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Upcoming Wintersday Balance Update


Irenio CalmonHuang.2048

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Ballance for wvw needs to be seperate from pvp and pve, some things I have thought what could help with that, my opinion of course in WVW ONLY because it is where I have most of my in game time spent.Return max condi cap to 25 orRemove condi from might; condi should not burst, might is a burst mech. that sends many skills to be a burst each tick orremove negetive conditon damage sigils and runes etc. and make toughness work for conditon damage per stack, or duration, or tick or combinination mix of them toward your over all armor. ormake specific boons work against specific conditions as they stack or tick, a hard counter being boon rip, and coruption which is now plentiful and remove resistance orchanging it to neg. condition duration.or change the way rengeneration works so that the tick comes from the sender of the buff and not your personal healing power, and makes the highest tick first above giving it to yourself.or give condition based stats modifiers like power; percision, ferocity. Make conditions be duration expertise and another modifier so that getting max armor/damage has a cost.Or remove Precision as a stat and ad it to traits to be used in conditions and power to modify both making ferocity and expertise equal single modifiers

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A couple of things people aren't understanding:

  1. Potential condition damage will stay about the same, or in the case of Purging Flames, actually increases by a tiny amount. Condition classes aren't going to be gutted by these changes in PvE.
  2. You still need expertise for PvE damage. Just because the base conditions last longer doesn't mean you're dealing the same damage per second unless your Expertise is also the same as before the change.
  3. This will help cleansing in PvP and WvW (and even PvE). You'll have longer to decide when to use a cleanse and your cleanses will come off cooldown faster when compared to equal damage over time.
  4. These changes don't need to be split between PvE and PvP. There is no appreciable change to PvE after this update.
  5. Vulnerability will become more spike centric, which is honestly a better position than it currently is. Maintaining Vulnerability might become a meaningful choice rather than a nice side-effect.
  6. And most importantly, these changes need to happen and be understood before other changes can happen. Power can't be buffed when the balance between Power and Condi is in flux.
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@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

  • Re-vamping several passive vulnerability traits to offer more distinct opportunities or create synergy with other traits

Hoping for a rework of one of the underperforming Spite's minor traits :3

            - e.g. Mutilate Defenses: This trait has been reworked and renamed to "Expose Defenses". This trait now causes your first attack when entering combat to inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds. This ability refreshes whenever you use an elite skill.

The reset idea could be a good thing but putting it into (elite) skills could be problematic.Maybe putting the reset on weapon (or legend) swap could be better, lowering the vulnerability to 3 stacks.

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I just have one thing to say: Guardian "...when burning stacks over the threshold." That particular trait is one central to my build and bursting that burning quickly is important. The entire point of burning was that it did high damage for a short period, in comparison to other conditions. At least as far as I understand it, I'm very open to being wrong.

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@Vulf.3098 said:

@arawulf.5210 said:Besides being less bursty for PvP, can this be understood to be a DPS increase for fractals and raids for condi builds? I suppose it depends on the specific encounter. Overall, I'm trying to figure out if I should be happy about this or concerned (play Firebrand condi but don't PvP often)

It is going to be a pretty big nerf on bosses that have phases where they go invulnerable/immune for awhile or completely clear conditions. Basically this is going to further widen the gap between Ele/DH stacking on bosses like KC. I am pretty concerned about this.

Those bosses are already meant to be tackled more by power builds. You can outdps condi builds with power builds on these bosses. It's a matter of balances. You have power for instant damage, and condi for DoT. It should always have been this way. It's not a bad thing. It just makes varied team comps needed, instead of making condi damage king in every situation.

On PvP modes, i think cleanse abilities should have an added function of reducing the duration of condis remaining on you by like 30-50%, so that you can manage the 20 stacks of every condi in the game being applied without having to dedicate 2-3 utility slots and a couple traits to condi cleanse.

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So like, as long as my Condi Engie is not in a trash bin in PVE and I can still do my stuff in PVP, I don't care.

I like classes doing a set amount of condis. For example:

Engie: Confusion, Poison, Bleed, BurnEle: Chill, Bleed, Burn, VulnerabilityRanger: Bleed, Poison, Confusion, Immobolize.

This amount of Condi in each class is fine to me. Don't get me wrong I like some power builds as well, but DoTs just make things interesting when I'm not really in the mood to be a melee.

As long as you can keep the balance between power and Condi, and not make it trash like pre-HoT, I'm all game for bringing it in line.

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@Jinks.2057 said:Also people need to realize they can tweak raid bosses and PvE content. What this means if they lower the overall DPS in the game by 10k they can easily lower the overall raid boss HPS by certain amount to compensate.

What they can't do is balance the player skill aspect. They can only balance the classes in terms of PvP.

This is why ALL balance should be based on PvP since you can nerf PvE content to compensate for PvP balance changes.

On the other hand, designing and balancing purely for PvP yields some specs that are absolute trash in PvE due to their main mechanics focusing around mechanics that don't exist in PvE. Boon corrupts, boon strips from scourge/SB are huge parts of their design, and yet are useless in PvE. Scrapper was clearly a PvP oriented spec.

The balance should never be done for only a single game mode, that's what got us into such an awful state balance wise in the first place. It needs to be done with considerations for all game modes at the same time.

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@Carighan.6758 said:I like the idea of conditions lasting longer but being less bursty.

Frankly, I'd go even further, in your example the burning stack should be single, 16-20 seconds. Even more damage total, even longer, even less burst potential.

Differentiates the game further between the "I bring the damage output" condi specs and the "I kill stuff" power specs.

This is actually quite a bad solution. Remember why conditions were updated in the first place? Its because it took them forever to kill anything in PvE, to hte point where you were basically forced into a berserker build (and just screw you core necro) because their ramp up was so ridiculously wrong. Your solution would take us right back to that, which would eliminate condi builds from open world PvE and probably a great deal of high end PvE as well, simply because of how long it would take for condi builds to do their damage.

@LUST.7241 I have to disagree with you here. Condi cleanses are fine as they are honestly, and some of them even need to be toned down in how many they do cleanse (notably natural healing). What needs to be changed instead is to lower the amount of conditions being thrown around in GW2 by a rather substantial amount. Instead of needlessly buffing cleanses, simply make them more effective by lowering the amount of conditions being applied in competitive environments.

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Serious problem for some classes !This change buffs condi cleanse, since u have more time to use it and remove more condis, which might not be totally bad idea....but RESISTANCE gets nerfed directly!

Imagine, ur a warrior ur hit with 3 stacks of burn for 5 sec, u pop resistance = u take 0 damage unless stripped or corrupted. now take 2 stacks for 8 sec = u tick 3 times with burn ! yolo, another nerf to already strippable and corruptable resistance... classes without enough cleanse : pls say goodbye :-)

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@OriOri.8724 said:

@Jinks.2057 said:Also people need to realize they can tweak raid bosses and PvE content. What this means if they lower the overall DPS in the game by 10k they can easily lower the overall raid boss HPS by certain amount to compensate.

What they can't do is balance the player skill aspect. They can only balance the classes in terms of PvP.

This is why ALL balance should be based on PvP since you can nerf PvE content to compensate for PvP balance changes.

On the other hand, designing and balancing purely for PvP yields some specs that are absolute trash in PvE due to their main mechanics focusing around mechanics that don't exist in PvE. Boon corrupts, boon strips from scourge/SB are huge parts of their design, and yet are useless in PvE. Scrapper was clearly a PvP oriented spec.

The balance should never be done for only a single game mode, that's what got us into such an awful state balance wise in the first place. It needs to be done with considerations for all game modes at the same time.

The easy Fix to this would be to add more boons to npcs across the board from starter zones up, to teach players what boons and corruptions/rips are so as they grow in the game they can learn to fight against them, making their end game content in pvp, wvw or raids/fractals more satisfying to themselves and to their team.

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A thought just came to me

Seriously why can't this game seem to get condi and power balanced? In SWTOR Verelance Snipers were a DoT class that (when I played about five months ago) were top DPS, out of the whole entire game. Can spread their poison to a whole mob in a flashpoint. Their Marksman brother build was fairly low, because it was only decent at single target dps.

But, on the flip side we now look at the Assassin family. Hatred Assassin's were the third lowest DoT DPS class in the game, while Deception Assassins were either the third or second highest right after the Condi Snipers as a Power build.

You see this here? Power and Condi have their really good build equivalent and sub par build equivalent . This struggle for power and condi never was truly an issue. This game, for reasons I cannot begin to understand, are having this problem that no other mmo seems to suffer from. I cannot wrap my head around as to why.

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@OriOri.8724 said:

@Jinks.2057 said:Also people need to realize they can tweak raid bosses and PvE content. What this means if they lower the overall DPS in the game by 10k they can easily lower the overall raid boss HPS by certain amount to compensate.

What they can't do is balance the player skill aspect. They can only balance the classes in terms of PvP.

This is why ALL balance should be based on PvP since you can nerf PvE content to compensate for PvP balance changes.

On the other hand, designing and balancing purely for PvP yields some specs that are absolute trash in PvE due to their main mechanics focusing around mechanics that don't exist in PvE. Boon corrupts, boon strips from scourge/SB are huge parts of their design, and yet are useless in PvE. Scrapper was clearly a PvP oriented spec.

The balance should never be done for only a single game mode, that's what got us into such an awful state balance wise in the first place. It needs to be done with considerations for all game modes at the same time.

They aren't good enough at the job to do that. Let's be honest here it's been over 5 years and the balance has gotten worse with each expansion.

The point no PvE'r is tackling is why isn't PvE content being balanced in direct correlation with class balance. I'm sorry but why can't bosses have boons? Would give a slot to necro instantly in that instance. These types of things are fluid and can be changed, but Anet refuses to do so. Instead we are left with a balance team who is so focused on the raid meta they are destroying PvP. The PvP Team had to remove amulets from the game in an emergent act to save PvP.

Think about that for a second.

The PvP team is removing amulets b/c otherwise the game would be even MORE imbalanced than it is currently. They are currently splitting skills now.

It's time to change PvE content in regards to PvP balance. There's no other way at this time. Maybe in the future we can go back, but at this juncture 2/3rds of your game is being sacrificed. It's so bad they are starting to notice on their overhead.

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Do you have any plans for an underused weapons/utility skills/traits overhaul any time soon? I know many of these skills and traits are generally buffed or adjusted in droves. It's been a while since the last pass and there are most definitely some skills and traits that could use some love now (looking at you, guardian staff)!

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@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:Wintersday is coming fellow Tyrians and, during the recent AMA, I made reference to a small balance update and I wished to follow-up to let you know that we're aiming to release that update next Tuesday, 12/12.


We've heard your frustrations with the burstiness of conditions invalidating power builds across game modes (though for differing reasons in each). Conditions have always been intended as a way to achieve strong sustained damage once it has ramped up.

This small update has primary two foci:

  • Pushing damaging burst condition toward ramping, sustained damage. This should create more opportunities for counterplay, but also feel satisfying to keep conditions rolling once you’ve ramped them up.
    • i.e. We’re tuning some skills that apply damaging conditions so that they apply less stacks up front, but last for longer. In total duration they’re almost the same before and after.
    • e.g. Purging Flames: Burning has been adjusted from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 8 seconds.
  • Re-vamping several passive vulnerability traits to offer more distinct opportunities or create synergy with other traits (rather than being standalone). At small amounts vulnerability doesn’t feel good and adding more vulnerability to something that is capped on it has little value. These changes will offer chances to spike up vulnerability when it is ebbing or encourage new build styles.
    • e.g. Mutilate Defenses: This trait has been reworked and renamed to "Expose Defenses". This trait now causes your first attack when entering combat to inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds. This ability refreshes whenever you use an elite skill.

As always, we’ll be looking for your feedback once you have had a chance to play with the upcoming changes. We’ll start a post here after December 12th to hear your thoughts, so please prepare your most constructive feedback.

See you in the lands!

Not on topic but I feel it’s a good place to ask as it’s another damage type comparison.

Are there any plans to address ranged damage vs melee damage?

Well before the trait lines revamp ranged damage usually did less than melee damage by quite a considerable margin which meant getting close to enemies while being risky was more rewarding. Since then we’ve seen a number of changes which has led to some odd discrepancies in this mantra. I’ve seen revenants auto attack on hammer at 1200 range do over 4K damage and coalescence of ruin go as high as 14k and phase smash hit for 12k all from a nice safe 1200 range. I’ve seen 4K auto attacks from rangers at over 1500 range and guardians likewise seem to do as much damage at range on their longbow as at close range on swords and great swords.

I’ve noticed this worrying trend where melee attacks (same traits used) are doing similar damage numbers to ranged attacks, I can kind of understand rangers having a good long range attack but there are a lot of classes where your ranged option will do as much damage as your melee option. Is this a change of stance between melee being higher risk and so doing more damage or is this something that can be put on the table for future improvement?

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@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

e.g. Mutilate Defenses: This trait has been reworked and renamed to "Expose Defenses". This trait now causes your first attack when entering combat to inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds. This ability refreshes whenever you use an elite skill.

I have some concerns about this example change, in that it seems like a major nerf. The first problem is that it, from my understanding, only affects one enemy per attack, meaning that it is less effective in scenarios where you encounter groups of enemies. The second is that the Devastation specialization has two other minor traits, both of which are dependent on attacking a target with vulnerability-- and Revenant doesn't have that many sources of vulnerability (sword 1, sword 4, spear 2, Shiro's Jade Winds, Glint's Burst of Strength utility, Kalla's Icerazor's Ire utility, Invocation's Song of the Mists trait with Shiro, Renegade's Ashen Demeanor trait; no source with a duration longer than 6 seconds). Third, the "recharge on elite" mechanic is punishing towards 2/3 of the legends best suited for power builds, the most likely build type to take Devastation. Both Jalis and Shiro have very costly and situational elite skills, meaning that the trait is unlikely to be recharged. Glint's elite can work, but a trait that applies 5 vulnerability to one target every 45 seconds at best is extremely disappointing.

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I hope this balance patch is well split between PVE and PvP. Because where as I can understand that the PvP need on condi damage was very much needed, the PvE areas of the game shouldn't be made to suffer because of it.Ramp damage is fine, but it heavily reduces condition effectiveness in open world, mob clearing and anything with short phases, potentially eliminating a reason to play them outside from specific bosses in raids.Please don't kill PvE condi builds!

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' See It For What It Is,Not WhatYou WantIt To Be '

Toxicity is the root cause of the problem and that is what it is.

Toxicity must be removed across the board for the health of the game

From-

  • All Classes

  • All Skills

  • All bulds

  • All traits

  • All specs

  • All designs

  • All elite specializations

  • All environments

  • PvP+WvW game modes

  • All bad behaviors

Without Exception!!

Stop Rewarding Unaccountability And Irresponsibility!!

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@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:To re-iterate and hopefully clarify something - this update is NOT an end-all resolution to power and condition builds, it is a step toward the goal of accentuating differences will lead to healthier options in several game modes. This is also a smaller scope update.

We'll be listening to your feedback on these types of changes, but we ask that you keep discussion to the items we're focusing on here.

Well, based on previous experience with this games "balance" updates and the use of the word "balance" to begin with is rather ironic. It would be good to actually (and finally!) start getting this games burst damage both condi and direct under control.

I do hope that you also take a look at how many conditions can be applied at once, getting riddled with 5+ conditions every few seconds is just ridiculous it simply makes taking Condition removal pointless as the application is WAAAAAAY over the top compared to removal. Of course applications should be slightly better but it shouldnt be 90/10 in condition application favor.

Any chance of some Weaver love? Sword is STILL one of the worst weapons for a weaver to use and that is just madness :( Earth could do with slightly better condition damage/stacks while Air could do with better direct damage and Fire just seems to really be weak at both its condition and its direct damage when talking about the auto attacks.

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The one thing that has always annoyed my about conditions is that there's little impact from condition removal since they can be re-applied right away and there's not that much impact derived from when a condition is removed. That's why I always though the base mechanics of conditions needed two changes:

  • Mindless spam of skills should be less effective than mindful use of them.
    • For example, with conditions, by giving a very short time in which a condition can't be re-applied after being removed. Something like just 0.75s. It could be shown as making the condition go gray in the effect area like when control conditions go gray under an enemy with a defiance bar.
    • This could also be applied to boons, so removing a boon always gives that short window of opportunity without being able to re-apply and spam it again. And even to stun breakers, making stun breakers give a 0.75s immunity to stun when they break a stun and only when they do, so a stun breaker always gives a split second to react even if it doesn't come with added stability, and heavy CC spam isn't as effective as tactical use of it.
  • Ramping up stacking conditions should also derive from mechanic that give greater effects based on the stacks of that condition already placed by you the enemy, rather than keeping each stack as just that. That is, throwing more and more of a condition on someone who isn't removing it should work better against them than if they remove it at key intervals.
    • For example, applying a stack of bleeding on an enemy could add a short duration to any stack of bleeding you own. So, if for example, adding a stack gave 0.5s to any existing stack you placed, dealing 4 stacks would give your stacks 2 extra seconds.
    • Or something like making burning deal 1 additional burning stack for a short duration for every 3 stacks of burning already placed by you on the enemy, so whenever a skill burns, it bursts a little, making skills like Flamestrike work better after building up some stacks of burning on an enemy.
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@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

  • e.g. Mutilate Defenses: This trait has been reworked and renamed to "Expose Defenses". This trait now causes your first attack when entering combat to inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds. This ability refreshes whenever you use an elite skill.

I'm sorry to come in to your thread and be all negative but I feel like this is a bad change. Power revenant is already in an absolutely awful place in PvE, but was kinda fine in PvP past I checked, so what it desperately needs are buffs to longterm damage sustain what this is is actually an across the board nerf to all rev builds which won't do anything to PvE while making rev maybe 1-2% more bursty upfront in PvP which it really doesn't need anyway.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:At this moment the only way to make power builds worth running in PvE on most classes is to buff power builds. No matter how you nerf condi, power dps warrior, necro or ranger for example are simply not worth taking.

There needs to be buffs to many underpowered power builds (Necromancer / Warrior) as well as a ramp up increase in time to condition and a full review of what condition cleanses are currently available to each class. My hope is this is part of their new balance plan because frankly most everything prior to this has just resulted in niche builds becoming more and more powerful and really limiting viability for the bulk of current builds.

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