Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Balance Update Update - Global


Irenio CalmonHuang.2048

Recommended Posts

@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

@"MoXAriApph.3650" said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 95
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Is it possible for the balance team to consider adding
Spirited Arrival
(Nature magic) to the list of traits triggered when merging/unmerging?
Spirited Arrival
is similarly tied to swaping pet while in combat. It's strange that it isn't listed.

Edit:
Death Carapace
(instead of
Armored Shroud
) giving vitality or DR instead of toughness would be great for the flexibility of the traitline in PvE. I'd even root for
Deadly Strength
to replace the vitality from
Death Carapace
by power instead of adding power to the buff.

I think it will. As they've stated in their other post, merging/unmerging will be counting as pet swap when the patch hits, so having one pet won't change anything in terms of running runes/traits that require a pet swap.

Well I've linked what they say on the other post and they clearly specify 2 of the 3 traits which is either the simple truth or misleading. There is no reason to specify 2/3rd of the traits if they can just sum it up to: "merging/unmerging will be counting as a pet swap". Afterall, they have to link through coding the different F4 traits to F5 I doubt there is somewhere a line of code saying: "Any trait that would be triggered by F4 will now be triggered by F5".

Or it's neither, and they may have forgotten to include that trait, or simply didn't think of that trait. But the fact they state "merging/unmerging will now count as a pet swap" should tell the whole tale in itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Admittedly as somebody who really likes to play support builds, the nerfs to the healing modifiers do seem a bit harsh, particularly on builds that offer little more than healing. I fear that it will generally making healing power investment feel much less "worth it" than it has been. Speaking from my own personal perspective, I think it would be nice to see another stat type introduced: benevolence. I am pretty sure that benevolence in its prior existence was simply a different name for healing power, but I think it would be cool for the stat to function specifically for outgoing healing effectiveness, just like the outgoing healing modifier traits. That way, it doesn't enable any bunker specs, particularly because it would also be taking away from taking another stat, like toughness or vitality. IMO, stat spreads like Minstrel's are very unhealthy for the game simply because they create supertank specs that still offer incredible support. With the nerfs to coefficients, introducing a new stat like benevolence could help create a further disparity in support effectiveness between tank-support and pure support specs. Adjustments could be made in PvE and sPvP to help accommodate this.

Additionally, I would further suggest reducing Minstrel's stat spread to just 3 stats: healing power++, concentration+, vitality+. The tank-support set should be Nomad's; even with the nerfs, Minstrel's will still offer too much for its investment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@Ghos.1326 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well I've linked what they say on the other post and they clearly specify 2 of the 3 traits which is either the simple truth or misleading. There is no reason to specify 2/3rd of the traits if they can just sum it up to: "merging/unmerging will be counting as a pet swap". Afterall, they have to link through coding the different F4 traits to F5 I doubt there is somewhere a line of code saying: "Any trait that would be triggered by F4 will now be triggered by F5".

Or it's neither, and they may have forgotten to include that trait, or simply didn't think of that trait. But the fact they state "merging/unmerging will now count as a pet swap" should tell the whole tale in itself.

Spirited Arrival is included and will work with merge/unmerge, but it won't have text on the trait itself listing this until a bit later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • ArenaNet Staff

@Dreggon.6598 said:

  • Weaver's Elemental Polyphany will grant vitality instead of toughness while attuned to earth.
  • Firebrand's Imbued Haste will grant vitality instead of toughness while you have quickness.

Feedback on this bit: a good change that toughness is coming off, but vitality feels like a bit of a shaky choice here. Is it possible to change the toughness component to armor instead? That would make it functionally identical but solve the raid boss aggro problem.

We can't roll it into armor directly, unfortunately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Well I've linked what they say on the other post and they clearly specify 2 of the 3 traits which is either the simple truth or misleading. There is no reason to specify 2/3rd of the traits if they can just sum it up to: "merging/unmerging will be counting as a pet swap". Afterall, they have to link through coding the different F4 traits to F5 I doubt there is somewhere a line of code saying: "Any trait that would be triggered by F4 will now be triggered by F5".

Or it's neither, and they may have forgotten to include that trait, or simply didn't think of that trait. But the fact they state "merging/unmerging will now count as a pet swap" should tell the whole tale in itself.

Spirited Arrival is included and will work with merge/unmerge, but it won't have text on the trait itself listing this until a bit later.

@Dadnir.5038 Here is your answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Mogwai.4015" said:Admittedly as somebody who really likes to play support builds, the nerfs to the healing modifiers do seem a bit harsh, particularly on builds that offer little more than healing. I fear that it will generally making healing power investment feel much less "worth it" than it has been. Speaking from my own personal perspective, I think it would be nice to see another stat type introduced: benevolence. I am pretty sure that benevolence in its prior existence was simply a different name for healing power, but I think it would be cool for the stat to function specifically for outgoing healing effectiveness, just like the outgoing healing modifier traits. That way, it doesn't enable any bunker specs, particularly because it would also be taking away from taking another stat, like toughness or vitality. IMO, stat spreads like Minstrel's are very unhealthy for the game simply because they create supertank specs that still offer incredible support. With the nerfs to coefficients, introducing a new stat like benevolence could help create a further disparity in support effectiveness between tank-support and pure support specs. Adjustments could be made in PvE and sPvP to help accommodate this.

Additionally, I would further suggest reducing Minstrel's stat spread to just 3 stats: healing power++, concentration+, vitality+. The tank-support set should be Nomad's; even with the nerfs, Minstrel's will still offer too much for its investment.

Did you mean to post that in the WvW section ? There's no heal changes for PVE.


@ Irenio thanks for clarifying the vitality on the firebrand trait even if health bars jumping around is still clunky and more load on the server infrastructure. I still think the minor trait is strong enough without it however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

I think one issue that can arise from buffing the core classes is that whenever a base class is buffed, so is the elite spec by extension. We can say “okay increase all Druid pet damage by 50%”, but then soulbeasts will also get this buff. I believe the devs are wanting to take a different approach where they bring down the ceiling by nerfing elite specs instead of raising the floor by buffing the base classes.

This could be separated though by doing something like “if you have 3 base specs you equipped you get X bonus”, but that might go against the inference I listed above of not raising the floor where the devs want to reign in elite specs to be closer to the level that base classes play at opposed your the other way around.

Removing a pet from soulbeast to focus more on the merging with a pet aspect is how they’re choosing to refocus that specs identity. While ranger itself may be focused on their pets, soulbeast will change that focus to instead be some “strong bond between the ranger and a single pet” kind of thing. The focus on ranger pets are still there, but now it’s a little different.

While you did mention before that there is nothing innately broken about soulbeast compared to other classes, when comparing it to base ranger it is 100% better in any aspect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I've seen so far grasping all of these changes its just going to be condi spam and heal bots all over again because they never took the time to ask themselves so whand how did damage get so high in the first place and just little things like that. Then also a lot of the feedback that is to troll people mostly are people i've seen in wvw and pve that do not even wear armor just a weapon to tag with and are saying things like deadeye and soulbeast are way too strong. If I wanted to condi spam or heal bot in this game I would be super exicted for the changes but sense I am not one of those kinds of players I pretty much will just write pve off too and just go find some other game and not bother ever coming back to this one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Infusion.7149 said:

@"Mogwai.4015" said:Admittedly as somebody who really likes to play support builds, the nerfs to the healing modifiers do seem a bit harsh, particularly on builds that offer little more than healing. I fear that it will generally making healing power investment feel much less "worth it" than it has been. Speaking from my own personal perspective, I think it would be nice to see another stat type introduced: benevolence. I am pretty sure that benevolence in its prior existence was simply a different name for healing power, but I think it would be cool for the stat to function specifically for
outgoing
healing effectiveness, just like the outgoing healing modifier traits. That way, it doesn't enable any bunker specs, particularly because it would also be taking away from taking another stat, like toughness or vitality. IMO, stat spreads like Minstrel's are very unhealthy for the game simply because they create supertank specs that still offer incredible support. With the nerfs to coefficients, introducing a new stat like benevolence could help create a further disparity in support effectiveness between
tank-support
and
pure support
specs. Adjustments could be made in PvE and sPvP to help accommodate this.

Additionally, I would further suggest reducing Minstrel's stat spread to just 3 stats: healing power++, concentration+, vitality+. The tank-support set should be Nomad's; even with the nerfs, Minstrel's will still offer too much for its investment.

Did you mean to post that in the WvW section ? There's no heal changes for PVE.

@ Irenio thanks for clarifying the vitality on the firebrand trait even if health bars jumping around is still clunky and more load on the server infrastructure. I still think the minor trait is strong enough without it however.

Oopsies, yes I did. At work on phone, thanks for letting me know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

I think one issue that can arise from buffing the core classes is that whenever a base class is buffed, so is the elite spec by extension. We can say “okay increase all Druid pet damage by 50%”, but then soulbeasts will also get this buff. I believe the devs are wanting to take a different approach where they bring down the ceiling by nerfing elite specs instead of raising the floor by buffing the base classes.

This could be separated though by doing something like “if you have 3 base specs you equipped you get X bonus”, but that might go against the inference I listed above of not raising the floor where the devs want to reign in elite specs to be closer to the level that base classes play at opposed your the other way around.

Removing a pet from soulbeast to focus more on the merging with a pet aspect is how they’re choosing to refocus that specs identity. While ranger itself may be focused on their pets, soulbeast will change that focus to instead be some “strong bond between the ranger and a single pet” kind of thing. The focus on ranger pets are still there, but now it’s a little different.

While you did mention before that there is nothing innately broken about soulbeast compared to other classes, when comparing it to base ranger it is 100% better in any aspect.

By that exact same logic, lets get rid of Ascended cooking. It's better than base cooking and nobody uses regular cooking anymore, it offers nothing Unique.Lets get rid of Masteries, it's better than playing the base game and is by the same logic, supposed to have "drawbacks" no?

Base classes in literally any game have never been designed to be top tier, that was the whole point to bringing out Elite Specs, to be a different take on the same class, to mix it up and create something Unique.Rather than make a Base class compete with it's own Elite Specs, we're adding half-thought "drawbacks".Every Elite Spec offers something Unique.

Why not make Core Specs Unique?They had the right idea by adding to Core Revenant, but haven't buffed or changed that idea since, and it hasn't been a viable option in the majority of cases because it hasn't been pushed up, whether this is due to the Elite Specs being "better" or not doesn't matter, the attempt was never even fully finished.

Changing Soulbeast + Druid to bring them down offers nothing on the scale of the entire class hierarchy, you're bringing down a class that's already low, you're kicking a dead horse.

This change looks like it was made by somebody who has never played the class/Spec or even payed attention to how it works, the "drawback" is already there, you not only have to wait on swapping pets, you have to wait on your merge timer as well, it's been there from the start, you have the 100% free option instead to just punish constant swapping, do something fun, not boring, make it a longer and longer cooldown the more you swap in combat, do something that makes sense.Go and make something Unique for base Ranger, let it do something wild, give it access to more pets in combat, buff it when you have the 3 base traitlines, let it tame an elder dragon or something, idk, it shouldn't be my job, anything, it's fairly quick to design and would come out infinitely better.

Let's say we add these "drawbacks" yeah? Guess what, Elite Specs will still entirely still be better than base, the "drawback"s fail and they become literally nothing more than annoyances to everyone.The only option from there is to start nerfing again, and then buffing, and it'll repeat until base classes take over for a while or the Elite Specs take over.Anyone who invested in their Elite Spec stops playing due to the constant changes and the class not being what they came for, then there's no point to Elite Specs.It's the beginning of a cycle that's so predictable it shouldn't happen.

Otherwise this is all literally pointless and you'll keep having the same issues, it won't end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"AlexndrTheGreat.8310" said:Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger.

Yes, because the Guild Wars 2 pets system is absolute garbage and it took them literally giving us a way to fuse with the pet to actually make the class good

Reminder that pre-HoT, the only pets anyone used were spiders and canines because other types couldn't even hit a moving target with their attacks

No one's going to play base ranger after this change because it still sucks and druid is still totally nerfed out of player vs player content and will only be worse after this update

They will just play a handicapped soul beast like before and nothing will change. Pretty much everyone has already decided they'll just keep maining smokescale.

Anet could have just removed Owl and Siamoth from the pvp pet selection menu and solved the "boonbeast problem" without doing some silly double edged sword nonsense

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

I think one issue that can arise from buffing the core classes is that whenever a base class is buffed, so is the elite spec by extension. We can say “okay increase all Druid pet damage by 50%”, but then soulbeasts will also get this buff. I believe the devs are wanting to take a different approach where they bring down the ceiling by nerfing elite specs instead of raising the floor by buffing the base classes.

This could be separated though by doing something like “if you have 3 base specs you equipped you get X bonus”, but that might go against the inference I listed above of not raising the floor where the devs want to reign in elite specs to be closer to the level that base classes play at opposed your the other way around.

Removing a pet from soulbeast to focus more on the merging with a pet aspect is how they’re choosing to refocus that specs identity. While ranger itself may be focused on their pets, soulbeast will change that focus to instead be some “strong bond between the ranger and a single pet” kind of thing. The focus on ranger pets are still there, but now it’s a little different.

While you did mention before that there is nothing innately broken about soulbeast compared to other classes, when comparing it to base ranger it is 100% better in any aspect.

By that exact same logic, lets get rid of Ascended cooking. It's better than base cooking and nobody uses regular cooking anymore, it offers nothing Unique.Lets get rid of Masteries, it's better than playing the base game and is by the same logic, supposed to have "drawbacks" no?

Base classes in literally any game have never been designed to be top tier, that was the whole point to bringing out Elite Specs, to be a different take on the same class, to mix it up and create something Unique.Rather than make a Base class compete with it's own Elite Specs, we're adding half-thought "drawbacks".Every Elite Spec offers something Unique.

Why not make Core Specs Unique?They had the right idea by adding to Core Revenant, but haven't buffed or changed that idea since, and it hasn't been a viable option in the majority of cases because it hasn't been pushed up, whether this is due to the Elite Specs being "better" or not doesn't matter, the attempt was never even fully finished.

Changing Soulbeast + Druid to bring them down offers nothing on the scale of the entire class hierarchy, you're bringing down a class that's already low, you're kicking a dead horse.

This change looks like it was made by somebody who has never played the class/Spec or even payed attention to how it works, the "drawback" is already there, you not only have to wait on swapping pets, you have to wait on your merge timer as well, it's been there from the start, you have the 100% free option instead to just punish constant swapping, do something fun, not boring, make it a longer and longer cooldown the more you swap in combat, do something that makes sense.Go and make something Unique for base Ranger, let it do something wild, give it access to more pets in combat, buff it when you have the 3 base traitlines, let it tame an elder dragon or something, idk, it shouldn't be my job, anything, it's fairly quick to design and would come out infinitely better.

Let's say we add these "drawbacks" yeah? Guess what, Elite Specs will still entirely still be better than base, the "drawback"s fail and they become literally nothing more than annoyances to everyone.The only option from there is to start nerfing again, and then buffing, and it'll repeat until base classes take over for a while or the Elite Specs take over.Anyone who invested in their Elite Spec stops playing due to the constant changes and the class not being what they came for, then there's no point to Elite Specs.It's the beginning of a cycle that's so predictable it shouldn't happen.

Otherwise this is all literally pointless and you'll keep having the same issues, it won't end.

Elite specs were never meant to be better than the core classes, they were, and are, meant to be specialized in one area(for example, spellbreaker ripping alot of boons and denying them).This was made very clear by anet several times.

Just because core classes are not top tier in other games, does NOT mean gw2 has to be the same, why should it?

They do indeed mix up how you play your class and give it something unique, that doesnt change with that soulbeast nerf.

And having 2 pets to quickly choose from when out of combat does make sense, makes for more decision making. In pvp for example, you have to choose which pet suits you better to fight the warrior (or whoever sits there) on your close point, while in a team skirmish on mid you might take something different before you engage.

Your "buff everything else" mentality is what brought us this insane level of powercreep.Have you played dungeons pre hot and post pof? Its ridiculous, you can ignore whole boss mechanics because you can burst/heal right through them.

And your cooking and mastery analogy are not working here, because their purpose was indeed to be better than previous things, unlike especs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@RedShark.9548 said:

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

I think one issue that can arise from buffing the core classes is that whenever a base class is buffed, so is the elite spec by extension. We can say “okay increase all Druid pet damage by 50%”, but then soulbeasts will also get this buff. I believe the devs are wanting to take a different approach where they bring down the ceiling by nerfing elite specs instead of raising the floor by buffing the base classes.

This could be separated though by doing something like “if you have 3 base specs you equipped you get X bonus”, but that might go against the inference I listed above of not raising the floor where the devs want to reign in elite specs to be closer to the level that base classes play at opposed your the other way around.

Removing a pet from soulbeast to focus more on the merging with a pet aspect is how they’re choosing to refocus that specs identity. While ranger itself may be focused on their pets, soulbeast will change that focus to instead be some “strong bond between the ranger and a single pet” kind of thing. The focus on ranger pets are still there, but now it’s a little different.

While you did mention before that there is nothing innately broken about soulbeast compared to other classes, when comparing it to base ranger it is 100% better in any aspect.

By that exact same logic, lets get rid of Ascended cooking. It's better than base cooking and nobody uses regular cooking anymore, it offers nothing Unique.Lets get rid of Masteries, it's better than playing the base game and is by the same logic, supposed to have "drawbacks" no?

Base classes in literally any game have never been designed to be top tier, that was the whole point to bringing out Elite Specs, to be a different take on the same class, to mix it up and create something Unique.Rather than make a Base class compete with it's own Elite Specs, we're adding half-thought "drawbacks".Every Elite Spec offers something Unique.

Why not make Core Specs Unique?They had the right idea by adding to Core Revenant, but haven't buffed or changed that idea since, and it hasn't been a viable option in the majority of cases because it hasn't been pushed up, whether this is due to the Elite Specs being "better" or not doesn't matter, the attempt was never even fully finished.

Changing Soulbeast + Druid to bring them down offers nothing on the scale of the entire class hierarchy, you're bringing down a class that's already low, you're kicking a dead horse.

This change looks like it was made by somebody who has never played the class/Spec or even payed attention to how it works, the "drawback" is already there, you not only have to wait on swapping pets, you have to wait on your merge timer as well, it's been there from the start, you have the 100% free option instead to just punish constant swapping, do something fun, not boring, make it a longer and longer cooldown the more you swap in combat, do something that makes sense.Go and make something Unique for base Ranger, let it do something wild, give it access to more pets in combat, buff it when you have the 3 base traitlines, let it tame an elder dragon or something, idk, it shouldn't be my job, anything, it's fairly quick to design and would come out infinitely better.

Let's say we add these "drawbacks" yeah? Guess what, Elite Specs will still entirely still be better than base, the "drawback"s fail and they become literally nothing more than annoyances to everyone.The only option from there is to start nerfing again, and then buffing, and it'll repeat until base classes take over for a while or the Elite Specs take over.Anyone who invested in their Elite Spec stops playing due to the constant changes and the class not being what they came for, then there's no point to Elite Specs.It's the beginning of a cycle that's so predictable it shouldn't happen.

Otherwise this is all literally pointless and you'll keep having the same issues, it won't end.

Elite specs were never meant to be better than the core classes, they were, and are, meant to be specialized in one area(for example, spellbreaker ripping alot of boons and denying them).This was made very clear by anet several times.

Just because core classes are not top tier in other games, does NOT mean gw2 has to be the same, why should it?

They do indeed mix up how you play your class and give it something unique, that doesnt change with that soulbeast nerf.

And having 2 pets to quickly choose from when out of combat does make sense, makes for more decision making. In pvp for example, you have to choose which pet suits you better to fight the warrior (or whoever sits there) on your close point, while in a team skirmish on mid you might take something different before you engage.

Your "buff everything else" mentality is what brought us this insane level of powercreep.Have you played dungeons pre hot and post pof? Its ridiculous, you can ignore whole boss mechanics because you can burst/heal right through them.

And your cooking and mastery analogy are not working here, because their purpose was indeed to be better than previous things, unlike especs.

Are you still living in the Dungeon meta? We've progressed, time is fowards.The rewards for dungeons and the scaling are a joke, they made content like Raids and Fractals (however much you like it or not) to counteract the "power creep".Not to mention the "power creep" is the first argument players go to when they themselves do not know what they're talking about.The 10x damage difference (this number can be higher or lower, it'll never matter) between Veterans and New players is very established and will always be because Veterans have played long enough to make better decisions (not to say new players make bad decisions but wisdom and progression), in this case, Elite specs, whether you nerf them or not your imaginary "power creep" will always be there.Keeping the scale where it is and scaling content up is a massively more logical solution, people need to eventually learn the game, we've done everything except get people to learn how to play in the name of casual gameplay, it's why the veterans are leaving and content isn't challenging.Strikes are going to full on be hit or miss and time will tell but Raiders have to either see it as a replacement to Raids or a replacement to Raid training, neither of which currently are being achieved. This very much contributes to the issues with elite specs and balance.

The thing you probably didn't notice is back when dungeons were meta, is everyone was on equal footing because the skill cap was fairly low, this isn't the case anymore.I'm not saying Core classes can't be top tier, I'm saying they shouldn't be bringing everything down to the core class power.Don't bring people down, teach the game and make it fair across the board by catching everyone up to where the veterans are at, because once we went up amazing things happened, PoF specs while hated by many for "power creep" redefined the meta and allowed them to bring down the "chrono druid meta garbage" (other peoples words not mine here) and introduced a vast amount of variety in gameplay.You're seeing specs and classes outside of a select few and it's largely due to how special the elite specs were designed, all beyond unique and so far comparable to HoT Elite Specs.

The game is absolutely fantastic and the majority of people don't even realize how far it goes, it's a fantastic combat system plagued by the blissfully ignorant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ZDragon.3046 said:

we don't like that a minor trait gives you toughness and can make you a target in some of our content when that's not the goal of your build.

Other traits with this behavior that we'll be looking at along these lines are:
  • Armored Shroud

Its going to be very interesting to see how you solve this one considering the fact that changing that trait changes how the entire line works now that carapace was forced into it rather than just making something flat that works all the time like the other lines on other professions have.

I doubt it will be as easy as just swapping it to vitality allowing scaling vitality in combat which seems like a massive balance issue considering how many traits and things vitality is tied to with the necromancer not to mention it already has a vitality trait in another line. I mean the idea of slapping some one with a curse and in theory leeching some vitality off them (without reducing theirs) is pretty cool and all but boy does that seem like balance nightmare.

It's much less of an issue because death magic generally isn't run unless it's openworld.

Reapers usually run soul reaping + spite ; scourges usually do curses+soul reaping or blood magic+soul reaping.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a suggestion, but wouldn't it work great is we swapped the shout "feel my wrath" and "stand your ground" in places so syg now is an elite spell, it wouldn't change anything in open world for solo playing, but in instanced areas(raids) this would mean that if you don't take any quickness support you will get less dps individually , but still it would be an increase in teams dps. and if you would go with a quickbrand it would lower his dps so no more silly 26k dps support, and also it would justify the strength of stand your ground

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Infusion.7149" said:It's much less of an issue because death magic generally isn't run unless it's openworld.

Well it's used a bit more in sPvP/WvW nowadays. I do hope thought that they will do "more" to DM's issue than just modifying the Death Carapace's toughness by vitality. Personally, I'd be glad if they kept the toughness on death carapace but made use of the major at the master level to modify (or not) the stat bonus from death carapace. (For example: Deadly strength could be a trait that replace toughness by power instead of slapping power on top of the toughness.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

I think one issue that can arise from buffing the core classes is that whenever a base class is buffed, so is the elite spec by extension. We can say “okay increase all Druid pet damage by 50%”, but then soulbeasts will also get this buff. I believe the devs are wanting to take a different approach where they bring down the ceiling by nerfing elite specs instead of raising the floor by buffing the base classes.

This could be separated though by doing something like “if you have 3 base specs you equipped you get X bonus”, but that might go against the inference I listed above of not raising the floor where the devs want to reign in elite specs to be closer to the level that base classes play at opposed your the other way around.

Removing a pet from soulbeast to focus more on the merging with a pet aspect is how they’re choosing to refocus that specs identity. While ranger itself may be focused on their pets, soulbeast will change that focus to instead be some “strong bond between the ranger and a single pet” kind of thing. The focus on ranger pets are still there, but now it’s a little different.

While you did mention before that there is nothing innately broken about soulbeast compared to other classes, when comparing it to base ranger it is 100% better in any aspect.

By that exact same logic, lets get rid of Ascended cooking. It's better than base cooking and nobody uses regular cooking anymore, it offers nothing Unique.Lets get rid of Masteries, it's better than playing the base game and is by the same logic, supposed to have "drawbacks" no?

Base classes in literally any game have never been designed to be top tier, that was the whole point to bringing out Elite Specs, to be a different take on the same class, to mix it up and create something Unique.Rather than make a Base class compete with it's own Elite Specs, we're adding half-thought "drawbacks".Every Elite Spec offers something Unique.

Why not make Core Specs Unique?They had the right idea by adding to Core Revenant, but haven't buffed or changed that idea since, and it hasn't been a viable option in the majority of cases because it hasn't been pushed up, whether this is due to the Elite Specs being "better" or not doesn't matter, the attempt was never even fully finished.

Changing Soulbeast + Druid to bring them down offers nothing on the scale of the entire class hierarchy, you're bringing down a class that's already low, you're kicking a dead horse.

This change looks like it was made by somebody who has never played the class/Spec or even payed attention to how it works, the "drawback" is already there, you not only have to wait on swapping pets, you have to wait on your merge timer as well, it's been there from the start, you have the 100% free option instead to just punish constant swapping, do something fun, not boring, make it a longer and longer cooldown the more you swap in combat, do something that makes sense.Go and make something Unique for base Ranger, let it do something wild, give it access to more pets in combat, buff it when you have the 3 base traitlines, let it tame an elder dragon or something, idk, it shouldn't be my job, anything, it's fairly quick to design and would come out infinitely better.

Let's say we add these "drawbacks" yeah? Guess what, Elite Specs will still entirely still be better than base, the "drawback"s fail and they become literally nothing more than annoyances to everyone.The only option from there is to start nerfing again, and then buffing, and it'll repeat until base classes take over for a while or the Elite Specs take over.Anyone who invested in their Elite Spec stops playing due to the constant changes and the class not being what they came for, then there's no point to Elite Specs.It's the beginning of a cycle that's so predictable it shouldn't happen.

Otherwise this is all literally pointless and you'll keep having the same issues, it won't end.

Frankly what they need to do is lock the core profession mechanic traitline behind core. So no Berserkers or Spellbreakers with Discipline. No Soulbeasts or Druids with Beastmastery (that instantly removes half the cheese of Soulbeast btw). No Scourges or Reapers with Soul Reaping Etc.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048So much of the current cheese can be boiled down to the E-Specs changing the class mechanics, yet still taking the trailine that enhances the mechanic anyway.I suggest locking these behind the Core specs, and then undoing some of the 'drawbacks' you all have been rolling out. Give Scrappers back their vitality, give stats back to the Druid pet, give Berserker's their toughness back (I'm okay with losing the F1 entirely at this point as that is the alteration of the core mechanic). I think you'll find that balance will be a lot better with those changes, and if that had been done, then this massive patch probably would not have had to happen in the first place.

Edit to clarify: I don't think Core specs should be forced to take their mechanic traitline, but only Core can access them. So a Necro could do Death Magic, Blood Magic, and Spite for example.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

I think one issue that can arise from buffing the core classes is that whenever a base class is buffed, so is the elite spec by extension. We can say “okay increase all Druid pet damage by 50%”, but then soulbeasts will also get this buff. I believe the devs are wanting to take a different approach where they bring down the ceiling by nerfing elite specs instead of raising the floor by buffing the base classes.

This could be separated though by doing something like “if you have 3 base specs you equipped you get X bonus”, but that might go against the inference I listed above of not raising the floor where the devs want to reign in elite specs to be closer to the level that base classes play at opposed your the other way around.

Removing a pet from soulbeast to focus more on the merging with a pet aspect is how they’re choosing to refocus that specs identity. While ranger itself may be focused on their pets, soulbeast will change that focus to instead be some “strong bond between the ranger and a single pet” kind of thing. The focus on ranger pets are still there, but now it’s a little different.

While you did mention before that there is nothing innately broken about soulbeast compared to other classes, when comparing it to base ranger it is 100% better in any aspect.

By that exact same logic, lets get rid of Ascended cooking. It's better than base cooking and nobody uses regular cooking anymore, it offers nothing Unique.Lets get rid of Masteries, it's better than playing the base game and is by the same logic, supposed to have "drawbacks" no?

Base classes in literally any game have never been designed to be top tier, that was the whole point to bringing out Elite Specs, to be a different take on the same class, to mix it up and create something Unique.Rather than make a Base class compete with it's own Elite Specs, we're adding half-thought "drawbacks".Every Elite Spec offers something Unique.

Why not make Core Specs Unique?They had the right idea by adding to Core Revenant, but haven't buffed or changed that idea since, and it hasn't been a viable option in the majority of cases because it hasn't been pushed up, whether this is due to the Elite Specs being "better" or not doesn't matter, the attempt was never even fully finished.

Changing Soulbeast + Druid to bring them down offers nothing on the scale of the entire class hierarchy, you're bringing down a class that's already low, you're kicking a dead horse.

This change looks like it was made by somebody who has never played the class/Spec or even payed attention to how it works, the "drawback" is already there, you not only have to wait on swapping pets, you have to wait on your merge timer as well, it's been there from the start, you have the 100% free option instead to just punish constant swapping, do something fun, not boring, make it a longer and longer cooldown the more you swap in combat, do something that makes sense.Go and make something Unique for base Ranger, let it do something wild, give it access to more pets in combat, buff it when you have the 3 base traitlines, let it tame an elder dragon or something, idk, it shouldn't be my job, anything, it's fairly quick to design and would come out infinitely better.

Let's say we add these "drawbacks" yeah? Guess what, Elite Specs will still entirely still be better than base, the "drawback"s fail and they become literally nothing more than annoyances to everyone.The only option from there is to start nerfing again, and then buffing, and it'll repeat until base classes take over for a while or the Elite Specs take over.Anyone who invested in their Elite Spec stops playing due to the constant changes and the class not being what they came for, then there's no point to Elite Specs.It's the beginning of a cycle that's so predictable it shouldn't happen.

Otherwise this is all literally pointless and you'll keep having the same issues, it won't end.

Elite specs were never meant to be better than the core classes, they were, and are, meant to be specialized in one area(for example, spellbreaker ripping alot of boons and denying them).This was made very clear by anet several times.

Just because core classes are not top tier in other games, does NOT mean gw2 has to be the same, why should it?

They do indeed mix up how you play your class and give it something unique, that doesnt change with that soulbeast nerf.

And having 2 pets to quickly choose from when out of combat does make sense, makes for more decision making. In pvp for example, you have to choose which pet suits you better to fight the warrior (or whoever sits there) on your close point, while in a team skirmish on mid you might take something different before you engage.

Your "buff everything else" mentality is what brought us this insane level of powercreep.Have you played dungeons pre hot and post pof? Its ridiculous, you can ignore whole boss mechanics because you can burst/heal right through them.

And your cooking and mastery analogy are not working here, because their purpose was indeed to be better than previous things, unlike especs.

Are you still living in the Dungeon meta? We've progressed, time is fowards.The rewards for dungeons and the scaling are a joke, they made content like Raids and Fractals (however much you like it or not) to counteract the "power creep".Not to mention the "power creep" is the first argument players go to when they themselves do not know what they're talking about.The 10x damage difference (this number can be higher or lower, it'll never matter) between Veterans and New players is very established and will always be because Veterans have played long enough to make better decisions (not to say new players make bad decisions but wisdom and progression), in this case, Elite specs, whether you nerf them or not your imaginary "power creep" will always be there.Keeping the scale where it is and scaling content up is a massively more logical solution, people need to eventually learn the game, we've done everything except get people to learn how to play in the name of casual gameplay, it's why the veterans are leaving and content isn't challenging.Strikes are going to full on be hit or miss and time will tell but Raiders have to either see it as a replacement to Raids or a replacement to Raid training, neither of which
currently
are being achieved. This very much contributes to the issues with elite specs and balance.

The thing you probably didn't notice is back when dungeons were meta, is everyone was on equal footing because the skill cap was fairly low, this isn't the case anymore.I'm not saying Core classes can't be top tier, I'm saying they shouldn't be bringing everything down to the core class power.Don't bring people down, teach the game and make it fair across the board by catching everyone up to where the veterans are at, because once we went up amazing things happened, PoF specs while hated by many for "power creep" redefined the meta and allowed them to bring down the "chrono druid meta garbage" (other peoples words not mine here) and introduced a vast amount of variety in gameplay.You're seeing specs and classes outside of a select few and it's largely due to how special the elite specs were designed, all beyond unique and so far comparable to HoT Elite Specs.

The game is absolutely fantastic and the majority of people don't even realize how far it goes, it's a fantastic combat system plagued by the blissfully ignorant.

Lol, are you actually denying that powercreep exists in the game? If you think dungeons just got easier because ppl learned the game then you are plain wrong.

Its a FACT that dps increased over various patches. I, as a pve noob, have done many dungeons with 3 ppl instead of 5 since pof release (because often we couldnt find ppl to do them, and we only did them to get dungeon runes/sigils for wvw).And we are not using special tactics, we just run the dungeon casually, often just killing all the mobs on the way, because we have the dmg and are too kitten to know were we can skip enemies, or fail to skip them.

Why do you think that build variety will be reduced with less dmg in the game? Heal and boons were reduced aswell, to counteract a tank meta.The especs still have their different playstyle, this patch doesnt change that at all, no idea were you get that from.If anything, if they keep balancing after the big patch hits (it obviously wont be perfect straight up after patch hits) build variety could greatly increase.

Right now we basically have a full dmg meta, were everybody just tries to oneshot the enemies as quickly as possible. Forcing certain skills and traits to be used to ensure not getting oneshot.

Were are veterans "brought down"?They still should have a much better understanding of the game than new players and be able to come up with new builds and playstyles to adapt to the patch.

Me and my friends are having a blast already, thinking about wvw builds that could work after the patch. And we greatly appreciate the dmg reduction across the board, we have been talking about that for years now, that we have less fun in wvw because everything was just way too much. Its not fun randomly getting hit by 10-20k from a SINGLE enemy skill in a blob of 50 ppl, those dmg numbers were definately not a thing pre expansions and i have played against good players like redguard or TA, it had nothing to do with a lack of skill or game knowledge.

"Imaginary powercreep" lol, anet has all the data they need and agree that powercreep exists, how can you ever deny that. Its like talking to someone that denys climate change, big Oof.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@MoXAriApph.3650 said:Is there anyone on the balance team who can explain why Soulbeast can't swap pets mid-fight in this next update? We're this late into the game and this is an inane change. If you're looking to add drawbacks, there already is one by swapping pets, there's a LARGE cooldown upon unmerging/swapping/merging back, and it doesn't make sense in a PvE perspective. There's nothing innately broken about Soulbeast in general when it comes to swapping pets, it's a direct nerf to Condi Soulbeasts already VERY lacking CC, and a very annoying change to anyone who plays the Power Variant.This change seems like an absolute joke.

Auto-ignoring anyone responding with the same gibberish "nerf meta' attitude, genuinely looking for an answer from the devs on this one.

Kinda late response but the I believe the reasoning for this is because the devs are trying to align the elite specs back into the vision they originally had when HoT was released, but missed the mark. The devs originally wanted elite specs to simply be an “alternative play style” compared to what the base class offered, but ended up simply being a massive gain over anything the base class offered. Either you took your elite spec or you were fundamentally weaker without it.

More recently as seen with the other elite spec changes, such as Daredevil swipe range being reduced, Druid pet damage nerf, Scrapper health reduction, berserker allowing standard burst abilities, etc, Anet is wanting to continue this trend into other elite specs.

Soulbeast was notorious for being a 100% improvement over base ranger. If there is a base ranger build, there’s no reason not to through in the soulbeast line. While yes, there’s long cooldowns for swapping pets and re-merging, that’s not necessarily a trade off because it’s simply how the class works. The only really trade offs possible would have been to either be permanently merged with pets at all times but can still swap, or only have one pet at a time. With this changes you now need to make a choice of whether losing one of your pets is worth taking the soulbeast line. More than likely it will be, players will just need to find ways to compensate it such as using something like warthog for condi which has a headbutt ability when merged.

While I do agree that it is unfortunate such substantial nerfs and changes are coming to elite specs, I can agree with the devs that reducing the power creep brought with elite specs is a good direction.

So instead of buffing the core classes up, we're going to actually remove some classes identity in the name of equality? This is horrible design. At this point why even give the option for Soulbeasts to have two pets? It's backwards design and actually ends up being worse in the long run.Druid, sure, give it a lore reason so nobody can complain and slap a 10% nerf onto the pet damage, but seriously removing an entire pet from Soulbeast...?Literally just kitten nerf anything else we have, as this one makes next to 0 sense.

I think one issue that can arise from buffing the core classes is that whenever a base class is buffed, so is the elite spec by extension. We can say “okay increase all Druid pet damage by 50%”, but then soulbeasts will also get this buff. I believe the devs are wanting to take a different approach where they bring down the ceiling by nerfing elite specs instead of raising the floor by buffing the base classes.

This could be separated though by doing something like “if you have 3 base specs you equipped you get X bonus”, but that might go against the inference I listed above of not raising the floor where the devs want to reign in elite specs to be closer to the level that base classes play at opposed your the other way around.

Removing a pet from soulbeast to focus more on the merging with a pet aspect is how they’re choosing to refocus that specs identity. While ranger itself may be focused on their pets, soulbeast will change that focus to instead be some “strong bond between the ranger and a single pet” kind of thing. The focus on ranger pets are still there, but now it’s a little different.

While you did mention before that there is nothing innately broken about soulbeast compared to other classes, when comparing it to base ranger it is 100% better in any aspect.

By that exact same logic, lets get rid of Ascended cooking. It's better than base cooking and nobody uses regular cooking anymore, it offers nothing Unique.Lets get rid of Masteries, it's better than playing the base game and is by the same logic, supposed to have "drawbacks" no?

Base classes in literally any game have never been designed to be top tier, that was the whole point to bringing out Elite Specs, to be a different take on the same class, to mix it up and create something Unique.Rather than make a Base class compete with it's own Elite Specs, we're adding half-thought "drawbacks".Every Elite Spec offers something Unique.

Why not make Core Specs Unique?They had the right idea by adding to Core Revenant, but haven't buffed or changed that idea since, and it hasn't been a viable option in the majority of cases because it hasn't been pushed up, whether this is due to the Elite Specs being "better" or not doesn't matter, the attempt was never even fully finished.

Changing Soulbeast + Druid to bring them down offers nothing on the scale of the entire class hierarchy, you're bringing down a class that's already low, you're kicking a dead horse.

This change looks like it was made by somebody who has never played the class/Spec or even payed attention to how it works, the "drawback" is already there, you not only have to wait on swapping pets, you have to wait on your merge timer as well, it's been there from the start, you have the 100% free option instead to just punish constant swapping, do something fun, not boring, make it a longer and longer cooldown the more you swap in combat, do something that makes sense.Go and make something Unique for base Ranger, let it do something wild, give it access to more pets in combat, buff it when you have the 3 base traitlines, let it tame an elder dragon or something, idk, it shouldn't be my job, anything, it's fairly quick to design and would come out infinitely better.

Let's say we add these "drawbacks" yeah? Guess what, Elite Specs will still entirely still be better than base, the "drawback"s fail and they become literally nothing more than annoyances to everyone.The only option from there is to start nerfing again, and then buffing, and it'll repeat until base classes take over for a while or the Elite Specs take over.Anyone who invested in their Elite Spec stops playing due to the constant changes and the class not being what they came for, then there's no point to Elite Specs.It's the beginning of a cycle that's so predictable it shouldn't happen.

Otherwise this is all literally pointless and you'll keep having the same issues, it won't end.

Frankly what they need to do is lock the core profession mechanic traitline behind core. So no Berserkers or Spellbreakers with Discipline. No Soulbeasts or Druids with Beastmastery (that instantly removes half the cheese of Soulbeast btw). No Scourges or Reapers with Soul Reaping Etc.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048So much of the current cheese can be boiled down to the E-Specs changing the class mechanics, yet still taking the trailine that enhances the mechanic anyway.I suggest locking these behind the Core specs, and then undoing some of the 'drawbacks' you all have been rolling out. Give Scrappers back their vitality, give stats back to the Druid pet, give Berserker's their toughness back (I'm okay with losing the F1 entirely at this point as that is the alteration of the core mechanic). I think you'll find that balance will be a lot better with those changes, and if that had been done, then this massive patch probably would not have had to happen in the first place.

Edit to clarify: I don't think Core specs should be forced to take their mechanic traitline, but only Core can access them. So a Necro could do Death Magic, Blood Magic, and Spite for example.

What defines what the core mechanic traitline is? Imo thats an awful change that i would never want.I want to have as many choices as i can.If they go on on the way they do, with specializations being specialized in something and not just upgrades from core than thats a good way of doing it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...