June 25 Balance Update Preview

[DragonBornKings.5762]

Some of the changes to Warrior utility skills cooldowns look nice, but there are issues I have with how you've gone about the Warrior Strength Traits.

5 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

• Reckless Dodge: Increased the might stacks on hit from 1 to 2 in PvE and PvP.
• Restorative Strength: This trait now grants resistance in addition to might. Reduced the might stacks from 5 to 2 in WvW and PvP.
• Might Makes Right: Increased the healing from 85 to 98 in WvW and PvP.

If Reckless Dodge is allowed to gain an extra stack of might, then the same should be applied to Forceful Greatsword. Additionally, the might duration should be increased from 5s to 10s(8s minimum) for both Reckless Dodge and Forceful Greatsword. This in turn will allow more healing from Might Makes Right, without needing to directly increase healing numbers, and allow Warrior to sustain longer fights. I will not accept Discipline, Tactics, For Great Justice, or any other might generating weapon skills/sigils/relics as excuses for Reckless Dodge and Forceful Greatsword to remain as they are now. Strength is one of Warrior's most used traitline in many player builds. If it's supposed to give might generation, then it should be decent at its job. Discipline may give might generation on weapon swap, but the rest of its traits are all over the place, making it a bad choice for general use. Tactics has traits that are used for GROUP play most of the time; Marching Orders and Empower Allies intervals are too long to get consistent might generation for Solo play. Though the changes to Martial Cadence do look good, you're still losing out on a lot of damage from other Traitlines; you can't get the most out of Empowered either because you can't give yourself any other boons or they don't last long enough. Can't really go into boon duration when Warriors struggle to maintain Power/Precision/Ferocity to make power builds work; even more so with Condi builds. As for For Great Justice, another utility takes its place in WvW/PvP 95% of the time, unless you're playing support Warrior. Aggressive Onslaught is also not an excuse for might generation, as it limits Warrior's options to Hammer/Mace or CC skills, which in turn, makes every other weapon option irrelevant and takes up an important utility slot.

Your suggested changes for Restorative Strength won't do much good for Warrior or the trait itself. No point to adding resistance when Resilient Roll exists in the Defense Traitline. The fact that Mending and Shake it Off exists in Warrior's utilities makes adding resistance to this trait even more pointless; better to just cleanse the conditions instead. Tying this skill to Warrior's healing utilities has been, and is, a cripple in its current iteration; unfortunately, you only get 5 stacks of might for only 5 seconds. Those might stacks will just expire before you even get to use your heal skill again. Decreasing the stacks gained from 5 to 2 will make it a dead trait; more so than it already is.

I recommend that Restorative Strength be reworked to function as so: Every 5 stacks of might, you gain 4s of Regeneration/Vigor. Either Boon would fit into the theme of the middle traitline of Strength. Regeneration synergizes with Might Makes Right in sustaining Warrior in long fights while gaining might(Reckless Dodge and Forceful Greatsword). Vigor gives lee-way for a Warrior to regain endurance if they are unable to land a burst skill to activate Building Momentum(either missed the hit, stunned, snared, or blinded). Being able to get both boons would be great, but if that were to become the case, then a 5s cooldown would be needed to balance out the interval of gaining them; avoiding consistent stacks of Regen/Vigor through might gain. Though there is a Relic that provides Vigor when completing a dodge roll, that would only serve to limit build options, while other classes are given freedom of choice among relics, which seems quite unfair.

One last thing I'd like to recommend for the Strength Traitline: Pinnacle of Strength should be buffed by at least +5 Power and +15% Crit Chance; +15 Power and + 20% Crit Chance in total. It would be the greatest QoL for Power Builds; in short, not struggling to maintain 100% Crit Chance. If +15% Crit Chance seems like too much, at least +10%; +5% at minimum.

[xellink.7568]

7 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Thief

• Unload: Increased the power coefficient from 0.4 to 0.45 in PvE only.

If you make the pistol stealth attack stronger, unload deadeye can at least use its class mechanic. even if its just elite stealth, thats still low intensity enough to make unload deadeye stronger. powering up unload is welcome, but not the ultimate solution for the unload build. unload is a workaround for people who don't want to deal with how kitten thief and its other skills are, like its pistol stealth attack. 

[bq pd.2148]

for larger scale WvW i would have expected some changes to revs like:

• brutality counting like a cc for removing stab stacks to adhere to the 0.75s cooldown instead of having a separate one for each rev that can be stacked with cc.
• target cap adjustment for inspiring reinforcement both damage and stab pulse
• jalis elite damage reductions reduced or better yet replaced with protection (+resolution when traited) for lower energy cost.
• why does renegade still give alacrity?

very odd to not see any adjustment to it at all, but then again looking at the rest of the changes i guess the balance peoples did have their vacations this quarter and we will get an actual balance patch the next time around.

[AlPower.2476]

8 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

 

Engineer

Alchemy gets a significant upgrade with the reintroduction of elixir condition removal on the minor grandmaster trait. This won't affect other allies as it did in its previous iteration, but it will give engineers some much-needed defense against conditions through elixir-skill triggers on the other minor traits and any other elixirs they bring.

We've also added a more reliable source of fury, replacing the rarely utilized Emergency Elixir trait to give damage-focused builds more consistent pressure. On the PvE side of things, we've adjusted damage numbers on Grenade Kit, Tool Kit, and some of the holosmith's exceed skills to bring them more in line with each other.

Elixir X also gets a fun addition: lich is being added to the pool of potential transformations while on land. We wanted to make the skill a more reliable offensive threat and felt that adding another offense-focused transformation was a more interesting direction than simply adjusting the individual chances of rampage and tornado.

• Healing Turret: Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Personal Battering Ram: Reduced the launch distance from 450 to 0 in PvP only. Reduced the ammunition recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.
• Elixir S: Reduced the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30 seconds in PvE only.
• Elixir U: Reduced the cooldown from 32 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Reduced the cooldown from 32 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced quickness and vigor durations from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced stability duration from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in WvW only.
• Utility Goggles: Reduced the cooldown from 24 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only.
• Detection Pulse: This skill now also inflicts vulnerability on enemies.
• Superspeed (Slick Shoes Tool Belt Skill): Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only.
• Pry Bar: Increased the power coefficient from 2.0 to 2.5 in PvE only.
• Throw Wrench: Increased the cooldown from 17 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Increased the power coefficient per hit from 1.0 to 1.5 in PvE only.
• Magnet: This skill now properly plays its visual effect during the full channel. This skill cannot be retargeted. This skill now applies bonus defiance damage to targets with defiance bars.
• Freeze Grenade: Increased the power coefficient per hit from 0.5 to 0.75 in PvE only.
• Poison Grenade: Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvE only. Increased the power coefficient per hit from 0.5 to 0.75 in PvE only.
• Supply Crate: Reduced the cooldown from 120 seconds to 75 seconds in PvE only.
• Elixir X: This skill now also has a chance to transform the user into a lich.
• Compounding Chemicals: This trait now also removes a condition from the user when they use an elixir skill.
• Emergency Elixir: This trait has been reworked and renamed Boiling Point. Gain fury when you gain might at or above the threshold.

Holosmith

• Launch Wall: Reduced the 100% heat damage bonus from 50% to 35% in PvE only.
• Laser Disk: Reduced the 100% heat damage bonus from 50% to 35% in PvE only.
• Particle Accelerator: Reduced the 100% heat damage bonus from 50% to 35% in PvE only.
• Blade Burst: Reduced the 100% heat damage bonus from 50% to 35%.

 

Bold: Slight pve buffs. Underscored Hard pve nerfs Strikethrough: Useless in PvE changes:  Italic: Incomplete changes

WTF? Why the heck are you killing PvE Holosmith so hard?

None of these changes are gonna to compensate it in PvE.

You know, me and all know that as for raids, fractals and strike missions only matters the big nerfs you have there. And for open world we all know that almost every works

Why in the world should I pick elixir u, toolkit, etc for instanced pve contend? If you want to "compensate" holo nerfs to bring up core skills, you should buff grenades more, bomb kit and traits. Also you could buff rework turrets, but you guys here are only removing holosmith (again) and burying engineer as a good dps option again. Ty for killing revealing at competitive (you should play wvw more agaisnt those thieves) and now ty for killing so hard holosmith with poor excuses. First the 1 hr expansion story and then this, Just Wow.

Edited May 25 by AlPower.2476

[teeth.3501]

Honestly, these changes do very little in PvE outside of a select few builds that get either a bit improved or a bit nerfed, and considering the release schedule for these updates I may literally grow old until actual problems like old underperforming skills, useless or outdated traits, broken gameplay loops, unfun bugs and outdated SFX/lacking animations get patched, if ever. Kind of a sad thing to be thinking about when looking at patchnotes, ngl. 

[Phantom.3716]

What is this garbage, where is the pvp balance, are you telling me we're going to be stuck with this current meta? No nerfs???

[Lion.6590]

Another balance patch where nothing is done against willbender/harbinger being completely broken and the boonball meta in wvw.

[Sojhien.2841]

9 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

"Strength of the Pack!": Increased the might duration from 6 seconds to 10 seconds in WvW and PvP.

SWEET!!!!! Considering Strength of the Pack doesn't provide might currently, How many stacks do we get??
 

10 Stacks of Stability for 8 seconds

Fury for 12 seconds

Swiftness for 12 seconds

How many stacks of might for 10 seconds?

Glad we're even looking at the same game.......

 

[Sojhien.2841]

duplicate

Edited May 25 by Sojhien.2841
dbl post

[Geronmy.3298]

2 hours ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

alacmirage not gutted either? sus

The only way to make it worse is to remove the alac.

[Knaller John.6783]

Another Patch another Guardian Buff. Might as well give Willbender siege damage on their Attacks in WvW since they already hit like a nuclear warhead. How about we also give Harbinger a new Skill in WvW that makes them invincible for 45 seconds oh and i think daredevil could use another escape.

[Ashen.2907]

A little bummed by the decision to convert Ele scepter to a more power focus. Im not fomd of the aesthetics of ele pistol so this is likely to result in the retirement of a character.

[Tofu.1865]

8 hours ago, Perceptor.7189 said:

"We are gonna buff unused skills" Procede to buff most used engi skills, and the most unsued skills remains untoached...

True lmfao, they even nerfed Lock On last update, im starting to think whoever is on the rebalance team doesnt even play the game.

they really want Condi SLBs and Thieves to dominate on every elo, Who wants a trait with 25 sec CD and 2 sec duration??  They cant even fix Mechanists' Golem AI to be as good as Ranger's juvenile pet AI

[Tofu.1865]

14 minutes ago, Knaller John.6783 said:

Another Patch another Guardian Buff. Might as well give Willbender siege damage on their Attacks in WvW since they already hit like a nuclear warhead. How about we also give Harbinger a new Skill in WvW that makes them invincible for 45 seconds oh and i think daredevil could use another escape.

Nothing new with Guardian, Necro and Thief being Anet's favorite son 🤣

[adammantium.8031]

Disappointing. An objective to buff under-performing build but notes which don't really achieve it. And no meaningful changes to boonrips to shake up the horrid WvW meta.

Unfortunately, seems a waste of time.

[Chyro.1462]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

A little bummed by the decision to convert Ele scepter to a more power focus. Im not fomd of the aesthetics of ele pistol so this is likely to result in the retirement of a character.

Uhh.. but scepter hasn't been reduced in condi damage. All it's gained are buffs on power. So if you play condi scepter, you're not doing any less damage - you're doing more. How is that reason to retire a character?

[MedievalThings.5417]

10 hours ago, mirage.8046 said:

another enemy-required-targeted skill on mesmer?! signet of humility's CD should be cut to 60s in WvW then because the change is lowkey over the top.

Someone is kitten that a mesmer managed to target them AND start the cast time on moa during the .1 second they weren't perma-stealthed.  This is what we get.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

4 hours ago, Elxdark.9702 said:

it's wild these guys get paid for changing some numbers every few months.

god bless america

How to balance GW2 in very few easy steps!
Go to Snowcrows website > go to benchmarks > open all builds > copy and paste the names of skills used in rotation > open notepad > write macro executing the whole rotation of 0.1% playerbase as per protocol > manipulate numbers to get desired results > release balance changes based on that > profit.

[Ashen.2907]

41 minutes ago, Chyro.1462 said:

Uhh.. but scepter hasn't been reduced in condi damage. All it's gained are buffs on power. So if you play condi scepter, you're not doing any less damage - you're doing more. How is that reason to retire a character?

Oh, thank you. I misunderstood then. Appreciate the response!

[SpaceMarine.1836]

I would like to punish the balance team members by forcing them to play rifle warrior in PvP/WvW trying to land rifle burst skill when half of the Warrior's grandmaster traits are reliant of the burst skill successfully hitting, be it Adrenal Health, Berserker's Power, Burst Precision, Burst Mastery, etc... It's not 2012 anymore. Every profession has so many evades, blocks, and movement speed buffs which just constantly lead to "missed", that landing a half an hour cast time, locked in place, heavily telegraphed skill is a miracle.

It would not be such a big deal if this skill didn't cost special profession resource and over half of grandmaster traits didn't rely on it hitting.

It's especially embarrassing in comparison with longbow, which is same range weapon of same profession, yet using it, the burst skill hit chance increase from like 1/10 to 9/10 in PvP/WvW, and chances to trigger grandmaster traits with it.

But nOooOOooo... letZ GiB WaRHEUrR UnO MoaR mEEgHt STAk ON Doge

Edited May 25 by SpaceMarine.1836

[Lazze.9870]

I see we're back to useless ranger changes again.

Imagine having a patch that focuses on underutilised traits and weapons and there is is still no work on marksmanship (except the garbage LB trait that remains garbage - one of the reasons for that is that YOU STILL DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT HAVING THREE DEAD MINOR TRAITS UNLESS YOU RUN REMORSELESS). Like, please, look at Lead the Wind and tell me why the kitten this should be a GM trait? Some quickness and swiftness on from PBS + piercing? The latter should be default, and as for the former; what happened to weapon traits being useful when not camping the weapon? Not only is the trait garbage, it does nothing once you swap off the longbow. 

Imagine this. You can run marksmanship, pick lead the wind, swap off longbow and essentially have 4 dead traits. HOW IS THAT OKAY!?!?!??

Also, no torch changes (in what world is this dated 2012 weapon a fun weapon to use?) and instead of reworking shortbow in a way that makes it interesting to play, you just slap a couple of thoughtless buffs on it.

I know this was a PvE focused patch, but man. How long are crap traits and skills gonna stay crap? Also, while you're doing longbow and shortbow stuff: ranger is the only class that needs traits for bows to pierce. Seemed like this would have been an opportunity to do something about that, but I guess not.

Why does Loud Whistle still have a 90 % health threshold when ever other similar trait in the game is lowered to 75 % or more?

And sure, keep giving resistance to every class except ranger.  It's fun to roam on a class whose most important boons (stab and resistance) are tied to its long CD elite skills. It's fun that druid got its cleanses gutted in half for WvW support, when it is also barely have any resistance to pump out compared to other specs.

Edited June 4 by Lazze.9870

[Neocharm.1029]

Support scrapper still has an issue with Elixir Gun 3 (cleansing/poison cone range 600) compared to Med Kit 1 (Healing cone range 450). You cleans from 600 and direct following heal from 600 but your heals can only reach a 450 distance.

[bambi.6214]

Quote

Our next set of skills and balance updates will arrive on June 25. We’re primarily focused on improving the usability of underpowered skills, utilities, and traits and bringing in outlier builds where necessary.

Hi ANet people (cmc in particular) - I know this might come as a surprise, but engineer has some other turrets skills, except healing turret. Crazy, isn't it? You're probably wondering why they don't show on any lists or statistical analysis - it's because nobody used turrets, for years! Let me give you a hand and list all the useless, underpowered turret skills that you seem to have missed in your patch which was supposed to improve the usability of underpowered skills and utilities:

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Turret
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Net_Turret
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rifle_Turret
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rocket_Turret
• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Thumper_Turret

Edited May 25 by bambi.6214

[SolarDragon.7063]

Please stop with the RNG Elixir X for Engineer. Just make it a real skill.

[Pete.8721]

Ranger Long bow and Short bow should be able to pierce by default also Short bow trait Light on your Feet is a bit frustrate to use since it force movement too much and sometime it force Ranger to split from the group pleas considering to improve or Change How the trait and all Bow skill work a bit 

 

Mesmer 

Scepter are Abaddon for many patch since you change Malicious Sorcerer trait now It suffer from slow Casting time and atk speed make it depending on Quickness Boon and lack of AOE Confusion image AOE is difficult to land on Group this should e increasing Casting time and atk speed same as Ether Barrage ambush from Mirage it deal very low Damage nad worst it can be block by many group of enemy