August 23 Balance Update Preview

[InBedWithMySelf.8632]

33 minutes ago, fototo.7306 said:

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. 
 

The situation in fractals to be frank, has a bit more issues implemented into it, in most cases design wise. When they increased the condi damage modifier on break-bars to 100% my initial reaction was actually excitement, only to quick learn that these upcoming 9 ~ months of doing fractals are going to be the most depressing I've ever experienced in guild wars ever, mostly because of scourges negating almost every mechanic there (mostly with epidemic) and just making it a living nightmare to join groups. I won't ramble about that though.
Maybe the damage drop had some negative consequences, but this clearly points towards a fundamental issue, and I really don't think it's directly related to break-bar damage modifier. I remember some ideas being raised like, having breakbars purely to negate dangerous boss attacks and CCing the boss, rather than getting a damage increase debuff, but that's honestly a topic in itself.

About the execution thing, on power builds. This was only really true before they nerfed the breakbar damage modifier. Because now I regularly out perform pretty much every condi build, also with the No pain no gain changes (which still suck but at least they're equal across power and condi), actually made it possible to even run power damage in 100 now, but the biggest opportunities to outperform condition builds are definitely the shorter fights, such as old cms. Even on the nerfed catalyst, starting from air attunement, which if someone actually bothered to benchmark it, I can't imagine it even hitting 33K. Even that is enough to just outperform condition builds in old cms. Now I want to emphasize that arenanet's attempt at making condition viable in encounters where they are outperformed on a fundamental and design level, were awful, and they definitely partially fixed that by butchering the defiance bar damage modifier, not without consequences but still.

Also just got to get this off my chest, there's one condi damage class at the moment that, atleast in fractals just outperforms so much by exploiting mistlock singularity, which is specter with the poison prestacking. A condi build that bursts harder than soulbeast in a damage window smaller than 10 seconds, by just clicking 2 buttons pretty much. Yea I definitely think that never should have existed, but it's just one condi class that does this to such an extent. (I feel like I'm going off topic here)

I understand what you're feeling, especially that, from the sound of things, you clearly enjoy playing at peak performance while doing fractals, but the thing with the crit on potions, it's just nonsense, there are 7 billion other better ways to give power builds an edge, and that's just out of the top of my mind.

Anyway yea, for the most part I do feel you.

Edited August 17, 2022 by InBedWithMySelf.8632

[khawki.4205]

18 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

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. 

If you want improvements then suggest them. Saying you had more fun 10 years ago has no way of making impact at current and future state of the game 😉

[Mike.7983]

Entire UI/Names hidden to avoid being flagged/penalty for name shaming anyone, this is just a general idea of what every pve meta has turned into since mech got extreme overpowered buff.  The mech pets/golem rune alone causing massive frame rate dips to since render options does not seem to limit pets.  If they wont nerf mech then give us a toggle to hide there army of minions in pve.

https://ibb.co/qRGNFQW

https://ibb.co/Jc6T73g

Rename game to Mech Wars 2 ^

Edited August 17, 2022 by Mike.7983

[fototo.7306]

1 hour ago, InBedWithMySelf.8632 said:

The situation in fractals to be frank, has a bit more issues implemented into it, in most cases design wise. When they increased the condi damage modifier on break-bars to 100% my initial reaction was actually excitement, only to quick learn that these upcoming 9 ~ months of doing fractals are going to be the most depressing I've ever experienced in guild wars ever, mostly because of scourges negating almost every mechanic there (mostly with epidemic) and just making it a living nightmare to join groups. I won't ramble about that though.

 

That was specifically a scourge issue, even then scourge being so strong made it easier to access higher dps no heal strats for people you weren't flawless enough to execute comps with moa and owp stance sharing.
 

 

1 hour ago, InBedWithMySelf.8632 said:

About the execution thing, on power builds. This was only really true before they nerfed the breakbar damage modifier. Because now I regularly out perform pretty much every condi build, also with the No pain no gain changes (which still suck but at least they're equal across power and condi), actually made it possible to even run power damage in 100 now, but the biggest opportunities to outperform condition builds are definitely the shorter fights, such as old cms. Even on the nerfed catalyst, starting from air attunement, which if someone actually bothered to benchmark it, I can't imagine it even hitting 33K. Even that is enough to just outperform condition builds in old cms. 
 

Thats just not true
when the phases are that short 130% of a class bursting for more than 80k damage is much more than 200% of classes that do 37-40k dps over the same period of time.  What you might notice in your pugs is people picking up newer builds and just being bad at it. I've experienced a lot of that.


air opener 4 sphere cata hits about 35k which is depressing to say the least.

 

Quote

 but the thing with the crit on potions, it's just nonsense, there are 7 billion other better ways to give power builds an edge, and that's just out of the top of my mind.

We can agree to disagree on whether its nonsense or, not but my main gripe is that they did exactly 0 of the 7 billion ways and just gave more vitality. Thats straight up worse than before.

anywhoo this is really off topic at this point 🙂

Edited August 17, 2022 by fototo.7306

[Cal Cohen.2358]

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

[Vova.2640]

Thats good news for wvw . thanks.

[eldrevo.1746]

23 minutes 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

 

cmc is pog

thanks for the update 😄

[Skro.2691]

Thank you for listening to the community feedback regarding MoL. 

[Littlekenny.5174]

34 minutes 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

Thanks for this

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

45 minutes 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

this makes re-suggest the idea  of game mode specific F6-F0 skill bar keys. 

PVE: the slots would be reserved for 

1) race skills (fixes the Rev complaint of having no access to race skills)

2) a collection that unlocks environment / story skills as they are encountered in game. (such as picking up rocks on the ground and equipping skills unique to personal story and story journal)

3) instance -specific skills to deal with balance in the instanced content that don't affect open world content (like fractals, raids, strikes could each have their own selection of F6-F0 skills)

WvW the slots would be reserved for 

1) skills designed to shake up the meta

2) skills designed to fill in mode specific balance issues

PvP could have it's own mode specific skills, too

[FunKCX.4197]

This balance patch was outstanding, keep up with the positive momentum.

 

I personally wished that the balance team could look into and rework the utility skills for Daredevils, because these have been useless for so many years.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

thanks for not taking away stability. it's better this way.

[Ascency.3580]

have anyone noticed, how prior to eod launch, we actually had a relatively good balance in place? (outside of fb being grossly op, as per usual) then after eod, few of the new elite specs were out of tune, as was to be expected. and then instead of tuning them slightly to allow for everyone to enjoy what they like playing they decided to shuffle EVERYTHING so hard there is pretty much no way out now? the classes right now became a blurry mess of names with no meaning behind them. there is no tought when playing. there is no choice to be made if i want to play something difficult, or easy, do i want to deal more dps or support the group. u just press buttons, and get measly rewards after the hp bar drops. i mean. some of the changes made to the actual gameplay made sense on first glance. but right now im actually getting tired and bored, becouse i cant find a class that does something i like, that differentiates it from others. chrono was my main for a long time, it still has that uniqueness compared to anything in any mmo ever, cs and clones themselves are still what defines the class, but the gameplay itself is bland, it has no meaning what i do. i cant support becouse its done passively, i cant dps becouse the numbers got nerfed, i cant buildcraft, becouse there is still basically no choice in traits u either get good ones, or ones that dont make sense. 

ive tried going back to tempest, which was my first main, loved the class, but it struggles in ow kitten. staff is still useless, dps overall is useless, and i doubt the upcomming buffs will be enough to make it not suck.

im wondering if its me actually getting tired of plying, or if its the current issues with balance and design philosophy that is cousing me not wanting to play.

im hoping some of the changes will help a bit, but im afraid its not enough. the major changes done over past few months should be reverted, becouse there simply isnt any real reason to pick any class over other other then which does more dmg or heals better. hope this upcoming patch is just a start and there more good changes coming after. tho im not planning to wait for years for this to maybe happen

Edited August 17, 2022 by Ascency.3580

[Mike.7983]

1 hour 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

So wait the golden child gets a nerf dropped prior to patch while other classes that didn't deserve nerfs aka mirage axe/staff gets the green light? Class balance is so broken right now, you got Firebrand and Mech killing the game and everyone else is a bottom feeder barely holding on.  Firebrand and Mech "Do" need a massive nerf as they are the gold standard with the most overall utility while the rest of us are running near useless classes.  Go run any raid/strike, guarentee least 50-60% are firebrands/mechs.

[Ascency.3580]

also just a reminder. the june 28th patch was supposed to address underused utility skills aswal as other things. i cant remember any underused utility skill getting a meaningul rework, and were still left with fb having most powerful utilities in the game, and also having access to 15 of them at all times pretty much. oh and couple of months back it even got them buffed cos "mantras were to hard to use".

[Grimjack.8130]

41 minutes ago, Mike.7983 said:

So wait the golden child gets a nerf dropped prior to patch while other classes that didn't deserve nerfs aka mirage axe/staff gets the green light? Class balance is so broken right now, you got Firebrand and Mech killing the game and everyone else is a bottom feeder barely holding on.  Firebrand and Mech "Do" need a massive nerf as they are the gold standard with the most overall utility while the rest of us are running near useless classes.  Go run any raid/strike, guarentee least 50-60% are firebrands/mechs.

The change is not happening, not because of not wanting to nerf Guardian and Firebrand, the community and Anet both want FB nerfed, however only if there are replacements added to the game to where the game doesn't devolve into an unfun mess in WvW.

Like CMC said, Guardian will get nerfed, however group stunbreaks and AOE stab need to be added to other specs at the same time, rather than 1 at a time, leaving an awkward and unfun meta inbetween the 2 release cadences.

 

As for PvE, he explicity said "In World Vs World" if you reread the post.

[AshkyLicious.4729]

On 8/17/2022 at 9:25 PM, 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

@Cal Cohen.2358 How about the Mirage nerfs then? Plenty of people on this thread, on the mesmer forum, and on reddit are strongly against the big nerfs that you're about to release for Mirage with the upcoming patch! Are you going to revert these nerfs as well, or are you just ignoring this since Mirage always receives the short end of the stick?

Why do we always get nerfed in the most unfair ways? I really would appreciate an explanation for once from Anet's Balance Team on this matter. Thank you!

Edit:

Please read this thread on reddit for more insight on this matter. The playerbase is actually providing you with great feedback, dont ignore them, just as you didn't ignore the feedback for Firebrand:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/wqsjd3/about_the_mirage_nerfs_and_anets_balace_framework/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Edited August 18, 2022 by AshkyLicious.4729

[neven.3785]

as a WvW Support FB main, i thought the changes to liberation to be a well thought out place to start closing the gap between FB and the other support builds.  I would have much rather see the charges reduced 2, but the charge time remain the same as now.  See how the reduced charges play out and then judge if the changes truly are vs a kneejerk reaction from the fuss queue blobs have put up.  Which imo would still have been a minor nerf considering how much access the standard FB support builds have to stun breaks and stab.

[Suyheuti.1732]

2 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

There are much more bigger concerns in this topic and you decided to bring the table only Guardian, Firabrand? Seriously? 

 

[Mike.7983]

Ever since that Feb update the community has been in a uproar over the changes posted past few months, something needs to give.  Really wish arena net would communicate better with the community on changes and get actual player feedback. Not watch some high profile streamer call a class op and base all nerfs on that alone.  Never has this game been such a unbalanced mess.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Mike.7983

[InBedWithMySelf.8632]

Props to anet on increasing the engagement and communication with the community, as hard as it might be sometimes. If it keeps going like this only good can come of it. It's still a bit of a road ahead though.

[Jimbru.6014]

This is what balance looks like:

- Every class should be able to do roughly the same amount of damage in a full DPS build, WITHOUT having to take piano lessons to keep up with rotations. Power Mechanist is doing 20K-plus while AFK, literally just autoattacking. That's the new standard for minimum DPS without rotations. If you can't/won't give that to every class, then you might as well not talk about balance at all.

- Every class should have a particular set of boons it brings to the table for group content, with no class having a monopoly on any particular boon. Anet seems to be actively working on that, but they're missing an important point...

- Every class should also have roughly equal accessibility to its boons. As opposed to our present situation where Firebrands can basically fart permanent quickness and other boons baked into their skills, but other classes have to jump through all kinds of build hoops with traits, food and gear to get anything close to the same benefits from their own boons. Yeah, I'm still mad about Tempest alacrity being hidden behind overloads in one specific trait that forces you to give up so much else. "OK, this trait will allow Tempests to give alacrity! But only if you take this specific trait, you have to finish overloads so you have to constantly swap elements which adds complexity and means you can't rely on any one set of element related buffs, and you give up your other traits for it. Especially the one that reduces cooldowns on overloads." When you have to give up too much for something, you might as well not even have it. Bah.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Jimbru.6014

[Zoser.7245]

3 hours ago, Grimjack.8130 said:

The change is not happening, not because of not wanting to nerf Guardian and Firebrand, the community and Anet both want FB nerfed, however only if there are replacements added to the game to where the game doesn't devolve into an unfun mess in WvW.

Like CMC said, Guardian will get nerfed, however group stunbreaks and AOE stab need to be added to other specs at the same time, rather than 1 at a time, leaving an awkward and unfun meta inbetween the 2 release cadences.

 

As for PvE, he explicity said "In World Vs World" if you reread the post.

He does not mention nerfs to the core Guardian, it is all about Mantra of Liberation and group and breakstun stability.  WvW has been around long before the Firebrand arrived and there was nothing wrong with not having the Mantra of Liberation when the Firebrand didn't even exist. People get used to it and, if the game already requires little skill with the aids in the skills and the target system, less if you can spam group stability/breakstuns, group barriers, etc. People always get used to what is most comfortable and what requires the least effort and the least skill. It is understandable.  

In the past, they already had problems in WvW with the boon spam and, of course, the stability/cc balance. I hope they haven't forgotten that bad experience.

However, it's good that, at least, they want to spread the access to those shinies  and let players of other professions have fun spamming them too.  Incredible that someone even thought there could be a pro scene in this game.  Anyways.... Waiting for those extra AoE stability and group stun breaks for the rest of professions!!!!!  Don't forget the Necromancer when adding them!!!!!  

Edited August 18, 2022 by Zoser.7245

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 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

Hey Cal,

Why not turn Defense or Tactics Banner into an AoE stunbreak then? Or both?

[Vekks.6013]

Thank goodness, Anet. I agree that firebrand needs the nerf, but we need other support classes in a position where they can substitute the utility that they provide in large scale WvW fights. Taking it out without addressing the massive CC output in some way would absolutely destroy the game mode. Look to give more specializations access to group stability first, then tone down the FB. Big thumbs up for rethinking this move. Please though, let's get a WvW focused balance patch out soon.