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Future Potential WvW-centric Balance Changes - September 6th 2019


Irenio CalmonHuang.2048

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@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:Deadly Ambition: Reduce the poison inflicted by this trait from 2 stacks for 3 seconds to 1 stack for 2 seconds in PvP & WvW. Reduce the internal cooldown from 5s to 2s in PvP & WvW.

But, if you add this trait:

" Potent Poison — Increased poison duration (+33%). Poison deals increased damage(+33%). Other Deadly Arts traits apply additional poison stacks."

Its pretty much still same.

Or ewen a buff >>if we count it by this calculation : "(0.06 * Condition Damage=1000) + 33.5 damage per stack per second at level 80." It would be old> 1 454,95 damage (1,3x 1 119,195 damage: (3,99 sec x 3 stacks x 93,5 damage))Versus new> 1 580,15 damage (1,3 x 1215,5 damage : (5 stacks (2 stacks ewery 2 sec for 5 sec) x 93,5 damage x 2,6 sec))

Sry it look bad, but pretty much yeah it will be a little buff, not nerf.

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Thank you for this format and considering our feedback. :)

This time I really like the changes to necro and the adjustments in comparison to the first version. I just don't get why the barrier nerf is partly also planned for PvP? Scourge is in a pretty good place right now in PvP, isn't it? Neither OP nor useless. I just don't see a need for a support nerf there, as there's no scourge stacking in random 5 player groups.Aside from that, I'm really looking forward to the Death Magic rework. :) This could be fun~

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Holographic Shockwave can retain the 600 aoe, just make the launch only 300 range and deal minor damage beyond 300 range otherwise holosmith gonna be really stale, Holographic Shockwave has always been the eye candy to me, the skill is pretty much the most iconic thing about holosmith if you change the visual to 300 it gonna be super boring.

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@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:so how is the long range shot nerf is impacting the insane damage bearbow rangers can dish out? What about Sicem and rapid shot?

Any brilliant ideas on how to bring ranger more into the squad meta as some compensation for continiously nerfing it, or is that just not important at all for the one of the professions that has seen the least screen time in the wvw meta?

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@MLinni.6109 said:

@Virdo.1540 said:Ye if a Glass cannon hits a glass cannon hard, its almost a one shot. So why is the herald the only class that wont do a oneshot in that scenario? Why low damage even if full zerk? What about Tanky Warriors or Mesmers that onehit everyone too? ._.

(or Deadeyes, all sorts of mage, Rangers, Guards)

Seems like Herald arent allowed to have fun anymore. They take all our Damage away and dont even buff our support or sustain. We are now pretty much like a plastic bowl.

Nono, you misunderstand me here. I am NOT for reducing Rev damage in any way. They could keep the old version of damage for all I care. All I am happy about is the change to CoR that you will finally be able to see the danger zone and have a chance to react to it. Other than in roaming, the shattered ground trail is culled in zerg play so that you don't have any chance to react to it.You should be able to see what's coming and dodge if you can. Whenever I am playing a glassy character and I am suddenly dead without being able to see any attack and have to resort to the combat log to find out what actually happened it irks me.

To be honest, its already a bad skill. Hammer 2 is too slow, so enough reaction time, cant go down hills properly and its already happening too much that they are running over 2 of the 3 pulses edges so they dont get dmg at all.if they already weaken it, it should be at least 1 Pulse, not 3

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To make wvw interesting again you need not only change skills and traits; we demand a system (you called it once alliances) of rewarding, exciting and challenging people for playing this gamemode again or maybe (should happen from time to time) for the first time!

Their are a lot of challenges ; handle the locusts plague . Players who have several accounts on different servers playing the primetimes or their favourite commanders ; make it rewarding playing for one group (as you see i don't write server here) to play the game "efficiently".

We play in T1 and the only public commander is fighting the other 2 blobs at the spawn. But what happens to the other players working on the "same goal" in flipping camps defending towers or building siege ? Theirs no goal , the goal of being first in the matchup is not strong / rewarding and also not fair enough. Why don't let zergs fight in an colosseum every round hour there is a special reward in the center of ebg (where now smc is) the zergs can fight 1 on 1 / or 1 on 1 on 1 / or even 2 vs 1; just be f. creative ; the gamemodes potential is wasted a lot !

And where is the competition ? Build a serversystem with more or less equal playerbase ; make events and seasons ; get some good interesting rewards just for wvw. New achievements (the achievement tap of wvw is a joke!) f.e if someone defends camps or dollys or towers , killing people outnumbered; killing 100 enemies in 40 Minutes ... whatever take care of the wvw community if you loose it that game is lost ! Make it more appeling for new or pve players to join wvw; i that regard think about bosses (like the veterans but way stronger more like raid bosses) who spawn every now and then and give a buff to the group who killed it ( there could be a new map, which is mobaorientated but with mounts and big... where zergs can fight, dragons be killed and towers defended.. think out of the box).

Send finally love to wvw with new stuff ongoing changes (mapwise , rewardwise, competitionwise) build new stuff and ...just try things ! Get streamers who openly dislike wvw such as WP to play and even enjoy it..

If the changes dont work, you will get blaimed but i think if you just communicate that you try something new in wvw, even if it goes wrong, the wvw population would appreciate that. Take posts like this serious i am playing that game for 7 years now and most of my time i spend in wvw.

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To put my perspective in check I'd like to give a disclaimer. I don't do WvW much, as I don't like the game mode. So take my perspective with a grain of salt. I'm also a necromancer main, so my concerns at the moment are primarily focused on her.

Sand Savant: This trait is far too dominant in WvW and it is the reason why so many other traits had to be nerfed to keep it under control. Yet it hasn't kept it under control, only harmed the scourge's overall damage and funneled them into doubling down on this trait. The issue with this trait isn't just the damage, its not just the coverage, its not just the conditions it pulses, its not just the barrier, its all of this. All of this combined. In comparison the other traits just don't have this level of coverage which is the big thing when you combine it with everything else.My suggestion would be to remove it as a damage trait option. I do understand that there are some PvE players who will be upset that this trait would stop being a good Open world trait, however I feel that the conflict with its intended purpose and its current design demands it to be changed to a pure support trait. Changing Crippling and torment on pulse to beneficial boons for allies such as protection and regen or perhaps something else to compliment the scourge's existing concentration they hardly use would be a boon to the class. Cutting its damage down significantly, more than you've suggested for this trait or removing it entirely would be good. Changing the function of Desert shroud with Sand Savant is active to pulse out barrier to allies rather than be a ticking damage and torment. All of these could go a long way to changing this normal play of just overwhelm your foes with quantity over quality.

I'd like to see the competing traits get their day in the sun as well. Demonic lore I feel is great and I'd like to see Feed from Corruption get some use as well. I'm not sure how much it would be used with this change, I feel that it still might be underwhelming so perhaps give this trait a 1% damage buff per boon active on the necromancer? I want to see all three of these grandmaster traits taken on wildly different builds. So these are my general suggestions for the grandmasters of scourge.

Death Magic: You didn't show us any changes so I'll wait with bated breath. My hope is that you'll look at the themes of death magic and divide them into 3 solid categories:

  • Summoning(Minions and potential synergy with future elite specs or skills)
  • Poison
  • tanking

The minion traits are a bit clunky since they all synergies but they just take up so much space and leave little room for diversity among Minion masters I'd like to see them compressed into a single grandmaster and have the other two traits push more towards benefits from summoning any sort of creature or object. An example might be the Scourge's shades or something summoned through a sigil or rune, maybe spirits or turrets. Whichever the necromancer could gain in the future. This doesn't matter so much now, but could really be interesting in the future.

For poison. Death magic in GW1 was not a defensive attribute. It was a controlling, affliction attribute that reanimated corpses. But it was also known for disease and poison. Disease has been removed from the game, probably for good reason(Although I still miss it), so poison should be a primary focus in the death magic specialization. I think its important that death magic has a potent control over poison and cleansing conditions on allies or means of sending them back. Pushing a 3rd support specialization for necromancer is extremely important in my opinion, and support through condition control is on brand for death.

For Tanking, I'd like to see us push away from toughness into power which doesn't synergies well with the theme of death at all and move it more into the realm cheating death. It would be nice to see some new boons in this line that the necromancer could use as well as some reworks to things like unholy Sanctuary. Unholy sanctuary is bad for core necromancer and reaper, but its even worse for scourge as it needs nearly 25% shroud just to trigger on some builds. I'd like to see this have some function change to be more synergistic with all 3 shrouds in the game. If that means some mild changes for scourge I'm alright with it not being identical across the specs. As for other aspects of a necromancer tank, it should be harmful for the foes to strike a necromancer. Retaliation and stability seem to be the proper fits for this, but if we want to push into the idea that death afflicts foes, striking them might pull conditions from the necromancer onto the attacker? or replicate conditions? I'd like to see a tanking style that acts more like a walking plague with this so this is my suggestion. Nothing too specific though, just to give ideas.

As for the minion skills themselves, I would like to see some quality of life changes to them to bring them in line with each other and other skills. They're a bit slow to activate at times and somewhat clunky.

And I feel I'll stop here as I think I've wrote a bit too much. But hopefully we can see something interesting in the future.

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@Lazze.9870 said:

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:so how is the long range shot nerf is impacting the insane damage bearbow rangers can dish out? What about Sicem and rapid shot?

Any brilliant ideas on how to bring ranger more into the squad meta as some compensation for continiously nerfing it, or is that just not important at all for the one of the professions that has seen the least screen time in the wvw meta?

To be fair, I have seen soulbeast in a guild group for the stances, it still isn't enough for Rangers to be considered meta but it shows that they are close to be i guess

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I would like the heal on might gain to be looked at as I often run into warriors using that trait and power, precision, healing gear for a high damage and rapid healing to offset any damage that gets past their blacks and invulnerability.

If the health gained back from the heal on might was cut in half we might see more warriors opting to focus on defence instead of offsetting their defence needs with the passive heal on might trait.

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Might and damage reduction on corona burst is a double nerf which makes this skill probably useless. 300 Range on shockwave sounds horrible because you give up your movement with this skill. Shockwave is supposed to be used as a long range cc to set up a burst or cc chain, it is easy to dodge because of it's slow animation. My recommendation would be that you should look into a special mechanic of the holo the heat mechanic.The skill could work like this: 450 Range under 50% heat and 600 Range over 50% heat. This would require you to manage your heat more probably and not just spam skills. PLS NO 300 RANGE!!!

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@DrKonfusselnuss.7129 said:Might and damage reduction on corona burst is a double nerf which makes this skill probably useless. 300 Range on shockwave sounds horrible because you give up your movement with this skill. Shockwave is supposed to be used as a long range cc to set up a burst or cc chain, it is easy to dodge because of it's slow animation. My recommendation would be that you should look into a special mechanic of the holo the heat mechanic.The skill could work like this: 450 Range under 50% heat and 600 Range over 50% heat. This would require you to manage your heat more probably and not just spam skills. PLS NO 300 RANGE!!!

Please don't use corona burst. Who needs stability anyway? It's useless. Shockwave having such a large radius is completely out of line with the rest of the game. There are no other skills with such an insane radius, not even meteor shower is as big as holographic shockwave, and you have to stand in place for 3.5 seconds for meteor shower on a class with no quickness access. Then there is churning earth, a pbAoE skill with a 2s cast time that doesn't allow you to move and it is tiny by comparison, with a 360 radius. Let's also look at a class that is not ele, the reaper. Executioner's Scythe (Reaper shroud 5) makes you stand still for 1.25 seconds and has a radius of 240. Yes it stuns, but holographic shockwave knocks up. Holographic shockwave is not fine no matter what metric you use. Just go ahead, use the wiki and log into every other class in the game. You will find nothing like it.

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Thief

  • Deadly Ambition: Reduce the poison inflicted by this trait from 2 stacks for 3 seconds to 1 stack for 2 seconds in PvP & WvW. Reduce the internal cooldown from 5s to 2s in PvP & WvW.

I feel like this is an improvement since it forces condi thiefs to be more aggressive. But I still feel like just hitting an enemy is too low of a bar for such a strong effect, especially due to the combination with potent poison and lotus poison making it 2 poison + weakness by just hitting someone. The current rotation is either steal in or use sword 2, dodge, and then disengage repeat.

Perhaps poison on interrupt or stealth attack instead of giving it for free?

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@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Items

  • Superior Rune of Antitoxin: Change it so that instead of increasing outgoing condition cleanses by one it instead increases incoming condition cleanses by one, thus only affecting the wielder, but allowing it to scale up with external cleanses.

I really like this change. It strikes me as a change that deals with the problem at its source rather than treating the symptoms. This rune was clearly overperforming because it allowed certain specializations like scrapper and tempest to effectively double their cleanse support. That is way too big of an impact for a rune set. It will still be a very good option for countering heavy condition play after this change, which is good. The only concern that I have with this is that it might make scrapper, and especially tempest less desirable options in WvW. Without this rune as a crutch Firebrand is simply by far the best support. More balance changes will be needed among all support specializations to fix this.

Engineer

  • Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW. Pending the superior rune of antitoxin change, this may stay at 5 cleansing pulses.
  • Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 60 seconds in WvW.
  • Corona Burst: The existing split from PvP of reduced might gain is brought to WvW. Reduced the damage of this ability by 20% in PvP and WvW.
  • Holographic Shockwave: Reduced range from 600 to 300.
  • Impact Savant: See if there is a way to include condition damage on this trait globally. Reduce the vitality loss of this trait from 300 to 180 in WvW and PvP.
  • Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.

Really loving the holosmith nerfs. Photon forge has been completely overtuned since PoF launch. It's about time it becomes more even to other forms, like reaper shroud. Holographic shockwave is simply the biggest AoE in the game, and on top of that it has CC, a short CD and only a 0.75 sec cast time. Corona burst is just overloaded. I do appreciate the impact savant buff for scrapper. I would say that with the rune of antitoxin nerf there is no need to reduce the cleansing from purge gyro, so keep it s it is. Sneak gyro is fine. Overall scrapper might still be an okay support for WvW, but with the antitoxin nerf it might be run less frequently because firebrand is so oppressive. You may want to find a way to buff the support capabilities a little to compensate for antitoxin runes.

Guardian

  • Stand Your Ground: Reduce the stacks of stability granted by this ability from 5 to 3 in WvW.
  • Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.
  • 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.
  • Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.

It's good to see firebrand nerfs because it is by far the best support in WvW. Core guardian used to be the most needed support before firebrand came out due to the stability alone. Firebrand took that, gave it more healing, more utility and half the boons in the game. Firebrand is a complete monstrosity that warps the entire game mode, so it's sad to say that these changes will not be close to enough.Reducing stability on stand your ground would be nice if some other supports got stability access. But this change by itself will probably make melee slightly harder, which is not good. Less retaliation on tome of courage is nice, but I would like to see more retaliation pruning. It is a boon that locks out so many builds from even attempting to zerg. Builds with pulsing AoEs just get obliterated without any chance to react, because of permanent retaliation. This is another way that firebrand warps the meta. Nerfing the condition cleans of firebrand by a little is also a welcome change. It makes the condition cleansing from scrapper and tempest ever so slightly more valuable. Chapter 2 daring challenge is not a big deal in WvW because the removed aegis and the added retaliation are only personal.

Necromancer

  • Oppressive Collapse: This skill will require line of sight on the activation.
  • Sand Cascade: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP, increase the healing power contribution by 20%, as the healing coefficient is already pretty strong.
  • Sand Flare: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW, increase the healing power contribution by 33%.
  • Desert Shroud: Increase the base barrier granted by this skill by 10%, increase the healing power contribution by 15% and reduce the damage inflicted by this ability by 20% in WvW.
  • Sand Savant: We've wanted to address the target cap issue with this trait in WvW for a while, however it is an incredibly gnarly problem because this is a large functional change that would need to be preserved between game modes. This was why the cooldown split was made on this trait originally. We hear you that the trait is an issue and we're working on it. This is a tough case to crack in a manner that does not leave one mode suffering due to the changes made for another.
  • 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.

Not going to go into specifics here, but I do like a few things. Needing line of sight for skills is always a good fix. The base barrier reduction and increased scaling to shroud skills is a decent change, because it nerfs the support of damage based builds, while it potentially buffs support builds. As for sand savant, I believe that you need to make it impossible to hit foes with your shroud skills if you take it and make it add more support. 10 targets is great for support, since quite a few supports have a 10 target cap on skills while taking certain traits. However, a 10 target cap and such a big instant cast AoE is oppressive for damage and condition application, especially when it does a little bit of support at the same time.

The worst part is the AoE around the scourges themselves. Hitting 5 targets in the enemy zerg is completely fine. Potentially hitting 5 targets point blank is a design failure that almost completely disables melee builds. The entire zerg is coated with AoEs that protect it from melee pressure at all times. These AoEs are instant cast so CC is useless, and these AoEs also follow the zerg wherever it goes. Other professions have to decide if they want to use their AoEs to attack the enemy back line or to defend the front line from melee pressure. Scourge gets both at the same time, with double the targets and the AoE follows them even if they have to move instead of staying in one place. The only spec that is somewhat similar is tempest, but tempest can actually be interrupted, and a bit too easily at that. Tempest also cannot do both ranged and melee AoE damage with the same skill. It actually has to commit to an overload.

As for the scepter changes. I am not sure if they are needed. Nerfing core necro is not something you should be aiming for in general. It is possible that if enough boons are nerfed that the boon corruption may become too strong, but so far you are not removing enough from firebrand to justify this imo.

I only addressed the professions that have the most impactful changes. Here is the final verdict for me.

Would your gameplay change as a result? How?I do not believe gameplay would change all that much. In fact, there may be less variety. This all depends on the viability of scrapper after the antitoxin rune nerf.

Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?I think that the changes are a step in the right direction, but I do not believe that these changes are enough by themselves to improve the state of WvW.

Are you looking forward to these potential changes? Why?I am looking forward to the changes because they get us closer to a time where the meta will finally change. However, this is not the patch that will accomplish a meta shift, if these are all the changes.

What are your concerns and the consequences you expect with this set of changes?I am concerned that scrapper and tempest will both be worse than before the antitoxin rune nerf. The Firebrand nerfs are actually less severe than this nerf is to these two support specs, and firebrand is already way better. The antitoxin rune nerf is needed, but since you are removing this crutch in this patch, you have to put much more effort into bringing firebrand down and compensating scrapper and tempest so they can get in the support meta. One of these specs needs to have stability share so that there are alternatives. No, 1 stack of stab on an earth major master trait, that has not been touched since 2012, is not going to cut it. There need to be multiple traits or skills that grant stability to allies. At least half the amount of what firebrand offers for there to be a viable alternative.

I am also concerned that a sand savant trait rework is not going to make it into this patch. You have to try to get one in there. Sand savant is the biggest reason by far as to why scourge is oppressive. Because of this, it is easier to fix scourge than firebrand. For scourge you don't truly need many nerfs, you just need to fix sand savant. Firebrand needs shaves in many skills and also needs buffs to other support professions at the same time.

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@CelestialCat.6240 said:I would like the heal on might gain to be looked at as I often run into warriors using that trait and power, precision, healing gear for a high damage and rapid healing to offset any damage that gets past their blacks and invulnerability.

If the health gained back from the heal on might was cut in half we might see more warriors opting to focus on defence instead of offsetting their defence needs with the passive heal on might trait.

Most warriors run Defense in WvW already, and the healing from might is only about 175ish hp per might. Its the healing signet + adrenal health + might makes right creating about 1k hp/s healing rate. Discipline and Defense are taken on almost every warrior build regardless of spec, for fast hands, adrenal health, and the extra Endure Pain. The only way Might Makes Right causes a rapid heal is if the warrior is cleaving everything around him. Try blinds and CC instead of suggesting an already small heal get smaller.

Also, most run Marauder not Zealot, because the Healing power scaling on those traits and healing signet is not high, Its just a lot of small heals. Even then if you can't out DPS 1k healing per second, then maybe you need more dps yourself or to throw some poison onto your build somewhere.

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@ijxijx.2458 said:

Thief
  • Deadly Ambition: Reduce the poison inflicted by this trait from 2 stacks for 3 seconds to 1 stack for 2 seconds in PvP & WvW. Reduce the internal cooldown from 5s to 2s in PvP & WvW.

I feel like this is an improvement since it forces condi thiefs to be more aggressive. But I still feel like just hitting an enemy is too low of a bar for such a strong effect, especially due to the combination with potent poison and lotus poison making it 2 poison + weakness by just hitting someone. The current rotation is either steal in or use sword 2, dodge, and then disengage repeat.

Perhaps poison on interrupt or stealth attack instead of giving it for free?

So then the trait is useless for non stealth thieves like me that never uses stealth? No thanks. On interrupt would be to infrequent for it to be worth it. Maybe if on interrupt as well as hitting from side or back would be better.

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