[Guild Wars 2] Recent Class Balance

[Scorned]

Slightly off topic, but is there anywhere I can find a concise list of all the significant class balance changes that have been performed since release?

[woodydave44]

Mesmers had Phantasm damage dropped by ~50% as a completely undocumented change, with no boosts elsewhere. We already did less auto attack damage than anyone else, because these were doing their thing beside us, but now?

Zero use in assault in WvW, low damage in PvE. The only DoTs that have a health bar that dries up if someone sneezes on them. All because hey, in sPvP, it's hard to kill one.

…really?

You do realize that Mesmers, along with thieves, were 2 of the hardest classes to kill 1v1 and often 2v1 dont you? Not having to worry as much about mesmers spamming Phantasms on players and siege during assaults while they /dance in the back is a very nice change.

Mesmer are also a requirement for any organized WvW group. Can that be said about any other class?

[Notos]

From what I've gathered on the GW2 forums the Mesmer situation is even worse than I thought. Apparently there are line of sight bugs with elevated terrain and environmental objects that prevent illusions from spawning properly. Some people have also pointed out that blinds/aegis are now a severe counter to any build that makes use of illusions (that being...all of them?) since it denies initial damage done by illusions, any support effects they would have provided, and their use in shatters.

Also for Eles, the Evasive Arcana "fix" basically gutted Staff bunkers and was pretty harsh on support builds that relied on it. Coupled with the boon duration nerfs...ouch.

You do realize that Mesmers, along with thieves, were 2 of the hardest classes to kill 1v1 and often 2v1 dont you? Not having to worry as much about mesmers spamming Phantasms on players and siege during assaults while they /dance in the back is a very nice change.

Mesmer are also a requirement for any organized WvW group. Can that be said about any other class?

And now they can't damage anything up on a wall with illusions, even if it's in line of sight for their other attacks. As for portal, I'd be happy if they just removed the damn spell from the game so the massive floods of tears would stop.

[woodydave44]

And now they can't damage anything up on a wall with illusions, even if it's in line of sight for their other attacks. As for portal, I'd be happy if they just removed the damn spell from the game so the massive floods of tears would stop.

Preventing illusions from spawning on walls wasnt a nerf, it was a fix. Illusions were walking through terrain and flying like superman to get up onto those ledges. I dont recall elementalist, guardian, or necro pets being able to do that...

[Lazuli]

I'm not really into the whole OP/UP debate or whether they needed buffs/nerfs - I barely started playing, after all. Still, best part of the patch was reading why they didn't change Rangers much: "There are >500 skills in this game, 480 traits, and 2 designers working on this."

I mean, holy shit, was that written seriously? Two people working on balancing a major MMORPG game? Is Guild Wars 2 actually an indy game and I missed that information before paying for it? Did no one teach their employee how to do proper PR?

I sure hope this was just some misunderstanding. Otherwise, that was insanely stupid statement right there. 2 people, 8 professions? Well, I guess, the optimists can say "at least they play more than one class, which means they won't be playing favours". But if they pretty much say there's not enough of them to do proper balancing... Um, hire some people, Anet?

Seriously, way to make a good impression on a new customer.

Definitely explains why the balance is so horrid, to all the people saying thieves needed nerfed, this doesn't even nerf their burst so you're still going to get raped. Only balanced builds got hurt durp, hence the "wtf"

And yea this would explain a lot. And I'm sure Izzy from GW1 is one of them which makes this all even worse... GG, e-sports my fuckin ass. Terrible changes all across the board.

[Deleted]

Tragic TRAGIC i say


horrible horrible ?Fixes? or what they call it for engineer


just TRAGIC.....

[Vintersol]

I was amused about the few warrior changes, i expected everything else but not a slightly buff.

[Deleted]

I was amused about the few warrior changes, i expected everything else but not a slightly buff.

what traits is he using Warrior is my next Character

[Bugg]

old video. that was a warr bug: the more players it pearced, the more damage it caused.
They said they fixed it. I am not warr so I do not know if it`s actually fixed. BUt it`s an old video and an old bug.

edit: but yes, warrs actually got another buff this time.....

[Larynx]

Here's a crazy thought, don't discuss PvP balance if you don't know what PvP balance is. Hot-join does not count.

In tournaments, the current meta is to stack as much AoE and bunkers as possible. Single target spike, such as BS thief, 100B warrior, shatter mesmer, ect. is far far less useful because of the nature of the combat. The risk vs reward for spiking isn't worth it most of the time, since the coordinated spike is super easy to avoid with one CD.

What did this patch accomplish? It nerfed Elementalist bunkers to the ground so they're no longer disgustingly overpowered. It nerfed svanir runes so they're no longer exploitable. It nerfed guardian bunker healing, bugs, and protection uptime.

What else? It nerfed AoE. It increased the CD on ranger traps. It reduced the damage of engineer grenades. It dramatically reduced the AoE 10k+ burst of dancing dagger, and nerfed cluster bomb. Well necros are really the only thing to emerge unscathed, but that's mostly because power wells is only a recent build.

Thief burst is not overpowered. It's not hard to avoid, and it's not hard to punish. They have zero toughness and 14k health. Literally just use a knockdown or immobilize and glance at them. Don't blame game balance for your own faults. Guess what, no one is complaining about warriors anymore ever since people learned to dodge. Why did everyone suddenly forget this applies to more than just a single class?

Want to know something else? "Hurts balanced builds even more"? The only viable balanced builds are support or condition builds, and only because they don't have to rely on three offensive stats like direct damage. Even these condi builds are getting phased out in favor of Rapid or Carrion. There's nothing to hurt.

[Fencers]

Here's a crazy thought, don't discuss PvP balance if you don't know what PvP balance is. Hot-join does not count.

Curious. Why doesn't hotjoin count if it is also sPVP?

[woodydave44]

Curious. Why doesn't hotjoin count if it is also sPVP?

Because in hot join, I can flop my wang onto the keyboard while beating up a puppy with my main hand, and people will still die at some point.

[Merendel]

Mesmers had Phantasm damage dropped by ~50% as a completely undocumented change, with no boosts elsewhere. We already did less auto attack damage than anyone else, because these were doing their thing beside us, but now?

It seems this was the result of one fix cascadeing into another area and mucking up the blanace of some of the phantasms
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...e/2#post764373

Illusionary Berserker has not received a direct damage decrease. Instead, is seems that the damage reduction you (and I) are seeing is most likely associated this fix:
“Fixed a bug that caused many piercing, boomerang, and bouncing projectiles (those that hit more than 1 target) to continually increase in damage the more targets they hit.”
We are aware that this particular phantasm is now experiencing a significant drop in damage and are looking at getting it back to a more effective state.
Thanks for keeping the post civil and constructive!
-Karl

[openair]

Curious. Why doesn't hotjoin count if it is also sPVP?

For the same reason Blizz doesn't balance around 2s or random BGs. Combat between unorganized, uncommunicative, uncooperative teams that spend more time bitching at each other in chat then actually playing the game or rock repeatedly smashing scissors are not an appropriate source to cite needed nerfs or buffs.

It would be like changing the rules of pro football because some teenager got hurt while not even wearing appropriate equipment.

[Fencers]

Because there's only one "real PvP", apparently. If you're doing hotjoin or WvW you should simply expect things to all be broken.

WvW is meant to be casual PVP with no absolute balance. It has disparity and asymmetry.

I am still curious why the gameplay of sPVP "doesn't count" by virtue of joining a random game.

Combat between unorganized, uncommunicative, uncooperative teams that spend more time bitching at each other in chat then actually playing the game or rock repeatedly smashing scissors are not an appropriate source to cite needed nerfs or buffs.

That isn't gameplay.

That's just like personal circumstance.

[Lazuli]

@Larynx yes ele bunker needed nerf because they were retardedly OP and unkillable but I run with my guild mates the most of my tpvp and to say condition is the only balanced build viable is complete bullshit. I've been running a balanced BS since a bit after people started learning to use utilities against glass cannon. Oh and to say glass cannon isn't viable in tpvp is also bullshit. We always have a burst thief on hand whether it's me or a friend, you'd be surprised what you can accomplish with shadow step and rfi not to mention shadow refuge which admitedly is pretty useless against decent players who know to autoattack through it the entire time.

I can run glass and as long as I run with an ele supporter when he throws down a water AoE I can heal a group to full while doing massive dps. This is part of why cluster got nerfed. I know DD was powerful but only on glass cannon and it received no compensation for the nerf, no mechanci like -50% damage per hit, no -1 initiative cost, no increased distance, just plain fucking nerfed into the ground.

ANet are balancing purely around glass cannons and bunkers because they're tards, shouldn't even call it balancing more like favoring. Now it's even more evident that we need to run either bunker or glass. There is no more inbetween for thieves. Believe it or not, DD and C&D was a big part damage of balanced. The only condition option for thieves is unicorn or share venom which are both stupid as shit and easily countered.

Venom share is the only real strong option because everyone around you can reapply obviously.. raw damage is the meta, not condition/

[Bugg]

I am still curious why the gameplay of sPVP "doesn't count" by virtue of joining a random game.

because the Pro players / elitists consider that unless you play ranked PvP you are not worth the ground you stand on.

[Lazuli]

because the Pro players / elitists consider that unless you play ranked PvP you are not worth the ground you stand on.

Well spvp is the same as tpvp, just without any sort of coordination. WvW heroes and people who just hotjoin spvp without a team and complain about balance really have no right to... it just doesn't make sense. You're gimping yourself by playing an unbalanced mode, yet expect balance?

You can't have balance with a bunch of PuG players who have their own agenda

[Larynx]

Curious. Why doesn't hotjoin count if it is also sPVP?

The same reason Blizzard doesn't consider Bronze league when balancing SC2.

[Cts53]

luckily, before the patch i had a chance to talk with an Anet employee in-game. The reason for the DD nerf was because DD was using the same "ramp up" damage effect that other skills like 100b and Cleansing Flames use. The more times it connects in a row, the more damage it does. Apparently, DD could do a total of 40k damage to just 2 targets who would happen to be in close proximity to each-other.

Throw that into a few enemy guys attacking a point, you got yourself some crazy damage there.