Shake It Off & Invulnerability Changes - Unwarranted Buffs to Spellbreaker & Holo

These two changes, whether intentional or not, were buffs to both Spellbreaker and Holosmith. The new count system on Shake It Off, even with the increased cooldown, gives Spellbreakers 2 stunbreaks on demand along with 2x6 condition clears. Given the amount of resistance they can already put out along with rousing resilience, this gives them increased sustain against both power and condition. Given Spellbreaker's current level of sustain, was this really necessary?

And in regard to the invuln changes - these were pretty significant if you play Holosmith. Condi bombing was a viable strat against Holos due to their inability to use skills while invuln. It added another level of counterplay to a spec that was already great in 1v1s and Holos who weren't careful would essentially die at 25% HP if they were condi bombed and their passive procc'd.

Given that condi Mirage was nerfed significantly in this patch, it should have been anticipated that Holo & Spellbreaker, which were already top tier side noders before this patch, would be even stronger and thus, if anything, either preemptively nerfed or left alone, but instead they received buffs that nobody asked for. I can understand that these changes were probably not intended to buff these specs specifically, and I even agree with the general changes to invuln, but consider reverting them or nerfing the specs in other areas.

The real big buff that shouldn't have happened was Elixer U. It returns holo back to the ezmode brainless playstyle of "Pop stability, spam 12345 without worry of being interrupted". It's like they forgot why it needed to be nerfed in the first place when corona burst didn't require an actual hit.

But shake it off and invuln buffs? Honestly fine. Condi abilities are generally bad for the game due to how they are designed to be massive spammy AoEs. So giving people an extra counter to them is a good thing.

Holo and Spellbreaker were underperforming, that's why we didn't nerf - Anet

Elixir S's change is a big deal. Holosmith is definitely the winner of this last patch. Shake it Off on the other hand? Eh.... I just don't think they're going to run it post buffs and if they do run it they're giving up something incredible whether it is Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Balanced Stance, Featherfoot Grace.

Do you guys know what Office Politics are?

@mortrialus.3062 said:Elixir S's change is a big deal. Holosmith is definitely the winner of this last patch. Shake it Off on the other hand? Eh.... I just don't think they're going to run it post buffs and if they do run it they're giving up something incredible whether it is Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Balanced Stance, Featherfoot Grace.

Still early, but most wars I see after the patch are running featherfoot/endure/shake

Shake it off will definitely get used. Also, Holo builds that didn't use Elixir S before likely won't swap to it just because of condis.

The biggest issue is the Elixir U change... I don't think that was needed or warranted. Would be happy to see a revert or a tune-down.

Haven’t tested the new shouts but I don’t know if I’d give up the resistance from FG for SIO. It’s a pretty long recharge and the issue with condis isn’t the lack of cleanses, it’s the rate at which they can be applied by certain specs. Resistance allows you to stick to your target, straight cleanse doesn’t really. But again I haven’t tested it yet.

@PaRaPhReNiA.8763 said:Holo and Spellbreaker were underperforming, that's why we didn't nerf - Anet

We don't think Anet think at all when they do balance patches - gw2 player's community

2x6 cleanse break is ridiculous, may as well make it an elite.

Let's see....

holo power.Spellbreaker powerrevenant powerdruid bunker/sb powerdeadeye powerguardian power or burn (but he has few cover condies and is easy to put down as long as you're aware he's a burn guard)necro - reaper power/scourge...nerfedele....yy...anyone seen these?mirage - whatever it wants to be..

So currently we're suffering from overbearing condi meta of nerfed scourges, some mirages and a few (or less) burnguards.A-net made a sound decision to curbstomp condi cancer. It was clearly overtaking the meta and driving the few, almost non existant power builds extinct!

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:Let's see....

holo power.Spellbreaker powerrevenant powerdruid bunker/sb powerdeadeye powerguardian power or burn (but he has few cover condies and is easy to put down as long as you're aware he's a burn guard)necro - reaper power/scourge...nerfedele....yy...anyone seen these?mirage - whatever it wants to be..

So currently we're suffering from overbearing condi meta of nerfed scourges, some mirages and a few (or less) burnguards.A-net made a sound decision to curbstomp condi cancer. It was clearly overtaking the meta and driving the few, almost non existant power builds extinct!

agreed

@Mbelch.9028 said:Also, Holo builds that didn't use Elixir S before likely won't swap to it just because of condis.

You do realize that every engi build ever effortlessly picks up an elixir S passive proc, right?

@witcher.3197 said:

@Mbelch.9028 said:Also, Holo builds that didn't use Elixir S before likely won't swap to it just because of condis.

considering the alternative is regen when cleansing ally or regen while wearing kit yeah it was picked but not because it was great it was simply the only choice, elixir s was a death sentence on its own , even now it changes little because it locks out utilities so as soon as those 3 seconds wear out you can just insta nuke the engi .