Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Potential Future Balance Changes


Recommended Posts

My general tip as an engineer is: Dont break what isn't broken, just Fix what is underperforming (Core engineer, Damage focused Engineering Kits,...).

The proposed Engineer changes will serve no purpose other than to absolutely enrage the already victimized scrappers and they are not making any other playstyles more viable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 426
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Would your gameplay change as a result?

Further nerfs to Scourge will only make it more annoying to play, it already is quite uninteresting spec to run, that I only play because our 15-20 man guild group requires it.

Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?

Yes it will improve the state of the game.

Are you looking forward to these potential changes?

Yes.

What are your concerns with this set of changes?

They are not touching more stuff that is broken right now in WvW, there are so many builds and skills that are overpowered it would take too long to list them all. Another issue is that for some classes like mesmer and necromancer it is only taking stuff away without any compensation to less used skills or traits.

What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?

Changes to group compositions, warriors being even more OP, mesmers seeing even less play, less close to 10k long range shot hits from 1500 range, other than that current state of balance will remain almost the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:Greetings fellow Tyrians,

We've been thinking about implementing the following changes and wanted to share them with you to hear your thoughts and feedback. We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table, so the bulk of the changes shared here are WvW-centric. This is not the full list of changes that are being considered for the next balance update.

This is not a call for general profession feedback. Here are a few questions to think about while looking over the potential changes:

  • Would your gameplay change as a result?
  • Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?
  • Are you looking forward to these potential changes?
  • What are your concerns with this set of changes?
  • What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?

With those types of questions in mind here's some of what we're looking at.

Engineer

  • Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.
  • Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.
  • Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.

Guardian

  • Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.
  • Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.

Mesmer

  • Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.
  • Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.
  • Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.

Necromancer

  • Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.
  • Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.

Ranger

  • Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.

Revenant

  • Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.
  • Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.

Warrior

  • Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.
  • Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.
  • Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.
  • Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.

We look forward to seeing your thoughts and feedback!

Sincerely,GW2 Systems Team

Not sure how I missed this thread, but thank you!

I, personally, feel that it would be great if the team focused more on global changes, as opposed to individual skill changes. I say that because as I quickly read through the notes nothing I noticed really tackles the real issues inside pvp or wvw modes. Example, you can change damage on those Necromancer skills, but my full trailblazer Necromancer can still get crushed in a matter of seconds... Nothing really changes that scenario, and those types of issues are really frustrating to players. It also contributes to the list of reasons why newer players don’t want to participate in pvp modes either.

Another example, let’s say you change the damage on longbow and a players is running around wvw. While they are pewpewing away, then low and behold a Mesmer appears on top of your character from stealth and spams a crap ton of damage by the time you can react or even locate the actual player out of the multiple player copies... So what did the longbow change actually do? Nothing.

Players would really appreciate the real problems inside of spvp and wvw being looked at and addressed. That’s something we’ve been hoping on for a really long time now...

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/28024/increasing-ttk-undoing-old-split-changes-and-eliminating-skill-splitting

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/44028/ideas-to-tone-down-offensive-aoes

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/62555/putting-fun-back-into-designs-and-balancing

Maybe let’s look at how to make support roles better and more fun to play?

Perhaps the team can look at making a more tasteful stealth system?

I know the team wanted to create clear and understandable visuals for the game, so was something like this ever on the table? https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/34750/inspirational-mesmer-illusion-appearance-change-idea and https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/67283/i-would-like-to-discuss-visual-tells-for-wvw

The balance team ever consider reevaluating the condi system to more of a DoT skill design, where toughness plays a role in defenses? https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/29999/let-s-also-fix-up-the-condi-system-before-we-neuter-professions-more#latest

Anyone in the meetings ever suggest to look at underperforming weapons and skills and boost those instead? Would certainly improve build variety.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@SkyFurY.6057 said:Where is the thief? In stealth?Thief gets changes indirectly when reveal skills get changes. Detection pulse was the main reliable AoE reveal before it was removed, I'm glad that the devs realise that was a mistake, and buffing the range of the reveal on sight beyond sight and gaze of darkness makes them a lot more reliable, so as long as they're all still able to be dodged if the thief preempts the skill then these are good changes.

I'm not convinced ranger longbow auto needs a damage nerf still, a lot of the issue was the interaction with sic em, damage modifiers from traits and one wolf pack. I guess this makes the burst more linked to cooldowns tho, which is a good idea overall.

Beyond that, I can't comment too much, as thief is the only class I play. Something I would like to see as an overall trend is moving back towards the use of combo fields and finishers again, or at least making these things worth using again. We have a lot of cool stuff like combo fields that encourages team play but is not being used because tactics that used to require team coordination are overshadowed by newer content that only requires one guy to do the same job. Why blast water/fire fields on ele/engi when you have a firebrand churning out boons with no coordination needed? If you make these things relevant again, eliminate the redundancy and make the most of the fantastic work you've already done, WvW can see a drastic improvement without a huge amount of dev time. Everybody wins.

@shadowpass.4236 said:We need more of these threads. This is very good to see and a high frequency of threads like these by Anet, along with them working with proven, experienced members of their competitive/endgame-modes will encourage people to stay and continue playing.

^ this. Nice work Irenio, keep it up dude :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Engineer

  • Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.

The real problem isn't Purge Gyro cleansing 5 conditions. It's Superior Rune of the Antitoxin DOUBLING basically all cleanse Scrapper puts out. That's a little much for a 6th rune bonus, don't you think?

  • Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.

If you almost double the cooldown of Sneak Gyro to (presumably) curb the amount of stealth pushes in large scale, you also really hurt its viability in smallscale / roaming fights. It's a survival tool that roaming Scrapper really needs to be up on demand both for engaging and disengaging.

Also, please consider how recent changes have completely gutted any non-power Scrapper spec. I used to like playing condition engineer, and I hardly play the game any more because no builds are viable for it... Power is just always better..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table

I'll be providing feedback based on this statement of objective. My responses will be with respect to the WvW group meta, not roaming or small havocs.

General Questions

  • Would your gameplay change as a result?
  • Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?
  • Are you looking forward to these potential changes?
  • What are your concerns with this set of changes?
  • What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?

Would your gameplay change as a result?Not in any major ways.

Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?These changes, by and large, would improve the state of the game.

Are you looking forward to these potential changes?Yes, some particular aspect of these changes are worth looking forward to and would be highly beneficial to the WvW group meta.

What are your concerns with this set of changes?These changes primarily address classes that are possibly overperforming in WvW. However, these changes do not address the classes that are underperforming in WvW. If the objective is to bring some new options to the table of the WvW meta, more attention needs to be paid to the question of why the underperforming classes are bad, not just lowering the strength of the strong classes.

What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?There would be no major meta/composition consequences from the changes listed here.

Engineer

  • Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.
  • Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.
  • Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.

Giving detection pulse back to engineers is an excellent change. Increasing the cooldown on sneak gyro goes along with that as an excellent change. Those two changes will have a significantly larger impact on group play than the sum total of the remainder of the changes here, in a positive way. Lowering the number of cleansing pulses on purge gyro is also a good change, as engineers are somewhat overtuned in their condition removal support currently. However, I would recommend that a broader look at engineer condition removal mechanics be conducted before making any changes to individual skills such as purge gyro.

Guardian

  • Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.
  • Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.

The sanctuary change is irrelevant.

The change to Tome of Resolve would be a good change, but would likely have very little impact on actual play.

Daring Challenge only grants aegis to the guardian itself, it does not grant boons to nearby allies. For this reason, the skill is extremely weak. The change would technically make it weaker, but it's already terrible. For that reason, this change would have little impact, but I'm not sure what purpose it serves.

Removing aegis and retaliation from Unbroken Lines is good in that it slightly tones down the strong defensive support utility of firebrand without ruining it. It will not have major impacts on play, but it is a step in the right direction.

Mesmer

  • Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.
  • Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.
  • Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.

None of the mesmer changes will have any impact whatsoever on group play in WvW. The illusion of life change will technically make the skill slightly weaker, but the duration of the effect will still be plenty long at 8 seconds, and the cooldown is already long enough at 75 that increasing it to 90 will be mostly unnoticeable.

Call me biased, but I think Mesmers have been smacked around enough. They should probably be getting major buffs to group WvW capability, not more nerfs.

Necromancer

  • Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.
  • Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.

The changes to Feast of Corruption and Devouring Darkness are good. Scourges are too powerful offensively, especially on the power side of things.

The changes to Sand Cascade and Sand Flare are probably good, but do not serve a major purpose for WvW compositions. While they provide defensive support for the group, scourges are not really brought for that purpose. I would recommend instead to reduce the base amount of barrier while increasing the healing power scaling. This way the base defensive utility is reduced, but the capability for speccing into that defensive utility is increased.

Ranger

  • Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.

No impact on WvW group play.

Revenant

  • Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.
  • Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.

These are generally good changes. I'm concerned about the red warning rectangle from the perspective of visual clutter. While it will be nice to see the CoR coming in, there's already an enormous amount of red visual clutter from scourge shades. I'm not positive of the best way to address this, but it's worth mentioning as a concern.

Warrior

  • Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.
  • Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.
  • Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.
  • Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.

The change to Sight Beyond Sight is good. With detection pulse re-added to engineers, it's unlikely that many spellbreakers would take it, but having the option is always a positive thing for compositions

The changes to warhorn, while interesting, are completely irrelevant for WvW group play. The roles of boon support and condition removal are already well established, and warrior would need to sacrifice far too much offensive capability to bring these defensive warhorn abilities.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would strongly advise against nerfing scourge sustain even if it was only sand cascade. It will further push scourge out of the meta its barely hanging on by and will be an even easier target for high mobility / high spike specs like holo/rev/thief(condi/power) none of which you guys seem to have as a priority on this post but somehow scourge sustain is what comes to mind? Play 1 day of ranked there are far more pressing issues plagueing the balance currently than what most people consider 'food'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@NotoriousNaru.1705 said:I would strongly advise against nerfing scourge sustain even if it was only sand cascade. It will further push scourge out of the meta its barely hanging on by and will be an even easier target for high mobility / high spike specs like holo/rev/thief(condi/power) none of which you guys seem to have as a priority on this post but somehow scourge sustain is what comes to mind? Play 1 day of ranked there are far more pressing issues plagueing the balance currently than what most people consider 'food'.

He did say the changes are focussed on WvW, and scourges are overperforming there when it comes to group play.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still waiting on that Dragonhunter rebalance and fixes .We are still waiting for a much needed dodge on Wings of Resolve, or a decent improvements to longbow.

Within the last year, All the other 8 HoT specs have had BIG some change or mechanic rework, yet 3 years have passed and Dragonhunter has remained the same.

All guardians see is stuff for Firebrand these days. The odd tweak the base guardian. The Dragonhunter traits have barely been touched, only being tweaked slightly when a global change happens because if they didnt then it'll probely mess with the code of the game.

Maybe you could give DragonHunter chained Virtues attacks that chain together. so the virtues are 3 skill combo attack instead, to make it much more different from both firebrand and Base guardian.Spear of Justice > Hunter's Verdict > F1 3rd skillWings of Resolve > F2 2nd skill > F2 3rd skillShield of Courage > F3 2nd skill > F3 3rd skill

It's something... you have to do something with Dragonhunter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@NotoriousNaru.1705 said:I would strongly advise against nerfing scourge sustain even if it was only sand cascade. It will further push scourge out of the meta its barely hanging on by and will be an even easier target for high mobility / high spike specs like holo/rev/thief(condi/power) none of which you guys seem to have as a priority on this post but somehow scourge sustain is what comes to mind? Play 1 day of ranked there are far more pressing issues plagueing the balance currently than what most people consider 'food'.

He did say the changes are focussed on WvW, and scourges are overperforming there when it comes to group play.

Then nerf it in wvw only? You make no sense considering that change im speaking of is also directed at pvp.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Tinnel.4369" said:Is this post really from August 21st, edited August 28th, with the first comments on it today?

I don't really come to this part of the forums, but it seems a proposed round of balancing 9 days ago would have hit my radar and garnered attention from the community before today.

Thread was posted on August 21st, edited and then they made it visible later.


On the changes:

Sounds reasonable to me. Loving that Ranger Longbow 1 nerf. Nerf to FB is great too. People talk about hating powercreep, but the defense creep is insane too and part of the reason why powercreep got so bad to counter it. They keep escalating each other and I firmly believe this is a good step in the right direction. Less barrier on Scourge also plays into that. Lowering survivability. I don't think SS needs to be nerfed at all because 1. other stuff "enables" the spec to be that strong 2. it's atrocious to play without it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have included comments in bold next to the proposed changes that I am concerned with

Engineer

Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW. Please for the love of God do this to many have become one tactic squadsGuardian

Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE. condi cleanse is meaningless when scrappers can convert all of them to boonsTome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis. do we really need more retal? I get hit with enough of it for a lifetime every time I use a skill in a zerg fightTome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.Mesmer

Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.Necromancer

Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE. honestly doesn't matter scrappers convert all condi to boons now anyway, its about strips not corrupts damage reduction would be welcomedDevouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE. honestly doesn't matter scrappers convert all condi to boons now anyway, its about strips not corrupts damage reduction would be welcomedSand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP. yes pleaseSand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW. yes pleaseRanger

Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only. 1yes pleaseRevenant

Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius. for the love of GoD yes pleaseWarrior

Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor. yes pleaseSight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.for the love of GOD yes pleaseQuick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.

I think it would change my game play slightly but not much.

I like quite a few but as I said I commented on only the ones that I am familiar with that being said anything to reduce the barrier and damage of scourges will encourage a change to the meta and a more balanced fight and team comp. Honestly I don't play scourge because its very one dimensional and boring as I said I find it that way some don't. More reveals are so needed it gets boring blindsiding or being blindsided in most larger fights. increasing the cooldown for the scrapper means other tactics will have to also be employed. I would also suggest reduction in the time stealthed, with all of the field blasting going on we are getting up to 12 to 14 seconds very easily.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Greetings fellow Tyrians,

We've been thinking about implementing the following changes and wanted to share them with you to hear your thoughts and feedback. We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table, so the bulk of the changes shared here are WvW-centric. This is not the full list of changes that are being considered for the next balance update.

This is not a call for general profession feedback. Here are a few questions to think about while looking over the potential changes:

  • Would your gameplay change as a result?
  • Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?
  • Are you looking forward to these potential changes?
  • What are your concerns with this set of changes?
  • What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?

With those types of questions in mind here's some of what we're looking at.

Engineer

  • Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.
  • Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.
  • Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.

Guardian

  • Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.
  • Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.

Mesmer

  • Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.
  • Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.
  • Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.

Necromancer

  • Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.
  • Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.

Ranger

  • Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.

Revenant

  • Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.
  • Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.

Warrior

  • Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.
  • Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.
  • Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.
  • Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.

We look forward to seeing your thoughts and feedback!

Sincerely,GW2 Systems Team

Thief is the core root cause of the Toxicity in the game and and being the worst offender of Toxic Profession amongst all Professions in the game, so why Thief Profession exempt from the lists?

Why Elementalist being a gradual Toxic profession exempt from the list?

Shouldn't changes include all Professions alike without Favoritism?

((The sole Profession who is responsible for Guild Wars 2 competitiveness non-existence is Thief Profession. Without Thief Profession complete removal; no changes will restore WvW and PvP scenery))

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@NotoriousNaru.1705 said:

@NotoriousNaru.1705 said:I would strongly advise against nerfing scourge sustain even if it was only sand cascade. It will further push scourge out of the meta its barely hanging on by and will be an even easier target for high mobility / high spike specs like holo/rev/thief(condi/power) none of which you guys seem to have as a priority on this post but somehow scourge sustain is what comes to mind? Play 1 day of ranked there are far more pressing issues plagueing the balance currently than what most people consider 'food'.

He did say the changes are focussed on WvW, and scourges are overperforming there when it comes to group play.

Then nerf it in wvw only? You make no sense considering that change im speaking of is also directed at pvp.

There's nothing in the original post that indicates they won't do exactly that. The post was to discuss changes in WvW and how they would affect the WvW meta, try not to put words in the OP's mouth :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gonna be yoinking the other guys format for my feedback.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Engineer

  • Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.
  • Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.
  • Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.These changes ultimately do nothing to scrappers oppressive role of completely invalidating conditions. The readdition of reveal is a very good change, and should help curb some of the 40v40 stealth dancing that has been going on lately. The sneak gyro nerf seems a little too much, really hurting its use outside of zerg play, and inside zerg play the better groups could quickswap to bomb kit and blast smokes. Maybe 60 seconds instead of 75 seconds. Ultimately to see any real change in scrappers role/gameplay antitoxin needs a change to make it more engaging and less passive. Something like building clears to get a significant clear. These changes would improve the current state of scrapper, but is a little to light handed for a spec that is able to invalidate half of the damage/cc effects in the game.

Guardian

  • Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.
  • Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.These changes do pretty much nothing to guardians current gameplay. The nerf to cleansing does little so long as scrapper and antitoxin exist, and the removal of aegis on courage chapter 2 is somewhat irrelevant as your already extremely tanky without ever using it, and usually want to save pages for more important chapters. These changes overall do a net nothing to the mode in my opinion. In my opinion the problem with firebrand is it just simply does too much, while also having the single best mechanic for avoiding damage in the game of aegis. Keep the things unique to it like its aegis applications and stab uptime, but the copious amounts of healing, instant rez potential, and access to nearly every important boon for a zerg such as resistance, should be looked at. As a side note if more significant condi nerfs are applied condi firebrand may need a nerf, it's slowly been building up power behind the scenes and the only thing keeping it in check right now is the burning----->aegis conversion scrapper provides.

Mesmer

  • Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.
  • Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.
  • Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.Im not as informed with mesmer to make glaring suggestions, but outside of chaotic interruption changes these seem to be more annoying than impactful. Illusion of Life really needs a shorter/no invulnerability window to make it worse, increasing the cd and reducing its duration doesn't do much for its overwhelming power, especially when you can barrier the target to prevent them from going into downstate. The CI and chaos storm changes are much needed and go a long way to making mirage less opressive in pvp/wvw.

Necromancer

  • Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.
  • Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.This is another set of changes that do pretty much nothing to how scourge is currently played in zergs. You still have the ability to bypass the 5 target cap golden rule through sand savant, and while the nerf to devouring darkness was much needed it doesn't hit the glaring problems scourge has in the mode. Sand savant NEEDS a nerf, it has existed in its current form for way too long. Reworking it to only apply barrier and other effects on the big shade, removing the melee shade, anything to curb its absolute dominant power and its ability to halt a large majority of melee pushes. That and curbing the ridiculous amount of garbage conditions scourge can output would go a long way to shifting the meta.

Ranger

  • Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.A simple change, but a good one. I'd still like to see nerfs to swoop and rangers ability to run away/chase literally anything.

Revenant

  • Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.
  • Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.CoR nerfs are always welcome. We may see more groups pushing in deeper with revs, as there's no inherent advantage to bombing from its maximum range with this change, and the ability to see the skill now is a much needed change.

Warrior

  • Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.
  • Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.
  • Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.
  • Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.Warhorn and reveal buff is nice. Charge seems like a skill that can get out of hand extremely fast, especially with the ability to convert it to 10 targets with quick breathing. Things like 25% extra damage on melee push CoRs, but its nice to see buffs to one of the classic warrior playstyles. Id honestly really like to see more changes to the tactics traitline, as all these changes to make warrior more supportive are still missing. Bubble seems a little too powerful right now, and it looks like we're in that inflationary period of bubble being super oppressive. Most of this is due to how hard it is to corrupt a bubble thanks to the auto stab in defense, which is extremely powerful in its own right.

We look forward to seeing your thoughts and feedback!

Sincerely,GW2 Systems Team

Overall no matter what changes are decided to be made, I really hope Anet gets them out as fast as possible. WvW is in an extremely bad state right now and it may already be too late for the mode. This is a good step in the right direction, but it will all be for nothing if none of the feedback is taken into account and the patch takes months to arrive. I guess we'll see what happens in the weeks to come. And of course as always, buff shattered aegis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Burnfall.9573 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Greetings fellow Tyrians,

We've been thinking about implementing the following changes and wanted to share them with you to hear your thoughts and feedback. We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table, so the bulk of the changes shared here are WvW-centric. This is not the full list of changes that are being considered for the next balance update.

This is not a call for general profession feedback. Here are a few questions to think about while looking over the potential changes:
  • Would your gameplay change as a result?
  • Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?
  • Are you looking forward to these potential changes?
  • What are your concerns with this set of changes?
  • What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?

With those types of questions in mind here's some of what we're looking at.

Engineer
  • Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.
  • Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.
  • Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.

Guardian
  • Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.
  • Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.

Mesmer
  • Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.
  • Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
  • Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.
  • Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.

Necromancer
  • Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
  • Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.
  • Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.

Ranger
  • Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.

Revenant
  • Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.
  • Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.

Warrior
  • Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.
  • Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.
  • Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.
  • Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.

We look forward to seeing your thoughts and feedback!

Sincerely,GW2 Systems Team

Thief is the core root cause of the Toxicity in the game and amongst all professions combined, so why is Thief Profession exempt from the list?

I was wondering when you'd pop up. Like I said earlier, thief gets indirect changes when reveal skills are changed, the proposed reveal changes are good, healthy changes, the lack of changes in this list specifically to thief does not imply there won't be any come the patch, and thief is also not part of the WvW group meta these days which is probably why it's not had much attention. We have a Dev asking for WvW specific feedback, don't waste that rare opportunity with your usual toxic thief hating agenda and give the guy some actually useful feedback, if not for my sake then for your own.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:Elementalist, The forgotten class of Gw2

It's in a good place right now imo. Any further changes may wind up in nerfs.

a good place? Really? Because being outdone everywhere, high risk no reward was the goal for elementalist?

I don't think it's an exhaustive list. They should have mentioned both classes on there, even if it only was a note that they're still thinking of something though in my opinion.

Or maybe the post wasn't 100% ready, considering the last edit was 2 days ago and was made visible today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@NotoriousNaru.1705 said:I would strongly advise against nerfing scourge sustain even if it was only sand cascade. It will further push scourge out of the meta its barely hanging on by and will be an even easier target for high mobility / high spike specs like holo/rev/thief(condi/power) none of which you guys seem to have as a priority on this post but somehow scourge sustain is what comes to mind? Play 1 day of ranked there are far more pressing issues plagueing the balance currently than what most people consider 'food'.

He did say the changes are focussed on WvW, and scourges are overperforming there when it comes to group play.

Then nerf it in wvw only? You make no sense considering that change im speaking of is also directed at pvp.

There's nothing in the original post that indicates they won't do exactly that. The post was to discuss changes in WvW and how they would affect the WvW meta, try not to put words in the OP's mouth :)

Thief is fine, give ur toxicity a rest lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@YtseJam.9784 said:I would like to hear your plans about fixing Chrono. If you look at all the questions and feedback chronos are leaving in the Mesmer forums for the last month and a half, you'll see that the last balance update that added the 1 Illusion requirement makes the class unplayable in all aspects of the game.

Working as intended, just like elusive mind. If you don't like it, you can always quite playing or spending $$$ like some of the rest of us.. . . . . . or just deal with it.I could never have the faith, care, nor hope anymore to write as much as @Pyroatheist.9031 just did.

Einstein: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

However, on a positive note, in the past I would have appreciate the System team's decision to post such changes and look for feedback.

My Consensus: For the most part like what was written, don't like what was not written.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Necromancer

Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE. FineDevouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE. FineSand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP. Strongly disagreeSand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW. Strongly disagree

What you should try to do when balancing scourge is to tone down it's AoE oppressive presence with condition and corrupts, not the sustain. Scourge since it has no shroud already need barrier to survive and it is already so easy to make it explode that if you remove barrier not only you are cancelling his only source of survivability but you are also removing the support part of the elite spec. My advice would be to start thinking about how to keep intact the aspect of support scourge, while toning down the oppressive condi/corrupt part. Keep in mind that this changes to scepter also affect core condi necro, which is definetely not overtuned, so i would see the nerf on scepter skills only if you pick scourge, not if you stay as core necro.

(Answer to your questions are related to the changes for necromancer)-Would your gameplay change as a result?Yes, nerfing barrier is not the way to go with scourge. It kills its only sustain and allies support option.-Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?A minor improve only the ones corcerning feast of corruption and devouring darkness but again only for scourge not for core necro(a split is needed here).-Are you looking forward to these potential changes?Honestly no, except for the scepter ones(and only for scourge).-What are your concerns with this set of changes?Nerfing barrier is not the way to go with scourge. It kills its only sustain and allies support option.-What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?Scourge would have less surivability which is already low enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@NotoriousNaru.1705 said:I would strongly advise against nerfing scourge sustain even if it was only sand cascade. It will further push scourge out of the meta its barely hanging on by and will be an even easier target for high mobility / high spike specs like holo/rev/thief(condi/power) none of which you guys seem to have as a priority on this post but somehow scourge sustain is what comes to mind? Play 1 day of ranked there are far more pressing issues plagueing the balance currently than what most people consider 'food'.

He did say the changes are focussed on WvW, and scourges are overperforming there when it comes to group play.

Then nerf it in wvw only? You make no sense considering that change im speaking of is also directed at pvp.

There's nothing in the original post that indicates they won't do exactly that. The post was to discuss changes in WvW and how they would affect the WvW meta, try not to put words in the OP's mouth :)

Thief is fine, give ur toxicity a rest lol

Not sure if you meant to respond to me? Hahaha xD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@NotoriousNaru.1705 said:I would strongly advise against nerfing scourge sustain even if it was only sand cascade. It will further push scourge out of the meta its barely hanging on by and will be an even easier target for high mobility / high spike specs like holo/rev/thief(condi/power) none of which you guys seem to have as a priority on this post but somehow scourge sustain is what comes to mind? Play 1 day of ranked there are far more pressing issues plagueing the balance currently than what most people consider 'food'.

He did say the changes are focussed on WvW, and scourges are overperforming there when it comes to group play.

Then nerf it in wvw only? You make no sense considering that change im speaking of is also directed at pvp.

There's nothing in the original post that indicates they won't do exactly that. The post was to discuss changes in WvW and how they would affect the WvW meta, try not to put words in the OP's mouth :)

Thief is fine, give ur toxicity a rest lol

Not sure if you meant to respond to me? Hahaha xD

Lol no sry my man, was meant for burny lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...