Game Update Notes Preview: Profession Skills

[Xenesis.6389]

21 minutes ago, LeopFolkner.2369 said:

much healthier to have messy shakes in that game mode because that stress of "my old build doesn't work anymore" tends to become "I can mess around with new stuff now" without any penalties

Not in the case of chrono which is now being forced to run wells and shield for extra alacrity or quickness over two grandmaster traits in the same tier dedicated to them(first the staff gets two separate traits in same tier and now the shield), while breaking their interrupt combo builds, interrupt/delayed reactions/lost time. The chronomancer changes were overall poorly thought out.

 

But good points rest of the post.

[LKEY.9567]

Oh boy, this patch is bad. It is reaaaaally bad.

You promised huge balance patch (level of February 2020) and it's quite disappointing. You nerfed power builds to the ground so condi builds can still reign at the top. Balance team clearly plays favorites - warrior in shambles, ranger is obsolete while mechanist is outperforming everywhere with everything (new golden child). You want to promote diversity of the classes (everyone can bring everything) but you kill it. Noone will play Tempest or Druid if Heal Mechanist exists. Noone will play qHerald, qWarrior because Firebrand exists.

I hate 5-man boon change you did a while ago because clearly you want every party play Firebrand, Mechanist, 3x dps (Necro). Why? Clearly Firebrand was The Golden Child and Mechanist is it as well now (it is crazy how broken and cracked Mechanist is). You should promote uniquness, every class should have significant touch to the party, one bring extra class buff for power, another for ferocity etc. how it was now so people can roll what they need. We want diversity but make builds diverse. This approach is playing favorites.

If you don't know how to balance the class, reach out to the players with thousand of hours who clearly know what is what and listen to their feedback.

Warrior's crit relief put in Arms. 

This shows that balance team is out of touch with the classes. The only thing I am looking forward is a new engi's rifle, but the rest is disgusting.

Buff power builds, make supports diverse, stop playing favorites with the classes, reach the dedicated communities who wants to help you because we all love this game (much more than you).

[Foxx.9150]

42 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Not in the case of chrono which is now being forced to run wells and shield for extra alacrity or quickness over two grandmaster traits in the same tier dedicated to them(first the staff gets two separate traits in same tier and now the shield), while breaking their interrupt combo builds, interrupt/delayed reactions/lost time. The chronomancer changes were overall poorly thought out.

 

But good points rest of the post.

well, the post was mostly in regards to pve, as I don't play pvp/wvw as much.

Mesmer in general deserves a whoooole post on why ANet can't balance this class right, it's always been problematic, and Chronomancer as a traitline only potentializes how problematic the class can be for balancing the game.

it's one of those situations where the class either will be too strong or too weak, never in the middle. and Virtuoso now brought another aspect of imbalance, where specifically the power dps variant in pve, which runs dueling + domination feels bad to play compared to a dueling+illusions variant, which performs poorly. that specific problem can be traced back to how ANet, over the years, has shifted a traitline called DOMINATION, which used to focus on crowd control and boon strip effects, aka controlling the tempo of the fight, into an aggressive damage traitline that increases the outgoing damage from both the mesmer and the mesmer's illusions (clones, phantasms, blades)

chronomancer is a whole can of worms I wish I had time to go in-depth. but yes. the class that's themed around manipulating time is now unable to be proficient at it... also, well of SENILITY? isn't that an ableist term? the fact that the class could provide alacrity and quickness wasn't a problem during the first half of PoF, the problem is that firebrand and renegade were bad at providing those essential pve boons, it was hard to justify taking either of them over a chronomancer + druid. what ANet did to remedy that, was overbuffing those classes while simultaneously nerfing chronomancer until the "both boons" build became worthless, and when the power quickness hybrid variant became problematic (which, only came into existance because 1- ANet killed every other power dps build and 2- ANet gave a stupid rework to seize the moment that enabled power chrono to take a 30% dps loss but provide permanent quickness to 5 allies with 0% boon duration, which shows a lack of understanding of the class) they've gutted it. oh, yes. power quickness chrono was still worse than the current condition quickness firebrand build. which is not getting nerfed. I guess ANet just hates chronomancer and/or its players...

I'm assuming the alacrity path will become relevant for WvW portal bombing at least.

[Odin.6487]

5 hours ago, ixon.2496 said:

 

No. Just no..

 

GW2 has suffered from poor balancing for YEARS. 

 

"Placeholder" 300s cooldown traits, Dead trait lines, Overperforming classes (Guard/Necro)

 

This was supposed to be the big profession update, since the last one was Feb 2020. And it misses the mark on so many levels its just not acceptable. Player feedback has been universally ignored. 

 

After 9+ years or poor balancing, players are rightfully annoyed and  are expressing that. 

 

 

100 percent agree. they teased us with a big update and all we got were some minor tweaks and changes. a 10 year old could have written this patch. 

[Ruisenior.6342]

8 minutes ago, LeopFolkner.2369 said:

well, the post was mostly in regards to pve, as I don't play pvp/wvw as much.

Mesmer in general deserves a whoooole post on why ANet can't balance this class right, it's always been problematic, and Chronomancer as a traitline only potentializes how problematic the class can be for balancing the game.

it's one of those situations where the class either will be too strong or too weak, never in the middle. and Virtuoso now brought another aspect of imbalance, where specifically the power dps variant in pve, which runs dueling + domination feels bad to play compared to a dueling+illusions variant, which performs poorly. that specific problem can be traced back to how ANet, over the years, has shifted a traitline called DOMINATION, which used to focus on crowd control and boon strip effects, aka controlling the tempo of the fight, into an aggressive damage traitline that increases the outgoing damage from both the mesmer and the mesmer's illusions (clones, phantasms, blades)

chronomancer is a whole can of worms I wish I had time to go in-depth. but yes. the class that's themed around manipulating time is now unable to be proficient at it... also, well of SENILITY? isn't that an ableist term? the fact that the class could provide alacrity and quickness wasn't a problem during the first half of PoF, the problem is that firebrand and renegade were bad at providing those essential pve boons, it was hard to justify taking either of them over a chronomancer + druid. what ANet did to remedy that, was overbuffing those classes while simultaneously nerfing chronomancer until the "both boons" build became worthless, and when the power quickness hybrid variant became problematic (which, only came into existance because 1- ANet killed every other power dps build and 2- ANet gave a stupid rework to seize the moment that enabled power chrono to take a 30% dps loss but provide permanent quickness to 5 allies with 0% boon duration, which shows a lack of understanding of the class) they've gutted it. oh, yes. power quickness chrono was still worse than the current condition quickness firebrand build. which is not getting nerfed. I guess ANet just hates chronomancer and/or its players...

I'm assuming the alacrity path will become relevant for WvW portal bombing at least.

Don't talk to loud, maybe they'll find a solution for the problem by removing the class from the game XD. Meanwhile ill keep playing staff/staff mirage thats our consolation price.

[Foxx.9150]

Just now, Ruisenior.6342 said:

Don't talk to loud, maybe they'll find a solution for the problem by removing the class from the game XD. Meanwhile ill keep playing staff/staff mirage thats our consolation price.

well, the direction the balance team is going ends up with removing all skills other than the skill 1 on your weapon and making all of them the same thing, so the difference between all classes is just cosmetic. except mechanist will do 2x as much damage because of the mech, and firebrand will somehow still be better because they like firebrand.

I guess that's balanced by word definition.

[Myror.7521]

On 6/25/2022 at 6:05 AM, wraith.7243 said:

That's the neat part, its not /s 

The thing of this one is. We dont know the pulsing time. If we are maybe lucky it would be 1 sek. That would mean you could at least playing something "Supportish" instead of dps. Since dps now it utterly garbage but with Banner of tactics plus the Buffed Version of the shoutheal trait i could somehow see bladesworn with tactics Banner and healing shouts spam been a thing but well. As said before i dont get why they try to cut warr Mains into playing a Support role meanwhile warrs specs are all dps oriented like does that made any sence? Not rly! Also why they want warrior be a Support but get this class a dps e-spec with expac it made litterly no sence. Not in any Form just never lel.

[Toguro.7641]

Willbender and Harbinger both need more nerfs in PVP. The two minor changes are not nearly enough. 

[terminustechnicus.9617]

Well, GW1 Veteran here with lot of experience on all classes in both games (since 2005). Actually never posted here but this patchnotes are reason enough I guess.

First of all the QoL changes are good in general, so are some of the classes. Basically thats: Engineer, Guard, Necro and maybe Thief (not sure after patch). What makes these classes special? For me it's mainly the fact every of them has a lot of variety and freedom in using any of their elite specs aswell as being useful in meta.

As for the Engineer thats:

Holosmith: a power DPS, hits hard, is bursty, has CC and now even might stacking... unique feature: its heat bar

Scrapper: awesome as hell for quickness and superspeed, while still dealing good dps... unique feature here: fancy lil gyros

Mechanist: imho best healer (HAM), top condi dps and also super powerful power alac on easy rota, aswell as biggest variety and imact of all classes in case of its traitline... unique: the mech

The situation is similar for guard and necro, both have access to a big variety of builds (Necro: pReaper, cScourge, hScourge, cHarb, alacHarb or in case of Guard: pDH, cFB, HFB, QFB, cWB, alacWB). Traits and all of their elite specs play different are useful and beside Necro (which has Barrier), Guard has also access to Quick, aswell as Alac which are the desired gamechanger. Thats how a class should look like in general.

Thief has similar options now, at least there is a split between power/condi aswell as melee and ranged variety in addition with poison/alac support. Tho it has the problem stealth is completely useless in PvE by now (it was useful in skipping mobs in Arah p2+p3/Caudecus p1 for first years speedclears).

If it comes to Ranger and Warrior now we clearly have a big problem here. Both are dependant on high critrate for their power traits, and both HAD unique features with banners and spirits that seem completely out of place now (for me thats each 4 useless utilities you could prolly replace for something else thats good). Granted these classes were taken for these features but they feel less unique now and obsolete due to the changes (same thing happened with barriers on Scourge now they are less effective)

I personally doubt Longbow Soulbeast with big bursts on VG, GORS, KC, CA etc. will be an issue anymore. Most likely Ranger will use GS again but on much lower dps. The class is dependant on wolf pack for the bursts which were unique to the class/game. For druid I don't see any reason to get in in a group at its actual state, other healers do a better job. Basically thats anyway all variety there was for Ranger in PvE teamcontent. Untamed is a bad joke, druid just useful for heals and maybe some raid mechanics and soulbeast perhaps in future on some dps builds. I personally miss a ranged option for it, now longbow soulbeast in't a thing anymore on 1sec Wolf Pack triggers. Not to mention that EoD strikes are anoying as hell on any melee class already. Thanks to cVirt and other ranged condi classes this content is more or less exclusivly played on ranged condi classes anyway. So pls get in some more build variety! While Pets need a rework aswell imho.

As for Warrior the variety is even worse. Basically a warrior (with exception of cBerserk) is always melee and deals power damage. Obviously the missing points in PREC and POW now lead to the facts its even less useful now. It's literally unplayable with the lack of 100% crit on Decap and Dragontrigger Bursts, coz there is a huge difference if you hit for 9k or 32k if crit (25 Might) in case of Decap. Furthermore I'd like to mention weapons like Rifle or Off-Sword are useless and Hammer was nerfed to death. If it was for me the Spellbreaker spec needs a complete rework (PvE wise) and at the buff/boon over meta (PvP) this could be even interesting if some support/sustain is added to it. Berserk is basically fine imho but could use some tuning, while I would wish for a remake for Bladesworn that plays clunky and is yet just another melee power dps.

If I were in your shoes I would call your Ex-Employee Izzy that did the balance for GW1 and ask him how he would change the direction of these classes. Imho he did a quite good job compared to these random changes of Devs that seem may lack the ability to see how the whole game and classes work (yea I read the leaks) and even more: completely LACK OBJECTIVITY. Furthermore: If I would work like that at my job, I would have been fired already for compliance issues (see leaks).

Edit: some spelling and typos

Edited June 27, 2022 by terminustechnicus.9617

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

You know, with the kitten storm that is happen in reddit, and the Drama surrounding it, I wonder if Anet is going to be forced to make some kind of public announcement of some kind. This is the first time in this game I've ever seen the balance devs riled up the community in such extend.

Surely they have to acknowledge that people are lighting fire under them, right?

Edited June 27, 2022 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Zeivu.3615]

On 6/25/2022 at 8:17 AM, edelweiss.2637 said:

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

 

Well, at least Warrior can be played in PvE. Can't say that about eles.

[Angesombre.4630]

The vindicator was nerfed quickly for its heal but I still don't see any nerfing of the new guard which is still very effective and on this patch I don't see many guards complaining sorry if I haven't seen them

[Ultramex.1506]

Why all unique classes buff are downgraded to giving boons instead? And most are copy&pasted to give fury!

That sound boring as hell

[NotTooFoolish.7412]

3 minutes ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

Why all unique classes buff are downgraded to giving boons instead? And most are copy&pasted to give fury!

Even with all the unique buffs we could stack before to raise the sub-group stats, most of the classes didn't see much play.
E.g. BS was in every pug group when I started raiding. Recently, we don't really bother adding one. It seems just more efficient to grab a EoD dps class for that spot.

Even with the boons spread across the classes, I wouldn't expect much to change.
It's funny how ppl asked for FB nerf and instead of utility, patch is slightly hitting the dps build. HFB survived another patch 🙂

[Shinon.4513]

Just logging in, as balance should never work this way. I see, that some changes might be necessary, but this approach seems totally wrong.

[Voyant.1327]

7 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

He was right about one thing: The salt is real.

Lol, my thoughts are if you go into something expecting a bad reaction, maybe its not a good action?

[AquaBR.9250]

Mech Core: Jade Dynamo changes: please dont do that, is the only thing that helps me use Jade Cannons arms on a condi build since all Spark Revolver's attacks can explode and deal bleeding, and please dont reduce cooldowns, GW2 is already a spammy game, i have chronic tendon pain in my entire hands, mechanist having only 3 profession mechanic skills with high cooldown was a blessing and i can play engi more now, at least allow us to put mecha skills on auto.

 

Overcharged Cartridges sounds pretty cool, i just have one problem with it: it feels pretty strong with gunsaber, but rifle for example, its explosion skill have a 5 seconds cooldown, even with lush forest still is a cooldown, so or it lasts for a good long time or the skill will increase the damage of only the next attack instead of next 5 is you wanna use another weapon instead of gunsaber. Making those atks unblockable in WvW can help ranged playstyles ALOT!

 

And bladeswords still pretty useless in WvW, untill you make a dragontrigger for the other weapons (LIKE YOU DID WITH BERSERKER IN THE GOOD GW2 EXPANSION) its profession mechanic will be pretty weird in wvw when playing ranged

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by AquaBR.9250

[AquaBR.9250]

On 6/23/2022 at 12:19 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Signet of Courage: Cooldown reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Active effect radius reduced from 1,200 to 600.

Why are you doing the opposite what you should be doing, you should increase the range of that stuff SO PEOPLE DONT NEED TO HUG EACH OTHER STACKING TO RECEIVE HEALS

[stormemperor.3745]

M

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

 

Necromancer

Warhorn

• Wail of Doom: This skill now inflicts 1 second of fear instead of 2 seconds of daze on enemies. This skill inflicts bonus defiance-bar damage on defiant enemies.
• Locust Swarm: This skill now heals nearby allies around the necromancer based on the number of enemies hit, in addition to its previous effects.

Utility

• Corrosive Poison Cloud: Reduced duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only.

Soul Reaping

• Death Perception: This trait now gives 10% critical chance, regardless of whether the necromancer is in shroud. This trait now increases critical damage by 15% instead of increasing ferocity while in shroud.

Blood Magic

• Blood Bank: Now also converts incoming healing from healing-over-time effects such as regeneration into barrier. This effect now only occurs while in combat. To account for healing-over-time effects now activating this trait, the percentage of incoming healing converted to barrier has been reduced from 15% to 10% in PvE and from 10% to 5% in PvP and WvW.
• Banshee's Wail: This trait now grants a 10% bonus to outgoing healing effectiveness in addition to its previous effects.

Reaper

• Nightfall: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Grasping Darkness: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• "Your Soul Is Mine!": Increased base heal from 4,555 to 6,174 in PvP and WvW. Increased base life force generation from 5% to 10% in PvP and WvW.
• "You Are All Weaklings!": Increased weakness duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased base might stacks from 5 to 8 in PvP and WvW.
• "Chilled to the Bone!": Reduced cooldown from 75 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP and WvW.

Harbinger

• Elixirs: All elixirs now use normal projectile targeting underwater, instead of using ground targeting.
• Elixir of Ambition: Reduced might stacks from 25 to 10 in PvP only.

 

You are handing fury to every profession like candies, every  professions gets fury for free EXCEPT the reaper. Reaper can't even generate its own fury. 

How does streamlining dps, handing out boons for free all the while exempting reaper from boons is gonna make this game more casual friendly?

GET your facts together, 
Shivers of Dread and Cold Shoulder should have been 1 trait not two traits. Combine these two useless traits into one trait and make a new fixed trait.

 

New trait gives fury 5s to 5 man whenever you crit, 10 sec internal cooldown. While you have fury gain 150 ferocity.

[Jimbru.6014]

On 6/25/2022 at 3:09 PM, Asum.4960 said:

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

Hire new devs and require them to actually play the game they are responsible for. Every class should have a dev playing it in depth and representing the class in balance discussion.

[soulknight.9620]

31 minutes ago, Jimbru.6014 said:

Hire new devs and require them to actually play the game they are responsible for. Every class should have a dev playing it in depth and representing the class in balance discussion.

If by "playing gw2" you mean that a player should be responsible for balance, i strongly disagree. A competent dev should have knowledge of the game, its mechanics, programming, etc. And not make balance calls based on the class he/she likes/dislikes to play. There should not be any personal attachments to any aspect of the game. Dev should judge his calls only by logic (at least common sense) and his knowledge of the mechanics. Thats why us players are bad at balancing, all we want is to make things we like (for ex.our mains) better and better, which is the unbalance in its earlier forms. 

I think thats the main problem of the game atm. Devs balance the game based on their preferences and while listening to "top" players, for example the wvw concept change that went from "play whatever you like" to "melee or go home" is bad for the game. Since wvw was THE only place you could still play ranged weapons and feel good while doing it. Now we have strict meta in every game mode. You go for 1q 1a 3dps in end game pve (all melee/mid range ofc), you go for melee boonball meta in wvw, and you go for "i got so much sustain that u cant hurt me" in pvp. 

All of that limits gw2 potential and causes balance issues. You cant have balanced classes if they have different mechanics and limited party slots by default. To balance this out you either need to give everything to everyone or just delete 8 professions and leave just 1. Then you will have perfect balance. OR you can go the other path - make every class/spec unique, so that by stacking unique modifiers of different classes you can defirinciate party comps and every class could see plays in groups. 

[megamino.1430]

Disclaimer: I'm not GW2 veteran, I'm just a new player that kinda going in GW2 and played it for a while now... So here we go

My opinion can be unpopular regarding this thing but I think it will be wise if some notable players or people can access these changes through beta testing, I don't know too much about any other profession other than necro (reaper lover of course ^^ ) but seeing this and many people have slightly different opinion, etc... why not taking these numbers into a different server or build (I assume Anet should have this thing before they are making these patch notes) and giving it to the player. Let the player test you guys decision and have a constructive discussion. That way we can find the middle both what Anet and players want.

Looking at some comments that might be unlikely to happen but also with (so far that I know) nobody at Anet responding to this or passively looking into forum or subreddit should say something and the patch day is tomorrow (mine is 27th now) sooo.... If Anet just wanna be silent and hoping that player can "understand" you guys decision by playing it, it's already late to revert back or to change again on the next cycle which is not short I guess.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

12 hours ago, Jimbru.6014 said:

Hire new devs and require them to actually play the game they are responsible for. Every class should have a dev playing it in depth and representing the class in balance discussion.

I hope they hire new devs and ban arcdps .

In every thread in reddit , people justifiable compared all the classes to guardian . So we must nerf- adjust numbers , so the more a class offers in versatility , the more less dps it can do .

And even pros are saying  , power specs are doing 3-7k less dps forcing people to have a condi meta  , and we have people like dT that are quitting

Edit:

(You know old gg that i spent 5 years practicing math in Burkley and Yale right ?

If people have problem with the Mist offensive potion that offer a defensive stats (HP) , then offer the potion to offer 0.5% damage increase to the whole party ...and stacks 10times . In Cms the effect is doubled .Or if you have 3x stucks is multiplied by 150% in CMs + the rest 7x stacks are added as normaly to them nvm: LF mist offensive guy ....

-Or it could be multiplied for the guild members?

-Or offer the old unique buffs(current...damm timeline) for the guild)

Edited June 27, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[ProtoGunner.4953]

It is very sad, that unique buffs are gone now. There is no 'class' feeling anymore, like OH i see a spotter here, it's just blabla standard buffs over the board. Sad. 

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

Just now, ProtoGunner.4953 said:

It is very sad, that unique buffs are gone now. There is no 'class' feeling anymore, like OH i see a spotter here, it's just blabla standard buffs over the board. Sad. 

welcome to thief, we never had any unique buffs other than venoms we could give allies - now we do. hopefully they touch up on other traits *cough* acrobatics 300s traits *cough*