August 23 Balance Update Preview

[Ashen.2907]

I am still not convinced. Nothing presented establishes how the game is improved by homogenization of classes/roles, overabundance of boons to the point where permanent up time becomes the default expectation, and degradation of class identity. I am not opposed to class-less approach to RPG character design, some of my favorite games take such an approach, but if you are going to hold onto classes you should be differentiating them.

[Vegeta.2563]

5 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

Yeah like how about the insane uptime on reflects ?

[Jski.6180]

6 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

So you dont nerf a much needed class and effect because anet has over nerfed every other classes own self stab. Can not balance the game because of bad balancing choose that would cause a nere death to an game type. It just seems like a bad fath argument support is not the issues its that anet thinks support is the only way to fix the problem when simply dropping the cd on classes self stab or even making all self stab stack more then 1 unless they are pulsing stab would go a long way to re-balancing wvw's stun lock.

[Dreggon.6598]

6 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

phew, I use that skill with Zephyrite runes to get superspeed, would have been a harsh nerf

[Angesombre.4630]

6 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

And you think about the negative impact on the revenants. Removal of the sigil on the change of legend which has considerably nerfed the revenant with the excuse that it was a bug when not ( https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Lets-Chat-Revenant-Masters-of-the-Mist/page/2#post4807746 )  at the release of EoD, the change on the torment, the resistance with a mini compensation, Forced Engagement (triple nerf). The bugs of the vindicator that are present since the first beta on the dodge and the GS without counting its defects. That the vindicator is more a 2nd legend of heal?

How do you think the revenants feel? 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Angesombre.4630

[Zoser.7245]

1 hour ago, Vegeta.2563 said:

Yeah like how about the insane uptime on reflects ?

That is easy to answer.  Is the new philosophy.  If some profession has too long reflecs or too much, they'll nerf them a bit and then add new reflects to all the professions that still does not have access to them.  We all have the right to do it!  Love it.

Uhmmmm,  my necromancer does not have reflecs....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cal Cohen !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marching a triple ration of group stability with group stun break on some utility from my core necromancer. As a second course, two stacks of stability in one of my weapon skills or when traited and for dessert a ration of reflects,  maybe in a trait for wells!!!

Thank you very much!   🤗

Edited August 18, 2022 by Zoser.7245

[Jees.5478]

I hope Vindicator can now compete with the other dps clases in pve. But man I still think he will be the weakest dps class ;(. Think he wont be as good as power Mechanist or Soulbeast with the damage.

[prototypedragon.1406]

I get that these balance notes are primarily pve so the new players can be like wow look at these numbers. Where yes some classes definitely needed them not going to lie. In terms of World versus World though since everyone is so worried about the stability loss or gain because of all of the cc skills in the game. Well how about for instance with all hammer skills that do stun, knockdown, knockdown,launch and even the utility skills why not just make it so at most everyone can have one stack of stability max. And make it so that CC's don't do knockdown lift or pull animations. Just give their damage back and remove all of the locking down aspects and make it so that crowd control skills remove protection and then make it so that protection cannot be reapplied for a set duration? That way people are constantly moving and don't have to complain about being crowd controlled. Honestly anything would be better then being given a weapon in which 2 of the 5 skills that it actually has does damage. Let alone BURST SKILLS hitting for 20 damage even on crits. Meanwhile strips are far between and limited. Heck even giving 1000 base damage on every cc skill without it being increased due to might would make more sense. I mean if the whole thing is about hitting only 5 targets what is it going to hurt giving cc it's damage back the smaller force is at a greater disadvantage since they cannot keep their boons up permanently as long as it is anyways. It's clear that anet doesn't want smaller forces to be able to defend if they did they would create more ways to counter the boon blobs rather then take them away. At least in the old days if people guarded a tower with arrow carts zergs had to be careful, people can literally sleep in Arrowcart fire anymore.  It was funny farming zergs though back in the day southwest tower on Alpine borderlands was the best!!! When tactics were more strategized and access to cc and stab was more limited yes but in a way the limitations were balanced. ( To get through a Arrowcart farm all one had to do was bait the guardians to drop their line of warding and sanctuary bubble early not 2 difficult 2 avoid, kinda sounds like the spellbreaker gas bubble no?🤔) And winning outnumbered fights was something to be desired. And the glory and enjoyment of it was something that I had not experienced anywhere else in any game before. We use to world versus world and get no loot at all. Heck you had to pay silver and gold to upgrade keeps towers even smc. Way back when there was a giant lake with quggans on all the Alpine borderlands maps where the ruins are now located. I digress, honestly the best way I can describe this you run a full zerker character you drop your hammer on your foot in pve what happens? You break a few toes. Drop your hammer on your toes in Wvw while also being full glass all you hear is squeaking sounds like someone shoved a squeaker in the hammer. 

[Coldtart.4785]

Ammo stunbreaks when you aren't Anet's golden child: 75s cd, 2 ammo.

Ammo stunbreaks when you are the golden child: 25s cd, 3 ammo, aoe, immune to being nerfed.

There doesn't need to be an alternative to the ludicrously overpowered support firebrand and scrapper bring to wvw. Skills this good don't belong in the game at all.

[Hotride.2187]

Quote

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

Quote

and even WvW

Quote

even WvW

What the kitten did I just read. The ABSOLUTE MANDATORY skill to bring per party, for AS LONG as I've played wvw, gets "and even wvw". The place where mantra of liberation is THE STRONGEST AND MOST MANDATORY gets an addendum???

I'll read the rest of the post just for laughs, this is on par with the "wvw players are players who like doing pve" comment I keep hearing about from other players...

[Bunny.9834]

53 minutes ago, Coldtart.4785 said:

Ammo stunbreaks when you aren't Anet's golden child: 75s cd, 2 ammo.

Ammo stunbreaks when you are the golden child: 25s cd, 3 ammo, aoe, immune to being nerfed.

There doesn't need to be an alternative to the ludicrously overpowered support firebrand and scrapper bring to wvw. Skills this good don't belong in the game at all.

This is why people who play other classes that is not guardian say that there is "favoritism" because of decisions like this. 

[Ruisenior.6342]

  Since eod launch, all those 'balance patches' are becoming so scary. Finally they started nerfing Firebrand to the floor so soon there will be any good class left 😆

  In my opinion all those problems started long time ago, when they decided to make this game a condi/boon fiesta and that became a major problem that is agravating more and more.

  Once i loved this game, and i still love it too much but it's time to finish some stuff and go next.

 

BB Gw2

 

Edit: I hope the new player base from steam and those future mobile projects will keep your company healthy. Best wishes to you Anet

Edited August 18, 2022 by Ruisenior.6342

[Griifen.2473]

12 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

Is this all that Anet are prepared to do after 21 pages of feedback?

I don't want to bash Anet (again and again and again and again ....), I just want to know if there is any plan to take any more feedback into consideration before the weekend?

[Sahne.6950]

13 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

Suggestion:

Turn Tempest into a Stabi bot:

Change the trait Transcendent tempest: Removed old functionality.   -> When Taking Transcendent Tempest you will provide 1 stack of stability for 4 seconds. When taking Transcendent Tempest, the Trait "Harmonious Conduit" gains improved functionality.

When traiting "transcendent Tempest" the trait "Harmonious Conduit" will share the Stability provided while overloading.

 

This way Tempest has to make a decisions with the GM-traits.

Do i either want to provide 1 permanent stack of Stability with Transcendent Tempest?

Do i want to provide Alacrity with Lucid Singularity?

Do i want to play as healer with Elementalbastion?

 

With this Changes a DPS-Tempest could help fill the Stability hole that a Firebrand nerf would leave in the Zerg.

 

Or

 

Change the trait " Tempestous aria":   Removed old functionality. Using a shout now provides 1 stack of stability for 4 seconds to every affected ally.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[soul.9651]

12 hours ago, Jimbru.6014 said:

 Power Mechanist is doing 20K-plus while AFK, literally just autoattacking. 

You mean 28k+ and probably 30k plus once the patch is out? I wish anet actually nerfed it to atleast 20k (could even more)  you are mentioning rn 🙂 but its just not true and there are plenty of videos out there which shows that, yet people choose to ignore it.

There are other videos showing how this performs on boneskinner, or gors.. point is rifle mech with 0 or almost no effort will outperform almost everyone and if you are pugging raids, or especially the eod strike cms it will outperform any pug if he is playing anything else but rifle mech, and im also sick of seeing rifle mechs beeing stacked everywhere. Its nice that anet is buffing other power specs to introduce more variaty in the meta, but more variaty wont happen and people will keep stacking mechs if this isnt nerfed any time soon. 

And for those "but im not getting this myself" well check your gear and build instead of saying "this is 15k and its balanced". No its not balanced and it should have been hot fixed week one when it came out...

Edited August 18, 2022 by soul.9651

[Croissant.2671]

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

Mirage

Axe

• Lingering Thoughts: (PvE only) Torment duration decreased from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Imaginary Axes: (PvE only) Torment duration decreased from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.

Staff

• Chaos Vortex (Staff Ambush): (PvE only) Might stack count reduced from 8 to 5, and might duration reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Torment, bleeding, and confusion duration reduced from 8 seconds to 7 seconds.

 

I.. what.. how... the nerf on staff is entirely unnecessary but why touch axe... its difficult to even make it work properly. The reward should be a CD reduction on a skill that's net dps loss most of the times? Then rework warlocks at least 😞

Edited August 18, 2022 by Croissant.2671

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

1 hour ago, Griifen.2473 said:

Is this all that Anet are prepared to do after 21 pages of feedback?

I don't want to bash Anet (again and again and again and again ....), I just want to know if there is any plan to take any more feedback into consideration before the weekend?

 

Of course the thing is that if there was some kind of plan or philosophy, there wouldn't need to be this constant back and forth of making changes and then quickly reversing them.  Everyone should be able to understand the philosophy and reasoning behind the changes, there should be overall reasoning behind changes, and then player feedback can help adjust and fine tune it.    Feedback should be used to help determine if their changes are working.  Feedback should be used to determine if their philosophy and reasoning is sound.  Having an underlying philosophy and reasoning would also help you absorb feedback and integrate it.  

[Brodix.5214]

I like an idea of quick heal Catalyst with staff, it bring me so much fun, quicknes on sphare should pulse, and arcane power and wave skill is now out of date after fury increase, and staff should have own spinning orb skill? With other Effect like Barrier per tick, small heal, or boons? 

[cooI Ilama.8902]

On 8/16/2022 at 7:20 PM, jinn.6392 said:

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.

 

They may also be factoring in might share that will come with Keen Strike, I skipped over this bit in the preview.

However, there is no demand for additional might sharing in group content (Based off what I see in the Fractal LFGs at least), will other specs have their might share nerfed in future?

With the Keen Strike change, we could end up with even more sustain in group content? There is usually a healer in that situation though. You need the sustain when you're solo farming in HoT and that Mushroom Queen is after you!

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by cooI Ilama.8902

[Phil.1074]

Can we druids please get out of Avatar by Pressing the Weapon Swap key ... would be a much appreciated QoL btw.

[prototypedragon.1406]

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

[zerothbase.7564]

21 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

...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.

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

[saizica.3076]

Anet, remember that Core Guardian, Dragon Hunter, and Willbender are not Firebrands, and are irrelevant in PvE group content these days. I have nightmares just remembering the pre-PoF guardian situation, where we were sold that the guardian would be a support profession but the truth was that we only had spot as a DPS. So, before complitely destroy the only good support guardian elite in PvE, like you did in PvP, you need give something to other guardian professions. My suggestion is to go deep and just give quick and alac to all core profession in the game and balance it like any other boon.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, prototypedragon.1406 said:

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

I see it used in DBL to run people off of cliffs.

[Kuma.1503]

20 hours ago, Ascency.3580 said:

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.

 

What kind of tempest are you playing? Ele in general shouldn't be struggling in Open World. Even zerk/scholar builds are more playable thanks to jade bot tier 10 cores, food, and reinforced armor. 

As for staff builds. I've found them more workable with glyph of elementals. Especially earth or ice elementals since they cripple, immobilize, and chill enemies while taking aggro off of you. 

Condi/cele staff builds are also surprisignly decent. Flame Burst, signet of fire, eruption and shockwave and your overload fire/earth are all you need for dps. Alac brings them all off CD faster.  Earth autos are 100% projectile finishers so you can cast them in your fire fields for more burning. Water and Air can be held for CC and sustain.  After the patch, condi or cele staff will be even better. 

It's not so bleak for ele mains, the class is actually in a pretty good spot, and it's direct competitor as support, Heal Mech, is getting some pretty harsh nerfs in the same patch as the buffs will land. 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Kuma.1503