May 2 Balance Update Preview

[DarkCobalt.2849]

11 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

ANET:*we think this build is slightly overperforming*

CFB DED

Alacbender DED

staff/staff mirage DED

Staff/axe mirage DED

untamed DED

 

With the new buffs to reaper (and lack of buffs to harbi) harbi is even more useless

no change to OP spellbreaker+virtuoso

weird AF 15% increase to crit chance while in berserker. have fun not being critcappedd

 

that being said, i like the plans for quickness on DE & support specter. changes to tempest are very welcome aswell (just change fire overload to 360 radius plz). 

 

 

I'm really at a loss for words regarding why they felt the need to outright kill the Willbender build. Isn't it a good thing that we get diversity in class:role selection? We got a whiff of alacrity on Guardian for 1 patch and it's immediately being nuked from orbit in the next. Why even bother giving Willbender an alacrity trait to begin with then? Window dressing I suppose? Checking off the checkboxes for vaguely coherent class design? Well back to Mechanist I guess.

[Sereath.1428]

What is it with the constant reduction of cooldowns all over the place? They are becoming even lower than Revenant who used to have low cooldowns but also energy costs.

You are only making combat more mindlessly spammy, where you will not be punished as severely for the wrong use of a skill at the wrong time.

Please don't tell me that your game philosophy is really all about "Fast paced combat" as you once said.

Edited April 22, 2023 by XxsdgxX.8109

[zaw.6741]

ok, firebrand is strong but... it would be more sane to do small adjsutments gradually, rather than slaying it with machete...

the burn tick nerfs in pve are kinda throwing it from good-but-not-broken into meh, to bad territory. dps firebrand aint that popular, cause you can pewpew with mech or virtuoso from range on power builds, with little to no ramp-up needed, and qfb already lags behind qherald and in some situations qscrappers (boring anti-fun spam-all-skill to get boon builds; firebrand is actually fun to play... i guess we cant have fun.)

Edited April 22, 2023 by zaw.6741

[Bladezephyr.5714]

20 minutes ago, zealex.9410 said:

Not really that true either, since then its gotten multiple elite specs that do some of that stuff. That being said thief definitely needs more love, daredevil specifically.

Unless you're talking about situational garbage like boon thief, it got one:  specter.  Its DPS spec is pretty far off the top even when you consider rottweiler venom (😂) and while it's nice to have a support option on thief finally, it gives less and trades off more than other specs.  While ranged, it really requires being in melee to give support due to nearly all its support being provided by its short-radius wells, and has very little to mitigate the damage that subjects it to.   Plus the wells are clunky and can often fail due to terrain...  You could run it as a heal spec (and I sometimes do) but your team will usually prefer basically anything else.  At least it's better than heal chrono (which isn't really a thing but it should be--it does kinda work, but that's another discussion).

Power deadeye is near the top of the DPS chart, but it's clunky and annoying, and both weaver specs beat it, and also have more (i.e. some) AoE. 😆 Same with willbender, condi firebrand, scourge, and most of the other meta specs are only just behind, while offering much more utility.  Pretty much same deal for condi daredevil.

None of the thief specs are particularly resilient without trading substantial DPS for say celestial gear or invigorating precision or whatnot, at which point why not choose another DPS spec that's tougher?

What you say is arguably technically true, but in practice it's not really that interesting.  Its DPS specs should be say 5-10% higher than the next to justify all the tradeoffs, and/or give us a proper support spec. [Which they've said they plan to do... but we shall see if their planned changes pass muster--often enough they don't.]

Don't get me wrong--I'm a thief main and love the class... I'm just tired of other classes being better at every single thing it does.

[Sereath.1428]

And it really seems to me that you are throwing darts when it comes to what to buff/nerf. I.e. very disappointed that you keep buffing the most boring, uninteractive builds Rev has for PvP, such as Condition builds and Renegade.

Edited April 22, 2023 by XxsdgxX.8109

[RetributionZero.1347]

1 hour ago, DarkCobalt.2849 said:

 

This is a good idea. The other two traits in that spot aren't very impactful in general and it would be nice to have alac be part of those rather than relying solely on staff ambush and staff clones.

This is actually a really interesting idea. Would allow possibly other weapons (Hey, does anyone remember Scepter exists?) to have some use other than just Staff/Staff, and also allows for easier tuning to keep the Alac build in check. Finally, it creates more interesting gameplay than just “Spam dodge and make sure you have 3 clones up with your signet build”.

 

Another interesting point of note is that all these builds that are “overperforming”, not once did anyone mention condiVirtuoso’s DPS output with 4 signets. Just a point of note here. 

[ericpeggy.8206]

I guess Anet still don't care about the balance with melee and ranged.

 

[Koensol.5860]

Why can't these condi holo changes make it into pvp/wvw as well? It would actually make it a viable option, sort of

[zeyeti.8347]

You once said you will stop looking at some people performing very well with a specific class and look more into the % of what is played ... then this comes up : fervent force cd reduction from 4 to 3 sec , i just ask you how many untamed have you seen in the game (i personnaly don't play the class) same for firebrand condi , reducing the fire duration but increasing the bleed effectiveness ... should we call it the bleedbrand now ? ofc it needed some tweaks , but there you will completely destroy it.

Same for warrior berserker , you made the same mistake you did with ele +5% crit. chance only in air , so what ? are berserker go for a 85% crit. chance and 100% while in berserker , 1 attack out of 6 not criting while not in berserker ...thats weird and confusing , you are throwing numbers ramdomly ...

Don't get me wrong some balances are good , harbringer , reaper , Dh , but  i think people are sometimes confused about what you make cause you look at performance instead of what is the most played , i barely see any mirage , i never see a single untamed , as for firebrand , we all know it's the healer version of it who is the most taken (same for mechanist now) , a qfb is only taken when there is no hfb and the boss is more condi friendly , or else it will always be a herald , that said hfb is so strong on many encounters it's rarely the case .

So can you please enlighten your community about your real intention and say once and for all you don't like a class benching 42 k and will nerf it , even if 0,000001% of the player base is playing it . You need a dedicated player in your staff for each class , for each mode , or esle how can you talk about balance ?

Edited April 22, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[WizardWithAGun.2495]

Hi, since u introduced Spectre who are capable of using there Scepter skills on Allys, u have given the same to Druid Staff and Ele Staff on Water, are there any Plans of continuing this and give it to Engineer Med kit or do u just think that would be over the Top? Because the Med kit does no Damage and it's only use to heal and cleans Allys.

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

Willbender already desperately needs PvE buffs, especially Powerbender...
So of course PvE WB is nerfed instead of WvW, time to drop Alac PowerBender as main class in Open World, yay!

[Dadnir.5038]

I must say that I'm baffled by this update preview...

Elementalist: Every change here push elementalist even more toward the celestial statset in WvW (A trend that players have been complaining about a lot).

Engineer: I'm not sure why so much investment is done to create a PvE condi holosmith. Is it necessary?

Guardian: I do not think focusing on nerfing damage is what is needed to tune down the guardian's support builds.

Mesmer: Those changes are really outside of what I'd expected for the current mesmer.

Necromancer: What a stupid and blind amount of powercreep!

Ranger: Same as mesmer.

Revenant: Same as mesmer.

Thief: I must admit that I laughed here.

Warrior: I'd have expected core changes to affect PvE instead of competitive modes.

Bug fixes for all professions are always nice even if, as players, we tend to expect bug fixes to come faster.

[Dion.1386]

I was already having problems with my alac upkeep on my staff-staff-Mirage (running ritualist). I really hope this is not going to make this even worse. As a semi-casual player, i dont have extra sets of stat-selectable ascended gear lying around. Maybe the tryharders can get 100% upkeep on that stuff with lots of vipers, but definately not me

 

[Marxx.5021]

Again a waste of time. Why doing PvP changes when Anet as a company has no interest in it? 

[Beddo.1907]

I expected more changes per patch, considering we get 4-5 balance patches a year. I hope the June patch is actually big.

Edited April 22, 2023 by Beddo.1907

[Sirius.4510]

15 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Fervent Force is a trait that we've been considering bringing down for a while now, and 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. We'll be keeping a close eye on how these builds perform going forward and will make additional adjustments as needed.

Knew it was coming, but I'm not sure just reducing the amount of CDR is going to "fix" the untamed. The rotation is an absolute pig to work with, particularly with how few skills queueing applies to - it feels like it needs some margin for error. I think that's going to need a broader look at how the spec is supposed to feel.

 

15 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Herald

• Facet of Nature: Reduced maximum number of targets from 10 to 5 in PvE only.

Could you also fix the fiddliness of Facet of Nature while you're at it? Even just a short cooldown like the Firebrand tomes. It's the most annoying thing about playing quick herald - there are ways to reasonably reliably prevent it from instantly popping itself but I'd rather not need to do them.

 

(The soulbeast zip line fix is much appreciated though. KO will now be less annoying... guessing it still kills druid spirits though?)

[Gotejjeken.1267]

I've seen the word ranger about 4 times in 9 pages--that tells me a LOT, and while I'm glad for no nerfs I have to lol at the changes. 

It's the most passive-aggressive changeset I've seen in a while--'we're gonna nerf FF by 25% in PvE but here's some rando buffs to OH weapons no one uses in PvP and WvW!'.  

Apparently though, the devs forgot they were supposed to actually meaningfully change untamed prior to nerfing FF, instead of just straight nerfing a spec with an insane rotation set 'for reasons'.  

At least we're safe from ziplines now--remember when touching water would unmerge you? 😂

[Myror.7521]

@Cal Cohen.2358

Overall decent Changes for Berserker. Only QoL change missed now is a going off  Berserk, if you wanted it to end faster been, baseline! (The Thing you now bound to Eternal Champion) As it stands now it will lead to Last longer than you need it to be. This lead to Situations where you Berserk mode will be on CD while you would have need it to be rdy to Deal DMG again.

 

This QoL Change would not only Help in Instanced PvE Situations (cause some bosses get phases where you could not DMG them) but also would Help to make Defence Power Berserk more variable in PvP and WvW. (Cause as it stands now you Miss the bloody Roar 10% DMG boosts cause you need to use Eternal Champion instead to sweap Off Berserk If you want and gain superspeed plus 2secs invu though Power DMG plus quickness)

Edited April 23, 2023 by Pati.2438
Ubdate Just to make clear what I want to say here

[Lily.1935]

So I have to ask this again. What's the direction y'all are going with Necromancer? Although necromancer isn't in a bad spot per say, they're not in a good spot either. They're in a rather precarious situation with the least number of viable builds of the 9 professions in PvE.

Reaper
One viable build, maybe two after this patch, we'll have to see. Often considered the weakest of the 3 Elite specs for necromancer it seems your focus is primarily on here, rather than the weakness provided to it by the SPITE trait line which has poor damage coefficient and promotes a rather passive play style. Reaper's damage would be fine if SPITE's modifiers were better. As far as Condi reaper goes, I'll wait to see what becomes of this change. I Am optimistic though still skeptical that it'll be enough.

Scourge
Has been ignored for well over a year now and its not exactly in the best place with how nerfed into oblivion its Barrier has become. Its damage could be higher and It might need some more purity of purpose put into it, making its DPS build a bit more selfish and actually creating a solid Support build with actual boon support. Many people want scourge to give out good barrier and alacrity and I do think that could be fun and interesting.

Some changes for scourge

• Sadistic Searing: Give it some Boosts to our damage. Either through additional torment and burning duration or something like a damage boost for each shade summoned along with its extra burning. This should be the DPS scourge's first choice, not a no pick. If you want to remove CD reduction traits you have options to rework this.
• Serpent Siphon: This skill shouldn't be throwing out pick up packets. Just make it an aoe skill that poisons and grants barrier to allies without requiring them to be aware of the packets. Make it a pulsing field or a stun. Something to really help push it as a support skill.
• Desiccate: This skill needs to do more for allies. might isn't enough, everyone can give out might. Needs to provide other boons like fury, Resolution or even alacrity.
• Sand Swell: Needs to be 1,200 range, make it an actual shadow step so we don't need line of sight, this makes the skill unwieldy. Maybe even give it a short evade frame.
• Ghastly Breach: This needs more boons to apply, a reduced cooldown and increased damage in pve. Its rather weak in PvE, and I'd like to use this skill because its got such a cool animation and audio. I want to appreciate it more.
• Sand Savant: This Trait should replace Desert shroud with a pulsing barrier and possibly give out boons. Alacrity would be fine as an option, but Its not the only option. This should be the support choice because right now its better to just pick Demonic Lore.
• Herald of Sorrow: This needs to be redesigned. I'd suggest it turning all corruption skills into a single or duo of conditions as opposed to the diversity they normally have to make this a unique damage spike trait against boon users but easier to counter with weaker condi cleanses. Or something else, workshop it. This trait isn't good.

This is just some of the stuff that should be touched on scourge but hasn't been. Scourge has one viable build in PvE. And That's a real shame because its the most interesting elite spec of any profession in my opinion.

Harbinger
I don't really need to go into detail about this one because I've talked at length about the Harbinger here. It has the most problems of any necromancer Spec, which is why I dedicated a topic to it. But I might have to get around to other topics as well.

Core Specializations

There are many core traits which need work and in some cases entire specializations need some major TLC to really bring them up to speed with the 2023.

• Spite: This needs some serious work. Spiteful spirit isn't a good trait and doesn't fit, along with the minor traits being so bad or even having 2012 design in them still which just hurts the overall DPS of any power spec because we take spite because its essentially the only option. A lot of passive boring traits as well which don't promote creativity or a divergence in build design. Spite is in desperate need of some updates and I'd go so far as to say its only slightly better than Death magic which isn't saying much.
• Curses: If you're playing PvE there is only one master trait and one grandmaster trait. Everything else should normally be ignored. As for adept traits, you don't have much of a choice because Blood is power is essential to all condi builds. You basically take 2 traits specifically for this one skill. And this is an issue. In competitive modes we see a similar issue with Lingering curse is basically the only real choice in all 3 game modes. Curses is a strong specialization, but it lacks real diversity with very rare cases does a unique trait get taken. Condi reaper taking chilling darkness but that's an outlier not the norm.
• Death Magic: The Worst Specialization in PvE. Hands down, and probably the worst specialization in PvE across all professions. Mind you, its not bad in PvP or WvW. But in PvE it more than likely is. The passive toughness alone does serious damage to raid aggro let along it providing no support or utility to you or your allies and it has 3 dedicated traits to minions which function extremely poorly  as a cohesive build. Death magic even has a grandmaster trait which will actually does nothing on 2 of the 3 elite specs. This whole Specialization is so poorly designed for group play its a wonder its been like this for as long as it has. There was an attempt to balance it before which only made it a problem in PvP but still completely useless in pve. This needs to be reworked. BADLY!
• Blood Magic: Blood Magic has a few redundancies in it which need to be addressed. The Master Traits all step on each other's toes with very little difference between them and the only one really wroth while being Vampiric presence for its unique buff. The Adept traits aren't great either, with one of them caring about bleeding while also competing with a weapon type that cares about bleeding so if you want both you can't take both because they're in competition with each other? Blood magic needs to be looked over as well. its got some messy design and traits which trip over each other that want to be on the exact same build.
• Soul Reaping: Soul reaping has similar problems to Curses only not as extreme. Soul Barbs crowds out all other options and the other options aren't really all that good anyway and then we have sinister shroud which that 15% cooldown reduction probably should just be baseline. The master traits in Soul reaping need some work. Everything else is good.

There's a metric ton of stuff here that needs to be addressed which I and other's have been talking about for years. I get that you can't possibly get to this stuff for this patch. I get it, but You mentioned how Thief is getting something next June and I'd like to know that necromancer is going to get some serious reworks coming as well. Its super frustrating being in the dark the entire time. Should I keep pointing stuff out? Do y'all already know? are you planning to address the issues I'm bringing up? Are you not going to? I'd like to know. There's so much more I could add to this.

I would greatly appreciate it if you talked about what you want to address with each of the professions soon. I want to know what the roadmap is so I can temper my expectations appropriately.

[Colum.6392]

One of the main reason of no one uses heal quick scrap in fractal/raid/strike is lack of boon, especially might, fury, and stability. 

Blast gyro might duration is less than its cd time even with quick+alac+100% boon duration, which means might generation is not consistence. 

Currently, the only option for heal scrap to bring fury is to bring rifle turret, which means either quickness drop (replace gyro) or might/healing drop (replace e-gun). 

Hoping heal scrap can receive some love. 

[RasSativa.5109]

As someone who plays coni-alac mirage on fairly regular. i think the nerfs are a bit to harsh.

 

Yes condi mirage builds full dps and has 100% upkeep if you know how to play alac mirga.

By halving the alac duration you will lower the dps of condi alac mirage (staff - staff) lower then other alac builds.

i suggest either lowering the alac to 0,75 secs so the build is still competitive with other alac builds. I know not many people who can have full alac upkeep on staff staff and have a dps around 27 kdps.

since alac mirage is somewhat tricky to pull off, a nerf on the alac upkeep time will just make the build less popular overall.
 

I think there needs to be a tone down on the alac mirage build but this nerf will probably kill it.

 

but i know anet really likes to kill builds that only cathers to the top 10% of players

 

[Kunavi.2407]

I'd go into more detail but I've given up at this point... So all I have to say is see you in June, at which point I hope we don't get another round of questionable value adjustments, then calling it a day. For what it's worth to anyone, it may be best to go even deeper than adjusting said values and start working on the actual game play feel of each class, and their core and elite Builds. There is a lot of spam, a lot of clunk and rotations are becoming hectic while numbers are being reduced. This should be done ideally before anyone starts entertaining ideas of having... Well defined roles IE strictly limited flexibility for certain classes.

[Xevius.6174]

I'm not a fan of the illusionist changes. It also doesn't give the impression that the spec is overperforming.

The necromancer changes sound interesting, but I think it's a shame that Scourge isn't touched again at all.

I still have hope for an Alac source for the necromancer! :D

[zealex.9410]

Delay the fb changes until they finish cooking, im not against nerfs but this messes up with the gameplay and the feel of the spec for the worst. Consider buffing scepter as a condi weapon at least to prevent camping axe.

You would always take either 8 pages or the axe trait as dps fb and lib vow as q fb so buffing those talents to separate fb's power is a miss, the middle column is where the 2 builds need to untangle so cfb takes a dmg oriented master while qfb a boon oriented one.

The middle column is pmuch dead with the changes proposed when the issue was that qfb could afford to take legendary lore instead of having to take a diff talent like weighty terms or smth.

I reiterate, nerfing fb isnt the problem here, the problem here is that these changes dont untangle qfb from cfb and they substantially worsens fb's gameplay by promoting camping axe.

Edited April 22, 2023 by zealex.9410

[Nightara.1804]

2 hours ago, RetributionZero.1347 said:

This is actually a really interesting idea. Would allow possibly other weapons (Hey, does anyone remember Scepter exists?) to have some use other than just Staff/Staff, and also allows for easier tuning to keep the Alac build in check. Finally, it creates more interesting gameplay than just “Spam dodge and make sure you have 3 clones up with your signet build”.

 

Another interesting point of note is that all these builds that are “overperforming”, not once did anyone mention condiVirtuoso’s DPS output with 4 signets. Just a point of note here. 

To be fair, only two of the signets are used passively. Yes, Midnight and Domination are way too strong / there is a horrible lack of alternatives for Condi Mesmer, but you run Ether and Illusions exclusively for their active effects, which basically means they're used like any other skill (Same for Moa if we're going all the way with five signets).