November 29 Balance Update Preview

[Eve.1562]

But why the deadeye nerfs? They didn’t have to destroy deadeye so it could crawl, deadeye has mobility, you can still dodge, you have plenty movment oriented utility skills. Knowing when to kneel and when not was part of the skillset for deadeye, this will just make it more unfun overall, and in pve to?? Please Anet dont do this…

[MorningGlow.5376]

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

• Kneel: Increased initiative cost from 1 to 2. While kneeling, players can now move at a 75% reduced speed. Kneel is no longer canceled when you become disabled.

A very promising change. This might help a lot in instanced PvE content. But we'll have to wait for this going live to actually see how this 'feels'.

Quote

• 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.

HOLY SMOKES! I cannot tell you, how long i've waited for this change. Getting dodged, fine. Enemy moves out of you line of sight, fair enough. But finally no more random pet/golem/other player randomly running into the path and ruining your day (the reason it maddened my so much is, because there was no actual skill involved into avoid your stealth-attack, just luck). Mmmmh! SO GOOD!

Quote

• Skirmisher's Shot: Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200.
• Three Round Burst: Reduced range from 1,500 to 1,200.

My main problem with this is, that i cannot understand why this nerf is happening. From the stream i take it, that they wanted to do this for a while, but htey didn't drop as word on the 'why' behind this change. I appreciate the work of the dev-team and they migh even have some good reason behind it, that i am oblivous of. So  an explanation would be desirable. But for now i share the general sentiment of discontent with this change, because it almost kills the fantasy of a sniper class (which should not be take too lightly)

[Negunder.5160]

Deadeye nerfs are just disappointing.

[Batalix.2873]

2 hours ago, eldrevo.1746 said:

Funnily enough, I absolutely see this point work on paper, but from the build crafting perspective, the opposite is true. Competitive offers far more variety in builds and roles than instanced PVE (not counting open world cos you can do whatever there). Power Specter or Firebrand? Works in pvp/wvw, trash dps in fractals/raids. Tanky builds with defence-focused traitlines? Key role in PVP, popular in WVW roaming, obsolete even when tanking raids in PVE.

I myself am more of a PVE player, but I like my builds having some sustain, utility and all that good stuff that I must replace with plain dps or boon buttons if I want to clear a strike mission... But all that is still welcome in those toxic, unloved and content-starved hellholes I was usually tending to avoid 😅

I'd say, any content with a Failure state introduced can become toxic. You can lose a PVP match and it might sting, especially if you end up with impression that your noob team ruined the game for you. You can fail miserably in instanced PVE, and your own performance can be crippled by support players not being good enough. You hardly can fail in Open World PVE (Dragon's End was the latest, largest and loudest exception to that rule and it was nerfed to the ground) and the cost of failure in WvW aint that much and it's harder to blame certain people in it, that's why I believe these mods are far less toxic.

Again, I myself was surprised to find that competitive has more uniqueness and diversity when it comes to professions and elite specs. When I do a little roaming in WvW, I know that thieves are uncatchable menaces, except deadeye that also has a lot more stealth and a sniper rifle. I know rangers can beam you from a mile away, mesmers can explode into an army of dudes and oneshot you out of the blue. Necros are chonky killing machines, guardians have a ton of boons. There are specs with traps and trapper runes, there are tanky bruisers and squishy assassins, every profession has its unique defensives I have to play around...

When it comes to PVE, I have specs that do damage and specs that give boons. That's it. Each profession has a DPS and a boon support option by now, and most of them do their stuff in a pretty similar way. I can log on a herald and give quickness by spamming facets, or on a scrapper and spam gyros. I can play six different guardian builds over three four specs including core, and the rotation will be pretty much the same. I don't care that deadeye is a ranged thief spec cos I'll sit in a melee blob anyway (except kiting on Quadims, the reason I got into PVE with my thief in the first place). I play 3-6 professions in endgame PVE at the same time, and I honestly don't care what to bring for another fight, a scourge or a virtuoso, a vindi or a soulbeast or a spellbreaker. I simply take the one that's not sitting on a chest somewhere so I won't have to park it again afterwards.

My guess here is that PVP allows the game's rich and complex combat system truly shine, while in PVE it comes down to very simple tank-and-spank most of the time, and good half of the specs' identity is lost somewhere between the DPS golem and the fractal speedclears.

Oh, and in open world the class identity doesn't matter a kitten as well because you can achieve success there without ever putting any skills on your bars.

Though I hard agree here. Not only we need more diversity, but also the ways to engage with it meaningfully across all game modes. While I'm not certain your suggestions are the best way to save competitive (it's much more complex issue than that, involving reward structure, social aspects, game mode rules and more), I agree those 'cornerstone' game modes should receive at least some love to keep things fresh. Anet is slowly pressing on with alliances and further system reworks, but more content can also be very welcome there. While PVE, for a change, could shine even brighter with a lesson or two brought from PVP encounter structure and complexity.

 

Thanks for a well-measured response. I do still somewhat disagree regarding PvP:

 

1) Most low-to-mid-level PvP is not that different from PvE. If you invest a build into being bursty, you can skip most of the mechanics and just mow other players down. So build diversity only really affects the higher ranked players, which is not a huge population.

 

2) I don't think it is wrong that PvE is "easy". For one, there is so much else to do PvE besides strict combat that the mode doesn't rest so heavily on specialization and "buildcrafting" (what really matters more is diversity of flavor and game feel, which is what I think is often being sacrificed for PvP). For two, the expansion content is not a pushover--it does still force players to learn how to focus their build and learn mechanics or they spend a lot of time downed. It's...not the most challenging thing....but it's not candy crush.

 

3) I think the problem with Strikes/Raids isn't a PvE problem. It's a Druid and Firebrand problem. When the first round of especs came out, they were highly specialized and the few support specs ended up being "required picks" for group PvE. So when the second round of especs came out, the devs avoided making any spec a pure healer like Druid, thus giving us super overpowered Swiss army knives like Firebrand and Scourge, classes that refused to commit to a defined support niche and poached both from healer and DPS spec use. And now the third wave of especs has completely embraced the "all must DPS+boon" mentality and they all now perform the same across all modes.

 

Put a simpler way: organized PVE content (and possibly organized WvW content) would not devolve into "all specs doing the same" if the devs hadn't doubled down on Firebrand. Now all classes are either trying to imitate Firebrand, approaching Firebrand, being neglected/gutted for being nothing like Firebrand, or being a gross exaggeration of Firebrand (Mech).

 

Because the devs doubled down on "do-everything" spec design, all of the especs are sliding down a slippery slope toward identity and differentiation being purely aesthetic and no longer mechanical. And none of this needed to happen, because the obvious solution would have been to, instead of contorting literally everything about the game around Firebrand, simply cut the single tall poppy and shift Firebrand into a pure healer role. The cruel irony of GW2's biggest problem is that Firebrand is broken because of a deliberate decision to *not* make any more pure-healer classes like Druid. And yet the simplest, most elegant, easiest solution to fix Firebrand's impact would have been to make it a pure-healer class like Druid. It would have removed Firebrand from obviating a large number of DPS especs, AND it would have conveniently fixed the Druid/Tempest problem by distributing a stille highly valued role among more comparables instead of continuing to leave Druid in its own class.

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

I really cannot stress this enough, but if it is indeed true that the Solar-led team had a blatant favoritism toward Firebrand, it profoundly impacted the game. Merely shuffling some talent around does not erase the fact that for years Firebrand apologism kept the build largely unchanged, and has slowly eroded away a core philosophy that especs are *specializations* that are intended to feel *special*. And now we are seeing the longer term consequences as a dev team doesn't know what to do with twenty almost-Firebrands.

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Batalix.2873

[MedievalThings.5417]

On 11/11/2022 at 2:16 PM, darkformkael.3640 said:

Range reduction on Deadeye was unnecessary. It doesn't make a lot of sense to for it to be 1200 when Ranger longbow can hit 1500

2200+ actually.  More if the height difference is greater.

[Malus.2184]

4 hours ago, Gambit.9501 said:

Anet PLEASE DO NOT reduce the range of Knelt Deadeye Rifle skills.  That does not make the class better to play in PvE, that makes it worse.  If this was a change made due to PvP, then friendly reminder that YOU HAVE A SPLIT-MODE SYSTEM FOR A REASON.

Deadeye Rifle fantasy is supposed to be long-range quick-killing.  Why is Ranger Longbow allowed to have 1500~1800 range skills but Deadeye suddenly isn't?

Nerfing Kneel skill range goes COMPLETELY AGAINST THE CLASS FANTASY.

It has little to no impact in PvE except in a few extreme cases where you'll often aggro things if you use it. In group content you need to stay stacked anyway. 

The additional range has no impact when the mob makes it below 1200 units anyway.

Being stuck on this change is being stuck on a theoretical change that has little to no practical impact except edge cases.

What should be done instead is that the Kneel should be completely removed from Deadeye Rifle, it literally serves no function as a weapon skill as it's more of a Profession mechanic and should be changed into an F3 Skill that provided some general bonuses while enabled, it would make sense to have Rifle skills still flip-over when kneeling. That way it would also benefit Deadeye if they were using pistols or shortbow when the enemy got close. Which would benefit the fantasy of a snipe since a sniper would pull out a backup weapon if their target got close since a rifle would be unweildy up close. Right now, doing that literally makes a Deadeye a worse Thief since there's nothing special gained if they use Stealth and use their 1 as it's unable to consume Malice. Malice is only consumed when they use a Rifle and Stealth.

Kneel should be something like this:

F3

Kneel

"When kneeling any ranged Stealth attack will consume Malice to do additional damage. In addition, while kneeling movement speed is reduced by 75%, ranged damage increased by X% and Endurance generation is increased by X%."

That's what Deadeye players should be trying to make Kneel into instead of being focused on something that in the vast majority of cases, only makes a difference in sPvP and WvW when roaming.

Rifle 5 could be given an ability like this:

Ricochet

Y Initative

Explodes, 5 targets.

Deals high damage and targets adjecant to the main target takes damage.

Deadeye has nothing that deals AoE damage unless the targets stands in a straight line and the Deadeye from KO has a similar ability, so I see no reason that player Deadeyes should be unable to access this.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Sage.9458]

On 11/11/2022 at 12:51 PM, Double Tap said:

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.

I feel like this is countering any thing mesmer.

Getting 3 clones out is getting harder and harder.  PVE it may be okay, bc staff 3 and 2 creates 3 clones, but the spawn locations are funky, on top of that the mirage utility skills spread your clones so why weaken them even more.

In WvW and pvp, it is almost impossible but important to get clones out.

I think instead of them reducing that stuff, maybe they should add a combo field. To maintain chaos armor and boon transfer.  With a little bit of that reduction.

In pvp and WvW give the second dodge back, but put a cooldown on dodge clone dueling trait.  

 

I feel like for mirage if the F1 to F4 acted more like  passive guardian buffs it would make the clones more viable...  right now it just feels like clones (the main thing that made mesmers unique are being oust...  until now.  I also feel like clones should already be able to switch targets... not just by a mirage skill.

[Malus.2184]

1 minute ago, Midknight.7324 said:

In WvW and pvp, it is almost impossible but important to get clones out.

I think instead of them reducing that stuff, maybe they should add a combo field. To maintain chaos armor and boon transfer.  With a little bit of that reduction.

A better solition would hjad been to just put a cap on how often Mesmers could dhatter in PvP and WvW instead. Because while something needs to be done as Mesmers can be incredibly oppressive this individual tinkering just nbrings unhappy results.

GW2 needs general mechanical changes first instead of specific ones.

[Sourde Noire.5286]

Overall some nice buffs but I'll strongly disagree with the Ele changes (and any change of similar nature) regarding the targetting behaviour.

 

Quote

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.

 

Why take something away (free aim even when targetting the enemy) that rewards prediction and good gameplay with a spike, as well as allowing a skill to serve as area denial to achieve something it can already do?

 

You can already target the enemy, either by just doing that or using the "Snap Ground Target To Current Target" option. And if you like this option, then you'll already have it on because other AoEs work like this.

You can already cast at your feet by either, again, just doing that or just clicking the skill if you really have to.

 

If you want to use the old behaviour you have to untarget the enemy (even though the majority of your other skills will require a target), cast the skill, then target them again... what?

 

These decisions, just like the proposed change to Gyros that was luckily not implemented, only serve to make the combat system more rigid and stale. When we need more uses of the great system we have.

 

I can only imagine the idea is somehow to make this more appealing to SteamDeck / Controller players, which really shouldn't be the main reason. And, again, what this change effectively FORCES on a skill is already doable with more freedom and more gameplay options and rewards for doing it.

[Chichimec.9364]

On 11/11/2022 at 12:51 PM, Double Tap said:

...Engineer
...We've also made an adjustment to the mechanist to better reward players who are able to position well...

 

...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...

Personally, I think you  missed the mark on this one. Mukluk perhaps said it the best about this particular change,  "It's basically that players who are good are getting what they had before and players who are bad are getting worse." You are not rewarding players who are able to position well, you are punishing those who can't.

And what does "position well" mean? Whew! Staying within 360 range of one's mech may sound simple and it may be a minor adjustment for some people, but it is not an easy thing for everyone. I play a lot of WvW and one of the standard strategies in some fights is to stay stacked on tag. When there is a large group fight going on, with all kinds of effects going off every which way, it can be hard for me to keep track of where the tag is all the time, even with good tags who are calling out all their moves in Discord. And that's with one very visible commander tag. Now imagine a major boss fight, or one of the large meta battles, where one's mech is indistinguishable from every other mech in the massive crowd. Since this Balance Update was posted, I installed the Blish module that shows a given range and have used my mech in everything from WvW zerg battles to HoT metas to World Boss fights. Trying to keep track of my mech's location in the midst of all the chaos is very difficult for me and causes me to die even more often than I usually do, since I'm frequently trying to track my mech rather than dodging and such.

Again, this will be a minor adjustment for some players but not for all of us. At age 73, I have emphysema, sleep apnea, and congestive heart failure, among other health issues. That means that my energies are much lower than most people's and that I move slowly, even sluggishly in real life and my reaction times are just as sluggish. So, if this new mechanic was equivalent to tying 5 pound weights around the ankles of most players, it would be more like tying 25 pound weights around each of mine. An already slow player is going to be even slower. And why? To appease the mech haters? 

@Cal Cohen.2358 what this change is in effect doing is allowing more able players to stay at the same level while pushing less able players further down, and I'm very sorry to see you doing that. Again, I don't expect the whole game to be structured around less able players but I do hope you won't push us out of the game entirely.

P.S. Yes, I do know about F7 to recall the mech and I've keybound a button on my mouse to do the same thing. Still, it's one more thing, an unnecessary one, that I have to keep track of when I'm already close to the physical limit of what I can do.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Chichimec.9364

[Batalix.2873]

Also, I just have to point out that, for a very progressive game, the optics of the state of balance are...almost cartoonishly conservative.

 

There is sizable and very visible anti-expertise minority in the PVE community that favors playing as either a book-burning, paramilitaristic zealot or a rifle fanatic who puts all their money and personality into their truck (and makes sure everyone sees). The general academic consensus is that these builds are overly privileged and disproportionately burdening the other especs.

 

It is very hard to say no, because these two factions--the Federalist Society, and the NRA--they do still make up approximately 40 percent of the community (boy is that scarily accurate) and are REALLY EASY TO GET MONEY FROM.

 

So instead of making democratic changes to break up consolidated power, redistribute it fairly, and promote celebration of diversity and cooperativity in the community...

 

You take away Firebrand's books instead of its matches, and still haven't mustered the balls to tell Mechanist that it doesn't need THAT many guns. AND continue to keep telling every other class to "man up", conform, maybe take some jiu jitsu, and join the cause. Even if that means sacrificing personal identity and goals and working a second job it never wanted.

 

I guess we don't have to worry about vigilante snipers, though? As if they were ever a sizeable problem, they might not have ever existed. Love all the whataboutisms being thrown at any spec to distract from FB and Mech. Wooooo.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Batalix.2873

[Gaiawolf.8261]

4 hours ago, Freedoms.2635 said:

why does firebrand need everything? 

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

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

[Wolowizard.4813]

Things to make this patch ok:

 

Don't remove scepter 3 water Trident ally heal (this is bad for heal tempest, pls don't kill it)

Revert deadeye range/kneel changes (they make no sense and steal deadeye sniper identity)

 

Things to consider:

Add pulsing alac for Tempest overloads (this is what this community is asking for ages)

Firebrand changes need to be tested in game

 

[zakkles.4158]

21 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

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

This may have been floated already, but why not add a shared cooldown between tomes to the current system? Say, if tome 1 is ready, tome 2 is on a 5-second cooldown, and I open tome 3, set the cooldown of tomes 1 and 2 to 10 seconds. (Or 15, or 20, or whatever cooldown.) This would force support FBs to pace out their abilities, and DPS FBs would have to meaningfully compromise on damage if they want to provide utility. But it wouldn't kneecap either variant, and it preserves the tomes as separate entities rather than effectively combining them into one 15-skill monstertome. I'm worried that the changes as proposed will turn cFB into "press tome 1 4/5 off cooldown" and will make support FBs of all variants more frustrating to play.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

25 minutes ago, zakkles.4158 said:

This may have been floated already, but why not add a shared cooldown between tomes to the current system? Say, if tome 1 is ready, tome 2 is on a 5-second cooldown, and I open tome 3, set the cooldown of tomes 1 and 2 to 10 seconds. (Or 15, or 20, or whatever cooldown.) This would force support FBs to pace out their abilities, and DPS FBs would have to meaningfully compromise on damage if they want to provide utility. But it wouldn't kneecap either variant, and it preserves the tomes as separate entities rather than effectively combining them into one 15-skill monstertome. I'm worried that the changes as proposed will turn cFB into "press tome 1 4/5 off cooldown" and will make support FBs of all variants more frustrating to play.

I think other have wondered why a shared resource of some type couldn't work with the current tomes. i don't know the answer to that one. Maybe it tested bad internally?

I'm worried about the same thing. The proposed rework doesn't look like 3 tomes to me anymore. It looks more like one Tome of Virtues that magically appears opened on its own (no cool animation) and you flip to the section you want or close it willy nilly. I'm worried we'll just hit Ashes on CD, save the rest of the pages for emergency, and be forced to camp axe auto attack like a drone all day long.

[Soilder.3607]

Druid Balance, WvW Perspective:

 

Personally, I think Druid is in a fine spot. However, I see that the balance team still wants to improve it and increase its usage.

 

Buffing Druid healing is always appreciated, but it's pretty good at that already. If you want to encourage Druid picks in a squad, I think the most impactful thing would be an increase in its defensive boon application. The previous balance patch was pretty good regarding giving Druid access to more boons with the additions of group protection and group stability.

 

There are two skills that I believe are good candidates for defensive boon buffing.

 

1. Ancestral Grace - This skill gives protection to your pet which, when talking about big Zerg play, is not very useful. Pets can't dodge and eat enemy bombs, so they are liable to die anyway. Replacing the protection with something more impactful, like aegis or resistance, and then allowing it to be granted to allies instead of the pet would be a significant buff.

 

2. Glyph of Equality - This skill already gives stability in Celestial Avatar mode in PvE. Extending the stability to WvW would be a very good buff. However, a single stack of stability is not enough. My suggestion would be to give it 3 stacks of stability, but in turn lower the duration to 4 seconds.

 

3. Other possible adjustments that are more mechanic changes than number buffs: Increasing the radius of Sublime Conversion to be more in line with other "wall" type reflection skills like Wall of Reflection: Increasing the number of allied targets affected by Solar Beam to 5 to help build Astral Force.

 

Tempest Balance, WvW Perspective:

 

I also think Tempest is in a great spot right now. I believe it was always very good and just needed the utilities on scrapper to be toned down in order for it to shine, which is what is happening now. The buff to Elemental Bastion is appreciated and will help the Tempests healing output better compare to that of more powerful healers like Druid and Vindicator.

 

Scrapper Balance, WvW Perspective:

 

Personally I think the nerfs to the Scrappers condition cleansing skills should be reverted. The scrapper losing some of their most powerful utilities, like group quickness and stealth + smoke field, were significant nerfs. Right now, Tempests and Druids have a higher amount of condition cleansing. Reverting the cleanse nerfs to scrapper would bring all three of these classes very near parity with one another regarding condition cleansing.

 

Thank you for your effort and communication balance team.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Soilder.3607

[Krogulec.6571]

In My opinion a buffs for reaper are still not enaugh.  First of all reaper nie buffs on most damageing skills in shroud. 1 Auto chains and shroud 4 spiral. (ATM greatsword auto chains are still more viable than stay in shourd, because only shroud 4 deal good damage) IT is my sugestion.

 

I Think good idea will be make condi reaper viable too. Lets make a easy build on condi. Sth like a power mechanist but codni variant.

Good option will be add pasie bleadning to reaper auto chains or gs auto chains. Maybe good option is and same chill to autochains from GS or shroud 1.

[Brasides.9360]

On 11/11/2022 at 9:30 PM, Griifen.2473 said:

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. 

Hey thanks for the detailed response - it is good to hear from a player who has been around the game for a while that there are a lot of viable options to play the classes in the way I most enjoy: running encounters with fewer than recommended players or solo.

I see that there are options currently to engage with theorycrafting, and enjoy doing that myself as a new players. I guess what is concerning to me is that most of the changes I see to the classes I've played (ele-sword weaver, ranger-untamed), are leaning in to traits that give a damage % increase (Ferocious Symbiosis) and away from those that rely on player actions to be effective (Fervent Force).

Maybe not everyone feels this way , but the most fun part of theory crafting to me is finding ways traits can interact with one another, not to provide a flat % damage bonus buff that I need to keep up, but rather to change the way I use skills together with one another. And there is a lot of "increase all dmg by x % when you have stacks of y" in these notes.

1. Catalyst: Empowering Auras
2. Willbender: Lethal Tempo & Tyrant's Momentum
3. Necromancer: Soul Barbs
4. Untamed: Ferocious Symbiosis

There might be more in the other classes but I am not familiar enough with them to say. On the other hand seeing that Firebrand is getting reworked to manage a class resource seems really interesting. I'm just a bit worried that there is more emphasis on the mechanics that give flat % dmg bonuses rather than rewarding a more interactive style of play.

 

[Seneca.6319]

On 11/12/2022 at 5:09 PM, Elessaria.9142 said:

 

If you play Staff/Staff Mirage these changes will have zero impact on you except for the fact you can run no boon duration gear at all and still give 100% encounter uptime...

You really should play Staff/Staff Mirage. Your clones die! And now you can't shatter because you lose alac uptime dramatically. For example, when you take Reformed Mirage Mirror and you shatter using distortion you get 3 mirrors. That's ~10 seconds of alacrity with 1 shatter! And you bring your clones back up the next second using 2 & 3 skills on your staff. Very little damage loss with a burst of Alac uptime. And what about Open World content? Now you're screwed because you barely get any alac. I know this spec like the back of my hand, there is no argument to make this change good because it's simply not. They have been eyeing Mirage since last balance patch but everyone opposed it so they they dropped it. Now they are attempting it again. Why do they hate Mirage so much? Haven't they destroyed enough specs already? I can give you some examples during my 1 year playing this game.

I started playing main Warrior. They nerfed it so bad that it was just not worth playing. Now they are overbuffing it. Then I played Necromancer. I played as a Reaper for a very long time. They nerfed that one again. In fact so much that Reaper is just a dead spec. Now they attempt to bring it back because they realized just how stupid those changes were.

Chronomancer was a unique spec giving both quickness and alacrity. It was great! Then they messed it up sooo bad that nobody was playing Chrono. And nobody is playing it despite the buffs to damage. Because they messed it up beyond any repair. 

[Hazell.2065]

Please get someone who actually do end game  PvE content into the balance team. I can't believe I waited 4 months for these lazy and ignorant changes.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Hazell.2065

[Elessaria.9142]

55 minutes ago, Seneca.6319 said:

You really should play Staff/Staff Mirage.

I have and I do and you are making a mountain out of a molehill with zero objectivity.

[RAZOR.7246]

What's the point of opening a thread like this for feedback? Have they ever made a significant change before the actual patch was released? After making ridiculous changes, their devs have the gall to publicly insult players who are calling them out on it when those players clearly know better. Look at what happened. The players were right and their meta got messed up. 

Quote

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.

They don't even know where they want their regular builds to be because there's nothing to base their current balance on. Their balance "philosophy" is not even in line with the reality of squad/party roles within the meta. They're looking at PMech and thinking it's overperforming when the reality is that everything else is wildly underperforming in comparison because that's where your baseline performance should be right now. What is it about PMech that makes it so viable. Look at these things first before you decide to do anything:

 

1. Easy Rotation. Even if you're using a full rotation, you're essentially using skills off CD after your opener, which is very easy to pull off without interruptions due to the low cast times and the separate cast on your bot.  

2. Absurd Range Capabilities. If they don't understand why this is such a problem, then they don't understand the game at all. You can continue to attack on fights with very minimal DPS loss, if at all, because of the significant alleviation of pressure from avoiding mechanics or, if you're having to move around a lot. This DPS capability is priceless in the current meta. Not your kittening benchmarks. 

3. High Mobility. Even without Shift Signet to blink, your mobility is still superior because in most cases, all you would probably need to do is turn and you can continue attacking from range while other classes, melee especially have to close that ridiculous gap before they can start doing DPS again. PMech rotations do not have any interruptions as a result of this because of the nature of your skills. Even if you don't want the hassle of Nade Kit, a properly placed Rocket or Rifle Turret essentially allows you to forget about them for the rest of the fight while they do passive damage. If you need something else for a more mobile fight, take Mine and it will do good DPS because throw mine is also ranged. Rifle 5 can also help you close a gap quickly without losing much DPS. However, on other classes, your rotation interrupts in that time you're taking to adjust to the bosses movements or mehcanics in a fight. In those cases, players need to compensate with "recovery" rotations to get back to doing optimal rotations once they've recovered. This results in a significant DPS loss by comparison and the overall feeling of clunkiness.  

4. Access to utility. PMech can cover Boon Stripping without having to sacrifice much DPS. Shift Signet is a valuable Stun Break and mobility option. Blunderbuss gives you perm 5 might for your group. CC is insane compared to other DPS classes. If I really wanted, I could take off Jade Cannons for High-Impact Drivers and give 15 perm might with only a slight DPS loss. Given the nerf to the bot, this would actually be a very viable option to take in a group setting because of the significantly easier bot management. I'm willing to bet this didn't even occur to them at all.  

5. Bearbow Tanking. Your mech can tank fights for you in PvE. This can even extend to squad play and it is a ridiculously useful boon to have in Solo Content. Whisper of Jormag for example, while bosses or adds can aggro to it in dungeons or Fractals, massively taking pressure off your group. 

6. Strong Cleave. You cannot have most of your fights rewarding good cleave damage and then having classes that can't cleave as well in comparison despite already having other issues that make them weaker by comparision. Good Cleave is a NECESSITY for any DPS class. Even in open world, good cleave provides a significant improvement to the player experience because you can clear large amounts of enemies quickly and are therefore, better rewarded.

 

The BIGGEST problem with PMech is that it represents everything that you need from a DPS class right now.  All these things together make it viable in almost ALL scenarios while every other class have needless drawbacks to hinder them. People have classes they prefer playing over others. You would not have your "mains" otherwise. You need to bring other classes up to a similar level of viability across most scenarios so players can achieve this desirable state of playing viably on their main classes. This is the gold standard of what classes need to be viable in the current meta. You should be balancing based on these 6 things. This should be your baseline aims for class balance. Not looking at benchmarks and thinking a few increases to coefficients here and there will help. I'm not saying everything should be ranged and have easy rotations with low cast times or have access to really strong CC and Boons. I'm saying you need to compensate in those areas where they are lacking. Take DE for example. You have the range, but because of your terrible mobility, you're not viable because you can't close those distances as easily to your party to get buffed. If you are melee, you need access to skills that allow you to avoid those extra 1 or 2 mechanics that cause you to significantly lose out in DPS if you want to compete with those moments of extra DPS. Distortion is an example of this but other classes that need something similar don't have access to such things without really heavy drawbacks. You would also need superior mobility options to close distances to become viable next to a range class that can do good DPS. I'm not talking about dashes either. In these cases you would either need easy access to blinks or some way to passively do damage while bosses are moving or to recover positions after handling mechanics. Your rotations should also have easier recoveries by comparison. You still have melee classes that are being idiotically rooted or restricted because why? The biggest problem for any class right now in comparision is the ability to do DPS in high mobility or high pressure situations. Actually take the time to think about why a FB is so useful kitten. People need access to things that allow them to reduce pressure from mechanics. Right now, it's Stab and Aegis. If your endgame is to take away the reliance on 1 particular class for such things, something they've failed with again BTW, then those DPS classes that need these buffs for viability should have an easier way to access these things individually without having to significantly compensate otherwise. That's IF you don't want to rely on your healers or boon supports since the direction they want to go in is 1 where a party is not over reliant on1 class for certain things.

 

Balancing using coefficients is the same as balancing off golem DPS. It's just lazy as kitten. It has very minimal bearing on how the class fares in a real fight. They're just spamming stuff in the hope that something sticks when they don't understand what the problem is in the first place. What do you want? Honestly? All these classes doing 50k bench before they become viable? What you're going to get is what you're already seeing now; classes overperforming in 1 or 2 instances and then playing like kitten in others. It's a garbage way to balance. As long as the game significantly rewards players for easy access to good Stab/Aegis uptime, you're never going to significantly reduce usage for FB over other classes. If it doesn't, then you're significantly hitting player QoL without a viable alternative. Fix your baseline class viability first before thinking about drawbacks because right now this whole process is 1 confused mess.

Edited November 14, 2022 by RAZOR.7246

[Coolster.2536]

Holosmith changes look juicy. Can't wait to try it out

Now do the same to core weapons so they interact with heat

Not sure how I feel about that Mechanist change. 360 Units is really small, but the mech autos have really big range. I'll be really easy to move out of that range, and while there is a 6s grace period, I worry that without a really good telegraph It'll be really easy to accidentally lower your DPS without you realizing (like standing at 370 and thinking you're close enough).

 

P.S. I think you guys forgot Photon Wall

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, RAZOR.7246 said:

What's the point of opening a thread like this for feedback? Have they ever made a significant change before the actual patch was released? After making ridiculous changes, their devs have the gall to publicly insult players who are calling them out on it when those players clearly know better. Look at what happened. The players were right and their meta got messed up. 

They don't even know where they want their regular builds to be because there's nothing to base their current balance on. Their balance "philosophy" is not even in line with the reality of squad/party roles within the meta. They're looking at PMech and thinking it's overperforming when the reality is that everything else is wildly underperforming in comparison because that's where your baseline performance should be right now. What is it about PMech that makes it so viable. Look at these things first before you decide to do anything:

 

1. Easy Rotation. Even if you're using a full rotation, you're essentially using skills off CD after your opener, which is very easy to pull off without interruptions due to the low cast times and the separate cast on your bot.  

2. Absurd Range Capabilities. If they don't understand why this is such a problem, then they don't understand the game at all. You can continue to attack on fights with very minimal DPS loss, if at all, because of the significant alleviation of pressure from avoiding mechanics or, if you're having to move around a lot. This DPS capability is priceless in the current meta. Not your kittening benchmarks. 

3. High Mobility. Even without Shift Signet to blink, your mobility is still superior because in most cases, all you would probably need to do is turn and you can continue attacking from range while other classes, melee especially have to close that ridiculous gap before they can start doing DPS again. PMech rotations do not have any interruptions as a result of this because of the nature of your skills. Even if you don't want the hassle of Nade Kit, a properly placed Rocket or Rifle Turret essentially allows you to forget about them for the rest of the fight while they do passive damage. If you need something else for a more mobile fight, take Mine and it will do good DPS because throw mine is also ranged. Rifle 5 can also help you close a gap quickly without losing much DPS. However, on other classes, your rotation interrupts in that time you're taking to adjust to the bosses movements or mehcanics in a fight. In those cases, players need to compensate with "recovery" rotations to get back to doing optimal rotations once they've recovered. This results in a significant DPS loss by comparison and the overall feeling of clunkiness.  

4. Access to utility. PMech can cover Boon Stripping without having to sacrifice much DPS. Shift Signet is a valuable Stun Break and mobility option. Blunderbuss gives you perm 5 might for your group. CC is insane compared to other DPS classes. If I really wanted, I could take off Jade Cannons for High-Impact Drivers and give 15 perm might with only a slight DPS loss. Given the nerf to the bot, this would actually be a very viable option to take in a group setting because of the significantly easier bot management. I'm willing to bet this didn't even occur to them at all.  

5. Bearbow Tanking. Your mech can tank fights for you in PvE. This can even extend to squad play and it is a ridiculously useful boon to have in Solo Content. Whisper of Jormag for example, while bosses or adds can aggro to it in dungeons or Fractals, massively taking pressure off your group. 

6. Strong Cleave. You cannot have most of your fights rewarding good cleave damage and then having classes that can't cleave as well in comparison despite already having other issues that make them weaker by comparision. Good Cleave is a NECESSITY for any DPS class. Even in open world, good cleave provides a significant improvement to the player experience because you can clear large amounts of enemies quickly and are therefore, better rewarded.

 

The BIGGEST problem with PMech is that it represents everything that you need from a DPS class right now.  All these things together make it viable in almost ALL scenarios while every other class have needless drawbacks to hinder them. People have classes they prefer playing over others. You would not have your "mains" otherwise. You need to bring other classes up to a similar level of viability across most scenarios so players can achieve this desirable state of playing viably on their main classes. This is the gold standard of what classes need to be viable in the current meta. You should be balancing based on these 6 things. This should be your baseline aims for class balance. Not looking at benchmarks and thinking a few increases to coefficients here and there will help. I'm not saying everything should be ranged and have easy rotations with low cast times or have access to really strong CC and Boons. I'm saying you need to compensate in those areas where they are lacking. Take DE for example. You have the range, but because of your terrible mobility, you're not viable because you can't close those distances as easily to your party to get buffed. If you are melee, you need access to skills that allow you to avoid those extra 1 or 2 mechanics that cause you to significantly lose out in DPS if you want to compete with those moments of extra DPS. Distortion is an example of this but other classes that need something similar don't have access to such things without really heavy drawbacks. You would also need superior mobility options to close distances to become viable next to a range class that can do good DPS. I'm not talking about dashes either. In these cases you would either need easy access to blinks or some way to passively do damage while bosses are moving or to recover positions after handling mechanics. Your rotations should also have easier recoveries by comparison. You still have melee classes that are being idiotically rooted or restricted because why? The biggest problem for any class right now in comparision is the ability to do DPS in high mobility or high pressure situations. Actually take the time to think about why a FB is so useful kitten. People need access to things that allow them to reduce pressure from mechanics. Right now, it's Stab and Aegis. If your endgame is to take away the reliance on 1 particular class for such things, something they've failed with again BTW, then those DPS classes that need these buffs for viability should have an easier way to access these things individually without having to significantly compensate otherwise. That's IF you don't want to rely on your healers or boon supports since the direction they want to go in is 1 where a party is not over reliant on1 class for certain things.

 

Balancing using coefficients is the same as balancing off golem DPS. It's just lazy as kitten. It has very minimal bearing on how the class fares in a real fight. They're just spamming stuff in the hope that something sticks when they don't understand what the problem is in the first place. What do you want? Honestly? All these classes doing 50k bench before they become viable? What you're going to get is what you're already seeing now; classes overperforming in 1 or 2 instances and then playing like kitten in others. It's a garbage way to balance. As long as the game significantly rewards players for easy access to good Stab/Aegis uptime, you're never going to significantly reduce usage for FB over other classes. If it doesn't, then you're significantly hitting player QoL without a viable alternative. Fix your baseline class viability first before thinking about drawbacks because right now this whole process is 1 confused mess.

 

I take the complete opposite perspective. If only one class is "setting a baseline", then it's not a baseline. It's artificial inflation.

 

The problem is not that every other class has "needless drawbacks". The problem is that Mech does everything, circumventing several fundamental limitations that the rest of the game sets on espec design.

 

No game, no PvP game like Destiny or Overwatch, no PvE game like WoW or FF, wants all of the classes to all play exactly the same.

 

Your framing is coming from completely the wrong direction. If you want literally every other job in the game to become Mech instead of Mech stepping the kitten off other specs' niches, you are tacitly arguing that most of the combat and build depth should just be abandoned for some kind of simplified "action MMO". And if we are looking at a total paradigm shift, we might as well be looking at GW3, because with that attitude kitten GW2's drag.

 

Also, I'm not swearing, I am literally typing out kitten every time in this thread.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Batalix.2873

[ifoxe.4890]

As a former thief player.

 

This patch is a joke.