PvP/WvW Skill Split Release

[darwinslittlehelper.7182]

@Auturgist.8256 said:

@darwinslittlehelper.7182 said:One more thing. WvW has one kill=one rally. PvP needs this as well. Multiple rezzes off one kill is ridiculous in a 5 man to a side game. Looks terrible as well.One kill=one rally is fine.

I'm not sure what the algorithm is for who rallies in WvW, but in sPvP, it should be the person closest to dying, so that it's consistently impactful.

Agreed! I believe in wvw it is the closest physically, but I could be wrong. I also think they should have it be limited to close range. No more rezzing from the death of someone you previously hit while he is halfway across the map from you when he dies. The death should be no more than from a long range shot. At most.

[perko.8309]

Best part of these notes: better dev-player communication! Oh has this been sorely missed recently. WD ANet!!Next best part: I like the concept. Nerf the meta builds to bring back some diversity.
General comments:

• Most (all) of the proposed buffs to underused skills can safely be applied across the entire game
• Try extra hard to find more buffs to underused skills, especially on the classes you hit hardest
• Changing 3rd strike on AA attacks is barely noticeable (low frequency), but 1st and 2nd strike is (don't just avg all 3 to approximate effect of change)

Class comments (on those I'm familiar):Druid:

• Stealth on Celestial Shadow too strong; nerf it and no need to increase CD on CA
• Bring back 2 condi removal on Verdant Etching (it's not meta)
• Why nerf staff damage? Already weakSpellbreaker / Berserker:
• Mobility is already an issue - especially for any build that dares to try without great sword; don't increase CD on Aura Slicer
• Why nerf dagger damage? Already weak
• Why not undo some of the nerfs and hit WoD instead?
• Please oh please bring back Berserker by undoing the "Primal Bursts count as tier 1" nerf. Or at least give the 1st one when entering Zerk mode the tier 3 effect (we had to spend 30 adrenaline to get there)Mirage/Chrono:
• Too many illusions
• Dodge while stunned unfair (Mirage)
• Too powerful to get spared the nerf hammerFirebrand:
• Need a spoonful of sugar with the nerf medicine. And, no, spirit weapons don't count : )
• How 'bout some love for the axe? (it's not meta)Engi / Scrapper / Holo:
• Good job on adding Anti-corrosion Plating last patch, but eliminating the condi removal from elixir use was too much. Why not add it back in place of Comeback Cure? It would compete with S-R Def - a passive, which you're trying to reduce. Everybody wins!

[fall.3091]

Spellbreaker is really strong at the moment (and debateably overpowered) however, nerfing it's damage is NOT the way to tone down the class. Spellbreaker's base damage is already fairly low and requires ramp up with attacker's insight stacks to get going. If you want to nerf it, please focus on the amount of defensive phases the class has instead. At the moment a Spellbreaker can almost constantly cycle through their defenses leaving very few windows of opportunity to attack them. Increasing full counter Cooldown or possibly reducing Endure Pain duration would both be better alternatives to nerfing its damage pressure. That way, bad Spellbreakers can be punished for mistiming defenses and good Spellbreakers still have the ability to punish engages against them. If you stick with these proposed changes to Spellbreaker, all you are going to create is a bunker that can defend itself forever but never deal enough damage to truly fight back.

[On a side note, if you are looking to reduce damage on Warrior you need to look at axe. The weapon's damage has been buffed to unreasonable levels over the last couple patches that its not even fun to play using it anymore (and I used to love that weapon set). It's a completely face-roll weapon set from being able to out-trade most classes with just auto attacks to throwing 6k executes every 8 seconds.]

• Food for thought from a long time Warrior main.

[Ghos.1326]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

With Sand Savant, it's a 10 second charge time (Vital Persistence has no effect on this). Yes, you can put out the shades quickly, but then you have a long period without any shades at all. Without Sand Savant you can cover most of the point (turns out, even with 3 shades + Scourge, you still will have open area on point) for 8 seconds, then you have at least 30 seconds before it can happen again, giving plenty of time for fighting.

Now, let's say the radius buff and single-shade aspects were removed on Sand Savant, leaving the cooldown reduction as the primary draw of the trait. Again, the Scourge could cover most (not all!) of the point for 8 seconds, then be unable to do it for the next 20. That gives plenty of time for actually fighting the Scourge.

If you kept the radius increase and upped the Shade charge cooldown, you would still have a Scourge covering the entire point 100% of the time because he himself pulses those effects out.

It really is quite simple how one change (reducing radius) would work while the opposite (increasing cooldown) does nothing practical. If it isn't, I just have to guess you've never played Scourge or have never actually fought one.

I can see you're still going to be nasty to me on this comment. so lets educate your simple mind.charge cooldown, and skill cooldown are two different things. any monkey swinging in the jungles knows this. recheck your facts and information. a charge cooldown is for the time between use of charges of a skill (e.g. 2 charges of rocket boots, 1 second of no use before next used can be applied = charge cooldown). you can pay me later for my services of information.shade cooldown is 15 seconds untraited. so i am not sure where you get 30 seconds of downtime.if you would not have been so nasty to me in previous posts as well, i would not need to be nasty myself. either change your approach or be quiet with your false information.with this being said, seeing as how you have no idea what even the cooldown of manifest sand shade is, i think your own words can be used against you: i just have to guess you've never played scourge or have never actually fought one.

[Psilence.2859]

The vast majority of these changes look really great! Those who have grown overly attached to one of the currently OP meta builds might push back on some of these nerfs, but most make a lot of sense. I've been hoping for quite some time that meta builds would get toned down a bit and a large overhaul patch would help bring some much needed build diversity back to PvP!

I will say as far as nerfs to Spellbreaker go, their offense being toned down is welcome, but the biggest problem right now (in Plat level PvP anyways) is their ability to sustain such high damage output while also being able to cycle quickly through their very strong defense options. This combined with their high HP allowing them to run Demolisher Amulet for good Armor (without sacrificing damage) seems to be the main culprit for why they are so heavily favored against pretty much any other physical damage builds. Increasing Full Counter cooldown seems to be the best way to address that, but removing Demolisher Amulet could also be a possible solution.

[OriOri.8724]

@darwinslittlehelper.7182 said:

@Auturgist.8256 said:

@darwinslittlehelper.7182 said:One more thing. WvW has one kill=one rally. PvP needs this as well. Multiple rezzes off one kill is ridiculous in a 5 man to a side game. Looks terrible as well.One kill=one rally is fine.

I'm not sure what the algorithm is for who rallies in WvW, but in sPvP, it should be the person closest to dying, so that it's consistently impactful.

Agreed! I believe in wvw it is the closest physically, but I could be wrong. I also think they should have it be limited to close range. No more rezzing from the death of someone you previously hit while he is halfway across the map from you when he dies. The death should be no more than from a long range shot. At most.

Honestly you shouldn't be any farther away than about 600 units to be able to rally in PvP. 900 at the most since that is the range on downed 1

[Aza.2105]

@Psilence.2859 said:but removing Demolisher Amulet could also be a possible solution.

That isn't really the solution. Since no other profession is getting this much out of demolisher amulet. What anet needs to do is make each profession have a different set of amulets. That way they could easily remove one that makes the class op instead of removing it for everyone.

[Wichidi.9281]

@fall.3091 said:Spellbreaker is really strong at the moment (and debateably overpowered) however, nerfing it's damage is NOT the way to tone down the class. Spellbreaker's base damage is already fairly low and requires ramp up with attacker's insight stacks to get going. If you want to nerf it, please focus on the amount of defensive phases the class has instead. At the moment a Spellbreaker can almost constantly cycle through their defenses leaving very few windows of opportunity to attack them. Increasing full counter Cooldown or possibly reducing Endure Pain duration would both be better alternatives to nerfing its damage pressure. That way, bad Spellbreakers can be punished for mistiming defenses and good Spellbreakers still have the ability to punish engages against them. If you stick with these proposed changes to Spellbreaker, all you are going to create is a bunker that can defend itself forever but never deal enough damage to truly fight back.

[On a side note, if you are looking to reduce damage on Warrior you need to look at axe. The weapon's damage has been buffed to unreasonable levels over the last couple patches that its not even fun to play using it anymore (and I used to love that weapon set). It's a completely face-roll weapon set from being able to out-trade most classes with just auto attacks to throwing 6k executes every 8 seconds.]

• Food for thought from a long time Warrior main.

+1 nerfing the dmg on sb is not the way. Like this ur just gonna destroy warrior.

You need to nerf the sustain and by nerfing the defy pain and last stand to 90 secs(!) you are already doing it. The nerfs on dagger damage, f1 and Break enchantments are not the way.

[OriOri.8724]

@Aza.2105 said:

@Psilence.2859 said:but removing Demolisher Amulet could also be a possible solution.

That isn't really the solution. Since no other profession is getting this much out of demolisher amulet. What anet needs to do is make each profession have a different set of amulets. That way they could easily remove one that makes the class op instead of removing it for everyone.

This isn't that practical though, as the list for each class would have to be updated with each balance patch depending on how builds changed, and then consequently changed quite often as people found new builds that worked better. Its simply too much maintenance for something that doesn't even address the real problem, which is that some builds still offer way too much of everything. Personal sustain shouldn't be as high as it is for some builds, and removing the demolisher amulet from their lineup won't change their traits and skills which give them the majority of that sustain.

[Shao.7236]

Loving those auto attack nerfs on the holosmith, those were too strong to begin with, making the Holosmith having to use defensive skills putting an end to those stupid faceroll on the keyboard, having to now hit people to gain stability is also welcome, this stability was way too easy to access. There's no incentive to dodge if all you're gonna get is destroyed by the skill that can be spammed with ease by an unstoppable force that risked/traded off nothing on that stability for professions like the elementalist weaver swrd/d or core FA scptr/f alike, but this mostly speak for everyone's profession. However in my experience, even with maximum toughness and stone heart, holosmiths were annihilating my attempts to not melt so easily to their autoattacks.

Meanwhile that pistol buff are very attractive, I was having quite a lot of fun playing it, challenging but now seems to be much more viable to use that poison. That puts pistol Engineer in quite a good spot now against Holosmith solutions and the rest of other professions, that being also the toolkit magnet making it easier to deal with those pesky players that run around boxes and climb map props when they are losing the fight.

That being said for Druids, I hope they get decrowned from their bunker ability by having such an easy rotation while their pets utterly chip all your health off. Those changes look promising for it. Please though, nerf "lesser" muddy terrain, that thing is exactly the full skill and lasts way too long for being lesser compared, the actual muddy terrain. Either making it 5 seconds long compared the full 10 or remove the slow altogether from the lesser version OR make the cooldown twice as long. That stuff happens way too often and it EASILY is one of the reason why druid gets the decap 99% of the time.

I also totally agree with the Warrior passive nerfs, having traits better than the skills themselves and be automatically triggered is stupid and should be heavily punished, having to not worry about being knocked back because you have a "lesser" balanced stance that is in fact not only buffed on trait but also the same cooldown is stupid, 80 seconds or twice the regular skill would been enough imo. At least Lesser Endure Pain Cooldown by default is higher, maybe that one doesn't deserve to be touched to be honest because that isn't really bothersome compared say balanced stance, 90 seconds seems like a lot for only 2 seconds when you compare the skill 30 second.

Thank you for that Hunter's determination nerf also, twice as worst cooldown is how automatic skills should be unless they have minor tweaks that makes them lesser to their actual utility skill, period. (Looking at you Lesser Muddy Terrain.)

"Elusive Mind: This trait now applies 4 seconds of Exhaustion when breaking a stun." YES, YES, YES, YES. SCREW THOSE ENDLESS STUNBREAKS TRYING TO CATCH A MESMER THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE TO MAKE OUT WHAT THE HECK IS GOING WITH ALL THOSE SPECIAL EFFECTS. IF I GET TO STUN A MESMER HE DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED FOR USING SOMETHING THAT PUTS HIM UP RIGHT ON TRACK. I don't see why they would get the special treatment for having a different dodge while the thief wasn't an exception. Extra benefits, deserves Extra punishements, no traits or skill should come without a downside in between the choices you have to make.

As for necro's I'm not sure, never played one however they haven't been as troublesome lately, when you are paired against an actual good scourge that hugs you and dedicates himself to putting you down and not faceroll everything on the point. It seems only fair that you deserve the amount of conditions for being into the aoe, however I can see why the cooldowns are higher, sometimes there seems to be too much pressure from one, hopefully this'll ease it.

You look at everything and it really seems to focus on stopping the easy 1 button press and favor more strategy and thinking throughout, player interaction which is why I play that game. Being that thief won't be able to spam autoattack and require heartseeker to do more damage which is something that you can dodge every now and then compared autoattacks, that initiative blindly spend will punish thieves that are too aggressive.

Thank you Anet, I am really looking forward those changes, finally the game will feel like player skill matter more than just 1 button press and watch the show happen.

I don't feel like I was gutted at all from them, I feel like I am more rewarded for being GOOD doing things at the right opportunity as well as choosing different options that just having a lesser skill that is not so lesser and rather feel like I have cruise control enabled and turning out to always be the best option. GW2 does NOT and should NOT be played ever like having cruise control. I LOVE YOU GUYS.

[Aza.2105]

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@Psilence.2859 said:but removing Demolisher Amulet could also be a possible solution.

That isn't really the solution. Since no other profession is getting this much out of demolisher amulet. What anet needs to do is make each profession have a different set of amulets. That way they could easily remove one that makes the class op instead of removing it for everyone.

This isn't that practical though, as the list for each class would have to be updated with each balance patch depending on how builds changed.

I'm sure that isn't hard to do.

[Vagrant.7206]

@Shao.7236 said:Meanwhile that pistol buff are very attractive, I was having quite a lot of fun playing it, challenging but now seems to be much more viable to use that poison. That puts pistol Engineer in quite a good spot now against Holosmith solutions and the rest of other professions, that being also the toolkit magnet making it easier to deal with those pesky players that run around boxes and climb map props when they are losing the fight.

This tells me that you have not actually played pistol engineer if you think those buffs are all that meaningful. :tongue:

[Shao.7236]

@Vagrant.7206 said:This tells me that you have not actually played pistol engineer if you think those buffs are all that meaningful. :tongue:

I played it and still play it, it's fine as it is, just takes some thinking which not a lot of people want to bother with. It'll be fun to enjoy smaller cooldowns for several skills. Maybe small to you, but to me that's like saying Lighting Strike doesn't benefit from Aeromancer's Training, that small second does wonder overtime as a Fresh Air for both damage output and small amount of time spend in different attunements.

[Merlin Dyfed Avalon.5046]

If possible make necromancer weapon skills more fluent.GS cast times.Function of grasp, cast time, speed, LOS.Remove facing target limitations from weapons on necromancer. Considering the fast movement of certain professions.Pathing of Death Charge, sometimes goes trough enemies ,or it does a 180, goes off in a random direction. (see above)Stun break on Axe 3, Reaper Shroud 3, Dagger 4, GS 4. If Reapers protection gets hit for being an Automatic stun break.Add a condition transfer to shouts trough REAPER traits, considering another nerf to condition transfers because of scourge.

Edit: also some skills go on full cool down as i understand for failing, or casting but failing to do anything. . got to check necro sub for that

[Meurto.8520]

Perma-protection needs to go away.... forever. If you are going to allow groups of players to run around in wvw with protection up 100% of the time then you need to reduce the mitigation substantially. Boons in general were much better when they weren't see easy to apply and maintain. Situational application made for much more skilled game play, but unfortunately boon application has become as mindless as aoe spam.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Ghos.1326 said:

@"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

With Sand Savant, it's a 10 second charge time (Vital Persistence has no effect on this). Yes, you can put out the shades quickly, but then you have a long period without any shades at all. Without Sand Savant you can cover most of the point (turns out, even with 3 shades + Scourge, you still will have open area on point) for 8 seconds, then you have at least 30 seconds before it can happen again, giving plenty of time for fighting.

Now, let's say the radius buff and single-shade aspects were removed on Sand Savant, leaving the cooldown reduction as the primary draw of the trait. Again, the Scourge could cover most (not all!) of the point for 8 seconds, then be unable to do it for the next 20. That gives plenty of time for actually fighting the Scourge.

If you kept the radius increase and upped the Shade charge cooldown, you would still have a Scourge covering the entire point 100% of the time because he himself pulses those effects out.

It really is quite simple how one change (reducing radius) would work while the opposite (increasing cooldown) does nothing practical. If it isn't, I just have to guess you've never played Scourge or have never actually fought one.

I can see you're still going to be nasty to me on this comment. so lets educate your simple mind.charge cooldown, and skill cooldown are two different things. any monkey swinging in the jungles knows this. recheck your facts and information. a charge cooldown is for the time between use of charges of a skill (e.g. 2 charges of rocket boots, 1 second of no use before next used can be applied = charge cooldown). you can pay me later for my services of information.shade cooldown is 15 seconds untraited. so i am not sure where you get 30 seconds of downtime.if you would not have been so nasty to me in previous posts as well, i would not need to be nasty myself. either change your approach or be quiet with your false information.with this being said, seeing as how you have no idea what even the cooldown of manifest sand shade is, i think your own words can be used against you: i just have to guess you've never played scourge or have never actually fought one.

Skill cooldown: the required time between casts of the skill.Charge cooldown: the time to recover a charge of a skill. Unique to skills with charges.

So, again, you have things reversed.

The skill cooldown for Manifest Sand Shade is 1 second. The charge cooldown is 15 seconds (10 with Sand Savant).

"30 seconds of downtime" was specifically in reference to covering the point without Sand Savant, not having any shades up at all. This was pretty clear in context. Let me walk you through the steps:

1. Have all three Shade charges available.
2. Cast all three shades. This takes ~3 seconds.
3. Shades last for 10 seconds each, leaving a 7 second period with all three shades up (I did have two numbers wrong in my prior post, I mistakenly said this period was 8 seconds).
4. When the first shade expires, there is still 5 seconds left on the charge cooldown. Then the second charge recovers (+15 seconds, total of 23 seconds of downtime), then the third (+15 seconds, 38 seconds total, this is the second number I got wrong in my prior post).
5. Repeat steps 1-4.

This is how a non-Sand Savant Scourge operates if they try to cover the entire point (of note, they still don't have perfect coverage). 7 seconds of coverage, followed by 38 seconds without, or 18.4% uptime on point coverage. Possible, but highly inefficient. In general, this isn't attempted.

Now, let's examine two other scenarios: your suggestion (increasing cooldown on the greater shade, I'll go more extreme than you and double the current cooldown), and mine (removing radius increase and single-shade aspect, leaving target increase and reduced recharge alone).

First, yours. Keep in mind I'm doubling the Sand Savant cooldown (to 20 seconds), whereas you were suggesting it go to 18 seconds.

1. Have all three Shade charges available.
2. Cast a shade. This takes .5 seconds
3. Shades last for 10 seconds.
4. When the shade expires, there is still 10 seconds left on the charge cooldown. Can cast a second shade.
5. When shade 2 expires 10 seconds later, a charge has been recovered (2 charges remaining). Cast a third shade.
6. Shade 3 expires (30 second mark) and 1.5 charges remain. Can cast a 4th shade.
7. Shade 4 expires and a charge remains. Can cast a 5th shade.
8. At the 50 second mark, the 5th shade expires and has 10 seconds left on charge cooldown.

In a 1 minute fight, the Scourge had perfect coverage of the entire point with a shade for 50 seconds, then has 50% uptime after that point. Of course, if the Scourge himself is contesting the point, then he has 100% perfect coverage anyway, regardless of the Shade.

Now, my suggestion (Sand Savant loses radius increase and single-shade aspect)

1. Have all three Shade charges available.
2. Cast all three shades. This takes ~3 seconds.
3. Shades last for 10 seconds each, leaving a 7 second period with all three shades up.
4. When the first shade expires, the first charge has been recovered Then the second charge recovers (+10 seconds, total of 13 seconds of downtime), then the third (+10 seconds, 23 seconds total.
5. Repeat steps 1-4.

Like the non-Sand Savant scenario, this is no longer perfect point coverage. Maximum point coverage now only has a 30.4% uptime. Again, a possible maneuver, but still inefficient and less likely to be used.

[Felipe.1807]

@Meurto.8520 said:Perma-protection needs to go away.... forever. If you are going to allow groups of players to run around in wvw with protection up 100% of the time then you need to reduce the mitigation substantially. Boons in general were much better when they weren't see easy to apply and maintain. Situational application made for much more skilled game play, but unfortunately boon application has become as mindless as aoe spam.

Is the way Anet balance stuffProtection and Regen(just a example) are too strong? Buff DamageDamage is to big? Make boons more accessible.And this cycle keep going without end...

My guardian on WvW with 3.3K armor and 20K HP with all defencive boons of the game still get erased in sec by Power Mesmer....last night I got 6K damage by a sword thief...if anything damage(both power and condi) needs to be nerfed.

[Turk.5460]

@Meurto.8520 said:Perma-protection needs to go away.... forever. If you are going to allow groups of players to run around in wvw with protection up 100% of the time then you need to reduce the mitigation substantially. Boons in general were much better when they weren't see easy to apply and maintain. Situational application made for much more skilled game play, but unfortunately boon application has become as mindless as aoe spam.

I agree, protection duration needs to be globally toned down.

[Cougre.6543]

I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but what about Chill of Death? It's a passive, isn't it?

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Cougre.6543 said:I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but what about Chill of Death? It's a passive, isn't it?

It is, but there is a bit of a difference between offensive and defensive passives. Notice all of the passives they're nerfing are A. defensive or B. unpredictable. Chill of Death is neither.

[Zero.3871]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Cougre.6543 said:I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but what about Chill of Death? It's a passive, isn't it?

It is, but there is a bit of a difference between offensive and defensive passives. Notice all of the passives they're nerfing are A. defensive or B. unpredictable. Chill of Death is neither.

this.the problem are Auto invuls that hold Players alive while they are DOING NOTHING for that. every class has offensive passives that SUPPORT own offensive ACTIONS.anet now want fights where the Players have to be active.

so the target of this patch is to nerf skills where you Need nothing to do. so they nerf skills where you dont Need any ACTION by YOURSELF to activate it.

chilling vitory NEED your Action to get enemy below 50% treshold.

[CeeJ.3752]

I wont lie, Warrior is in a very good spot right now, but some of these changes are awful. If you're going to kill some of the traits warrior uses then just remove it completely and add a new Trait. IMO passive procs for stun breaks should be gone for every single class as it offers no mechanical skill. But 90 second cooldown for a 2 second endure pain? Are you freaking crazy? a 50 second Increase to Balanced Stance? LOL!? This just adds more useless traits for warriors. And Increasing the cooldown of aura slicer defeats the purpose of Fast hands and the point of it is to swap faster to use the skills at our disposal at will. Decrease the damage by some but dont increase the cooldown. And dagger nerfs? Are you serious? IS this just an early April fools joke? This is the funniest thing I've seen in a while. Exactly why I haven't played PvP the last 3 Season competitively.... Lord help us all....

[BaLzA.8902]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

Traits

• Reaper's Protection: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP only
• Last Gasp: Increased the cooldown from 50 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only

O_oWhat the hell is that ?

[Nimon.7840]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Arenanet, please read:

I'll state my opinions mostly from an spvp point of view, while still taking in to mind how it effects wvw and pve. But first it is important to point out what the problems are that the intra-class dynamic faces at this point in time in spvp. This is not only my opinion, but also the majority opinion of players playing platinum + at least from what I understand:

• Mesmer builds are too strong. There is too much DPS pressure here for how much survivability and utility is present.
• Spellbreakers specifically, not Berserker or Core, are too strong. This is mainly due to the power and utility behind Full Counter.
• Druids specifically, not Soulbeast or Core, are too strong. This is 100% due to Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow.
• Firebrand and Scourge are still mandatory choices for 5 man play and generally increase the win rates of any team, even in ranked or unranked, the more of them you have in your team. I wouldn't say they are "over powered" but the utility and function they bring into the dynamic of conquest matches or even wvw squads, is just more heavily evolved than anything else in the game right now. This effect becomes exponentially screwed up the more Firebrands and Scourges that are present on the same team together. They completely break the idea of not having a holy trinity. Firebrand and Scourge is the holy trinity at this point. Other classes/builds do not compare to the importance of these two in competitive play, spvp or wvw.
• The above problems result in the ultimate problem which is, very little class/build diversity in competitive play. Other classes aren't so kitten that they are unplayable but none of them are able to compete in viability with Mesmer based specs/Spellbreaker/Druid/Firebrand/Scourge.

How do I feel about the proposed changes? Well I think there are shortcuts and more simple ways to fix these problems that exist in spvp/wvw, without dabbling in so much change across the board on every character:

• Mesmers - Tone down the damage. It doesn't need to be neutered but it really needs a cut in its damage. However this is achieved, is up to the balance team.
• Spellbreakers - Full Counter needs nerfing. Nothing else needs to be touched! just Full Counter. However this is achieved, go for it balance team.
• Druids - There are way too many nerfs being directed into the wrong places on this one. I main Ranger/Druid/Soulbeast in every game mode and I tell you no lie when I say that the problem with Druid is completely within the two traits Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow. This is THE ENTIRE base of the Druid's survivability. Slightly nerfing these two traits wouldn't really effect pve and wvw play and would be better options than the enormous cuts proposed in the OP statement. Please read the previous thread I had opened on this topic as it goes into much deeper detail, with community feedback. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/27812/druid-post-2-6-2018-patch-druid-players-give-feedback/p1 - If you do not read the thread, the point being is: To make Druid Clarity cleanse 3 condis per second, for 4 seconds upon activation instead of immediate 13 condi cleanse and Celestial Shadow's stealth/super speed should be reduced from 3s to 2s. This is more than enough of a nerf to make Druids much easier to kill. Nerfing them too much, will result in Druid losing all viability in any competitive setting.
• Firebrands & Scourges - Honestly, and a lot of people may disagree with this, I don't think these classes need any nerfing. Maybe they need a bit of reallocation to where power lies within the specs or how healing/protections need to be rotated to achieve high end results but they do not need nerfing.

About holy trinity & niches - If anything, I can say to the balance team that there actually needs to be a holy trinity so to say. Every class/specialization should be a stapled kind of gameplay and role within any group. I believe it would be healthy for the game at this point. It also would help with overall balance because, if one class is the stapled boon removal guy "As example" nothing else can ever really replace him, despite how much he is nerfed. But when every class can do every job, naturally it will result in some top 3 statistically superior selections and balance will never be achieved. I think it would be a good idea, to focus on giving core/hot/pof specializtions there own niches that only they can really do. This would make every specialization irreplaceable and always the best at what they are designed to do. Firebrand, Scourge, Spellbreaker, Druid, Thieves are great examples of this competitively. Mesmer should be in that list but Mesmer is better used as an example of a class that can do too much and is too good at everything. Pve wise, you have Druids and Chronos that are the only distinguished roles and the rest are DPS transparently based. How to change that? No idea, probably a lot harder to do than it is competitively. In competitive settings you have more roles that classes can specialize in such as: Team Support, Side Node Monkey Bunker, Bruiser "many subtypes within this", Decap +1 DPS, Point Nuker "Which historically doesn't work well in conquest but works great in wvw backlines".

Oh and PS:

1. Barrier killing all critical hits is questionable and needs to be reviewed.
2. Leave Thief alone. Stop it, stop nerfing it. It doesn't need nerfing.
3. Please be careful who's feedback you listen to, if this is truly a patch dedicated towards competitive areas in the game.

I agree with this. But not with thief. In wvw it will need a huge nerf. Right now, a thief jumps at you deals like 17k dmg in an instant and moves out unharmed, waits 5 seconds and does the same again.And even if you hit it with a shade for example, it just easy consicleanses everything

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

Arenanet, please read:

I'll state my opinions mostly from an spvp point of view, while still taking in to mind how it effects wvw and pve. But first it is important to point out what the problems are that the intra-class dynamic faces at this point in time in spvp. This is not only my opinion, but also the majority opinion of players playing platinum + at least from what I understand:

• Mesmer builds are too strong. There is too much DPS pressure here for how much survivability and utility is present.
• Spellbreakers specifically, not Berserker or Core, are too strong. This is mainly due to the power and utility behind Full Counter.
• Druids specifically, not Soulbeast or Core, are too strong. This is 100% due to Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow.
• Firebrand and Scourge are still mandatory choices for 5 man play and generally increase the win rates of any team, even in ranked or unranked, the more of them you have in your team. I wouldn't say they are "over powered" but the utility and function they bring into the dynamic of conquest matches or even wvw squads, is just more heavily evolved than anything else in the game right now. This effect becomes exponentially screwed up the more Firebrands and Scourges that are present on the same team together. They completely break the idea of not having a holy trinity. Firebrand and Scourge is the holy trinity at this point. Other classes/builds do not compare to the importance of these two in competitive play, spvp or wvw.
• The above problems result in the ultimate problem which is, very little class/build diversity in competitive play. Other classes aren't so kitten that they are unplayable but none of them are able to compete in viability with Mesmer based specs/Spellbreaker/Druid/Firebrand/Scourge.

How do I feel about the proposed changes? Well I think there are shortcuts and more simple ways to fix these problems that exist in spvp/wvw, without dabbling in so much change across the board on every character:

• Mesmers
  - Tone down the damage. It doesn't need to be neutered but it really needs a cut in its damage. However this is achieved, is up to the balance team.
• Spellbreakers
  - Full Counter needs nerfing. Nothing else needs to be touched! just Full Counter. However this is achieved, go for it balance team.
• Druids
  - There are way too many nerfs being directed into the wrong places on this one. I main Ranger/Druid/Soulbeast in every game mode and I tell you no lie when I say that the problem with Druid is completely within the two traits Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow. This is THE ENTIRE base of the Druid's survivability. Slightly nerfing these two traits wouldn't really effect pve and wvw play and would be better options than the enormous cuts proposed in the OP statement. Please read the previous thread I had opened on this topic as it goes into much deeper detail, with community feedback.
  https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/27812/druid-post-2-6-2018-patch-druid-players-give-feedback/p1
  - If you do not read the thread, the point being is: To make Druid Clarity cleanse 3 condis per second, for 4 seconds upon activation instead of immediate 13 condi cleanse and Celestial Shadow's stealth/super speed should be reduced from 3s to 2s. This is more than enough of a nerf to make Druids much easier to kill. Nerfing them too much, will result in Druid losing all viability in any competitive setting.
• Firebrands & Scourges
  - Honestly, and a lot of people may disagree with this, I don't think these classes need any nerfing. Maybe they need a bit of reallocation to where power lies within the specs or how healing/protections need to be rotated to achieve high end results but they do not need nerfing.

About holy trinity & niches - If anything, I can say to the balance team that there actually needs to be a holy trinity so to say. Every class/specialization should be a stapled kind of gameplay and role within any group. I believe it would be healthy for the game at this point. It also would help with overall balance because, if one class is the stapled boon removal guy "As example" nothing else can ever really replace him, despite how much he is nerfed. But when every class can do every job, naturally it will result in some top 3 statistically superior selections and

balance will never be achieved.

I think it would be a good idea, to focus on giving core/hot/pof specializtions there own niches that only they can really do. This would make every specialization irreplaceable and always the best at what they are designed to do. Firebrand, Scourge, Spellbreaker, Druid, Thieves are great examples of this competitively. Mesmer should be in that list but Mesmer is better used as an example of a class that can do too much and is too good at everything. Pve wise, you have Druids and Chronos that are the only distinguished roles and the rest are DPS transparently based. How to change that? No idea, probably a lot harder to do than it is competitively. In competitive settings you have more roles that classes can specialize in such as: Team Support, Side Node Monkey Bunker, Bruiser "many subtypes within this", Decap +1 DPS, Point Nuker "Which historically doesn't work well in conquest but works great in wvw backlines".

Oh and PS:

1. Barrier killing all critical hits is questionable and needs to be reviewed.
2. Leave Thief alone. Stop it, stop nerfing it. It doesn't need nerfing.
3. Please be careful who's feedback you listen to, if this is truly a patch dedicated towards competitive areas in the game.

I agree with this. But not with thief. In wvw it will need a huge nerf. Right now, a thief jumps at you deals like 17k dmg in an instant and moves out unharmed, waits 5 seconds and does the same again.And even if you hit it with a shade for example, it just easy consicleanses everything

Hmmm. If been hit for 17k bs by a deadeye with full malice (7) and he was full zerk. Can't see how else they can do that