WvW Patch notes Feb 6th 2018

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/27216/game-update-notes-february-6-2018

Booster changes...

Strength Boosters, Armor Boosters, Rejuvenation Boosters, and Speed Boosters no longer work in WvW.Celebration Boosters and Birthday Boosters now grant a 10% bonus to WvW reward-track progress.Sink/Float: The speed at which sink and float move vertically has been reduced by 50%.

Support credit increased...

Kill credit and loot for support-oriented players has been low, and we want to reward players for assisting their allies, so the shared credit contributions are going up by a solid amount.You still need to tag an enemy for the bonus support credit to come into play; standing around passively granting boons is not gameplay that ought to be rewarded, but this will offer a larger opportunity to weave support-oriented skills into group combat situations and get rewarded for it.Increased the support credit given to players by 50% for granting boons, cleansing conditions, healing, and reviving.

Boon/condition changes.. more immobilize incoming...

Boons and ConditionsIn this update, we are converting the alacrity enhancement into a boon. For more information, see our official forum post from last week called "Alacrity: Time for a Change."Alacrity: Alacrity is now a boon. The recharge-speed bonus has been reduced from 33% to 25%.Regeneration: Regeneration now uses the greatest healing regeneration to immediately heal you rather than going by each regeneration stack's duration or order of application.Confusion: Heavily reweighted damage from this condition's base damage-over-time component to the damage-on-skill-use component. The condition-damage contribution has been removed from the damage-over-time component and redistributed into the damage-on-skill-use component. This condition remains split between PvE and PvP/WvW.Boon and Condition Conversion: With the addition of alacrity to the boon system, the tables have also been updated for skills and traits that convert conditions to boons, and vice versa. > The conditions inflicted when a boon is converted have been reduced in several cases where they were found to be too strong.Alacrity now converts to 3 seconds of chill.Resistance now converts to 2 seconds of immobilize.Chill now converts to 3 seconds of alacrity.Immobilize now converts to 2 seconds of resistance.Protection: Reduced the vulnerability inflicted from 3 stacks for 10 seconds to 3 stacks for 8 seconds when this boon is converted into a condition.Regeneration: Reduced the poison inflicted from 1 stack for 10 seconds to 1 stack for 6 seconds when this boon is converted into a condition.Might: Reduced the weakness inflicted from 10 seconds to 5 seconds when this boon is converted into a condition.Vigor: Reduced the bleeding inflicted from 3 stacks for 10 seconds to 2 stacks for 8 seconds when this boon is converted into a condition.

Long list of profession changes, too long to repost.

World vs. WorldTestimonies of Heroics have been added to regional and Living World reward tracks.Removed the no-gliding zone near Pangloss Rise.Endless Awakened Archer Tonics now work in WvW.

PvP/WvW changes in a nutshell

• Mirage got a significant nerf to condi from confusion which gutted a decent amount of damage (appears to not be op anymore)
• Rev got buff but seems like it still needs more to make it viable in PvP/WvW.
• Ele slight buff/balance.
• Ranger slight buff/balance.
• Guardian slight nerf as far I can see + balance.
• Spell Breaker's only nerf really is winds removes buffs .5s slower now. Damage boost in PvE and some in pvp/wvw
• Scourge gets .5s shade predictability and slight cripple/torment, but nothing major.
• Engi/holo got buffed.
• Thief/DE got a PvE buff.

Indomitable Courage: Fixed a bug that could prevent Tome of Courage from gaining stun break while in WvW

Nerfing the only skill that made SBKR viable in WVW? Awful.

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

• Guardian slight nerf as far I can see + balance.

Have fun getting rekt.

Funny how they nerf guardian... Scourge is the problem here not guardian.

No changes to 1 shot builds.no changes to invul/invis.no changes to OP mobility of mesm and thiefs.

they nerfed scourge, but People will still complain about scourge.

they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

@Zero.3871 said:No changes to 1 shot builds.no changes to invul/invis.no changes to OP mobility of mesm and thiefs.

they nerfed scourge, but People will still complain about scourge.

they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

Scourge wasnt really nerfed :p

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

@Zero.3871 said:No changes to 1 shot builds.no changes to invul/invis.no changes to OP mobility of mesm and thiefs.

they nerfed scourge, but People will still complain about scourge.

they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

What? Scourges most powerful condi cleanse 70% nerfed, also scourge corrupts now only half of condis of what it used to and if it does the duration is a lot lower and with lower stacks. It also got some sort of delay after casting on all shroud skills now.

@Adenin.5973 said:

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

@Zero.3871 said:No changes to 1 shot builds.no changes to invul/invis.no changes to OP mobility of mesm and thiefs.

they nerfed scourge, but People will still complain about scourge.

they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

Which appears to be more of a tweak. Not a hammer.

@Zero.3871 said:No changes to 1 shot builds.no changes to invul/invis.no changes to OP mobility of mesm and thiefs.

they nerfed scourge, but People will still complain about scourge.

they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

The philosophy behind scrapper probably could have been applied to reaper at least...RIP.

Unlisted patch note.

"Update will crash all WvW players every few mins".

Brutal.

@Adenin.5973 said:

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:

@Zero.3871 said:No changes to 1 shot builds.no changes to invul/invis.no changes to OP mobility of mesm and thiefs.

they nerfed scourge, but People will still complain about scourge.

they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

Power scourge untouched basically

@Klipso.8653 said:Indomitable Courage: Fixed a bug that could prevent Tome of Courage from gaining stun break while in WvW

Yep, I was pretty happy about this one.

You're all welcome, by the way.

Those Ranger changes are basically nothing, Soulbeast is not a viable contribution to a zerg. They will continue to be used best as pick and will still be outshined by Druids.Those scourge changes kind of hurt individual scourges worsening further their viability as a roaming spec, but in large scale fights where every third player is a scourge I doubt the difference will be noticed.

~ Kovu

They made changes to underwater combat???

Everything is fixed.

I love that when people complain about mobility, they forget to mention warrior and engineer.Hell, I AM a mesmer, and can't catch them most of the time.

Edit: even I forgot to mention druid.

Eh. Mobility is a strange beast, due to it synergizing well with stealth and ranged potential.

In my experience Mesmer is going to excel at kiting-based mobility who's goal is to avoid damage whilst dishing out attacks due to a decent number of teleports and stealth options, but if the warrior's only goal is to run away (and its built for it, as most are) it'll probably be able to ditch a Mesmer, and anything else not a thief or pew pew staff druid.

In my view dd > thief > mesmer = druid > warrior > soulbeast > engineer.

That said, everything depends on cooldowns -- and thieves have the most leeway in that department thanks to initiative. That's why they reset so often, their shit will be up again before their opponent's. The flipside of the coin is that they explode when you breathe on them. Shouldn't be an issue for a shatter mes, those fuckers blow up my 20k necro.

~ Kovu

edit- To clarify, these are my personal feelings based on about 3-4k hours of wvw roaming and a few hundred hours of spvp ranging from silver to platinum.

What? Scourges most powerful condi cleanse 70% nerfed, also scourge corrupts now only half of condis of what it used to and if it does the duration is a lot lower and with lower stacks. It also got some sort of delay after casting on all shroud skills now.

It was a tweak with a searing vice grip. It seems the pendulum is swinging away from condition to power. I’m primarily a WvW player and condition damage was an interesting mechanic. If you could apply it and were trained for it, it was powerful. Unless of course it got cleansed, which was the rule more than the exception. So condition damage could be in the 5 figures on a single skill application, but you’d never approach that damage because of the ubiquitous condition cleansing. For the necromancer to lose their only effective condition cleanse in a sea of condition spamming is ludicrous, especially in a class that isn’t particularly mobile or otherwise survivable now that they nerfed the classic shroud. Does Anet believe that the answer is to outheal the conditions damage with vampiric embrace?

Simply put anet throws darts on the board and asks the players to connect the lines. Then they all retreat to have a nice beer and laugh at the pieces.

The WvW stuff looks good, I'm still going through the balance changes.

Warrior

• So bubble got a slight nerf, 1 sec boonrip instead of every 1/2 sec, about time. Gives people more time to get out of it.
• Greatsword autos are maybe actually worth doing now which makes sense considering it is supposed to be damage weapon
• 3% damage buff during swiftness on meta build, Thats practically 100 more power, pretty cool.

Firebrand

• Resistance field only pulses 3 times now which is a big nerf.
• Resistance turns into immob, making resistance field more liability..
• Courage tome 1 wont apply aegis anymore..... Removing lot of firebrand healing capabilities on courage tome.
• Resolve tome heals less in general, but it was mostly used for cleanse anyways. Regen priority change might make up for it.
• F3 breaks stuns now on virtues, making virtues way better traitline than valor for firebrand. Pretty good.
• Mantra of liberation recharge is 25 seconds now, I already thought renewed focus was great for renewing books. Now that F3 breaks stuns, RF will be most likely meta again.
• Still the strongest support, strongest skills (resi field, elite mantra, 1 on courage tome, resolve tome skills) got nerfed but f3 breaks stuns now.

Scourge

• All shade skills have 0,5 sec indicator before they happen, too much of a visual clutter, might actually be buff to scourges in high numbers but reduces 1v1 potential in places like SM lord room.
• F2 and f3 skills have 2 sec longer cd now and f2 will remove 1 less condition/boon when traited.
• Punishment skills will apply shorter duration of torment and cripple. Not big of a change in WvW meta, will make scourge spam worse in roaming-scale fights.
• Still most likely strongest spec because damage and corrupt potential is still relatively high.

Ele, thief, ranger

• No changes for WvW really.

Engi

• Minesweeper will keep its mines now and mines have 1 sec arm time. Might actually be buff for largescale fights because the mines are pretty much guaranteed to hit max targets against large zergs now.
• Elixirs wont cleanse conditions anymore and Engineer lost passive 1 condi cleanse every 10 sec for 2 every 32 seconds.
• Alchemy got a trait that reduces condi damage and direct damage by 2% for every boon. Might have some potential with reduced boonrip on warrior and scourge.
• Some changes to inventions so you can AoE cleanse conditions for allies. Not worth it.
• Holosmith traitline didnt get changed.
• Scrapper got barrier mechanisms. Leap/blast finisher in Lightning field trait will give now 5 second of superspeed for allies instead of 3 seconds.
• Hammer 2 can hit 5 targets now instead of 3.

Revenant

• Condi rev applies more confusion now but confusion got nerfed in general
• Energy cost on renegade skills is reduced now
• Shiro got slight nerfs.
• Devastation grandmaster trait now allows rev to get quickness (about 4 seconds) from swapping weapons and remove 1 stack of stability per strike while under quickness. SEEMS PRETTY OP

Mesmer

• Lot of changes. Basically power mesmer/mirage is even more broken now while condi got tuned down.
• Most likely will still suck in skill lag and closed spaces.

@Zero.3871 said:they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

November 7th patch notes

Reaper Shroud: Increased life-force consumption rate from 3% per second to 5% per second.Life Rend: Increased damage by 25%.Life Slash: Increased damage by 30%.Life Reap: Increased damage by 25%. Reduced life-force gain per hit from 2% to 1.5%.Death's Charge: Increased damage by 25%.Soul Spiral: Increased damage by 40%. Reduced poison duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Reduced number of whirl finishers on this skill from 6 to 4.Executioner's Scythe: Increased damage by 33% on targets above 50% health. Increased damage by 30% on targets below 50% health. Increased damage by 28% on targets below 25% health.Fading Twilight: Increased damage by 8%.Chilling Scythe: Increased damage by 21%.

you were saying?

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Zero.3871 said:they didnt buffed reaper, but many other classes get dmg increase so indirect nerf.

like the last 100 Patches, bad patch for necros.

They forgot to mention that the 50% damage reduction that the shroud had on Reaper and Vanilla for 3 years with noone ever complaining about it and the Necro was balanced around for several years was just removed.Making it nearly impossible to play especially the Reaper in bigscale (in this case more than 10 players) since you need to get in melee to apply the damage without having any block, blink or invul that could help you survive.

It looked like the motivation for touching necro was because it was a pain.