November 29 Balance Update Preview

[Demented Lemur.7861]

1 hour ago, Carnifex.3275 said:

Definitely needed more attention to daredevil traits and staff. There were so much feedback but nothin was done. Barely anyone uses daggers as a power weapon and yet it got the most attention. Didn't make sense. Sure golem benchmark on power DE D/D is huge but in reality barely anyone plays that and it didnt need any buffs. Yet it got buffed. Mostly people play pDrD or cDrD in PvE. And sadly 0 changes to those builds.

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

[Camniel.7238]

I'm just here to say that the Ele Scepter changes are wonderful! It's been my favorite Ele weapon for a long time but mostly because it was ranged and not Staff.

The Fire 2 was always a major nuisance, targets would almost always just walk out of the thing which made the skill completely useless. Changing it to follow the target is great imo, as long as players can still dodge the actual drop of the tooth.

Air 2 and 3 being single target always made me feel weak and vulnerable when in that attunement, and they felt very unimpactful. 3 targets is such a major improvement!

Water 2 change is perfect, no further comment. Water 3, I think it should still heal allies on strike but I'm glad it's not ground targeted. It was always a pain to aim that properly unless melee was stacked on a target. I think it would be better if Water 3 splashed a heal either at the target struck or at the caster's location. Either would be acceptable to me.

Earth 2 should feel much smoother to actually use with this update. The speed increase alone would have made a difference but I'm happy to see some barrier and resistance as well, unlooked for but quite welcome. Earth 3 being made to multitarget is great and I'm glad the blind is only on the first pulse.

I wouldn't mind seeing an option to make blinds do bleeding or something to properly allow for more Condi options. Right now, with these changes it's looking like Scepter is mostly a power weapon with some condi added in. I'd much rather see an option to switch between power and condi depending on the build. 

Also, thank you for removing that annoying Catalyst 10% damage nerf on Air.

[Bariel.3562]

25 minutes ago, zealex.9410 said:

You will have to go by page regen

In PVE perhaps but it won't work in WvW where you have to react to situations and adjust what you use  in that moment. 

19 minutes ago, Campioneri.7601 said:

 

Hah, welcome to the engi kit mechanic; you'll likely get used to the cooldown over time and just know. I play a lot of engineer and swapping into kits when the skills I need are up has become almost automatic. It's a skill barrier, but it is learnable.

One of the reasons I don't play engi to be honest as I never liked it. In PVE sure you can get used to rotations and roughly when to go back into a kit/book as you're playing to more fixed DPS rotations. In WvW though we're already trying to juggle keeping an eye on the subgroup, stability uptime, stun breaking and cleansing with either a signet for revival or a mantra . I don't need to be trying to remember what skill in which book is on what cooldown at any moment too. 

If Anet proceed with the change then why would any FB want to play WvW with less fun and more painful? (especially since supports get next to no loot bags for our efforts). There's still no viable alternative stability provider so it ultimately just damages the game mode.

[Serephen.3420]

8 minutes ago, Camniel.7238 said:

I'm just here to say that the Ele Scepter changes are wonderful! It's been my favorite Ele weapon for a long time but mostly because it was ranged and not Staff.

The Fire 2 was always a major nuisance, targets would almost always just walk out of the thing which made the skill completely useless. Changing it to follow the target is great imo, as long as players can still dodge the actual drop of the tooth.

Air 2 and 3 being single target always made me feel weak and vulnerable when in that attunement, and they felt very unimpactful. 3 targets is such a major improvement!

Water 2 change is perfect, no further comment. Water 3, I think it should still heal allies on strike but I'm glad it's not ground targeted. It was always a pain to aim that properly unless melee was stacked on a target. I think it would be better if Water 3 splashed a heal either at the target struck or at the caster's location. Either would be acceptable to me.

Earth 2 should feel much smoother to actually use with this update. The speed increase alone would have made a difference but I'm happy to see some barrier and resistance as well, unlooked for but quite welcome. Earth 3 being made to multitarget is great and I'm glad the blind is only on the first pulse.

I wouldn't mind seeing an option to make blinds do bleeding or something to properly allow for more Condi options. Right now, with these changes it's looking like Scepter is mostly a power weapon with some condi added in. I'd much rather see an option to switch between power and condi depending on the build. 

Also, thank you for removing that annoying Catalyst 10% damage nerf on Air.

It being ground targeted (while not the greatest loss) made it great for heal alac tempest, heck it being able to heal allies was the reason it was used for that spec at all. Now it's become a 100% selfish weapon, they literally killed scepter HAT with one skill change....I hope the trident changes don't go through or includes healing to allies. I don't want to have to deal with hiw awful mh dagger is as a heal tempest. 

Dragon tooth changes, time will tell if it's good or awful.

 

And untelated but catalyst is a rollercoaster, was it a buff? A nerf?

Looks like dps cata got a noticeable nerf. With aura changes, especially with EE and both variants of cata got nerfed by slower energy generation.  So providing quick got harder, and doing dps got harder.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Serephen.3420

[DraconicArchery.3754]

Hi! I'm a PVE deadeye main (1k hours on it), I'm not a big fan on the changes. This overall feels more a nerf than a buff. Removing 2 initiative to a slower walking speed feels like a bigger nerf than the 1 initiative for immobility. Secondly, the range of deadeye shouldn't be reduced especially for what flavor of the deadeyes are. Especially when you confront an actual deadeye in story, she can do insane damage from an incredibly long range. The only-ranged dps has less range than non-range dps classes like Rangers and Engineer feels like a genuine insult to what it means to play deadeye. Deadeye is my favorite elite spec to play, and if these changes go through, I honestly might change to specter or daredevil because it'll be genuinely more fun to play than what the deadeye would become.

[Superluigi.1062]

For the most part I am quite happy with the proposed changes for catalyst.

The only thing that bothers me a bit is that the trait Empowered Empowerment wasn't changed at all. In my opinion it feels weird that this trait does absolutely nothing while you are not at 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment. I think it would be more interesting if it actually just always improved your Elemental Empowerment stacks, either by always doubling the effect so that every stack grants 2% all stats no matter how many stacks you have or by increasing the effect of elemental empowerment to 1,5% all stats per stack and an additional 5% while at 10 stacks

[AquaBR.9250]

Moving during your big sniper headshot is wrong, wanna have us walk during "kneel"? fine, but you dont need to let us walk during every skill in the game, some skills have a unique feeling precisely because you can't walk while casting, and why nerf the range in pve tho? If is only when standing its fine, just like old deadeye.

 

Removing ground targeting from skills is bad too, youre supposed to do the opposite.

 

I keep my feedback that the vindicator dodge changes killed the entire identity of the class mechanic and made (at least for me) very unfun to play, id rater play draredevil who can do the same thing but 1 more time.

 

And before i forget: bring Ricochet back

[the krytan assassin.9235]

1 hour ago, Griifen.2473 said:

Elementalist 
No changes to tempest, regardless of dps, alacdps, or heal. Anet really just couldn't care less about how poorly it's performing because of how the alac works and how unreliable it is because of the single long duration application that just doesn't work in unorganized pug groups. You still won't see it being played. 
Really good buffs to catalyst, you'll 100% see quickness dps catalyst again, so rejoice ele players!

Condi scepter Weaver is going to be so strong now, it got some huge buffs! It's currently doing 39k dps as condi dps and this patch is going to push it well cover 40k dps, fully ranged damage. Even the fire only scepter catalyst and fire only tempest low intensity builds will see small buffs because of scepter buffs. 
Power burst scepter Weaver will 100% see a comeback in pvp and WvW. Gonna need to be watch out for these 1 second one shots from weavers bexusee they will be returning!

not entirely correct:

 

PvE temp gets a massive heal nerf. Water trident healing is completely removed, nets around a 500hps loss per ally. Also cuts the ranged healing of dagger/scepter healing in half (scepter is basically dead now)

For WvW it's a good buff to support tempest. Elemental bastion healing is boosted by ~800 per aura now. Still no panic button/stunbreak/invul/port for tempest unless you pick an extra utility which greatly affects the amount of support you can provide. 

Qcata gets ~15-20% dps increase, but still probably only able to provide ~29-30k max on bench. Given the difficulty level and major dps dropoff in suboptimal fights it's probably still not worth it. Aegis is pretty decent for earth sphere, but will result in a big dps loss since you currently need fire/water for your augments and air for quick/lighting field. 

Phammer cata will get a dps increase, 5% extra dmge on empowering aura's and orb dmge is boosted abit aswell i think. My best guess would be a 40k golem bench tops (3k dps increase). 

Trait change of elemental epitome (only triggered when catalyst casts aura on himself) is a pretty big nerf. It's a massive hit for WvW cata and a big hit for any cata that is struggling to upkeep 10 stacks of EE and was relying on another cata/tempest to provide the extra stacks. 

Condi scepter weaver hasn't got any buffs in PvE, only difference is you need to cast some burning on the enemy before providing phoenix, so if any it's a small nerf for pve. All other changed scepter skills are not being used at all by PvE sc/f weaver. 

For WvW zergfights the prefered weapon is still gonna be staff. the difference between 900 and 1200 range is massive in WvW. 900 range and closer is like a dead zone in WvW most of the time due to the incredible amount of boonrips/dps that unlocks at that range. 

Elementalist scepter roaming/sPvP got boosted quite abit, but it's a build that is currently played by maybe ~5% of the roaming/spvp playerbase tops, has an incredibly high skillcap and probably still no viable alternative for the 95% that aren't roam/spvp gods.

Earth shield however took quite a big hit which was basically run by every single ele in sPvP. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by the krytan assassin.9235

[SaffronCity.3402]

Omg! Leave the mirage ambush staff skill ALONE for the love of God and give us something useful for the 3rd staff skill please! This is yet another balance patch preview that threatens this build which is so mind boggling since it's not topping the DPS or popularity charts. I'm starting to feel like staff ambush skill is becoming 2008 Britney and we just want you to LEAVE HER ALONE!

Edited November 11, 2022 by SaffronCity.3402

[Sorasnobody.9350]

I'm just gonna drop my thoughts here in the spirit of giving feedback ig as usually I don't tend to.

 

Really happy about the changes with Catalyst, the -10% dmg felt rather brutal and hammer's orb skills now being more reliable is very much welcomed. Aegis is nice too! I feel it will give quickness dps Catalyst at least a fighting chance.

 

However, in the same light, I am really sad that energy has not been touched at all. Every other weapon on Catalyst feels less impactful as they don't build energy near as quick as hammer. I know hammer is the spec's weapon, but it feels a little like beta Untamed where everything was tied to just Hammer. It was pulled out and every weapon was given an unleashed skill. Other weapons on Catalyst are okay (kinda falling short) because they build energy so slowly sometimes so getting spheres off is hell. It slows down the fast paced gameplay and makes the spec feel clunky. I really hope energy is being looked at in the future. 

 

More energy access, higher energy cap, sphere deployment cost reductions or just energy being scrapped entirely. It would really smoothen out playing Catalyst for sure. Glad to see some changes in the right direction though!

 

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by Sorasnobody.9350
Typo

[ScottBroChill.3254]

ok so this isn't a comment on the balance quality, but I feel like the changes to the skills almost make the animations and everything not like fit the style. The last couple of updates did that and it was weird. It reminds me of when they sped up spirit summoning in gw1 and the ritualist animation was meant to be slower and last longer, sped up it looked ridiculous.

Other than that, I'm glad firebrand got nerfed to the real world of resources and tradeoffs. Glad ele got some damage back, I'm hoping that hammer 3 change means that the legendary hammers no longer replace the animation cuz that looked so bad. Glad scepter got some changes, we'll see what happens. Like the changes from vulnerability to chill. vindicator performs well but man is whack.

Also I'm not a big fan of these skill splits that have vastly different effects, or at least the removal of important effects. Maybe I'm weird, but if you want to make the skills basically serve a different purpose why not just replace the skill icon to help with realizing the difference. Having stab on a skill in pve and then not having it in pvp can really screw you up if you don't constantly play it. 

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

I'm very sorry to see this update. We wait so long for improvements, and I have to say this is not improving the competitive modes. 

It is clear that you do not listen to your competitive player base as a whole.

You all seem very out of touch and your direction, lacks direction. 

This is not just a PVE GAME, it needs WAY more attention to the competitive modes. My only hope is that someday you will consider this, until then, I'm looking for new game. 

GL.

 

[Mauti.3520]

Hey CMC!
Please stop playing your D/D Catalyst in PvP/WvW for once and join a pug for Raids and in particulary Strike or Fractal Challenge Motes!

As DPS Weaver, as Heal Alacrity or DPS Alacrity Tempest, as Quickness or DPS Catalyst. Play it for a couple of weeks, try some other classes with the same role then and there.

And then come back and tell us if those preview notes are the changes Ele needed for now. No pulsing Alacrity on Overloads. No buffs to Sword. No changes to the mindboggingly atrocious set of Elementalist Utility Skill Pool. Nothing "but scepter in PvP, I now can do dis stuff with it". 

Enjoy the pleasures of a 11k HP stuck in a 4 seconds Overload for half the encounter Fresh Air Power Alacrity Tempest on MAMA 98 Fractal CM, seeing all your alacrity and most of your dps in shambles (and pray you actually survive it as you don't want to dodge lol on an overload) when eating a single CC, and then log onto your Alac Mechanist, go afk, deal more damage, deal trice the breakbar damage and remove boons from the boss and adds with Throw Mine while buffing Alac and Might from auto attacks and a pet that is immune to CC and almost immortal.

What the hell friendo. This games balance is partially so unjust and unfair it almost physically hurts at times.

If "Bleeding on Shearing Edge" (that's a Sword 3 skill for Air+Water mix attunement you almost NEVER EVER SEE and bleeding won't change that) for Weavers and some scepter "changes" that nerfs heal tempest indirectly are the only changes in PvE after that still I stand staggered. I appreciate the fixes to Catalyst but core issues and Tempest and Weaver are like what?

In the end: do we play the same game, friend?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Mauti.3520

[EvilZombie.6801]

Just nerf the numbers don't fk engineer rifle cuurent animation... you are killing it less proc for sigil, 33% lost for firearm sharpshooter and projectile finsher 

[ZEUStiger.3590]

1 hour ago, Stadsport.8714 said:

Bloody Roar really needs to move from 25% up to about 33% in order to remain competitive with other DPS classes, many of which can pump out MORE than Berserker can, despite having less challenging rotations, but I'm cautiously optimistic to see where the correction puts it (assuming this is the additive > multiplicative change that's been discussed over the last few months). I'm happy to see this finally get addressed, I don't believe it will be enough to make Berserker competitive/"meta" again, but here's hoping.

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

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

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

New patch and the next ele nerf: Do devs even understand the implications of this Hammer-3-Change? With the pulsing field of 1-sek  catalyst cannot generate enough energy to do its rotation. So even if calculating those buffs, due to not be able to use 4-sphere rotation and go back to a 3-sphere rotation this patch is another damage nerf for catalyst, killing it even further. Very good job if devs do not understand their own game...

[RasSativa.5109]

Deadeye changes are wierd and don't seem to fit the theme of the spec. Dragonhunter and ranger have longer range then a "sniper".

 

It feels like the changes are made for PVP instead of PVE. There are good dmg build out there for deadeye without rifle. If you want to change rifle think dropping range in favor of movement isn't the right way. Especially if you are scraping your knee over the floor at a pace of a snail. I think other changes could be better to help deadeye in pve.

 

or at least put the range back in the way of a trait.

 

For elementalist. Put the alactrity of tempest either in the beginning or pulsing during overload. Everytime you go in overload and get interrupted by boss mechanics you drop alac upkeep. It really doesn't work good at all.

[Aurora.9347]

Reaper buffs are nice, but reaper dmg before death perception got nerfed was already very bad, around the 34 k benchmark, meaning when they nerfed they simply destroyed a bad spec and made it worst, i was hoping to see death perception buffed to what it was, but guess not, and now with gravedigger not being spammable, and yea i did not enjoy it, but spamming the combo of the gs to reduced the cd of gravedigger don't think it'll be much better, i think the increase in the benchmark is so minimal that it feels like reaper is still just the same, we might get what 500 more dps out of this maybe 1k, our benchmark is ridiculously low, so this is just bad and tbh i like it they take it slow, but please there are classes that need way more and being slow only makes them frustrating to play, and nothing will make the players use those specs if they see the dps is still trash, like the reaper or dragonhunter, lucky DH seem to have gotten some nice changes i still say it was little to nothing, the only good change i saw in the reaps was the trait cd reduced of the internal cooldown of the chilling nova and the soul barbs, those are rly good if only we had gotten the old death perception back to what it was i think the spec would be in a good dps spot, a lot of other classes also needed more attention but i can only speak of these two since i dont know much about the others, i only see the benchmarks, not only that we still got harbringers utilities locked... which is crap, pure crap, i hate it so much....

[Zepoolpe.9217]

5 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 players.

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

Edited November 11, 2022 by Zepoolpe.9217

[zakkles.4158]

28 minutes ago, SaffronCity.3402 said:

Leave the mirage ambush staff skill ALONE for the love of God and give us something useful for the 3rd staff skill

DPS alac mirage has used staff 3 for clone generation for a number of weeks now (higher DPS than self-deception). link

[Nero.7369]

Make Sneak Gyro viable again!

It's absutely trash tier now and worse then the tool belt skill throw elexier s. And this is called an elite skill. It should have a similar power level like massinvis.

Also self superspeed on scrapper should be increased. And quickness should be shared again in comp. Just strip the massive superspeed share in wvw.

Else as a Engi and Guard main I'd call that good changes for Dragon Hunter, Firebrand and Holo.

Core Engineers need some love tho.. and a bit of reworks here and there. Box of nail still is a joke and just like another (conditional) glue bomb or glue shot... Kina boring imo. The rifle auto attack nerf is questionable... Back to bombs auto attack if it's to much I guess.

And Willbender needs love too. Specially their heal skill... It only negates the DMG but not the attack itself.. so cc skills will still interrupts one .. -.-* Make it a 1 sec block. Give once additional healing if we block ssth And take a look at Power and Alac Willy. Condi willy might be now better than FB for pure DPS, which is good.

Hammer on guardian could get some rework it's so slow and clunky. Maybe I'm just jealous on the recent warrior hammer and corresponding traits buffs there 😄

I am a bit worried about dragon tooth on ele scepter cause it's a skill now with high damage you can't avoid by good movement. And i fear we are forced to use a Dodge every 8 sec because it sticks on us. But I guess we will see how it plays out

Edited November 12, 2022 by Nero.7369

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

Corrupt Boon: Meh, no way this can be used in PvE and its current form is meh on WvW
Spectral Armor: I don't use it so meh.
Signet of Spite: Cool! Passive is nearly useless in PvE (even untraited minions add more DPS) but surprisingly deathly against thieves and mesmers on WvW (IF you can land it.)
Signet of the Locust: Hmm. I tried it once but not very practical.
Soul Barbs: Useful I think, specially out of shroud.
Chilling Nova: This thing seriously increases Reaper's DPS so kitten yeah!
Nightfall: This breaks the GS #4-5 combo. Change Grasping Darkness too or let it be!
Dusk Strike: ಠ_ಠ
Chilling Scythe: WAT?! More Gravedigger spam?
Death's Charge: Cool, I guess.
Executioner's Scythe: Still useless as a DPS skill but thanks, I guess.

TL;DR
still have no way to fight 1 on 1 in WvW as a Reaper and we gain like 1% DPS... Again... =:/

Edited November 12, 2022 by Arianth Moonlight.6453

[Anonynja.3172]

Overall pretty positive changes. New approach to FB tomes seems smart. I am concerned about class homogenization with changes like Deadeye's range and kneel,  and pulling back on Elementalist's unique weapon/attunement interaction by making Scepter solely DPS.

And I'm concerned with the band-aid approach, just tweaking numbers and not addressing underlying issues. For example, Specters are jumping in and out of their shroud just to give allies barrier. That's not ideal. But ANet does not attempt to address the cause, instead slapping a cooldown on exiting shroud 😕 

As a revenant main PvE player:

Please give Vindicator internal synergy. The class is completely pigeonholed as selfish power DPS in PvE, while risking being overpowered in PvP/WvW. I think Vindicator needs its middle traits and Energy Meld to be completely changed. Make its healing and damage abilities interact and complement each other. Like how Specter gives barrier when it applies venom, or how Virtuoso heals on blade stocking and damages on blade use. Cuz right now, Saint Viktor and Archemorous feel completely divorced from each other.

Herald didn't really need damage buffs, but thank you 😄 The cooldown reduction on those consume skills will give Quickness Heralds more flexibility using their stunbreak, heal, and CC more deliberately rather than always off cooldown. That's great!! I am really enjoying seeing Herald finally shine.

Renegade also feels amazing right now, very versatile without being too strong, I have no complaints about it. Such a well-designed spec.

[Fray.3417]

Anet, could you please not randomly delete Staxe mirage ("staff/axe")? It's one of the most interesting mesmer builds in a long time and basically reactivated my interest in the game. Is Staxe really such a common pick that it needs to be removed from the game? That's what this change does. No one will play Staxe over regular alacrity staff/staff and regular DPS axe/axe. Why do you want to delete this from the game when it's finally an interesting build for mesmer?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Fray.3417

[pkme.6870]

Overall a good direction for minor improvements.

thanks for those carefully thinking.

 

1. greedy players like me would like to see more of pre patch notes just like this one and live streaming you missed last 10 years.

 

2. Is it possible to see some weapons get back to viable or at least revamp/fix them a little bit? Some weapon seems not exist in game anymore.