Gogdarth.6741

Imagine making a trait that literally quadruples ambush attacks, and then nerfing everything but that trait until it becomes balanced on the virtue of original attacks being this much weaker.

IH should've been purely visual, or reworked entirely. Other nerfs that resulted out of it's obvious dominance should be reverted. PvE mirage would also not mind having something that makes them a viable condi spec not just on a handful of raids purely because torment/confusion are weirdly situational conditions.

I'd want something akin to PBS in spirit, maybe. Something like, "Generating clones above limit triggers a special sandy attack around you that applies this and that, consuming clones in the process". Essentially filling same purpose of being a pressure source, but instead of relegating it to literal multiplication of ambushes it becomes kind of a new way to trigger a new shatter, also with enough of a tell that it's coming PvP wise.

As far as Elusive Mind goes, I'd love for it to get an autouse of Jaunt (minus most damage) in the direction you're "dodging" - that'll open up ditching Deceptive Evasion in favor of Self-Deception as your main clone-gen and would make perfect sense with trait's theme of, like, being elusive. The current "cleanse tbh" thing barely feels like enough.

I can't even remember what's the third grandmaster for Mirage is, and that's telling in itself about how useful or memorable it is.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"Lincolnbeard.1735" said:

> > > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > > If mesmer without _glamor_ trait is a joke what is necromancer without _spectral_ and _well_ trait?

> >

> > At least when spectral mastery was deleted some spectral skills got buffed.

>

> Every single glamour skills had there CD shaved by 20% baseline when they removed the trait. On another hand some spectral skill got changes for which it's arguable whether they are nerf or buff while other were just left alone losing even the CD reduction when they removed _spectral mastery_ trait. I mean, yeah, a bunch of change can make people feel good when they delete a trait, but a baseline CD reduction for all skills is far from being bad either.

The trait used to grant resistance on every Glamour skill use, giving you an actual source for this boon. It also was in support traitline and aoe.

In short, rip boonsupport, enjoy your STM lobotomy lmao

It's fitting that a necromancer subforum just doesn't let a silly bait thread die peacefully, but still.

My favorite joke is them saying they wanted to buff greatsword and reworking it's trait into being worse than it was before while also removing F3 stun conversion and making this new, worse trait compete with Empowered Illusions. 10/10 would laugh again.

It's a good healer replacer for CM100 when one FB is CQFB. Epi is good to use for spreading softCC onto Sorrows and barriers/mini-cleanses are nice, DPS isn't total trash (but of course it's not going to top any charts unless they're trash) and res potential smoothes out a lot of kinks (people often get downed really awkwardly on this one - your dead baby vacuum takes care of that). Can smooth out runs for intermediate/lowKP groups or used in personal static where just having fun and clearing reliable on any day is the goal.

CScourge is better than what people say, _but_ naturally far from the most optimal thing in the world to play and Reaper is generally better (except in CM100, if necro's your only option - go with Scourge, Reaper just plain suffers there no matter how you look at it). It does, however, shine in several fractals; Siren's Reef, Deepstone, and basically anything you can make use of Epi at. Doesn't perform too shabby by pug standards in CMs in general, considering that most low-to-mid KP groups aren't even hitting third of DPS potential their classes should be doing, unironically. Like, you can expect 22-25k pulls on Ensolyss if you really try, generally about 20-21k. Your friendly average pug would rarely breach 16-20k on this encounter, meanwhile, and that's with KP gatekeeping. Worth noting that getting a decent number is easier on Scourge in general, because you really don't have any rotation to speak of, you just priotize skills and then fire them off ASAP. Very low mental investment, fantatic for when you don't feel like putting mental effort into anything - we all have those days.

If you solopug a lot, having pocket plaguedoctor healscourge ready to swap from Reaper is going to be a godsend for when you get a struggling group, trust me on that one.

When giving hot takes like these, you better have some reasoning planned. Because I can guarantee you that no mesmer player is convinced by any of your suggestions, or particularly enthused. Except the well thing, wells are indeed bad.

I have a couple too, for my beloved Chrono in particular!

a) Danger time is now "When you or your illusions have quickness". Slow reliance is bad and holding us back severely. Can nerf damage increase, just let it still critcap us.

b) Chronophantasma doesn't make a second strike, it just doubles phantasms. Generating clones above limit partially recharges **main** shatter skills.

Chrono's big problem is that it's burst is bad, and it has a damage ramp-up like a condi build, which also super holds it back. This change to Chronophantasma not only stops this trait from delaying your shatters which makes it actively detrimental in any PvP gamemode, but also promotes interesting synergy with Bountiful Blades and opens us up to a much juicier burst possibility. It also plays well thematically with time manipulation theme, allowing you to maybe forgo shattering to refresh F3 for CC, for instance.

c) Rework wells. A lot of them are weak and cumbersome to use too. Steal Scrapper's idea and glue them to us, make them pulse boons/effects with biggest pulse at the end still, can probably glue Action and Recall into one and make another one for better boon support/utility. Maybe even heal one, because chops for becoming a support are already there, we just don't get them.

d) Lost Time is a waste of time. Replace entirely with a defensive support option, or a utility one - to compete with Chronophantasma and STM.

e) So is Delayed Reactions. It's a trait that should be a part of Flow of Time rather than it's own thing.

Wouldn't touch on core mesmer skills, because I'm not looking into writing a new bible for 0 effect anyway, lmao.

It's simple, we need actual work put into balance patches - I'm talking full-on skill reworks and trait improvements, not number tweaking to see what sticks and what doesn't for years. Aim to bring diversity within classes, and you'll create diversity within the entire gamemode - you'll see more different builds if each class would have at least 2 viable PvP builds to run. Not to mention that we're still sitting on 300cd traits, outdated both visually and mechanically core skills (on some of those, being almost a decade old _shows_ compared to newer ones), bad weaponsets and entire specs being just bad.

I'm willing to accept that this nerf fiesta where everything got boring was "laying groundwork" if it is followed by mentioned above. If not, we'll never see the gamemode thriving - except maybe on EoD release for few months, if we're lucky.

Any shred of excitement I had for feb is dead.

Just remember to have fun and don't take anything too seriously about PvP. Winning is good, but in the end of the day rank is lowkey meaningless and you're still progressing towards goal, albeit slower - even if you lose. And no matter what, mileage is what gets you better - some days might be utterly horrid, but hey, who cares so long as you got a solid few plays out of it to ponder/reflect on or had some cool high points to be proud of.

Oh, and when people will get toxic to you - just remember that they're compensating for their own insecurity by projecting onto others like total losers and don't deserve a shred of attention besides a laugh at their utterly miserable experience that they themselves imposed. :^)

> @"Burnfall.9573" said:

> > @"Sobx.1758" said:

> > > @"Gogdarth.6741" said:

> > > > @"Burnfall.9573" said:

> > > > so few minutes ago, a couple of our guild players including 3 Commanders on our guild were arguing with a bot programmer on our guild. Of how she openly boasted and prided herself for not giving a kitten about what people say about her botting.

> > > >

> > > > I want to share few things that she stated about the reasoning about PvP and Wvw botters. she said that 'oh well...Anet doesn't even care about their players so i don't know why people are 'sticking a broom up their 'kitten' as if Anet owes them something', 'they don't even give a 'kitten' about their game modes except cash shop PvE, laugh..., people are leaving anyways and PvP and WvW are dead game mode because Anet want it this way, so why should people keep crying about their dead game modes', the Guild Leader asked this player, 'can't you go somewhere else to bot instead of here', she replied, 'we keep getting reported by players and the 'game company' won't let us, they are very strict with us

> > > >

> > > >

> > > > couple of us asked her, who is 'we', she said that she is not the only bot/hack programmer, there are many of them.

> > > >

> > > > so there,

> > > >

> > > > **“We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us.”**

> > >

> > > And of course you will not disclose account name of the person in question, no convo screenshots exist in nature and my uncle also works at ANet.

> >

> > Yup, sadly it's pretty hard to have an evidence for something that never happened :(

>

> **-10**

>

> it is quite sad indeed that you are intentionally provoking me knowingingly that it is against forum rules to disclose such

>

> -i ask that you respectfully not communicate with me again-

I'm sorry, reporting obvious terms of service violators is against which rules, exactly? Next thing you'll know reporting people is an offence, by that logic.

Support builds are so bad at being supports, a warrior outheals them.

Cutting down on stab sources/cds on stunbreaks without lowering amount of actual stuns happening.

Lots of skills that have CC baked into them should also deal damage based on factors of accessibility (cooldown), opportunity cost and cast time/ability to react to.

Specs being unplayable because PvE mechanical decisions. Or, alternatively, way too good because of them.

Ridiculous tradeoffs - is it that shocking that Mirage and Chrono "lack sustain" after you cut down a dodge and distortion out of them respectively without compensating for it? Or that nobody plays Berserker because melee class being excessively vulnerable to being counterpressured is bad, therefore having less toughness is terrible?

300 CD traits still exist.

No direct communication to let us know what/when to expect anything at all, again.

Amulet removals mangling already poor balance, because it's either berserker/marauder/marauder-but-toughness(exciting!) or sage/mender, rarely perhaps Carrion. Energy/Cleansing, for having interesting choices is hard.

A ton of core skills are still terribad in every gamemode ever.

Overall rating: 10/10, made me play PvE instead for once.

> @"Antycypator.9874" said:

That's all cool, but one thing's missing - giant scythe to reap people in half with. And incoherent babblings about being a death incarnate or how everyone's a weakling and you're going to eat their souls.

Memes aside, thief is also a very good pick and I do agree that it must be mentioned. Weird it wasn't so far.

~~bring back ricochet ~~

> @"Opopanax.1803" said:

>

> Would you mind sharing a link to your reaper build? I am pretty familiar with the mesmer ones, but not so much the reaper ones.

It's not one build that I'm mentioning, but kind of three. Keep in mind that you don't need to go ascended at all, just make sure you have 50% crit chance and you're good. Can get away with as little as 17% critchance to be still critcapped in shroud, but meh. Gear generally has a lot of leeway to it; just make sure you have sufficient crit to cap yourself with traits. Rune of the Pack is the cheap and fantastic option that also has Fury, I often run Durability because that's what I have on my WvW set -feels quite good too. Rune of Vampirism in mass murder scenarios (zergs) is great. Try with Blood Bank in Blood Magic for extra immortal. Rune of Speed or Strength if you don't mind spending and want a little bit more damage/more speed, respectively - though, tbh, both lose to Pack.

Most DPS build - generally for encounters you know well.

[Deeps](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwEE6MsMB2BThdxGxx6qs5D-zRRYBRNWUJYYlRgpQnVgaDA-e). Feel free to;

Switch Decimate Defences for Soul Eater to have lifesteal in melee, great when facing a ton of trash so you can benefit from hitting as many things as possible with your wells - keep in mind, healing only happens outside of shroud.

Switch Axe to Dagger, the easiest "I kind of want more healing" option.

Your Soul is Mine for Consume Conditions, if needed. Signet of Spite is the first thing to go, feel free to run Spectral Walk for some cleanse, stunbreak and minor LF gen, also utility of being able to teleport back to where you started - amazing at fetchquests like bringing pack supplies in VB or what have you. Wurm if you still want the same effect, but would take more than 10 seconds - keep in mind that Wurm has a range lock, Spectral Walk doesn't. Chilled to the Bone can be used when golem sucks - but keep in mind that flesh golem will be your main breakbar destroyer. It's CC damage is extremely strong.

Food, it depends. Generally Tin of Fruitcake is always good, and then you can go either something with + endurance if you feel dodgy, with lifesteal+power just because why not and full power - though avoid precision foods, you don't need those at all.

Zerging - Replace Soul Reaping with Blood Magic, go Ritual of Life - Vampiric Presence - Transfusion, Axe/Wh to Staff with Frenzy and Fire if tagging is involved. You'll get to feel like a badass hero saving people from certain death, would generally feel a lot safer from random "lmao lots of damage" things happening and you still have Spite to cover your might needs. I lowkey wish more reapers ran Blood Magic for group events, it's such an easy swap that helps the whole zerg. Well of Blood in healskill also becomes an option to have even more ressing power.

Soloing champs/legendaries; Nothing beats Minionmaster. Go all minions, skip the bone one because it's pretty bad and slot Rise instead.

Replace Soul Reaping with Death Magic. Flesh of the Master, Necromantic Corruption, and then - if you run around with it and kill trash mobs, Death Nova for fun and profit, little undead army at your disposal. Quite fun. Can go Lich Form and press 4 for even more death nova memes. If you fight a champ, however. absolutely go Corrupter's Fervor. Just stabbing things with GS3 and autoattacking/ doing a bit of a shroud spin will get you pulsing protection that you can easily keep up. "Rise!" further cuts your incoming damage. Also, free toughness.

Hopefully that helpful, happy reaping.

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"Gogdarth.6741" said:

> Edit: Sorry about that! Just realized dungeons were specifically mentioned and it's true that condi builds would not be ideal for dungeon solos!

Yep, it's oki, and your mentioned reasons are exactly correct - it's because older content doesn't support condition damage on structures and you do need to do this often enough to be annoyed about it.

As to your showcase - first of all, very nice and I will definitely check your build out myself, second - while Reaper would deal less DPS here (abt. 13k-11kish, with blood/death over soul reaping), what it would gain is tremendous ease instead. Beauty of Reaper is that it barely needs to go defensive at all, since if things are extremely tough - you can just give up some damage for extremely strong self-sustain options (Soul Eater, DM/BM, Blighter's Boon if you must - though I absolutely never needed to, Dagger 2 is literally a second low-CD healskill and an easy/cheap swap from Axe) with close to no gear changes. Due to Reaper having a load of free stats just in traits, you can also go even further - for example, it loses very little from running Marauder, or some trinkets can easily be valkyre/knight/what have you, due to you basically being at critcap almost from traits alone, especially in Shroud. I just find it excessive and needless and practically never ran into a situation in entirety of my solo/OW play that would warrant something like this. At absolute worst (MM Reaper with Death Magic), it's DPS is about 9k-10k, slightly less if you're lazy and not even pretending to do rotations (8k), which is surprisingly respectable given the fact that you basically can put something on autoattack button and alttab to look at Youtube vids most of the time. And it's not to diss Reaper for it - in fact, I super enjoy having an option like that for those days when I just can't be asked nicely to press more than 3 buttons. Meanwhile, best I could bench on Scrapper solo so far was about 8k, though it's perfectly viable for most farming just as well - it's just a little slower at it.

Lowkey shocked reaper isn't mentioned more. Very good personal DPS when solo/with no external support (which is most of PvE farming), tanky and spunky, cheap to gear up, can run minions+death magic for soloing bounties and champs/legendaries by having almost permanent protection/ton of free toughness/"Rise" for memes, can run blood to be of great help in any zerg/meta, lots of cleave, good tagging if you just put on staff over axe/wh. Just slap some berserker/marauder on it and rune of strength/hydromancy sigils, and you're golden. Some would say it's slow mobility-wise, but you actually get permanent swiftness by just pressing wh5 and spectral walk off CD, for the rest - mounts are a thing. As for soloing dungeons, it can when there's no things like DPS checks (ascalon p1, cleaving graveling burrows before guy dies). Then again, I can guarantee that trailblazer solo builds won't ever be able to do that as well, because condi are bad in older content. Another thing that works very well in dungeon soloing in Reaper's favor is the fact that traits like Decimate Defences and Death Perception do not get downscaled with stats - while other power specs get their precision all the way to the gutter, Reaper basically still has critcap/close to it regardless.

I have one that isn't "class bad".

Fix that thing where Spellbreaker's bubble sticks to it and you can't tell whether it's blocking or not just because game feels like it.

It's rewarding not in the context of effort vs payoff, but in the context of Conquest - same way first incarnation of Scourge was literally actively detrimental, because area control in a gamemode where you have to stay on points is obviously strong.

Ask for new gamemodes, not for further hits to Guardian. DH and FB are already pretty whatever, core is so and so.

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> Believe me, I know. I was the person that started the "Soulbeast Ganking" videos about 2 years ago. I was actually surprised and slightly offended that the guy tried to use my calling card and started tossing around the term Gank for his build & video ^^ w/e I don't care.

>

Even if it is imitation, that's the greatest form of flattery, not a ripoff, lmao. I'd honestly would rather congratulate the guy on bringing something not so hopeless into this forum for once in ages, we need more of those "imitations" around here. These make people actually take interest in playing PvP because it looks cool. Little bit of spectacle never hurt anyone, and poster himself was quick to point out that it is just +1'ing and nothing mind-boggling, just highlights.

That being said, I mean, Soulbeast isn't utter trash, but it is pretty trash as you say. Mostly because now to reach this damage you can't really run anything remotely defensive, give up practically everything for the bursting (which revolves around pretty much most of your skills at once going on CD) and you have to micromanage a plethora of conditional +% increases, and while yes, it is +100whatever% on paper, let's be very real for readers at home - managing that and keeping it in mind is annoying. It's a clunky, glassy build, that pretends it's some sort of Deadeye with a big sword as Ol' Reliable when the pew pew goes sideways (which is often), but with far less stealth to spam and lower mobility to boot. Oh, and can we talk about how most of the pets are straight up trash?

That reminds me of a funny parallel with a certain dead class, that too, gave up most of it's CDs to "one-shot" people and mainly did +1'ing. Not going to mention it, because you do not speak ill of the dead, but just putting it out there for reader's consideration. I'd rather see less classes in "never played unless masochism" category than more.

More worried for Reaper atm than this, though, because some of the suggestions as to it's nerfs I've read around here are atrocious - when imo it could actually use a bit of a tweak up in one or two skills, while Lich just needs to go as well as other transform skills in the game overall besides Moa. None of them are good or healthy.

> @"ollbirtan.2915" said:

> Now that Guard is out, whose head is next on the chopping block? Come on, forum warriors! It's been six hours since "patch" already! Time to demand more ridiculous nerfs to other classes.

Reaper and suddenly Soulbeast, probably. Reaper is in special danger because 3v3 season and it's very much supposed to shine there as it is a teamfight build, so expect to see a ton of whining about it. Soulbeast, idk, I guess someone posted a nice montage of class not being utterly trash and now it's too much? Gathering from a vibe check that is.

Disappointing, considering silence and time it took to release since the last one. Heavy-handed as usual too. No meaningful reworks. Bad professions remain bad. Core guard monkey symbolspawn did just ruin symbols for all guard specs, and FB kind of relied on those despite already being in a bad spot.

What are the baselines for appropriate power level per class - is balancing done in relation to specific build's effectiveness, or in relation to it's competition in meta/with other classes in the particular niche? In other words, when changes are made - is bigger picture a consideration? Does influence of nerfs to one build within a class inform what needs to be compensated in order for the entirety of the class to not fall out of playability?

Can we expect to see certain underused utilities, traits and skills getting a touch-up/upgrade, especially those that severely show their age functionally? Are there plans to rework placeholder traits with 5 minutes CDs into anything else?

The burning question of tradeoffs - are they really necessary, and how exactly are they determined? Should we expect more of those? Should we keep an eye out for reverts instead?

And last one I am really curious about, are we going to see functional reductions rather than number cuts - the way I see it, if all of our skills apply 1 second of a bunch of boons, all it does is merely making us use more skills to compensate. For instance, I would live with Jaunt not dealing damage at all if it meant that we get 3 charges back, or Firebrand skills generally doing less different things but without nick-and-dime boons/tiny condition durations that are often end up being so short they lead to very lacking impact, which is why FB at the moment is underwhelming?

Also, the very first question of design philosophy is something I second very hard. I would love to hear this too.

Imo, it's a poor man's MOBA born out of success of this genre in an attempt to get similar results in GW2. Rather than emphasising on game's actual great combat and possible build diversity within every class, it emphases annoying mob herding as if I'm doing hearts or playing lanes in LoL/DOTA and restrictive meta that only allows two types of builds to exist. The emphasis on individual characters within the game mechanic's itself and a vastly different meta that outcasts a number of functional builds in favor of black and white "dps or sup" is what ultimately makes it boring to play, at least for me. I don't know whether I should feel thrilled about mostly interacting with AI running back and forth for the whole match while LORD UNDER ATTACK message nags at me for like five minutes.

I think Guild Wars is simply not built for this type of gamemode as it misses the mark on why we even play this game's PvP in the first place. Also, hero mechanic is weird and for some reason requires grinding reward tracks.

I say, scrap the mechanics, make it a 10v10 map that emulates some of WvW experience (make us carry supplies, put down sieges) and give it a 30-45 minutes timer - and you'd have a far better gamemode that somewhat blends the two together and which would likely find more success with general population, since it's different, but not unfamiliar. Think of it as "small scale WvW in a shorter time span".

Hot take, Guardian is actually fine and has strong builds across all gamemodes that work well with healthy variety of use cases and functions. How about instead of making this one thing that is actually good in this game worse... we make other things better instead?

You know, like about 4 possible supports that are just not viable in PvE because they offer less? Making chrono less tedious for boonsupport, perhaps? Bringing druid back? Tempest having more stuff to offer as a support? Revenant's pony mode being a thing that isn't downright annoying to use at last? Scourge leaving meme status by having actual synergy with other specs?

The actual sad truth is that just number changes will not cut it ever. They nicked and dimed boon durations on certain skills to a point of having practically no uptimes ever, which only forces us to - shockingly - spam more skills, sending us on a spiral where every build has a whole rainbow of boons, making it kind of impossible to balance in the first place. What should actually happen is reduction, and not duration one - that 1s stability isn't helpful, if we're taking Chaos in Mesmer as a live example of weird boon cutting tactic they've employed.

Make skills and traits apply less types of boons at once, not shorter durations.

Bring back certain boon durations so that pressing those skills can be meaningful again.

Another thing is that certain skills simply do too much, while other skills don't do enough neither in PvE nor in PvP. Let's compare Warrior's Bull's Charge - which is evade, mobility, combo finisher, damage buff and a strong CC all rolled into one low-ish CD button, while Berserker's Wild Blow in PvP just kinda launches people, except it's way less reliable to connect, and-d-d that's pretty much it aside from prolonging berserk mode - which in itself is a questionable rework for the mechanic, to rely on it's own utilities so hard. Not even damage anymore. We can't ever have balance when we have skills so bluntly inferior while seemingly having similar functions. A lot of core skills need a serious look at for both gamemodes, because if you'll take a casual stroll across most meta sections you'll discover that only a fraction of skills ever gets used at all on all classes. There's simply way too much imbalance within the very foundation of every class with the exception of Revenant, maybe. Mostly due to not actually having slottable skills.

Make a sweeping pass over skills - some things require aggressive reworks, vast improvements or reductions in function. Provide actual choices, rather than make everything equally terrible - I don't want kits as bad as turrets, I want turrets to be as valuable as kits in their own regards.

Amulets have to go. The restrictive nature of amulets will never lead to true diversity, and changes need to be made based on performance of skills and traits in context of function/class it's on, rather than "having access to amulet with healing power and concentration", removal of which made many other possible builds just dead on arrival. While this one I won't claim as objective, I simply believe that if we had freedom to form our own amulets by picking 3-stat or 4-stat combos ourselves, many more builds would become possible. Would that require work? Absolutely, it'd need attention to tune capabilities of certain classes down or up in areas.

Lastly, many of Feb's patch coeff. changes seem misguided. For example, Reaper's Greatsword - Gravedigger atm is barely worth pressing, because it's damage just too low for the damage it can bring in this particular timespan, also considering it's huge and oh-so-nicely-telegraphed windup with literal metal-esque horror screeching every time you press it. You're better off just spamming auto practically always, and Gravedigger is just used for style points, kinda. We have a bunch of those skills now. To not anger people on Reaper hatetrain, I'll also point out that Death's Charge shouldn't have so much damage attached to it, because it's a mobility skill slash projectile hate slash blind application already.

True problems are far deeper than just numbers on skill coeffs or boon durations. Many things need a touch up and attention of balance teams, PvE meta suffers from staleness and rigidity too, and things really need to change to ensure healthy future. With third set of especs on the horizon, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that anything will ever get done balance-wise if asking for changes within our gamemode falls on deaf ears for more than half a year, or entire specs remain unplayable for a year or more.