May 2 Balance Update Preview

[HotDelirium.7984]

The mirage staff alac nerf needs to be reconsidered/renegotiated because you created the condition that links our clones to our alac uptime. Boss phases, traveling and mini mobs break up that cadence a lot to where we aren't super dependable for our alac uptime. Consider unlinking the clones to our uptime or maybe compromising on reducing it to .75 instead of .5

If weapon swaping is overtuning mirage than address the WS not the entire build. Make the ws cooldown on mirage longer then.

Edited April 21, 2023 by HotDelirium.7984

[cyberzombie.7348]

2 hours ago, aspirine.6852 said:

Condition Holo? Who the hell asked for that?

I play hybrid holo in wvw and even I never thought it needed more buffs. 

Edit: The burn spam alone gets the job done

Edited April 21, 2023 by cyberzombie.7348

[HotDelirium.7984]

1 hour ago, Seraphis Zurvan.6839 said:

It never needed additional boon duration to maintain uptime. The fact it needs some actual ritualist pieces now is a good thing.

Ritualist is still inefficient because we aren't a tank, we don't need all that pointless extra vitality.

[Boh.4568]

Everyone is happy for the reaper buff, meanwhile I only read (PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)(PvE only)

[REMagic.8937]

I feel like Staff Daredevil needs some amount of love. You say Thief as a whole is in a good spot, but Staff Daredevil in particular is not feeling great in Endgame PvE.

In this list of builds: https://snowcrows.com/en/benchmarks

the damage output of Daredevil with its signature weapon and build (Power Staff) ranks not even in the Top 40. The only DPS build below it in output is Condition Tempest - and Rifle Mech, but that's different.

Well, Benchmarks are obviously not the full story, there's more to a class than an idealized scenario. Unfortunately, for a Power Daredevil this ideal scenario quickly goes to hell. With a large part of its modifiers bound to being above 90% HP, it also has a good bit of modifiers attached to not only being able to keep dodging, but also keeping Endurance empty. While on the golem it's relatively easy to keep endurance depleted for that sweet optimal DPS, in actual encounters you'll find that endurance accumulates quickly; not only because of a variety of gameplay mistakes you can make, but also allies having traits that give endurance.

In the end, Power Daredevil is trapped between a few different bad options: You need endurance to maintain your Dodge modifier, but you also are one of few specs that really hates getting Endurance. It is not a joke when I say that Daredevil in raids would probably be better if your F1 did not grant you endurance from the trait https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endurance_Thief

Which is a weird thing to say about a Minor Grandmaster trait that fundamentally supports the spec. Anet really screwed up with the design of Havoc Specialist and Bound traits, creating these feelsbad moments where your DPS suffers from receiving something that is supposed to be beneficial.

Why is Power Daredevil good on like 3-4 Raid Bosses right now?

Stolen skills. Both Magnetic Bombs and Detonate Plasma are busted to an extreme level. If Anet gave Daredevil buffs to bring it up to 37k+ DPS now, it would go off to an insane level in certain encounters.

Clearly the problem is these OP stolen skills, that make Power Daredevil selectively useful, and their absence makes it underwhelming in all other encounters. Right now it's balanced with those rare stolen skills in mind, this is a problem.

What should Anet do with it?

Goal: Bring Daredevil into a spot where its Power build no longer needs Magnetic Bomb or Detonate Plasma to be strong in raids. Nerf Magnetic Bomb at the same time.

The key thing is going to be that gaining Endurance is no longer harmful to your damage output. You should want your allies to provide you with endurance, because you should want to dodge.

Quote

 

Havoc Specialist:
Gain +7.5% Strike Damage while not at maximum endurance.
Gain another +7.5% Strike Damage while missing at least Edit: two endurance bars.

 

Edit: I obviously meant missing two bars, that is to say having less than 100 endurance. Missing one bar and not having maximum endurance are the same thing

This change achieves that you can still drain your endurance, but you don't get punished the instance you gain your first endurance bar, instead you have more leeway, as only completing the second endurance bar will start cutting your DPS.

This allows Daredevils to perform closer to benchmark expectations in real encounters.

 

Quote

 

Bounding Dodger:
Increased power coefficient of your traited Dodge "Bound" from 1.75 to 3.5 in PvE only.

 

 

Right now, your Dodge does not enough power damage to be worth its long cast time (its Damage per Cast Time is around 16k, compared to Autohits that are at around 26-28k per cast time. This means that in a vacuum you would never dodge.) The only reason you are dodging is that having full endurance is so extremely bad for you, and it gives you a modifier for 4 seconds.

So doubling the damage here still makes your dodge only barely outdps your Autoattacks. What does that achieve? This change means "more endurance -> more damage". You would actually be happy to gain endurance now, even from allies, and the synergies this enables are cool.

These two changes alone would increase the benchmark from roughly 34.6k to 36.8k+. In my opinion, this would be good enough to allow Power Daredevil a seat at the table. The change to Havoc Specialist would make the spec more reliable. Bound being a net DPS increase over autoattacking allows you to tap into some of your spec's extra endurance generation. It's possible that a Dagger/Dagger based build with its bonus endurance generation could be even higher, and Brawler's Tenacity might be useful for the first time.

What about "Throw Magnetic Bomb"? Honestly, cut its damage in half if not more. Its breakbar damage is already very good anyway.

The most important thing: These changes are small in scope, easy to implement and test, will not cause a major upset in game balance. I always read big rework ideas, and I think "who is going to pay for that amount of developer time"?

When you take a deeper look for the June update, you should tackle all stolen skills, make them more reliably available (perhaps freely selectable, instead of bound to certain encounters), re-balance them completely. If a Dagger/Dagger build threatens to completely push Staff out of the meta, that's another thing to look at for the June update (hint: Dagger is kind of cracked right now, and only held back by being awkward to play. For Daredevil it's mainly bad because it generates too much endurance. Lol.).

Edited April 22, 2023 by REMagic.8937
Fixed an Error in the Havoc Specialist suggestion

[Jianyu.7065]

I mainly come here for the Thief changes but I'm always sadly disappointed like a morning after hangover where you tell yourself you'll never drink again but you keep drinking.....

[Gen.6087]

I miss my Untamed teleport 😞 Please show us some love Anet. We have the highest amount of seperate keybinds in the game and need a giga brain to play the spec. Love me, Senpai

[Raiden The Beast.3016]

Teef patch is just lol .... go home 

[HotDelirium.7984]

2 hours ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

Mirage already can't provide Alacrity in PvE and now you're nerfing it? Wow...

 

It's like they don't understand that when you jump from mob to mob to mob your clones delete so you're rarely doing more than 1 sec of alac on normal mobs in pve.

[Extacy.6192]

PLEAS FIX GUARDIAN GS LEAP OF FAITH!

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_of_Faith

--> Bug: This skill uses the PvE power coefficient in WvW and PvP.

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Extacy.6192

[Xycho.5642]

Nerfing fervent force without giving an alternative is quite massive.
Missing one stun was already enough to mess up your rotation and cripple your damage, leave alone making the cooldown reduction 3 seconds. 

So now it might be better to use ferocious symbiosis, seeing as hardly anyone uses it now..it probably doesnt perform that well. 

[Batalix.2873]

Here's the thing with respect to Smash Brawler and the requirement of bringing full rage skills. I don't know why some of the tacked on general utility buffs like Rage's berserk mode or Ranger's spirits or Chrono's wells are balanced that you need ALL of them equipped to keep uptime. Would berserker balance really be ruined if rage abilities had twice the berserk duration so they could at least have an option to bring more utility or to go pure DPS? Since it is far too late to pull back on the game's "100 percent uptime" play style, why do the devs repeatedly make it so you need to slot a full set of skills just to maintain it, to the detriment of build diversity?

 

I don't think this is a necessary change for all of the boongivers. For example, I think Herald has a nice balancing of "off CD" boons versus upkeep bonuses. It is a good thing to be able to modularly trade off damage reduction and speed in addition to quickness and the actual facet effects.

 

But Ranger spirits are awful, and they have no reason to be. They have legs, why are we still teleporting them everywhere when Scrapper gets mobile wells? Why are we cluttering the field with four of them when we only care about the same impotent alacrity effect? Please, please, please let Spirits walk again, even if it is slow, and let one of them pulsing alacrity be enough for a group that doesn't move much. That way support Rangers can actually slot other utilities and have some build diversity, as well as have the option of bringing *multiple* spirits when the group is expected to be moving around a lot.

 

Similarly, it makes no flavorful sense why Chrono wells provide almost the same alacrity as Specter wells. Specter barely justifies alacrity to begin with but at least its wells are tied to a secondary function of movement. Chrono wants to root and control its immediate area--it has always been at its heart more shieldy/tanky flavored. So why can't the actual time mage that originated the boon create *more* alacrity with a single well or two? Why can't we feel like we have some selectivity in which wells we bring instead of popping them all off cooldown?

 

@Cal Cohen.2358 Let me make something clear to the devs. You are just now starting to understand something I have been posting about for months. Condi Firebrand does not need to be a thing anymore like it was in PoF. Druid and Chrono specializations in HoT were broken because there was only one elite spec per class and not enough comparables. FB and Scourge were broken in PoF because you overcompensated for the imbalance created by the actually specialized HoT specs and settled on filling every profession with overgeneralists. A decision which is now feeling very tired and homogenized now that most of the EoD specs are vying to be the next FB/Scourge in a samey blob of "DPS support".

 

You have three especs per profession now, not one like in HoT. Whereas specializations with no alternatives previously throttled the meta, you now have alternatives available. Not every espec needs to have a DPS focus in a game that, in its aversion to the holy Trinity, has converged 27 especs into the same "support DPS" spectrum. You can have healers now. You can have tanks. You can have mezzers. Plenty of players love playing as a healer or tank--not everyone chases DPS glory and many actually don't want the stress of DPS focused roles.

 

Now that you have three especs per profession, the problems presented by HoT and the lack of alternatives to Druid/Chrono are no longer present. Firebrand, which by design always wanted to be more of a scholar/healer archetype, does not need to do DPS when Guardians can swap to WB or DH. You are finally getting that and this patch shows it, and in fact I think you should look into focusing Scourge away from DPS and into a healer role for the same reasons.

 

Chrono is no longer the only alac giver in the game. Most professions have an alac build now. It is now OKAY to pump up Chrono's alac capacity so that its wells actually have the impact the espec deserves. If PMech is allowed to do ranged power damage more easily than Weaver or Berserker, it is okay for certain especs, especially where it is core to their job fantasy, to provide boons more easily than others.

 

And it is okay to introduce old HoT features and actual diversity in how boons are provided, like bringing back walking Spirits. I would rather deal with tending a single, dawdling boon pulser (or two, or even three for especially mobile fights) as a Druid than be porting spirits around like a Mirage.

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Requiem.9648]

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..

[Gesbo.6420]

How about we bring the second mirage dodge to competitive modes already like promised a year ago...?

[Pooh.6897]

For Necro

While some buffs are very much appreciated and it already has been said that there will be a bigger balance patch, I still feel the need to share my thoughts. It is very welcome that Power Reaper keeps getting buffed numerically, but I much rather see bigger, more impactful changes. For example, I'd like them to explain in detail why Reaper is having so much trouble right now and why the changes they're making are enough. Right now it feels a lot like random values are being thrown at necro in an effort to make it 'balanced', and I simply cannot agree with such a balancing method. This is my stance that affects everything.

On to the actual changes. It's very nice to see buffs for focus, but again, there is a deeper underlying problem as to why focus is bad. It is not just that the damage was bad. It is also the fact that actually activating the skills and making sure they hit is pretty difficult as well, especially for competitive gamemodes. Numerical changes aren't going to help Focus at all, but it's nice to see they haven't forgotten about it.

I'm happy to see buffs for axe. With the current state of off-hand weapons for necro, i'm not quite sure if it's worth it to run axe over staff, but I guess we'll see.

The shout buffs look very juicy, but keeping in mind how low the damage used to be, i'm still very sceptical. Anet, I hope you understand that players need an incentive to use a skill, and if it's not going to be big damage, it needs to be something else that offers a significant benefit. I still do not see that here, instead I see a 'quirky' set of skills that will never be as damaging as the current mainstream necro-skills and therefore have very little use, generally speaking.

Again, buffing Reaper equals buffing greatsword. I'm so sick of Anet completely choking out build diversity by just aggresively yeeting every single Reaper-buff at the greatsword. There are more melee weapons/power-based weapons for necro that could also be very interesting. what about mainhand dagger? what about axe? what about staff? What do any of these three weapons offer over omega-buffed greatsword for Reaper? Greatsword is a mandatory pick for Reaper and I hate that with every single fiber of my body.

To finish I'd like to also talk about the weapons that didn't get a buff. Yes, I'm back at it again with asking for more mainhand dagger buffs. Life Siphon and Dark Pact are really quite okay now, but the AA really needs a lot of love to be able to hold a candle to the ranged counterparts. Now greatsword and staff AA are so strong, it's no longer a valid argument to say that MH dagger AA is all about life-force generation, since these other AA's also generate a ton of lifeforce while also dealing a lot more damage, and in the case of staff it has 1200 range on top of that. MH dagger AA needs something unique and very powerful, especially since it can only hit 2 enemies and it has a range of 130.

IMO off-hand dagger is pretty okay. Warhorn scary doot buff is very nice, Locust swarm is still hot garbage so Anet plox fix. All-in-all I have pretty mixed feelings about this patch. Not because the good intent isn't there, it very much is and I appreciate that a lot. But mainly because the way that balancing is taking place seems to be wrong and not effective, and I'm sad to see that necromancers continue to have the same problems despite the effort that's being put in.

I'm sad to see core shroud continues to be utterly useless, but I guess that's the way it has to be now. The harbinger changes to blight are pretty great and I sincerely hope these make it to PvP and WvW as well.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Darth Pooh.5638

[RazieL.5684]

that moment when you are completely clueless about your own game...

 

nerf ele more...

 

meanwhile leap of faith is still doing 10-15k in wvw...

meanwhile virtuoso still hasn't come out of distortion...

meanwhile vidicator is evading more than a thief while Eternity's Requiem still exists...

meanwhile since vindicator evades more than a thief the thief is in stealth and refuses to come out, indefinitely...

 

resignation when???

[eldrevo.1746]

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

Still no buffs to Willbender Offhand sword in PVE, it could use some love! And the Phoenix protocol change is weird to me. I can see the logic behind it, but it begs a compensation elsewhere, preferably something that can help Willbender to provide some alacrity without hitting enemies. The spec was controversial and unwieldy already, straight nerfing it will only kill it further.

And I'd love to see some buffs to Condition / Alacrity Specter. Since the shroud nerf (dictated by PVP but affecting all game modes) it's not great and needs help. Hyped about changes and Quickness Deadeye next patch though!

[KoB.8296]

Could you guys also update the "Feel My Wrath!" tooltip? It's still displaying the values it had before the July 2020 update.

[vrauns.3215]

2 hours ago, PurenessLady.3948 said:

You're changing classes stuff every time, people don't wan't to change build so often. 
Alway nerfing never  buffing, many pople are leaving this game for this stuff . 
If you don't care why people should care? 
It seems like you don't want people to play the game. 
I always bought expantions and supported the game, but I'm very disappointed of how the stuff are going. 

Why i should STUDY a rotation for endgame content? shoun't be optional do 40k damage? You're aware of the end-game toxicity with killproof? people kicked from raids with requisit for no reasons, people always running and be toxic on Fractal (T$ not CM), do you aware of this stuff? Theese are stuff to work on, not NERFING builds.
From a content pve to a new one, it takes too much long!
In my Guild many people are disconted of how they're prefered class is ALWAY nerfed. 
What problem do you have with mantras?  Should Its a pleasure to play or you're just making stuff more difficult for NO REASON?

 

It's a pvp mostly game, they have to balance the game.

[Igure.2063]

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

Specter needs 4 things:

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

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

thx for those who read, love you all. 

[crazyhusky.2985]

What Power DragonHunter needs more sustianable DPS, its own way of giving itself the Resoultion boon within the DragonHunter traits or skills.

For years now Power Dragonhunter has depended upon keeping up Resoultion (and retaliation when it was part of the game) for the damage boost but has never had any traits within itself to give it the Resoultion boon.

"Power-based dragonhunter builds still aren't performing at the level they need to be to compete with other damage builds, so we've improved a few of their key skills and traits. "

If you're going to talk about it damage then it needs a way to sustain or up keep the damage.

Right now, Power Dragonhunter needs more to get Resoultion. In PvE content its pretty much forced it use Greatsword as its only way giving itself Resoultion other than its heal skill, meanwhile we other classes/specs pumping out boons which give them extra damage.

A way to help Power Dragonhunter would be to add Resoultion the trait "Pierecing Light" so every dragonhunter trap gives it Resoultion when it set off as well inflicting slow on foes. You could also put Resoultion on the Heavy Light trait so when it disables foes it gains a few seconds of Resoultion as well. Allowing more ways to gain the boon. All in all DragonHunter lacks options to get the boon it needs to upkeep the damage. Giving more options to do so should help its damage output slightly.

[Fang.1407]

I would like to start off with saying support Specter has been my main since it came out. Thief was my main beforehand and finally getting a support spec for it was the best thing I got from EoD. As it stands, Specter is in a great spot for most high difficulty content if played correctly, including raids and strikes and the CMs on such (I've been doing them with very few issues as the main healer since Specter came out). However, certain things could use quality of life updates to make Specter easier to play as it is currently the most difficult healer to play.

Firstly, the revealed effect tends to get in the way of my support, especially if I end up being the tank for certain bosses, because it takes away my ability to give stealth (I can give out stealth twice in a row through blast finishers using shroud 2 and pistol 5 every few seconds) to whomever is affected by it, forcing me to spam my scepter skills on that person to give them protection and barriers. I can't even use scepter skills on myself, so this makes tanking a real pain sometimes. This also heavily affects me in WvW where someone else can simply strike me and put revealed on me and possibly others near me, making an entire trait line of mine worthless for several seconds. Nobody else has to deal with this issue for support purposes. You could easily solve this by letting on-stealth effects from Shadow Arts be applied even if you're revealed.

Another thing that could be improved easily is targeting. Not everyone is good at clicking on/watching the party menu to target people while also doing all of the normal things everyone else does during a fight and it's nearly impossible to click on people outside that menu for open world content and WvW. There is a "target next ally" keybind, but that also targets NPCs, defeated players, pets, and clones. Simply adding a "target next allied player" and "target lowest health ally" keybind would fix this.

Lastly, the Well of Bounty skill is honestly the only skill I feel could really use a bit of work. We need more than one stack of stability for the group. Also, fury and vigor feel kind of pointless on this well when I can maintain both of those with Siphon. Maybe give us something better, like protection and resolution? I don't know, just something that we don't already have easy access to.

Edited April 21, 2023 by Fang.1407

[vrauns.3215]

1 hour ago, Sincarion.1034 said:

Brother people are mad at these changes because Anet can't understand that nerfs will awalys make people uinhappy, why nerf fb that was OP for so long when you can elevate other classes to the same level, I tell you why, that requires game knowledge and it's way harder than some numbers nerfs like they do here, mirage is relevant on what 2-3 bosses, so yeah let's nerfs that, chrono CC too big, oh yeah nerfs that too, like anyone plays chrono, these changes are unfun, I was hoping new balancing team would break the nerfing spree but I was wrong, nothing will really change I have very little hope for June update.

 

I think I speak for a lot of people in the game where If next patch is bad I will quit, game's been unfun for some time now, they can't keep promising they cannot provide.

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

[Stando.8354]

Please completly make new pvp system because this is trash, 5 game and 4 afk players .... Rank ? it doesn't matter what mate you are. Matchmaking : Bronze logging with legends .... 

Edited April 21, 2023 by Stando.8354

[lovemghool.7613]

thanks  i  dont  need to  return  just yet then