Swagg.9236

The identical teleport-attack chains thrown out by ranger and revenant are effectively the same thing since they not only passively evade but can also travel effectively infinite distances (i.e. somebody uses a mesmer portal, but the attack still tracks that player).

"Low End" - Strictly rock-paper-scissors; this skill level is where players engage with aggression and PvP interactions effectively resolve themselves by virtue of which builds are fielded. Hard counters are the overbearing fulcrum for decision-making across all PvP encounters within GW2, and the "low skill player" will generally be unaware of them or actively disregard them (for whatever reason--and occasionally with success by slipping in for a burst when a target has no cooldowns). "High End" - Wherein the "meta" builds start to assert clear control over the gameplay paradigm. Normally a metagame's mere existence is not an issue, however, GW2's PvP "metagame" is generally very homogenized across all classes. While every class may indeed have at least one (or sometimes two) "viable" builds within the "high level" scope of play, each of these respective builds--regardless of class--generally utilize the same sort of idealized playstyle flowchart: (1) poke passively, (2) burst while passively mitigating incoming damage and effects, (3) spend defensive cooldowns while waiting for burst to recharge, (4) burst again (or escape). In the case of "support" builds, it is generally a solitaire-style PvE rotation interrupted mainly only to either leave a fight or to revive a downed ally. Considering the rules of engagement are essentially identical and all builds are generally balanced by cooldowns rather than resources (either something universal like "activation time" or something more esoteric such as an in-game limiter resource), the rule of thumb for victory often boils down to being the second player to begin a substantial skill rotation. The more passive that one can play, the better one's position generally remains (due to having extra cooldowns on tap). The reason why people have so many grievances with GW2's PvP is generally because it fosters two very strict states of being: one is either aggression towards all opponents: effectively gambling outright (all agency is actively lost in the face of hard counters); or one is a cowardly vulture (all agency is lost prior to the match's outset; in an environment of mirror matches, it's best to find the easiest fight to win--2v1s or catching someone with low cooldowns--or simply avoid conflict entirely in order to find free circles while waiting for a "good" fight to appear). This is to say, one is entirely free to try to play GW2 with a sense of "aggressive playmaking" or "creative experimentation," however this will ultimately hit a roadblock of very passive, reactive builds which use rotations to effortlessly undermine an attacker's timing, positioning and effort. Therefore, if one wishes to "compete" with the best builds and players, that person will inevitably have to behave very passively and reactively as well--abandoning agency and aggression for the mentality of a scavenging opportunist. Most importantly of all, these two skill levels are not separated by any sort of dramatic chasm of skill or insight. The skill spectrum of GW2 isn't so much a range than it is a light switch. The step between "novice" and "skilled" GW2 PvP'er is mostly achieved by the willingness to fit one's self into the metagame and play the way the patch notes tell someone to play. This is not to say that GW2 has absolutely no skill curve, but when so much of a match can be boiled down to (1) run the best comp to hard-counter or mirror an opposing team and (2) look at the minimap to find the easiest fights and open capture points, the appeal of pushing one's self to "great heights" hits a plateau rather quickly. tl;dr: You're only allowed to be a gambler or a vulture in GW2 PvP. There isn't an in-between. Indeed, the average person is probably too skilled for GW2, which is the real reason why one might find it so frustrating to play at times; and also why anyone who seeks to levy criticisms against the game's apparent lack of a holistic design philosophy are generally rebuffed with insults, anecdotes and biased comparisons rather than counterpoints. If you're seeking self expression through player agency, Tyria is not the place.

You'd need a brand new game. This one is set in stone.

The fundamental issue with stealth, is that it is, in no part, a true aspect of any sort of holistic gameplay dynamic; at its core, nothing more a stalling mechanic. For instance, taking stealth out of the Mesmer off-hand torch would not at all affect how that skill's gameplay loop ultimately resolves: you'll still have to get in close to a target and then follow nearby so that The Prestige can yield the best results. At the end of the day, stealth is just there for flavor. Same thing for Thief in most cases: Thief's general strategies and attack patterns wouldn't drastically change if it suddenly didn't have stealth tomorrow (it would probably just be less effective overall). In fact, there was a very long period during which Thieves often went without a lot (or any) stealth because they would just make up for it by evading and teleporting each time they would engage a target (sword/X was a huge meta for a while prior to HoT). Whether or not you realize it, "fun" is not the word when describing "short-duration" stealth, but rather "tolerable." People will "tolerate" stealth if its under 3s or so--but it is certainly not fun, mainly because stealth still instantly, with effectively no effort, puts the ball in the court of the stealth-user. It's a protracted break-target mechanic that is often paired with teleports or evasion; there is no true soft-counter technique for that except randomly guessing with cooldown baits and random dodges (which are EXTREMELY punishing if the opponent wiffs while the stealth-user just has to continue to play passively without any input). While I agree that, obviously, the most egregious abuse of stealth is within the scope of extremely prolonged stealth and mass stealth, nobody, at the end of the day, is going to truly say that stealth is universally fun. Either the user is having fun because the user is in effective total control of the situation, or the opponent is able to grit their teeth without gashing their jaw to pieces because the stealth doesn't last so long that it either burns out the opponent's entire defensive rotation or allows the stealth-user to literally walk across the entire map before becoming visible again. It's an extremely one-sided mechanic.

Stealth's main problem is that it definitely serves a more flavor-over-function """role""" in GW2, and it constantly clashes with the natural state of most other gameplay by putting everything into a very polarizing, binary gamestate: generally one of "Oh, I guess I have to guess what to do now because my target is now invisible and can attack at will" or "My target has gone invisible; I must now go invisible too because it basically lets me stall out longer until my best cooldowns come back." That's not engaging or interesting gameplay; it's literally a flowchart mentality, and it only works if both participants have access to skills that generate or interaction with stealth. However, because the only way to consistently interact with stealth is to just outright remove it, the whole dynamic revolving around stealth itself means that you're left with a rock-paper-scissors dilemma rather than anything remotely resembling creative player thinking and agency. tl;dr: Stealth is bad because it restricts what players can do, and it doesn't mesh with 95% of GW2's gameplay--which is why we have "this button removes stealth" skills rather than player-utilized techniques to soft-counter stealth on the fly. Moreover, I NEVER said that all skills should outright reveal players; stop putting words in people's mouths. With respect to the "player management side" of what you call "dual model" (just use the word "modal") skills, like I've already said, there SHOULDN'T BE an issue. It's literally just a natural learning curve of using the skill and getting a feel for distances within the game itself. You shouldn't be afraid of a skill model just because the model isn't built entirely on tooltips spoonfeeding a user every exact element of a skill's potential interactivity with enemies or the environment. Less is more.

The problem with reveal skills is that they are not universally distributed and available without excessive opportunity cost. There is no natural way to combat stealth, and it is entirely possible to hard counter a player with stealth in a manner that provides that player with effectively zero recourse. That's not fair or skillful; it boils down to rock-paper-scissors at that point. And it should not be difficult whatsoever for the average human being to grasp the idea of an ability generating a conditional outcome based on where or over which target it is utilized. Something like "get Effect A if your reticle is within 600 units of you; Effect B if reticle is beyond 600 units from you" MIGHT--MAYBE--POSSIBLY COULD BE a LITTLE bit confounding to read, but it would take very little experimentation to realize what the potential results and possibilities of using such a skill could be. The key is more in natural use of the skill rather than excessive text detail.

The "roles" invented by the GW2 community are the delusional products of a collective ego which seeks to insulate itself from the reality that this game's PvP effectively boils down into two half-roles: "the guy who plays solitaire with himself while people take actions against him" and "the guy who looks for the easiest fight to win." All professions and all possible builds within them are just different shades of the same two colors. The entirety of GW2 PvP is little more than pressing F4 before the match even starts, quick-swapping onto a class to best hard counter the enemy comp, and then watching a minimap to know where you should be at any given time. Support is a bunker; Side-noder is a teamfighter is a roamer. All you're really looking for is a stack of classes that can teleport, passively mitigate damage while attacking, and ideally have someone on the team who can stand the boredom of rotating through a bunch of passive healing and instant effect negation abilities while standing on a circle. However, the talking heads within the GW2 PvP community (i.e. those who feel that they have something to lose within this community: fame, reputation, respect, etc.) want to maintain the façade that they're actually skilled and creative despite the fact that "being skilled" in GW2 means little more than utterly surrendering your agency to a system that is just barely more complex than rock-paper-scissors.

lmao GW2 PvP was good? inb4 we get a lot of people telling me that "cele ele/petting zoo ranger/healing signet hambow/1-shot twitchy-burst meta/two thieves trading points without ever actually playing PvP" were "the good days" just because anet threw some pity money into a toilet to get ESL to begrudgingly accept GW2 as an E S P O R T™ for, like, two seasons. Face reality, my dudes. The only thing I remotely "miss" was the funny staff Elementalist quirk where you could cast Meteor Shower and then go into Tornado for 10k AoE impacts because the transformation used to scale up your power.

It's either minion farm or earth shield memes; both combined with passive healing traits. Feels bad, man. It's cool to see staff ele (even core staff ele--which is still probably the only build I legitimately find enjoyable) hit mid-plat, but looking at the videos, it just kind of looks like a scourge with different particle effects: very point-centric; waiting for people to do things; relying on passive playstyles to just outlast a target's cooldown rotation. It's either the Earth Shield/FGS or the two minion glyphs that end up doing a lot of the heavy lifting in most of the footage. Running a damage-roamer staff is just not the play; bunkers are either too oppressively passive or opposing DPS yields the same results but with infinitely less effort and thinking.

In the first place, the relationship between "forced reveal" skills and stealth is extremely contrived and parasitic. Having a universal way to "soft" detect stealthed targets (i.e. reveal them without entirely breaking stealth instantaneously)--or at the very least allowing non-stealthed targets to have some agency and take independent actions against stealthed targets outside of just running away, guessing with defensive cooldowns, finding a no-teleport spot, or popping their own stealth--promotes much more engaging interaction between players. All that aside, I'm not even proposing anything like that. I'm straight up just laying out a format for skills to provide a predictable but flexible outcome for a user without necessarily requiring a selected target. It'd be like hitting a stealthed target with an AoE pulse right now; there's no reason that said AoE pulse necessarily has to result (or would even consistently result) in the stealthed player's death. If anything, it's often incredibly easy to negotiate field hazards while in stealth.

If that's all you're worried about, then rest assured that there is no way that a mechanic acknowledging a target's presence within a specified area hardly affects a stealthed target. This isn't TF2 where a shimmer would allow somebody to track a careless stealthed target; GW2 allows stealthed targets to more or less be as clumsy as they want without any real downside so long as they don't outright die (despite being completely invisible). If nothing else, modal, ground-targeted skills only make the Mesmer more flexible by allowing them to exercise a semblance of agency with their build instead of just waiting for targets to pop up again (or defaulting to matching stealth with stealth while forcibly stalling out any sort of PvP interaction). They hardly take away any agency from the guy who can be instantly invisible on demand.

Alright, so why wouldn't you want an Illusionary Leap that creates a clone only if there is a valid target (even if the target is stealthed) within a 180 radius, and would otherwise just teleport the user to the target location (while creating a clone at the user's initial location if the player had a selected target)? That's an example of a modal mesmer skill. Why would you prefer the way it works now?

Preface - By "modal," I mean to say: "A skill that has two (or more) unique applications or outcomes depending on conditional circumstances in which it is used." One of the reasons why a lot of mesmer weapons feel like they're unwieldy or lack impact is mainly because they either always require a target, or the design of a skill foremost (or solely) requires that it yield a clone somehow. To this end, Mesmer, in many cases, is an EXTREMELY one-dimensional class. It would be a lot more versatile, flexible and creative if it employed more modal and ground-targeted abilities which would not only allow the player to operate without necessarily selecting a specific target, but also build resources (i.e. clones) and impact the field in a free-form and more unpredictable manner. The tools for this sort of design paradigm already exist in the game: mainly the ammo system and skills similar to Guardian's [Merciful Intervention]. In effect, many clone-based skills (or just skills in general), could do double-duty by not only gaining ammo counts but also providing the Mesmer with movement, support or misdirection options simply in how a skill is used with relation to the user or a potential target. For instance, in the case of Merciful Intervention, it teleports the user only if there is a valid target within the reticle upon activation. This sort of design could be employed for a lot of Mesmer skills by means of possibly summoning a clone to attack a target if there is one present within a ground-targeting reticle; and if there is no target, it might teleport the Mesmer or create some alternative effect at the area (or even at the Mesmer's position). This could also be possibly applied to range values (i.e. one effect may trigger over another should the target reticle be within or outside of a defined range from the user). This is a way to compress and combine effects into more flexible and interactive weapon bars (and even utilities) rather than letting a lot of current weapons languish. To think about this sort of thing even further, it's possible to just turn phantasms into single-use summons that activate their ability and then maybe grant the Mesmer a short-duration, stackable bonus which just generate a clone on successful strike to an enemy (ala Thief venoms applying effects on hit). All in all, Mesmer is pretty fun (certainly flavorful at least), but just needlessly clunky for no real reason (which means it eventually becomes desperately addicted to on-demand invulnerability or stealth triggers just to get anything done--which is also just a symptom of the meta in general). If we really wanted a fluid, engaging and unique sort of combat experience, there's almost no other alternative than to create a lot of modal abilities for the class while ideally converting a lot of its target-dependent skills into ground-target, free-aim abilities.

Playing either ranked or unranked is, by no way, supporting anything lmao. GW2 died in 2013.

GW2's game design is so bad only sociopaths would take it seriously lmao.

Because, like I said, it's the only thing that people CAN do to "make Guardian/DH good" if you remove invisible, PBAoE-Man. GW2 is not a good game for buffing anything because nothing in GW2 is all that complex or interactive. The only yield from a GW2 skill buff is either nothing at all (because the buff didn't make the skill effortlessly warp the field) or an oppressive impact on the field (because there aren't very many subtle or universal interactions in GW2, so when one skill or build succeeds, it's almost guaranteed to be at the COMPLETE and UTTER expense of another player's efforts). Basically, only one person can have fun, and it's going to generally be the person whose build does the most with the least effort (if you can really call that fun--because apparently the GW2 community does). When people say "it's a shadow of its former self" or "you can't use it to hit anyone with half a brain," they're actually saying that it isn't completely fire-and-forget. That's what GW2 players want: fire-and-forget. I think that people who play this game "seriously" just attribute "skill factor" to a build's "fire-and-forget factors" being mildly restricted to limited-target attacks with cooldowns rather than a PBAoE that can techincally have an infinite duration if the user doesn't lay the latent PBAoE in a different location.

The only thing you could buff, however, is arguably the most shallow playstyle in GW2 (and possibly video games in general). It doesn't matter if Guardian doesn't have the spammable mobility buttons that Thief does; Guardian charges in and spams until it dies or kills something. It bursts quick after engaging and then either dies immediately or prolongs its death with various skills that grant protracted damage/effect negation. When you talk about "buffing" a no-trap-build Guardian, you're talking about working explicitly with this sort of kit--which means that you're basically going to have no choice but to make it deal so much damage so easily that it will successfully win fights despite being extremely low-effort and predictable. Once again and no more: you are going to have to entirely redesign what Guardian consistently brings to the table if you want to actually give it a worthwhile role; you can't just "buff" "things" to make Guardian "good" because you're only going to make it as oppressive and boring as something like sword/focus weaver. You need to STOP MAKING CLONES of things that already exist in the game--GW2 is already homogenized and oversaturated with bloat.

"GW2 'Trap' Utility Skills" are among the worst design paradigm for a cycle of abilities within video games. The worst part about Guardian's overall state as a class, however, is the fact that Trap DH is really just the logical conclusion of the way (offensive/damage) Guardian has always played: teleport at a guy and blast damage as fast as possible while relying on passive/instant blinds and blocks to sustain yourself before this sudden and twitchy trade of blows eventually swings in the opponent's favor. Damage Guardian has always been "blue thief." If you want an interesting, engaging or role-fulfilling Guardian build, you'll really have to rethink what sort of support that the class could potentially bring to the battlefield because, as it stands, Guardian is just one of many copies of the same class/playstyle; and the only reason is ever makes an appearance from time to time is because it has instant/passive access to perfect invisibility. In summary, don't think about "buffing" anything. Number adjustments will only continue what stealth trapper spawned. You need to entirely re-make that shallow, boring class.

This game never needed stealth to begin with, and there are far more creative ways to increase field presence or threat level via misdirection than vomiting some stealth over top of a bunch of face-roll buttons like Mesmer does now. The worst part is that alpha sword mainhand for Mesmer had this concept rolling better than anything pumped out via expansions or patch notes (it had imaginary leap--a clone attack--and a regular leap on separate cooldowns to allow for mix-ups--not to mention that meant that stock Mesmer sword mainhand once had free-aim mobility too).

The best thing to do with stealth is give it exclusively to Thief, tie it exclusively to an F-skill profession mechanic with a 1s cast and ammo (possibly also with an active cancel and an initiative maintenance cost/second), then re-work the "stealth" skill set into support and control (with a few, select instances of high damage) and spread them around utilities rather than tying them to weapon sets. It'd be easy enough to even do stuff like re-work Thief utilities into things like Druid glyphs (i.e. they're one thing while visible and another while in stealth). Point is, the problem with stealth is its inconsistent and ultimately random distribution, and the fact that it's generally passively or instantly applied with no real downside while active.

"Denature" is an interesting take on this proposal, but it's not like I don't use Unravel. I know exactly what it does, and I use it expressly for its obvious purpose in PvP on a zerker staff ele loadout. That's why I drew attention more toward the "75% attunement recharge reduction while active" aspect of the skill rather than towards the tick buffs (even acknowledging that they're probably overpowered/overtuned). Thinking about it more and playing with it again last night for a few games, I know why I hate the way that Unravel works, and it definitely comes down to the fact that after the initial attunement recharge reset, the player is still locked into that forced 4s recharge on all elements upon swapping. Doing actual cool stuff on staff REQUIRES that you swap rapidly and combine certain area control elements with damage or soft CC. The forced 4s Weaver recharge heavily muddles the ability for a player to do the only unique or remotely good thing that staff ele does (and I'm sure it's probably not too different for any other build). People in this thread have repeatedly said that Unravel is "adequate" because, a lot of times, it seems that they're fishing for panic buttons or a specific burst button when they use Unravel rather than trying to chain skills across several elements; and this utility allows them to do that. They aren't worried about several steps ahead across multiple elements, just one element in particular with the answer to whatever is happening on the field: it's ultimately a reactive playstyle (or, in the case of bursting, one which hits a dead-end very quickly after maybe two key buttons). Not to say that being able to pop Unravel reactively against certain threats is bad, but because it doesn't undo the Weaver 4s global cooldown on elements after the initial attunement recharge, it hampers the real potential that such a recharge might provide. Upon reading through the thread and playing the game again, I think I'd prefer if Unravel, during its duration (even if the duration were shortened a bit), further reduced the global Weaver cooldown on attunements so that players could swap more rapidly through their respective core weapon set toolkit: [Unravel] Recharge: 5s | Ammo: 2 Stance. Initial effect: Reduce all attunement cooldowns and gain swiftness. For a period of time, you fully attune to elements, and your attunements recharge faster. Gain bonuses at every interval while under this effect. - Initial Recharge Reduced: 100% - Initial Swiftness (8s): 33% Movement Speed - Unravel (4s): Fully attune to elements, temporarily lose dual attacks, and your attunement recharges are further reduced. - Attunement Recharge Reduced: 90% (resulting in about a 0.4s global CD for faster swapping) - Maximum Count: 2 - Count Recharge: 25s - Breaks Stun would even be enough considering how the main draw is just more weapon set flexibility. The boons are OK, but they're pretty generic and were originally just thrown on their haphazardly in a desperate attempt by anet to make people take the skill more often. If Unravel actually gave the player rapid and unfettered access to one's entire weapon kit, that on its own would probably be a good enough buff rather than relying on something as uninspired as "Look guys, i-it gives boons now! P-please use it!" I still think it deserves to grant baseline swiftness, though, because weaver can be slow as molasses sometimes while outside of combat; it's pretty awful. The stun break would be a nice addition as well, but it probably isn't super necessary.

So you'll just give up on potential player agency then? Sure, optimal combinations can exist, but why would you let certain things languish in a state of forced or arbitrary incongruity and irrelevance when there are absolutely means by which they could be changed in order to promote more synergy and player expression?

You've said the same thing as everybody else in this thread: "it's good for -CERTAIN- builds." I'm trying to make this good for every weapon loadout because it's a fun skill which can open up a lot of different interactions. I'll admit that the interval-tick part of this re-design is probably overpowered, but the main draw is that it would be really interesting to allow Elementalists to use Unravel to rapidly jump from element to element within its 5s duration (most issues regarding instant, passive trait damage shouldn't be a huge issue since most of them were nerfed). Honestly, at the very minimum, if the skill just gave swiftness (8s) in addition to everything else it does right now, I'd probably be happier with it; but as it stands, it works for d/X because d/X has passive damage mitigation; it works for scepter/dagger because Phoenix is easy-mode, near-instant burst AoE damage; and it works for X/focus because focus is cheese with a lot of panic buttons for stalling damage, and one of the most unfair CC attacks in the game. Since I was experimenting with it on staff, I noticed its shortcomings more than somebody who would be using a build that doesn't have as much instant damage and incoming effect mitigation passively built into it.

Sure, but you'll also just be sitting in earth (which doesn't often offer a lot on its own). I'd say that would be justification enough to keep it as it is, but then again, passive trash meme builds like Heart of Stone exist, so it'd probably be worth nerfing or changing it. I'm just not sure what else to put as an earth bonus (outside of maybe barrier, but that's so boring/predictable, and it's oversaturated within the most low-effort/popular weaver kit already).

It allows for clutch access to abilities in key moments, but it's still apparently functional only alongside niche weapon sets and their associated stat spreads (as you admit with your comment about sword builds). The point of this suggestion is to make Unravel viable for basically anybody wanting to experiment with that kind of flexibility. In fact, I've found some success in PvP using it on staff, but it's still, very clearly, not optimal despite how interesting the mechanic is with regards to the kind of mix-up interactions the player can generate by triggering certain bonuses or getting rapid access to certain skills. Unfortunately, that sort of agency is just not "viable" or "optimal" outside of certain scenarios--so it's probably best to adjust what Unravel provides in order to make up for that shortcoming. You can passively generate might in so many easy ways, justifying Unravel's overall suboptimal performance based entirely on how it gives the user might stacks is a pretty weak argument. It isn't about making the skill simplier; it's about having the skill provide something that the basic, meta-expectation weaver kit doesn't already bring to the table. Moreover, you again make my own arguement for me like other people have been doing in this thread: you explicitly reference specific traits, weapon sets, and internalizing CD timings. These sorts of things aren't intrinsic to expanding player agency: they're "good" (in GW2) because they're either passive (therefore, instant), set on fixed timers (i.e. part of a rotation--which doesn't require a lot of active thinking) or passively provide a lot of insulation from risk when taking actions (two people have already mentioned Unravel pairing with d/X, and I GUARANTEE you that's ONLY because d/X features free evades slapped onto movement/damage and not because "Unravel is good"). This version of Unravel's main draw wouldn't necessarily be the instant-gratification buffs along with access to a core weapon kit, but rather access to the core weapon kit along with the fact that all attunements would be reduced down to a baseline 1s. This would allow an Unravel ele to rapidly make decisions on the fly for a brief period of time regarding how to approach or evade certain situations. The 1s-interval tick bonuses are just gravy on top to make sitting in certain elements more practical than burning through the deck of weapon utility--it all comes down to context-specific decision making rather than reactivity (as you described with "easy access to shocking aura, or protection, or Water traits"). Sure, you could still be passive and reactive with this re-designed Unravel, but more than that you could be proactive in how you decide to affect the field by fielding combos or swapping back and forth between certain elements that otherwise wouldn't have been possible before.