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Let's Talk About PvP Balance


Cal Cohen.2358

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@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I thought about a long essay about the philosophy of balance and the further I went into it the more and more I realized no one would ever read it. And so I figured I'd just condense a lot of what I'd like to see immediately into small patch notes.

Thief:Nuke condition thief into the ground.Nuke Staff/Staff thief into the ground.Steal: All damaging traits that feed into steal such as Mug, Serpent's Touch, Bewildering Ambush, should be removed and replaced with something else.Infiltrator's Strike: Reduce range to 600.Escapist's Fortitude: Internal Cooldown increased to 5 seconds.Long Term Goal: Condition thief should be reworked to no longer revolving around a convoluted mess of trait procs that all intertwine with each other and into specific weapon tool kits and specific skill shots it has to run with clear strengths and weaknesses. Even
, this video is still relevant.

Lotus Training should no longer do damage in and of itself. Perhaps it should provide a +20% increased condition damage buff if you actively evade an attack.Bounding Dodge should no longer do damage in and of itself. Perhap it should provide a +20% increased power damage buff if you actively evade an attack.Long Term Goal: Rework Deadeye towards a more Exodia Deck playstyle that sets up an automatic win condition overtime rather than the immense range burster that can dump 15k damage in under a second on engagement.

WarriorGive Arcing Slice tiered damage like every other burst skill.Revenge Counter returns Full Counter to it's prenerf damage.Long term goal: Rework Spellbreaker from being just a power crept version of warrior into a specialization that wins by removing what other classes do well, such as allowing spellbreakers to become extremely anti-boon, or anti-condi, or anti ranged ect ect. Both by reworking traits and buffing the meditation skills.

You wanna take away the functionality of DrDs dodges because they do stuff but leave Warriors unblockable-boon-granting 6k Reckless Dodge in tact?Reducing IS to 600 would straight away delete S/D, both condi and power as it did delete D/P. Also you may not realize how very vital Mug is for power thief, both the Heal and to lesser extent the dmg, if anything Mug encourages more skilled gameplay, so you don't waste the heal of Mug as some Thieves just blow Steal right away and thats a free win. I realize you said
"replace it"
but that would have to be a truly uniquely viable replacement.

Good point. That one slipped my mind despite just how much that annoys me.

Reckless Dodge: Reduce damage by 75%. Removed unblockable.

Regarding mug, I fundamentally disagree on a baseline philosophical level on instant cast animation free damage being a thing that is allowed to even exist in the game. Hence why I recommend other stuff, like Mantra of Pain and Elementalist Static Discharge being changed to time bomb effects that can be blocked and evaded.

Probably should get rid of IH, that's like damage on dodge lol.

I mean if you want to be technical it takes .25s for your ambush attack to become available after dodging. The end result is that Axe is the only ambush attack that can theoretically be 100% covered by mirage cloak. Other ambush attacks such as sword, staff, and scepter leave the mirage vulnerable to attack while casting the ambush attack for .5s or longer.

Don't consider a flat boost, what should these GM traits really do?

Not provide attacks that are 100% built into the dodge roll itself at the very least. Even mirage, as much as most people will call it cancer, leaves itself semi vulnerable while casting ambush attacks and most of it's ambush attacks don't do as much damage as the Daredevil grandmaster dodge trait. The only one that's as good is the staff and that's if you hit with 2 additional clones or more. And you're fully vulnerable for .5s while casting Chaos Vortex.

I have seen 7k bounding dodge crits from staff/staff perma dodge thieves. And at that point you are outpacing realistic ambush attack damage compared to mirage even with staff landing a 3x clone ambush.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I thought about a long essay about the philosophy of balance and the further I went into it the more and more I realized no one would ever read it. And so I figured I'd just condense a lot of what I'd like to see immediately into small patch notes.

Thief:Nuke condition thief into the ground.Nuke Staff/Staff thief into the ground.Steal: All damaging traits that feed into steal such as Mug, Serpent's Touch, Bewildering Ambush, should be removed and replaced with something else.Infiltrator's Strike: Reduce range to 600.Escapist's Fortitude: Internal Cooldown increased to 5 seconds.Long Term Goal: Condition thief should be reworked to no longer revolving around a convoluted mess of trait procs that all intertwine with each other and into specific weapon tool kits and specific skill shots it has to run with clear strengths and weaknesses. Even
, this video is still relevant.

Lotus Training should no longer do damage in and of itself. Perhaps it should provide a +20% increased condition damage buff if you actively evade an attack.Bounding Dodge should no longer do damage in and of itself. Perhap it should provide a +20% increased power damage buff if you actively evade an attack.Long Term Goal: Rework Deadeye towards a more Exodia Deck playstyle that sets up an automatic win condition overtime rather than the immense range burster that can dump 15k damage in under a second on engagement.

WarriorGive Arcing Slice tiered damage like every other burst skill.Revenge Counter returns Full Counter to it's prenerf damage.Long term goal: Rework Spellbreaker from being just a power crept version of warrior into a specialization that wins by removing what other classes do well, such as allowing spellbreakers to become extremely anti-boon, or anti-condi, or anti ranged ect ect. Both by reworking traits and buffing the meditation skills.

You wanna take away the functionality of DrDs dodges because they do stuff but leave Warriors unblockable-boon-granting 6k Reckless Dodge in tact?Reducing IS to 600 would straight away delete S/D, both condi and power as it did delete D/P. Also you may not realize how very vital Mug is for power thief, both the Heal and to lesser extent the dmg, if anything Mug encourages more skilled gameplay, so you don't waste the heal of Mug as some Thieves just blow Steal right away and thats a free win. I realize you said
"replace it"
but that would have to be a truly uniquely viable replacement.

Good point. That one slipped my mind despite just how much that annoys me.

Reckless Dodge: Reduce damage by 75%. Removed unblockable.

Regarding mug, I fundamentally disagree on a baseline philosophical level on instant cast animation free damage being a thing that is allowed to even exist in the game. Hence why I recommend other stuff, like Mantra of Pain and Elementalist Static Discharge being changed to time bomb effects that can be blocked and evaded.

Probably should get rid of IH, that's like damage on dodge lol.

I mean if you want to be technical it takes .25s for your ambush attack to become available after dodging. The end result is that Axe is the only ambush attack that can theoretically be 100% covered by mirage cloak. Other ambush attacks such as sword, staff, and scepter leave the mirage vulnerable to attack while casting the ambush attack for .5s or longer.

Don't consider a flat boost, what should these GM traits really do?

Not provide attacks that are 100% built into the dodge roll itself at the very least. Even mirage, as much as most people will call it cancer, leaves itself semi vulnerable while casting ambush attacks and most of it's ambush attacks don't do as much damage as the Daredevil grandmaster dodge trait. The only one that's as good is the staff and that's if you hit with 2 additional clones or more. And you're fully vulnerable for .5s while casting Chaos Vortex.

I have seen 7k bounding dodge crits from staff/staff perma dodge thieves. And at that point you are outpacing realistic ambush attack damage compared to mirage even with staff landing a 3x clone ambush.

7k bound (not vault) from a staff/staff perma dodge thief? How?

(we already know its acro, trickery, dd)

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@mortrialus.3062 said:I thought about a long essay about the philosophy of balance and the further I went into it the more and more I realized no one would ever read it. And so I figured I'd just condense a lot of what I'd like to see immediately into small patch notes.

MesmerCry of Frustration Cooldown reduced to 16 seconds to make condition shatter traits more worth taking over deceptive evasion.Mantra of Pain: Rather than immediately pulsing damage, this ability gives a ticking time bomb effect similar to pulmonary impact that will pulse a bit of damage after 3 seconds, but can be dodged and blocked.Illusion of Life: Increase cast time to 2s, give it an obvious tell akin to Signet of Mercy.Illusionary Counter (Scepter 2): This ability now fires a projectile to deal it's damage rather than immediately applying from range.Deceptive Evasion: Clones from the Mirage specialization no longer spawn doing their ambush attack.Mirage Cloak: This is no longer usable while while under crowd control effects aside from daze.False Oasis: Cast time of this skill has been increased to 1.25 seconds, healing reduced by 15%.Chaos Vortex: Condition duration from staff clone ambushes has been reduced by 50%.Long term goal: Decompress power mesmer's damage output so that it can't be overlapped in under a second to one shot players. Compress Condition mesmer's output so that it requires a number of both shatter and weapon skills to land for it to get it's damage rather than bombarding players with an endless assault of clone auto attacks.Long term goal: Unfuck Chronomancer. Seriously, losing Distortion for Continuum Split was enough, losing Illusionary Person on top of it was over kill.

I think you should start playing power mesmer instead of condi, the Mirage Cloak change you want can NEVER go through anymore, and False Oasis changes says you are playing condi as well, seriously go play power mesmer and see things clearly lol, I do not want to be playing core mesmer because both chrono and mirage are screwed.

Or honestly just try to play without being able to use Mirage Cloak while cc'd (aka just don't use it), include immobilize, really try it, specially as power, it is gonna be so much fun for you.

I didn't include wvw thieves that plays stabby thief, some play it as DE and some as core and some as DD, they will stab you and you will die instantly don't worry.

Some classes have high up time of stability, so don't go around and try to nerf mirage cloak like that, and the heal nerf also unacceptable, lots of the mesmer changes you want to make for mesmers are unacceptable.

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Conditions are way too strong currently and need either be nerfed by at least 80% or have system changes to counter them.Bursting players down within 2 seconds already is disgusting, but with doing so with conditions is nothing short of atrocious.

System changes could/should include:Remove immobility from the conditions and add it to the CC category, so stun breaks remove it.Remove Stability and Resistance from the corruption table.Conditions cleansing skills need to apply Resistance for some time (maybe 5 to 10 seconds), or else they are completely useless.In the current form, removing conditions makes no sense, as they are back not even half a second later.

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@"InFlames.7128" said:

  1. Blinding Powder Please remove cast time. That was unnecessary nerf.

Yes agree, exactly one of the unnecessary kills of a balanced instant skill i was talking about. It makes the skill clunky and even lower skill ceiling instead higher it. Same they did to Chrono shatters: killing gameplay flow and skillful combos for no reason. I see a pattern i don't like at all...

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  • Elem : Have to nerf condi damages, too much.: Nerf vigor trait or add 1-2 sec to the evads, a choice to make.: Give the tempest a real role in the game. :'(

  • Engi : Nerf the quickness up time (to nerf the damage): due to core tactics war no one want to play scrapper anymore: Buffing Kits and some traits line ? ;)

  • Guard : Fb is fine for me, heals too much but no damages. (maybe nerf a bit boons output): Dh need a slight buff somewhere but not too much (and certainly not more damage) or he'll become a monster.

  • Mesmer: Everytime Anet try to fix it from a side, it become worse from an other :): i'll just say, anet nerf it many times the last patchs and it still good (particularly in 1vs1) so maybe it's timeto fix/nerf Ambush attacks (to fix the condi damages) and rework the traits (will take too much time,i agree but is necessary or memser will still a pain in pvp): Evade while CCed is unfair.: I don't remember the last time, i have seen a chrono in pvp...

  • Necromancer : personally, i don't have real issues with, maybe the damage of the reaper in shroud (he have to catch you before, chill ?) or the heavy boons corruption.

  • Ranger : The longbow nerf was good, time to nerf some pets, some of them hit really hard, some other chain cc.: Like tempest, give druid a real role in the game, he's not good in anything now. :/

  • Revenant : I don't have a problem with their damages but too much block/evade uptime.: Like dragonhunter, Renegade need a slight buff somewhere maybe in his survivability.

  • Thief : you know, condi thief, staff thief (just take a look to the the last EU mAT semi final): reduce sword 2 range (so he can evade as always but i can see him and fight back at least, fighting a thief behind a wall, not funny): Deadeye is fine for me, a thief take risks when playing like that.: a buff ??....i don't know. (someone says dagger)

  • Warrior : War have too much of...all, too much of health/endurance/might regen, I would never think that you go to buff him as u do the last patch.: have to dodge his dodge (a dodge who can critic + 25 might.....imagine) i have seen a video where someone make a challenge to kill Lupicus in Arah just withjust dodges....: Rampage is the stress button :# in ANY occasion, he gonna die in 1 vs 1 while his opponant is full health ? RAMPAGE and it's done.He's in melee with many ppl ? RAMPAGE and everybody is kissing the floor.Need many cc ? RAMPAGE...Have to do something with it and quickly specialy now with the 25 perma might.

I would like to speak about something else, it's been a time i thought Anet want to give every profesion a poewer spec, a condi one and a support/bunker one.it's still the idea or not ? because everything is mixed now.

The berseker war mean to be the condi spec but he's the most powerfull war now (who play condi war ??)Druid have to be the support one then after some patch support/condi and now....nothingTempest, the only elem spec i play, i don't know what to do with, want to play it support but i can't, want to play it power but i can't. (melt quickly)and others and others.

Hope i gave you some ideas, i 'm sure no body is 100% ok with but it's just a part of an answer.

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Buff Thief.

Some reminders what u've done with it over the years.

  1. Dagger damage nerf.. assassins weapon hits like a wet noodle now. Why? Firebrand can probably melee for more then thief auto-attack with dagger.
  2. Backstab cooldown if u miss.
  3. Lead attacks (how can it be "LEAD" attacks if u can't buff yourself before fight???)
  4. Swipe.. that was the last nail in the coffin for me. Really? 600range?
  5. Unhindered Combatant dodge exhaustion nerf... was it really needed? Further nerfs? Why? We already die in 1 hit or are forced to retreat.
  6. "Heartseeker through Black powder" nerf. (Can't stack stealth/leap as many times through blind field. Camera angle nerfs remember that? You bet i do.)
  7. Blinding powder cast time.

I'm probably fogetting something cuz it's been like 4 years that i've tried to keep track of what you're doing with Thief. But yea.. start with those 7 points atleast. Or don't. Can't care less about DE and Condi Thief but D/P Daredevil/Thief has to come back. Or revamp thief class entirely and make it instead of a stealth glass a real duelist class. Remove stealth if u want to entirely.. but make it a class that can survive and actually fight for more then 3 seconds.

Oh btw.. in wvw being a thief roamer that relies on stealth is "fun" to say the least. Thank you for all the "buffs" where every bush and every guard and almost every class can reveal you. Stealth was supposed to be exclusive survival tool of a Thief.. apparently it's not anymore. So again. If u've made stealth so useless then remove it entirely but make this class a real 1v1 class with real sustain tools. Now it's just a +1 class that has to run away like a scared kid using his shortbow#5.

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@"shadowpass.4236" said:

Mesmer


  • Problem
    : Combined with
    , this trait means that
    alone can apply anywhere from 8-16 stacks of long-duration bleeding. Also, coupled with Mirage’s exceptionally high access to CC’s, this means that pistol skills can recharge nearly instantly.
  • Solution
    : Currently, this trait bleeds on EVERY hit from pistol attacks from you and your illusions. Instead, change this to 33% chance to bleed on CRITICAL hits like most other bleeding-related traits. Also, remove the 25% cooldown reduction on interrupt and make it a flat 20% cooldown reduction on pistol skills.

  • Problem
    : Again, this trait is 100% chance on critical hits to apply a 5-8 second bleed (Carrion vs. Deadshot amulet). This results in insane amounts of bleeding stacks with little effort on the mesmer’s part.
  • Solution
    : Similar to
    ,
    ,
    , and
    (basically every single bleed-on-attack related trait), make it 33% on critical hits and reduce the bleeding duration to 3 seconds because the effect can trigger from 3 different sources.

  • Problem
    : Dodging while disabled should not exist.
  • Solution
    : Remove the ability to dodge while disabled.

  • Problem
    : This skill is a 4.75 second cooldown, 2 second duration block that summons 2 clones and applies 7 stacks of torment (5 on trigger, 1 per clone).
  • Solution
    : Increase the cooldown to 10 seconds (8 seconds while traited) and reduce the torment on trigger to 3.

First of all, stop taking stuff out of your kitten .Illusionary counter has 8s cd, not 4,5.
Spawned clones go throught motion of autoattack the same way normal clones do, so adding that to the damage is just not very smart.

Illusionary axes, DO NOT apply 25stacks of torment, dunno where you took it from, in fact if you use it with 3 clones, and all axes land, thats 12 stacks of torment ( less then half ) and 9 stacks of bleed ( assuming all 9 hits crit 50% chance, times 9 its almost impossible )

Pistol bleeds, Im not sure if nerfing pistols damage by 85% is a solution here, how about we nerf rapid fire from ranger by 85%? im sure you would be thrilled about that.

Clear bias shown as usual, when you speak of your main its buff this, buff that, wrongly changed shmack. When you speak of mesmer nerf thi by 85%, nerf that by 66%, remove this remove that. yikes.

tldr. at least get the facts right before you complain.

He did state the post was a year old. Since then scepter 2 saw an increase in cd, Axe ambush saw multiple nerfs.

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I'm only going to speak for Engineer, as that is the class I have most experience with. Besides that, my 'complaint' is fundamental:

Fundamental (not PvP only) problemThe role of Holosmith is undefined but too good at everything. It feels like the holosmith was designed as a condi/power hybrid. However, it turned in a crazy strong fighter: big damage with crazy ammounts of passive sustain. I have 2 problems with this:

  • The sustain is too high, mostly due to heat therapy.
  • It doesn't differentiate enough from scrapper, who is designed to be the melee/sustain bruiser. However, it does it wayy better than scrapper.

My overall suggestion would be, to nerf holosmith's sustain, but buff his condi aspect and damage slightly. This would make him more of a glassy fighter instead of bruiser.Then some slight buffs (not much) to scrapper would make a clear different between those classes.

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@viquing.8254 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said :If thats the case i demand life force consumption for reaper be reverted immediately, skill 5 should be a reveal like is in core shroud skill 2 should blink you to your target and the auto attack should fire arc projectile if the target is not in range lets just ignore profession mechanic trade offs for the sake of defending your main class and pretend playstyle is the trade off.In that case I demand to have ambush on shatter instead of on evade then we can talk about no counterpart.I would actually welcome that change if clones only ambushed by using shatter command. IT gives the Mirage unique shatters and a trade off from core mesmer.Put ambush attacks with bonus effects on shatters and remove infinite horizon from the game all together. Clone ambush attacks are now balanced by shatter cooldownsThis is PROBABLY how it should have been from the get go.Mirage cloak shouldnt be doing so much when comboed with a trait like IH while providing freedome to cast without interruption.

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@bluri.2653 said:Mobility across the game needs nerf and bring back portal for complexity in the game, make ”bunker/bruiser” 1v1 builds not be an endless stalemate but actually about skill and timings/mindgames. Make teamfights be about coordination and timings w bursts.

Thank the universe for you, sind. The fact that pretty much every single build deems it necessary to take some kind of mobility trait/rune definitely shows how absolutely important mobility is, to a toxic degree. Agreed 100%.

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Make it so classes have to rely on each instead of selfishly being able to carry games and enhancing the mentality of 'me' instead of 'us'.

You want this to be a 'team' gamemodes right? Then start knocking some of these classes in the kneecaps so they have no choice but to run to their healer/support/tank whatever.

-Engineer (A jack of all trades tht is good at everything. Make it a pure damage spec with high risks. Actual risks. Scrapper is alright. Balanced I think personally, though a lot of their traits are very lackluster and do not promote build diversity. Core engie is..useless? Having a build or two around them would be nice.)

  • Thief (Condi Daredevil that forces certain classes/specs to be present therefore pigeonholing what comps look like. DE is annoying and boring. Stealth builds are just pretty gross in general and along with the long range from their rifle it makes the fights turn into running around trying to kill the thief. Though, DE seems to be more of an issue in WvW, but perma stealth and constant target breaking is still not healthy.)
  • Mirage (Their Condi application and power are fine, but their ability to produce an absurd amount of visual noise and bypass being CC'd through their dodge needs to stop. Give them clones or the ability to break though cc on dodge, not both)
  • Warrior (Too much sustain for what it's role is. Bruiser and even the uncommon tank variants of things like Spellbreaker and Core are doing way too much damage. They either can take, but only do some damage, which means they would need their support to buff their damage. Or they are DPS and they need to get their sustain cut. Also Rampage is a issue since people are overrelying on it now. Berserker is still unplayable, fix the amount of toughness they lose when they go zerk)
  • Guardian (The power side needs MAJOR overhauls. Big time. For core and DH. The support side is dominating, either slice some of their support power to put into other support specs or start hitting key skills so they need to think more when timing their cleanses and AOE stun breaks. The Condi version of guard is pretty disgusting atm. Oversimplified, 20+ stacks of burn, and rapid application. Tone down the rapid application or people are just gonna keep running to the build for cheap wins no matter on Firebrand, DH, or Core)
  • Rev (From my very limited knowledge Herald seems to finally be reasonable. Though Core Rev and Renegade need presence in the PvP scene. Buff them, make them useful, do something, this class has been relying on Herald for too long it carry it. Heck, pushing forward bunker/healing builds on Rev would be nice)
  • Necro (What can I say? Again, with my limited knowledge, it relies on the team enough. It got slapped with nerfs since scourge was WAY out of hand for too long. Reaper is balanced imo. Core necro is also balanced but the fear chaining..EHHHH, I'm on the fence about it. Big time. I won't say nerf the tests, but keep an eye on their corrupting is all)
  • Ranger (Ugh, good god. This class. Druid is dead, it needs a big big rework on druid. Core range is balanced imo. Soulbeast there is no boonbeast anymore and the Condi version of this class sucks so eh. My gripe with this class is the multiple damage coefficients it has. This class can still one shot and has people still running around with the oneshot build. Those needs to be toned down because as people said, oneshot builds are never good)
  • Elementalist (Unfortunately my main that's having an identity crisis. First issue is fire Weaver. It's nice they have a decently strong build, but this ain't it chief. Evades+condis= bad times and stale gameplay, allowing them to get away with more than they should. The Condi application should be slowed down by a smidge. However FA Weaver, and FA core needs severe help. The damage within the build is lackluster with barely any sustain to help it. It's a glass build, which is fine, but having a tiny bit more active defenses so it won't keel over as soon as someone hits our melee ranger would be nice. Any mobility skills that could have us run away and kite properly? Tempest needs SEVERE help. It legit cannot stand up to its Firebrand cousin in terms of support. Auras are still lacking and underwhelming. Shouts are still mediocre at best. The lack of active defenses compared to other classes makes it die faster even though they have protection from their skills. Core is..eh, again Core ele can't do much. None of traits truly synergizes that well to justify running core ele over Weaver or even tempest.

Also in general, ele needs a way to not constantly having to run builds with healing. It pidgeon holes us a lot and makes us drop whatever little synergy we have. We need synergy across ALL three traitlines. Not just two or one. On top of which, our utilities need a major 2019 overhaul. Conjures, glyphs, cantrips, signet's are all SORELY lacking and their cooldowns are still far too high for what they are worth. Look into lowering some of those cds pretty please?)

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:

@"ZDragon.3046" said: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)

Boon uptime is definitely something on our radar, and likewise how many corrupts are needed to interact with that amount of boons. In general the thought is that everything needs to come down, including damage, sustain, boons, corrupts, cc, stability, among other things. There's a lot more to it than just blanket nerfing everything by X% but the general direction is definitely downward.

Welcome back Cal! Glad to see, also, that you also understand the importance of balance, and how it should be handled properly. With that being said, I want to start this off by agreeing with your statement 100%. The general direction should be DOWN, because as of right now, everything is way too HIGH.

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)

Professions are still going to have their strengths and weakness in terms of what boons they can generate, but the overall effectiveness is going to be lower.
  • 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.

Instant skills are one of the things that we've started discussing internally since cast time isn't something that can be split. One of our main goals for competitive is making sure that there is adequate counterplay. It's going to vary on a case-by-case basis, but cast time increases and adding delays are part of those discussions. Not as splits, but as changes that may need to happen. There's then opportunity for PvE-only splits to compensate skills for these changes.

One of the things that bothers me about instant cast skills, is not the fact they are instant cast, per say. It's the fact that they are instant cast, with a load of built in utility, with high damage, and some even with great defensive measures. I like to use the Mantra of Distraction's power lock ability as an example. I think it's cool that it can interrupt opponents at key times when they may be trying to recover, allowing for a more skillful and cunning approach to baiting out their procs. What I'm not fine with, is the fact that all of that exists, and it does really good damage for being an instant cast skill. So one of 2 things need to happen: cut down on its utility, or its damage. I lean more toward the damage side of things.When dealing with skills, it's always crucial to look at multiple factors of the skill before passing nerfs or buffs. Criteria like cast time, built in utility, and cooldown are merely a few things to look at when considering how to approach them.

  • 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.?

This falls into the same 'everything is too high' idea. Damage potential is definitely something we will be looking at.

Kreygasm

  • 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.

How conditions are applied is a big thing that we're looking into.

Conditions would be in a good spot, if so many skills didn't apply several stacks of them on low cooldowns. A primary example of this would be Mesmer. A couple of the biggest offenders are:The trait Sharper Images.phantasmal duelists hitting 8x instead of Mesmer's 3x on the actual skill.stacks of given conditions and how long they're active baseline for a lot of skills (this one can be said about several other professions as well).Once stacks of conditions, and even number of different conditions are brought down, then the focus on the ridiculous amount of condition clear in the game can also be brought down, where traits and skills that only clear 1-3 conditions per pop on longer cooldowns would be perfectly ok, as the condition spam/uptime would significantly be decreased.

  • 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.

For the future big patch, we are primarily looking at nerfs. The idea is that things that are in a good spot in the current meta are overtuned for what we want the game to be. We still want skills and traits to feel strong, but their current strength is too high. Initially we want to wait and see with a lot of things that aren't considered viable right now. As everything else shifts downward other things may become relevant without any changes. There will certainly be things that are too weak and we will revisit them in the future.

All in all, I think you coming back and taking the helm of the ship heading for the giant iceberg was the best choice Anet has made to the staff. This looks promising, and I only hope that the actual implementation SHOWS how promising this all looks on paper.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said: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....I wanted to keep this initial post fairly short, so please ask questions about anything that is unclear. Otherwise, let’s talk balance.

cmc

Good news seeing Ben and you in charge of competitive balance. I hope it works out!I just have general advice you may consider as obvious.

  • do small balance changes in between the big balance patches - thief deadly ambition change mentioned I would consider as such a more urgent small change
  • also already mentioned try to balance for example boon application and boon corruption - not just nerf single skills individualy unless it is more like a fix
  • don't just take over PvE balance changes -> some class spec reworks were meaningless or bad for PvP when introduced (Mirage, Scrapper, ...)
  • maybe a mechanic change but still: damage evasion should not cause damage
  • if you nerf condi burst also increase cleansing cooldowns otherwise condis won't have much impact (e.g. long lasting conditions don't work well in PvP)
  • try to balance strength and weakness - no spec should have top sustain and top damage
  • emphasise roles of class specs -> as follow up matchmaking could improve, e.g. team spots are filled with 1 support, 2 dmg dealer/grp fighter, 1 side noder, 1 roamer without class stacking or class switching before match start
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@"Lilyanna.9361" said:Make it so classes have to rely on each instead of selfishly being able to carry games and enhancing the mentality of 'me' instead of 'us'.

You want this to be a 'team' gamemodes right? Then start knocking some of these classes in the kneecaps so they have no choice but to run to their healer/support/tank whatever.

-Engineer (A jack of all trades tht is good at everything. Make it a pure damage spec with high risks. Actual risks. Scrapper is alright. Balanced I think personally, though a lot of their traits are very lackluster and do not promote build diversity. Core engie is..useless? Having a build or two around them would be nice.)

Originally, Engineer was indeed supposed to be the jack-of-all-trades profession. It's one of the main reasons why I chose it. I think after everything else is brought down, Core Engineer and even Scrapper how it's currently iterated will see more use and viability in pvp/wvw, as it's only being outshone by overpowered things currently (which they are looking to bring down).

  • Mirage (Their Condi application and power are fine, but their ability to produce an absurd amount of visual noise and bypass being CC'd through their dodge needs to stop. Give them clones or the ability to break though cc on dodge, not both)

I think the issue with Mesmer is a few factors.Traits that output way too much in terms of damage (whether condition or power).skills that are on low CD that also offer multiple stacks of a few conditions with high uptimes baseline.Infinite Horizon allowing illusions to remain intact after the use of a dodge roll (the illusions should be destroyed immediately after their attack is used, with no chance to shatter afterwards).Cut these things down and the balance would significantly swing toward the positive side, IMO.

  • Warrior (Too much sustain for what it's role is. Bruiser and even the uncommon tank variants of things like Spellbreaker and Core are doing way too much damage. They either can take, but only do some damage, which means they would need their support to buff their damage. Or they are DPS and they need to get their sustain cut. Also Rampage is a issue since people are overrelying on it now. Berserker is still unplayable, fix the amount of toughness they lose when they go zerk)

I agree with most of this. Warrior in general has super high sustain, even when taking the Strength line (Might Makes Right, you dirty...). The sustain from that trait needs to either come down significantly, or be changed entirely. As for Berserker being unplayable, I don't agree with this. It's only "unplayable" right now because of how absurd everything else is currently. Once everything is brought down, I can almost guarantee you Berserker as well as other specs/professions will see much more use and start to "rise up" in the game.

  • Guardian (The power side needs MAJOR overhauls. Big time. For core and DH. The support side is dominating, either slice some of their support power to put into other support specs or start hitting key skills so they need to think more when timing their cleanses and AOE stun breaks. The Condi version of guard is pretty disgusting atm. Oversimplified, 20+ stacks of burn, and rapid application. Tone down the rapid application or people are just gonna keep running to the build for cheap wins no matter on Firebrand, DH, or Core)

Burn Guard hurts my feelings. FeelsBadMan

  • Rev (From my very limited knowledge Herald seems to finally be reasonable. Though Core Rev and Renegade need presence in the PvP scene. Buff them, make them useful, do something, this class has been relying on Herald for too long it carry it. Heck, pushing forward bunker/healing builds on Rev would be nice)

I think for the Power Shiro herald, another slight slight nerf would be suitable from its damage. but ONLY VERY SLIGHT. Anything way overboard will destroy it completely.

  • Necro (What can I say? Again, with my limited knowledge, it relies on the team enough. It got slapped with nerfs since scourge was WAY out of hand for too long. Reaper is balanced imo. Core necro is also balanced but the fear chaining..EHHHH, I'm on the fence about it. Big time. I won't say nerf the tests, but keep an eye on their corrupting is all)

Here is where I disagree. Reaper is not balanced. its chill uptime and its destructive power is way too high. Coupled with quickness and it's just a monster. Reaper needs nerfs, and part of those nerfs lies in Axe 2 on necro and the reaper skills themselves, as well as the AoE ranged skill that can chill and take like half of your health down in one proc. Definitely not balanced at all.

  • Ranger (Ugh, good god. This class. Druid is dead, it needs a big big rework on druid. Core range is balanced imo. Soulbeast there is no boonbeast anymore and the Condi version of this class sucks so eh. My gripe with this class is the multiple damage coefficients it has. This class can still one shot and has people still running around with the oneshot build. Those needs to be toned down because as people said, oneshot builds are never good)

Ranger axe skills are pretty insane, especially coupled with soulbeast. They need some nerfing. Maybe also a nerf to how often it can clear conditions (in terms of icd). But once everything else is brought down, again like other professions/specs, druid should see more use, as the overpowering things in the game run rampant freely right now.

  • Elementalist (Unfortunately my main that's having an identity crisis. First issue is fire Weaver. It's nice they have a decently strong build, but this ain't it chief. Evades+condis= bad times and stale gameplay, allowing them to get away with more than they should. The Condi application should be slowed down by a smidge. However FA Weaver, and FA core needs severe help. The damage within the build is lackluster with barely any sustain to help it. It's a glass build, which is fine, but having a tiny bit more active defenses so it won't keel over as soon as someone hits our melee ranger would be nice. Any mobility skills that could have us run away and kite properly? Tempest needs SEVERE help. It legit cannot stand up to its Firebrand cousin in terms of support. Auras are still lacking and underwhelming. Shouts are still mediocre at best. The lack of active defenses compared to other classes makes it die faster even though they have protection from their skills. Core is..eh, again Core ele can't do much. None of traits truly synergizes that well to justify running core ele over Weaver or even tempest.

I think a good change to go would be the sunspot trait. Instead of causing 2 burns, let it only cause one, as it's pretty much an instant cast free burn proc on your enemies unless they are good at being lucky with random dodges. And Tempest, as with other professions, will start to see more use once everything else that is overpowering is brought down.

Also in general, ele needs a way to not constantly having to run builds with healing. It pidgeon holes us a lot and makes us drop whatever little synergy we have. We need synergy across ALL three traitlines. Not just two or one. On top of which, our utilities need a major 2019 overhaul. Conjures, glyphs, cantrips, signet's are all SORELY lacking and their cooldowns are still far too high for what they are worth. Look into lowering some of those cds pretty please?)

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@Alatar.7364 said:

@"mortrialus.3062" said:I thought about a long essay about the philosophy of balance and the further I went into it the more and more I realized no one would ever read it. And so I figured I'd just condense a lot of what I'd like to see immediately into small patch notes.

Thief:Nuke condition thief into the ground.Nuke Staff/Staff thief into the ground.Steal: All damaging traits that feed into steal such as Mug, Serpent's Touch, Bewildering Ambush, should be removed and replaced with something else.Infiltrator's Strike: Reduce range to 600.Escapist's Fortitude: Internal Cooldown increased to 5 seconds.Long Term Goal: Condition thief should be reworked to no longer revolving around a convoluted mess of trait procs that all intertwine with each other and into specific weapon tool kits and specific skill shots it has to run with clear strengths and weaknesses. Even
, this video is still relevant.

Lotus Training should no longer do damage in and of itself. Perhaps it should provide a +20% increased condition damage buff if you actively evade an attack.Bounding Dodge should no longer do damage in and of itself. Perhap it should provide a +20% increased power damage buff if you actively evade an attack.Long Term Goal: Rework Deadeye towards a more Exodia Deck playstyle that sets up an automatic win condition overtime rather than the immense range burster that can dump 15k damage in under a second on engagement.

WarriorGive Arcing Slice tiered damage like every other burst skill.Revenge Counter returns Full Counter to it's prenerf damage.Long term goal: Rework Spellbreaker from being just a power crept version of warrior into a specialization that wins by removing what other classes do well, such as allowing spellbreakers to become extremely anti-boon, or anti-condi, or anti ranged ect ect. Both by reworking traits and buffing the meditation skills.

You wanna take away the functionality of DrDs dodges because they do stuff but leave Warriors unblockable-boon-granting 6k Reckless Dodge in tact?Reducing IS to 600 would straight away delete S/D, both condi and power as it did delete D/P. Also you may not realize how very vital Mug is for power thief, both the Heal and to lesser extent the dmg, if anything Mug encourages more skilled gameplay, so you don't waste the heal of Mug as some Thieves just blow Steal right away and thats a free win. I realize you said
"replace it"
but that would have to be a truly uniquely viable replacement.

I'm pretty sure the deletion of thief as a whole is the posters agenda as those thief nerfs are ridiculous and are clearly not thought out and are conceived simply out of a dislike for the class in general.

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@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@"shadowpass.4236" said:

Mesmer


  • Problem
    : Combined with
    , this trait means that
    alone can apply anywhere from 8-16 stacks of long-duration bleeding. Also, coupled with Mirage’s exceptionally high access to CC’s, this means that pistol skills can recharge nearly instantly.
  • Solution
    : Currently, this trait bleeds on EVERY hit from pistol attacks from you and your illusions. Instead, change this to 33% chance to bleed on CRITICAL hits like most other bleeding-related traits. Also, remove the 25% cooldown reduction on interrupt and make it a flat 20% cooldown reduction on pistol skills.

  • Problem
    : Again, this trait is 100% chance on critical hits to apply a 5-8 second bleed (Carrion vs. Deadshot amulet). This results in insane amounts of bleeding stacks with little effort on the mesmer’s part.
  • Solution
    : Similar to
    ,
    ,
    , and
    (basically every single bleed-on-attack related trait), make it 33% on critical hits and reduce the bleeding duration to 3 seconds because the effect can trigger from 3 different sources.

  • Problem
    : Dodging while disabled should not exist.
  • Solution
    : Remove the ability to dodge while disabled.

  • Problem
    : This skill is a 4.75 second cooldown, 2 second duration block that summons 2 clones and applies 7 stacks of torment (5 on trigger, 1 per clone).
  • Solution
    : Increase the cooldown to 10 seconds (8 seconds while traited) and reduce the torment on trigger to 3.

First of all, stop taking stuff out of your kitten .Illusionary counter has 8s cd, not 4,5.
Spawned clones go throught motion of autoattack the same way normal clones do, so adding that to the damage is just not very smart.

Illusionary axes, DO NOT apply 25stacks of torment, dunno where you took it from, in fact if you use it with 3 clones, and all axes land, thats 12 stacks of torment ( less then half ) and 9 stacks of bleed ( assuming all 9 hits crit 50% chance, times 9 its almost impossible )

Pistol bleeds, Im not sure if nerfing pistols damage by 85% is a solution here, how about we nerf rapid fire from ranger by 85%? im sure you would be thrilled about that.

Clear bias shown as usual, when you speak of your main its buff this, buff that, wrongly changed shmack. When you speak of mesmer nerf thi by 85%, nerf that by 66%, remove this remove that. yikes.

tldr. at least get the facts right before you complain.

He did state the post was a year old. Since then scepter 2 saw an increase in cd, Axe ambush saw multiple nerfs.

then why even bother posting that. basicly : this is some old info thats not up to date for over a year, but becouse it used to be like this 1 year ago lets nerf some more.

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@Fueki.4753 said:Conditions are way too strong currently and need either be nerfed by at least 80% or have system changes to counter them.Bursting players down within 2 seconds already is disgusting, but with doing so with conditions is nothing short of atrocious.

System changes could/should include:Remove immobility from the conditions and add it to the CC category, so stun breaks remove it.Remove Stability and Resistance from the corruption table.Conditions cleansing skills need to apply Resistance for some time (maybe 5 to 10 seconds), or else they are completely useless.In the current form, removing conditions makes no sense, as they are back not even half a second later.

99,99% people skipped what you wrote after reading first sentence, not me.I endured all of it in its glory, I want you to take a step back, and think hard on what you are proposing.you want condi damage to be reduced by AT LEAST 80%.you want condi cleanse to also give 5-10s resistance ( thats 5-10s of damage immunity ).

Immagine if everyone could spam 5-10s immunities to power damage, and have power damage reduced by 80%, now that would be something :D

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Make mesmer's sustained power dmg output equal to that of other power oriented classes, so we are not pigeonholed into gimmick run-burst-run playstyle and we have a deal, you can delete condi mirage (Oh boy, someone's going to regret that). While you're at it, can you also make it so guard and holo lose their ability to inflict any sort of burn when playing power-oriented builds, since we are witch-hunting condis ? Kind of worrying that they can inflict as much damage as mesmer's torch skills on condi amulet without any real investment. Thank you)))

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