Secrets of the Obscure Balance Follow-Ups

[SolarDragon.7063]

2 hours ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

By overperforming builds, do you mean virtually every DPS build or do we have a concept of what an "acceptable" DPS benchmark is? Is Scourge overperforming? Is every DPS build overperforming? Is it overperforming when boon builds pull over 35k? What do you actually want here Anet?

Please, give us some actual idea of what builds *should* be doing.

Personally, I feel like any DPS above 40k and boonDPS above 30k should have some tough explaining to do- maybe they're a class that excels at one specific aspect like confusion used to for Twins, etc.

[Sir Cusfreak.5971]

I just want to see the changes that were made in the 06/27 patch reverted. Or, 90% of them anyway. The 10% that were OK would be fine to delete too, though if that's easier. Point being, this was a better game back in May, as far as builds, skills, and "balance" go, than it is now.  

[Exciton.8942]

52 minutes ago, SolarDragon.7063 said:

Please, give us some actual idea of what builds *should* be doing.

Personally, I feel like any DPS above 40k and boonDPS above 30k should have some tough explaining to do- maybe they're a class that excels at one specific aspect like confusion used to for Twins, etc.

So much this.

Please also have a concrete idea where you want build to be at in all aspects. It needs to be more than just golem benchmark number. e.g. for dps build, please consider things like range, ramp up time, survivability. For support build, please consider boon radius, application frequencies, number of boons(other than quick/alac) applied, other utilities.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Exciton.8942

[Wyvern.8503]

Arc Divider Fix when?

[Vinayak.1375]

Will you remove fractal bugs 🥲

[xellink.7568]

My opinions are
Top of the list
1. Relic of Akeem (Direct Nerf)
2. Superior runes of the Trapper (Direct Nerf)
Resolving 1 and 2 will break many of the overperforming builds including tuning down the condi builds of scourge, spectre, holo, druid and berserker.
3. Superior runes of the Dragonhunter (indirect nerf by making direct power traits less widely available, or just at the threshold of picking other runes, eg. golemancer, ogre, scholars)
This will help new players a lot especially if they take on a budget rune, they difference in power isn't that wide. Also because dragonhunter runes really suck with low might uptime, new players in less coordinated groups or non-optimised set-ups will hence suffer a lot more without understanding why if they copied from SC.
4. Scourge Pistol without over-nerfing Harbinger (indirect nerf by relocating pistol buffs directly onto Harbinger and nerfing Scourge)
This nerf should be minimal if Relic of Akeem and Trapper runes are already nerfed. A period of observation is recommended with frequent follow ups rather than double nerfs.
5. GS Herald, and some GS boon traits need adjustment to enforce the need for BD investment
6. Spectre DPS, with greater emphasis on buffing group Heal/Support.
Spectre is still a very bad healer, making consume shadows pulse over 5 seconds instead of spike heal will help A LOT. However, there is that risk that shroud will play like druid healer CA with that enforced wastage of shadow force.

Other Non-urgent changes
7. Ranger - nerf honed axes.
Power weapon specific traits can scale to +80x2 as a default standard instead of +120x2 (eg. dagger training on thief is already at 80, why should ranger get special treatment).
This will affect both the hybrid and power versions of soulbeast and also power untamed, bringing the DPS closer to condi untamed numbers. 
8. Berserker Heat the soul quickness to 3.5s
To encourage BD investment
9. Relic of the Fractal (Indirect workarounds)
I was going to say this needs a relook but a direct nerf will damage undertuned (yet logical) options that have recently opened up. eg, axe torch condi willbender. If you want build diversity, a more complex approach is needed to handle relic of the fractal, eg. buffing searing pact.

[Vandal.5621]

Is this also where you admit that the changes to Scrapper Quickness were a mistake that killed the spec, and revert them?

[SolarDragon.7063]

39 minutes ago, Exciton.8942 said:

So much this.

Please also have a concrete idea where you want build to be at in all aspects. It needs to be more than just golem benchmark number. e.g. for dps build, please consider things like range, ramp up time, survivability. For support build, please consider boon radius, application frequencies, number of boons(other than quick/alac) applied, other utilities.

Oh god boon range and number especially.
Quick Herald: 600 range and nearly every boon
Quickbrand: Still quickbrand
Any other quick: 360 at best and half the boons and probably no Aegis.

[HotDelirium.7984]

4 hours ago, Geronmy.3298 said:

Last time they got too much backlash before releasing anything.

This time they want the backlash after the release.

And now players can't say ''We told you this would happen''.

 

Mix Firage please.

I mean that is smarter on some level-release the balance patch and notes, they get feedback on what needs work, they readjust INSTEAD of the preview with a million novels of text feedback, hardly enough time to fix any of it, feels bad, released and people complain that they didn't listen.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

please just bring all damage back by 33% across the board in pve, as we're all tired of bosses dying when you look at them. we've gone from powercreep slowly increasing over time to just exploding in less than a few years, and earlier when doing shattered observatory challenge mode the first boss kept phasing in something like 10-15 seconds. this is supposed to be some of the hardest content in the game, and remain relevant!

 

please understand that making all content into health sponges like silent surf and the dagda strike isn't a solution! you need to treat pve balance as if it were a competitive mode; you wouldn't just keep increasing players' health to counter powercreep in pvp, now would you?

Edited September 12, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Daoyun.3157]

I don't really understand Anet's "big picture". Right now, all I see is the downfall of Guild Wars 2. Not to sound pessimistic, but what made them think they could balance this? Have you forgotten the people you laid off? Not only that, you changed your ways of accepting applications. Weapon mastery does sound cool, but that sounds like a nightmare to balance. Not only only that, there are SEVERAL game modes you will need to balance. I honestly feel like Anet might just ditch WvW and PvP. I just hope the balance patch in PvE becomes decent.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

The 'small competitive adjustments' will center around Ranger/Soulbeast and will be:

• Boar coefficient no longer uses PvE variant (probably 584 x 1.0 or if lucky 1.5) in WvW/PvP
• Strider strength +120 => +60 in PvP 
• Griffon Stance = 2 stacks might 6s => 2 stacks might 4s in WvW/PvP

Touching anything else would be ludicrous as it all existed pre-patch; even Griffon Stance nerf is a bit far but CmC likes to hit FoTM (like with Drake's Tail Swipe) so I can see it happening.

This should hopefully shut the PvP forum up or at least make them move on to whatever becomes overperforming because of these nerfs (probably a bunker again).  

Edited September 12, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Sina.9208]

Why do you all want to nerf power ranger, when it's not even close to the top dog right now? It barely gained anything from weapon master, maybe 5%?

Someone suggested nerfing sword, without a big rework that would just push ranger into obscurity, because we cannot keep up with the power creep as it is.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Sina.9208

[Tescao.3042]

The only wish I can offer is an increase in templates, with such huge theorycraft capabilities. Rather, all this will not greatly affect the rerollers, because they use borrowed knowledge for the game. We can even call it the guys are just informed but on the other hand, the computer is much more informed than one of us can remember.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Tescao.3042

[InappropriateInnuendo.1395]

1 hour ago, Daoyun.3157 said:

I don't really understand Anet's "big picture". Right now, all I see is the downfall of Guild Wars 2. Not to sound pessimistic, but what made them think they could balance this? Have you forgotten the people you laid off? Not only that, you changed your ways of accepting applications. Weapon mastery does sound cool, but that sounds like a nightmare to balance. Not only only that, there are SEVERAL game modes you will need to balance. I honestly feel like Anet might just ditch WvW and PvP. I just hope the balance patch in PvE becomes decent.

Ditch PvE balance and only focus on WvW and PvP balance. PvE doesn't need tight balancing to be defeated.

[GuriGashi.5617]

Buff Willbender in PvP

[KawaiiNeko.2674]

When fractal bugs update? It's so sad to play them now, tbh I rather skipping them nowadays cuz it's frustrating🥲

[SanguinE.9435]

In case you don't know, Alac Willbender, who has almost no utility exists in a world where Alac Specter deals 37.5k DPS and Alac Chrono 34.5k.

[Kerkhoven.8264]

TREEING

[Lizardguard.2860]

A bit worried about only touching the outliers, and not going over the relics as a whole.

If akeem will remain untouched, it would be very sad.
Several relics are virtually useless.

Regarding pvp, i too hope for some nerfs for that power soulbeast build. Maybe for fireworks relic as a whole, as well, tbh.

 

Fully agree with people here that a new official view of where anet wants to be with builds as a whole would be nice.
50k dps invalidates a lot of content out there.
Not just in pve either (but mostly there), but also in pvp, where a grand total of 2 support builds exist?
There are lots of things to fix/improve upon, and not a lot of time, before new weapons will shake up and worsen the playing field even more.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Lizardguard.2860

[Serephen.3420]

7 hours ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

Sounds understandable. Thanks for the heads up!

Predictions:

- Ranger 1h Sword #2 and #3 Nerfs.

- Elementalist Warhorn Nerfs

- Rev GS Nerfs (though I would lament this one...)

- Pistol Scourge Nerfs

I also predict that the way some weapon damage will be controlled is by tying a damage modifier to their respective elite specs.

All that I ask is that if we're about to face a bunch of nerfs, that we get some fun new toys as a tradeoff. There are a lot of elite spec weapons that don't work well outside their original elite spec, and it would be fun to see new synergies. (Eg. Berserker's Torch having some kind of role on Spellbreaker and Bladesworn.)

 

 

Ele doesn't need anymore nerfs than it already got, they already hammered at a lot. Scourge on the other  hand takes little to no skill to easily out peform any ele build. 

[GoldSilva.8950]

@Cal Cohen.2358 Ty for the update, as well as the date for the larger balance patch!

Obligatory: Please bring repeated [Daring Dragon] Dragonslash gameplay back in some way because it was fun and there were cool builds with it post. 🙏🙏🙏

>> This was literally the most fun I've had with the game ever & I don't understand why it was just evaporated.

I would funnel all my gem purchases straight to hire more balance team members / give you a larger development budget if I could. ❤️

[ReganDryke.4023]

9 hours ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

Sounds understandable. Thanks for the heads up!

Predictions:

- Ranger 1h Sword #2 and #3 Nerfs.

- Elementalist Warhorn Nerfs

- Rev GS Nerfs (though I would lament this one...)

- Pistol Scourge Nerfs

I also predict that the way some weapon damage will be controlled is by tying a damage modifier to their respective elite specs.

All that I ask is that if we're about to face a bunch of nerfs, that we get some fun new toys as a tradeoff. There are a lot of elite spec weapons that don't work well outside their original elite spec, and it would be fun to see new synergies. (Eg. Berserker's Torch having some kind of role on Spellbreaker and Bladesworn.)

 

 

Those make sense, henceforth none of this will happen. 

[Subli.8217]

I miss when the game had ~32k dps as the ultimate top crazy dps. The fights were more engaging, challenging, and you got to experience mechanics (wow, can you imagine?). 

Just nerf all dps really hard. It won't hurt if everything across the board is nerfed. You could remove might from the game, and we would still do too much dps.

[LadyKitty.6120]

10 hours ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

"Some overperforming builds"

Almost every build is overperforming, why is 45k dps the new normal? What happened to the idea of an mmo where old content stays relevant? How are players supposed to feel like bosses are relevant when they die in a couple of seconds due to powercreep? 

Guardian scepter, hammer, off-hand sword and mace? Warrior maces, rifle and off-hand dagger? Mesmer scepter? Thief sword, shortbow and pistol builds? Rev hammer? Half of engi kits? Ele conjures and staff? Ranger greatsword and longbow? Necro focus and warhorn? Mesmer's heal output? Just to name a few underperformers that need some serious buffing.

They need to also buff the underperformers while nerfing the overperformers to get things balanced. And when it comes to balancing underperforming weapons, it's not even much harder than adjusting modifiers and some condi durations upwards.