March 19 Balance Update Preview

[FrancisN.9276]

5 hours ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

Guardian

- "Feel My Wrath!": This looks disturbing. I guess Guardian will get more sources of Superspeed in the near future.
- Redemption & Glacial Heart: Yep. Guardian is about to become the next Scrapper. 

This is very disturbing. You will not allow both classes to have the same abilities. So you are going to remove them from Scrapper in favor of your beloved Guardian. I'm not surprised, we have reached the peak with Scrapper a few weeks ago and I am constantly waiting for the massive nerf-hammer (pun intended) to end our perfect run. The problem for me is, that you always used a nuke to balance us, when we became 'too strong'. It always ended in the total destruction of the spec. Rendering us weaker than common NPCs. Do you really want to go that path again?

That is not all. Comparing Willbender's ultimate ( Heaven's Palm) with Daredevil' ultimate (Impact Strike) , we can see that not only Willbender's ult has shorter cooldown (20s compared to 25s), but also double the damage, double the defiance break on top of being instant damage in a single hit, but now they also give Willbender evade frame on during the attack (Daredevil only has 0.5s evade during the FIRST phase of ult). They take every class strong point, buff it and give it to Guardian.

[Phyb.6704]

15 minutes ago, FrancisN.9276 said:

That is not all. Comparing Willbender's ultimate ( Heaven's Palm) with Daredevil' ultimate (Impact Strike) , we can see that not only Willbender's ult has shorter cooldown (20s compared to 25s), but also double the damage, double the defiance break on top of being instant damage in a single hit, but now they also give Willbender evade frame on during the attack (Daredevil only has 0.5s evade during the FIRST phase of ult). They take every class strong point, buff it and give it to Guardian.

Because dev's want what they play to be good. They do not care about anything else. It is obvious. Play what the dev's play or quit. That it what "cmc" has been telling us for years. 

[Frostterror.6075]

4 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

Hammer two gets an AoE chill when you take that trait. Also, some relics/traits apply chill too.

That depends on how bad they going to shank the heal. If it 50-100 healing like most guard skills then the Sigil and Relics that apply chill will not be worth the time of day vs other passive heal skills guard already has that is constant. With Sigils and Relics that heal can only happen every 9-10 sec with sigils and 30-90 sec elite and 20-40 for shout skills. So unless they crank out the healing to 500-1000 healing per the 1 chill with a increased cd then nah I'm dropping my favorite passive trait. I would rather have just the chill effect targets every 1 sec of peeps I disable.

[itspomf.9523]

On 2/16/2024 at 1:34 PM, Butterfly Kingdom.8349 said:

Thief

Quickness deadeye was significantly overtuned when it was introduced but got brought down a bit too far from that point. This update includes a few tune-ups for the build's damage to hopefully bring it more in line with other options. We've also made usability improvements to some traits in the critical strikes and daredevil specializations along with some minor improvements to acrobatics.

• Vigorous Recovery: This trait has been reworked and renamed to Pumping Up. Gain might when you dodge.

While I'm very excited for the other changes to Thief (I might finally be able to feel useful while running a dual-pistol build!), the change quoted above is really a poor decision.

Acrobatics has already been gutted twice, and you're now taking away one of the last sources of Vigor (and related improvements) from core Thief after Endless Stamina was removed in June of last year in the continued push to turn it into yet another damage-oriented trait line, which it historically is not.  Worse, these sorts of changes also mean that Thieves (and particularly Daredevil) have fewer sources of additional dodges, greatly inhibiting their survival. 

With this change, the only non-weapon skill sources of Vigor will be:

• Well of Bounty (locked to Specter)
• Consume Plasma (stolen skill from Mesmer-type foes)
• Detonate Plasma (raiding only)
• Steal Warmth (locked to Deadeye, but unavailable when using Fire for Effect)

Likewise, the only trait-based sources of Vigor will be:

• Feline Grace:  gain vigor on successfully evading an attack
• Bountiful Theft:  gain vigor when you steal

Following the very, very significant loss of 240 Concentration from Endless Stamina in addition to the +50% Vigor effect, we're now looking at a trait line which no longer meaningfully synergizes with one of the few boons core Thief could reliably provide itself.

[Angesombre.4630]

Anet justifies her new content by saying that the old content is obsolete. The nerve of vindicator's line is total nonsense, and I've had no illusions about that for the last few months. Anet manages to take all the fun out of a game.

[Angesombre.4630]

Fortunately Anet listens to its community because what would it be otherwise ... ha well in fact it is already the case it listens to nothing for many months.

[someguy.4107]

Bladesworn on life-support continues. Necro sword fx get worked on because how awful they were. The spec Anet ripped that skill from getting none of that work... Gunsaber 2 & Pistol 5 require the target to not move, but the only in spec answer for stopping players got removed and replaced with nothing. At least Gunsaber 2, a skill hits like a noodle or doesn't land, has reduced after cast. At least Gunsaber 3, a skill that whiffs if the target runs at you in a line, has reduced after cast. I'm personally excited for when the rest of Dragon Trigger skills get a .5 second delay slapped onto all of them (Even trigger guard & mini-port).

Do you feel your life slipping through your fingers? Time you'll never get back waiting for this game in never ending maintenance mode to just end? Numbers patches as far as the eye can see. Every player waiting for their problem to not even get fixed but merely noticed. Years on years of your life waiting for this horse to drink the water you led it to only receive silence. 

[GoldSilva.8950]

Very excited for most of these changes! | A Couple Concerns:

 1) I'm not opposed to Willbender having some of its physical skills tuned up. And Heaven's Palm should definitely finish a downed'd player. (It always should have imo.) But Willbenders are already immortal god-kings of in/out gameplay in WvW and PvP that can run potentially 3-4 stunbreaks safely on their kit, even without Renewed Focus. However the problem, as I see it, is not with this so much. (Thief plays/builds similarly.) But with the basically 0 investment they can do to achieve near permanent alacrity uptime. So:

 1) Does Willbender get to keep it's Alacrity? If so, can it at least require more +boon % investment so they can't do EVERYTHING AND also refresh all of their stunbreaks, blinks, and now elite that finishes players?

 & 2) I worry about giving [Heaven's Palm] evade on startup. I know other cc skills like [Bull's Charge] have evade on startup. But BC is like, the only good' utility skill Warrior has AND only hits 1 target. I'm not saying don't do it, but I worry about the lack of Counter-Play to something that can ALSO potentially hard knockdown 4 other players. Maybe having Heaven's Palm give 1 stack of Stability, might be a bit safer? (That way you would still be safe from most down-ed state single button 2 cc' skills, BUT also have some counterplay if [HP] was used against a group from said group?

 

 Thanks for Considering, Reading, & Previewing the patch notes as always guys!  Take Care o/

[Seneca.6319]

Quote

We made some adjustments to mesmer support builds in WvW in the January update, but it's clear that they're still a bit stronger than we'd like them to be

Ok, out with it just say which class and spec needs to be where so we can all stop getting pissed off on the nerf patch previews from now on. 

[Jasonbdj.4021]

7 hours ago, hook.8479 said:

After killing the Firebrand, now you continue to destroy the scourge.
You can promote the abusive CC and boon generator without bring back viable/balanced ways to handle it. (strip/break)
In the same time, you can't even fix or let free some cheated trait or spell that cause unwanted SideEffect or unbalanced behavior (40K damage burst, heal burst, insta strip ... ).

Well, we have turn from skills levels to spamming war(hardware difference & server ping difference).
Don't forget where we are 🤮

Will it be possible to skip our brain in the future ?

Anet after seeing this will nerf ranger's sword and bless Guardian with resolution boon.

Welcome to "Guardian and friends" mmorpg.

 

[Rosy.5194]

Just a few comments on the ele changes:

Elemental Surge renaming to Arcane Lightning -- that rename makes NO SENSE at all. A better rename, if you must, would be Elemental Arcana.  I also think taking condi choice based on attunement away from players is odd and reducing flexibility overall. In other words: booo

Lucid Singularity started with "remove movement-impeding condis and add condi reduction buff", and then got a complete rewrite to "give alacrity" which was fiddled with repeatedly. And now an entirely new rewrite to "give might" -- but Fire Overload already does that, so again, a VERY odd choice. 
 

The change to "Bolstered Elements" is fine because barrier on ele always was half-kitten anyway.

[Crowfang.8529]

What about ANet firing CMC? It would be the wisest thing they've done for a while now.

[Farwind.8016]

Questions for Devs/Feedback:

1. Do you guys envision shortbow engi as a possible pqdps build? Or is this really specifically aimed at heal builds only?
2. Are you guys happy with how the confusion change worked out, where it's less swingy per boss?
3. You're changing thief to suffer less from stray endurance gain. Any chance a similar change could be made to takedown round on engi?
4. fire wizard is losing some burning stacks from your arcane changes. Is there a plan to compensate that?
5. I find quickness coming from the engi rather than the blast kinda awkward. Is that going to change with shortbow?

[Crowfang.8529]

They nerfed mes to the ground in sPvP. Now they did it again in WvW. They've planned to delete the class in 2025 so we all reroll guardians or leave the game. Ggwp.

[Jasonbdj.4021]

1 hour ago, Farwind.8016 said:

Questions for Devs/Feedback:
4. fire wizard is losing some burning stacs from your arcane changes. Is there a plan to compensate that?

Yes, a reminder that guardians exist and can apply burning stacks better.

Edited February 18 by Jasonbdj.4021

[Fwog.9387]

19 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

Why does it even still exist at all? Just get rid of this penalty altogether, because all it does is making it annoying to play mech that oftentimes is out of range even when it's melee and the whole group is stacking. The changes you keep making to it almost every single balance patch just proves that it was a mistake creating this penalty in the first place. It doesn't work in this game. Make it 0% already like it used to be before you killed the spec.

All it does is completely defeat the point of playing a pet class. If its attached at the hip anyway, why have a separate micro manageable entity at all. It also needs more options for control but that is a separate topic entirely. The boons should have a floor target, and or the mech should have a stand here button. 

[Burnfall.9573]

3 hours ago, Crowfang.8529 said:

They nerfed mes to the ground in sPvP. Now they did it again in WvW. They've planned to delete the class in 2025 so we all reroll guardians or leave the game. Ggwp.

 

oh really??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyyuoMNkvpw

 

(once again, Bad Design can not be "nerfed" unless it is either removed or reworked)

 

Edited February 18 by Burnfall.9573

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

On 2/16/2024 at 3:32 PM, Rainiris.1975 said:

And you just offed the whole point of Plague Signet...

And would you believe there are still people who think homogenized balancing is a good idea?

Because this is what you get. Anything remotely unique being stripped away in favor of a generic buff that every class can gain access too.

[Vooksa.2941]

Wanted to comment after having taken the time to watch the devstream, and the follow-up podcast.

There are a lot of good changes here, and a lot of "Gain advantage for having performed a related action" trait updates that were noticeably absent in the past. That said:

• ONE WITH AIR: Group superspeed would have been nice instead. Punishing the combo with Fresh Air is bizarre, because isn't synergy with traits a GOOD thing?
• ARCANE WAVE/ARCANE LIGHTNING: Needs playtesting to form a clear opinion, but a ground-targeted mobility leap is great. The issue here is that Arcane, as a mix-together catch-all, loses a significant amount of elemental versatility because of this. Catalyst could use Earth+Arcane to proc immob for energy, and Weaver also uses Water+Arcane for chill on Elemental Pursuit. If Elemental Surge was unpopular, I'd direct you to how good Evasive Arcana (variety of good effects, and Ele has dodge-related traits already) and Bountiful Power (as much as +24% bonus damage with twelve boons; why not limit it to 6 boons, for a maximum of +12%?) are in comparison. Reducing the mix-match of controlling conditions when using arcane skills might solidify them by purpose, but I don't imagine will make them more popular as a result.
• ENGINEER has solid changes, from pDPS holo to boons provided by relevant actions, but BUNKER DOWN ends up feeling like a loss of purity. The point is that you're generating healing for yourself without moving very far, and creating a minefield to punish enemies who converge on your location, by landing crits. Spawning mines under enemies when disabling them feels much more aggressive than the name suggests, but not in a way that mechanically competes successfully with Anticorrosion Plating or Medical Dispersion Field. Rename it if you have to, but come on. I get you don't want a bunker meta in PvP, but past a certain point, you've gutted the fantasy.
• FEEL MY WRATH frankly doesn't need additional help. Group superspeed is nice (read: One With Air), but it's already an incredibly short cooldown with group access to strong boons.
• GLACIAL HEART doesn't compete as a self-heal against Absolute Resolve's group condi cleanse and enhanced passive groupwide healing. Including chill as a heal source is a joke, given that you now only have one source of chill, and it's when using hammer, exclusively. We'll have to check back after the values for the healing are released, but I don't imagine that it sees use.
• WILLBENDER absolutely does not need a buff to a trait that makes them unkillable. There's already very little counterplay to a Willbender in competitive, but DEATHLESS COURAGE is going to be extremely oppressive, having aegis, prolonged duration, reduced condi damage, AND bonus strike damage. It's not clear if these are it's only features, and it's preventing you from being downed still, but please reconsider.
• Having Heaven's Palm be a finisher is cool, and I wish more classes had access to finisher skills. It's not within the scope of this update, but it'd be nice if Ranger pets could do it somehow. Not relevant, just thoughts.
• MESMER's MASTER FENCER and DESPERATE DECOY are more good changes in "granting boons relevant to the action" design. INFINITE FORGE is a decent update, especially in the field of pDPS alternatives to Bloodsong, but it still feels extremely passive. You joked on the podcast about "somewhere between 1, and infinite, and settled for 2", but honestly? Continue that line of thinking. Why not a trait that allows you to stock 10 blades instead? Bladesongs still only use up 5 at max, but it gives you an opportunity to stock more blades than you shoot, and have a "backup quiver" of blades if you want to cast two skills. It'd also help justify Blade Renewal's ludicrous 60s cooldown to stock 10 blades at once, and create a cool niche case for traits like Illusionary Inspiration.
• SIGNETS OF SUFFERING needs numbers on exactly how much lifesteal we're talking here, but it's almost guaranteed to not be much, so it's not clear who's supposed to be excited for this.
• VILE VIALS providing protection, "and group prot with Twisted Medicine!" is like... peak example case of how overcosted Harbinger traits are. Elixirs suck. The idea that you have to take TWO traits, AND an entire medicine cabinet of elixirs to provide a reasonable amount of protection on a group, is absurd. Just, roll the protection into Twisted Medicine, and delete Vile Vials and come up with something else. Call Twisted Medicine "inoculation" or something, because, and I hate to say it, "your boon-granting vials now also grant boons to allies" isn't twisted medicine. That's just medicine. Stocking players with boons that help protect them in the future isn't twisted, that's just how inoculation works. I am going to throw a dictionary through a window.
• RANGER's SURVIVAL INSTINCTS and CARNIVORE are really interesting new tech for, as the streams put it, creating a bruiser archetype that uses pDPS rather than cDPS. The exact values still have to be rolled out, so it's not clear exactly how good it's supposed to be, but I expect ~5% of offense/defense, and it's anyone's guess how good the lifesteal of Carnivore is supposed to be. If other lifesteal traits are any indication, Carnivore will have a very difficult time competing with Poison Master as a grandmaster trait.
• NATURAL BALANCE no longer granting reduced incoming strike damage is... curious. A lot of condi druid is using Celestial Shadow, to invisibly wait out DoT ticks, reposition, and escape in WvW, but I can understand why Natural Balance is getting targeted. The bonus boon duration is the thing that gets me: Verdant Etching is a massive source of group prot, because just about every druid glyph is actually pretty good to slot, but bonus damage and bonus boon duration is... well, it stumps me. Is this meant for alacDPS? All-Harrier, Monk runes, Nature Magic gets druid to 95% boon duration, so I imagine this is for Ritualist's or something?

Finally, Renegade:

• As before, I think this needs to be playtested before anybody can have a good opinion about this. I'm shocked that there was no designs to bring down the ludicrous effectiveness of Herald, but for now, we'll just have to see.
• The redesign of Legendary Renegade is sound in theory. It brings the summons in line with what was done with Ranger spirits; an initial summon effect, and then a secondary effect after, without being an entity that can be targeted (and hopefully that also means damaged).
• Band Together, without knowing how long the effect lasts for, doesn't seem to indicate if the empowered summon ALSO restarts Band Together. If it does, this doesn't become a buddy system, like the devs playfully suggest, it becomes a "spam all of your summons simultaneously on cooldown" system. This SUCKS, and is a huge downgrade to how the system currently works, where you use the summons that you need, WHEN you need them, and only the ones you need, because of the energy cost limitations. Consider a similar mechanic: Ventari's 'empowered'. When Ventari's tablet is summoned, the first skill you use has bonus effects: this encourages you to swap out of Ventari, or to use Energy Expulsion to destroy the tablet and summon it again. Herald is the ONLY ELITE SPEC that has synergy with this, with True Nature creating another option for getting the effect back again. Ventari's empowered mechanic is already not super good, but with enough practice and timing, you can be astoundingly effective with it, given how jank it is. Band Together is the same concept, but in a completely opposite direction. 
• BREAKRAZOR'S BASTION: Good. Resolution synergizes with the Retribution specialization, and the pulsing heal helps ward off damage that rolls out in phases.
• DARKRAZOR'S DARING: Good-ish. If repeated dazing was an issue, it could have been a knockback instead, and Darkrazor could have been maintained as a zoning device. As it stands with the change, group prot, a daze, and then resistance if enhanced helps it synergize with the Corruption line. It's not bad, but it definitely loses an old application.
• RAZORCLAW'S EDGE: Unknown. Bleeding was on a 1s iCD and ten pulses, so can we expect that we'll have ten stacks applied to all allies in the initial impact zone? Bonus torment is fine, even if it feels like a consolation prize.
• ICERAZOR'S IRE: Bad. Icerazor holds synergy value with Devastation, as multiple strikes, and multiple applications of vulnerability. Reducing that to three projectiles, even if they do also apply torment, immobilize, and potentially chill, basically guts what this skill was capable of, and turns it from a pDPS, into a purely cDPS skill. I get that Renegade is meant to be a cDPS spec, but considering that even Herald has ways to be a cDPS using Glint, Renegade basically lacks any kind of unique nuance to help it stand out, and this rework doesn't introduce any.
• I half expect Renegade's alacrity, Orders from Above, to be stripped in an upcoming patch as well, given how it was taken out of Druid, Scourge, and Tempest here. At that point, there will literally be zero reason to play Renegade in PvP and WvW over the vastly superior damage, boons, and healing that Herald provides. If your goal was to make "Renegade exist in a healthy state in competitive modes, while maintaining it's viability in PvE", you'll basically have completely failed, by completely altering what all the PvE players were using to a completely untested state, while failing to introduce any meaningful mechanic that would make it stand out or have value in PvP or WvW. Literally cannot comprehend what the thought process was here.

There was a lot of very good, very interesting changes in this release, and if certain traits come back with decent enough numbers, there'll be a good amount of builds with expanded usability. There were, however, many changes that feel like half-measures, or attacking unused traits in a way that fails to compare to their competition, and a rework of Renegade that blatantly doesn't resolve the issues that the elite spec suffers from. I've worked on reworking Renegade for years, in multiple documents and posts, but I urge you to go back to the drawing board on this one. Kalla is not the issue with Renegade, and changing Kalla this way does not make it more playable.

[Vooksa.2941]

Oh, and as a note from the podcast: "Omnivore" is a way better name than Carnivore. It's cool, but it sounds more like a Beastmastery, aggro kind of trait, whereas omnivores are versatile and not reliant on their environment, the perfect name for a Wilderness Survival trait.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Oh, and as a note from the podcast: "Omnivore" is a way better name than Carnivore. It's cool, but it sounds more like a Beastmastery, aggro kind of trait, whereas omnivores are versatile and not reliant on their environment, the perfect name for a Wilderness Survival trait.

True, plus Omnivore is much better against sylvari than Carnivore.

[Vegeta.2563]

They finally figured out that Alacrity on Necro was a dumb idea.

Now how about you adjust the traits and skills that got nerfed because of the addition to alacrity??

[Crowfang.8529]

5 hours ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

 

oh really??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyyuoMNkvpw

 

(once again, Bad Design can not be "nerfed" unless it is either removed or reworked)

 

You're playing a glass canon. This build is there for years now and nobody play it in the current and past metas at high ranks for a reason. Thank you anyway.

[Katary.7096]

6 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

• Band Together, without knowing how long the effect lasts for, doesn't seem to indicate if the empowered summon ALSO restarts Band Together. If it does, this doesn't become a buddy system, like the devs playfully suggest, it becomes a "spam all of your summons simultaneously on cooldown" system. This SUCKS, and is a huge downgrade to how the system currently works, where you use the summons that you need, WHEN you need them, and only the ones you need, because of the energy cost limitations. Consider a similar mechanic: Ventari's 'empowered'. When Ventari's tablet is summoned, the first skill you use has bonus effects: this encourages you to swap out of Ventari, or to use Energy Expulsion to destroy the tablet and summon it again. Herald is the ONLY ELITE SPEC that has synergy with this, with True Nature creating another option for getting the effect back again. Ventari's empowered mechanic is already not super good, but with enough practice and timing, you can be astoundingly effective with it, given how jank it is. Band Together is the same concept, but in a completely opposite direction. 

"Band Together" is not going to chain into itself.

"Band Together: Your next Legendary Renegade skill activates instantly and is enhanced. Activating a Legendary Renegade skill in this way does not trigger Band Together again."

[Gehenna.3625]

On 2/16/2024 at 11:10 PM, Leaa.2943 said:

Are we just ignoring the fact that Anet nerfed yet another boonstrip? I mean at this point the boonballs are just a clownfiesta of boons and bubbles and obnoxious to play around. I don't even know what to say anymore. I laughed so much that i cried when i read it, but at the same time it really is so frustrating that Arena Net seem to think that is is how WvW should be, this is fun, except it is not.

All I'm saying is that I will have all legendary items from WvW done in about 5-6 weeks and then I'll refocus on OW PvE again. Boonballs are a complete kitten show and it really takes all the fun out of WvW for me. I mean, I'm sure the people in boonballs are having the time of their lives but not all servers have well-organised boonballs and certainly not all the time.

But Anet and cmc in particular are not even talking or recognising this afaik. All this tweaking is detail work and they ignore the elephant in the WvW room. So yeah, I'll just need around 2400 wvw tickets and them I'm done with WvW, for a while at least. I get that WvW will always be imbalanced, it's sort of part of the deal when you think about it. But boonballs just make things so much worse that it doesn't fit the WvW format anymore. They should have maps for GvG or Zerg vs Zerg for that because ultimately I feel that that's the only thing that they balance around in WvW and all the other aspects of WvW are ignored.

Edited February 18 by Gehenna.3625