Upcoming Balance Notes

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

Elementalist

Not enough knowledge to comment on ele atm

Engineer

The refocus on barrier led us to the removal of the Rapid Regeneration trait, which was offering too much health recovery while remaining protected by barrier.

Good.

• Overload: Overloading now disables all toolbelt skills for its duration.

Woah. You sure?

Guardian

Seems fine, lets see what happens live.

Mesmer

In this update, we are revisiting the chronomancer specialization and adding a tradeoff in the form of new chronomancer shatters. These shatters behave differently than core mesmer shatters and gain extra properties in exchange for requiring more planning to use properly. Furthermore, we are reducing the number of shatters from 5 back down to 4 in order to match the other mesmer specializations.

Good.

Dune Cloak for the mirage specialization is also undergoing a minor rework to make it more utility focused in order to differentiate it from the more offense-focused Infinite Horizon and the defense-focused Elusive Mind.

Headtilt.

Not that I think Elusive mind should be able to stunbreak without penalty, but the way things stand now EM is too detrimental to take over IH at this time, given that you can dodge while stunned as a mirage and avoid follow ups anyway.

• Illusions: The illusion counter that tracks clones now decrements immediately when a shatter is cast rather than waiting for the clones to be destroyed.

visual spam ahoy.

• Speed of Sand: Instead of granting superspeed when dodging, this trait instead causes Mirage Cloak to grant +66% movement speed.

• Shatter Skills: Mesmers who are using the chronomancer specialization now receive new shatters that replace the four core shatters. Chronomancer shatters require at least 1 clone to activate, and unlike core shatters they do not replicate the shatter effect on the mesmer.

Good.

• Split Second: This skill replaces and inherits traits from Mind Wrack. This skill deals damage for each clone shattered with additional bonus damage when striking slowed foes.
• Rewinder: This skill replaces and inherits traits from Cry of Frustration. This skill deals damage and inflicts confusion for each clone shattered. Additionally, it recharges itself by 5 seconds for each clone shattered.
• Time Sink: This skill replaces and inherits traits from Diversion. This skill dazes foes and applies 2 seconds of slow for each clone shattered.
• Continuum Shift: This skill now replaces distortion in the F4 slot instead of taking the F5 slot. Additionally, it applies 1 second of distortion when cast. Duration has been rescaled based on the number of clones to 3/4.5/6 seconds. This skill now specifies that it cannot be reset by other mesmer skills.

-blur is fine. Lets see how it works.

• Dune Cloak: This trait has been reworked and new visual effects have been added. It now attacks at the end of Mirage Cloak rather than the beginning. Additionally, its damage has been increased by 100%, and instead of inflicting bleeding it now removes a boon from up to 5 foes on hit. The mirage gains a copy of any boon removed.

Good. Telegraphs are good.

Necromancer

While reapers were designed to be durable frontline fighters, the Soul Eater trait is providing a little too much survivability, so we're removing the ability for this trait to heal while in a shroud-

Sure about that?

Ranger

In this update we've made some reductions to tone down the strength of some soulbeast PvP and WvW builds.

• "Sic 'Em!": Reduced the bonus damage applied to a merged soulbeast from 40% to 25% in PvP and WvW only. Damage bonus for pets remains unchanged. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to not grant the listed movement-speed bonus.
• Unstoppable Union: This trait no longer grants an unblockable boon. Instead, it removes movement-impairing conditions in addition to its previous effect of stunbreaking when activating beastmode.

Very good. applause

Revenant

• Impossible Odds: Instead of pulsing superspeed, this skill now increases your movement speed by 50%. Reduced damage of the secondary strike by 19% in PvP only.

Hmm. Okay.

• Shackling Wave: Reduced the damage of secondary strikes by 20% in PvP and WvW.

Very Good.

• Deathstrike: This skill no longer chills or slows.

Very Good.

• Unyielding Anguish: This skill has been reworked and renamed Call to Anguish. It is now a leap finisher skill that pulls foes to the center of your landing point and chills them. This skill has an energy cost of 35 and a 5-second recharge.
• Embrace the Darkness: This skill is now a mobile dark field. Increased recharge to 10 seconds. This skill no longer grants a stat increase and is no longer unblockable and unblindable. The amount of torment applied per pulse is unchanged, but using a skill that costs energy now increases the stacks of torment applied on the next pulse by 2. This skill now deals a small amount of damage each pulse.

Extremely good.

Thief

• Dagger Storm: Reduced the casting time by 30%. Increased damage by 33% in PvE only.

Did think it needed to be faster. Fine.

• Smoke Screen: This skill now creates a ring instead of a line.

extremely good. I worked this into my kit recently and was having success.

• Prepare Shadow Portal: This new skill will mark your current location with shadow magic.
• Shadow Portal: This new skill will unleash the shadow magic at your prepared location, creating a one-way portal that you and your allies can take. Allies traveling through the portal will be granted stealth, and foes around the portal's exit will be weakened. This skill is split between game modes, allowing 5 allies through in PvE and WvW, while only allowing one ally through in PvP.

Salivate

• Shadow Arts: Shadow Arts traits have been reworked and moved. The new traits are as follows.
  • Minor
    • Concealing Restoration: With this new trait, casting your heal skill grants 2 seconds of stealth.

Good. ICD? be careful of synergy with improvisation.

  * Meld with Shadows: In addition to extending the duration of stealth, this trait now also increases movement speed while in stealth by 50%.  * Shadow Siphoning : This new trait causes all stealth attacks to siphon health if they hit. Cannot occur more than once per second per target hit.

How much health are we talking? Stealth attacks cause revealed, so this will only scale well with rifle.

• Adept
  • Merciful Ambush: This trait has been moved to the adept tier. It no longer increases revive speed and instead causes applying stealth to an ally to heal and revive them over 3 seconds.

ehh.

  * Cloaked in Shadow: This trait no longer grants immunity to critical hits. Instead it causes blinding a foe to siphon health.\

Interesting. How much?

  * Rending Shade: This trait no longer reduces damage from boonless foes. Instead it inflicts fear in a small area if it hits a boonless foe.

Haha we have more fear than necros.

Warrior

• Headbutt: This skill now removes all stacks of stability when casting and does 50% more damage if stability was removed.

Okay.

• Rampage: Changed recharge to 120 seconds in all game modes. This skill no longer grants bonus toughness. Damage reduction has been increased from 25% to 50%. Damage reduction is now calculated multiplicatively instead of additively.

Good, but it could have had some tweaking to skills too. The CC chain is also a problem.

• Bloody Roar: This trait now stacks damage multiplicatively instead of additively. Reduced damage bonus from 20% to 15% in PvP and WvW.

I'll need to see how it feels but this doesn't seem situationally like a big damage boost.

• King of Fires: Detonating a fire aura now deals damage in addition to burning.

How much damage?

All in all, good patch. Major things addressed but are you sure you didnt break holo? are you sure you need to hit reaper survivability?

Wary about mesmer performance. Will see how that goes.

[Deniara Devious.3948]

Those engineer rifle nerfs make no sense. Hip shot nerf would be huge (no tracking --> strafe left and right to avoid rifle) and Arenanet specifically allowed engineers to shoot net backwards with rifle #2.

Core engineer hasn't been overpowered in any game mode. Tone down damage of holo and versatility of scrapper if you want to tone down engineers. Stop nerfing the core, in fact some core aspects are still pitifully weak (e.g. condi engineer is not viable).

[Vissarion.6509]

Yeah let's nerf Eles even more, great changes!!!

Useless in PvP ✓Useless in WvW ✓Useless in PvE ✓

I don't like where this is going really...

[Tarragon.4302]

am i missing something with the changes to eles fire traits? it seems a bit redundant to have two traits in the master set that are for condi damage when the new burning rage will be picked over power overwhelming almost always.

[Keydos.3176]

somehow it's tiring playing chrono... having to re-learn the class every patch really takes the fun out of it. The required clone for shatters things is interesting. But why the heck would you roll distortion and CR in one? they are so completely different that I don't see any reason to link them together. Mixing offensive with a defensive shatter? Meh :/

[Flandre.2870]

xxxxxxxxxx

[Alatar.7364]

@bluri.2653 said:Look they gave thief portal. I have spammed that for ages on my stream. Cool!

We know the range of it yet? Because I can already see that smile wiped away.

[Alatar.7364]

@"Falan.1839" said:Rampage definitely got off too easy. The nerfs on Rev and Soulbeast are fine, even though completely removing Unblockable was probably a bit overkill. I would like to know how much the new Laser's Edge scales. Would probably good to give it a little less impact than the old version had. Maybe 10% cap.

Oh, and I'm not sure if giving Thief Portal is a wise idea, they didn't exactly suffer from lack of mobiility...

Thief players: "We need something to give Thief the option to fulfill other roles than just +1 or Decap"Anet: "..."Anet: "Here, have a portal!"

Although to be fair the Trap rework could open up some tiny little hope for more options and to be even more fair while the portal is another nail to our role, it will at least make it more interesting or give it another dimension of usage.

[Widmo.3186]

@"Vissarion.6509" said:Yeah let's nerf Eles even more, great changes!!!

Useless in PvP ✓Useless in WvW ✓Useless in PvE ✓

I don't like where this is going really...

What? Im not saying that ele is so useful amongst other classes, but..

Aquamancer's Training: This trait has been moved to the grandmaster minor slot, and its functionality has changed. It now reduces recharge on water weapon skills by 20% >and increases healing to other allies by 15%.Aquatic Benevolence: This trait has been removed, and its functionality has been combined with Aquamancer's Training.One free traitFlow like Water: This new trait takes the slot previously occupied by Aquamancer's Training and increases damage dealt by 10% while the elementalist is above 75% health. >Additionally, it heals the elementalist when they block or evade an attack. The healing effect has a 10-second cooldown.Here goes our free trait, 75% instead of 90% and another heal. Lets see % of this heal, imo very fine.Primordial Stance: Reduced ammo recharge time from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.Very goodSwift Revenge: Increased bonus damage from 7% to 10%.Always something while dueling vs condi classes.

Also few things into fireweaver and FA. Usually if there occured any patch involving ele, it received random nerfs and buffs in something that no1 ever used, will ever use and would ever think about using. I basically cried everytime reading patch notes and seeing "ELEMENTALIST". It was like "Oh shit, here we go again".This patch tho is not one of those. For ele, its good. Minor, but good.

[Kamui.3150]

One bit of the Ele change confuses me. Namely this.

Burning Rage: This trait has moved to the master tier as a major trait, and its functionality has changed. It now grants +180 condition damage and augments the attack from the Sunspot minor trait to have 60 additional range and apply 2 stacks of burning for 5 seconds.

This seems rather superfluous considering there is an existing Fire Master trait called Power Overwhelming, which gives a bonus to Condition Damage = to 10% of your Power. This means we've got two Condi Damage traits at the exact same tier, which seems rather silly. Could we potentially get Power Overwhelming changed to be a Power focused trait due to this?

[Atille.5047]

The mesmer changes aren't coherent, and miss a couple of points we currently have. We see a raising popularity of Chaotic Interruption and how it's claimed to be problematic, yet no nerf/ICD implemented for this trait, while new shatter mechanics are going to severely gimp power chrono's DPS as you can't just milk shatters during CS anymore, or chrono bursts in PvP since, well, it becomes obscene.

Locking chronomancer's shatters behind clone gen would generally mean that it's impossible to make a cohesive quick burst in PvP, unless you opt for gimmick stuns for setup like SoD (which is, admittedly, an overall subpar button), while removal of Distortion could be an interesting tradeoff - but on top of repeating history of Illusionary Persona and how everyone and their mother loved absolutely having this trait for the class to be playable, seems unnecessary. It's also double unnecessary if we'll consider that melding those two shatters together made it so we can't benefit from distortion traits and signet of illusions - quite a questionable choice, and perhaps shows how it's unwarranted. I'd say it needs to be either or, but certainly not both.

I'd also argue that we should push further with "new shatters" - I do love the idea, but the way things are - it's just Lost Time/Danger Time synergy baked into same old Diversion and Mind Wrack. Rewinder could open a venue for condition scepter chrono - I can see it being a curious option - but other than that, but other two could use a sort of mechanical improvement, rather than number game - like aforementioned Rewinder.

Dune Cloak got a nice buff, but it's still not ever going to be picked over Infinite Horizon. Unfortunately, we have to consider the simple truth - IH offers much more than any other grandmaster trait at this point, but at the same time it's ability to make clones do actual damage is virtually spec defining. Why not move it towards minor, as "Speed of Sand" for a minor is... well, pretty underwhelming, especially in light of suggested changes for ele?

Elusive Mind remains forgotten to the wind. As another use already pointed out, just make it cleanse 2 conditions but don't break stuns - it's a much better idea, for it allows better survivability against conditions without having to use Inspiration for this level of condition cleansing, which can be really good and not suicidal like it is now.

Another underwhelming point I'd like to point out before changes go live is that current Chronomancer build for PvE went to bannerslave territory, disallowing you to use anything but SoI + 2 wells if you want to give good (not even perfect) uptimes on boons you're supposed to provide. It's high time we either put Signet of Inspiration out of it's misery (when it's memed about at your April jokes patches it's very evident you're aware of this), or give chronomancer some form of trait that allows for quickness/alacrity uptimes with less utility slot investment, because quite frankly this utility lock makes it a rather underwhelming build to play. I'd also argue that banners themselves just don't warrant being a utility skill anymore, either - I'd prefer them being some sort of effect you grant upon performing actions, such as bursts or CCs, and baked into Tactics or Discipline traitlines to define the buffer role, this might finally make people stop trying to make berserker or spellbreaker into a bannerslave.

[Panicbutton.9426]

Would love to know what the justification was for removing all the Scrapper elite skill toolbelt skills from F5. That's giving up a lot of stuff for an improved function gyro. Doesn't seem like a good trade to me and takes away a couple of really key abilities, not least of which is detection pulse, as mentioned a couple of times in this thread already.

Too many of these changes just seem like change for changes sake.

Also, once again, it seems like WvW was not considered in the slightest when making some of these changes.

[Gaming Digi.9741]

I'm curious as for the interactions with Chronomancer the Shatter specific traits like Blinding Dissipation or Confounding Suggestions. Will they still apply, even if it's the clones and not the Mesmer applying them? Although looking at the general portrait these competitive oriented changes and balance updates seem promising - can't wait to see them in actual play!

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

Do every necro that plays a favor and stop trying to balance us you just screw shit up even more. Remove our only ability to survive while doing decent damage and leaving the 10 second hold trying to get back into shroud which no longer heals is going to render us virtually useless in every WvW situation. So here is a history lesson for those who aren't Reapers;
"August 08, 2017 Path of Fire pre-patch: This trait has had its functionality changed. It now reduces the recharge of greatsword skills by 20%. Additionally, it grants healing and life force every second while in combat and wielding a greatsword. " So your thought process here was for you to buff our greatsword skills because it is our main attack in reaper mode and you had previously nerfed our chill uptime and this was compensation, fair and frankly it allowed us to stay out of shroud and still do some decent damage.But then''''''''''''
"April 23, 2019 "It now increases the strike damage dealt to all foes within a range of 300 by 10%, and it causes the reaper to heal for 5% of the damage dealt to foes within that range. It no longer reduces greatsword-skill recharge by 20%." So this in effect forced us to stay in shroud for as long as we could to do damage and allow our GS skills to recharge and gave us some healing so we would not be overly handicapped.

So now this is what we are force fed; Soul Eater: This trait no longer heals while shroud life force replaces health.

I have absolutely no freaking idea how to react to being turned into a punching bag in WvW, none. Historically we have suffered nerf after nerf while other classes remain absurdly overpowered but hey you buffed our underwater skills!

[Sejsel.8473]

It's nice seeing the notes early.

Many of the changes are great. Most of the Chronomancer shatter changes seem to be just for the sake of change. Not a fan of the Unyielding Anguish change, that skill was by far the best feeling one in revenant's arsenal, especially the addition of a cooldown is incredibly weird. Some of the reasons for changes seem to be written by someone a bit out of touch with the game.

Somehow, Mirage is still going to stay absolutely unbeatable after a year in PvE when the boss attacks very quickly due to confusion, but I guess what is not seen in a benchmark is invisible. Stacking power chronos and dragonhunters in raids to avoid taking some dedicated supports is to stay too, not a fan, and unsure the balance team is aware of that.

[Vissarion.6509]

@"Widmo.3186" said:

Also few things into fireweaver and FA. Usually if there occured any patch involving ele, it received random nerfs and buffs in something that no1 ever used, will ever use and would ever think about using. I basically cried everytime reading patch notes and seeing "ELEMENTALIST". It was like "Oh kitten, here we go again".This patch tho is not one of those. For ele, its good. Minor, but good.

We lose 10% damage in fire from Pyromancer's Training, all major traits are useless for Power builds after the patch.We lose 60 ferocity in Air Raging Storm, and we are bound to get this trait in major now if we want some fury uptime so we lose another 20% damage nerf that we used to take from Stormsoul.

I see a straight up nerf here m8, i hate to be that guy, but as an Ele main since release, i feel like this class will hit like a wet nooddle now, we already were not taken in any DPS spot before, we will lose even more with this patch, and what we get? 20% reduced recharge in minor traits in skills that already have huge cooldowns anyway. hmmm

[Bellamy.9860]

Is the reaper nerf really necessary?

Also, it would be nice to see some improvements to necro skills and trait lines, that have been neglected since forever. Signets are pretty much trash and were only good due to old Signets of Suffering. Death magic is still a dumpster fire of a trait line. Shouts are still somewhat lackluster, but this might be only me. Furthermore, all offhands are now in a weird place and not only dagger. Dagger mh still lacks something, but maybe this might change if we ever get another elite spec.

Could you maybe address some of these with a future patch? Would be nice to get some new toys from time to time.

[c space cowboy.2764]

@Vissarion.6509 said:

@"Widmo.3186" said:

Also few things into fireweaver and FA. Usually if there occured any patch involving ele, it received random nerfs and buffs in something that no1 ever used, will ever use and would ever think about using. I basically cried everytime reading patch notes and seeing "ELEMENTALIST". It was like "Oh kitten, here we go again".This patch tho is not one of those. For ele, its good. Minor, but good.

We lose 10% damage in fire from Pyromancer's Training, all major traits are useless for Power builds after the patch.We lose 60 ferocity in Air Raging Storm, and we are bound to get this trait in major now if we want some fury uptime so we lose another 20% damage nerf that we used to take from Stormsoul.

I see a straight up nerf here m8, i hate to be that guy, but as an Ele main since release, i feel like this class will hit like a wet nooddle now, we already were not taken in any DPS spot before, we will lose even more with this patch, and what we get? 20% reduced recharge in minor traits in skills that already have huge cooldowns anyway. hmmm

This. Not only that, if you want the double ferocity boost you have to dual attune air so you lost an additional 150 power from not being attuned to fire.

Ele got the long shaft.

Wont put another penny into this game. Period. Its been three balance updates in a row that the only viable damage spec in wvw for ele has gotten the dick.

[Nimon.7840]

Hey.

1. I really don't like the necro changes. They are basically no changes, except a huge nerf to soul eater.
2. Buffing core underwater. NOONE CARES

Can necro please get a fancy rework as well? The whole deathmagic traitline is trash.Sorry but this feels more like "we don't care about necro"

A balance patch really let me hope, to get something new. Something that makes it worth experimenting and playing the game more again.But necro gets literally nothing

[Vova.2640]

Why do you keep nerfing ele dmg patch after patch after patch AND YET YOU BUFF WEAVER EVEN MORE?!?!

Seriously what the fuck !?!!!!!!!?!?!?!

[mrauls.6519]

@bluri.2653 said:Look they gave thief portal. I have spammed that for ages on my stream. Cool!

What utility do you think you'll drop for it?

[cgMatt.5162]

No word on Bolstered Elements bug where you can't get stability after it procs?

[nthmetal.9652]

@Vissarion.6509 said:Yeah let's nerf Eles even more, great changes!!!

Useless in PvP ✓Useless in WvW ✓Useless in PvE ✓

I don't like where this is going really...

Am not convinced. We take a heal ele along in PvE, for example in fractals and so far that's the single most deciding factor whether we have aeasy time on T3+T4 or not. It seems they tinker around the healing abilities, but overall it doesn't look like a debuff to me. Heal and boons are still go (maybe better than before).

[Flumek.9043]

RAMPAGE.

I dont get why it has to be sooooo much better than necros lich form.STABILITY, extra survival, less clunky, offensive and defensive play potential....and as bonus its up more often AND your passives carry over while on necro its specifically coded to stop armor.

Havent read it all yet,just annoyed that rampage will still be an "instant win" button.

[Dreams.3128]

SO WE ARE GONNA NERF ELE DAMAGE AGAIN ANET? REALLY?

IM DONE. I AM DELETING THE CLASS. NO MORE GEMS. DONE. FINISHED.