Jski.6180

> @"Sobx.1758" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > @"Sobx.1758" said: > > > I don't see why this change is needed at all. > > > > Because it dose not work with other effects right even the rune set dose not work right with it? You in effect can weekend your own team healing out put by a lot if you do not build just right in healing power and some classes simply have higher healing power then other classes. Its a lot of healing lost. > > > > That and i do not have faith in anet programing to fix it so the best way to "fix" reg is to make it a pure healing power effect and that IS barrier not healing. Just simply how the game works. > > I'm not sure why you've decided anet wants it to work with *whatever effect*, but somehow aren't able to do it. For all we know it's a concious choice of that effect not working with specific healing improvements, so I still don't understand why this is a change we need. > Also due to this, you could drop the "fix" word in this context until you prove it's actually broken/bugged/unintended. Out going healing and reg +20% runes DO effect reg but they do not work if some one else apply reg to the same ppl with higher healing power. In a way you block your own teams healing effects. The main example of this is Scraper with its +250 healing power and its 1 sec regs for condi clears comply negating a +3 reg from ele healing rain becuse scraper has higher healing power at any given time then ele. Another example the worst one is stepping over your own reg where your last reg effect applied triggers first before a stronger reg effect a kind of super speed or stun/hard cc like effect but with stronger version and much more often. Its outdated and a this point it IS a Broken/bugged/unintenced effect or it would not effect reg in the first places. Or anet likes to troll healers a lot by adding in a rune set that effects only reg healing effect but not the priority of the tick heal.

> @"Sobx.1758" said: > I don't see why this change is needed at all. Because it dose not work with other effects right even the rune set dose not work right with it? You in effect can weekend your own team healing out put by a lot if you do not build just right in healing power and some classes simply have higher healing power then other classes. Its a lot of healing lost. That and i do not have faith in anet programing to fix it so the best way to "fix" reg is to make it a pure healing power effect and that IS barrier not healing. Just simply how the game works.

> @"sokeenoppa.5384" said: > Regen is big counter to raid boss dmg auras. For that reason alone i want it to stay as it is. Is that good game play? That sounds more like a benchmark then game play.

> @"Funky.4861" said: > I suggest two things: > > 1) Make regen take account of all healing modifiers, incoming and outgoing. > 2) Make regen ticking on a char with max health grant barrier; this can be the same value as the regen, or a percentage of it. > > i'd be cautious of regen granting barrier as that could be OP in competitive modes. It dose get effected by out going healing but the ticks them self of whom gets the effects is base off of purly healing power even the rune set dose not take pritoly over higher healing power. I do not see anet fixing this any time soon and i would suggest it would make regen too strong of an effect so the space for ppl to block there own team mates from better overall healing out put is a very bad means of balancing the skill but keeps it from become much too strong. By making it barrier all of the time reg will only give you temp hp. Look at it like this nearly every boon in the game is a before effect where they drop dmg stop a cc or add to an attk. As for barrier being op think of protection as 33% dmg taken barrier, resistances as 100% condi dmg barrier, Block of any type as 100% barrier, and stab as 100 cc barrier (bit of a out there ideal) but there are effects that give you hidden hp already you just cant see it at least barrier gives you a thing you can see.

> @"Sobx.1758" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > > > > > > Lack of evidence is evidence of lack of updates. > > > > > > So, you acknowledge that your lack of evidence is evidence of a lack of reworks to guardian of the level that I've presented examples for with respect to other professions? > > > > > > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > > > > > > NB.: The necromancer got a lot of work done (at least more than what you seem to remember) but it's starting point, performance wise, was also a lot worse than most other professions (As for DM, they just shuffled the numbers to make it look different, the necromancer even ended up getting QoL loss out of it since they replaced flat damage reduction by toughness. I'd rather not have "rework" if it's these kind of rework, it would be like changing honor to give you a stackable vitality buff for a maximum of 300 vitality while removing _force of will_ vitality buff). > > > > > > Yeah, there's a degree of that. Reworks can be a bit of a toss of the proverbial dice, and it's better to not need it in the first place, which is the situation guardian has been in since the pre-HoT specialisations rework (where ALL of the core professions had their trait structure rebuilt). Some reworks are a bit meh, others can end up making the profession overpowered for a bit until they get pared back. (And yeah, I had a feeling there was more for the necromancer than I remembered. It's why I was stressing that I was listing purely from memory. If I was to go through the history pages of the wiki I'm sure I'd find more, but I just can't be bothered. I think I've already demonstrated my point with regards to Jski's claims unless there's been a major traitline rework to guardian that I've forgotten, and _I'm pretty sure there hasn't been._ > > > > > > > @"Axl.8924" said: > > > > > > > > I think its a issue of balancing tradeoffs with benefits. > > > > > > > > Core needs a way to stay desireable on ele/nec engi etc, because if not its just elites are 2.0 of that class with superior mechanics. > > > > > > > > It would make sense if core's tradeoff of melee dmg is for higher condi dmg or something or making tempest stronger in support and weaker in damage than core ele somehow with traits. > > > > > > Yeah, pretty much. The idea of tradeoffs is to keep the core profession balanced against the elite specs, and therefore the strongest indicator of whether a profession has sufficient tradeoffs is _whether the core profession is seeing use._ Cherrypicked comparisons between mechanics that ignore the opportunity cost of a third core traitline are missing the point if the core variant is doing well - and core guardian IS doing well. Or at least better than any other core profession. Maybe there's still room for improvement, but at the moment I'd consider the other professions to be a higher priority. (Noting that tradeoffs can come from buffing core as well as by nerfing the elite specialisation. After all, part of the reason core guardian is doing well, however much people might throw shade about the comparison between tomes and core virtues, is that all of the core traitlines bring something worthwhile to the table. While buffing core traitlines can also indirectly buff elite specialisations, it can also increase the likelihood that taking a third core traitline genuinely is more useful than taking an elite specialisation, especially if you're not planning to use what that elite specialisation brings.) > > > > The lack of evidence of updates to other classes IS examples of lack of reworks for them. > > ...he listed the updates/reworks for other classes earlier, I have no idea what you're trying to argue here right now tbh. If this back-and-forth suffers from lack of evidence, it looks like it's the lack of evidence on your side, not his. No i know what is going on he is trying to make it into a yes or no chose when its not every thing in the game has been "updated/reworeked" at some point but a lot of the time the skills are made worst and not better. This is not a yes or no point of view when it comes to triad offs of elite spec. and trying make it so is just wrong. Classes like FB lose some effects but what it gets back is massive so much so its better to be a FB and have books then your normal f ability. The lack of evidence is due to the complexitly of these updates example. Glyph of Elemental Power https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Elemental_Power At one point this skill would give you an buff that lasted for 20 or so sec that would give you an added effect on your skill base off of the atument you where in on the first use of GoEP. This would have a cd per target so being an ele having a lot of aoe skill you would be able to effect on massive numbers of targets. This skill was updated / reworked to being a charge base skill where every hit so being an ele with lots of aoe skill you would eat though your charges in one skill most of the time and often on skills added effects like wall and fields that often did not come with high dmg effects in them self. This was not a good update or rework to the skill and made it into a very underused effect in the game. Befor it was usable in all game types now its only usable in maybe a hand full of types. This WAS an update rework but it was not a good one and most would call it going backwards for the class over all.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > > Lack of evidence is evidence of lack of updates. > > So, you acknowledge that your lack of evidence is evidence of a lack of reworks to guardian of the level that I've presented examples for with respect to other professions? > > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > > NB.: The necromancer got a lot of work done (at least more than what you seem to remember) but it's starting point, performance wise, was also a lot worse than most other professions (As for DM, they just shuffled the numbers to make it look different, the necromancer even ended up getting QoL loss out of it since they replaced flat damage reduction by toughness. I'd rather not have "rework" if it's these kind of rework, it would be like changing honor to give you a stackable vitality buff for a maximum of 300 vitality while removing _force of will_ vitality buff). > > Yeah, there's a degree of that. Reworks can be a bit of a toss of the proverbial dice, and it's better to not need it in the first place, which is the situation guardian has been in since the pre-HoT specialisations rework (where ALL of the core professions had their trait structure rebuilt). Some reworks are a bit meh, others can end up making the profession overpowered for a bit until they get pared back. (And yeah, I had a feeling there was more for the necromancer than I remembered. It's why I was stressing that I was listing purely from memory. If I was to go through the history pages of the wiki I'm sure I'd find more, but I just can't be bothered. I think I've already demonstrated my point with regards to Jski's claims unless there's been a major traitline rework to guardian that I've forgotten, and _I'm pretty sure there hasn't been._ > > > @"Axl.8924" said: > > > > I think its a issue of balancing tradeoffs with benefits. > > > > Core needs a way to stay desireable on ele/nec engi etc, because if not its just elites are 2.0 of that class with superior mechanics. > > > > It would make sense if core's tradeoff of melee dmg is for higher condi dmg or something or making tempest stronger in support and weaker in damage than core ele somehow with traits. > > Yeah, pretty much. The idea of tradeoffs is to keep the core profession balanced against the elite specs, and therefore the strongest indicator of whether a profession has sufficient tradeoffs is _whether the core profession is seeing use._ Cherrypicked comparisons between mechanics that ignore the opportunity cost of a third core traitline are missing the point if the core variant is doing well - and core guardian IS doing well. Or at least better than any other core profession. Maybe there's still room for improvement, but at the moment I'd consider the other professions to be a higher priority. (Noting that tradeoffs can come from buffing core as well as by nerfing the elite specialisation. After all, part of the reason core guardian is doing well, however much people might throw shade about the comparison between tomes and core virtues, is that all of the core traitlines bring something worthwhile to the table. While buffing core traitlines can also indirectly buff elite specialisations, it can also increase the likelihood that taking a third core traitline genuinely is more useful than taking an elite specialisation, especially if you're not planning to use what that elite specialisation brings.) The lack of evidence of updates to other classes IS examples of lack of reworks for them.

Ele is a skill trap you feel like your doing a lot but your realty not. Your best bet for skill game play to out play humans (you CANT out play ai and pve) is mezmer.

> @"FrownyClown.8402" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > @"FrownyClown.8402" said: > > > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > > > @"FrownyClown.8402" said: > > > > > > @"BunjiKugashira.9754" said: > > > > > > The crazy thing is that conjures are among the more useful utilities. Just look at the cantrips and black magic. They often have long cooldowns for severely underwhelming effects. > > > > > > > > > > > > And then look at ele elite skills. No one talks about ele elite skills because there is nothing to talk about. They are so useless that they might as well not exist. FGS was overnerfed years ago and even before that it was only good for its gimmic. Tornado locks you out of your skills and the only useful thing about tornado - the increased attributes to make lingering fields tick harder - was nerfed. I don't think the elemental was ever nerfed, but I don't remember it ever being strong either. Now that the lesser glyph can summon multiple elementals it should be stronger than the elite skill. > > > > > > > > > > The glyph elite is very strong. The water elemental is a 7k heal on a 15s cd. Fire is ok and air is meh. Earth is a tanky at least. Tornado elite hits very hard. Specifically the 4 skill when combined with lightning rod. > > > > > > > > Pets that can die are weak in any game type. Its not important how strong there effects are as long as it can die it become worthless. > > > > > > Water and earth elite survives fine in its own. This is the build I use and it works fine. No issues keeping elite alive its entire duration. > > > > > > http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAYlJwmYeMKGJWMTZtdA-z5AfGZKB6VBYzB > > > > > > I tend to use the heal in earth for protection. I tend to alternate storm glyph with earth and air. I almost always have water elite up. > > > > This is why renegade and ranger sprits are not used as much. Kill able pets are just not viable in mmorpgs they are even worst with ground target aoe in both pvp/wvw and pve. All the powerful effects in the worst will not fix ele pets skill as long as they are kill able pets making it a worthless skill. > > If you say so I do! If ele pets where more like say banners (effects that cant die) or even ranger pets (it will self rez) or even necro elite pet (no duration and low cd) they would be much more viable. The air pet is funny it tends to miss a lot so even putting the pets at a safe range is not a viable chose. That just how a lot of non used skills are on ele they do next to nothing over all and more then like they are buged in one way or another or they are simply outdated so much they are missed by updates that would fix them and also nerf them. Even when they do update the skill and rework them they are often updated / rewored in such a way that seems more made for other classes then ele see Glyph of Elemental Power (i will never forgive this update) a charge effect for an aoe class is next to worthless as only one target or one hit of an skill will get the effect at any time making it next to worthless.

I am finding earth fire with glassly gear a better set up for roaming on tempest then say air fire with tankly gear. Over all your still an ele though so your lacking a stealth or very high runaway abitly.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > @"Yasai.3549" said: > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > > > > The common line "guardian is in a good place" reflects that guardian is the closest to achieving the standard that ArenaNet is aiming for _all_ professions to reach. Solid mechanics, versatile, all traitlines have their uses, and in PvP it's pretty much always present but apart from firebrands for a bit (but they've now been pretty much nerfed out of sPvP altogether) it's rarely dominant. > > > > > > > > Guardian and DH, yes. > > > > FB is definitely overloaded though. > > > > > > > > I mean in exchange for losing 3 actives they get 15 actives instead. > > > > In fact, PoF in general, just overloads Especs. > > > > > > > > I feel like all HoT specs are fairly balanced. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Not really. What you give up when you pop a tome is that for the period you have the tome up, you don't have access to your weapon skills any more. Courage and Resolve are pretty heavily specialised - while you've got either of them up, you're not getting any damage to speak of out of the left side of your bar at all, just defensive buffs and haling respectively. You can drop the tome before using it up, of course, but then the tome is going on full recharge without having gained the full benefit from it. And, of course, that recharge starts when the tome is finished, so the effective recharge of tomes is longer than it is on paper. > > > > > > Justice is a bit less specialised because damage is always useful, but if you're running a healbrand, you might need to be careful when you switch into it, because doing so at the wrong time might deprive your group of healing and buffs coming from your weaponset. > > > > > > Another consideration is that while it might look like 15 skills on paper, in practice it's rare that you'll actually be able to make good use out of all three. Firebrands have pretty much been ejected from sPvP at the moment (seriously, there's not one firebrand build recommended on Metabattle last time I checked). Courage largely rewards concentration, resolve healing power and concentration, and justice rewards damage stats, particularly _condition_ damage - in practice, you need to choose between them. Usually between damage or support. Courage probably loses the least from having the 'wrong' gearset, but it's also probably the most specialised: in competitive being able to spam stability for a few seconds is great, but in high end PvE, it's basically an emergency button that you'd prefer to never have to press because the benefits don't offset the DPS loss (when my group runs Matthias, for instance, even if there are firebrands in the group, they're usually instructed to let Mesmers put up the projectile reflect bubbles and the Firebrands should only do so in an emergency if the mesmers can't, because for the firebrands, switching to Tome of Courage to put up a reflect bubble is generally a DPS loss). In practice, it's not practical to have one build that really makes use of both Justice and Resolve. For a DPS build, puling a Tome of Resolve is basically a last-ditch Hail Mary that probably won't actually save whoever it is that's in trouble from dying because the healing is too low, and in the meantime you're not DPSing. For a healing build, pulling out ToJ when it's safe to do so usually does give a slight uptick in damage, but you're going from "not much" to "a little more but still not much". > > > > > > Saying that you're giving up 3 skills for 15 is an overly simplistic analysis because it doesn't take into account how much more of an action economy investment the tomes represent. Sure, there's more options, but there's limits on how well you can USE those options. Dragonhunter virtues are pretty fire-and-forget: you use them like you would a normal skill and then go back to your regular rotation. Core guardian virtues can be activated _while_ performing other actions, which can lead to sneaky tricks like activating F1 as you deliver the killing blow on a mob to get effectively free boons, using F1 or F3 to cover a stomp mid-animation (with appropriate traits), or being able to simply faceroll the virtues before activating Renewed Focus in a pinch. A firebrand using their virtues, on the other hand, is more of a mode shift. They give you more options, to be sure, but they represent a significant interruption of what you'd be doing otherwise. > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > > > > They only partly separated and there are some massive hold overs from pve balancing that very bluntly gets in the way of spvp and wvw balancing. Anet is realty bad a favoring some classes over others gurd is the best example of this for all game types. Anet likes ppl to play gurd over all other classes this is why they gotten more reworks and buffs over all and that IS a massive balancing problem that anet and anet alone has made. > > > > > > > > > > That's... really not accurate. The only significant rework Guardian has had since HoT was the spirit weapon rework. The core traitlines and mechanics are still largely doing what they did after the all-profession traitline rework pre-HoT, and the only times I can think of where there have been functionality changes to elite specialisation stuff (as opposed to numbers reworks) it's been to nerf them. There's been nothing along the lines of the full traitline reworks that revenant, warrior, and engineer have had, or the complete mechanics change that mesmer had a little after PoF released. > > > > > > > > > > Largely because it hasn't needed them. > > > > > > > > > > The common line "guardian is in a good place" reflects that guardian is the closest to achieving the standard that ArenaNet is aiming for _all_ professions to reach. Solid mechanics, versatile, all traitlines have their uses, and in PvP it's pretty much always present but apart from firebrands for a bit (but they've now been pretty much nerfed out of sPvP altogether) it's rarely dominant. > > > > > > > > That a lot bigger then most classes. > > > > > > Pretty sure most other classes have had reworks that are at _least_ as big as reworking four utility skills (and three weapon skills, I guess, since sword and scepter were changed to have symbols and Ray of Judgement was changed). > > > > > > Revenant had Devastation and Corruption reworked, recently, and Mallyx skills have been reworked a couple of times. Offhand sword has been completely redesigned, for better or worse. Oh, and they've also had Salvation reworked, for better or worse. Come to think on it, I'm not sure that _any_ core revenant traitline has avoided a rework. Let's not forget the introduction of legend-specific Facet of Nature skills, or the core F2. > > > > > > Warrior had the tactics rework, and the warhorn rework. I think there's been more, but Warrior is one of my least played professions, and I'm doing this purely off memory. > > > > > > Scrapper had basically everything except the hammer reworked. Core engineer had the Inventions rework (which is a large part of the reason why heal scrapper exists) and the big Explosions rework, which is largely why engineers have been dominating sPvP lately. > > > > > > Thief had traps turned into preparations, which generally resulted in stronger effects at the cost of being a bit fiddlier to use, as well as the Shadow Arts rework. Oh, and the Deadeye redesign. > > > > > > Necromancer had the big rework on the Death Magic traitline not too long ago. I'm pretty sure I remember them also having big reworks to Spite and Curses back before PoF. Focus was redesigned, and I think scepter had some significant work done on it as well. > > > > > > Mesmer got pretty much rebuilt from the ground up around Season 4 Episode 2. I don't think any profession has been reworked as much as mesmer (and this isn't really a good thing for the profession). > > > > > > Elementalist had the Fire Magic traitline overhauled, and the summoning glyphs changed (it's possible to have multiple lesser elementals out at once now). > > > > > > Ranger had sword redesigned. I have a feeling that they've had redesigns to their utility traitlines as well, but again, I'm going off memory here, and ranger is one of my less played professions. > > > > > > This is also, incidentally, only considering reworks that were intended to buff underused parts of the profession, rather than cases where functionality has been stripped back or changed for the purpose of nerfing (something that has happened to guardian as well). I'm also going off memory here, so there may be a lot I'm forgetting. Guardian traitlines, by contrast, haven't had any big reworks since pre-HoT: a few individual traits have been tweaked, but no complete tree redesigns. A few skills that weren't being used were replaced and that's just about it. There are some professions there that you could argue have had about the same in the way of reworks, but revenant, engineer, thief, necromancer, and mesmer have all clearly had more. And of the three that are not in that list, it might just be because they're professions I generally play less and thus don't remember their reworks as well. > > > > Not even close to the same of what gurad has been update and added on. > > I note a distinct lack of examples as evidence to your case there. > > (I do note that I just realised that I'd forgotten the reworks to staff skills 1 and 2, but there's still everything I've just listed for the other professions, _and that was just off memory._ I'm pretty sure there's stuff I've forgotten there as well.) Lack of evidence is evidence of lack of updates.

> @"FrownyClown.8402" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > @"FrownyClown.8402" said: > > > > @"BunjiKugashira.9754" said: > > > > The crazy thing is that conjures are among the more useful utilities. Just look at the cantrips and black magic. They often have long cooldowns for severely underwhelming effects. > > > > > > > > And then look at ele elite skills. No one talks about ele elite skills because there is nothing to talk about. They are so useless that they might as well not exist. FGS was overnerfed years ago and even before that it was only good for its gimmic. Tornado locks you out of your skills and the only useful thing about tornado - the increased attributes to make lingering fields tick harder - was nerfed. I don't think the elemental was ever nerfed, but I don't remember it ever being strong either. Now that the lesser glyph can summon multiple elementals it should be stronger than the elite skill. > > > > > > The glyph elite is very strong. The water elemental is a 7k heal on a 15s cd. Fire is ok and air is meh. Earth is a tanky at least. Tornado elite hits very hard. Specifically the 4 skill when combined with lightning rod. > > > > Pets that can die are weak in any game type. Its not important how strong there effects are as long as it can die it become worthless. > > Water and earth elite survives fine in its own. This is the build I use and it works fine. No issues keeping elite alive its entire duration. > > http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAYlJwmYeMKGJWMTZtdA-z5AfGZKB6VBYzB > > I tend to use the heal in earth for protection. I tend to alternate storm glyph with earth and air. I almost always have water elite up. This is why renegade and ranger sprits are not used as much. Kill able pets are just not viable in mmorpgs they are even worst with ground target aoe in both pvp/wvw and pve. All the powerful effects in the worst will not fix ele pets skill as long as they are kill able pets making it a worthless skill.

> @"FrownyClown.8402" said: > > @"BunjiKugashira.9754" said: > > The crazy thing is that conjures are among the more useful utilities. Just look at the cantrips and black magic. They often have long cooldowns for severely underwhelming effects. > > > > And then look at ele elite skills. No one talks about ele elite skills because there is nothing to talk about. They are so useless that they might as well not exist. FGS was overnerfed years ago and even before that it was only good for its gimmic. Tornado locks you out of your skills and the only useful thing about tornado - the increased attributes to make lingering fields tick harder - was nerfed. I don't think the elemental was ever nerfed, but I don't remember it ever being strong either. Now that the lesser glyph can summon multiple elementals it should be stronger than the elite skill. > > The glyph elite is very strong. The water elemental is a 7k heal on a 15s cd. Fire is ok and air is meh. Earth is a tanky at least. Tornado elite hits very hard. Specifically the 4 skill when combined with lightning rod. Pets that can die are weak in any game type. Its not important how strong there effects are as long as it can die it become worthless.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > @"Yasai.3549" said: > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > The common line "guardian is in a good place" reflects that guardian is the closest to achieving the standard that ArenaNet is aiming for _all_ professions to reach. Solid mechanics, versatile, all traitlines have their uses, and in PvP it's pretty much always present but apart from firebrands for a bit (but they've now been pretty much nerfed out of sPvP altogether) it's rarely dominant. > > > > Guardian and DH, yes. > > FB is definitely overloaded though. > > > > I mean in exchange for losing 3 actives they get 15 actives instead. > > In fact, PoF in general, just overloads Especs. > > > > I feel like all HoT specs are fairly balanced. > > > > > > Not really. What you give up when you pop a tome is that for the period you have the tome up, you don't have access to your weapon skills any more. Courage and Resolve are pretty heavily specialised - while you've got either of them up, you're not getting any damage to speak of out of the left side of your bar at all, just defensive buffs and haling respectively. You can drop the tome before using it up, of course, but then the tome is going on full recharge without having gained the full benefit from it. And, of course, that recharge starts when the tome is finished, so the effective recharge of tomes is longer than it is on paper. > > Justice is a bit less specialised because damage is always useful, but if you're running a healbrand, you might need to be careful when you switch into it, because doing so at the wrong time might deprive your group of healing and buffs coming from your weaponset. > > Another consideration is that while it might look like 15 skills on paper, in practice it's rare that you'll actually be able to make good use out of all three. Firebrands have pretty much been ejected from sPvP at the moment (seriously, there's not one firebrand build recommended on Metabattle last time I checked). Courage largely rewards concentration, resolve healing power and concentration, and justice rewards damage stats, particularly _condition_ damage - in practice, you need to choose between them. Usually between damage or support. Courage probably loses the least from having the 'wrong' gearset, but it's also probably the most specialised: in competitive being able to spam stability for a few seconds is great, but in high end PvE, it's basically an emergency button that you'd prefer to never have to press because the benefits don't offset the DPS loss (when my group runs Matthias, for instance, even if there are firebrands in the group, they're usually instructed to let Mesmers put up the projectile reflect bubbles and the Firebrands should only do so in an emergency if the mesmers can't, because for the firebrands, switching to Tome of Courage to put up a reflect bubble is generally a DPS loss). In practice, it's not practical to have one build that really makes use of both Justice and Resolve. For a DPS build, puling a Tome of Resolve is basically a last-ditch Hail Mary that probably won't actually save whoever it is that's in trouble from dying because the healing is too low, and in the meantime you're not DPSing. For a healing build, pulling out ToJ when it's safe to do so usually does give a slight uptick in damage, but you're going from "not much" to "a little more but still not much". > > Saying that you're giving up 3 skills for 15 is an overly simplistic analysis because it doesn't take into account how much more of an action economy investment the tomes represent. Sure, there's more options, but there's limits on how well you can USE those options. Dragonhunter virtues are pretty fire-and-forget: you use them like you would a normal skill and then go back to your regular rotation. Core guardian virtues can be activated _while_ performing other actions, which can lead to sneaky tricks like activating F1 as you deliver the killing blow on a mob to get effectively free boons, using F1 or F3 to cover a stomp mid-animation (with appropriate traits), or being able to simply faceroll the virtues before activating Renewed Focus in a pinch. A firebrand using their virtues, on the other hand, is more of a mode shift. They give you more options, to be sure, but they represent a significant interruption of what you'd be doing otherwise. > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > > > They only partly separated and there are some massive hold overs from pve balancing that very bluntly gets in the way of spvp and wvw balancing. Anet is realty bad a favoring some classes over others gurd is the best example of this for all game types. Anet likes ppl to play gurd over all other classes this is why they gotten more reworks and buffs over all and that IS a massive balancing problem that anet and anet alone has made. > > > > > > That's... really not accurate. The only significant rework Guardian has had since HoT was the spirit weapon rework. The core traitlines and mechanics are still largely doing what they did after the all-profession traitline rework pre-HoT, and the only times I can think of where there have been functionality changes to elite specialisation stuff (as opposed to numbers reworks) it's been to nerf them. There's been nothing along the lines of the full traitline reworks that revenant, warrior, and engineer have had, or the complete mechanics change that mesmer had a little after PoF released. > > > > > > Largely because it hasn't needed them. > > > > > > The common line "guardian is in a good place" reflects that guardian is the closest to achieving the standard that ArenaNet is aiming for _all_ professions to reach. Solid mechanics, versatile, all traitlines have their uses, and in PvP it's pretty much always present but apart from firebrands for a bit (but they've now been pretty much nerfed out of sPvP altogether) it's rarely dominant. > > > > That a lot bigger then most classes. > > Pretty sure most other classes have had reworks that are at _least_ as big as reworking four utility skills (and three weapon skills, I guess, since sword and scepter were changed to have symbols and Ray of Judgement was changed). > > Revenant had Devastation and Corruption reworked, recently, and Mallyx skills have been reworked a couple of times. Offhand sword has been completely redesigned, for better or worse. Oh, and they've also had Salvation reworked, for better or worse. Come to think on it, I'm not sure that _any_ core revenant traitline has avoided a rework. Let's not forget the introduction of legend-specific Facet of Nature skills, or the core F2. > > Warrior had the tactics rework, and the warhorn rework. I think there's been more, but Warrior is one of my least played professions, and I'm doing this purely off memory. > > Scrapper had basically everything except the hammer reworked. Core engineer had the Inventions rework (which is a large part of the reason why heal scrapper exists) and the big Explosions rework, which is largely why engineers have been dominating sPvP lately. > > Thief had traps turned into preparations, which generally resulted in stronger effects at the cost of being a bit fiddlier to use, as well as the Shadow Arts rework. Oh, and the Deadeye redesign. > > Necromancer had the big rework on the Death Magic traitline not too long ago. I'm pretty sure I remember them also having big reworks to Spite and Curses back before PoF. Focus was redesigned, and I think scepter had some significant work done on it as well. > > Mesmer got pretty much rebuilt from the ground up around Season 4 Episode 2. I don't think any profession has been reworked as much as mesmer (and this isn't really a good thing for the profession). > > Elementalist had the Fire Magic traitline overhauled, and the summoning glyphs changed (it's possible to have multiple lesser elementals out at once now). > > Ranger had sword redesigned. I have a feeling that they've had redesigns to their utility traitlines as well, but again, I'm going off memory here, and ranger is one of my less played professions. > > This is also, incidentally, only considering reworks that were intended to buff underused parts of the profession, rather than cases where functionality has been stripped back or changed for the purpose of nerfing (something that has happened to guardian as well). I'm also going off memory here, so there may be a lot I'm forgetting. Guardian traitlines, by contrast, haven't had any big reworks since pre-HoT: a few individual traits have been tweaked, but no complete tree redesigns. A few skills that weren't being used were replaced and that's just about it. There are some professions there that you could argue have had about the same in the way of reworks, but revenant, engineer, thief, necromancer, and mesmer have all clearly had more. And of the three that are not in that list, it might just be because they're professions I generally play less and thus don't remember their reworks as well. Not even close to the same of what gurad has been update and added on.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > They only partly separated and there are some massive hold overs from pve balancing that very bluntly gets in the way of spvp and wvw balancing. Anet is realty bad a favoring some classes over others gurd is the best example of this for all game types. Anet likes ppl to play gurd over all other classes this is why they gotten more reworks and buffs over all and that IS a massive balancing problem that anet and anet alone has made. > > That's... really not accurate. The only significant rework Guardian has had since HoT was the spirit weapon rework. The core traitlines and mechanics are still largely doing what they did after the all-profession traitline rework pre-HoT, and the only times I can think of where there have been functionality changes to elite specialisation stuff (as opposed to numbers reworks) it's been to nerf them. There's been nothing along the lines of the full traitline reworks that revenant, warrior, and engineer have had, or the complete mechanics change that mesmer had a little after PoF released. > > Largely because it hasn't needed them. > > The common line "guardian is in a good place" reflects that guardian is the closest to achieving the standard that ArenaNet is aiming for _all_ professions to reach. Solid mechanics, versatile, all traitlines have their uses, and in PvP it's pretty much always present but apart from firebrands for a bit (but they've now been pretty much nerfed out of sPvP altogether) it's rarely dominant. That a lot bigger then most classes.

Balancing and reworks to skill and classes that have mostly been untouched.

> @"Hypnowulf.7403" said: > I am pleased that ArenaNet were clever enough to separate the balance of PvE, PvP, and WvW. This is a highly intelligent choice that I wish any other MMO would've made. I've left titles before for trying to "balance" PvP and ruining PvE in the process. > > The problem is this: _Balance is an illusion._ Balance simply isn't real. What balance actually is is a very clever way of giving everyone their time in the sun on a rotation; This way, everyone gets to feel powerful for a while, underpowered for a while, and middle-of-the-road for a while. This is what every "balancing" team has ever done in any game I've ever played, it's about keeping the baying, braying masses docile by ensuring that no particular class—or profession—feels powerful for too long. > > The only true balance is rock, paper, scissors. This is why Pokémon and 1v1 fighting games fare so well. Indeed, if there one has a powerful means, that powerful means has a weakness or can be nullified by something else. This is the only way that any kind of balance can be achieved because all it does, really, is place balance within the hands of the players. It's up to the players to ensure there are enough rocks, papers, and scissors present within the field. I'm sure this is why any game that isn't focused around this venerable approach is probably envious of those that are. > > This is why tradeoffs won't work. It would break the cycle, you see. Whilst Jormag and I alike are all for the breaking of cycles, it would result in chaos, it'd leave the majority very upset, and the docility fashioned by the rotation of power would be lost. This is all that "balance" does for the most part. > > "_Okay, who's powerful in PvP this month? Right, let's jiggle their numbers up a bit and jiggle the numbers of major threats to them down a lot._" > > That's an oversimplification, yes, but that's ultimately all it is. I feel like I'm lifting the veil here and that that might be rather dangerous but... It's the same reason why cries for nerfs are ignored until it's that class's turn to be depowered in favour of some other class. It's the rotation of life, and it rules us all. Well, not _all_. Not PvE players. Thank Cael. You get the idea though. If balance is an illusion then why would you ever want to separate between the game types? I do not buy this mind set and it seems to be more an means of apologizing for simply bad balancing teams. They only partly separated and there are some massive hold overs from pve balancing that very bluntly gets in the way of spvp and wvw balancing. Anet is realty bad a favoring some classes over others gurd is the best example of this for all game types. Anet likes ppl to play gurd over all other classes this is why they gotten more reworks and buffs over all and that IS a massive balancing problem that anet and anet alone has made. A lot of skills have not been touched in a real way for 5 years + and you have skill that have been reworked over and over there is something wrong here. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Updates Look for your self the info is there. > @"Obtena.7952" said: > I don't see this as better, just different. I think 'tradeoffs' is just a bad approach to design; you won't get better balance with it no more than just the regular attempts to balance by changing skills. Also knows as power creep and P2W. Tradeoffs are a must and they realty need to be impactful to make the choose you make for your build to mean something other then just run the meta or what anet tells you to run. THAT is where are are anet is effectively dictating the meta and telling its player base what to run and how to run it. The oppositely of the original ideal of gw2.

> @"Lonami.2987" said: > > @"Ganathar.4956" said: > > # Introduction > > The current state of conjured weapons is a subject that is frequently touched on in this sub-forum. Some say that conjures should have the ammo mechanic, while others want them to fully become like engineer kits. Whatever the case, it is almost universally agreed that conjure skills are currently lacking as a utility skill category and that they need serious work. Not only are they a failure in the elementalist community's eyes, but they are also a failure in regards to their original purpose. It is obvious that the developers at ArenaNet intended these to be supportive skills that help your allies get access to new weapon skills and do fun things with those. However, the optimal use of conjures has been to plug up the holes in an elementalist's rotation instead. You just cast a conjure and you fire the 1-2 good skills and then you drop it. The second conjure is picked up later so you can use the skills again, instead of giving it to your ally who usually doesn't have much use for it anyway. > > > > Conjures are currently a redundant and outdated skill type for several reasons: > > 1. They do not serve their original purpose. Supporting allies with them is pointless and not optimal. > > 2. They add needless complexity to weaver rotations that are already complex enough. > > 3. Due to weaver DPS, conjured skills contribute to core weapon skills remaining worse than they should be, which can affect all game modes. > > 4. Conjures are very clunky, with a needless cast time and an annoying pickup time. > > 5. Most skills from conjures are useless, which makes conjures "fire and forget". You never want to keep a conjure for more than a couple of seconds. > > > > > > ## Frequently Suggested Solutions > > The most commonly proposed solution is to revamp conjured weapon skills so that they have the ammo mechanic instead of being dropped. This can also involve the removal of the cast time, since there is no conjure that is placed for your allies to take. This is a pretty good solution that solves some of the problems that conjure skills have. It removes the clunkiness and gets rid of the annoying pickups, which are arguably the biggest problems that conjures currently have. However, with this change it would be impossible to share conjures, like it was originally intended. They would still contribute to the complexity of weaver rotations, while also holding back much needed buffs to weapon skills. This solution would also do nothing to fix all the useless skills that the conjures have and you would still fire a couple of skills and drop the conjure. Theses useless skills could be buffed as well, but the problem with that is that Anet obviously doesn't want ele DPS to become even higher, so this is unlikely to happen. > > > > Another solution that is proposed a lot is to turn conjures into kits. Similarly to the ammo suggestion this gets rid of the cast times and it removes the clunkiness of having to pick up second conjures. In addition, this solution makes it so that conjures can function as viable alternatives to different weapon ranges since they can always be summoned. However, once again kits would contribute the complexity of weavers rotation, but in this case they would arguably make weaver rotations even more complex than before. This would introduce a rotation complexity that has never been seen before in this game, due to weaver attunement mechanics combined with engineer kits. With these new rotations it is possible that ele weapon skills would get further nerfed, which nobody here wants. This also doesn't motivate the balance team to fix the useless skills of the conjured weapons, because that would come with a major risk of power-creeping ele DPS. The biggest issue with this is that it will likely never happen due to kits being an engineer-only niche that is supposed to make up for their lack of weapon skills. > > > > From the above solutions I'd obviously go with the ammo mechanic, since it seems to be the easiest to implement and with the smallest amount of risk. But even that solution does not truly satisfy me. My proposal is to completely remove all of the conjured weapon skills and replace them with a new utility skill type. The new utility skill type could be anything really. Almost anything would be better than conjures at this point. However, just like with guardian tomes that were removed and then became an elite spec 2 expansions later, the same could happen with conjured weapons. So what would a conjurer elite spec look like? I haven't determined specific traits, utilities or even the weapon. The main purpose of this post was to determine what can be done about conjures, so I've only thought about the profession mechanic so far. > > > > ### Conjurer Elite Specialization > > There are many ways to implement conjures as a profession mechanic of an elite spec, but this is the best version that I came up with so far. This elite spec would add access to 4 conjured weapons as a profession mechanic. These would be conjured fiery greatsword, conjured frost bow, conjured lightning hammer, and conjured earth shield. Flame axe would not return since it is redundant. Only 1 conjure of each element is truly necessary. Above the F1-F4 attunements there would be arrows just like with revenant's F1 and F2 legends. These arrows would allow the conjurer to replace any given attunement with any conjured weapon outside of combat. This way the conjurer would retain 20 weapon skills, but they would get to choose to replace as many attunements as they want with conjures. Builds could be made with full conjures, or with only 1 conjure to replace that attunement that you never want to use in your build. Swapping into a conjure would be exactly the same as swapping attunements. This basically solves all the problems with conjures, except for them not serving their original purpose as support skills. However, even that could possibly be addressed. Perhaps the conjure could be pressed again while you are wielding it so you can drop a copy with a 30 second cooldown, or maybe dropping a copy of your wielded conjure could be part of a utility skill. This copy would be useless to you as you already have the conjured weapon permanently, but it could be useful to allies, especially if the skills of the conjures were better. The skills of the conjures could easily be better with an elite spec, because they **replace** weapon skills instead of adding more skills to the pool. They also cannot be used with weaver to increase DPS more. > > > > I welcome feedback and more suggestions for what can be done with conjures instead of these ideas. While I currently think that my idea is solid, it is possible that there are some flaws that I have not noticed. Pointing these out if you can find them would be appreciated, so I can work on this concept a bit more. Also, if anyone would like to add weapon, utility and trait ideas for a conjurer specialization, I'd love to read those ideas as well. > > I think removing conjures would be the best solution. Turn the interesting ones (Shortbow and Greatsword) into weapons, and give elementalists weapon swap. Then replace them by a new set of slot skills, maybe minions, splitting them from glyphs. > > I know it sounds pretty drastic, but I don't think there's any way to make them work properly. I hold the same idea for [all transformation/bundle slot skills](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Transform), I'm fine when those transformations are part of a profession mechanic (Celestial Avatar, Reaper's Shroud, Tomes, etc) but absolutely despise them when they're slot skills (Lich Form, Rampage, etc). > > And yes, this includes engineer kits. I think those should be turned into a profession mechanic, replacing the tool belt. Equip two kits in F1 and F2, just like ranget pets and revenant legends. > > Transformation/bundle profession mechanics are fine, because they will always be there, making it easy to account for balance. Once they become something you can equip or not, the whole thing becomes a mess, which leads to said transformations/bundles being overpowered, or just terrible. There's never a middle ground. Ya most ppl find that conjure weapons where so badly made and updated that the best chose is to delete them and comply rework them as kits or as some type of attk much like Spirit Weapon where given massive reworks from being pets to being real skills. Keep in mine there no way ele will get the same treatment as a guardian (anet favorite son).

> @"Axl.8924" said: > > @"Jski.6180" said: > > Core ele realty needs something other then just cd on swaps or your simply making tempest need arcain line and or core ele to make it an core ele. Maybe the F5 is needed must like the F5 on eng core. > > > > The real traid off of core ele vs tempest and waver should be flexibility BUT because tempest and weaver both have support and dps choose there no real way to cut the flexibility with out comply destroying core ele (as anet has done up to this point to balanced both weaver and tempest). So i suggest looking at gobble cd between swaps not the cd of the swaps them self. If you make a hard cap of 3 sec for both tempest and weaver (letting tempest have a hard cap cd for its overloads at 3 sec as well) you would go a long way to fixing a flexibility problem. At the same time much like eng you need to make the conja weapons into kits AND make the weaver conja wepon kits go on 6 sec cd much like the holo use of there kits. This may need to carry over to tempest as well at some level. > > > > Any thing else will just mean core ele is worthless as a class when you can always just be a tempest and only only a tempest when you need an overload. > > > > @Multicolorhipster.9751 > > Only core ele to tempest has no true triad off in gw2 every thing else has some changes even if they are small. > > You mean basically access to better stab on tempest and access to decent buffs from overload that synergize with tempest really well no? > The overloads dont have to be used on tempest and you can play tempest like a core ele. Its this lack of an F5 or a "core ele effect" that is missing for a real traid off out side of just a trait line lost.

They need to start removing boons from classes.

Core ele realty needs something other then just cd on swaps or your simply making tempest need arcain line and or core ele to make it an core ele. Maybe the F5 is needed must like the F5 on eng core. The real traid off of core ele vs tempest and waver should be flexibility BUT because tempest and weaver both have support and dps choose there no real way to cut the flexibility with out comply destroying core ele (as anet has done up to this point to balanced both weaver and tempest). So i suggest looking at gobble cd between swaps not the cd of the swaps them self. If you make a hard cap of 3 sec for both tempest and weaver (letting tempest have a hard cap cd for its overloads at 3 sec as well) you would go a long way to fixing a flexibility problem. At the same time much like eng you need to make the conja weapons into kits AND make the weaver conja wepon kits go on 6 sec cd much like the holo use of there kits. This may need to carry over to tempest as well at some level. Any thing else will just mean core ele is worthless as a class when you can always just be a tempest and only only a tempest when you need an overload. @Multicolorhipster.9751 Only core ele to tempest has no true triad off in gw2 every thing else has some changes even if they are small.

The biggest shift in meta from back then to now is that your dps back then where true glass build classes and your dps now are much more tankly. Ele vs Rev even core necro vs scorge. Added gear combos play a roll in this as well bezerk being the main dmg gear sets back then and marders being the main dmg gear set now.

Thf has more runberband hp then mez has but the mez can make it seem like it has endless hp with its images. For thf stealth is a pure def sustane tool where mez stealth is more about confusing the other person. In a way mez use stealth right where thf has a broken stealth effect.

> @"Dawdler.8521" said: > As far as I can remember: > > GWEN -> GRTR -> FRSSS > > Guard, warrior, ele, necro -> guard, rev, tempest, reaper -> firebrand, rev, spellbreaker, scrapper, scourge > > (rev=herald, as always) > > That's pretty much it over the years IMO. On top of these comes a couple specific purpose classes - mesmer for veil (mesmer->chrono->mirage->back to chrono). Ele has a tiny spot still but tbh anything it does isnt really needed, it can too easily be replaced by... literally anything. There where short bursts non-meta popularity too such as groups utilizing arcing slice to roflstomp. Some have also gone up and down yet still exist, like the spellbreaker - every zerg had 10+ bubbles *everywhere*, now it's much more rare. Same with the necro, they've been *heavily* utilized in the past with 50 man zergs having 25+ necros (ie the lovely **red carpet of death**) but now its been pushed out by more support. The absolutely insane buff of deathly chill trait that singlehandedly upended the entire zerg melee meta and caused the condi meta in WvW for 8 months until Anet finally nerfed it *1 week after everyone had stopped playing reaper because the vastly superior scourge had come out* changed the necro alot. At least in the early days you could have thf and ranger even mez as they where very good pick for the ele and core necros. I think eng was the only class that was comply out of the meta.

Simple by playing meta classes and meta builds OR by not caring.

Not like any wepon going to changes the ele class its going to do the same thing as an core ele as a tempest as a weaver dose dmg at both ranged and melee to a lesser then best and will only give the boons that core ele gives and only get 2 condis types. It may get cool looking effects but its all just animations updates to the same skills over and over.