Balance Patch Preview - WvW

[Gryxis.6950]

@Fantasylife.7981 said:So nerf everything and ruin 7 years of balance in 1 day kekw..... the problem that hasnt been fix is that mesmer has 5 clones 3 active. So game will remain unbalance.

No need to worry everything that is not core mesmer will be as good as deleted after this patch

[Fantasylife.7981]

Shield Master: Reduced might duration from 8 seconds to 1 second LUL

[lodjur.1284]

Finally removing the crutches that is the passive invulns/breaks

No more getting hit for 10k+ when you have 3.5k armor+

TTK means you might have to put more thought into things then just slam your burst and hope, this burst meta has carried people pretty hard, ofc they're gonna be upset about it being changed.

This definitively makes outnumbered fights a lot more doable, which is nice, this burst meta really really favored the ones doing the outnumbering.

Only bad thing is that tempest really could have used a few less nerfs and maybe even some buffs to bring it up to firebrands level.

[slimike.1693]

Here are my thoughts on the balance patch as a whole, not singling out any changes. I am only focusing on power as that is all I have ever played. I have played almost exclusively WvW / PvP since launch (Ranger / SoulBeast Main).

• No complaints to damage / heal reductions, this will balance out across the board as intended.
• It is concerning all the increases to cool downs. It seems that in general, cool downs were increased for weapons, traits, and utilities.
• Also concerning is decrease to might / vulnerabillity stacks
• Also concerning is decrease to might / vulnerability durations
• High weapon / utility cool downs + short might / vulnerability stacks + smaller might / vulnerability stacks = one short burst? What if the opponent dodges, and you in turn dodge their burst? Now the two players are left with smashing "1" on each other.

All in all I think the intended goal of putting more stress on what skills are used at what time is a great idea. I understand increasing cool downs is the most effective way of achieving this. However I think the increase in cool downs is a bit extreme. I cant picture the flow of my burst based off of the changes made. I now envision myself kiting for days until an opportunistic moment arises and I toss a huge burst in to someone, and then kite for another day or two if I don't down the opponent.

Perhaps a beta weekend with the patch implemented would be a good idea.

[Arctisavange.7261]

@lodjur.1284 said:Finally removing the crutches that is the passive invulns/breaks

No more getting hit for 10k+ when you have 3.5k armor+

TTK means you might have to put more thought into things then just slam your burst and hope, this burst meta has carried people pretty hard, ofc they're gonna be upset about it being changed.

This definitively makes outnumbered fights a lot more doable, which is nice, this burst meta really really favored the ones doing the outnumbering.

Only bad thing is that tempest really could have used a few less nerfs and maybe even some buffs to bring it up to firebrands level.

Lol you do understand that right now given the boon duration and condi cleanse nerf in upcoming changes, it will be a full blown pirate ship with condition spam. Just like back in 2017. That meta was far more worse then the current one.

[Jables.4659]

I want to tell you guys a story about a weapon and its skills. The class is Mesmer, and the weapon is scepter. Once upon a time, it was a niche weapon that most people overlooked, because lets be honest, there were far better options out there. It had been balanced since launch to act a hybrid weapon, you could run it as condi, power, or hybrid. At a certain point, Anet notices that this one weapon on Mesmer isn't getting used by any meaningful number of players in any game mode. They take its highest power damage skill and buff it by 25% (a fairly huge change to a single skill) while also giving it an additional strike (which means an additional confusion stack). Throughout that balance period, people start realizing that high power damage builds can kill other high power damage builds with a single use of this skill, and hybrid builds can deal obscene amounts of damage with it while being fairly tanky. The Mesmer meta in pvp shifts heavily towards this weapon. On the next balance patch, knowing that they screwed up by overbuffing this skill, Anet nerfs it by 50% (twice as much as it was just buffed the previous patch). As a consolation prize, they give an extra clone to the block (but also raise its cooldown in wvw). Now, despite this weapon having been slightly underperforming before this whole debacle, its significantly worse instead of slightly better. Its use drops even further, essentially relegated to staff scepter/torch IH full condi braindead spam WvW roaming builds. Before this whole thing, there were a small number of players who greatly enjoyed power scepter despite it not being as strong as GS builds. It was an alternative playstyle. So, the question is. Now that Anet is reducing power coefficients across the board, what makes sense? A.) Nerf scepter's power coefficients to a similar degree as something like GS, resulting in scepter being just as underperforming as before this upcoming patch. B.) Nerf scepter's power coefficients to a lesser degree as something like GS, achieving balance. According to this preview, option A.) made more sense to the Devs.

[Ben K.6238]

Well this looks like a very promising start. I suspect some of the condi builds needed nerfs corresponding with power though, because without it there's a risk they'll dominate.

[Arctisavange.7261]

Additionally given that boon duration is getting hard nerfed, its good for offensive boons but for defensive boons like specially for stability, we are gona be thrown back to full blown pirateship with condition meta. Feels 2017 man.

[Nauda.3678]

I think I like the overall direction but it should be made sure that conditions don't become to strong.Right now Burn-guardians are already a quite strong burstbuild if they hit at the right time. With the (maybe) upcoming condition-meta it might be even harder to cleanse the burning-stacks if they are coverd by other conditions before they kill you.Also Burn-guardians kill siege very fast right now because it can be hard to cleanse the siege before it get's destroyed.

Also we need a very good look at the thief portal. It's currently way to strong for a thief to hide in certain objects(esp. on desert borderlands where the "reveal after capture" is kinda bugged and doesn't cover the keeps completely).

[XenesisII.1540]

Glad they're putting more separation between speciality/cc and dmg skills. Less spamming, use skills when the appropriate situation arises.

As for the rest, will have to see how it pans out, especially the boon balling, before complaining a bunch. It's at the point where they had to do one of two things, increase health to match the power increase in the last two expansions, or bring everything down to reasonable pre hot levels with health intact, they took the harder route and looked into everything, and I appreciate they finally took the time to do so.

I am sad about mirage cloak being nerfed 50 endurance, so 1 dodge, lol, ok. Glad I'm enjoying my support scrapper instead these days.

And lmao for people thinking the last 7 years was good balancing.

[Randollstar.7628]

Hello A-net i find it good that you want to bring some balance into Guild Wars 2. But i think the way you're doing this is wrong. Nerfing power classes okay you do it to every class mhhh at some points it's good at others not. My main argument against is that WvW used to be a fast mode were you had quick fights (or some long if you fought a worthy opponent) with all this nerfs this is gone. Besides only nerfing power which is at many points WEAKER then condition damage is really bad. Most Players will play condi and power will die out in (besides some nice players). You can take a tank equipment and pressure your oppenent with a lot of condis or you play power have to manage more stats with you're gear and deals way less damage then the condi player. In my brain this makes zero sence. That's why i advice to overthink some of the changes(espacially nerfing condi more!!!!) and using your brain to create us a future where we can have fun in this game.

[Ben K.6238]

@XenesisII.1540 said:And lmao for people thinking the last 7 years was good balancing.

This.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

i have no idea yet, what this is going to be in field. but for example, (after a not very detailed reading since it's post 2am and some beer here) prime light beam (holo) power coefficient drop from 3.0 to 0,01? so we toss that elite simply, because that's never ever worth even firing on anybody... and do condi-trash gets their nerf too? i didn't catch that, but most dmg-nerfs look from afar a bit directed towards power)

[XenesisII.1540]

This couldn't be posted in the feedback thread they posted specifically to get wvw feedback, because why?

[Acheron.4731]

Warrior rifle for sale!Like new, hardly used since Aug 30th. Great condition, just one small scratch on the stock. Will upload pics later.5 gold OBOWill ship for free or you can arrange pick-up if you live nearby.

[Arctisavange.7261]

I really dont believe anet reads anything in their own thread. Experience in this forum has shown multiple times that the more new topics players make about specific concerns, the more attention those issues will get.

[XenesisII.1540]

@kamikharzeeh.8016 said:i have no idea yet, what this is going to be in field. but for example, (after a not very detailed reading since it's post 2am and some beer here) prime light beam (holo) power coefficient drop from 3.0 to 0,01? so we toss that elite simply, because that's never ever worth even firing on anybody... and do condi-trash gets their nerf too? i didn't catch that, but most dmg-nerfs look from afar a bit directed towards power)

It has a 5 target unblockable launch effect, all the control skills have had their damage reduced, it also was reduced from 60 to 40s cooldown to compensate.

[anonymous.7812]

One thing that's concerning: nerfs to the revive skills -- but Warclaw can still stomp. Please remove that ability from Warclaw, it encourages people to not play, but to wait for downs sitting on their kitty.

[HoneyBadger.5691]

I'll get right to the elephant in the room, after reading...yea, everything lol; speaking mostly to wvw here.

The changes towards how things work like warrior rifle seem great, but the damage nerfs are way, and I mean WAY too heavy handed.

You'd be better off throwing out all these coefficients and just scaling back existing ones by something like 15% to start.

The current frustration mostly revolves around people getting essentially one-shot. There is no point in stacking excess support because all the support in the game won't save you from dieing to focused damage. You also force everyone onto FB with these changes, because FB has what is necessary for the game mode to work. Nerfing FB or other supports is the polar opposite of what you need to do. I'm not saying buff FB, but you need to give other supports more stab/usability/boon access overall. By nerfing support aspects (including heal, cleanse, stab durations, cooldowns etc) you encourage people to NOT engage in fights unless they have their cooldowns, or when they've used them, just full run.

By trimming back some damage and buffing non-fb supports in aspects that make them relevant, you would...a) stop people from getting bursted down so easilyb) make fights last longer, for more counterplay, comebacks, and fun overall (we don't play to run back across the map, see Desert BL...)c) create more class varietyd) give people more of a reason to actually readily engage in fights

[God.2708]

Most people here are looking at the patch through the current balance paradigm's lense and it is making their ability to judge the patch very cloudy.

[Crackmonster.2790]

Increase condition cleanse choices slightly, and reduce condition damage per second by a third, but in turn give them 50% extra duration. Or similar.

And btw before guys so many classes could just kill you in 1-3 seconds full life, repeatedly, power dmg nerfed 33%+, it's not like now you can't do any damage you know..

[Notsoperky.4291]

Did they nerf retaliation? CBA to read every class'es changes.

Look like ranger will still be unwanted in wvw generally and with even less utility.

Staff ele looks to have little to no purpose with the number of targets for heals and co efficients nerfed into the ground.

Oh well, let's see how it all settles down - remember to post on forums screenshots of all those one shots after the balance patch (has the patch stopped the macro combo thief instant downed chain, or just made it even more effective as your counters are all on longer cool downs...). Then maybe in a year or so they will adjust damage and add in an internal cooldown so some classes can't chain hit 7 times in 0.1 seconds...

Looking forward to see how it pans out.

[KrHome.1920]

@Vova.2640 said:This is a joke right? These patch notes cannot be serious...Everyone will run full trailblazer/dire now because power wont do any dmg whatsoever.

If this patch goes live its actually be the final blow that will kill the game mode...The opposite will happen. You underestimate the hybrid damage your so called condi builds are doing.

Cleanses were not touched. Heals are nerfed. Some condi skills and traits are nerfed (e.g. dhuumfire burn duration lowered from 3 to 1 second).

Did you see the mirage cloak nerf in the notes?When was the last time a trailblazer scourge was a threat to you? This build is a joke right now!

[RisenHowl.2419]

hammer rev, thief, and scourge are done.reaper is heavily nerfed.ranger and mes nothing important changed.tempest loses 10 targets, otherwise just number adjustments for ele.warrior is now split: berserker for damage, spb for CC/boonrip/support.both dps and heal scrapper stay the same.support fb gutted, dps fb and dh are... buffed?

[Sleepwalker.1398]

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

These changes are not final, and we’re expecting to make further adjustments based on player feedback as well as our own internal review. Some of the upcoming functional changes still need to be looked at for potential splits as well, but we feel that the overall list is in a good enough spot to gather feedback.

Future Balance Cadence

This patch is unusual in that it’s more about establishing a new paradigm than it is a regular balance update, and the result is a giant set of changes. Moving forward with competitive balance, we want to make smaller adjustments more often. The specific cadence for balance will always depend on our overall release schedule, but ideally it will be closer to every 4-6 weeks, while still having the opportunity to make minor tweaks outside of the regular balance update. The goal here is to have better flexibility to fix problems in a timely manner.

PvP and WvW

For this initial update, the bulk of the splits are being applied to both PvP and WvW because the underlying ideas are applicable to both modes. The end result is going to be radically different and moving forward we will be doing more separation and targeted adjustments on a per-mode basis.

You guys complain too much.When a dev tries to fix something by communicating, you guys are very quick in resisting.Sole reason why there is so few of it.The changes being made are not all permanent, as said above adjustments/tweaks will be made.I suggest you all re-read this bit above or the whole post again from begining and not just look at your class's update and start defending.