June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[Paroxzyme.6053]

Please revert the changes to signets of suffering

[Griifen.2473]

Either you need to go all-in on druid and scourge alac duration and scrapper quickness to allow for 30 seconds of alac/quickness on a 100% book duration build so that we can actually use the support skilks (that you've mindlessly tied an essential boon to) when they are needed, or completely change what the alac is tied to so that, again, we can use the essential support skilks when we actually need to. 

 

I cannot believe that you still allow balance devs who DO NOT PLAY THEIR OWN GAME to make changes that are completely absurd in the eyes of literally everyone WHO ACTUALLY PLAYS THE GAME. 

 

If a healing support cannot be reactive (druid CA, scourge barrier, scrapper function gyro, water attunement on tempest) then they are effectively useless... Anyone who's every ACTUALLY PLAYED THE GAME could tell you that. 

 

Right now heal firebrand and heal alac mechanist are the only two specs on the entire game that can actually react to a fight without sacrificing their entire ability provide an essential boon. You're dillusional quest to "balance" the game has only completely screwed up any balance between heal support specs. 

 

Get someone who's actually PLAYED THE GAME to do the balance next time. This is just radiculos. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Griifen.2473

[Galak.7604]

Hello, I would like to leave feedback on the scourge change. I appreciate the buffing of the number for scourge, however, the fundamental play style of scourge is still affected by the shade duration. With shade being only 8s in duration with an 8s recharge, it feel much more spammy and you effectively have to cast shade off cooldown compare to when you actually need it. I post in the initial June 27th thread but tie alacrity to sand savant and revert the duration of the shade. Maybe instead of alac on barrier, it is alac on shade skill. Thank you for reading.

[AresGuildwars.6372]

Good thing I quit already last week, because now also losing 3Mirrors on F4 with Mirage thx to having to pick the new trait is just another nerf on top Oo

Dont take those folk serious, at this point they are just trolling. Also double down on Alac via CA on Drood is still stupid. Chrono still can't generate Quick ooc and scourge also still looks bad. Reverting the patch would still be better than this mess. 

At least you dropped the preview before the xpac announcement, I know who won't buy any of your new crap xD

[Umbrose.3609]

I'm not one to come to the forums and post about balancing and all that but time to add my voice  to the chorus of PLEASE INCREASE SHADE DURATION.

Scourge right now is not fun to play. I'm glad Sand Sage is getting buffed so we don't have to maintain 3 shades to do full damage. I'll never say no to buffs. But buffs do not fix the issue. Having to drop a shade every 8 seconds makes the spec feel spammy. Reducing the CDs on the torch skills will only amplify that feeling. It feels like we might be forced to use pistols just on the grounds we'll never have enough down time to let the scepter 1-chain complete.

I'm glad the spec got alacrity even if it came to the cost of the rezing capabilities. But tying it to barrier can be frustrating. Imagine knowing some damage is coming up so  you want to save your barriers skills. If you press too soon, the barrier falls off and there's no damage mitigation. But you have to maintain that alac uptime. You are forced to choose between your two jobs. Seems very counter productive. Feels worse because other specs can do both independently but at the same time. 

I'm not a dev. I don't know the solution either problem. Maybe I'll get used to this change. But right now... I'm not having fun.

[TheBaker.3294]

10 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). 

These changes make Sand Savant even more ridicolous... Why on Earth I would equip this trait if, right now, also the tiny shades give me the full potential from Sand Sage and Blood as Sand.

Please bring back the 20s shade duration and put alacrity on Sand Savant!

Also for the revive potential, have you consider to simply increase the CD of Garish Pillar when you choose Transfusion? You can Increase it like you have done with the Function Gyro. For example you can increase the base CD to 30s + 15s per ally pulled. Doing this you can bring back the revive percentage of Ritual of Life to 7%.

[GoldSilva.8950]

@Cal Cohen.2358

Removing/Changing [Daring Dragon] smacks very of "Play it our way or else ANet."

I much preferred the multihit playstyle that the old one afforded. Alacrity should be somewhere else imo.

Kinda same with Druid, or it should at least be base longer. These changes both kinda say to me "F-IT We gotta get this sh*t out and put it somewhere. THERE THAT TRAIT People 'don't understand it' & No One's using that one right!?" Except now:

+ Bladesworn literally takes this now as a DPS option because it does the same damage per slash, just in less time in PvE.

+ Druid relies on their healing mode (Avatar) to dump out alacrity.

 

Like, imagine for a sec that they removed the Stability-On-Aura Grandmaster PvP trait on Cata to have it give quickness on aura application, but like only an acceptable amount in PvE or Tempest could only give alacrity by overloading water attunement. PvP and PvE players would riot. Since it's only the people who were actually enjoying existing [Daring Dragon] and now they're rightfully now like "What-The-Kitten!?" you're seeing those people actually upset, as opposed to the people who dox'd and meme'd on the trait beforehand because they were comparing it to traits like [Unyielding Dragon] that is intended for the single big-hit. When the whole original point of [Original Daring Dragon] as should be with Grandmater Traits as stated by ANet was to give people an alternative playstyle. Maybe instead of trying to make your slash just unblindable. People would rather strip the blind with a preliminary slash and then follow it up with the actual charged bigger hit. Or stack some vuln if they could manage to hit with a couple slashes with [Sundering Burst] while somehow managing not to get cc'd. This was legitimately one of the coolest trait combo interactions that I've seen in this game in 10+ years. & It's not like there was a difference between 5 & 10 bullets damage-wise in PvP anyway.

And there's 0 reason for this sacrifice.

If ANet had instead put aoe alacrity on both entering & exiting Astral Form on Druid you could at least save some Astral so you wouldn't have to completely dump it all and have nothing when you needed to heal. Or for Warrior in place of [Immortal Dragon] as-it-is-now, or better yet, with less boon duration so you had to build some if you wanted it would have given people a clear choice between:

Top: The PvE trait that gives either: More DPS (Because SameDamage @ AFasterChargeRate = More DPS) OR Alac per bullet (viable for group alacrity if they built some boon duration, and supplemental if they didn't.) + Good for open-world people learning the class too.

Middle: The BIG HIT PvP or PvE Break Bar Trait Option.

Bottom: Previous [Daring Dragon]: Giving Mobility, allowing slice refresh, and affording the class a different very fun playstyle that legitimately had some of the coolest trait interactions.

 

Or Yeah. They could have just put it on [Lush Forest] and made it alac for any ammo use. Since asking players of any game mode to not use past their first ammo charge is kinda a bad band-aid & needed an update imo. PLEASE CHANGE THIS BACK!

[Tenal.1546]

I want to echo many of them comments especially towards Necromancers.

Please revert Shades to 20 sec duration. I would even compromise at 15 seconds.

***PLEASE give us our SIGNETS back.*** REPEAT ***PLEASE give us our SIGNETS back.***

You're throwing us a bone with some barrier increases, but please, that was the hallmark of Scourges. It doesn't have to be godlike, but at least make it viable along with DPS increase as the latter I see you are trying to do.

Also, the REZ nerfs to HS were far too heavy handed. That and barrier were what we did. I would be happy with a compromise if you increased both niche abilities somewhat. 

I also play an OW Staff/Staff Mirage. It never goes into an instance. Leave it ALONE. It is FINE as it is. 

STOP making those who enjoy some OW solo play PAY the price of lack of self sustain which has been a trend since EOD released..  I have to say that your original statement of "Play it your way," or whatever it was is NO LONGER VALID. It hasn't been for a while. 

Also, as many have said, you have basically went totally against a stance of getting rid of spam especially in Druids by making them pay a price of lack of their utility in order to give a boon. I'll let the Druids and others affected by that talk to you.

SOME DPS professions do NOT even NEED to give boons. Think on that. Not everyone needs a boon. That is my opinion. 

Frankly, I wish you would just revert most of this and go back to a less drastic drawing board. I do appreciate your work, but right now, you're looking like Pee Wee Herman with his famous quotation when he falls off his bike, "I meant to do that." Just admit that you messed up and really kittened the kitten out of many of your players who are not very kittening happy atm.

Also, I'll be frank with you. I play this game for FUN. Lately, it has been like a full time Beta test with me wondering what you're going to break or drastically alter next time, making me (who has no Leg Armor yet) having to depend on theory crafters or myself to come up with a new build which creates an atmosphere of anxiety.

I am literally afraid to accomplish certain things on certain characters now because I'm worried that I might have to shelf them due to them being trashed as you did in this recent update.  This is not good for those of us with problems such as anxiety disorder which is very real. I would like some fun and stability, not this constant tinkering every few weeks with classes you break.

BALANCE...not BREAK, please. 

Okay, ending on a positive note, I do look forward to your new xpac. 

Thanks. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Tenal.1546

[Reploid.2809]

Can we at least have Scrapper's quickness application juiced up? Jumping through hoops to apply quickness is a pain in the kitten now, rather than just pressing gyros. Also, eliminated most gyros from my toolkit.

[KawsMeCal.5923]

Give them more juice so that it actually does the upkeep without spamming thing you said.

[TiedHam.4923]

Cool thank you for the updates! But for real: Can literally 1 of you explain to us why Alacrity isn't on [Lush Forest] or the actual useless/redundant [Immortal Dragon]!?!? That way it already would have done the PvE damage you wanted, it would have preserved the actually FUN playstyle that you said the trait was for in PvP. And literally everyone wins here...

As is, [Daring Dragon] is now both the "alacrity support trait" but also the DPS trait now because it does the same slash damage but just charges faster. Why.

There is 0 reason to put alacrity on [Daring Dragon] when [Immortal Dragon] could just pulse aoe alac instead of redundant protection. That is unless you actually want to tell people how to play your game and how to have 'fun' in it. Or you could have made the old Daring Dragon dish out alacrity on slash, since it was around 32K DPS anyway. And that should be about the DPS target for alac supports as is rn.

Instead you took development time and our money to rework a trait that people were using but the vocal minority didn't understand & thought was "bad" when there were infinitely better & simpler possibilities. You went out of your way to ruin one of the most unique & coolest playstyles in the game, & the fun of the people who weren't complaining to budget development time to a trait that not only demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the specialization but also invalidates the other 2 competing traits entirely.

No ANet this is not "Be who you want." or "Play your way." As your marketing will indicate. And I will not be supporting such an unhealthy philosophy or buying SoTO going forward until you start to reflect the bare minimum of understanding as to how Warrior works and what makes it actually FUN as you supposedly said in your balance philosophy video. Fix this.

It's easy. Put alac on [Lush Forest] or [Immortal Dragon] instead.

Edited June 30, 2023 by TiedHam.4923

[BatelGeuce.3591]

How about you let druid generate basic boons without the need to go to CA.

CA could serve mainly for healing and supply less frequent but sometimes needed boons such as stability (not like CA5, I mean party stability not my own) or aegis (kudos to the only source we have now, the White Tiger). You could have the spirits back the way they were, lower the alac duration to like 3,5s and have the one that used to give might per pulse do more than 11 stacks so that it outweighs the loss of might in CA. The trait that currently gives 0.75 Alac could bump up condi cleanse instead cause god knows that Healing Spring + CA2 + Glyph of Stars are not bad but it could be a lot better (easier), imagine having cleanse on CA 3 and 4. Like try to make the spec more fun to play, not more dreadful. Or maybe we should all go play hFB 🙃

[Skie.8904]

1. Bring back Arc Divider
2. Bring back boon corruption to necro
3. Bring back boon strip to necro and spellbreaker
4. Doesn't willbender comments about alac during phases apply to berserker quickness during phases?
5. Is this really the boon gameplay we want for Scrapper and Druid?

[DarkusTheFirst.6890]

If Imma be real here. I don't care if its 'balanced' or not. I'm glad Scourge is not regaining its former power. Its stale and I want to see something else rise to prominence. Scourge has been the answer to literally every problem for far too long. Being real. I HOPED they nerfed it hard enough into the ground that it will literally never be viable again. So that people HAVE to learn to do something else, and the meta that currently exists can NEVER exist again. Scourge as it was, was bad for the game. And I hope it never can rise to prominence again.


I think the Druid changes will help, but I do think they will likely benefit from a bit higher of a tweak of numbers to make things not a nightmare to use, as I know a lot of druids have considered swapping classes, and that'll be a whole different problem if that happens.

 

As for the Mirage changes. Despite those claiming foul, the class is till doing well, and can still easily hit some very nice things as is. I like the changes coming to the ambushes, but am hopeful that the protection from the initial trait isn't going to be entirely lost, as it was a very nice boon to have access to.

[Griifen.2473]

11 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

we agree that the changes were too heavy handed

I love how they blatently admit they never tested anything

 

11 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

we were overly conservative with its alacrity

Never tested it for more than 15 seconds (duration of CA). NOT. EVEN. 15. SECONDS.

 

11 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

has a few issues

Could have spotted if they even tried testing it.

 

11 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

The current timing around its quickness application can be clunky and hard to track

Could have been tested...

 

11 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

significantly overperforming where it should be damage-wise

Clearly wasn't tested.

 

11 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

another build that is overperforming in terms of damage

Was CmC getting tired of repeating himself by saying "another"... almost like he knew this was a cluster up, again.

 

11 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Chaos Vortex granting alacrity with no investment

Dude has no idea how anything below 30% boon duration doesn't provide enough alac uptime WITH a perfect rotation. Most websites recommend 40-60% boon duration to actually provide 100% alac uptime comfortably. Where the hell he gets "no investment" is beyond me.

[Taiza.4965]

7 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

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.

Dhuumfire works/activates on all shade skill usage because the skills cause your shade to strike around it just like when it's summoned, that is why the dps scourge rotation has us using f2 on cd along with shroud, for the dhuumfire procs.

[CornFarm.9260]

Disappointed I seemingly have to move this over here as well but:

Alacrity Belongs on [Lush Forest] or the unused & redundant [Immortal Dragon], not a Grandmaster [Daring Dragon] that created a unique playstyle.

Especially if the proposed rework would also shift that Grandmaster from "the PvP trait" - quoting you here Cal, into a Boon Support, but also just better DPS PvE trait.

Grandmasters are supposed to define playstyle. That's what old [Daring Dragon] did. As I've posted in like every other Warrior thread on this There's no reason everyone can't win here. Just put pulsing AoE Alac on ID instead. It fixes everything and is easy.

Don't let Bladesworn be the Berserker of 2018-2022 where you're just progressively sacrificing pieces of it's PvP kit for PvE's sake when there are better & easier possible solutions starring you in the face. That would not be the actions of a good balance team.

[StanUK.3214]

Thanks for the communication!

Echoing calls to re-look at Mechanical Genius please. The complete removal of the grace period is seriously affecting gameplay. I have no problem with the intended penalty in terms of cd increase, but the Mech's AI makes this really un-fun in its current form. So either increasing the radius threshold and/or giving us even a few seconds of grace period would go a long way here. Thanks!

[Leyris.3507]

 

Some of the problems introduced by the 6/27 patch are more fundamental than can be resolved by twiddling with damage coefficients.

Sand shade duration isn't a power issue, it's a fun issue. Sand shades could last a minute, an hour, or forever, and it would not make Scourge more powerful, it would just make it more pleasant. 

And even more fundamentally, Scourge had a unique niche that has been taken away. Scourge was uniquely capable of provided a constant and massive amount of barrier, and of quickly bringing back up any people who still managed to die. I'm aware that's less desired in highly skilled raid groups, but that's the point: it's a different set of capabilities that are good--great!--for a different thing. The uniqueness was beautiful, and it has been taken away just to make one more bland boon emitter.

And speaking of boons, Necromancer's unique ability to apply a ton of boon corruption is also a tragedy to lose. The idea of boons not only being meaningfully strippable, but possible actually risky is an additional layer of depth that the game should embrace rather than remove.

Similarly, blandifying Confusion into just another Torment is also a loss of interesting depth. The idea that players might sometimes be at risk from their own boons and their own abilities, and might actually want to make tactical decisions about whether and when to use them, provides an axis of depth and complexity that it is a tragedy to lose.

Please note that none of this is about asking for Necromancers and Mesmers to be more powerful, it's that we want them to be more interesting. 

[Leyris.3507]

Incidentally, all those "has joined recently" badges on so many people's icons here should be a sign.

My account goes back to 2012. The fact that so many people who have been playing the game for years and have never felt the need to use the forum until this patch came out should be a clear indicator of how unprecedentedly poor its design is.

 

[SkyRight.2370]

I'm so, so tired of ANet thinking "How to fix this problem in a specific way" instead of "Can we make everyone happy here?" When the answer to the 2nd question is almost literally always Yes.'

+ Bump up base shade duration back but have the scourge alacrity trait reduce res power & shade time.

 >> Gives the option of Support or DPS or Res playstyles.

+ Put 1s of AoE Alac & Protection base per bullet pulse on [Immortal Dragon] instead.

 >> Gives a "true support" option while giving Bladesworn's the upgraded damage Cal said they wanted for the build, while retaining the cool old [Daring Dragon] playstyle option.

+ Give Willbender +1/4s per trigger of their Alac virtue trait in PvE.

 >> Fixes AlacBender without it being OP.

+ Give Druid 1 alac + might glyph, or just increase the base Alac duration.

 >> Gives some cover for Druids outside of astral use to allow healing when needed.

 

C'Mon crew. I'm sure there's simple ways everyone can win here.

 

[The Boz.2038]

These don't look terrible.
What about Scrapper?

[Gendalfs.7521]

29 minutes ago, StanUK.3214 said:

Thanks for the communication!

Echoing calls to re-look at Mechanical Genius please. The complete removal of the grace period is seriously affecting gameplay. I have no problem with the intended penalty in terms of cd increase, but the Mech's AI makes this really un-fun in its current form. So either increasing the radius threshold and/or giving us even a few seconds of grace period would go a long way here. Thanks!

I see youre in acceptance phase 🙂

NO, remove that MG bullsh1t Anet. 

And give our triple shot AA back. Please?

[Asum.4960]

8 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

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.

To follow up on this with a practical example for Scourge:

Currently we have to spam countless Barrier applications - which we'd rather use to strategically Barrier high incoming damage, each granting miniscule amounts of Alacrity - which doesn't feel good to invest into with Concentration, in a tiny area with normal Shade - which requires very tight stacking from teammates and is clunky.

That's just not fun. But let's say instead you did something like:

Sand Savant: Your Shade now influences a larger area, but Shade skills now only affect targets in the Shade, 5 Target Cap. Manifest Sand Shade now also grants ~6 Seconds of Alacrity, but has a ~12 second CD*. 

Why is it more fun? A high base Boon Duration, while Concentration is still just as required for uptime, actually feels impactful and rewarding to build. It's also far easier to comprehend uptimes when looking at one or two skills and their boon duration, and comparing those against their CD's - than fighting for 0.25 second duration increases by switching your entire gear over to Concentration, and then testing if 20 spammed 1.25 second boon applications provide enough uptime against all their various CD's.

Secondly, we can actually use our Barrier skills... to apply Barrier, in preparation for incoming damage. Learning fights and their mechanics, and skillfully countering them. You know.. fun gameplay with room for skill expression.

Just because you give a Spec Alacrity or Quickness, doesn't mean you have to enslave their entire kit to that purpose. Non of the good and fun supports do that, for a reason. 

Make it something like one or two Skills + one Trait, or one Skill with two Traits max. That gives you more than enough design leverage to implement opportunity costs (such as sacrificing a significant DPS Trait) for boon application, without turning the specs into a hellish, unfun, spam fest - losing all their Utility and Identity in order to crank out Boons.

*E: with Shade duration restored ofc.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Asum.4960

[Underyill.6495]

I'm a little confused. I'm P new but there was an old [Daring Dragon] build that my friend showed me cause he knows I liked the trait & was trying to get me into these fractals. I think it did 37k but he said it just wasn't on the snowcrows site? Cause that was more of a Support DPS number, but would B fine.

Why could you not just have given my trait alacrity instead of making the trait go away if this was the target for Support DPS anyway!? Like legit someone help me, I'm so lost.

I just got into the game with EoD & now don't know wut 2 play. 😭😭😭