November 29 Balance Patch Wishes/Suggestions

[otto.5684]

pve:

 

Guardian:

Sword needs a buff. AA and sword 3. 
DH needs more damage from multiplayers. Nothing ridiculous. It just needs its overall damage increased by ~10%.

LB3 needs rework. LB needs a buff in pve.

WB, a bit of a buff to condi damage, so it is in the 38k range.

WB as a while needs rework to its traits, utilities and off hand sword. It is a beta level 8 month into EOD. Very poorly designed.

 

Rev:

I hope herald gets some some damage buffs that compete with support traits. It is viable support. Not so much otherwise.

Vindicator needs some support added to its kit. Otherwise, the damage is there. 
Mallyx needs rework for pvp. 

[LadyKitty.6120]

Kitty's wishes in patch note format...and PVE-perspective as usual. For basis of many of these numbers, Kitty's recorded cast times of all skills (literally tested ALL of them) and their damages and other infos into a spreadsheet and compared the numbers and these are the numbers that'd balance the weapons and some traits pretty well. Kitty updates this as she gets math and some testing done and edit logging is at the bottom of the post.

Warrior
Now that warrior got quickness, the coveted Heal Warrior would actually become a viable build in PVE IF Vigorous Shouts wasn't in same column as Martial Cadence. So, here's how to make the dreams come true.
-Vigorous Shouts: Swaps places with Shrug It Off! and no longer gives Healing Power based on Power. Increase the healing modifier from 1.2 to 1.5.
-Empowered: Additionally gain Healing Power based on 13% of your Power. (Taken from Vigorous Shouts)
(These 2 changes alone would increase the potential maximum healin output to about 2.8k per ally per second.)
-Soldier's Comfort: Increase the healing modifier from 0.8 to 1.4. (This on top of previous changes would bring it to about 3.0k which would be similar to GotL druid.)
-Shrug It Off: Swaps places with Vigorous Shouts and now removes 3 conditions when its "Shake It Off!" triggers. Increase the healing modifier from 0.2 to 0.4.
Shrug It Off would compete with Martial Cadence as grandmaster trait and thus it'd be a choice between about 3.5k maximum healing potential+big cleanses and full Quickness output on heal build. Taking Shrug It Off wouldn't be super-OP even at condition-heavy bosses since keeping up full Quickness with Shrug It Off and 1 banner would require increasing Boon Duration to close to 100% and taking Banner of Tactics instead.
-Warrior's Cunning: Lower the Health Threshold from 80% to 50%. (Overall damage bonus goes from 5% to 12.5%.)
Currently Body Blow is slightly in weird position as it's main use is inflicting Bleeding which is one of the main themes in Arms. Meanwhile Signet Mastery focuses on improving damage which is exactly what Strength is about. Doing this swap would allow creating cohesive condi builds that utilize CCs, great for esp. main-hand mace which already does condis on Berserker's Primal Burst "Skull Cracker".
-Body Blow: Move to Arms as Major Adept trait, replacing Signet Mastery. Reduce the Bleeding Duration from 12s to 8s and increase the Bleeding stacks from 1 to 2.
-Signet Mastery: Move to Strength as Major Master trait, replacing Body Blow.
Currently hammer is still behind meta weapons but these should get it to right spot slightly below GS as GS has good mobility while hammer has CC.
-Earthshaker: Increase damage coefficient from 2.0 to 2.5.
-Fierce Shock: Increase damage coefficient from 1.8 to 2.2.
Sword is currently in pretty good spot and its power damage got boosted nicely. However, this has led to one skill becoming worthless to use for anything except movement.
-Savage Leap: Increase damage coefficient from 2 to 2.75. (It's a slow skill without a condi component and this change would make it about 15% stronger than simply auto-attacking.)
Also, rifle is still weak.
-Kill Shot: Increase damage coefficient from 2.25/2.75/3.25 to 2.5/3.25/4.
-Volley: Increase damage coefficient from 3.75 to 4.5. (It's slooow so the seemingly big damage modifier is actually pretty smål DPS.)
-Explosive Shot: Increase base damage from 527 to 642 and damage coefficient from 1.5 to 2.5.
Currently Spellbreaker uses dagger as main-hand and Bladesworn doesn't have normal bursts which means that main-hand can be boosted for core Warrior and Berserker without boosting the stronger alternatives by boosting the axe bursts.
-Eviscerate: Increase damage coefficient from 2.0/2.5/3.0 to 2.25/3.0/3.75.
Also, maces have been totally ignored for a good while and they're doing very low damage. While mace is a CC-weapon on warrior, it is often characterized as CC/condi weapon on other classes (and support weapon on Guardian). It also already does condis on Berserker and Warrior also has trait "Body Blow" which utilizes CCs to inflict Bleeding. Good synergy for maces.
-Mace Smash: Inflict 1 stack of Bleeding for 4 seconds.
-Mace Bash: Inflict 2 stack of Bleeding for 4 seconds.
-Pulverize: On top of previous effects, also inflict 2 stacks of Bleeding for 8 seconds.
-Counterblow: On top of previous effects, also inflict  2 stacks of Confusion for 5 seconds. (Rewards for skilled play)
-Pommel Bash: On top of previous effects, also inflict 3 stacks of Confusion for 5 seconds.
-Crushing Blow: Also inflict 3 stacks of Bleeding for 4 seconds.
-Tremor: On top of previous effects, also inflict 3 stacks of Confusion for 4 seconds in melee range. (Since it has both melee and ranged component.)

Berserker
Though power warr got buffs earlier, something was totally forgotten: Berserker bursts. That pretty much led to Power Berserker being weaker than core warrior with most weapons, esp. greatsword and hammer. However, since axes and greatsword are otherwise strong on Spellbreaker and Bladesworn, their normal weapon skills can't get big buffs and thus Berserker's buffing needs to be done through traits and bursts. Since Condi Berserker is also strong, the focus needs to be on stuffs specifically Power Berserker uses.
-Arc Divider: Increase base damage from 564 to 1098 and damage coefficient from 1.4 to 4.8. (Arc Divider takes about 2.75x as long to cast as Arcing Slice and even after this boost it'd be 20% weaker in comparison.)
-Rupturing Smash: Increase damage coefficient from 1.5 to 2.25.
-Gun Flame: Increase damage coefficient from 2.2 to 2.6.

Spellbreaker
Currently off-hand dagger is noticeably weaker than off-hand axe while they're direct competitors. While dagger does have damage bonus on Wastrel's Ruin, that can't be utilized very easily due to "enemy inactive"-requirement which would either require reading NPC enemy's movements (esp. any elite or higher since you can't normally CC them to stop their attacks) or setting Wastrel's Ruin by using CC before it (pretty much requires mace as main-hand or low latency with dagger) on CC-able targets (veteran or normal mobs or players, though this is PVE perspective and regarding Wastrel's Ruin, it'd be better to have separate balances.) Due to this conditional unreliability, Kitty would personally increase it's damage slightly higher than Dual Strike when 25% of attacks hit inactive foe, esp. considering that Dual Strike gives some quickness as well.
Meanwhile Bladestorm's attack speed and relatively low damage coefficient causes it to do less damage than auto-attacking while it is 5th weapon skill which is usually supposed to be big damage/effect skill. It does have frontal damage reflect as utility but it's very rare niche cases it can be used effectively on. Swiftness also doesn't cover for it since you can get it from other sources usually and its competitor Whirling Axe has built-in +50% movement speed which makes it move faster than Bladestorm. Whirling Axe also has finisher for more damage while Bladestorm doesn't have such. Though it is true that Bladestorm has some range which allows tiny bit more DPS uptime and as such, being about 10% lower than Whirling Axe would be good spot for this particular skill, in Kitty's opinion.
-Wastrel's Ruin: Increase damage coefficient from 1.5 to 1.65.
-Bladestorm: Increase base damage from 896 to 1240 and damage coefficient from 3.5 to 5.0.

Mesmer
It does have healing capability but weaker than other classes (about 2.4k HPS atm, average across other classes is about 3.5-4k atm). These would help fix it.
-Restorative Illusions: Now heals 5 allies in 240 radius.
-Healing Prism: Now gives +10% outgoing healing. No longer gives Healing Power based on a percentage of Power. (Considering that good portion of healing stat sets, for ex. Magi's, Minstrel's, Giver's etc., don't have Power, this change would take some healing power away from Harrier's but increase healing for many other stats.)
-Illusionary Inspiration: Increase the base healing from 212 to 289 and healing modifier from 0.3 to 0.5.
-Bountiful Disillusionment: Now grants the additional boons to 5 allies in 240 radius. Might and Vigor duration is increased to 12s, Fury duration to 16s and regen duration to 20s. (Reverses the nerf which was justified with old SoI and when chrono was able to give both alac and quickness but now seriously hinders mesmer's boon ability compared to every other healer. Worded as "Additional boons" like in trait description as stability won't be included in shared boons for the sake of balance.
Since Inspiration doesn't provide boons and chrono doesn't have proper access to sharing these boons, this trait with 100% BD and Improved Alacrity-trait would be just enough to give 100% uptime on aforementioned boons if shatters are used off-CD. Though might output would still be max. 15 stacks from this trait and Tides of Time on shield gives the remaining 10 stacks for full might uptime. This trait would also force a choice between more heals from using Illusions traitline for faster clone generation for Illusionary Inspiration and Chaos for these boons. And though it'd be possible to use Inspiration traitline with Blurred Inscriptions for extending these boons to avoid modifying this trait, it's not really a viable thing to use that trait in conjunction with this trait on heal or DPS build as BI is mutually exclusive with II for healer and taking Inspiration at all is a HUGE DPS loss for boon DPS. Condi boon chrono could take this trait as well to give auxiliary boons but as of now, condi chrono is weak enough DPS-wise and giving full boons on it would require so much BD that DPS loss would be quite big that this wouldn't be overpowering even in that case.)
-Mind Wreck: Increase the damage from 642 to 707 and damage coefficient from 2.42 to 3.0. (Tiny bit weaker than Chrono's Split Second which also has the advantage of lot lower cooldown with IA.)
-Mind Gash: Increase damage multiplier from 0.8 to 0.9. (It has same damage as Mind Slash but 43% longer cast time.)
-Blurred Frenzy: Increase damage coefficient from 3.0768 to 3.5. (Would do slightly more damage than dagger's Bladecall which has half the CD and Unstable Bladestorm still hits harder and both dagger skills are ranged. As rooted, locked to front and melee, Blurred-effect only compensates for the clunkiness and risk.)
Staff's Winds of Chaos is capable of bouncing back to primary target for 2nd hit to apply both Torment on first hit and Confusion on 2nd hit. Thus Scepter's auto-attack needs some buffs to bring it to same level (while staff also gives boons and scepter is a DPS weapon). These changes also don't overshadow axe due to all the torment it generates when Mirrored Axes-trait is slotted and axe also cleaves while scepter doesn't.
-Ether Bolt: Increase Torment duration from 2s to 3s.
-Ether Blast: Increase Torment duration from 3s to 4s.
-Ether Clone: If you don't have maximum number of illusions, additionally inflicts 5s of Torment. (In other words, 5s of Torment while summoning a clone.)
-Ether Bolt (Clone): Increase Torment duration from 2s to 3s. (Clone's Winds of Chaos has potential to bounce back to enemy for 2nd hit which'd cause 2s of Confusion or bounce to ally to give boons and 3s of Torment on Scepter's Ether Bolt would be good midway between single and double hit on staff's Winds of Chaos).

Mirage
Though Mirage was created as a condi spec, there are power DPS possibilities if the numbers are brought to where they should be.
-Mirage Thrust: Increase base damage from 367 to 532 and damage coefficient from 1.0 to 3.0. (It's slow and melee and currently does 40% of auto-attack chain's DPS. Even GS ambush does 50% more and that one is weak as well. Even axe ambush does twice as much power damage as sword ambush. Thus 3.0 is the very bare minimum to make sword ambush worth using. The daze it has is essentially an interrupt so it doesn't really excuse low damage.)
-Split Surge: Increase damage coefficient from 1.35 to 2.4. (10% less damage than sword ambush as ranged punishment)
-Ether Barrage: Increase confusion and Torment duration from 4s to 6s. (With 3 clones, that'd equal to total of 30s+3x15s=75s of mix of Torment and Confusion as each hit does either Torment or Confusion. Meanwhile each staff's Chaos Vortex does 4x8s=32s of both Torment and Bleeding and 8s+3*3s=17s of Confusion so 81s of conditions total and big boons on top of that. Staff would still have advantage due to boons but if we get the scepter buffs mentioned in Mesmer-section, that'd balance it out.)

Necromancer
-Life Siphon (Dagger 2): Increase base damage from 990 to 1100 and damage coefficient from 2.7 to 4.0. (Currently worse than auto-attack.)
-Enfeebling Blood: Increase base damage from 550 to 770 and damage coefficient from 1.5 to 2.5. (Balanced by nerfing Harbinger's pistol to retain its damage as it is now. This change actually makes off-hand skill worth using on power DPS.)
-Soul Grasp: This. Back. To. Normal. Now. Also Increase base damage from 248 to 392 and damage coefficient from 0.75 to 1.4.
-Unholy Feast and Unholy Burst: Increase base damage from 323 to 432 and damage coefficient from 1.75 to 2.4. Unholy burst now triggers when target's health is below 50%. (this would bring axe's overall damage to situationally to same region as staff's equivalent skills.)
-Life Blast: Increase base damage from 372 to 439 and damage coefficient from 1.8 to 2.2. (Currently using shroud is a DPS loss for core necro.)
-Life Transfer: Increase base damage from 1017 to 2034 and damage coefficient from 3.825 to 8.0. (Currently does less damage than auto-attack and after these necro shroud buffs it'd be about 10% more damage than auto-attack.)
-Tainted Shackles: Increase base damage from 332 to 564 and damage coefficient from 1.25 to 2.0. (The end hit would be about same as Dark Pact's, taking shroud buffs into account, and you need to be near the foe for 4 seconds for the skill to hit as power damage portion hits at the end of shackle's effect).

Reaper
Shouts are competing with Wells. Shouts do have the advantage that they have large radius and they hit right away. However, they still do too blasphemously low damage to be an option for DPS. Either they need a buff or wells need a nerf or both.
-Grasping Darkness: Increase base damage from 524 to 624 and damage coefficient from 1.3 to 2.0.
-Gravedigger: Increase base damage from 1210 to 1380 and damage coefficient from 3.0 to 3.5.
-"Nothing Can Save You!": Increase base damage from 532 to 752 and damage coefficient from 2.0 to 3.0.
-"You Are All Weaklings!": Increase base damage from 665 to 800 and damage coefficient from 2.5 to 4.5.

Harbinger
-Vicious Shot: Decrease damage coefficient from 0.65 to 0.6.
-Weeping Shots: Decrease damage coefficient from 2.4 to 2.0.

Thief
Thief is currently in pretty good place when it comes to condi builds. However, some thief's power builds are quite underpowered, staff, pistols and sword in particular. (Rifle/Dagger+Dagger Deadeye doesn't count as counter-argument, essay of Kitty's reasoning in Deadeye-section.) And to be clear, yes, Infiltrator's Strike on sword did get a buff but...Infiltrator's Return takes so long that ultimately using it is a massive damage loss. Currently it's mainly good for catching up to opponent and for healing on Specter. But since sword's auto-attack chain already does big damage, the buffing needs to be done through Stealth Attack and Dual Wield skills. And to compensate for lack of cleave, requiring HP above 90% for vital boosts and reliance on flanking as well as making skills actually worth using on sword to encourage active gameplay (auto-attacking is currently best damage), Kitty has following suggestions:
-Twin Fangs: Increase the critical damage and critical rate bonus from 7% to 10%. (About 4-5% buff)
-Deadly Aim: Remove the damage reduction. (It competes with Practised Tolerance which is already about 10% damage boost on power builds. This trait is useful to begin with only if there's multiple enemies and you can position yourself well to hit them all and you likely won't be able to flank them all to begin with. If you can use this trait effectively, which are few bosses where Virtuoso and Rifle Mechanist also excel at without similar conditions for damage, you're kinda qualified for the slight damage boost from piercing.)
-Tactical Strike and Malicious Tactical Strike: Increase damage coefficient from 1 to 2. (Dagger's Backstab from back would still do 50% more DPS and Malicious Backstab in typical rotation would do 116-155% more DPS.)
-Pistol Whip: Increase damage coefficient of initial hit from 0.37 to 0.6 and 2nd part from 3.16 to 4.0. (Due to super-long cast, it currently does less damage than auto-attacking while also rooting in place and this change would make it do 16% more DPS than auto-attacks.)
-Flanking Strike: Increase damage coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0.
-Larcenous Strike: Increase damage coefficient from 1.6 to 2.2. (This chain would thus do 16% more damage to enemies without boons and 2.5% more damage to enemies with boons, comparing to auto-attack. Currently these attacks are a big damage loss.)
-Vital Shot: Increase damage coefficient from 0.575 to 0.6. Increase Bleed duration from 4s to 6s.
-Unload: Increase damage coefficient per hit from 0.4 to 0.46.
-Repeater (Both versions): Increase damage coefficient from 1.5 to 1.8. (Would allow kinda hybrid bleed/power build)
When it comes to daggers, the following buffs to Daredevil and Deadeye would buff Condi Daredevil and D+D Deadeye further so tiny nerf to auto-attack would counter that. Dancing Dagger is also seeing pretty much 0 use and its torment is kinda outlier compared to rest of condi thief's kit so Kitty would replace it with bleed. (Torment is only a thing for Skale Venom, Condi Deadeye and Specter and they all already have ranged torment skills.) It's really weak atm so Kitty would boost it a bunch. Not as strong as Death Blossom which would be its main companion skill, though, but as complimentary skill if you need to go to range for a few seconds. Also would kinda allow a shady knifethrower build (though Virtuoso does it shinier).
-Lotus Strike: Reduce damage coefficient from 1.1 to 1.0.
-Dancing Dagger: No longer inflicts Torment but inflicts 3 stacks of Bleed for 8 seconds instead.
-Cloak and Dagger: Reduce damage coefficient from 1.25 to 1.2.

Daredevil
Power Daredevil's got some boost in previous balance patches but it's still a behind where it should be. In Kitty's personal testing, it's currently behind metabuilds by about 10% while also having the disadvantage of having to spam evades while staying behind the enemy in melee range. But buff to one trait should be enough to get it to where it should be. With dagger auto-attack nerf from earlier, it also won't buff Condi Daredevil further. Also, to further compliment the knifethrower RP build...
-Weakening Strikes: Increase damage increase from 10% to 15%.
-Impairing Daggers: Increase the Poison duration from 10s to 12s.

Deadeye
As one exception to "power thief is weak", we have current "meta" Power Deadeye which is so extremely conditional and has so many handicaps (no cleave, requires melee for dagger and can't move in rifle, really fast and precise rotation, has 1% per boon and 2% per condition damage modifiers as well as 15% of crit rate+7% crit damage is tied to being over 90% health and requires flanking for other 7% crit rate and needs extra precision from gears) that even 10% boost to it's already high benchmark wouldn't make it super-OP compared to its competitors. And just some gameplay problems it has: You can only have one Marked target at a time and Deadeye lacks cleave and Stealth attacks from guns don't pierce which can prevent hitting the mark if there's adds present which means malice doesn't get consumed which means that Deadeye is in big problems. And mark disappears if you get downed. And using rifle is extremely hard in many PVE scenarios as you either won't get support (which means no damage) if you range or you need to extremely high skill to time evades and weaving in attacks in melee and if you get CC'd by any attack, you get unkneeled and there goes damage and that interrupt feels bad like interrupted Weaver. Some enemies also simply don't allow consistent flanking for daggers. And as of now, from what Kitty tested, rifle DE does just 20% more damage than rifle mechanist which 1. pierces on most skills and has some cleaving stuffs 2. can move while DPSing 3. does good DPS by facerolling 4 buttons. 4. has superior self-boon capabilities. 5. has huge utility and massive CC. Tryhard rifle/dagger+dagger Deadeye does do about 30% more but...if anyone ever can realistically pull that off with all those conditions to it (and it also uses Hide in the Shadows as heal as part of rotation which means that it doesn't even have self-sustain), they seriously deserve the DPS superiority spot.
E: Kitty also found out about dagger+dagger DE which does almost as much damage as rifle/D+D but the same drawbacks still apply which is why Kitty still considers giving a tiny boost for to even rifle and dagger+dagger variants reasonable.

With the recent trend of kinda everyone giving Might and Fury, Fire for Effect has also become essentially obsolete and it could be converted to provide group Quickness instead to give thief a DPS Quickness support role while Specter does Alacrity. Since thief can already provide Fury through Unrelenting Strikes and Thrill of the Crime, Kitty would suggest taking Fury away from Fire for Effect and replacing it with 4s Quickness which would then give Deadeye a choice of big self-buffs from using skills with Maleficent Seven, self-quickness and easy extra DPS from Be Quick or Be Dead and altruistic choice of Fire for Effect for group boons. This also wouldn't make it stronger than other quick supports even if you give thief power DPS buffs as Deadeye would either need to sacrifice DPS and CC to get enough extra stolen skills and it'd also need to take extra precision AND concentration from gears and it also won't have the initiative generation of Maleficent Seven so even for top 1% players, this change wouldn't likely go above 25k DPS in golem conditions without other boosts to power thief.
-Iron Sight: Increase the damage bonus against marked target from 15% to 20%. (Note: just marked target. Sucks for cleave. And in reality this is 4% buff 'cause adjusting existing modifier.)
-Fire for Effect: Instead of Fury, now gives 4s of Quickness to allies when hitting the target with a stolen skill.

E: Working on thief stuffs on October 27th.
Continued thief stuffs and added spellbreaker stuffs on October 28th and fixed "modifiers" into "damage coefficient" like in patch notes usually.

Edited October 28, 2022 by LadyKitty.6120

[eldrevo.1746]

3 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

WB as a while needs rework to its traits, utilities and off hand sword. It is a beta level 8 month into EOD. Very poorly designed.

What do you think is so bad? To me, it's one of the better designed elite specs in terms of mechanics and theme.

Offhand sword is already okay in pvp/wvw, just needs a little nudge to its damage in pve. Well, maybe change the animation for 4 skill for a better multi-hit one (A flurry one like SpB Dagger 5? A whirlwind one like Warrior Axe 5? A shockwave one like Rev Sword 4?)

From the traits perspective, I see only 2 mild issues: the first row is kind of bland and boring, and the F3 trait in the last row is absolutely useless. These could use some buffs, but other traits see more diversity than FB and DH traits, at least when I'm theorycrafting or looking up new builds.

Some utilities are underused, yeah... Just like in other specs. When did you see Mantra of Truth for the last time? Or the Reveal trap? I'd say, each and every underused skill should be buffed or rework until everything sees enough play, but it's kind of utopia, and we can't have it 😞

[Kodama.6453]

I would love to see a turret rework, but that's definitely not going to happen.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I would love to see a turret rework, but that's definitely not going to happen.

Anet: *Slaps Rifle Turret* we've increased the fire rates on all turrets by 15% and now they grant 2s of quickness in an AoE when you detonate them.

[spots.4017]

a thief rework. 
If Anet dont like thief and how it works is hard to balance, just rework it. Make it a nice thief class where you can have at least 1 good build in every aspect of the game.. right now thief is the worst class. worst than ele before it get his alac build on tempest...

[Lenmar.1970]

Just one wish : if a skill or a class has to be nerfed (and there are), please do it slightly maybe in two or three steps since balance patches should occur more often now.

So many play styles became useless after they got nerfed to the ground. So much frustration for those who liked them...

[otto.5684]

9 hours ago, eldrevo.1746 said:

What do you think is so bad? To me, it's one of the better designed elite specs in terms of mechanics and theme.

Offhand sword is already okay in pvp/wvw, just needs a little nudge to its damage in pve. Well, maybe change the animation for 4 skill for a better multi-hit one (A flurry one like SpB Dagger 5? A whirlwind one like Warrior Axe 5? A shockwave one like Rev Sword 4?)

From the traits perspective, I see only 2 mild issues: the first row is kind of bland and boring, and the F3 trait in the last row is absolutely useless. These could use some buffs, but other traits see more diversity than FB and DH traits, at least when I'm theorycrafting or looking up new builds.

Some utilities are underused, yeah... Just like in other specs. When did you see Mantra of Truth for the last time? Or the Reveal trap? I'd say, each and every underused skill should be buffed or rework until everything sees enough play, but it's kind of utopia, and we can't have it 😞

I can write essays of why. To simplify:

1) Most functionality is lifted off s/s Herald, but made worse. It was initially carried in pvp by sustain. Now that mostly died out.

2) In PvE power build plays exactly as DH with. Condi build is also very sami to core.
3) The whole upper line with alacrity does not work. 

4) 2 of the major grand master traits are not used anywhere.

5) with the exception of whirling wrath, most utilities are bad in pve.

 

Beside the redundancy, The condi build sees some play in pve. Everything is dead.

 

 

 

[Xenesis.6389]

Add new heal skill to these sub classes.

1. DPS elite specs gets a heal skill that heals for 10k, casts 20secs of 25 stacks of Might, Fury, Quickness, Alacrity, 30sec cooldown. Bring two dps to rotate 100% boon uptime!

2. Support elite specs gets a heal skill that casts a pbaoe heal for 10k, 1200 radius, casts 30secs of Regeneration, Vigor, Protection, Swiftness, 29sec cooldown.

3. Tank elite specs get a heal skill that casts backwards cone heal for 10k, casts 30sec of Resistance, Resolution, Stability, 1sec pulsing Aegis for 30sec, 29sec cooldown.

4. Sorry core gets nothing, buy the expansions.

 

Hey, since we're going for boon spam combat we might as well just go all in, what's the point of dancing around it anymore, it'll even be easier to balance specs in those three given roles!

 

On a more serious note....... .. .

Yeah I got nothing, my classes will get nerfed again I'm sure.

🤡

[chronometria.3708]

Reaper being given a party buff - it makes too little damage to be a selfish dps. I`d have it give protection, to make it different from quickness and alacrity choices in a party. It also needs a reliable way to give itself fury.

[RAZOR.7246]

My wishlist (PvE Only):

 

Engi:

-> Rework Modified Ammunition to give a flat 20% Strike Damage increase instead of 2% for every condition. It makes no sense on power builds if you're reliant on others for conditions to be up when bursting.

-> Change targeting on Mine Field to have the 5 mines placed around the hitbox of the target instead of random placement around yourself. 

-> Add increase condition damage by 20 per stack on Explosive Temper.

 

Scrapper

-> Reduce CD on Electro-Whirl to 4s

-> Reduce cast time on Rocket Charge to 1s. Reduce CD on Rocket Charge to 8s. 

-> Change Object in Motion to give 6% SD increase for Superspeed and Swiftness each and 3% for Stability.

 

Mechanist

-> Remove "Boons you gain are copied to your mech" from Shift Signet. Move "reduce recharge of other signets" passive from Overclock Signet to Shift Signet. 

-> Change Overclock Signet to "Reduce recharge on base weapon skills by 20%" 

 

Revenant:

-> Change Serene Rejuvenation to reduce Legend Swap time by 4s. This will allow for healing builds specifically to swap more frequently between legends and have better access to utility to make them more competitive with other heal builds. 

-> Rite of the Great Dwarf CD increased to 30s in lieu of increased energy generation on healing builds.  

-> Change effect of Unsuspecting Strikes to flat 5% increase to SD.

-> Change Swift Termination to give 10% increased SD with additional 10% to foes below 50% HP.

-> Increase damage on Sword 4 & 5.

 

Herald

-> Increase Burst of Strength bonus damage to 50%. 

-> Facet of Chaos should provide Resolution in addition to Protection. 

 

Guardian:

-> Increase number of hits on torch 5 from 10 to 15 in the same duration.

 

Willbender

-> Willbender flames trigger an additional time for each individual skill used while virtue is active. 

-> Base duration of Burning from searing pact increase duration from 1s to 1 1/2s.

 

Elementalist:

-> Remove duration on Glyph of Lesser Elementals and Glyph of Elementals.

-> Increase damage on Elemental skills.

Access to pets makes the Elementalist class more durable in various scenarios. 

 

Tempest

-> Overloads with Lucid Singularity active should pulse alacrity each second with a significant improvement in duration on completion of the overload. 

 

Weaver

-> Weave self changed to provide 10% all damage increase on activation and an additional 20% SD increase on Perfect Weave. 

-> Increase SD on Sword skills. (Quantum Strike, Pyro Vortex, Flame uprising, Cauterizing Strike, Air AA, Fire AA)

 

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

I would like to see some love for thief QoL fixes. I think I will mostly be happy with whatever comes out. If anything, I like what I heard in the October 4th stream preview. I was disappointed by the shroud PvE change, but besides that I am optimistic about the future.

Edited October 26, 2022 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[Bris.7984]

I don’t understand why people keep trying to help developers/Anet staff when they don’t give 2 cent on balancing things.If they would really need/want help could have asked from the first time.We waste energy on something that is already decided in the shadows…Again I say big sadness/dissapointing for the playerbase that really wants to fix things before Anet does.  —>>RIP Warriors<<

[Yerlock.4678]

I’m warrior main who plays pvp. Here’s what I suggest:

 

Bladesworn- tactical reload should get small buff to cut 5 seconds from non bladesworn ammo/shout skills. This would allow more synergy with tactics blade running shouts and help it get nudged back into the meta without it being busted like it was before.

Dragonscale Defense- change from protection in pvp/wvw to aegis. This would allow the build up to have a little more of a chance to hold its ground for a bigger attack.

 

Spell breaker-  Reduce cooldown for Full Counter by 2 seconds in pvp only. This would allow the spec to have a smidge more survivability which it lacks currently.

 

Stances- reduce the cooldown for Balanced Stance by 10 seconds, making it 50 seconds in pvp.

Berserker stance- add resolution that also pulses.

Frenzy- reduce cooldown by 10 seconds.

Defiant Stance- add a small amount of initial healing.

 

Berzerker- buff some of the rage skills/ also give passive adrenaline while in berserk mode to help with quality of life.

[itspomf.9523]

Would love to see the nerfs that rolled out before End of Dragons reverted, since all they've really done is hurt those of us who don't have Jade Bots and take the proverbial floor out from under casual players.  Is it really so bad if players can stay alive without relying as heavily on healers?  Especially when nearly all of the affected traits required specializing into them (both for the trait itself but also to gain a modicum of effect out of it).

Would also like to see more adjustments and buffs to underperforming weapons.  Recently picked up shortbow on Thief again while romping about the Mad King's Labyrinth and oh man, is it fun.  Just a shame that the damage remains pretty poor -- seriously, pistol outperforms it both in base Strike damage and the guaranteed Bleed condition.

Oh, and speaking of:  please bring back holiday food on standard bags/boxes.  They really are half the fun, and "Trick-or-Treat Bags" without any treats are pretty uh ... spitefully spirited, if you get what I mean.

Other than that?  Yeah, I'd honestly be pretty fine with ANet just spending November cleaning things up, fixing problematic skills (others have been documenting these things for years, so no need for me to repeat them here), and generally just improving general quality of life.

Edited October 28, 2022 by itspomf.9523

[Serephen.3420]

2 hours ago, itspomf.9523 said:

Would love to see the nerfs that rolled out before End of Dragons reverted, since all they've really done is hurt those of us who don't have Jade Bots and take the proverbial floor out from under casual players.  Is it really so bad if players can stay alive without relying as heavily on healers?  Especially when nearly all of the affected traits required specializing into them (both for the trait itself but also to gain a modicum of effect out of it).

Would also like to see more adjustments and buffs to underperforming weapons.  Recently picked up shortbow on Thief again while romping about the Mad King's Labyrinth and oh man, is it fun.  Just a shame that the damage remains pretty poor -- seriously, pistol outperforms it both in base Strike damage and the guaranteed Bleed condition.

Oh, and speaking of:  please bring back holiday food on standard bags/boxes.  They really are half the fun, and "Trick-or-Treat Bags" without any treats are pretty uh ... spitefully spirited, if you get what I mean.

Other than that?  Yeah, I'd honestly be pretty fine with ANet just spending November cleaning things up, fixing problematic skills (others have been documenting these things for years, so no need for me to repeat them here), and generally just improving general quality of life.

You don't need a jade bot or EOD to get the vitality bonus.

[shion.2084]

For Engi....  
1) Turn mechanist into a power suit wearer... get rid of cheese pet.

2) Stop having traits that tie together unrelated things... quickness on every 5th use of a toolbelt?  How on gods green earth do you strategize that??? like oh hey I need to run away and go invisible... wait what I got quickness??? great.
3) Make Gadgets a little more viable.

4) Give a single handed power weapon option to core engi (dual shield wielding with main hand being a buzz-saw).

5) give scrappers a viable source of quickness since you now have two GM traits that focus on might.

6) Other silly combinations... like power damage in firearms based on number of conditions?

 

In General
1) Reduce CC spam in PvP, makes it real un-fun for getting new victi... err indoctrinates.  Nothing more frustrating than losing agency.

2) Ele's generally seem really fricken effective in both Tempest and Catalyst form.  Not sure what to do about it... but something.

 

[itspomf.9523]

15 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

You don't need a jade bot or EOD to get the vitality bonus.

Oh, cool.  So how do I go about doing that?

[Doggie.3184]

Thief Ricochet returned. P/P being a fun viable AoE weapon again. P/P Ricochet was the most fun build to ever exist. Other Pistol users get bounce and circle AoEs as baseline while ours, which was from a trait, was rudely deleted and baselines remaining without any AoE. Holding two guns should be able to shoot more than one thing because it's two guns. The fact Thief have dual attacks with the pistols and others don't, yet remain the pistol user who can't AoE (anymore) is so intensely ironic it hurts.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Doggie.3184

[Seuchenherbst.2746]

Necromancer:

Core Necromancer:

-increase attack speed of shroud skill 1

-increase damage of shroud skill 4

-make shroud skill 2 ground targeted teleport

 

Reaper:

-something should be done about the GM traits, since we are virtually stuck with choosing Reaper's Onslaught (maybe baseline it?)

-Shouts feel underpowered

-since all the other elite specs get their "drawbacks" compared to their respective core spec removed, Reaper Shroud decay rate should be adjusted from 5%/s to 3%/s to equal the Core Necro shroud decay rate

 

Scourge:

-same as with Reaper's Onslaught, we are almost forced to use Sand Savant. Please just baseline the increased AoE of Sand Shades so we can actually use the other GM traits from time to time without feeling severely punished

 

Harbinger:

-please, first and foremost, adress the still existing (!) bugs in this spec:

1) underwater shroud skill 4 exists in the tooltip, but when you use it or enter combat, it gets replaced by core necro shroud skill 4. This bug exists over half a year now!

2) Transfusion trait (a GM trait!) is bugged when using Harbinger shroud

3) clearly the trait Unholy Sanctuary (also a GM trait!) is not working as intended on Harbinger, because you enter shroud on 1 HP and die of next hit). Please be creative and think of a solution, as you did with Scourge.

- Elixiers feel kind of boring when compared to Engineer elixiers, which do fun stuff like making you invisible, transform you to moa, make you small etc. In contrast, Harbinger elixiers provide boring buffs/conditions, some of which aren't really noticable (e.g. 2 sec blindness)

- sorry to say this, but Harbinger traits feel very very boring and uncreative, save for a few, mostly due to lack of interaction with existing mechanics/skills of the core trait lines

- again, Harbinger suffers the same fate of the other necro elite specs -> we are forced to use only 1 of the 3 GM traits. Please consider buffing the other GM traits to make picking them worthwile

 

Last but not least, please add player chatter voice lines for Harbinger AND add EoD elite spec runes!

-

Edited October 28, 2022 by Seuchenherbst.2746
added details

[Narrenwinter.2637]

Mesmer:

Chronomancer:

- Well of Senility and Well of Action: These skills completely lack concept. Well of Senility is a worse version of Null Field. Well of Action is completely useless in every game mode (standing still for 3s to receive a short speed buff is nonsensical). I know this is due to the decision to force Chrono to choose between Alacrity oder Quickness but please make these skills work again. Support or Heal would be much appreciated.

- Well Skills in general: These need some serious buff to their damage output. In pvp or wvw they hardly manage to hit anyone, since they are so slow. The enemy players dont even have to dodge, they can simply walk out of the AoE.

- More Slow-application should be inserted into the Chrono Traits and Skills. Chronomancer, literally being a TIME MAGE, should have the highest amount of Slow-application in the game and also allow some up-time of Slow. Add "Slow-duration increased by 50%" to the Danger Time Trait.

- Illusionary Reversion:  This trait needs some re-evaluation. I do not see it performing well enough in any game mode to justify the "3 Clones"-requirement.

Mirage:

- None of the Deception Utility Skills see play in any competetive mode (haven't seen them in PvE either). At least reduce the cooldowns on all of them, so maybe they can have some usage. I like the flavor of these skills, but sadly they are outperformed by most other mesmer skills.

- I dont think bringing back the second endurance bar is necessary, but maybe give Mirage 1,5 endurance bars so that unused endurance does not go to waste.

Virtuoso:

- Sword of Decimation: This skill needs a shorter casting duration and an increase in damage, especially against downed enenmies. I like the flavor of this skill as a executioner style skill. However, it almost never hits its targets. Even if enemies do not see it coming, the fact that everyone is constantly moving in combat makes this skill unusable outside of PvE (where it is useless for obvious reasons). The only thing it reliably hits is downed enemies, but even then, the damage is laughable.

 

Revenant:

- Hammer: Increase the skill speed for the auto attack and increase its damage again. The entire weapon feels clunky and underperforms in every game mode.

Herald:

- Both Shield Skills need to be buffed. Massively increase the healing and projectile speed for Envoy of Exuberance. Also increase healing for Crystal Hibernation, add an Explosion with Knockback at the end of the channeled block. Shield is the Elite Spec weapon for the Herald Elite Spec. It should NOT be the worst weapon on the entire class!

Renegade:

Legendary Renegade Skills: Increase the duration for these AoEs or make them more impactful. This legend does not see a lot of play. The entire spec is only used for Orders from Above, this is bad.

 

Final thought: Please give us EoD Elite Spec Runes (Superior Rune of the Virtuoso, Superior Rune of the Harbinger, etc...). The expansion feels unfinished without them.

[Serephen.3420]

3 hours ago, itspomf.9523 said:

Oh, cool.  So how do I go about doing that?

You can buy a jade core from the trading post and equip it. That's what gives you the vitality boost.

[BumboJumbo.1308]

My suggestion for balance is that they change Nature's Binding to become easier/reliable to apply and some sort of additional effect so untamed becomes a bit more useful in wvw zerg fights.

Nature's Binding is a difficult skill to attack people with because it's unreliable to use. It's unreliability comes from the fact that their is no pre attack, unlike dragon hunters Hunter's Ward where the attacks before the ring formation negates the effects of blindness on oneself and aegis on the enemy. Another example is that the combination of Prelude Lash (point blank area of effect pull) from soulbeast and Go for the Eyes (applies blindness on beast abilities). This combination makes Prelude Lash reliable to use as the blindness acts like an attack, which negates aegis on the enemy or blindness on oneself. Thus, Prelude Lash and Hunter's Ward can hit targets reliably, and so too should Nature's Binding by giving it a pre attack.

Another point is that Nature's Binding is on a 35 second Cooldown with a 4 second cage timer where enemies with stability can easily get out of it (which is most of the time in zerg fights). The skill should have an additional effect, such as: (1) enemies lose 1 boon per second if they are afflicted by the cage,  (2) conditions are applied to those effected by the cage, or (3) enemies effected by the cage take heavy hits to their health. This makes it so the skill has more use outside of the cage crowd control, a justification for the high cooldown, and gives untamed more of a place in zerg fights.

Feedback is welcome.

[Arheundel.6451]

Summary of the whole thread: Anet needs to be very careful in considering "player's feedback", doing so in the past only resulted in overbuffed broken specs like : scrapper,firebrand, renegade and others....while by comparison different specs/classes got nerfed to oblivion....

The wishlists posted here are mostly bonker level of insanity, in practice it is just asking to remove weaknesses and add only strengths, people ask for dmg buffs on weapons while "forgetting" all the other things the weapons does.... EX :" buff  damage on thief's shortbow"...yeah and what about the mobility with vertical teleports? ranged aoe daze?....no no...give it dmg too...bonker

[anbujackson.9564]

Make PBM holo, chrono support, reaper and berserker great again in PvE.

Edited October 30, 2022 by anbujackson.9564