June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[Batalix.2873]

16 minutes ago, SaffronCity.3402 said:

Kind of a negative thought, but does anyone else think the info for the expansion was released the same day as the dreaded balance patch (that neglected weeks of constructive feedback) in effort to cushion the blow so to speak? I'm trying to understand the logic that was used to decide to go on ahead with this dumpster fire of a patch that they honestly must have known for weeks was going to be catastrophic. It just seems like they gave us bad news for the present and tried to quell the negative attention to it (which if so, that failed miserably) by attempting to hype players for the future via expansion info. 

Oh absolutely it was intentional. Consumption culture as a whole tends to dissociate from the reality of the bad and latch onto hope for the better, and a lot of companies take advantage of that. We're deleting your class system, but here's...a pistol. Yeah....a pistol.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Zephire.8049]

17 minutes ago, SaffronCity.3402 said:

Kind of a negative thought, but does anyone else think the info for the expansion was released the same day as the dreaded balance patch (that neglected weeks of constructive feedback) in effort to cushion the blow so to speak? I'm trying to understand the logic that was used to decide to go on ahead with this dumpster fire of a patch that they honestly must have known for weeks was going to be catastrophic. It just seems like they gave us bad news for the present and tried to quell the negative attention to it (which if so, that failed miserably) by attempting to hype players for the future via expansion info. 

That was absolutely the case. Distract people with a shiny new thing, get players to tell other players to suck it up because SotO will unbreak their class, get news outlets to report on the expansion rather than a dramatically unpopular patch, and make it so people who search for guild wars 2 in search engines will see SotO stuff rather than patch stuff. It's an infamous tactic more and more companies do to hide blowback or news they want buried.

Patches come out on Tuesday, this has been a case for years and has technical reasons for it (namely giving devs a chance to catch up from the weekend and then having the rest of the week to deal with any issues that pop up) but there's zero need to announce an expansion on a Tuesday, especially at the exact same time as a big balance patch.

[Crowface.3287]

Hello friends, first time poster on these forums. Honestly, never thought I'd post here, I've just been a quiet GW2 enjoyer.

The changes to Alac Heal Druid are pretty heartbreaking.

Then, to see the balance team doubling-down on their new design direction - it gives me great pause.

It makes me think the balance team is out of touch with what the community wants, especially when you see 16+ pages of primarily negative feedback, not to mention YouTube, social media, and players in-game who are deeply disappointed.

It makes me take a serious step back and wonder - what exactly am I doing with my time, here?

At the end of the day, MMOs are supposed to be fun. Can we agree to that? The direction you're taking the Alac Heal Druid spec is not fun. Full stop.

We don't want Alac Heal Druid to be turned into a boon battery with Celestial Avatar, and to cycle through some stale, boring, cookie-cutter rotation. Celestial Avatar used to be unique and special, highly situational - now it's just another bland thing to spam to keep up Alacrity.

Please, listen to community leaders and content creators like Mukluk, who are passionately trying to share feedback with you about a class we know and have grown to love.

Do you seriously think this new direction is going to incentivize more people to play Alac Heal Druid? I don't.

Players will discover it's a chore to keep boons/Alacrity up, and move on to something else (likely HAM, Healbrand) because they're cozier, highly effective, and just less work.

A quick, relevant story:

Today, something odd happened - a PUG strike mission I was in had a heal spec Druid commander,  and people were dog-piling on them for not having great boon/Alac uptime. I had to come to the comm's defense, and explain the class had been drastically changed.

In other words, the focus of the squad wasn't having fun, hanging out, and clearing strike missions, it was players arguing amongst themselves because a once perfectly capable class was transformed into a much less capable class.

Please think on that for a bit.

Currently, there's a major imbalance with how classes provide boons to parties. Some have to jump through hoops for it (Druid), whereas others just press a button. Is this the direction you want?

Please remember we aren't posting this feedback out of hatred or anger. We all love this game, and want GW2 to continue to be successful, and to ultimately thrive.

I didn't expect to push back so hard on a balance patch, but my goodness, it's not too late to revert some changes and show some humility. It's okay to admit you're taking the class in the wrong direction.

You'll be thankful later when you still have people playing your game.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Crowface.3287

[mmww.4570]

please revert the changes to scrapper. i really hate the new way of generating quickness and has totally killed the spec for me

[Chazara.9075]

Honestly I've already griped about the patch, these additional steps are closer in the right direction but two things

1) Its three weeks out making for a lot of unhappy players
2) There is several glaring issues with other classes that just arent addressed here

Also revert Harb blight change, that was way too much

[Flapjackson.1596]

As a support I want to dedicate my focus to more interesting aspects of the gameplay. Using stab and aegis effectively, healing players, CCing enemies. I don’t want to be putting a lot of my attention on using my abilities strictly to maintain boon uptime. Upping the duration will help, but looking at this follow-up only some boons on some builds are being given more of a buffer. There are still things that are going to be a hassle, like managing prot on Druid.

I know some people might think this is good. They like that you have to balance multiple decisions. One of those decisions, Boons, is really dull and an annoyance to juggle with the more exciting things I mentioned. Let’s have healers focus on the fun things. Let’s have dps boons focus on the fun things. Anet pledged to make certain boons like might more of an afterthought, but this just takes the bad system and places it front and center again. 

[kawaiiboy.2685]

Celestial Avatar of druid is dead and useless. How smart are you CMC you decided to switched the spam life from spirits to celestial Avatar worse idea ever bravo keep it up. .75 sec to 1sec of alacrity amazingly bad in PvE only nothing bad will happen if that's 5 seconds or 30 seconds each pulse of alacrity. I don't see any bad about making all boons except stab, Aegis, resistance uptime easy and long duration like 2minutes or more for every class in PvE only. Stop making alac, quick boons complicated it should as easy as applying it like with just 1 skill the boon is given in max duration and there's nothing bad will happen if that's implemented in PvE only. If there is issue with the DPS then tweak the DPS the other ways like reduce skills base dmg.

Plus the radius problem 240 for healspecter but 600 for firebrand and mechanist? Really that's discrimination. You think the players are sardines in a can? Stacking on people are we lego toys? Make all boons and heal skills radius at 1200 or more there are weapons that require to be at long distance from the target you know.

Edited July 1, 2023 by kawaiiboy.2685

[Izaak.3945]

Never, in the 11 years of playing GW2 have I encountered such sloppy and reckless profession changes.

Tweak the numbers as much as you want, just give me my signet of suffering abilities and 20 sec shades back and I'll be content.  But neutering the entire professions and core abilities to be replaced for gimmicky gameplay for a boon that I don't need or want is one of the most insane decisions I'll never understand.  Do the devs not realize this game has been alive for over a decade because it had fun and unique combat?  I'm not interested in constantly hitting a button every xxx second to trigger xxx result.  This game was amazing because typically you use the abilities as they are needed, NOT to needlessly waste abilities just to trigger a boon.  Now I'm fighting more with my characters "rotation" than with the enemy I'm trying to attack.  This didn't go well for WOW and they had to release classic to bring the players back to the fun combat vs the mindless homogenized rotations.

Adding insult to injury is trying to peddle an expansion after this disaster -- good luck with that.  Even worse doing this right before a long holiday break for the US players with the only slight and unknown hope for janky band-aid fixes coming in WEEKS.

[coro.3176]

Another thing for Engineer : Gadgeteer, a grandmaster trait, lost most of its value now that the cooldown reduction is baseline.  With *only* the minor added effects on gadgets, it's 100% not worth a GM trait slot now. Can that get some attention rather than leaving it as a hollowed out shell of a trait?

[Freedoms.2635]

i see nothing said about scrapper for follow up,  quickness is no longer sustainable without alot of gear swapping and its a heck of alot less fun. 

[AlchemistRai.7596]

i've done alot of testing with scourge  and the proposed changes are not enough.

The removal of the grace period on the F4 pull is TRASH it just ends up missing people because there is NO RANGE IDICATOR FOR THE PULL!

the shade duration feels awful and is just spamy garbage, if you're worried about DPS scourge giving alac and having good support JUST PUT ALAC AND BARRIER ON SAND SAVANT! IT"S WHAT WE WANT

Give back the signet trait

and the revives nerfs are slightly too much, Sure they are mostly fine but why does the f4 pull trait work worst on scourge?? Is that a thing other classes deal with? Traits that work worst on the class they would be good on???

un-nerf the f4 pull trait for scourge 

can you just do what people have begged for?? sand savant, signets, and lessen the revive nerfs JUST a bit. Do that and scourge will be working fine and feel good to play again

[Ashen.2907]

To clarify,

So you acknowledge that the feedback provided well in advance of the patch, which you ignored, was correct and now people will have to wait for the possibility that you might fix some of it in a few weeks but in the meantime you are implementing fixes that the same feedback you ignored before tells you will not address the issues...

The definition of insanity again?

[Shiro Wolf.5923]

I have 100% boon duration on heal herald due to harrier's equipment. Giving additional concentration isn't going to fix the issue. The boons are still spotty compared to how it was before since you have to balance energy with boons now to keep quickness up. Your weapon skills also use energy. This means I'm often finding myself swapping legends way too quickly to maintain any form of energy. I can't switch legends when I need extra healing from Ventari anymore because it's always on cooldown due to the changes in keeping quickness up! It isn't fun to balance energy like this. I have even less freedom with utility skills because of these changes and the changes here aren't going to fix that. I'm not saying the old way was perfect for quickness uptime, but it's certainly better than this. This just does the opposite of what you were trying to accomplish. My utility is unavailable 95% of the time now and my main class that I praised and loved for a few years now is now not fun to play. It's nothing more than a broken mess. Nearly every class out-performs it now in everything it tries to do. Maybe this is supposed to fix QuickDPS Herald? It likely doesn't regardless. Please find a better way to fix this issue and fast please. I actually want to enjoy this game again. Thanks.

 

P. S. Some classes get to hit 1 button to upkeep alacrity or quickness. Give us herald mains something like this. This would be far better and actually free up my utilities.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Shiro Wolf.5923

[sweetmesquite.5024]

Please. Please please please. SCOURGE 👏 SHADE 👏 DURATION

 

The current state of scourge gameplay is dire, and the proposed changes are slapping a couple bandaids on a bullet hole.

• Increasing the base alacrity duration is a good choice. 1 second per application was insultingly low and required an enormous gear investment/damage sacrifice, especially considering the base duration that other classes have. (Bladesworn and Spectre require 0 boon duration for full uptime, for example)
• Adjusting Blood as Sand and Sand Sage to apply the bonuses with any shade up is also a step in the right direction, if you intend to keep shade duration in its current infuriating state, which I emphatically do not recommend.
• The Demonic Lore torment damage boost looks great. It’s good to see it back after a few years.
• Reworking Sadistic Searing will make the trait actually usable. I’m excited for this change.
• Reverting the barrier application rate is also a good decision. Barrier is the biggest tool in a healscourge’s kit.
• Protection from Sandstorm Shroud will be quite nice. Good change.
• Boosting life force from Harrowing Wave is another good choice.

I understand that the shade changes were likely a result of not wanting scourge to provide alacrity to a full raid squad. I will echo all the other individuals in this thread and previous balance threads in asking for alacrity to be moved to the Sand Savant trait. Have the alacrity only come from the shade. Cap it at 5 ally targets. Revert the Desert Empowerment/Feed from Corruption swap and just. put. alacrity. on. Sand. Savant.

 

The biggest problem, however, is still the shade duration. 8 seconds is bad. Part of the fun of playing scourge pre-balance patch was maintaining shades: sustaining uptime on all 3 and strategizing placement, and it was generally engaging. Post-patch, it’s bad. Annoyingly bad. Having to choose between slapping down all 3 for a burst and then having nothing for a while, and thus no bonuses, or having a thin spread of 1-2 shades maximum is not good gameplay. Again, 8 seconds is bad. Currently, if you select Sand Savant as the grandmaster, the shade lasts 8 seconds, but the count recharge is every 10 seconds, which can lead to shadelessness in some longer encounters. It does not feel fun; it feels tedious and spammy. Restoring shade duration to 20 seconds and putting alacrity on the Sand Savant trait would completely negate the need to change Blood as Sand and Sand Sage.

 

It’s fine having barrier application also give alacrity. What’s not fine is encouraging skill spamming. One of the goals stated at the top of the balance preview said you wanted players “to have more flexibility in their utility skill choice and not be required to activate a particular utility type on cooldown to provide quickness or alacrity.” Now imagine the playerbase’s confusion when the changes indicated in the same post that alacrity (on scourge and druid) was tied to a specific skill type and encouraged skill mashing off cooldown. No, they’re not utility skills specifically, but requiring a scourge to use all barrier sources to apply a boon instead of waiting to use the skill when a situation requires it is a confusing design choice. (Requiring a druid to dip into a limited-resource class mechanic to give a boon instead of using it for healing is another baffling decision, but I digress). Improving the base alacrity duration is a good decision, but it’s still not a great fix.

 

Another pain point that remains unaddressed is how a scourge heals and how the changes affect that. Healscourge mainly uses damage mitigation through barrier application to soften the impact of the hardest hits and, until the patch, had the strongest pickup ability of any class. Having to spam barrier skills–your main defensive capability– to maintain a boon instead of timing a big application with a hit you know you need to mitigate does not feel fun. Barrier application getting a quantitative boost and the increase in base alacrity duration are some positive steps. Collectively, those will both allow for more flexibility in utility choice, which leads to a much better gameplay experience. However, necromancers still don’t have access to much in the way of sustained healing, which brings me to my next point.

 

Nuking pickup capability (Transfusion/Life from Death/Well of Blood/Ritual of Life) into the ground was not a good decision. Please revert it; the bulk of a scourge’s green number output came from that. Alacrity generation doesn’t offset the loss of pickup capability. Transfusion is also currently broken. It doesn’t work consistently, and often doesn’t work entirely on players outside your subgroup. The previous “grace period” down pull was a great tool in the kit to have–especially for positioning– and now it just feels clunky and awkward to use. 

 

Necromancer only has two weapon skills that can apply healing: regeneration from staff’s Mark of Blood, and a tiny amount of healing from warhorn’s Locust Swarm. The alteration to dagger’s Life Siphon is nice; it would be better from a support standpoint if the pulse heal affected allies as well. Healscourge can now apply decent regeneration, especially with the Serpent Siphon changes. (Excellent changes, by the way.)

 

TL;DR summarizing pain point fixes:

• Revert shade duration to 20 seconds.
• Change the alacrity trait to Sand Savant.
• Restore the revive percentages to Ritual of Life/Well of Blood/Life from Death.
• Fix Transfusion.
• Add an ally heal to Life Siphon.

[Batalix.2873]

16 hours ago, Shiro Wolf.5923 said:

I have 100% boon duration on heal herald due to harrier's equipment. Giving additional concentration isn't going to fix the issue. The boons are still spotty compared to how it was before since you have to balance energy with boons now to keep quickness up. Your weapon skills also use energy. This means I'm often finding myself swapping legends way too quickly to maintain any form of energy. I can't switch legends when I need extra healing from Ventari anymore because it's always on cooldown due to the changes in keeping quickness up! It isn't fun to balance energy like this. I have even less freedom with utility skills because of these changes and the changes here aren't going to fix that. I'm not saying the old way was perfect for quickness uptime, but it's certainly better than this. This just does the opposite of what you were trying to accomplish. My utility is unavailable 95% of the time now and my main class that I praised and loved for a few years now is now not fun to play. It's nothing more than a broken mess. Nearly every class out-performs it now in everything it tries to do. Maybe this is supposed to fix QuickDPS Herald? It likely doesn't regardless. Please find a better way to fix this issue and fast please. I actually want to enjoy this game again. Thanks.

 

P. S. Many classes get to hit 1 button to upkeep alacrity or quickness. Give us herald mains something like this. This would be far better and actually free up my utilities.

And DON'T "fix" this by removing energy costs from weapons.

Because given all of these other changes I know that is first idea you will latch onto.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Scarlet.8964]

I don't know why i'm doing this, anyway you ignore it like previous feedback from balance patch post.

Necromancer
Signets of Suffering - It was a good trait and a lot people using it. But you not only return to original state but make it crappier.
It how it was been in original state:
"Reduces recharge on signets. Signets grant might when cast and convert boons on affected foes to conditions.

• Might (15s): 90 Condition Damage, 90 Power
•  Boons Converted to Conditions: 2
•  Recharge Reduced: 20%"

But now it just remove 2 boons. Please make it how was been before 27 June patch.

Boon corruption - What the point in killing boon corruption? It's not really funny waste 30 min for one fight in WvW. Revert the changes please.

Herald
I've really enjoy playing qdps Herald. Yes it was spammy but not so bad like it was now. In my opinion quickness need move to "Core Value" trait or "True Nature", so when we activate "True Nature" skill we will give quickness. Something like "Orders from Above" of Renegade.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Scarlet.8964

[Katary.7096]

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, 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). 

Seems like you are going to throw bigger numbers at this problem? That might work, at least the damage output of condition Scourge could go up quite a bit. But please don't underestimate how annoying it is to have to resummon a shade once every 8 seconds.

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Druid 

 

Druid is in a similar situation to scourge in that we were overly conservative with its alacrity, so it is also getting an increase to its base duration. We’ve also seen feedback regarding druid’s might generation, and we’re bumping up both the stacks and duration on Spirited Arrival to address this.

• Grace of the Land: Increased alacrity duration from 0.75 seconds to 1 second in PvE only. 
• Spirited Arrival: Increased might stacks from 3 to 6 in PvE only. Increased might duration from 9 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only. 

You are still asking Druids to sacrifice the healing potential of Celestial Avatar in order to provide alacrity. That price is notably higher than what most other alacrity/ quickness builds have to pay. Worse yet, it is also a lot less fun to play. Please consider a different way of making alacrity Druid happen. (Perhaps a combo finisher based solution similar to Scrapper?)

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Untamed 

 

Quickness untamed has a few issues that we’re tackling in the July 18 release. The first being a usability improvement for Let Loose’s ambush-reset component: triggering the ambush reset while in the unleashed state will now immediately grant access to the ambush skill instead of requiring a transition out of and back into the unleashed state. We’re also making a slight increase to the quickness duration to make it easier to maintain.

• Let Loose: Increased quickness duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only. This trait will now immediately grant access to unleashed ambush skills when swapping weapons while in the unleashed state. 

Sounds good.

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Herald 

 

The new implementation for quickness herald is another case that we’re looking to improve. The current timing around its quickness application can be clunky and hard to track due to the 3 second pulse interval. To address this, we’ll be rebalancing the duration around a 1 second pulse interval to make it a bit more responsive. We’ve also seen concerns around the reduction in boon uptimes due to the loss of extra facet pulses from Draconic Echo, and are giving additional sources of concentration to help mitigate this. Our hope is that these changes will improve the overall gameplay feel of quickness herald, but if we’re still seeing issues with the general implementation after the July 18 update, we will evaluate whether a larger rework is needed. 

• Elevated Compassion: Reduced quickness pulse interval from 3 seconds to 1 second. Reduced quickness duration from 3 seconds to 1.25 seconds. This trait now converts 13% of the herald’s power into concentration in addition to its other effects. 
• Reinforced Potency: Increased concentration from 120 to 240 in PvE only. 
• Shared Empowerment: Increased might duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only.

That is a lot of baseline concentration, are you sure that that is okay? Apart from that, the lack of Draconic Echo can not be compensated for with more concentration. I don't know about a larger rework but there is the problem that Elevated Compassion and Draconic Echo are currently sabotaging each other. With Draconic Echo you can make a really good boon support build, which has no access to quickness or alacrity and suffers because of it. Elevated Compassion enables quickness buffing, but now your general boon support is hampered since you are missing Draconic Echo.

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Deadeye 

 

Quickness deadeye is significantly overperforming where it should be damage-wise. This was partially due to a bug that caused Malicious Intent to be active when not equipped, but looking beyond that fix it’s clear that additional reductions will be needed. We’re still discussing exactly what changes will be made, but they will be finalized in time for the July release and will likely include a reduction to One in the Chamber’s damage bonus.

Will you let us know what you are going to change once you have made a decision?

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Specter 

 

Alacrity specter is another build that is overperforming in terms of damage. This is partially due to the base alacrity duration being long enough to require minimal investment into concentration, but also due to the lack of a significant damage tradeoff in the grandmaster trait slot. We’ll be tuning up Strength of Shadows while bringing down some of specter’s other damage sources to bring the alacrity build more in line without negatively affecting the damage builds. 

Lastly, we’re increasing the protection duration of Shadow Sap to ensure that healing-focused specter builds have a reliable source of group protection. 

• Shadestep: Reduced alacrity duration from 2 seconds to 1.25 seconds in PvE only. 
• Strength of Shadows: This trait no longer reduces incoming damage and no longer increases the duration of torment inflicted by Rot Wallow Venom, but instead increases torment damage by 25% in addition to converting vitality to expertise. 
• Larcenous Torment: This trait no longer increases torment damage, and instead steals health from an enemy when you apply torment to them. 
• Shadow Sap: Increased protection duration from 2.5 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only. 

Good. Solely forcing alacrity Specter into Ritualist gear probably wouldn't have a large enough impact on damage, since the loss compared to Viper is manageable. And it is always nice when damage and support builds want to take different traits. That heal on torment application trait might be dangerous though.

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 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 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. 

• Phoenix Protocol: this trait now grants alacrity to the willbender when activating Flowing Resolve (5 seconds in PvE, 3 seconds in PvP/WvW), which can be shared to allies with Battle Presence. Reduced the alacrity duration when resolve triggers from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.  
• Restorative Virtues: This trait now grants vigor instead of alacrity. 
• Symbol of Resolution: This skill can now be interrupted by other skills.  
• Ray of Judgment: Reduced aftercast  
• Binding Blade: This skill will now use a different animation with less aftercast. 

Sounds like a solid improvement for Phoenix Protocol. The updates to animations are greatly appreciated.

On 6/29/2023 at 10:20 PM, 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: 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 

I suppose that could be interesting. But it is also only one changed trait, I don't think this will do much.

 

Bonus-Portion:
The Berserker trait Heat the Soul does not do what the description says it does. According to the tool tip it grants boons to nearby allies when the Berserker uses a burst skill. However, the trait grants boons to nearby allies when the Berserker's burst skills strike a target. That includes the pulsing effects on AoE fields from Combustive Shot and Scorched Earth.

[FShoppe.6572]

If Bladesworn has to have alacrity it belongs on [Lush Forest] or pulsing AoE on [Immortal Dragon] along with pulsing Protection or Regen while charging so Bls can be a true support. Not ruining people's WvW and PvP fun just because the UI design for 5 bullets was already done.

Side note: If you made ID do this ^ & limited it to 6-7 bullets then it would do exactly the DPS it does now, you could put old Daring Dragon back & everyone could have what they want. I understand this change was a easy way to give alacrity to Bls short-term, but please don't let it be long-term. 😄

[spiderman.8723]

On 6/30/2023 at 4:20 AM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

Hi everyone, 

As always, thank you for all the feedback you’ve shared over the past few weeks. We’ve been keeping a close eye on the discussion and it’s clear that some of the changes in Tuesday’s update didn’t land as we’d intended. Today I’ll be sharing our current plan for the next update on July 18, much of which is intended to address the most pressing issues that have been raised. 

Leading up to that release we’ll be watching your feedback to this post, this week’s beta test, and the June 27 update, and may make additional changes as needed. 

 

Thanks, 

Cal “cmc” Cohen 

Skills and Balance Lead 

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). 
   

Druid 

Druid is in a similar situation to scourge in that we were overly conservative with its alacrity, so it is also getting an increase to its base duration. We’ve also seen feedback regarding druid’s might generation, and we’re bumping up both the stacks and duration on Spirited Arrival to address this.

• Grace of the Land: Increased alacrity duration from 0.75 seconds to 1 second in PvE only. 
• Spirited Arrival: Increased might stacks from 3 to 6 in PvE only. Increased might duration from 9 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only. 
   

Untamed 

Quickness untamed has a few issues that we’re tackling in the July 18 release. The first being a usability improvement for Let Loose’s ambush-reset component: triggering the ambush reset while in the unleashed state will now immediately grant access to the ambush skill instead of requiring a transition out of and back into the unleashed state. We’re also making a slight increase to the quickness duration to make it easier to maintain.

• Let Loose: Increased quickness duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only. This trait will now immediately grant access to unleashed ambush skills when swapping weapons while in the unleashed state. 
   

Herald 

The new implementation for quickness herald is another case that we’re looking to improve. The current timing around its quickness application can be clunky and hard to track due to the 3 second pulse interval. To address this, we’ll be rebalancing the duration around a 1 second pulse interval to make it a bit more responsive. We’ve also seen concerns around the reduction in boon uptimes due to the loss of extra facet pulses from Draconic Echo, and are giving additional sources of concentration to help mitigate this. Our hope is that these changes will improve the overall gameplay feel of quickness herald, but if we’re still seeing issues with the general implementation after the July 18 update, we will evaluate whether a larger rework is needed. 

• Elevated Compassion: Reduced quickness pulse interval from 3 seconds to 1 second. Reduced quickness duration from 3 seconds to 1.25 seconds. This trait now converts 13% of the herald’s power into concentration in addition to its other effects. 
• Reinforced Potency: Increased concentration from 120 to 240 in PvE only. 
• Shared Empowerment: Increased might duration from 8 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only.
   

Deadeye 

Quickness deadeye is significantly overperforming where it should be damage-wise. This was partially due to a bug that caused Malicious Intent to be active when not equipped, but looking beyond that fix it’s clear that additional reductions will be needed. We’re still discussing exactly what changes will be made, but they will be finalized in time for the July release and will likely include a reduction to One in the Chamber’s damage bonus. 

 

Specter 

Alacrity specter is another build that is overperforming in terms of damage. This is partially due to the base alacrity duration being long enough to require minimal investment into concentration, but also due to the lack of a significant damage tradeoff in the grandmaster trait slot. We’ll be tuning up Strength of Shadows while bringing down some of specter’s other damage sources to bring the alacrity build more in line without negatively affecting the damage builds. 

Lastly, we’re increasing the protection duration of Shadow Sap to ensure that healing-focused specter builds have a reliable source of group protection. 

• Shadestep: Reduced alacrity duration from 2 seconds to 1.25 seconds in PvE only. 
• Strength of Shadows: This trait no longer reduces incoming damage and no longer increases the duration of torment inflicted by Rot Wallow Venom, but instead increases torment damage by 25% in addition to converting vitality to expertise. 
• Larcenous Torment: This trait no longer increases torment damage, and instead steals health from an enemy when you apply torment to them. 
• Shadow Sap: Increased protection duration from 2.5 seconds to 4 seconds in PvE only. 
   

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. 

• Phoenix Protocol: this trait now grants alacrity to the willbender when activating Flowing Resolve (5 seconds in PvE, 3 seconds in PvP/WvW), which can be shared to allies with Battle Presence. Reduced the alacrity duration when resolve triggers from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.  
• Restorative Virtues: This trait now grants vigor instead of alacrity. 
• Symbol of Resolution: This skill can now be interrupted by other skills.  
• Ray of Judgment: Reduced aftercast  
• Binding Blade: This skill will now use a different animation with less aftercast. 
   

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: 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 

And... what about Mech?  Scrapper?

Number two - the Q in WvW?    Still needs a Fix:  

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0c5SQGuJ9d66Ayivfp5JFx9Aw

Lastly, I do want to say thank for the feedback.

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by spiderman.8723

[Enawdor.8531]

What saddens me is that I would love nothing more than dive into the game to prepare for the next expansion and I can't find the will to with the last changes. Hec, I can't even recommend the game to new people cause this patch proves that you can sacrifice the fun part of some spec for the purpose of "balance". Hence a new player can invest time and time on his first character, hoping he can explore all game mode just to have everything changed with a patch like this.

With the expansion coming I hope it brings new players, but if the changes made in this patch are not REALLY addressed, and ALL feedback taken into consideration (not 0.75s into 1s alac in Celestial Avatar for the Druid for exemple, or Scrapper changes...) I can't promote the game I love in a honest way, without mentioning the possibility that one days the devs could just "hey, you love your character ? Amazing, here are the changes we will do 'cause it doesn't reflect the way WE want you to play it. Yeah it'll be less fun BUT it will be balanced hm?"

We love your game, we make this comments on the forum to guide you into letting us love this game for as long as possible, don't kill your game please...

Edited July 1, 2023 by Enawdor.8531

[Baseraver.7241]

 Okay, with suffish.4150 finding this new rotational sequence which works with the new shortened GS Loop, here we are:

It still feels a bit weird to play with though

Power DPS Berserker Benchmarks June 2023

Axe/Axe + GS

Axe/- + -/Axe

 

[Raven.1793]

On 6/29/2023 at 1:20 PM, Cal Cohen.2358 said:

• Wave of Panic : Also inflicts torment 

Can you change this to also provide AoE alacrity just like Chaos Vortex? This would at least make alac mirage viable underwater.

 

Also, I'd like to see the scrapper quickness changes completely reverted. The old scrapper's Rocket Charge and fields were a fun element of its reactive gameplay and forcing us to burn those skills on boon generation is a terrible waste.

Edited July 1, 2023 by Raven.1793

[Phoenix.7928]

Reverse the Temporal Curtain range change. Don't argue. Just do it.

[prototypedragon.1406]

https://youtu.be/u9Dg-g7t2l4 perhaps one day warriors concerns could finally be addressed instead of having to wait in silence.

[kawaiiboy.2685]

Suggestion for alac, quick

1st option: CMC keeps messing up these 2 boons lol CMC you got no more choice but to make the quickness and alacrity easy to provide with just 1 button lol at max duration ofc in PvE only. Plus extend the max duration of all boons except stab, aegis, resistance.

2nd option: You can always completely remove alacrity and quickness from the game altogether if you can't think of any other way to fix this issue.