May 2 Balance Update Preview

[thetwothousand.5049]

I dont understand how Catalyst is getting nerfed in WvW when there is so much worse stuff making roaming impossible to deal with. Catalyst in its current state is barely able to compete with the broken stuff out there.

Stuff like cele harbringer, willbender, the entire engineer class, and soulbeasts are all significantly more problematic in the roaming scene, but catalyst gets nerfed even harder????? I dont even know what to say.

[Antina.5973]

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

Permeating Wrath: Reduced burning duration from 2 seconds to 1 seconds when using the firebrand elite specialization in PvE only.

I'm disappointed that a cool ability to cleave multiple targets and something that rewards using abilities correct is getting nerfed by half. How is that a quickFB fix, if it hits hard into DPS FB and especially the open world FunBrand builds?

Please reconsider touching this trait, maybe just move it to something else if abandon the change entirely.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Antina.5973

[NuggetScout.3782]

Thieves over here crying like they dont have a billion dodges evades blind and stealth spam while one shotting most classes out of stealth half the time in wvw.

 

-sips tea-

[RAIZEN.7581]

• I can live with Fortified Earth: reduced base barrier from 3000 to 1254 in wvw and increased cooldown from 25 to 30.
  But "Elemental Celerity: Adjusted recharge amount from 100% recharge to 25 seconds of recharge in WvW only."? seriously arenanet? terrible update.

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

The elemental Celerity change is just weird, and wording is confusing to me.

Normally it reduces the recharge of WEAPON skills by 100%. So, hypothetically if you have a weapon skill that has a 16 sec cd on it, then as soon as you pop elem celerity, that weapon skill and other skills on the active weapon bar instantly come off the cd. 

Now, you say that the recharge will be to 25 secs??? ok, what if all my weapon skills are less than 25 secs? then what? Are you trying to say that the reduction will be 25%? If this is the case, that is a very underwhelming elite skill of the new elite spec. 

Who is in charge over there? Is there actual reason behind these inept attempts at balance?

I'm sorry, I just don't understand the wording, I guess.

[zealex.9410]

2 hours ago, Crazy.6029 said:

The elemental Celerity change is just weird, and wording is confusing to me.

Normally it reduces the recharge of WEAPON skills by 100%. So, hypothetically if you have a weapon skill that has a 16 sec cd on it, then as soon as you pop elem celerity, that weapon skill and other skills on the active weapon bar instantly come off the cd. 

Now, you say that the recharge will be to 25 secs??? ok, what if all my weapon skills are less than 25 secs? then what? Are you trying to say that the reduction will be 25%? If this is the case, that is a very underwhelming elite skill of the new elite spec. 

Who is in charge over there? Is there actual reason behind these inept attempts at balance?

I'm sorry, I just don't understand the wording, I guess.

It will shave 25seconds off of a skill's cd at most, if a skill doesnt have a cd of 25seconds it will just reset it cd. As far as i understand (mind you im not familiar with elementalist) is that they dont want this ability to instantly reset the cd of abilities with a cd above 25 seconds.

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

Ok, that makes sense. Thank you for clearing that up. It just seems strange since most weapon abilities are not over 25 secs. Utility abilities are over 25 secs, but elemental celerity doesn't reset those. Very strange in my opinion.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

1 hour ago, Crazy.6029 said:

Ok, that makes sense. Thank you for clearing that up. It just seems strange since most weapon abilities are not over 25 secs. Utility abilities are over 25 secs, but elemental celerity doesn't reset those. Very strange in my opinion.

Focus has a few, obsidian skin on 50s, swirling winds on 30, gale on 40. So it's a pretty directed nerf to a specific build. 

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, Crazy.6029 said:

Ok, that makes sense. Thank you for clearing that up. It just seems strange since most weapon abilities are not over 25 secs. Utility abilities are over 25 secs, but elemental celerity doesn't reset those. Very strange in my opinion.

It's just to reduce obsidian flesh uptime. The ele part is mostly about reducing catalyst's survivability in WvW.

[Xycho.5642]

On 4/22/2023 at 8:22 PM, Cruens.1640 said:

*Your whole story about untamed*

 

 

 

Thanks for wording this. Untamed has been my biggest fun and surprise aswell. I've been playing untamed for a month now after a lifetime of weaver and it really made the game that much more fun for me. If they push this patch through it will the end of it, and I'm sure they are doing this without understanding what they're doing themselves.

This is just a shot though the head for untamed.

 

Did they ever consider nerfing weaver by just making attunement swaps another couple seconds extra? 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Xycho.5642

[Suyheuti.1732]

3 hours ago, Xycho.5642 said:

Thanks for wording this. Untamed has been my biggest fun and surprise aswell. I've been playing untamed for a month now after a lifetime of weaver and it really made the game that much more fun for me. If they push this patch through it will the end of it, and I'm sure they are doing this without understanding what they're doing themselves.

This is just a shot though the head for untamed.

 

Did they ever consider nerfing weaver by just making attunement swaps another couple seconds extra? 

Weaver nerf? Hell no. Weaver has been in a misery for very long time. It has no boonshare, extremely low HP pool, not easy to play. I dont expect buff after all, it should stay like this. 
 

About Untamed. I have been enjoying with power untamed for couple weeks and as soon as I heard “Fervent Force” nerf, I stopped playing. ıf we count untamed players, they are max couple people. The weird thing is the nerf is massive, and no another weapon buff to cover the current state. 

[Nightara.1804]

5 hours ago, Xycho.5642 said:

Thanks for wording this. Untamed has been my biggest fun and surprise aswell. I've been playing untamed for a month now after a lifetime of weaver and it really made the game that much more fun for me. If they push this patch through it will the end of it, and I'm sure they are doing this without understanding what they're doing themselves.

This is just a shot though the head for untamed.

 

Did they ever consider nerfing weaver by just making attunement swaps another couple seconds extra? 

The big difference between changing the CDR trait of Untamed vs changing the cooldown of Attunements on Weaver is that the CDR trait makes it borderline impossible to balance the core weapons and skills for Ranger in a way that makes them good on Untamed AND the other specs.

While changing the Weaver Attunement CDs would ONLY affect Weaver, and not have any influence on the other elite specs.

Fervent Force breaks the entire design philosophy of GW2, similar to how the old version of Mimic or Continuum Split on Mesmer breaks the design philosophy of GW2. And just like with Fervent Force, Anet still hasn't managed to properly balance it.

If you want to compare it to anything, compare it to Continuum Split. And, surprisingly, Anet ended up nerfing Mesmer utility skills (Especially elite skills) to the ground to not make them overpowered with Chrono (Who can only reset the cooldowns once every two minutes or w/e the CD of CS is, btw, which is FAR less than Fervent Force), which makes most core skills kinda useless on pretty much any other spec.

That is EXACTLY what is going to happen to Ranger if Fervent Force stays in the game the way it is.

 

Edit, just to underline my point: Which utility skills do you use on Mesmer? Ah yes, Signets. And Signets. And Signets. And Psionic skills for Virtuoso. And Deception skills for Mirage. Exactly one Well, exactly one Mantra, exactly one Phantasm.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Nightara.1804

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, Xycho.5642 said:

Thanks for wording this. Untamed has been my biggest fun and surprise aswell. I've been playing untamed for a month now after a lifetime of weaver and it really made the game that much more fun for me. If they push this patch through it will the end of it, and I'm sure they are doing this without understanding what they're doing themselves.

This is just a shot though the head for untamed.

 

Did they ever consider nerfing weaver by just making attunement swaps another couple seconds extra? 

Any class would be a lot of fun if you gave it every single boon self-cast like Untamed.  Not sure why you would want to destroy weaver by increasing the swap cooldown.  If anything, give it quickness to speed things up.

[Batalix.2873]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Any class would be a lot of fun if you gave it every single boon self-cast like Untamed.  Not sure why you would want to destroy weaver by increasing the swap cooldown.  If anything, give it quickness to speed things up.

 

Seems to me the problem is boon autocasting on classes like Untamed and Mech then?

 

Idunno, my understanding of FF (I don't play Untamed) is it is one of very few things giving Untamed any identity and coherency. Yeah it sucks that the espec doesn't really have competitive trait alternatives, but it's not the same as say FB which can easily lose condi DPS and still have plenty of identity to work with.

 

I'm just curious what the intended playstyles/niches are for Untamed if not high APM FF, which until now has sat very comfortably next to other high risk, high reward DPS especs like Weaver, Bladesworn, and Deadeye.

 

Very odd decision.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Dualumina.1760]

Alac mirage is the only build that uses TWO staffs, so effectively being limited to one weapon, and you're suggesting to nerf it?? Double staff alac mirage and quick chrono are the only dedicated support options Mesmer can offer a group, and quick chrono is underused currently. If you want mirage to be more of a support spec then make it a support spec, or do what you've been doing with newer specs whereby different trait rows are for condi/power/support builds. Surely there's some traits on the mirage line that are hardly touched, like how often does Sand Shards get used?

[Chryses.5906]

On 4/21/2023 at 9:55 PM, DarkCobalt.2849 said:

In an effort to pull back the overperforming boon DPS builds, you've also targeted the general DPS builds as well with these changes. If quick-DPS Firebrand was a problem, why shotgun nerf a whole smorgasbord of burning traits and abilities that are used by Firebrands in general? This is a huge overcorrection and guts pure DPS Firebrand more than the condi quick one. The real solution would have been to reduce the quickness uptime and have the players build more boon duration or take Weighty Terms instead of Legendary Lore, not nerf Legendary lore into obscurity. But instead, we've decided to nerf all condi Firebrand builds of every form, when the DPS one (although overperforming by 2k DPS) is not that out of the realm of reason to begin with. (The condi quick one is way overperforming, but again gotta shotgun nerf the whole spec I suppose.) The same goes for Renegade. If you're going to nerf the standard Renegade abilities that are not related to alacrity then at least buff the trait that is in the same slot with Righteous Rebel. Instead, we've shotgun targeted all Condi Renegade builds. 

When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This brute force style of balancing is going to create more problems than it solves.

^ This.

I've seen it mentioned a handful of times already, but I figured I would say it once more. If condi alac ren or condi quick firebrand are overperforming, then nerf them in such a way that it doesn't effect their pure DPS variants. 

[Kanata.4168]

2 hours ago, Dualumina.1760 said:

Alac mirage is the only build that uses TWO staffs, so effectively being limited to one weapon, and you're suggesting to nerf it?? Double staff alac mirage and quick chrono are the only dedicated support options Mesmer can offer a group, and quick chrono is underused currently. If you want mirage to be more of a support spec then make it a support spec, or do what you've been doing with newer specs whereby different trait rows are for condi/power/support builds. Surely there's some traits on the mirage line that are hardly touched, like how often does Sand Shards get used?

I seriously hope they reconsider that change. They're targetting staxe, but somehow it feels like staff/staff is gonna get hit in certain game modes/content.

Staff/Staff Mirage already struggles (idk if it's just me) with alac generation in fights that end quickly like fractals because of the clones dying with their target immediately before you can stack up a reasonable alac duration. Feels like they were only thinking of raid boss encounters when they came up with that change, which I guess you can't blame them for it considering majority of people I've seen also go "double staff is fine, you're way overcapped as it is" as if you only ever fight raid bosses that live long enough. 

[Furball.1236]

On 4/22/2023 at 8:02 PM, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

so mechanist afk farming enabled by the overpowered golem is still not considered a problem?

 

wth?

No, don't add any meaningless changes that affect the gameplay of any elite specs just because of some small population of AFK farmers.

[Xycho.5642]

16 hours ago, Suyheuti.1732 said:

Weaver nerf? Hell no. Weaver has been in a misery for very long time. It has no boonshare, extremely low HP pool, not easy to play. I dont expect buff after all, it should stay like this. 
 

 

Oh nono im just trying to find a comparable situation for people who arent familiar with fervent force. Just like saying, a class who relies heavily on weapon swapping make their swap cooldown 15seconds instead cause 1 build performs well and slaughter the whole class with it.

 

Dont touch my weaver kitten haha

[brosky.3950]

Why the firebrand is damage dawned?

Continuously messing it up,whit every balance...

[Nimon.7840]

On 4/24/2023 at 7:51 PM, otto.5684 said:

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.

What?

How did you get to that conclusion?

Right now mirage needs theoretically 0% extra boon duration to maintain alacrity.

(Well you kinda get ~17% for free).

So by halfing the duration you suddenly can't keep alac up even though you have more than 5 times as much boon duration?

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Xycho.5642 said:

Oh nono im just trying to find a comparable situation for people who arent familiar with fervent force. Just like saying, a class who relies heavily on weapon swapping make their swap cooldown 15seconds instead cause 1 build performs well and slaughter the whole class with it.

 

Dont touch my weaver kitten haha

If pweaver is overperforming they could just roll back some of the power damage coefficient buffs and instead increase condition damage on sword, since it's currently underperforming as a result of their myopic focus on increasing only power damage on that weapon.

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, Nimon.7840 said:

What?

How did you get to that conclusion?

Right now mirage needs theoretically 0% extra boon duration to maintain alacrity.

(Well you kinda get ~17% for free).

So by halfing the duration you suddenly can't keep alac up even though you have more than 5 times as much boon duration?

You don't get 5 times as much boon duration tho. The maximun is double duration which is what you get when going from 0% to 100% extra boon duration and what is required to make up for a halfed base duration. Going from 117% to 200% is less than double tho and therefore it might not be enough. Even if it would be technically possible to still upkeep 100% alac with a perfect golem rotation that rarely translates well into actual encounters. Previously it was possible to add some more boon duration to make up for inconsistent rotations, but when +100% is the minimum required, the option to add more no longer exists.

I don't play mirage myself, so idk the exact numbers, but when considering it wasn't played much at all, i doubt it deserves such a hefty nerf. But hey, at least it means untamed isn't the only one in that boat.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Nightara.1804]

1 hour ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

You don't get 5 times as much boon duration tho. The maximun is double duration which is what you get when going from 0% to 100% extra boon duration and what is required to make up for a halfed base duration. Going from 117% to 200% is less than double tho and therefore it might not be enough. Even if it would be technically possible to still upkeep 100% alac with a perfect golem rotation that rarely translates well into actual encounters. Previously it was possible to add some more boon duration to make up for inconsistent rotations, but when +100% is the minimum required, the option to add more no longer exists.

I don't play mirage myself, so idk the exact numbers, but when considering it wasn't played much at all, i doubt it deserves such a hefty nerf. But hey, at least it means untamed isn't the only one in that boat.

Okay, to clear up the confusion: Right now, you generate (1s + 3x1s)*1.167 = 4.7s Alacrity per dodge (Assuming three clones) without any boon duration in your gear. You can dodge every three seconds (Since you do not only have your actual dodges, Vigor, and Sigil of Endurance, but also extra "dodges" on your heal and utility skills).

With the nerf, this will change to (1s + 3x0.5s)*1.167 = 2.9s Alacrity per dodge (Assuming three clones again) with zero boon duration from your gear. Since you can still dodge every three seconds (Approximately), this is almost enough to generate 100% Alacrity uptime in theory.

Edit: Funny "coincidence" I just noticed: The old Alac Mirage (Before the last balance patch) had a base Alac duration of - drumroll please - 2.5s. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE POST-NERF VERSION WILL HAVE WITH THREE CLONES.

In reality, if you pack 33% BD into your gear (Just picking a more or less random number here), you'll end up with 3.75s Alacrity per dodge, which - yes, is less than 4.7, but still plenty to easily get 100% uptime. To get back to the old value of 4.7, you'd need around 60% BD from your gear (Plus the 16.7 from Chaos), which is easily achievable with Ritualist's gear. Yes, you have to play Staff/Staff properly now and can't just button smash your way through SH while being top DPS as a supporter (I have plenty of SH logs from my static where our Alac Mirage easily rivals the top DPS, and idm sharing if you don't believe me on that), but is that really that bad? Yes, Alac Mechanist literally plays itself in comparison, but Alac Mechanist also has kitten DPS in return.

Having a 30k benchmark as a supporter WITHOUT ACCOUNTING FOR CONFUSION is already insanely strong. Sure, it doesn't work on every encounter, but where it does, it's extremely effective. And that benchmark is barely going to change, even with full Ritualist's.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Nightara.1804

[senftube.6081]

And still no Cele nerf in WvW.