October 8 Balance Update Preview

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

Extirpate change is incredibly shortsighted. It's an interesting unique effect. Weakness spam isn't it

Transfusion change is also realllly shortsighted. It's been in the game for NINE YEARS and is something that makes Necro unique. This should be handled differently. Also I don't play Necro at all, I just think that class identity shouldn't be sacrificed (especially longggg standing identity) for "balance"

These types of shortsighted balance changes are what make people like me play less and less over the years

Edited Friday at 09:41 PM by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Glott.7239]

I'm not stoked about you essentially deleting Transfusion. I admit that it was a very strong i some fights but removing the port, after all the previous nerfs to it's healing power scaling pretty much makes it a dead trait (maybe even whole line) . With that you'd kill every singel healing build for necro, because this trait is really the glue keeps it all togehter. So i strongly implore you to reconsider this.

If you absolutly think this is necessary at least lift the healing power scaling back up by a lot. Necro currently doesn't have a lot of direct group healing, but that's fine because the res potential (and barrier) is kinda it's own little "gimmick" and makes it a very unique and intresting approach to healing, even though it can admittedly be a bit overtuned. Also if this goes through i can promise you will see the bottom falling out of the clear rates for fights like Bone Skinner.

I'd prefer if you just lowered the target cap to 1-3. The trait really only gets out of whack when resing a whole squad in 3 sec. by pulling a bunch of people right into you double stacked blood wells. My favorite solution however would be if you'd lean more into "life steal sharing". Give necro some kind of trait like Medical Dispersion Field. You could even limit it to heal from "Life stealing only" and tune it up a notch in return. This would have great synergy with the new Spear, the new Relic of Atrocity and some older weapons like Horn, Sword, and Focus, aswell as signets, maybe even shouds or... dare i say?... minions(?) while still being very much on theme.

PS: Also Extirpate no longer Extirpates and in return we get Axe Buffs? Really? I thought we wear over this meme. What was the point of even making this stack based if you just totaly nuke it again in the very first update after it went live? Maybe try playing with the stack count or their duration a bit, before you just delete the whole shtick of this skill intirely.

[ShadowbaneX.6273]

1 hour ago, Jeyzer.1605 said:

Guardian is the most busted class in the game along with Necro. I highly doubt they'd nerf their golden child, but they're not blind either to buff Guardians further (hopefully).

If anything, I'm surprised they buffed so many things instead of nerfs. Some classes / specs badly need nerfs atm, powercreeping everything is not the solution.

DH & cFB could use some buffs. What doesn't need a buff is Willbender, yet it got even more CC with this patch.

[ArCoo.1580]

I understand that Transfusion teleporting downed players is a pain point in competitive modes, as it is a way to correct for both your team's mistakes and, importantly, the other team's skill; it causes drawn-out bunker fights to become even more drawn-out, and is frustrating for opposing players. However, in PvE, there is no opposing team, so no one to get frustrated; instead, it is only a way to compensate for your team's mistakes, and while it's not the sole reason to play Heal Alacrity Scourge, it is one of the things that makes the class the most attractive.

By all means make the change in competitive modes, where it's been a pain point for the balance team for a long time. But leave PvE transfusion alone - it's not a problem, and honestly hasn't been a problem for a long time.

[Shaman.2034]

Could you slip in some more buffs to elementalist spear? Ideally buffs that narrow the gap between solo/open world PvE and raid benchmarks? Like, I dunno, buffing the pitifully bad autoattacks everyone's been talking about since the spear beta that have yet to be addressed. This is an extremely easy change that would dramatically increase the weapon's QoL and usability across a variety of situations in PvE

[Vigothoras.1274]

Not sure if the Heat the Soul & Martial Cadence buffs where necessary but they're mild enough that I doubt anything will break.

That said, the current direction of these warrior changes is generally good, even if I doubt they will be enough to actually to shake up the meta (at least in PvE). Bladesworn still needs help though. For Healsworn specifically, my recommendation is to make Unshakable Mountain also affect allies and maybe stuff some extra boons onto Daring Dragon (Maybe also make boon duration scale with charges consumed so that mechanic isn't ignored).

More broadly speaking, I think the main issue with warrior from a design POV is too much redundancy in their utility skills. A third of them are good, a third are alright but redundant and the the rest are niche at best and unplayable garbage at worst (which may include further redundancy). Banner of Discipline & Strength both feel like worse "For Great Justice!". Flow Stabilizer and Signet of Fury are just better Berserker Stance. I cannot for the life of me find a use case for "On My Mark!", Sight Beyond Sight and Imminent Threat. Reworks for these (Or buffs + reworks to the skills they're overshadowed by) make far more sense than just numerical buffs.

Edited Friday at 10:06 PM by Vigothoras.1274
Added some clarity.

[Tobias.4975]

1 hour ago, Joie.6084 said:

Revenant

We've focused on improving the viability of some underperforming revenant builds in competitive modes with damage improvements to herald and main-hand sword, defensive improvements to Legendary Renegade Stance, and an increase to the outgoing healing bonuses in the Salvation trait line for potential support builds in PvP.

• Chilling Isolation: Increased the power coefficient from 0.5 to 0.7 in PvP and WvW.
• Notoriety: Increased the might stacks from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW.
• Resolute Evasion: Increased the resolution duration from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds. This trait now also grants a small strike damage reduction for 2.5 seconds after dodging.
• Invoking Harmony: Increased the outgoing healing bonus from 10% to 15% in PvP only.
• Serene Rejuvenation: Increased the outgoing healing bonus from 15% to 20% in PvP only.

Herald

• Shining Aspects: Increased the healing from 533 to 640.
• Forceful Persistence: Increased the damage bonus from 13% to 15% in PvP and WvW. Increased the facet damage bonus from 3% to 4% in PvP and WvW.

Renegade

• Breakrazor's Bastion: Increased the base barrier when enhanced from 1,480 to 1,960.
• Soulcleave's Summit: Increased the healing when using a Legendary Renegade skill from 929 to 1,199. Increased the life siphon healing from 392 to 489 in PvP only.

Seems decent.

The buffs for Herald and sword 2 will not bring back the PowerHerald.

Renegade is nice to have.

Resolute Evasion looks very interesting, but strike damage isn't the main problem on Rev, so i think you will stay on Salvation-Traitline for the condicleanse.

What I'm missing is the long needed overhaul of "Empowering Misery" (Healskill on Mallyx) It's a much worse version of "Consume Conditions" from Necromancer. Necro got (after this patch) only 25 sec CD, heal isn't reduced by poison and you lose all conditions (please correct me, if there is a cap). On Mallyx your heal got reduced by poison and leave the condis on you untouched, plus you got 30 sec CD instead of 25. -> Maybe you can convert up to 3-5 damaging Condis to Boons, before Healing. Poison on priority 1. -> Synergy to Pain Absorbtion in smallscale.

Pain Absorbtion, or "The ticket to the Domain of Anguish the next waypoint" At least you have the choice not to die on the transfered condis (the resolution helps, but not much), but get overrun by the other zerg while waiting the stunduration. -> high risk, low reward. In soloplay it's a nice skill. In smallscale it would be a nice skill, if you are able to cleanse or convert condis to boons. 

[ALPHA.4867]

Man, the transfusion nerf is so bad that I don't even know if I want to keep playing this game. 

[andreiblue.8231]

26 minutes ago, torbal.3614 said:

Everyone please stop crying about Transfusion. Learn to use your Signet of Undeath for once. You can still have your "fun of saving a downed player in a hazard" without single-handedly carrying a pack of incompetents. People can still make mistakes AND can still have their second chance, but being able to provide them with a 100th chance was ridiculous. It's a very good change.

Have you played ToF CM? It is not about being carried without doing mechanics, it is about saving people for dodging 0.5 seconds too late. And in wvw it was the only thing it had going on, it cant give aegis or stability like other classes, it basically has nothing special about it that would make players want to play it over any other healer.

[Tobias.4975]

19 minutes ago, Antioche.7034 said:

You really need to tone down the damage in PvE. For the love of god multiple specs are around 45-50k DPS, it needs a nerf, it makes the encounters so trivial that they become unfun. 

I don't think so, cause the new bosses are HP-Sponges, even after the patches. 

[Sab.6409]

1 hour ago, Sovngarde.7502 said:

Well, maybe now your squad will stop standing where they shouldn’t.

You missed the point entirely. It’s not about the squad mates making a mistake. It’s about permanently taking away Scourge main’s ability to be the hero. It’s clearly the defining point of a Heal Scourge, and to take that away without some form of compensation is asinine.
 

Heal Scourges enjoyed pulling people out of trouble. That’s why they do it. Their spirits have been crushed today. This is evident by the likes this comment is likely to receive. 
 

Sorry Scourge mains, I feel for you today. A critical piece of your identity was killed today, and that sucks.

Edited Friday at 09:49 PM by Sab.6409
More context.

[zealex.9410]

1 hour ago, skirtsan.6372 said:

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

The ability to teleport players who are in a potentially hazardous zone via Transfusion was really, REALLY useful in instanced PvE and boss encounters. If it passes through then allied healers wouldn't have much chance reviving fallen squadmates. Signed, healer.

Then the fallen squadmates should try no downing in Narnia. This is a huge nerf but this skill was also incredibly broken and was carrying players. 

[Tobias.4975]

17 minutes ago, Suyheuti.1732 said:

I don't really understand about you guys. Anet started to destroy class identities years ago. With weapon mastery, they brought it to the next level. We have been busting our backbone for a long time, noone gave a crap, now they touched scourge, everyone started to complain.  On the other hand, I support you guys. I'm strong defender of class identity.

Another situation; (Not touched)

Power Berserker: 46k (It performs insane in real combat because of range advantage)

Power Virtuoso: 46k (Another overperforming build) (My main is mesmer, I only ask justice and balanced game)

Condi Renegade: 48k (First nerf is not enough, Condi Q Herald = 40k, think about it) (Another lost of identity, shortbow, mace, axe became trash)

Power Catalyst: 47k (This is complicated build, but still too high for range weapon)

Power Willbender: 46k

I get it, it this the reason you want to sell more JW expansion? This is about money?

PLEASE, tune down every build to 40k limit.

 

Yes, it is insane, but hell that's Golemdps.

[OtherBarry.4175]

3 minutes ago, ALPHA.4867 said:

Man, the transfusion nerf is so bad that I don't even know if I want to keep playing this game. 

Same. I'm trying to convince my wife to quit so I can walk away from this game. I love healing scourge in PvE. I literally just play it to help other players.

 

After learning all the BS that goes on in WvW and how some players are personal friends with Roy and can message him and he fixes things quicker for them. All because of a streamer guild. Things are looking stark.

[Sab.6409]

3 minutes ago, zealex.9410 said:

Then the fallen squadmates should try no downing in Narnia. This is a huge nerf but this skill was also incredibly broken and was carrying players. 

Who decided that carrying is always objectively a bad thing?

 

Some people like to play with their friends, regardless of skill gaps. Carrying people is something many people enjoy.

PvP and WvW, totally justified. 
PvE? Unnecessary. Reduce the # of people pulled maybe, not remove it without compensation.

[Shaman.2034]

Transfusion displacing allies to a safe location is a healer mechanic that deserves to exist, but across all professions, not just necromancer. The fact that only necromancer has it is a problem, and removing it from necromancer is one solution, even if it's the lazy one. All healers should get it, or no healers should get it.

[Sayge.7158]

Spoiler

 

 As a WvW main, I like the changes, look forward to the future 🙂

Edited Friday at 09:57 PM by Sayge.7158
typed into spoiler

[torbal.3614]

4 minutes ago, andreiblue.8231 said:

Have you played ToF CM? It is not about being carried without doing mechanics, it is about saving people for dodging 0.5 seconds too late. And in wvw it was the only thing it had going on, it cant give aegis or stability like other classes, it basically has nothing special about it that would make players want to play it over any other healer.

Didn't try ToF CM. I'm not interested in content that require exactly a single team composition to beat. Maybe it will open some spot for other specs to play taht. As I said previously, Signet of Undeath is still an option. Also I couldn't care less about WvW.

[Meril.1032]

2 hours ago, Joie.6084 said:

 

Revenant

• Notoriety: Increased the might stacks from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW.

 

This Trait is already giving 2 stack of might in WvW....... 

This is how much you know the revenant class

 

[Caitmonster.9036]

12 minutes ago, Shaman.2034 said:

Transfusion displacing allies to a safe location is a healer mechanic that deserves to exist, but across all professions, not just necromancer. The fact that only necromancer has it is a problem, and removing it from necromancer is one solution, even if it's the lazy one. All healers should get it, or no healers should get it.

Rangers have it, but it's single target and it's a shout called Search and Rescue. I imagine that'll be next since we can't have nice things.

 

17 minutes ago, zealex.9410 said:

Then the fallen squadmates should try no downing in Narnia. This is a huge nerf but this skill was also incredibly broken and was carrying players. 

It was also a very useful spec for training / teaching runs, because if Little Jimmy who's learning an encounter for the first time falls over after getting stuck in a bad spot, you can at least have yanked him out of the no-no zone and scraped him off the floor once or twice so he could keep learning instead of just being a decoration until the next pull. Yes, it was a carry spec, but people had fun with it and enjoyed carrying people.

The people talking about Scourge's identity are spot on. The pull was already nerfed once, now it's just being straight up deleted. Some people get a dopamine hit from benchmarking 50k on a golem. Some of us weirdos get a dopamine hit when we see fountains of green numbers or all the little blue down symbols go away within a few seconds because of a well timed Transfusion.

 

10 minutes ago, torbal.3614 said:

Signet of Undeath is still an option.

Ah, yes, Signet of Undeath, that costs half the necromancer's total hp to use and is only single target and doesn't pull. What a great tradeoff.

Edited Friday at 10:06 PM by Caitmonster.9036

[jozze.9532]

2 minutes ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

It's been in game since 2015 dude, how bad can it be? 

I can tell you how bad it can be. People get lazy overtime, because they can get rezzed by the healscourge. Healscourge has not been a thing for that long as well, so the application of transfusion teleporting was not really something to consider. I think the first heal scourge carry builds/guides happened around 2018, not 2015. And from that moment on, it was always broken. It only became popular around that time.

People then abbandoned it, when it was nerfed the first time.

Then it got a little buff and suddenly people were playing it again, eventhough it was still broken the patch before.

The build has always been very strong even when it was nerfed. And it will still be very strong. The amount of barrier you can provide on your group is insane! People are now used to just stant in damage, because you can outbarrier it with heal scourge and could pull players in that fail mechanics outside of the group. The build will still be strong without the teleport. It will still give huge amounts of barrier, what is most helpful to unexperienced groups, since you can prevent them ever getting damage in the first place.

I did not abandon heal scourge back in the day when everyone was claiming it was dead. We set down and made a build work, same as other people next to us at the same time. It will be the same again. People will cry about it until they get that the big advantage of it is the barrier. The teleport was nice, but not needed for it to be good. Heal scourge will live on.

I would really like for them to fix stab application through trail of anguish though... that kitten is wonky as kitten.

[Chazara.9075]

1 hour ago, Joie.6084 said:

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.

1 hour ago, 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.

While I can agree that Transfusion is a bit strong in comparison to other downstate pulls completely removing it will have the knock on effect of the other pulls either needing to be removed or serious actual changes. Given that the secondary reason of transfusion is a VERY SMALL heal on usage to other players and the actual healing output of Scourge overall is abysmal in general due to it being a barrier focused healer this just makes transfusion pretty much a dead trait (not like that hasnt happened before)

And before I get into a semi rant with reasoning I think this as a WvW/PvP change is perfectly fine because there are greater issues at large in those gamemodes you as a balance team are still failing to address but this is one I can understand

Reasons this is a horrible change for PvE;
- Transfusion helps with people learning new fights and mechanics so you dont have to keep full wiping to the same boss repeatedly which is far more of a time waste than letting a player experience the fight in full even if they do eventually die. Better for them to keep hands on learning than to passively watch from the sidelines and get no experience what so ever. The end game community is already very small as is dont make it worse. If this is a change you are also having LCM raids in mind and slow progression with other MMOs would like to have a word with you as keeping your players up to keep pushing mechanics to see them and adapt to them has always been a thing for learning
- Transfusion is an open world tool as well to help people with more annoying enemies/champions (COUGH COUGH Godspawn COUGH COUGH) complete events and champions with a higher success rate that is not used in JUST scourge builds
- Transfusion is one of several downed state teleports, while the strongest of the lot its the only one that is actually used at all and has a single pulse to it only after the last nerf (which is actually fine)
- Transfusion offers little in the way of actual healing and its suppose to be a healing trait as its generally an actual heal that would need to be used when players are under max health with no barrier and well scourge /generally/ has players topped with barrier thanks to passive barrier mitigation
- HealAlac Scourge isn't even the most common healer that is currently used nor is it used in high end (outside of ToF CM which has its own issues), and if you really wanna say its the strongest right now lets take a look at the literal 6 years of Firebrand being the objectionably best there was and had no competition at all and let the necro players have their moment and look at all the other heal options in the game to bring them in line utility wise (or just nerf quick dps herald so heal quicks actually can be played again because Scourge has a severe lack of boons that Herald just gives so freely for literally no downside or trade-off)
- Transfusion is popularly used to pull players out of bad puddles. Doesn't matter the gamemode usually a player has gone down because they failed a mechanic and are now in bad goo. While yes it is a punishment to just let that player die, removing a tool that has BEEN IN THE GAME FOR YEARS because its actually being utilized for a problem Anet themselves have created is a pretty hard slap in the face

By Anet's own words years ago you specifically mentioned keeping competitive changes out of the PvE environment and this wouldnt be the first time you are making changes to one gamemode that directly effect another for the wrong reasons (rip specter shroud in PvE) Transfusion is a tool that isn't being abused, and while it can greatly effect gameplay in other game modes than PvE it has uses and shouldn't be completely removed. Either drop the teleport to less players or remove the healing component on it in PvE, do not remove the teleport at all. You are making an adjustment to a healing build that helps the more casual playerbase actually experience content and its the wrong choice in general. This change directly raises the skill floor instead of pushing the skill ceiling higher and has the greatest effect against the large majority of players, Anet, you are not correct in your data analysis as to /why/ something is being used or not used. Stop removing tools from the players without giving something in return otherwise you narrow builds more and more and more until there is options anymore and just the absolute best in slots.

A better change would to be giving EVERY OTHER HEALER an option to pull players in a form or another via trait or skill. There is only a couple of pulls currently in game as well as long range res options with very long cooldowns that some classes dont even have access to. It is far better to give buffs and slow adjust than to give hard nerfs and have a slamming ramification (Especially since there is such strong powercreep over the past 5 years that is actually insane)

DO NOT TOUCH TRANSFUSION IN PVE WITH THIS SUGGESTED CHANGE
Either take a second look at why something is used and address that problem or bring other options up to be in line with it to keep the problem solved but now the players have options to take instead. Removing tools is one of the worst options game developers can make

[Mell.4873]

By improving some of the underutilised skills they having directly buffed any playstyle so that is over all a good thing. 

[Cacarias.8571]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

Incorrect, it's a huge rush for you, it's a rush for the people saved at the moment, and it'll be a huge defeat for them when they do the content and there's no Scourge to save them from their mistakes. It also sucks for their teammates who due to this will struggle or possibly even wipe. Conversely, if they know what to do you'll never get to use Transfuse.

This means that Transfuse as it is now is either so good that people will never have to learn how to play, or utterly useless at all times. There's no in-between and any skill that only exists in extremes is a pretty bad skill. You only get benefits from it if people are bad. This ability keeps people in a state of learned helplessness. Remove it.

It's similar to how Decima is forcing people to learn to play. My biggest remaining times on Of Mists and Monsters had been when people realised that never inspecting the floor brings a higher damage yield.

Transfusion is definitely a skill that falls off the more experienced/skilled your group is. In an experienced group where no one is going down you will never use it and from that point of view the change doesn't even matter. However in less experienced groups a heal scourge can really punch above its weight with the utility of a downed pull. Helping the group recover from mistakes is the core of HS. Without it you might as well play druid. I would be in favor of a nerf to the internal CD of the port, or a significant reduction in the number of players you can teleport at once (1 or 2), or even a combination of both.

Scourge already has significant weaknesses. Most notably its lack of stab, but it also has some weird boon generation methods (dodging to upkeep regen???) and depending on your paired qdps (everything but herald) you are really limited on your Utility Skill choices to maintain adequate boon coverage. In a well organized and experienced group Scourge falls off compared to other aheals like druid or chrono, but it has its niche and Transfusion is vital to that.

Quote

You only get benefits from it if people are bad. This ability keeps people in a state of learned helplessness. Remove it.

What an embarrassing and toxic take. I do a lot of raid trainings for new players, and I almost always play scourge because pulling downed players out of poisons on Sloth/Matty, spicy tiles on VG, jelly on Xera, etc can both save the pull and ease the learning curve. All of us here started out as inexperienced and bad players. We've all gone down from Boneskinner puddles and had a scourge save us. Are you going to tell me that you've never had a scourge pull you out of poison? Did that keep YOU in a state of learned helplessness? Get over yourself.

Edited Friday at 10:09 PM by Cacarias.8571
clarification

[Brokenghost.9510]

Please do not remove Transfusion in PvE... That's gonna gutter the heal scourge build which me and many others enjoy. Why remove fun from the game, is this Helldivers 2 balancing now?