June 27 Balance Update Preview

[conclusory.4693]

Let me add my voice against the Scourge changes.

Please do NOT make these changes as is.

Heal Scourge was already the worst of the viable healers, but it was good at preventing damage via barrier (which is being nerfed) and good at reviving allies (which is also being nerfed).

If the goal is to make scourge a viable support build, the healing should have been increased a lot more than just regen on the healing well.  No other heal pulsing was increased.

There are traits that are affected by the number of sand shades that are up at one time. Both the master minor trait (Sand Sage, +75 expertise and concentration per shade) and the grandmaster minor trait (Blood as Sand, 5% damage reduction per shade).  The duration change of 20s to 8s means you can only have 1 shade and therefore get no benefits. Since targets can only be affected by one shade, that means there is no reason to have more than one shade at a time, so these minor traits essentially have no meaning and might as well be baseline.  Condition Scourge needed to maintain 3 Sand Shades for the increase in Expertise.  This change results in effectively a -150 Expertise for Condi DPS builds.  Alacrity Scourge would not benefit from more than a +75 Concentration increase.  This also will result in players needing to keep a sharp eye on the cooldown for the Manifest Sand Shade and even having it as an ammo skill is less useful.

I am confused why the Alacrity was not added to the already existing support trait Sand Savant.  This is what heal scourge users picked.  This will result in Heal Scourges NOT being able to provide Alacrity.  And, if they do, the support they provide is going to be so much worse, as they will have to use the mini shades instead of the large one.

To me, the implications are that you intend for there to be 3 builds for Scourge: Condi Scourge (nerfed), Boon Scourge (with a difficult AoE for targeting allies) and Heal Scourge (with SEVERELY nerfed barrier and revive abilities in exchange for regen on the healing well).

Please consider alternative changes.

[SevenFives.2734]

First off: Thank you for doing the preview (and genuinely reading the feedback - if you are.)

Second: I have to agree with a LOT of the sentiments echoed here. Options are good & if you're always saying "We don't want to delete this or that build" on stream whether it's something popular like Heal Scourge or something unique like DD Bladesworn if it affects actual playstyle & has been in the game for over a year chances are someone is using it, enjoys it, has built muscle memory around it, & you probably shouldn't change it without a GOOD reason & imo with the number of alternatives that could both introduce the new boons you want while preserving the styles of Engi, Becro, Warrior, etc. Shoving each boon onto a Grandmaster just kind of... I dunno... feels lazy. Sorry.

There are better alternatives without deleting builds.

I like the idea I saw of Alac or Quick being on core support line that only gives the boon you want with whatever specialization but nerfed res power or damage or whatever if you took it. Then it would feel like "the support trait" and you could have Warrior or Scourge or whatever have it's damage or healing nerfed if they took this trait + The required specialization. That would be cool & much easier to balance imo. But even failing this alac or quick traits shuold not replace or be balanced around cool traits that affect actual gameplay. I.e. [Daring Dragon] or [Transfusion] because then you're sacrificing functionality or fun gameplay or both for forced inclusion of boons. Idk just my 2 cents.

Edited June 11, 2023 by SevenFives.2734

[Loboling.5293]

21 hours ago, ohno.2561 said:

I know there have been people talking about get rid of alac and quick in years. I felt unsure about it, but this patch finally convinced me they are right. 

Reason 1: Yet another spec's dps/playstyle/class identity got gutted in exchange for a mediocre boon support build that spams to get the job done.

Reason 2: If the balancing philosophy allows removal on all CD reducing traits at once and bake most of them into the skill CD, it should allow the same kind of change to skill CD and casting time to replace the alac and quick.

Besides, most builds don't need that many boons for fully performance. Might stacking and fury upkeep is so easy now there are no longer big deals. This change can also potentially fix the stacking fiesta.

Though I doubt this would ever happen. Because for some reason the balancing is making boons easier and easier to apply while constantly nerfing boon strip and corruptions (to what end?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm with you, make these boons self buffs that some professions can activate for short periods. Make alacrity stronger if required to balance the limited uptime. Tune numbers and go back to spec identity being about a vision for the character, and not whether it's alac or quick support or direct damage. 

[Xenesis.6389]

Hmmmm gee, I wonder which wvw players they have been listening to in regards to boon strips and corruptions, certainly not the ones in the forums. 😏🍿

[coro.3176]

Easy band-aid solution for mechanist: Make the pet Return command instantly teleport the mech back to the player (like it does when you get too far out of range)

[Hectoncheir.4210]

Considering how the last """"balance"""" patch went down, I've no doubt that this balance patch preview will go live as-is; the balance team at Anet will, naturally, disregard player feedback.

Didn't think an MMO could ever have an expiry date, but apparently Guild Wars 2 has one: 27/06/2023

 

[charles.9052]

 Guys, can someone answer my question?  Are the quick changes for cata(Spectacular Sphere) limited to pve or all mode?

[Ten.2617]

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

Mechanist's penalty for being too far from its mech is something that we've been keeping an eye on since it was added to the game. We think there's room for improvement, and in this update, we're changing the penalty from a mech stat reduction to an increased cooldown for the mech command skills. We believe that this change will make the penalty more visible and easier to understand.

There's an issue about keep the robot close to the Mechanist:

At least in some pvp maps, when the player jumps up or jumps down to a different elevation, the robot doesn't directly follow the Mechanist. It instead walks the whole closest path to the Mechanist, even if the player presses the "Return to Me" button/function.

In Forest of Nifhel, at Keep point, when the player are fighting at the upper panel and then goes down to the circle area, the robot just walks around the whole path from the upper panel to the circle area.

In Skyhammer, the same thing described right above happens, the robot just walks the whole path to the Mechanist's position...

In Coliseum, again the same thing happens...

These are just few examples of situations that the Mechanist becomes unable of get assistance from his/her robot... The robot takes too many time until get the Mechanist's position.

 

Proposed solution:

Just make the robot teleport to Mechanist's position when "Return to Me" function is used.

By extension, "Crash Down" and "Recall Mech" could work similarly, the robot would just teleport in or out the scenario.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Ze Ninguem.6708

[Lord Voldemodem.4598]

Had to log in for the 1st time to comment because how "good" that wall of text is, so congratulations....i guess??

Seriously, not releasing the patch at all is better for the game than whatever the actual hell this is.

Please, just delete the whole thing and take your time until you come up with something that makes sense

[X KON.4236]

2 minutes ago, Lord Voldemodem.4598 said:

Had to log in for the 1st time to comment because how "good" that wall of text is, so congratulations....i guess??

Seriously, not releasing the patch at all is better for the game than whatever the actual hell this is.

Please, just delete the whole thing and take your time until you come up with something that makes sense

Amen!

[Mewsha.3561]

38 minutes ago, Lord Voldemodem.4598 said:

Had to log in for the 1st time to comment because how "good" that wall of text is, so congratulations....i guess??

Seriously, not releasing the patch at all is better for the game than whatever the actual hell this is.

Please, just delete the whole thing and take your time until you come up with something that makes sense

Yep. I also never post here, but when I heard people talking about the Scourge/Necro changes I had to see it for myself. These changes are just so bad. Even if they don't go through I have to wonder why multiple people looked over these changes and thought, "Yeah this works." I can't imagine anybody that plays Necro thinking these changes are good...

I guess everyone makes mistakes, but still. If anything close to these changes go through, I don't know if I'd have it in me to keep playing.

[Anthony.8056]

The entire patch is awful imo, I don't like the majority of these changes. Why aren't you looking at buffing skills or pets that haven't been touched since launch. Instead, it's constant nerfing of skills that don't need to be messed with. Ranger pets need an overhaul, Revenant hammer needs attention, Elementalist air skills are still garbage as well as the catalyst elite , Utility skills across the board need to be looked at, Guardian sceptor is weak, and I could go on and on. Removing what makes these classes unique for two boons that I could care less about is not a good direction I want to see this game go and I have been playing since the beta. 

[Lord Voldemodem.4598]

1 hour ago, Lord Voldemodem.4598 said:

Had to log in for the 1st time to comment because how "good" that wall of text is, so congratulations....i guess??

Seriously, not releasing the patch at all is better for the game than whatever the actual hell this is.

Please, just delete the whole thing and take your time until you come up with something that makes sense

to be of more contributing to the problem instead of just criticism. This patch includes a lot of "trying to fix what's already working" and ignores so many existing problems that have been mentioned by people for a long time. Scourge was doing fine in general, filling a unique place as healer/rezzer and condi scourge was a comfortable dps. Scrapper quickness application was fine, and it's fun to play being coupled with superspeed, also a unique playstyle.

Firebrand mantra and playstyle is still dog, dps after the gut last month was left behind. Rev hammer forgotten, alac willbender playability, guardian scepter in no man land. Mech issue is just shifted from 1 problem to another without addressing the underlying AI of the mech which caused all of that. The buff to power daredevil is the same, just an attempt to buff dps masking the problems with the dodge buff etc.

Only interesting changes that I'd be ok to give a chance to see how they go is with Specter and Herald quickness.

And that is just with those classes that I play.

Please no!

//And why would you think every spec needs to be able to provide alac/quickness?? All professions already had 3 specs that can between them do one or the other, it's enough. Don't sacrifice class identity and playstyle just to be inclusive

Edited June 11, 2023 by Lord Voldemodem.4598

[Yasai.3549]

On 6/10/2023 at 5:08 AM, Giovanni.7051 said:

Forced Engagement currently seems to cast from the bottom of your character and consequently seems to get blocked by nearly all terrain. With this change to 1 target can you please move it up to start from higher up or do something to deal with it's collision detection? With it only effecting 1 target with this I expect to burn energy for zero results 60% of the time if not more.

 

If it's one target, why can't it be hitscan and instant. Why bother keeping clunky mechanics in a skill like that.

[Toraseishin.1932]

11 hours ago, Cass.7352 said:

 

Having been a Virtuoso main for over 1.5k hours, I do not like these changes at all. I would prefer distortion to be removed entirely from virtuoso and keep bladeturn requiem as its primary defensive skill. I personally never use distortion, ever.
 

“Unstable Bladestorm: This skill is now a ground-targeted spell instead of a projectile. The spell strikes enemies in range in addition to firing projectiles at nearby enemies.”

Why? Even if this results in more dps, I’m not impressed by this skill. It’s going to mess up the flow of the build and make it clunky and un-fun. It feels like you’re making changes for the sake of it when it works fine as it is. Is it perfect? No, but this change is going to make it worse and it’ll be an eyesore for other players constantly seeing this on a boss or whatever. Instead, why not make it move a couple meters and then stop in place and spin so it’s a bit of a hybrid. Having to place this down just feel like it’s going to get tiring and I’ll probably just remove this skill from my rotation entirely. 

1000% agreed.
I STRONGLY dislike this proposed change to Unstable Bladestorm. Ground target skills are often clunky to begin with, and having one right in the middle of your skill bar is just obnoxious. Virtuoso's dagger playstyle is fast-paced and fluid. Having to pause to place a bladestorm on the ground, when I've previously been able to just release it in front of me and keep going, will completely break the flow of Virtuoso's signature weapon.
Additionally, having the "unstable bladestorm" sit obediently at a selected location while occasionally spitting out blades at specific intervals....entirely contradicts the skill's name.

If the goal is to have more payoff from the skill, then there are 2 far better ways (in my opinion) to go about this without drastically changing the way the skill is used.
Option 1: Decrease the speed at which the Unstable Bladestorm travels, while also increasing the duration to match (adjust damage accordingly, if needed).
Option 2: Maintain current travel speed, but increase the number or rate of blades released/fired (and adjust damage accordingly).

Please please PLEASE don't make this a ground target skill. Please consider other options to achieve the intended goal.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Toraseishin.1932
typo

[X KON.4236]

First time posting. I have to say no to the June 27th patch. Heal Scourge was already the least healer compared to the other natural healers. Damage via barrier (which is being nerfed) reviving allies (which is also being nerfed). Shades cut from 20 to 8 seconds(sigh). Some of us are up there in age have hands that don't work like they use too. Nerfing Heal/Dps Scourge for Alac is a bad trade off. I guess I will play Harb/Reaper or just take a break from playing....

[Wolfshade.9251]

So both of the quickDPS builds I perfected down to every % of the benchmark are now completely changed. Someone still insists on making Support Specter mostly single target and whielding that incredibly akward single target mechanic. Not to mention the last awful patch.

At least I finally have one huge reason to migrate to another MMO, instead of a small collection of inconveniences.

[yobrotom.5746]

The cooldown specific traits are fun and its not fun to have it all flat reduced. It takes away a lot of the agency of the player and I do not see how the benefit of trait choice flexibility outweighs that.

Scourge - same as everyone else. Don't do this. It's stupid. It's bad.

Stop homogenizing the game. It's great that there's build diversity but at the expense of class identiy I'd rather we go back to chrono support only. It's the same with the scrapper changes that were rolled back. Not everything has to be a well. Every class has to have a unique strength it brings to the table. Removing unique boons was the start of this domino chain and now its going too far.

[Felices Bladewing.3914]

was eager to try out the promised alac spectre in wvw only to find out alac wont be available there, thats a shame, i like the direction of spectre with this patch.

Staff DD also only got buffed in PvE, i mean i get that DD is strong enough in competitive but than finally change smoke field combo to make room for other improvements.

change leap and blast to a new smoke aura which blinds and block projectiles instead of abusive invis spam.

quickness DE sounds really weird but lets see how it will feel. dont like the idea of the stolen skills.

oh when we are talking stolen skills, i hope a general rework / redesign is at least on the table. just changing numbers won‘t do it for long.

[Raizel.8175]

19 hours ago, Atomnium.1532 said:

You've seen a lot of new player feedback, from preach and others who encounter the game, have they said 'What we'd like is that quickness and alac should really be hard to get and on very niche role and specs, so that players are forced to play convoluted builds that no one want to play' ? Is that madness, stupidity, ubris, lack of resources, rush ? 

Sheer insanity at this point. Party- and Squad-Building is apparently supposed to take even longer. Support-Builds are always in demand and should be super easy to play to incentivize more people playing them. That's even true due to historical reasons as support-roles weren't part of the base game and are still only needed in which you could call niche situations (like instanced PvE and high-tier PvP/WvW).

[KnightofPhoenix.3679]

Quote

• Strider's Strength: This trait replaces Strider's Defense. Gain power and gain additional power when wielding a sword. Gain might when evading an attack.

Well, there goes my entire ranger evade/quickness build.  Which incidentally is the most fun I've had in the game.

I'm baffled by this decision - it is completely unnecessary and Strider's might sounds utterly inadequate as a replacement and highly inefficient for might generation.

[Achillies.2860]

Hi Balance Team,

I, as well as a vast majority of the community, am deeply disappointed and dreading this balance patch when it comes through into the main game if these are the changes you are going to stick with for this update.  Please rethink the changes in this patch and listen to the community that enjoy and play your game.

For me I dabble a lot in ranger and necromancer and a bit of dps quick herald on the side also.

The inclusion of alac on scourge is unnecessary and no one in the community was asking for it. Gutting healscourge felt unwarranted just to ham-fist alacrity into it. Healscourge already didn't have comparable healing output compared to druid and firebrand but it had a unique class-defining feature in its resurrect of down player potential that no other healing specialization had.  Please do not nerf Ritual of Life in pve. If it does need a nerf then nerf it from 7% to 5%. The drastic 2% is too much and no one will play that playstyle on scourge.  The same with Transfusion. It was a unique and fun skill and doesn't warrant a nerf. I have used this skill to save many people in raids and strikes from unfortunate situations such as Sabethas flame wall. It feels rewarding and engaging to use. Perhaps reduce the number of pulses on Transfusion from 9 to 6 or 5 but not just 1 please. 

The inclusion of alacrity on scourge is nice but no one wanted it. As many people before me on this forum have already suggested keep Desert Empowerment as is and add alacrity to Sand Savant. For example, when choosing Sand Savant you get 1 shade that can only affect 5 players already... and make it give alacrity when you initially place the shade and when applying barrier on allies. There would be no need to nerf the duration of your shades from 20 seconds to 8. This change I feel goes against what you wanted to do from this patch, which was moving away from the spam utility skills over and over for quickness or alacrity.

If the shade duration change goes through, scourge players will be forced to spam shades a lot more to upkeep the buffs from minor traits on scourge such as Sand Sage and Blood as Sand. This would hurt both dps and support scourges. Perhaps increase the count recharge to match the duration but do not nerf the duration.  For example, currently Sand Savant shade has a duration of 20 seconds and a count recharge of 10. Change the count recharge to 20 seconds? 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Achillies.2860

[CrashCrusFGH.8904]

Ok ANet look, I normally like never post stuff but the reason you don't see people coming to the defense of Bladesworn's [Daring Dragon] when someone on the forums, reddit, whatever goes "Oh trait sucks lol." Is because WE'RE TOO BUSY TEATING IT UP IN WVW!

Do you have any idea how fun this trait is or the build options it affords?? I know you're getting a lot of flak for this patch, but thank you for posting it in advance. But also, for the love of God don't put alacrity here. Stick it on [Immortal Dragon] or [Lush Forest] or honestly just put it on Spellbreaker. (Thematically this makes more sense to me anyway since they have "clear minds.") But I really don't care. Just please let us keep this trait. 🙏🙏🙏

[OMNIBUS.2913]

Just wanted to login mainly to say I dislike the suggested scrapper changes, I like giving quickness how it is atm, the combo of superspeed giving quickness feels nice! It also let's scrapper have on demand quickness. Did people even want it changed? I'm unaware if so. I question if Bladeturn Requiem's block is nerfed without any compensation, will the skill still be useful? Necro losing it's corruption of boons on several abilities would be disappointing, necro is unique in its way of dealing with boons and there is no explanation on that? Can't say any of these changes look particularly good or exciting to me except maybe life siphon not being a channel(if it's numbers aren't bad), hope the healing still continues if you enter shroud. Baseline reduced recharge on dragonhunter traps is also nice. My opinion is from a pve standpoint as I haven't played pvp in a long time, only wvw for dailies.

Edited June 11, 2023 by OMNIBUS.2913

[Demaria.3057]

scourge nerfs should not go through.

the shade duration will ruin scourge pve dps despite being so low already compared to other specs.

removing boon to condition is unique to necro and necro alone, but taking it away you are stripping it of its identity

the revive potential of scourge does require a nerf but only in terms of values and numbers, not this hard. 

nobody asked for alac scourge.

Some class unique boons like alac or quickness should be exclusive to some classes and not all. this threatens the identify and uniqueness of ALL classes and specs. 

overall, the changes to necro needs to be reviewed again and discussed with veteran players who main scourge on their feedback and where a compromise can be made with the classes performance