October 4 Balance Update Preview

[dead.7638]

8 minutes ago, ImBach.9013 said:

If you don't play in those zergs probably shouldn't be giving opinions on those zergs. What they touched doesn't even affect you as a roamer and the other things they've added are significant buffs. And the thing you might actually take for roaming, stab mantra, got buffed. 

my server lingers in t1, we "roam" but also go after zergs as a havoc group.   Why?   Because mainly those are the only fights out there.   The boonball meta is boring, hell ive seen boonballs get bored and frustrated with themselves at the lack of engaging game play.  The buff to boon generation is not the direction (and yes, this is my opinion) that the game should be headed.   But hey, you like brain dead mechanics that only require you to use auto and occasionally a cc or break stun says more about you than me.    My original post was meant to point this out.   Nothing rly to do with mesmer other than the fact that boon strip IS being nerfed.

Edited September 17, 2022 by dead.7638

[Jski.6180]

The ele updates seem ok for what was updated. It seems like there was not that much of an change to ele. If any thing weaver needs more dps in wvw and a good way to do that would be brining burning to fire ball and lava faunt to wvw/spvp.

[UNOwen.7132]

20 minutes ago, Bast.7253 said:

It doesn’t? Wow. That is really dumb. Add the damage back and take damage out of some of the other abilities if need be. I haven’t played reaper in a long time but that’s pretty silly.

 

Again though, look at mech’s skills. 7k crit and a stun. They don’t follow their own design decisions, especially with engineer. Reaper still does plenty of damage without it but they should figure out a way to bake some of that damage, preferably the aoe abilities, and bake into this. 

Well it does do bonus damage. Its just that that bonus damage is 50% and 100% of the baseline damage, so instead of 4 damage it will do a grand total of ... 8. Great isnt it?

[Bach From The Brink.2715]

12 minutes ago, dead.7638 said:

my server lingers in t1, we "roam" but also go after zergs as a havoc group.   Why?   Because mainly those are the only fights out there.   The boonball meta is boring, hell ive seen boonballs get bored and frustrated with themselves at the lack of engaging game play.  The buff to boon generation is not the direction (and yes, this is my opinion) that the game should be headed.   But hey, you like brain dead mechanics that only require you to use auto and occasionally a cc or break stun says more about you than me. 

 

Nothing is changing about the boon gameplay. Boons and strips are here to stay period. Chrono getting slight nerfs to strips isn't going to ruin that dynamic at all. Boons are needed, especially stab. Not having stab just turns games into unfun cc fests and you still have spellbreaker and scourge for big strips. I'd be relatively fine if they removed the amount other boons (granted that could affect the viability of other classes which are already struggling, I think) but stab has gotta stay. CC fests are far more boring than a 30 stack roflstomping smaller groups will ever be. 

You wanna comment anything about the other major buffs to roaming or challenge the utility distortion is going to provide to you, as a roamer main? 

People hate seeing change and can even fear it, but change can be good. Be open to change. Nothing is becoming unplayable. You're fine. 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by ImBach.9013

[Catilena.8729]

16 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

The ele updates seem ok for what was updated. It seems like there was not that much of an change to ele. If any thing weaver needs more dps in wvw and a good way to do that would be brining burning to fire ball and lava faunt to wvw/spvp.

SHHHHHHHH don't draw their attention to us. At this point, NOT being in a patch is a fantastic buff in itself for Ele.

[Dreggon.6598]

1. Please don't nerf scrapper (in PvP) or change its wells to ground targeted, that got reverted ages ago because of how bad it was

2. Don't buff spellbreaker they're already insane

Edited September 17, 2022 by Dreggon.6598

[Zex Anthon.8673]

As if Virtuoso wasn't already unkillable. This will be worse than condi mirage meta.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

CA Kit needs to be 10s ICD in pvp.

Also, making 13 self condi remove go down to 3 for all allies on Druid Clarity is a bad idea. The 13 full bar removal is a staple of Druid that gives it its one niche purpose for use, which is being strong vs. condi builds, and even then it still struggles head to head against condi output such as vs. Harbginer.

If you go forward and remove the 13 self clear the Druid won't be a useful support because even after these buffs it still is a bad support next to a Tempest or Firebrand, and it will lack the safe 13 clear for self sustain to keep itself alive to be able to even use its half support at all.

You need to keep the self 13 self clear or these changes are in vain and this patch will be a general nerf to Druid, not a buff, not even an adequate mechanical polish.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Matoro.9708]

4 hours ago, Griifen.2473 said:

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. 

Or... they could now revisit underperforming core mechanics and skills. 

[LoreChief.8391]

For Scrapper this is amazing.  I really loved gyro's when they were originally ground-target range castable, and was really sad when it was nerfed to just be PBAOE.

 

I want to say two important things about it though;

 

1. Stealth Gyro needs its stealth duration increased to compensate for the fact that we now have to stand under the gyro while we wait for stealth to reach its max duration.

2. Gyroscropic Acceleration needs to be changed to grant the Engineer Superspeed regardless of whether they are in the gyro AoE or not.  Otherwise we will be nerfed if we need to cast gyro's at a distance.

[Bast.7253]

Catalyst stability nerf seemed overboard though. Of all those changes stab is the last thing that needed to be touched. Maybe high level players can stack it and time all their blocks but it’s really not that easy to keep stab up, even if you’re spamming auras. 
 

I think everything needs more access to stab, not less. Plenty other professions that have much easier access with much longer durations. 

[DivineBuddha.1589]

Anet please tell us that those Scrapper changes are for WvW/PvP only.

[Styopa.2538]

5 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

The fact of the matter is that wvw support scrapper has been overloaded with utility

 

Then fix it in wvw, don't roundly screw it in every other place people play it, maybe?

[Styopa.2538]

2 hours ago, Tammuz.7361 said:

it needed it, BADLY

So screw them in every other aspect of the game because they were op in wvw?

 

Sure, makes perfect sense!

[Styopa.2538]

5 hours ago, ImBach.9013 said:

Some of the upset people here also just don't sound like they play PvP/WvW at all.

And the people supporting it seem to believe the only game mode that exists is WvW.  Your point?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, itspomf.9523 said:

I assume it's been answered elsewhere in the other 7+ pages I haven't read through, but is it safe to assume that if it doesn't say PvP- or WvW-only, it's in all game modes?

That is generally the case.

[vanfrano.1325]

Cal Cohen seems particularly rude, I felt sorry for Roy during the stream.

[Kozumi.5816]

So now I can actually assume everyone is perma immune to CC in WvW instead of joking about it? Great.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Bach From The Brink.2715]

15 minutes ago, Styopa.2538 said:

And the people supporting it seem to believe the only game mode that exists is WvW.  Your point?

this was meant to be a wvw / pvp patch they literally said it but people missed it or something lmao

[One more for the road.8950]

The scrapper nerf was a long time coming, and I don't mind it being nerfed. It is, however, one of my favorite classes to play due to the feel and flow of it, especially when being a heal and cleanse support in WvW.

Nerfing it by taking away what makes scrapper play unique instead of nerfing the output or cd's is kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Does any of you play scrapper regularily? Do you know what makes the game play feel different from the others? Do you understand why making it all ground targeted wells is hitting harder than any other nerf you could come up with? Asked with the best intentions and true curiosity, no shade.  It just feels like we will end up with just a bunch of specializations that basically feels the same if you keep going in this direction - while GW2 is known for not having that.

Right now, anyone can play a WvW support scrapper and do well on... well, everything. Enough to sustain what they need to sustain. So yeah, nerf away. But a good scrapper enjoying the type of play you do on it can do so much more. They're as special a breed as elementalist lovers, and it hangs just as much on the way it feels while you play as well as the what it does.

Not even gonna touch the lore part of it. 😉

Edited September 17, 2022 by One more for the road.8950
missing words

[Emferno.5219]

I would like to talk about the DH changes, when cc skills were made to do 0 damage then to compensate for that longbow 3 the damage of test of faith was increased. With Nerf to ToF damage again I think you guys should look into long bow 3(deflecting shot) deflecting shot is super clunky at the moment and you can't hit anyone's unless your enemy is a potato.

[Kenjiro.5074]

Please please please please reconsider the changes to scrapper, at least in pvp. This patch sounds awful, losing quickness, and the ground targeted gyros, make the class so much less fun... The gyros following the player was such a nice twist on wells that made the class unique, this change is absolutely terrible.

Scrapper was never a meta class in sPvP, please don't delete it like this while leaving mechanist untouched. With the buffs to holosmith, and mechanist being so strong and brain dead, this will leave scrapper even further behind.

 

[Xoa.5140]

Some interesting changes, especially for the Defense and Berserker for Warriors. Will be interesting to see how they work in practice. Though the Berserker/Burst skill changes are... odd. Also what does "initiate an attack" mean for that change description? And while I'm a bit sad about the hit to Shoutsworn, I can see it's merit. It's not totally neutered I think. I don't know I'd have to get in there and test it out.

Specter got hit with the nerf bat me thinks a liiiittle too hard. Going from 1.5 to 6.9 is imo waaaaay to hard of a hit. And it also makes the trait Consume Shadows a very not good pick at all in it's current state. If anything I would trim this value back in smaller increments. Maybe 1.25. Still too much? 1.0. I don't think I would go much farther than that though, as then it sort of defeats the purpose of the Shroud entirely.

I don't do much quickness Scrapper, but judging by what my friend and others here are pointing out, Wells being ground targeted doesn't seem like the play.

And as others have stated, Mirages would like their other dodge back now, please and thank you. 🙂

[Anarchy.6985]

Seeing this update can show how the balance team have ZERO experience in WVW

Scrapper was never a meta in pvp, and in WVW Scrapper is the only way for small groups to survive

the change will allow only massive blobs to continue to stack DH, FB and REV

the wvw change simply sentenced smaller guilds to death

if you can count, how many support class is needed for one wvw group? stealth, healing, condi cleansing, quickness, superspeed

you mentioned vindicator, tempest, warrior, or druid, but none of them are buffed enough to be usable

i can guarantee in WVW blobs will still continue to use scrapper, and groups that are less then map blobs will all die off

[Cerberus.6402]

Can't say I agree with Scrapper changes. I think it already has enough ground targeted skills in its rotation. Plus it appears to be dead in WvW now, which is something.