January 30 Balance Update Preview

[Floz.8904]

My post is wvw focused.

Would highly recommend leaving Relic of Resistance on elite. It has uses in certain builds.

By putting it on a heal skill you essentially are opening up firebrand and mantra chrono to abuse it. If you're trying to bring chrono/brand in line, giving them +17% resistance uptime (before boon duration is considered) just gives them free amazing boons for minimal cost.

Edit: I had the missed the cd reduction. After boon duration, both chrono and fb will be able to hold near 40% resistance uptime just by themselves. Brands can already do 20% easily. Pair that with an inspi sig and you could be sitting at near 60%.

Would recommend Pack relic goes on heal skill and loses superspeed and goes to 10s. Resistance stays on elite at 30s cd.

If anything, the relic changes as mentioned open up more build paths for chrono and firebrand and further cement them as meta for their role.

Need to give some love to warrior variants to compete, warrior needs a low-medium cd stab application to compete.

As a disclaimer, im a chrono and firebrand main.

Edited January 12 by Floz.8904

[XenesisII.1540]

Quote

This update is a smaller set of changes intended to address outliers

Not even close to the mark, as usual.

😏

 

[Pie.2167]

The nerf to Escape Artist was not warranted.  

[Buran.3796]

20 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Revenant

In addition to toning down the damage of power vindicator in PvE, we've made some minor adjustments to axe to improve its usability for condition builds.

• Echoing Eruption: Reduced the number of blast finishers from 3 to 1. This skill now also grants might to the user.
• Leviathan Strength: Reduced the damage bonus from 15% to 10% in PvE only.

 *  Echoing Eruption: you just removed might from Contained Temper, so if you want remove the boon from Revenant just remove it, don't turn one source of might into another one.

*  Leviathan Strength: nobody cares since outside instanced content (a niche) celestial Vindicator is vastly superior to power Vindi in PvE.

   Also: don't forget to nerf Renegade, I heard that some lunatics still use them! 

[Szatko.8132]

So support Scourges in wvw get this:

20 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Transfusion: This trait now increases the cooldown of Garish Pillar to 60 seconds in WvW only.

While support Firebrands and Chronomancers in wvw get this:

20 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Relic of Resistance: This relic now triggers when using a healing skill instead of when using an elite skill. Reduced the resistance duration from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 10 seconds.

?????????????????????

[frazazel.7501]

57 minutes ago, mirage.8046 said:

there are nerfs to unpopular and uncommon support builds like quickness berserker or quickness untamed. 

Condi quickness Untamed got 1 nerf -> axe unleashed ambush bleed stacks loses 2 stacks of 8s bleed, which is probably a 300-400 dps loss (based on the stats on the build on snowcrows). All flavours of quickness Untamed also gained 10 free groupwide stacks of might. Additionally, greatsword got a huge PvE buff, meaning that power Untamed might have some new options. With new Ranger maces coming in February, power quickness Untamed might become relevant, and heal quickness Untamed might become a real build.

The buffs that Untamed is getting are much more impactful than a loss of a few hundred dps on the condition build.

[bluberblasen.9684]

you forget willbender WvW big nerf

and remove thief class from competitive

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Quickness Untamed in PvE is going to be a monster.

But, I'm mostly competitive and I have to second the 'lol' at double ammo barrage in WvW.  I mean, definitely will take it, but feel like there's going to be a lot of new meme builds to come from this.  Not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet 😂.

[Angesombre.4630]

I had announced the vindicator nerf again, which is not lacking, after the obligation of F2, and a trait that increases power, you nerf it with another trait I knew this was going to happen. While it is full of bug again not correction but nerf, GG Anet....

Apart from reducing the player's pleasure with each update, what's the point?

Edited January 12 by Angesombre.4630

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

Why the Carrion devourer nerfs? Even if you think it's overtuned compared to other pets, it's only a good pick on untamed.

 

I get not wanting pets to super outperform each other, but c. devourer was barely above Ilboga when used on Untamed. Leave it be, or only slightly nerf it. Not this. Pet diversity for (relatively good) DPS options is nonexistent without devourer, it's about to shift back to Ilboga or bust, which is a shame. The illusion of choice strikes again.

 

Glad to see Let Loose give might, though. Might make Untamed a more compelling quickness option, since previously it just did quickness and damage (and maybe sun spirit might if on condi).

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

14 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

But, I'm mostly competitive and I have to second the 'lol' at double ammo barrage in WvW.  I mean, definitely will take it, but feel like there's going to be a lot of new meme builds to come from this.  Not sure if that's a good or bad thing yet 😂.

You're telling me you're not excited for our newfound Arrow Cart Roleplay build?

[Echostorm.9143]

Adaptive Armor is ruined thanks.  Function Gyro was something to pull out in emergencies now it's just one more key to hammer mindlessly and hope for the best.  If it was keeping people alive too well in competitive nerf it there but stop punishing PVE!  kitten and saying it's for shortbow?  Shortbow better be seriously different than the last preview because it was beyond worthless.   What is wrong with you guys??

[Gotejjeken.1267]

7 minutes ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

You're telling me you're not excited for our newfound Arrow Cart Roleplay build?

Oh definitely; hopefully one day they will turn our pets into siege weapons (outside the turtle of course).  

[Diremongoose.1326]

Echoing Eruption does not need a nerf. It’s been great as GROUP might generation and tolerable for extra condi cleanses in light fields. Support Rev has not been outperforming Druid inWvW and this hits them where it hurts. I was expecting a 0.5-1s ICD for Relic of Karkosa instead.

I feel that Mace has been a useful support weapon for Rev and was looking forward to having multiple meaningful choices for Rev support when Sceptre arrives (hopefully with buffs). As it stands, Mace will never have a support use again with 1 blast finisher.  There is currently a high skill threshold for hitting your own fields multiple times that rewards time and practice, to be replaced with nothing.

Edited January 12 by Diremongoose.1326

[Jokuc.3478]

Depending on how much additional burning you got from Radiant Fire, the change to Firebrand there might actually be a nerf instead of a buff because you don't get the crit procs anymore. We'll have to see what the numbers look like, it's a good change overall but I hope anet follows up with tuning it depending on how the new numbers look like.

I think the changes overall are good, I hope the mirage nerfs won't affect the damage too much and it ends up killing the class in pugs again, it's already quite the rare sight even if the dmg potential is really good.

I'm surprised and once again disappointed how they haven't nerfed the boon access of quickness herald. Herald is so strong with its 600 range 360 degrees quickness application with almost no boon duration that playing quickness firebrand is actually trolling. Reminder fb mantras only have 180 range base and 450 for the cone that needs to be aimed.

Lastly I hope they fix the Vindi dodge bug. Getting 2.5k extra damage from a bug is a bit much and it has been left in the game for too long. If the dmg difference was like ~700 dps I wouldn't mind it as much because it actually requires some skill to pull off, but with such a large difference it has to go.

Edited January 12 by Jokuc.3478

[Jokuc.3478]

2 hours ago, JDub.1530 said:

Am I misreading something? The changes to Radiant Fire are stated to enabled off hands other than Torch, but it seems like it's packing all the benefits into Torch instead.

You are not misreading, but you are misunderstanding. The reason why this enables you to run another off-hand is because previously when Tor4 was proced by crits, this meant that the intervals of activation is rather inconsistent, so if you swapped to another weaponset you could still get procs from the trait and miss out on potential Tor4 fireballs if you're not running torch on the second set. But now, because they made it consistent by just giving you 2 throws, it's always going to be thrown in sync with the actual skill itself, meaning that you are free to swap to a second weaponset with another offhand (like a pistol or focus) without feeling like you're missing out on Tor4 procs as long as you swap back to torch set again when it comes back off cd.

[Echostorm.9143]

4 minutes ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

Depending on how much additional burning you got from Radiant Fire, the change to Firebrand there might actually be a nerf instead of a buff because you don't get the crit procs anymore. We'll have to see what the numbers look like, it's a good change overall but I hope anet follows up with tuning it depending on how the new numbers look like.

I think the changes overall are good, I hope the mirage nerfs won't affect the damage too much and it ends up killing the class in pugs again, it's already quite the rare sight even if the dmg potential is really good.

I'm surprised and once again disappointed how they haven't nerfed the boon access of quickness herald. Herald is so strong with its 600 range 360 degrees quickness application that playing quickness firebrand is actually trolling. Reminder fb mantras only have 180 range base and 450 for the cone that needs to be aimed.

Lastly I hope they fix the Vindi dodge bug. Getting 2.5k extra damage from a bug is a bit much and it has been left in the game for too long. If the dmg difference was like ~700 dps I wouldn't mind it as much because it actually requires some skill to pull off, but with such a large difference it has to go.

There is no reason to nerf hearald but they should have buffed the kitten out of the range on everyone elses buffs to make it fair.  It's insane that FBs are still 180.

[Jokuc.3478]

12 minutes ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

There is no reason to nerf hearald but they should have buffed the kitten out of the range on everyone elses buffs to make it fair.  It's insane that FBs are still 180.

I think it's fair to argue that qfb should be buffed instead of herald being nerfed, but I personally think the game has become too easy and laid-back with boon application so I would much rather see nerfs than buffs.

edit: actually when it comes to nerfing herald I would prefer if they just got rid of most of the free boon duration you get and force you to take some diviner gear, the large range is ok I guess, stacking meta is kinda lame. The main issue for me is just that it's too easy to keep 100% of every boon nowadays.

Edited January 12 by Jokuc.3478

[JDub.1530]

3 minutes ago, Jokuc.3478 said:

You are not misreading, but you are misunderstanding. The reason why this enables you to run another off-hand is because previously when Tor4 was proced by crits, this meant that the intervals of activation is rather inconsistent, so if you swapped to another weaponset you could still get procs from the trait and miss out on potential Tor4 fireballs if you're not running torch on the second set. But now, because they made it consistent by just giving you 2 throws, it's always going to be thrown in sync with the actual skill itself, meaning that you are free to swap to a second weaponset with another offhand (like a pistol or focus) without feeling like you're missing out on Tor4 procs as long as you swap back to torch set again when it comes back off cd.

But you also lose the AOE burning proc for other weapons. So now it's almost entirely a Torch trait

[Kaatora.3186]

21 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Improved Alacrity: Reduced the alacrity recharge speed from 50% to 35% in WvW only.

Does Anet not know how math works? Because if this is the only change to the trait, using the trait is strictly worse than not running the trait. Chronos will get less overall effect from alacrity than literally everyone else with that change. The only exception is if they are so overflowing with alacrity they maintain it 100% of the time all the time, in which case it doesn't matter. But in WvW, 100% uptime at all times, both in and out of combat, is not realistic.

The 33% alacrity duration reduction for 50% skill recharge speed was the breakeven point for the trait. Chronos get the same overall effect from alacrity with the trait, but just faster. However, changing one number but not the other throws that balance out of whack. So if the skill recharge speed is getting reduced to 35%, then the alacrity duraction reduction would also need to be reduced to 26% to maintain balance of the trait and have it so chrono doesn't simply get less effect from alacrity than everyone else.

If I need to get into the math of why this is the case, let me know and I'll try. I'm dreadfully awful at explaining things though, so I'm not sure I even explained the above well enough as it is.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

• Split Second: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 15 seconds in WvW only.
• Improved Alacrity: Reduced the alacrity recharge speed from 50% to 35% in WvW only.
• Flow of Time: Reduced the alacrity per clone from 1.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds in WvW only.
• Seize the Moment: Reduced the quickness per clone from 1 second to 0.75 seconds in WvW only.
  
  You know who will be more kittened up by these? Power Chrono.
  As usual you try to nerf build X but rekt Y instead.

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

October 24th, 2022 was the last balance philosophy stream. 

If you have no balance philosophy, then you are going to balanced based on golem benchmarks and excel spreadsheets.

You need a better balance system and better balance philosophy.  If you are confident in your philosophy then please share it with us.  Last time was extremely vague.

You could even create PTR servers as well for a better way to integrate feedback.  This past Summer was 50 pages of feedback and no changes.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

22 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Thief

Deadeye has been growing in popularity in PvP over the last few months, and we've seen that it can be a bit too difficult to lock down for the damage it's capable of dealing. We're increasing the initiative cost of Death's Advance to require a larger resource investment for the survivability that it provides.

• Skirmisher's Shot: Reduced the power coefficient from 0.8 to 0.7 in PvP only.

Oh yes, this doesn't affect WvW at all.

No DE in WvW presses 2 2 2 2. 

[Rongaron.9213]

Dear Arena Net balance team , if you dont want stop nerf warriors on dps aspects, then atleast we warriors can nicely ask for letting us have some buffs on defenses (if some Warriors would like to play as tank? because why not) and mobility (because we are a snails compare to other classes) , thank you in advance 

[VictorLeal.4102]

I want to understand why increase the cooldown of a scourge skill (that help on heal allies and fear enemies) so much by setting it to 60 seconds instead of giving a ICD for Transfusion...  You guys just don't like Scourge, right? lol

Edited January 12 by VictorLeal.4102