August 23 Balance Update Preview

[Dzheen.5291]

I was hoping to see improvements to the thief's pistol/pistol skills. Many choose a class based on RPG expectations and impressions of using weapons. And almost all new players choose 2 pistols to play as a thief. One of the most popular weapon sets for new players.

Imagine their disappointment when it turns out that their favorite weapon set gets weaker as they level up and has no value at all at max level. You will not be welcome in fractals or raids with pistol/pistol. You yourself said that you want to make range weapons more powerful and popular, but for some reason you forgot about thief's pistols.

Edited August 12, 2022 by Dzheen.5291

[Tails.9372]

10 minutes ago, Dzheen.5291 said:

I was hoping to see improvements to the thief's pistol/pistol skills. Many choose a class based on RPG expectations and impressions of using weapons. And almost all new players choose 2 pistols to play as a thief. One of the most popular weapon sets for new players.

Imagine their disappointment when it turns out that their favorite weapon set gets weaker as they level up and has no value at all at max level. You will not be welcome in fractals or raids with pistol/pistol. You yourself said that you want to make range weapons more powerful and popular, but for some reason you forgot about thief's pistols.

The problem here is that solving the issues of this weapon set would require more of a rework instead of a buff.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Tails.9372

[captrowdy.9561]

I love this game but how is increasing damage in pve and update? I do wvw/pvp and open world pve. I really enjoy open world pve in this game. Some content actually takes half a brain cell but now it’s going to be even easier?? And the class problems still exist in wvw/pvp

[notimelon.9512]

*300 sec cd traits in the corner laughing their kitten off since 2 years*: respectable patch, have a great day. 

[coro.3176]

Why PvE Only? 

Getting real tired of these groundhog day patches where competitive balance never sees its shadow and has to wait another month or three.

Edited August 13, 2022 by coro.3176

[crosknight.3041]

bit disappointed no address about the controversial placement of ele tempest alac (seriously why does elementalist have to make such a hard decision between providing alacrity vs more consistent heals or damage output) as well as how easy it is to be interrupted and get no alac.

otherwise i do like what i see

[coro.3176]

2 minutes ago, notimelon.9512 said:

*300 sec cd traits in the corner laughing their kitten off since 2 years*: respectable patch, have a great day. 

right. Like, someone spent actual time designing changes for underwater weapons [in PvE only] .. meanwhile there are dead traitlines, dead weapons, dead specs, etc.

[JeagER.6123]

Would love to see herald get access to aegis so that heal quickness herald becomes closer to par with other heal builds. Maybe giving it to shield 4 with a short duration could work, and would mean that shield on herald has some utility outside of the block and small heal

[Dzheen.5291]

11 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

The problem here is that solving the issues of this weapon set would require more of a rework instead of a buff.

For start they can increase dmg modifiers on autoattack and Unload. Make it so that Unload will share Might with allies. And after that, they can look at how to change the mechanics of these skills.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

Very nice idea of buffing core weapons old gg.

And thankfully that the pve side is satisfied , we can move to the more crusial part of balancing PvP/WvW (and hopefully it will force a re-design of Rev 2handed-mace + Ele Staff)

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Narayana.1485]

I appreciate these changes quite a lot. Now all we need is one like this but focused on PvP, recude damage and sustain a bit, reduce AoE stuns by a lot, and reinforce the cooperation of players to spike opponents to get kills. Bringing back the gameplay of pre-HoT gw2 pvp.

[Kantharr.2308]

I love the thief changes but you guys do need to fix the issue with venoms not working in Harvest Temple against the Dragonvoid bosses and other places like Raids. There was a list posted on Reddit and in this forum of where venoms do not work.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Kantharr.2308

[Dzheen.5291]

What is the meaning of sword skill changes? In any case, the sword is not a dps weapon and 5% won't change that. A staff is better than a sword for pve in every way. Although the sword is more interesting in terms of gameplay. And it would be interesting to see a sought-after build for raids and fractals.

[Fwog.9387]

On 8/11/2022 at 7:59 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Photon Forge

• Corona Burst: (PvE only) Might stacks per pulse reduced from 2 to 1, but they are now applied to up to 5 nearby allied targets.

Why even?

[vrauns.3215]

Why just in celestial avatar, i would be more useful without it.

• Glyph of Equality (Celestial Avatar): Range increased from 300 to 360 in all game modes. Now applies 5 seconds of stability to allies in PvE only.

 

[LadyKitty.6120]

30 minutes ago, crosknight.3041 said:

bit disappointed no address about the controversial placement of ele tempest alac (seriously why does elementalist have to make such a hard decision between providing alacrity vs more consistent heals or damage output) as well as how easy it is to be interrupted and get no alac.

otherwise i do like what i see

Secret trick to big heals: Frost Bow. Heals more than Staff Water auto-attack and not bound to attunement and even allows you to trigger attunement swap stuffs.

[Uuni.3561]

Condi mirage nerfs? Power mechanist buffs? Really?

Dont get me wrong I love lazy builds and I try to make my rotations as simple as possible but you shouldnt punish people who want to do more than that. Seriously, go fight the dps golem right now as a condi mirage - see how it goes, how it feels and how close you get to the benchmark you base these nerfs on.

I main mesmer, mirage is my favourite spec and I havent even touched it since EoD. Had no reason to. Other specs and classes do more with way less effort, work in more encounters and have way less variance in outcome.

[Camniel.7238]

Necromancer Staff usable????????? THANK YOU!

[JReyno.3049]

Happy to see Spellbreaker getting some attention.  The extra mightshare may not be huge but anything that helps Spellbreaker establish its own identity besides being the worst of three pure damage specs is a plus to me.

I also hope in the future someone will look at Spellbreaker utility skills.  They're completely unused unlike the Berserker and Bladesworn utilities.  Could even be some room here to boost that warrior heal/support build we're so close to having after the banner changes.

[Mike.7983]

Disappointing Vindicator changes that will make little to no changes to it being literaly uninstall tier,  got to ask does arena net play there own game anymore?  Vindicator needs least 15-20% damage buff across the board, heal/elite looked at as they heal to low or elite spear is a joke as power build.  Selfish power dps sacrifices utility to do more dps but vind lacks damage or utility making it a troll pick atm.  Dodge jump being interupted often sucks to.  If your gonna keep rev permanently low tier then I ask that you finaly destroy firebrands meta for years and nerf mechs 30k auto down.  Mech's everywhere since super overtuned.

[Deathevan.7016]

I seldom post anything, but felt the need to leave a supportive message: thank you for listening. It's annoying how this "Twitter entitlement" contaminates everything, making people feel the need to find reasons to complain about something positive.

Core weapons have been waiting for some love for a long time, and as it's been announced this is not the end of it, I'm pretty happy with this.

Even if this series of updates go wrong somehow, the latest patches have shown that Anet is willing to correct eventual mistakes, so whining while the staff is actually listening to you sounds borderline silly.

[LeoXander.2798]

i dont understand why axe mirage is getting considerable nerf. its not small nerf like you said

Edited August 14, 2022 by LeoXander.2798

[Horus.8304]

Could ya'll stop nerfing builds I like FOR FIVE SECONDS?!

[Abyssisis.3971]

“Firebrand and healing Mechanist are currently dominating group compositions. In this update, we're improving support-role diversity by adding stability and aegis toTempest's shouts and giving Druids increased access to those boons as well.”

What happened to giving druid access to aegis as well? The only druid change was to give stability to glyph of equity…

[Silverglance.5812]

In all honesty I don't see how these are substantial buffs to Power Reaper. Damage increases to staff, dagger, shouts etc. are all very nice, but none of them are part of the build and the few changes that actually affect (namely GS and shroud autoattack) it are rather small. Reaper with perfect Thief rune uptime has less dps than Herald, but somehow Herald gets at least 8% more damage in traits alone while Reaper's total gain will be less than 5%. You mentioned you wanted to improve ranged weapons and make players benefit more from teaming up, but axe (ranged weapon with lots of vulnerability application aka 'good for the group') is hardly worth taking over staff now. Another famous 5% dmg increase on that wouldn't have hurt. Please consider giving Reaper a little more love.