Jon Peters - Forum post about class balance

[Eggoman]

I'm not for knee jerk reactions.....but 13k hits from warriors to allow them to kill people within a stun need looking at.
As is the unkillable theif, stealth and ability to run like hell is not fair, they attack and fail and then get to run with impunity.......

So here are a couple of things.

The bullrush->hundred blades is a joke to avoid, most people dodge the bullrush but others just use one of a million "breaks stun" abilities and then dodge rolls out of it. Thief's re-stealthing is annoying but a quick AoE snare or chill with a blast combo pretty much keeps them from getting anywhere. Also if you read the stealth abilities and understand what they have to do to get into stealth they are pretty easy to counter.

As much as I think Elementalists should get buffed I agree that letting the meta game settle first would be a wiser choice.

[Lucky_]

So here are a couple of things.

The bullrush->hundred blades is a joke to avoid, most people dodge the bullrush but others just use one of a million "breaks stun" abilities and then dodge rolls out of it. Thief's re-stealthing is annoying but a quick AoE snare or chill with a blast combo pretty much keeps them from getting anywhere. Also if you read the stealth abilities and understand what they have to do to get into stealth they are pretty easy to counter.

As much as I think Elementalists should get buffed I agree that letting the meta game settle first would be a wiser choice.

Probably true for most things in the game right now, but things like already happened HS nerf, and others like the desperately needed phantasm nerf and moa nerf, engineer turret PvE aggro buff (turrets currently appear to taunt enemies) and elementalist damage/survivability buffs are obviously needed.

Not really sure if 100b nerf is needed. I'm of opinion that couple of things feel OP with warriors, but 100b is just too easy to avoid and even reflect to need the nerf. Warrior isn't my class of choice at the moment though.

[LilSaihah]

As a necro, I hope they prioritise fixing the bugs over trying to address balance issues. I'm not sure how well other classes do, but Necros are riddled with bad tooltips and abilities which don't work.

[Deafknight]

Probably true for most things in the game right now, but things like already happened HS nerf, and others like the desperately needed phantasm nerf and moa nerf, engineer turret PvE aggro buff (turrets currently appear to taunt enemies) and elementalist damage/survivability buffs are obviously needed.

Not really sure if 100b nerf is needed. I'm of opinion that couple of things feel OP with warriors, but 100b is just too easy to avoid and even reflect to need the nerf. Warrior isn't my class of choice at the moment though.

Warriors dont use greatswords anymore anyway

[Lucky_]

Warriors dont use greatswords anymore anyway

Strange considering that essentially every warrior I've come across in PvP has one as one of his weapons, it appears to be the most popular PvE soloing weapon and it's used by the warrior I did explorable dungeons with and it was great.

[Sylvanie]

Strange considering that essentially every warrior I've come across in PvP has one as one of his weapons, it appears to be the most popular PvE soloing weapon and it's used by the warrior I did explorable dungeons with and it was great.

As I wrote elsewhere, Greatsword is probably a bit overrated in PvE. While it dazzles you with big numbers on Hundred Blades (which is largely an illusion based on how GW2 displays the cumulative damage instead of individual hits), that's offset by commensurately lower damage on its base attack, so it's sustained damage isn't very strong, and it is lacking in defensive skills. You pick a Greatsword for the mobility and for the burst damage (esp. in conjunction with Frenzy), but it's a fairly specialized setup.

In PvP, it's an "I Win" button if you can get a stun/immobilize off in conjunction with Frenzy + Hundred Blades, but very weak if your cooldowns aren't up or if you run into an opponent who knows how to counter it.

[Hraklea]

Just for the records: it is not fanboyism to say it is too soon to nerf/buff classes in a game that has one month of life.

[Gsara]

Lucky needs to stop with the phantasm moa nerfs, you are messing with our comp.

Also, I would add that ele and war do need slight buffs outside of burst and necro just needs shit to be fixed.

[Drakhar]

Kindly explain how PR mouthpiece is able to provide...

No point reading any farther than that. Jon Peters is a PR mouthpiece? The fuck did I just read?

As a necro, I hope they prioritise fixing the bugs over trying to address balance issues. I'm not sure how well other classes do, but Necros are riddled with bad tooltips and abilities which don't work.

Underwater DS skill lag FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[DrakeWurrum]

This post has me confused. I don't feel that dungeons are hard or challenging. I feel like bosses have tons of HP and hit really hard, but that doesn't make dungeons hard.

[Lucky_]

Lucky needs to stop with the phantasm moa nerfs, you are messing with our comp.

Also, I would add that ele and war do need slight buffs outside of burst and necro just needs shit to be fixed.

Ele has burst?

I'm playing guild wars 2, what game are you playing?


As for Sylvanie, I started a warrior alt, and hundred blades is definitely a great soloing skill. Though I'm playing it a bit like I was playing dagger elementalist - double sword and GS, open with GS 4 into 3 into 2, swap to sword/sword, hit 4 and go from there with circle strafing.

Most of the normal mobs melt before or just as I need to swap though or just as I swap and start hitting them with a sword, so I'm not feeling the pressure to replace GS with any other weapon. There is simply no other weapon with such quick AoE burst in the arsenal. The only problem is in champion mobs who attack fast enough to inflict meaningful damage during 100b animation.

[Feranor]

I wonder if there's any reliable source on whether Jon Peters plays Warrior. I've heard the claim a couple of times now and it would be cynically hilarious if it were true.

[Kelesti]

Was kind of weird seeing it coming from Peters instead of Izzy, to be quite honest, but yeah after what happened with his public speaking in GW1, it makes sense this early in the game.

What a lot of people think is OP, at this point in time, isn't necessarily OP, it's that the average person hasn't built a counter to it, and meta is only now evolving. Remember, Conditions used to be deemed an insta-gib, and rather than nerf them to the ground, people brought condition removal and surprise they survived. Izzy trying to get that point across would probably have his throat slit and the masses licking the blade clean.

But no, Peters himself isn't really speaking anything new. He is a PR mouthpiece in this instance. I don't get why people think differently on this interview? It's pretty much nothing that hasn't been said before, nor does it say what actions they're taking to address the trends, or even if they're taking any at all (or encouraging something the masses aren't seeing). I, myself, would also like to see what Izzy has to say, and this felt like PR bullshit more than anything.

[Grable]

Rofl, what a load of BS. There's a reason why everyone is playing Thieves/Guardians/Mesmers in tPvP.

"Find a counter before judging it's OP". Yeah that's a good one, Moa transform says hi.

[Kelesti]

"Find a counter before judging it's OP". Yeah that's a good one, Moa transform says hi.

Dodge, block, or reflect a 3 minute cooldown on a slow-cast spell that roots and easily telegraphs what it's doing?

Yeah, okay.

[Riavan]

Arenanet have a terrrible record of class balance by the way, they blatently let classes get away with crazy advantages for extensive periods of time.

Also warriors are still op imo.
They're like guild wars 2 easy mode difficulty.

[Deleted]

imo

This is the single most important word, really. :P

[Riavan]

This is the single most important word, really. :P

Yeah, thats was my part.

But surely thinking all classes are balanced is redonkulous.

You probably shouldn't take the comment coming from the guy who is trying to sell you something too seriously, especially coming from the guy who's track record is gw1 class balance, lol.
Less balance there than vanilla wow!

Didn't even test engineers enough to notice the auto attack wasn't on when you switched packs, or lost stats when you use them, or dont get the stack weapon buffs.

The only good thing is you can just roll the overpowered classes and specs, with a new level 1 character. Obviously not so much in wvwvw though, which is somewhat of a problem.

Don't hold arenanet's opinion and comments too dear, you will be dissapointed.

[Deleted]

Yeah, thats was my part.

But surely thinking all classes are balanced is redonkulous.

Especially coming from the guy who's track record is gw1 class balance, lol.
Less balance there than vanilla wow!

Didn't even test engineers enough to notice the auto attack wasn't on when you switched packs, or lost stats when you use them, or dont get the stack weapon buffs.

The only good thing is you can just roll the overpowered classes and specs, with a new level 1 character. Obviously not so much in wvwvw though, which is somewhat of a problem.

Don't hold arenanet's opinion and comments too dear, you will be dissapointed.

Personally, I think the talk about "balance" is redonkulous in and of itself.

"Balance" in MMOs come from games in which there's a definite build that the meta-community has agreed upon is the "accepted way" of playing a class. In addition, classes can only be played in three ways - the healer, tank, and damage dealer - with the healer and tank much less frequently played.

In GW2, as much as people like to argue differently, to play efficiently you'll have to use abilities of all three playstyles - support, control, and damage. There's not a single class who is unable to use several abilities from each of these playstyles. As such, for every build, there is a counter. If you play a condition-heavy necromancer, a heavy condition-removal build is your counter. For a condition-removal build, there's sustained damage. For sustained damage, there's short-cooldown defensive ability builds. For that, there's burst builds. And so on and so forth. There is not a single build out there which cannot be countered.

PvP aside, there's really no need for "balance" in PvE. There's no competition for who can do the most arbitrary integer of damage over a one-second period in dungeons, there's no availability for dedicated people to take hits or spam healing spells. The only time balancing is needed is if one profession is entirely unable to participate in a PvE environment, and so far, I have yet to see any occurance of that (I play one of every profession).

Footnote: This entire post started with the word "personally".

[Deleted]

just as an aside: it's people like drakewuurm who cause haters. People get so fed up with people like him appearing out of nowhere to defend literally any perceived flaw. he drives people away from the game.

Idd, those type of posters also seem to shadow you around, ready to reply in every thread you make about the game. Makes me wonders sometimes if they are getting paid for it.