Point-By-Point Feedback From a Casual

[Kalthea.4326]

As the title suggests, this is my personal feedback on the upcoming changes. A bit late, I know, considering the number of topics that are already out there, but I feel it's a good idea to put my two cents out there as an average casual player. Most of these perspectives will be coming from a PvE point if view, but I'll also be tossing in some of my opinions on a PvP and WvW view as well.

 

Quote

Core

• Fierce Blow: The bonus damage from this skill will now affect defiant enemies.
• Banner of Tactics: This skill now breaks stuns on allies in addition to its other effects.
• Unsuspecting Foe: This trait now gives a 25% critical chance bonus when striking defiant foes, in addition to its previous effect. These bonuses do not stack.
• Merciless Hammer: The bonus damage from this trait will now always affect defiant foes.

Berserker

• Outrage: This skill no longer grants bonus berserk duration when breaking a stun, and instead it grants bonus berserk duration when an enemy is nearby. Reduced berserk duration when an enemy is nearby from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Scorched Earth: Increased power coefficient from 0.35 to 0.42 in WvW only.
• Bloody Roar: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to grant less increased damage than intended.

Spellbreaker

• Breaching Strike: This skill now deals bonus damage to foes without boons.
• Enchantment Collapse: Increased internal cooldown from 0.99 to 1.04 in WvW only.

Core

• Fierce Blow: This is a welcome change, though it should have been baseline considering enemies cannot have their break bars destroyed for a painful amount of time, and when they do it goes straight into lockdown again after a 10s burst phase.
• Banner of Tactics: This is a nice sentiment, though I fear its usefulness will be severely limited. I can foresee a possible ranged support build in PvP where you sit back and heal from afar, but the occasions where this becomes useful would be a tight window to actually pull off the stun break.
• Unsuspecting Foe: See Fierce Blow ^
• Merciless Hammer: See Fierce Blow ^

Berserker

• Outrage: This isn't the worst change, as now it's just a matter of staying in melee to achieve the extra duration. The reduction to duration is a bit painful, and I feel that this only further encourages Bow to be played in melee, but it at least doesn't require a setup in order to be used. I would personally rather it be a 10s duration buff that makes all of the damage you deal add to your time up to a cap of 5-ish seconds.
• Scorched Earth: It's nice to see some power coefficient increases for WvW, but this one is a near complete backpedal from the change made to this skill in June when it was 0.5.
• Bloody Roar: This is just a bug fix that honestly I'm surprised took this long to address.

Spellbreaker

• Breaching Strike: This is a nice change that I feel will provide a slight boost to a PvE spellbreaker, but it will be a near-impossible feat to pull off in PvP or WvW. The sheer number of boons people can put out now makes a spellbreaker's attempt at removing them ever-more difficult, especially when you consider the nerf to Winds that made it only cut the time on boons instead of removing them, and further nerfs to the boon removal of the spec like the one below. And this isn't even mentioning how it is completely shut down by the traits that just pulse boons to allies while in combat, or at least is so ridiculously difficult to time for damaging attacks that it may as well be impossible.
• Enchantment Collapse: An increased internal cooldown may not seem like much, but it can mean the difference in a fight with that slight bit of might or protection you could have stripped from the enemy. This change, when considering past changes as well, just makes me wonder why Spellbreaker was added to the game if we're going to continue nerfing the only unique function it brings to a team fight, especially when that function already is becoming more difficult to perform as more and more boons are added to the rotation of every class

 

I realize that a lot of my points may have been stated previously, but hopefully it at least is provided in a more concise way, and offers up a viewpoint that is a bit more "average".

[Shagie.7612]

2 hours ago, Kalthea.4326 said:

Outrage: This isn't the worst change, as now it's just a matter of staying in melee to achieve the extra duration. The reduction to duration is a bit painful

For what it's worth, it's more or less just a reversion to pre-Headbutt change, since you used it twice per headbutt CD.

Old, with self-stunning: Stun removal 5s + regular use 1s, for 6s total
New: 3s + 3s, for 6s total.

It's just consistent now without headbutt being a guaranteed self-stun. No more occasional lucky 5s increases from getting CC'd and breaking it during the in-between cast, though. But it should bring war back to where it was before in maintaining zerk uptime.

[Kalthea.4326]

1 hour ago, Shagie.7612 said:

For what it's worth, it's more or less just a reversion to pre-Headbutt change, since you used it twice per headbutt CD.

Old, with self-stunning: Stun removal 5s + regular use 1s, for 6s total
New: 3s + 3s, for 6s total.

It's just consistent now without headbutt being a guaranteed self-stun. No more occasional lucky 5s increases from getting CC'd and breaking it during the in-between cast, though. But it should bring war back to where it was before in maintaining zerk uptime.

Yeah, like I said, not the worst change. I would just prefer things to be a bit more usable in varying builds, as this setup is entirely focused on melee (even if that is all of our builds right now).

[eXruina.4956]

im looking forward to the bloody roar bug fix, it will be relevant. how impactful the damage will be remains to be seen. but warrior is thristy for damage so every bit helps.

 

im also hoping the banner of tactics change will stun break the warrior on cast. fingers crossed. 🤞

 

 

[Kalthea.4326]

8 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

im looking forward to the bloody roar bug fix, it will be relevant. how impactful the damage will be remains to be seen. but warrior is thristy for damage so every bit helps.

 

im also hoping the banner of tactics change will stun break the warrior on cast. fingers crossed. 🤞

 

 

Assuming it's the fix I think it is, it will be changing from an additive bonus to multiplicative bonus, which is how it functioned before the balance update in October (I think). This will be more of a "return to form" than a huge change, but I'm hoping it becomes competitive with Spellbreaker (which is something I should not be saying since those two eSpecs are in the same Profession)

[eXruina.4956]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:20 PM, Kalthea.4326 said:

Assuming it's the fix I think it is, it will be changing from an additive bonus to multiplicative bonus, which is how it functioned before the balance update in October (I think). This will be more of a "return to form" than a huge change, but I'm hoping it becomes competitive with Spellbreaker (which is something I should not be saying since those two eSpecs are in the same Profession)

its been bugged way before oct, close to a year already i think 🤔

 

right now even a quickness core war running banners can out dps a pure damage berserker running signets.

 

when it gets fixed, you'll see less spellbreaker in pve. berserker has always been the prefered pve spec. both for its aesthetic and simple gameplay.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

12 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

its been bugged way before oct, close to a year already i think 🤔

 

Sure about that? That bug seems to have been actioned in response to a fairly recent thread by a snowcrows member who noticed the change immediately after the berserker change in October. 

If it was incorrect all this time I won't complain, but don't get my hopes up. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[eXruina.4956]

26 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

Sure about that? That bug seems to have been actioned in response to a fairly recent thread by a snowcrows member who noticed the change immediately after the berserker change in October. 

If it was incorrect all this time I won't complain, but don't get my hopes up. 

i'm not sure myself, i may be mistaken, so i apologize if i am, but i'm pretty sure it was bugged way before October. 🤔

 

 

[Myror.7521]

@eXruina.4956 @Azure The Heartless.3261

Bloody Roar is in its buggy state since the last time they just "buff" it from 20% to 25% boost. This was at 23.August 2022.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

6 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

Sure about that? That bug seems to have been actioned in response to a fairly recent thread by a snowcrows member who noticed the change immediately after the berserker change in October. 

If it was incorrect all this time I won't complain, but don't get my hopes up. 

It was before that thread. The removal of the 'Tradeoffs' exacerbated things.

[eXruina.4956]

2 hours ago, Pati.2438 said:

@eXruina.4956 @Azure The Heartless.3261

Bloody Roar is in its buggy state since the last time they just "buff" it from 20% to 25% boost. This was at 23.August 2022.

thank you pati 🙂