Voyant.1327

OP and others you're not alone, everyone I know that played this game has stopped because of the balance team. I'm literally coming here now to check to see if there's any word on that being fixed to focus on game enjoyment & this is one of the first threads I see. I've said it dozens of times, a lot of the team is doing a great job trying to make the most out of this game, but for whatever reason the balance team actively works to decrease overall player satisfaction. It's one thing to balance with something in mind in terms of power creep, but thats never what happens. What we get is a bunch of randomly nerfed traits that break fundamental design ideas to the point it's a mess, then at the exact same time a new overpowered trait will be buffed. It's just a revolving door of misery and confusion for people who play one spec or like to do their own thing. For Meta/FotM players it makes little difference... But I don't understand the logic of pushing away sections of your player base... All for the sake of an imaginary balance that quite frankly hasn't existed in years.

Ditto, did not want to shift 100 points from a full condi duration build that breaks 3k condi without a relic. I was prepared to consider the 15% relic, but hate the way it feels with so many other procs already (fury & regen for expertise) would much rather have the relic slot be versatile & open to different uses per mode. This allowed at least some level of creativity to still exist. Greatly appreciate them doing something sensible for once. Not everyone is into the strikes/raids/stacking meta styles & its been exhausting counteracting. Was nice to not be nerfed again.

Did this happen in the past couple weeks? If I missed that then my bad lol but as far as I know: Dagger is only main hand. Offhand options are Torch, Focus, Pistol, Sword, & Shield.

As many have said they're balancing around theoretical benchmarks, the meta, and basically not using common sense. (No offense to any on the team) A very large portion of western MMO players often play solo more then anything else. These balance patches reduce the experience for those players, yet make it better for that small collective of Meta obsessed? How does making the game less fun for the average player, reducing customization is never a good move, and worst of all its the exact opposite of what we assured was going to take place. We were told the game wouldn't be balanced around one type of player/theory & be balanced around the experience. Its simply not happening right now for a lot of us.

I just want a chain whip with pulls, daze, & bleeds for Mesmer. Not enough Whips in games. That being said, I'd rather offhand dagger or bow for Mesmer. Rifle hasn't even been released and its already caused Mesmer to get imbalanced.

These Mirage Nerfs for example, Nerf every single Mesmer that uses the Chaos Traitline. 100 Expertise Points means you're going to have to take them from somewhere else, which means less Condition Damage, etc. This has been an ongoing problem for virtually any off builds of Mesmer. Prime example just last patch Chaos and Inspiration were changed from Self Benefit to Group Benefit, losing out on DPS/Self-Support to give things to the "Support" Mesmer. Players who utilized Chaos for other reasons, now have gone through several nerf changes non-stop... With no meaningful gain... It's disproportionate as well, because it's always "we need to bring in Mirage (or Virt/Chrono) so we're doing X" they'll lose a few K dps and simultaneously while this is happening another spec will be breaking the DPS limit.

This is the perfect response. Players: Fun please! Devs: So according to this guide this class is outperforming, nevermind the classes doing more damage, this one needs a nerf because its pink.

Its relative to what you play. If you play only Mesmer its been a grief circus for example consistently for years. There are a lot of things they've done well, but it also magnifies the problem areas bc of how drastic and different said experiences are. Personally they haven't recovered from Jun 2022 balance update in terms of product happiness for me. I've found the game less and less enjoyable ever since, but all I'm asking for is a fun experience again. Great example is counterplay is mentioned. Which has basically all been removed from Virtuoso imo. You used to have a decent chunk of it, your f5 was constant in competitive situations. Now its basically spam rotation and zero counterplay at all. Balance philosophy is anything but fun right now. Its exhausting.

This is the part that drives me nuts about it. Grouch literally said they wouldn't do this but yet its all that has been done with Mesmer since.

Is the goal just to grief Mesmer only players into quitting the game? Every single balance update is reinventing the wheel to be less then what you were before in trade to be more generic. And its always shortsighted! Lets give Mesmer a bunch of boons and nerf their main function. Oh no now they're too powerful so lets nerf their main function again! I've been taking a break since LAST patch cycle bc I hated how the Mesmer changes felt & was hoping the balance team would understand that the most important thing to balance around is FUN. This just sucks. No one enjoys grief especially not by the dev team. We get you don't understand and hate mesmers. Why is this being allowed to continue? This is a point a boss should step in and say "hey why are we being so hard on a chunk of our player base all the time? What can we do so its a rewarding experience instead of beating them down every chance we get."

They've been making that less fun to play since it launched every balance update. This patch nerfs high end cVirts too, simple things like losing 100 points of expertise bc "reasons"

Its all how you build it. I run mostly Seraph on Virt, couple pieces of Celestial. I can break 30k solo while face tanking champions, highest I've hit was 34k. (In this current version, have been losing dps a bit each balance update.) You just gotta get out of the way the meta runs em. Virt is extremely overpowered right now, its just not as fun due to all the bad balance choices. Its more upkeep/high intensity now vs. reactionary defensives like it used to be. Used to need to hit your F5 for defensive etc. Now its just as long as you keep doing the same rotation you're pretty much immortal. Only weakness is if for some reason you don't keep up stability (which is near impossible) and thus aren't applying damage. But when you have a 100% condi duration build on Virt and your 4 highest damage sources are Bleeding, Confusion, Burning, & Torment... Which heal you for 3% of that damage... And then you have 100% uptime on Regen/Stability/Vigor//Resistance with close to 70% Aegis uptime... I mean you're pretty much unkillable and outdps'ing the majority of the solo players.

High end condi builds use Sharpening Sorrow, its kitten near crucial. Meta sites don't use it but they also tend to not hit 100% condi duration or 3k condi damage after might stacks either. Last I checked Snowcrows cVirt for example's Condi Duration barely hit 50% for non bleeds and their condi damage WITH might doesn't even reach high to mid 2ks. Literally the two most important things for condition damage. (Even my support build sits just under 3k with might. Pictured below at full proc and add the Relic of A for the 15%) https://imgur.com/pYloElq Would not use Meta sites as a base for cVirt as they've always been behind by a wide margin.

It makes endgame content insanely boring and undesirable to play, the game has the best mobility/mechanics feel out of any MMO... Yet the stacking mentality makes it pointless. And if you're successful in creating a way to not play this way you tend to get nothing but grief from the player base used to doing it this way. I've tried to introduce people to non-stack alternatives and its like I kicked their puppy. Boons in general are this games problem though, they're simply the strongest aspect in the game. The least they could do is just increase the range so to provide more playstyles vs. show up, stand here, facetank boss. This is the only MMO I've played where the raiding is less fun then OW content. Give me a good meta event over basically fighting glorified training dummies.

I enjoyed Holosmith over Virtuoso in PvP for quite a long time, simply bc the floating blades I hate in competitive game modes. That and the mobility of Holo made it a lot easier as traversing the map sometimes on Virt feels awful unless you ran focus or runes with movement speed.