12/12/17 balance changes

how ya'll feel about the changes made?**Engineer*** Excessive Energy: This trait's functionality has been changed to now cause vigor on you to grant a 10% damage increase.

• Blunderbuss: Reduced the bleeding stacks inflicted at each tier by 1. Increased the duration of bleeding from 5 seconds to 7 seconds at all tiers.
• Retreating Grapple: Bleeding inflicted has been adjusted from 3 stacks for 6 seconds to 2 stacks for 10 seconds.
• Throw Junk: Bleeding has been adjusted from 2 stacks for 3 seconds to 1 stack for 6 seconds.
• Incendiary Ammo: Burning has been adjusted from 2 stacks for 3 seconds to 1 stack for 6 seconds.
• Incendiary Powder: Burning duration has been adjusted from 2 stacks for 4 seconds to 1 stack for 8 seconds.
• Rocket Kick: Burning duration has been adjusted from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 8 seconds.
• Chemical Field: Poison stacks have been adjusted from 2 stacks for 4 seconds to 1 stack for 8 seconds.
• Crystal Configuration: Zepyhr: Fixed a bug in which this trait failed to remove all instances of the listed conditions.
• Heavy Armor Exploit: This trait has been renamed Sanguine Array and now grants might when you inflict bleeding.
• High Caliber: Increased the range threshold of this trait from 240 to 300, and increased the chance to inflict critical strikes from 10% to 15% against foes within the range threshold.
• No Scope: Increased the range threshold of this trait from 240 to 300. Reduced the internal cooldown of this trait from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. Fury now grants 150 ferocity.

I can't understand what they want to say with the Excessive Energy one.

@Ardid.7203 said:I can't understand what they want to say with the Excessive Energy one.

Now we don't have to waste dodges for more dps?

@Ardid.7203 said:I can't understand what they want to say with the Excessive Energy one.

ya i'm at a lost.... @Chaith.8256 some insight?

So we win the 10% when? Whenever we have vigor?

Maybe I'm over complicating it but I thought it was a simple 10% damage boost when you have vigor.

Can anyone confirm No Scope gives the Ferocity in addition to base 20% crit chance from Fury?

man they buffed firearms and i really like it . i ll try a build with rifle holosmith with firearmes mid mid bot. do you see how good you can run sanguine array with inciadery power?

It means you no longer have to dodge to keep up damage bonus. They did the same to Warrior in the strength traitline with Stick and Move.

Also, someone requested confirmation about No Scope; it does increase fero in addition to +20% crit chance.

Me reading patch notes "oh cool Tools might be worth usi-- and Firearms got Ferocity"

@Ardid.7203 said:I can't understand what they want to say with the Excessive Energy one.

They are saying play holo. You enter the Forge [Optimized Activation] procs and [Excessive Energy] helps you burst.

My obtuse loyalty to firearms feels so good now.

@"AngelsShadow.7360" said:It means you no longer have to dodge to keep up damage bonus. They did the same to Warrior in the strength traitline with Stick and Move.

Also, someone requested confirmation about No Scope; it does increase fero in addition to +20% crit chance.

It's also 180 Ferocity instead of the 150 the patch notes say.

Overall I like these changes a ton and feel like they listened to some of the suggestions we put here and in Reddit. Tools is a much better traitline now and just misses (imo) some condi interaction to put vanilla Condi engi back in the menu.

Really, I'm just upset that I've wasted my time explaining the value of the August change to Excessive Energy only for them to do this 4 months later.

@Ardid.7203 said:So we win the 10% when? Whenever we have vigor?

That's what it reads like to me. So if you're using the meta condi engi build, you won't need to burn dodges to get that 10% as long as you're using your toolbelt skills.

Most groups should have decently high vigour uptime anyway, so I woudln't worry about it too much.

Im quite pleased with the firearms traits

@"AngelsShadow.7360" said:Most groups should have decently high vigour uptime anyway, so I woudln't worry about it too much.

I'm a noob, but what group buffs give high uptime vigor?

@Moress.5609 said:

@"AngelsShadow.7360" said:Most groups should have decently high vigour uptime anyway, so I woudln't worry about it too much.

traited sun spirit on ranger/druid and auras on elementalist.

@Moress.5609 said:

@"AngelsShadow.7360" said:Most groups should have decently high vigour uptime anyway, so I woudln't worry about it too much.

Add Mesmer boonshare "if" the rotation is adjusted accordingly (which is maybe an idea after the recent grp distortion nerf)

Nice buff on firearms. I guess moslty for Holo. But in the end of the day not that dramatic of a change. Have not tried on the golem but doing a few fractal runs also the condi changes just affect the burst and in bosses with health the damage seems pretty identical...So i guess they got that part right.

The only buff Holo got was +5% crit chance and the extra ferocity from No Scope. (which competes with pinpoint, so if you have a condi comp you're likely expected to bring that instead) Holo doesn't bring Tools anymore so the +10% dmg with vigor is pretty much irrelevant. It'll buff condi engi, but that's about it.

@Vrita.7846 said:The only buff Holo got was +5% crit chance and the extra ferocity from No Scope. (which competes with pinpoint, so if you have a condi comp you're likely expected to bring that instead) Holo doesn't bring Tools anymore so the +10% dmg with vigor is pretty much irrelevant. It'll buff condi engi, but that's about it.

Not really, the build has no access to Vigor whatsoever, (the vigor provided by the minor trait is irrelevant due to its low duration) and vigor is defenitely not a buff that support players care about sharing, might, fury, quickness, swiftness, are buffs that its totally normally to think as essential to give, vigor?, well, they will think that it's nice nice if they apply few of it randomly, but only few each who knows when.

@Ivantreil.3092 said:

@Vrita.7846 said:The only buff Holo got was +5% crit chance and the extra ferocity from No Scope. (which competes with pinpoint, so if you have a condi comp you're likely expected to bring that instead) Holo doesn't bring Tools anymore so the +10% dmg with vigor is pretty much irrelevant. It'll buff condi engi, but that's about it.

I don't really PvE, but yeah, Vigor is a little hard to come by. Sun Spirit will give like 50% uptime of Vigor, 1.5s every 3s or so, Optimized Activation can probably get you some uptime too. It probably beats dodging randomly for some people

@Chaith.8256 said:

@Ivantreil.3092 said:

@Vrita.7846 said:The only buff Holo got was +5% crit chance and the extra ferocity from No Scope. (which competes with pinpoint, so if you have a condi comp you're likely expected to bring that instead) Holo doesn't bring Tools anymore so the +10% dmg with vigor is pretty much irrelevant. It'll buff condi engi, but that's about it.

I do agree that this Change to Excessive energy is an upgrade comapred to the annoying need of dodging all the time, its a step to the right direction, that said, we need a way to make this 10% buff last a relevant amount of time, we have a trait dedicated to vigor, but it's locked in alchemy, a trait line that provides no offensive utilities... (something that it's completely essential in pve) hopefully something will come up, or someone will figure it out a way to make it workout.

@Ivantreil.3092 said:

@Vrita.7846 said:The only buff Holo got was +5% crit chance and the extra ferocity from No Scope. (which competes with pinpoint, so if you have a condi comp you're likely expected to bring that instead) Holo doesn't bring Tools anymore so the +10% dmg with vigor is pretty much irrelevant. It'll buff condi engi, but that's about it.

In group play every raid squad/fractal consolidated group has access to near perma vigor thanks to traited sun spirit + signet of inspiration. Other than that yeah, being alone will give you a very small uptime.