This update proves that previews are needed.

[SolarDragon.7063]

The relic changes are the most minimal possible, it has power relic NERFS when power is in a terrible state with relics, nerfs are to core class parts of overperforming builds instead of the actual overperforming builds...
Please either take a deeper approach to patches, or give players that have that depth of understanding the option to contribute.

[SentriX.3209]

The issue is that there are no buffs to underperforming builds...like they could have buffed power harb or core weapons, relics, kitten like that to create new playstyles. Having only nerfs feels just bad.

Edited September 27, 2023 by SentriX.3209

[soulknight.9620]

7 minutes ago, SentriX.3209 said:

The issue is that there are no buffs to underperforming builds...

The issue is that that was not a balance patch, but rather a hotfix that was supposed to go live a week after soto launched. 

[Venport.3925]

I can understand being afraid of/not wanting to deal with community backlash to new updates but at least consulting a handful of players with experience in these classes could probably have avoided cluster bomb nerfs like lowering scepter damage in general for thief

And it would be a source for meaningful buffs to things like the relic of mabon which is probably going to be unplayable even if they lower the cooldown to 1s without changing how it works

[SolarDragon.7063]

36 minutes ago, Venport.3925 said:

I can understand being afraid of/not wanting to deal with community backlash to new updates but at least consulting a handful of players with experience in these classes could probably have avoided cluster bomb nerfs like lowering scepter damage in general for thief

And it would be a source for meaningful buffs to things like the relic of mabon which is probably going to be unplayable even if they lower the cooldown to 1s without changing how it works

Yeah Mabon as a support option was an interesting idea... Mabon as a self-empowering option is very very unlikely.

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

Previews only matter if they actually integrate your feedback.

[LadyKitty.6120]

4 hours ago, MuscleBobBuffPants.1406 said:

Previews only matter if they actually integrate your feedback.

^This. We had beta feedback threads where people specifically warned about balance problems that would happen if they didn't do a balance patch at SotO launch. Main issue that got initially addressed was air warhorn 4 on elementalist and there was some bugfixes and slight buffs and nerfs to a couple weapons but pretty much all the problems addressed in yesterday's hotfix were already known from beta testing.

Dunno what's happened lately as the balance patch early this year was one of the best in ages but after that? Not so much. Though then again, when people gave suggestions this summer (including Kitty writing a super-long list of specific suggestions), they didn't have full picture as SotO was announced right around the time balance patch landed so guess that invalidated all the feedback at the time.

[Angesombre.4630]

Maybe I'm stupid, but in what way was the GS du revenant overperforming? The nerf attributed above is worse than the stats at the release of EoD. 
While the bugs already reported for 1 year and already present at release, they are still there.
The bow changes are no surprise, the hammer is slow and the 2 skill on it is abominable for reasons already cited x times.
As I said earlier, why didn't you improve the other weapons a bit so that they'd be used more, if that's the cause?
I'd love to know the criteria for determining whether it's overperforming.
If it's based on the stats of some very good players I mean there are others we're not all pros.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Angesombre.4630

[Jedrik.3109]

3 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

Maybe I'm stupid, but in what way was the GS du revenant overperforming? The nerf attributed above is worse than the stats at the release of EoD. 
While the bugs already reported for 1 year and already present at release, they are still there.
The bow changes are no surprise, the hammer is slow and the 2 skill on it is abominable for reasons already cited x times.
As I said earlier, why didn't you improve the other weapons a bit so that they'd be used more, if that's the cause?
I'd love to know the criteria for determining whether it's overperforming.
If it's based on the stats of some very good players I mean there are others we're not all pros.

The Gs change was justified.  Quick herald was entirely too much dps for a support that could provide that kind of boon coverage. They buffed vindi so the nerf was focused at the herald build. The only unfortunate thing is that alac rev took a knock but is still fine infractals.

I would consider myself very very far from a "pro" in gw2, herald and scourge I play often, and even to my casual self they seemed very overpowered. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Jedrik.3109
Sp.

[Angesombre.4630]

3 hours ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

The Gs change was justified.  Quick herald was entirely too much dps for a support that could provide that kind of boon coverage. They buffed vindi so the nerf was focused at the herald build. The only unfortunate thing is that alac rev took a knock but is still fine infractals.

I would consider myself very very far from a "pro" in gw2, herald and scourge I play often, and even to my casual self they seemed very overpowered. 

In this case, one thing that could have solved the problem would have been to reduce the quickness on the revenant without affecting the GS to make it take stuff with concentration, problem solved.

The nerf is more brutal than when EoD was released.

[Chryses.5906]

14 hours ago, Jedrik.3109 said:

The Gs change was justified.  Quick herald was entirely too much dps for a support that could provide that kind of boon coverage. They buffed vindi so the nerf was focused at the herald build. The only unfortunate thing is that alac rev took a knock but is still fine infractals.

I would consider myself very very far from a "pro" in gw2, herald and scourge I play often, and even to my casual self they seemed very overpowered. 

Focused on the quickness Herald build yes, which I agree probably needed a bit of a nerf. Unfortunately the GS nerf also hit the pure dps power herald build, which was not justified. Power herald was in like the bottom 25% of the pure dps specs in the snowcrows benchmarks, barely hitting 40k dps. So rather than nerf reinforced potency to make quickness Herald have to actually take concentration gear rather than be able to maintain 100% quickness uptime in full berserker gear, or give elevated compassion a trade off of allowing you to provide quickness but also reduces your damage by X amount, they nerf the weapon and in turn, nerf every build that uses the weapon.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Chryses.5906

[Thron Stal.9367]

On 9/27/2023 at 4:03 PM, soulknight.9620 said:

The issue is that that was not a balance patch, but rather a hotfix that was supposed to go live a week after soto launched. 

Shame on Rubi, she said this one was for PVE, then they nerfed Thief Relic, HELLO, we use that in WVW too!!  Jimminy Crickets!

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Chryses.5906 said:

Focused on the quickness Herald build yes, which I agree probably needed a bit of a nerf. Unfortunately the GS nerf also hit the pure dps power herald build, which was not justified. Power herald was in like the bottom 25% of the pure dps specs in the snowcrows benchmarks, barely hitting 40k dps. So rather than nerf reinforced potency to make quickness Herald have to actually take concentration gear rather than be able to maintain 100% quickness uptime in full berserker gear, or give elevated compassion a trade off of allowing you to provide quickness but also reduces your damage by X amount, they nerf the weapon and in turn, nerf every build that uses the weapon.

When people are talking about 'barely hitting 40k dps' as being bottom-tier in DPS, damage values were probably regarded as being too high in general. 

[Chryses.5906]

19 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

When people are talking about 'barely hitting 40k dps' as being bottom-tier in DPS, damage values were probably regarded as being too high in general. 

I don't disagree. DPS in general is kinda high right now and should probably be reduced some across the board. But they said this patch was about hitting the overperforming builds. When compared to all the other pure dps builds, power herald was most certainly not overperforming by any means, quickness herald sure, but not power herald.

[Obtena.7952]

Actually, this update proves they aren't needed because players won't complain any LESS if they did get them and Anet makes the changes they want anyways. 

Also, no one should come to the conclusion that Anet needs 'player contribution' to have a 'deeper approach' to patches. If anything the player 'voice' is a biased, self-interest with a different goal than what Anet intends. 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[draxynnic.3719]

21 hours ago, Chryses.5906 said:

I don't disagree. DPS in general is kinda high right now and should probably be reduced some across the board. But they said this patch was about hitting the overperforming builds. When compared to all the other pure dps builds, power herald was most certainly not overperforming by any means, quickness herald sure, but not power herald.

And they nerfed quickness herald. If power herald is underperforming afterwards, they can buff Forceful Persistence.

[Carnifex.3275]

On 9/28/2023 at 2:26 PM, Chryses.5906 said:

Focused on the quickness Herald build yes, which I agree probably needed a bit of a nerf. Unfortunately the GS nerf also hit the pure dps power herald build, which was not justified. Power herald was in like the bottom 25% of the pure dps specs in the snowcrows benchmarks, barely hitting 40k dps. So rather than nerf reinforced potency to make quickness Herald have to actually take concentration gear rather than be able to maintain 100% quickness uptime in full berserker gear, or give elevated compassion a trade off of allowing you to provide quickness but also reduces your damage by X amount, they nerf the weapon and in turn, nerf every build that uses the weapon.

That's exactly what happened with quickness deadeye before SotO launched. It was overperforming so they nerfed it and they never came back to fix it (cuz SotO). But they nerfed it in the exact same way, so power dps deadeye took collateral damage from that nerf and both qDE and pDE went down the cliff. Instead of nerfing boon duration, or certain traits that only quick build is using - they just heavy handedly nerf everything in that spec and kill it for good. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[Angesombre.4630]

In the end, on revenant they had more nerf la GS than herald. 

[Kozumi.5816]

On 9/28/2023 at 4:50 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

Actually, this update proves they aren't needed because players won't complain any LESS if they did get them and Anet makes the changes they want anyways. 

Also, no one should come to the conclusion that Anet needs 'player contribution' to have a 'deeper approach' to patches. If anything the player 'voice' is a biased, self-interest with a different goal than what Anet intends. 

Anet's balance team has been proven to be biased.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

3 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Anet's balance team has been proven to be biased.

That, and they also are both former players.  

Which is why we have a biased voice that is different than anything anyone else wants, as we have two former community members balancing the game in ways they are happy with so they don't die if they decide to step in again on some alts.

I honestly think they selfishly balance competitive then just copy 'whatever' back to PvE using the test golem as validation.  It really seems no other thought goes into it other than when the sPvP forum / reddit begins crying about something or another and they hotfix it due to fear of bad PR.

In fact, if you watch any of the preview streams it's always Roy fumbling about with the dev golem half showing off what is supposed to be shown, and CmC staring at the hardcam sippin some H2O and then nonchalantly explaining things.  There's no actual like endgame PvE content, sPvP match, or WvW footage shown---just one dev golem and dev console.  

I swear back in the day they used to at least show competitive footage inside of sPvP after patches, and at some point stopped because some sweat would inevitably come along and body them then BM and it was embarrassing on such a public forum.  

Edited October 5, 2023 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Varis.5467]

3 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

That, and they also are both former players.  

Which is why we have a biased voice that is different than anything anyone else wants, as we have two former community members balancing the game in ways they are happy with so they don't die if they decide to step in again on some alts.

I honestly think they selfishly balance competitive then just copy 'whatever' back to PvE using the test golem as validation.  It really seems no other thought goes into it other than when the sPvP forum / reddit begins crying about something or another and they hotfix it due to fear of bad PR.

In fact, if you watch any of the preview streams it's always Roy fumbling about with the dev golem half showing off what is supposed to be shown, and CmC staring at the hardcam sippin some H2O and then nonchalantly explaining things.  There's no actual like endgame PvE content, sPvP match, or WvW footage shown---just one dev golem and dev console.  

I swear back in the day they used to at least show competitive footage inside of sPvP after patches, and at some point stopped because some sweat would inevitably come along and body them then BM and it was embarrassing on such a public forum.  

Imagine balancing pvp based on golems...

Actually just look at the reality. Kek

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Anet's balance team has been proven to be biased.

Sure ... but that doesn't have anything to do with Anet giving patch previews or not or whatever direction Anet wants the game to move in. I mean, if you are convinced that the devs are just playing favourites ... then you really don't need to see the previews right? You're just going to pull out the standard "Anet favours X class" every time there is a patch and be done with it. No preview required for that kind of response. 

See, that's exactly why we don't need the previews. Either you are the kind of person that complains they don't get what they want and finds some accusation to make against Anet (like it even matters) ... or you just realize that some changes are coming and you deal with them. In either case, patch previews not required. 

 I mean, don't pretend like getting a preview somehow changes whatever biases exist there. It won't, whether they exist or not. The ironic thing is that when it's your own personal bias, you don't have a problem with it because you probably think it would be 'really good' if Anet did what you wanted. When it's ANet/dev biases, it's the worst thing ever! 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Gotejjeken.1267]

40 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Sure ... but that doesn't have anything to do with Anet giving patch previews or not or whatever direction Anet wants the game to move in. I mean, if you are convinced that the devs are just playing favourites ... then you really don't need to see the previews right? You're just going to pull out the standard "Anet favours X class" every time there is a patch and be done with it. No preview required for that kind of response. 

See, that's exactly why we don't need the previews. Either you are the kind of person that complains they don't get what they want and finds some accusation to make against Anet (like it even matters) ... or you just realize that some changes are coming and you deal with them. In either case, patch previews not required. 

 I mean, don't pretend like getting a preview somehow changes whatever biases exist there. It won't, whether they exist or not. The ironic thing is that when it's your own personal bias, you don't have a problem with it because you probably think it would be 'really good' if Anet did what you wanted. When it's ANet/dev biases, it's the worst thing ever! 

People that actually play the game instead of the forums do rely on the previews to start modifying/creating potential builds.  I myself did this with the Ancient Seeds change and Druid, I stopped playing with Ancient Seeds right after the livestream to prepare for its removal.

It's also a matter of transparency; not releasing a preview looks really bad like what you are about to release is going to blow horse chunks.  This isn't poker, no reason to hide the hand.

So yeah, we need previews.  

[Chryses.5906]

What are the odds of Anet ever setting up like a public test server to test changes before going live with them? Kinda feels like the live servers are used for beta testing changes a lot of the time. I'm sure this has probably been discussed before, but I haven't been lurking on the forums long enough to have seen any of it.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

42 minutes ago, Chryses.5906 said:

What are the odds of Anet ever setting up like a public test server to test changes before going live with them? Kinda feels like the live servers are used for beta testing changes a lot of the time. I'm sure this has probably been discussed before, but I haven't been lurking on the forums long enough to have seen any of it.

Just look at the weapon master beta. 

They put bugged weapons in the game for us to test in addition to completely wrong text on skills. 

I doubt a test realm would be any different.