Is 8/7 balance patch nerf or buff?

'Citadel Bombardment: Reduced the burn duration per hit from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.'

Same damage but delivered quicker? Or proportionately less dmg?

Nerf, nothing was said about damage getting buffed. All it did was reduce burn duration which would be a nerf.

There is no room for confusion about this change. It was a 25% nerf to the duration of burning caused by Citadel Bombardment, a plain and simple nerf to the condi portion of the skill's damage. I wonder if the nerf to this ability, which is only really effective against massive hitboxes, has anything to do with anet's successful nerfing (you know, butchering, while easy mode deadeye takes its place as top-dog dps) of ele against those same massive targets.

It's a friendly reminder that we have nothing to look forward to, just in case some of us were hoping for a rework like with Deadeye.

@Clownmug.8357 said:It's a friendly reminder that we have nothing to look forward to, just in case some of us were hoping for a rework like with Deadeye.

Jokes on them, rev players (Renegade more specifically) already know to expect nothing of value. Also, it's been three months since the May balance patch, aren't we supposed to be getting a major one every three months? They don't expect us to believe that paltry shit they handed out last month is going to cut it, right?

@The Spiral King.2483 said:

@Clownmug.8357 said:It's a friendly reminder that we have nothing to look forward to, just in case some of us were hoping for a rework like with Deadeye.

Yeah, that thing last month was actually a balance patch from what I've heard. I guess it takes a long time writing up those 3-4 sentence paragraphs for each profession describing why they changed certain number values.

Totally unnecessary change honestly. Our ramp time is already the highest and our dps numbers are only average/above average in most actual situations. When they inevitably fix the shortbow bug (which I guarantee will happen sometime in the next year) any small nerfs like these are going to add up and put us in a really bad place in terms of dps.

I dont even play Rev anymore, But just having the change in the notes as the only nerf of all classes and that being the only thing touched is a tad bit...wth.

"OOOOoooOH, rev's you think you can be top DPS in one out of the nineteen raid encounters??!?!?! Think again...!" -anet probably

I guess to be fair, Ren's still obviously top dps on Dhuum, but this nerf is completely unnecessary IMO. If anything they should triple the damage of Citadel Bombardment to make up for the fact that Renegade's are free kills in WvW :bleep_bloop:

my hope is they are going to do major change to renegade and nerfing now some skills to compensate in advance....

What a joke. Renegade is already bad in spvp and I always thought that skill was a waste to use.

not worth the energy or the trait anymore... rad

@Jthug.9506 said:not worth the energy or the trait anymore... rad

Is Lasting Legacy really more dps vs huge hitbox than Vindication now...? Or was that just untested salt about the nerf? (I haven't done any tests yet myself.)

@narcx.3570 said:

@Jthug.9506 said:not worth the energy or the trait anymore... rad

LL is likely equal to or better on mursaat overseer size hitboxes now. Still a great choice for large/huge

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Jthug.9506 said:not worth the energy or the trait anymore... rad

AFAIK LL always was better for small hitbox...? I'm really just concerned about the nerf and Huge tho, since I generally play deadeye or mirage vs small hitbox these days anyways.

@narcx.3570 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@Jthug.9506 said:not worth the energy or the trait anymore... rad

According to some random SC discord chat, it was only better to take LL on Sabetha/Xera size hitboxes, with Vindication being equal to or great on anything bigger. Someone asked them to make a note of it on their main page, but no one ever did update it as far as I can tell. This was an SC player that made that statement, though, not some random, so I'm assuming it was legit

Also apparently the nerf for huge is only about 1k dps lost, so should still be good for that!

Absolutely moronic change. Renegade is only top dps on one singular raid boss by an insignificant margin (as well as the mostly irrelevant huge hit box dummy golem) while being average to mediocre in most other end game pve encounters and this calls for a 25% hot fix that isn't even split for pvp/wvw. I was starting to think the balance team had become a little less dumb as of late, silly me.

@ArthurDent.9538 said:isn't even split for pvp/wvw. I was starting to think the balance team had become a little less dumb as of late, silly me.

I'm sure that they are aware that this should have been split but don't view it as priority. Pandering to the raid crowd is more important than actual good game balance.

It's also not even a smart change as it does not touch on the core problem with citadel bombardment which is that it has a random factor which scales against its own randomness the more targets it has, causing it to scale higher damage to individual targets with higher number of targets. Or in the case of large PvE targets, everything goes to the face. So the fix they put in was a silly band-aid rather than a real fix.

@Hiki.9310 said:What a joke. Renegade is already bad in spvp and I always thought that skill was a waste to use.

Oh, how I wish Renegade was more viable in PvP. I honestly do not like Herald. The only time I play Herald is in PvP since playing Renegade is pretty much a non-starter. Even in WvW where Herald is also stronger at least there I have more team-based options to fall back on to help stay alive or contribute.

When they make these minimal changes, do they really change the game?

Would you have noticed the change if it weren't printed? I can't honestly say that I would.

@narcx.3570 said:

@Jthug.9506 said:not worth the energy or the trait anymore... rad

@Jthug.9506 said:not worth the energy or the trait anymore... rad

No I was just sh*tposting at work, seems that in raid it was nbd.

@Game of Bones.8975 said:When they make these minimal changes, do they really change the game?

Would you have noticed the change if it weren't printed? I can't honestly say that I would.

You are correct that the change is mostly unnoticeable in terms of impact to actual gameplay, but what concerns me about this nerf is that it targeted a skill, which is honestly just an energy dump in roughly 9/10 cases, on a build which is not widely used while other actual overpowered builds are left untouched for months and sometimes years. In my opinion, these sorts of changes within the game's current state just support the idea that the balance team doesn't understand how to balance all the classes to have, overall, roughly equal demand.