October 4 Balance Update Preview

[Gorem.8104]

8 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I'm truly confused as to how you came to that conclusion. The new Defense line is better in literally almost every way... 

Depends on the mode, for open world it looks worse. Remember, to play a Warrior you must be smart and use every trick in the book. I can see through the lines. Its worse for open world play but better for competitive, even though we are still being nerfed in shake it off. 

[SoulBlaze.3059]

Please for the love of got stop making revenant even worse in PvP. It is already the all around worst class to play for pvp as Herald is the only viable spec that is now going to lose quickness. That is actually some BS, why are we making the worst class even more worse? It can already barely compete as is.

[Tammuz.7361]

19 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

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.

Its not just a single tempest either... projectile hate is so rampant and easy that most classes have 1 skill standard in their builds... and it only takes 1 or 2 of these up at a time to completely nullify projectiles being used against an entire zerg.

theres enough projectile hate at the moment that any and all projectile builds are essentially dead in WvW zerg play.

In fact if i recall, they even used this sad fact to nerf one skill out of existence in wvw in the past (made epidemic a projectile skill at some point).

In fact, kinda feels like the 300 sec cooldown place holders in a way, saying "we are too lazy to actually try and balance something in WvW so we will just make it completely unusable and worthless by making it a 'projectile'"

Edited September 20, 2022 by Tammuz.7361

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Depends on the mode, for open world it looks worse. Remember, to play a Warrior you must be smart and use every trick in the book. I can see through the lines. Its worse for open world play but better for competitive, even though we are still being nerfed in shake it off. 

Considering that OW can also have lots of blind, weakness, and fear depending on the map the Defense rework is solid for OW. That and the access to protection and weakness means you'll be taking FAR less damage, and AH will proc even if you miss, so your actual sustain will be higher, and you'll have the option of easy stab access or easy barrier access.  I can see Defense being good for soloing Zen Daijun's mini dungeon rather than using Tactics for shout heals.

[Bazooka.3590]

 

pls nerf bladesworn damage, untamed damage, catalyst damage and fix the match maker. Thanks.

as always...

[Zyreva.1078]

4 hours ago, Tammuz.7361 said:

In fact if i recall, they even used this sad fact to nerf one skill out of existence in wvw in the past (made epidemic a projectile skill at some point).

In fact, kinda feels like the 300 sec cooldown place holders in a way, saying "we are too lazy to actually try and balance something in WvW so we will just make it completely unusable and worthless by making it a 'projectile'"

Epi projectiles are unblockable and not affected by projectile denial.

[Ruisenior.6342]

On 9/18/2022 at 2:20 AM, jabbathejedi.6753 said:

Really? Haha. Guardian and their specs are the most overpowered ones in any game mode...and easy to use. Ydk what are you talking about, lol.

Are you sure?

[otto.5684]

On 9/16/2022 at 11:11 PM, Emferno.5219 said:

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.

This is what happens when devs who do not understand or play the classes make changes. The funny part is that this skill was buffed 6 month before Feb 2020. But this is what happens when you give someone who barely understand the detailed game balance, ability to make blanket changes. There is a reason why spvp population dropped dramatically. It is currently garbage.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

Thoughts/concerns on Berserker:

 

Berserk Mode as a Rage Skill:

Berserk mode is now a rage skill and not a burst, but still appears (based on the live stream) to require 30 adrenaline to activate. It then consumes/replaces that adrenaline with the primal burst bar and grants 10 adrenaline initially so you can activate a primal burst.

 

It is unclear if you "get credit" for the  30 adrenaline it took to activate Berserk Mode for the purposes of Berserker's Power and Adrenal Healing.  It's a pretty big flaw if Berserker needs to produce 30 adrenaline and not get any benefit from its burst-related traits just to enter Berserk mode.

 

Similarly, since Berserk Mode is no longer a burst skill, it presumably does not benefit from the CD reduction of burst skills from the Discipline traitline.  This is less of a problem since Berserker now has access to core burst skills when not in Berserk Mode, but still...it doesn't feel good to be locked out of your main mechanic for that long with no way to reduce it.

 

A few thoughts:

1) Berserk mode should  "count as a burst skill" (even if it actually doesn't attack/dmg anything) for the purposes of proccing Adrenal Healing/Berserker's Power.  It could also gain the benefit of CD reduction by taking Discipline (this is probably a significant consideration on the PvE side of things).

 

2) Alternatively, just make Berserk Mode a Rage skill that does not depend on adrenaline (no other Rage skill requires adrenaline to activate, so why should this one?).  This means that Berserk mode just has a CD like any other skill.  I'd still suggest reducing the CD to 10-12s (rather than 15s); this brings it more in line with things like Soulbeast's Beast Mode or Necro Shroud in terms of CD.

 

This allows you to use your burst skills as you want (and proccing the related AH/BP traits) without worrying about needing to save adrenaline for Berserk Mode.

 

Blood Reckoning/Dead or Alive Interaction:

This isn't a problem per se, but I could foresee a bugged interaction between these two things and wanted to bring it up for testing.

 

Blood Reckoning now provides 30 adrenaline on use (awesome change, btw).  What happens if I use BR to gain 30 adrenaline and immediately enter Berserk Mode with the Dead or Alive trait selected? I should have 5s of BR from my skill use; will the additional 2 seconds from DoA be added to the duration of my heal skill for a total of 7s?  Will DoA override my heal skill, meaning I only get 2s?  Will my heal skill cancel out DoA so it doesn't actually activate?  Will the Universe explode?🤯

 

Thanks for all your work on this!

[Ghos.1326]

On 9/16/2022 at 7:42 PM, Sylv.5324 said:

As an engi main, I'm ok with the scrapper changes because I will have more control over where I want to drop things. (I  played Tempest for a long time and got used to dropping wells where the group/zerg was headed anyway.) But the one problem I have is that Stealth Gyro no longer works like an elite should: stealth will be confined to a single spot. That's just not really useful except for resing and IMO an elite skill should do more than that.

If it applied stealth on everyone who touches it like veil does, then that'd be great.

Though it was always weird to me that stealth was an engineer thing anyway.

Stealth for Engineer makes sense, since it is supposed to be a jack of all trades, master of none profession (and, fun fact, its earlier concepts were to make it a heavy armor soldier profession that was more an actual soldier than an inventor).

[Tilen.5027]

⁉️@Cal "cmc" Cohen How hard is it for you guys to understand that by nerfing classes you are just making people quit and making the game more and more boring ?🍆💦💦💦💦💦
Do you really have to be rocket scientist to underdstand that if you nerf classes that people enjoy playing and replace them with some useless counterparts, that people will quit the game? 

Why are you so lazy that you dont buff more classes instead and make more viable builds/classes in WvW ? 🤬

[SoulBlaze.3059]

6 minutes ago, Tilen.5027 said:

⁉️@Cal "cmc" Cohen How hard is it for you guys to understand that by nerfing classes you are just making people quit and making the game more and more boring ?🍆💦💦💦💦💦
Do you really have to be rocket scientist to underdstand that if you nerf classes that people enjoy playing and replace them with some useless counterparts, that people will quit the game? 

Why are you so lazy that you dont buff more classes instead and make more viable builds/classes in WvW ? 🤬

This sounds more like 'my class was OP and I dont want it to change'

[Suyheuti.1732]

1 hour ago, Tilen.5027 said:

⁉️@Cal "cmc" Cohen How hard is it for you guys to understand that by nerfing classes you are just making people quit and making the game more and more boring ?🍆💦💦💦💦💦
Do you really have to be rocket scientist to underdstand that if you nerf classes that people enjoy playing and replace them with some useless counterparts, that people will quit the game? 

Why are you so lazy that you dont buff more classes instead and make more viable builds/classes in WvW ? 🤬

 

What is the difference between nerfing one class and buffing the rest? In the end, they will get the same level? Or am I missing something? 

[Skie.8904]

Seems like Power Berserker in PvE will still be bottom tier.

[Caitmonster.9036]

Please, please, *please* reconsider the scrapper gyros change, at least for PvE. If anything, making them ranged and ground targeted makes them easier to exploit. Half the tradeoff for having a well follow you is the scrapper has to wade into the chaos themselves to support allies. With the bunker nature of a scrapper I sort of thought that was the point, but now it's just getting homogenized like everything else in this game.

Not to mention quickness scrapper is pretty conducive to action camera, since I'm not having to swing my camera down to my feet every time I want to drop a well on myself. Now I'm gonna have to play it like I already play druid in action cam. 😧

Sneak gyro is an issue in some competitive modes, yes, but surely there's a way to adjust those wells as to not totally ruin the pve variant? Make Sneak an attackable entity (like old timey gyros were), or make it the sole stationary gyro out of the kit?

First Impact Savant got gutted and its barrier gen destroyed, and now this? Considering the insane amounts of mobility brought in from POF onward, I don't get why Anet's decided to take away the mobile nature of yet another spec. It's like Anet just wants everyone to play Mechanist at this point.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Caitmonster.9036

[Zoser.7245]

1 hour ago, Suyheuti.1732 said:

 

What is the difference between nerfing one class and buffing the rest? In the end, they will get the same level? Or am I missing something? 

Two big ones if no more:

• Each profession has different skills. Even if you manage to achieve a good balance, it will never be equal or in the same level of all them.   That is why some will be meta and other not. To  avoid it as much as possible is always preferred re-design more that eternally changing numbers .   Something done often in other games with a professional scene.
• Make your game not appealing and boring mechanically or with professions not enough good to have fun playing them.  If you play something that give you the feeling of not be enough good or properly designed, about all in competitive where skills matter even more, then you leave and play something else, other game basically.

So yes, there is a difference, and developers of a game should always find a way to attract more players to his game, no the opposite. That doesn't mean that nerfs are needed sometimes.  The "balance" in a game often could require some nerfs. But that, also means that you did not enough good job balancing previously, because you are correcting past mistakes.  

[the krytan assassin.9235]

2 hours ago, Tilen.5027 said:

Why are you so lazy that you dont buff more classes instead and make more viable builds/classes in WvW ? 🤬

Ye sure! Gimme some buffs on my ele staff AA and ranger pewpew! Oh wait it doesn't matter because of defense field. 

Then just gimme some bonus dmge on my AoE fields, so i can actually hit the enemy zerg! Oh wait you're constantly popping superspeed, making my AoE skills worthless. 

Then atleast just give me some extra conditions on my skills so i can deal more dmge and have better CC! Oh wait i'm only feeding you Boons since you convert them all. 

 

Anet fcked up big time on scrapper balancing over the last couple of years. It needs to be hit by an atomic bomb to somewhat loosen up the meta for different support/dps classes.

Prepare for some extra nerfs in the upcoming november balance patch! I'll make sure to feast on your salty tears!

 

[Ashen.2907]

18 hours ago, Sovatski.5604 said:

Please Don't implement any PVE balances/ Nerfs, the gameplay is stupid hard to solo as is (minor exceptions excluded). And that's using meta builds (for any given class) and utilizing all skills/ dodging (not just spamming "1", like a lemur).  

 

I'm not talking about soloing a bounties/ world boss/ fractals/ raids/ etc (of course those should need groups, I'm not ridiculous), I'm talking about free roaming. Like, in the open world. With generic (low rank? Not sure the term here) creatures/ enemies. Its not fun trying to avoid most everything for fear of dying for the 300th time. I think even Lord Farren killed me once, just to see what it was like (ok, that part is a joke. But you get the idea).

 

Until fairly recently,  I never played this game by myself after having died so much to almost everything (I got the game and expansions because a close friend is super into gw2, and the suffering is lessened playing with him. But he's rarely available these days). Only played with him, or even more rarely people in lfg (that works well enough,  but with a bitter taste from the aforementioned torture, it was pretty low priority to play the game at all). Finally changed classes (maybe a year or two before EOD?)(Started as a Warrior. Never ever again. Ever.), which *somewhat* helped, but still had to avoid a large percentage of encounters.  But some recent changes to the game, I changed classes again and I actually am starting to enjoy the game. Why? Because I don't get absolutely demolished every time i leave a safe area. 

 

And now there are proposed nerfs to pve?!?! Not everyone enjoys long sessions of suffering and torture (not shaming anyone, but its not my thing.). I play games to *have fun* and *relax*, not to get annihilated incessantly or wonder why I bought this or waste money.

 

(If changes or nerfs are needed for WvW/ PvP, fine. Those modes definitely aren't for me, and it has already been demonstrated that those modes can be changed *without* nerfing/ hurting PvE.) (Also, I specifically didn't mention the class I'm actually enjoying,  or the one that somewhat helped, for fear of drawing attention to them/ getting the nerfed worse than a Warrior.)  Please don't take this away. Please.

You may want to consider posting in the PLAYERS HELPING PLAYERS subforum. People there can offer assistance with builds, gear, etc. No condescension or judgement, more than happy to help.

[Xenesis.6389]

On 9/19/2022 at 12:04 PM, Despernal.3618 said:

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

Wouldn't using a pet spec be even better in this case?

[Xenesis.6389]

8 hours ago, Ghos.1326 said:

Stealth for Engineer makes sense, since it is supposed to be a jack of all trades, master of none profession (and, fun fact, its earlier concepts were to make it a heavy armor soldier profession that was more an actual soldier than an inventor).

Yet it seems to be a master of a few things it shouldn't be. I would say it makes more sense if group stealth had stayed in the realm of thief and mesmer.

[fatihso.7258]

Gyros/wells should remain mobile. There is so many creative approaches one can take for doing certain mechanics or hard carrying players in instanced pve content/open world solely because they are mobile. Don't destroy it, please 

[Suyheuti.1732]

No need for being furious about Scrapper changes. Everyone knows there is no another spec who can do the same thing that Scrapper can do in WvW. It is way more unique class. In this situation, organized 1 raid (dc connected raid with good commander) is capable to destroy 2 pug raids in a row, attacking like Blitzkrieg operation. I understand Anet idea now, they are trying to balance organized raids and pugs. No need to furious. They didnt want people to use Defense Field and Stealth Gyro as offensive utility appearently. 

 

EDIT:  I'd welcome if Anet decide to make the gyros stationary in WvW only. In PvE, I think it should stay how it is now. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Suyheuti.1732

[Tilen.5027]

9 hours ago, Zoser.7245 said:

Two big ones if no more:

• Each profession has different skills. Even if you manage to achieve a good balance, it will never be equal or in the same level of all them.   That is why some will be meta and other not. To  avoid it as much as possible is always preferred re-design more that eternally changing numbers .   Something done often in other games with a professional scene.
• Make your game not appealing and boring mechanically or with professions not enough good to have fun playing them.  If you play something that give you the feeling of not be enough good or properly designed, about all in competitive where skills matter even more, then you leave and play something else, other game basically.

So yes, there is a difference, and developers of a game should always find a way to attract more players to his game, no the opposite. That doesn't mean that nerfs are needed sometimes.  The "balance" in a game often could require some nerfs. But that, also means that you did not enough good job balancing previously, because you are correcting past mistakes.  

Exactly this! But ANET does not seem to understand this. Well said sir! 🏆

[ThrakathNar.4537]

While Scrapper undoubtedly deserves a nerf, this is not the way to do it.

 

The Current Problem in Game: Scrapper dominates as a secondary support in WvW, providing strong access to stealth, superspeed, stability, cleanse, and on-demand healing.

 

The Proposed Solution of this Patch: Make Scrapper Gyros ground targeted and not follow the player.

 

The Most Likely Outcome: Scrapper is still meta and best in slot in WvW, because it still brings all of the aforementioned things. The only change is that Scrapper becomes less fun in Open World, Fractals, and Dungeons, where the appeal of the spec is zooming around and smashing stuff in melee. Now, if you actually want to use the wells for their intended effect, you waste the superspeed you get from the initial pulse (since none of the gyros finish in under three seconds).

Edited September 21, 2022 by ThrakathNar.4537

[Cyberzerker.1857]

Don't Scrap the Gyros! The gyros moving with the is part of an established play style and a signature of the Scrappers Identity!. 

 

Ground targeted wells are redundant with other well using classes. Why bother with a wells Scrapper, when other classes do wells better.