June 27 Balance Update Preview

[Anthony.8056]

I honestly think they should release just the cooldowns since it is the majority of the patch and rethink the rest. 

Elementalist- I don't like the change to churning earth, I understand giving it more mobility, but it is a unique charging skill that is being replaced by similar skills. I like the expanding field aspect, why are you getting rid of the pulse and channeled skills in this game. Also, the skill is called churning earth not leap and smash. The skill that should be changed and looked at is earth quake because it has a boring animation and is not an earthquake. I have been waiting for a change to that skill forever a simple jump up and knockdown is very lackluster for a skill called earthquake. Focus skills and conjured weapons need to be looked at. The elite skills also need a review but are never looked at or changed. Seriously, give catalyst a useful elite skill.

Necromancer- Everything in this patch for Necro is wrong, I always felt that Necro was the one to corrupt boons while Mesmer was the class to get rid of the boons because of its denial aspect also spell breaker. I don't like the change to life siphon, another skill being changed to a single button press.  I don't like anything really about necro in this patch, so I'll leave it as that.

Mesmer -Feel the same about it as Necro, removing the identity of the class which sucks because the light armor classes are my favorite. Don't like the changes to mirage or virtuoso. Why take off the block to bladeturn requiem, what good will it be now. Also, I don't like the change to unstable bladestorm, once again very unique aoe skill projectile being replaced by being ground targeted. They did the same thing to dust devil for Ele, the only thing I wanted changed was the speed slowed down alittle because it was too quick not a ground targeted skill like all the rest. At least give us the option for it to be a projectile in the grandmaster traits because the Virtuoso traits suck and are just blade stocking traits.

 

[Storub.5907]

After re-watching the balance preview stream from the beginning, here's my feedback:

Overall

My overall impressions are mixed. There are some very welcome buffs and changes, while others are very out of touch with what players find fun to play.
Lets do a quick-fire section first:

 - Cooldown reduction that is supposed to compensate for the relevant trait rework is applied very inconsistently. None of the warrior torch skills got anything for example. Guardian skills that are already absurdly good got the reduction, while lots of the elementalist skills that are barely good enough to take with the trait, did not. I hope developers will take a closer look as to why some skills see play and some don't, instead of relying on pure usage statistics.

 - Warrior rifle buffs are good, but [Arc Divider] change will make it much less satisfying to use and ultimately feels more like a knee-jerk reaction from a developer who died to it too much in pvp/wvw.
 
 - Bladesworn getting alacrity feels wrong, it will also not resolve the issue of it being locked to specific utility skills because you have to run [Flow Stabilizer] + [Dragonspike Mine] + [Overcharged Cartriges] to generate enough flow anyway. Spellbreaker being the alacrity spec feels much more appropriate with its more magical flavor, and not having to rely on its exclusive skills.
 
 - Deadeye getting quickness is weird, one would think that Daredevil, the spec all about being quick and jumping around the place is flavored much better for that role.
 
 - Berserker has to use very specific utility skills to upkeep berserk, and its almost inevitable to lose it if you have nothing to hit for a while. Putting quick generation on burst skills during berserk means we either have to completely fill our bar with berserk-extending skills, or face the potential 11-second downtime on quickness on every transition phase. Even just passively pulsing quickness during berserk would be less clunky of a solution. Unless of course you let us stack quickness high enough to cover the downtime.

 - Another patch, another confusion adjustment. While I don't mind better dps consistency for confusion-based specs, it really feels like the team     struggles to make confusion its own condition without making it incredibly niche. At this point it may be worth just reworking it into something else entirely.

 - Core specs are getting completely gutted and left without any boon support options. I was hoping for the opposite. Perhaps every class having every boon is not worth doing if it means destroying class design space.

 - WvW is going to be even more of a boon-ball circus than it already is. I do not understand the hate developers have towards boon removal, aka the only way to counter boon-balls.

Alacrity Specter rework

While I get and overall support the decoupling of alacrity from wells, I have some concerns about the proposed change.

If the new [Shadestep] will generate alacrity around the tethered target (and not around you), it can theoretically be used to support the group from the distance...

But most of your shroud skills are melee-range and rely on hitting enemies to provide their effects...

So you have to waste your shroud skills to upkeep alacrity during phase transitions...

And you can only change your tether once every 15 seconds (because using Siphon on allies is a dps loss since you dont get initiative this way), so if you auto-tether to someone who dies or goes out of range, you literally cant generate any alacrity for up to 15 seconds.

I approve of the flavor of supporting allies around the tethered target, but we need some sort of re-tether logic that kicks in automatically when the previous tether target is no longer valid.

Quickness Herald rework

This change is a big win for herald flavor, but there is one major concern about viability of healalac herald after it goes live.

Every herald-compatible legend has enough viable upkeep skills to maintain uptime, even when not in Glint stance, except Ventari. It has a 6-pip bubble that is decently-useful, but its other skills are very energy-hungry (20 energy for pulse heal and 25(!) for condi cleanse). If you intend to force us to use both legends to upkeep quickness, it will make it essentially impossible to properly do alacheal as herald. When you go into ventari you will be literally 1-2 skills away from running completely dry.

There are no easy fixes for this issue. The easiest one is to change [Natural Harmony] into a 4-pip upkeep skill. This way herald in ventari stance can either use it together with [Facet of Nature], or [Protective Solace] alone, to upkeep quickness, while also providing healing and utility to the group.

3-second application interval is very clunky, it is so on harbinger and will be so here. If we had [Drachonic Echo] it would not be such a problem, but having to give it up forces us to play around this interval, while also reducing access to other boons, which feels completely counter-intuitive on a boon support. The best way to fix this would be to put quickness generation on [Rising Momentum] which is very on-flavor for that trait.

 

I dont not feel like I know enough about other specs to comment on the respective sections.

 

Afterword

While thinking on this all for the last few days I have come to question the impact the boon-meta has on this game.

Is it actually a good thing that your performance is so massively affected by an effect that you cannot provide yourself, up to a point that your rotation falls apart without it?

Isn't this essentially the same as having a traditional holy trinity if playing without one role is so sub-optimal it will make people leave? Except in our case its an unholy pentagram of dps, alac/quickdps, and alac/quickheal, which means more than half of each group is set in stone.

Maybe it is worth considering nerfing the boons themselves? Cap Might to 10 stacks with each being flat 1% to damage? Make Fury give 5% of crit chance? Quickness and Alacrity being 10% increase each would still be noticeable, just not as absurd of a difference as it is now.

Optimized groups would still want all the boons anyway, but maybe it will no longer be the difference between doing 20k dps and 40k, while also bridging the gap in performance between players.

[GeraldBC.4927]

17 minutes ago, Storub.5907 said:

There are no easy fixes for this issue.

Watch me solve this supposedly insoluable conundrum: Reduce the costs for natural harmony to 8 and purifying essence to 10.

"But that's op, there has to be a tradeoff!" I can already hear you say, but no, that is not true. You see the tradeoff is already there, namely the fact that you are forced to keep protective solace on, lest you stop granting quickness. 

[JadenSimic.3941]

I don't really understand the Scourge shade duration nerf. I don't see it related to any of the other changes and it seems the only result of this will be a dps nerf since Sand Sage won't keep up the 3-shade expertise bonus.

[PetrLivingLife.8516]

I almost never post on forums, but I think it is important to add vote/voice on this one, even if many people wrote similar posts.

Tldr:

Overall I like the patch, especially ranger. If this goes through, scourge looses part of its identity for alacrity that no one asked for.

Details:

Scourge: Never have I thought "I wish my necro had alacrity". In PVE, map metas, I think the revive factor is more important - I am really happy I made impact and others are happy they can continue fight. Especially newbies, I would think. I honestly believe that gw2 revive mechanic is what built this community. Revive supports learning (from mistakes) and reactive gameplay. I played toxic games like dota or lol and this was very refreshing, welcoming change - someone ACTIVELY helping you when you are down (haha). I mean it. I was really happy when I have started playing, got downed and someone ran to me from far away and helped me. Consider it gw2 staple like beautiful mounts or guardian or mesmer. Not everything has to be balanced. Perfectly balanced game might be very boring game. And in same way I try to now play support or utility oriented builds when I expect it will be needed. To help others, to keep this community alive and friendly as I know it.

If you consider it too strong, alright, slightly lower %. And again in next patch if you need to. But don't remove it completely. Also the multiple pull on shroud 4 should stay in my opinion. 

Thanks for the game development. See you soon?

[Firebeard.1746]

If you guys are going to go all-in on forcing this plethora of boons and trying to spread them across all classes, then you need to step back and ask "how are we preserving profession flavor"? I feel like there isn't a ton of class identity lately and it's just going away. Also what's with the nerf on mesmer focus pull? Mesmer pulls have been a staple of so many encounters and dealing with their mechanics, I'm not even sure how groups are supposed to kill certain raid bosses now. 

It might have been too much range for PVP/WvW but the PVE nerfs are unwarranted. 

Also just as a general comment, I feel like people like class identity and mechanics over boons, and if it was me, I'd actually step back and give more class specific mechanics and shared buffs and pull back on the boon soup. Just give every class something special that matches their fantasy. I don't think that boon soup is the selling point of the game. Also it'd get rid of these stupid mono-comps. I think my last HT CM video I saw was all guardians. 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Firebeard.1746

[JadenSimic.3941]

Please keep the herald quickness application in the Draconic Echo trait 🙏
This class is our raid squad's solution to the second group's boons in our one-healer setup. If this won't work anymore we will be forced to play two healers which is very unnecesary...

[TheBandit.7031]

So necromancer will just have no movement perk? Why is it being removed from quickening thirst?

[coro.3176]

8 hours ago, Esper.3721 said:

Oh and one last thing: Folding the 20% cooldown reduction traits into baseline is a good change. But trying to sneak in utility nerfs by leaving out specific skills (e.g. traps) is either incompetence or devs thinking the playerbase is too stupid to notice. I don't know which is worse.

Seconding this. There are so many of these (some in specific game modes) that represent huge effective nerfs given the CDR traits are being removed. If you're going to nerf certain things that much, I think it warrants a comment on why at least.

[Ipomoea Jalapa.6897]

Wow, it's clear that a lot of careful analysis went into making these balances, thank you. A lot of new build possibilities to explore. But it also seems like a huge chunk of traits and skills are getting yanked around every three months, and I struggle to keep up.

I like having a longer shelf life for builds, with time to develop muscle memory and understanding to a level where I start to enjoy the environment and human conversation without failing spectacularly... but then I need to go back to the drawing board every couple months and put on the blinders while re-building. If I'm lucky, I hit that sweet spot again before the next patch drops 😁.

I don't really mind a few overpowered traits and skills here and there. It's okay, some of them just become mandatory, and actually it brings the complexity down to a more realistic level for me.

I'm optimistic, though, because things seem to be moving towards a state where a lot more specs & play styles are viable. So maybe the ramp-up phase for new builds will get shorter and more enjoyable, and exploring different builds can feel more like an adventure than a min-maxing exercise. You can do it, devs! 🥰

P.S. I love Fervent Force and am sad to see it go. I guess it just suits my playstyle, having all the skills bound to the numpad and playing it like a piano with perma-Rock Dog and a satisfying cadence of "You pin 'em down, I'll take 'em out!"

[Talan.1608]

A lot of the focus on forcing every class to be able to provide quickness & alacrity reveals one thing - alacrity and quickness are both far too powerful. Because of their OPness, not bringing them is intentionally hampering your group. This is compounded by the fact that upkeeping alacrity and quickness oftentimes is convoluted, and ANet is not doing anything to do that. I already feel like I'm typing essays for college classes 10 minutes before they are turned in when playing engineer, and the combo changes aren't going to make that any easier. Instead of quickness being a simple (if not frustrating) game of using all superspeed granting abilities off cooldown, now, you'll have to specifically make builds to load up on blast finishers and combo field generators, and use those off cooldown instead. 

 

Ultimately, at the end of the day, I think nerfs to alacrity and quickness, both in their power and ability to be upkept forever, needs to be considered. Alacrity could potentially be reworked so that it is a 20, 15, 10, or even 5% reduction in cooldowns. That, or limiting how much uptime of alacrity can be done, like only 20 seconds every minute. Same for quickness. By nerfing those boons, it opens design space up to make application significantly easier, a la mechanist, instead of this mad game of having to use particular abilities off cooldown, nearly perfectly, all the time, or losing uptime. And in the process of shoe-horning everything onto every class, you lose a lot of what makes each class unique. I don't want my tempest to be the same as my firebrand, just with different animations and button orders. I don't want my scourge to be the same as my druid. 

[Vipanez.6145]

On 6/8/2023 at 11:12 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Let Loose: This trait replaces Fervent Force. Grant boons to nearby allies when you use an unleashed ambush skill. Recharge your unleashed ambush skill when you swap weapons.

so I´m excited how to do dmg without skillreset trait

 

[Leonard.6081]

Please don't murder this way Power Berserkers... they don't deserve all this hate.

[Scaffold.9475]

Sorry to critique your work... but I really hope this change doesen't go live both for necros and warrior mains

[mufina.6982]

So... talking about warriors and necros... is this balance patch an out of season april's fool joke?

[Vissarion.6509]

Please don't ruin Scourge. It's a really fun DPS class, getting gutted like that will make it unplayable at the state it was presented.

If you want to go the alac scourge way, make DPS and support traits (that's the point of traits anyway) separate. 

Other than that, ele still needs some love on their core utility/elites and weapons. Staff is still a bit meh to play, i hope one day they will make fire auto attack more fun (faster aa) and improve the kit a bit.

Thanks for your time.

[OnlyChaks.1725]

Leave dps scourge alone, I'm fine with not having alactricity if this is the price we have to pay. 

[OnlyChaks.1725]

Changes like this make me feel they don't play their own game 😕

You are killing scourge. No group is going to want one. We're already bottom of dps single target.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Neiara.9362

[ascii.1369]

Don't know if they read the other forum threads so I'll give my most pressing feedback here aswell.

Please reconsider nuking the chaose traitline on Mesmer. Mesmer already struggles with sustain in PvP compared to other professions (with the exeption of well Chrono). Chaos is fine as it is and touching a traitline that affects all Specs will have a huge tail of unintended consequences for a whole host of builds.

• If this is done because you think Mirage might be too tanky with two dodges, nerf something Mirage specific.
• If this is done because of Chrono bunker, hold off until you know how removing alacrity from wells affects that build.
• And lastly, in case this is done for some weird PvE reason make the change PvE only.

There is really no reason to touch chaos at this point on top of all the other changes since there is no data yet as to how those will affect the builds you want to nerf with the chaos changes.

Edited June 11, 2023 by ascii.1369

[zakkles.4158]

I was hoping to see longstanding animation clunkiness addressed in this update - warrior GS, guardian GS, ele staff all feel AWFUL to play. Especially guardian GS: the amount of precise aftercast cancelling you need to get good DPS is just absurd. Not every aftercast on every weapon needs to be addressed, but outlier skills like guardian GS4/5 and berserker GS F1 really hamper newbies trying to learn these builds. Oh well, maybe next patch.

My thoughts on these notes:

• I think the team would benefit from looking carefully at how boon generation, especially alac generation, interacts with actual PvE encounters. Builds like alac mirage and alac willbender can't upkeep alac between phases, which makes them feel a lot worse. Maybe that's just a tradeoff those builds have to make - but then they should be compensated in other ways.
• I'm not sure why staff clone conditions are getting nerfed. Was the predicted DPS too high with the condition changes? Staff mirage already has a bunch of problems - slow ramp time, reliant on external regen application, recent nerfs - and wasn't seeing a lot of play.
• Scrapper quickness generation shouldn't be changed. Gyros fit fluidly into the DPS rotation and just feel fun to use. I support shifting boon generation away from "mash profession skills off cooldown" but scrapper was a spec (maybe the only spec) that didn't need this change. And I'm nervous about how this change will interact with Heal Scrapper. (Same story for the quickness changes on herald and Heal Herald.)
• Arc Divider (berserker GS F1) is one of the most iconic skills on warrior; it feels and looks amazing to use. Even with the bad aftercast that needs to be stowed. If you want to change it, please change the aftercast only! (And then look at the horrible outdated base GS skills... every single one of them feels bad in PvE, except when you can GS3 into a wall.)
• I don't play scourge, and have always thought that certain scourge builds have too much rez power... but these changes look pretty f***ing sus. Putting the alac on Sand Savant and scrapping the shade changes would probably be best.

I don't want to be a doomer, and see some things in this patch to cautiously look forward to. Build diversity is always good - it IMO doesn't hurt class identity for a class to be able to provide quick or alac. (Or if it does, the class identity was already on life support, lol.) But I hope the team will listen to the community on some of these specific changes being bad news.

Edited June 11, 2023 by zakkles.4158
minor grammar

[Matoro.9708]

I'll be over here... waiting for them to replace the stock mortar kit skin like they said they would. 

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

Explain to me... I don't get it. After this patch:

- Alac Scourge wont be welcome, other classes do it better
- Heal Scourge wont be welcome, other classes do it better
- DPS Scourge now also won't be welcome, other classes do it better.

Solo DPS Scourge is dead. It never was top DPS but now you nerved it to the ground to give Alac Scourge which... look above... won't be welcome cause other classes do it BETTER.

You want diversity yet you do the exact opposite by taking an entire spec off the table.

From what I understand (I am less farmilliar with other classes) this is not the only case.

What were you thinking? How is this diversity? You will see less and less specs in Raids and Fractals, and also in WvW. 
You are doing the exact opposite of what you preach

To be quite honest, reading all feedback here (yes I read every page) and taking in consideration the comments from highly knowledgable players like Teapot, I think you need to scrap this and get back to the drawing board.

I am deeply dissapointed in this. 
You say you listened yet you come with things nobody asked for. Who asked for Alac on Scourge? 
It was not needed, it HAS it's uniqueness. Yet you take it away to make it a bad healer and bad alac... which never will be viable in any comp. Smart thinking

 

[Balsa.3951]

my feedback this here is a mess to read. u should let ppl post their profession. 

[Mistwraithe.3106]

5 hours ago, Storub.5907 said:

Afterword

While thinking on this all for the last few days I have come to question the impact the boon-meta has on this game.

Is it actually a good thing that your performance is so massively affected by an effect that you cannot provide yourself, up to a point that your rotation falls apart without it?

Isn't this essentially the same as having a traditional holy trinity if playing without one role is so sub-optimal it will make people leave? Except in our case its an unholy pentagram of dps, alac/quickdps, and alac/quickheal, which means more than half of each group is set in stone.

Maybe it is worth considering nerfing the boons themselves? Cap Might to 10 stacks with each being flat 1% to damage? Make Fury give 5% of crit chance? Quickness and Alacrity being 10% increase each would still be noticeable, just not as absurd of a difference as it is now.

Optimized groups would still want all the boons anyway, but maybe it will no longer be the difference between doing 20k dps and 40k, while also bridging the gap in performance between players.

Agreed.

I know a bunch of people want Alac and Quickness just removed, but I don't personally think that's a good solution. However, I do think that reducing down the impact of Alac and Quickness would be a vastly better plan than trying to give it to everyone. I wouldn't nerf to 10% though, I would reduce them both a little bit this patch, then if after a month or two it seems that wasn't enough, reduce them down a bit more until they are more balanced.

[Bludreign.8967]

First time posting. From someone who actually plays GW2, after crunching the numbers for Scourge's June 27th patch, this a bad Nerf. Alac just isn't worth having on Scourge at the cost of Heal/Dps which isn't chart topping at all in groups. But now you want to destroy the Scourge where no groups will want to select it for Raids or Strikes. "NERF" the June 27th Patch!!!