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Potential Future Balance Changes - WvW


Cal Cohen.2358

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@"Voltekka.2375" said:It is saddening to see people being so ignorant about wvw blobscourge. That only shows that they dont play that class, they play it horrible wrong, or they dont know how to counter it. I mean, there is a comment here about people switching to gm trait "demonic lore" after the incoming nerfs. A trait that gives burn on torment every 3s on a single target. Amazing trait with powerstats. Synergizes well. Yeah.

People cry about scourge condi dmg, which is pretty much nonexistent cause blobscourges run powerstats. Cleanses are out of this world, mass cleanses. Boonconversion is where most condies come from, but people choose to ignore this, as well. There is a reason the meta has shifted from full trailblazer to power. If you still run full trailblazer in blobs, well...

Scourge needs support to survive. Otherwise, it is pure trash. Dies to a single rapidfire, a CoR plus 2 auto attacks. Barrier? It is used to sustain firebrands on pushes, so they can outsustain the enemy for scourges to be able to corrupt en masse, and for dps classes to deliver their spike. "but powerscourge has huge dmg!". No, it doesnt. A shroudspike is what, 1-2 times hit for 1.5-2.5k? (if you stay in that big Red pulsing AoE for more, farming flax may be ideal for you instead of wvw). "but so many scourges do much more dmg!" Welcome to the game, where stacking classes - any classes--with glass cannon stats can do mass damage. Support Firebrand can sustain a family of 8 alone. Spellbreaker is stronger than a german panzer and can solo push into enemy blobs. Scrapper has decent solo sustain. Revs as well. No other class needs support as much as scourge does, to be able to do what it is supposed to do. People call scourge a sitting duck for a reason.

And this comes down to the actual role of the scourge. Boonrips and booncorrupts. The more targets the merrier, the more boons removed the better. The number of targets nerf was justified, 10 targets is a tad too much. But nerfing the boonremoval even more, that shows (in my opinion, anyway) that people are ignorant. Stand your ground was buffed and affects 10 targets. Boon output is absurd. Firebrands, scrappers, healeles, revs dish out more boons than ever. Scourge has seen nerfs with unending corruption being changed to harbringer shroud (that noone uses, ever), devouring darkness was already nerfed (will get nerfed harder), a whole trait line (curses) that goes well with condi builds was taken only cause of corrupts. Maybe builds will change to spite soulreap again, who knows. Condi isnt coming back anyway, hasnt been even remotely reliable for a long time.

Anyway, in conclusion, in my opinion they should just have nerfed big shade target number. Boon spam should be looked into first. The elephant (it is more like a prehistoric mammoth, actually) in the room is firebrand. Thanks for your time, reading my rant.

I disagree. Anyone who thinks support is the issue in WvW doesn't understand how large scale fights work.Edit: Or what the community wants from large scale fights.

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@God.2708 said:

@"Voltekka.2375" said:It is saddening to see people being so ignorant about wvw blobscourge. That only shows that they dont play that class, they play it horrible wrong, or they dont know how to counter it. I mean, there is a comment here about people switching to gm trait "demonic lore" after the incoming nerfs. A trait that gives burn on torment every 3s on a single target. Amazing trait with powerstats. Synergizes well. Yeah.

People cry about scourge condi dmg, which is pretty much nonexistent cause blobscourges run powerstats. Cleanses are out of this world, mass cleanses. Boonconversion is where most condies come from, but people choose to ignore this, as well. There is a reason the meta has shifted from full trailblazer to power. If you still run full trailblazer in blobs, well...

Scourge needs support to survive. Otherwise, it is pure trash. Dies to a single rapidfire, a CoR plus 2 auto attacks. Barrier? It is used to sustain firebrands on pushes, so they can outsustain the enemy for scourges to be able to corrupt en masse, and for dps classes to deliver their spike. "but powerscourge has huge dmg!". No, it doesnt. A shroudspike is what, 1-2 times hit for 1.5-2.5k? (if you stay in that big Red pulsing AoE for more, farming flax may be ideal for you instead of wvw). "but so many scourges do much more dmg!" Welcome to the game, where stacking classes - any classes--with glass cannon stats can do mass damage. Support Firebrand can sustain a family of 8 alone. Spellbreaker is stronger than a german panzer and can solo push into enemy blobs. Scrapper has decent solo sustain. Revs as well. No other class needs support as much as scourge does, to be able to do what it is supposed to do. People call scourge a sitting duck for a reason.

And this comes down to the actual role of the scourge. Boonrips and booncorrupts. The more targets the merrier, the more boons removed the better. The number of targets nerf was justified, 10 targets is a tad too much. But nerfing the boonremoval even more, that shows (in my opinion, anyway) that people are ignorant. Stand your ground was buffed and affects 10 targets. Boon output is absurd. Firebrands, scrappers, healeles, revs dish out more boons than ever. Scourge has seen nerfs with unending corruption being changed to harbringer shroud (that noone uses, ever), devouring darkness was already nerfed (will get nerfed harder), a whole trait line (curses) that goes well with condi builds was taken only cause of corrupts. Maybe builds will change to spite soulreap again, who knows. Condi isnt coming back anyway, hasnt been even remotely reliable for a long time.

Anyway, in conclusion, in my opinion they should just have nerfed big shade target number. Boon spam should be looked into first. The elephant (it is more like a prehistoric mammoth, actually) in the room is firebrand. Thanks for your time, reading my rant.

I disagree. Anyone who thinks support is the issue in WvW doesn't understand how large scale fights work.Edit: Or what the community wants from large scale fights.

The better the support classes( especially protection, stability, cleanses and clean healing) the more risk dps classes can take

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@L A T I O N.8923 said:

@God.2708 said:

@"Voltekka.2375" said:It is saddening to see people being so ignorant about wvw blobscourge. That only shows that they dont play that class, they play it horrible wrong, or they dont know how to counter it. I mean, there is a comment here about people switching to gm trait "demonic lore" after the incoming nerfs. A trait that gives burn on torment every 3s on a single target. Amazing trait with powerstats. Synergizes well. Yeah.

People cry about scourge condi dmg, which is pretty much nonexistent cause blobscourges run powerstats. Cleanses are out of this world, mass cleanses. Boonconversion is where most condies come from, but people choose to ignore this, as well. There is a reason the meta has shifted from full trailblazer to power. If you still run full trailblazer in blobs, well...

Scourge needs support to survive. Otherwise, it is pure trash. Dies to a single rapidfire, a CoR plus 2 auto attacks. Barrier? It is used to sustain firebrands on pushes, so they can outsustain the enemy for scourges to be able to corrupt en masse, and for dps classes to deliver their spike. "but powerscourge has huge dmg!". No, it doesnt. A shroudspike is what, 1-2 times hit for 1.5-2.5k? (if you stay in that big Red pulsing AoE for more, farming flax may be ideal for you instead of wvw). "but so many scourges do much more dmg!" Welcome to the game, where stacking classes - any classes--with glass cannon stats can do mass damage. Support Firebrand can sustain a family of 8 alone. Spellbreaker is stronger than a german panzer and can solo push into enemy blobs. Scrapper has decent solo sustain. Revs as well. No other class needs support as much as scourge does, to be able to do what it is supposed to do. People call scourge a sitting duck for a reason.

And this comes down to the actual role of the scourge. Boonrips and booncorrupts. The more targets the merrier, the more boons removed the better. The number of targets nerf was justified, 10 targets is a tad too much. But nerfing the boonremoval even more, that shows (in my opinion, anyway) that people are ignorant. Stand your ground was buffed and affects 10 targets. Boon output is absurd. Firebrands, scrappers, healeles, revs dish out more boons than ever. Scourge has seen nerfs with unending corruption being changed to harbringer shroud (that noone uses, ever), devouring darkness was already nerfed (will get nerfed harder), a whole trait line (curses) that goes well with condi builds was taken only cause of corrupts. Maybe builds will change to spite soulreap again, who knows. Condi isnt coming back anyway, hasnt been even remotely reliable for a long time.

Anyway, in conclusion, in my opinion they should just have nerfed big shade target number. Boon spam should be looked into first. The elephant (it is more like a prehistoric mammoth, actually) in the room is firebrand. Thanks for your time, reading my rant.

I disagree. Anyone who thinks support is the issue in WvW doesn't understand how large scale fights work.Edit: Or what the community wants from large scale fights.

The better the support classes( especially protection, stability, cleanses and clean healing) the more risk dps classes can take

Which is why, in a meta where there were no dedicated healers at all, necros all ran around in full soldiers and not full berserkers, right?

I will re-iterate my above statement. People who think support is the issue do not understand how large scale fights work.

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@Badass.7492 said:The general problem of WvW is, that it's not simply 50v50, blob vs. blob fights, sieging keeps etc..There are three mayor types of gameplay, which are performed in World vs. World (as far as I am aware ^^)

  • Blob fights (25 - 70 ppl), yes i regard a zerg of 25 ppl as a mayor group of players
  • GvG (15 ppl), since there is no seperate area of the game, Guilds can fight each other
  • Roaming/Small scale (up to 10 ppl) , since there is more builddiversity regarding statlines etc.

These three areas should always kept in mind when balancing wvw, since it can destroy the other categories if wvw-balance is just centered around one of them (which is happening right now, if we look at the canges regarding the scepter)

So I have a complete opposite approach for the issue regarding Necromancers, namely this part:

  • Devouring Darkness (from Lingering Curse): Reduced the number of boons corrupted from 2 to 1 in WvW only

So instead of keeping on nerfing the Skill, rendering it useless for GvG and Small Scale, since you are not massing necromancers in these styles since you are limited regarding the number of players.

My consideration: Put the ammount back up to 3 corrupts, but instead of limiting the casting end, limit the recieving end.For example put a debuff on players struck by the skill, which lasts 10 secounds and is stackable up to 3 times, preventing the player from taking further corrupts as long as the debuff persist (kinda similar to the way the new Deathmagic mechanic works).

That way you can stop things from being broken if stacked infinite times while on the other hand not hurting players that like to play world vs world in a amaller scale like GvG or Roaming/Small Scale.

The debuff idea is nice, keeping in mind wvw consists of blob fights , medium sized gvg fights and small scale. Therfore changes should be balanced around all of these very different scenarios. Say If a player gets hit by 20 scepter 3's, only 3 will corrupt him =9 boons gone then the debuff appears for 10s, the skill still corrupts aoe but again only cap 3 times per player in the space of 10's. This is strictly talking about corrupts not the dmg part of the skill. good idea worth testing, but then people will probably just run axe lol

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@"Cal Cohen.3527"

I certainly think you and the team should consider addressing some boon application at the same time as reducing the corruptions otherwise you will see a drastic shift from scourge is the problem to firebrand/holo/scrapper is the problem.

One thing I personally think should not be done in any competitive modes is hitting 1 area and not the other at least to some extent at the same time.The last thing we need to see is scourge getting toned down even more and then just being left like that "its fine" because the complaints stopped even more so if thats because people just stop playing scourge because its not longer effective enough.

Im not saying scourge shouldn't be reduced im simply saying that the choice to reduce it without also addressing boon splatter which has yet to receive a single culling since ever that i can recall could lead to an even bigger issue. Scourge takes a massive nose dive in the process for several months or people stop playing it all together because it feels too ineffective.

All teams should possibly consider a scourge rework in all game modes pve included if its going to keep getting these kind of pass overs on a mechanic thats proving to be too difficult to balance in terms of effectiveness.

Scourge is indeed a problem in big numbered fights or in the instances of multiple scourges. But i think this only pushes people to drop scourge entirely or simply bring even more scourges than before. Both of which are not good imo.

As i said in a previous statement i hated the idea of necromancer's main unique mechanic feature being used as what almost feels like a pure balance tool for 8 other professions. Boon converts went from being a unique mechanic and strategy defensive combat tool of the necromancer to being a almost a pure boon balance tool for every other profession.
The reduction of that tool without the reduction of the thing its meant to combat at the same time or before hand seems backwards to me. This is going to up effectiveness and dps for a lot of builds passively even more which is the opposite of what i thought was suppose to be happening in the future for both wvw and pvp.

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@God.2708 said:

@"Voltekka.2375" said:It is saddening to see people being so ignorant about wvw blobscourge. That only shows that they dont play that class, they play it horrible wrong, or they dont know how to counter it. I mean, there is a comment here about people switching to gm trait "demonic lore" after the incoming nerfs. A trait that gives burn on torment every 3s on a single target. Amazing trait with powerstats. Synergizes well. Yeah.

People cry about scourge condi dmg, which is pretty much nonexistent cause blobscourges run powerstats. Cleanses are out of this world, mass cleanses. Boonconversion is where most condies come from, but people choose to ignore this, as well. There is a reason the meta has shifted from full trailblazer to power. If you still run full trailblazer in blobs, well...

Scourge needs support to survive. Otherwise, it is pure trash. Dies to a single rapidfire, a CoR plus 2 auto attacks. Barrier? It is used to sustain firebrands on pushes, so they can outsustain the enemy for scourges to be able to corrupt en masse, and for dps classes to deliver their spike. "but powerscourge has huge dmg!". No, it doesnt. A shroudspike is what, 1-2 times hit for 1.5-2.5k? (if you stay in that big Red pulsing AoE for more, farming flax may be ideal for you instead of wvw). "but so many scourges do much more dmg!" Welcome to the game, where stacking classes - any classes--with glass cannon stats can do mass damage. Support Firebrand can sustain a family of 8 alone. Spellbreaker is stronger than a german panzer and can solo push into enemy blobs. Scrapper has decent solo sustain. Revs as well. No other class needs support as much as scourge does, to be able to do what it is supposed to do. People call scourge a sitting duck for a reason.

And this comes down to the actual role of the scourge. Boonrips and booncorrupts. The more targets the merrier, the more boons removed the better. The number of targets nerf was justified, 10 targets is a tad too much. But nerfing the boonremoval even more, that shows (in my opinion, anyway) that people are ignorant. Stand your ground was buffed and affects 10 targets. Boon output is absurd. Firebrands, scrappers, healeles, revs dish out more boons than ever. Scourge has seen nerfs with unending corruption being changed to harbringer shroud (that noone uses, ever), devouring darkness was already nerfed (will get nerfed harder), a whole trait line (curses) that goes well with condi builds was taken only cause of corrupts. Maybe builds will change to spite soulreap again, who knows. Condi isnt coming back anyway, hasnt been even remotely reliable for a long time.

Anyway, in conclusion, in my opinion they should just have nerfed big shade target number. Boon spam should be looked into first. The elephant (it is more like a prehistoric mammoth, actually) in the room is firebrand. Thanks for your time, reading my rant.

I disagree. Anyone who thinks support is the issue in WvW doesn't understand how large scale fights work.Edit: Or what the community wants from large scale fights.

I am well aware that dps classes dictate the meta to a large degree. That doesnt mean that some aspects of the support classes arent broken, however.

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@God.2708 said:

@God.2708 said:

@"Voltekka.2375" said:It is saddening to see people being so ignorant about wvw blobscourge. That only shows that they dont play that class, they play it horrible wrong, or they dont know how to counter it. I mean, there is a comment here about people switching to gm trait "demonic lore" after the incoming nerfs. A trait that gives burn on torment every 3s on a single target. Amazing trait with powerstats. Synergizes well. Yeah.

People cry about scourge condi dmg, which is pretty much nonexistent cause blobscourges run powerstats. Cleanses are out of this world, mass cleanses. Boonconversion is where most condies come from, but people choose to ignore this, as well. There is a reason the meta has shifted from full trailblazer to power. If you still run full trailblazer in blobs, well...

Scourge needs support to survive. Otherwise, it is pure trash. Dies to a single rapidfire, a CoR plus 2 auto attacks. Barrier? It is used to sustain firebrands on pushes, so they can outsustain the enemy for scourges to be able to corrupt en masse, and for dps classes to deliver their spike. "but powerscourge has huge dmg!". No, it doesnt. A shroudspike is what, 1-2 times hit for 1.5-2.5k? (if you stay in that big Red pulsing AoE for more, farming flax may be ideal for you instead of wvw). "but so many scourges do much more dmg!" Welcome to the game, where stacking classes - any classes--with glass cannon stats can do mass damage. Support Firebrand can sustain a family of 8 alone. Spellbreaker is stronger than a german panzer and can solo push into enemy blobs. Scrapper has decent solo sustain. Revs as well. No other class needs support as much as scourge does, to be able to do what it is supposed to do. People call scourge a sitting duck for a reason.

And this comes down to the actual role of the scourge. Boonrips and booncorrupts. The more targets the merrier, the more boons removed the better. The number of targets nerf was justified, 10 targets is a tad too much. But nerfing the boonremoval even more, that shows (in my opinion, anyway) that people are ignorant. Stand your ground was buffed and affects 10 targets. Boon output is absurd. Firebrands, scrappers, healeles, revs dish out more boons than ever. Scourge has seen nerfs with unending corruption being changed to harbringer shroud (that noone uses, ever), devouring darkness was already nerfed (will get nerfed harder), a whole trait line (curses) that goes well with condi builds was taken only cause of corrupts. Maybe builds will change to spite soulreap again, who knows. Condi isnt coming back anyway, hasnt been even remotely reliable for a long time.

Anyway, in conclusion, in my opinion they should just have nerfed big shade target number. Boon spam should be looked into first. The elephant (it is more like a prehistoric mammoth, actually) in the room is firebrand. Thanks for your time, reading my rant.

I disagree. Anyone who thinks support is the issue in WvW doesn't understand how large scale fights work.Edit: Or what the community wants from large scale fights.

The better the support classes( especially protection, stability, cleanses and clean healing) the more risk dps classes can take

Which is why, in a meta where there were no dedicated healers at all, necros all ran around in full soldiers and not full berserkers, right?

I will re-iterate my above statement. People who think support is the issue do not understand how large scale fights work.

I never Stated support is the issue, ive Stated its An element

But whatever dude

Not gonna argue that ego. Have a Nice day

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If scourge's aoe was reduced would it be as oppressive? You have two problems. The radius of Sand Savant and the target cap. If we had the old version of shade use without sand Savant would the scourge be as oppressive? I believe the answer would he no. The lower radius and the lower target cap would force scourge players to be more tactical with shade placement.

The changes to sand Savant pushed scourge into it as its sole option. It didn't open diversity as the dev's though, it closed it off in all game modes. If sand Savant was removed and devouring darkness's target cap was reduced to 3 instead of 5 suddenly their aoe pressure is worse without harming their 1v1 potential. Addressing the overwhelming power of their aoe without impacting their 1v1 or 2v2 potential should have been priority, yet so much of the class has been gutted to quell their aoe by nerfing them in areas that the scourge is struggling with.

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Hi again,

First off, really enjoying reading through all the feedback. While we don’t have time to respond to each individual post, we wanted to respond to a few of the points that have been brought up multiple times.

  • Nerfing only Scourge will result in boons and cleanses being too strong

This is a real concern and definitely something we thought about when deciding on which changes to make for this update. What it really comes down to is the question of how long we want to chase our own tails right now. If we nerf Scourge, then maybe we need to nerf boons and cleanses, then maybe we need to nerf conditions and corrupts, and on and on we go. Now this is one of the goals of the future patch, but that is going to take longer than the time we have for this balance cycle.

The alternative here is to just make no changes until the future update is ready, but we don’t think this is the right thing to do. We know Scourge is a problem, so we’re going to make an adjustment in the short-term. If it does end up that Scourge was keeping things in check and those things start to overperform, we do have opportunity to make slight adjustments out of the normal balance cadence, but ideally we want to spend as much time as possible working on the patch where we are trying to address everything at once.

  • Why not do the proposed PvP splits in WvW as well, for the sake of roamers?

The PvP changes are targeted specifically at builds that are overperforming in PvP. Looking specifically at roaming, we don’t see anything as too egregious. Certainly everything is extremely powerful, but that is the longer-term thing we’re trying to address. For now we’re trying to balance things around the existing power level while we look ahead to addressing the issue that is the existing power level. If we brought the PvP changes to WvW right now, we would probably need to do additional changes to a bunch of roaming builds. Similar to the Scourge changes this is something that we thought about, but we want to put more time into the future update instead. These changes make sense for both competitive modes in the long-term, but now may not be the right time to make them in WvW. We’ll talk about this a bit more internally, but the main concern right now would be pushing these things out of viability instead of bringing them back in line.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi again,

First off, really enjoying reading through all the feedback. While we don’t have time to respond to each individual post, we wanted to respond to a few of the points that have been brought up multiple times.

  • Nerfing only Scourge will result in boons and cleanses being too strong

This is a real concern and definitely something we thought about when deciding on which changes to make for this update. What it really comes down to is the question of how long we want to chase our own tails right now. If we nerf Scourge, then maybe we need to nerf boons and cleanses, then maybe we need to nerf conditions and corrupts, and on and on we go. Now this is one of the goals of the future patch, but that is going to take longer than the time we have for this balance cycle.

The alternative here is to just make no changes until the future update is ready, but we don’t think this is the right thing to do. We know Scourge is a problem, so we’re going to make an adjustment in the short-term. If it does end up that Scourge was keeping things in check and those things start to overperform, we do have opportunity to make slight adjustments out of the normal balance cadence, but ideally we want to spend as much time as possible working on the patch where we are trying to address everything at once.

  • Why not do the proposed PvP splits in WvW as well, for the sake of roamers?

The PvP changes are targeted specifically at builds that are overperforming in PvP. Looking specifically at roaming, we don’t see anything as too egregious. Certainly everything is extremely powerful, but that is the longer-term thing we’re trying to address. For now we’re trying to balance things around the existing power level while we look ahead to addressing the issue that is the existing power level. If we brought the PvP changes to WvW right now, we would probably need to do additional changes to a bunch of roaming builds. Similar to the Scourge changes this is something that we thought about, but we want to put more time into the future update instead. These changes make sense for both competitive modes in the long-term, but now may not be the right time to make them in WvW. We’ll talk about this a bit more internally, but the main concern right now would be pushing these things out of viability instead of bringing them back in line.

THANK YOU

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Heralds aren’t bad close to 1.2k regen for 10 players every second... and that one passive alone...Quite a few condi cleanses one is aoe controled zone.

Scourge overall is nice but when stacked.. issue comes from big server stacking lots of scourges against smaller servers.Balance issue m8 come from bad wvw deisgn!as well, as much game was overloaded or saturated with aoe spam then Anet added scourge... wich made gameplay worse, wins who has scourges and other aoe spam classes more stacked.

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@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:Hi again,

First off, really enjoying reading through all the feedback. While we don’t have time to respond to each individual post, we wanted to respond to a few of the points that have been brought up multiple times.

  • Nerfing only Scourge will result in boons and cleanses being too strong

This is a real concern and definitely something we thought about when deciding on which changes to make for this update. What it really comes down to is the question of how long we want to chase our own tails right now. If we nerf Scourge, then maybe we need to nerf boons and cleanses, then maybe we need to nerf conditions and corrupts, and on and on we go. Now this is one of the goals of the future patch, but that is going to take longer than the time we have for this balance cycle.

The alternative here is to just make no changes until the future update is ready, but we don’t think this is the right thing to do. We know Scourge is a problem, so we’re going to make an adjustment in the short-term. If it does end up that Scourge was keeping things in check and those things start to overperform, we do have opportunity to make slight adjustments out of the normal balance cadence, but ideally we want to spend as much time as possible working on the patch where we are trying to address everything at once.

  • Why not do the proposed PvP splits in WvW as well, for the sake of roamers?

The PvP changes are targeted specifically at builds that are overperforming in PvP. Looking specifically at roaming, we don’t see anything as too egregious. Certainly everything is extremely powerful, but that is the longer-term thing we’re trying to address. For now we’re trying to balance things around the existing power level while we look ahead to addressing the issue that is the existing power level. If we brought the PvP changes to WvW right now, we would probably need to do additional changes to a bunch of roaming builds. Similar to the Scourge changes this is something that we thought about, but we want to put more time into the future update instead. These changes make sense for both competitive modes in the long-term, but now may not be the right time to make them in WvW. We’ll talk about this a bit more internally, but the main concern right now would be pushing these things out of viability instead of bringing them back in line.

Thanks for the feedback!

Hopefully, sooner than later, you'll be able to share some of the potential larger changes that are on the table, so players can get a better idea and feeling of what the future may hold.

Edit- Wanted to bring up roaming since it was mentioned... One of the biggest disparities between good and not-so-good roaming builds are in-combat on demand movement and positions skills... The team could probably address this area while also improving the world ability system...

Page 2- https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/90360/stream-feedback-multiple-topics

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi again,

First off, really enjoying reading through all the feedback. While we don’t have time to respond to each individual post, we wanted to respond to a few of the points that have been brought up multiple times.

  • Nerfing only Scourge will result in boons and cleanses being too strong

This is a real concern and definitely something we thought about when deciding on which changes to make for this update. What it really comes down to is the question of how long we want to chase our own tails right now. If we nerf Scourge, then maybe we need to nerf boons and cleanses, then maybe we need to nerf conditions and corrupts, and on and on we go. Now this is one of the goals of the future patch, but that is going to take longer than the time we have for this balance cycle.

The alternative here is to just make no changes until the future update is ready, but we don’t think this is the right thing to do. We know Scourge is a problem, so we’re going to make an adjustment in the short-term. If it does end up that Scourge was keeping things in check and those things start to overperform, we do have opportunity to make slight adjustments out of the normal balance cadence, but ideally we want to spend as much time as possible working on the patch where we are trying to address everything at once.

  • Why not do the proposed PvP splits in WvW as well, for the sake of roamers?

The PvP changes are targeted specifically at builds that are overperforming in PvP. Looking specifically at roaming, we don’t see anything as too egregious. Certainly everything is extremely powerful, but that is the longer-term thing we’re trying to address. For now we’re trying to balance things around the existing power level while we look ahead to addressing the issue that is the existing power level. If we brought the PvP changes to WvW right now, we would probably need to do additional changes to a bunch of roaming builds. Similar to the Scourge changes this is something that we thought about, but we want to put more time into the future update instead. These changes make sense for both competitive modes in the long-term, but now may not be the right time to make them in WvW. We’ll talk about this a bit more internally, but the main concern right now would be pushing these things out of viability instead of bringing them back in line.

have you tried roaming? because it is really fun to be jumped by stealth thief several times, just to have it restealth and jump away if there is any danger.have you tried roaming? because the mesmer clone/phantams/illusion/whateveritiscalledrightnow is beyond stupidhave you tried roaming? run into a soulbeast taking you down from 1500 range? you should try it.

what about warriors and guardians and their infinite block/evade-while-running-extremely-fast-chain?

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I don't believe that these changes will work out the way as planned nor is the answer. Now commanders will take twice the amount of scourges as they used to. Forcing people to play it. So that they can achieve the same result.

I'll keep preaching to bring other professions up with buffs not bring things down with nerfs. Give us options not take them away.

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Horrible changes, really. By doing such one sided nerfs you dont tackle the initial problem of powercreep. Boonspam was out of hand even before the release of scourge and the second generation of e-specs. The additional powercreep in that regard is a massive issue, you cant severly nerf scourge and especially its boon corrupts without adressing the other aspects, of the main problem. It will just shift the problem elsewhere. This situation has been there for years now, instead of doing a quick shot like this take your time and come up with a REAL solution top till bottom. Boon application should matter. Boon corrupt should matter. Mindless boon spam with near endless duration and frequency as its in the current state is just bad. Boon application is very easy and plentifull in both, number of targets, area, and reaction time. Compared to corrupt skills which already hit fewer targets, and on a longer cooldown are harder to apply; this will most likely shift the meta to an even unhealthier state while further reducing the class variance. It will be even easier to blob because boon spam and healing is far superior compared to boon corrupt and damage.

Also nothing is fine in the balance of roaming, really nothing. Oneshot skills everywhere, AAs hitting you for a quarter or even a third of health, overpowered skills with overlapping functions as well as over the top mobility and stealth for some classes. There are severall skills that are gapclosers/damage/evade or gapclosers/damage/stun on short cooldowns, this is disgusting in terms of balance, such skills should not exist, not even as an elite skill. On the other side some classes can become close to unkillable when built for bunkering which also heavily affects the balance in Zergs. Naturally if your healing output is far greater than the damage your opponent can do this will promote powercreep as nobody would die. But thats affecting zerging more than roaming. In case of roaming, for years every single class is drifting towards a very unhealthy extreme in terms of balance, be it damage, condition spam, defence or mobility. Bring the suggested PVP changes asap to WvW and take a big and hard balance pass on overall mobility and damage across all classes. Its honestly really mind boggling how a dev can say there is nothing egregious in the current state of balance for roaming. Roaming is in the worst state of balance it has been ever.

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@Voltekka.2375 said:

@God.2708 said:

@Voltekka.2375 said:It is saddening to see people being so ignorant about wvw blobscourge. That only shows that they dont play that class, they play it horrible wrong, or they dont know how to counter it. I mean, there is a comment here about people switching to gm trait "demonic lore" after the incoming nerfs. A trait that gives burn on torment every 3s on a single target. Amazing trait with powerstats. Synergizes well. Yeah.

People cry about scourge condi dmg, which is pretty much nonexistent cause blobscourges run powerstats. Cleanses are out of this world, mass cleanses. Boonconversion is where most condies come from, but people choose to ignore this, as well. There is a reason the meta has shifted from full trailblazer to power. If you still run full trailblazer in blobs, well...

Scourge needs support to survive. Otherwise, it is pure trash. Dies to a single rapidfire, a CoR plus 2 auto attacks. Barrier? It is used to sustain firebrands on pushes, so they can outsustain the enemy for scourges to be able to corrupt en masse, and for dps classes to deliver their spike. "but powerscourge has huge dmg!". No, it doesnt. A shroudspike is what, 1-2 times hit for 1.5-2.5k? (if you stay in that big Red pulsing AoE for more, farming flax may be ideal for you instead of wvw). "but so many scourges do much more dmg!" Welcome to the game, where stacking classes - any classes--with glass cannon stats can do mass damage. Support Firebrand can sustain a family of 8 alone. Spellbreaker is stronger than a german panzer and can solo push into enemy blobs. Scrapper has decent solo sustain. Revs as well. No other class needs support as much as scourge does, to be able to do what it is supposed to do. People call scourge a sitting duck for a reason.

And this comes down to the actual role of the scourge. Boonrips and booncorrupts. The more targets the merrier, the more boons removed the better. The number of targets nerf was justified, 10 targets is a tad too much. But nerfing the boonremoval even more, that shows (in my opinion, anyway) that people are ignorant. Stand your ground was buffed and affects 10 targets. Boon output is absurd. Firebrands, scrappers, healeles, revs dish out more boons than ever. Scourge has seen nerfs with unending corruption being changed to harbringer shroud (that noone uses, ever), devouring darkness was already nerfed (will get nerfed harder), a whole trait line (curses) that goes well with condi builds was taken only cause of corrupts. Maybe builds will change to spite soulreap again, who knows. Condi isnt coming back anyway, hasnt been even remotely reliable for a long time.

Anyway, in conclusion, in my opinion they should just have nerfed big shade target number. Boon spam should be looked into first. The elephant (it is more like a prehistoric mammoth, actually) in the room is firebrand. Thanks for your time, reading my rant.

I disagree. Anyone who thinks support is the issue in WvW doesn't understand how large scale fights work.Edit: Or what the community wants from large scale fights.

I am well aware that dps classes dictate the meta to a large degree. That doesnt mean that some aspects of the support classes arent broken, however.

Support, as a whole, is in a much healthier state than DPS. If we talk about sustain without bringing up stability it is in the best condition its been in since the advent of HoT and the 'triad' (Tank, DPS, Healer) attempted to get introduced to the game. Firebrand Tempest Scrapper, and to a lesser extent Spellbreaker all have unique additions in the role. Druid and Revenant are remarkably close to seeing use, really just needing small mechanical adjustments.

As a whole, I would disagree with anything about supports being 'broken' at the current juncture beyond stability being very mandatory and still very one class locked. Anti-toxin locked conditions out of the meta but that has been removed (and then bug fixed) and wasn't necessarily a single class issue (though scrapper obviously utilized better than most other classes).

Scourges aren't enabled by supports. Supports are enabled by scourges. A common theme in PvE raids is that melee builds deal much more damage than ranged builds. If you wanted to overcome the enemies boons and supports the obvious go to then, would be maximum damage and pressure. AKA Melee. Why does no one do this? Because scourges make it impossible by being very strong at range and absolutely devastating at melee. A shade spike isn't 1-2 hits for 1.5k-2.5k. A proper power scourge lands f1 with f2-f5 and hits for close to 10k instantly on 10 targets (soon to be 5). Its clear why this would be a problem for melee classes when combined with their ability to boon strip when the most important thing that allows melee to work at all is stability.

Now I see it echoed frequently that if supports were way weaker then scourges wouldn't work. This is technically true but it disregards the end point. We want a WvW where people benefit from grouping up and working together. The end state of supports getting nerfed is lots of solo roamers (typically soulbeasts or dead eyes) endlessly picking apart a zerg, till commanders get sick of it and cease to tag up, and WvW dies.

Boons self balance. I don't mind if everyone runs around with 12 boons up all the time. You will still kill people by dropping 10 players worth of damage in the same spot. The game mode will not survive corruptions and damage increasing (or support decreasing). Commanders will get sick of single players having a drastic and devastating effect on their unit and they'll just pack up and quit.

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