Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Balance Patch appreciation thread


Zenix.6198

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 70
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I will keep saying this every time; patch is better than no patch, the problem is that they dont come often enough. I'm glad that Anet is deciding to patch PvP. Whether it is enough or the right changes, thats another topic.

I just find it odd that a videogame receives praises for doing something I think should be baseline, it just doesnt right with me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Fortus.6175" said:I will keep saying this every time; patch is better than no patch, the problem is that they dont come often enough. I'm glad that Anet is deciding to patch PvP. Whether it is enough or the right changes, thats another topic.

I just find it odd that a videogame receives praises for doing something I think should be baseline, it just doesnt right with me.

Doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good patch when I see one.At least they targeted the correct issues this time....although one could argue that it didnt go far enough for some classes cough Warrior and Holo cough

But obviously every single nerf made every class "literally unplayable".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@ZeroTheCat.2684 said:No nerfs to scourge.. kitten Anet?

Outside of adding a 1s global cooldown between shade skills I actually can't imagine any nerfs necromancer specifically needs. It's exceptionally strong in the right circumstances but also very limited in it's role and what it can do with a very specific niche. That's how every build should be.

But every build is not like that, which puts necro (albeit) in the right spot also at a disadvantage.

Therefore either buff necro to the level of other builds (Jack of all trades, being able to damage heal and evade everything all the time while farting out more buffs per second than is possible to count) or nerf every other build onto par with necro to get them into their required niche

But instead Anet decided to take the most balanced profession of all, beat it with the need bad and buff everyone else -.-

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Zenix.6198 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

Weaver dmg buffs not enough? Maybe still not high enough? But whatelse you want? Cant give weaver more sustain,,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@otto.5684 said:I think appreciation is a very strong word. I will say the changes do not absolutely suck, but good? Nope.

@ZeroTheCat.2684 said:Guardian/DH did not need buffs imo. The most popular classes need to be catered to keep people playing the game I guess..

?! I mean if you say FB, I agree. Core guardian, DH? Dude, get out of G1.

@ZeroTheCat.2684 said:No nerfs to scourge.. kitten Anet?

Outside of adding a 1s global cooldown between shade skills I actually can't imagine any nerfs necromancer specifically needs. It's exceptionally strong in the right circumstances but also very limited in it's role and what it can do with a very specific niche. That's how every build should be.

So still FB + 2 scourge every game. This patch won’t change a thing. Except we will see more eles. And how are buffs to guardians needed?? Are they even playing this game mode. Last nail in the coffin I’m afraid.

Idk. I've played 100 plat 1-2 games and while scourges and reapers on both teams aren't uncommmon Firebrands on either team feel very uncommon. People don't queue on Firebrand, even top tier PvPers, because playing Firebrand or dedicated support in general just makes you so dependent on everyone else on your team actually performing their roles. At this point Firebrand feels like an Automated Tournament only build.

Yes, you are right. What I meant was that the meta won’t change. Also Buffing already strong classes won’t help the balance of this game..

No top tier spec was specifically buffed. Firebrand+Scourge will remain strong in ranked but that's about it.

Except weaver which is arguably top tier for sidepoint 1v1s.

Is it though? SB, sage FB, boon beast, CI mirage, holo and scrapper can all win solo against weaver, assuming equal skill level.

There is very little weaver talent in pvp atm, so the strength of the class isn't really apparent atm.

Why do u think there's little weaver talent? Is there a reason that there isn't?Genuinely asking. Just with how people are usually doesn't take them long to find strong builds in classes and ways to exploit them lol ud think there would be a ton of ele's around if there as strong as some of these threads point them to be. Again I'm not saying they arnt just makin a statement lol

im going to guess because in the past sword weavers got nerfed in a way that effected their performance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Crozame.4098 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

Cant give weaver more sustain,,

you are in for a treat tomorrow , my friend

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@mortrialus.3062 said:Holosmith hasn't received any serious nerfs since December of last year. All is right with the world.

There's a lot of confusing patch notes in here though.

EngineerOverload: Overloading now disables all toolbelt skills for its duration.

What is an Overload? Does this mean Overheat?

MesmerIllusions: The illusion counter that tracks clones now decrements immediately when a shatter is cast rather than waiting for the clones to be destroyed.Speed of Sand: Instead of granting superspeed when dodging, this trait instead causes Mirage Cloak to grant +66% movement speed.

Does this mean Mirage loses out on the distance it can travel in mirage cloak if suffering cripple or chilled?

Yes.For the mirage question. Superspeed gave mirage a brief immunity to those effects,that immunity is now gone.And those effects are still spammable on some classes. It also nerfs the distance a mirage can dodge since superspeed gave 100% (?) and now it's down to 66. SooooooYea.. Good luck trying to get out of any AoE

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dahkeus.8243 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

It may not be a bunker meta, per say, since a lot of the changes weren't necessarily towards big fight bunker specs, but there were still a lot of buffs to support utility and damage reduction.

Bunker scrapper got some nerfs, but also a huge buff from Function gyro. Not sure why any buffs/nerfs to chrono bunker would matter.

Tempest and Thief are probably the wild cards though. I don't know ele enough to know whether the Tempest stuff will matter much for PvP, but the buff to overloads certainly makes water overloads a pretty massive heal. If thief ends up getting any support builds, they'll almost certainly be completely obnoxious as they always are, even though they've never been meta.

For ele, they are nominal changes. Most of the changes are okay for tempest. But nothing of major impact.

Thief however is a different story...defined run a wild card. I predict Deadeyes with shadow portals. But there may be some really cool kitten with shadow arts that could come into the gold as well. Daredevil still dead tho until swipe gets reverted.

Yea, thief could definitely be wild. I mean, will we see D/P come back as DA/Tr/SA? Will the Shadow Savior trait be good enough that it makes it ideal for sword builds? I doubt it would replace a trait line in the meta S/D build, but maybe a S/P build would be viable? If Flickering Shadows doesn't have an internal cooldown, will people abuse it for a Thief bunker build or sorts?

D/P won't ever come back without Swipe range buff/revert or a major damage buff. I mean it wasn't the only thing that got nerfed on d/p (dmg via lead attack nerf for example) only the final nail in the coffin.. And I don't really see SA becoming viable in competitive play even after the changes. Keep in mind that d/p was almost exclusively played as Daredevil because d/p doesn't provide any evades or good disengage potential unlike s/d on 2 and 3, so you need something that allows you to stay longer in melee range (aka a lot of evades and endurance gain - which Daredevil provides).

@Nezekan.2671 said:This game can no longer afford complete nerfs. The player base is already dying. A lot of people left the game when Mesmer was nerfed to the ground across the board in all modes in 2018. People who played Chrono since HoT were very disappointed and it decimated Mesmer playerbase. They will not repeat that mistake again.

That's bs.. Anet should nerf everything, the power and sustain creep went too far and needs to be tuned down across the board so I'm actually quite happy to see some of the nerfs. But we have a typical Anet move here and they are only adjusting half of what they should do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Zenix.6198 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

Cant give weaver more sustain,,

you are in for a treat tomorrow , my friend

For what?.....a 10s ICD heal on evade?...Knowing anet it will be something like 300-400 base heal and 500 heal at 1k healing power and even after that....the only place where you will see the unicorn weavers smashing everybody will remain..the forum

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Zenix.6198 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

Cant give weaver more sustain,,

you are in for a treat tomorrow , my friend

Still calling me a friend:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Zenix.6198 said:

@"Fortus.6175" said:I will keep saying this every time; patch is better than no patch, the problem is that they dont come often enough. I'm glad that Anet is deciding to patch PvP. Whether it is enough or the right changes, thats another topic.

I just find it odd that a videogame receives praises for doing something I think should be baseline, it just doesnt right with me.

Doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good patch when I see one.At least they targeted the correct issues this time....although one could argue that it didnt go far enough for some classes
cough
Warrior and Holo
cough

But obviously every single nerf made every class "literally unplayable".

mention Holo is enough. They also did not nerf fire weaver:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@DoomNexus.5324 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

It may not be a bunker meta, per say, since a lot of the changes weren't necessarily towards big fight bunker specs, but there were still a lot of buffs to support utility and damage reduction.

Bunker scrapper got some nerfs, but also a huge buff from Function gyro. Not sure why any buffs/nerfs to chrono bunker would matter.

Tempest and Thief are probably the wild cards though. I don't know ele enough to know whether the Tempest stuff will matter much for PvP, but the buff to overloads certainly makes water overloads a pretty massive heal. If thief ends up getting any support builds, they'll almost certainly be completely obnoxious as they always are, even though they've never been meta.

For ele, they are nominal changes. Most of the changes are okay for tempest. But nothing of major impact.

Thief however is a different story...defined run a wild card. I predict Deadeyes with shadow portals. But there may be some really cool kitten with shadow arts that could come into the gold as well. Daredevil still dead tho until swipe gets reverted.

Yea, thief could definitely be wild. I mean, will we see D/P come back as DA/Tr/SA? Will the Shadow Savior trait be good enough that it makes it ideal for sword builds? I doubt it would replace a trait line in the meta S/D build, but maybe a S/P build would be viable? If Flickering Shadows doesn't have an internal cooldown, will people abuse it for a Thief bunker build or sorts?

D/P won't ever come back without Swipe range buff/revert or a major damage buff. I mean it wasn't the only thing that got nerfed on d/p (dmg via lead attack nerf for example) only the final nail in the coffin.. And I don't really see SA becoming viable in competitive play even after the changes. Keep in mind that d/p was almost exclusively played as Daredevil because d/p doesn't provide any evades or good disengage potential unlike s/d on 2 and 3, so you need something that allows you to stay longer in melee range (aka a lot of evades and endurance gain - which Daredevil provides).

D/P definitely come back the way it was with DrD, but it will have plenty of escapes from stealth to make up for the losses in evades. If the new portal skill has a decent cooldown and mechanics, it'll also give another good escape.

D/P was never a great spec for actual fighting the way that S/D is, but it had insane mobility and good burst. It's definitely possible that the burst just won't be good enough without lead attacks or damage boosts in SA, but the stealth will make it very good at decapping.

However, it'll be very weak vs condi since the DrD evade was a clear of soft CC condis. Between that and the loss of speed from the DrD dodge, it might not make a comeback. I loved D/P on thief, so I might be biased with wishful thinking, but I'd love to see SA breath life back into it. If not from this patch, maybe the next one gives some more tweaks that boost it into the meta.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Weaver has too many issues with how conquest works to be top tier without being really broken. It's slow, it can be chased and it can't chase and has mediocre damage unless you're on Fire. You can drop Lightning Flash for Glyph and now your damage is alot better, but your chase potential and disengage potential (which already isn't great) gets worse. If you keep Lightning Flash, your damage stays low. You create another hole when you try to close one. Weaver can't teamfight, its incredibly easy to focus, it can't deal with conditions(chill, cripple, immob, torment, confusion) as well as most other classes, and its very easy to know how to outplay.

The Primordial Stance buff is nice, and all the buffs are, but they're greatly overexaggerated. No matter how much Earth and Water get buffed in one patch, effectively only one trait line is getting buffed (pergame), you can't put on Earth and Water on the same Weaver build just because they get buffed, you need your other 2 current trait lines, Weaver and Arcane.The Primordial Stance buff helps your sustain more than anything, it'll just give you an extra stack of Stability when you're super low on CDs and trying to bail 1v2/1v3.

The Water changes are exactly what Weaver needed, trading cleanse and healing for damage but not giving all of it up.The Fire changes won't be a huge deal, CI Mirage is still very strong and dropping Smothering Auras in that matchup makes it unwinnable. People will play Burning Rage, but it opens them up to losing 1v1 to other Weavers, to every Mirage and Scourge even quicker, it opens a gap if you don't exploit that gap, thats on you.The Air changes are pretty irrelevant, just a tiny bit more damage.Earth changes, its the Earth traitline, its bad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Dahkeus.8243 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

It may not be a bunker meta, per say, since a lot of the changes weren't necessarily towards big fight bunker specs, but there were still a lot of buffs to support utility and damage reduction.

Bunker scrapper got some nerfs, but also a huge buff from Function gyro. Not sure why any buffs/nerfs to chrono bunker would matter.

Tempest and Thief are probably the wild cards though. I don't know ele enough to know whether the Tempest stuff will matter much for PvP, but the buff to overloads certainly makes water overloads a pretty massive heal. If thief ends up getting any support builds, they'll almost certainly be completely obnoxious as they always are, even though they've never been meta.

For ele, they are nominal changes. Most of the changes are okay for tempest. But nothing of major impact.

Thief however is a different story...defined run a wild card. I predict Deadeyes with shadow portals. But there may be some really cool kitten with shadow arts that could come into the gold as well. Daredevil still dead tho until swipe gets reverted.

Yea, thief could definitely be wild. I mean, will we see D/P come back as DA/Tr/SA? Will the Shadow Savior trait be good enough that it makes it ideal for sword builds? I doubt it would replace a trait line in the meta S/D build, but maybe a S/P build would be viable? If Flickering Shadows doesn't have an internal cooldown, will people abuse it for a Thief bunker build or sorts?

D/P won't ever come back without Swipe range buff/revert or a major damage buff. I mean it wasn't the only thing that got nerfed on d/p (dmg via lead attack nerf for example) only the final nail in the coffin.. And I don't really see SA becoming viable in competitive play even after the changes. Keep in mind that d/p was almost exclusively played as Daredevil because d/p doesn't provide any evades or good disengage potential unlike s/d on 2 and 3, so you need something that allows you to stay longer in melee range (aka a lot of evades and endurance gain - which Daredevil provides).

D/P definitely come back the way it was with DrD, but it will have plenty of escapes from stealth to make up for the losses in evades. If the new portal skill has a decent cooldown and mechanics, it'll also give another good escape.

D/P was never a great spec for actual fighting the way that S/D is, but it had insane mobility and good burst. It's definitely possible that the burst just won't be good enough without lead attacks or damage boosts in SA, but the stealth will make it very good at decapping.

Well.. okay maybe.. thief could become a little sturdier with the new SA due to Flickering Shadows (since it's basically a perma infight protection buff that can't be corrupted or ripped) as well as some passive heal via Cloaked in Shadow life siphoning effect, but probably not to outweigh DrD since Escapist's Fortitude also provided heal on dodge or Marauder's Resilience for a bit more def/hp too.. The advantage of Flickering Shadows + Cloaked in Shadows is you can use both at the same time ofc .

But other than that I don't really think the changes will do anything for d/p in sPvP since it already has good stealth access and you probably don't want to perma stealth in sPvP. What is really useful I think is that the +50% movement speed (along with the extended stealth duration) is a minor trait now so it won't take up a slot anymore and it will be extremely useful for decapping/rotating for sure. But keep in mind that DrD added Pulmonary Impact for additional dmg and Dash for soft CC break and perma swiftness as well as 1 additional maximum dodge and additional endurance gain. So I'd guess the reduced damage and higher stealthed mobilty you get from SA will come for the price of way less evades and less mobility in general so.. Maybe the (almost) flat 33% dmg reduction and additional 2 boon rip on Rending Shade (which brings us to 5 ripped boons on steal/backstab combo which may trigger the fear quite often) will outweigh the negatives but we'll see.But even then.. Lead Attack nerf chipped away a huge chunk of initial burst damage and Swipe range is just.. yea.. it's just unfun to play with 600 range steal tbh.

As for the portal skill. While there will be some play involving it for sure, since you can take 1 mate with you through the portal which get stealthed, it won't be as useful as Shadow Trap imo. A skill almost nobody used.. I stumbled across it like at the end of last year or something and since then it was my default third utility skill on d/p. If you are not familiar with it.. it was a trap you could lay down and either activate yourself to get a 10000 range shadow step back to the trap's location (huge for decapping, disengage and instant re-decapping - it also had a massive uptime of like a couple minutes, don't remember exactly anymore) or if activated by an enemy you can shadow step to the then marked enemy (also with 10k range?) and get a couple seconds of stealth. The only thing that broke it a bit was the shitty shadow step validation, so on some spots I only shadow stepped like 2k range even though I could've traveled the entire 10k distance back by valid path.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@DoomNexus.5324 said:

I'll reserve my opinion until I see what actually comes from all of the big reworks, but if we do end up with a tanky meta, I'll be disappointed since that just leads to really boring and frustrating games with people that just never die.

Not sure what merit that statement has.Bunker scrapper got nerfed, chrono bunker got nerfed, weaver essentially only dmg buffs.

Overall dmg from the prominent burst classes got nerfed (soulbeast and herald) so Firebrand prolly will have an easier time.But other than that I don't see a bunker meta emerging, since the sidenoders will just be as susceptible to +1s as before.But maybe im just talking BS here ....I dunno

It may not be a bunker meta, per say, since a lot of the changes weren't necessarily towards big fight bunker specs, but there were still a lot of buffs to support utility and damage reduction.

Bunker scrapper got some nerfs, but also a huge buff from Function gyro. Not sure why any buffs/nerfs to chrono bunker would matter.

Tempest and Thief are probably the wild cards though. I don't know ele enough to know whether the Tempest stuff will matter much for PvP, but the buff to overloads certainly makes water overloads a pretty massive heal. If thief ends up getting any support builds, they'll almost certainly be completely obnoxious as they always are, even though they've never been meta.

For ele, they are nominal changes. Most of the changes are okay for tempest. But nothing of major impact.

Thief however is a different story...defined run a wild card. I predict Deadeyes with shadow portals. But there may be some really cool kitten with shadow arts that could come into the gold as well. Daredevil still dead tho until swipe gets reverted.

Yea, thief could definitely be wild. I mean, will we see D/P come back as DA/Tr/SA? Will the Shadow Savior trait be good enough that it makes it ideal for sword builds? I doubt it would replace a trait line in the meta S/D build, but maybe a S/P build would be viable? If Flickering Shadows doesn't have an internal cooldown, will people abuse it for a Thief bunker build or sorts?

D/P won't ever come back without Swipe range buff/revert or a major damage buff. I mean it wasn't the only thing that got nerfed on d/p (dmg via lead attack nerf for example) only the final nail in the coffin.. And I don't really see SA becoming viable in competitive play even after the changes. Keep in mind that d/p was almost exclusively played as Daredevil because d/p doesn't provide any evades or good disengage potential unlike s/d on 2 and 3, so you need something that allows you to stay longer in melee range (aka a lot of evades and endurance gain - which Daredevil provides).

D/P definitely come back the way it was with DrD, but it will have plenty of escapes from stealth to make up for the losses in evades. If the new portal skill has a decent cooldown and mechanics, it'll also give another good escape.

D/P was never a great spec for actual fighting the way that S/D is, but it had insane mobility and good burst. It's definitely possible that the burst just won't be good enough without lead attacks or damage boosts in SA, but the stealth will make it very good at decapping.

Well.. okay maybe.. thief could become a little sturdier with the new SA due to Flickering Shadows (since it's basically a perma infight protection buff that can't be corrupted or ripped) as well as some passive heal via Cloaked in Shadow life siphoning effect, but probably not to outweigh DrD since Escapist's Fortitude also provided heal on dodge or Marauder's Resilience for a bit more def/hp too.. The advantage of Flickering Shadows + Cloaked in Shadows is you can use both at the same time ofc .

But other than that I don't really think the changes will do anything for d/p in sPvP since it already has good stealth access and you probably don't want to perma stealth in sPvP. What is really useful I think is that the +50% movement speed (along with the extended stealth duration) is a minor trait now so it won't take up a slot anymore and it will be extremely useful for decapping/rotating for sure. But keep in mind that DrD added Pulmonary Impact for additional dmg and Dash for soft CC break and perma swiftness as well as 1 additional maximum dodge and additional endurance gain. So I'd guess the reduced damage and higher stealthed mobilty you get from SA will come for the price of way less evades and less mobility in general so.. Maybe the (almost) flat 33% dmg reduction and additional 2 boon rip on Rending Shade (which brings us to 5 ripped boons on steal/backstab combo which may trigger the fear quite often) will outweigh the negatives but we'll see.But even then.. Lead Attack nerf chipped away a huge chunk of initial burst damage and Swipe range is just.. yea.. it's just unfun to play with 600 range steal tbh.

As for the portal skill. While there will be some play involving it for sure, since you can take 1 mate with you through the portal which get stealthed, it won't be as useful as Shadow Trap imo. A skill almost nobody used.. I stumbled across it like at the end of last year or something and since then it was my default third utility skill on d/p. If you are not familiar with it.. it was a trap you could lay down and either activate yourself to get a 10000 range shadow step back to the trap's location (huge for decapping, disengage and instant re-decapping - it also had a massive uptime of like a couple minutes, don't remember exactly anymore) or if activated by an enemy you can shadow step to the then marked enemy (also with 10k range?) and get a couple seconds of stealth. The only thing that broke it a bit was the kitten shadow step validation, so on some spots I only shadow stepped like 2k range even though I could've traveled the entire 10k distance back by valid path.

Yea, SA will need some more love before it really becomes viable. Kind of a shame.

As for portal though, it's far and away better than Shadow Trap was. Shadow Trap had two key weaknesses that kept it from ever really being viable:1) There were massive pathing issues, of course as you mentioned.2) It would trigger to engage you in a fight with someone. Almost no thief meta build has been based around 1 v 1 fights in a very long time, so this hasn't really been a good fit. Thieves have rotated to decap and +1, so unless this triggered on a spot where you had an ally fighting your target already, the teleport would be a bad rotation. While you could trigger the trap early to use it for decaps, if an enemy walked over it before that, you either had to portal to them or you just lost your teleport cooldown

Shadow portal is better, even before the potential for portalling a teammate with you just because of the flexibility it gives you in rotations. If Shadow Trap didn't have pathing issues, it probably would have been meta too for the same reason, even with the triggering on enemies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ryan.9387 said:

@ZeroTheCat.2684 said:No nerfs to scourge.. kitten Anet?

Outside of adding a 1s global cooldown between shade skills I actually can't imagine any nerfs necromancer specifically needs. It's exceptionally strong in the right circumstances but also very limited in it's role and what it can do with a very specific niche. That's how every build should be.

So still FB + 2 scourge every game. This patch won’t change a thing. Except we will see more eles. And how are buffs to guardians needed?? Are they even playing this game mode. Last nail in the coffin I’m afraid.

Idk. I've played 100 plat 1-2 games and while scourges and reapers on both teams aren't uncommmon Firebrands on either team feel very uncommon. People don't queue on Firebrand, even top tier PvPers, because playing Firebrand or dedicated support in general just makes you so dependent on everyone else on your team actually performing their roles. At this point Firebrand feels like an Automated Tournament only build.

Yes, you are right. What I meant was that the meta won’t change. Also Buffing already strong classes won’t help the balance of this game..

No top tier spec was specifically buffed. Firebrand+Scourge will remain strong in ranked but that's about it.

Except weaver which is arguably top tier for sidepoint 1v1s.

that's not true at all, It's in a solid spot though. However CI mirage is what we should call Top Tier at the moment.

Weaver and Warrior Loses to Ci mirage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Its only been a day, but so far I haven't found anything to really appreciate with the changes. Nearly every class elite and even some core professions I've tried are a lot or otherwise noticeably worse in PvE than before. And by worse I mean, less dps, and less survivability. My weaver used to be decent. Nothing spectacular, but could handle a couple of vets and small groups handily in the Maw of Torment event. Now, you sneeze on him, and he goes down. My Reaper still manages to take a punch or two, but Shroud is practically non-existent. I no sooner activate it, than it disappears. At least the Scrapper, despite the rework, seems to be doing ok in PvE. They barely touched Holosmith, but whatever they did, made it not worth playing. At least when Scrapper and core are around. Warrior seemed unchanged, but that could just be me. I have yet to PvP other than a couple of hours of WvW, where things are difficult to judge given gear and uneven group battles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have 0 appreciation.

Ranger and Mes gets substantial nerfs, where Mes didn't need anymore. Development time was wasted on giving thief skills no one asked for, or needed (except maybe stealth portals). War, and Engie; particularly Holo still over perform offering to much survivability for their damage. Necro and Guard are still over centralizing the entire game type (which I don't know if that's such bad thing, but it's definitely stale). Rest seem kinda status quo too.

Maybe I'm just glossing over things or ignorant of it, fine-whatever. But you know what the biggest issue and the lack of appreciation for your work is?All we needed was some good SUBSTANTIAL number tweaks in the right areas for PROBLEMATIC BUILDS, and it not take how long it did. If we are going to wait this long we expect balance! Not a bunch of skills and nerfs no one asked for when the PROBLEMATIC BUILDS still maintain their power creep, after gutting builds that it competed with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...