October 8 Balance Update Preview

[Bleikopf.2491]

15 hours ago, Joie.6084 said:

General

The Celestial attribute combination has been exceptionally powerful in WvW since the addition of concentration and expertise, and it's something that we've been monitoring for some time. With this update, we're introducing the tech to adjust equipment's attribute distribution and the amount of attributes it provides on a per game–mode basis. The first use of this will be to remove both concentration and expertise from equipment with Celestial attributes in WvW only, to bring it back in line with other attributes. We'll be keeping an eye on how the tech performs and whether it needs any final touches, but, assuming everything goes well, it's something that we may use going forward to tune other attribute combinations in WvW specifically.

• Celestial equipment will no longer grant concentration or expertise while in a WvW map.

I have not been able to find evidence to the counter on the wiki. Someone with better Wiki skills please prove me wrong if so.

This is a design decision from a decade ago finally catching up. Celestial historically had a ~33% stat advantage over 3-stat prefixes. More spread out stats get higher stat totals, that's why e.g., Marauder has ~10% more stats than Berzerker. IIRC, in HoT you just slapped Concentration and Expertise on Celestial without changing the stats, rising to a whopping ~75% stat advantage over 3-stat prefixes. That's a rise of ~28% within Celestial.
Celestial should have been nerfed in stats. I still think that removing Concentration and Expertise from Celestial goes against the idea of Celestial being the "everything" prefix. Nerfing Celestial stats by ~20% should also work.

Also, Concentration and Expertise are still mistreated. With the advent of Concentration as a stat, boons should have been reduced to make Concentration a meaningful choice. Instead we got more boons. Concentration and Expertise are minor stats everywhere (except for Diviners). Concentration and Expertise are not found within Runes, only flat "Boon Duration" / "Condition Duration", which are too strong if translated into Concentration/Expertise compared to the other stats.

[Titan.7853]

Also, I don't like that there are now separate equipment stats for WvW.  Another mistake that brings unnecessary complexity.  Imagine trying to explain PvP and WvW to a new player.  Right now it's bad enough that you tell them their skills behave differently in each game mode, whether it's boon duration or damage modifiers, but that stuff generally is in the background. 

As it is with equipment, you have to show them how to equip PvP differently, but at least you can say that that the stuff you earn has the exact same stats everywhere else.  WvW is where you fight with everyone else with your end game equipment.

Well, at least you used to be able to say that.  Now that is going to be different too.  Not good!  If Celestial gear was "broken" then fix celestial, don't add more unnecessary complexity.  Your equipment should have the same stats everywhere, except for PvP which has a different system.  I think a better solution would be to simply ban Celestial from WvW since there are so many kittening whiners there. 

Okay, Celestial is now PvE only, it won't appear in WvW.  If you want "Celestial" without Expertise and Concentration, then create a new state name and allow that to be equipped everywhere (including WvW).  To create a system that allows split equipment stats between PvE and WvW, however, I think is a big mistake that is confusing, adds unnecessary complexity, and is rife with potential for abuse in future.

My 2 cents.

Edited Saturday at 12:04 PM by Titan.7853

[MithosShulk.4627]

Quote

Transfusion: This trait no longer teleports downed allies to the user. This trait no longer increases the cooldown of Garish Pillar in WvW.Transfusion: This trait no longer teleports downed allies to the user. This trait no longer increases the cooldown of Garish Pillar in WvW.

I don't usually bother to post on updates, but this so -fundamentally- changes one of the classes I enjoy not just playing but also having around in raids and strikes, that I can't just sit by silently.
Please reconsider this change, transfusion's teleportation is as iconic to the Scourge as the portals are to the mesmer. In addition to that, it makes high-end PvE content far more accessible to newer players, as making a mistake and being downed out of position doesn't immediately mean a raid wipe. While this doesn't mean much for the people who already mastered the content, it's going to negatively impact the experience of newer / less capable players who engage with this content and will undoubtedly make them less interested in seeing it through.
Considering that raids are back on the menu for Janthir Wilds, this one change will heavily impact how many people will engage with the new raid.

Edited Saturday at 10:55 AM by MithosShulk.4627

[sylva.4971]

The argument that transfusion is rewarding bad gameplay is just plain wrong. Because then this would cover healers as well since they are usually carrying everyone anyways. So, get rid of all healing classes then?

Would be like the golden olden GW2 days. No healers and no tanks, we all heal ourselves, buff ourselves and dps ourselves.

Edited Saturday at 10:56 AM by sylva.4971

[Vegeta.2563]

6 minutes ago, MithosShulk.4627 said:

Considering that raids are back on the menu for Janthir Wilds, this one change will heavily impact how many people will engage with the new raid.

If they seriously changed a trait everywhere in game just because of raids.. what the actual f

Edited Saturday at 11:01 AM by Vegeta.2563

[Extacy.6192]

Just reduce the radius on transfusion or make it into a cone based "skill shot". That way u are also flexible in balancing between different game modes. Just removing it is the worst solution possible. Takes away a somewhat unique effect/playstyle.

Also just like some others already stated, please don't start to change the equipment stats and build diversity (+ food) in WvW. That is one of the things many players value very highly, especially in contrast to sPvP.

If you feel you have to nerf certain stat combinations then do it also in PvE - reduce the complexity.

[Sunyavadin.7962]

17 minutes ago, MithosShulk.4627 said:

I don't usually bother to post on updates, but this so -fundamentally- changes one of the classes I enjoy not just playing but also having around in raids and strikes, that I can't just sit by silently.

I don't play warrior, but I was vocally against the banner changes when they happened for so many of the same reasons as now. It's a lazy, poorly thought out direction, which raises more issues down the line. Case in point, concentration on Celestial. Imagine if we could address that problem by having a bunch of class-specific buffs that were not boons?

[Sunyavadin.7962]

27 minutes ago, MithosShulk.4627 said:

transfusion's teleportation is as iconic to the Scourge as the portals are to the mesmer.

Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be coming for them soon enough 😄

[Taygus.4571]

Not only are you destroying scourges identity.. you're also making it the worst heal choice out of all the meta healers? No blocks, kitten regen, one aegis sources, 1 stab that is unreliable 

I read that change and immediately thought   that for the first time in over a decade..it might be time to take a break from gw2. Rez pull is the only reason to play scourge over other healers and you're basically deleting it.... not only are you deleting its identity and what makes it so unique and knowable.. you're not giving ANYTHING to it, to compete with other healers.

This is a ddisappointing to see. Scourge healer is dead

 

[Vad.2958]

Why are removing stuff that makes classes/weapons unique? It's so boring. No ranger nerf? Why?

Why are we doing stuff like this and we still can't get fixes for Bladesworn?

[ProfBits.3716]

15 hours ago, Joie.6084 said:

Transfusion: This trait no longer teleports downed allies to the user.

As it seems that this applies to PvE as well, this is detremental to the viability of Heal Scourge. As the iconic part / identity of the build relies on emergency teleport / revival.

If it is to powerfull, than a comprimised solution could be that it only teleports downd allies within a shade? This would add a component of slow down and skill. This could also be limited to one downd player per shade, than acting very simmilar to Seach and Rescue on Range, which single dowed tp is ok as it seems.

[Titan.7853]

57 minutes ago, Vegeta.2563 said:

Please don't.  Changing gear stat numbers will completely derail a lot of builds.  Just look at how the removal of concentration and expertise from celestial is affecting those builds.  Now imagine Berserker stats, but for some reason the odd choice to reduce precision because you guys thought people were doing critical hits to often.  Now that's less damage for that gear stat, meanwhile healing stats would probably get unnoticed  and would be able to out heal power dps.  So then healing stats would then get reduced to make up for it in compensation and we are back to square 1, when leaving the 2 alone would have had the same result.

I agree with this statement.

Since Celestial has so many vocal haters among the WvW die hard crowd, I think that if a change is to be made, a better solution is to simply ban it there.  None of your Celestial gear appears there (you're naked).  Lol.  If they want a new stat like Celestial but without Concentration or Expertise, then introduce it and allow it everywhere.

The thing is, Celestial is a great stat for open world and particularly for newbies.  It's crap for instanced PvE.  A lot of the WvW die hard crowd also forget that it's good for newbies in WvW too.  They hate it, but once they get rid of it, they'll wonder why new players won't want to play there.  Then they'll be complaining that they are in a dead game mode.

Edited Saturday at 11:45 AM by Titan.7853

[fatnorn.3065]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, Make the supportive properties (boons, barriers and healing) of Shadow Shroud skills pulse from the tethered ally AND the Spectre themselves!

[Ghizguth.8925]

Can we please not nerf what makes the classes unique, heal scourge in this case, AGAIN?
It is so baffling to me that this game has unique aspects and features, that attract and retain players, as state by community contributes like Mukluk who quite literally enticed people from other MMO to play GW2 because of heal scourge and its unique playstyle? Why would you do that to your own product? Do you not like GW2? Do you want to see it fail? Some decision I swear feel more like insurance fraud than anything else.

Heal scourge has been in the game for years, but it has now become an issue? Give me a break. It's a noob friendly class, it always a group an easier time to learn the mechanics of new fights. The best groups in the game don't use a heal scourge. If you have to put these changes somewhere in the game, put them in PvP or WvW, god knows you don't give a crap about them: poor balance, glass cannon meta, poor match making, separate skills from PvP/WvW/PvE, separate equipment stats from other game modes, etc. All to make it harder and harder for new players to try these game modes and then you wonder why less that 10% of your players even bother with them in the first place. Those changes would be par for the course for these game modes, but that's hardly a compliment.

I really do wonder if you play your own game? I mean, clearly not: this is once more a decision made by a spreadsheet somewhere that says do this or that, and no further thought or feeling has been added to this baffling balance note. Why do you try you best to provided the blandest content possible?

Please rethink these changes.

[Iammurlock.9608]

The transfusion tp it´s what makes the heal scourge unique, removing it is a mistake, it´s the coolest feature of the class and removing it completely from the game feels awful...

[Mizu Misa.8730]

Scourge:
People need to realise telelporting 5 downed people out of a potentialy lethal position, and saving them from death is way too unbalanced not to mention how it triviliases certain encounter mechanics by making them less punishing. I'ts fine if necro has some skill that teleports 1 downed body like "Search And Rescue" does, that also comes at a cost/ tradeoff. 

However you should compensage for this nerf by buffing some other aspect of Scourge support to allow it to be viable in comparison to other support builds, whatever that may be(Healing/Boons).

Edited Saturday at 12:02 PM by Mizu Misa.8730

[Iammurlock.9608]

1 hour ago, JJBeauregard.1876 said:

Transfusion teleporting allies is (or was, I guess) something that made Support Necro unique and super fun to play. Completely taking it away instead of trying something like giving a debuff to a player that has been recently transfused that makes it so they can't be teleported again for like 2 minutes first seems like a overly drastic move 😞

This, just as simple as that

[Jokuc.3478]

Guardian:
- Hold the Line ammo count to 2 is probably not going to do much, prot and regen can be given from elsewhere.
- Hunter's Fortification nerf, rip hand kite DH - why was this change necessary?

Necromancer:
- Life Transfer (aka core Shroud 4) still not buffed enough, the cast time is way too long for the payoff and will still be dps loss to use. I think cast time is fine but dmg needs to be mega buffed.
- Tainted Shackles buff (core sh5): Now this might have more of an impact, it does good dmg but the issue is that you're not going to make much use of that cooldown reduction due to how current rotation makes use of weapon swap sigils so you always wait until before sigil proc to go into shroud meaning you get no value out of the lower cooldown anyway. But I'll do some new benching to see if it's worth to scrap the sigils for more sh5, though I doubt it.

- Transfusion nerf: It is really sad to see ANet going down this route. Transfusion is a big identity of Scourge, all classes are getting more and more homogenized to the point where every class does the same thing and there's no spice left. Plus now you're just going to play chrono instead.

Other thoughts: so we're just going to let 45k dps be the new normal now huh? No nerfs to current dps builds? Very disappointing to see. Also nothing to address how condi Mirage is dead and completely overshadowed by virtuoso in pve and how you didn't do anything to make power mirage a thing even though you said you would last patch?

Edited Saturday at 12:24 PM by Jokuc.3478

[RhoTamohbien.9427]

Is this some kind of twisted joke?????

I've been playing pvp for a while now and every single atom of my body HATES mirages, why you may ask?

* visual overload: if you haven't faced a huge Char or Norn, playing with a massive amount of clones that doesn't let you see a THING, then you clearly haven't touch pvp, now you may say "oh but use the default body" IT IS  STILL A PROBLEM WHEN THE ENEMY HAS 2 OR MORE!!

*  one shot from invis: unlike thief that needs time to kill you, I've been utterly annihilated many times from mirage that come at me invis, either alone or with their team

* almost unkillable by anything that's not a Soul beast or a thief

And what I find the most frustrating is that, for some reason, the balance team KEEPS giving so much dmg to classes with a lot of utility!
You are supposed to trade utility for dmg but Mesmer and Guardian gets all the pros of having a support kit while hitting like a truck (yeah, I'm looking at you Willbender and Mirage)

I can read the balance team saying "oh, but they are popular", OF COURSE THEY ARE! People will play what works! If you guys keep buffing the living H out of those classes OF COURSE THEY WILL BECOME POPULAR but for those that find guardian and mesmer boring , what is for us? If we want, let's say a dps boon class

Duid? oh, you want us to spend all the astral form just to give alac? hmmm?

Scrapper? ah, so using every single skill just to keep quickness uptime?

wait, maybe specter, ah but the shadow step won't work sometimes!

And I could keep going on, but instead of fixing and making easier to play other stuff, no, let's BUFF guardian and mesmer! so we have a happy blue and purple server!

I understand that there are classes that are the favorite ones of ANet, but this is absurd!
 

I'm just tired and mad about this, and I know that our opinion means nothing to those guys in the balance team, I'm aware of that, but if those buffs go live, me and my friends will probably stop playing wvw and pvp, because we don't see any real effort for keeping things "balance"

 

 

[YAMBE.8104]

When mesmer will be nerfed in PvP? Is practically inmortal with bladesong distorsion, mimic and signet of illusion combo.  They can be invulnerable 3 times, is imposible to fight one vs one with them

[Zekent.3652]

16 hours ago, XioKenji.3602 said:

Great changes Anet.

 

But PLEASE Throw Bladesworn a bone come next balance patch. it's very underwhelming and weak currently!

This, but it wasn't even mentioned, it was a bad roam AND zerg spec for WvW, compared to berserker and spellbreaker, and they crippled it anyways.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

20 minutes ago, Ghizguth.8925 said:

Please rethink these changes.

They won't. When it comes to taking feedback into consideration, they have been historically stubborn about doubling down on their decision no matter the cost. It took tons of death threat from a very small percentage of the playerbase among a very conversational patch that forced the devs to act, and even then, they didn't change much.

I given up the fact that they will do anything about feedback lmao. CMC unchained my kitten.

[Bris.7984]

Need the 500 pages written down so we can get some authorities attention from top management of this "balance" team decision.We need some BIG changes among them first, then we see some real love on our game classes/professions.This can't go on for for another 10 years.When in God Name you see a selling point vanish like that after alot of ppl buyed the expansion for it.Why do Anet "balance" team don't remove all spears and be done with that?🤑

[DontPaniC.8740]

[deletd]

Edited Sunday at 08:21 AM by DontPaniC.8740
none

[GeraldBC.4927]

Thank god I don't have to do raids anymore. Pugging slothasor without a scourge heal hardcarry has got to be absolute hell. You know how difficult it is to get pugs through a boss where everyone that gets downed is basically lost because the area you can walk on without dying constantly changes? If you are one of those people who did the same for armor, I'd make a Druid ASAP. 

But I've made many saves with this in 98 CM too so it will affect me. Keep your fingers crossed that Druid's old  darling-of-og-raiders plot armor holds because if Anet starts throwing class sympathies out the window and going after all specs equally, Druid is next on the chopping block.