So, what's next on your priority list for PvE balance?

With the Dervish update finally out, and things cooling down just a bit, it's time to take stock of Ye Olde State of the PvE Game, as far as balance is concerned. Therefore, I thought I'd present a simple question to the community as a whole.

What do you think needs balance now?

It could be a profession you believe to be underpowered or lackluster in general play. It might be an attribute line that simply doesn't present anything worthwhile to the game, or a playstyle that you'd like to see be more viable. Or it could simply be a single skill or a primary attribute that could use a bit of tweaking.

At this point in the game, what are your thoughts?


My own personal ramblings of no consequence to follow.

The Ranger.
All alone in the wilderness.

The Ranger has a simple problem. There is nothing he can contribute to the party that another profession can't do better. Bow attacks are weak, pets are awkward and underpowered, nature spirits do a magnificent job at making your enemy kill your allies better or contribute so little that they aren't worth a skillslot, traps are only good for absurdly slow, niche play, and the limit to a single stance and a single preparation is vastly inferior to the way other professions can stack enchantments,

Every role that the Ranger is supposed to fill is accomplished better by someone else. If you want area damage, a Crit Barrager is a better choice. If you want an Interrupter, Panic or Migraine run circles around Broad Head Arrow or Magebane Shot. If you want an NPC bodyblocker, spamming minions, spirits, or summons is far superior to bringing fluffy. If you want party-wide buffs, don't even think about those pathetic nature spirits, because they are either so worthless that there's no reason to add the slot, or they will help your hundred foes more than your seven friends. And if you want to inflict conditions, tough luck, because all the afflictions actually worthwhile in PvE are beyond the Ranger's reach, or done far more cheaply through other means.

Now, I'd personally love to call for a complete overhaul of this class, but seeing how the Dervish took nine months, that's not exactly viable. Fortunately, a better way already exists.

Use Kieran Thackery's bar from Hearts of the North as inspiration for a better Ranger.

-Duel purpose skills, one consistent ability, one situational effect.
-Chains that allow the Ranger to access important conditions like Deep Wound and Cracked Armor.
-Create a Marked mechanic using the Assassin attack chain code to let the Ranger set up high impact shots.
-Give him abilities that buff his own mechanics that are neither Stances nor Preparations.
-Link more abilities to Expertise, or split the primary in PvE to actually improve the class's potency.
-Provide more contingency abilities with area effects.
-Craft a few useful support skills that actually aid the party, and are cast in a reasonable time frame.

Make the Ranger actually think about tactics, rather than spamming the Barrage key over and over and over again. Reward those clever tactics with reasonable damage, useful conditions, and occasional spikes for precise shooting. Give pets and bow attacks actual synergy rather than having pet builds rely on melee weapons. Reduce nature spirit casting time and recharge, and give them abilities that actual help (I'm looking at you, Equinox. You are bad, and whoever coded you should feel bad!) the party. And consider making traps viable in single play somehow, but solve the basics first.


The Elementalist
Can't start a fire without a spark.

The other big contender for a serious balance update, but actually a little easier to redo. The Elementalist's problem is also simple. They cause damage, elemental damage in particular. Elemental damage is reduced by armor, Chaos, Holy, Dark, and Untyped damage are not. In Hard Mode, where they enemies have very high armor, the iconic nuker profession's nukes are nullified, while the damage of most other casters is not.

Secondly, Elementalists have to do way too much to get way too little. A mediocre Ele setup requires high Energy Storage to give you enough power in the first five seconds of combat to cast all your buffs and still afford your skills, passive energy management skills to keep the ether flowing (because E.Storage stops contributing jack after the aforementioned first five seconds), boost skills to make your armor-impeded damage actually deal any harm whatsoever, and usually a glyph devoted to active energy management or active boosting. That's half your bar, a good portion of your attributes, and several seconds of setup time, and you haven't even cast a single damage spell yet. Meanwhile, other professions have excellent damage skills that they can fire and forget thanks to armor-ignoring damage, allowing them to fit in other abilities, useful PvE skills, or echo their own superior skills.

Fortunately, changing the ele is fairly easy.

- Reduce the energy pool of E.Storage slightly via split, and give it an Attunement functionality, returning a bit of energy for every elemental spell cast.
- Make the Attunements pure Skills, and give them armor penetration instead of energy.
- Tweak casting times, recharges, and skill costs to make the ele competitive with the pacing other professions can manage.

…..And we're pretty much done. Since Eles are nukers, they are easier to recalculate. Get a good bead on how much damage someone should be able to pull off, and apply that to the elementalist via armor penetration. Condense the amount of skills necessary for the nuker to nuke. Then adjust their pacing to ensure they can continue the fight and always have something to do. While we're on the subject, though, it would be nice to have a few enhancements to the class. Most of their skills do the exact same thing, and thus most are redundant. Giving them a few more skills with alternate functionality, a few more that encourage using two or more elements rather than a single one, and a few more that offer more tactical depth than just throwing nukes might be welcome.


Less immediate, but still relevant cases...

Paragons: Chants are inferior to Shouts. Like the pre-update Dervish, the Motigon suffers from the need to stop attacking to use buffs, and stop buffing to attack. Meanwhile, Imbagon play relies on shouts, which suffer no such drawbacks, to yield better results. Chants also have absolutely lousy targeting, with the paragon becoming less effective when the party is more diverse. Either improve motivation skills to allow the Paragon to contribute to any party instead of having to constantly change his bar if he's in caster, physical, or mixed groups (and no one uses signets enough for Lyrics to work, seriously), or convert chants into a different form, perhaps a toggled ability that provides a continuous bonus, thereby letting the Paragon help his friends while still hurting his foes.


Monks: Worst energy management of any caster, terrible smiting prayers, and the only primary attribute in the game which offers no benefit to any secondary skills. Nothing in the Monk's arsenal can compare to Spirit Siphon, Lyssa's Aura/Power Drain, Signet of Lost Souls, or the way Soul Reaping lets Necromancers go “Lol, energy”. If other caster classes can be perfectly viable without relying on secondaries just to get by, the Monk should be able to manage his own energy without using other professions as a crutch. And while they do fine in the support category, Monks have very little diversity; smiting prayers are practically worthless except for a single elite and get no benefit from Divine Favor, and their primary attribute can't boost their signets, their offense, or any secondary/PvE only skills. Improving them a little would give monk players other things they can do.

Elementalist are nukers by who's definition?. Air magic doesn't nuke.
Monks can go a damn long way with the secondary profession system, wututalkinboutwillis?

Screw Elementalist, there is no "rework" that needs to be done. Just make intensity retarded, it's the clearest solution to everything. Players show time and time again they don't care if they have to rely on a skill, as long as it's good.


Rangers could use a little push.
Paragons could use some tweaking.
Assassins because I want them updated.

In the various subforums are pretty in depth discussions of most of these. While I am a big lover of the ranger, I do kind of accept the role of "Jack of all trades, master of none". I don't think we need to expect every single profession in this game to be massively OP just because another profession happens to be so too. I think ANET did the right thing with the dervish update trying their best to make (or at least attempt to make) the dervish the preferred profession to use a scythe and make the scythe the most logical weapon for the dervish. Right now it seems a lot of rangers are doing almost everything OTHER than being a ranger. I do like the "marked mechanic" idea.

This was covered pretty exhaustively in the ranger thread but I think nature rituals have to be massively overhauled. Traps should be more useful outside of specific farms. Pets; I disagree they are underpowered. Awkward, yes, but not underpowered. Conditions in PvE are fundamentally underpowered. They probably need to give traps and nature rituals the same treatment they did for the ritualists (fast cast time, more durable spirits, useful in combat). Pets (and melee heros/henchies in general) just need some improved AI. A few skills could use a buff to make the bow the no-brainer option for the ranger.

As far as ele's go, I really think the profession is fine EXCEPT in HM. As I posted before in THAT thread, making them more powerful in NORMAL MODE (which I assure you most people play) is just making them OP. I think the Intensity re-write was a failure. They need to go back to the drawing board and just add some sort of cracked armor element to that skill and it would probably be fine (without influencing monsters at all).

Paragons are actually pretty good, they are just kind of awkward and not very fun to play (IMO). A few tweaks could make them a more desirable profession.

Monks, I never played them. At least from dealing with my heroes, it does seem like I have to rely on non-monk skills to keep their energy up.

OP, why don't you shove Kierans gimmicky toolbar somewhere the sun never shines.

In regards to PvE: Rangers, Paragons, and Elementalists, in that order.

Ranger Buffs:

• Barrage and Volley - No longer removes preparations.
• Determined Shot - If Determined Shot hits, you strike for +5..20 damage and gain 4..6 energy. If this attack fails to hit, you gain an additional 4..6 energy.
• Quick Shot - You shoot an arrow that moves twice as fast and strikes for +5..20 damage. Your damage is doubled if you strike a moving foe. If it hits, this skill recharges instantly.
• Sundering / Penetrating Attack - Causes cracked armor against attacking foes.
• Triple Shot - Lower Recharge to 5.

Paragon Buffs:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedb...date_-_Paragon

Summary:

• AoE buff to Slayer's Spear
• Good party damage buffs with Anthem of Envy
• Strength of Honor-izing of "Find Their Weakness!" but for crits
• fueling that with GftE!

Elementalist Buffs:

• Intensity - Your next targeting elemental damage spell ignores armor against your target, and causes all foes nearby that target to take 40..50% of that damage. Lower recharge to 5.
• Master of Magic - For 5..65 seconds, all of your elemental attributes are increased by +3..6 (maximum 15). You gain +2 energy regeneration. This skill ends if you use a non-Elementalist skill.

There is no such thing as PvE balance. Balance is between two sides.

But if you as me about evening power between players so no one is desired less than the rest when forming parties, then I'd go with paragons, beast masters, smiters and elementalists.

I agree with the order of which prof needs changes...sorta

Ranger

Ele-Para (could go either way)

Monk

Rangers..yes they need rework b/c of things mentioned, but idk bout basing of Keirans skills.

Eles...would have been so simple...tying either intensity or ele lord to e storage and adding armor penetration...instead of the joke rework we got with the derv update

Paras...definately the motvation line and targeting of some chants/echos...use skill once and hope it last b/c u have no idea if it ends or not...umm yeah could use some changing

Monks.... yeah some energy issues but not to high on list of priorities.

For ele, just drop enemies' armor levels down to what they would be at level 20 and boost their health and/or give them regen to compensate. Attempting to address the problem through buffing the pve skills is a bad idea because not everyone has the campaigns those skills are in. And it ignores the fact that non-ele elemental skills will still be doing very little damage if the issue is only addressed for the ele.

there is this wonderful necromancer skill that causes aoe cracked armor. it is the reason why my ele never go ou without a curse necro in HM

PvE "balance" is not about the power of players versus the power of AI enemies (although that of course will factor into it). Nor is it just about the relative power of the professions.
Yet many seem to think so.

Tweak shadow steps in PvE for those of us who want to play the Assassin as it was originally intended.

With the nerf to Asuran Scan, Rangers could use a buff.

Lastly, Motivation and Ele damage in HM could use a boost.

Air Magic ele's have several skills that do armor penetration, cracked armor and dazed condition, but my air ele still does 20's and 30's with a skill that says it does 41 damage with 25% armor penetration. I lead off with Shell Shock instead of Lightning Orb as SS uses less energy and casts faster. Then I hit them with Enervating Charge for the weakness and spam Lightning Javelin for the interrupt.

Ranger spirits definitely need a rework. Ritualist spirits either help friends or hinder foes, but not both. Ranger spirits affect both friends and foes with effects that you dont always want. Winter and Frozen Soil are probably the most used, and the only ones used. Equinox needs a buff in that it causes exhaustion for ALL spells cast by foes, and Famine should cause -1 energy as well as doing damage to foes that have 0 energy. Why is Lacerate an elite while Toxicity is not? They both do an extra -2 degen with a certain condition. Lacerate should cause bleeding on any foe who gets hit with physical damage (or piercing damage) when their health is less than 75% or so. Infuriating Heat needs a change too, why do Rangers care about adrenaline gain? Also, Expertise should affect ALL skills and spells a Ranger uses, including PvE skills and non-Ranger skills.

I'd like to see Divine Favor changed so ALL party members gain health with every Monk spell a Monk casts, something like twice their Divine Favor. That way Smiting Monks can contribute more to the party. Resto Ritualists should not be out-healing Monks in my opinion, either. Also, the PvE skill Selfless Spirit and the Divine Favor skill Divine Spirit should last much longer, at least 30 seconds and preferably 45 seconds with a 45 or 60 second recharge. Healer's Convenant needs to either dump the 25% less healing, or remove the upkeep cost. That change will help Monks with energy management.

I agree with the Ranger/HM Ele stuff (although I don't have an Ele). I'd been using a scythe build on my Ranger which I found to be a lot of fun. Now that that's been gimped by the change to the Derv skills, I'm not sure what I'll run when I play her.

As far as the Paragon goes, something should have been done about them *ages* ago. Although they're an interesting concept, they failed right from the design stage imo. They're the only class in the game that I'm aware of that essentially *requires* a three-way skill point split to be effective (Spear Mastery, Leadership for energy management, Com/Mot for shield).

In my opinion, Command should've been omitted, with the skills going to Motivation or Leadership as appropriate. Command req shields instead go to Leadership, so it's more like the way the Warrior was done (Str/Tac). They could've added other weapon attributes to compensate - maybe a Javelin line for ranged AoE and a shortspear for melee.

Obviously, none of that will happen at this stage. But there's no doubt that something should be done. The only genuinely viable build the Paragon has is boring as hell to play.

How did we get around to monk's healing power or energy needing buffs? Is this what happens when you let Ether Renewal fester for months?

If a rit is outhealing a monk, its because the monk is terrible, and/or running a terrible bar. If an ele is outhealing a monk, it's because the ele is horribly broken, not the other way around.

I mention Rits outhealing a monk because almost all of the Necro healing builds are N/Rt, not N/Mo.

For me, not necessary in this order...
-Eles(expecially in HM): damage is ridicoulous, and overall some skills and some mechanics could be reworked(wards, glyphs, PBAoE,...)
-Rangers: traps, spirits and pet are quite underpowered in pve...and the bow damage isn't that great.
-Shadow steps: not indispensable, but would be very appreciated.
-Paragons:here is needed just a little buff to some specific skills/attributes line(moti imo), not a huge rework.
-Smite monks:...well, apart some skills, the attribute line is quite meh.
Also..
-take care of dervish in pvp: i've heard that now dervs are very broken in pvp...i'm not a pvper, but i feel Anet should monitor the balance during next times...

-Fix meele heroes please....they really sucks.

Necros go with rit heals only because the monk heals are designed assuming that they're powered by Divine Favor. Rit heals aren't. So, if monk heals healed as much as a rit heal even if they weren't being powered by Divine Favor, they'd be really ridiculous, especially when buffed by Healer's Boon or UA. Monk heals don't need a buff.

Hehehe, nothing. Been waiting on the Dervish update for over half a year and now that it's here I'm happy. Just wish I had more time these days to play and stuff left to do in GW.

For rangers I would:

• Make bows not suck. I cringe everytime I see something like Called shot, Determined Shot, Focused Shot, Marauder's Shot, Punishing Shot... or almost any other bow attack. Anyways, multishotting is sort of a unique bow thing, so increase their multishotting ability with buffs to things like Triple Shot (5-7s recharge) and Splinter Shot (change to monster version). Duel purpose skills and a marking thing would be great, too.
• Increase synergy with bows and pets. Strike as One sucks, so that could be made into a skill that affects both you and your pet. Make it make a pet cause x condition and the player cause y condition or deal +z damage to foes suffering from x when hitting with a bow. For example: Your pets attacks cause Cracked Armor for 1...7..8 seconds. Your bow attacks strike for +1...8..10 damage against foes suffering from Cracked Armor. Life steal from HaO could be reduced and given to the pet and the ranger's bow attacks. The health regen in NRA could be exchanged for something offense-based; Beast Mastery has enough defensive skills, and 25% IAS isn't very good by itself considering it forces you to bring a pet, is somewhat expensive, and it takes a PvE slot.
• Give rituals shorter recharges and cast times. I'd go with 20-30s or so for the recharge and 1-2 seconds for the cast. Just enough to eliminate the need for summon spirits.
• Make rituals affect things players have control over. Good example: EoE. If players can keep themselves alive, they won't take damage. Fantastic. Also, make rituals that synergize with things players use (i.e. make Primal Echos extend shout duration or reduce shout recharge or something), and stop making them counterproductive. Energy denial spirits, for example, are annoying in PvP and suicide in PvE, so get rid of them.
• Make traps more potent. There are no good traps; Dust, Spike, and Smoke are okay, but not practical due to elite status or high cost. All other traps have bad damage, useless effects, or are conditional. Generally, they're pathetic for all aspects of the game. Just make them do useful things, and make those useful things feasible.
• Alternatively, just reduce trap recharge for bar compression, and reduce cost so they can be spammed more practically to make up for their badness.

For eles I would:

• Reduce the armor of things in HM; increase health appropriately to compensate.
• Make attunements have short cast times in PvE.

For paras I would:

• Give them skills that become more effective with less people around, so they can contribute in small groups. For example: Anthem of Flame. Chant. (5 seconds.) Party members in earshot inflict Burning condition (1...3...3 second[s]) with their attack skills. This ends after 1...7..8 attacks. Basically, give 'em buffs that are shared by all that are affected, so small groups, even though they have fewer affected, get more per person. In this example, a group of 4 could still get all the burning out of Anthem of Flame, they'd just have to make it happen in 5 seconds, so it would be slightly harder with a smaller group, but it would be more even then before. This would also allow paras to stop wasting physical buffs on casters and vice versa, and make them not have to tailor their builds to their groups to as great of a degree.
• Give them buffs that they can drag around. Maybe. Like, a buff that lasts a few seconds and affects everyone in nearby range (a mobile Healing Spring, for example), so paras can be less stationary.
• Give them buffs that affect the nearest x party members. So they can have more powerful skills that won't be OP because they can't affect infinity people. Movement, positioning, and thought instead of buffspam would make paras more interesting, I think.

For monks:
I guess a buff to that one PvE energy skill could be nice. I'm pretty sure Anet said they were working on smiters after dervs, but that was a long time ago, so I dunno.

In order:
Rangers - Pet update was a bust, they still lack in huge damage.
Paragons - Well, the only 'good' build for paragons now is Imbagone, because Asuran Scan killed the only builds.
Elementalists - Bahahahaha, Intensity... Ele's need higher damage NOT more AoE. Hitting 10 enemies with 35 damage? That's pathetic, foes will just brush that off, comparing to the consistent damage deriving from hexes and physicals. Ele's suck at damage, great at healing and proting.

The only problem with this post and discussion, while cool, is that Mr. Stumme said that all of the future balances will be small things. Sadly, this means we have seen quite possibly the last actual class balance ever.

Yup, sad but true. Rangers are a really weak class, although very versatile.
Sux that this has been neglected so long!
Frankly I was disgusted when the Derv update was announced.
Think a bit more before you act next time!

Ranger is a far older prof than Derv, they deserved it!

Another crazy idea that will probably never happen:

Make Asuran Scan give +% damage to ranged attacks.

Except that Dervish was way more broken and ineffective.

Just cause they won't be doing major class balances doesn't mean there won't be class balancing. They just won't be changing 80%+ of a class's skills and/or making major primary attribute changes anymore.

And frankly, the only class left that needs that amount of work is the Paragon. Ele HM damage is a problem, but it doesn't require reworking the whole class, nor does Ranger damage require reworking them from the ground up.

Be happy that your class isn't broken enough to require a complete overall, it's a good thing believe it or not.

Top 3, in any order:

Monk Protection Spells:
-- Change a skill to add resurrection properties.
-- Do something to Amity/Pacifism.
-- Lower Recharge Rate to Mark of Protection.

Ranger Traps:
-- Lower Dust Trap's Energy Cost.
-- Raise Healing Spring's Energy Cost; move to Expertise.
-- Move Viper's Nest to Wilderness Survival.

Assassin Elite Skills:
-- Increase Energy Cost to Temple Strike; Lower Recharge Rate.
-- Lower Recharge Rate to Shadow Prison.
-- Remove Activation Time to Aura of Displacement/Shadow Meld.

Place your bets of any of these things happening.

The only real problem that dervs ever had was that warriors and sins were just plain better, and enchant juggling was useless. now, post update, they weaken the crit damage, so the scythe damage is even more mediocre than it was, and enchant juggling still kind of sucks, but at least it sucks faster than it did. But at least they made avatars maintainable in pvp. now shit's going to be lame until they realize how retarded that idea was.

Whereas rangers have mediocre single target damage, traps pretty much suck aside from farming, barrage sucks in general pve since nothing wants to ball nicely. even pre-derv update, rangers were worse for general pve than dervs.

Their problems were a lack of usable skills in general, lack of maintainable (or even close to maintainable) IAS, having to stop attacking and moving to cast enchantments, enchantment removal making them useless, poor energy management, mysticism sucking by giving very little energy and doing so at an inopportune time, avatars having shittons of downtime, low armor relative to other frontliners, and lack of anything special to bring to the table.

Scythe damage was never really mediocre, and the attack speed was increased, so it's probably as good or better than it was. Also, dervs now have adrenaline and some maintainable IAS, so their damage should definitely be higher when skills are taken into account. Now enchantment juggling provides better effects, doesn't require casting, and can work with fewer enchantments due to shortened recharges. The short recharges and the lack of cast times make enchantment removal less of a pain in the ass. The armor bonus from mysticism also makes the AL gap between dervs and wars significantly smaller than it was.

Rangers were worse for general PvE, but dervs were worse overall.

Suggested this a while ago but I don't think Paragons having infinite energy is much of a concern anymore.

Dervish enchantments are self-targeting, Paragon shouts hit everything in earshot. To reduce the casting time on Chants would mean their power would also have to be reduced significantly.

Situational skills are situational for a reason and they become powerful when used to their fullest. For those of us who enjoy building team builds and not individual builds I'd rather they not do anything too drastic. The more skills become universal the more the game becomes stagnant. I'd rather see more lines like Motivation that encourage mixing up not only the player's skill bar but the rest of the party as well. If there is a problem with the Paragon in general it's that you don't have to think about using your skills, you just hit them on cooldown for maximum results.

Rebirth has existed since Prophecies, while not on par with other hard resses it will always be a helpful tool to players learning the ropes.

Ritualist heals are inherently stronger because Healing Prayers takes into account the Divine Favor bonus. A Necromancer isn't going to have Divine Favor, ergo Healing Prayers become weaker when compared to Restoration. Also, Soul Reaping once triggered off spirits, and people are stubborn to change their builds. At the end of the day however Monks have Protection Prayers and the prevention of damage has been superior to red bar pushing since... forever, with the exception of Infuse mashing E/Mos with Ether Renewal.

Delete all consumables and PvE skills from the game.

1. Rangers are pretty broken. Traps, pets, spirits? Spirits are better on Rt/R for crying out loud. Splinter barrage is better on Rt/R too.

Pets are AI limited.

bow attacks are limited to d-shot, savage shot, magebane (pvp), burning arrow (pvp), sloth hunter (pve only), crip shot (pvp), barrage basically. There's a bunch of borderline usable skills like PVE version of Sundering attack (10% armor penetration), determined shot (recharge any attack by going behind a wall...or use when miss hexed ... it's a 5 energy +20 damage with a utility secondary effect), debilitating shot (-3 pips of energy regen basically, if you spec high marks) for pvp, pin down (pvp). Keen arrow is only usable with a Paragon spamming GFTE, or on a Crit barrager. Body Shot (+energy), Crossfire (anti-block) are marginal, but are redeemed by being 5 energy.

They need more offensive based utility that doesn't hinge on conditions that do almost nothing in PVE. For PVP it's fine to wait for 8DPS poison to pressure enemy monks. In PVE it's a waste of time because position and condition stacks mean nothing when things die in <10 seconds unless they are end bosses.

Marauder's Shot is not a good skill because it kills any form of nonattack skills you have for 10seconds for a marginal amount of extra damage (+15 over barrage) and no quick activation speed. Power shot does not add base damage, so you're wasting time using it...it should be 1 activation at least, like Precision shot (lame +damage, just use Called shot).

Skills like Pointblank shot are bad because with 3 cooldown you're better off spamming barrage/sloth hunter.

Incendiary arrows effectively adds +28 with almost no investment (3+1 in wilderness), +42 if you invest heavy in wilderness (12) and gimp marks (bad idea). It's just shortchanged by 5 recharge, if it had 2 like Volley it'd be decent since you trade bigger AoE for less targets (20/sec with barrage vs +28/2 with Incendiary arrows).

Heket's Rampage --> end if you have a dead pet or no pet

2. Paragon's Motivation is pretty broken too.
Right now the only reason to use Paragon is to spam GFTE, Stand your ground at 13+, Fall back at 13+ and SY! which isn't a paragon skill. Most things are too conditional.
Paragons are a support class, so the fact that they can't do insane damage is fine.
Spears get respectable damage with Cruel spear and friends. +30 on stunning strike, +25 plus burning on blazing spear, +20s on things like Spear of Lightning, Holy spear, Vicious attack, Wild Throw, and Spear of Redemption seems reasonable. They don't build adrenaline as fast as melee, but that's ok because they're midliners. If you're talking about AoE, not everything needs AoE. SoS doesn't have AoE.

"Brace Yourself!" --> unusable on a paragon in areas where KD is spammed, needs to be cheapened somehow

"Find Their Weakness!" (PVE) --> 10 energy on a paragon? this will used on N/P sooner than a P/ , unless you want 9+ seconds of autoattack with 2 GFTE to regain that energy (or just use zealous)

"Lead the Way!" 25% IMS -->10 energy?, it's in leadership so "Make Haste!" 33% IMS will always be better unless you can crank out 10 energy easily (GFTE spam)

Make Your Time!" --> 10 energy? 5 is more reasonable

"We Shall Return!" --> Only succeeds on N/P or in PVE to annoy people vanquishing in Desolation.

Broken because it's not strippable, but unusable due to 30 recharge.

Angelic Protection --> needs to be lower damage cap, so you don't need absurd leadership

Anthem of Weariness --> weakness is easy to apply, so this needs something more

Slayer's spear , Harrier's Toss --> 10 energy is too much (for PVE).

Mighty throw --> spike build only, otherwise spear of redemption is +20 every 3 hits, vs +40 and 3 seconds of doing nothing.

Unblockable Throw --> Wild throw instead of wasting 3seconds. If +20 more damage matters, then just use anthem of envy or Find their weakness!.

3. Ele damage in HM is terrible.
Discussed time and again, only needs change to intensity so that it does cracked armor +25% damage or something. When caster mobs have 100 armor, cracked armor isn't enough to deal with that. For now, Eles are a PvP profession pumping out water snares and Invoke spike (like PvE Burning arrow Rangers, which belong in PVP).

Keep in mind more damage doesn't always fix a utility class. Dervishes had damage lowered on attack skills to roughly +20 to +25 or so, rather than having +30 mystic sweep/eremite's attack. They also had their crits on 60 armor down from 80 to 62. But the amount of utility added on just about every flash enchantment, along with 2 decent IASes instead of a nonmaintainable 10 energy heart of fury, helped with that. A bunch of IMS for dervishes along with condition removals (Conviction, Grenth's Fingers, Ebon Dust Aura, Enchanted Haste, etc.) also helped.

Forgot about that one. since i usually tended to use ZV with fast attack skills, the ias issue never bothered me.
Oh man, i have to stop moving and attacking to use a preparation. flash preps please.
Mysticism as it was would be better now with the flash enchantment and the teardowns.
The avatards were maintainable with Eeternal aura, and in pvp, should never have been maintainable. especially AoB, the combination of ias and ims. PR got nerfed despite the double damage drawback, and aob has the added bonus of holy damage and faster adrenaline, with the only drawback being that it's easy to rupt. sins were pretty much just as squishy if they couldn't keep CA up.
Just making enchant juggling more efficient could have worked wonders. even as it is now, it's barely worth bothering with at all. They do mostly elemental damage in smaller quantities than an elementalist.
I meant derv's damage overall was mediocre, not the scythe itself. I'd have vastly preferred crit strikes have been linked to daggers, way of the master nerfed, and strength limited to hammer/axe/sword, rather than just lower scythe crit damage. I've been experimenting with derv builds, and aside from the avatars and pious renewal, everything seems kinda meh. the encreased attack speed is nice, and the maintainable IAS is nice, but still, all in all, the damage doesn't really impress me too much.
True, but most of the enchants deal elemental damage, which is generally mediocre.
the faster recharg emeans you get to spam he enchants more frequently, and many of the good ones being about 10e, 5/6 after mysticism, means you can just piss energy faster. if they'd have left mysticism itself alone, or increased the amount of energy returned, it would be more useful than the +10-13 ish armor

Well, I've already mentioned lot's of times that ele's need buffing in hm, and I think most people here have covered the points I've already made so I won't mention them again. The following suggestions are for pve.

Next in line for a buff I think, is probably the ranger. After the pet update a while ago, and seeing how rangers work in gw2, I think more synergy between pets and other ranger skills are needed. For example distracting shot seems like a skill that could incorporate pet functioanlities.

Distracting shot: 5 Energy 1/2 Cast 10 Recharge
If Distracting Shot hits, it interrupts target foe's action but deals only 1...13...16 damage. If the interrupted action was a skill, that skill is disabled for an additional 20 seconds. Target foe is then distracted for 1...2...4 seconds. If your animal companion hits target foe while they are distracted, that foe is knocked down. 50% failure chance with beastmastery 4 or lower.

I think the main problem with pets are the attribute splits being stenuous. They did some good minimizing other ranger to pet problems that existed before such as bar compression but attribute splits are still a problem. A suggestion would be to give rangers a bonus beast mastery point for every 3 points invested into it. To make traps viable for general pve, add an extra clause saying if interrupted, they are still partially set but deal half damage and have half effect durations and if activated whilst half set, disables all other traps for 1-3 second. This makes them less situational. Finally, nature rituals. They need a whole rework.

I'm sure paragons also need a buff but as I don't use them I don't know what to suggest. So my next in line is actually gonna be monks, well their smiting prayers anyways. I'm pretty sure anet will tackle this sooner or later (later) as they have mentioned it was to be looked at so I'm sure they have concepts already and I won't need to suggest anymore. Finally, assassins should eventually be looked at. They don't really need that huge a buff to be honest, but I think their shadow stepping skills that target enemies should have lower recharges.

Then you missed the entire point of the Dervish update. They weren't simply trying to buff the Dervish while nerfing scythesins and WE scythewarriors. They were attempting to give the Dervish its' own niche with its' own weapon and make the class fun to play. Anet's stated goal was not to make the power creep go higher, but to fundamentally change how the Dervish worked while keeping its' average DPS about the same.


Yes, the damage from the enchantments is mediocre, but part of the fundamental change is that these mediocre-damaging enchantments fuel the teardowns which is where most of the power comes from. The enchantment damage contributes and acts as a means to an ends, but it isn't the ends. Also, I'm going to assume you're a PvE player because your sole emphasis on damage is kind of frustrating. I'm a PvE player too but there's a lot more to the new enchantments than damage. Similarly, it explains why you think that Rangers can't fill a role. Pre-update Dervish was (as stated by another poster) way more ineffective than a Ranger overall. Rangers still have a niche in the game even if they can't out DPS a Ritualist (which many classes cannot right now FYI).


The additional armor was necessary for a frontliner like the Dervish which struggled with the armor problem, unless you brought along Conviction. Giving the Dervish Mysticism an Expertise twist was necessary because of the frontloading of enchantments possible via the new playstyle. Many people enjoy how the Dervish now plays, this only validates Anet's excellent job in handling the Dervish overhaul, despite how long it took.

Paragon is the one in most need of help right now. Eles and Rangers could obviously use updates, but their situations can't even begin to be compared to the shithole the Dervish was in. Now that the update is here, I can actually say that my primary class was god-awful pre-update. I only played it cause I liked the lore/look/feel of the class.

Dervs were the only melees that were forced to frequently stop attacking and moving to take advantage of many of their skills and their primary attribute. Derv enchantments took about .25-1 second to cast. The juggling ones had to be reapplied frequently, which made dervs useless (aftercasts made the standstill time even worse than it seemed), and the long-term ones were easily stripped, which made dervs vulnerable.
Not really. 4 pips of e-regen, fairly heavy reliance on adrenaline, and reduced cost of enchantments makes for easy e-management, so, if the old mysticism provided better e-management, it wouldn't matter.

But it wouldn't provide better e-management, anyways. The new reduced cost of derv enchants saves 2-3e per 5e enchantment and 4-5e per 10e enchantment for the average derv. The old mysticism returned 3-4e for the average derv. So, the new mysticism is usually about equal to the old in terms of e-management (worse if you tend towards 5 energy enchants, but better if you use more 10 energy enchants, which are more useful and numerous). And now dervs get +armor instead of some +12ish health every now and again.

That was a bad solution. It just required dervs to waste a PvE slot just to use some mediocre elites.

Yeah, but the short durations and megadowntimes were overkill.

The high block chances, and aoe blind, cripple, and CA are good, considering the relatively low cost and easy application. The IMS's and aoe burning, interrupts, and whatnot are okay. And all the damage is paired with strong stuff.

No dps builds have impressed me since the nerf of Ascan and AoHM.
The ones that do are paired with something relatively powerful, though, like damage reduction, blind, CA, or blocks.
The new mysticism has better energy management if you're gravitating towards 10e spells. And many attack skills were changed to adrenaline, so the enchantments have almost all the dervs' energy to themselves.

Also, this is off-topic now.

Ranger- More damage in all areas to compensate for the power creep please. It might be more realistic than nerfing everything else. The last pet buff wasnt a total bust imo. It was a step in the right direction. Hopefully the upcoming hero melee update will help the pets as well.

Elementalist- More powerful AoE. And yes I know this will effect HM bosses as well. Good, HM is too easy anyway. As it is, it should be called slightly harder mode. The intensity change is cute, and worth taking. But more should really be done. Get ready for the QQ, after Eles get a HM damage buff, make ER usable only on Ele skills.

Paragon- Keep Imbagon. Add more controlable healing to the motivation line. Add better party wide damage buffs for both physicals and casters to command.

Monk- I'm pretty happy with monks. More E-management would be nice to compensate for N/Rts and ER prots. Either that or nerf N/Rts and ER prots/bonders. And buff some underused Smite skills so it can be easier to go offensive Smiter. I know they have RoJ, but in PvE its not always as practical as one might think.

None of this should take huge reworks like the Dervish or even the Mesmer. It can be done slowly with a couple skills here and there for each profession. After these long skill updates I'm sure the community would be happier that way.

Power creep.

Apparently they succeeded at the first, and failed at the second.


And you'd be wrong. I do both. but in pve, damage is the only thing that really matters. Which is why I don't run around with apply poison builds trying to rupt enemies that are going to be dead in a second or two.
No shit Sherlock.I never said I thought rangers don't fill a role. More of your less than intelligent assumptions there. But when I pve, doing anything but dps, for the same reason playing heal monk in h/h teams, is extremely boring, also, traps are retardedly ineffective, and nature spirits aren't that useful for general pve.Also, as i said before, I'm not going to run around using an apply build trying to rupt enemies that aren't going to live more than a few seconds.
I like how you conveniently leave out that he said rangers were worse in pve, but dervs were worse overall.
Once again, No shit Sherlock.
Every dervish should be using windwalker's insignia. Every melee should have SoH, there's one enchantment, and it's in no way, shape, or form difficult to keep one of your own enchants up long enough to kill a mob. so there's minimum armor of 80 there, and even at 70, unless you're pugging with extremely terrible players, or have extremely poorly made heroes, then you really shouldn't be getting killed.

Well, that's just silly.

I would change many ranger skills so that pets work similair to Miku: they inflict conditions the ranger cannot, and not with elite skills. So a ranger causes bleeding, the pet causes deep wound in a bleeding foe etc. I'd also give ranger better AoE abilities outside of the single build he has been using since factions was released.

I would also look at paragons. Even just 5 minutes of looking at most of their shouts would show it doesn't take a genuis to make the class infinitely better by making some of those terrible 2 second shouts or chants 1 second or instant casting shouts. There is so much needless craptacularness going on with paragons I don't understand how it all happened. Why do they get -20 armour in PvE while using decent IAS skills? Was that necessary?

As much as eles need a buff, more damage on AoE is a bad idea. All that will mean is that SY! is required, or you will need Avatar of Dwayna spam to get 50HP/s rather than 10HP/s Healing burst or UA-DH+HD. It doesn't encourage better play, just more gimmicks.

For monks, all that's needed is 80% maintainable selfless spirit at 5+ allegiance. They have damage, RoJ + Castigation signet + Smiter's Boon + Reversal of Damage is pretty solid. There's just not enough energy to pump out spam.