Profession Balance: Next Steps and Preview of June 30 Balance Update

[Ascency.3580]

while i was sceptical about them delivering i admit most of those hotfixes at least show promise. theres still a TON of issues, but at least some problems were aknowledged.

1 minute ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

Mecha didn't need the "big" nerf.... because all the "rage" was mostly from the simplicity to get nice dps from the class, nothing else. (less rotation with equal or better dps than average)

Mecha wasn't even TOP dps, but was more in the middle high (or middle, didn't check the last minutes test), but here we are, with a big nerf to it that was done only because someone see big sparkle and high sound and think the class is TOP dps when the reality was a bit different. (simple to play yes, top dps not at all)

the issue with mechanist is its design allowing almost no room for skill to play any factor when determining its effectiveness. im not trying to attack you personally, but you cant expect to be rewarded the exact same for this much less effort. im also not suggesting anyone should get penalised for playing easier classes, but the idea which the balance team suggested prior to the patch going live by means of leaked conversations that skill should not be a determining factor in how you aproach balance is simply stupid. and this is the sole reason why its unfair for us players to have to deal with consequences of this aproach. hopefully anet realises that this is unhealthy and land in a good spot where you can have fun and be effective on whatever class u enjoy playing while also reward players who wish to engage more.

[Khenzy.9348]

9 minutes ago, SoulBlaze.3059 said:

lol the cooldown on this has already been nerfed to hell in the recent patch, plus their healing in general is worse than ever. Its good to know they have something useful in WvW, because in PvP they are regarded as wasted space right now after recent changes.

What are you even talking about? Are you sure you're quoting the right person?

 

Do you think having perma alacrity and 100% uptime on projectile block with little effort in group fights is healthy for the game?

[SoulBlaze.3059]

1 minute ago, Khenzy.9348 said:

What are you even talking about? Are you sure you're quoting the right person?

 

Do you think having perma alacrity and 100% uptime on projectile block with little effort in group fights is healthy for the game?

To be perfectly honest, I believe WvW is a consistent kitten-show and expecting anything to have a balance in it is hoping for too much. I primarily focus on PvP as balance there is a possibility, and revenant is in a sad state. So yes, its nice to hear that revenants are appreciated in some aspect, as the devs continue to make them more mediocre for everything else. Let the class have something

[Jski.6180]

10 hours ago, TexZero.7910 said:

You're not helping your cause and it's nice to know that Anet isn't listening to a bronze rank pvp'er.

Spvp has build in balancing base off of gear limitation its more wvw aimed that i am talking where you do have broken effects from pve bleeding in.

[ThunderX.6591]

39 minutes ago, Ascency.3580 said:

while i was sceptical about them delivering i admit most of those hotfixes at least show promise. theres still a TON of issues, but at least some problems were aknowledged.

the issue with mechanist is its design allowing almost no room for skill to play any factor when determining its effectiveness. im not trying to attack you personally, but you cant expect to be rewarded the exact same for this much less effort. im also not suggesting anyone should get penalised for playing easier classes, but the idea which the balance team suggested prior to the patch going live by means of leaked conversations that skill should not be a determining factor in how you aproach balance is simply stupid. and this is the sole reason why its unfair for us players to have to deal with consequences of this aproach. hopefully anet realises that this is unhealthy and land in a good spot where you can have fun and be effective on whatever class u enjoy playing while also reward players who wish to engage more.

It's a game, reward and effort aren't my top priority in a game that i play to have a bit of fun as a pass time. (and try to complete all the achievements around it)

And you wrote it yourself, the class is designed that way, so, if you nerf the basic skills design like now, you don't have other "skills" to up it with extra effort, because  "class design", so, you simple end with a nerf to the class and have the same playstyle as before, but less rewarding and more frustrating.

 

[Puck.3697]

1 hour ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

Talking about the changes to class i play.

Mecha didn't need the "big" nerf.... because all the "rage" was mostly from the simplicity to get nice dps from the class, nothing else. (less rotation with equal or better dps than average)

Mecha wasn't even TOP dps, but was more in the middle high (or middle, didn't check the last minutes test), but here we are, with a big nerf to it that was done only because someone see big sparkle and high sound and think the class is TOP dps when the reality was a bit different. (simple to play yes, top dps not at all)

Remember, we get a condi nerf to it too, and literally noone talked about it.

The same appened to condi FB, with banner and spirit lost,and the nerf to burning damage from trait (-5%), but the majority only see the support build...... (i play condi, and yeah, the nerf was done, and  the class was hit by it)

 

On the Soulbeast elite, the major role the skill had was the party bonus given, more than the personal extra damage, and even if i like the weapons upgrade damage, i don't see a return in party that used the soul elite as extra bonus damage. (previous the patch, we had 48 hit personal in 12 secs and 16 hit in 4 secs (50% time) to party, now we have (maybee) 8 hit personal in less than 8 second and 3hit in 3 secs to party.... 3 extra hit to the party.... I see no use to elite soulbeast now in a party)

 

To sum it up, a simple class playable was nerfed, FB was nerfed (the condi part) and no talk about it like nothing happened, and from what i read in the hundreds of posts done, bladesworn is the TOP POWER DPS now (a warrior elite) against a test Golem who get hit without moving.

 

Was rangers cries not loud enough? 

Anet have never looked after pet speccs well at all. They rarely survive. Mech was better then most expected if you look at any of the predictions.

And ofcourse no mentions of it, have yoy been absent from the forums for a while. There's been tons of rage against mech. 

There was litterally a post stating mech was single handedly ruining the game floating at the top for a while. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Doragon.3514]

15 hours ago, Narcin Roc.3018 said:

Sad to see that some of the under-performing support builds created with this patch are being addressed, but warrior and mesmer have to wait.

Yo man, what do you think Warrior and Chrono are? Mechanist? Stay in your lane! 😂

[Peacekid.1463]

y banners only for warriors .... are there other skills traits so underwhelming enough? cant they see it?

[Carnifex.3275]

Can you address the Amplified Wrath nerf? It was uncalled for. Not only we lost sun spirit but also burning dmg. New benchmarks show quite a huge drop in dps for cWillbenders. I understand that maybe firebrands deserved some nerfs (especially qFB/HFB) but Amplified Wrath also damaged Willbender spec. So far it went from 37k to 31k dps. Power willbender was deleted from snowcrows entirely due to low dmg (PvE) and condi willbender is being tested but doesn't look too good either. This picture kind of says it all about how many willbender players there are.

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

[Bericles.6485]

Pls stop nerfing Engi's Rifle... Engi's Rifle is the reason i back to play this game, is so fun and you guys will ruin the fun if the nerfs keep coming 😥

[Bdecki.7856]

15 hours ago, Xtrem.4931 said:

So, you add 5% crit chance on "Rolling Mist" , a trait in the same line of  the mandatory "Charged Mists" , ¿you didn't learned anything  about where you added the 5% crit chance on the warrior?

As Main revenant my class is death and there is no any point to play it anymore, our full damage builds can't even reach the damage of the supports Qfb or the Alac Untamed.

We only get nerf after nerf, just delete the class already please. Is very sadge see how the entire class has been destroyed

Big true. Why so little love for herald. 

[Bdecki.7856]

11 hours ago, XxsdgxX.8109 said:

Herald gameplay is so putrid even with duration increases. Having to double tap all facets as soon as they become available is very poor design, instead the quickness output should be designed around the energy upkeep system at the very least. Just an example: "Using a consume skill grants quickness to allies around you and for every point of upkeep increase quickness duration by 20%".

Yes, there has to be a better way. Half of the reason of facets is that they are able to be upkept. Double clicking them all off cooldown feels terrible and the quickness uptime is still bad. All of this on top of full zerk still not beating support raid build dps. Herald is by far the coolest spec in my eyes but it has always felt lackluster and these changes felt like it has went nowhere. Why so scared to give a little love to herald? 

edit: and to add, to maintain quickness you're using the heal facet in the rotation which also feels abysmal. I don't want to be flipping my awkward heal (interrupting my autos with no damage to compensate) when I don't need the healing to squeeze out that quickness

Edited July 1, 2022 by Bdecki.7856

[SoulBlaze.3059]

5 minutes ago, Bdecki.7856 said:

Yes, there has to be a better way. Half of the reason of facets is that they are able to be upkept. Double clicking them all off cooldown feels terrible and the quickness uptime is still bad. All of this on top of full zerk still not beating support raid build dps. Herald is by far the coolest spec in my eyes but it has always felt lackluster and these changes felt like it has went nowhere. Why so scared to give a little love to herald?

Revenant in general has reached such a mediocre state and its more than likely because the devs dont know what to do with the class as a whole. It can barely support these days, it has very little healing after getting nerfed over and over, it has terrible health max in PvP, and the DPS burst used to be nice, but is outclassed by every other class these days. Not to mention the lack of consistent stun and anti-stun for pvp that every other class can spam back to back. It was built like it is meant to rely on pure damage and not cheesing stuns, but then they took the damage away. The class as a whole is disappointing and a waste of space now. 

[Roda.7468]

No opinion on the numbers surrounding it, 'cause not enough experience, but I super dig the re-reworked animation for engi rifle 1.

[Nimris.3781]

I must say i am impressed with quick response from devs and i appreciate it.
regarding recent changes, i know they are simple hotfixes and we still dont have the "bigger picture" of design philosphy but there are things worth noting already.
 

- ranger weapon scaling is a good start but in no way affects condi builds.  condi slb was already lacking since EoD and will remain like that. power slb got compensated for OWP nerfs but i suspect it might not even be in middle of dps benchamrks.
slb in all 3 dps builds has cool gameplay, but i feels like 20-25% behind other dps builds
 

- herald quickness, this change just makes herald take less boon duration. It is improvement in some way, because you dont need like 80% bd to just barely provide it, now you will take about 50% to still just barely provide it. and changing this to say base 3sec will also change nothing, everyone will just drop bd at all to do a bit more dps.
herald's problem is how it applies quickness, spaming all 5 utilities off cd is in no way fun nor intresting. this feels like a chore, and anoying one that i am personaly not going to do.
herald has upkeep mechanic, this could be used to provide quickness.  a trait that made all our facets provide also quick, but cost 1 more upkeep or other variant where we provide say 0.5sec per upkeep we hold every tick?   this way we could chose which facets to use depending on situation and it could also work with other legend, not just spaming glint all day long.

i really look forward to some mechanical chnges to herald quick. to me its design is so off putting.

[Delita Silverburg.8632]

Personally, I'd like to see the new quick/alac chrono trait affect more than just the shield. have it apply the respective boon into more weapon 5 skills than just tides of time. Like, would it really be so bad if that quickness was applied on greatsword 5 as well so the players have a dps variant option to choose when being a quickness bot? We get obliterated by firebrand mantras because they are in the utility slots, and our now biggest quickness application is on shield 5, which is a defensive weapon.

 

It's literally not worth playing a quickness or alac that isn't an engi or guard right now.

 

Just my two cents on the current balance patch.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Colour me impressed. 

Only needed WB and harbinger nerfs and celestial deleted from wvw to be a really nice redemption. 

[Kozumi.5816]

3 hours ago, Khenzy.9348 said:

 making the so called "boon balls" nigh unkillable.

This is their vision for WvW.

  

42 minutes ago, Delita Silverburg.8632 said:

It's literally not worth playing a quickness or alac that isn't an engi or guard right now.

CAT was worth then they said nah.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Josiah.2967]

This patch really worried me. 

 

I hope you can turn this around. For me it looks like we managed to lose class identity and increase imbalance in the process. 

[Einlanzer.1627]

Good on you for doing this, but what I really want to know is what management-level changes you will make to allow balance adjustments to happen more consistently and fluidly. Going months between balance patches is asinine and always was. You very clearly have a bad, overly-rigid structure in place for managing these kinds of updates. 

[RazielTheUnborn.2189]

The changes to Ranger still do nothing for me... The identity in the Soulbeast was that it played as a burst class. That's gone. I don't care for constant damage; I liked the playstyle of timing my burst damage for the best bang for my buck in the window of opportunity. Why bother with a Soulbeast when other characters can do constant high damage with less steps, more survivability, and provide better party composition support than I can as a Soulbeast? Give me back my spike damage for christ sake.... Give us back CLASS IDENTITY instead of this homogenized mess... At this point I have no incentive to play my Soulbeast anymore because she just feels subpar compared to my Guardian. I may as well just focus on playing my Guardian, Revenant, or Engineer at this point since the other two classes I have been playing the most lately just so happened to be the ones you guys wanted to deadened for some bloody reason; Ranger & Warrior, the two with Spike damage specs I enjoy the most out of any MMO to date. 

For kitten sake... Look at my post count!!! I been on this game since launch, been with Anet since I was 16 on GW1 and I never felt the need to post in the forums because there really wasn't much to cause me to lose my ever kitten loving mind about and lose the will to play the game. I whaled my butt hard out on this title but this...? Utterly borking a class so bad that it no longer has that same playstyle, that same identity of what it is, other classes do what it is now bringing to the table far better, and those same other classes not being something appealing to me? Meh.... Yay for my PS5 coming in Tuesday I guess.... 

And to note, I am not mentioning my gaming history with GW, my whaling to somehow imply that my dollar and time should be a priority, and to kitten everyone else. That is not the point. Entitlement is not the point. The point is that I have a very long-standing history with Anet, with this game, and that up until this point I have never felt so alienated from a design flaw. I have gone through various patches that have nerfed classes, broken classes, changed up some of the rotations, abilities, and more we would use in GW1, but this is the first for me in experiencing a patch that so fundamentally changes the identity of a class that I no longer even see the original design behind it, or that spark. 

How about instead of borking the identity for classes in a vain attempt to lower the floor for newer players, you start ACTUALLY TEACHING THEM GAME MECHANICS!  You and Digital Extremes both have been spoiled HARDCORE in the communities' veterans doing the legwork for you in teaching your newer playerbase. It's why both Warframe and GW2 have survived as long as they have because of the goodwill that WE, the VETERANS have been building for you rent free. How about chucking in some skin into the game in ways of teaching incoming players? That alone will make such a paradigm shift in player retention, and in player understanding of the game. 

Come on Anet, you guys are way better than this. I have sung your praises for over a decade, approaching two at this point. You're tarnishing your own reputation, and the good will you have generated yourself over playing favorites for specific classes. This is just.... *sighs* Just hit me as I am typing this I am just wasting my time and dissatisfaction to be frank. Whatever, I'll sit and wait, see what the future brings but I refuse to hope. Screw that. A pleasant surprise would be welcome, but my expectations are not much. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by RazielTheUnborn.2189

[Ruisenior.6342]

  I'm reading so many contradictions here.

  You complain on mechanist passive damage but you created a passive espec. And now you are reverting back your changes made few days ago and make those powerbuilds non-viable again, while maintaining the overpowered ones that provide all kind of boons and sustained condition damage at the same time.

  Increasing the coefficients from ranger skills wont allow it to deal sustained damage on a class that it's skills kit are designed around a bursty one. Any ranger will be able to do any kind of sustained damage on any power build, only ranger condi ramp builds will allow that.

  I still dont know whats going on with warrior class.

  It seems that you are quickly reacting to some cries instead of trying to understand your game and just balance it properly.

  I'm done doing and throwing back to the paper bin builds every day. I hope that some day we will be able to play the game.

[Animism.7530]

Please fix staff Ele... It has been practically broken since crowd control was changed and has had dramatic damage reduction. Rendering it one of the worst weapons... 

I just walked into harvest temple for the first time in however many months since the expansion came out, plopped on a rifle mech build from metabattle, and got top dps with no issues, just mashing all the keys. 

Yeah. Fix Ele please. 
I just want to play the kitten class that you first introduced me to way back when you released the GW1 prophecies trailer. It has always been my main class and I was always gutted that you destroyed the viability of the signature weapon. It used to be brilliant, when defiance bars weren't a thing, tactically using the range of soft-ccs on staff, capable of soloing your way through an Uncategorised fotm 49 & 50. That's when I last remember staff being great. Obviously, things have changed, and so should staff... 
All these years of you buffing the other classes, and playing Ele either feels like an absolute moshpit on the keyboard to achieve "slightly" higher DPS, if you didn't get downed already; or you just suck. I'm sure most classes can autoattack for more damage than staff eles rota. 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Animism.7530

[Mik.3401]

I'm glad to see that higher management is aware that the promised balance deliverables were not produced. Surely the balance team is now under some sort of pressure, whilst I feel sorry for them from a human point of view, they have earned this feedback by not doing their work. I'm not holding my breath yet though - promises are good but we have been in this exact place like half year ago in that regard.  They have hella lots to do in order to rebuild the trust of endgame and pvp players.

[DeceiverX.8361]

I'm just really confused why we're continuing to get such drastic splits rammed down our throats, increasingly disparately.

Playing PvP/WvW should not feel like an entirely different game, and it's ridiculously confusing to new players who level up and practice and build one way to have something completely different come out when they change load screens.

It's getting to the point where I think the energy is better-spent just giving classes a listed % damage boost for instanced PvE/strike bosses, and tuning from there.  The analytics for PvE are easy to work with and understand and change this way, whereas what makes overall kit design, weapon skills, and gear stat combinations strong or weak in the PvP modes is way more abstract and requires way more work.  Regular OW, nobody cares that much except whether or not the events get completed.

They may be vocal, but the population that deeply cares about the intricacies of a few percentage points of DPS difference in high-tier PvE are a minority, and catering to them forsaking the bigger fish in the dying competitive modes is bad business.  There's still not a game out there to compete with GW2's fluid PvP, but you're going to lose the audience for good once something pops up.

P.S. Fix Mechanist's photoepileptic animations and tone down the particle effects or give us skill FX sliders for the love of god.  A lot of stuff is failing PEAT.  You literally cannot see anything onscreen anymore in any of the modes, and it's turning a lot of people off/causing health problems and eye strains at this point with how bad it is.

Edited July 1, 2022 by DeceiverX.8361