Vinny.7260

A+ on the Visuals. Really interested in seeing what the numbers look like! PvP perspective, could possibly replace Sword?

There's definitely starting to be a noticeable amount of projectile hate. I think it's starting to be a bit much depending on the source. Compare the abilities of some of them as well: Enveloping Haze on Untamed Deals damage to enemies inside, moves, and can inflict chill on enemies CC'd. Lasts 5 seconds 25 second recharge Swirling Winds on Elementalist Doesn't move, doesn't deal damage, doesn't have any sort of bonus effects. Lasts 4 seconds 30, 24 if using Aeromancer's Training, second recharge It's definitely important to keep it around, however. Invulnerability isn't entirely an issue right now. In fact, they're creating a complication for Virtuoso, a troublemaker for Distortion and Distortion-related topics, have to pick between cleanse/healing on Shatter and Blurred Inscriptions next patch. Another outlier is Shield Master on Warrior and an interaction with Aegis, which causes a single-block boon to become an outright projectile reflecting menace. Arguably it shouldn't do this, but it does!

These tinfoil hat theories about PvP... No, they don't make it horrible on purpose. I don't even think the balance we currently have is remotely horrible. There are always outliers when it comes to balance, something that'll always stand above something else due to meta compositions. You also have to keep in mind they have to think of multiple formats within PvP itself. There are MATs (5v5), Ranked (Groups of 2 players + 1 vs Groups of 2 players + 1), and Unranked (Pseudo-casual 5 vs 5). They have to provide options for every kind of player wanting to try the game mode out. Sometimes that means certain builds slip through the cracks that are overly effective due to an attempt to make them beginner friendly. Things like Chaos Staff Mirage, Rifle Mechanist, Bunker Mechanist, many other things over the years. They need to keep track of so many parameters within the balance: Effectiveness, Fairness, Fun, Difficulty- and then things like Numbers, Roles and some others. They have to keep track of each of these threefold, ensuring it isn't something incredibly obnoxious. The devs are human like us and sometimes something gets missed. Even during the whole deal with Signet Catalyst. Now on to the AFKs/Bots, this just happens in EVERY game. AFK is less punished here in GW2 as are bots, but it does get hit every now and again. They've got some of the most interactive developers they've had in a while when it comes to profession balancing. We're currently getting previews of some really impressive work done to fill gaps on each profession. As well as a preview of balance changes that are going to give out more options for personal flavor specs in PvP. This is actually surprisingly more accurate than people are aware. Then they get upset when they've got new players just wanting to get their daily or check this cool PvP thing out! 1: Yeeeeeep. They're getting their dailies, honestly nothing wrong with that. 2: This applies to literally every player in the game. Even people like Naru and Boyce suffer the curse of a bad game or two. It's not exclusive to us- they just keep playing anyway and play META- they've got their heart in the game. This isn't an issue with the programmer's ranking system, it's just the fact that PvP across the board in all MMORPGs is dying. The rating system is just trying its best due to a lack of data. It's like making someone starving go and run a marathon. Let's not bash the developer.

Definitely seems like something like (Malicious) Hook Strike should. It wouldn't even be that strong with it, just a little extra to even the tides. The fact you managed to get stealth while using Staff should be rewarded for sure. And the other examples mentioned too- except CttB- they intentionally added extra things to it like Quickness/Might to compensate for this. Hammer burst deals damage, you have hammer mechanics that reset your main damage dealer. I'd argue Rampage should get its damage back on Seismic Leap. (Not Throw Boulder though- not due to disparity, just because Rampage can already hit hard. Let the highest CD on the transformation deal damage though). We gotta remember there are nuances on what should and shouldn't deal damage, considering what they can do for example. We don't want Gravity Well on Chronomancer doing damage again. Especially since it's a part of Chronomancer's kit, which is currently being leveraged to deal burst damage. We also don't want Shadowfall on Specter dealing damage due to how it's being leveraged and has a unique advantage in being able to use Infiltrator's Strike to extend the range or ignore things like LoS.

I was actually talking about this with some people. PvP in MMORPGs as a whole is starting to die off. Something something people dislike the negative energy associated with it and prefer the easier going mindsets behind PvE. Even as a total sweatlord I prefer RPing and PvE but play PvP cuz the content is constant. Makes my stim-craving brain go brrr.

Elementalist: Conjures and Glyphs feeling lack luster. Mesmer: Virtuoso. Necromancer: Slow pace. Thief: Too stealth reliant in PvP Engineer: Core mechanics being ripped away instead of enhanced (looking at you elite toolbelt skills). Ranger: Honestly? Not much, very flexible- scarily flexible. Warrior: Wacky unreliable to land skills from range Guardian: Scepter. Revenant: THE BUGS. ALL THE BUGS.

You don't have to be meta to be effective. There are ways to make your build work, within the realm of reality anyway. There are people who have fun with things like Air Tempest, Support Scrapper, etc etc. They provide unique situations that can throw people off. All META really does is provide a standard and something to work with that is proven to work. It also depends on the tier level you're looking at and what you're expecting. Meta is mostly a reliable thing to look towards and what everyone else expects. You'll get hate mail if you're playing FB or a DPS Tempest- but are you having fun?

Hey all. We've been futzing with these new relics and runes for a couple months now. Let's consider the idea of adding a bunch of runes back to PvP, just to further diversify things and provide some more options. Notes: Specific boons and conditions being increased will scale as 4/6/10 like current runes. 2/3/5 for non-specific. Power-main: Rune of Fireworks 175 Power/10% Boon Duration Rune of Surging 175 Power/5% Boon Duration/25% Movement Speed Rune of the Pack 175 Power/5% Boon Duration/125 Precision Rune of the Privateer 175 Power/10% Might Duration/125 Precision Rune of the Ogre 175 Power/100 Ferocity/125 Vitality Rune of the Cavalier 175 Power/100 Toughness/25% Movement Speed Toughness-main: Rune of Durability 175 Toughness/5% Boon Duration/125 Vitality Rune of Mercy 175 Toughness/225 Healing Power Rune of the Defender 175 Toughness/100 Healing Power/125 Vitality Rune of Snowfall (this one stands out imo) 175 Toughness/100 Healing Power/25% Movement Speed Vitality-main: Rune of the Lich 175 Vitality/10% Condition Duration Condition Damage-main: Rune of Perplexity 175 Condition Damage/20% Confusion Duration Rune of Tormenting 175 Condition Damage/20% Torment Duration Rune of Antitoxin 175 Condition Damage/-15% Incoming Condition Duration/125 Vitality Ferocity-main: Rune of the Golemancer 300 Ferocity/100 Precision Healing Power-main: Rune of the Rebirth 175 Healing Power/5% Boon Duration/125 Toughness Rune of the Scourge 300 Healing Power/100 Condition Damage Rune of Nature's Bounty 175 Healing Power/-25% Incoming Condition Duration All Stats: Rune of the Zephyrite (Not great, but sure). 60 All Stats/5% Boon Duration Rune of the Stars (Possibly strong)? 36 All Stats/-30% Incoming Weakness Duration/-30% Chill/Cripple Duration/-10% Incoming Condition Damage This won't inherently shake up the meta, but would just open up some other options for people- more customization, min-maxxing, etc.

Hey team! Great job on the tool tips of these new relics! They're much easier to read, gives us an idea of what to expect, and makes it much more convenient to theory craft! Now let's update the other ones and standardize it! Survival: Relic of the Water: Need to list the number of conditions removed and radius. Relic of Resistance: Need to list the Resistance duration in the tool tip and, soon, radius. Relic of Evasion: Reword the tool tip and then put the Vigor in the tool tip. Relic of the Defender: List the healing granted per scaling Such as 5% down to 1% Relic of the Chronomancer: List the Quickness duration Relic of the Centaur: Need to list the Stability duration in the tool tip. Relic of the Cavalier: List the boons granted in the tool tip. Support: Relic of the Zephyrite: List the Protection and Resolution, radius of the crystal, and the scaling of the crystal duration. Relic of the Trooper: Although not really needed, just update the tool tip to include the number of conditions removed. Relic of the Pack: List the duration of the Superspeed granted, as well as the radius. Relic of the Flock: List the Barrier granted as well as the radius. Relic of Durability: List the duration of Protection and Regeneration. Power: All of the Power Relics could use their tool tips to be updated, showing the icon granted and the description of it. Relic of the Citadel: List the damage, radius, and stun duration Conditions: Relic of the Sunless: List the damage, poison and cripple duration, radius, range, and scaling of the pool duration Relic of the Scourge: Preview the effect granted per stack Relic of the Reaper: List the Chill duration and radius Relic of the Nightmare: List the duration of fear and poison, also list the radius Relic of the Necromancer: Aside from remaking it. Preview the tool tip of Fear with this effect, similar to Demon Queen. Relic of the Mirage: List the duration of Torment inflicted Relic of the Krait: List the Bleeding, Poison, and Torment duration. Also list the radius. Relic of the Ice: List the damage, range/radius, duration of Chilled, and soon Vulnerability too. Relic of the Aristocracy: Preview of the effect granted per stack Relic of the Afflicted List the damage, radius, poison, and bleeding.

Honestly, I don't think it's all that bad, but it has potential to be obnoxious if given too many buffs. Maybe the interval should be reduced to 3 instead of 5, reducing its limitation from being an exclusively duelist relic to a more team fighter relic. That's 30s to get a massive boost (assuming no boons are ripped) instead of 50s. I am disappointed that Core Necro and Reaper can't really benefit from it due to how Shroud works... Preventing healing... Mesmer definitely gets some advantage using it. Especially on Carrion Axe if you're a psychopath like me and trying to force yourself to duel with it. The size increase definitely throws me off though while playing. 🤔 Don't know how people like Harlock can just play with Enbiggening at all times.

You actually managed to call out all the things I was going to mention. Specifically Blurred Inscriptions and Signet of Illusions. Heck, even the fact that Chronomancer has advantage with CS- so forcing them to channel their Distortion! 👍

Makes me wish we had Pistol main hand instead. You just damage yourself and your clones with the ambush. Like Staff on Mirage, it just grants allies boons. Healing allies.

I'm cringing at the idea of Rifle Mirage. Imagine your clones all being able to direct their target at an ally like Scepter on Specter. Go full Persona on your team.

1: Definitely. They keep giving FB small nudges, insisting they want to have FB be a viable support. There isn't a reason to take FB over Core right now. Core provides everything instantly, which has a lot of value. All while being able to take multiple defensive trait lines. (Valor + Honor). 2: Yep. Frankly remove the trait and give Warrior something more useful. It's a weak trait without that, surely, unintended interaction. 3: Indifferent. Vindicator has been in an awkward spot of strong but not. 4: Engineer has been needing more nudges towards being a strong spec. Rifle 5 getting an evade is an 'ABOUT TIME' kinda response from me. Nothing else really stood out to me. Maybe the idea of Support Scrapper. 5: I'm conflicted about the Smokescale change. The CC has been a VERY sore spot for a lot of players for a long time. The person who is the victim of it knows the pain, and the Ranger who plays it revels in it. I'd argue it needs an animation change to make it more reliable to differ between the CC and just a basic attack. I think they made the wrong choice, but it technically deals with a problem people have had with this pet. Lightning Reflexes still having damage is so goofy- like why punish a stun break into things like Static Shield. One Wolf Pack is odd, I'd argue it's not the problem, but more-so the fact Ranger has a skill like Hunter's Call to get relatively free value out of it. It doesn't have an obvious animation like Ray of Judgement on Guardian- you have a short audio cue followed by needing to dodge immediately. Quickness completely invalidates that tactic too! 6: Thief is fine. D/P Bound with Impairing Daggers was a brief meme that was around. Some people still play it, but it's relatively squishy and dependent on stealth. Staff being reworked might switch it up a little, but I don't see much past that. Condi Core Thief might be a nicer with being able to use Repeater back-to-back with a lower initiative cost. Bountiful Theft is cool, a little extra might. 7: Core and Reaper were the primary lovers in the spotlight of this patch. Primarily with the fact that Terror is being buffed and moved into the Grandmaster, allow for Necromancers to take Path of Corruption alongside it. This was previously used during '0/0/0/0/0' days where people would benefit from corrupting Stability. They're reintroducing a very strong combo. (I like it). Reaper got some sustain buffs via Blighter's Boon. Unfortunately it competes with Deathly Chill, otherwise we all know that it would be getting used. They gave Harbinger a bone with Death's Carapace giving 300 Condition Damage at max stacks, nice. 8: I'm horrified about Mesmer. They've gone and reintroduced a very toxic trait combination via Bountiful Disillusionment and Persistence of Memory. If you remember the whole 'phantasm chrono' era. That's what it was riding on, specifically the interaction of those two traits. (Granted also old Signet of Inspiration too). This is going to open up some new tanky Chaos Chrono build again, but having invulnerability Phantasms all while constantly generating boons. They could probably take Null Field if cleanse is a concern, who knows. Spooky stuff on the horizon. There's also Inspiration being able to heal a lot more. They're nerfing Virtuoso's ability to cleanse as much, since they'll need to decide between Blurred Inscriptions and Restorative Illusions. Chaos Mirage got some quiet buffs here too, via Illusionary Warlock inflicting Torment, AoE boons, Protection, AoE Chaos Armor. Lots of shenanigans. 9: Weaver has my attention out of all the changes. Aquatic Stance granting endurance has some potential to give Fire Weaver a lil oomph. 10: Probably. Maybe reducing the confusion to 3 or increasing the CD. There was also the option of specifically targeting Skull Grinder's interaction to immediately activate it. Reduce the Confusion by 1 stack on the skill itself would bully them a bit. Means they'd have to CC after Throw Sword or something. 11-13: No response.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Persistence_of_Memory For the love of ALL that is holy, please change this trait before the release. You're inviting the possibility for Phantasm Chrono spam. Illusions / Chaos based on the changes potentially: AoE Might/Vigor/Fury/Stability/Regeneration/Protection/ Potentially Alacrity or Quickness to feed the Phantasms -> Phantasms have 5s of Distortion to prevent being killed -> Get Summoned twice due to Chronophantasma (unless you swap to AOE Alac/Quickness). This trait single-handedly will make for an annoying build that got culled a few years back when Bountiful Disillusionment lost AoE boons.

Just change the order at which conditions are inflicted. Make it CC first and then inflict confusion. Boom, problem solved. Now they have to save Mace 3 to proc Akeem.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Maul Gottem.

Aw, that's lame. I honestly skimmed most of it and was immediately excited. Means that specs that were using Lynx/Traveler originally are just getting an extra buff next month. 😛

"I am Evon Gnashblade" causes the UI to freeze up and requires re-opening the BLTP a couple times.

Possibly a return of things like Pack, Durability, etc just for the stats. A lot of specs got hurt by the loss of Pack runes. Durability was overpowered because of the fact it gave everyone defensive boons on a low CD while also providing defensive stats. I guess I'm mainly excited about the idea of a lot runes being added since the bonus effects are being separated. Runes of Tormenting, Perplexity, all that stuff. Mesmers are going to love being able to finally drop going Lynx/Traveler Runes purely for the 25% movement speed, similar with Guardians. Relics can shake a lot of things up. I'd love to see interactions with boon removal, condition removal, stuff like that. Something like Purity of Purpose but as a Relic.

Or Gunflamed...

Despite the description in PvP, casting Manifest Sand Shade grants ~4k barrier instead of the listed amount. It also grants 2s of Alacrity, like listed on the tooltip. This is being heavily used to cause havoc at the moment.

I can smell the comp now, 3 Catalysts and 2 Scourges. Hype.

How does that slip past Q/A... They should seriously open up some positions if they do have a Q/A team LOL. Hopefully they'll patch it in a month.

Larcenous Torment does not heal the Specter while in Shroud. It does, however, deal the Life Siphon Damage while in Shroud. Leeching Venoms also does not appear to heal while in Shroud.