Rune of Sanctuary & Abrasive Grit

Would it be possible to just have Abrasive Grit as a modifier on punishment and shade skills that triggers when those skills apply barrier?

It would seem like that would eliminate the rune interaction altogether (along with some minor stuff like sand jackal dismount skill or whatever), without overly affecting the normal scourge usage of the trait.

Dear Irenio,

Will you and the other developers be looking at the impact of this rune while ressing?Will you also be looking at the impact of other rune sets that may be overpowered without a cooldown such as superior rune of torment?

Thank you for the explanation

Is it mechanically possible to script so Abrasive Grit doesn't trigger off Runes of Sanctuary, regardless of lifesteal or external source?Tooltip ie. Cleanse 1 condition and gain 2 might when you use barrier skills

Scourge already has strong condi cleanse options among their utility/skills and ICD only damaged a trait that's already underused prior to rune changes. Having Abrasive Grit not proccing off runes of sanctuary gives no significant advantage scourge has over other classes, while still empower scourge with the 20% bonus barrier from all source of healing.

Thanks for the explanation!

Glad I was right in my assumptions (partly) :)

And yes, the ressing needs to be looked at.

@Apokriphos.7042 said:Dear Irenio,

Will you and the other developers be looking at the impact of this rune while ressing?Will you also be looking at the impact of other rune sets that may be overpowered without a cooldown such as superior rune of torment?

Regarding this topic, any inspection on runes of speed?

You keep weakneing scourges ability to support on what you tooted as a support spec. So many of the changes you have made are driving scourge , in competitive game modes, to be the supportee not the supporter because it cannot fend for itself.

Returned the double cleanse of f2 to compensate for the loss of condi cleanse which you acknowledged. A tiny increase in actual might uptime , most likely the most common boon in the game, is no trade at all.

Also if you guys do not address a similar interaction between rune of evasion, woven stride and cleansing water at some point in the future it will be disappointing.

The likelihood is nothing will be done to really improve the matter and reaper will be nerfed because " it had one of the highest at and win rates last season". Further worsening the situation.

The day you give the necromancer community a build it a spec that does not so incredibly heavily rely on being supported by someone else, like EVERY OTHER CLASS IN THE GAME, is the day you will gain their respect.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

@perilisk.1874 said:Would it be possible to just have Abrasive Grit as a modifier on punishment and shade skills that triggers when those skills apply barrier?

Ok. Well, thank you for giving everyone some insight into how the balancing process is working for this.

Thanks for the Information.Just a Question: Did you think about having Abrasive Grit still some Burst Condi removal in having it remove 2-3 conditions instead of 1 now with the ICD?

Just going to add, loving the explanation and interaction with the community!

It's nice to have a small peak behind the thought process when balancing. Also great to hear that rune and sigils which might over-perform are being watched.

Such fun times right now, I wonder where and how the meta will develop.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:This situation goes against one of our design philosophies for Guild Wars 2: Seeing another player should not be frustrating.

While I think that this change is good I think this design philosophy is not generally lived up to. In WvW when playing necro, I get frustrated a lot, as do everyone else who plays necro outside of a group of 5+. This is because everytime you see a thief/mesmer/ranger you know you're in for an awful fight. This is because if they'r even of a mediocre skilllevel you will never kill them, you might not die the first time they try, or the second, but eventually you will die as they reset the fight endlessly, there is no counterplay to this as a slow class, my best bet is to hope they get bored or I get into a structure. This is only exaggerated by the fact that these classes already have a great matchup against you. Now I am not saying all classes should be equal or that counters to builds shouldn't exist, but the existence of such a situation clearly goes against your design philosophy.

Thanks for responding but are you aware it is not only a nerf to burst condition clearing but also conditions cleared over time since you will naturally use barrier multiple times in 5 seconds. Aditionally you can nolonger time the trait for when you need it as it will proc for the might when you don't need condition clease and then is unuseable when you do. Since it is a nerf to all condition clear potential would you consider buffing nefarious favour, the f2 skill, back to 2 conditions cleared since it was supposed to be the condition clearing skill but was significantly nerfed even though it was not ever a problem?

I honestly don't believe Rune of the Sanctuary is healthy for the game regardless of Abrasive Grit. It's effectively a 20% healing increase given as a buffer, which is even better because you can get overheal on it. The Rune is extremely over the top overpowered in sPvP where Support Firebrands exist. This isn't even going into the downstate absurdities caused by the rune.

A far better design would be simply have the run give a 1k barrier when you are healed on a 5 second ICD. This would have completely avoided the Abrasive Grit nonsense, the downstate nonsense, and the nearly unkillable firebrands nonsense.

Since there was a cooldown placed on Abrasive Grit, and The might gain was increased from 2 for 6 seconds, to 3 for 8 seconds. Why not increase the amount of conditions it clears to make up for it as well? 2-3 should be just fine?

Someone had also suggested "Abrasive Grit now only triggers on scourge skills or traits that grant barrier. No more icd."

I am glad for the explanation. But I expected it had something to do with the fact that the trait was a problem that would limit future plans for barrier.

While I will sit back and look at this..There is one thing to say and that is

Thank you.. Thank you for coming out and explaining the reasoning behind this change.Like it or hate it.. I have for ages felt like such things are important for players - dev understanding over changes we may as a player can see or not.

I hope in the future when such big changes happen, we get more communication like this. :)

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:With that, and the addition of ICD to Abrasive Grit, you’ll have control over when that ICD is triggered because it is based on barriers you grant.Have you considered that now all the three possible effects (barriers, might upkeep and cleanses) work at cross-purposes? The support scourge now cannot "heal" when needed if they want to upkeep might at a reasonable levels, and they cannot "heal" or give boons if they perceive the need to group cleanse in the near time. It completely disrupts the flow of play.

Abrasive Grit remains usable, though it lost a bit of its burst-condition-cleansing potential, and gained some might uptime.Only if you're giving out barriers in non-intuitive ways and not when they are actually needed. Otherwise you lose a lot on both counts.

The calculations may look nice on paper, but they enforce a style of play that isn't very realistic at all.

We’ll be keeping an eye on it and watching for reasonable options that promote healthier, skillful gameplay for everyone.That change does not promote that, though. Quite the opposite.

@HardRider.2980 said:While I will sit back and look at this..There is one thing to say and that is

Thank you.. Thank you for coming out and explaining the reasoning behind this change.Like it or hate it.. I have for ages felt like such things are important for players - dev understanding over changes we may as a player can see or not.

I hope in the future when such big changes happen, we get more communication like this. :)

Agreed. Things like that are very important.

This makes perfect sense. Thanks, I'll share this in game!

So... The sanc rune is so op that you had to change how traits worked?

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

@perilisk.1874 said:Would it be possible to just have Abrasive Grit as a modifier on punishment and shade skills that triggers when those skills apply barrier?

@Apokriphos.7042 said:Dear Irenio,

Will you and the other developers be looking at the impact of this rune while ressing?Will you also be looking at the impact of other rune sets that may be overpowered without a cooldown such as superior rune of torment?

Why is it that your first, and always your first, inclination/solution is to nerf Necros? We have no, absolutely no, speed, no stealth, no barrier, nothing. Deadeyes and SoulBeasts eat us for lunch since they cheesily pew pew outside our range and with way more speed. We had one simple role: Condi cleanse and boon stripping. Relatively useless, for the most part, outside of zergs in WvW. See a lot of Scourges in raids? See a lot of necros at all in raids? Because we don't

Could you not have disabled the rune until a good fix was in place? Nerfing necro/scourge because of an OP rune doesn't seem very intuitive. Anyhow, thanks for the explanation and thought process behind the change.

@Fuyunet.8497 said:So... The sanc rune is so op that you had to change how traits worked?

Expect on other professions it isn't OP.

Irenio,

Is it intentional that the rune doesn't work with thief's self-heal trait "Invigorating Precision"? Or a simple bug that you'll fix in the future?

The explanation is nice and all, but it still doesn't change the fact you chose to nerf a elite class trait over a newly added rune. And to top that off, you can bet people will still cry and moan until this rune is nerfed. The bonus is absolutely bonkers and will be utterly broken with heavy healing classes. Firebrands will now have a huge barrier buffer on top of their disgusting healing. What will you do then? Nerf firebrand healing? You are bandaiding symptoms instead of treating the disease. And if or when this rune is changed or nerfed again, will you even come back to restore the trait functionality?

On this case, yes, this was a very bad call, something had to be done, but who deserved this wasn't certainly the trait. Now the trait will be nerfed until you guys decide what to do with the rune, suffering instead of a darn rune. And everytime you decide to nerf another rune in the future because of some OP interaction, then people will remember of this one call they did with necro but not with "X" class.