June 27 Balance Follow-Ups

[teeth.3501]

Also standing up for our warrior brothers and sisters - Arc Divider being a third of what it was makes Warrior play just axe/axe again. It's pretty boring. I doubt you want to make your classes/builds, like, boring, so y'know. 

[Dahkeus.8243]

I still don't believe CMC has really heard feedback.  You're giving druid a minor increase to alac duration, but it's still going to require druids to constantly go into CA and spam heal skills, **even if no healing is needed** just to keep up alacrity.

 

Meanwhile, a Bladesworn just keeps up alacrity by doing exactly what it did before: focus on its DPS rotation.

 

Devs:  If you take away nothing else from our feedback, please hear this: Keeping up alacrity/quickness should not prevent you from performing your main role of DPS/Healing.  It should be something that comes easily by a single trait swap with a minimal tax on output.

And if you can't balance it right, just get rid of it or make it overly abundant so that we don't need to nit pick at group comp just to be able to kill some kitten.

[SoftPup.3048]

Current alac specter is absolutely busted, but I hope alac specter damage isn't nerfed into oblivion with these changes. It's already losing damage from needing concentration.

[brakheart.1407]

1 hour ago, Dodo.3870 said:

I dont think any of these changes for scourge even begin to undo the mess that has been made of it in wvw by the balance update. 

You're assuming they actually care about WvW meta/state. Their primary focus has been, is and always will be PvE, since that's where the majority of the playerbase is located and  spend  most money on.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

The Herald changes that you're proposing here were the only changes needed for the spec before the rework this week. The complaints were that the spec was spammy with its utilities. This was easily solved with more concentration access, not tying quickness generation to Elevated Compassion and -6  Upkeep.

Please revert the quickness generation changes for Herald. There was no need to change it at all in the first place.

[WindsOfRebellion.3457]

Please PLEASE up the shade duration. The only time I can have 3 shades up is at the beginning of the fight. After that, I struggle to maintain even 2 shades. This spec has gotten SO spammy with F1, I thought the goal of the changes were to make classes have less skill spam. Please reconsider more of the changes you have made to Scourge.

[Sascha.1890]

My Input as a long time Ranger Main:
Druid: increase in alac is already pretty nice. However i feel like Spirits should have a Cooldown of 25 seconds, as of now even with 100% Boonduration the Might of Sun Spirit drops down to 4 if used on cooldown before it goes back up to 8. The Nature's Vengance Trait seems really bad in PvE, there is next to no reason to ever chose it, so my Proposal would be to reduce the On Cast Boons like Aegis on Stone spirit by like 25%-40% but make it be applied on slam, so the double slam would apply the Boon twice (give Storm and Sun also a Boon on Slam, also Nature spirit cooldown is really high, little reason to ever pick it over Glyph, which also provides stability during potential ressurection, can heal and condi cleanse too. At this point turn the spirit into on demand ressurection and the Glyph into more support with the condi cleanse, stability and give it slower ressurection if used in CA.)

Regarding the Might duration increase on Spirital Arrival. Its nice that its now sustained might, however having to rely on petswap for certain stuff is not the best in my opinion i would much rather additionally have 1 Might stack on CA2, as you can no longer use it as frequently as before its just a tiny bit of help that Druid would need to have sustained 25 might on a full support build (given Sun spirit cooldown gets reduced to 25)

Soulbeast: Its bad, i mean sword dmg is great, but its too much and it makes it too simple. But this has been going on for so long by now, the powercreep is getting out of hand and trivializing content. Its almost Best in Slot to simply stay on just Sword+Axe and use skills pretty much off cooldown, You pretty much turned the skill floor into the ceiling. I dont mind raising the skill floor, as not everyone has the time/motivation to dedicate as much time as me for example into learning and optimising a rotation, however this is just Bad design. Additionally you reduced the dmg mod from exposed to turn down Burst in fractals but then kept on increasing the dmg all over the board and we are pretty much back at 0. Not to mention that there was already a great balance between Ranger mainhand weapons (Power used Axe/Sword/dagger for different occasions and condi used both Dagger and Axe with Shortbow not being a bad choice). Then you decided to nuke that Balance with the Axe buff, now Buffing sword so ridiculous that there is even less viable variations (axe Mainhand at least had 3 different variations all very close). Not to mention how you turned OWP in a braindead skills by now where the only downside of stanceshare are bladesworn (dont get me wrong the old OWP was by far the single most busted skill in the game in terms of dmg, the cooldown increase was a poor choice that got reverted, however the current version with 1 second intervals is just bad, it was nice that it synergised well with some classes and not so well with others, making you think twice if you wanna take it in a subgroup with chronos / Berserker). From my perspective you are taking the skill out of the classes for the sake of accessebility for people who dont even understand why half the rotation is how it is. My wish for DPS Soulbeast (and all dps) is to decrease the general DPS by at least 5k and Soulbeast specifically to Revert back to before the First OWP change with the increased cooldown in 2021 however to decrease the Duration as well as Damage (as that version was clearly far too strong but design wise way more appealing), Reason being as Soulbeast at that time was already in a really good state with lots of different options for weapons.

[Psoewish.9172]

I'm really glad we finally have some communication, the silence was deafening, and honestly we should have gotten something before the patch even hit in the first place.

The bigger issue here though is that it feels like you didn't actually really listen to the feedback? If the issue was numbers nobody would have been quite as vocal as they have been, numbers can be tweaked very easily and that's fine. The core issue is that you've messed up the core flow of several specs, and even the identity of some of them (looking at scourge). I know you're not going to just revert the changes even though that's what a lot of people want, but something's gotta change because this ain't it.

Please just get rid of quickness and alacrity already and save everyone (including the balance team!) a massive headache, and just make the game more fun.

Looking forward to our feedback getting ignored again ❤️

[Mike.7983]

Cal you just don't get it, you killed staff mirage off, does zero dps now and the alac uptime is garbage. That confusion nerf and clones having 1/2 condi duration was the final nail in the coffin.  Please read the mesmer feedback before you chase us away forever. Please revert confusion back to pre patch and the alac back to the time before the 0.5 clone change then most alac mesmers will be happy.  As of right now your on complete ignore level with mesmers for communication and its sad to be getting chopped every update slowly.  My main is now 100% retired after 10 years due to this.  If you have any respect for us customers please fix this.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Mike.7983

[Astralporing.1957]

@Cal Cohen.2358I am sorry, but your response shows that you either haven't read the feedback or didn't understand it.

The issues with Druid are not number based, but gameplay based. If alac remains tied to CA, it will need to overcap by really massive amount so CA can be used for its real purpose - healing - instead of having to sacrifice its primary fuinction for upkeeping boons.

Scourge adjustments are also just a band-aid that leaves the main problem unaddressed until you fix shade duration. If you have issues with number of shades, just roll big shade into default and ignore multiple shades possibility, because in reality it doesn't exist anymore - but the duration needs to be fixed anyway. Spamming shades every 8 seconds makes for really inane gameplay and without it scourge may be overcapping massively on alac while doing 50k dps and giving out massive barriers, but it will still be extremely unfun to play.

Mirage changes you made also seem to point to the very glaring issue with this patch - you seem to think only about alac upkeep, while ignoring absolutely everything else.

Also, what about Mechanical Genius and Arc Divider?

Please, go back and read all the feedback (from both preview and actual patch) again, and then come back with something better. Because this isn't it.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[FunKCX.4197]

As much as I appreciate the swift changes you and your team are currently making, I can't help but notice a pattern here.

Why do balance teams keep fixing things that aren't broken only to fix these things gradually over many months? The balance team has kept making massive steps backwards, only to move forward at an incredibly slow pace.

It only creates a feeling where all of you are simply drained from your passion and are living from paycheck to paycheck.

I agree with the criticisms being thrown here, but let me add to something that people weren't mentioning allot about; the thief specialisation changes.

Gonna start out with the great elements. Quickness deadeye is quite fun to play, but it's definitely hitting too hard, so the nerf is quite needed. Just don't overdo it.

That very same can be said for specters. However, the fact that you relocated the specter wells into its shroud made the wells practically useless in pve, which is a shame. You also took my personal favorite trait away, which was Shadestep before the rework. Why not apply that very same effect to a different trait that's barely used? Like Amplified Siphoning?

If all of you are willing to make drastic changes, why not kick it up a notch? Remove quickness and alacrity. 

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by FunKCX.4197

[alucard.4268]

Remove the Mechanical Genius leash mechanic. Mechanist has already been nerfed enough, there is no upside anymore to babysitting bad A.I.

[FreshF.5793]

1 hour ago, Thomas.4208 said:

I dont understand what is your philosophy in regards to dps support classes. You will nerf Deadeye and Spectre in order to require boon duration gear, but you give herald a no such treatment, same goes for Firebrand and scrapper and Harbinger. In the end what is the goal for this role?????? It feels like you dont even play this game sometimes. Thief is single target period (this is a huge drawback for certain fights), nerfing too much will lead people to once again not even try to play thieves in PVE.

Totally agreed.

[shib.1369]

Alacrity and quickness the main culprits as usual. 

These boons parasitize almost every design decision.

[Nicksizzle.5679]

Ok, I wasn't crazy.  You definitely had some (possibly all) of these changes prepared in advance before the 27th patch even dropped.  I noticed Elevated Compassion already had the "13% of power converted to concentration" stated on the tooltip when the patch dropped and thought "wow, what a surprising undocumented buff".  Came back from work soon after to find that line of text gone.  I thought I was going crazy and imagined it.

Don't want to accuse anyone of anything.  I'm fine with it but just be careful with this strategy going forward (if it really is what you're doing).  Meaning, be careful with purposefully over-nerfing a class (like scourge for example) and then try to pretend like you're "listening to our feedback" by announcing buffs post-patch when you already had the buffs in mind beforehand.  It's good to be prepared and I personally don't mind it.  But pissing off your player-base and then backtracking is a double-edged PR move.  Especially if done repetitively.  It might make you seem incompetent at balance.  Landing the sweet spot numbers-wise on the first take is far more impressive imo.  Just don't overdo it is all I'm asking.  Keep up the great work.  Loving some of the changes so far.

Also, no mention of alac bladesworn at all huh?  lol

[FreshF.5793]

4 minutes ago, FunKCX.4197 said:

As much as I appreciate the swift changes you and your team are currently making, I can't help but notice a pattern here.

Why do balance teams keep fixing things that aren't broken only to fix these things gradually over many months? The balance team has kept making massive steps backwards, only to move forward at an incredibly slow pace.

It only creates a feeling where all of you are simply drained from your passion and are living from paycheck to paycheck.

I agree with the criticisms being thrown here, but let me add to something that people weren't mentioning allot about; the thief specialisation changes.

Gonna start out with the great elements. Quickness deadeye is quite fun to play, but it's definitely hitting too hard, so the nerf is quite needed. Just don't overdo it.

That very same can be said for specters. However, the fact that you relocated the specter wells into its shroud made the wells practically useless in pve, which is a shame. You also took my personal favorite trait away, which was Shadestep before the rework. Why not apply that very same effect to a different trait that's barely used? Like Amplified Siphoning?

If all of you are willing to make drastic changes, why not kick it up a notch? Remove quickness and alacrity. 

 

Shadestep to revive allies was the coolest thing on specter besides granting barrier to single Targets.

[Xainou.1502]

Why do I have to wait 3 weeks until you even start pulling my mains back out of the dumpster?

You can fix broken OP skills in an emergency patch, this also is gamebreaking for many of us.

[Septimus Prime.6743]

SIGNETS OF SUFFERING reverted/rerolled back to its original when?

The new Signets of Suffering simply won't work for signets Reaper build in PVE!

https://imgur.com/a/uJA5rsp

(Cannot say "thank you" to balasing team, sine you guys totally killed my main necro reaper build i was enjoying very much! If signets functionality gets restored I will forgive you, but i will never forget this destructive act to many calsses and builds!)

Edited June 29, 2023 by Septimus Prime.6743

[kidbuu.4071]

Liking the thief adjustments. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with dead eye quickness.  Most importantly, heal Specter will still be alive!

[WipZedKay.5316]

Nothing about how mechanical genius makes playing mech unbearable right now? Or how the change from providing barrier on mace AA to mace 2 forces you to use F2 or barrier signet to provide alacrity on heal? You know, the reactive skills?

[emtea.6931]

You mentioned that alacrity Willbender is problematic because it can't provide alacrity in transition phases, but the changes you've made to Specter put it in the same category - in transition phases you can't generate shadow shroud force so the ability to provide alacrity there is gone. 

Also, wells are basically useless now - they don't provide enough anything to take them over venoms or other utilities. (please don't read this as "venoms need nerfing"!). You could leave alacrity on wells in addition to alacrity in shroud and you solve both problems. Wells are currently a dps loss, but if they still gave alacrity there would be a trade off. 

I think specter should be balanced around this point - you can take more sources of alacrity through utilities, which then requires less boon duration but you have less damage from utilities OR, you can take the damaging utilities and need more boon duration. This to me is the type of trade off you want to aim for - either way the role of the build will work, but gives players options to how they want to play for a particular encounter. This type of trade off encourages diversity in a build and gives people options.

The same methodology could be applied to other classes/specs I think.... 

[TexZero.7910]

Heat of the Soul also needs a change.
ICD is far too long and the Base Quickness is too short for burst skills to reliably maintain quickness.

[Freedoms.2635]

okay, beta event: why in the Mooseman bull butt are we giving rifle to daredevil? in WvW its literally impossible to get them. ill admit im not the best player to face a daredevil at the best of times now its like fighting something with extreme mobility and infinite stealth. this is toxic in my opinion

[Enawdor.8531]

The changes made to Scrapper put the class in a very unfun place, please revert when superspeed was tied to quickness, it was a unique mechanic and what made the spec a really fun one...

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

These changes look good, but still not sufficient.  Alacrity Scourge will be useless in group content without more area coverage, which will require either more shades being maintained at once (longer duration) or larger radius on the shade skills. (ideally both, because my gods does current Scourge feel very spammy on shade placement).

Please consider moving alacrity to Sand Savant and importing its WvW target cap to PvE and PvP (with modification for 1 more total target).  This ensures that a Scourge cannot provide alacrity to more than 5 people (including themselves), but gives them a large enough radius where it's actually feasible to do so.  Other support builds could drop alacrity and possibly spread the barriers and remaining boons to an entire raid squad, leading to niches for both styles of play.  Perhaps add a different beneficial effect on Desert Empowerment to create two competing support styles, such as resistance on Sand Cascade instead of alacrity on barrier?

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180