May 2 Balance Update Preview

[Myror.7521]

@zealex.9410 I mean Im main warr thats why I used it as an example. My Wish is still get supp spec for warr xd

[Captain Crapface.7528]

Does anyone realise "Stone Heart" change might end up being massive f*cking buff to Elementalist as a whole? (depending on cooldowns and duration)

[Relco.2708]

The stone heart will be actually buff to ele play as it will allow you to go to earth gain the immunity leave gain it again go for example to water clean condis that you picked up and go back to earth to get it again, it will change to gameplay about doing staff in some attunement and then always go to earth even just to proc the immunity xD of course there could be internal cd but it has to have same cd as going back to earth attunement otherwise it would not make sense.

They should really think this change thru as rn you pay a toll for camping earth which is acces to only 1/4of you skill 

[The Boz.2038]

On 4/21/2023 at 6:39 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Berserker

• Smash Brawler: This trait now grants 15% increased critical-strike chance while in berserk mode in addition to its current effect.

I had hoped ANet learned not to impose modal crit chance modifiers on us.

😞

[philvaneyck.1932]

nerf willbender in pvp

[philvaneyck.1932]

can you finally buff warrior????

 

longbow 1 is way to slow. its pathetic.

and getting some more condis to condi builds of warrior.

[Bristingr.5034]

On 4/21/2023 at 4:25 PM, zealex.9410 said:

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

No it wasn't. The offtrade was reduced damage. Besides, you're not going to notice the crits not hitting anyways in WvW when you get zerg melted by 30 players. Instead of dying in 0.8 seconds, you'll just die in 0.6 seconds now.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Bristingr.5034

[Jski.6180]

I was hopeing they would of relooked at the added effects for utitily traits that they just removed cdr. Mostly cantrips for ele reg / vigor alone is not worth it. Maybe an self heal or maybe make it aoe?

[MedievalThings.5417]

On 4/21/2023 at 1:03 PM, Seraphis Zurvan.6839 said:

DPS. It sort of needs it. Dodging is sort of their class mechanic.

If this was true, core would have 3 as well.  And their class mechanic is stealth, not dodging.

[Gibson.4036]

4 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

If this was true, core would have 3 as well.  And their class mechanic is stealth, not dodging.

But the Daredevil ESpec heavily featured dodging, giving three dodge variations in their grandmaster traits and linking their DPS to it. It's the core of the ESpec. The third endurance bar is part of the Spec description.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Freedoms.2635]

I'd like to see bomb kit for engi get a rework. 

Like roll the bombs at the enemies increase there damage by 15% Big ol' bomb should roll aswell and detonates after it's timed roll. You'd at least see some people fart around with it in wvw and PvE. Otherwise grenade kit will always outside other kits like bomb kit. Then at least you could toss a couple people every once and awhile off a wall or something with big ol' bomb rolling. I know it sounds funny but we need to do something with the under used kits.

[Levikilla.3076]

Firebrand will need more sustain. The heal mantra is so bad right now.

[otto.5684]

Okay. I would not call it poor, but there isn’t much. 
 

The change to mirage staff is baffling. Even with 100% boon duration it will not be able to maintain alacrity.

Edited April 24, 2023 by otto.5684

[Levikilla.3076]

Firebrand will need more buffs than the ones listed above will not make Firebrand viable in PvP.

The sustain will not be there even with the buffs listed.

The heal mantra is too weak. Loremaster needs to be fixed to have all passives active at all times.

NEED MORE BUFFS ALL AROUND. MANTRAS, FB TRAITS

Edited April 24, 2023 by Levikilla.3076

[DeaconFrost.4870]

All teading most of the comments has assured me is half the balance updates people call out for are because they don't know how to play the class as is o.o I'm wildly surprised how many on here saying mirage can't alac as is, or that specter can't support? If it can be used in things like w5 cm etc its perfectly viable, it may not be "otpimal" but if that was the case then there would be literally only one toon of play . Not saying things don't need adjusted or balanced, but a lot of these specs get s**t on when they aren't really that bad o.o

Edited April 24, 2023 by DeaconFrost.4870

[SiEO.8430]

25 minutes ago, DeaconFrost.4870 said:

All teading most of the comments has assured me is half the balance updates people call out for are because they don't know how to play the class as is o.o I'm wildly surprised how many on here saying mirage can't alac as is, or that specter can't support? If it can be used in things like w5 cm etc its perfectly viable, it may not be "otpimal" but if that was the case then there would be literally only one toon of play . Not saying things don't need adjusted or balanced, but a lot of these specs get s**t on when they aren't really that bad o.o

People just say it cause it's their favourite class getting a slight nerf or a change and they will come up with any excuse to try and defend it. 

As for the update notes... it seems fine. Looking forward to the reaper and warrior changes. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by SiEO.8430

[Tabe.5096]

Pls buff hammer primal burst in pve.

[zealex.9410]

8 hours ago, Bristingr.5034 said:

No it wasn't. The offtrade was reduced damage. Besides, you're not going to notice the crits not hitting anyways in WvW when you get zerg melted by 30 players. Instead of dying in 0.8 seconds, you'll just die in 0.6 seconds now.

You would take it as support tempest and it promoted bunker playstyles.

[Tseison.4659]

I see it’s still not worth returning to the game just yet. Will check back some other day I guess…

[mirage.8046]

could use extra ferocity or precision somewhere in mesmer's traitlines. it would be so nice in domination spec tbh. 

[Munchuswewil.8930]

Sorry for the wall of text, but I have to jump in and address what I see wrong with how this patch is handling Untamed. I'd been both hopeful and afraid of what would happen to the spec in this patch, but the Fervent Force change is even more confusing and damaging than what I had imagined.

 

First of all, FF builds (namely Power, Power Alac, and Condi Untamed, but also including some niche things like Heal Untamed) are some of the most difficult builds to play in the game, requiring high-APM rotations that demand no mistakes and which rely heavily on positioning and are entirely melee. As far as I can tell from the insane amount of time spent looking at logs on Wingman, there are less than 20 players in the entire game capable of playing these builds to anywhere near their full potential. Even if played perfectly, these builds suffer from the fact that they pull very consistent DPS - that sounds good, but what it actually means is that they have 0 burst. This means on an actual fight with phasing and downtime, classes that are nominally lower on the benchmark are going to pull ahead in practice, as they can unload their burst and then get value out of the downtime by regaining their cooldowns, leading to them pulling an average boss DPS that actually outshines Untamed in almost every case, the only notable exception being QtP, where Condi Untamed is quite good. My Wingman page illustrates this beautifully - I have 95+ percentile logs for Untamed on nearly every raid fight and have the top log for every strike mission except for bears for this patch, but when compared to the all classes records, most of those logs dont even hit 80% of what other specs can pull. Untamed currently doesn't hold top DPS for this patch on a single fight. I can't imagine a reason for a nerf of this magnitude when something like Power Spellbreaker exists. Comparing the two, both builds are ~40k dps high health melee bruiser builds with consistent CC and damage but little burst CC or damage. They both have consistent boon strip, high self stability uptime and access to projectile destruction. The difference is that Untamed is barely played and has a much more unforgiving rotation, whereas Spellbreaker can essentially press random buttons and still perform extremely successfully. I've seen plenty of random pug Spellbreakers pull solid dps, meanwhile I've never seen a pug Untamed pull what I would consider even average DPS. I just don't see what the point in trying to bring down the damage output of FF builds is, when almost nobody is able to do damage with them in the first place.

 

Secondly, the way the nerf is implemented is extremely heavy handed and does not just accomplish lowering the damage output of the builds, it entirely destroys the rotation and pacing of every build utilizing it. The thing I enjoy most about Untamed is the speed and fluidity of it's rotations - there's never downtime, I'm always pushing forward with my rotation, because my ability to execute my next loop is dependent on me executing my current loop quickly and correctly. It makes the spec exciting, and the way that it can all fall apart if I make a mistake means that executing it well feels even more rewarding. I've played Untamed nonstop since EoD released, and even when it was pulling 33k I still loved it, and I would continue playing it in it's current iteration even if the damage was knocked back down to that point. However, this change to FF isn't just a damage nerf, it completely destroys the playstyle of every build utilizing the trait. Instead of fast, fluid loops, the rotations are going to be filled with downtime and auto chains, nerfing not only the dps but also ruining what the very few high level Untamed players love about the spec. It really seems like this change was made without any understanding of how these builds work or what the implications of this change are. Additionally, this will leave Ferocious Symbiosis builds as clear winners as far as DPS goes. I'm all for FS existing and being strong - I'm actually really happy that Untamed has a very viable build that allows players who don't desire the difficulty and intensity of FF to still play the spec and be an asset to their team. However, making FS stronger than FF means that the players who love the intensity and the difficulty now have to choose between playing the build they find engaging or playing the build that's good. We shouldn't feel punished for putting in MORE effort, but that's how it's going to feel if FS is the de facto choice for Untamed builds now.

 

I admit that I can see why ANet might think FF is a scary trait. Core ranger wasn't initially designed with FF in mind, and if the trait was on most other classes, it would actually lead to some insane outcomes. If Guardian had Advance and Sanc every 6 seconds, or virt was summoning 30 phantasmal swordsmen per minute, we might have some problems. I think ANet got lucky that they happened to put this trait on Ranger, but good news for them, as scary as the trait sounds and looks from a balance perspective, it actually doesn't do that much aside from increase DPS. Most Ranger utilities don't really do anything that someone else in the team can't do better, even when spammed. Perhaps the most insane combo with FF would be having frequent SnR and Nature Spirits, but even that isn't very impressive when heal scourge exists. Aside from that, all Ranger has is some condi cleanse (should be covered by your healers anyway), a stun break (there is no encounter where you need this every 6 seconds), damage skills, and spirits for alac. I'm assuming that the FF nerf was at least partially targeted at power alac Untamed, but in addition to there being almost no players capable of pulling it off to it's full potential, it's an extremely niche build to try to fit into a squad. A strong player will pull extremely high dps for a support build, yes, but that's about all it brings to the table. Sure it has the boon strip and projectile destruction that any Untamed build can bring, but those are only useful in a select few fights. As far as boons go, it brings alac. That's it. So you better hope your sub's healer is covering everything else perfectly, because the alac Untamed isn't going to be helping out with anything else. Compare this to a subgroup with a rev or guard as their support DPS, and the consistency of boon uptime is going to be night and day. 

 

I was dreading this patch because I just knew that we would see something like this, but a part of me was actually hopeful, especially when the February patch didn't touch Untamed, because I was hoping that the "looking into" that they were giving FF might actually mean a deeper look at the spec as a whole, because it needs it. For one, it's buggy: FF doesn't even work on half the IBS strikes, not to mention random fractal bosses and some mobs like giants, and the fact that it also doesn't reset the cooldown of the skills in the opposite Unleash mode makes it confusing and difficult for people trying to learn it. The traits are also poorly designed - the top row only works with FF (thus, nerfing FF also nerfs these traits, adding to the list of problems the patch is introducing for the spec). Meanwhile the bottom row mostly buffs ambushes, but all the ambushes are pretty bad aside from axe. Hammer ambush is particularly bad because it's actually worse than autoattacking - if I swap unleash and then accidentally start channeling it, I'm actually upset that I used my big, cool class mechanic, which should never be something that the player feels bad about. The worst offender is probably restorative strikes - this trait was useless when it was 10% healing, then the power of the healing was halved. You already don't get any healing if you take this trait, because you lose the damage that you would gain from running FF or FS. Why does this even exist? The fact that only hammer gets new skills when you unleash feels like a half-implemented idea and makes the class feel inconsistent. Untamed is also the closest thing we have to a real beastmaster spec - it gives you significantly more control over your pet. Yet the traitline it has the worst synergy with is Beastmastery. None of the unleashed pet skills are considered Beast skills, and apparently if you specialize in Two-Handed Training you forgot to attend the class on hammers, because hammers are not affected by this trait despite what the name would imply. The Unleash mechanic as a whole has issues - FF is a great trait because it encourages constant swapping of Unleash (at least on hammer builds). This allows players access to both their pet's original skills and the unleashed pet skills during the rotation, without feeling bad about swapping. On the FS build however, there's almost no point in swapping unleash, as it's a dps loss in almost every situation, outside of using the axe ambush if you're running axes in your off set. This leaves base Untamed really feeling as if there is no class mechanic. Fervent Force is by far more interesting than anything the spec offers baseline, and that's probably why certain people have tried making the point "You don't play Untamed, you play Fervent Force." FF is a fantastic trait that changes the entire way you have to think about and approach the game, but outside of FF, the spec doesn't really have anything remarkable. It honestly feels as if FF should have been a minor trait that all Untamed builds would get regardless of their trait choices. Overall, there's so many little changes that I feel need to be made to Untamed to help it's design and get the spec to it's full potential, the fact that this short-sighted nerf is all we get is really disheartening.

 

Honestly, if all we were getting is a damage nerf, I would question why and be very skeptical of the balance team, but I would continue to play the spec just because I love the difficulty, the intensity, and the flow of the rotation. However, that's not what we're getting. Instead we're getting something that's actually a massive change that destroys the way the class functions, and it's pretty clear to me that the balance team actually doesn't understand what they're doing here. This will kill the flow and intensity that the few Untamed players that do exist love about the spec. I would implore the balance team to rethink this change. If you're absolutely CERTAIN that Untamed NEEDS a nerf, I would beg you to implement a short-term fix like what you did with quick cata last year. Add a downside directly to FF, but keep the 4 second cooldown reduction. Make FF reduce damage done by 15%, or make it reduce outgoing boon duration by 20%, or whatever you need to do to fix whatever you think the problem is, but don't ruin the playstyle of the spec. After that, I would really hope that we would see a revisiting of Untamed as a whole at some point in the future where we would see bug fixes and some more fleshing out of other parts of the spec beyond FF. But please don't ruin the great spec that we have now.

[Ascency.3580]

On 4/21/2023 at 7:40 PM, soul.9651 said:

If condi alac ren is overperforming then nerf condi alac ren dont touch the condi dps ren.... Look at the kitten ritualist gear instead.

agree, ritualist gear should be removed.

[Lily.1935]

Anet. Y'all are fixing a lot of bugs. When are you going to fix the female necromancer's Axe animation? I've mentioned it during every update for how many years now? 9?

[Holofern.4382]

On 4/21/2023 at 6:39 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Harbinger

• Harbinger Shroud: Increased blight stacks per second from 1 to 2 in PvE only.
• Voracious Arc: Reduced blight threshold from 10 to 5.
• Elixir of Ambition: Increased stacks of each condition from 1 to 3 In PvE only. Reduced cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds in PvE only.

 

Power Harbinger is fun in PVP and solo PVE, but in group PVE it is more of a meme. It is sad, but at the moment there is no good argument for power Harbinger to exist in PVE groups. DPS is abysmal no matter how you play and quickness support can be done better by other classes.

[Diskyp.9461]

There is minimum of 4 reapers in every PvP game that just pressing 2 buttons (conditions burst and 4sec stun) and if you out of stun breaks you are dead. I really want reaper gameplay to become more challenging with increased numbers of button pressing in 2-3 times. And maybe 4 sec AOE stun (which is again just braindead tool, you dont even need to rotate your camera and focusing specific target) can be reduced atleast on 1 sec and their CD can be increased from 40 sec to something more than a minute? For example small cloud that pulsing with 1 short and mostly non-damaging conditions per sec have 2 minutes CD but immidiate AOE 4 sec stun have 40 sec CD. Like cmon, its not fair, everyone choosing this kitten AOE stun and its the same in every single match, i want to see atleast some variety in my games.

 

About listed changes i dont even know what to say, there is too little to talk about. Reduced cooldown on warrior's warhorn 1 skill looks like a nerf for me cos now you need to swap on this weapon more often to have constant swiftness.