Wintersday Balance Update: Feedback Thread

[Lunateric.3708]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Please Revert it. Much of the sPvP community agrees with me on this.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/320394

Based on 10 people's opinions on forums where all you can see is negativity and whining?

sPvP crowd almost universally views this patch as bad.

I'm a part of the sPvP community and I think they did some things right. They hotfixed Firebrand stupid buffs for PvP and I honestly don't think mirage is so incredibly broken, they just need to tweak with skill splits the cooldowns on their bursts so they can't just spam them (imo), mirage doesn't even use axe in PvP.

I'd probably get rid of the huge shade trait on scourge too or make it consume way more resources.

[Ghost.5637]

Hi, thief still kind of sucks compared to other classes (WvW perspective).Power d/d is still pretty bad and i'm curious if you can provide feedback as to the performance of thief after the UC nerf, and if it is where anet intended it to be.I get that we're slippery but when you're fighting classes like warrior that can use greatsword 3, which is a forward dash yet still aoes behind them, the lack of mobility is certain death. A high damage output requires us to be pretty glassy so if hit and run is not an option, then its hit, fail and die.Thanks,

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@CreedOfGod.9764 said:Hi, thief still kind of sucks compared to other classes (WvW perspective).Power d/d is still pretty bad and i'm curious if you can provide feedback as to the performance of thief after the UC nerf, and if it is where anet intended it to be.I get that we're slippery but when you're fighting classes like warrior that can use greatsword 3, which is a forward dash yet still aoes behind them, the lack of mobility is certain death. A high damage output requires us to be pretty glassy so if hit and run is not an option, then its hit, fail and die.Thanks,

Thief has great mobility, They can also escape pretty much any fight against any class. It all depends on your build. Unless of course you are warrior in which case. You get the defense of bunker builds, the burst of zerk builds, the sustain of hybrid builds. As well as high mobility and CC just to top it all off to make an easy class even easier. Fighting a warrior is as tedious as fighting all the bunker condi builds, even when the Warrior isnt condi they are just SO tedious to fight :/

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

Simply put: The update was typical Anet style. Nerf things that didnt need to be nerfed. Buff things that NEEDED to be nerfed and make other pointless changes that punishes those that play ALREADY weak specs and classes.

Even BEFORE the update, i would take fighting a Scourge every day of the week over fighting a Condi Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage. How they got buffed (Mirage) and didnt get touched (Chrono and Mesmer) i dont know. They are in SERIOUS need of not only application reduction, they need Burst reduction and sustain reduction as well. Given that Scourge as like no defense what so ever and Mesmer has Stealth, Boon spamming, Teleports, Blocks, Evades, Invuls its crazy to think that they werent touched :/

[otto.5684]

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Please Revert it. Much of the sPvP community agrees with me on this.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/320394

Based on 10 people's opinions on forums where all you can see is negativity and whining?

sPvP crowd almost universally views this patch as bad.No, it's your opinion, projected to everyone else. Just stop.

Go visit sPvP forums and rev forums. Heck, majority of feedback in this thread are overwhelmingly negative towards the changes.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Please Revert it. Much of the sPvP community agrees with me on this.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/320394

Based on 10 people's opinions on forums where all you can see is negativity and whining?

sPvP crowd almost universally views this patch as bad.No, it's your opinion, projected to everyone else. Just stop.

No, it's literally everywhere in the sPvP forums and regularly stated in the HOTM mapchat. But don't take my word for it, go read that section yourself.

[DeceiverX.8361]

In sum? Far from enough to justify these changes being made quarterly. This is effectively what I proposed three years ago when running some numbers over a weekend. This is only the beginning of addressing one of the problems that started four or more years ago, and the State of the Game is almost hitting disrepair.

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:The primary design for confusion is 'burst'; it's expected to deliver a lot of stacks at once for low duration, punishing skill usage for a short while and then falling off quickly. Due to this difference in nature, we chose to leave it alone in this patch.

That'd be fine if it didn't have a massive DoT component.

Kinda like how the skill was designed at launch and honestly how it should have stayed. See, confusion right now doesn't even punish using skills. It just straight kills you. Because it also procs when activating cleanses. So you die or you die. It's not interactive. It's not fun.

We used to speak so much of interrupt mesmer but all that really needed to be done was multiply confusion's active damage component in PvE to make stacking it worthwhile when timed on boss attacks. Make the duration super short but the condition very accessible with high intensity. This enables support for the concept of the interrupt mesmer, can be countered with skill and played well with skill, and also offers good stuff bosses with multi-hits, too, say. If you totally remove condition duration % bonuses, you could even make it give bonus scaling for its remaining duration or something. The "dump and run" condi ideology for mesmer is super unfun to play against and doesn't mirror the high-skill demands the class claims to offer, akin to how Daredevil is/was an antithesis to skilled play for what was once the demand for thief and why these two specs could "break the rules."

What I don't understand is why the kind of mentality of old - rewarding players for playing well - has been left on the wayside, with allowing basically anyone to just mash their keyboards and win at whatever they're doing. It's getting to the point where 'Build Wars 2' is a more apt name.

So much of the existing design for the professions, especially since HoT, rewards spammy play and over-the-top performance from everything. Stat inflation from boons is basically free. So much seems like the design decisions made for professions have been based on "What seems cool and bad-cat?" And that's a really big problem. GW2 had an awesome identity as kind of a rustic and raw experience near launch and even its profession design reflected that: Skills in principle were simple, had defined cooldowns, generally shared similar numbers cross-class, and there weren't a lot of them, making things easy to understand but with substantial depth. This made PvP excellent and made PvP feel more engaging, and the consequences of your actions felt more substantial than dancing across a keyboard unleashing fury.

That is no longer the case. We saw efforts to cut down on visual clutter to make PvP more legible. but it was in vain: Everything is instant and on basically no cooldown. The ammo system isn't compatible with the game. Passives have no tells and do way too much. Animation coloring shares particles with some pieces of equipment.

I understand your push to make PvE balanced numerically, but PvP/WvW need profession design overhauls on way more. We haven't really seen the top-dog kits changed since this game released. We haven't seen necessary reworks for underdog kits except for some of ranger's stuff from the CDI, the likes of which we never saw again. These last few patches have consistently nerfed or even downright removed the worst builds in the game with either buffs or inaction to oppressive, downright overpowered ones. PvP is no longer actually enjoyable because it's no longer a measure of skill. Making everything "cool" has the exact opposite effect when it's not fair. The game has become trivial and lacks depth, mostly as a direct consequence of trait/skill behavior.

Forget balancing design around PvE because it'll always be an arms-race for DPS unless encounters themselves change. Numbers can change and are way easier to balance in terms of splitting (if that's really the approach that is deemed necessary) than functionality. Design, however, is what makes PvP environments thrive or fail. Start thinking about fairness in this context, and then buff PvE accordingly. If I wanted to go play a game with "bad-cat" skills, I'd go play WoW or an over-the-top complex Asian import. Not GW2. GW2 was elegant in its design simplicity and depth. Please stop with shallow design and excess and refer back to the core game.

I understand that many in this community do not know what's best for them ("Sniper" Deadeye requests), but serious design-level changes are honestly needed. Every single person I know who's left this game has done so because of profession design decisions/inaction on some level. I suggest you do some reflection on the change of vision and why it's taken a turn for the worse (ANet's earnings verify this), and if you can't 100% nail down what needs to change, address the PvP/WvW communities.

We're at the point where this game is five years old and failed concepts have yet to be reworked. There's only so much recycling of numbers passes you can do before people start leaving because of bad concepts. You need to look into reworks.

I've proposed full classes/specializations and run the numbers to balance them in the past, and I've done a lot of analysis as well to fix current play-issues over the years, but I'm honestly at the breaking point of caring and am no longer willing to do that if we keep getting these kinds of patches so infrequently. I had no faith to purchase PoF as a direct consequence of the design/balance handling of HoT and beyond. Players like myself are willing to help because we loved this game, but we can't and shouldn't be willing to put forth that kind of effort unless something changes.

[TkMan.9638]

Everyone is complaining bout mirage being unnerfed, that is because last patch they nerfed mirage, why continue to nerf them. As for Guardian (FBD) being buffed, this is not news they buff Guard almost every patch. I think the condi changes seem to be fine of course i haven't played much pve bc of wintersday. Which btw is a lot of fun.

[Gandarel.5091]

It's been said before, and I really can't sugarcoat it anymore.. whoever made these changes A) doesn't play PvP and B ) doesn't play Revenant.

You completely missed the mark with the condi changes. These will do NOTHING, in PvP. At all. To begin with, you barely touched anything that's in the meta, the scourge "nerfs" are nothing as long as boon corruption isn't toned down in some way. Mirage burst wasn't even looked at, neither was Holo.. I know Holo is not a condi build but the damage it does is the most overtuned thing I've seen, especially on holo forge autoattacks. If you nerf the autos in PvP maybe they will be fine.

Now to Revenant. I can't seem to find logic behind the Expose Defenses nerf. There are tons of traits in the game that just passively stack conditions especially Vulnerability, why you had to take it away is beyond me especially because it was yet another important trait for sPvP Revenants. Now that 7% modifier from Invocation is just gone from Staff/Hammer (hammer was already underperforming) and is much harder to obtain on Sword. I understand that in raids the boss will always have 25 vuln anyways so again, why was this necessary? Who even complained about rev in PvP in like a year? Nobody.

And this isn't new but please, stop gutting this profession in Pvp for no reason whatsoever. You aren't even nerfing anymore, you're literally deleting stuff for no real reason. Look at Equilibrium - "removed because it was hard to use"? Really? It wasn't that hard to use on Glint which it was a defining trait for, but oh god forbid we have anything that needs people to pay attention in this game.. why are you so adamant on taking away choice from the players? You could've removed Rapid Flow which is a complete filler trait that has no purpose, buffed the trait in the tier you buffed, and left Equilibrium alone but no, let's delete a key trait for an underperforming spec....

I'm sorry for the rant but it's just frustrating to see that whoever is in charge of revenant balance doesn't understand revenant, or at least no in PvP, neither is he willing to take feedback.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@"TkMan.9638" said:Everyone is complaining bout mirage being unnerfed, that is because last patch they nerfed mirage, why continue to nerf them. As for Guardian (FBD) being buffed, this is not news they buff Guard almost every patch. I think the condi changes seem to be fine of course i haven't played much pve bc of wintersday. Which btw is a lot of fun.

For one simple reason: Its still insanely over powered. It is by FAR the strongest 1 Vs 1 and small group Condi spec by a MILE. Scourge is SO easy to lock down and kill. The same cant be said what so ever about Mirage (and ALL Condi Mesmer specs) with Invuls, Stealth, Teleports, Blocks and just sheer constant neverending application of Confusion and Torment as well asplenty of covering conditions to make sure that the killers - Confusion and Torment kill you.

These 2 conditions have VERY little counters. You move. You die. You dont move. You Die. You use abilities. You die. You dont use abilities. You die.These 2 conditions would be fine IF there werent 4-5 other conditions covering the threatening ones, which shouldn't be the case as they are SO easy to stack. One of 2 things will need to happen:

1) Reduce Confusion and Torment Application by a LOT. I could EASILY hit 20+ stacks of Torment on my own! That is without specially building a build around Torment. Confusion is just as easy to apply.

2) Reduce the covering conditions. Could make them more like Burn Guard. Few damaging conditions but hard hitting. Wouldnt even need to do much as Torment and Confusion already hit hard. Reduce or even remove the conditions from Staff and such. Then you would have a build that CAN be countered and beaten. Currently, that is simply not the case. When application beats removal by like 90/10 it says something about the balance of the game and the skill needed for a build.

Your last sentence says it all: " I think the condi changes seem to be fine of course i haven't played much pve bc of wintersday. Which btw is a lot of fun"Play WvW and SPvP and THEN decide if the changes have been good. Then when you come back and admit they havent done anything (unless you're Condi Mesmer...) to actually help the mindless fight against never ending conditions. All shall be forgiven.

[Vaeo.4097]

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:

@TkMan.9638 said:1) Reduce Confusion and Torment Application by a LOT. I could EASILY hit 20+ stacks of Torment on my own! That is without specially building a build around Torment.

I don't know what game mode you're talking about but I answer you from sPvP point of view. The only way to get 20 stacks of torment is by using axe, deadshot amulet (which rather bad for mesmer) rune of Krait or rune of Torment, and all shatters. And even than 20 stacks of torment is hardly reachable. And axe 2 and 3 has clear animation. If you can't dodge or block it it's your fault.By the way, Axe/Torch Mirage is not even on metabattle.com. So it's clearly build dedicated to torment/confusion stacking.With metabuild (carrion ineptitude) applying even 10 stacks of torment is hardly possible (2 stack from krait rune, 4 from shatter, may be 2 more from second shatter).

If you're talking about WvW it's more possible with trailblazer gear. But you still must face-tank all his shatters, all his axe 2 and 3 and even axe autoattacks. And even than it's only one burst you can easily cleanse.

I don't think Mirage is balanced now.If you talking that Mirage's axe became too powerful in sPvP, well, I agree. But you've made blatant and false statement about torment application in general. That's what I'm objecting on.

[RabbitUp.8294]

@otto.5684 said:

@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@Morwath.9817 said:

• Rev Tablet is gated by energy and it doesn't have enough cleanse.

The energy gate is not as significant as a 40s cooldown.

• Fireband healing is superior to Tempest and Revenant in every single way, especially if we take amount of cleanse Firebrand has.

And it's exactly the opposite in pve, where firebrand is by far the worst of the actual healer builds. Cleansing is also irrelevant for most of the content.

Until anet realises the need for splitting, it's one mode over the other. So, instead of asking for nerfs to one the worse support specs in pve, how about making Ventari andTempest more viable for pvp?

FB is not meant to be played as support in PvE. Healing output does not determine if you play a support role or not. You have to provide offensive buffs. That is why only chrono and rev are used for this role.

Says who? Also, firebrand doesn't just heal, it has quickness, too. So, how is a class designed around that party quickness access not meant to be support? How is rev more of a support, besides the numbers being better balanced for rev's healing?

And you are right, FB healing is not the best, but it is spikes when using ToR, which is what makes it ideal for sPvP. No class can do massive quick heals the way FB does.

Drui's CA has more healing. They are just gated by their resource, which they have a harder time building in pvp.

It does not need a split. The heal scaling of most ToR skills needs to be nerfed.

Why would the scalings in pve need to be nerfed?

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@Vaeo.4097 said:I don't know what game mode you're talking about but I answer you from sPvP point of view. The only way to get 20 stacks of torment is by using axe, deadshot amulet (which rather bad for mesmer) rune of Krait or rune of Torment, and all shatters. And even than 20 stacks of torment is hardly reachable. And axe 2 and 3 has clear animation. If you can't dodge or block it it's your fault.By the way, Axe/Torch Mirage is not even on metabattle.com. So it's clearly build dedicated to torment/confusion stacking.With metabuild (carrion ineptitude) applying even 10 stacks of torment is hardly possible (2 stack from krait rune, 4 from shatter, may be 2 more from second shatter).

If you're talking about WvW it's more possible with trailblazer gear. But you still must face-tank all his shatters, all his axe 2 and 3 and even axe autoattacks. And even than it's only one burst you can easily cleanse.

I don't think Mirage is balanced now.If you talking that Mirage's axe became too powerful in sPvP, well, I agree. But you've made blatant and false statement about torment application in general. That's what I'm objecting on.

WvW. Scepter traited can be 5stcaks of Torment for 8seconds every 5seconds. Add in Clones and Scepter auto attack with a few shatters and you can easily melt people with torment. The best part? Its near constant application. Remove some, well have some more. Just using Scepter brings a LOT of Torment and this is BASE Torment duration as well.

Block 2 attacks, add in some auto attacks and clone auto attacks and then shatter and you have 20stacks. Quite easy to do as well. Constant application of the 2 most damaging conditions in the game need to be HEAVILY toned down. Burning hits hard. Thats all it does. Torment you get punished if you move, punished if you dont. Confusion punishes you for using skills and punishes you if you dont. These 2 conditions are in serious need of being redesigned when it comes to PvP and WvW On top of having their application reduced. It shouldnt be constant never ending application with burst high application. It should be low constant application with no burst or burst application without any constant application. One or the other. Not both.

[otto.5684]

@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@RabbitUp.8294 said:

@Morwath.9817 said:

• Rev Tablet is gated by energy and it doesn't have enough cleanse.

The energy gate is not as significant as a 40s cooldown.

• Fireband healing is superior to Tempest and Revenant in every single way, especially if we take amount of cleanse Firebrand has.

And it's exactly the opposite in pve, where firebrand is by far the worst of the actual healer builds. Cleansing is also irrelevant for most of the content.

Until anet realises the need for splitting, it's one mode over the other. So, instead of asking for nerfs to one the worse support specs in pve, how about making Ventari andTempest more viable for pvp?

FB is not meant to be played as support in PvE. Healing output does not determine if you play a support role or not. You have to provide offensive buffs. That is why only chrono and rev are used for this role.

Says who? Also, firebrand doesn't just heal, it has quickness, too. So, how is a class designed around that party quickness access not meant to be support? How is rev more of a support, besides the numbers being better balanced for rev's healing?

And you are right, FB healing is not the best, but it is spikes when using ToR, which is what makes it ideal for sPvP. No class can do massive quick heals the way FB does.

Drui's CA has more healing. They are just gated by their resource, which they have a harder time building in pvp.

It does not need a split. The heal scaling of most ToR skills needs to be nerfed.

Why would the scalings in pve need to be nerfed?

One word: alacrity. For Druid it used to be grace of the land. FB does not offer something unique for a raid group.

Good design or not, that is a different question. Reality is support classes in pve are played for their offensive buffs. Quickness is not a rare commodity.

[Vaeo.4097]

@"ArmageddonAsh.6430" said:

WvW. Scepter traited can be 5stcaks of Torment for 8seconds every 5seconds. Add in Clones and Scepter auto attack with a few shatters and you can easily melt people with torment. The best part? Its near constant application. Remove some, well have some more. Just using Scepter brings a LOT of Torment and this is BASE Torment duration as well.

Block 2 attacks, add in some auto attacks and clone auto attacks and then shatter and you have 20stacks. Quite easy to do as well. Constant application of the 2 most damaging conditions in the game need to be HEAVILY toned down. Burning hits hard. Thats all it does. Torment you get punished if you move, punished if you dont. Confusion punishes you for using skills and punishes you if you dont. These 2 conditions are in serious need of being redesigned when it comes to PvP and WvW On top of having their application reduced. It shouldnt be constant never ending application with burst high application. It should be low constant application with no burst or burst application without any constant application. One or the other. Not both.

Ok, agree. 20 stacks is possible with scepter after patch because third attack in scepter's autoattack chain have 9sec duration now. With some condi duration gear it's possible.Still don't agree that "you can easily melt people with torment". First of all, in real fights it's hard to finish autoattack chain because your enemy is not target dummy -- he fights back forcing you to interrupt autoattack. Autoattack from clones is negligible -- 2s of torment with 2s attack interval.I played in Season 6 Sc/Sw chrono and it was really good only against burn guardians and thieves (to some extent). DH, druid, scrapper, ele -- all easily cleansed scepter torment. Possibly scepter Mirage is a bit better than scepter Chrono but I don't think it's a problem for now.The real problem is "Ineptitude" trait and may be "Jaunt" confusion stacks too high. Before "Ineptitude" is reworked I wouldn't touch scepter because it was ok before PoF.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@"Vaeo.4097" said:Ok, agree. 20 stacks is possible with scepter after patch because third attack in scepter's autoattack chain have 9sec duration now. With some condi duration gear it's possible.Still don't agree that "you can easily melt people with torment". First of all, in real fights it's hard to finish autoattack chain because your enemy is not target dummy -- he fights back forcing you to interrupt autoattack. Autoattack from clones is negligible -- 2s of torment with 2s attack interval.I played in Season 6 Sc/Sw chrono and it was really good only against burn guardians and thieves (to some extent). DH, druid, scrapper, ele -- all easily cleansed scepter torment. Possibly scepter Mirage is a bit better than scepter Chrono but I don't think it's a problem for now.The real problem is "Ineptitude" trait and may be "Jaunt" confusion stacks too high. Before "Ineptitude" is reworked I wouldn't touch scepter because it was ok before PoF.

You add in easy mobility, stealth teleports and its rather easy. Warrior COULD counter it with their own insane mobility, damage immunity. Add in the auto attacks are range. Add in the above easy kiting, stealth, mobility and teleports make it rather easy,. You can get high stacks before even getting into melee and then you have the block for more stacks.

The difference is, how good are they at removing CONSTANT application and add in the Staff for lots of condition covers. CC is also there. Scepter/Shield is the go to when you're in roaming from my experience every chrono uses Shield. For obvious reasons. Its gives an already BIG sustainable class even more sustain as well as more blocks and illusion creation.

Its not really the condition except Confusion, i think Torment is "okay" is it 100% balanced? No. It is Confusion that is the BIGGEST issue, it is too punishing. Too damaging and too spammable. I think that auto attacks SHOULDN'T proc the damage, i think the passive damage it procs should be removed as well. This is of course for PvP and WvW. the duration needs a HUGE decrease. If its "burst" then thats fine. Make it so it hits hard but doesnt last as long and then give them PROPER down time for the person to be able to attack them, to counter them before the Mesmer spams the next batch of Confusion.

[Vaeo.4097]

Ok, my thoughts about balance patch. I talk from sPvP point of view and only about classes I'm familiar enough.

Chronomancer

• "Inspiring distortion" was rather significant part of this build widely used to secure revives. Now it's almost useless for this. I understand that it was made for raids to prevent mechanics bypass, but from sPvP perspective it's significant nerf.
• Portal Exeunt won't activate out of range. Very very nice. It should be done much earlier.
• Arcane Thievery buff. Nice and really needed buff. Previously it didn't worth to spend a utility slot on it. Now it's much better though can't say how much better.
• Mantras. Reasonable buffs but I still don't see many usages for mantras in PvP except power burst builds.

Mirage

• Axe buffs are contradictory with the concept of "reduce the overall burst potential of damaging conditions". Axe/torch build is not common in sPvP but still used as cheesy burst build. Can't understand why it was buffed.

Herald

• Deathstrike. Reasonable buffs. Herald lacked mobility outside Shiro and this skill solved the problem.
• Mutilate Defenses trait. As many people have already sad it's significant nerf. "Chaotic Release" is very situational and rarely followed by some burst. "Jade Winds" is almost never used -- too expensive (50 energy). So vulnerability is now applies 1-2 times during fight. If the aim was to provide burst damage it should be applied on weapon swap like Sigil of Exposure. But previous variant of this trait was better anyway.

Weaver

• Weaver is in rather good spot now. Increased burning duration was more a buff than a nerf for Sage Weaver.
• Arcane Prowess trait. Can't understand this change. Attument swap CD is 3.5sec. Might is applied for 8 sec. So we will have at most 3 stacks of might from this trait. It's nothing! For Sage Weaver fury from this trait was necessary to activate Renewing Stamina trait. So for sage Weaver it's significant nerf. For Avatar Weaver it's loss of damage too (just pure math).

[Vagrant.7206]

The nerfs to engineer condi made me scratch my head. Condi engineer is completely irrelevant in PvP, and its best burst in PvE wasn't huge. Meanwhile, mirage was buffed and given a free pass. What gives?

[Arlette.9684]

Now to all those complaining, let me ask you this.What would you estimate the ratio of mesmers you encouter is, compared to spellbreakers or daredevils?I’m willing to bet it’s pretty low, cuz I play on T1 and Mesmer is not quite like a unicorn but definitely rare enough. Now have you stopped for a moment to ask yourselves why?

[rank eleven monk.9502]

@otto.5684 said:

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:

@rank eleven monk.9502 said:

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:Please Revert it. Much of the sPvP community agrees with me on this.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/320394

Based on 10 people's opinions on forums where all you can see is negativity and whining?

sPvP crowd almost universally views this patch as bad.No, it's your opinion, projected to everyone else. Just stop.

Go visit sPvP forums and rev forums. Heck, majority of feedback in this thread are overwhelmingly negative towards the changes.

People come to the forum the complain. If they are satisfied they won't really come and praise Anet on the forums, just enjoy the game. Should have learnt that by now, that's why the whole forum is full of negativity and whining, not just the pvp ones btw (it's natural anyway)

[Cynz.9437]

@Arlette.9684 said:Now to all those complaining, let me ask you this.What would you estimate the ratio of mesmers you encouter is, compared to spellbreakers or daredevils?I’m willing to bet it’s pretty low, cuz I play on T1 and Mesmer is not quite like a unicorn but definitely rare enough. Now have you stopped for a moment to ask yourselves why?

I see mirages in every match. Not so many DDs btw. Your point?WvW isn't only mode out there, in case you didn't know.

[Arlette.9684]

@Cynz.9437 said:

@Arlette.9684 said:Now to all those complaining, let me ask you this.

What would you estimate the ratio of mesmers you encouter is, compared to spellbreakers or daredevils?

I’m willing to bet it’s pretty low, cuz I play on T1 and Mesmer is not quite like a unicorn but definitely rare enough. Now have you stopped for a moment to ask yourselves why?

I see mirages in every match. Not so many DDs btw. Your point?WvW isn't only mode out there, in case you didn't know.

My apologies, you're correct. For some reason I really thouht this was in the WvW section :bleep_bloop:

[Aylaine.1036]

@"Vaeo.4097" said:Ok, my thoughts about balance patch. I talk from sPvP point of view and only about classes I'm familiar enough.

Chronomancer

• "Inspiring distortion" was rather significant part of this build widely used to secure revives. Now it's almost useless for this. I understand that it was made for raids to prevent mechanics bypass, but from sPvP perspective it's significant nerf.
• Portal Exeunt won't activate out of range. Very very nice. It should be done much earlier.
• Arcane Thievery buff. Nice and really needed buff. Previously it didn't worth to spend a utility slot on it. Now it's much better though can't say how much better.
• Mantras. Reasonable buffs but I still don't see many usages for mantras in PvP except power burst builds.

Mirage

• Axe buffs are contradictory with the concept of "reduce the overall burst potential of damaging conditions". Axe/torch build is not common in sPvP but still used as cheesy burst build. Can't understand why it was buffed.

Herald

• Deathstrike. Reasonable buffs. Herald lacked mobility outside Shiro and this skill solved the problem.
• Mutilate Defenses trait. As many people have already sad it's significant nerf. "Chaotic Release" is very situational and rarely followed by some burst. "Jade Winds" is almost never used -- too expensive (50 energy). So vulnerability is now applies 1-2 times during fight. If the aim was to provide burst damage it should be applied on weapon swap like Sigil of Exposure. But previous variant of this trait was better anyway.

Weaver

• Weaver is in rather good spot now. Increased burning duration was more a buff than a nerf for Sage Weaver.
• Arcane Prowess trait. Can't understand this change. Attument swap CD is 3.5sec. Might is applied for 8 sec. So we will have at most 3 stacks of might from this trait. It's nothing! For Sage Weaver fury from this trait was necessary to activate Renewing Stamina trait. So for sage Weaver it's significant nerf. For Avatar Weaver it's loss of damage too (just pure math).Axe was buffed because it was heavily nerfed with the bugfix in a previous patch. It's pretty balanced now, but it was pretty lackluster before the Wintersday patch and super broken in the patch before. Also axe doesn't have burst so it makes sense that it wouldn't be included. To add to all of this, axe is rarely used in PvP from what I see. Everyone goes sword for survivability + daze + mobility. The axe buffs were 100% targeted at PvE based on what ANet said when axe ambush was nerfed, that they would monitor changes and make adjustments. That's why it's pretty idiotic to see everyone saying Mirage got some massive PvP buff when it did not. Mentioning mantras is something all mesmers have access to, so that's out too.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@"Arlette.9684" said:Now to all those complaining, let me ask you this.What would you estimate the ratio of mesmers you encouter is, compared to spellbreakers or daredevils?I’m willing to bet it’s pretty low, cuz I play on T1 and Mesmer is not quite like a unicorn but definitely rare enough. Now have you stopped for a moment to ask yourselves why?

I roam, and i see Mesmers/Chrono/Mirage more than any other class. Bar none. Out of all of them i have encountered, like 2 of them weren't bunker condi. They are everywhere when roaming. I am on T1 EU, what about you? Yesturday alone i encountered like 6 or 7 different Mesmer/Chrono/Mirage and ALL of them were bunker condi based. Your ONLY option to "fight" them is to run. At least Scourge has a counter (range) and STILL can be killed in Melee but you have to be careful. Mesmer you just cant do anything.

[Manpag.6421]

@Gandarel.5091 said:You could've removed Rapid Flow which is a complete filler trait that has no purpose, buffed the trait in the tier you buffed, and left Equilibrium alone but no, let's delete a key trait for an underperforming spec....

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I disagree that Rapid Flow is a filler trait. If anything, it's now MORE important because Focused Siphoning won't passively heal as much. It's also core Rev/Renegade's only sustainable source of Swiftness since the rework (excluding the cumbersome Inspiring Reinforcement+Echoing Eruption combo), which admittedly isn't as much of an issue with mounts in PvE but in WvW/PvP it's now the most useful of that whole tier in Invocation. It was never useless, people just used Equilibrium instead.