June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[Flapjackson.1596]

I’m not certain why we are arguing over minute changes in alacrity for Druid CA. We try to get these builds to barely apply their boons when done without mistake and while being on group the entire time. 
 

Meanwhile other things are looking swell. The new leap finisher quickness for scrapper is working well. The mace option makes quickness super easy to keep up. Why can every boon build have elegant solutions like that?

Put Druid alac on blast finishers. You have warhorn 5, staff 3, CA 3, and all your spirits. That is a ton of options so no matter the situation you won’t be tied to a singular thing. Let Druid be flexible again!

[bluehead.9842]

please make specter shroud to be able use utility skills,
its annoying if you want to use support build, when need to give alac we cannot do any support at all (like heal)

especially if the alac duration is reduced into 1,25s 

[jcluzio.6207]

No Mechanical Genius tweaks? 

On fights with frequent repositioning, it's too easy to get the penalty. Had to spam for it to return to me but it's not fun to do this and the mech starts to loose a lot of its value this way. Also it's super easy to confuse the mech with the mech's of other players, which is a feels bad situation when getting a penalty for it.

The mech should be fun to use, and not a baby you need to keep your eyes at all times.

[Rather large bird.3108]

Sand Shade

Keeping Sand Shade at 8 second duration really grinds my gears and breaks my F1. It will still be possible to fully run out of shades and have them all on CD.

It is simply Way too spammy., BTW - I am simply taking about a DPS scourge in open world PvE, it's just a lot less fun.  Old duration back please.  Or at least comment directly on the WHY of the duration change. Is this about some specific case? It changes the play-style from something strategic to trying to shoot a gun that never has enough bullets. Just frustrating. 

[foxtrot.6902]

Given scrapper changes and just in general- possible to take a look at regenerating mist water field duration (heal turret toolbelt) and thumper turret + toolbelt cool downs?

The field is so short can't even combo it w/immediate throw mine. Always thought thumper turret and associated toolbelt could be more useful as well if the cool downs were a little more reasonable.

[Arshay Duskbrow.1306]

So I trust you'll be reverting the ten billion nerfs Mirage has had to eat because of Chaos Vortex?

[DragoTheWise.7256]

I really hope that Mechanical Genius gets another look. At the very least, put back the grace period while working on a better solution. It is a little much to try to ensure you and the mech is close together. Sure, both doing melee makes this easy, but if one is ranged and the other isn't, that makes it difficult. In addition, trying to move out of damage most likely will get you out of the small AOE, so the game punishes you for playing one of GW2's combat strengths- movement in combat.

I get that it is a tricky issue, but its current implementation isn't the right call. I've seen some folks mention to instead grant a bonus when near the mech instead of a penalty. I feel like this is the same issues ya'll ran into with some of the fractal instabilities. I'd say take what you learned from those changes and implement them here.

[ItsAlive.1236]

2 hours ago, Adonaj.7932 said:

also idk why shade savant (big shade) in the game. if we will use 1 small shade ( they clearly tripple buffed 2 traits). So why do we even have shade savant trait? for what?

Not empty quoting.  What the duck.

[Radina.6057]

1 hour ago, Powerfat.7294 said:

Giving dps scourge more damage is not going to make it any less awful to play. 8 second shades feels absolutely horrid and also completely gutted scourges ability to cleave.

You want to use F1 as often as possible anyway to trigger Dhuumfire. How often we use Manifest Shade did not change one bit between the patches.

The lost cleave is a low price to pay for 20 second cd Aegis and a soon to be overall good dps output. 

Scourge is going to be in a great spot and it is even going to be easier to upkeep Sand Sage, since we only ever have to have one Shade alive.

The only negative about those Necro changes is that we have to wait 3 weeks for them to go live. They are amazing.

[ItsAlive.1236]

1 minute ago, Radina.6057 said:

The lost cleave is a low price to pay

Nope.

[Swynwraig.4628]

I agree with the continued feedback on Druid/Ranger support.

That it was hard to keep alacrity up in a lot of situations wasn't the main problem. The problem is that it's forcing druids to use CA when it's not appropriate and mash keys as well. Having boon generation as an add-on to damage rotations is fine - you want to do damage rotations all the time. Tying them to situational skills is not, so attach it to something druids will be casting regularly anyway with a modest internal cooldown if needed.

Besides, it's just not fun - before druids needed to spam spirits (which had boons/conditions we'd want up anyway) but had freedom on whatever situational skills filled between them. Now to generate alacrity it's all about being slave to building up and wasting CA along with skill mashing - and to go with that significantly lower boon uptime... no thanks.

I only recently started playing a support druid but I'm inspired to take a look at some of the 2000 other games in the backlog while I have a break to maybe let the disappointment pass. I have confidence that you'll find something to make playing support druid actually fun again in the future.

[Myror.7521]

@Dragonzephir.6197 but sir now you have a trait that grants fury and quickness on Burst use isn't that gud anough fo ya? Kekw xd

Edited June 30, 2023 by Myror.7521

[Crain.4789]

Loved my qScrapper before the patch. Now it is... slow and clunky and absolutely no fun to play anymore. 

Please revert the changes. 

It's already difficult enough to pay attention to combo fields in the whole clutter of fights. But now choosing skills only because of their combo fields and combo finishers is just weird. 
Little gyros were so nice and fun. Sure, bullwark could use a bit of extra love to make it more useful (some others maybe, too). But gyro spam (that wasn't even that spammy) was WAY more fun and dynamic than what we have now.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Crain.4789

[Mike.7983]

Should just un-do the entire recent class balance and start from scratch.  Nothing but let downs and disappointment out of the class balance team lately. Sorry to attack you Cal and Roy but your ideas for class balance are based on what exactly.  Be nice if community had access to sources of information on how or why you determine what's needed. Some days no news is good news and some builds where 100% fine as is, any tweaking just caused massive backlash, people quit'ing or like myself taking to forums to voice anger and frustration.  We got asked to leave feedback but felt like all of our comments are ignored in the end anyways.  Please start communicating with us so we can both work together to add more length to this amazing game. Otherwise the massive failed class balance will signal the end of this game for a lot. Already know a few scourge mains who quit recently.

[Drag You Down.2615]

@Cal Cohen.2358

I don't know if you can see this, but if you do, please consider it. 

The problem for Druid is not its alac base duration, is the way it is applied. CA is not in heal Druid rotation and it WILL NEVER BE. So  if you still want alac to be in CA, at least add something outside of CA. For example:

The Beast skills will provide 5 secs of alac around caster and pet both, when caster is outside of CA. And the internal cooldown is 20 secs or sth. ON TOP OF WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE NOW, NOT ONLY WITH THIS. 

[necmeat.2798]

Please bring back the instant siphon rez on shadestep ;_;

It was the coolest feeling to instantly pick someone up. It really set specter apart.

Maybe make shadestep remove the cooldown reduction on ally targeting siphon to give it a ttradeoff? Pretty please ;_;

Edited June 30, 2023 by necmeat.2798

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Cal Cohen.2358 You say here that Alac Willbender needing to hit to grant alacrity is bad, but then how do you explain Quickness Berserker and Alac Bladesworn?

[loregnum.3619]

31 minutes ago, DragoTheWise.7256 said:

I really hope that Mechanical Genius gets another look. At the very least, put back the grace period while working on a better solution. It is a little much to try to ensure you and the mech is close together. Sure, both doing melee makes this easy, but if one is ranged and the other isn't, that makes it difficult. In addition, trying to move out of damage most likely will get you out of the small AOE, so the game punishes you for playing one of GW2's combat strengths- movement in combat.

I get that it is a tricky issue, but its current implementation isn't the right call. I've seen some folks mention to instead grant a bonus when near the mech instead of a penalty. I feel like this is the same issues ya'll ran into with some of the fractal instabilities. I'd say take what you learned from those changes and implement them here.

It's not a tricky issue: just get rid of any penalty. Mech isn't this super beast spec anymore that the narrative some still latch onto implies. There is absolutely no reason for the penalty/mech genius existing other than to annoy and troll players.

And on an unrelated note, the scrapper change is horrible. So clunky to play and the spec, which was basically my co-main before, is now pretty much dead to me. Sad.

[conclusory.4693]

I think this is heading in the right direction, but I would like to add some comments:

1. Druid:
   1. We are still required to enter CA in order to provide Alacrity.  This is, I feel, a step backwards to when Druid needed to do this to generate Might.  I do think it would be better to tie it to some other skill or trait.
   2. That being said, increasing the length of the boon duration will help with having more flexibility as to how soon you need to enter CA.
2. Scourge:
   1. The increased duration of Alacrity is helpful.  However, for support, I think Scourge is lacking in burst healing.  All of a Scourge's healing is in small increments, such as with Transfusion, or now via regeneration.  Adding a master-level choice to add healing to summoning a sand shade might be a good idea, though it could lend itself to too much spamming of F1.
   2. Sand Savant also needs to have more of a tradeoff than just being a bigger radius, since you can now only really have 1-2 shades up at a time.  Adding additional healing to this trait, as the healing oriented one, would counterbalance it more.

[shaz.8572]

7 minutes ago, Drag You Down.2615 said:

@Cal Cohen.2358

I don't know if you can see this, but if you do, please consider it. 

The problem for Druid is not its alac base duration, is the way it is applied. CA is not in heal Druid rotation and it WILL NEVER BE. So  if you still want alac to be in CA, at least add something outside of CA. For example:

The Beast skills will provide 5 secs of alac around caster and pet both, when caster is outside of CA. And the internal cooldown is 20 secs or sth. ON TOP OF WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE NOW, NOT ONLY WITH THIS. 

I propose a druid change that will allow the class trait to still function with a fundamental change

Most of the complaints with HOW druid applies alac are with having to burn celestial avatar. 

Considering that we already have an example class, scrapper applying quickness on blast or leap finishers, this would be a PRIME solution to implement. 

Currently the class requires you to spam celestial avatar, with the proposed change to the trait Grace the land, it will move the player to be required to use blast or leap finishers. 

Considering that the class has a blast finisher in celestial avatar and in staff.  

Several leaps in sword and great sword and dagger, along with another blast with warhorn, 

Spirits blast finish already so this would technically work these those changes. 

These are items the people generally already used in the class kit. 

This change would allow the trait to be synergize with group play already, and give people their decision making back. 

tweaks to how much would possible have to be made, but this change would drastically reduce the already frantic high apm mash mode that people hate in its current implementation. 

Can any one think of a negative to trying this method of applying alac that would be worse that the current implementation? 

Consider all the other good feeling classes, warrior, revenant, guardian. These classes apply the boons by just play the class mechanics, in most cases while retaining the flexibility of choice. 

Tying the mechanic to an action that always is required is always a result that causes bad feelings, example mirage alac, forcing you to use the staff ambush for the most part. Old herald requiring button mashing to provide boons, and now druid that forces the interaction by always having to be in celestial avatar mode. 

I hope that we can at least try this trait interaction and see what happens. 

 

[Lyonard.4708]

PLEASE, consider bringing back Arc Divider as it was before the patch ( or at least splitting it between game modes )...

Now, i'm not a PvP player, and i don't know if this skill is objectively better in that game mode ( wich does not seems the case, in the vast majority of the forum and reddit... you can see it by yourself )

But in PvE right now is so kitten unsatisfying to land that it's just sad... the rotation now is so clunky that using the greatsword on power berserker is mathematically a DPS loss! and more of that, a utility loss (clearing the area from thrash mobs with multiple bursts is incredibly useful both in raids and on open PvE)

The real thing that saddens me the most is that now i really wonder whats the point of posting a patch preview, if you're goingo to ignore the feedback altogether... 

maybe players doesen't have the "bigger picture" in mind, but we're just willing to help to make the game more enjoyable both for our and yours advantage, if you're only willing to listen

[Flapjackson.1596]

3 minutes ago, shaz.8572 said:

I propose a druid change that will allow the class trait to still function with a fundamental change

Most of the complaints with HOW druid applies alac are with having to burn celestial avatar. 

Considering that we already have an example class, scrapper applying quickness on blast or leap finishers, this would be a PRIME solution to implement. 

Currently the class requires you to spam celestial avatar, with the proposed change to the trait Grace the land, it will move the player to be required to use blast or leap finishers. 

Considering that the class has a blast finisher in celestial avatar and in staff.  

Several leaps in sword and great sword and dagger, along with another blast with warhorn, 

Spirits blast finish already so this would technically work these those changes. 

These are items the people generally already used in the class kit. 

This change would allow the trait to be synergize with group play already, and give people their decision making back. 

tweaks to how much would possible have to be made, but this change would drastically reduce the already frantic high apm mash mode that people hate in its current implementation. 

Can any one think of a negative to trying this method of applying alac that would be worse that the current implementation? 

Consider all the other good feeling classes, warrior, revenant, guardian. These classes apply the boons by just play the class mechanics, in most cases while retaining the flexibility of choice. 

Tying the mechanic to an action that always is required is always a result that causes bad feelings, example mirage alac, forcing you to use the staff ambush for the most part. Old herald requiring button mashing to provide boons, and now druid that forces the interaction by always having to be in celestial avatar mode. 

I hope that we can at least try this trait interaction and see what happens. 

 

I am on board for this idea. Tying the application to things that aren’t any specific skill keeps the build flexible.

Blast finishers happen all the time on Druid regardless of what you are doing. Comboing staff 3 and 5 or warhorn 5? Dazing or healing with CA 3? Using any spirit now? 

It would let Druid be able to apply their boon without feeling disruptive to any part of their kit because you have so many options on how to apply it.

[zealex.9410]

4 hours ago, GetFoxxed.9478 said:

Mirage is still shafted with dodge nerf.

Mirage is not getting both 2 dodges and a stunbreak on dodge, the fact that it even had a stunbreak on dodge was problematic to begin with.

[Sigmar.8614]

4 hours ago, Diruuo.6314 said:

I do not think these listed changes really capture what the issues with some of the specs are. 

For Herald and Druid in particular, the playability and flexibility has straight up gone down, to the point of breaking the specs. It's not merely about their ability to provide a necessary boon, it's about how they provide it.

To list concrete things - invisible timers are just... bad. They're not easy to track, and while I understand you'd want us to not have to track them, when you tie important effects to them, it's bound to happen. Yes, the reduction will make it more responsive, no, it's still not a good implementation. Herald already has enough over-time-ticking things, for a critical boon like this I don't think it's a good fit. The "invisible timer" problem was mitigated by Draconic Echo, but that has been removed as an option for boon support builds (despite making perfect sense as the boon support option in its original design).

Additionally, your original stated goal was to reduce the spamminess and improve flexibility for Herald builds, you've, very directly, negatively impacted both of these aspects of the build with the changes in the June patch. The build is significantly more energy constrained, and thus there's even less flexibility in how you play it. For base throughput, you also generally follow the same rotational priorities as you did prior to the change. So in practice - it's just as spammy, now it just has less energy to do anything useful. 

In a world where the DPS quickness build prefers the same two legends that were used before, and the utility legends are less useful - you've directly failed at your intended purpose of introducing flexibility to it. 

The situation is the same for druid. On paper, they have their utility skills free now, but in practice, they lost an even more important resource - celestial avatar. Now you need to constantly rotate in and out of Celestial avatar, bringing Druid back to the days of old where you had to do so for the damage buff. Except it's worse now, and the playstyle encourages a carpel-tunnel inducing level of spam of skills in Celestial Avatar. This also removes Celestial Avatar as a resource used for... well... healing or CC. If damage does not align with your alacrity application, then you simply waste all the healing because you had to provide buffs. 

These are fundamental, critical, usability and design issues, that the proposed numbers changes above will not fix. 

Thus, I find the response to the criticism and feedback underwhelming. These builds very plainly feel worse to play, and perform worse than they did prior to the June patch. They are also still very spammy, so their usability is either unchanged, or in the case of Druid - made significantly worse. 

I firmly believe the design issues introduced with the Patch are so fundamental and problematic, that the only reasonable option is to revert the changes, and get back to the drawing board. 

the above (and several posts below as well) in youtube video form:

The biggest difference in how and why "certain classes are over-performing" that you missed is that those over-performing classes just casually pulse the support boons (alac/quickness) and/or give them out as part of their original core role (using dragon slash off-cooldown, going into Shroud) which allows them to concentrate on other things.

The problem will NOT be fixed by "tweaking numbers" - the overall approach to fixing the problem needs to change.

And this is putting aside the fact that Alac and Quickness are just plain weird and don't really fit well into the boon system. One makes your skills recharge faster (why? We are even getting skill CDs reduced as part of the patch. All that does is produce more "APM", leading to MORE 'spam ability' gameplay) and the other makes your animations play faster for a de facto flat +50% damage boost, which looks silly.

Alac could be removed with a change to encounter timing and skill damage impact. (If, currently, I need Aegis for the party every 10s and need Alac to do it, just make it 20s. Instead of pressing a 100-damages skill twice, make it deal 200 damage.)
Same for quickness (50% or so less boss HP, done. For skills that take "too long to cast without Quickness"... consider lowering their cast time? )

Playing "sweaty" builds that require me to mash as many buttons as possible per second is really not fun and is quite literally "unhealthy gameplay".

If, for whatever reason, yopu really WANT to keep Alac and Quickness, the way "Support builds are all brought up to a single standard" should be that "All support classes provide Quick and Alac as part of their gameplay loop."
To make a difference between damage and support builds put it on significantly different talent lines (Scourge -> take Single Big Shade -> Shades/Barrier now grant Alac vs multiple small shades give more damage. Heck, make it so that you gotta pick a longer trait line like "Your Shades are now one big shade -> Shades grant barrier -> Barrier you grant gives Alacrity".)

[Thrax.4680]

Make Arc Divider Great Again!