Arcaedus.7290

Hey Lonami, just read through your post, and I think you have wonderful ideas. I wanted to address this point here:

> @"Lonami.2987" said:

> * **Spear:** Could be adapted for main-hand and off-hand usage.

> * **Harpoon gun:** Doesn’t make a lot of sense at land, but some of the simplest existing skins, as well as future skins, could be adapted to depict crossbows instead.

> * **Trident:** With the spear being one-handed, the trident would remain relevant as a two-handed longspear of sorts.

So I've mentioned this idea before, but I think an absolutely great way to add weapon variety into the game with this new expac would be to:

1. Add in 1-3 entirely new weapon types. Almost every new elite spec would be getting one of these

2. Additionally, make underwater weapons amphibious and let one or both of them be available for core classes.

So with this, the expac would bring 2-3 new weapons for everyone.

Second point there could be accomplished through narrative quite easily imo. There could be something in the expac about "repurposing" underwater weapons as land weapons due to their effectiveness at taking down underwater creatures (that are on land/floating in the air.... because Elder Dragon magic).

Spear --> repurposed into a one-handed melee weapon, very similar to Paragon from GW1

Trident --> repurposed into the two-handed polearm (2h spear). Similar to GS, maybe slightly lower dps, but more versatile (has some range on its attacks, variety of moveset, like blocks, parries, leaps, evades, a thrown attack, rapid-hitting attacks, wide-range melee aoe)

Harpoon gun --> repurposed into either an explosive weapon, or a crossbow/crossbowgun.

For the land version of harpoon gun, so many different things could be done with this - it could be a 2h mid-range weapon that focuses on large AOEs and is a bit on the slower side, it could be a 1h ranged weapon that focuses more on CC and AOE than pistol, or it could be an off-hand only weapon that has a lot of utility, kind of like the Clutch Claw in Monster Hunter World. Sky's the limit, yo.

> @"otto.5684" said:

> None and none ever should. Your best bet is FB if you do not want to play warrior with defense line instead of strength.

This absolutely.

I'll clarify though: No build should be able to indefinitely bunker a 1v2 in the case that you have two dps/burst/non-bunkers fighting against you. As to how long someone should be able to hold off a 1v2 is another question, but it should not be indefinite, that's for sure.

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> Instead of insultingly screaching at people you should understand that statements are interpreted. And other classes have similar effects working just like this one is working now

Sure, but if you compare LoW + smiter's boon before, to LoW + smiter's boon now, if things worked like you said, they should function identically. However, the way it functions now is that after casting LoW, there is a much longer delay between the end of the heal skill and smiter's boon proccing, so this almost seems like a bug actually.

The only healing skill that smiter's boon SHOULD function differently for is Shelter - should proc after you finish channeling, which it didn't before but it does now.

> @"otto.5684" said:

> PvP is where the problems are. Fire Brand support is extremely powerful, if you like support. Other than that, guardian dps builds in PvP do not work well due to mobility issues and low HP pool. There is more to it than that, but as a guardian main I would highly recommend not playing any guardian build in PvP for someone just returning to the game.

I'll expand off this since what otto said is true. For the dps-based guardian specs in pvp/wvw, they are actually in a pretty decent spot, but fall behind the top contenders for similar roles since they can't output quite as much as these other specs.... whether it's dps, burst, CC, boons, mobility, or evades. Our two primary dps-based builds, DH and core guard just fall behind builds/specs like holosmith, soulbeast, mirage and revenant (historically). I've given this a lot of thought and I honestly don't think the solution is to buff DH or core guard much more.

It would be great if instead of buffing guard, we nerfed some of the other classes. For example, one multi-class nerf that could be done would be to heavily reduce access to the protection boon, or make it so that it's nearly impossible to pull off high dps AND have high protection uptime (make the protection-granting traits compete with key damage-related traits). As it stands right now, the entire guardian class has absolutely no way of dealing with a class that can maintain the protection boon due to a lack of boon removal (and no, the pvp nullification sigil doesn't do NEARLY enough to even be noticeable).

There are small QoL or even small numerical buffs that guardian could receive that I think would improve their performance a lot without overtuning them, but we don't need things like flat buffs to damaging/healing skills and traits since that would only further imbalance guard from builds/classes lower than guard on the totem pole.

Double posted, please ignore this one

This is a pretty terrible nerf.

So not only has the Smiter's Boon trait been heavily devalued as a condi-cleanse, but it now is a far weaker offensive skill due to the enormous delay of the trait proccing after a heal skill. For example, if you use LoW, the delay between the end of LoW and Smiter's Boon proccing is significantly longer now than it was before. This is a bad change, and it should reverted ASAP. Literally no one asked for or wanted this nerf.

> @"RedShark.9548" said:

> I was talking about classes, not weapons, ive even said in a post above that i want spear as weapon for warrior, which, does not yet exist in the game, so whats your point exactly?

Right, my mistake, should have read that a bit more slowly. I missed the rather unexpected transition from talking about new weapons to new classes, which I think Anet has made clear they don't want to make any more new ones, just new elite specs.

> @"RedShark.9548" said:

> And do you know, how much work it is to create a completely new class? Creating traits and skills that work well together, new animations, ontop of that, 2 especs for that class aswell.

Lol oh here we go again with this argument.

I don't think this is a very strong argument against implementing new weapons in the game. Nobody other than Anet has the full picture of how "difficult" or how "costly" it is to implement something new. It's fine for you to be worried or concerned about implementation of new weapon types, but the debate on cost/monetization of implementing new things likely goes through a lot of debate on Anet's end so it's not something the customer base should worry about.

What it comes down to is: do you want new weapons? Do you not care if they are implemented or not? Or do you actually NOT want them?

You probably would either like new weapons or not really mind if they were included. Nobody would actually dislike if new weapons were included in the game.

> @"Arcaedus.7290" said:

> > @"Alehin.3746" said:

> > You're supposed to use the longbow to harass targets away from you, not close up targets. Blind have a good use, it's just aegis but you apply it to the enemy instead of yourself.

>

> Don't entirely agree with that. I think all 2-handed weapons should have at least one defensive option (and by defensive, I mean anything that can be used to on-demand negate an enemy's attacks, including ability to CC/interrupt them or that gives you mobility such as a leap), and for the most part they do. So too does LB on DH but it's worse than all of the others by far. Blind is one of the weaker defensive options out there, and if it was a reliable attack I'd be fine with it, but the blind is attached to an aimed skill shot which is slow (so it's practically not on-demand).

>

> > No we shouldn't have CC+20% extra damage for 8 seconds, that's just insane. BGH and HL should be used in different situations, if anet just let us have the knocback+BGH, nobody would pick any other grandmaster trait no matter what. This is not healthy for the game, like i said before, we should bring down overpowered specs instead of just mashing everything in the traitlines together just to keep up.

>

> If LB got knockback by default (so you could have HL and BGH at the same time), but no one else got nerfed, it would be balanced. If everyone else got nerfed, but LB and HL were left as is, it would be balanced. That's my final position on this.

>

> > Traps are terrible, we should look for a rework of those instead of powercreeping the traits. BGH is not a "melee only" trait, it's a 20% damage bonus that lasts for 8 seconds, it works well with anything. I think you guys should let the "i'm a medritrapper, i CC and do big damage!" mentality go, that build will never work again unless anet nerfs all the stab sources available in the game. And being rewarded with damage when you cc-chain someone (instead of CC-chaining and doing damage because they're CC'd) is pretty cancerous anyway, because you either do a lot of damage to someone with no stability or you do zero damage to people with stability.

>

> If your target moves outside your f1 tether range, you lose that +20% damage. Of course BGH is not a melee-only trait, however if you tether someone at 1200 range, then they can very easily break tether, which is why a melee build lends itself to maximizing BGH's potential.

>

> > And yes, maybe giving D-shot a knocback isn't OP, but BGH is OP. Being able to keep the 20% damage after pulling someone is not far/healthy, since people would just pull them into traps anyway.

>

> Am I missing something? You WOULDN'T be able to keep the 20% damage after pulling someone because that breaks your tether. And for this reason, BGH does not synergize with Test of Faith, because pulling someone immediately causes you to lose that +20% damage.

>

> > Meditrapper is a unfun build to play against, and honestly i'm glad i don't have to play it anymore since i can just play BGH and murder people with my weapons instead of relying on them not having stability.

>

> Unfun, maybe a bit, but it's not overpowered any way you want to slice it.

>

> > A 5 seconds ring that won't let people cross it unless they use stab is not powerful? Ok.

>

> You're interpreting its strength in the most ideal possible situation to where it is maximally effective. You can't only evaluate skills in these scenarios otherwise you can make certain skills sound more broken than the dreams of the entire Millenial generation.

>

> > The first few hits remove aegis, blind and apply cripple, i'm ok with them not doing a lot of damage. The final impact is a trueshot with the advantage of the enemy being cripples, without aegis, you won't have blind AND they can't dodge away from it. I love it.

>

> If someone notices (purely by reaction speed) that they are in the center of your Hunter's Ward aoe, then can begin hobbling and in some cases (if they have swiftness or superspeed) simply walk out of the aoe without needing to burn a dodge.

>

> > >Of the 7 points I made to you, 3 of them were scenarios in which you get hit by the final strike and are trapped in the ward. you have so many counterplay options (to either avoid, or to react once struck) against Hunter's Ward that it just equates to a fairly ineffective skill.

> >

> > Let's go over them 1 by 1 to see if i think it's fair or not.

> (just responding to your points, not quoting)

> 1. Alright but good luck fighting them close range when you lack counterplay options on LB. Also, if you cancel cast to dodge their burst, then as it turns out, they have made YOU burn a cd, and a dodge, and are likely to follow up with another burst/pressure right after your dodge. A smart opponent can force you to trade with them if they are aware of you and see you casting LB5 and DH is not very good at trading once their f3 is on cooldown.

> 2. So then your ability to use Hunter's Ward is completely obsolete against a majority of encounters? Everyone who is directly focused on you is either going to be attacking you in melee range or ranged themselves.

> 5. Sure it does. The vast majority of classes have access to stability in an accessible form as part of a meta build (either by default or very little change needed to access stab if they so choose).

> 6. Sure you burned their teleport.. maybe only after you have burned both your LB 5 and a teleport of your own when you come in for the burst. If you trap a mesmer or a thief (the only two classes you will ever trap with LB 5 who won't use stab to get out), then teleport in with either GS2, or sword 3, then can blink/shadow step out.

> 7. In the middle of battle once the enemy is not healthy, you're not going to want to be using LB5. They can simply continue auto attacking you (out-dpses you while you are casting + regen endurance), dodge the big hit at the end, and you just came out on the bottom of the trade.

>

> > Yes i wish we had more situational skills instead of "just mash everything on cooldown", that's great. I should not be buffed to 2.25 channel time tho, because ranger's LB5 is TERRIBLE. The cooldown is long because it's a strong skill, it's just not supposed to be used off-cooldown, but a -5 seconds would be nice to make the weapon a bit more attractive.

>

> Well I sure don't. Not on a weapon anyways. Mash everything on cooldown is better than mash 1, and occasionally use 2, 3, 4, and 5 when necessary. Also, why shouldn't it be buffed to 2.25 seconds? That's a really inconsequential buff. And the cooldown is long because Anet THINKS it's a strong skill, not because it objectively is. You know what the cooldown used to be on Virtue of Courage in vanilla GW2? 90 seconds. Retreat? 60 seconds. Are you going to tell me that a single block is so strong that it merits a 60-90s cooldown, even in vanilla GW2? Because I would disagree.

>

> > I wish they took a few patches to nerf things that are overperforming a lot, then found a "level they want elite specs to be in" and put everyone around that level of balance, specially for PvP and WvW.

>

> Agreed. It's unlikely to happen though. Why nerf 8 when you can buff 1? Anet only has so much time and resources and that's apparent. That's the reason I call for minor incremental buffs and nerfs rather than widespread nerfing to everyone else

EDIT: I'll add one more thing: I do appreciate you discussing Hunter's Ward with me. It's made me think about the skill a bit more. I can honestly tell you that in pvp/wvw, I do use the skill at least once or twice per match, but it is a bit disappointing that I don't get to use it in more situations. I am just of the opinion that some minor changes could be made to Hunter's Ward that would functionally keep it the same, would not increase its damage or it's dps, but would make it a whole lot more usable compared to what it is now. Just imagine if you had some changes like:

A. Hunter's Ward takes 2.25 seconds to cast instead of 2.75 seconds.

B. Hunter's Ward cast takes 2.75 seconds until final impact, but you only sit there casting for the first 2 seconds, leaving you some time to set up another skill before the final impact (could possibly overtune it too much)

C. Hunter's Ward could be used while moving (also likely be overtuned lol)

D. Hunter's Ward had a shorter cooldown (30-35 seconds) - maybe less CC to compensate.

E. Increase the damage a bit (buff final impact 10%, and all initial hits 10%).

I'm a fan of scenarios A or E at the very least. I think the skill has too long of a cast time and too long of a cooldown for the amount of foresight it takes to land it and the amount of reward you reap for landing it.

> @"Alehin.3746" said:

> You're supposed to use the longbow to harass targets away from you, not close up targets. Blind have a good use, it's just aegis but you apply it to the enemy instead of yourself.

Don't entirely agree with that. I think all 2-handed weapons should have at least one defensive option (and by defensive, I mean anything that can be used to on-demand negate an enemy's attacks, including ability to CC/interrupt them or that gives you mobility such as a leap), and for the most part they do. So too does LB on DH but it's worse than all of the others by far. Blind is one of the weaker defensive options out there, and if it was a reliable attack I'd be fine with it, but the blind is attached to an aimed skill shot which is slow (so it's practically not on-demand).

> No we shouldn't have CC+20% extra damage for 8 seconds, that's just insane. BGH and HL should be used in different situations, if anet just let us have the knocback+BGH, nobody would pick any other grandmaster trait no matter what. This is not healthy for the game, like i said before, we should bring down overpowered specs instead of just mashing everything in the traitlines together just to keep up.

If LB got knockback by default (so you could have HL and BGH at the same time), but no one else got nerfed, it would be balanced. If everyone else got nerfed, but LB and HL were left as is, it would be balanced. That's my final position on this.

> Traps are terrible, we should look for a rework of those instead of powercreeping the traits. BGH is not a "melee only" trait, it's a 20% damage bonus that lasts for 8 seconds, it works well with anything. I think you guys should let the "i'm a medritrapper, i CC and do big damage!" mentality go, that build will never work again unless anet nerfs all the stab sources available in the game. And being rewarded with damage when you cc-chain someone (instead of CC-chaining and doing damage because they're CC'd) is pretty cancerous anyway, because you either do a lot of damage to someone with no stability or you do zero damage to people with stability.

If your target moves outside your f1 tether range, you lose that +20% damage. Of course BGH is not a melee-only trait, however if you tether someone at 1200 range, then they can very easily break tether, which is why a melee build lends itself to maximizing BGH's potential.

> And yes, maybe giving D-shot a knocback isn't OP, but BGH is OP. Being able to keep the 20% damage after pulling someone is not far/healthy, since people would just pull them into traps anyway.

Am I missing something? You WOULDN'T be able to keep the 20% damage after pulling someone because that breaks your tether. And for this reason, BGH does not synergize with Test of Faith, because pulling someone immediately causes you to lose that +20% damage.

> Meditrapper is a unfun build to play against, and honestly i'm glad i don't have to play it anymore since i can just play BGH and murder people with my weapons instead of relying on them not having stability.

Unfun, maybe a bit, but it's not overpowered any way you want to slice it.

> A 5 seconds ring that won't let people cross it unless they use stab is not powerful? Ok.

You're interpreting its strength in the most ideal possible situation to where it is maximally effective. You can't only evaluate skills in these scenarios otherwise you can make certain skills sound more broken than the dreams of the entire Millenial generation.

> The first few hits remove aegis, blind and apply cripple, i'm ok with them not doing a lot of damage. The final impact is a trueshot with the advantage of the enemy being cripples, without aegis, you won't have blind AND they can't dodge away from it. I love it.

If someone notices (purely by reaction speed) that they are in the center of your Hunter's Ward aoe, then can begin hobbling and in some cases (if they have swiftness or superspeed) simply walk out of the aoe without needing to burn a dodge.

> >Of the 7 points I made to you, 3 of them were scenarios in which you get hit by the final strike and are trapped in the ward. you have so many counterplay options (to either avoid, or to react once struck) against Hunter's Ward that it just equates to a fairly ineffective skill.

>

> Let's go over them 1 by 1 to see if i think it's fair or not.

(just responding to your points, not quoting)

1. Alright but good luck fighting them close range when you lack counterplay options on LB. Also, if you cancel cast to dodge their burst, then as it turns out, they have made YOU burn a cd, and a dodge, and are likely to follow up with another burst/pressure right after your dodge. A smart opponent can force you to trade with them if they are aware of you and see you casting LB5 and DH is not very good at trading once their f3 is on cooldown.

2. So then your ability to use Hunter's Ward is completely obsolete against a majority of encounters? Everyone who is directly focused on you is either going to be attacking you in melee range or ranged themselves.

5. Sure it does. The vast majority of classes have access to stability in an accessible form as part of a meta build (either by default or very little change needed to access stab if they so choose).

6. Sure you burned their teleport.. maybe only after you have burned both your LB 5 and a teleport of your own when you come in for the burst. If you trap a mesmer or a thief (the only two classes you will ever trap with LB 5 who won't use stab to get out), then teleport in with either GS2, or sword 3, then can blink/shadow step out.

7. In the middle of battle once the enemy is not healthy, you're not going to want to be using LB5. They can simply continue auto attacking you (out-dpses you while you are casting + regen endurance), dodge the big hit at the end, and you just came out on the bottom of the trade.

> Yes i wish we had more situational skills instead of "just mash everything on cooldown", that's great. I should not be buffed to 2.25 channel time tho, because ranger's LB5 is TERRIBLE. The cooldown is long because it's a strong skill, it's just not supposed to be used off-cooldown, but a -5 seconds would be nice to make the weapon a bit more attractive.

Well I sure don't. Not on a weapon anyways. Mash everything on cooldown is better than mash 1, and occasionally use 2, 3, 4, and 5 when necessary. Also, why shouldn't it be buffed to 2.25 seconds? That's a really inconsequential buff. And the cooldown is long because Anet THINKS it's a strong skill, not because it objectively is. You know what the cooldown used to be on Virtue of Courage in vanilla GW2? 90 seconds. Retreat? 60 seconds. Are you going to tell me that a single block is so strong that it merits a 60-90s cooldown, even in vanilla GW2? Because I would disagree.

> I wish they took a few patches to nerf things that are overperforming a lot, then found a "level they want elite specs to be in" and put everyone around that level of balance, specially for PvP and WvW.

Agreed. It's unlikely to happen though. Why nerf 8 when you can buff 1? Anet only has so much time and resources and that's apparent. That's the reason I call for minor incremental buffs and nerfs rather than widespread nerfing to everyone else

> @"Silinsar.6298" said:

> In the end, when it comes to a strict 1vs1 encounter (with a hypothetical even matchup of different builds), if both players are good, it doesn't come down to who is a lot or just a bit better in general, but who has more experience with that particular matchup in the given mode, how well they read each other and how their playstyles interact. Sometimes you meet enemies that aren't bad, but also not _that_ good, whose playstyle works really well vs you (this is partly due to the fact that unexpected sub-optimal play can work better than expected optimal play * ). And sometimes you beat players that you know to be better than their performance makes them look. That's why I don't go about claiming a player's bad because he's been beaten by me, even if it seemed easy and/or following encounters end similarly. I only have one perspective and can estimate his skill for that particular matchup I create for him. Said player (and the build) might be doing better than me in a lot of other situations.

>

> \* A little more detail on that: in case you know Yomi (the game by sirlin), there used to be a "wisdom" on the forums that was basically: top player>veteran>noob>top player. Not that noobs really consistently beat top players more often than not, but they achieved a higher win rate vs them than veterans, due to being less predictable.

I agree with everything you said on the different encounters you face in pvp vs. WvW, so I'll just address 1v1 / dueling which is what I originally intended to speak on.

You make some very interesting points here. I don't think I disagree with you. I made a few tacit assumptions though, so just to clarify:

* Both players are at least competent at their respective game modes and have invested similar amounts of time.

* The matchup of one build vs. another build (assuming equal skill of players) would play out the same regardless of the game mode (if A beats B in wvw, then A beats B in pvp) - *probably the least accurate assumption, but it holds true for the most part.*

* Both players are using builds that are either meta, or very close to meta

* Neither player is using a cheesy 1-shot build, or an eternal bunker

* We can even discuss the scenario that both are using identical builds or at least almost identical

I agree with your argument though that assuming equal or similar skill (even slightly unequal skill) that this game is more Build Wars 2 than it is about skill. A combination of better build and more favorable playstyle can overcome greater skill. I've seen this dozens of times over. However It's foolish to dismiss how important skill can be, especially for something like dueling or 1v1s which is a somewhat specific scenario that you can become more skilled at. In general, I've found that pvp players (especially the ones who frequent the duel lobbies, and even that free for all arena) tend to have much more practice and experience in dueling, and that's across a wide variety of matchups. They don't just practice A vs. B to death, they practice A vs. B, A vs. C, A vs. D, etc. and often times even practice their matchups on other classes.

The thing is that the WvW roamers who are truly good at dueling (and not trying to faceroll you with some bs build) also play pvp. In order to become good at something, you have to practice a lot. It's time-based improvement. You can get far more fight-practice in pvp than you can in wvw per unit time, so if you have two duelists, one who only does pvp, and the other who only does WvW (both for same amount of time), 9 times out of 10 the pvp player will win a duel.

You should totally play pvp! It will help you improve. You don't have to live there to get your fix, but checking out that free-for all arena and frequenting the dueling/1v1 arenas in pvp will do a lot for you.

Personally I do both (I think I spend more overall time in wvw, but in terms of fighting, more time is spent fighting in pvp) and while I find way more action in pvp, there's something about roaming that you just don't quite get from pvp which is nice.

> @"Alehin.3746" said:

> It doesn't not make the weapon "incomplete", it's just not as good as people want it to be, mainly because of test of faith. I personaly don't use ToF anymore so take BGH instead, and i think it's good that i have to choose betwen cc/stab and damage. BGH is not "just a bit of damage", it's 20% extra damage on top of everything else and increased duration on f1. That's HUGE, and imo they would either have to nerf BGH's damage multiplier in PvP or leave deflecting shot without stab. I think they are competitive already tho, i play BGH 40% of my matches , usually when i know the enemy team have stab sources, since theres no point in having ToF against that anyway.

> Not gonna lie, hitting someone for 10~13k in WvW because of BGH feels good, but i think we should move away from 1-shots in sPvP, we don't need another "power herald" kind of build in the game.

It does make it incomplete if you're playing any build other than a pseudo-deadeye, 1-shot TS build. If an opponent knows that your deflecting shot doesn't knockback, they will not respect this attack AT ALL. They will literally let it hit them and just keep attacking you since it does the damage of an auto attack and has no further effect other than an easily removable blind. If you're on longbow and you have an opponent in melee range pressuring you, then you don't really have any skills on your weapon to deal with them. That's the whole reason knockback on LB3 is good since it gives you that option. It forces foes to respect you (by either maintaining distance, or strafing a lot while approaching you which makes kiting for you easier). I don't think we should have to choose between **having** CC and doing additional damage, I think we should have to choose between being rewarded for landing our CC and doing additional damage.

As for your comments on BGH: I don't doubt it. One of my favorite builds to run is a full melee DH that doesn't use traps. While tethered to someone with f1, you do such insane damage that it actually outclasses core-guard during your 8 seconds of f1. It does however equate to less frequent bursts, your burst is almost entirely reliant on landing f1, and you have to be within 1200 range of your opponent for it to work (which is why it synergizes well with a melee-DH). These factors considered, I think BGH is perfectly balanced for LB and has counterplay options. I played a BGH-longbow build all but a handful of times (mostly pvp, not so much wvw), and it does great when you're +1ing but it does SO poorly for a handful of other situations (vs. spellbreaker, holosmith, reaper, daredevil in smaller scale or 1v1 fights) that it's just not as usable as meditrapper imo. That would completely change to more even matchups should BGH-LB build gain access to a knockback on LB3 and I don't think that's overpowered. I mean the core wombo combo of meditrapper wouldn't really even synergize with BGH. You'd immediately lose that 20% extra damage as soon as you try to pull someone across ToF.

> That's good! Having counterplay against powerful CCs like that is fine, you have to use it at the right time to either bait their dodges/stability, or trap them if you know they used those already. I wish we had more skills balanced like this in the game. If i were to choose a small buff to the skill i'd choose 5~10 CD reduction, but i don't think it's necessary honestly.

> The damage is pretty OK imo. It's a bit stronger than a trueshot, and the first few hits takes care of aegis and blind, i'm ok with how it is currently.

My argument is that it's not a powerful CC though. The damage is absolutely nothing to write home about (channeling damage is negligible and the final impact is identical to truesho iirc), and the CC itself is only useful if you're going to capitalize on it (follow up with trueshot, or some other burst combo). Of the 7 points I made to you, 3 of them were scenarios in which you get hit by the final strike and are trapped in the ward. you have so many counterplay options (to either avoid, or to react once struck) against Hunter's Ward that it just equates to a fairly ineffective skill.

> If anything, anet should nerf overperforming builds/specs instead of making DH overpowered. Powercreep is not good for the game in general, we should be asking for proper balance betwen specs instead of screaming for our favorite class to be buffed like some people in the forums do.

I almost agree. Nerfing the overtuned should absolutely be a priority right now, and maybe that would result in a game balance where DH never needs these buffs. Also, I think other weapons/skills need buffing on guardian before DH or LB do. I always make these arguments for LB buffs though given the current meta, or even recently historical meta: DH could receive baseline knockback on LB3 and it wouldn't overtune the spec at least not in pvp.

> @"Alehin.3746" said:

> DH's longbow is balanced currently.

Almost. Not quite.

> The damage/cooldown from trueshot is fine.

Yeah, in WvW it is. They should port the WvW version of trueshot over to pvp.

> People only want deflect shot to have base knockback because they want the damage from Big Game Hunter and that wouldn't be very healthy for the game imo.

No, people want LB3 to have baseline knockback because without baseline knockback, LB is an incomplete weapon. You could take the current Heavy Light trait, remove the stability on knockback completely, and have it ONLY add knockback to LB3, and people would still take it because that's how important it is for the weapon. This is bad design because it means that if you run LB, you're forced into taking Heavy Light. Also, what would be wrong with someone being able to deal a bit more damage with BGH and have knockback on LB3? It wouldn't be imbalanced. Further, if they DID add baseline knockback to LB3, they could redo Heavy Light and make it competitive with BGH. It would overall be a buff, yes, but not an overpowered change.

> Puncture Shot and Symbol of Energy could use **projectile speed**, not attackspeed, but it's pretty fair the way they are currently.

Agreed. I'd also go so far as to say nerf the range buffer on auto attack. It seriously hits sitting targets at like 1650 units away or something ridiculous like that even though it's only listed as 1200 range.

> Hunter's Ward is "slow" and have a "long cooldown" because it's a very powerful skill, it's a 5 seconds imobilize that cancels actions of the enemy tries to walk out of it without stability and if you don't catch them, they will at least burn one or two dodges, giving you opportunity to hit them with trueshot and puncture shot. Or they could reduce the ring duration from 5 to 2 seconds and reduce the cooldown accordingly.

It's really not that powerful. It has SO many counterplay options:

1. As soon as you see a DH casting this skill, port to them and burst them.

2. Pressure DH for 2.5 seconds, then dodge at the last moment to avoid the root.

3. blind DH in the last moment so the ward doesn't land

4. Simply dodge out of the aoe early on and continue pressuring the DH

5. Literally apply 1 stack of stability and walk out. You can also get hit by the ward, and immediately hit a stun-break and walk out since there is a minimum time to get repeatedly CCed by the ward.

6. Teleport out of the ward. You will get knocked down but will still end up outside of the ward.

7. Let the ward encase you, and be ready with an interrupt, counter-burst, reflect (if they use trueshot) or invuln as soon as the DH ports in to follow-up. Honestly the damage from it is not impressive, you can eat it and still be in good shape.

It's also a situational attack. The best time and pretty much only time you use it effectively is when you see 2+ opponents fighting an ally far away, and you open with this skill. Overall this skill needs a bit of love in the form of usability. A lower cast time (2.25s, match ranger's LB5) would be a good start. It could also use a lower cooldown of 35 or maybe even 30 seconds, or perhaps a heavy CD reduction if you cancel the cast, since this skill could have some value in baiting an opponent but currently its CD is too long to do something like that.

If you're interested in trying any on guard, I would recommend:

* Literally any guard build with minimum health (just try and make any build with Berserker or Destroyer amulet in particular work...) - can be any role you like

* A FB build that doesn't have any investment in healing power - for the purpose of being a roamer/1v1 side noder

@"Scorp.6152"

I disagree with your overall evaluation. Mount is overall 5.5/10 for me. I think it has brought a little bit more good than bad to the game mode as a whole. Two really big improvements I can name right off the bat are the back-line players/necros now more able to catch up and keep up with zergs, and also, the mounts giving them and anyone else a buffer stopping them from getting 1-shot by gankers. These are both good things for the game mode and reducing things like this always helps bringing in new players.

I agree with many of your criticisms though. One of the worst things about mounts are that in a 1v1 or small-scale scenario, the one who dismounts first is at a disadvantage.... that's really bad design since it encourages non-conflict and a fix could easily be applied in the form of a dismounting skill like you mentioned.

Another huge sourspot like you said is the movement speed disparity. In my opinion, defenders already had the bigger advantage compared to offensive siegers. All this mount did was favor defenders even more which is not a good move. This once again leads to a situation of non-conflict. This is a huge minus in my opinion, but I would rather they address the power of defensive siege than nerf mounts since that's what's at the core of the problem here.

If I had to suggest some changes (mount-specific) I would suggest the following:

1. Add a dismount skill. It would be a frontal cleaving melee-range attack, come out slowly (1 second cast time) and lock you into a non-cancelable animation, but could be casted while moving, and have virtually no cooldown. How it would work is that if you strike any target, you are dismounted. If you strike a player, you deal a small amount of damage, and you get dismounted. If you strike a mounted player, you dismount them, stun for 2 seconds, and are dismounted yourself.

Reasoning: in the case you have a small-scale encounter where players really don't want to get off their mounts, you could force them off, but even then, there is counterplay since you can dodge the Dismount Attack. Counterplay is limited though since the Dismount Attack has no cooldown, whereas the dodge does (endurance).

2. Add a CC-bar to the mounts. The magnitude of the bar (how many CCs it takes) would be up to the balance teams.

Reasoning: This stops mounted players from being able to just plow through large enemy forces using their evades, since wards (necro and guard) cannot be dodged through. This could also integrate with the Dismount Attack, since that Dismount Attack could count as a CC against mounted players that completely depletes their breakbar when mounted.

3. Let the siege ability of a mount only cost initial supply to deploy (maybe 3 supply), but allow a player to continue to siege down a gate without any additional supply needed.

Reasoning: This would actually encourage players to use the ability since even if the ability was free, it sieges down gates much slower than even a basic catapult. This would also give offensive siege a much needed buff in the face of the massive advantage defenders already have.

@"Jack Redline.5379"

Meta builds were not CREATED by a few stuck-up pvpers having a God complex, and deciding what is best for all of us.

Meta builds were DISCOVERED by these pvpers. These people spend all their time doing pvp. They know a thing or two about what works and what doesn't work in an environment where you have a defined goal to meet. Through experience, these players discovered what the most effective builds are, through a combination of educated guessing plus trial & error.

The meta-build websites like Metabattle keep track of these builds, not for the purpose of rating which ones are or are not fun, but to rather to account for which ones are the most effective at fitting into a team of 5 for a conquest game mode and winning.

I realized this long ago... this game doesn't have infinite possibilities (or even an extremely large number) in terms of builds. Some builds on some classes just work so well, they outshine all other possible builds on that class. You can improve your personal and mechanical skills, and you can improve your pvp/map/rotational knowledge, but after that, this game is build-wars 2 with maybe one or two dozen builds you can really win on.

I think it's unintended and that they should change this, but I don't think it's a bug. A similar thing happens on warrior if they get CCed with stability already on, they'll proc that passive Balanced Stance trait.

There are other problems like this in GW2 that I wish they'd address, like the fact that if you are using focus 5, mace 3 and have aegis on, a single attack will chew up 3 blocks. There's no way that this is intended, and if it is, it can't be rationally defended as a good balance decision, but it's been a thing since forever.

I can say from experience that for assuming you have no conditions, and are scaling this based off of the closest target that is keeping you in combat, then the minimum threshold is around 1900-2200 units from the enemy. If you are just barely outside of ranger's longbow range (1840 units) you can be out of combat, so my best guess is that Anet set this to an even number of 2000 units.

I think OP is talking about weapons that are used as melee weapons, and also referencing auto-attack, or skills that otherwise involve standing still and striking with the weapon.

@"Stand The Wall.6987" As far as auto attacks on melee weapons go, yes - all melee weapons have the same range. So both greatsword on warrior, and dagger on thief swing and strike targets up to 130 units away from you. I think at the end of the day this is rather inconsequential though since auto attack doesn't constitute the majority of what you do in pvp or wvw, and the range of your auto attack doesn't really make a difference in fractals and raids (you're gonna be stacked with every1 else anyways).

@"Arken.3725" You have very valid complaints, but it's always good to at least suggest changes you would like to see (although I can see you clearly implied what changes are necessary). Do you have specific changes that you think would be beneficial for the class, but also reasonable given Anet's track record and vision for each weapon?

I too enjoy pvp (more wvw than pvp though) so I can weigh in here on some of the weapons:

**Greatsword:**

* Expand the range of GS 2 slightly (make it 180 instead of 130), remove projectiles, and roll damage over to the whirling attack itself. This would already be balanced since the attack slows your movement speed meaning you can't chase very well with it.

* GS 4 could receive a new animation that doeosn't involve immobilizing the caster at all, otherwise keep numbers the same

* GS 5 projectile speed should be increased, and the pull should be 1/2s instead of 3/4s.

**Mace:**

* For auto attack, just speed up the entire animation and decrease the damage and healing by a similar proportion. Might be more complicated than I'm making it sound, but it really should be faster.

* Mace 2 should be a 1 s cast instead of 1.25s cast, and it should be centered/placed in front of you exactly like axe 2.

* Mace 3 recently got a change, doubt we'll get one soon if ever again..... but I would change it so that fully channeling mace 3 without blocking an attack gives you aegis, and refreshes your f3 aegis timer (if your f3 passive is still up).

**Scepter:**

* Scepter 3 should be a 12-15s cd.

**Hammer:**

* Hammer 2 should have 420-450 range instead of 300

* Hammer 3 & Hammer 4 should both have a 3/4s cast time

* Hammer 5 should be able to be casted while mobile.

**Focus:**

* Focus 5 should deal slightly less damage (10-20% nerf), but have its cooldown reduced to 25-30s.

**Shield:** I think shield is actually one of our best and most balanced weapons. I would argue the thing that needs changing is the trait... it should do something else other than just grant toughness since that's redundant. It could do something like apply an additional 2s of protection to allies-only for both shield skills.

**Torch:**

* Torch 4 should be coded as a projectile rather than a ground-hugging shockwave.

* Torch 5 should cleanse condis on self.

**Longbow:**

* Reduce the range buffer on auto attack... seriously this thing strikes targets at like 1600 range. Also, just increase projectile speed.

* Recent trueshot changes in wvw should be ported to pvp.

* Knockback on LB 3 should be baseline (add something or change the trait to make it a competitive choice vs. Big Game Hunter).

* Decrease cast time for LB 4 to 1/2 s, increase projectile speed slightly.

* Decrease cast time for LB 5 to 2.25s to match Ranger's LB 5.

> @"EremiteAngel.9765" said:

> Very nice list.

> I would largely agree with your ranking.

> Except I'm curious about Ranger's fall in placing.

> As far as I know, Ranger has not really taken any hits throughout the balance patches.

> They are still going at full strength, from Sic-Em LB/GS to Boonbeasts.

> What has changed?

> Are the other classes above them like Holo and Warrior just a lot stronger now?

I actually kinda struggled to place ranger and warrior a bit when thinking about it. On one hand, you have somewhat famous ranger players like Kiritsugu who despite his edited uploads is actually extremely skilled at ranger, and by his account alone, I'd place ranger at #2, mayyyybe even #1 but I have dueled countless no-name warriors (non-warrior mains) who give me and anyone else I watch duel them an incredibly tough time. I reckon if you get a very skilled one who has been playing warrior for years and knows all the classes and builds well, they'd be able to win almost any 1v1.

Also, I'll say for Sic-Em LB/GS soulbeasts, I can actually win the 1v1 about 95% of the time if they aren't cheesing me with a tower nearby. It's a high damage build but if you know what to do, you drop them. The duelist variant performs better in spontaneous 1v1s, but will lose over time to the more sustain/offence balanced builds (Reaper, DH, Spellbreaker, Mirage, Holosmith) from my experience. You then have straight up pvp-ported boon beast that will force you to retreat, but like scrapper, it can't really kill you if you run. I guess that counts as a loss but I have only ever fought against two of these in wvw since PoF launched.

@"Psycoprophet.8107" I was actually thinking more of shadow step and steal, both 1200 range instantaneous and both make you respect the thief's ability to control spacing.... although steal kinda falls out of the discussion here ever since it got disintegrated from DD...

@"EremiteAngel.9765" Sure! I haven't done a lot of roaming over the past 2 months due to work, but I ranked them:

Engineer (Holosmith)

Mesmer

Warrior

Ranger (Soulbeast)

Thief

Revenant

Guardian (DH)

Elementalist

Necromancer

This is strictly spontaneous 1v1s as you said, not overall roaming capabilities. A lot of these are really close, and there isn't a very big difference between places 3 and 8 in my opinion (given they're both running some variant of a meta build and not trying to hard-counter the other), so my perception is based on the absolute best players of each of these that I have come across.

@"EremiteAngel.9765" I almost want to ask you to include a few more assumptions in your post which would clarify some things for people, but I'm not sure there's a good way to include these without being too wordy:

1. Victory in a 1v1 means the build is capable of causing the opponent to retreat indefinitely (like retreat to a safe zone, tower, etc. and out of combat), or outright killing them. This means a thief kiting you and maintaining a 1200 distance while coming back in every 10s or so for a burst has not yet lost, nor are they losing.

2. Going out of combat by itself does not equate to a loss, although if a player is repeatedly doing this, they can't get a kill or drive off the other roamer so it's most likely a loss.

3. Ability to contest a point doesn't really mean all that much in a spontaneous 1v1. Roamers will generally ignore contestable points and instead focus on going for the kill which is why mobility plays such a huge factor.

4. The power of a roaming class actually should be determined by those god-tier players of that class. This is because those players represent the highest potential of that class, and classes should be judged by what they're capable of, not by how hard it is to reach that skill level.

All of these are opinion but I'd be happy to argue any "criteria" here from a practical standpoint.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> Unfortunately, I believe this is the kind of misleading sentence that ANet usually use to raise the hype. The players understand "introducing new weapon type in the game as a whole" while the dev mean "introducing new weapon type which are new to the specific profession but still in the existing pool of existing weapon".

>

> The issue with spears is that they are tightly tied to underwater and when you try to equip them they are automatically sloted as underwater weapons. They would have to introduce exceptions and modify the UI and we all know that for them the idea of touching the UI is like the idea of conquering the Everest.

I see how Mike's line could be interpreted like that, but I highly doubt that's what he meant. Because if that's what he means, then "**NOT** introducing new weapon types" would have to mean one of two things: designing an elite spec that either doesn't have a new weapon at all, or reuses a weapon it currently already has access to but with different skills.

Neither of these two scenarios is or was the norm at any point and would be below/worse than the status quo. Mike's line implies that people are calling for something unique that goes above and beyond the status quo (and he's saying he's not against it) so I'm pretty sure he means introducing entirely new weapon types.

You're right about spears; it would be difficult but introducing ANY new weapon type would be a huge task for the dev team. However, they're talented and if they received the green light, I'm sure they could pull it off. Just some examples of how spears could be implemented into the game to resolve the issue you mentioned:

1. Keep all underwater weapons/names/coding the same, introduce a new land-based weapon (named something like glaive, polearm, poleaxe, etc.)

2. Recode all underwater spears as "harpoons." Then, "land spears" as everyone likes to call them would be an entirely new land-based weapon that reuses most if not all of the skins from the underwater harpoons.

3. In addition to #2 or #1, to reduce amount of time spent designing new skins, and time spent rigging the spears to various models/enabling them for various classes, the spear could be tied to one or a few elite specs per expac. I mean for every expac anyways, classes essentially receive new rigs/animations since they're now capable of using a weapon they previously could not use. What does it matter if that new weapon is a spear (for which there are already rigs and animations) vs. a sword?