Sept 26 rev nerf

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

Absolutely comical balancing and lack of foresight as always. Glad I'm finishing up my last few achievements I care about over the next few months then I can finally move on from this hell hole that the game has become

Edited September 27, 2023 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Sereath.1428]

12 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Absolutely comical balancing and lack of foresight as always. Glad I'm finishing up my last few achievements I care about over the next few months then I can finally move on from this hell hole that the game has become

And everyone is like "BuTTt they buffed vind traits! Stop criticizing ANET!"
Wow, they buffed like the only good traits in the whole tree (and the second time they mindlessly buff Death Drop). Which btw, are also the only good traits for pvp since the rest are trash.
"Just wait for snOwcRaws to come up with the new DPS numbers, so we can all just copy-paste the same build! kitten, I love this game and its deep gameplay."

And I don't even want to talk about Herald, which has been such a disappointment for a while now, in every game mode.
kitten game design all over the place.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Sereath.1428

[Angesombre.4630]

August 2022 update for GS wiki source.

Mist Swing: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.7 in PvE only.   (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 0.9 to 1.0.
Mist Slash: Reduced power coefficient from 1.1 to 0.8 in PvE only.  (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 1.0 to 1.1.
Arcing Mists: Reduced power coefficient from 1.3 to 1.2 in PvE only.  (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 1.25 to 1.3.
Mists Unleashed: Reduced power coefficient from 2.0 to 1.6 in PvE only.  (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 1.9 to 2.0.

You can see that the reduction is worse than it was originally.

 

For herald competence

Elemental Blast: Reduced burning from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only. 

November 2022: Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only.

June 2022: Increased cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. Damage multiplier increased from 1.15 to 1.5. Weakness duration increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds. Chill duration increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Burning duration increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. These changes are for PvE only.

 

A long-awaited boost for a nerf in the same direction as GS. See you soon for the next nerf vindi, as it'll be too powerful this time.

Leviathan Strength: Increased damage bonus from 10% to 15% in PvE only.
Forerunner of Death: Increased damage bonus from 15% to 25% in PvE only.

 

On the other hand, you'll have to tell me where with the GS the revenant was overperforming. when you see the damage done by the thief for example as a spectre or even the scourge which really seemed overperforming compared to many classes.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Angesombre.4630

[Mike.7983]

36 minutes ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

August 2022 update for GS wiki source.

Mist Swing: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.7 in PvE only.   (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 0.9 to 1.0.
Mist Slash: Reduced power coefficient from 1.1 to 0.8 in PvE only.  (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 1.0 to 1.1.
Arcing Mists: Reduced power coefficient from 1.3 to 1.2 in PvE only.  (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 1.25 to 1.3.
Mists Unleashed: Reduced power coefficient from 2.0 to 1.6 in PvE only.  (PvE only) Damage multiplier increased from 1.9 to 2.0.

You can see that the reduction is worse than it was originally.

 

For herald competence

Elemental Blast: Reduced burning from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 4 seconds in PvE only. 

November 2022: Reduced cooldown from 15 seconds to 12 seconds in PvE only.

June 2022: Increased cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. Damage multiplier increased from 1.15 to 1.5. Weakness duration increased from 4 seconds to 5 seconds. Chill duration increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Burning duration increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. These changes are for PvE only.

 

A long-awaited boost for a nerf in the same direction as GS. See you soon for the next nerf vindi, as it'll be too powerful this time.

Leviathan Strength: Increased damage bonus from 10% to 15% in PvE only.
Forerunner of Death: Increased damage bonus from 15% to 25% in PvE only.

 

On the other hand, you'll have to tell me where with the GS the revenant was overperforming. when you see the damage done by the thief for example as a spectre or even the scourge which really seemed overperforming compared to many classes.

Top pre nerf herald on snowcrows was 40k? or so with 100% full melee no ranged, vs ranged condi doing 45-49k.  Ya rev was never high enough to need to be toned down.  Can justify needing a concentration nerf if using the quick herald though.  Still is viable just dont expect to see 40k heralds.  Really got to question dev team thought process.  Last few years been a dumpster fire.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

3 hours ago, Mike.7983 said:

Top pre nerf herald on snowcrows was 40k? or so with 100% full melee no ranged, vs ranged condi doing 45-49k.  Ya rev was never high enough to need to be toned down.  Can justify needing a concentration nerf if using the quick herald though.  Still is viable just dont expect to see 40k heralds.  Really got to question dev team thought process.  Last few years been a dumpster fire.

There is no thought process anymore. They literally unlocked all of the Elite Spec Weapons so that they would "have something" to give for the expansion without having to create new Elite Specs (this is also why the new weapons aren't even ready for launch either). The tell tale sign that this was simply a cash grab was the fact that they did NOTHING to deal with the fact that Weaponmaster Training (and relics) were going to massively power creep the entire game. Weaponmaster training (the way they implemented it at least...and that's not counting the homogenization it introduced) was a huge mistake and now they have to overcorrect to fix something they did not prepare for and only added to help boost expansion sales. The only thought process here is "what will make us more money" not "this is good for the game."

Edited September 27, 2023 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Kalavier.1097]

I love how people are screaming as if greatsword does no damage at all now. 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

4 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

I love how people are screaming as if greatsword does no damage at all now. 

Well interesting take despite that's not what people are upset about. Most people are upset in the heavy handed approach in ANet basically trying to take a toy away from other specs saying it's overperforming with a massive slap while doing very little to the other specs that are overperforming. And these changes also impacting the two elite specs greatly as well with renegade getting no real compensation for them.

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

On the other hand, you'll have to tell me where with the GS the revenant was overperforming. when you see the damage done by the thief for example as a spectre or even the scourge which really seemed overperforming compared to many classes.

They were targeting quickherald. Also worth noting here that they did target scourge and specter as well.

[Chryses.5906]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They were targeting quickherald. Also worth noting here that they did target scourge and specter as well.

I personally just wish they would stop nerfing boon specs at the expense of their pure dps variations. Like maybe nerf the quickness output so that you actually have to run boon duration gear instead of just running full berserker with 100% quickness uptime. Power herald was at ~40k on the snowcrows benchmarks and out of all the pure dps specs ranked at like 20 something. So really why did power herald deserve the nerf? It was middle of the pack at best. 

[Angesombre.4630]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

They were targeting quickherald. Also worth noting here that they did target scourge and specter as well.

Yes, I agree, but I was talking about support and in terms of damage. Then I have to admit that for PvE I'm less bothered by the fact that some classes are good, I haven't seen any change in the choice of a class in the various games I've played. My main point was that it's the weapon in this patch note that's the most expensive and that the changes are worse than the weapon in EoD release.

After that, I could have taken the guardian, which isn't in the patch note and is still almost indispensable in many contents.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Angesombre.4630

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

15 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

I love how people are screaming as if greatsword does no damage at all now. 

That's not the problem. The problem is they nerfed EVERY power Rev build by hitting GS when they LITERALLY could have only hit Herald by nerfing Reinforced Potency. This was the most obvious and best nerf they could have done (because ONLY QHerald was overperforming with GS), but instead they nerfed the weapon because they don't have enough brain cells to find the easiest, most efficient solutions.

Edited September 28, 2023 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Chryses.5906 said:

I personally just wish they would stop nerfing boon specs at the expense of their pure dps variations. Like maybe nerf the quickness output so that you actually have to run boon duration gear instead of just running full berserker with 100% quickness uptime. Power herald was at ~40k on the snowcrows benchmarks and out of all the pure dps specs ranked at like 20 something. So really why did power herald deserve the nerf? It was middle of the pack at best. 

I'm in broad agreement. Unfortunately, the way they're making the quickness work means that it's either going to be applicable using berserker or a PITA to apply. Because you KNOW that if it's calibrated to require boon duration, Snowcrows will create a build that uses the absolute minimum boon duration, that's what quickherald will be balanced against, and you'll need to maintain those six pips upkeep permanently in order to maintain quickness.

Buffing DPS herald would mean buffing the competing grandmaster.

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

That's not the problem. The problem is they nerfed EVERY power Rev build by hitting GS when they LITERALLY could have only hit Herald by nerfing Reinforced Potency. This was the most obvious and best nerf they could have done (because ONLY QHerald was overperforming with GS), but instead they nerfed the weapon because they don't have enough brain cells to find the easiest, most efficient solutions.

I have a suspicion that greatsword being nerfed was an inevitable result of weaponmaster training. Previously, greatsword was part of the 'power budget' of vindicator. Now, it's competing with sword/sword on every spec. Sword/sword is known for having a single-target focus while greatsword has good cleave and is thus effective on groups - if greatsword outDPSed dual sword on single targets while ALSO being inherently better against groups, then that pretty much limits sword/sword to only being used as a weaponswap from greatsword when you don't need ranged or staff's utility. Greatsword probably needed to be shaved a bit so sword/sword retained a use case.

The hope is that now that greatsword is no longer part of vindicator's power budget, vindicator will get buffs so that it's competitive with any weapon.

[Angesombre.4630]

Maybe the problem with the herald is that the grandmaster traits aren't significant enough to set the quickness instead. 
Like "Forceful Persistence" which seems to have an anomaly according to the wiki.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forceful_Persistence
And the fact of using the GS is perhaps because we like this weapon more than the others. For example, I tested the elementalist and I really don't like the hammer on it.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Previously, greatsword was part of the 'power budget' of vindicator. Now, it's competing with sword/sword on every spec. Sword/sword is known for having a single-target focus while greatsword has good cleave and is thus effective on groups - if greatsword outDPSed dual sword on single targets while ALSO being inherently better against groups, then that pretty much limits sword/sword to only being used as a weaponswap from greatsword when you don't need ranged or staff's utility.

This has been a problem even when GS was only part of the "power budget" of Vindicator, though. "GS + S/S" has only been marginally better than "GS Only" since the beginning. The solution however was NOT to nerf GS, but to actually make S/S a more viable weaponset. S/S Autoattacks still actually have nerfs on them from when they weren't skill splitting; during the early days of Rev the weaponset got hit fairly hard due to Rev's dominance in PvP. Some of these nerfs never have received compensation in PvE.

I left part of this out of my previous post, because I felt it was fairly intuitive, but what Anet should have done was:

1) Nerf Reinforced Potency from 1.5% to 1%

2) If they felt DPS Herald needed more DPS, buff Forceful Persistence

3) If S/S still was not good enough to be used, buff 2/4/5 to make it a more worthy swap

This would have targeted specifically Herald while buffing "GS + S/S" to be useful. This would not have hurt every other  Power Rev spec. pAlacRen and pRen both suffered from this. If they hadn't given 15% more damage modifiers to Vindicator, it also would have suffered. It also was simpler to do what I listed above, than what they did.

Hell, they could have even just hit Burst of Strength from 15% to 10% and then they wouldn't have even needed to touch Shortbow, too. There were so many ways to nerf the spec and make S/S better without hitting literally all of power rev.

[Angesombre.4630]

You still feel the lack of impact with the GS, it's supposed to be a big sword and I feel more like I have a wooden sword now when will plastic or foam.

[draxynnic.3719]

9 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

This has been a problem even when GS was only part of the "power budget" of Vindicator, though. "GS + S/S" has only been marginally better than "GS Only" since the beginning. The solution however was NOT to nerf GS, but to actually make S/S a more viable weaponset. S/S Autoattacks still actually have nerfs on them from when they weren't skill splitting; during the early days of Rev the weaponset got hit fairly hard due to Rev's dominance in PvP. Some of these nerfs never have received compensation in PvE.

I left part of this out of my previous post, because I felt it was fairly intuitive, but what Anet should have done was:

1) Nerf Reinforced Potency from 1.5% to 1%

2) If they felt DPS Herald needed more DPS, buff Forceful Persistence

3) If S/S still was not good enough to be used, buff 2/4/5 to make it a more worthy swap

This would have targeted specifically Herald while buffing "GS + S/S" to be useful. This would not have hurt every other  Power Rev spec. pAlacRen and pRen both suffered from this. If they hadn't given 15% more damage modifiers to Vindicator, it also would have suffered. It also was simpler to do what I listed above, than what they did.

Hell, they could have even just hit Burst of Strength from 15% to 10% and then they wouldn't have even needed to touch Shortbow, too. There were so many ways to nerf the spec and make S/S better without hitting literally all of power rev.

I'm not sure that GS+S/S was ever supposed to be the default mode for vindicator, though. GS+staff gives utility, while GS+hammer theoretically gives ranged. Running two melee DPS sets is something players do to eke out the last bit of damage when they can get away with it, but I don't think it was ever ArenaNet's intention for double DPS melee weaponsets to be the norm.

S/S being redundant on vindicator was probably viewed as acceptable because that was viewed as part of vindicator's flavour, and S/S was still the power melee set on other specialisations (which could make up for it through traits and/or legend skills). Now that GS is available to all, though, they need to at least make an attempt to give them different niches.

I would agree that revenant in general has suffered a lot from pre-split nerfs made for competitive - hammer even managed to cop a post-split nerf. I think they'd view swords as being successful as long as there's a competitive build that uses them in their intended niche, however. If the weapon's being used and the build's DPS is within the target range, it probably doesn't matter too much if the damage is coming from good weapon skills or from other factors.

A happy medium is probably one where both S/S and GS do acceptable damage, but S/S is a little better when you have an isolated single target, while GS is better when there are adds to cleave.

[Jianyu.7065]

What I don't understand about these balance changes is why they sometimes just seem to be made in an arbitrary way. With the variety of builds, lately it feels like there is not a foundation for fun. As if sometimes the changes are made to penalize players for discovering awesome builds. While balancing is a routine for the devs - so many other parts of the game that need work (lingering for years) goes untouched, and those things also limit the potential for fun. 

[Sobx.1758]

14 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

You still feel the lack of impact with the GS, it's supposed to be a big sword and I feel more like I have a wooden sword now when will plastic or foam.

If you mean that you feel the nerf to gs then that's good, that was literally the point. If the nerf doesn't make any difference, it's not much of a nerf. Except it does not feel like wooden sword at all, how can people expect anet to listen to anyone who goes out of their way to write tails like this one, I don't know.

On 9/27/2023 at 6:39 AM, Mike.7983 said:

Top pre nerf herald on snowcrows was 40k?

It was 41k+

On 9/26/2023 at 7:17 PM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Because not everyone wants to be a walking stat stick and contrary to popular belief herald does have a pure DPS role too, it's Forceful Persistence. You usually swap to that when you aren't wanted to be quick dps but don't feel like swapping to say vindicator instead.

And you'll still be able to fill the pure dps role as herald, not sure what's with the panic here.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Buran.3796]

14 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

You still feel the lack of impact with the GS, it's supposed to be a big sword and I feel more like I have a wooden sword now when will plastic or foam.

   I dunno. The Eternity's Requiem from my OW power Vindi peaks around 32k in Dragonstorm against the bosses and is a sustain build with no Devastation nor Forerunner of Death. Vs trash mobs works fine and vs hard fights I would always chose cele/condi.

   And yes, I've tested power Warrior Berserker in pure dps builds reaching 60 to 100k with axe #5, or Bladesworn's Dragon Slash for even bigger numbers, but those are channeled attacks, and have their own set of drawbacks. Both Vindi and Herald cap might stacks in matter of seconds, and greatsword's AA stacks vulnerability, so claiming that gs hits like a toy doesn't seem veridic. Unless you're farming bristlebacks*  and then I would argue "yeah, vs heavy armored foes run condi builds". 

  *Power is fine vs the ones in HoT; against the ones in WvW no so much.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I main Herald but I think Anet did a reasonable job with Herald at least (I don't know enough about Renegade and Vindi). I get the argument that if they nerfed Herald boon duration to force Herald to run more Concentration from equipment then that would naturally drop Herald DPS without needing to nerf GS, but as others have said in this thread that would have lead to a cycle where the top builds optimise to the max to just keep quickness up while getting max DPS, then Anet would balance on that and Herald ends up being much harder to play for the 95% (probably really 99%) of players who can't play at a Snowcrows level (me included).

My feeling is that Anet want Herald to be a relatively easy build to play well enough to get into instanced content. If Anet want newer players to try and get into the instanced content then there needs to be some builds which are good enough that people will accept them into Raid, Strike, high level Fractal squads but are also not too hard to learn to run. Pretty sure Anet mean Herald to be one of those builds. That being the case they need to make sure its DPS is competitive, but they also need to make sure it isn't too high otherwise other harder to master quickness builds get completely squeezed out.

Also, it's quite funny (or sad?) how often I see threads from people complaining about DPS creep (which I personally agree is a major problem, a lot of content is too easy now) and then as soon as Anet do a little balance patch like this where virtually every change is a nerf to bring down top builds, you get a bunch of people really complaining and saying that's the last straw, game is unplayable now, etc, etc.

[Sereath.1428]

Golem and wiki balancing is my problem.
Bad game design is my problem, not that nerfs were not necessary.

Herald 100% needed nerfs, every other power revenant build did not.

Swords and almost every other revenant weapon needed buffs because they are bad.
Do some of you even read the traits and do more than copy-paste builds?

For the dense people:
Not taking Death Drop now is like a 40% damage loss 😀(and it's the second time they buff that dodge)
and now they have to balance every other weapon around the fact that Vindicator does that much ridiculous damage when taking a single trait.

"You want to deal meaningful power damage with x weapon? Then pick Vindicator with these exact traits."
"Nah bruh, revenant weapons aren't weak. It's your fault for missing out on the free 40% damage boost from Vindicator and Death Drop."

Edited September 29, 2023 by Sereath.1428

[Kalavier.1097]

20 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I have a suspicion that greatsword being nerfed was an inevitable result of weaponmaster training. Previously, greatsword was part of the 'power budget' of vindicator. Now, it's competing with sword/sword on every spec. Sword/sword is known for having a single-target focus while greatsword has good cleave and is thus effective on groups - if greatsword outDPSed dual sword on single targets while ALSO being inherently better against groups, then that pretty much limits sword/sword to only being used as a weaponswap from greatsword when you don't need ranged or staff's utility. Greatsword probably needed to be shaved a bit so sword/sword retained a use case.

The hope is that now that greatsword is no longer part of vindicator's power budget, vindicator will get buffs so that it's competitive with any weapon.

Yeah I'm just wondering how much of this is just screaming about any change vs actual "omg it's terrible"

From what I've heard it's still completely functional and does perfectly fine, it's just not at the very top revenant weapon anymore.

[Angesombre.4630]

I'll try to keep it simple:
The GS is now the GS that does the least damage and it's hand-to-hand.
Revenant
Mist Swing 282 , Mist Slash 323 , Arcing Mists 484
Mist Unleashed 645

War we know that people who play war are not satisfied at the moment.
Greatsword Swing 323, Greatsword Slice 424, Brutal Strike 605
Hundred Blades 1,864 

Guardian
Strike 403, Vengeful Strike 444, Wrathful Strike 605
Whirling Wrath 1,274

Ranger
Slash 323, Slice 323, Enduring Swing 565
Maul 706

Necromancer
Dusk Strike 484, Fading Twilight 565, Chilling Scythe 726
Gravedigger 1,452

Mesmer with a range of 1200
Spatial Surge 444 which is not even considered a projectile.
Mirror Blade 403

A stuff with concentration wouldn't have much influence on the way quickness is set, it would just make you change stuff that would automatically reduce the character's stats.
And after all, this is an RPG spoil:

Spoiler

you've killed 6 dragons and a god, and you're entitled to be stronger than when you started the game.

If you haven't become stronger I don't know, then you should have just stayed in the starting zone...
If I play it, it's because I like the weapon, not just because it was supposedly "strong". The hammer is broken, the shield I've never really seen people with, the bow is still good, the sword is used for switching or chasing, the staff is mainly used for heal or blocking, and in general the mace and axe are altered, so there aren't 50 weapons that can do the job of the GS either.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Angesombre.4630

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

3 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

I main Herald but I think Anet did a reasonable job with Herald at least (I don't know enough about Renegade and Vindi). I get the argument that if they nerfed Herald boon duration to force Herald to run more Concentration from equipment then that would naturally drop Herald DPS without needing to nerf GS, but as others have said in this thread that would have lead to a cycle where the top builds optimise to the max to just keep quickness up while getting max DPS, then Anet would balance on that and Herald ends up being much harder to play for the 95% (probably really 99%) of players who can't play at a Snowcrows level (me included).

My feeling is that Anet want Herald to be a relatively easy build to play well enough to get into instanced content. If Anet want newer players to try and get into the instanced content then there needs to be some builds which are good enough that people will accept them into Raid, Strike, high level Fractal squads but are also not too hard to learn to run. Pretty sure Anet mean Herald to be one of those builds. That being the case they need to make sure its DPS is competitive, but they also need to make sure it isn't too high otherwise other harder to master quickness builds get completely squeezed out.

Also, it's quite funny (or sad?) how often I see threads from people complaining about DPS creep (which I personally agree is a major problem, a lot of content is too easy now) and then as soon as Anet do a little balance patch like this where virtually every change is a nerf to bring down top builds, you get a bunch of people really complaining and saying that's the last straw, game is unplayable now, etc, etc.

 

2 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

Yeah I'm just wondering how much of this is just screaming about any change vs actual "omg it's terrible"

From what I've heard it's still completely functional and does perfectly fine, it's just not at the very top revenant weapon anymore.

Y'all didn't read the thread or the replies. The issue is that they broadly nerfed ALL Rev power specs by hitting GS when they could have only hit Herald by hitting Reinforced Potency or Burst of Strength's modifiers. Herald was the only thing overperforming here. Anet once again as always overthinks the solution and does too much. Read my replies for how it could have been done much better and more efficiently

Edited September 29, 2023 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Angesombre.4630]

And as a small oversight on my part, the revenant has 2 legends but does not choose its healing, utility or elite skills.
Even if power has increased defense, it has hardly changed in many years, nor has vitality. So power is the only thing that has increased. And in every expansion, the mobs have also become stronger and more resistant.

We're the opposite of Mesmer, who has almost all his ranged weapons.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Angesombre.4630