30th January Balance Preview

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

In short, Mantra buffs and farewell to Mirage again.

Mesmer

Condition mirage's damage output is getting toned down after it landed too high with the changes in the November update. The November update also pushed mesmer support builds a bit over the top in WvW, and we're starting with some reductions to its alacrity and quickness access. We'll be keeping a close eye on the effectiveness of these builds once the rifle is available, and we will make additional adjustments as needed to bring them in line with other support builds. Supportive mantras are also getting minor usability improvements to prepare for the release of the rifle.

• Lingering Thoughts: Reduced the number of whirl finishers from 4 to 2.
• Lacerating Chop: Reduced the clone condition durations from 3 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.
• Imaginary Axes: Reduced the clone torment duration from 4 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.
• Mantra of Pain: Increased the radius from 240 to 360. This mantra no longer requires a target.
• Mantra of Recovery: Increased the radius from 240 to 360.
• Mantra of Resolve: Increased the radius from 240 to 360.
• Mantra of Distraction: This mantra no longer requires a target.
• Split Second: Increased the cooldown from 12 seconds to 15 seconds in WvW only.
• Illusionary Membrane: Reduced the condition damage bonus from 10% to 7% in PvE only.
• Chaotic Persistence: Reduced the expertise from 250 to 150 in PvE only.
• Restorative Mantras: This trait now triggers when using a mantra ammunition skill instead of when charging a mantra. Reduced the base healing from 1,640 to 820. Reduced the healing coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5.
• Escape Artist: Reduced the distortion duration from 5 seconds to 1.5 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.

[Melancholy Forever.3965]

And im here, wondering if with this weak class i am at least a little bit useful. Seems that i was OP all along, my bad. Should have been more confident about myself 🙂

[Cpt Crunch.7058]

Well the change to Restorative Mantra's is a nerf. Changing the activation of the trait to be the use of charges instead of on preparation of the mantra and reducing the base healing by 50% alone is simply a change to how the trait is activated, but slashing the coefficients by 50% reduces the overall healing output of the trait. Also from a mechanical and counterplay point of view the change is bad. The trait activating on preparation of the mantra allows for opponents to interrupt and deny both the mantra and the heal. Very powerful when it needs to be cast during a crucial moment in the fight and the mesmer has to deal with the long cast time. Changing the activation to the use of charges means there is no way to stop the healing because the mesmer is not obligated as much to deal with such a long cast during a disfavorable situation. Why cast a mantra in the thick of it when it's easier to kite away to cover the cast, run back to the group, blow mantra charges and repeat.

It's also bad for the flow of skills for the mesmer as it creates the situation where the choice of healing or mantra charges conflict. It ruins the aspect of cycling through them in a judicious manner and just becomes another thing that is to be spammed and wasted the moment the mantra is charged to get healing value out of them. The reward for a successful mantra cast while having to stay near allies while the enemy attempts to murder you was the heal, now it will just be more passive gameplay garbage.

Edited January 12 by Cpt Crunch.7058

[ShadowKatt.6740]

I only just saw this randomly pop up on reddit and I didn't know whether or not to share it here. Guess this answers the question.

All in all, I'm not generally affected by this, but I do find it hilarious that "We must make the mesmer a support class!" was quickly followed by "Nerf that kittener into the ground. It was almost playable for a while there. What the hell were you thinking?"

And the rifle isn't even out yet.

[apharma.3741]

WvW changes are clearly designed only for GvG and Zerg v Zerg and the 2 guys doing it should really stop balancing exclusively for this.
Mantras nerfing the healing power by 50% on top of splitting it to each mantra use is a bit excessive. All 50% nerfs are excessive.

Nerfing alacrity is just dumb because they made it dumb in the first place. If you want to provide group alacrity DO NOT HAVE IT ALTER THE TRAIT GIVING PERSONAL ALACRITY. All it does is make the class outside of a minstrels boon ball have no alacrity even if investing the traits. That once again we see a DOUBLE nerf to it only shows how much the balance devs dislike mesmer.

Can't wait to play a "support" mesmer which can't output anywhere near the healing a tempest does by rolling their face over the keyboard or cleanse anywhere near as much, or provide as the important boons. Hey, you heal on auto attack with rifle (🤭) and you got a personal portal! So stronk. Absolute bunch of biased double standard clowns.

[phokus.8934]

What Mesmer hurt CMCs feelings this time?

[ShadowKatt.6740]

1 hour ago, phokus.8934 said:

What Mesmer hurt CMCs feelings this time?

I wish I could take credit, but I can't.

[Geronmy.3298]

You are not allowed to have fun on mesmer unless you play CVirtuoso.

 

 

[SeTect.5918]

Oh come on people. 

Mirage Was (or is still) at 46.6k. Imo no build should be above 43 or 44k. The number differences between the builds are also too much (mirage dealing 4.7k more dps than power chrono and 4.4k more than condi virtuoso).

A nerf was justified.

Edit: in my opinion mirages issues are not caused by dps. Its caused by the rampup time. Just watch the snowcrows benchmark. The Total dps is at 46.6k but in the first 800k hp the bench didnt even reach 42k yet. Thats horribly slow. Mirage probably has the slowest ramp up time of all condi builds and almost every boss has phases with invulnerability or whatever so it has to ramp it up again and again. Mirage probably doesnt even reach 40k on phase bosses because the condi ramp up time is too slow on it. 

Virtuoso on the other hand is probably one of the condi builds with the best burst because of its high crit chance, crit damage and additional power-damage-percentage-increases by illusions spec. Thats why almost everyone plays this instead of mirage in raids, fractals and basically every other group content. 

Are these nerfs to mirage too much? Probably. Alone the "Chaotic Persistence"-nerf rips away 150 expertise (10% condi duration) off the build. This is literally enough to shred the dps down by min. 5% which brings it to the numbers of chrono and Virtuoso. 

So additional axe nerfs weren't actually needed even tho i m not the biggest Fan of core nerfs like this one.

So i understand you dont like these specific nerfs but i also understand why they nerfed it.

 

The Mantra changes...Well i Was hoping for a charge time reduction or finally making the damaging Mantras any useful but these were ignored ofc. 

Giving the heal to the ammunition instead of the charge was a nice change, but shredding the amount healed by this much wasnt needed.

Edited January 13 by SeTect.5918

[the krytan assassin.9235]

1 hour ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Mirage Was (or is still) at 46.6k. Imo no build should be above 43 or 44k. The number differences between the builds are also too much (mirage dealing 4.7k more dps than power chrono and 4.4k more than condi virtuoso).

Idc about the highest dps benchmark with perfect Boons+conditions on a stationary standard armor lvl 4 mil hp golem, i care about the overall output/ performance of a build (such as rampup time) and then start balancing dps accordingly. Mirage simply was not overperforming and therefore did not need any dps nerfs. Simple as it is. 

Same BS with Cvirt. Build is currently ridiculously overperforming @42,5k dps in terms of overall output (dps/self sustain/pierce/cc/utilities). That build deserves to be dropped to under 36-38k dps (alongside a few others). Im sick and tired of having 6 cvirts in every single strike CM.  

[Micah.3789]

3 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Mirage Was (or is still) at 46.6k. Imo no build should be above 43 or 44k. The number differences between the builds are also too much (mirage dealing 4.7k more dps than power chrono and 4.4k more than condi virtuoso).

A nerf was justified.

Snowcrows' benchmarks are a very useful tool, but they don't tell anywhere close to the whole story of how a dps is actually performing. In fact, as much as they try to keep things fair, not all classes perform equally well in golem test conditions. Take a look at some raid and strike bosses on wingman. You'll get a much better idea of how these builds actually perform. Mirage is on top by a small margin on a couple bosses, but it's mostly in the bottom middle of the pack. On heavy phasing or target swapping encounters it can be awful, like less than core builds. That said, a10% damage difference is nothing when you're comparing a hard to replicate, slow to ramp, mostly melee dps rotation to something so easy to execute that the damage is basically guaranteed, ranged, and bursty. It's also important to consider what else the build can bring to an encounter, as balance should be based on the bigger picture of contribution, not just dps.

On another note, y'all do realize that you get two charges for each mantra cast right? That's why the potency is halved. Healing value is effectively exactly the same if you're casting on CD, but now you can prepare mantras when it's most convenient/safe and utilize the healing on demand. This is overall a QoL change, but there could be some niche cases where this isn't as desirable.

10 hours ago, Cpt Crunch.7058 said:

Changing the activation of the trait to be the use of charges instead of on preparation of the mantra and reducing the base healing by 50% alone is simply a change to how the trait is activated, but slashing the coefficients by 50% reduces the overall healing output of the trait.

Your math is off. One use at 1640(1.0) is exactly the same as two uses at 820(0.5). Let's say you have 1k healing power: one heal for 2640 is the same as two for 1320. 

[Varis.5467]

10 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

I only just saw this randomly pop up on reddit and I didn't know whether or not to share it here. Guess this answers the question.

All in all, I'm not generally affected by this, but I do find it hilarious that "We must make the mesmer a support class!" was quickly followed by "Nerf that kittener into the ground. It was almost playable for a while there. What the hell were you thinking?"

And the rifle isn't even out yet.

And they make it sound as if the rifle would offset these nerfs 🙄

 

[Varis.5467]

8 hours ago, phokus.8934 said:

What Mesmer hurt CMCs feelings this time?

Probably got outplayed by one YET again - even after all the nerfs. 

[Curunen.8729]

Great, so force only axe/axe because in order to do any damage you have to take the trait...

I hate beyond words them always pushing towards staff/staff, axe/axe, dagger/dagger with kittening energy sigil reload button.

 

Why can I not go staff axe/x, or staff dagger/x, build alacrity on one, swap to the other to make some damage then back to continue alacrity? Or even dagger/x axe/x for damage and then cc when needed? No, got to play the most kittening boring and monotonous way possible instead...

I mean better yet they just delete alacrity from mirage and give all deception skill cooldowns back, but given the situation why cannot two kittening different weapons be encouraged?

[Mevelios.4809]

3 hours ago, Micah.3789 said:

Snowcrows' benchmarks are a very useful tool, but they don't tell anywhere close to the whole story of how a dps is actually performing. In fact, as much as they try to keep things fair, not all classes perform equally well in golem test conditions. Take a look at some raid and strike bosses on wingman. You'll get a much better idea of how these builds actually perform. Mirage is on top by a small margin on a couple bosses, but it's mostly in the bottom middle of the pack.

Exactly what was I about to reply after reading @SeTect.5918's message. Snow Crows' benchmarks don't tell it all, a static idle golem doesn't simulate real fighting. Wingman brings factual data.

Axe is a powerful weapon, but the forced movement denies you either freely using your skills, either... well, simply using the weapon. You can't spin freely on SH unless you're fine with "what's dat' smell? Bacon's burning!", you can't spin freely on Q1, you can't get close on any spread mechanic, and in general you already try not to start your spin from the back of the boss because it would otherwise bring you to its front. If you end up before the boss, you want to dodge since you're supposedly a glass cannon, which may as well ruin your golem benchmark rotation! When trying to compare it to chrono/virtuoso, both of them don't have any forced movement and can freely play the way they want on any boss.

[SeTect.5918]

8 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Idc about the highest dps benchmark with perfect Boons+conditions on a stationary standard armor lvl 4 mil hp golem, i care about the overall output/ performance of a build (such as rampup time) and then start balancing dps accordingly. Mirage simply was not overperforming and therefore did not need any dps nerfs. Simple as it is.   

Huh? The ramp up time Was exactly what i said in my post is the issue with the build. It needs like 30 seconds to reach the 46k and at that point all phase bosses will have their phase destroyed by bursts already. 

What i basically wanted to say is: 

Buff mirages burst and then nerf its total dps to around virtuoso level. 

 

Buffs or nerf to its total benchmark dps are nonsense because it needs 18-19 seconds to reach 41k dps while condi Viruoso reaches this number in 10 seconds even tho having the lower overall dps. Most bosses are phase bosses and thats why mirage performs bad in strikes/raids/fractals. It has no good ramp up time.

To fix mirages issues by just increasing its total dps you would have to give it 55k golem dps to compensate the very slow ramp up time. But that would mean by far too much dps on non-phase bosses. So the only fix is to give it a far faster ramp up time. Everything else wont change anything to its viability on phase-bosses.

My point was not to say that mirage is op. It was to say it needs other adjustments than golem dps increases/decreases.

8 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Same BS with Cvirt. Build is currently ridiculously overperforming @42,5k dps in terms of overall output (dps/self sustain/pierce/cc/utilities). That build deserves to be dropped to under 36-38k dps (alongside a few others). Im sick and tired of having 6 cvirts in every single strike CM.  

Its not as op as you are stating. Imagine a virtuoso without pierce, it would lack any aoe and would be completely single target. The self-sustain of the build also isnt that great, you have to throw away your heal to reset your illusions to deal that dps. You get 3% of your condi as heal as virtuoso while mirage has dodge spam. Virtuoso doesn't have more defense than mirage.

Edited January 13 by SeTect.5918

[apharma.3741]

4 hours ago, Micah.3789 said:

Snowcrows' benchmarks are a very useful tool, but they don't tell anywhere close to the whole story of how a dps is actually performing. In fact, as much as they try to keep things fair, not all classes perform equally well in golem test conditions. Take a look at some raid and strike bosses on wingman. You'll get a much better idea of how these builds actually perform. Mirage is on top by a small margin on a couple bosses, but it's mostly in the bottom middle of the pack. On heavy phasing or target swapping encounters it can be awful, like less than core builds. That said, a10% damage difference is nothing when you're comparing a hard to replicate, slow to ramp, mostly melee dps rotation to something so easy to execute that the damage is basically guaranteed, ranged, and bursty. It's also important to consider what else the build can bring to an encounter, as balance should be based on the bigger picture of contribution, not just dps.

On another note, y'all do realize that you get two charges for each mantra cast right? That's why the potency is halved. Healing value is effectively exactly the same if you're casting on CD, but now you can prepare mantras when it's most convenient/safe and utilize the healing on demand. This is overall a QoL change, but there could be some niche cases where this isn't as desirable.

Your math is off. One use at 1640(1.0) is exactly the same as two uses at 820(0.5). Let's say you have 1k healing power: one heal for 2640 is the same as two for 1320. 

It's still not competitive with other healers.
My tempest has 1296 healing power and giving an aura heals for 1815 in game with two "healing to others" increases, with the mantras that will be about 1910 about 100 more healing.. You can cycle the mantras a little more but I can also transmute that frost aura to heal for another ~2.6K and I cleansed a condition on providing the aura and 2 on transmute and I can do this to the point I'm cycling an aura every couple of seconds. I also get other benefits to this like frost aura on allies (-10% damage and perma chill to enemies) overloading water for it's healing and cleansing that will dwarf any mantra. The heal mantra can be cycled a little faster (~20s) than wash away the pain for the same total effects and probably about the same healing depending on range. We are also not factoring in the general utility of shocking and magnetic aura that tempest does provide plenty of, despite mantras on paper healing a little more in reality a build with mantras and rifle will still heal less I believe, even with restorative illusions as you're not going to be doing full shatters as often as overload water comes off CD.

For reference, you get frost auras on the following CDs and all are transmutable.
20s - weapon skill
24s - Overload water
30s - Flash Freeze shout (also cleanses an additional condi if running trooper)
40s - elemental bastion passive
60s - Soothing ice passive
75s - "Rebound"

The reason people took mesmer support was the perma chaos aura and perma alacrity or quickness, both of the latter boons are getting nerfed to the point where it affects EVERY chrono build in WvW. Looking at the mantra change and saying it's better on paper, sure it is but it's not comparable to already good healers (putting aside how awful it feels to use mantras) and it's unique aspects that made it worth bringing along despite the poor heals are also getting nerfed. The mantra change doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Edit: Btw healing to allies is multiplicative if you're wanting to math it out.

Edited January 13 by apharma.3741

[Levetty.1279]

15 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Restorative Mantras: This trait now triggers when using a mantra ammunition skill instead of when charging a mantra. Reduced the base healing from 1,640 to 820. Reduced the healing coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5.

I really kittening hate Mantras and how they are forcing them down our throat.

The current Heal mantra was just about bearable for Heal Chrono because of its interactions with traits but now they are obviously gearing up to balance Heal Chorno around Mantra of Pain spam. It is going to be horrendous. 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 hour ago, apharma.3741 said:

both of the latter boons are getting nerfed to the point where it affects EVERY chrono build in WvW. 

This is what pisses me off.
As I said in the balance thread, these nerfs affect even more power chrono than the build they're targetting.

Even a dartboard kind of balance would get more kitten right than 🤡M🤡.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

1 hour ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Huh? The ramp up time Was exactly what i said in my post is the issue with the build. It needs like 30 seconds to reach the 46k and at that point all phase bosses will have their phase destroyed by bursts already. 

What i basically wanted to say is: 

Buff mirages burst and then nerf its total dps to around virtuoso level. 

 

Buffs or nerf to its total benchmark dps are nonsense because it needs 18-19 seconds to reach 41k dps while condi Viruoso reaches this number in 10 seconds even tho having the lower overall dps. Most bosses are phase bosses and thats why mirage performs bad in strikes/raids/fractals. It has no good ramp up time.

To fix mirages issues by just increasing its total dps you would have to give it 55k golem dps to compensate the very slow ramp up time. But that would mean by far too much dps on non-phase bosses. So the only fix is to give it a far faster ramp up time. Everything else wont change anything to its viability on phase-bosses.

My point was not to say that mirage is op. It was to say it needs other adjustments than golem dps increases/decreases.

Its not as op as you are stating. Imagine a virtuoso without pierce, it would lack any aoe and would be completely single target. The self-sustain of the build also isnt that great, you have to throw away your heal to reset your illusions to deal that dps. You get 3% of your condi as heal as virtuoso while mirage has dodge spam. Virtuoso doesn't have more defense than mirage.

All i am saying is that the sequence of events matter. If a build has some underlying issues that need to be addressed, it should be done simultaneously with buffing/nerfing its dps. Nerfing dps output of a espec that has ~0.5% class popularity and is not overperforming in 98% of the encounters doesnt make any sense at all. Theres maybe ~4 balance patces per year and most of them are fairly small, the avg fix rates of builds is well over a year. This nerfs are devastating for Mirage. 

Also on that same not, you mention cvirt isnt good because i should imagine it as a virtuoso without piercing??? Aside from the fact that cvirt is completely broken because of all sorts of different reasons, your argument is completely flawed.

[Levetty.1279]

Your argument that they should nerf CVirt because they nerfed Mirage is completely flawed.

Maybe if you could articulate why the Mirage nerfs are bad instead of just going "spec I don't play is good and I don't like that" then they would be more likely to listen or even take ideas of what to do with Mirage since they obviously don't know.

[Gesbo.6420]

I am starting to get a bit sick of flip floping between restortive mantras procking on chanel or on cast at this point... Just do both and lets forget about them already

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Also on that same not, you mention cvirt isnt good because i should imagine it as a virtuoso without piercing??? Aside from the fact that cvirt is completely broken because of all sorts of different reasons, your argument is completely flawed.

I never said cvirt isnt good. I just said its not overperforming. 

I mentioned the thing with the piercing because you mentioned it as one of the aspects why it is overperforming. Which makes no sense because a build isnt overperforming just because it has the ability to hit more than one target. Almost every build has this ability. 

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/13/2024 at 6:56 AM, Cpt Crunch.7058 said:

Well the change to Restorative Mantra's is a nerf. Changing the activation of the trait to be the use of charges instead of on preparation of the mantra and reducing the base healing by 50% alone is simply a change to how the trait is activated, but slashing the coefficients by 50% reduces the overall healing output of the trait. Also from a mechanical and counterplay point of view the change is bad. The trait activating on preparation of the mantra allows for opponents to interrupt and deny both the mantra and the heal. Very powerful when it needs to be cast during a crucial moment in the fight and the mesmer has to deal with the long cast time. Changing the activation to the use of charges means there is no way to stop the healing because the mesmer is not obligated as much to deal with such a long cast during a disfavorable situation. Why cast a mantra in the thick of it when it's easier to kite away to cover the cast, run back to the group, blow mantra charges and repeat.

It's also bad for the flow of skills for the mesmer as it creates the situation where the choice of healing or mantra charges conflict. It ruins the aspect of cycling through them in a judicious manner and just becomes another thing that is to be spammed and wasted the moment the mantra is charged to get healing value out of them. The reward for a successful mantra cast while having to stay near allies while the enemy attempts to murder you was the heal, now it will just be more passive gameplay garbage.

I'd consider it a buff overall for two reasons:

First, the healing is more likely to be available when you need it. If something happens while you have a mantra charged, you can fire off the mantra to heal immediately. As things are currently, to heal off mantras you first need to have the mantra discharged, and then you need to wait for the charge time before the heal lands.

Second, if someone is using the mantra for its primary purpose rather than just to fuel the trait, they might want to conserve ammo rather than firing it off ASAP. As things currently stand, the trait does nothing until and unless the mantra is discharged and back off cooldown. With the changes, the trait will still have done something if you let the ammo fully recharge before using it again.

[Dadnir.5038]

It look like they are a bit heavy handed.