Game Update Notes Preview: Profession Skills

[edelweiss.2637]

Why dont delete warrior already and make another class from scratch?

[edelweiss.2637]

4 hours ago, Szeth.7603 said:

F for ele and warrior

Big Fat F

[Kehau.7013]

As much as i appreciate the effort of wanting to balance professions, i am really disappointed with the results this time, for the first time actually. HMech and Firebrand are always wanted in PVE groups while some other specs are barely played, and I don't see that changing with this new patch. PVE Druid was used mostly for its 10man spirit buffs, i hope it will still be welcome in raid groups after this. 
I sincerely hope this patch note was here to gather opinions from players before making the actual changes. 

[Rysdude.3824]

On 6/23/2022 at 8:19 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi all, below is the profession balance section of the June 28 game update notes. The full game update notes will be published next Tuesday shortly before the update is live. 

 

Trying to be optimistic.  Maybe there will be some praise once the FULL list of changes get listed next Tuesday and they're just messing with us because right now, even as someone as inexperienced in online gaming as I am, can see the originally list was lackluster.

[Ascency.3580]

20 minutes ago, Rysdude.3824 said:

Trying to be optimistic.  Maybe there will be some praise once the FULL list of changes get listed next Tuesday and they're just messing with us because right now, even as someone as inexperienced in online gaming as I am, can see the originally list was lackluster.

why would they post partial information knowing it would spark the reactions it did with no real feedback being generated? the sad part is that those 20 pages of ppl raging IS the feedback becouse those ARE the profession chnges. only hope is they will actually not go live with this.

[Liorenath.5098]

20 hours ago, littledemon.7659 said:

I'm confused, if catalyst is the most over-performing profession for the best players out there, why it is not the top 1 on the snowcrows benchmark?

Because Snowcrows are players and most of their benchmark are very ideal and completely not viable in a real scenario.
You should look at a site calledGw2 Wingman which contains  log from player based on raid encounter bosses.
Where you can see that while not everyone can achieve super high number, Catalyst has some of the highest peaks in almost every encounter.
So does Mechanist and it didn't get nerfed that hard but that's a discussion for another day.
 

[stormemperor.3745]

Boosts Radiance crit trait from 25% to 40% for pvp 

Willbender can 100% crit all time

Boosts necromancer crit to 10% from 33% in shroud

Reaper can never 100% crit in pvp no matter what.

 

Willbender is the real reaper, better reaper then reaper ever was and ever will be.

 

Reaper is becoming harder and harder to play, non-existent burst damage decreased for good.

 

Like all the people say, stop playing thrash profession like reaper and play real profession like mechanist.

[Galisaa.8304]

What this patch made 9 different teams? Some of those teams never played gw2?
Nothing makes. Everything is inconsistent.

 

Warrior 5% crit on condition line?

Ranges free 100% alac compared to Revenent 1.5 sec quick?

Multiple traits becoming copy+paste. Give buff passively.

Making a skill massively different between game modes (Mantra of Solace)?

[Rhokaz.1975]

You failed the calculation.

Yes we need crit because banners are missing. However, ITS TOO less. Man there are online calculators which give you the exact numbers and you failed for nearly all classes. Please redo your math. I'm sure you'll get it right 🙂

BUT.

You did the worst: You buffed Ingi which was OP as fu** already and left firebrand nearly untouched.

8 Mechs + 2 QFBs
OR
8 Mechs + 2 Scrapper. Ingi only meta.

Were coming!

---

Hopefully that will soon balance out.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Rhokaz.1975

[Izzy.2951]

I dont like that you can get 100% crit with any class in this game, has no sense tbh. And even less without the help of other classes.

[The Boz.2038]

Okay, my 2c

Elementalist:
Zephyr's in Air only!? Are you kittening kidding me!? This is worse than thief's >90% HP.
Lucid's 6s Alac on overload means doable with two elements. This can be squeezed into several builds, so yay. Too bad it competes with aurashareheal.
Air sphere is Fury! As it should have been months ago! Yay!
33% orb damage nerf was not needed.
A further 10% nerf to all damage when quicknessing was REALLY not needed.
Hammer was destroyed DPS-wise. Some of the aftercast removals are nice, yay. But the coefficient nerfs are just... what? DPS ele will struggle at 36.5k.

Engineer:
I am gushing over these, tbh. Everything good happened here. And it mostly makes sense. This is the gold standard that the other class notes should have looked like.
Rifle looks like it has a better role now, and a better flow and purpose, along with a bit of polarization towards power. Nice.
Firearms got love in nice ways. Not sure why AAR still needs any minimum range, but whatever.
Need to see how medical dispersion works in the field now. Can't tell from this.
All of the mech changes are good. All are buffs or QOL feats. This surprises me a bit, tbh; expected something to be nerfed because people been crying so much. Nice. Rocket-on-any-3 is ❤. This should be applied to some other e-specs on some other professions, too. Removing the cone mechanic on Circus from a mech you can barely control is a good idea.
Condi got tickle-nerfed a tiny bit. Okay.

Guardian:
What. The actual.
Passive protection procs! Removal of signet share (?)! Signet buffs! Not a single nerf to the utility! Just What. The actual. Firebrand.

Mesmer:
Virt losing a lot of bleed, looks like. Interesting. Not sure this is the right call, since the build does nothing but The Deeps.
Like the polarization of Chronoboons. Very flexible, means it is a very attractive character to build to cover a lot of bases in a team. It even looks like it can work, too!

Necromancer:
Warhorn daze becomes fear. Kinda nerfed, but actually works thematically and mechanically with necro traits. This is good. 
I love the prospect of an actual, full-blooded support scourge, but... not sure who the Warhorn change is for. Scourge heal works in PvE only when combined with offensive Alac and Quick providers, which kinda limits it. In PvP/WvW, its range severely limits its usefulness. I remain skeptical.
I absolutely love the change to Death Perception. Modal, conditional Precision buffs should be excised.
PvP-only buffs for the Reaper? Please, a crumb of good stuff for PvE group content, maybe?

Ranger:
Spirits give boons! Yay! Some are NICE boons, some are eh boons, but combined with the spirit active effects and using them those for the alac procs? Value. Doesn't seem bad. 
Grace of the Land seems harsh, but the ecosystem has changed, and it can be easily compensated for, I think. Other changes to Druid seem... okay? Passive Celestial generation is attractive.
No idea why they did what they did to Soulbeast. And by "Soulbeast", I mean "Power builds". Power builds right now exist because one wolf pack stance share. Welp. F for that, looks like.
But yay! Untamed buffs! Keeping an eye out for more of those in the future, as mentioned.

Revenant:
Alacrity finally excised from the base class, removed from the most toxic delivery method in the game. Nice. Shall not be missed.
Global removal of healing orbs? Absolute love and god and win. 
Ventari changes? Love them. Absolutely mint. Addition of boons via trait actually gives individual skills more identity, so yay there, too!
Herald? Quickness? Barely functions at 100% BD and full Alacrity uptime. The numbers are bad. The intended gameplay loop is absolute mindless spam with no tactical use or flexibility. This on the same class that needs 85% BD on Alacrity builds, too. Insulting.
Hoped for some more goodness thrown Vindicator's way. Eh.

Thief:
Thief is theif, I guess. Have no idea how PvE will handle new Shadow traits, revealed, and the related mechanics. Looks really wonky at first glance.
Keen Observer should have been split to be +10% always, and +15% above 90, or so. Or the other way around.

Warrior:
Where do I even begin? These notes are what other notes feared they'd be. These notes are not good. The numbers are not good. 
The "flexibility" of the quickness generation through three possible application venues (trait, banner, warhorn) seem like they'll need all three and a hefty BD investment in order to work. 
Putting the extra crit chance in Arms is a daft move. I have no idea what the thought process here was, or if there was any.
Spellbreaker needed more identity-making love thrown its way. This is sad.
Bladesword's Fence and Barrier got merged! As it should have been on release! Yay! New skill looks fun. Need to play with it to say for sure.
The rest looks... Dragonspike seems to make more sense, but the other changes look like they create more of a... mess? It is the opposite of elegant design or intuitive interactions.

[Ruisenior.6342]

So now after some cries and laughs that i posted, I'll try to be honest about the changes on classes that im most familiar with.

 

   First, in general terms i have to hardly disagree with the unique buffs being removed from every class (banners/spirits-Spotter,etc), that's and mmoRPG in the sense that every individual can do things unique and some stuff on its own way, if every class can provide the same boons there will be always some that will outperform others, so removing this stuff wont help. As an example, warriors won't become meta again just by switching his banners for some regular boons. What's next removing aoe fields and finishers?

   Also i dislike massive changes cause we invested sources on our builds and now we have to invest on them again.

 

Guardian

   Signets rework will mainly benefit support Firebrands, the new trait that keeps the passive upon signet activation feels good and the rework on the signet elite feels even better.  Dragonhunters will dislike this cause strike damage builds won't be allowed to obtain the buff from Bane Signet.

   The nerf on willbender f2 on pvp is adecuate.

 

Necromancer

   The ferocity change of Death Perception will increase just a bit the damage on endgame zerk builds, but it will be a big nerf on underlevel maps/dungeons and also will hit hard onto Low Intensity builds (made for people with disablities or just chilling players) that are builded around more defensive stats. Also note that the crit chance change is a big nerf (specially on solo play) and removes part of the identity of the class.

   Corrosive Poison cloud utility skill nerf on pvp was a must, and on my opinion, i will nerf it even further to 5 seconds duration only on that mode.

   I dont like at all the change made on the skill number 4 of warhorn Wail of Doom, cause every time i use the warhorn is just for the unblockable daze on pvp to interrupt skills/resurrections. The added healing on skill 5 is okkish. Blood magic trait Blood Bank it's ok but not a big thing, being a traitline only used to more selfish solo builds.

  The reaper skill buffs on pvp and wvw are ok cause Harbinger is outshinning Reaper by a large margin on those modes.

   Harbinger elite might aplication nerf is ok.

 

Ranger

   I already talked about the unique buffs at the beginning so next.

   First i would like to say that nerfing to the floor Soulbeast to promote the Untamed is not the way. If i was the guy behind the design of the class I won't choose a theme of an existant specialization, instead as an exammple i would design a specialization more focused on the pet like it was done on a more simple way on the mechanist (it would have fit perfectly on the ranger), cause we already have a support spec and a strike/condi damage spec. So the nerf on the stances are mehh and not needed.

   Druid healing capabilities buffed outside of Celestial Avatar form and nerfed on Celestial Avatar form?¿?¿? (i should be missing something). Grace of the Land nerf was not necessary at all.

 

 

I hope Anet will take note of our feedback on the future. Best wishes to all and lets keep trying to enjoy this amazing game.

Peace✌️

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342
gramatical errors

[Zenith.7301]

The changes to necro warhorn for healing are so asinine. You need to extend the healing and boons to Banshee's Wail, and rework Staff to provide healing and boons.

 

Scourge is only a rez bot because it cannot function as a proper heal spec.

[Foxx.9150]

@Rubi Bayer.8493just would like to point out that your post got ratio'd. if anet cares about player feedback, that's the perfect timing to postpone a balance patch and actually have people work on it for once

[Monster.5794]

RIP   Power Reaper    =/

Despite being the worst of the necromancer's 3 specializations (after so many nerfs), it is loved by many, and it's disappointing to see the amount of nerfs it receives.   

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

RIP Warrior.  I don't even play it and this is just painful to see.

 

I don't understand why all of these various +5% crit chance modifiers were handed out through various traits of varying effectiveness instead of just increasing the baseline player crit chance by 5%.

 

For Necro, I don't think the Warhorn changes are good.  In PvP/WvW, it's a nerf, both due to shorter CC and the fact Resistance blocks it as well as Stability and random condition removal can cut it short.  In PvE, unless the bonus defiance damage is 200, it's also a nerf due to how multiple Fears stack vs. multiple dazes on defiance bars.  Sure, it synergizes better with Necro traits, but those traits are also in direct competition with more valuable options.  Dread competes with Close to Death (PvE) and Spiteful Spirit (PvP/WvW).  Terror competes with Master of Corruption (PvE) and Path of Corruption (PvP/WvW).  Fear of Death competes with Soul Barbs (PvE) and Vital Persistence (all modes).  Only the last one is likely to see any use, and that's in some PvP builds.

 

Then there's the Locust Swarm changes.  Unless there's a new healing value that wasn't mentioned in the notes, this is going to be a joke.  It's a tiny radius that you're asking allies and enemies to be stacked into for this to do more than 3 ticks of a Regeneration boon, and taking longer to do it at that!  Traited, you hit 5 ticks, and that's once again taking half again as long as Regeneration would take.  Sure, this is unequivocably a buff, but it's so insignificant that it doesn't matter.

 

Banshee's Wail also has issues.  1, any Necro healer would take either of its competing traits (Life From Death, Vampiric presence) over 10% outgoing healing.  2, unless the functionality of the duration increase is getting changed to match Lingering Curse, the new Fear on Wail of Doom will be capped at 2 seconds, traited or no.  Banshee's Wail doesn't currently increase base duration, it applies +50% Daze Duration (same modifier as Mesmer runes and Sigil of Parlyzation) to Wail of Doom.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Pocket.2740]

I don't like the direction of travel. Professions are losing their uniqueness and flavour.

You’re setting an expectation that optimal play means having all boons with 100% uptime, it is not healthy. It makes builds and encounters less interesting. Skills exist to be brainlessly chained together and proc quickness/alacrity and no longer serve their original purpose. Quickness on Scrapper wells and alacrity on Tempest overloads are a good examples of this.

I respect this may be your vision for the game, and that the game meta can change over time, but for me this is a change in the underlying principles of what made GW2 combat so interesting, What about timing, co-ordination and combining of skills? I see the game trending in this direction and I’m losing interest.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Pocket.2740

[Ruisenior.6342]

23 minutes ago, Pocket.2740 said:

I don't like the direction of travel. Professions are losing their uniqueness and flavour.

You’re setting an expectation that optimal play means having all boons with 100% uptime, it is not healthy. It makes builds and encounters less interesting. Skills exist to be brainlessly chained together and proc quickness/alacrity and no longer serve their original purpose. Quickness on Scrapper wells and alacrity on Tempest overloads are a good examples of this.

I respect this may be your vision for the game, and that the game meta can change over time, but for me this is a change in the underlying principles of what made GW2 combat so interesting, What about timing, co-ordination and combining of skills? I see the game trending in this direction and I’m losing interest.

Facts. Today state of the game seems to be a boon and condition epidemy fiesta. Next step is autoclass creator and watching the game run itself while eatting some pizza

Edited June 25, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[mythical.6315]

People always request a preview of the balance patches only to then be disappointed and complain about the changes. This then repeats again when the changes go live. This happens every… single… time.  Almost never are the balance patches well received. 

[Matt H.6142]

Resolution wasn't splashed out to any other profession when spreading all these boons to new skills?  Maybe a new warrior banner, moving Banner of Tactics to the missing Heal skill.   Perhaps Spirit of Nature could do both Stab and Resolution.  Or Revenant, which actually has some synergy with Resolution, can't do it in Centaur, because of Dwarf?

Swiftness in Protective Solace doesn't make sense to me.

Curious about the interaction of Empower Allies and Phalanx Strength as well as Oakheart Salve and Spirit of Water. 

Removing Concealing Restoration and Hidden Thief...  I'm sure competitive was crying for this, but I loved those traits as casual PvE.

Speaking of casual PvE, Jade Sphere Air?  It's so messy, and penalizes eles with a damage reduction to boot?!?  I didn't see LFGs looking for catalyst like I do QB/HB.

Fear on Wail of Doom not really desirable when the range of swarm of locusts calls for this to be paired with melee daggers.  I'd need/I want this locust swarm to be just like WoW's Crypt Lord.  Bugs everywhere.

[Ariurotl.3718]

And you want help with what, exactly? Should we form a support group for you?

[Hecksler Der Henker.9280]

It's great to be able to carry the banners again. But it would be better if you could use the banners to fight opponents or support allies. You showed that this is possible with the tactical banners in WvW.

[xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678]

This is big disappointment. From all  weapons, traits and utilities....stats, runes, sigils......you brought incorrect changes...

We waited for this for many months and what is this? Changing HoT specs and that's it? Some of these sounds interesting but there is still no fix about:
- 300 sec cooldown traits
- celestial stat nerf
- there are still not EoD elite specs runes and new sigils
- there is no harbinger nerf

 

[Hotride.2187]

21 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

this patch. iks basically every patch in WoW :P, the good remain good. the bad remain bad.. "balancing" is so minor it never changes anything just continously saying "how they want to make "bad choices" feel alittle bit better"

Yeah I quit WoW pve (well raiding really, it had no other pve) when they started homogenizing all the classes. Making a raid composition got ultra boring, there was no synergy between healers and between dps anymore. You just brought whatever and it worked as long as everyone was doing their role. I remember that fatboss guide about some firelands boss saying "healers have to heal, dps has to dps, tank has to tank" as way of explaining the encounter (literally all you had to do there). In making it more accessible they made it also braindead. It didn't feel like there were actual class differences and reasons to play specific classes, or even reasons to play more than 1 class.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Asum.4960]

Anet, sincerely, please hire more devs for profession design and balancing. 

By the amount and quality of these changes (throughout the games life, not just this patch) it's pretty clear that there just aren't enough people working on this, with devs being spread way too thin to get an understanding of what each profession really needs. 

You can't keep having devs implement random ideas they had for a profession that they don't really understand (smashing fun synergies and unique profession mechanics in their wake), nor keep just shuffling things around in form of minor modifier changes - or just bloating underperforming Traits and Skills rather than investing in comprehensive reworks.

 

At some point you need people to do deep dives on core mechanics/design, be it weapon skills (functionality and coefficients), Trait design and Utility skills, in form of comprehensive reworks. 

You can't just do 10 years of add a random modifier to this, increase this modifier by 2% (then remove it, then add it again, then remove it again), tack on an unthematic passive AoE boon spam to this, add 3-4 lacklustre effects to Skills and Traits rather than properly reworking them to have a defined working purpose and identity, leave Traits, Utilities and Weapons dead and forgotten for years, etc., without this becoming more and more of an unsatisfying mess - as surely you notice increasingly with the community reactions to each patch. 

 

It can't be that every "major" balance patch has maybe 2-3 good, thought out changes across all professions, almost as if by chance, while the whole rest is just shuffling things around without accomplishing much of anything - if not actively detracting from the game by stripping out fun gameplay, unique interactions and synergies or robbing professions of their identity. 

 

You imo can't just have a rough vision for the meta of the game as a whole and then hammer every profession into that same mold, but rather have to build an understanding of every profession of how it does or currently doesn't fit in, and then build interesting mechanics and synergies within them, fitting of their theme and playstyle, for them to find their place. 

 

The Trait system especially, imo, should provide interesting gameplay altering choices of how to build your character, not just pick your collection of flavourless passive damage modifiers and or passive aoe boon spam.