I'm excited for the changes for the classes I have experience with. To be honest, I like the way ArenaNet is working around balances and I think they are going towards a wise direction: they are competing with themselves instead of comparing with other games, and they are trying to make all features viable in all Guild Wars 2 contents, giving more diversity for the players to chose from and interact with. As a player, I would like to thank them for that. Also, I would like to add some things regarding of PvE content (since it's all that I play), hoping the Devs will read this. For Guardian, I would like to see some changes to the Longbow and the Hammer: The Longbow is great, one of my favorite weapons, but I think is a little bit lacking on the DPS department both compared to other guardian weapons (like greatsword, sword, scepter and focus, making them the default go-to for more difficult content) and compared with the Ranger longbow (specifically the 2nd and 5th skills). Being an elite specialization signature weapon, I think there is room for a little damage improvement. Also, the 4th skill of the guardian Longbow feels clunky to me since it's prone to be used from distance (so, not consistently on yourself), and you can't benefit consistently your melee allies because you're giving them Vigor so they would dodge out of the symbol. Also, if you use it on yourself the same happens. My suggestion in this area is to trade the symbol of Protection from the Hammer for this one: then you could give protection to your melee allies in a reasonable manner and also apply it on yourself when you are being overwhelmed by enemies without needing to run away. This could make also the longbow more viable for close quarters and more close to the Dragonhunter theme of being able to hunt dragons without always being running away from them. As for the Hammer, I like it's so CC oriented since there is not much crowd control in core guardian nor in DH, and I think I kind of get the theme that Devs were going for: the defender/protective soldier archetype; but I think right now the theme is getting on the way of it's viability. When already in close combat, hammer does only have two effectively damaging skills (1st and 2nd), the other ones work better to keep your enemies at distance than to damage them at distance or in close quarters; and when you effectively CC them, then all you can do is spam Mighty blow (or Glacial blow) to profit on that. That is very useful to guard narrow paths like Vinewrath tangle on the Silverwastes, but not so much in open areas. The 1st skill of the hammer, the auto-attack, feels to me kind of slow and clunky. My guessing is that Devs had to make it slower so the players wouldn't spam the symbol of protection, so I think the symbol itself may be impeding an improvement in the auto-attack animation and mechanics. Glacial heart trait it's kind of a mixed bag for me. I like the chill because it let's you build a full-on CC guardian which can profit a lot on Heavy light trait, but it makes the hammer slower and less DPS effective (as opposed to faster and stronger, which is what usually happens when you invest in a weapon trait). Thar means a CC hammer build is more viable without Glacial heart than with it, even if it means losing the chill. And, given the lack of DPS of hammer, there is no way Glacial heart can compete with Inspiring virtue for this kind of build to work out. Respectfully, my suggestion here is on the long term: a complete rework of hammer skills, symbol mechanic and Glacial heart. For Warrior, there is only one thing I would like to ad and it's about knockback and knockdown balance. Warrior has three knockbacks and all of them are kind of AoE (Kick affects three targets, Stomp affects five, and Staggering blow affects also five), and has also three knockdowns but only one of them is AoE (which is Tremor, the 5th skill of the mace). I would like to see added an AoE knockdown to Bull's charge or to Backbreaker (5th hammer skill) in order to profit from Merciless hammer and Unsuspecting foe traits more widely. And, finally, in General, I would like to address a minor thing that has been bugging me: I have no way to tell if traits like Heavy light (Guardian, DH) and Unsuspecting foe (Warrior, Arms) are activated, so I don't know if the extra damage or the extra critical-hit chance is being applied. Is there a way to work around that? Maybe they could become time-gated bonus, as Inspiring virtue (Guardian, Virtues) or Peak performance (Warrior, Strenght); I think that would make them more attractive to players since you could benefit from them more broadly and build around them rather than benefit from then occasionally and not-knowingly. Again, thanks for everything.
