2/28 PvP Balance

[FarmBotXD.1430]

The necro nerfs are really good 6s of weakness was insane, and the leeching from blood magic was busted beyond belief and nobody was even thinking how much damage and healing those 2 traits contributed to, like if I said anything about the leeching being too strong everyone would just laugh at me saying its just 60 dmg loool.
Truth is they added up to ~20% of peoples damage, and huge sustain to boot.
Lich auto nerf is also really good, its a 30% damage nerf on lich auto, so insane 9k crit will still hit for 6,3K.
And just general strong 7k hits will turn into 4,9K which is still a lot of damage.

Dont care about scrapper changes, and I dont know enough about tempest to say much other then be careful, tempest and elementalist is not as bad as most people will believe, and a small buff can push it over the top.

Thief deserved some nerfs but I think they all just miss the mark, the fact that thiefs skills have to have kittening 50s cds to even have illusion of counterplay should be telling. If yall wanna nerf shadow arts you should focus on nerfing damage from the leeching the traitline provides, also consider nerfing DD too instead off core skills. Nobody wants to use 40s cd heal skills or 50s cd utilities kitten that noise. Shadowstep can get away with 50s cd due to how kittening broken the skill is but BP doesnt deserve the cooldown, and it will be unusable without shadow arts to reduce its CD, kinda ironic when you think about it.

No mesmer changes, No warrior changes and no real engi changes. Yikers.
Cant wait for EoD clown fiesta, Calling it out, new rev will be broken along with new thief spec.

[Sindrener.1592]

27 minutes ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

The necro nerfs are really good 6s of weakness was insane, and the leeching from blood magic was busted beyond belief and nobody was even thinking how much damage and healing those 2 traits contributed to, like if I said anything about the leeching being too strong everyone would just laugh at me saying its just 60 dmg loool.
Truth is they added up to ~20% of peoples damage, and huge sustain to boot.
Lich auto nerf is also really good, its a 30% damage nerf on lich auto, so insane 9k crit will still hit for 6,3K.
And just general strong 7k hits will turn into 4,9K which is still a lot of damage.

Dont care about scrapper changes, and I dont know enough about tempest to say much other then be careful, tempest and elementalist is not as bad as most people will believe, and a small buff can push it over the top.

Thief deserved some nerfs but I think they all just miss the mark, the fact that thiefs skills have to have kittening 50s cds to even have illusion of counterplay should be telling. If yall wanna nerf shadow arts you should focus on nerfing damage from the leeching the traitline provides, also consider nerfing DD too instead off core skills. Nobody wants to use 40s cd heal skills or 50s cd utilities kitten that noise. Shadowstep can get away with 50s cd due to how kittening broken the skill is but BP doesnt deserve the cooldown, and it will be unusable without shadow arts to reduce its CD, kinda ironic when you think about it.

No mesmer changes, No warrior changes and no real engi changes. Yikers.
Cant wait for EoD clown fiesta, Calling it out, new rev will be broken along with new thief spec.

Lol you could remove the leeching entirely and you would still pick SA. Talk about missing the point 👍 SA enables thief to pick more offensive amulet due to the things hidden thief offers - HiS + SS + BP all 3 with 20% less cd makes thief harder to punish and grants longer stealth. You solve condi cleansing as well with heal, you solve spamming ur initiative to stealth long and frequently. It has n o t h i n g to do with the leeching.

 

if this patch only removed 20% cd reduction to deceptions you would see thief being able to go kitten or cs cus ur cds are same for all specs, then you would have to see how much loss of improv vs the dmg cs offers. 

[FarmBotXD.1430]

15 minutes ago, bluri.2653 said:

Lol you could remove the leeching entirely and you would still pick SA. Talk about missing the point 👍 SA enables thief to pick more offensive amulet due to the things hidden thief offers - HiS + SS + BP all 3 with 20% less cd makes thief harder to punish and grants longer stealth. You solve condi cleansing as well with heal, you solve spamming ur initiative to stealth long and frequently. It has n o t h i n g to do with the leeching.

 

if this patch only removed 20% cd reduction to deceptions you would see thief being able to go kitten or cs cus ur cds are same for all specs, then you would have to see how much loss of improv vs the dmg cs offers. 

Which is why I said they should also go for DD, thief has a lot of broken things but cooldowns on utilities are not one of them.
Problem has always been unavoidable damage coming from thief and nerfing leech damage and maybe DD damage is a good way to reduce that, since I started playing meta has always been thief + power burst build to 1 shot people before thief model even appeared on your screen, which is why everyone plays full bunker.
No class should have kill pressure on people with 0 investment into damage. Make crit/deadly arts usable, nerf DD and SA.

Edited February 21, 2022 by FarmBotXD.1430

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

On 2/18/2022 at 6:05 PM, Crab Fear.1624 said:

nevermind, i dont care.

 

 

That's about how I feel lately.

[Morena.9312]

6 hours ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

Which is why I said they should also go for DD, thief has a lot of broken things but cooldowns on utilities are not one of them.
Problem has always been unavoidable damage coming from thief and nerfing leech damage and maybe DD damage is a good way to reduce that, since I started playing meta has always been thief + power burst build to 1 shot people before thief model even appeared on your screen, which is why everyone plays full bunker.
No class should have kill pressure on people with 0 investment into damage. Make crit/deadly arts usable, nerf DD and SA.

DD is fine no need for a nerf.

[anjo.6143]

7 hours ago, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

thief has a lot of broken things

lolz

[pukish.5784]

I can thank Anet for these 10 years of fun. It was not boring years, at least, even game quality is decreasing.

[lotus.5672]

I dont think cmc is allowed to actually change how traits/skills work, thats the skills team or some bs. Thats why all he does is increase cooldowns and change power coefficients

[DoomNexus.5324]

I appreciate mentioning some additional thoughts behind the scenes like what's currently in discussion. Please give of us more of this insight in the future as this allows us to follow your design process and what may have influenced your final decisions. Maybe this could also alleviate some of the confusion of future balance changes of why this has been changed but not "the obvious problem everyone has been talking about for months" (as has been the case many, many times in the past).

But - like many others - I can only wonder why you are nerfing core thief skills to combat an overperforming traitline.
Is it easier to split a skill effect for game modes than traits? Idk but this seems very odd to me as well. Especially with blinding powder, which is an essential stun break as well as increasing the CD of Hide in Shadows without at least compensating with more healing. Or why not just reduce the stealth duration if this is the main issue? And even if, a 10 second increase seems a bit too much for me tbh. It's a heavy nerf to the already bad sustain on several layers.

I appreciate the other changes tho (including the other thief changes) and I would like to see a slight damage nerf to nade engi as well.

[Wounder.7526]

The Flamethrower problem is tricky. The core idea of the design of flamethrower + juggernaut is precisely that one gets to be this unstoppable but slow tank spewing flames everywhere. That fantasy is appealing to new and old players alike, and taking away the core components would probably make it die (not that these changes do that). I think, for future changes, if the build needs to be nerfed, nerf it in ways other than taking away its biggest strength. Give it other weaknesses. Just spitballing a few...

1. Increase the CD on its CC and blind skills.
2. Give the player a flat movement speed reduction while in flamethrower, like -25%, -33% or even -50%. Really amp up its identity as a slow, unstoppable juggernaut. (If you reduce it by 33%, then Superspeed, which the flamethrower scrapper has close to 100% uptime on, brings it to normal Swiftness speed. If you reduce it by 50%, superspeed brings it to normal speed, where it can still be outrun by enemies with Swiftness).
3. Make the cone on Flame Jet thinner so it takes more skill to land it.
4. Have a Fuel mechanic for the Flamethrower kit. Something like: 
   1. When you equip the kit, get 100 stacks of Fuel as a buff
   2. All of the skills consume some amount of Fuel
   3. Either have the kit gain a CD or have the Fuel buff slowly gain stacks per second when NOT using the kit
   4. Add the effect "gain 25 Fuel" to the kit's associated toolbelt skill.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Wounder.7526

[Eddbopkins.2630]

This is meaningful balance update. Why does it take 2 years to get something like this. Even though it seems it's not for all classes or complete at least it's a step in the right direction after 2 years of laziness or w.e u call the last 2 years.

[Zekent.3652]

On 2/21/2022 at 10:00 AM, FarmBotXD.1430 said:

The necro nerfs are really good 6s of weakness was insane, and the leeching from blood magic was busted beyond belief and nobody was even thinking how much damage and healing those 2 traits contributed to, like if I said anything about the leeching being too strong everyone would just laugh at me saying its just 60 dmg loool.
Truth is they added up to ~20% of peoples damage, and huge sustain to boot.
Lich auto nerf is also really good, its a 30% damage nerf on lich auto, so insane 9k crit will still hit for 6,3K.
And just general strong 7k hits will turn into 4,9K which is still a lot of damage.

Dont care about scrapper changes, and I dont know enough about tempest to say much other then be careful, tempest and elementalist is not as bad as most people will believe, and a small buff can push it over the top.

Thief deserved some nerfs but I think they all just miss the mark, the fact that thiefs skills have to have kittening 50s cds to even have illusion of counterplay should be telling. If yall wanna nerf shadow arts you should focus on nerfing damage from the leeching the traitline provides, also consider nerfing DD too instead off core skills. Nobody wants to use 40s cd heal skills or 50s cd utilities kitten that noise. Shadowstep can get away with 50s cd due to how kittening broken the skill is but BP doesnt deserve the cooldown, and it will be unusable without shadow arts to reduce its CD, kinda ironic when you think about it.

No mesmer changes, No warrior changes and no real engi changes. Yikers.
Cant wait for EoD clown fiesta, Calling it out, new rev will be broken along with new thief spec.

I think the same, calling it.

[Ghos.1326]

On 2/18/2022 at 4:49 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

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

 

For the flamethrower, I think the damage reduction is a good change. Part of what makes the build oppressive is the fact it can poo out some crazy damage in a short amount of time, especially coupled with quickness.

Here is the issue I have with the following notes, however: that you even consider Juggernaut an issue at all, when everything in the game has 15 CCs, slows, roots, weakness, perma dodges, etc. What you, as the systems team, are failing to realize is that taking Firearms in general causes you to lose massive amounts of defensive options outside of running Alchemy along with scrapper, which still is mediocre in and of itself without coupling Alchemy with Inventions (and it's Alchemy that's making Inventions good, not vice versa). If you run Alch plus Inventions, then you miss out on the power granted when you run Scrapper because of the amount of might you can sustain at any given time being drastically lowered as a result. This is a good sacrifice, compared to many other meta specs and options out there that do not need to sacrifice sustain, nor mobility, nor dodging, nor anything and still pump out much more damage per second than the flamethrower.

If you want to nerf Juggernaut's pulsing stability (mind you it only pulses while you're in the kit, and the pulsing stab only pulses after 3 seconds of entering the kit, and staying within the kit spells doom for you as your defensive options while inside the kit are fairly weak) then bring down the amount of CCs that everything else has. Start removing CCs off of skills that don't need added CC. OR, and just an idea: bring back the toughness gain from the old Juggernaut and make the inventions trait line, oh I don't know, defensive again?

I'll be fine either way with the changes, but part of why I don't play anymore is very poor balancing decisions that pushes more towards "just play necromancer" or "just play ranger" outcomes. That, and the broken promises of continuing to make meaningful shaves off of the things that were missed after the big balance patch that happened on February.

A change you can make to Juggernaut could be to cause it to procc stability after either swapping into OUR OUT OF the flamethrower kit, that way you don't have to "camp" the kit any more to gain your stability, making keeping out the hammer or another weapon more valuable. Also, if this change makes it into the game, I'd be in favor of reducing the stability uptime from 3 seconds to 2 seconds to give windows of opportunity to counter.

But until the CC comes down in the game, I don't think having a counter to the CC spam is what's wrong with this game at all. Especially since you said it yourselves: this build isn't even really used. It can't compete with any of the meta builds (unless you play it extremely well, and that speaks more on the player's individual skill rather than "i play meta so i'm better than you") and it's highly vulnerable to damage due to the lack of defensive options thanks to sacrificing either Inventions or Alchemy by taking Firearms, a purely offensive trait line.

[SamuraiKenjin.5920]

These changes will help warrior out so much, vicariously. Most of the issues I face or find to be “unfair” (In my opinion), you SEE and are helping to correct. I would like to point out (as a heart felt PvPr) this is the closest to balance we have had, and “Our” combat engineers  are “honing this blade”, with patience and precision….

 

Thank you for looking at the ACTUAL issues, and not placing a band aid on the open wounds. I Cant wait this to happen! <3

[Ghos.1326]

On 2/20/2022 at 11:59 AM, Paralent.8564 said:

Much like the nerf to Lich's Deathly Claws, this one seems to be aimed more at lower ratings. If it makes those games more interactive, I'm all for it, but this won't shake up the high rating meta at all because (much like Deathly Claws) power FT Engi has been a solved (non-)problem for a long time. Though it will have a nice impact on the 2v2 and 3v3 mini-seasons where the current power FT build thrives a bit more due to less focused pressure against it. I can't comment on the impact to condi Engi viability because I've barely seen a condi Engi in ages.

 

I think I'm one of the only ones that plays Core Condi Engi in pvp and does relatively well with it (even though I don't play anymore) when I DO play.

The 2s increase uptime to burning is ok at best. Everything that's meta in the game currently still has 15+ condition clears every 5-10 seconds so it won't make too much of an impact. It'll only really matter when the enemy either forgets they have so much clear on every skill and doesn't press their buttons or they exhausted all of their options before even having condis on them in the first place. They'll still clear away everything all the time so it won't be too much of an impact.

The FT auto nerf is a pretty good nerf, I am actually in favor of it. It was doing pretty crazy damage for an auto attack in its current iteration. What really got me was their notes afterwards, saying Juggernaut is an issue when RARELY to people use the build even in lower levels because the meta crap is still broken. Gave me a little chuckle to read that. it's been about a half a year since I've played, feels really good honestly.

[nas.5249]

I'm looking at the elementalist traits while in PVP on 22nd Feb 2022 (EoD hasn't been replaced yet). Hovering the mouse over the Elemental Shielding trait shows that it already grants protection for 2.5 seconds. However, this page lists one of the Tempest changes as:

"Elemental Shielding: Increased protection duration from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds in PvP only"

Very confused

Edited February 22, 2022 by dicemaster.1432

[Psycoprophet.8107]

On 2/21/2022 at 12:07 PM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

That's about how I feel lately.

This^ these devs over the last 4 years have been thee worst devs at balancing I've ever witnessed, absolutely clueless and are continually making the game less fun to play every patch, the goal should be the opposite. Sounds harsh but this games doomed unless the balance starts involving more than just number changes and possibly the addition of devs to the team and or removal of devs that are responsible for the actual gbage balancing decisions that have been plaguing this game over last 4 years.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Psycoprophet.8107

[pukish.5784]

Maybe new xpac hype will last 1 year or less and then game will be back to same state. I will wait someone review EoD PvP.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

2 hours ago, dicemaster.1432 said:

I'm looking at the elementalist traits while in PVP on 22nd Feb 2022 (EoD hasn't been replaced yet). Hovering the mouse over the Elemental Shielding trait shows that it already grants protection for 2.5 seconds. However, this page lists one of the Tempest changes as:

"Elemental Shielding: Increased protection duration from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds in PvP only"

Very confused

Your build has some concentration/boon/protection duration on it somewhere. 25%, precisely 

[chokela.4823]

Best potential PvP MMO and Worst management. Such a shame ....

[Nihil.9817]

2 hours ago, chokela.4823 said:

Best potential PvP MMO and Worst management. Such a shame ....

anet knows its market, this stuff was decided a while ago, arguably good management, ask 10 people in the mists if they are just there for their legendary back piece or an ascended piece of gear and see how many people say yes, i think it would be cheating if you went to the arena but you get the point.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Also, the problem isn't res utilities. The problem is that downstate has never been updated for post feb 2020 damage. Downstate should have a 33% Vitality/Healing reduction in both WvW and sPvP.  It really is that simple.

This has been repeatedly called out by the community as a high priority balance issue and it has gone ignored for a solid 2 years. The only reason to keep things like this is intentional pandering to unskilled players since it carries people who don't know what they are doing but outnumber, at the expense of the severe issues it causes in 1500+ rated play.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Master Ketsu.4569

[Eddbopkins.2630]

This game is perfect in everyway and does not need balance or fair abilitys at all. Guards having an exclusive rune to it self like trappers is a prime example of perfect balance.

Doing enormous damage from invisibility is also extremly fair and counter play is fun.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Eddbopkins.2630

[Byaku.8273]

I feel sad to say it but, all you do is nerf.

The game already is slow cuz of condi bunkers everywhere. Most nerfs are also directed to power builds, meaning even more classes have to resort to condi to perform.

I'm not even a thief main but ...
The problem with thief is not it's frequent access to stealth, that is a core concept of this class.

The duration is the issue.

If you want to get rid of SA, nerf it's Stealth duration and buff Deadly Arts again. People would rather play kitten anyways as it is overall more fun. Give kitten more dmg increase so it is actually worth taking it. Most would rather play against a higher dmg thief with less stealth. Makes this spec not interactive at all. Blinding Powder has been a core utility of thief since idk when. Increasing it's cooldown will either make it unusable or force people even more to go SA for the cd reduction. Of course this would be less of an issue if you would make kitten supirior again, because of Improvisation.

Also design SA around more frequent stealth application instead of more frequent + longer and cap stealth at max of 3 seconds. -> problems solved

And please stop only nerfing (power specifically, as that's the only thing that gets nerfed)

 

Tempest Earth traitline more well rounded? Well not if everything is condi spam kitten. Tempest takes fire because of the condi cleanse.

 

And the biggest issue imo is that Power builds often simply lack the condi cleanse. Ofc you could say "play less greedy builds" but ... is that really a thing? Condi enables you to take all the defensive stuff you like while also pumping out high dps. You can take condi cleanse + get power dmg reduction/vitality. If you take enough condi cleanse and pdmg reduction on power you won't be able to kill anything as it is right now. Power scales with 3 stats, while condi only with 2 (you could even neglect expertise and still be obnoxiously over powered on some builds *cough*core necro*cough*). In many cases Condi just stays in one place tanking hits while power has to kite and cleanse perfectly to not die.

 

Your Necro nerfs f.e.:

Vampiric? Most effective on Reaper, the minion nerfs are appropriate tho

Vampiric Presence? Most effective on Reaper
Last Rites which is an actual issue, cuz especially Scourges can just place AoEs on themselves, pumping out 7 different conditions while outresing 3 people attacking seems fine for you tho

Summon Flesh Wurm? Mostly used on Power (ofc Reaper)

 

No complaints about Lich Form.

 

 

And finally the most important part: stop nerfing core! Balance the Elite Specs themselves without touching core too much (with exception of Necro. It generates lifeforce way too fast and it depletes to slowly with the addition of it being condi and thus having way too much sustain overall.)

 

My approach would be:

Either nerf condi classes in general, but this would result in the game being even slower than it is already.
Buff power, so it has the kill potential again on these overtuned condi classes

Or my prefered variant:

Give power more condi cleanse and buff it's dmg (or even better, reduce condi class sustain, so they have to take more dmging traits if they want more dmg)

This will result in following matchups:

Condi vs Condi? Still boring as it is, nothing changed, but that is an issue you don't seem to want to address.

Condi vs Power (same as Power vs Condi, I know some people will need this. You're welcome)? Even tho power has to take less dmg mitigation in form of vit & toughness, it will not affect this matchup, as condi cleanse is basically the "toughness" against condi.

Power vs Power? Both similarely squishy (as if, a lot of balancing has still to be done in this area alone), still fast paced combat as one mistake can get you killed easily.

 

This approach definitly will take the most amount of work. Please take Vallun or whoever has vast knowledge of all classes and builds and work this out.

 

Can't wait for the hateful comments from Core Necro players saying "nerf everything I don't feel like putting the time in on how to play against". (jk)

Also forgive me if some of my points may address issues incorrectly (specifically Thiefs, like I said, not a Thief main, but that's how I feel about thiefs. Don't feel like stealth application is the issue but rather the duration. Get as many backstabs as you like, but don't run away with stealth whenever you feel like it while I'm unable to chase you cuz of stealth)

 

Make Power great again!

Edit: apparently Deadly Arts abbreviation (D.A. without dots) is a swear word and thus get's replaced by "kitten" lmao. Don't get confused

Edited March 7, 2022 by Byaku.8273
Stupidly assuming D.A. is a curse word getting replaced with "kitten"

[Gamble.4580]

4 revs every game incoming.