January 30 Balance Update Preview

[Icefyer.9208]

The "on heal" effects are getting frustrating as a mechanist healer, since we lack access to any "on heal" effects, due to the fact that medkit's self heal is a toolbelt skill, which we don't have. We even get locked out of traits in our own healing trait line! Cleansing Synergy, Reconstructive Enclosure, Transmute, none of it works with mechanist and medkit. Can it please be made that while you're using a medkit, either swapping to it counts for "on heal" effects, or if you want something more controllable, the Mech 1st skill, as little sense as that'd make?

I'm pretty sure all of this already has an internal cooldown. If you're worried about it being up too much, aren't you able to make the traits and such take such into account, like how you guys first nerfed the rocket skill the mech used to use, changing its cooldown separately from the engineer's?

Edited January 14 by Icefyer.9208

[Leaa.2943]

I can't find the part where Anet are finally fixing the boonball and bubble hell in wvw to make it fun to play again? 

[MuscleBobBuffPants.1406]

Let them know what you think about their balance philosophy and balance system. Is it effective? Do they have a good philosophy? Do they have a good system for integrating feedback? Would a PTR system help?
 

Feel free to contact NCSoft West to let them know your thoughts and opinions! https://us.ncsoft.com/en-us
 

Public Relations Email NCWPR@ncsoft.com

[Phyb.6704]

50 minutes ago, MuscleBobBuffPants.1406 said:

Let them know what you think about their balance philosophy and balance system. Is it effective? Do they have a good philosophy? Do they have a good system for integrating feedback? Would a PTR system help?
 

Feel free to contact NCSoft West to let them know your thoughts and opinions! https://us.ncsoft.com/en-us
 

Public Relations Email NCWPR@ncsoft.com

Its NCSoft. They sit in the same teir as EA games. Both horrible companies. They are good at making money but all their products become dumpster fire. They milk games dry and and leave them for dead. I would not be expecting much from ncsoft. If the Anet team does not change things then its over. NCSoft is a lost cause. 

[Matoro.9708]

Lol, they removed what made ranger sword special in order to make it a generic power weapon then buffed GS because it, as the power weapon, wasn't as good number wise. Then they are also adding the maces. I'm sure it's all very tactical; they can plan the next 4 years of balance changes just creeping things with the same purpose up to each other one at a time

[Noodle Ant.1605]

ele hammer nerfs seem to miss the mark as the main issue is the “free” +15% dmg from flame wheel (condi hammer was supposedly fine a short while ago when it was only +10%). this is very advantageous for builds that could already source adequate amounts of condi without the weapon (i.e. tempest, weaver)

the current intended nerfs will mainly turn condi hammer for core ele and catalyst suddenly into perhaps the worst weapon they could use, and make it a largely forgettable option for tempest and weaver

[Fifth.8169]

On 1/12/2024 at 12:07 PM, IvarEriksson.2498 said:

Elementalist finally has a a nice dps build which is not a complete piano concerto.

Anet: BRING OUT THE NERF BAT! 
 

Can’t have nice things I guess. 

Lol piano keys!   That so true, same for mesmer... the two hardest classes to play get nerfed.  Not everyone can reach max dps on them and for those that had the skill to pull it off are no longer rewarded. not worth the effort.   also  poor heal scourge... 60 seconds on transfusion now... what the hell....  it better bring people back up with full life now..... but still 60 seconds is crazy.... thats at least two trips from keep to SMC.  someone salty  they were able to rez their friend ...

[Bunschii.2918]

condi hammer catalyst is effectively being nerfed as well because of weaver and tempest

[damienra.3914]

Quote

Necromancer

Necromancer is currently in a pretty good spot in PvE. We considered some improvements for power harbinger builds, but we want to see where the build lands with the introduction of swords before making any additional changes. Transfusion is a trait that overperforms in support scourge builds in WvW, so we're making a change similar to what we did with Path of Corruption, in which the trait will increase the cooldown of its related scourge skill in WvW only.

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

I'm going to be blunt & as nice as possible.
While I don't disagree with the change you are out of your mind with the cooldown change, Because in zerg WvW there is far to much pull & stunlock & near Zero Stability. - On all classes. Fix that issue before making things unplayable & pointless.
Right now you are hit every 1-2 seconds by pulls (or CC) which are often on the same timer as this skill, this skill is technically the only "Light" solution in your party unless everyone is on discord calling stab assuming they all have it, Fun Fact, Wont ever happen & they Dont all have stab. From many experiences in this situation More so lately!

So doing this change as is you are showing you don't want players to respect or trust you, because of your failure to see the issues & fix them, instead you nerfed barrier into the ground & now a heal & raise when the problem requiring those 2 things remains at a pure kitten level.
Right now in my experienced eyes not just as a gamer this is strike 3 you are out, A-net seriously consider getting someone else to do the balance who actually wants to do the job rather than someone who panders - to blind idiots. Or just remove the class its the same level of stupid thinking you are currently doing in these situations. Anyone who thinks otherwise I'd like to point out I literally told you the issue with swords before testing & got it all right, because there was no way to get that wrong yet A-net did, just like in this case.
Fix the cause for spam (overuse of pulls & CC without resistance timers on players & lack of Stab). Then you can safely nerf this to 60 seconds. Till then we are judging failures.

Edited January 15 by damienra.3914

[LichOverlord.6329]

23 hours ago, Jianyu.7065 said:

CMC is going through this thread putting a confused and cry emoji on all the criticism....

I sincerely hope not, for all our sakes

Though I may be frustrated, I don't dislike the guy or anything, and he's been great for the PvP community imo 

I think it would be great if he was actually reading some of this feedback, taking it in, and maybe trying to see things from a different perspective. 

No shame in admitting you're wrong - he's done it before with scrapper wells, and I have faith that he'll see his mistake here, as well

[wruszka.1975]

Well, the Mirage nerfs are completely unnecessary, yes it has the biggest benchmark right now, but it is in training ground where u got all the buffs and the target standing still the whole time, i myself playing that build and let me tell you the encounters that its actually works are just a few in the game, the build has forced movement and the rotation is so hard to master, where is the point of nerfing something that is so hard or for most ecounters is impossible to achive, 90% of people that plays mesmer  just rolling faces on keyboards reaching greater numbers as any virtuoso builds, in PvE as mirage u dont even have any opion besides the staxe build, in my opinion if u nerf it this class will be dead( even more dead then it is right now)

[Siggi.3201]

oh dear, as a mesmer main i am truly disappointed....  i can understand that mirage might does to much dmg, even tho its a hard class to play and has A LOT of forced movement which makes the build horrible to play in many situations in the first place. but this changes ARE NERFING EVERY SINGLE CONDITION BUILD, beside freaking busted no brain Cvirt and this is just outrages! axe itself nor chaos it self seem to be outperforming its only its interaction with mirage, so can we place have nerfs onto the axe trait and maybe axe ambush, so the build gets tuned down a bit without hitting every condi support spec please?

[ZeroTheRuler.7415]

On 1/11/2024 at 3:26 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

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.

Every time I see initiative costs go up I am reminded of this... and it pains me a little.

Trickery is required for ALL thief builds for the +3 initiative gain from preparedness. Balance is dictated by initiative costs and since all effective builds take trickery, balance must also expect that all thieves have the +3 initiative. It kills potential build diversity by raising the skill floor for builds that do not take trickery.

Also shadow arts are pretty much required for all builds in PvP and most WvW builds. This means the remaining options are very, very, very limited and it is a pain point for for PvP / WvW content for many. The goal of the balance document states this.

Quote

Goals

Fundamentally, our goal is to ensure that the moment-to-moment gameplay in Guild Wars 2 is enjoyable for as many players as possible. To that end, we want to capitalize on the depth of the combat system to build a fluid and fast-paced combat experience that allows players to express their mastery of mechanics. We also want to create a substantial number of viable build options and allow for a broad set of combat strategies in order to enable a wide range of playstyles.

I would like to implore that you to please consider making the initiative gain on preparedness baseline in the future.

Edited January 15 by ZeroTheRuler.7415

[melcor.1094]

You need to delete the "face your target" requirement for Mantra of Distraction, not the target requirement. Deleting the target requirement is the opposite of a QoL improvement. 

[Omg Im Target.3095]

At this point i wonder if CMC ever touched raids.

[Famine.9780]

On 1/12/2024 at 7:06 PM, kharmin.7683 said:

They must be getting used somewhere for Anet to take notice and have enough data to support making adjustments.  /shrug

Yeah they getting used on the snowcrows benchmark page

[Herrscher.2986]

Maybe I'm wrong about this but I wonder why Power Scrapper is getting nerfed instead of Power Holosmith getting buffed.

[godofcows.2451]

a joke. 

[shush.7641]

1 hour ago, Omg Im Target.3095 said:

At this point i wonder if CMC ever touched raids.

I wonder if they (CmC, Roy...) ever touched the game or just spectated some GvG here and there... the level of incompetence is quite hurting.

Bias towards a specific gamemode or specific playstyle for a class they have in mind with the new weapon coming up and with zero awareness of any side effects their changes will have for other gamemodes or playstyles of that classes. 

This game is doomed as long as Anet does not invest some money to hire professional balance devs with knowledge and experience about/ in competitive balancing and way less shortsighted views on the game and less bias towards/against gamemodes/ classes and playstyles of classes/ specs.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

where are the much needed vindicator and willbender nerfs in wvw? These specs are a total nightmare!

Where is the balancing of harbinger?

why is stealth still a thing?

and even more barrage? 

Question: do you even play your game?

[Suyheuti.1732]

2 hours ago, Herrscher.2986 said:

Maybe I'm wrong about this but I wonder why Power Scrapper is getting nerfed instead of Power Holosmith getting buffed.

Power Scrapper is more than good compared its playstyle. Nerfing it a little wont hurt too much. About Power Holosmith, especially, sword, yes, it needs buff.

 

The true disappointment in this patch is Nerfing mirage to the bottom of the barrel. If anet release this, mirage’s benchmark will be about 40k-41k. Cvirt is 42,5k right now and will stay untouched. After all, tell me one good reason to play mirage? 

[Dagger.2035]

After 146 days the thief relic is still broken.

[Mascarun.7910]

Hi, first time here sharing my opinion (don't come for me or for this block of text that no one will read anyway🥺) about the changes to hammer:

Please reconsider a nerf that is not so harsh to current condi elementalist builds. My experience is playing condition tempest (not super familiar with Weaver), which is in fact the easiest of the three specs, but I do not believe that doing these changes would be healthy for hammer or for state of balance for elementalist.

If the estimated DPS post-nerf of hammer on condition builds (according to the website we all use, 41k for Tempest and 40k Weaver) is accurate, then there would be no real point in using hammer anymore at all. As it stands, it is worse for power builds than Sword/Warhorn, and post-nerf it would be worse for condition builds than Scepter/Dagger(?)+Warhorn with the possibility of also being worse than Pistol/Warhorn once Pistol is released. The only thing Hammer would excel at after being nerfed is defence, but in comparison to other condi weapons for elementalist, it comes at a hefty cost to range (Fire only 600 and Earth 240 for Hammer while Scepter/Pistol get 900 range) and utility (see: Warhorn 4 in fire/earth). And it only makes sense for a melee weapon to have more defence than a ranged weapon anyway. 

If we want to compare the impact of these changes in relation to specs from other classes, we just need to remember that elementalist lacks impactful utility options and gives up a lot of damage to slot something else, while also being light on CC. And while tempest also has an easy rotation, in comparison to our DPS outlier Virtuoso, it is forced into melee range due to overloads, which can be disrupted and therefore cause us to lose significant damage due to losing Transcendent Tempest.

I propose that, instead of severely nerfing the duration of conditions on those skills, that the increase in condition damage granted by Flame Wheel be reduced from 15% back to 10%, which should result in bringing hammer cTempest back down to 43k. If you don't mind an ugly number, drop it down further to 7.5% if you want a 42k benchmark, but I believe the damage should not be any lower than that for any pure DPS elementalist spec given the inconvenience of playing elementalist in melee range as a CONDI DPS class. Not only would this nerf not be as harsh, but it would preserve hammer as a proper condition weapon instead of as a Flame Wheel stat stick. And on paper, it just looks like a less drastic change than 40-66% REDUCTION TO BURNING/BLEEDING DURATION. There is no reason for Surging Flames to be as pathetic as the current Singeing Strike in terms of damage, and for post-nerf Singeing Strike to do tickle damage when Scepter and presumably Pistol (if unchanged) have good duration on Burning. Even an auto attack should feel minimally rewarding. 

Finally, as a side note, I feel that the randomness of Glyph of Lesser Elementals for condi builds should be revised. In practice, Glyph of Lesser Elementals produces higher damage than what the benchmark provides (because for some reason they neglect to provide an expected DPS with it on), but I do not believe that we should use the problematic randomness of damage as a justification to nerf other aspects of a build. And again, we go back to: using all the utility skills for damage and not for something else that could be needed.  So many things that are bad or feel clunky and unfun with elementalist overall (conjures, summoning elementals, mostly unimpactful utilities, the Catalyst specialisation in general), yet none of those things are getting revised; instead, a perfectly good weapon is going to be nerfed to the ground. Will the rotation be the same with hammer post-nerf? Yes, but the DPS does matter a lot, because if there isn't the proper feeling of reward in comparison to other specs then it will just push more people out of playing any elementalist spec and right into the all powerful condition Virtuoso, or back to the same tired builds before condi hammer was even a thing. I was hoping to see more possibility for build variety with the addition of new weapons and the unlocking of elite spec weapons, but now I feel like I'm seeing the opposite. Ele staff revamp when?

TL;DR Think again. Loosen your grip a bit on the nerfhammer for elementalist's Hammer. Make it make sense.

[Burnfall.9573]

4 hours ago, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

where are the much needed vindicator and willbender nerfs in wvw? These specs are a total nightmare!

Where is the balancing of harbinger?

why is stealth still a thing?

and even more barrage? 

Question: do you even play your game?

 

This

"Making Exception Is Making Excuses For Rules To Be Broken"

For 12 years, Anet continuing making exception for  Un Healthy Game Design and for Un Fair Competition to be excused from Balance patches to remain broken. 

 

"Stop Checking In On A Person That Doesn't Check In On With You. They Don't Care. They Don't Deserve You. You're Wasting Your Time. Move On And Find Someone That Will Appreciate Your Concern'"

Edited January 16 by Burnfall.9573

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

8 hours ago, shush.7641 said:

I wonder if they (CmC, Roy...) ever touched the game or just spectated some GvG here and there... the level of incompetence is quite hurting.

Bias towards a specific gamemode or specific playstyle for a class they have in mind with the new weapon coming up and with zero awareness of any side effects their changes will have for other gamemodes or playstyles of that classes. 

This game is doomed as long as Anet does not invest some money to hire professional balance devs with knowledge and experience about/ in competitive balancing and way less shortsighted views on the game and less bias towards/against gamemodes/ classes and playstyles of classes/ specs.

I've been saying this since he was hired.

They should try to get Izzy back.