Gaming Digi.9741

Ah, I have to comment. I agree with most to all of the proposed changes. Some of the Mirage nerfs may be pushing Miages into an even more bunker-oriented role, though. You guys might want to be careful and maybe give compensation on previously done nerfs to active shatters. Good communication, good comprehension from the team, good job guys!

If you go support Warrior, isn't it a waste to invest in Strength? There is literally 0 synergy with your support build. Replacing that with Discipline makes for much smoother gameplay! You forgot to add your utilities too - keep an eye on that ;) As for my current power-ranking listing of Ranked builds that are simply overpowered (not overperforming - the difference here is key):1: Condition Daredevil (well that's both overpowered and overperforming)2: Core Necromancer (say what you may, you didn't get to the right build yet. It is in no way overperforming though!)3: I actually don't have a 3rd spot. If I base my ranking on what is interactive to play against, even Holosmith is "interactive" and you do have the outplay potential. For those that think power Mirage is broken: well I kind of agree, but it's so telegraphed, why don't you learn to dodge at key moments and use your other resources accordingly?

The problem with balancing around the majority is that most of the time they think something's broken, while actually, it's just a rather high skill ceiling that struggles to be effective in a truly competitive game like an automated match in the monthly tournament. This brings unnecessary nerfs to a lot of classes because the said majority (which are mainly casuals to the game overall) can't be bothered learning the counterplays (like learning to dodge key skills or combos). The patch coming out Tuesday, although I am happy of the overall changes, shows just that. Most of the upcoming balance simply buffs a lot of the skill floor of professions like Chronomancer and Holosmith ( Chronomancer's rework Imo was needed but not to that extent, while Holosmith still has that broken aspect of spewing Stability out of the windows and still having such high survivability but gets super hard punished for over-heating because they felt like that was the correct nerf... lol) while dumbing down the skill ceiling of classes like Berserker, Weaver and Tempest by straight up buffing numbers. Ben once said in the Welcome to PvP Discord that their "statistics" come from Gold 2 and higher. Whilst people constantly in G3 are usually at least somewhat decent players, G2 players have 0 awareness overall of fights or engagements or objectives. Having an account in P1 and an account in G2 (hey, can't win all the placements when bots appear aye, and ranking on two accounts... oh hell nah I don't have that time), even though the population in G2 is HUGE, like I rarely face or am teamed with the same people at all (no one I recognize from account names and all), they have nearly 0 knowledge of their class. Let's not mention knowledge of other classes. I came to the conclusion that G2 players, which represent the majority of the game mode's population, really know barely enough to press 1 through 0 and an occasional random dodge. A streamer in that bracket demonstrates it rather well, playing a Condi trap ranger and not knowing his matchups or when to leave fights. G2 players and below, yeah they represent the majority of the population but lack the general knowledge necessary for good balance. That's why they shouldn't be just as sought-after for their input in balance patch notes, especially in PvP. Balancing around "fun" is the reason why this game isn't as competitive as it could potentially be. Balancing around "competitiveness" would lower the population, yes, but would, in the long run, be better for the game mode's health. In fact, that could bring GW2's competitive game mode known as sPvP to a larger public that could potentially even increase the overall population while keeping it fun in Unranked and competitive anywhere else.

Roflmao

Wait Mirage and core can kill in a one-shot tye of kill each ten seconds? Show me the way! (from a 2 years mesmer main that played one shots builds)

You're taking a fact and bringing in a false conclusion. In a way, I get what you mean, although Ranked and Tournaments are made to be those 12-size cords. It's more difficult to play, yes, but that's because it's more competitive. Unranked is where you should be having fun with your friends. You can test builds, change stuff, and overall enjoy yourself. Ranked and Tournaments though should be balanced towards the top for the sake of higher skill ceiling bringing more interest in the game. Nobody likes to hear a 5 years old smash its fingers on the guitar's strings, be it an easy or more advanced stringed one. I hope I make sense, my head ache is quite heavely interfering with my communication skills roflmao

All those casual PvPers thinking they have a voice in the overall PvP balance... actually funny. If you don't invest time in PvP, you should not be taken into account because you do not know how your class works either way! The top 10% at least gave a lot of time into the game, ya know. Something truly broken in high end may not be truly broken in low end (things like one shot Mesmers for example) because they're less effective due to the lack of skill knowledge. Should that not be nerfed because the top 10% thinks it's op but the 70% under them (10% being bots and another10% being gold farmers) think it's ok, thus shouldn't be nerfed? Should Scourge not be nerfed because people in low gold can't play it, when in very competent hands they just basically rip teamfights apart in pogs vs pogs? In the same way, Revenant's nerfs shouldn't be applied either... most low gold players don't know how to 100-0 2 to 3 people in less than 10 seconds using Herald. Because that's what happens in plat+ games. If you'Re a casual, stay in unranked where you can hone your skills. Unranked doesn't really matter either way, am I right? Ranked is exactly made to be competitive (lol, that one is a good joke I must say : WINTRADING is sadly a thing), thus the top end of players should have a higher input into what should be balanced out because they know best in class' synergies. Ok I'm done with my rant.

I'm curious as for the interactions with Chronomancer the Shatter specific traits like Blinding Dissipation or Confounding Suggestions. Will they still apply, even if it's the clones and not the Mesmer applying them? Although looking at the general portrait these competitive oriented changes and balance updates seem promising - can't wait to see them in actual play!

It isn't that hard to split between gamemodes. They did it already - and can still do it rather easily.

One could also argue that removing the 5 man que option years ago was a poor reward for players who worked on team coordination and that also denied people from playing with even more of their friends. Oh but right, Automated Tournaments...which aren't even available as frequently as just being able to Que for Ranked. :/ Well, can we start playing with 4 friends? You can, if you queue up for an AT! I hope that wasnt a serious answer... some of us have jobs and family to provide for and cant adhere to your very specific time schedule. It's a bit of a joke, a bit of truth. We made the sliding schedule so that there should always be a tournament time 2-3 times per week that fits your schedule. We're currently considering increasing available tournaments to give people more opportunities. In the far distant future, we are planning for on demand tournaments. Basically, tournaments that will launch when at least 4 teams have signed up. You guys at ArenaNet should really do a Devstream where you talk about the future of this game. Barely anyone is going to see a post like this, especially after it gets buried in the forums after a couple of days to a week where the information will just be lost to the ether until it randomly comes up again or until you actually announce the change or until it just appears in the patch notes one day in the far flung future. The attempts at communication are appreciated, but it really needs to be more consolidated and more direct so that the information is easily found and doesn't get lost in the depths of the forum space.Not just a regular devstream - one oriented towards the competitive aspect of the game. We saw Anet maybe play once or twice WvW and then... I can't even recall the last time I saw them play PvP. Just playing the FFA or in unranked, as a 5 men. They'd get time to appreciate, in the word's largest sense, how these two gamemodes went off track. I'm still traumatizes (well, it's an exaggeration but still) fighting against Naru and Anya because they queued for 8 minutes straight, placing them against gold players. But that's off-topic. I guess XD