June 27 Balance Update Preview

[Astralporing.1957]

7 minutes ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Halbarz.3854 maybe cause they want it to be life just to see the real reslut off the patch^^. I don't see an other reason besides this ^^

Most of the issues were apparent in less than an hour from patch going live, and they are as bad (and in some cases much worse) as people said they'd be. No need to wait 2 months, they could have found out most of that stuff in a day of testing - so i assume they didn;t even bother to do that and just dropped on us a test patch, knowing it will probably contain massive issues. And that they expect us to live with it for 2 months, because they can't be bothered to revert the changes until they are properly thought out (and tested).

[Gendalfs.7521]

2 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

No need to wait 2 months, they could have found out most of that stuff in a day of testing - so i assume they didn;t even bother to do that and just dropped on us a test patch, knowing it will probably contain massive issues

That is exactly what I felt and many others. It felt like one friday brainstorming.

Whats sad is, they had feedback for a month. Ofc it was 90% bitching about nerfs, but cmon, there was really good ideas also and they made no change.

 

[dukefx.9730]

Congrats, Arena.net! Now it takes 30 people 1-2 minutes to kill a single Herald! On top of that, just delete warrior greatsword as it is yet again useless other than skills #3 and #5. You guys NEVER listen despite numerous complaints!

[Myror.7521]

@Astralporing.1957 well you know? I think they allready done that patch month ago and wana see it drop anyways so i think they might correct things on the said day then ^^

 

Aside all this the overall patch seems right (aside some weird bugs to be fair ^^ just never play on patch day lol) idk where you guys have the problems at all. Yes Necro is just not good anymore (but will get a look at) the rest of it seems totaly fine .

Edited June 27, 2023 by Myror.7521

[Waffles.5632]

On 6/27/2023 at 4:53 PM, Myror.7521 said:

Secret info to all those guys that think anet do not listen:

The balance team has been reviewing your feedback to the balance notes preview and making adjustments based on that. Below are the updated balance notes. We will be making further adjustments on July 18, focusing on damage-focused scourge, alacrity-focused mirage, and alacrity-focused willbender builds, as well as tuning for changes from June as needed.

 

Just the page for peops who wana see it:

 

 

@Astralporing.1957

This is like the 10th time Anet has told mirages to wait while they look into it. They told us to wait for one dodge as well, and that took literally 3years to "look into".

The above is not hyperbole, look at the wiki: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mirage_Cloak

---> Feb 2020 is when one dodge came in to effect <----

Those words anet put down mean absolutely nothing. Their actions in ignoring players while sliding in that xpac announcement speak louder than anything they could say right now. No amount of copium will change that reality.

[SnackParty.3178]

Alac Bladesworn, is cool. Didn't make my armor set, useless. I would like to see swiftness increase flow rate (unless I missed it somewhere, if it does.) I say this, because banners, war horn, alac dragon slash, and banners, is a neat combo. It's still possible, to get intial flow, with to the limit, but swiftness, as an option, would be great. Overall, swiftness, alac, random boons from the banners, and res... it's good stuff. I can keep most of those boons up, 100% ;). Res could use a couple of more seconds.

Edited June 27, 2023 by SnackParty.3178

[Astralporing.1957]

21 minutes ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Astralporing.1957 well you know? I think they allready done that patch month ago and wana see it drop anyways so i think they might correct things on the said day then ^^

Yes, they did. And even though they knew it will be a mess and it will take months (or longer) to fix, they have dropped it anyway. Because who cares if the game is a mess, right? People are patient, they can wait looking for devs breaking the game one patch after another.

(hint: if you haven't noticed many of the issues from previosu patch are still around, and some got broken even more in this one, so no, patiently waiting is not a solution, because it just leaves stuff broken for months or years)

21 minutes ago, Myror.7521 said:

Aside all this the overall patch seems right

Meaning, aside from all major changes in this patch? Yeah, all the minor and inconsequential stuff does seem minor and inconsequential.

21 minutes ago, Myror.7521 said:

Yes Necro is just not good anymore (but will get a look at) the rest of it seems totaly fine .

You must have not been paying attention, because Scourge is just one of the many, many problems in this patch

[Griifen.2473]

2 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

Secret info to all those guys that think anet do not listen:

The balance team has been reviewing your feedback to the balance notes preview and making adjustments based on that. Below are the updated balance notes. We will be making further adjustments on July 18, focusing on damage-focused scourge, alacrity-focused mirage, and alacrity-focused willbender builds, as well as tuning for changes from June as needed.

 

Just the page for peops who wana see it:

 

 

@Astralporing.1957

I'm a just not seeing it or is there no indication on the preview notes or on the wiki that anything changed between the time it was posted and the time it went live on the servers?

After 52 pages of comments I'd almost swear that any idiot under the sun would have made some changes after that much feedback... but I just can't seem to find a single shred of evidence that anything was altered?

[Astralporing.1957]

17 minutes ago, Griifen.2473 said:

I'm a just not seeing it or is there no indication on the preview notes or on the wiki that anything changed between the time it was posted and the time it went live on the servers?

After 52 pages of comments I'd almost swear that any idiot under the sun would have made some changes after that much feedback... but I just can't seem to find a single shred of evidence that anything was altered?

Here you can get a differential between the previously published note and the current one. Notice though that most of the changed stuff was already shown on preview stream - they mentioned then that the preview on forum is from earlier version and some things are missing from it.

[Myror.7521]

@Astralporing.1957 then juust tell me what is just wrong with the patch aside the pretty obviously and the bugs it get rn? (The obviously ones are Necro for sure and also for those who want to see it as a minus point that quickness and alac could now be shared by everyone)

[Shaogin.2679]

5 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Here you can get a differential between the previously published note and the current one. Notice though that most of the changed stuff was already shown on preview stream - they mentioned then that the preview on forum is from earlier version and some things are missing from it.

Thanks. I was wondering what was different and was hoping they made some changes to the patch for Scourge before releasing it since they said they were taking our feedback into account.

Now that I see the changes, it looks like Anet threw out some crazy ideas, the players complained and suggested some of this was a bad idea, and so Anet took that feedback to heart and came at the players with even more Scourge nerfs. 🤣

I just want to say, it blew my mind watching the stream and they were explaining how having 3 shades up providing Alac would lead to issues and that was how they justified nerfing shade duration. It was as if the completely forgot that Sand Savant existed. As of testing these new changes today, my mind is further blown away because, although the sand shades have a 180 radius, the barrier from F1 and F5 are 300 radius, which happens to be the radius of a Sand Savant shade. I just cannot understand why they didn't just tack the Alacrity trait onto Sand Savant.

Currently, you cannot maintain more than 1 shade consistently no matter what trait you take. So I can only assume that Anet will make the Sand Savant shade baseline and replace that trait (without the recharge increase), or give us back the ability to maintain 3 shades.

[Vorox.7608]

So what probably happened is they saw a bunch of people playing necro for boon corruption and instead of thinking about *why* everyone was doing that (the fact that the main stratagy in pvp is to put every boon on yourself at once and then go ham) they removed the main thing balancing spamming boons from pvp *and* decided to do that for open world to just to... make playing open world as necro less fun for no reason? I want to be charitable but why any of this is being extended to open world eludes me and that's the only reason I can think of.
Also Mirage was one of the only classes with a doge/invuln that was actually relatively balanced and they've nerfed it into the ground.
...I don't really even want to touch what's happened to scourge and people who know it better than me have already said enough in their own comments, so I'll just say it's a mess and shouldn't be kept and move on.

At this point I think the best option is to just reverse this update and then stop messing with core stuff, the game has been out for ten years already, it's not perfect but the core professions, HoT, and PoF stuff was at least passibly balanced before the last few updates. those should be kept as-is and any problems in balance caused by EoD and future content should be adressed by changing *that content* not the core stuff that everyone has gotten used to and was already on shaky footing.

[Ekko.9854]

Okay, so earlier on this thread I addressed how bad and problematic the herald changes were looking, and I'm totally right. Please revert this, please? ... There is no reactivity at all and quickhealherald is borderline dead because you are forced in ventari or you need to massively overcap on concentration for no reason (and on top of that use the bubble for no reason which is weird af) ... This change makes no sense and doesn't help herald in any way imo ... You can basically only auto attack or if you overcap you deal about 5k damage more than a healer ... 
You try to implement quickness and alac on all classes but completely destroy it on herald? How do you suppose to have fun when the only thing you can do is auto attack XD

[Valfar.3761]

Yikes at the new ranger changes.

Spirits no longer give alacrity. RIP the low APM alacrity hammer build where all you had to do was keep your spirits up and press hammer 2 and 4 every 6 seconds.

They reduced the cooldown on the Untamed's pet abilities which you have to manually press (unlike vanilla ranger pet abilities which can be automated). Even higher APM whether you want it or not!

Fervent Force is dead! RIP our high survivability double axe build.

The devs increased the damage of the unleashed ambush skills. Fervent Force has been replaced with Let Loose, which causes your Unleashed Ambush skills to give boons. None of this matters because flipping back and forth between unleashed pet/ranger stances is still clunky and not worth the bother. You have to press F5 to enter unleashed ranger, press 1 to use your first weapon's unleashed ambush, press ~ to weapon swap to your second weapon, press F5 to switch to unleashed pet, press F5 again to switch back to unleashed ranger, and then press 1 to use your second weapon's unleashed ambush. That is a 5 step process to use this trait.

Dagger's unleashed ambush skill is a shadowstep teleport. That is cool. Combined with Unnatural Traversal, you could become a some sort of nature ninja teleporting all over the place, though the fundamental issue with how clunky Unleashed Pet/Ranger swapping is would need to be addressed first.

Feels really bad.  😞

[Varnix.5204]

This entire patch just proves Arena Net has zero clue as to what they're doing with the game. Good job.

[DragoTheWise.7256]

Mechanical Genius no longer has a grace timer. Is this intentional or a bug? I'm hoping it is the former... but if not seems a bit too punishing to not have that grace timer anymore since the mech can sometimes be finicky in addition, it is punishing for player the need to reposition as needed.

[TheJmandude.1548]

13 hours ago, sigmundf.7523 said:

Meanwhile, Dragonflight will have another content update in early next month, while also the devs actively monitoring classes throughout the patch and make an actual balance / changes that tremendously help all classes. I don't know boss, maybe try to replicate on what the others popular MMO (WoW) devs do ? Have a public test server, let players test all changes the devs proposed and giving feedback from their (players) perspective ? Maybe create a system that record and store data regarding profession and e-spec performance in PVE / PVP / WvW ? So then you will have an actual database as basis to make changes / adjustment, and make those database publicly accessible to a certain extent,  so players will understand better on why you change A B C, instead of just taking cmc and roy words on facevalue.

Lizzard actually listens to their players? Last time I checked class balance is still plagued with FOTM BS. They can't even retain new players and their default UI is godawful.

[ericpeggy.8206]

2 hours ago, Ekko.9854 said:

Okay, so earlier on this thread I addressed how bad and problematic the herald changes were looking, and I'm totally right. Please revert this, please? ... There is no reactivity at all and quickhealherald is borderline dead because you are forced in ventari or you need to massively overcap on concentration for no reason (and on top of that use the bubble for no reason which is weird af) ... This change makes no sense and doesn't help herald in any way imo ... You can basically only auto attack or if you overcap you deal about 5k damage more than a healer ... 
You try to implement quickness and alac on all classes but completely destroy it on herald? How do you suppose to have fun when the only thing you can do is auto attack XD

If you have full harrier or minstrel equipments, you don't need to use six or more points of upkeep all the time.

[Reaper.3125]

On 6/8/2023 at 5:12 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Arc Divider: Reduced the number of strikes from 3 to 1. Reduced the casting time from 1.86 seconds to 0.8 seconds. Reduced total power coefficient from 5.1 to 2.5 in PvE and from 2.112 to 1.82 in PvP.

You have to revert this, it ruins the entire flow of combat and how a Berserker class should operate. Berserker is Mid in terms of DPS, this all around nerf for PVE+PVP+WVW effectively ripping any enjoyment from a class that like I said already Mid in comparison to others, aside from the fact Berserker struggles to contend in DPS the enjoyment and fulfillment from the 3 swings during combat made it so enjoyable and fun to play, on top of enjoyment though it worked so synergistically with the berserker traits, the 1 swing leaves this class feeling shallow and empty. This feels like hey were you enjoying your class? kitten you we hate Greatsword wielding Berserkers. Come on Anet this ain't it.

[Otter.3841]

10 minutes ago, ericpeggy.8206 said:

If you have full harrier or minstrel equipments, you don't need to use six or more points of upkeep all the time.

And what? Those who wanna play dps are just SOL? Cause in its new state, these changes are extremely unwieldy to all heralds. Being forced to swap all the time or auto attack only. Cause even full diviners doesn't work the way you claim. 

[ericpeggy.8206]

2 minutes ago, Otter.3841 said:

And what? Those who wanna play dps are just SOL? Cause in its new state, these changes are extremely unwieldy to all heralds. Being forced to swap all the time or auto attack only. Cause even full diviners doesn't work the way you claim. 

Are you serious?

I just test it with my HTCM build, it has 40% bd.

And it's easy to maintain 100% quick, but I really reduce Chilling Isolation usage frequency.

[Dante.1508]

Do Revenants even exist anymore?

[Otter.3841]

52 minutes ago, ericpeggy.8206 said:

Are you serious?

I just test it with my HTCM build, it has 40% bd.

And it's easy to maintain 100% quick, but I really reduce Chilling Isolation usage frequency.

As a Herald Quick DPS you really reduce the usage of your most damaging ability? Yeah ok, tell me more about how its done.

[ericpeggy.8206]

27 minutes ago, Otter.3841 said:

As a Herald Quick DPS you really reduce the usage of your most damaging ability? Yeah ok, tell me more about how its done.

Just saving energy for stab or CC.

If you are interested in rotation, you can check Umbra's video on YouTube.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

Now that I see the changes, it looks like Anet threw out some crazy ideas, the players complained and suggested some of this was a bad idea, and so Anet took that feedback to heart and came at the players with even more Scourge nerfs.

Like i mentioned, most of the additions were already planned at the moment they posted the patch preview and were mentioned on the stream, they just didn't make it into preview because apparently the preview was posted few days earlier, and just unhidden at the end of the stream. The only meaningful change i have noticed so far between stream and now is Daredevil staff autoattack, where they fixed the issue of the last attack in the chain being a dps loss. Which can be considered a bugfix instead of balance adjustment.

All the Scourge changes, for example, from what i remember were already planned then. They've just not been posted.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Astralporing.1957