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Balance Patch Preview - PvP


Cal Cohen.2358

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358"Got some questions...Traits that boost power/precision/ferocity ... why they are not getting nerfed as well?

This is a good question but its possibly one of those things where if they do it to 1 profession expect it to be done to every profession so i think this one is more of a careful what you ask for kind of question.You are not that kind of a person from who I want to see answers.. fine. Yes for everyone, otherwise why would I even ask ?

Thief & Bundle.
What will happen to CONSUME PLASMA? It will be OP-overloaded as hell? Because couldnt find any changes on it. Even being interrupted he doesnt lose it and unpunished, how did it pass?

Also a good question so long as boon duration drops a bit on it i think it would be fine though. How ever we have to remember its not something a thief will get all the time only if they can successfuly steal from a mesmer which is likely why it got a pass there is a 1/9 chance of being able to even steal this in a match if the match has no mesmer you wont ever get the bundle.Its gives insane amount of boons, all boons in the game. And not like mesmer suffer enough from all kind of nerfs, 2 elite specs basically about to get deleted and dusted forever, proper balance changes are too hard for anet and this new dev, astonishing.Instant steal on ~20s from 1200 range no LoS req its hard to land ? Pardon me, what ? Especially with their stealth access and all kinds of teleports? I shouldnt want to delete my main just because there is a thief in the game, you know ?

Binding shadow - can you remove the immobilize, so this skill wouldnt need a breakstun and cleanse(at the same time) to get out of it ?

I feel like it just needs to reveal on cast so it cant pop you out of stealth. If you see it coming you can almost always evade this. Only when they use it from stealth is it ever really a problem imo.And clear animation when its about to hit you too.

Elementalist.
Lightning rod turns every CC into DMG spike with a weakness on it, no icd. I'd like to remind that power block (on mesmer) has 3s icd, cant crit and procs on interrupt .
We had a trait with exact the same functionality - "lost time" on chrono before and it did half of LROD damage, it was deleted entirely
. Disable the crits at least, may be?

This is questionable. Mind that power-block cant crit but it does basically reset a cooldown if it interrupts a person during a cast which depending on what skill is interrupted can be more powerful than just out right damage. Each skill kind of has their own niche. At best i would say dont nerf lightning rods damage anymore just making it only proc on interrupting and not just any disable would bring it more in line with powerblock.There is nothing questionable, genius. Its just an example what happened to nerf one skill that wasnt a problem or meta (and specially mentioned it because its harder to pull off since you need an interrupt, compared to just spam CC).
And specially brought an example of 100% identical trait
that chrono had once (with twice less damage and pretty much no damage if it doesnt crit) and it was removed entirely, for you I bolded text that you didnt bother to read, so do it again.

Engineer.
AED (engi heal) escaped the nerfs?Its basically some what like defiant stance/hearld heal not really sure it needs to be touched.Except when they trait its (I believe, in elixirs*) lasts 8 seconds, either you proc it or 8 seconds getting beaten by them (while skill getting recharged background).Also, may be you dont know, AED removes all conditions (damaging ones? or all? cba to go to wiki) but defiant stance/glint heal do doesnt and doesnt lasts 8 seconds.
Warrior.
Also want to remind that "Attacker's Insight" is an overloaded trait, aside REFRESHING warrior's burst skill it does give a stat boost (which is super easy to get and keep) 225 power and 225 ferocity (450 overall), thats waaaaay too much.

This is more so one of those things that if you change it the other 8 professions also need to receive more stat nerfs. Its the careful what you wish for situation imo. I want to think they purposely left stat increasing traits alone because of the removal of some of the amulets and the overall drop to scaling power hits across the board ontop of the fact that most cc wont do damage its a lot of damage removed from the game so removing stats like these might remove way more damage than intended as they might already be riding a fine line between removing too much dps across the board.I dont remember any trait, especially minor, that was bloated as this trait. Reset bursts skills AND give 450 stats bonus. Feel free to bring an examples that expose similar traits, I dare you. Why its bloated in the first place? To sell super OP elite specs, its still there. FB had kind of the same trait when he had quickness on, at least it was brought down, SPB was left out (Part about GS F1 is ommited? hue).If they remove too much damage and it becomes a bunker meta that would be purely his fault, not because certain classes getting their super powercrept traits nerfed that shouldnt have been buffed in the first place
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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Shield on warrior giving 1 sec might lmao u serious team? Why not just remove the might gain to remove some of the bloat?1 sec in game on might boon is useless garbage and might as well not be there. Yeah 1 Sec daze or imobilize is significant sure but is one sec might? no-no thought or consideration.There are warrior traits that give bonus on Might gain, like healing. And there are people running those traits.For them it is more than just one second of Might.

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@Fueki.4753 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Shield on warrior giving 1 sec might lmao u serious team? Why not just remove the might gain to remove some of the bloat?1 sec in game on might boon is useless garbage and might as well not be there. Yeah 1 Sec daze or imobilize is significant sure but is one sec might? no-no thought or consideration.There
are
warrior traits that give bonus on Might gain, like healing. And there
are
people running those traits.For them it is more than just one second of Might.

True so the addition of 1 sec of might/healing is significant enough to exist? With rune of strength stretched to 2 secs lol.I donno why bother then. I could see 3 seconds or 4 as a low base duration but1 sec for any boon imo is not worth existing, even quickness for how powerful it is should be 3 sec min. As it is now in pvp quickness sigil basically might as well say reduce cast time of next attack only.They literally just contribute to useless stat bloat as they are now.A one second daze or imobilize is strong but 1 sec might or protection etc boon duration is pointless and useless.

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There was a lot to read and to watch to keep up what got announced about what will be plans for GW2 in the future and before i get a little bit more critical about some details for PvP balance i want to mention that i am actually hyped again. Funny enough that the current hype even comes in particular from a more PvE content focused post of ArenaNet (they mentioned WvW in a PvE content focused posted, that is hype) but ofc together with seeing a lot of effort for balancing and improving PvP as well. It just makes my basic feeling about GW2 that much better, i feel like GW2 mind not die as fast as expected, maybe doesn't die at all and in opposite gets back to the lead position on the mmo market where it always deserved to be just by its underlying potential. I rly hope Anet keeps up and deliver what sounds so promising right now for all gamemodes, all the plans and the better communication is massive and finally brings the insane potential this game has in particular for competitive gamemodes with that awesome combat system back to life. Interesting and challenging PvE content is important and the first step to also bring more ppl into WvW and PvP again. Means: Keep it up, its not all golden right now but the dedication from Anet for the game you can finally feel again and the plans going in the right direction. Pls deliver and go forward in that direction. I already put aside money to bring it into the gems store to support this game and that as PvP only player.

That needed to be said, now to the PvP balance:

The whole philosophy of the patch is based on what the knowledgeable part of the community communicated and i agree to all of them. I'm not sure the current state of the patch will rly implement and realize these goals. Overall the massive nerfs of everything are good and i think it doesn't rly make sense at this point to go into too much detailes about every power coefficient that got nerfed. It needs to be tested first to see where maybe stuff is overnerfed and what stuff is not nerfed enough. And we will have unbalance after that patch goes live, at least that got clear and that is my first point of criticism:

  1. The overall nerfs feel a bit generic, i miss the relation between stuff that is insanely power creeped atm and stuff that barely got power creeped until today. Imo it feels everything got nerfed more or less the same amount not realizing that there is currently stuff more overperforming than others. Makes me be afraid that the patch implements the same meta we have now just on a lower scaled lvl. A lot of stuff got mentioned already (Thief passed some needed changes for example as a big outliner) so i will not repeat more examples and details.

  2. I agree to the philosophy that massive cc skills shouldn't have massive dmg or other big rewards in addition, still it should be more of a case to case decision instead nerfing every hard cc skill dmg the same (to zero)

    • Daze seems not to count as hard cc because a lot of daze skill still do dmg, what is reasonable because daze is the weakest form of hard cc, even weaker than some of the soft cc like taunt, fear or immob because daze doesn't prevent free movement and dodging, means i agree to treatening daze less hard
    • But when i compare Bull's Charge to Head Butt for example then Head Butt sufferes way more from the dmg decrease than Bull's Charge. Head Butt was build around dmg way more during Bull's still has a leap and an evade. I think instead giving all cc skills the same 0.01 treatment it would make more sense to reduce dmg from skills less the harder they are to hit (castime and animation), depending on how many rewards they have without dmg aside from cc, how big their cc is and depending on if they are supposed to be a high impact skill or not (like some elites should have a little bit of dmg aside from cc, otherwise they are often not rly better than some utilities). Also how is a hammer using Warrior supposed to kill anything?I can't wait to play a cc-beast Necro and LR Ele, even though Necro lost its instant fear, these 2 will be the only classes that still will do decent amount of dmg by just applying a high amout of cc (some even stunbreak worthy) without the need to interrupt anything. I forgot Engi (in general Engi might be very strong with the new explosive traitline which looks powercreeped compared to everything else that will get nerfed and has some passive dmg i don't like that much, but theory crafting a new bruiser explosive AED Engi build will be fun).
  3. I am not sure if focusing on healing only (aside from some less boonduration) to reduce sustain will be enough to prevent a new bunker meta from happening when looking at the massive nerfs to dmg on more than one lvl (like nerfing skills itself, just as vulnerablity duration, dmg traits and a lot of dmg will be missed by the hard cc skills already). Boring not ending fights vs 2 opponents could do 30000 player mistakes each without dying is the worst that can happen for the game. It was what killed esl. We want bad player and slow reaction player and player doing mistakes to die fast, we just don't want good player to die fast to simple braindead random dmg spam on non-impactful low cds (pre nerf Holo as example) or dying to low skill ceiling passive mechanics with no good counterplay (stealthspam oneshots, passive or instant high dmg application, passive life saver) lever out differences in playerskill. That to said, spammable attacks like autoattacks should not have too high impact in dmg (pure autoattack spam like on Holo combined with very low cd on all Holo skills for example). That doesn't mean higher already high cds from current 40 s to 50 s or something like that. Because that would make the game too slow paced and boring. I only mean looking at 6 s cd high impact skills (good dmg, good mobility, high healing from being a combofinisher) from Holo for example and increase those cds (but not too much to not slow down the game too much, better take away 1 out of these 3 rewards and give a little cd increase).

4: Nerfing passive traits to 5 mins cd instead of just deleting them and give some useful active traits is a way of balancing i rly don't want to see anymore. Also doesn't prevent a bad player from being saved by a passive what should not exist at all, no matter how long the cd is.

  1. Condi dmg should be dot dmg and not burst dmg. Atm it is both while the condi build even can use more def stats compared to power builds. The goal with this patch seems to be to make hitting condiskills more rewarding by giving more stacks but for a shorter duration. I get the idea behind that but still that is contrary to the goal of making condi dmg more about dots and not burst and justify the higher survivability from condi builds compared to power builds from having a slower dmg effect on the target. Imo condiskills should have a lower amount of stacks (or do less dmg per tick) but for a longer duration. I don't think the changes to condi removes compensate the wrong direction this patch goes with condis here in my view. Why is burming still stackable? This condition is too strong to stack in intensity, make it stack in duration again or lower its dmg per tick by a lot.

  2. Outliner: There are 3 outliners i want to talk about. 2 of them are related to the trade off topic (Soulbeast, Mirage trade off) i have a lot of questions to and will talk about that later. The other one is Obsidian Flesh. I have to say i don't like that change. I don't think it fits to the Ele playstyle, in particular from more quishy specs like Fresh Air. I can see the reason for that change in trying to balance the braindead bunker specs and prevent them from having insane long invulnerability while still being able to use skills. But on classic Ele builds like Fresh Air it is rly hurting, FA is build around getting a kill during you chain your def skills or leave with superspeed and try again when you have some def back up to survive for a bit of time. Otherwise the FA-Ele is just food when someone looks at him. Together with the nerf to the passive block FA will see even less play than already i guess. And it was said from different other ppl already, that nerfs that hurt the more skilled playstyles more than the braindead ones should be avoided. The sustain from bunker Ele specs can be nerfed in so many different ways without removing the little bit of active sustain more skilled builds like FA have. Also changes preventing the player from using instant skills at any time is against the consept of instant skills and makes builds or classes build around comboing with instant skills unnecessary clunky.

  3. Trade offs in general (next post, will need awhile)

In general the split of patch notes into global and WvW/ PvP was a little bit confusing, will Ele be the stabi monster as it looks like in the global changes? I am still confused about that.

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@Odik.4587 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358"Got some questions...Traits that boost power/precision/ferocity ... why they are not getting nerfed as well?

This is a good question but its possibly one of those things where if they do it to 1 profession expect it to be done to every profession so i think this one is more of a careful what you ask for kind of question.You are not that kind of a person from who I want to see answers.. fine. Yes for everyone, otherwise why would I even ask ?

Thief & Bundle.
What will happen to CONSUME PLASMA? It will be OP-overloaded as hell? Because couldnt find any changes on it. Even being interrupted he doesnt lose it and unpunished, how did it pass?

Also a good question so long as boon duration drops a bit on it i think it would be fine though. How ever we have to remember its not something a thief will get all the time only if they can successfuly steal from a mesmer which is likely why it got a pass there is a 1/9 chance of being able to even steal this in a match if the match has no mesmer you wont ever get the bundle.Its gives insane amount of boons, all boons in the game. And not like mesmer suffer enough from all kind of nerfs, 2 elite specs basically about to get deleted and dusted forever, proper balance changes are too hard for anet and this new dev, astonishing.Instant steal on ~20s from 1200 range no LoS req its hard to land ? Pardon me, what ? Especially with their stealth access and all kinds of teleports? I shouldnt want to delete my main just because there is a thief in the game, you know ?

To be honest with you it is part of their unique class mechanic it needs to be good enough for them to want to use it. Im a necro main and they steal a stronger fear than we have en our entire whole base kit so i mean what do you want them to do. As i said boon duration on it could be shaved maybe abit but dont expect it to be nerfed to the point that thieves wont want to steal from you over say a warrior or a guardian. Its just how it is i personally dont have an issue with plasma on thief cause there is only one way for them to get it. ITs only when a profession can gain access to plasma at any time in any match up is it really a problem hints plasma gain on boon beast being a big issue where as you see considerably less complaints about it with thief usually (no bias intentions) from a mesmer. Its how it is though. Thief usually steals a stronger version of something from each profession i dont see why mesmer should be any differentNecro = stronger fearWarrior = spin which reflects projectiles (base warrior skill does not do this)Rev = High damage slow projectile (revs dont have access to this unless downed and it does not do anywhere near the damage)Mesmer = boon boost ( generally mesmers are known for having pretty wide boon table so i can see why they get something like plasma from them)

Generally though i think its not that big of a deal. IF thief could just snatch plasma at any time in any match up i would totally agree with you but because its only in the case of snatching it from a mesmer i do not.

Binding shadow - can you remove the immobilize, so this skill wouldnt need a breakstun and cleanse(at the same time) to get out of it ?

I feel like it just needs to reveal on cast so it cant pop you out of stealth. If you see it coming you can almost always evade this. Only when they use it from stealth is it ever really a problem imo.And clear animation when its about to hit you too.

There normally is a clear animation on when its going to hit you if its used when the deadeye is not in stealth, its not hard to evade actually i can almost always evade it if i can see the smoke effect. Only when its done from stealth do you not see the black/red mist (shadows) coming at you meaning it has no tell Forcing reveal at the start of the cast would fix this issue.

Elementalist.
Lightning rod turns every CC into DMG spike with a weakness on it, no icd. I'd like to remind that power block (on mesmer) has 3s icd, cant crit and procs on interrupt .
We had a trait with exact the same functionality - "lost time" on chrono before and it did half of LROD damage, it was deleted entirely
. Disable the crits at least, may be?

This is questionable. Mind that power-block cant crit but it does basically reset a cooldown if it interrupts a person during a cast which depending on what skill is interrupted can be more powerful than just out right damage. Each skill kind of has their own niche. At best i would say dont nerf lightning rods damage anymore just making it only proc on interrupting and not just any disable would bring it more in line with powerblock.There is nothing questionable, genius. Its just an example what happened to nerf one skill that wasnt a problem or meta or whatever.
And specially brought an example of 100% identical trait
that chrono had once (with twice less damage and pretty much no damage if it doesnt crit) and it was removed entirely, for you I bolded text that you didnt bother to read, so do it again.

Its not identical though. even in past applications of the skill.One applied weakness while the other applied slow both of which are considerably different conditions with different effects.Lets also not forget that the chrono version could be triggered without disables by simply landing critical hits which lead to perma slow which is likely why it was removed.Weakness vs SlowOnly on disables vs on disables or after landing a few critical hitsI would honestly have to say its not the same experince Ive played air lightning rod tempest and perma slow chrono back when that trait was like that so i have some experience with both. Not 100% identical.

Similar in some aspects but not identical.You could literally gs auto a few times and trigger multiple instances of lost time where as lightning rod has a pretty finite number of times you can trigger it base on the cd's of your weapon cc skills. In other words Lightning rod has much more counter-play than lost time did and lost time had a much stronger soft condition than lightning rod did.

I still dont see a reason to nerf lightning rod anymore its already getting its weakness cut back as of right now the biggest danger will be simply not slapping the ele while they have shocking aura active as thats where most surprise activations of lightning rod will come from. Not many people have the skill to play d/d weaver with air magic and utilize the full potential of the cc in d/d weavers kit sooooo..... outside of tempest perhaps you wont see a ton of lightning rod play unless people go back to core ele.

Engineer.
AED (engi heal) escaped the nerfs?Its basically some what like defiant stance/hearld heal not really sure it needs to be touched.Except when they trait gadgets its lasts 8 seconds, either you proc it or 8 seconds getting beaten by them (while skill getting recharged background).Also, may be you dont know, AED removes all conditions (damaging ones? or all? cba to go to wiki) but defiant stance/glint heal do doesnt and doesnt lasts 8 seconds.So like i said its similar to defiant stance or herald heal. Most engi's who use this that ive fought either they wait till the last second to use it or they pop it too early and i can just walk way from them. Generally its not common though healing turret is still the go to at the moment and if AED becomes the standard they are trading up front healing early on in the fight for a super late activation. AED by design is not a heal you want to activate early its similar to defiant stance but lacks the freedom of it as a warrior or hearld may choose to pop their heals early to keep them topped off AED will not do this. I think the skill has enough weight in the right areas to be considered balanced for now and if it gets out of hand then they can go back and change it.

Warrior.
Also want to remind that "Attacker's Insight" is an overloaded trait, aside REFRESHING warrior's burst skill it does give a stat boost (which is super easy to get and keep) 225 power and 225 ferocity (450 overall), thats waaaaay too much.

This is more so one of those things that if you change it the other 8 professions also need to receive more stat nerfs. Its the careful what you wish for situation imo. I want to think they purposely left stat increasing traits alone because of the removal of some of the amulets and the overall drop to scaling power hits across the board ontop of the fact that most cc wont do damage its a lot of damage removed from the game so removing stats like these might remove way more damage than intended as they might already be riding a fine line between removing too much dps across the board.I dont remember any trait, especially minor, that was bloated as this trait. Reset bursts skills AND give 450 stats bonus. Feel free to bring an examples that expose similar traits, I dare you. (Part about GS F1 is ommited? hue)

It is a grandmaster minor though its not an adept minor or anything so it can have some meat to it i think. ITs also still a warrior it has to be within melee range to ever get any of these stacks for the most part in the current meta i dont think that will change too much after the fact unless the rifle rework turns out to be better than expectedAt best i think they could make it slightly less passive and let it only grant stacks on disables and not boon removals as boon removals is just a thing thats going to happen as the spellbreaker jumps at you and they already have another minor that removes boons when they land a disable so its possibly just stacking too fast via passive nature. I dont have an other issues with the trait though really. The stat bonuses are fine and the reset only triggers on full counter hits which is not too bad as it requires some work on the warriors part its not just a pure passive thing.

Yes i did ommit the GS f1 part but if you are curious on my thoughts as to why i did its below.GS F1 imo is probably not going to be an issue now that might has been curbed down massively. Its damage was also reduced a bit so im willing to wait and see. A lot of warriors lethal damage comes from their perma 20+ might stacks and that likely wont exists going forward which will see their damage take a massive hit.

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@Chaith.8256 said:

  • Some CC skills going to a .01 coefficient is a little overkill. Specifically, the highly telegraphed, small area of effect, significant cast-time skills like Backbreaker, Skull Crack, Headbutt, Banish, Daredevil Uppercut, Holographic Shockwave - (guaranteed crit skill that's now designed to do 50 damage, 100 damage on a crit I guess?) Wild Blow, Personal Battering Ram, Static Shock (A.E.D Toolbelt), Gale Strike. These are control skills that are often used at a risky position, and/or difficult to connect with due to a variety of reasons. My suggestion would be to either add back some damage to these select skills, OR improve the range, area of effect, or attach a short advance or evade, or otherwise quality of life to these CC skills.
  • Better yet - how about instead of making CC skills have 0.01 coefficients, we keep the coefficients but remove the CC component! There's lots of CC floating around, and stability is disappearing, and CC skills are getting their cooldowns reduced in many places by 5-30 seconds. We need less CC skills as well as these skills being balanced.

Yea, I definitely agree with this one. There need to be some exceptions for some of the damage removals from CC. Either that or, as mentioned, less CC on skills.

An example is Spike Trap: Killing the damage from an ability that already has so much counterplay to it over-nerfs it. If devs want to keep the co-efficient nerfs on all heavy CC, then this could easily be changed to a short duration daze or stun with the damage left in tact.

Earthshaker is one skill that I think should be treated as an exception as well since it requires adrenaline, has a big animation, and is on a weapon that already has 2 main skills with damage removed because of their CC. At the very least, some vulnerability should be added here, which would keep to the theme of setting up CC for burst after the CC skill is used.

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@"ZDragon.3046" said:Should I be rolling on the floor after your comments ?Mesmer = boon boost ( generally mesmers are known for having pretty wide boon table so i can see why they get something like plasma from them)Since the core times they had plasma and mesmer wasnt boonmonster (spoiler for uninformed - it was chrono), if there is boonmonstermachine its guardian since CORE days.None of the stolen bundles shuts down the class completely and make it insane hard to fight back or even close to impossible. You said the most noticable effects on the budles they steal but this "crazy good" throw gank/rangers tree/ice shard stab.I dont want to deal with such biased and hateful person against the mes and be like "yes, its OP but its good that mesmer automatically deleted when thief is there*.i can almost always evade it if i can see the smoke effect¯_(ツ)_/¯Its not identical though. even in past applications of the skill.Lets also not forget that the chrono version could be triggered without disables by simply landing critical hitsYou are not competent to give any answers regards question I'v asked, you simply dont even know the traits :joy: :joy: :joy:Dont expect a response from me.

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As a long standing Guild Wars 2 veteran, having played since launch, I'm happy with this direction for the game.I don't want to be trapped in a game that wants to pile on more and more damage and makes sound, strategical decisions obsolete.Currently, you don't have to worry about being strategical. Slot your build with damage and high mobility, and you can be present all over the map and forever snowball. That's not fun.Slowing down the pace of the game to make room for being wise about your decisions on and off the battlefield (referring to traits/utility choices) makes the game mode, based on playing around the objectives, fun and exciting.

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A bit more reflection....Why are certain weapons hit SOOOOO damn hard? Weapons designed for CC are just no longer useful. Hammer is a great example on Warrior. There's zero reason for a warrior to play Hammer, or even mace really, after this patch. They do no damage, because on top of the CC nerfs, y'all had the brains to nerf the auto attacks too? Bleh.The thinking behind this patch is going to lead to some cancerous metas, in my opinion.

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@Mbelch.9028 said:A bit more reflection....Why are certain weapons hit SOOOOO kitten hard? Weapons designed for CC are just no longer useful. Hammer is a great example on Warrior. There's zero reason for a warrior to play Hammer, or even mace really, after this patch. They do no damage, because on top of the CC nerfs, y'all had the brains to nerf the auto attacks too? Bleh.The thinking behind this patch is going to lead to some cancerous metas, in my opinion.

This is why a team who was actually concerned with balance would look at each weapon, their kit,playstyle and functions and use those as a basis of balance instead they just uniformly blanket nerfed everything with zero consideration to all the different variables between the classes which imo is beyond ridiculous. Seriously who would think that's ok?Guess our bar is so low changes regardless of how and what are enough to spur hope into this games community.That's kinda ruff lol.

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hahaha, guys, I just realised

Signet of stone: unnerfed, ranger skill (soulbeasts are v.oppressive atm) 60 seconds, 3 seconds total invulnerability to direct damageDefy pain: 5 minute cooldown, warrior skill

Now rangers do damage mitigation more often than warriorslol

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@Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Ranger

Profession Mechanics

Celestial Avatar

  • Cosmic Ray: Reduced heal coefficient from 0.469 to 0.25
  • Seed of Life: Reduced heal coefficient from 0.4745 to 0.2. Increased number of conditions cleansed from 1 to 2. Increased cooldown from 3 seconds to 4 seconds
  • Lunar Impact: Reduced base heal from 1620 to 1215. Reduced heal coefficient from 1.44 to 0.72. Increased daze duration from 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds
  • Rejuvenating Tides: Reduced pulse heal coefficient from 0.3 to 0.15

Soulbeast Merge Skills

  • Swoop (Bird): Increased cooldown from 10 seconds to 18 seconds
  • Brutal Charge (Canine): Reduced power coefficient from 0.64 to 0.01
  • Tail Lash (Devourer): Reduced power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.01
  • Call Lightning (Jacaranda): Reduced power coefficient per hit from 0.5 to 0.4
  • Maul (Porcine): Increased cooldown from 12 seconds to 15 seconds
  • Brutal Charge (Porcine): Reduced power coefficient from 0.67 to 0.01
  • Takedown (Smokescale): Reduced power coefficient from 0.7 to 0.01
  • Smoke Assault (Smokescale): Reduced might duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Reduced power coefficient per hit from 0.5 to 0.35
  • Wing Buffet (Wyvern): Reduced power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.01

Beast Skills

  • Unflinching Fortitude: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 50 seconds
  • Worldly Impact: Reduced power coefficient from 1.89 to 1.512

Pet Skills

Pig Family

  • Brutal Charge: Reduced power coefficient from 0.67 to 0.01

Canine Family

  • Brutal Charge: Reduced power coefficient from 0.67 to 0.01

Wolf

  • Terrifying Howl (F2): Reduced power coefficient from 0.2 to 0.01

Devourer

  • Tail Lash: Reduced power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.01

Iboga

  • Fang Grapple (F2): Reduced power coefficient from 0.2 to 0.01

Bristleback

  • Spike Barrage: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.22 to 0.165

Rock Gazelle

  • Head Toss (F2): Reduced power coefficient from 1.11 to 0.01
  • Charge: Reduced power coefficient from 1.1 to 0.825

Smokescale

  • Takedown: Reduced power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.01
  • Smoke Assault: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.25 to 0.2

Wyvern Family

  • Wing Buffet: Reduced power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.01

Lightning Wyvern

  • Lightning Assault (F2): Reduced power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.01

Weapons

Greatsword

  • Autoattack Chain: Reduced power coefficients from 0.64/0.8/1.3 to 0.45/0.6/0.866
  • Maul: Reduced power coefficient from 1.75 to 1.5. Reduced vulnerability duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Increased cooldown from 4 seconds to 6 seconds
  • Swoop: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.91. Increased cooldown from 12 seconds to 15 seconds
  • Counterattack: Increased cooldown from 15 seconds to 25 seconds.
    • Counterattack Kick (from Counterattack): Reduced power coefficient from 1.3 to 0.01
  • Hilt Bash: Reduced power coefficient from 0.72 to 0.01. Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds

Longbow

  • Long Range Shot: Reduced maximum power coefficient from 0.9 to 0.6. Reduced minimum power coefficient from 0.7 to 0.466
  • Rapid Fire: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.375 to 0.275. Reduced vulnerability duration from 10 seconds to 6 seconds
  • Point Blank Shot: Reduced power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.01
  • Barrage: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.5 to 0.381

Short Bow

  • Crossfire: Reduced power coefficient from 0.4 to 0.266
  • Quick Shot: Increased cooldown from 8 seconds to 12 seconds
  • Concussion Shot: Reduced power coefficient from 0.4 to 0.01

Sword

  • Autoattack Chain: Reduced power coefficients from 0.7/0.7/0.96 to 0.466/0.466/0.64
  • Monarch's Leap: Reduced power coefficient from 1.25 to 0.75

Axe MH

  • Ricochet: Reduced power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.533. Reduced might duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds
  • Splitblade: Reduced power coefficient per axe from 0.4 to 0.1. Increased bleeding duration from 6 seconds to 12 seconds. Increased cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds
  • Winter's Bite: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.0. Increased bleeding stacks from 2 to 3.

Axe OH

  • Path of Scars: Reduced power coefficient from 1.2 to 0.01
  • Whirling Defense: reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.66 to 0.44. Reduced vulnerability duration from 10 seconds to 6 seconds

Dagger OH

  • Stalker's Strike: Increased cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds
  • Crippling Talon: Reduced power coefficient from 0.75 to 0.5

Warhorn

  • Hunter's Call: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.15 to 0.1
  • Call of the Wild: Reduced might duration from 10 seconds to 6 seconds

Staff

  • Solar Beam: Reduced base heal per pulse from 66 to 30
  • Ancestral Grace: Reduced healing coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5

Dagger MH

  • Autoattack Chain: Reduced power coefficients from 0.4/0.42/0.44/0.88 to 0.32/0.336/0.352/0.704
  • Double Arc: Adjusted bleeding per hit from 3 stacks for 6 seconds to 2 stacks for 9 seconds
  • Instinctive Engage: Reduced quickness duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds

Heal

  • We Heal As One: Increased cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds
  • Troll Unguent: Increased cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds
  • Glyph of Rejuvenation:
  • Non-Celestial: Reduced self heal coefficient from 1.708 to 1.25. Reduced ally heal coefficient from 1.4 to 1.0
  • Celestial: Reduced self heal coefficient from 1.4 to 1.0. Reduced ally heal coefficient from 1.708 to 1.25
  • Bear Stance: Increased cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds

Utility

  • Lightning Reflexes: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.1
  • Quickening Zephyr: Reduced quickness and superspeed duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 45 seconds to 40 seconds
  • Glyph of Alignment: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 25 seconds
  • Glyph of the Tides: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 0.01. Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds
  • Dolyak Stance: Increased cooldown from 40 seconds to 60 seconds
  • Griffon Stance: Reduced might duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds
  • Moa Stance: Reduced bonus boon duration from 66% to 20%
  • Glyph of Equality (non-celestial): Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 0.01
  • Spike Trap: Reduced power coefficient from 0.2 to 0.01. Adjusted bleeding from 6 stacks from 6.25 seconds to 1 stack for 1 second. Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds

Elite

  • Strength of the Pack: Reduced might duration from 10 seconds to 6 seconds. Reduced stability duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds

Traits

Marksmanship

  • Stoneform: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 300 seconds
  • Lesser Call of the Wild (from Clarion Bond): Reduced boon durations from 15 seconds to 6 seconds

Skirmishing

  • Sharpened Edges: Reduced bleeding duration from 3 seconds to 1 second
  • Primal Reflexes: Reduced vigor duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds
  • Strider's Defense: Reduced quickness duration from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds

Wilderness Survival

  • Rugged Growth: Reduced base heal from 259 to 155
  • Lesser Muddy Terrain (from Child of Earth): Reduced duration from 10 seconds to 4 seconds
  • Taste for Danger: Reduced vitality to expertise conversion from 7% to 4%
  • Refined Toxins: Reduced poison duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds
  • Shared Anguish: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 300 seconds

Nature Magic

  • Rejuvenation: Reduced regeneration duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds
  • Lingering Magic: Reduced concentration from 240 to 120
  • Instinctive Reaction: Reduced quickness duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds
  • Windborne Notes: Reduced regeneration duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds
  • Protective Ward: Reduced weakness duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds

Beastmastery

  • Wilting Strike: Reduced weakness duration from 4 seconds to 3 seconds
  • Lesser Quickening Zephyr (from Zephyr's Speed): Reduced quickness and superspeed durations from 3 seconds to 2 seconds

Druid

  • Live Vicariously: Reduced base healing from 207 to 144
  • Natural Mender: Reduced bonus outgoing healing per stack from 2% to 1%
  • Celestial Shadow: Reduced stealth duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds
  • Grace of the Land: Reduced might duration from 12 seconds to 6 seconds. Reduced target cap from 10 to 5

Soulbeast

  • Live Fast: Reduced quickness duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds
  • Eternal Bond: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 300 seconds

How can Slb survive after this update?

Slb will lose the option to use two pets after this update.

Counterattack: Increased cooldown from 15 seconds to 25 seconds.

Swoop (Bird): Increased cooldown from 10 seconds to 18 seconds

Unflinching Fortitude: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 50 seconds

Moa Stance: Reduced bonus boon duration from 66% to 20%

Dolyak Stance: Increased cooldown from 40 seconds to 60 seconds

These changes are not comparable to those obtained by other professions, they are worse.If the goal is to see a couple of professions outside the Meta, I would say that with these changes it will surely be achieved, and meanwhile professions that have dominated the Meta for over 2 years remain intact and without trade-offs.

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@Odik brought up a good point, all the traits that boost stats weren't touched and are a major contributor to power creep. honestly tho with all these damage nerfs we might as well leave them as is for now and see how it all pans out. on the other hand builds with these traits will have an advantage over those who don't, namely spellbreaker, reaper, rev, and soulbeast. I would say ele too but idk.

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Dmg reduction is fine and corruption too(if and only if we see a real decline of boon spam, otherwise you'll see even more boonspam without anything keeping it in check).Now here are the things I really do not understand:

  • Executioners Scythe: why remove the dmg component when it's clear it was meanth as killer hit since even its dmg scales with the percentage of enemy's health. In my opinion you should remove the cc and keep the dmg, not do the opposite.
  • Spectral walk and armor didn't deserve a nerf since you already removed a key component for core necro survivability (foot in the grave). You now force any necromancer to basically run with always 2 or 3 breakstuns, not to talk about the fact that the breakstun on entering shroud, actually grants the ability to instantly react to a cc lock down.
  • Doom: the usefull part of this ability was the fact it was instant, most of all a lot of people complain about the fear duration not the fact it was instant. Infact doom being instant is crucial to actually try to stop a burst while in core shroud.
  • Infusing Terror: really you nerf stability on reaper shroud which needs it to stay in melee without being cc locked? Reduce it to 2 stacks instead of 3 but keep the duration. Because stab on reaper shroud is crucial, to be able to cast something that it is not autoattack since every skill has a 1.25s cast time or more. You expect a melee shroud mode with long cast times to actually be usefull without the ability to cast its slow abilities without any protection vs CCs?

You can't nerf dmg and corruption on necro and at the same time increase its weakness to CC too, in my opinion is too much. You say you want less stab on necro and that's fine but even going hammer on breakstuns? Like 15s increase on trail of anguish? Is any necro spec supposed to have 1 breakstun each 40s, when every other class in game can spam all the cc they have, which btw are more than just 1 or 2, and keep doing damage with every other skill in the kit while they cc lock a necro?

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@Teb.6980 said:hahaha, guys, I just realised

Signet of stone: unnerfed, ranger skill (soulbeasts are v.oppressive atm) 60 seconds, 3 seconds total invulnerability to direct damageDefy pain: 5 minute cooldown, warrior skill

Now rangers do damage mitigation more often than warriorslol

You are misinformed,

  • Stoneform: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 300 seconds

Same as defy pain. Compare passives to passives, and actives to actives if you must..

The active Endure Pain for Warrior I'd say just got slightly buffed. An extra second of Endure Pain, for 10 seconds longer cooldown:

Endure Pain: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds. Increased duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds

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Ironically if everyone does the same damage it is a balance patch....Maybe thats what they are going for im not sure?Or maybe they are trying to start from 0 again and re-balance pvp from there?

Because ive been reading this thread some of these changes make no sense yeah im really mad at the mirage dodge nerf but the stun damage changes affecting and entire weapon is huge too. Thinking about it i don't think this the end just a start.

Atleast i hope so those stun changes and the mirage nerf changes just don't make sense.I hopefully we will get a q&a soon.

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Yes there really needs to be paid more attention to the context of a lot of these cc skills. Stuff that has the main purpose of being a cc (static field) or has other good benefits (like bulls charge evade+mobility) are fine to lose all damage. But others were the damage is a main selling point of the skill should get looked at again (head butt, executioner's scythe e.g.). Especially when we take stuff like weapon skill sets into consideration like others have mentioned.Increase cooldowns, make some of those ccs less efficient or maybe remove a few entirely if it's really needed, but keep damage on some of those. Personally I'd rather see a game with some less (severe) ccs, especially when we take away stab and stunbreaks in the first place.

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Mbelch.9028 said:A bit more reflection....Why are certain weapons hit SOOOOO kitten hard? Weapons designed for CC are just no longer useful. Hammer is a great example on Warrior. There's zero reason for a warrior to play Hammer, or even mace really, after this patch. They do no damage, because on top of the CC nerfs, y'all had the brains to nerf the auto attacks too? Bleh.The thinking behind this patch is going to lead to some cancerous metas, in my opinion.

This is why a team who was actually concerned with balance would look at each weapon, their kit,playstyle and functions and use those as a basis of balance instead they just uniformly blanket nerfed everything with zero consideration to all the different variables between the classes which imo is beyond ridiculous. Seriously who would think that's ok?Guess our bar is so low changes regardless of how and what are enough to spur hope into this games community.That's kinda ruff lol.

Indeed.... If people don't see that this could lead to a heavy condi meta, they're silly.

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@NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:Dmg reduction is fine and corruption too(if and only if we see a real decline of boon spam, otherwise you'll see even more boonspam without anything keeping it in check).Now here are the things I really do not understand:

  • Executioners Scythe: why remove the dmg component when it's clear it was meanth as killer hit since even its dmg scales with the percentage of enemy's health. In my opinion you should remove the cc and keep the dmg, not do the opposite.
  • Spectral walk and armor didn't deserve a nerf since you already removed a key component for core necro survivability (foot in the grave). You now force any necromancer to basically run with always 2 or 3 breakstuns, not to talk about the fact that the breakstun on entering shroud, actually grants the ability to instantly react to a cc lock down.
  • Doom: the usefull part of this ability was the fact it was instant, most of all a lot of people complain about the fear duration not the fact it was instant. Infact doom being instant is crucial to actually try to stop a burst while in core shroud.
  • Infusing Terror: really you nerf stability on reaper shroud which needs it to stay in melee without being cc locked? Reduce it to 2 stacks instead of 3 but keep the duration. Because stab on reaper shroud is crucial, to be able to cast something that it is not autoattack since every skill has a 1.25s cast time or more. You expect a melee shroud mode with long cast times to actually be usefull without the ability to cast its slow abilities without any protection vs CCs?

You can't nerf dmg and corruption on necro and at the same time increase its weakness to CC too, in my opinion is too much. You say you want less stab on necro and that's fine but even going hammer on breakstuns? Like 15s increase on trail of anguish? Is any necro spec supposed to have 1 breakstun each 40s, when every other class in game can spam all the cc they have, which btw are more than just 1 or 2, and keep doing damage with every other skill in the kit while they cc lock a necro?

With the damage lower across the board, though, and the cc doing low damage, you don't need to worry about breaking stun as much, so you may not need to continue to run stunbreaks. Just wait it out and see.

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@Mbelch.9028 said:

@Mbelch.9028 said:A bit more reflection....Why are certain weapons hit SOOOOO kitten hard? Weapons designed for CC are just no longer useful. Hammer is a great example on Warrior. There's zero reason for a warrior to play Hammer, or even mace really, after this patch. They do no damage, because on top of the CC nerfs, y'all had the brains to nerf the auto attacks too? Bleh.The thinking behind this patch is going to lead to some cancerous metas, in my opinion.

This is why a team who was actually concerned with balance would look at each weapon, their kit,playstyle and functions and use those as a basis of balance instead they just uniformly blanket nerfed everything with zero consideration to all the different variables between the classes which imo is beyond ridiculous. Seriously who would think that's ok?Guess our bar is so low changes regardless of how and what are enough to spur hope into this games community.That's kinda ruff lol.

Indeed.... If people don't see that this could lead to a heavy condi meta, they're silly.

I don't see how you see a heavy condition meta could you explain this?As the classes that use condition were neutered the most in this patch.

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@Ghos.1326 said:

@NecroSummonsMors.7816 said:Dmg reduction is fine and corruption too(if and only if we see a real decline of boon spam, otherwise you'll see even more boonspam without anything keeping it in check).Now here are the things I really do not understand:
  • Executioners Scythe: why remove the dmg component when it's clear it was meanth as killer hit since even its dmg scales with the percentage of enemy's health. In my opinion you should remove the cc and keep the dmg, not do the opposite.
  • Spectral walk and armor didn't deserve a nerf since you already removed a key component for core necro survivability (foot in the grave). You now force any necromancer to basically run with always 2 or 3 breakstuns, not to talk about the fact that the breakstun on entering shroud, actually grants the ability to instantly react to a cc lock down.
  • Doom: the usefull part of this ability was the fact it was instant, most of all a lot of people complain about the fear duration not the fact it was instant. Infact doom being instant is crucial to actually try to stop a burst while in core shroud.
  • Infusing Terror: really you nerf stability on reaper shroud which needs it to stay in melee without being cc locked? Reduce it to 2 stacks instead of 3 but keep the duration. Because stab on reaper shroud is crucial, to be able to cast something that it is not autoattack since every skill has a 1.25s cast time or more. You expect a melee shroud mode with long cast times to actually be usefull without the ability to cast its slow abilities without any protection vs CCs?

You can't nerf dmg and corruption on necro and at the same time increase its weakness to CC too, in my opinion is too much. You say you want less stab on necro and that's fine but even going hammer on breakstuns? Like 15s increase on trail of anguish? Is any necro spec supposed to have 1 breakstun each 40s, when every other class in game can spam all the cc they have, which btw are more than just 1 or 2, and keep doing damage with every other skill in the kit while they cc lock a necro?

With the damage lower across the board, though, and the cc doing low damage, you don't need to worry about breaking stun as much, so you may not need to continue to run stunbreaks. Just wait it out and see.

What you are suggesting is the most uninterractive way of playing one could ever imagine. Losing control over your character without the possibility of doing anything is the worst possible experience you can give.

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Second part (anyone interested in reading another wall of text, the first part of my post talking about the PvP patch in general can just scroll up)

  1. Trade offs:I rly try to understand the consept and tried to do some research about that. I get the basic consept that says, that some class elites got stuff on top of what corebuilds have (named were Druid, Chrono as exaple) during other classes just got their core mechanics changed by replacing already existing skills with new ones (example Necro) without really adding other skills/cds on top of that. And this more on cds/skills now needs to be compensated by a trade off to make elites on par with core specs. I guess Deadeye, Ele specs, DH aside from Necro specs don't need trade offs in that regard.

Lets forget for the moment that you can powercreep and overbuff elite specs by just making the replacing skills way better than the core ones as happend to Reaper skills for example for some extent (way faster paced shroud gameplay with way more dmg what barely got compensated by faster shroud lose when i see how long and often i still can be in shroud with my Reaper). Lets also forget for the moment that deleting shroud on Scourge got instantly compensated by barrier mechanic and lets pretend Necro elites don't need any more trade offs because they didn't rly get any more cds/skills in additon compared to core.That also counts vice versa btw, core specs with less skills available can be stronger than elites with more skills/cds because all in all the elite skills are too much weaker than the core skills (looking at defensive traitlines a lot of them are stronger than the elite lines, by having lower skill ceiling and less active mechanics often because defensive traitlines still have too less opportunity costs in dmg and are for that powercreeped). But lets forget about that too atm.

Lets also forget for now that classes which got their trade offs later where already more "normally" nerfed in their elite and core mechanics to deal with meta builds compared to elites which already got their trade off. Means some elites get a trade off on top off several nerfs happend already and would have been unnecessary when they would just have gotten their trade off sooner. On the other side elite specific boons for example like alacrity were given to other classes but chrono is the only class gets a trade off for it because it was implemented as Chrono elite feature.

Then i tried to compare trade offs from different specs and here is were my problem really starts. I am not sure my friend google gave me all needed informations about specs im not that deep into, means everyone (in particular main class player with more knowledge) can correct me and give me the informations i maybe miss.

For example Druid (i never played Druid that much, same as Scrapper, i found both specs kind of boring, but i played both a little bit during Hot and when i just lately jumped on Druid while missing that Druid already got a trade off, i couldn't feel any trade off, Druid felt exactly the same for me, ofc aside from other "normal" nerfs and aside from meta changes make it less viable compared to other Ranger specs and even more compared to other support specs atm), so i googled for Druid trade off:All i could find as trade off for Druid was a a pet dmg nerf for Druid Pets only. Is that correct or do i miss something here? I mean that would be a joke of a trade off for a class that can just switch to core pets or PoF pets and when i look at current Smokescale being still a very strong pick. HoT pets after Hot release also were broken in dmg they needed nerfs in dmg to be balanced. That is just a normal nerf and not a trade off. Otherwise why is the Soulbeast trade off not just nerfing broken Gazelle dmg (and other PoF pets not used anyway) and we are done? When i then compare the new Soulbeast trade off to the Druid one then Soulbeast is trade offed way way harder than Druid. Do i get that right? When yes, why is Soulbeast treatened that much harder and in a way will affect the playstyle more than on Druid who just has less dmg on pets but no mechanical changes making fun and from players loved combos impossible?

Example Holo/ Scrapper: Holo/Scrapper trade off supposed to be the lose of f5 toolbelt which was linked to the elite skill on button 0 (Scrapper got vitality reduced in addition). Looking at history the origin core Engi never had an f5. F5 for core Engi got added around 2017. What does that mean? I buff Core with an already unnecessary powercreeped cd additon and replace the f5 by elite spec mechanic skills and call that a trade off? That would be the same as buffing core Mesmer by giving it a core f5 shatter first and then trade off Chronomancer by replacing the core f5 with Continuum Split and Mirage trade off with giving a Mirage specific f5 shatter. You neutralize the elite trade off by pre buffing core to elite lvl, thats a big rofl (again when i miss something here feel free to correct me).

Example Spellbreaker: Trade off is the lose of adrenalin bars, yet i fail to see how that did lower the impact from burst skills in any remarkable way compared to core. They still both hit like a truck. Overall looks more like a buff than a trade off because the Spellbreaker now needs to build up less adrenalin and has access to the "maximum" burst skills more often for barely any downside on the impact of burst skills (the new lower maximum is still as strong as the old 3bars max). The bit of downside gets compensated by the added pros in the trade off itself (needs less adrenalin). What do i miss?

Example Daredevil: Trade off is the shorter range for the stealskill Swipe. But the shorter range got instantly compensated by adding a pretty strong unblockable feature. It was just switching a downgrade with an upgrade, that is not a trade off but still Anet managed to make the spec more clunky to play from a too short range but then buffing it in an unhealthy way with an unblockable feature should not exist on instant, no los, range skills. Double dislike!

Then there are classes i have a hard time to see a difference between "normal" nerfs and a trade off directed to downgrade elite mechanics to bring them more in line to core. For example Rev and FB. What is their trade off? I heard something about Rev loses ability to stunbreak on legend swap, yet can't find anything about this in the global or pvp changes. Also would that be a normal nerf? Why does that count as trade off? It is not even directed at the elite traitline. What is about the planned change to Holo f5? I am a little bit confused how that is supposed to work, like every toolbelt skill gets more cooldown or only the ones already on cd when going into Holo mode? According to the context of the patch it is a nerf no matter how it will work in the end. But is it meant as additional trade off (what would make sense because of what i wrote before) or is it just a normal nerf in context of the big patch nerfing everything?

Then i look at a class like Mesmer. Both specs will have such clearly downgrades you cannot even mistake them as normal nerfs. They are clearly trade offs. Chrono got triple downgrade by losing f4 statter, losing Illusionary Persona and reworked f1-3 shatters with less dmg when no slow is applied (if i understand that right). 2 of these changes completely change the playstyle remarkable from how it was originally meant to be and make the spec clunky with not respecting how the class needs to work (instant shatters for combos). Chrono is worse than Core now. Not even the planned Soulbeast trade off comes even near in how much the origin Soulbeast mechanic and playstyle will change and get negative affected by its trade off. Soulbeast trade off is a nerf not rly affecting the playstyle in a critical way, it has less cds/skills available now and some combos you needed pet swap for can't be done anymore (i would have prefered simple dmg reduction and lower cc durations on longer cooldowns as trade off because without pet swap Soulbeast gets a bit easier to play mechanically but ofc less lame to play from not being overloaded with impactful cds anymore). Soulbeast trade off is not my first choice but acceptable. It is rly not easy to change Mesmer mechanics without killing them but what happend to Chrono and now Mirage is insane.

As i already said in an other thread about how to balance elite specs like FB which got more cds without changing or killing the way they are supposed to be played and supposed to work, it is simple: When more cds/skills get added to a skill sample, it is needed to balance the more skills/cds by making each single skill less impactful or less often usable, so that the whole sample overall is not remarkable more impactful than a skill sample with less cds/skills. That can be done by either giving higher cds on single skills, or by making each single skill/cd less impactful in their rewards by lower dmg or like shorter cc duration and less skills with cumulated rewards (for example why does Mantra of Truth apply 3 condis, why not just 1 or 2 aside from dmg. Why is the condi duration so long? MoT would be even power creeped on a Guard spec that has only 3 f3 skills like core Guard and not +12 cds from tomes).

The cd from Condinuum Split got increased more than one time before the trade off idea even started if i remember right. On top of that they got triple downgrade. Ofc higher cds on sinlge skills is not rly effectual when the mechanic of chrono is to just reset them with CS but why there was not just a trade off like -200 power and -200 vita in addition to the already increased CS cd? It would compensate for the more cds Chrono has without killing the underlying mechanics and playstyle and make it clunky and unplayable in competitive modes.

Mirage now is supposed to have only one dodge. It got said several times already why this is a bad plan, it downgrades skill ceiling in several aspects of the spec, it is contrary to the spec mechanic and it will make Mirage clunky if not completely unplayable in competitive modes, without even fixing the passive playstyle on Condimirage . Looking at Mesmer player and Mesmer hater this is a lose-lose situation just that Mesmer hater don't even have enough clue of the spec to even see that. Because in case Mirage will be playable in any form than you can be sure it will be even less skillful and even more lame then what we have today, probably some chaos-inspi-bunker kitten no one will like.

Other ideas for trade offs are mentioned i will not repeat. Another idea (even though not rly doable and probably too harsh) would be to lock out Mirage from traitlines like Chaos or Inspiration. That would be an insane restriction in build diversity but at least would not kill the whole playstyle and makes sense in the way that Mirage is supposed to have high active sustain from dodges and counterpressure from each dodge and for that it doesn't need more passive sustain (from Chaos) or less reactive/ more spammy sustain (from Inspiration) in addition because the synergy is too strong. The Mirage trade off would be that player cannot use Chaos or Inspiration in addition to Mirage traitline. I would never suggest such thing because it is crazy and better would be to just rework those 2 lines into something more active (Chaos) or less spammy/ more reactive (Inspiration). But even this crazy trade off i would prefer over the current plan. That shows how even more crazy that one dodge trade off idea is.

All in all i am confused by how differently different specs are treated by trade offs. Just as i am confused about the difference between a normal nerf and a trade off change directed at downgrading elite mechanics to core lvl. If someone can help me to understand i will be grateful.

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