October 8 Balance Update Preview

[Thron Stal.9367]

On 9/14/2024 at 3:34 AM, Joie.6084 said:

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

Why did you give me Cele gear when I boosted my characters?   I mainly play WvW.   I feel screwed over!!!  Wasted REAL LIFE money!

[Terrorangel.1526]

Engineer:

23 hours ago, Joie.6084 said:

Utility Goggles: This skill now applies protection in addition to its previous effects.

That utility skill does apply protection if the trait Gadgeteer is used. Maybe the Grandmaster trait shows what the gadgets should be like and instead offer some Alacrity when a gadget is used?

23 hours ago, Joie.6084 said:

Smoke Vent: This skill now breaks stun. Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.

I like that there will be a stun break on a weapon bundle skill, but that is quite niche: You would have to be on Flamethrower and not have used your Smoke Vent for the blind to mitigate other damage. Now it looks more like a "reactive" tool than a "proactive" one. I like the blind on a 15 seconds cooldown, although it could use something like a Smoke field similar to that of the Smoke Cloud used by the rangers juvenile Smokescale pet.. It doesn't have to be 5 seconds, make it 2-3 seconds to make room for some combos.

I have another suggestion: put the stun break on the tool belt skill.

In addition: change the trait Streamlined Kits to buff all of the Kits:

• When equipping a Kit remove a condition (that ability has a cooldown of 4 seconds - oriented on similar traits from other professions). 
   
• Flamethrower: The tool belt skill Incendiary Ammo now breaks stun. Also: reduce cooldown in WvW/PvP to 30 seconds. 
  (by the way 3 attacks that apply some burn on a 40 seconds cooldown... Make it 5 attacks and reduce the burn duration from 6  down to 4 seconds)
• Med Kit: The tool belt skill Bandage Self now functions similar to Bear Stance, because you bandage and with every wrap you heal and remove a condition. (cooldown 25 seconds in PvE, 30 seconds in WvW/PvP). 
  Instead of the old abilities now the Med Kit should have these abilities:
  1) Attack with your Vapor, dealing damage to enemies and inflicting conditions on the last pulse (3 seconds poison and/or cripple-something like that, movement inhabiting and annoying but not threatening) and healing your allies (small numbers, similar to Med Blaster, but without the boon scaling) and granting regeneration with its final pulse that has a slightly bigger heal similar to the healing effect on Elementalists staff skill Water Blast. channeling ability; 2,25 seconds channel time.
  2)Throw a large Med Bag that explodes after a few seconds but can also be blasted with another activation of the skill manually. Heals a decent amount leaves behind a water field. Explosion, unblockable (because no damage skill), 900 range, 300 radius, decent velocity, 8 seconds cooldown, 0,5 seconds cast time.
  3) Dash forward while evading for 0,75 seconds leaving behind 3 Bandages on your path that stay for a while and can be picket up by allies granting them boons (2 seconds resistance, 3 seconds regeneration) and heal them for a small amount. 0,75 seconds cast/evade, 12 seconds cooldown, range 600-800.
  4) Is a combination of the current Med Kit skills 3 Cleansing Field and 4 Vital Burst. No cast time, combined effects, 20 seconds cooldown.
  5) Throw your Med Kit into the air and let it explode to create a barrier of Vapor that blocks missiles and grants pulsing boons around you: Stability 1 second; protection 1 second, resistance 1 second. Duration 4 seconds, 1 pulse every second. Using this ability unequips your Med Kit and puts the ability on a cooldown for 30 seconds. During this period you can not use the Med Kit. Cast time 1 second.
• Elixier Gun: The Healing Mist tool belt skill now leaves a water field around you.
• Bomb Kit: Reduce the fuse time of bombs to 0,5 seconds. Gain 3 seconds Quickness and Superspeed when equipping the Bomb Kit, the next 1/2/3 bomb/s you set will be again after a short delay (10 seconds cooldown). 
• Grenade Kit: The tool belt skill now inflicts Slow to enemies it hits.
• Tool Kit: Enemies hit by your Throw Wrench tool belt skill, will also be hit by a Box of Nails.
• Elite Mortar Kit: Orbital Strike, the tool belt skill, now strikes twice and leaves behind a lightning field.

 

On 9/13/2024 at 9:34 PM, Joie.6084 said:

Holosmith

• Crystal Configuration: Eclipse: This trait now only applies barrier on Corona Burst's first hit. Increased the barrier on hit from 991 to 2,256 in PvE and from 748 to 1,804 in PvP and WvW. The barrier on hit is reduced for each hit beyond the first.

While I like that the whole barrier amount is applied at once (or most of it) that also can turn out to be a problem! If the enemy is not hit, because they evade or block, will the barrier still be applied? If not that would be a huge loss. Most barrier effects in the game are very passively activated/granted: "press skill X and gain barrier" or "if you dodge or use a skill of type Y then you gain barrier".
Holosmith has already a compromise with the Overheat mechanic. If you happen to overheat there are only disadvantages: get initial 3981 base health damage and 3980 more damage over time (2,5 seconds). While other professions (*cough* Necromancer *cough*) have benefits from sacrificing their health to abilities, because they get a pay-off with stronger effects or boosted stats or inflict themselves with conditions for certain benefits like for example Revenant.

The healing from Heat Loss can't compare to the difficulty a player has to work around "Holo Mode" and overheating. Some traits even want you to overheat. Compared to other professions and specializations that have so much passive sustain just from pressing all available buttons like Warriors Defense traits healing from burst skills or the amount of healing a Guardian can pull off by using Meditations or Aegis or basically anything.

And because we are talking about Guardian: The buffs are not needed! Where are they coming from? 
 

On 9/13/2024 at 9:34 PM, Joie.6084 said:

• Symbol of Faith: This skill now heals allies on impact. Reduced the casting time.
• Shield of Wrath: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.
• "Hold the Line!": Increased the ammunition from 1 to 2.
• Signet of Judgment: This skill now applies protection in addition to its previous effects.
• Protector's Restoration: Reduced the internal cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP only.
• Honorable Staff: This skill no longer grants additional concentration while wielding a staff and now causes Empower to grant endurance to allies.
• Writ of Persistence: Increased the healing from 64 to 107 in PvP and WvW.

I mean. Come on. How much more do you plan to push Core Guardian Support in sPvP? Another ammunition shout- sure on a shout that is not played anyways, but that initial heal on mace AND a reduced cast time? Besides that it already hits pretty hard- even does with Avatar Amulet and Dolyak Rune. 

I doubt that Writ of Persistence will find a place against Pure of Voice, but the amount of symbols a guard can drop down and heal per symbol every second... sigh. 

Necromancer:

I appreciate the buffs for core Death Shroud. I like the form very much and the shorter cooldowns will make it feel more fast paced and on par with the others. 

For the other changes: I don't think Necro is missing sustain as Harbinger or Reaper, but we will see how the changes play out. Harbinger has a lot sustain with dual sword life steal and Reaper really only benefits from Soul Eater as power focused build.
And Transfusion...
Maybe instead of removing the teleport completely (though I don't particularly mind):

• Teleport 1 target downed ally to your position, start reviving up to 5 targets. If no ally is targeted the closest / or the ally with the least health percentage is teleported to you.

That might be a compromise to porting up to 5 allies, without having to forgo the port completely.

[Vorgoth.8597]

So Heal scourge get trashed in PvE while chrono heal that absolutely dominates with permanent stabs, aegis, an insane amount of CC stays exactly the same??

Even Firebrand has never been as strong as Chrono atm.

If they don't give some other utilty to the scourge (like at least one aoe stab which it lacks and makes it unusable on some bosses) it will just be useless compared to any other PvE healer

Edited Saturday at 10:28 PM by Vorgoth.8597

[shinkamalei.2574]

6 hours ago, Serious Me.3189 said:

...(such as by reducing the number of people it teleports (split this number via gamemode), giving it an internal cooldown, making it so people can't be teleported more than once every X number of seconds, ect.)....

I think limited distance in WvW would be the best start myself and simultaneously limiting # of players in competitve modes as well. There's no ICD because it is a larger cd normally. And players already can't be teleported within xyz seconds last I remember but I don't fully remember their last nuking of it.

5 hours ago, daw.4923 said:

...I would recommend all hscg players to swap to heal tempest for a week so you can see what other healers have to offer.

As a heal tempest main - removing this ability is the wrong way to go. I have played many classes and seen a lot of varying usages of howw a class and its' elite specs work. Necro is already a subpar healer. It has barrier and some boons but in comparison to tempest, to druid, to FB, to chrono: it does not stack up. This is its gimmick and its identity in necromancy. You are bringing the dead back to life, summoning their corpses. If people die and it's on cd, oh well. But saying a "git gud scrub"/"just play a different class" response when so many people struggle with a lot of mechanics across the board due to a multitude of reasons (lag, lack of actually teaching mechanics/skills from day 1 of the game, visual clutter, distraction, etc etc) is not helpful nor is it conducive to finding a proper solution. Which as above from Serious Me has shown some good ideas and is giving good criticism. 

Now as to why it's helpful: it breaks the barrier of entry for newer/less knowledgeable players to get into harder content and learn. You may disagree on this as a philosophy, but I personally enjoy not seeing people give up after getting their kitten handed to them on bosses like slothasor, deimos, boneskinner, KO, CO, etc. In open world people are more okay with dying since there's somewhere on the map to come back from but it's such a wonderful thing when you go down maybe from a mistake (we all make them) or lag or whatever and a healscourge pulls you to safety and gets you back up.

Side note - we eles do have a pull. It's the air rez. We do have a 3 man rez in earth.

Edited Saturday at 10:49 PM by shinkamalei.2574

[Mistwraithe.3106]

The Transfusion change has already kicked up a huge firestorm but I'll add my voice to it anyway because the change is poor balancing IMO.

For a start the justifications for the change are poor. They state that it's a particular painpoint in WvW then apply the same heavy nerf to both WvW and PvE. If it's a big problem in WvW then do split changes. Don't use WvW problems as an excuse for big PvE changes, that's nonsensical at best or duplicitous at worst.

Secondly, as others have pointed out, the proposed change pretty much kills heal scourge. The build otherwise lacks healing and boons - barrier helps but there are other classes with barrier and better healing and/or boons. The main point of difference for heal scourge was transfusion which gave the build a reason why you might take it despite it being weaker than other heal builds by the numbers.

Lastly, and most importantly for me, it's removing flavour and diversity. For the last year there seems to have been a push to remove flavour and homogenize all professions so that they are increasingly similar to each other. This is the laziest type of balancing IMO. Imagine if the Starcraft balance team adopted this philosophy? No one would play it. 

It's critical for game enjoyment that the professions retain their own flavour and diversity. The balance team needs to stop taking the easy route of removing all of the unique features and instead work out how to scale the strengths of those features so that they remain viable but aren't overpowered. Yes this is harder but it is also literally your job.

Edited Saturday at 11:04 PM by Mistwraithe.3106

[Shade.8037]

2 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

The Transfusion change has already kicked up a huge firestorm but I'll add my voice to it anyway because the change is poor balancing IMO.

For a start the justifications for the change are poor. They state that it's a particular painpoint in WvW then apply the same heavy nerf to both WvW and PvE. If it's a big problem in WvW then do split changes. Don't use WvW problems as an excuse for big PvE changes, that's nonsensical at best or duplicitous at worst.

Secondly, as others have pointed out, the proposed change pretty much kills heal scourge. The build otherwise lacks healing and boons - barrier helps but there are other classes with barrier and better healing and/or boons. The main point of difference for heal scourge was transfusion which gave the build a reason why you might take it despite it being weaker than other heal builds by the numbers.

Lastly, and most importantly for me, it's removing flavour and diversity. For the last year there seems to have been a push to remove flavour and homogenize all professions so that they are increasingly similar to each other. This is the laziest type of balancing IMO. Imagine if the Starcraft balance team adopted this philosophy? No one would play it. 

It's critical for game enjoyment that the professions remain their own flavour and diversity. The balance team needs to stop taking the easy route of removing all of the unique features and instead work out how to scale the strengths of those features so that they remain viable but aren't overpowered. Yes this is harder but it is also literally your job.

Totally agree. nerfing is one thing but destroying the identity of a class is just uncalled for. Frankly I don't care if they double the barrier gen and give us perma stab this change is still unfun and destroys the reason to play necro over any other class. 

And without any buffs in return might as well just not ever touch heal scourge IMO, frankly might push me off necro entirely as heal scourge was my main spec.

[Kuma.1503]

WvW Thoughts

After giving the Cele changes more thought...

I predict that we're going to start seeing a lot more trailblazer roamers moving forward. Trailblazer Druids, Trailblazer ele, trailblazer harbinger, trailblazer condi zerker. It's a more limited stat set, but the condition damage is significantly higher. Any spec that can abuse it will continue to frustrate roamers with high bulk and high damage. 

Meanwhile larger issues continue to go unaddressed. 

Some proffesions have zero counterplay for stealth. Thieves remain S+ tier for roaming where the best you can do is hope the thief is bad or messes up, or play one of the few builds which specifically counter them. Nerfing Cele makes thieves even stronger because the extra bulk and sustain acts as a natural counter to them. 

This indirectly hits Cele Harb and Cele Willbender, but these should have been hit with direct nerfs years ago. 

Boonballs are still king. Rather than tone them down, counterplay options like boonrip are repeatedly nerfed. 

Roaming still provides very little reward compared to zerging. The gradual buffing of boonballs makes it increasingly difficult to fight against them while outnumbered.

 

Overall, the changes are half baked, and may do more harm than good. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ele Thoughts 

• QCata boon uptime increased
• Catalyst can now generate energy when a sphere is down. But only with a trait. 

These are absolutely positive changes. Boon uptime and energy generation were two significant pinpoints with Catalyst, and these help to alieviate those. 

The biggest painpoint is energy. See this post in the ele forums where I explain why. 

The tl;dr is that energy is fundamentally flawed. It imposes unnecessary restrictions on the player which cannot be overcome by playing better. It causes the spec to struggle in content where it should excell. Finally, the energy system can actually punish your group for playing too well. 

In its current State, Catalyst cannot build energy while a sphere is down. 

As a result, maintaining boon uptime becomes impossible against hordes of squishy enemies. If you drop your spheres and burst your targets down before your spheres time out, you will have nothing to hit to build your energy back up again. This will result in you having no boons to provide for several seconds moving into the next pack of enemies. You're punished for doing too much damage. 

This is no bueno. 

Removing the restriction on energy building alleviates this issue. Now, if targets die while spheres are down, you will be able to simultaneously build energy back up for your next rotation, even if the enemies die quickly. This needs to be made baseline. 

The current energy system is flawed. Not in an interesting way that pushes players to find creative solutions to work around those flaws. It is flawed in a way  that damages the very foundation the spec is built upon. 

 

Edited Sunday at 04:01 AM by Kuma.1503

[Lazarus.4105]

Roamers are already swapping to super zerk and everyone it just one hitting you again. I feel like cele is a necessity to what is power creep in builds.

[Lazarus.4105]

Truthfully I'd rather a game where roamers run cele and are tanky than them running some zerk mix and instantly killing you from ranged or with a teleport combo. I'd also argue that WvW is a noob friendly pvp environment and ruining the defense for these players so they just get instant downed from some deadeye is going to make people quit.

Edited Sunday at 12:34 AM by Lazarus.4105

[Quirin.1076]

On 9/13/2024 at 3:34 PM, Joie.6084 said:

Transfusion has been a longtime pain point in WvW,

So, change it for WvW.

Why not add Boon strips back into the game?  You know to counter the boon groups.  Otherwise this game will never be truly balanced.

[BeckonRed.8457]

On 9/13/2024 at 3:34 PM, Joie.6084 said:

Necromancer

Transfusion has been a longtime pain point in WvW, but it has also been an exceptionally powerful tool for scourge in all game modes. Its ability to easily revive allies who are downed while out of position is something that we've been keeping an eye on for a while, and we see it as being too powerful. We still like Transfusion's ability to help revive allies, but we're removing the teleportation component to make it less of a guarantee. We've also tuned up the damage on axe in PvE and made some improvements to the core death shroud in all game modes. Reaper and harbinger both get some defensive updates that are primarily focused on slightly improving their survivability in PvP.

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

 

Is it possible to completely rework Transfusion into an new support trait that is more beneficial not only to Scourge but to the other necromancer elite specs but to core as well?

Something like an trait that gives lifesteal to allies during shroud 4 for 5 or 6 seconds or something and/or gives boons to allies? Something that adds more build craft to give necro abit of an ability to be an support, boon support or otherwise across its core and elites alike?

[Dark Sorcerer.6420]

I agree Transfusion for HS was a great thing to have when playing.  It should not be nerfed.  It did help players especially on Bounties when a whole group was doing Legendary Bounty and many went down.   HS should be able to pull 5 people in.  This is a bad choice to nerf.  You have nerfed HS enough already.  Please leave HS alone.  You have made it almost unplayable character now.  It is almost useless for healers to play.   😡

 

[Astralporing.1957]

9 minutes ago, BeckonRed.8457 said:

Is it possible to completely rework Transfusion into an new support trait that is more beneficial not only to Scourge but to the other necromancer elite specs but to core as well?

Something like an trait that gives lifesteal to allies during shroud 4 for 5 or 6 seconds or something and/or gives boons to allies? Something that adds more build craft to give necro abit of an ability to be an support, boon support or otherwise across its core and elites alike?

I doubt that. It would still by necessity have to be something good enough to cover the rest of the whole spec kit being way subpar. You'd need to rework not just the trait, but the whole class. Or at the very least blood traitline, a handful of heal/support related skills, some shroud abilities and traits, and few weapons. If Anet cannot do that (within some reasonable timeframe - say, till the end of this year), they should not be touching transfusion in PvE at all. And i do not believe they're capable of so big class revamp at this point.

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

@Joie.6084

 

Specter shadow Sap changes.

So how will this work offesively if It will no longer apply weakness? Do allies still gain might if at least 1 foe is hit?

 

Also regarding (main target gets full barrier and boon duration when others get less) how will THAT portion work?

 

 

[BATMAN.6794]

Transfuse, there's only 1 way to do what you want and not make people upset and that's to just split that skill and how it works between game modes. PVE transfuse should remain the same, WvW/PVP transfuse should probably be altered the way you're talking. In my honest opinion, transfuse is only as good as it is now because of the horrible balance you've done for WvW, you literally made WvW blob v blob/Boon ball meta.

Edited Sunday at 01:05 AM by BATMAN.6794

[Count The Medals.4738]

I main Warrior and Guardians... but this necromancer change seems ill-thought out.  Justice for Heal-mancers.  

[Bris.7984]

6 minutes ago, BATMAN.6794 said:

Transfuse, there's only 1 way to do what you want and not make people upset and that's to just split that skill and how it works between game modes. PVE transfuse should remain the same, WvW/PVP transfuse should probably be altered the way you're talking. In my honest opinion, transfuse is only as good as it is now because of the horrible balance you've done for WvW, you literally made WvW blob v blob/Boon ball meta.

Do they care enough to make it right?Look at how awful they communicate with their community about the simple changes…and you want them to put effort for this big important changes?They don’t even respect their own “balance” philosophy …lost all my faith in them.At least for Warrior “balance” they are so low grades…

[Riot Inducer.8964]

Popping on to add my response to the "rethink the Transfusion nerf" pile. Seriously, just full on removing the biggest selling point of this trait after it and the related revival trait, Ritual of Life, have endured nothing but nerfs over the last four years in order to keep this unique facet of necro support going. It's insulting. Keep the teleport for PvE at least. Look at the number of targets or give the pull its own ICD if it's that problematic. Don't just toss it out.

That said, if the teleport revive really must go then this change needs to come bundled with reverting the nerfs to Transfusion and Ritual of Life's revival amounts, if we can't pull bodies then we need to get some actual usable revival amounts out of them, at least back up to par with other classes revive traits. Even then without the niche appeal of transfusion pulling bodies out of danger Heal Scourge is going to need a lot more of a tune up to compete with other heal builds. Necro doesn't have any support weapon and has lots of trouble providing basic boons like swiftness and more crucial ones like stability. 

I'd also like to voice my...confusion at the removal of Extirpation. This was a big unique thing for necro spear and now it's gone, why? Given that the stacks ate individual boons not boon applications it, if anything, seemed on the weaker side. I guess that part's just literal now. 

 

[Scorpion Over Lord.9036]

On 9/14/2024 at 7:34 AM, Joie.6084 said:

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

I don't come onto the forums to comment often, but the transfusion nerf requires player feedback.

I do hope that the Devs really consider an alternative change than one of removing the unique aspect of Transfusion. I see power creep as being more of a game changer than Transfusion in instanced content or open world. While it may help revive players that go down in bad spots, the down state debuff from constantly going down balances out the utility of Transfusion. If a player is going down so often, then not even Transfusion will make the difference. 

I do agree, it does come in clutch at times, but power creep really has turned a lot of content to feel trivial. This is where we should be looking at changes that do not remove the feature completely as that is easy/lazy. It has been in the game for years and only now after getting another weapon that has also increased the power creep, the Devs now decide it is too problematic. 

If there really does need to be a change as it is truly making all game modes a problem, then consider some of the following:

• Number of players that can be pulled - eg, reduce to 3 in PVE and 2 in WVW/PVP
• Range - decrease the range if this is part of the problem
• Cooldown - Increase the cooldown if it is being used too often for the teleport (consider increasing the barrier output on another skill to compensate for this skill now being used less)

While balancing is not easy, I feel that throwing away unique features of classes makes the game overall less fun. I strongly suggest that the Devs watch content creators like Mukluk, MightyTeapot, etc for their reactions to this preview as so much cannot be said on a forum post.

If this suggested change was made within a few months of in introduction of Scourge, this may not have been so controversial, but it has been in the game so long, it is now apart of the identity of Scourge and losing it will require other unique features to be introduced to make players want to use it over other healing classes that bring more boon support and healing potential. This balance preview did not say how it was going to compensate for such a loss. Barrier is great but if that is all a Heal Scourge is going to bring, then we may as well play HDruid or HChrono.

TLDR, don't take away specialization features that make it feel different to play in the sea of other classes that can do the same thing (often better).

[Thelgar.7214]

If you're removing concentration and expertise from celestial items, could you please set the items to allow the selection of the other prefixes that provide the stats being removed? For people using ascended (or exotic) equipment, removing all the condition duration and/or boon duration from the equipment of characters that rely on condition duration and/or boon duration makes the equipment wholly useless. And neither of those stats are accessible via the Wizard's Vault boxes, Laurel Vendors or Guild Commendation Traders without Celestial being an option.

This affects 16 full sets of ascended celestial armor and trinkets and at least 7 full sets (both swaps) of ascended celestial weapons and back pieces across my accounts. It's an extinction-level event. It would take me years to re-equip those characters with appropriate gear even if it was available at the vendors above. That makes about a fourth of my 61 sets of ascended gear useless.

[Kulvar.1239]

32 minutes ago, Thelgar.7214 said:

If you're removing concentration and expertise from celestial items, could you please set the items to allow the selection of the other prefixes that provide the stats being removed? For people using ascended (or exotic) equipment, removing all the condition duration and/or boon duration from the equipment of characters that rely on condition duration and/or boon duration makes the equipment wholly useless. And neither of those stats are accessible via the Wizard's Vault boxes, Laurel Vendors or Guild Commendation Traders without Celestial being an option.

This affects 16 full sets of ascended celestial armor and trinkets and at least 7 full sets (both swaps) of ascended celestial weapons and back pieces across my accounts. It's an extinction-level event. It would take me years to re-equip those characters with appropriate gear even if it was available at the vendors above. That makes about a fourth of my 61 sets of ascended gear useless.

It wouldn't take you years because you can stat change gear with an exotic insignia/inscription of the desired combination, glob of ectoplasm, and anthologies at the mystic forge.

[MeepoofJC.7309]

PLEASE SAVE HEAL SCOURGE

[Lithril Ashwalker.6230]

5 hours ago, Kulvar.1239 said:

It wouldn't take you years because you can stat change gear with an exotic insignia/inscription of the desired combination, glob of ectoplasm, and anthologies at the mystic forge.

No but it causes another ecto inflation or monopoly because everyone using cele now needs to stat swap to be worth a crap.

I don't use Cele but I'm all for reimbursing for an exchange item for people to restat them...or make all Cele gear stat swappable 1 more time if chosen BEFORE the patch thus making it statless armor/trinket etc fresh out the box

 

Unnecessarily screwing the players isn't fair

 

 

Edited Sunday at 09:46 AM by Lithril Ashwalker.6230

[Kulvar.1239]

14 minutes ago, Lithril Ashwalker.6230 said:

No but it causes another ecto inflation or monopoly because everyone using cele now needs to star swap to be worth a crap.

I don't use Cele but I'm all for reimbursing for an exchange item for people to restat them...or make all Cele gear stat swappable 1 more time if chosen BEFORE the patch thus making it stateless armor/trinket etc.

Unnecessarily screwing the players isn't fair

I was merely pointing that they didn't need to recraft them all.

[Phyb.6704]

Celestial

On 9/13/2024 at 12:34 PM, Joie.6084 said:

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

The expertise and and concen gives about 42% bonus to times with all as celestial...
The problem is more so that full celestial gives THE SAME exp and concen as full ritualist which gives far less total stat but the SAME total for exp and concen. 
It does not need to be removed... it needed to be REDUCED to be balanced with other stat sets.
Celestial should not give the same exp and concen as ritualist.
Ritualist is 4 stats and celestial is 9. 

Why not just balance the stat totals.
Ascended helms concen and exp
Ritualist 30 / 30         Celestial 15 / 15 or even more like 12 / 12

The problem is balance and instead of adjusting the numbers.... just deleting the stat itself seems a bit LAZY

The problem has been obvious for a long time. Anet would rather delete the stats off a stat set then actually adjust them to be in line with other sets for total stat amount vs number of dif stats.

Car is backed into garage door. Owner says it was the pet dog that broke the garage door well the car is sticking through said garage door. It is really really dumb. Just balance your stat sets......... if a stat set gives all 9 stats then its exp and concen it gives should not be the same as a stat set that only gives 4/9 of the stats in the game....... It is really not that hard to figure. 

Scourge

On 9/13/2024 at 12:34 PM, Joie.6084 said:

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

This also seems kinda LAZY.

You could have adjusted the number that get pulled in.

You could have also given something to make not everyone take it.... 

Knowone takes unholy martyr...... why not change it to something that gives stability. Fixing a issue with scourge well making people take that over transfusion. 

On 9/13/2024 at 12:34 PM, Joie.6084 said:

• Isolate: Reduced the cooldown from 18 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only.
• Extirpate: This skill no longer inflicts Extirpation and instead inflicts weakness.
• Rending Claws: Increased the damage coefficient per hit from 0.6 to 0.7 in PvE only.
• Ghastly Claws: Increased the power coefficient per hit from 0.5 to 0.575 in PvE only.
• Unholy Feast: Increased the power coefficient from 2.0 to 2.5 in PvE only.
• Unholy Burst: Increased the power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.5 in PvE only.

 

Thats much more then a 15% buff to skills 1 and 2. 

25% to skill 3 and 50% to the 2nd hit of skill 3...... but the bonus hit req enemy below 50%... which you use greatsword 2 for since it does way more and still hits 5. Mind that in wvw this could be nice for the boon removal but in zergs the boons are being re applied as fast as they can be removed so its kinda meh. 

Skill 2 with the 10% trait buff and 25% dmg buff with 25 vul.... it could def see use between going in and out of shroud for power builds. 

skill 2 bonus dmg 

25% vul and 25% bonus dmg and is multiplied by the 25% so 25%+ 25% + 1/4 of 25% is 56.25

Then there is the 10% from the axe trait  spiteful talisman and now another 15% for the base power coefficient.

So that 15% is actually being multiplied by the 56.25% and the 10% axe trait. I dont know if the 10% is applied before, with or after the 56.25% 

Basically the burst from axe 2 is going up more then actually just 15% since the power bonus is applied to the base before the other bonuses are added.