Is there anything in the balance patch that excites you?

I'm going to be honest.

There isn't for me. All it seems to do is stomp on a few off-meta builds so there is less build diversity or so things that were slightly behind is falling further behind. It doesn't adress any of the glaring balance issues sufficiently and it doesn't add anything that makes me feel like I want to try it.

Have you guys found anything exciting? Help out, give me something to look forward to. There must be something fun that I've missed so far.

Thief portal

@Chaba.5410 said:Thief portal

Yes, there is something to be excited about =D

we'll see how it works when its game time.

Nope.

So many monkey changes. There are nerfs to classes I don't even play and even I can feel the pain those mains must feel. It's really frustrating and sad. Garbage canning elite specs to make core specs look more appealing is so wonky stupid.

Dunno apparently not allowed to talk about it in these forums.

I can safely say that this is the best patch ele received since HoT. A lot of QoL changes and decent enough buffs to keep the class actually rewarding for piano rotations.

I'll be seeing how my eles feel come Tuesday. I'm curious of how it'll handle some of my condi experiments. Revs and guardians also.

... I have a lot of characters, and just from what's on the table, at least five of them may have been made obsolete.

Honestly, no. I find it as a bunch of changes without real reasons (at least really clarified) why some skills been reworked, when there are bigger fishes to be fried.

Seriously, warriors didn't need to be buffed (even if useless skills/traits), Ranger shouts and Thief traps being changed, Engi gyros (when certain runes are the real problem 'cos their synergy)... while the actual "meta" will remain as it was 'cos this part isn't touched really.

Really I can't stop thinking devs don't play WvW at all or they do it in some alternative world, 'cos I don't get why they can't notice the real problems in the game mode after years.

@Chaba.5410 said:Thief portal

wtf are they thinking

There’s a balance patch? Honestly? Sorry but no matter what they call it, it won’t be balanced.

nerf rampagenerf soulbeastnerf revnot enough but decent patch

Everyone seems tot hinky that anet is nerfing their own class. Like literally every profession forum has people complaining. To me it just seems like Anet is finally toning everything down and redistributing class identity which excites me. This game needed this and I hope this isnt the end to these type of balance changes.

If you are a WVW player there is barely anything for you as per usual. The balance team doesn't know WVW exists after almost 7 years

@"iKeostuKen.2738" said:Everyone seems tot hinky that anet is nerfing their own class. Like literally every profession forum has people complaining. To me it just seems like Anet is finally toning everything down and redistributing class identity which excites me. This game needed this and I hope this isnt the end to these type of balance changes.

That doesn't really concern me tbh, I have every class in the game several times over.

What bothers me is when they ruin class/build diversity and further cheapens the game mode(s), neither WvW nore sPvP needed further encouragement to combine Scourges and Firebrands.

One important thing that is often overlooked when it comes to WvW balance is that the power of a class is often not as important as defining a role for a class. Take the often despised rangers for example. The Sic 'Em sniper Soulbeast (which is only nominally nerfed with the patch) does something very well (focused sniping) but that isn't much of a role, it's envelope is small and as such it remains a niche despite whatever perceived power. Similarily, Druids are now entirely dedicated to do one thing but what they do isn't coveted at all in WvW so it has zero roles (barring whatever clowning you choose to entertain yourself with when roaming).

That's what gnaws at me with this patch because they are diminishing the roles of multiple classes and making the modes overall less entertaining and dimensional. That is the real balance issue here, not whatever class is perceived overpowered. I wouldn't go around and say that Scourge is overpowered as a class but the mechanics surrounding it is broken and leads to extremely boring gameplay that in itself comes with mechanical balance issues. It isn't fun to play and they are losing players over it (especially players that create content rather than just consuming it) which makes it even less fun. Every time a commander instantly evaporates in a shadebomb there's a risk of the mode losing another commander and the rebirth is very low. So many server hitch their horses to a few individual players already. Roaming has similar issues.

Considering that the big loser in this patch seems to be the Engineer I spent a short bit of time going over those changes and looking at those forums. No matter how I tilt and turn I can't make sense of those changes. It is just a big mess. The notes refer to a role that doesn't really exist (certainly not outside of raids and even in raids the way they approach it seems out of norm, with less group utility). Not only is the meta build impacted, likely pushing it out of meta but not necessarily ruining it's ability and outlook in groups, but the changes absolutely wrecks a number of off-meta builds, some that were even just made available in the last patch, because they decided to just trample all over its group utilities by removing some (eg., heals through superspeed) and making some exclusive choices (gyro traits/shared superspeed or new function gyro traits; a non-choice that supposedly was the aim of the overhaul :/ ).

Not to mention the ridiculous -300 vit minors and stuff that just pushes you into playing Minstrel and nothing else. So not only is the Minstrel build nerfed but everything else that was already relatively impopular is even more nerfed. That's just poor design, leaving players with fewer choices to be creative with and making what people will do with it even more stale. Given that the changes are about to hit I also decided to play Scrapper for tonights WvW reset. The four other players in my party were all Scourges. Somewhere around 66% of our 50-man squad were Scourges and this upcomming patch seems to keep streamlining even more into that. Absolutely disgusting and ridiculous.

What's next? Deeming Firebrand overpowered and nerfing stab on Book 3? Then we can all play pin the shade on the donkey.

@XenesisII.1540 said:Dunno apparently not allowed to talk about it in these forums.

Your whole thread just... gone.

Support thief might be viable. A bit worry about scrapper change though, now i need to micromanagement a bit more for high dps.

@"subversiontwo.7501" said:Not to mention the ridiculous -300 vit minors and stuff that just pushes you into playing Minstrel and nothing else. So not only is the Minstrel build nerfed but everything else that was already relatively impopular is even more nerfed. That's just poor design, leaving players with fewer choices to be creative with and making what people will do with it even more stale. Given that the changes are about to hit I also decided to play Scrapper for tonights WvW reset. The four other players in my party were all Scourges. Somewhere around 66% of our 50-man squad were Scourges and this upcomming patch seems to keep streamlining even more into that. Absolutely disgusting and ridiculous.It doesnt push you into minstrel because the new way barrier works is that you need 100% power damage to max barrier output. IE you need to go berserker to sustain.

Now, if you're thinking "hey wait a minute that doesnt make any sense?" you'd be correct. And thats why so many scrappers will simply leave the class. Not because its a weaker healer in the zerg, but because nothing makes sense anymore.

I hope that what you show become the daily zerging. Because as someone that finally picked up scrapper healer after they buffed it and then finally scrapper roamer after they made gyros viable again (abandoned mirage for it and enjoyed it every day), I'd just look at it and laugh. Laugh real hard. Cause I sure as kitten aint playing scrapper zerg healer anymore.

I'm thinking... scourge.

I'm excited this patch will likely hit when my server is still in the lower tiers, because I suspect there will be a lot of experimenting going on.

@HazyDaisy.4107 said:I'm excited this patch will likely hit when my server is still in the lower tiers, because I suspect there will be a lot of experimenting going on.

I definitely can't wait to experiment, I have a lot of insidious ideas hatching.

Nope.

Body is 5 characters too short.

1: Soul Beast sicem nerf2: Soul Beast unstoppable union nerf3: Soul Beast sicem nerf

@Chaba.5410 said:Thief portalYeah now meme eyes can permastealth in keeps all day AND portal mesmers in! :D

Meme Thief support build involving porting, healing, and reviving. Depends on if that new Merciful Ambush trait is a percent chunk revive effect or not and if Shadow Savior actually has good base healing and coefficients. If those two are a go, I'm zipping around with Infiltrator's Arrow, portaling people, and maybe using one or two of those new Preparations. I'm not getting my hopes up and expect all numbers involved to be absolute garbage though.