Balance Issues that Must Be Addressed Next Patch

While many people are distressed that a balance patch did not come out sooner, many haven't really made any constructive remarks on what specifically should be changed.

I'm going to try to detail some of the specific mechanics of meta builds that we see all the time that lead to a meta that is uninteractive, that has very little counterplay or skill involved.

Mesmer

The meta mirage build specifically involves combining two skills with no animation, jaunt and shatters (clones are good animations, but often the illusionary persona is good enough) to do most of its pressure. Putting some torch burns on top of this combo can do near 1 shots on persons without condi cleanse. The issue is not that they have 1 shot burst potential or that they have enough constant pressure to bait out condi cleanses. It is that most of this has no animation for a class that also has another great mechanic of the mirage cloak.

So what is the fix for this? Traited torch burns could be lowered from a potential of 7-8 to like 5-6. Landing big burst combos should be rewarding still, but not to the level they are especially when mesmer has access to so many and so constant of cover condis. The internal cd between using stocks of jaunt (not the stock recharge) can be raised and remove 1 stack of confusion from it so that it is used more as a utility skill than a constant burst.

Engineer - The main problem of interactivity with engineer is the timing of the damage tied to their dodge roll traits. If you compare holosmith to every other dodging trait in the game (daredevil, strength warrior, arcane ele) their effects happen some time after the initial dodge animation. Holo's damage dodge trait happens immediately as they dodge, and can add up to around 8k damage if the positioning is right for the other trait. For one of the highest damaging dodges in the game, it has too little counterplay. Either put the damage component at the end of the dodge (but showing an animation at the beginning of the dodge) or lower the damage done significantly. I prefer changing the timing of the dodge because this allows you to pressure a holo by standing on top of them and then moving in the direction opposite of the way they dodge to avoid the damage. Also possibly make the mines that drop from the explosives trait dodge take half a second to deploy fully.

Necromancer

Scourge has tons of corrupts on top of its insane damage output. I think that their damage should remain somewhat the same since they are significantly squishier than reaper (and I would propose some nerfs to firebrand which enables scourge to be so strong). That being said, one of the major problems with scourge is that corruptions are much stronger than boon rip because the conditions they apply are very powerful. I would tone down the durations of ALL conditions that are applied by corrupted boons, this is also more in line with the condition duration nerf a few patches ago, that didn't address corrupts.

Also scourge has very little animation on their F skills. I like that there are combos for necro enabled because they are instant cast, but perhaps give less reward for spamming the shade skills at once. A 2 or 3 second ICD on dhuumfire and the torment applied by shade skills would promote using shade skills for both their supportive AND their damaging aspects rather than just spamming them all at once when you are sure that they will hit. This also wouldn't reduce the potential overall damage scourges do, it would just promote more interactive play by making the scourge think about what skill they use at the time, and allow the opponent some time to decide whether they can handle the pressure instead of being overloaded all at once.

Guardian

Firebrand is by far the best support build to ever exist. Combined with scourge it is the most effective 2v2 comp, and by itself it provides the most for a pure support role. It makes outnumbered situations survivable with the amount of condi cleanse and defensive boon uptime, which greatly reduces the viability of any dps class that doesnt provide tons of damage and corrupts or boon removal. The only counterplays to firebrand plus a scourge (note that firebrand is not very good without scourge because it doesnt have enough killing power and vice versa scourges don't have enough survivability) seem to be: play three point comp and rotate around it and make it be in awkward situations where it needs to kill things (but is obviously unable to help much in that regard), focus it with multiple dps classes, or just play firebrand scourge yourself. The first method requires a massive outplay rotationally and a strategy of "completely avoid this person" which is very uninteractive. The second method is extremely risky for little reward because it means outnumbering with a support class or bringing an inferior 2v2 comp to try to beat a scourge firebrand, and the third is not very fun or interactive for the 4 people forced into the 2v2 as fb scourge vs fb scourge. So how do we overturn the firebrand + scourge combo without making both of the classes terrible individually? Give scourge some more defense and less offense and give firebrand more offense and less defense. Out of all my changes proposed this is the one i'm least confident about. I don't really agree with lowering scourge damage that much or making firebrands be more of a bruiser role. However the issue is that firebrand scourge is not very fun and interactive to play, but will exist because it is the best. So somehow make it not the best or make it more fun to play as and against.

Thief

The main meta counter for thieves right now is the S/D core build which can deal with a lot of situations, much moreso than D/P daredevil. However it also seems to be the best plus 1 against necros and guards. A lot of this is due to the pure output of larcenous strike when in an outnumbering situation. The 7k crits while also being unblockable and boon ripping create very easy and thoughtless decisions. Of course there is much more counter play to larcenous strike than all of the other classes mentioned above, however precasting flanking strike and then stealing into larcenous still exists for bursts of 5 boon rip plus 9k damage. This is backstab levels of damage on a much more spammable kit. I would nerf it by about 8% both against booned and boonless targets. Otherwise thief is fine.

Ranger

Druid is without a doubt the best 1v1 class in the game right now. This is due to it having so much sustain from celestial avatar and troll unguent's ability to bridge the gap between each other. This is all fine because druid needs to have a niche for it to be viable, however there should be a way to counter play their sustain and finish them. As it is now, they have stealth on leaving CA and when landing a longbow attack (current meta build for 1v1s on druid uses long bow and sword, staff doesn't pressure current 1v1 matchups hard enough but certainly makes them much harder to kill) There is arguably no way a competent ranger who rotates through their stealth and sustain CDs appropriately should die. Even in 1v2s the ranger can stealth and reset while wasting time for the outnumber. The solution to this i think is to put a much longer cast time on the longbow 3 which stealths them. As it is now it has barely any cast time or animation so there's no way to prevent them from getting into stealth, then when they are in stealth they can freely cast all of their other sustain skills and get their sustain engine running. Also troll unguent should have a longer cast time to make it more interuptable. These changes should keep ranger in its top spot of 1v1er, but make it much easier to stun lock, disrupt, and plus 1 to actually kill.

Elementalist

Weaver is in somewhat of a questionable spot with no real role. It doesn't 1v1 better than druid, but it also doesn't do more damage than a holo in a skirmishing role, and doesn't provide that much sustain to its team. The meta is much too role-defined for a jack of all trades class to work well. However, with the mentioned nerfs to other classes it should be in a better spot. I don't think ele really needs any buffs specifically. Tempest could use some buffs to close the distance between it and firebrand in a sustain role. Stability and resistance is one thing that firebrands have that make them above tempests in support. Let tempests have something that guardians don't. Auras do not do much in the way of supporting other than the healing they give. One possibility is to make tempest a more aggressive support and make auras (just add this baseline in one of the tempest minor traits) increase the offensive stats of players as well. For example, 150 power and precision and condition damage while under your auras or might has an increased effect while under your auras. I'm really terrible at weaver so i won't propose any buffs specifically, but I'm sure someone else who wants weaver to be balanced and not overpowered can propose some.

However, the sword weaver's sustain build with healing power has similarly uninteractive gameplay to a ranger. It of course has less pressure and less kiting abitlity, but it could become a really strong bruiser with constant pressure and on- node-aoe. My only change would be to reduce the amount of healing that the sword 2 in water does, which heals them for a lot more than I think is necessary to sustain 1v1s, but heals them enough to survive outnumbered situations they shouldn't survive.

Revenant

Marauders herald is really good at pressuring firebrands, but really bad at surviving scourges. The changes to offhand sword were good but there needs to be more self sustain for a class that requires to be melee to mid range for most of its damage. Compared to other classes, it has very low condition cleanse. I would improve the conditions cleansed by the invoking legend swap from 1 to 2, then increase the cast time of staff 4 so you can get your cleanse when you need it and not take too much extra pressure while trying to cleanse. Otherwise, no other buffs should be necessary if the above nerfs are made.

Warrior

Pretty balanced imo. high dps that allows it to be one of the only counters to druid in 1v1, but lacks the presence of a holo or rev in larger fights. I wouldn't change anything.

I'd make guardian tomes into 3 elite skills, like they used to be. Giving them 15 extra buttons to faceroll is too much and makes them too versatile. Make them decide between damage, healing and damage mitigation. Bam you have build diversity and a more balanced spec. Oh and take away the mantra elite obviously.

For scourge, shade skills shouldn't be usable in a stunlock.

@witcher.3197 said:I'd make guardian tomes into 3 elite skills, like they used to be. Giving them 15 extra buttons to faceroll is too much and makes them too versatile. Make them decide between damage, healing and damage mitigation. Bam you have build diversity and a more balanced spec. Oh and take away the mantra elite obviously.

For scourge, shade skills shouldn't be usable in a stunlock.

I'm no fan of Firebrand, but this would end up with them being further down the dumpster than DH currently is.

@Vallun.2071 said:

Revenant

Marauders herald is really good at pressuring firebrands

Playing with all pve traits and berzerker amulet, landing a full rotation into a FB won't drop them below 50%. Nobody top 250 plays rev as squish as me generally.

Balance team doesn't read this forum or so the devs said.

Pistol whip initiative cost needs to double.

Lmfao at @"Loop.8106" saying DH is in dump. Traps at their current potency still one of the easiest, cheesiest mechanics in game. DH is the only class I have tried and also succeeded in creating a spec in under 5 min that afforded me wins at legend... In season 1. When they were "bad" lmfao

@"Vallun.2071" said:While many people are distressed that a balance patch did not come out sooner, many haven't really made any constructive remarks on what specifically should be changed.

I'm going to try to detail some of the specific mechanics of meta builds that we see all the time that lead to a meta that is uninteractive, that has very little counterplay or skill involved.

Mesmer

The meta mirage build specifically involves combining two skills with no animation, jaunt and shatters (clones are good animations, but often the illusionary persona is good enough) to do most of its pressure. Putting some torch burns on top of this combo can do near 1 shots on persons without condi cleanse. The issue is not that they have 1 shot burst potential or that they have enough constant pressure to bait out condi cleanses. It is that most of this has no animation for a class that also has another great mechanic of the mirage cloak.

So what is the fix for this? Traited torch burns could be lowered from a potential of 7-8 to like 5-6. Landing big burst combos should be rewarding still, but not to the level they are especially when mesmer has access to so many and so constant of cover condis. The internal cd between using stocks of jaunt (not the stock recharge) can be raised and remove 1 stack of confusion from it so that it is used more as a utility skill than a constant burst.

Engineer - The main problem of interactivity with engineer is the timing of the damage tied to their dodge roll traits. If you compare holosmith to every other dodging trait in the game (daredevil, strength warrior, arcane ele) their effects happen some time after the initial dodge animation. Holo's damage dodge trait happens immediately as they dodge, and can add up to around 8k damage if the positioning is right for the other trait. For one of the highest damaging dodges in the game, it has too little counterplay. Either put the damage component at the end of the dodge (but showing an animation at the beginning of the dodge) or lower the damage done significantly. I prefer changing the timing of the dodge because this allows you to pressure a holo by standing on top of them and then moving in the direction opposite of the way they dodge to avoid the damage. Also possibly make the mines that drop from the explosives trait dodge take half a second to deploy fully.

Necromancer

Scourge has tons of corrupts on top of its insane damage output. I think that their damage should remain somewhat the same since they are significantly squishier than reaper (and I would propose some nerfs to firebrand which enables scourge to be so strong). That being said, one of the major problems with scourge is that corruptions are much stronger than boon rip because the conditions they apply are very powerful. I would tone down the durations of ALL conditions that are applied by corrupted boons, this is also more in line with the condition duration nerf a few patches ago, that didn't address corrupts.

Also scourge has very little animation on their F skills. I like that there are combos for necro enabled because they are instant cast, but perhaps give less reward for spamming the shade skills at once. A 2 or 3 second ICD on dhuumfire and the torment applied by shade skills would promote using shade skills for both their supportive AND their damaging aspects rather than just spamming them all at once when you are sure that they will hit. This also wouldn't reduce the potential overall damage scourges do, it would just promote more interactive play by making the scourge think about what skill they use at the time, and allow the opponent some time to decide whether they can handle the pressure instead of being overloaded all at once.

Guardian

Firebrand is by far the best support build to ever exist. Combined with scourge it is the most effective 2v2 comp, and by itself it provides the most for a pure support role. It makes outnumbered situations survivable with the amount of condi cleanse and defensive boon uptime, which greatly reduces the viability of any dps class that doesnt provide tons of damage and corrupts or boon removal. The only counterplays to firebrand plus a scourge (note that firebrand is not very good without scourge because it doesnt have enough killing power and vice versa scourges don't have enough survivability) seem to be: play three point comp and rotate around it and make it be in awkward situations where it needs to kill things (but is obviously unable to help much in that regard), focus it with multiple dps classes, or just play firebrand scourge yourself. The first method requires a massive outplay rotationally and a strategy of "completely avoid this person" which is very uninteractive. The second method is extremely risky for little reward because it means outnumbering with a support class or bringing an inferior 2v2 comp to try to beat a scourge firebrand, and the third is not very fun or interactive for the 4 people forced into the 2v2 as fb scourge vs fb scourge. So how do we overturn the firebrand + scourge combo without making both of the classes terrible individually? Give scourge some more defense and less offense and give firebrand more offense and less defense. Out of all my changes proposed this is the one i'm least confident about. I don't really agree with lowering scourge damage that much or making firebrands be more of a bruiser role. However the issue is that firebrand scourge is not very fun and interactive to play, but will exist because it is the best. So somehow make it not the best or make it more fun to play as and against.

Thief

The main meta counter for thieves right now is the S/D core build which can deal with a lot of situations, much moreso than D/P daredevil. However it also seems to be the best plus 1 against necros and guards. A lot of this is due to the pure output of larcenous strike when in an outnumbering situation. The 7k crits while also being unblockable and boon ripping create very easy and thoughtless decisions. Of course there is much more counter play to larcenous strike than all of the other classes mentioned above, however precasting flanking strike and then stealing into larcenous still exists for bursts of 5 boon rip plus 9k damage. This is backstab levels of damage on a much more spammable kit. I would nerf it by about 8% both against booned and boonless targets. Otherwise thief is fine.

Ranger

Druid is without a doubt the best 1v1 class in the game right now. This is due to it having so much sustain from celestial avatar and troll unguent's ability to bridge the gap between each other. This is all fine because druid needs to have a niche for it to be viable, however there should be a way to counter play their sustain and finish them. As it is now, they have stealth on leaving CA and when landing a longbow attack (current meta build for 1v1s on druid uses long bow and sword, staff doesn't pressure current 1v1 matchups hard enough but certainly makes them much harder to kill) There is arguably no way a competent ranger who rotates through their stealth and sustain CDs appropriately should die. Even in 1v2s the ranger can stealth and reset while wasting time for the outnumber. The solution to this i think is to put a much longer cast time on the longbow 3 which stealths them. As it is now it has barely any cast time or animation so there's no way to prevent them from getting into stealth, then when they are in stealth they can freely cast all of their other sustain skills and get their sustain engine running. Also troll unguent should have a longer cast time to make it more interuptable. These changes should keep ranger in its top spot of 1v1er, but make it much easier to stun lock, disrupt, and plus 1 to actually kill.

Elementalist

Weaver is in somewhat of a questionable spot with no real role. It doesn't 1v1 better than druid, but it also doesn't do more damage than a holo in a skirmishing role, and doesn't provide that much sustain to its team. The meta is much too role-defined for a jack of all trades class to work well. However, with the mentioned nerfs to other classes it should be in a better spot. I don't think ele really needs any buffs specifically. Tempest could use some buffs to close the distance between it and firebrand in a sustain role. Stability and resistance is one thing that firebrands have that make them above tempests in support. Let tempests have something that guardians don't. Auras do not do much in the way of supporting other than the healing they give. One possibility is to make tempest a more aggressive support and make auras (just add this baseline in one of the tempest minor traits) increase the offensive stats of players as well. For example, 150 power and precision and condition damage while under your auras or might has an increased effect while under your auras. I'm really terrible at weaver so i won't propose any buffs specifically, but I'm sure someone else who wants weaver to be balanced and not overpowered can propose some.

However, the sword weaver's sustain build with healing power has similarly uninteractive gameplay to a ranger. It of course has less pressure and less kiting abitlity, but it could become a really strong bruiser with constant pressure and on- node-aoe. My only change would be to reduce the amount of healing that the sword 2 in water does, which heals them for a lot more than I think is necessary to sustain 1v1s, but heals them enough to survive outnumbered situations they shouldn't survive.

Revenant

Marauders herald is really good at pressuring firebrands, but really bad at surviving scourges. The changes to offhand sword were good but there needs to be more self sustain for a class that requires to be melee to mid range for most of its damage. Compared to other classes, it has very low condition cleanse. I would improve the conditions cleansed by the invoking legend swap from 1 to 2, then increase the cast time of staff 4 so you can get your cleanse when you need it and not take too much extra pressure while trying to cleanse. Otherwise, no other buffs should be necessary if the above nerfs are made.

Warrior

Pretty balanced imo. high dps that allows it to be one of the only counters to druid in 1v1, but lacks the presence of a holo or rev in larger fights. I wouldn't change anything.

Good changes i agree. Btw.. u meant to DECREASE the cast time on staff 4 rev. Not increase cast time. Ijs inb4 anet increases cast time lol

People been saying this about the last couple patches. I sadly don’t know if Anet cares or has the ability to make good changes

not bad changes.

however increasing cast time on longbow 3 will hurt core and soulbeast builds. no need for that. longbow 3 is nowhere near op on these 2 specs.

A nerf to S/D thief

LOL no.

If you get hit by a flanking strike you can expect a Steal+LS. LS has a very long and identifiable tell.

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:

Revenant

Marauders herald is really good at pressuring firebrands

God you must really be clueless. S/P is one of the weakest thief builds, it doesnt need nerfing and DH really is trash because it doesnt win 1v1s vs any meta 1v1ers (mirage, druid, spellbreaker) and is terrible for getting kills in team fights where there is tons of sustain. Rev's issue is entirely survivability not damage. I never had issues killing a firebrand 2v1 or 1v1. Your rev is literally a meme, and nobody else plays rev. I'm talking about meta changes not meme changes. sorry if this came off as a surprise to you.

You'd be surprised how close balance is if they just address godlike support - Firebrand - and godlike 1v1 - Mesmer. Everything else would pretty much fall in line with a bit tweaking here and there. You can't have one class being so much better than the rest in support or 1v1...otherwise it throws the whole game out of whack and makes things seem worse than they are.

Put it to you this way...if all matches excluded Firebrands and Mesmers, would you notice a huge imbalance in the game? The answer is no. It would still need tweaking, but the two main things impacting who wins would be gone. Scourge would be average. Weaver's would be viable in support. Engies may even become the most OP.Beastmaters and Rev's may still need love. However, the overall experience would be more based on skill versus who has a firebrand and who has a mesmer for roaming.

I think the real takeaway from this thread is that deadeye is still awful. :P.

One comment on the ranger side of things: longbow #3 often does miss and its a projectile so I dont really think its that OP. Longer casting time on TU is ok.

Great post Vallun. I think I agree with most of what you said, but I'm going to try to add more to it.

Mesmer - I agreed with everything you said about mesmer. It does need a nerf on its bursts (as do most meta classes right now), but I think that on top of that, mirage is way too good at surviving considering it has a portal as well. Having insane mobility is just part of what mirage is and I don't think it should be touched, besides giving a bit of cd increase to jaunt like you suggested. The breakstun on dodge is what makes it broken, in my opinion. No class should be able to never get punished by cc, specially when it's a class that has access to blink, jaunt, distort and portal to escape cc focused bursts. It's not a fun mechanic and there is little counterplay to this.TLDR: Needs a nerf on the ICD of jaunt and confusion stacks. Breakstun on dodge is too strong.

Engineer - Again, I agreed with everything you said here and the suggestion is really good too. But honestly, I think that Holo just does too much dmg overall and it needs a flat nerf. I was going to say that this dmg on dodge mechanic is just bad and should be removed from the game, but core warrior has the same and it never felt as broken to me, somehow. Your suggestion is better though.TLDR: Does too much dmg, needs a dmg nerf and a change to the dodge trait.

Necromancer - I agreed with most of what you said here, but not completely. I think that scourge, on its own, is "balanced". But this balance of dmg vs vulnerability to cc and dmg is not healthy for the game. I think it deserves a flat nerf on its dmg somehow. Can't be too big though, obviously, because it's kind of the only thing it does at the moment. But this point depends more on the sustain capability that comes from firebrand.
I don't agree with the part where you say that all conditions that come from corrupt should be decreased. I think that most of them are fine, with the exception of might -> weakness and swiftness -> cripple. Obviously everyone hates weakness. It can get stacked to insane durations combined with the last trait from curses. I think that the duration should be nerfed from 10s to 5s or maybe even 3s because it's a very common boon and you shouldn't be able to stack perma weakness on players. It's just not fun. I mention swiftness -> cripple as well, because I think that 10s is a bit too much too even though it's not as annoying of a condition as weakness, but it can serve as condi cover and be annoying sometimes when rotating between points after you disengage from a fight. Can be too big of a punishment sometimes and it just feels unfair and uncalled for. Not as big, but I would suggest nerfing it down to 5s as well. I agree with the suggestion about 3s ICD on manifest shade. No skill should feel rewarding for just being spammed. It won't do anything to good necro players but I think it's more healthy for the game regardless. I would like to add that having no cast time on all F skills is dumb. There should be counterplay to everything and scourge shouldn't be an exception. The fear being instant cast is fine in my opinion and so are the barriers because scourge has no defensive tools, so I think those are probably fair. It's the f2 that needs changing. A casting time on it like 0,5s with a clear animation is very much needed in my opinion. On top of these, I think the F3 (the small barrier) should also give 2 stacks of stability. It's just too easy to cc a scourge and with a cast time on the F2, this would be needed. I suggest this because I feel like the barrier feels mostly useless at the moment. It gives a low ammount of barrier and it's by far the least efficient F skill of scourge. By giving it 1-2 stacks of stability for 1-2s, it would promote more interactive play like you talked about. I know firebrand gives a lot of stability, but that should be a separate issue because scourge by itself can be unfun sometimes considering it's so easy to just focus a scourge in a team fight with cc (again, I'm not considering firebrand in this situation. I know that firebrand is capable of giving the scourge a lot of stability to make up for this weakness of scourge and I think it does indeed generate way too much stability but it's firebrand that needs a nerf, not scourge).TLDR: Overall toxic balance for the game. Needs a dmg nerf, changes to some corrupted boons and a few skills, while buffing the survivability on the form of stability. Will be nerfed even harder, by nerfing firebrand which is overtuned.

Firebrand - I think this class is probably the most broken out of all at the moment and the real reason behind scourge feeling super broken. I agree with most of what you said, but I don't agree with what you said about firebrand and scourge being weaker without eachother. I think that in a healthy meta, firebrand is an incredible bunker and team fight support regardless of scourge or no scourge, despite this combo being overpowered at the moment. The same can be said about scourge being strong by itself too sometimes without a firebrand, in a matchup where you have a support and the other side doesn't. I agree with the part about giving more defense to scourge, while nerfing its dmg (but not too much of neither of these), while giving fireband more offense and nerfing some of its sustain and utility. The balance of these two are very much connected to eachother. And if you touch one, you will impact the other one indirectly but heavily. I'm not quite sure in what ways firebrand should be nerfed, but I think that the ammount of stability it can put out is one of the biggest deals because firebrand can sometimes melt quite quickly if you focus it with cc (without breakstun/stability available).TDLR: Both its sustain and utility is a bit too high. Needs a nerf. Affects indirectly the scourge, but heavily.

Thief - I think that the S/D meta build is broken. Maybe not exactly overpowered, just a bit, but it feels like it doesn't promote a lot of interactive play with the double steal. It's too powerful of a skill and you should be punished for missing it considering how easy it is to land it most of the time. I agree with the dmg nerf because it feels too versatile at the moment, while at the same time being capable of doing so much dmg in a team fight. I think that thief shouldn't be able to team fight at all or have such a strong +1 on a team fight while maintaining the insane mobility it has. It's unbalanced and it makes thief stupidly powerful, in my opinion.TLDR: S/D is too strong. Needs a dmg nerf and on efficiency in killing firebrand because it shouldn't be able to perform better than other classes in a team fight scenario. Firebrand would need to get nerfed as well to make this relevant, though.

Ranger - I think that longow as a weapon isn't really that strong and it probably needs no adjustments. It has no mobility, just the stealth. Take that away and longbow becomes useless. However, I agree on the stealth from druid being too strong. I think what needs to changed, is the sustain with troll unguent being a bit too strong, it needs a slight nerf. But giving it a longer cast time is not the way to go, I think. Just reducing the ammount it heals is better, or removing the annoying slow it procs, or even both. As I said, the stealthing needs adjustment. It makes druid really easy to survive with when you start kiting off point. It's the traits that should be touched. Celestial Shadow should be given a ICD of 25s-30s to promote interactive play, instead of being part of a braindead rotation. Also, a long time ago anet nerfed the Verdant Etching trait for no good reason, in my opinion. They should buff this trait back to cleansing 2 conditions on glyph, because druid was way more interactive and fun to play with/against with gylphs than with signets, so giving it a buff could make for some more interesting builds.TLDR: Survivability is too strong at the moment and needs a slight nerf.

Elementalist -Tempest. It needs a lot to be able to compete with firebrand. It should be given sustain that is capable of competing with the firebrand's, but without making it equal. It would be fun to have tempest be a support like firebrand, but with more offensive capability and less defensive. I think most of its skills need a dmg buff, even if just a slight buff. On top of that, comparing to firebrand, it's much easier to focus and kill a tempest than it is to a firebrand. Tempest needs a buff to its survival ever since they removed cleric's from the game (in my opinion, it's just always been the best healbot so it stayed meta, until firebrand appeared and it just completely killed tempest's viability). Firebrand is already considered kind of weak to power dmg, while tempest is infinitely much more vulnerable to power dmg which also kills the offensive capability of tempest being that you are forced to just kite so much to barely be able to survive. It deserves some innate stability on overload for example and a buff on the protection uptime to deal with power dmg better. I'm not sure how exactly I would change tempest, basing on what I said, but I think this is what tempest needs.Sword weaver (not going to talk about fresh air weaver much, but I think this class is broken in an anoying way without being competitive. Too easy to kill, while doing too much dmg). I feel like this class needs a lot of changes to become viable in a healthy way to the game. I think that its sustain is too big, while being a bit too squishy. Giving weaver a tool to decrease dmg taken in the form of protection or decreased dmg taken in other forms while nerfing its sustain would be a good start. Then, yuo would need to address both the utility and dps of weaver. It deals too little dps and it offers little utility. When you're in a 2v2 or any team fight you don't have much to offer for the team, which would be fine if weaver was truly a jack of all trades. But at the moment, it feels like it's more a jack of none. I disagree with Vallun in the way that a jack of all trades wouldn't work well in this meta. I think that it could replace druid in a meta comp or any side holder, if it were to be viable, but it probably wouldn't be easy to do. It needs mostly a dmg buff, but not only.TLDR: Tempest should get buffed to be like a counterpart to firebrand in a way of being a more offensive support, with less sustain opposed to firebrand with more sustain and defensive capability (but needs a nerf obviously). Needs dmg buff on weapon skills, sustain and a bit on defensive capability.Weaver needs a lot of changes to become viable. Becoming unkillable is not what it needs to be viable, but it needs more dmg and utility.

Revenant - I agree with what you said here. With the ammount of condis generated from mirage and scourge it should be better at dealing with condis somehow. I wouldn't say sustain is the real issue with revenant, though, because I think it has a pretty good sustain for what should be considered balanced.TLDR: Revenant is mostly fine. Needs to be able to deal with condis better, considering the current popular builds.

Warrior - I agree with most of what you said about warrior. It's probably one of the most balanced classes right now, but I wouldn't consider it balanced compared to the other ridiculous meta classes. It probably requires no changes if others are brought down in line with spellbreaker, otherwise it needs buffs on its surviving capabilities by a bit because it's not a hard hitting class, unlike holo, mirage, sd thief, f/a weaver, scourge or even revenant. So it would be fair to at least be able to maintain its high survivability, which is lacking a bit right now.TDLR: Probably the closest class to being balanced. Probably needs a bit of a buff in the survivability, because that's what it's supposed to excel in, in my opinion, compared to other classes who can do more dmg.

Longbow 3 isn't affect by terrain as much as other class skills (a single blade of grass will block a deadeye shot for example). What I find troublesome with the rangers is the shear length of their invulnerability. I'd trim that slightly.

As for necros... it's a bit of a mindless faceroll on the keyboard at the moment. Perhaps add some casting times to some of the instants, and cut the duration of some of the conditions a bit. Thrown with firebrand this is gamebreaking currently

Thieves: Deadeye is useless. Use core thief for better results... daredevil builds are ok too. Friends don't let friends deadeye, in any game mode.

Warrior- oddly for once the class closest to balanced... with nerfs on other classes this will only need slight modifications in damage/sustain but nothing heavy handed

Revenant- I've seen like 2 in PvP...in months. In WvW they seem to be doing ok, but in PvP I just don't see them so can't comment on them.

Elementalist- the rain lightning thing needs toned down like 50%. An aoe one shot kill currently

holosmith- they need a bit of balancing between damage output vs sustainability... tone down the invuln duration, dial back a bit of the damage. Also, treat a ranged attack as a ranged attack rather than melee.

Mesmer- increase casting times and/or reduce duration of evades and invulns... too often I'm seeing mesmers that can be in a state of invuln/evade with no casting times, no tells... for an insane amount of time. Longer than a thief running shadow arts can hold stealth with all the skills being a stealth skill (which is a pretty long time).

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:

Revenant

Marauders herald is really good at pressuring firebrands

Seriously? You think pistol whip needs to cost 10 initiative? Thieves already have some of the highest effective cooldowns because they get one bar of initiative. Trickery is a mandatory traitline more so than any thief elite spec in part because it gives a little more initiative. Having pistol whip cost 10 initiative would be akin to having one weapon skill on another class put all other weapons skills on both sets of weapons on cooldown for several seconds. Not quite, but close to it.

If anything they need to make the initiative increase on trickery baseline and reevaluate how expensive some skills are in relation to initiative. Pistol whip is not a problem. If you are having problems with sword pistol thieves, then sword dagger thieves and dagger pistol thieves must be able to just looks at you and you die.

"I think that thief shouldn't be able to team fight at all or have such a strong +1 on a team fight while maintaining the insane mobility it has."

This goes against the ENTIRE concept for thief. They are squishy as hell, but highly mobile. They plus one fights, and cap/decap. A still thief is a dead thief. One half decent glancing blow and the thief is no longer a problem.

@Vallun.2071 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:

Revenant

Marauders herald is really good at pressuring firebrands

Sustain doesn't matter VS a class that has AOE damage spikes as high as DH. You just need to know when to spike and kills are guaranteed.

Rev has the issue of sustain, because outside of the newly given sword #4 it has no reliable spike, especially in team fights. It's not supposed to be a sustain class and it was that way from the beginning. The damage has just been nerfed and made easy enough to avoid (melee attacks that don't cleave) that it can be so easily counter played. I farmed you guys too much and Devs didn't like it.

Pistol whip needs initiative cost doubled.

@Majirah.5089 said:

. If you are having problems with sword pistol thieves, then sword dagger thieves and dagger pistol thieves must be able to just looks at you and you die.

Yeah pretty much. That's best way to play rev. It's just as squishy as thief with less mobility and less burst and less utility.

You gotta be joking man. Rev squishier and less utility than thief?

@Vallun.2071 said:You gotta be joking man. Rev squishier and less utility than thief?

Yeah what makes it tankier? Heavy armor lol? Or the heal that can be completely outplayed?

I think this is a nice write up so far and i want to add some thoughts.

Mirage:Another thing that adds to mirages strength is The trait Elusive Mind. The ability to break stun on every dodge is too good leaves mesmers unpunished too often. I suggest changing the stunbreak to the removal of a movement impairing condition.

Firebrand and Tempest:Right now FB does everything better than tempest and i am all for defining individual strengths and weaknesses. My suggestion is to reduce the healing of Firebrands, so that its support comes even more from damage mitigation via Aegis, Resistance a.s.o.. On the other hand, define Tempest as the stronger healer, that in turn leaves the group and himself a little more vulnerable. Plus support tempest needs access to stab, that i see as mandatory. I sadly cannot give more specific skill or trait recommendations to these classes.

Druid:Signet of Stone is a skill that makes druid so strong to survive in many situations. Either reduce the duration or increase the cooldown of it so it creates nore windows of beeing vulnerable.

Scourge:Shades need a casting time with animation. Period. Only then it will offer play and counterplay. Together with nerfs to boon corruption and Firebrands support Scourge will be in a much better spot then now.

Rev is not squishier... just didn't get the same treatment most the other classes got for POF roll out. Rev is like a thief and a guardian had a child when played correctly, just in current meta it got the short...short...short end of the stick.

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:You gotta be joking man. Rev squishier and less utility than thief?

Thieves cant even go near a team fight without instantly being CC and condi bombed. Revs can go inside team fights much longer especially with support they can make use of their life steal. Not sure what ur issue is, like not using the meta build or you're only 1v1ing, but just watch a good rev twitch.tv/jonasdon1

@Meridian.9103 said:I think this is a nice write up so far and i want to add some thoughts.

Mirage:Another thing that adds to mirages strength is The trait Elusive Mind. The ability to break stun on every dodge is too good leaves mesmers unpunished too often. I suggest changing the stunbreak to the removal of a movement impairing condition.

May even want to give mirage cloak the same treatment as daredevil dash: If you break a stun with this trait then you lose endurance regeneration for so and so time.

@Vallun.2071 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:You gotta be joking man. Rev squishier and less utility than thief?

1. Why you link me to a rev's twitch YOU know I'm better than lol?

2. Thief is more susceptible to being cc'd or condi bombed than rev with all the escapes it has lol?

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:

@JayAction.9056 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:

Revenant

Marauders herald is really good at pressuring firebrands

@Majirah.5089 said:

. If you are having problems with sword pistol thieves, then sword dagger thieves and dagger pistol thieves must be able to just looks at you and you die.

I can’t take you seriously if you honestly think pistol whips initiative cost needs doubled. How about we make shackling wave cost 80 energy? That basically saying the same thing.