Patch notes for 10/1/2019

Firebrand prevalence in group content has been quite strong as they offer significant support options to the point that they were crowding out other builds. In particular, Tome of Courage had a bit more power than was healthy, so we've sought to tweak that down while retaining its overall playstyle by removing some of its boon generation. We're also reducing scepter damage and increasing sword damage in PvE as the best melee damage option should not be a ranged weapon.

Orb of Wrath: Reduced damage by 10% in PvE only.Symbol of Blades: Removed the double strike that occurs when the symbol is first created. Increased damage of each strike by 20% to compensate. Overall damage is unchanged.Zealot's Defense: Increased PvE damage by 20%.Sanctuary: Increased number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill before it expires from 10 to 20. Decreased duration from 6 seconds to 5 seconds. Decreased recharge from 75 seconds to 60 seconds.Tome of Resolve—Chapter 2: Radiant Recovery: The existing split of cleansing 2 conditions in PvP has been brought to WvW as well. This skill continues to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.Tome of Courage—Chapter 2: Daring Challenge: This skill now grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.Tome of Courage—Epilogue: Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants retaliation. The existing split of a 15-second cooldown in PvP has been brought to WvW as well. This skill retains a 12-second cooldown in PvE.Purging Flames: This skill no longer reduces the duration of incoming conditions. Instead of removing 3 conditions from allies when cast, it now removes 1 condition from allies and 1 additional condition every second the skill persists. Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from being properly extended when Master of Consecrations was equipped.Eternal Armory: Changed burning from 2 stacks for 2 seconds to 1 stack for 4 seconds.Stoic Demeanor: This trait now inflicts burning for 5 seconds in addition to inflicting slow. Reduced the internal cooldown from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. Cooldown is now determined per target instead of globally.

This was extensively covered in other threads. FB changes, only the cleansing 2 conditions split being added to WvW has any impact. FB support, unlike what Anet quoted above, is not impacted by the changes. FB dps in PvP on the other hand..

I personally like the change to sword. Though it was mentioned before to Anet that the initial buff to Zealot's Defense will not be enough. Oh well.. everything has to take fucking 2 years.

Purging flames, okay change. Not going to make the skill usable, but okay. Sadly, this skill is not usable in PvE now either, since zeal took the place of virtues and SoJ too place of purging flames.

I think that all condi melee need higher intesnity to become PvP viable. This change is in the exact opposite direction, but neither Eternal Armory nor SoJ are PvP viable. Does not matter at all for PvE.

Sanctuary is better, with CD reduction. I still would not consider it. 48 sec CD traited. Way too long to sacrifice a utility slot for.

Stoic Demeanor, better, but still not usable. Does less damage than Quickfire in PvE (especially in a group setting). Cannot remotely compete with Loremaster in PvP. I would not even consider it for Sage FB, which is built around axe CC. And if the damage is further upped, it will only take Quickfire position in PvE. Again.. as if Anet ever try to understand why something does not work, it needs a completely different functionality or increase power damage against targets with slow (to open the field for power FB builds). This is a waste of everyone's time.

And that is the general sentiment of this patch. It fails to effectively nerf FB support in PvP. It fails in bringing anything new to the table. It does not fix any of the traits/skills it changed. It has not impact on core guardian in PvE or PvP. No change for DH in PvP. FB will remain the only competitive build in PvP. Sword will be meta in every game mode, with scepter most likely being archived. I prefer sword over scepter, but definitely bad change for diversity.

I will give Anet an F.

Why does it seem like the balance team is out of touch sometimes? Do they play Guardian?

I liked the part where guardian is effectively left without a decent ranged weapon

sigh another firebrand patch. Might as well rename the whole class to Firebrand.It's all the patch notes ever are for guardian.

Have they even use Guardian at all? Or do they just run about on mirages and holosmiths all day.

but seriously Guardian needs its scepter... the range helps,
If they want to make Guardians more melee based using close ranged swords and Greatsword then raise the HP pool of Guardians to 15.6 HP which is the mid tier health pool, so they survive being at close range. If they're worried that Firebrand will be too strong, with a little more base HP then reduce the vitality for Firebrands by 300 like they've already done for scrapper. They can put the HP penality into the trait "Imbued Haste"

boring, as usual

I do not think Purging Flame after the change will be worth a utility slot in WvW still. Well, maybe situational, e.g., breaking through a choke? The same goes for Sanctuary, in which case I agree with your assessment.

While I respect Otto's opinion I usually have to take issue with amount of negativity he has with regard to the balance patches but unfortunately on this one I can't bring myself to defend their choice of actions or more accurately lack of actions. While have most of the other classes and their various elites have been revisited with significant reworks to many of their skills and even some adjustment to their mechanics along with some complete redesigns of trait lines(granted some have been good and some have been bad) all the Guardian has seen over the vast majority of the balance patches has been mainly downgrading nerf's and over all feeling that they have no idea what they want to do with the Guardian and that they have absolutely no interest in any of the input or feedback from the Guardian community at all.A rather obvious opinion that has been repeated by quite a few people as to why FB is so heavily seen in WvW is because of large amount of Stability that FB brings with him , with Anet's answer being lets lower FB's viability ....well that isn't really going to change anything because FB is still the only class that brings strong access to Stability. Until such time that Stability is available with any dependability from other classes FB is going to continue to be dominate (some people want to see the availability of Stability decreased which would just lead everyone being overwhelmed by classes with heavy conditions and CC'd which wouldn't be any better) and until they really reevaluate the Core Guardian and the Dragonhunter so as to offer an alternative to players that main a guardian they are going to continue to run the FB.While I keep hoping for some refreshing insights or vision on the patches all we seem to getting is some rather pathetic nibbling around the edges with constant platitudes about increasing class and play style diversity without actually accomplishing anything of the sort.While understand many players are deeply frustrated and even angered by the present state in the game but I have to say we should step back when that anger and frustration gets channeled into personal attacks and insults directed at the Dev's ( I'm coming from a position where I have had to deal with the public and I have had customers tell me that I'm idiot because I couldn't give them what they wanted but within the system my hands were tied , so I understand that there may be limitations as to what the Dev's are allowed to do)

Here's to my continued if somewhat foolish hope that more positive changes happen in the future ( even if past evidence leads me to be rather doubtful).

Sorry for the rant.

The Purging Flames change is baffling.

@"crazyhusky.2985" said:sigh another firebrand patch. Might as well rename the whole class to Firebrand.It's all the patch notes ever are for guardian.

Have they even use Guardian at all? Or do they just run about on mirages and holosmiths all day.

but seriously Guardian needs its scepter... the range helps,

If they want to make Guardians more melee based using close ranged swords and Greatsword then raise the HP pool of Guardians to 15.6 HP which is the mid tier health pool, so they survive being at close range. If they're worried that Firebrand will be too strong, with a little more base HP then reduce the vitality for Firebrands by 300 like they've already done for scrapper. They can put the HP penality into the trait "Imbued Haste"

Uhhh, absolutely no to -300 vitality. Base vitality is already terribly low with having only aegis and dodges for defense. If anything +300 vit for DH.

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:

@"crazyhusky.2985" said:

sigh

another firebrand patch. Might as well rename the whole class to Firebrand.It's all the patch notes ever are for guardian.

Have they even use Guardian at all? Or do they just run about on mirages and holosmiths all day.

but seriously Guardian needs its scepter... the range helps,

If they want to make Guardians more melee based using close ranged swords and Greatsword then raise the HP pool of Guardians to 15.6 HP which is the mid tier health pool, so they survive being at close range. If they're worried that Firebrand will be too strong, with a little more base HP then reduce the vitality for Firebrands by 300 like they've already done for scrapper. They can put the HP penality into the trait "Imbued Haste"

What Husky was going for is to increase guardian to medium HP pool, base HP of 15.6K, then have FB with the -300 vitality. This would put FB at 12.6K HP base, which is about 1K higher than where it is now btw.

@"RUNICBLACK.7630" Unfortunately, the negativity is not coming out of vacuum. Within the last year, Anet wiped out all PvP builds except FB, and mainly as support. And while the changes to PvE have opened diversity there a bit, it is mostly jamming sword to be the go to weapon (not that I am against, since sword is my favorite guardian weapon, but there should be options). And then Anet does these random changes that do not do shit, like the current changes to sanctuary, purging flames or stoic demeanor. Yes, these skills will be better, but will they be usable in any game mode for anything? No. Then why the fuck is Anet wasting their devs time making changes that have zero impact?!

And what infuriate me the most, is almost every written explanation Anet provides for the class balance changes is either not accurate or out right false. "Firebrand prevalence in group content has been quite strong as they offer significant support options to the point that they were crowding out other builds," will that remotely change? Which raises a questions about either devs competency or sincerity.

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:

@"crazyhusky.2985" said:

sigh

another firebrand patch. Might as well rename the whole class to Firebrand.It's all the patch notes ever are for guardian.

Have they even use Guardian at all? Or do they just run about on mirages and holosmiths all day.

but seriously Guardian needs its scepter... the range helps,

If they want to make Guardians more melee based using close ranged swords and Greatsword then raise the HP pool of Guardians to 15.6 HP which is the mid tier health pool, so they survive being at close range. If they're worried that Firebrand will be too strong, with a little more base HP then reduce the vitality for Firebrands by 300 like they've already done for scrapper. They can put the HP penality into the trait "Imbued Haste"

I know it does, but If you actually read it, @otto.5684 summarized it.I was stating to increase Guardian's base HP to Mid tier (15.6K HP), if you pick Firebrand as the elite, its Lower the HP back to 12.6k HP. It's what happens currently if you use Scrapper on Engineer. Scrappers get lower HP pools due to generating barrier on themselves constantly.Meaning you don't lose 3K HP infact what I am sugguesting would give Firebrand nearly 1K extra HP.

Basically my idea is to give Dragonhunter and Base guardian more HP, ( 15.6K HP) allowing them survive a bit longer in close range combat. While NOT allowing Firebrand to do so, by lowering the HP near to where it is currently. (12.6K HP).. Think of it as a pentality or an exchange for being versatile then the other forms of Guardian.

if they want power guardian to be more of melee ranged class it NEEDs the Vitality to stay alive to do so. Right now running full zerkers on a guardian gets you eaten alive by everything due to VERY low HP and none of the moves having evade. Skills like Wings of revolve and GS-3 Leap of faith in my view SHOULD have evades on them. Ranger's Swoop and Warrior's Whirlwind Attack both are Greatsword skills that leap and BOTH of them have evades on them, but yet Guardian's doesn't. why? Wings of revolve literally has you jumping in the air like you're dodge something but yet doesnt have an evade on it.

@crazyhusky.2985 said:

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:

@crazyhusky.2985 said:

sigh

another firebrand patch. Might as well rename the whole class to Firebrand.It's all the patch notes ever are for guardian.

Have they even use Guardian at all? Or do they just run about on mirages and holosmiths all day.

but seriously Guardian needs its scepter... the range helps,

If they want to make Guardians more melee based using close ranged swords and Greatsword then raise the HP pool of Guardians to 15.6 HP which is the mid tier health pool, so they survive being at close range. If they're worried that Firebrand will be too strong, with a little more base HP then reduce the vitality for Firebrands by 300 like they've already done for scrapper. They can put the HP penality into the trait "Imbued Haste"

Oh geez my Reading Comprehension 101 has failed me. That’s what I get for trying to read in a hurry while doing something else. Sorry for my fault.

@otto.5684 said:And while the changes to PvE have opened diversity there a bit, it is mostly jamming sword to be the go to weapon (not that I am against, since sword is my favorite guardian weapon, but there should be options).There are options, namely scepter and sword. The upcoming nerf to scepter AA is negligible, <2% dps loss when doing the proper rotation. It's not sure whether the patch will actually open up a (larger) niche for sword, or whether stuff stays as it is with minimally reduced overall damage.

@CptAurellian.9537 said:

@otto.5684 said:And while the changes to PvE have opened diversity there a bit, it is mostly jamming sword to be the go to weapon (not that I am against, since sword is my favorite guardian weapon, but there should be options).There are options, namely scepter and sword. The upcoming nerf to scepter AA is negligible, <2% dps loss when doing the proper rotation. It's not sure whether the patch will actually open up a (larger) niche for sword, or whether stuff stays as it is with minimally reduced overall damage.

I think it is a bit larger dps loss to scepter than that (unless you were referring to overall dps). Sword already does better on moving targets. I do think scepter will still have uses, but sword will be favorite in most situations. I do not think it is good that sword is a bit buffed (and I think it needs a bit more), I do not see any benefit in nerfing scepter.

@otto.5684 said:

@CptAurellian.9537 said:

@otto.5684 said:And while the changes to PvE have opened diversity there a bit, it is mostly jamming sword to be the go to weapon (not that I am against, since sword is my favorite guardian weapon, but there should be options).There are options, namely scepter and sword. The upcoming nerf to scepter AA is negligible, <2% dps loss when doing the proper rotation. It's not sure whether the patch will actually open up a (larger) niche for sword, or whether stuff stays as it is with minimally reduced overall damage.

I agree with you, we should be given damage options not having options taken away from us.Scepter should be left as it, while they should buff sword to be par on with scepter, so you have the option of picking either in a raid.The scepter will still be used in some anyway like for Demios in wing 4 since scepter has range.

@otto.5684 said:

@CptAurellian.9537 said:

@otto.5684 said:And while the changes to PvE have opened diversity there a bit, it is mostly jamming sword to be the go to weapon (not that I am against, since sword is my favorite guardian weapon, but there should be options).There are options, namely scepter and sword. The upcoming nerf to scepter AA is negligible, <2% dps loss when doing the proper rotation. It's not sure whether the patch will actually open up a (larger) niche for sword, or whether stuff stays as it is with minimally reduced overall damage.

the right word for this patch is clueless...

I love these patches ... because I get to say it again:

Balance is based primarily on theme. I mean, they even admit it ... things like "Hey, it's nonsense your ranged weapon works better than a melee weapon in melee range. We fixed that".

OK ... go back to whatever you believe now.

@"Obtena.7952" said:I love these patches ... because I get to say it again:

Balance is based primarily on theme. I mean, they even admit it ... things like "Hey, it's nonsense your ranged weapon works better than a melee weapon in melee range. We fixed that".

OK ... go back to whatever you believe now.

Only Anet is only 4-5 years late on this theme lol. I am pretty certain if theme (or even performance) was behind this change it would have happened years ago. The actual driver is probably random number generator.

More likely:

Senior dev: this list of changes is too small. Add something.Junior dev: should we spend more time on FB to figure out why it is over performing, and do extensive changes to fix it?Senior dev: that is too much kitten work. I heard scepter does a lot of damage. Nerf that shit a bit and say ranged weapons should be bad or something. Also, someone said that sword skill three should deal more damage. Tack that on and call it a day.

@"Obtena.7952" said:I love these patches ... because I get to say it again:

Balance is based primarily on theme. I mean, they even admit it ... things like "Hey, it's nonsense your ranged weapon works better than a melee weapon in melee range. We fixed that".

OK ... go back to whatever you believe now.

Yeah, it's definitely theme. Scepter doing 10% less damage fits guardian's theme of having slightly less ranged damage, especially if you are a dragonhunter. Firebrand having almost every boon in the game is also very thematic. It's just a combination of a bunch of other support specs thematically. I can't believe I never saw this before. They also forgot to turn off scourge's pbAoE in PoF beta, but they finally got to it after 2 years because it didn't fit the theme. /sarcasm off

They could have at least brought 20% damage buff to zealots defense to PvP/WvW considering they removed almost half of the front loaded damage on sword 2

@otto.5684 said:

@"Obtena.7952" said:I love these patches ... because I get to say it again:

Balance is based primarily on theme. I mean, they even admit it ... things like "

Hey, it's nonsense your ranged weapon works better than a melee weapon in melee range. We fixed that

".

OK ... go back to whatever you believe now.

That's true for LOTS of these changes and to be honest, I don't think you are too far from the truth here. Still, it's worth keeping this in mind when people try to understand why Anet changes things or if people want to suggest ideas themselves.

These changes suck outside of Purging flames. Let's keep nerfing one of the slowest professions that require standing in small circles even further. Makes sense to me.

why the fuck would they nerf the SUPPORT aspects of a mainly SUPPORT class??? thats fucking stupid.

@Altion.9576 said:why the kitten would they nerf the SUPPORT aspects of a mainly SUPPORT class??? thats kitten stupid.

Outside of WvW, FB support is not really impacted much. We lost personal 1 aegis on 1 skill, that was locked SoC. Not exactly impactful. And I am in favor of nerfing FB support capacity, cuz it is over performing. However, there are far bigger issues at play here. FB dps is not exactly doing stellar in PvP. Core and DH are still in C level realm, and how things are going it seems they will never be PvP competitive.

The changes do not really nerf FB support (outside of the ToR 2 in WvW), failed to make any of the traits and skills buffed usable and ignores everything else.