October 8 Balance Update Preview

[Titan.7853]

It's a cascade of bad decisions with this "balance" patch.

First, they should have balanced specs that overperform with Celestial gear by adjusting their skills in WvW game mode.  They didn't, they blamed the gear.

Second, since they blamed the gear, they should have simply balanced that gear by lowering all stats a bit.  They didn't, they decided to remove key stats in a nerf making the stat useless in WvW.

Third, since they nerfed the gear in WvW, but didn't want to do so in PvE, they embarked on a new system that allows them to do so in future with other equipment.  This violates the principle that equipment behaves the same everywhere, which was a pillar that you could trust and invest in.  Now, they are ruining that.  It's a massive mistake.

Here's another though experiment:

Visualize chaos.  In your mind right now, imagine chaos as random particles in three dimensions, all bouncing off each other.  Noting makes sense, because no particle is relative to another.  All you have to do to introduce order is reach out and hold onto one particle.  Make it stable.  Now everything moves in relation to it.  Congratulations, you've introduced stability and order into a chaotic system.

The stability and order that we had was our equipment system.  The equipment system was stable between PvE and WvW.  All things could be balanced against that.  Even PvP has it's own unique and stable equipment system.  That stable system was the sun that always rose the next day.  It was gravity.  It was an unbreakable law of the game.  Classes behaved differently, specs behaved differently, and even traits and skills behaved differently in different game modes.  They could all, however, be balanced against stable equipment stats.

Because equipment stats never changed, you could trust in them.  You could invest in equipment, and know that it would behave the same everywhere.  Isn't that one of the primary economic engines of the game?  

They are about to throw that all away, over Celestial stats in WvW?  Just think about that.

[reddie.5861]

2 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

They're getting a massive nerf simply by Cele no longer having Concentration and Expertise. Cele is really good for WIllbender as they rely on their Boons to give them massive defensive and offensive power. The doubling of duration for all of them means that the weakness of Cele, the less than mediocre stats on everything, is majorly offset by the Boons. Low Toughness? All damage Strike Damage reduced by 33% is a lot more than the loss in toughness, and all Condi damage reduced by 33% for long periods of time is more than offset by the long Resolution uptimes. I could go on like this. The fact is that Cele on its own is a rather weak set. It's the toolkit of Willbender that makes this prefix extremely strong. By nerfing the prefix the toolkit will be massively affected as now Willbenders will have windows where you can vail on them.

there no cele willbenders in roaming those who are cele are the ones who prolong their own dead. im talking about the dragon / marauder / zerk will benders

[Titan.7853]

8 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Wrong. Celestial was used actively in several WvW builds before concentration and expertise were added to it. Lot of them were mix of several stats, some full celestial and others even blob builds.

You're not making a very compelling case for the old Celestial stats.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

24 minutes ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

Why nerf celestial for everyone if you can simply solve that issue by nerfing willbender specifically? Just decrease the durations on the virtues' boons. Then double the cooldowns on every wb mobility skill and it's fixed. 

There were actually several builds abusing celestial stats on WVW. But there are even more builds that are perfectly fine with it. Just another case of Anet applying a broad nerf when specific build tweaks to fix the underlying skill issues would avoid collateral damage.

[Malus.2184]

36 minutes ago, GeraldBC.4927 said:

Why nerf celestial for everyone if you can simply solve that issue by nerfing willbender specifically? Just decrease the durations on the virtues' boons. Then double the cooldowns on every wb mobility skill and it's fixed. 

Because then Willbender becomes unplayable without using Cele. If you want diversity then you need to nerf the cause rather than the collateral.

[Malus.2184]

52 minutes ago, Zily.3152 said:

Tell me you don't know what an identity is, without telling me you don't know what an identity is.

 

Also, shift signet is an engineer skill (mechanist), not a necro skill. And with no quote as a buffer between the two statements, that tells me all I need to know with this.

It's overloaded and contains things that should be a core mechanic. Transfusion should either be a core mechanic or severely reworked for the same reason since if it's required it's no longer a choice.

Choosing a trait has nothing to do with class identity. That you make it sound like it does implies that you have your own definition.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

17 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

Wrong. Celestial was used actively in several WvW builds before concentration and expertise were added to it. Lot of them were mix of several stats, some full celestial and others even blob builds.

Okay then, let's revert all skills in WVW back to 2014 versions and see how that goes. Oof. 😬 

Collateral effect: The revenant profession is no longer available in the WVW game mode.

Edited Sunday at 07:16 PM by Gaiawolf.8261

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I've played against players of all skill levels. Player skill trumps gear any day of the weekly matchup. Stat preference is a minor concern on any match I've been involved with since 2012. I'm on Rall's Rest (T3?) now. Last month we were T2.

Okay, are you NA or EU?

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Shade.8037 said:

And portals. You know things can have multiple components to it right? Either way i am done arguing with you, anyone that says Mesmer portals have nothing to do with the class identity, is self evidently wrong and not worth engaging in further.

Portals are something they can do. Thieves can also do Portals, as can Scourges. Does that make it part of their identity as well? Just because it's something people use a lot has no impact on it being an identity.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

4 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Okay, are you NA or EU?

Rall's Rest is an NA team. 😉 We were Lutgardis Conservatory. kitten these alliances and names. LOL. 

Edit: And to think I used to kill Sanctum of Rall players with a passion....

Edited Sunday at 07:19 PM by Gaiawolf.8261

[Shade.8037]

11 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Portals are something they can do. Thieves can also do Portals, as can Scourges. Does that make it part of their identity as well? Just because it's something people use a lot has no impact on it being an identity.

Okay man, can you please actually try to get what I am saying? Necromancers...deal with dead things, like their friends who die.

Necromancers, used to have a lot of tools to deal with dead things.

Now they have ONE thing that deals with dead things, and that is going away.

This will make necromancers, in open play with the good builds, have nothing to do with necromancy....that is, the class identity.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

36 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Because then Willbender becomes unplayable without using Cele. If you want diversity then you need to nerf the cause rather than the collateral.

I missed the discussion behind this, so maybe not applicable to the context, but WB is currently better on marauder gear than celestial gear. Celestial gear is kinda underwhelming on WB, esp for bursts.

Edited Sunday at 07:47 PM by Gaiawolf.8261

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

28 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Because then Willbender becomes unplayable without using Cele. If you want diversity then you need to nerf the cause rather than the collateral.

These 3 willybenders in entire WvW that used cele will be very upset with these changes.
If you think that these willybenders that do 100-0 in few seconds run cele then you're quite mistaken to put it nicely.

[Zily.3152]

55 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

It's overloaded and contains things that should be a core mechanic. Transfusion should either be a core mechanic or severely reworked for the same reason since if it's required it's no longer a choice.

Choosing a trait has nothing to do with class identity. That you make it sound like it does implies that you have your own definition.

You proved my point boo. You dont have an idea what you are talkin about.

[Malus.2184]

18 minutes ago, Zily.3152 said:

You proved my point boo. You dont have an idea what you are talkin about.

Okay, sure, you win, that seems to be important for your ego as this is a rather pointless thing to post when it's clear that you have your own definition.

A game identity is something no other X can do. Other classes can make portals which means that it's unable to be the identity of the Mesmer. Those are unable to make illusions through.

[Malus.2184]

55 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I missed the discussion behind this, so maybe not applicable to the context, but WB is currently better on marauder gear than celestial gear. Celestial gear is kinda underwhelming on WB, esp for bursts.

If they do burst then it's a game of holding and using your defenses when they prepare for the burst. It's a mind game at that point.

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, Shade.8037 said:

Okay man, can you please actually try to get what I am saying? Necromancers...deal with dead things, like their friends who die.

Necromancers, used to have a lot of tools to deal with dead things.

Now they have ONE thing that deals with dead things, and that is going away.

This will make necromancers, in open play with the good builds, have nothing to do with necromancy....that is, the class identity.

How do Barriers have anything to dow ith dead things? It's the Barrier they're used for mostly. If they have to use Transfusion a lot then they're hindering the ability to learn for the people who make fatal mistakes.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

3 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

If they do burst then it's a game of holding and using your defenses when they prepare for the burst. It's a mind game at that point.

👍

[Shade.8037]

9 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

How do Barriers have anything to dow ith dead things? It's the Barrier they're used for mostly. If they have to use Transfusion a lot then they're hindering the ability to learn for the people who make fatal mistakes.

No, they are absolutely not. Know what happens when a newbie screws up in a halfway decent group without scourge? They die, stay there, and the group finishes the boss. They learn, NOTHING. 

Know what helps them learn? Getting slammed down, then getting rezed again to PRACTICE the fight. No one, is wiping because the new guy died, most stuff can be finished with several people down, so all in the world this does is make a BIGGER barrier to entry for all new raiders, which is stupid with them trying to bring people INTO instanced content with this xpack, this change is utterly counter intuitive.

Also, hey, you figured it out, barriers have nothing to do with necromancy...thus are a garbage replacement for the identity of the necromancer class. Well done, ya done figured it out.

Edited Sunday at 08:41 PM by Shade.8037

[Plok.5873]

Allow me to stress what has been said a bazillion times: the willbender is an outlier. The combination of short cooldowns, trait synergies, burst and superior mobility is singular in the current meta. The latter at zero(!) opportunity cost.

@jANet: Why not address the elephant in the room first and put all those minor issues, like those in the current preview, second?

While we're at it, could we please get for each class a responsible developer who loves & plays it so intensively? That is by no means something bad and an unironic request.

[iDominatedU.8751]

11 hours ago, sweetmesquite.5024 said:

I've already made my thoughts known about this change, but I'd like to highlight one thing in particular: TRANSFUSION DOES NOT HAVE A GUARANTEED OUTCOME.

It is very much possible for an inexperienced or inattentive healscourge to pull downs into a worse spot. Or, you can pull someone out of bad, only to then have another mechanic dropped atop you in a previously-safe area. Using transfusion properly to get the desired outcome requires knowledge of a fight, good spatial awareness, and good timing. Don't misrepresent it as a foregone conclusion that every transfusion downpull results in pickups.

^ Exactly this.

12 hours ago, Steven.9165 said:

Scourge: I would propose what Muk actually said in his review; add a debuff to all allies that were pulled by Transfusion so that they cannot be pulled again for like 120 seconds. That would not remove the feature but make it more controllable. Maybe tweak the duration of the debuff in the different game modes.

Please let's not forget that in addition to Transfusion's pull not only NOT being a guaranteed outcome, there is also ALREADY a penalty for being revived multiple times in a row.
I haven't seen anyone mention it yet but let's not forget we already have a mechanic to counteract this:

Quote

"Downed penalty is a mechanic that prevents downed player characters from rallying or being revived indefinitely in a short period of time. Each time a character is downed, it receives 1 point of the downed penalty that lasts for 60 seconds. For each point, character's downed health is reduced by 25%. Characters that accumulate 4 penalty points, i.e. are downed four times within a minute, are automatically defeated."

From the GW2 Wiki.

Like I've mentioned in my previous post, there are so, so many different options they could take instead of just outright removing the one most unique thing about Heal Scourge vs other Healers in the game. It would be a massive mistake to continue this trend of deleting unique features/abilities about certain classes instead of working to iterate on an already well established class ability. Like someone else mentioned in this thread, if this was a change made within months of Transfusion being added to the game, it could POSSIBLY justified, but it has been years. I would like to see this trend stop. Removing unique features is indeed a lazy way of balancing when there are so many alternatives.

This goes for both Extirpate and the Celestial stats being removed as well, stop removing, and start actually balancing. (I quite like the idea of REDUCING the concentration and expertise stats to properly match up against other stat types instead of removing them, Celestial having more or equal number of a particular stat than another dedicated stat type is ridiculous, it should be a little of everything, not a lot of everything, but I'm sure the more initiated could speak to the numbers on that. What I do know is that it'd also be a mistake to disrupt the harmony of every stat type in the game being the same across all game modes, one of the many things I've loved GW2 for is being confident that my equipment will always remain consistent everywhere.)

[Kulvar.1239]

5 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Because then Willbender becomes unplayable without using Cele. If you want diversity then you need to nerf the cause rather than the collateral.

Willbenders play dragon, not celestial. So celestial can't be the reason for willbender being overpowered.

[Barraind.7324]

17 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Make Transfusion into a Utility Skill so it's equal to the other options.

That might be potentially workable for WvW if its the most overloaded button imaginable, but its not fine for anywhere else without also doing what one of the 2 currently useable non-sandswell utility skills does and/or without a massive overhaul of necro weapons to not be an absolute dumpster fire for support builds. 

Edited Monday at 04:09 AM by Barraind.7324

[Mistwraithe.3106]

Regarding Celestial, I am surprised that they didn’t just reduce the points Celestial gives in WvW  by 10% (as a starting point) instead of removing concentration and expertise.

Not saying they are wrong, it will reduce boon spam a bit and could do interesting things to the Zerg meta. But it will also mean a much bigger gulf in how some builds behave between WvW and PvE.

[Nefras.7314]

1 hour ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Regarding Celestial, I am surprised that they didn’t just reduce the points Celestial gives in WvW  by 10% (as a starting point) instead of removing concentration and expertise.

Not saying they are wrong, it will reduce boon spam a bit and could do interesting things to the Zerg meta. But it will also mean a much bigger gulf in how some builds behave between WvW and PvE.

Its because the simplest nerf to it is to revert it back to how it was (and how its meant to be). 

Rejoice this is the best patch weve had in 7 years.