Balance patch - when?

[Nimon.7840]

I really hoped the the somewhat announced balance patch would have been bigger.But it was a really small patch only affecting spvp.

So when will balance issues in wvw be addressed?

For example one big issue right now is still guard.

• firebrand is the only good stability sourceIf you don't want to change this with the current specs that we have in the game right now, I hope this gets addressed with the new expansion (hopefully there will be new elite specs)And since firebrand saw some nerfs, that's fine for now.

But how come, that guard is the class with the most viable (zerg) builds in wvw right now.There's 5 maybe even 6 viable builds to play right now.Other classes don't have that luxury.

Core guard:

• best power dps in the game right now (ranged dmg). Much easier to play than ele and does the same amount of damage
• can be played as condi as well. Not as good as the power version, because scrapper exists, but still extremely good in public zergs when the enemy doesn't have a scrapper in every group
• heal/support. Yes not as common as the other two versions, but if you don't have path of fire and want to play support guard it's not bad.

Dragonhunter:

• condi. Same as core guard
• power. Can be extremely good in melee ball oriented comps. Best dps spec for that comp - a lot better than rev even though you need someone else to provide the offensives boons that rev provides.

6 viable/very good builds to play.

Let's now compare guard to other classes. And I won't be using my main class for that comparison.

Revenant:

• two builds: power herald and power renegade

Engi:

• two builds: power and support scrapper

Ele:

• one build: support (ok, we could argue about power being good as well, but since power core guard is so much easier to play I don't want to list power ele here)

Normally I wouldn't ask for nerfs to guard, normally I would ask for buffs for other classes. but that changed with the February balance patch.Since dmg overall got reduced, I doubt that we want to get back to the "I can oneshot everything" state of the game.

So I have to ask: guard nerf when?Or if you want to have guard as a measurement: buffs to the other classes - when? - but not just buffs to already viable builds but buffs to builds that aren't really good right now.

Btw. This is not a guard discussion. This is a thread about balance in WvW in general!

[Fish.2769]

I agree. Nerf Guard, give us access to Superspeed, Alacrity and Stealth please.

[KrHome.1920]

Versatility should not be confused with imbalance. While guardian offers a lot of playstyles (which every class should!), none of them is currently obviously broken. The game has far worse outliers.

In terms of damage guardian is favored against squishy builds, because it has an unlimited damage mitigation at the beginning of the fight, but then its defense drops even harder than glass soulbeast as it has nowhere near the mobility and kiting potential. So everything that can not sustain strong pressure for about 5 (core) to 10 (dragonhunter) seconds has a problem when encountering guardian. Healbrand can't even sustain a 1v1 against a competent damage dealer for more than 30 seconds, while scrapper and tempest can do this almost forever. So stacking these two (doesn't matter whether it is a team of 5 or 50 players) is a lot more cheesy than stacking guardian.

Guardian is actually in a pretty balanced state.

[gloflop.3510]

You look at it from the zerg/blob perspective. I can only tell you to be happy. I prefer roaming and there the class balance is a total pain. With class x I can beat class y but I get beaten by class z. Of course there needs to be a player with some skill on the other side but I guess you got my point. Classes determine more the outcome of a fight than skill.

[Aeolus.3615]

@Nimon.7840

The group stbaility isnt guard alone, its the duo from jalis and FB's... both are ment to be used in diferent ocasions.

I would say problem in the FB is the minstrell stats, its a bit much for the perma boon tanky meta.

Even on ministrell with the perma group might and fury the user on miinstrell with still have 2k-2.2k pwoer and at least 25-30% crit chance depend mtraits and boon.

As i always said issue on the game is the inital class design.. it becomes a mess soon or later.... since classes are not well putted together towards skill and balance.

[Valelutra.9128]

I don’t think we’re getting a balance patch for a while, or at least not a meaningful one. But I do think there are some classes/traits that need to be looked at.

Scrapper - purity of purpose is hard to ever beat. Same for stealth access. In a group of 20 you’re likely going to have 3-4 scrappers and maybe 1 tempest for overflow condi clear. There’s no reason to every not take another class because why remove condis when you can replace them with boons no matter how short lived those boons are. Stealth is also difficult to do away with, but access to it is still seen on a couple of other classes, so its less egregious. Just bring a daredevil or two who are on duty deleting enemy domes and another smoke field and get your blasts in order.

Revenant - damage modifiers stacking. If you’ve got a good rev, they will stack their damage modifiers and still burst out a ton of damage in a tiny space of time. Swift termination, forceful persistence, rising tide, ferocious aggression, unsuspecting strikes, destructive impulses, targeted destruction, reinforced potency, scholar runes, and force sigils are all somewhat passive damage modifiers you can add into the rev’s damage. Tack that onto how you can stack that on top of burst of strength into dwarf’s vengeful hammers which bumps your forceful persistence into overdrive. Then road, CoR, PS? One rev can easily create multiple instant downs. It’s good that damage went down in February, but what it mostly did separate the good revs from the meh revs. And it forced them to take all the damage modifiers they can in order to not hit like a wet noodle, preventing potential build diversity. And that’s on top of them contributing to the boon overload. Also give back the stunbreak on legend swap and some stab on centaur to make a support spec viable pls (jk, idk if it’d be worth it, tablet still janky)

Necro - damage wise they seem to be in a good place, as anyone who stands on wells should probably be punished. Same for strips/corrupts. But if purity of purpose is reworked and other boons are toned down this may need to be lowered as well in order to not become unbalanced. I do hear core necro needs to be nerfed some for roaming, so maybe there’s some offending traits that could be touched there. Unending corruption is a bit strong too, but it’s normally the strongest against blobby groups of pugs where you’re most likely to get a ton of strips without as much direct return pressure or strips.

Tempest - 10 man shouts are really strong. I get that this class is overshadowed by engies, but still 10 man anything is too strong as a general rule.

Guard - still the only reliable access to stab. Rev roads are okay but you have to stand on them. Engi light dome stab is okay but has a long cooldown. If cc’s aren’t going to be touched then maybe spread some stability sharing around?

Warrior - still in a weird spot. Some groups try to get some damage from it, some try to make it support. It doesn’t seem to have enough to make it shine either way. The cleanses are bursty, but not sustained. And the healing isn’t really in the same league as engi or ele. The damage is pretty much only melee. (Berserker can do good damage but why not bring rev which can burst almost as good but from further away). But groups are kinda forced to bring spellbreakers for the dome/break enchantments. Which is fine, but unless you’re melee balling all the time, their utility kinda suffers. I’d like to see a better balance into one of the two roles, more healing/better sustain or some damage options that help the group during non-melee times.

Thief, ranger, Mesmer - all of these have specific tech style builds where you wouldn’t really want to bring more than one or two of, which is fine but means that they aren’t going to make up a significant portion of a group comp. It’d be nice to see if there were changes that could make them a bit more commonplace. Things to help with their individual weaknesses to bring them into competition with the current meta would be good.

[devastoscz.9851]

I think we should push for other classes to have the versatility that guard, not the other way around. As it stands, none of the specs mentioned is overpowered. The only real problem is that there's no other stab bot in the game; just give us 1-2 more (different class) builds that can overlap in this role and we'll be dandy.

[Smoosh.2718]

I'm still waiting for a balance patch to come to the game since that Feb patch... Oh? There was one you say? On the 13th you say? Could have fooled me, I honestly couldnt tell.

[TheGrimm.5624]

@Strages.2950 said:I think we should push for other classes to have the versatility that guard, not the other way around. As it stands, none of the specs mentioned is overpowered. The only real problem is that there's no other stab bot in the game; just give us 1-2 more (different class) builds that can overlap in this role and we'll be dandy.

Agree, we seem to just keep leaning towards remove build diversity versus increasing the number of viable ones each class has. If removing options is balance, lets go without balance. I am still looking back to one of the balancing patches in HoT where suddenly we had builds all over the place on all classes. If people are able to use , 'oh that's meta' than something has gone wrong, IMO.

[Solanum.6983]

When? If anytime this year I'd guess November but who even knows anymore... It'd probably be minimal anyway.

[Helicity.3416]

I think they just need to bite the bullet and make Staff ele cast times much quicker.

It feels to me like those cast times belong in an older, less mobile, era of the game and have not been looked at since.

[Yasai.3549]

Rev road has way better Stab uptime than guard tho

[Justine.6351]

@Helicity.3416 said:I think they just need to bite the bullet and make Staff ele cast times much quicker.

It feels to me like those cast times belong in an older, less mobile, era of the game and have not been looked at since.

I think they need to nerf lava font again :p

[jpsssss.7530]

Why Nerf Guard, when we could buff more classes so build viabilities go up?

[anduriell.6280]

@jpsssss.7530 said:Why Nerf Guard, when we could buff more classes so build viabilities go up?

Power creep. We don't want that.

[aspirine.6852]

Just nerf sustain and nerf condi bunker stats... Perhaps nerf some more but I forgot :)

[primatos.5413]

@anduriell.6280 said:

@jpsssss.7530 said:Why Nerf Guard, when we could buff more classes so build viabilities go up?

Power creep. We don't want that.

Power will jump up again with new xpac like at the ones before :)

[TheGrimm.5624]

@jpsssss.7530 said:Why Nerf Guard, when we could buff more classes so build viabilities go up?

This ^^^^. I will take power creep if it means build diversity.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@"Nimon.7840" said:For example one big issue right now is still guard.

• firebrand is the only good stability sourceIf you don't want to change this with the current specs that we have in the game right now, I hope this gets addressed with the new expansion (hopefully there will be new elite specs)And since firebrand saw some nerfs, that's fine for now.As was noted in another recent thread: CMC has actually spoken about this topic. They are looking into improving stability sharing on other support classes. At the same time he stated that they want the Guardian to be the best stability share. So they may look to close the gap but they are not looking to equalize. I guess that could be a valid topic to discuss but I think most players are not unhappy with such a situation. Whenever that discussion comes up people also have a tendency to grossly undervalue what the other support classes bring to the table. You often see "Guards have the most healing" repeated when this is objectively wrong and both Scrappers and Tempests have superior outgoing heals, superior outgoing cleanses and bring something else to the table (superspeed, stealth, auras, better hybriding and control). The norm or meta, for whatever it is, has been to combine a Guardian with a secondary support from another class since HoT. Two Firebrands are considered clearly inferior to any such pair.

The other discussion that lingers here, that I have a feeling you are trying to bring up again, is that the meta is still range-dominated even if the february changes closed that gap a bit. While other classes could get more stab share and melee classes would benefit as a result, that isn't necessarily a problem given the mentioned overarching balance between range and melee. However, anyone who argues for simple Guardian nerfs to result in less overall stability share is arguing from a selfish and dishonest position that will only lead to worse overarching balance between range and melee, with worse balance between classes at large scale overall because melee classes have issues filling roles as melee damage already (there is a reason the most common Warrior build runs Minstrel stats and that is a quite telling example of where the balance lies).

So let me lash out in general:

We get it, Scourges loved being OP. Other classes getting free bags from range loved that Scourges were OP. It was however bad for the game. If not just for the sheer ridiculousness of the balance, then more importantly because it made commanders quit the game. Pirateship metas have always made commanders quit the game because it simply isn't fun leading people if they do not let themselves be lead and they just farm bags in a cloud around the tag when the tag is trying to do something. Pirateships stink for commanders, it stinks for classes that primarily are built for melee and range classes are not as limited or excluded in the reverse. How many times does that need to be repeated?

I would have preferred even more choice words about it because it is frankly getting quite annoying with these kinds of remarks comming from selfish players who take commanders and the content they generate for granted when the entire mode suffers from a general decline of that kind of quality content. Those players somehow assume that someone else will shield them from damage and let them farm - and do not even aknowledge what would happen to them if all the support and leadership just gave up to run mirrors and large scale content devolved to cloud vs. cloud norms. I can bet a dollar or two on that most backline farmers would not enjoy alot of the 8-year veterans stepping down from leadership and base necessities for composed squad-squad content to fire back at 1200yds.

If the OP did not mean it in this way, that is fine and fair, but I have seen enough impulsive threads or comments from various people in them that just overlook these very real overarching problems (that actually affects them too) that are far more important than some individual players' sense of fairness.

At the end of the day, commanders or any players who opt to play support do not generally want to play support. They do it to support the content creators. If they do enjoy leading and playing support roles they only really do that in an aggressive and somewhat competetive environment, they enjoy that specific content it creates and they do not do it in order to support a bunch of bag farmers' selfish clouding crap or casual friendliness. That is the possibly harsh reality.

But how come, that guard is the class with the most viable (zerg) builds in wvw right now.There's 5 maybe even 6 viable builds to play right now.Other classes don't have that luxury.That classes have viable builds, some more than others, isn't a problem. That is looking at balance from a perspective of what a commander asks for and becomming jealous that someone else is more appraised and important. That is a poor starting point into discussing balance for several reasons. That classes doesn't have viable roles or are shut out of roles due to balance, roles that they should arguably hold a priority over, those would be valid balance concerns. If, for example, Elementalists would be routinely kicked from squads in favour of Guardians, that would be a problem. When Elementalists works in tandem with Guardians (and one may be favoured over another based on how a squad may look at any time), that is not a problem.

The reality is that the vast majority of pickup squads out there does not have the luxury of discussing the balance of FIrebrand, Scrapper and Tempest because convincing people to give up WXP and bags in order to add cohesion to a group is difficult and all those squads struggle to fill 20/50 spots with any form of support, let alone any of the three primary-regarded support builds.

Core guard:

• best power dps in the game right now (ranged dmg). Much easier to play than ele and does the same amount of damage
• can be played as condi as well. Not as good as the power version, because scrapper exists, but still extremely good in public zergs when the enemy doesn't have a scrapper in every groupThis is wrong. The Revenant is still considered the best ranged power/burst DPS. The core Guardian has sailed up there among the best 3-5 options however and that is actually an issue worth discussing. It is not as shut-and-closed as claiming it is the best, overpowered or needs to be nerfed, but it is a valid concern and topic to discuss.

It should also be noted that it has a certain underlying benefit to it as well: If people understand what queues do and understand the issues commanders have to motivate enough players to give up their personal bags and WXP for the good of the squad and play support - it is quite useful to have alternate builds for such classes so they can fill spots as players drop out or compromise and rotate roles to share the burden. This goes for Elementalists as well. It is quite useful to have at least some overrepresentation of players who can swap between support Tempest and backline Weaver with the click of a button.

Btw. This is not a guard discussion. This is a thread about balance in WvW in general!Like you said, this is not a Guardian discussion so you should then not take my responses as debating the balance of the Guardian but rather the large-scale balance of WvW overall. The issue with your post and this thread that I am trying to address is that most of your concerns are not actual balance concerns. They are not problems from a balance standpoint and rather something you consider problems based on what you hear, how you interprete that or how you preferred something that was more favourable to you, at the expense of the actual balance of large-scale content in WvW. That is my concern and why I decided to waste some time to reply. Though in all honesty, I feel more and more like a glutton for punishment posting here.

[Arolandis.8360]

I don't want them nerfing classes anymore. Just give buffs to classes that need it. The game gets less and less fun the more they nerf things so stop asking for them (to the people that are).

The power nerf was the only good nerf imo. Also when I say that classes need buffs I don't mean raw damage buffs. Just bring all the underperforming Utility traits and Weapon Skills that are lacking up to par and fun. Utility slots are so precious that anything that's ineffective just doesn't get used. Making them effective doesn't mean they'll be overpowered. A lot of people cry "OP!" when they see a buff but that's not how balance works.

We all want more build diversity but it's not going to happen if everything's nerfed into oblivion.

[Widmo.3186]

Ill be honest, dont expect any decent balance patch before new expansion....After that either, but thats another story XD

[bambi.6214]

We literally just had a balance patch half a year ago, in Feb/March, and a few quick hot-fixes along the way. Meanwhile all PvE had gotten were 2 new gigantic maps, a new fractal and big chunk of PvE story.My God, WvW players just can't be pleased!

[lare.5129]

on wvw you can take any build on any class and get fun. So you not need wait some "balance patch"

[bambi.6214]

@"lare.5129" said:on wvw you can take any build on any class and get fun. So you not need wait some "balance patch"

I'm running out of new things to try tho :disappointed: And I'm tired of Winds of Disenchantment dictating all the fights...

[Nimon.7840]

@Samug.6512 said:

@"lare.5129" said:on wvw you can take any build on any class and get fun. So you not need wait some "balance patch"

I'm running out of new things to try tho :disappointed: And I'm tired of Winds of Disenchantment dictating all the fights...

Same here. For someone that has as much fun as I do, in creating new builds for their favorite class.Balance patches are the biggest kind of content anet can bring (well ne especs, but that's for the expansion).If there's nothing changing for a long time, it's like not getting new content, which makes me tired of playing.

As a necro main I even tried to make blood bank work. But this trait, even though it only got introduced recently, is one of the worst grandmaster traits of all classes.

Instead of such a lackluster trait they could have introduced something else, to make scourge a viable support build for zergs.For example they could have made the trait remove all damage from shade abilities, while giving them new supportive aspects, like boons.

It feels like every single patch build diversity for necro goes down a bit.

Just an example:Last patch: wells trait got removed for blood bank.While the wells trait could be played by players that had sustain problems, it's now gone and blood magic as a trait line that could be played in zergs, is not viable anymore, while the previous good trait got replaced by an absolutely useless one (yes it's useless on any necro build)

Dread trait got reworked. But did it get better? No it's just another meme trait. Before the rework you could meme with it, trying to hit people really hard with one autoattack from core shroud or trying to do a lot of damage with reaper 3+4. Now it's just.... I have a build with it that I play when roaming (core power) but it's basically a meme build as well. You won't kill any good roamers with it.