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Balance Patch Preview - WvW


Cal Cohen.2358

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@Vova.2640 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:Lamers group trying to win with overperformance sturdiness will do that, yes... like they do it now.....

Stop thinkin in meta, cause atm there isnt build diversity either.

You're kidding right.................Everyone wants to win. meta exists for a reason... because it is what is THE BEST currently.If you enjoy losing fights and dying.... then run w.e you want.but guess what, most people want to win and will run whatever BS they are forced to run in order to win.This is a problem that ANET creates and leaves people with no choice but to follow it.

Metas exist for less for performce and more for team strategie(wich in gw2 is the oposite), if u played gw1 gvg or pvp u would understand that overperformance was only oobtained by a decent team using certain metas while alot of guild would fail to play meta if they were not good, in gw2 any on estacking aoe for overperformace can be good, reason everythign has to go down 1st, Cal if i remember said it will be a long process.

On gw1 wich in terms of skill and balance is a far far superior game, each guild used diferent metas, as in idiferent team setups according to wath strategie they would use to reach enemy lord on each GH, meta in gw2 are directly towards words like damage output/sustain/stack/overperformance.

Being the best meta the same as saying best gimick compositions(wich by all means is what it is in gw2, on decent pvp games this is an ilusion.

Note: i dont agree will all changes but its something that has to be done, and restart over cause in 7 years we never had a thoughtful balance towards real players skills, all we had was changing overperformance from one class to another or form one weapon to another.

@Vova.2640 i do fear that overtankiness can still hapen, but players will have to test stuff over time 1st, meybe more zerker axe warriors, hammers, i would bet in a mixture of the 2012 metas with the scourging/scrapper carry we have atm.

Ministrel stats could get its vitality removed :\ into precision

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@apharma.3741 said:

@apharma.3741 said:If you think they do not cleanse or provide condition immunity (not registered in arc fyi) through correct application of resistance then you must be playing with your eyes closed and your brain off. It won't be the top 3 cleansing players but below that when played by people who use skills they make up a significant part of a groups cleansing and double firebrand played by anyone who isn't a potato can more than keep up with condition application.

Sure Chap 4 is nice and all for resistance. But we weren't talking about resistance, we were talking about cleansing. Resistance can be corrupted and counter-played, cleansing can not, which Firebrand is so low cleansing in comparison to say a tempest or a scrapper.

Think of it this way... If you are fighting a condi-blob, you are fighting against corruption...where resistance will get stripped instantly and turned into a condition that you need to cleanse... If you think firebrand is what's holding that play-style at bay, then i don't know what to tell you.

2 things.
  1. Pulsing 1s resistance is as good as cleansing. Do you know why?
    Because you get to not suffer the penalties of the conditions.
    This is honestly not a basic concept that should need explaining. Whether you permanently remove the condition or differ it's effects to a period of time where the enemy cannot benefit from it's application is the same thing in effect.
  2. You're comparing FB built for healing to 2 class/build combinations that are set up to cleanse primarily and built from the ground up to do so. FB outheals both these classes or should if not played by a brain damaged monkey, however we don't turn round and ignore the amount of healing tempest and scrapper both contribute to the group simply because they come behind FB. Likewise we shouldn't ignore the amount of cleanses FB contributes and it can contribute more if it drops MI in favour of group cleanses like purging flames which will depend on how much they nerf healing on MI etc. I would still expect FB to come further down the cleanse list though because 10 target literally doubles your cleansing power however I don't think it would be needed.

You clearly don't have arcdps up or you're not asking your guildies how much they heal man. scrapper and tempest are putting out 2x the cleansing and 2.5x the healing fb does very consistently. Get with the times lol

and as for 'no one uses condi builds because cleansing is too high'...

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@"apharma.3741" said:The difference is now you can't spam your cleanses and it'll be OK. Cleanse Tempest will still heal well and provide great AoE cleansing power.

If you have problems with conditions in the new meta it's probably you or the guy next to you that's playing badly and got too used to spamming skills and winning because that's how the game has been for the last 5 boring, tooth pulling years of expansion power creep.

TLDR: git gud scrubs.

Alot of players that are getting carried with the current "meta gimick" will cry so hard... i just fear they all will try to play full tank useless stacking group.

Players need to understand they will have to bet more stats in the outcame of their build rather than be allrounder overperformancing the players skils.

Direct damage will still exist... i dont know where most are QQ. :\

Altough i can understan utility CD geting heviear, but on weapons most CD's should not be touched imo.

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Random changes to damage numbers, Random changes to sustain, Random changes to many things that dont even need changing, ... This way of "balancing" is much too chaotic and it serves no purpose other than to waste time and throw away any reference point one could use to do actual responsible balancing.When you take away so much and give almost nothing intresting in return ( like bug fixes, clunky mechanic fixes, ...) you'll end up angering much more people than you are pleasing.

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@Aeolus.3615 said:

@"apharma.3741" said:The difference is now you can't spam your cleanses and it'll be OK. Cleanse Tempest will still heal well and provide great AoE cleansing power.

If you have problems with conditions in the new meta it's probably you or the guy next to you that's playing badly and got too used to spamming skills and winning because that's how the game has been for the last 5 boring, tooth pulling years of expansion power creep.

TLDR: git gud scrubs.

Alot of players that are getting carried with the current "meta gimick" will cry so hard... i just fear they all will try to play full tank useless stacking group.

Players need to understand they will have to bet more stats in the outcame of their build rather than be allrounder overperformancing the players skils.

Direct damage will still exist... i dont know where most are QQ. :\

That they are trying to balance cc "gimick" with dmg something comply out side of the counter play to cc. All self stab is getting nerfed and support stab is now stronger then what a player can give to them self.

That and anet lied just updating numbers is NOT realty looking at 500 ish skills its more just doing a genal dmg % update something that could of been dont by updating dmg taken by players.

It will not exist sadly condi will be the only effect that will work after the update unless they nerf it just as hard BUT they also need to update def / hp of the base classes as well.

Anet is updating every thing the same they are not doing the fine tuning they need to do to fix the balancing. They need to update the game more then just simply messing with the numbers there needs to be real effects added and removed to fix balancing in wvw. That is how you fix your "meta gimick" no number update will fix that.

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I feel like this needs to be said here in these threads.

Everyone needs to remember that this patch was never going to fix anything. It was never intended to, nor was it stated to. This kind of drastic shift in dynamic needed to happen if anything with this games balance was going to change. Not doing so would have simply kept us going in the same vicious circle we have been in for years and that does nothing to help things or move forward.

This patch hit all the notes I pretty much expected it to;

It would be chaotic as kitten. √Plenty of builds and skills were going to get broken. √People were going to rage hardcore at the changes. √The patch was never going to be a one fix for anything. √The patch was going to be a stepping stone to future changes. √

The entire point of this patch is to establish a new baseline for future changes and balance fixes going forward. It was meant to be a shift in a different direction, not an overall fix. The only things it fixed were some of the blatant power creep in the game which was asked for by many in the community, if not all. Cal even stated in the very first post of all of these threads that they are looking for feedback on the changes. He also stated that this update is directly intended to be a move to an overall new paradigm in the game.

Things look drastically different under this new dynamic showcased in the patch, look at it as a whole and give feedback based on that rather than what we know now because the dynamic we know now has clearly not been working out; which was why players even wanted a huge balance patch like this to happen in the first place. We got it, now work with ANet to help make sure the long term changes go well and PvP/WvW over the long term becomes healthier. Short term fixes weren't working, and for the long term fixes to work this was something that sorely needed to happen.

I know its rough to see much of what it did happen and thinking purely short term it is definitely going to be a mess, but it needs to make a mess so that it can be properly cleaned up so long as their approach going forward is the right one and hopefully it will be so long a they keep to their intent on an increased release cadence for balance changes as well as continuing to heed constructive feedback based on the new dynamic this update will create.

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Huh. Well. That's something.I could understand toning down the power damage of soulbeasts, but the nerfs to druid, condition ranger and weapon skills I've pretty much never seen in the gamemode (mainhand dagger?) make me raise an eyebrow.... but then I started reading into the next profession down, thief, and realized the exact same thing is happening across the board.

This patch will basically force people into more defensive gear as power will have substantially less of an impact and people will want to bulk up as their sustain is taking an impact, too. Zerg fights will go on longer as spike damage will be more difficult to achieve, and it'll be more difficult for roamers to kill each other which gives an advantage to the higher-mobility-and-stealth-based hit-and-run specs, (not to mention condition builds).

All of those 0.01 damage coefficients make me lol.

~ Kovu

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This thread shows how some people only bothered to watch damage numbers and nothing else, which probably means they didn't even think about secondary effects like cc's and just spam any skills for damage. That type of game play of spamming skills, spammed out auto procs, needs to be changed, because, it's, garbage. You want to do damage then hit your damage skill, you want cc then hit your cc skill.

Now the only thing missing is things related to stealth. Something like cloak and dagger with 1.25 coefficient wasn't touched, but the prestige got hit with 1.0 to 0.5 coefficient?, anything in here to deal with perma stealth? I hope they will at least keep an eye on stealth and boon and condi spam going forward.

Lastly, we need to keep in mind this obviously isn't the be all end all patch, it's the restarting point, and then tweaks as usual every 4-6 weeks going forward. Combat was due for a major shakeup in any case, PoF has already been out for 2.5 years now and no expansion in sight.

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Condition tank meta will be an issue in WvW

  • 4 stat sets need to de-powercreep over the 3 stat sets. The 4 stat sets should not provide extra point stats, for example Marauder should not have provided more points than Berseker+Valquiria set, different distribution of the points already make difference enough.
  • Conditions need to be nerfed its coeficients damage in WvW. Thus the burst side of conditions is mitigated.

[Ranger]

The nerfs applied are in line with the rest of classes no complains there. Unfortunately the changes made will not fix the core limitations and issues of the ranger As such the class will keep the actual builds with no much shake up. Core pets are still trash tier.Ranger class lacks a total clear direction and definition ending up with a convoluted mess of traits and skills which makes the ranger very unrewarding to play.

Core pain points in WvW

  • Soulbeast has access to two stability skills in the all game. Both now are over the 60s CD which will force the boonbeast meme even further.
  • Druid has no squad use neither is viable for roaming.
  • Rangers in general do have no use for an squad. Spirits, Stances and Druid could have been the solution yet the opportunity is wasted.
  • Pets results are binary. Only 2 pets are used because are the ones which work constintely against other players, none of which works at all against other groups.

Proposed additional changes

  • Baseline all ranger projectiles have 100% chance to trigger combo fields.
  • Ranger needs a deep dive and a full rework as all the 2012 mechanics and skills are very outdated and out of place.

    To improve the uses of ranger in squad:

  • Spirits unbound old trait needs to be back somehow, this will help to create squad builds. Change the spirits models to astral wisp model to reduce the visual noise.
  • Spirits actives are redefined as a ranged AoE, so they travel as projectiles and then released entering the spirit into full CD.
  • Glyph of stars need to change mechanically to apply its actual effects with the Glyph of unity mechanics so it uses tethers instead ranged AoE.
  • Glyph of Empowerment needs to return, but using the actual Glyph of starts mechanic so allies inside the ranged AoE get the additional damage boost.
  • Leader of the pack to share 100% of the stance duration with allies.
  • Bring back the hot beta lingering light trait (orbiting wisp healing close by allies)

    To make possible hybrid builds in WvW:

  • Shortbow need to have the old range of 1200 returned so condi builds may be viable in WvW. Remove the requirement for flanking so applies the longer\stronger condition durations always. Projectiles splinter on impact (same as the underwater harpoon splinter shot) applying the shorter durations to up to 2 additional targets in an small aoe. Projectiles do not pierce anymore.
  • Light on your feet: Increase the splinter radius to 360 and add 2 additional targets. Remove all the other effects.
  • Sharpened edges moved to be a minor of the traitline.
  • Hidden barbs add 100% chance to sharpened edges to trigger additionally to existing effects.

    To improve build variety:

  • All the sources of cleanses are in WS traitline, it needs better redistribution: Empathic Bond to be placed to BM trainline, use the PvE version in WvW.
  • BM is too good for Soulbeast: BM bonus stats to pets are made baseline to all ranger pets. This traitline do not provide additional Stat points to beastmode.
  • Strength of the pack is too expensive for an elite and at the same time much better than other elites. Move it to utility skill so has to compite with other utilities. Reduce CD to 60s.
  • Search and Rescue is too underwhelming under the last nerfs. Return range to 1200, increase CD to 75s, move it to elite skill.
  • Doylak stance is too overbloated. Remove the damage reduction, leave the CD as 45s in WvW and sPvP.
  • Bear stance is underwhelming, low and very situational healing. Include Doylak's damage reduction, keep CD as the new 30s so it can be an actual alternative to Other healing.

    To improve weapons

    Axe OH after the nerfs will be gutted. This weapon was used for the damage it brought, without it the weapon brings nothing. This smalls changes to utility would make the weapon desirable again against groups.

  • Axe OH Path of scars: Increase the AoE Radius so it's easier to hit moving targets. Increase the pull distance.
  • Axe OH whirling defense: Add reduced movement speed while channeling the skill.

Dagger OH is not used due to the underwhelming skills, the additional evade is sometimes used still it could be used better with a bit more utility to stick to target and interrupt capabilities so it can become a roamer weapon.

  • Dagger OH Crippling talon, shadow step the ranger to target if it hits.
  • Dagger OH Stalker's strike: Add 1s daze

Dagger MH is not used due to the lack of utility in the weapon.

  • Dagger MH Double arc : Remove 1 boon by hit.
  • Dagger MH Instictive engage : Add evade to that skill.

Shortbow lacks range, damage pressure and utility. This changes should make the weapon usable and make hybrid builds possible in wvw and at the same time bring limited AoE to the ranger so it can have an spot in squad.

  • Ranged returned to 1200
  • All flanking requirements are removed, all skills apply the flanking effects as baseline.
  • Poison voley do not pierce anymore.
  • All projectiles from the shortbow stagger on impact, up to 2 enemies within 180 radius of the target are impacted.
  • Effects from the projectile splinters apply the actual direct effects from the shortbow (crossfire causes 1s bleeding, Confusion shot dazes...)

    To improve core pets:

  • All pets need to have the F2(beast ability) with a primary focus in utility:
  • Canines create fields when casting the Houls, PbAoE conditions last longer.
  • Felines gain stealth on F2 same as jaguar. Each feline apply an short additional effects the next few attacks. Cheeta F2 is reworked and Savana strike replace its bite skill.
  • Drakes have better cleave in all attacks, all attacks impact up to 3 targets.
  • Moas F2 create domes which block projectiles additionally.
  • Birds F2 also grant quickness and superspeed to the pet.
  • Devourers get faster projectiles, same speed as britleback. F2 become ranged AoEs to impact multiple targets.
  • Spiders projectiles stagger on impact in an small AoE to affect up to 3 targets.

    Pets autoattacks - beast abilities.

  • Canines, Felines, pigs, birds, need a close gap skill.
  • All felines remove the Bite for pounce, Cheeta uses Savana strike instead.
  • Canines speed up animation on crippling leap and takes all the ranges from soulbeast counterparts.
  • Pigs get increased range on Maul, in pet skill and beastmode skill.
  • Birds get the beastmode skill equivalents, gains swoop leap.
  • Single target ranged pets need faster projectiles speed.

    Pets defined roles

  • Pets are a mess with confusing and underwhelming skills, they don't seems to be organized in any way and new pets with no defined families push the confusion even further.
  • Canines should provide AoE utility, combo fields. Off tank melee pet (stats from smokescale). Average point in stats.
  • Felines off-dps melee dps pet. Higher dps than canines, less HP and Toughness.
  • Birds glass dps melee pet. Highest dps low hp and toughness. Access to quickness and superspeed.
  • Drakes tank AoE. High HP. Low damage Long reach AoE F2 focus to play against groups of players.
  • Bears tank selfish. Ideally this pet can work as an hp sponge with high resistance and easy self regeneration. Low dps.
  • Porcines selfish support and heals.
  • Moas AoE support and heals.
  • Spiders ranged AoE pets for ranged combat against groups.
  • Devourers ranged dps pet. Increase range of Devourer retreat to 900 in pet skill and beastmode skill to allow better use.

Sincerely I don't think the ranger has been worked enough, there is been a very small changes (only torch) while the class needs deeper rework. Too many issues with core mechanics (core pets do not work against modern builds), not-well thought nerfs carried out to fix some situations were not reverted when with the years that situation stopped being relevant (Mobile spirits, Shortbow range,Druid nerfs) due to new reworks or new specialitations.Ranger is due for a deep clean up and IMO this changes could improve the class as right now it has no representation in sPvP and is hated and loathed in WvW.

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So squishy classes will no longer have any damage but still be able to be one shot and this offers counter play how?

Oh yeah also why do they even keep all these stationary crap like the herald shield, ventari tablet, turrets, spirits, charr ghosts, etc that just lock things in place actually work for competitive lol. I see they have been trying to sell the ventari tablet for many many months but no stability, insane amount of micromanagement moving the tablet, and the shield thing is a joke everyone knows how to bypass it so its completely useless to even attempt using it. Good luck with this game this is the final nail in the coffin.

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you see the game i came from many years ago, had also no dmg on CC skills so i dont really care for this anet did correct job there, BUT in that game we had FAR more skills not just 10 skills i mean u easily had up to 20 skills if not more. also the CC there wasnt AoE and the whole game wasnt such a AoE fest.well gw2 is and always was so shouldnt change the AoE here.. anyway like i said CC change was good but in a way some classes get shafted by this cus they kind of lose alot of dmg.

if i had to balance this wvw i would just revert the game somehow to core and start looking from there what changed since HoT came in.dmg wise/healing wise/condi wise/boon wise whatelse i forgot ;)this i would touch and change..then i would grab PoF and do the same, tbfh PoF is where the skill spam started like it didnt matter anymore.scourges pooping shades all over place corrupting like idiots FB healing like fools etc

so in my opinion HoT probably brought boon spam into game while PoF got this senseless skill spam into it.these should be changed tho patch is "finished" nothing gonna change from what we saw maybe some finishing touch here and there but nothing big so we can cry all we want it will come and we gotta deal with it.

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@"primatos.5413" said:Maybe .. wait til patch drops .. then try how this all is working out .. think .. give feedback ..

This is the same Anet once they do something they dont go back. You can only stop them before the fact and it has helped to give them feed back on the ideal of the update it self as they "fixed" things before the full out come of the patch. So just keeping your head down and hoping it will work out dose not work for GW2.

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@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@apharma.3741 said:If you think they do not cleanse or provide condition immunity (not registered in arc fyi) through correct application of resistance then you must be playing with your eyes closed and your brain off. It won't be the top 3 cleansing players but below that when played by people who use skills they make up a significant part of a groups cleansing and double firebrand played by anyone who isn't a potato can more than keep up with condition application.

Sure Chap 4 is nice and all for resistance. But we weren't talking about resistance, we were talking about cleansing. Resistance can be corrupted and counter-played, cleansing can not, which Firebrand is so low cleansing in comparison to say a tempest or a scrapper.

Think of it this way... If you are fighting a condi-blob, you are fighting against corruption...where resistance will get stripped instantly and turned into a condition that you need to cleanse... If you think firebrand is what's holding that play-style at bay, then i don't know what to tell you.

2 things.
  1. Pulsing 1s resistance is as good as cleansing. Do you know why?
    Because you get to not suffer the penalties of the conditions.
    This is honestly not a basic concept that should need explaining. Whether you permanently remove the condition or differ it's effects to a period of time where the enemy cannot benefit from it's application is the same thing in effect.
  2. You're comparing FB built for healing to 2 class/build combinations that are set up to cleanse primarily and built from the ground up to do so. FB outheals both these classes or should if not played by a brain damaged monkey, however we don't turn round and ignore the amount of healing tempest and scrapper both contribute to the group simply because they come behind FB. Likewise we shouldn't ignore the amount of cleanses FB contributes and it can contribute more if it drops MI in favour of group cleanses like purging flames which will depend on how much they nerf healing on MI etc. I would still expect FB to come further down the cleanse list though because 10 target literally doubles your cleansing power however I don't think it would be needed.

You clearly don't have arcdps up or you're not asking your guildies how much they heal man. scrapper and tempest are putting out 2x the cleansing and 2.5x the healing fb does very consistently. Get with the times lol

and as for 'no one uses condi builds because cleansing is too high'...

I read it, then clicked the video, saw it was N/A.

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Warrior

  • Balanced Stance: Increased cooldown from 40 seconds to 60 seconds
  • Berserker Stance: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds
  • Endure Pain: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds. Increased duration from 2 seconds to 3 secondsDefense
  • Defy Pain: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 300 seconds
  • Last Stand: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 300 seconds

I understand this is a lot of added cooldown time and general nerfs.. but I can't help but get confused when the cool downs listed on the skills don't match what's currently shown in game tooltips.. are these numbers estimated?

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Can't believe people are so panicky over these changes. Apparently the game will "finally" die for the 971389th time. Guild Wars 2 is Palawa Joko!

I'm really happy that TTK will increase, first of all. The extremely fast-paced fights in competitive game modes makes it feel like it's impossible to learn fighting strategically unless you have no life and play the game 8 hours a day. Some of us are adults with full-time jobs and still want to be able to learn some competitive gameplay, you know. Can't learn from my mistakes in a fight if it takes a skilled player 5 seconds to kill me. After 2 seconds I'll be spamming my stun breaks, condi clears and heals like crazy because otherwise I won't even last for those 5 seconds...

Taking away the damage of hard-CC skills makes sense also. Clear separation of damage skills and CC skills means less skill spam and more strategic thinking. So even as a mediocre player you'll have an edge over someone who just face-rolls. Yay for having fewer builds in the game that allow the player to spam skills mindlessly and beat players who play more challenging builds and just haven't mastered them yet. (I'm a big thief fan for instance, and I was shocked to see how much other classes can just face-roll when I tried out some more.)

The 90s to 300s cooldown increases make me wonder whether those skills shouldn't be changed completely. Maybe they will be swapped out slowly over further patches. I guess a powerful passive skill that can only trigger every 5 minutes is still acceptable for the time being, until the devs have enough time to replace them with active skills.

So all in all, I say THANK YOU! Excited about the patches to come.

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@"Taylan.2187" said:Can't believe people are so panicky over these changes.

Basically the changes will revert it back to where everyone is either play a necro or a guardian and possibly maybe a few spellbreakers but not many. Anything else won't have the power to cut through damage mitigation so anything other than those 3 classes will be pve classes as well as their elite specs. So all the panic comes from how they've done things in the past asked for feedback but only feedback that is "received well" if people don't like it they don't want to hear about it. So basically with warclaw killing roaming this was just the final straw to end wvw completely or put it on a maintenance mode. So maybe login once every 3 or 4 months to play living world episode and then go play another game because competitive will be too horrible to deal with. Return of Stare Wars 2...

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Am I the only one that absolutely hates Retaliation?

It's probably not that big of a deal in zergs or team fights, but when you're a lone ele just trying to fight off a zerg attacking a tower or at least slow them down while you wait for reinforcements, it's difficult to keep pressure on them when you're getting blasted with retal.

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@Buran.3796 said:

@God.2708 said: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.

...Instead of looking at the patch though the lenses of the remaining developers, which had no clue about how the game worked in the competitive parts of the game and never tested the truckload of changes that they will introduce suddenly, with no remorses...

CMC Has played in national GW2 PvP tournaments that you can find on youtube right now.

What have you done?

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