August 23 Balance Update Preview

[LyraOrpheo.8450]

Also super excited about Ele changes/buffs. Maybe my Ele can get out of Old Kaineng chest jail now

Edited August 12, 2022 by LyraOrpheo.8450

[Xae.7204]

All around great changes says my crystal ball.

 

I hope a more frequent patch cadence makes it so we don't see skills that need effects doubled, or more, to be viable.

[Vekks.6013]

3 minutes ago, RisenHowl.2419 said:

What's the goal here with the changes to mantra of liberation and throw mine? There's already stability and stun break problems in wvw, who was the genius that thought it would be a good idea to make them worse and not add stability or aoe stun breaks elsewhere in the only gamemode where it's important?

My exact problem with this. You can't pull stability out of WvW right now and not add it back in somewhere else. The problem was that Firebrand was the only only that could do the job and put out what is needed. Now it won't be able to keep up, people will fall back to pirate ship or even worse.... cloud.

[Dragonis.5964]

Why do you reduce dps of a condition mirage as well when a staff mirage was of concern? And why are you again nerfing a build that actualy requires braincells to play instead of braindead classes like mechanist. Players should be rewarded for learning hard specs like mirage and elementalist and not incentivized for laziness of mechnist and other such classes that do about as much dps with no effort.

[Tammuz.7361]

(PvE only) 😞

 

WvW really hurting right now and could use some re-balancing.  Its currently the least healthy its ever been with essentially only 3 classes: Guard, engi, and necro making up the entirety of the meta… even rev and warrior has been nerfed out of the meta at this point…

[firedragon.8953]

Okay, some damage boosts to underutilized weapons. Seems fair.

 

Warrior greatsword skill DESIGN issues.

Please make 100 blades not be a channel skill. Faster cast, longer cooldown. Do not root us in place.

Please make Rush a faster leap that helps us not get stuck on terrain (this skill is so outdated).

Make core GS for warrior a mobility weapon. Why is 100B stationary? This is now even more of a pain with Bladesworn being the "sit and wait" DPS greatsword class. A bit more diversity would be nice! 

 

Thanks.

[Tails.9372]

4 minutes ago, Parpage.9867 said:

Yes, that one is easy as well but at least you have to throw yourself some elixirs

No you don't, "throwing some elixirs" is for 39k, Tainted Bolts alone is more than enough to get you to around 30k.

[Saharo.5381]

"Mechanist is the problem" --> nerfs kits used by all engineers

Doing this shoves more non-Mech engineer players towards playing Mechanist, is that what you want?

 

I sure hope they rename Blast Gyro to Stun Gyro. Why would there be a countdown to a stun?

[Doggie.3184]

Thief has entire mechanics that need fixed to make it 'feel' better to play, not just number changes. Forced movement on skills we're expected to spam like; P/D 3, D/D 3, Sc/P, 3. No AoE damage whatsoever, Unfixed flaws in single target healing like ally body-blo.... ugh just read the thief forums. Or just delete the class.

Edited August 12, 2022 by Doggie.3184

[Vekks.6013]

2 minutes ago, Dragonis.5964 said:

Why do you reduce dps of a condition mirage as well when a staff mirage was of concern? And why are you again nerfing a build that actualy requires braincells to play instead of braindead classes like mechanist. Players should be rewarded for learning hard specs like mirage and elementalist and not incentivized for laziness of mechnist and other such classes that do about as much dps with no effort.

condi mirage was actually in a good spot for once, and its a fun build and isn't being overplayed either. no idea what these nerfs were for. completely uncalled for.

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

2 minutes ago, Tammuz.7361 said:

even rev and warrior has been nerfed out of the meta at this point…

Hey now Rev can ping pong Ventari Shield and pretend their Jalis floor is helping the overstacked FB stability!

[cgMatt.5162]

From a WvW perspective, what's up with nerfing Firebrand stability? You guys should be giving other classes more party access to it, not nerfing one of the few existing sources.  

What about traits like Gale Song, Defy Pain, and Last Stand? They have had 10 min cds for 2 years now (Feb 25th, 2020 patch) after we were promised a rework.

[Elan.6159]

So, you nerfed all other support classes, leaving mech and guardian alone, making them stand out more as the only viable options, and now you are nerfing guardian to meet the lower expectations of the classes you want to bring up from previous nerfs? Am I getting this right? Guardian stability in fractals is not the problem when you took it away from other classes, which made them viable for fractals. Also, I'm really not sure what the problem is with a class having a defined, healthy role in a game mode. Do you need equal representation of all classes in a game mode for things to be balanced? Many of your players LIKE to have multiple characters and multiple professions to see how each one works differently solo, in 5 man and in 10 man. If they're all the same and equally viable then you're taking out a lot of flavor, excitement in learning new professions, and understanding how they synergize with a larger group. I would recommend bringing  things UP to the level of current viable classes, not the other way around. 

Edited August 12, 2022 by Elan.6159

[MECHAzuth.6538]

With the amount of boon rip capability, as well as ranged and mele CC in WvW. You're screwing comps over by hitting the FB mantra.

 

PvE comps and WvW comps are a world apart in structure, and you're only looking at 1 game mode, while affecting another.

 

Elite skills are there for a reason. You're killing that aspect in WvW, to try and ballance the PvE environment up.

 

Movement is everything in WvW. You need to make that change PvE only, and quick.

[Mat B.2938]

I love the tempest buff !! 
There is still something a bit weird to me, it would be nice for tempest to give alac pulsating along the cast of the overcharge instead at the end. Because overcharge a quite long cast, so there is a lot of probability to get stun, cut, bump etc ... 
I don't know if the aegis will help with this issue 

[Osmose.5893]

I'm pleased with the direction of the new changes with Elementalist (and specifically Tempest), but I do think that tweaking numbers and changing skill functionality still ignores how poorly implemented Tempests' Alacrity is on a design level and I was hoping we'd see better QOL through the alacrity delivery system. Alacrity being solely delivered through the end of an overload doesn't account for any real-play experience and seems a glaringly obvious innafective choice and I'd really like to see that be looked at in a 2nd pass. Hopefully next time!

[mirage.8046]

Damage multipliers aren't the only thing that'll rid of some classes' DPS issues (reaper); it's great seeing bold changes on weapon skills like what has happened to warrior's longbow. I'd love to see more of that treatment being applied. I appreciate what's been done.

[Peregrine Falcon.5496]

16 minutes ago, Double Tap said:

We've been experimenting with the change to help improve longbow usability in PvE content, but the change could have some negative implications to PvP and WvW, where the skill's current telegraph is very important for counterplay. We're going to keep thinking about how to address the problem and may revisit it down the road.

"The skill's current telegraph is very important for counterplay."

What?

Why is it soooo important to WvW "counterplay" that the Dragonhunter be frozen in place for almost 2 seconds in order to fire off their most powerful ranged attack when no other class has this same limitation on their powerful attack(s)?

[LKEY.9567]

But why do you nerf Mirage? We were really fine being ignored. Do not do this to us, ignore us, it is fine, we are happy, you are happy. Don't touch Staff and Axe.

[brushboss.7085]

3 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

No you don't, "throwing some elixirs" is for 39k, Tainted Bolts alone is more than enough to get you to around 30k.

harbinger reaches 38k dps at maximum after patches, could you please not pull random numbers out of your dark void?

[Zepoolpe.9217]

PvE only, because WvW is a cornerstone of this game!

[Tammuz.7361]

11 minutes ago, TheSeraphim.7413 said:

Hey now Rev can ping pong Ventari Shield and pretend their Jalis floor is helping the overstacked FB stability!

or you can just give up and switch to guard like the rest of us did

 

9 minutes ago, MECHAzuth.6538 said:

With the amount of boon rip capability, as well as ranged and mele CC in WvW. You're screwing comps over by hitting the FB mantra.

 

PvE comps and WvW comps are a world apart in structure, and you're only looking at 1 game mode, while affecting another.

 

Elite skills are there for a reason. You're killing that aspect in WvW, to try and ballance the PvE environment up.

 

Movement is everything in WvW. You need to make that change PvE only, and quick.

yeah, not sure what they are thinking nerfing FB mantra in WvW without giving other sources of stability… going to make pirate shipping even worse, not better.

If you are going to rebalance WvW by adding other sources of stab to other classes, then do so, but dont just axe our one source of stab here in an “oh by the way” side thought to what is clearly a PvE balance patch.

Edited August 12, 2022 by Tammuz.7361

[PleaseRelax.6251]

48 minutes ago, Exonfang.6784 said:

To speak more specifically on Guardian, it's good to see the adjustments to Hammer, but I can't help but feel that Willbender builds have been sorely forgotten in this update. The last balance update made Willbender entirely irrelevant and unviable, and Alac Willbender has been in the same state (unplayable in instanced content without being memed out of your squad) since EoD launch.

 

Yep.

[The Not so Evil Overlord.6]

On 8/11/2022 at 10:59 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

These changes should help reduce the performance gap between players using suboptimal and optimal weapons.

I appreciate the fact that you're being honest about the design philosophy. That being said, if this is the design philosophy within the balance team... I'm terrified for the future of GW2.

I appreciate making things viable. I think that's good, as it increases the player choice. But that's not the approach you're taking here. This approach is to reward people less for playing optimally, and penalize people less for playing the game badly. How you build is an aspect of skill. It's one that's very easily shared amongst people, but it's still a skill aspect. Why would you want to deliberately remove a skill aspect from your game?

Please Anet, kill that philosophy, but at the very least, don't bring it into the competitive game modes. Bad players who aren't willing to take the basic steps to improve (such as getting a decent build) shouldn't be pandered to.

[Tails.9372]

2 minutes ago, brushboss.7085 said:

harbinger reaches 38k dps at maximum after patches, could you please not pull random numbers out of your dark void?

38651 rounds to 39k, if you want to split hairs at least do it correctly.