February 14 Balance Update Preview

[xfayrox.8146]

Wow, yet another balance w/o any change to harbinger. Its dead in every gamemode, especially in pve. Average dps, one of the lowest sustain. Aprox. same DPS as reaper (but w/o shroud) and scourge (but w/o barrier). It was supposed to be glass cannon. The glass part is here, but wheres the cannon? Quick harbi is even worse. Other qdps builds do same dps roughly while providing few more boons (stability/protection and either aegis or superspeed and/or boon extension). And they all have more sustain. If you would delete harbi from game, noone would even notice.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

9 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I think core necro probably needs more damage

maybe. Core Necro is painfully weak compared to Reaper, but that's supposed to be the selling point of the Elite Specializations and increasing its damage can inadvertently boost all other specs to the point of being OP.

[bluberblasen.9684]

9 minutes ago, xfayrox.8146 said:

Wow, yet another balance w/o any change to harbinger. Its dead in every gamemode, especially in pve. Average dps, one of the lowest sustain. Aprox. same DPS as reaper (but w/o shroud) and scourge (but w/o barrier). It was supposed to be glass cannon. The glass part is here, but wheres the cannon? Quick harbi is even worse. Other qdps builds do same dps roughly while providing few more boons (stability/protection and either aegis or superspeed and/or boon extension). And they all have more sustain. If you would delete harbi from game, noone would even notice.

Sorry but..

Harbinger is one of the over tuned roaming classes in WvW.

It needs minor nerfs not buffs.

 

 

[xfayrox.8146]

Just now, bluberblasen.9684 said:

Sorry but..

Harbinger is one of the over tuned roaming classes in WvW.

It needs minor nerfs not buffs.

 

 

Hmm ok ye one super specific area where it is ok indeed. 

[Dr Meta.3158]

24 minutes ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

maybe. Core Necro is painfully weak compared to Reaper, but that's supposed to be the selling point of the Elite Specializations and increasing its damage can inadvertently boost all other specs to the point of being OP.

The elite specializations aren't "supposed" to be better than core classes. Yes they make them that way initially to sell expansions but thats more of a sales gimmick/immorality depending on how you view it.

You can easily boost core without touching the elite specializations by just focusing on death shroud. Like initially in pvp when their durability was a problem and people kept telling them to increase shroud decay rate so that only core necromancer was nerfed and they decided to wreck all of the necromancers by nerfing core traits and skills before finally doing that.

Its really not hard to fix these issues, just a matter of wanting to.

[Varis.5467]

Hey @Cal Cohen.2358, it's been a few days since the preview is published. We mesmers got plenty of feedback for you, check them out at:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/127292-mesmer-feb-3-preview/page/4/#comments

Edited February 6, 2023 by Varis.5467

[Bris.7984]

Not again!No more!No!Cancel!Destroy!Kill! Patch…🥶

[Markus.6415]

1 hour ago, xfayrox.8146 said:

Wow, yet another balance w/o any change to harbinger. Its dead in every gamemode, especially in pve. Average dps, one of the lowest sustain. Aprox. same DPS as reaper (but w/o shroud) and scourge (but w/o barrier). It was supposed to be glass cannon. The glass part is here, but wheres the cannon? Quick harbi is even worse. Other qdps builds do same dps roughly while providing few more boons (stability/protection and either aegis or superspeed and/or boon extension). And they all have more sustain. If you would delete harbi from game, noone would even notice.

Harbinger is very strong and does more dps then the scourges i always encounter. I don't really know what the problem is. It is rarely played, this is true, but that doesn't mean it's bad. No ones playing alacmirage either, while being one of the strongest boon support specs. And i can assure you, harbinger dps is higher than Reaper.

[SehferViega.8725]

1 hour ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

The elite specializations aren't "supposed" to be better than core classes.

 

They should be better than core classes in something that should be "specific", not in everything, otherwise you will just kill build diversity and fun.

 

Talking about Thief that is my main class:

Daredevil should be a better brawler than core thief and less related to stealth and unnoticed gameplay tattics. This is partially true now, with Swipe/Steal differences.
When Daredevil will get 1200 Steal back, it will be a better version of core thief in everything. That's not a good way to develop the game IMHO.

 

Specter must be more support and survability oriented than core thief and Deadeye should be more focused on fire weapons (gaining some bonus for pistols too like it happen with rifle Silent Scope).

[Gesbo.6420]

I believe ALL Manipulation skills should receive the Master of Manipulation 20% cooldown reduction. Doesnt seem like Blink and Illusion of life are being affected unfortunately...

[Tnanever.3192]

3 hours ago, xfayrox.8146 said:

Wow, yet another balance w/o any change to harbinger. Its dead in every gamemode, especially in pve. Average dps, one of the lowest sustain. Aprox. same DPS as reaper (but w/o shroud) and scourge (but w/o barrier). It was supposed to be glass cannon. The glass part is here, but wheres the cannon? Quick harbi is even worse. Other qdps builds do same dps roughly while providing few more boons (stability/protection and either aegis or superspeed and/or boon extension). And they all have more sustain. If you would delete harbi from game, noone would even notice.

I also think harbinger needs some improvement...mostly in PvP since its shroud isn't a second health bar and is locked out of defensive skills, but I don't think it's much worse than scourge or significantly worse than reaper.  Its ultimate is pretty strong too.

[Moradorin.6217]

3 hours ago, Varis.5467 said:

Hey @Cal Cohen.2358, it's been a few days since the preview is published. We mesmers got plenty of feedback for you, check them out at:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/127292-mesmer-feb-3-preview/page/4/#comments

btw Cal is NOT active in the forums. He logged in once late December and again a few days before the Feb 14th stream. Thats it and no sign he looked at anything. He seems to login a few days before a stream and doesnt look like he ever checks the forums. That said, I think we should keep pinging him since he is Balance team lead. 

[Kal Durak.2830]

On 2/3/2023 at 8:19 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Firebrand mantras will have a more powerful final charge.

I never get to that final charge since you all changed it in WVW.

[Levetty.1279]

Quote

Mesmer mantras will grant an effect upon finishing their initial casting time.

Why are you trying to sell this is a rework when that is literally how they worked before and you are just reverting the change that made them usable? Guess what they were still unfun and kitten, they were changed for a reason. 

Actually give a kitten about the people who play the game for once, don't kitten in our face and then claim it is for our own good.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Levetty.1279

[Nightara.1804]

6 hours ago, xfayrox.8146 said:

Wow, yet another balance w/o any change to harbinger. Its dead in every gamemode, especially in pve. Average dps, one of the lowest sustain. Aprox. same DPS as reaper (but w/o shroud) and scourge (but w/o barrier). It was supposed to be glass cannon. The glass part is here, but wheres the cannon? Quick harbi is even worse. Other qdps builds do same dps roughly while providing few more boons (stability/protection and either aegis or superspeed and/or boon extension). And they all have more sustain. If you would delete harbi from game, noone would even notice.

WHAT.
Condi Harbinger is number eleven in the benchmark, with basically 40k DPS. cScourge and pReaper are at 35k.
Quickness Harbinger is at 32.5k, that's just 2.5k less than cScourge. QUICKNESS HARBINGER.

Yes, Harbinger only brings Quickness, Fury, and Swiftness, but it it literally the SECOND STRONGEST Quickness build in the game in terms of DPS. The only support build with more DPS is Alac Untamed, and Untamed is busted af.

Learn your benchmarks before spouting nonsense: https://snowcrows.com/en/benchmarks

[Jijimuge.4675]

2 hours ago, Moradorin.6217 said:

btw Cal is NOT active in the forums. He logged in once late December and again a few days before the Feb 14th stream. Thats it and no sign he looked at anything. He seems to login a few days before a stream and doesnt look like he ever checks the forums. That said, I think we should keep pinging him since he is Balance team lead. 

On the stream, Roy said that he (i.e. Roy) would be reading the feedback threads so he might be better as one to flag things to

[Dr Meta.3158]

6 hours ago, SehferViega.8725 said:

 

They should be better than core classes in something that should be "specific", not in everything, otherwise you will just kill build diversity and fun.

 

Talking about Thief that is my main class:

Daredevil should be a better brawler than core thief and less related to stealth and unnoticed gameplay tattics. This is partially true now, with Swipe/Steal differences.
When Daredevil will get 1200 Steal back, it will be a better version of core thief in everything. That's not a good way to develop the game IMHO.

 

Specter must be more support and survability oriented than core thief and Deadeye should be more focused on fire weapons (gaining some bonus for pistols too like it happen with rifle Silent Scope).

I didn't think that needed to be spelled out. Every traitline in every class is going to be better at something specific. Thats the point. The idea is to not have it being the optimal choice, period, obviously.

[Sobx.1758]

18 hours ago, TezPoca.7203 said:

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

to make it short: the ability to counter skills that were devised to counter stealth is not very healty, therefore i approve the change. having said that, it ultimately concludes in a nerf for rifle-flow aswell, so a follow-up buff to death's judgement is desirable. 

I'm still of an opinion that they should try to make stealth more self-balanced. What I mean by that, currently they have an espec (DE) that works rather strictly around stealth, they know it and that's probably why the "remove revealed" elite was introduced in the first place. However with removal of "revealed removal", they now have an espec balanced around a mechanic that can be rather easly completely shut down by players and environment. Now that seems a little stupid. Make coming out of stealth automatically apply short revealed effect on the user -whether or not they've attacked- and remove revealed from environment/players or at least shorten the duration of some of them.

I think it's also a bit weird they decided to add duration to MG instead of changing its refresh rate from 3s to 1s.

49 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I didn't think that needed to be spelled out. Every traitline in every class is going to be better at something specific. Thats the point. The idea is to not have it being the optimal choice, period, obviously.

Yeah, I don't know about that. In the ideal world maybe that would be the case, but especs bring way more than a lot of the core specs/traits do by themselves, so it does seem they're now fine with not trying for the especs to be closer to "sidegrades", but instead be upgrades over the core builds.

[Gwynnion.7364]

I'm just going to say mantras were changed -- fixed -- for a reason.  Because they sucked before, and if this reversion goes through, they will suck again.  In a competition between class flavor and quality of life, quality of life should win every time.

[Sylver.6137]

The first thing I would like to know is did they mention anything about traits that use utility skills as a part of them? In this patch I noticed that thief and ranger were getting the cooldown reduction from trick and survival skills respectively taken away. Yet they both have traits (lesser muddy terrain on ranger for example) that benefit from the reduced cooldown. Was that taken into consideration or is it an oversight by the dev team? I honestly don't like taking away the reduced recharge from these traits but at least make some consistent fix because right now this change is nerfing other traits for no reason. Also making the untamed natural traversal skill now no longer be instant cast takes away all the fun I had from the spec, as that skill was the only real reason I played it over core. It has other nice things don't get me wrong, but I always felt core was more effective. I don't play much spvp, but I have heard that it isn't over powered right now, so why nerf it in all game modes? If you wanted to target it in spvp, fine. But in wvw the build that used the port (marksmanship untamed) was already very bad (it gets hard countered by anything tanky/cele, why are you buffing those builds btw instead of nerfing them?) and did not need this nerf. 

[Arzikin.1076]

Who needs this pvp?10-15 ppl who occupied it and farm tournaments? 

The only thing to do with this game mode is to remove it completely. The most useless waste time. You won't believe it I played over 2500 matches on different characters in total 400 on different classes without even knowing their skills and just pressing random buttons during the game.
And you know what? My win rate is 52%. Does this mean anything to you? If you want to balance this stillborn rotten piece you know what - you need to block all skills on all classes and leave only 5 fixed. Balance first 9 classes of 5 skills gradually increasing. What you are doing now (and indeed always) is pointing your finger at the sky. I just don’t understand why no one has come up with this ingenious balancing scheme so far.
Right now I started playing revenant. Scored absolutely random skills, runes and weapons(bcs i can). I didn’t even read their descriptions and I’m running around farming these legendary shards. I look at something in the background and laugh when they write to me that I am a bot. I don't care. Why? Because I can take random skills and press random buttons. And my win rate will still be 52%. I will still get what I need, it's just a matter of time.
Spend more time balancing this nonsense... if it makes any sense for you to receive your salary. Spread the demagogy here. The opinion of the players is important to them, you see. So here is my opinion. Remove those items that you hide behind pvp progress. Tons of people will thank you for not having to waste time on this squalor.
I, in turn, find it funny to explain to all the dissatisfied that it's not my fault that you hid legendary items and other pvp skins. And that it is not forbidden by law not to play metabuilds and press buttons correctly. God. Sometimes from how they burn the stomach explodes with laughter
You might think that I'm being too critical of all this. no no. I'm just here to write the truth. that your problems are not in balance, but in other things. in general, everything suits me. keep doing nothing (balance about 100 skills at the same time)

 

sry for my english. have a nice day

[Dorian.8542]

Feedback on Theif changes.

Pros:

The update to the signets and the signets of power trait are a very welcome change, as are the two well changes, happy to see the CC well have an actual purpose now!

Suggestions:

In PvE specter is immensely hampered by three things

1. Minimal shroud health. The reduction made sense for PvP and WvW but should not have affected PvE where sustain is desperately needed.

2. Minimal initiative. Again i can see this being reasonable for PvP, but in PvE the direct result is that we are forced to spec into trickery to mitigate the damage done to the initiative bar, and in most cases, roll for initiative is a mandatory pick up. Specter needs either a restored initiative bar, much faster initiative gain, or dramatically lowered skill costs. The nerf to initiative feels simelar to what swipe did to steal or the weird "choose your nerf" system that was baked into untamed for a while, unenjoyable, unintuitive, and clunky.

3. Lack of raw stopping power/cleave. As it currently stands specter is one of the lowest performing specs in terms of DPS and is completely overshadowed by daredevil both in condi and power. The quick and easy way to fix this is more torment applications on the dual skills for scepter dagger and scepter pistol. But that doesnt address the equally concerning issue of cleave. As it stands, if a specter wants to do any realistic cleave, the only option is shroud 2, 4 and 5. In essence, we need more cleave on the scepter.

 

Thank you so much for your hard work peeps 🙂

Edited February 7, 2023 by Dorian.8542

[Eternal.7903]

It's the first time i comment a patchnote, but this time it's too much for me.

A nerf for Mesmer
A buff for Engineer

I see where goes the priority...

Mesmer rotation is already painful to learn, and now we will have to be careful not using the last mantra so we don't lose 5% dps overall in Raid/Strikes/fractals ? I remember how it was before 2021, it was awful and people played Well of Calamity on Chronomancer Power instead, because a single mistake on the spell and you could forget it for the rest of the fight "except" against some bosses like VG.

Don't change Mantras, just nerf it or whatever you want, just don't go back on this CD thing because people will just stop using it.

Sorry for my poor english, isn't my native language.

[SleepyBat.9034]

On 2/4/2023 at 8:08 PM, Ze Ninguem.6708 said:

 

These are good steps to modernize and bring Engineer's pistol to a viable level.

Great job, people!

But...

 

* Poison Dart Volley: It could, in addition to the mentioned improvements, also have an 100% Projectile Finisher fact. It's a damage true skill with a cooldown, so a strategic interaction with one of the several Engineers' combo fields could reward a well timed and positioned use of this skill.

 

* Static Shot: This skill must be a hard croud control option to the Engineer because the pistols don't have one. It could allow the P/P set up to grants a CC option at the proper slot (the 3rd slot).

Suggestion: Replace Blind and Confusion by Stun and reduce the cooldown to better sinergy with mech's Rocket Punch. The skill would look like a Taser shot (improved) that totally disables the target.

 

* Blowtorch: A 10s cooldown across the board could grant a better offensive aspect to DPS oriented builds, including Mace/Pistol ones.

 

* Glue Shot: 20s cooldown is too long for only 1.5 seconds of Immobilize... This skill could have either a lesser cooldown or extra effect.

I don't see why engineer pistol needs to mirror harbinger pistol with a stun on the 3rd skill.

[Sereath.1428]

My thoughts on this patch: