aelska.4609

As a blind person, I am offended about "blind" being called "blind".

> @"zoopop.5630" said:

> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/98220/game-update-notes-february-25-2020#latest - Big patch that changed / deleted some classes from being viable.

Latest "big patch":

for profession in all_professions:

for skill in profession.skills:

skill.damage *= 0.01 if skill.deal_cc else 0.6

Tough one!

> @"Dantheman.3589" said:

> [...] I have 4 ppl blocked in total [...]

I wish I could have your game experience


I wish I could have the hopes of that guy lmao

If we had one before end of 2021 i'll be happy lol

What is the most impressive the amount of defenses it has. It would be fine if they reverted October 01 changes, so that rangers do not have a full 3s block followed by a knockback that also gives 3/4s of clunky evade frame (that can be abused to trigger twice ...) on a single skill. They can increase the damage dealt by this weapon to compensate for the "defense loss".

Or make it a pull, things get more fun!

(i have lost the footage of me doing it on Sindrener, so here's some wvw for ya)

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> meanwhile rev heroic hits you when you stand on a kitten pillar from skyhammer :D

That's because rev is a class that's favored more by the best players, and the best players tend to have bigger AoE.

Friendlist/blocklist UI is so limited that nicknames are the only thing we can do to order things.

Trust me, if you block "aelska.4609" someday and realize he's in your team an other day, you will really be willing to know if you blocked him because he was selling gold, botting close, cheating, or just being toxic.

I had already figured out z-axis range was insanely limited (most of AoE skills have way bigger z-range than their radius of effect, for Mighty Blow it is quite the opposite).

I finally have been able to capture this ridiculous phenomenon on tape:

And here is the frame where it was supposed to hit (but doesn't):


It would be really nice if the z-axis range would be more in line with the AoE of the skill. Not asking for it to be a "shockwave (pre-nerf) 2.0 skill", but we are clearly below reasonable levels.

> @"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:

> > @"aelska.4609" said:

> > It is 2020 and people are still comparing pears and apples. That's why we can't have nice things :'(

>

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > @"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:

> > > > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > > rangers still complain thet their broke autoattack no longer evades? how long has it been lol

> > >

> > > Where da complaint at? Just pointing out a funny lil' hypocrisy that exists currently.

> >

> > you know whats hypocrisy ?

> > mesmer getting 1,5s prot from dodge and ranger getting 2s.

> > thats hypocrisy.

> > what you are doing is comparing 2 different things.

> > ill give you another one.

> > weeee my scepter blocks 1 attack and ranger gs blocks for 3s weee what a hypocrisy weee skills are the same right? RIGHT?

> > its not like they do different things.

>

> It's almost as if you're trying your hardest to misunderstand.

>

> Not like I should act surprised with my experiences regarding this (PvP) community.

Welp, while I do agree with you that explosive entrance is badly designed, the way you bring it on the table is far from being the best. That is what my post was about.

In no circumstance taking an example out of a context (e.g. power stab from ranger class) and putting it in an other context (engineer class) will give weight to an argument (e.g., explosive entrance is overtuned). By doing so, you give the readers the feeling that you are just jealous about a class feature that you don't have, and your point appears as being personal, which it should not be.

Having a philosophy is actually what is lacking to the game. So many things were introduced/changed because "wow it sounds cool" and now we just have to deal with inconsistent classes ?‍♂️

It is 2020 and people are still comparing pears and apples. That's why we can't have nice things :'(

Burn guard is the outlier of all the condi builds. Burn guard is a build that abandon all their active defenses to max out their burning application / damage, which is the only condition they can output. They rely on one thing: burn fast enough so that opponent dies before them, which only works by "condi bursting". If it works, it is insanely rewardful as, with two skills only, the burn guard will indeed generate a burst able to kill all the enemies in a 240 radius in less than 3 ticks. The downstates can then be bursted again, making them impossible to rez without a glyph.

But if it doesn't (burst got cleaned, or aoe avoided) and guard gets targeted, the guard will die no matter what. Because it has traded all his defense option for this one trick card.

This is a problem on its own because it is an extremely cheese build, but I don't think that should be linked to a "change condi system" call. The problem with burn guard is "how a class has access to conditions" rather than "what conditions do".

In my opinion the problem behind (damaging) condis are

1) they are boring in the current state. No matter which condi you have on you, you will act the same: cleanse when it starts dealing damage

2) they have been powercreeped as everything else. The power damages having been nerfed, it's only natural that condis now feel more powerful than before. That being said, they are not an absolute: power builds are still a thing and have the potential to crack open these condibuilds.

OP proposition brings something more interesting with build complexity: "which condi should I improve". My earlier proposition was to make condis more interesting by giving them different mechanics given their nature.

It is quite tricky situation for the matchmaker, because the higher people are ranked, the less they play. So if a high-ranked player queue off-time, matchmaker will ineluctably have to pair them with lower ranked players, unless accepting 2 hours queue time which is, from a player point of view, quite unacceptable.

If Anet wants to fix this problem it has to fix the root of it, which is not the matchmaker but a low "high-rating ranked pvp population". These players don't nolife in ranked because:

* It is stressful, and sometimes farming noobs in unranked is more pleasant

* Rating volatility is so high that you can lose 30 places in the leaderboard in just one game, even if you lost 499-500. This enforces the stress of the competition.

* The number of matches you play has no influence on your rating, so why bother.

* Rewards are better than unranked but it is still meme (if you win all your matches you would need 18 of them to get 20 golds ... which is 6 (!) hours of playtime. If you lose all of them, this can be as high as 20 hours of playtime =) )

And some might not even-care about ranked at all because:

* The sole reward you get for being in the leaderboard is a title

* The title you get has been the same since ... years so you probably already have it

* You already have cooler titles, so why bother at all.

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> > @"aelska.4609" said:

> Anet did changed burning in the past, but I do believe it was more to prepare the condition to the powercreep brought by HoT rather than a non-functional aspect of any kind. Why are my suggested changes not a good idea ?

>

> It was changed for non-functionality because being locked out of doing something because of other players isn't great. Imagine not being able to damage someone because someone else is damaging them? Thats exactly how it was. For instance if you wanted to play a condi build focused on burning being in a team with a guard or ele would make your choice substandard /invalidated for having to queue behind their innate applications of the condition. You can't go "well strongest first" for the same reason. Its the very same reason deathly chill got changed to stack bleeds and all the other conditions that did damage were changed to stack in intensity.

>

> Also the damage would always have to be impactful. Currently you need about 3 stacks of burn to do the same as before. This can lead to a bunch of issues.

>

> Then you also cant say well it would stack in intensity per players but duration inside that for the reason above.

>

> Burning as it is may need some tuning either to the condition itself or the builds that apply it but the way the system is for it I don't think is an issue. It also lets you have some really impactful, and strong skills for a condition thats been denoted as a burst condition. The other being confusion.

>

>

Thank you, I had indeed forgotten this "teamfight" part of the problem, and now I do remember it was a flaw of burning in the past. You guessed right what I was going to say: stack in intensity per players, each player stacking individually in duration. So if player A apply 5 s and burning ticking 500 and player B apply 8s ticking 300, the damage over time is 500+300 for the first 5s, then 300for the next 3s. I think that solves that issue, of course the damage of the conditions are to be balanced.

> Burning as it is may need some tuning either to the condition itself or the builds that apply it but the way the system is for it I don't think is an issue. It also lets you have some really impactful, and strong skills for a condition thats been denoted as a burst condition. The other being confusion.

Yup, that is what current paradigm is and what the previous one was not allowing. Each leads to a gameplay totally different and we will probably never convince each other which one is the most fun/interesting. I will still take my chance to change your mind ... Wololo ?

> @"Sigmoid.7082" said:

> > @"aelska.4609" said:

> > 1. Burning should hit like a truck but only stack in duration.

> This isn't a good idea for a few reasons and there is a reason it was changed from exactly this behaviour in the past.

>

> >2.Bleeding should be fast stacking condition, weak by itself but stronk together.

> I don't see how this isn't already the case. It does next to nothing on its own but the classes that stack it can stack it very quickly when they want to. If you're talking about exponential scaling then that has its own issues all together.

>

> >4. Confusion should only punish player activating skills. Inactive players should barely be affected by this condition.

> This already is the case unless you somehow count the 10 ticking damage per stack as something beyond negligible.

The goal of the previous post is to set boundaries/rules to conditions, so that it has a consistency on its own. Some of these rules are already applied (like bleeding/confusion) which is not totally surprising, as these rules are very close to the initial conditions paradigm of the game.

Anet did changed burning in the past, but I do believe it was more to prepare the condition to the powercreep brought by HoT rather than a non-functional aspect of any kind. Why are my suggested changes not a good idea ?

Quite hard and sensitive topic. I feel like condition damage lost their consistency over the time. If I remember properly, the original paradigm was clearly damage over time, with bleeding (hitting like a mosquito) stacking in intensity and burning (hitting like a truck) stacking in duration. Fighting a condi build was, for most of the builds, consisting in managing the cleanse to "slowly get killed but not too fast".

This initial consistency has clearly been fading away with time. Conditions are now only stacking in intensity and not in duration, for all of them. As they now have the same mechanic, burning/bleeding/tourment can almost be seen as the same conditions with different damage coefficients. And then we have the never-addressed by-product of this update: a "hitting-like-a-truck" condition stackable in intensity, which opens the door to "condiburst". The powercreep (with a large meaning, more cleanses and more condis) brought by the expansions just exacerbated this paradigm shift by making the game faster. Condis are removed and applied so frequently that "condition duration" is no longer a thing, **Conditions are now very similar to power** in their application.

Call me old school but I really think the initial damaging condition design was a better one. The paradigm I have in mind is similar to this:

**Damaging conditions should be different by their mechanics:**

1. Burning should hit like a truck but only stack in duration.

2. Bleeding should be fast stacking condition, weak by itself but stronk together.

3. Torment should _only_ punish moving players. Non-moving players should barely be affected by this condition.

4. Confusion should _only_ punish player activating skills. Inactive players should barely be affected by this condition.

5. Poison should _only_ punish players getting healed, and only stack in duration. That means no damage, but -33% heal effectiveness.

That would already bring back more counters to these conditions and remove the "condiburst" that we know nowadays, as it mainly originates from burning, torment and confusion. It gives more soul to conditions, and definitely leads to more interesting ways of playing them (your ennemy is trying to escape ? Put torment. Your ennemy is preparing a super combo involving 5 different skills ? Put confusion. Etc.).

**Condition duration should be a thing:**

Which offers the "strong ticking conditions" vs "longer ticking conditions". This is only possible _if_ the number of cleanses and conditions applications are reduced.

That's clearly a very different paradigm than what we have today, but I think it offers more interesting counter-gameplay than "if condi stack > 5 -> cleanse" from defender side, and "if condi skill available -> use it" from attacker side.

I am not speaking about the soft conditions as they are quite fine as they are. Maybe because they never got touched since the release of the game. My only change suggestion would be: "remove mobility penalty on chill (cripple already does that), replace the random Glance on weakness by a flat damage reduction (cant be bothered with RNG in pvp)"

Welp, it is just one of those stupid designs. Holosmith is not _totally_ overperforming atm even though this trait is stupid and definitely pushes their build forward way more than it should.

But as long as Anet does not consistently enter in a "small frequent updates" mode, not sure you will live long enough to see this getting adjusted. Changes are so random that I am not even sure they have an internal "professions change/balance route sheet"; someday they will nerf a class to the ground and forget about it for the next 3 years, then buff it again to absurb levels. That's how it rolls, bois!

The problem I have with these kind of topics is that it proposes changes that makes class "balanced between them", instead of pushing the game in a "more fun to play" direction, by fixing "global design".

The secret behind the balance is that ... all the classes are quite balanced (at the exception of warrior and maybe mesmer). If you queue with any of these classes, no one will blame you "hey you are playing an underperforming class". So the only balance suggestion we could make is "buff warrior and mesmer" and ta-da, game balanced with the current design.

However, it does not make the game more fun due to bad design. And these are numerous:

* **Strong skills/effects with little to no animation**

* **Skills having insane damage over cast time ratio**: 1/4s cast time is already below the average human reaction time with a decent stimulus (animation/noise), putting "must-dodge" skills below 1/2s cast time is insane. The only counter to it being ... super instinct. This is even more true in all the visual clutter we have in gw2.

* **Rezzes/rallying**: often feel too strong, it was already the case during powercreep meta, it is even worse now. Many suggestions have already been posted to fix that

* **Casting strong skills under stealth**: which gives no chance for the opponent to dodge them, besides super instinct. Many suggestions have already been posted to fix that.

* **Omnipresence of CC** (byproduct of big patch): they feel too spammable, makes the game "clunky". There are two ways of fixing that: give more stabilities options OR make CC rarer but more powerful (skill interrupted ? -> Full CD, sorry mate you got outplayed _(it is an extreme example eh, do not argue on, as it is not the goal of this post)_

* **Omnipresence of sustain** (byproduct of big patch): with damage nerf, the defence options we had before feel stronger: 3 second block/evade/invu before feels like 6 seconds now as damage got halved but not the CD.

* **AoE** : classes are way more mobile than they were in the creation of the game, but AoE design is the same: static on the ground; hence making them "virtually" less potent as there are more ways now to avoid them. Anet tried to fix that by introducing bigger AoE (so that they tick more/have more chance to hit), and by making more powerful (so that if it hits, it hits hard knowing it only hits 1/10 of the time). This is bad design: standing in "weak skill AoE" should not obliterate you (e.g.: guard symbols, sword of justice; renegade spirits; etc.).

* **Skills that will still have an effect even if "interrupted"** : Reaper GS#5, revenant axe#5, etc. Yup, not worth to use a CC on this skill as they will have an effect no matter what.

* **Boon spam/Corrupt spam**: Boon management is not rewardful as it will probably be corrupted right away, corrupt management is not rewardful as the boon will probably be reapplied right away. So? Just spam it.

* **Weakness**: Effects are too random and extreme to be fun. Either hit for 6k or hit for 500 depending on the RNG ? heck no, give it a flat damage-penalty.

* **Abundance of unblockable skills**: block/aegis is a defence option, a "counter to a counter" that has a low CD is just something that you can spam in any situation... that's even worse if it is a CC, what unblockable skills tend to be.

* **Stats effectiveness**: Discussable of course, but I think they should be more extreme: nearly no damage if you dont have power/condition damage; nearly no healing if you dont have healing power but way more if you do; nearly no damage reduction if you dont have toughness but much more if you do; etc. _That's probably something that will never happen as how much work should be done to change that, I dont even know why I bring that on the table._

* **Life savers passive traits**: carrying unaware players since 2012. Actually a success-story from Anet as they have mostly fixed this one ... but we are still waiting for replacement for these traits ;)

* **etc.**: _So that no one is unhappy_

Besides there are of course good designs which could be pushed forwards:

* **The general gw2 combat system**, overall very fun. People like me keep criticizing the game but, if we are still active, it is because most of it is actually great.

* **Combo fields** : quite forgotten since HoT (besides the smoke field) due to powercreep, the idea behind that is actually great. Convert an important damage skill to get more healing from a water field ? Sweet sweet!

* **etc.**: _So that no one is unhappy_

Note: The skill/classes I use as examples are exactly that: **examples** , and not a "QQ nerf this, I want others' build to perform less efficiently so I could farm more people".

> @"Avatar.3568" said:

> **I **> @"aelska.4609" said:

> > Or maybe a totally different kind of suggestion: makes it a node to cap (with capping speed scaled by the number of players ?). Less interactive but more pvp-spirit oriented; easier to tune than a pve mob that has the AI potential of a fly.

>

> That sounds totally stupid

Great argument, very insightful.

> @"McPero.3287" said:

> > @"aelska.4609" said:

> > I still think rez glyph belongs to the crappy design category: not totally overpowered by itself, but definitely makes the game frustrating and unfun, the sole counter of it being .... CCing a dude that's probably 900 range from there and porting away.

> >

> > Suggestion:

> >

> > * Give this glyph a proper animation. You should "CC-react" to the glyph, not "CC-predict" it.

> > * (and) Create an utility that has the exact opposite effect (AoE finisher) with the exact same cast time and cooldown than the glyph, so that CCing is not the sole counter of the glyph.

> > * (or) Remove this crappy "range rez/stomp" design from the game

>

> Warrior banner it already exists.

Yap, at the difference it takes an elite slot with double the cooldown and 2/3 the range, so unfair "counter".

I still think rez glyph belongs to the crappy design category: not totally overpowered by itself, but definitely makes the game frustrating and unfun, the sole counter of it being .... CCing a dude that's probably 900 range from there and porting away.

Suggestion:

* Give this glyph a proper animation. You should "CC-react" to the glyph, not "CC-predict" it.

* (and) Create an utility that has the exact opposite effect (AoE finisher) with the exact same cast time and cooldown than the glyph, so that CCing is not the sole counter of the glyph.

* (or) Remove this crappy "range rez/stomp" design from the game

Or maybe a totally different kind of suggestion: makes it a node to cap (with capping speed scaled by the number of players ?). Less interactive but more pvp-spirit oriented; easier to tune than a pve mob that has the AI potential of a fly.

Freakin premades will farm us again, heck no

You do realize that we are just talking about 5% dps difference between a fully legendary geared character and an exotic geared one ?

Gear grinding has never been a part of this game, it's all about cosmetics and titles. Don't have hopes to see that changing, this is the philosophy of the game.