October 4 Balance Update Preview

[UNOwen.7132]

2 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 

I am hoping it wasn't phrased well in the notes and not something else. 

We saw it on Stream. It really just means it has no cast time, not that it activates automatically.

[captrowdy.9561]

Y’all complaining about scrapper nerf actually play wvw? Boon balls getting the nerf haha 

[Tammuz.7361]

On 9/17/2022 at 10:33 PM, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

As someone who has been complaining for a long time about the status of scrapper: defense field, stealth gyro and purge gyro definitely needed a big nerf in WvW. I wouldn't mind if the scrappers kept their moving gyros aslong as they severely nerfed the skills.

Purge gyro should be fine on 3 condi cleanse, defense field should have 40 sec cd 3 sec shield duration with a maximum of 10 projectile blocks, stealth gyros should have a cd increased to atleast 75 sec and duration decreased abit. 

Honestly both gyro "wells" and gyro nerfs would've resulted in a massive protest from the engi community since they've gotten used to being basically the WvW Gods for the last couple years. Scrapper is still in a very good position in wvw post nerfs. They have the monopoly on superspeed and condi->boon conversion (both still deserve a big nerf) and still have access to stability, projectile blocks, low cd group stealth etc. 

I dont understand why Anet would want to change gyros to 'wells' outside of WvW, no need to nerf something that is not broken to begin with. 

Definitely agree that limiting projectile blocks and reflects to a certain number of projectiles each cast is something they should look into on ALL projectile hate spells, rather than having anything and everything thats a projectile be a completely dead mechanic in WvW as it is currently.

 

As someone who enjoys playing ranged, it was really demoralizing to see harbinger and virtuoso reveals last year and instantly recognize that they would be totally dead and unplayable in WvW before EoD even released thanks to “physical projectile” hate.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Tammuz.7361

[Tammuz.7361]

23 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Since we're homogenizing Scrapper wells, when can we expect Specter to get the same treatment?

No other class has 5 free mobility spells on their wells. 

--Nevermind the trade-off of throwing yourself into danger when you cast this into the middle of an enemy  zerg. This is irrelevant in the eyes of fairness.

Scrapper getting nerfed because its OP as hell in WvW zerg play.

 

Specter is not even meta in WvW zerg play currently, and committing suicide by teleporting into an enemy zerg is not OP.

 

When we see specters dominating the meta by flinging themselves into enemy zergs with their well teleports, Anet can certainly look at nerfing them at that time 🙄

Edited September 19, 2022 by Tammuz.7361

[Myror.7521]

@Tammuz.7361 well they where nerfing specter cause it is actually absolute dominant in pvp and nearly unkillable if played right specialy on its condition variant where you litterly just press one Button weapon skill and teleport to kill something on range.

[Wounder.7526]

Amazing that you're increasing Mantra of Concentration to 600 radius! Please do the same for Mantra of Resolve; it only makes sense that they have the same radius, both being support mantras.

[melodyspectrum.2980]

2 hours ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

Y’all complaining about scrapper nerf actually play wvw? Boon balls getting the nerf haha 

The well change is for all game modes.

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

The fact that this balance patch has more theorycrafting going in WvW than getting 9 new elite specs is pretty telling. 
Im excited about the changes in general and the ones for scrapper. 
 

[Gorem.8104]

Having some time to think about it, like I get it, its a "competitive balance patch" and finally fixing the 300 sec cd traits, but honestly, why do we need such HUGE differences between pve, pvp and now wvw as well? 
How would a new person have any idea what is going on when the same ability acts differently depending on three different gamemodes, that it has three versions of itself. 

And why are we still nerfing Scrapper? Its been nerfed multiple times since EoD released. Mechanist is already the most played Engie spec, why on Earth are we nerfing Scrapper more, it lost 60% of its survivability since EoD came out and now its Gyro's are being reverted to how they were before, when everyone hated them. This update is removing Scrappers from the game almost, why would anyone want to play Scrapper after this. It had its place. Now it has no place. 

Warrior the changes once again rather miss the mark but I am used to seeing that, so much focus on Beserker for no reason and a few questionable changes. At least the extremely few people who play it will see some use, especially now as no one is taking them for anything after the gigantic banner nerf THAT WAS NEVER REVERETED FOR SOME REASON. Seriously, bring unique effects back, that last guy failed at balancing, bring special buffs back, make classes diverse and unique again. We going to start only seeing the same classes... I mean we already do, you either play Mechanist or FB or you are doing it wrong. 

I still am confused to see weaker classes getting nerfs but that's still here in this update too. "catalyst over the top" yeah sure. 

Seems like one of the only things to come out of this patch with upsides is Druid. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[Carnifex.3275]

Can you not nerf Specters shroud so much? I understand pvp/wvw. But PvE from 1.5 to 0.69? That's way too much, especially condi dps specter will be fallin off shroud way too often.

[Tammuz.7361]

3 hours ago, Pati.2438 said:

@Tammuz.7361 well they where nerfing specter cause it is actually absolute dominant in pvp and nearly unkillable if played right specialy on its condition variant where you litterly just press one Button weapon skill and teleport to kill something on range.

Fair point… they probably need to look into splitting WvW and PvP balance more.

 

22 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

And why are we still nerfing Scrapper? Its been nerfed multiple times since EoD released. Mechanist is already the most played Engie spec, why on Earth are we nerfing Scrapper more, it lost 60% of its survivability since EoD came out and now its Gyro's are being reverted to how they were before, when everyone hated them. This update is removing Scrappers from the game almost, why would anyone want to play Scrapper after this. It had its place. Now it has no place. 

 

Again, they probably need to look at splitting PvP changes from WvW changes more (like they already do for PvE and “competitive” split)

 

Scrapper is insanely OP in WvW at the moment and badly needs a nerf in WvW.  Seems that its underpowered elsewhere though…

 

Mechanist on the other hand is OP as hell in PvE, seems to be decent in sPvP from the sounds of it (which admittedly i dont play), and is a non-starter in WvW.

 

Specter is OP in PvP at the moment, but underpowered to the point of not even being played in WvW zergs.  Likewise its not exactly dominating the meta in PvE to need a huge nerf either…

 

It seems like the biggest thing to come out of the discussions in this thread is: we need even MORE of a split between the game modes in terms of balance.  Whats OP in one game mode, doesnt even make meta in another, and is laughably underpowered in a 3rd (specters and scrappers being great examples of this).

[Tammuz.7361]

32 minutes ago, Carnifex.3275 said:

Can you not nerf Specters shroud so much? I understand pvp/wvw. But PvE from 1.5 to 0.69? That's way too much, especially condi dps specter will be fallin off shroud way too often.

Agree they need a game mode split in the skill here.

[Myror.7521]

@Tammuz.7361 well the thing is wvw isnt just zerk fights only. There used to be also some roamers around. And for pve it might be a nerf but its just a nerf to an allready not that mutch played build but not a too hard nerf to other builds of the same spec, so it is okaish. So i gues i know why they decided to nerf specter like this but still its just sad for something like Power specter in pvp/wvw roaming cause this build was pretty skill needed and will now be only semi playable but i gues we need to see the result first xd

[Malus.2184]

10 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

sneak gyro on specter. You may wanna give it a better uptime if the well is stationary.

Thatr goes for all Gyros, their effects or duration are pitiful if stationary The outcome of using them all depends of them being mobile and thus allowing for movement by the people affected.

As stationary the area of effect needs to be increased and mechanically they should work more like Reynak's stationary gyros. Especially the Shredder and Blast Gyros where the foirmer is essentially a turrect with knockback and the latter is a pulsing AoE.

[kappa.2036]

Those druid changes are completely nullified by the Celestial Avatar 20s cooldown in pvp. Basically you nerfed druid self condi cleanse to get nothing worth using, since support druid will never exist as long CA cooldown is doubled in pvp compared to other modes.

 

In wvw druid will still lack unique buffs like other supports can provide and its also crippled by the pet, so basically Soulbeast is still the only (off-meta) way to play ranger in zerg fights.

 

I mean, anyone who remotely plays ranger could identify these issues. I am quite disappointed.

 

 

 

[Sahne.6950]

On 9/16/2022 at 11:04 PM, The Great Al.2546 said:

this doesn’t make sense, and is totally random. Why would I need an arcane shield when I use my elite? Do I now have to save my elites for strictly when I need an arcane shield? 

Example for a situation where it might be usefull:

imagine your CeleFireweaver. You use Weave self and then engage. After receiving 3 hits your arcaneshield will pop dealing extra damage during your engage, and should you be in earthattunement it will also root the enemy to potential setup a combo. Depending on the Cooldown of the trait, you will yet again gain another arcane shield when executing the perfect wave skill. Yet again giving you a shield and damage when it pops.

or another example: when you use the elementalsurge trait, using your elite will trigger this spell. For example if you are running a Freshair scepter Ele. You no longer need to run an arcane skill somewhere. You could use the Weaveself skill twice to trigger the buff this way. Freeing up the slot for something diffrent, or simply run Arcane shield here aswell.

If you are running Arcane shield and Weaveself you have a pretty good uptime of Arcane shield. Just the two will be more than enough for a Freshairbuild to maintain the buff during the important times.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[schento.4980]

To whoever it may concern...

Awfull balance issue has slipped up in October the 4th Patch Preview. 

With New "Defy Pain" and new "Last Stand" warrior can chain together:

- 5 seconds of "Defiant Stance" on 30s CD

- 3.75 seconds of "Endure Pain" on 40s CD

- 3 seconds of "Shield Stance" on 30s CD

- 2,5 seconds of "Lesser Endure Pain" on 40s CD (cooldown of "Sygnet of Rage")

- Multiple dodge rolls (due to neaar permament vigor from Last Stand)

That is in total over 15 seconds of substantual damage mitigation. on 30-40 seconds CD. 

On top of that 3 off mentioned above also provide Barrier. 

 

Bladesworn, thanks to "Lush Forest" can reduce cooldowns of Stances by 6-8 seconds every 20 seconds. 

Which means he on average shaves off 10 seconds from "Defiant Stance" and "Shield Stance" and 14 seconds of "Endure Pain" and "Sygnet of Rage" 

Applying all of the above to current most broken Bladesworn bild would ONLY require swapping nerfed skills ("Shake it off" and "Tactical Reload") for buffed ones ("Endure Pain" and "Rage Sygnet"), healing skill and one thaitline. 

With ability to chain over 15 seconds of continuus damage nulification, and ability to reduce cooldowns of damage nullyfying skills to 20 and 26 sec respectively, while sacrificeing nearly no sustain for it (Defense overcompensaates for loseing "Might Makes Right" and "Shake it Off") Bladesworn will become an Eldrich Horror to put Mechanist's all time peak to the shame.

 

[All of the above + further details in form of a video for those who don't like to read. ]

 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

1 hour ago, schento.4980 said:

To whoever it may concern...

Awfull balance issue has slipped up in October the 4th Patch Preview. 

With New "Defy Pain" and new "Last Stand" warrior can chain together:

- 5 seconds of "Defiant Stance" on 30s CD

- 3.75 seconds of "Endure Pain" on 40s CD

- 3 seconds of "Shield Stance" on 30s CD

- 2,5 seconds of "Lesser Endure Pain" on 40s CD (cooldown of "Sygnet of Rage")

- Multiple dodge rolls (due to neaar permament vigor from Last Stand)

That is in total over 15 seconds of substantual damage mitigation. on 30-40 seconds CD. 

On top of that 3 off mentioned above also provide Barrier. 

 

Bladesworn, thanks to "Lush Forest" can reduce cooldowns of Stances by 6-8 seconds every 20 seconds. 

Which means he on average shaves off 10 seconds from "Defiant Stance" and "Shield Stance" and 14 seconds of "Endure Pain" and "Sygnet of Rage" 

Applying all of the above to current most broken Bladesworn bild would ONLY require swapping nerfed skills ("Shake it off" and "Tactical Reload") for buffed ones ("Endure Pain" and "Rage Sygnet"), healing skill and one thaitline. 

With ability to chain over 15 seconds of continuus damage nulification, and ability to reduce cooldowns of damage nullyfying skills to 20 and 26 sec respectively, while sacrificeing nearly no sustain for it (Defense overcompensaates for loseing "Might Makes Right" and "Shake it Off") Bladesworn will become an Eldrich Horror to put Mechanist's all time peak to the shame.

 

[All of the above + further details in form of a video for those who don't like to read. ]

 

A few things:

 

1) chaining defiant stance, endure pain, and shield stance sounds better on paper than it is in practice. Note that you can already do this, and it isn't even good, let alone OP.

 

2) Lush Forest only reduces CDs when the *first* ammo of a skill is used. This largely prevents repeated reductions to CDs because you normally have to use more than just one each charge of your shouts or gunsaber skills. Thus, even when a charge recharges, it's not the *first* charge and so using it does not proc lush Forest. Moreover, if you drop tactical reload for signet of Rage (as in your example), you further reduce your ability recharge your ammo skills, thus reducing your ability to use Lush Forest. 

 

3) taking stances comes with significant opportunity cost. You suggested dropping Shake It Off in order to take endure pain. If you do this, you have no counter to conditions or immobilize. If you give up For Great Justice instead, your might generation plummets and you lose a big chunk of damage, especially on Bladesworn.

 

4) Stance skills have fairly long CDs. Yes, you can chain a few together to make yourself hard to kill (but still susceptible to control effects and conditions)... But then you have nothing left and are extremely vulnerable.

 

All told, stances in general and on bladesworn in particular likely sound better on paper than they actually are. We should actually try the new changes before sounding the alarm. 

 

[schento.4980]

1.) I went an checked, currently it "dosn't work" only becouse you are essentially playing withaout one or more traits, an with the most unbearabe (for Bladesworn) traitline whuch is Defense. Patch howewer is going to commit a complete 180 degree turn on what Defense does. 

Furthermore, "Lesser Endure Pain" Is not avaliable on current patch in any consistent form further reducing strategy's effectiveness. 

the difference we are talking ablut is total off 4,25 s of damage nullification. 

You Can drive current version of the bild right towards the sunset and i have proven it imes and times again, but its nothing compared to, what patch assumes, it will be. 

 

2.) Yes lush forest only reduces CD when *First* ammo is used. BUT useing every skill once, one after another isn't that mentally difficult. Not every warrior player was clinically lobotomised, and i guarantee you that majority of warrior mains, especially those who play Bladesworn alot, already knows how to optimise benefits from "Lush Forest".

You press 5, 4, 3, 2 on your gunsaber +  "On my mark" and "For Great justice" + "Trigger guard" + shadowstep, and you get 8 sec off of your cooldowns. And cooldowns of gunsaber skills are  10, 15, 20 and 20, so if you go into your second set of weapons and use Sheald 5, your gunsaber skills will come back right after your block animation finishes. 

Even a moron like me can get it trough his head if he at least tries. 

 

3.) "Shake it Off" got hevyly changed, and i doubt it will be Bladesworn's first choice after the patch, especially in sPvP. And i find it difficult to think off any condition bild that can take Bladesworn out before "Defiant Stance" comes into play, or to survive its whole duration. 

4.) *Lush-Bloody-Forest*. look point 2.)

 

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by schento.4980

[Zyreva.1078]

9 hours ago, Tammuz.7361 said:

Definitely agree that limiting projectile blocks and reflects to a certain number of projectiles each cast is something they should look into on ALL projectile hate spells, rather than having anything and everything thats a projectile be a completely dead mechanic in WvW as it is currently.

 

No, that would just favour numbers, because they can easily overcome any projectile limit, while smaller numbers will still get shut down. If anything, the numbers of players protected could be limited. Having defenses that can't be powered through by sheer numbers is a good thing tho.

Projectiles are only underwhelming in organised zerg fights, in smaller scale and clouding they are very prevalent and powerful. Pew pew rangers, mechanists, dragonhunters, deadeyes, ... everywhere and those shouldn't be able to mindlessly spam their stuff, just because there are many of them.

Edited September 19, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[UNOwen.7132]

4 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

No, that would just favour numbers, because they can easily overcome any projectile limit, while smaller numbers will still get shut down. If anything, the numbers of players protected could be limited. Having defenses that can't be powered through by sheer numbers is a good thing tho.

Projectiles are only underwhelming in organised zerg fights, in smaller scale and clouding they are very prevalent and powerful. Pew pew rangers, mechanists, dragonhunters, deadeyes, ... everywhere and those shouldn't be able to mindlessly spam their stuff, just because there are many of them.

Even in small scale fights, a single Tempest can render projectile classes irrelevant for a lot of seconds in a row. Any projectile hate in general is brutal. I'd say projectile hate needs to have some kind of limit or restriction, or projectile classes need better ways to force projectiles through.

[Bear.9568]

Mirage evade when?

[graishak.5406]

tried to make specter work in wvw, and it already feels really bad,groups burn through shroud as it is, now it gets reduced massively as well.
ofc, it did already look like specter will never be a meta secondary support, at most a very niche or meme pick.
even if its a meme, i love unconventional classes, this did not need a nerf in wvw.
now i think it will probably stay atrocious in wvw for quite some time.
a wvw scrapper nerf was long overdue, mobile wells are hard to counter in wvw, i am not sure if you can actually balance mobile sneak gyro. 
mobile purge gyro feels really bad to play against and i often just want to log off when i see a scrapper heavy group.

if the current change isnt accepted by pve players, heres another suggestion that would be fine for me:
the superspeed on gyro trait is baseline now.
make the gyros stationary as planned.
the empty trait now changes them to mobile gyros, but applying a long wvw only recharge penalty, possibly smiters booning it in wvw only.
so pveers could choose which skills to use, but stationary becomes the standard in wvw.

[Zyreva.1078]

Just now, UNOwen.7132 said:

Even in small scale fights, a single Tempest can render projectile classes irrelevant for a lot of seconds in a row. Any projectile hate in general is brutal. I'd say projectile hate needs to have some kind of limit or restriction, or projectile classes need better ways to force projectiles through.

So what? Not being able to mindlessly spam projectiles for a few seconds, such horror ...There are projectile spammers everywhere and they can be very oppressive without projectile denial. Players shouldn't always get away with their mindless spam. If projectiles were as bad as people claim, WvW wouldn't be full of projectile builds. That being said, uptime on certain projectile denial skills could certainly be adjusted. But limiting the amount of projectiles should never be the "solution". It disproportionally favours certain builds (multi hit, fast attack speed) as well as superior numbers, that already have the innate benefit of having more players and certainly don't need any more advantages.

[Despernal.3618]

Hi,

 

I don't mind most of these changes for wvw, I can understand them however. I have nerve dmg in my hands and I use qscrapper in pve as it is more LI (Low Impact) and i can still do content well without hurting my hands. I use it to do everything include meta farming. I feel like with the changes to the wells it will make things more difficult and painful for my hands, in long meta farms.

I can understand doing the changes in pvp/wvw but why do them in pve, its not hurting anything now before the change in pve.

Can we just have the scrapper changes for pvp/wvw and leave pve alone.

 

Thank you