ZTeamG.4603

You don't play necro, do you? 😉 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spectral_Walk

I think offensive target caps being low is the biggest problem. If every offensive skill had no target cap while support/defensive ones were capped at 5, we'd see MUCH more interesting largescale gameplay. In its current state, the "right" way to play--the way that the balance incentivizes--is to stack as many people as possible on one spot and barely move. A point and click adventure that exists to spite all the potential that the combat system has. It would be much better if stacking in one spot was a death sentence and people instead had to play intelligently as parties of 5, working together with the larger zerg spread out over the battlefield.

My and my necro pulls say that's not a flaw, that's a feature 😄

Can't second HD2 enough. It's the only game in a while that's been able to keep me pulled away from GW2 (and I'm already up to 100 hrs in it). Very different type of game and not what I'd consider an MMO, of course, but it really scratches the "work together and use your bag of tricks to survive against the horde when the odds are stacked against you" itch. One of their newest updates added in a proper base defense mission, and it's more satisfying than the current, neutered WvW defense gameplay after the last several rounds of defense nerfs.

I think you're right. Unfortunately, the sad trend in 90% of the recent WvW changes has been removing skill from WvW. Pretty much the only good one was lowering the guild aura stats, but there's no way you can sell the capture point reductions, defense nerfs, etc. as anything other than catering to the lowest common denominator of attackers.

If you were having trouble taking camps because the defenders "had too many stats," then it was just a skill issue on your part. You'll still have trouble taking the camps. Not once have I failed to take a camp against enemy players because of the tiny difference the guild aura stats made. But hey, it seems you're represented more than the rest of us on the balance team.

What gamemode were you playing? Because it sure wasn't WvW unless your boonblob is one of the worst possible. For the past year, the tiniest modicum of effort on a boonball's part has been enough to win against outnumbered defenders. If you and your group are the type to throw down 8 catas in an exposed spot while all the keep's cannons and mortars are still up and then never use the bubble skill, you deserve to get easily repelled by 1-2 people.

Great change to make objectives feel better for attacking groups! The defenders' advantage behind their own walls and gates was previously too strong. This surely won't swing that advantage completely in favor of attacking groups, and it will encourage player interaction so that large portions of attacks against structures don't feel like a slog with little payoff. This will help to incentivize more player vs. player interactions while still allowing for defensive tactical gameplay, such as defenders simply leaving the map.

It was already extremely difficult to do anything while outnumbered, and Anet's determined to make it impossible. Wasn't this kind of karmatrain gameplay they're "balancing" towards what they nuked EotM for years ago?

Anyone want to guess at how long before they just remove gates altogether so as not to give defenders "too much of an advantage"? Seriously Anet, if you only want boonballers to play the mode with two giant zergs slowly circling each other at a snail's pace while skills take 10 seconds to activate, just say so. It'll save the rest of us time hoping that the game mode ever stops getting worse.

I hate how true this is. Anet's changes basically say "If you don't want the slow, boring gameplay of a boonball karma train taking undefended objectives then stop playing GW2"

This is a big reason why I think the "more rewards for winning" is a terrible idea. Server stacking (guilds transferring to a bigger server to make sure they're on the bigger, winning side) is already a big enough problem when there is barely any reason to transfer en masse, and because of it matchups will end up wildly imbalanced even if the matchmaking at the start of the links would have made them relatively balanced. On some links I've been on, a large, active guild transferring off it at the start of the links led to the server being pretty much dead and perpetually outnumbered for 90% of the day--which, of course, only served to make more people stop playing. If you start giving rewards for winning like in the WvW tournament from the old days, stacking will just get more ridiculous and you'll lose people whose experience it ruins. And, of course, one server having night coverage when the others don't will almost certainly make that one the winner due to the late night PPT trains that flip everything. The great thing about the participation system and skirmish chests is that you can (mostly, with the one exception being defense since they removed repair credit and defense credit is notoriously unreliable) play in the way that you find most fun in the mode without worrying about missing out on rewards. If something changed to incentivize defense instead of just attack (such as giving participation for destroying enemy siege or for driving off enemies from an objective even if they don't die), then I think the rewards system would be in a great spot and just be a matter of tuning the rewards.

>comes into the necro forum with a thief icon >says necro GS 5 should function like scorpion wire This has to be a troll, right? I don't know what kinda wild stuff got put into your Peppercorn-crusted Sous Vide Steak, but I want whatever you're on. Necro GS is not a dueling weapon, and it works great for both PvE and for group fights in WvW. GS 4 has pulsing blind, which is a defensive option of its own. GS 2 feels great even if it's a bit slow. GS 3 is fast and strong. GS 5 is amazing and so much better than the standard projectile pull.

In the balance change preview, willbender's elite (the rarely used Heaven's Palm) is getting some significant buffs like evade frames and the Glacial Heart trait is getting a rework to heal on chill application. I think the Heaven's Palm buffs are fine since it's competing against the powerful option of 3s invuln+virtue recharge. But... What's the over under on them forgetting to add an internal cooldown to Glacial Heart, and suddenly Willbender gets a full heal on every 20s cooldown elite usage with Relic of the Ice?

With the glacial heart change, what are the odds they forget to add an internal cooldown and it results in willbenders running around in WvW using the buffed Heaven's Palm + Relic of the Ice as a free full heal?