November 29 Balance Update Preview

[Jimbru.6014]

ArenaNet logic:

- Mesmer: one certain build used by a minority of players in the meta is over-performing, so we're going to change how mesmer staff works for EVERYBODY!

- Thief: Rifle Deadeye is an endangered spec, so we're going to buff it by taking away everything that makes it special to make sure it goes extinct.

- Tempest: We want to improve scepter and broaden support options, so let's nerf scepter healing.

Seriously, where does ANet's balance team live, Bizarro World?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Jimbru.6014

[DamDam.9746]

6 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

The Deadeye changes are atrocious to say the least, not being able to move has never been the issue with Kneel. It not having enough range and having to jump around like a monkey to get the Silent Scope stealth is.

Also, about the mech changes: the whole proximity to the mech thing actually takes away the value of proper positioning and turns it into "just stack up on the enemy" which for many players is a major point of criticism about GW2s combat in general. If you really want to nerf mech further then there are better ways to go about it.

Also, the P/P set on thief is still the butt end of a joke but looking at how they want to "improve" the Kneel skills I think it's better to say "let's keep it at that".

 

Agreed. I you want to give the PvE deadeyes some love, just give them a few AoEs.

 

To me, it actually feels rewarding to circumvent the kneel weaknesses by positionning well and choose when (or when not) to a new position.

 

The 1500 to 1200 range nerf feel totally uncalled for and conceptually wrong with the class' essence.

Not even talking about bow retaining this range and, at someone said, becoming the "the new sniper"...

 

If it's your way of "buffing" a class, it feels ominous.

 

 

Apart from that, like most of the changes to ele scepter. As someone said, we could do with a few buffs on other things too, especially on power builds. Buffs on holo feel good too.

 

Now that i checked all the other buffs to less played class in PvE, which are mainly good, i think maybe you guys just missed the mark on deadeye (no pun intended). Let's hope it's just that.

Despite that, i'd like to add that a lot of specializations/gameplays still feel left behind, and that maybe you could have prioritized better.

 

To finish on a better note, i like your philosophy behind the firebrand changes.

It will probably need some finetuning (which you now can do more easily), but i think that overall, the changes to this class are going in the good direction.

 

 

Keep up the good work 🙂  (and try to fix the bad 😄 ).

Edited November 12, 2022 by DamDam.9746
Added the part on priorities, in order to be fair on the actual state of PvE balancing.

[Yerlock.4678]

While the changes I feel are good, these changes are underwhelming. I understand being precautious to gauge how the meta responds to changes but people have lives. And if we don't want to wait months upon months upon months, than we need changes that make an overall statement. You can hotfix things later, just please show that you're actually moving the needle more than 0.05%

 

Banner of Tactics  for Warrior looks enticing, maybe a game changer in some modes. But I worry the overall QoL won't be sufficient, especially if you still have to cast the banner AFTER the breakstun. That's not smart or good gameplay. The banner should auto summon UPON the breakstun, not after.

 

The reasoning behind this is the nature of cc attacks always chaining. If you got cc'd and use a breakstun to cast, odds are you'll need to act fast to prevent another cc from chain hitting you. This is where dodge and stability/blind/aegis comes in.

 

But if you're caught casting a skill without any of the previously stated things, you're too vulnerable to throw the stab and players might just dodge or use another skill before casting the desired effects of the banner. Please don't let this be the case. This is a great change but the required quality of life must go with it to be sufficient!

 

[GrimzEcho.5763]

How much are the staff Mirage changes going to hurt solo PvE? It seems like for sustained fights it won't matter to much, but for medium-length fights I think the might reduction will become meaningful, since it will take a non-insignificant amount of time to get the close up before you can self-sustain the 25 might stacks.

[Hallow.7368]

6 hours ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Anet is this for real? You buff a weapon on ele that is currently doing the most damage (hi scepter) and not buffing a melee clunky-fested poking stick that is sword? Like really? This is beyond even for me. Every ele on the forum was screaming 24/7 that sword is underperforming by a lot atm. Literary everyone. 

Really? Pretty sure that every ele in the world was crying that their spec is perma melee and doesn't have a viable ranged weapon since cata got hammer (orbs) while tempest has to be melee for overloads and weaver is sword. Now it's complaints that there IS a good range weapon and sword isn't buffed back to being the best? You lot really never cease to find something to cry about huh?

[Silverstar.2708]

Please reconsider the firebrand changes. With the new grandmaster tier traits, both Quickfire and Loremaster punish f1 use now. Either you take Loremaster for more page generation and lose the passive burning application, or you take Quickfire to have reliable burn uptime and have less pages to work with, and are forced into a trait that otherwise only benefits quickness application, which is useless to pure dps builds. You don't make alternatives to a trait more enticing by killing the main trait people take. Firebrand's widespread utility can use a nerf, but this route isn't it. 

[Skullsox.9162]

Only anet would reduce the range of a sniper and call it a buff lol. That's rough, way to  make sure no one wants to play deadeye again.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Skullsox.9162

[Xenesis.6389]

3 hours ago, Zepoolpe.9217 said:

Oh yes, because when we talk about boons in WvW, boon removal ONLY ON INTERRUPT is the bigger problem.
Muppets.

Incoming nerf to Vicious Expression next "balance" patch. 🤭

[lovemghool.7613]

still not good enough

[Zepoolpe.9217]

10 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Incoming nerf to Vicious Expression next "balance" patch. 🤭

Well, it's a mesmer skill so predicting a nerf is a safe bet 😛

[wetwillyhip.7254]

You guys said at the beginning of the stream that these balance chances were going to increase the amount of viable builds for the classes and I don't see a huge overhaul of all the by-far-least used skills. I'm looking at Ele utilities and elites, engineer gadget utilities, mesmer utilities--I'm talking about the ones NO ONE ever will pick because they are god awful compared to the few that everyone always takes... I thought this was supposed to be a major PVE balance patch and it feels so underwhelming with the majority of classes barely touched and improved. I think Revenant, Herald, dragonhunters could use a bit more buffing. Dragonhunters are squishy AF.  Reaper needs more buffs in the spite & soul reaping trait lines--and Reapers Shroud should be reverted to take 50% reduced in coming damage. Deadeyes, daredevils, and thief really are a rarity in PVE-buffing only a handful of things will not get players interested enough to play them, they need major buffs and overhauls. Why would you nerf the range of a deadeye when it's supposed to be a sniper? I'm all for boon homogeny but you NEED to keep each class' unique identity more intact... that goes for ranger spirits, warrior banners, etc. Its still astonishing that these unique aspects of those classes are obliterated earlier this year. Lets not continue to remove class uniqueness. 

Please, like so many have said, do not make Ele scepter water 3 (trident) only heal the caster, this skill helps a heal alac tempest heal their allies! Also many have said Alacrity on Tempest needs to pulse or apply at the start of an overload!!   

Edited November 12, 2022 by wetwillyhip.7254

[Ten.2617]

Engineer

* Rifle Burst: I think that to nerf this skill without give the Rifle any compensation might be an error.

A better and quick approach might be transfer some damage coeficient to Rifle #4 (Overcharged Shot); this skill should work as an "overcharged grenade" that airbursts on selected area (ground target), then blows out and burns foes. "Umblockable" and "blast finisher" facts could be added also.

 

The goal is reduce the auto dps without reduce the overall dps, and yet reward or punish the player by a properly or unproperly use of that dps.

 

* Mechanical Genius: I think that for the proposed change do not result in headache to players, a better reposition option could be added rather than rely on "Return to Me".

Two approaches could be considered, and one of them selected (i personally prefer the second):

1. The "Return to Me" skill could be changed to a ground target skill that teleports the robot to the selected point (similar to Ventari's Will).
2. The skills "Recall Mech" and "Crash Down" could be faster.

Crash Down: The robot should be ready to act between 0 and 1 second after appear.

Recall Mech: The animation should have no more than 1 second, then the player could quickly become able to re-summon the robot at desired position.

 

The goal is speed up the summon/de-sumon in order that improve the user experience.

Note: Detach the cooldown of "Crash Down" from the robot HP, and make that cooldown only be necessary if the robot dies.

[Yoda.1306]

I didn't expect a big positive change on this update...

On this point, I was not disappointed.

[SponTen.1267]

Thanks for the communication guys. While I don't agree with some of these changes (my feedback below), I still really appreciate how much you're communicating ahead of time, and how much detail you all go into.

I'll be taking into account your recent Balance Philosophy, especially when it comes to Purity of Purpose, Holes in Roles, and Power Budget (aka Opportunity Cost).

If I don't mention something, it usually means I'm fine with the change, or just don't know enough about that skill/trait/class/mechanic/etc to be able to comment.

 

Elementalist

Please don't change Scepter's functionality this much.

Dragon's Tooth is fun as as difficult-to-land but high damage and low cooldown skill, that's also a Blast Finisher. If you think it's underperforming, then consider reducing its delay a little, or increasing its damage.

The Phoenix change I sort of understand, but could its additional Burning stack be longer than the base 6 sec duration please? Seems fair to have to check/time for Burning stacks on enemies and be rewarded with more damage.

The Shatterstone change seems a bit... weird? Very different skill now. I'll have to play it to see how it feels, but I'm a little sceptical.

Please don't change the mechanics of Water Trident this much. If the healing is too OP, then fine, reduce its healing a bit and increase its damage. Edit: Perhaps Water Trident's current functionality could be somewhat merged into Freezing Gust on Focus?

Also, where are all the Utility skill changes? Cooldown reduction on Conjures? Retaining Elementals when you mount? What about lowering the cooldowns on Core Elites? Improving the damage on big hitter skills like Dragon's Tooth, Meteor Shower, literally all of the Arcane skills, Conjure Flame Axe? Buffs to traits like Burning Fire? Doing anything with Freezing Gust? There are so many changes that could be done here that likely wouldn't even need extensive testing, because you can just compare the skill/trait to anything similar on other classes and it'll be clear how much worse Ele's are.

 

Guardian

I really like the FB changes. The numbers will probably need to be adjusted over time - for instance, I'm seeing a lot of theorycrafting going around about how much dps FB will lose - but mechanically, I'm all for it. The only downside here is that it's less of a unique mechanic and more like Initiative now, but imo that's a small price to pay for FB finally adhering to Holes in Roles. Imo it's still fine for FB to be more of a hybrid class that can't compete with the top-end for dps, because it brings so much value with Quickness, support, and other utility.

 

Mesmer

The Alacrity duration on Chaos Vortex may need to be adjusted to 1.5 sec.

 

Thief

I love the theme of dual Daggers. I love that it's hybrid but still has solid damage in most types of content. I just wonder if the buffs to the auto attack will push Dagger into the "too good not to use" category - will have to play, watch others, and review. I just note this because I think GW2 is starting to approach the powercreep and over-homogenisation cliff.

As for the Deadeye changes - please do not implement any of these except for Kneel not being cancelled when you're disabled, and the Death's Judgement pierce change. Kneel is supposed to turn you into a sniper with high damage but no movement. Changing it to allow you to move slowly completely destroys the skill's identity while not really allowing you any more mobility; you're still going to have to dodge or un-Kneel to avoid most damage. And the range reduction on Spotter's Shot (you meant this, right? Not Skirmisher's Shot?), Three Round Burst, and Death's Judgement... these changes combined with the Kneel changes destroy Deadeye's class identity. Also, why is Deadly Aim still 1500 range?? Are you supposed to Kneel at 1500 range, super slowly creep towards your target while auto-attacking, and then switch to Spotter's Shot and Three Round Burst once you get to 1200 range?? This makes zero sense, will almost certainly feel weird/bad to play, and homogenises one of the few 1500 range weapons we have while not actually providing any respite. It does not "improve the usability of deadeye in PvE" at all; it makes it worse, except in a very few number of select fights where you're sitting within 1200 range anyway.

My suggestion: Keep the changes to Death's Judgement pierce and Kneel not being cancelled when you're disabled. Perhaps consider making Three Round Burst pierce, or allow it to pierce with a trait? You could also buff all Free Action (non-Kneel) skills' damage if the disparity is too great. It's fine for Kneel skills to be mostly very high single target damage though; the whole point of Rifle Deadeye is you give up aoe and movement for super high damage and range... like a sniper. Edit: Also, please allow Deadeye's Mark to remain active when you're downed.

Edited November 15, 2022 by SponTen.1267
Forgot about DE Mark disappearing on downstate, spelling and grammar, added extra suggestion on Water Trident, added in Death's Judgement range change and updated clarification

[HamShatan.4967]

First of all, thanks for the reaper buffs, the spec really needs it.
I'm a PvE boy, so i'll focus on that.

Saddly, as it has been mentionned before, i think those buffs aren't nearly enought to make reaper on par with other dps specs.

Let's take a closer look :

Chilling Nova : I didn't expect this buff, i have to admit. The cooldown reduction is sizable, despite the fact that this doesn't crit. I don't feel like doing math, so i'll wait and see for this one.

 

Nightfall : A 5 seconds cooldown reduction ? Stop me if i'm wrong, but won't we still wait for shroud to use this skill, so the damage tics benefit from Death Perception ?

 

Dusk Strike : A buff ? Sure, why not. We take everything we can get at this point.

 

Chilling Scythe : Reduce the cooldown of Gravedigger. So basically a buff for 50% of the fight only. Also, by how much ? It's difficult to have a proper opinion on this one. 
I'm curently doing 3 auto attack chains while out of shroud during one rotation, so a 1 second reduction (it's just a guess) would allow for one Gravedigger instead of the third auto attack chain while out of shroud (above 50% hp on the target). Slight dps increase, but i'm now lacking 7% life force. I'm not sure this is worth. Maybe if Death Spiral got a cooldown reduction as well.

 

Death's Charge : You mean it's finally gonna do more damage than the auto attack ? It might start to be used as something more than a missed input.

 

Executioner's Scythe : I wish you gave us the current modifier. Looking at the wiki, this might be something actually good. I'll wait and see.

 

So as stated earlier, reaper is pretty weak outside of shroud, so let's take a look at the core profession changes :

Soul Barbs : While the duration increase is a welcome one, i fear the impact won't be as big as we might think. 

Let's break it down :

Core Necro : Pretty irrelevant as far as dps is concern. I still like the good old Death Shroud though.

Reaper : the buff will most likely only affect the out of shroud dps, as the shroud economy is pretty tight on reaper. I get that it's your point with this change, but as someone stated earlier, reaper is only on par with other dps when in shroud, meaning the normal form will always feel like a weak state compared to an other class. Those buffs won't be enough to break that gap.

Scourge : I play slightly differently than most people, but i get in shourd off cooldown. I never pay attention to Sould Barbs, but looking at the numbers, we'll get 1 more second of this buff. Without any alac, that is.

Harbinger : I don't play this spec nearly as much as the other two, so i'll refrain from giving any feedback here.

 

So overall, not looking at the harbinger, for wich i lack in depth knowledge, this buff, while nice on paper, won't have that big of an impact. It still helps towards getting the reaper some damage on his normal form.

Overall thoughts : all of this is nice, but that's not enought. The rotation might change, but i don't think this will allow the reaper to get to the level of the other dps.

I'd like to add a few suggestions, in case something sounds good to you.

Rework the Spite traitline : 
This is a big one for me. The passive traits only bring self Might generation and some Vulnerability on target bellow 50% hp. While good in solo play, it becomes useless in group content. The vulnerability will most likely be covered (not to mention Unyelding Blast in the Soul Reaping traitline), as would the might. I would suggest getting a more direct approach, with either some direct strike damage increase / precision / crit chance. 
Also don't add conditions to those traits, even if it means lower numbers, as the reaper already has to deal with a lot of those : Enemy as no buff, enemy below 50% hp, must have Soul Barbs active, shroud for optimal ferocity, enemy must be chilled, 300 range threshold.

 

Death Perception : Maybe consider twiking that ? Or give reaper more crit chance elsewhere, as i feel like this trait is okay as it is right now. 
Please give use a way to change out of those runes of the thief to reach 100% crit chance. We have enough conditional modifier without flanking.

 

Soul Eater and Decimate Defences : While Decimate Defence fixes all crit chance issues one could ever have (seriously, that's up to 50% crit rate on one trait), Soul Eater feels like a must have, as it's damage multiplier can't be overlooked due to the reaper poor overall dps.
Something might be doable here ; i'm not sure what though.

 

Gravedigger : Fix the animation for the short version. Having two differents animations, depending on the animation cancel, is awkward. Not to mention the full animation lenght feels clunky.

 

Lich Form : A rework/buff is needed in PvE. It is currently the one elite skill that screams "power", but it isn't even worth using for dps purposes. I used it in Harvest Temple CM : as a life force source in between fights...

 

 

To conclude, i would like to add that the necromancer, escpecially the reaper, need special attention regarding the life force economy. I see no changes on the life force generation and depletion rate, so i'll trust you and hope that a potential new rotation won't be held back by a lack of life force.

Also : thanks for reading me.

PS : if you can manage to sneak the bugfixes for the underwater harbinger shroud 4 and the trident 1 life force generation, that would be sweet. ❤️

[freakcoco.4287]

Just now, Ze Ninguem.6708 said:

Engineer

* Rifle Burst: I think that to nerf this skill without give the Rifle any compensation might be an error.

A better and quick approach might be transfer some damage coeficient to Rifle #4 (Overcharged Shot); this skill should work as an "overcharged grenade" that airbursts on selected area (ground target), then blows out and burns foes. "Umblockable" and "blast finisher" facts could be added also.

 

The goal is reduce the auto dps without reduce the overall dps, and yet reward or punish the player by a properly or unproperly use of that dps.

 

* Mechanical Genius: I think that for the proposed change do not result in headache to players, a better reposition option could be added rather than rely on "Return to Me".

Two approaches could be considered, and one of them selected (i personally prefer the second):

1. The "Return to Me" skill could be changed to a ground target skill that teleports the robot to the selected point (similar to Ventari's Will).
2. The skills "Recall Mech" and "Crash Down" could be faster.

Crash Down: The robot should be ready to act between 0 and 1 second after appear.

Recall Mech: The animation should have no more than 1 second, then the player could quickly become able to re-summon the robot at desired position.

 

The goal is speed up the summon/de-sumon in order that improve the user experience.

Note: Detach the cooldown of "Crash Down" from the robot HP, and make that cooldown only be necessary if the robot dies.

I like this change.

There has no salty on untamed and they pet got better position and nonauto dps, I think this is right way to do.

Also hide nerf Rifle feel bad, I wish that must be something wrong .

[Lewdwig.5471]

It seems like Chrono still lacks some crit chance... having to go almost full assassin gear really doesn't feel good when most power dps builds don't need any.

[Halfdose.9847]

Harbinger, Bladesworn, Willbender are still OP in WVW roaming

.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Halfdose.9847

[Forbiben.3842]

Would have loved to see some balancing in core trait lines they are still either mandatory for a build or total garbage.

[Stadsport.8714]

4 hours ago, ZEUStiger.3590 said:

33% is still too low. Compared to the benchmark from before the bloody roar changes (so with 20%) it's going to change it from 33271 to 36043. It's still a joke. 40% would restore it to 38816, make it more in line with where berserker was before the whole summer fiasco. The argument that "all classes lost dps with the removal of unique buffs" doesn't hold water, we have more 40k and 40k-adjacent builds than before summer, and miles more than before EoD.

I would even argue that even 38k on berserker and 41k on bladesworn will not be enough to raise this class' popularity back to the ideal 11%, a selfish dps class that can contribute almost nothing else to the group (even less than before, as of the last patch) without bigger tradeoffs than other classes make away with. But I'm sure the community will think me crazy to suggest this, because they can't comprehend just how much the perception and adoption of other classes benefits from all the "extras" that warriors don't have.

I agree, and knowing that we'd have to bump Bloody Roar up to 40% to get it even in the ballpark tells me that Power Berserker needs to be buffed in other ways, or maybe just core Warrior does. Because while it's possible to basically keep up constant Berserk mode (or very nearly, especially with the tweaks), it also means when you're NOT in berserk, you'd be back down to doing absolutely pitiful DPS. It may just be that we need increases to the damage multipliers to axes, if not most/all  weapons for Warrior.

It's especially shameful because, while Power Berserker isn't a complex rotation, it is fast-paced and requires good timing to produce good output. It's a fairly try-hard rotation, but despite all that effort and offering virtually no other benefit to a group, like you said, other professions can basically autoattack and do more damage, while offering more utility to the group. From a gameplay/mechanical standpoint, Power Berserker is very well crafted. But by keeping it down in raw numbers alone, it feels like ANet is very clearly communicating to the playerbase not to play Berserker, or even just Warrior. I don't know how else we're supposed to interpret that message.

 

It's a big shame, because Power Berserker is an absolute blast to play. I don't think having a high "fun" factor should eat into the profession's "budget" of damage/boons/utility, but that's the only way I can see ANet justifying neglecting this build so much.

[Quxyun.4132]

With the changes to elementalist scepter, could we also see changes to the scepter's dual attacks? The 3rd skills aren't usually powerful enough to incentivize double-attuning, so half of these changes don't even affect an entire elite spec. As it stands, if you ever decide you want to cast your double-attuned skills, you are locked out of attunement swapping for at least 4 seconds, your 2 is probably already on cooldown, and if you use your 4 and 5 you won't have relevant offhand attacks for another 2 attunement swaps. The opportunity cost of double-attuning is just so massive, that the only weapons that really want to double attune are sword and staff, and even then there's at least 1 attunement that is just not worth double-attuning in.

[Kal Durak.2830]

9 hours ago, Double Tap said:

Mechanist

• 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.

Snuck in another undeserved nerf to my favorite class.  FYI I never see them at the top of the damage team.  Why the nerf?  Who is crying in their soup at Anet?

[Kal Durak.2830]

28 minutes ago, Halfdose.9847 said:

Harbinger, Bladesworn, Willbender are still OP in WVW roaming

.

Yep, tons of buffs and no nerfs.. Let get that dang thief, war and FB!!!!   and the MECH!  Out of control comes to mind on Anet's team.  They are obviously in a different universe playing than the one I am in. 

[Stadsport.8714]

1 minute ago, DtenCfour.3567 said:

Snuck in another undeserved nerf to my favorite class.  FYI I never see them at the top of the damage team.  Why the nerf?  Who is crying in their soup at Anet?

You... never see Mech at the top of DPS? I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or just not actually looking. There's a post every other day showing stuff like this:
https://i.imgur.com/hPbwZrm.jpg

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

39 minutes ago, Halfdose.9847 said:

Harbinger, Bladesworn, Willbender are still OP in WVW roaming

.

bc anet never nerfs the broken builds in wvw and rather destroys group synergies, nothing new is it

and u forgot mechanist/dps engis and thieves as well as rangers. and nobody plays bladesworn really.

 

further, roaming is just ganking, u never see any real fighting there lol. smallscale is at this point just a bad joke. gank and run, thats about it. thanks to casualnet and their crazy mobilit classes ... EoD release was a complete scam for Wvw sadly