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Balance changes 7/7/2020


otto.5684

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Guardian"Feel my Wrath!" is a very prominent skill for party support right now but we feel it's overperforming a bit. We're reducing the party quickness a bit, but compensating the guardian by increasing their personal quickness gain. We're also improving a few of the weaker utility skills to try and make them more appealing in all game modes.

Symbol of Vengeance: Reduced the duration of cripple inflicted from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.Chapter 1: Searing Spell: Reduced the damage dealt by this skill by 14% (1.1 coefficient to 0.95) in PvE only. Reduced the duration of burning inflicted from 3 seconds to 2.5 seconds.Chapter 2: Igniting Burst: Reduced the duration of burning inflicted from 6 seconds to 5 seconds.Chapter 1: Desert Bloom: Reduced the base healing of this skill by 18% in PvE only. Increased the effect of healing power on this skill by 15% (0.96 to 1.1 coefficient) in PvE only.Chapter 4: Shining River: Reduced the swiftness duration from 5 seconds to 4 seconds. Reduced the base healing by 16% (0.0578 to 0.05) and the effect of healing power on this skill by 14% (0.26 to 0.23 coefficient) in PvE only."Feel My Wrath!": Reduced recharge from 35 seconds to 30 seconds. This skill now grants 6 seconds of quickness to the guardian and 3 seconds to other nearby allies. It previously granted 5 seconds of quickness to all affected characters.Zealous Blade: Fixed a bug that caused improper functionality with combo finishers."Hold the Line": Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds."Retreat!": This skill now uses ammunition with 5 seconds between activations and a 30-second count recharge.Judge's Intervention: Reduced cooldown from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.Litany of Wrath: Increased damage to healing conversion from 25% to 33%.Leap of Faith: Increased base healing from 234 to 1,053 in PvP and WvW.Mighty Blow: Reduced cooldown from 10 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW.Glacial Blow: Reduced cooldown from 10 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW.Whirling Wrath: Increased melee strike power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.4 in PvP and WvW. Reduced projectile power coefficient from 0.25 to 0.1 in PvP and WvW.Pure of Heart: Reduced healing coefficient from 0.3 to 0.2 in WvW only.

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Don't you love how Anet thinks? Who in their right mind would take Retreat / Hold the Line even with FULL 5 seconds shorter cooldown? Hammer is still useless - even if you make its skills 3 second cooldown - no one will run it in PVP. Same applies to GS. Anet clearly doesn't even play their own game.

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The Feel My Wrath change should have been compensated with a minor greater duration on the mantra of potence. This would discourage stacking dragonhunters but make using the mantra more meaningful.

The changes to Retreat and Hold the Line are minor improvements overall ; while Pure of Heart gets a shave on support firebrands running the Honor Traitline.

@Mea.5491 said:As a Burnbrand, I'm not happy about the Burning duration nerfs on some skills. 3 to 2.5 seconds, what's the point of this? Changing it for the sake of changing something.

It's because while power quickness benches about as much as a alacrity renegade the condi quickness benches higher.

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@Hagion.1086 said:Man...I just wanted to they change/buff core virtues...

I don’t foresee this ever happening. Not cuz they do not need a buff. But this was requested for over 5 years now and it did not happen. And my confedience in Anet monitoring and/or fixing anything is nonexistent.

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@ollbirtan.2915 said:Don't you love how Anet thinks? Who in their right mind would take Retreat / Hold the Line even with FULL 5 seconds shorter cooldown? Hammer is still useless - even if you make its skills 3 second cooldown - no one will run it in PVP. Same applies to GS. Anet clearly doesn't even play their own game.

Just an observation that while the change to Retreat (making it an Ammo based skill) isn't hugely dramatic it could have an interesting effect for the support type FB in that it gives them another on demand access to Aegis(and that without having to resort to a tome and in addition Mantra of Solace) granted Pure of Heart's healing has been reduced in WvW but I think it still could helpful.

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@RUNICBLACK.7630 said:

@ollbirtan.2915 said:Don't you love how Anet thinks? Who in their right mind would take Retreat / Hold the Line even with FULL 5 seconds shorter cooldown? Hammer is still useless - even if you make its skills 3 second cooldown - no one will run it in PVP. Same applies to GS. Anet clearly doesn't even play their own game.

Just an observation that while the change to Retreat (making it an Ammo based skill) isn't hugely dramatic it could have an interesting effect for the support type FB in that it gives them another on demand access to Aegis(and that without having to resort to a tome and in addition Mantra of Solace) granted Pure of Heart's healing has been reduced in WvW but I think it still could helpful.

Yes, it could see use. There are many skills that are used that are not that good. My point is anet 'balance' is a mess and for guard this time it's a lazy cooldown reduction on shouts (omglol), and unnecessary nerfs to PVE healing + ridiculous FMW 'rework'. FMW was fine after the Feb patch with reduced duration.

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so they started to divide personal and party buffs, so ANET now repair your mistake and bring back mantra boons back(especially heal and quickness one) before the nerf and divide it by party and personal usability. They are garbage still.

P.S. I expected buffs to spirit weapons by 5%, you didn't touch them in a long time. But we know you don't play guardians, its class for casuals anyways and not for serious pvp or wvw stuff.

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@"Armen.1483" said:Guardian definitely needs some nerfs. It is the most played class, wherever you go there are overpowered guardians. I'd say it deserves more nerfs so people can start considering playing other classes too. Enough is enough.

Well.. beside the a slight nerf to FB dps not much has changed. FmW is a buff outside of group PvE. Even there, assuming you a running mostly a full guardian dps squad, I do not think the difference will be noticeable. The sharing is down, but considering a 1 sec increased duration for self and 5 sec lower CD, I still think 5 dps guardian comp is still possible. The uptime of quickness on 5 guardian players, without any boon duration, goes from 71% to 60%. On 4 players from 57% to 50%. This is marginal stuff, and buff everywhere outside of group PvE. I do no think Anet thought this through, which is a trend.

As for guardian being most played class, it is not a performance related thing. It has to do more with lore and aesthetics. People like to play "paladin" archetypes. And has great PvE build diversity. Guardian is probably OP in WvW zerg setting. Outside of that it is either good (PvE) or mediocre (sPvP).

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These changes do absolutely nothing. I will still never run Great Sword, Feel my Wrath, Hold the line nor Retreat. These "buffs" do nothing when the actual functionality of these needed changes, not minor adjustments. The only good change I saw was Litany, the rest were a joke.

Where are the trait overhauls like what Necro got? I'd bet 100g that Guardian has, overall, the most and WORST traits to choose from.

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@otto.5684 said:

@"Armen.1483" said:Guardian definitely needs some nerfs. It is the most played class, wherever you go there are overpowered guardians. I'd say it deserves more nerfs so people can start considering playing other classes too. Enough is enough.

Well.. beside the a slight nerf to FB dps not much has changed. FmW is a buff outside of group PvE. Even there, assuming you a running mostly a full guardian dps squad, I do not think the difference will be noticeable. The sharing is down, but considering a 1 sec increased duration for self and 5 sec lower CD, I still think 5 dps guardian comp is still possible. The uptime of quickness on 5 guardian players, without any boon duration, goes from 71% to 60%. On 4 players from 57% to 50%. This is marginal stuff, and buff everywhere outside of group PvE. I do no think Anet thought this through, which is a trend.

As for guardian being most played class, it is not a performance related thing. It has to do more with lore and aesthetics. People like to play "paladin" archetypes. And has great PvE build diversity. Guardian is probably OP in WvW zerg setting. Outside of that it is either good (PvE) or mediocre (sPvP).

It's also one of the most stable professions. It gets tweaked every so often to be sure, but you could take a pre-HoT core build, or an immediately post-release dragonhunter or firebrand build, and there's a good chance it'll still work (I think the only one that was destroyed utterly was the one based around spamming aegis with Tome of Courage to trigger aegis traits). They may not be optimal, but they'll still work.

Try saying that about, say, Mesmer.

In an environment where ascended (and even some exotic stats) is a significant investment, this makes guardian a good choice because you're not likely to have gone to all that investment only to have it invalidated in the next patch. It also helps that it has versatility to fill a variety of roles, and some of the gear can potentially be shifted to warrior (banners) or rev (alacrity) if the group needs it. Once you've got a guardian going, then you can start working on a more 'exotic' option on the basis that if said option gets an overhaul which compromises it's viability and/or enjoyability, guardian is there as a fallback.

So if you're basing your opinion on the balance state of guardians on how many you see in high-end PvE or even WvW, you may be looking at people who are starting off with guardian because it's a safer investment.

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@draxynnic.3719 said:

@"Armen.1483" said:Guardian definitely needs some nerfs. It is the most played class, wherever you go there are overpowered guardians. I'd say it deserves more nerfs so people can start considering playing other classes too. Enough is enough.

Well.. beside the a slight nerf to FB dps not much has changed. FmW is a buff outside of group PvE. Even there, assuming you a running mostly a full guardian dps squad, I do not think the difference will be noticeable. The sharing is down, but considering a 1 sec increased duration for self and 5 sec lower CD, I still think 5 dps guardian comp is still possible. The uptime of quickness on 5 guardian players, without any boon duration, goes from 71% to 60%. On 4 players from 57% to 50%. This is marginal stuff, and buff everywhere outside of group PvE. I do no think Anet thought this through, which is a trend.

As for guardian being most played class, it is not a performance related thing. It has to do more with lore and aesthetics. People like to play "paladin" archetypes. And has great PvE build diversity. Guardian is probably OP in WvW zerg setting. Outside of that it is either good (PvE) or mediocre (sPvP).

It's also one of the most stable professions. It gets tweaked every so often to be sure, but you could take a pre-HoT core build, or an immediately post-release dragonhunter or firebrand build, and there's a good chance it'll still work (I think the only one that was destroyed utterly was the one based around spamming aegis with Tome of Courage to trigger aegis traits). They may not be optimal, but they'll still work.

Try saying that about, say, Mesmer.

In an environment where ascended (and even some exotic stats) is a significant investment, this makes guardian a good choice because you're not likely to have gone to all that investment only to have it invalidated in the next patch. It also helps that it has versatility to fill a variety of roles, and some of the gear can potentially be shifted to warrior (banners) or rev (alacrity) if the group needs it. Once you've got a guardian going, then you can start working on a more 'exotic' option on the basis that if said option gets an overhaul which compromises it's viability and/or enjoyability, guardian is there as a fallback.

So if you're basing your opinion on the balance state of guardians on how many you see in high-end PvE or even WvW, you may be looking at people who are starting off with guardian because it's a safer investment.

I agree with everything but the point about ascended cost. 10h of medium efficient gaming like finishing your bounty achiev isn't a huge investment of time/effort for an endgame gear set.

Also, I picked guardian because of how gs4 looks.

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@draxynnic.3719 Indeed. Guardian is probably your safest bet in PvE. It has multiple meta builds, of which some go back years ago. And I do not foresee that changing. I think guardian is a good role model of where classes need to be PvE wise. Nothing out performing (maybe FmW still), yet everything is fairly strong, works in most PvE situation, good support (even on dps builds) and multiple viable builds. That does not make it OP, just well designed. And, there is room for improvements. Many things do need improvements. And that is what I look for in patch notes, but usually nothing.

As for PvP. Do not care much anymore. The PvP issues are far deeper than meta balancing. And sure as shit these minuscule hammer and GS changes will not make any power build sPvP viable.

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I'm a little puzzled at the PvE damage nerfs. Condi Firebrand wasn't edging out other condi builds for a spot in Fractals because it was OP, but because the rest of them are crap. Scourge is tolerated because of Epi, strips/corrupt and barrier, but any other condi build would just be better off as power. The problem is how Fractals work and how long the ramp up time is on non-burning condition builds - not that FB was OP.

In Raids where the boss lives longer and burst isn't always king there are lots of condi builds that are competitive. My only guess is that they wanted to nerf the baseline damage a support firebrand can dish out, but who cares, since that isn't why FB is taken as a support.

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@jan.7915 said:

@"Armen.1483" said:Guardian definitely needs some nerfs. It is the most played class, wherever you go there are overpowered guardians. I'd say it deserves more nerfs so people can start considering playing other classes too. Enough is enough.

Well.. beside the a slight nerf to FB dps not much has changed. FmW is a buff outside of group PvE. Even there, assuming you a running mostly a full guardian dps squad, I do not think the difference will be noticeable. The sharing is down, but considering a 1 sec increased duration for self and 5 sec lower CD, I still think 5 dps guardian comp is still possible. The uptime of quickness on 5 guardian players, without any boon duration, goes from 71% to 60%. On 4 players from 57% to 50%. This is marginal stuff, and buff everywhere outside of group PvE. I do no think Anet thought this through, which is a trend.

As for guardian being most played class, it is not a performance related thing. It has to do more with lore and aesthetics. People like to play "paladin" archetypes. And has great PvE build diversity. Guardian is probably OP in WvW zerg setting. Outside of that it is either good (PvE) or mediocre (sPvP).

It's also one of the most stable professions. It gets tweaked every so often to be sure, but you could take a pre-HoT core build, or an immediately post-release dragonhunter or firebrand build, and there's a good chance it'll still work (I think the only one that was destroyed utterly was the one based around spamming aegis with Tome of Courage to trigger aegis traits). They may not be optimal, but they'll still work.

Try saying that about, say, Mesmer.

In an environment where ascended (and even some exotic stats) is a significant investment, this makes guardian a good choice because you're not likely to have gone to all that investment only to have it invalidated in the next patch. It also helps that it has versatility to fill a variety of roles, and some of the gear can potentially be shifted to warrior (banners) or rev (alacrity) if the group needs it. Once you've got a guardian going, then you can start working on a more 'exotic' option on the basis that if said option gets an overhaul which compromises it's viability and/or enjoyability, guardian is there as a fallback.

So if you're basing your opinion on the balance state of guardians on how many you see in high-end PvE or even WvW, you may be looking at people who are starting off with guardian because it's a safer investment.

I agree with everything but the point about ascended cost. 10h of medium efficient gaming like finishing your bounty achiev isn't a huge investment of time/effort for an endgame gear set.

Also, I picked guardian because of how gs4 looks.

Different people have different ideas of what is expensive. For some people, 10h of farming rather than spending their gaming time doing something they enjoy more is a significant investment. Not an insurmountable one, to be sure, but enough that you don't want to do that and then have it invalidated in the next balance patch.

At the very least, it's a contributing factor that can hinder some people in picking up new builds as the meta shifts, which means that builds that have been relatively stable for a while are likely to be over-represented. (Another contributing factor along similar lines is that if the build remains stable, you're not having to constantly re-learn your rotations.)

@otto.5684 said:@draxynnic.3719 Indeed. Guardian is probably your safest bet in PvE. It has multiple meta builds, of which some go back years ago. And I do not foresee that changing. I think guardian is a good role model of where classes need to be PvE wise. Nothing out performing (maybe FmW still), yet everything is fairly strong, works in most PvE situation, good support (even on dps builds) and multiple viable builds. That does not make it OP, just well designed. And, there is room for improvements. Many things do need improvements. And that is what I look for in patch notes, but usually nothing.

Yeah. it hasn't changed much in part because it was well designed to begin with, and in part because it doesn't try to play in niche playstyles to begin with (see, again, mesmer. I like mesmers, but by Lyssa, there's a profession that seems to be almost completely different every year or so...)

One of the things I consider ironic here is that condi firebrand DPS isn't all that huge. It's competitive when you have allies to add Ashes of the Just to, but most professions can bench higher and warrior doesn't fall short by much (necromancer falls short by a lot, which is a necromancer problem rather than a guardian problem, although they do have Epidemic). Firebrigade probably does sacrifice less DPS overall than chrono, but it doesn't seem to be a huge difference and sometimes there are advantages to having both buffs in one package.

Power dragonhunter is pretty high up there, but that's not what they're hitting now.

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