May 2 Balance Update Preview

[Cruens.1640]

Hi,

 

 

Regarding FF(Fervent Force) Power Untamed 41k dps:

 

“in this update we're making a slight adjustment to its cooldown reduction in order to bring down the damage output of builds that utilize it.”

 

This is anything but a ‘slight’ change, going from 4s loops to 7s loops, or even 7s loops every other loop with an extra reset from Storm Spirit, will add so much auto filler uptime that Power Untamed is likely to drop to ~34-36k dps. There is a non-grinded, unpublished FS(Ferocious Symbiosis) bench of 35,5k which can definitely be pushed to 36k+ and would likely outperform FF.

 

And for the record, FF is exponentially more interesting than FS, the extra dimension the cd resets bring over a boring 20% modifier is incomparable.

 

This will effectively kill the already abysmal play rate of Power Untamed, since it will go from barely competitive dps with an unforgiving rotation to pDD level of DPS with an unforgiving – and now less enjoyable – rotation.

 

Power Untamed isn’t BiS on any encounter either. Besides the unforgiving rotation, it is reliant on very high melee(!) dps uptime and it isn’t as traditionally bursty like other classes. Considering most old content encounters favor burst and most new encounters favor atleast some ranged dps uptime, Power Untamed is simply nowhere near overperforming.

 

On a sidenote, considering the aforementioned downsides of Untamed I would earlier suggest that Power Untamed needs a small dps buff if it wants to compete with the current, and the projected, status quo. But I digress.

 

I know less about Condi Untamed, but I have been told it would also take a more than substantial hit from this nerf, effectively killing it. This build is similarly fragile to Power Untamed in terms of being able to reach optimal damage output. Condi Untamed is arguably BiS for Q2, maybe great in some lowman content, but as it stands I wouldn’t consider it an outlier – especially not if you consider Ele being fine at 43k considering the burst it has, or Bladesworn being okay at 40k considering the insane burst it has, or idk basically all the other classes that are being pushed to 40k+)

 

To be honest, I suspect this change to be primarily aimed at the damage output of Power Alac Untamed and the effectiveness of Untamed solo builds. To touch on the latter one, realize how broken the interaction of Fortifying Bonds + We Heal as One is: you are effectively sharing boons back and forth with your pet. It shouldn’t be that hard to kill that interaction, solo Untamed builds would take a substantial hit. Fortifying Bonds also plays a role in the damage output of Alacrity Untamed builds, because it gives your pet full boons for free.

 

Still, I suspect you want to hit these builds a bit harder, so reduce the base Alac duration Untamed can give with their spirits, i.e. force Untamed to take an utility skill Spirit to maintain 100% Alac uptime. Being forced to drop Frost trap (~10% dps) – or to take more BD - in conjunction with some kind of nerf to Fortifying Bonds will bring Power Alac Untamed down to the 30k dps region. Another bonus to this approach is that the extra spirit would either give ~60% Prot/Vigor uptime, ~6-7 Might.

 

Don’t mistake the lack of feedback for the Untamed change to people being okay with it. It is a borderline niche class and the suggested change doesn’t really instil hope in people that Untamed is in good hands. At least to me it feels like you are implementing a change with the intent to see what the community can still make of it and then go from there, because you are unsure of the impact yourself.

 

Untamed is a wonderful, relatively unique, specialisation with a high skill ceiling, fast-paced playstyle and tons of flexibility. Please don’t kill it, I have enjoyed it a lot the last 6 months and it’s my biggest surprise of EoD.

 

TL;DR: The proposed Untamed change will most likely nuke every Untamed build back to November 2022 levels of dps with a less enjoyable rotation to boot.

 

[SleepyBat.9034]

3 minutes ago, Demonas.1083 said:

Specify renegade wvw over buffs . If you mean the celestial shortbow salvation build being "overbuffed " it's cele issue not a renegade issue and sure that build  maybe somewhat hard to play against. Other that that the gvg/guild/zerg builds condi/power/heal variants and the power roaming ones are fine, not "overbuffed".

Anet is not going to nerf cele gear even if it needs it so they might as well nerf the specs that need it. Renegade being one of them.

[Batalix.2873]

8 minutes ago, Furball.1236 said:

I like the aspect of the build diversity. I think ANet is pushing that more in the last year or so, and I really love the changes.

I play each of my classes because I like the character, skill animations, and mechanics. One of the things that keep me playing GW2 is that there is no profession that's meant to be support, tank, or pure dps as the holy trinity. I would dispise the idea if I'm forced to give up one class or elite specs.

 

Yes but what has resulted from this philosophy is role diversity being generally squished down into "DPS" versus "support DPS". That's actually less diverse than the trinity, and has resulted in a lot of classes designed to have support traits like FB, Scourge, Mech, and Specter instead just becoming OP "do everything" supports with too much DPS on top of their support utility.

 

Also you wouldn't be forced to give up a class just because it was shifted into a different role. You just might need to play it differently or use it in different content. And realistically, FB and Scourge wouldn't play much differently if they were purer support anyway; you're already spending a lot of time using tomes/mantras or sand shades, their functionality would just be tweaked. And I don't think anyone can claim that Firebrand's axe is particularly satisfying as a DPS weapon when two of its three abilities are more about area control.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[BenaSPACE.6028]

I'm beginning to think as we go along that Alac Mirage was never intended to be a viable strategy for group content, and that it was sheer ingenuity that brought it into being. Personally, I think that's pretty cool, though I can see why it's been a contentious point of balance.

 

I would say the first thing to do is start smaller with the nerfs to it-- 0.75 seconds of alac per cast seems good enough to me to both require some gear adjustments while also keeping it in line with certain group requirements.

 

Alternatively, if you want to try to get more experimental, you could change it to a pulsing-buff system, like so:

 

-Chaos Vortex no longer directly applies alacrity, but instead gives "Mental Oasis" for 3 seconds.
-Mental Oasis can stack up to 6 times. Each second, players with Mental Oasis gain 0.25 alacrity per stack.

The numbers are malleable, but I think a system like this would be easier to balance, as well as allow for players to vary their gameplay more.

 

If you prefer, you could also put this into a mirage trait instead.

Edited April 22, 2023 by BenaSPACE.6028

[DarkCobalt.2849]

1 hour ago, RenneBright.2473 said:

Gl trying to do an unrealistic 40k on Qadim, assuming you don't get downed beforehand by a shockwave or badly positioning yourself that is.

In all seriousness, you don't need to have 40k DPS at every boss to have a decent timer/smooth FC.

For Sama CM, I'd care more about whether or not you got enough CCs in your comp or how well you can pull him around (without AFKing in place), rather than whether or not you can reach 40k. I doubt you'll ever reach 40k though that way, and given that you can't "damage" him during the CCs xP.
There is "Golem benchmarks" (0 attacks, 0 mechanics) and there is an actual boss that isn't one. Not every boss is a MO.

I think you still don't understand that not reaching 40k in all bosses isn't the end of the world, and it doesn't prevent you to have a decent full clear... I don't get why you're so obsessed by that number tbh.

This is all very true, yes, but you've got to take into account that other classes are also doing more damage than Reaper in these scenarios and are easier to pull off. You can compare it against Spellbreaker, a class that can basically the same amount of utility that Reaper realistically can (CC, breakbar, boonstrip, projectile destruction, revive skill), but brings far more damage and is easier to play than Reaper with fewer restrictions on its rotation. The golem bench is unrealistic in terms of raw number, sure, but what I've found is that it does scale to actual encounters. A class that benches 40k vs 36k will do 30k vs. 27k at QTP during burns, for example. A higher-benching class might score a final DPS output of 18k at Samarog vs. a lower-benching one scoring 15k at Samarog. Don't get me wrong, focusing on the Golem number itself is indeed kind of dumb, but differences between classes' DPS outputs are not. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by DarkCobalt.2849

[JhonnyCatwolf.9042]

22 hours 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..

I was just thinking this, the condi FB nerf will inadvertently affect QFB. If QFB dmg is too high, then make it harder to give 100% quickness. If CFB dmg is too high, nerf it in such a way that it doesn't affect QFB

[Furball.1236]

1 hour ago, Batalix.2873 said:

 

Yes but what has resulted from this philosophy is role diversity being generally squished down into "DPS" versus "support DPS". That's actually less diverse than the trinity, and has resulted in a lot of classes designed to have support traits like FB, Scourge, Mech, and Specter instead just becoming OP "do everything" supports with too much DPS on top of their support utility.

 

Also you wouldn't be forced to give up a class just because it was shifted into a different role. You just might need to play it differently or use it in different content. And realistically, FB and Scourge wouldn't play much differently if they were purer support anyway; you're already spending a lot of time using tomes/mantras or sand shades, their functionality would just be tweaked. And I don't think anyone can claim that Firebrand's axe is particularly satisfying as a DPS weapon when two of its three abilities are more about area control.

It will boil down to personal preferences, but I prefer what GW2 has now compared to the holy trinity.

I also don't see FB is supposed to be built for support. It's another personal aspects that will differ between players.

 

All elite specs need to invest to give supports and I don't believe there is a class that can do everything unless they change builds.

None of the support DPS can do DPS comparable to good pure DPS. They all trade ~20% of their DPS on golem and more on real fights due to mechnics and limited time to go through their bursts in real fights.

Pure DPS can also attempt to give boon or barrier supports to their subs without changing any of their builds, but their contribution will be neglectable in presence of the actual support in the same group.

 

Of course, if you're just talking about a support being the top dps on your squad or hitting 30+k bench on golem, that's doable by any of the supports listed above. This seems a measurement of "OPness" for many players but I'm not sure if you use this measurement. But if you do, honestly, the top DPS can be achieved by anything. As an example, I consistently be top dps even when I play my druid traited for some damage, core ranger, or core mesmer. The variation of performance is much larger between players than between classes, so this is not an objective measurement. You may see your support or "support" being top dps in your squad, but I can guarantee 90% of the time the difference between the top support DPS and other DPS below them is not due to the "OPness" of the class but the skill differences.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Furball.1236

[misterman.1530]

2 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

If you honestly think that then you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. Do you even play wvw? Harbinger easily has the most broken build in the game right now.

No. Lol. No it doesn't. Sorry, if you have issues with it. Willbenders eat me alive, if they are fast enough. It's a matter of skill, not the Harb's build. If you are having issues with it, you might want to practice more.

I mean, if you're rank 150 "Bronze Invader" and you are up against a "Gold Legend" (rank 2445), you'd probably lose regardless of the enemy's build.

I almost exclusively WvW and I usually just roam. So, yeah. I play WvW.

[Setz.9675]

Honestly in the past 10 years so many balance changes have come through and so many different builds have been butchered or destroyed, I remember reading a quote years ago from game developers that said: ''given the chance players will optimize the fun out of the game'' In this game I don't have to because the balance team does it for me.

 

Here are some things I miss that used to be fun in gw2 and issues I have with the balance patch:

 

Elementalist: Staff being a good damage weapon, played this so much pre-HoT. It's just outdated now and nerfed into the ground thanks to the PoF weaver days.

Tempest: Doesn't have any competitive dps builds, I miss playing staff and dagger/warhorn but bringing this to group content (fractals/raids/strikes) is just griefing others with subpar damage while others do their best to carry their own weight.

Weaver: Imo sword/dagger is too strong right now, don't understand why dps builds have to do close to and over 40k dps.

Catalyst: Jade Sphere is just tempest overload but with energy instead of a long cast. Empowered Empowerment: While at maximum stacks of elemental empowerment, its effectiveness is increased (at 10 stacks + 100%). Seriously this is just griefing people the way this trait is designed and that after an entire year it still hasnt been changed speaks volumes about the balance team. The skill floor for this trait is so stupidly high that only people that turned catalyst into a second job get any benefit from this. The only way you maintain this trait is through a seriously strict hammer rotation, mess up the rotation and 1 you messed up your rotation losing damage, 2 you dropped atleast 11% of power/precision/ferocity stats. Also you never get the benefit of this trait in open world where mobs die faster than you can obtain or maintain 10 stacks.

 

Engineer: Seems to be in a good spot overal. Rifle auto attack is still scuffed but now 300% less fun than when it was a tripple shot, thanks for that. Just revert it back either tripple shot or a single shot, having my legendary rifle projectiles be replaced by a black dot is straight up criminal.

Scrapper: Has good builds, gyros are in a good spot, being the best quick dps vs bringing the least utility seems fair.

Holosmith: Also in a good spot, nice that condition build gets a tune up but can you tune the rifle + Photonic Blasting Module build up as well to be competitive versus the sword build?

Mechanist: Why does auto-cast on mech skills F1-3 still exist? Delete that already. Mechanical Genius, the most UNFUN and absolute garbage mechanic in the ENTIRE history of GW2 traits, which disproportionally punishes power builds, followed by boonshare/heal builds and can be mostly ignored by condition builds. Recall mech often makes the mech overshoot its return making it still not in range.

The boon share portion of Shift Signet should have been the Mechanical Genius trait. People can then choose to use the Shift signet for player+mech positioning or to take a different utility. Adding complexity for power/condi builds with grenade/bomb kit and tuning down some heal/boon share traits for the added slot for those builds.

Power mechanist is in an absolute terrible spot damage wise in fractals/raids/strikes, the grand master condition trait being a better damage option than the power slot is also nonsense. Sky Circus needs to give the player and mech a +20% dmg modifier when using mech F1-3 skills for 8 seconds, this effect shouldn't stack in duration or refresh duration to add much needed complexity to the build.

 

Guardian: Has good builds but overal just feels terrible to me.

Dragonhunter: The rotation got butchered with EoD balance patches for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON AT ALL. Procession of Blades changes should be reverted to its 20s cooldown and have its dmg increased which it previously lost with the cooldown reduction. Spear of justice having a 3/4s cast time feels bad in solo content, its clunky. Same with Longbow rooting the player in place when casting skill 2 (True Shot) and 5 (Hunter's Ward) it just feels bad to play.

Firebrand: Firebrand overperformed no doubt about it but why are these the changes you settled for? Just remove granting Ashes of the just from the Quickfire grandmaster trait and give +20% strike damage in return to make power quickbrand viable, replace quickness from mantra of potence with fury and make the trait Stalward Speed grant quickness when casting a mantra, so you either take quickness mantra or condi dmg increase in this traitline. You guys from the balance team keep on talking about being careful when finetuning but here you are chopping into firebrand like a butcher.

Willbender: Not being able to give alactrity without doing dmg to a target is a serious shortcoming of the alacbender build, it does a ton of dmg though. Honestly just design alactrity traits to compete with damage traits and make F2 grant a couple of seconds of alacrity instead of it being based on strikes. Then increase alac duration with some boon gear.

 

Mesmer: Overal good spot

Chronomancer: 🤡Danger Time giving +15% crit when the enemy has slow is absolute garbage when you consider virtuoso gets +15% crit for having fury 🤡

Mirage: Again with the staff/axe crap, just give clones baseline ambushes but at 20%, 33% or 50% dmg of what it is now, give the grandmaster trait Infinite Horrizon a dmg increase to clone ambushes, turn Dune cloack grandmaster into granting alacrity when ambushing. Same as willbender, not being able to provide alacrity without a target is a shortcoming.

Virtuoso: Just straight up strong in group content, Bladesong Distortion should be removed, the dmg reduction/evasion toolkit is too much.

 

Daredevil: staff needs damage increases not even joking this isnt a good spot at all.

Berserker: Revert the changes to F1/F2, they feel bad considering how rage starved everything but axe is. Also in terms of the berserker theme, extending the duration of Berserk by doing Burst skills is much much cooler than forcing the elite specs rage skills onto the utility bar. I want to pick utility skills based on the encounter/how good they are, not to make a bad/broken elite spec function properly. 🤡Tactics and Defense being better dps trait lines than Discipline🤡

Harbinger: shouldnt have a grandmaster trait in WvW that grants quickness for being in shroud when herald/scrapper got theirs removed. Remove the terrible power traits and replace them with quickness generating traits, gaining and losing Blight should then Pulse quickness.

 

Cant say much about the other professions, dont play those often or at all.

 

 

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Setz.9675

[BatelGeuce.3591]

Hopefully the untamed change kills it enough so that they overhaul the entire spec so that it's more user friendly and even regular plebs like me can play it somewhat reliably and have consistent dps output. Kind of tired of playing SLB.

[VictorLeal.4102]

5 hours ago, misterman.1530 said:

That's what I mean. I solo'd the personal story with a Reaper and didn't feel weak. So, was it raid-related issues?

I didn't say it's weak in its current state, but it's improved a lot since the last patch, any content is easily done with Reaper, now it's getting a buff to be more DPS competitive with other classes in PvE.

[SleepyBat.9034]

22 minutes ago, misterman.1530 said:

No. Lol. No it doesn't. Sorry, if you have issues with it. Willbenders eat me alive, if they are fast enough. It's a matter of skill, not the Harb's build. If you are having issues with it, you might want to practice more.

I mean, if you're rank 150 "Bronze Invader" and you are up against a "Gold Legend" (rank 2445), you'd probably lose regardless of the enemy's build.

I almost exclusively WvW and I usually just roam. So, yeah. I play WvW.

I'm like gold something but that doesn't matter because it is not a matter of skill. I'm quite familiar with Harbinger having played it quite a lot since it came out and I can say it easily has the most unfair builds currently. I play multiple classes and tend to favor brawler-like melee builds either power or hybrid.

[Gibson.4036]

You missed the most important PvP balance note.

*Matchmaker will now ensure same number of afk players on both teams.

 

[VictorLeal.4102]

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The current benchmark of the reaper is fine (35k dps). In fact this benchmark is what should be the golden standard (if anything other professions/specs should be brought down to reaper level of damage, not the opposite). This patch and the previous one merely inflat numbers that don't need to be inflated.

Reaper does not have life force generation issue, it's the top dps builds recommended that does. That's purely a player issue if you lack LF generation.

Shouts aren't weak, they just serve no purpose in PvE. They are designed for competitive modes, not for end game PvE. They are designed for fighting against up to 5 foes, not to fight a single foe. Increasing their damage will just make them barely compete against Wells while carrying a load a useless fluff.

The traits aren't weird. The issue is just that 2 traits (soul eater and Reaper's onslaught) are simply overpowered and nobody is willing to let go of them.

 

This patch solve 0 issue for the reaper, it just flat out powercreep the single build that's been used since they changed reaper's onslaught to provide quickness instead of increasing the base attack speed while in shroud. 6 years that they do the same thing. If they want to make reaper popular in PvE raids it's not by increasing it's damage output that they will achieve this result as the damage output is already more than good enough.

 

I love how you made this big text and didn't read what I said "Reaper HAD" and also didn't read that it was something asked of me about "PVE" LMAO

Edited April 22, 2023 by VictorLeal.4102

[AJVO Havoc.8534]

So "Thief is generally in a good spot" *Sigh* 😕

Just finish already killing all thief specs to be done 😒

You guys might take more from Deadeye in order to provide that quickness buff as you have done everytime you supposely provide of a buff to Deadeye and so far it has been only broken promises on putting some work on specter as a support.

I wouldn't be worried about general nerfs to guardian or ranger's specs tbh, usually when nerfing these classes on mini balance updates is to use as an excuse for an upcoming big buffing.

 

theoretically thieves should have the highest DPS

But we do not and yet we have lowest health, while every now and then still getting nerfs to our stealth, which is to us what these perma shielding, invulnerability, protection, etc, etc is to other classes and so far that's the reason most of the main thieves playing Daredevil at WvW now, best flow in game with the core thief 2.0 cause nobody playing DD the way it was meant to be played but just as a core thief instead.

That's not our fault tho, we don't have many options with the lack of actual builds we have at our disposition either if we play core, DD, DE, Specter... That comes from someone who does roaming as a Deadeye in WvW and spams skill 2 like there is no tomorrow lfmao.

 

Out of joke and no offense but actual balance team is doing a terrible job... 

 

[Seneca.6319]

I play 3 classes pretty often: elementalist, mesmer and necro. 

Changes to elementalist: meh, good they fixed bugs but Tempest could use a rework on the grandmaster traits. Not being able to provide alacrity and heal at the same time is weird, other classes do it so where is the balance? In WvW tempest is mostly a cleanse bot and provides some decent healing but that's it. It would be great if it could compete with Firebrand that way in a group you can either have a Firebrand or a Tempest a.k.a give Tempest the ability to generate more stability and share it with the group. It is pretty much its weak point right now. It could also compensate for the Stone Heart rework.

On the Sone Heart grandmaster trait: people take that because a Thief can just one shot you if he attacks from stealth and behind at the same time. Not gonna lie, the fact that you have to camp Earth to not die because of crits from sneaky thieves is a bit of a bummer so I'm curious on the number of seconds you maintain Stone Heart when entering and existing Earth.

 

Changes to  Mesmer: great you're fixing bugs but not great you're touching alacrity, again. Good that it is in PvE only since in competitive mode it is literally impossible to maintain 3 clones up so Staff Mirage has literally no play in PvP or WvW. But still, half of the alacrity and being forced to take Ritualist gear...I don't like it. And where are the PvP & WvW changes for Mirage? Where is our 2nd dodge while Daredevil has 3 and perma stealth. How can you say "Thief is in a good spot" ??? Are we playing the same game ?? Thief is like the most toxic and annoying class to play against in competitive mode, yet Staff/Axe Mirage is a big offender. If Mirage would get it's 2nd dodge back it could see some play in WvW Zergs with GS. Right now only Chrono reached meta and that is because of boonrips with Gravity Well and Shield. But it's such a boring build to play. 

 

Changes to Reaper: the class just feels clunky with a Greatsword. I don't care about a power coefficient when my attacks are 3/4-1 second spaced out. Greatsword on Reaper feels like a staff only it's melee. There is a total disconnect between changes to Shouts and the use of the GS. Shouts reward you for being in melee range but the spec's weapon punishes you greatly. So most Reapers take Axe/Focus and Staff and avoid using shouts too much because they avoid being in melee range outside of Reaper's Shroud. 

 

Closing words: Please play the game yourself in competitive modes and see how each class & spec feel. Focus on competitive mode balances, spare us with the PvE balance patches, who cares we're able to bring down a giant hitbox to 0 that fast. I haven't played a raid or a strike in months because they are that boring. Fractals & dungeons are more fun than raids or strikes but because they reward you better people obviously play those. Once they get their gear they go away because who wants to grind the same raid indefinitely ??? Might as well go hit the Kitty for 10 mins a day if I feel like doing a Raid. 

Fix the stealth problem with Thief in competitive modes, figure out ways each class can counter it! It is quite funny that a Mesmer (basically the Trickster), an Elementalist (the Mage) and Necromancer (the King of the Undead) have basically no counter play to Thief. These classes should have the most counterplay to stealth because they are squishier and, except for the necro, require a lot of skill to play.

[Josif.2015]

Of all things to focus for engineer, why condition holosmith? Does nobody at ArenaNet know that core engineer exists? Holosmith is a power specialization, not a condition specialization. 4 of the 5 Photon Forge skills are power based and Photon Blitz is the only condition skill that applies burning.

I don't know why you would buff condition holosmith when you can just buff core condition engineer which is, in my opinion, better than condition holosmith. And you can give it more buffs rather than just reducing the cooldown on Incendiary Ammo from 40 to 20 seconds in PvE only. Not saying I don't appreciate it, but I think more buffs would've been appreciated.

Let's hope that the June 27th balance patch offers more meaningful changes rather than just lowering or increasing cooldowns.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Josif.2015

[Seneca.6319]

1 hour ago, lmao.7816 said:

So "Thief is generally in a good spot" *Sigh* 😕

Just finish already killing all thief specs to be done 😒

You guys might take more from Deadeye in order to provide that quickness buff as you have done everytime you supposely provide of a buff to Deadeye and so far it has been only broken promises on putting some work on specter as a support.

I wouldn't be worried about general nerfs to guardian or ranger's specs tbh, usually when nerfing these classes on mini balance updates is to use as an excuse for an upcoming big buffing.

 

theoretically thieves should have the highest DPS

But we do not and yet we have lowest health, while every now and then still getting nerfs to our stealth, which is to us what these perma shielding, invulnerability, protection, etc, etc is to other classes and so far that's the reason most of the main thieves playing Daredevil at WvW now, best flow in game with the core thief 2.0 cause nobody playing DD the way it was meant to be played but just as a core thief instead.

That's not our fault tho, we don't have many options with the lack of actual builds we have at our disposition either if we play core, DD, DE, Specter... That comes from someone who does roaming as a Deadeye in WvW and spams skill 2 like there is no tomorrow lfmao.

 

Out of joke and no offense but actual balance team is doing a terrible job... 

 

Stealth is a broken mechanic, everybody hates you in WvW and PvP. The fact that being hit or CC'ed doesn't take you out of stealth is just wrong. The fact that 90% of the time we can't see you or target you doesn't make you a better player.. It makes you a cheesy one abusing a broken mechanic. Even Virtuoso or Guardian with their huge number of Aegis applications are not that broken because they can be targeted or boonripped. But nothing against stealth. 

[Lyn.7902]

pDD needs more damage and less animation lock on staff ^.^ please buff and remove mag bomb if needed, I hate how it feels so bad to play outside of few raid fights. Bleh.

 

And now that you are looking at bug fixes, Reaper Shroud scythe disappearing bug fix when? Sheathing/knock down and sometimes just using shroud makes the scythe go invisible. 

[OuterOcean.2418]

On 4/21/2023 at 2:03 PM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

When they do not specify a mode, it is almost 100% of the time for all modes.

This is going to be a nice change.

Ah okay thanks.

[Vipanez.6145]

i wish some Spellbreker off-hand Dagger buffs for PvE, PvP and WvW. Its the most

useless weapon for Spellbreaker right now.

[Dune.6970]

Firebrand

At the start of the year all you had to do was remove access to F2 and F3 when on a dps focused (CFB/QFB) build.
 

What we got was an unnecessary complicated and buggy tome rework that put a lot of dps on the boring flame mantra and broke the fun dps rotation. Then another rework that reintroduced the controversial mantra preps now midfight and gave QFB stupid dps numbers. And now to fix that mistake a crude blanket dps nerf, that will kill the only good endgame dps option (CFB) for guardians.
 

I am pretty happy with the current meta otherwise but guardian balance has been a shitshow. So many wasted dev hours that could've been spent on other professions or especs that really needed it.

I honestly don't know how I would fix this mess without eliminating all of the work that was poured into this. Maybe reduce Mantra of Potence or "Feel My Wrath!" quickness duration instead of nuking Firebrand burn traits? I don't know... 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Dune.6970

[Requiem.9648]

Firebrand high number only due to fact quickness is easy enough to give that people run rune of renegade when equiping Ritualist gear then have similar number of the classic cfb with Balthazard rune with full viper gear. So i think just a light nerf on dmg should be just good enough BUT a change tait line Power of the Virtuous to something else to eradicate the vitality for condition damage will actualy fix the quickness firebrand opness . This patch give way too massive nerf on the classic fb rune of Baltha that will impact the entire class. Only the HB will survive that patch. Basicaly Anet should just check little nerf for lower number not that massive change how will absolutely destroy fb dps and annhilate cqb variant.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Requiem.9648

[tyler.1653]

Really? More PvE only balance updates? More attention needs to be put on PvP and WvW

[LegohBrave.1823]

Clearly my last comment confused people. Allow me to elaborate.

*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.*

This is a terrible idea. Why? Several reasons.

I don't think people understand how few of us run Tempest. So what do we run?

Fire/Water/Tempest OR Earth/Water/Tempest.

Earth is a terrible trait line because although it gives protection on aura. it relies on AURASHARE hence the water line.
Why is fire amazing? because it has smothering auras. which NEEDS POWERFUL AURA hence the WATER line to actually be useful.

So lets say you go fire/water/tempest in pvp? You melt. There's no denying that. I have played several hundred ranked matches and ignoring STONE HEART is a deathwish for tempests. Everyone on the enemy side focuses you and even with a stupid amulet like PALADIN you melt. No crits is the absolute anyway to survive AT ALL and do any damage before getting nuked to oblivion.

Let's talk wvw. Would you go earth/water/tempest? NO. Why? The hell are you going to cleanse with? Trooper runes? no. No one does this. Everyone is going Fire/Water/Tempest and they rely on ZERGS to NOT DIE. So you don't want to zerg? you want to roam or small scale with a smaller group? If you don't take Stone heart you are going to die so fast its ridiculous. Everyone targets you because you are going to be 1 of 2 things. Full glass or hybrid. No you won't survive with minstrel traits because then you dont do any damage whatsoever.

Why don't you change it so that for PVE IT REDUCES ALL INCOMING DAMAGE x% instead and leave our only way of not melting in wvw or pvp at the expensive cost of having to carry a crappy trait line like earth?

If this confuses you then clearly you don't play Tempest as much as a loser like me.

I can assure you. It's balanced for the game as it currently stands. At the cost of not being one shot by pure DPS crit based builds we can't kill anything because we are stuck with a crappy line like earth.