June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[Vortus.2801]

18 hours ago, The Cashew Cab.8491 said:

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

It is literally that easy. Please.

OMEGA WHAT THE kitten, take a handkerchief pls, omega what the kitten post

 

 

[Josiah.2967]

When our patch needs more bandaids then the next 3 patches will provide. You should just revert.

[Mike.7983]

2 minutes ago, Josiah.2967 said:

When our patch needs more bandaids then the next 3 patches will provide. You should just revert.

Even Blizzard with Warcraft had to re-roll back after a botched patch in the past, mistakes happen human error.  Def agree with the above few posts no band-aid will fix the damage that is done, we are in full bleed out at this point and only a roll back on class changes will stop the fatal bleed out.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

3 hours ago, Autumnborne.5708 said:

Scourge: Please, would you make it so that Scourge's shade effects apply to the Scourge themself again, instead of being forced to stand in your own shades and playing in melee range with a mechanic clearly meant to be ranged. The effects don't need to spread to allies around the Scourge, that can happen only around the shade if it must be, but the Scourge should still get the effects regardless of where the shade is cast.

This has been the case for years, bud.  Scourge F2-5 all pulse from the Scourge as well as shades.

[XenesisII.1540]

Grabs 🍿 to enjoy another year of watching everyone fighting over quickness/alacrity changes. 🤭

[AJVO Havoc.8534]

Improving Deadeye and Specter by nerfing right?? Classic Anet

That's why you should have already introduced a permanent beta server to test your mess before releasing to save ppl from all complaints lol

DE meant to be a glass cannon, either if playing sup quickness, should always be able to keep high damage cause it's role as single target lol Like have you ever played Deadeye??? I've done PVE, PVP,WvW, Strike, fractals, raids and so far doesn't compare with the classic Reaper chilling, dancing around and doing max dps even at single bosses then bitching about rest team's damage. Sure Deadeye is a very basic spec yet it's not as easy to keep up closer to top dps while playing game content unlike other specs, single mistake and everyone goes above you on dps unlike other specs who can easily chill around, have their drink while simply spamming abilities lol So tell me why do i bother on playing quickness if not gonna offer much to the group anyways?? rotation is meh plus big DPS loss with a DE as quickness instead of full dps and that's why, that's exactly the reason QB,HB is and will always be on the top on that matter and same goes to specter as meant to be the different type of supports, but sadly different in a way that i'do rather find a QB,HB, HAM.

BTW When is next nerf to stealth coming? lfmao

[Cicero.2584]

Hello,

Thanks for the effort, but I'm not happy with the changes to the Herald. Not because the class is so much worse than before, but rather because it's much less fun to play than before. It wasn't perfect before either, I have to admit, relying too much on Glint.

Personally, I always had a little extra boon duration so I could reactively use Facet of Darkness's stunbreak and Facet of Light's heal without compromising quickness's uptime. After the changes, I just feel like you're "sitting" on facets instead of using them because you have to constantly drain up your energy.

I think the class suffers enough from not having Draconic Echo giving you and your subgroup unlimited access to the other boons, but I still think the trait change as such is very good because without it you no longer benefit from just wasting all the skills off cooldown and still have the benefit of 100% boon uptime from "lesser" boons.

 

Heres my idea:

Personally, I would find it best to give the facet of nature the quickness of the trait, but you still need ~50% or more boon duration to get 100% uptime. (and/or some other drawback if that sounds too powerful) This way the quickness would be available for every legend and you wouldn't be forced to switch legends as fast as possible, since you wouldn't lose energy all the time and at the same time you could use your utility skills reactively.

Best regards!

Edited June 30, 2023 by Cicero.2584

[Hauwlyn.8051]

3 issues there:

19 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Ray of Judgment: Reduced aftercast

1)You do know how to do that, which means you could have just done that to Arc Divider instead of ruining the skill

 

2)Here, we have a complaint from a druid player:

18 hours ago, Incurve Giidis.7829 said:

druid needs more might without weird trait interactions

Note that for druids to do 25 might they need to put a little extra work on top of doing the rest of their job.
Heal Mechas still have it easy.
I've tested the new Heal scourge, and while it has flaws, might is not one of them, it's pretty easy to cap it alone, not sure why you're specifically buffing that.
And yet, here goes firebrand, having to do a LOT more extra work and use a LOT more resources to do 25 might. Now i've already shown plenty of times that might being free is a result of very few specific classes being popular, and that's part of the reason for those classes success. And when those classes are notably absent, suddenly Firebrand is an absolute pain to play, despite the stated goal being to improve "moment to moment gameplay for support classes"

Now, some argue that alac dps by default provide a good baseline of might, and that therefore heal quicks don't, but there's 2 points in this very preview that prove this point is flawed:
-You're pushing Heal herald viability and buffing its might even though it's much less of a hassle to do 25 might currently on herald than it is on firebrand. (Hint: all it needs to be great is a single group aegis. Consider putting it on shield? Will help Heal Ren once expac hits as well.)
-You're buffing Alacbender boons to include Vigor on top of Alac and the mostly-overwritten-by-your-healer's Regen, yet you do nothing about its meager might that doesn't even loop, therefore you're fine with alac dps not providing might. You're also doing nothing about PalacRen's might, and it's not like you're giving self might to everyone.

Plenty of HFB still play it because they invested all that time into this class, they're used to it and because there's no other meta heal quick, not because it's supposedly still too good. Many of the claims about Firebrand's supposed continued dominance are easily proven false. Will you eventually nerf it until it's near unplayable to get its popularity down? That's the only way. If popularity was a factor anyway, you'd have nerfed mecha a lot more in all this time.

Choose your actual direction for group might generation, make it consistent and stick to it. It'd be fine if all healers could do 15 baseline but more with notable effort/resource/sacrifice and if all alac/quick dps did 10 baseline but more with notable effort/resource/sacrifice. It would still work out for solo heal comps this way without having to match very specific specs. You'd have your ideal comp around how they can deal with the problems the fight poses, not the baseline job that is "the most important boons"

3)

19 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

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.

You just implemented Berserker quick that relies SOLELY on bursts, implying adrenaline generation, which means it also needs things to hit. Sure, there's a few utilities that can generate some adrenaline without a target, but considering the whole "extend your berzerk as much as possible" gimmick requiring those slots, you're not gonna be able to make the spec feel good and balance it around both the cases where it can hit endlessly and the ones where it can't and therefore would have to change utilities(or gear). Basically you're turning the existing quirk of all Berserkers into an even bigger deal, to the extent where it just becomes painful.

[Argonil.6970]

Not bad changes, but you're just doing too little across the board. It is not enough.

[DNSshadow.4167]

Scourge cant do 100% Alac with 1,5 seconds Basicduration when Sandshroud dont pulse Barrier anymore
Pls test something before patch it in 

[TheBouge.7406]

Thanks for the update @Cal Cohen.2358!  While I think we are definitely too far along to consider just removing specific boons to alleviate some balance issues I'd still throw it out there.  I like the concept of them being nice to have's and fun perks but they have just become the hyperfixation of the community and any balance update (and rightfully so because they completely change the game).  

My other feedback on this update is specific to Mirage.  It's still odd that all classes are being designed to be trait oriented when it comes to boon application, specifically Alacrity, and yet Mirage is pigeonholed into only using staff.  My recommendation is to remove alacrity to a designated trait (maybe it's Mirage Mantle) and all Mirage players can now choose that trait and give base alacrity when gaining Mirage Cloak.  This is MOST similar to how say Harbinger will select to give quickness while in shroud or mech can give alacrity with barrier.  Then you can just buff or change the weapons individually as you see fit rather than one trait that does 12 things. 

Thanks appreciate your work on this and look forward to seeing what you all do next!

[AlPower.2476]

Still missing  reverting those toolkit unnecesary nerfs.

[Sugar Min.5834]

Every year they are doing this, a massive professions killing nerf patch ON TOP of the many high handed nerfs camouflaged in what they called balance patches. I am clinging to my faith that the Team will learn from past mistakes but apparently they are not mistakes. This is intended all along.

Let me repeat. You Cannot Have Fun In GW2. Period.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Min Min.9368

[Dorsai.1458]

Rework your stupid boon system.  Drop quickness and alac being sharable boons.  Make it hard to stack 25 of any single boon.

Maybe people will venture more into fracts, raids, etc. if you actually make it more fun and reactive to people that don't wanna play via spreadsheet.

And since we're throwing suggestions against the wall ....do something about having to all stand in a ball in every game mode.  What is the point of range?  To stand on the edges of these balls?

[GutsHero.2049]

Pretty disappointed with the warrior changes overall. 

Making sword F1 nonrooted is the only good change but the nerfs to things like arc divider, for zerk and spellbreakers reduction in overall boonstrip feel really bad. There's still a lot of traits that need to be looked at and weapon skills that need to be updated badly; greatsword in particular with abilities like 100blades and rush being severely underwhelming compared to a lot of other classes toolkits. 

Kind of feels like the life got sucked out of the class for me.  

[Vinny.7260]

20 hours ago, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Alacrity Mirage 

 

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

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

Imaginary Axes inflicting cripple is okay, but I'd advocate for bleeding instead since it's competing with 'Mirror Axes'.

Mirage Thrust getting boon rip without Vicious Expression is good.

Ether Barrage getting self-quickness is eh. Especially since it doesn't affect the clones, presumably. There's also the fact Malicious Scepter exists and can make it so Quickness only gets a 30% value. (Due to not stacking).

Split Surge is good, solid, yep.

Chaos Vortex, the main reason this trait got changed, is definitely getting a deal although it kinda sucks overall. I'd recommend making it function like Flow of Time where the base duration increased and counts as a single stack.

Ambush Assault, cool.

Wave of Panic, more condition damage, neat.

I'm not gonna mention the Scourge changes, people have mentioned it enough.

[Mike.7983]

  This sums it up so far so well, should hire this guy for class balance.

[Hauwlyn.8051]

Let's look at the scourge shade problem.

Now, the problem isn't for condi scourge. Before the latest patch, condi scourge upkept all 3 shades to get all 3 stacks of Sand Sage. Since they lasted 20s, you had to cast the skill every 6.67s to maximize your dps. Everyone who wasn't doing that then was actually underperforming, condi scourge was extremely spammy on Shade already, and as part of a rotation, I'd argue this is fine. Right now, to maximize Sand Sage, you never want all 3 charges ready to cast since that wastes its regen, and I suppose you want 3 shades out just before your hardest hitting skills come off cooldown. Since you get 1 charge every 6.4s with perfect alac, it's only a tiny bit spammier than it used to be, technically. After the patch, we'll only need 1 shade out to maximize sand sage, so we'll be able to use the extra ones whenever the boss moves and we're distant, or to cleave. We'll cast them every 8s on average to upkeep sand sage, so less spammy was before. What condi scourge lost mechanically in the latest patch is the ability to CONSTANTLY cleave up to 3 distant points at a minor loss of dps. Now you'll have to either only cleave 1 point or time your reserve shades for when you really need to cleave all those points. That's fine in my book.

The real problem comes however for Heal scourge, even though you're trying to push its viability as a now "legitimate" healer and not a problematic build, you're completely ruining the "moment to moment gameplay" you were supposed to improve for support specs.The solution to alleviate that is pretty simple:
First off, give back Sand Savant to Heal scourge, by either putting alac on it or putting either alac or Sand Savant itself on another column entirely. Being able to apply some of your helpful stuff in that large static area is not overpowered. It's still smaller than a lot of other boon applications from other support builds, it compensates with your ability to aim it at range and the fact your shade skills also happen around you.
Second, Make it so Sand Savant puts Shade duration back at 20s so you'd only use it more often if the group moves. There goes your improvement in "moment to moment gameplay".

[zealex.9410]

13 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

It used to, for about two and a half years with EM:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elusive_Mind/history

Dodge during stun also kind of defeats the purpose of stunning someone to deal a follow-up attack when the person can just ignore the being stunned part and evade the follow-up attack and then let the stun time out.

I can't for the life of me understand why people think this isn't overpowered.

Mesmer needs some love but this is not how to do it.  This is like the people who doubled-down on thief needing more stealth camping on Deadeye when it needed the opposite and with some small tweaks for non-stealth builds, and ended up fantastic.

Fix what's broken instead of covering up symptoms.

Ppl just dont care if their main is unhealthy for the game, be it stunbreak or dodge while cc'd it breaks a fundamental rule of the game and its not good for the game

[Brujeria.7536]

Could you guys please  have a closer look at the traits for necromancer? There are quite a lot that are very outdated or underwhelmingly weak.

Spite:

Spiteful Talisman: Still a weapon CD trait, the secondary effect (10% dmg increase if the goe has no boons) is basicly non existent in PvP and WvW because of ht eboonspam.

Signets of Suffering: Its also weak as no build will run more then one signet at a time if at all and one condi removed every 24 seconds is weak for a master trait in WvW / PvP. Also is in a strange spot between a trate that goes against condi builds and gimicky trait

Dread: The trait iself is fine but in the state of the game with the abundance of stability and resistance as well as the very limited ways a necromancer could cause fear (especially with fewer corrupts to randomly corrupt stab into fear) is too unreliable to be worthy of a GM slot.

 

Curses:

Insidious Disruption: I think it speaks for itself

Chilling Darkness: Again the trait is fine but necromancer has not many skills that apply blind at all

Terror: Same as with Dread, the trait would be fine but with the limited ways of inflicting fear it feels bad. On top fear can also be countered by condi cleanses, adding another layer of randomness.

Master of Corruption: Cooldown trait

Death Magic:

Flesh of the Master + Necromantic Corruption + Poison Nova : Its great that you remove Cooldown traits for skills, but why do minions still have 3 traits blocked while being the most useless trait family in WvW and PvP?  It basicly blocks out 1/3 of all options in this traitline for 98% of all builds

 

Blood Magic:

Banshees Wail: is in a weird spot as its the only "selfish" trait in that tier of traits, yet limits it to one offhand weapon which also isnt strong to begin with

Blood Bank: I dont understand why this trait exists and why i ever should pick this. Maybe add a more thematic selfish trait that gives life / siphons life when removing a boon / spending lifeforce / generating lifeforce?

Soul Reaping:

Vital Persistance: not very strong nor thematic. Maybe change this trait so that you can also be healed when shroud replaces life but at a reduced rate?

Fear of Death: also a fear related trait that suffers from the same problems as the other two, its also strange that there are 3 fear related traits and so little and reliable ways to cause fear.

 

Overall i think the necromancers build variety benefits GREATLY from having access to the elite spec weapons. The base weapon choices for necromancer are in a strange state as they for the most part lack a purpose and are all around. Warhorn has a CC / mobility/healing/damage hybrid skill that just feels wonky. Focus is on paper a very good and thematic power weapon but is only viable when you can remove boons and Skill 4 does not scale at all nor can it crit (which is strange for a power weapon). Staff is really all around,. Dagger Mainhand is getting towars a tanky meele dps weapon. With the elite spec weapons available all necromancer would need is a viable ranged dps option and some kind of real support weapon to go along with scourge

On the theme of scourge: The class has some of the most thematic and cool traits but due to its split nature is in a very weird state. Maybe it would be an idea to change the GM traits to be build defining cornerstone for the class features just like daredevil GMs replacing dodge or Vindicators GMS do? The GM traits could greatly alter the way shade skills would behave, changing them to offensive skills with the DPS GM, Healing / barrier skills with the Healing GM, Boons with the Alac GM. You could even work with flat % reductions like the DPS GM reduces the healing done to others by 75%, while greatly boosting the condi application of shade skills or the Alac GM reducing healing done to others by 33% to not overtune it. 

[ImProVision.5806]

Revenant Skill:

Forced Engagement needs a buff it has only 1 number of target.

Let this skill have 2 activations: 1 the current one + a second acivation which allows to pull the oppenent very close 😉

 

Herald and Renegade have way better sustain than Vindicator.

Vindicator influenced builds need to be improved.

Empire Divided:

- Increase the power and healing power in general (without 50% threshold)

Balance in Discord:

- increase healing to 2472

- delete regen

Redemptor's Sermon

- all conditions removed

- increase healing 2811

- add barrier 838

Angsiyan's trust

- add, gain fury 3 seconds 

- number of targets reduced to 3

 

Vindicator Skills:

- all blue alliance healing skills incrase by 215 Hp

- Reaver's Rage: energy use reduced to 5 no more (15), close enemys in radius 360 drop ground, also burning 3sec 723

- Spear of Archermorus: faster cast,  burning 8sec 2500 dmg (causes no more tornment pain )

- Scavenger burst increase burns to 7sec dmg 1784

 

Thanks for making fair balances anyways @Cal Cohen.2358 😄

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by ImProVision.5806

[violetarc.8315]

No news on Quick Scrapper? Druid and quick scrapper used to be a fun combo in our raid groups. Now we're scrambling. 

Scrapper gyros were a fun and interesting part of my rotation - they were not "spam off cooldown" for me... but now my fields and finishers ARE spam off cooldown. This is not an improvement. Either increase the quickness duration or put scrapper back to pre-patch. 😞

[excelsior.2168]

I want to say I understand the monumental amount of work that @Cal Cohen.2358 and their team are up against with updating this game. There's a lot of backlog and weird to not at all good scaffolding to even work from. In addition to say creating the "holy trinity" of players from a game that said it wanted to move away from that. So, again, I get the work ahead and I know y'all are working on it and it will take time and I'm appreciative of you taking on balancing this game. ❤️ 

But I do want to point out that with all this focus on Quickness and Alacrity, ANet has forgotten that healers also need access to give group Protection and Regeneration. I'm just gonna talk about the classes I play and I know there are more. Druid used to be able to give protection through Stone Spirit and now can't reliably give it. Mesmer still has no reliable healer build. Chronomancer is the closest but has no group Protection or Regeneration uptime. Maybe with Chaos Storm but it's random. I think Elementalist and Guardian are still good after the patch with Protection and Regeneration uptime. 

Overall, what I'm saying is, stop looking at the two trees (Quickness and Alacrity) and look at the whole forest. Y'all seem too narrowed in on getting those boons to specs you're not thinking about the whole picture. Step back and look and more importantly, listen to the players.

P.S. And figure out Alacrity Mirage...goodness. I echo the sentiment that it's the only boon spec that locks you into a weapon type for both your weapon sets. Mesmer main rant done haha.

Edited June 30, 2023 by excelsior.2168
Grammar

[Furball.1236]

I'm surprised to see some people want to benefit from the shade trait while they don't even want to press F1 even every 8 seconds (8 sec is not short at all). Before the change, scourge needed to place the shades every 8 sec to maintain 3 shades. We don't need more shade duration to be lazier unless there's remaining problem with alac application to the sub. Please do not make scourge playable without paying attention to class mechanics by increasing the shade duration. It will actually deserve the title "face roll" DPS as they were called before if this happenes. Generally speaking, I believe simplifying the play style by taking away active interaction with the game will lower the skill floor and might give some people satisfaction of DPS increase in short term, but it will spoil the fun of the game play in a long term and take away the room to feel improvement.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Furball.1236

[Bealis.6023]

Some of these are probably ok, but this new philosophy of "you need to be more active if you want to have a good boon uptime" seems to be handled in a cumbersome way. Now will need to spam/rotate skills quickly to keep getting alacrity and other boons on the detriment of the skills intended utility (they might be on cooldown when we really need them or sacrifice the boons)  I know this is satirical but why we just dont have skills named Alac or Quickness to click on right away then 😅