[Feb. 14 Balance Patch] The trend that traits no longer reduce cooldowns is much welcomed.

[Virtuality.8351]

In the Feb. 14 balance patch preview note, we are seeing 10 skill sets (3 for weapons and 7 for slot skills) no longer receive cooldown reduction from their corresponding traits. Instead, the majority of the affected skills will have the reduced cooldown their new baseline after the patch.

 

This is one of the most welcomed trend in recent balance patches, as players are no longer bond to take up certain trait lines just to get a more or less proper cooldown. It also promotes more engaging gameplay (after all, no one enjoys staring at long cooldowns in combat).

 

The trend should really extend to the following:

• All underwater weapons: seriously, barely anyone would ever take a trait just so that their underwater weapon skills can have reduced cooldown. Just make the reduced value the new baseline.
• All core specialization slot skills: along with rebalance/rework to encourage players to further utilize some old core specialization slot skills and promote build diversity.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Virtuality.8351

[Bunny.9834]

I hate the ones that affect the Utility skills because they left a bunch of skills on the same CDs… 

These will also make a traits that gave these reductions absolutely USELESS. 

Most of them were only really being used FOR the CD reduction. Now you have no reason to pick them… yay for build diversity. 

The devs continue to do these changes(nerfs) without carefully thinking about the compromise. Thats how we end up with unused skills. They got nerfed to the ground with no compensation. 

 

[Serephen.3420]

On 2/5/2023 at 10:24 AM, Bunny.9834 said:

I hate the ones that affect the Utility skills because they left a bunch of skills on the same CDs… 

These will also make a traits that gave these reductions absolutely USELESS. 

Most of them were only really being used FOR the CD reduction. Now you have no reason to pick them… yay for build diversity. 

The devs continue to do these changes(nerfs) without carefully thinking about the compromise. Thats how we end up with unused skills. They got nerfed to the ground with no compensation. 

 

I would have liked to see them rework those traits or have them change how some skills work. But I suppose I'd have to hope for that in another patch.

[Mell.4873]

I think weapon cooldown reductions should all be removed and most should have better  universal effects. 

I think the saddest weapon traits are the stats bonus plus cooldown reduction ones. 

Edited February 8, 2023 by Mell.4873

[SleepyBat.9034]

On 2/4/2023 at 7:24 PM, Bunny.9834 said:

These will also make a traits that gave these reductions absolutely USELESS.

I doubt that, you can always buff the trait a little to compensate, or even rework them in the future.

[Bunny.9834]

1 hour ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

I doubt that, you can always buff the trait a little to compensate, or even rework them in the future.

it’s useless in the mean time. 

[Dadnir.5038]

The issues with this "trend" is that:

• It's half done since even after that there will still have some CD reduction traits that remain (odds are high that it will be another one of those short lived "trend" that will forever remain unfinished)
• It leave dead traits and we know that traits can remain dead for a very long time
• Some skills supported by those traits got some free buffs while other are left untouched
• While they are focusing on this not-so-important "trend" many true issues are still left untouched

 

[Jski.6180]

I can see how this is a good thing for balancing over all but you can point out the flaws in the chose they made for the given game type of that skills cd.

Right now it seems like for ele conja weapons and cantrips are getting massive nerfs in at leat wvw due to the trait no longer effected cd of the skills. Maybe there more to this but at things stand this is what it looks like.

Fire aura on cast / pick up on conja wepons is not worth it on its own nor is reg/vigor on cantirps uses. If anet is going this path i want to suggest moving the "on use of utility" traits to different atument trait lines and to changes up the on use effects.

[Xenesis.6389]

Sure, nice to see cooldown reductions go baseline. But how much did they kill those traits with that important component gone from it? Other thing is, they don't even apply the reduction to all the skills involved with those traits, so they essentially nerf some of those skills.

In mesmer's case they moved the reduction from manipulations trait to mirror, mimic, mass invis, half the skills, but the other half of blink, arcane thievery, illusion of life get nothing. In Blinks case(a skill used in practically every single mesmer build in wvw) it's a double nerf because they also took out superspeed from the trait for aegis of all things, now no bonus speed or reduction for it. Mesmers once again getting a "buff" for the price of another "nerf".

Maybe this will help build diversity, a little, but they're certainly killing specialization again by removing cooldown reductions across the board.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Xenesis.6389

[Bunny.9834]

4 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Sure, nice to see cooldown reductions go baseline. But how much did they kill those traits with that important component gone from it? Other thing is, they don't even apply the reduction to all the skills involved with those traits, so they essentially nerf some of those skills.

This is the main concern of this big change to this type of traits and I don't think they fully thought this through. 
They look at their "data" and saw that those certain skills are popular, therefor probably "OP". 

They are not factoring the fact that some builds rely on that global CD reduction to these skills. 

What this will eventually do is just kill those builds. Meanwhile, the builds that rely on the "OP" skills will remain the same because they don't need the CD reduction anyway. 

Those traits will eventually be added to the list of forgotten skills/traits.