June 27 Balance Update Preview

[Viper.1593]

Another patch and no pve vindicator buff 😕

Edited June 12, 2023 by Viper.1593

[DemonCrypto.6792]

just some things about the warrior part of the patch.

Taking quicknesse from core and  giving it to berserker. -> good . But that still kill any use banners had, again (exept banner of tactic if it still give quicknesse). Is there a plan against that. 

spellbreaker utilities like: Natural healing, Sight beyond Sight, Featherfoot Grace, Imminent Threat. Why were'nt they uptdated/changed. At this moment  they are the least used skills in warrior list of skills.

Why signet didn't get uptdated , (yes the Cd duration have been changed) but their "actives" are still meh against their "passives",  so we are still back to square one here.

Is there a plan for the masses on warrior (maybe Change them to an hybrid weapon so skull grinder could shine) because they are competiting with hammer for the same cc role  and masse is loosing the battle.

Edited June 12, 2023 by DemonCrypto.6792

[Datriman.6714]

TBH, I don't understand why you are taking down any class defining skills from Scourge only for alacrity.

Boons > conditions- Gone

revive allies from the dead - Gone

Horrible for the class.

[HotDelirium.7984]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. I can understand from a certain gameplay philosophy that if alacrity and quickness are introduced and affect gameplay significantly then logically introduce them into every profession. You CAN balance around that if thematically alac or quickness doesn't gel with that class. Alac on Scourge is like gasoline on pancakes. Sure you can do it....but why?

The CA on druid has always confused me seeing as I can't find many celestial references to druids in the lore other then them connected with the planet and it's energy. I have no idea what space has to do with it. Having to spam CA skills again does seem to run counter to some concepts stated earlier. Giving alternate playstyles for druid is great. Feeling like you have to save up all your glyphs for the small CA window is not. I actually hope this is a stepping stone to where you can one day seperate the CA mode in the form of a trait that way you can stay in it permanently in combat (which would create its own advantages and limitations.)

[AresGuildwars.6372]

Behold, this patch preview has now more negative feedback than last year's "disaster"-patch leading to the reconstruction of the balance team/philosophy. 
This team wanted to farm even more salt than the last it seems, because they broke last year's record. ❤️ No one thought it possible, but here we are congratulating the new team! Congrats! With this out of the way, I once again ask you to not go live with those changes. Best Wishes and we all have to remember to touch some grass! :3

[UntimelyM.7860]

As an Engineer main I can only comment on changes related to Engineer in WvW.

CD Reduction Traits 

If you are going to remove CD reduction from traits, please apply the baseline reduction to CDs to all related skills, otherwise you are directly nerfing the unchanged ones. In particular I am referring to:

• Elixir S
• Toss Elixir S
• Toss Elixir R
• Emergency Elixir (Trait)
• Elixir Shell (Mortar)
• Healing Mist (Elixir Gun Toolbelt)
• Super Elixir (Elixir Gun)
• Acid Bomb (Elixir Gun)
• Toolkit skills in WvW (S/W/T, Box of Nails, Prybar, Gear Shield, Magnet)
• Slick Shoes in WvW
• Personal Battering Ram in WvW

Many of these skills have marginal use in WvW, only ever taken when the relevant CD reduction trait is also picked. You are planning on giving them effectively longer CDs than they currently have, which will ensure they are never picked going forwards.

- Prozap

 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by UntimelyM.7860

[Aradan.2876]

Hello. Just one sentence about the upcoming patch. I don't know if it's reasonable to bury identity of classes, which is the main reason why many people play GW2 only because of boons, especially when Diablo 4 was released.

[Brujeria.7536]

Please also take a further look at the necromancers cooldown reduction traits. There are several missing (Axe /focus / corruption skills / pistol). And also many of the former cd reduction traits are now very underwhelming like 2 seconds of burn on punishment skills or vuln on elixir use.

[SevlisBavles.3059]

To reiterate. Mirage is one of the bottom of the barrel classes in PvP right now. It needed buffs. BUFFS.

It has practically been nerfed into the ground with these changes.

What the absolute kitten

[enkeny.6937]

I wish condi druid will be not popular, so they will see this problems and makes some changes after.
Like switching eclipse with Natural Balance, increasing duration to 10 sec:
-your master tier will looks like: apply super speed and stealth or protection or conditions
-grand master tier: alacrity access, more CA access, more damage. 

Eclipse now: druid got a 3. weapon slot. Got skills to damage while loose weapon skills for that duration. But #1 has no damage or damaging condition on it, so just use #5 with #2 and exit. (#3 willl not apply bleeding, because bad moon goes cd after entering avatar form 😛) 

I see a design issue here.

[Hauwlyn.8051]

Now, there's a lot wrong with this preview, but i'll merely talk about the Weighty Terms change.
HFB does not need a nerf, at least certainly not to its boon uptimes, it's already the most tedious and busy when it comes to upkeeping boons of all meta healers, it's only alleviated thanks to the fact the most popular alac dps builds output plenty of extra boons, and if we ever have to actually upkeep full fury, 25 might, quickness and full prot(like if our alac is a willbender), we're litterally spending 80% of our time just doing things for boons, and the percieved "extra value" is irrelevant because poorly timed. I go into detail about that on this thread:

QFB will get absolutely murdered by the change, it would require way too much BD to upkeep just quick. It's already a weak build on extra boons and dps.
 

If you want more variety on master firebrand traits, buff the other 2 traits, don't nerf this one.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Hauwlyn.8051

[Chromatic Drake.3168]

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

Tempest

• Tempestuous Aria: This trait no longer causes shouts to inflict weakness, and it now also grants the tempest a bonus to outgoing damage for a period of time after applying an aura to an ally.

I really don't understand this one.

If you only have the bonus when you apply an aura to an ally and not to yourself, that mean you either need to take water traitline (and so loose a lot of damage from air/earth/fire traitline as a power or condi dps), or you need to use shouts either on cd or rotate between them if the bonus if high enough. You also have to give up the stab trait, for the most interruptible skill in the game by far.

It really looks like garbage design if it's that way, and it doesn't bring anything to the tempest "dps" build.

 

Edit : also, on stream they talked about the combo with aura on signet, but this aura is only for ele, where is the combo then ??

Edit2 : "Ally" means also yourself. So it works fine, good.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Chromatic Drake.3168

[Suyheuti.1732]

10 hours ago, Meva.8327 said:

There is a always a lot of backlash when skill updates are out.

Unfortunately, the backlash is totally justified. Whenever there are skill updates, it always feels like the GW2 devs do not really play their own game.

Moreover, many changes place players on one side or the other, hating or welcoming the new update.

I believe that, in this Age of Information and Data, ANet could and should base their decision-making process on hard and real data, not on whimsical ideas, good intentions or pure theorycrafting.

Like other games, ANet could implement tests to scientifically assess the effects of a given change. It could be just a weekend with a an optional test or matchmaking.

Examples of tests that I would implement, if I was given the chance:

1. Want to give back 2 dodges to Mirage but they can no longer evade when CC'd? Have a "new Mirage dodge weekend" in sPvP where you always place at least 2 "new Mirages" on every side, every match.
2. Want to see if alacrity Scourge is more desirable / balanced than res-heal Scourge? Have a "No res Scourge weekend" in a given raid where res Scourge is meta.
3. Want to see if players in WvW want more or less boon strips? Have a "no-cooldown boon strip weekend" in WvW followed by a "no boon strip weekend"  and see the reaction of WvW players, both boonball lovers and haters, ingame and in forums.
4. Do you think Alacrity and Quickness are great, despite the forum actually asking for the deletion of the two? Have a "no-quickness, no-alacrity weekend" in all game modes and see how all players behave ingame and react in forums.

 

I dont know what people thinks but I’m against the sharing “Alacrity and Quickness” with the group since the day 1. These two boons are too strong and they should be applicated by player himself only. That would create more versatile builds in game. 

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Apologies if this has already been copied here.

 

[Suyheuti.1732]

2 hours ago, SevlisBavles.3059 said:

To reiterate. Mirage is one of the bottom of the barrel classes in PvP right now. It needed buffs. BUFFS.

It has practically been nerfed into the ground with these changes.

What the absolute kitten

Mirage is one of the bottom the barrel classes in PvE too. I dont understand, Mirage is one of the most unique playstyle in game and too much fun to play. Thanks to Anet, they hanged out to dry for years. 
Giving alac to staff ambush instead of giving was the worst idea ever. They couldnt still balance it for 2 years. 
For sane minded person, except fun, there is no reasonable reason exists. Condi Virtuoso beats Mirage in every situation. Cvirt has range advantage, mush more lower still ceiling, in real scenario, it beats out of DPS run. (For max dps, you have to choose Chaos(def traitline) instead of Illusions.)
And Anet gave F5 to Chrono and Virtuoso. They have unique shatters. 

[Sylberin.7961]

At this point just kill mesmers, stop slowly bleeding it to death and end its suffering, clearly you don't want that class in your game.

Then again I'm not sure I want that class in your game either, you've clearly shown you're not good enough to handle such a cool concept that your (much more competent) predecessors came up with, and executed far better; The only kind of execution your mesmer has seen meanwhile is a beheading with a dull blade.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Sylberin.7961

[Arrow Blade of El Elyon.9341]

Roaming Druid

Paperoll's feedback;
 

 

[VPX.1325]

If there was an impression that support Scourge was held back from endgame content, with this changes the whole specializzation will be exiled it from every content, not only endgame. No one will main it. You are killing any form of dps scourge and ress heals scourge in favour of a support that will still not be good at healing, from good to awfull at boon corruption and corruption conversions and from good at reviving will become borderline mediocre.

Mechanical genius rework makes it worst than losing stats on mech since the mech AI is ungovernable; suggestions in how to change it and make it more manageable, on the formus have been made countless times, but no, why listen to feedback.

[Lacdaran.9125]

The Good

• Removing cool down traits and putting those reductions into base skills

• Removing Quick and Alac off of utility skills into baseline rotation skills

• Dagger Rework/Improvements

• Warrior: Alac and Quick Builds on Beserker and Bladesworn

• Thief: Quickness build for Deadeye

• Elementalist: Quickness from any jade sphere instead of only air

• Elementalist: Firegrab Attack Angle Inc.

• Mesmer: Mirage Dodge re-balance – while this does perhaps cost us a little variety/flavor it was too overpowered and unbalanceable

• Ranger: Everything looks great, might even end up a bit too great

The Bad

• Reducing Boon Rip seems off. You alluded to overall boon changes with boon rip reductions in this patch and something else to happen to boon application in the future. Perhaps these should be done all at once, or a better explanation provided as to the vision?

• Engineer: Mechanist's penalty for being too far from its mech (Mechanical Genius). Increased cool down is perhaps better at signaling player, but this is still an overall poorly conceived mechanic.

• Engineer: Scrapper Quickness Rework – applying boons with blast or leap finisher while perhaps better than 3 gyros seems difficult to pull off, too much leaping off platforms.

• Thief: Wells are still a bad mechanic.

• Warrior: What are banners for now? This really needs a rework.

• Warrior: Daring Dragon is fun, perhaps put alac on Immortal Dragon instead and preserve DD functionality

• Warrior: Willbender not addressed, needs improvement alacrity generation or boon application in general.

The Ugly

• Warrior: Arc Divider changes

• Necromancer: Removing “Revive” Scourge for an alacrity build – even though heal scourge is very situational it is a unique niche and has a lot of role play flavor that people really love to have and shouldn't be removed.

• Necromancer: Manifest Sand Shade: Reduce shade duration from 20 to 8 seems like it will kill many DPS scourge builds, and be way too spammy. It seems like alac on sand savant or just putting a cap of 5 targets on the effect might be better.

[Vornollo.5182]

Thief main, so... Sorry!

Improvisation: Little bit sad, it's good for PvE (especially in light of Quickness DE), but it'll reduce playmaking potential in PvP and WvW... I get it though.

Acrobatics: Overall solid changes. Don't quite like Pain Response just being a weaker version of Ranger's "Evasive Purity"

Daredevil: Solid, makes absolute sense from a PvE point of view. Forced movement is still rather problematic on it though.
Kind of let down that they labeled the stolen skills as Daredevil though. They work like that for Core too..?

Deadeye: Not bad, quite intrigued to try it and see how viable it is between ranged and melee options. Not sure how Binding Shadow will work now since it already immobilized, anxious to see it though. I'm quite fine with them nerfing it though. Shadow Flare changes are solid for stealth-play, not too shabby at all.

Specter: Oh boy, rather let down by the reworks, I just expected more to it.
Good changes to Shroud and Scepter having a little AoE support on it. Happy to see Alacrity moved off of Wells, but bummed that now PvP and WvW Specters got no Alacrity access anymore. 

Would have loved to see some changes to the Wells themselves, make them feel more unique and impactful etc. put a stunbreak in there somewhere, make them worth taking for something other than the Alacrity, hah.
Making Siphon proc Thrill of the Crime without a target and such would be a massive help. Also rethink the -3 initiative, it's just messing with the flow of combat.
Another thing I'd love to see updated is Shadow's Refuge. The fact that it still reveals you when leaving it is just redundant at this point. Heck, people are actively using it to grief/spite groups in WvW...

So for the Specter Alacrity adjustment, I'd much rather keep the Alacrity for WvW/PvP, Protection feels more suitable flavor-wise for other support-type professions.
Especially keeping in mind the "Protect the King" theme they want to go for. Generally, the "King" in WvW especially will be a Guardian, who does a far better job at providing itself with Protection anyway. Putting more Protection on top of it... Ehhh, just doesn't really feel useful. I also just don't find Protection a thematically fitting boon for Thief.

 

Overall, good changes for Thief, stuff's moving in the right direction.
PvE changes are solid, some of the things could be improved upon for the competitive modes.

[YellowFlash.3914]

Big problem with the changes to how specter applies alacrity: you will not be able to do it out of combat (ooc), since there's no way to get shadow force while ooc.

This is concerning especially in fractals, where pre stacking boons before bosses is a key part of the gameplay loop. One of two things (or maybe both tbf) should be done in order to not "kill" specter in fractals:

1. Give shadow shroud the same treatment that celestial avatar (on ranger) got a while ago, which is whenever you gg ou enter an instance, you get full celestial avatar ;
2. Allow shadow force to be generated while ooc by syphoning and hitting initiative abilities onto allies.

This issue also extends to the upcoming quickness deadeye build. While you don't need a target to use stolen skils anymore, you still need to be in combat in order to get the chance to use those stolen skills. Again, pre stacking ooc won't be possible. What you can possibly do here is allow one in the chamber to work ooc, which means you can get stolen skills by using cantrips while ooc.

If these issues aren't dealt with, were are going to have the same problem willbender has with providing alacrity.

Also, I know you really want to push specter to be a single target support elite spec, but let's face it, this gameplay style is not viable in gw2, it just isn't. Unless the game drastically shifts to encounters dealing more focused damage to certain players at certain times, single target support will always be inferior to normal means of support. It really just makes specter a weird profession to play, especially when everything else can do what specter does, but for multiple players at the same time.

Edited June 12, 2023 by YellowFlashHkg.9846
Extra feedback

[Zarathustra.1458]

8 minutes ago, YellowFlashHkg.9846 said:

Big problem with the changes to how specter applies alacrity: you will not be able to do it out of combat (ooc), since there's no way to get shadow force while ooc.

This is concerning especially in fractals, where pre stacking boons before bosses is a key part of the gameplay loop. One of two things (or maybe both tbf) should be done in order to not "kill" specter in fractals:

1. Give shadow shroud the same treatment that celestial avatar (on ranger) got a while ago, which is whenever you gg ou enter an instance, you get full celestial avatar ;
2. Allow shadow force to be generated while ooc by syphoning and hitting initiative abilities onto allies.

This issue also extends to the upcoming quickness deadeye build. While you don't need a target to use stolen skils anymore, you still need to be in combat in order to get the chance to use those stolen skills. Again, pre stacking ooc won't be possible. What you can possibly do here is allow one in the chamber to work ooc, which means you can get stolen skills by using cantrips while ooc.

If these issues aren't dealt with, were are going to have the same problem willbender has with providing alacrity.

Also, I know you really want to push specter to be a single target support elite spec, but let's face it, this gameplay style is not viable in gw2, it just isn't. Unless the game drastically shifts to encounters dealing more focused damage to certain players at certain times, single target support will always be inferior to normal means of support. It really just makes specter a weird profession to play, especially when everything else can do what specter does, but for multiple players at the same time.

This same issue is going to apply go chronometers. I think it is important to leave alacrity on wells and just add a more rotational source ie, shroud and phantasms to let the respective class have more freedom in how they use their wells, rather than losing the ability to use them to anticipate a fight.

[DeathStorm.8423]

At the rate anet is going, soon there will be no class identity, and it'll come down to what color do you want your spells to be🤣.

Boon corruption will basically be nonexistent if they follow through with this update. But necro wouldn't be the first class to lose its identity.

Every class doesn't need to be able to provide alac and quickness. One or the other is fine. Just make them unique enough with pros and cons so we aren't locking groups to specific classes instead of making every class do everything and force us into your favorites (your obvious favorite is guardian).

Every elite spec does not need a support variant, a condi variant, and a power variant either. Keep things unique and interesting, not boring and the same with a different color of paint (which is the route you guys are currently going down)

Scourge for example was in a great place without alac. It did consistent damage and it's heal variant was great for teaching new players content but if you had an experienced group. Heal Scourge was completely irrelevant. It was a very non-meta training wheel class. I can understand nerfing it a bit to make the environment more healthy, but killing classes completely isn't the answer. Your goal to nerf healscourge completely killed dps scourge. You will constantly have this issue if you keep going down this path you are on. Making every class have an alac elite spec, quickness elite spec, and every elite spec having a power, condi and support variant is going to give you balancing hell. You will always kill one version trying to nerf another. I highly encourage you actually listen to your player base who plays the game a lot. 

Scourge has a core design issue since your goal is 5 targets for everything. You'll need to find a way to either buff the traits on Scourge to make up the lack of shades for dps version, make Scourge shades perma giant and rework that trait so you can better balance the skills for 5-6 target or overhaul the class and make it completely lose its identity. There's not much you can really do since it is a core class issue and yall are adamant with 5 target skill only (which that in itself is fine)

[Apokriphos.7042]

Beyond the significant changes to Scourge that pretty much eliminates it from the meta, the signet of suffering nerf decimates any necromancer build intent on trying to stay in shroud. 

It is unclear in how it is written, but it looks like they are removing the ability to have signets active in shroud **at all**. 

Please make a beta realm to test these changes before making them live. This patch needs more testing.

[dukefx.9730]

On 6/10/2023 at 12:26 AM, ZEUStiger.3590 said:

Arc Divider change displays a complete misunderstanding of the problem with that skill, attempts to solve an issue that doesn't exist, and in turn nerfs the skill to such an extent, that it kills the whole usage of this weapon in PvE.

The problem with Arc Divider was the overly long AFTERCAST animation, NOT the CAST animation. This problem could've been solved by adjusting the timings on the skill's script to return control over skillcasts to the player slightly earlier, immediately after the 3rd damage wave, instead of waiting for the animation to finish. Or by fixing the weapon stow aftercast cancelling exploit to prevent players from using it to their advantage.

What you're doing here instead is functionally nerfing this skill into non-existence.

Arc Divider single-handedly defined the greatsword weapon in PvE as the "massive cleave" weapon. That became this weapon's whole identity, because without it - it doesn't have one. All other greatsword skills feel incredibly sluggish to use and/or have vastly undertuned damage to make using them desirable. Autoattack is painfully slow, you'll fall asleep before you generate even 10 adrenaline with autoattack chain, much less 30. The movement lock of Hundred Blades makes its damage a joke in any situation other than a completely stationary target, and yet despite this it's still the only GS skill worth using besides Arc Divider. Bladetrail loses half of its effectiveness if there's a wall/pit behind the target. Rush is so slow to deliver its damage that nobody uses it for that, only for mobility, but even the mobility portion is often questionable: when used against moving targets in PvP/WvW due to lag + movement prediction or whatever it can make your character dash in a completely opposite direction from the target or even throw you off a cliff. When a berserker is on greatsword - their goal is to use Arc Divider as many times as they can and switch the hell away from this weapon because it's horrible otherwise.

Your argument that moving from 5.1 total power scaling across 3 waves to 2.5 across 1 wave doesn't impact the skill's damage because it's now faster makes no sense. It would've been that way IF greatsword had any other good skills to use BESIDES Arc Divider to occupy the time you save by reducing the cast animation, but it doesn't have any. IF Arc Divider didn't have a cooldown and relied solely on charging ardenaline (similar to how Decapitate works) then you could make this argument: spend less time in Arc Divider and more time regaining adrenaline to use Arc Divider again. But as it currently stands - the main limiting factor of Arc Divider is its cooldown, which isn't going away with the reduction to cast time

Now about the loss of cleave functionality. Arc Divider was fantastic for clearing lots of low hp enemies, because they would often die from 1 or 2 Arc Divider waves, meaning that the 3rd wave - the one with longest radius - would reach NEW targets, because the closest targets already died. This is a big functionality loss. Players also had the ability to reposition themselves between damage waves and thus hit DIFFERENT targets with each wave. The on-paper 5 target limit in practice often ended up being way higher than that. Increase the number of targets hit from 5 to 15 and then we'll talk.

Even if you're only fighting 5 targets, the 3 hits ensured that each of the 5 targets will get struck all 3 times. Now that there will only be 1 hit - you would have to make up for the damage loss with other skills (for which you now have the extra 1 second that was freed from Arc Divider's cast time), except - oh look - there are no other skills on greatsword that hit 5 targets! Skills 1, 2, 3 have 3 targets limit, 4 requires the targets to be in a line, and 5 is entirely single-target. This is a nerf both to damage and functionality.

Not to mention that you said nothing about the radius of that singular damage wave, so, for the lack of better info, I'm assuming the worst: that it will use the smallest of the 3 prior radii: the 240 one. In which case - this nerf sets the skill's design back to 2015 end even further back actually, because even in 2015 its radius was 450, when it was just a fancier non-berserker GS F1. But hey, wouldn't be the first time you downgrade warrior back to the initial release design, so I wouldn't be surprised.

Don't go forward with this change. You're "hoping it's a usability improvement", but in reality it's the complete opposite. Players will simply never use greatsword anymore - THAT'S the actual usability improvement that's going to happen here. Don't revert the only positive design change to GS that happened since 2012.

 

Rifle changes are ultimately inconsequential. Rifle already was a "do a quick burst and switch away from it asap" weapon (just like GS, ironically), this just makes that burst slightly better. The bigger design issue with the rifle is its inability of SUSTAINED ranged damage, nothing was done here to improve this aspect.

Rifle 4 change will probably make it better to use (but ONLY if the initial dodge has no casttime, otherwise this change is entirely meaningless), although I would much rather preferred if the dodge was a flipover skill which the player could CHOOSE NOT TO USE if they don't want the dodge, just the immob/vuln part.

 

I have nothing to say about quickness berserker other than you better make it kitten sure that giving 100% quickness uptime requires a boon duration investment, because if I'm ever being told again to switch to bannerslave quickness berserker because "it's not a big deal you're only losing 2 utilities 1 dps trait" - I will be very pissed.

Basically this.

Warrior GS has been total bollocks ever since Hundred blades was nerfed soon after launch. It is probably the most useless warrior weapon there is. Auto-attack is too kitten slow, Hundred blades is useless most of the time nor does it do any decent damage. Bladetrail is too kitten slow. Then we are left with the 2 skills people actually bother to use GS for: MOBILITY! Even tho Rush is super wonky and often goes to who knows where. Arcing slice has always been a joke. Now we get some Arcing Slice 2.0 instead of the only fun burst skill. This whole weapon needs a total rework or a MAJOR overall buff if you plan to kill Arc Divider!