June 27 Balance Update Preview

[Geats.6079]

Way to absolutely gut Arc Divider for no reason and completely remove it's identity. Do you even realise that that's a 66% damage cut for WvW and way more for pve and Spvp and boosting it's cast time doesn't make up for it, f1 heal f1 is 1.85 the same cast time as what a single old f1 while only doing 2/3 of the damage of a single old f1 this is awful for zerker's melee capability and now it's basically just Arcing Slice identity wise this is a really stupid change that did not need to be made.

Edit: So I think with further research and thought, that they worded this absolutely terribly and what they mean is 1 arc divider is going to do the same damage as before with all 3 strikes but in 1 so it's not a 66% damage nerf. I still think this is not great as it doesn't address any problem but opens up issues that were not issues, like aegis just completely ruining the berserker's time. With 3 strikes it was enough for aegis to be a strong counter but not a complete shut down. Also having it all be in one hit makes it really not great on the receiving end, I have 1 Arc divider downed people on many occasions in wvw those people had the benefit of having 3 strikes over a fairly reasonable time to react now it would have just been a 1 and done react instantly (in a chaotic game mode) or get downed; not super great and opens of a can of worms that will probably have zerker get heavy handed nerfed purely off optics down the road. More importantly I think moving Arc Divider into the same identity and feel of Arcing Slice is a HUGE disservice to both, Arc Divider as is feels good and is in a perfectly fine state. You're messing with stuff that doesn't need messing with and it's personally gonna kill my enjoyment of the class(and the game), I play zerker for Arc Divider(I play GW2 for zerker), because it is fun and feels good I don't play power Spell Breaker because I don't vibe with the feel of arcing slice. You have now taken 2 different feeling bread and butter damage combos that add variety and diversity to the game and made them feel exactly the same.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Geats.6079
further research and thought

[Rauderi.8706]

Oh right, Med Blaster. Now that Specter gets target ally with an action can you see your way to doing the same so Med Blaster isn't dumb to use? Either give it the Druid staff treatment and give it damage worth using, or make it ally-targetable already. . .

[Leablo.2651]

Just make sure you include the part about Defiance = flanking strikes in the skill facts please.

[Shiro Wolf.5923]

5 hours ago, Otter.3841 said:

Moving Herald Quickness to Elevated Compassion is a terrible idea. If the goal was to move boon support off utility skills, this doesn't do that at all. And it makes Draconic Echo worthless. Additionally, the Upkeep cost of 6+ to get boons including Quickness is terrible. Forcing Quick Heralds into giving a little healing in exchange for forcing us to use our energy should not be a thing. Anyone who just wants to be a Quick DPS Herald gets screwed over by this. Flicking facets on and off for Quickness is WAY more practical and doesn't harm anything. Revert these changes please and leave Herald alone. It's in a great place right now and doesn't need any of this deconstructive attention.

I agree with this wholeheartly. As someone who mains heal herald, the upkeep cost of 6+ to get boons is really rough. We went from rapid firing all skills off to keeping them all on and having no energy for much else. This doesn't feel like an effective fix at all. It would be better for Elevated Compassion to allow a skill to pulse it or something if you wanted to free up our utility skills. Energy cost is already a little rough on this profession...

Edit: Oh and please give the facet of nature a bit of a cooldown when activating it. I often tap F2 once quickly and it activates, then instantly fires off on cooldown. Doesn't happen all the time, but often enough that it's bothersome. >.>

Edited June 10, 2023 by Shiro Wolf.5923

[Carnifex.3275]

Please consider doing something with 3rd AA chain (Punishing strikes) of Daredevil. Cuz if the things are left like that it literally means it's better to use AA Skill 1 and 2 and cancelling your chain 3 for optimal dps. So maybe buff 3rd chain also and bring 1nd and 2nd skill abit down.

And in general - focusing on auto attack buffs yet again on pDD is not the best solution... Maybe tweaking Bounding Dodger in this case would be a better idea. Plus there's also the issue of Havoc Specialist vs. Staff Master. Havoc specialist is just not the healthiest way of playing (since you have to drain your endurance empty for optimal dmg). So if Havoc Specialist would work more like Leviathan Strength on Vindicator that would be a very good change. Or ofcz buffing up Staff Master would make people use it instead of Havoc Specialist, that's also a possible (lazier) solution.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[Vegeta.2563]

6 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

Question: with Desert Empowerment going to Grandmaster tier... 1) does that mean Feed from Corruption is moving to Master tier? or 2) is Feed from Corruption going to be gone and a new master trait instead? (i presume the first option based on the notes, but would like some clarity)

In the notes it said it's replacing FFC, so I'm assuming that means it will be completely gone (stupid decision imo), and there is no replacement in the master tier that they listed.  This is the last minute thing they will post so they won't give anyone time to give feedback on it.

[Anekim.1847]

Can anyone explain to me why soulbeast is getting a nerf?

"Resounding Timbre: This trait no longer reduces the cooldown of command skills."

what is this? now sick them will not get a reduced cooldown? why? like whats the porpuse of this?

edit:

forget it.... I see they reduced the cooldown on sic 'em.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Anekim.1847

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, SevlisBavles.3059 said:

Mirage needed a buff in PvP. This is effectively a gigantic nerf. Better to have only one dodge than this.

The ability to dodge while CC'd has no business being included in competitive modes.  Ever.  I'm surprised they thought it was a good idea in the first place and that it took them this long to do anything about it.  Nobody was happy with the one-dodge-mirage solution, but they obviously had no idea what to do with this broken mechanic.

[bluehead.9842]

I though that "rework" specter will give huge impact,

but... that's all ? hmm, okey ... 

[Vidit.7108]

On 6/8/2023 at 2:12 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

As we mentioned in the last studio update blog, the primary goals for this update are:

• Improving the feeling of moment-to-moment gameplay for many boon support builds. We want these builds to have more flexibility in their utility skill choice and not be required to activate a particular utility type on cooldown to provide quickness or alacrity.
• Introducing alternate playstyles for some specializations.
• Tuning up some underutilized weapons and solidifying their roles within their professions.
• Removing additional skill-type-specific recharge-reduction traits and rolling the reduction into baseline skills where it makes sense to do so. The goal of these changes is to give players more flexibility in trait selection.

I just don't have the time to go piece by piece with everything that is here so I'm going to touch on a handful of things but know that I reservations about almost everything included in this update. And I don't usually.

First, it's great you want to fix moment-to-moment gameplay, but the live stream and these notes are not selling me on you having accomplished that. Instead, it feels like a lot of builds are trading one very bad method of boon generation for another. It's been made difficult to judge by the lack of details on things like boon duration. That's extremely concerning given this patch is supposed to be focused on boon support. If i knew what the new durations of alacrity and quickness were I could judge them better.
On Specter, I played alac Specter regularly until the HP nerf and haven't returned to it. Unless there is a firehouse of alacrity that comes out of shroud skills I can't imagine that this will feel better to play more than dropping wells (which i also dislike). It's going to make upkeep of alacrity, which is the only thing that other players will care about me doing, spottier in some encounters. Shroud feels bad to play and the small changes that have been done to it have not changed my mind about that. I don't like it and I'm worried about it being unplayble.

Which brings me to another problem, I don't think heal specter is going to be so hot either. It has even less HP than alac condi specter and if a lot of its healing potential is on shroud skills that's always going to be a problem with low base hp. You talked about preserving the identity and keeping ally target alive, nobody cares about this in PvE, the experiment has not gone well and I highly doubt these changes are enough to make up for it.

Moving on to Guardian, I don't need to wait until this patch to know what playing with no mantra recharge reduction will feel like.  I already don't like it, it feels like this change is to push players toward spending all their charges in all builds rather than having a choice. Spending all charges on something like healbrand feels horrible, that's not improving the moment-to-moment gameplay of firebrand in any configuration. The "adjustments" that were made to mantras felt like a step backward and still do, if these new changes move forward there is a high chance I'm dropping firebrand altogether. A lot of these notes feel like no one on the balance team actually plays support in PvE and the firebrand changes in particular impact me the most. I've been thinking of moving on from guardian but these other changes to boon builds are leaving me with nowhere obvious to go.

Not going to do every class but I have to point out alac baldesworn sounds really bad, maybe i'll be wrong but it looks like the start of a lot of fights won't have any alacrity and there is a high chance of failing to provide for the group smoothly. Needing CA for alacrity on druid sounds bad for similar reasons.

Second, I feel like you guys need to really apologize for how Untamed has turned out. I didn't get on the Untamed train when it came out but I've been following what's going on with it. I understand how fervent force is problematic, but you guys designed it that way. It had a rough launch and there weren't really builds for it for awhile. I get that it might have been difficult and not a lot of people were playing it (i could tell by looking at my party every daily) but I don't see why people who want to play or did play Untamed should feel confident this time is going to be different. It was said on stream that you have a good idea what dps is like now without FF, why didn't you have that information before? Did no one give you that feedback in the first beta? It sounded like on stream that this was going to have to happen eventually so why didn't it happen sooner? I guess we'll see on the 27th, but Untamed has been kind of wavering in PvE for what feels like most of two years, it's like the scrapper of EoD.

Third on thief this patch, Daredevil needs playability improvements. Make Havoc Specialist give a base damage increase when below max endurance instead of per bar. If all the stolen items are going to do the same damage what exactly is the point of them being different and encounter specific? You frontloaded staff damage on the auto-attack, i shouldn't need to say why that's a bad thing. The Acrobatics changes seem mostly like lip service and that won't lead to people using it in PvE, it's more cementing its status as the pvp traitline. No one is going to take improvisation for quickness deadeye, I would be surprised to see a viable condi-quickness deadeye build. It really doesn't feel like you listen to thief players much about what would make their specs more accessible, I'm not seeing how this patch will bring new people to thief. This is another patch I'm mostly disappointed by and it's likely I won't be playing thief in instanced PvE content for much longer.

Lastly, I felt like 8 months ago that the balance situation was improving a little bit, this patch makes it feel like the ball is rolling down the hill. A lot of these changes are making me question if I want to keep playing GW2 when it's apparently going to take 6 months for the balance team to meaningfully address problems players are having. I'm already thinking I might not buy the next expac with the news of no more new elite specs. You're throwing a lot of changes out at the same time you are releasing a new fractal, that seems like it is the best way to maximize the number of people angry at you for getting their boon build wrong. I could forgive more things during the pandemic but if it feels like most of my main builds are trash binned that makes leaving a lot easier.

[LichOverlord.6329]

26 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The ability to dodge while CC'd has no business being included in competitive modes.  Ever.  I'm surprised they thought it was a good idea in the first place and that it took them this long to do anything about it.  Nobody was happy with the one-dodge-mirage solution, but they obviously had no idea what to do with this broken mechanic.

Even if you believe that to be the case, removing its unique aspect from all game modes across the board simply because its overperforming in high-end competitive formats is stupid. A heavy-handed approach may make it more "balanced" in the short run, but it's at the cost of class identity - which I would argue is actually more important to the game in the long-term.

Do you want GW2 to end up like FFXIV, where all 4 tank classes are actually the same toolkit with different animations? Where all the classes do the same thing, and there is no meaningful choice for the player? Do you want us to live in a future where the only difference between necro and mesmer is "green" and "purple"? No? I didn't think so.

Class identity should never be sacrificed in the name of balance. Ever.

Edited June 10, 2023 by LichOverlord.6329
fixed punctuation

[Jacob.7410]

This patch gives the impression that there may have been oversight in the decision-making process. Some of the proposed changes seem unnecessary harsh.

The adjustments to scourge appear to have compromised specs unique reviving role and DPS while introducing alacrity into the scourge toolkit. The decreased uptime on shades gives the impression that it might make gameplay less enjoyable, due to having to spam them. Nevertheless, I understand the intention of aligning desert empowerment with the 5-player cap that other classes have. It would have good to retain the reviving potential on the class through a trait, even if it couldn't be combined with alacrity simultaneously.

The changes to confusion are not to my liking, as it should have distinct gameplay compared to other conditions, rewarding a deeper understanding of the fight.

I support the idea of transferring traits with cooldown reductions onto the skills themselves, as it would provide more flexibility in builds. 

Additionally, the lack of a fix for guardian alacrity is surprising, considering it could have been addressed in a similar manner to renegade's mechanics. By pulsing alacrity while under the effect of flowing resolve, it would provide an opportunity to grant alacrity during downtime in fights.

I'm curious if you have plans for improvements to aftercast skills. It can be frustrating to have to continuously stow weapons in order to fully utilize a class's potential.

The recent focus on quickness and alacrity in these patches gives the impression that the game might actually fare better without them at this point. In general, I don't have much anticipation for this upcoming patch and its potential impact on the game. It's a bit disappointing, considering how much I've enjoyed the majority of the recent patch content. 

 

[Eddie.9143]

30 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The ability to dodge while CC'd has no business being included in competitive modes.  Ever.  I'm surprised they thought it was a good idea in the first place and that it took them this long to do anything about it.  Nobody was happy with the one-dodge-mirage solution, but they obviously had no idea what to do with this broken mechanic.

Mirage dodge should teleport you 450 range backwards, reflect projectiles, and activate ambush spells.

[FalsePromises.6398]

On 6/8/2023 at 4:12 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Transfusion: This trait now only teleports downed allies when initially activated.

Actually a bigger gutpunch to the usability of healscourge than most might think. This means that for fights like Whisper of Jormag where there's little time between downstate and death due to mechanics like the chains or orbs, you're screwed. You no longer can cast transfusion preemptively when you know people are about to downstate to a mechanic that would kill them past downstate near-immediately, like when you place a wurm or golem in the boss's hitbox after 25% and it explodes everyone in melee radius, or when chains first appear and you know some people aren't paying attention. You would need perfect timing on a skill that already has an annoying quarter second delay. It also tanks the usability for encounters where downstates become staggered, e.g. one person downs after the next. This just tanks healscourge's trademark capability that many pug groups tend to unintentionally rely on, undoing an otherwise perfect QoL feature.

What this change does is detract from what the healscourge can do to help their team, not what a healscourge can do that would make them overpower other supports holistically. Healscourge's current strength revive gimmick is fair when you look at other support builds like druid that have potent immobilizing and knockback gimmicks, or revenant having strong projectile hate gimmicks... especially when you consider how niche "ally-pulling corpse janitor" is compared to them as well.

It's not even like healscourge has a monopoly on revive capabilities to begin with: let them keep transfusion's continuous ally-pulling, so their specific niche doesn't begin to falter.

[HotDelirium.7984]

Mirage-the chaos vortex nerf is a bit severe. Are you sure the confusion adjustment will compensate?  Maybe those changes should just be for PVP or WVW? You are really backing mirage into a corner I think with the change to confusion and alacmirage.

Bladeturn Requiem: You have a whole trait line dedicated to blocking so you will lose some synergy here. Virtuso should have less distortion and more blocking. It goes with the theme as well.

Edited June 12, 2023 by HotDelirium.7984

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Now that I have watched the livestream and seen the notes that did NOT get posted here:

Scourge shades getting a 60% duration nerf is crippling to the DPS variants of the class.  One of these two should be implemented instead if you want to keep DPS scourge still viable:
 

1. Do not swap Feed from Corruption and Desert Empowerment.  Instead, add the Alacrity to Sand Savant and import WvW target reduction to all modes (preferably increasing to at least 5 maximum targets).

2. Have the reworked Desert Empowerment reduce the shade duration instead of making the change baseline.

 

1 is preferable for another reason: the Master Tier looks really bad in PvE with the swap.  Not every fight calls for Punishments and even fewer have boons for Feed from Corruption, leaving Herald of Sorrow the only option that does anything in most PvE encounters, and that is a damage nerf.

 

Reducing the barrier on Sand Cascade runs directly contrary to your goal of making support Scourge viable as more than just a rezbot. On top of this, by making support Scourge be a direct competitor (and worse at it due to worse boon output and actual healing) to Heal-Alach Mechanist, you're stripping away the one reason people currently DO play it: it's unmatched rez potential to make up for its lackluster ability to actually fill health bars.  I understand some nerfs, but Ritual of Life should probably be nerfed less than you're planning.  Perhaps 4%/pulse instead.

[fatihso.7258]

This update is BIG. Lots of reworks, improvements and new mechanics to chew in.  It will shake the meta for sure.

I'm glad with the changes to toolkit, mechanical genius and Function gyro being a combo finisher as I always wanted. Thank you. 

[Ukasumananganos.4035]

Tempest needs to be changed comparing tempest to HAM is like black and white difference.

My thought on tempest and probably even core elementalist is give the ability to swap back into X elemental attunement if you spec for that trait, this would allow the ability for the on demand healing that Tempest is missing.

I would even say I would rather alacrity be given out by spamming shout skills if not the above change at least then u can stay in water where you need to be for the healing.

Further more the way alacrity is distributed is trash/ you don't have on demand healing if water is on cooldown/ your utility skills suck compared to other specs, I love the healing output of Tempest but if i can use it when I need it what's the point.

I would rather play HAM which has a healing kit with no cooldown i can just pop into or firebrand tome 2 I can just pop into.

[Ishkar Malheur.8142]

I felt like Berserker greatsword is going back to irrelevant if this patch really going to happen.

If it cannot do big damage in trade of how slow it is and pretty clunky, doing this by reducing the damage pretty much kill the usage of it. I love berserker playstyle and I don't really want this change to kill my fav class.

[Hylden.7468]

If I understand it correctly herald will give quickness by having upkeep of -6 while applying boons with 3sec internal cd. That doesn't solve the problem. Shiro gives no boons so again you will be forced out of it asap to have 100% uptime on quick.

Having the boon tied to certain combo finishers on scrapper is just idiotic. I'd doesn't change anything on the ground level - it doesn't free up your utility slots, it just makes it so you need to take sth different this time (both finishers and combo fields). Now instead of having synergic mechanic of superspeed and quickness we will have two separate mechanics that feel awkward. And scrapper does not have that many blasts and leaps. Plus heal scrapper gets double pounded - med kit nerf hits it hard plus will the bulwark gyro fit into utility bar or not?

Mech radius of 360 is just harsh. How can you be sure if it is in range or not midfight? If you have it's skills on auto you risk bigger cooldowns just because mech isn't very responsive when it comes to following you and prioritizing positioning over skill use. On some bosses if you're tanking it is hard to have both your party and yourself in mech's radius, and you cannot "put a flag" for it to stand on.

[Ukasumananganos.4035]

The changes to quick scrapper are horrible you have taken quickheal scrapper totally out of the game.

I understand the premise of changing it to not being spam gyros off cooldown but I would be more inclined to actually double the amount of quickness, that is applied VIA a gyro this would make both the DPS version and HEAL version more viable and can take more utility skills that are useful such as throw mine/battering ram/or a kit.

Alternatively rework adaptive amour to give barrier to the team, debuff power damage output and pulse quickness upon barrier application, maybe this can tie in with hammer so a heal scrapper can use the hammer instead of pistol/shield.

I for see with this change qdps scrapper will used rifle not hammer, because hammer 3 animation locks you and kills you in raids so people avoid using it, such as Sabetha flame wall and rifle has more ability to combo a field, also see all ulitity skills being fields and blasts, so both the aesthetic of the scrapper using gyros is dead and your utility bar is no replaced more more useless spammed off cooldown abilities.

I don't know maybe the number make it viable to be done but honestly I see the META shifting to everyone playing Deadeye not scrapper.

[Lizardguard.2860]

Just gonna add my voice to the dissatisfied people, even though i doubt anyone at anet reads up to here, anyway.

The changes are weird when you hear it the first time, and then become worse and worse the longer you think about it.
Removing the need to use certain skills to apply boons is a ridiculous idea. Thats just how the game works.
What you're doing is shuffling around the skills we have to spam. And as it is, that just messes with the identities of the classes.

Also, spamming skills can be fun, just look at the old axe berserker.

Dumbing everything down is not the way to go, again.
Pls take a step back and think about these changes a bit more, before applying them.

[Malister.9438]

I am not really sure whether nerfing raw healing output for heal Vindicator is the way to go. It really is the only thing heal Vindi has going for it - we do next to no damage, we are not exactly great at crucial boons such as stab, we got no Aegis, Alacrity etc. It is very easy for us to die once we get stunned/immobilized. The only thing we are good at is raw healing output, we get outshined in all other departments by other support specs. And you are now nerfing this one competitive quality we have? Please reconsider this change. Either keep our healing output as is or give us something to compensate. Alacrity back on Ventari would be nice, for instance.

[zeyeti.8347]

Oh man i am so eager to target my allies as dps/alac specter , the dps will be amazing...gly bad , same for druid i am so eager to go avatar and spam skills  who will deal 0 damage as alacrity is same tier as "avatar skills do conditions" , i am so eager to ... whatever ...

I know you don't like cd reduction on some traits , but it's time to make those traits worthy now. remind Conjurer ?

Whatever , why am i even complaining , ele player asked for a rework for tempest for alacrity boon and it's still tied to freaking 4 cast time overloads , time to take a break , time to look for another game.

Edited June 10, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[Unknown.5431]

Dear Balanceteam, 

while I can’t say much concerning the other classes, I’d like you to rethink about the changes to Tempest. As many have stated, I think DPS Tempest has some incredibly fun gameplay mechanics (looking at fresh air for example) but it needs its numbers tweaked or be more reliable on all sorts of hit boxes.

Having to trade of stability on overloads is going to make it less enjoyable to stay and I think a single buff to damage won’t be sufficient to bring it back into decent shape. 
We will need some QoL improvements on conjured weapons, a way to fix hit box size reliance and some Condi Damage improvements. Making the boon support builds more reliable would also be great - Alac-Condi tempest is currently the lowest benchmarking boon support in the game and it really needs to be looked at.