October 4 Balance Update Preview

[Malus.2184]

3 minutes ago, Jash.3104 said:

That's not true. It is for all gamemodes. Notice how other changes specifically mention "in PvP" or "in WvW".

If it is for all game modes then their statement of "we want it to stay as it is in PvE" would be a lie. The Trait that proivides Quickness is replaced by granting Fury and Might instead. If that was PvE also then it would literally be improssible for a Scrapper to provide Quickness.

That said, I hope the entire concept of Gyros being ground targeted goes away. With it the Scrapper is just a significantly worse Firebrand.

[Lazze.9870]

56 minutes ago, TexZero.7910 said:

You do know otherclasses are capable of stealth and superspeed right ?

Those classes are also Meta in WvW.

So make up your mind. Is Scapper Meta because of it's "undisputed support" or is it the "best undisputed healer/cleanser" like you originally claimed ?

Cause right now you really seem to want to harp on Scrappers 5th re-invented identity of being a superspeed bot while blaming it's healing output which is core engie related.

Yes? Are we gonna pretend that any class can compete with stealth gyro for zergs while pumping out superspeed and at the same time being a very competent healer and cleanser? Let's stop entertaining these ridiculous thoughts and look at the fact: no other support build has that good access to both superspeed and stealth. Druid has one source from a trait when leaving CA, tempest has a superspeed shout. It's negliable in comparison. 

It's the undisputed support because of the combination of healing, cleanse, superspeed and stealth in one package, mainly the two latter. It doesn't need to be the best healer or cleanser, it just need to be good enough at those things. Which it is.

If I ever said undisputed healer/cleanser, that was meant as undisputed in terms of doing those things WHILE providing the other utilites. Which regardless of how you want to discuss semantics was my very obvious point from the very beginning. I have already stated that other builds can compete with the heal and cleanse output alone. They don't provide a silly amount of superspeed while doing it though, nor do they have access to the easiest aoe stealth application in the game (thieves aren't relevant here, don't even go there).

And if you're still somehow confused about my claims, I have made this pretty kittening clear for several months in other discussion threads. It's the complete package, the utlity it has while being a very good healer and cleanser. Being the best healer and cleanser with no other useful utility doesn't net you the spot for the healer/cleanser role unless you can one up the scrapper on the rest of its utility.

And harp on? Get a grip, dude. My point has been very clear from the beginning, you're the one harping on that I might have said undisputed healer/cleanser which you took completely out of context. Healer/cleanser is its role in the subparty which it does very well, superspeed, stealth etc. are the main reasons other competent healer/cleansers don't compete. Purity of Purpose pre-nerf could be thrown into that utlity mix as well, but it was never as detrimental. Still very strong and kinda unique to engie (not condi conversion in itself, but the way it does it on any cleanse), so eh.. just another feather in the hat, but not one that would keep scrapper alive if superspeed and stealth was completely removed.

Capiche? Because I'm done. And I'm right.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Silvoshipnos.2089]

The change to gyros is just going to make them bad again, as they were when they were ground targets. I also cannot understand touching that and not changing grenades which are stupidly strong for roaming. 

 

Lingering light is just garbage, the good thing about it was the energy gain and now it doesn't do that. The extra healing power isn't worth it. It should allow you to enter celestial avatar even if it's not fully charged or something like that, the avatar itself already has a cooldown, people won't be able to spam it.

 

I cannot understand how harbinger and willbender didn't get any balance changes.

 

[Soulfulsynergy.9583]

The Tactical Reload change just kills another heal build for heavy classes. If you want Guardian to be the only healer heavy, you need to just say it.

[Myror.7521]

@MarkoGold.7126 u miss understood it. Entering the Berserker mode is in its current state interruptable so they "buffed" it in the patch that it is instantly now. You can still use f1 or zerk Mode.

 

(To be fair i was first also thinking like you a whole minutes ago xD)

[Bloom.3246]

Really solid changes all round. Disagree with the changes to Scrapper - the Superspeed on first pulse is great but I’m not a fan of the stationary Wells (even though it brings it more in line with other Wells it removes some fun interactions like moving Sneak Gyro).

 

LOVE the Vindicator change of allowing two dodges with reduced endurance cost. Only extra point of feedback/low hanging fruit is that it’d be great if we could change the animation on GS2 and the GS4 counterattack. These animations have very slow cast times and as a result can feel a little clunky to use in your rotation. They’re also BOTH using existing animations from the AA chain, which I find makes it a little difficult to tell if you’ve broken the chain and also just isn’t great telegraphing for PvP modes either. Personal suggestion would be a simple anim swap on GS2 into the anim of the 3rd attack on Ranger GS auto - Looks more stylish, bigger impact, isn’t used anywhere else in the game so feels less recycled.

 

Cheers, keep up the excellent work!

[Heibi.4251]

Shadow Portal should be removed for WvW or reduced to only the thief being able to use the shadow portal.  It is truly an unbalanced skill in WvW. It can't be seen and has a full 1 minute before it must be recast. Thieves can just run away after placing it and wait until the last minute, port in recast and run out. Considering the amount of stealth the thief can use the Shadow Portal is very unbalanced for a competitive setting like WvW.

WvW settings:

Cooldown: 100 seconds. 
Timer after Initial placement: 30 seconds.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/1/19/Stealth.png/20px-Stealth.png Stealth (2s): Invisible to foes.

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f9/Weakness.png/20px-Weakness.png Weakness (3s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, +50% Fumble (Unrestricted)

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/5/53/Number_of_targets.png/20px-Number_of_targets.png Number of Targets: 5, Thief only in WvW

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/5/53/Number_of_targets.png/20px-Number_of_targets.png Number of Allied Targets: 5, Thief only in WvW

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/8/8b/Duration.png/20px-Duration.png Duration: 8 seconds

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/a4/Radius.png/20px-Radius.png Radius: 240

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/7/7a/Breaks_stun.png/20px-Breaks_stun.png Breaks Stun

 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/c/c5/Range.png/20px-Range.png Range: 5,000

 

[SourceOfTrippy.4207]

Pve specter shroud nerf possibly?? No why?

Edited September 16, 2022 by SourceOfTrippy.4207

[aymnad.9023]

Thanks a lot ! The stream got me really excited for warrior (I cannot wait to try berserker), ranger (druid and slb look so fun) and revenant (giving condi herald another shot + vindicator)

Ele : Some deserved nerfs to cata.

Engineer : I do not think grenade needed a buff. Shield cd reduction is fine but I expected less cc on it as it does way too much. Utility googles is nice. I can see Kinetic accelerator being fine for PvP. Wells not mobile anymore, oooooooouch this is probably something to look out for as it will have a massive impact on usability.  Holo looks ok but I did not play it enough (Prime light beam is cool). Power mech nerfs in PvE yes!

Guardian : not much to say

Mesmer : I do not play enough in squads in wvw squads but from what I understand that was a major role for mesmer. I will be curious to know more about the investigation / aim. I need to see how distorsion impacts the specs because I am not a fan of full blocks / cc / invuln builds.

Necro : not much to say

Ranger : Woooooooooww. Stab baseline on ranger is a rare sight. Druid getting astral force is cool, glyph of the stars is crazy, staff 2 looks fun, seed of life is an amazing change, you even thought about reducing the glyph cds in PvE, finally shared druidic clarity! I do not see anything about the 20s cd / full restriction on CA / loss on downstate which worries me a little. Soulbeast Elevated bond is going to be a massive source of theorycraft and a ton of fun for any player outside of PvE group content (Open World, WvW, PvP).

Revenant : I played condi herald last season and definitely felt the heavy cost so yes please! I can see why the quickness is removed on herald. 2 dodges on vindicator will make me try it! You also talked about the sigil on swap and legend swapping but I do not see it there.

Thief : the traits are more interactive. Heavy reduction on specter. I do not see that many specters in ranked but it is definitely a top pick for mAT and is strong in PvE too.

Warrior : I will definitely try berserker. It will offer a lot more versatility than just being on / off.  I expected some power coefficient nerfs on bursts because it looks super scary. I do not like longer dazes as it has already proven being problematic. I do not think I want to see those full cc builds with all the new traits 😕 Bladesworn nerfs will be heavy in PvP but the shout spam was not a fun mechanic (so is an unblockable, unblindable long range, high damage cc skill but let's find out the nerf impacts).

Edited September 16, 2022 by aymnad.9023

[SlothPowah.1072]

The change to scrapper gyros will feel awful in PvE and make all scrapper variants less desirable in instanced content. IMO it's completely outclassed by herald with this change. Feels kinda awful.

[Nova.6084]

Thank you for reverting the trade offs. Hopefully Mirage's dodge will get looked at in the next patch. One dodge is pretty bad after all..

[Bast.7253]

I'm confused - 

1. ) Didn't they just rework scrapper gyro's? And now they're changing it back?

2.) Isn't herald going to do MORE damage now because it will be stacking more might? Or is that a non-meta build and won't be affected? 

3.) Grenade holo was kittenous and needed the nerf. But I'm guessing that's the favored spec of whatever "elite" player or dev decided they wanted buffed. 

It's weird about the mesmer changes for distortion. Mirage got no changes and was "impossible" to kill, yet we're giving a profession with aegis spam access to distortion now. It's also weird how the other day in the ffa I heard someone mention chrono was getting buffs. How did they know? Private discord maybe?

Happy about bladesworn and it's cool that warriors are getting more access to other burst skills but some of these changes feel really random - and will likely lead to some even nastier builds than there already are. 

Oh, yeah, and ele nerfs. Arcane shield activating on elite skill is a joke given that... what elite skills do we have that can even be used frequently enough to matter? Rebound? Catalyst elite? I guess if it activates on the cooldown timer of the elite that's cool - and seeing a giant whirling tornado with arcane shield should be pretty amusing.. but of all the skills/traits that could have been reworked this feels pretty negligible. 

I'm already anticipating Soulbeast being pretty punishing and am glad for the changes to make druid a bit more fun from a healing perspective. 

All in all - it's a start. But it still feels a little like throwing darts at a wall plastered with random skill/profession/trait icons. 

At least chrono is back, I guess. Weird I've seen so many high level players playing it and now it's getting pretty significant buffs though... 

 

[Griifen.2473]

On 9/14/2022 at 6:22 PM, Double Tap said:

As we look to improve support diversity in WvW, it's clear that scrapper is an outlier

You need to be very careful with this. 

 

Engineers do not have multiple WvW viable builds. Scrapper is the only one that has allowed engineers to participate in zergs and team play. 

 

Holosmiths have too many skills that root them in place and since you've nerfed it's range on so many skills it is impossible to engage effectively. It also has extremely limited mobility and is easily targeted down. 

 

The mech is too heavily prioritized in the mechanist elite spec but it also isn't prioritized in healing or defence. It was never meant to perform in eve WvW or large scaled fights because of easily an essential part of the engineers utility is tied to it (looking at you missing tool-belt skills and a while trait line that was never reworked to account for this). 

 

So scrapper is THE ONLY was engineers can engage in WvW in any meaningful way. 

 

Yes, it performs a niche utility, but nothing is broken because of it. We've seen so many guild versus guild runs where players have learned to counter the stealth gyro and play around the mobile reflect (just like revenant has). It was never an impassible obstacle for zergs and it was never allowing squads to completely decimate since it was never the only source of stealth. 

 

You need to be careful because if you destroy the scrapper then you leave the engineer with absolutely nothing in WvW. 

 

Do not make this mistake. 

[Aens.2713]

Quote

Final Shielding: This trait no longer grants Arcane Shield when dropping below 50% health. Instead, it grants Arcane Shield after using an elite skill.

This is terrible bad decission, it would only work if all elites has the same cooldown, which is not the case. I almost always use Fiery Greatsword elite, which is a 180s cooldown. Now with this change you kinda want me to use glyph of elementals which is only a 40s cooldown, if I want access to that shield. Of course the fix would be to lower the FGS cooldown because 180s is insane nowadays.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Elrey.5472

[PseudoOAlias.4279]

Also, just something to think about here:

 

Effectively reducing Bladesworn's stunbreaks from 3 > 1 (via reducing the ammunition to ["Shake It Off"]) while also eliminating their stability via [Dragonscale Defense] is pretty rough. Maybe 2 Charges at 45s? Or make [Dragonspike Mine] have 2 charges but also remove imob and have a longer base cd like 60s for WvW to make up for it? 

 

But the main thought is this: Will "Shake It Off" even count as an ammunition skill for the purposes of [Unshakable Mountain], [Lush Forest], etc? cause if it doesn't that's also kinda a huge hit to Bladesworn overall survivability for WvW. Especially since they already have to run pretty much pure power stats to do any meaningful damage and can't really utilize celestial cause they have no condi damage, range & healing power scales like butt on warrior, to fight other celestial classes.

 

Tyty again for the stream! & Looking forward to more!! \o/

[Shaogin.2679]

On 9/14/2022 at 6:22 PM, Double Tap said:

Scrapper

Skills

• Defense Field: This skill is now ground targeted. The spell area of effect created by this skill is now stationary. Increased cooldown from 25 seconds to 35 seconds in WvW only.
• Scrapper wells are now stationary ground-targeted skills with a range of 900.

Well I am glad we get a preview so that people that actually play the class can tell you what an incredibly horrible change this would be. Also hey, could you please stop beating core Engineer to a bloody pulp? He's been dead for quite some time now. 

[TexZero.7910]

18 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Yes? Are we gonna pretend that any class can compete with stealth gyro for zergs while pumping out superspeed and at the same time being a very competent healer and cleanser? Let's stop entertaining these ridiculous thoughts and look at the fact: no other support build has that good access to both superspeed and stealth. Druid has one source from a trait when leaving CA, tempest has a superspeed shout. It's negliable in comparison. 

It's the undisputed support because of the combination of healing, cleanse, superspeed and stealth in one package, mainly the two latter. It doesn't need to be the best healer or cleanser, it just need to be good enough at those things. Which it is.

If I ever said undisputed healer/cleanser, that was meant as undisputed in terms of doing those things WHILE providing the other utilites. Which regardless of how you want to discuss semantics was my very obvious point from the very beginning. I have already stated that other builds can compete with the heal and cleanse output alone. They don't provide a silly amount of superspeed while doing it though, nor do they have access to the easiest aoe stealth application in the game (thieves aren't relevant here, don't even go there).

And if you're still somehow confused about my claims, I have made this pretty kittening clear for several months in other discussion threads. It's the complete package, the utlity it has while being a very good healer and cleanser. Being the best healer and cleanser with no other useful utility doesn't net you the spot for the healer/cleanser role unless you can one up the scrapper on the rest of its utility.

And harp on? Get a grip, dude. My point has been very clear from the beginning, you're the one harping on that I might have said undisputed healer/cleanser which you took completely out of context. Healer/cleanser is its role in the subparty which it does very well, superspeed, stealth etc. are the main reasons other competent healer/cleansers don't compete.

Capiche? Because I'm done. And I'm right.

Hey man, whatever goalpost shifting you need to do to make you sleep well at night is fine. It doesn't make your arguements any more rationale or reasonable though.

 

Scrapper healing is a joke compared to literally every other class. So much so that they didn't even nerf it. They instead for what seems like yet another patch have nerfed Core Engie Healing traits. But you can continue to blame it on Scrapper.

 

They only lightly touched Scrappers Condi cleanse so clearly that wasn't as big an issue or related to it's dominance.

 

Combine both of those things and "Scrapper" being "undisputed healer/cleanser" is myth busted situation.

 

Now we get to the crux of your goalpost shifting in that you want to believe that Scrapper is overloaded and does too much of everything which makes it the undisputed support....Questionable statement when Firebrand exists but we'll humor you.

 

You claim it's because of stealth and superspeed but when pointed out that other meta classes can cover that role you dismissed it out of hand as but Scrapper does Z better which was unreleated. Cool i guess. Druid does healing better, Theif does stealth better and Chrono does good mesmer things including both stealth, superspeed, condi cleanse, boon removal and healing....but uh yeah lets goal post shift and ignore all of that for blanket statements of "facts" that are objectively wrong.

 

[omalley.1504]

With the increasing divergence between what skills do (eg Scrapper wells only giving quickness in pve) in each of the game modes, it's useful to have areas where you can play with a build and test changes on a golem in each mode separately. PvE (special forces arena) and PvP (pvp lobby) both have this, but afaik, there's no place to test WvW skills against a golem that's available to all players. Adding golems to the edge of the mists safe zone or arena would bring WvW into parity w/ the other game modes.

 

Bonus suggestion:

For those of us w/out legendary armor/weapons across the board, experimenting with different gear combinations to try with different builds becomes prohibitively expensive pretty quickly. It would be great if the areas with golems that allowed you to experiment and test your build also provided a way to stat change your armor & weapons and freely change out runes and sigils.

 

I think providing that option might increase build diversity because it'd give people the ability to try out some idea they have w/out making a significant investment. It gives more people the ability to generate and test unique builds which might increase the actual build/gear diversity that's played. That provides us an opportunity to decide how we want to gear in the future.

Edited September 16, 2022 by omalley.1504
Wanted to add another sentence.

[FalsePromises.6398]

On 9/14/2022 at 11:22 AM, Double Tap said:

Scrapper wells are now stationary ground-targeted skills with a range of 900.

I beg of you, do not do this. That'll just trash the entire feel of scrapper. It's supposed to be a mobile support/brawler. Skills like Blast Gyro and Stealth Gyro will become almost entirely useless. If you feel like scrapper support is overperforming, attack literally anything else and make it WvW specific, because outside of WvW superspeeding it's not an overperforming spec, and the wells give it a rather unique style in PvE as a utility class. Please just make defense field alone a ground-targeted skill, because that doesn't matter much compared to wells becoming ground targeted. You could probably even turn some of the scrapper superspeed into personal superspeed and swiftness on allies instead, in WvW alone, and that'd be leagues better than turning wells into ground targeted in all modes. 

[Storub.5907]

On 9/14/2022 at 7:22 PM, Double Tap said:

Berserk: This skill has been moved to slot 2 of the profession mechanic bar. Core burst skills are now accessible in slot 1 of the profession mechanic bar for the berserker specialization.

Wild Blow: ... This skill now ... knocks enemies down instead of knocking them back.

I assume that these changes are for all gamemodes.

If so, the first one will inconvenience and screw up a lot of muscle memory, while the second one will strip us of the last bit of utility we had in a raid besides unga-bunga monkey smash boss.

 

If this game had per-character keybinds, or even just an ability to move profession skills around like we can utility skills, this would not be a problem. But game does not have such a feature, and I will have to decide between convenient access to my main damage skill on berserker, and convenient access to steal/mark on thief, for example. I understand that this is done to bring more options, especially to pvp, but core warrior burst skills are essentially useless as they are for berserkers in pve. If the QoL-team still exists, the best thing they can do is solve this keybind conundrum that have been plaguing this game since release.

 

As for Wild Blow, it was one of the very few ways to access forced enemy reposition capability for berserkers without completely wasting the skill slot. Samarog, Soulless Horror, Keep Construct and Vale Guardian, or at least heavily benifit from being able to move enemies, and berserkers could, and did help with it, especially in casual groups. I get that this change is done on the hightail of a similar change to scrapper gyro, but where gyro is a massive radius aoe skill which must be used off cd to maintain quickness, wild blow is a melee range skill that can be safely delayed if the situation demands it, with only a slight dps loss. What I am trying to say is that change from knockback to knockdown on this skill has no positives and several negatives.

[coro.3176]

Scrapper deserves it. I played a fair bit of support scrapper in the last few years. It's just busted in its current state. I can't wait for the nerfs.

 

Overall, this is awesome. I think this is the most attention PvP/WvW balance has seen in a long time. Keep it up!

[stormemperor.3745]

On 9/14/2022 at 7:22 PM, Double Tap said:

 

Many elite specializations have some mechanical weaknesses compared to the core profession, commonly referred to as the "tradeoff" for the specialization's new mechanics. In some cases, these tradeoffs feel natural, like when a reaper loses access to Death Shroud and gains access to Reaper's Shroud, but in other cases, these tradeoffs feel unnatural and can contribute to making a specialization feel less fluid to play. For this update, we've started to look at these unnatural tradeoffs and evaluate whether they're still necessary for the balance of the game. In many cases, we've simply removed the tradeoff, with the expectation that these specializations can still be balanced in other ways.

 

I like how you give reaper's shroud as an example of tradeoff and proceed to remove trade offs for every spec except necromancer. 

NOT BEING ABLE TO USE UTILITY SKILLS IN SHROUD IS THE REAL TRADEOFF FOR NECROMANCER

Do you even play this game? Berserker can access, Holosmith can access, Specter can access, Druid can access to healing, utilities and elite but kitten necromancer never gets anything good.

 

Real unnatural tradeoff is solar being replaced. At least solar didn't forget about Reaper's existence.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

For those wondering why Mirage didn't get mentioned, it did get mentioned on stream that mirage will be getting its dodge back. I'm not entirely sure if it'll be in this patch or the next one (end of november) but it'll be back.

[Zawn.9647]

Since this is a PVP patch, please just be less harsh on specter shroud in PVE. maybe 0.89 instead of 0.59? idk

[Loken.5198]

My goodness, imagine thinking Scrapper is the Engineer spec that is the problem in WvW.