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@"Dave.6819" said:

Yup, I'm no Mesmer main. I always drop my 2 cents worth of suggestions for nerfs of buffs on other classes as well, including Ranger/Soulbast/Druid. I was actually one of the first people who said Sic Em needed a nerf. So you Mirage mains can go ahead and stop victimizing yourselves. It's annoying, please stop.

First of all no1 said anythin bout Mirage cuz Chrono is getting nerfed. Secondly mesmers aren't victimizing themselves. They are merely reacting to what Anet is doing to their class over the last 2 years (same goes to eles and same goes BIG time for thieves).. so.. Imagine your beloved ranger would get nerfed to the ground (like let's say thief was over the past 3-4 years). Wouldn't you become a "victimized crybaby" on forums? I bet you would. It's all good and smooth sailing when your own skin is safe right? Well i'd be very curious to see how would u deal with your main class being destroyed by balance team and how would u adapt to such changes. U'd either quit or re-roll like most of ppl do. Being biased looks very terrible. People should speak only about the class that they fully understand. I'd never go and speak about anythin xcept mesmer/thief. I've played em all but i do not understand them all 100%. So u should take that advice and speak only bout the class that u've played atleast 2-3 years. Your opinion would be wildly different i assume in that case.

This is not true. I do not have to play a build/class for a prolonged period of time to have an opinion about it. As someone who has been playing sPvP for close to 5 years, I can easily tell you what works and what does, and also what is over or under performing. I try to be fair when posting my positions on balance, but I understand there will always be a bias towards how I envision the game should be (more than my main).

Example, I think mirage is currently terrible. Even the new stupid interrupt build, is mediocre. I think the upcoming Soul Beast nerfs are good. I do not think DD thief is as bad as thief mains claim (though core is surely better now). And DE is no longer viable. It still needs to lose the stealth on dodge in favor of less fucking stupid stealth bot mechanic. I think FB is over powered. And its support capacity needs a strong curb. I am a guardian main, so does that mean only the last one counts? Also, many guardian mains do not agree with me.

Remember, balance is not done in a bubble. It is relative to how every other build is. I cannot only understand and speak in regards to classes/builds I play, since all other balance changes impacts my game play experience.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

SCRAPPER:

--- snip ---

I think you misread a lot of what happened to scrapper, allow me to explain:

  1. -300 vit minor trait. All scrappers are down 3000 health now, equivalent to guardian/ele base health.
  2. 15% of outgoing strike damage (I presume this means power damage) is returned as barrier. This means that in order to recover 3000 health, the scrapper needs to deal 20,000 damage. This damage doesn't include condi as far as I can tell.
  3. Old function gyro worked every 10 seconds at 900 range. New function gyro works every 30 seconds at 600 range (+15s per additional f-gyro spawned). This is roughly equivalent to the warrior elite banner but on a shorter cooldown and shorter radius, and works more slowly (f-gyros need to cast, not instantaneous like banner). F-gyros should all still be cleavable/cc-able.
  4. Object in Motion comes at the expense of perfectly weighted and another damage boost. Overall, it's actually a decrease in damage.
  5. Rapid Regen was removed -- significantly lowering scrapper's ability to survive and heal. It also hurts healer builds using MDF.
  6. The increase in stun/daze brings finishers up to closer to 1.5 seconds instead of 1 second. It's stronger, but not that much stronger.
  7. Adaptive armor's effect is weaker, it only boosts barrier you gain now.
  8. The new function gyro prevents access to F5 skills such as Detection Pulse and Moa

In short, scrapper must output more damage than it used to in order to regain the health it lost. However, at the same time it also lost some serious damage-dealing traits and some powerful F5 skills. It can theoretically generate more barrier and stuns, but it remains to be seen how helpful that is, considering how much more vulnerable it is to bursts now.

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@Vagrant.7206 said:

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

SCRAPPER:

--- snip ---

I think you misread a lot of what happened to scrapper, allow me to explain:
  1. -300 vit minor trait. All scrappers are down 3000 health now, equivalent to guardian/ele base health.

More like 13k vs 10k, it's between scholar and adventurer.

  1. Old function gyro worked every 10 seconds at 900 range. New function gyro works every 30 seconds at 600 range (+15s per additional f-gyro spawned).

It was 20 seconds cooldown

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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.

they managed to break my condi rev spec that noone was using...bravo Anet bravo!

before this i could chain 3 UA casts together to deal a whopping 20+ stacks of torment, now it doesn't even deal torment...

infact the only change i'm looking forward to is Icerazor's Ire's 30% damage increase,FINALLY they've remembered that Renegade exists, even if they're only buffing the one single skill.

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@otto.5684 said:

@"Dave.6819" said:

Yup, I'm no Mesmer main. I always drop my 2 cents worth of suggestions for nerfs of buffs on other classes as well, including Ranger/Soulbast/Druid. I was actually one of the first people who said Sic Em needed a nerf. So you Mirage mains can go ahead and stop victimizing yourselves. It's annoying, please stop.

First of all no1 said anythin bout Mirage cuz Chrono is getting nerfed. Secondly mesmers aren't victimizing themselves. They are merely reacting to what Anet is doing to their class over the last 2 years (same goes to eles and same goes BIG time for thieves).. so.. Imagine your beloved ranger would get nerfed to the ground (like let's say thief was over the past 3-4 years). Wouldn't you become a "victimized crybaby" on forums? I bet you would. It's all good and smooth sailing when your own skin is safe right? Well i'd be very curious to see how would u deal with your main class being destroyed by balance team and how would u adapt to such changes. U'd either quit or re-roll like most of ppl do. Being biased looks very terrible. People should speak only about the class that they fully understand. I'd never go and speak about anythin xcept mesmer/thief. I've played em all but i do not understand them all 100%. So u should take that advice and speak only bout the class that u've played atleast 2-3 years. Your opinion would be wildly different i assume in that case.

This is not true. I do not have to play a build/class for a prolonged period of time to have an opinion about it. As someone who has been playing sPvP for close to 5 years, I can easily tell you what works and what does, and also what is over or under performing. I try to be fair when posting my positions on balance, but I understand there will always be a bias towards how I envision the game should be (more than my main).

Example, I think mirage is currently terrible. Even the new stupid interrupt build, is mediocre. I think the upcoming Soul Beast nerfs are good. I do not think DD thief is as bad as thief mains claim (though core is surely better now). And DE is no longer viable. It still needs to lose the stealth on dodge in favor of less kitten stupid stealth bot mechanic. I think FB is over powered. And its support capacity needs a strong curb. I am a guardian main, so does that mean only the last one counts? Also, many guardian mains do not agree with me.

Remember, balance is not done in a bubble. It is relative to how every other build is. I cannot only understand and speak in regards to classes/builds I play, since all other balance changes impacts my game play experience.

Well then here's my thoughts on FB. FB isn't overpowered. It is a very decent support class but the fact that other builds aren't really up to meta standards (core guard/dh) makes FB not OP. If guard had some other builds i'd say yea nerf FB. But for now.. FB support is the only one way guards can be good. Besides support in general isn't so threatening it can't one shot you. So let them stick to it. I wouldn't mind making meditation radiance / valor / virtues with scep/shield + sword/focus a new meta. Buff that old build and then you can take down FB all u want. It's even more fun to play then support. But still.. i think we shouldn't comment on classes that aren't our mains and faves. It sounds too biased and might give misleading impressions. Sure.. i think scrapper is OP. I think Soulbeast is OP. But by crying in forums "nerf that nerf that!" we would just be hurting the game further. I don't do that. I only comment on my own classes when there's really something OFF bout em. Perfect example is thief as i said. Ppl cried and cried in forums.. and now i know atleast 20 thief players who have quitted the game. We don't want that. We don't want to get rid of our own community. Does anet suck at balancing? Yea. They really do. But community sometimes really fuels the fire even more. Anet doesn't listen to us too much anyway. So we are better off just being silent bout balance in general.

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@Vagrant.7206 said:

SCRAPPER:

--- snip ---

I think you misread a lot of what happened to scrapper, allow me to explain:
  1. -300 vit minor trait. All scrappers are down 3000 health now, equivalent to guardian/ele base health.
  2. 15% of outgoing strike damage (I presume this means power damage) is returned as barrier. This means that in order to recover 3000 health, the scrapper needs to deal 20,000 damage. This damage doesn't include condi as far as I can tell.
  3. Old function gyro worked every 10 seconds at 900 range. New function gyro works every 30 seconds at 600 range (+15s per additional f-gyro spawned). This is roughly equivalent to the warrior elite banner but on a shorter cooldown and shorter radius, and works more slowly (f-gyros need to cast, not instantaneous like banner). F-gyros should all still be cleavable/cc-able.
  4. Object in Motion comes at the expense of perfectly weighted and another damage boost. Overall, it's actually a decrease in damage.
  5. Rapid Regen was removed -- significantly lowering scrapper's ability to survive and heal. It also hurts healer builds using MDF.
  6. The increase in stun/daze brings finishers up to closer to 1.5 seconds instead of 1 second. It's stronger, but not
    that
    much stronger.
  7. Adaptive armor's effect is weaker, it only boosts barrier you gain now.
  8. The new function gyro prevents access to F5 skills such as Detection Pulse and Moa

In short, scrapper must output more damage than it used to in order to regain the health it lost. However, at the same time it also lost some serious damage-dealing traits and some powerful F5 skills. It can theoretically generate more barrier and stuns, but it remains to be seen how helpful that is, considering how much more vulnerable it is to bursts now.

Yeah I hear ya. I'm not trying to make solid ultra statements here. I'm just saying that I think people are seriously underestimating how much barrier is going to be returned when a Scrapper is in a team fight wearing Demolisher or something, getting AoE cleaves on 3+ players. As you said, to return 3000 health as a barrier, you'd need to deal about 20,000 damage. Thing is, that's pretty easy to do when 2 or 3 people are balled up together on a node and if the Scrapper was running a DPS amulet. Even running Knight's, would still yield sizable frequent barriers if the Scrapper was 1v2. Anet didn't specifically mention anything about a CD on this specific trait, so if it has no CD, there will be a lot of room to toy with Scrapper DPS builds that will be surprisingly sustainy for those who are good at maintaining pressure.

I think this change to Scrapper is just going to make & break the difference between good players and bad players. It won't be so easy to roll around and 100% defensive bunk a side node anymore for mid to low tiers. Good Scrappers on the other hand, are still going to be difficult to kill, and actually dangerous with more frequent and elongated dazes, and a lot more damage.

I'm actually excited to try it tbh. As soon as the patch hits, I'll be rolling a DPS Scrapper. See how it works.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:actually dangerous with more frequent and elongated dazes, and a lot more damage.

There's not gonna be more frequent or elongated dazes in practice, and no damage effectiveness buffs in practice. In its purest essence, it'll be the same damage as on live, if a Scrapper picked all DPS traits, like the bottom Grandmaster over Adaptive Armor.

Let's chat again in an hour

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The thief changes look very unbalanced for competitive game modes. I just can’t even begin to see how this made it through testing. This is gonna get salty.

Elementalist changes are interesting, but a good chance the class and certain builds were over-buffed.

Scrapper and Holo changes initially appear poorly implemented.

Revenant was hammered in the name of plat 2 + PvP balance.

Ranger changes seem to hit the mark overall.

Some nice buffs were made to DH and guardian. They seem like good changes.

Rampage is currently a crutch for War in all competitive modes, and only stacking DR% addressed.

Necro needs to heal is Shroud from all sources at 10% to 20% effectiveness. Traits and team heals should not be locked out and completely ineffective. The cost for Shroud is already paid in losing access to all utilities and elites while in Shroud.

Mesmer balance regime that dominated since HoT has been fully overthrown.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

  • So what we're looking at is a class that has by far more revive power than anything else in the game to the point that it will actually be very difficult to even secure a kill if an experienced Scrapper is present, in addition to the ability to full team free stomp every opponent every 30s, that will be unkillable 1v1 on a side node, that has nearly 100% uptime of stability & superspeed and random elongated dazes & stuns, that rotates nearly as quickly as a Thief. Just... why is this happening?

That is some high level satire right there.

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@Julius Seizure.4985 said:

  • The thief changes look very unbalanced for competitive game modes. I just can’t even begin to see how this made it through testing. This is gonna get salty.

What? How? Preparations are all completely useless except portal which has been around since ever only this one can take only one Ally and one way only?And SA changes? Also nothing powerful about them, might promote Core D/P or some DE builds but I fail to see how are those changes unbalanced. If you could explain a little.

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@zinkz.7045 said:

  • So what we're looking at is a class that has by far more revive power than anything else in the game to the point that it will actually be very difficult to even secure a kill if an experienced Scrapper is present, in addition to the ability to full team free stomp every opponent every 30s, that will be unkillable 1v1 on a side node, that has nearly 100% uptime of stability & superspeed and random elongated dazes & stuns, that rotates nearly as quickly as a Thief. Just... why is this happening?

That is some high level satire right there.

Except completely serious. Scrapper is exactly the same, except with the removal of Moa/Detection pulse, Adaptive Armor, Rapid Regeneration, and replaced by meaningless mechanics.

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@Julius Seizure.4985 said:

  • The thief changes look very unbalanced for competitive game modes. I just can’t even begin to see how this made it through testing. This is gonna get salty.

It's looking very likely that the only real change for thief in competitive modes is that they now have a 2-person, one-way portal replacing one of the utility slots.

There's a lot of stuff changing for thief, but very little of it seems meta-shattering. Shadow's Arts has very weak numbers to the trait changes, so it's doubtful that it'll change bring some new build into meta and certainly won't change S/D.

Even the Odds might replace Panic Strike, but it'll even out the nerf to Dagger Storm at best.The rest of the preparations don't really matter since the utility skills for meta thiefs are already so set in stone with the current selection of Shadow Step for stun break/mobility/stomps and Sig of Agi for synergy with dodges and condi cleanse.

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I played sPvP for 8 painful games in ranked today with Scrapper, couldn't summon more than one Function Gyro at a time. It's 180 radius and you need to use it as soon as an ally goes down, so.... So glad the F-Gyro cooldown has increased 6-10s and I got ripped off for my Toss Elixir X/Drop Bandages/Detection Pulse/Orbital strike for such a mechanic that I could not even use once.

FYI:

  • Multi-Function Gyro summoning, can't even confirm it works, haven't witnessed it = utter uselessness.
  • Shuffling around damage trait changes to equal the exact same damage as before = utter uselessness.
  • New: System Shock adept major trait to do a piddly .5s daze once a fight, and un-noticeably improve Rocket Charge in a lightning field = utter uselessness.
  • New: Damage Dampener to defer some damage by 2 seconds instead of helping your build be more lethal or have more effective HP = utter uselessness.
  • The new Adaptive Armor in its entirety = utter uselessness.
  • Trying to play hammer Scrapper in an aggressive manner to take advantage of new Impact Savant = utter uselessness.

These changes are the worst possible scenario, there are not a single new useful build or mechanics from this 're-work'. Destruction without rebirth is useless

TL;DR: Useless, all of it.

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@Chaith.8256 said:I played sPvP for 8 painful games in ranked today with Scrapper, couldn't summon more than one Function Gyro at a time. It's 180 radius and you need to use it as soon as an ally goes down, so.... So glad the F-Gyro cooldown has increased 6-10s and I got ripped off for my Toss Elixir X/Drop Bandages/Detection Pulse/Orbital strike for such a mechanic that I could not even use once.

FYI:

  • Multi-Function Gyro summoning, can't even confirm it works, haven't witnessed it = utter uselessness.
  • Shuffling around damage trait changes to equal the exact same damage as before = utter uselessness.
  • New: System Shock adept major trait to do a piddly .5s daze once a fight, and un-noticeably improve Rocket Charge in a lightning field = utter uselessness.
  • New: Damage Dampener to defer some damage by 2 seconds instead of helping your build be more lethal or have more effective HP = utter uselessness.
  • The new Adaptive Armor in its entirety = utter uselessness.
  • Trying to play hammer Scrapper in an aggressive manner to take advantage of new Impact Savant = utter uselessness.

These changes are the worst possible scenario, there are not a single new useful build or mechanics from this 're-work'. Destruction without rebirth is useless

TL;DR: Useless, all of it.

Chaith, please make a thread about this. I'd like Anet to make scrapper not just a brainless 1v4 tank, but something that has skillful combos and can do a lot of gruntwork on the sides. You've got great perspective on this, and I was waiting to see what you'd say after testing it.

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@Chaith.8256 said:I played sPvP for 8 painful games in ranked today with Scrapper, couldn't summon more than one Function Gyro at a time. It's 180 radius and you need to use it as soon as an ally goes down, so.... So glad the F-Gyro cooldown has increased 6-10s and I got ripped off for my Toss Elixir X/Drop Bandages/Detection Pulse/Orbital strike for such a mechanic that I could not even use once.

FYI:

  • Multi-Function Gyro summoning, can't even confirm it works, haven't witnessed it = utter uselessness.
  • Shuffling around damage trait changes to equal the exact same damage as before = utter uselessness.
  • New: System Shock adept major trait to do a piddly .5s daze once a fight, and un-noticeably improve Rocket Charge in a lightning field = utter uselessness.
  • New: Damage Dampener to defer some damage by 2 seconds instead of helping your build be more lethal or have more effective HP = utter uselessness.
  • The new Adaptive Armor in its entirety = utter uselessness.
  • Trying to play hammer Scrapper in an aggressive manner to take advantage of new Impact Savant = utter uselessness.

These changes are the worst possible scenario, there are not a single new useful build or mechanics from this 're-work'. Destruction without rebirth is useless

TL;DR: Useless, all of it.

You think you have it bad, try playing chrono.

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@shion.2084 said:@Chaith.8256 Thoughts on hitting the holo with inability to use tool belt skills if overcharged because of fear spam or whichever? I really don't see why they felt they needed to add that.

It's a PvE nerf, in PvP, don't overheat is always the proper response. It is very bad for PvE Holosmiths, not the kind of 'drawback' the spec needs, especially if mechanically strong players can mitigate it by not overheating often, like they currently do

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@Trigr.6481 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:I played sPvP for 8 painful games in ranked today with Scrapper, couldn't summon more than one Function Gyro at a time. It's 180 radius and you need to use it as soon as an ally goes down, so.... So glad the F-Gyro cooldown has increased 6-10s and I got ripped off for my Toss Elixir X/Drop Bandages/Detection Pulse/Orbital strike for such a mechanic that I could not even use once.

FYI:
  • Multi-Function Gyro summoning, can't even confirm it works, haven't witnessed it = utter uselessness.
  • Shuffling around damage trait changes to equal the exact same damage as before = utter uselessness.
  • New: System Shock adept major trait to do a piddly .5s daze once a fight, and un-noticeably improve Rocket Charge in a lightning field = utter uselessness.
  • New: Damage Dampener to defer some damage by 2 seconds instead of helping your build be more lethal or have more effective HP = utter uselessness.
  • The new Adaptive Armor in its entirety = utter uselessness.
  • Trying to play hammer Scrapper in an aggressive manner to take advantage of new Impact Savant = utter uselessness.

These changes are the worst possible scenario, there are not a single new useful build or mechanics from this 're-work'. Destruction without rebirth is useless

TL;DR: Useless, all of it.

You think you have it bad, try playing chrono.

You think you have it bad, try playing druid.

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@Chaith.8256 said:

@shion.2084 said:@Chaith.8256 Thoughts on hitting the holo with inability to use tool belt skills if overcharged because of fear spam or whichever? I really don't see why they felt they needed to add that.

It's a PvE nerf, in PvP, don't overheat is always the proper response. It is very bad for PvE Holosmiths, not the kind of 'drawback' the spec needs, especially if mechanically strong players can mitigate it by not overheating often, like they currently do

Exactly. I hope that holo nerf wasn't targeted at PvP holo because good players (hell, even moderately competent players) never overheat. Unless you're running PBM (which no one does in PvP), this should affect approximately no one.

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@Eurantien.4632 said:

@Chaith.8256 said:I played sPvP for 8 painful games in ranked today with Scrapper, couldn't summon more than one Function Gyro at a time. It's 180 radius and you need to use it as soon as an ally goes down, so.... So glad the F-Gyro cooldown has increased 6-10s and I got ripped off for my Toss Elixir X/Drop Bandages/Detection Pulse/Orbital strike for such a mechanic that I could not even use once.

FYI:
  • Multi-Function Gyro summoning, can't even confirm it works, haven't witnessed it = utter uselessness.
  • Shuffling around damage trait changes to equal the exact same damage as before = utter uselessness.
  • New: System Shock adept major trait to do a piddly .5s daze once a fight, and un-noticeably improve Rocket Charge in a lightning field = utter uselessness.
  • New: Damage Dampener to defer some damage by 2 seconds instead of helping your build be more lethal or have more effective HP = utter uselessness.
  • The new Adaptive Armor in its entirety = utter uselessness.
  • Trying to play hammer Scrapper in an aggressive manner to take advantage of new Impact Savant = utter uselessness.

These changes are the worst possible scenario, there are not a single new useful build or mechanics from this 're-work'. Destruction without rebirth is useless

TL;DR: Useless, all of it.

You think you have it bad, try playing chrono.

You think you have it bad, try playing druid.

Iunno scientist, I'd be willing to bet money that chrono is in a worse spot than druids currently. I feel your pain though.

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