June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[Vidit.7108]

I'm going to just link my comment from earlier today here since this new balance note doesn't address it and apparently you've stopped reading the old thread

I will add, these new notes don't address gameplay issues people have with the balance patch at all. If you actually read what people are saying here it's not about something is too strong or weak but that it is designed poorly.

Get rid of ally targeting only on Specter just apply the ally effects when enemy targeting in an aoe around either an ally or enemy. Shadow Sap will still be useless at 4 seconds of protection because it is halved when shared with allies, it's a waste of initiative to use it over other skills as is. Try 8 seconds to target and allies. And as I thought Heal Alac Specter gets to exist for 3 weeks before it's made useless. These extremely vague notes make me think quick deadeye will join it. Just about everything you are touching on in these notes, including a possible overperformance on thief, was pointed out to you three weeks ago. The wording of these patch notes are making it clear you don't fully playtest the balance patches.
Anyway that's actually it for me unless they decide tomorrow they're not reading this topic anymore. Whatever robot you have that is just checking if the feedback is positive or negative and not the substance of player feedback is not serving your players well.

[Eleandra.4859]

I would like to chime in as a (very unhappy) Thief/Specter player:

DISCLAIMER: This is obviously a highly subjective post and I do not claim to speak for everyone.

Last years balance patches were so... wrong and also badly executed that it actually drove me away from the game for several months.

From Specter I was hoping and still hope to get:

1. A strong and competitive cDPS build that does not cannibalize on its own concepts, is able to stand with the best of the cDPS specs and that feels powerful. Make it feel powerful like Reaper (I am not saying it should feel like reaper but it should feel as powerful as reaper).

2. A healer build that performs on par with other healers without having to use lackluster and unfun petri dish mechanics (I am looking at you 1 target tether and ally targeting as it is working right now). Please put some effort into this spec, make it work and at the same time fun. Think about a flow for the spec. That flow can make use of ally targeting but  from my point of view should abandon the need to switch between enemies and allies all the time. Initially I thought that your idea was that Specter targets allies outside of shroud and enemies when in shroud but this never materialized, perhaps that could be an idea to clean up the concept?

3. A strong and rewarding offensive support build that performs as well as other, similar builds. When I read the patch notes I assumed you were (again) not only missing the mark but moving in the completely wrong direction.

------

I liked Ritualist support specter, it could have been stronger (or atrocities like Mechanist could have been nerfed perhaps) but it was okay. Creating a full dps + support specter was NOT  the way to address the class's shortcomings, it was (again) lazy and incompetently done.

 

PLEASE focus on making the spec and the whole class FUN while tweaking numbers. Your game uses combat as its main problem solving mechanism. Combat should therefore be the most fun thing to do. The balance and the elite spec design team do not currently achieve that in my opinion.

Concretely: Revert the shroud nerf from last year (or fix it in a different way, getting pulled out of shroud in a second is really unfun.

Redesign the Specter trait line. I already proposed during the Specter beta test that one of the grand-master traits could increase the tether from one to five targets (which would be similar to what you did with the June 27 patch) and build a flow around ally targeting.

Many complaints from the Necromancer and Druid players are to some extend what plagues the Thief community for years:

- Do not create class/elite spec mechanics that use reactive concepts in a rotation. This includes but is not limited to:

- Alacrity application;  You moved away from putting alac on wells, this was good. However, you put it on shroud skills, which means I will rotate through shroud for alac. This is way less bad than what you did to Druid but it is still not good.

- Daredevil having to dodge for a significant damage buff. Worst offender is not even "Bounding Dodger" but "Havoc Specialist". Just do not do this, it is bad design. Keep reactive defenses to be reactive and defensive.

During the EoD beta event one of the main complaints for shroud was, that it did not feel impactful, that it lacked identity and that the best use of it was to enter it and leave it directly for the (traited) big heal. Your reaction was to install a 5 second timer to force players to stay in shroud and later to nearly kill shroud with a heavy handed nerf ...way to fail. Now you can take a step back and re-evaluate your design and your approach.

Also: Start taking back changes that are obviously bad. One cannot fix bad decisions with more bad decisions, at least this should be clear by the community's reaction to your work.

[RiriMu.7198]

First of all, as dps scourge player (PvE content) I want to say: thank you Cal for read our comments and your positive changes. I'm not fluent in english so I can't say it the way I want, but really, thank you so much, nice job. As I blamed you in the past, I think I must show too my gratitude properly when someone does a nice job.

Now, I'm going to talk about some changes: I don't want to insult anyone, but I have the feeling that people here don't know how to read. I'm refering to SAND SAGE and BLOOD AS SAND changes.
- Before patch, we must keep 3 shades to get full profit of that traits.
SAND SAGE: +75 bonus per shade, means 75*3=225 bonus with 3 shades.
BLOOD AS SAND: -5% damage reduction per shade, means -5%*3=-15% with 3 shades.
Shade duration: 20sec duration each shade, can spawn 1 shade every 6s (100% alac). 6*3=18s, we press F1 three times in a 20s interval aka ~7sec.
- With this new changes:
SAND SAGE: +225 bonus if you have 1 shade active. Same bonus, only need to summon ONE.
BLOOD AS SAND: -15% dmg reduction if you have 1 shade active. Same bonus, only need to summon ONE.
Shade duration: 8s each shade, only need to spawn one every 8s to get full profit.

But, for some reason, people are talking about "now scourge is a F1 spam". I ALWAYS summon then at cooldown (every 6s with 100% alac uptime) even if they last 20s due to DHUUM'S FIRE trait. I'll play scourge the same way as usual. I only understand theese complaints if you play the heal variant.
The difference is we loose "map control": we can't maintain 1-2 shades hitting the boss and the last one hitting a far enemy. I agree with someone here that said to up the shades duration to 12s (and I was surprised because we don't know each other but we thought on the same kittening sec duration lol) to keep the scourge's essence but is a minor change.

But, well, I'm happy. Could be better because scourge still need more changes (you ruined the WvW boonstrip build for example) but is a small step in the good direction. Thank you again, I'll put a white candle to send you gucci energies and keep your mind cleared.

PD: Now is time to wait for July 18th and bench a bit. You know, the dps that can do the alac variant and the dps one and if is similar to the other classes. But changes look gucci.

[Abodi.4327]

uhm  so we are gonna be left for 3 weeks with these terrible conditions? especially the druid and heal scourge. 

also druid used to be able to give a healthy amount of vigor via spirit now it is gone. druid's access to vigor is almost non existent (since it was moved to healing spirit and it doesnt pulse anymore)

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

Original post was illegally removed by moderator.  

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[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

Don't nerf deadeye. Let us have this after years of getting shafted

[Vissarion.6509]

Shade duration??

[JacksParrot.4368]

All this drama could have been avoided if you just made concentration scale uniform boon duration

100 concentration = all outgoing boons last 3 seconds

300 concentration = all outgoing boons last 7 seconds

600 concentration = all outgoing boons last 15 seconds

800 concentration = all outgoing boons last 30 seconds

This way you don't need to tweak every single skill that gives boons and you can just have a skill or trait description that says "gives alacrity"  and that's it. You want people to bring concentration to be boon support? If you do this, they have no choice because 0 concentration = 0 boons.

 

 

 

 

[Altex.6083]

For untamed, there seems to be strange inconsistency between the Ambush skill.

1. power sword - ambush skill is triggered automatically

2. condi short bow - ambush skill needs to be manually triggered because of targeted AoE

3. power hammer - ambush skill has a fairly long "duration"

 

This could be considered a variety within the class, but it is more like a nuisance. For short bow it is only punishing if you don't trigger the ambush primary attack, nothing else. Hammer .. you can interrupt it and you lose its effect. It might not lose the quickness trigger, but still. The rest of the primary weapon types that do not get interrupted/ get instant cast, are they lacking that much that you just do them when unleashing once every couple seconds? 

For Untamed Quickness support, it seems that Quickness is the only boon it will be able to share, so being contained in pressing unleash every couple seconds while auto attacking is the new class design for boon dps. This is simply killing the fun that Untamed provided, not only in raids, but in open world. We might get competitive benchmarks, but Untamed class identity got reduced to basically core beast master ranger with mostly useless skill line. 

[Degs.5148]

4 minutes ago, RiriMu.7198 said:

The difference is we loose "map control"

You answered your own question.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Degs.5148

[Magus.8152]

Please, please, PLEASE do something to fix druid so Condition Alacrity Druid is viable. It can't generate enough Celestial Avatar at the moment to consistently shift and provide alacrity or might to it's allies, and the only way to really do that is to either heal (which they can't if they're damage-focused), or generate it through boons/conditions.

I'm not sure if upkeeping/applying boons would be best, or maybe generating CA based on hitting a mob with a certain stack of conditions or something, but it desperately needs assistance in terms of being able to consistently do it, especially on low-impact/low-damage fights like Conjured Amalgamate, Mursaat Overseer, etc.

For mirage, I don't see how the alacrity trait addresses the fact they just lost 50% of their condition duration on their main attack (ambush skill), and without damage compensation or condition duration, the build is in jeopardy of becoming too weak.

 

[VictorLeal.4102]

No feed from corruption change? You killed off one of the best Scourge things in WvW to replace it with a useless Alac trait.

WvW Power Scourge only lost things on this patch, less boon corruption, less boons, more cooldown and what we get in compensation? 1s Alac and 1k barrier/boon remove with 1s internal cooldown (wtf), we already have players on party generating alac for us.

THAT'S NOT BALANCE

Edited June 29, 2023 by VictorLeal.4102

[Tuna Bandit.3786]

Hello? yes Scourge player here. Ehm I need to order a new F1 key. Mine broke since June 27th balance change... At least I think it is F1 because the key is no longer readable. 

You know what? Sent me a couple, it's not likely the new ones will survive long anyways.

Stop F1 skill spam.

Actually, do what you promised, you said clearly and unmistakenly that you wanted to reduce meaningless skill spam.

So... Scourge spamming F1 to maintain shades, Ranger spamming pet swap to maintain boons... others will likely complete this list.

[Batalix.2873]

4 minutes ago, VictorLeal.4102 said:

No feed from corruption change? You killed off one of the best Scourge things in WvW to replace it with a useless Alac trait.

In looking at the implementation, I think it was mostly to remove the inelegant "boon-to-condi" conversion table. Maybe if boons and condis were more thought out in pairs it could have stayed but this current change at least removes a lot of the arbitrariness of the system.

That said, the flavor will be missed as a one of a kind corruption tool, and I think replacing it with just personal barrier is a bit weak.

[zicaB.1794]

To me the main problem is puting alac/quick in one single trait, that's just bad. All problematic professions have this in common.

FB and Mech, for exemple, they have multiple sources of quickness and alacrity.

FB can have share quick in 2 traits + 1 mantra + elite. The traits alow FB share quick via heal skill and when providing aegis/stab.

Mech is similar with barrier > alac. Equiping 2 traits u have alac on F2 and in any source of barrier, that means, 1 mech comands, 1 signet and mace.

[Luvi.2581]

This is so depressing.

[AlchemistRai.7596]

These alac scourge changes are not enough, you over nerfed the revive power to the point i don't know how vivable it is anymore. You remove the QoL downed state pull letting you have a little bit more time to save people, and druid is better off NOT using ALACRITY!

Just tie alac generations to sand savant and make it only pulse for team mates from it, just move the traits back to where they where for scourge and give back some reviving power, scourge is already garbage for raw heals and having to move around the one tiny shade is not a good feeling

Sure the changes to numbers are nice, but the way you nerfed scourge is just bad

you took the fun out of what was already a niche healer.

I wish dessert empowerment was back on a midline trait and didn't have alac so i could just run my scourge build with out alacrity.

just give us some reviving back i understand 70% reviving can be too much but 20%? druid is a better reviver then necro is now, your changes don't fix the problem of you took away the reason people played the spec and gave them the job of being a sub par alacrity slave

[Auras.8302]

1 hour ago, Sagedurk.7358 said:

No it doesn't. Understandable that you got the amount of alacrity mixed up, I had to hop in game and double check, even though I've mained willbender since EoD launch. The alac trigger off Phoenix Protocol is indeed 1.5 seconds. The 2 seconds you're thinking of is on Restorative Virtues

i think its also because the gearset i was wearing when i read the toolltip was all celestial, so i actually have quite a bit of concentration.

[Red.5980]

A things I still need to be touched on a bit is the alac and might uptime on druid alac with the quickness uptime on herald while having good uptime on other boon. Like herald has good uptime on other boons but to have those good uptime on said boons implies you need to juggle a lot in glint and swaping to Ventari is a lot of burst heal but with the caust of the boons. Yes the concentration is built in but if you are at 100% it won't do much unless it will add more like Facet of nature.Also with druid alac it is hard to keep uptime on it and might with it because to need to spam CA a lot but when you get out of it you do need to wait around 10 seconds or even more to get back in to CA to give out alac. What this means is that you won't have burstheal if you need to and have the amazing gliph of the stars to rez the group if needed. Also to havegood might and prot uptime you do need to spam 2 gliphs and/or hit your pet swap off CD to trigger traits in Marksmenship and nature magic. My opinion that is not fun gameplay and you won't beable to hit those keys if you need burst heal and/or boons from pets. But those are my thoughts and my opinions. 

[Merloin.4816]

How long we should wait till qCata energy problem is solved? The new change is not problematic on its own but not being able to produce energy during a jade field is up makes things very needlessly complicalted and exhausting

[Spiral.3724]

Thanks for listening, Cal & Roy and the Anet staff. 
I wanna send you guys a fruit basket or something. 🍇🍓🍍

[Dragonzephir.6197]

Revert Arc Divider changes and remove the aftercast instead please. Right now this skill is so boring to use, its just an orange arcing slice but with low damage, no fury and a very boring animation.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Dragonzephir.6197

[Asum.4960]

3 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

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). 

I feel like you are both going over board here, and missing the point. 

I don't think Scourge needs that much of a damage buff - a little bit maybe, but it mostly makes up for it's lacking benchmarking DPS in high real fight DPS uptime. Only testing will tell, but this honestly looks like it might very well push cScourge DPS too high. 

As for what you are missing, that's playability - which is the primary issue people actually have. 

The game is getting way, way too button spammy - and we are not using skills for their actual function anymore. Everything has to be mashed off-cooldown, either for Damage in DPS builds, or boon uptimes in Support builds. 

That's not engaging gameplay, and as some may discover over the years, actually a genuine health risk in chronic pain through repetitive stress injuries. 

It's fun to use a mobility skill for mobility to cover a mechanic, a heal skill to support allies when they need it, etc., to bring the right tool to the job, to think about when to use it, and to see the impact you make as a player, through the process of  observation, analysation, preparation and skilled execution. 

It's not fun for everything to happen accidentally due to being forced to spam out all our abilities.

[ailidh.5680]

Scrapper feels awful still. Sure you can maintain quick just fine, but the rotation is tighter. And if you can't safely use a 1000 range leap (seriously wtf) no quickness. Almost fell off a boss platform yesterday because of a phase change. At least fix the 2 second animation lock/make the evade last more than half the cast time. 

And it's basically bring throw mine instead of shredder. Same exact setup otherwise, because you want super speed for the damage buff. Only now you have to sacrifice one of your SS skills for clunky throw mine. You're still casting gyros off cd for the fields to combo in, burning even more skills just for one boon. 

Want to make scrapper better? Make gyros better! Bulwark is garbage except for the toolbelt Purge is useless since engi has tons of cleanse already, and the poison field toolbelt skill, what is that for?? Reduce the cooldown on blast to make them all pair together better. Oh and bring quickness back to SS. Please. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by ailidh.5680
Fat fingers on phone

[can.8540]

3 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

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.

 So, I have both traits in my build but it only shares regen when I use f2 but not alac. Am I missing sth here?