August 23 Balance Update Preview

[Camniel.7238]

My feedback:

 

Elementalist: Just, thank you; especially for Staff changes. One of the biggest archetypes in fantasy is a Staff wielding Mage, but in Guild Wars 2 this fantasy has been sorely lacking due to most magic staffs being very weak. Thank you very much for finally working to fix this! I'm very interested in the other changes as well but will have to see how they play out. Tempest Shouts and Phoenix changes may actually be enough to make go back to that class for the first time in years.

 

Engineer: OMG Harpoon Gun! That is a change I am very happy with. I am however concerned about the trait Big Boomer getting buffed as that will cascade over to Mechanist, which does not need the boost even though Scrapper and Holosmith do. I think it would be more prudent to remove this change to Big Boomer and instead apply more damage through those specific Elite specs instead.

Guardian: I am glad to see Firebrand taken down a little. The ammunition reduction and cooldown increase on Mantra of Liberation is definitely going to be beneficial to other builds. However, I do still believe that Guardian still has too much access to Stability via a Shout, a Consecration, and a Signet (and Tome for Firebrand). Perhaps remove the Stability from the Signet Elite skill and replace it with another boon. The changes to Hammer look good, I just hope the animation lock reduction on the Symbol of Protection is enough. I think there is a possibility the attack speed may need to be increased as well but we'll have to see how this change on the 23rd works out first. I am also very interested in the potential future change to Dragonhunter Longbow's True Shot as being locked in place for an extended duration is not comfortable at all in PvE, especially on a ranged weapon that begs you to stay at range while NPC's are attempting to close the distance gap at all times. I understand the difficulty regarding WvW and PvP telegraphing and look forward to a future discussion regarding this skill.

Necromancer: OMG I'm actually really, really, excited for Staff and Dagger changes! See Elementalist comments regarding Staff fantasy for my thoughts here as well. Thank you! I'm also eager to try the updated Shouts in Reaper!

 

Ranger: I have a few thoughts here. First, thank you for fixing the EoD pet bugs. That was a very annoying and irritating difficulty and I'm very happy to see it fixed. Second, flat crit chance across the board for Ranger Pets is a good start to making Pet diversity an actual thing, but this definitely will need to go farther to actually work out well.

My primary comment is regarding Druid Stability. I do believe this is the wrong choice in how to provide this boon to Ranger. Requiring Astral Form is very limiting to the build which already can't really take the Glyph anyways because of how the Alacrity is provided. There simply is no space for this Glyph without costing too much Alacrity uptime. Having the boon tied to Astral Form is not a good idea because you need Astral Force at full strength to even activate the form in the first place, this dramatically limits the availability of the boon's access. Not only is it locked behind a charge up mechanic, but it's also locked behind multiple key hits (activate Astral Form, then activate glyph) which requires a great deal of foresight and preparation to be successful. It cannot be used on demand or as needed; it can only be used if you prepare a great deal of time in advance. 

I would personally much rather see Stability offered to the whole of the Ranger class as that would allow more build diversity within the Specs. 

For options, I could see returning Stability to the Elite Ranger Spirit's activatable, but with a much more usable design. Apply the Stability first, then heal (for example). I think this would pair well with the already existing Alacrity application design without forcing a player to use a charge up mana pool. I could also see applying Stability to a Pet activatable skill, the same way Aegis is applied to the White Tiger. However, that would force the Ranger to choose between Aegis and Stability, which is a choice Guardians do not have to make and would not be ideal. If a Pet is chosen to carry Stability I would ask that it be the Jaguar pet as its Stealth skill is completely useless and counterproductive to the very existence of a pet (tank for you).

 

Revenant: I think these changes look good so far, though I do see what to my mind is a major oversight regarding the Rev's Hammer. The Hammer 2 skill, Coalescence of Ruin, is a very awkward skill that I believe needs to be looked at sooner rather than later. The skill CANNOT hit a target in melee range as the skill doesn't activate at your location but at some distance away. This is very much a problem since NPC's almost always try to close the gap and come into melee range. Additionally, even if you line up the shot correctly you have a nearly 50/50 chance of missing the target because of how the bursts work along the line of the skill. There are gaps in between pulses where no damage can be dealt. I applaud taking a look at Hammer and would ask that modifying/fixing Coalescence of Ruin be made a priority if you want the weapon to see more use.

Thief: I do not play Thief except on a rare occasion. I hope the changes you've described will be helpful, but I wouldn't know for sure. One of the reasons I do not play Thief is because of what seems to me like a build and identity conflict with Main Hand Dagger. The weapon seems like it's supposed to be a Condi weapon, but its Stealth Attack is fully power, and its skill 2 is also fully power (as is part of the auto chain). If want to survive melee range on a Thief I would typically be building for full Condi damage to allow for more vitality and toughness and thus would not be building Power into the build. This very much seems to waste the potential of the skills I've described, greatly weakening them. I would prefer to see a more consistent identity for Main Hand Dagger as either being power or condi, and less of a hybrid weapon. Seeing this sort of change might persuade me to put more effort into Thief play. On a separate note, I would also like to see some improvements to Thief Short Bow though I am unsure what to offer in terms of suggestions here, it's just that the weapon feels very weak to me and very difficult to use and get used to.

 

Warrior: I am very happy to see Longbow and Swords finally see some love, and Spellbreaker Daggers too! Thank you! I definitely appreciate the consistency update to Longbow being fully a Condi weapon (skill 3 applying burning). The CC on Longbow 4 should also feel much more comfortable to use as well! I do very much hope though that you are willing to take a look at Spellbreaker utility skills as well soon as those are near useless in most situations. That said, I am very much looking forward to giving my Condi Warrior another shot!

Conclusion: Thank you for all that you're doing lately. Regardless of what some other players might think, you don't have to be perfect to be good, and you certainly don't need to be perfect or fully good right away. I know things take time to design and implement and that you will miss the mark from time to time. What matters to me is that you (ANet) are actually making progress and trying to make this game better. It's more than what we've seen from the company in a long time, and I greatly appreciate the effort you all are putting into this now. I look forward to seeing more such effort and love put into Guild Wars 2!

 

 

[daw.4923]

• Mantra of Liberation: Ammunition reduced from 3 to 2 in PvE and WvW. Recharge increased from 25 seconds to 45 seconds.
  
  absolutly terrible change, one stack of stab on 45 sec cd and removing one charge.
  why you always kill some skill instead of balancing? mantra heal doesnt heal,now stab mantra gives whole 1 stab every 45 sec. nerf number 490 for fb.. can you just let ppl play their class and buff rest classes ?

[Embers.2931]

Good changes.
Could we get an entire post about fixing bladesworn though? It is genuinely ruining the current spvp meta. The spec is completely bugged and over tuned.

[Kuma.1503]

Staff Ele Buffs 

These are very nice to see for PvE, but that's also the problem. These are only in PvE. I don't like the amount of splitting functionalities between game-modes. It's needlessly confusing, and even I am starting to have moments where my muscle memory from PvE gets me in trouble. 

The condis and boons should apply in every game mode. It's not like staff ele is in any danger of being overpowered. This weapon has so many flaws that hold it back. 

 

Core Engi Nerfs

I'm not even surprised at this point. Every time Engi has an overperforming elite, you nerf core. You did this repeatedly in PvP, and it's no surprise why it has been the worst core for 2.5 years. 

Nerfing kits nerfs Support Scrapper as well. While HAM was undeniably overperforming, Support Scrapper was underperforming. These changes just nerf a build you already struggled to justify taking into your comp. Kind of defeats the purpose of making other supports played does it not?

Just add a flag that only applies these nerfs when Mechanist is chosen. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Donutdude.9582]

Excited for this balance pass.  Going to get stuck back into my Sword/Dagger Weaver and my Guardian generally.

To those complaining it's only PvE, ArenaNet tends to balance each separately.  Be patient!

[Tails.9372]

12 minutes ago, Camniel.7238 said:

I am however concerned about the trait Big Boomer getting buffed as that will cascade over to Mechanist,

Keep in mind that BB only applies to the player character and not to the mech.

[Shinjiko.1352]

Does this mean Blast Gyro at least gets to keep it's knockback in pvp modes? The knockback is super useful and really fun to use in those modes.

[Poki.8235]

I will only comment on thief changes since that's my main and I the most knowledgable about it's gameplay, but before I do I have to give props for finally buffing power builds. I can't crunch the numbers, but if power builds are brought more in line with condi builds in end-game content thanks to this that will be great!

I am worried by the Spectre changes as they stand. Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree that venoms are too strong and thief condi builds are too reliant on them for their damage. Nerfing venoms and putting some power back to the main skills to compensate is generally a good idea. However I am worried math for the compensation won't work out here. Spectre will be fine if it looses a bit of DPS, but as it stands you should barely ever use the scepter autoattack in a fight if you're juggling the Shroud properly. Very napkin math here, but the difference between Spectre with and without allies on Snowcrow's benchmark is 8k dps, and you're nerfing venoms by 33%, so Spectre will loose 3k dps. IDK how much the 1 sec of torment on shroud auto and the 60 extra condi damage will help, but probably not much.

Power Deadeye and Daredevil buffs are really nice. No idea how much of a buff this is exactly, but seems like a lot. I love playing Daredevil and this it's super fun. I see some people complain about the state of P/P, but with the Deadeye buffs here that might help. I use P/P as a swap from riffle when I'm done kitting Qadims (because I really dislike the kneeling mechanic).

Lastly, and this is totally beyond the scope of this patch, but just a request for the future, can someone look at thief utilities please? There's a reason thieves mostly run either signets or venoms. Most utilities are extremely narrow without any good real world application. Scorpion Wire is broken for years (often fails to connect for no good reason because of hitboxes, the pull is extremely inconsistent, rarely pulling all the way, most often just tripping the mob in place).

[Rihar.3465]

On 8/11/2022 at 5:59 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Firebrand

• Mantra of Liberation: Ammunition reduced from 3 to 2 in PvE and WvW. Recharge increased from 25 seconds to 45 seconds.

I don't really understand this change.

First of all, according to patch notes it applies to all game modes affecting PvE and WvW, while this patch provides changes mostly for PvE mode. It feels odd to see such a significant change for a very viable and important WvW skill with no balance in WvW skills and traits to "compensate" this change by something else. One can assume, that this change was done to reduce the synergy between MoL and Stalwart Speed trait (and thus less quickness), but quickness is not the primary boon in WvW and can be covered by many sources. Am I missing something?

Anet also says:

On 8/11/2022 at 5:59 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

We're also making targeted reductions to stability and might uptime on Firebrand and Mechanist builds to make room for other professions. Firebrand's high on-demand stability from Mantra of Liberation is too essential in Fractals of the Mists and other group content, while Mechanist's barrier and might upkeep are cementing it as a build that pairs together too well with a Quickbrand to meet a group's support needs.

Again, is there something I miss here? To me MoL has always been a source of 5-target stun break rather than a stab source even though they're related.

It's understandable Anet wants to tone down it and to give more opportunities for other classes to cover this loss, but I still can't find any explanation why this change should be brought in WvW too.

[Bunny.9834]

17 hours ago, cgMatt.5162 said:

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.

For real. 

Still nothing. 

[Kilty.4906]

Those changes are pretty good! I love that Ele's "Flame Burst" got the love it needed, that skill was pretty cringe. 
My main feedback is that I would love if some love was also spread to Ele's Conjured Weapons, the fact that you need the second weapon generated by those skills makes it really annoying to perform well in the open world or even in pug groups, besides there is a huge delay when picking them up, especially if you have a high ping. Maybe change its functionality when traited with "Conjurer" to work similarly to engineer weapon kit?

Edited August 13, 2022 by Kilty.4906

[Nemmm.9120]

 

Mechanist

Mech Commands

• Rolling Smash: (PvE only) Bleeding stacks applied reduced from 8 to 4.
• Discharge Array: (PvE only) Confusion duration per hit reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Crisis Zone: (PvE only) Stability duration reduced from 15 seconds to 6 seconds.
• Barrier Burst: (PvE only) Base barrier value per pulse reduced from 434 to 260. Might stacks per pulse reduced from 3 to 2.

Mace

• Barrier Blast: (PvE only) Base barrier value reduced from 434 to 260.

Signets

• Barrier Signet: (PvE only) Base barrier value per pulse reduced from 434 to 260.

Traits

• Barrier Engine (Passive): (PvE only) Base barrier value reduced from 434 to 260.

 

You are asking for feedback, so I am happy to give my two cents

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Aside from the fact that I am, obviously, not very happy to have my favourite class' elite nerfed, I think some of these changes feel like overreaching.

For one, you're not exactly trying to be precise or careful. You're just whipping out the nerf hammer and hitting everything with a roughly 40% nerf (slightly more, but that's not the point). That feels, if anything like "We don't quite understand why mechanist is such a preferred support class, so we're gonna slap the barrier about and see if that makes the other support classes more desirable."

 

And I have a hard time hoping this will work. However, what I feel I can agree on, is that there's too much barrier available. Not the amount, but the ways to acquire it. I, honestly, feel that the amount of  barrier per trait/signet/ability is actually pretty laughable and pitiful without picking gear with stats for it. It is in conjunction that they work well. As far as their actual value goes, this is pretty minor in open World PvE content. The big value of mechanist is not the barrier, and potentially not even the (pretty big) on demand healing you can produce with water fields, it is verything else. Protection, Fury, Might. All the great buffs you can provide, in part thanks to the turrests, is why Mechanist support is so fun.

 

This is something that is, at least it seems that way, hard for the people working in balance to understand. There's a lot of people that enjoy playing Mechanist support because they can give all these buffs so their allies/friends/guild/whatever, don't have to worry about the uptime in the back of their minds.

 

Is it extremely powerful? Without question!

Should that be something to worry about? Well, looking back at Firebrand the last few years, apparently not?

 

But the sarcasm aside, I am honestly not sure nerfing the barriers across the board is a good idea. What I would recommend, is instead buffing single use sources, to promote a gameplay style that works against big attacks and encourages players to use their cooldowns when they know the enemy is going to hit hard. Which also seems what is intended anyway, looking at the change to stability duration, at a glance to the change to Crisis Zone.

 

Buffing Crisis Zone, and Barrier Signet , potentially increasing the cooldown of Barrier Signet to make it more obvious it is meant as something you use reactively when you notice the enemy started casting something big/when you need some barrier to get everybody back up to safe levels after a big burst, or proactively if you know the fight and the incoming bursts, the others ... i'd honestly prefer you to reduce the nerf to maybe 20%, with potentially Barrier Burst going down by 30%.

 

(On a personal note, I'd be okay with a nerf of ~40% IF you instead increased the scaling.)

 

 

The nerfs to the Confusion and Bleed-applying skills is okay. With the mech being put on auto, it feels like the specc does too much dmg for too little effort.

 

But then I see Rifle Power mechanist exists (and our Fireboys), and I'm unsure the condi mechanist is your biggest issue. Then again, from my limited playing of Condi FB, it requires more inputs than mechanist (unless you play the kit-based condi spec, which I can not judge).

 

Ended up being more than I had in mind initially, but I hope it's comprehensible.

[Massimoni.9453]

1 hour ago, black orca.1583 said:

Nerf cfb to cap out 28k-30k SUSTAIN

How about no? The numbers you are proposing are an absolute joke and you know that. The only reason there isn't more backlash at this currently is that it's directed against firebrand.

1 hour ago, black orca.1583 said:

The burst is literally 70k, and sustains 40k auto attacking

It is literally not on any phases where the word sustain actually makes sense... Using sustain in the context of 6 second long phases where you are still "cooling off" from your burst makes zero sense. Also PRE-PATCH firebrand auto attacks with full buffs were almost precisely 20k on GOLEM, which is quite a good chunk lower nowadays with less burning damage from the trait and no sun spirit, so in order to reach your magical and outrageous number of 40k auto attacking, fractals would roughly have to increase your DPS by 2.6x which they do not. You CAN sustain 40k (which shouldn't be surprising to anyone and is far from being exclusive on firebrand which benches 36k atm which of course gets boosted to 40k with fractal modifiers) but only when you do your rotation, NOT with only auto attacking as you are clearly stating! You obviously mainly have a problem with the current rifle mech but somehow transfer it over to condi firebrand where different rules apply.

 

1 hour ago, black orca.1583 said:

OR the alternative which will never happen because thats the whole point of playing CFB, make it actually have a real rotation

I don't know if you are actually joking or if you hate firebrand so much that you drop some random outrageous stuff. You really think cFB hits those numbers by simply auto attacking? I think you haven't played firebrand that much if you make such statements. So without prestacking AotJ on the singularity just in time to not have your nerfed stacks run out prematurely, without switching to scepter before tome 1 comes off for a pulsing AoE, without going into tome 1 and using a predefined order of skills, without using your mantra of flame and the other utility skills and without using your weapon skills I can hit 70k burst and 40k sustain? Why did noone else tell me about this secret? Why did I always do a rotation to even get a chance at achieving those numbers? Jokes aside, just because there is some downtime spent auto attacking doesn't mean the build has no rotation and the way you put it people who don't know that what you are stating there is questionable may believe it blindly, create a cFB and hop into fractals just auto attacking and left wondering why they don't exceed 20k DPS without any burst. What defines a rotation in your opinion and how is this not one???

1 hour ago, black orca.1583 said:

Yeah it WAS like that. it is not now

It's certainly less that it was before but still way higher than outside of fractals. There is still a 15% boost from potions and up to 7% from title, plus regular breakbars which - despite not being quite as strong as previously - still add a lot of DPS.

 

1 hour ago, black orca.1583 said:

You are right it is not worth it to take cfb into raids

At least we can agree on that, seeing how it misses a huge chunk of its burst there and sustained DPS especially in real scenarios is very meh. However I don't get how you can say this and also say how you wanna nerf it to 28k-30k sustain. Fractals is the only mode I even play cFB anymore, if it gets dropped to such numbers I definitely won't, rendering the spec variation completely dead, even for people who prioritise fun over performance. Also even fractals have a good amount of encounters that don't fully rely on burst DPS, but somehow you seem to focus on Skorvald, the prime example of a burst boss in addition to a small handful of others, where you arrive just a few steps away from a singularity and can do every trick in the book during a short 33% boss health window. Not really the best benchmark to balance classes around...

1 hour ago, black orca.1583 said:

but why not just play another class like you said that is better at one thing over other classes

Who said I am not doing that already? I haven't played cFB (my main) in any other mode besides fractal since god knows when. That doesn't mean though that I also can't protest against proposals that would pretty much remove my last chance to play it competitively...

 

Also in general I am not entirely sure you know what "nerfing something into the ground" really means, when you also in the same sentence say that doing so would balance and not bury that very subject.

 

BTW I can give you a little tip to close this post: If you clearly are unhappy with how high some classes burst, why don't you just drop some stuff to yellow gear and enjoy your harder game while people like me who don't mind the current state at all can just keep enjoying the game? It doesn't affect you how fast I kill my bosses. I'd bet there are a few other people around who view things similarily to you so it shouldn't be a problem to get a group going. You can always lower your DPS, but I can't exceed the theoretical maximum.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Massimoni.9453

[Boogiepop Void.6473]

Could we please get the Spectre scepter 1 autoattack an ally function on Engi Medkit 1? Kinda annoying to have to target and enemy and hope your allies stay in between you to get healing.

[Raap.9065]

One thing that concerns me is this mechanical differentiation between game modes. It is one thing to have separate damage and duration values between game modes, but when you make abilities mechanically different by adding/removing functionality or changing cooldowns, then for players it starts to become difficult to keep track of what-does-what-where.

 

A lot, if not all of the non-damage changes, could easily be ported to WvW. Arguably a lot of the damage as well, since it mostly impacts specs that see limited play in WvW.

[Kerose.2916]

The changes are a step in the right direction for engineer, however I think there was a slight miss in how it was executed. Big Boomer and Throw Mine are excellent additions, however the only Holosmith specific change is to sword. This doesn’t give any love to any rifle related builds. I think if the goal is to promote holosmith as a spec there needs to have buffs to the traits themselves or to the forge. Small coefficient increases on its photon forge skills and an increase to lasers edge would benefit the spec as a whole. 
 

 

[pallas.8150]

1 hour ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

why are a lot of these changes pve only for the love of god cmon.

I think, honestly, is that they want to see how this affects the game overall before making the commitment/ plunge. Some of the coeffecient bumps are pretty significant. And I say this as someone who enjoys both PvP and WvW.

 

[Loke.1429]

Wvw though... 🤕💤

[Chrysaliss.8720]

Hmm wandering if D/ D deadeye will become viable again. Would be nice.

[Markus.6415]

18 minutes ago, Kerose.2916 said:

This doesn’t give any love to any rifle related builds.

You got your rifle update last patch?

[Flapjackson.1596]

I’m happy to see so much excitement over the build potential after this patch. It does feel like half the conversation though without the balance philosophy blog post we’re still waiting on.

What is the end goal for Anet? What part of balance are they satisfied with? Where do they want to improve? These are important answers to frame balance patches like these.

 

In particular, I’ve played warrior since launch and have felt like the profession is lacking in many areas. Our support options are few. Our traitlines could use some retouching. Our non-banner core utilities are a total joke. Where is Warrior supposed to go?

 

They gave quick on banners which is a band aid fix. Can we ever get alac when you put full quick uptime on core Warrior? Can we ever heal when you make banners clog up the skill bar? Can we adapt to more mobile fights when you’ve dumped all our support potential into these immobile flags? Warrior is floating along, for now. There are elephants in the room that Anet should cover.

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

2 minutes ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

I’m happy to see so much excitement over the build potential after this patch. It does feel like half the conversation though without the balance philosophy blog post we’re still waiting on.

What is the end goal for Anet? What part of balance are they satisfied with? Where do they want to improve? These are important answers to frame balance patches like these.

 

In particular, I’ve played warrior since launch and have felt like the profession is lacking in many areas. Our support options are few. Our traitlines could use some retouching. Our non-banner core utilities are a total joke. Where is Warrior supposed to go?

 

They gave quick on banners which is a band aid fix. Can we ever get alac when you put full quick uptime on core Warrior? Can we ever heal when you make banners clog up the skill bar? Can we adapt to more mobile fights when you’ve dumped all our support potential into these immobile flags? Warrior is floating along, for now. There are elephants in the room that Anet should cover.

 

 

This 1000% .  If there is no philosophy, then it is just haphazard.  This is what every balance path has always felt like, tweaks here and there with no direction.  Over time this has the caused PvE to suffer but no doubt PvP and WvW as well.  I remember the same thing that there was supposed to be a balance philosophy post.  Once you have a core, foundation to work from them, then everything else flows much easier from there.   

I remember some very early gameplay videos of GW2 and they were talking about the combat, and it felt logical.  You had big slow damage AOEs, you had combo fields, you needed to synergize with your friends to do the maximum damage and effect, you had trade offs etc. 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Elementalist staff and dagger buffs are very nice, but staff needs projectile speed increase or better hitbox detection for pretty much every projectile skill including weaver dual skills. Also a lot of ele utilities still need some attention.

[Joswi.2635]

Love all the ele changes. Definitely good for it. The way tempest provides alacrity still needs to be changed up somehow though, the end of an overload still doesn't feel good. And now with these changes they are giving up on even more damage to do it in a dps/alac role. But overall great changes to ele and really looking forward to this!

[BATMAN.6794]

• Mantra of Liberation: Ammunition reduced from 3 to 2 in PvE and WvW. Recharge increased from 25 seconds to 45 seconds.
• I think it's ok to test the ammo count on this skill, but the recharge doubling is overkill and should be revisited. I'd suggest leaving the recharge at 25, and if in the future you are not happy with the results, then at that point increase the recharge slowly, try 30-35 seconds. If you want to go the other route, bring back 3 ammo count and just change the recharge to 35 seconds, and if the desired effect isn't enough, increase that in the future. Pick 1 of those routes and I think you'll end up with less mad people and a better understanding of which route feels better, if you don't like 1 of them you can always go the other way the next patch.