thetwothousand.5049

I take it you've not looked at the Anet listings anytime in the last year then? Anet is doing exactly what you are claiming they aren't - staffing up and quite noticeably across several disciplines. I also think you're underestimating the impact that having consistency in departments will have in content delivery. Having someone that is dedicated to working on say WvW and staying in that role throughout the calendar year will result in more WvW content. Certainly more than having someone in the role for a few months, pausing their project to pull them into an expansion, and then returning months or a year later. And that's assuming that person even gets put back into the same role. You also bring up layoffs, which are not a factor here at all. The most recent layoffs Anet staff saw were back in 2019. The layoffs you're probably referring to were specifically NCSoft staff that have been confirmed internally and externally to not be working on GW2, so no impact what so ever. So again to sum up Anet is hiring more people, to stay focused on more types of content and improvements for the game without the constant priority churns, and with the current market forecasts have no risk of additional staff loss. The increase in money we will be spending, which again will be $10-20 per YEAR, can be logically assumed to directly support those efforts which will create a better game. I say again, well worth it in my opinion.

You're misunderstanding what they are saying, and frankly a LOT of people in this thread and on Reddit are too. They are saying they currently have the inability to maintain multiple work flows, and the reason is because when ever they try to ship an expansion they need to go all hands on deck and other parts of the game suffer for it. This is factually true, something that they've talked about in the past, and it's something the community is constantly dogging them for. The point of this change up is specifically to move away from the "all hand on deck" shifts so that systems and game modes besides expansions can be worked on and delivered in timely manner. This is something the entire community should be thrilled about. They literally say in the post "we have a lot of good bones, we just need time to flesh them out and tune them up". Paraphrasing obviously, but the point stands and this is great. Now we will still get our traditional content drops (story, new maps, horizontal progression) and things that they simply dont have the time, money, or people to work on too. Things like faster WVW development, better Guild mechanics and missions, revamping the LFG and social tools are all on the table with this change and the game will be significantly better off for it. I think its also worth pointing out that this dev team deserves the benefit of the doubt here. Since assuming control about a year or so ago this team has made multiple specific promises to the community, and delivered on every single one of them. Executing on the expansion of EoD, returning LWS1 to the live game, better balance cadence, and most importantly improved communication with us the players. They are now coming to us and saying we're going to make a change to the way we deliver content so that everyone will benefit. This leadership team has earned the trust to make this change and prove they can deliver once again. If they are successful Guild Wars 2 will be charging more, but it will be no more than an additional $20 (and that is a very high estimate it will more likely be ~$10) for what we use to consider an expansion. In exchange the player base will be getting better, faster, more consistent updates with significantly more varied content. Well worth it in my opinion.

Loving the changes to elementalist across the board. The alacrity change was widely requested and will make a vast improvement to the build functionality in all game modes. The buffs to weaver are great. The spec is certainly strong now, but inline with Anet's DPS philosophy a modest buff was called for. I've seen some people reacting very strongly saying that this will take weaver to 50k+ benchmarks that seems very off to me. Depending on the percentage on weave-self this should be a 4-6k bump, putting weaver at a 44k-46k bench. That is right where weaver should be, and if it ends up being higher they've already acknowledged they would tune down in the future. I don't have much to say about scepter/cata changes because I don't play the game mode, but they seem solid over all. The biggest take away I have here is they specifically called out not wanting to delete builds anymore. This is a huge change in Anets balance philosophy and an extremely welcome one in all game modes.

Overall I'm a fan of this patch with a one major exception. Loving the changes to elementalist across the board. The alacrity change was widely requested and will make a vast improvement to the build functionality in all game modes. The buffs to weaver are great. The spec is certainly strong now, but inline with Anet's DPS philosophy a modest buff was called for. I've seen some people reacting very strongly saying that this will take weaver to 50k+ benchmarks that seems very off to me. Depending on the percentage on weave-self this should be a 4-6k bump, putting weaver at a 44k-46k bench. That is right where weaver should be, and if it ends up being higher they've already acknowledged they would tune down in the future. I don't have much to say about scepter/cata changes because I don't play the game mode, but they seem solid over all. The biggest take away I have here is they specifically called out not wanting to delete builds anymore. This is a huge change in Anets balance philosophy and an extremely welcome one in all game modes. DPS changes for guardian look ok, but I don't know if it will be enough to push them over the hump. The changes to willbender virtues is an excellent quality of life change, and will make the build much more functional. Great changes across the board for thief in pve, and the nerf to Meld Shadows will make deadeyes so much more bearable to fight against in wvw. Same general thoughts over all for the remaining classes. The one thing that I truly do not like about this patch, and I really, really hope they reconsider reverting is the changes to mantras. In my opinion the old version of mantras was simply putrid from a gameplay perspective and the changes they've made do nothing to alleviate the issue with such huge cast times on crucial skills mid-combat. The version of mantras that is active in game now is superior is every way from play perspective and should not be changed. This is not a change that has been asked for and for me personally would make firebrand dead on arrival. Right now I can slot a mantra on my bar as a mesmer and get some use group utility, with the cast bar coming back I doubt I ever try and bring that utility in the future.

I'm honestly not sure why you're trying to argue here, other than the community having information on a builds potential is not good, which is the hottest of hot takes. We are in agreement that benchmarks are a builds top potential, and we are in agreement that builds play different and some are easier to reach their maximum potential on than others. We are also in agreement that when one class or build has significantly better potential than others people will flock to it rather than play the class they are most comfortable with, and get worse results for their trouble. Benchmarks are just a tool to show how close classes are to one another and if they need a nerf or a buff to be in line with the other options in the game. Trying to say that utility will offset out of line benchmarks is fraudulent as well frankly, and its clearly already being taken into account by Anet when they are balancing. Scourge may have a lower benchmark but at 35K its still well in line with DPS expectations for the game. You nerf scourges benchmark to say 20K and leave its utility as is, and that spec is flat out dead. No one will play it as DPS period because you can bring the same utility with a different class that does potentially double the damage. That is why benchmarks matter, and its why a healthy meta has every class in a comparable range. Every class can bring some kind of utility to a team, but if its not bringing enough DPS as well its will not be played period.

I will push back against this thought everytime it comes up, because it is just flat out wrong. People want to play effective builds, period. Benchmarks measure how effective a build is, period. If it does 5k DPS no one is playing it full stop. If a build does 50K DPS, but everything else is doing 30K, people will flock to that build in droves. We've literately seen both examples of this in just the last 6 months with Weaver and Power Mech respectively. But we've also in the last few weeks seen how VERY impactful these numbers are when everything is in the same ~8K DPS variance. When people know that their preferred option will still perform in the same range as the best they are more willing to play it. This leads to better over all performance as their on what they are most comfortable playing and the meta sees significantly more options in play as a result. This is very healthy for the games community, and having these numbers is key part of it. I don't disagree with you here in theory, but its trickier to handle than just saying it in a vacuum. For better or worse Anet is balancing specs and new content around specs benching in the 36K to 44K range. I would rather see them do a sweep on old content and buff the encounters up to their new power levels rather than nerf every class back down to HoT levels and adjust new content to match. Leads to the same end result, but its psychologically more satisfying, and it might lead to more older content being engaged with more as we might see an adjustment to out date rewards at the same time .At the end of the day, this is exactly what they are doing, but there are limits to what they can do with each patch. There are 27 elite specs in the game, and right now at least of 20 them are in a good spot, in strong part due to the July, August, and Nov patches. Catalyst is obviously not one of those specs yet, but I suspect its going to be the next to get the Firebrand treatment.

You make a point that I do in my own point, from a DPS perspective Weaver and Catalyst are both competing for the same space, a high skill-ceiling build that provides the highest DPS the game offers. Weaver simply does a better job of providing the mechanics for players to achieve that ceiling while also not completely failing off if you're not able to reach it. Catalyst on the other hand is mechanically zero-sum; you can either reach the ceiling and are pumping or you don't and your DPS is in the dirt. I honestly think the answer is to lean into Catalyst tankier and easier rotation to create a spec similar to Reaper. Remove the limitations of energy and qualifiers on DPS traits while nerfing the benchmark down to ~37K. You'll be left with a build that is easy to play, and play well, that won't drop dead in the blink of an eye, and gives Weaver space to do it's thing. P.S. I would strongly argue thief is fine as is. Daggers are pure single target, truly brings zero utility to the party to hit that number, and it is very difficult to maintain the conditions needed to hit that number, even if the rotation is very simple.

This is an interesting situation, but not an unexpected one. Catalyst was benching at 46K, well above anything else in the game. That said with how difficult it is to actually reach that 46K leaving it alone in the short term would not have been an issue in my opinion. In the few weeks we've had the patch now I've definitely seen a large increase in elementalist across the board. But Catalyst was still significantly less frequent than anything else that I was seeing which really hammers home the problem with Catalyst, pun intended. Simply put Catalyst is a mess of a spec. It was obviously an attempt by Anet to give the profession a meta-viable support option, which at the time it did not have at all, but they failed at the implementation. Even at its most viable quickness Catalyst couldn't hold a candle to the other options in the games, and that was before it got nerfed into the ground. Even with the buffs/reverted nerfs Catalyst is still the worst quickness provider as new superior options have been added and old options were significantly buffed. Being less effective in that role just isn't an option, you can't be slacking in this space. A player on a barely viable DPS build can be carried by the group; a quickness provider that struggles tanks the entire team. The only thing Catalyst has ever really been good is a very high skill ceiling DPS with variable levels of output, usually pretty high. Which isn't really desirable from a balance or community perspective since Weaver was already successful in that space, while being considerably more fun to play. IMO Catalyst needs significant work to be a good spec and just tinkering with modifiers isn't going to provide the answer. Anet needs to address the underlying mechanics of Catalyst and then can fine tune the numbers to a satisfactory performance, just like they've done with Firebrand this patch. What they need to deal with is energy, quickness delivery, DPS skill ceiling, and weapon options outside of hammer. Until those mechanics, or lack there of, are handled everything else is just window dressing that won't incentivize people to play the spec.

The patch has gone live, with some additional notes for Weaver specifically. Most other changes, with two big exceptions, for elementalist went through as expected. I've got the changes posted here and bolded the important stuff. Core Cone of Cold: Increased base healing from 944 to 1,888 and increased heal attribute scaling from 0.6 to 1.2 in PvE only. Weaver Shearing Edge: This skill now inflicts bleeding in addition to its other effects. Twin Strike: Increased burning stacks from 1 to 2 in PvP only. Flame Uprising: Increased burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only. Elements of Rage: Increased damage bonus from 5% to 10% in PvE only. Swift Revenge: Increased damage bonus from 10% to 15% in PvE only. Woven Stride: Fixed an issue that prevented this trait from increasing the effectiveness of swiftness. Catalyst Hardened Auras, Empowering Auras, Staunch Auras, and Elemental Epitome: These traits will now only trigger when the catalyst grants an aura to themselves, rather than when gaining an aura from any player. Flame Wheel, Icy Coil, Crescent Wind, Rocky Loop: These skills now strike enemies once per second instead of using a projectile. Increased power coefficient from 0.001 to 0.1 in PvE only. So our feedback did have an impact! This is by far the most important take away for me. It's clear that the balance team does have limitations on what they can do in a patch due to size of the team and the number of specs they have to balance. But when we give them feedback things do happen! And as more patches come through in 2023 I'm confident that elementalist will get a focus patch like Firebrand got this time and over all the class will improve. As this patch my new thoughts; power weaver will be in a better spot overall between changes to Stormsoul and the 10% increase from Weaver traits. Very rough estimate this will probably put sword power weaver at a roughly 38K bench. Still some work to do to really get it to where it needs to be, but a welcome step in the right direction. I really do hope that Anet looks to make Elemental Refreshment trigger off of attuntment swaps as well in the future, and looks to buff swords skills in the future, particularly Pyro Vortex. Sword wouldn't need to see modifier adjustments as intense as I suggested earlier in this thread due to today's buffs, but I am very optimistic that we will see these things in the upcoming year. The Catalyst change is honestly not surprising, though I wish we had had a chance to see the original buff go live. The original plan for a .25 modifier would have had Catalyst DPS at the top of the charts period and already had people talking. The numbers would have been crazy, it would have been fun for a week or so, then get brought it line. Overall I think it will be fine numbers wise, now Catalyst just needs energy addressed. It is by far the worst mechanic in the game and I have yet to see a single player say anything positive about it. Finally for Tempest dagger got a healing buff to offset the lost of scepter. This is exactly what people asked for in compensation, very nice to see it come through. Overall I'm pretty happy as an elementalist with this patch. It wasn't perfect, there's a lot of work that each spec still needs, but we're a lot better off than we were yesterday. Effectively got a new weapon to play with, some nice buffs, and most important of all clear proof that this balance team is paying attention to the feedback we are giving. Its a nice way to close out the year in my opinion.

I was just watching Teapots review of the patch notes and he found something new in the Catalyst notes that weren't talked about on the stream. Flame Wheel, Icy Coil, Crescent Wind, Rocky Loop: These skills now strike enemies once per second instead of using a projectile. Increased power coefficient from 0.001 to 0.25 in PvE only. It looks like these skills are still going to pulse individually, give more energy that initially thought, and will be getting a large DPS increase. With the other changes Cata might actually be good, we'll have to see. He makes the same points that we do here though. Tempest alac is still funky and needs an adjustment, and that sword weaver needs some solid buffs to get it off the ground. Really hope the devs are listening to all this feedback!

I've been thinking about what sword buffs I would like to see over the night, and I know what I would like to see to help weaver move into a position that would be more acceptable in the game right now. First I've seen a lot of argument over whether sword should be power or condi and which should be getting more buffs. The answer imo is both! Sword is and always has been capable of both, to the point where legitimate pure condi, pure power, and a hybrid build have all been viable meta options in the past. Leaning into that with sword makes all players happy and brings the one of the only true viable meta hybrid builds back into focus. Personally the hybrid build is also what I think sword weaver should look like, its dynamic, fast pace, can work in any number of fight, and personally just feel amazing to play. So how do we specifically help sword? First buffs to Quantum strike, specifically the Lightning Strikes. Looking at the wiki this skill has a modifier of .425 per hit, bump that up to a .6 or .7 Next target burning application. Right now the auto gives one stack of burning on the third hit. Lets add one stack on hits 1 and 2, and the 3rd hit now does two stacks of burning. Cauterizing strike also only does 1 stack of burning, lets bump that up to 2, maybe even three stacks. Lastly Pyro Vortex should be an absolute truck of a skill! Frankly all the Fire/Air dual skills are underwhelming for what they are, the combination of the two most power damaging attuments ele has access to. This skill should be the most important skill to land for every sword rotation, and right now its probably the 5th best skill in your rotation no matter what type of build youre playing. Bump the measly 1.0 modifier of the initial hit to 3.0, the pulsing damage from .33 to .5, and increasing the burning from 2s to 3s. I'm by no means a mathematician - my thoughts are to get the sword weaver up to ~42k dps across all three builds it can play. The above suggestions will certainly go along way, and if their not enough I would cover the gap by increasing the coefficients to fire and air autos. The above suggestions are made in mind with increasing the overall damage, but also in a way that makes it still stick to mobile targets, and keep rolling on bosses that force you to move away. I really think that these changes combined with the buff to Elemental Refreshment I suggested in the initial post would take weaver from a sub 1% play rate to a healthy play population with the tools to succeed in any fight that any melee build does well at.

So you clearly ignored the rest of my post, to do the one thing I hoped we wouldnt do here, snipe at the devs. No one is saying that they are addressing Ele concerns its why I made this thread in the first place! But they clearly do listen to player feedback and the proof is in how they have handled warrior, ranger, engie and others in just the last three months. The point is that we need that same level of consideration for our class too.

This response is honestly the most depressing I've seen all day, because its simply not true for every other class. Mesmer, ranger, warrior, and engineer are just a few examples of classes that in the last THREE MONTHS have had major changes/nerfs either proposed or go live. In each and every case Anet has listened and adjusted course and as a result all of those classes are better off for it, mechanically and numerically RIGHT NOW. For some reason elementalist simply does not get that same attention and consideration from the devs. I honestly do not want this thread to simply be a complaint/flamebait thread. We know that they are listening and it is my sincere hope that this thread, and others, is noticed by the balance team so that they address our concerns in the same ways they have the above examples. The problems that our class has are manageable, but we really need CMC and Roy to address them directly so we know that we are being listened to too.

This needs to be talked about more too. I like that they are adding stability and aegis to classes outside of guardian, but its always so limiting. They seem to always add the boons to off-cooldown skills, or highly-niche skills/traits that players cant afford to take over what they'd be giving up. The point of there boons are to have them be reactive to the things happening in a fight, and as is you'll never be able to use these aegis purposefully. its value will be always be inadvertent. Thinking about the changes to Hammer 3, another 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Admittedly this is better for the weapon, but the change will nuke your already painful energy generation making 4 orb drops impossible. This is basically offsets the DPS increases that the traits are getting, which with the aura change still aren't a buff anyways. I really dont see anyway that these changes are anything but a big nerf to Catalysts numbers while making the already irritating jank that much worse.

Your right, I absolutely over looked this in my initial post. I will say that I dont hate that the aoe heal is going away from scepter, if there was a healing buff coming to dagger. Frankly you bring scepter of heal tempest literally only for the trident which is not really healthy game play imo. But with the option going away there should be compensation dagger 2, providing more heals and a larger range.

Balance preview notes are live. Lets discuss the upcoming changes to Elementalist. I'll start by saying this patch is at best disappointing, realistically its a joke. Out of all the things that Ele needs help with and they devoted all their time to reworking scepter of all things??? While the changes to scepter do look interesting, they will not change the class in any meaningful way in pvp, and does nothing to address any of the actual concerns that Ele players have spent MONTHS talking about. Tempest - Why does alacrity still come at the end of the overload in one burst? This really needs to be a pulse over the course of your overload, or atleast trigger at the start of the skill. Catalyst - One step forward, two steps back. The increase to Empowering Auras is nice, but with the change to self applied auras only the whole class will have a significantly harder time maintaining full stacks any of these buffs. With how difficult it already is to even trigger our DPS grandmaster, Empowered Empowerment, I expect this spec will be completely useless in 99% of players hands. The change to Spectacular Sphere is a good step in the right changes but does nothing to offset the struggles the spec already has and will be getting on the 29th Weaver - Literally no pve changes in a balance patch that is suppose to be targeting under-performing dps specs. How does this get missed? In optimal conditions this spec is bog standard middle of the road, when their own philosophy should place it at the very top of the charts. Melee only, involved rotation, no party utility, and so of the worst cc potential in the game unless you are playing a Fresh Air variant. I truly do understand the complete lack of pve buffs for weaver, particularly sword weaver. The change to aura application for Catalyst should not move forward period. The spec is already one the least played pve specs in the game, if this change happens I cant think of any reason to ever play it. Empowered Empowerment should be changed so that more players are able to actually make use of the buff, it should be dropped to 5 stacks to trigger. Realistically it probably doesn't need a threshold at all. Energy is still a problem and should be looked at for a later balance patch. I'd like to see it go away completely personally, and change Energized Elements to provide ~3 seconds of quickness on Attunement swap. Upstate Spectacular Sphere to provide ~4 seconds of quickness on sphere drop, along with what it will gain this patch, and Catalyst will more be reliable and flexible at giving quickness, giving a chance for better playtime. Tempest is in the best spot of all ele specs, buts still needs some love. Give shouts ammo stacks, 2 each, so that it can provide its role and also react to things happening in the game. Again ideally break the alacrity into pulses during the course of the overload, or front load it. Again, how weaver got no attention at all in pve is a complete mystery to me. At best sword weaver is benching 36k, in real play most players will achieve half that at best between personal skill and the handicaps of the spec. Sword specifically should be receiving significant DPS buffs, between a 5-7K boost, so that it accurately reflects what Anet claims their philosophy is. High ceiling skills providing a high reward for being well played and weaver simply does not provide that at all. I'd also like to see Elemental Refreshment provide its barrier on attunement swap as well as barrier skills. Thematically fits very well and would provide a decent, but not overtly powerful effect to help players to new the spec survive and more experiences player additional windows to flex there skills. All in all this is a very disappointing patch for Elementalist mains. Lets get some good conversation going, we know from prior patches that they are actually looking at and taking feedback before patches go live. Let's let them know that this is simply not enough for Elementalist to close out this year!

Catalyst has seen several changes since it was originally revealed, and in many ways has significantly improved. The literal one thing Anet has not changed at all in Energy and how it make any non-pure dps Catalyst beyond frustrating to deal with. When playing either Quick DPS or pure Support Energy becomes an unreasonable choke hold. Die, lose you energy. Do a mechanic, don't have enough energy. Need a burst of energy to get an orb down for emergency, literally no way to do it. Just didn't hit the boss enough to ensure a smooth transition, oh well! It feels terrible to play Quick Catalyst, be responsible for a major role in your parties success, and completely fail at it because something occurs in the encounter that hard stops your support. The jade orbs are already well balanced with a 15 sec cool down and a static well placement that requires people to stand in it for the full duration. This is all on top of requiring a slotting a Grand Master trait and a substantial Concentration gear investment. All this while Firebrand and Harbinger pulse their Quickness out in easily with a fraction of the investment required. Even chronomancer has an easier time providing quickness because their skills are always consistent! Energy is just an unreasonable burden that never provides a positive gameplay feedback. At its best you never notice it because a perfect execution just means you get to use your most critical skills normally. The next balance patch should see the total removal of Energy from Catalyst, and it can not come soon enough.

Patch notes say that its been removed, which is not surprising. I do think that as we got yesterday was too powerful, even in pve, but it is a good direction for the trait to go. Weaver is low health, low armor, and the active defense that is there is tiny and largely in-effective for pve situations. Yesterday/today was some of the best feeling play sword weaver has had since it launched and I do think Anet should try and bring that to the forefront. Ideally what I would like to see is the traits output buffed to ~800 barrier per tick with no stat investment, and then allow it to trigger on attunment swap as well as dual attacks. With basically any play style this would allow for ~1.5-2.5k upkeep and go a long way to making the class more stable.This would also put the focus on doing what weaver should be doing, swapping and using dual attacks, while getting a solid but not op passive benefit from it. It would give weaver some breathing room to compete again which is clearly what they are going for with the original buff.

It has ruined my pvp experience. For seven years this game has operated the same way, they specifically stated that pvp and wvw would be left alone and my first day post patch I find my self with a pve build in pvp. Shameful.

I have played this game since launch and I have never seen a worse execution by this team. In the announcement of build templates they specifically said that pvp and wvw would be left alone. Such a complete joke.