June 27 Balance Update Preview

[zealex.9410]

Just now, madrono.9468 said:

So, what is the point of the skill?

If it's not defensive, doesn't do significant damage, has a small radius, and doesn't offer any other advantages, what does it provide?

I understand that the defensive capabilities of the virtuoso can be irritating (the same thing happens to me with the willbender) but at least the skill should have some specific functionality.

Being isntacast does help but its deff the weakest of the f skills.

[JhonnyCatwolf.9042]

1 minute ago, zealex.9410 said:

• 
  This seem lazy more than anything, whats the point of flanking? It would be more elegant if you just removed this interaction from the game.
   

  Giving baseline alacrity on chrono is a mistake, you can have it so picking a trait makes it possible to give alacrity or quickness but giving both isnt healthy.
  Also personally im not a fan of killing shield again as a weapon i think it was nice that boon chrono used its signature weapon but im in the minority on this one im assuming, still id like if quicknesss chrono relied on shield while alac chrono used well of actions (also putting alacrity on the final pulse is ?????? and rip superspeed)

True forgot about shield nerf... why even use it now

[Jaden.1420]

Quote

• Null Field: Reduced range from 1,200 to 900.
• Temporal Curtain: Reduced range from 900 to 600.
• Stretched Time: This trait has been reworked. Flow of Time affects nearby allies. Grant alacrity to nearby allies when you summon a phantasm.
• Well of Action: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Increased pulse power coefficient from 0.7 to 1.5 in PvE only. The final pulse of this skill now grants alacrity instead of superspeed.

These are some super heavy WvW Chrono nerfs. Especially the Focus 4 range reduction is gigantic in actual fights, please consider if this is really necessary. No alac from Shield 5 (?) and well cast, only from one well at the end which ofc is unreliable. Instead from shatters which you can't spare for group support. I understand the change from a PvE perspective, but the collateral damage is huge.

Then again, meaningfull trait cleanup is missing for Mesmer. Danger Time and and Improved Alacrity still compete with each other, Inspiration grandmasters are still garbage while all the Master traits are great in WvW.

Regarding Daredevil: A few days ago there was an excellent summary of the problems of Daredevil by u/Training-Accident-36 on reddit, and to be fair, some of them will be adressed, like the flanking requirement or the damage inconsistency of various stolen skills. But sadly, one of the main problems, Havoc Specialist, won't get reworked. Throwing away your whole endurance for damage feels bad already, and your Warrior friend using To the Limit! during your burst doesn't help.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Jaden.1420
Added comment on Daredevil

[Esufer.8762]

I think a more nuanced adjustment to Tree Song would have been to increase its cooldown (maybe to around 10-12 seconds, so it's used once per swap cycle and to disincentivize camping in Blue Alliance Stance?) - Also think there was a better way to nerf Saint of zu Heltzer, maybe reworking the outgoing healing buff?

It is what it is though, adapt or die.

Lunchbox of Saint Viktor seemed a bit of a weird change, I've not seen that used massively in competitive outside of some burst that you have to facetank or a while kiting in niche situations.

I appreciate you guys doing the stream, definitely helps to see some of the thought behind the proposed changes, especially when the preliminary patch notes are quite devoid of solid information (around what boons are provided, how long, etc).

[Tails.9372]

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

Mechanical Genius: This trait has been reworked. Instead of the mech incurring a stat-reduction penalty, command skills now take longer to recharge if activated while the mech is farther than a range of 360 away from the engineer.

While it's technically an improvement it's still just a mechanic which is needlessly punishing for ranged builds (especially in more casual / solo inviroments). I really don't know what you guys are actually trying to achieve by attempting to glue the player to the pet. If it's about wanting the player and the mech to stay "within the same general area" then there is no reason not to be more lax with the proximity requirement (e.g. a 1200 unit radius would suffice here) and if you want to force "more involved gameplay" to get value out of LI builds or something then just drop the whole proximity mechanic and relocate some damage from the rifle AA to Blunderbuss.

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

Signets of Suffering: This trait has been reworked and causes signet skills to remove boons from affected foes.

I really don't like this change, the ability to retain your signet passives was crucial for any build that aimed to maximize shroud uptime. You wanting to rework cooldown reductions and replace them with something else is one thing but at least retain the rest of it.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Tails.9372

[Celeste.9135]

1 hour ago, Dragonzephir.6197 said:

Nooo, this skill was so fun to use on heal alac specter and probably what could have made heal specter compete with heal druid/mechanist/firebrand

This. Shadestep revive was one of the things that made me LOVE playing support specter even though it wasn't the most ideal pick as a healer, please do not remove this. 

[Presq.4391]

What in the actual kitten have Anet devs been smoking again...

No real identity for Untamed, trying to force alac/quickness on every single class, killing off complete specs (Mirage, Boonthief), buffing completely braindead builds to absurd numbers... I really have to ask: Who the kitten is calculating those changes? In a few minutes the community knows the changes are (mostly, not all) complete and utter bs, and the devs can't figure this out in tens of hundreds of hours of preparation? Something is fishy here. Really fishy.

[Brujeria.7536]

1 minute ago, Tails.9372 said:

 

I really don't like this change, the ability to retain your signet passives was crucial for any build that aimed to maximize shroud uptime. You wanting to rework cooldown reductions and replace them with something else is one thing but at least retain the the rest of it.

Especially since the cooldown reduction part on that trait also wasnt just a purely passive 20% - it had interaction, some degree of tactics and felt significant because of that.

[Tobias.4975]

The trait rework for quickness on Herald looks ... interessting?

Horay, you are not locked on Glint anymore with one Legend, good for offsupport, bad for the healer (need Glint for Boons, especially for might), so no Healingbuild with Group-Stability on Dwarf + Ventari for great healing.

Hoped for a rework of Shield on Herald to keep up with other healer, maybe aegis or stability. (nearly every Healer, except Scrapper ,what is sad too, got aegis now) and for Stability need to take Dwarf, so no Ventari for healing or Glint for boons. Why not giving 1 Stack of Stability (only a few seconds) on for example "Serene Rejuvenation" in "Salvation"-traitline for skill "Protective Solace" or if tablet is overloaded and shield 4 or 5 aegis. Mabey this can bring HealRenegade on a better spot, too. Doesn't seem too overpowered to me compared to the other healers..

No rework of Hammer, or Pve-buffs  to make it viable for Pve-Endcontent. Sadly its only played in WvW-Zergfights and openworld, but open world you can play what you want, so it doesn't matter. Plus its the only Coreweapon that is ranged. I realy like the playstyle of the Hammer, but damage is dpswise way too low, since Staff doing more dps with autoattacks and got a lot more cc and utility like conditioncleanse, plus healing.

Vindicator is doing too little damage in comparison to other dps-classes, Powerreaper and Spellbreaker for example  got a lot more groupsupport in form of cc, while doing the same / more amount damage then Vindicator while doing a lot more cc. With staff you lose too much dps. Maybe a rework of a minortrait, that your next Archemorus / St. Viktor Skill you use got an improvet Version after dodge, for knockdown, etc? 

No fix for Trait "Forerunner of Death" in underwatercontent on Vindicator.

For me as a Main-Revenant since HoT it feels the class got stuck on the way and got overtaken by other classes

 

[Virdo.1540]

Harbinger getting buffed, Willbender not getting nerfed in wvw at all. You guys rock !

[senftube.6081]

The Harby Buffs in WvW are indeed crazy weird. Lol On Celestial that will be a monster. 

[Celeste.9135]

The more I look at these changes the more I feel like the game would be in a better place if this patch didn't come through at all. Back to the drawing board anet, please. Can't even begin to describe my disappointment over all the boon changes, or lack thereof depending on the class. 

[NuggetScout.3782]

So let me get this right, you guys are REMOVING traits that reduce COOLDOWNS, but ONLY applying the cooldowns to PVE skills for traps on ranger....what?? wondering if yall know what youre actually doing.

[Jurojin.3846]

The question is, why scourge would still exist? Better just remove this profession from game and maybe add something new instead. Similar to other classes, so no matter which you play, you will do the same - for WvW best with bow.

[Darkhart.4769]

Pls allow Engineer Med Kit Skill 1 Med Blaster to be able to auto attack target Allies, I have posted about this since learning of the specter ally targeting mechanic. Since then you have added it to Druid staff and to Elementalist water staff. Adding it to Engineer med kit would help greatly for healing enthusiast for the engineer who uses med kit instead of gyro and turret heal.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Darkhart.4769

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Regarding the Necromancer changes, there are a few things to take note of:

1. Removing the boon strip from Enfeebling Blood/Lesser Enfeeble seems a bit short-sighted when boons are already out of control in WvW.  Dropping them to a simple boon removal from a corruption is a much better prospect.

2. Banshee's Wail and Vile Vials currently don't see play anyway, and you're reducing what little incentive they had to take them.  I suggest finding some way to spice them up to compete with the other traits in their tiers.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Szatko.8132]

I really like the support changes in general, but if you want alac Scourge to be 5-man only, just move alac application to sand savant and make it so your character doesn't count as a shade when the big shade is up (so only 5 people can be affected by shades' skills = only 5 people can have alacrity from you at the same time). The current changes will just make Scourge more clunky for no reason, while not completely addressing the problem of providing alac to too many people at the same time. Also make Desert Empowerment's barrier scale with Sand Savant's increased cooldown (25% more), so people will potentially want to take both of these traits together and make it count as a "shade skill" to make it able to provide alacrity.

[zealex.9410]

19 minutes ago, Jaden.1420 said:

These are some super heavy WvW Chrono nerfs. Especially the Focus 4 range reduction is gigantic in actual fights, please consider if this is really necessary. No alac from Shield 5 (?) and well cast, only from one well at the end which ofc is unreliable. Instead from shatters which you can't spare for group support. I understand the change from a PvE perspective, but the collateral damage is huge.

Then again, meaningfull trait cleanup is missing for Mesmer. Danger Time and and Improved Alacrity still compete with each other, Inspiration grandmasters are still garbage while all the Master traits are great in WvW.

Focus has been the best mesmer weapon since launch, its fine to nerf it.

[rank eleven monk.9502]

Ok let's take a look at mesmer:

Mirage - getting a dodge back (good choice) while nerfing it massively at the same time. Probably useless afterwards

Virtuoso - removing some of the mega gimmicks, which were basically the only things that made Virt semi viable in PvP. Useless

chrono bunker - heavily nerfed once again, was barely played in the meta thanks to condi reapers etc. but still had to stomp it more. Questionable

 

Az the same time, condi reaper is literally untouched apart from a trait and a skill. Ok

[zealex.9410]

Just now, rank eleven monk.9502 said:

Ok let's take a look at mesmer:

Mirage - getting a dodge back (good choice) while nerfing it massively at the same time. Probably useless afterwards

Possibly the most unhealthy build in pvp when it had all these things and 2 dodges.

Just now, rank eleven monk.9502 said:

Virtuoso - removing some of the mega gimmicks, which were basically the only things that made Virt semi viable in PvP. Useless

It wasnt healthy

Just now, rank eleven monk.9502 said:

chrono bunker - heavily nerfed once again, was barely played in the meta thanks to condi reapers etc. but still had to stomp it more. Quest

They dont want bunkers.

 

 

Just now, rank eleven monk.9502 said:

Az the same time, condi reaper is literally untouched apart from a trait and a skill. Ok

 

[ZEUStiger.3590]

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.

Edited June 9, 2023 by ZEUStiger.3590

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Rubi, thanks for sharing.

For Cal and Roy I'll give some feedback on warrior, as sub bullets in italics:

Core

• Crack Shot: This trait no longer reduces the cooldown of rifle, longbow, and harpoon gun skills.
  • As we expected
• Fan of Fire: Reduced cooldown from 6 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only.
  • As expected, but please look into making it a into a rapid 3 shot volley.
• Arcing Arrow: Reduced ammunition recharge time from 10 seconds to 8 seconds in PvE only.
  • As expected.
• Smoldering Arrow: Reduced ammunition recharge time from 20 seconds to 16 seconds in PvE only.
  • Please consider adding in the daze from PvE into PvP and WvW.
• Pin Down: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only.
  • As expected
• Flurry: You can now move while channeling this skill. Reduced the overall number of hits and animation time. Increased bleeding duration per hit from 4 seconds to 6 seconds. Increased power coefficient per hit from 0.2222 to 0.33.
  • This is something we've asked for for a long time now, THANK YOU! Please now also do Kill Shot and Hundred Blades!
• Fierce Shot: Increased power coefficient from 0.403 to 0.46 in PvP and WvW.
  • This can easily be higher, but not by much, 0.55 would be spot on.
• Volley: Reduced cooldown from 5 seconds to 1 second. Reduced ammunition recharge time from 12 seconds to 10 seconds in PvE only.
  • I see where you are going with these changes and I think they are good. Please do not listen to the QQ that will happen after June 27th.
• Explosive Shell: Reduced cooldown from 6 seconds to 1 second. Reduced ammunition recharge time from 15 seconds to 8 seconds. Increased power coefficient from 0.5 to 1.09 in PvP and WvW. Reduced cripple duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP and WvW.
  • Rifle really needs this extra damage in competitive, but consider a similar damage buff to this skill in PvE please.
• Brutal Shot: Reduced cooldown from 8 seconds to 1 second. This skill will now cause you to evade backward immediately and fire a shot at the end of the roll.
  • Another request we've been making for years, THANK YOU!
• Berserker Stance: Reduced cooldown from 40 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP only.
• Balanced Stance: Reduced cooldown from 50 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only.
• Soldier's Comfort: This trait now also grants protection.
  • I assume in an AoE? This will need to be a high duration to be effective in a support role given it would be the only AoE source.
• Martial Cadence: This trait will now grant stability instead of quickness in PvE only.
  • Several Stacks? This may be worth porting over to PvP and WvW, especially when Kill Shot is made mobile.
• Peak Performance: This trait no longer reduces the cooldown of physical skills.
• Mending: Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 16 seconds in PvE only.
• Bull's Charge: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
• Kick: Reduced ammunition recharge to 20 seconds in all game modes.
• Stomp: Reduced cooldown from 40 seconds to 32 seconds in PvE and from 30 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Throw Bolas: Reduced ammunition recharge from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.
• Rampage: Reduced cooldown from 120 seconds to 90 seconds.
  • As expected for all of the above for CD reductions. Throw Bolas and Kick are too weak to consider ever taking. These need looking at on a functionality basis. Some good suggestions have been put forth in the warrior forums.
• Signet Mastery: This skill no longer reduces the cooldown of signet skills.
  • Please consider adding in that Signets maintain their passives when the active is used. Please also make it so that the Signet of Ferocity Stacks do not go away once you mount up. This limits the trait's usefulness in 2 of the 3 game modes.
• Signet of Fury: Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.
• Signet of Might: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only.
• Signet of Stamina: Reduced cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Signet of Rage: Reduced cooldown from 60 seconds to 40 seconds in PvE only.
• Vigorous Shouts: This trait no longer reduces the cooldown of shout skills.
• "To the Limit!": Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
• "Fear Me!": Reduced cooldown from 60 seconds to 48 seconds.
• "For Great Justice!": Reduced ammunition recharge from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
• "On My Mark!": Reduced ammunition recharge from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
• "Shake It Off!": Reduced ammunition recharge from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE. Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 24 seconds in PvP and WvW.
  • As expected for CDR affected skills from removing the traits. What about Dolyak Signet though? Healing Signet?
• Doubled Standards: This trait now grants resolution instead of quickness.
  • This is a decent boon to put in. I dig it. I reiterate though to make sure that Soldier's Comfort has a high enough duration, or to make Thick Skin also an AoE application.

Berserker

• Flaming Flurry: Reduced the number of hits from 8 to 6. Reduced casting time. Increased power coefficient from 0.25 to 0.33. Increased burning duration from 2 seconds to 5 seconds.
• 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.
  • This may be too much of a change. I ask that you use the current max range of the skill as the new range of the skill if you were not going to be doing that already.
• Blood Reaction: Increased the base precision-to-ferocity conversion to 10%. This trait now converts 10% of power to condition damage. These bonuses are still doubled in berserk mode.
  • Make the Precision-to-Ferocity conversion to a Precision-to-Critical Damage conversion instead while adding in the condition damage conversion.
• Bloody Roar: Reduced the increased damage provided from 25 to 20% in PvE only.
  • Don't do this. PvE Berserker needs to be benching higher than it is.
• Heat the Soul: This trait has been reworked. This trait will now grant boons to nearby allies when you strike an enemy with a burst skill.
  • This will need to be more than a 1s Duration FYSA. A 3s duration in PvP/WvW and 4s in PvE would be good though

Spellbreaker

• Winds of Disenchantment: Lowered the duration from 5 seconds to 4 seconds in WvW only.
  • Then return the old functionality of the Disenchantment effect. The boon blob is a problem, stop coddling it.
• Break Enchantments: Increased the number of boons removed from 2 to 4 in PvE only. Reduced the number of boons removed from 2 to 1 in WvW only.
  • Spell's job is to remove boons, stop removing it's job in the game mode with the most boons. WvW is the place where Spellbreaker should be using it's boon removal to the fullest.
• Wastrel's Ruin: This skill now removes boons when striking an enemy.
  • Case in point. This is a single strike attack. Unless Wastrel's is going to be cleaving anytime soon then this will need to remove 2-4 boons depending if the condition is met.
• Bladestorm: This skill now grants barrier when striking an enemy.
  • Spell doesn't need more sustain. Just make each OH Dagger skill remove boons when striking an enemy.

Bladesworn

• Daring Dragon: This trait has been reworked. Dragon Slash has a lower maximum charge level and consumes more flow per charge, but its damage per charge has been increased. Grant alacrity to nearby allies when you use Dragon Slash.
  • You missed a real opportunity to put Alacrity onto Slow Counter and giving Spell the Defense support role and Berserker the Offense support role and leaving BSW to focus on pure damage. 

Overall though we still need Arms to truly be reworked and we need some small changes to Tactics like making Mending Might heal allies the warrior grants Might to. This set of warrior changes has some really great things in it, but you are missing the mark on the boon removal changes in WvW and you are missing the mark on where the support increases need to go. I encourage you to read through some of the Warrior posts on where several of them (not just me!) have been wanting to see changes made. Hopefully you'll flesh things out more before the 27th and add some other great stuff! PLEASE take the time to consider what the various mains are picking apart here and what their alternative suggestion are. Thanks again for all your hard work!

[ZTeamG.4603]

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

Removing additional skill-type-specific recharge-reduction traits and rolling the reduction into baseline skills

Please, please revisit the necromancer "Spectral" type skill cooldowns in this change. In PvP/WvW they're sitting at the cooldowns they had back when the Spectral Mastery recharge reduction trait was replaced by Soul Barbs without changing the skill cooldowns. Now, they stand out as still having relatively high non-resurrection/transformation utility skill cooldowns while nearly all of the other classes' longer recharge skills get their cooldowns reduced. 

Quote

Life Siphon: This skill is no longer channeled and will instead perform a single attack. Enemies struck by the initial attack will be dealt damage over time, and the user will be healed when damage is dealt.

Not a fan of this change to necro dagger 2 (life siphon). It feels great as a channel skill with a bunch of hits. Even though this is, on paper, a buff to the skill that seemingly will make it do the same damage/healing while letting you do other stuff at the same time, it makes it much more inconsistent in PvP/WvW (now the skill is all or nothing if it gets blocked/evaded) and takes away a skill that plays well into the necro class identity.

I'd rather the autoattack get some buffs to be actually useful (seeing as necro dagger autoattack is currently garbage in pretty much every way--too slow, too weak, no range, no condis, mediocre life force) than dagger 2 get reworked.

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

With scourge support likely becoming more viable in general use, we felt that its reviving power was just a bit too high and have made some adjustments to bring it more in line

Not a fan of this change either. It homogenizes scourge into just another alac healer while leaving it without the other useful boons that other boon healers provide. Reducing the revive percentages a slight bit would make sense, but going from 7%->2% on ritual of life/well of blood is too much of a nerf.

[SlayerXX.7138]

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

• Staff Strike: Increased power coefficient from 0.75 to 1.0 in PvE only.
• Staff Bash: Increased power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.2 in PvE only.

Thanks. But with all these Elite weapon buffs, Core weapons become more useless by the second in PvE. If Staff needed that PvE buff, so did Sword. Same case with the Rifle buff from a while that left Pistol untouched. It is pretty jarring equipping peashooters as daredevil or wielding a wet noodle as deadeye.
All these Instanced Meta build centric changes leave the non-Meta weapons behind. Core weapon need some love. We now normalized the PvP/PvE Split, the balance team doesn't need to be afraid of the PvP implications any longer.

[Ulysses.2058]

What is this, man, it feels like the same thing over and over with ANet's balance...

I swear, it's insane that they keep making the same mistakes, please rethink the changes and maybe get someone with fresh ideas to the balance team.

After the fiasco from last year, this preview really hurts.