The next balance patch priorities should be:

HIGH PRIORITY

• Nerf mirage condition burst. Reduce the ability to cover confusion with other conditions. Nerf Elusive Mind.
• Reduce firebrand support capabilities since the spec is overshadowing every other support.
• Scourge corruption should be reduced. Sand shade skills needs an animation - no more insta casts with no tells please. Increase the support capabilities and survivability of the spec.
• Reduce slightly holosmith damage. Remove the passive Elixir S from traits, or increase the cooldown of the trait. Damage via dodges while under the effect of elixir S should not be possible.
• Buff revenant condi cleanses in general. Rework renegade and make this spec competitive in pvp, reduce energy costs, increase survivability. Ventari rev support needs to be brought on par with firebrand and tempest.
• Deadeye needs more group utility. Also incentivize the melee playstyle and add some survivability.
• Buff weaver sword damage and increase the survivability of the spec through blocks/barriers/damage reduction. It needs a more defined role - right now it's an almost good 1v1 spec but other 1v1 classes can offer something more like mesmer-portal / warrior-boonrip / druid-heals&stealth.
• Reduce druid self-sustain and increase the AoE support potential to bring it on par with firebrand and tempest.
• Rework soulbeast beastmode skills/mechanic and give a role to this spec in pvp.
• Warrior role/efficency outside spellbreaker (core and berserker) needs to be improved.
• Conditions needs to be revisited around application/duration/damage where needed. Power creep in general needs to be toned down, including massive healing and mobility aswell.

I will continue to edit the main post based on community opinions. If you do not agree with what I wrote, try to be as precise as possible in order to change/ add more details to the main post. :)Clearly the balance team doesn't know what do to. The next balance patch is crucial and will determine if pvp will die completely in this game, so let's help them :)

January balance patch is our only hope.

@kappa.2036 said:

• Nerf mirage burst damage (both condi and power).

Quaggan would rather target Elusive Mind and condi burst, mostly ability to cover confusion with other conditions.

@kappa.2036 said:

• Nerf firebrand support. Longer cooldowns on tome skills, less healing in general.

Which tome skills?

@kappa.2036 said:

• Nerf scourge damage. Sand shade skills needs an animation - no more insta casts with no tells please. Increase the support capabilities and survivability of the spec.

Quaggan agrees.

@kappa.2036 said:

• Nerf holosmith damage. Remove the passive Elixir S from traits, or increase the cooldown of the trait. Damage via dodges while under the effect of elixir S should not be possible.

Quaggan would simply target dodge damage.

@kappa.2036 said:

• Buff revenant condi cleanses in general. Rework renegade and make this spec competitive in pvp, reduce energy costs, increase survivability.

Which condi cleanses? If you mean Ventari, then Quaggan could agree.

@kappa.2036 said:

• Reduce deadeye rifle damage by a ton. The sniper mechanic is something that simply doesn't work in a conquest game, so incentivize the melee playstyle and add some survivability.

Quaggan could agree to reworking deadeye. They could make it unrivaled DPS, something like moba ad carry.

@kappa.2036 said:

• Buff weaver damage and increase the survivability of the spec. It needs a more defined role - right now it's an almost good 1v1 spec but other 1v1 classes can offer something more like mesmer-portal / warrior-boonrip / druid-heals&stealth.

In Quaggan opinion they need to adress some issues with Ele trait lines, not just Weaver.

• Reduce druid self-sustain and increase the AoE support potential.

Quaggan could agree if they would rework Soulbeast*

• Rework soulbeast beastmode skills/mechanic and give a role to this spec in pvp.

*Soulbeast should be sidenode monkey instead of Druid, while Druid could be same kind of support as Firebrand/Tempest.It's pretty easy to buff Soulbeast self sustain by reducing Jaracanda Beastmode CDs and making him this way viable side node fighter.

Reduce deadeye rifle damage ? Oo You must be playing another game then , dead eye rifle damage sucks big time.

Also asking for nerfing druids , if all things equal they should buff other healers like they did with firebrand and they should continue with reve heals and auramancer. Game has too much burst damage already are you serious.

For scourge it doesn't do that much now its the scourge - firebrand combo mostly. Only thing I agree is the mirage 30 stacks that needs a big nerf.

@kappa.2036 said:

• Reduce deadeye rifle damage by a ton. The sniper mechanic is something that simply doesn't work in a conquest game, so incentivize the melee playstyle and add some survivability.

You better be trolling partner. Deadeye just got some horribly needed buffs, and is still 'struggling' according to the thief sub-threads.

Lol why touch thieves they fine man, feels like this post is loaded with salt.Please leave mirages alone my class is fine mirage burst windows are just like power shatter mesmers minus the out right dying from power, Mirage power is far more deadly then mirage condition.

Weavers do indeed need buffs i tried to get good with one i really tried i couldn't get anywhere so i quit it:/I don't know how to feel about FB's and druids they are bunkers and they should be good at bunkering i don't think any bunker should be soloable, i reserve my opinion has further changes come in, mainly because i feel like the current posturing Anets doing is to tone down the overall damage across the board in all damage types eventually if a bunker meta comes out of its ashes damage has gone to low that much i can say.

As far as soulbeast goes id argue to leave it alone for now. It has a role. Its just not the same roll druid fills. Soulbeast is a DAMNED good +1er for both small scale and team fights. It can also help its team extremely well against condition heavy groups when set up right. its a burst spec. Both in its support and in its offense.

The main issue with soulbeast right now is that quite frankly its harder to play than druid. And more punishing when you fail. But I would argue it has a significantly higher skill cap in return for that. Druids are the kings of side node fighting and prolonged 1v1s. But id argue soulbeast is better at quite literally everything else.

Another is that soulbeast does not have a 1 size fits all build. Which is GOOD. Druid you can get away with one setup in 99% of fights. Soulbeast you need to know what your fighting and swap skills/traits accordingly. Again this is GOOD. I wish druid was the same way.

There are some that want pets to be swap-able in beast mode. But I would argue that this would push the already good soulbeasts well into the realm of overpowered. The only way to compensate for this would be putting caps on damage output in some cases. Lowering the damage of worldly impact and maul for example. Which I feel would backfire in the long run. Im not arguing to balance it for the top 3%. But just to keep in mind what its overall potential is currently.

I do believe druids disengage is too strong at the moment. Especially when combined with terrain hopping. But this can be dealt with with rotations and proper setups. There are skills that you can take to shut down druids that most people simply don't bother with because most of pvp doesnt encourage you to change your build even slightly on the fly. People prefer one size fits all builds. Which is a problem when suddenly the build stops working because said players do not know how to react. Part of the reason I hate how everyone immediately goes for the "meta build". They have hard time adapting.

Weaver damage needs to be a bit higher on sword. I dont want to see scepter focus get more damage increases however. I do believe however ele needs less punishing disengage. Lightning Flash using the ammunition system would be interesting to atleast try I think. Possibly for a SLIGHTLY reduced maximum range.

Deadeye rifle currently needs high damage due to the complete lack of utility it offers for the team. Its hard for a deadeye to benefit from team buffing for example. and it is very easy to pressure a deadeye off of a fight if someone is paying attention. Yes being hit by it is devastating. It should be. Any reduction in damage should be met by an increase in utility. The sniper playstyle absolutely works in conquest. I use it all the time to significant effect. Though I am on soulbeast the basic concept behind it remains the same.

Renegade is interesting. I almost wish the summoned spirits slowly follow the target you set. "Chasing them" and making it easier for people meleeing that target instead of being position based. Something like liadri's shadows minus the oneshot obviously.

Holosmith damage I don't feel needs nurfs. It hits hard yes. But the spec is quite vulnerable to counterpressure. And its biggest attack basically says "HEY DUDE MAUL ME THEN DODGE" The dodge roll mines piss me off. But there a big part of whats keeping them competitive. Any nerfs there would have to be compensated or risk teh spec falling out.

Scourge damage is fine now. Their burst is massively lowered. And they still heavily punish anyone carelessly meleeing them. This is partly where that so called "sniper style that doesnt work in pvp" comes in. I never melee a scourge when hes at full health. I have no problem letting him decap the point while I rip through his barrier and health from1600 range away. he will either chase you or leave the point. Every time you step back on it he either has to let you progress on the recap or attempt to reengage you. Keep a fight against a scourge on your terms.

As far as firebrand support goes I no longer have an issue with it. I find killing firebrands perfectly feasable. Especially when pressuring his team at the same time. Its not hard to make a firebrand choose between saving his friends and himself. Especially if you cc his group apart so he has to choose who to heal.

Mirage burst is broken in its current form. I have no problem with confusion being a burst condition. But if its going to be then the duration needs to be lowered. But that risks adding too MUCH counterplay to the spec. If all you have to do to avoid damage is not do anything for 2 seconds. Thats a problem. Nerfs to confusion would need to be with additions of other conditions. Such as bleed so that they still have stable killing power. Its just not the "OH MY FUCKING GOD 25 stacks of confusion and popping condi cleanse just caused it to tick and kill me!" or "Well he nuked my down body and I rallied but there was 25 stacks of confusion on me so I just instantly died again when I tried to get them off". Those are the parts I find silly. Not the burst itself. Burst specs SHOULD hurt.

To address the people questioning the reduction on thief rifle damage: It's a good idea. You reduce the damage of the rifle (14k bursts are not okay, damage overall needs a reduction in this game and rifle on DE is no exception) and then buff what can actually make the spec work: The utility. Rifle and DE in general has very lackluster utility (Rifle's escape is unreliable and initiative heavy) which prevents it from being usable in competitive play as any other damage spec will have enough utility to farm it without much trouble.

Regarding deadeye: Pretty much what Ario said.Regarding soulbeast: the spec IS NOT fine. Anyone who thinks this spec is fine at competitive teamplay probably is playing on a different level of game.

soulbeast is fine it belongs in balanced category to compete with the scourgew and mirage it has to be upsacled to power creep level which as a soulbeast player i dont want to

Soulbeast would not be able to compete even in a meta without scourge or mirage lol

Ooo, except Soulbeast IS better against Mirage and Scrouge than Druid, because your stance is like 6 second lasting Consume Conditions, you get additional condi cleanse with small heal with 20 CD on Jaracanda and you get bigger heal with resistance on longer 40 CD and you still can cleanse yourself with survival skills (QZ and LR)...

Why should they buff weaver damage? From my experience it is pretty high.As far as mirage goes, damage wouldn't be as much of issue if it mirage didn't have so many tools to "troll" enemy. Reduce access to confusion? Sure. But I really think they should focus on EM and evades first if anything.

Fix skill 4-5 on Weaver, remove the cooldown when attuning to the same elements.

@kappa.2036 said:HIGH PRIORITY

• Nerf mirage burst damage (both condi and power).The epic confusion stacking has to be nerfed. I'd reduce sword ambush range slightly as well. Elusive Mind is overpowered, throw in an ICD but only on stun if possible. Without EM, there is no proper condi removal for mirage = dead.

I'm highly surprised that you highlighted power as a problem though (I'm playing power mesmer as well). For decent damage you survive incredible amount of survavibility and it requires a lot of skill to be properly competitive. I think I have seen 3 power mesmers in total this season (110+ games, platinum div). It is playable, fun, but on on the highest levels even if you are incredibly good at it.

• Nerf firebrand support. Longer cooldowns on tome skills, less healing in general.Agree, but not to the ground. Slight modifications and then it's fine.
• Nerf scourge damage. Sand shade skills needs an animation - no more insta casts with no tells please. Increase the support capabilities and survivability of the spec.I think the survivability is fine as it is right now especially with the barrier changes, but honestly I haven't touched it for a while.Damage is acceptable, the incredible boonstrip should be reduced imo (basically that's the trigger for outrageous damage)
• Nerf holosmith damage. Remove the passive Elixir S from traits, or increase the cooldown of the trait. Damage via dodges while under the effect of elixir S should not be possible.Tricky. If the passive Elixir S is removed then all other invis on proc skills have to be removed as well. The damage is holosmith looks slightly over the top, but still managable.
• Buff revenant condi cleanses in general. Rework renegade and make this spec competitive in pvp, reduce energy costs, increase survivability.Agree with the condi cleanse part.
• Reduce deadeye rifle damage by a ton. The sniper mechanic is something that simply doesn't work in a conquest game, so incentivize the melee playstyle and add some survivability.I don't see a problem with that. Gimmicky build, but you don't have to actually nerf the rifle damage. Buffs for others, maybe.
• Buff weaver sword damage and increase the survivability of the spec. It needs a more defined role - right now it's an almost good 1v1 spec but other 1v1 classes can offer something more like mesmer-portal / warrior-boonrip / druid-heals&stealth.No. It has got great damage potential (maybe it's not sword? IDK honestly)

@"Cynz.9437" said:Why should they buff weaver damage? From my experience it is pretty high.As far as mirage goes, damage wouldn't be as much of issue if it mirage didn't have so many tools to "troll" enemy. Reduce access to confusion? Sure. But I really think they should focus on EM and evades first if anything.

I re-edited the post. I meant SWORD damage specifically.

@Morwath.9817 said:Ooo, except Soulbeast IS better against Mirage and Scrouge than Druid, because your stance is like 6 second lasting Consume Conditions, you get additional condi cleanse with small heal with 20 CD on Jaracanda and you get bigger heal with resistance on longer 40 CD and you still can cleanse yourself with survival skills (QZ and LR)...

Good luck at casting Spiritual Reprieve against any decent player. Anyway, a good mirage will never die to a soulbeast. Scourge is food for rangers in general. If you are telling me that soulbeast is better than druid at killing scourge i can agree with you, sb can pump out more damage (i have no problems at beating scourges with druid aswell), but in organized games scourges are always supported by firebrands which completely nullifies a pewpew soulbeast.

I can't wrap my ahead around how people still complain about DE, in Conquest anyway. It doesn't work. I've seen maybe 2 in the past month around Gold3/Plat 1 (which should still be low enough to allow meme-builds) and they got decimated. There's nothing that build can do against a decent Thief of any other build or a Mesmer with a keyboard plugged in, absolutely nothing at all, and how often do you play games without at least one Mirage on one team?

@kappa.2036 said:Good luck at casting Spiritual Reprieve against any decent player. Anyway, a good mirage will never die to a soulbeast. Scourge is food for rangers in general. If you are telling me that soulbeast is better than druid at killing scourge i can agree with you, sb can pump out more damage (i have no problems at beating scourges with druid aswell), but in organized games scourges are always supported by firebrands which completely nullifies a pewpew soulbeast.

Ooo,

• Good Mirage will never die in 1v1 as it has too many tools to exit unfavoured combat, e.g. portal;
• You cast Spiritual Reprieve with Quickening Zephyr, same way as you burst heal as Druid, or Dolyak Stance if you play it;
• Quaggan wasn't thinking about pewpew, but side node build as pewpew Rangers never were good in any kind of competitive play.

How about just disable Mirage/Scourge/Firebrand for an entire season so people decide to learn something else?

I will continue to edit the main post based on community opinions. If you do not agree with what I wrote, try to be as precise as possible in order to change/ add more details to the main post. :)

I could get behind removing the burst as it currently exists from Deadeye Rifle, but it would need some big reworks to the other skills to offer utility, CC, and strong sustained damage. Standing could be shorter range than pistols, but with more sustained damage and evasive skills, while instead of entirely rooting, kneeling could be a -66% change to movement speed. Death's Judgement could be cut down to 1.5 multiplier base, +10% damage per malice stack(2.25@5 and 2.55@7) with a 0.5 second daze, 1.5 seconds quickness and slow with a +20% duration to both per stack of malice to make the burst more like a bullet time attack, extending the burst over DJ+Auto Attacks rather than loading it all into DJ.

I want to emphasize that as compensation for lowering the burst, both offensive and defensive sustain would need to be increased.

Significantly reduce boon corruption. Nothing else matters if this is not addressed.

@Maugetarr.6823 said:I could get behind removing the burst as it currently exists from Deadeye Rifle, but it would need some big reworks to the other skills to offer utility, CC, and strong sustained damage. Standing could be shorter range than pistols, but with more sustained damage and evasive skills, while instead of entirely rooting, kneeling could be a -66% change to movement speed. Death's Judgement could be cut down to 1.5 multiplier base, +10% damage per malice stack(2.25@5 and 2.55@7) with a 0.5 second daze, 1.5 seconds quickness and slow with a +20% duration to both per stack of malice to make the burst more like a bullet time attack, extending the burst over DJ+Auto Attacks rather than loading it all into DJ.

I want to emphasize that as compensation for lowering the burst, both offensive and defensive sustain would need to be increased.

The problem with this approach is it made too close to other weaponsets. The suggestion of "adding more utility" is simply too vague. What utility? if the utility added akin to that of d/p why play one over the other?

Weaponsets should play very differently. While Rifle still needs a bit of work , that we give up mobility for that ROOT does not mean it a bad thing. If it made more evasive and having more mobility then we are just playing another s/d with range. We have evasive sets in s/p ,d/p ,DrD specs ,s/d and even d/d condi. I personally like the concept of OK you give up a bit of that mobility and evasiveness with the RIFLE (Albeit i think Deaths retreat should be 1 ini less) but in return you will pack a punch at range , easily avoided punch but a punch that will hurt.

IF damage lowered on DJ then the main change they have to make to that skill is making it have LESS in the way of tells. It will also mean more damage to AA and again in game terms begins to play out very much like another weaponset which will lead to "I took 10k damage in a split second with no warning" type complainst over "I took 20k in damage from a single DJ" complaints.

If utility added then IMO it can not be a duplicate of the utility that we get out of d/p or weaponst X/X. It has to be unique to the set meaning Daze not so great an idea or more CC as we have that covered with headshot and all our immobs. (P/x 2 s/x 2) When I look at "utility" I am looking for stuff that would be unique to rifle such as things like "Grappling shot" whrerein you can pull an enemy off point or adding AOE reveal to spotters shot. I am not saying these examples should be the utility one adds, I am merely using examples of utility that might give more reasons to use this set.

In summary , I personally support Rifle more in form and function as it currently exists over making it into a knockoff of what other weapons provided with added range. I am not suggesting that you are advocating such either but simply pointing out that when a weapons utility or play works too much like another sets utility or gameplay , the result will be to always use the one which does those things best.

I agree mirage condi burst needs to be gutted, but I don't see where you're coming from with power.

Unlike condi power is predictable, has to deal with passive procs, and stability. Moreover, unlike condi it doesn't have the exceptional sustained 1v1 potential and needs to reset after a burst.

@tartarus.1082 said:I agree mirage condi burst needs to be gutted, but I don't see where you're coming from with power.

Unlike condi power is predictable, has to deal with passive procs, and stability. Moreover, unlike condi it doesn't have the exceptional sustained 1v1 potential and needs to reset after a burst.

I disagree!!! . I main a mesmer & i'm not the only one that can say that the way it was set up before tickle targets unless you followed the usual 1 meta build. Mesmer can not down a good player in short time no matter what. Unless playing that old & tired GS power build. For mesmers for once, confusion in pvp is up to par & offers a few new builds other then just GS Click click shatter F1. & i'm not sorry to say but you all need to stop making your glassy builds with out any real condi cleanse. I see it all the time lately. You all want it EZ & to 1-3 sec kill your target but can't cuz of the sustain. Meaning you actually got to skill kill the mesmer & since you havent set up any condi cleans you die from all the stacks of confusion cuz your spamming what ever you can. You all need to actually play smart & fix your build in consequence. You'l be surprised on how less of a problem mirage can be.

@Vieux P.1238 said:

@tartarus.1082 said:I agree mirage condi burst needs to be gutted, but I don't see where you're coming from with power.

Unlike condi power is predictable, has to deal with passive procs, and stability. Moreover, unlike condi it doesn't have the exceptional sustained 1v1 potential and needs to reset after a burst.

I main a Mesmer to lmao and mirage condi can easily burst down players with condi and can daze lock any cleanse skills to maintain the ticks. Moreover even after bursting mirage still has enough cds to reapply and can disengage with its numerous defensive cds.

Moreover condi burst was around before pof, except it took effort to set up a killshot moa burst that could still be outplayed. So idk why you're acting like condi Mesmer has been some marginalized spec and not a dominant meta pick for the last 4 or so seasons.

Mirage can do way more damage than a condi chrono, with a fraction of the effort and a variety of survival cool downs.

Moreover, thiefs mobility is constantly cited as a reason for why it is a subpar 1v1 spec. Why should mirage have similar mobility with just as much 1v1 potential.

Also literally everyone uses cleanse when they can. However there are specs that legit can't spec for burst cleanse like revanent.

At this point in time everything is over performing and is in some form of extreme. Mirage has top tier damage and mobility with a variety of defensive cds, making them a highly mobile duelist. Firebrand has extreme sustain. Scourge at the very least is toxic design that shouldn't have been implemented.