillful than just spamming 4 until the poison racks up.
Elixir of Heroes cast time cut should be effective for bosses like Captain Mai Trin and Arkk. Though I'm thinking with Eat Egg, you might as well just make it replenish initiative completely to simplify its effect!
signature
Nerfs all around, understandable, fine, probably deserved. Stuff does too much damage in this game. But even if you're not going to make zerker useable or any of the condi weapon skills fun or good. PLEASE at least, if nothing else do something with the torch trait, & INCREASE THE PROJECTILE SPEED ON WARRIOR LONGBOW so it's actually somewhat usable.
It'll remain to be seen where all the professions land after all of these changes are made together, but I'm baffled by a couple major things on engineer, specifically:
It's a good sign that you're willing to issue balance mandates in competitive modes and enforce sweeping changes, but I think PvE will need a complete systemic look on the same scale as well.
I know people's first reaction is going to be to comb through all of this and start pouring in the feedback, and I'm glad they will cause I certainly don't have the knowledge nor opinion to do so. But it's obvious a lot of effort went into trying to do this thing the community's really wanted right, and I can at least appreciate that.
I strongly suggest to nerf Feel My Wrath in PvE as well, as it makes best in slot comps stack Guardians instead of having a dedicated Quickness buffer, locking out other dps specs from taking that slot. Guardian (both DH and FB) are already on the strong side - dps wise - as they are. Giving DH another dmg modifier (Virtues) will be an overkill. FB is also already having over 40k burst, scratching the 37k on the final number on the golem. Even tho those numbers will go down depending on how much Quickness you're gonna provide, a profession becomes problematic if it provides (partial) Quickness and high tier dps at the same time. This is very unhealthy for the diversity / viablity of multiple dps specs in raids.
Aside from that (yes there are still many things that are not addressed here, but regarding the ones that are) it looks great tbh.
Xyonon | Ziggs Ironeye | Madame Le Blanc | [CnD] Crits N Dips
Don’t forget to adjust Light Aura, since it still uses the “old” effect and never have been updated. The problem of the current effect is, that the aura is much too big on Norn and way too small on Asura (effect clips with the body). I hope, that the effects of Light Aura are being updated for both new models (“reduced” version on others; “full” version on yourself).
remaking comments...
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62658/alliance-design-that-stops-the-qq
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62555/putting-fun-back-into-designs-and-balancing
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/9804/idea-wvw-only-movement-skills
God bless, PBM Holo is alive again. I feel like the workaround you chose to balance the different grandmaster choices for overheating is reasonably adequate.
Although I don't really get the changes to Overcharged Shot and Battering Ram I'm now motivated to login for more than just the login rewards when this hits.
The Soulbeast tradeoff also seems reasonable. Now I'm just curious when you will finally add a tradeoff for guard e-specs. x)
Rise of the visually enhanced auramancers.
Since you are going to take bonus toughness off of Ele, and you said "We're planning many changes of this nature" can you also take it off of Soulbeast and Firebrand? While we're at it, can we take the bonus toughness out of Weaver's Elemental Polyphony?
Power Soulbeasts take Pack Alpha, which boosts all their attributes (including toughness) by 150, because being merged with a pet gives the Soulbeast bonuses affecting their pet.
All Firebrands have Imbued Haste, which gives 250 increased toughness so long as they have Quickness, and they will have permanent quickness in a raid/fractal setting.
With love,
Every skilled tank who'd rather play with 1005 toughness (because toughness itself is just useless and only taken for taking aggro.)
I'm a bit confused about the wording of the Revenant trait changes in the Corruption spec. If I'm reading it right, if you don't pick Invoking Torment in the minor tier, this means none of the Grandsmaster tier traits work?
Also, for those few of us who like to play varied things and experiment, it looks like PvE condi thief is still down for the count.
Invoking Torment is Minor, so it's not chooseable. Adept/Master/Grandmaster are so it seems reasonable.
@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048
Bountiful Blades (NEW): Mirror Blades bounces 2 additional times. Phantasmal Berserker summons an additional berserker and they each deal less damage (33% instead of 25% less damage.
With how the bouncing reduces damage for each bounce, wouldnt this trait make mirror blade do less damage with the trait then without it?
cant really run math on it since I dont know how -15% dmg ( for each bounce would scale ) alongside with ( -25% from trait )
Also Also, consider making Mirror blade focus on the target it was cast on, expecially now since it bounces even more, and since trait increases bounces it can in fact make this ability more unreliable AND lower its damage.
thoughts ?
"We are removing several traits which had weak or lackluster effects such as Minesweeper"
Hello Darkness, my old friend....
at least 450 distance? That's kinda silly. I always found Engineer to work best in melee range, especially Holo. This trait would be absolutely lack luster for Power DPS (and somewhat condi, because, while it would give a lot of vulnerability to the enemy, but its mainly a power damage trait, not condi). If it were within the range threshold of 450, that would have a big impact on Power DPS and would DEFINITELY have more synergy with other traits than being at least 450 distance away.
Does it mean I'll get ferocity for using trait, AND for wieldieng axe, AND for being merged with pet (3 ferocity bonuses)?
Exactly this. If it is too strong, maybe nerf it to 2sec or something like this. It's our only "block" and only usable if we have earth attunement on our offhand.
I really would hate to loose this skill for raids. And not beeing allowed to do anything for 4sec is too much for raids.
Other idea: allow us to end the invul sooner if we want to? Just please don't destroy this skill completely for raids.
Edit:
The Stone Flesh change is great.
Could it also be applied to Elemental Polyphony? (Weaver grandmaster minor, 120 Toughness while on earth) This is the same problem as Stone Flesh.
I don't understand why they make those "Obsidian Flesh" changes in PVE. If this skill will lock the sklllbar it will make me avoid using it even on situations where defensive skills are needed. It's a strong skill I'm not going to deny that but this change makes it so bad it's not funny. Honestly I would prefer that "Obsidian Flesh" roots me instead of locking my skillbar.
Also odd how you don't even touch friebrand. It's not like this class is by far the most asked for class in pvp,raids,strike,etc which makes other support roles useless in comparison.
So the only good skill on Warrior's rifle was nerfed hard to give more uses of the other incredibly bad ones? How's that a positive change? Please give the weapon better utility or identity and make Brutal Shot less clunky at least! I don't know how a skill like Brutal Shot exists compared to Quick Shot on Ranger and Disabling Shot on Thief!
Neato. Will these changes also affect the pickup skills from Ranger Porcine pets' F2 Forage skills?
If not, will the Porcine F2 skills be updated to something... less unwieldy? Piggy please?
Builds for Runes project | Discussion | Archive
I see a load of changes for the sake of change, some killer nerfs (Ranger), very few real improvements, and all in all, a lot of reasons to be checking out games like New World and Torchlight III later this year.
Ahh. Thanks.
Are the elementals still getting killed by mounting?
☆ SUGGEST-A-TRON
i dont know what Anet have against Dragonhunters. I trully dont know
"Confusion has been removed from various Revenant skills as they didn't really have any meaningful ways to take advantage of it and instead we've replaced them with Torment which can be used in a more cohesive character build."
I disagree.
Confusion from Banish Enchantment was what kept more faceroll builds in check for PvP/WvW, ironically they had all boons too. So I don't think this is a good decision if the current state of the game will remain similar to what it is with all those nerfs.
Temporal Rift was already pretty weak too with it's Torment, so removing Confusion is a pretty big nerf for how it already had to interrupt for application.
I saw all the changes, I'm hoping for the best. Really hoping that all of it will correlate in the end.
Willing to help with anything Revenant related.
I expected more.
Also balance of damage and buff also in pve as well as in pvp and wvw.
Most of the patch is a small comfort improvement that could have been there 4 or 5 years ago for the pve (I specify).
I was expecting some real change.
example here the thief's stealing skills are updated.
But compare "Whirling Axe" skill you can steal with "Ice Shard Stab".
Ice Shard Stab is completely useless even in this new version compared to Whirling Axe.
if you update skills made of skills that people want to use, example "Whirling Axe" or "plasma shower", "magnetic bomb", ...
There's no point in updating skills that are useless anyway, it's a waste of time for you. Take them off or do a real overhaul.
for example : necro
The pets make them more dynamic, take away the incantation time.
Currently they are only used for either CC, given back FL, or for AFK farm.
All reaper cries are useless in pve, ...
+spell reshuffles that are useless skills in pve.
Besides it would be nice to make the aura of darkness apply like the other aura when you pass in a combo zone directly.
Currently only the aura of darkness has the additional restriction that you have to finish the entire animation of the attack, so that the aura is given.
While the other auras apply directly even if you cancel as long as you are in the combo box.
It's been buggy for a year.
Look what Path of Exile did to make them more interesting.
They're about passive skills, basically strokes in GW2.
There are 2 passive we can put that change a little bit our skills either:
Which reduces damage / range but generates extra side shots which increases the width of the eye and the number of targets hit for the mob packs.
Here it is as if you had 1 clone of mesmer to the right and left of you invisible who makes the same attack as you in a straight line but with less damage and less range.
Either in cadence increased the number of shots in mono target of the other what makes it possible to make proc more often of other trait or crit and increased the dps mono.
Basically here all your skills become the "Rapid Fire" of Ranger but do much less damage with each shot.
Any plans on revisiting that Chrono "rework" that will still make this spec incredibly bad for anything competitive related by design and played by nobody in their right mind?
Rifle needs a lot more love on Warrior. Just making underwhelming skills into ammo skills allows me to be twice as underwhelming?
Other than that, waiting to try these changes out in game. The modifier ones look... a little suspicious, since I didn't see a lot of condition adjustments, yet a lot of cleanse shaves. Good start, overall, but fix my chrono pl0x.
For Guardian, honestly, after scanning all the changes in sPvP, I cannot specifically tell what will land where. But, the changes you have here with the explanation border on silly. DH is not meta in sPvP or WvW. Deflection shot damage was literally buffed 6 month ago, since someone, who at least have set a foot in sPvP before, realized this skill require significant aiming and planning, and thus should deal more damage. So... what the kitten happened? If you will make it deal no damage, can it work like ranger LB CC then? Otherwise this just stupid. And the CC is disadvantage in PvE anyway (not sure would you use in LB PvE to begin with) is a disadvantage.
Heavy Light, this trait is now absolutely pointless. Guardian does not have the ability to CC and quickly do damage. It is not mesmer. And the other grand master, big game hunter adds 20% damage to tethered targets, right? So.. is the damage heavy light on CC, which is extremely situation, will be much higher, so it would be considered? Did someone even half thought this through? Is this RNG? I cannot tell anymore.
Stoic demeanor, good change. I still dunno why it has an ICD, since it is only used in PvE sporadically. The ICD only makes noting the effect infuriating. At least 1 sec is better than 3.
Changes to virtues are good, but depending on the damage on virtues use and the duration may or may not have much value. If you are serious about making it deal damage in PvE, Unscathed Contender is what needed to change. I guess not.
Changes to zeal are useless but buffs. Better than nothing, eh?! "I need more sources of vulnerability" said no guardian ever.
soulbeast - not being able to do a fundamental basic ranger ability pet swapping ... hmmm if this is a balance why has it taken YEARS to balance .... it's disappointing
mesmer - removing a trait and replacing it with another because anet do not have the skills (the real devs lost their jobs or found something more productive to do) to balance it ... well anet balances I guess are total hack n slash and break things as usual ... rather than improving gameplay enjoyment.
Also now i know why i don't pvp .... because the transition from pve to pvp is too split up
I know this is mainly a PvP/WvW update, but I had a suggestion for the Daredevil elite skill, Impact Strike.
The third strike, Finishing Blow, has almost no purpose in PvE. I was wondering if for a PvE only change that it could deal significantly increased damage to foes with 25% or less HP? Considering its rather lengthy cast time of 1.5s, I feel this would at least add some utility to an otherwise useless ability.
I understand that guardians and warriors are likely the most played classes so balance is likely skewed in their favor.
It's been reported that the Zealous Blade trait for Guardians (Dragonhunters running power builds) is still giving 10% additional damage despite the patch notes stating in July 2019 that it was removed. Users reported it here in bug forum. That's partly why dragonhunter is favored for power DPS currently especially for single target scenarios due to the huge damage boost from spear of justice when traited with BIg Game Hunter. People are suggesting above that Feel my Wrath be nerfed, but the most effective way to do that is probably making the quickness nonexistent for allies while increasing the duration on the utility mantra (Potent Haste), especially when you compare it to Time Warp (the mesmer elite). Making the quickness shorter will just result in stacking more guardians.
Warrior is in a good spot in all game modes, rifle changes will likely just add a different methodology of playing it since the melee weapons have been favored. Maybe I will get to break out the Charrzooka on my charr warrior for laughs. Piercing attacks generally aren't as potent since clustering mobs is easier than lining them up.
I don't know if these changes are final, but chronomancer is extremely clunky due to clone requirement for shatters. In a prior WvW stream it was mentioned that would be reexamined. It's especially an issue for the interrupt on Time Sink / F3 replacement for Diversion. Elusive Mind will likely negate the entire inspiration line for condi builds though, since the heal scaling on inspiration's heal power relies on power otherwise you need healing gear.
Engineer is in a difficult spot since it generally requires more skill to play due to the heat mechanic or the kits. The cooldown reduction to bomb kit skills is a nice change however. Not sure on the toolkit 15s recharge increase when overheating, I suspect most people won't opt for Photonic Blasting module unless the damage is extremely high to offset this. I made an engineer at launch but it didn't receive as much playtime until scrapper because the highest damage kit (grenades) attack sequence is repetitive strain injury inducing due to needing aim of auto attack.
Revenant is a dominant support now but none of the things listed here seem to be massive changes for PVE. It's more that every other class is getting normalized it seems.
I anticipate the customary necromancer whining in light of this patchnote.
Thief pistols aren't used that much, but as with warrior rifle it should be a fun weapon to play when min-maxing is not of a concern (as in things not timed). Piercing is still weaker than cleave as stated above with respect to warrior rifle: it's harder to line things up than to cluster them.
I like the change to soulbeast since the change is meaningful. Losing access to a second pet means it will likely be run with a damage-oriented pet at least for PVE. Ranger is a highly played profession and people that haven't been keeping track of balance patches might be still running druid.
Will add more when I go over them completely, but that's my initial reaction to it.
This is a big nerf to damage right there and we already suffer as it is with instant death phantasms being replaced by almost no damage weak clones and now you're going to force us to choose between an extra phantasm on greatsword OR 15% damage boost from all illusions via the Empowered Illusion trait which is in the same line as Confounding Suggestions which will now be Bountiful Blades. Do you even have anyone who plays a Mesmer because it seems like these are such arbitrary and random changes with little thought to them.
The loss of cripple on all attacks is also telling as now we'll be easier to be chased down by foes with only one source of cripple coming from Mind Stab and less, albeit small, breakbar damage.
The removal of Empty Vessel in Invocation for Revenants is excessive, especially since you’re also removing Stability in Retribution AND increasing the cost/CD for both Riposting Shadows and Gaze of Darkness, respectively.
I would keep Empty Vessel while also keeping your proposed stun break nerfs.
i like the way of you indirectly making better synergetic traits for renegade-revenant but still i think shortbow 2 and shortbow 3 needs reworks, also F3 citadel bombardement needs some faster rockets and precise radius to hit its targets when "using/wasting 35 energy"....
I am so happy to see sudden reversal renegade trait, reworked for something better.
I think renegade got buffed its bleeding even further with corpution traitline change, i am just curious what will be done with its real bleeding sources.
About shortbow 2 bloodbaine's path, arrows misses if target moves.... fix that please
About sevenshot(shortbow 3) spell is hard to hit.....you need to be 900 m distant to target+target must not move+you need to aim to hit arrows.
I like the way of nerfing mirage total endurance to 50 , removing its initial double dodges to one dodge every time.
I would like to see more love to chrono....it is unplayable in pvp, clones has very low health, just dies too fast so you can't shatter properly.
Honestly I think most of the DH changes are good given the context of changes to other specs. I'm very wary of the animation slowdown though. From a competitive perspective, D Shot is already manually aimed and is a fairly slow projectile that is easy to outstrafe past a certain range. Currently it requires a decent amount of movement prediction to be used well. With a 3/4th second cast time it will most definitely feel very clunky and miss a lot more often simply due to the longer cast time paired with slow projectile speed even if the user perfectly aimed it. Granted, this looks to be as a tradeoff for knockback being baseline, but nothing kills a weapon spec faster than making it feel clunky. If a tradeoff is desired, as a longtime DH player I would strongly prefer something like increased cooldown. 12 or 15s up from the current 10, or even a range reduction.
Another thing to consider - DH competitive gameplay is focused on combos off of CCs. With a .75s cast time a lot of these combos are effectively eliminated.
Please reconsider this change. DH LB is already fairly niche. It sees some use because it's actually quite a smooth and fun weapon set to use. Even something like a .5s, up from .25 but down from the suggested .75 would be fine, but .75 is just too slow for the skill type.
While we're reworking domination, can we finally make "Rending Shatter" more useful?
Something like "3x 3s vulnerability on boon removal" will make it just as competitive as other adept trait, while picking off on the "boon removal" theme for adept trait to punish boon spam.
I don't have the internal game statistics, but pretty much every mesmer I know would pick other traits over this.
[RED] Crimson Sunspears...your small family guild since 2015.
Poor elementalist, never got to be top tier in over 5 years. Not even once, yet they keep getting nerfed.
Press obsidian flesh to get a kitten elixir S. Homogenizing is fun! 3 seconds invuln with freedom is cancer and broken!
Never said I'm the best, but I believe I'm better than you.
Make chrono great again or give us a new mesmer elite allready
I'm a bit concerned for weaver :
The tradeoff stab with barriers, that are already very weak on weaver; on base and related effects (there is none. that's simple) compared to engie or scourge for example; for a melee spec, with 11k HP and the lowest armor ... add up to the cut of healing base and coefficient (and barriers, lol), it seems a bit too much.
224 barriers on stance instead of stab will absolutely not help to set up otherwise than (the "cancer", but one of the few viable sets) Celestial or Vitality/Healing power and 3 breakstun in utility bar.
One tiny request: please make Deadly Ambition (thief trait) actually work with Repeater and such. Due to DA revamp, condi thief builds are in a really bad spot PVE-wise as Deadly Ambition's "poison enemies when using dual-wield skills" only works with Death Blossom and Shadow Strike and not Shadow Strike's follow-up Repeaters. Though wiki lists all main-hand 3 skills as dual-wield, in-game only the first skill of their sequences do and mainhand-only builds (like pistol+nothing) can't trigger that effect at all as their mainhand skill 3's aren't marked as dual-wield in tooltip.
It's Kitty. The young lady who recorded videos playing various (non-)metabuilds. Raid/fractal videos at youtube.com/LadyKitty and streams at Twitch.tv/LadyKittyGW2
Awesome step forward! TY!
Questions...
Are there any future plans to improve team gameplay mechanics for heal and non-heal support roles and builds? Examples...
"Druid is clunky to heal with and some ideas would go a long way... https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/39412/eye-on-druid-ideas-yay.
Ventari Tablet would be leaps more enjoyable if it were a "back pack", not a tablet that needed to be moved around trying to heal the cat herd.
Ele healer is most "fluid" of them all, but still feels uninspiring. Frustrating to heal teammates outside of tight blobs."
Any plans to rework the contentious stealth mechanics? Example... https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/60005/stealth-rework-2-0
Any plans to reevaluate the Condition system? Example... https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/29999/condi-system-rework-2-0
Any plans to reevaluate the outdated resource mechanics? Example... https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/91980/resource-mechanics-need-to-go-and-competitive-gameplay-will-be-better-for-it
Any plans to improve lesser used weapons for pvp and wvw? Examples...
"https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/32525/if-you-want-more-build-diversity-then-we-need-to-work-on-weapons-too
GW2 Path of Fire was released on September 22, 2017, and Ranger daggers still only have a niche use in pve… https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/568/daggers-need-redo-and-backstab.
Roam around in wvw and try getting into fights while using Reaper GS, and any competent player will pick you apart more often than not… hence the thoughts behind these… https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/58958/eye-on-necro-ideas.
Playing melee can suck much of the time, especially when ranged skills can hit super hard and there are a ton of melee weapons devoid of positioning, mobility and gap closers... Hence suggestion like these...
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/56624/warrior-needs-more-ranged-weapon-options
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/54848/melee-weapon-improvements-please
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/9819/greatsword-changes
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/25754/necro-needs-movement-skills-tied-to-weapons
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/9688/sugg-core-necro-needs-a-melee-weapon"
Wil there be any larger shifts or changes that tackle some of the root causes of balance issues and frustrations with the game? Example... https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62555/putting-fun-back-into-designs-and-balancing
Any plans to improve visual aspects of combat gameplay? Example... https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/67283/i-would-like-to-discuss-visual-tells-for-wvw
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62658/alliance-design-that-stops-the-qq
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62555/putting-fun-back-into-designs-and-balancing
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/9804/idea-wvw-only-movement-skills
To me it feels like the shot is backwards, it should be dodge first then shoot at the end.
Pointless using the skill as a dodge in its current state.
I think thief initiative regen should get slowed. Builds like s/d thief are going to be nuts post-patch because their tempos haven't been nerfed.
Who cares if the damage gets nerfed when s/d thief can still use their s3 evade multiple times. And defensive cooldowns have been increased so it's just gonna be incredibly strong.
Hello.
I really hoped that you would change the "Unload" skill and show some love to P/P pvp. Right now it is a very slow (1.5 sec), expensive (6 ini), easily avoided skill that does moderate damage. You almost never get 1 initiative back and 8 hits, since everyone dodges, blocks, reflects, absorbs. And now you plan to cut the damage from both the auto attack and the "Unload". Why reduce auto attack damage? It is already very weak for power builds.
Can you change the skill so that the initiative is spent during the application of the skill, and not immediately? This will allow more flexibility to manage the stock of initiative. Or reduce the application time if you decide to reduce damage.
P/P is only weapons set that doesn't have any viable defense. No stealth acsess, no evade, no block. "Black Powder" was nerfed. Another idea is to make "Black Powder" smoke cloud to block projectile, like DE 4 skill. P/P need some defense.
Completely butchering your versatility isn't exactly what I'd call "reasonable"
okkk now its entirely useless 90% of the time. now fresh air eles only defense is nothing more then a time waster, it will allow enemies to recover and puts the ele at a disadvantage when using it.
GREAT now holos are incapable of being in melee so they are forced to take storm and meme from range. all melee specs need stab.
omg you're giving them more quickness... you should be taking quickness away from everyone not giving more to the one class who has the most access to it.
what the hell is this. a self destruct button? you are making it impossible for revs to use any upkeep skills until about 3 secs before they can legend swap again, unless they spend all their energy spamming resistance.
te lazla otstara.
fingers crossed meta ~