August 23 Balance Update Preview

[Kaladel.1670]

27 minutes ago, Camniel.7238 said:

Unless I'm quite mistaken, there's a difference between Power Coefficients and Damage Multiplier modifications. If I'm understanding things right, Necro Staff is having both is power and its condi damage boosted by these changes.

Not sure that's how condi work. As far as I know, base condi damages are always the same for a given duration and stack. For instance, 2 Bleed over 6s will always do the same damages regardless of profession or weapon for two characters with the same gear and no specific mechanic (like traits or signets, for instance) affecting them.

 

[Luna.6203]

On 8/11/2022 at 4:59 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Multiple stored uses of on-demand stun break and stability have made Firebrand mandatory in Fractals, Strike Missions, raids, and even WvW.

even WvW ? Its just WvW where firebrand is mandatory because of MoL. Firebrand is not mandatory in fractals, strikes and raids because of MoL.. Firebrand in pve using feel my wrath.

Anyway I wish there would be at least true shot movement change. That would give me some excitement. Its really depressing seeing only nerfs each path because of one powerful specialization while all others are unplaybale. Both power DH and power willy are bad and non-viable. Condi willy underperforming as well. Alac willy is inconsistent and non-viable.

Every patch when i scroll to guardian with some excitement.. "lets see whats new for my main profession!" it like this:
Guardian:
Firebrand is still OP lets nerf it more..
Thats all folks.. next ☹️

...

I guess greatsword boost is nice. But staff damage in pve ? Why not but who cares ? Feel like youre wasting your developers time with things that arent issues. Like signet rework... what was the point they are used same way. Nothing chaged..

DH specialization comes with longbow. I think longbow should be boosted in pve to the point where its main weapon for DH not just open world meme toy. Like other specializations comes with specific weapon they actually using it most of the time.

Willbender needs more power damage in pve. Maybe look at one handed swords. Alac willbender that cant generate alac when there is nothing to hit. And even if there is you have to hit like crazy to keep it up. Give condi willbender some compensation for damage nerf in last patch which was obviously intended to nerf firebrand.

I mean i can understand firebrand nerf but please give us something else than just that firebrand nerfs. Its really sad at this point and gives me nothing to look forward. 😢

[YTNyxBloom.7568]

Warrior changes look nice! ty anet!

[Spatula.5136]

I'm all for shaking up the WvW meta, but reducing stab access for guardian is not the answer. Please give us more options for WvW stability access either on druid or tempest or literally any other class. I'm glad Throw Mine is getting buffed but that's because I main engineer and love using it to strip, but the same can be said for boon strip access- we need more of it to help shake up the stale WvW meta that hasn't changed much in years. 

[KoalaCorpse.3529]

It constantly feels ironic to me that the devs care so little about WvW - that's the only game mode where guilds are actually fighting one another. In a game called Guild Wars. Shouldn't it be way higher priority? The balance there has been awful for years and the last "big patch" made things even worse. And now this?

[Voraxen.2035]

On 8/12/2022 at 6:17 PM, cobracommander.5861 said:

What a joke lol. Wvw is gw2 endgame and the gamemode is dead they don’t care. More golem dps balancing, no creativity just changing some numbers and decimals to achieve golem number. Sad. 

 

No new spvp content since 2019.

[pallas.8150]

3 hours ago, Luna.6203 said:

 

Every patch when i scroll to guardian with some excitement.. "lets see whats new for my main profession!" it like this:
Guardian:
Firebrand is still OP lets nerf it more..
Thats all folks.. next ☹️

 

Honestly, Firebrand should have been dealt with YEARS ago in terms of how OP/ overtuned it is, performance-wise.

Look at it less as them nerfing it and more as them FINALLY starting to bring it into line with every other single specialization. Don't worry, though, it still continues to dominate - and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by pallas.8150

[Farwind.8016]

Will this change to Throw Mines fix the current bug when the trait Gadgeteer is selected?

Throw Mines has a corresponding underwater skill called Deploy Mines, and the two skills have a different damage coefficient. Throw Mines has a coefficient of 2, and Deploy Mines has a coefficient of 1.65

 

If you take the Tools traitline, there is a trait called Gadgeteer, which modified Throw Mines to drop a second mine at your feet. Both of these mines, when traited, use the Deploy Mine coefficient of 1.65 rather than the Throw Mines coefficient of 2.

 

When you fix Throw Mines, could you guys also fix the Gadgeteer trait so the mines have the correct coefficient of 3? As an aside, would you guys also buff Deploy Mines to match the Throw Mines coefficient?

 

Thank you.

[EnryVas.1036]

Nice, all good, but wgy you don't fix also other game mode? actually WvW it's frozen to the usual old builds, always the same, Firebrand, scrapper, scourge, herald, dragonhunter, few like tempest (IMO one of the best support) and none, none even look at Specter or Viundicator (two of the most fun and interesting profession) so please try to give us more variety make also other profession viable just to break the old boring sacred squad composition, please....

[Luna.6203]

21 minutes ago, pallas.8150 said:

Honestly, Firebrand should have been dealt with YEARS ago in terms of how OP/ overtuned it is, performance-wise.

Look at it less as them nerfing it and more as them FINALLY starting to bring it into line with every other single specialization. Don't worry, though, it still continues to dominate - and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

No offence. But if youve read whole post its pretty obvious that im not worried about firebrand at all.
In fact..
It wont affect firebrand performance in pve in any way since as i said firebrand dont even use MoL in pve.. Despite of that they talk about fractals, strikes and raids this is pure WvW nerf and it will hurt ppl around firebrand more than firebrand itself. Enjoy..

And if they put other supports more in line thats good thing.. thats whole point of balance isnt it? Im not against it im up for it.

I just wanted to point out that guardian is not only firebrand.

[Arolandis.8360]

No no no no no NO.

Do NOT nerf Firebrand's elite mantra in WvW. That is just so freakin' unnecessary.

You guys have GOT to stop with nerfs. These classes are performing great, and that's a GOOD thing. The problem is that other classes have basically NO stability. So the answer here isn't to nerf Firebrand kitten, it's to give other classes more stability. Why should a Firebrand player be punished, here? It doesn't even need to be on every class. Just add more of it to Elementalist's earth abilities/traits. Druid's Glyphs (like you did here, but only for PVE?...and yet you're nerfing FB in WvW in a PVE patch?), and a couple other classes that the boon would make sense on.

I can see how your philosophy as devs, looking at every class as a whole, can think "oh well it'll make more sense to remove a little here and add a little there", but all that does is create more problems. DON'T nerf things that perform well. As someone here mentioned earlier that makes the class a success. So you're trying to make them fail more so that other classes can compete, WHICH DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT GIVING THE OTHER CLASSES THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO ALSO BE A SUCCESS.

When you're an actual player being punished all the time with unnecessary nerfs it makes situations like the june 28th patch. So STOP it already.

Imagine yourself as a player that logs on and hops into WvW. There's not a huge group of people on yet but there's some good 15 vs 15ish fights in some places. Someone tags up, and the squad starts forming. Since people are going to play what they want to play, you have a squad with just one or two firebrands, maybe a tempest, a druid (I guess), and say, a support vindicator. The rest are ranged dps'es. What good is nerfing Firebrand's elite mantra do here, practically? Did it somehow make the druid, tempest, and vindicator more useful?

NO.

Is the firebrand player going to be annoyed with nerfs and play something else?

PROBABLY.

So just leave firebrands and scrappers and other good builds alone and start giving other classes what they need SO THEY CAN ALSO BE GOOD.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Arolandis.8360

[loofah.3472]

Anet, I just wanted to say thank you for all the research, development, and math that went into all of these. Too many people act like they know more they do when it comes to game design and development and, frankly, I find it exhausting. 

 

I'm sorry you guys all get swamped with instant negative feedback on every single post... The internet used to be a much kinder place. 

 

Just know that the majority of us appreciate all the work you do. My wife and I are both very excited for this patch, you answered an enormous amount of our frustrations in PvE (also, Idk why everyone is bent out of shape about this being heavily PvE - that's where the vast majority of the game content and players actually are...).

 

Thank you, Anet! 

[eXistence.3876]

On 8/13/2022 at 4:27 PM, gsharkboy.1958 said:

Did Heal Scrapper need the nerf to the engineer healing tools?  Honest question.

Was wondering the same thing. Doesn't seem strong at all currently..

[pallas.8150]

1 hour ago, Luna.6203 said:

 

It wont affect firebrand performance in pve in any way since as i said firebrand dont even use MoL in pve.. Despite of that they talk about fractals, strikes and raids this is pure WvW nerf and it will hurt ppl around firebrand more than firebrand itself. Enjoy..

 

Actually, most of my time is spent in WvW and PvP, so yes - I'm going to enjoy the change. Thanks!

[Soilder.3607]

WvW Perspective

 

One Firebrand per 5 man group in a squad is still going to be mandatory even with the nerf to Mantra of Liberation simply because no other class can give group stab like Firebrand can. Not that I agree with the nerf. Nerfing stab too much will lead to a pirate ship meta because squads won't be able to push into melee range without getting CC'd to death. I don't believe the nerf to Mantra of Liberation alone will lead us to a pirate ship meta because the skill was never a source of hard stab like Stand your Ground is, but it still isn't the right move IMO.

 

The only way to replace Firebrand in a squad is to either give some other elite spec tons of group stab or to distribute group stab between multiple support specs, i.e to Tempest/Scrapper/Vindicator/Druid/Chronomancer, and with enough uptime so that two of them can maintain group stab for a party of 5.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Soilder.3607

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

to all ##### who think FB will get less important in Wvw by some stab nerfing... we'll likely rather run two firebrands than replace it with meme healer roleplayer classes

 

this change should really not go live. some ppl said yet, it mostly hurts those who a FB should support

 

how about finally giving every singe cc in the game + 1000% cooldown time? why wasn't that done directly with cc dmg removal? why wasn't that done with dmg nerfs and overall cd rising?

the responsible people for wvw balance literally pile up the sh#t and think we'll enjoy it or what?

like your job is to make the game better, yet it just gets more tedious.

[Kuma.1503]

4 hours ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

to all ##### who think FB will get less important in Wvw by some stab nerfing... we'll likely rather run two firebrands than replace it with meme healer roleplayer classes

 

this change should really not go live. some ppl said yet, it mostly hurts those who a FB should support

 

how about finally giving every singe cc in the game + 1000% cooldown time? why wasn't that done directly with cc dmg removal? why wasn't that done with dmg nerfs and overall cd rising?

the responsible people for wvw balance literally pile up the sh#t and think we'll enjoy it or what?

like your job is to make the game better, yet it just gets more tedious.

The problem isn't that they removed some Stab from firebrand. Its monopoly over the boon was a problem that needed to be addressed. Part of what allowed it to maintain that monopoly was that it was also a necessary evil in order to prevent zerg fights from becoming unplayable in melee range. Without stab, range is the only way to get any meaningful work done in zergs. Otherwise you run into a wall of stuns, dazes, knockdowns, knockbacks, shocking aura, ect. 

That makes it especially confusing why the addition of stab and aegis onto other classes was implimented into PvE only. 

And beyond that, there's another problem that remains unaddressed. The design of other supports (arguably even HAM) just isn't able to compete with the design of firebrand. No amount of coefficient shifting will change that. Even if Tempest shouts were granted stab and aegis in WvW as well, one stack every 30 seconds is nothing compared to tome of courage and stand your ground. 

Firebrand gets stability without having to sacrifice a utility slot, and when it does, its stab utilities are so much more powerful. 

Utimiately, slapping boons onto underplayed classes and raising coefficients isn't enough. There need to be some serious reworks done and consideration into HOW classes perform their desired role. 

Until that happens, Firebrand will remain the top support in PvE and WvW. Until significant changes are made, every support will be judged, not just based on what they bring to the table, but on how well they synergize with FB. 

We've had several metas come and go, with supports leaving and entering the meta, but no matter what, whether it's Renegade + Firebrand, Scourge + FB, or Mech + FB. Firebrand just does things so much better than every other support, and until serious work is done to other supports, or until FB is nerfed into near unplayability like it was in PvP, that wont realistically change. 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Jokuc.3478]

Most of these changes are good! 

 

I think the FB stability getting nerfed is not the way to go, just give tempest a powerful stability utility skill or something.

 

More importantly, the nerf to Axe on Mirage is BAD. Nerfing might on the staff is whatever (though it's kind of sad for open world solo players), but Axe did not need to get nerfed. It's like ANet doesn't understand fundamentals and just look at Soulless Horror speed kills on youtube and say "woah that's big numbers, nerf". Mirage is mainly only used on a couple specific bosses. It doesn't have the bursty  dmg of some other condi classes like firebrand and cvirt. Axe is really hard to use and it takes a huge amount of practice to pull it off. Most players, even those who do end game content regularly can't get anywhere near peak numbers on actual encounters. Not to mention mech does pretty much the same thing with minimal effort. If mirage ends up doing similar damage to virtuoso, why would you play it? You wouldn't.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Jokuc.3478

[Jin Seinochi.2347]

On 8/13/2022 at 10:17 AM, Sparky.3672 said:

Dang! Damned if you do, damned if you don't! Guys I understand the critiques but ANET seems to be listening! And let's be honest, we have NO IDEA how much time, and manpower it takes to make these changes. If you make one change to a trait, it may get the desired effect on an overpowered combination of stats, weapons, runes and sigils, but for the other 98% of possible combinations of build, it could completely make it unusable. They can't do everything at once. I'm sure the engi nerfs are coming. They finally nerfed FB, they are listening. Give some praise here, and be respectful with the critiques. Imagine you had a chance to say this stuff to their faces, and not just typing behind a screen. ANET thanks for the updates. 

Them listening is exactly why Warrior, Elementalist, and so much more are going to be viable some time in the next century, just wait for it!

[Ensity.2164]

13 hours ago, Caliboom.3218 said:

Maybe be patient because they can't patch two gamemodes at once without making things more chaotic? It's better to wait for a higher quality patch for your gamemode than rushing some balance changes that end up being crap. Also, some of the stuff in this patch was necessary. And, big surprise, the gamemode with the most players is the one getting the most attention. Because that's the way it should be.

Many years passed and waiting changes for wvw.One more time after beta alliance realeased we saw many bugs again and not solved many issues as before.They making chaotic things...It is supposed to be pve changes and silently touching and wvw.

[Artificer.3468]

Liking a lot of these changes.

 

Reaper buffs really might not change much overall. 

 

I would be more hype about staff buffs if it didnt feel like an auto attack and then the same skill 4 times but I dont know what else can even be done about that without a major shake up. 

 

Looking forward to October. 

 

 

[feeper.5287]

Loving the early preview! I think it would be cool to have Full Counter be more entwined in the Spellbreaker kit/rotation as the spec still feels kind of out of place in instanced PvE. Maybe it could reduce or reset the cooldown of Magebane thether if it successfully hits or extends boon duration on allies. Something to allow for a higher skill ceiling but not mandatory would be sick and it would make Full Counter feel more worthwhile!

Regardless excited for the patch 🙂

[Sploogesque.2801]

Removing might from FB, and Mech is also very bad, as the might that was given to replace these, aren't even close to meta uses. Please revert.

[aspirine.6852]

I dont understand the mirage changes, but the balance team must see things differently. Lets see.

[Suyheuti.1732]

22 minutes ago, aspirine.6852 said:

I dont understand the mirage changes, but the balance team must see things differently. Lets see.

 

I tell you why. At several raid bosses, staxe mirage performs too way damage with alacrity. Then they decided to put mirage into the casket completely instead of nerfing only staxe. 

After patch, they will see noone will play with mirage and they will decide to buff again after couple months. This is the way how anet balances. 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Suyheuti.1732