Wintersday Balance Update: Feedback Thread

[godofcows.2451]

You're going to have complaints about condi mirage soon. Alot of them. Enough to build trump's wall if balance complain posts could be converted to concrete.

You also forgot to address renegade feasibility. I don't think alot of people are using this elite in pretty much every game mode, if not almost. I know this is just a small mid term patch but it's been some time since pof was released. I kinda expected more on this considering the time frame already. It's already border embarassing.

Also do think or consider the dire/trailblazer aspect. Your conditions can still burst even after this patch. Maybe less on scourge but that's not the only class there is, right? You took it out of pvp for a reason. Remember that reason.

[Moira Shalaar.5620]

I'm concerned about how this will impact major boss fights in PvE. Many Raid/Fractal/World Bosses have transitions, some of which cause the boss to be invulnerable damage including condi damage. By reducing the upfront damage and extending the duration, this means that condi builds are going to suffer a potentially significant loss in damage against bosses. That becomes at counter purpose with the whole point of condition damage which is to provide strong damage over time to enemies with longer up times. (sorry I cannot find the reddit comment made by a dev to regarding condi vs power)

[Hitman.5829]

This patch did not even nerfed warrior. Nerf warrior more please too OP at the moment. We need warrior to be like a practice dummy, standing still and looking pretty. Currently warrior is too OP and I keep dying because projectiles get reflected back at me with shield. Nerf shield and penalize warrior for each time he blocks attacks; warrior should get 5 stacks of invulnerability each time he blocks and dodges. Nerf Burst skills, only critical hits should proc the adrenal healing and if a burst is not a critical hit, then reflect damage back to warrior. Reduce bull charge to 130 units and nerf damage to 250. Winds of disenchantment should remove all of warrior's boons when used.Endure pain should only block non critical hits and the critical hits should deal 100% damage if endure pain is active.Full counter needs to be gutter because its too OP at the moment, FC needs to be blockable. Increase cooldown time to 40 seconds and remove the evade, and reduce damage by 80%. If FC does not hit a target, then warrior gets stun for 5 seconds and self apply 25 stacks of vulnerability, so that the enemy can counterattack.

[Azel.4786]

I really don't get the curveball nerf to power ele by gutting Arcane Fury and making it almost a copy of Empowering Flame - oh so original trait as well..... I am literally impressed with the absolute lack of originality that goes into the Elementalist design and changes - traits being a huge offender in my opinion, but after so long in this trend I didn't expect any different.

But as I start to think about writing comments and ideas to the balance patch, here I sit and realize I just don't give a flying kitten anymore. Do whatever the heck you want with the game - I only enter the game now to rally with my guild mates in WvW. Feel free to wreck the game how much you want, sure is doing wonders to the financial success of the game.

[Shadowflare.2759]

The balance team has lost their minds. Elementalist was already one of the weakest classes in sPvP and we get nerfed harder than the overperforming meta classes? What the hell is going on? Arcane Fury did not need that change and Weak Spot should have been given a trait with actual originality instead of this double-whammy nerf on both trait lines.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Buff to Merciful Intervention is way way too much.

[Yerlock.4678]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:'allo all,

Now that the Wintersday update has gone live, along with its small balance update, we'd like to open up this thread to hear your constructive feedback. Once you've had a chance to play the changes in your preferred game modes, let us know what and why you liked a change, disliked a change, felt something went too far, or didn't go far enough within the scope of a smaller update. Be as constructively specific as possible. Thank you!

Keep in mind that the majority these changes are intended to move toward the listed foci from my earlier news post:

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.

Wonderful Wintersday to you all,~Irenio

While I understand the changes to the Strength trait line for Warrior (Stick and Move being awkward) I think the change to Might Makes Right went too far in one direction. I can understand Anet reducing the healing amount from 133 to 100, as Warriors can gain might often and this makes them super survivable.

But the whole point of this grandmaster trait was to keep Warriors durable and mobile with the more Might they had. Now it takes 25 stacks, 25 stacks of Might to get one dodge. This is making the grandmaster trait unviable.

My suggestion (and I know this trait can be contentious competitively but keep in mind this is a grandmaster trait) is to make the endurance gained 5 and reduce the healing slightly from 133 to 100. Please know that so many Warriors who go into Strength rely on this trait, I hope Anet can address this.

[Leuca.5732]

@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.

I'll be frank; this is insufficient. The balance of the game from a pvp perspective is too toxic for the players to not have a better idea of what kind of timeline is planned, even if it's only an estimate. You will continue to lose players if you don't improve existing content by increasing viability across professions and specs.

[OriOri.8724]

The strength line already gives you endurance regen on landing a burst attack, which are on really short CDs as it is. It has plenty of endurance regen, especially looking at signet of stamina. 5 endurance per stack of might was ridiculous, especially when you also consider all of the sustain that warrior has. Might makes right is probably too weak to be a GM trait now, I agree with you, but it should not go back to 5 endurance per stack of might. Absolutely nothing over 3, but I think that 2 is good considering building momentum and Signet of stamina is always an option if you want to build a dodge spam build.

[otto.5684]

I really do not have much constructive stuff to say except maybe you should do some game monitoring instead of working in none sensesical hypotheticals. This is how you end up buffing the already out performing condi specs while nerfing every thing else that is not even viable.

I also play open world PvE and don’t plan to spend 10 secs to kill a mob that I can kill within 2 secs with a power build.

[sanctum.5437]

Im pretty new, so I may be overlooking something here. but I do have a question.

In reviewing various raiding sites and online gw2 fan sites, every single one of them lists necromancer as not being really viable in top tier raids or dungeons (at all in dungeons).

So, why would they straight up nerf a class thats already so under powered that its being recommended to not take in end game play?

Doesnt it make more sense to buff them or, if the nerf is just outright needed across the board, at least buff necro simultaneously somehow to balance things out?

Im seriously confused - please explain.

[Egorum.9506]

@sanctum.5437 said:Im pretty new, so I may be overlooking something here. but I do have a question.

In reviewing various raiding sites and online gw2 fan sites, every single one of them lists necromancer as not being really viable in top tier raids or dungeons (at all in dungeons).

So, why would they straight up nerf a class thats already so under powered that its being recommended to not take in end game play?

Doesnt it make more sense to buff them or, if the nerf is just outright needed across the board, at least buff necro simultaneously somehow to balance things out?

Im seriously confused - please explain.

They won't split functionality between game modes, scourge (and arguably reaper) are already very strong in pvp. Any buffs made would break them even more.

[tartarus.1082]

Coming from a pvp perspective and as a Mesmer main. I was shocked that condi burst didn't get toned down, I really don't think the amount of application I'm capable of is ok. Although I don't think it's accurate to say pvp mirage was buffed since most of the traits and skills affected aren't typically equipped by a condi mirage. (Mantras and axe skills/traits)

The condi burst should definitely receive more attention, of course skill split applications if you don't want to gut mirage dps in pve.

On a more positive note I've gotta love the portal update that was such a nice qol patch to put in.

[monkcrabswamp.9315]

On ele, I feel like I understand the reasoning behind the new nerfs. It seems like they want to decrease the vulnerability spam that we can do without much effort, so they nerfed the permafury and the vuln on crit traits. Probably not the best idea for nerfs in the world, considering the context, but you can sort of see how they arrived at this result.

However, I just simply completely fail to see how on earth Weak Spot's replacement is supposed to benefit the class. What is the logic behind Raging Storm? Why increase critical chance after you've made a critical, and in a traitline that results in/encourages players taking it having a lot of precision on hand anyway? Maybe I'm just dumb, but I'm really not sure how to work with this. Open to suggestions.

[santso.9201]

Give back my steady focus! With received buffs and old steady focus Power soulbeast could have actually have been viable dps for raids. I dont like when you "fix" something that isnt broken, now taking gs and procking buffs for key dmg skills makes Power rotation even more complicated and it still is far worse than condi one. That far sighted could have been put in the longbow gm trait to replace the useless attackspeed bonus.

Trying to shoehorn longbow users into marksmanship in pvp instead of beastmastery?

[Zorpi.5904]

Good job buffing condi burst from mesmer and not touching they survival at all and buffing firebrands healing they were so brittle and weak... But seriously other things but thous f*** ups this patch was step in right direction.

[Abelisk.4527]

Somebody forgot to add (PvE only) :p

[Shiyo.3578]

@"XxsdgxX.8109" said:

For mesmers:Aside from Inspiring Distortion

Excuse me? Why the buffs?Buffs for who already had the strongest condi burst in the game 1v1... PvPWith no tells/telegraphs at all

And arguably one of the most braindead rotations in PvE

The message I keep getting from ANET is to not play PvP at all unless you play the "aids class of the season" game, huh much skill gap.

Ok then

Staff ele has been top DPS almost the entire time this games existed and is more braindead than any other DPS spec.

Difficulty doesn't matter, only how powerful a spec is does.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

Pve: Not terrible, not great. Mirage buffs were nice for my friends who wanted their clone build back and the dps between both phantasm and clone builds is about equal which is great. If it is nerfed in pvp at some point, do not nerf mirage in pve going forward. Mirage has two interesting playstyles and both of these should be kept viable going forward. Condi however didn't need the increased ramp time and I feel it's overly punishing for condi professions. Speaking from raid perspective, power was already favored on about 30% of bosses and equal to condi on another 30-40% or so, leaving condi to be better on about 30% of fights. This does nothing to make Power warrior/revenant/ranger/necromancer more viable. The complaints across the board is largely that the overwhelming amount of decent dps options are condi, but this is due to not having more viable options in over half of the classes in the game. By viable I mean 30k minimum.

Pvp: Condi changes are terrible for the current state of the game. The game mode isn't geared towards long, zen, World of Warcraft type DoTs and unless the entire game is slowed down by about 50-75% it never will be. These changes are direct nerfs to 6 already underused condi builds. These builds also now need to live longer to be able to achieve kills while hoping to god that the opponent doesn't use the new ramp up time to cleanse or outheal their condition damage. Scourge will still be top tier because it's still overloaded with too many corrupts and mechanics that are too good for this game mode. Mirage was buffed, which was the right move for pve, but baffling for pvp/wvw. So the problem children are still the problem children and the rest of the family gets nerfed instead. This is confusing to me.

Going forward, since this sustain damage is the direction you guys have chosen to go:**For PvP, if condi builds besides scourge and mirage are to become viable:
1) You need to nerf scourge and mirage IN PVP AND WVW ONLY and bring them in line with the other classes at the current level of those classes2) you need to look at cleanse application across the board and see if it needs to be toned down. Longer condition duration = double the time to cleanse = more cleanses come off CD = much harder for condi damage to actually kill things3) You need to analyze the defensive capabilities of the 6 underperforming condi specs you nerfed today and buff them so that they can actually survive long enough against power burst builds to actually kill things. This also includes potentially buffing their application again in some areas if they're still lacking offensive pressure**
4) Use your skill splits more. You have them. We see you use them. PLEASE use them more. It would solve half the balance issues in this game.

Lastly, Mutilate Defenses change was horrendous and completely unnecessary. It further pigeonholes revenant into using sword autoattacks and makes Fallibility sigils likely necessary on both weaponsets. You need to either rework the other two minors while shifting that 7% overall damage elsewhere, give us more vuln application on staff and hammer, or revert the change.

[OGDeadHead.8326]

This is more of a general response:

Get rid of all weapon specific traits! Traits should be general purpose imho (think back if you will on the old trait system in Beastmastery for rangers, it was terrible).

I'll leave you with one example, and idea on rework:

Two-Handed Training (ranger, beastmastery)Current: Greatsword and spear damage is increased, and those skills recharge faster. Greatsword and spear attacks have a chance to grant fury on hit.Suggestion: Weapon skills recharge faster, and attacks have a chance to grant fury on hit.

[rank eleven monk.9502]

Confusion have to be scaled on mesmer like all the other condis on classes. And this is coming from a (mainly) mesmer.

And take a look at Infinite Horizon while you are there. just don't nerf it into the ground.

[roamzero.9486]

@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.

But Mesmer's scepter can keep 6 stacks of confusion on an enemy permanently (in theory anyway).

Also support Firebrands are really cutting into the fun factor of the game with their baby-sitting capabilities. They remind me of the bunker diamonskin eles from a few seasons ago in pvp. Anytime they are involved you wish you were fighting something else, and if feels like the game is inching toward the Tank, Healer, and DPS synergy that GW2 was supposed to move away from.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Lunateric.3708 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:I see that a few questionable changes happened; they really stood out to me, considering that most classes got a condi nerf.

1. Mesmer's Mantra of Resolve
   now removes
   ALL conditions
   twice in a 12 second interval instead of a removable resistance. This is bad because if everyone has weaker condi, and the Mesmer is already ultra evasive, then even if a foe lands a punishing condition on them they can remove if without worry. Power hasn't been the most successful against them considering they can drop confusion with cover condis on you like snowflakes during Wintersday.

2. Firebrands got a
   pretty big
   healing buff that affects an area over time and also 1 that partially revives the downed. The class if moving closer(if it's not already there) to a dedicated healer(holy trinity incoming?). But what this does is that it will allow the same scourge and firebrand combo to control a point even better, with the area healing making it easier to sustain a scourge. The scourge may have got a nerf, but not enough to even make a player consider trying something else it its their main. The combo was already hard enough to put down.

The all condi cleanse only happens when we finish channeling the mantra. Which means we have to succeed with a 2.25s channel to get that. It only affects the mantra, not power cleanse.

Oh yeah, you are right ...kitten. Well it's once 12, and then the normal 3 x 2. I don't think many mesmers use this skill in PVP, but 2.5 second cast should not be a problem for a veteran Mesmer.

2.5 seconds is a gigantic amount of time in PvP hence why mantras are overall not used for ranked in most Mesmer builds (power being SOMETIMES the exception).2.5s channel is no amount of time anymore since mirage dodge doesnt interrupt channels.

On the upside, it make an already good counter to condi builds even better. The resistance was kitten. An anti-condi specced power mirage vs a condi mirage will win every single time at equal skill.

[rank eleven monk.9502]

@Dawdler.8521 said:2.5s channel is no amount of time anymore since mirage dodge doesnt interrupt channels.

On the upside, it make an already good counter to condi builds even better. The resistance was kitten. An anti-condi specced power mirage vs a condi mirage will win every single time at equal skill.

I'm sorry but 2,5 seconds of cast time for a full condi clear is ridiculous. It's decent when precharged, but you have to sacrifice way too much in combat for recharge. Shorter casting time would have worked with the same mechanic imo.

[OriOri.8724]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Lunateric.3708 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:

@Crab Fear.1624 said:I see that a few questionable changes happened; they really stood out to me, considering that most classes got a condi nerf.

1. Mesmer's Mantra of Resolve
   now removes
   ALL conditions
   twice in a 12 second interval instead of a removable resistance. This is bad because if everyone has weaker condi, and the Mesmer is already ultra evasive, then even if a foe lands a punishing condition on them they can remove if without worry. Power hasn't been the most successful against them considering they can drop confusion with cover condis on you like snowflakes during Wintersday.

2. Firebrands got a
   pretty big
   healing buff that affects an area over time and also 1 that partially revives the downed. The class if moving closer(if it's not already there) to a dedicated healer(holy trinity incoming?). But what this does is that it will allow the same scourge and firebrand combo to control a point even better, with the area healing making it easier to sustain a scourge. The scourge may have got a nerf, but not enough to even make a player consider trying something else it its their main. The combo was already hard enough to put down.

The all condi cleanse only happens when we finish channeling the mantra. Which means we have to succeed with a 2.25s channel to get that. It only affects the mantra, not power cleanse.

Oh yeah, you are right ...kitten. Well it's once 12, and then the normal 3 x 2. I don't think many mesmers use this skill in PVP, but 2.5 second cast should not be a problem for a veteran Mesmer.

2.5 seconds is a gigantic amount of time in PvP hence why mantras are overall not used for ranked in most Mesmer builds (power being SOMETIMES the exception).2.5s channel is no amount of time anymore since mirage dodge doesnt interrupt channels.

On the upside, it make an already good counter to condi builds even better. The resistance was kitten. An anti-condi specced power mirage vs a condi mirage will win every single time at equal skill.

Even with increased dodge times, the channel is still longer than 2 of our dodges. Did you seriously just argue that a skill that requires us to cover our ass and still use 2 dodges to safely get off (which, mind you, is also among the stupidest ways mesmer has to secure that channel anyway) is too strong because its a full condi clear?