LucianTheAngelic.7054 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 10 hours ago, Double Tap said: Hi, everyone, We're back with another balance preview, this time for the upcoming November 29 update. As always, the goal of previewing these changes is to gather feedback before the live release. We'll be following the conversation and making further adjustments as needed. Thanks, Cal "cmc" Cohen Skills and Balance Lead November 29 Balance Update Preview General Sigil of Absorption is a longtime outlier in World vs. World, largely due to a bug with its cooldown (or lack thereof) when used against players. We're still planning a larger pass on boon applications and boon removal in WvW for a future update, but Sigil of Absorption was something we wanted to address sooner rather than later. Sigil of Absorption: Fixed an issue that prevented this trait from having an internal cooldown when used against players. Elementalist Scepter is a weapon that sees some play in PvE, but it struggles to find a place in competitive modes as a lot of its skills are less reliable or simply lacking in power. We've tuned up a lot of the weaker skills in the kit with the goal of solidifying scepter as an effective damage-dealing weapon. Catalyst was hit hard by the last update to PvE, and we're making a few changes to bring it back up, removing the damage penalty from Spectacular Sphere and giving a bit more damage to Empowering Auras. We've also updated the behavior of the hammer's third-slot weapon skills to make the strikes more consistent and remove the difference in effectiveness between hitbox sizes. On the PvP side, Earth Shield gets some defensive shaves, primarily targeting two of the most potent builds in the meta: catalyst and tempest. We've also made some minor improvements to condition-based weaver, a build that has fallen out of the meta in recent months. Last up is a slight improvement to tempest's healing in WvW as we continue to work toward a more diverse set of support options. Core Dragon's Tooth: This skill now attaches to the target instead of being ground targeted. Using this skill with no target will cast a stationary spell at the user's location. Increased cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW. Phoenix: This skill now inflicts an additional stack of burning against enemies that are already burning. Reduced burning stacks from 2 to 1 in PvE only. Ice Shards: Reduced aftercast by 170 milliseconds. Shatterstone: This skill now inflicts chill instead of vulnerability and strikes enemies on the initial cast in addition to the explosion. Reduced explosion time from 1 second to 0.67 seconds. Reduced power coefficient from 1.66 to 1.0 in PvE, and from 1.5 to 0.6 in PvP and WvW. Water Trident: This skill is no longer ground targeted, and instead it fires projectiles at the target and up to 2 nearby enemies. This skill no longer heals allies, and instead it heals the caster when striking an enemy. This skill now deals increased damage to chilled enemies. Increased ammunition from 1 to 2. Increased power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.6 in PvE and from 0.5 to 1.25 in PvP and WvW. Lightning Strike: This skill now strikes up to 2 additional enemies near the target and inflicts vulnerability. Increased power coefficient from 1.2 to 1.5 in PvE only. Blinding Flash: This skill now strikes up to 2 additional enemies near the target and inflicts weakness against vulnerable enemies. Increased ammunition from 1 to 2. Rock Barrier: This skill now grants barrier and resistance to the user in addition to its other effects. Hurl: Reduced delay between projectiles from 0.5 seconds to 0.2 seconds. Dust Devil: This skill is now ground targeted and creates a spell that pulses three times. Enemies in the area are blinded by the initial strike, and bleeding enemies are crippled when struck. Tectonic Shift: Reduced barrier pulse from 778 to 506 in PvP only. Fortify: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 50 seconds in PvP only. Stormsoul: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes. Evasive Arcana: Fixed an issue that prevented this trait from triggering Flame Burst while dodging. Tempest Elemental Bastion: Increased heal attribute scaling from 0.4125 to 0.8 in WvW only. Weaver Shearing Edge: This skill now inflicts bleeding in addition to its other effects. Twin Strike: Increased burning stacks from 1 to 2 in PvP only. Flame Uprising: Increased burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only. Catalyst Hardened Auras, Empowering Auras, Staunch Auras, and Elemental Epitome: These traits will now only trigger when the catalyst grants an aura to themselves, rather than when gaining an aura from any player. Flame Wheel, Icy Coil, Crescent Wind, Rocky Loop: These skills now strike enemies once per second instead of using a projectile. Increased power coefficient from 0.001 to 0.25 in PvE only. Spectacular Sphere: This trait no longer reduces outgoing damage and causes Earth Sphere to grant aegis instead of resistance in PvE only. Empowering Auras: Increased damage bonus per stack from 2% to 3% in PvE only. Engineer For this update we focused on tuning up both power and condition damage builds for holosmith in PvE, neither of which were competitive picks. We've also made an adjustment to the mechanist to better reward players who are able to position well. We do like that mechanist is a viable option for a lower-intensity playstyle, but we see it as slightly overperforming relative to where we want those builds to be. We've also tuned up a few skills for scrapper in PvP. We're being a bit careful as we've seen the result when scrapper's defenses are too potent, but we would like to reestablish scrapper as an effective bruiser. Core Box of Nails: The first pulse of this skill will now immobilize enemies affected by crowd control or a movement-impairing condition. Increased ammunition from 1 to 2. Rifle Burst: This skill now fires one piercing projectile before the grenade instead of two. Increased piercing projectile power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.4 in PvE only. Grenade power coefficient increased from 0.4 to 0.6 in PvE only. Increased skill animation speed; total animation duration remains the same as previous version in PvE only. Scrapper Electro-whirl: Increased power coefficient from 0.68 to 0.75 in PvP only. Bypass Coating: Reduced cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only. Medic Gyro: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only. Holosmith Cauterize: This skill now removes additional conditions when used while above 100% heat. Particle Accelerator: This skill now gains bonus damage while above 50% heat and additional bonus damage while above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Prismatic Singularity: This skill now gains bonus damage on the explosion portion of the attack when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Increased explosion power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.2 in PvE only. Flash Spark: This skill now grants additional light aura duration when used above 100% heat. Blade Burst: This skill now deals bonus damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Spectrum Shield: This skill now grants additional duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Coolant Blast: This skill now grants additional duration to Cooling Vapor and Frost Aura when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Laser Disk: This skill now gains additional damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Hard Light Arena: This skill now grants allies the full duration of boons when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Prime Light Beam: This skill now gains additional field strike damage and burning duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Corona Burst: Increased power coefficient per hit from 1.2 to 1.5 in PvE only. Holographic Shockwave: Increased power coefficient from 0.96 to 1.8 in PvE only. Sun Edge (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%. Sun Ripper (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%. Gleam Saber (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%. Refraction Cutter: Increased projectile power coefficient from 0.275 to 0.4 in PvE only. Solar Focusing Lens: Increased burning duration on enemies from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only. Photonic Blasting Module: Increased burning from 2 stacks for 2 seconds to 5 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only. 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. Guardian Firebrand is a specialization that has access to a few too many tools with minimal investment. Tomes are a large component of this, as the utilities of Tome of Resolve and Tome of Courage are easily accessible even for damage-focused builds. Our goal for this update is to increase the opportunity cost of accessing these tools, and to that end, pages will now be a shared resource that builds over time. Firebrands will now need to more carefully decide how they spend their pages, whether they want to focus on damage, support, or a mix of both. We've also made some improvements to dragonhunter and willbender as we tune up underperforming damage builds in PvE. Core Binding Blade: Increased pulse damage power coefficient from 0.2 to 0.3 in PvE only. Sword of Wrath: Increased power coefficient from 0.666 to 0.75 in PvE only. Sword Arc: Increased power coefficient from 0.725 to 0.8 in PvE only. Sword of Justice: Increased power coefficient per strike from 0.72 to 0.8 in PvE only. Dragonhunter Heavy Light: This trait now gives a 10% damage increase when striking defiant foes, in addition to its previous effect. These bonuses do not stack. True Shot (PvE only): Increased power coefficient from 2.44 to 3.2. Increased cooldown from 4 seconds to 6 seconds. Hunter's Ward (PvE only): 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. Spear of Justice: Increased power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.8 in PvE only. Dragon's Maw (PvE only): Reduced cooldown from 75 seconds to 50 seconds. Increased power coefficient from 2.4 to 3.6. Big Game Hunter: Increased bonus tether duration from 66% to 100% in PvE only. Hunter's Ward: Reduced ring duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in WvW only. Firebrand 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. Page costs and cooldowns have been adjusted to the following: Justice Chapter 1: 1 page, no cooldown Chapter 2: 1 page, 8 seconds Chapter 3: (PvE) 1 page, 10 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 15 seconds Chapter 4: 2 pages, 15 seconds Epilogue: 2 pages, 20 seconds Resolve Chapter 1: 1 page, no cooldown Chapter 2: (PvE) 1 page, 4 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 1 page, 8 seconds Chapter 3: 1 page, 8 seconds Chapter 4: (PvE) 2 pages, 10 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 15 seconds Epilogue: (PvE) 2 pages, 20 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 3 pages, 25 seconds Courage Chapter 1: 1 page, no cooldown Chapter 2: (PvE) 1 page, 4 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 8 seconds Chapter 3: (PvE) 2 pages, 15 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 20 seconds Chapter 4: 2 pages, 20 seconds Epilogue: 3 pages, 25 seconds Chapter 1: Searing Spell: This skill now inflicts vulnerability in addition to its current effects. Chapter 4: Scorched Aftermath: Increased burning and bleeding duration from 2 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only. Chapter 2: Radiant Recovery: Increased the number of conditions removed from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW. Epilogue: Eternal Oasis: Increased number of conditions converted to boons from 2 to 5 in PvP and WvW. Chapter 1: Unflinching Charge: This skill now grants protection instead of stability. Swift Scholar: This trait now also refunds one page after using three consecutive skills in a single tome. Stoic Demeanor: This trait has been reworked. Retain the Tome of Courage passive effect while it is on cooldown. Grant boons to nearby allies when you disable, immobilize, or slow an enemy. Quickfire: This trait now also retains the Tome of Justice passive effect while it is on cooldown. Loremaster: This trait has been reworked. Retain the Tome of Resolve passive effect while it is on cooldown. You generate pages more quickly. Willbender Heaven's Palm (PvE only): Reduced cooldown from 45 seconds to 20 seconds. Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 3.0. Lethal Tempo: Increased bonus damage per stack from 1% to 2% in PvE only. Tyrant's Momentum: Increased damage increase per stack from 2% to 3% in PvE only. Mesmer One of our goals for mesmer is to address the performance of the staff/axe mirage build, which we feel doesn't have to sacrifice quite enough for the boon uptime it provides. We've moved some of the boon application to the clones' staff ambush, which will force the mirage to choose between higher boon uptime with staff clones or higher damage output with axe clones. We've targeted some improvements to chronomancer's power damage builds in PvE, bumping up the damage of some sword skills, wells, and Chronophantasma. We've also slightly reduced Continuum Split's duration in PvP after seeing the performance of chronomancer following its restored access to distortion. Core Mind Slash: Increased power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in PvE only. Mind Gash: Increased power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in PvE only. Mind Spike: Increased power coefficient when striking enemies with boons from 1.0 to 1.5 PvE only. Chronomancer Chronophantasma: Increased resummoned phantasm damage from 75% to 100% in PvE only. Well of Calamity: Increased power coefficient of initial strikes from 0.5 to 1.0 in PvE only. Gravity Well (PvE only): Reduced cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Increased power coefficient for pulsing strikes from 0.6 to 0.8. Increased power coefficient for the final strike from 2.4 to 3.0. Continuum Split: Reduced duration from 1.5/3/4.5/6 to 1/2/3/4 in PvP only. Mirage Chaos Vortex: Clones using this skill will now grant the same boons in an area of effect around the mesmer instead of around the clones themselves. Reduced alacrity duration from 2.5 seconds to 1 second. Reduced might stacks from 8 to 2. Necromancer Power reaper is another damage build that we've sought to improve in PvE, bringing up some of its less potent skills in Reaper Shroud and giving it a bit more consistent pressure while out of shroud. On the competitive side, we've adjusted a few less used utility skills. Corrupt Boon is a skill that saw significant reductions after it gained a second ammunition and hasn't seen a ton of play since then. We've removed the extra charge in PvP and bumped up the number of corrupts to make the skill a more potent threat. Core Corrupt Boon (PvP only): Reduced ammunition from 2 to 1. Increased number of boons converted into conditions from 2 to 5. Increased cooldown from 24 seconds to 30 seconds. Spectral Armor (PvP and WvW): Reduced duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds. Signet of Spite: Reduced cooldown from 60 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvW. Signet of the Locust (PvP and WvW): Increased healing per target struck from 500 to 800. Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds. Soul Barbs: Increased duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds in PvE only. Reaper Chilling Nova: Reduced cooldown from 8 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only. Nightfall: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Dusk Strike: Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.2 in PvE only. Chilling Scythe: This skill now reduces the recharge of Gravedigger when striking an enemy. Death's Charge (PvE only): Increased power coefficient of initial strikes from 0.125 to 0.25. Fixed an issue that prevented the damage of the initial strikes from being listed on this skill's tooltip. Executioner's Scythe (PvE only): Increased power coefficient against targets at or above 50% health to 3.0. Increased power coefficient against targets below 50% health to 4.0. Increased power coefficient against targets below 25% to 5.0. Scourge Feed from Corruption: The following boon applications from this trait have been adjusted in WvW only: Might: Reduced stacks from 3 to 1. Protection and resolution: Reduced duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Regeneration: Reduced duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds. Stability: Reduced from 2 stacks for 5 seconds to 1 stack for 3 seconds. Vigor: Reduced duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds. Ranger Untamed is one of the specializations that struggles the most against defiant enemies, as a lot of its kit is built around capitalizing against targets that are crowd controlled. As part of a larger pass, we've adjusted these skills to always inflict their bonuses against defiant enemies to make them more reliable in endgame PvE content. We've also made some improvements to the non-Unleashed side of the hammer kit to improve its defensive capabilities. Fervent Force is a trait that we're likely to bring down in a future update, but we want to improve other options for untamed before doing so. In PvP, we've brought down the drake family's Chomp damage, primarily targeting the burst potential that it brings to untamed builds. Rounding out the ranger updates are some improvements to druid's healing in WvW. We've seen more druids being played since the October update, but we think it could still use a slight bump to solidify its place as a viable support pick. Core Chomp (Drake Family): Reduced power coefficient from 0.65 to 0.455 in PvP only. Predator's Onslaught: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes. Druid Astral Wisp: Increased heal attribute scaling from 0.1 to 0.2 in WvW only. Ancestral Grace: Increased heal attribute scaling from 1.0 to 1.5 in WvW only. Ancient Seeds: This skill will now trigger against defiant foes in addition to its previous effects. Untamed The following skills now also apply their bonus effect against defiant enemies: Venomous Outburst Rending Vines Enveloping Haze Unleashed Wild Swing Unleashed Savage Shock Wave Perilous Gift: This skill no longer prevents lethal damage, and instead it prevents all incoming strike and condition damage for its duration. Relentless Whirl: Increased stability from 1 stack for 2 seconds to 2 stacks for 3 seconds. Wild Swing: This skill now grants barrier when striking an enemy. Overbearing Smash: This skill now grants barrier when striking an enemy that is using a skill. Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP and WvW. Unleashed Overbearing Smash: Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP and WvW. Savage Shock Wave: The first strike of this skill now applies weakness instead of immobilize. The second strike of this skill now applies immobilize instead of weakness. This skill now grants protection to the user. Reduced casting time from 1 second to 0.75 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 18 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW. Unleashed Savage Shock Wave: Reduced casting time from 1 second to 0.75 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 18 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW. Thump: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW. Unleashed Thump: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW. Restorative Strikes: This trait now also grants protection when you or your pet unleash. Debilitating Blows: This trait now applies poison instead of vulnerability and slow instead of weakness when disabling a foe based on your current state in PvE only. Ferocious Symbiosis: Increased damage bonus per stack from 3% to 4% in PvE only. 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. Thief Our primary goal for thief in this update was to improve the usability of deadeye in PvE. Rifle has a lot of potential as a damage-dealing option, but the stationary nature of Kneel made it difficult to reach this potential in real gameplay situations. We're updating Kneel to allow for some movement at a reduced speed to give a bit more flexibility during encounters. We've also added a damage reduction to Shadow Shroud in PvE to compensate for the reduction in shroud health in the October update. We'll be keeping an eye on how this plays out and will make further adjustments to Shadow Shroud as necessary. Wrapping up the thief changes are a handful of power damage improvements for daredevil and dagger. Core Double Strike: Increased power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.4 in PvE only. Wild Strike: Increased power coefficient from 0.65 to 0.8 in PvE only. Lotus Strike: Increased power coefficient from 1.1 to 1.2 in PvE only. Heartseeker (PvE only): Increased power coefficient against targets at or above 50% health to 1.5. Increased power coefficient against targets below 50% health to 2.0. Increased power coefficient against targets below 25% health to 2.5. Cloak and Dagger: Increased power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.6 in PvE only. Daredevil Impact Strike: Increased power coefficient from 0.75 to 1.75 in PvE only. Finishing Blow: Increased power coefficient from 2.0 to 4.0 in PvE only. 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. Specter Shadow Shroud: Added a 0.5-second cooldown to Exit Shadow Shroud after using Enter Shadow Shroud. Shadow Shroud now reduces incoming damage by 33% in PvE only. Warrior A handful of warrior's skill and trait bonuses will be applied against defiant foes. We've also made some adjustments to improve berserker damage builds in PvE, fixing an issue with Bloody Roar's bonus damage and making Outrage's berserk extension more reliable now that Headbutt no longer removes stability. Enchantment Collapse is another boon-removal outlier that we wanted to address in WvW for this update, and we've increased the cooldown ever so slightly to reduce its effectiveness with Winds of Disenchantment. Core Fierce Blow: The bonus damage from this skill will now affect defiant enemies. Banner of Tactics: This skill now breaks stuns on allies in addition to its other effects. Unsuspecting Foe: This trait now gives a 25% critical chance bonus when striking defiant foes, in addition to its previous effect. These bonuses do not stack. Merciless Hammer: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes. Berserker Outrage: This skill no longer grants bonus berserk duration when breaking a stun, and instead it grants bonus berserk duration when an enemy is nearby. Reduced berserk duration when an enemy is nearby from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only. Scorched Earth: Increased power coefficient from 0.35 to 0.42 in WvW only. Bloody Roar: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to grant less increased damage than intended. Spellbreaker Breaching Strike: This skill now deals bonus damage to foes without boons. Enchantment Collapse: Increased internal cooldown from 0.99 to 1.04 in WvW only. Please revert the range changes on Deadeye AND on Spear of Archemorus. We don't need to homogenize range as well as boons. The increased distance makes both Rifle Deadeye AND Spear of Archemorus more interesting. Keep it as is 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucianTheAngelic.7054 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 3 hours ago, CourtJester.5908 said: I. RANGED DPS TAX At minimum, I think the clearest thing that needed to be done that was glossed over is a ranged DPS tax. As it stands and according to Wingman estimates, 70 percent of the PvE playerbase uses either Firebrand, or especs from the subset of Mechanist, Virtuoso, Specter, Scourge, Renegade, or Harbinger (and then also somewhat Tempest and Druid). It is no coincidence that the reason those especs are favored is because (excepting DH as a casualty of Firebrand) they comprise *all* of the ranged DPS especs in the game. And players play them because they can keep DPS uptime more consistently while being free to peace out and avoid interacting with damaging mechanics. Renegade already gets taxed for camping Shortbow. Meta rotation is almost entirely 240 melee to be optimal. You lose out on a ton of damage if you try to sit at 900. Leave Ren out of your "range tax" crusade because you clearly don't know how it actually plays. It's also been the only good dps for Revenant for 5 years, so ofc anyone playing Rev is going to play it. Vindicator and Herald have only very recently become "good/useable" 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal Durak.2830 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 22 minutes ago, Stadsport.8714 said: 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 Is this some PVE Mech only squad? haha Seriously, I usually play WvW but I've never seen that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinichi Megure.8061 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) Warrior Bloody roar fix is welcome but not enough. Power berserker damage is still too low in pve and pvp. The core changes look good. Vindicator Spear fo archemorus and tree song changes re looking good. New to the spec so can't say much yet. Edited November 12, 2022 by Shinichi Megure.8061 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal Durak.2830 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 2 hours ago, DamDam.9746 said: 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. I thought the thief range nerf was not in line with their Name and Ability. But, I have to ask, do you play a FB? I do and am very tired of the nerfing in WvW. 4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 1 hour ago, SponTen.1267 said: 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. 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 skills 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?) and Three Round Burst... these two changes destroy the 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 Keel 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. The buff only somewhat undo the damage they did to dagger auto some years back they "reduced the damage by 16%" but reality was 33, as the 16 was only if you hit the whole combo. Most are able to land 2 reliably. The primary reason why thief used daggers wasn't for the damage. But because of D/P cuz everything else is lack luster. Cuz guess what. Anet won't kittening listen to the thief players who tell them where all the problems are steming from. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal Durak.2830 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 20 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said: Please revert the range changes on Deadeye AND on Spear of Archemorus. We don't need to homogenize range as well as boons. The increased distance makes both Rifle Deadeye AND Spear of Archemorus more interesting. Keep it as is I play my Deadeye once a year...now I'll probably never play him. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batalix.2873 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) 13 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said: Renegade already gets taxed for camping Shortbow. Meta rotation is almost entirely 240 melee to be optimal. You lose out on a ton of damage if you try to sit at 900. Leave Ren out of your "range tax" crusade because you clearly don't know how it actually plays. It's also been the only good dps for Revenant for 5 years, so ofc anyone playing Rev is going to play it. Vindicator and Herald have only very recently become "good/useable" Thanks for the input, I will modify my post to reflect that. Although still being 240 with the option of doing any damage at range is more DPS consistency at range than pure melee builds are afforded. So I'm putting it with Druid. If you still don't like that, I'm not entertaining personal biases today. There are a dozen other ways any ranged class could shore up a DPS tax. Edited November 12, 2022 by Batalix.2873 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stadsport.8714 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) 13 minutes ago, DtenCfour.3567 said: Is this some PVE Mech only squad? haha Seriously, I usually play WvW but I've never seen that. IIRC it was a meta event and had a good spread of classes participating. Join ANY PvE squad--meta, world boss, Dragonstorm, do a raid or a strike, anything that gets you in a squad. If there are Mechs who are playing anything other than support, they will almost always top the charts, and can do so basically by autoattacking. Here's a post that's only a week old: It's just open knowledge that Mechanist is absolutely dominating class distribution right now. It can autoattack higher than most other builds, and it can provide heal & alac with 100% uptime without requiring any player input. Yes, it's a low intensity class, but it's also in a place where it's practically laughable how overpowered it is compared to a lot of other classes. Edited November 12, 2022 by Stadsport.8714 5 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider.7849 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) 10 hours ago, Double Tap said: Hi, everyone, We're back with another balance preview, this time for the upcoming November 29 update. As always, the goal of previewing these changes is to gather feedback before the live release. We'll be following the conversation and making further adjustments as needed. Thanks, Cal "cmc" Cohen Skills and Balance Lead November 29 Balance Update Preview General Sigil of Absorption is a longtime outlier in World vs. World, largely due to a bug with its cooldown (or lack thereof) when used against players. We're still planning a larger pass on boon applications and boon removal in WvW for a future update, but Sigil of Absorption was something we wanted to address sooner rather than later. Sigil of Absorption: Fixed an issue that prevented this trait from having an internal cooldown when used against players. Elementalist Scepter is a weapon that sees some play in PvE, but it struggles to find a place in competitive modes as a lot of its skills are less reliable or simply lacking in power. We've tuned up a lot of the weaker skills in the kit with the goal of solidifying scepter as an effective damage-dealing weapon. Catalyst was hit hard by the last update to PvE, and we're making a few changes to bring it back up, removing the damage penalty from Spectacular Sphere and giving a bit more damage to Empowering Auras. We've also updated the behavior of the hammer's third-slot weapon skills to make the strikes more consistent and remove the difference in effectiveness between hitbox sizes. On the PvP side, Earth Shield gets some defensive shaves, primarily targeting two of the most potent builds in the meta: catalyst and tempest. We've also made some minor improvements to condition-based weaver, a build that has fallen out of the meta in recent months. Last up is a slight improvement to tempest's healing in WvW as we continue to work toward a more diverse set of support options. Core Dragon's Tooth: This skill now attaches to the target instead of being ground targeted. Using this skill with no target will cast a stationary spell at the user's location. Increased cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW. Phoenix: This skill now inflicts an additional stack of burning against enemies that are already burning. Reduced burning stacks from 2 to 1 in PvE only. Ice Shards: Reduced aftercast by 170 milliseconds. Shatterstone: This skill now inflicts chill instead of vulnerability and strikes enemies on the initial cast in addition to the explosion. Reduced explosion time from 1 second to 0.67 seconds. Reduced power coefficient from 1.66 to 1.0 in PvE, and from 1.5 to 0.6 in PvP and WvW. Water Trident: This skill is no longer ground targeted, and instead it fires projectiles at the target and up to 2 nearby enemies. This skill no longer heals allies, and instead it heals the caster when striking an enemy. This skill now deals increased damage to chilled enemies. Increased ammunition from 1 to 2. Increased power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.6 in PvE and from 0.5 to 1.25 in PvP and WvW. Lightning Strike: This skill now strikes up to 2 additional enemies near the target and inflicts vulnerability. Increased power coefficient from 1.2 to 1.5 in PvE only. Blinding Flash: This skill now strikes up to 2 additional enemies near the target and inflicts weakness against vulnerable enemies. Increased ammunition from 1 to 2. Rock Barrier: This skill now grants barrier and resistance to the user in addition to its other effects. Hurl: Reduced delay between projectiles from 0.5 seconds to 0.2 seconds. Dust Devil: This skill is now ground targeted and creates a spell that pulses three times. Enemies in the area are blinded by the initial strike, and bleeding enemies are crippled when struck. Tectonic Shift: Reduced barrier pulse from 778 to 506 in PvP only. Fortify: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 50 seconds in PvP only. Stormsoul: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes. Evasive Arcana: Fixed an issue that prevented this trait from triggering Flame Burst while dodging. Tempest Elemental Bastion: Increased heal attribute scaling from 0.4125 to 0.8 in WvW only. Weaver Shearing Edge: This skill now inflicts bleeding in addition to its other effects. Twin Strike: Increased burning stacks from 1 to 2 in PvP only. Flame Uprising: Increased burning duration from 4 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP only. Catalyst Hardened Auras, Empowering Auras, Staunch Auras, and Elemental Epitome: These traits will now only trigger when the catalyst grants an aura to themselves, rather than when gaining an aura from any player. Flame Wheel, Icy Coil, Crescent Wind, Rocky Loop: These skills now strike enemies once per second instead of using a projectile. Increased power coefficient from 0.001 to 0.25 in PvE only. Spectacular Sphere: This trait no longer reduces outgoing damage and causes Earth Sphere to grant aegis instead of resistance in PvE only. Empowering Auras: Increased damage bonus per stack from 2% to 3% in PvE only. Engineer For this update we focused on tuning up both power and condition damage builds for holosmith in PvE, neither of which were competitive picks. We've also made an adjustment to the mechanist to better reward players who are able to position well. We do like that mechanist is a viable option for a lower-intensity playstyle, but we see it as slightly overperforming relative to where we want those builds to be. We've also tuned up a few skills for scrapper in PvP. We're being a bit careful as we've seen the result when scrapper's defenses are too potent, but we would like to reestablish scrapper as an effective bruiser. Core Box of Nails: The first pulse of this skill will now immobilize enemies affected by crowd control or a movement-impairing condition. Increased ammunition from 1 to 2. Rifle Burst: This skill now fires one piercing projectile before the grenade instead of two. Increased piercing projectile power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.4 in PvE only. Grenade power coefficient increased from 0.4 to 0.6 in PvE only. Increased skill animation speed; total animation duration remains the same as previous version in PvE only. Scrapper Electro-whirl: Increased power coefficient from 0.68 to 0.75 in PvP only. Bypass Coating: Reduced cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only. Medic Gyro: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only. Holosmith Cauterize: This skill now removes additional conditions when used while above 100% heat. Particle Accelerator: This skill now gains bonus damage while above 50% heat and additional bonus damage while above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Prismatic Singularity: This skill now gains bonus damage on the explosion portion of the attack when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Increased explosion power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.2 in PvE only. Flash Spark: This skill now grants additional light aura duration when used above 100% heat. Blade Burst: This skill now deals bonus damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Spectrum Shield: This skill now grants additional duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Coolant Blast: This skill now grants additional duration to Cooling Vapor and Frost Aura when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Laser Disk: This skill now gains additional damage when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Hard Light Arena: This skill now grants allies the full duration of boons when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Prime Light Beam: This skill now gains additional field strike damage and burning duration when used above 100% heat, in addition to its previous effects. Corona Burst: Increased power coefficient per hit from 1.2 to 1.5 in PvE only. Holographic Shockwave: Increased power coefficient from 0.96 to 1.8 in PvE only. Sun Edge (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%. Sun Ripper (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%. Gleam Saber (PvE only): Increased damage bonus while above 50% heat from 10% to 20%. Increased damage bonus while above 100% heat from 20% to 30%. Refraction Cutter: Increased projectile power coefficient from 0.275 to 0.4 in PvE only. Solar Focusing Lens: Increased burning duration on enemies from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only. Photonic Blasting Module: Increased burning from 2 stacks for 2 seconds to 5 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only. 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. Guardian Firebrand is a specialization that has access to a few too many tools with minimal investment. Tomes are a large component of this, as the utilities of Tome of Resolve and Tome of Courage are easily accessible even for damage-focused builds. Our goal for this update is to increase the opportunity cost of accessing these tools, and to that end, pages will now be a shared resource that builds over time. Firebrands will now need to more carefully decide how they spend their pages, whether they want to focus on damage, support, or a mix of both. We've also made some improvements to dragonhunter and willbender as we tune up underperforming damage builds in PvE. Core Binding Blade: Increased pulse damage power coefficient from 0.2 to 0.3 in PvE only. Sword of Wrath: Increased power coefficient from 0.666 to 0.75 in PvE only. Sword Arc: Increased power coefficient from 0.725 to 0.8 in PvE only. Sword of Justice: Increased power coefficient per strike from 0.72 to 0.8 in PvE only. Dragonhunter Heavy Light: This trait now gives a 10% damage increase when striking defiant foes, in addition to its previous effect. These bonuses do not stack. True Shot (PvE only): Increased power coefficient from 2.44 to 3.2. Increased cooldown from 4 seconds to 6 seconds. Hunter's Ward (PvE only): 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. Spear of Justice: Increased power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.8 in PvE only. Dragon's Maw (PvE only): Reduced cooldown from 75 seconds to 50 seconds. Increased power coefficient from 2.4 to 3.6. Big Game Hunter: Increased bonus tether duration from 66% to 100% in PvE only. Hunter's Ward: Reduced ring duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in WvW only. Firebrand 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. Page costs and cooldowns have been adjusted to the following: Justice Chapter 1: 1 page, no cooldown Chapter 2: 1 page, 8 seconds Chapter 3: (PvE) 1 page, 10 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 15 seconds Chapter 4: 2 pages, 15 seconds Epilogue: 2 pages, 20 seconds Resolve Chapter 1: 1 page, no cooldown Chapter 2: (PvE) 1 page, 4 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 1 page, 8 seconds Chapter 3: 1 page, 8 seconds Chapter 4: (PvE) 2 pages, 10 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 15 seconds Epilogue: (PvE) 2 pages, 20 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 3 pages, 25 seconds Courage Chapter 1: 1 page, no cooldown Chapter 2: (PvE) 1 page, 4 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 8 seconds Chapter 3: (PvE) 2 pages, 15 seconds; (PvP/WvW) 2 pages, 20 seconds Chapter 4: 2 pages, 20 seconds Epilogue: 3 pages, 25 seconds Chapter 1: Searing Spell: This skill now inflicts vulnerability in addition to its current effects. Chapter 4: Scorched Aftermath: Increased burning and bleeding duration from 2 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only. Chapter 2: Radiant Recovery: Increased the number of conditions removed from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW. Epilogue: Eternal Oasis: Increased number of conditions converted to boons from 2 to 5 in PvP and WvW. Chapter 1: Unflinching Charge: This skill now grants protection instead of stability. Swift Scholar: This trait now also refunds one page after using three consecutive skills in a single tome. Stoic Demeanor: This trait has been reworked. Retain the Tome of Courage passive effect while it is on cooldown. Grant boons to nearby allies when you disable, immobilize, or slow an enemy. Quickfire: This trait now also retains the Tome of Justice passive effect while it is on cooldown. Loremaster: This trait has been reworked. Retain the Tome of Resolve passive effect while it is on cooldown. You generate pages more quickly. Willbender Heaven's Palm (PvE only): Reduced cooldown from 45 seconds to 20 seconds. Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 3.0. Lethal Tempo: Increased bonus damage per stack from 1% to 2% in PvE only. Tyrant's Momentum: Increased damage increase per stack from 2% to 3% in PvE only. Mesmer One of our goals for mesmer is to address the performance of the staff/axe mirage build, which we feel doesn't have to sacrifice quite enough for the boon uptime it provides. We've moved some of the boon application to the clones' staff ambush, which will force the mirage to choose between higher boon uptime with staff clones or higher damage output with axe clones. We've targeted some improvements to chronomancer's power damage builds in PvE, bumping up the damage of some sword skills, wells, and Chronophantasma. We've also slightly reduced Continuum Split's duration in PvP after seeing the performance of chronomancer following its restored access to distortion. Core Mind Slash: Increased power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in PvE only. Mind Gash: Increased power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.0 in PvE only. Mind Spike: Increased power coefficient when striking enemies with boons from 1.0 to 1.5 PvE only. Chronomancer Chronophantasma: Increased resummoned phantasm damage from 75% to 100% in PvE only. Well of Calamity: Increased power coefficient of initial strikes from 0.5 to 1.0 in PvE only. Gravity Well (PvE only): Reduced cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Increased power coefficient for pulsing strikes from 0.6 to 0.8. Increased power coefficient for the final strike from 2.4 to 3.0. Continuum Split: Reduced duration from 1.5/3/4.5/6 to 1/2/3/4 in PvP only. Mirage Chaos Vortex: Clones using this skill will now grant the same boons in an area of effect around the mesmer instead of around the clones themselves. Reduced alacrity duration from 2.5 seconds to 1 second. Reduced might stacks from 8 to 2. Necromancer Power reaper is another damage build that we've sought to improve in PvE, bringing up some of its less potent skills in Reaper Shroud and giving it a bit more consistent pressure while out of shroud. On the competitive side, we've adjusted a few less used utility skills. Corrupt Boon is a skill that saw significant reductions after it gained a second ammunition and hasn't seen a ton of play since then. We've removed the extra charge in PvP and bumped up the number of corrupts to make the skill a more potent threat. Core Corrupt Boon (PvP only): Reduced ammunition from 2 to 1. Increased number of boons converted into conditions from 2 to 5. Increased cooldown from 24 seconds to 30 seconds. Spectral Armor (PvP and WvW): Reduced duration from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 45 seconds to 30 seconds. Signet of Spite: Reduced cooldown from 60 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvW. Signet of the Locust (PvP and WvW): Increased healing per target struck from 500 to 800. Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds. Soul Barbs: Increased duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds in PvE only. Reaper Chilling Nova: Reduced cooldown from 8 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only. Nightfall: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Dusk Strike: Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.2 in PvE only. Chilling Scythe: This skill now reduces the recharge of Gravedigger when striking an enemy. Death's Charge (PvE only): Increased power coefficient of initial strikes from 0.125 to 0.25. Fixed an issue that prevented the damage of the initial strikes from being listed on this skill's tooltip. Executioner's Scythe (PvE only): Increased power coefficient against targets at or above 50% health to 3.0. Increased power coefficient against targets below 50% health to 4.0. Increased power coefficient against targets below 25% to 5.0. Scourge Feed from Corruption: The following boon applications from this trait have been adjusted in WvW only: Might: Reduced stacks from 3 to 1. Protection and resolution: Reduced duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Regeneration: Reduced duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds. Stability: Reduced from 2 stacks for 5 seconds to 1 stack for 3 seconds. Vigor: Reduced duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds. Ranger Untamed is one of the specializations that struggles the most against defiant enemies, as a lot of its kit is built around capitalizing against targets that are crowd controlled. As part of a larger pass, we've adjusted these skills to always inflict their bonuses against defiant enemies to make them more reliable in endgame PvE content. We've also made some improvements to the non-Unleashed side of the hammer kit to improve its defensive capabilities. Fervent Force is a trait that we're likely to bring down in a future update, but we want to improve other options for untamed before doing so. In PvP, we've brought down the drake family's Chomp damage, primarily targeting the burst potential that it brings to untamed builds. Rounding out the ranger updates are some improvements to druid's healing in WvW. We've seen more druids being played since the October update, but we think it could still use a slight bump to solidify its place as a viable support pick. Core Chomp (Drake Family): Reduced power coefficient from 0.65 to 0.455 in PvP only. Predator's Onslaught: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes. Druid Astral Wisp: Increased heal attribute scaling from 0.1 to 0.2 in WvW only. Ancestral Grace: Increased heal attribute scaling from 1.0 to 1.5 in WvW only. Ancient Seeds: This skill will now trigger against defiant foes in addition to its previous effects. Untamed The following skills now also apply their bonus effect against defiant enemies: Venomous Outburst Rending Vines Enveloping Haze Unleashed Wild Swing Unleashed Savage Shock Wave Perilous Gift: This skill no longer prevents lethal damage, and instead it prevents all incoming strike and condition damage for its duration. Relentless Whirl: Increased stability from 1 stack for 2 seconds to 2 stacks for 3 seconds. Wild Swing: This skill now grants barrier when striking an enemy. Overbearing Smash: This skill now grants barrier when striking an enemy that is using a skill. Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP and WvW. Unleashed Overbearing Smash: Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvP and WvW. Savage Shock Wave: The first strike of this skill now applies weakness instead of immobilize. The second strike of this skill now applies immobilize instead of weakness. This skill now grants protection to the user. Reduced casting time from 1 second to 0.75 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 18 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW. Unleashed Savage Shock Wave: Reduced casting time from 1 second to 0.75 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 18 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW. Thump: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW. Unleashed Thump: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW. Restorative Strikes: This trait now also grants protection when you or your pet unleash. Debilitating Blows: This trait now applies poison instead of vulnerability and slow instead of weakness when disabling a foe based on your current state in PvE only. Ferocious Symbiosis: Increased damage bonus per stack from 3% to 4% in PvE only. 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. Thief Our primary goal for thief in this update was to improve the usability of deadeye in PvE. Rifle has a lot of potential as a damage-dealing option, but the stationary nature of Kneel made it difficult to reach this potential in real gameplay situations. We're updating Kneel to allow for some movement at a reduced speed to give a bit more flexibility during encounters. We've also added a damage reduction to Shadow Shroud in PvE to compensate for the reduction in shroud health in the October update. We'll be keeping an eye on how this plays out and will make further adjustments to Shadow Shroud as necessary. Wrapping up the thief changes are a handful of power damage improvements for daredevil and dagger. Core Double Strike: Increased power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.4 in PvE only. Wild Strike: Increased power coefficient from 0.65 to 0.8 in PvE only. Lotus Strike: Increased power coefficient from 1.1 to 1.2 in PvE only. Heartseeker (PvE only): Increased power coefficient against targets at or above 50% health to 1.5. Increased power coefficient against targets below 50% health to 2.0. Increased power coefficient against targets below 25% health to 2.5. Cloak and Dagger: Increased power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.6 in PvE only. Daredevil Impact Strike: Increased power coefficient from 0.75 to 1.75 in PvE only. Finishing Blow: Increased power coefficient from 2.0 to 4.0 in PvE only. 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. Specter Shadow Shroud: Added a 0.5-second cooldown to Exit Shadow Shroud after using Enter Shadow Shroud. Shadow Shroud now reduces incoming damage by 33% in PvE only. Warrior A handful of warrior's skill and trait bonuses will be applied against defiant foes. We've also made some adjustments to improve berserker damage builds in PvE, fixing an issue with Bloody Roar's bonus damage and making Outrage's berserk extension more reliable now that Headbutt no longer removes stability. Enchantment Collapse is another boon-removal outlier that we wanted to address in WvW for this update, and we've increased the cooldown ever so slightly to reduce its effectiveness with Winds of Disenchantment. Core Fierce Blow: The bonus damage from this skill will now affect defiant enemies. Banner of Tactics: This skill now breaks stuns on allies in addition to its other effects. Unsuspecting Foe: This trait now gives a 25% critical chance bonus when striking defiant foes, in addition to its previous effect. These bonuses do not stack. Merciless Hammer: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes. Berserker Outrage: This skill no longer grants bonus berserk duration when breaking a stun, and instead it grants bonus berserk duration when an enemy is nearby. Reduced berserk duration when an enemy is nearby from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only. Scorched Earth: Increased power coefficient from 0.35 to 0.42 in WvW only. Bloody Roar: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to grant less increased damage than intended. Spellbreaker Breaching Strike: This skill now deals bonus damage to foes without boons. Enchantment Collapse: Increased internal cooldown from 0.99 to 1.04 in WvW only. I think you guys really missed the mark again. Why are you only buffing engineers? Are you trying to migrate everyone over to that class only? The quote on quote toning down of mech... because one projectile pierces less and a leash range on the bot is a nerf? These changes don't affect anything. Why not put some of the random uninspired changes like you do to other classes, here. "We're looking at buffing rifles access to lock downs so we've removed the knock down on #4 and replaced it with a 2 second cripple, which applies if the target has weakness". Holosmith only sucked in comparison to mechanist, in comparison to every other build with similar usage it was still a top tier pick. I don't have time to touch upon all the changes but if I'm understanding correctly firebrand will only be able to use one tome for 2-3 skills every so often.. that makes its playstyle very dull but we'll have to see how it plays out. Another big thing: elementalist. Your attempt to improve scepter is a straight nerf. The dragons tooth change made it where elementalist could control the drop which led to increased change of it landing on a real player or could be utilized for zoning/blast finishers. Somehow it's been taken a large step back for an already underutilized weapon set. Water #2 didn't need chill, chill is already on weapons or traitlines (like weaver) it was paired with. The loss of vulnerability in terms of its burst will actually hurt scepter more. The speed increase and damage being two part is good though. I'm not writing this over-negatively but you need whoever is hyper focused on buffing the daylights out of Engineer to start focusing on other classes.. a vast majority of your player base doesn't play or main engineers, analytics showed that it was a less popular class - now you're tunneling everyone into being forced to play it to be effective in each of the environments. Writing this on a phone with autocorrect so apologize in advance for any miscommunication Edited November 12, 2022 by Strider.7849 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal Durak.2830 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 1 minute ago, Stadsport.8714 said: IIRC it was a meta event and had a good spread of classes participating. Join ANY squad--meta, world boss, Dragonstorm, do a raid or a strike, anything that gets you in a squad. If there are Mechs who are playing anything other than support, they will almost always top the charts, and can do so basically by autoattacking. Here's a post that's only a week old: It's just open knowledge that Mechanist is absolutely dominating class distribution right now. It can autoattack higher than most other builds, and it can provide heal & alac with 100% uptime without requiring any player input. Yes, it's a low intensity class, but it's also in a place where it's practically laughable how overpowered it is compared to a lot of other classes. I've seen beserker, weaver and some reapers and just a few mech's over 10k damage, usually mech is 7-8k in WvW. The little PVE I do, I have never seen that either. I believe you! I've just not seen it. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griifen.2473 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 6 hours ago, Brasides.9360 said: Yeah I made a ranger only because the builds around Fervent Force looked fun and engaging. Does it seem to anyone that they are actually developing counter to their philosophy? I could only really parse the changes to ele and ranger, but it seems like the direction they are actually taking in these dev notes is: high skill/apm ===> nerf low skill/amp ===> buff Would love to hear some counter-examples from more experienced players. This is just kind of disappointing to me and makes me want to look elsewhere for what I thought gw2 offered: an mmo that rewards complex gameplay. So, here's thing thing, every single part of the game outside of participating in meta events absolutely rewards you for engaging with the game on a more complex level. The issue is that it's on a much more subtle level that favours long-term optimization over short term immediate rewards. I've been playing since the pre-release with thousands of hours recorded. On a pve level I can immediately tell how experienced a player is by asking them just a few simple questions and even from looking at a dps report. I can tell you from my experience that there is so, so much that Guild Wars 2 combat offers. I can easily spend 2 hours straight just theory crafting a casual open world build even after having played the game for this long. I continuosly find people uploading YouTube videos where they are trying solo speedruns, less than 10 squad member kills on extremely challenging end-game content (for example Harvest temple was recently beaten with only 8 people instead of the usual 10, and some raid bosses have been beating with as few as 5 people). Youtubers such as Lord Hizen and Vallun are constantly pushing builds to their limits by soloing legendary open world bosses that would normally be taken on by 30+ people. Things like this would he impossible if it weren't for the ease at which you can swap traits and gear to specifically adapt to certain encounters. Now Guild Wars 2 doesn't openly encourage players to deep-dive into these examples of difficult content. The examples I put forward are self-created by the players. In a way this is part of what Guild Wars 2 wants for its players - absolute freedom to play however you like. If you want to solo stuff made for 5 or 30 people, you can! If you want to take 4 other people and tackle something that requires perfect setups in order to beat encounters before the timer expires, you can! At the same time, if you want to be lazy as all hell and join a group of 9 other people, hit buttons randomly and not care if you contribute enough to make the encounter easy and successful for everyone... Well, you kinds do this and get away with it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Varis.5467 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) 10 hours ago, Double Tap said: Sigil of Absorption is a longtime outlier in World vs. World, largely due to a bug with its cooldown (or lack thereof) when used against players. We're still planning a larger pass on boon applications and boon removal in WvW for a future update, but Sigil of Absorption was something we wanted to address sooner rather than later. Sigil of Absorption: Fixed an issue that prevented this trait from having an internal cooldown when used against. Could the balance team refrain from implementing changes BEFORE the game environment is ready for them? In the recent patches and the current preview we have seen multiple boon removal tools being nerfed, all of which allegedly 'justified' by an upcoming boon environment revamp. Until said revamp is live, pre-emptive nerfs to boon removal tools is simply illogical. If there are compelling reasons for the balance team to look at adjusting the dynamic between boon application and removal in wvw / pvp, why would you then out right cut off chunks of removal abilities without addressing boon aplication at the same time? The current changes only continues to FURTHER encourage the boon-spam meta, which renders wvw fights notoriously stale. At this point, you are essentially promising the players a cake only to give them a half baked mush when it is clearly not ready. P.S. Calling the non-existent of an ICD a 'bug' on the sigil is hardly convincing, and seemingly a convenient excuse to a random decision at best. Edited November 12, 2022 by xxXLightningXxx.8476 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drag You Down.2615 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 One thing, please fix this skill, it bothers me a lot. Necromancer's Well of Blood, the healing coefficient of pulses is only 0.04, which is WAY LOWER than the other aoe healing abilities, such as Guardian's Receive the Light, and all the Engineer's aoe healing. And itself healing can be easily replaced by other better Necromancer's healing skills. The existence of this ability is not necessary. The wiki assumed it may be a bug. I just think this is a very weird number, since very few aoe outgoing healing ability has such a low number without any other effects or an appropriate reason. It can either be increased, like 0.4 per pulse (this is what it suppose to be I guess), or add some other effects to replace the extreme low healing. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamikharzeeh.8016 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) @ lightning nah its highly logical, they want to kill Wvw off and make it for real a "fastest blob wins" they nerfed scourges boonrips like 3-4 times in a row now lol - and with the stab messups its getting worse, as the less stab = more slow cast corrupts will get interrupted = the class gets horrible to play the balance team proved since these "bAlaNcE" patches started that they cannot do this Edited November 12, 2022 by kamikharzeeh.8016 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Varis.5467 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 1 minute ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said: @ lightning nah its highly logical, they want to kill Wvw off and make it for real a "fastest blob wins" they nerfed scourges boonrips like 3-4 times in a row now lol - and with the stab messups its getting worse, as the less stab = more slow cast corrupts will get interrupted = the class gets horrible to play the balance team proved since these "bAlaNcE" patches started that they cannot do this Ow but you are right! I forgot they want WvW to be the lesser version of PvE. Ok my bad, how silly of us WvWers to not understand. 😂 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OMNIBUS.2913 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) Lots of good stuff in this patch but the deadeye rifle range nerf idea makes me sad. If you want to improve rifle I don't think changing the rooted way deadeye plays is the answer( I like the trade off mechanic). Consider making it more rewarding for getting the rooted hits off and keep the range instead? I feel uncertain about the firebrand changes, I'll wait and see how that plays out. I also love my mech and would be bummed with continued nerfs. A lot of buffs for classes that need help which is nice. Reaper and dragonhunter especially! Hope to see some underwhelming or underused weapons buffed in the future. Edited November 12, 2022 by OMNIBUS.2913 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Batalix.2873 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, Jimbru.6014 said: 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? As a player who made an Ele just to deliberately use all three especs on scepter/dagger in an attempt to impose some semblance on focus on, imo, the worst defined and undifferentiated profession in the game... I liked it. I like that now I can finally do Air Tempest, Fire/Water Weaver, and almost pretend Earth Catalyst doesn't suck. And finally have an Ele where, if I squint, I can almost ignore the fact that elemental attunement (fresh air, condi fire, heal water) defines your build more than your actual espec. And where not even your elemental attunement matters much because 3 times out of 4 your damage is so undertuned you are forced to attunement swap anyway. But I have to point out: 1) This is not what I should be liking about Ele when Catalyst is precisely the opposite direction they should have taken a third espec. There are wayyyy bigger problems with Ele than Scepter, which I was and am still doing...okay...with before this patch takes effect. 2) Overall, Ele Scepter was the *only* change that registered as more than indifference or disappointment to me. Across all the professions, there is such a need for a pulling of support and ranged specs away from easy DPS baselines, not to mention a total quashing of Mech getting a whole second player on autopilot. My bingo card was left totally unfilled, no real paradigm fixes, no big PvE changes, just a lot of PvP quibbles and a couple quick fixes to Firebrand and Deadeye that...don't seem to address the underlying problem of 27 especs all racing to become the same DPS+boon archetype instead of reaching out laterally into design space for incomparables, becoming *more* specialized. Edited November 12, 2022 by CourtJester.5908 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arianth Moonlight.6453 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 15 minutes ago, Drag You Down.2615 said: One thing, please fix this skill, it bothers me a lot. All necro healing skills are borderline useless. Only Consume Condition is barely good but it's more of a cleanse tool than a real healing skill. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnifex.3275 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) 6 hours ago, Demented Lemur.7861 said: Dam it's almost as if they buffed it because nobody played it. They state right before the changes they wanted to make deadeye more viable in pve. Deadeyes use daggers; therefore, they buffed daggers. Daredevil is fine outside of a few unused traits. But deadeye is much worst right now Does Sniper Ranged elite spec makes sense to you playing daggers? Yes deadeye always could use some love but again.. they're going into a weird direction with it. Dagger/Dagger Sniper Melee. If you wanna see more play of DE, get rid of kneeling mech altogether and make it Ranged. Ok, lets say Dagger/Dagger is fine, lets forget that its a ranged spec. It's still clunky and unreliable. CnD -> Backstab in instanced endgame PvE is not the way to go. PvP/WvW is totally fine to 511111 51111 gameplay. But try doing that on w1-w7 clear and u'll realize how terrible it is to backstab bosses. Edited November 12, 2022 by Carnifex.3275 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drag You Down.2615 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 One thing I need some explanations. In most casual PvE, the boss are usually killed very quickly, because players have such high damage. At the same time, the bosses have a lot of high damage aoe as well, which let the players are either being alive or dead. In the next patch, most skills has a raised coefficient of damage. But they just didn't nerf some skills with very high damage to make the things balance, but only buff the skills. So what's the point of healers? Providing boons only? But some specs, like Druid, is very closed to pure healing support, that means it will be abandoned. TBH, I never use that celestial form, because I never feel I need to, since my teammates are either full health or dead. And Scrapper (I saw someone said it is already very different with its original design purpose,) who suppose to be a tank-ish support with damage taking, utility, and some healing, is now nearly perfectly replaced by Mechanist, who can do boons and very high damage but has less utility. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yachiru Kusajishi.1508 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) You guys really want to kill me @ArenaNet Team.4819. Just coming back to play the game and playing my lovely Mirage and you make him clunky... Edited November 12, 2022 by Yachiru Kusajishi.1508 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drag You Down.2615 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 15 minutes ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said: All necro healing skills are borderline useless. Only Consume Condition is barely good but it's more of a cleanse tool than a real healing skill. The other healing skills are not updated, such as that Signet of vampirism, it cannot fit with the game style nowadays. I mean, everyone is playing this game like a sudden death game, or a killing fest, what is the point of this slow hot ability? Increase your damage output? With a healing ability? Seriously? But that is a design issue, different with this Well of Blood. The other abilities, like Elementalist's Frost Bow, I didn't get what's the point of a weapon with increased healing and outgoing healing buff, that has no healing ability in it AT ALL. Only the attack can generate some healing, but very little. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AphoticEssance.7592 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) Stop nerfing Stab. Large epic fights depend on countering CC. We were already going back to range peekabo CC meta, which was the most boring meta ever. Stop it please. Lets actually balance things instead of just throwing darts at a balance dart bord. Edited November 12, 2022 by AphoticEssance.7592 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jski.6180 Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 I am a bit concern that your update the guardian class too much and not willing to give other classes the guardian effects as an excuse for these very massive updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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