la penombre.2415

I am happy to see some post like that.Yes, the February patch gave players "more time" to interract with each other in a fight, whereas before then, players were looking to avoid it, trying to get rid of their ennemies the fastest way possible.

I mostly agree with the OP : When HoT was released, warriors transformed into thieves while engineers transformed into warriors...

Hello, Thanks you ArenaNet for all this work about this patch and this new approach to the game balance. A lot of people, including me, is heavily waiting for such a patch, and you can expect us to play your game a lot when this patch will be available. Even thought most damages/sustain abilities have been decreased by ~33%, there are still some abilities/traits untouched, which can be then considered as those traits get a huge buff. But I am confident that over time, the game will find a great balance. I have read most of the patch note, and, from my experience I could provide some stuff that could be too strong if this exact patch note is released : I haven't seen elsewhere anything about the retaliation buff, which currently, if my memories are good, reflect 300 damages per hit with a high amount of power, which could become pretty huge (especially against some builds). Hopefully, it seems that the uptime of buffs have been decreased. But I still fear that some builds can keep this buff always up and then have a great advantage (especially guardians and engineers). The Base Necromancer and reaper could be MUCH tanker than ever, because their life force recovering seems to not have been modified. It is even highly probable that a bunker meta arround Necromancers happens. I have currently a build that run a 37K HP tank necro with 30K life force, (33K life if going with alteration damage, but the life force recovering is lower) and, with the signet of no-life and signet of vampirish (buffed with a specific trait), you have a tremendous sustain (even in death shroud). Keep an eye on how fast a necromancer can recover his life force... Especially when you adds a new trait that replace "foot in the grave" that fills really great to improve the sustain of the build (but losing a lot of damages, but it's ok, because the "life blast" of the death shroud have been decreased by around 15% instead of 33%). In the same idea, there are also a tank thief build based around high sustain and dodges, which will be nerfed by the "death blossom" cost increased from 4 to 5 and the base heal on dodge diminished from 450 to 150 (huge nerf on this specific sustain btw), but all the others stuff haven't been changed, will it be enough to not make a bunker meta ? I have played the "support", healer warrior with shouts, and currently, it is actually really powerfull how you can heal your team and being pretty usefull, and you know what ? The heal on shouts have not been that much nerfed (around 10% less base heal). This build might be pretty strong after the patch. Now, I'll respond to some comments in this forum, which I don't understand the reasoning : "This patch will decrease the build diversity of the game" : I just litterally don't agree. Decreasing damage indirectly nerf CCs, because when someone will be CCed, he'll receive less damage during this vulnerability window, and therefore, the game will tend more to a state where the player will not be forced to pick a break-stun in his build, increasing the build diversity by picking other utilities than a breakstun. Currently, running a build without a breakstun probably mean low survivability. "I don't understand reducing to 0 the damages of CCs skills, it is gonna make them useless" : For some rare specific skills which I agree with, because they are either situationnal or have an obvious animation/are hard to hit because it is a close range ability (big Oil bomb, and few other), this idea is really logic and healthy by following this thinking : Imagine 3 players that want to take down one main target pretty, it is then really easy for them to use each of their CCs abilities, without considering what does your mates, which will naturally kill the target by the overwhelming CCs and damages which will chain very easily (aren't you annoyed when you burn your 2 or 3 breakstun in a row, and you end up still CCed to death ?).Now, people will have to see if the target need to be CCed, to help other to hit it, or simply attacked, because the target is vulnerable. "thieves is currently the most dominant pick, and therefore, it is the strongest class of the game, and you are not nerfing his damages as much as other classes + you didn't nerf his mobility + You should better nerf the shadow art tree" :You can say "X in the thief is too strong" or anything else, you'll hardly change my mind : From my experience, what make the thief currently very powerfull is not really one of his weapon set, or perma stealth (or even his mobility which is one of his intented strenght), but mostly because by pressing F1, he have an INSTANT teleport to his target, that interrupt it, rip 3 boons (which make the interrupt and follow up burst/damages stronger against stability/protection users), deal 2K (even more with pulmonary impact), heal the thief for 2K, poison, reducing the ennemy sustain, and since the thief have INSTANTLY teleported to his ennemy which is dazed without buffs, then vulnerable for one second, the thief will naturally auto-attack, increasing the burst potential of the combo. And you know what ? Most meta thief build (at least every popular ones) uses the same specifics traits so that they can achieve this thing.In this patch note, the auto-attack damages have been decreased like other classes, Mug damages (damages on steal) have been halved, pulmonary impact damages have been highly decreased, and the reaping boon is decreased to 2 boons ripped. This is a good nerf to the thief burst potential on stealing.

Yes, before, against burst strategies, you had a great time to breathe and focus to your next way to attack your opponent once you dodged the burst. Now, most builds seems to be able to constantly burst and DPS, which mean that you can't allow yourself to do other thing than dodge or attacking very agressively.

@DriV.6203 : Although I totally agree with you and your mind/ideas, I still not see why classes should have more sustain : It's because there are a high risk that a player can regenerate quickly his whole life that they have to be killed fast (but also rather because they can be killed fast). The thing that make me really laugh is how "skilled" and "imaginative" you needed to be in order to play engineer times ago, when now, it became a spaming class. Or also, how useless, or should I say, how destroyed... No, how OBLITERATED the trait "Deathly Chill" (DoT on chill) became, just because developpers couldn't find a balanced adjustement at time, and then considered this trait as "something cancer that should never exist and broke the game", whereas the nature of the game litteraly changed over years.

Without especially focusing this quote, I don't know why people think that D/P build is one of the thief build that need the most skill, considering that : 3rd D/P skill is one of the easiest 900 range gap closer ability of the thief, which, in additive, deal pretty good damages and blind the target (for only 4 initiative). To defend against an opponent, it is easier to blind him, forcing him to intentionnaly miss an attack to actually hit the thief with an important ability, than the thief intentionally dodge and cancel his DPS cycle to do so.Even if the combo to go in stealth need at least 9 initiative (that can be slightly recovered during the combo, and when invisible, but still, the D/P thief needn't to waste that much initiative outside this combo), the thief don't need to interract with anybody to go in stealth, and, in that way, wherever the thief is, it is a very good reliable way to go in stealth, for an undetermined duration from their ennemies (it is actually the only weapons set that allow him to go in stealth whenever he wants, when Cloak and dagger need to successfully hit a target at very close range, considering all the defensive, block, evade, blindness abilities present in the game).Overall, the D/P build needn't any relatable good positionning to actually works, compared to other thiefs builds (it is similar with sword, but it is the intented strenght of the weapon : being mobile and strike at multiple places) About Pistol whip it-self, as some of people said there, it have obvious windows of vulnerability and the CC isn't that long. Plus, the casting time is slighty longer compared to what we are used to see.If I should complain about something in this game, Pistol whip is clearly one of the last things I am going to think about.

I will be always excited to discover a new patch, especially big ones. Experimenting, testing new stuff is really what I love in games, before playing in a "balanced" or ideal "meta" in competitive. What I personnally would like to see (but not probable) : An overall reduced powercreep, so that player can more interract beetwen them, but not reach a "bunker" meta (it's really hard actually).Amulets are remplaced by "characteristics points" you can spend, so that you can presonnalize your stats and pick whatever you want.Some new skills that may fullfill some builds (elite signs, elite warcry for the warrior for example, elite traps).Some twist in some skill that really need more reliability (I.E, skills that can be easily missed with basics movement from the ennemy player, without him actually wanting to dodge it).What I think it is going to happen : Arenanet would keep the powercreep state of the game, and somewhat powercreep it more, especially a mechanic that haven't been powercreeped since the launch of the game : dodge rolls. Players have always been limited to 2 maximum dodges roll with a 10 seconds recovering time. It may be buffed to something like 3 max dodge rolls, with a 7,5 sec recovering time, so that players can dodge more things in this bursty meta. Eventually, character would react much faster after a dodge roll (because there is a slight amount of time after dodge roll where your character do not act, but is vulnerable), or the dodge window is extended to 1 second (from 0,75 sec).Since it is said that A LOT OF THINGS is going to be changed, I hardly see what are they going to do.What I would be sad to see happen : A simple huge twist in most skills and trait, that will just, in the best case, allow more viable builds, and in the worst case, just change the playable builds.An even more powercreep buff.

Thinking about things like "GW2 is known to be a bad PvP" is pretty true, since that there were no real class roles, it have always been not that easy to really put team strategies. The base reason I created this post is that, in addition to the fact I wanted to add my voice that "powercreep is too much", I wanted to train an old build I was used to play a long time ago, but I recieved too much oppression in a ridiculous amount of time, I have never seen that until now. That made me reacted.

I can assume that at the release of the game, GW2 was a game where you could actually enjoy interraction with the ennemy player in PvP or WvW.And there were a huge hype around GW2 being the best game ever, but yeah, that was just hype things. But it was really a "serious" game in everyone mind.

Guild Wars 2 is a game I have really loved since it release. However, the unstoppable powercreep since HoT make me hate the game more and more.I have still always played PvP until now, and I always took fun somewhere. But...Right now, players are too much rewarded for using some specific skills or combinaisons of abilities.Right now, it is possible to access bunch of instant effect that go against the idea of "interracting" with your opponent (that's how PvP games are actually based on).Right now, I can claim that the game have reach a terrible state where only toxic players (which are top players for most of them) keep playing the game and blaming people that don't follow the powercreep as "noob". New players are definitly not well welcomed in the game.I was used to take fun testing some amazing build, but it seems that the powercreep and elitism don't allow me to take fun anymore. I am kind when I said people tell you being "noob".Actually, it's worse than that : They do not respect you as a human being since they consider you beeing a noob, and so, for example, someone telled me to "learn my class first" before I can simply know the skin of the weapon he was using, whereas, I was just trying to take fun experimenting and training a specific build on a class I am used to play since the GW2 release, and it's only an example. I am sorry to tell you this Anet, but your PvP game is dead... At least for people who have a minimum of common sense. And by the way anet, the point of adding a "block" system or "offline" mode was to prevent some people for being harrassed by verbal abuses. Now, it's toxic players that abuse this system so that they can properly harrass people without fearing have returns to their bad behaviour, which encourage them for being alone and recycle/spread their toxicity. As a game developper, you have an important part of responsibility, it's not just because of players.In our current society (almost consumption society, in which you seem to have fallen in with the "powercreep" evolution of the game), The consumer gradually becomes what he consume/do, he gradually become someone among what they are surronded.If you implement gameplay that force people to play in a violent way (favorize damage and burst over anything else), you'll make players not that kind.If you implement "trash" toys to interract with, you'll get "toxic" players.That's how it works. But we can't blame you so much, it seems that people like to consume a lot.