[Scrappers in WvW]

OP - Game is dying - let it go.

[A Civil and Logical Approach to the Recent Scrapper Changes]

The scrapper has been scrapped.

[Anet, Please read this message from a long time D/D condition thief player]

I tried it, I think I prefer it the way it is now. Makes all your weapon options relevant and versatile. Dagger/Dagger I have a hate love thing with cause...where you will land with it can be annoying...so now you can pick any weapon and still be relevant, especially ranged wise.

[The positives after July 2019 balance patch]

When I read the patch I did like the idea of being able to apply slow/confusion more often cause the wells pulse the debuffs so I always wanted to experiment with an expertise/concentration with the chaos traitline but figured it's not super woth maybe now?. Doubt it.

However I reaaaaally dislike how extreme their changes can be, that makes me turned off to try to make anything work because apparently they just completely remove abilities and change their categories and destroy runes with no remorse it seems - gutting all your investments in gear/time/gold getting to know the class. And the logic of what they decide to gut and why has no rhyme or reason...it's like living in a war zone hehe.

They don't seem to care about continuity...perhaps the idea turn off the playerbases and attract new blood cause that's where we can get fresh money?, force players to buy char slots/80 boosts for the the new flavor buffed class...that'd make sense.

[Druid or Tempest for new player heals?]

Druid right now is that 'must' have in raids..but I'd pick a class that I'll enjoy its dps options as well, as being a full on healer is not super relevant in a lot of content and getting into raids is not that easy unless you have a nice guild.

Druid has been receiving nerfs just to make other support classes relevant right now...so...it's a tricky decision...so read the whole class first and see what you enjoy the "feel off" in all aspects overall.

[Name weapons/utility skills that are in desperate need of a rework]

Druid staff skill 1 and 2. They were ok when they had big numbers and cleansed condis. Now they are just annoying. Make 1 a cool combo skill, and number 2 a different skill that cleanses a couple of condis once or something...is that op???The sound effect of skill 1 is also annoying, like I hate staff cause of it.

Druids CA skill 1. Maybe make it rain down something that allies can pick up if the skill does not land (like the orb from revenant class? why do they have that anyways they literally have no casting time? they look like star shards?)...that tiny circle with the delay is just so meaningless and not fun.

Glyph of the stars. I think it'd be fine if it's like tranquility from WoW with a wide range around the druid. The channel/cd/limited aoe range of it is so unpractical/annoying/not fun especially in a game like gw2. If the effect needs to be toned down in return is something to test.

The glyphs range in general is annoying.

Spirits needing a recast to reposition is not fun at all. In wow when totems were instant people still found them annoying. Spirits are unbearable. They were ok when you can just despawn them and the effect lasts a bit. Now...omg just clunky and a chore. Not fun.

Overall imo, druid right now feels like "since you can heal you should suck" so the gameplay feels punished and unfun. IMO.

I get the whole trade off thing..but if the trade off is something you feel while playing. It's...not fun why play it other than cause you have to for heals so it's still relevant?

Especially when other classes are not like that now that you're buffing them.

Another idea is chronos well trait makes wells affect 10 people now.

[More Frequent Balance Updates]

@Ashen.2907 said:Its not the frequency of balance patches that concerns me, but rather their content.

thiz.

[Upcoming Balance Notes]

Ok...what these constant random changes tell me...the game is starting to just be a potato salad...WoW started doing these extreme back and forth changes...that was it for me.

This just makes gearing characters or committing to anything in the game...bleh. Cause you change the changes you just changed.

The rhyme and reason of these weird swings in what a class does...for funsies??? I don't get it.

Changing things from shouts and traps as covert nerfs/make it go away/cause I love copy pasta coding - is just potato salad to me.

I need to use me some of that shadow magic and find me a new game.

[What's a good versatile wvw build?]

ok so revenant....yuck! ill just roam on condi thief xD!. Thanks all.

[what weapon would you wish for the thief next ?]

I read some one saying politician should be the new elite specialisation as a joke. I actually love this idea!

Focus off hand...Minister Caucedus/his lot/Faren/cry baby nobles themed. Instead of being assasin oriented...supports team in sleazy ways. Behind the shadows bribes healing rezzing would be the new nerf teef theme!. Hiding the truth from citizens to stay in power through blind spam. But like politicians once they get in the open with no one to protect them they get brutally assasinated. The irony is the teef is the best man to do the job!

Steal becomes negotiate, I dunno what it would do. Shadow abilities become...defensive abilities of some sort. Utilities become commands? so that ranger isnt the snowflake that has commands out of no where? Or manipulations?

Now I am sad..it'll never happen.

[What's a good versatile wvw build?]

I have all classes at level 80. I want a build that's useful both at roaming soloing camps/effective in zergs and actually helps the zerg noy just add a body?.

Thoughts? Celestial Scourge/Ele? Thank you!

[last chance for my ele]

Text wall inc.

Ele was one of my first leveled classes I loved it. But I took a loooong break and came back. The first thing I noticed is that staffs damage was so damn God damn awful...it did not use to be like that at all. I had to read that a lot of the ranged damage was nerfed (explained a lot of my alts feels in comparison). I also feel eles damage was toned down more than others perhaps because of tempests/weavers/basic eles capabilities/modifiers combined.

Ele is a lot more awesome in group settings and if you embrace the idea of using all your skills which takes a while to get used to. Yes in open world they can be harder compared to my other alts (I think some classes can just solo the unsoloable and some just cant imo). I'd say they are kinda like my thief but probably better.

As people have said dagger/dagger is the way to go the other weapons can be used better when you have the elite specialization and can bother with superior runes at level 80 and you are in group situations.

Heres are few things that -I personally- found helpful.

Take a few vitality/power pieces...but dont over do it. I would take berserker pieces after that personally (at least knight -yuck). Things need to die so that you don't yoy hate your life while leveling imo.

Take both glyphs of elementals the elite and the the utility one. Use them on earth if you are scared too many mobs will focus you they are your temporary I have a pet use the lesser one first...fill the gap with big guy...use lesser again...or use both if things really going down. The others ones are squishy. So the worth it ones are the earth version.

Glyph of storms is also great on earth it is a mass blind and aoe damage.

Now I read people saying use water/earth trees...experiment your self.

But heres what I liked.

Air first especially the trait that refreshes your air if you crit...because this will allow you to feel a little less tense about swapping to other elements to spam the usefull skills then just go back to air for autoattack damage to fill in the gaps.

It also has the reduce cooldown on glyphs I would take that along with the glyph as your heal slot (use it in water for the regen boon as well if needed) and both elemental glyphs and glyph of storms.

Zephyr speed/passive speed when in air mode is great too. Being able to run around fast passivley in lightning is a big deal imo you wanna run around and just lash these mobs with your lightning whips and make it easy for you to move around if you need to run away reposition kite los whatever etc.

Personally the other two trees I'd invest in after is fire and water. I would finish fire first. Mainly because fire is the other great tree for damaging, the reduce fire skills recharge/might for just using skills in fire - although I prefer the you get fury (and might) when you blast fire fields last longer talent. Also the when you die you spawn a lava font saved me...a lot lol.

You can take the reduce conjured weapons cool down and use the last utility slot for lightning hammer. Lightning hammer used to be stronger I think but its great.

Why? Its auto attack aoe blinds and blasts!. So you make a fire field (dagger 4) and then just activate the hammer and you get to melee and get more poweful as you do while mass blinding things getting hit. It's a little slow though..so. Sometimes I just take arcane blast instead to blast the fire field...or whatever else I might situationally need (arcane shield is good although all the rest of the utility is way too long of a cd/situational for my taste).

Lastly I'd go water you could just get the soothing mist talent first and work on fire in the mean time or...go full water first I guess I prefer offense though.

Soothing mist is great because you can go into water use its heals/skills then as you leave it soothing mists lasts a while outside of water. Nothing to say much about water it has a trait that increases your damage in all forms as long as your hp is up and makes tuning into water better at healing you up even after you leave water mode. Which is why I dislike earth...earth is a little too situational in it's style of defense for my taste. Water has traits that work out side of water mode/you just go there and leave.

I'd even level arcane before earth cause arcane has nifty things. Reduces swapping elements recharge! Free boons when you get hit/swap elements! Free concentration! Free spell on dodge/reduced arcane skills recharge for arcane blasts?.

Till you get to elites and being able to commit to gear/builds...kinda ignore staff scepter. Use them to get familiar but don't be shocked that their damage kinda is meh.

Ok im gonna shut up now lol.

[Nerf the mesmers for the love of pvp]

I play mesmer it's 'my main'...and all of the other classes. I dont understand why I can reach 40 stacks of torment by just evading and not being even close to my target it's awesome? (literally pve dps uses the endurance sigil like lol?)...while my thief barely gets to 5 stacks and gets one shot if I'm out of an evade frame because I have to decide to actually be in their faces if I want to kill them and if I am condi I have to run around and waste time to allow condis to run their course. They both have the concept of having low hp.

I die on mesmer and some how the illusions tank damage forever.

I feel like mesmer should not be a damaging maniac at least in pvp and have all the cc and confusion and stealthing snd blinking around and inflicting stuns immobilizes cripple lol and the ability to ridiculously self boon stun break/reposition while stunned??...like it needs to be if you pick a route the other options are gone.

I hate to say this cause I was annoyed to the changes to chrono..but when I play other classes im like damn mesmers got it all?

When I first played mesmer my impression was it will be the chaotic factor for its team mates...so you help your teamates by being a nuisance that can't be easily dispatched then your teammates get to kill the enemies. When on its own its just a waste of time that wont really do much youd win by mucking around and chpping away. Not a one team assasin that when you see you should run for the hills...was hoping thatd be thief.

Anyways my perspective on what could help again I hate talking nerfs cause anet sometimes just way overdo it and they do it in such an unpolished boring way just shut people up.

The infinite horizon torment/bleeding needs to be toned down, either clone generation ability go down or the mesmer has to spend more time generating plenty of clones (not just three lol) to reach a point where the condis are a problem - this is what happened to condi thief (I prefer the latter to preserve mesmer identity).

Perhaps an internal cooldown on the rate of condi application/ambush being triggered by evasion for the clones?. Perhaps infinite horizon now makes your clones easier to kill as punishment. I am not a game programmer I don't know what's easy to do. Limit these changes to pvp?

But seeing a mesmer in wvw run thro a zerg because he feels he can burst the catapult real quick with the condis is...I dunno.

Then again honestly I don't pvp that much...so thats just my opinion. It's really hard thinking how to nerf classes without removing what makes them unique and fun especially after you've tasted it.

[Kitty's alternative healbuilds that actually BOON (for pugs)]

@"LadyKitty.6120" said:Kitty's just a bit mischievous, like cats tend to be.

Ow my kitty.

Ok, well I meant the concentration stat as in I don't want to use harrier/runes/sigils that have to do with booning.(Although yes scourge has the Sand Sage mini trait that gives concentration teehee.)That being said, I do realise...that's what I think is good, but not everyone likes cats.

I also play every single class, and always love to fill the gaps with what I think would be the best at it, but not everyone does that...so maybe that would work for them.

I meant the amount of passive life force you get per tick with signet scales with vitality (so does the weapon skills cause they are percentage based), so that way I am being as safe as possible about not having enough life force just because I was spamming like a kitten. That and of course having more vitality means increase my chances of being the last man standing to save the day if things go down and revel in the disgust of what scourge does.

I didn't really object to scepter/staff/dagger. I use dagger though cause it has the strong heal and just feels cooler. I just hate scepters animations and sound but I think scepter's life force generation was improved...but that's who cares.

All I am saying is - personally - if I would pick scourge to carry a pug, I would think "Hmmm...do people tend to mass die a lot on this, and can I just be the force to remedy that with the least risk possible" and coincidentally it would provide the best shields/healing that was already kinda stronger than prenerfed druid too?? wow.I would not think, "would this would go smoother if I can give dps boons - boon scourge is the play!" cause necro's booning is yawn and drops off as you can see in your video. Why not even take might booning like CM's runes to not need as much since might is really all you can give out a lot of..you get a bit of condition damage.

Saying people shouldn't be dying...then you're not really about that puglife.

I get the feeling like me you are angered by what happened to druid, and you decided to vent the frustration through mad experimenting. I understand that...I am sad about druid too :(. On druid if someone dies...it's annoying...how am I gonna do anything with all the channeling needed to barely keep might stacks...it's so annoying. Ow hold up while I ground target the coaster sized floor with a10,000 years channel - the power of the stars!.

Anyways....I don't see in your video a 'puggy' situation...and you don't need to find one...if you are happy with your builds cool, but I think players reading this and maybe starting out would appreciate reading why someone may lowbrow them for deciding to play using these builds, they wouldn't 'not work'. Is all.

[Kitty's alternative healbuilds that actually BOON (for pugs)]

Ok..well that whole kitty thing is...not cute. But whatever.

I do think that some builds on sites can be tweaked for puglife. However, the logic behind your builds are...not my thing. I am not going to focus on scourges concentration trait just to give might, you do realise vitality makes your life signet passive stronger. Scourges carry potential is to raise the dead...my might is not going to save the day, if it will I'd play a different healer/class.

Tempest/Herald concentration makes perfect sense (they are disgusting booners now)...but scourge no.

I wanted to read the rest but after reading that and rune of the pack druid???? really? you are going to sacrifice the already nerfed healing for something your horn already does? Because that will make druid carry puglife better?. I dunno. Might as well build a diviner druid with longbow or something if you really wanna be kitty about it.

[Let's Talk About Druid Competitively After Pet Nerf - And Buffs That CA Deserves]

Hi all...I just want to say I am a noob and I dont have pro things to add. I dont ever come to the forums. But after I decided to get back on my druid (I have many alts) I was just really baffled by what happened to the class 100%bd and I can hardly maintain any boons without pressing a million button or taking this or that to fill in the gaps.

My pet dies all the time does nothing even when I want it to cc?? its a hit or mids situation??. I would take them to provide buffs instead thats cool for pet variety if they didnt have a 45 cooldown on a three second buff for 5 people...for real??

Why does CA 5 skill not provide might?

Shouts are now commands???? just to destroy the trooper rune?

Why was staff condi cleanse destroyed? The healing on it is awful...skill one is awful it was ok when it actually healed. Am I supposed to cleanse condis with CA skill 2...cause thats not happening.

What is the druids thing now?? apologise for being able to heal?? apologise for having a pet??

That channeling elite glyph is sooooo annoying and boring and doesnt feel like an elite.......what is with the range on these channeled spells :s. Chanelling was fine for covering might for a while...now omg u just live and breath CA 4 to justify ur existence if you interrupt it once...thats it.

The spirits...my god annoying to summon...then to reposition...then for them to respond...the repositioning doesnt need to be a cast with all the channeling needed does it??? are they realky that imba????

Meanwhile when I play my herald...everything is insta cast on 10 players the regen is disgusting then you can burst with tablet...and lasts forever and more...necro no targeting or chanelling needed?..so is that on my ele, you have a lot of traits to help channeling and the channeling is super worth? on druid my god its awful. Firebrand just lol.

I am very happy they are relevant...but...honestly druid just feels awful in comparison I hate the feeling of trying to enjoy a class when I can tell it's awful in comparison for what reason??.

I just dont understand why can herald and ele get easy perma booning but druid can not? what for? after all my stats gearing to just heal and give boons? Necros booning is awful but has a very strong niche.

Yeah I just feel these nerfs were done carelessly and I hope as you have for other classes will reconsider.

Maybe make the final tier trait either imba healer or CA become a damaging form like solar version or something, and the pet would be punished accordingly? I dunno...I just want to love my druid again :( and not feel like im shuving down peoples faces just cause I want to play it. It just feels unpolished and apologetic.

[Post your Mesmer pics here]

My mesmer is like me in life...not having it.