June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[Cal Cohen.2358]

Hi everyone, 

As always, thank you for all the feedback you’ve shared over the past few weeks. We’ve been keeping a close eye on the discussion and it’s clear that some of the changes in Tuesday’s update didn’t land as we’d intended. Today I’ll be sharing our current plan for the next update on July 18, much of which is intended to address the most pressing issues that have been raised. 

Leading up to that release we’ll be watching your feedback to this post, this week’s beta test, and the June 27 update, and may make additional changes as needed. 

 

Thanks, 

Cal “cmc” Cohen 

Skills and Balance Lead 

Scourge 

Alacrity scourge is a build that we were pretty cautious with during development; we were concerned about the potential power level that could result from giving the existing heal scourge build easy access to alacrity, and to mitigate this we reduced the strength of some of its key defensive support skills. Now that the release has been live for a few days, we agree that the changes were too heavy handed, and we’ll be pulling back the reductions to Sand Cascade’s barrier as well as the barrier component of Desert Empowerment. We’ll also be giving scourge a reliable source of group protection through Sandstorm Shroud, and increasing the base alacrity duration to make it a bit easier to maintain. 

Damage scourge builds were negatively impacted by some of the changes made for alacrity scourge, and the July 18 release will include some larger adjustments to bring them back up.  

Sand Cascade: Increased base barrier from 996 to 1188 in PvE only. Increased barrier attribute scaling from 1.25 to 2 in PvE only. 

• Desert Empowerment: Increased alacrity duration from 1 second to 1.5 seconds in PvE only. Increased base barrier from 385 to 572 in PvE only. Increased barrier attribute scaling from 0.75 to 1.0 in PvE only. 
• Sandstorm Shroud: This skill now grants 1.5 seconds of protection to nearby allies each pulse, and 3 seconds of protection to nearby allies on detonation. 
• Fell Beacon: This trait no longer reduces the cooldown of torch skills, and now also increases the damage of burning you inflict by 10%. 
• Harrowing Wave: Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 16 seconds in PvE only. Increased the life force per target from 3% to 5% in PvE only. 
• Oppressive Collapse: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Increased might radius from 240 to 360. Might application per condition is now capped at 7 condtions in PvE only. 
• Sadistic Searing: This trait has been reworked, and causes Nefarious Favor to burn nearby enemy targets (2 stacks, 5 seconds in PvE, 1 stack, 4 seconds in PvP/WvW).  
• Demonic Lore: Increased torment damage bonus from 25% to 33% in PvE only.  
• Sand Sage: This trait has been reworked. Gain expertise and concentration while you have an active sand shade (225 in PvE, 150 in PvP/WvW). 
• Blood as Sand: This trait has been reworked. Reduce all incoming damage while you have an active sand shade (15% in PvE, 7% in PvP/WvW). 
   

Druid 

Druid is in a similar situation to scourge in that we were overly conservative with its alacrity, so it is also getting an increase to its base duration. We’ve also seen feedback regarding druid’s might generation, and we’re bumping up both the stacks and duration on Spirited Arrival to address this.

• Grace of the Land: Increased alacrity duration from 0.75 seconds to 1 second in PvE only. 
• Spirited Arrival: Increased might stacks from 3 to 6 in PvE only. Increased might duration from 9 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only. 
   

Untamed 

Quickness untamed has a few issues that we’re tackling in the July 18 release. The first being a usability improvement for Let Loose’s ambush-reset component: triggering the ambush reset while in the unleashed state will now immediately grant access to the ambush skill instead of requiring a transition out of and back into the unleashed state. We’re also making a slight increase to the quickness duration to make it easier to maintain.

• Let Loose: Increased quickness duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only. This trait will now immediately grant access to unleashed ambush skills when swapping weapons while in the unleashed state. 
   

Herald 

The new implementation for quickness herald is another case that we’re looking to improve. The current timing around its quickness application can be clunky and hard to track due to the 3 second pulse interval. To address this, we’ll be rebalancing the duration around a 1 second pulse interval to make it a bit more responsive. We’ve also seen concerns around the reduction in boon uptimes due to the loss of extra facet pulses from Draconic Echo, and are giving additional sources of concentration to help mitigate this. Our hope is that these changes will improve the overall gameplay feel of quickness herald, but if we’re still seeing issues with the general implementation after the July 18 update, we will evaluate whether a larger rework is needed. 

• Elevated Compassion: Reduced quickness pulse interval from 3 seconds to 1 second. Reduced quickness duration from 3 seconds to 1.25 seconds. This trait now converts 13% of the herald’s power into concentration in addition to its other effects. 
• Reinforced Potency: Increased concentration from 120 to 240 in PvE only. 
• Shared Empowerment: Increased might duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only.
   

Deadeye 

Quickness deadeye is significantly overperforming where it should be damage-wise. This was partially due to a bug that caused Malicious Intent to be active when not equipped, but looking beyond that fix it’s clear that additional reductions will be needed. We’re still discussing exactly what changes will be made, but they will be finalized in time for the July release and will likely include a reduction to One in the Chamber’s damage bonus. 

 

Specter 

Alacrity specter is another build that is overperforming in terms of damage. This is partially due to the base alacrity duration being long enough to require minimal investment into concentration, but also due to the lack of a significant damage tradeoff in the grandmaster trait slot. We’ll be tuning up Strength of Shadows while bringing down some of specter’s other damage sources to bring the alacrity build more in line without negatively affecting the damage builds. 

Lastly, we’re increasing the protection duration of Shadow Sap to ensure that healing-focused specter builds have a reliable source of group protection. 

• Shadestep: Reduced alacrity duration from 2 seconds to 1.25 seconds in PvE only. 
• Strength of Shadows: This trait no longer reduces incoming damage and no longer increases the duration of torment inflicted by Rot Wallow Venom, but instead increases torment damage by 25% in addition to converting vitality to expertise. 
• Larcenous Torment: This trait no longer increases torment damage, and instead steals health from an enemy when you apply torment to them. 
• Shadow Sap: Increased protection duration from 2.5 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only. 
   

Alacrity Willbender 

A big pain point with alacrity willbender is its inability to provide alacrity during phase transitions or other times where it can’t strike an enemy. We’re hoping to mitigate this by updating Phoenix Protocol to grant some alacrity on the activation of resolve, which can also be shared via Battle Presence. We’ve also cleaned up some aftercasts and made general improvements to animations for a few key damage skills with the goal of making the overall gameplay feel a bit more fluid. 

• Phoenix Protocol: this trait now grants alacrity to the willbender when activating Flowing Resolve (5 seconds in PvE, 3 seconds in PvP/WvW), which can be shared to allies with Battle Presence. Reduced the alacrity duration when resolve triggers from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.  
• Restorative Virtues: This trait now grants vigor instead of alacrity. 
• Symbol of Resolution: This skill can now be interrupted by other skills.  
• Ray of Judgment: Reduced aftercast  
• Binding Blade: This skill will now use a different animation with less aftercast. 
   

Alacrity Mirage 

Last up is a rework to how mirage grants alacrity. We want there to be a better distinction between alacrity and non-alacrity builds, which is something that can be a bit blurry at times due to Chaos Vortex granting alacrity with no investment. This alacrity is being rolled into a rework of Mirage Mantle that improves all ambush skills in various ways, which can be seen in the patch note below. 

• Mirage Mantle: This trait has been reworked. Ambush skills are improved. 
• Axes of Symmetry: Also inflicts cripple 
• Mirage Thrust: Removes a boon from struck foes 
• Ether Barrage:  Grants quickness to self (1.5 seconds)  
• Split Surge: Deals increased damage (25% in PvE, 10 in PvP/WvW) 
• Chaos Vortex: AoE Alacrity (2.5 seconds for the player, 0.5 seconds for clones) 
• Ambush Assault: Grants might to self 
• Wave of Panic : Also inflicts torment 

[Incurve Giidis.7829]

druid needs more might without weird trait interactions

[Dodo.3870]

I dont think any of these changes for scourge even begin to undo the mess that has been made of it in wvw by the balance update. 

[DrippyDrops.6937]

Shade duration??

[ZEUStiger.3590]

Revert Arc Divider changes, reduce aftercast duration instead.

Proper feedback, doubt you've read it.

EDIT: Since you've added a new tech that lets us switch between different weapon skill variations (as seen on ranger's hammer in the beta), you could let us choose between the old and new Arc Divider versions. Your reasoning for making the change to this skill was that you're "hoping it's a usability improvement", to quote the preview stream. It clearly isn't, the playerbase has been very vocal about this. But if you're married to the new version so much that you refuse to revert it - you could at least let the player choose whether they want a ligher-hitting 3-spin skill or a heavy-hitting 1-spin. After all, this was all about "usability improvement", right? There were no unspoken intentions to nerf it somewhere, riiiight?

Edited June 29, 2023 by ZEUStiger.3590

[ItsAlive.1236]

Shade duration??

[LINKAZZATORE.8135]

Make druid generate celestial avatar whenever you apply protection, regeneration and resolution, fits with the theme and helps encounters where there is no aura damage (all of the new strike missions, druid is completely unusable on ht cm or kaineng)

[The Cashew Cab.8491]

You're still keeping the Shade duration at 8 seconds? Are you actually serious right now?

 

Do you have any idea just how BAD Scourge feels to play with this change? It's absolutely miserable. It's gone from being my main to absolute torture to play to the point I can't even bear to touch it anymore.

 

You can't fix the bad play feel of the spec just by bringing the numbers up a bit, the Shade duration is a core facet of the spec and you've completely killed it.

 

The 8 second Shade duration makes Scourge feel WAY too spammy and annoying. Please, I am BEGGING you to consider how these decisions affect the playability of certain specs. Please get someone who ACTUALLY plays Scourge on your balance team.

 

Just. Tie. Alacrity. To Sand Savant. Limit Alacrity pulses to the Shade and the Shade ONLY.

 

Don't tie Alacrity generation to Barrier, just make it to where every pulse of a Shade skill generates Alacrity when traited into Sand Savant. Keep Shade duration at 20 seconds.

 

It is literally that easy. Please.

[zealex.9410]

Thank you for the gs changes on guardian, holy kitten based dev.

[Crazyaces.2059]

Can we have a buff to shade duration ?

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Crazyaces.2059
Explaination

[Mauti.3520]

Thank you so much for the improvements to Let Loose! This will already go a long way.

I also would like to add that the build still has the issue of Ambush Cooldown only starting when an Ambush is finished or canceled, which either is a direct cooldown increase for ambushes (in particular for hammer that spins ~2 seconds which roughly translates into a ~11 seconds cooldown) OR requires constant animation canceling (and missing out on damage on top of being unfun) to keep the cooldown on actual 9 seconds.

[Degs.5148]

I sure hope that lack of a mention of shade duration is a mistake.

[stormemperor.3745]

24 minutes ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Alacrity Mirage 

Last up is a rework to how mirage grants alacrity. We want there to be a better distinction between alacrity and non-alacrity builds, which is something that can be a bit blurry at times due to Chaos Vortex granting alacrity with no investment. This alacrity is being rolled into a rework of Mirage Mantle that improves all ambush skills in various ways, which can be seen in the patch note below. 

• Mirage Mantle: This trait has been reworked. Ambush skills are improved. 

• Axes of Symmetry: Also inflicts cripple 
• Mirage Thrust: Removes a boon from struck foes 
• Ether Barrage:  Grants quickness to self (1.5 seconds)  
• Split Surge: Deals increased damage (25% in PvE, 10 in PvP/WvW) 
• Chaos Vortex: AoE Alacrity (2.5 seconds for the player, 0.5 seconds for clones) 
• Ambush Assault: Grants might to self 
• Wave of Pani😄 Also inflicts torment 

Doesn't change the fact that mirage is dead. Least you could do is at least know the name of axe ambush.

Edited June 29, 2023 by stormemperor.3745

[Lucinellia.9247]

Obligatory comment asking you to please stop trying to make ally targeting happen. The UI isn't there for it and neither is the UX.

Specter changes look good and sensible aside from this and it is nice that heal alacrity Specter should remain in a good spot. 

[Thomas.4208]

I dont understand what is your philosophy in regards to dps support classes. You will nerf Deadeye and Spectre in order to require boon duration gear, but you give herald a no such treatment, same goes for Firebrand and scrapper and Harbinger. In the end what is the goal for this role?????? It feels like you dont even play this game sometimes. Thief is single target period (this is a huge drawback for certain fights), nerfing too much will lead people to once again not even try to play thieves in PVE.

[Bizgurk.5639]

Thank you for the quick balance follow-up. It's much appreciated!

[cat.8975]

24 minutes ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

• Symbol of Resolution: This skill can now be interrupted by other skills.  
• Ray of Judgment: Reduced aftercast  
• Binding Blade: This skill will now use a different animation with less aftercast. 

i love you forever

[NovaanVerdiano.6174]

Good communication and a lot of the changes seem to be good, but definitely consider moving alacrity to the big shade trait on Scourge and/or juice up the numbers on the shade duration again, this seems to be by far the biggest pain point.

[Batalix.2873]

Axes of symmetry cripple.

Ah yes, more dartboard balancing. My axe clones rarely have a problem sticking to enemies, thanks.

[Xzygy.1452]

At least with Druid, I don't think you can numbers tweak your way out of the fact that you've placed the alac generation on something that many druids used situationally.  As a result of this change, they can no longer do this.  Mukluk's video was a great explanation of that effect.

The berserker/arc divider changes seem extremely heavy handed.  Damage now is about 1/3 of what it was before, when I thought the point was to reduce the number of swings, but keep the overall throughput high.  You can do it faster, sure.  But it still feels really bad.

Also, I'm not at all sure what you mean by "with no investment" as the build intentionally sacrifices 10k or more dps to grant alac.  Does that mean that we're supposed to have some clunky interaction we wouldn't normally do in order to grant alacrity?  It'd explain druid and scourge a lot, actually.

[ErikViking.2754]

The area of effect for the scourge alac is still much too low making it impossible to maintain even close to 100% alacrity in even slightly chaotic fights even with the new duration. The low duration on the sand shades still make the class really disgusting to play. You are still required to spam barrier even though barrier is designed as an anti burst mechanic, so any kind of moment to moment decision making is taken away. The rezzes are still much too low and leave any user of the old heal scourge without any alternative that fits the same playstyle.

Revert the shroud duration changes. Put alac on Sand Savant instead and make the other GM a trait that increases rez capeability as high as the old scourge version to keep that playstyle an option without making it too strong by giving it alac on top. Easy

[Reimu.9412]

Tying Alacrity to a trait makes sense, but could you just make it happen on every ambush instead? It's kind of silly that Mirage must use a Staff to provide Alacrity, whilst no other boon provider must use a specific weapon for their Quickness or Alacrity.

[DeeNzou.1580]

Based DH changes not need anything more piece and love!!!

[Daoyun.3157]

Is there any update with support vindicator? I agree the healing needs to be nerfed, but suddenly adding a 10 second cooldown to the skill Drop the Urn is absurd and unreasonable. Using that skill or even accidentally clicking it will send you to death’s door. You are literally vulnerable within that 10 second timeframe because your health will be draining overtime, and you can be cleaved to death. The 50% damage reduction doesn’t help at all. The cool down should be between 3-5 seconds. That’s a reasonable cooldown because you can’t spam Drop the Urn, but at the same time you won’t be a punching bag with that skill.

[Du B.2593]

You can make all the changes you want to scourge but until you fix that shade duration it's a dead spec in the eyes of many, myself included.  I don't even play scourge anymore, but as a necro main I found myself with the urge to play pistol condi scourge with the beta event today.  Sounded like fun until I started to set it up and remembered, "Oh yeah this class has been gutted, RIP" then I went to play pistol/torch condi reaper instead.  Nobody wants to play a game of endless shade casting, by the time you set up your shades and lay down 2 or 3 attacks it's already time to spam shades again, get that nonsense out. EDIT: It was pointed out to me that you no longer need to have the 3 shades up for your bonuses so this is less egregious than I had thought.  But the point still stands, I don't want to have to cast shades like I'm using my special action in Cairn CM. Bump that duration up some, one of my guild mates suggested that a 12-16 duration would have been more appropriate.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Du B.2593
Recieved new info.