May 2 Balance Update Preview

[Batalix.2873]

13 minutes ago, TheRunningSquire.3621 said:

Players have to understand nerfing is apart of these types of games, if they don't like it, it's not anets fault.

 

Yeah totally disagree with that guy. If out of 27 especs only FB, PMech, and arguably a few others are contorting metas, it's not a matter of tuning up. Especially when you bother to actually look at the classes and realize that a full library of on-demand boons or autoattacking at range are central to their design and why players lazily pick them over more engaging and far better designed especs.

 

And while yes, we could theoretically gut the core mechanics of every espec to play as simply as Virtuoso. Ranged, condi, LI. But I don't want to play that game, and I'm tired of FB and PMech apologists insisting that is a better option than their classes, iunno, actually receiving meaningful limitations and tradeoffs and becoming vaguely interesting to play.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Osirian.7528]

Couldn't have a balance patch without a Warrior nerf in WvW now could we? 

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, Requiem.9648 said:

If people are smart enough to figure that Cqb issue was not about burning stack/duration problem but more the fact that quickness itself is so easy to give without boon duration that people runrune of renegate and just Ritualist instead of the old Firebrand rune. So proper fix to this was remove duration of quickness on mantra/trait instead of nerfing the burning stack. Not sure the impact on fb burn itself but that going to drain it way too lower..

 

Maybe in a vacuum, but across 27 especs where you can play a fire mage with Berserker, Renegade, Scourge, Ele, and Willbender (and kind of Deadeye)...fire is easily the least distinct element of FB's identity, and frankly boring af when Guardian also has a major subtheme of "light magic", minor subthemes of "water magic", "spirit magic", and an overall focus on shields and defense that have barely been touched on in especs. Guardian espec design is, imo, the least varied in the entire game (yes, even worse than Warrior) and horribly underutilizes Guardian's core features.

 

Leaning into books, boons, and runes is always going to be the smarter move for that class because that is what actually defines Firebrand as a scholar mage, even despite the terribad name suggesting otherwise.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Edu.6984]

Meme worth patch. Another ele nerf.

[Spiral.3724]

2 hours ago, LordHT.8297 said:

Lol, they are nerfing Arc divider on WvW and not touching vindicator 

They've been watching your vids, @LordHT.8297. You're too OP! 😁

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, Igure.2063 said:

Thieves are annoying for most new players but the true is that have been years without a descent zerg wvw build, specter was the hope spot but you guys made the cooldowns so long that most skills were unplayable and the barrier and healing generation too much harder and complex that you just give up the class.

Specter needs 4 things:

1- descent amount of coundi cleanse for being equal to other healer and supports in wvw.
2  to have the option of not teleporting when placing the well, that would make most wells of specter playable, becouse place a well into a 50 man group and survive when you drop yourself into it is kinda annoy.
3- a better barrier and boon generation for allies, i know that the specter idea was to be a single man sup but that just doesnt work, ANY support class in this game is better tham specter in ANY support stuff.
4- rework the wells for having different effects on enemies and allies, making them better for an ofensive sup, that would pair with the topic 1 and 3, making wells to cleanse and generate better boons for allies and usefull condies as slow and imob on enemies.

after this 4 topics done, it would pair most of the supports on wvw in efficiency, for those that say it would broke thief, its easy, i dont care if you nerf the ofensive potential of specter in the process, but the true is, specter is so bad design and nerfed that it just work on spvp, all other gamemodes ignore it.

thx for those who read, love you all. 

 

Not sure to what extent I agree with point 4, but I certainly would love Specter more if wells didn't instaport you. I think it would play out the shadow mage fantasy much better, covering the ground with shadows that aren't necessarily tied to you, then having options to pop out where you want. A little less instantaneous and more methodical.

 

Presently, the well doesn't feel like it does much different from Necro wells and the porting just feels like a clone of other shadowstep abilities from other classes. But if you could deliberately delay the port as a follow-up skill, while strategically plotting wells to give yourself mobility options....that would give the class so much more identity and flavor.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Poki.8235]

5 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Thief is generally in a good spot, and we didn't see any major outliers that needed to be addressed with this update. We're working on some larger adjustments for the next update in June, including the goal of significantly improving specter support builds and introducing a quickness build for deadeye.

PvE wise, Thief is not in a good spot right now. It's not in a terrible spot, I won't be hyperbolic here, but Thief needs a look. I'm glad to hear there's going to be a qdps option and a look at support specter, but this is like the 3rd or 4th patch that's supposed to help support specter, and support specter still does not exist. I want to give the benefit of a doubt, but I feel like someone here is out of touch with the class and needs to take another hard look at it.

Power Daredevil is in a bad spot right now. It's damage is lower then Power Berserker on the benchmarks, a build that was famously a joke post banner update. It's damage is lower then several boondps builds, while providing no support whatsoever. Go and look at DD dodges, then go and look at Vindicator dodges. Vindi does more damage, the damage buff lasts over twice as long, does vulnerability, doesn't force you to move (very important for quality of life for classes that use dodge for their damage rotation). The only thing Bounding Dodges has going for it is the finisher, but it's a leap so it's not a big deal anyway. This is a very blatant example of power creep, but since encounters also got creeped up Daredevil got left in the dust and the changes it recieved are not enough. I'd strongly recomend looking over other DD traits more closely as well. Brawler's Tanacity reduces rechange of Physical skills, but I thought you wanted to get rid of traits like those? Havoc Specialist makes you play with no dodges for "optimal" play, but you could change it to "15% damage when endurance is not full" instead, and the build would still not be up to snuff. Impacting Disruption is bad since the damage will never outperform Havoc Specialist or Staff Master, and speaking of Staff Master it's a worse Havoc Specialist too. The entire Major line is 3 traits who's goal is to do damage with no variety that's interesting, no actual choice to be made. Buff staff a bit and look to Vindicator and make Daredevil an interesting dodge focused build just like Vindicator is. Have dodges to a lot more.

Condi Daredevil, to contrast, is good, but unpopular. That's because it's very annoying to play. Make Death Blossom stop when it hits an enemy, like Weakening Charge and make Lotus Training not move you and this will be a much frendlier build to play. I would like to point out however that Condi Daredevil only uses Daredevil for the dodge and other traits are being wasted. Maybe nerf Lotus Training a wee bit, and add the power back into a condi focused Major trait instead of having 3 power major traits?

And since I started talking about condi thieves, I'll mention the elephant in the room: VENOMS! I don't think there's another class that's so hard reliant on it's utility skills for the simple simple role of doing damage. I would love it for venoms to be completely reworked into a completely different set of utilities because right now they are, ironically, a toxic influence on the class and tie up the power budget for more interesting options.

Power Deadeye got a good rework a little while back, even though the community had to step it to voice their concerns about the nerfs that were there in the preview that thankfully didn't hit Live. The small movement on the Riffle variant does a lot to the quality of the experience, and the Dagger build, even though the benchmarks make it seem way too overpowered, is actually in a good spot. It's hard to play, punishing for mistakes, rewards positioning, and has drawbacks in the form of lacking support and being single target focused. That's good. Strong strengths balanced out by specific weaknesses.

Spectre. Of, spectre. It's ok. It's not great. It's full of failed experiments that I think should be reworked. Points for trying, but let's not keep uniqueness just for uniqueness sake and nothing else, ok? Let's go over it.

First of, Ally Targeting. I want a hotkey to turn off being able to use skills on allies and an icon on the UI next to the skill bar of weapons that have Ally Targeting showing it's status. There are times I target allies, but they are extremely rare, and most often are by mistake because any other class doesn't need a specific target for most of their skills. You just swing your sword or wave your wand and it'll hit the enemy in front of you, even if you accidentally clicked on an ally, but what  made GW2 so fluid and unlike other "Tab Target" MMO's is a privilege not awarded to the poor spectre.

Next, Shadow Shroud. I'll start with the fact that you should buff the health coefficient somewhat. Your argument about changing it to the same as the Necromancer shroud was sound, up to the point that someone forgot that Thief is a low base health class while a necromancer is a high base health class. That's why the coefficient was no high in the first place. Now, besides that, the shroud is a powerful tool for damage, because it let's you do damage while regenerating initiative in the background. Do you know why Daredevil builds are less impressive then Deadeye and Specter builds? Because Deadeye has infinite initiative with Malivious Seven, and Specter has someone to do while waiting for initiative, but Daredevil does not. Hey, maybe that's another thing you should buff for Daredevil.... sorry, gotten offtopic there. Now as much as Shroud is good for damage, it has sero support, and that was pretty surprising. Yes, you take damage for one person, but that's just one person. GW2 is not a 2 player game in the places where balance matters this much. I'm interested to see what you do with it in the aforementioned June update. I'd love to see a trait that ups the tethers to 5 and does something more interesting then just taking damage.

Finally, wells. First off, please, for the love of the Pale Tree, do something about pathfinding. So many times I tried to cast a well under myself only to get a "No valid path to target" error. This is especially prevalent in some fractals and the Kaineng Overlook strike. Walk around on the main platform in KO casting wells and see how many places you can find with a broken pathmesh. At least make it so that, if you want to cast a well within a small radius of you and it fails doe to pathing, you cast it where you stand. It's better to cast anything then nothing. And also, the gimmick of casting boons and conditions that are missing was a failed one. Well of Bounty was already changed, Well of Sorrow needs to be changed too, especially since the "If enemy has all conditions already then..." option is THE WORST ONE OF THEM ALL! 1 stack of Torment? You're penalizing me for the fact that I have 9 other people in my group and because of that the enemy has pretty much all the condies on them at all times anyway? Also, rework Shadowfall somehow. It's worse then Basilisk Venom for almost all CC scenarios, and have DOUBLE the cooldown. (huh, venoms are a problem again, weird...)

So yeah, Condi Specter needs a small buff, nothing too major, and some system changes and it'll be fine. Buff it some extra to compensate for the lack of clieve and you'll have a really good build instead of just a good one.

Alac Specter is very simmilar, so it's also ok. Buff the Alac granted by the trait from 4 to 4.5 or 5 sec though. That would give the build a little friendly leeway.

 

OK, Wall of text over. I'm glad to have this off my chest. I've been meaning to write this semi-rant for a long while now. I hope it doesn't fall of deaf ears.

Edit: Hi, it's me again, forgot to add one more thing. Please remember that thieves have initiative and what that entails. A few patches ago you buffed might given by Scepter 2. If this was any other class that would be great, but this is a thief. Thieves don't have the luxury of using their entire skillbar, and any utility skills on the main skill bar come at great cost. Specter does not have the oportunity to use Scepter 2. Ever. It's a dead skill. Specter must do damage with Scepter 3 with every ounce of initiative to be relevent. Please keep that in mind. Many thief weapons have dead skills because of this.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Poki.8235

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

5 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Thief is generally in a good spot, and we didn't see any major outliers that needed to be addressed with this update.

 

This is why there will need to be more philosophy discussions as well moving forward.

What does it mean for a class to be "in a good spot"?  What does that entail?  Movement? Damage? Buff? etc. etc.   This would be a good opportunity to explain that reasoning and see if the GW2 community agrees or disagrees with that statement.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

5 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Reaper

🙂

[aymnad.9023]

Ele :

Stone Heart + Pvp Nerfs coming to WvW : Good changes

 

Engineer :

More burn. The one I am a bit concerned about is Corona Burst. I know this is PvE only but it is an already strong skill. It does not need to be overloaded. Please never put it in PvP.

 

Guard :

Dh -> ok Buffs

Firebrand : It was too strong but this is going to hurt a lot.

 

Mesmer :

Chrono -> the well damage changes are nice for PvE

Buffs to core -> ok except for magic bullet. This skill is fast, hard to differentiate and has a huge impact. Make it easier to avoid / notice before.

Mirage: it will have a huge impact (gear is the first thing coming to mind) but I do not play it so I struggle to guess the impact on damage. 

No changes to defense spam. That is a bit annoying for PvP. No dmg nerf in PvE again

 

Necromancer:

Looooottts of core power buffs. Cool news for reaper. With reaper becoming popular in PvP I expected at least a nerf to the unblockable.

Harbringer : Buffs. I found it already good so I am a bit surprised.

 

Ranger:

Dagger offhand and warhorn PvP buffs: Good. Dagger can be scary sometimes.

Soulbeast : cool buff. While slb has a good burst it ends up being one of the lowest dps in PvE which is kind of weird. Again I expected damage nerf on other professions. Not buffs.

Untamed : Here is the first step to nerf Fervent Force. I hope to see more changes in the future for untamed.

 

Rev:

Condi herald : slowly becoming scarry. It already is good but I like this.

Herald : Did not know it was still 10 so fair.

Renegade : seems ok

 

Thief:

Not much but looks good if I have to guess

 

War:

I like the warhorn buffs for spellbreaker support.

Buuuuuuutttt the shouts and bladesworn buffs….. Not a fan because both are just unfun to fight.

Edited April 21, 2023 by aymnad.9023

[TheQuickFox.3826]

The Stone Heart nerf disappoints me a bit. Elementalist is already fragile with light armor and the lowest health pool of all professions. Especially for sPvP where spike damage can be huge a trait like Stone Heart can give a bit of very much needed survivability to the Elementalist.

 

I'm afraid I will die a lot again and perhaps degrade from Gold to Silver. But well, I never cared too much about my PvP rank as my skill level does not permit me to get beyond Gold anyway. I hope that the transition will be quick.

[DiscoPopping.9724]

Nerfing alacrity mirage is unnecessary.. absolutely no one has ever moaned at staff/staff mirage or has ever asked for nerfs for it.. Why are you trying to ruin it?  

Im really sorry to say but it worries me soo much how GW2 is being run as it feels like that you don't understand your own game

I've been playing this game since launch on and off .. and 100% the main reason why I and many people leave is the unnecessary nerfs and constant flip flopping between builds

I'm sick of it and I'm tired of all the constant buffing then nerfing.. I mean have you kept a log of all the changes you have done to chaos vortex  since its release?  Is there any clear leadership or sense of direction at Arena net anymore?

[Alcatraznc.3869]

While I can understand the nerf for grenade barrage, I am still not convinced by the 30% nerf on PBM. Sure that thing hit like a truck...until you realize all the big downside that comes with the perk namely :

 

-toolbelt skill being locked for a few sec

-loosing access to Holoforge for a few sec

-having basically no range forcing you to be sticked to your opponent like glue

-having a small delay before blowing up forcing you to time the skill perfectly

-loosing a bit of health to trigger the skill

 

In the end the only way to effectively use this skill is to abuse stealth, ambush someone and run away because that is the only thing this build can do. 

 

PvE side, the Holo buff are ok, although I still want Anet to bring back PBM back. The CD change for incendiary ammo is a big up and I'm looking forward to that.

[Jaden.1420]

1 hour ago, eldrevo.1746 said:

Reaper, Berserker and Holo changes are very welcome! Power Dragonhunter too, however I'm personally not a fan of getting back to Big Game Hunter. I'd like to see Heavy Light buffed accordingly to remain an option, or some other traits being buffed instead.

 

Completely agree. Especially for Big Game Hunter vs Heavy Light. Unfortunately the glory days of short duration burst windows are gone. Having to use F1 but then having permanent uptime feels bad.

 

Furthermore, I'm a bit surprised that Spellbreaker got no PvE nerfs. Imo it should only be on par with the other Warrior specs if it can remove boons, like with No Pain, No Gain.
Then I'm a bit sad that there're not more trait reworks/reshuffles. Mesmer as example: Chrono still has two competing Master dps traits, and Inspiration has three top tier Master traits for WvW support, but the Grandmasters are all useless.

Finally I'd wish for more aftercast reductions, e.g. for Guard GS4. Weapon stowing for dps increase shouldn't be a thing.

[Acheron.1580]

"Thief is generally in a good spot" is laughably blind.

 

P/P is still a hot mess.

 

Specter has loads of issues (which you admit and then were like meh, we'll do it later)

 

Signet of power change is A) unimaginative and boring and B) barely addresses any of the issues it already has, being that you ideally are using Signet of power when you already have max initiative, and other signets have such niche uses that if you are just firing them off for the initiative that is encouraging really terrible play (and frankly isn't nearly powerful enough to warrant).

 

I don't want to type all of it out again so link.

 

 

For how far apart the balance patches are, you'd kind of hope for a lot more. There is a lot in this balance patch that feels very ill considered. I was expecting changes to Fervent Force because it is a troublesome trait to balance around but again that is a very lazy approach to "fixing" untamed, you effectively built an entire class around a trait instead of having a trait that complements play style.

[Rym.1469]

Good kitten.

 

I'd maybe try to find a different angle for Staxe Mirage nerf. Staff Mirage is currently a rather cozy build to play and with some added boon duration (compared to maxed out one) it really is a comfortable dps alacrity provider. Might be personal bias though.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

ok, feedback time:

• Rending Claws: Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.2 in PvE only.
• Unholy Feast: Increased power coefficient from 0.88 to 2.0 in PvE only. Increased threshold for second strike from 25% to 50% in PvE only.
• Unholy Burst: Increased power coefficient from 0.88 to 1.0 in PvE only.
• Soul Grasp: Increased power coefficient from 0.2 to 2.0 in PvE only. Increased base healing from 440 to 1,003 in PvE only.
• Spinal Shivers: Increased power coefficients from 2.0/2.375/2.75/3.125 to 2.5/3.0/3.5/4.0 in PvE only.

good, I guess. Those weapons are so clunky, and most are boon-hate skills, so I guess any damage increase is good.

• Wail of Doom: Reduced cooldown from 24 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Locust Swarm: Increased life-siphon healing from 37 to 55 in PvP and WvW.

sound good. Still, life-siphon remains useless and unreliable as a healing skill (1vs1 is weak and against more, we would be dead before gaining any health).

Reaper

• Shouts' damage bonus for melee range increased from 50% to 100% in PvE only.
• "Chilled to the Bone!": Reduced cooldown from 36 seconds to 30 seconds in PvE only.
• Gravedigger: Increased power coefficient from 3.0 to 3.6 in PvE only.
• Nightfall: Increased power coefficient from 1.05 to 1.15 in PvE only.
• Soul Spiral: Increased power coefficient from 0.6 to 0.7 in PvE only.
• Life Rend: Increased power coefficient from 0.9 to 1.4 in PvE only.
• Life Slash: Increased power coefficient from 1.25 to 1.6 in PvE only.
• Life Reap: Increased power coefficient from 1.7 to 1.8 in PvE only.
• Infusing Terror: Increased damage reduction percentage from 20% to 66% in PvE only.
• Deathly Chill: Adjusted bleeding from 2 stacks for 8 seconds to 4 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only.

ok, Shouts are gonna be our highest DPS now (yay)!

Infusing Terror change is nice, but it solves nothing. With Dread we can keep it almost all the time while in Shroud but only when fighting a lot of trash mobs. Against Champions or stronger foes that usually ended being alone, we still gonna struggle with our sustain. I rather have the change applied to "Rise!" too (Shambling Horrors still die easily and the recharge time prevent a perma-damage reduction anyways).

I guess Deathly Chill is finally fixed in PvE but not sure if it's worth running Condi Reaper in PvE.

[FreshF.5793]

You have a severals months to check whats really important for the playerbase. Why dont you do a poll, where you actually let players (who actually play the game a lot) vote, what needs to be balanced instead of choosing it on your own. 

 

Please check the following points for PVE:

 

1. Boon Application:
   Improve Boons on Warrior, Ranger, Specter and Herald (Spamming skills or getting useless Boons that cant be used reactively) -> there are several posts about how to change it. But you guys dont read it.
2.  Healers:
   Open up the gates for more healers like Specter, Renegade, Catalyst, ...
   Specter was meant to be a healer, wasnt it? Why else are there traits that give extra Healing Power?
3. Stop realeasing balance-patches to all 3 game modes at the same time. With that strategy it takes years until one of the modes ends up "balanced". Stop multitasking and focus on one thing strongly. You are only a few people, aren't you?

I've posted so many suggestions in the last update previews and I'm tired of posting again without Dev's listening. 

 

Hope you will change something in the future. I won't be playing this game a lot longer, when it is always the same disappointment.

[schrodingerscat.3872]

can we get power engi back or nah 

[Control.8154]

WHO ASKED FOR CONDI ENGI LOL BRING BACK POWER 

[Dahkeus.8243]

Tuning down of warrior in WvW is just really strange to me.   It's not really a meta pick for most zerg groups and as a Spellbreaker roamer, it's decent, but countered pretty well by many other builds out there.  Berserker roamer is just even more susceptible to certain counters. 

Arc Divider hits hard, but it's also a pretty high risk/high reward skill on a elite spec that doesn't bring anything to a group fight outside of raw damage.

[Luvi.2581]

Sigh.

[Bunny.9834]

nothing exciting. how disappointing. 

[HotDelirium.7984]

4 hours ago, Seraphis Zurvan.6839 said:

You've been living under a rock for saying this lmao. They aren't dead, they're more in-line of what they should be.

I'm pretty sure a mirage taking a few Ritualist pieces for once instead of straight Viper's is going to be ok. CFB does not need to be doing around 37.2k DPS on a relatively simple rotation, and Untamed is going to be just fine.

I'll at least be fair and say we might not need to get rid of any of our viper gear and just switch our food, a weapon sigil, and utility item for more concentration. My initial solution.

[Dorian.8542]

4 hours ago, Stx.4857 said:

“Thief is generally in a good spot.”

 

I’m at a loss for words.  
 

I guess if you consider specializing in single target damage but still dealing the same single target damage as other classes but bringing much much less cleave, no boon utility, while also being much squishier a *good spot*, then… sure. 

This. Theif, especially specter needs more damage, more cleave, better survivability and crucial bugfixes. Thief is in anything but a good spot.