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Balance Update Update - Global


Irenio CalmonHuang.2048

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@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".

Give us new Eternal Bond which makes ranger take pet location upon merging so we can pair with mobility meta since our range means nothing because of too much gap closers (warior, revs, thiefs). This would make better use off pet ai and we will need to build more tactics around pet which results in more active gameplay with pet. That would help us keep range if well played vs too many gap closers currently in game. Sry for writing it like this great job so far.

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@CroTiger.7819 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".

Give us new Eternal Bond which makes ranger take pet location upon merging so we can pair with mobility meta since our range means nothing because of too much gap closers (warior, revs, thiefs). This would make better use off pet ai and we will need to build more tactics around pet which results in more active gameplay with pet. That would help us keep range if well played vs too many gap closers currently in game. Sry for writing it like this great job so far.

I dont understand why players that play a class that has the most effective dps at range and that range being also the longest range of all classes thinks they needs more gap closers when it's got 2x long range swoops, smokescale tele etc at its disposal already. Shouldn't having access to good damage at that range be lack of gap closers? I mean as is they already have good gap closing.

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If we're going to have a conversation about Death Magic I'd like to step into that. For me personally, I really want to support on Necromancer and not just on Scourge either but with core necromancer in its own unique way. Death magic seemed like a good line for support yet its remained selfish after the update. And the minion traits honestly should be 1 trait with a few of their features rolled into the core minions.

I don't just say this about minions because they're under-powered as a unite, which they most certainly are, but also for future proofing the specialization. If necromancer was to get an elite specialization centered around minions(No I'm not giving up on future elite specs) or if the devs decide to add further skills to the core classes and minions are included in some of them we could begin to see some real issues with the minion traits. In my opinion the best method of creating a minion spec is without a shroud mechanic but more control over the minions like the scourge has over the shades using life force. Now lets make the assumption that other traits influence these minions in some way. Burning from Dhuumfire and suddenly a 25% damage boost. Imagine if Reaper's shroud or Scourge shades got a passive 25% damage boost just for taking a master tier trait? As for the condition transfer we don't have to imagine how overpowered that was, we lived it with the Minion master reaper build back near HoT launch.

The only thing holding these traits back from breaking minions wide open is how poorly the minions function as a unite now. Some of these modifiers they give should be rolled into the existing minions to make room for something else. My suggestion is something more supportive to allies and something Minions, Shades, or any other future summon the necromancer might conjure forth could use.

Perhaps this is asking a bit much right now. And I'll accept that. However these traits have been grinding at me for some time now.... Also please fix the necromancer female's auto axe animation on Sylvari, norn and human...

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@Infusion.7149 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.

It could be for some bosses actually even more so as a core tank possibly the issue though is that unlike other professions anet refuses to give necromancer blocks or evades necro does not even have access to the one boon that blocks attacks so that makes it hard to fit into the tank role where some attacks need to be blocked or evaded without moving to keep things easy for the rest of the group. I think there is actually a decent condi reaper build that can also use death magic for the boosted poison damage and it can reach numbers over 25k dps for a damage role (takes much more effort than a power build though) which is not super good but not bad either. The problem is though the stacking toughness which you cannot turn off should your tank be running a lower toughness value this trait could play with that. Death magic has potential its just so situational that most people dont bother to use it. Regardless if its pve or pvp. In pvp death magic has started to see a tiny bit more use and probably will see alot of use going into the new patch where people think necro will be one of the most resilient tanks along side weavers still.

In pvp though stacking vitality options while in combat might be problematic which is why i called it out so they just dont do a default swap without considering how much stuff that messes with.

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@Lily.1935A support necro would be fun but i really dont see how they could make it without also making it where people would just use the supportive tools with selfish intent leading to improper balance and other things being nerfed which then leaves them in a state in unviability. Curious if they would also have to break their own personal concept to make this work by giving the necro boons it could share etc. Scourge was already the offensive support so i dont think they need to do that same concept over again unless its literally reworking scourge.

Imo Anet first needs to rework how support skills function globally so that people wont take them under the idea of selfish intent. (at least in pvp this is more of a noticeable problem.)

That said you know me im not for losing core shroud but i mean if they want to rework scourge into this i would be down for it. OR if it came as a new elite it would not bother me as an option to play every now and again.

I still wish scourge shade was more like the Warlock's Thrall in Blade & Soul. You just get one big strong minion that does things from zone control to buffing allies in the area or inflicting cc etc. IT does not move but can be commanded to jump to a target or back to your position i think it even had a stun break that let you swap positions with it. Something like that I would love to see. Shades as anet made them are just too underwhelming for me personally though xD

@Lily.1935 said:Perhaps this is asking a bit much right now. And I'll accept that. However these traits have been grinding at me for some time now.... Also please fix the necromancer female's auto axe animation on Sylvari, norn and human...

ALL THE OLD AUTO AXE ANIMATIONS WHERE BETTER! FACTS! :astonished:Too bad there was an exploit that turned axe 1 into a machine gun that made it hit like an unlimited axe 2 cast. Which is why I'm almost 100% sure the reason they changed it.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"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.)

This is actually a good idea i would love to be able to modify the entire bonus of Carapace instead of just adding ontop of it :+1:

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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

I dont understand why players that play a class that has the most effective dps at range and that range being also the longest range of all classes thinks they needs more gap closers when it's got 2x long range swoops, smokescale tele etc at its disposal already. Shouldn't having access to good damage at that range be lack of gap closers? I mean as is they already have good gap closing.

Man you are playing revenant and crying about range dmg which in 80% scenarios means nothing. All you need as rev to close that range is 1 utility and yet you are talking about range advantage :) Range in this game means nothing because classes like thieves revenants exist and even warior which have no teleports have 3 gap closers which 2 of them are evades. Now tell me about 18 sec recharge swoop which won t be played in 99% scenarios because of 1 pet in combat and smokescale smoke assault which you have as proffesion and its never been op to have it on revenant. You are trying to make something out of range advantage while it sucks in pvp. Its strong only in wvw which i hope we don t talk about. Even ranger run greatsword as second set and its overtuned aswell since if ranger is bad in malee than its genarally bad because there is no range in reality of pvp 80% of time. But yes there are teleports and extreme mobility which are meta since they exist while i can t say same for range dmg in pvp.

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@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.

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.

Its Discipline for Warriors, Soul Reaping for Necros, etc. Back when the trait lines adjusted stats these reduced the CD of the Core Mechanic per point spent, and even now each of them reduce the CD of the Core mechanic and augment them greatly.

The justification is that the E-Specs modify the core mechanic, so then why then should they able to also access the traitlines that modify the core mechanic? I am not without sympathy for want of a plethora of choices, but the way the Core mechanic traitlines interact with the E-Spec traitlines is part of where the Power Creep has come from. Take Warrior for instance, many people feel Discipline is mandatory (I know you and I do not share that idea with other warriors), and for these people locking them OUT of Discipline while in Berserker or Spellbreaker will force them into new traitlines while keeping multiple options available to Core specs. Its more of forcing more diversity by limiting access to a popular, and often felt to be mandatory, choices.

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Regading the change to Weaver's Elemental Polyphony:

Changing this to vitality feels a bit out of touch with the way the earth skills work. Changing the value from toughness to condition damage would feel like a much more natural decision, given that most skills in earth deal condition damage.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:@Lily.1935A support necro would be fun but i really dont see how they could make it without also making it where people would just use the supportive tools with selfish intent leading to improper balance and other things being nerfed which then leaves them in a state in unviability. Curious if they would also have to break their own personal concept to make this work by giving the necro boons it could share etc. Scourge was already the offensive support so i dont think they need to do that same concept over again unless its literally reworking scourge.

Imo Anet first needs to rework how support skills function globally so that people wont take them under the idea of selfish intent. (at least in pvp this is more of a

Not actually always true. There could be a method where if they give boons they can only give boons but couldn't give themselves boons which would work. There was also the idea that the necromancer could sacrifice stacks of carapace for party support. There are plenty of options that they could take. I'd like it if it also promoted active play from the necromancer rather than the passive play that much of death seems to promote.

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@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Regarding FMW changes - we're going to see how things land after this set of changes and adjust further, if needed. We're not trying to take FMW out entirely - it should still be a decent source of group quickness, but it shouldn't be leading to stuff as dominant as it currently is.

With some of the other changes coming in this patch, including a bugfix to Zealous Blades still granting 10% damage when it wasn't supposed to, there are enough moving pieces that we don't want to do so large a takedown that something becomes unused entirely.

Why not take it out? The Guardian is a dominant class, meta in all game modes, with a lot of strong variants in PvE. Diversity shouldn't be a bad thing.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:@Lily.1935A support necro would be fun but i really dont see how they could make it without also making it where people would just use the supportive tools with selfish intent leading to improper balance and other things being nerfed which then leaves them in a state in unviability. Curious if they would also have to break their own personal concept to make this work by giving the necro boons it could share etc. Scourge was already the offensive support so i dont think they need to do that same concept over again unless its literally reworking scourge.

Imo Anet first needs to rework how support skills function globally so that people wont take them under the idea of selfish intent. (at least in pvp this is more of a

Not actually always true. There could be a method where if they give boons they can only give boons but couldn't give themselves boons which would work. There was also the idea that the necromancer could sacrifice stacks of carapace for party support. There are plenty of options that they could take. I'd like it if it also promoted active play from the necromancer rather than the passive play that much of death seems to promote.

You have a point but generally maybe all support aspects need to be reworked with your concept in mind here it would help things alot and get people off of using support things for self-sustain which is not how they are exactly intended to be used.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:@Lily.1935A support necro would be fun but i really dont see how they could make it without also making it where people would just use the supportive tools with selfish intent leading to improper balance and other things being nerfed which then leaves them in a state in unviability. Curious if they would also have to break their own personal concept to make this work by giving the necro boons it could share etc. Scourge was already the offensive support so i dont think they need to do that same concept over again unless its literally reworking scourge.

Imo Anet first needs to rework how support skills function globally so that people wont take them under the idea of selfish intent. (at least in pvp this is more of a

Not actually always true. There could be a method where if they give boons they can only give boons but couldn't give themselves boons which would work. There was also the idea that the necromancer could sacrifice stacks of carapace for party support. There are plenty of options that they could take. I'd like it if it also promoted active play from the necromancer rather than the passive play that much of death seems to promote.

You have a point but generally maybe all support aspects need to be reworked with your concept in mind here it would help things alot and get people off of using support things for self-sustain which is not how they are exactly intended to be used.

I'm game for a system wide change like that.

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@"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.

Honestly I think that the drawback that should have been added is that Soulbeast's Pet reduces its stats by 10 every second they spend Unmelded, capping out at a reduction in 300.This will be thematically fitting because Soulbeasts are stated to have merged with their pet to survive in the desert and rely on each other's strength to pull through.

I would go ahead and say that Soulbeast (the ranger) will also suffer some stat loss when unmelded but that would probably make some Soulbeast mains raise pitchforks.

Removing pet swapping is kinda meh way of adding a drawback and it comes across as lazy more than intuitive, literally just taking utility/options from a build or profession.

I personally have found Druid's pet nerf to not make any ounce of sense because it just hurts the Druids "just cause" and not because it is a special trade in skills for picking Druid.

It would make more sense if Druid used their Pet's health as fuel for their CA, and when out of CA, Pets regenerate health rapidly whether in combat or not.

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@Substance E.4852 said:

@"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

I'm glad there are some other old players like myself who still remember this. Everyone ran grey wolf because of the fear and knockdown. In general though, most of the pets couldn't hit a moving target (even with cripple applied) or do/did negligible damage to a target even if they remained immobilized/stunned. As a ranger main though, I'm glad that they are enabling only one pet with soulbeast, I think it will still be effective without being a 100% upgrade over core and druid.

What I really want though is for Anet to go over all the other pets we have and update them to be more useful, starting with the F2 skills that are lackluster and outdated and maybe updating some pets regular skills, like moa.

Another thing to consider is smokescale gets used on druid/core ranger even through all the nerfs, and the reason people keep using it is because it is the most reliable melee based pet that can hit a moving target.. I would hope to see more melee pets be able to do this.

Moa's have that derpy peck that locks them in place while they head bang to the air and GW2 background music (also wanted to add that they have a random aoe heal that has maybe healed me twice in the past 7 years of use), it's used while the moa is still high on health, and it's still more fragile than a bear, drakes spin around and dance with a random blast to nothing, hitting neither a over enemy nor blasting a field, devourers dig under the ground and reappear and die doing no DPS (the underwater version with a ranged stun is much better), cats have a VERY slow paw autoattack which rarely hits enemies in pvp - mostly used them for an F2 skill to get off some burst if it lands with that huge windup, birds.... That peck into spinning in a circle to give swiftness and die, the pigs do terrible damage and have ultra slow attacks, and the bears can hit but also is tied to extremely low damage (the brown bear should have a shake it off similar to warriors, aoe stun break, other bears have garbage F2's).

Please, please, please, Anet read this and help with the pets. We would love to have more variety in use. I personally would love to have a drake companion, brownbear, moa's, or sand lion (this pet just needs a lower cooldown on its F2 and a faster auto attack). I'm sure other ranger players have their favourites and use them when they run about PvE but know that they'd be better off using the HoT or PoF pets. Again this is not covering all the issues with pets but just a few to give an idea of why they need to be looked at.

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