Upcoming Changes to Fall Damage and Revival
Robert Gee.9246
ArenaNet ArenaNet › ✭✭✭
Hey folks,
I wanted to pop in today to give you all a preview of some upcoming changes to fall damage and revival that we'll be rolling out in an upcoming balance update. The quick summary is that we are removing trait functionality that reduces fall damage and increases passive revival speed.
While fall damage reduction traits were useful when the game first launched we feel that they are currently over-complicating trait descriptions in a post-glider/mount world. Falling damage reduction is already pretty niche and in the past we have added additional functionality to make them more generally useful. However for most of these traits, that bonus functionality eventually became the main reason to take the trait. At this point we felt it just makes more sense to remove the fall damage portion, which leaves some design space if we want to buff these traits in the future.
For revival traits we want to focus more of that power onto active revival rather than simply increasing the speed of "press F to revive". You may have noticed that we've slowly been removing some of these traits already as was the case with the Tactics rework. We like how revival traits like Necromancer Transfusion and Elementalist Arcane Resurrection actively tap into existing skills and augment them so we added similar functionality to a few other revival traits when we removed the revival speed increase. In addition you'll also see some improvements to skills which revive allies directly.
Here's the list of changes by profession:
Elementalist
- Arcane Abatement: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Arcane Restoration."
- Glyph of Renewal: Reduced recharge to 90 seconds in all game modes. Lowered cast time from 3.25 seconds to 2 seconds.
- Arcane Resurrection: This trait no longer increases revival speed. Auras granted by this trait are now granted only to the elementalist at the start of a revival attempt rather than at the end. This effect has a 20 second cooldown.
Engineer
- Grenadier: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Additionally this trait now casts Lesser Grenade Barrage on your location when using a healing skill.
- Toss Elixir R: This skill no longer removes 1 condition when thrown. Increased projectile speed by 25%. The projectile thrown by this skill is now unblockable. Fixed an issue where the land and water versions of this skill moved at different speeds.
Guardian
- Protectors Impact: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Protector's Restoration".
- Signet of Mercy: Reduced recharge to 90 seconds in all game modes. Changed passive effect from granting 180 healing power (216 when traited) to granting 120 concentration (150 when traited).
- Protective Reviver: This trait no longer increases revival speed and no longer grants boons on a successful revival. Fixed skill fact to show correct 3 second duration. Fixed a bug which prevented the recharge of Lesser Shield of Absorption from being affected by Stalwart Defender. Lesser Shield of Absorption now heals nearby allies when it ends. This trait now causes all versions of Shield of Absorption to revive allies by 15% when it detonates.
- Courageous Return: This trait has been reworked and it has been renamed to "Stalwart Courage". It grants the guardian Protection for 3 seconds in PvE and 1 second in PvP/WvW whenever aegis on the guardian is removed due to blocking an attack.
Mesmer
- Descent into Madness: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Method of Madness"
- Medic's Feedback: This trait no longer increases revival speed. It now causes Feedback to revive allies inside it by 5% per second.
Necromancer
- Terrifying Descent: This trait has been reworked. It has been renamed to "Insidious Disruption". It now causes control effects to inflict torment on foes.
- Signet of Undeath: Reduced recharge to 75 seconds in all game modes. Reduced cast time from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds. Reduced number of allies revived from 3 to 1. Added additional health cost of 50% of base health to this skill. Increased passive lifeforce gain by 100%.
Ranger
- Soften the Fall: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Child of Earth"
- Allies' Aid: This trait no longer increases revival speed. Reduced cooldown of this trait from 85 seconds to 60 seconds. Fixed a bug which caused the version of "Search and Rescue!" associated with this trait to be considered a Shout skill instead of a Command.
Revenant
- Planar Protection: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait.
Thief
- Uncatchable: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait.
Warrior
- Peak Performance: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Reduced conditional damage bonus from 20% to 15% in PvE and 10% to 7% in competitive modes. Now grants 5% bonus damage baseline in PvE and 3% bonus damage in competitive modes.
Comments
I am glad to see them go I always saw them as a waste of traits.
But some players may miss it on some jumping puzzles that do not allow mounts or gliding but have a lot of long falls, like Griffonrook Run.
Would it be possible to return the fall damage reduction in a limited way through the mastery system? Like in a new or existing Pact Commander mastery?
By being in a PvE mastery it won't affect WvW and PvP, so there won't be gimmicks with it in those modes. And it should also be possible to disable a mastery in other spots in PvE where fall damage reduction may be used to map break or skip routes not meant to be skipped.
☆ SUGGEST-A-TRON
Question about this:
Medic's Feedback: This trait no longer increases revival speed. It now causes Feedback to revive allies inside it by 5% per second.
Does this mean that a mesmer can just tap F to cast the feedback then suddenly stop reviving but allies in the feedback still get revived?
Before Heart of Thorns, when players were falling a very long distance, they had a flailing animation and their character yelled? It was removed right before the introduction of gliding, but it would be really cool if it was added back for accounts that have not yet unlocked gliding (or Bond of Faith, Soaring Rescue, and Aerial Rescue masteries) and for all players in areas where gliding is not allowed, like jumping puzzles.
It's one of the things that made the game really unique; most MMOS don't have custom animations and character sounds when you're going to fall to your death, it just happens. It was pretty funny to hear other players in the open world (& jumping puzzles) fall this way. ArenaNet mentioned at one point it didn't sound very heroic, but I think a lot of people would want it back in situations where you can't glide.
signature
Yes, it's similar to how the Arcane Resurrection trait works.
While I agree with these changes, I'm sure fall damage reduction will be missed for the times we do need it.
I hope you consider it as a Mastery someday, since I think it would fit nicely with that system.
Can't deny that I am disappointed. Fall damage traits are awesome in WvW, however niche they may be. I know they may be easy to dismiss, but the amount of times these traits have allowed me to win outnumbered fights in WvW is countless.
Revenant still has no trait OR skill that has any sort of rez interaction ever since Radiant Revival was removed. Do you have any intention to include one? I dont see any reasons to exclude a single class from this especially one that has high support potential.
Also, why are you buffing Guardian's rez potential? The last thing the class needs is rez buffs. Please look at MI while you are at it. This skill was swiftly nerfed in PvP, but for whatever reason was ignored in WvW. The class continues to hold the monopoly on support and this will only further reinforce it.
Signet of Undeath change looks really super nice though, but potentially overbuffed. I will definitely play around with this.
Wait, hold on.
Signet of Undeath's passive life force generation has been increased by 100%?
Does that mean the trait "Signet of Suffering" 's increase has also been increased by 100%?
That could be a bit too powerful, no?
Thank you for the communication. I can‘t wait to see these changes happen. Especially the new necro signet.
~ Miyu Chan / twitch miyu_chan_serenity
Signet of Undeath currently gives 2% lifeforce per 3 seconds.
This change increases it by 100% up to 4% per 3 seconds.
When traited with Signets of Suffering you get 6% per 3 seconds which is a 100% increase from the previous 3% per 3 seconds.
They don't really understand aspects of wvw so they aren't really thinking about it when they do balance changes. As far as this goes yeah it'll cause so many more deaths an require even more time picking people up off the ground. So if they are going to actually do these changes they should dramatically reduce the fall damage amounts in wvw. The only decent potential I see out of this as well is the Signet of Undeath for being traited as a frontline spite/death magic/reaper. However I would rather they focus on actual issues that make things in the game unplayable when it comes to wvw like the kalla legend it has practically no use in wvw as well as weapon setups that can never be used because they have either no utility or the utility is so dismal that something else far outshines it.
Also aspects like guardian one balance problem that is always existed is that it was designed around boons and retaliation being one of its cornerstones. The problem people had with it back when it was nerfed is kind of needed back with the mindless spam to be a counter for mindless spamming. If I'm on my thief and someone tries to use retaliation its just a joke its not retaliating in any way lol if they plan to keep it like this they should rename it to tickle.
+1 for "fall damage mitigation matters in WvW".
I know. Nobody cares. I'll see myself out.
Since it's stated :
Would that mean if a Mesmer casted normal feedback it would revive people? So if they mimic -> feedback -> feedback -> revive for medic's feedback and then cancel to proc after that 18s the person would be ressed 90% from full dead? If so wouldn't this be too broken in WvW lord ressurecting or ressing wiped people in a Zerg v Zerg fight? Esp since it just states "allies inside it" theoretically you could revive an entire zerg with 2+ mesmers placing feedback.
@Robert Gee.9246
Just to clarify. Is this change for all game modes, only pve or? (little confused as we have seperate balance teams now and there was no mention of which specific balance team this falls in)
This is basically a nerf for a trait that was already not so good, can't you guys make it works like transfusion and the pet pulls and tries to revive up to 5 downed players?
Joko lies, Balthazar don't.
I feel like the fall damage negation is important in WvW, and those traits should be split between PvE and WvW.
Courageous Return: This trait has been reworked and it has been renamed to "Stalwart Courage". It grants the guardian Protection for 3 seconds whenever aegis on the guardian is removed due to blocking an attack.
This desperately needs a high CD in PvP, similar to protection injection. Double Firebrand is already pretty much the meta comp for ATs, and this has potential to give them A LOT of free prot if there is no CD.
Noooooo. These traits are super useful in some jumping puzzles. Behem Gauntlet for example.
Except some people like myself HEAVILY on the negated fall damage in WvW. You can't glide in enemy territory, so often times you have to drop a larger distance than normal.
Could you move the fall damage reduction onto some of the minor traits instead? Sometimes - in PvE at least - I really, really need fall damage reduction. Usually when I'm doing a jumping puzzle that doesn't allow gliders, or I have some distance to fall but it's a biiiit further than I'd survive otherwise.
I like the Signet of Undeath change a lot. Hopefully you can also look at Signet of Spite sometime - a power signet that applies a bunch of damaging conditions doesn't make a lot of sense.
Courageous Return definitely needs a PvP/WvW split.
What about downed state traits? Those are probably even more niche than fall damage reduction.
I have a core "medic necro" WvW build that gets some pretty epic plays out of Signet of Undeath. I'm disappointed that you chose to buff the passive and nerf the active. Not trolling, I found it to be one of few skills in GW2 that gives an honest high-risk high-reward. Especially given its small radius.
I ask that you consider maybe a 50% passive increase with an allowance of 2 revives? I don't think PvP is a big consideration with this skill because of the difficulty of hitting off a 3-second recharge before the nerf-buff.
no changes to warrior's res power?
You like transfusion.....on the healing aspect fine w/e ...but in practice the bleeping teleport kills more people than it saves. I've hated this trait with a passion since the day it landed. You can be off to the side perfectly fine on your own then someone hits shroud 4 in the middle of the worst possible positioning known to man and you get to join them and enjoy the walk back together. Thrilling
Remove the port or put an option in the settings so I can block its "help"( obviously not realistic but I hate it that much) . Instead of yelling at people to take the trait off. I don't think there's any other support trait in the game that can finish you and your 5 closest allies at the press of a single button.
What's complicated about "reduces fall damage by 50%" ?
Removing the fall damage trait is going to make doing some jumping puzzles impossible to complete. For example someone without a mount or glider doing the Silverwastes JP, that requires you to jump down to reach a checkpoint needs the fall damage reduction part of the trait to survive. There is no way around it.
I believe they should remain in PvE at the very least.
I'm all for paying life on necromancer for a powerful ability. However this isn't really that powerful and the life cost is extremely steep for what it does. As is now, it say 20% would be fine but even then the single revive is a pretty major nerf to the utility of the skill.
This change feels kinda random. Which is the case with a lot of necromancer changes. Random inclusions that feel like something more should come from it that never does. Such as the Dark pact self applying bleeding to buff life siphon. These changes are cool if in the context of other synergies, but by themselves, which always seems to be the case with necromancer, they're more annoying than anything.
Why make the changes to dark pact and life siphon when you could have more simply made life siphon scale up in damage and healing at lower health? Where is the synergy that makes the bleeding really worth it?
Why change signet of undeath to sacrifice health when there is no synergy with traits and its revive effect isn't that strong? Where is the synergy?
Don't get me wrong, I want these mechanics on the necromancer. I want to bleed and sacrifice health. I really do! At the same time there needs to be synergy and a pay off for it. Stop making necromancer a mechanic graveyard.
Well there goes my ability to live in Nuhoch Lane at the Tangle Depths Gerant since you can't really glide when a Mushroom knocks you off.
I really like these changes. I hope you don't go back on this like the backpeddal on the sPvP Agility removal.
To the niche cases it impacts:
1. Mitigating falling damage in wvw has always been a map knowledge issue.
2. The change in JPs is welcome to add a bit more challenge back to a piece of content that has been progressively trivialized.
Good stuff. I look forward to seeing some interesting things added in these traits.
"We recognize that some players are not able to complete all content." Gaile Gray 01.10.19
you should keep the name of Mesmer's trait, Descent Into Madness. Only because it sounds so cool. Change the trait, but keep the name.
I agree that the fall damage traits are very outdated and only were used in very niche roles. Most people i know who take those traits often do them for the other effects, not the fall damage. People in jumping puzzles can learn to live without that crutch :P Also glad to see more skills moving towards what arcane resurrection did, leaving behind effects that help with rezzing as in wvw its often death to do more than a tap to rez someone if MI's arent available.
You guys need to change twisted castle then. RIght now you have two options to make that jump, dodge roll of the edge or fall damage trait. However, dodge rolling off the edge is counter intuitive with no in game explanation. By dodge rolling off the ledge, you fall faster, but don't die from the fall. That's incredibly confusing.
Edit: people don't believe me, so I made a video showing this:
50% of base health to cast a skill seems very excessive for the active on signet of undeath considering it only revives only one now. It would have been reasonable to be at 30% if it revived 3 people and 50% just makes it unusable on necromancer since necromancer has no proper way to fill up that missing health.
I know i should not feed the trolls but im seriously curios.
What build did you play that activly used a falldmg trait?
No, it'll have a 5-target cap like every other normal aoe in the game. Additionally, if a mesmer is able to stand there burning a hilarious amount of cooldowns to slowly res people that can just get poisoned and cleaved out anyway, something has gone terribly wrong. This is a cute change but completely useless for WvW.
Ohey, I've got a signature
As someone who frequently plays a guardian and has made a couple different medic builds(Recently the one i'v been having the most fun with a 'Soaring Devastation' variant with dragon hunter that takes advantage of that movement speed.) I am definitely a fan of giving a nice bonus through shield of absorption to effective revival. However I do think the loss of boons is a huge strike against the trait. I feel like if any class should be given a plethora of tools for reviving, and given bonuses to both the healer and healie, it should probably be guardian.
That's just my two coppers on it.
ArenaNet, just because the staff do not use the reduction trait doesn't mean the rest of us don't. Especially in WvW where that fall reduction can really save your neck in a hairy situation in enemy territory. You know. Where you can't glide? Also where the mount doesn't actually absorb your fall damage but just insta-kills you if you take too much?
I don't like this. I'm just returning to WvW and in the past I have heavily relied on the damage reduction to get away from the enemy in the Red Borderlands.
Will you be removing speed boost traits next?
I'd go one step further:
Feedback while in CS -> Mimic -> Feedback -> Feedback -> Feedback from actual revive to proc it = 20 seconds to fully revive possibly an entire zerg army or two. If this is the case, then that 5% per second recharge is too OP (for me anyway); maybe an even better rate is 3% per second, or limit the number of targets to 5 or 10. Just my 2c
I'll just tag along to the "I liked fall damage reduction in WvW" camp
I liked using it to engage people... It felt coooool
Potential requires action in order to be realized.
I like the changes but I would like to see the reduced falld an age back. Atleast when you are in no gliding and no mount zones.
Otherwise you will die a looooot more often in JPs
Well, wasn’t this the intention?
Especially during those times when one of the falling traits was bugged and you could one-shot people with it... sorry, cant say Im gonna miss that.
Well that's obviously not good. But in any of the regular instances of those traits usage, it was pretty nice.
When something's not working as intended... yeah that's not typical?
Potential requires action in order to be realized.
And what about Toss Elixir R and Elixir R in general for engi? You kinda forgot about core engineer yet again and it grinds my gears. Last time Elixir R was touched at all was in 2014 and Toss Elixir R in 2016.
It makes me so annoyed that other professions' skills got substantially buffed and give way way better results in general (Signet of Mercy has no counter for example and is instant full ress) and Toss Elixir R can be reflected or body blocked byan enemy with Aegis and it happens MOSTLY BY ACCIDENT. Enemy doesn't even have to pay attention.
[NUKE]
You still play a Chrono in WvW? With the Inspiration line? Well, to use CS you need at least one clone. If you are not as fast as Speedy Gonzales, you will not have the chance to use CS in a zerg fight. Moreover, if your squad is down you will need a lot of time for this combination (a "lot" compared with the time needed for the enemy team to kill you). In fact, I'm pretty sure that in such condition you will not even have time to start resurrecting someone.
It is nice to theorize. But please, go play WvW. You will find the WvW environment to be quite different from the "laboratory" environment.
Grenadier is one of the traits that lots of engineers use, so this is an important change for them. And yes, the main incentive to take it is the first sentence, not the second. But it might have better to just remove the second sentence instead of adding the barrage-on-healing-funtionality. On paper it looks fine, you replace Explosive Descent with something similar, but make it proc on healing instead. Assuming the cooldown is similar, though, it now is far too hard to proc on purpose. You are not going to wait with healing just to proc this, while falling is something you can control a lot better. Worse, you now have to be careful when you heal in order not to get into combat with more things around you or hitting the wrong thing. Just one example would be Subject 5 in the reactor fractal. I would now have a problem healing myself when Subject 5 is shielding, because healing myself would hit it, which is what I need to avoid.
Combining obviously defensive skills with offensive one make controlled game play really, really hard, especially when it's on a trait that you take for other reasons, so you are kind of forced into it. And it is not the only one of these, look at Evasive Powder Keg. If you take the trait line, you have no choice, you get it, making staying ooc sometimes a real hassle: dodge and you might be in combat. Please, think about game play and not just the numbers.
I also would like to add that I am sad to see falling damage traits go in wvw. They were fun to use and added a nice tactical layer. At least add it back to runes of the snowfall
So you're taking away some of the freedom of movement in the game and making it take longer to revive the people who will inevitably die from the fall damage that's coming because you 'feel that they are currently over-complicating trait descriptions'.
This feels as bad as you mixing up and separating the order of 1-hand sword skills because you thought a very basic weapon that's been in the game since launch was 'too difficult to understand'.
These changes don't seem to add a benefit. I appreciate you telling us what's up, but I am not a fan of this and I expect it to negatively affect how people treat each other in-game when the time/effort to revive and look after other players gets increased.
This. Please make Elixir R more useful.
The great god Lagki demands sacrifice!
This is to make sure it never gets used in competitive game modes.
As Anet has clearly declared the engineer have no revival skills.
Because purity of purpose!
gaggle - /ˈɡaɡ(ə)l/ - noun
A disorderly group of Asura.
"The gaggle of Asura tried to agree on whether a phase-shifted thermonuclear energy matrix was sufficiently powerful for a device capable of heating bread"
I am quite confused about the reasoning with the Signed of Undeath changes.
I always considered the signets to be founded on balance between the passive and active parts. In a way that while the active part is very powerful, it makes you consider whether to use it in the moment because of the long cooldown and powerfull passive effect (that you are sacrificing for the whole cooldown).
Considering this, looking at the changes, it will be 100% buff to the passive effect (which is already considered vital and quite powerful for many builds).
But if we look at the active effect changes, the cooldown and cast time reductions could be considered a trade off with the target reduction (and even that with a pinch of salt in my opinion) , making the active effect as powerfull as it was. But the added health cost feels way too big and is straight up nerf for the active effect and adds another downside to the passive/active trade off all signets already have.
In short - I feel like this change offsets the balance between the passive and active parts of the signet, as the passive part gets straight up buff, while the sum of changes for the active part ends up as a nerf. This all on a signet where I consider the passive part to be already superior to the active one.
I would be very interested in more reasoning for this change, as the initial post does not offer any related to functionality of this signet.