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Let's Talk About PvP Balance


Cal Cohen.2358

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to clarify something from today’s blog post while also kicking off a discussion on a topic that’s near and dear to most competitive players: balance.

It’s important to understand that as competitive handles competitive balance, we will continue to primarily use skill splits in order to minimize the impact on the rest of the game. It’s certainly true that not all issues can be addressed through splits, and we will continue to work with the skills team to make sure we are making the right changes for the entire game when splitting is not a viable option.

Mini Balance Roadmap

We have identified the overall power of the game has become an issue and we wish to address this in the competitive game modes.

The next balance update is going to be smaller than usual. We want to make a handful of very targeted changes to address the biggest pain points in the current meta, but we also want to bank some time for bigger plans moving forward. For a future balance update, we are looking at major adjustments across the board. The goal is to re-establish what the overall power level for competitive modes, and then bring everything down to meet that. In true gw2 fashion, everything is on the table.

With that said, we’re not going to nerf just for the sake of nerfing. Every change should make sense, and every change should be working toward a bigger goal. This patch is still super early in development, so I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it’s definitely something we want to talk about more moving forward. As mentioned in the blog post, we want to keep the community involved early and often when it comes to balance.

So, for the purpose of this discussion, consider these two future updates. First for the short-term: What outliers do you see in the current meta? Then think about the big picture: What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed? Think outside of the current meta and instead about what you want the meta to look like from a power-level perspective. Keep in mind that a majority of changes should be splits, but feel free to also call out issues that you feel cannot be addressed by splits.

This post is intentionally starting a broad discussion as a jumping off point into the new communication of the Systems team, but keep in mind that in the future our posts are generally going to be more targeted at specific issues as we won’t have as much time to handle giant discussions.

I wanted to keep this initial post fairly short, so please ask questions about anything that is unclear. Otherwise, let’s talk balance.

cmc

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:So, for the purpose of this discussion, consider these two future updates. First for the short-term: What outliers do you see in the current meta? Then think about the big picture: What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed?

Hey there and Thank you for the Update.

I have to ask, are the sentences in bold ment as questions for the players or an example of what is the Team going to ask themselves when balancing/spliting?

Also, you say it should be focused mainly on splits, does it mean we should not expect changes to functionality of skills, but instead simple number tweaks?

Would for example, caping might stacks at 10 be considered a split or somewhat complicated change that is for now off the board?

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After seeing the post about the PvE and PvP/WvW balance teams splitting, I think we're finally moving in the right direction. I really want to see some major changes in 2-3 months. I have faith in you cmc.

Edit: I have to say it. Please make power Guardian builds more relevant (core/DH).

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An issue I personally see is the nerfing of outlying classes that dominate a certain playstyle (such as firebrand or what scourge used to be). In my opinion these classes are not the issue, it is rather that all the other classes that could fulfil those roles are bad at it. Continuing to nerf firebrand will not make other support classes played more, it will just kill the support role entirely. This seems to have been bourne out somewhat with the destruction of Scourge, as without it teamfights are more like a collection of duelists smashing against one another, rather than what I had come to think of as a teamfight in PvP.

In essense, I would much rather see buffs to the weak classes rather than heavy nerfs to the strong ones (within reason).

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To look at the big picture is definetly important to try to make the game more skillful. Single skills shouldnt have an insane big impact in a duel, damage should get tuned down overall. It's important be succesfull, because you deserve it and you know what to do. Best example was HoT meta for this. You've had fairly long duels, which often came down to skill.

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Nerf mirage, big time,

nerf condi thief to no existence,

nerf holo damage output and CC(paired with dps) ,

nerf rampage,

Nerf deadeye stealthed dps (its fine if you can atleast target or see it coming)

Nerf condi dmg in general (this is a must)

Nerf power damage very softly, but do so, 12k hits aren't rare anymore.. Which is over the top.

Oh, and nerf mirage

And for the love of rngezus, please, PLEASE BUFF DRUID

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Outliers in current meta:

  • Condi Thief
  • Holosmith

There are a couple others strong specs but I believe these 2 are the most oppressive right now.

About "issues on a fundamental level":

  • Mirage in generalThis spec can dodge while casting skills, stomping, rezzing, etc... The counterplay that exists to mesmer/chrone are almost non existant against this spec because of Mirage Cloak

  • OneShot buildsNo matter what the tradeoff, NO ONE wants to be one shotted from 1000+ range nor from stealth.If by any means this is possible, there must be severe down sides to this build. Nothing like we've seen from Sic'Em SB or Power Mesmer... Both can screw up their oneshot and manage to run away to try 1 minute later

  • How Conditions WorkI believe that Conditions should be a Damage over Time effect. And by DOT, i mean that it shouldnt kill anyone as fast as power damage. Condi builds playstyle should be to slowly grind the target HP while being tanky/slippery... Not blinking in your face and dealing like 2k+ burn ticks in an instant

  • Powercreep/DefensecreepDamage is too high. Defense/boons are too high as well.There are specs that can keep an absurd amount of stab or quickness or protection. These boons should be used strategically, not spammed as currently is.Which brings us back to how conditions work. Neither condis nor boons should be a spamfest. They should be tools to get advantage in fights in key moments, not to keep them up forever.

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Since you nerfed my main (scourge) hard for PvP, I want other classes nerfed as well. The main goal would be all classes to be viable. Viable means, that all classes have clear strengths and advantages, but this needs a risk to take. I hate to see high dmg combined with high sustain with not much effort, this is what I consider OP. I want scourge to be viable again, but since the changes will not taken back, I want to see the nerf bat. I would also be happy about an overwork for necro elites, since they are outdated and mostly not that useful for pvp.

My priorities of nerfing classes:

  • nerf holo -> high sustain AND high dmg is not a good combination and still OP after the latest nerf
  • nerf mirage -> sustain and high condi burst
  • nerf rampage burst
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the entire game needs to be nerfed back to pre HoT levels. I mean this in terms of boons, cooldowns, damage and support. things need to be stripped back.

make 7k a big crit again (over 10k dmg from one skill should never happen, let alone over 20-30k which is what we have now).

make 25might and other boons hard to stack. make people use fields and finishers again.

take us back to before the insane powercreep of the expansions, so all the PvP vets who quit can reinstall and have fun in this game again.

//

the game used to be tactical, you had to think about cooldowns and use skills strategically. now you can just spam absurd damage skills and boons, which has dramatically reduced the skill and the fun in PvP.

guild wars 2 PvP is widely considered a joke right now because of this. I gotta say I agree. 30k crits when you have 20k hp is even worse balance than black desert. it's a total meme.

didn't used to be this way tho. guild wars 2 has an excellent combat system, and was once a game I would readily recommend. however the power creep has destroyed what was once a deep and fun RPG.

I thought it was over, that I'd never see a day when guild wars 2 was good again. felt like I never appreciated the game as much as I should have when I played it.

ah, but it looks as if I may be wrong. can gw2 rise as a phoenix from the flames? once again a great PvP game?

some big ol' nerfs and a 2v2 queue would do it I think.

balls in your court @Cal Cohen.3527 . I'm excited to see what ya' do with it

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  • ArenaNet Staff

@Alatar.7364 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:So, for the purpose of this discussion, consider these two future updates. First for the short-term:
What outliers do you see in the current meta?
Then think about the big picture:
What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed?

Hey there and Thank you for the Update.

I have to ask, are the sentences in
bold
ment as questions for the players or an example of what is the Team going to ask themselves when balancing/spliting?

Also, you say it should be focused mainly on splits, does it mean we should not expect changes to functionality of skills, but instead simple number tweaks?

Would
for example
, caping might stacks at 10 be considered a split or somewhat complicated change that is for now off the board?

For this post, these questions are for the players as discussion topics. They are also things that the team is discussing internally as we look toward these balance updates.

I want you all to focus on splits because those are the changes we can do with no impact on the rest of the game. If a split makes sense for PvP or WvW, we can just do it. Functionality changes require larger discussions about the impact on the whole game. We are starting discussions internally about things that are not addressable with numbers changes, because there are things that need a functional change but need to change for the sake of competitive modes.

Game mode-specific boon caps is something that we have talked about, but there are other ways that we can solve some of these problems. For the example of might, I'd want to look at the sources and durations of might applications. 25 might isn't necessarily a problem if it requires significant investment from multiple team members, but a single player self-stacking 25 might is something that probably shouldn't happen. There's also the possibility of splitting the effectiveness on a game mode basis.

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I am a new player who started playing PvP for the past 6 months. I play Weaver and Firebrand so far. I played PvP in Guild Wars 1 for 9 years as a healer, but I know how to play every GW1 PvP Class.

What outliers do you see in the current meta?

  • One shot builds are really hard to counter as a new player because it takes a while to get familiar with specialisations and classes. I understand at a high level you will become more aware but at a low level this is very frustrating and does effect how I feel about PvP. I feel like if there was more of a risk on people who decide to run these builds it would be easier but they tend to pay off in low level when people are just starting out. - Deadeye, Mirage, Soulbeast.

  • Reaper Shroud tends to kill me really quickly. I get that you're supposed to run away but it feels impossible to kite because I'm always chilled

  • Rampage feels impossible to fight against - unless I have a dodge or invuln up I will die. Rampage feels very strong in comparison to my elites on Weaver and Firebrand because it is very valuable in PvP to do that much damage in such a short space of time, you can +1 people and completely change the outcome of a game.

  • Mirage - There are too many clones, I don't have time to know which one to attack because there is too much going on elsewhere. The time it takes me to figure out the real person I am dead and the mirage has made more clones. Unless I play furiously offensively on the very start then I will not win. This defeats the point of blocking and using my skills thoughtfully.

What issues do you see on a fundamental level that should be addressed?I haven't played the game long enough to have an understanding of the meta changes but I will say as a new player my thoughts for the long term would be

  • When I see certain classes, I tend to over-use my stability, protection, cleanses etc because I just know they could one shot me. I feel like this is not the gameplay that was intended when designing the game. I think cleanses and stabilities should be reactive rather than casted to prevent you from dying in 2 seconds. So I would say slow down some elements of the PvP gameplay if possible to make it possible for people to improve condi cleanse and protection skills

  • Encourage more team-play and inter-class synergy - this would promote people to try other classes. Right now it feels like people will ask 'what's the best build/class?' and run that. However I think if you started making certain classes have certain good skills/traits that worked together, you might have more intelligent gameplay and encourage people to try other classes as well.

Extra notes

  • Could you consider putting the icons of specialisations on the map rather than the professions. It is confusing for me to see a mesmer symbol and my team has the mirage symbol if that makes sense. It would just be easier to read the map. I think the map plays a big part in understanding when to take fights and when to leave. It would help to use the map better especially in consideration of balance.
  • Please allow us to customise the UI if possible, I feel like the game (like most) are carered towards right handed people and I would like to be able to move party health bars if possible :p So I can see conditions clearer and learn how to cleanse them.
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My opinions:

Outliers on the Upper End (Overpowered)

  • Holosmith needs its sustain tuned down, period. The damage fits its theme, but the sustain is comparable to the tankier scrapper spec. My recommendation is to reduce Heat Therapy by 2/3rds or more and increase the cooldown of holo leap by 2 seconds (making it a 4s cooldown). This should remove enough sustain that a damage-oriented holosmith can't stay in the fight for too long. I would also suggest reverting the Elixir U changes that were made some time ago.
  • Condi thief is just too egregious in the number of conditions it can stack on instantaneously. My recommendation is to remove cover conditions that make the build obnoxious to fight against.
  • Support firebrand still does too much of everything. It provides every boon under the sun, lots of tankiness to survive and run away, and plenty of CC when it needs to fight. Something's gotta give.

Outliers on the Lower End (Underpowered)

  • Core engineer is just in a bad way. It needs to be examined by the skills team IMO -- there are a huge number of outdated skills that need updating.
  • Renegade has barely had a presence in the game since its inception. Maybe tune some of it up?
  • Druid just doesn't have a place in PvP. It used to be a decent sidenoder and tank... but it's bad at those roles now.
  • Chronomancer is also in a bad way. I'd suggest tilting it more into team support and off-tank roles.

Skill Outliers

  • Several elites need to be examined in terms of their effectiveness. Some find use in every build, some are never used.
    • Rampage is ludicrous in terms of its potential to change a fight's outcome. It features just too much of everything. I'd suggest tuning down its damage and might output, but keeping the rest.
    • Supply Crate is on the exact opposite side of the spectrum. It's almost entirely useless in competitive formats. Its cooldown is unreasonable for what it does.
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I think there is (still) a disparity between Elite Specs, and things that have been buffed to Elite Spec levels vs the original Core Specs, and things that are balanced at a Core Spec level.

Eg. things playing at Elite Spec levels of balance:

  • Holosmith
  • Firebrand

Eg. Things playing at Core Spec levels of balance:

  • Core Necro (both condi and power)
  • Core Engineer (both condi and power)

I can only relay my experience trying to play condi engi and get my damaging conditions to stick. I land my skills, but they are always cleansed much faster than I can apply them because the cleanse in the game seems to be tuned for builds that apply many many more conditions + corruptions (scourge, thief/dd, mirage etc). Where does that leave me with my 12s cooldown blowtorch and a few cover conditions to frantically try and get on top of it?

It just seems like a lot of builds didn't keep pace with the power creep that came with the elite specs.

Personally, I'd prefer if everything was nerfed down to ~2015 levels of balance. However, if that's not going to happen, I'd prefer if the older specs (mostly core specs) were brought up to par with the power creep in a way that doesn't make the current OP specs even worse. I get that that is challenging when elite specs can pick and choose from core as they wish.

@Zawn.9647 said:

  • How Conditions WorkI believe that Conditions should be a Damage over Time effect. And by DOT, i mean that it shouldnt kill anyone as fast as power damage. Condi builds playstyle should be to slowly grind the target HP while being tanky/slippery... Not blinking in your face and dealing like 2k+ burn ticks in an instant

I agree with you but there are a few things to consider:

Currently, condi builds don't really have more survivability than power builds thanks to tanky amulets being removed. The ones that do have more survivability (mirage, thief) get it from gimmicky mechanics rather than any innate tankiness.This creates an issue where condi is inherently more difficult to balance as the damage can be cleansed and takes time to apply. To compensate for this, it either needs to deal much more than similar power skills, or there needs to be some other advantage. Otherwise, why would anyone choose DoT instead of direct damage?

Eg. If I land my big condi combo, I am not guaranteed a kill. It can be cleansed. My opponent could kill me first before the condi downs them. My opponent could stall on the point for critical seconds. My opponent could run away to their team for help. etc. If I land my big power combo, my opponent is dead. The end.

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Hello new guy, hope you enjoy your stay.

Imo:-Nerf Holo damage and/or sustain-Nerf condi teef (CONDI teef, not whole s/d design)-Nerf staff teef abuse-Nerf DE Malicious Backstab (in which PvP game one-shotting possibility without counterplay is fine?)-Adjust warrior sustain-Think whether letting self-stacking 25 might is healthy (and how can you stack it up to 25, if you spend lots of skills to reach it, its fine, but if it starts working as passive, i dont think its fine).

Main goals to go for at this moment.

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one of my favorite builds and the most fun i had in PvP was back pre-HoT running an apothecary ranger trap build that could hold a point and grind down attackers. i only had to fear thieves with high power damage but there was a tradeoff there, that power damage thief was glassy as heck but could bounce all over the map. once i got good enough there where a lot of fun fights to be had, that's all gone away now, there's too much damage floating around. You should have to choose when you build for high damage to lose sustain or high defense with low damage. all of the increases to condition damage should be looked at too, the way condi's are now it's far easier to kill an opponent by spamming conditions than using power damage.

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Hi @"Cal Cohen.3527" .I would like to suggest you include in your OP the old CDI discussion format, where it showed people how to properly talk/ make suggestions about a subject. That way, I feel like the info had a lot of structure and was more approachable than "nerf thief", and a lot of devs praised those threads for being very valuable because of that.I tried finding it on the old forums, but it seems long gone. Perhaps you guys can dig it out.

EDIT: Here you go.


Suggested Idea Format

Proposal Overview

A short description of the proposal that is being put forward

  1. Goal of Proposal

  2. What problem are you trying to solve with your proposal

  3. Proposal Functionality

  4. How does your proposal work in regard in relation to the current design of GW2

  5. Associated Risks

  6. What risks or problems can you foresee with this proposal which you would like to have assistance on from other members of the CDI

Please try to be as concise as feasible with your proposal.

Suggested Discussion ApproachNo suggested format.Suggested Post Word Count: 200

CDI Rules:1: This initiative is all about discussion.

2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.

3: Anger and emotion will have less impact than intelligent discussion.

4: Together we will share and evolve design philosophies which will impact how we develop the game moving forward.

5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.

6: The teams primary focus is work toward the development of GW2 and therefore posting of discussion and commentary may not be as frequent as you like. Please do understand that the initiative is taken very seriously by us all and that we will be reading the discussions and joining in as often as it is possible to do so.

7: Off topic posts will be deleted.

Please note this is not a competition, either between yourselves or the developers in regard to one up man ship. The point of this Initiative is to work together to make the game better.

Note: We will disclose the ideas we do or don’t like as a group but we will not discuss schedules or timing around implementation.


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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Every change should make sense, and every change should be working toward a bigger goal.

Does this mean the new team will be reverting the Chronomancer F5-F4 merge that still messes with my 4 years of muscle memory across different classes, and the IP change that removed multiple layers of higher-skill fun, rewarding interactions?

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@Widmo.3186 said:Hello new guy, hope you enjoy your stay.

Imo:-Nerf Holo damage and/or sustain-Nerf condi teef (CONDI teef, not whole s/d design)-Nerf staff teef abuse-Nerf DE Malicious Backstab (in which PvP game one-shotting possibility without counterplay is fine?)-Adjust warrior sustain-Think whether letting self-stacking 25 might is healthy (and how can you stack it up to 25, if you spend lots of skills to reach it, its fine, but if it starts working as passive, i dont think its fine).

Main goals to go for at this moment.

Yeah, the holo have a huge damage for a huge sustain ( can refil full HP easily ).The thief is dealing a lot of damage with condition but won't do anything if u have a FB wander in your team ( but yeah the condi thief is too much op. )The warrior have a huge sustain man, ther core warrior with tactics traits have a huge tons of sustain against some class ( he is good against barrier, a lot of condi cleans etc.. )

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Hopefully the team can aim ensure each class has no less than 2-4 counter options, For example a massive outlier is the fact that under no such reason should mirages main and mostly only counter mostly be thieves.

That said my main questions/statements are

  • One of the biggest things i hope will be considered is toning down boon generation and application in pvp so that necromancer is not acting as mostly the main and only counter against them, the class suffers too much design wise having a lot of its skills and tools cut short in terms of damage, effectiveness, or other mechanics for the simple sake of having to boon manage the other 8 professions in the game. It honestly feels like over the years its unique mechanic to corrupt boons has gone from a key feature to a gate keeping tool. How ever to "balance" this out its other areas suffer greatly for example (how people are now noticing how much more crazy fire brand is which is partly due to the fact that it was already strong and now their are less scourges and necros around to help manage its boons)

In terms of boon balance i see that you wrote who a single spec self stacking 25 might would be looked at but how would this fair for classes like say warrior or soulbeats which can quickly stack 25 might on its own as well as a generous number of other boons vs necormancer which can also self stack 25 might but is pretty limited on the boon department to just hand full like might, swiftness, (perhaps some protection)

  • Will the team reconsider how effective instant cast skills like mantras should be or entertain the idea of adding a delay to project some kind of warning or tell before they fire off along side other skills.
  • Is the team going to consider toning down burst quick or be killed meta to a reasonable level. Ever since HoT which was known as a very tanky/busier meta initially the game has headed in a direction that constantly pushes a kill quick to survive playstyle which works for some professions or elite specs but not for others. It also some what negates the idea of building defensively on some professions as building offensive tends to be the best defensive measure.?
  • Will you plan to look at toning down overly rewarding safe rapid condition application? For example conditions that are applied constantly from say mirage (and its staff auto and ambush) or super safe application practices like the more recent dare devil thief which can apply its main damaging condition by simply using skills that evade.
  • Are you going to consider can looking at spicing up skills, traits, utilities that are heavily under used not just in this meta but in the past several metas without smashing the ones that are already in a good spot and used to make the same outdated traits/skills etc appear as a better option. In short keep the good as is (for the most part) just spice up the non used stuff.
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Targeted issues:

BUILDS REFERENCED HERE: https://www.godsofpvp.net/

Engineer:Quickness uptime (Elixir U and Kinetic Battery)Stability from Elixir U (eliminates need to hit corona burst - taking away skill)Overcharged Shot - little-to-no tell, hard to predictFunction Gyro is far too ineffective compared to other revive utilities (Blood Well, traited Geyser, etc.)

Lots of players here are talking about damage output, this is best adjusted by limiting quickness uptime (therefore allowing the actual dodging of the skills) rather than adjusting the skills themselves.

Elementalist:Evade uptime is too highEvade animations are inconsistent with actual evade frames (beginning and end)*Lots of passive damage output - quite unfun to deal with

Mesmer:Too many cover conditions over the primary damage source (torment)Too high evade uptimeEvade whilst CCed is sillyClone generation is ridiculous - fights are incredibly cluttered

Guardian:*No specific issues, firebrand has reduced effectiveness due to Scourge nerf

Necromancer:Corrupt Boon is very unfunCorrupts in general are far too common and allow for far too many cover conditions (not enough cleanses in the game!) - swap some corrupts for boon rips.Blood well is far too effectiveReaper Shroud is far too high sustained damage in lower tiers of play*Honestly, too many teleports on necromancer in general at this point

Ranger:*Longbow is still silly burst, and far too effective at lower tiers of play

Revenant:Too high sustained damage outputToo high Quickness uptime

Thief:Condi daredevil - obvious, you guys knowStaff daredevil - obvious, you guys knowDeadeye - too much stealth uptime from stealth on dodge trait - very unfun gameplay - impossible for lower tier players to trackDaggerstorm should not be an evade

Warrior:Too much might uptimeToo much sustain from might makes right - health and endurance regenBull's Charge evade forces dodge, when there are at least 6 other high damage skills on warrior that require a dodge tooRampage - too much damage and CC*Warrior's Cunning - 50% damage increase vs barriered foes is too high especially vs classes with perma barrier like scrapper and weaver

Proposed Wider Objectives:More skillful gameplay - less value from spamming skills (namely autos)Reduce boon of classes - namely Might, Quickness and StabilityReduce condition output of classes - namely cover conditions preventing the cleansing of the primary damaging conditions (eg. poison on condi daredevil)Reduce sustained damage output - think 'Bruiser meta' - comboed skills should result in kills, not every skill having high damage output.

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