graishak.5406

firstly, builds with those stats sometimes become ok in group play even if niche, eg i played a bit of alac ren with diviner and i think wanderer gear for a bit of survivability some while back. Then alac willbender, tho it may not need that much boon duration. Secondly, there is a reason Minstrel is the one really strong option with concentration. it pushes out all other options. One could choose to get a boon build with a good amount of concentration, sacrifice your damage options for boon traits/skills and a bit of HP, and maybe end up with a glass cannon build that has 60% of the dps of a pure damage build with good boon output. Or You could just get Minstrel, get all the support options, now you are a full healer + boongiver and even act as a dps sponge for your group. why would you choose the former instead of just making the boonbuild into an additional support when you have a choice. the dps isnt that impressive so just get a damage dealer that does not sacrifice much and get a healer that can pick up every support choice cause it does not need to make sacrifices like that. You would only ever not pick minstrel here if the spec does not really support a heal build. as i see it you cant get around changing minstrel stats to fix them, unless you were to make concentration or healing power next to worthless same for cele, it was balanced around 7 stats, the 2 new were free stuff it didnt need in wvw. unless you make conc+exp pointless, it has more power than is fair. if concentration was nerfed, i guess people would just swap to runes with boon duration, which are the same in pve so you would not nerf - 25% from runes, 10% from sigil, and most boons overcap anyway and are removed by strips so that extra bit of duration may not make a big difference. Worst case this could make people run double stab bot again, if there was a hard nerf here i would hope for a +stability duration rune at least cause i dont want pirateship either and that way you sacrifice stuff for stab uptime.

both relics affect allies afaik so i dont see a difference between support/selfish here, just that one shuts down all condis for seconds(unless there is heavy boonstrip, which you cant count on) and the other affects condis just in the moment heal is used

i dont like how common resistance has become now. new relic of resistance may give an uptime of 40% with little investment for such a stong boon, and a clearly better option than febe. having it up for your push is perfectly fine, but perma resistance should be a bigger investment. it isnt as prevalent as the likes of prot, so it should be possible for it to stay rare, else soft ccs become meaningless. also nerf supports, i dont enjoy the wvw meta

yes, boons would need a lot or balancing. i just dont think anet will ever put in that much efford(not blaming them, it would be a lot) so i proposed a bandaid solution

the reason why nerfing concentration/boons would do nothing for the design issue i laid out, is that if boons are nerfed in order to kill a minstrel in a reasonable amount of time, then non tank builds are equally effected. Minstrel gives about an increase in armor of about 60%. you would need +60% damage to counteract that. if you turn that damage at marauder builds, i guess they would just melt without much counterplay, and they would need to blanket nerf damage to compensate and we are back to unreasonably tanky healers. i would like to be wrong here, but it just feels like people give an overly simplistic solution -. i dont think like 15% less boon duration would solve the issue here.

i think the people critizising this because they see higher concentration are missing the point a bit. i didnt propose this to fix the boonmeta - i want fighting groups that have a lot of healers to be more engaging by introducing risk. my issue here is with the design of supports that combine the roles of tank, healer and boonsupports. Minstrel's statspread is just so optimal that healers get everything they could want and as such is unhealthy and pushes out any other stats that have heal. And any Fallout introduced by more boon duration can fixed by adjusting concentration, like pointed out, or adjusting durations/cooldowns. which i also want, but that is something already discussed to death so i dont want to talk about that.

I suggest modifying the Minstrel gear stats by changing it from a 4-stat combo to a 3-stat combo, with a focus on maintaining its support-oriented nature. The proposed stats would be: ++Healing Power +Toughness +Concentration Alternatively, vitality could be swapped with toughness. The intent is to address the current state where support/healer builds can be overly tanky. While it's reasonable for support roles to have some level of tankiness, the current setup feels disproportionately defensive, given the extensive utility they already provide (heals, cleanses, boons, etc.). The goal is not to eliminate support tankiness but rather to introduce a more balanced trade-off. As it stands, encounters often involve highly resilient support builds, leading to fights feeling less interactive. The proposed adjustment aims to maintain the support's defensive capabilities while ensuring that the extra tankiness comes at a reasonable cost. Ofc boons are a big reason why those builds are so tanky, but i dont think boonspam will be resolved by a few small changes so it wont happen for quite some time, and even if - the survivability discrepancy between dps and supports should not be this big.

i do like the the idea of the axes, i would like to have that aoe/cleave niche filled, but i am really afraid this looks like another weapon that will be hardcountered by reflects. it would be really sad if this ends up unplayable in wvw.

i have many similar pain points with specter. in wvw the shroud hardnerf was not compensated for at all and it is hard to maintain shroud so i would like some over time barrier gen to counter some of the unavoidable damage there, preferably an effect like necro blood bank while in shroud they should make ally target siphon give half of the SF, and give the steal traits some on-ally effect. it feels pointless since the res trait is gone. also, would need some traits, preferably in core that work well with specter to remove (soft cc)conditions, e.g. give the prot GM also a cleanse when you apply prot

looking forward to play with the new life leech torment trait. the new SoS gm trait looks like a really boring pve trait, just condi, not power and doesnt change gameplay at all. Shallow Grave doesnt give meaningful cleanse, which specter still lacks. lack of cleave, RWV does not scale well with numbers(maybe it can be changed so that one stack applies to a whole strike?) would like some actual effects on ally siphon now that the res is gone. ideally added to all the steal traits that wouldnt give anything for it. Stealthing the ally, stunbreaking, gaining shadow force, maybe downed teleport if res is too much, or even just a few stacks of venom. the ally targeting part seems bland now, and i never use it anymore.

i still have problems with specter. in wvw, your shroud will still melt to passive damage. would like something to offset low random damage, like some barrier self generation while in shroud, or just damage reduction at least. i dont mind getting kicked out by a spike, but arrow cart fire should not make shroud that hard to use. damage is just condi, which is unusable in wvw. would like to see condi damage traits converted to all damage traits, since a condi/support based spec may not merit a whole line of power traits. also, like the idea of rot wallow, but since condi wont work in wvw, i would like some decent life leech scaling with power on it. Quick ideas for traits like that: all damage increased vs movement impaired foes. gain shadow force and remove a stack of stab when you impair a foes movement(master tier). or a general shroud trait like Soul barbs from necro. i always thought the torment trait was too specific since it only applies to the scepter. its support being gated behind projectiles(scepter and shroud 1) hurts in wvw. hoped for scepter 2 being made a ground target, because either way, 2 and 3 will compete with one another, and if they fill the same role, you will always press one of them over the other, plus maybe it could be used for cleave damage. lack of unique support, i liked the ranged res in pve, but that seems to be removed. cant that be moved into the adept slot? that was a really fun trait to use. shroud skills largely dont feel impactful still, esp skill 5 which feels like a placeholder skill. i dont think wells will be used very much now without any alac on them. shared shroud support around the tether was a good choice, maintains the idea of the spec. nerfing boonrip in wvw is fine, but not nerfing boons/minstrel support at the same time does not seem right.

I am still sad that they completely obliterated specter shroud in wvw groups and then just left it like that. I actually like the single target support concept, but it doesnt offer any rare effects like stunbreak or reliable stab or some unique effects, so its not worth it at all. Its central idea of dealing damage when you support an ally, rotwell venom, is pointless in wvw - noone cares about single target torment. Mesmer getting glamour boons back is nice, however i hoped for more changes overall, this patch seemed really light.

i would say those are positive changes. however i dont think there will be much fighting over dolyaks without further changes. if a dolly is under threat, i think people will just send 1 bunker build with the dolly to heal and apply the -90% dmg buff. unless the bunker doesnt know what they are doing you need to outnumber them here, which isnt really fun gameplay. if you do have more numbers and block the route, you still cant deny them supps. both invuln dollies or supply drop at the destination dont have counterplay. if you were to nerf cele/minstrel stats, maybe bring some pvp nerfs over to wvw, or change invuln dollies, then maybe.

My beautiful frog doesn't do anything on /hiss. 300 gems wasted. They forgot to add the animation to the most important race.

the changes made dps fb feel better for sure. what i still dont like, there is little reason to swap off axe imo also, the trait cooldown debuffs should be removed from the bar, since your f skills turn red anyway those are redundant

i dont understand why they dont at least give specter shroud dmg reduction in wvw, since it was still pretty bad before they reduced HP, or something like while in shroud incoming healing is turned into barrier instead of being lost so it has a chance to withstand passive damage but can still be bursted down. wvw healing buffs dont make sense to me, htemp and druid are both good already. i really dont like the comcept of moving dragon's tooth, a high impact damage skill should not be tracking imo. please try to increase radius/decrease delay instead. mech nerf seems pretty insignificant, expected a nerf to virtuoso. new fb looks fun to play.

tried to make specter work in wvw, and it already feels really bad,groups burn through shroud as it is, now it gets reduced massively as well. ofc, it did already look like specter will never be a meta secondary support, at most a very niche or meme pick. even if its a meme, i love unconventional classes, this did not need a nerf in wvw. now i think it will probably stay atrocious in wvw for quite some time. a wvw scrapper nerf was long overdue, mobile wells are hard to counter in wvw, i am not sure if you can actually balance mobile sneak gyro. mobile purge gyro feels really bad to play against and i often just want to log off when i see a scrapper heavy group. if the current change isnt accepted by pve players, heres another suggestion that would be fine for me: the superspeed on gyro trait is baseline now. make the gyros stationary as planned. the empty trait now changes them to mobile gyros, but applying a long wvw only recharge penalty, possibly smiters booning it in wvw only. so pveers could choose which skills to use, but stationary becomes the standard in wvw.

wvw support: no cleanse outside shroud, and shroud itself isnt really worth it, just double tap for consume shadows shroud might need some boons for the ally, or blinds to mitigate dmg if CS gave the heal around the shrouded ally when you enter instead (still draining when you leave), i would get to actually use some shroud skills or give scepter 2 an ally cleanse also lack of stunbreaks, no well stunbreak, forced to use utility skill for shadowstep and cant stunbreak ally

WvW: I like the idea of an offensive/single target Support, but the torment from rot wallow venom wont work vs decent groups, and leeching venoms scales badly with power. I hate the minstrel meta and am fine with sacrificing defensive stats for support stuff, but there is not much payoff here. Shroud itself feels weak and clunky, esp skills 3+5. Would have liked more Might generation for allies, but they are all on projectile skills. Scepter and Shroud 1 are projectiles, will be blocked a lot. There is no reliable support weapon skill if enemy is using projectile hate . Sc/p 3 looks like by far the best scepter skill, not much use in the others. Would like an ally Stun break + small stab, perhaps on Amplified Siphoning - that trait seems really weak. Boon-well and elite are good, Silence has way too long cd, Tears has nothing valuable. Shadow Force from Initiative seems really low, would take 100 seconds to fill with ini - also makes shadow force generation very dependent on the trait selected in the middle trait group. I got forced out of shroud by damage very quickly, considering how slow it fills up, it is hard to justify staying in there, just double tapping for massive heal/barrier. That also means i cant give out good cleanse on ally, since the best one relies on staying in shroud. Giving it necro's shroud damage reduction in exchange for higher drain over time might make it a bit better. As long as PBAoE support on other classes remains this strong (esp scrapper), i doubt this will see much use.

if they would give pvp gear with many different stat slots, i would love that. would make experimenting with builds easy and maybe even possible to balance pve gear in wvw(cough cough durability runes).without different stat slots and just amulet that would be a bad change tho

Ranger protective Ward staying at 15 sec cd in wvw? shouldnt all passives get nerfed?

i think guardian virtues- Battle Presence should be changed to apply the effect to allies on activation like perfect Inscriptions(signet trait)the trait is stronger on fb due to Loremaster, while core guard is disincentivised to use f2 with this traiti think pve uses radiance instead of virtues so it wouldnt hurt pvewould also reduce server load

The main issue I see with Thief is so many structures in WvW reveal you now. It's impossible to fight at all near some enemy towers and keeps, leaving their main role being to gank people near camps and lone roads. It's boring. Same issue with removing the ability for Thieves and Mesmers to hide in recently captured structures. It used to be that you had to manually sweep and spend some effort to keep things clear, now the game basically plays itself. There's hardly any opportunities to hide, run and fight inside enemy keeps in order to port in your buddies for an epic recapture. i was mainly talking about a focus party in a gvg/ small zerg setting where single target damage is undesired and i could see it become playable there if the meta becomes healthier, mainly less aoes and a mix between melee and ranged casters but yes, for roaming spotted is annoying on thief, id like to see a watchtower change, but i felt like dev focus was mainly on large scale so i ignored roaming issues here

these changes seem to go to the right directiondont think they do enough thoughi dont play much anymore, will try out these changes, but dont think ill stay long chrono should get few improvements, rather weak, maybe improve wells new CI might be either ridiculous with skills like shield 5 which doesnt have target limit or useless because of random skill recharge, id prefer something that increases damage taken. striking disabled characters removes a boon and gives might? idk thief is also not in a good spot, staff is odd, would rly like focus party to come back whether for thief or any other class. that role is what i liked the most, and its bad since hot. thats the main reason i didnt get poffor that random aoe damage that can kill both focus party and whatever they are trying to kill needs to be nerfed, CoR and scourge nerf were goodmaybe improve ele ccs, make frozen ground remove resistance, improve gust somehow(staff ele is good to have in the meta imo since its high risk, but just buffing dmg isnt the way to go) and nerf passive procs. reduce random aoe damage and those are not required anymore