November 29 Balance Update Preview

[Iskarel.7240]

re: Rifle Deadeye Changes

The "sniper" now has massively less range than Ranger longbow. This smacks of another nerf to PvE thief because the competitive modes exist. It's not a deal breaker but it is extremely frustrating. You're okay with Ranger longbow, as an arcing projectile, hitting at ranges of 1,800-2,000, but Rifle was already hard-locked to 1,500 range and is now limited to 1,200.

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Increased Kneel Initiative cost, from 1 to 2

Why? This makes repositioning unusually punishing for Deadeye compared to any other ranged build (especially Virtuoso). Deadeye barely has more damage than Virtuoso, less utility, and slower burst. This change doesn't make sense in a vacuum—if you want Deadeye to be harder to play than Virtuoso, then you should give it more damage or more group utility as a payoff (the only thing Deadeye does is give 50% Fury uptime, which Mesmer also does).

You provided 25% movement time while kneeling (which may be too slow, have to see when patch is live) but you also made "hard repositioning" with unkneel-kneel more punishing by potentially delaying the rotation with 2 init cost vs 1. Why? What was the design goal here? You said:
 

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Our primary goal for thief in this update was to improve the usability of deadeye in PvE.

How does increased initiative cost on Kneel track with that?

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Kneel is no longer canceled when you become disabled.

Good quality of life, but why doesn't Deadeye have a means of reliably providing itself with Stability and Aegis the way Bladesworn does? Deadeye is permanently restricted with reduced move speed, needing to flank (Thief has to Flank because of the Critical Strikes traitline, Bladesworn can CHOOSE to Flank if it takes Thief runes but Scholar and Eagle are also very potent choices—that is not the case with Thief, nothing comes close to Scholar), and staying above 90% HP (Keen Observer crit chance, Twin Fangs damage modifier, Scholar rune damage modifier), but your design holds that Bladesworn deserves aegis and stability, while Deadeye does not—Maleficent Seven only provides seriously redundant boons which your group should already be providing to the group because they're ALWAYS valuable. Aegis/Stability are needed to mitigate risky positioning/animation locks, which your design recognized for Bladesworn, but you continue to ignore Deadeye which has it even worse to begin with.

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Death's Judgement: This skill now pierces foes not targeted by Deadeye's Mark. Damage dealt to unmarked enemies is reduced. Players can now move while using this skill. Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200.

1. Death's Judgment already does less damage to un-marked targets!

1a. Death's Judgment per-Malice damage modifier only applies to the marked target!

1b. Iron Sight trait is 15% multiplicative damage only to the marked target

If the upcoming design is FURTHER reducing the damage of Death's Judgment against un-marked targets, please do not go through with that. Besides being deeply unnecessary, it's very messy design. You just changed Quickness Catalyst's trait by removing the outgoing damage reduction, which was double-dipping as a penalty by being mutually exclusive with Empowered Empowerment grandmaster, but you're about to make the same mistake again.

 

2. Making Death's Judgment pierce is excellent Quality of Life except that Three Round Burst does not pierce, and Spotter's Shot does ~50% as much damage as Three Round Burst even before considering the 15% damage multiplier from Iron Sight.

You do not penalize other professions with piercing projectiles in this way. If you're going to penalize Rifle Deadeye, then it would need to do even more damage than it does now to see more play. Why should players engage with your design that is needlessly punitive? You are layering frustration on top of the class fantasy AND class balance.

Please make Three Round Burst pierce, or increase the damage coefficient of Spotter's Shot.

If we can't build up Malice because other targets are body blocking us, then it doesn't matter that Death's Judgment can pierce. Malice and Initiative work hand-in-hand, and you've only addressed one side of this issue.

 

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dagger buffs

1. These honestly might be too strong. Buffing d/d DE because it's hard to maximize its damage in real fights is a risky proposition and not one I'm entirely on board with.

Power Deadeye does not burst as hard as the likes of Bladesworn, Power Soulbeast, Power Virtuoso or even Power Holosmith on the current patch—and now Holosmith is set to have higher sustained DPS. The fact it doesn't burst as well wouldn't be a big deal if those builds didn't also do exceptionally high sustained damage.

Dagger Deadeye currently does exceptionally high damage only to a SINGLE TARGET when the player has 180-degrees positioning (270-degrees "flanking" is insufficient for Thief Backstab, it has to be 180-degrees), when the player stays above 90% HP, and when the player correctly manages their stealth (Shadow Flare can reveal the player, other allies providing stealth can ruin your rotation e.g. Druid Celestial Shadow, any player blasting into a smoke field). Its golem benchmark is very good but the above-mentioned competitors also have very good sustained DPS. If anything, I think the burst AND sustained damage of Bladesworn and Soulbeast (in that order) are too high, and Bladesworn should NOT be competing with Deadeye on sustained damage.

 

2. The Dagger buffs in August 2022 already began to make Power Rifle obsolete. Rifle DPS will be MUCH further behind after these buffs because you made Rifle more comfortable but you left its damage low. For whatever reason, the design team still wants to restrict Deadeye's usability beneath the likes of Virtuoso and Bladesworn, but you're not compensating with more damage, and its self-buffs are largely irrelevant in group content.

Please don't forget that Rifle and Dagger BOTH have unique playability problems (e.g. Rifle movement restriction, inability to pierce with Three Round burst; Dagger animation lock on Heartseeker and 180-degrees flanking and losing Malice generation if the player is blinded, weakened, or drops below 90% HP and loses crit chance) but they also share many issues (damage is already permanently reduced against unmarked targets, Deadeye's Mark F1 is stripped from the player upon downstate, many bosses going invulnerable/leaving the arena do not restore your F1 charge, etc.).

Snow Crows' Thief channel has already written an extensively researched document on Thief's design and bugs, which we have provided to DoubleTap to forward to the design team. I don't want to waste everyone's time re-litigating too many old design points from that document, as it has been made available to ANet's design team and we have it pinned on the Snow Crows Help Desk Discord, Thief channel.

Edited November 11, 2022 by DarkstarChimaera.5120

[Asum.4960]

Especially considering Chilling Nova can't Crit, I really don't see this being anywhere near enough for Reaper. 

Necro Core weapons (and Spite, especially the minors) simply need major reworks/buffs, especially on the Power and Off-Hand front. 

 

FB changes are a lot to digest and probably require hands-on to evaluate properly, but I agree with the general direction and am excited to test them out. 

Although Mantra of Flame is pretty redundant now with Quickfire as DPS and qDPS Meta choice making Potence the far superior Burn Mantra (+ Might and Quickness) - and it might be pretty unfun to juggle the Quickfire ICD (7 seconds) to give 5 allies Ashes of the Just via Potence (12/9.6 seconds), vs. triggering it on self-only via Swift Scholar (8 seconds).

Edited November 12, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Gesbo.6420]

17 minutes ago, Mike.7983 said:

It says the clones will trigger the buff around the mesmer, as long as all 3 clones out should make no diff, the clones not pulsing might the center of the mesmer should be.

OH RIGHT, that makes more sense, so if you have all 3 staff clones the duration is the same, if not increased (4 seconds alac base), thats not that bad actually when you think about it

 

I am still looking for a second dodge for PVP tho... Give us the same treatment as Vindicator!

Edited November 11, 2022 by Gesbo.6420

[soulknight.9620]

Just now, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

sword/focus condi gets a ~1.5k dps boost, still lower condi then scepter/focus

Where did you get that 1.5k boost? Shearing edge is not used in any rotation. The other two skills are boosted in pvp only. 

[Sjentra.3409]

13 minutes ago, Bookah pls.9352 said:

Adding a single point of damage to an ability is also a buff, doesn't mean it's impactful, worthwhile or useful.

These were not the buffs reaper needed or wanted.

I was really hoping reaper would get actually self fury/quickness--not even asking for group sharing quickness (but i can dream). We have quickness in shroud--yes--but that's about ~50% of the time assuming your not life force starved.

So we still need pocket fury/quickness generators. And because we only get 25% crit chance from fury we're going to have to still sacrifice power for precision.

[boggy.9031]

thank you for ruining my day. xD  

Firebrand nerf again like seriously.

do you people even play your own game. lolmust be that time of year to go bac to minecraft again. xD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Athiala.3954]

Taking the ground targeted ally heal away from Ele Sceptre 3 is removing a key tool from tempest healers, possibly enough to invalidate sceptre/warhorn as a support weapon combo. It feels like a change made without any consideration for the impact on support specs.

[khawki.4205]

While I love buffs to Rev, I think Vindivator may get too much dps with this, it's already easy to get in top3 dps in PUGs.

Other than that, I feel that heal herald and heal vindicator need more love as well.

Herald needs just a little bit more, maybe buff to shield, so it can be viable weapon swap to staff.

Vindi on the other hand needs a lot... or maybe a way to get dps-heal role? utilize swapping and unleash his full potential!

[FreshF.5793]

2 hours ago, Double Tap said:

Thief

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/103795-specter-feedback-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1605360

[Reindhart.7456]

ok i think the nerf on the mech is too harsh in terms of distance and time this is mainly because if i use a melee deck build and my mech is ranged most of the time it will be 900 units from me which will force me to get close to the mech at melee range which makes it useless to have a ranged mech if it isn't going to do any damage because of it, the same is true if my mech is melee and I go with rifle.
please take note on this facts, also remember that unlike the other engineer specs, the mech specs ONLY affect the mech and not any attributes, abilities, or passives of the engineer itself, making it dependent on the mech only

[Shao.7236]

Useless changes to Revenant, Jalis is still a unchanged nerfed buggy mess, Mallyx dies automatically to poison while not needing damage buffs, CoR still a buggy mess.

I have no reasons to come back and play this game with any drop of serious intent yet.

[zorbax.2601]

Seeing that the damage of Bladesworn stays the same and the trait Martial Cadence remains untouched allows players to stack 8 fully dps geared Bladesworn. Leaving them to perform like Chronomancer did when you could stack them for quickness, if not even better.
A change needs to happen so that you won't be able since this allows the Bladesworns to play a full DPS orientated build while given quickness without any trade-off.
Keep the hard work up!

[Luvi.2581]

Please don't go through with the being leashed to your mech thing. There are much, much better ways to balance mechanist and this is absolutely not one of them.

[FreshF.5793]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/113464-new-runes-for-the-eod-elite-specs/

[the krytan assassin.9235]

4 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Where did you get that 1.5k boost? Shearing edge is not used in any rotation. The other two skills are boosted in pvp only. 

oh oops nvm misread, i guess no dps boost then lol

 

[Dragon Ruth.5124]

The warrios Martial cadence trait allows stacking 8 bladesworns in a squad with perma quickness. Coupled with it's high damage it is the same problem that stagnated the meta with power Chrono and it is the same problem that caused you  to nerf Catalyst so rapidly. Please, for the sake of power class diversity of the high end meta, don't let the year  long reign of one class dps meta happen again. 
Thank you for open communication and good work, the new openness and direction is really appreciated !

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Some people are worried about Martial Cadence and DPS BSW stacking in speedrun groups.

1. Don't balance around speed runners.
2. If any change is made it should be to swap the places of Martial Cadence and Shrug it Off.
   1. This inhibits DPS builds from running the quickness trait
   2. Creates the possibility of quick heal supports with VS+MC or quick/might supports with PS+MC.

[FreshF.5793]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/103795-specter-feedback-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1644809

[kara.4597]

i enjoyed the stream and still want to thank you for having far more communication with the community than before.

Now i will write my intake on Mesmer on few things on pve side.

 

1) sad to see no changes to scepter. that weapon IF anyone ever uses it , its the least desired weapon for the class. it has no synergy  with any build. its not EVEN close to any dps in the mesmer arsenal.

 

2) sad to see no changes to staff, as some may use it for alac or condi for maybe 3 bosses the weapon is the second least played one in most modes of the game. as the changes to mirage chaos vortex are weird. You do know the whole clone/phatasm system is really bad in pve. clones die, they dont move, and even phatasms can be CCed while using they abilities. to put the cherry on top. you have to run like crazy around to collect mirrors so you can use chaos vortex more while the screen is prema flashbang.  so even the only spec that can use the staff more effectively is cluncky to play.

 

3) Chronophantasma : love the change and could see more chrono to play power dps. BUT there is one small issue. the rotation of clones is off balanced like crazy. as the trait allows phatasms to perform twice why not change that the first phatasm  when it finishes its move you spawn the clone and the second phantasm that spawn from the trait wont spawn a clone after it finishes its move. That way you can keep same feeling of gameplay to manage the clones more efficient.

 

[Sagedurk.7358]

Nice to see Willbender get buffed in terms of damage, even if it's not enough to bring power WB to the state it should be at

Glad to see it's not forgotten among the DH mentions

 

And since you are buffing Tyrant's Momentum, there will be more of a dps difference between alac and pure dps, because of Phoenix Protocol competing with Tyrant's Momentum.

 

So please, remove the need for taking Battle Presence in order to provide party-wide alacrity

Since you aren't providing a lot of boons outside of alac, especially when it comes to permanent uptime, shouldn't the damage be on the higher end for alac dps?

 

It's stupid that we are forced into a core traitline for its Grandmaster trait, as well as a WB Grandmaster trait just to give 5-man alac

Only WB can give alac on Guardian, so why do we need to take a core trait to provide it?

 

Removing the need for BP would allow Power Alac to take Radiance and not be reliant on Aegis for damage potential

Condi Alac would be able to take Permeating Wrath, which won't be as powerful as normally, due to the need to use the Resolve Virtue a lot

And Heal Alac would be able to take Indomitable Courage as a substitute for "Stand Your Ground!", or take a different traitline

 

Also, fix Absolute Resolve, it doesn't work in combination with Phoenix Protocol, the regen isn't buffed by 25%

 

Lastly, it's a pain not having access to external Resolution on power guardian. Resolution is a secondary Fury for us, but it's difficult to upkeep if there's no healer with fairly easy Resolution access

[Skie.8904]

Berserker might be playable again, woho!

I still worry about the abomination mechanist is though. Especially if HFB becomes more challenging to play...

Edited November 11, 2022 by Skie.8904
Further thoughts

[FreshF.5793]

Make specter Wells and banners two-part-skills:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/103795-specter-feedback-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1684562

[FreshF.5793]

Let deadeye grant quickness:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/117022-let-deadeye-grant-quickness-to-allies-when-you-can-give-alac-to-tempest-and-quickness-to-herald/

[Calen Elee.8452]

 

Thank you arenanet for making the most useless and unusable deadeye. Good work.

[Stadsport.8714]

Bloody Roar really needs to move from 25% up to about 33% in order to remain competitive with other DPS classes, many of which can pump out MORE than Berserker can, despite having less challenging rotations, but I'm cautiously optimistic to see where the correction puts it (assuming this is the additive > multiplicative change that's been discussed over the last few months). I'm happy to see this finally get addressed, I don't believe it will be enough to make Berserker competitive/"meta" again, but here's hoping.

 

I'm not sure I agree with the changes being made to Heal Alac Tempest, but I am happy to see Scepter Ele in general get some boosts. Same with Mirage's change. Both are classes with fairly high skill floors and see less play than others as a result, so I don't feel like further reducing their viability is very productive.