August 23 Balance Update Preview

[Tammuz.7361]

On 8/12/2022 at 6:19 PM, Double Tap said:

Quick clarification:

Previously, we included a change to the Dragonhunter skill "True Shot" that would allow you to move at 50% speed while channeling. The True Shot movement change won't be releasing on August 23rd - the release note was included here erroneously and has since been removed.

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.

Apologies for any confusion!

DH needs a Major NERF in WvW at the moment.  It is the reason that people cant get to mele range currently.  You nerfed the rest of range damage but seem to have forgotten DH.

 

Currently the meta is: FB, Scrapper, DH and Scourge... (with a party running FB + Scrapper + DH + Scourge + (either DH or Scourge as 5th spot).  Maybe 1 or 2 really good Catalysts in a big blob to cast the double meteor shower.  Revs and warriors are out of the meta entirely.

 

At least with old metas before ranged DPS nerf you had choices of classes you could play for ranged DPS.  Either undo the nerf OR finish making mele viable by bringing DH down to level with the other ranged classes.

 

Please also re-consider the MoL nerf on FB.  This will make the current meta even worse not better.

 

Getting this patch right is especially critical since you are planning on releasing on Steam same day.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Tammuz.7361

[gyurivaze.9527]

Hi,

More base alac for mesmer/thief wells pls. WE dont want to go with 4 wells.

More source of stability. (Ranger pets? would be cool to see more kind of pets)

 

Bit still its AWSOME.

[Kaenaydar.5631]

16 hours ago, Heibi.4251 said:

I noticed that Ranger is the only class missing from the list at the top of the page. Also, not a single ranger weapon got a damage boost.

Too busy nerfing us rangers again i am a longbow/hammer Untamed main and seems like every patch we rangers get beat on more and more. Anets logic seems to be lets buff everything else but nerf the rangers so they have a harder time in group content. I guess every game needs a screwed over class and Ranger is it here.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Kaenaydar.5631

[jinn.6392]

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

Magebane Tether: (PvE only) Damage bonus to tethered target increased from 10% to 15%. Might stacks per second reduced from 3 to 1, but they are now applied to up to 5 allied targets within a range of 360.

Most of the changes seem to make sense, but this one kind of bothers me. It severely limits the synergy with other warrior traits. Namely:

Phalanx strength. Currently, when used with magebane tether, it grants 120 seconds of might to each nearby ally. (3 stacks, 5 seconds, 8 pulses). After the change, it grants 64 seconds baseline to each ally, and 104 seconds when traited with phalanx strength. That's definitely a nerf, especially when you consider that the self-might has been reduced by 2/3.

Mending Might. In a group setting, when combined with phalanx strength, it currently does 9,936 self-healing. Now, it can only do 6,072 healing max. That's a 1/3 nerf to self-healing.

Might Makes Right. Right now, it does 3192 healing and restores 1 dodge worth of endurance. If you modify the trait, then that's an instant 2/3 nerf. That really cripples self-sustain, especially solo.

 

It appears that this particular change is designed to increase spellbreaker's ability to provide group support while still in a dps role. Unfortunately, it looks like these changes are to the detriment of pure support spellbreaker builds, and also to the detriment of solo spellbreaker builds.

Perhaps most worryingly, the magebane tether represents perhaps the single most powerful* method for triggering Might Makes Right. The removal of that synergy makes me concerned for the future of warrior self-might, and the solo survivability benefits that come with it.

 

* Also Superior Rune of Rata Sum, Aristocracy + Body Blow, Shield Master + Shield Stance, Forceful Greatsword, Superior Sigil of Strength

 

Afterthough: Thanks for putting out the update notes in advance. Much appreciated.

[prototypedragon.1406]

When shall the day come when the Warrior Hammer BURST SKILL EARTHSHAKER  is actually a BURST in world versus world instead of a TICKLE SKILL? I mean sure if a enemy has stability and the stun hits them, they shall just laugh at ya but I mean it's a hammer right? I mean if they give warrior a piece of paper it would still be more dangerous then a great hammer. I'm sure that hammer guardian, catalyst, and the new ranger would agree. And if the concerns are because of the potential damage nerf the ferocity not the power, using a hammer against someone with protection boon  coupled with classes having more consistent applications of weakness, already a 7 year war as it is  let alone needing to wait it out or somehow knock out 3 to 5 stacks of stability if one is rocking pure boon duration.😂 Sure as a spellbreaker and a few sigils you can remove a few boons but that pretty much it. Heck even making hammer skills and the f1s that do CC that do a solid 1000 damage baseline negating protection would at least make the Hammer feel like they actually are worth something at all. It's quite sad that a scrapper engineer gets more use out of a hammer then heavy armored classes such as warrior or guardian. But if at anything across all the classes at least make it feel like the hammer does something if anything with the cc skills. the utility cc could stick to the20 damage if anet can't part with it. Or make it that hammer skill CC's remove 2 stacks of stab per cc which less face that it won't help either. But at least making the weapons provide more damage through their actual weapon skills then they may at least get more use rather than just being used as a place for one to hang up their coats at the end of the day or on a dusty rusted mantle that is covered with moths hungry for the next coat to feast upon.

 

[Lily.1935]

I feel I need to add something because not all of the necromancer weapons were touched that still need it.

Warhorn's cooldown of 30 seconds is pretty steep along with its slow activation time for its fear. Even if you don't cut this for PvP and WvW(Which I still believe you should) This should have its cast time reduced to 1/2 a second and both skills dropped from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

Axe's Auto attack is still busted on Female characters with a very awkward animation and its damage might prove much too low when trying to compete with Staff now. Ironically I'm asking for axe buffs. But even if that's not happening at least fix the animation. I swear I've been talking about this problem for... 7 years now? YEAH it still bothers me!

Last request.... Could you make Harpoon gun, Spear and Trident usable on land for all existing kits too? I just look at Trident and how amazing of a weapon it is on necromancer and desperately want to use it on land with its abilities adjusted appropriately of course.

[Peregrine Falcon.5496]

On 8/13/2022 at 5:16 AM, Loke.1429 said:

Meteor shower 

Meteor Shower is an AoE. True Shot, which is the skill that the dev I was quoting referred to, isn't.

Try again. Name one single-target, high damage skill that a class has that forces the character to be locked in place for 1-2 seconds.

[Loke.1429]

27 minutes ago, Peregrine Falcon.5496 said:

Meteor Shower is an AoE. True Shot, which is the skill that the dev I was quoting referred to, isn't.

Try again. Name one single-target, high damage skill that a class has that forces the character to be locked in place for 1-2 seconds.

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.

I'd switch True Shot specs for Pile Driver any day.

For completeness: Meteor Shower (cd 30sec, range 1200, radius 360) is a 3.75sec channel with a wvw damage coeff of  0.88 (on 24 individual hits with target cap 3, where each consecutive hit on a player reduces damage 10%, so total dmg coeff 3.792 in the absurdly unlikely theoretical that all hit same player).

Edited August 16, 2022 by Loke.1429

[Gorem.8104]

12 hours ago, khawki.4205 said:

This is amazing, I'd love seeing spellbreaker in PvE! However, I'd slightly cut the cooldown on this trait. As it is now, you can't get it again as soon as it ends, meaning you have to "feel" when you can use burst skill to get this buff. Annyoing as hell!

Warrior, annoying to play in gw2? Who'd have thought... 

Oh Anet, one day, one day I hope to be as strong as we were and as fun to play as at back at launch. 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[FreshF.5793]

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

stability

When you Change durations on stability and add it on skills, please also adjust the trait "Rock Solid" from ele.

 

Im working on a heal-quickness-catalyst with staff. 

But 2 seconds base duration on Stab is simply NOT long enough, when you want to switch a lot between attunements to give boons and heal.

 

Increase it also to 5 seconds and we are happy 🙂

 

[anjo.6143]

"Firebrand and healing Mechanist are currently dominating group compositions. "

Are you balancing based on bronze/silver player database ?

edit: nvm, this kitten is for pve, yikes

Edited August 17, 2022 by anjo.6143

[Sondergaard.8469]

Just some thoughts here that I hope you'll consider. 

Necromancer: 

Signet of Spite - Consider giving the active something that's more fitting for a power build. The signet is passive power, so why is it all condition based when active?

Engineer:

While I understand wanting to tune the power of the new Elite spec, I feel like cutting all of its shielding in half is the wrong direction here.

If the goal is to make room for other support roles, is there a compromise that can be made here, where the shielding on the player remains the same, or close to it, but the support shielding to allies is reduced to match what you've outlined in these notes? This will accomplish the goal of reducing the GROUP effectiveness, while not demolishing the "solo" capabilities of the class while running around doing open world content and such.

As someone who was around for the beta of GW1 and followed you guys into GW2, it's really painful to find a class/build I enjoy playing a lot, and then see it nerfed through the floor to the point I can't even get basic content done. I understand the need for balance, and making adjustments to that end, but you tend to be very heavy handed in this regard and from what I'm seeing here related to Mechanist, this time is no different.

This happened with my reaper build, and I actually did quit the game for a while. I came back, tried out Daredevil and found a build that was viable like the reaper, then it too got nerfed to the point I could no longer even 1v1 trash mobs in open world zones, so I took a break again.  I came back for this expansion and have been enjoying the Mechanist. Please do not do this to me again.

Please consider players like me, who primarily enjoy just running around and participating in open world content, experiencing the story, and exploration. PvE isn't supposed to be a competitive elitist space where I have to worry about min-maxing my build to be able to even survive. You contradict your goals here by making this elite spec practically obsolete when you claim you want them all to be viable.

In the end though, I guess all that's left for me is to hope you will reconsider and wait and see. These changes are likely to cripple a class I've come to enjoy. If that does end up being the case, I will likely move on from this game. It seems it's moving in a direction that's trying to leave players like me behind.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Sondergaard.8469

[Mike.7983]

Calling on arena net to answer why mech is so overtuned and being represented anywhere you go, you cant turn around without seeing 5+ at a time, every EoD strike has been least 50% or 5/10 mechs, pvp mech wvw mech.  You know the class is way way way overtuned when it turns into mech wars 2 and this is not gonna go well for steam release. Asking to gut mech down to normal values as no class should auto 30k and be so versatile with boons that it has turned into Firebrand  2.0.  May as well delete any class that isnt a mech now as your considered trolling for bringing anything else considered inferior aka vindicator , elementalist elites and so on.

[Deepcuts.9740]

No clue why anet would think HAM's might generation needs a nerf.

As a main Druid, I always felt might generation on HAM is a joke.

[prototypedragon.1406]

Can we get plunger skins for hammers and maces for world versus world? So the cc damage they do would match them thematically?🤔

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

11 hours ago, 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.

I'd switch True Shot specs for Pile Driver any day.

For completeness: Meteor Shower (cd 30sec, range 1200, radius 360) is a 3.75sec channel with a wvw damage coeff of  0.88 (on 24 individual hits with target cap 3, where each consecutive hit on a player reduces damage 10%, so total dmg coeff 3.792 in the absurdly unlikely theoretical that all hit same player).

To this day, I still question why A-net have made True Shot into 1.5k range skill...

[Kodama.6453]

12 hours ago, Peregrine Falcon.5496 said:

Meteor Shower is an AoE. True Shot, which is the skill that the dev I was quoting referred to, isn't.

Try again. Name one single-target, high damage skill that a class has that forces the character to be locked in place for 1-2 seconds.

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).

 

[kurosy.1384]

Well overall it sounds the right direction and i'm happy of anet acknowledging the strong unbalance of supports! As ele main my philosophy has become "anything is better than nothing" xDD and i'm looking foreward to test all the new improvements.

But despite the good direction i still feel we're not quite to the point and above all i'm scared about this summer balance patches being una tantum and thus getting stuck with a very unbalanced situation for months to come!
- For example last patch Chrono damage tweak... wasn't just enough for a class that ramps up slowly, relies on a long cd burst and looses it all when its target dies. I wonder if Anet will ever go back tweaking its damage anytime soon.

Utility and lack of compromise are two huge factors that keep some classes top of the others while making others viable but unwelcomed into lfg, underperforming or underwhelming to the point that it feels like you're crippling your squad by choosing to play them!

- Quick catalyst is one of these cases, falling into its grave from the "meta-defining" position he supposedly had. Even Snowcrows has just removed that build for good. And also its full dps version is underperforming hugely in real scenarios. I feel like the 37k benchmark in SC is pure fantasy. I saw very good players getting around 22k on bosses where the cata is a good choice.

- Speaking of compromising, Tempest has a lot of them. Even picking the new "eye of the storm" will be a compromise since it's the only shout without any aura on it. (Btw, consider giving 2 stacks of stab at least 😕 same for poor druid). I'm very fine with compromises if all the classes walk on the same road, which atm isn't the case. Pls Anet decide if you want compromise or not and work on things according to your decision!

Side note: i know this was a pve only patch but pls consider extending tempest shouts changes to wvw also. It could really mean a lot for the place support Tempests are atm.

Edited August 17, 2022 by kurosy.1384

[Suyheuti.1732]

18 hours ago, Karras.2945 said:

Mesmer

Don't know why you would nerf axe Mirage in PvE only because that's where torment performs well unlike in PvP and WvW. Then again, the nerfs are so minimal that I doubt it would make any difference.

 

 

I ve stopped reading after I read mesmer comment.

"You doubt it would make any difference." This is unsense argument, you dont have any idea about mirage, do you?

Noone complained about "Lingering Thoughts" because this is the skill which is used mostly to generate clones. But "Imaginary Axes" no. This is main dps source of axe mirage. Axe mirage is rarely used in these times anyway. Now this will make mirage as unused profession after the patch.

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, 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).

 

Yeah between the two I'd say the Kill Shot needs it's root removed first. Been around longer in that sorry state.

[fototo.7306]

I figured I'd post some rambling thoughts of an ele enjoyer on the state of ele post patch. Yelling into the void at this point.

Update overall:
kind of puzzling, sceptre was core eles best main hand power weapon, got condi coeffs buffed; and dagger was the go to ele condi main hand, which got its power coeffs buffed. Tempest got stab on a stunbreak skill and power staff was almost entirely unaffected.. 
but eh, buffs are buffs I guess.

Tempest:
heal alac tempest is now an incredibly solid build with the ability to give itself stab mid overload, share aegis along side already being able to extend boons and rebound. I'm kind of excited to play this build in fractals.
Condi alac tempest doesnt seem to hit as hard as the other alac sources and its a bit disappointing that the tempest buff was entirely just transcendent tempest since it competes with lucid singularity. I was hoping the singularity recharge reduction part of it would be split into a different trait since the rest of the tempest trait line is essentially free of any dps picks. That said it's still quite strong as an alac provider that can do perma might prot and boon extension. Power tempest is still very hitbox reliant and frankly not very good, but condi tempest should be playable post patch..

Weaver:
Power weaver is still a bit weak compared to other power classes like soulbeast and virtuoso, the dps buffs were to ride the lightning and auto attacks, I'd have preferred literally every other skill being buffed because that would improve the burst of the class , making it a bit more competitive. Sword condi weaver is still reeling after targetted nerfs (to cauterising strike and searing slash) along side general condi weaver nerfs (prim stance, sunspot and more recently signet of fire). Could do with a little more damage. Dagger cweaver is in a rather strong spot as a situational dps class near the top of the dps charts, frankly where it should be, given the amount of asterisks it comes with. Sceptre cweaver looks exciting and could be the new beginner freindly weave self weaver. a bunch of funny hybrid ideas were being looked at with the dagger coeff changes but I dont know if it'll come to fruition yet.

 

Catalyst.

Power catalyst is a "power build" with no burst to speak of, and a long ramp instead. It's in an okay spot, but it could be better and more competitive with other condi classes given the dps graph.. A small amount of cdr on the 20 second cd skills alongside another extension to EE duration would make the rotation a lot more forgiving. Despite being the 6th iteration of catalyst it still has the same issue as beta 2 where standing inside the hitbox and letting the orbs multihit leads to significantly different dps, even when the orb damage was tuned to 0 because of the condi applications and the energy generation. Honestly I think the orbs should just be long duration primordial stance at this point.  Quickness catalyst is basically just unplayable considering how incredibly little it does. The best build ive seen so far is a mediocre damage hybrid build that relies on the orbs multi hitting to apply a silly amount of condis, still rather underwhelming, without even considering the fact that it doesnt have any utility at all outside of quickness and resistance application. The -10% modifier hurts it way too much, compared to a class like fb where you can take 2 full dps fbs change traits and one util slot and have more than enough quickness for 5 people. It doesnt help that you only have 1 source of quickness, which if people miss, they'd have to live without quickness for more than 10 seconds. Maybe now that you need to sacrifice your first 3 children to the god of war to be able to give quickness, we can go back to 5 second spheres again.







Completely unrelated, the fractal potion changes are terribad, please being back precsion (or atleast an offensive power stat ) to the mist offensive potion and also put exposed back at 50/50. Right now exposed is basically useless and might as well not exist.

thnxbye

Edited August 17, 2022 by fototo.7306

[InBedWithMySelf.8632]

On 8/13/2022 at 2:18 AM, JoeBanane.1476 said:

While i appreciate the ele changes for the most part, are there any plans to fix the hammer orb skills for catalyst at some point?

 

This bug breaks catalyst on every encounter that has an invulnerable target or any sort of projectile denial as the orbs just disappear and prevents the usage of Grand Finale and energy generation from their passive hits.

Yea I got to admit, I feel like this bug is so off of people's radar, I don't understand how practically no one who plays catalyst mentions this, It's a -->>MASSIVE<<-- bug, and gets triggers by everything almost. like "joebanane" mentioned, invulnerability, projectile block/reflect, but also reflect auras, some PROP type enemies like the dragon bosses on harvest temple, adina's hands and some open world stuff for sure, it gets absorbed by blocks, by aegis, by almost everything. (INCLUDING WvW and PvP of course)
I think the best way to deal with it is to just change the way the orbs are treated, just make them not behave like normal projectiles.

As a side note there are a lot of things that finally brought light to my eyes in this patch. Even though some implementations are not quite spot on. You might see mirages getting their axes nerfed for no reason, and the damage on PVE staff Elementalist still needs to be increased by TONS to be anywhere near viable, the general vision of what arena net is trying to do is finally starting to make sense. Not only in theory, but in practice too, to and EXTENT.
I also noticed some devs engaging in conversation in the snowcrows discord which I think is probably the best decision arena net has made ever, lol. Communication with players that actually play the game is how this game will be fixed, not by guessing what the problems are from a developer's perspective without playing the game.

[InBedWithMySelf.8632]

1 hour ago, fototo.7306 said:

Completely unrelated, the fractal potion changes are terribad, please being back precsion (or atleast an offensive power stat ) to the mist offensive potion and also put exposed back at 50/50. Right now exposed is basically useless and might as well not exist.

thnxbye

The entire post was very true, and shows understanding towards the class that so many people overlook. Good job on that.

About the fractal potions, I don't know how else to break it down but, you are so far into wrong-ville. Crit on fractal potions made no sense at all and made it so you have different builds for fractals and every other pve content. And the exposed debuff should definitely be equal between condi and power, but increasing it blindly is something that has collateral damage. As if skorvald in 99 cm didn't die fast enough as it is, even with a mere 10% damage modifier. Although not ever boss is skorvald. I think you need to be a bit more careful thoughtful when you blurt out stuff like this, unlike the rest of your post which you clearly put a lot of effort and thought into, and I liked that part of the post much more.

[Angesombre.4630]

The little buff is just for the release on Steam or is it a change in your way of doing things?

[fototo.7306]

40 minutes ago, InBedWithMySelf.8632 said:

The entire post was very true, and shows understanding towards the class that so many people overlook. Good job on that.

About the fractal potions, I don't know how else to break it down but, you are so far into wrong-ville. Crit on fractal potions made no sense at all and made it so you have different builds for fractals and every other pve content.

Thank you , as i said I am an elementalist enjoyer.

nevertheless,
Different builds for different content is something most games (including gw2) contend with, you run different gear for wvw and raids, same concept. It also worked as a nice perk for legendary armour.
 

Even if it was strictly a bad thing, theres so many ways to do it without massively shafting power dps builds, that were built around having 222 AR.

 

43 minutes ago, InBedWithMySelf.8632 said:

 And the exposed debuff should definitely be equal between condi and power, but increasing it blindly is something that has collateral damage. 

It isnt blindly increasing as much as its moving the needle back to when the fractal meta was actually enjoyable. A 10 second long exposed doesnt reward anyone if even decent pugs phase the boss well within that time anyways. You can fiddle with exposed as much as you want but fractal CM fights (with exceptions) are always going to be preferential to bursty classes at the highest level because of how fast the phases are.. The only thing exposed changes did was make it incredibly unrewarding to play meta classes without the rest of the set in pugs, so your average pugs would run completely different compositions to high end groups and there was no real way to progress from the former to the latter irrespective of your personal skill

The change from 30/100 to 10/20 made it significantly worse because this shafted bursty builds even further, and the loss in precision basically  doubled down on the kick in the nuts. The best builds to play, funnily, still are the same bursty power builds (you saw slb+double cata in a skorvald record shortly before the class got nerfed), but it just became completely unfun to play because if you weren't at the tippy top of execution, now you are basically relegated to playing safe "healers carry everything"  compositions that you find in pugs.