August 23 Balance Update Preview

[Geoff Fey.1035]

1 hour ago, prototypedragon.1406 said:

Come to think of it, is the warrior fear me shout ever used in any of the game mode types?🤔 Would be cool to get 3  charges of that while keeping the pulsing weakness 3 seconds 6 seconds closer the warrior is to their foe, replace the fear with aoe immbolise 3seconds each and proc 2 stability per use that goes out to 5 allies with a 20second cool down per use. Especially for world versus world.

 

Maybe reworking Vigorous Shouts so that instead of providing flat healing, it provides some kind of Echo effect that operates similarly to Adrenal Health but provides AoE Barrier instead? (as a sort of "temporary healing for allies via commander encouraging" thingy) An alternative would be that it provides pulsing AoE Might for a few seconds after each shout, which then synergizes with Mending Might--updating Mending Might to AoE heal would then complete the loop.

[prototypedragon.1406]

Idk I doubt anet would want to give warrior anymore barrier. Since they slapped a job well done sticker on banners 🤣 honestly I rather keep the crealing (crap healing) on the shouts rather then try to mess around with barrier more. Extra barrier would just mean longer cooldowns on warrior either way.

[Voyant.1327]

23 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Hi everyone, here's a quick update:

 

Last week’s preview included a significant change to the firebrand skill Manta of Liberation in World vs World – a decrease in ammunition count and an increase to recharge time. Since then, we’ve seen a lot of concern that the reduced access to AoE stability and group stun breaks will negatively impact WvW gameplay due to the sheer amount of crowd control in large-scale fights.

 

We agree with the feedback and have reverted these changes in WvW for this release. We do believe that firebrand brings too much to the table in WvW and plan to tone it down in a future update, but we recognize that this will need to come with changes that improve access to AoE stability and group stun breaks for other professions. We want to spread these tools around to other professions to improve team composition and support role diversity, without reducing the overall availability of these tools.

 

Thanks,

Cal “cmc” Cohen
Game Designer – Skills and Balance

I now understand why people sing this employee's praises. I'll admit I came here to be like "really not nerfing Firebrand?!" but when you guys communicate like this and the decisions make sense I see no issues. 

I think all of us would rather the time and focus be put on things to be done right & then minor tweaks. 

Still if decisions are made like this & communicated like this vs. what we've been getting then we're going in the right direction. Please keep operating from this logical cause and effect, valuing feedback & apply it to all classes. The Mirage feedback for example of how its a gross over adjustment to nerf the 2nd of the 3 Mesmer specs into oblivion... While everyone else seemingly gets stronger. Clone specs (Any non Virt Mesmer) will have zero viable builds at Steam Launch. 

When you compare having less stability to literally having any traditional style of Mesmer non-existent seems a bit weird to adjust one and not the other imo.

But all n all more communication/decisions like CMC's, just adding more feedback. 

[Batalix.2873]

I am throwing my comments in regarding the Axe Mirage changes. Several threads have already been created on reddit, although it looks like one was already deleted. Here is a current one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/wqsjd3/about_the_mirage_nerfs_and_anets_balace_framework/

 

My comments:

 

I am throwing my defense behind this as a pure mirage axe main. I'm not amazing at it but it is at least a fun, reactive build that is quite viable once you learn how it works. It is the only build in the game I have found so far that feels like playing chess, and as others have observed, it is the only build on SnowCrows with a 5 star difficulty rating (although I personally find it to have a very intuitive flow that doesn't exist in other janky piano-playing dps builds).

At my best, I still often don't do as much damage as condi virtuosos in raids/strikes. But I *am* still doing decent DPS (without even having full ascended yet), enough to not be kicked from strike/raid groups. As many have said in this thread, mirage is already in a healthy place DPS-wise.

I really don't think I can afford a nerf to axe condi damage/duration and would have to consider switching my main depending on where the new benchmark falls.

For complex jobs like mirage, golem benchmarks mean a lot less in predicting actual DPS. Between:

• * spending dodges for damage, or sacrificing damage for dodges;

• * having to sacrifice jaunt clones based on if you need a dodge or a condi cleanse;

• * your main clone generator (Axe 2) *forcing* movement and sometimes being too risky;

• * your bursty Axe 3 forcing random placement; and

• * a high degree of variability of where your clones are, what they are doing when you ambush, and whether all of their axes hit or miss;

There is a LOT of decision-making, and in ways that are much more balanced, interrelated, focused, and rewarding than the spastic flailing in the easily-compared fresh-air ele. But suffice to say, you are never doing benchmark damage as an axe mirage, so it is a really bad idea to base balancing around it.

ON TOP OF THAT: I have no boons to offer. I can't offer might or alac like a staff mirage. DPS is literally the only thing I can offer a group with that build. So taking away the limited DPS potential of Axe Mirage is basically consigning it to being unplayable in organized group content, when it is already heavily handicapped by not being Virtuoso (or Mechanist or Firebrand).

ANet, please don't do this. Axe mirage was the only job that resonated strongly enough with me to make me play your game in the first place. You need to be focusing and building up strong (by that I mean creatively, conceptually strong) espec designs like mirage instead of tearing them down. Mirage hasn't been hurting anyone for years and as OP has observed is already underplayed. Frankly axe mirage is a beautifully designed spec and it doesn't deserve to be gutted in this way...there are other ways to make staff mirage less clunky without destroying it.

Edited August 18, 2022 by CourtJester.5908

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

So why does Guardian staff get damage buffs but Revenant staff has to stay cratering your dps if you dare to help break bars? I mean besides the fact one of the weapons is on the blue child?

[Zoser.7245]

4 hours ago, zerothbase.7564 said:

I really hope one day GW2 will implement the Resolve system from SWTOR in PvP and WvW. It's really the best system I've ever seen for balancing CC to players in PvP. It forces you to choose strategically when/how to CC, while giving the receiving player a chance for counter play without infinite CC. In GW2 terms, It's basically like you get a locked defiance bar for a few seconds if you get CC'ed too much in too short of a time. (https://swtor-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Resolve). It means an enemy team can't just stun lock a player for infinite time - being turned into a moa 3 times in a row (for 18 seconds) is not fun.

@Cal Cohen.2358

Smite also use a system that reduce the effectiveness of the hard CC  up to 80% when chained  and it's controlled by stacks of 20%. It's called Diminishing returns (or DR) and is a mechanic that makes hard crowd control effects less effective when used on a recently affected target. They also have the soft CC like us.

• "Any Hard CC will apply a stack of DR to the victim, while True Hard CC applies 2 stacks. Abilities that have two or more Hard CC effects attached to them will apply an equal amount of DR stacks. Each stack grants the target 20% Crowd Control Reduction for 15 seconds, and can be stacked up to 4 times (for a total of 80% CCR)."

Smite also has something that i really like...  They have items that you can equip in your build and reduce the crow control  by a % in duration.  We have runes that help to reduce the stun duration like the Melandru runes or a sigil to increase it.  But in GW2 we don't have nothing to reduce the Hard CC globally like they have there and that affect all types of hard CC. We only have the stun breaks. However we have it for conditions, we have runes  and traits that reduce the condition duration including the soft CC plus the ability to clean and/or transfer conditions, but against the hard CC globally nothing.  It  would be nice if GW2 developers add global cooldown reductions for the Hard CC to some runes and traits and not only for a single type like the stun or daze.   Of course, you can add more than one item to increase the reduction in % as you are resignning other stats to get that advantage against the hard crow control like when you do against condition duration.

Sometimes is good to take great ideas from others in a good will if the result worth the matter, obviously from the legal side. So the ideas for control better the  hard CC from Smite and other games worth probably a consideration and find a similar system for GW2.  My idea of create runes and traits that affect the duration of all types of hard CC should be great too. 😜  It helps to build against hard CC if you want to do that sacrifice by losing damage or other stats or rune effects, etc,  for reduce it. And also make my "Chasers" for the necromancer warhorn a real thing  and, if possible, some of the other ideas too:

I hope that those ideas can help to improve the mitigation of the hard CC when chained/applied on the same players several times consecutively.

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Zoser.7245

[Mourningstar.7309]

Currently, hundred blades is barely worth casting.  With the updates to the GS AA, I'm pretty sure it'll be a dps loss. For a self-rooting skill, that's kinda silly.  Consider looking at that skill.

[miriforst.1290]

*Sigh* It's always the boys in blue that gets the shave and not the chopper isn't it? Oh lets make the same argument for super speed or something. Or does it only work for the blue class?

[Martt.5123]

Anet, Please, do not go ahead with the core engineer support changes! 

 

Yes, I know you guys are doing this because mechanist is overpowered right now and I couldn't agree more that it is. But healing mechanist isn't strong because of its healing capacities, it is strong because the mecha is one more entity that provides a lot of boons and barrier just standing there hitting and existing while you can just go wherelse and do mechanics perfectly. Both support signets - barrier and shift - are also pretty strong; mace is an excelent weapon that provides even morre barriers; 20% more regen efficiency etc. Medkit or Elixir gun here isn't really a thing! I don'treally play mechanist, I don't find it fun to play, but when I played, I didn't even use medkit since my teammates were with 5k barrier almost all the time. 

If you guys nerf medkit 1 and elixir gun 5 you guys will totally kill healing scrapper that isn't already popular! But there are players (like me) that enjoy it a lot! It is kinda contradictory as well since the patch should celebrate and embrace build diversity. Furthermore, you guys are literally assuming that us, players, just like big numbers or popular builds. I know that since the launch of mechanist, it seems the only elite class that engineer have, but nerfing engi core stats/skills isn't going to change the scenario, it will only make engi with even less build diverse! 

[Overedge.2435]

Or, tone down AOE CC so that fights aren't won by which side is bigger and therefore able to just W1 over a smaller group of stunned players. Winning by keeping others from being able to act is a bad philosophy for gaming.

[Peregrine Falcon.5496]

On 8/16/2022 at 12:24 PM, Loke.1429 said:

Pile Driver (cd 18sec, range 1200) locked in place for 1.5sec cast with a wvw damage coeff 1.6 (pierce, just like True Shot, so 5 can be hit technically).
True Shot (cd 8sec, range 1500) locked in place for 0.75sec cast with a wvw damage coeff 1.91.

Thanks for that. I honestly did not know that there were any other standard attacks like True Shot.

 

On 8/17/2022 at 12:58 AM, Kodama.6453 said:

True shot pierces, which means it is not single-target. You can hit multiple targets with it.

So if we count other skills which are also piercing, just like true shot, then there is kill shot, for example. It's the burst skill for warriors when they equip a rifle. You are rooted for the channel time (1 1/4 seconds, which is SIGNIFICANTLY higher than true shot).

 

While you are correct that a warrior is rooted during Kill Shot, it's also a little different as it's the F1 special attack, not a standard attack that's part of the standard rotation.

[Josh Davis.7865]

Hi all,

The June 28 update highlighted that our approach to balancing professions and combat in Guild Wars 2 has not been fully aligned with the needs and expectations of our community. As we communicated in several posts over the last month and a half, we’re using this an opportunity to take a hard look at our internal processes and revise the Guild Wars 2 balance philosophy. We also added some new leaders into the team to help facilitate that effort. That work is still ongoing, and we look forward to sharing our updated balance philosophy with you as soon as we can.

As we’ve been reading through your feedback on the August 23 preview, it became clear to us that one aspect of the previous balance approach was especially problematic. Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players. With that in mind, we’ll be reverting the changes to mirage in the August 23 update.

This change in approach raises questions about previous changes that were made with a build’s ‘potential’ in mind, rather than the realistic output. We’ll be evaluating those prior changes on a case-by-case basis in future releases. This isn’t to say that we won’t address overperforming builds in the future, but we will focus more on builds that are dominating the meta, rather than builds that could theoretically dominate.

For reference, these are the mirage changes that are being removed from the August 23 update:

Axe:

·         Lingering Thoughts: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

·         Imaginary Axes: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

Staff:

·         Chaos Vortex (Staff Ambush) (PvE only) Might stack count reduced from 8 to 5, Might duration reduced from 15s to 10s. Torment, Bleeding, and Confusion duration reduced from 8s to 7s.

Thanks,

Josh

Edited August 18, 2022 by Josh Davis.7865

[Ashen.2907]

38 minutes ago, Overedge.2435 said:

Or, tone down AOE CC so that fights aren't won by which side is bigger and therefore able to just W1 over a smaller group of stunned players. Winning by keeping others from being able to act is a bad philosophy for gaming.

Ive often decried game design cetered around winning by turning your foe into a target dummy. This is why I like the idea of a window of CC immunity after an instance of hard CC.

[Elrey.5472]

26 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Hi all,

The June 28 update highlighted that our approach to balancing professions and combat in Guild Wars 2 has not been fully aligned with the needs and expectations of our community. As we communicated in several posts over the last month and a half, we’re using this an opportunity to take a hard look at our internal processes and revise the Guild Wars 2 balance philosophy. We also added some new leaders into the team to help facilitate that effort. That work is still ongoing, and we look forward to sharing our updated balance philosophy with you as soon as we can.

As we’ve been reading through your feedback on the August 23 preview, it became clear to us that one aspect of the previous balance approach was especially problematic. Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players. With that in mind, we’ll be reverting the changes to mirage in the August 23 update.

This change in approach raises questions about previous changes that were made with a build’s ‘potential’ in mind, rather than the realistic output. We’ll be evaluating those prior changes on a case-by-case basis in future releases. This isn’t to say that we won’t address overperforming builds in the future, but we will focus more on builds that are dominating the meta, rather than builds that could theoretically dominate.

For reference, these are the mirage changes that are being removed from the August 23 update:

Axe:

·         Lingering Thoughts: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

·         Imaginary Axes: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

Staff:

·         Chaos Vortex (Staff Ambush) (PvE only) Might stack count reduced from 8 to 5, Might duration reduced from 15s to 10s. Torment, Bleeding, and Confusion duration reduced from 8s to 7s.

Thanks,

Josh

That is amazing news. I hope other classes can benefit from that train of thoughs. There are some classes that are really fun to play but get nerfed because the 0,01% of the players are able to do something insane with the class. And the nerf breaks the fun for the other 99,99% of the players that love playing that class and our performance is average. 

I hope you can find a good way to avoid this issue (maybe a hard cap on DPS calculated by the server, where a player can't do more than 40k or something? IDK, it's probably something impossible in gw2 due to the way the engine works).

Edited August 18, 2022 by Elrey.5472

[vrauns.3215]

I hope you guys consider adding stablility to "Glyph of Equality" without needing to enter celetstial avatar in regards to the ranger.

Edited August 18, 2022 by stuvvo.4753

[Geoff Fey.1035]

29 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players. With that in mind, we’ll be reverting the changes to mirage in the August 23 update.

This change in approach raises questions about previous changes that were made with a build’s ‘potential’ in mind, rather than the realistic output. We’ll be evaluating those prior changes on a case-by-case basis in future releases.

THANK YOU! Total props!

[Stadsport.8714]

25 minutes ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Hi all,

The June 28 update highlighted that our approach to balancing professions and combat in Guild Wars 2 has not been fully aligned with the needs and expectations of our community. As we communicated in several posts over the last month and a half, we’re using this an opportunity to take a hard look at our internal processes and revise the Guild Wars 2 balance philosophy. We also added some new leaders into the team to help facilitate that effort. That work is still ongoing, and we look forward to sharing our updated balance philosophy with you as soon as we can.

As we’ve been reading through your feedback on the August 23 preview, it became clear to us that one aspect of the previous balance approach was especially problematic. Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players. With that in mind, we’ll be reverting the changes to mirage in the August 23 update.

This change in approach raises questions about previous changes that were made with a build’s ‘potential’ in mind, rather than the realistic output. We’ll be evaluating those prior changes on a case-by-case basis in future releases. This isn’t to say that we won’t address overperforming builds in the future, but we will focus more on builds that are dominating the meta, rather than builds that could theoretically dominate.

For reference, these are the mirage changes that are being removed from the August 23 update:

Axe:

·         Lingering Thoughts: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

·         Imaginary Axes: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

Staff:

·         Chaos Vortex (Staff Ambush) (PvE only) Might stack count reduced from 8 to 5, Might duration reduced from 15s to 10s. Torment, Bleeding, and Confusion duration reduced from 8s to 7s.

Thanks,

Josh

I'm really pleased to see you guys actively following these topics and discussions. It leads to real, tangible improvements in the game, and it hugely improves player confidence in the team's willingness and ability to keep their thumb on the pulse of the community. We all really appreciate it.

 

That said... please also consider taking a closer look at the Power Berserker improvements 🙂 The changes mostly affect utility skills that few use, or Greatsword, which we only use for a few seconds (Axe/Axe is the gold standard). For how fast-paced the rotation is, I think it needs just a *little* more TLC to bring it up to a more competitive level that other builds/classes are seeing with simple auto-attacks.
 

Just had to throw that in where it's more likely to be seen than buried elsewhere in the thread. But really, thank you, and kudos for the team for continuing to address and re-evaluate the approach to balance updates & player feedback. 

[Bunny.9834]

16 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Hi all,

The June 28 update highlighted that our approach to balancing professions and combat in Guild Wars 2 has not been fully aligned with the needs and expectations of our community. As we communicated in several posts over the last month and a half, we’re using this an opportunity to take a hard look at our internal processes and revise the Guild Wars 2 balance philosophy. We also added some new leaders into the team to help facilitate that effort. That work is still ongoing, and we look forward to sharing our updated balance philosophy with you as soon as we can.

As we’ve been reading through your feedback on the August 23 preview, it became clear to us that one aspect of the previous balance approach was especially problematic. Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players. With that in mind, we’ll be reverting the changes to mirage in the August 23 update.

This change in approach raises questions about previous changes that were made with a build’s ‘potential’ in mind, rather than the realistic output. We’ll be evaluating those prior changes on a case-by-case basis in future releases. This isn’t to say that we won’t address overperforming builds in the future, but we will focus more on builds that are dominating the meta, rather than builds that could theoretically dominate.

 

Josh

This is great Grouch. Feedbacks like these are very reassuring to the player base. 

Now please take a look at the AFK 30k AA Mech build. Thanks. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Bunny.9834

[prototypedragon.1406]

Honestly I'm just curious at this point if Hammer skills are getting looked at or even on the horizon in the next few years since they have been kinda stuck for the past 2 years in world versus world in the state they are in . Especially for Warrior?🤔 Or can we get free Legendary armory weapon swap tokens for those of us that made Legendary hammers or maces that are not viable to be used? Honestly it saddens me to tell fellow players that seek fights in wvw to never use a hammer or mace. 

[AshkyLicious.4729]

9 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Hi all,

The June 28 update highlighted that our approach to balancing professions and combat in Guild Wars 2 has not been fully aligned with the needs and expectations of our community. As we communicated in several posts over the last month and a half, we’re using this an opportunity to take a hard look at our internal processes and revise the Guild Wars 2 balance philosophy. We also added some new leaders into the team to help facilitate that effort. That work is still ongoing, and we look forward to sharing our updated balance philosophy with you as soon as we can.

As we’ve been reading through your feedback on the August 23 preview, it became clear to us that one aspect of the previous balance approach was especially problematic. Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players. With that in mind, we’ll be reverting the changes to mirage in the August 23 update.

This change in approach raises questions about previous changes that were made with a build’s ‘potential’ in mind, rather than the realistic output. We’ll be evaluating those prior changes on a case-by-case basis in future releases. This isn’t to say that we won’t address overperforming builds in the future, but we will focus more on builds that are dominating the meta, rather than builds that could theoretically dominate.

For reference, these are the mirage changes that are being removed from the August 23 update:

Axe:

·         Lingering Thoughts: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

·         Imaginary Axes: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

Staff:

·         Chaos Vortex (Staff Ambush) (PvE only) Might stack count reduced from 8 to 5, Might duration reduced from 15s to 10s. Torment, Bleeding, and Confusion duration reduced from 8s to 7s.

Thanks,

Josh

Thank you to Josh and the Balance team!

I appreciate it alot that you listen to the feedback from your playerbase! You made this Mirage-mainer very happy 🤩

Edited August 19, 2022 by AshkyLicious.4729

[prototypedragon.1406]

Idk if I should continue hoping for hammer improvements or not in wvw. Or should I just warn our steam friends to not use hammers or maces if they go to join the cornerstone game mode?🤔 

[Mike.7983]

Happy to see both mirage changes being dropped as it served no purpose to super nerf a class who isnt topping meters.  Now if only we can get vindicator class looked at, right now the damage values are to low for pure power selfish dps build that has little utility or cc, and a even more buggy mid jump stun issue.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

1 hour ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

As we’ve been reading through your feedback on the August 23 preview, it became clear to us that one aspect of the previous balance approach was especially problematic. Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players.

THIS!

It's about time! 

Some of us have been extremely worried about the balance team making so many changes based solely on the top .001 % of players (perhaps mistakenly referred to solely as the speedclear community like Snowcrow's raiding A-team) (this is the main rewason why i have personally kept asking that instanced (Fractals, Raids, Strikes) content be balanced separately from open world / story content (or in my own words, be made into a 4th game mode, WvW,  PvP, PvE, and PvI (instance))

AND it's nice to see the dev team acknowledge that there's a difference between golem benchmarks and actual fights, so much so that balance needs to be made around actual fights and average players than only build potential in the top percent of the top percent of the top percent.

[Ziegrif.5964]

Could I interest you in buffing the hammers a bit more so it get more use in raids? Specifically the Rev hammer as it's slow, very slow.

[Roda.7468]

1 hour ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Hi all,

The June 28 update highlighted that our approach to balancing professions and combat in Guild Wars 2 has not been fully aligned with the needs and expectations of our community. As we communicated in several posts over the last month and a half, we’re using this an opportunity to take a hard look at our internal processes and revise the Guild Wars 2 balance philosophy. We also added some new leaders into the team to help facilitate that effort. That work is still ongoing, and we look forward to sharing our updated balance philosophy with you as soon as we can.

As we’ve been reading through your feedback on the August 23 preview, it became clear to us that one aspect of the previous balance approach was especially problematic. Specifically, making balance adjustments to PvE builds based on their potential under unrealistic, ideal conditions – conditions that are unlikely to be met unless you’re testing against a golem, or the player is extremely skilled. While these builds can definitely be an issue in a skilled player’s hands, often times the changes have an outsized impact to unrelated builds and average players. With that in mind, we’ll be reverting the changes to mirage in the August 23 update.

This change in approach raises questions about previous changes that were made with a build’s ‘potential’ in mind, rather than the realistic output. We’ll be evaluating those prior changes on a case-by-case basis in future releases. This isn’t to say that we won’t address overperforming builds in the future, but we will focus more on builds that are dominating the meta, rather than builds that could theoretically dominate.

For reference, these are the mirage changes that are being removed from the August 23 update:

Axe:

·         Lingering Thoughts: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

·         Imaginary Axes: (PvE only) Torment duration reduced from 4s to 3s.

Staff:

·         Chaos Vortex (Staff Ambush) (PvE only) Might stack count reduced from 8 to 5, Might duration reduced from 15s to 10s. Torment, Bleeding, and Confusion duration reduced from 8s to 7s.

Thanks,

Josh

Much appreciated to see and y'all made my mirage main friend very happy lol