Guild Wars 2 Balance Philosophy

[Gaiawolf.8261]

34 minutes ago, Darth Pooh.5638 said:

Seeing how important quickness and alacrity are, i'd much rather have these two boons replaced by something else and make it so that all weapons get an increase in attack speed and all skills a decrease in cooldown. Especially in instanced PvE, the game has too much focus on keeping up these two boons. Nothing in the game should have the amount of influence on end-results that Quickness and Alacrity have. They're mandatory now, so much so that balancing started to pivot around these two boons. I'd much rather have it so that gameplay revolves around cleverly using existing mechanics than to spam 2 boons and win.

I'm not a fan of certain boons being so good that they feel required for a group perform well. Quickness is the king of these, and I'm not a fan of the perma-increased speed either. Quickness at best should provide a short burst for clutch actions. I'd be happy if it was severely reduced with nothing to replace it. The current combat speed is too fast already and requires quick reactions. Quickness just makes it silly, especially for casual and LI players.

[Carambola.1273]

Arenanet,

 

Stop breaking my stuff. Fix fb and put it back as it was before u break it.

 

Thanks

[apharma.3741]

On 12/3/2022 at 5:16 PM, Darth Pooh.5638 said:

Seeing how important quickness and alacrity are, i'd much rather have these two boons replaced by something else and make it so that all weapons get an increase in attack speed and all skills a decrease in cooldown. Especially in instanced PvE, the game has too much focus on keeping up these two boons. Nothing in the game should have the amount of influence on end-results that Quickness and Alacrity have. They're mandatory now, so much so that balancing started to pivot around these two boons. I'd much rather have it so that gameplay revolves around cleverly using existing mechanics than to spam 2 boons and win.

I think 25 might tops quickness or alacrity in terms of singular boons, it's just we're all so used to 25 might and perma fury without trying we forget the original days of elementalist blasting 25 might and granting fury via the trait. Back then quickness was very rare, on only a few skills for personal use and came with drawbacks. The only sources of group quickness was timewarp and I think a skill on the guardian elite tome.

We had the trait and skills rework before HoT and guardians got feel my wrath which with some boon duration, the CD reduction trait and stacking 5 of them you could get perma quickness. What you usually saw was a couple of guards to provide some quickness and burst the boss down but you could run a fun 5 man hammer guard group that was really durable and easy. About this time we also got phalanx strength warrior for stacking might and ele could passively stack fury.

Then we got HoT and chrono, this opened the door to perma group quickness and this new boon alacrity. Since then damage has taken off massively from the days when most groups were just trying to get 25 might and fury. However I think 750 power and condition damage is still the strongest to get, it's just it's also almost passively done now. You would have to ask DnT or someone who had the ToS breaking dps meters back in core what we used to get but iirc we used to do about half the damage we do now with inflated skill modifiers, quickness and alacrity.

 

I just like telling stories btw, I don't know if you knew the history or not.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

I think 25 might tops quickness or alacrity in terms of singular boons, it's just we're all so used to 25 might and perma fury without trying we forget the original days of elementalist blasting 25 might and granting fury via the trait. Back then quickness was very rare, on only a few skills for personal use and came with drawbacks. The only sources of group quickness was timewarp and I think a skill on the guardian elite tome.

We had the trait and skills rework before HoT and guardians got feel my wrath which with some boon duration, the CD reduction trait and stacking 5 of them you could get perma quickness. What you usually saw was a couple of guards to provide some quickness and burst the boss down but you could run a fun 5 man hammer guard group that was really durable and easy. About this time we also got phalanx strength warrior for stacking might and ele could passively stack fury.

Then we got HoT and chrono, this opened the door to perma group quickness and this new boon alacrity. Since then damage has taken off massively from the days when most groups were just trying to get 25 might and fury. However I think 750 power and condition damage is still the strongest to get, it's just it's also almost passively done now. You would have to ask DnT or someone who had the ToS breaking dps meters back in core what we used to get but iirc we used to do about half the damage we do now with inflated skill modifiers, quickness and alacrity.

 

I just like telling stories btw, I don't know if you knew the history or not.

i mean from looking at Hardstuck's Mela thief guy, he took nothing but thieves PRE-EoD announcement of specter...got all the way from w1 vale to SH, then either gave up or couldnt pass it...but with specter now, we have that ability to go all the way...no quickness really...it just HELPS but not required. alacrity helps too with specter ! EcK gonna beat his record...mark my words

[apharma.3741]

15 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

i mean from looking at Hardstuck's Mela thief guy, he took nothing but thieves PRE-EoD announcement of specter...got all the way from w1 vale to SH, then either gave up or couldnt pass it...but with specter now, we have that ability to go all the way...no quickness really...it just HELPS but not required. alacrity helps too with specter ! EcK gonna beat his record...mark my words

Oh definitly, quickness helps with cast/aftercast animations and alacrity is just a global CD reduction allowing you to not only get more skills off in a time frame but also focus down to the most damaging skills with less filler and less effect generators needed. Globally I'd say alacrity and might are the most important due to how much they effect, it's just alacrity is harder to quantify as you'd have to develop 2 different groups and rotations around the boon to trully measure it's effect.

 

Golem figures solo wouldn't be indicative of raid performance as both these boons boost all builds, from support to dps.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

3 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

Oh definitly, quickness helps with cast/aftercast animations and alacrity is just a global CD reduction allowing you to not only get more skills off in a time frame but also focus down to the most damaging skills with less filler and less effect generators needed. Globally I'd say alacrity and might are the most important due to how much they effect, it's just alacrity is harder to quantify as you'd have to develop 2 different groups and rotations around the boon to trully measure it's effect.

 

Golem figures solo wouldn't be indicative of raid performance as both these boons boost all builds, from support to dps.

actually did some testing already via pve with 2 (i think:viper specters)....2 specters per subgroup in a squad of 10 on same subgroup was able to keep alacrity going and still run effective condition damage...with WoB and the CC well + heal well, thats all...they benefitted each others cd to rid themselves of the burden of forced: not utility utility skills by helping each other, this means we didnt have to take a dedicated alacrity specter! meaning more DPS slots!

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Lithril Ashwalker.6230

[Moradorin.6217]

Still waiting for Anet to follow through on rolling back trade-offs related to pvp/wvw vs pve split mode trade-offs. Mirage still only has one dodge in 2 game modes and 1 in the 3rd game mode.

Mirage the ONLY spec with this type of split mode funtionality still in game. Its also the only class with one dodge now that Vindicator was given two even tho it was designed for one and Mirage was designed to have 2 in all 3 modes.

 

THIS IMO is a SERIOUS fail Anet. Get ur Kittens together.

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

To reflect the balance philosophy of ANet, that only specialisations have access to one of the primary boons, quickness or alac, they should update this for Ranger. 

I think, the best solution would be, to change natural vengance to the following:

For all specs, the trait is reverted to its former version without granting alacrity. Only when druid is active, the trait changes to it's actual version and grants alac by using spirit aktive skills. 

 

This will help to better balance other e-specs.

Just my 2 ct.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

daredevil needs group quickness, specter keeps alacrity albeit better use of the utility, cant use the wells outside of utilities really, like @MightyTeapot.2093stated in his videos...deadeye can do whatever honestly

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 12/2/2022 at 12:39 PM, Mik.3401 said:

Exactly, the very concept of gw2 classes is disabling the game from being good. And the balance nightmare will only get worse with each next set of especs. They really did f themselves hard with it.

The dual class system in gw1 is Just so exciting even now after like 20 years

What you say is true and has already happened. It's easier to just pump out stuff than fix what's already there. Still, I've not played gw2 (or any mmos) for months. I've lost interest and am pretty much done with them.

Heh! I'm looking at recent posts and it's funny. A warrior build is apparently making the rounds and people just can't seem to handle it! The build in question is really nothing special (hammer spellbreaker w/ defense tree). But the WAY people talk about how "OP" it is makes you think it's such a revelation!

[prototypedragon.1406]

Another question that does come to mind is how do small scale groups defend towers in World versus World anymore? especially on less populated servers that get matched up against more populated ones with outnumbered match ups? Arrow carts damage was nerfed into the ground which at one time 5 arrow carts could actually pressure attacking zergs and literally lin then to a spot. Coupled with the fact that the number of targets per specific skills and abilities had been nerfed to help with server lag. But in the end presents no counter play to larger enemy forces and benefits them more then smaller groups that try to defend. Is it better to just hop ship from every server and sneak away into t1 and buy gems from our greedy overlords and walk all over the less populated? The internal game of greedy kitten and mouse. Anet claims that they want people to fight each other in the mythical system that they had proclaimed they are working on to award those that fight.  But wasn't this same project shelved entirely without a word? When was the last update of improvements of the new alliance system or if they had made slight if any advancements with it? Yes communication has been improved some but isn't this the official forums? Should it not see more use? It's like the entire corporation is embrassed by their own forums that they themselves had created. After 10 years in guildwars2 many hope for the best for this game and many of us have been extremely patient regarding many things over the years. After you all get done relaxing get the ball rolling and work towards pushing the game forward not backwards for vets, seasoned, and new players alike. Bring forth enjoyment through world versus world where any tactical combat can happen or occur. If world versus world has a low budget, siege weapon skins of every type could build some money on the side.Catapults are an example during Wintersday you guys literally made those that did not have catapult mastery launch presents. Adding more world versus world abilities. For example being to deconstruct siege for more supply based upon who had placed the siege has to start the dismantling option for a return of supply. Which you would gain 50 percent of that supply back but could have different tiers of returnable supply. 

[Moradorin.6217]

Why is Mirage STILL the only class with one dodge??

[Loic.9657]

 

We don't know what @Cal Cohen.2358 your philosophy mean.

But we know that you accidentally said in the discord that the mesmer class should not perform well in PVP, it should be poor.

I mean, I don't know why us mesmer especially mirage players are treated like this.

 

"Small cut", "sacrifice", you keep trying to use some seemingly innocent words to try your best to nerf mirage's performance in all aspects. Even though it needs to have superb skills rotation and low mistake tolerance if it wants to perform well in PVE. In PVP, it's just a piece of trash , you have no reason to use it since there are other classes that outperform it in every way except that you love this class.

 

• Bugs never fix.
• The only one that still use the same professional skills as core in the entire game although these skills doesn't fit it's nature but only a way to consume the clones. (Shouldn't professional skills be in line with the nature of the profession?)
• Bad trait design like 1.5s vigor normad's endurance, dune cloak (what is this? ridiculous gs trait that make us laugh?) etc.
• Bad virtuoso dagger skill design like high school student degree.
• Mirage one dodge that doesn't make sense. (What makes you think that mirage a dodge is enough? Each distortion that can always trigger 3 paper clones? Each mirror on the ground can be touched one by one at the right time? Or sacrifice a trait to inspiration just for more distortion and sustain because you let our situation bad? And you only realized vindicator's one dodge even though it's design for it but still let mirage keep suffering? Huh?)

And there's more.

 

 

There are many reasonable suggestions and voices in the mesmer forum, please don't ignore it and stop trying your best to ruin this class.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Loic.9657

[AshkyLicious.4729]

3 hours ago, Loic.9657 said:

 

We don't know what your @Cal Cohen.2358 philosophy mean.

But we know that you accidentally said in the discord that the mesmer class should not perform well in PVP, it should be poor.

I mean, I don't know why us mesmer especially mirage players are treated like this.

"Small cut", "sacrifice", you keep trying to use some seemingly innocent words to try your best to nerf mirage's performance in all aspects. Even though it needs to have superb skills rotation and low error tolerance if it wants to perform well in PVE, in PVP it's just a piece of trash , you have no reason to use it since there are other classes that outperform it in every way except that you love this class.

• Bugs never fix.
• The only one that still use the same professional skills as core in the entire game although these skills doesn't fit it's nature but only a way to consume the clones. (Shouldn't professional skills be in line with the nature of the profession?)
• Bad trait design like 1.5s vigor normad's endurance, dune cloak (what is this? ridiculous gs trait that make us laugh?)
• Bad virtuoso dagger skill design like high school student degree.
• Mirage one dodge that doesn't make sense. (What makes you think that mirage a dodge is enough? Each distortion that can always trigger 3 paper clones? Each mirror on the ground can be touched one by one at the right time? Or sacrifice a trait to inspiration just for more distortion and sustain because you let our situation bad? And you only realized vindicator's one dodge even though it's design for it but still let mirage keep suffering. Huh?)

There are many reasonable suggestions and voices in the mesmer forum, please don't ignore it, and continue to try your best to ruin this class.

Perfectly written! Thank you for this Loic!

@Cal Cohen.2358, we Mesmer players (especially Mirage players) really deserve a detailed explanation from you and your team on why the treatment of Mirage and Mesmer has been so poor and bad. Your behaviour towards this class is literally unprofessional in every single way, and what's worse is that you have let this go on for so many years on top of that.

Many of us complained/complains about this, so you can't just keep ignoring this matter the way you've done before. It's time to come clean!

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by AshkyLicious.4729

[Veprovina.4876]

39 minutes ago, AshkyLicious.4729 said:

Perfectly written! Thank you for this Loic!

@Cal Cohen.2358, we Mesmer players (especially Mirage players) really deserve a detailed explanation from you and your team on why the treatment of Mirage and Mesmer has been so poor and bad. You're behaviour towards this class is literally unprofessional in every single way, and what's worse is that you have let this go on for so many years on top of that.

Many of us complained/complains about this, so you can't just keep ignoring this matter the way you've done before. It's time to come clean!

This - i feel - is the core of the issue! Well said!

 

We mesmer main players are having a very bad experience compared to other professions and we know this is because we are being singled out by the balance team to intentionally diminish our enjoyment of the game with nerfs. There have been countless leaks of who exactly said what so i'm not going into this, but this behaviour is unprofessional and borders on bullying.

 

Just because one balance developer doesn't like our profession. 

 

And the fact that his has been going on for so long is also unacceptable. We had enough. 

 

Why is there such drama being dragged on for so long about returning the second dodge to mirage - after so many nerfs that the second dodge won't even bring the class to playable?

 

Why are we always singled out as the enemy and nerfed so much when things like Firebrand, Mechanist and even certain Elementalist configurations being literally overpowered in every mode? Mesmer was NEVER at that level, even when Chrono was new and considered good, yet for some reason, when mesmers by chance get a bit of playability we're run into the ground under the guise of "it's overpowered". How? How is anything on mesmer overpowered? Traits destroyed, bugs, low damage output in full DPS gear, destroyed boon application, destroyed confusion and torment and let's not forget - one dodge in WvW and PvP!

 

Vindicator - who was designed around one dodge - got two dodges! And they're in a way better place than Mirage is, even when they had one dodge. So why are we still being kept at one? The entire game is designed aorund the ability to use dodge 2 times.

 

Why are we being singled out this way?

This feels like a personal vendetta against our profession at this point.

 

Let me remind you that real people are behind every character being played in this game. With real feelings.

Your personal vendetta agains the class is going against real people. 

We deserve to have as much fun as anyone else!

 

I bought the game when it came out.

I bought ever expansion when it came out.

I have all the living world content.

I bought gems.

 

Why am i not allowed to have as much fun as the person spent as much money on the game as i hve, but perfers to play Firebrand or Mechanist?

 

It doesn't feel right.

 

Please treat us better, we're real people as well, not just some "game mechanic" that you don't like or don't know what to do with.

[Moradorin.6217]

 

@Cal Cohen.2358

To put it simply. Mirage is the ONLY SPEC WITH ONE DODGE NOW THAT VINDICATOR HAS TWO.

 

Mirage was designed for two dodges.

 

Mirage is the ONLY class with a split-mode functionality, in which, you get a different number of dodges in pvp/wvw vs playing in pve.

 

In FACT, its the only class with any type of functional per mode differences still in place (TRADE-OFFS)

 

Try following through on what you say you will do Anet and get rid of the split-mode trade offs like you did with Soulbeast, Druid, Chrono, Everyone, BUT Mirage.... Seriously.

 

Can you speak for yourself Cal? I have a hard time seeing the balance team and its messaging sounds credible to anyone objective at this point. Granted, many will come out to support because its the support team and people fear authority.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Moradorin.6217

[apharma.3741]

On 1/5/2023 at 3:25 PM, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

actually did some testing already via pve with 2 (i think:viper specters)....2 specters per subgroup in a squad of 10 on same subgroup was able to keep alacrity going and still run effective condition damage...with WoB and the CC well + heal well, thats all...they benefitted each others cd to rid themselves of the burden of forced: not utility utility skills by helping each other, this means we didnt have to take a dedicated alacrity specter! meaning more DPS slots!

 

Oh that's really interesting, that's always been the ultimate goal of pushing kill times, all slots are either DPS or mostly DPS sacrificing only as much as you need to keep certain boons up 100%...or even just long enough for the fight or phasing.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Lies on player feedback. Thief is neglected severely for past decade. Your metrics should determine this

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

9 hours ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

Lies on player feedback. Thief is neglected severely for past decade. Your metrics should determine this

I don't exactly think that's true. They do listen to feedback. The proposed range decrease on DE being revered and DE kneel being improved are some examples.

I do agree that there are some issues or outstanding bugs that have been there for a very long time for thief, but I also understand changes or improvements will take time.

Edited January 15 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Zephire.8049]

1 hour ago, ZeroTheRuler.7415 said:

I don't exactly think that's true. They do listen to feedback. The proposed range decrease on DE being revered and DE kneel being improved are some examples.

I do agree that there are some issues or outstanding bugs that have been there for a very long time for thief, but I also understand changes or improvements will take time.

They rarely listen to feedback and only when it suits them. There were over 50 pages of feedback for the June 2023 balance patch, not including all the numerous individual threads on here or feedback on other websites, and they listened to maybe one thing while going ahead with everything else then acted surprised when some of the changes the feedback said were going to be terrible were... terrible.

It should also be noted the DE kneel change, depending on what specific change you're talking about, happened two balance teams ago. The current balance team which has shown repeatedly they do not listen to feedback even when they directly ask for it.

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

28 minutes ago, Zephire.8049 said:

They rarely listen to feedback and only when it suits them. There were over 50 pages of feedback for the June 2023 balance patch, not including all the numerous individual threads on here or feedback on other websites, and they listened to maybe one thing while going ahead with everything else then acted surprised when some of the changes the feedback said were going to be terrible were... terrible.

It should also be noted the DE kneel change, depending on what specific change you're talking about, happened two balance teams ago. The current balance team which has shown repeatedly they do not listen to feedback even when they directly ask for it.

To be specific it was the changes the current team made. I prefer to be more optimistic. Also for thief specifically things have been made better since the new team came in place for the most part.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2022-11-29#Thief

Edited January 15 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Phyb.6704]

Ummm. Your balance has always been pretty bad. The volume has been about 1/10th of what is needed and you go WAY off target. Your literally buffing condi rev when a celestail rev can already solo a cm t4 fractal silent surf. Yeah. Your celestial stat set has always caused problems. There is just so many problems. Even the damage itself needing to be squished. We all know none of this philosophy is true. Its just a show so we feel you're on track. Actions speak louder then words. Actions tell us you do not care. 

[cryorion.9532]

This post didn't age well... what the hell even happened to Power Budget?

"For a given skill or trait, there is a "power budget" that can be spent on individual elements. A skill that only deals damage can deal X damage, but if that skill also applies conditions or provides other value, then it needs to deal less damage to stay within budget. In the context of a weapon, the budget is considered across the entire kit, so some skills may be weaker than average in order to allocate more power to a particular skill. Budget can also vary depending on a skill's cooldown; skills with longer cooldowns are generally more powerful."

So this is why e.g. Ranger is getting ammo on Barrage skill on longbow weapon in WvW, huh? 🤦‍♂️

[prototypedragon.1406]

2 hours ago, cryorion.9532 said:

This post didn't age well... what the hell even happened to Power Budget?

"For a given skill or trait, there is a "power budget" that can be spent on individual elements. A skill that only deals damage can deal X damage, but if that skill also applies conditions or provides other value, then it needs to deal less damage to stay within budget. In the context of a weapon, the budget is considered across the entire kit, so some skills may be weaker than average in order to allocate more power to a particular skill. Budget can also vary depending on a skill's cooldown; skills with longer cooldowns are generally more powerful."

So this is why e.g. Ranger is getting ammo on Barrage skill on longbow weapon in WvW, huh? 🤦‍♂️

I thought the power budget went to that glider they released that ended up making them disable gliding in WvW 🤣🍿

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

17 hours ago, cryorion.9532 said:

This post didn't age well... what the hell even happened to Power Budget?

"For a given skill or trait, there is a "power budget" that can be spent on individual elements. A skill that only deals damage can deal X damage, but if that skill also applies conditions or provides other value, then it needs to deal less damage to stay within budget. In the context of a weapon, the budget is considered across the entire kit, so some skills may be weaker than average in order to allocate more power to a particular skill. Budget can also vary depending on a skill's cooldown; skills with longer cooldowns are generally more powerful."

So this is why e.g. Ranger is getting ammo on Barrage skill on longbow weapon in WvW, huh? 🤦‍♂️

I really want to see them publish what metrics they use to gauge said power budget.