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

When I picked the profession for my main toon (5 years ago?) I've read:
At some point, more recently I gave up on my main and played a Rt. After a while I realized I didn't want to play Rt, I wanted to play my main the way it was promised me it would play. Since then I haven't really played GW at all.

That's the worst thing with all their nerfs and crappy management of their game over the years. Nothing does what it was supposed to and they're trying to fix it now (admirable) ... but it's just a little too little a little too late. Though it's better than nothing.

But the big problem is that GW is just not fun anymore.

The only thing they can do proper?

As me and lots of unsatisfied eles now. If you want to see lots of yellow numbers, go meele or mez/nec/rit(even monk).

Well, let's see...
What they should do:

War-Tank, damage
Ranger-ranged damage
Monk-heal/prot
Nec-debuff foes,MM,buff allies
Mez-Rupts, debuff foes
Ele-King of caster damage
Sin-Huge meele damage but weak under attack, shadowsteps
Rit-pop spirits(of any kind), heal
Para-buff allies, ranged damage
Derv-portable AoE, meele damage

Let's check now what happens in GW

War-Tank, damage-OK
Ranger-Weak ranged damage, pet/traps/spirits sucks
Monk-heal/prot-OK(but ER prot better)
Nec-debuff foes,MM,buff allies-OK + damage
Mez-Rupts, debuff foes-OK + damage
Ele-Ridicolous damage/utility, heal/prot
Sin-Huge meele damage and immortal tank, weak shadowsteps
Rit-pop spirits(of any kind), heal-OK + damage
Para-buff allies with command, moti sucks and damage is weak
Derv-portable AoE, meele damage-(now)OK

Umh....take your own conclusions about necessaries updates....

Where in the world do we begin?

-Rangers: Top to bottom rework

-Ritualists: Remove current spirit meta and balance cost with power; breathe new life into mediocre skills

-Eles: Rework attunements, damage and streamline performance

-Address solo (or near-solo) builds for high-end content and rebalance areas to encourage teamwork and overall enjoyment of quests

-Action was taken against flat PvE damage buffs. Do the same to SY!/TnTf!

Not to leave out other professions (paragon, warrior, necromancer to name a few). There are tons of unwieldy and poor skills.

I agree with what you said.

I think Ranger needs a major rework - nature rituals and traps, in their current form, are simply outdated concepts. There's a bunch of bow attacks and mostly have very narrow uses and/or trade offs opposed to other weapon attacks where many attacks deal +damage and some other additional effect.

Pets are fine, but need AI buff like melee heroes/henches.

Paragon shouts/chants/echoes need some rework.

Elementals and Monks problems are straightforward - lack of HM damage for the first and sub-par energy management options for the latter.

Maybe instead of an extensive rework, some of these issues could be somewhat mitigated by the paragon update and the rest solved with a few Ele and Monk skill tweaks. Preferably without exclusive use of PvE-only skills, since that would leave heroes unfixed.

After that most other problems are secondary, like many Necromancer elites being sub-par, tactics being mostly useless and assassins not quite feeling like assassins.

Everything on your post is true, except for this. Monks are simply PERFECT in terms of versatility, survival, etc. They have everything. Want a e-management monk skill? Get signet of devotion/rejuvenation, zealous benediction. Monks have absolutely no need for Mo- energy management, it would make them simply never use a secondary profession skill. That's why they go Mo/E or Mo/Me, for stuff like glyph of lesser energy, channeling, power drain.
If you give us that, then we need nothing else from any profession.
Also, there's a very good reason that Castigation Signet and Defender's Zeal are on smiting prayers and not on divine favor or any othe attribute

Smiting prayers have been a problem for years, they simply don't have a place on PvP. On PvE, however, they're pretty fine to tag along, you have a good nuker(RoJ) with nice utility skills (party heals through divine healing/heaven's delight, smite hex/condition, etc)

Nothing is wrong with monks.
Rangers, Paragons, Assassins - work on them.
Elementalist - Bandage fix.
The ele works fine in NM mode, the above 3 however are just retarded, in both modes.

My list is similar to all of the above

Rangers: Need an overhaul, but not quite to the same extent that dervishes got. Spirits and traps are very poor on top of middling bow damage and one often used spammable skill.

Paragons: Motivation line needs reworking along with a few skills all over the rest of the class.

Elementalists: As said damage in HM sucks, ok in NM, though it should be great in NM due to spell costs and cast times. Instead of changing a skill that not everyone's going to get access to, just change Energy Storage so that in addition to what it does now, anyone with 1 pt in it gets x Armor ignoring damage % in NM and y armor ignoring damage % in HM, like 10% nm and 25% hm or whatever works out best numberwise for PvE of course. This armor ignoring damage percentage does not go up with more points in Energy Storage.

Yes, fix my ranger plz.

It's a shame they wasted the premise of what a ranger should be. A wilderness expert that should be able to track and find and kill things all alone or with a group. Rangers should be the best runners and best able to deal with conditions/environment. Not asking for highest damage or to provide party boosts. Would love for rangers to be the best solo class, but that wont happen.

It would have been nice if they gave rangers inherent bonus's:

Ability to charm multiple wild animals in the area. Why not someone to compete with MMs since they gave a few other classes skills to make the ranger obsolete. Give them bonuses tied to beastmaster skills and ability to be healed, but not rezd. It would be more conditional than the MMs since there are only so many wild animals. It would also provide similar support of a rit, but again, highly conditional.

Real traps that are worth using. We have to set up half a dozen+ traps then kill or do enough damage to finish them with whats left of our skill bar when rits have traps that can tank and target creatures? GJ Arena.... Or just remove them from game since no one uses them anymore.

A real high damaging single foe attack. Gotta love that they gave 1 shot 1 kill pve to everyone, but nothing that neat for the ranger sniper to have. A nice freeze attack would rock too.

Ungimping barrage. How many times has it been gimped? All arrows should be affected by whatever preparation is going. It was never overpowered. Take away splinter and give us back barrage.

Fix the sniper skills and interrupts and people will choose what elite to use based on areas and more importantly, play style.

A more responsive better trained pet. If it's go time then the pet should continually attack everything. He should have inherent attacks and skill based attacks so the ranger doesn't have to sit there with a full pet bar.

Spirits should only affect party positively or enemies negatively or just get rid of them since they are crap.

I am pretty sure that if rangers were not used by as many of us as they are, they would have been fixed. Arena net is so fixated on getting people to use all the classes that they kept gimping one of our favorites til it was no longer feasible to use them. Best example of a class they are fixated on is the Sin. Imo the sin should require a higher level of skill to play well. No tanking skills for it. Just sneak in and gank and get away or stay too long and get killed. Let them be able to run dungeons etc, but only cuz they sneak thru. Hide and gank or be seen and die. Only wars or paras should be able to tank IMO. The shield is my clue on this.

Like that they fixed the dervish. Too bad don't have time to play it. I have to work on my HOM and titles for my RANGER. Not sure why I bother... GW2 coming out and so is Diablo III. Feel like my ranger was a victim of classism here.

I know how to fix the game. Hindsight is 20/20, but even when I started I thought there was too many skills.

How I would have done the game...

The main problem with GW besides skills balances every month is that there are 2 or 3 times more skills than there needs to be. It's impossible to balance the hundreds of skills in this game. The best balanced games of all time had a lot less skills to deal with (starcraft/sf2/etc). For example: There should be a few sword, axe, or hammer attacks and then generic buffs tied only to the wars primary attribute (strength). It should be a percentage and maybe double that for 2 handed weapon. Then there would be a lot less skills tied to each weapon and more generic ones tied to strength that could buff all those attacks and a LOT LESS skils to learn or worry about. Axe attacks could inherent crack armor... Swords could do both slicing and piercing damage. Then peoples play style could decide their skill choices. It would also make peoples primary matter and their secondary be what it's supposed to be. We have dozens of skills that people never even considered using. It's just silly. A little too ambitious and it's cost them a lot in man hours trying to balance the game instead of giving us new content.

It's too late... just want to finish hom etc. Then see what game comes out 1st and figure out which one I like better.

all i wish to see is rangers getting buffed from almost all sides (not ranger spirits, as they go against/work for everyone)

bow attacks dont do much, except if you are good interrupter, or spread conditions.... or try, as it doesnt do much in pve (dunno about pvp, sry)
conditions get removed easily, and in HM its no use to do that, imo
and barrage and volley just sux if you use a preparation, let these skills not remove preparations, but only work on target or something

pets never have been that good, and thats in NM, so HM makes pets useless
pets dont do that good dmg, and all they do good is something bow attacks can do well: spreading conditions
they should become better in GW

traps, well, thats all about conditions, so you can choose to be trapper and then gotta lure enemies into traps to get what you can do with bows, which again... is conditions
not bad idea, but trapping has to become better in general pve, and i dont count trapping certain areas, but anywhere in pve
and these have 2 pretty nice traps which are elites, so i think making trapper's focus a normal skill would do alot good to trappers

ps. in case you didnt notice: i dont know about pvp, so i'm trying to make my points for pve only

in NM a ranger can do alot with bows, and maybe with 1 or 2 ranger spirits, but in HM, even that all is not effective enough

another note: this is to ranger primary, not r/rt or something (just telling in case)

well, thats it

It's obviously got to be nerf Shadow Form ...

There're plenty of other things in PvE that need balancing, but this one is the most important priority.

Let's see... this is what I consider the most effective:
My monk heals/Prots, occasionaly smites (RoJ)
My necro can use SS/necrosis, MM, Discord caller...
My Ranger is a spirit spammer, or occasionaly an assassin
My Assassin is an assassin
My Warrior is an assassin
My Paragon is an Imbagon, or an assassin in 4 players area
My Mesmer can use either Domination or Illusion lines according to the area...

The only melee build I find effective in HM is one that can spam jagged>fox>blossom and possibly. Being able to KD or do whatsoever to foes isn't usefull if they could be dead instead.
(Note that I don't have a dervish so I can't account for them, but combos like Pious Assault/Pious Renewal/AoHM, or Aura Slicer/Reap Impurites would seem quite strong on paper)

When in HM, all damage that isn't armor ignoring damage turns very weak (read: sucks), which is why skills like splinter weapon (AoE), Mark of Pain (AoE), Discord, Spirits, Strengh of Honor, etc... are so widely used. My beloved dagger attack chain has the benefits to trigger those first 2 skills at a very high rate and deal high armor ignoring damage.

*I might be forgeting some other, but most but the skills I listed here are used by 2 professions: necro and ritualist, which is IMO the reason why they are so popular, along with excellent energy management (from either their primary attribute, or 1 skill (Siphon Spirit) from one lattribute line that I would be considering the best on the game in PvE (Channeling))

*Mesmer is also a strong choice by being able to completely shutdown entire mobs while still doing high AoE armor ignoring damage with builds like Panic/WW/WD, or Clumsyness/Wandering Eye in areas with less foes.

IMO the problem of Eles and physicals not using daggers is that they don't deal enough armor ignoring damage, or offer enough utility to compete with the Necro or Rit for example, aside from gimmicky builds (ER bond/prot, 100b/whirlwind/MoP). Paras and rangers are even more gimped as they can't benefit from Strengh of Honor.

*Eles could use a very simple fix: reduce the armor of HM foes, and compensate with a hp buff and/or health regeneration. This would also help physicals doing damage while they build adrenaline for example.
The game shouldn't be balanced around PvE only skills, no need to make intensity god-mod whatsoever...

*As for rangers...
Bow damage isn't that great, pets suck due to poor melee AI, why waste 2-5 sec for prepations/traps/spirits when mobs could be dead meanwhile? Not that they would even be that useful with instant cast :/
Their ability to deal AoE damage is almost exclusively because of barrage. It also deals the best armor ignoring damage possible from bow, with Power/Point blank Shot... Oh joy...
I don't see any easy fix to make them as much desirable as other professions in HM. Hell, even in NM... Allowing Strengh of Honor to work on physical damage instead of melee would already help...

*For paragons, spear damage could be potent with a decrease of mob armor I guess...
They don't have powerful offensive AoE ability, but make up with AoE party buffs... In theory. But none are that useful: the most used ones are two PvE skills, and one is from the warrior... I'd personnaly like to see at least SY! nerfed/tweaked, seeing as it's on any build able to use it.
I don't see any easy fix either, as balancing unstripable AoE buffs could be very troublesome...

*Nothing wrong with Monks IMO, aside maybe from Smiting Prayers which don't synergise with their primary attribute very well...

tl;dr
-decrease HM mob armor while compensating with hp tweaks, to promote professions that don't deal retarded armor ignoring damage, such as eles, and maybe rangers and paras a little.
-give same treatement as BuH! and AS got to other overused PvE skill, such as SY!, EVAS, and norn shouts.
-nerf Shadow Form and consumables into oblivion

Nah. Nature Spirits should be buffed to have loyalty to its summoner and party - therefore, positive effects affect only the party (and maybe allies that appear on the party menu), negative effects only for enemies, and those few spirits with both positive and negative effects (Energizing Wind, Predatory Season, and Quickening Zephyr) continue to affect everyone.

Actually, pets do excellent single-target damage - better than most Bow Attacks. And they're good in HM, as well (maybe not elite area HM, since I don't do those, but surface and non-elite dungeon HM for sure). Pets *are* slightly slow to respond and their behaviour of heading right back to you after a kill instead of picking a new target (the nearest in its Nearby range or within Earshot of its master if nothing was Nearby it) are the only problems. Perhaps a few of the other Pet Attacks could use some minor buffage so that Predator's Pounce and especially Enraged Lunge don't stand out so much.

Enraged Lunge, Predator's Pounce, Call of Haste, Otyugh's Cry, Call of Protection, Comfort Animal (more for the heal than the rez, actually!), Crossfire (since you're generally firing at what your pet's mauling), and Savage Shot is my current bar. My Ranger's Imperial Phoenix has died maybe 2-3 times (not counting full-party wipes) from its leveling trip of 15-20, including most of the Jade Sea, through the Shards of Orr to get to Gadd's (only H/H party of mine that didn't have a single death for that trip!), and HM Finding the Bloodstone (where it died once to a pack of Angorodons and when we wiped on the Ceratadons 'cos one ventured too close to my normal route through there without me noticing).

...aren't really worth using the way they're currently implemented.

In PvE , only shadow form should be nerfed , people mentionned enough reason for it.
Maybe they should do some Paragon love update to make them a bit more used , but i don't think it will change a lot things( as long as they leave consumables in game...)

In PvP , there's really a lot that should be done. The game isn't balanced upon small formats , but :
Concerning skills :
- Bsurge ( too OP for RA)
- Bonnetti def( it's time to see something else than mo/w with a click to save themselves)
- RoJ ( JQ is a complete joke because of it)
- Weapon of warding
- reverting back Avatars to their original function
- storm djinn haste

Concerning arenas :
- Bringing back HB or adding a format that allows you to play alone ( anyone who plays at american hour prolly has enough of waiting hours to get a match in HA or wherever..)
- Bringing back TA or changing codex ( codex is a probably the biggest fail we ever got in guild wars and should be changed asap)
- Changing Hall map ( adding death penalities or making 1v1 red vs yellow and not blue vs red)
- Changing GvG tournaments hour ( there are some ATS that are always empty..)
- Changing Gladiator title
....

So , i doubt anything i mentionned will be done since it mostly concern PvP , but let's hope they will do something...

Well the obvious choices are Rangers and Elementalists

Rangers: I liked the idea of being able to charm multiple pets that someone brought up. And it wouldn't be overpowered since charmables would have to be in the immediate area. Or even an Elite skill that summons all animals in the immediate area to your party's aid. I've always thought preparations casting time and length of duration stunk. Make preparations on par with Rits spirit spamming. Also make them last longer than 24 seconds. That is such an arbitrary number. 45 to 60 seconds is not OP. Nothing sucks more than to have to reapply a prep midfight.

If trapping is a Rangers only real source of damage. Then take away the negatives associated with it for PvE. Namely the ability to be easily interrupted. When I play my ranger during trap runs in ZE. I have to admit that it's fun as heck to actively trap a foe that is still alive. I'm not saying make it OP by making trapping uninterruptable, but at least give the Rangers a better chance to get their traps off. Why do you think touch Rangers were so popular? Instead of a 3/4 cast necro skill, make it a 1sec. trap skill. I think it could be reworked to be feasible.


Elementalist: Basically, make elemental damage armor ignoring unless the wearer has armor on tailored specifically against that element. This would give ele's the damage they lack in HM while also promoting build diversity amongst the elements. If a player can't do a little research on the enemies they face then they deserve to be defeated.

Yes, I was actually really shocked how effective a fully spec'd beastmaster was at both damage and survivability. All rangers should at least try it for a week or so before they judge. But yes, the AI and interface is indeed pretty clunky.

Paragon + tactics revamp & sy nerf.

They only have one viable pug build, and sy will kill any other build after a rebalance if it isn't nerfed. Basically, change moti around and fix the underlying issue of them being more effective when you have more para's, as that is what anet doesn't want to promote. Tactics revamp will benefit para and war as the line is basically dead except for RA monks.

Rangers
Need pretty much a full revamp. Make traps, spirits etc more relevant. Bow damage needs a very slight increase.

Eles
A blanket ele damage buff would just mean the game moves back 3 years and the other casters are excluded from pugs. Improve their 3 utility lines so they bring fairly decent damage and good utility (via wards, movement control etc.) In other words, the 3 ele lines most eles don't know exist.

Utilities without damage are absolutely unwanted by the majority of PvE players. All the popular builds right now are utilities + damage hybrids, just because the other casters have skills powerful enough to do so.

Discord = Discord (Damage) + Minions (Utility) + Rit Skills (Healing)
Spiritway = Spirits (Damage + Utility) + Restoration Skills (Healing)
Sabway = Curses (Damage + Utility) + Splinter Weapon (Damage)
etc.

People just don't want a character filled with utility skills and sub par damage. They need to buff eles so they can fit 1/2 good damage skills (on par with other classes) + good utilities (Snares are /yawn in PvE) + Healing/Protection/Ward ALL in 1-2 bars....AND the energy management required to sustain them (Ex. Soul Reaping / Spirit Siphon equivalents)....

The difference is staggering, and its way beyond DPS numbers. Infinite Energy?(Necro) Completely Shutting the mobs down? (Panic Mes) Damage + Interrupt + Blind + Life Steal + Distraction all in one? (Spirit Spammer Rits)

Good luck, eles.

3 years ago the only AoEs mesmers had was E-surge (on 20 cooldown), Cry of Pain + Cry of Frustration (15 energy) + Soothing Images + hexeater vortex/shatter hex and maybe Visions of Regret (it was less damage due to the second part, +50 if not under mesmer hex, missing) .

When they buffed half the skills to include AOE (Overload, Psychic instability, Keystone signet, Ineptitude, Fragility, Clumsiness,wandering eye, Signet of clumsiness, Mistrust, Wastrel's Worry, wastrel's demise, shatter delusions, Mind Wrack, Arcane conundrum, fevered Dreams, unnatural signet, etc.) that changed things drastically. Panic mesmers removed what semblance of skill it took to play one, all you do is cast it and enjoy the !s like a SS necro watching mobs kill themselves.

3 years ago spirits took 3-5 seconds to cast like their PVP counterparts. SoS didn't do what it did now, it just had +15 energy like Offering of spirit. SOGM could have been ran back then, it's just every 30 seconds or so you waste 20 seconds making spirits. Soul twisting was 1 spirit (and unlinked to Spawning) if I recall correctly, whereas Ritual Lord did a flat 40-60% recharge reduction I think.

Spiteful Spirit is the same as its original iteration, Minion mastering got nerfed due to minion cap and SR nerf. Spiteful Spirit got popular when AOEs caused scatter and gear trick was made in Sorrow's furnace (or Book trick in FoW).

ROJ had a damage boost.

Mark of Pain only got popular due to 100B being changed from a double attack like sun & moon to its current iteration.

Invoke Lightning + ebon Hawk got a cast reduction, chain lightning got a recharge reduction, Mirror of ice,Thunderclap , Double dragon, Flame djinn's haste, Obsidian flesh got changed too. The rest of the ele skills are pretty untouched.

2 more balances which i see on the forums are a problem:

assassin's promise:
make only sin skills recharge (that will make it useless for pve only skills too)

eles in HM:
fix HM enemies armors so they have a maximum amount of armor vs ele dmg
like maximum armor vs ele dmg is same as lvl 20 or something?

ps. i saw the AP one in someone else's thread before i wanted to make it a suggestion, so didnt make a thread of its own (good to use the suggestion thread) i just hope this will stay an active idea, as it may balance alot
(kinda weird, it has been suggested before, yet it didnt happen at all)

i hope anet can do something with these 2

as for pets, i never have been able to do much with em, and i've tried many builds with a pet, but all i get is skills which are disabled ( yes, having points on beast mastery)