Berune.7408

@Josh Davis.7865 So you nerfed ele damage because some players found a way to cheese the system. Please consider though; as a casual player, I can achieve 15k DPS on my best ele spec with full ascended and a community recommended spec, and squad leaders exclude me from raids because I can't do at least double that (i.e. 30k). I want to know how exactly nerfing that 15k further is going to make raids/strikes or other group content more accessible to me?

Good post. If the highlighted section is part of the reasoning for these changes, then shouldn't they also provide something that existing long-time Elementalist players can move to more easily? I have crafted all of my ascended gear and gained all/most of my content completion and other resources on my Elementalist exclusively. Is there at least a light-armor wearing profession that has the easier rotation and better benchmark or DPS so that I can re-use all of that gear? I don't want to have to craft all the gear and do all that prep work again for a different profession, and I think these changes are unfair to existing players of the affected professions for that reason, among others.

@Josh Davis.7865 Thank You! I for one appreciate the reply and follow up here and it seems mostly positive to me. Selfishly, I'm really looking forward to the design notes now, to see how these changes will support the goal of making content more accessible for more players.

Still was not an appropriate comment for a professional employee of a commercial entity. Please reread the following paragraph from the OP. It does not state that the design notes will be published tomorrow, and instead it implies that they will be published AFTER the patch is released: "In the near-term, the team will be writing up the ‘design notes’ for the June 28 profession changes, which we’ll publish on the official forums as soon as they’re ready. I’d like to ask for your patience as we work on this while also supporting the release." I don't see anything in the OP stating the Devs are on vacation. My apologies if that's stated elsewhere, I wasn't aware that they were on vaca or had the summer off.

If game devs take the summer off, that's news to me. Also, the roadmap and design philosophy should precede the code/configuration/changes.

Ok. I don't think the game Devs should make decisions on changes to the game based on feedback from his 8 closest friends, so there's another issue. Also, the dev is an adult, and should be expected to act like one when working. My understanding from the post was that the design notes for tomorrow's patch will not be released until sometime AFTER the patch, and the full design philosophy for class balance would not be available until much later than that. The only thing I see promised for tomorrow is the patch in it's current form. All that said, thanks for trying to help clarify.

1) Failing to provide context/reasoning for the changes up front. ANet stated some time ago that they would always do so. 2) The statements of the Dev dissing the player community. 3) Employing a secret feedback mechanism that his hidden from the largest segments of the player base. 4) Failing to deliver on the scope of changes originally promised for the timeframe of the profession balance patch.

@Josh Davis.7865 so I read your post again. This quoted passage in particular causes me to suspect that you don't actually have a design philosophy for profession balance yet. Otherwise, I think you would have provided at least an official, high-level statement of the philosophy here and now. I think the best things you could do would be to provide immediate transparency to quell the rumors and immediately address the most pressing outstanding questions. Directly apologize and state what Anet is going to do to make amends for this in the short term. In rereading your post, it seems like you've done everything you can to avoid doing those things.

@Josh Davis.7865 thank you for your response. Could you please explain why you won't delay and reevaluate the profession changes planned for tomorrow's patch, before pushing them into the game? You stated that you're scheduling a follow up patch in the coming weeks, so what would be the harm in delaying these changes until that point? Also, your team blogged recently that the goal is to make raids and 10-member content more accessible to a wider audience of GW2 players. It would go a long way if you could please share details on how you think reducing a professions DPS or access to needed buffs is going to aid in achieving that goal. As a long-time player of GW2, I've as of yet never been able to qualify or get into a raid group, and I've always been told my DPS is too low, despite crafting full ascended gear, and practicing and playing one of the recommended and well-documented builds for my chosen profession. From my perspective, it's really difficult to see how the profession changes made and proposed so far can do anything but make it even more difficult for me to get a shot at playing raids, strikes, or even the EOD Meta. Thanks.

Oh sorry, if you meant celestial open-world, yes, that's what I mostly do now. It's boring as watching paint-dry, and does not get me into any groups for even starting fractals or strikes, let alone normal mode raids. The point I was instead trying to make is... in their blog post about the upcoming balance patch, ANet stated their goal was to make raiding more accessible. If they want raiding to be accessible to me, they need to provide me with a spec an instructions on how to deal enough dps on my Ele to be allowed into a raiding group. Instead, they are continuing to nerf the DPS of the class in pve, which has the opposite effect and does NOT support their stated goal of making raids more accessible. Also, the nerfs, which based on everything I can find, are based on some magical benchmark numbers that I can't event reach 50% of by comparison, and this is ALSO making it harder for me to play open-world PVE content. Again, it seems to me this is all contrary to their stated goal.

What is a "cele OW build" ?

Why are they nerfing Elementalist in PVE? Gah this is so frustrating! I have full ascended and focused/recommended specs, but I can't deal even half enough DPS on any of my elementalist specs to be allowed into a normal raid group by anyone. I'm not interested in PvP/WvW, and basically have to play solo pve all the time because that's all I am apparently capable of. Anet: Please just tell me which elementalist spec you want me to play in PVE so that I can be successful. I can not read your bloody minds!

Why are they nerfing Elementalist in PVE? Gah this is so frustrating! I have full ascended and focused/recommended specs, but I can't deal even half enough DPS on any of my elementalist specs to be allowed into a normal raid group by anyone. I'm not interested in PvP/WvW, and basically have to play solo pve all the time because that's all I am apparently capable of. Anet: Please just tell me which elementalist spec you want me to play in PVE so that I can be successful. I can not read your bloody minds!