June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[Zephire.8049]

Glad I didn't get the expansion, the first time I've said that about GW1 or GW2. At best the balance team is incompetent, at worst they're designing around SotO so one has to pay to have their spec not be horrible.

They've ignored so much feedback and been silent about the changes and their idea for them. Feedback which also includes specs now feeling gross to play because they're suddenly so spammy and if they wanted to play a spammy class, they could have done that already. A big part of balancing a live-service game/MMO is accepting you can't force your will on the entire playerbase just because, not if you want to keep players happy and accepting of needed nerfs/changes, which is something this balance team does evidently does not believe in.

[Doggie.3184]

1 hour ago, Tachenon.5270 said:

I wonder if the devs of rival games are breaking out the champagne and toasting anet right about now . . .

Judging from the salt developers are having over Baldurs Gate 3 being too good of a game and how they believe making a game "so good it sets the bar too high for other game companies" is bad for competition... I'm starting to believe the gaming industry sabotages their own games on purpose so one isn't too much better than the other, LOL.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[GeraldBC.4927]

I find this a very positive development. Maybe I was wrong. The fixes to sand sage and blood as sand, as well as the since discarded idea to increase Devouring Darkness' CD to 25 seconds (which would have destroyed any semblance of a rotation if implemented) makes me think there might have been a genuine misunderstanding. And CMC has since tried out scourge or at least read through all the traits. 

I was thinking of posting my thoughts on all the specs I played since the balance patch on how they play and one major thing with the scourge was definitely the base duration on alacrity. It was so miniscule, it hard-locked heal alacrity scourge into spamming everything constantly and running 75% or more boon duration just to barely sustain and condition alacrity scourge was outright impossible. I'm looking forward to trying to make a decent condition alacrity scourge after this change. 

 

As for other specs

 

Specter

It is definitely true that prior to the above changes, you could just go into shroud, spam your skills for a few seconds and instantly cap out without any effort. Hopefully this doesn't change too much after the nerf. The main issue I saw with heal specter is that its healing (and barriers) are a little on the weaker side and make keeping people alive in damage intensive bosses difficult. Especially during shroud, those 600 points during shroud are like a drop in a bucket. 

Also I feel like the conditions inflicted by shadow shroud could do with an increase somewhere. It doesn't have the strength you'd expect from a 'shroud' behind it. 

 

Scrapper

Even after thoroughly trying it out, I still think quickscrapper is broken and not in a positive way. The SC build looks like a mess and even making your own ends up janky as well. The whole combo idea might be able to work in some way, but currently it isn't intuitive enough to draw in people willing to play it. My suggestion would be to expand the range of eligible finishers onto whirl finishers. That way people who like gyros can stick to gyros and it even frees up utilities more, because now your hammer 2 if lined up with a combo field generates quickness as well. 

"But then people will just default to 'shredder gyro' over 'throw mine'."

If this is an issue, simply nerf the amount of finishers in the gyro and buff the damage on the mine. Some adjustments on 'big ol' bomb' might help create options as well. 

 

Herald

I have no complaints about the way quickness herald works whatsoever and I think the complaints about the three second intervals on quickness were unnecessary as well.

 

Harbinger

The damage increases from blight on the tooltips of several traits in the tree are inconsistent and confusing. Also I maintain that the 50% nerf on blight's condition damage increase was not necessary. 

[HonesltlyX.7164]

"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."

So let me get this straight. The balance team has a problem with Alacrity Willbender applying boons only when striking an enemy, but not with other support classes that require striking an enemy to provide boons like quickness warrior for example. Can you guys at least be consistent with your balance philosophy and give other classes the same white glove treatment you give Guardians on a daily?

EDIT: Arc Divider still feels like pooo to use. The issue wasn't its damage. It's just a glorified Arcing Slice now. It was mentioned in the stream that this rework was made so that we would have more time to do other things. It's 3 hit cast time made it a great filler that was the other thing. Most of the skills in Warrior Greatsword are not worth using because they are either annoying to use or to weak in terms of damage. Improve those Greatsword skills either by improving damage or reworking 3 and 4 then remove the CD timer on Arc Divider so that players can at least use it more often to make up for the missing hits. Cuz believe it or not those three hard hitting spinning attacks from it prior iteration felt really REALLY GOOD.

Edited July 19, 2023 by HonesltlyX.7164

[HonesltlyX.7164]

On 6/29/2023 at 4:42 PM, Thomas.4208 said:

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.

Deadeye was overperforming because you essentially had access to two traits in the same tier of its trait line. Spectre support was broken they didn't even need to build concentration and had no trade offs in terms of damage. It was providing boons and still around the same amount of damage in all vipers. These changes were needed.

I do agree though even the Alacrity Willbender philosophy threw me for a loop because other support classes have to also strike a target to give boons, but it's suddenly an issue when it comes to Guardians - typical Anet.

[JaxLeo.7912]

32 minutes ago, HonesltlyX.7164 said:

Deadeye was overperforming because you essentially had access to two traits in the same tier of its trait line. Spectre support was broken they didn't even need to build concentration and had no trade offs in terms of damage. It was providing boons and still around the same amount of damage in all vipers. These changes were needed.

I do agree though even the Alacrity Willbender philosophy threw me for a loop because other support classes have to also strike a target to give boons, but it's suddenly an issue when it comes to Guardians - typical Anet.

it needed a change, yes, but not like this, not nerfing the overall class damage, they should have reduced the quickness output from steal time, that way deadeye would be forced to invest a bit in boon duration which would take away from the power stat

what they did was punish the entire elite spec without even fixing the issue, because guess what? even after the change deadeye is still able to do 100% quickness with no boon duration

as for specter the nerf was way too heavy handed, unlike other support classes thief does NOT have boon duration in their traits, so reaching the 80% boon duration they likely had in mind with this change is impossible even on full ritualist and boon duration runes and sigils

[Crain.4789]

Maybe we can get another follow up within the next days...? 

It didn't really fix the main problem with current qScrapper (clunkyness) and as I read from the other posts there are still many more critical issues to be adressed 😑

[Rafocale.5270]

Well, here I was hoping they'd listen. I'm done with gw2 until something changes. There's no point whatsoever in giving us balance previews if you don't listen to any feedback.

[Thron Stal.9367]

On 7/18/2023 at 1:04 AM, Crowface.3287 said:

25 pages of passionate feedback and not a single response from Anet. As a new poster and person on the forums, maybe I set my expectations too high, but it's still disappointing.

Here, I'll summarize hundreds of posts into one sentence:

Put the pie back in the oven, Anet, it's still raw in the middle.

 

 

What if they received Chef Ramsay feedback "Spits it out into the trash bin, and wipes his face with a tissue!"

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, HonesltlyX.7164 said:

So let me get this straight. The balance team has a problem with Alacrity Willbender applying boons only when striking an enemy, but not with other support classes that require striking an enemy to provide boons like quickness warrior for example. Can you guys at least be consistent with your balance philosophy and give other classes the same white glove treatment you give Guardians on a daily?

Again, the C in Anet is for Consistency. It always has been this way.

[Varis.5467]

16 hours ago, AreohCobing.5092 said:

What if they received Chef Ramsay feedback "Spits it out into the trash bin, and wipes his face with a tissue!"

Given the current balance team...I doubt even Chef Ramsy could do anything about it. 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Varis.5467

[zistenz.1945]

21 hours ago, Tachenon.5270 said:

I wonder if the devs of rival games are breaking out the champagne and toasting anet right about now . . .

Blizzard did the same thing that our guys, the players in fury. 🙂

[Crowface.3287]

I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, but because Alac Heal Druid requires so many actions per minute to function at its full capacity while providing boons, I've gained a superpower like a Starcraft 2 player, and can press a ba-jillion keys now.

Now playing other classes feels like a breeze, Mechanist in particular is like having cruise-control. It's not a great sign when Druid requires more actions per minute than my Spellbreaker, Virtuoso, or any other DPS/input heavy class with an emphasis on nailing down those rotations.

Overall, Alacrity generation is better, yes - but there are still scenarios where you're starved for CA form meter and hoping Alacrity won't fall off. Minister Li's charging attack in the KO strike is a perfect example.

Anet, I thought the goal was to make things less spammy and have less upkeep required for boons? For Alac Heal Druid it's the exact opposite.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Crowface.3287

[Camniel.7238]

I just uninstalled Guild Wars 2 for the first time in about 5 years. I need to move on because this isn't fun anymore, everything is so spammy and convoluted, not to mention inconsistent. Wish me luck finding something else.

[Birdie.3869]

On 6/30/2023 at 6:01 PM, Birdie.3869 said:

Cal, you want our feedback? Are you sure? There's been tons of it and it's all been mostly ignored. Even this doesn't include half the stuff people have been complaining about (necro signets for example).

Are you REALLY sure you want our feedback? Or is this just a place to funnel complaints so it can be ignored more easily?

Because honestly I'm not sure anymore.

Hey look at that, I called it. You ignored half the feedback on stuff that really needed answers and looking at. Including stuff that went in here.

Well done, Cal! You sure capped the fire enough to get away with ignoring a large amount of us once again! GG.

[Mnemesis.8257]

On 6/29/2023 at 4:20 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

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 forcing Mesmer into the same miserable circumstance instead.

Fixed that for you, as it seemed like there was a typo. My impression is that the real goal was 'Misery loves company'?

[Acheron.1580]

Since we've heard nothing from the devs this time, are we to assume that this patch "landed as you intended"? Or are we just going back to the childish "if I ignore it long enough it will go away" that you kind of don't want to see from a major company?

[Anthony.8056]

I don't understand why they changed so many skills that didn't have a problem and ignored other skills that need to be addressed. It's like they randomly choose skills and said lets make those less fun to use. So many utility skills from all professions need a rework or attention, pets and minions need overhauls, Catalyst needs a rework badly, certain weapons on classes feel weak but this is what they focus on.

The functionality from some of the skills I use are changed like arc divider which was uncalled for, everything about the necro changes are awful, I lked using unstable bladestorm before this unnecessary change, now it's another stationary aoe. They did the same thing when they changed how dust devil functioned on elementalist, changed to another stationary aoe instead of a projectile, did people complain about it, they couldn't add bleeding and cripple to it instead of just blindness. Why take the uniqueness from these classes and make them like everything else? Sorry for the rant but if it ain't broke don't touch it. I like the game alot but I hate the balance.

[Gendalfs.7521]

1 hour ago, Anthony.8056 said:

I don't understand why they changed so many skills that didn't have a problem and ignored other skills that need to be addressed.

When they look in their excel spreadsheets they cant make any adjustments of skills not being used at all.

For example: In WvW do anyone use minions as necro? I guess no, so how could they know it needs a buff or nerf. (ofc if you play the class you know, but they do balance only on empiric info)

[Suyheuti.1732]

Guys, everyone has good point about complains. I agree some, I disagree some. The only common complain is Anet doesnt care about feedbacks. I totally agree with everyone about this.

I started this game at release and my main is mesmer. (My semi main is Engineer). I didnt even give up playing last year’s balance patch disaster but after 27 june, I only login at mondays for raid static. I dont even want to login to get daily gift. Anet can check my last 12 months logins. They will see I’m not lying. I’m really furious. Because scrapper quickness change was really unnecessary. It is very clunky and not fun right now. My main fury is about Mirage and Chrono both. Thanks balance team, they killed entire spec (mirage). (Only good change for me was Mirage Mantle.) Mirage’s issues has been continuing over years. For instance, bugs. They see ambush dealing more damage, they fixed that in 2 days. What is point here? They are able to fix bugs and they dont care. I dont like virtuoso, I’m mesmer fan, I never liked it because I dont feel like I play with mesmer. Anet gave F5 to Chrono and Virtuoso, they didnt touch mirage. Condi virtuoso can deal over 40k with one hand playing and condi mirage is suffering. They didnt touch mesmer scepter. Quickness is not stacking with Scepter trait and they give quickness to scepter ambush with mirage mantle. They are joking with us.

Lets take chrono. With phantasm change, they made all chronos the same. Same gear, same weapons, same playstyle. Just you need to change gm trait. Is this balance physolophy? I pass. Balance will be much more worse than this after Soto releases I believe. 

[Zephire.8049]

5 hours ago, Acheron.1580 said:

Since we've heard nothing from the devs this time, are we to assume that this patch "landed as you intended"? Or are we just going back to the childish "if I ignore it long enough it will go away" that you kind of don't want to see from a major company?

Seems like. Drop a preview/patch, talk about how they "really care about" feedback, then go silent until the next balance patch. The best they've done is respond to the outrage aimed at the previous balance team to say the team's changing and the new team is going to do better, but when the outrage is about them, crickets. Not even proper explanations for changes, just faux surprise things were busted. Things which people said would be busted for weeks and anyone who actually looks at feedback would have noticed since those concerns were everywhere, not just on this forum but also Reddit, Twitch, and in Discord servers. Probably even more places but I don't use social media a whole lot.

My money is on the next time we hear about balance, it will be in regard to SotO and how access to those weapons will cover up the poor balancing will "unlock" playstyles we had until the June 27th patch. With undocumented changes to tweak traits to pre-27th status or close enough with nary a word from the team why they did that, not unlike what they did to Mechanist mace on the 27th.

If they don't respond to people and silo discussion, that means everyone is happy, right? Also they totally didn't break things/make things worse so they can sell players a solution. /s

[Burnfall.9573]

Hi Anet, 

Guess whose back at 'the spotlight' taking 'the top' of conditions after the recent 'nerf' balance patch? No, it is clearly not Necromancer Profession; why would you DARE want it to be the  top condition Profession in the game..?

By the way Anet, do you remember when I had pointed out to you a benchmark where Engineer Profession conditions where higher than Necromancer Profession? 

Guess what??

Not only did Engineer Profession conditions exceeded Necromancer Profession condition...Thief Profession-Spectre, Warrior Profession conditions, Ranger Profession conditions and Mesmer Profession conditions exceeded Necromancer Profession conditions.

YEAH, NECROMANER PROFESSION CONDITIONS CLOSING 'STITING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL' 

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT NOW?  SAME....NOTHING AS THE USUAL!!!!!!!!

SO MUCH SO FOR PROFESSION IDENTITY..... DIVERSITY RIGHT??

DON'T YOU CARE AT LEAST FOR PROFESSION IDENTITY, DIVERSITY?

JUST A BIT??

OF COURSE NOT!!!

https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks

 

----SO MUCH OF A JOKE...AN ABSOLUTE INSULT, DISGUST, DISGRACE; THIS ENGINEER PROFESSION CRAFTED TOGETHER A MEME VIDEO..NAMING IT MEMES EDITION

THE ENGINEER PROFESSION LAST WORDS, "just gotta note i'm still tweaking this build a bit changing some stuff around it so yeah"

--This is how Anet treats Necromancer Profession, Profession Identity, Role and Diversity... 'like a rag doll'. 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Matoro.9708]

On 7/21/2023 at 11:52 AM, Gendalfs.7521 said:

When they look in their excel spreadsheets they cant make any adjustments of skills not being used at all.

For example: In WvW do anyone use minions as necro? I guess no, so how could they know it needs a buff or nerf. (ofc if you play the class you know, but they do balance only on empiric info)

So I need to be running turrets in Raids to get change? Well, I'll see if anyone will let me try.

[Unicorn Luna.5204]

The willbender alacrity change was needed because it was giving 1.5seconds of alacrity every 5 hits during flowing resolve. The other specs that give boons on hit were not restricted in this way and had a longer base duration of said boons. The outrage on supposed willbender favouritism in this case is purely from a lack of understanding of people who don't even play it.

It's kind of unfortunate that a lot of the feedback is coming from players acting in manufactured outrage. It's very clear that anet are taking feedback and are acting on it in ways they're coming up with which is as a creative team should be - not at the whim of the customers ideas in all things. It's not always ways the outraged players like and so we get more manufactured outrage at anet for not taking their desired instructions for changes which then translates to "anet doesn't listen to feedback", it's really quite astonishing how frequent this happens. After coming back from a break I've found some very interesting changes that have definitely improved the state of specs, classes and most certainly availability to use the classes we want for the roles and content we want to play. Reading all this outraged feedback just makes me feel sorry for the poor souls in the dev team who have to trawl through it to find anything worthwhile.

Try constructive feedback rather than needless whining, you all sound like 5 year olds having a tantrum. Thus I trigger those I call out I guess, hit me with your confused reactions.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Unicorn Luna.5204

[Lakemine.3014]

For me i'm weird. I wish alacrity (if they refuse to just remove it from the game) was still on wells for specter thief. It was easier and more fun for me to spam wells to give alacrity (kind of a small minigame to place them for max effect on 4 other people. I really liked that.) then the Shroud, I greatly dislike it. (It seems the only shroud I like is Reapers lol) So they ruined me from running group content now. And the quickness scrapper they ruined as well, please revert it back so I have classes that can do the other roles your forcing into a "non roled" game. If I could just dps on daredevil or reaper and have fun doing things, then I would be fine, but i'm not allowed too because of the anet devs designing things poorly and non-logically and then the community gate keeping things in accordance with that philosophy. Even though it probably will be ignored like most everything else on here, thanks for making a game I have enjoyed, just please stop ruining it/"fixing" what isn't broken.