Game Update Notes Preview: Profession Skills

[Gajex.2386]

Gotta admit, I expected way worse for Mechanist.

Then I read through the other notes until I came to the banner changes. Saved the worst for them, hu?

 

This toast goes out to all the banner warriors, you will be sorely missed!

May Anet one day treat their tone deafness and restore your former glory.

[Arolandis.8360]

8 hours ago, Xeshirem.5038 said:

I will miss Hidden Thief granting stealth. It was another source of stealth, especially for regular thief's Steal, and instant too, but I really like the barrier/condi removal for the other two (Shielding Restoration/Shadow's Embrace), so I will change to one of traits regardless if Hidden Thief still affects Deception Skills (the wording was unclear to me).

I overall like the change of Enter/Exit stealth instead of duration. The duration made it feel like you had to hide in stealth for a bit and then continue attacking, which is a fantastic thief fantasy but unfortunately the gameplay looks mostly healthier with more player agency and control with Enter/Exit.

Cover of Shadow and Shadow's Rejuvenation are really nice in the situations where enemy boons aren't the niche.

I worry for Meld with Shadows. I liked stealthing and running around, but Superspeed is huge especially if it persists a little bit after exiting stealth, which seems really cool for burst attacking.

I think I like the Shadow Arts changes, speaking as someone who only plays in all open world pve, story, and fractals.

 

Absolutely agree with this. It took away some of the clunkiness of the traits so it was the highlight of the patch for me.

[Arolandis.8360]

7 hours ago, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

A lot of these changes are interesting honestly.  If there is one thing I hate, it is overloading the boon capabilities.  I like the direction.  I have 1 gripe as an Elementalist player.  The Catalyst nerfs were needed and I like the changes, but... where are the Weaver changes?  I feel completely useless playing this specialization.  It isn't worth running in any game mode currently.  It is fun to play but incredibly bad when you consider other options.  The Weaver trait line needs to be reworked in a few areas.  The barrier change is extremely confusing.  That "Buff" felt like a spit to the face in all honesty.  I was looking forward to more changes to the elite specialization.  Weaver deserves it.  The theme of it is outstanding.  Currently, the skill required to play it effectively is not rewarding enough.  If I may, I would like to give a few suggestions.  The HP trait needs to be in the minor traits.  Weaver should be beefier by default.  Weaver also needs a way to stick on targets better.  Chill and immobilization ruins Weavers.  More superspeed access in the traits could also be more appreciated as the range of a sword Weaver is next to none.  This would increase the chances to secure kills similar to Herald.  One last thing.  Half the duel skills are pointless (Shearing Slash, Monsoon, Pressure Blast, Ashen Blast, etc).  These skills need to either be quicker or reworked to match the reason why we would want to duel attune to those elements in the first place.  Some weapons truly only feel like they have 2-3 duel skills.  The other ones are either slow, clunky, or get you killed due to long animations.

I wanted to main this spec so bad but it became less fun with nerfs over time. I just wish they'd revert some of them...

[Tsumiju.3071]

Every time I get a notification about profession changes my eyes roll into my sockets knowing that my PVE characters are being nerfed again. 

I'm struggling to stay with the game due to a head injury in 2020 and frankly, I'm less inclined to persevere if this keeps up

[shinkamalei.2574]

LONG POST IS LONG

tldr; ele/warrior/quickness changes are not that great.

 

I think what they’re trying to do is take what makes an elite class special and make it give boons… but a lot of these I cannot agree to. And I feel there are better ways of doing them.

 

Class Boons:

 

From a raid standpoint, I can see why having the class specific stuff could be a problem. I remember hearing “I won’t play warrior without a druid or without spotter.” It was that big of a difference. But at the same time, I think having a few here and there like empower allies that would get reapplied here and there based on xyz factors, would be a better option. It would then encourage possible skill play versus just being in an area.

 

I understand you’re going for every class will have a bit of importance and a role to play in many different comps, but it kind of feels like you’re removing part of what makes them unique. I didn’t like being told to go druid because they wanted spotter or spirits, but I didn’t mind having a trait that could help specific classes too. It was a little fun to be able to see which classes I could jive well with. That does limit play for players which you’re trying to move away from, but it makes things a little more bland.

 

Quickness:

 

I’m reading a few of the main comments and I have to agree with warrior and herald thus far. Quickness uptimes are likely going to be extremely bad. I can understand with 0 BD, but even with 100%.... it’ll be very iffy. Unlike firebrand that can do ti very easily. I mention that because even tho scrapper can easily lapse yet still provide 100%, firebrand can do it without thinking essentially. Cata is a static field, which is enough said. The times of these feel VERY small in comparison. As a herald healer, I do not consume all of my skills. It’s dumb to. I want to get several boons up before then. Things like swiftness can be insta consume but it’s situational.

 

Warrior:

 

One big question: why is the quickness trait in direct competition with healing? Like you cannot be a heal warrior and give quickness. Herald will be directly in tune, cata can be although it’s a little wonky sometimes, mediscrapper is GREAT, healbrand op…. you get what I mean. Why is warrior the only one NOT allowed to heal and do that? I understand they will come from banners too, but likely for full uptime, you’ll need the trait line. Which then means, you cannot heal. Perhaps instead, since you’re changing Empower Allies, you could swap the two? There are so many classes that will be providing might that a healer may not need to take as much. They’ll still need to take a good 12-15 stacks imo, but this may work since it’s only 5-stacks. Another option would be to swap it with roaring reveille. This way dps can give buffs and since soldier’s focus does currently heal (although not the main source) it could be swapped. I don’t prefer this suggestion, but I’m stating it as an option.

 

And one of the better boons, you’re removing (warhorn 4). It was TWO hits. If you spam it off cd, which was long as it was, it was slightly helpful, but not game breaking. I know there’s been an issue with power creep, but this feels a bit far.

 

For the banners, I don’t mind the change. I know a lot of people who could easily forget the banners (myself included) so we’ll see how it goes. I am curious to see how much INITIAL quickness is when the banner is placed. It will then beg the questions of “how often do I grab it?”, “best time to drop it?”, etc etc. I like doing those kinds of testing questions so I will play around with it.

 

Thief:

 

Meld w/ Shadows: How long is the superspeed?

 

Herald:

 

I’ve already stated that I don’t think the quickness amount will be ANYWHERE near enough. I will say though that I am interested in the ventari changes and seeing how salvation trait lines work. I am not mad at it. More curious.

 

Ranger:

 

I don’t know enough of the class to comment. I recognize some nerfs and some changes to trait lines for healing but that’s about it.

 

Ditto for lack of knowledge on mesmer.

 

Necromancer:

 

As a heal scourge I’m curious about these changes and are willing to give them a chance although blood bank does compete directly with the pull. I think this may be a little… useless of a change to blood magic because that pull is absolutely game changing. Had someone in pvp who had it and saved me, leaving me to save the team. So, overall, I don’t think it’ll see too much play except for maybe self-barrier? Wail of Doom seems… meh and locust swarm will be nice. Other changes to reaper feel… not too amazing, but the harb I am surprised did not get more nerfed. Especially that lift. Since there are very few classes that give out stability, there’s very few counters to it since the stun break only breaks once and that’s a pulsing lift.

 

Guardian:

 

>.> Do I need to say it? Why is blue class getting a buff? Everyone knows it’s anet’s favorite child but dang. It truly does not need a buff. It still gives majority of boons with little effort and gives more stability than any other class could dream of.

 

Engineer:

 

Rifle changes seem kind of nice for a heal scrapper at least. I’m willing to try it. Not too stoked about the Medical Dispersion Field changes, but willing to see it at least and try. I know scrapper is strong in wvw/pvp as is mechanist. So it’ll be interesting to see how those are affected as well.

 

Elementalist:

 

So, why are you trying to nerf quickness catalyst when your golden boy benches 32k+ easily and they don’t really have to get rid of any damage skills themselves? I don’t do dps myself. I do not like it. But seeing them make people remove damage from almost every other class except blue class is really frustrating. Yes, I am comparing it again because it needs to be mentioned, again. This change is rather bull since cata isn’t doing super op amazing damage. It’s good. Far from the bottom (which is where things like condi/power tempest are) but it’s not breaking things. I honestly wonder if someone on your team hates elementalists. No joke.

 

Now for tempest. I think I mentioned earlier that I understand you’re trying to nab what makes that elite spec unique… but overloads are not. The. Way. They take too long, they are on a long recharge, you will be forcing people out of attunements for no other reason than alacrity uptime which is low per how long cds are. Honestly just make me flabbergasted at this and wonder do you know elementalist at all? It should be on auras. I understand other eles use them, but it can be an aura applied by them.
 

1.  Lucid Singularity is a good skill for pvp use. Maybe not used all the time because it’s in direction competition with…
2. ELEMENTAL BASTION! You are literally telling healers they cannot heal with their auras and give alacrity. Even though it’s not thousands of heals (mine is at 1.2k), it’s enough to help in a critical situation.
3. You could have used Tempestuous Aria if you wanted dps to be able to spec into it too. Or remove vigor from Invigorating Torrents and replace it with alacrity for auras. I don’t know the base time since aura cool downs can long and because it depends on the traits you need to take (sometimes for condi cleanse fights, cleansing water is needed so less sharing of auras which would mean less alacrity).
4. If you REALLY want it tied to overloads, add alacrity to unstable conduit. It is used by both supports and dps a lot. It would be a general amount of alacrity per overload (which I stating I am still against) and based on attunement, you get an aura (as it is now).
5. I do wonder if you are aiming this at a fresh air tempest build which gets an auto refresh on air and could overload it again... >.>

I can go on and on and on with tempest. I’m legit angry with this. There are better ways to do things and I think some of the traits you guys are warping are not the right approach. I do understand that you’re trying to get rid of class boons that give lots of condition damage or power or precision to the group… but that was the fun (even sometimes frustrating) part of class balancing. You got to see who really meshed with who. It’s why as a tempest healer, I want to have a dps cata with me. Things like that. You want it to be more equal, then balance out condi/power. When one gets favored too heavily, different class boons get broken.

 

For those that may come for me, I have most of the classes. Including healbrand, quickbrand, and more blue classes. I understand how broken they are over other classes. When it comes to ranger/mesmer, I sadly don't know enough. I won't touch on the damage changes because I don't dps.

Edited June 25, 2022 by shinkamalei.2574
mentioning fresh air

[Ukon Cairns.9160]

from the top

elementalist:

• the 5% crit chance in air attunement is kinda of pointless cause you still need to build for it cause you need that 5% in fire attunement too. 
• alac tempest, i didnt ask for this but im intrigued by the thought of diviners tempest.
• catalyst and hammer changes. man, it was one of the coolest elite specs in EoD, but i cant put up anywhere near the numbers Roul and the rest of SC can, with so many of the changes we've seen to cata just being smaller numbers... it just feels like yall telling me "we made this cool thing, and its not for you." which just feels bad. 

engineer: 

• the range changes for things like Aim-Assisted Rocket is nice. dont care much for holo but the thought of a pistol/pistol ranged holo forge build now that these traits play nice together is on the list of things to play, tho still rather low.
• mech core: jade dynamo: reworking this kinda undoes the interesting thing you did by giving the mech aim-assisted rocket.
• wild to see mechanist still be so strong and so simple to play, just invalidates so many other classes and builds.

revenant:

• quick herald: i saw someone did the math so it should work but 1.5 seconds on longer cooldowns just looks so bad, i doubt i'll try it myself.
• salvation and ventari changes: largely interesting, i may feel more confident bringing heal renegade to group content now, tho unfortunate that this mighta shut the door on heal vindicator, as silly and niche as that already was.  Edit: missed where they yoinked alac out of salvation trait. patch bad no hope. 😔

warrior:

• im really struggling to find a way these changes could be interpreted as good or desirable.  doesnt feel like this adds a boon heal build or a chrono-esque boon tank build to pve group content, its just a powerful nerf to the "boon"dps role we had before. feels like it will be harder for me personally to do group content on warrior without my preference for spellbreaker over berserker being overlooked by "well we still want specifically banner buffs." 

ranger/mesmer: i dont know well enough to comment

necromancer/thief: these changes arent interesting enough to comment.

buffs to reaper, ele staff, and spellbreaker daggers sounded neat, but these changes arent coming to pve so im not really gonna get to see them.   

do hope this plays out better than it looks.

Edited June 26, 2022 by deadteds.2659

[Flapjack.6791]

I think those changes are some of the worst the game had in the last 5 years. Not only they nerf Fractals Power Meta more (while not touching the condi meta thats dominant already) they make extremely bad changes to quickness classes and you need to really go out of your way (and lower your dps) to give quickness now. That would be fine dont get me wrong, but they completely neglect the existance of qFB ... there you have perma (instant cast aoe) quickness while also doing around 33k dps easily AND bring stability, aegis, reflect and stuff to the table. Why do other classes need to go out of their way so much to do dps (since aegis and stab is out of question for them anyways...)?

 

The warrior changes seem to be weird and i can see all warrior mains complaining, so i assume the way they did it is not good. Why would anynone play a "boon warrior" with like 4k dps instad of a qFB with more boons (aegis/stab...) and 33k dps?

 

The One Wolf Pack changes seems pretty harsh aswell... lowering the dmg output from like 1/4sec ICD  (?was it that?) to 1sec ICD and lowering the duration?

 

Catalyst dps nerfs, yea okay, thats fine I think. The Quickness changes, well.. I already said sth about that.

But 5% criot in AIR Traitline? For PvE this is actually pointless, since you need your dmg in fire aswell. YOu need to spec for 5% more in ur gear anyways now and are just overcapped while attuning to Air..

Getting rid of class unique buffs is something that i despise tbh .. but thats just my personal openion and i dont blame anet for not folllowing that. I think it lowers class diversity.

 

Some changes are qompletely irrelevant: buffing staff on ele is useless. Even when MS (fire5) would oneshot all enemies, it would still be bad as a weapon. Thats a mechanical Issue, not a number issue for pvp at least. Staff will never perform good there (not talking about bronze 2), unless it gets a COMPLETE rework.

 

According to all my friends in the higher end PvE-community, they are all displeased with these notes. Not because the intention is bad, but the implementation is bad...really bad. Noone cares about their class being nerfed. But nerfing classes that are allready worse that qFB (for quickness) and somewhat ignoring FB is just lazy and really disappointing. Somehow deleting warrior from endgame PvE ... Not changing core mechanics that fell out of place after 3 addons, not reworking certain weapons mechanically (staff on ele for example)... I had multiple people already uninstalling the game because of this decision making. 😞

 

You should delay this patch and rethink certain decisions. 😞

 

And for the fun memes: the Mist OFFENSIVE Potion grants VITALITY .. seems legit. 🙂

 

Edited June 25, 2022 by Cupcake.9678

[latlat.4516]

9 hours ago, Catilena.8729 said:

And this is bad because....why again?

When you bring something to your group more than your dps (example : heal, stab, quick, alac, rez ability), it should be paid in your ability to do damage. The more essential advantages you bring to your team, the further away from a top chart dps you should be. Otherwise you create unbeatable builds in the meta, and we already had too much of those in the history of this game, no need to add another one.

9 hours ago, Catilena.8729 said:

I already get funny looks as it is when I play Catalyst in a serious manner, plus having emergency quick-spam for things like, harvest temple when our main quick dies is useful. Elementalist gets kitten on every single patch, and the only class more of a joke than we are is Untamed, but that's not saying much.

I don't know much about that state of PvE now, but in WvW a well played dps catalyst is always the top dps in squads, even better than weaver. Tempest is the only class that can compete with scrapper in both cleanse speed and healing power. Without the quick and the superspeed indeed but now with the alac and the only unrippable boons in the game in the form of auras. Getting crazy looks because you want to play that class is what's crazy in my opinion. 

Untamed is clearly made for solo play, and is quite proficient at it. Which is a strange design choice, I concur. 

[Senqu.8054]

Mesmer
Dueling
Master Fencer:

=> Straight nerf to Power Mesmer

Virtuoso
Quiet Intensity:
Bladesong Sorrow:

=> I don’t care

Chronomancer
Seize the Moment:

=> It’s okeyish but considering we lose Quickness on Shield 5 again and now has to be traited is a bitter taste.

Lost Time:
Stretched Time:

=> Band aid fix for wells, which has to be traited. ANet just lied when saying they want to fix wells. It makes the situation even worse since considering the past this will be the status of wells for another 2 or more years. They are still not only useless they handicap you if you consider taking them in any build with no streched time traited.

=> I just now noticed with the change of LostTime they also nerfed a huge part of the utility rupter chrono they wanted with Chaotic Interruption and Vicious Expression.

Shield
Tides of Time:

=> The swifness Part is a little bit meh but I like the might. With Size the moment it could do some nice things but tbh chrono was the last espec that needed more burst on its wombo combo. Overall every build of chrono loses something important cause alac or quickness now have to be traited. Bad change.

Wells
Well of Action:

=> Why would someone stay inside the well for super speed? This doesn’t make any sense at all. We had Super Speed on glamour. You deleted it and now give it back on the end tick of a well? Lmao

Well of Recall:

=> This is again a change to a more and more passive combat playstyle. Like seriously who is in charge for such things?

 

All in all disappointing as always. ANet deletes every source of quickness and Alacrity from Chronomancer and push those two boons in 2 separate GM traits. Alacrity is now liked to wells, which still require you to stand inside till they end to receive the full effects of them. The effects of the wells itself getting worse and worse to a point you handicap yourself taking them.

 

The change to Lost time also deletes every chance to receive alacrity without extremely clunky skills and therefore deletes all access to alacrity in PvP. Furthermore this change directly nerfs the utility rupter build in WvW with vicious expression and chaotic interruption, making the build variety for mesmer in WvW even smaller. PLUS you destroy once again synergy in the top chrono traitline itself AND other traitlines by deleting another GM trait dedicated to interrupt which effects every interrupt build, dedicated to small scale and Zerg fights.

 

This patch is another nerf to chronomancer, core and virtuoso and deletes even more variety of this game. You should really think about the changes and if you not want to delay them.  
 

The changes you provide at the very moment and in the past 4 years made this game to a stall and bland experience. The build diversity is not given anymore because with every patch you rip out skills, traits and mechanics and delete the thoughts of the original dev team irrevocable. Synergies between traits, skills, mechanics and more important between classes go over board.
 

Instead of builds you just play condi/power/Support + Core/Chrono/Mirage/Virtuoso because all other traits in that line and other traitlines are useless for the purpose of the specific thing you want to achieve. And if you really have the choice between two traits those traits are already behind a 4 years nerf marathon and affecting your build so marginal that it really doesn’t matter at all which trait you take.

 

This game has lost something again with this patch.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Senqu.8054

[Mini Crinny.6190]

Where is obtena to offer us their advice 😞

[Fan Didly Tastic.7169]

14 hours ago, YagoNew.2357 said:

When can we play MECHANIST underwater? The best most fun build for the class is condi, the ONLY weapon option we have is the speargun, the most aweful weapon in the entire game, long cooldowns and super slow autos even with quickness, its dogshit, it's also mostly power so going condi with it just makes u wanna PROJECTILE FINISH in a DISGUSTING FIELD, if you catch my meaning....

Taps you on the shoulder.

Get in line, the entire Renegade Kalla stance also still cannot be used under water even though the blatantly obvious solution is to have them spawn on your character, like wells do for Necromancer. Other doable solutions exist. Been like that since PoF released. Not like it's balance as underwater content isn't really much of a thing.

Get comfy, find a chair, it'll be a while.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Since you're getting ex-ANerf people on board again (Colin, Grouch), just do yourselves a favor, fire the balance team and get back Izzy and Jon Peters. 

[Guirssane.7082]

11 hours ago, Shade.8971 said:

It has been stated that this was supposed to be a pve balance patch. Even though most of the changes are for pvp 🙄

It was never stated this was a pve balance patch. Just reworking some abilities. And no, most of the changes aren't for pvp. 

[Serephen.3420]

I think I have even less faith/confidence in future balance and patches after reading these notes...especially elementalist. 

I don't know what they were smoking but I'll pass on that...

[FirebrandFrog.7603]

It's a patch notes thread.

Well, no, it's a plea to any dev who'll answer some questions because there's just...so many aspects to the most recent list that I'm confused about.

I understand this list was a preview and not the full changelist. Even so, it is very concerning from what I have seen and certain trends just...don't make sense to me.

1. The Catalyst (re-)nerfs were very much inspired by the recent world clear speedrun videos done by those various niche guilds who enjoy that sort of thing, though Cata nerfs in general are focused around ANet looking at Cata Stacking and freaking out. The thing that gets my goat about this (probably) rationale is that these speedrunners are a TINY population chunk of the game, let alone those who play Elementalist. Yes, their benchmarks are ludicrous. Additionally: they are freaks of nature (loving) who are clearly passionate about optimizing their gameplay to the absolute apex of what their class can do. So... why would you balance your game around such a tiny population of your playerbase? If the game were PVP-focused, I would understand the philosophy of balancing around top players: not only do they drive the metas of their games, they're the ones on literal world stages playing for grand prizes and most players of these games will at some point try to aim for this lofty goal, and thus it's prudent to have this balancing goal in mind. But Guild Wars 2, for better or worse, is a PVE-focused game with PVP-based excursions (sPVP, WVW) that are secondary to what the game actually makes money from. This kind of philosophy is not a healthy one to balance from, especially when so many players can't even reach a 50% benchmark for something like the DPS Cata found in these stacking groups.
2. Speculation is abound that Snowcrows had actually been hiding the true damage numbers of Catalyst for some time now. The reason a site would risk their reputation of reliability like this is rather obvious: ArenaNet balances their game not out of playtesting their own code (or letting the playerbase QA it through means of a PBE-like server) but by peering over the fence into these sites and effectively judging books by their very flashy covers. They've done this before, most famously being the Day 0 Catalyst Nerf that got...quite a bit of attention from the fact that it was all predicated on the benchmark video of an Elementalist enthusiast. The incoming One Wolf Pack nerf is at least ANet finally catching on that benchmarks don't tell the whole story...but it still makes the Cata nerfs seem extreme regardless. An information-gathering site shouldn't be punished for the sins of a dev group's...incompetence, and trust shouldn't be lost in sites like Snowcrows because they make a choice of withholding information for the sake of preserving a class's playable integrity. That is not and SHOULD NOT be their job. Do you, ArenaNet, understand that these sorts of actions will drive players off of sites like Snowcrows or drive players to forgo maintaining sites like Snowcrows out of fear that their information will lead to potential nerfs?
3. Building off of these two questions, what kind of message are you sending to the playerbase when you effectively punish them for being more knowledgeable at your own game than you are? Because I'm sure there's a large, laaaarge playerbase percentage that at minimum think a capuchin monkey wearing a fur coat can do a better job than you...putting it nicely.

Now I'm not trying to come for an ANet dev's throat, nor do I want this post to come off as salty malding. (Given today's news cycle, believe me, I have a lot more to be mad about right now.) But I'm just so confused. The more I try to rationale around these changes, the less sense they make and the more questions I ask in response to those answers.

Quote

I just nerf the things you love, and buff the things you don't love yet because they haven't been worth using, but once it's good and you try it you might find you love it.

(the offending post), emphasis mine.

When this was first posted, it came off as cheeky. Playful, even. "Don't just have a main, try all the classes~" it implies. With the preview list out days later, this post hits...a little different. Primarily because the buffs are to classes already seen as either decently strong or overperforming (i.e. in need of QoL changes at best), all the while backhanding elite specializations and classes that desperately need buffs to keep up with this every-changing and ever-more-condi-centric meta, at best ignoring them and at worst doing to those specs what the zombies did to that one guy in the Dawn of the Dead remake. You know the scene.

Why did I include this reddit post excerpt from an ANet dev? Simple: the tone of it now comes off as very harmful and deceitful. These changes, much of them don't make any sense. They don't actually help the classes that need them, more just attempts at funneling players into the classes deemed strong in the hopes of...what, exactly?

Quoting that oh-so-famous vine, "I am confusion."

Edited June 25, 2022 by FirebrandFrog.7603

[Fleedling.7261]

So is that it for Healer-Alacrity Vindicator? That's a shame... I was enjoying it. It seems like Anet are rather tone deaf about what is meta and what can become meta. 

 

Adding a shed load of other boons won't match how lucrative Alacrity and Quickness are...

[omono.2035]

For Mesmer, they put the bonus crit chance on Virtuoso only? So now Chrono just looses 5% crit in groups when its already lower dps than Virtuoso with much more conditional damage? Not sure why Chronophantasma exists if it's not going to be supported. If it's not going to have a full DPS option at least give it regen so it can be a healer. It would make sense for a class about altering time to have a boon that heals over time, and then it could use the Chaos line more effectively too.

 

Chronomancer has 15% crit on slowed enemies, which I guess matches the 15% bonus crit when Virtuoso has Fury, which is nice because you can use the same gear on both builds? But its unfair because Slow is a much harder condition to meet and Virtuoso has more additional damage modifiers, so DPS Chrono needs another buff if it is going to exist in a more meaningful way than core Mesmer. The Well changes are great though, aside from losing some of the flavor of taking time from enemies to give it to your allies kinda equivalent exchange that was going on being missing a bit now.

 

Being incentivized to use Shield is cool though.

 

If the Jade Mech gets unbreakable Defiance in PvE, can Continuum rift also be unbreakable there?

[Gerebos.1065]

Just in  case the developers missed it,April 1 passed 3 months ago if I rememember it correctly , how such a patchnote got released?

Edited June 25, 2022 by Amnariel.3659
Spelling

[Valeriq.9287]

As long as test of faith and procession of blades does't get deleted from wvw, no buffs or changes will help the meta. It has just become stare wars as people don't want to get oneshot by traps. So no mellee class apart of dh is viable still.

[anbujackson.9564]

While the cata nerfs are harsh, the solution is rather simple. Just remove the debuff from the sphere trait and you essentially just have weaker auto attacks except air. Shouldnt be too hard to change.

I dont get the hate for tempest. In my opinion, you dont need to overheal so hard, whats the point of this trait again when you buff your team when its at FULL HP? Ah yes its useless. If you need burst heal, you use your water overload and water in general.

You still have your heal shout and you can take signet of water as a decent group heal every 20 seconds. You still have rebound for dangerous situations to wait for your water attunement again. You have regen and soothing mist as a lot of passive heal. Again, where do you need to spam so much heal? Speedclear people take no healer at all. Dodge attacks and do mechanics, so you dont need to overheal your mistakes. The damage from bosses is very low if you actually try.

Alac is 12 seconds per overload as heal tempest (because playing heal tempest without 100 % BD is kind of dumb). That should be plenty of time to do different stuff even without fresh air. Could be wrong here though.

The 5% crit on air is almost as stupid as 5% in arms on warrior. Making it effect every attunement cant be so hard either. Still stupid right now.

So no, ele is not trash. 2 minor tweaks to the sphere trait and the crit trait and you are already good to go. 

 

The big problems are the lack of nerfs to fb and mech.

Edited June 25, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Solitude.2097]

11 hours ago, FirebrandFrog.7603 said:

1. The Catalyst (re-)nerfs were very much inspired by the recent world clear speedrun videos done by those various niche guilds who enjoy that sort of thing
2. Speculation is abound that Snowcrows had actually been hiding the true damage numbers of Catalyst for some time now. Do you, ArenaNet, understand that these sorts of actions will drive players off of sites like Snowcrows or drive players to forgo maintaining sites like Snowcrows out of fear that their information will lead to potential nerfs?
3. Building off of these two questions, what kind of message are you sending to the playerbase when you effectively punish them for being more knowledgeable at your own game than you are?

I think that answers the question .

People have found an advantage for world first (class that does more dps that the rest (thanks god we have Arkdps)) and the company reacted by equalizing things .

Now , if WvW/PvPers eles need some buffs , they should ask them for the next 3-month patch

Edited June 25, 2022 by Solitude.2097

[Alecu.4786]

Can you make a post explaining the philosophy of the implementation of the banner changes? Ideas were good, but this execution puts it UNQUESTIONABLY subpar in all aspects of boons and damage compared to Quickness Firebrand. Why?

[nthmetal.9652]

Weren't people complaining about warriors always needing to be Bannerslaves? I don't see how this patch changes that - the only real change is, that new banners are easily replaceable by other professions providing quickness and the boons provided by the banners.

What I'm still missing is a rework of the 300s CD traits. There's quite a lot of them in WvW / PvP; effectively these are dead traits. In the competitive modes their CD is way too high, in PvE they are mostly not needed at all.

Finally, tempest alacrity? Since the alac only applies at the END of an overload, there's always that risk of overloads getting interrupted, and thus failing alacrity. I guess there are more desirable options for alac then. Especially factoring in, that for tempest alac, you have to give up on healing auras. That seems rather pointless to me, but maybe I'm just not "seeing it".

[Szeth.7603]

F for ele and warrior

[Burial.1958]

1 hour ago, Zerlok.5042 said:

Nice!!!! After june 28 thieves will be full sh*t!!!!! Good job!!!!!

Thief have Acrobatics which 99% of players don't use, better idea broken shadow arts??? Remove stealth traits - main thief mechanic. 

WHY??????  Please tell me why so hate thieves???? Will be perfect if can reset target on stealth, no dicided to remove stealth traits......... Oh my GOD!!!!!!!!

That they didn't touch acrobatics is indeed a joke. SA changes i really dislike. Will made some stuff OP as kitten (and afterwards it get nerfed heavy and i see a strong forcing to play specter Powercreep Epsiode III ).

Boon Spam turning this game more and more into a passiv gameplay crap like ESO Cyrodiil. Gw 2 unique Combat Gameplay will be turning more to dust.

 

The rest....yeah yeah Anet plays only guard, necro and engi...nothing new.

 

And gosh they didn't even touch Celestial Abuse. No touch on Harbinger. 🤡🤡

Edited June 25, 2022 by Grebcol.5984