Balance Patch Preview - WvW

[YTKafka.4681]

Can we talk about this:

Throw Mine: Reduced power coefficient from 2.0 to 0.01. Increased boons removed from 1 to 3

• 15 Sec CD (Traited 12 Sec CD)
• 900 Range Throw
• 5 Targets
• 300 Range Knockback
• Blast Finisher
• Unblockable
• Traited can throw 2 mines
• Invisible to Enemy
• Toolbelt also strips Boons

AND YOU TRIPLE IT'S BOON STRIP?Because the DAMAGE was the problem?

You essentially made it better then Spellbreaker's Break Enchantment pre-patch, and that's getting reduced from 3 to 2. FOCUS ANET or the next meta will be minefield meta.

Edit: Added more factoids

[DeceiverX.8361]

@Swagger.1459 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Yikes. Good intentions with terrible execution. More frequent balance is good, but damage changes and cooldown increases miss the mark. You need skill and class overhauls entirely and to remove a lot of expansion content from WvW.

People naively whining about TTK won it seems lol. Final nail in the coffin for GW2's PvP scene is my guess.

This doesn't really seem to change anything about some builds being wildly better than others or any real facet of the gameplay or metas in general except for the fact that fights will just be about slapping each other until eventually someone flubs a rotation. There are now no high-impact skills to properly punish people with, and WvW remains imbalanced more than before due to a lack of accessibility in gear options. Sure boon access is lessened, but the windows of counterplay that were opened are massively cut down with the lowered damage values to core weapon skills, traits, and abilities that it doesn't really matter. HoT/PoF armor combos are going to reign supreme by larger margins than ever because they have way more innate sustain and just more stats in general. TTK wasn't the issue as much as some misinformed people kept screaming, and builds that invested heavily in damage were already weak. TTK was only a problem because external factors keep bolstering damage and sustain too much on specific builds and combinations that rode too heavily in both. Notably, shared boons, Warclaw, and food.

Tier7 food also just got even more significant. 10% DR and a push to having the most stats possible are going to be even more important because gameplay will be relegated to builds with high uptime for damage and sustain. To which, builds that already lacked either or one or the other were hard-nerfed, and a lot of stuff that made off-meta choices semi-viable cut down dramatically.

I'm also not seeing any changes to proc sigils which were probably the effects most guilty of lacking counterplay due to raw damage rather than traits.

You have to admit most of the HoT+ content needs to be reworked and nerfed hard. PoF especially. The core game is and was not terribly imbalanced and a refusal to revert the expansion powercreep and making broad strokes including attacking stuff including perfectly-reasonable core game/core weapon skills is just obtuse for the sake of being obtuse.

If you don't acknowledge that expansion stat combos, T7 food, Warclaw, and most of PoF designs were massive mistakes there's no saving this mode and frankly all this effort was wasted because the modes WILL die for good.

Your ex-pro players and AT winning scene, longtime core group of players, WvW fanatics and buildcrafters ALL near-unanimously agree with what's wrong and have been shouting for very targeted changes for years.

I will be helpful and remind you of the issues with low ttk in this game. Just one example...

@DeceiverX.8361 said:30k+ backstabs in permastealth SA with absolutely zero risk lol.

Like... this was so easy not to screw up and somehow they still managed to lol.

Inb4 backstab nerfed next patch in the wake of D/P stealth-camping Deadeye.

Thanks for completely taking my old thread out of context.The thread was about MBS and how easy it was to gain malice, and WAS a meta build when I made the post. The complaint was about how the class was designed around camping permanent stealth with intermittent hits featuring +70% increased damage to backstab (over 2x combined multiplier with other traits and utils). It's a criticism of terrible design that was overlooked SOMEHOW despite being downright obvious and literally criticized as a possibility we want to avoid in my DE proposal which I know some of the team read thanks to confirmation by a former ANet employee.

So try again? TTK wasn't the issue. The stuff from the expansions was, full stop. Backstab at 2.4 was not OP because people would be running D/D if it was. No, it's low-counterplay like sustained stealth and builds with high damage also having too much utility, which is heavily-influenced by expansion content like BD DrD and everything about DE. Same is said about Boonbeast, Spellbreaker, Holo, Mirage, and so forth.

TTK used to be higher if you tried. I've reached 15k+27k on CnD+Backstab in core game so I don't see your point, either. 40k sub-2s combos on re-rework reaper. It's always been high and it's fine if it is.

Which is exactly what I said. Almost everything about the expansion content has directly made the game worse, along with external factors like +300 passive power from PotK and food, and is the reason for high TTK over anything related to core game.

If you want to criticize what I have to say, give me some evidence contrary rather than taking older posts of mine which have since been nullified thanks to FIXING THE CRITICISM out of context.

[Jski.6180]

I am of the mind its hard to say how these will work out till they are live numbers on paper often mean nothing in pvp / wvw combat. The thing is if these updates are just number changes and not skill effects changes then that not realty updating the crazy numbers of skills its like saying we are doing something +10% to every thing so we are updating all of the skills in the game it feels a bit lacking so i hope there more to come. On that note if just the skills are getting updated and not hp / def then they are missing a massive part of the problem in wvw and over all pvp balancing. If you drop all of the dmg in the game then ppl just need to stack more vit and be unkillable with out the need of doing into dmg -% any more.

Ele is my main class and i must say i am a bit lost the raw dmg skills that do nothing more then dmg got hit harder then they made it seem they would. That and the passive skills on ele i hope anet dose not think of armor of earth even close to the same level as the war effects 300 sec on something like armor of earth is a joke just rename it do "not use this trait."

I realty hope there more where effects are updated and not just numbers.

I must add the timing of this preview is odd with every thing that went on today.

[Swagger.1459]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Yikes. Good intentions with terrible execution. More frequent balance is good, but damage changes and cooldown increases miss the mark. You need skill and class overhauls entirely and to remove a lot of expansion content from WvW.

People naively whining about TTK won it seems lol. Final nail in the coffin for GW2's PvP scene is my guess.

This doesn't really seem to change anything about some builds being wildly better than others or any real facet of the gameplay or metas in general except for the fact that fights will just be about slapping each other until eventually someone flubs a rotation. There are now no high-impact skills to properly punish people with, and WvW remains imbalanced more than before due to a lack of accessibility in gear options. Sure boon access is lessened, but the windows of counterplay that were opened are massively cut down with the lowered damage values to core weapon skills, traits, and abilities that it doesn't really matter. HoT/PoF armor combos are going to reign supreme by larger margins than ever because they have way more innate sustain and just more stats in general. TTK wasn't the issue as much as some misinformed people kept screaming, and builds that invested heavily in damage were already weak. TTK was only a problem because external factors keep bolstering damage and sustain too much on specific builds and combinations that rode too heavily in both. Notably, shared boons, Warclaw, and food.

Tier7 food also just got even more significant. 10% DR and a push to having the most stats possible are going to be even more important because gameplay will be relegated to builds with high uptime for damage and sustain. To which, builds that already lacked either or one or the other were hard-nerfed, and a lot of stuff that made off-meta choices semi-viable cut down dramatically.

I'm also not seeing any changes to proc sigils which were probably the effects most guilty of lacking counterplay due to raw damage rather than traits.

You have to admit most of the HoT+ content needs to be reworked and nerfed hard. PoF especially. The core game is and was not terribly imbalanced and a refusal to revert the expansion powercreep and making broad strokes including attacking stuff including perfectly-reasonable core game/core weapon skills is just obtuse for the sake of being obtuse.

If you don't acknowledge that expansion stat combos, T7 food, Warclaw, and most of PoF designs were massive mistakes there's no saving this mode and frankly all this effort was wasted because the modes WILL die for good.

Your ex-pro players and AT winning scene, longtime core group of players, WvW fanatics and buildcrafters ALL near-unanimously agree with what's wrong and have been shouting for very targeted changes for years.

I will be helpful and remind you of the issues with low ttk in this game. Just one example...

@DeceiverX.8361 said:30k+ backstabs in permastealth SA with absolutely zero risk lol.

Like... this was so easy not to screw up and somehow they still managed to lol.

Inb4 backstab nerfed next patch in the wake of D/P stealth-camping Deadeye.

Thanks for completely taking my old thread out of context.The thread was about MBS and the whole passive Malice gain over time thing, which is exclusive to the pre-rework DE, and WAS a meta build when I made the post. The complaint was about how the class was designed around camping permanent stealth featuring +70% increased damage to backstab (over 2x combined multiplier with other traits and utils). It's a criticism of terrible design that was overlooked SOMEHOW despite being downright obvious and literally criticized as a possibility we want to avoid in my DE proposal which I know some of the team read thanks to confirmation by a former ANet employee.

So try again? TTK wasn't the issue. The stuff from the expansions was, full stop. Backstab at 2.4 was not OP because people would be running D/D if it was. No, it's low-counterplay like sustained stealth and builds with high damage also having too much utility, which is heavily-influenced by expansion content like BD DrD and everything about DE. Same is said about Boonbeast, Spellbreaker, Holo, Mirage, and so forth.

TTK used to be higher if you tried. I've reached 15k+27k on CnD+Backstab in core game so I don't see your point, either. 40k sub-2s combos on re-rework reaper. It's always been high and it's fine if it is.

Which is exactly what I said. Almost everything about the expansion content has directly made the game worse, along with external factors like +300 passive power from PotK and food, and is the reason for high TTK over anything related to core game.

If you want to criticize what I have to say, give me some evidence contrary rather than taking older posts of mine which have since been nullified thanks to reworks FIXING THE CRITICISM out of context.

Thread- "Why do so few people care about fighting"

@DeceiverX.8361 said:Two words:Imbalanced combat.

Why fight when the very act of doing so isn't fun? Excessive powercreep is what kills PvP games, and why most of the people interested in the fights quit WvW and GW2 as a whole.

What was that about ttk again?

Edit- And to make a clear point...

You- "Excessive powercreep is what kills PvP games"

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

… … ….

[Burnfall.9573]

@"Lhiash.4910" said:No nerfs to perma stealth DE? They still can port people after easily hiding in keeps, really adding portal to thief was the worst design decision you guys made.

+1

Anet had a chance to win the community Trust and Faith by dealing with Toxicity harshly. Yet again, they intentionally chose to instead give Toxicity more reasons and excuses to stay by leaving Toxic Stealth untouched.

Once again, Anet is not Committed, Honest,Truthful and not being Serious to resolving our concerns

WHERE IS "COUNTERPLAY IS IMPORTANT" AGAINST TOXIC STEALTH??!!

Upcoming Balance Patch Including Toxic Stealth =

F

-Absolutely No Shame!!-

-We Deserve Better. It's As Simple As That!!-

[Heibi.4251]

I think you are going a little overboard on the nerf hammer. You're making DRASTIC damage nerfs which will affect balance and make battles last way too long. Instead of fixing what is truly broken you are basically making everyone hit with a wet noodle. And the cool down nerfs are pretty bad. What is probably going to happen is a lot of players will just stop playing the competitive modes.

I noticed thief stealth wasn't really addressed. It is ridiculous at the moment. And the portal you gave them needs to be done away with or at least reduced to only the thief being able to use it in pvp/wvw.

[oscuro.9720]

For transparency, I am a spellbreaker main, so very well may be biased, but these are my take on solely the warrior changes (since i'm not educated enough on other classes to comment on them). These are the things that seemed overkill/unnecessary to me, but it seems like everything is getting that way.

Mage Bane Tether: shouldn't be nerfed to 1 stack of might. Simply applying the 2 stacks from pvp and reducing the power multiplier from tether (10% to 3-7%) would be more balanced in my view, especially with the massive reductions on defense line and endure pain (again, may be fueled by bias).

Shake It Off: Nerfing the condi clear is enough, increasing the CD by 1.5x is pretty insane. I understand increasing it slightly (i.e. from 50s to 60s), but 50s to 75s is pretty ridiculous.

Berserker stance: Why does this have the same CD as endure pain? Never did understand that, especially since it is not boon generation and can be stripped. Doesn't seem to me like the CD needs to be increased.

Might Makes Right: 133->69 seems overkill, but this is probably bias.

Rampage: I don't think this is going to be nerfed enough. I like the pvp version, since it serves a specific purpose.

Defense line: THANK GOD YOU NEUTERED THIS THING. IT WAS AN ABOMINATION AND DEFENSE SPELL WAS STRAIGHT MONKEY.

A last note, not about warrior, but about guardian:Why does Whirling Wrath on guard still slow movement speed? Reaper 4 and Berserker Arcing have larger radiuses and don't slow movement speed. War Axe 5 has the same radius but increases movement speed. It seems to me that with the evolution of skills of a similar type, it should at least move at normal movement speed.

[Javoker.7046]

Dragon Banner: do I even exist ?.

One of the most annoying crap to fight against in WvW when you are outnumbered and not a single change about it.

Let's just say that banner never does more than 1k dmg and doesn't CC at all so there was no need for any change ? ??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️

[Mez.4216]

Keep it up guys. Any change is good change in my eyes. Sure, there'll still be some kinks to iron out after the patch goes live but I like the idea of squashing Power Creep and I'm interested to see how the 4-6 weeks Cadence works out. I think people are overlooking the statement you made with regards to reducing Condi-Stacks, as opposed to listing out every single Condi-skill that was getting a stack reduction. Maybe make that a little more clearer if that's what you're going for, since people are just QQing over their favourite class being nerfed and not really paying too much attention it seems.

I believe that narrowing the avenues for damage will essentially dumb-down skill rotations, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as splitting skills between dealing damage and dealing CC should encourage smarter/more organised group-play, which can only be a good thing for WvW. Instead of what we have now, which is: Winds 1, Winds 2, Stab 1, Stab 2, Everyone Else Spam DMG on Winds. Roles within squads are going to be more defined, which will force people to build for those specific roles, rather than being able to Tank everything and still output top DPS numbers & CC & heal & so on & so forth.

Final note, I'm beyond happy with the Elusive Mind trait change. The stunbreak was broken as hell and the nerf essentially killed the trait but it's nice to see Mesmer actually getting a somewhat-reliable source of condi-clear. (Especially if you run Energy and Cleansing Sigils)

[thepenmonster.3621]

@"Strider Pj.2193" said:You do realize this is for WvW and PvP?

I wouldn't have written "Getting nerfed to the ground for a game mode most don't play? " for the Silverwastes.

Anyway, the nerfs might be a good excuse to finish getting the vanity mounts so I can avoid the newly dangerous mobs.

[avey.4201]

The problem is invulnerable/evade, some classes run glass cannon, while spamming evade/invulnerable, replace all invulnerable with aegis or even remove aegis too, and remove evade from everything not a dodge roll, This patch looks like bunker meta inc, the issue isn't glass cannons though current damage is high if their survival relied on 2 dodges, its glass cannon with uncounterable evade/invulnerable.Some run bunker with all the evade/invulnerable spam, and at any sign of trouble run away, but as a zerk the condi bunkers will kill you before the evades/invulnerable run out with passive trash condi.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

@Clownmug.8357 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Tfw you nerf Elevated Compassion and don't touch Draconic Echo

Funnier one to me is nerfing Lasting Legacy and not touching Incensed Response.

Lol yeah, by all means gut that dumb trait.

[biofrog.1568]

Greetings. Too much to know what the overall effects will be.Current thought is: Skills/Traits with a 5 minute cool down doesn't make for compelling game play. Either reduce their effects, or rework the skill/trait into something more useful.

[anonymous.7812]

Cal,

If you can before the patch, please also look at Siege damage and health, since our damage will be nerfed against them. Also - for the love of jebus - Banners. At the very least Dragon Banner, it's not getting nerfed based on these notes, but should be.. it has strong CC and pretty good damage currently - it'll be abused to high heavens if this goes through. It also triggers traits, which is always fun getting immob'd when bannered.

[Vegeta.2563]

Trail of Anguish: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 50 seconds

I do not agree with this. Literally the only stunbreak a scourge takes (even though there are core necro skills), as the other options do not offer stability. I guess well of power might be the only other option... OOF

[bambi.6214]

Please rethink stability nerf on Holosmith. Core engineer offers very little stability and holo being a meele spec needs a reliable source. Maybe make it 1 instead? Or give another stability source to Holo or core.

[Vegeta.2563]

Spotter's Shot: Reduced power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.4. Increased immobilize duration from 1 second to 1.5 seconds

Great.. give condi rifle DE more CC.. and not even look at Spider Venom.. the main damage for that spec.

You can literally sit at 1500 range and just spam rifle 2 (kneeled) while using spider venom and you can't do anything unless you have the same range as them, and most of the time you don't.

There is very little counterplay against it.. it is bad for competitive modes..

[ComekoGeko.6524]

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Condition damage reductions are a bit less math-y, but we’re continuing to push conditions toward less burst potential by reducing the number of stacks and extending durations where it makes sense. Some of this is handled on the skill level, and we’re also making heavy reductions to traits that apply conditions on hit, on crit, or on other conditions being applied.

-The Systems Team

First of, thank you Arenanet, to finally step up to your community and involving us into balancing your Game. That's a big improvement! Secondly can you elaborate what you mean by the statement above, because you are nerfing Power builds alot, basicly at least 20% less damage, so i am afraid that we are facing a conditions Meta coming up with this Patch. I believe, this would leave alot of People frustrated, maybe some of them would leave the game completly. So in order to avoid that, maybe you should crunch the Numbers of condtions aswell.Overall though it's a very good and long needed Patch, and i believe it will shift the WvW meta in alot of ways.

Thank you for keeping your Game fresh after all of these Years!

[Rockal.5468]

Coalescence of Ruin: Increased cooldown from 4 seconds to 10 secondsI would reduce power coefficient instead and raise cooldown by 2-4 secs, you can end up spiking with 2/3 and then you are going to autoattack for 10 secs which doesnt seem like funny gameplay

Reduced stability duration from 5 seconds to 1 secondThat is too much, cut it just in half

Condies maybe need more nerfs too, with Traiblazer stats it can scale too much and most ppl like power meta more

[Crono.4197]

Ooookay. So long story short: you're making the game harder for everyone and punishing people for not being elitists? Damn, this game is going in the direction of every other "average Joe" MMO. It's going further and further away from the game's original idea of "play how you want". After all these changes, most people will need to remake their builds and change their way of playing. This doesn't look very exciting to me.

Each time it seems you guys are going one step ahead and two steps backwards. This will have the same effect like Raids: only a small part of the community will love it and most of the players will hate it. But yeah, better boost the ego of a few elitists rather than make the overall community happy, right?

[Jski.6180]

So... how is any one going to be able to kill a lord of a tower or keep / smc before the other team can come in and def? This seems like a massive flaw in this update.

[Shroud.2307]

I understand this is the first of many changes to come, and that every class will have reductions to many skills, but regarding Necromancer, please remember that things like Reaper Shroud degradation have been increased, Shades are not cast on the Scourge, etc. Necro ( as a class ) is heavily reliant on offensive pressure as it's defense. I think many of the changes are good ( to both Necro and every other class ), it's good to see power creep being reduced, but I hope it is taken in to consideration that even with these changes many classes will still be dealing pretty high damage with powerful defenses. Warrior's Endure Pain duration is even being increased. So please remember to keep Necro's offensive pressure as it's way of defending itself. Otherwise it ends up without the damage to force people to stay away from it and without the defenses to handle it when people close the gap.

I know how bias I sound but it really concerns me at the moment just because of how past changes have gone and the state it has put Necro in. Not necessarily in a bad state ( excluding Scourge, which has been gutted ), but in a vulnerable one.

[Arzurag.7506]

I won´t give feedback for now, though it seems the new baseline that you want to establish looks pretty solid.Well, I´m thrilled to see how these changes play out in the game and when facing other classes.

[Grumpdogg.6910]

Yet again the wall humping bearbow rangers we have as Devs break the game further.

How about instead of obsessing over damage and healing, you focus on the element that ruins the game? CCCCCCCCCCCC gg can't play your character blobs win gg

[Voltekka.2375]

"OMG it has been 7 years, anet cant balance ANYTHING"

after patch preview hits

"OMG YOU WASTE 7 YEARS OF BALANCING"