Custodio.6134

this is exactly the feeling i got over time, and is the reason for this post. You need to play WvW on a daily basis, in different aspects of WvW (Zerging and Roaming) and a reasonable amount of time to get a realistic insight on the state of WvW. And, i really hope there will be more focus on the WvW-balance and PvE/PvP will no longer have any impact on WvW. Just as i said, the whole system how WvW works is too different from every other game-mode and must completely be separated and no longer be influenced by those.

Just as the title says, i wonder if ArenaNet employees ever play WvW. Especially the last few balance patches and discussions on possible balancing-changes let me think about if ArenaNet, especially the balancing-team actually knows how the state of WvW really is.

To clarify my question a bit: playing WvW does NOT mean, that you join WvW once per week for 2 hours, with "playing WvW" i mean, being active a lot of time (maybe not as much as the "veterans" that play every day for at least 4-5 hours, but i think about every ~2 days for at least 3 hours) and staying in both, a public zerg and roaming, and also with interacting with the respective community of the server.

For myself, since release (and i started playing WvW even before my first character reached lvl 80) i have NEVER seen a player with ArenaNet-Tag in WvW. If it is really the case, that ANet, especially the balancing-team actively plays WvW, i guess i have never seen one, or they didn´t ever play on our Server. If NOT, well, then at least i know how these (sometimes ridiculous) balancing ideas/implemented changes are produced...

I don´t want to start a huge discussion about balancing-aspects here, but encourage ArenaNet employees, especially the balancing-team that is responsible for WvW, to focus their own type of playing to WvW from time to time and over a longer period (e.g. 2 full matchups, so they expierience at least 1 re-linking) to really witness the current state of the game mode and how their implemented changes did impact the whole game. Also, this would require playing on not only 1 server, but to switch servers that are in different languages, and especially different timezones, as this heavily impacts the flow of battle, especially at primetime. I just want to point this out, because opinions here in the forums are always heavily subjective and don´t always reflect a neutral view. Exactly this point is a huge factor, that could impact the balance and state of the game mode in a negative way as you cannot rely on opinions of players to 100% because of the subjective perception of each player, which can vary a lot on personal expieriences. Also, humans tend to remember negative expieriences a lot more, than things that are actually good. For example: you will not care as much about your own healing being too high, as your enemies damage being too low. Vice versa, if your enemy deals a huge amount of damage, you will notice this, and start to feel a lack of your own sustain (even if it is not the case). Another point is the fact, that WvW-related balancing-changes to classes/skills/traits still seem to be connected (at least in a particular way) to PvP and PvE. This is (in my opinion) one of the reasons why ANet struggles to balance WvW in a proper way. WvW-balance MUST be split from PvP and PvE entirely. They are in no way related to each other and the differences in style of play and priority on what classes/skills/traits are important or not are HUGE.

This is one thing i would really like to know

yeah, i´m quite thinking the same way most of the others do. the necro-corrupts are not the problem. remember: a corrupt can only apply conditions, if boons had already been applied before at the target. the reason why this boon conversion is so strong, is the massive amount of boons that already get applied. even with the current state after the latest balance patch, i can corrupt down many enemy boons, while not noticing much difference in the buff-bar of my target (in fact, you cannot even consider yourself how many boons you already stripped without using arcdps). this means: the boon corrupts are neither too strong nor too weak, the boon application from other classes are the problem you need to find a way to handle.

just as DeadlySynz already stated, changing the scourge values over and over again will not impact the game in the intended way. You need to get away from the way of thinking at every class for itself. every aspect of each class (especially guards vs necros) affects another, or, multiple others. Nerfing boon-corrupts will automatically buff boon applications, buffing corrupts will automatically nerf boon applications. Buffing boon removal/boon conversion will always nerf boon application and so on. Every so far suggested change in terms of necro/guard/engi has been extremely one-sided; some of them just negated each other, some of them extremely buffed one and extremely nerfed the corresponding counterpart.

Thinking this way, maybe it is not the time for nerfing one thing after another, again, and again, and again until everything in the game is on the same level again (well, it will be the same level of uselessness then) but time to BUFF other counterparts that can compensate this disbalance. And this is not directly targeted at the so called "boons vs corrupts-problem", but at every specialization available in the game. The reason why specific classes (especially guard and necro) are chosen over others in a zergfight is not directly because they are too strong, but they are the most (and sometimes only) viable choice.

So, give every (with "every" i mean EVERY single one, not some, every!) class, respective specialization, a specific role to fill in, and (as the name "specialization" already states) make it strong in this role. ONLY in this role.

moving away from the original topic i would highly recommend to think about the following point as well

you want to target specific problems with the next patch(es), so why don´t you adress the one class, that is totally messed up at the moment (or should i say, MESMERed up?..... sry, bad pun). ==> Mesmer

in Zergfights, except from setting a veil and gravity well, the mesmer/Chronomancer has absolutely no purpose anymore.

The chronomancer had a very well functioning role in the zerg, before it got nerfed into damnation patch by patch.

--> boonshare has been made impossible since "rework" of "Signet of inspiration" (bring back the old one that actually applies boons)

--> shatterskills are nearly impossible to use in large scaled fights (illusions are instantly cleaved down before you can even think of shattering them for a continuum-split, so it often happens that you want to cast a double-gravity-well, but mid-cast, where you want to use CS, your illus die and the right moment for GW is gone)

the problem is: you will always need at least 1-2 mesmers because of their unique ways of utility (especially veil and portal, but also the gravity-well and focus-pulls, which neither can get replaced by other zerg-classes)

--> the specialization-specific Utility-skills (wells) are too stationary for zergfights because of their high cooldown compared to other aoe-skills and the fact, that their strongest part happens with their last tick (which will often just hit nothing because the area of the fight already moved away by then). the gravity-well is the only useful well, because every pulse of it has impact on the fight

Yes, the mesmer could maybe played on dps, but it´s just not worth because revenants, elementalists and necros are doing this 10 times better, independent if you play chrono or mirage.

completely aside from all ideas and thoughts about the WvW-Balance that have been stated and suggested here, i´ve got one BIG point that (theoretically) would make it much easier for ANet to balance WvW in general.

DON´T rely too much only on the forums. Instead: PLAY WvW yourself. And with "play" i don´t mean, going into WvW, spending a few hours and then leave again.

--> play WvW (and WvW only!) over a long period of time (meaning months, expierience multiple relinks, different matchups and so on) at a daily basis

--> join the respective communities of every (and with every in mean: EVERY) server and actually SEE what´s going on in WvW, HEAR the voices of the active WvW-players

--> SEE it all with your own eyes, see the issues that are adressed, feel the imbalances that currently exist in WvW

--> compare the rewards you get for playing WvW intensively with the rewards you would get in the same time from playing only PvE/sPvP

--> don´t forget that WvW is over 80% a large-scaled PvP-Mode. balancing this should be priority number one.

--> think about what balance actually means and which factors are involved to define if a mode is balanced or not. this already starts in terms of player-counts (including differences in timezones), goes on with the choice of classes (as i already stated earlier, in the current state 10/18 possible classes, core builds not included, are absolutely not useful for large-scaled fights, and some only under certain conditions), choice of skills (the latest patch intended to increase build diversity, but achieved the exact opposite)

--> make EVERY specialization effective in a zerg by giving it a unique purpose in zerg construction (currently there are too many skills on too low classes and too many classes with too less effectivity).

-->keep in mind, that a huge amount of WvW-players are playing WvW only, and many of those (me included) just don´t care for any PvE-Content (besides events maybe). don´t let PvE influence WvW in any way, these 2 modes are completely different in ANY aspect and are (and should never be) related to each other.

Well, how about actually checking the current meta and playing the game mode for yourselves? with playing i mean, actively playing with the public commanders and understanding what they need for a zerg to work. Only asking people in the forums will result in heavily one-sided opinions, especially if yoiu meet people whose main-class got previously nerfed. Gather some staff and actually go into WvW, follow the public commanders and fight with them together over a period of a few months and you will see the real state of the game with your own eyes. This is the best way to get an opinion to the current state and what especially the public commanders have to deal with, which skills/builds are strong, dominant or completely useless. Anyway, many of the changes that have been made in the past already absolutely destroyed complete builds and their roles in a zerg. just to give a hint:

The changes on signet of inspiration and shatter-skills of the chronomancer absolutely DESTROYED the Boonshare-chrono for public zergs, taking away almost all the utility it gave for big scale fights. before the changes, you had the boonshare, that was vital in situations when you were low on firebrands, which you could compensate with the -old- SoI. The changes made to SoI made the Minstrel-Chrono worthless for the zerg. In addition you changed the shatter-skills to require an active illusion, what resulted in literally disabling Continuum-Split (and the resulting double-veil/double-gravity-well) for all chronomancers in the zerg. They have just been degraded to portal/Veil-slaves as the illusions required for all F-Skills just don´t even last a split-second, making it a gamble to get the CS or not. And even the Invisibility is now in almost every situation provided by Scrappers (Stealth-Gyro-Blast). And with chronomancers in this situation, you decided to nerf the mesmer again ?!? Well, it was not a hard nerf (increase of Illusion of Life-CD) but still, you nerfed a class that has already been nerfed far beyond uselessness in Zergfights. Bring back the boonshare and the chronomancer has finally a unique role in WvW (providing Alacrity, Invisibility and sharing boons to compensate lack of other classes)

that was my special point to mesmers, as this was the biggest destruction of a whole class in WvW, so i will try to keep my next points more general.

First of all: keep in mind, that the choice of classes and the amount of them is based on what they can do and how effective they are with it.

example: the everlasting story of rangers in zergfights. as soulbeast, they have absolutely nothing providing in a big scale fight. not even the stances with the stance-share-trait are even close to be worth for a zerg, because of the high cooldown compared to other buffs and the fact, rangers usually shoot with projectiles (pointing at guardian reflects). Now, thinking of how you could possibly make a ranger worth for zergfights: the answer would be -->Druid. the big problem here: everything a druid provides, can be provided by a firebrand, but in better. i don´t know much about druids tbh, but from just checking the skills available and how to play ranger in general, it doesnt look too good for them. the direct heal may seem bigger from just checking the skill values: (same gear same stats) 3k heal on lunar impact (8s cd) vs 500 heal on guard F2s4 sounds stronger, maybe the direct heal amounts even are higher, the rest of druid skills just provide like, nothing. the same amounts of heal also could be provided by a heal tempest, giving way stronger unique buffs if using the auramancer-build with minstrel gear while maintaining even better heals than firebrands or scrappers.

coming back to general choices of classes and skills:

before making changes, think about what each class/specialization could/should be used for, and how you can give it unique abilities to make it worth taking it with you, especially in large scale fights. The minimum should be, to target at least one elite, that provides enough to a zerg, rather than packing everything onto a low amount of classes. For example: currently you have to setup your zerg with at least 1 Firebrand, 1-2 scourges and 1 Herald per group, while adding a decent amount of scrappers to it and filling the remaining slots (usually ~5-10) with dps-weavers/heal-tempests, heal-scrappers, 2-3 spellbreakers and maybe some renegades. maybe, you could fit in a chronomancer somewhere, but this is not even necessary anymore because of the points i already stated above. In the current state, there is no use (sounds harsh, i know that) for Berserkers, Druids, Soulbeasts, Reapers (kinda), Dragonhunters, Daredevils, Deadeyes, Holosmiths (kinda), Mirages and Chronomancers (in their current state). Summarized: there are 10 out of 18 theoretically playable specializations that are just not worth being played in big-scale WvW. This is one big point (in my opinion) to start.