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Were you happy with this balance patch? (April 23rd)


Yannir.4132

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From the classes I most play in PvE and PvP.

Warrior, the berserker change is not good. Things where better before. It needs some changes, but removing bursts entirely outside berserker is an absolute no no. I also dunno who is the genius who made GS burst, under berserker, the highest hitting skill for warrior... Performance wise, power damage slightly increased and condi damage seems lower.

Guardian had 2-3 good changes, but largely inconsequential, for a class with no viable builds outside the PoF elite in PvP.

Rev, ancient echo is cool, but CD is too long. Core rev is still not a viable for much. Condi rev in PvP is still unplayable. And renegade remains dead in PvP.

Mesmer, no change at all PvE wise. To be fair, it has multiple PvE viable setups.

Outperform builds in sPvP were not touched, and the balance is way off. No condi build outside scourge is PvP viable. Engi, warrior, rangers and FB completely dominate PvP. No new builds or additional class viability.

The balance patch failed in balancing anything. And the new redesigned stuff were mediocrely done.

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Their change to ventari traitline is actually a healing nerf to revenant. The healing orbs have a marginal radius and heal for nothing, 300-400 at best each, and 6 skill received a large nerf around 30% in throughput.

In exchange for that, healing revenants lost their only access to regeneration boon, a boon which ticked for 700-1k healing.

It's a huge healing throughput loss for a useless gimmick. The staff also lost a source of CC for a totally unremarkable 1.2k heal in full Harrier's gear.

These people don't test their changes numerically at all.

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Yes, the ventari changes are underwhelming at best. Staff changes are pretty terrible...

As a rev player, I'm kind of disappointed too that the new f2 skill doesn't work underwater.

I also find the berserker changes thematically good, but they messed it up too sadly.

Overall, I'm happy with the changes, but there is a serious lack of polish.

I'm hoping some of these can be addressed soon, but I doubt they will give ventari back Regen, and also the master salvation trait, should have been a grandmaster choice or something. It only benefits those running centaur stance, and this was an opportunity to make salvation viable for both healing builds and not.

Anyway, glad to see some updates, but they really need to set more clear objectives with these updates. It doesn't make sense to revamp berserker for instance, but indirectly nerf the damage potential. It wasn't over performing.

Anyway, my 2 cents.

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Your typical, run-of-the-mill patch where the currently "overpowered" Mesmer spec gets its PvP nerfs because it's obviously the spec that had the most people crying about it, while changing nothing about the other broken specs.

For PvE, meh. I hope they don't bring Support Rev into raid viability. One-Button ResidentSleeper classes shouldn't be in the game.

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@"Yannir.4132" said:Nitpicks:

  • No buffs to DH Longbow
  • No meaningful ele buffs
  • Druid and Daredevil "trade-offs" seem arbitrary

Generally, people seem to have too high expectations for these patches. Or are mine too low?

I think Anet balance changes at the end of HoT where on point. PoF had major balance mishaps. Compounded with the decision to reduce condi stacking and increasing duration had significant ramifications that Anet till today did not address.

Also, boon stacking and boon RIP power creep needs major work. Anet noted this issue, but all they did afterwards was a slap on the wrist to some of the offender builds, with very limited impact.

Then 3 patches ago, Anet started aggressively gutting build diversity. Probably unintentionally. Guardian and Mesmer had builds outright removed/nerfed to unplayable. But they are not they only classes. Anet also has been dicking too much in thief builds, again, without direction or success. Only making things worse.

Then changes that should have never made it to live. The decision to buff scrapper sustainability, which already had strong sustain. Giving thief 3 sec stealth on dodge, etc.. These decisions are game breaking and should have never even made out of planning stage.

I think there has been a reshuffle in the class balance devs (at least on the top) over the last few month and the new person(s) on top does not understand much.

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I think druid is where it should be now in terms of power level relative to other supports.

Core rev update was nice and I wouldn't mind at all seeing core rev (for now until a new elite spec) be the full-dedicated power dps build for PvE with Herald being more boon Centric. I liked this.

Salvation changes to Revenant were good mostly. Finally made worth taking even if ur not running ventari with some self preservation buffs added to the.

Heal Revs can generate Vigour! Holy Kitten!

Berserker changes were really interesting and good idea of forcing more of a trade off between the banner builds and the full DPS builds without outright nerfing banners.

Nit picks:

Druid while in a good state balance wise, is now very homogenized and bland. The things it does being made more active, rather than passive without changing its new balance state would be the ideal. To elaborate: Instead of generating the same boons every other defensive support does, going back to short-duration unique defensive buffs would be better. EX: The new glyph blocking incoming conditions. Its strong, its niche. That's good design that doesn't overlap what other supports do. Offensive unqiue buffs should be the same way, instead of flat across-the-board damage modifiers, they should strong but only with specific things. This is how you create diversity.

Core rev, while in the right direction in regards to PvE, still lacks competitive damage due to Jalis Legend's damage nerf with the Inspiring reinforcement fix. It was needed, however, something like a rework to forced engagement (as i dont think it sees much use in any game mode) to give a stacking damage buff the longer it stays attached to the target could help.

Salvation changes amazing, but I dont like that regeneration was taken away from ventari. Swiftness is fine to be taken away, but regen should be put back on healing orbs with the vigour trait.

Berserker changes heavily nerfed the DPS output of the every build the ESpec used. The highest Power Berserker can reach right now is 32.5k which is good, but not enough for a full DPS build. It's an improvement, but its not enough and requires going against the intended way berserker was mean to be played, by staying in berserk mode. The power berserker DPS build only works by dropping in and out of berserk without extending it much because u need the Peak Performance buffs from the Strength Traitline. Thats not to say I think Peak Performance needs a nerf, but rather that extending Berserk Mode should be a DPS increase over using physical skills for peak performance.

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The patch, yesterday, was about giving more individuality and purpose to some profession builds. I do not think Arenanet is done doing that, either, so future balance updates may expand on this theme.

I like the intent to equalize elite builds with core builds. All professions should have core builds with purpose.

With such extensive changes being made to professions that are not Necromancer I expect some balance tuning after Arenanet has time to see how players adapt. That may be why there are no substantial adjustments to the meta-builds.

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Mixed feelings.+The Ventari / Core Rev stuff is actually pretty good. It still needs a little more small fixes but its definitely on the right track.+Reaper/Necro changes are decent+/- Berserker changes seem OK, though questionable. Its mostly a DPS loss, but I'm hopeful that it will get some slight numbers tweaks in the coming months-Daredevil bopped. I dont think the Steal change's tradeoff (unblockable) was good enough. If that range stays, it needs more punch to it.-Ele still needs MUCH more attention than this. Its a start at least.

  • Druid was flat nerfed (on top of ALL of the nerfs it had in previous years) PvP-wise. Its still a non-factor as a node-bunker and a support, and taking that glyph elite means you have no stability to avoid getting knocked around while using it. It helps PvE supports get more appreciation, I guess.
  • No nerfs or shaves to pressing matters (Scrapper barrier, Rampage)
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@"yusayu.3629" said:Your typical, run-of-the-mill patch where the currently "overpowered" Mesmer spec gets its PvP nerfs because it's obviously the spec that had the most people crying about it, while changing nothing about the other broken specs.

For PvE, meh. I hope they don't bring Support Rev into raid viability. One-Button ResidentSleeper classes shouldn't be in the game.

In my opinion, the Support type of Revenant should only be Herald, not Renegade. Renegade by theme wanted to be a DPS spec with a bit of offensive buff. Now it is seen as a support because of its F skill that grants almost perma alacrity.

Herald is a lot more fun and active than Renegade as a support.

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Berserker's changes are kinda nice for the theme, but only for it. In gameplay, it's lackluster and borderline inneffective.

Daredevil looks like a giant nerf. I seriously cannot understand what is the intentions of the devs with that spec.

Elementalists are still underperforming.

I like the changes to the support line of Revenant as well as the new F2 skill for core Revenant. Though in all honesty, they should completely rework Renegade to be the intended thematicaly DPS consi spec and let the Herald have the support job.

Core Revenant still lacks something though... I can't really explain what this is; it just doesn't have the "oomph" it should have to be played more than the Elite specs.

The changes to Druid looks a bit random. The real problem is the lack of things with Core Ranger and the overpowered Soulbeast needs to be toned down a bit.

Altough I admit I don't like fighting against any variation of Mesmer, I think they have overnerfed the class a bit, as I do play one sometimes. I always tought that reworking something was always better than simply reducing the numbers of something.

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I like the ideas behind, and the direction of this patch (i.e. elite spec tradeoffs), however, the actual changes and implementation leave much to be desired. I think the devs may just be using this as a starting point and will monitor how things go and tweak them as needed in the future. This patch at least gives me some hope that underperforming and overperforming specs and professions are on Anet's radar.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt because nothing I play or have trouble with has been buffed or nerfed in a major way.

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@Edge.8724 said:

@"yusayu.3629" said:Your typical, run-of-the-mill patch where the currently "overpowered" Mesmer spec gets its PvP nerfs because it's obviously the spec that had the most people crying about it, while changing nothing about the other broken specs.

For PvE, meh. I hope they don't bring Support Rev into raid viability. One-Button ResidentSleeper classes shouldn't be in the game.

In my opinion, the Support type of Revenant should only be Herald, not Renegade. Renegade by theme wanted to be a DPS spec with a bit of offensive buff. Now it is seen as a support because of its F skill that grants almost perma alacrity.

Herald is a lot more fun and active than Renegade as a support.

I do not think Anet, by design, intend for herald to be played as support (more like dps proving some support). Or Anet devs think it can be played as support, but they are not competent to understand that it cannot full in that role. I am not sure anymore ?

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I really like the idea of boosting core professions or nerfing specializations so that they are on par. There are several core builds that I enjoy more than the specialization ones, but it's impossible to justify playing them. And even as someone who owns all the expansions, it seems kind of exploitative to introduce paid content that makes you far stronger than players who do not own said content in a game that was never supposed to be about vertical power increases. I'm pretty anti-power creep on the whole, as well.

Unfortunately I don't think Anet went anywhere near far enough to make this a reality, and I'm not so keen on some of the specializations they decided to nerf first when others seem like better initial picks. Hopefully they continue farther down this path.

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