Rework coming June 28th!

[godfat.2604]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Ironically, that's pretty much what thief "preparations" became. Having traps take a few seconds to arm, even if they still drop quickly, might give them a bit more counterplay. See the trapper bend down to the ground, avoid that area (or get ready to mitigate that damage).

Oh wow. Thief is my least familiar profession. I thought preparations are venoms. I only played Thief sometime within my first year of Guild Wars 2, which was around release. So I never used preparations.

I would welcome this change for all the traps in the game, and let’s get rid of trapper rune in favor of preparations rune. Compensation can be given, of course. Alternatively, maybe just change them to be tricks or deception, and pure melee. It probably won’t affect most of gameplay anyway.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 minutes ago, godfat.2604 said:

Oh wow. Thief is my least familiar profession. I thought preparations are venoms. I only played Thief sometime within my first year of Guild Wars 2, which was around release. So I never used preparations.

I would welcome this change for all the traps in the game, and let’s get rid of trapper rune in favor of preparations rune. Compensation can be given, of course. Alternatively, maybe just change them to be tricks or deception, and pure melee. It probably won’t affect most of gameplay anyway.

Oh, yeah, this is a complicated one.

Preparations in Guild Wars 1 were mainly (pretty much exclusively) used by rangers and... pretty much behaved similarly to venoms. In Guild Wars 2 - around release, preparations as a skill type didn't exist. Thieves had traps instead.

A couple of years ago, though, they reworked thief traps, generally making them more powerful in effect, at the cost of making them less convenient to use. Basically, they were given the aforementioned setup time, and even after that delay, they don't trigger immediately, but need to be activated manually by the thief to trigger. Now, many of the effects are such that you don't necessarily WANT them to trigger as soon as someone touches them, as is the case for ranger and dragonhunter traps, so it makes sense, so it does make them more complicated to use.

Since their mechanics were now so different to traps (and possibly because they wanted to take trapper runes away from thieves) they were renamed to preparations, but they have basically nothing in common with GW1 preparations.

I'd probably still have other traps trigger automatically rather than require a manual trigger, but having a delay before they're primed would help in making them feel more like a trap rather than a PBAoE that happens to remain lying in wait if it doesn't happen to hit anyone right away.

[godfat.2604]

21 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Preparations in Guild Wars 1 were mainly (pretty much exclusively) used by rangers and... pretty much behaved similarly to venoms.

Haha, you knew why I connected it to venoms.

27 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'd probably still have other traps trigger automatically rather than require a manual trigger, but having a delay before they're primed would help in making them feel more like a trap rather than a PBAoE that happens to remain lying in wait if it doesn't happen to hit anyone right away.

Triggering them manually or automatically have different advantages. If they can only be triggered manually, then Phase Smash won’t be able to clear them, and it would be possible to wait for the best moment to trigger it, instead of getting triggered by someone just passing by.

All that said, I don’t mean I want them to be triggered manually (I actually like delayed effects better, like Chronomancer’s well, even though it’s really weak and should absolutely be buffed). As I mentioned in my first post, I think the idea of traps shouldn’t be introduced in the first place. It doesn’t have fun interactions in competitive modes in an action based game. I feel like the reasons they made traps almost instantly for Dragonhunter did tell that they knew actual “traps” is not fun at all. They almost always lean toward to flavor/theme over actual effects or fun.

[Guy.9207]

I can only hope Warrior is more fun to play, especially Spellbreaker, which I find to be rather...underwhelming.

Oh and also plz buff Guard Hammer, thanks.

[Jski.6180]

So far it seems hyper rip for pve tempest at least lets see how it carrys over to wvw / spvp. Per the update on war and ranger coming down the line (seeing how they are buffing core war and core ranger for support so they are buffing all of these 2 classes elite spec as well and nothing for core ele or even its elite spec atm.)

[Iustitian.9176]

Skills and other stuff that should be reworked: 

 

Warrior
Weapon Skills: Greatsword, Longbow, Shield (shorter cooldowns), Harpoon gun
Utility Skills: "Fear Me!", Signet of Rage
Traits: some traits of every traitline
Spellbreaker: Offhand dagger, all meditations skills, half of the traits, should bring some condition damage possibilities
Bladesworn: Pistol 4 (pull skill like scorpion wire would be nice), Gunsaber (stronger attacks and more ammunnition, but longer cooldowns), Dragonspike Mine skill, all master traits

 

Guardian
Mechanics: Core virtues active effects (should be a bit stronger)
Weapon Skills: Hammer, "Chains of light" scepter skill
Utility Skills: all healing skills, all meditation skills
Traits: some traits of every traitline
Dragonhunter: whole traitline (willbender is the new big damage dealer now; dragonhunter need a new focus)
Firebrand: whole traitline (away from the clear "must haves")

 

Revenant
Mechanics: 5th core legend and a condition range weapon as basic weapon
Weapon Skills: "Coalescence of Ruin" hammer skill (could do more damage on move impared or disabled enemies), downstate skill 3
Traits: "Pact of Pain", whole retribution traitline, whole salvation traitline
Herald: whole traitline, shield
Renegade: upper traits

 

Ranger
Mechanics: All pets
Weapon Skills: Greatsword skill 2 & 5, longbow skill 3, shortbow skill 4 & 5, sword skill 3
Utility Skills: "Troll Unguent" healing skill, all command skills, all signet skills, "Spike trap" trap skill, "Entangle" elite skill, "Strength of the Pack!" elite skill
Traits: whole markmanship traitline, parts of the wilderness survival traitline, whole nature magic traitline, whole beastmastery traitline
Druid: whole traitline (healing/self defense/condition damage options!), avatar form (more tactical use for a longer duration, not only enter and spam buttons to heal), staff, all glyphs
Soulbeast: whole traitline (direkt damage/condition damage/defense; like berserker traitline; cc focus is for untamed)
Untamed: Whole rework (untamed pet = condition damage skills and improvement / untamed player = direct damage improvement and more at disabled enemies), cantrips effect the unleashed part (player OR pet) with different effects, unleash give new weapon skills for skill 4 and 5 instead of skill 1 as ambush for a better usability

 

Engineer
Mechanics: "Orbital Strike" elite toolbelt skill, "Med Pack Drop" elite toolbelt skill, activating kits cost enduranc
Weapon Skills: shield skill 5, Mortar Kit skill 2, Elixir Gun skills 2 and 4, Flamethrower skill 5, Tool Kit skill 2 and 3, downstate skill 3
Utility Skills: elixir skills and gadget skills get shorter cooldowns, tower skills get more range, "Supply Crate" elite skill, "Elixir X" elite skil
Traits: some traits of explosives traitline (Aim-Assisted Rocket and Flashbang), whole firearms traitline, whole inventions traitline, some traits of alchemy traitline (invigorating speed, protection injection, iron blooded), whole tools traitline
Holosmith: Sword, Photon Wall skill, Hard Light Arena skill, "Flash Spark" toolbelt skill, "Prismatic Singularity" toolbelt skill, all master traits, "Thermal Release Valve" trait

 

Thief
Mechanics: Stolen skills should have 2 counts as basic (not for daredevil or deadeye)
Weapon Skills: Shortbow skills 2 and 5, sword skill 3 with pistol should give an option for stealth (leap or explosion finisher), Harpoon gun, Spear skills 4 and 5, downstate skills
Utility Skills: All healing skills, "Blinding Powder" skill (shorter cooldown), venom skills
Traits: "Even the Odds" trait, whole critical strikes traitline, all shadow arts master traits, "Rending Shade" trait, whole acrobatics traitline
Daredevil: Staff, "Impairing Daggers" skill, "Impact Strike" elite skill, "Excapiest's Fortitude" trait, "Impacting Disruption" trait
Deadeye: Whole rework (should be the strongest single target damage dealer in game)
Specter: Rework minor traits (too focused on scepter and stealth), "Amplified Siphoning" trait, "Shadestep" trait

 

Necromancer
Mechanics: Shroud skill 2 and 5 (more condition damage)
Weapon Skills: staff skill 2 and 3, axe skill 3, dagger skill 5, warhorn skill 4 should remove boons too
Utility Skills: some minions should do condition damage (bone fiend and flesh wurm), "Lich Form" elite skill (lower cooldown, more skills to drain lifepoints and life force)
Traits: "Spiteful Renewal" trait, "Dread" trait dont work with harbinger, "Spiteful Spirit" trait need buff, death magic traitline (all trait not supporting minions), "Banshee's Wail" trait, "Unhole Martyr" trait, "Transfusion" trait dont work with harbinger
Reaper: Shroud skills should get more life force generation options so it has a higher duration for more damage, whole traitline rework
Scourge: torch skill 5 should generate life force instead of 4, torch skill 4 should corrupt a boon on each enemy, whole punishment skills rework, "Herald of Sorrow" trait, "Feed from Corruption" trait (second effect)
Harbinger: Shroud skill 3 should do fear and not consume blight, Shroud skill 4 should not deal Torment, Pistol skill 2

 

Elementalist
Mechanics: New F5 skill "Elemental Renewal" to recharge weapon skills and set other attunements to cooldown OR new F5 skill "Conjure Weapon" to get the conjure weapon of the active element for a short duration (and elementalist get a new skill typ instead; meditation skills) -> only for core elementalist
Utility Skills: all arcane skills (should have an additional effect based on active element without extra traits), all cantrip skills (lower cooldowns), all conjure skills (shall be strong weapon bundles only for elementalist with fast cast time and low cooldown), "Signet of Water" skill, downstate skills
Traits: whole traitline reworks (only major traits), arcane traitline to improve the new F5 skill and attunement switching
Weaver: Remove stability from dual attacks, stance skill rework, whole traitline rework (new "weaver veil" trait for barrier and stability after dual attacks, remove "Elements of Rage" because weaver is not interested in being attuned in only one element)
Catalyst: "Elemental Epitome" trait rework (Get "Elemental Empowerment" buff every second while you are inside a Jade Sphere field or you do a blast finisher inside a combo field), all aura based traits change to traits that improve combo finisher effects, "Wind Slam" air weapon attack (super boring!), "Stonestrike" earth weapon attack (should deal bleeding), new elite skill

Mesmer
Utility Skills: "Mirror" healing skill, "Decoy" skill (lower cooldown), "Veil" skill (lower cooldown), "Illusion of Life" skill, "Mantra of Concentration" skill (could give alacrity too), "Signet of Humility" elite signet skill (Passive effect is too weak), downstate skill 3
Traits: "Rending Shatter" trait, "Furious Interruption" trait, "Vicious Expression" trait (too strong in comparison to the other grandmaster traits), whole chaos traitline, whole inspiration traitline 
Chronomancer: Whole well skills rework (easier buffs), "All's Well That Ends Well" trait additional grant quickness, "Flow of Time" trait give 2 seconds alacrity per shattered clone, "Lost Time" trait additional share alacrity to nearby allies. 
Mirage: Shatter skills should get a new mechanic (a shatter skill increase the cooldown of other shatter skills by 10 seconds but grant the effect from the "Infinite Horizon" trait" for one use for 30 seconds), whole traitline rework (buffs for mirage mirrors), "Mirage Advance" skill
Virtuoso: Dagger skill 3 should block projectiles (blocks are an imporant part of some virtuoso traits), "Psychic Force" skill, "Thousand Cuts" elite skill (boring!), "Bloodsong" trait (too strong)

[Black Teagan.9215]

As a main thief for 6 years (in my 10 years in gw2) I vote for thief.

 

Since the beta this class is build too much around the most broken mechanic in this game: Stealth. (Of course stealth also needs a overhaul)

Because of it thieves became the most targeted class for nerfs until they reached a point they become nearly useless in this game, force them even further into using it and reduce the number of playable builds even further.

Things got better since they learn to split the skills between the gamemodes, thieves are still too much forced to use stealth to survive and turn into an annoying one trick pony, especially when you fight against it.

While thieves have with Stealth Arts is a strong and useful traitline, traitlines like Acrobatics are still underpowered and rightly ignored. Tell me if you use it or know a thief players who use it, because I don't.

 

The specter specialisation was a good idea to give players more playstyle options and I hope they take some (more) inspiration from the Assassine in GW1 should they decide to rework it.

It might not have been a difficult class, but it was still complex enough to allow many playstyles and good survivabilities, without any need to stealth himself.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Iustitian.9176 said:

Firebrand: whole traitline (away from the clear "must haves")

 

The only one that's a real "must have" is Loremaster (I have seen a build that used Stoic Demeanour, but it's niche).

I think there is an issue, though, in that the tome traits in general buff all of the tomes, which means that traits taken to support one tome use end up incidentally buffing the others. It could probably do with Archivist of Whispers, Legendary Lore, and Loremaster consolidated into one trait, and then split up again into a separate grandmaster trait for each tome. So any firebrand build would have one tome that they really specialise in, while the other two remain baseline (and you lose the virtue passive for those two tomes if you use them). The adept and master traits that are removed as a result should be replaced by traits that are build-agnostic in their function (as in, not assuming that you're using a specific weapon (axe), skill group (mantras) or role (quickness application).

[Puck.3697]

The only thing I want from the june patch really is to see the totem pole change. 

Knock guardian and necro to the bottom and get a different pair at the top for a while. It's boring when every game has had the same proffessions played for god knows how many years. 

[draxynnic.3719]

19 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

The only thing I want from the june patch really is to see the totem pole change. 

Knock guardian and necro to the bottom and get a different pair at the top for a while. It's boring when every game has had the same proffessions played for god knows how many years. 

I think it's healthier knock it over and get it as close to flat as reasonably practical rather than invalidating the effort of players getting equipment together for builds by overturning it. Not everyone has full legendary, and it's a massive PITA to go to the effort of getting ascended gear, runes, and possibly agony resistance together for a build only for it to die next patch.

I think some people who seem to expect group composition to change overnight are vastly underestimating how much of an investment a gearset can be for some players. 

[Puck.3697]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think it's healthier knock it over and get it as close to flat as reasonably practical rather than invalidating the effort of players getting equipment together for builds by overturning it. Not everyone has full legendary, and it's a massive PITA to go to the effort of getting ascended gear, runes, and possibly agony resistance together for a build only for it to die next patch.

I think some people who seem to expect group composition to change overnight are vastly underestimating how much of an investment a gearset can be for some players. 

It will never be flat regardless of what happens there will be winners. 

I'm not saying I want them unviable what I'm saying is I want them to not be the meta for once. 

And this was more from a pvp point of view. Where gear sets and characters aren't relevant. 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[draxynnic.3719]

2 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

It will never be flat regardless of what happens there will be winners. 

I'm not saying I want them unviable what I'm saying is I want them to not be the meta for once. 

And this was more from a pvp point of view. Where gear sets and characters aren't relevant. 

That's an important clarification to make. There's always going to be someone on top - hence why I said "as close to flat as reasonably practical" - but I think PvP is flat-ter than high-end PvE. The latter is in a state where being at the bottom really is... well, maybe not completely unviable, but certainly in a region where I wouldn't want anything to be.

Mind you, even then, I'd prefer long term balance to be at least trying to get towards flat - a bit of shallow see-sawing will probably be inevitable, but I don't think complete inversions should be a goal.

Have to say that I'd like to see Warrior float up a bit for a while.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

On 6/19/2022 at 1:05 PM, Iustitian.9176 said:

Skills and other stuff that should be reworked: 

 

Ranger

...
Weapon Skills: Greatsword skill 2 & 5, longbow skill 3, shortbow skill 4 & 5, sword skill 3
Utility Skills: "Troll Unguent" healing skill, all command skills, all signet skills, "Spike trap" trap skill, "Entangle" elite skill, "Strength of the Pack!" elite skill
Traits: whole markmanship traitline, parts of the wilderness survival traitline, whole nature magic traitline, whole beastmastery traitline

...

 

Just to be super focused for a second here...

I don't often used the 'confused' face....but what even is this?

It kinda sounds like you cherry picked things you think may be OP (gs 2, troll ungent, entangle), but including stuff like SotP I can't tell because that skill is bad so maybe you think it needs a buff...and then you start including every traitline ranger has, so can't tell which ones you think may be OP and which ones arent'....

Also how are you going to include a bunch of weapons skills and leave out OH axe #4? 😂

[godofcows.2451]

*shrugs*.

My two cents, ready a cylinder tank of copium by the bedside. 

[Nyel.1843]

They posted a preview of the upcoming changes: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/arenanet-studio-update-june-2022/

 

For professions this is a sneak peak:

 

• Elementalist: Tempest will now be able to provide party alacrity, with a rework to their grandmaster trait Lucid Singularity.
• Engineer: We’ve updated multiple rifle weapon skills to better support engineer power damage builds, and we’ve adjusted minimum and maximum ranges on several range-limited traits (such as Aim-Assisted Rocket, High Caliber, and No Scope) so that there’s an effective range in which all of them can function together.
• Guardian: We’ve updated guardian’s signet skills, including a significant improvement to Signet of Resolve.
• Mesmer: Chronomancers will be able to effectively choose to provide either quickness or alacrity based on their grandmaster trait selection and do so more easily, with increased radius and application methods that are easier to keep up with moving groups.
• Necromancer: Updates to warhorn and the related trait Banshee’s Wail will improve the necromancer’s ability to provide healing to allies.
• Ranger: Spirit skills have been overhauled to provide boons and allow rangers to opt in to providing alacrity with the trait Nature’s Vengeance.
• Revenant: Legendary Centaur Stance skills and Salvation traits have been updated to better support healing roles, while herald will now be able to provide quickness to allies with the trait Draconic Echo.
• Thief: The Shadow Arts trait line has been updated to provide better support options to synergize with specter, as well as updated options for stealth and defensive gameplay.
• Warrior: Banner skills have been overhauled to provide boons. Through deploying banners, an update to warhorn’s Charge skill, and the Tactics trait Martial Cadence, warriors can provide quickness to allies.