November 29 Balance Update Preview

[Elessaria.9142]

11 hours ago, DtenCfour.3567 said:

But, I have to ask, do you play a FB?  I do and am very tired of the nerfing in WvW. 

 

Good. Everyone else is very tired of fighting against a Swiss Army Knife for 5 years.

[Neferpitouh.4356]

This will be my first and last reply on this forums.

 

Your changes on Firebrand and Mechanist are completely unnecassary and huge nerfs overall.

 

If the patch hits as it is, I'll be uninstalling this game for good. 

 

You have a very tiny amount of PvE content where class balance would actually matter (W1-7, Fractal and Strike CMs). 

 

These don't even 10hours to complete per week.

 

I'd suggest focus on making more relevant content, then ruin people's fun in the context of class balance.

 

As it stands now, these nerfs also ruin openworld experience. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to tag ads efficiently with these tome changes.

 

You already nerfed them once, which was quite impactful, aegis removal on healing mantra was annoying as hell. Now you do this? Even though mechs never hit top dps anymore, you won't stop until it is completely unusable? 

 

Good luck!

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by Neferpitouh.4356

[Hell.2516]

Druid

• Ancient Seeds: This skill will now trigger against defiant foes in addition to its previous effects.
  
  This is making the usage of this skill on pushing Tormented dead in SH really hard as you cannot control when this trait will be used now. 

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

21 hours ago, Double Tap said:

Revenant

Vindicator has continued to be a powerful force in PvP after the most recent set of changes, and we're making a few additional reductions in this update. We see vindicator as doing a bit too much damage when investing heavily in defensive traits, so we've shaved down a few skills to create more of a decision point between damage and defense. We've also reduced the stability from Reaver's Rage and removed the ability to dodge while immobilized with the goal of making vindicator slightly easier to bring down.

The last set of changes didn't have quite enough impact on condition-based revenant builds in PvP, and we're following up with a few more adjustments to improve their damage output and free up a bit more energy while in Legendary Demon Stance.

We've focused on improving damage builds for both herald and vindicator in PvE, improving the potency of sword off hand, Legendary Assassin Stance and Legendary Dragon Stance, and the Luxon side of Legendary Alliance Stance.

Core

• Shackling Wave (PvE only): Increased power coefficient of initial strike from 1.0 to 1.2. Increased power coefficient of additional strikes from 0.35 to 0.4.
• Deathstrike (PvE only): Increased power coefficient of initial strike from 0.33 to 0.45. Increased power coefficient of final strike from 2.0 to 2.67.
• Impossible Odds: Increased power coefficient on secondary strikes from 0.55 to 0.65 in PvE only.
• Jade Winds: Increased power coefficient from 1.5 to 3.0 in PvE only.
• Seething Malice: Increased condition damage from 120 to 240 in PvP only.
• Banish Enchantment: Reduced energy cost from 30 to 25 in PvP only.
• Call to Anguish: Reduced energy cost from 30 to 25 in PvP only.
• Rising Tide: Reduced health threshold from 90% to 75% in PvE only.

Herald

• Elemental Blast: Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only.
• Burst of Strength (PvE only): Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds. Increased effect duration from 5 seconds to 10 seconds. Reduced damage bonus from 25% to 15%. Damage bonus now applies to condition damage as well as strike damage.
• Chaotic Release: Increased power coefficient from 2.0 to 4.0 in PvE only.

Vindicator

• Vindicators can no longer dodge while immobilized.
• Spear of Archemorus: Reduced range from 2,000 to 1,200. Increased power coefficient from 3.5 to 5.0 in PvE only. Increased torment duration from 5 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only.
• Scavenger Burst: Adjusted burning from one stack for 8 seconds to two stacks for 5 seconds in PvE only. Endurance gain increased from 5 per target to 20 per target in PvE only. Energy cost reduced from 20 to 15 in PvE only. Reduced power coefficient from 1.55 to 1.4 in PvP only.
• Tree Song: Energy cost reduced from 20 to 15 in PvE only.
• Battle Dance: Energy cost reduced from 20 to 15 in PvE only.
• Nomad's Advance: Energy cost reduced from 20 to 15 in PvE only. Reduced power coefficient from 2.3 to 2.1 in PvP only.
• Reaver's Rage (PvP only): Reduced power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.0. Reduced stability duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds. Reduced daze duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second.

 

 

The Herald changes are A LOT.  The full dps variant spec without Allies is going to be benching around 37k now. The Burst of Strength change is a HUGE damage increase (around 9% over its previous incarnation with everything factored in) and this doesn't include all of the other damage increases from the other skills that have had CD reductions or damage increases. I would be extremely careful with overbuffing Herald, as it already offers a lot as a Hybrid Quickness in its current state. This also will make it better than Vindicator (which is still bugged and doing too much damage on its dodge at times) which I'm not sure is the right move here.

[Helicity.3416]

15 hours ago, Giovanelli.6071 said:

What did Deadeye ever do to you?

 

I mean, I think I can guess the answer to this one 🤣

[Philososaur.7923]

Cool changes for the most part, but I and everyone else are still wondering....

Dragon and Ritualist stats on stat selectable gear when? would love to play some of the cool condi boon support builds but with ritualist gear being that massive of a pain to get, probably not going to get to try these till I eventually get around to making legendary armor. 

 

also have you all considered making all of the boon support class options not require using your entire utility bar to upkeep their key boon? it feels bad and unskillful to just spam everything off cooldown with 100% boon duration to just keep it up on the group. not taking into account that some only work if the group doesn't leave the aoes constantly. 

 

thanks for all you do for this awesome game

[SentriX.3209]

I was hoping for some buffs on offensive support Alac Willbender...also qol for qHerald as it is pretty tedious to play.

[Ytse.5231]

As a Mirage and Mechanist player, this change makes no sense. You're going to render Mirage very ineffective.

[Vegeta.2563]

I mean if you are going to nerf deadeye's "kneel" range to 1200.. at least make them crab walk when they have to move slower.

[Jianyu.7065]

I can't take credit, but I like how someone in this thread said something like:

 

"The deadeye we encounter in the pof story does much higher damage at considerably much longer range"

 

But that's a big NO for players....

NPC > player

 

Strangely enough you can buy this NPCs rifle skin in the shop but because you're a player you perform terribly with it...

How does a gun, something mechanically specific, do less damage and fire at less range just because it's being held by a different person. Absolute rubbish logic....

 

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by Jianyu.7065

[Gaiawolf.8261]

2 hours ago, Scarecrows.3602 said:

You know kitten well that Firebrand was too versatile. No class should be able to spec so fully into pure burning damage and still have access to half the boons in the game for no cost to their DPS. Stop acting like a 14-year-old because they fixed your broken toys.

It really wasn't. It was good, versatile class design that was fun to play across the game's content. FB wasn't actually the problem. It just stood out as an overperformer, because most other specs aren't designed as well. They were forced to overspecialize to their own detriment. A proper solution would have been to give those other specs tools for some extra utility or support outside their specialties, so they aren't either boring or one-trick ponies (crazy rotations optional, in some cases).

[Jacks.1703]

My sugestion of changes:

 

----- Core Guardian -----

 

Sword 1 Skill > Strike> Chance speed to   1/4

 

Mace 1 Skill > Faithful Strike:   Chance speed of   3/4   to   1/2

 

Mace 2 Skill > Symbol of Faith:   Chance speed of   1+1/4   to   3/4

 

----- Dragon Hunter -----

 

Big Game Hunter > Increased bonus tether duration from 66% to 100% in PvE only  ----- "AND" ----- Gain 2 stacks of Might (10 seconds)

 

Longbow 5 Skill > Hunter's Ward: Reduced cooldown from 40 seconds to 20 seconds. Increased power coefficient of initial hit from 0.25 to 0.75. Increased power coefficient of final hit from 2.2 to 2.5.  ----- "AND" ---- add  Defiance Break: 250

[CivilDevil.5248]

Why do you abuse deadeye even further? Just delete the specialization. Make sure no only plays that anymore. We were fine with kneel and never wanted a change. Gave a useless advantage and removed range which was so important. Do we have any other reason to use kneel without having range advantage? (May be to stealth combo but initiative has been increased to 2)

[Vaerinth.9125]

The deadeye changes are interesting to say the least. Most of the changes I already have an idea of how they will work but until I get to use them I'm not 100% sure how they will affect the class, but I'm baffled by the range nerfs? What is the rationale for this?

 

The class fantasy is to be a long range sniper, and it doesn't make much intuitive sense to make it shorter range than a longbow ranger. If the extra mobility from kneel makes it too oppressive in pvp or wvw then I could understand nerfing range there, but in pve where everyone stacks up to get boons the range nerf just seems an unnecessary qol reduction. 

Some clarification or explanation for the range nerf  would be greatly appreciated.

[Drag You Down.2615]

3 hours ago, Ruisenior.6342 said:

  -Elementalist scepter changes are for the most part meaningless, and in my opinion dagger will remain far superior specially on pvp/wvw. Spells on water and fire atunments didnt need any change at all, we needed a big improvement on air and earth but not in terms of damage but utility (at least earth changes seem to bo ok).

Fire: If im not mistaken now dragon's tooth is basically the same  spell but with no ground targeting? So it will require the enemy to stay stationary till it lands? And it will lose alot of versatility in terms of combo field procs.

Water: Water changes are awful, i was used to cast water trident on situations where i was playing defensively, so now we have to land a 'projectile' spell to heal up XD, what if im blinded or i want to kite/run away or heal an ally? Losing vulnerability aplication on spell 2 is a big nerf too specially on pve.

Air: Air changes won't make any difference

Earth: Earth changes on paper are ok.

This change is the one I hate the most. My Tempest is a pure support, and I usually play in open world or small groups. That scepter water 3 was my favorite. But it cannot heal allies anymore, it forces me to use dagger to heal. Specifically, water dagger 2. IS DAGGER MORE LIKE A DEFENSIVE WEAPON THAN SCEPTER? The reason why I don't use staff is just because the skills are really weak, scepter plus horn was the best for me. 

[Areler Hideaki.1843]

I quite like a lot of the changes added here. The ones added to untamed will make certain strikes and PvE content more enjoyable.

 

My only gripe is with Deadeye. Losing the extra range from being knelt kind of defeats a lot of the reason to BE kneeled. Not fully, but sure makes it less appealing, not to mention it makes the whole "sniper" thing silly when it has less range than other weapons.

That said, I do like the addition of being able to walk. Makes kneeling down in more intense situations less punishing- It would be great if there was a special animation to walking while knelt however, not only for flavor, but also clarity.

[ASP.8093]

23 hours ago, Double Tap said:

• Kneel: Increased initiative cost from 1 to 2. While kneeling, players can now move at a 75% reduced speed. Kneel is no longer canceled when you become disabled.
• Skirmisher's Shot: Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200.
• Three Round Burst: Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200.
• 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.

Wait. What. Why?

 

The Death's Judgement semi-pierce is kinda nice, given how landing DJ on your target is a big part of the Malice/Initiative resource loop.

But what's the point of the rest of this, though? Movement tends to be pretty all-or-nothing in PvE — there are very, very few situations where crab-walking at 25% speed will get you out of danger.

In exchange, you get absolutely screwed on range, which has pretty nasty implications for WvW/SPvP. (Where you're contending with longbow-users so enaging at above 1200 range is pretty normal.) Aesthetically, also, there was something nice about the slow wind-up kneeling cast of Death's Judgement.

 

I'm begging you to just leave it alone.

[Frostterror.6075]

As a FB main I look forward to these changes and really want to get my hands on the new stuff. Especially on the WvW side of things a ton of fun things for me to do now vs what I have now. Tome changes where badly needed thanks peeps :)

[Shaeli.2573]

Honestly, I can't think of a worse nerf to deadeye.  Are they trying to stealth-delete the elite spec entirely?

The entire identity of the deadeye rifle spec is long range single target damage while kneeling, but now you've removed that entirely???

Edited November 12, 2022 by Shaeli.2573

[Gwynnion.7364]

I understand now why they were so vague about their "balance philosophy." They still don't know how half the classes work or why. The Deadeye changes are a random nerf with no benefit. Mirage is still getting slapped around for being able to provide boons. 

I'm ambivalent about the Firebrand rework but they still don't understand the problem is less about Firebrand than it is with how few tools other specs have in comparison. And they're still operating from the silent assumption that some classes are allowed to do x, y, and z and be good at it and others are not.

You probably can't flatten Firebrand out any more than they already have. It's time to give other classes more options instead.

[itspomf.9523]

On 11/11/2022 at 1:51 PM, Double Tap said:

Deadeye

• Kneel: Increased initiative cost from 1 to 2. While kneeling, players can now move at a 75% reduced speed. Kneel is no longer canceled when you become disabled.
• Skirmisher's Shot: Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200.
• Three Round Burst: Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200.
• 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.

As though I seriously needed even fewer reasons to pick up that elite spec again, you just took them all away.

Kneel isn't the problem, the clunky mechanic of its entire existence is.  The fact Deadeye is dependent upon kneeling is.

Chipping away the range bonus from kneeling just makes this even worse, because now you're more likely to be in a situation where the increased initiative cost can work against you when you need to stand up and get out of an AOE or a cluster of spawns.

Just follow the lead on Scrapper Gyros and please revert these changes.  They're not the improvement you're looking for.

[Kuma.1503]

I think you guys should stop hyping up these patch notes. 

It just ends up disappointing everyone when they inevitably don't deliver. 

 

I am impressed that DE managed to get nerfed in a patch that was meant to buff them though. 

[Gerbee.7809]

no love for warrior rifle? 🤕

[Theocraft.6054]

22 hours ago, Maxi.9684 said:

Mechanical Genius: Combat attribute bonuses to the mech are now reduced by 50% if the engineer is more than a range of 360 away from the mech for a certain amount of time.

 

I understand what do you want with this change, but I really don't think is good, because the mech IQ is really low, a lot of the time his movements is so random and annoying, this change would be nice if you could control the movement of mech correctly or at least making him follow you correctly.

 

22 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.

 

21 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

The Mech range thing sounds kinda dumb if it doesn't include a toggle that lets me tell it to stay near me, especially when it's in gun mode. You'll basically be turning the Player into the pet and the Jade Mech into the owner.

 

20 hours ago, Saone.1046 said:

There's a bunch of cool, but difficult-to-tap potential in Mechanist, but we have to rely on the AI to access it. This change makes it even more of a pain, since the pet skills overlap in keybinds with the pet control skills, and the ways to control the mech's positioning are clumsy at best. Babysitting where the mech stands (for instance, on bounties with Exploiter) is a big pain. Jade Buster Cannon is potentially a huge source of cleave, but positioning your mech to use it is horrible.

 

If we're going to need to make sure we're close to our mechs periodically, we should really have better positioning controls for our mechs.

 

 

20 hours ago, Draconian.6528 said:

Mech change doesn't make sense either. Are we supposed to follow the mech now? might as well let the mech be the commander at this point.

I could repeat those and similar comments again. This change will make the gameplay more clunky and unpleasant. Please think by imagining longer gameplay when you need to micromanage the golem. That is not something "fun" by any means. 

You will already correct the main issue by putting holo as top dps spec for engineers.

[Erez FB Two.1423]

DH, Daredevil, Reaper - not enough to get them up to other power specs. the gameplay is very fun and no need to change - but just more numbers to pdps.

 

REN - why does it still need 80% BD to work? In this day and age, most builds require less than 50%. Did you know that power alac ren can't crit cap? since u take the 75% legend swap trait. Maybe add another alac button, and not rely only on 1 button.

 

Vindi - will the "dodge bug" get fixed? 😄 really too much dmg on this one in PVE.

 

overall, im excited to play the walking Deadeye and try the longbow DH 🙂 also trying the cata after the rebuff - it was my favorite in EOD specs.