Regarding the Upcoming Echoing Eruption Change

[Passerbye.6291]

23 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Echoing Eruption: Reduced the number of blast finishers from 3 to 1. This skill now also grants might to the user.

While the interaction of casting Echoing Eruption on Searing Fissure for 2x blasts or Inspiring Reinforcement for 3x blasts may have been overperforming with the Relic of Karakosa. The shape of these fields combined with Echoing Eruption is a beautiful interaction in the game, properly aligning them feels rewarding since you can get multiple blasts off. I feel like adding a 1-sec internal cooldown to Karakosa would have been the better option over nerfing Echoic Eruption.
We should have more things like Echoing Eruption, not fewer imo. It is a joy to prebuff the group by toggling facets to get quickness, then going mace 2, dodge roll backwards, mace 3, weapon swap, staff 4 for a total of 3 blasts. You could even include centaur elite for a 4th blast. 

As said, I don't mind the nerf itself so much, I do however lament the loss of a beautiful interaction, especially considering it was clearly designed that way with how Searing Fissure is shaped. You could even do things like turn on centaur dome and move it along the blasts to get 3 blasts that way. That one being a very niche, even impractical interaction, I think should be kept in the game. Having more skills with relatively unique behaviour adds to the flavour of combat in this game

I feel like this nerf is mainly oriented towards solidifying the position of scepter on heal herald, but I don't think making another weapon less fun is the way to go here. 

[Jobber.6348]

Not much to discuss tbh, it's clearly another functionality gut for the sake of change for change's sake.

If this is the sort of balance patches we are gonna receive, I'd rather they never changed anything at all, especially if there are alot of other stuff that demands more attention than Haha new weapon which btw was gonna be a viable pick for Heal Herald anyways because of the Barrier granting to allies on top of other functions. Like yea it may not be "as strong" as triple blast Mace but there are plenty of instances where Barrier uptime could be more efficient than spamming Blasts for heals via Elevated. Not everything has to be THE BEST for every situation, which is the point of letting players form their own loadouts. 

So many things that demand more attention or could use some love like Staff but nah, let's nerf Mace and randomly decide that Axe needs to deal more Condi. 

[Za Shaloc.3908]

Yeah I am bummed about this change. I love the whole combo/finisher mechanic and this just feels like they are trying to nerf mace so scepter becomes the default mainhand support option on release. Karakosa has been a lot of fun and I do think it needs adjustments regardless of Rev mace 3, but I would have much preferred that they leave mace 3 alone and made its so you can only get 1 Karakosa proc per skill use.

One of the joys of Echoing Eruption is sending it into a bunch of allies in a large-scale fight and seeing which finishers you'd proc. And stuff like the Ventari bubble trick like you mentioned. I don't think these changes kill the skill by any means, it's just moreso sad that we're losing a fun and unique interaction. Like when Warrior lost its double finisher trait. Oh well.

After reading your post again I realize I basically repeated everything you said. Whoops. Needless to say I agree lol.

Edited January 13 by Za Shaloc.3908

[Angesombre.4630]

It's not like it's becoming a habit at Anet to do this kind of thing....
And then we'll have too much torment damage, so it'll be nerfed afterwards...

Edited January 13 by Angesombre.4630

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

Sad about mace 3. Even more sad about the future of axe 4. I can totally see them “buffing” it with lots of torment, only to realize people still won’t use skill 4 because it throws your character out of position. And then them doing anet things to completely change the skill and have it just be a boring “slash in front of you” skill and it losing its port. And losing the slow for pvp QQ…At this point a thief fighting me will have more slow on their one stolen skill then all of rev will have in their entire class.

[arazoth.7290]

17 minutes ago, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

Sad about mace 3. Even more sad about the future of axe 4. I can totally see them “buffing” it with lots of torment, only to realize people still won’t use skill 4 because it throws your character out of position. And then them doing anet things to completely change the skill and have it just be a boring “slash in front of you” skill and it losing its port. And losing the slow for pvp QQ…At this point a thief fighting me will have more slow on their one stolen skill then all of rev will have in their entire class.

wdym, scepter upkeep 😂

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

7 minutes ago, arazoth.7290 said:

wdym, scepter upkeep 😂

That’s going to be absolutely gutted. They may take 0 feedback and release the weapons like they were in beta, but there ain’t no way a pulsing, constantly reapply slow will not get nerfed, and fast. This is rev we’re talking about. They’ll immediately hot fix our class to nerf it and then take 6 months to 2 years to fix over performing aspects of other classes. 
 

They’re nerfing mace support aspects to make room for scepter. Then they’ll over nerf the ridiculous amount of barrier and other aspects it does till we’re left with two piles of garbage. It’s what happens every time.

Edited January 13 by UncreativeGreen.2019

[Giovanni.7051]

I can't wait for there to be some competition for GW2 for realm vs realm so I can leave them behind for these short sighted heavy handed over nerfs. Sadly this is the way of online gaming for the last 25 years. Ah well. Just another disappointment. 

[Aeolus.3615]

On 1/16/2024 at 6:20 PM, Giovanni.7051 said:

I can't wait for there to be some competition for GW2 for realm vs realm so I can leave them behind for these short sighted heavy handed over nerfs. Sadly this is the way of online gaming for the last 25 years. Ah well. Just another disappointment. 

I am in a few closed alphas and betas... all i can tell is  the future is bright for just a few ones.

How hard can be a mmo designer be, if the trend is to ruin game towards personal feelings in a greedy way  rather the oposite? This is also what gw2 has been suffering and by alot.

Anet choosed personal feeling over good design for gw2, sadly most people are retarted and if a game has  good graphics assume is a good game even when lacks depth and lots of things are a mess.

Edited January 20 by Aeolus.3615

[draxynnic.3719]

On 1/13/2024 at 8:48 AM, Passerbye.6291 said:

As said, I don't mind the nerf itself so much, I do however lament the loss of a beautiful interaction, especially considering it was clearly designed that way with how Searing Fissure is shaped. 

Explicitly so - the combo was one they highlighted as part of mace's design back in 2015 when they were first showcasing the revenant.

[Passerbye.6291]

12 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Explicitly so - the combo was one they highlighted as part of mace's design back in 2015 when they were first showcasing the revenant.

Wish they'd give up on changing it, but I don't have much hope. Don't get me wrong, I do think we have an insane power creep not only in damage, but also in boon and heal output. But I feel like balance should be achieved while preserving what makes classes interesting. Not to mension, reducing the blast finishers on herald seriously hinders the ramp up speed for might generation on heal herald, essentially forcing all heal heralds to use scepter instead once it gets released. It is such a shame. 

From a balance perspective as well, the fact that they are making firebrand fire tome 2 a blast finisher and adding healing to water tome 3 while reducing the cast time on a bunch of tome skills in the same patch as they nerf mace 3 feels rather unsettling. As a person who plays healers a lot, I still consider HFB to be the ultimate healer in organized groups due to the sheer amount of aegis access you can have, as well as the innate versatility from the tome skills. Meanwhile herald is an easier to play version with no real stacking requirements and higher healing output, but very limited aegis access, forcing the team to respect most mechanics, and heal scourge being the ultimate pug carry, rendering a lot of mistakes far less punishing with a downed state pull on a very short cooldown. It felt like almost all heal specs that were considered good had their own niche to a degree, but I feel like the distinctions are becoming less and less prominent with the introduction of barrier to multiple classes with the upcoming weapons.  I wish we'd see more distinctions and unique interactions, not less.

Edited January 21 by Passerbye.6291

[draxynnic.3719]

1 minute ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

Wish they'd give up on changing it, but I don't have much hope. Don't get me wrong, I do think we have an insane power creep not only in damage, but also in boon and heal output. But I feel like balance should be achieved while preserving what makes classes interesting. Not to mension, reducing the blast finishers on herald seriously hinders the ramp up speed for might generation on heal herald, essentially forcing all heal heralds to use scepter instead once it gets released. It is such a shame. 

From a balance perspective as well, the fact that they are making firebrand fire tome 2 a blast finisher and adding healing to water tome 3 while reducing the cast time on a bunch of tome skills in the same patch as they nerf mace 3 feels rather unsettling. As a person who plays healers a lot, I still consider HFB to be the ultimate healer in organized groups due to the sheer amount of aegis access you can have, as well as the innate versatility from the tome skills. Meanwhile herald is an easier to play version with no real stacking requirements and higher healing output, but very limited aegis access, forcing the team to respect most mechanics, and heal scourge being the ultimate pug carry, rendering a lot of mistakes far less punishing with a downed state pull on a very short cooldown. It felt like almost all heal specs that were considered good had their own niche to a degree, but I feel like the distinctions are becoming less and less prominent with the introduction of barrier to multiple classes with the upcoming weapons.  I wish we'd see more distinctions and unique interactions, not less.

Broadly agreed. I think the general consensus is that herald broadly outperforms firebrand nowadays (possibly in part because it's now more likely that the alac provider can bring aegis), but any overperformance could surely be handled in a more elegant fashion than breaking an interaction that was deliberately part of the weapon's design from the beginning.

[Passerbye.6291]

22 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Broadly agreed. I think the general consensus is that herald broadly outperforms firebrand nowadays (possibly in part because it's now more likely that the alac provider can bring aegis), but any overperformance could surely be handled in a more elegant fashion than breaking an interaction that was deliberately part of the weapon's design from the beginning.

I think this mostly originates from the lack of radius on mantras for quickness rather than sheer output. the 600 radius on herald brings a lot of comfort with it, whereas any place where the group stacks properly enough to make the lacking coverage on mantras a nonfactor, I find HFB to be very enabling. That being said, I enjoy herald and scourge a lot more these days and only do HFB for the more tryhard stuff mostly because me and my friends run no KP runs so we get a lot of less than ideal groups and we make ample mistakes ourselves, so stacking tends to be an issue, making herald a better choice for boons, and scourge is there for when you know you'll get a lot out of people dying to mechanics left and right and the cooldown on glyph of the stars on druid feels just too long for the frequency of mistakes ^^. 

Edited January 21 by Passerbye.6291

[draxynnic.3719]

2 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

I think this mostly originates from the lack of radius on mantras for quickness rather than sheer output. the 600 radius on herald brings a lot of comfort with it, whereas any place where the group stacks properly enough to make the lacking coverage on mantras a nonfactor, I find HFB to be very enabling. That being said, I enjoy herald and scourge a lot more these days and only do HFB for the more tryhard stuff mostly because me and my friends run no KP runs so we get a lot of less than ideal groups and we make ample mistakes ourselves, so stacking tends to be an issue, making herald a better choice for boons, and scourge is there for when you know you'll get a lot out of people dying to mechanics left and right and the cooldown on glyph of the stars on druid feels just too long for the frequency of mistakes ^^. 

I've mostly been taking a break from endgame instanced PvE of late unless a group needs a fill. The impression I get, though, is that while 600 radius is a factor, it's not the whole story - quickherald and healquickherald just outperform their firebrand equivalents on everything except the traditional guardian strengths of aegis and stability. Obviously not so much that firebrand becomes bad, though, and if your groups really need the aegis/stability, firebrand will do the job.

Still, though, hitting Karakosa with a 1s ICD would probably do a better job of disposing of the bathwater without losing the baby in the process. Nerfing a core part of the weapon's design due to a relic interaction feels like the relative priority of the cart and horse has been misplaced.

[Passerbye.6291]

10 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I've mostly been taking a break from endgame instanced PvE of late unless a group needs a fill. The impression I get, though, is that while 600 radius is a factor, it's not the whole story - quickherald and healquickherald just outperform their firebrand equivalents on everything except the traditional guardian strengths of aegis and stability. Obviously not so much that firebrand becomes bad, though, and if your groups really need the aegis/stability, firebrand will do the job.

Still, though, hitting Karakosa with a 1s ICD would probably do a better job of disposing of the bathwater without losing the baby in the process. Nerfing a core part of the weapon's design due to a relic interaction feels like the relative priority of the cart and horse has been misplaced.

Agreed, herald does have more healing output with centaur, which is not gonna change with karakosa nerf tbh as I can do about 13k heal a pop on centaur 2. Herald can also still have 90%+ stab uptime even with centaur and 100% with dwarf, almost permanent bubble on centaur, so it definitely has things it does better. What I find lacking on it compared to HFB is the sheer condi cleanse, while it has enough, it isn't as readily available in copious amounts as HFB does. For instance, mitigating the burst from slothasor's shake is a lot harder on herald than it is on HFB, doable still, just relatively speaking you know. Maybe it's a long time of HFB gameplay speaking, but I feel more in control of anything the game can throw at me as HFB. That being said, I feel like we need to bring pretty much all meta healers down, rather than buffing HFB. Healers are becoming more and more capable of cheesing mechanics.

Definitely agree with karakosa, I made a post day 1 or 2 about how karakosa was insanely overtuned and did the math on it, it was literally best in slot on any healer that could make use of it so it did deserve a nerf. People argued with me back then with how it wasn't too good btw lol. I just wish it got nerfed properly instead of a class mechanic. The funny part is, now flock is going to be best in slot for herald because it will scale off of percentage allied healing bonus due to being a heal that converts to barrier when allies are full, making it do 5k barrier on 10 second cooldown and it procs by moving the centaur tablet, so you can insta trigger it on demand and avoid triggering it when not needed, giving you a 5k burst heal/barrier on demand as soon as you enter centaur and just before exiting it if you so wish. All they end up doing is shift the meta, but make herald healing even more potent against spike damage, especially considering you have a massive heal that essentially full heals anyone to cover whatever damage gets past the barrier.

Edited January 21 by Passerbye.6291

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

On 1/21/2024 at 2:48 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

 guardian strengths of aegis and stability.

I don't even think Guard is better at Stab anymore. Rev has been the main contender for "best stab" outside of Guard for a long time just due to Jalis Road, but with Ventari you can literally just spam Stab constantly now with the Elite, it's nuts. If for some reason HealHerald needs even more Stab you can go Jalis/Ventari and you can have perma uptime on Stab no problem while still having nearly all of your access to healing and most everything else, too. The only thing Guard really has at this point is better Aegis like you said and access to reflects. Scepter is going to make Aegis even more irrelevant in a lot of ways though since Barrier is just better in many contexts

Edited January 23 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Passerbye.6291]

15 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

I don't even think Guard is better at Stab anymore. Rev has been the main contender for "best stab" outside of Guard for a long time just due to Jalis Road, but with Ventari you can literally just spam Stab constantly now with the Elite, it's nuts. If for some reason HealHerald needs even more Stab you can go Jalis/Ventari and you can have perma uptime on Stab no problem while still having nearly all of your access to healing and most everything else, too. The only thing Guard really has at this point is better Aegis like you said and access to reflects. Scepter is going to make Aegis even more irrelevant in a lot of ways though since Barrier is just better in many contexts

You can already have perma stab with jalis by casting road as the first and last thing in dwarf and then double tapping F2 in glint after the road disappears to boost the duration of the stab by 2 seconds. Doing the same with centaur usually leaves you with 10% or so downtime or stab but it's still pretty good even with centaur. 
The issue with revenant stab is that centaur has a really small radius, so its applicability is limited at times, which why we use the road sometimes, but even the road has that downside to a smaller degree as you have to stand on it for the duration to have that 100% uptime, whereas on HFB this is a lot less of a problem as you only need to stand on hallowed ground to have 100% uptime.
Revenant stab with the road does have one massive advantage though, if you place your subgroups on separate segments, you can stab an entire squad, not just 5 people.