February 14 Balance Update Preview

[shinvold.3618]

On 2023. 2. 3. at 오전 9시 19분, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Shadow Meld: This skill no longer removes revealed in PvP and WvW.

Stealth is the alpha and omega of a thief. If it simply says "stealth is a scam, you can't counter it, it annoys opponents!", just delete the thief. I'm not sure what the hell you're trying to do with a class that has the least health and can only rely on stealth.

Especially for the rifle Deadeye, stealth is essential not only for survivability, positioning, but also for consuming Malice to regain initiative and start the next attack cycle. Unlike other stealth attacks where you remain stealth if you don't hit, just activating Death's Judgment already makes you Revealed. DJ is pre-marked, has a delay, and is relatively easy to dodge or block.

If you remove Shadow Meld's Revealed removal ability in PVP and WVW, other skills that force Revealed skills should also be nerfed(ex. "On My Mark!", Spear of Justice, "Sic 'Em!", Gaze of Darkness, etc.. .). The Revealed duration of these skills is over 5 seconds, and even instant cast, the range is insane. Perfect for making a fool of a thief with one skill that's virtually unavoidable.

The only way to counter this is Shadow Meld.

Thieves do not have strong defensive skills such as Block, Invulnerability, Distortion, and Aegis. Shadowstep is just a movement skill that most classes already have. Only dodge (evasion) and stealth are theif's lifelines.. Even if the thief casts Stealth, incoming attacks during stealth casting will still follow and damage the thief(ex. Ranger's rapid fire). Is this really an ability that should be overwhelmingly discriminated against?

To be honest, I'm in favor of nerfing stealth. Smoke & leap combo's 3 second stealth seems a bit long. However, I think we should go in the direction of reducing excessive benefits after stealth rather than preventing entering stealth. For example slowing movement speed while stealthing, limit of additional stealth time while stealthing, "marking" a target that remains after stealthing...

Most of the complaints about stealth are probably not so much the stealth itself, but the combination of stealth and other benefits (e.g. super speed) creates situations that are difficult for non-stealth classes to predict or respond to.

In conclusion, the nerf to Shadow Meld is really hard to understand to me. That is the way to completely ruin a class identity and gameplay.

Edited February 4, 2023 by shinvold.3618

[SponTen.1267]

I gotta say, I'm really, really glad to hear some of the design philosophies you guys are discussing and moving forward with. At the moment, I'm mostly referring to the Mantra changes, and what was mentioned on stream about rebalancing Might application for supports.

It's often not immediately popular to make things different for the sake of variety, especially if the change makes something harder, or "clunkier". But it's much, much better for the longevity of the game when there's more variety in skills and playstyles.

Not everyone wants boons to be passive, or even instant cast "just press this button after cooldown to permanently boost your power". Not everyone spends most of their game time in Raids/Strikes. In fact, I'd argue that most people wouldn't fall into either of these buckets. Hell, there's definitely a lot of people posting about how they want boons and utility skills to not just be "spam off cooldown".

You can't have both at the same time, but you can have some skills/builds that are more passive, and some that aren't. That's one of the amazing things about GW2; there's just so much freaking diversity. Yes, that's being different for the sake of being different.

And that's a good thing.

Please continue with this type of balance, ANet. Make some skills high risk/high reward, like Meteor Shower being clunky, but super high damage (it does need a bit more). Make some require preparation, but they provide lots of effects, like Mantras. Others can be simpler and easier to use, but do one thing really well or two things somewhat-well, like Field of the Mists (although Rev Hammer needs more buffs), or Dolyak Signet.

And I'm curious to see what Might changes are coming; I agree that it should be very rare and/or difficult for a single build to upkeep 25 Might, and I actually think you should extend this to Quickness and Alacrity too. That way, more builds can focus on dps with a bit of support (eg. Banner Warriors), and the selfish dps builds like Weaver and Reaper can pump maximum dps (more buffs for Reaper?).

[Firebeard.1746]

I have extremely mixed feelings about the mantra change. I really liked being able to just use them whenever and not have to think about where to place them on my rotation, especially on my HB. I'm willing to give it a go, but please don't tell me that it's going to make HB feel bad. 

 

[Yeldo.4576]

Reaper changes are insignificant....Reaper as a selfish DPS class CANNOT dps seriously...all other classes doing insane damage and giving buffs and Reaper can't even do one of them...might as well delete the class

[ollbirtan.2915]

• Soothing Disruption no longer reduces recharge of cantrips

Great job...NOT. Removing the cooldown reduction without compensating the corresponding skills like for other professions. Where the kitten is the logic here? 

[Storub.5907]

1. Lucid Singularity changes are a good step in the right direction. Most other supports provide their main boons via uninterruptible or instant cast skills, so being knocked out of the overload felt uniquely bad for tempest.

2. Mantras being reverted back is a win for flavor and skill identity, but I cant help but feel that auto-preparation mechanic is just a crutch for the bigger problem. Having played a bit of mesmer with original mantras, having to prepare them always felt unique. While I understand that it can become annoying after a few hundred hours, I believe it can be solved with worth-while on-prepare effects.
 

3. Specter buffs are nice, but there are still a few things to do:
- Wells feel awful in PvE due to long cast times. They are very clunky to use in rotation. Their range is very short compared to other thief mobility options which, combined with long cast times, means it is frequently faster to just run somewhere instead of using a well for mobility (and if you have superspeed you might even run past the target point and get teleported back!). I understand the caution around making them better in competitive modes, so please at least consider un-clunking them in pve.

- Autotargeting on scepter weapon skills targets friendlies which feels awful in pve. Autotargeting is very useful in group play to target enemies that are buried under ally hitboxes. There are specific situations when you want to target an ally in scepter skills, but in those situations you can always click the target you need. Conversely, it is extremely frustrating to try to dps the boss only to end up bonking an ally. I am yet to encounter a situation when bonking a random ally is helpfull. Please consider adding a toggle in options that enables/disables ally autotargeting.

- Consume Shadows is still the only choice for dps specter and it still makes no sense. From the beginning, dsp specter had a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to tier1 traits - we are stuck choosing between 3 support traits, none of which increase our damage. Second Opinion is a straight up healer trait, Shallow Grave can screw us over if the (randomly chosen) tethered ally eats a oneshot, and Consume Shadows deletes our shadow force every time we exit shroud. The original numbers around Consume Shadows were overtuned, so even a full-dps specter was able to provide decent healing output simply by doing rotation, and the squad utility of it took the sting out of being forced to take it.

This lead to the justified nerf - total shadow force was cut in ~half, shadow force generation was cut by ~half, and healing output of Consume Shadows was severely reduced.

After all the changes, specters are barely getting quarter of shadow force we used to, and the squad utility of it is gone. Where before one would comfortably get the full 20k bar before having to go into shroud and full-healing your squadmates on exit, now we can barely get half of a 10k bar in the same time and a value of a single 4k-heal in a group with 2 other healers is minuscule. The additional damage reduction while in shroud is nice, but nowhere near enough when you have an effective HP of 5k.

I understand the potential competitive problems with increasing shadow force generation, so I believe it would be better to combine Second Opinion with Consume Shadows, while creating a new condi-dps-focused trait in its place. This will enable more build options for dps-specter - a selfish specter that does not provide healing through shadow force, but has no problems with getting kicked out of shroud, and a support-dps specter that provides increased healing from Consume Shadows (due to additional healing power from Second Opinion), but has to play around having less shadow force.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Storub.5907

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Overall changes are interesting, but you kinda do some very weird stuff here and there for some reason.
Elementalist: You removed the "reduced cooldown" for Cantrips, yet Mist Form and Armor of Earth didn't get any buffs or based cooldown reduced at all, which will still make them very garbage skills in WvW. In case of Scepter nerfs, you nerfed it's damage here and there, but you still didn't touch something that should be touched aka "Additional Burning" in Fire Attument Flamestrike and Phoenix, these 2 can be kinda toxic in WvW and pretty much kill anything with just 11111111, very bad design. Changes for Tempest, Weaver and Catalyst are whatever. Staff buffs are nice, but you're kinda making it Support Weapon, at this point replace it's damaging skills since they hit like wet noodle in WvW with more Support, because why not.
Engineer: Where are nerfs to grenades damage? They deal far too much damage for peanuts that are barely even visible on screen. Mortar has too big AoE radius. Rest of changes are decent, although I'd restrict amount of superspeed that Scrapper can generate. Mechanist is something that shouldn't exist in PvP/WvW in the first place.
Guardian: Core changes are fine. Dragonhunter is a bit questionable here and there, especially Hunter's Determination, it may be a bit too strong, having additional Break Stun on Elite Skill. Can't say much about Firebrand, I still think that elite spec is overstacked with access to 3 tomes at any time. Willbender needed nerfs though to either damage or mobility in WvW, yet I see none.
Mesmer: Interesting changes overall, though it would be nice to have some more boon removal. Time Warp could also convert Swiftness for additional Chill or even Slow every tick on enemies. In case of Chronomancer I still think there's something missing to make it more usable in WvW, changes are fine, but doesn't feel like it'll change that much. Like Well of Senility could daze on first impact instead on its final pulse or remove 1 more boon if enemy has more than 4 boons on them. Virtuoso needed nerf to possible condition output in WvW, it can get really bad.
Necromancer: Could you make Dagger Main-hand as a 600 range weapon? That weapon is all over the place, AA is melee, 2-3 is 600 range and 4-5 is 900. You could turn Daggers into some sort of "vampiric weapon", 1 would generate life force, 2 would steal hp from enemy, 3 would remove enemy boons and for each removed boon gain x health, 4 could steal life for each condition transfered and 5 could gain some life force based on boons converted. Quickening Thirst could give additional boon conversion to all skills or something. Reaper changes are meh, shouts will still be very weak in WvW. They may have low cooldowns but no one will pick them. I think Stances would be much better for Melee spec.
Ranger: This one is very questionable to say the least. Ranger has one of the strongest utility skills in the game with traits, so reducing their cooldowns for free is very big yikes. I would leave them alone without changes. In case of Soulbeast, lack nerfs for boon duration on it's stances is also big yikes. Untamed is still mess of a design.
Revenant: Core is whatever. Renegade changes won't make it strong in WvW in the slightest, they're more of QoL changes than anything. You could replace Bloodbone Path with something more decent than just Shatterstone x3, like fire a piercing shot in straight line to the target that will apply slow to enemies if they have bleed on them already or something. Vindicator needs nerfs in WvW, it's far too strong, not on the same level as Mirage at it's peak, but still can get pretty toxic with all the defense&offense packed together. Apply the nerfs from PvP into WvW as well.
Teef: HEH, the amount of buffs for that class is a big fat no. There should be some nerfs to it like removal of superspeed. There's also no need to buff condition removal, it already is pretty much unkillable with all the mobility, so giving them even more tools to not get punished from being dumdum is not really the way. These changes can go fully in PvE, but WvW? No. Daredevil buffs instead of nerfs, why? It's far too mobile already in WvW. Deadeye needs nerfs in stealth access and mobility, doesn't make sense class with 1.5k range has so much of it. Atleast you've removed counter to counter from it's elite skill, 5 years too late, but still welcome. Specter is hard to say, teef overall is spammable skill class, so need to see what will happen, I don't have any expectations for it.
Warrior: Stances are still weak though, I don't think I remember when last time I saw any warrior with stances. Rest of changes are ok and some of them could make into WvW as well, like cooldown reduction for Balanced Stance or Signet of Stamina, etc. I think you could do a bit more for Berserker, like "apply additional condition on skills if you're in berserk". Like if you have GS and go into Berserk then AA could apply slow on enemies, if you use bow then burn, if mace then bleed, if hammer then cripple, etc. For Spellbreaker I'd add more boons removal, even putting it on AA on Dagger chain would be fine instead of Might generation. Bladesworn will still feel clunky to use though, you may have put in better place, but you should really rethink it's burst. I don't think that charging mechanic is good enough to exist for Warrior as a whole.
You should also check conditions and boons in WvW, I really don't think they're in good spot.

Edit: Holy kitten, I forgot about Aquatic Stance, can you make a real healing skill for Weavers? It's so useless I forgotten that it even exists, lmao.
 

Edited February 4, 2023 by TrollingDemigod.3041

[Grand Marshal.4098]

3 hours ago, charles.9052 said:

Willbender virtues no longer remove the active effects of other willbender virtues.

Also in pvp and wvw?are you serious?

In the first pages where I was even polite about it, you can see how Willbender mains clearly are annoyed by us observing this utter bs.

Buffer Willbender cause yeah why not? 

Are you a warrior who wants to roam? Willbender! Are you a rev not on Cele? Willbender! Are you a thief? Willbender!

Sure we are the one coping though! 

[CivilDevil.5248]

On 2/3/2023 at 5:49 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

• Shadow Meld: This skill no longer removes revealed in PvP and WvW.

 

Super lame. This skill is not selected by players just to go into stealth. This skill helps us counter revealed skill used on us. Why do we even call this an elite skill then? Making sure that deadeye is no more good at 1v1. 

[Pseudonymous.2107]

8 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

They mentioned on the stream that you can untarget something to use Burning Speed/Earthen Rush for their full mobility. It just makes DPS with main hand dagger not so scuffed.

Oh, so it doesn't stop on untargeted enemies? That is such a relief.

[aymnad.9023]

Before patch:

I think talking about my expectations before the stream will explain why I am sometimes concerned when I see buffs. I was waiting for nerfs in PvP, everybody knows how some specs dominate the meta and / or are not fun to fight. In PvE I was expecting some buffs to less played builds, like rifle for deadeye or some small power coefficient for dh, but I was also expecting nerfs! The current damage can be really high in PvE. Are some specs really where they should be (example: spellbreaker damage being higher than berserker and soulbeast)? Does the sustain and damage of some specs need to be that high (example: virtuoso)?

 

Elementalist: Overall great for PvE (sometimes too much), not enough nerfs for scepter in PvP

• (+) Staff : More support for water, new targeting for air, stab on earth. Staff is an underused and underestimated weapon in PvE. While it does not have as much damage or boon as dagger / warhorn, its support when groups struggle is amazing and the large aoe make it a more stable option. I really hope a lot of people take this as an opportunity to play it more
• (+) Tempest : The alacrity on pulse is going to be huge.
• (-) Weaver dps increase looks like a lot. I do not think it needed that much.
• Cleansing fire : a bit scary for PvP / WvW.
• (-) Scepter PvP : It still has some strong defense. DT will still do more damage than a ranger Maul, while being range, having a larger aoe, being able to be cast while running away, not being able to be reflected, without being able to LoS. DT either needs to have the tracking removed or have a maximum coefficient of 1.

 

Engineer: It sounds good. It will make different mechanics feel way better

• (no idea) Damage dampener / rapid regeneration: I need to see the numbers in game and see how it feels.

 

Guardian: Some good buffs but ends up being too much.

• (+) Power buffs: ok
• (+) Hammer rework: The blink sounds really fun. The changes to auto and barrier are a nice plus.
• (+) Willbender: Some players will not notice it but this is a huge change.
• (-) Firebrand: Condi quick looks like it is going to be way too strong.
• (-) DH F2 / F3 buffs: this extra defense / sustain will be annoying in PvP / WvW. I do not think this was needed.
• (-) Gs 2: I know I will be in the minority on this but this could be too much. I played power guard in PvP even during PoF when people were only using condi and it already had a lot of damage. I would not be surprised if this gets nerfed later.
• (-) Firebrand elite: regains charges. During the stream they said “we will watch if this becomes too strong”. I think I already know the answer!

 

Mesmer: I have not played it enough to be sure. I guess the extra boons look nice for chrono.

• (+) Protected phantasms / Temporal enchanter : this looks really strong. Need to see how it turns out. 

 

Necromancer: Buffs. Not much to say

• (+) Warhorn : Necro will love the unblockable in PvP
• (+) Dagger : I am one of the few liking the weapon. It might make some builds really tanky.
• (+) Reaper: The shout changes are interesting. I wonder what “melee range” is. 130?
• (+) “Suffer” looks really interesting
• (-) "chilled to the bone” longer stun duration is really not needed and could be frustrating as you already destroy anything in seconds on reaper. Current shout is already strong enough.

 

Ranger: Lots of core buffs but strangely not to Nature Magic. I suggested in the past adding barrier or resistance sharing to unused traits in nature magic like invigorating bond so here I go again. Condi soulbeast could become annoying. Massive nerf to untamed playstyle in PvP.

• (+) Baseline survival reduction is going to be strong for any ranger build, even the dps options. Maybe too much on some skills?
• (+) Rugged growth: While the nerfs did decrease the impact of duelist rangers it is more because the meta of PoF and EoD is centered around teamfight and roaming (core ranger lacks both) that its popularity decreased.
• (+) Empathic bond: not really competing with Ws but still decent.
• (-) Signet of the hunt: 40s was too much but 20s cd looks a bit scary.
• (+) Signet of renewal: it will be really strong. 
• (-) Primal cry is overloaded I think. The poison synergy with the trait is nice but it already does a lot and deals some good damage. With the stance reductions condi soulbeast could become annoying to fight.
• (+ for the goal but - in practice) Unnatural traversal : I think this will have a huge negative impact on untamed in PvP. Ranger usually struggles to stay / go in close combat as long as other professions and it will just make the current playstyle feel weird. Nature binding could become a larger ring and corrupt / cc instead of the small cage.
• (+ and - ) Warhorn cd reduction is great but Windborn notes now lacks a bit of punch.

 

Revenant: I cannot comment that much about rev.

• (+) I am happy that Vindicator gets some nerfs as it has too much defense and offense.
• (+) Renegade Extra alacrity (mentionned in the stream but not here?) is good

 

Thief: This will be huge for the PvP meta.

• (+) Cd reductions: I do not know how impactful they are going to be. If I had to guess signet could see some play?
• (no idea) Daredevil F1: Shorter cd and a standard steal is huge. Swipe had been meta defining for so long. Need to see how it goes.
• (+) Deadeye Buffs:  It makes sense that you would try to make rifle more popular.
• (+ and -) Shadow melt: not removing anymore the counter to stealth. It should get a buff after this, maybe a boon, but thank you for making it better to fight.

 

Warrior:  I do not know what to think about this. I am a bit confused because there is everything. Good changes, bad changes and some I have no idea what to think of.

• (-) Mace: Making mace more frustrating to fight is not the way to go. It already makes you tanky because it has a lot of cc.
• (-) Banner of defense: this one is going to hurt. Maybe decreasing the base healing and increasing the coefficient could have been the way?
• (+ but maybe -) Berserker: Power in PvP still feels a bit on / off but the increased healing and aegis could be good. With the changes I wonder if condi berserker is going to be frustrating to fight or will be ok.
• (+) Full counter: Really good change. Not much to see for rangers and mesmers who keep giving free procs 😄  (was the cd reduction bug that some people mentioned fixed?). (edit : I would also have loved to see the daze duration being reduced)
• (-) Breaching strike: I understand the damage nerf but I would have done it differently because it will be too much. First I would have made the animation more noticeable.  Then I would either have reduced to damage somewhere between 10-20% or nerfed the base damage.
• (no idea) Bladesworn: I have no idea what to think here. Charging skills based on the amount of ammo sound cool but it could either be ignored or too strong. Are projectiles able to be reflected?

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by aymnad.9023

[Saurus.5361]

Overall a decent patch but there are some additional adjustment required for some of the weaker power dps builds. For example buffing reaper shouts is welcome but you are only buffing skills that are not currently used in the go-to dps build. So either these skills become slightly better and therefor reaper only gets a minor buff or they do not become better than signet and the 2 wells and reaper gets no buff at all. Same thing with dragonhunter. On one hand getting more variety is good but these builds, together with power beserker, are not lacking variety right now, they are simply lacking damage. Please bring the damage first and then playstyle options afterwards. 

 

Other than that I wish some elite specs would be more defined. Warrior is stuck on 3 more or les pure dps especs while engineer has 3 specs that do decent damage but also have significant support capabilities. If "bring the player not the class" is still your philosophy that needs to change. Support warrior (and mesmer) needs to be a thing. 

[Virtuality.8351]

I have made a few points in 4 separate posts.

• Guardian:
  [Feb. 14 Balance Patch] Hammer teleportation is welcomed - though perhaps misplaced.
• Elementalist:
  [Feb. 14 Balance Patch] PvE Power Weaver: Remove Superior Elements ICD
• Mesmer:
  [Feb. 14 Balance Patch] Mantra of Recovery requires further boost.
• Overall trend:
  [Feb. 14 Balance Patch] The trend that traits no longer reduce cooldowns is much welcomed.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Virtuality.8351

[Hyena.6157]

Heal Alacrity Specter:

1. Well of Silence: This skill has been reworked. It now dazes enemies on the initial strike, then removes conditions from allies in the area on each pulse. So now it has condition cleanse for the sub which is great! It would have been a bonus to have made it a light field instead of dark to allow for additional condi removal.

2. Would have also hoped that Well of Gloom (Heal Skill) would have been changed from dark field to water field for blasting heals and generating regen from projectiles.

3. Shadow Sap: The enemy-targeted version of this skill now grants might in an area around the specter. The ally-targeted version of this skill now grants protection. I was really hoping the protection would have also been an area boon for allies because the build struggles to generate protection. It would have been perfect to have added protection to Thrill of the Crime trait: When you Steal, you and all nearby allies gain fury, might, and swiftness for 10 seconds. Boon duration is roughly 60-70% which would allow permanent protection to be applied to allies.

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

Whyle in general some nice changes, i still  missing few adjustments:

Thief:

- missing CD-reduction for Withdraw, like it was done for the other tricks

- still missing compensation in CD-reduction after removing the CD-reduction-trait for deception skills in shadow arts

- Specter: Still no stunbreak for wells. Please add stunbreak to Well of Silence

Revenant:

- Renegade: Alac-inrease for "orders from above" not mentioned in the notes, but during the stream

- Herald: still no QoL improvement for apllying Quickness via "Draconic Echo" in terms of not wasting all skills for buffing but instead granting quickness per active upkeep-skill (1s per herald-upkeep, max. 3s, 2s other egends upkeep-skills)

Necromancer:

- Scourge was not even mentioned in the stream (iirc).

- still missing improvements to "Serpent Siphon"

- even the CD-reduction traits are not overhauled (Fell Beacon, Sadistic Searing) like in other specs

[Jijimuge.4675]

First off, thanks for keeping up the communication, Cal and Roy - it's good to understand your reasoning for changes.

In general, I like the changes.

Some positives which I particularly like-

+ The pulsing alacrity on Lucid Singularity
+ The support buffs to Ele staff
+ The return of mantras for Mes and FB (the art and voice acting were great, and this also improves the gameplay IMO)
+ The improvement of Applied Force - it's good to get people to have a meaningful choice to make at this tier
+ The return of the Glamour trait for Mesmer
+ Attention paid to Reaper shouts
+ The improvement to Renegade's "Orders from Above" - Mech does seem to dominate the Alacrity slot at present
+ Improvements to Deadeye rifle in PvE
+ The change to Banish for Guardian Hammer

Some of the things that concern or puzzle me -

- Ele's "Conjurer" trait seems seriously underwhelming if its only function is to provide fire aura on pick-up of a conjured weapon
- Ele's cantrip trait "Soothing Disruption" also seems underwhelming if it'll only provide regen and vigor on cantrip cast
- A bit worried that the FB elite Mantra of Liberation will be too powerful, but glad you're keeping your eyes on it
- A bit worried about projectile reflects in relation to the Bladesworn GunSabre autoattacks
- Am not convinced that enough has been done re Well of Action and Well of Senility.  There's still work to do here to enable a Chrono alacrity/wells playstyle IMO - it's still clunky
- Was disappointed not to hear you mention Mirage's 2nd dodge in competitive modes - would have been good to manage expectations at least - just letting people know that this is still on the cards and that it's something you're working on would have been nice and have reassured the community to some extent
- Was a bit surprised not to see any tweaks to Fervent Force for Untamed or to Virtuoso in PvE
 

Overall, though, I like the changes.  From an aesthetic point of view, I'm delighted that the mantra animations/barks will be back

 

[Alarm.7286]

We still remember cmc said that he will bring mirage 2 dodge bars back, yet no mirage updates at all 🙄

[blackgamma.1809]

No one is talking about the rise buff to 5 horrors and its scaring me

please clarify that this is a pve thing, because its because of wvw it got capped to 3

[Darkk.3018]

I've really enjoyed the last few balance patches under the new balance team. 

 

It's really just great to see them being at ease with reworking individual skills, skill types and traits. So much better than the time where it was all about numbers and incremental "shaves".  I don't think there has ever been so much viability in the PvE side of the game ever and it just feels like more builds become more viable every patch. I appreciate not everyone will get what they want, but not everything can be delivered all at once.

As a fan of staff ele, this patch made me really happy. Can totally see it becoming a thing again in WvW. Still hoping for some initiative changes on thief eventually, but I am optimistic this balance team will continue to deliver.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Darkk.3018

[Trigarta.3841]

Not a fan of mantras being reverted to their old functionality. I play my firebrand in WvW so I am not even getting the autoprepare I would get on a PvE map. Why even distinguish between gamemodes? I want the autoprepare in WvW too! If you really wanna go that route (and I really hope you reconsider and not revert the mantras!), at least give every gamemode that autoprepare mechanic. I don't see a reason why WvW and PvP should be excluded.

[rotten.9753]

Elementalist
Armor of Earth - why this skill has longer cooldown in PvE than in PvP? It's not even used in any of the builds, so the additional cooldown reduction in PvE would be welcomed. Additionally, 10 stacks of stability for 6 seconds (base) is just too many, you can only lose 1 stack every 0.75s, so those stacks don't give anything of value currently. Have you considered making it maybe AoE stability instead? Personal stability with cooldown of 50s can't really compete with alternatives that give AoE stability with fewer stacks but much lower cooldown.

Lightning Flash - this skill will now do more damage (per recharge) than Arcane Blast. Consider lowering its damage, so it's not taken strictly for dps increase, and either increase its range to 1200 or give it a stunbreak.

Air Staff - both unchanged skills, namely Lightning Surge and Static Field are still terrible and need some additional changes

Mesmer
Time Warp - the cooldown reduction would be welcomed in PvE, right now this skill isn't used even by Quickness Chrono as it competes with Gravity Well.

Chrono still need +5% critical chance trait, it was given only to virtuoso. IMHO, it should be moved to Master Fencer to be available for all Mesmer builds, not just Virtuoso.

[milumilu.1759]

Please for everything that's holy don't let these mantra changes go live. The quality of life the old rework offered made them fun and worth slotting in most occasions... I don't want to go back to those days of having to cast them, they were a huge pain and a big annoyance, please stop, they're fine as they are right now.

 

Reaper changes missed the mark again with no changes to greatsword's animation speed. Stowing shouldn't be a thing, AA shouldn't be that slow, is it that hard to give them a trait to make shroud no longer soak damage? the tech is there, you proved it with specter. Great shout changes though.

I'm not keen on weaver changes, elementalist has many problems, damage is not one of them. What's the point of making it go to 44k again?  instead of making it's rotation more fluid or increasing it's lifepool which has no reason to be that low in the current state of the game (at least for pve).

Guardian's Unscathed contender changes are pretty welcome and might open the gates to power builds, but a total removal would have been way better.

Edited February 4, 2023 by milumilu.1759

[Profanum.1024]

so almost all or even every pre EoD  spec losing their cooldown reduction traits but mecha signet reducing cooldowns is ok so maybe give other profession options like this too...

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/c/c7/Overclock_Signet.png/33px-Overclock_Signet.png Overclock Signet

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/a0/Not_available_underwater.png/20px-Not_available_underwater.png

90

Signet Passive: Reduces recharge of other signets. Signet Active: Order your mech to fire its ultimate weapon, the jade buster cannon. If your mech is not present, instead your mech is summoned, even if Crash Down is on cooldown.

[Willy.7849]

I'm Happy with the Ranger changes, but I would have liked to see some changes to the Druid as well.

I haven't played the game in almost 3 years now, and upon my return earlier this year, I've now learned that the Druid is a bit of a pain compared to other heal builds (like the Firebrand or the Mechanist).

While the Druid may still offer enough healing, it can barely keep up with the rest of the healers in terms of buffs and usefulness in other skills.

I know that for a long time the Druid was more or less the only heal option in gw2, but now that so many builds are possible I'd like to see the Druid coexist with the other heal/support builds and not in the shadows behind them.

 

[Helvalith.2170]

On 2/3/2023 at 1:19 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Willbender

• Willbender virtues no longer remove the active effects of other willbender virtues

So, from the last patch 2 months ago, this is all they can do to help Willbenders? 

I think I know what they want Guardians to be in pve: willbender is unusable, firebrand with mantras returning like in origin making you feel you have made a mistake when u use the last charge is nerfed again, they just want us to be Power Dragonhunters with 2h sword + sword/focus.

Thanks anet???