November 29 Balance Update Preview

[Qori.9671]

Yawn

 

[posthumecaver.6473]

Bubble was not irrelevant enough in WWW and now this....

[MagicBot.1570]

Reposting what I said in the Guardian sub, as a long-time DH player and somebody who occasionally does the math on it, I would leave the cooldown of True Shot as it is right now with the planned coefficient buff. I think increasing the cooldown on it is too cautious of a change. I just want to stress how impactful the buffs need to be on DH to allow it to make the cut.

Other than that, great changes overall, really! Hoping that this message reaches the balance team. Thanks

[bluegatling.6203]

Hello !

Lots of changes are great, but I really don't understand the range decrease of the Deadeye spec... It's what make this spec special, I loved playing this spec for this in PvE (and we could see projectile particules more longer), and kill the target before it cames on his range. Now a ranger with 1500 will be more ranged than a Deadeye (called Sniper in french), it's kind of disappointing, and as someone already said, the Kneel wasn't really a problem, and this could have more dash or tp, but please don't change the range, it made it so interesting ! 😢 Added to reducing damages, it make it less interesting than a ranger or an engineer... 

New quote from humans rangers and engineers instead of centaurs:

"I can outrange a deadeye !"

 

For the Untamed, I would really like to have more access to the untamed skill 1, as the mesmer embush mecanic ! 🙂

Edited November 12, 2022 by bluegatling.6203

[BearWizard.1069]

I'm a newer player who's been enjoying deadeye. These upcoming changes seem pretty strange to me. I just started doing endgame pve content, and I don't really feel encumbered by kneeling to do damage, especially since I have plenty of movement options like shadowstep and withdraw. it feels kinda weird to give up 20% of my range to be able to slowly walk out of damage circles. 

[Cortrillion.4016]

Why are you nerfing the Deadeye? The range reduced to 1200 is so strange. A ranger has 1500 range with full mobility and about as much damage as a deadeye (core ranger that is)  a long side of the flexibility of pets/soulbeast. 

 

The deadeye with riflel is almost completely single target, so they need to be very good here. 

 

The trait "silent scope" needs to be changed to be part of the base deadeye Kit. A deadeye rifle build must have this trait to even try to function in pve. 

Double tap and three round burst needs to cost less initiativ. 

 

The kneel mechanic is a faild consept. The idea of the kneel, i think, was to have the deadeye give up something (mobility) in exchange for the highest singletarget damage in the game and the longest range... But is the deadeye the highest single target damage? Do they have the longest range?? No... They don't. So what about when they are not kneeling - when not kneeling they should have the same range and the same damage as the other ranged classes... Do they have that?? Also no.

 

Alright - so the deadeye is not the best damage, fine. Then ofc the do bring lot's of groupe support, right!? No... Well atleast they are good at healing then, right?! 

 

So, since the deadeye is the worst prof in the game... Maybe give it some buffs insted of nerfs? 

 

From my Phone as my two small Kids are crawling on me - please forgive the ranty naturen and bad gramma. 

Edited November 12, 2022 by Cortrillion.4016

[Dadnir.5038]

I'm happy to see that the devs are finally starting to tackle the "defiant issue".

- Elementalist: More selfishness but less altruism and group synergy? Interesting.

- Engineer: What's the message here? Are you telling holosmiths to go above 100% heat?

- Guardian: Longbow need QoL! Not number buffs! QoL!

- Mesmer: Well... More number tweaks... I guess it's "ok".

- Necromancer: This isn't gonna increase much necromancer's and it's e-specs' dps but I guess it's gonna be easier to keep up soul barb.

- Ranger: Nice.

- Revenant: Some nice buffs.

- Thief: Dagger buffs?

- Warrior: Fascinating.

[Hector.9035]

12 hours ago, Nemmm.9120 said:

As an Engineer enjoyer, the changes to Holo are very much appreciated, but I am not quite certain that they're that big a deal to make Holo that much more competitive. But i will have to wait and see for how they work out. I'd like to say that Holo's main issue, for me at least, has always been its relative squishyness. While the 100% heat changes will help in these regards ... they don't really fix the core problem. But I also realize how well a holo does is a combination of experience and practice, so it might not be quite as bad as the first impression. It could be also be worse, though!

 

I am massively disappointed by Scrapper changes. While it is a fun specc to play (solo and as a commander in PvE), I would have hoped for an increase in quickness buff duration in PvE, to make it so I am not "forced" to use the gyros on cooldown to make sure my Quickness uptime is stable.  Since, you know, the DPS is already sort of meh, and aside from Quickness, Scrapper is a far cry from what it used to be.

 

The changes to Mechanical genius must be a bad joke. There's other, far better ways, to make the public realise how middling mechanist is outside specific circumstances. The main issue here is how easy to use mechanist is. This change will not stop the average player from playing how they used to. And it will, thusly, probably achieve nothing but annoy players that actually care for their engineer. So congrats on that, I suppose.

 

The changes to warrior have me curious.

 

I also laughed quite a lot about the FB changes. The entire elite spec has been in the way of the balancing, you dance around it every time. I'm half expecting these changes to turn into a big buff and make FB even less balanced.

Totally agree, function gyro its an amazing skill, but we cant use it to revive folks because its allways wasted in the quickness rotation 😞

[Hector.9035]

Engi:

I really loved to see buffs to holosmith, it really needed them. GJ!

 

Scrapper on the other hand... it was already strong in WvW, its PvE where it needs some more love. More quickness duration so it  can keep uptime with only 2 or 3 gyros and a little more AA dmg on hammer would've been nice.

 

I dont understand why was mechanist over performing, nor why were people complaining about it. It does 30K with 3 buttons, how that bad for anyone? If you are in a raid or a fractal or a strike, wouldnt you want competent dps that can keep a good dmg while handling mechanics or being able to move and dodge without canceling a complex rotation? Cause I would certainly want those classes in my team. No one forces anyone to play mechanist, and there are far better dps options right now if we talking about raw dps. People is just stupidly jealous of how eficient and well designed mechanist is.

 

Thief:

While I like the changes to the kneel mechanic on DE, I can't see why you nerfed the range. I dont care that much about it anyway, its only relevant in Open World since in high end PvE you allways want to stay grouped to get boons and heals and the difference between 1500 and 1200 range means nothing there. Anyway it doesnt really solve the problem, wich imo is the clumsiness of the class. Now I kneel, now I get up, now I kneel... Just remove the kneel COMPLETELY and replace it with one good cleave dmg skill, like the ranger barrage or something like that.

 

Ranger:

 

I would have liked to be able to move while casting barrage and whirling defense, but ok, I wont complain about that.

Now, about untamed: If you plan to shut down fervent force in the near future, how do you plan it to deal dmg and stay relevant? right now, aside of fervent force builds Untamed is only good in open world, and EVERYTHING, even weaver in full vipers with sword and dagger is good in open world. No one needs OW builds, ty.

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

d/d Deadeye now will Do 47k damage/sec spamming dagger 2, dunno If this is intended or not 🤔

[HotDelirium.7984]

For Catalyst, I'd still love a mini Jade Orb if the class can't provide one like the lil gyro buddy on scrapper. Also, please look at Elemental Empowerment again- it might be easy to get to 10 stacks in going to multiple attunements but its near impossible in just one attunement using just catalyst skills nor does it last more than a few seconds anyways. Maybe consider reducing the cooldown for those that grant it or just rework Empowered Empowerment to just double it benefits per stack with no ceiling requirement.

Edited November 13, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[Varis.5467]

4 minutes ago, ArjukKagrim.6049 said:

d/d Deadeye now will Do 47k damage/sec spamming dagger 2, dunno If this is intended or not 🤔

Totally intended, it's called the "deadeye", literally their eyes are dead. Couldn't imagine such a class could DPS from afar. 

 

Jokes aside, I am very disappointed by the fact that another class is on the blink of losing its identity. (Even if I dislike fighting them) 

[ArmoredSarge.9384]

Reducing Deadeyes range to 1200? Is this an out of season April fools joke?

[Nihil.9817]

revert corruptors fervor nerf for core

[Varis.5467]

19 minutes ago, ArmoredSarge.9384 said:

Reducing Deadeyes range to 1200? Is this an out of season April fools joke?

No Sarge, it's just a disgusting slap in the face to the poor thief mains. 

[OneHalf.1432]

12 hours ago, krytical.3697 said:

I'm sorry, you're nerfing Deadeye range, but want to add the ability to move while kneeling? Someone PLEASE make it make sense. 

Mad King says: KNEEL!

[Visceras.9748]

Great changes for reaper, however I would like to know if there is any chance we will see the damage reduction while on shroud be reverted back to 50% from 33%. Playing reaper in raids is very weird right now because you're constantly kicked out of shroud messing up your entire rotation.

Moreover, that tankiness was something that made necro special, and now it barely feels like you have a shroud, on reaper at least that already has a very high shroud drainage rate.

[Autumnborne.5708]

Feedback on Mirage:

 

I understand you intend to nerf the staff/axe mirage, so that it has to make choices between more damage or more boon application. However, I'm concerned that the way you're implementing this will make it really clunky even for staff/staff mirage to upkeep the boons in situations where keeping 3 clones up is not possible/viable, e.g. with multiple mobs intead of one big boss.

 

My suggestion:

 

You could still add the boon application to the staff clones as planned, but make it so that the mesmer themself still apply the current duration and stacks of boons (i.e. 8 stacks of might, and 2.5 sec alacrity, I believe it was), BUT with an effect that reduces this application per active clone. That would mean that a staff mirage can still generate those boons consistently with fewer or no clones up, but when there are clones active the mesmer and the clones simply split the application between them. So, if the mesmer has clones up that aren't staff clones (e.g. axe clones), they would be applying less boons as your intended nerf, but the boon application of a staff mirage isn't made unecessarily clunky.

 

 

[Mobian.8256]

I don't think you should have directly nerfed conti split in pvp, perhaps just toning down the additional time that Master of Fragmentation provides would have been better, or changing it so it provides something else other than additional time. Conti split is going to feel rougher without that trait now.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Mobian.8256

[AshkyLicious.4729]

The Mirage changes really confuses me, and in the end I find them to be a nerf rather than something positive. First of all, Mirage cant have clones on stand-by outside of a battle like Virt can with its blades, so you cant just start dishing out alac and might when battle starts! No! You need to work up clones which can easily die cuz of AoEs from foes or enemy players in pvp/wvw!

So for this change to actually count, clones needs to get sturdier and not so easily killed (specially in pvp and wvw), clones should not shatter just cuz your opponent dies, they should move on to your next target, so you still can benefit from boons from Staff or DPS from axe that your clones provides.

In the end Im disappointed on the balance team for these weird changes for mirage... your first priority right now should be to fix the 1 dodge fiasco mess that you created for us mirage players, and after that our axe bugs that we have to live with as well. 

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

- Engineer: What's the message here? Are you telling holosmiths to go above 100% heat?

There is a trait called Enhanced Storage Capacity Unit that extends the heat-bar from 100 to 150. The meta for Holosmith has always been PBM, as it resulted in the highest damage output. So I think this is an approach to make this rather under-used trait more worthwhile. 

[VeriBeri.9528]

As always, making every interesting spec as dull as possible. Firebrand had at least *some* complexity thanks to tomes, and now you want to take it away. Cfb is already niche, because who is going to choose a melee spec over 1200 range virtuoso, with better dps anyway? The only played spec lately was Qfb, thanks to the utility it brings, and now you wanna kill it too. I know you hate complexity, and rifle mech is perfectly balanced, as we clearly see, but nerfing every interesting class to the point of uselessness is not the way to make your game successful. I mostly enjoy playing Hfb, as it is the only healer that actually doesn't lack utility, and now you gotta ruin it too. I can't even imagine pages regenerating over time as a healer, "oops, can't reflect right now, because I healed someone 3 seconds ago" lol. Just give other classes more utility, instead of slowly taking everything away from firebrands. You already took away aegis on mantra (why only in Pve I wonder), now you're going to provide even more protection on tome 3 page 1 (that no one will ever use) instead of stability. Stop nerfing good specs, because you can't balance the worse ones. There is absolutely no reason to take away support options in PvE, as it was the only reason firebrands were chosen at all, and nerfing this spec to the ground won't make other lacking supports better. Playing Ham and Druid is an abysmal experience, never even tried Ele, as I'm not interested in learning 50 skill combinations. Hfb is the only pleasant support in this game, and that's why it's so popular. It's just not obnoxious to play. It's not overperforming, it's not underperforming. Glad you addressed power mech by doing absolutely nothing, except for a minor inconvenience by having to manually position the bot. The spec played by 80% of players, and doing more damage than anyone is fine, it's the firebrand and its tomes that is the problem with balance in the game.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

14 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

There is a trait called Enhanced Storage Capacity Unit that extends the heat-bar from 100 to 150. The meta for Holosmith has always been PBM, as it resulted in the highest damage output. So I think this is an approach to make this rather under-used trait more worthwhile. 

 

PBM was only used on rifle mech while ESC was used for S/P and as far as I know, PBM died a while ago and only recently ESC S/P rose from the dead.

 

 

[melodyspectrum.2980]

Okay, just a thought, but maybe core ranger should not outrange the only actual designated sniper role in the game? I thought class  fantasy was important?

 

It would be better to either not nerf the deadeye rifle range or nerf ranger longbow range.

[Andy.5981]

Some interesting changes. Nice to see that they're going to make some classes work a little more for their damage/heals rather than just camp an ability/weapon and position.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Andy.5981