Design Notes for June 28 Professions Update

[gabrielk.3782]

On 7/8/2022 at 6:50 PM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Elementalist

Looking at Elementalist, we see room for small but key changes in Weaver and Tempest, but need to pull back on potential top-end damage for Catalyst.

Weaver is known for being very selfish, providing few boons for nearby allies. With changes to 'Raging Storm' in Air Attunement, Elementalists will be able to upkeep a base of 50% Fury uptime on nearby allies. In Weaver specifically, we've also updated their minor trait, Elemental Refreshment, to give Barrier to allies when the Weaver executes a Dual Attack, helping to incrementally prevent incoming damage.

Tempest is gaining the ability to grant Alacrity to nearby allies with an update to 'Lucid Singularity', which now grants allies Alacrity in a circle of radius of 360 when completing an overload. We expect this to be viable with 'Fresh Air' overload builds, but will be watching to see what else the community does with it- and what further tweaks we can make in the future to help it succeed.

Catalyst has recently begun to be meta-defining in raids, with a personal damage potential almost 20% higher than any other specialization, while at the same time eliminating the need for a quickness support role when stacked. We're making a key set of reductions to it to remediate these issues.

Most of the damage reduction to be made to Catalyst is happening by reducing the damage multiplier of the Jade Sphere. However, some particularly unfun gameplay has developed around Hammer autoattacks. Singing Strike, Hammer #1 in Fire attunement, deals its damage after half a second, but has another 700ms of 'aftercast' animation before it can naturally repeat. We've been seeing a pattern of key-binding 'Stow Weapon' and using that to interrupt this skill at the half second mark, so that it can instantly repeat, and doubling autoattack DPS as a result.

Chilling Crack, the third hit in the hammer 1 Water chain, has a similar issue, where interrupting it early allows the chain to be restarted again quickly, raising overall attack damage. To resolve this, we've cut half a second out of that aftercast animation, so that the skills will naturally execute and repeat much faster, while re-tuning damage on all of Catalyst's autoattacks so that they are more closely normalized to their actual animation cast time.

 

Tempest

• Lucid Singularity: This trait has been reworked. It now applies alacrity to nearby allies upon successfully completing an overload. Duration is now 6 seconds with a radius of 360.

 

 

 

I understand where they are going with this change, but they didn't forget something, I don't know, maybe, STABILITY, you can't do fractals or other pve content without this boon, because you don't allow the "harmonious conduct" trait to be for the group in pve, if that were the case, it wouldn't be the perfect support but it would be a good one and a candidate to replace a hb in any group, even so, I already have my armored herald full qk-boons-super healer 8000, that is awesome. thanks arena net :3.

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by gabrielk.3782

[Sjentra.3409]

1 hour ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Thinking death perception was a slight buff when power reaper lost around 5k dps shows how incompetent the balanace team is with classes they do not play. This come down to not understanding that most of reapers damage came from dropping pulsing aoes outside of shoud, when going into shroud as fast as possible to get maximum pulses with all procs (100% crit, 20% damage with soul barbs and cold shoulder, and 300 ferocity). This is why the rotation was not crit caped outside of shroud, so the highest damage in done in shroud.  This is a less extreme but same logic as ranger stacking OWP and sick'em to maximize the burst. 

I have no problem with the devs talking with people who actually play the game and know how do basic things like weapon swap, but they actually need to listen to them on how a class works and how they maximize damage. The death perception change is a clear example of people having no clue especially calling it a buff when it clearly a nerf. This is my vote of no confidence toward the balance team. 

They exasperated the issue by going all in on Fury; but then not giving all power classes equal access to self fury.  Instead if reapers want fury they have to use curses (sound familiar warriors).

I get they want necros to use harbinger; but try taking a harbinger through tangled depths with all the projectile hate and tell me how much you like shooting yourself.

[LucidHarmoy.6284]

Some minimal good changes but it's clear they don't have touch with reality. They don't play the game or if they do they tunnel into 1 character and make adjustments to others based off spreadsheets. They didn't apologise for any of the bad changes, they didn't explain any of the bad ones, they simply explained the ones that were justifiable. They literally did nothing here. I haven't logged on since the patch preview and won't be logging on until they get a new team or leader because this is the most painful reasoning I've ever read. They have no logical reasoning, I genuinely don't believe they play the game. In my opinion this is their job, there is 0 passion for this game, they just change stuff because they have to look like they're developing the game. 
At this point new world has more transparency, better changes and real reasoning behind their changes, it's pathetic that what was one of the worlds best mmorpgs is now worse than one of the biggest failures in mmo history.
Love all the community here, best of luck, sorry the devs suck, I hope one day you can find another game to play and don't have to be abused like this. 

[Squigglez.1236]

I want to toss my vote in with what others have said. These additions to the patch notes just use paragraphs to say the same thing the notes did in bullet points. There isn't really any explaining of why most changes were made so it doesn't add anything to understanding why they exist. Warrior was probably in the largest need of explanation of the changes and they seem to have gotten the worst. You said you didn't want banners to cover quickness by themselves but what did you want them to do? Why does warrior need a trait and 100% boon duration to maintain anything. You wanted to break warriors free of banners to give them more versatility but now builds seem to be even more set in stone with bladesworn for dps, mending for peak performance, mine, cartridges, and tactical reload to squeeze damage out of a dragon slash which already makes up over half the dps, and flow stabilizer because flow honestly sucks. You had problems with the highest level groups stacking catalysts to get dps while skipping a quickness support, but the new bladesworn brings martial cadence for a 30% quick uptime, stacking bladesworns will do the same thing, especially since they have one of the highest benches now. Also why was it decided to make banners bundles again? That's how they were in the beginning and it was annoying to move them, now holding them gives you no skills, you're the only one that can move them, and their buffs aren't worth it. Just give them a flip skill that lets you port them to your position if you don't want people to pick them up to reduce cooldown and spam for quickness. Frankly making bladesworn the only really viable warrior build is just awful. I don't play warrior much but having all your damage in that one skill means enemies that move or interrupt you just kills any contribution you can do. Other enemies are dead before you can get the flow and charge the attack. With the new balance you've just double down, it's dragon slash or play something else.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

I am openly warning people asking me for this game (I know all of them are interested in the endgame and competetive experience) to not purchase it, or if they do, they will have to suffer some of the worst balance design choices and rework attempts in the industry. 

Showing one of them the notes and this explanation (he has a knowledge of this game from streams and people, but doesn't play), made him go yikes and forget purchasing altogether, as he didn't want to simply level up and call it a day.

If people that know the game this much are dissapointed by what they read in your notes, imagine how the actual players with the years worth of investment feel.

And if it's not about our feelings, think about our pockets. Mine is not even thinking of ever giving this company kitten unless some radical changes are made. 

Undo your kitten and get your act back. 

[HonesltlyX.7164]

While you explained the reason for the changes in boons for warrior banners, I didn't see an explanation for why the banner mechanics themselves were changed. The previous iteration was simple and efficient. This iteration is not only inefficient it is also unrewarding. We lose our skills, we carry only one flag at a time, and we do not gain any benefits from picking it up and moving it.

 

Can you explain why banner mechanics were changed? How soon can we expect this to be revisited?

Edited July 10, 2022 by HonesltlyX.7164

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 7/8/2022 at 8:18 PM, Castiel.9048 said:

Per gw2wingman (Gw2 Wingman (nevermindcreations.de))

 

Quote

"Going out of your way to nerf Catalyst because like three guys are cracked at it/put in the work to be cracked"

 

I feel like my words are wasted here.

 

I don't have the energy to run through and give detailed feedback that is essentially the same thing I've said before, being a berserker player you should by now have an idea of my opinion on balancing directions that run completely counter to available data.

 

If a player can gather these metrics and paint a clear picture of the current state of the meta, there is no reason why the balance team can't and then make design/balance choices from there. 

 

The overarching philosophy for your balancing direction is fine. Some of the nuanced implementations, like the case with thief, are good. However, the implementation is egregiously lopsided, targeting things that didn't need reworks or focus and ignoring things that have been problems for years. 

 

Quote

In Engineer, we've updated skills on their core Rifle weapon to modernize it to more recent gameplay standards and to better support power builds.

 

 I need you to understand the frustration that comes from seeing this and its implementation (which, make no doubt, I am happy for in the case of engie) but then not only see that balancing direction not carried over to warrior, but see in real time warrior handed a patch that erased them from the meta.

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[GoguSpatzialu.7948]

Let me try to write this post:
Hello Tyrians, as you know, the last patch had some issues that were not very clearly explained. We recognize that there are currently some severe imbalances in the game. There are too many issues to tackle all at once, so we wanted to focus on them in bite size chunks. These are the issues that we find most pressing:

• Necessity of different builds for solo/organized play, even for the same role.
• Many class specific boons heavily restrict party composition.
• Disparity between condi/power (including from a gear perspective) and melee/ranged.
• Skill floor/ceiling reward disparity on many classes.

In this patch, we focused on the Engineer to ensure it has multiple viable builds, as we felt is was in a mostly good spot, thus requiring minor adjustments. In the next patch, we are planning to work on <class name here>, to ensure it has a similar versatility, while maintaining its class vision.

We're addressing the first and second points by reworking class boons so that none are strong enough to make the class mandatory, as well as removing sources of precision that are not available in all gw2 environments. The current solution is temporary, and we will be adjusting the class boons as we work through the classes.

Our players have, as usual, taken to experimenting with our previous balance changes, and have found new builds. One that we feel has incredible potential is the catalyst. This particular build had excellent damage and provides some quickness for its party.  On its own, this is not a problem, however due to scaling, when stacking multiple catalysts, it greatly increases overall party damage, which would lead to further power creep. Congratulations to the players that have uncovered this issue! However, for the health of the game, and in the spirit of keeping things varied,  as it would eventually result in squads composed of mainly catalysts, we are adjusting it, to remove this hyper scaling potential.

We've seen some Bladesworn warriors experiment with Arms trait line, and we really want to support this, as warriors have been locked in with Discipline and Strength as must haves since the game's beginning, reducing the ability to create varied builds.  We want to encourage warrior players to look at other trait lines, especially since now banners are no longer a must-have. As such, we're providing the 5% crit chance in the arms line, so that the Bladesworn has an improved critical rate even outside of their bursts and dragon slashes. This is by no means the full extent of warrior changes - we realize they require a significant rework in most spec lines, utilities, and weapons. This is merely an incentive for players to experiment with new builds until the rework arrives later this year/2023.

[GoguSpatzialu.7948]

Also, there's no explanation for the Throw Mine nerf. I have no idea why this was considered necessary. To be sure, engis can be excellent at stripping, but so are scourges and mesmers, with significantly higher utility. Strip engi can't compete in damage/condi spam, nor run tools as powerful as veil.

[Bazsi.2734]

So in general, whatever you tried to change and why - is good. But the changes on the other hand... they are so out of touch, it's baffling. Some are "just" terribly tuned, but in some cases even the design is just bad. Unfixable, needing a rework, way worse than what was before.
It just feels like this has been done by an unpaid intern that wants revenge for being tricked into such an unfavorable contract. Warrior is the worst offender, but I could talk about skills doing different boons in PvE and PvP, or having a trait that makes you do 10% less damage... these things are unjustifiable.

[Fenrir.1742]

On 7/8/2022 at 5:06 PM, SlothPowah.1072 said:

Hello, why was Wail of Doom's daze removed and changed to a fear?

This question sums up just about the same perspective on almost every proposed change. And the answer is: #Muh_Condi and "I don't like axe, I'll just tweak staff instead." But most importantly - "The only philosophy I believe in is standing still and pressing 1!"

Remember folks, it's against the 'spirit of the game' to debate the  ̶w̶i̶s̶e̶  curious decisions our writers publish for the good health of our community.

[Woof.8246]

Hmm how about  implanting   two mechanics in CMs that checks for :

a) Overstacking

b) If more than 2 players are doing more that the intended max damage (players will always find a secret spec and from now on they probably won't show it in the Youtube) ,

and as a result boss attacks get randomized/enraged , edit:faster greens ?

 

We avoid the scenario were only the "best in slot" specs are demanded by the LFG and if guilds want to take this extra mile for the world first , they must always know there will be a backfire (just like Fire Mages from Warhammer Online (as you attack , heats stacks up and you get self damaged at 100%) . And in the same time , the casual population are unaffected about this mechanic and can dps freely).

 

The problem is "what is the max dps" ?

 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Woof.8246

[ShionKreth.1542]

Completely disconnected from the game and the players... This design team inspires no confidence whatsoever. 

[Gehenna.3625]

On 7/9/2022 at 1:50 AM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Increasing Fury and Might Access

Having high uptime on critical boons is the strongest indicator of success when playing in group content. Fury increases your critical hit chance, significantly increasing your overall damage. Might increases your Power and Condition Damage attributes, also increasing damage dealt. Together they have a multiplicative effect, allowing you to hit far harder than you can without these key boons.

This touches on the reason why I don't even touch raids in this game: 100% boon upkeep. I've raided quite a lot in other games mind you, but here I haven't yet in 10 years. The following things are problematic to me:

• The possibility to have 100% crit chance at all
• Might affecting both strike damage and condition damage
• The possibility and requirement to upkeep boons in order to get an uptime of 100%

They are design choices but to me they don't appeal, simply because it's a lot of effort to create a new baseline that is then required for structured group content.

The 100% upkeep is reminiscent of GW1's Minion Master, which was very tedious because it was actually hard work to keep them alive. When heroes came you could let their AI do it, but before that time...

Now why am I against might affecting both strike and condition damage? Well, it's a lazy boon that makes it too easy to get both in one, is what it comes down to. I also feel this way about vulnerability applying to both types of damage.

Why not make a boon that gives you both alacrity and quickness at the same time? /s

Oh, as a sidenote: please remove aggro from toughness. Just add something to traits for tank builds. It actually makes zero sense for a boss to go "oh that's a slightly tougher opponent, let's prioritize that one", while there are DPS that hurt the boss a lot more. It seems more logical to go for the one that's hurting you more, doesn't it?

 

So that's my feedback. Take it for what it's worth. It's just one man's opinion.

[Cable.2850]

@Josh Davis.7865I think this missing the overview/exec summary concept behind some of these changes.  I know you've said that is also coming, but as an immediate first impression feedback I think these kinda notes should always reference/remind us of those goals.  

My understanding of the notes and the patches is you have a couple of larger goals.

You do not want one class/profession to be able to provide max stacks or uptime of any buff, you want the 5-man to get there or close to there. I think a statement of what you'd want the ideal profile to look like would be good; do you want a max stack/max uptime party to even be possible?

You're simplifying the variations in buffs to be a core set, both the banners and spirits added more tiny icons that a newer player might not understand, making them provide a consistent 'orange shield icon' makes more sense.   I think this does need to go further, the 'self' buffs/effects should all be that white on light blue.  I think we can give up that bit of design flair in the icons for a clearer set, red = bad, blue = just you, orange = others.  Not sure if there's a technical impact to the simplification too,  I remember it being mentioned before that the mechanics of tracking all this was an issue a while back.

Hopefully that does match your intent, otherwise more explanation needed 🙂

Some other feedback, I know you'll have tons of stats/graphs etc around these things, and I know that for some reason game devs rarely share that kind of insider information, but I do think it would really help.  Not to justify as such (there needs to be space for game devs to be game devs!), but at least to backup your explanations/reasonings.  Players will always be basing their view on their perceptions, and those will always be limited, raw figures help balance that.

One last thing, regarding Ele, it seems like you want its dmg/support potential to be the same as other professions.  But ele is by far the hardest class to play, shouldn't that reward players if they do master it?   Or would you rather change ele to be easier to play?  But being hard to play and just being equal to the others, doesn't seem right, just the fantasy isn't enough.

[Ruisenior.6342]

On 7/9/2022 at 2:06 AM, XECOR.2814 said:

The necromancer changes is not a qol upgrade, its a downgrade.
Now you need to put more investment into crit chance by assassins gear or runes which in turn reduces the dps, it creates problems in all gamemodes. I don't think you thought it over completely.
Also if you want to buff power dps on necro just buff the greatsword autos for reaper and that should be enough. They don't do as much damage as they should in pve considering how long it takes to cast them and the after casts is also long.
Also the wail of doom changes completely removed the only use it had which was to interrupt blocks(like engi shield5 etc) or downstates rez, not to mention fear is inherently a worse cc because it can be stabbed, resisted, cleansed, stun broke and even weapon swapped(cleansed) which makes the change a big nerf. On top of that the duration is 1sec which is not enough to get decap in pvp using this skill if you manage to land it.
This needs to be thought over again. Also fix the animation to tracking moving targets better, make it un-blockable again and revert the cast time nerf.
I don't agree with moving from stat bonuses to static % bonuses. It is unneeded change and makes future number balancing work for no reason.
People relate to ferocity numbers and understand it better than damage multipliers that work on top of other multipliers.

I have to agree with each of your quotes. That's it.

  Also note that now you have to trait dread instead of close to death on pve builds to keep your fury uptime while having to rely on the usage of warhorn to get 100% crit chance, so another damage nerf.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[Ruisenior.6342]

   That's why Rytlock swapped paths from being a warrior into a revenant (maybe he should have tried Firebrand :)), he saw the declive of warriors from a mile.

   What they did to banners is intolerable, those changes aren't made by someone who i would call a profesional.

   As an example a good rework from the entire utility line could be changing them to some sort of skills called Warcries that apply the boon upon activation and granting aditional bonuses to the warrior and also to the party, and while lasting the warcry it would add a mini aoe around the warrior that will pulse damage,heal or add some defenses.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[Zeesh.7286]

I love how they NERFED elementalist fury uptime (and overall dps) by that ridiculous internal cooldown on raging storm. It was an amazing trait before the patch and allowed dps builds like lightning rod and fresh air to have near 100% fury uptime (builds which did not need any nerfs anyway). Now it is dog kitten. LMAO group fury for 4 secs on 8 secs ICD that only procs when an ele crits..

 

Why....WHY???? You had NO reason to make it group fury. NO one asked for fury sharing crap on elementalist as a form of "support".. ridiculous. First the nerf to meteor shower in last patch for no reason, and now this nerf. AHMAZING. 

[Astralporing.1957]

Now, that the weekend has ended, might we have hope for a followup to a followup, once you finish reading the thread? Or is that too much to ask?

[Cait Sith.4650]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Now, that the weekend has ended, might we have hope for a followup to a followup, once you finish reading the thread? Or is that too much to ask?

A dream within a dream?

[chedder.6302]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Now, that the weekend has ended, might we have hope for a followup to a followup, once you finish reading the thread? Or is that too much to ask?

nah i think the devs are doing what they can to prevent any deaths from a possible birdbox scenario 

[Baseraver.7241]

Can one of you responsible for warrior just stand up for once and admit that the changes made are a result of ignorance concerning the class as a whole? Would earn you more respect than empty words covered as "Design Notes" repeating the patch notes 1:1.

 

One more thing: There will ALWAYS be a meta in endgame pve content. Your goal to increase class diversity in terms of "so you can join with your favorite class and not feel bad" or however you phrased it some time ago will NEVER be a reality.

 

Killing unique class buffs that defined an entire specialization (One Wolf Pack, Leader of the Pack) which enabled synergies with other fast hitting classes DOES NOT HELP DIVERSITY.

[anduriell.6280]

On 7/9/2022 at 1:50 AM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

addition, Rangers and Revenants can choose to tap into Fury with reworked versions of Spotter and Assassin's Presence, which now will apply Fury to yourself and allies when entering combat, and every 10 seconds thereafter while you remain in combat.

My gosh those are awful reasons to remove unique buffs from classes. Now you have one less reason to bring rangers in any group because a heralds or guardians fart boons in a continuous stream while not sacrifice any support or damage.

The rest of the changes to ranger were also totally disconnected from reality and do please stop it.

I will not repeat about how removing the mobility from the spirits in a profession  with single target projectile weapon where it has to keep reposition itself continuously was a  disgrace of an  idea but also  the harsh nerf to their duration in form of degrading hp was just too much. 
It is never an acceptable idea to nerf a whole set of core skills so they are reduced to be usable with a simple traitline (Druid) .

Rangers keeps getting all the tools and fun destroyed to the ground because nobody at the headquarters seems to play with the class, or even care. Search and Rescue ridiculous nerfs comes in mind for example. A supportive utility which only benefit team members. My god, Same goes for the unplayed, whoever designed the class with a pvp mindset apparently totally forgot CC does 0 damage.

Do please assign a dev who actually  understand the class so we can see the changes to actually make sense. Adding the discounted tempest version of alacrity with the spirits was not a good idea, ranger players never asked for that. And do consider bring back all the uniqueness and specific buffs of the class, ranger players already struggle enough to get teams with the leftovers of the original skills.

Everything in this balance patch was extremely bad and all this reasoning  does not work because it  makes no sense.

[Angesombre.4630]

The way the quickness has been imported on the revenant (I will speak mainly on this class) and surely the elem are not top. 

Because if we compare with the harbinger already it has almost no worries gave the quickness with the shroud with 3s for an interval of 3s, it has an elixir for the throw 4s which also makes damages and the elite during 5s, good there is also the scrapper which has a facility for the given via the drone. The scrapper gives also supervitesse, of the futivity, protection finally voila and even by attacking. 

So to get back to the revenant, this is done in a terrible way we have to sacrifice permanent buffs that consume energy with average buffs currently, to use quickness we have to use the Herald skills, in addition to that it does not give enough and all this on a class that has a very low DPS. I would have seen more defensive buffs added on a support class that has the shield as a weapon and put quickness on the vindicator that already has it but could have shared it that would have given it an extra utility (I won't talk about all the flaws of the vindicator). This is just my opinion.

Also with the removal of the alac on ventari while the guard has Quikness on his elite cry core version.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Angesombre.4630

[Padrion.7382]

I'm just a filthy casual so I don't know much about balance, but as someone who didn't use warrior banners when they were good because their usage was super awkward, I'm definitely not tempted to use them now.