Rodzynald.5897

Had a dual core necro fight. No matter how much you try to outplay them. They will simply outlast you with ease.

Overall the balance is superb compared to what we had before. I only hope that devs will react quicker and do more frequent tweaks to classes before, whatever is meta, raises too much dissapointment and unneeded toxicity against players.

It is considerably better. It will take time to see what is up and what will need some fine-tuning. I can already see that CC trains are going to get popular as I've had one match where I literally melted down in a second and a half, but it took about 3-4 players in a coordinated assault and still I felt like I had time to react to it if I were just paying attention.

Still, rifle deadeyes are capable of nuking down players from afar and escaping fairly quickly. Now that damage and healing is lower, it would be worth to consider toning down stealth and mobility on the most mobile classes. This is the only thing that struck me, because with less heals it is easier for thieves to jump out of combat and re-think their combo before you have time to heal up. This might not be the case if thieves didn't jump out and into combat on demand every couple of seconds, playing the endless rinse'n'repeat.

> @"kratan.4619" said:

> Maybe just new maps the size of a closet with no LOS features so no running away/hiding.

Spotted ranger main.

Jokes aside, these are needed more than ever with how much chase'n'kill some classes are nowadays. I would rather fix the so called "no port spots" which can be accessed with ground targeted teleports but not target teleports.

Moreover, mobility as a whole should be toned down. The rinse'n'repeat gameplay is tiresome to say the least. I am sure I am not the only one who does not appreciate when the only option to kill a given class is to hope for a slip on the opponent's side (or sheer incompetence/lack of skill), instead of outplaying them. Then, as a means of balance, mobility-based classes should be given some sort of durability boost so that they don't melt once they are out of mobility skills to jump in and out of a fight.

Pre-HoT it was not that fast paced and it was quite fine. We actually had to think on when to use a certain skill instead of spamming skills all around and escaping (provided you play a mobility class) to reset cooldowns and repating the same.

If only devs could untangle the spaghetti we could hope for real de-powercreeping to pre-HoT standards when player versus player combat was far more reasonable than what we have now.

This thread made me log in for the first time in a year I think. Finally people started to notice what I've been talking about in HoT-times. But it's not just the stealth that is annoying in this game. It's the mobility along with stealth.

Current mechanic of stealth has no drawbacks, save for no contribution to point capture. No speed reduction, no hit detection be it a simple attack or melee. Now let's add this terrific amount of mobility skills that allow you to change your position on top of that and we get what we see (or what we don't see, actually). Of course, stealth/mobility player has to pay attention to how best execute their combos, but compared to stealth/mobility application in other games, GW2 is way too forgiving, making mediocre players decent, and good players nigh impossible to beat under any circumstance - even if you manage to outsmart them, their gimmick-loaded class allows them to counter such situation in a way that is not considered skillful, but cheap. Thieves, mesmers and even rangers can rinse'n'repeat endlessly until they wear down their opponent sooner or later. If they screw up, they have it easy to disengage in a blink of an eye even if you manage to land immobilizes or stuns on them, because they always happen to have some sort of shenanigan up their sleeve just because the cooldowns are short, so even if you manage to peel them, the passive-saving abilities or active abilities, if rotated decently, give an option to escape every 20-30 seconds at worst. And this is only due to special skills such as those that give stability. With mobility on weapons or utility skills that grant stunbreaking teleportation/movement it is way faster and easier to poke and dodge every 8-10 seconds, while thieves can do it even quicker, making this class to be more capable than it should be.

But to give it some justice, the same issue regards every class but on different levels. Disengagement options should be either toned down, shortened or once-per-combat locked to raise the skillcap and shave down the rinse and repeat playstyle to which some classes have such an abnormal access to, that it is simply nauseous and a sign of half-baked design.

I would rather see thieves, mesmers and rangers be introduced with less squishy-ness, being able to shrug off more damage or mitigate it in ways other than jumping around every couple of seconds like a rabit with rabies. That way they could stay longer in combat and be more strategic in how to apply their stealth or when it would be considered a good move to use that one mobility skill to take best advantage of it.

I don't think we'll get elite specs, but sooner or later I'd like to see what guard lacks the most. Mobility. Mobile half support, half power melee dps with high chasing capability. It's power creep, yes, but apparently this is what is happening with especs. They won't nerf things across the board, seems that power creeping it into oblivion is the only option now.

> @"NICENIKESHOE.7128" said:

> > @"Rodzynald.5897" said:

> > Well, I am of two minds about Colisseum changes. Mostly because mobility-heavy classes will have it even easier to be an even greater nuisance.

>

> It does favor LOS more, however I'm seeing a lot of platforms that require leap/jumping whereas shadowsteps will likely give "No Valid Path to Target".

So basically I can put guardian back on the shelf and wait for buffs, or roll something else with easy access to quickness/mobility skills other than teleports.

Well, I am of two minds about Colisseum changes. Mostly because mobility-heavy classes will have it even easier to be an even greater nuisance.

As long as there are so many cases of wintrading, and all those weird unpunished shenanigans between players like "afk after losing mid" then those titles are not too appealing to me.

EDIT:

Actually, wouldn't it be better to give such titles in 2v2 setting instead for DUO or SOLO play in a FIVE VERSUS FIVE setting? Keep it consistent.

Anet stated that they like for elite specs to change the way you play a class. Based on this, I would love for the next spec to fill in the gap of what guardian lacks the most. Mobility and bruiser-like utility. We have it all, you either go one way or another with guardian, but if you try to do a hybrid, you won't be that good at anything, while other classes tend to exceed themselves even more with a jack-of-all-trades approach. But putting that aside, let's just focus on mobility. A polearms as a two-handed melee weapon with lots of engage and disengage mobility to give guardians some zealous-aggressive playstyle, while being a damage-based support. The more power-ferocity-precision, the greater the healing %/boons to allies and to the guardian him/herself (that way healing stats make it pretty redundant). They have to stay active in combat for it to pay-off, relentless chasers who pin down their enemies with leaps, impaling them on their polearms. As for utility? I suppose glyphs would be nice, or a new symbol mechanic with ammo count which drops symbol-like fields which follow the guardian. Or perhaps "hands" - like some sort of monastic techniques of applying a touch to an ally or enemy to grant a boon/healing or debuff/damage.

As for virtues, the attunement mechanic sounds quite good, perhaps some extra boons/debuff pulsing in intervals once in combat?

TL;DR

More in-combat and out of combat mobility for guardians

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> no lol, rocket boots is fine. its no worse then other specs with high mobility sadly, so unless they get a nerf too then this should stay. rest look good to me.

It took people few years to see that mobility across the board is one of the main issues that low scale PvP (and WvW skirmishes) fights are so weirdly twisted. It is ridiculous to be able to keep a fight at constant rinse and repeat. Heck, even WoW rogues or hunters have long cooldowns on their engage/disengage skills that when they make too many mistakes, they just die. Here you can escape or engage combat every mere handful of seconds, which gives too much control over the flow of a fight to some classes, making them far superior than they are supposed to be, while lowering the skill ceiling at the same time.

> @"Fortus.6175" said:

> I remember from back in the old days your name being mentioned often in the ele subforum. Seems you still play the class, but it seems you havent been able to escape from being able to play the only "non completely useless" speccs have available; the annoying-far-self-healing-troll-staller weaver build.... how far have we eles fallen from grace from the old D/D cele days that were so much fun and engaging gameplay (although certainly overtuned at times).

>

> Here is my take on how to start approaching this issue, **Give everyone the ele treatment**:

>

> -You want sustain? Trait/amulet for it. Right now a palandin or marauder scrapper/holosmith/soulbeast/spellbreaker have as much, if not more sustain than an ele with mender/healing runes/water and arcane traits, yet 2-3x the damage for 1/2 the effort too. Reduce healing base values and increase scaling across the board. Do you want sustain, or damage? Take your pick, not both.

>

> -Give classes more windows of opportunities for retaliation. You know if an ele gets out of an element or overloads it, they are locked out of it, meanwhile, soulbeasts revive pets every 10 secs + many more perks, holosmiths have virtually no CD nor costs, mirages engage on their terms and their terms only, spellbreaker's GS is do-it-all-be-all, scrapper might as well fall asleep on keyboard (both sides). There are classes with little to no window of clear counterattacks, or predictability on rotations. Meanwhile eles are as predictable as it without much in terms of power return for such windows of vulnerability.

>

> I understand "nerfs" are not fun, but powercreep is never ending. We can bring eles up to par, or we can start hammering outliers, and I choose the later.

>

> https://clips.twitch.tv/SteamyDullNewtOptimizePrime (may I interest you in some interesting and engaging scrapper gameplay? here we see a scrapper at home, and one at far, contesting the nodes, and making everyone in the game have a blast :) )

But that sounds like going in the direction of trinity, which is what Anet won't do (but what is obviously more easier to balance and to play around with). They all love giving everything everyone, but some "everyones" get more "everything" than everyone (not gonna point fingers at Anet's favourites).

In this game it's more feasible to chase targets down rather than keeping them close to you. With the amount of condi cleanses and stability or access to mobility skills which completely bypass soft CC such as criple/chill/slow, the art of chase and escape is much easier to execute. There are two quick solutions, either butcher mobility across the board, or grant more pulls and immobs to slower, less mobile classes such as necro or guardian.

> @"Sorem.9157" said:

> @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048"

>

> I urge you to reconsider this change:

>

> • Righteous Instincts: This trait's critical-chance bonus has been reduced from 50% to 25%.

>

> It is the bread and butter for many Guardian builds other than the Core Guardian, which is where it is causing most trouble.

>

> Harrier Firebrand viability will diminish even more after this, despite being a high skill floor build, it is constantly getting hit because of other Guardian meta builds. PvE dragonhunter also relies on this trait and despite being a strong burst option, it is what most Guardians play for PvE.

>

> Again, i urge you to reconsider the nerf and try to target specifically the build that is causing trouble, which is radiance core guardian for pvp.

Hold up... radiance core guardian is causing trouble in pvp? Clarify, please.

I wonder how would this work out:

- Having 5v5's in AT's for more competitive apporach is already a good thing on its own. We get premade teams and one fights the other to see which one is better. This is neat.

- 5v5's in unranked for dailies, practice and whatnot. It's the good old standard for every player to go and have fun solo, duo or premade

- 2v2's as ranked instead of 5v5's ranked.

The idea behind the last point is that 5v5's ranking system is simply inqonsequential. How can you boast about rank that is achieved based on a small fracture of your own impact, which is also under the influence of the effect of how bad/good are your teammates and enemies. Solo play in a team setting, what is the point of it? The competetiveness of it is hardly plausible. I stopped playing ranked a few seasons back when I got to the top 250 reaching the rank somewhere between 60-70 after a bizzare winning streak of a dozen matches per 2-3 losses. Mostly my teammates were on my level or higher, but our enemies were just awful. To achieve a high rank farming bronze/silver level players made me feel both baffled and ridiculed. Even now I stumble upon some discussions where people say how top players stay at the top with a hardly realistic win ratio by tanking up to 3 players for a whole game or something of the sort. That already implies that players they fight are not a challange to them and their skill, although undeniably remarkable, is not used to its full potential to be a proper evidence to their rank.

Yes, we've heard numerous discussions on how the matchmaking algorithm is believed to work as intended, but there are too many players of low skill that play classes which artificially raise their skill ceiling, which ends up with them reaching high platinum or low legendary while being only good/decent fighters, but still behaving and rotating like newbies do. I don't know how does that happen, that despite the best efforts the system still leaves a massive impression of being basically rigged.

I believe that 2v2 ranked would level the playing field considerably, as it would tighten the dice toss factor and force players to earn their rank with a more direct approach, and strategy. Probably the algorithm would have it easier to combine players of similar skills, and it would be easier to start a duo instead of a whole premade, or to play solo rock-paper-scissors with 5v5 matchmaking.

Just as I suspected xD

> @"Marxx.5021" said:

> Anet encourages toxicity in PvP by game design. Why would they punish it?

Could you expand this argument further?

Is this the thread where people compare the length and girth of their swords?

>get pew pew'd by deadeyes and rangers

Power reaper has sweet deeps once you get a target close enough, has no means of running away and is pretty much a melee build.

I like the overall design and layout, but the framerate somehow drops tremendously.

> @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > @"The Ace.9105" said:

> > Make stealth to break when taking damage.

> This would literally make stealth worthless in the middle of combat. Like absolutely 0 functionality except for stacking it before beginning an engagement on an enemy.

Exactly. Look at how stealth mechanics are implemented in other MMORPGs. Currently stealth gives too many possibilities for almost no effort.

> @"bigo.9037" said:

> > @"jportell.2197" said:

> > > @"bigo.9037" said:

> > > uhh.. main ranger.. I'm 250 EU. I think top 250 is more like 40% of the population. there's hardly even 1000 ppl playing I think..

> >

> > All you need to do is look a at the rating difference between number 1 and 250, it's pretty obvious that the population of consistent players is pretty kitten small

>

> exactly. I don't use the "show badge" thing cus I don't think it's anything to be proud of.

I'll do you one better. I don't play ranked at all :T

Thanks for clarification @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" :)

Merciless Luck, Ruthless Fortune, Indomitable Convenience, Wintrade of PvP?

There is no real sense behind titles achieved for one person in a TEAM SETTING. Solo(duo) titles for solo(duo) play, team titles for team play, shouldn't it be like that? Well I think it should, but we don't have the community big enough for that.

New pvp team, eh? I find if bizzare for Anet still trying to poke a rock with a new stick. I wonder where that will lead us. I just hope the new lads and gals actually play the mode to in fact experience what is wrong with it, instead of just "monitoring the data", as the old team did.