psizone.8437

Same, but it would be quite a bit more fun. I don't think the skills would be much harder to balance. With a long enough cooldown, even smokescales smoke cloud wouldn't be game breaking.

The whole intent of showing us these changes was to gather feedback, they even stated they'll be reading discussions on the forums about it. Nothing in his posts reads like a demand, he gave thought out responses to the changes and pointed out where some changes could be seen as a bad choice. You really misread the room, dude.

For smallscale and thief hunting I'm still running full power sic em soulbeast out of spite. It still does alright, it just struggles with cele builds more now with the owp nerf. Minstrel support druid for zerging which I have no complaints about. And I've been trying a cele untamed that I saw on guildjen.com, it reminded me of the old BM bunker builds. It plays alright but if you run into something tanky, it doesn't really have much oomph to finish fights quickly.

The only solo fight in that video was against a guy who standing still so it was hard to see what the actual burst damage was like. I'd imagine any dodge or condi cleanse would have negated most of that damage, whereas other classes can reapply their condition considerably quicker. Vulture stance and sharpening stone have a hell of a cooldown. We're definitely lacking in defensive boons even with nature magic. Resistance, resolution and protection specifically.

Copy/pasting my response to this from another thread since it fits here. Nitpicking but I'd say they're good in roaming/small scale rather than great. We lack the condition pressure that other cele builds can output and have a little less self healing potential (other than druid) so our sustain is a bit less. You'll win fights on them, but fights take forever and if they're running cele, you're fighting uphill. We desperately needed a torch rework and some skill/trait updates like every other class are getting in the next patch.

Nitpicking but I'd say they're good in roaming/small scale rather than great. We lack the condition pressure that other cele builds can output and have a little less self healing potential (other than druid) so our sustain is a bit less. You'll win fights on them, but fights take forever and if they're running cele, you're fighting uphill. We desperately needed a torch rework and some skill/trait updates like every other class are getting in the next patch.

This ^

As sure as I am that OP was talking about the OWP nerf, which hurt our damage a lot. Our condi options in WvW are god awful compared to most other classes, so this being addressed would be nice.

Support spectre has been viable in zergs for quite a while. It gives great barrier amongst other things and it's pretty fun to play. Guildjen even has it listed in their list of zerg builds.

A range boost would be nice, its 450 range is a bit small compared to owl swoop and gazelle charges 1200.

The pet changes are nice but Jesus they really didn't touch any ranger skills or traits?! Most classes got some substantial buffs. I'm pretty worried that we're going to start falling behind, especially with the one wolf pack nerf in WvW (which was needed to a degree, but I think they went too far).

Please have a look through rangers skills and traits, too. The pet changes are very welcome but if you leave ranger untouched, especially after the one wolf pack nerf, it might start falling behind other classes quite heavily.

Don't forget to increase the range to 1200 or something so it can be used to actually chase enemies in WvW.

That's your answer. Elementalists are even more broken than willbender when using cele gear (trailblazers mixed in just makes it tankier), especially in a straight fight. There's a reason there's been so much salt in the forums about cele gear and elementalists have always been the main abuser of it. The only reason willbender is in the firing range right now is that you can't run away from them like you can with ele. That's not your fault, it's a game and you can use the gear that's available. But you can't compare celele to the general experiences in fights.

God no, I think all of the different shield abilities are some of the coolest in the game. Each one feels unique and handles like a different weapon. The only one that is the standard block+CC is the warrior shield but that fits the class. Still fun to use though. Not to say that the mace skills will be boring, it could be anything. I just think generally, shield get cooler skills.

I would prefer a much older version to return but buffed. But yeah the numbers would need to be increased a lot, serpent strike now does 1100 damage with a power coefficient of 3 whereas previously it did 235 with a power coefficient of 0.8.

I'd be interested in seeing this, too. I've had a fair few instances of being CC spammed til I died because I couldn't use that skill.

I disagree, I don't see how them buffing the numbers wouldn't have the exact same effect without changing the core of the weapon. They increased the damage by a lot when they changed the skills. If the previous skills had those levels of damage, it would still be able to apply the same counterpressure. Other than the damage increase and boon/condi changes (that they could have added to the old skills) the only thing they added was a second, smaller forward leap. With that they removed a backwards leap and an encircling evade.

There used to be 2 available on demand before it was changed a few years back which made its defensive use considerably worse. It was janky as hell but it was a really good defensive weapon.

Shield. ᵃⁿᵈ ᵖⁱˢᵗᵒˡ

OG sword used to track enemies, which made fighting invisible enemies really fun. Even with the autoattack change, sword was great for roaming in WvW. Monarch's leap was the gap closer and Hornet sting was your backwards evade for creating a gap. It was a bit janky, but it was fun to use. New sword works, it does damage but it's so kitten boring. It was very obviously a PvE change, when buffing greatsword would have accomplished the same overall goal without messing with swords niche. If mace comes out and is a power weapon that replaces sword in the PvE meta, I hope to god they revert the changes back.

Agreed. So many weapon skins in the game would have amazing effects if they changed it. 😞

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sikandar I think the ability to throw these deformed foetus things could be quite nightmarish.

I don't feel like Willbender needs more stab though, especially from traits. The 2 utility skills that give stab (people usually take at least 1) and Indominable Courage already give a lot. I agree that Deathless Courage is pretty useless in WvW though so some kind of rework would be nice. Just no extra stab.

Nerfing the one built in doesn't interfere with other guardian specs. Give it another boon to compensate. I'd like them to be more susceptible to CC without completely killing the spec so a small nerf to this would be better in my mind. Nerfing the grandmaster trait might have unintended consequences. This, along with my other points, should tone it down without breaking it.