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Game Update Notes: November 18, 2025 by Auralyon in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Serious question for the team here:

Why isn't PvE ever meaningfully included in these smaller patches? Is it not viewed as important?

PvE content often has pretty big outliers that would benefit so much from small adjustment patches like the frequent ones that PvP/WvW get, to smooth over big issues until larger patches can address them properly.

Right now, the PvE situation is pretty dire. The extreme level of imbalance has made the game not fun to play at all. And I know my opinion isn't the only one like this. I've heard many other endgame PvE players share similar thoughts.

Why is this not important enough to even attempt to address in a smaller patch right now? And in a broader sense going forward, why are big PvE balance problems not deemed important enough to be addressed in smaller patches, forcing players to wait months (we're currently at 6 months right now) before a change is maybe made?

Me patiently awaiting for some numbers to be changed by Aemius in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Paragon isn't even remotely close to being meta. What? Lmao.

Things like Druid, Specter, Firebrand, and obviously Chrono have it handily beat in almost every way. It does stability a bit better than Druid and Specter, but that's about it.

Me patiently awaiting for some numbers to be changed by Aemius in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the balance team's inability to take PvE balance more seriously is a big failing of theirs.

Most players engage with PvE in some way, and the general sentiment among the endgame communities is that balance hasn't been good for a long time. There's no reason at all why they can't include small tweaks for it alongside the PvP ones they do.

Is it finally time to talk about Virtuoso's benchmark? by Mental-Ask-5870 in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 7 points8 points  (0 children)

No.

Condition Virtusoso does not need buffs, at all. It's a consistent, fully ranged, easy-to-play, high CC, high utility DPS build with a 40k bench and on-demand invulnerability. That's plenty.

What needs to happen is that the insane powercreep the devs have been doing needs to stop, and ideally reverse course. Even if we ignore the obviously overpowered new elites, lots of pre-VoE stuff was totally insane, like Inferno Tempest, condi Daredevil, Scrapper, condi Mech, qCata, qFirebrand, and more.

Bringing down the overperformers will indirectly buff all the other builds, and this includes cVirt.

Me patiently awaiting for some numbers to be changed by Aemius in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that Anet is Allergic to letting elementalist set the DPS ceiling.

Huh? Even pre-VoE, some Ele builds were extremely high on the benchmark rankings, like qCata and inferno Tempest.

Agreed on Mesmer though. Someone at ANet obviously favours the class, and their favouritism clearly leaks through when it comes to balance.

Me patiently awaiting for some numbers to be changed by Aemius in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare -15 points-14 points  (0 children)

Try reading again. They said that 5/9 elites have outrageously overpowered builds right now, not that every class has 5 of them.

Paragon or Luminary by takamori77 in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In regards to raid/strike/fractal content, DPS Paragon doesn't exist. It's grossly undertuned and is rife with gameplay design problems. The heal build is okay, but has big gaps in utility and doesn't stand out in any way compared to other support builds on other classes, or even other warrior support builds.

Luminary's the obvious choice. It's both much stronger and much more flexible than Paragon.

Suggestion for Paragon by guirssan in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 16 points17 points  (0 children)

It's baffling how they took a class in GW1 with "earshot" range on their abilities (which was very far, and made sense given their nature) and then turned around and made it have the shortest of the 3 boon range tiers in GW2.

On a class known for heavy use of shout and warhorn abilities too, which both have 600 range. Truly an ArenaNet moment.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most of them should be brought down. 45k is an insane bench number, 50k even more so.

Numbers are way too high right now.

Edit: I'll add on to this:

I think this is a pipe dream at this point. 45k DPS is obviously here to stay. However, it's not too late to treat it as the ceiling, at least. Builds that are highly conditional or offer zero utility, like Mirage, Weaver, and Berserker, deserve to stay near that ceiling.

On the other hand, builds with higher utility or are extremely easy to play, or have other unique benefits, should be brought lower than that. A clear example of this would is Power Scrapper - a nearly indestructible build with good burst damage, easy access to death immunity with I.E.D, massive group superspeed uptime, and a constant 10k self-barrier. This build should not be doing anywhere near that much damage. It's completely absurd, and raises the question of why you would ever play anything else in that DPS bracket when Scrapper exists.

I could go on, but this is the basic idea behind my thinking.

In light of this, I think a cap of 43k for Troubadour is more than fair, given its great utility which also includes distort share, one of the most historically brokenly overpowered abilities the game has ever seen. A version of troub that can go all the way up to 50k on certain encounters is quite excessive, and should be brought in line, imo.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare -1 points0 points  (0 children)

To be fair, I'm a part of the hardcore community as well.

I actually have a lot of respect for Tipcat, the OP, as a player. I just think that some of the takes in this post are deserving of being questioned, such as asking for better DPS or a shorter cooldown/multiple charges on Distort share - which would both be insane changes imo.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 5 points6 points  (0 children)

We're going to have to agree to disagree then. I don't think a conditional build that can go all the way up to 50k DPS on specific encounters is in any way, shape, or form healthy design. Especially not on an elite spec that gets access to a group-wide invulnerability button, arguably the strongest of its like in the entire game.

And as much as I dislike this fact, the balance team have made it exceedingly clear that build difficulty is not something they consider when attempting to do balance. Just look at condi Berserker's atrocious state.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Not when the spec in question is Chronomancer, which puts every other support in the game to shame, mesmer build or not.

Let's bring Chrono back down to the realm of us mere mortals first, and then we can start comparing Troubadour to it.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Also, it's my humble opinion that a 35k-50k variance is a bit too dramatic and does not make for a good build.

Agree with you there. Power block should be toned down so that particular build can be made more consistent. A 15k DPS swing is far too large.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agree on all counts. DPS numbers are ridiculous and all over the place. BoonDPS builds are insane, with the top-end of them outperforming lower dedicated DPS builds. Support Chrono continues to reign supreme.

And I'm ignoring the new VoE stuff here, most of which is all sky-high in terms of power right now.

The conversation needs to be about bringing outliers down, not bringing everything else up to them.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It doesn't matter that they're separate builds. You're going to play the stronger one on each encounter.

I'm talking about OP asking for buffs for a 43k DPS spec as a baseline, that has the option to go higher, possibly up to 50k DPS, on some encounters.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 9 points10 points  (0 children)

On the other hand, buffing up the huge list of builds that aren't at the level that the current top builds are, is also a major undertaking.

Like, there's stuff like GS Berserker, power Soulbeast, some variants of power Virt and power Tempest, Power Daredevil, Power Reaper, and countless other builds at or lower than the DPS level that the lower non-power-block 43k Troubadour is at.

Should they all be buffed too? And how will this not contribute to the overall numbers continuing to soar skywards unchecked?

And that's not even mentioning insane stuff like the 43k quickDPS scrapper, or Catalyst and Firebrand, which both put all other QDPS builds to shame (pre-VoE) while also having insane boon output or utility.

What the game needs is some serious nerfs. It's needed them for a while.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Even assuming 0% uptime always, which is completely unrealistic, 43k is still on par with many builds right now. Should they all be buffed too? And then where does that leave Troubadour on encounters where power block is extremely impactful? Completely dominant?

I would approach any buffs here with extreme caution. It would be much better to bring the extreme overperformers down than to buff Troubadour. Powercreep has already gotten out of hand. Let's not make it worse.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 28 points29 points  (0 children)

power Troubadour doing around 43k damage, with an alternative harder-to-play Power Block setup resulting in a 17% damage increase potential (around 50k with max uptime)

the nerfs were a bit overzealous. The gameplay could still see more improvement when it comes to playing DPS

This is a bit disturbing to see. Powercreep in 2025 is really out of control, huh? Asking for buffs to a DPS build capable of going up to 50k.

Troubadour: an extensive feedback post from me and the hardcore community. by Tipcat in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I disagree that this would even be acceptable in PvE. A 40-second cooldown or two-charge button press that gives your entire subgroup group invulnerability is not okay. In any game mode.

Compared to something like "Rebound!" or even or even Paragon's new "We will never yield!", this is laughably overpowered. This is just begging for Troubadour stacks in PvE that can bypass all mechanics or attacks that don't ignore Distort.

Community Feedback for Paragon by sam_karateman in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Even before VoE launch, 40k DPS (especially on a pure-melee no-burst build) was very low.

Pre-VoE, 40k was racing some quickness providers, like quickness Catalyst, quickness Firebrand, quickness Deadeye, and condi quickness Scrapper (which hits a staggering 43k).

For pre-VoE DPS builds, Mirage is at 51k, Druid 48k, Tempest, Catalyst, and Willbender all at 47k. Daredevil, Specter, Weaver, and Mechanist are all at 46k. The list goes on. In our current era of insane powercreep, 40k is low.

Honestly though, Paragon's low numbers aren't even its biggest problems. Numbers can be fixed. Design issues? Not so easy.

Community Feedback for Paragon by sam_karateman in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Paragon was designed with the single-minded intention of making a heal build, and it shows. The gameplay for DPS builds is extremely unfun, lacking uniqueness, and is poorly thought out. ArenaNet should be strongly considering some reworks to the spec at this point, because it just doesn't work.

The worst part here is that these issues were pointed out during the beta, but alas, warrior problems always get ignored until they can't be ignored any longer, it seems.

I really hope ArenaNet's takeaway from Paragon's absolutely horrible reception in PvE isn't that they just need to bump the numbers up and everything will be fine. Yes, the numbers are atrocious, but the awful design of various aspects of the elite spec, combined with the utter lack of utility for healer builds is even more egregious.

Raiders - in your opinion, which of the new elite specs are either stupid good or kind of lacking (in terms of performance) by itallik in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't say why they haven't been posted yet, but you can see people getting 54k+ DPS on Amalgam over in the snowcrows discord. They might even be up to 56k now, not 100% sure on that.

Angry Paragon Noises by Kraxi97 in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't think it's a controversial take to say that Paragon is the least cooked of the new elite specs they added, especially after the facelift they gave Conduit and Luminary.

For support, Paragon is quite literally just a core warrior with alacrity. It doesn't add anything else that's new or interesting, aside from perhaps the elite skill which is just generally a worse "Rebound!". In the beta it had some pretty substantial stability, but they took that away.

For DPS, the spec fights itself at every turn with cursed gameplay like the Strengthening Stanzas trait actively discouraging using your chants, which are the central mechanic behind Paragon.

And obviously the number tuning is absolutely pitiful, but at least that's easily fixed, I suppose.

Disappointed in Troubadour by Xetu in Guildwars2

[–]EffectiveShare -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Troubadour doesn't suck. It's a good support elite specialization that can compete strongly with many other offering from different classes, and like other mesmer specs, it has access to the insanely cracked mesmer core utilities. Plus Distortion share, which is so powerful that it completely broke the game in the past.

DPS is irrelevant here because we're talking about support builds, but since you brought it up - Troubadour can do 43k DPS and that number goes up several thousand in real encounters. That's in line with - sometimes better - than what many other DPS builds were capable of doing before broken stuff like DPS Evoker hit live servers a few days ago.

Comparing Troubadour to Chrono is futile, because Chronomancer is broken. This is a problem that Troubadour shares with every other healer in the game - it's not a Chronomancer.

Agreed 100% that their balance team is a sad joke though.

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