June 27 Balance Update Preview

[Vignar hellflame.1832]

Aside from warrior all the other boon application changes don't sound fun to play at all. It looks like you are just going to make the support classes more annoying to play or kill them. Support classes should be the easiest to play. Warriors Arc Divider change is weird and I like the spin to win it's fun to use as a power berserker please don't change it. I don't think anyone likes what you are doing this patch except for the cooldowns. This patch was not thought out at all and doesn't sound like you tested it at all. You will kill a lot of these class specs. I play these build you are nerfing and it doesn't look like I even want to play them now. The scourge changes don't make any sense. Here's alac but we are gonna destroy your class. Please don't do most of these changes they clearly are not thought out.

[Myniel.3745]

Is this update here to destroy scourge? If you make this change its time to say good bye to my necro 😪

[RacoonStylePlay.1852]

Engineer: Scrapper

-Kinetic Accelerators

Function gyro being a blast finisher might force the player to spam it on cooldown for quickness uptime which removes ist utility to revive mates when it is needed. It should be an option but not necessary to upkeep quickness.

Solution: enough possible quickness generation without the function gyro

Hammer 3 is a double leap finisher which will be needed to upkeep quickness. In this state it is a very bad skill for this purpose. First this skill is a 6 second animation look in which you can’t dodge or move. You are locked onto the enemy and jump towards it 3 times. That cause big trouble. To upkeep quickness you need that skill and you end up outside your combo fields a lot of the time and straight into mechanics or bad AoE attacks.

Solution: Change hammer 3 into a controlled skill with 3 aoe splash attacks like about 240 range. Make it 3 leap finishers cause you are leaping 3 times anyway and you can freely controlle where you go while you doning the attacks. That would still animation lock you for 6 seconds but at least you are able to controlle what you are doing giving enough freedom to not hurt the player for supporting

Changing the use of gyros to leap and blast combo finisher just changes the equipment from 3 gyros to at least 1 and makes it so the scrapper is forced to use mortar kit and bomb kit for combo fields. Essentially you swapped gyros for kits with this change which still removes the ultility which was the plan with this update. Hammer 2 is a whirle finisher which does not affect quickness generation but it would be a good skill for quickness uptime.

Solution: Either change the quickness generation to be with toolbelt skills too so like combofinisher + toolbelt skills or add more finisher options for example whirle finisher or all combo finisher. That would make the quickness uptime way more reliable and easier to access and you have enough utility to swap things from the utility slots. Also there is no possibility for giving quickness underwater with the conecpt of combo fields.

Engineer: Mechanist

-Mechanical Genius

Increasing the cooldown punishes the player for the bad AI of the mech itself which also means for melee mechs to run away from the boss a bit so it stands outisde the range and can’t be called back to you cause it will not move next to you even when pressing the button and also for not getting an indicator that the mech is outside the range. You just get the feedback of the increased cooldown which punishes the player after the mech is already too far away so the player couldn’t react to it before getting punished. This cooldown increase also means that no mech can do kite mechanics anymore for example deimos as heal alac handkite or sabetha heal alac flak kite.

Solution: Instead of increasing the cooldwon make a visible feedback like coloring the mech from green to yellow to red while the traitbuff runs out and still use the stat system like before. That way inattentive dps mechanists get punished for not paying attention and support mechs especially heal can still do mechanics and kite jobs.

-Underwater Mech

There is still the problem with the mechanist traitline being completely removed once you touch water. There is enough underwater content for it being actually a problem you can’t ignore.

Solution: You can either make the mech a submarine with all it‘s abilities like on land

or you can keep the Mech Support: Depth Charges and give the mechanist the mech abilities as toolbelt skills and give the player itself the passives from the mech that generates barrier and might in intervalls. That way the player partly becomes the mech and all problems are instantly solved. The player can also use the mech abilities like the mech itself. For example channeling the Barrier Burst etc.

Mesmer: Mirage

-No Mirage Cloak while under the effect of CC

That instantly breaks Mirage in PvE and makes it a class nobody will play anymore. In raids or fractals there is way too much hard and soft CC for being able to play mirage as alac support anymore and even the DPS variant will be dead then. I understand this change is viable in WvW and PvP but in PvE this makes the character useless

Solution: Remove this change from PvE.

Mesmer: Virtuoso

-Bladeturn Requiem

Removing the block from this skill is bad because it is a good utility for mechanics and mesmer doesn’t have that many blocks. Distortion doesn’t work for certain mechanics so blocks are needed.

Solution: Keep the block for at least PvE because I can’t really tell how much this affects competitive gamemodes

Necromancer: Scourge

Scourge always had the unique ability to revive lots of players pretty fast as heal scourge which made it a really unique choice for exactly that purpose.

-Well of Blood

Well of Blood and lesser Well of Blood are the main skills for reviving players. Making it so Well of Blood is the main healskill for healing your group removes ist prupose of reviving downed players because it is always on cooldown when you need to revive people and it is a pretty bad healing too. It needs more healing for it being viable as a healing skill and still should be freely usable as a revive skill which is needed for that class because it is the build defining feature.

Solution: More healing for when it can be used as a healing skill and way more revive power.

-Ritual of Life

The nerf was way too hard. It went from 70% over the entire duration to just 20% over the entire duration. That kills the build defining feature of the heal scourge and forces teams to just use instant revives from guardians, elementalists and signet of undeath from other necros instead of taking a heal alac scourge. With a revive rate that low players will often die in situations where the heal scourge will be a good choice instead of being alive again.

Solution: Up the revive rate from 20% to around 50% (5% per pulse). That should still be viable but not kill the build‘s uniqueness.

-Transfusion

Pulling downed player together to revive them fast was a very good feature for dragging them out of dangerous AoE as well as dragging them closer together for other mates to revive them quick. The long time in which this can happen was good for the missing visual feedback and made room for mistakes like standing outside the range for like 2 pixels. The pull in it’s patch note state will very often fail (similar problem with „search and rescue“ from ranger) and lead to downed players just dying instead of helping them.

Solution: Make it at least 3 second duration with 2 pulses so there is now room for mistakes like before without being too overpowered and dragging donwed players across the entire arena.

-Manifest Sand Shade

The 8 second nerf leads to problems. Player has to spam that skill off cooldown to get the stat benefits that are needed for boon uptime which can cause problems when scourges cast a barrier skill to apply alac and in the middle of the skill a sand shade runs out so the alac gets less duration.

Solution: Make sand shades remain for 10 seconds to overlap and create room for mistakes.

-Serpent Syphon

„…detonate upon arrival“ results in a very bad and hard to use aegis skill. Using aegis is already pretty skillful because you have to time it right so the hit you want to block gets blocked and not anything else. Aegis should be applied on button press to be effective against mechanics and situations where it is needed

Solution: Make it apply instantly in the area when activating the ground target.

Ranger: Core

-Not all traps got their cooldown reduction included (Flame Trap, Frost Trap and Viper’s Nest are missing)

-Not all command skills got their cooldown reduction included ( „Guard!“ and „Strength of the Pact!“ are missing)

Ranger: Druid

-Natural Balance/Natural Stride

The effect from Natural Stride is a really good trait for any support build due to it reducing the effect of movement impairing condis and increasing the walk speed passively.

Solution: Include it into the Nature Magic traitline (because it already is a support/heal traitline) maybe into Evasive Purity.

-Lingering Light

The effect of this trait being a grandmaster trait is useless in PvE because there are no healers without boon support (quickness or alac). That means nobody will choose this in PvE because it prevents druids from applying alac or doing more DPS for condi druid.

Solution: Make it usable with Grace of the Land or Eclipse/Ancient Seed so alac or DPS builds get a use out of this skill or change it into a power DPS grandmaster trait for possible power DPS druid builds

-Grace of the Land

Giving this trait alac means you are forced as a heal alac druid to use your avatar state on cooldown. That also means you don’t have your big heals from the avatar state when they are needed and also you don’t have access to avatar glyphs when they are needed. Also you need to use your avatar on cooldown when playing condi alac druid which leads to the same problem; that your utility avatar glyphs are not ready when you need them.

Solution: 1 You keep grace of the land how it is in the patch notes and add the following. Avatar cooldown is reduced to 1-2 seconds and you can enter the avatar state with any amount of avatar energy left (you are not tied to the avatar energy being completely filled). That makes it so you can use all your avatar utility whenever it is needed and also don’t make condi DPS builds overpowered because it is in the alac grandmaster trait.

Or

2 Make Lingering Light be usable with Grace of the Land. That would also make druid able to use its utility glyphs when they are needed

Thief: Daredevil

-Brawler’s Tenacity

Palm Strike is missing the cooldown reduction that should be included in physical skills

-Detonate Plasma

Removing the quickness from this skill removes boon daredevil builds from the game. I really enjoyed playing these but I can understand when you change that Daredevil is DPS only and the others get their quickness and alac builds.

Thief: Deadeye

-Binding Shadow

Removing the knockdown also removes big CC from deadeye who already is not that great in doing CC while still being able to do DPS after that.

Solution: Let Binding Shadows knock down the marked target.

Warrior: Core

-Signet Mastery

Heal Signet and Dolyak Signet are missing their included cooldown reduction

-Martial Cadence

When you apply stability every 10 seconds through burst skills you can’t time the stability application really well because you almost spam burst skills in every DPS or support DPS rotation for its buffs either for DPS or for quickness generation on berserker. It is not a utility when you just spam it and hope it helps when it is needed.

Solution: Banner of Tactics already got stability so you could include more stability to Banner of Discipline or to Dolyak Signet and increase the application from Dolyak Signet to 5 targets

 

[PleaseRelax.6251]

Wow. It's the annual "let's defecate on our own game" patch!

After that absolute mess that was the patch a year ago, you're doing the same thing.
Removing class unique abilities so that all professions do the same thing of providing "boons" that just become a tickbox chore, rather than anything fun.

Terrible design, destroying more classes. The game was honestly in a good place - everyone was commenting on how all classes are good to play and now you've pissed all over it.

Just don't bother releasing it for the love of god.

Can't you actually figure out how to make the game MORE fun rather than making it worse. It's like you've committed to this quickness/alacrity thematic so hard you can't see a way out of your own mess, it's beyond sunken cost fallacy and reminds me of how the devs trolled Tera players towards the end of the game.

Unbelievable bullsauce.

" 

Edited June 12, 2023 by PleaseRelax.6251
rude words

[anbujackson.9564]

1 hour ago, Crey.5263 said:

Corruptor's Fervor

Where do you see that it pulses for allies, too? I dont. And I would know if it did because I use death magic in some fractals regulary. Would be cool tho.

Back to the topic:

Another chrono rework. Not a fan to see that. I just keep saying it for good riddance in this thread also:

Bring back pre EoD chrono. It would be literally the most balanced supporter while keeping its class idendity. And you are proving in this patch that it would be a good choice, so healers can take different traits instead of being forced to do alac/quickness.

[Wild.1705]

I often forget that there are people like drug addicts and stalkers. They live in our society, but they do not really know how to live within what most would call “the norm”. They don’t really have it all together. In terms of an MMO this feels like being reminded that they exist and not everyone has it together.

This is the worst balance patch I have seen in the 6 years I have played the game. It reminds me that I have it together far more than the people whose job it is to work on this game. While I don’t have all the game knowledge, what I do have is far greater than many people, including some of the people working at Anet.

The Scourge changes and Warrior Arc Divider are getting the most attention as they ARE the worst, but I am afraid Anet will change them and leave everything else as is in this patch. This patch is bad overall, and I would rather it not happen at all.

[Crey.5263]

37 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Where do you see that it pulses for allies, too? I dont. And I would know if it did because I use death magic in some fractals regulary. Would be cool tho.

Welp, I'm an idiot who read something into it 😅  , genuinely thought it was an AOE. "pulsing" such a weird phrasing for this as opposed to just gain protection while above the threshold.

[Wild.1705]

Ranger.

Spirits are being changed again… Ugh.

 

Sword is being changed again… Ugh. It sounds ok I guess, but it has been changed like 3 times already and I’m sick of it.

 

Striders strength. - Now replaces striders defense. Which is less survivability and more damage to sword. Better for PVE, worse for PVP.

 

Instinctive reaction. - Now grants regeneration instead of quickness??????????? Did they read the name of the skill lmao.

 

Evasive purity. - No longer has an icd now. Cool!

 

Spirited arrival. - Gives might now not vigor. Ok, but the name was better for vigor.

 

Protective ward. - Completely changed for no reason that casts lesser “guard” when swapping pets. This is terrible for pvp and EVE as it will get your pet annihilated on swapping pets. It use to give protection and aoe weakness on hit.

 

Invigorating Bond. - This trait now uses the ranger's healing power, heals allies around the ranger, and grants protection and vigor to allies. While I like this, it may make it worse for non-healing builds depending on the base healing value which use to be a flat 1000.

 

Trapper’s Expertise. - No longer reduces cooldown of traps. And Resounding Timbre no longer reduces command cooldowns. Idk what the draw to taking these traits is now.

 

Druid.

Grace of the land. - Grants alacrity instead of might. This is a weird change that didn’t need to happen if spirits didn’t change for no reason. It will be nearly unusable or OP as heck in PVP.

 

Primal echoes. – Removed, but I don’t see the base cooldown for staff baked into the weapon. So strait staff nerf unless they missed something.

 

Ancient seeds. - Removed for condition application???????? This is rough for pvp as it was one of the only ways to proc immob from range. It was a bit toxic, but now it won’t be usable on power builds.

 

Soulbeast.

Spiritual reprieve. - Got a cool down reduction and fast cast time. Cool.

 

Untamed.

Lots of good number changes for PVE

 

“Restorative Strikes: This trait no longer passively converts strike damage to healing, and it instead converts strike damage to healing when you or your pet unleash. Increased protection duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.”

·         But why tho??????

 

“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.”

·         This was the closest thing to giving Untamed and identity but they could never balance it.

·          Longbow is going to be disgusting after this change as they can reduce the cooldown of skills with unleashed ambush and then swap pets and do it again. May be broken in PVP as it was already good.

[Zephire.8049]

4 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

Not every change is going to apply to your gamemode. The HGH changes are aimed at competitive gamemodes and not pve.

What does that have to do with anything? I was saying it's a positive change and that it would be nice to have the option to bring some elixirs now that you don't have to spec into the trait to get them down to an acceptable cooldown, but if you want to bring quickness you won't be able to spare the bar space for them. If you don't bring quickness, I was not talking about you regardless of gamemode.

Not having to spec into HGH could have made elixirs a decent option in PvE as a supplemental utility skill, but not if you want to provide quickness with the proposed changes.

[Suyheuti.1732]

3 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

What are you guys even upset about? Nothing has changed other than you get two dodges and cannot dodge when immobilized/stunned like the rest of us. Maybe I'm missing something but it looks to me that these changes are good for the design of Mirage, no?

Edit: I didn't know Mirage had two dodges in pve already, I see why people might be upset.

This is the explanation:

Quote

Mirage will now have 100 endurance in PvP and WvW but will no longer be able to dodge while immobilized or under the effects of crowd control.

I can get it if they prevent under “immobilize, stun and fear” but if I cant dodge under cripple, slow and chill, what the hell I need another dodge? And also you cant even find a second not to be under crowd control in wvw fights. I’m happy with one dodge. Just scale up mirage damage outputs. I can live with that

[Suyheuti.1732]

37 minutes ago, Wild.1705 said:

I often forget that there are people like drug addicts and stalkers. They live in our society, but they do not really know how to live within what most would call “the norm”. They don’t really have it all together. In terms of an MMO this feels like being reminded that they exist and not everyone has it together.

This is the worst balance patch I have seen in the 6 years I have played the game. It reminds me that I have it together far more than the people whose job it is to work on this game. While I don’t have all the game knowledge, what I do have is far greater than many people, including some of the people working at Anet.

The Scourge changes and Warrior Arc Divider are getting the most attention as they ARE the worst, but I am afraid Anet will change them and leave everything else as is in this patch. This patch is bad overall, and I would rather it not happen at all.

No no no, last summer balance patch was the worst balance patch ever. (The patch they changed warrior banners) 

[Wild.1705]

1 minute ago, Suyheuti.1732 said:

No no no, last summer balance patch was the worst balance patch ever. (The patch they changed warrior banners) 

Lol just came across this and was about to post lmao.

June 27th 2022

The balance team got death threats after this patch and Mukluk covered the response.

Guess they didn't learn much😅

[Acheron.1580]

"We understand your concerns and will continue to monitor the situation." Will probably be the end of it and they will just push the patch out.

[Exciton.8942]

Feedback from mesmer changes.

The Good:

Virtuoso dagger rework. 

Psychic Riposte change.

These should make WvW virtuoso more viable in zerg setting. 
 

Mirage dodge change

Sacrificing uniqueness for balance is probably the best choice here. Some preemptive nerf is probably okay as well.  While we are at it, please take a look at the synergy between desert distortion and blurred signet. This combo has carried mirage to somewhat viable state but is not super healthy. 

The Bad:

Bladeturn Requiem block removal.

The change renders the skill pointless. It also thematically fits virtuoso more than distortion. Virtuoso defensive capability is over the top for sure. But I think distortion should be removed instead.

In the future, consider adding blade renewal as an F5 and design another utility skill

Mirage staff ambush nerf

Unnecessary nerf on alac mirage which is already not that good to begin with. Please prioritize looking at reworking alac mirage next patch. My suggestion is to introduce another GM that buffs ambush skills that competes with infinite horizon

Null field/temporal curtain nerf

These skills have been in game since forever but suddenly devs think they are a problem. They are strong utilities but balance wise I don't think they are too mandatory or oppressive to play against.

Remain to be seen:

Chronomancer alac/quickness application

The change is okay. But it normalizes chronomancer playstyle a bit too much. The spec is also bit too demanding to play with requirement to constantly shatter at the right time for good boon uptime and dps. Suggest to at least make self shatter apply more boons and less on clones as a PvE only change. 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Exciton.8942

[Myror.7521]

@AresGuildwars.6372 Just to be fair peops are Always unhappy about changes/nerfs that changes alot. Most peops i know want Just broken stuff but that will never happen. In that case this patch is not bad at all. It takes a step back to a Situation where the Game meant to be. Every class could do everything. Not gonna lie Most peops will hate this way but I think in shake for the Balance its good. How ever it could get still bad when every class would feel the Same gameplay wise  and trueth is its also a big step on this Hmmm not that good way ^^

Edited June 12, 2023 by Myror.7521

[DeceiverX.8361]

9 hours ago, Apokriphos.7042 said:

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.

SotL changes are brutal for this, too.  They're tripling-down on boon mobility for necro, which is more or less putting a dependency on other players, after removing the old Speed of Shadows.

And removed crit chance on non-boon sources.

This is one of those things where I'm literally left speechless at how absolutely flippin' disconnected the balance team must be from anything that isn't either PvE or karma-training zergballing in EBG, which is also basically just PvE.

Actual insanity.

[BatelGeuce.3591]

Quote

Serpent Strike: This skill has been moved to the third slot and has been reworked. You will now leap to your target while evading, applying poison and cripple on hit. This skill will immobilize instead of cripple if the target is movement impaired or disabled.

 

I really wonder what is the reasoning behind these since this skill was moved to second slot in 2019 ...

[Scoobster.8437]

The devs are absolutely destroying wvw. Aiming for 50 man boon balls, taking away smallers groups ability to fight outnumbered and at the same time unwilling to upgrade your servers to handle 50v50v50 content so that skills actually go off. Stop pandering to the people who are too lazy to learn how to dodge and move properly. Stuff needs buffed not nerfed.

Sincerely,

                   What is left of a dwindling competitive community

[shinkamalei.2574]

9 hours ago, Crey.5263 said:

Corruptor's Fervor

that says it pulses but it doesn't say allies. nor does it say an ally cap.

[Jeyy.5028]

second try in hopes devs revert the shade changes on boon corrupt and 8 second scourge. please what were yall on when making these changes

 

[Samis.5243]

I play scrapper as a main for PvE, WvW and raids. I am trying to understand why the nerf hammer is being brought down on the scrapper class so hard. Its mediocre damage class with quick as a boon. The heal variant getting nerfed is also confusing since cleanse and heal are dominated by weaver now....

Hammer 3 is not a great skill to begin with, so putting some dependencies on using it in various game modes is.....not great.

Maybe you can provide some context for why these changes are being made? I dont see scrapper "over preforming" since it has gotten nerfs for all of the last "rebalances" and it just seems like an attempt to kill the class.

[Serephen.3420]

On 6/10/2023 at 9:50 AM, Tuna Bandit.3786 said:

 

Who gave you the power to destroy a complete elite spec?

My condolences to scourges but, is this a serious question? They are devs for their game, this is not politics or a democracy where people are elected into power😅

Soorry bit side tracked, I don't play much necro to be honest, it didn't often appeal that much to me but one thing that stands out a lot is the boon corrupt. I'm not sure why that was taken away?

[Serephen.3420]

2 hours ago, Samis.5243 said:

I play scrapper as a main for PvE, WvW and raids. I am trying to understand why the nerf hammer is being brought down on the scrapper class so hard. Its mediocre damage class with quick as a boon. The heal variant getting nerfed is also confusing since cleanse and heal are dominated by weaver now....

Hammer 3 is not a great skill to begin with, so putting some dependencies on using it in various game modes is.....not great.

Maybe you can provide some context for why these changes are being made? I dont see scrapper "over preforming" since it has gotten nerfs for all of the last "rebalances" and it just seems like an attempt to kill the class.

Wait, weaver is dominating cleanses and heals?? Since when?😅

[prototypedragon.1406]

One day hopefully they shall make warrior mace/shield viable once again. Since shield had its cooldown trait removed but never decreased on shield stance itself making shield useless...

[Jonaleth.4086]

In mmo-s I like to play a physical damage ranged pet class (like hunter in Wow, preferably using a bow). In GW2 this playstyle is very limited.

At first ranger comes to mind, but it turns out it doesnt really work like that. Core spec is like that, but when it comes to damage etc it pales to elite specializations. Druid is a healer, staff user, with spirits (meh). Soulbeast doesnt have a pet effectively. Untamed is melee, well, Soulbeast too with second weapon set.

Then there is the ranged dragonhunter, but it doesnt have a pet.

Finally, mechanist engineer. It has a good pet, it has a rifle only build, great so far, BUT with the changes you have to be effectively in melee range with your melee pet. I mean come on. Main point of a pet is that it can tank for you so you dont have to deal with the melee dangers of a mob. Its not enought that in endgame instanced combat you have to stack up in melee range even if you are a ranged character but not you want to restrict this spec even more? Remove this 360 range limitation please!