[FEB 25TH BALANCE PATCH] Examining the Feb 2020 balance one year later. What worked, what didn't.

[Archer.4362]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:EX: a flat number reduction in healing will affect a class like ele differently from say a thief or mesmer or necro which have access to better inbuilt defensive mechanics and don't rely on heal burst to stay alive, this is the reason builds disappear.

Don't you think that's an heavily biased argument you got there? Just from core and without even including traits, elementalist got the ability to equip defensive mean amongst:

• invuln (
  Obsidian flesh
  ,
  mist form
  ,
  fortify
  )
• block (
  arcane shield
  )
• instant mobility often coupled with dodge frame (
  lightning flash
  ,
  burning speed
  ,
  burning retreat
  ,
  Lightning leap
  ,
  Fiery whirl
  ,
  fiery rush
  ,
  earthen rush
  ,
  updraft
  )
• Reflect/block missiles (
  magnetic aura
  ,
  magnetic surge
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  ring of earth
  ,
  swirling wind
  )
• Without forgetting about barrier access (
  crippling shield
  ,
  stone shift
  ,
  magnetic shield
  ), boons (protection, vigor, stability), conditions (weakness, blind, chill, cripple), aura (frost aura), hard CCs... etc.
• Even elementalist's ability to condi cleanse options are underestimated granted that at any given moment you can have up to 4 cleansing skills sloted (Ice elemental's
  crashing wave
  ,
  cleansing fire
  ,
  ether renewal
  ,
  cleansing wave
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  healing rain
  )

I doubt there is another core profession with this many active defense skills and effects available in game, maybe elementalist relying on heal burst isn't it's only option to stay alive. I would say that the reason build disappear is often narrowmindness, people focusing on a single aspect that proved to work well at a moment and forgetting that there is many other aspects that only wait to be exploited.

NB.: Traitlines and elite specs only had more to this list.

Now of all the ones you have mentioned tell me how many can be used in the same build. I answer you 1.

you can have multiple locks but only use 1 that is feasible.

[Axl.8924]

@Lucentfir.7430 said:

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:everyone is so doom and gloom about the megapatch, but it was the lack of follow up that was the suicide move. the one shot meta was garbage and anyone who wants to return to it probably relied on cheap builds. sustain meta isn't much better but at least noobs can't roll some brain dead build and gank you with zero brain effort. now they run around and deal no damage, better then them getting kills imo.

It was naïve to think Anet would follow up appropriately given their track record for good execution and delivery. Even more so with how much they care and support the PvP activity side of the game. Everyone who knows Anet well, already knew it was going to be bad and there were going to be issues. Lazy blanket changes is what we got instead of deep dive class/spec tuning, and you can't tell me otherwise or disprove it when there's an entire traitline and traits that were broken intentionally with 5 minute ICDs that have a sticky note with a "will fix later" from over a year ago.

Funny thing talking about noobs, one in a bunker build/meta can make a bunch of severe mistakes and still be alive. Though a noob in a burst build/meta, they'll kill people easier , but crumbles under pressure and panic because all s/he knows is how to execute damage, and they'll make some really bad mistakes good players can capitalize on. Punishing players for making critical errors/mistakes is a rewarding factor of good pvp, especially in a game with fluid action combat like Gw2's.

Anet def has issues they need to fix:

The specs that are core being far outdone by elites for instance. Make sure core warr is just as viable as its elites, same with ele mes and engi.

I'd like to see them adress that issue first by making something unique that cannot be effected by nerfing the elites, so if the elites suffer the core spec which might not be overtuned doesn't. I don't know how they can pull that off though.

I would love if they found a solution to CC and mobility spam on some classes for real. Some of the newest elites have a lot of clutter spam and power creep to a extreme degree and bring it back to more bearable levels such as to hot or even before hot levels of spam and clutter. PVP was enjoyable in 2018 when i started or somewhere around that time.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Archer.4362 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Don't you think that's an heavily biased argument you got there? Just from core and without even including traits, elementalist got the ability to equip defensive mean amongst:

• invuln (
  Obsidian flesh
  ,
  mist form
  ,
  fortify
  )
• block (
  arcane shield
  )
• instant mobility often coupled with dodge frame (
  lightning flash
  ,
  burning speed
  ,
  burning retreat
  ,
  Lightning leap
  ,
  Fiery whirl
  ,
  fiery rush
  ,
  earthen rush
  ,
  updraft
  )
• Reflect/block missiles (
  magnetic aura
  ,
  magnetic surge
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  ring of earth
  ,
  swirling wind
  )
• Without forgetting about barrier access (
  crippling shield
  ,
  stone shift
  ,
  magnetic shield
  ), boons (protection, vigor, stability), conditions (weakness, blind, chill, cripple), aura (frost aura), hard CCs... etc.
• Even elementalist's ability to condi cleanse options are underestimated granted that at any given moment you can have up to 4 cleansing skills sloted (Ice elemental's
  crashing wave
  ,
  cleansing fire
  ,
  ether renewal
  ,
  cleansing wave
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  healing rain
  )

I doubt there is another core profession with this many active defense skills and effects available in game, maybe elementalist relying on heal burst isn't it's only option to stay alive. I would say that the reason build disappear is often narrowmindness, people focusing on a single aspect that proved to work well at a moment and forgetting that there is many other aspects that only wait to be exploited.

NB.: Traitlines and elite specs only had more to this list.

Now of all the ones you have mentioned tell me how many can be used in the same build. I answer you 1.

you can have multiple locks but only use 1 that is feasible.

Only 1 what?

I mean, unless you didn't really read properly, I said that all these options were available to use. Just slot earth shield you'll have 1 invuln, 1 reflect, ton of barrier and protect. Use focus to get another invuln, projectile block, projectile reflect and condi cleanse. Use dagger and you'll enjoy 2 evade skills and projectile block. We are at 1 MH weapon, 1 off hand weapon and a single utility skill slot used here. Yet that's already 2 invuln, 2 reflects, 2 evade skills, a projectile block on 6 s CD, barrier, cleanse 3 condi, weakness output and boon prot access. What more could we get from 1 elite, 1 heal skill, 2 utility skills and a bunch of traits? 8 conditions cleansed with ether renewal? Another invuln with mist form? 3 conditions cleansed from cleansing fire? A 5 seconds CD evade skill on fiery greatsword? What would that make? 3 invuln, 2 reflect, a projectile block, 3 evade skills, 14 condition cleansed throught 3 skills used, weakness and protection?

You're free to build how you want, thinking that only a single option is valid is a lock you put on yourself, not a lock that ANet put on you. In fact just using D/F prove your argument wrong.

[foste.3098]

One thing i will never understand about the feb mega patch is why did they nerf everything across the board? Why were skills/traits that had never been an issue since the games launch gotten nerfed?For example eviscerate has always had a scaling of 2.0/2.5/3.0 depending on adrenaline, so why change it? There are huge number of skills like that that got changed in pvp/wvw seemingly for the sake of slowing down the game, or reducing power creep. But in reality the reason for the powercreep and the fast time to kill was not that skills had to much scaling (although there were outliers) but that skills had become overbloated.

For a good example look at bull's charge: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull%27s_ChargeNote the path of fire pre-patch of August 08, 2017, the skill got a triple damage buff and became an evade. Before hand the skill was a long knockdown, a long gap closer/gap creator, and a leap finisher that dealt slightly higher damage than 1st skill in the greatsword auto attack chain; all in all a an al-round useful and good skill, so why the fuck make it an evade and a 2nd stage eviscerate burst in addition to all the utility it had before?This is just the most clear example of skill bloating that lead to the powercreep but there are countless cases like that. So if the issue is idiotic bloating of skills why then blanket nerf damage across the board, leave the bloated skill design, and never follow through on further balance when it is clear that there are massive issues still?

The dumbest part is if they wait to release the new expansion before deciding to actually do some balance, because that way the new elite spec are doomed to ether be broken op or broken useless since they are being set up upon broken foundation.

[Axl.8924]

@"foste.3098" said:One thing i will never understand about the feb mega patch is why did they nerf everything across the board? Why were skills/traits that had never been an issue since the games launch gotten nerfed?For example eviscerate has always had a scaling of 2.0/2.5/3.0 depending on adrenaline, so why change it? There are huge number of skills like that that got changed in pvp/wvw seemingly for the sake of slowing down the game, or reducing power creep. But in reality the reason for the powercreep and the fast time to kill was not that skills had to much scaling (although there were outliers) but that skills had become overbloated.

For a good example look at bull's charge: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull%27s_ChargeNote the path of fire pre-patch of August 08, 2017, the skill got a triple damage buff and became an evade. Before hand the skill was a long knockdown, a long gap closer/gap creator, and a leap finisher that dealt slightly higher damage than 1st skill in the greatsword auto attack chain; all in all a an al-round useful and good skill, so why the kitten make it an evade and a 2nd stage eviscerate burst in addition to all the utility it had before?This is just the most clear example of skill bloating that lead to the powercreep but there are countless cases like that. So if the issue is idiotic bloating of skills why then blanket nerf damage across the board, leave the bloated skill design, and never follow through on further balance when it is clear that there are massive issues still?

The dumbest part is if they wait to release the new expansion before deciding to actually do some balance, because that way the new elite spec are doomed to ether be broken op or broken useless since they are being set up upon broken foundation.

Question then do you remember how druid was when it was first released?

[Arheundel.6451]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Arheundel.6451" said:EX: a flat number reduction in healing will affect a class like ele differently from say a thief or mesmer or necro which have access to better inbuilt defensive mechanics and don't rely on heal burst to stay alive, this is the reason builds disappear.

Don't you think that's an heavily biased argument you got there? Just from core and without even including traits, elementalist got the ability to equip defensive mean amongst:

• invuln (
  Obsidian flesh
  ,
  mist form
  ,
  fortify
  )
• block (
  arcane shield
  )
• instant mobility often coupled with dodge frame (
  lightning flash
  ,
  burning speed
  ,
  burning retreat
  ,
  Lightning leap
  ,
  Fiery whirl
  ,
  fiery rush
  ,
  earthen rush
  ,
  updraft
  )
• Reflect/block missiles (
  magnetic aura
  ,
  magnetic surge
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  ring of earth
  ,
  swirling wind
  )
• Without forgetting about barrier access (
  crippling shield
  ,
  stone shift
  ,
  magnetic shield
  ), boons (protection, vigor, stability), conditions (weakness, blind, chill, cripple), aura (frost aura), hard CCs... etc.
• Even elementalist's ability to condi cleanse options are underestimated granted that at any given moment you can have up to 4 cleansing skills sloted (Ice elemental's
  crashing wave
  ,
  cleansing fire
  ,
  ether renewal
  ,
  cleansing wave
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  healing rain
  )

I doubt there is another core profession with this many active defense skills and effects available in game, maybe elementalist relying on heal burst isn't it's only option to stay alive. I would say that the reason build disappear is often narrowmindness, people focusing on a single aspect that proved to work well at a moment and forgetting that there is many other aspects that only wait to be exploited.

NB.: Traitlines and elite specs only had more to this list.

As I stated in past comments, the CD is way to high on defensive skills, the downtime between them is too great to allow a smooth transaction not requiring a huge investment in healing power, on top of that conjure casting time makes them a liability that requires precise "foresight" from the player, where a player on other professions can afford to be at ease by simply looking one step ahead....an ele player must see 3-4 steps in the future for equall or just about better results.

Not even I after 8k hrs spent on ele can look that far ahead in the future and plan my next move accordingly, that's why it's rare for me to lose to an ele player, players that make ele appear OP are as rare as white flies .

There is no more arcane/fire celestial d/d or "immortal" Tempest, what you see now is 100% pure skill, again I consistently lose to the same eles I known for years....certainly I don't lose against Tom or Jerry who started ele few months ago and same cannot be said for other professions, few months is all you need to become a threat...maybe not serious threat but still one nevertheless.

On paper and by word of mouth it seems as ele is the most OP class while having this and that but in practice it takes few days for new players to realize all they heard on the forum about ele was horse manure.

People always try to shift the focus on the ability to stay alive..well good for you I guess but...I can play something like mender SA thief and never die too, good good but now can you actually kill anything?...d/f...d/f...d/f yeah we get it although if it was really that easy I believe that gold/silver rank would be populated by d/f eles and not by guardians/necros am I wrong?

[Arheundel.6451]

@"foste.3098" said:One thing i will never understand about the feb mega patch is why did they nerf everything across the board? Why were skills/traits that had never been an issue since the games launch gotten nerfed?For example eviscerate has always had a scaling of 2.0/2.5/3.0 depending on adrenaline, so why change it? There are huge number of skills like that that got changed in pvp/wvw seemingly for the sake of slowing down the game, or reducing power creep. But in reality the reason for the powercreep and the fast time to kill was not that skills had to much scaling (although there were outliers) but that skills had become overbloated.

For a good example look at bull's charge: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bull%27s_ChargeNote the path of fire pre-patch of August 08, 2017, the skill got a triple damage buff and became an evade. Before hand the skill was a long knockdown, a long gap closer/gap creator, and a leap finisher that dealt slightly higher damage than 1st skill in the greatsword auto attack chain; all in all a an al-round useful and good skill, so why the kitten make it an evade and a 2nd stage eviscerate burst in addition to all the utility it had before?This is just the most clear example of skill bloating that lead to the powercreep but there are countless cases like that. So if the issue is idiotic bloating of skills why then blanket nerf damage across the board, leave the bloated skill design, and never follow through on further balance when it is clear that there are massive issues still?

The dumbest part is if they wait to release the new expansion before deciding to actually do some balance, because that way the new elite spec are doomed to ether be broken op or broken useless since they are being set up upon broken foundation.

For CMC the plan was to apply a ground level foundation and then smooth things over, he did foresee and openly admit that many builds would end up being OP or UP after the patch but that everything would have been solved with follow up patches...that never came to be.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Archer.4362 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Don't you think that's an heavily biased argument you got there? Just from core and without even including traits, elementalist got the ability to equip defensive mean amongst:

• invuln (
  Obsidian flesh
  ,
  mist form
  ,
  fortify
  )
• block (
  arcane shield
  )
• instant mobility often coupled with dodge frame (
  lightning flash
  ,
  burning speed
  ,
  burning retreat
  ,
  Lightning leap
  ,
  Fiery whirl
  ,
  fiery rush
  ,
  earthen rush
  ,
  updraft
  )
• Reflect/block missiles (
  magnetic aura
  ,
  magnetic surge
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  ring of earth
  ,
  swirling wind
  )
• Without forgetting about barrier access (
  crippling shield
  ,
  stone shift
  ,
  magnetic shield
  ), boons (protection, vigor, stability), conditions (weakness, blind, chill, cripple), aura (frost aura), hard CCs... etc.
• Even elementalist's ability to condi cleanse options are underestimated granted that at any given moment you can have up to 4 cleansing skills sloted (Ice elemental's
  crashing wave
  ,
  cleansing fire
  ,
  ether renewal
  ,
  cleansing wave
  ,
  magnetic wave
  ,
  healing rain
  )

I doubt there is another core profession with this many active defense skills and effects available in game, maybe elementalist relying on heal burst isn't it's only option to stay alive. I would say that the reason build disappear is often narrowmindness, people focusing on a single aspect that proved to work well at a moment and forgetting that there is many other aspects that only wait to be exploited.

NB.: Traitlines and elite specs only had more to this list.

Now of all the ones you have mentioned tell me how many can be used in the same build. I answer you 1.

you can have multiple locks but only use 1 that is feasible.

Only 1 what?

I mean, unless you didn't really read properly, I said that all these options were available to use. Just slot earth shield you'll have 1 invuln, 1 reflect, ton of barrier and protect. Use focus to get another invuln, projectile block, projectile reflect and condi cleanse. Use dagger and you'll enjoy 2 evade skills and projectile block. We are at 1 MH weapon, 1 off hand weapon and a single utility skill slot used here. Yet that's already 2 invuln, 2 reflects, 2 evade skills, a projectile block on 6 s CD, barrier, cleanse 3 condi, weakness output and boon prot access. What more could we get from 1 elite, 1 heal skill, 2 utility skills and a bunch of traits? 8 conditions cleansed with ether renewal? Another invuln with mist form? 3 conditions cleansed from cleansing fire? A 5 seconds CD evade skill on fiery greatsword? What would that make? 3 invuln, 2 reflect, a projectile block, 3 evade skills, 14 condition cleansed throught 3 skills used, weakness and protection?

You're free to build how you want, thinking that only a single option is valid is a lock you put on yourself, not a lock that ANet put on you. In fact just using D/F prove your argument wrong.

You forgot to mention skill and utility CD, for new players :

1) Mistform - 75s CD2) Obsdidian Flesh - 60s CD3) Conjure Earth shield - 60s CD4) Fiery Greatsword - 180s CD

This is more than enough to prove how wrong you are...unless we want to start comparing a d/f ele with the all defenses possible to a core necro MM and see where we can go from there

P.S conjure earth can be picked by enemy too for the unaware

[Loboling.5293]

I posted this to another thread, but I figure it belongs here. These are my suggested changes for the next PvP balance patch.

The following changes:

Warrior:Headbutt (0.8)Bull charge (0.6)Hammer 5 (0.4)Ground stomps (zerker one and physical stunbreak one) (0.3)

GuardianHammer 4 (0.6)Spirit hammer (0.3)Spirit sword (-1 hit)Virtue burning proc (+1 hit required per interval)

Revenant:Glint elite knockback (0.5)Shiro elite (0.4)Staff 5 (0.3)

RangerAxe 4 (0.8)

EngineerHolo elite (0.5)Nerf holo 1 PvP by 20%Holo 5 (0.3)Scrapper explosion gyro (0.8)Big ol' bomb (0.8)

Thief:Daredevil elite (0.3, 0.3, 0.6)

ElementalistFocus water 5 (0.3)Meteor shower no longer reduced dmg per hit in PvP (no -20% per hit)Weaver barrier skill (-20% barrier)

NecromancerReaper elite (0.4)Minion elite (0.3)

Mesmer:Greatsword 5 (0.3)Chrono elite (0.2, 0.3, 0.5)Pistol 5 (0.3)

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Arheundel.6451" said:You forgot to mention skill and utility CD, for new players :

1) Mistform - 75s CD2) Obsdidian Flesh - 60s CD3) Conjure Earth shield - 60s CD4) Fiery Greatsword - 180s CD

This is more than enough to prove how wrong you are...unless we want to start comparing a d/f ele with the all defenses possible to a core necro MM and see where we can go from there

P.S conjure earth can be picked by enemy too for the unaware

Sure do it, give all the defense possible to a core necro MM. I mean If it's a "MM" it probably won't take to long of your time anyway.

You're pointing out CDs, I'm pointing out that you actually have many choice of skills that can all be taken together. Look, that's Ele D/F if you want "CDs":

• 2 dodges and easy access to vigor for a 50% endurance regen rate increase (allowing the elementalist to dodge 3 time where the necromancer would dodge 2 times. You won't disagree with me here right?)
• Burning speed evade skill on 15s CD
• Earthen rush evade skill on 18s CD
• Shocking aura on 25s CD (not really a true damage avoidance skill, but quite annoying for the attacker)
• Swirling wind 6s projectile destruction on 30s CD
• Magnetic wave 3s projectile reflection on 25s CD (+ 3 condi cleanse)
• Earthen ring Block missiles on a 6s CD.
• Obsidian flesh 3s invuln on 60s CD.
• Gale 3s knockdown.
• Convergence 3s weakness on 8s CD.
• Comet 2s daze on 25s CD.

That was just D/F alone (no trait, no utility).It's overkill but I could add like you said:

• Earthshield and it's various skills on 60s CD (but well if you manage to pick your second bundle the invuln is on 30s CD)
• Fiery GS and it's various skills on 120s CD (fiery wirlwind still having 5 second CD when you wield the conjured weapon)
• mist form 75s CD
• Arcane shield 3 blocks on 45s CD
• Signet of air area blindness 25s CD.
• Gliph of storm: Sandstorm 11 pulse of area blindness over 10s on 40s CD.

NB.: If an enemy can use your conjured weapons then it's a bug that ANet need to fix not a feature. But I'm pretty sure it's not the case.

[Ghos.1326]

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:This is a thread that I wrote in pieces and mostly 6 month ago, and decided to post close to the anniversary of the Feb 25th mega-patch of 2020. The point of this thread is to showcase various errors in that patch that to date have not really been addressed, and have now evolved within the meta to result in some noticeable problems in the gameplay. This thread also exists to highlight some of the good ideas from the patch that proved successful in improving gameplay. Most of this also applies to WvW.

1. Downstate was never updated to match the changes in damage. ( Oversight )

A side effect of damage being reduced across the board is that downstate generally now lasts noticeably longer, and cleaving out a downed target can be a losing game in the presence of support specs. It seems that downstate was just never really accounted for when factoring in the DPS reductions, and this has had some serious repercussions.

-”Support Balls” where multiple support/aoe damage hybrid builds ball together can be all but unkillable if they work together, because they can just instantly revive each other. This has proven an effective strategy in AT s, and is an extremely easy strategy to execute.-Traits that help with resurrection are now a lot stronger and can at times pretty much instantly revive someone. Blood necro is especially strong at this.-People in general staying in downstate for much longer than they previously would seems to hurt the flow of the game much more than anything. It also greatly increases the “Team rallybot” problem, where a teamfight can be won not by who plays better but by which team brought more stomp+revive options. “Build wars” aren’t fun.

Possible fixes:-Consider reducing the HP pool of downstate, or the HP gained during revives by at least 10%-Consider nerfing traits/skills that aid in revival

2. Pet / Summon / Spirits HP and stats were never updated to match the changes in damage. ( Oversight )

“Pets” such as spirit summons, Necromancer minions, and other summoned “Adds” were never updated to reflect the changes in DPS. The most noticeable of this being their health pool. This means that builds that could previously be countered much easier by simply killing the adds ( Kalla Renegade and Minion master are two notable examples ) now take a lot longer to take down. It also results in various implementations of the “run away/sustain while pets play the game for me” ""“strategy”"" which are never good for the game.

Possible fixes:-Just reduce the base stats of all pets/summons to match the damage reduction from Feb 25th 2020, and the inherent counterplay to these types of builds will be restored. This one is a pretty easy solution, as none of these builds were especially effective pre-patch.

3. Poor visual tells and poor balancing of the "Cast time + Effect" tradeoff continues to be one of the biggest balance problems plaguing GW2 PvP.

One of the good things about the Feb25th patch was that it did focus on some level of the concept that "Big damage should come from big tells." Unfortunately, it just didn't do enough. This continues to be the biggest issue with GW2 PvP, and why so many builds and skills that would otherwise be fine feel extremely frustrating to play against or feel very gimmicky to play due to the fact that a large portion of the damage comes from abilities that have very low cast times and/or poor quality visual tells. There's also the problem of big AoE abilties casting as fast as single target abilities, while doing either the same or even more damage. The result of this is a lot of mindless "Stand on point, spam AoEs" builds continue to dominate in conquest.

A good example of this done right would be looking at the game SMITE by Hirez. All abilities have clear animations. You can easily understand what abilities are being used from a fair distance away. The vast majority of the most powerful abilities have a noticeable windup time to give players a chance to react. There are many reasons why Smite has a pro league and GW2 doesn't, and this one of them.

Possible fixes-This issue is pretty self explanatory. Less damage coming from invisible passive sources, more coming from clearly recognizable abilities. This is something the patch did right, but just didn't do enough.-Consider adding a system of glowing skill symbols for certain abilities that appear over a characters head, similar to what existed for many skills ( Such as Ressurection signet ) from GW1. These "extra animations" Could be toggled on/off in player options.-Certain visual tells actually get blocked by damage text depending on your settings. This is a considerable oversight. Consider allowing players better control of the UI so this doesn't happen as often.-Consider giving more AoE skills the "Shackling wave" Treatment: IE, increase the cast time by double, and then increase the damage proportionate to the cast time increase in PvE to make up for the DPS loss so the change doesn't hurt PvE-only players. Having tons of AoE abilities that can be quickly cast in succession due to all of them being <1s casting time is one of the biggest factors in GW2 that causes the game to feel like the gameplay is "spammy".-"Reveal on hit" instead of "Reveal on cast" as a stealth mechanic is extremely controversial.-Consider giving stability a noticeable visual tell. This boon is easily the most important buff in PvP, and yet it has no visual tell at all. This forces players to constantly check their targets status bar. As a basic example from smite, CC immune players gain a golden VFX to their model.

4. The problems behind Condition damage were not directly addressed.

When it comes to power damage, the Feb 25th patch generally hit the mark: Spike damage needed to come down, because oneshots were way too easy as a result of the previous two expansions massive powercreep. However when it comes to how condition damage works, the changes that were mostly the reduction of passive stacks and increase to cooldowns didn’t quite touch on what specifically causes condi builds to be oppressive in PvP.

To put it simply, the real issue with conditions is that they have three upsides to two downsides.Downsides: 1. Damage over time is inferior to instant damage 2. Can be removed/transferred.Upsides: 1. Damage is overall higher 2. Stat advantage ( Only 1 stat required -condition damage- VS 3 stats -Power, Precision, Ferocity- ) 3. Condi abilities generally have low visual tells and/or are heavily carried by invisible passives and AoE spam.

The Feb 25th patch didn’t address this disparity at all, and instead tried to mask it with random numbers nerfs and dartboard cooldown hits. The result is that condi builds don’t really feel like they have seen any improvement in gameplay over the last year at all, and still for the most part come down to build wars instead of skill.

Possible fixes:-To put it simply, either one of the upsides of condition damage should be reduced, or conditions need a new downside.-IMO the best solution is unfortunately the one that requires the most work: Condi skills should have the same level of animated tells and cast times as Power based skills. Getting hit with invisible passives and fast casting unblockable AoEs is probably what most people dislike about condi builds the most. In other words, see problem #3.-A band-aid solution is to increase the number of conditions removed by most condi clears by one. This isn’t the best solution by any means, but it's relatively easy to implement.

5. Not all CC s are created equal, and they haven’t really received the post-rework treatment that most expected. This has resulted in most CC skills being either a lot stronger or weaker than they should be

The basic change to CC in GW2 that came along Feb 25th is something I personally found favorable. Reducing stability and stunbreaks meant people actually had to actively try to avoid CC ( As opposed to just running around with 10 billion stacks of stab and never having to learn what the tells are for CC skills ), while removing the damage from CC also meant that CC now had to be used as a part of a skill combo than as a free kill when it lands.

That being said, the main oversight here is this rework made it so CC that takes a long time to cast and have huge animations are not nearly as strong as they once were, while CC that have poor visual tells or comes with additional benefits such as being multi-hit in a huge AoE, unblockable, or even unevadeable got a huge indirect buff. So yet again, see problem #3. This disparity has not been well addressed over the last year, leading more and more builds to gravitate towards CC spam of unevadeables and unblockables. Gale, Dragon’s Maw, Shock aura, Sleight of Hand, and Darkrazor's Daring are just a few example skills/mechanics that are now much stronger than they need to be. Meanwhile, certain elite CC with huge tells like PLB still seem underwhelming.

Possible fixes:-Consider removing the mechanic of unevadeable CCs from the game entirely. Unblockable CCs already perform the job of being able to break through block-spam, so unevadeable CCs don't really add anything to the game other than to further encourage the "Stand on point, spam AoEs" cheese-strategy.-Severely tone down CC s that have no visual tell, or give them a visual tell.-Consider “gain stability for 2s when you break a stun” a default mechanic of all stun breaks, similar to the trait “Glaring Resolve” minus the heal ( You only get the stab if you are actually CC-d when you use a stunbreak skill ). What this does is cut down on the effectiveness of CC spam, without the problems cause by “On demand” stability.

6. While sustain was brought down to match the damage reduction, Indirect sources of sustain really were not.

Many players warned before the patch went live that indirect sources of sustain such as barrier-spam and Necro lifeforce were not really being touched as much as they should. A year later, things have slightly improved, but this issue has overall proven to be a noticeable side effect. This can also result in a lot of builds that are better at bunkering than they should, because they gain a source of sustain that can be easily spammed. "Decap" builds are a solid example.

Possible fixes-Skills and traits that have no ( Or an extremely low ) ICD tend to be the biggest offenders.-Pay close attention to bunker builds and what enables them. Too much bunker leads to an extremely stale meta.-Continue to monitor indirect forms of sustain that add more health but don't technically "Heal".-New players tend to have problems with skills like Defiant stance ( Warrior ) or Infused light ( Rev ) that convert incoming damage into healing. While it's easy to tell these players to "gitgud", and in many ways it really is a L2P issue, it's also another case of problem #3. The visual tell on these skills just aren't good enough to match how serious of a skill they are, to the point where it is easier to notice them by looking at their status-bar than their player model. The stats ( Cooldown/Duration ) on these skills and how they function are fine, but consider adding a brighter glow to them to help the noobs out.

7. "Just increase the cooldown" didn't work at all.

See thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97262/why-increasing-cooldowns-does-not-reduce-spam-and-can-even-make-spam-worse#latest

Most of what I warned about in that thread has come to pass. The most effective method to kill someone in the game right now is to +1 them. While this has always been true, it's far easier now since the chances of two players engaged in an on point 1v1 being out of cooldowns is noticeably higher.

Possible fixes-Consider why a skill is overpowered before nerfing it. More often than not, the cooldown has little to do with it.-In the case of GW2 especially, most skills that ended up getting a cooldown nerf actually have a cast-time problem rather than a cooldown problem.-In other words, see problem #3.

I basically agree with this whole thing. A few things I'd like to add, one of which is a disagreement of sorts.To condition damage stacks: I think reducing the stacks of conditions was a good step, however some things weren't touched at all (i.g. burning proccs from guardians per skill as well as the passive trait's threshold for the attacks to apply burning). A few things would need to occur as well in tandem with lowering the stacks (per the amount of conditions applied, cooldown of said skill, etc) such as increased/decreased uptime using an example.

To condition damage downsides: I agree completely with this. One thing I also suggested was doing what they changed way back then, and one of the main reasons why some condition damage builds are still highly oppressive after said change: in PvP and WvW only, place burning and poison back to 1 stack only. By doing this, a lot of the stacks and uptimes changes would not need to be changed, as well as the re-introduction of the one boon that mitigated condition damage in the past, Regeneration. As it stands now, Regen is very niche, and doesn't do much to mitigate much condition damage with burn and poison the way it is now.

Other than that, honestly we share the same mindset on a lot of things. Very good and well thought out post.

[foste.3098]

@Axl.8924 said:Question then do you remember how druid was when it was first released?

I remember that the cele avatar skills had absurd base healing values with low healing power scaling, that staff was a dumb aa spaming weapon with a mobility skill- ancestral grace which was an evade a heal and a blast, that lunar impact was a 2 sec daze, that cele avatar had 10 sec cd.I also remember that the biggest issue about druid itself was the druidic clarity & celestial shadow traits which together gave a easy way to kite during a fight by entering avatar -> dropping lunar impact -> exiting avatar which took less than a second and ensured the druid could leisurely rest himself before reengaging or just running away.

I also remember that the dumbest part of it all were the pets which were either overtuned - smokescale which hit like a truck with every skill, or just badly designed and overtuned - bristilback which had a command skill that was a oneshot at close range but missed every single shot against targets that were not hugging the pet, same with its rain of spikes skill which missed every spike and did nothing unless a enemy was standing on top of the pet in which case it was an instagb.I also recall how most other ranger pets were total shit by comparison and how they are unable to even hit a moving target, which is still true today hence why you almost always see Hot or Pof pets being used in pvp/wvw with the exception of birds and cats which are the only 2 core pet families that can reliably hit moving enemies.

So what's your point on druid? did you just raise it because of my icon?

[Axl.8924]

@foste.3098 said:

@Axl.8924 said:Question then do you remember how druid was when it was first released?

I remember that the cele avatar skills had absurd base healing values with low healing power scaling, that staff was a dumb aa spaming weapon with a mobility skill- ancestral grace which was an evade a heal and a blast, that lunar impact was a 2 sec daze, that cele avatar had 10 sec cd.I also remember that the biggest issue about druid itself was the druidic clarity & celestial shadow traits which together gave a easy way to kite during a fight by entering avatar -> dropping lunar impact -> exiting avatar which took less than a second and ensured the druid could leisurely rest himself before reengaging or just running away.

I also remember that the dumbest part of it all were the pets which were either overtuned - smokescale which hit like a truck with every skill, or just badly designed and overtuned - bristilback which had a command skill that was a oneshot at close range but missed every single shot against targets that were not hugging the pet, same with its rain of spikes skill which missed every spike and did nothing unless a enemy was standing on top of the pet in which case it was an instagb.I also recall how most other ranger pets were total kitten by comparison and how they are unable to even hit a moving target, which is still true today hence why you almost always see Hot or Pof pets being used in pvp/wvw with the exception of birds and cats which are the only 2 core pet families that can reliably hit moving enemies.

So what's your point on druid? did you just raise it because of my icon?

Well i did ask because of the icon and you mention gs which made me think of gs which people complain about on rangers with extremely useful counter attack .

[Arheundel.6451]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Arheundel.6451" said:You forgot to mention

skill and utility CD

, for new players :

1) Mistform - 75s CD2) Obsdidian Flesh - 60s CD3) Conjure Earth shield - 60s CD4) Fiery Greatsword - 180s CD

This is more than enough to prove how wrong you are...unless we want to start comparing a d/f ele with the all defenses possible to a

core necro MM

and see where we can go from there

P.S

conjure earth can be picked by enemy too

for the unaware

Sure do it, give all the defense possible to a core necro MM. I mean If it's a "MM" it probably won't take to long of your time anyway.

You're pointing out CDs, I'm pointing out that you actually have many choice of skills that can all be taken together. Look, that's Ele D/F if you want "CDs":

• 2 dodges and easy access to vigor for a 50% endurance regen rate increase (allowing the elementalist to dodge 3 time where the necromancer would dodge 2 times. You won't disagree with me here right?)
• Burning speed
  evade skill on 15s CD
• Earthen rush
  evade skill on 18s CD
• Shocking aura
  on 25s CD (not really a true damage avoidance skill, but quite annoying for the attacker)
• Swirling wind
  6s projectile destruction on 30s CD
• Magnetic wave
  3s projectile reflection on 25s CD (+ 3 condi cleanse)
• Earthen ring
  Block missiles on a 6s CD.
• Obsidian flesh
  3s invuln on 60s CD.
• Gale
  3s knockdown.
• Convergence
  3s weakness on 8s CD.
• Comet
  2s daze on 25s CD.

That was just D/F alone (no trait, no utility).It's overkill but I could add like you said:

• Earthshield
  and it's various skills on 60s CD (but well if you manage to pick your second bundle the invuln is on 30s CD)
• Fiery GS
  and it's various skills on 120s CD (
  fiery wirlwind
  still having 5 second CD when you wield the conjured weapon)
• mist form
  75s CD
• Arcane shield
  3 blocks on 45s CD
• Signet of air
  area blindness 25s CD.
• Gliph of storm: Sandstorm
  11 pulse of area blindness over 10s on 40s CD.

NB.: If an enemy can use your conjured weapons then it's a bug that ANet need to fix not a feature. But I'm pretty sure it's not the case.

The CDs mean everything to me, anything above 50s CD is excessive and clearly overnerfed , it's too risky and not worth to play "high risk builds" that rely on long CD defensive rotations between one burst and another and otherwise...the CD would be sort of justified if the burst would come from range which is not the ele case, a class mostly forced at melee range.

Logic dictates that melee builds should have shorter CD on defensive skills...not longer which is the case for most ranged builds, you listing all the defensive utilities/skills of ele mean very little when it's the ele player the one who need to push to apply pressure ( unless you talk about PvP where you just sit on the point making things easier )

Those players who can make ele appear OP are truly praiseworthy, they can make something work with very little, to juggle between conjures, weaver rotations and kiting while having a mere 13k HP is not easy feat, not as easy as pressing F1 3-5-4 or elite 1 spam, those ele players do all that at melee range with no ranged option available other than 2 CC to get close and set up combos after careful planning

You have taken this defensive stance like elementalist is easier to play than necro while being more survivable and doing more dmg, none of those are arguably true instead we can see the actual opposite happening

This is quite funny though, it reminds me of what was happening years ago with necro, long before the whole buffing process started, we had players like : @Nos and @Zombify claiming that necro was fine and players simply had to learn to play....fast forward and we have things like core necro, scourge and reaper, that's all fine good but now we have those same necro players claiming that ele is fine...as long as you play like a Top 100 AT player...isn't that hypocritical?

Ele is fine and strong as long as you are : @Grimjack or @Blamthrax or @Boyce or someone else at that level of dedication isn't it funny though? I guess necro should have been left at a level where only players at the same level of @Nos could make it work.

After 8k hrs I can't make ele work like that anymore in PvP...maybe some of you in this thread can show the forum how it is done

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Arheundel.6451" said:You have taken this defensive stance like elementalist is easier to play than necro while being more survivable and doing more dmg, none of those are arguably true instead we can see the actual opposite happening

I didn't. I said that your argument were biased and that elementalist have many more way to deal with damage than just poor plain healing sustain.

To the plain and objective facts that I deliver to you (I mean thoses skills are there right?) you just oppose subjective arguments. I won't disagree if you say that more isn't necessarily better but I won't agree with your stance that somehow the elementalist is more impacted by healing nerf than any other professions (It doesn't mean that it's less impacted, but it's not more impacted).

You often ask players to be "honest", be honest and face the fact that the elementalist is just loaded with defensive skills that players might not be using optimally because they favor going for the "kill" more than keeping a point caped.

NB.: You're the one obsessed by necromancer, my argument stand for any of the other 8 professions not just "necro".

[gmmg.9210]

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:This is a thread that I wrote in pieces and mostly 6 month ago, and decided to post close to the anniversary of the Feb 25th mega-patch of 2020. The point of this thread is to showcase various errors in that patch that to date have not really been addressed, and have now evolved within the meta to result in some noticeable problems in the gameplay. This thread also exists to highlight some of the good ideas from the patch that proved successful in improving gameplay. Most of this also applies to WvW.

1. Downstate was never updated to match the changes in damage. ( Oversight )

A side effect of damage being reduced across the board is that downstate generally now lasts noticeably longer, and cleaving out a downed target can be a losing game in the presence of support specs. It seems that downstate was just never really accounted for when factoring in the DPS reductions, and this has had some serious repercussions.

-”Support Balls” where multiple support/aoe damage hybrid builds ball together can be all but unkillable if they work together, because they can just instantly revive each other. This has proven an effective strategy in AT s, and is an extremely easy strategy to execute.-Traits that help with resurrection are now a lot stronger and can at times pretty much instantly revive someone. Blood necro is especially strong at this.-People in general staying in downstate for much longer than they previously would seems to hurt the flow of the game much more than anything. It also greatly increases the “Team rallybot” problem, where a teamfight can be won not by who plays better but by which team brought more stomp+revive options. “Build wars” aren’t fun.

Possible fixes:-Consider reducing the HP pool of downstate, or the HP gained during revives by at least 10%-Consider nerfing traits/skills that aid in revival

2. Pet / Summon / Spirits HP and stats were never updated to match the changes in damage. ( Oversight )

“Pets” such as spirit summons, Necromancer minions, and other summoned “Adds” were never updated to reflect the changes in DPS. The most noticeable of this being their health pool. This means that builds that could previously be countered much easier by simply killing the adds ( Kalla Renegade and Minion master are two notable examples ) now take a lot longer to take down. It also results in various implementations of the “run away/sustain while pets play the game for me” ""“strategy”"" which are never good for the game.

Possible fixes:-Just reduce the base stats of all pets/summons to match the damage reduction from Feb 25th 2020, and the inherent counterplay to these types of builds will be restored. This one is a pretty easy solution, as none of these builds were especially effective pre-patch.

3. Poor visual tells and poor balancing of the "Cast time + Effect" tradeoff continues to be one of the biggest balance problems plaguing GW2 PvP.

One of the good things about the Feb25th patch was that it did focus on some level of the concept that "Big damage should come from big tells." Unfortunately, it just didn't do enough. This continues to be the biggest issue with GW2 PvP, and why so many builds and skills that would otherwise be fine feel extremely frustrating to play against or feel very gimmicky to play due to the fact that a large portion of the damage comes from abilities that have very low cast times and/or poor quality visual tells. There's also the problem of big AoE abilties casting as fast as single target abilities, while doing either the same or even more damage. The result of this is a lot of mindless "Stand on point, spam AoEs" builds continue to dominate in conquest.

A good example of this done right would be looking at the game SMITE by Hirez. All abilities have clear animations. You can easily understand what abilities are being used from a fair distance away. The vast majority of the most powerful abilities have a noticeable windup time to give players a chance to react. There are many reasons why Smite has a pro league and GW2 doesn't, and this one of them.

Possible fixes-This issue is pretty self explanatory. Less damage coming from invisible passive sources, more coming from clearly recognizable abilities. This is something the patch did right, but just didn't do enough.-Consider adding a system of glowing skill symbols for certain abilities that appear over a characters head, similar to what existed for many skills ( Such as Ressurection signet ) from GW1. These "extra animations" Could be toggled on/off in player options.-Certain visual tells actually get blocked by damage text depending on your settings. This is a considerable oversight. Consider allowing players better control of the UI so this doesn't happen as often.-Consider giving more AoE skills the "Shackling wave" Treatment: IE, increase the cast time by double, and then increase the damage proportionate to the cast time increase in PvE to make up for the DPS loss so the change doesn't hurt PvE-only players. Having tons of AoE abilities that can be quickly cast in succession due to all of them being <1s casting time is one of the biggest factors in GW2 that causes the game to feel like the gameplay is "spammy".-"Reveal on hit" instead of "Reveal on cast" as a stealth mechanic is extremely controversial.-Consider giving stability a noticeable visual tell. This boon is easily the most important buff in PvP, and yet it has no visual tell at all. This forces players to constantly check their targets status bar. As a basic example from smite, CC immune players gain a golden VFX to their model.

4. The problems behind Condition damage were not directly addressed.

When it comes to power damage, the Feb 25th patch generally hit the mark: Spike damage needed to come down, because oneshots were way too easy as a result of the previous two expansions massive powercreep. However when it comes to how condition damage works, the changes that were mostly the reduction of passive stacks and increase to cooldowns didn’t quite touch on what specifically causes condi builds to be oppressive in PvP.

To put it simply, the real issue with conditions is that they have three upsides to two downsides.Downsides: 1. Damage over time is inferior to instant damage 2. Can be removed/transferred.Upsides: 1. Damage is overall higher 2. Stat advantage ( Only 1 stat required -condition damage- VS 3 stats -Power, Precision, Ferocity- ) 3. Condi abilities generally have low visual tells and/or are heavily carried by invisible passives and AoE spam.

The Feb 25th patch didn’t address this disparity at all, and instead tried to mask it with random numbers nerfs and dartboard cooldown hits. The result is that condi builds don’t really feel like they have seen any improvement in gameplay over the last year at all, and still for the most part come down to build wars instead of skill.

Possible fixes:-To put it simply, either one of the upsides of condition damage should be reduced, or conditions need a new downside.-IMO the best solution is unfortunately the one that requires the most work: Condi skills should have the same level of animated tells and cast times as Power based skills. Getting hit with invisible passives and fast casting unblockable AoEs is probably what most people dislike about condi builds the most. In other words, see problem #3.-A band-aid solution is to increase the number of conditions removed by most condi clears by one. This isn’t the best solution by any means, but it's relatively easy to implement.

5. Not all CC s are created equal, and they haven’t really received the post-rework treatment that most expected. This has resulted in most CC skills being either a lot stronger or weaker than they should be

The basic change to CC in GW2 that came along Feb 25th is something I personally found favorable. Reducing stability and stunbreaks meant people actually had to actively try to avoid CC ( As opposed to just running around with 10 billion stacks of stab and never having to learn what the tells are for CC skills ), while removing the damage from CC also meant that CC now had to be used as a part of a skill combo than as a free kill when it lands.

That being said, the main oversight here is this rework made it so CC that takes a long time to cast and have huge animations are not nearly as strong as they once were, while CC that have poor visual tells or comes with additional benefits such as being multi-hit in a huge AoE, unblockable, or even unevadeable got a huge indirect buff. So yet again, see problem #3. This disparity has not been well addressed over the last year, leading more and more builds to gravitate towards CC spam of unevadeables and unblockables. Gale, Dragon’s Maw, Shock aura, Sleight of Hand, and Darkrazor's Daring are just a few example skills/mechanics that are now much stronger than they need to be. Meanwhile, certain elite CC with huge tells like PLB still seem underwhelming.

Possible fixes:-Consider removing the mechanic of unevadeable CCs from the game entirely. Unblockable CCs already perform the job of being able to break through block-spam, so unevadeable CCs don't really add anything to the game other than to further encourage the "Stand on point, spam AoEs" cheese-strategy.-Severely tone down CC s that have no visual tell, or give them a visual tell.-Consider “gain stability for 2s when you break a stun” a default mechanic of all stun breaks, similar to the trait “Glaring Resolve” minus the heal ( You only get the stab if you are actually CC-d when you use a stunbreak skill ). What this does is cut down on the effectiveness of CC spam, without the problems cause by “On demand” stability.

6. While sustain was brought down to match the damage reduction, Indirect sources of sustain really were not.

Many players warned before the patch went live that indirect sources of sustain such as barrier-spam and Necro lifeforce were not really being touched as much as they should. A year later, things have slightly improved, but this issue has overall proven to be a noticeable side effect. This can also result in a lot of builds that are better at bunkering than they should, because they gain a source of sustain that can be easily spammed. "Decap" builds are a solid example.

Possible fixes-Skills and traits that have no ( Or an extremely low ) ICD tend to be the biggest offenders.-Pay close attention to bunker builds and what enables them. Too much bunker leads to an extremely stale meta.-Continue to monitor indirect forms of sustain that add more health but don't technically "Heal".-New players tend to have problems with skills like Defiant stance ( Warrior ) or Infused light ( Rev ) that convert incoming damage into healing. While it's easy to tell these players to "gitgud", and in many ways it really is a L2P issue, it's also another case of problem #3. The visual tell on these skills just aren't good enough to match how serious of a skill they are, to the point where it is easier to notice them by looking at their status-bar than their player model. The stats ( Cooldown/Duration ) on these skills and how they function are fine, but consider adding a brighter glow to them to help the noobs out.

7. "Just increase the cooldown" didn't work at all.

See thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97262/why-increasing-cooldowns-does-not-reduce-spam-and-can-even-make-spam-worse#latest

Most of what I warned about in that thread has come to pass. The most effective method to kill someone in the game right now is to +1 them. While this has always been true, it's far easier now since the chances of two players engaged in an on point 1v1 being out of cooldowns is noticeably higher.

Possible fixes-Consider why a skill is overpowered before nerfing it. More often than not, the cooldown has little to do with it.-In the case of GW2 especially, most skills that ended up getting a cooldown nerf actually have a cast-time problem rather than a cooldown problem.-In other words, see problem #3.

TL;DR- ANET needs to hire some animators.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

@"gmmg.9210" said:

TL;DR- ANET needs to hire some animators.

It's a bit more complicated than just animations. It's also cast times and a lack of meaningful risk-reward factor in way too many abilities, which leads to "spammy" gameplay.

Anet seems to not want to accept the fact that having huge AoEs with under 1s cast time is bad for the game, and instead tries to cover up said bad skill design by slapping longer cooldowns on them, which does not work and just leads to zerg-meta. They also need to accept the fact that mechanics that have low counterplay are very difficult, if not impossible to balance. Something that has no counter either has the numbers to win, and thus immediately becomes broken-tier in the meta because there is nothing to stop it from winning, or it does not have the numbers to win and thus does not see any play. This is the crux as to why games like Smite have more fun PvP than GW2. No, it's not because that game was designed for PvP. It's because the devs understand that everything needs counterplay or else you literally cannot balance your game, and it devolves into a spamfest of poorly designed busted abilities.

[zoopop.5630]

Lack Of Communication Is What Killed this game.

No Discussion On what was NextNo Discussion On What they were planning to address/doingNo Respond from any of the staff when they ghosted us for a year after the huge updateNo Respond when asked On Discord/Stream about what was happeningNo Respond to all the Bots/Hacks/Rascal slurs that were going unbanNo Respond to Any of the "follow up's" they planned on doingNo Respond to Any of the "tournaments" they planned on doing for us

Overall what really KILLED this game for a majority of the top end players that actually took the game serious was the lack of not knowing what the heck was happening and why balance patch drops were happening every 3-6 months. Toward the Middle of Covid everything went downhill once Hacks/Bots were given a free pass for an entire year. It's beyond to late to "Fix" or "Update" this game to make it "enjoyable" for the players that enjoyed the amazing combat system they had to offer. Mind you I'm only talking about the SPvp issues and not even touching up on the WvW issues that has far more problems which has been also ignored longer then SPvp.

My advise to the community would be to look into something else with a more promising future, rather to sink in time/effort on a good post like this that would probably get ignored.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

@"zoopop.5630" said:Lack Of Communication Is What Killed this game.

No Discussion On what was NextNo Discussion On What they were planning to address/doingNo Respond from any of the staff when they ghosted us for a year after the huge updateNo Respond when asked On Discord/Stream about what was happeningNo Respond to all the Bots/Hacks/Rascal slurs that were going unbanNo Respond to Any of the "follow up's" they planned on doingNo Respond to Any of the "tournaments" they planned on doing for us

Lack of communication is annoying for sure, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad if their balance decisions and updates were actually good. I'd rather have a well maintained healthy meta and silent devs than vocal devs who do dartboard changes.

And the meta right now is 100% Mindless AoE spam trash. 3v3 exposes just how bad it really is. Of course all builds are going to be AoE spam when AoE spam does just as much damage and casts just as fast as other abilities.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Loboling.5293 said:I posted this to another thread, but I figure it belongs here. These are my suggested changes for the next PvP balance patch.

The following changes:

Warrior:Headbutt (0.8)Bull charge (0.6)Hammer 5 (0.4)Ground stomps (zerker one and physical stunbreak one) (0.3)

GuardianHammer 4 (0.6)Spirit hammer (0.3)Spirit sword (-1 hit)Virtue burning proc (+1 hit required per interval)

Revenant:Glint elite knockback (0.5)Shiro elite (0.4)Staff 5 (0.3)

RangerAxe 4 (0.8)

EngineerHolo elite (0.5)Nerf holo 1 PvP by 20%Holo 5 (0.3)Scrapper explosion gyro (0.8)Big ol' bomb (0.8)

Thief:Daredevil elite (0.3, 0.3, 0.6)

ElementalistFocus water 5 (0.3)Meteor shower no longer reduced dmg per hit in PvP (no -20% per hit)Weaver barrier skill (-20% barrier)

NecromancerReaper elite (0.4)Minion elite (0.3)

Mesmer:Greatsword 5 (0.3)Chrono elite (0.2, 0.3, 0.5)Pistol 5 (0.3)

giving rev staff 0.3 coof would make it a nuke, as it can hit 5+ times and sometimes upwards of 8 or 9 hits.on the same boat ranger axe 4 hits 2 times so giving it 0.8 coof would make it hit harder then maul, maybe having the first hit deal some damage and return to pull, butthe skill is kind of whack. VERY unreliable.Most CC skills dont need damage. Mesmer p5/gs5 for example are fine without damage. And I dislike how you wanna shove damage into skills like bulls-charge. As it will be do everything on low cd skill again. Maybe introducing damage to CC elites like grav well, chilled to the bone and laser first would be a step in the right direction.