November 29 Balance Update Preview

[FURIEUXETMECHANT.8604]

Im disappointing about thief range nerf, it should stay or be buffed

[Mahuyo.3079]

 

So, looking at the patch notes, and absorbing the information for the past few weeks. With the new Firebrand changes, I think that there is some reworks that need to be made, that would make it better for Firebrand as it has the most broad profession in it coverage of things and seems to be gutted rather heavily, when it comes down to the skills. Having the skills do specific things that help the group.

 

- Chapter 1: Unflinching Charge

 

This is now giving Protection over Stab, while there is really no reason for this to give stab as we can give Protection though Mace (if it being run), Shield, and though picking up Tome of Courage (which i'm assuming that will still be a thing after the big patch). So the protection would be better put else where, I think the best thing is to pare Protection with Resolution, because the essentually do the samething Protection with Strike DMG, and Resolution with Condie DMG.

Now, getting rid of stab on Ch1:UC, also hurts the purpuse of stacking some stab pre combat, as example Gorsival, has a cc that he does that the start, which that can be dealt with. With WvW, the issue is much bigger as CCs are everywhere, and i do thing that some CCs are broken as i've gotten pulled, i think much to far which i don't know what the CCs were, or how many pulled me which, yes, i didn't have stab, so that wouldn't have helped, but, it also seem even when you can provide stab it gets pull from you all the time. Nevertheless, stab is a very important boon and removing it from the 1 skill which can provide simple, and quick stab.

 

- Epilogue: Unbroken Lines

 

This is something I think is rather simple, but the only real issue I see, is that it shouldn't be 3 pages. I say this this reasons:

 - If it is at 3, if your running 5 Pages you would only be able to use it once while with 8 pages you would only beable to use it twice, while if it was 2 pages i would at least double it giving support the ability to use it 4 times as typically support builds use Archivist of Whispers, plus E:UL is going to have a 25s CD which will also effect the ability to use the skill, which is fine.

 

This last 1 isn't an issue so much of a concern with Renewed Focus. The reason why it is a Concern is because durring the Live Stream it only said will give pages, and didn't say some more specific like restore all pages or restore X pages, but i do believe that this skill should restore all the pages.

 

[Latency.3907]

The mechanist pet distance change to affect stats is NOT a good idea since the player does not have fine control over mech positioning.

 

This causes variation and randomness in some scenarios where it does not reflect upon the player's abilities.

 

Please change the conditional aspect stats on the mech to be some other core mechanic for the mechanist. Maybe something related to profession's F1,F2,F3 skill activation or some other variable where the player is able to have a controlled burst of higher damage (similar to what is done for BS,Virt,Deadeye,..etc). The reward for higher damage needs to be from active player inputs NOT AI driven variations.

[Tails.9372]

8 hours ago, Latency.3907 said:

Please change the conditional aspect stats on the mech to be some other core mechanic for the mechanist. Maybe something related to profession's F1,F2,F3 skill activation or some other variable where the player is able to have a controlled burst of higher damage (similar to what is done for BS,Virt,Deadeye,..etc). The reward for higher damage needs to be from active player inputs NOT AI driven variations.

The F skills are fine as having everything on autocast is already suboptimal. If you really want to go after the gameplay part where the player is most involved in then, in regards to the LI build, the rifle is what you actually want to go after so takinging a bit of damage from the AA and putting it in one of the other skills would be the most effective approach in this regard.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Tails.9372

[the krytan assassin.9235]

The proposed balance changes are imo a big problem for the instanced PvE heal meta. Druid and HAM have been dominating the PvE heal meta for quite a while now. The only semi reliable & somewhat played alternatives were HAT and HFB. 

There are no nerfs announced to druid/HAM, HAT and HFB are getting nerfed and there are no boosts towards Qheal Herald, heal chrono, Aheal specter, Qheal scrap,Qheal BS or Qheal Cata. 

 

Please reconsider some of the balance changes to not enforce all healers to play HAM/druid for the next couple months. 

Please revoke the changes for water Trident on ele. Its one of the main aoe heals for ele atm, it offers alot of versatility due to the range, low cd, low cast time and regen. Dagger is not a viable weapon alternative for HAT aslong as the HAT isn't able to grab elemental bastion. Besides that, HAT is currently the only PvE build that makes use out of the scepter rework. Cdps Weaver never channels earth earth and air/water are only being touched in weave self &cc rotation. Pdps scepter will still suck due to the incredibly low AA dps on most attunements. So why would you force the HAT out of using scepter? This scepter redesign makes literally no sense for instanced PvE elementalists. 

Also the only saving grace for HFB has been its incredible amount of aegis and stability. The raw amount of healing output on HFB is actually pretty low. HFB is atm in a very strong spot for fractals atm, but only because stabi and aegis are stupidly OP in FotM. In most strikes/raids its definitely a suboptimal pick. Although i agree that some nerfs to stabi/aegis/flexibility on HFB were necessary, i do think that they should be compensated by adding some raw healing output to the build. 

[InvisibleRasta.7865]

nothing new on thief in pvp? the class is kitten atm... at least lower initiative cost for infiltrator arrow

[Wally.4125]

23 hours ago, Nash.2681 said:

You're aware that you should stay close to the mech, not neccesarily close to the enemy? And look at it this way: you now get motivation to pay a bit more attention to the game = less time to eat junk food or candy while the game plays itself = good for your health. 🙂

I appreciate the first sentence as being constructive feedback. As for the rest, you havent read the part where i am returning after a long pause to try mechanist hence i never played it yet (idk how much obvious is should write it for you to understand) so whether you indulge in eating junk food or candies while playing Mechanist keep it to yourself :)

[Nash.2681]

10 minutes ago, Wally.4125 said:

I appreciate the first sentence as being constructive feedback. As for the rest, you havent read the part where i am returning after a long pause to try mechanist hence i never played it yet (idk how much obvious is should write it for you to understand) so whether you indulge in eating junk food or candies while playing Mechanist keep it to yourself 🙂

Oh, I fully read that, but since it had 0 relevance to your question, I didn't bother to respond.

Apparently you informed yourself about Mechanist beforehand and for whatever reason decided it was appealing to you and you want to try it out. Then you missunderstood the patchnote preview and took the chance to show that you're either not very humorous or just didn't bother to read up fully about the current state of Mechanist and what it has done to the game and thus didn't understand the joke. 🤷‍♂️

[Wally.4125]

12 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

Oh, I fully read that, but since it had 0 relevance to your question, I didn't bother to respond.

Apparently you informed yourself about Mechanist beforehand and for whatever reason decided it was appealing to you and you want to try it out. Then you missunderstood the patchnote preview and took the chance to show that you're either not very humorous or just didn't bother to read up fully about the current state of Mechanist and what it has done to the game and thus didn't understand the joke. 🤷‍♂️

Understood the patchnotes and consulted with other main Mechanists about it and how it affects the gameplay. As for your *joke* maybe it was meant for players who know the

Quote

current state of Mechanist and what it has done to the game

Lets end this here.

[Hedonismbot.3697]

on scepter changes and the impact on heal tempest

I think heal tempest and heal alac tempest will be fine. yes, water trident was convenient for that build. yes, blast finishing overload fire field with dragons tooth gave a lot of might.

but

on dragons tooth: might is being shared by so many specs nowadays, that I don’t buy dragons tooth being changed be a bad thing. i’d rather have the spell be useful in more ways than a fringe use for a singular build. it following its target is huge for pvp.

on water trident: the heal and regen was convenient. the reason the build is good is warhorn. not water trident. the build always had the option between warhorn and staff. trident just gave warhorn the option to have a ranged heal. it could also be combined with water signet for ranged aoe heal burst. now, there will be less ranged aoe heal available. but in most cases players stack anyway. and if you need ranged heal, then you’ll have to pick staff. The build is still functional. there is just more of a tradeoff and choice that needs to be made. with alacrity and 100% boon duration water trident could maintain regeneration on party members if used on cooldown. swapping to water with arcane trait line does the same. and you want to swap in and out of water anyway on heal. so in a way, trident gave you more options for your trait lines. now there is more tradeoff still. but the build will survive. if you value sand squall and heat sink over staff, want stability on overload and still maintain regen uptime, take arcane.

one build will have to adapt for more builds to be made. i consider that an improvement.

let me reiterate. i sympathize with heal alac scepter mains. it sucks for them, and that’s unfortunate. I just hope that they’ll find their playstyle still intact for the most part and might take solace in the possibilities of scepter changes for pve and pvp environments.

on why scepter and no sword/staff changes

scepter changes don’t mean that the other weapons won’t get adjustments in the future.

on why pvp changes in pve patch

I have yet to hear a convincing argument to be made in favor of why the devs should NOT balance around pvp first, and iterate for pve after the fact. It’s always easier to balance for pvp and then supercharge the ability for pve, than it is to take a powerful ability and “nerf it for pvp”. that leads to “firebrand and scourge in pvp”-frustration. 

[intomatar.4539]

On 11/22/2022 at 2:34 AM, Into.2380 said:

Good afternoon/evening everyone. Once the Battle Scarred were weakened (Life Siphon Healing). In PvE, this did not affect much and ensured better survival. Why not bring it back or even improve this skill. And in pvp leave it as it is now.

And I would like more ability to adjust damage from conditions and flexible traits for Renegade line.

 

I want to clarify. This trait Battle Scarred was nerfed earlier. In the new upcoming patch, there is a clear separation of abilities between pve and pvp. I think it would be fair to return Battle Scarred as he was before, and leave it as it is now in pvp.

[TentacleInvoker.2860]

As a Deadeye main ever since I started playing, I’m at a loss for words. 
 

Death’s Judgement getting pierce is a good quality improvement, it makes hitting the marks easier in crowded environments. Please yes. 

But what about the range nerf? Is this really needed? Maybe it’s a change to come in PVP since Deadeye is sometimes difficult to deal with at 1500, but in PVE he is supposed to be a sniper eliminating targets before they can reach him. If you are not going to increase the range (rangers with 2000 say hey) just let it stay the same. 
 

Kneel is fine as it is right now, it’s a part of Deadeye’s identity. Really, no need to change it itself. 75% normal speed will be useless for mobility, and for mobility we have Death’s Retreat. If you want to increase Deadeye’s mobility, lower this skill’s initiative cost from 4 to 3. 
 

I was expecting balance improvements since this spec is one of the least popular overall, so you could introduce nice changes for it to feel better. But if you are keeping the update as it is right now, I’ll have to reconsider my priorities. 
 

I don’t play other professions much, but I see that a large portion of the player base is unhappy with the changes to their professions. I hope you’ll collect this data and use it to improve the game, or it might not end well in the long term. 

[Batalix.2873]

On 11/22/2022 at 11:02 AM, Latency.3907 said:

The mechanist pet distance change to affect stats is NOT a good idea since the player does not have fine control over mech positioning.

 

This causes variation and randomness in some scenarios where it does not reflect upon the player's abilities.

 

Please change the conditional aspect stats on the mech to be some other core mechanic for the mechanist. Maybe something related to profession's F1,F2,F3 skill activation or some other variable where the player is able to have a controlled burst of higher damage (similar to what is done for BS,Virt,Deadeye,..etc). The reward for higher damage needs to be from active player inputs NOT AI driven variations.

 

The hypocrisy of this, when mech does 18k in passive autoattack DPS, plus auto-applies boons. What player inputs? What is NOT AI driven at this point in Mech? The player already doesn't have fine control over positioning, that's partly why everyone has lazily adopted it.

 

I think the change might amount to ironic justice. Mech players so love letting the J-Mech AI effectively play the game for them. With the new change Mech players will even moreso be just accessories to their J-Mechs.

 

I don't particularly like the change, but any change that makes Mech players feel bad for how they have been unapologetically embracing the do-nothingest class in the game is okay by me.

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Batalix.2873

[Mike.7983]

Do not suppose there are any last minute changes being added or removed from the latest mess of a patch coming up next week?

[AliamRationem.5172]

11 hours ago, Hedonismbot.3697 said:

on why scepter and no sword/staff changes

scepter changes don’t mean that the other weapons won’t get adjustments in the future.

Scepter was already meta and there were numerous threads on the subject of sword underperforming leading up to this announcement.  If they expected weaver players to be happy with bleeding on shearing edge because we can just wait months or years more than we already have for actual improvements to the spec, I'd say that was a fairly optimistic outlook on their part, to say the least!

[Acyk.9671]

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

•  

Tempest

• Elemental Bastion: Increased heal attribute scaling from 0.4125 to 0.8 in WvW only.

When are you going to make sure Powerful Aura is not the go to trait in water? 

Unstable Conduits: make auras on overloads 5 targets

Cleansing water: Increase from 1 to 2

Smothering auras: Reduce cleanse on transmute from 2 to 1

Rock solid: Increase stab and radius.

This way Tempest has more options between water/eath/fire. It gives more weapon choices between staff, warhorn, OH dagger and focus is only the go to support weapon in gvg instead of most of the time in wvw.

EDIT: Aftershock and Eye of the Storm Pve's boons buff would be appreciated in WvW. Not only i'm not a fan of splitting mechanics in different game modes but having the possibility to drop those minstrel firebrands full of stab and having a choice of a more aggro comp if we want to would be amazing.

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

Willbender

I think you need to reduce the number of hits to trigger Virtues from 5 to 3. As it stands it will always come after every other melee dps in WvW.

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

Druid

Adding stab on Glyph of Equality in every gamemode would be nice. I don't think we need the condi cleanse on this skill with the amount at our disposal on everything else. 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Hedonismbot.3697]

8 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Scepter was already meta and there were numerous threads on the subject of sword underperforming leading up to this announcement.  If they expected weaver players to be happy with bleeding on shearing edge because we can just wait months or years more than we already have for actual improvements to the spec, I'd say that was a fairly optimistic outlook on their part, to say the least!

Scepter being meta doesn’t mean that dust devil etc where good abilities. condi specs simply enjoyed the buffs to its numbers it received earlier this year. 

skill redesign is more impactful than number tweaks i think. if all people complain about sword is it’s numbers, then the adjustment would seem fairly easy. however, I suspect that there is more to it than “make funny number bigger” when it comes to balancing. 

staff has received some significant buffs. now scepter has been reworked and hammer has been changed. if anything, this should be indicative to us, that the devs are looking into weapons.

I understand your frustration. You’ve been looking for significant changes to sword, but it seems that it wasn’t swords turn yet, and that sucks. I’ve been waiting for staff improvements for forever too, and wouldn’t mind more adjustments. I guess we’ll have to be more patient still?

 

[Mount Carsten.7913]

I just really wish reaper got more love, in my case specifically condi-reaper. Please Anet! 

[Lord Warfin.1209]

21 hours ago, TentacleInvoker.2860 said:

Kneel is fine as it is right now, it’s a part of Deadeye’s identity. Really, no need to change it itself. 75% normal speed will be useless for mobility, and for mobility we have Death’s Retreat. If you want to increase Deadeye’s mobility, lower this skill’s initiative cost from 4 to 3. 

Either I am misreading this, or other people are.  The proposed change is: "While kneeling, players can now move at a 75% reduced speed", which I read as -75% from normal speed or 25% of normal speed.  That's enough to make minor adjustments to your position to deal with obstructions or stay just in range, both of which would be useful only at long range which they are taking away. I generally dodge in different directions while kneeling to avoid AOE's and gain stealth for death's judgement anyway so this would  marginally helpful for fine position adjustments.  Another complication with these changes is the range circle that appears at 1500 when the Deadeye is kneeling making it easy to see what is in range.  If the range for marking targets and the auto-attack stays at 1500 while the attacks you actually need are now 1200 does the circle get reduced to 1200, stay at 1500 or just go away because it is confusing with split ranges?

[graishak.5406]

i dont understand why they dont at least give specter shroud dmg reduction in wvw, since it was still pretty bad before they reduced HP, or something like while in shroud incoming healing is turned into barrier instead of being lost so it has a chance to withstand passive damage but can still be bursted down.
wvw healing buffs dont make sense to me, htemp and druid are both good already.
i really dont like the comcept of moving dragon's tooth, a high impact damage skill should not be tracking imo. please try to increase radius/decrease delay instead.
mech nerf seems pretty insignificant, expected a nerf to virtuoso.
new fb looks fun to play.

Edited November 24, 2022 by graishak.5406

[Drag You Down.2615]

On 11/22/2022 at 12:02 PM, Latency.3907 said:

The mechanist pet distance change to affect stats is NOT a good idea since the player does not have fine control over mech positioning.

I agree with that. I have tried, it's so hard to let that robot go to the place you want. Sometimes, it takes few seconds to change the target. NPC pet in gw2 is never reliable.

 

If they really want to reduce the effectiveness of Mechanist dps, just reduce some coefficient and percentage of the robot stats. Halving it directly for long distance is just annoying, and this kills the variety of builds.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Drag You Down.2615

[intomatar.4539]

 

Please see my post. We need to find out.

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

Considering with some classes having skills where range is measured horizontal and not actual range, it is gonna be funny to see that a Deadeye (which should have one of the longer ranges in the game) cannot reach that Ele in WvW that keeps damaging them from the ground to the top of a tower.

You are willingly and knowingly killing off Deadeye in 1 big bang. Rifle Thief formerly known as Deadeye will no longer be something I could enjoy playing.

I am extremely dissapointed, extremely.

Completely ignored the uniqueness of Deadeye. 

After the last patch, where you reverted some changes to engineer to keep the unique feeling of an Elite Specialization, you are now actually killing another elite's uniqueness. Deadeye uniqueness is the range and kneel. Walk during kneel... 

Just that... "Walk during kneel" how is that even unique? It just feels like regular rifle while under the effect of chill, these is no benefit in walking instead of running at that trade off. 

 

The trade off was: You kneel, making yourself immobile and thus vulnerable to pull off that 1 big damage shot. 
Now it is walk and shoot gummibears that tickle the enemy.

 

 

[Tiviana.2650]

On 11/11/2022 at 3:09 PM, Chyro.1462 said:

Tempest improvements where?

Fraking overload alac improvements where?

[Markus.6415]

On 11/20/2022 at 2:23 AM, Drag You Down.2615 said:

but if you don't have quick or alac in your build, you are done as a healer. They are REQUIRED for most groups, especially alac. So Druid must have spirits, Tempest must have LS, and Mech is much more needed and welcomed than Scrapper because Mech has alac, but Scrapper only has quick.

 

If you dont have defensive boons or have less healing and shielding, people will just say "fine, just grab your alac and quick."

 

So I tried Harbinger healer, with very inconsistent healing, but mostly doing DPS and offensive boons, and it is welcomed......

That's why i put it "quick OR alac and maybe fury". Meant that you need to have either of those, but don't provide both. I guess i didn't write it clear enough.