November 29 Balance Update Preview

[Antina.5973]

15 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

It doesn't, and shouldn't. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn't have it now. What is has is a firm set of support and utilities baked in that don't need to be traited to work somewhat effectively in clutch situations. I'm a firm believer that all classes should have some good utility, support, or mobility like this, so they don't need to overspecialize and become one-trick ponies.
FB can afford to lose some utility or support (not both like this rework seems to do), but more importantly, underperforming specs should be given some measure of support or utility baked in so they can be useful like the FB is for something besides DPS, especially when things go haywire.

Also, I'm not opposed to a shared resource between tomes, as long as it's not so restrictive it robs the class of too much identity, versatility, or theme.

Loosing class identity is my main concern about recent changes, and by recent I mean since May 2021.

Mantra chants were deleted, in the name of kitten what exactly? QoL? Deleting identity skills, art as in animations and voice lines from Mesmer and Firebrand was wrong, and a waste.

Now the same seems to happen with tomes. Should we expect that Holo will loose forge soon? Or reaper it's shroud? Where is this butchery of class identities going.

[AliamRationem.5172]

34 minutes ago, RAZOR.7246 said:

 

I've already said; Balance classes around the 6 points I've previously mentioned. These 6 points are Rotation, Range/Melee capabilities, Mobility, Access to Utility, Pet Tanking and Cleave. If a class is lacking in 1 area because of it's design, then another area from these 6 points should be buffed to compensate for that to make it viable. If any of these areas can be improved within the current design, then it should be improved. It's not game or design breaking to buff 1 or more of these aspects on classes that need it. In we're specifically looking at melee vs ranged DPS, a significant improvement to mobility capabilities would compensate for this. This is not a theory. This is what happens in practice. If you can blink on mobile fights like 100CM without having to compromise on your DPS to do so, you're going to do a lot more DPS. Portal Strats are a thing in highly advanced and coordinated groups for this reason. Instead of dodging out and back in for mechanics where a ranged class can just move backwards, if you can avoid the mechanic altogether, you possess the same advantage that a ranged class has. Being able to cleave is a huge boost to the QoL of players in a multitude of scenarios and the game rewards you for cleaving with most fights benefiting from the effects of cleave. In terms of rotation, a harder rotation naturally should yield more damage. At the same time, a melee class should possess the ability to recover their rotations more easily than a ranged class when those rotations are interrupted. Not all classes can have viable access to pet tanking or range nor should that be the case. But to compensate, increased mobility, survivability or access to better utility should be given to those classes. Buffs to coefficients like they've been doing are going to do absolutely nothing. These are not good changes just because they look like a significant upgrade at face value. This is balancing around performance on a static golem and not a reflection of a proper fight scenario. Also this line of thinking is predicated on the notion that the classes are already well designed with respect to their combat system which, as previously established, they are not. A class that has a bench that is significantly worse and by significantly we're looking at around 20% DPS and still perceived to be overperforming compared to a class that theoretically has superb DPS reflects a significant flaw in class design for that class to perform at it's optimum level in the meta. 

So now not only are we refusing to use paragraphs, we're formatting in annoying mode black-text-on-white-background?  Nice.  I'll give you one more before I block you.

I like the part where you slip and concede the point that part of the answer is to compensate the class with naturally higher damage, then go right back to insisting that this is not the way.  Of course that is part of the answer.  It's true what you say that mechanist has basically every advantage you could give to a class.  That could just as easily mean that mechanist is poorly designed.  That's a matter of perspective.  Most video games tend not to make the mistake of creating classes that do everything better than everyone else so as to avoid these types of issues in balancing.

If we try to avoid reducing the damage of such a class while bringing disadvantaged classes up to compensate them for their limitations, it's going to involve a total rewrite of many classes (e.g. where are you going to stick all those pets, teleports, and boons on weaver while maintaining its identity as a selfish melee DPS design?).  It may even be impossible due to the limitations GW2 has imposed upon itself with its core design (i.e. the previously mentioned decisions that led to stack-in-a-pile gameplay).  

Meanwhile an easier solution presents itself: Adjust damage appropriately.  In other words, that "power budget" concept CMC discussed.  If a class is going to have every possible advantage, it has to pay for it in some way.  Obviously, it already has everything so what's left?  Damage.  Simple, no?

I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't apply the concepts you mention where it makes sense.  But if your argument is that this is the only way and that damage cannot or should not be used to compensate for limitations that result in lower damage output in practice, I disagree.  I think it's obviously an important tool in the kit.

[Kersel.7189]

well, good bye mechanist dps. 😞 

[Nash.2681]

1 minute ago, Kersel.7189 said:

well, good bye mechanist dps. 😞 

Well, it still would be more than sufficient to clear any encounter of the game while watching netflix and eating sandwiches. Ppl would just have to get used to not still be top dps after their return from the fridge. 

[Reindhart.7456]

On 11/11/2022 at 5:47 PM, Reindhart.7456 said:

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

Oh, and I forgot to mention that they've already nerfed the mech by removing the ferocity it inherits from the mechanist and also the passive Aim-Assisted Rocket. 😕 

I think that if they are so concerned about the range of the mech's off leash, then they should limit the distance that it moves away and that's it. lowering its damage by 50% (already reduced in the previous patch by the way) is too much...

[DobyCool.3701]

A couple thing to say about the Firebrand:

1. the F3-1 stab shouldn't be fully taken away, give it a internal CD to prevent spamming. Yes, F3-5 is a big stab with 25s cd, but it causes 3 pages which is too expensive, therefore I think F3-1 should still give some stab in some way.  Another thing is, the current design for F3-1, I feel like no one will every wants to waste any pages on it, it will become a skill that no body touches because pages are so expensive right now.

2. now when enter F1, FB can only use 245, and return 1 page from passive and then go out of the tome. 4 pages will take 32s to generated, where as originally F1 is on 30s cd.  From the note, I am not seeing any change from renew focus, not sure how they change it, but even if it re-found the pages, the cd on F1-245 will not allow another burst.  The quickfire will gain you 4 stacks of burning in around 30s if you are able to keep going in and out of F skill very 8s or so, but that is just getting back the dmg of F1-12 skill that is lost in the combo. What I am trying to said is, if you take away FB's flexibility, you should give back some of its dmg. But currently I think is dmg is going to be hit as well and FB is not top dps already, it is low compare to other spec.  

3. another things is, FB do have a great build due to F23, but not every player will use them.  I once in a group with 5 FB for W2 3rd boss, after our healbrand fail on reflet, 4 other FB do nothing, I have to use my axe 5 on SLB to help get it over.  Now after the update, they will have excuse to said they that it is not a job of dps anymore.  These is where I don't want the game to be going, where dps's job is just dpsing.  There will only encourage brainless ppl, and less and less support players.  Maybe Anet can try to give all other dps spec some untidies that defines their class and will help the group.

Edited November 15, 2022 by DobyCool.3701

[Setz.9675]

Just my ideas for some of the classes.

 

Mechanist: Mechanical Genius: Baseline 0% combat attributes, when the player attacks an enemy within a range of 360 gain 50% combat attributes for the mech for ? seconds. No one wants to control a second character (pet in this case, hello pathing issues, f6/f7 messing up account keybinding if I change that or more mechs blocking your view of enemy AoE or whatever). One of the biggest mech issues is that its full dmg can be done from range. My change fixes that, player close to enemy = full dmg, player away from enemy at safe distance = reduced dmg.

 

Catalyst: We dont know how hammer 3 is going to work, is 1 orb upkeep doing the same dmg as 4 orb upkeep? Because 4 orb upkeep with 0.25 coefficient seems a bit much to me.

Remove the channel from Hurricane of pain and let it function like staff, fire attument skill 2: lava font allowing players to set up bigger burst when swapping out of air, as far as I know catalyst doesnt do a lot of burst dmg right now.

Remove cast time from Relentless Fire and Shattering Ice augment utility, its already a 1/4s cast time and it feels (to me) like it only exists to force a more rigid weapon/utility rotation.

Change dmg modifiers from Weaver traitline to increase the dmg from dual skills and buff dmg from the core weapon skills so core elementalist and tempest arent screwed over because Weaver adds so many dmg skills to its kit.

 

Chronomancer: Please for heavens sake give chrono a proper +15% crit chance trait that is actually feasable to obtain. Danger Time: +15% crit vs enemiess with slow debuff vs Improved Alacrity: +10% crit dmg with alacrity. Virtuoso gets +15% for having fury on themself as a tier3 minor trait. That slow uptime condition for +15% crit is unreasonable as hell compared to virtuoso and it directly competes with a 10% crit dmg modifier in the same tier2 major like come on.

 

Reaper: Give gravedigger some lifeforce generation, as little as 3% for completing the cast or resetting the cooldown would be fine compared to the lifeforce starvation below 50% of enemy hp that goes on right now.

Reaper should also be able to obtain addition crit % modifiers. right now its about 15% off from crit capping, forcing us to run thief runes which then forces us to attack enemys from behind for the 10% dmg modifier of said rune which imo does not fit with the reaper theme.

Others have said it as well, MH dagger is trash, basicly every offhand for necro is trash.

 

Ranger: Shortbow could use some dmg increases.

 

Daredevil: Staff could use some dmg buff

Change tier 2 major trait: Havoc Specialist, instead of giving % dmg modifier for every bar of energy missing, give a dmg boost for every attack that isnt a repeat of the previous attack up to ???%. cap at ???% and reset when 2 of the same attacks are done in a row.

 

[RAZOR.7246]

Quote

I like the part where you slip and concede the point that part of the answer is to compensate the class with naturally higher damage, then go right back to insisting that this is not the way.

I like the part where you've completely disregarded everything I've said and are trying to identify weaknesses based on things that I haven't said at all.  This is nothing more than straw manning.

 

Quote

I'm not saying we can't or shouldn't apply the concepts you mention where it makes sense.  But if your argument is that this is the only way and that damage cannot or should not be used to compensate for limitations that result in lower damage output in practice, I disagree.  I think it's obviously an important tool in the kit.

I've already mentioned before. You can't do it this way because the same thing that's been happening is going to repeat itself. You're going to get classes that are OP in certain instances and completely unviable in a lot of others because of their class design. The result is these classes getting "balanced" again to the point of unviability to bring them in line on those fights where they are OP. It doesn't work because it doesn't address the fundamental issue for why these classes are underperforming on fights. Balancing based on coefficients didn't work before and it isn't going to work now because it doesn't address fundamental problems with class design. This line of thinking is what got the meta into this mess in the first place. This only works if the assumption that class design is reasonably functional relative to the overall combat system, which it isn't. Insisting that we should stick with it instead of fixing the root problem is just madness. A class with 33k bench is "overperforming" when classes doing 40k bench supposedly can't compete. There's a huge problem with the class on 40k bench then because that's the class that's not performing to it's optimum level while the other one is. We're going to be sitting here at the next patch complaining about the exact same issues. It's a guarantee because these changes are not going to work. 

 

Quote

So now not only are we refusing to use paragraphs, we're formatting in annoying mode black-text-on-white-background?  Nice.  I'll give you one more before I block you.

 You can just block me now and it wouldn't bother me 1 bit. In fact, I'd prefer if you did. 

Edited November 14, 2022 by RAZOR.7246

[Katary.7096]

On 11/11/2022 at 7:51 PM, Double Tap 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 like it. Players who want to get the most out of Mechanist will have to manage their pet actively, those who do not can still play the same build with reduced efficiency. But you will probably need to make better tools to take care of the active pet management.

On 11/11/2022 at 7:51 PM, Double Tap said:

The page mechanic for firebrand tomes has been reworked. Pages are now shared across all tomes and refill at a set interval instead of when summoning a tome.

Have you anticipated that players will start to evaluate tome skills based on performance level per page spend in this new system? With a total of 15 skills across all tomes sharing a single resource and practically no limit on entering and exiting tomes I can see some skills falling into the "never used, unless a button was pressed accidentally" category. Well, I guess those can be reworked/ deleted later.
Personally I would have nerfed all tome skills substantially and then have each grandmaster trait restore one tome to its original level of power, but I am clearly biased here, since it is my idea.

On 11/11/2022 at 7:51 PM, Double Tap said:

Tyrant's Momentum: Increased damage increase per stack from 2% to 3% in PvE only.

Picking Tyrant's Momentum reduces the duration of Lethal Tempo stacks to the point that maintaining the buff in combat has a very tight timing requirement. Could you bring up the duration by 1 second?

On 11/11/2022 at 7:51 PM, 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.

It is true that the stationary nature of kneeling rifle Deadeye limits its use in a lot of PvE encounters, but I have little hope that a Deadeye with 25% of its normal movement speed is going to make any difference in encounters with movement-heavy mechanics. And I don't have to say much about the presentation, do I? The mobile kneeling Deadeye shoots up into standing straight and starts casually walking around? I get that creating a set of fitting animations was never an option in the first place, but if there is no possibility to get this right then don't do it at all.
The reduction in attack range makes the Deadeye worse in the only niche it has in endgame PvE and has little to no impact elsewhere for PvE (exception being open world and story, which I don't care about) so I am left with the question: Why change it? Specifically because your intention is to help Deadeye in PvE...
Piercing on Death's Judgement is appreciated and I would like to see a similar treatment for other rifle skills in the future for the purpose of building malice on targets.

On 11/11/2022 at 7:51 PM, Double Tap said:

Banner of Tactics: This skill now breaks stuns on allies in addition to its other effects.

Neat for competitive game modes I guess. In PvE this skill is pretty much cast on CD for the purpose of maintaining quickness. Which is a design decision I hope you reverse in the future. Spamming multiple Herald facets, Ranger spirits, Specter wells, Warrior banners, etc. just to get a key boon is not exactly fulfilling.

On 11/11/2022 at 7:51 PM, Double Tap said:

Merciless Hammer: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes.

At this point the Defense and Tactics specializations offer better power damage increases than Arms and Discipline, the Warrior is and has already suffered from "one trick pony syndrome" for quite some time. Is it too much to ask that defensive and supportive specializations enable Warriors to run builds which focus on defense and support instead of yet another flavor of power damage output?
It is not this change in particular but the overall direction which I find concerning and that is with me already counting on a support focused elite specialization for Warrior in expac 4.
Enabling traits/ skill bonus effects which normally couldn't work on bosses to simply work on them all the time is a pretty good idea though.

[Shiv Deeviant.8072]

I think that most of this is super interesting and should be a good addition to gameplay. The Firebrand nerf/redesign has been a long time coming and is fair. Most of these updates appear to be reigning in a lot of the excesses of the various classes. Though there is one change I'd REALLY like to see: An update to the Vindicator Master Traits. As it stands, there is only one 'right' choice, as there isn't a lot of synergy elsewhere, Angsiyan's Trust is never a pick, and Reaver's curse is just lesser than other picks, only the vigor buff makes any sense for the flavor of the class. I'd love to see Reaver's Curse lose the target limit, which would raise the cap to a max of 10 (20 stamina with the current math) for Vassals dodge and be THE pick for zerg-type situations but still situational enough that you wouldn't likely see too much max capping on it all the time. Angsiyan's trust should be something like 'Gain/grant 1 endurance whenever you give an ally a boon' or something like that with a miniscule cooldown to keep it from going too crazy. Just stuff that would actually work in specific situations.

[Minion of Terror.1948]

So I wanted to give a Big thank you for spending the time to rework Scepter on elementalist. I know Complete Reworks like this take more time then other changes to do but they need to be done for I think most weapons in the game at this point. I liked that in the live stream you did state that you wanted this weapon to be focused on being Damage. I feel like this is important for elementalist and engineer the weapons are very well defined since you can only use one set. So my next question is this.

What do you want the other elementalist weapons to be?

What weapons are ranged and Melee? Main hand Dagger has a different range on each of it's auto attacks. Fire is 400 the only weapon with that specific range. I felt from the start Hammer had this issue since the design of it has water and earth be completely Melee and Fire, Air is this weird 600 Range. It is long enough that you don't have to be right next to your target.

 

Let alone the weapons that you don't really talk about the conjure weapons and kits. Has anybody really used a conjure weapon outside of fiery great sword for one skill and earth shield for PvP?

Lets face it nobody has been using Ice Bow since 2014.

 

The main take away from all of this I would like to Hear from YOU what do you what role should each weapon be on each class. So the community can talk about if the abilities of said weapon properly fit that role.

 

[Vlad Morbius.1759]

12 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

I just want to sum up why I think these Reaper changes are bad and don't achieve their goal. 

First of all the Death's Charge and Executioner's Scythe Buffs - can we please, please stop with the trend of making all skills DPS skills to be pressed off-cooldown?

It's okay to have skills with the primary function of Mobility, CC or other (situational) Utility. Not everything needs to be mashed off-cooldown. 

 

Nightfall is used in conjunction with Well of Suffering, Well of Darkness and Grasping Darkness before entering Shroud to benefit from Death's Perception and Reaper's Onslaught's extra Critical Damage. What do all of those skills have in common? 25 second Cooldowns.

Not that a CD reduction is a bad thing, but I don't know what you expect this to accomplish as a means to increase Reaper's DPS. 

 

Chilling Scythe reducing the CD of Gravedigger - great.. more Gravedigger Spam. Why is this a bad change? Reaper already has massive Lifeforce Issues. 

Where does Reaper get a lot of it's already lacking LF from? The third hit of the AA on both Greatsword and Shroud. 

What do these Chilling Scythe, Death's Charge and Executioner's Scythe buffs want you to do? Auto Attack less in GS and Shroud.

How do you expect this to work out?

 

So that leaves us with Soul Barbs, Chilling Nova and Dusk Strike buffs. 

 

More Soul Barb duration certainly is a plus, but it's really not going to do much at all either. Once again, Reaper simply doesn't have the LF to stay in Shroud for an extended amount of time. In real fights with incoming damage, especially post 50% Boss Health Gravedigger spam, Reaper genuinely a lot of times can't even stay in Shroud for the 10 seconds, sometimes barely getting a Soul Spiral in - something that will be even worse LF wise if trying to Utilize these buffed skills and Auto Attacking less.

This will mainly increase the low but already inflated Golem Benchmark slightly where LF management is easier due to not having to deal with incoming damage, without doing much in actual use cases.

 

Chilling Nova's ICD reduction is nice and probably the most significant Buff out of all of these, but since this can't Crit even this is fairly marginal and more of a Condi Reaper Buff with Deathly Chill, but okay. More Chill uptime is nice for Solo play at least.

 

And then there is a 0.2 coefficient buff on the first GS Auto, which you now want us to use less for even more Gravedigger usage. Any buff is a welcome one, but this is just so far off being enough - especially from the big PvE patch of the year which even has a focus on boosting underused power DPS Specs, like Reaper. 

Frankly, this is stuff I expect from monthly hotfixes, not changes worth waiting years for. 

 

Sooner or later you will have to put the work in to rework and buff Core Necro Weapons, especially the Off-Hands, as well as Spite Traits, especially the Master and Grandmaster Minors. 

I probably speak for most players in that we are so tired of watching you guys shuffle around coefficients for years and years, usually in the wrong places.

 

Why does Necro still have a "Deal 25% increased Damage while Downed" Trait in Spite? Why are you intent on buffing the damage of Skills like Death's Charge and Executioner's Scythe, which already have very real use cases in PvE for Mobility and CC (also, Purity of Purpose as Design Goal, anyone?), but skills like Unholy Feast on Axe are practically never worth pressing/way too situational? Speaking of Axe, why is the AA so awful (and even more so Staff)? How come it's only skill semi-worth pressing is Ghastly Claws - and that took 10 buffs over 10 freaking years!?

What is the point of Dagger MH? 

Why isn't there a single solid core Off-Hand on Necro? How about a single comparable Damage skill to Whirling Axe, Whirling Defense or even Shackling Wave, etc.? 

Even Ranger Warhorn as support weapon with AoE Fury, Might, Swiftness, Weakness, Daze and Blast Finisher (+Regen if Traited) on Call of the Wild has a better/more reliable damage skill with Hunter's Call than all Necro off-hands. 

Necro Warhorn is just utterly pathetic in comparison to everything else.

 

If you want to give Reaper "a bit more consistent pressure while out of shroud", this is where to start - and it needs more than "just a bit".

 

This post basically nails it and these changes clearly shows that it's a class not actually being played by the Dev's at all. I've pretty much given up regardless of new additions it's like someone over there has sported a grudge against Reaper and are crippling the class on purpose. Either way don't want to detract from this great feedback quote but from what I've witnessed regarding Reaper balancing they don't take anything the players say seriously anyway. As such I'll be moving on, maybe someday when someone there actually cares to put the time into fixing Reaper properly I'll return, for now helping my wife get the new scroll for Lion's Arch then I'm out.

[AJVO Havoc MX.7294]

It tooks months if not 1, 2 years for last dude in charge to finish up messing up the way he did and this dude within a few weeks has done a much worse job and it's not insulting telling someone is doing an awful job when that's the case. How the hell u call all this balance?? How u dare to call that a "buff" to Deadeye lol You giving us a RP walk,increasing cost initiative on an already not useful skill and reducing our freaking range, what's the point of kneeling then??? Also giving us a piercing in the most useless way for what??? to reduce also our damage to unmarked targets??? Like seriously?? Any idea how Deadeye works??? Not asking for damm damage increasing. 

1.- Delete that bs reveal it gets from almost every action it does when it already lacks of stealth nowdays anyways

2.- Reduce skill 3 and 4 initiative spend back to what it was, as it should have always stayed, as it is on pve in both PvP & WvW

3.-Binding Shadow should be always F2 skill when marking someone

 

Deadeye was meant to be high mobility,sneaky and powerful spec

So far you have took every of that from it, any idea what stealth was for??? to repositionating and doing high damage

like there is a reason all ppl playing core thief nowdays you know, they don't reveal theirselves and can do the job.

 

Always very well done when buffs to any ranger spec but such awful changes to specs that didn't need either buff or nerf

like Mechanist for example, since the start it was always op AF but it was killable after all, unlike rangers or guardians lol they cover all damage by just standing on the same spot while doing high damage

 

Where is the feedback you guys always talking of??

 

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by lmao.7816

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

21 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

 

(Also. ALSO. Last I checked, Guardian never had a "fire" subtheme. So why the kitten do both Firebrand and Willbender lean so hard into fire? Why does Firebrand even do fire damage anymore when Willbender seems to be a much better realized execution of that facet of Firebrand? Willbender seems almost deliberately designed to push Firebrand out of burninating and into total book-nerd support, so I am mildly baffled why the pulling back of Firebrand to let Willbender shine hasn't happened yet. It wouldn't even inconvenience FB mains much since they are just a short HP train away from being able to slide into WB.)

 

Wut. Guardian has ALWAYS had a "fire" subtheme??? Purging Flames? The ENTIRE Justice virtue??? Guardian's theme is protecting allies and burning away impurity

[Batalix.2873]

20 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Wut. Guardian has ALWAYS had a "fire" subtheme??? Purging Flames? The ENTIRE Justice virtue??? Guardian's theme is protecting allies and burning away impurity

 

 

Guardian has always had a "light" theme. None of its core weapons do fire damage outside of torch, but ALL of them have a "light magic" aesthetic. Purging flames is one utility slot out of sixteen. So really this notion of Guardian = fire is conflating one of three virtues with the class as a whole, something which I argue is displaying an unreasonable obsession with damage over all else, and which is to the detriment of the whole profession.

 

Given the whole breadth of Guardian's design space, it is disappointing that we have two whole especs retrodding the same "burn everything" gimmick. Willbender is just pyromania done with better focus, and Firebrand is a healing job with a bunch of unnecessary fire flavor tacked on.

 

And if this is truly the best the devs could do, that after several especs and rebalancing, Guardian is now only about fire damage, then it's a bad, narrow concept. One that abandoned a lot of Guardian's original design space and also is stepping a lot on the toes of Ele.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Batalix.2873

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

Please make the hunter's ward duration 3s in PvP too (not just WvW). It's not any less toxic there

[Vissarion.6509]

I am just sad elementalist still weak and didn't get touched that much. Scepter is a cool weapon but is very clunky and hopefully those changes will help it a bit.

I just would love to see some major changes to the so many useless utilities of ele, and underpowered staff.

[Shiv Deeviant.8072]

But... one of the earliest vague builds for the core guardian was to just spam justice of cooldown with the Zeal boost. Sword/Torch was one of the earliest condi DPS specs specifically FOR the burning that it did. There's a reason why all Core Guardians HATED running Molten alliance with burn-proof charr and blind-proof dredge. Guardians have run Burn since the beginning, it was their THING, whether from light or fire it's the BRAND. 

[Batalix.2873]

57 minutes ago, Shiv Deeviant.8072 said:

But... one of the earliest vague builds for the core guardian was to just spam justice of cooldown with the Zeal boost. Sword/Torch was one of the earliest condi DPS specs specifically FOR the burning that it did. There's a reason why all Core Guardians HATED running Molten alliance with burn-proof charr and blind-proof dredge. Guardians have run Burn since the beginning, it was their THING, whether from light or fire it's the BRAND. 

 

Doesn't make two fire especs any less unimaginative, particularly Firebrand. If anything, it also implicates Guardian players as being kind of unimaginative.

 

Archetypally, Firebrand is a Scholar. It is a Librarian. It casts spells with tomes and mantras. It didn't need yet another conventional condi-axe. What it needed was a support weapon. An axe that works like a rune-carver to create protective wards. An axe that works like a crook to herd new players out of danger zones. A weapon that would have such utility for group support that axe never *needed* to do condi damage.

 

A straight-up axe barely even worked with the concept to begin with, and lighting that axe on fire makes it borderline anti-synergistic.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

6 hours ago, DobyCool.3701 said:

A couple thing to say about the Firebrand:

1. the F3-1 stab shouldn't be fully taken away, give it a internal CD to prevent spamming. Yes, F3-5 is a big stab with 25s cd, but it causes 3 pages which is too expensive, therefore I think F3-1 should still give some stab in some way.

2. the condi FB build is going to be hit, they couldn't activated quickfire, but force to select quickfire.  I feel like Anet won't want to give condi FB some quick output therefore maybe re-design quickfire?

3. now when enter F1, FB can only use 245, and return 1 page from passive and then go out of the tome. 4 pages will take 32s to generated, where as originally F1 is on 30s cd.  From the note, I am not seeing any change from renew focus, not sure how they change it, but even if it re-found the pages, the cd on F1-245 will not allow another burst.  What I am trying to said is, if you take away FB's flexibility, you should give back some of its dmg. But currently I think is dmg is going to be hit as well and FB is not top dps already, it is low compare to other spec.  

4. another things is, FB do have a great build due to F23, but not every player will use them.  I once in a group with 5 FB for W2 3rd boss, after our healbrand fail on reflet, 4 other FB do nothing, I have to use my axe 5 on SLB to help get it over.  Now after the update, they will have excuse to said they that it is not a job of dps anymore.  These is where I don't want the game to be going, where dps's job is just dpsing.  There will only encourage brainless ppl, and less and less support players.  Maybe Anet can try to give all other dps spec some untidies that defines their class and will help the group.

Some gamers already ran the numbers and are projecting the best use for Tome of Justice now is to enter, hit 5, and exit every 20 seconds. That's it. I really hope this isn't the final resource management, because that would be sad. Tomes will have gone from the theme of opening a book of lore, with a really cool animation, to unleash a powerful torrent of pages and magic down to minimal animations while we dip in and out of them once in a while. Blink and you'll mis it. I really pray against this as it kills the concept and feel of what tomes were supposed to be.

 

2 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

 

 

Guardian has always had a "light" theme. None of its core weapons do fire damage outside of torch, but ALL of them have a "light magic" aesthetic. Purging flames is one utility slot out of sixteen. So really this notion of Guardian = fire is conflating one of three virtues with the class as a whole, something which I argue is displaying an unreasonable obsession with damage over all else, and which is to the detriment of the whole profession.

 

Given the whole breadth of Guardian's design space, it is disappointing that we have two whole especs retrodding the same "burn everything" gimmick. Willbender is just pyromania done with better focus, and Firebrand is a healing job with a bunch of unnecessary fire flavor tacked tacked on.

 

And if this is truly the best the devs could do, that after several especs and rebalancing, Guardian is now only about fire damage, then it's a bad, narrow concept. One that abandoned a lot of Guardian's original design space and also is stepping a lot on the toes of Ele.

Guardians have always had strong light and fire themes, and many ways to apply burning. The lore is thick with it. It infects every 3-5 attacks we make with Virtue of Justice, possibly our most prominent profession mechanic that can also spread burning to our entire team. Plus, a weapon for it, multiple utility skills, and then we get to trait specializations:

 

Radiance

"Burn away the unworthy."

Radiance improves your ability to burn and blind your foes, as well as improving your critical-hit capability. It grants bonuses while you are under the effects of retaliation[sic] and strengthens the effects of your signets.

— In-game description

 

Firebrand just kicks it up a notch, because, well... they're Firebrands! Willbender simply leans on existing mechanics already built into the core class from Radiance and other traits. No other damage condition comes close to burning for the core guardian than burning. It's baked into our profession mechanic. 

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

they could have phrased a bit more precise what these FB changes are finally gonna be. i have the bad feeling that anet nerfs again Wvw without a second thought through pvE issues...

while in pvE it barely matters, in Wvw it could massively disturb the whole groupbased gameplay.

like IF the cost for these page-cd is too high/too long, IF the passives not trigger and f3  entering gives no stab then, we lose effectively easily 30% or more stab upkeep - additionally to the yet nerfed elite mantra (reminder: 2 charges, longer cooldown...)

next, they do sth with the loremaster trait right? another dangerous water

and just accidently they hurt all zerg dps classes as well, bc they are far more vulnerable to random focusing form gankerbuilds (who by the way barely ever get any real nerfs in like... years? )

[felix.2386]

where warrior fix?

[Lord Warfin.1209]

12 hours ago, Blackfish.7349 said:

So many ppl complining about DEADEYE. Mates...deadeye is a specialization that allows you to hide in eternum, engage at will and from a vantage position and easily disengage if things dont go as expected. It simply should not exist in a MMO and you know is true. Of course some of you enjoy playing it, specially those ones specialized in the "easy" gank lonely game mode. Deadeye does not add anything of value to a group play apart from being able to hide forever inside a structure (which is another polemic discussion). For those who love it, feel lucky just because it exists and anet cannot delete a created specialization.

Whether or not something should exist in an MMO is a matter of opinion, but I think there is a valid point that the underlying problem with rifle Deadeye is the incompatibility of the sniper concept with the endgame PvE model in GW2, which is a pile of characters standing in the same spot next to the boss and all the players mashing keys in specific sequences given on the same web sites where they got the builds designed to maximize damage/healing/boon uptime.  Yeah there is some moving around to deal with mechanics added to relieve the monotony and it's nice to have some range so you can keep attacking, but it doesn't need to be that much.  The differences between classes/specs are just the specific numbers they pump out and how hard it is to remember the sequences of keys.  Sniper doesn't really have a place in that, not to mention the devs really don't want players to be able to pick off their creations from a safe distance.  That's cheating, so the longer your effective range the more work they have to put into map and encounter design to prevent you from taking advantage of it.  Maybe there is a place for it in PvP and WvW where players will find ways of countering other players tactics, including using the same builds and tactics themselves.  In open world you can do whatever you like because you don't need to meet benchmarks and don't care about maximum gold/hour, just having fun.  Balancing this to make it work at least to some extent in all game modes and still have a unique fantasy flavor is not going to be an easy problem to solve, and maybe they should have thought that through a little more about it before they created the spec.  Of course, reading the posts about other specs I haven't played and don't know much about, it seems it's not an easy problem for any of them and there's no way to please everyone.

[Tekk.6789]

The revenant changes are looking nice so far. Energy decreases are nice and the damage buff on spear is well needed. Not sure why Nomad's Advance didn't get any coefficient increases for PvE. Offhand sword buffs also look good. Hoping this allows Alliance Sword/Sword to be competitive with camping greatsword with Shiro/Jalis, but I feel like more damage buffs might be needed for Alliance. Alliance also provides little CC and I feel at least breakbar damage should be added to some skills as well like the Spear of Archemorus. Having to take a big impact to DPS to run staff as a secondary for CC while other classes aren't as impacted because they can just swap utilities. 

The damage increase on jade winds seems weird. The only time I ever use this is for CC when I have excess energy to spend. Honestly would prefer a energy decrease to make it a more reliable to use for CC for PvE. Having legend swap on cooldown means are you just sitting there waiting for energy so you can CC for the breakbar.

No condi changes is disappointing. Currently the best setup is charged mists which outside of bosses that don't have a lot of movement, is not very fun to play around and more frustrating than enjoyable. Trait changes should be made to allow more build variety for condition renegade; because currently we are forced to take traits that only affect strike damage. As it is we only have two good trait lines for condi and third choice is pretty mediocre either way.

Support Vindi is still being neglected. Yes, it provides good healing, but not providing any Alacrity of Quickness is a problem. The upside it has the possibility to be ran in unique comps due to its ability to extend boons. I've had discussions with my guild regarding changes that could possibly be made to allow Support Vindicator to be competitive with the current choices. The main discussion was combining the boon extension(or just buff the boon extension for a start) and heal dodge into one trait and increasing the time boons are extended by the dodge or allowing it to be affected by concentration. That would allow it to be ran in more unique comps where the quick and alac in the group can run less boon duration due to the support Vindi being able to reliably extend it for the sub group.

All in all the changes are look good so far, but I feel another round of buffs might be needed for Alliance stance to be more competitive for PvE.

[FinalShield.1968]

Hello Anet. I'm a long time DPS Engi and Warrior main with a Heal Tempest on the side. I am very happy with nearly all the changes I'm seeing except for 1 change, the changes to Elementalist Water Scepter 3: Water Trident. As a Heal Tempest, alot of the time I end up taking Staff as my weapon of choice for the more difficult challenges in the game (such as healing through Boneskinner and T4 Fractals). However, when I feel like I can get away with it, I often enjoy taking Scepter/Warhorn as my healing weapons due to how much I enjoy the skills Warhorn brings. Now then, Dagger is a fine weapon and it has a few things that help my Heal Tempest (Water 1/2,/3 for Vuln, Healing, and a Blast Finisher) (Air 2/3 for Weakness and Shocking Aura), but Scepter has FAR more utility than Dagger does (Fire 2/3's dual Blast Finishers) (Water 2/3 for Vuln and STRONG healing burst) (Air 3's Blind) (Earth 2/3 for self-Toughness and another Blind). If the changes go through, I won't have that heal to help me be a strong Heal Tempest.

If you guys are married to the idea of this new Water Trident no longer being a Ground Targeted ability, at least make the healing portion of the skill work as an AoE around the targets hit.

TL; DR: PLEASE RETHINK THE CHANGES TO WATER TRIDENT FROM A HEAL ELEMENTALIST STAND-POINT.