top of page

Responsibilities

 

As a consultant on Guild Wars 2:

 

  • I provided guidance and insight on skill design and balance across all nine classes, 36 specializations, and structured PvP.
     

  • Presented design feedback to the balance team to refine competitive gameplay.
     

  • Led weekly and monthly balance discussions with developers and top-level players.
     

  • Authored design documents that influenced skill reworks and game balance updates.​​

​

I consulted on:

​​

  • Bird Knight

  • Decap Druid

  • Bunker Soulbeast

  • Marksmanship Modifiers

  • Mantra Mesmer

  • Swipe

  • Aggressive Onslaught

 

​And many more.

DRUID

​

Druid was designed as a support specialization. In practice, it functioned as a DPS or tank in competitive modes. I identified key opportunities to realign its mechanics with its intended design to make Support Druid a viable choice.

Design Issues:​​

​

  • Selfish Sustain: Most sustain-related traits in the skill tree only benefited the caster, rather than supporting allies.
     

  • Offensive Incentives: The specialization rewarded crowd-controlling enemies and attacking crowd-controlled players, counterintuitive for a support role.
     

  • Lack of Survivability: Druid struggled to maintain range and survive in larger fights due to weaker defensive buffs and shorter ability ranges compared to other supports.
     

  • Tradeoff Penalized Its Strengths: Years after launch, a balance change reduced pet stats by 20%. This weakened pet synergy, one of Druid’s core mechanics.
     

  • Unreliable Access to Support Tools: Unlike other supports, Druid’s healing abilities were locked behind a 20-second cooldown transformation (Celestial Avatar), making it unreliable in key moments.

​

Design Goals:

​

  • Encourage selfless play by shifting sustain to benefit allies.
     

  • Incentivize healing over offensive play.
     

  • Improve positioning tools to help Druid engage in support-oriented fights.
     

  • Increase reliability of core healing abilities.
     

  • Introduce a unique "healing-over-time" identity, distinguishing it from other burst-healing supports.

​

Proposals:

​

  • Druidic Clarity: Reduce self-only condition cleanse from 13 to 3, and apply the same cleanse to nearby allies.
     

  • Celestial Avatar: Reduce cooldown from 20s → 10s, making support uptime more consistent.
     

  • Ancient Seeds: Change pulsing root effect to a 1-second root on successful CC.
     

  • Defensive Buffs: Introduce AoE Stability (CC immunity) and Protection (damage reduction) sources.
     

  • Pet Stat Tradeoff Removal: Reverse the -20% pet stat reduction.
     

  • Glyph Adjustments: Increase radii of glyph abilities from 300 → 600, matching other supports.
     

  • Glyph Swap Mechanic: Flip glyph behavior. Supportive versions become default, while offensive versions activate inside Celestial Avatar.
     

  • Search and Rescue: Increase revive range from 600 → 900, bringing it in line with other support utilities.
     

  • Ancestral Grace: Restore evade frames to its movement skill, improving survivability.

​

Outcome:

​

  • 5 out of 9 proposed changes were implemented.
     

  • ​Support Druid became viable in PvP for the first time in 7 years.
     

  • Playrates increased, improving its place in the competitive meta.

MIRAGE

​

Mirage was designed as an elusive duelist, capable of dodging attacks without rolling and executing ambush attacks. Instead of a standard dodge roll, it used Mirage Cloak, a unique defensive mechanic that:

​

  • Lasted 0.25s longer than normal dodges.
     

  • Provided evasion frames without interrupting active casts.

​

Mirage Cloak and its associated traits disrupted the combat economy, creating an overpowered and uninteractive playstyle.


Key Design Issues:​​

​

  • Invulnerability on Any Action: Mirage Cloak allowed any skill to be cast while fully protected, eliminating risk-reward.
     

  • Bypassing Defensive Counterplay: Unlike other classes, Mirages could activate Mirage Cloak while stunned, feared, or immobilized, avoiding damage without needing a stun break.
     

  • Universal Problem Solver: It cleansed debuffs and removed CC, allowing Mirages to counter threat with very little cost.
     

  • Oppressive and Un-counterable Builds: Due to abundant endurance regeneration, Mirages could chain Mirage Cloaks repeatedly, making them:
     

    • Untouchable (immune to damage, CC, and debuffs).
       

    • Uninterruptible (key casts always succeeded).
       

    • Able to capture map objectives while completely invulnerable.​

​

Proposals:

​

  • Prevent Map Exploits: Remove the ability to capture objectives while under Mirage Cloak.
     

  • Reduce Duration: Lower Mirage Cloak from 1s → 0.75s to match standard dodges.
     

  • Elusive Mind Adjustment: Remove its free stun break on dodge.
     

  • No More Cloaking While Crowd-Controlled: Prevent Mirage Cloak activation while stunned, feared, or immobilized.

​

Timeline:

​

  • 2018: Map capture exploit removed (implemented immediately).
     

  • 2019: Mirage Cloak duration nerfed from 1s → 0.75s.
     

  • 2020: Mirage dodge count reduced from 2 to 1, reducing its pick rate in competitive play significantly. The stun-break removal was also implemented.
     

  • 2023: Mirage regained its second dodge.

​

Outcome:

​

  • 4 out of 4 proposed changes were implemented exactly as suggested.

​

As a result, Mirage went from one of the lowest picked specializations to a meta DPS in competitive PvP, with increased playrates and a frequent draft in tournament play.

image.png

CONSULTANT

Untitled design (28).png

CONSULTANT

For work protected under NDA, I am happy to discuss details regarding design problems, constraints, process, and implementation upon request in interviews. 

bottom of page