Post by Loubell on Oct 14, 2013 16:31:40 GMT -6
Blog Dulfy.net Thanks for putting together the info 
So, as part of the update tomorrow, they will be making some changes to the classes and a few other things. These are notes that came from the above linked blog, taken from the GW2 October 14 Developer Livestream. Here's the link to the livestream video - video
Quality of Life changes
Better Trait tooltips: able to see what each traits do, more information on the traits like what they are already doing for skills
Before the traits only showed a description so it was really hard to see what exactly they do.
If something has multiple skills (i.e. Evasive Arcana), you can right click it to cycle through the skills instead of bombarding you with a whole chain of skills at once.
Trait change affect skills tooltips right away. For example, if you equip Blasting Staff trait, which increase Area attacks with staff by 60 radius, it will be immediately reflected in the skill tooltips. So Static Field (Ele #5 skil under Air would go from 180 to a 240 radius). The change caused by the trait will now be highlighted in teal as well.
Icons added to condition damage numbers (developers called them Condition Floaters), so you can see where the damage is coming from. In options uncheck show Simple Condition Floaters to get them to show.
When you cause condition damage, all damage of a given type (burning, bleed, poison, etc.) will be grouped into a single # with an icon, making them much easier to read
Ground Targeting: new option called Fast with range indicator. When you press down on the key, it shows the reticle, and when you lift your finger up it will cast it. Mix between normal and instant casting options from before. Give you the speed from instant cast and precision of normal cast options.
Chill – skill cooldown numbers now visually slowed by 66% and appears teal-blueish in color so you can see that you are being chilled without having to look at the condition.
AoE skills were skipping targets that were blocking/evading and cause them to not count towards the cap. These blocking/evading targets will now count towards the cap and won’t cause AoE skills to skip them to target additional players. This will lower the amount of AoE in PvP.
Pet health: all player minions in PvE will have 71% more HP in PvE to help survive hits. This was similar to the change a while back applied to Mesmer clones. This should help those who want to play more of a minion build and help spirit rangers.
When you use the stun breaker when you were launched/blown out, it returns you to a normal state. It breaks out the launch/blown out as previously stun breakers didn’t work on those. Basically now if you get knocked back and use your stun breakers, it will break out of it and you won’t get knocked down/back.
Immobilize – now stacks in duration instead of replacing itself. Condition removal now removes the whole stack. Smaller immobilize will no longer override longer ones.
Sigil of Paralyzation was bugged and would always round up. So if you had a stun that was 1 second, instead of adding 15% it would bring it to a 2s stun. This bug was fixed so there should be less stun-locking in PvP.
Tab targeting now prioritize players instead of NPCs, Mesmer clones are considered as players. If you are tabbing to a ranger for example, it will select the ranger instead of their spirits/minions. Mesmer clones are unaffected.
Elementalist
Glyph of Storms – In each attunement it show you what spell it casts when you are hovering that skill.
Staff has a change with Unsteady Ground, similar to Line of Warding from Guardian but it only lasts 3 seconds with 30s cooldown. Enemies cannot cross the line created by the Unsteady Ground skill for 3 seconds. It give staff more utility that the developers felt was lacking.
New skill description: Create unsteady ground that foes cannot cross.
Conjure Earth Shield – Shield Smack (#1 skill) is now a combo of 3 skills and there is a reordering in the way your combos show – they now show from top to bottom (i.e. 1st attack on top, last skill on bottom). Also 2nd skill has being changed to Stone Sheath.
Increased staff autoattack healing (Water Blast), increased base radius of Geyser (from 180 to 240) to make staff into a better support weapon.
One with Air – Air trait – now grant you super speed on swapping to air attunement for a short duration (100% speed for about 1.25 seconds) . Give ele more mobility and the trait was broken before anyways.
Glyph of Renewal is now a ground targeted rez instead of a random rez on a nearby target.
Engineer
Turret targeting improvements – turrets will now attack your targets and change targets when you do, as long they are in range. Previously the turrets would just attack the closest target and stick on that target forever.
Elixir changes – Elixir S now grant stealth 100% of the time. Elixir B is always stability 100% of the time. Elixir B still grant a random boon in the area to all allies but its base recharge has being increased to 30s.
Bombs – bomb kits got some buffs – bigger radius on some skills – Bomb and Fire Bomb skill now has a 240 radius when you trait with Bigger Explosions. Base Bomb/Fire Bomb radius was increased from 120 to 180. Glue Bomb radius reduced to 300 from 360 when traited.
Guardian
Focused Mind trait – Mediations grant Fury instead of making meditation skills instant as all mediations are now all instant without needing to trait into it.
Hallowed Ground – now grant stability and 20% increased boon duration for any boons received inside the Hallowed Ground circle.
Purging Flames – now reduce condition duration in addition to remove 3 conditions when casted. If you are standing inside the circle, all incoming conditions will be reduced in duration by 20%.
Signet of Mercy – it is now a ground target res instead of rezzing a random target.
Mesmer
Mantra of Resolve/Mantra of Concentration – Power Break and Power Cleanse now affect the area around you instead of just yourself to improve Mesmer support. Power Cleanse now can can remove 2 conditions from 5 allies.
Scepter – cooldowns reduced on both #2 and #3 (confusing images –12s recharge, Illusionary counter – 10s recharge, these are all base values without trait reductions). This will improve Confusion and Torment uptime with a bit more defense as you are blocking more often.
Ranger
Sic Em – now applies revealed to your target for a few seconds so they cannot stealth. It lasts for 4 seconds and doesn’t work on someone that is already stealth. Really good against downed enemies who can be shadow refuged. Sic Em cannot be dodged.
Companions’s Defense – now applies Protection to your pet at start of your dodge roll and protection to you at end of the dodge roll. Previously it was applying protection to you at start of dodge roll so a lot of the protection was wasted.
Fern Hound now heal you with F2 skill in addition to the regeneration it was applying previously. ~1k AoE heal that can go up to 1350 with pet healing traits.
Necromancer
Life force bar now show you exactly how much Life Force you have left so you don’t have to guess anymore.
Transfusion changed – Your #4 skill in Death Shroud (Life Transfer) will now heal your allies more. Deathly Invigoration heals you for a small amount when you leave Death Shroud. Increasing support in Necros.
Vampiric changes – Bloodthirst changed – reduced to 20% increase but increased base life steal of many abilities/traits (increased to 80% of what Bloodthrist actually is).
Change to Vampiric Master – now deal damage to enemies it siphons from. Siphon reduced by 16% at the base level.
Thief
Venomous Aura – increased from 240 to 360 range.
Pistol on mainhand now immobilize on #2 skill (Body Shot), costs 4 initiative.
Withdraw and Roll for initiative were buggy with immobilize – you would roll in place instead of removing them properly. They now remove immobilize first so you can roll backwards properly.
Blinding Powder now has a blast finisher.
Warrior
Lung Capacity and Empower Allies have switched positions on traits. You can now have Shrug it Off and Lung Capacity to improve support.
Vigorous Shout – a bit more effective, increased base heal by 25%.
Hammer – Staggering Blow – you can now move when using this ability.
Sigil of Paralyzation was fixed and now applies 15% stun duration properly instead of rounding up. This affects mostly warriors who were using Earthshaker on the hammer to stun lock enemies in PvP (it will now be a 2.3s stun instead of 3s stun).
So, as part of the update tomorrow, they will be making some changes to the classes and a few other things. These are notes that came from the above linked blog, taken from the GW2 October 14 Developer Livestream. Here's the link to the livestream video - video
Quality of Life changes
Better Trait tooltips: able to see what each traits do, more information on the traits like what they are already doing for skills
Before the traits only showed a description so it was really hard to see what exactly they do.
If something has multiple skills (i.e. Evasive Arcana), you can right click it to cycle through the skills instead of bombarding you with a whole chain of skills at once.
Trait change affect skills tooltips right away. For example, if you equip Blasting Staff trait, which increase Area attacks with staff by 60 radius, it will be immediately reflected in the skill tooltips. So Static Field (Ele #5 skil under Air would go from 180 to a 240 radius). The change caused by the trait will now be highlighted in teal as well.
Icons added to condition damage numbers (developers called them Condition Floaters), so you can see where the damage is coming from. In options uncheck show Simple Condition Floaters to get them to show.
When you cause condition damage, all damage of a given type (burning, bleed, poison, etc.) will be grouped into a single # with an icon, making them much easier to read
Ground Targeting: new option called Fast with range indicator. When you press down on the key, it shows the reticle, and when you lift your finger up it will cast it. Mix between normal and instant casting options from before. Give you the speed from instant cast and precision of normal cast options.
Chill – skill cooldown numbers now visually slowed by 66% and appears teal-blueish in color so you can see that you are being chilled without having to look at the condition.
AoE skills were skipping targets that were blocking/evading and cause them to not count towards the cap. These blocking/evading targets will now count towards the cap and won’t cause AoE skills to skip them to target additional players. This will lower the amount of AoE in PvP.
Pet health: all player minions in PvE will have 71% more HP in PvE to help survive hits. This was similar to the change a while back applied to Mesmer clones. This should help those who want to play more of a minion build and help spirit rangers.
When you use the stun breaker when you were launched/blown out, it returns you to a normal state. It breaks out the launch/blown out as previously stun breakers didn’t work on those. Basically now if you get knocked back and use your stun breakers, it will break out of it and you won’t get knocked down/back.
Immobilize – now stacks in duration instead of replacing itself. Condition removal now removes the whole stack. Smaller immobilize will no longer override longer ones.
Sigil of Paralyzation was bugged and would always round up. So if you had a stun that was 1 second, instead of adding 15% it would bring it to a 2s stun. This bug was fixed so there should be less stun-locking in PvP.
Tab targeting now prioritize players instead of NPCs, Mesmer clones are considered as players. If you are tabbing to a ranger for example, it will select the ranger instead of their spirits/minions. Mesmer clones are unaffected.
Elementalist
Glyph of Storms – In each attunement it show you what spell it casts when you are hovering that skill.
Staff has a change with Unsteady Ground, similar to Line of Warding from Guardian but it only lasts 3 seconds with 30s cooldown. Enemies cannot cross the line created by the Unsteady Ground skill for 3 seconds. It give staff more utility that the developers felt was lacking.
New skill description: Create unsteady ground that foes cannot cross.
Conjure Earth Shield – Shield Smack (#1 skill) is now a combo of 3 skills and there is a reordering in the way your combos show – they now show from top to bottom (i.e. 1st attack on top, last skill on bottom). Also 2nd skill has being changed to Stone Sheath.
Increased staff autoattack healing (Water Blast), increased base radius of Geyser (from 180 to 240) to make staff into a better support weapon.
One with Air – Air trait – now grant you super speed on swapping to air attunement for a short duration (100% speed for about 1.25 seconds) . Give ele more mobility and the trait was broken before anyways.
Glyph of Renewal is now a ground targeted rez instead of a random rez on a nearby target.
Engineer
Turret targeting improvements – turrets will now attack your targets and change targets when you do, as long they are in range. Previously the turrets would just attack the closest target and stick on that target forever.
Elixir changes – Elixir S now grant stealth 100% of the time. Elixir B is always stability 100% of the time. Elixir B still grant a random boon in the area to all allies but its base recharge has being increased to 30s.
Bombs – bomb kits got some buffs – bigger radius on some skills – Bomb and Fire Bomb skill now has a 240 radius when you trait with Bigger Explosions. Base Bomb/Fire Bomb radius was increased from 120 to 180. Glue Bomb radius reduced to 300 from 360 when traited.
Guardian
Focused Mind trait – Mediations grant Fury instead of making meditation skills instant as all mediations are now all instant without needing to trait into it.
Hallowed Ground – now grant stability and 20% increased boon duration for any boons received inside the Hallowed Ground circle.
Purging Flames – now reduce condition duration in addition to remove 3 conditions when casted. If you are standing inside the circle, all incoming conditions will be reduced in duration by 20%.
Signet of Mercy – it is now a ground target res instead of rezzing a random target.
Mesmer
Mantra of Resolve/Mantra of Concentration – Power Break and Power Cleanse now affect the area around you instead of just yourself to improve Mesmer support. Power Cleanse now can can remove 2 conditions from 5 allies.
Scepter – cooldowns reduced on both #2 and #3 (confusing images –12s recharge, Illusionary counter – 10s recharge, these are all base values without trait reductions). This will improve Confusion and Torment uptime with a bit more defense as you are blocking more often.
Ranger
Sic Em – now applies revealed to your target for a few seconds so they cannot stealth. It lasts for 4 seconds and doesn’t work on someone that is already stealth. Really good against downed enemies who can be shadow refuged. Sic Em cannot be dodged.
Companions’s Defense – now applies Protection to your pet at start of your dodge roll and protection to you at end of the dodge roll. Previously it was applying protection to you at start of dodge roll so a lot of the protection was wasted.
Fern Hound now heal you with F2 skill in addition to the regeneration it was applying previously. ~1k AoE heal that can go up to 1350 with pet healing traits.
Necromancer
Life force bar now show you exactly how much Life Force you have left so you don’t have to guess anymore.
Transfusion changed – Your #4 skill in Death Shroud (Life Transfer) will now heal your allies more. Deathly Invigoration heals you for a small amount when you leave Death Shroud. Increasing support in Necros.
Vampiric changes – Bloodthirst changed – reduced to 20% increase but increased base life steal of many abilities/traits (increased to 80% of what Bloodthrist actually is).
Change to Vampiric Master – now deal damage to enemies it siphons from. Siphon reduced by 16% at the base level.
Thief
Venomous Aura – increased from 240 to 360 range.
Pistol on mainhand now immobilize on #2 skill (Body Shot), costs 4 initiative.
Withdraw and Roll for initiative were buggy with immobilize – you would roll in place instead of removing them properly. They now remove immobilize first so you can roll backwards properly.
Blinding Powder now has a blast finisher.
Warrior
Lung Capacity and Empower Allies have switched positions on traits. You can now have Shrug it Off and Lung Capacity to improve support.
Vigorous Shout – a bit more effective, increased base heal by 25%.
Hammer – Staggering Blow – you can now move when using this ability.
Sigil of Paralyzation was fixed and now applies 15% stun duration properly instead of rounding up. This affects mostly warriors who were using Earthshaker on the hammer to stun lock enemies in PvP (it will now be a 2.3s stun instead of 3s stun).