2/28 PvP Balance

[Cal Cohen.2358]

Hi everyone,

In addition to bringing new elite specializations, the End of Dragons release will include a handful of PvP balance changes that we want to cover today.

Overview

• Necromancer variants
• Core Guardian Support
• Tempest
• Shadow Arts Thief
• Flamethrower Scrapper

 

Necromancer

• Unholy Martyr: Reduced the number of conditions removed when exiting shroud from 3 to 2 in PvP only.
• Vampiric: Reduced base life-stealing damage from 41 to 29 in PvP only. Reduced base life-stealing healing from 39 to 26 in PvP only. Minion life-stealing has been adjusted to match the necromancer life-stealing in PvP only.
• Vampiric Presence: Reduced base life-stealing damage from 65 to 49 in PvP only. Reduced base life-stealing healing from 32 to 28 in PvP only. Reduced life-stealing bonus effectiveness while in shroud from 100% to 50% in PvP only.
• Lesser Enfeeble: Reduced weakness duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only.
• Summon Flesh Wurm: Increased cooldown from 32 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Lich Form: Reduced the amount of life force granted when exiting the transformation from 15% to 5% in PvP only.
• Deathly Claws (Lich Form): Reduced power coefficient from 2.34 to 1.64 in PvP only.

Condition-based core necromancer is the most common variation, boasting a high playrate and winrate in both tournaments and ranked play. Reaper and minion builds are a bit less common in tournament play, but are still extremely effective in the ranked environment in almost every rating bracket. A common component in all these builds is the Blood Magic traitline. The life siphoning traits in particular generate a ton of value over the course of an extended fight, contributing to both outgoing pressure and self-sustain. Unholy Martyr getting a slight shave to its cleanse also reduces the amount of life force generation for the blood magic builds, which in combination with the siphon adjustments and other defensive shaves should give more chances to pressure enemy necromancers.

In addition to the Blood Magic adjustments, we’re making a few changes to further reduce necromancer survivability. Weakening Shroud will still provide a strong amount of weakness between its on-critical trigger and Lesser Enfeeble, but the latter coming down to 3 seconds should provide more opportunities to go aggressive in the cases where it can’t be avoided or cleansed. Flesh Wurm also gets a slight cooldown increase to bring it more in line with other necromancer stunbreaks.

Finally, Deathly Claws is getting a reduction in damage. While good counterplay options exist, it can be more difficult to capitalize on these as a team in a less coordinated environment like ranked. We feel that there’s room to tune Deathly Claws in a way that lich is still a threatening elite skill, while also giving players a bit more time to react when the counterplay isn’t immediate.

 

Core Guardian Support

• Signet of Mercy: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 135 seconds in PvP only.

Core guardian is undoubtedly the best support build in the current state of the game, and we see this in both its play rate and win rate compared to other options. We’re going to be keeping a close eye on the general pace of the meta following the changes to necromancer, but currently we see core guardian as being fairly close to what we want out of a support build in terms of power level. There are things that can be shaved if we find a broader reduction to support builds is needed, but for now we want to improve diversity of the support role by bringing other builds up to the level of core guardian. For this update we’ve started with Tempest, but for a follow-up patch we’re also investigating some buffs to support warrior. Additionally, we’ve started some investigation into what other specializations have the potential to fit into the support role, but for the short term we’re prioritizing tempest and warrior as both of those have been the premier support build in previous metas and feel the closest to competing with guardian.

The one thing that we are touching in the support realm is the availability of resurrection utilities, namely Signet of Mercy and Glyph of Renewal. These skills are significantly more potent in slower metas where kills are less frequent, especially in the ranked environment where teams are less likely to coordinate cleaving or stomping while also interrupting the resurrection skill. Going forward we’ll constantly be evaluating the pace of fights and what the right availability is for these skills, but for now we believe the longer cooldown is warranted. Battle Standard is remaining slightly lower (120 seconds when picked up) as an elite skill.

 

Tempest

• Elemental Shielding: Increased protection duration from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds in PvP only.
• Latent Stamina: Increased endurance gain from 10 to 15 in PvP only.
• Elemental Bastion: Increased healing coefficient from 0.55 to 0.8 in PvP only.
• "Feel the Burn!": Increased ammunition count from 1 to 2 in PvP only.
• Glyph of Renewal: Increased cooldown from 90 seconds to 135 seconds in PvP only.

For this round of Tempest buffs we primarily looked at the earth variant. While the fire variant was more commonly seen the last time that tempest was getting regular play, we see earth as the more well-rounded support build. Giving a bit more protection back to Elemental Shielding and bumping up the healing of Elemental Bastion, in addition to an additional use on Feel the Burn should give the more shout-oriented earth build more impact.

 

Thief

• Hide in Shadows: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Blinding Powder: Increased cooldown from 40 seconds to 50 seconds in PvP only.
• Shadow's Rejuvenation: Reduced base heal from 219 to 158 in PvP only.
• Smoke Screen: Reduced field duration from 7 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only.

The Shadow Arts trait line is a common topic of discussion when it comes to thief balance. We’ve been having some conversations internally about common feedback topics like Hidden Thief and Meld with Shadows, but those discussions are still ongoing and for now we’ve bumped up the cooldown on some of the stealth-granting deception skills. Smoke Screen is also getting a duration reduction rather than a cooldown increase as 7 seconds is a bit longer than we like to see on a one-second pulse blind field.

 

Flamethrower Scrapper

• Flame Jet: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.25 to 0.15 in PvP only.
• Flame Blast: Increased burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only.

Finally, we have an adjustment to Flamethrower Scrapper. This is another case where we’re making a shorter-term change while discussions are happening around the underlying issue (Juggernaut pulsing stability). This build isn’t too widely played compared to some of the other meta builds, but it’s one of the most effective in lower ranks and the gameplay of primarily sitting in flamethrower kit and autoattacking isn’t something that we like to see. If the damage reduction doesn’t appear to be impactful enough, we’ll likely split the pulse interval of Juggernaut until we can find a better game-wide solution.

 

That’s all we have for today. As we briefly touched on there are a few things that are already being looked into for post End of Dragons launch, and we’ll also be evaluating the state of the new elite specializations as we gather more real gameplay data.

 

-The Systems Team

[GuriGashi.5617]

Can we get a list of elite spec changes for EoD as well please? 😄

[Za Shaloc.3908]

A heal with a 40-second CD. No words.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

"Shadow Arts is an issue.

Hence, we'd like to nerf some core thief skills, which reinforces thief's reliance on SA."

DansGame .

[interitio.4269]

How about, Idk, nerfing some of the abusive traits in SA rather than skills used for other builds? what wrong did blinding powder commit? also a 40 sec cd on one of the two viable heals for core thief.. very interesting 😕

Edited February 18, 2022 by interitio.4269
spelling

[Tulki.1458]

Would it be possible to remove engineer turrets from the hero panel and skill swap menu? It's kind of annoying having them clutter the space since I never use them anywhere.

[Burial.1958]

The CD for Hide in Shadows is ridiculous.

[XenoSpyro.1780]

person A : "Scrapper is overperforming, what do we do?"
person B:  "Nerf Scrapper?"
person C : "No, you idiot, nerf core again."

Edited February 18, 2022 by XenoSpyro.1780

[Levetty.1279]

17 minutes ago, GuriGashi.5617 said:

Can we get a list of elite spec changes for EoD as well please? 😄

Yeah, would much rather see this.

[Skie.8904]

Feels like they want to kill core necro because it's not an elite spec 😅
Also, with warrior barely being playable as it is now, why wait with buffing warrior options?

[xblankk.4207]

As a thief, I'm a little sad.

 

But as a PvP player, I'm really happy and appreciative of any balance changes.

 

Thank you and hoping there are more to come 🙂

[Morena.9312]

So thief got again nerfs over nerfs.

[Nimbus Nomad.1237]

12 minutes ago, XenoSpyro.1780 said:

person A : "Scrapper is overperforming, what do we do?"
person B:  "Nerf Scrapper?"
person C : "No, you idiot, nerf core again."

Dude they buffed condi engi with this change and core engi is predominantly ran as condi. Power focused flamethrower builds don't even work with core engi, since it's the superspeed × quickness than enables it. The burn buff increase on flame blast is fantastic. 

 

 

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

2 minutes ago, Carmela.8756 said:

So thief got again nerfs over nerfs.

Smokescreen had it long coming. Shadow Rejuvenation is fine, too.

The other two? Not liking.

[frareanselm.1925]

Anet team, instead of balancing, the only thing they do is Nerf, Nerf, and Nerf!

[Morena.9312]

1 minute ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

Smokescreen had it long coming. Shadow Rejuvenation is fine, too.

The other two? Not liking.

It makes no sense at all. Why did they want nerf Hide in Shadows and Blinding Powder? 40 Sec+ CD without trait is simply bad.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Carmela.8756

[Downstate.4697]

The idea with tempest i think is to run shouts and drop aura share in favor of the other 2 traits. The thing is shouts wont save you from being focused down. The ammo on fire shout is cool but you really need to do the same for all of its shouts

Not to mention with how the meta shifts people will prefer the condi cleanse in fire anyway.

Edited February 18, 2022 by FrownyClown.8402

[xblankk.4207]

2 minutes ago, Carmela.8756 said:

It makes no sense at all. Why did they want nerf Hide in Shadows and Blinding Powder?

There have been a lot of comments in the last couple months about stealth generally being too strong/accessible.

I don't agree with or like the changes, but that's probably why. I just appreciate any balance efforts, though. Hopefully they will keep an eye on things and continue to make adjustments if needed.

[Morena.9312]

7 minutes ago, xKole.9175 said:

There have been a lot of comments in the last couple months about stealth generally being too strong/accessible.

I don't agree with or like the changes, but that's probably why. I just appreciate any balance efforts, though. Hopefully they will keep an eye on things and continue to make adjustments if needed.

 Yeah but the Problem lies in SA and not those Skills. I mean they drive the thief players even more into SA Use because we now have 2 class skills with bad CD no one will slot anymore. And as i know Anet when they changed or nerfed SA they will not revert those CD's back. Then not any alternatives? So they only want to kill SA and what then?

Edited February 18, 2022 by Carmela.8756

[Mini Crinny.6190]

A rework of the Earth Traitline would be welcome but I doubt it

Edited February 18, 2022 by Mini Crinny.6190

[Nimbus Nomad.1237]

5 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

The idea with tempest i think is to run shouts and drop aura share in favor of the other 2 traits. The thing is shouts wont save you from being focused down. The ammo on fire shout is cool but you really need to do the same for all of its shouts

No i still think you always take aura share, especially since elemental bastion heals more now. It was healing about 900 hp per aura shared previously(with sigil of transference), so it will probably heal around 1300 now, which is great. 

These tempest changes are actually amazing, even with the glyph cd increase(you rarely were using it on CD anyways)  

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Nimbus Nomad.1237

[Asur.9178]

Balance team has NO CLUE why thieves use SA.

These changes to thief in and of themselves are a joke.

Hard nerfing core skills and not buffing other areas is a joke at best.

Acrobatics as a traitline IS A JOKE...HAS BEEN A JOKE FOR YEARS...and is still UNTOUCHED.

You thought decap bots (thieves) was a meme before; just wait and see how much worse thief will be now. People didn't choose to play SA just because it was strong...they chose to play it because the meta shoehorned them into it.

PS: Did you know that Acrobatics has traits that don't even do what they are supposed to do for years now? Even though they've been reported as bugged and broken MULTIPLE TIMES - I know because I, myself, reported them MULTIPLE TIMES...WITH VIDEOS AS WELL!

EDIT: To clarify, when I say "how much worse thief will be now", I am speaking in general...referring specifically to non SA D/P or Rifle thieves...and anything X/P actually.

Specter WILL replace SA thieves. It was going to replace SA thieves based on previous beta tests ANYWAY, and this just seals the deal, WHILE also making literally everything else bad, without addressing core issues - nerfs/buffs where it's actually needed; eg: Hidden Thief, literally ALL other traitlines, Sword, Staff, unused and dead utilities, etc.

Edited February 19, 2022 by Asur.9178
Clarification

[Nimbus Nomad.1237]

8 minutes ago, Carmela.8756 said:

 Yeah but the Problem lies in SA and not those Skills. I mean they drive the thief players even more into SA Use because we now have 2 class skills with bad CD no one will slot anymore. And as i know Anet when they changed or nerfed SA they will not revert those CD's back. Then not any alternatives? So they only want to kill SA and what then?

I cant speak for all of the changes, but you pretty much only run hide in shadows if you are running SA anyways, since withdrawal is the superior heal without it. 

[XenoSpyro.1780]

15 minutes ago, Nimbus Nomad.1237 said:

 Power focused flamethrower builds don't even work with core engi

Yeah, endless cycles of "screw core to nerf elite" tend to cause that, hence my irritation with yet another core nerf.
But you weren't paying attention on purpose

22 minutes ago, Nimbus Nomad.1237 said:

since it's the superspeed × quickness than enables it.

Nerf scrapper superspeed and quickness then? Wow, what a concept.

[Pretty Sirius.2374]

44 minutes ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

"Shadow Arts is an issue.

Hence, we'd like to nerf some core thief skills, which reinforces thief's reliance on SA."

DansGame .

Usual Anet logic. So thief is the next class they destroy after mesmer