Irenio CalmonHuang.2048

Hey all, These changes are not live yet, but coming Very Soon.

Feedback on this bit: a good change that toughness is coming off, but vitality feels like a bit of a shaky choice here. Is it possible to change the toughness component to armor instead? That would make it functionally identical but solve the raid boss aggro problem. We can't roll it into armor directly, unfortunately.

Or it's neither, and they may have forgotten to include that trait, or simply didn't think of that trait. But the fact they state "merging/unmerging will now count as a pet swap" should tell the whole tale in itself. Spirited Arrival is included and will work with merge/unmerge, but it won't have text on the trait itself listing this until a bit later.

Regarding FMW changes - we're going to see how things land after this set of changes and adjust further, if needed. We're not trying to take FMW out entirely - it should still be a decent source of group quickness, but it shouldn't be leading to stuff as dominant as it currently is. With some of the other changes coming in this patch, including a bugfix to Zealous Blades still granting 10% damage when it wasn't supposed to, there are enough moving pieces that we don't want to do so large a takedown that something becomes unused entirely. @Kamui.3150Thanks for askin' about those bits. There are a couple reasons why DR doesn't work well as a substitution for Toughness on those Polyphany and Imbued Haste. A bigger reason: DR works differently from toughness - it doesn't scale back like toughness does. It is generally additive and this can be very dangerous when stacking multiple forms of DR. There are a few cases where we've been able to make it multiplicative, but those are, frankly, really not pretty on the backend.A smaller reason: It reads really poorly on traits where multiple attributes are being granted. It goes from being +flat +flat +flat, to +flat +flat +percent. This is something we avoid whenever possible.On +Vitality instead of +Toughness, the way that it works: Your percentage of health, at the time your vitality changes, scales to your new maximum. ex. If you're at 100% health and gain 100 Vitality, you'll gain 1000 health to fill the new max +1000 health you've got. If you're at 80% health, you'll get 800 health. If you lose some health and are at 20% health when the vitality goes away, you'll only lose 200 health (keeping you at the same overall 20% health). To be clear, if anyone is concerned about dying due to a vitality loss - don't be. If someone is at 1 health and 250 vitality goes away, that's not going to ever round up to 1 health for them to lose; they'll remain at 1 health. Regarding Obsidian Flesh - This is something on our list to look at to address in a different way in the not-distant future and we've got a few ideas, but there isn't time to prototype and get these tested and QA'd. We're going to be looking at this to give you more potential control and address some of the concerns you've raised in this (and other) threads. I want to quickly expand on this, because this comes up a fair amount regularly:We aren't going to split core functionality between game modes. In general, core functionality includes: Cast TimesMissile VelocityRangeRadiusPulse Intervals ...and other stuff too, but basically the stuff that changes the way the skill plays.

Firstly:Thanks for the feedback from the balance preview posts (original global preview).Sweet feedback, salty feedback, spicy feedback it's all deeply appreciated as long as it is kept civil. We got these additional changes for upcoming update that'll likely be in the late notes, so if you don't see them in the immediate release notes, these changes'll still be there. New Changes:Feel My Wrath (FMW) was near the top of our list for adjustments for PvE and your feedback pushed it to be unsplit from PvP & WvW now rather than later. With the balance update, across all modes, Feel My Wrath will be:Cooldown 35 secondsQuickness - 5 secondsFury - 10 seconds As per the preview with Stone Flesh, we don't like that a minor trait gives you toughness and can make your elementalist a target in some of our content when that's not the goal of your build. We'll keep finding more places to adjust this, and the solution won't be the same in all places. We didn't have the opportunity this time to hit all of these cases so if you see something missing it is because we couldn't get to it this time. It's still on the list to adjust Soon. Weaver's Elemental Polyphany will grant vitality instead of toughness while attuned to earth.Firebrand's Imbued Haste will grant vitality instead of toughness while you have quickness.As a sidenote to this specific type of change: This is NOT something that we're changing if it is a major trait choice for this reason alone. If there are other reasons for changing traits, we'll look at this independently. Other traits with this behavior that we'll be looking at along these lines are: Spiked ArmorThick SkinPack Alpha (with SB)Armored ShroudWhile we won't be able to get in more changes after this week for this release, we'll be taking notes for the future. Please keep posting your civil, sweet, salty and spicy feedback.-The Systems Team

General:Auras: Aura effects have been updated to be larger and more noticeable. The previous aura effects are now used for auras on allies and for all characters viewed by PvP spectators when the "Effect LoD" option is checked in the graphics settings. Buff icons used for auras have been updated for consistency.Unblockable (Tooltip): The unblockable description has a new icon.Unblockable (Effect): Skills and traits which grant the unblockable status now use a unified buff. This buff is intensity stacking and stacks are lost whenever attacks hit or miss. Single strikes which hit multiple foes only consume 1 stack. Skills which grant the unblockable status for a duration have been updated to use number of hits instead.Downed allied players and defeated allied players icons on the minimap have been updated and are also displayed above the characters in-world.Elementalist:Summoned elementals offer a unique gameplay option for Elementalists that want to fight alongside an ally, but their short duration means that they can die frequently during fights. We have increased their summon duration, but we don't want to make them last indefinitely like necromancer minions as we feel part of the identity of glyphs is being able to switch attunements to have different options available. Additionally we felt that the lesser elemental summoning glyph didn't feel distinct enough from the elite glyph since the elite elementals had the same skills as the lesser elementals. To better distinguish the two glyphs, the command skill for lesser elementals is no longer present, which allows for multiple lesser elementals to be summoned at once. Overload Fire: Increased the might granted per pulse from 1 stack to 2 stacks in PvE. Clarified the description of this skill.Feel the Burn: Increased the burn inflicted by this skill from 1 stack of burning for 4 seconds to 2 stacks of burning for 4 seconds. Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from granting its full might effects to nearby allies.Obsidian Flesh: This skill now locks the player's skill bar while invulnerable.Stone Resonance: This skill now grants stability on initial use for 5 seconds in PvE and 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.Lava Skin: This skill now grants stability on initial use for 5 seconds in PvE and 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.Lahar: This skill now grants stability for 5 seconds in PvE and 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.Grinding Stones: This skill now grants stability for 5 seconds in PvE and 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.Glacial Drift: This skill now grants stability for 5 seconds in PvE and 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.Molten Burst: This skill now grants stability for 5 seconds in PvE and 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.Summoned Elementals: Increased elemental summon time from 60 seconds to 120 seconds. Added indicator buffs to show the remaining time for your elemental.Lesser Glyph of Elementals: These elementals can no longer be commanded. However you can now summon more than one at the same time. All lesser elementals die if this glyph is unequipped.Glyph of Elementals: Reduced recharge from 90 seconds to 40 seconds in PvE only. Command skills for Elementals are now considered elite skills for the purposes of runes and traits. Elementals will now play an effect when commanded to indicate that they are using a special skill. Additionally the command skill is no longer restricted to being in-combat and behaves similarly to necromancer command skills.Flame Burst (Fire Elemental/Lesser Fire Elemental): Now inflicts 1 stack of burning for 3 seconds instead of cripple.Flame Barrage (Fire Elemental): Increased projectile range from 300 to 360 so that the projectiles line up with the AoE attack. Increased damage by 150%. Increased recharge from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. Fixed issues with the description and skill facts to clarify how the damage from this skill is dealt.Windborne Speed (Air Elemental/Lesser Air Elemental): Increased radius from 240 to 360.Shocking Bolt (Air Elemental): Increased stun from 1 second to 1.5 seconds. Increased cooldown from 10 to 15.Stomp (Earth Elemental): Now immobilizes for 1 second in addition to its other effects.Stone Flesh: This trait no longer grants up to 150 toughness and instead grants 7% damage reduction while attuned to Earth.Bolstered Elements: This trait now grants barrier instead of stability when using a stance skill.Elemental Contingency: This trait has been retired and replaced with Elemental Lockdown.Elemental Lockdown (NEW): Disabling a foe grants you a boon based upon your attunement.Fire - 5 stacks of might for 5 seconds.Air - 5 seconds of fury.Earth - 4 seconds of protection.Water - 10 seconds of regeneration.Engineer:The Explosives line for engineer is seeing some major changes in this update. We are removing several traits which had weak or lackluster effects such as Minesweeper, Orbital Command and Blasting Zone and reorganizing functionality from others like Short Fuse and Big Boomer to be more unified. The Evasive Powder Keg trait has been removed and replaced with Explosive Entrance, which similarly adds damage after a dodge roll but does so in a more controlled and modifiable way. Finally we are updating grenade skills for better clarity in competitive modes where it can be hard to tell the difference between the different grenades during the cast time. Overheat: Instead of disabling all toolbelt skills until all heat is lost, this skill now adds 15 seconds to the recharge of toolbelt skills other than Photon Forge. Photon Forge remains disabled until all heat is lost.Photonic Blasting Module: When this trait is equipped, the additional recharge penalty from Overheat is reduced from 15 seconds to 5 seconds.Overcharged Shot: Slowed down the animation so the shot occurs at 550ms (up from 240ms)Personal Battering Ram: Slowed down the animation so the strike occurs at 600ms (up from 300ms)Orbital Strike: This skill now uses a higher detail effect. The lower detail version can be viewed for allies, enemies and spectators by checking the "Effect LoD" option in the graphics settingsGrenade Kit: Skills in this kit now have unique warmup effects based on which grenade type is being thrown. Fixed an issue where grenade kit skills caused the grenade bundle to vanish during the warmup.Crystal Configuration: Eclipse: This trait no longer causes Corona Burst to grant stability. Increased base barrier granted from 374 to 991 in PvE and 748 in competitive modes.Short Fuse: This trait has been removed and it's cooldown bonus added into the following skills.Fire Bomb: Reduced recharge from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.Concussion Bomb: Reduced recharge from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.Smoke Bomb: Reduced recharge from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.Glue Bomb: Reduced recharge from 25 seconds to 20 seconds. Fixed an issue that caused the visuals for this skill to be larger than the effect radius.Big Ol' Bomb: Reduced recharge from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.Explosives: This traitline has been reworked, the new traits are as follows MinorExplosive Entrance (NEW): Your first attack on entering combat explodes damaging nearby enemies. (Counts as an explosion.) This ability refreshes after a dodge roll or while out of combat.Steel-Packed Powder: No changesShaped Charge: No changesAdeptGrenadier: No changesShort Fuse(REWORK): This trait no longer reduces the fuse time or recharge of bomb skills. Hitting a foe with an explosion skill grants 4 seconds of Fury (3s ICD)Glass Cannon: No changesMasterAim Assisted Rocket (REWORK): Rockets are now only fired on critical hits. Rocket recharge reduced from 10 seconds to 3 seconds. Rockets now require the engineer to be at least 450 distance from the target to fire. Every 5th rocket instead calls an orbital strike.Explosive Temper (NEW): Explosions grant +20 stacking Ferocity for 10 seconds when they hit (10 stacks max)Blast Shield (NEW): Explosive Entrance grants the engineer barrier (base 1508 in PvE and 340 in Competitive modes). Also converts 10% of power to vitality.GrandmasterFlashbang(NEW): Explosive Entrance now inflicts blind for 3 seconds if it hits. Additionally it inflicts Daze for 1 second on struck foes above 90% health.Shrapnel: No changesBig Boomer(REWORK): Increases strike damage by 10% against foes with a lower health percent than the engineer. Additionally causes hitting with Explosion skills to heal the engineer over 3 seconds, 202 health per second. (This effect does not stack.)Guardian:Dragonhunters are solid damage dealers, but there were a couple spots that needed some tuning. Deflecting shot, in particular, had a very short cast time and became crowd control when traited with Heavy Light. We've rolled the crowd control into the skill itself and increased its cast time to ensure that it feels reasonable for its effect. Several traits have also been improved for ease of understanding, like Dulled Senses affecting any foe you crowd control, not simply those you knock back. A couple particularly unused traits in the core Virtues specialization have been retired and replaced with fresh options. True Shot: Increased the damage dealt by 10% (2.2 to 2.44) in PvE only and improved the direction your arrow fires when you don't have a target selected.Deflecting Shot: This skill now knocks back and its animation has been slowed down so the arrow is fired at 740ms (up from 280 ms). Reduced power coefficient from 1.8 to 0.01 in PvP and WvW.Hunter's Ward: Increased the damage dealt by this final impact of this skill by 10% (2.0 to 2.2).Chains of Light: Slowed down the animation so the strike occurs at 600ms (up from 400ms). Increased the immobilization duration to 5 seconds in PvE and this skill now inflicts 5 stacks of vulnerability across all game modes.Dulled Senses: This trait no longer inflicts vulnerability when you cripple a foe. This trait now cripples any enemy you disable, not just those you knock back.Heavy Light: This trait no longer causes Deflecting Shot to knock back. This trait now grants stability whenever you disable an enemy, not just when you knockback. You additionally deal increased damage to disabled foes.Stoic Demeanor: This trait can now affect the same enemy each second instead of every 3 seconds.Virtuous Solace: This trait has been retired and replaced by Inspiring Virtue.Inspiring Virtue (NEW): This trait grants you increased damage after activating a virtue.Wrathful Spirit: This trait now grants fury in addition to retaliation when aegis ends.Binding Jeopardy: This trait has been retired and replaced with Furious Focus.Furious Focus (NEW): This trait inflicts vulnerability to any foe you strike while you have fury.Mesmer:In this update we are making some changes to the greatsword and domination trait line in order to provide a more reliable baseline ranged damage build or mesmer. We are removing the Confounding Suggestions trait which has been problematic to balance in the past due to its power level and adding in a new trait Vicious Expression which plays better with the Domination line's boon removal. Finally we are changing the Mirage Elusive Mind to no longer break stuns as we feel that the necessity of including exhaustion as a balancing factor has made it too binary as a choice. Signet of Domination: Slowed down the animation so the stun occurs at 560ms (up from 360ms)Spatial Surge: Now displays damage maximum then minimum in description.Mirror Blade: Fixed a bug which caused this skill to play its slashing effect on the player instead of its target. Cooldown reduced from 8s to 5s. Rather than inflict 1.0/0.6 dmg per hit, it now reduces the damage on future bounces by 15% each time.Mind Stab: Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds. No longer removes boons. It now inflicts cripple instead. 5s in PvE, likely to be reduced in PvP/WvW.Phantasmal Berserker: Cooldown reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds. No longer cripples, instead the projectile removes 2 boons. Projectile no longer boomerangs.Confounding Suggestions: This trait has been retired and been replaced with Bountiful Blades.Bountiful Blades (NEW): Mirror Blades bounces 2 additional times. Phantasmal Berserker summons an additional berserker and they each deal less damage (33% instead of 25% less damage.Imagined Burden: This trait has been retired and been replaced with Vicious Expression.Vicious Expression (NEW): You and your illusions deal increased damage to foes without boons. Disabling a foe removes 2 boons in PvE, and 1 boon in PvP and WvW.Elusive Mind: This trait no longer stunbreaks or inflicts exhaustion. Increased the number of conditions cleansed from 1 to 3 in PvE, and to 2 in PvP and WvW.Necromancer:Necromancer has always been designed to be a resilient profession that was light on Stability. Since this update specifically is removing some stability from their traits we made sure to buff their stunbreak skills appropriately in response. Additionally we've fixed a few issues with minion responsiveness and buffed a few of the weaker minion command skills. Well of Power: Reduced the cooldown of this ability from 40 to 30 seconds in PvE only.Plague Signet: Reduced the cooldown of this ability from 30 to 25 seconds in PvE only.Spectral Armor: Reduced the cooldown of this ability from 40 to 30 seconds in PvE only.Spectral Walk: Reduced the cooldown of this ability from 40 to 30 seconds anid the swiftness duration from 30 to 24 seconds in PvE only."Nothing can save you!": This skill now applies 5 stacks of the new unblockable for a flat 10 seconds with an additional 2 stacks for each foe hit (see General section for more details).Minions: Necromancer minions will now play an effect when commanded to indicate that they will be using a special skill.Rigor Mortis (Bone Fiend Command Skill): Bone Fiend will now respond immediately when commanded, interrupting its current action to perform the special attack.Haunt (Shadow Fiend Command Skill): Increased radius from 120 to 300. Flesh Wurm: Reduced the cooldown of this abiltiy from 32 to 25 seconds in PvE only.Necrotic Traversal (Flesh Wurm Command Skill): Increased radius from 180 to 240Doom: This ability now has a cast time and inflicts fear on your foe at 640ms. The fear duration has been increased from 1 second at a distance or 1.5 seconds at close proximity to 2 seconds on successful hit regardless of distance. Death's Carapace: Added visual effect for this buff that updates based on the number of stacks the player has.Foot in the Grave: This trait has been retired and been replaced by Eternal Life.Eternal Life (NEW): Gain life force constantly up to a threshold while not in shroud. (66% in PvE, 20% in PvP & WvW) Gain protection when you enter shroud.Flesh of the Master: Fixed a bug that could cause Death's Carapace stacks to be applied incorrectly by this trait.Ranger:Soulbeasts, long standing without a tradeoff, are now receiving theirs - they lose combat access to a second pet and must choose carefully which pet they are going to be bonded with in battle. Soulbeast: Soulbeasts can no longer swap pets while in combat. Merging and unmerging with your pet now counts as a pet swap for the purposes of the Clarion Bond and Zephyr's Speed traits.Lightning Assault (Electric Wyvern): Added a 500ms warmup before the dash occurs.Glyph of the Stars: Reduced the cooldown of this skill to 60 seconds from 90 seconds.Call of the Wild: This skill now uses the new unblockable buff (see General section for more details).Throw Torch: This skill now applies its effects in a 180 radius around the target struck by the torch.Winter's Bite: This skill is now always AoE even when not traited with Honed Axes. Increased bleeding stacks in PvE from 2 to 3 and increased bleeding duration in PvE from 8 seconds to 12 seconds to match PvP/WvW version.Honed Axes: Baseline ferocity is now also applied to your pet. No longer causes Winter's Bite to strike AoE.Hunter's Tactics: This trait now increases damage when attacking from the side or behind by 10% in addition to its previous effects.Lead the Wind: No longer grants swiftness when performing a projectile combo. Instead grants swiftness for 10 seconds and quickness for 5 seconds (2.5 seconds in PvP and WvW) when striking with an attack from beyond 1200 range. This effect has a 15 second cooldown.Druidic Clarity: This trait no longer causes entering Celestial Avatar to stunbreak.Unstoppable Union: This trait no longer causes entering Beastmode to stunbreak. Entering Beastmode now grants protection and vigor in addition to removing movement-impairing conditions.Beastly Warden: This trait now has a 1 second delay before your pet taunts nearby enemies. Fixed a bug that could prevent this trait from working with underwater pets.Clarion Bond: This trait now uses the new unblockable buff (see General section for more details).Twice as Vicious: Increased the damage and condition damage bonuses granted by this trait from 5% to 10% in PvE only.Revenant:Revenants are seeing a large number of changes in this update. In addition to reworks of both the Devastation and Corruption trait lines we have also revisited several of their skills. Precision Strike has been reworked as an actual melee attack as we felt didn't really make sense for it to be a projectile skill. We have however kept its emphasis on single target damage if you can isolate a foe. Confusion has been removed from various Revenant skills as they didn't really have any meaningful ways to take advantage of it and instead we've replaced them with Torment which can be used in a more cohesive character build. Surge of the Mists: Added a 500ms warmup before the dash occurs. The evasion granted by this skill is active during the warmup.Temporal Rift: This skill no longer inflicts confusion. Increased amount of torment applied in PvE from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvE.Rift Slash: Updated animation to be more prominent. Skill timing unchanged.Precision Strike: This skill has been reworked into a new skill called Chilling Isolation. This skill is a 240 radius circular melee strike that chills up to 5 foes for two strikes. If the second strike hits only 1 foe it does bonus damage. Increased cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW.Banish Enchantment: This skill no longer inflicts confusion. Instead it inflicts chill for 1 second and removes 1 boon per hit. Number of hits increased from 1 to 3. Increase PvE damage by 380% (0.25 to 1.2). Damage in other modes increased by 20% (0.25 to 0.3)Phase Traversal: This skill no longer increases damage for your next few attacks. Damage increased in PvE only by 100%. Cost raised from 30 to 35 in WvW to match PvP version.Unwavering Avoidance: This trait now grants vigor instead of stability when evading an attack. The cooldown on this trait has been reduced to 5 seconds from 8 seconds.Determined Resolution: This trait now reduces incoming damage while you have vigor instead of stability. It no longer increases the duration of stability.Fierce Infusion: This trait has been retired and been replaced by Glaring Resolve.Glaring Resolve (NEW): Gain stability and heal when you stunbreak.Empty Vessel: This trait has been retired and been replaced by Contained Temper.Contained Temper (NEW): Gain fury when you disable a foe.Sudden Reversal: This trait has been retired and been replaced by Bold Reversal.Bold Reversal: When you stunbreak, gain several offensive boons and full Kalla's Fervor.Changes to the Devastation line are aimed at two major areas. The first is that several traits are highly niche such as Malicious Reprisal and Jade Echo. These traits are being removed and replaced with new traits that have more broad uses. The second issue is the opposite, some traits are too similar to each other such as Ferocious Strikes and Vicious Lacerations that they don't offer any meaningful choices. The siphoning traits are a part of this change and we are unifying the siphoning effect into a single buff for the combat log and making it a bigger part of the overall line. The new siphon effect named after Shiro's classic skill "Battle Scars" is a stacking buff that is expended when attacking and is more restricted in its applications but stronger than previous siphoning traits. Devastation: The Devastation Trait line has been reworked, the new traits are as follows MinorExpose Defenses: No changesDestructive Impulses (NEW): Outgoing damage is increased by 5% for each currently equipped weapon.Targeted Destruction: This trait has moved to the Grandmaster minor slot.AdeptAggressive Agility (NEW): Movement skills remove immobilize.Unsuspecting Strikes (NEW): Outgoing damage is increased when attacking a foe above 80% health. This damage increase is 25% in PvE and 10% in PvP/WvW.Battle Scarred (NEW): Gain 5 stacks of Battle Scars after using your heal.MasterAssassins Presence: Moved to the top slot in the same tierNotoriety: This trait no longer grants bonus might when using Legendary Assassin skills.Thrill of Combat (NEW): Grants 1 stack of Battle Scars every second while in combat.GrandmasterBrutality: Switched positions with Swift Termination.Swift Termination: Switched positions with BrutalityDance of Death (NEW): Each stack vulnerability applied to a foe grants a stack of Battle Scars. Battle Scars healing amount is doubled while you are below half health.Similar to the Devastation rework we are also re-centering the Corruption line around a new mechanic. Invoke Torment occurs when switching legends and causes nearby foes to be inflicted with torment. This ability can be upgraded with the grandmasters based on your preferred playstyle. The boon removal traits have also been removed as we felt that they had trigger conditions that offered little gameplay. In exchange we've added a few new powerful traits with drawbacks as we feel this is in line with the spirit of the Mallyx line and skills like Pain Absorption. Corruption:The Corruption line has been reworked, the new traits are as follows. MinorInvoking Torment (NEW): When you switch legends nearby foes are inflicted with Torment. This attack is called "Invoke Torment" and can be modified by other traits.Seething Malice (NEW): Gain +120 condition damage.Yearning Empowerment (REWORK): Increase duration of all damaging conditions by 10%.AdeptAcolyte of Torment (NEW): Torment deals 10% more damageDemonic Defiance: No changesReplenishing Despair (REWORK): While upkeeping a skill you gain +1 energy regeneration. Additionally you self-inflict 1 stack of torment for 5 seconds every second.MasterAbyssal Chill : This trait has moved to a new location in the same tier.Demonic Resistance: This trait has moved to a new location in the same tier. This trait no longer grants vitality based on condition damage. Increased damage resistance in PvE from 20% to 33%. Competitive modes remain at 20% reduction.Pact of Pain (NEW): Conditions you apply to foes last 15% longer. Conditions applied to you last 10% longer.GrandmasterDiabolic Inferno (REWORK): Invoke Torment inflicts burning and poisonFiendish Tenacity (NEW): Invoke Torment grants resistance. Resistance heals you every second it is active.Permeating Pestilence (RENAME): Invoke Torment transfers conditions to struck foes.Thief:Thief pistol has been updated some to better smooth its gameplay and its associated trait (and harpoon gun's), Ankle Shots, has been replaced with a new trait - Deadly Aim, which causes attacks from those weapons to pierce, allowing for strategic movement and positioning relative to your foes. Vital Shot: Updated icon of this ability.Body Shot: This ability has been renamed to Bolas Shot, had its description and icon updated.Head Shot: Increased the daze caused by this skill from 0.25 to 2 seconds, in PvE only.Black Powder: Increased the radius of the area of blinding and smoke field around the thief from 120 to 180. Updated the description of this skill.Ankle Shots: This trait has been replaced by Deadly Aim.Deadly Aim (NEW): This trait causes your pistol and harpoon gun abilities to pierce, affecting up to five enemies, but reducing damage inflicted by those skills by 5%.Trick Shot: Updated the description of this ability to better reflect its function.Disabling Shot: Updated the description of this ability to better reflect its function.Choking Gas: This ability now dazes foes on its initial impact rather than when they are above a poison stack threshold. The daze duration has been increased from 0.5s to 1s. Increased initiative cost from 4 to 6 in PvP and WvW.Thief Bundles: We did a pass on all thief bundles and found several that were using some pretty old numbers. We've done a tuning pass on these to make sure that they feel impactful enough in PvE for both power and condition spec builds. Branch Bash: Increased damage by 100% (0.75 to 1.5)Elixir of Heroes: Reduced cast time from 1 second to 0.5 seconds.Eat Egg: Reduced cast time from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. Increased initiative gain from 6 to 8.Ice Shard Stab: Reduced chill duration from 10 seconds to 6 seconds. Increased damage by 100% (1 to 2)Rusty Scrap Strike: Increased damage by 200% (0.5 to 1.5) Increased bleeding stacks from 3 to 6. Increased poison stacks from 1 to 3. Decreased duration of all conditions from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.Shoot Rifle: Increased vulnerability stacks from 1 to 10. Reduced vulnerability duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds.Throw Coral Shard: Increased damage by 25% (1 to 1.25)Throw Crystal Shard: Increased damage by 66% (0.6 to 1)Throw Lava Rock: Increased damage by 300% (0.25 to 1). Decreased burning duration from 15 seconds to 6 seconds. Increased burning stacks from 1 to 3.Throw Rock: Updated skill fact to show correct knockdown duration of 2 seconds. Increased damage by 50% (1 to 1.5)Throw Scale: Increased damage by 200% (0.5 to 1.5) Increased bleeding stacks from 1 to 3. Decreased poison duration from 20 second to 10 seconds. Increased poison stacks from 1 to 3.Tooth Stab: Increased damage by 166% (0.75 to 2) Decreased bleeding duration from 60 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased bleeding stacks from 1 to 6.Use Staff: Increased damage from chain lightning effect by 50% (0.8 to 1.2)Warrior:Warrior's rifle has been somewhat lackluster in its gameplay feel, so we're updating it to create some rotations by giving its 2-4 skills ammunition, shorter cooldowns between uses and slightly longer cooldowns to recover shots, plus successfully using Rifle Butt will allow the rapid recovery of the ammunition for those skills. Warrior hammer has a pretty good gameplay cadence, so we're pushing a bit further on what it does well - hurting crowd controlled enemies. Its iconic second skill, Fierce Blow, now does significantly greater damage to disabled foes, and Backbreaker will automatically recharge fierce blow for immediate use when you successfully knockdown an enemy. Aimed Shot: This skill now has 2 ammunition, a 3 second recharge between uses and recovers ammunition every 10 seconds.Volley: This skill now has 2 ammunition, a 5 second recharge between uses and recovers ammunition every 12 seconds.Brutal Shot: This skill now has 2 ammunition, a 8 second recharge between uses and recovers ammunition every 20 seconds.Rifle Butt: Increased the recharge of this skill from 15 seconds to 20 seconds. If you strike a foe with this ability then all other rifle skills recover 1 ammunition. Slowed down the animation so the knockback occurs at 600ms (up from 367ms)Fierce Blow: Increased the damage dealt to disabled foes by 25% (2.16 to 2.7) in PvE only.Backbreaker: This skill now recharges Fierce Blow if you knockdown a foe or strike an enemy with a breakbar.Disrupting Stab: This skill now extends the 0.25 second daze when used against foes using skills rather than stunning them. Extended daze is 1.5 seconds in PvE and 1 second in PvP/WvW. Removed bonus damage. Base damage increased by 50% (0.8 to 1.2 multiplier) in PvE only.Imminent Threat: Slowed down the animation so the taunt occurs at 600ms (up from 333ms)Signet of Might: Now gives 10 stacks of the new unblockable buff for 6 seconds (see General section for more details).

Hi Everyone, Today we're previewing the next set of balance updates to come to Tyria. With this release there are a significant number of changes we've put together for the the competitive game modes, but many of the fundamental principles are applicable in every game mode. In particular, the focus on gameplay being more active is a big piece of the planned changes. That said, we recognize that there are many specific differences between game modes and the nature of changes for game modes should follow suit.eg. Many bosses and creatures in instanced content focus attacks on the player with the highest toughness. A minor trait, Stone Flesh gives an Elementalist additional toughness while attuned to earth and can cut off both going into Earth attunement and selecting the Earth traitline. So we're changing that trait to grant 7% damage reduction instead of 150 Toughness, allowing it to play well with that type of content and expand some build options. We're planning many changes of this nature, as well as re-works and more. We look forward to seeing your feedback both on this set of changes as well as future potential changes. We've posted additional threads for the more PvP oriented changes and WvW oriented changes. -The Systems Team

This was not intended and is going to be addressed in the next (non-balance) update.

Hey all,It looks like the change for Zealot's Defense didn't make it into this release in time: Zealot's Defense: Increased PvE damage by 20%.We're aware of this issue and the change is in for the next release (not next balance update).

Greetings all! As before, here are the planned Balance update notes for next week's release! We look forward to your discussions and theorycrafting. ~GW2 Systems Team Profession SkillsGeneralWhen we originally created the alacrity and barrier effects, they were intended to be profession specific, but we've changed this stance after seeing how the game changed and evolved over time. While the original effects were visually iconic to their initial professions, it was a good time to update them with a look that could fit any profession. Barrier: Updated the visual effects of this effect to be less profession specific.Alacrity: Updated the visual effects of this effect to be less profession specific.Special Forces Training Area: Conditions on the Preview Holo-Golem will no longer be removed by player skills.Low-Health Traits: Updated traits that activate when the user drops below a specified health threshold so that they behave more consistently.ItemsSuperior Rune of Antitoxin: This rune no longer removes additional conditions from allies cleansed by the player. Instead, it removes an additional condition from the player whenever a condition is removed from the player.ElementalistIn this update, we're following up on some of the tempest changes from the previous update. Speedy Conduit has been a lackluster trait for a while, so we're combining it with Harmonious Conduit and creating a new trait that grants concentration. Imbued Melodies is being removed—we felt it wasn't very interesting while also being unnecessarily restrictive by being tied to the warhorn. Its replacement, Transcendent Tempest, provides an effect that is unique among other grandmaster traits, which we hope will provide a more meaningful choice when compared to the other options. Signet of Air: This skill can now be activated to break stuns without a target. Activating the skill while out of range of a target or without a target while not under control effects will put it on interrupt cooldown.Glyph of Renewal (Renewal of Fire): Reduced the amount of invulnerability granted when reviving the elementalist from 5 seconds to 1 second.Burning Rage: Reduced the burning duration from 5 seconds to 4 seconds.Speedy Conduit: This trait has been removed. Its functionality has been combined with Harmonious Conduit, and it has been replaced with Gathered Focus.Gathered Focus: This new trait takes the master tier, minor trait slot, and it grants 120 concentration plus an additional 120 concentration while the elementalist is above 90% health.Harmonious Conduit: This trait no longer increases damage after completing an overload. Instead it grants swiftness in addition to stability. It has also changed positions with Invigorating Torrents.Invigorating Torrents: This trait has switched positions with Harmonious Conduit. Its functionality is unchanged.Imbued Melodies: This trait has been reworked, and its name has been changed to Transcendent Tempest. This trait reduces the time it takes to attain a singularity by 33% when switching elements and increases outgoing damage and condition damage by 7% for 7 seconds after an overload completes.EngineerWhen the scrapper's profession ability was changed to an F5 skill, the tool belt skill from Sneak Gyro, Detection Pulse, was replaced. That skill was sorely missed as it provided useful and skilled counterplay if well timed. As the profession mechanic needed to remain on the F5 key, we looked elsewhere and saw that Purge Gyro, an inherently defensive and utility-centric ability, had a tool belt skill that did not fit its intent. Scrapper is also getting a bit of a tune-up with its hammer skills and a reduction to the vitality loss of the Impact Savant trait, which was leaving them a bit squishier than we intended for a bruiser style of play. Equalizing Blow: Increased damage by 9%.Electro Whirl: Increased damage by 9%.Rocket Charge: Increased damage by 10%.Shock Shield: Reduced recharge from 20 seconds to 18 seconds.Thunderclap: Increased damage by 6%. Reduced recharge from 24 seconds to 20 seconds.Corona Burst: Reduced might gained in WvW to the same amount as granted in PvP. Reduced the damage of this skill by 20% in PvP and WvW.Holographic Shockwave: Reduced range from 600 to 300.Function Gyro: Increased damage by 100%. Increased land radius to 240 and underwater radius to 360. Added clarification to skill description to clarify that function gyros are destroyed when their skill is interrupted. Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.Shaped Charge: This trait now increases damage by 0.5% per stack of vulnerability instead of by a flat amount.Solar Focusing Lens: This trait now also grants 2 stacks of Afterburner when deactivating photon forge. Increased stacks granted from overheating from 5 to 6.Chemical Field: This skill has been replaced by Detection Pulse as the tool belt skill for Purge Gyro.Detection Pulse: This skill replaces Purge Gyro's previous tool belt skill, Chemical Field. The radius of this skill has been reduced from 1200 to 900, and its targeting has been improved in large group settings.Purge Gyro: The tool belt skill for Purge Gyro has changed from Chemical Field to Detection Pulse.Sneak Gyro: Increased the cooldown of this skill from 45 to 60 seconds in WvW.Med Kit: This kit can now be used underwater.Med Blaster (Med Kit): Increased healing to match tooltip.Cleansing Field (Med Kit): Fixed a bug that caused this skill to remove more conditions than intended.Elixir U: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to give endurance.Supply Crate: Fixed a bug in which the Healing Turret created from this skill would not overcharge.Health Insurance: Updated description and tooltips to accurately reflect the functionality of this trait. This trait increases incoming healing by 10% and increases outgoing healing by 20% while using Med Kit.Mechanized Deployment: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to grant less than the listed 15% recharge reduction.Mass Momentum: Increased stability duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.Impact Savant: Reduced the vitality loss from this trait from 300 to 180.GuardianFirebrand prevalence in group content has been quite strong as they offer significant support options to the point that they were crowding out other builds. In particular, Tome of Courage had a bit more power than was healthy, so we've sought to tweak that down while retaining its overall playstyle by removing some of its boon generation. We're also reducing scepter damage and increasing sword damage in PvE as the best melee damage option should not be a ranged weapon. Orb of Wrath: Reduced damage by 10% in PvE only.Symbol of Blades: Removed the double strike that occurs when the symbol is first created. Increased damage of each strike by 20% to compensate. Overall damage is unchanged.Zealot's Defense: Increased PvE damage by 20%.Sanctuary: Increased number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill before it expires from 10 to 20. Decreased duration from 6 seconds to 5 seconds. Decreased recharge from 75 seconds to 60 seconds.Tome of Resolve—Chapter 2: Radiant Recovery: The existing split of cleansing 2 conditions in PvP has been brought to WvW as well. This skill continues to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.Tome of Courage—Chapter 2: Daring Challenge: This skill now grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.Tome of Courage—Epilogue: Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants retaliation. The existing split of a 15-second cooldown in PvP has been brought to WvW as well. This skill retains a 12-second cooldown in PvE.Purging Flames: This skill no longer reduces the duration of incoming conditions. Instead of removing 3 conditions from allies when cast, it now removes 1 condition from allies and 1 additional condition every second the skill persists. Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from being properly extended when Master of Consecrations was equipped.Eternal Armory: Changed burning from 2 stacks for 2 seconds to 1 stack for 4 seconds.Stoic Demeanor: This trait now inflicts burning for 5 seconds in addition to inflicting slow. Reduced the internal cooldown from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. Cooldown is now determined per target instead of globally.MesmerChaotic Interruption has been reworked as a trait that offers a dynamic and skillful form of play by giving savvy players a means to use their abilities to recharge weapon skills. Some chronomancer tweaks are also in to offer another means of granting group quickness and to clean up some functional redundancy between Delayed Reactions and Lost Time. Illusion of Life: Reduced the amount of time a resurrected ally is invulnerable from 5 seconds to 1 second. This skill should now target more effectively in group situations.Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires mesmers to face their target and respects line of sight.Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires mesmers to face their target and respects line of sight.Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added a skill fact to show Chaos Storm's duration.Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been reworked. When interrupting a foe, it now recharges one of your currently recharging equipped weapon skills by 5 seconds. This trait has a 1-second internal cooldown.Delayed Reactions: This trait no longer grants alacrity but now triggers on any control effect rather than only on interrupts. Added a 3-second cooldown per target.Lost Time: This trait has been reworked. It now grants 3 seconds of alacrity to the mesmer when applying slow to a target. This effect has a 3-second cooldown.Seize the Moment: This trait now applies quickness in a 240 area-of-effect radius around the mesmer and can hit 5 targets (including the mesmer).NecromancerThe Death Magic specialization has had a significant rework this update, revolving around a new effect and various means of gaining additional defense while bringing together a more cohesive set of playstyles. The scourge elite specialization has also undergone a significant change such that its shade skills will only fire around them when they do NOT have a shade up. If they do have a shade present, then those skills will happen around their summoned sand shades. Alongside this change, the scourge and each sand shade now affect an increased number of targets by default, which can be increased further through the use of the grandmaster trait Sand Savant. This change leans into the dependence a scourge has on their unique elite specialization mechanic, shades, and opens up the specialization to future potential improvements across its kit. This change creates a choice between whether scourges expose themselves to some melee risk but charge in to affect foes around them, or whether they hang back and summon a shade near their foe and are unable to affect themselves with shade abilities (unless they also place one on their own location). We'll be keeping a close eye on the results of this change and making adjustments accordingly. Scourge: Shade skills no longer affect the area around the scourge while they have a shade present in the world. Increased the number of targets affected by shade skills from 3 to 5.Manifest Sand Shade: The duration of sand shades in WvW and PvP has been increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.Minion Summoning Skills: Fixed a bug that could allow minions to persist after the skill was unequipped.Oppressive Collapse: This skill now requires line of sight.Feast of Corruption: Reduced damage by 20% in PvP and WvW. The existing split of corrupting 2 boons in PvP has been brought to WvW as well. This skill continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE. This skill now queues behind other skills rather than interrupting them.Devouring Darkness: Reduced damage by 20% in PvP and WvW. The existing split of corrupting 2 boons in PvP has been brought to WvW as well. This skill continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE. This skill now queues behind other skills rather than interrupting them.Grasping Darkness: Fixed an issue that could cause the claw effect to pop out of existence before the skill completed. Removed misleading legendary projectile effects from this skill due to it not being a projectile.Blood Bond: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to heal the necromancer when it activated.Sand Savant: Increased the number of targets affected by the larger shade from 2 to 5 so that it now affects up to 10 targets.Death Magic: This trait line has been reworked. Many traits now revolve around a new effect called Death's Carapace that increases toughness by 20 for each stack up to a maximum of 30 stacks. Death's Carapace stacks are applied for 10 seconds from all traits except Flesh of the Master.Minor:Armored Shroud: This trait now gives 5 stacks of Death's Carapace when entering shroud.Soul Comprehension: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now also grants 1 stack of Death's Carapace for each kill the necromancer participates in.Beyond the Veil: This trait has been reworked. It now reduces condition damage by 10% while the necromancer has at least 10 stacks of Death's Carapace.Adept:Flesh of the Master: Instead of granting armor for each minion, this trait now causes the necromancer's minions to grant them 2 Death's Carapace stacks as long as the minions are alive.Putrid Defense: This trait has changed positions and its functionality has changed. It now causes poison to deal 15% more damage and grants 1 Death's Carapace stack when applying poison.Shrouded Removal: This trait has changed positions. In addition to its previous effects, it now grants 3 Death's Carapace stacks when a condition is removed.Master:Necromantic Corruption: This trait is unchanged.Dark Defiance: This trait is unchanged.Deadly Strength: This trait has been reworked. It now causes Death's Carapace to grant an additional 10 power per stack.Grandmaster:Death Nova: Updated skill facts and description. Updated attack name from Lesser Poison Cloud to Poison Nova in order to indicate that it has different behavior from Corrosive Poison Cloud. Fixed an issue that caused this trait to use the minion's stats instead of the necromancer's. Fixed various issues that caused this trait to behave inconsistently with certain minions. Increased damage by 60% in PvE only.Corrupter's Fervor: This trait has been reworked. It now grants 1 Death's Carapace stack when applying any condition. Additionally, at 25 Death's Carapace stacks or above, the necromancer gains pulsing protection for 3 seconds every 3 seconds.Unholy Sanctuary: This trait is unchanged.RangerIn this update, we're making a major change to sword skills in order to better improve their flow during combat. Monarch's Leap, Hornet Sting, and Serpent's Strike are all shuffling around into new slots, which should make the weapon a little easier to understand. We're also including some enhancements for the off-hand dagger, which has been a pretty weak weapon that hasn't kept up with the pace of the game very well. Finally, we're simplifying the greatsword's Counterattack skill and taking some power out of the chain-attack sequence. We hope these changes will make the weapon feel a little smoother while removing some of the frustrating random dodges that happen when fighting against it. Long Range Shot: Reduced the minimum damage of this skill by 14% and the maximum damage by 11% in WvW only.Sword Chain-Attack Sequence: Updated icons for Crippling Thrust and Precision Swipe.Stalker's Strike: Base damage of this attack has been increased by 200%. This attack now deals double damage and inflicts 2 additional poison stacks if it strikes a foe with a movement-impairing condition.Crippling Talon: This skill now uses the ammunition system and has 2 ammo with a 15-second count recharge time and a 1-second recharge between uses. Reduced cripple duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds. Reduced bleeding duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds.Hornet Sting: This sword skill has moved to weapon slot 3. It now recharges Monarch's Leap if it hits. Its recharge has been increased from 8 seconds to 15 seconds.Monarch's Leap: This sword skill is now the primary skill in weapon slot 2. Using this skill flips it over to Serpent's Strike for 5 seconds. It now has an 8-second recharge.Serpent's Strike: This skill is now the follow-up skill to Monarch's Leap. It no longer has a recharge.Swoop: Fixed an issue that prevented the casting bar for this skill from matching the actual casting time of the dash.Counterattack: Removed the Crippling Throw follow-up skill. This skill no longer automatically uses Counterattack Kick when blocking a foe within the range threshold. Instead, blocking any attack flips the skill to Counterattack Kick for 5 seconds. Increased the number of targets for Counterattack Kick from 1 to 3. Counterattack Kick now evades for its duration and activates faster.Power Stab: This skill no longer evades for its duration. Its name has been changed to Enduring Swing. This skill now grants 15 endurance if it hits.Quick Draw: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from reducing recharge time.RevenantIn addition to some changes to Coalescence of Ruin and Gaze of Darkness aimed at WvW play, we are also tuning up a few of Mallyx's Legendary Demon Stance skills from the last update as we felt they ended up on the weak side. Jalis's Legendary Dwarf Stance skills are also seeing some improvements aimed at making them more powerful and easier to use to better warrant the use of your energy. Coalescence of Ruin: This skill no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; it now always deals damage equal to what was previously the second-impact damage. Its damage remains split between game modes. Added a red warning rectangle visible to enemies.Embrace the Darkness: Lowered the recharge from 10 seconds to 3 seconds.Gaze of Darkness: This skill now reveals stealth enemies up to a range of 600, inflicting blindness and vulnerability.True Nature (Assassin): Reduced radius from 600 to 360.Call to Anguish: Decreased energy cost from 35 to 30. Reduced recharge from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased radius from 240 to 360. Damage increased by 33%.Inspiring Reinforcement: Increased pulsing stability duration from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased initial stability duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased the speed at which the road is built by 100%. Increased road length from 600 to 900.Forced Engagement: Increased damage reduction from taunted targets from 20% to 33%. This skill now also throws chains at up to 4 additional targets within a range of 360 of the selected target.Focused Siphoning: Increased base healing by 88% in PvE.Elder's Respite: Added a 10-second internal cooldown to this trait.ThiefThe previous Shadow Arts update landed pretty well overall, but we think that the siphons ended up a little weak. We're tuning these up a bit, as well as touching up a few other traits that didn't feel quite right. In addition to these changes, we're updating Improvisation to recharge a random utility skill on the skill bar rather than a random utility skill type. This change is intended to lower the variance on the trait and to allow for more flexibility in utility selection. Finally, stolen bundles now use the ammo system in order to help with readability. Steal: Fixed a bug that could cause the shadowstep to fail in rare situations.Swipe: Fixed a bug that could cause the shadowstep to fail in rare situations. Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.Hidden Thief: Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to activate even if Steal failed.Leeching Venoms: This trait now immediately grants a stack of spider venom when the thief first enters stealth and every 3 seconds after.Improvisation: Instead of recharging an entire skill category at random, this trait now recharges one of your equipped utility skills at random.Stolen Bundles: Stolen bundles now show their number of uses as ammunition.Shadow Siphoning: Increased base healing by 62%.Cloaked in Shadow: Increased base damage and the damage multiplier by 100%. Increased base healing by 100% and the heal multiplier by 60%.Lead Attacks: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to grant less than the listed 15% recharge reduction.WarriorIn this update, we're focusing on changes to the Tactics trait line and warhorn skills. We've removed the traits related to reviving allies in order to make room for new traits and improvements to old traits that focus more on ways warriors can affect allies while they are still in the fight. The new Tactics traits are focused around empowering allies through boons and effects, helping allies who are taking a beating, and a selection of warrior-enhancing battlefield strategies. Charge: The icon for this skill has been updated. This skill now only removes movement-impairing conditions. It now increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% (10% in WvW) for 8 seconds in addition to its previous effects. Increased swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill is now a blast finisher.Call to Arms: This skill has been renamed Call of Valor, and its functionality has changed. Removed an unnecessary unblockable skill fact. This skill now removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. It also now applies barrier in addition to vigor.Sight beyond Sight: Increased the radius of this skill to reveal stealth enemies within a radius of 600.Burning Arrows: This trait has been removed, and its effects have been merged with Crack Shot in the Discipline line.Crack Shot: Instead of granting bonus adrenaline for base harpoon gun shots, this trait now adds 3 seconds of bleeding to each shot.Tactics: The Tactics line has been reworked. Several traits in this line now revolve around a new effect called Soldier's Focus, which grants bonuses when executing bursts.Minor:Marching Orders: This new trait grants the Soldier's Focus effect every 15 seconds. This effect is expended when hitting with a burst to grant 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds to allies within a range of 300.Empowered: Moved from the adept tier. The effects are unchanged.Mending Might: This trait now heals you when you grant might to an ally.Adept:Leg Specialist: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now also grants a 7% damage bonus against foes suffering from a movement-impairing condition. The cooldown on this trait is now calculated per target.Soldier's Comfort: This new trait heals nearby allies when Soldier's Focus activates.Roaring Reveille: This new trait increases the number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon. It grants fury for Charge and resistance for Call to Arms. It also grants an additional 120 concentration.Master:Warrior's Cunning: This new trait increases damage by 25% against foes with health above 90%. Additionally, it increases damage by 50% against foes that have barrier. These bonuses do not stack.Shrug It Off: This trait has moved, and its icon has been updated. In addition to its previous effect, it also causes the warrior to heal allies when removing damaging conditions from them.Empower Allies: In addition to its previous effects, this trait also increases the radius of Soldier's Focus to 600. Added a missing number of targets skill fact.Grandmaster:Martial Cadence: This new trait causes Soldier's Focus to reduce the warrior's equipped weapon skill cooldowns by 3 seconds.Vigorous Shouts: This trait no longer grants adrenaline when using shouts. Instead, it grants healing power equal to 13% of power.Phalanx Strength: Increased might duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

It seems there is some need for additional clarity. tldr; By all means, please keep constructive feedback coming! We'll review it once we're able. The initial post was not to say "Okay, feedback is now useless", but to communicate that further feedback isn't stuff we're going to be able to review/address with this next set of changes. We'll get to reviewing feedback and addressing it when we're able to, but right now we're no longer in a state of being able to review feedback for this upcoming update. I pointed out that Scourge, in WvW, is an important topic and, we're going to continue to keep looking at Scourge's target cap and Sand Savant in particular in the future. To get a reasonable amount of time for the posted changes QA'd and any bugs addressed or changed due to sheer functional need before the release we've had to stop adjusting things for the time being. That's simply a part of the design and implementation process. Thanks for understanding this and keeping the discussion constructive moving forward.

Hey again all, Thanks for the feedback on the proposed Balance Changes over the last three weeks - as a result several notes have been altered and re-visited.This post isn't a request for more feedback, but a heads-up that we're going to be getting the changes tested and vetted internally while we get stuff ready. It has been excellent to see that many of the conclusions we have reached internally are the same ones that you're having regarding the proposed changes. It has also been great to see your counterpoints and suggestions to some of the changes we proposed, as they've raised discussions on what the best course of action may be. I look forward to getting your feedback for the next set of potential changes once we’ve released the results from this set and others not discussed here. Below are the current changes that we're looking at from the proposed set: Items Superior Rune of Antitoxin: Change it so that instead of increasing outgoing condition cleanses by one it instead increases incoming condition cleanses by one, thus only affecting the wielder, but allowing it to scale up with external cleanses.Engineer Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 60 seconds in WvW.Corona Burst: The existing split from PvP of reduced might gain is brought to WvW. Reduced the damage of this ability by 20% in PvP and WvW.Holographic Shockwave: Reduced range from 600 to 300.Impact Savant: Reduce the vitality loss of this trait from 300 to 180. Unfortunately it doesn't look likely we'll be able to get this trait to work with conditions for the next balance update, but we'll keep investigating other options.Detection Pulse: This skill returns as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro, replacing Chemical Field. Its radius is reduced from 1200 to 900 and its targeting is improved for large group situations so it can't fail where there are many nearby enemies and stealthed foes are slightly further away.Guardian Stand Your Ground: Reduce the stacks of stability granted by this ability from 5 to 3 in WvW.Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants retaliation.Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.Mesmer Illusion of Life: Reduce the invulnerability period on revived allies from 5s to 1s. Improve the smart targeting on this skill so it can't fail in big group situations where there is someone downed and lots of people near them.Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities that is already on cooldown by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Necromancer Scourge: For a long time, Scourge has been a strong elite specialization on the basis of its area coverage. With some of these changes we're looking to re-focus their gameplay around their unique elite spec mechanic, shades. These changes also open up space for improvements to the Scourge's kit in the future as the conversation has been dominated by Scourge's coverage.Scourge: Shade abilities only affect the area around you while you do not have a shade active in the world. This creates a choice of whether to be the focal point for your shade abilities by not summoning a shade or to place a shade at a distance and focus on your shade's positioning relying on distance as your safety. It also offers more distinct styles of gameplay where you may want to close with enemies and avoid having to place shades while being exposed in melee or placing a shade farther away to gain ranged offensive options at the risk of not having shade defensive benefits at your location (unless you place another shade beside you). To address the loss of some of the target cap, the number of targets affected by shade abilities will be increased from 3 to 5. Manifest Sand Shade: The duration of sand shades in WvW & PvP has been increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.Sand Savant: Increase the number of targets sand shade affect from 2 to 5, so that when traited you either affect up to 10 targets around you or have a single shade which affects up to 10 targets rather than the current incarnation where you've got a shade that affects 5 targets and you affect 5 targets near you. Oppressive Collapse: This skill will require line of sight on the activation.Sand Cascade: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP, increase the healing power contribution by 20%, as the healing coefficient is already pretty strong.Sand Flare: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW, increase the healing power contribution by 33%.Desert Shroud: Increase the base barrier granted by this skill by 10%, increase the healing power contribution by 15% and reduce the damage inflicted by this ability by 20% in WvW.Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.Ranger Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.6-0.8 in WvW only.Revenant Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.Inspiring Reinforcement: Increased pulsing stability duration from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased initial stability duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased the speed at which the road is built by 100%. Increased road length from 600 to 900.Thief Deadly Ambition: Reduce the poison inflicted by this trait from 2 stacks for 3 seconds to 1 stack for 5 seconds in PvP & WvW.Warrior Charge: This skill only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in PvE and PvP and 10% in WvW in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.Quick Breathing: Thinking of re-working it to better pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.Thanks again all for constructively sharing your feedback, thoughts, concerns and expectations. Sincerely,~Irenio

Greetings again all, Thanks for the feedback regarding the proposed changes posted last week. Below you'll find a set of changes we're looking at which is WvW-centric, as well as a few modifications to some of the changes from the last thread. With these changes the objective is to bring the dominant builds and compositions into line and offer more build diversity to the existing meta. Because there's been some confusion, we want to clarify that we're continuing to balance for other game types, including (as some of you guessed) significant changes to the warrior's Tactics line as well as the necromancer's Death Magic line, ranger sword changes and more. As before, this isn't the full set of changes we're preparing and this is not a call for general profession feedback.Here are a few questions to think about while looking over the potential changes: Would your gameplay change as a result? How?Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?Are you looking forward to these potential changes? Why?What are your concerns and the consequences you expect with this set of changes?Here is what we're looking at. Previously posted and unchanged items are italicized at the bottom of each profession's section so that it should be easier to focus on the new and changed parts of this set of changes: Items Superior Rune of Antitoxin: Change it so that instead of increasing outgoing condition cleanses by one it instead increases incoming condition cleanses by one, thus only affecting the wielder, but allowing it to scale up with external cleanses.Engineer Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW. Pending the superior rune of antitoxin change, this may stay at 5 cleansing pulses.Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 60 seconds in WvW.Corona Burst: The existing split from PvP of reduced might gain is brought to WvW. Reduced the damage of this ability by 20% in PvP and WvW.Holographic Shockwave: Reduced range from 600 to 300.Impact Savant: See if there is a way to include condition damage on this trait globally. Reduce the vitality loss of this trait from 300 to 180 in WvW and PvP.Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.Guardian Stand Your Ground: Reduce the stacks of stability granted by this ability from 5 to 3 in WvW.Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.Mesmer Illusion of Life: ~~Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW ~~ Reduce the invulnerability period on revived allies. Improve the smart targeting on this skill so it can't fail in big group situations where there is someone downed and lots of people near them.Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities that is already on cooldown by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Necromancer Oppressive Collapse: This skill will require line of sight on the activation.Sand Cascade: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP, increase the healing power contribution by 20%, as the healing coefficient is already pretty strong.Sand Flare: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW, increase the healing power contribution by 33%.Desert Shroud: Increase the base barrier granted by this skill by 10%, increase the healing power contribution by 15% and reduce the damage inflicted by this ability by 20% in WvW.Sand Savant: We've wanted to address the target cap issue with this trait in WvW for a while, however it is an incredibly gnarly problem because this is a large functional change that would need to be preserved between game modes. This was why the cooldown split was made on this trait originally. We hear you that the trait is an issue and we're working on it. This is a tough case to crack in a manner that does not leave one mode suffering due to the changes made for another.Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.Ranger Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.6-0.8 in WvW only.Revenant Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.Thief Deadly Ambition: Reduce the poison inflicted by this trait from 2 stacks for 3 seconds to 1 stack for 2 seconds in PvP & WvW. Reduce the internal cooldown from 5s to 2s in PvP & WvW.Warrior Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in PvE and PvP and 10% in WvW in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.Thanks once again for your feedback and for keeping things focused. Sincerely,~Irenio

Greetings fellow Tyrians, We've been thinking about implementing the following changes and wanted to share them with you to hear your thoughts and feedback. We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table, so the bulk of the changes shared here are WvW-centric. This is not the full list of changes that are being considered for the next balance update. This is not a call for general profession feedback. Here are a few questions to think about while looking over the potential changes: Would your gameplay change as a result?Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?Are you looking forward to these potential changes?What are your concerns with this set of changes?What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?With those types of questions in mind here's some of what we're looking at. Engineer Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.Guardian Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.Mesmer Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.Necromancer Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.Ranger Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.Revenant Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.Warrior Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.We look forward to seeing your thoughts and feedback! Sincerely,GW2 Systems Team

Hey all - the Elementalist notes were missing an entry from the initial posting: Power Overwhelming: This trait has been reworked. It now grants 150 bonus power while the elementalist has at least 10 stacks of might. This power bonus is doubled while attuned to fire.Sorry about that - it was a change made early, but with the note coming in a bit late. That should be all the notes.

Greetings fellow Tyrians! We've prepared a Balance Update that is slated for next week and in keeping with our push to get the Release Notes to you early so that you can theorycraft, discuss and prepare... here they are. Enjoy! GeneralWith the upcoming update we're continuing to create the promised tradeoffs to some elite specialization lines with changes to chronomancer shatters, an overhaul of scrapper specialization traits, and some improvements to the base necromancer Death Shroud, all in order to make the choice of an elite specialization more meaningful. We're also doing some follow-up work on the changes to berserker from the last balance update to tune up a few areas. The other main focus of this update is adjustments to core trait lines on several professions to address some pain points and power imbalances. Finally, in this update thieves are getting an entirely new skill type that replaces traps. For full details on these changes, please see the individual profession sections. ElementalistIn addition to various tempest improvements, this update includes a major change in how core elemental specialization lines work. The weapon-cooldown traits are being merged into the grandmaster minor traits for the four primary elemental lines. Previously, the cooldown trait and other available options were mutually exclusive, and its nature of letting you use abilities more frequently tended to crowd out those alternatives. By folding this functionality into a minor trait, we are recognizing that taking an elemental specialization represents an investment in that element's skills. The traits that used to host the cooldown reductions have each been adjusted to account for these changes. Overload Air: Increased damage of the Static Charge effect provided by this skill by 20%. Fixed a bug that prevented Electric Discharge from firing.Earthen Blast: Increased the number of targets from 3 to 5. Fixed an incorrect damage tooltip and added a missing tooltip for Combat Only.Electric Discharge: Added a missing tooltip for Combat Only.Sunspot: Fixed an incorrect damage tooltip.Tempest Overload Skills: Casting these skills now triggers the traits Sunspot, Healing Ripple, Electric Discharge, or Earthen Blast, depending on the element.Pyromancer's Training: This trait has been moved to the grandmaster minor slot, and its functionality has changed. It now reduces recharge on fire weapon skills by 20% and causes the elementalist to deal 10% increased damage to burning foes.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.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.Flow 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.Piercing Shards: This trait now grants half its 20% bonus damage to vulnerable foes when not attuned to water. The full bonus damage is still applied while attuned to water.Aeromancer's Training: This trait has been moved to the grandmaster minor slot, and its functionality has changed. It now reduces recharge on air weapon skills by 20% and grants 150 ferocity. The ferocity bonus is doubled while attuned to air.Raging Storm: This trait has been moved to the master tier as a major trait, and it has a new icon. The ferocity bonus granted by this trait has been reduced from 240 to 180.Geomancer's Training: This trait has been moved to the grandmaster minor slot, and its functionality has changed. It now reduces recharge on earth weapon skills by 20% and reduces incoming damage by 10% from foes within a range of 360.Geomancer's Defense: This trait has been removed, and its functionality has been combined with Geomancer's Training.Strength of Stone: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now also causes the elementalist to inflict 3 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds when immobilizing a foe.Earthen Blessing: This new trait takes the slot previously occupied by Geomancer's Training. It reduces the duration of movement-impairing conditions by 33% and grants 10 endurance whenever the elementalist is affected by one of these conditions.Burning Precision: Increased burning duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.Primordial Stance: Reduced ammo recharge time from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.Swift Revenge: Increased bonus damage from 7% to 10%.EngineerScrappers are seeing a comprehensive rework in this update, targeted at improving the Function Gyro to be more of a core mechanic and unifying some of the disparate themes present in the trait line. These changes aim to refocus the scrapper as a tank-like character that utilizes personal barrier applications to stay in a fight. The reworked Impact Savant trait links barrier with dealing damage, making the scrapper a durable combatant as long as they can keep dishing out damage. 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. Players will still want to have swiftness and superspeed, though, to help dish out that damage with one of the new traits: Object in Motion. Beyond focusing scrappers more clearly around their personal barrier application, their unique Function Gyro mechanic becomes a ground-targeted skill in the F5 slot, which can be enhanced based on trait selection and acts as a general-use ability rather than a niche option for sometimes reviving an ally or finishing a downed enemy. In addition to reworking the scrapper traits, we're also slightly increasing the penalty for holosmiths overheating, as it wasn't commensurate with the level of power granted by holoforge mode. Overload: Overloading now disables all toolbelt skills for its duration.Blowtorch: This skill now applies 4 stacks of burning that scales dynamically between 3 and 6 seconds based on distance from the target. This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.Blunderbuss: This skill now respects line of sight.Bulwark Gyro: This skill now scales the initial personal barrier it grants with the number of allies you are redirecting damage from. The base barrier granted has been reduced to account for the higher potential initial gain. Barrier amount is no longer split by game mode as a result. Fixed a bug with an incorrect skill fact for barrier amount.Elixir X: The cooldown is now 105 seconds in all game modes.Hip Shot: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill's projectiles to follow their target.Net Shot: Fixed a bug that could allow this skill to be fired backward.Invisible Analysis: This trait now applies 5 seconds of fury when it activates.Laser's Edge: The bonus damage from this trait is now calculated dynamically based on the amount of heat you have rather than activating after passing a specific heat threshold. Because of this change, the effect icon will no longer be displayed. Bonus damage is now multiplicative instead of additive.Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit: This trait now increases the bonus damage maximum from Laser's Edge by 50% in addition to its previous effects.Scrapper—Function Gyro: While scrapper specialization is equipped, this skill now occupies the F5 slot. Recharge has been increased to 30 seconds. This skill trait is now ground targeted at a range of 600 and creates a lightning field at the target point with a radius of 180. Within this radius, it spawns up to 6 function gyros targeting up to 3 enemies and/or 3 allies. Enemies are finished while allies are revived. This skill's recharge is increased by 50% for each function gyro spawned beyond the first.Scrapper traits have been reworked and repositioned. The specialization line has changed as follows:MinorFunction Gyro: The Function Gyro skill has been reworked. See previous note for details.Speed of Synergy: This new trait causes all leap finishers to give superspeed to the scrapper, and all blast finishers give superspeed in an area around you.Impact Savant: This trait no longer increases damage while you have barrier. Instead it converts 15% of all outgoing strike damage into barrier and reduces vitality by 300. AdeptGyroscopic Acceleration: This new trait causes wells to give superspeed when they end and increases well radius. Additionally, it causes your function gyro skill to give superspeed in an area when cast. System Shocker: This new trait causes your function gyro to inflict daze in an area for 0.5 seconds when cast. Improves effectiveness of all lightning field finishers by 50%. Mass Momentum: This trait has been moved to the adept tier. It no longer grants power based on toughness. Instead it causes your function gyro to grant stability in an area when cast in addition to causing stability to pulse might. MasterDamage Dampener: This new trait causes 20% of all damage dealt to you to be dealt after a 2-second delay from the initial strike. In PvE only, the damage delay is increased to 33%. Expert Examination: This trait has received no changes. Object in Motion: This new trait increases outgoing damage by 5% if you have swiftness, superspeed, or stability. Each boon increases the bonus damage by 5%, up to a maximum of 15% if you have all three. GrandmasterAdaptive Armor: This trait no longer gives barrier when struck. Instead, it increases the barrier received by 15%, in addition to reducing condition damage by 20% while you have a barrier. Kinetic Stabilizers: This trait is no longer triggered by Function Gyro. Instead it increases the duration of stuns and daze effects by 25%. It also grants stability and superspeed when disabling a foe. Applied Force: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now also grants +200 power while you have quickness. It now grants quickness when at or above 10 stacks of might rather than only when above 10 stacks. Fixed various bugs that could cause inconsistent trigger behavior. GuardianFor guardians, some power from various trait lines is being shifted around in order to create better tiered trait options. The Retribution trait in the Radiance line had a lot of power and was crowding out other options. We're transferring this power over to the Zeal line, along with a few other trait reworks to make that type of damage bonus more reliable. While most symbols will become more powerful as a result of these changes, we're taking special care with Symbol of Punishment due to its low recharge. For this symbol, we have reduced the damage of the extra strikes rather than the symbol itself, as they cause the skill to have unpredictable damage based on the size of the target. Overall, these two changes net a small enhancement to the skill. Additionally, we are tuning up a few dragonhunter skills and traits to both improve their use cases and clarify their descriptions. Spear of Light: This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.Leap of Faith: This skill now heals you for each foe hit in addition to its previous effects.Deflecting Shot: This skill no longer deals bonus damage if a missile is reflected. Increased base damage by 80%.Symbol of Energy: Increased projectile speed by 25%.Symbolic Avenger: This trait has been reworked. It now increases the guardian's damage by 2% stacking (max 5 stacks) for 15 seconds whenever a symbol hits a foe.Symbolic Power: Increased the symbol damage from 10% to 30%. This trait no longer has a chance to inflict burning. Instead it causes symbols to charge your Justice passive effect twice as fast.Symbol of Punishment: Lowered the damage of extra strikes by 25% in PvE.Symbolic Exposure: This trait now increases damage to vulnerable foes by 5% in addition to its previous effects.Protective Reviver: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to not increase revive speed.Zealous Blade: This trait no longer heals when combined with a light field or grants 10% bonus damage when wielding a greatsword. Instead it grants +120 power plus an additional +120 power while wielding a greatsword in addition to reducing greatsword skill recharge by 20%.Eternal Armory: Increased burning stacks from 1 to 2.Retribution: This trait no longer grants bonus ferocity.Radiant Power: This trait now grants +150 ferocity.Pure of Sight: This trait now scales dynamically based on distance from the target. Scaling has been adjusted from 5% to 15%.Spear of Justice: This skill has been updated so the tether aspect doesn't fail against world bosses as frequently.MesmerIn 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. 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. Illusions: 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.Spatial Surge: This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.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.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.Signet of Illusions: The description for this skill has been updated.Mimic: The boon that allows faster skill recharge is now removed prematurely if the caster enters or exits a transformation or uses a mount.Veil: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill's effects to not line up with its visual elements in some situations.Temporal Curtain: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill's effects to not line up with its visual elements in some situations.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.Auspicious Anguish: This trait has been reworked. It now causes up to 2 damaging conditions on the mesmer to be converted into boons whenever the mesmer gains distortion or becomes disabled.Flow of Time: The alacrity per clone shattered has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.Seize the Moment: The quickness per clone shattered has been increased from 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds.Master of Fragmentation: Due to changes to chronomancer shatter skills, this trait no longer inflicts slow when Continuum Shift is activated. Instead it adds projectile reflection to distortion in the same way it does for core mesmer.NecromancerWhile 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. We are also making some changes to core necromancer death shroud skills. These changes are aimed at improving the uptime of shroud skills to put them more in line with their elite specialization counterparts. Death Shroud: Fixed an issue in which the UI icon displayed while in shroud incorrectly used the icon for Dark Path.Dark Path: Updated the icon for this skill. Reduced the recharge from 15 seconds to 8 seconds. Reduced chill duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. This skill now damages, chills, and inflicts bleeding on all foes in the area, rather than only damaging and inflicting bleeding on the first foe hit. The projectile fired by this skill now travels in a straight line rather than following the slope of the ground. This skill no longer shadowsteps to the target by default. Instead it flips over to Dark Pursuit when the projectile hits.Dark Pursuit: This follow-up skill to Dark Path shadowsteps the necromancer to the first foe stuck by Dark Path and increases the recharge of Dark Path by 8 seconds. Dark Pursuit can be cast for 3 seconds after the Dark Path projectile hits a target.Life Transfer: Reduced recharge from 40 seconds to 25 seconds.Tainted Shackles: Reduced recharge from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.Dark Water: Reduced recharge from 15 seconds to 8 seconds. Reduced pulses from 7 to 4. Reduced duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds.Wave of Fear: Reduced recharge from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.Gathering Plague: Reduced recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.Unholy Martyr: Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to prevent cleanup of Death Shroud boons.Soul Eater: This trait no longer heals while shroud life force replaces health.RangerIn this update we've made some reductions to tone down the strength of some soulbeast PvP and WvW builds. While we believe the builds and playstyles have a solid place in the game and don't want to take them out of play, certain elements are a bit too far over the edge. The skill "Sic 'Em!" is providing a damage modifier that is significantly higher than any other single persistent bonus damage increase, so we're reducing the bonus to match other similar skills in a competitive setting. This reduction only occurs while merged with your pet. We're also reducing access to the unblockable effect provided by some skills and traits in order to create more opportunities for others. Long Range Shot: This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.Point Blank Shot: This skill now scales knockback distance dynamically between a range of 100 and 600 based on distance from the target.Barrage: Reduced recharge from 30 second to 20 seconds. Lowered cripple duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. Increased damage by 25%. Damage floaters for this skill now show total damage instead of damage per hit.Sublime Conversion: This skill now grants 5 seconds of regeneration to allies who pass through the wall.Ancestral Grace: This skill no longer evades attacks. Increased recharge from 18 seconds to 20 seconds. If at least 1 ally other than yourself is healed, the recharge is reduced by 5 seconds.Call of the Wild: The unblockable boon provided by this skill now lasts for the next 3 attacks within 5 seconds instead of all attacks within the next 4 seconds.Clarion Bond: The unblockable boon provided by this skill now lasts for the next 2 attacks within 5 seconds instead of all attacks within the next 3 seconds.Frost Trap: Increased the number of pulses from 4 to 5. Decreased chill duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds. Increased damage by 100% in PvE only. Fixed a bug that prevented this skill's ice field from lasting the full duration."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.One Wolf Pack: Fixed a bug that could cause the second strike from this skill to fail if the player jumps.Verdant Etching: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to not function with Glyph of the Stars.Light on Your Feet: This trait now also grants its damage bonus when dodging using Quick Shot.Twice as Vicious: Increased the duration of the damage effect granted by this trait from 4 seconds to 10 seconds.Second Skin: Reduced condition damage protection from 33% to 20% in PvP only.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.RevenantWhen we reworked sword skill 5 from Grasping Shadow to Deathstrike, we also carried over the slow and chill conditions it inflicted. However, since Deathstrike is a damage skill rather than a control skill like Grasping Shadow, we are removing this component because it muddies the new purpose of the skill. Similarly, we are reworking both Embrace the Darkness and Unyielding Anguish in the Mallyx stance that both act as pulsing areas of effects, with the intent of better differentiating when they should be used. Embrace the Darkness is being focused on inflicting torment. Unyielding Anguish is being revamped, becoming a setup skill that gathers up enemies, and it has been renamed Call to Anguish. Beyond these changes, we are also scaling up skills and traits that looked like they were just marginally out of play and reducing some might generation in PvP. 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.Hardening Persistence: Increased the damage reduction per pip of energy from 1% to 1.5%.Focused Siphoning: Increased power scaling by 400% in PvE only. Increased healing scaling by 400% in PvE only.Spear of Anguish: This skill now scales torment duration dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.Notoriety: Reduced might duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds, and reduced the number of stacks applied by 1 in PvP only.Icerazor's Ire: Increased damage by 30%.Elemental Blast: Reduced recharge in PvE from 12 seconds to 10 seconds. Fixed an incorrect radius tooltip.Shining Aspects: Removed the internal cooldown from this trait.Rapid Flow: Increased base healing by 50%.Shackling Wave: Reduced the damage of secondary strikes by 20% in PvP and WvW.Deathstrike: This skill no longer chills or slows.Burst of Strength: Reduced the damage of this skill in WvW to match the PvP version. Increased the bonus damage boon from 15% to 25% in PvE only.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.ThiefIn this update, we are reworking the Shadow Arts trait line for thieves. As a support- and survivalist-focused line, we wanted to refocus it around stronger themes as well as improve the potency of its minor traits. Many of the more passive traits have been adjusted or rebuilt to have more active effects, while some of the more niche traits like Merciful Ambush have been adjusted to have more general-use applications. Meanwhile, new traits like Shadow Savior and reworked traits like Rending Shade will help to provide new ways to approach combat. Thief trap skills are being retired for now and replaced by a new type of ability: Preparations. See below for their more information on those skills. Dagger Storm: Reduced the casting time by 30%. Increased damage by 33% in PvE only.Smoke Screen: This skill now creates a ring instead of a line.Infiltrator's Signet: Increased range from 900 to 1,200.The following skills have been removed: Needle Trap, Tripwire, Shadow Trap, Ambush.Traps (Skill Category): This category has been replaced by a new skill category: Preparations.Preparations will function in a similar fashion to trap abilities, but they will not fire unless the thief chooses to trigger them. Each preparation will have a radius of 240 and will produce a variety of results, including the introduction of a portal-type utility that can ferry allies to a location.Prepare Pitfall: This new skill will mark your current area with controlling magic, readying the location to crush enemies when released.Pitfall: This new skill will unleash your pitfall on an area, knocking down foes and delivering constant damage over time.Prepare Thousand Needles: This new skill will mark your current area with inhibiting magic, readying the location to poison enemies.Thousand Needles: This new skill will unleash a hail of needles that immobilizes enemies on impact and repeatedly strikes foes over a short period of time.Prepare Seal Area: This new skill will mark your current area with stifling magic, readying the location to seal enemies in.Seal Area: This new skill will seal your marked area, blocking projectiles and preventing enemies from entering or leaving.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.Uncatchable: This skill now also casts Lesser Caltrops when you take falling damage in addition to when dodge rolling, and it also reduces falling damage by 50%.Deadly Arts: This line has had some traits reworked due to the removal of Traps as a skill category. Preparations will not be receiving a trait at this time and will instead be balanced as though they are traited already. AdeptDagger Training: This trait no longer inflicts poison on dagger attacks.Trapper's Respite: This trait has been reworked and renamed Deadly Ambition.Deadly Ambition: Inflict 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds when striking a foe, with an internal cooldown of 3 seconds in PvE, 5 seconds in PvP. Gain +120 condition damage when this trait is equipped.MasterDeadly Trapper: This trait has been reworked and renamed Even the Odds.Even the Odds: Inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds on targets you steal from. Gain 5 stacks of might for 10 seconds when you hit an enemy with a stealth attack.Shadow Arts: Shadow Arts traits have been reworked and moved. The new traits are as follows. MinorConcealing Restoration: With this new trait, casting your heal skill grants 2 seconds of stealth.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.AdeptMerciful 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.Shadow's Embrace: This trait has been moved to a different slot in the same tier. Its functionality is unchanged.Hidden Thief: This trait has been moved to the adept tier. It no longer increases movement speed while in stealth. Instead it grants 20% recharge reduction to deceptions.Master Shadow Savior: This new trait causes you to heal yourself after shadowstepping. Nearby allies are healed for double the amount you are.Leeching Venoms: This trait has been moved to new slot in the same tier. It no longer reduces recharge of venoms. Instead it causes the thief to stack spider venom automatically while in stealth.Flickering Shadows : This new trait grants 33% damage reduction while revealed.GrandmasterCloaked in Shadow: This trait no longer grants immunity to critical hits. Instead it causes blinding a foe to siphon health.Shadow's Rejuvenation: This trait has not changed.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.WarriorWe like how the gameplay changes in the last balance update have turned out for berserker, but we've also heard your feedback and recognize that the damage has been lower than expected for the amount of investment involved. In this update, we're tuning up some berserker skills and traits to give these builds a little more power and longer windows to stay in berserk mode. The Bloody Roar trait changing its stacking method will result in a net increase in damage, so we are also lowering its values in competitive modes, since berserker burst in those modes is already difficult to deal with. Similarly we are also making adjustments to Rampage to rein in some of its excess power in PvP. Wild Blow: Increased berserk extension from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.Shattering Blow: Increase berserk extension from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.Mariner's Shot: This skill now scales damage dynamically based on distance rather than using distance thresholds.Headbutt: This skill now removes all stacks of stability when casting and does 50% more damage if stability was removed.Fear Me: The duration of fear applied by this skill now scales dynamically based on distance.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.Last Blaze: Burning duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.Sight beyond Sight: Increased duration of reveal applied by this skill from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.Bloody Roar: This trait now stacks damage multiplicatively instead of additively. Reduced damage bonus from 20% to 15% in PvP and WvW.King of Fires: Detonating a fire aura now deals damage in addition to burning.

Hey all, While the team is working toward the release of Episode 6 and the future of Guild Wars 2 development, a few of us are building out a stable of bonus events. You’ve already seen the World vs. World weeklong bonus event with no down state, and the Queen’s Jubilee Boss Blitz weekend, but soon we’ll release other bonus events. The first iterations of two of the planned events are complete, and we have two more in active development. Our intention is to run these during times when there are no major releases, and reward players for participating. The first of these events, World Boss Week, starts May 6 and will run until May 13. During this week, all world boss kills in core Tyria zones will reward a Bonus Box of Goods in addition to normal loot drops. The second event, Meta-Event Rush, will start a few weeks after the World Boss Week. During this week, our intention is to remove the daily cap on all world meta event completion rewards and to reward additional loot for some of our Meta-Events to pair with some improvements to the Path of Fire map meta events. More info will come closer to the event. While I can’t talk too much about what we have planned beyond that, we aren’t restricting ourselves to “inside the box” design for future events. Some of them may make significant shakeups to their game modes during the time they run. Future iterations we’re thinking about are: No daily limit on world boss lootRare harvesting nodes spawn after world boss killCommunity goals and rewardsCollections and meta achievements with titlesThis is where our community comes in! We want to make events that leverage existing content and resources, while being fun and rewarding for you to play. We welcome your ideas for additional events and would love to hear your feedback on the events you’ve heard about so far, including their rewards.

Greetings all! We have a Balance Update slated to release next week and wanted to get the Release Notes to you early so that you can theorycraft and discuss. Enjoy! Profession SkillsElite specializations were introduced with the Heart of Thorns™ expansion and have become a regular sight throughout Tyria. These specializations have sometimes come with trade-offs, and sometimes they've been purely beneficial compared to a core specialization, often because they add something on top of everything the profession already does. We believe that elite specializations are a more meaningful choice when they have some trade-off or change some core part of a profession's mechanics. To use the example of necromancer, by choosing an elite specialization, you lose access to your core Death Shroud abilities, but you gain different abilities. This is a clear trade-off. In the case of elite specializations like druid, herald, chronomancer, berserker, or scrapper, this type of trade-off isn't possible because the specialization adds a completely new ability. With this update, we're targeting a few elite specializations to receive trade-offs, and we expect to continue doing this in future updates. As for general changes, we've made a few consistency updates to aura naming and introduced dark auras to the game. We also changed a number of abilities that would destroy missiles, making them block missiles instead. GeneralDark Leap Combo: Performing a leap finisher from a dark field will now grant players 5 seconds of Dark Aura.Dark Aura: This new effect reduces incoming condition damage by 20% and inflicts 2 seconds of torment when you are struck (1-second cooldown per attacker).Fire Shield: This effect has been renamed Fire Aura.Chaos Armor: This effect has been renamed Chaos Aura. Fixed a bug that prevented this effect from triggering some elementalist traits.Skills that destroy missiles will now block missiles instead. This change affects the following skills:Elementalist: Swirling WindsEngineer: Launch WallGuardian: Deflecting Shot, Refraction, Sanctuary, Shield of the Avenger, Zealot's DefenseMesmer: Illusionary WardenNecromancer: Corrosive Poison CloudRevenant: Inspiring Reinforcement (Underwater)Thief: Sniper's Cover, Smoke Screen, Concealed DefeatWarrior: Winds of DisenchantmentElementalistWith the addition of the weaver and sword abilities in Path of Fire™, the main-hand dagger weapon set has been struggling with its identity. The weaver's sword is intended to be a single-target, high-DPS weapon that relies on direct hits to deal damage. In this update, we're leaning into the dagger's close-range area-of-effect damage and burst attacks. Cone of Cold: The base healing value of this skill has been increased by approximately 20%.Cleansing Wave: The base healing value of this skill has been increased by approximately 20%.Evasive Arcana: The base healing value of this trait has been increased by approximately 20%.Arcane Abatement: Cleansing Wave: The base healing value of this trait has been increased by approximately 20%.Swirling Winds: Reduced the radius of this skill from 400 to 360. The visual effect of this skill now displays a red ring for enemies and a white ring for allies.Vapor Form: Fixed an issue in which this skill would sometimes fail to revive a poisoned player. Fixed an issue in which applying barrier to an elementalist in Vapor Form prevented them from being downed when the skill ended by timing out. Removed an unlisted function of this skill that caused it to apply regeneration to nearby allies.Dragon's Claw: Projectiles from this skill now pierce enemies.Ring of Earth: This skill has been slightly reworked. It now delivers an attack early in the animation, and then another attack upon impacting the ground. Bleeding duration per impact has been reduced from 12 seconds to 6 seconds. Initial impact damage is 27.5% of the final impact. Final impact damage has not changed from the skill's initial value.Magnetic Leap: This skill has been renamed Earthen Rush and reworked.Earthen Rush: Quickly dash along the ground, summoning damaging spikes along the way and then delivering an area attack, immobilizing any enemy struck.Lightning Whip: The range of this skill has been reduced from 300 to 240.Lightning Touch: This skill has been reworked and renamed Convergence.Convergence: After a 1-second delay, lightning strikes the elementalist, dealing damage and weakening foes in a 240 radius while granting the elementalist fury for each foe struck.Invoke Lightning: Fixed an issue in which this skill ignored the Disable Player Camera Shake option.Glyph of Storms (Air): Fixed an issue in which this skill ignored the Disable Player Camera Shake option.Imbued Melodies: This trait now uses the Lesser Sand Squall skill instead of the Sand Squall skill.EngineerFollowing the previous gyro updates, we've had the opportunity to update gyros for underwater use as well. With the change to Blunderbuss, we're aiming to give clarity about the best-use scenarios for this skill by reducing the size of the tooltip and making it clear that closer is always better, rather than using complicated, staggered range thresholds. If this goes well, we're likely to update other abilities in a similar fashion to provide more best-use clarity in future updates. Blunderbuss: Rather than inflicting between 1 and 4 stacks of bleeding for 7 seconds based on range, this skill now inflicts 3 stacks of bleeding with a duration of between 3 and 9 seconds based on range. This skill has been reworked to scale damage dynamically based on distance rather than at various tiers so that closer is always better, not just when the engineer crosses a particular range threshold. The range of this skill has been increased from 700 to 900.Jump Shot: This skill now animates more smoothly when used to reach a lower elevation.Poison Dart Volley: Projectiles fired by this skill no longer fire in a randomized cone. Updated skill facts to show the full attack damage rather than the damage of individual darts.Holographic Shockwave: Fixed a bug that could cause this skill to fail to hit targets at the center of the attack.Shredder Gyro: Reduced the casting time of this skill by 0.3 seconds, and increased the damage inflicted by 33%.Experimental Turrets: Fixed a bug that caused the underwater Supply Crate's Rocket Turret to apply might instead of retaliation.Gyros can now be used underwater.GuardianThis update focuses primarily on tuning up core guardian skills and traits that haven't aged very well. Mace skill improvements and some fixes to how torch skills interact with the Radiant Fire trait should help these aspects of guardians fit in better with new specialization options. We're also extending ground-targeting functionality to all spirit weapons to give players more precise control. Hammer Chain Skills: Adjusted attack animations and damage to get a smoother attack sequence. The full attack chain is slightly faster with less damage, resulting in a small increase in overall damage per second.Faithful Strike: Lowered the full casting time by 0.3 seconds. Increased damage by 10%. Lowered healing slightly.Symbol of Faith: Increased damage by 30%.Protector's Strike: This skill now uses full-body animation for the finishing strike, even while the player is moving. The recovery animation is now shortened if an attack is not blocked. If this skill does not block an attack, it fully charges Virtue of Justice.Zealot's Flame: This skill now displays an effect when it pulses to show the effective radius.Zealot's Fire: This skill now uses the ammunition system. The Radiant Fire trait now adds 1 cast to the skill if it triggers while Zealot's Flame is active.Spirit Weapons: These skills are now all ground-targeted while the player is on land.Shield of the Avenger: Reduced the range from 1,200 to 900. Reduced the explosion radius from 1,200 to 360. Reduced the projectile speed by 25%. Added missing skill facts for shield radius and explosion radius.Hammer of Wisdom: Updated the tooltip to display the sink effect instead of the knockdown effect while underwater. Fixed an issue in which the sink duration was 1 second instead of 2 seconds.Right-Hand Strength: This trait no longer gives a flat critical-hit chance. Instead it gives an additional 80 precision, plus an additional 80 power while wielding a one-handed weapon.Zealot's Defense: Damage has been increased by 50% in PvE only. Fixed a bug that caused some visual effects to display on the player when enemies were hit.MesmerMesmer traits that influence shatter skills typically affect all shatter skills, which has caused a lot of design bloat over the years. In this update, we're moving to change some of these traits to affect specific shatter skills in a stronger way, in order to both cut down on this bloat and to make the individual trait selections more meaningful. Other traits, such as Flow of Time and Seize the Moment, have had their boons changed from multiple stacks to a single stack in order to make it less likely that rapid shattering will cause the mesmer to run over the stack cap. Finally, Mass Invisibility has fallen behind other mesmer elite skills—as well as other sources of stealth over the years—so we're giving it a boost to help it compete. Magic Bullet: Stun duration for this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds.Counter Blade: Daze duration for this ability has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.Illusionary Counter: This skill now uses an 8-second cooldown in all game modes.Confusing Images: The physical damage of this skill has been split and reduced by 50% in PvP and WvW.Signet of Illusions: This skill's recharge now begins at the same time shatter skills are recharged.Mantra of Distraction: Daze time for this skill has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.Confounding Suggestions: This trait no longer increases daze and stun durations. Instead, Diversion stuns foes for 1.5 seconds and no longer dazes foes.Blinding Dissipation: This trait no longer blinds foes on the activation of each shatter skill. It will now cause Cry of Frustration to blind every target it strikes. Blindness duration is split between game modes, lasting 1.5 seconds in WvW and PvP and 3 seconds in PvE.Dazzling: This trait now applies vulnerability when stunning a foe, in addition to when dazing them.Flow of Time: This trait now grants the full alacrity amount as soon as it is activated instead of waiting for illusions to shatter.Seize the Moment: This trait now grants the full quickness amount as soon as it is activated instead of waiting for illusions to shatter.Master of Manipulation: Instead of granting the mirror effect, this trait now grants superspeed for 3 seconds. This superspeed is also applied to allies affected by your manipulation skills.Mass Invisibility: Reduced the casting time of the land version of this skill to match the underwater version. Increased the base stealth duration from 5 seconds to 6 seconds. Reduced the recharge from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.Evasive Mirror: Increased this trait's cooldown from 1.5 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP and WvW.NecromancerNecromancers have some solid roles right now across each game type. With this update, we're touching on a few core weapon abilities whose functionality had not been updated in a long time. We're also reworking the reaper's Soul Eater trait into a more general trait that can be more competitive with the other damage options in its tier. Since this trait previously affected greatsword skills, we've done a pass on the weapon skills to keep them up to par. Gravedigger: Increased the range from 170 to 180 to make the range a standard multiple of 60.Crimson Tide: This skill now grants 2% life force per hit.Locust Swarm: This skill will now inflict its effects every 0.5 seconds instead of every second. The duration of this skill has been halved, so the same number of attacks will occur, but they will occur faster. The radius of this skill has been reduced from 210 to 180 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Finally, rather than inflicting damage on each pulse, Locust Swarm will now siphon health from enemies within its area of effect.Reaper's Touch: This skill has been significantly reworked, and it has been renamed Soul Grasp.Soul Grasp: This skill has two casts. Each cast sends forth a disembodied hand to inflict vulnerability on foes, grant the necromancer life force, and steal health from a foe.Death Spiral: Reduced the recharge time from 12 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased the range from 220 to 240 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Adjusted the visual effects of this skill to be more pronounced. Narrowed the attack cone so that this skill's attack region more accurately matches its animation. Removed bonus damage to targets above 50% health. Increased base damage by 28% in PvE and 6% in PvP and WvW.Grasping Darkness: Increased the range from 750 to 900 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Fixed issues that caused this skill to unexpectedly fail when hitting some objects. This skill will no longer be stopped by projectile blocking or reflecting.Sand Swell: Fixed a bug that could prevent movement for a short time when the skill failed due to targeting an invalid location.Soul Eater: This trait has been reworked. 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%.RangerWith this update, druids, who gain a new mode and access to additional abilities by slotting the specialization, get the trade-off of their pet becoming a bit weaker than a core ranger's pet, as their focus on celestial magics means less time strengthening the bond with their pets. At the same time, druid glyphs have been reviewed and brought in line with design standards. Glyph of Empowerment has been replaced by the former druid elite skill, Glyph of Unity, as Glyph of Empowerment was deemed too passive. Glyph of Unity's radius has been reduced to a standard radius (a multiple of 60), and its duration has increased. Finally, we've introduced a new elite skill, Glyph of the Stars, which you can read about in its note below. Nature's Renewal: Added an additional ring visual effect to indicate the range of the toggle skill.Druid: The base attributes of pets have been reduced by 20%.Glyph of Unity: Reduced the radius of this skill from 400 to 360, and increased its duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds. This skill is no longer an elite skill, and it replaces Glyph of Empowerment.Glyph of Rejuvenation: Increased the healing multiplier across both versions of this skill by 40%. In celestial avatar form, the base healing to the druid and their pet has been increased by 50%. Outside of celestial avatar form, the base healing to allies has been increased by 50%.Glyph of Alignment: Outside of celestial avatar form, this skill no longer inflicts 5 seconds of cripple or 2 stacks of poison for 8 seconds. Instead, it now inflicts 1.5 seconds of immobilization and 3 stacks of bleeding for 8 seconds.Glyph of Empowerment: This skill has been replaced by Glyph of Unity.Glyph of the Stars: This new elite skill heals, prevents allies from being inflicted with conditions, and removes conditions already on allies at range. In celestial avatar form, it heals, prevents downed allies from losing health while being revived, and grants boons at range.Pack Alpha: This trait now grants its attribute bonus to condition damage in addition to the attributes it previously affected.Poison Master: This trait no longer grants poison on the next attack when swapping pets. It now grants this effect upon the use of a beast skill.RevenantIn the case of revenant elite specializations, we felt that the herald and renegade didn't necessarily need trade-offs. Instead, we felt that the core revenant was missing something. To address this, we've added a new F2 skill that is only available when players aren't running an elite specialization that grants a boost to energy and a legend-specific effect. Heralds and renegades won't have access to this skill as they have their own unique specialization F2 skills. This update also sees a large overhaul of revenant healing builds through changes to the staff weapon and the Salvation trait line. Revenant healing is heavily focused in Legendary Centaur stance and suffers greatly when the need to swap legends presents itself. We're leaning into the unique healing-orb mechanic of the staff's weapon-slot 1 sequence and spreading it around to other skills and traits. This should allow revenants to have better healing to fill the gaps when they're not channeling Ventari. Salvation traits have been reworked to focus around more cohesive themes in order to better allow revenant players to tailor their experience to the style of healer they want to play. Ventari's Tablet: The tablet will now display a red, glowing visual effect to enemies.Energy Expulsion: Updated the description of this skill to refer to the created objects as "healing fragments" rather than the misleading term "energy fragments."True Nature: Fixed an issue that prevented this set of skills from being considered Legendary Dragon consume skills for the purposes of traits.Drop the Hammer: This skill now displays a red ring visual effect to enemies. Fixed a bug in which this skill would rarely display its effects a second time.Ancient Echo: This new baseline revenant skill grants the revenant 25 energy and a benefit based on the current legend. When not using herald or renegade elite specializations, this skill will be available in the second slot of the profession mechanic bar.Legendary Assassin Stance: Gain 2 stacks of the Unblockable effect for 5 seconds.Legendary Centaur Stance: Gain 3 seconds of the Alacrity effect.Legendary Dwarf Stance: Gain 3 seconds of the Rite of the Great Dwarf effect.Legendary Demon Stance: Gain 3 seconds of the Resistance effect.Healing Orbs: These objects were previously dropped only by the staff's weapon skill 1 attack, but they have been reworked and are now created by other skills and traits.Increased the size of the healing orbs' visual effects for better visibility.Healing orbs now heal up to 5 allies in a 120 radius when picked up.Healing orbs now activate even if the character that triggered them is at full health.Healing orbs now activate if they appear on a character.Increased the healing of the orbs.Punishing Sweep: This skill is no longer a sequence skill and has been renamed Mender's Rebuke. This skill's functionality has changed.Mender's Rebuke: This skill strikes foes in melee range, and then heals allies in the area after a short delay. The healing is increased by 50% if a foe was struck during the attack.Warding Rift: Clarified the description to specify that this skill blocks incoming attacks. Instead of shooting projectiles, this skill now blinds foes in front of the revenant when it ends. Increased the number of targets from 3 to 5. Increased damage by 100%.Renewing Wave: When this skill removes a condition, it now creates a healing orb near the target.Ventari's Will: Reduced base healing by approximately 25%. Reduced healing-power scaling by 18%.Salvation traits have been reworked and repositioned within the specialization. The new structure is as follows:Minor traits:Healer's Gift: This new trait causes a healing orb to be created near your location when you finish a dodge roll.Life Attunement: This new trait grants 120 healing power and converts 7% of healing power to concentration.Serene Rejuvenation: This trait's functionality is unchanged.Adept traits:Vital Blessing: This new trait allows healing orbs to grant 2 seconds of vigor to affected allies.Blinding Truths: This trait's functionality is unchanged.Tranquil Balance: This trait's functionality is unchanged.Master traits:Words of Censure: This new trait creates a healing orb near foes when blinding, immobilizing, or affecting them with a control effect. This trait has a 0.25-second cooldown but can create multiple orbs if a single skill hits multiple foes with a single strike.Resilient Spirit: This new trait causes the revenant to gain barrier every 3 seconds while in combat, based on the number of boons they have (to a maximum of 5 boons).Invoking Harmony: Icon updated. This trait's functionality is unchanged.Grandmaster traits:Generous Abundance: With this new trait, Legendary Centaur skills create 3 healing orbs by the tablet. All other legend skills create 1 healing orb by the revenant.Unyielding Devotion: With this new trait, revenants gain 15% damage reduction for 2 seconds when they heal themselves and 5 seconds when they heal an ally.Selfless Amplification: Moved to bottom row. Icon updated. This trait's functionality is unchanged.ThiefOur focus on the thief in this update has been toward daredevil, its traits, and the trade-off that it was inherently built without. Daredevil traits have been reworked to focus on three categories: choosing your defense in the Adept tier; choosing your damage in the Master tier; and choosing your dodge maneuver in the Grandmaster tier. With this update, we are adding a trade-off to the profession skill that keeps the theme of a melee-oriented specialization. Repeater: Initiative cost of this skill has been reduced from 4 to 2 in all game modes.Staff Strike: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 6.5%.Staff Bash: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 6.5%.Physical Supremacy: This trait now causes Steal to become Swipe, which reduces the range from 1,200 to 600 and makes the attack unblockable.Marauder's Resilience: This new trait converts 7% of power to vitality while reducing incoming damage from foes within 360 range by 10%.Weakening Strikes: This trait has been moved from the Adept tier into the Minor Master tier and has had its functionality changed. This trait will now cause the daredevil's next strike after dodging to weaken enemies. This weakening effect can be applied to multiple targets at once if the skill used is an area-of-effect skill. Reduced the weakness duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased the damage dealt to weakened foes by 7%, and reduced damage taken from foes by 10%.Escapist's Absolution: This trait has been merged with Driven Fortitude and renamed Escapist's Fortitude. It is now an Adept-tier trait.Staff Master: This trait no longer grants a percentage damage increase based on endurance. Instead, it grants 120 power, and grants an additional 120 power when the thief wields a staff. The endurance gain per initiative point remains the same.Havoc Mastery: This trait has been renamed Havoc Specialist, and it has been moved to the Master tier. This trait now grants 5% bonus damage for each bar of endurance that is not full.WarriorIn this update, the warrior's berserker elite specialization is seeing a drastic overhaul. The goal of these changes is to give the specialization more compelling and thematic core gameplay that better distinguishes it from base warrior and spellbreaker gameplay. To this end, the first major change is that we're moving the berserk-mode activation to the F1 slot and removing the F2 slot entirely. In order to use primal bursts, a berserker must now activate berserk mode first. Removing access to normal warrior bursts and putting primal bursts behind berserk mode focuses the specialization around its unique mechanic. Additionally, berserk mode itself has been changed and will grant power and condition-damage bonuses in exchange for a toughness penalty. We're doing this in order to solidify the berserker's identity as a powerful but fragile combatant. Those willing to take the risks should find higher damage output than other, more durable, warrior options. Another major change is in how berserk mode is managed. Previously it was a limited-time mode with a set duration. This update changes the primary functionality of rage skills to extend berserk-mode duration rather than granting adrenaline. While they are still useful skills outside of berserk mode, proper use while in berserk mode can dramatically extend the damage window to use primal bursts. Finally, we're making some changes to several berserker traits and primal burst skills in order to allow power-berserker builds to exist alongside the more popular condition damage variant. Double Chop: Adjusted the attack timing so that the hits occur later in the animation. Adjusted the damage so that the second hit deals more damage than the first. Total damage and casting time are unchanged.Battle Standard: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to have a shorter casting time while underwater than on land. Adjusted the timing of the visual effects so that the attack lines up properly with the banner's arrival.Banners: Adjusted timing for skill warm-up visual effects.Magebane Tether: Fixed a bug that could cause this trait to fail when the warrior used an unblockable burst skill against a blocking foe. Fixed a bug that caused this trait to fail if the warrior was airborne.Rampage: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to show an incorrect duration in PvP and WvW.Berserker elite specialization changes include the following:Berserk:This skill has been moved to slot 1 of the profession mechanic bar. Slot 2 of the profession mechanic bar has been removed when warriors use the berserker specialization.Berserk mode is no longer instant and has a casting time.Entering berserk mode now initiates an attack that damages nearby foes and inflicts burning for 3 seconds.Berserk mode is no longer a rage skill. Instead, it is considered a level-3 burst skill.Primal Bursts: Removed some visual warm-up effects from these skills that could obscure the character.Decapitate: This skill has been reworked. It is now a long-range melee attack that does not leap forward and only hits 1 target. This skill recharges instantly if it hits and can be affected by quickness and slow.Arc Divider: This skill has been reworked. It no longer deals bonus damage to low-health targets. Instead, it now spins and strikes 3 times. Each strike increases in radius.Rupturing Smash: Cleaned up animation, and reduced casting time by approximately 0.1 seconds.Flaming Flurry: Updated the description and tooltip of this skill to clarify that it blocks missiles.Rage Skills: These skills no longer restore adrenaline by default. Instead, rage skills extend the duration of berserk mode.Wild Blow: This skill no longer gives adrenaline or removes conditions. Instead, it extends the duration of berserk mode by 3 seconds if it hits. It also grants 8 seconds of fury if it hits.Sundering Leap: Cleaned up animation, and reduced casting time by approximately 0.1 seconds. This skill no longer grants adrenaline. Instead, it extends berserk by 5 seconds if it hits.Outrage: This skill no longer grants adrenaline. Instead, it extends berserk by 1 second. It extends berserk by 5 seconds if a stun is broken.Blood Reckoning: This skill now only recharges primal burst skills instead of all burst skills. It extends berserk mode duration by 2 seconds.Shattering Blow: This skill no longer grants adrenaline. It now extends berserk duration by 2 seconds on hit.Head Butt: This skill extends berserk duration by 2 seconds in addition to its previous effects.Dead or Alive: This trait now increases incoming healing by 10% in addition to its previous effects.Bloody Roar: Increased the damage bonus of this trait from 10% to 20%. It no longer causes berserk mode to taunt.Eternal Champion: This trait no longer grants stability when first entering berserk mode. Instead, it grants 300 toughness in berserk mode.Savage Instinct: This trait no longer removes conditions. Instead, it gives 100% damage resistance for 1 second when activating berserk mode, in addition to breaking stuns.Fatal Frenzy: This trait no longer gives boons. Instead, while in berserk mode, this trait reduces toughness by 300, increases power by 300, and increases condition damage by 300.Always Angry: This trait has been reworked and renamed Burst of Aggression.Burst of Aggression: Grants quickness and superspeed for 3 seconds when berserk mode is first activated.Smash Brawler: This trait no longer reduces recharge of berserk mode and primal bursts. Instead, it extends the duration of berserk mode by 5 seconds.