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My balance patch review


Yoci.2481

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Mesmer has been getting nerfed constantly for over 2 years now. Most people (see poll in the professions section) agree that Mesmer is currently the weakest class in the game. So how did ArenaNet address this? Let's see.

Chronomancer gets IP back: BuffSplit Second damage change: NeutralRewinder cooldown change: NerfTime Sink daze duration reduction: Nerf (although it may increase interrupt opportunity so maybe neutral?)Continuum Split duration change: NeutralContinuum Split distortion removal: NerfMaster of Fragmentation CS duration: NeutralInspiring Distortion: NeutralFlow of Time alacrity duration: NerfSeize the Moment quickness duration: NeutralMind Spike tooltip change: NeutralPhantasmal Swordsman spawns near target: BuffMirage Retreat loses detarget: NerfChaos Vortex target cap change: BuffCrystal Sands: Buff

So in total we have 4 buffs and 5 nerfs. If we split it up by elite specs we get this:Core: 1 Buff 0 NerfsChronomancer: 2 Buffs 3 nerfsMirage: 3 Buffs 1 nerf

So if you play core with sword offhand you get a small buff, but I am not sure it's worth it. We will see. As Chrono you will be happy to get back IP, but you lose some alacrity and very importantly distortion. Also say good bye to F2 spam builds, not that they every really worked in PvP/WvW anyway. Mirage benefited the most on paper, but who really uses Crystal Sands? At least no one uses Mirage Retreat either, so the nerf isn't really felt.

Mesmer was in a really bad spot in PvP and WvW, with no meta build at all. This patch didn't change that. Most changes are small and cosmetic or touch parts of Mesmer that are irrelevant. The core problems remain unaddressed. Mesmer has no place in a WvW zerg, its core mechanics (phantasms and clones) are neutralized in a zerg fight. Mesmer also has no meta roaming build. The so called duelist profession gets outmaneuvered, outdamaged and outsustained by other classes roaming builds. Similar to that other classes are better at the job in PvP. Currently the only reason to play Mesmer in any of those scenarios is a sentimental attachment to its play style and optics.

Dear ArenaNet, it's time to turn this ugly maggot of a profession into the pretty butterfly it is supposed to be.

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@Yoci.2481 said:Mesmer has been getting nerfed constantly for over 2 years now. Most people (see poll in the professions section) agree that Mesmer is currently the weakest class in the game. So how did ArenaNet address this? Let's see.

Chronomancer gets IP back: BuffSplit Second damage change: NeutralRewinder cooldown change: NerfTime Sink daze duration reduction: Nerf (although it may increase interrupt opportunity so maybe neutral?)Continuum Split duration change: NeutralContinuum Split distortion removal: NerfMaster of Fragmentation CS duration: NeutralInspiring Distortion: NeutralFlow of Time alacrity duration: NerfSeize the Moment quickness duration: NeutralMind Spike tooltip change: NeutralPhantasmal Swordsman spawns near target: BuffMirage Retreat loses detarget: NerfChaos Vortex target cap change: BuffCrystal Sands: Buff

So in total we have 4 buffs and 5 nerfs. If we split it up by elite specs we get this:Core: 1 Buff 0 NerfsChronomancer: 2 Buffs 3 nerfsMirage: 3 Buffs 1 nerf

So if you play core with sword offhand you get a small buff, but I am not sure it's worth it. We will see. As Chrono you will be happy to get back IP, but you lose some alacrity and very importantly distortion. Also say good bye to F2 spam builds, not that they every really worked in PvP/WvW anyway. Mirage benefited the most on paper, but who really uses Crystal Sands? At least no one uses Mirage Retreat either, so the nerf isn't really felt.

Mesmer was in a really bad spot in PvP and WvW, with no meta build at all. This patch didn't change that. Most changes are small and cosmetic or touch parts of Mesmer that are irrelevant. The core problems remain unaddressed. Mesmer has no place in a WvW zerg, its core mechanics (phantasms and clones) are neutralized in a zerg fight. Mesmer also has no meta roaming build. The so called duelist profession gets outmaneuvered, outdamaged and outsustained by other classes roaming builds. Similar to that other classes are better at the job in PvP. Currently the only reason to play Mesmer in any of those scenarios is a sentimental attachment to its play style and optics.

Dear ArenaNet, it's time to turn this ugly maggot of a profession into the pretty butterfly it is supposed to be.

you look at it poorly.you list addition of IP as buff, and the reduction of F3 daze as a nerf.while in truth you can use yourself to shatter with F3 to interrupt, so its straight up better, similar how you mention losing 1s of disort ends up being F4 nerf, but in reality it never mattered and being able to F4 without a clone is HUGE bonus is some occasionOver all for mirage nothing changes, core nothing changes, and chrono gets huge buffs that make the spec playable, not gr8 but playable.And Im honestly happy they did what they did with chrono, last thing we want is them overbuffing it, from now on we will see how much more buffs it needs to be good,

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despite no changes to mes/mirage in pvp, the patch turned out really badbuff for engis, scourge, guard even warrior will cleanse all condi away with just their healtiny nerfs to ranger and rev not gonna make a difference rather condi rev might just take the dmg oriented traits which were as strong to begin withnerf to leech for dp thief (lol) perhaps the only thing in favor of mes

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@"Yoci.2481" said:Mesmer has been getting nerfed constantly for over 2 years now. Most people (see poll in the professions section) agree that Mesmer is currently the weakest class in the game. So how did ArenaNet address this? Let's see.

Chronomancer gets IP back: BuffSplit Second damage change: NeutralRewinder cooldown change: NerfTime Sink daze duration reduction: Nerf (although it may increase interrupt opportunity so maybe neutral?)Continuum Split duration change: NeutralContinuum Split distortion removal: NerfMaster of Fragmentation CS duration: NeutralInspiring Distortion: NeutralFlow of Time alacrity duration: NerfSeize the Moment quickness duration: NeutralMind Spike tooltip change: NeutralPhantasmal Swordsman spawns near target: BuffMirage Retreat loses detarget: NerfChaos Vortex target cap change: BuffCrystal Sands: Buff

So in total we have 4 buffs and 5 nerfs. If we split it up by elite specs we get this:Core: 1 Buff 0 NerfsChronomancer: 2 Buffs 3 nerfsMirage: 3 Buffs 1 nerf

So if you play core with sword offhand you get a small buff, but I am not sure it's worth it. We will see. As Chrono you will be happy to get back IP, but you lose some alacrity and very importantly distortion. Also say good bye to F2 spam builds, not that they every really worked in PvP/WvW anyway. Mirage benefited the most on paper, but who really uses Crystal Sands? At least no one uses Mirage Retreat either, so the nerf isn't really felt.

Mesmer was in a really bad spot in PvP and WvW, with no meta build at all. This patch didn't change that. Most changes are small and cosmetic or touch parts of Mesmer that are irrelevant. The core problems remain unaddressed. Mesmer has no place in a WvW zerg, its core mechanics (phantasms and clones) are neutralized in a zerg fight. Mesmer also has no meta roaming build. The so called duelist profession gets outmaneuvered, outdamaged and outsustained by other classes roaming builds. Similar to that other classes are better at the job in PvP. Currently the only reason to play Mesmer in any of those scenarios is a sentimental attachment to its play style and optics.

Dear ArenaNet, it's time to turn this ugly maggot of a profession into the pretty butterfly it is supposed to be.

you look at it poorly.you list addition of IP as buff, and the reduction of F3 daze as a nerf.while in truth you can use yourself to shatter with F3 to interrupt, so its straight up better, similar how you mention losing 1s of disort ends up being F4 nerf, but in reality it never mattered and being able to F4 without a clone is HUGE bonus is some occasionOver all for mirage nothing changes, core nothing changes, and chrono gets huge buffs that make the spec playable, not gr8 but playable.And Im honestly happy they did what they did with chrono, last thing we want is them overbuffing it, from now on we will see how much more buffs it needs to be good,

They are two different things, self shatter is one thing which I counted as a buff. The reduction of F3 daze duration is a nerf. You could make the argument that a shorter daze duration might allow for an additional interrupt, if you have your clones lined up perfectly, but in general it's a nerf.

Chrono doesn't get "huge buffs", it gets one Chrono specific buff, self shatter. At the same time it loses F4 distortion completely, gets a big increase in F2 cooldown, which hurts condi Chrono builds a lot, and loses alacrity duration. This will not bring Chrono back into WvW or PvP.

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@"Yoci.2481" said:

They are two different things, self shatter is one thing which I counted as a buff. The reduction of F3 daze duration is a nerf. You could make the argument that a shorter daze duration might allow for an additional interrupt, if you have your clones lined up perfectly, but in general it's a nerf.

Chrono doesn't get "huge buffs", it gets one Chrono specific buff, self shatter. At the same time it loses F4 distortion completely, gets a big increase in F2 cooldown, which hurts condi Chrono builds a lot, and loses alacrity duration. This will not bring Chrono back into WvW or PvP.

Leonidrex wants to point out to you that you can't judge these changes in a vacuum. Is the daze duration of the F3 nerfed? Yes.But the fact that they added back IP makes this patch a net buff for F3.

Because now you can shatter without clones, meaning that the daze is always available for a quick interrupt instead of just being up if you have clones.Same stuff for the other shatters, you can't treat IP as an own entity here, because it affects all your shatters directly. And if you are looking into the shatters before and after the patch, then they are overall buffed, simply because you can dry shatter with them now.

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@"Yoci.2481" said:I said it is a buff, but getting self shatter back is just one buff. I don't count it as 4 buffs, one for each shatter. That would be silly.

Okay, let me rephrase that.

The problem with your comparison here is that you just focus on quantity of the buffs/nerfs, but you completely ignore quality.You are counting IP as "just 1 buff", while all the nerfs for the individual shatters as "3 nerfs".

But effectively, the change with IP is buffing every single of these shatters. The quality of the buff is way better than the quality of the nerfs. If you consider both the IP change and the individual nerfs of the shatters, then every shatter here is buffed in the end. Even if there has just been 1 buff to the class and 3 nerfs in your comparison here, in total chrono is improved.

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@"Trigr.6481" said:Getting something back that we used to have isn't a buff, rather a waste of time and resources that could have actually been put to making mesmer better as a whole, Spvp wise that is.

This.

It's certainly great to see Anet able to change their mind and revert something so big as self shatter removal on Chrono.

But ultimately aside from some minor alterations such as F1 double hit and F4 no more invuln, in the time span of a year the resultant progress on this particular aspect of Chrono has been negligible.

Sure, if the IP reversion had happened a few months (being generous to give a bit of time to let things settle) after it was first removed from Chrono, I would have no problem with it - in fact I would be very happy they are brave enough to test such radical things out and, crucially, swiftly iterate on them - or change them back as in this case.

But it takes so. kitten. long. for these things to happen - an entire year just to say "oh we made a mistake and changing it back again"... I really don't understand.

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@Kodama.6453 said:

@"Yoci.2481" said:I said it is a buff, but getting self shatter back is just one buff. I don't count it as 4 buffs, one for each shatter. That would be silly.

Okay, let me rephrase that.

The problem with your comparison here is that you just focus on
quantity
of the buffs/nerfs, but you completely ignore
quality
.You are counting IP as "just 1 buff", while all the nerfs for the individual shatters as "3 nerfs".

But effectively, the change with IP is buffing every single of these shatters. The quality of the buff is way better than the quality of the nerfs. If you consider both the IP change and the individual nerfs of the shatters, then every shatter here is buffed in the end. Even if there has just been 1 buff to the class and 3 nerfs in your comparison here, in total chrono is improved.

What you are saying doesn't make any sense in my mind. The three shatter nerfs are counted separately because they are in fact three individual changes independent of one another. The loss of IP was never ever counted as 4 (5 really) individual nerfs, it was always counted as one nerf. So logically getting IP back is one buff. One buff that affects four skills, yes, but that could be applied to any buff that affects multiple skills. And we never count them as individual buffs or nerfs. If the great sword trait was changed to give 150 power while equipping a great sword that would be counted as one buff, although it would actually buff any skill that does power damage. That's just the way we always count buffs. I don't understand why in this particular case all of a sudden we should count differently just so that the patch looks better.

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@Yoci.2481 said:

@Yoci.2481 said:I said it is a buff, but getting self shatter back is just one buff. I don't count it as 4 buffs, one for each shatter. That would be silly.

Okay, let me rephrase that.

The problem with your comparison here is that you just focus on
quantity
of the buffs/nerfs, but you completely ignore
quality
.You are counting IP as "just 1 buff", while all the nerfs for the individual shatters as "3 nerfs".

But effectively, the change with IP is buffing every single of these shatters. The quality of the buff is way better than the quality of the nerfs. If you consider both the IP change and the individual nerfs of the shatters, then every shatter here is buffed in the end. Even if there has just been 1 buff to the class and 3 nerfs in your comparison here, in total chrono is improved.

What you are saying doesn't make any sense in my mind. The three shatter nerfs are counted separately because they are in fact three individual changes independent of one another. The loss of IP was never ever counted as 4 (5 really) individual nerfs, it was always counted as one nerf. So logically getting IP back is one buff. One buff that affects four skills, yes, but that could be applied to any buff that affects multiple skills. And we never count them as individual buffs or nerfs. If the great sword trait was changed to give 150 power while equipping a great sword that would be counted as one buff, although it would actually buff any skill that does power damage. That's just the way we always count buffs. I don't understand why in this particular case all of a sudden we should count differently just so that the patch looks better.

Not sure if you actually read what I wrote.

I didn't say that we should count IP as "4 buffs".But that you are not considering the quality of buffs/nerfs in your comparison.

You are comparing just the number of buffs and nerfs in your first post, that chronomancer just got 2 buffs and 3 nerfs.Comparing a balance patch like this doesn't make sense for me, since it isn't just about the actual number of buffs or nerfs, but about how it nets for the class.And like I said, this one buff giving you IP has way more quality than the nerfs in exchange for it, resulting in a net buff for chronomancer.Hence why it doesn't really matter that there have been 2 buffs and 3 nerfs, because in the end it is a buff for chronomancer and improves how the e-spec plays, which has been the goal.

And how I see it, it is the other way around and your comparison makes the patch look worse than it actually is. Because you are just comparing numbers of buffs and nerfs here, without going into detail how that changes chronomancer as a whole. And that number comparison makes it look like this patch did more harm to chronomancer than help it, which is not the case, since these chances are still positively affecting the spec.

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the IP buff was significant in that it was a vitally needed reversal on a previous nerf. It should have been done ages ago or gotten an option for ip attached to a trait somehow. So yes its significant but only really because it never should have been done and was left for a year. Its NOT significant because its a big buff to chrono, chrono just got its other dodge back that never should have been removed, so to speak. ;)

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@Yoci.2481 said:Sure, how do you compare the quality of that? You can create some hypothetical situations but they are completely arbitrary. Find me a metric that does what you ask for.

This seems very disingenuous. If the next patch was lowering the cooldown on five mirage skills by .5 seconds and removing distortion would your next post be 5 buffs/1 nerf?

You don't need their help in coming up with a metric. You have an opinion on a maggot vs a butterfly, you don't need someone else to define the difference between quality and quantity.

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@Yoci.2481 said:Mesmer has been getting nerfed constantly for over 2 years now. Most people (see poll in the professions section) agree that Mesmer is currently the weakest class in the game. So how did ArenaNet address this? Let's see.

Chronomancer gets IP back: BuffSplit Second damage change: NeutralRewinder cooldown change: NerfTime Sink daze duration reduction: Nerf (although it may increase interrupt opportunity so maybe neutral?)Continuum Split duration change: NeutralContinuum Split distortion removal: NerfMaster of Fragmentation CS duration: NeutralInspiring Distortion: NeutralFlow of Time alacrity duration: NerfSeize the Moment quickness duration: NeutralMind Spike tooltip change: NeutralPhantasmal Swordsman spawns near target: BuffMirage Retreat loses detarget: NerfChaos Vortex target cap change: BuffCrystal Sands: Buff

So in total we have 4 buffs and 5 nerfs. If we split it up by elite specs we get this:Core: 1 Buff 0 NerfsChronomancer: 2 Buffs 3 nerfsMirage: 3 Buffs 1 nerf

So if you play core with sword offhand you get a small buff, but I am not sure it's worth it. We will see. As Chrono you will be happy to get back IP, but you lose some alacrity and very importantly distortion. Also say good bye to F2 spam builds, not that they every really worked in PvP/WvW anyway. Mirage benefited the most on paper, but who really uses Crystal Sands? At least no one uses Mirage Retreat either, so the nerf isn't really felt.

Mesmer was in a really bad spot in PvP and WvW, with no meta build at all. This patch didn't change that. Most changes are small and cosmetic or touch parts of Mesmer that are irrelevant. The core problems remain unaddressed. Mesmer has no place in a WvW zerg, its core mechanics (phantasms and clones) are neutralized in a zerg fight. Mesmer also has no meta roaming build. The so called duelist profession gets outmaneuvered, outdamaged and outsustained by other classes roaming builds. Similar to that other classes are better at the job in PvP. Currently the only reason to play Mesmer in any of those scenarios is a sentimental attachment to its play style and optics.

Dear ArenaNet, it's time to turn this ugly maggot of a profession into the pretty butterfly it is supposed to be.

wow this was well said!

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@Daniel Handler.4816 said:

@Yoci.2481 said:Sure, how do you compare the quality of that? You can create some hypothetical situations but they are completely arbitrary. Find me a metric that does what you ask for.

This seems very disingenuous. If the next patch was lowering the cooldown on five mirage skills by .5 seconds and removing distortion would your next post be 5 buffs/1 nerf?

You don't need their help in coming up with a metric. You have an opinion on a maggot vs a butterfly, you don't need someone else to define the difference between quality and quantity.

If the next patch did that then yes, that's how I would count it. That's how it has always been counted.

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@Yoci.2481 said:

@Yoci.2481 said:Sure, how do you compare the quality of that? You can create some hypothetical situations but they are completely arbitrary. Find me a metric that does what you ask for.

This seems very disingenuous. If the next patch was lowering the cooldown on five mirage skills by .5 seconds and removing distortion would your next post be 5 buffs/1 nerf?

You don't need their help in coming up with a metric. You have an opinion on a maggot vs a butterfly, you don't need someone else to define the difference between quality and quantity.

If the next patch did that then yes, that's how I would count it. That's how it has always been counted.

Unless it's the OP of this thread where it doesn't matter how many changes there were because qualitatively they were small or irrelevant?

Mesmer was in a really bad spot in PvP and WvW, with no meta build at all. This patch didn't change that. Most changes are small and cosmetic or touch parts of Mesmer that are irrelevant

Come on. You understand what people are talking about.

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IlLuSiOnArY pErSoNa iS bAcK,

F1 gOt A 33% dMg BuFf,

F2 iS nOw BeTtEr bEcAuSe oF IP

yOu CaN nOw F3 tHe EnEmY aGaIn,

ChRoNo hAs pLeNtY oF tHiNgS tO dEfEnD hImSeLf

-

After one week I would love to see all these hard hitting power builds everyone talked about. Sick Split Second and his +33% dmg...

The IP revert should not even considered a buff for real. It’s like removing the healskill from a class and giving it back, who even calls that a damn buff. Core and Mirage can do the things above too without a balance patch to allow it again

We came to a point where the idea of something is now considered a buff not the results

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