Zenith.7301

They're placebo changes. Power chrono uses greatsword only situationally, and the buffs to mainhand sword were pathetic. The alacrity trait competes with danger time on top.

lol Specter literally craps out 9k barrier every ~10-12 secs and you are worried about alacrity mirage.

When I refer to FB I mean the support variant. Yeah, FB in fractals and in raids was still rather strong, but pales in comparison now to Specter, Virtuoso, and Machinist as DPS classes when you consider these 3 classes bring total range flexibility. FB is not problematic as a DPS class, or even as a quickness DPS hybrid. It is only a problem as a support spec alongside mechanist.

I mean, this same patch left Untamed and Vindicator where they are while leaving Mechanist, Specter, and FB untouched. What did you expect? These developers are never seen in the forums, so how do you expect them to know what's going on in the game when all they respond to are Reddit campaigns for elementalists. They literally release their notes the Friday before the notes drop on Tuesday, and despite massive backlash release them without adjustment to feedback. They don't respect their players in the slightest. Developers in this game always design with the crappy philosophy that their position affords them better insight than the players. Good developers balance iteratively alongside the community, not despite it.

The funny part is nerfing condi virtuoso, which has ZERO utility, but leaving condi specter and machinist untouched.

The changes to necro warhorn for healing are so asinine. You need to extend the healing and boons to Banshee's Wail, and rework Staff to provide healing and boons. Scourge is only a rez bot because it cannot function as a proper heal spec.

Why would anyone bother using chrono for power or quickness when firebrand, mech, scrapper and specter do 3-6k more DPS with half the effort.

Alac heal ren will never be a thing so long as it continues to lack group stability. This patch did nothing to break the stranglehold HB and Healmech have on comps. Especially when Specter remained virtually untouched and manages to provide alacrity and even more barrier than Scourge ever did while doing significantly more DPS and brining a metric ton of CC bar damage.

All Untamed received was like a 20% damage increase 2 skills..... Power Vindicator, at a pitiful 35-36k DPS with a single dodge and zero utility, didn't receive a single buff despite being bound to melee with no range capacity. We have waited since February for a balance patch, and there is barely any PvE spec balance in this. Condi Virtuoso and Specter still miles ahead alongside Guardian, with ranged capabilities. Nobody wants to play Harbinger over Scourge because you become as squishy as an ele with none of the utility, barely a DPS edge over scourge, and being tied to melee for a shotgun skill. Necromancer shroud gutted in survivability in PvE. Reaper Shroud gets one shotted by a Soo Won swipe, while Specter loses half a bar only. Specter can tank 2 sniper shots in Kaineng Overlook CM. Reaper can't even tank a single shot in shroud without taking significant damage. This balance patch is a sad joke.

Expect very little from Anet and you won't be disappointed. You won't even be surprised if you expect them already to mangle a well performing spec into irrelevance with hamfisted nerfs.

Thief, by far. Two viable condi DPS variants, two viable power variants,a hybrid cond+alacrity role, a healer support alacrity role. Mesmer has a single viable power role after they nuked power chrono out of existence, two condi dps, a power quickness that's flat out inferior by a mile and harder to play than any other quickness providers, and alacrity staff. Thief utility in organized PvE is also much better than mesmer, with better CC output per minute, not to mention several of the steal skills are incredibly strong in some of the harder raid fights. Daredevils make a world of difference in Qadim, they help a ton in Samarog, etc. And then thief is a far better pvp class at the moment. A better snipe burst class in WvW with none of the drawbacks of clones or being completely cancelled out by guardian reflect spam like Virtuoso. Mesmer used to be better in open world PvE for solo content (which doesn't matter much), but specter came in and it's basically a better scourge with more survivability and DPS.

Fair enough. Guardian is just way too domineering in all game modes. Way too much utility for being able to dish damage and be tanky on top. Obviously you can't nerf the DPS because then DPS builds become unviable in PvE, and that's a problem. But what you can do is cut out many boons away from Guardians. Even with the mechanist heal alternative to FB, FB still dominates because not just of the stability, but the reflects and other myriad boons FB brings compared to mechanist on top of the ability to bring much better CC as well. Guardian needs a cut in utility, or all the classes need a massive increase to guardian levels. And cutting guardian utility seems the far simpler fix considering Anet's historical negligence with their anemic 6 month apart patches that barely change anything.

Nerfing guardian stability and reflect access will do much to curb their stifling dominance in WvW. Probably should nerf soulbeast LB autos as well. By far the worst WvW class is mesmer. Clones are rendered useless, and virtuoso cannot exist in an environment where reflect walls are pretty much permanent. Fix stealth. Missing/blocking attacks from stealth should reveal. Steal daze needs to be removed, or the trait needs to incur a cast time when it acquires damage/CC components.

Steal should have a cast time and a tell (just as they did with signet actives for mesmer and necro), and backstab should have a telegraph. Shadowstep should have a longer cd for what it does (50 sec cd for 2x teleport, 1x stun break, x2 condi cleanse; compare to ele lightning flash or mesmer blink, necro wurm, totally outclasses them). Shadowstep/sword 2 should not allow to channel a stomp while 900+ range away. Missing backstab should reveal the thief. Just because one class has a particularly OP feature doesn't mean another class should. Thieves are a problem in WvW, as are guardians and warriors and soulbeasts. Fix these instead of creating more thief analogs in other classes.

It's been like this for years. Do you honestly think they will change it at this point? They do nothing. They don't even read or participate in these forums.

The F2 is absolute garbage. Costs energy, has a cast time, only restores half the bar. For the purposes of giving you an on demand dodge in time, it not only costs you DPS, but it's not remotely reliable because of the cast time and the fact you already need a half filled endurance bar for it to be useful. On top, vindicator has a trait to improve vigor, yet barely any access to vigor in its kit unless you pick bunker/tank lines in PvE, which kills the spec's only "use" in PvE, it's mediocre, power reaper level damage. But unlike power reaper, which is already kitten in organized PvE, you don't even bring CC worth a kitten, pulls, or boon strip.

Perma reflect in WvW makes the spec absolutely useless. You're just a worse SB with none of the mobility and defensives. Your burst cd's are longer to boot.

99% of raid groups will run 2 healers, because consistency and a small safety net is valued over some tiny gain in clear time that is quickly lost if you experience downs or even a wipe as a result of being short on heals. The vast majority of raid groups, including the experienced groups, will clear with 2 healers. Most groups are neither Discretize or SC or CnD. You picked out two niche bosses where confusion shines to prop up mirage. By that account you could make the argument condi is not strong compared to power by handpicking SC or Amalgamate to prop up power, but anyone with a clue will be able to tell that's not a realistic representation of most encounters in the game. The only way to discern between cvirtuosos and cmirage is simply by looking at an encounter where the meta was previously mirage and is now cvirtuoso. Like 100CM, since it's not a fight that is skewed by confusion, unlike SH, Largos, or Cairn.

lol "alac specter only works with a might source" is such a pointless statement, every single meta support build is a might supplier. And stax isn't even good on most strikes. It's garbage in Harvest Temple, it's basically a raid single target boss build only. Any encounter with adds immediately tanks its performance. Every encounter with phase shifts also tanks its performance and alacrity provision. Why even argue other specs are reliant on a boon when stax relies on regen and vigor supply just as well. Not to mention the humongous ramp up and the immense opportunity cost to its performance if you choose to contribute your mediocre amount of cc from chaos storm+heal chaos storm+diversion+stun signet. If you bring moa that's another hit to performance on top of a 120 sec cd cooldown for what is basically a Willbender elite on double the cd and none of the aoe cleave. And let's not even mention its performance in Dragon's End or any kind of open world where you organize alacrity providers. It's an absolute niche spec and chronomancer had to die for that pointless gimmick. It says something when the meta quickness chrono build doesn't even use the kitten shield anymore because they took a sledgehammer to the phantasm skill and made it absolutely worthless as a result. It only gets used in a few fights where you choose to tank over a tank HB for some reason if you just want to do more work for the same or inferior results. The previous support chronomancer was a much more complete and engaging support build and what we have now is a power quickness chrono that's miles behind the alternatives for a ton more effort and now an alacrity provision gameplay experience of pressing dodge every two autos in between your cry of frustration jaunt loop. Much wow, totally worth losing old chrono for that. Then they go and make virtuoso have a condition spec for some reason that completely eclipses condi axe mirage, with full range flexibility, less ramp up, no reliance on boss swing attack timers, and superior target switching and cleave since it doesn't rely on ramping clones on a targe and condi virtuoso vomits blade generation compared to mirage clone generation (and axe 2 is a dps loss still). The supposed power dedicated virtuoso spec ends up worse than its condition variant with lesser blade generation, lesser sustain, more range restriction, and reliance on finishing auto chains or lose out significantly on dps from missed the 3rd sword AA. Anet's design approach to this all has been garbage. Power vindicator, a spec with a single dodge, barely any CC, doing power reaper levels of bad DPS restricted purely to melee range while specter, condi virtuoso, condi mechanist, condi willbender and condi harbinger are doing what they are. Won't even mention how Untamed has been unusable in PvE since FEBRUARY. They've sat for 4 months doing nothing to bring the spec into use in PvE.

Those spinning hammer legendary effects look horrendous compared to the baseline elemental orbs. No thanks.

You have no clue how power DPS vindicator is played. The legends used are legendary alliance+shiro, and the evade and weapons are being used regardless of what stance you're in. Why do I even bother with some people...

lol, this isn't even an option for DPS power vindicator, though. Swapping to Viktor is a significant DPS hit only to have access to an amount of healing comparable to other specs that don't pay this tax.

If anything, Virtuoso dagger is either overtuned or mainhand sword for mesmer is undertuned considering that as a melee weapon with a stationary skill it does about the same DPS (in reality, less due to the real encounters where you're forced off encounters). What's more, mesmer mainhand sword DPS is all backloaded into the 3rd chain of the autoattacks, which is easily interrupted, whereas dagger does not run this problem. Catalyst seems about right, which imo is not a good thing. It means the elementalist always wants to be cycling elements ASAP instead of swapping attunements according to the needed utility as most of the damage is concentrated in a few key skills, most in the fire attunement, with air #2 and earth #2 following suit and water far behind with #2. Catalyst would really benefit from a 1 sec icd between reactivating the orb (hammer #3) and adding 5 seconds to the orb duration. Its golem rotation is fluid, but any encounter/CC disruption forces you to cycle to the next element without casting your attunement skills as you stand to lose the orb buff.

Spoken like someone who doesn't play a boonless profession in OW. You go playing ele and thief in OW and let me know how fun it is to have no boon access, or mesmer for that matter. This change opens a lot more builds up for OW play as it gives might, fury, alacrity, and quickness access to many specs who did not have it and felt terrible to play without it. It's especially useful in core PoF maps which were an absolute chore to get around due to the constant combat engagement and spawn rates and mob density+ aggro range.

The problem is both chrono and mirage have been overnerfed and don't stack up to other quickness and alacrity providers anymore. Staff alac mirage to begin with could not maintain 100% alac solo, which is why you brought 2 staff mirages and it was 10 man application, which was subsequently nerfed. Now you have ritualist staff mirage, but the already nerfed DPS puts it far below the alacrity specter, machinist, or condi ren. Power chrono is 5-6k DPS behind the other quickness suppliers while being a high skill floor and skill ceiling spec.