Rickster.8752

Exactly correct. They need to hit defensive weapon abilities such as Flanking Strike which should probably cost 6 or 7 initiative instead of 4 iniative. They need to go over all the defensive weapon skills and do this. Same for something like blurred frenzy whose cooldown should be doubled. Basically any weapon skill that evades/provides immunity needs to have its cooldown doubled, or its duration halved or its cost (for thief) doubled.If they ever manage to do this, then this game will be good again. I hope this is the next step but I am doubtful If by good you mean warrior with an axe holds W key and mouse 1 and runs over thiefs and mesmer then sure. It would be good. Awww people who still can't see past their own class. All evades/invulns have to be toned down (they are not being enough) and then all damage needs to be toned down and high damage skills should have long cast times so skilled players can dodge them.Like I said though, people can't see past their own classes. The game is therefore deader than dead. Balance doesn't even matter at this stage. It should be about fixing the game and making it skill based again. Reducing everything needs to happen. Evades and invulns need big nerfs to reduce their up-time. And damage needs to be toned down too, in particular on instant cast skills and auto attacks. Pretty obvious stuff that anet do not understand and players who cannot see past their own class cannot understand. Result of this = the game is dead. And also will not be coming back despite amazing combat mechanics that came from the original devs Awww people doesnt understand the very basics of balancing and acts all wise.look at this cute little thing, nerf evasiveness! thats why people tank. But our cutepie doesnt understand that if you nerf evasiveness then big mean meatshielidng will be the thing. Who needs to dodge when you have 70k effective HP says core necro, who needs to dodge says mister guard after fully healing for the 3rd time within 30s.Remove evason/invulnerabilities! those are the issues.If done in a stupid way like they are doing now all it will do is make bunker meta where everyone just stats RAW HP and wins through attrition, or just never dies.Do you think the ammount of skills that are MUST dodge got lowered? naaaah not at all, do you think it makes a difference if you lose 60% hp in 1 hit or 50%?in grand scheme of things it doesnt, and you have to dodge almost as much as before to survive.When you nerf evasion, classes that rely on it get hurt more then those that dont.If you nerf burst, classes that rely on burst get hurt more then the classes that dont.If you nerf healing, classes that rely on healing get nerfed more then those that dont.If you nerf teleportation, classes that teleport get hurt more then those that dont.If you nerf condition damage, classes that have kitten condi cleanses are better of then those that have good condi cleanse.and so on and so fourth, all you do is take a block from jenga tower and think all will be fine. EDIT.and people dont play becouse game is stale and has no diversity, has nothing to do with balance.you ever played dota? that kitten aint balanced, everything is broken there and people play and have fun.not in gw2, you have maybe 20 good builds, out of which there are maybe 6 different playstyles and thats it.nothing ever gets changed Balance is irrelevant. The problem isn't "omg this class is OP". It is stupid mecahnics and poor gameplay caused by:1, Too much evasion that is spammed2, Instant cast/spammable skills that hit too hard3, Too much invuln spam4, Too many condi spam5, Too much condi cleanse spam So the whole game is based on builds and just no-brain spamming a rotation designed to beat a particular other build. There is no reactive gameplay, it is all just spam caused by power-creep. Is having 30 condis applied per second and 30 condis cleared per second balanced? Yeh it is. Is it fun and engaging gameplay? Nope its not. Because it is just spam based. Cooldowns in general need to be longer so there is skill in applying conditions and cleansing conditions. Hard hitting skills need long cast times so they can be evaded. But evasion needs to be lower so it must be used at the correct time to succeed (rather than just spammed endlessly).Does it matter if you waste a dodge on thief? Not really, you have 100 more and you SHOULD spam evades to avoid even auto attacks because the power creep is so significant that those auto attacks hit really hard. Does it matter if you waste healing on ele? Not really, you have it again super fast and chances are you will take a load of damage even if you heal at 75% because of how power-creeped the damage and heals are. Should you time your condi spam on a condi build? Not really, cooldowns for cleanses and condi-application are too low so you just spam away and you will have your skills again soon anyway and they will have their cleanses again. So everything is power creeped. Those are the fundamental areas this game is lacking. Balance doesn't mean anything because there is no playbase anymore because people left for the above reasons. First they need to fix the issues with the gameplay. Only then can they move on to the fine tuning of balance. Even considering balance right now is a flawed mindset, and the fact the devs seem to be considering it rather than just reducing everything across the board, shows they lack understanding of the games issues..like you do. I find it honestly comical that in 2020 the gw2 playerbase (as shown by you and others) don't realise how power-creeped in EVERY DEPARTMENT this game is and how terrible it is. Maybe anet realise? Idk if they do but I would imagine their income from this game is continuing to decline because of these issues. I thought in 2020 people knew how bad power creep was for games but I guess you are an exception so congrats. Maybe you can join the dev team? you are using big word like powercrept but it doesnt mean jack.game is fast paced and thats it, people dont play becouse nothing gets changed, thats it.balance is goal that can never be reached, only chased.you are bringing slow gameplay of 2005, its 2020. wake up, nobody is going to wait 30-60s to do anything, they are going to play other games.fast paced games are the future, wake up old men, future is now.lol. As I said you should apply to anet with that logic. They would love another dev to power creep their game. Also spamming skills isn't fast paced at all. It is just spam. Fast paced gameplay is where you has to react to what the opponent does, not spam your stuff 24/7. Anyway I just came back to see if this playerbase had woken up and realised how crazy the spam/power creep was in this game. I guess not. So this game is deader than dead. Enjoy it. Maybe by 2021 you will work out what I said was true. Maybe even when GW2 closes its active development and analyses their game they will also realise how crazy the power creep is too.Spam wars 2. The game for people with no skill.

Exactly correct. They need to hit defensive weapon abilities such as Flanking Strike which should probably cost 6 or 7 initiative instead of 4 iniative. They need to go over all the defensive weapon skills and do this. Same for something like blurred frenzy whose cooldown should be doubled. Basically any weapon skill that evades/provides immunity needs to have its cooldown doubled, or its duration halved or its cost (for thief) doubled.If they ever manage to do this, then this game will be good again. I hope this is the next step but I am doubtful If by good you mean warrior with an axe holds W key and mouse 1 and runs over thiefs and mesmer then sure. It would be good. Awww people who still can't see past their own class. All evades/invulns have to be toned down (they are not being enough) and then all damage needs to be toned down and high damage skills should have long cast times so skilled players can dodge them.Like I said though, people can't see past their own classes. The game is therefore deader than dead. Balance doesn't even matter at this stage. It should be about fixing the game and making it skill based again. Reducing everything needs to happen. Evades and invulns need big nerfs to reduce their up-time. And damage needs to be toned down too, in particular on instant cast skills and auto attacks. Pretty obvious stuff that anet do not understand and players who cannot see past their own class cannot understand. Result of this = the game is dead. And also will not be coming back despite amazing combat mechanics that came from the original devs Awww people doesnt understand the very basics of balancing and acts all wise.look at this cute little thing, nerf evasiveness! thats why people tank. But our cutepie doesnt understand that if you nerf evasiveness then big mean meatshielidng will be the thing. Who needs to dodge when you have 70k effective HP says core necro, who needs to dodge says mister guard after fully healing for the 3rd time within 30s.Remove evason/invulnerabilities! those are the issues.If done in a stupid way like they are doing now all it will do is make bunker meta where everyone just stats RAW HP and wins through attrition, or just never dies.Do you think the ammount of skills that are MUST dodge got lowered? naaaah not at all, do you think it makes a difference if you lose 60% hp in 1 hit or 50%?in grand scheme of things it doesnt, and you have to dodge almost as much as before to survive.When you nerf evasion, classes that rely on it get hurt more then those that dont.If you nerf burst, classes that rely on burst get hurt more then the classes that dont.If you nerf healing, classes that rely on healing get nerfed more then those that dont.If you nerf teleportation, classes that teleport get hurt more then those that dont.If you nerf condition damage, classes that have kitten condi cleanses are better of then those that have good condi cleanse.and so on and so fourth, all you do is take a block from jenga tower and think all will be fine. EDIT.and people dont play becouse game is stale and has no diversity, has nothing to do with balance.you ever played dota? that kitten aint balanced, everything is broken there and people play and have fun.not in gw2, you have maybe 20 good builds, out of which there are maybe 6 different playstyles and thats it.nothing ever gets changedBalance is irrelevant. The problem isn't "omg this class is OP". It is stupid mecahnics and poor gameplay caused by:1, Too much evasion that is spammed2, Instant cast/spammable skills that hit too hard3, Too much invuln spam4, Too many condi spam5, Too much condi cleanse spam So the whole game is based on builds and just no-brain spamming a rotation designed to beat a particular other build. There is no reactive gameplay, it is all just spam caused by power-creep. Is having 30 condis applied per second and 30 condis cleared per second balanced? Yeh it is. Is it fun and engaging gameplay? Nope its not. Because it is just spam based. Cooldowns in general need to be longer so there is skill in applying conditions and cleansing conditions. Hard hitting skills need long cast times so they can be evaded. But evasion needs to be lower so it must be used at the correct time to succeed (rather than just spammed endlessly).Does it matter if you waste a dodge on thief? Not really, you have 100 more and you SHOULD spam evades to avoid even auto attacks because the power creep is so significant that those auto attacks hit really hard. Does it matter if you waste healing on ele? Not really, you have it again super fast and chances are you will take a load of damage even if you heal at 75% because of how power-creeped the damage and heals are. Should you time your condi spam on a condi build? Not really, cooldowns for cleanses and condi-application are too low so you just spam away and you will have your skills again soon anyway and they will have their cleanses again. So everything is power creeped. Those are the fundamental areas this game is lacking. Balance doesn't mean anything because there is no playbase anymore because people left for the above reasons. First they need to fix the issues with the gameplay. Only then can they move on to the fine tuning of balance. Even considering balance right now is a flawed mindset, and the fact the devs seem to be considering it rather than just reducing everything across the board, shows they lack understanding of the games issues..like you do. I find it honestly comical that in 2020 the gw2 playerbase (as shown by you and others) don't realise how power-creeped in EVERY DEPARTMENT this game is and how terrible it is. Maybe anet realise? Idk if they do but I would imagine their income from this game is continuing to decline because of these issues. I thought in 2020 people knew how bad power creep was for games but I guess you are an exception so congrats. Maybe you can join the dev team?

Exactly correct. They need to hit defensive weapon abilities such as Flanking Strike which should probably cost 6 or 7 initiative instead of 4 iniative. They need to go over all the defensive weapon skills and do this. Same for something like blurred frenzy whose cooldown should be doubled. Basically any weapon skill that evades/provides immunity needs to have its cooldown doubled, or its duration halved or its cost (for thief) doubled.If they ever manage to do this, then this game will be good again. I hope this is the next step but I am doubtful If by good you mean warrior with an axe holds W key and mouse 1 and runs over thiefs and mesmer then sure. It would be good.Awww people who still can't see past their own class. All evades/invulns have to be toned down (they are not being enough) and then all damage needs to be toned down and high damage skills should have long cast times so skilled players can dodge them.Like I said though, people can't see past their own classes. The game is therefore deader than dead. Balance doesn't even matter at this stage. It should be about fixing the game and making it skill based again. Reducing everything needs to happen. Evades and invulns need big nerfs to reduce their up-time. And damage needs to be toned down too, in particular on instant cast skills and auto attacks. Pretty obvious stuff that anet do not understand and players who cannot see past their own class cannot understand. Result of this = the game is dead. And also will not be coming back despite amazing combat mechanics that came from the original devs

"Thief has limited defensive options".Hilarious statement. Honestly a well played thief should only die very very rarely and usually to another thief. The game has been like this for years and years. Thief is EASILY the hardest class to kill. It has the most defensive options by far. And I meant flanking strike but there are many skills which provide evasion on very short cooldowns on many class. This isn't about a specific class anyway, thief is just the most obvious example. People like you who can't see past their own class are why this game is deader than dead. The game needs healthy mechanics. Perma evasion/immunity is not healthy mechanics and is conceptually brokenly OP. But go ahead and get defensive about your "main class" whilst the entire game continues to die. Your problem is Flanking Strike? You realize not only does it consume 4 Initiative the distance it travels is rather small compared to other initiative draining skills for mobility or evades, all of which have higher initiative costs or longer cooldowns. Not only that if Flanking Strike hits anything it changes into Larcenous Strike which persists for 4 seconds unless its used and even if you do use it that action within itself is a visible moment of vulnerability that can be and is exploited frequently. As for other immunity skills and invuln skills they all are either getting longer cooldowns or in the case of Ele's Obsidian Flesh which is getting altered to now lock them out of using their skills. Each of these immunity and invuln mechanics, even evades, that you're referencing all have methods of playing around them rather easily and they are all either getting cooldown increases or in regards to Mesmer they are losing 50 Endurance. Sure they contribute to longer TTK but they are defensive cooldowns that can be played around and you can apply pressure and secure kills between their uses. Even after the patch this will be possible. In fact they've essentially removed some of the problematic ones like the passives on Warrior and Ranger which auto proc Endure Pain or Signet of Stone by adding 5 minute internal cooldowns to them, these will just flat out not be used because of that and that was the point until they can rework those traits. I don't quite get what your focus on thief is...it seems to me like you've been savaged a number of times by them but I can assure you they are beatable, even the good ones, you just don't quite seem to have the tactics down for it is all. Not to mention a number of their problem mechanics, we'll leave stealth out of this for now, are seeing attention and getting nerfs or being brought in line so they aren't so unhealthy.lol "evasion and invuln uptime isn't a problem". Funny, thought you all would have woken up and realised it has been a huge problem for years but never mind. Enjoy your dead game whilst the devs just tune random numbers that do nothing to change the spam nature of the gameplay because people can just evade/invuln 30 seconds in a row. "compelling gameplay" to learn a rotation which makes you invulnerable to any damage for 20 seconds. Much fun. enjoyyourdeadgame

"Thief has limited defensive options".Hilarious statement. Honestly a well played thief should only die very very rarely and usually to another thief. The game has been like this for years and years. Thief is EASILY the hardest class to kill. It has the most defensive options by far. And I meant flanking strike but there are many skills which provide evasion on very short cooldowns on many class. This isn't about a specific class anyway, thief is just the most obvious example. People like you who can't see past their own class are why this game is deader than dead. The game needs healthy mechanics. Perma evasion/immunity is not healthy mechanics and is conceptually brokenly OP. But go ahead and get defensive about your "main class" whilst the entire game continues to die.

We won't see those thing addressed ever. They had 5 years to address them and never did. And it is the biggest problem in the game by far. Its so easy for them to fix too. Just go through all evade/invuln skills and edit the numbers (cooldowns in particular) in pvp only. SOOO easy to do but basically ZERO PERCENT chance they do it. Its over. Do you know that PvP dev-team has got a new chief ? Cal Cohen, hes a PvP player, he knows what its all about and since he is here, things are starting to get happen. 1) hugest patch ever coming soon2) previews3) they listen to our feedback and even give feedback4) balance patches intended every 6 weeks plus hotfixes5) although the next patch makes everbody gasp, most players agree that its the right direction6) and no, I dont get paid by arena-net What could we want more in the current situation ? In terms of the future of PvP, I was pessimistic the last years. But now its time for hope again :) Irrelevant. The top talent has left the dev team a year after release. They designed the game to have some meaningful choices in the traits you took. That will never happen again because there is only so much they can do, they cannot rework these evasion mechanics because pve relies on them. So it is impossible for them to fix the issues. The only thing they can do is to increase the cooldown of all evasion skills by about 100% in pvp but that will never happen because it would make the game so different to PvE and they won't do that. If they knew what they were doing they would hit the evasion/immunity mechanics in the same patch they reduced damage. But they didn't do this which means they don't see it as a problem which means they have no clue at all about the true problems of the game which is the power creep. The reason you need high damage skills is because theif/mesmer/ele/others can spam 20s seconds of evade/immunity in a row so the 1 time you manage to hit them it needs to matter. The fact they did not address this evade/immunity says it all The game is just not a pvp game and never will be. They diverted from that path long ago and they cannot go back now. These changes do nothing besides lower a few damage numbers. The core "power creep" in the game still exists as many of the classes can still evade/be immune for 20 or 30 seconds in a row. Think about how absurd that is. 20-30 seconds of evasion in a row. And it will never change. The game is dead. Give up.

This is fine but it is kind of pointless to do this without nerfing up-time on in-vulnerabilities and evades. The "power creep" in this game which is most outrageous is clearly the amount of invulns/evasion in this game. The reason there is high damage is because its so hard to hit a thief who can spam sword 3 5 times ina row, with dodges and withdraw so they will NEVER be hit. Same for mesmer who can chain invulns for 20 seconds at least. That is what they need to fix before the game is playable. And we will see if those things are addressed in the patches after this update. They might not be as large of an issue post patch, we don't know and they don't know, sure they are problems but honestly people have always been able to play around Mirage evades (which you can see took a hit if you read the patch notes; Mirage only gets 50 Endurance, not 100 like every other class), and Pistol Whip also got hit on Thief. Their evades have always been possible to play around (Mirage and Thief), but what had consistently made them more problematic is the damage they can do either while evading or between their evades and that saw attention. Pistol Whip got its damage reduced and its stun duration reduced, Mirage like every other class got power damage reduced along with the aforementioned 50 Endurance change to its dodge. Mind you I play neither of those classes and I was able to play around their evades, it just takes some learning. Like I said, though, what made those evade chains most concerning is the amount of damage they could also do along with general sustain. This was a problem every class had in some way. Every class.We won't see those thing addressed ever. They had 5 years to address them and never did. And it is the biggest problem in the game by far. Its so easy for them to fix too. Just go through all evade/invuln skills and edit the numbers (cooldowns in particular) in pvp only. SOOO easy to do but basically ZERO PERCENT chance they do it. Its over.

Exactly correct. They need to hit defensive weapon abilities such as Flanking Strike which should probably cost 6 or 7 initiative instead of 4 iniative. They need to go over all the defensive weapon skills and do this. Same for something like blurred frenzy whose cooldown should be doubled. Basically any weapon skill that evades/provides immunity needs to have its cooldown doubled, or its duration halved or its cost (for thief) doubled.If they ever manage to do this, then this game will be good again. I hope this is the next step but I am doubtful

This is fine but it is kind of pointless to do this without nerfing up-time on in-vulnerabilities and evades. The "power creep" in this game which is most outrageous is clearly the amount of invulns/evasion in this game. The reason there is high damage is because its so hard to hit a thief who can spam sword 3 5 times ina row, with dodges and withdraw so they will NEVER be hit. Same for mesmer who can chain invulns for 20 seconds at least. That is what they need to fix before the game is playable.

Your changes are terrible unless you work to reduce evasion/evade frames in the game from heroes like thief, mesmer, etc