May 2 Balance Update Preview

[Nightara.1804]

31 minutes ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

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.

I did some quick calculations, and mathematically speaking, we'd probably need 16% for 100% Alacrity uptime. That assumes zero interruptions, and the exact rotation from the SC log though, so I think 25-30% is more realistic for an actual fight.

The numbers: The SC log has 47 dodges over 132 seconds, or one dodge every 2.9 seconds. One dodge with 0% BD gives 2.5 seconds of Alacrity, so you'd need (2.9-2.5)/2.5 = 16% BD for a theoretical uptime of 100%. 25% BD would give you an extra window of 0.2 seconds between any two dodges (Cumulative), 30% would be more like 0.3.

So yeah, it's technically possible with Sigil of Concentration and swapping food, but I think dropping the Power and Precision from Viper's will be more effective, considering the vast majority (93.3% without a single Confusion proc, even more with Confusion procs) of your damage scales with Expertise and Condition Damage (Which you'd lose by swapping your food).

Edit: The build that will suffer the most is Staff/Axe, bc you're losing the crit chance for Sharper Images, but that was the intention of the change anyway, and I don't blame anyone for wanting to nerf that build. Staff/Staff will barely feel the nerf at all, this change will probably not even be 1k DPS loss for Staff/Staff (Right now, Staff/Staff has 2k Power DPS, and that's the only thing that's gonna be affected by swapping Viper's gear for Ritualist's, at least for Staff/Staff).

Edit 2: For completeness' sake, Staff/Axe (Assuming the Staff/Staff rotation for simplicity, not gonna go through everything a second time) would require 100% BD to get the 1.5s base Alacrity up to 3.0s (Which gives you 0.1s of overstacking with every dodge), assuming you never dodge on Staff (Which you will, but let's just keep that extra uptime for mechanics n stuff). That would require full Ritualist's, aka 30% crit chance, which makes the main selling point of Staff/Axe (More crits = More Bleeding with Sharper Images) kinda obsolete. So yeah, I think this is a pretty effective way to kill Staff/Axe without affecting Staff/Staff in any significant way.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Nightara.1804

[zealex.9410]

5 hours ago, Bristingr.5034 said:

You ruined Earth attunement Eles and punished Mesmers from giving decent alacrity. Terrible update.

Perma crit immunity in competitive while in earth is stupid strong tho.

[VeriBeri.9528]

4 hours ago, Seraphis Zurvan.6839 said:

Have you been living under a rock? Firebrand is insanely broken right now. Quickness Condi FB does more DPS than a solid chunk of some dedicated DPS builds while giving insane boons and utility, and 100% uptime on Quickness. It does 37.2k on latest bench, though I'm sure someone seen it do higher.

That's unacceptable for a boon build. That's waaay to much.


Mesmer needed the mirage nerf. Staxe be stupidly good on some fights without needing to take a single bit of boon duration for alacrity. The rest were buffs.



What was your point here?

I might have been living under a rock, because I don't see that many people playing dps firebrands, for how overpowered it's supposed to be. Tbh, I think most players don't obsessively keep track of benchmarks, but might just be me. Only a fraction of encounters allow to pull that off, and then only a fraction of players are eager enough to waste hours, practicing the perfect rotation on golem. Game shouldn't be balanced around golem dps. Firebrand gets nerfed every single patch this past year, because qfb is too versatile. How about a simple trait "your skills now give quickness, but you deal 50% less dmg"? Wouldn't necessarily kill the entire spec, and would get the job done.
About the 50% alac nerf to mirage, that is viable on maybe 2 bosses? I guess I also missed how overpowered it is, because a person on youtube did good dps on golem. Can't verify myself, because I don't remember the last time I saw anyone playing it, not to mention doing notable dps. Just like chrono. Can't wait for June patch, to maybe see the downfall of virtuoso, so mesmer can go back to being completely unplayable, and I can ditch this game for good.
I honestly admire this "balance team" for consistently making changes no one asked for, while ignoring all the feedback.
I especially dislike bringing all specs to the same level, killing their unique playstyles for the sake of easier nerfs, and forcing all specs to perform equally on all encounters. Current meta of 2 healers + 2 supports is boring af. This is the exact opposite of what GW2 was supposed to be, and I don't understand what brings people so much joy in nerfing everything to the point of no return. Community should expect improvements, not nerfs, because nerfs make people quit the game you care so much about.
I guess that was my point.

[Hectoncheir.4210]

Dude, what is even going on with this game nowadays.

[draxynnic.3719]

Wait... since when was alacbender overperforming? Are they balancing by golem benchmarks again? I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually bring it for group alac in a real situation because the method by which it provides alac is so awkward, and the change is only going to aggravate that.

 

5 hours ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

I do like the contradiction between "Thief is generally in a good spot" and "goal of significantly improving specter support builds".
 

Which is it Anet?

Hopefully the Thief changes for June can be good. Deadeye has been crying out for Fire for Effect to provide Quickness since inception and heal Specter desperately needs proper Protection and Regen application. 

"Thief is generally in a good spot, but we're aware that support spectre SPECIFICALLY is underperforming."

From the guardian experience in the pre-PoF days, too, 'in a good spot' usually translates to having nothing that overperforms, but not being so bad that it's being abandoned altogether. Which typically means being just a tad behind the meta, since the meta builds are often the overperforming builds.

 

5 hours ago, stormemperor.3745 said:

Can you ducking add fury to power reaper for once?

IT IS THE ONLY BUILD IN ENTIRE GAME THAT CANNOT PROVIDE ITS OWN FURY.

Every other build shits out fury like crazy, even condition reaper.

Thanks,

Reaper can get so much additional crit chance through traits that it not only doesn't need self-fury, it can often get away with less precision than most power builds to boot.

[Nightara.1804]

5 minutes ago, VeriBeri.9528 said:

About the 50% alac nerf to mirage, that is viable on maybe 2 bosses?

That nerf is absolutely irrelevant for Staff/Staff Mirage (See my previous post for the maths), it only affects Staff/Axe, which was something they wanted to kill anyway (And tried to in the last balance patch). They failed to kill it, so now they're following up with a second attempt. And it's basically viable on any raid boss that doesn't phase all too often, even SC mentions a lot of bosses in their Alac Mirage guide (https://snowcrows.com/en/guides/builds/condition-alacrity-mirage-gameplay-guide).

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

I'll be interested to see how the stone heart changes turn out. It definitely needed to be changed, and the proposed changes could be fine as long as the duration of crit immunity is like 3s or less (since you get it when you leave earth too). If it's longer, like 4+s, it could be a problem, because then you'll be able to be significantly protected when you swap into water for healing or fire/air for bursting. If ele can enjoy a bunch of crit immunity while in attunements where they're supposed to be more vulnerable, the new SH may just trade one problem for another.

[Vayne.8563]

5 hours ago, Lucinellia.9247 said:

I do like the contradiction between "Thief is generally in a good spot" and "goal of significantly improving specter support builds".
 

Which is it Anet?

Hopefully the Thief changes for June can be good. Deadeye has been crying out for Fire for Effect to provide Quickness since inception and heal Specter desperately needs proper Protection and Regen application. 

Silly comment is silly.

You can be in a good spot generally without doing anything. I use condi specture quite effectively in raids for example and I'm not the only one in my static group that does. We have to be in seperate subgroups though, so our toxins don't overlap, but yeah, you can be in a good spot without offering a specific type of gameplay.  Yeah they can both be true.

[Kuma.1503]

Not seeing anything worth returning for this patch. 

Will check back in June. 

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, The Cashew Cab.8491 said:

...While I'm happy they're adding Quickness Deadeye as a support option, the only trait I can see them reworking to include AoE Quickness support though is one of the center traits, since not taking Malicious intent or Maleficent Seven breaks the flow of the entire spec.

If they make the Be Quick or Be Killed Grandmaster Trait the Quickness Support Deadeye trait, they'll have to take the Initiative restoration bit from Maleficent Seven on hitting max Malice out of that trait and bake it into the class, or Quickness Deadeye just won't be worth playing, ever.

The entire rhythm of Deadeye hinges completely on that Initiative generation from Maleficent Seven. If you don't take Maleficent Seven, you've completely destroyed the spec both in rhythm and in damage. Maleficent Seven is just too huge as a trait and is 100% mandatory in all PVE content in which Deadeye is played simply because of the Initiative regeneration it offers.

 

I'd like for them to rework Payback into the AoE Quickness trait if anything, and make it something like pulsing a wave of AoE Quickness onto your sub any time you strike an enemy with a Stealth Attack at full Malice stacks. It preserves the rhythm of the spec, it'd still feel good to use and it'd still be paying an "opportunity cost" of sorts, since Premeditation is an extremely strong trait with the whole "Increase all strike damage by 1.5% for every boon you have" thing.

 

Speaking as a Deadeye main, adding a Quickness support option has a LOT of potential, but it runs the risk of feeling really, REALLY bad to use if not handled correctly.

"Breaking the flow" might be a feature, not a bug. They're not going to want a quickness support deadeye to be able to do the same DPS as a selfish DPS deadeye receiving quickness from an ally. They're going to ask you to make some sacrifice for that group quickness.

[Eudaimonia.8695]

How is thief in a good spot? Acrobatics is useless, specter support is useless, several core skills are useless, non-stealth builds are useless. Are we playing the same game?

Edited April 22, 2023 by Eudaimonia.8695

[Jski.6180]

As long as alacrity pulses and the overload effects dont get messed up by quickness this would be very powerful for tempest support. The stone hart update may oddly be an buff i only wish they would update the other NON GM effects on the GM traits for earth line.

[Suyheuti.1732]

Good changes; (PvE)

Condi Holosmith, now cHolo will hit hard, buffs are awesome, I didnt calculate, I expect approx 40k benchmark after this buffs. But it was hard to play, it will be the same. Piano build.

Dragonhunter, changes will tune up a little bit. 
Power Alac Renegade, I’d like to see new elite after buff. 

Reaper, will be gamechanger

Power Berserker, it will need more buffs. Power Spellbreaker and Bladesworm will be better option. And I’d like to see rifle as viable option. 

Getting quickness to deadeye is great news.
 

Now lets get to the point. (Bad Changes)
Condi Alac Renegade, this change will nerf condi renegade also. If you want to nerf this, you can nerf without touching Condi Renegade, please. 
Untamed is not easy to play and in game there are 4-5 Untamed players and you want them to quit? Fervent Force nerf will throw Untamed to the junkyard. And there is no other buff. Massive nerf. Unbelieveable. 

Mirage, please listen up,all the time, you are trying to address mirage to the wrong direction. Giving alacrity to staff ambush was very bad idea since the day one. Please, move alacrity to GM trait (You can put Dune Cloak as a alacrity source).

If you do that, we can play alac mirage at underwater and we wont have to play with double staff. Please rework scepter also.


 

 

[Samhmcq.7248]

8 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Willbender

 

• Phoenix Protocol: In PvE only, this trait now reduces the duration of resolve by 1 second instead of increasing it by 2 seconds.

Alac Willbender does probably have too much damage potential but this isn't the way to nerf it. Barely anyone plays this build since it provides practically no might and already has a niche and finnicky playstyle, this change would just make that much worse. Please instead nerf the damage from Power for Power and or Lethal Tempo and put that damage back into Tyrant's Momentum. Also if you make Holy Reckoning work with Battle Presence then Alac Willbenders will lose damage from not taking Restorative Virtues anymore anyway. Please don't go through with this change, it will just make the build less fun to play in the few situations it's currently playable.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Samhmcq.7248

[SoloMona.7345]

On 4/21/2023 at 1:42 PM, Nomad.4301 said:

I guess specter doesn't count as a "Thief" then. Been waiting since launch to actually use it as a support as was (apparently) intended. I hope whatever changes they have planned for the June patch are big ones because a few % adjustments are not going to be enough to get me to play it again, even if they increased its healing by 100% the mechanics and clunkiness are just too much for me to bother over any other dps/support options. 

 

I would love to say it still Kinda works, But I haft to agree, I would like to pick up support Specter again, It was a blast to play, and the MetaBattle testing build does work in HoT Raids, Buuut It's not great, and The "Teleport, Teleport, Teleport, Teleport, Teleport" Rotation get Hella old fast, I would love to see a more exciting play.

 

DoubleTap I know Specter ain't your Babe, But we Support nerds would love to see some Heal Alac Builds Competing with Druids... and Mechanists *cough* hopium

 

 

Edit: Looking back at this is amusing. I'm so glad I get to read through the notes and then again see the notes when MukLuk does it. Always good to have a twice-over. Guess the ANet Gods Heard my plea long before I wrote this. Anyways this whole message is basically BS if you actually read the not-so-fine print 😂

Thanks for the Oh So Fitting Reactions peeps :Confused:

Edited April 22, 2023 by SoloMona.7345
Whole thing is Miss information, BS and Does not reflect my opinion.

[MysteryMen.3791]

Thank god they haven’t fixed the greatsword 3 damage coefficient bug in pvp yet. My lifeline on guard.

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Snow.4017 said:

Alacrity from Mirage should be a trait that competes with mirrored axes.

Or one that competes with IH rather than making it even more indispensable.

 

2 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

 

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.

Hard disagree. It's GW2 firebrand, not FF14 scholar, however much you want to turn GW2 elite specs into FF14 jobs.

I don't think it's good for the game to lock any elite specialisation to support as you've been proposing. People should have the opportunity to at least be able to take the spec into open world, have fun with it, and get to know how it works, rather than the spec having the druid problem of pretty much only ever being used for instanced endgame content and then presenting a steep learning curve.

I do think it's unnecessary for cfb to be a top-tier DPS in instanced content as long as condi willbender is performing in that role, however. As long as the other guardian elite specs aren't abandoned, it's probably fair to balance qcfb to wherever the target for DPS quickness with a bit of utility happens to be, and let cfb fall wherever it happens to land. It'll probably still be a good option in situations with lots of adds even if it doesn't have top-tier single-target DPS.

[Tails.9372]

7 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Thief is generally in a good spot, and we didn't see any major outliers

Yes, you sure don't which is kind of an issue in and of itself but here's a tip: something severely underperforming does also turn it into a "major outlier". Not everything needs to be looked at from a "which part of the profession should we nerf next" perspective.

7 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Signets of Power is a trait that we reworked in the last balance update that didn't quite hit the mark. We want to be cautious with repeatable initiative sources like this, but we feel like there's still room to tune it up.

Core

• Signets of Power: Increased initiative gain from 1 to 2.

1 ini on a (on average) 20 sec cooldown (or effectively +0,05 ini per sec. per signet under ideal / unrealistic conditions) is nothing and so is 2. Utility traits like Signets of Power need to actually be good in order to compete with "more damage" (and guess what the other two traits do).

The whole "Signets of Power rework" was just big train wreck which sadly leads to another major issue with GW2s approach to balancing: them trying to throw as many bandaid solutions as possible at a problem even when it's clear that "back to the drawing board" is the actual way to go (which is what they might even consider doing but only after the players had to live with a broken / useless skill / trait for like half a decade).

[Shorra.7256]

Another Patch, Another Joke. 

DragonHunter patch is pretty satisfying to see. 

Stocked to see Core Necro and Reaper getting some love.

---- Now the bad stuff. ----

I was honestly really looking forwards to a Harbringer and Willbender nerf/debuff for WvW but instead I got a kick in the teeth. 

No updates / tweeks for core thief , still forced to play Power builds to do anything. 

"Thief is in a good spot."

No it isn't, you want to know what is in a good spot ?

Basically most End of Dragon classes are in a good spot. Because you force people to buy the expansion and play these stupid classes and keep them broken for as long as you can to squeeze as much money as you can from everyone. You do not give a flying care about the player base nor do you even know them apparently after this patch preview.

But it's okay because thief has daredevil or deadeye so I'll have to play that because core and specter sucks and you force your playerbases hands into playing elite specs for the sake of MONEY.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Shorra.7256
Additional Input

[Vidit.7108]

7 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.

According to who? Other classes have had weapon and trait improvements to give them variety in their dps choices. There is still sword, pistol and short bow that don't have a place in builds. There has been improvements to deadeye that made it more playable than it's ever been but that's kind of like saying "well it's not drowning anymore so it's in a good place now".  Daredevil is falling behind in damage unless you plan on bringing down other power builds. Having a variety of viable builds doesn't change that there are dozens of dead traits and that the biggest difference is the elite spec you're picking.

You need to do better than just saying you will finally offer improvements to "support" specter. You've been given a mountain of feedback since the first beta, what's the plan here? What -specifically- are you going to change that will "significantly" improve it? You have said of past changes that they were what was needed to make support specter better and here we are still saying it needs to be improved. What do you see as the reason it's not up there with firebrand, mechanist or druid? I have my ideas about why past changes didn't help but I've seen nothing from you that says you understand the problem and have a good idea to fix it.

I'll judge quickness deadeye when I see it, but what's going to happen to quickness daredevil (detonate plasma on a select group of bosses) besides going extinct after you give quickness to deadeye? Is there a future with two thief quickness builds like Mesmer and its two alacrity builds?

I'm not a big numbers guy but I can tell that in PvE what I can get with two initiative is not worth losing Twin Fangs. Even with 6 initiative from Signets of Power I think I would still need someone to tell me if that's definitively better or equal to twin fangs.

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

8 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Fixed an issue that prevented soulbeasts from remerging at the end of zip lines.

hello

are you gonna fix spirits yet

[AlPower.2476]

So no compensation for non grenadier Scrapper nerfs...

At least core engi is getting a little buff in PvE...

Edited April 22, 2023 by AlPower.2476

[LeatherfaceChainsaw.2785]

Nerf Mag please those people are all cheats and hackers

[Oneiroid.9245]

The only thing I have an opinion on is that I wish trying to tweak condi-alac renegade wasn't hitting condi dps renegade. I play condi dps renegade, without alac, in high-end content and that balance change impacts me regardless.

[LegohBrave.1823]

• *Stone Heart: Critical-hit immunity is now granted for a period of time when entering and exiting Earth Attunement, instead of always while attuned to earth.*
  
  Earth is TERRIBLE except for this trait. It was the only thing preventing Tempests from being one shot from meme builds. Now anyone just has to wait for then dps dump. Are you going to compensate and give us something better for earth on any of the traits? How about barrier? A better stab than switching to earth and getting 1 stack for 2 seconds?
  
  In PVP and WVW, crits are meta. I am sorry to tell you that battles are won and lost on crits, and crits alone. People may cry that we camp EARTH with this trait, but im sorry it's the only way to stay alive most of the time when people just coordinate dps dump and one shot us in ANY OTHER ATTUNEMNT.
  
  This is a terrible change and I demand you dump it. Immediately. Don't even include why in the actual patch notes just remove it. We don't have to reverse it then in 1 week. No one plays Tempest, except me. How about you just listen to me. It's balanced I assure you.
  
  Thanks.